in the earliest specimens of writing. The frequency of _th_, and the
rarity of the monograms, is itself a distinguishing feature. Speaking in
general terms of Anglo-Saxon literature, as it appears in manuscripts,
it might be fairly said that there is no _th_; this sound is represented
by ð or þ. And of these two, the modified Roman character, Ð ð, is found
to prevail over the native Rune (þ) in the oldest extant writings.
Throughout this little book the _th_ is commonly used, as being most
convenient for the general reader.

[63] Transactions of the Philological Society for 1875-6.




CHAPTER V.

THE ANGLIAN PERIOD.


While Canterbury was so important a seminary of learning, there was, in
the Anglian region of Northumbria, a development of religious and
intellectual life which makes it natural to regard the whole brilliant
era from the later seventh to the early ninth century as "The Anglian
Period." Not only did the greatest school of the whole island grow up at
York, but also one that, with its important library, was for the time
the most active and useful in the whole of Western Europe.

The importance of the Anglian period consists in the fact that it
belongs not merely to one nation, but that Anglia became for a century
the light-spot of European history; and that here we recognise the first