The Alfred Jewel

J. EARLE

Henry Frowde, M.A.
Publisher to the University of Oxford
London, Edinburgh, and New York

FRONT

BACK

ENAMEL

RIGHT

LEFT

THE JEWEL IN FOUR ASPECTS
WITH SEPARATE FIGURE OF ENAMEL

The Alfred Jewel:

An Historical Essay

By

John Earle, M.A., LL.D.
Rector of Swanswick, Prebendary of Wells
Rawlinsonian Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford

With Illustrations and Map

Oxford
At the Clarendon Press
mdcccci

Oxford
Printed at the Clarendon Press
By Horace Hart, M.A.
Printer to the University

PREFACE

IT is full fifty years since I began to contemplate the Alfred Jewel with a wonder and curiosity which became a habit. At length, in the latter half of that period, the vague attitude of enquiry began to point in a definite direction, and to exhibit susceptibility of development suggesting promise of possible discovery. Prompted by such anticipations, I one day ventured to express a wish to the Principal of Hertford College that he would exercise his well-known graphic talent upon the Alfred Jewel, and make some enlarged drawings of it suitable for a Public Lecture. The result was that he gave me a beautiful set of coloured drawings of the Jewel in various aspects admirably calculated for exhibition in the Lecture Room. Thus equipped, I was able to make the subject more intelligible and more attractive, and I lectured upon it the oftener. As it has not been my wont to write my lectures out in full, it was all the more necessary for me on every new occasion to make a fresh study of the Jewel. In this recurring process new lights rose at wide intervals of time, and drew me on to devote more thought to the object and to the times associated with it; and I found more than I had looked for in the design, and more (I think) than I should have found, but for the generous aid so readily extended to me by Dr. Boyd.

It was after such a lecture delivered in May, 1899, that I had the great and unexpected pleasure of a proposal from the Delegates of the Press to make a book of it. I was able to accept this proposal without misgiving, because I was satisfied that I had a solid interpretation to offer—one which had been slowly matured and scrupulously tested by every means in my power. All the old theories had come to nothing: there was not one of them that could be seriously advocated as resting upon evidence either in history or in common sense and the natural reason of things. In saying so much as this, I am only accounting for my readiness to accept the task, and not by any means prejudging the general verdict upon the validity of my argument. In this argument I seek to establish the intimate relation of the Jewel with the history and the mind and the person of Alfred of Wessex, not indeed as a scientifically demonstrated fact, but as a well-founded and abundantly supported probability. I have no desire that this conclusion should be admitted without a complete and rigid scrutiny.

In the carrying out of this undertaking I have received welcome and much-needed help from many quarters. The subject is one that calls for illustration by maps and drawings and I desire to express my sincere acknowledgements to Mr. Alfred A. Clarke of Wells for his four drawings, among which I will particularly mention his characteristic landscape of the Isle of Athelney.

The map of Athelney and the lands adjacent is very ingeniously devised for exhibiting the contrast between the low level of the moorland and the contours of the rising country around; it is expressive and intelligible at a glance: and for this excellent illustration my acknowledgements are due to Mr. Bernhard V. Darbishire.

My hearty thanks are due to Mr. Charles H. Read of the British Museum for the ample information he kindly afforded me concerning the gold rings of the Saxon period which are in his department. Also for the permission which he gave (as Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries) to transfer to these pages their engraving from the Book of Kells, and also their three figures of the gold ring of queen Æthelswith.

To those gentlemen of Somerset who have aided me with local information and hospitality and personal guidance, I have good cause to be always grateful. Major Barrett, junior, of Moredon, the owner of the Isle of Athelney, took me over the ground in a manner that is very agreeable to remember, and caused me to see the historical sites of his country with every advantage. It was under his auspices that I first realized the full import of Alfred’s fort at Borough Bridge, and what a speaking object-lesson it certainly is. I had seen it in 1856, but I had not adequately appreciated it.

From Mr. Cely Trevelian of Midelney Place I learnt much that was useful to me concerning the history and present conditions of the moorlands of Somerset. He was my hospitable friend and companion over the country on either side of the Parrett in the circle of Langport, and from that to Borough Bridge. Under his guidance I revisited Aller (pronounced Oller), and renewed acquaintance with its sacred associations, after an interval of forty-four years. In 1856 I was conducted by an old Oriel friend who was my host, the Rev. James Coleman, then Curate of the parish in which Athelney is situated; he subsequently became Vicar of Cheddar and Prebendary of Wells. When I entered upon the present work, after so long an interval, it was with Mr. Coleman that I began to make enquiries for local information.

To Sir Alexander Acland Hood I am indebted for genealogical and topographical information, and particularly for some new light on the history of the Jewel, now for the first time made public. The statement in the manuscript of Mr. Thomas Palmer, which is preserved at Fairfield, that the Jewel was ‘dug up,’ is a new item in the circumstances of the discovery, to which I attach important evidential weight.

I have also to thank Sir Cuthbert Slade of Maunsel, for his courtesy in answering my enquiries, genealogical and territorial, concerning the Slade family.

On Mr. C. F. Bell, the Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, I chiefly depended for help in that part of my subject where I was most wanting, namely in the technicalities of ancient art, and especially concerning enamels.

To my friend Dr. Shadwell my obligations are not the less but the greater for that they are somewhat indefinable. He has read through the proofs, and has given me valuable suggestions, and he has always been ready to help when I needed advice.

For me this trinket has assumed the proportions of a serious historical problem, and its investigation has been rewarded with new light in many directions, and I do not think I shall regret the time spent upon it, even though my conclusions should hereafter be modified or even refuted. I hold that, apart from the conclusions, the investigation itself was worth the while, but when I say this I am not to be understood as admitting that I have little confidence in my conclusions.

In putting forth this Essay, I desire to convince the reader only as fully as I am convinced myself, that is to say, with a conviction which makes no claim to finality, but lies open to correction in case of new light or better use of old data; yet which nevertheless, in the mean time and for the main issues of the enquiry, reaches a degree of probability whereby all doubt and uncertainty is practically excluded.

J. E.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE ALFRED JEWEL

CHAPTER I
DESCRIPTION OF THE ALFRED JEWEL

THE subject of this Essay is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, which has been its home for a period of time now approaching two hundred years. It is there installed under glass in such a manner that every side of it is plainly exhibited to the eye of the visitor. It bears an inscription in conspicuous lettering which sets forth that by Alfred’s order it was made, and this is the ground upon which it is known as The Alfred Jewel.

The Alfred Jewel has been compared to a battledore, not untruly for the matter of shape; but the wide diversity of size makes the comparison seem incongruous. The extreme length of the Jewel is a very small fraction under two inches and a half; its greatest width is just one inch and a fifth; its thickness barely half an inch.

It contains a sitting Figure enamelled on a plate of gold which is protected in front by a slab of rock crystal, and at the back by a gold plate engraved; the whole enshrined in a golden frame of delicately executed filigree work. The picture is visible through the rock crystal, making the obverse of the Jewel; while the reverse is formed by the gold plate which is at the back of the enamelled plate. Upon this gold plate is engraved an allegorical design. Both these surfaces (obverse and reverse) are flat, but in every other part of the Jewel the surface is rounded.

The rounded contours may be likened to those of a pigeon’s egg. If we imagine a longitudinal section of a pigeon’s egg, the engraved plate at the back of the picture will correspond to the plane of the egg’s diameter. From this plane, if we measure three-quarters of an inch in the girth of the egg, and then take another section parallel to the gold plate at the back, we obtain the front surface of the crystal, through which the Enamel is visible.

The effect of this arrangement is, that the sides all round the Jewel are curved and sloping, and that the obverse is of more contracted area than the reverse, and also that the measurement of the sloping side exceeds that of the thickness. The head of the sitting Figure occupies the broad end of the oval section; the smaller end is prolonged, and is fashioned like the head of a wild boar on the obverse, but the reverse of this head is flat and covered with fish-like scales.

The snout is projected in the form of a socket adapted to receive a peg or stem; athwart this socket is a cross-pin, having a head at one of its ends, while the other end is riveted. This indicates that the Jewel was furnished with a stem which has perished, and which, therefore, was not metallic, but of some organic material, perhaps walrus ivory. Around the sloping sides runs a legend:

and this legend starts from the narrowest point of the oval, beginning on the right-hand side and running round to the corresponding point on the left, so that it encircles the oval completely, running in the contrary direction to that with which we are familiar in our coins, which are read from left to right, as indeed were also the coins of the ninth century.

Some have doubted whether the owner of the Jewel was the famous Alfred of Wessex. It has been urged that the name of Ælfred in the Epigraph is not of itself adequate proof of the fact, and it must be admitted that this is literally true. And it is not superfluous to point out the inconsequence of such reasoning, for it has actually been advanced in serious argument. Samuel Pegge, an antiquary of repute, wrote in Archæologia ii as if there had been but one eminent person of the name of Alfred:—‘There is no doubt but this κϵιµήλιον was once the property of the great King Ælfred, notwithstanding the goodness of the work which has been an objection to its authenticity; for the king’s name is expressly mentioned in the inscription.’ There were many persons of that name in the course of the Saxon period, and the name was not confined to men born after his time, for there were persons of this name who were men of mark among his contemporaries, one of whom (to say the least) was certainly his senior.

When Swithun died, in 862 (in Alfred’s fourteenth year), his successor in the See of Winchester was named Ælfred.

A contemporary of position and intelligence and of great wealth was that Ælfred who redeemed from heathen hands a noble volume of the Gospels, and conveyed it by a solemn deed of gift in his own name and that of his wife to the brotherhood of Christ Church, Canterbury[1]. That volume is the Codex Aureus, which is now in the Royal Library at Stockholm. The Will of this Alfred, who in the course of that document styles himself ‘Elfred dux,’ is one of the most precious relics of Saxon antiquity[2].

A few years after the king’s death, the Chronicle records, in 906, the death of an Alfred, who was Reeve of Bath.

It has been argued that with such facts before us the ownership of the Alfred Jewel must be a matter of uncertainty, for we only know that it was ordered by a person of the name of Alfred. Such arguments may sometimes be heard from persons whose opinions are entitled to respect, but I am not aware that any one has undertaken to reason out and maintain this view in a published writing. And perhaps if we attend well to the whole of the evidence, we shall see no cause to marvel at the unanimity of authors in accepting this Jewel as a personal possession of king Alfred’s, and (in some measure, diversely estimated) as a product of his own artistic design.

It is not the name by itself, but this name taken in connexion with the richness and costliness of the work, with the thoughtful ingenuity of its device and composition, and with the symbolic meanings which must be assigned to certain parts of the structure;—such evidences as these, again combined with certain external evidences, namely, the locality in which the Jewel was found, and any affinities apparent in the above data with the career or exploits of the king, or with his character and tastes,—when the ownership is questioned, we find ourselves face to face with an accumulation of evidence varying in quality and requiring to be judged by the delicate and sensitive standard of probability. In presence of such a problem we should not neglect the impressions and expressed opinions of persons whose instincts have been cultivated in the sphere of such probabilities.

George Hickes, in 1705, mentions some doubting critics, whose difficulty lay in the beauty and perfection of the work. They could not understand how such artistic work could proceed from Anglo-Saxon artists in the ninth century. But for himself, he added, the mere sight of the Jewel had been enough, and that from his first view of it he had never doubted that it was a personal possession of the great king Alfred[3].

When an elaborate piece of workmanship like the Alfred Jewel is presented to the experienced mind and practised eye of a man like Hickes, the evidence is rapidly, almost unconsciously, sifted, and the probabilities converge to a focus, so as to produce a conviction which seems like a simple apprehension of the senses. I welcome Hickes’s expression of confidence as a confirmation of that which I have experienced myself. But while I am entirely free from uncertainty I quite recognize the reasonableness of the doubt, and I know that (logically speaking) the uncertainty is there. And I know also that many of my readers will entertain it and will look more or less dubiously upon the assumption of certainty in this matter. And, indeed, there is a certain advantage in having to reckon with this sceptical attitude of mind, insomuch as the presence of doubt has a stimulating effect in furnishing the discourse with a determinate aim and direction. It will set me on the alert, that I may not miss any incidental chance of a reflection tending to assure those who would be gratified to think that we do indeed possess a relic intimately associated with the person, and with the mind, of Alfred, king of Wessex.

[1] This remarkable document begins thus:—

In nomine domini nostri Ihesu Christi. Ic Ælfred aldormon and Werburg min gefera begetan ðas béc æt hæðnum herge mid uncre clæne feó ðæt ðoune wæs mid clæne golde, and ðæt wit deodan for Godes lufan and for uncre saule ðearf ond forðon ðe wit noldan ðæt ðas halgan beoc lencg in ðære hæðenesse wunaden. ‘

In the name of our Lord Jesu Christ. I Alfred alderman and Werburg my consort purchased these books at a heathen host with our clean money, that is to say with clean gold; and that we two did for God’s love and for the benefit of our souls, and for that we would not that these holy books should longer lie in hethenesse.’ Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, No. 634.

[2] Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, No. 317; Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, No. 558; Earle, Land Charters, p. 152.

[3] ‘Quoad opificium autem, tam elegans quidem id est et perfectum, ut eius antiquitatem in dubium vocandi doctis nonnullis occasionem dederit, etsi Ælfredi regis hoc olim fuisse peculium, ex quo primum vidi, nunquam dubitavi.’ Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus, vol. i, p. 144.

CHAPTER II
THE EPIGRAPH OR LEGEND

We must now consider and see what we can learn from the Epigraph. This was the cue whereby Hickes introduced the Jewel into the argument of his Dissertatio Epistolaris, and there gave us the cream of the discussions which had been developed in the space of twelve years from the discovery. Observing that in a Saxon inscription which Dr. Hans Sloane had communicated to the Philosophical Transactions (No. 247) only two letters of Anglo-Saxon form occurred, the C and the G, he proceeded to describe and discuss the Jewel in all the points of view which up to that time had occupied the attention of the curious. The forms to which he adverted were the angular C and G, which however are rather Epigraphic than Saxonic forms. These square letters occur (as Mr. Falconer Madan informs me) in the inscriptions of the sixth and seventh centuries in Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Hickes added that all the other letters of the Epigraph were in ordinary Roman characters[4]:

In fact there was only one place where a distinctly Saxon character might have come in, namely in the place of the W, which instead of the Runic Wên (ƿ) is composed of two Roman V’s. There is no place for the Runic Thorn (þ).

He had been pursuing an argument, of which the aim was to show that from the time of Alfred the characteristic features of Anglo-Saxon writing were less used, being superseded by Gallic or Italic forms. He attributes the change to the teachers which the king had drawn from Gaul. That such a change was taking place in Alfred’s time is quite manifest, but its beginnings were further back; the taste for Frankish fashions having been introduced by his grandfather Ecgberht, who had passed years of exile at the Court of Charlemagne. Doubtless the movement grew under the influence of Alfred, who not only had visited Rome, but in all probability had resided there for some years.

If now passing from the alphabetic characters we consider the syntax of this sentence, we shall find that it varies so widely from our habits of speech at the present time as to furnish something like a measure of the intervening period, and as it were to render some account of the lapse of a thousand years. Let us begin by translating the sentence verbally with the minimum of change, retaining the selfsame words in their modern guise. On this plan the sentence will run thus: ‘Alfred me hight work;’ where the baldness of the diction exhibits roughly the gulf there is between this Epigraph and our present usage. Each word is English, but the sentence is far from being so. This great contrast is the result of a combination of causes, and it may be resolved into four chief movements which have slowly operated during the long interval.

1. A change has taken place in the collocation of words in forming a sentence. The governed pronoun stands in a place where it is now inadmissible: the present habit of the language requires that the pronoun ‘me’ should come in after its governing verb. If we make this change, we shall see that the sentence will become a trifle more like English, thus: ‘Alfred hight work me.’
2. Another movement is that which in process of time takes place in the usage of words. There is a fashion in the choice of words for the clothing of our ideas, and that fashion changes sometimes capriciously and fitfully, but for the most part so slowly and gradually that it takes an era of time to make the change conspicuous. Words are liable to this kind of alteration in various degrees, and this inequality of change is observable even in a sentence of four words. The verb heht, hight, has undergone so great a change of sense that to the general reader it is apt to be unintelligible[5]. But while this verb has altered greatly, the verb ‘work’ has altered little. Still, it has altered, and it is no longer the right word for its place.
3. The remaining two words have in usage undergone no change at all. The pronoun mec has suffered alteration in form by dropping a consonant, but it is absolutely unchanged in its application. Indeed, it may be stated as a general law, that pronouns as a class are among the slowest of words to admit semantic change.
4. Nevertheless there is a group of words which are still more unchangeable in signification, and these are the Proper Nouns. External changes of form they do admit, but not the internal change of sense. The name ælfred is the form prevalent on the coinage of his reign, but there are variations, thus: ælfred, ælbred, elfred, elfered; and there is the form alfred, which has become established in modern English in consequence of the fact that our earliest popular histories of the king were derived from Latin books, in which language his name was commonly spelt alfredus. But whatever changes may pass over the visible representation of the word, there is no alteration possible in the relation between this word and the memory of that royal person whose proper name it was.
5. If now we remove the words that have suffered a semantic change, and substitute those which at the present time seem most natural, the sentence will take this form: ‘Alfred ordered make me;’ and thus it approaches another step towards the present manner of our speech.
6. The third movement to be noticed is that from the flexional to the phrasal method of syntax. The word gewyrcan is a flexional verb, the last syllable, -an, being the sign of the infinitive mood, and indicating the syntactical function of that word in the sentence. By slow degrees this method of syntax fell out of use, and another way came up of expressing the same function. Instead of the syllable -an at the end of the verb, a little word, ‘to,’ was set before the verb, with the same effect of expressing the infinitive mood. If now we add this change to the other modifications of our sentence, we shall bring it considerably nearer to current speech, thus: ‘Alfred ordered to make me.’ But still it wants something to reduce it into the shape which we can recognize as modern English.
7. The fourth and last change which we must note in the habits of our speech is the great extension of the passive verb, and particularly in the infinitive mood. Many infinitive phrases which were once cast in the Active have been changed to the Passive, and a lingering survival of the active formula may be observed to have a peculiar and exceptional air. We feel this in the phrase, ‘The reason is not far to seek.’ A more familiar example may be seen on the boards of the house agents. Some of these boards say ‘House to let,’ while others prefer ‘House to be let,’—the one is homely and native English, the other is modish and reminds us of the schoolmaster. The same authority will guide us to bring our Legend up to date, and stamp our version with the mint of the nineteenth century, thus: ‘Alfred ordered me to be made.’

In the above analysis it has been necessary to depart in some measure from the course of nature by exhibiting in succession a group of changes which are due to processes more or less simultaneous. This accumulation of gradual changes furnishes a measure, partly scientific, partly sentimental, of the wide interval that separates us from the time when this Epigraph was curiously woven in golden filigree by the lucky artist who executed the design of the ingenious prince.

But the Epigraph has time-indications which are closer and more definite. There are features which, besides telling of the lapse of time, do also in some sense indicate the point of time; features in virtue of which this Legend may be said to suggest proximately its own date. The two words ‘mec heht’ are archaic forms, the one of which is never, and the other rarely, found in the prose of the tenth century; indeed they were both archaic in the ninth. Mec had given place to me, and (though less absolutely) heht to hêt; but the older forms were still at the service of the poet, and Epigraphy has some share in poetic privilege. Indeed it would seem that in the time of Alfred mec was consciously used as an archaic curiosity. There is a gold ring which I take to be contemporaneous with our Jewel, and it bears an English inscription in which mec occurs twice. It will be described below[6].

It would be too much to say that the forms mec heht convey a definite date, but they certainly fit well with the time of Alfred, and (but for that vague licence of Epigraphy) they might even be said to suggest the ninth century as the latest probable date of a work with which they are identified.

It is worthy of notice that heht occurs in another piece of Alfred’s inditing, which I will introduce here not only for the sake of the old reduplicative verb, but also because the passage is germane to the argument, and imports an illustration of a comprehensive kind. The king prefixed to his version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care a preface in prose and a prologue in verse. The prose preface was about the main purpose of his work; the poetical prologue dealt with literary matters, the authority of his text, the history of his copy, the manner of his own literary operation. It is this poetical and literary Prologue which I here quote:

Þis ærendgewrit

This Epistle

Agustinus

Augustine

ofer sealtne sæ

over salt sea

suan brohte

brought from the south

ieg-buendum,

to us island-dwellers,

swa hit ær fore

just as it erst

adihtode

indited had been

drihtnes cempa

by Christ’s doughty champion

Rome papa.

the pontiff of Rome.

Ryhtspell monig

Much rightful discourse

Gregorius gleawmôd

did Gregory’s glowing wit

gind wôd

give forth apace

ðurh sefan snyttro,

with skilful soul,

searoðonca hord.

a hoard of studious thought.

Forðæm he monncynnes

Wherefore he of mankind

mæst gestriende

converted the most

rodra wearde:

to the Ruler of heaven:

Romwara betest,

he of Romans the best,

monna môdwelegost,

of men the most mind-rich,

mærðum gefrægost.

and widest admired.

Siððan min on Englisc

At length into English

Ælfred kyning

Alfred the king

awende worda gehwelc,

every word of me wended,

and me his writerum

and me to his writers

sende suð and norð;

south and north he did send;

heht him swelcra ma

more ordered of such

brengan bi ðære bisene,

by the copy to bring,

ðæt he his biscepum

that he to his bishops

sendan meahte:

might be able to send:

forðæm hi his sume ðorften,

for some of them needed it,

ða ðe Lædenspræce

such as of Latin

læste cûðon.

very little did know.

In the last six lines of this little poem a new attitude is taken up; the book itself becomes the speaker, and sets forth how ælfred was the translator, how he ordered (heht) more copies of his translation to be made, and for what purpose. In mentioning purpose, the prologue communicates something beyond the Legend, which leaves the purpose and signification of the design shrouded in symbolism. But for the rest, if we analyze these six lines, we shall find the heart and core of them to be essentially identical with the Legend on the Jewel—

[4] ‘Saxonici ductus duas tantum literas habet, C et G.’ Thesaurus, vol. i, p. 142.

[5] This is briefly explained in my English Philology, § 270.

[6] Chapter x.

CHAPTER III
EARLY SPECULATIONS ABOUT ITS DESIGN AND MANNER OF USE

The finding of the Alfred Jewel chanced upon a remarkable time in the intellectual life of the English nation. It was the time of Dryden, Defoe, Swift, Christopher Wren, Bentley, Lord Somers, Sir Isaac Newton, Addison. In literature the coming man was Alexander Pope.

The cardinal event of that period was the institution of the Royal Society in 1660, the year of the Restoration. The most conspicuous bent of the intellectual world was in the direction of physical science, and ‘the great work of interpreting nature was performed by the English of that age as it had never before been performed in any age by any nation[7].’ This was the period in which a national Observatory was established at Greenwich (1676). To this period belong the chemical discoveries of Boyle, the botanical researches of Sloane, and the classifications of Ray. In every department of knowledge enquiry was roused, and with it the genius of theory, whose movements were sometimes hasty and erratic. But this tendency was gradually counteracted by the deepening conviction that sound knowledge must be based on careful observation, and the need of museums began to be recognized. The Ashmolean Museum was built by the University of Oxford, in 1683, to receive Elias Ashmole’s collection of curiosities, the formation of which had originated with the Tradescants. The architect was Sir Christopher Wren. Altogether it was a time of new ideas and new institutions.

When the Jewel was found, in 1693, it fell into the hands of persons who belonged both socially and intellectually to the foremost ranks. The first recorded owner was Colonel Nathaniel Palmer, of Fairfield House, in the region of the Quantocks. Of this house and this family some particulars will be related in the ninth chapter.

The first notice of the Jewel was published by Dr. Hans Sloane, a Fellow of the Royal Society, eminent as physician, natural philosopher, and antiquarian. He was elected Secretary of that Society in 1693, the year in which the Jewel was found. Whether by reason of the new cloud of political and religious trouble which brooded over the land in the latter years of James II, or from whatever cause, so it was that the Philosophical Transactions had been suspended for the past six years, and they were resuscitated by the new Secretary, who was himself an active contributor. This remarkable man lived to a great age, and when he died, in 1752, in his ninety-second year, his museum was bought by the Government, and this purchase was the origin of the British Museum; for until the middle of the eighteenth century the idea of a national library and museum had never been entertained in England.

The same Act of Parliament (26 Geo. II) which directed the purchase of the Sloane museum also directed the purchase of the Harleian collection of manuscripts which had been made by Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, whose name is also memorable in the study of the Alfred Jewel; for it was from an engraving furnished by Robert Harley, and made from a drawing of his own, that the first of the three figures in Hickes’s Dissertatio Epistolaris was printed.

The first published notice of the Jewel appeared in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 247 in 1698), and it was contributed by Dr. William Musgrave, Fellow of New College, physician in London, and an active member of the Royal Society, and author (1709) of Antiquitates Britanno-Belgicæ. He also contributed to Hickes’s Thesaurus the second and third figures of the Jewel which are there engraved[8].

These were the eminent persons who prepared the material for the elaborate account which Hickes (1705) gave of the Alfred Jewel in the first volume of his Thesaurus. For the minutiæ of the description he was particularly indebted to Harley and Musgrave, who appear to have been occasional visitors at Fairfield House.

The first impression which prevailed as to its design and use was that it might be an amulet. This was Dr. Musgrave’s first opinion. But afterwards he followed Hickes in supposing it was a pendant to a chain or collar of state, and Hickes even says (but here he must be simply repeating the expressions of his informants) that the cross-pin in the socket seems adapted to such a use.

The boar’s snout is developed into a tubular ending which furnishes a socket with a cross-pin, manifestly asking a peg or (as artisans speak) a stert; and when this observation was maturely appreciated, it generated two inferences: (1) that there was no provision for attachment answering to the above theory; and (2) that in the position imagined, the picture would hang upside down.

These criticisms opened the way for new observations and new conjectures. The antiquary Hearne interpreted the Jewel as if it were designed to be fixed at the extremity of a roller on which a manuscript was rolled, as a suitable ornament for some ceremonious presentation. But this hypothesis neglected the fact that the Jewel is made with an obverse and a reverse, a front and a back, which renders it quite unfit for such a position as Hearne had assigned to it.

By Francis Wise and Samuel Pegge, chief antiquarians of the eighteenth century, it was imagined that our Jewel might have adorned the top of a stilus or ancient pen for writing upon a waxen tablet. In refutation of this theory it sufficed to observe how awkward and unwieldy an ornament it would prove to the penman.

Nevertheless, this idea had a career, winning a momentary plausibility from the assumption that Alfred’s ‘æstel’ was a stylus. In Archæologia ii there is a letter signed ‘S. Pegge,’ from which I extract the following:—

‘It is not certainly known to what use this valuable curiosity ... might be put: but among other conjectures Mr. Wise imagines, and very probably, it might have been the handle of a stylus. And if one should say it was one of those styli which the king sent along with his translation of Gregory’s Pastoral, it would be no great absurdity.... It may here be alleged that the king sent his present to the cathedral churches: but, with submission, this does not imply that he might not also send the like to the two monasteries of his own foundation, this of Athelney and the other at Shaftesbury; it is most probable he would send a book and a stylus to both those places, and if he did, this jewel in my opinion bids fair to be the handle or upper part of the stylus which was presented by him to the House of Athelney where it was found.’

Collinson, the historian of Somersetshire (1791), in a passage to be quoted below (chapter ix), designates it an amulet, and this was probably the way in which it was usually regarded in the eighteenth century. To this Pegge (in the article cited above) objected as follows: ‘Dr. Musgrave once thought it might be an Amulet, but Alfred never ran (that we know of) into such vanities.’

Passing now to the nineteenth century, Mr. Philip Duncan, in his Catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum, advanced the theory that it might have been mounted on the top of a staff (after the manner of a Roman eagle), and that it was carried into battle as a standard to animate the courage of warriors. This exquisite bijou, of materials so brittle as enamel and crystal, cased in a delicate web of golden filigree, looks strangely inappropriate for the fury of battle and the interchange of hard knocks.

And indeed this theory was never suggested to its author by the reason or probability of the thing, but by certain texts which at that time were in better esteem than they are now, especially the hagiography of St. Neot, wherein it was said of this saint that he went before the king in war, carrying a palm and guiding him to victory, to all which the palm-bearing figure in the Enamel seemed to correspond. And this also explains why that figure was supposed to represent St. Neot.

In like manner, Hickes was carried away by a passage in pseudo-Ingulph to abandon his first and best interpretation of the enamelled Figure, and to adopt the idea that it may have been intended to represent St. Cuthbert[9].

All these speculations on the design and use of the Jewel are unsatisfactory and, considering the eminence and ability of the propounders, strangely poor in the craft of interpretation. If this surprizes us in an age when the minds of men were so much awakened, we should remember that the new movement was chiefly in the direction of physical science, and that little progress had as yet been made in the analysis of human history and the science of historical criticism.

From these abortive attempts at interpretation, we gather that this singularly elaborate phenomenon of a Jewel had the effect of setting curiosity and imagination awork in the minds of those who contemplated it, and that some theory, however precipitate, became a sort of necessity. To this category must be added a more recent conjecture, which, as it proceeded from a highly honoured source, as it was persistently and circumstantially argued out, and as it has been widely accepted, demands a chapter by itself.

[7] Macaulay, History, c. iii.

[8] Appendix A.

[9] Appendix B.

CHAPTER IV
BISHOP CLIFFORD’S THEORY[10]

The theories about the Alfred Jewel which have been noticed hitherto, belong to the crude attempts at interpretation which were evoked by the surprize of the strange discovery in the last decade of the seventeenth century. We come now to a new theory which was broached in our own time by Bishop Clifford, in his Inaugural Address as President of the Somersetshire Archæological Society in 1877, when the Annual Meeting of that Society was held at Bridgwater.

This theory demands a fuller attention than any of the foregoing, first, because it bears manifest tokens of maturer thought, but further, because there is much curious material woven into its fabric, which gives it independent value. If only for the single fact that it introduces a new explanation of the problematic ‘æstel,’ it ought to quicken the interest of every reader. It will be better on all accounts that the ideas of the author be presented in his own words:

Amongst the articles of church furniture used in the middle ages, frequent mention is made of ‘Baculi Cantorum,’ or choir staves. In the year 1222 there were eight such staves in the treasury of Salisbury Cathedral. ‘The staves at Canterbury Cathedral (writes Dr. Rock, Church of our Fathers, vol. ii) were as rich as they were curious, in the year 1315.’ He gives a list of them, and among them are ‘IV baculi de cornu, cum capitibus eburneis’—four staves of horn with ivory handles; others were adorned with gold and silver and precious stones. The use of these staves was to enable the Cantor or master of the choir to point out to the singers and to the readers their places in the book, and so prevent the manuscripts and their illuminations being soiled by the touch of fingers. When the lessons were read, the choirmaster not only pointed out the spot where the lesson commenced, but handed, if necessary, the staff to the lector, that he might use it to guide his eye along the lines in reading. This precaution was not only observed with regard to those beautifully illuminated volumes used for the church services, but was equally, if not more so, required in the case of books which were intended for the use of the general public. Most readers required to use their fingers to assist their eyes in following the lines, a practice which, if allowed, would not only soil the manuscripts, but in course of time obliterate them. Therefore when books were intended for public use it was customary to place by them a small staff or pointer for the use of the reader, even as in modern days a paper-knife forms one of the ordinary articles of furniture on a library table. In many instances these little staves or pointers were inserted in the binding of the books themselves, something after the fashion in which pencils are inserted in modern pocket-books.

I may seem to be widely departing from Alfred and from Athelney, but you will soon perceive the pertinency of these remarks. Alfred, as you know, did much to encourage learning amongst his subjects, and he was especially anxious that useful works should be translated into English, and copies of them be arranged in public places, where all might gain access to them and read them.

To encourage this good and noble work by his example he became himself an author. And he thus describes, in the preface which he wrote to the book he translated, the steps he took to start what I may call the first public reading in England:—‘When I reflected,’ he says, ‘how the knowledge of the Latin tongue had fallen away throughout England, though many still knew how to read English writing, I began in the midst of divers and manifold affairs of this kingdom to turn into English this book (of St. Gregory the Great) which in Latin is named Pastoralis, and in English, The Herdsman’s Book; sometimes word for word, and sometimes sense for sense, even as I had been taught by Plegmund my Archbishop, and Asser my Bishop, and Grimbald my Mass-Priest, and John my Mass-Priest. After I had learned of them how I might best understand it, I turned it into English. And I will send a copy to every bishop’s see in my kingdom, and in each book there is an aestel (i.e. a staff) of (the value of) 50 mancusses; and I command, in God’s name, that no man take the staff from the book, nor the book from the minster, seeing that we know not how long there shall be such learned bishops, as now, thank God, there be. Therefore I command that these remain always in their places, unless the bishop have them with him either to lend somewhere, or to have other copies made from them.’

Here, then, we have the explanation of Alfred’s gem. It is the handle of a book-staff or pointer which, like those at Canterbury, and elsewhere, was made of horn (which has perished), the handle itself being of precious and durable materials. The inscription on it bears witness that it was made by Alfred’s order, ‘Aelfred had me worked;’ and this circumstance, taken in conjunction with the costliness of its material and the beauty of its execution, makes it in the highest degree probable that it is one of those aestels which Alfred says were worked by his order, and inserted in the presentation copies of his translation of The Herdsman’s Book, and which were valued at 50 mancusses, or (taking the value of the mancus at 7s. 6d.) £18 15s., a large sum for those days.

But if so, how came this gem to be found in this neighbourhood? Alfred presented one to each bishop’s see in his kingdom, and there was no bishop’s see in those days in these parts nearer than Sherborne, in Dorsetshire. You will have remarked that Alfred in his preface mentions four persons who assisted him in translating the book: Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury; Asser, Bishop of Sherborne; the Priest Grimbald, who presided over the school which Alfred had founded for the training of the English youth; and the Priest John, who was placed by Alfred as abbot over the monastery which he founded at Athelney. Copies of the book, each having a book-staff, were sent to Plegmund and Asser, for they both were bishops. Can there be any reasonable doubt that this mark of attention was equally observed in the case of the other two collaborators? More especially as Grimbald was at the head of Alfred’s school, and it was in order to promote English reading that Alfred had undertaken the translation of the book, and John, though not a bishop, was abbot over the monastery which Alfred himself had built in gratitude to God for the victory he had gained. A copy of the book, with the costly aestel in it, was no doubt sent by Alfred to his friend John, at Athelney, as well as to the other three collaborators. The book and the staff were, agreeably to Alfred’s order, preserved in the minster, till, in the days of trouble, (probably at the dissolution of the monastery,) both were hidden out of sight, and for that purpose buried in the grounds of some neighbouring friend at Newton Park, in the hopes of recovering them in better days. As time passed on, the secret of the place where they were hidden died with the man who had hidden them; and when after many years chance revealed the place of the deposit, the book itself and the perishable portion of the staff had rotted away, leaving only the gold and crystal handle, with the words, ‘Aelfred had me worked,’ to tell the tale. This I believe to be the true history of Alfred’s gem.

When I visited the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, in the month of July, I was shown by the courteous Curator, by the side of Alfred’s jewel, a smaller specimen of ancient goldsmith’s work which was dug up a few years ago at Minster Lovel, in Oxfordshire, on the site of an ancient abbey. It is smaller than Alfred’s gem, but, like the latter, it is evidently the handle of a reading-staff. The handle of Alfred’s staff was made of a size that might be conveniently grasped in the hand; the one from Minster Lovel was intended to be held between the finger and thumb. It is smaller and less costly, but the workmanship of the gold is so like the larger one of Alfred as almost to suggest its being the work of the same man.

Thus Bp. Clifford would fain persuade us to see in our Jewel the costly handle of a pointing stave. This satisfies the requirement of the socket and rivet, which is a fit provision for the insertion of a fine stave. The only question at this point that could be raised in opposition is, whether the socket is not too small to admit a stave of useful thickness for the purpose contemplated. And as the author of this theory has applied it equally to the Minster Lovel jewel, this objection gains in force, as the rod that could be inserted in that little jewel would be of very doubtful service as a pointer.

But when we consider the common elements in the design and workmanship of these two jewels, we are compelled to reject the theory that they were intended as handles to pointers. And first of the design. Both of these jewels have an obverse and a reverse, which in such an instrument would not only be unnecessary and unmeaning, but absolutely inconvenient and detrimental. Both of them are obviously designed to gratify the eye; as objects to be displayed in positions which they are to adorn and beautify. The Alfred Jewel contains the picture of a man in enamel, framed in golden filigree, glazed with crystal, and backed with a plate of gold curiously engraved; the whole composition plainly dictates which side is to be foremost and which end is to be uppermost when it is fixed in the position for which it is intended. Bp. Clifford’s theory cannot be accommodated to these conditions.

So much for the design: now as to the materials and workmanship. In both of these jewels the outer surface is filigree work of very fine texture; can it be imagined that this agrees with the suggested use of a handle to a choirmaster’s wand, whether we consider the implied defacement of the finest goldsmith’s work, or the galling friction to the musician’s hand?

But besides appropriateness of design and workmanship, there is yet another condition to be satisfied, and one which this theory can only meet by means of a roundabout and arbitrary hypothesis. Any interpretation of the Jewel, to be satisfactory, must harmonize naturally and spontaneously with the Alfredian associations of the spot on which it was found. Bp. Clifford has felt this, and he has employed an elaborate machinery to meet it. The place of the find is one that naturally suggests direct and immediate connexion with the goings and comings of the king himself, for it lies near the centre of that region in which he spent some months of acute effort in the most critical juncture of his diversified and adventurous life. If our interpretation harmonize with the associations which are linked to the spot, and through the spot to the Jewel, probability is strengthened while the interest is heightened; but what possibility is there of bringing these associations to bear upon a costly book-pointer? If anything so extravagant existed, it might be preserved in the treasury of the minster or in the book-room of the cloister; but it could have no place about the person of a fugitive king and a struggling warrior. Accordingly the author of this theory is compelled to detach the interpretation from the personal history of the king, and to rest his solution of the problem upon a highly speculative assumption combined with the chances and vicissitudes of a later age.

The author of this theory has to face the inevitable question—On the supposition that the Alfred Jewel is the handle of a book-pointer, how do you account for its being found in the neighbourhood of Athelney? In preparing to answer this question, he fetches a wide compass, enclosing in his sweep the literary achievements of the king, and seven centuries of the after-time. He begins by recalling Alfred’s acknowledgements to Plegmund, Asser, Grimbald, and John, for their help in his translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, and he recites the king’s statement that he would send a copy of the translation to each bishop’s see, and with each book an ‘æstel’ worth 50 mancusses. It is an essential part of his theory that the ‘æstel’ was a book-pointer with a costly handle, and moreover that the Alfred Jewel was one of these handles. But there was no bishop’s see at or near Athelney, the nearest being at Sherborne: how then did this relic find its way to Newton Park by Athelney? The answer is that John the Priest became abbot of Alfred’s foundation at Athelney, and that there can be no reasonable doubt that Alfred gave the book and ‘æstel’ not only to Plegmund and Asser, but that he also extended his bounty to Grimbald and John, his two other collaborators[11]. So the Alfred Jewel having thus arrived at Athelney as the handle of a book-pointer, was religiously preserved there until the time of Henry VIII, when it was buried to await better times, and in the course of nature forgotten. My objection to this is not that it is imaginative, but that it is ill suited to its purpose, because it is needlessly cumbrous, and because the Jewel can be traced to Athelney by a much simpler and more obvious process.

But while I find it impossible to admit Bp. Clifford’s theory as an interpretation of the Alfred Jewel, seeing that this relic absolutely refuses to be classed with the decorated handles of the baculi cantorum, I must add that the question of the ‘æstel’ stands apart. I am by no means prepared to maintain that the explanation of that problem which I have recently offered in Alfred the Great is preferable to Bp. Clifford’s. There is a close affinity between the two explanations; they both rest upon a common basis in the ancient gloss: ‘Indicatorium, æstel.’ I interpreted the indicatorium to be a light slab, much like a flat ruler, which was to be brought to bear across the page so as to guide the reader’s eye, and perhaps furnish a rest for his fingers. The Latin term would fit a pointer as well as a flat ruler, and perhaps better. It may therefore well be that in the endeavour to interpret the Jewel, Bp. Clifford has incidentally explained that problematical object which king Alfred sent as a fitting accompaniment with each of the presentation copies of his version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care. The remark that the pointer might be fitted to the volume by an arrangement like that now in common use for attaching a pencil to a notebook must, I think, be felt to add a certain persuasive concreteness to his suggestion. Only then, if the ‘æstel’ was a book-pointer with a costly handle, that handle was certainly not fashioned after the manner of the Alfred Jewel, or of its natural associate the minor jewel of Minster Lovel—it was not fashioned with obverse and reverse.

A subsequent interpretation by Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A., appeared in the Reliquary for October, 1879, vol. xx, p. 66:—‘Many, and very curious as well as various, have been the conjectures as to the use or origin of this remarkable jewel, and of the figure intended to be represented upon it, but it is not worth while to here repeat them. The probability, to my mind, is that it simply formed the head of a sceptre, and that just possibly it might have been ultimately given by Alfred to the head of the monastery founded by himself, to be used as a pastoral staff or staff of office, as was the crosier in later days. The design and the workmanship are of exquisite beauty, and in all respects the jewel is unsurpassed by any other existing example of Anglo-Saxon art.’ Again, this interpretation, like that of Hearne and others, appears to be excluded by the formation of the Jewel with a front and a back.

By the rejection of so many hypotheses the field of choice is narrowed, and our path should be so much the clearer to find the true design and use of the Alfred Jewel.

[10] William Joseph Hugh Clifford, second son of the seventh Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, was the Roman Catholic bishop of Clifton from 1857 to 1888. He was a member of the Somerset Archæological and Natural History Society, and for many years a constant attendant at the yearly meetings. In 1877 he was President of the Society. His obituary, by Canon Holmes, is in vol. xxxix of the Society’s Proceedings.

[11] This machinery for bringing the baculus cantoris to Athelney was first employed in the interest of the stylus theory. See S. Pegge in Archæologia ii, quoted above in chapter iii.

CHAPTER V
A JEWEL IN THE CROWN

The Alfred Jewel is so made as to require a small stem or ‘stert’ for its fixture when in use. It tapers off to a socket, which is adapted to receive a small stem, and it is only when erected on such a stem that the Figure in enamel will appear in a natural position. How can we accommodate it with such a function as will correspond to these indications of design? Evidently not on the top of a standard-bearer’s pole, nor on the top of a stilus, nor at the butt-end of a music-master’s wand. It is moreover evident that the stem was a permanent fixture in the socket, for although the socket is now empty, this is due to the perishing of the stem, as appears from the fact that the cross-pin is riveted. The stem was therefore not metallic, but of some hard organic substance, perhaps walrus ivory. Our problem then is to discover a place in which this Jewel, permanently furnished with such a stem, could be so erected as to discharge some appropriate function. That function can hardly be other than personal decoration, and the place in which it might be erected is the helmet of the warrior.

I imagine then that a hollow bead ran round the king’s helmet, along the rim next the forehead, and that over the very centre of the brow there was a round orifice in the upper slope of the bead, fitted to receive the ivory stem of the Jewel, and that when fixed in this position it would have minor jewels similarly fixed on either side, but that this one would be the central piece and the richest jewel in the crown or coronet. For this magnificent Jewel would have the effect of converting the helmet into a crown, transforming the most vital piece of defensive armour into the chief of royal insignia for public occasions of state.

That the rudiment of the crown was derived from the helmet, at least among our people, seems to be indicated by the Anglo-Saxon word that preceded ‘crown,’ namely, cyne-helm, which means Regal Helmet. This word is the only English representative of the idea before the Romanic word was domesticated among us. The term ‘crown’ made its entrance after the Norman Conquest, at first in its original Latin form corona, as may be seen in the contemporary Chronicle of Peterborough. Thus we read under the date 1085: Her se cyng bær his corona and heold his hired on Winceastre to þam Eastran, ‘This year the king wore his Crown and held his Court at Winchester for the Eastertide.’ But the native word was not quickly superseded. In the next annal, 1086, we are informed that the king wore his Crown three times every year:—‘þriwa he bær his cyne-helm ælce geare.’

THE MINSTER LOVEL JEWEL

The explanation now offered of the use and function of the Alfred Jewel is confirmed by comparison with a minor jewel in the same glass case, which for its illustrative value has been placed by the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum near the Alfred Jewel. In workmanship it is so similar that it might well be (as Bp. Clifford said) from the hand of the same maker. In design it is as much alike as it is possible for a simple and rudimentary pattern to resemble one that is highly elaborate and developed. No one can doubt that these two objects are fully analogous to each other, and that the service for which they were intended was of the same nature. This minor jewel has, like the Alfred Jewel, an obverse and a reverse; the obverse presents a Cross in opaque enamel cloisonnée; the reverse has a gold plate, not engraved—as in the greater work—but equally with it suggestive of the back of a framed picture which is to lean against a vertical surface of some kind. As in the other, the area of the obverse is more contracted than the reverse, and the sloping sides are covered with a delicate filigree of gold. Lastly, this also has its projecting socket, with a cross-pin in its place riveted. It is in all respects adapted to be either the front and central jewel of a minor coronet, or else a lateral and subordinate jewel in the circlet whose front place was filled by a superior piece such as the Alfred Jewel.

This minor jewel was found at Minster Lovel in Oxfordshire about the middle of the present century. The finder brought it to a jeweller in Oxford, who, apprehending that the object was one of more than ordinary curiosity, carried it to Dr. Wilson, then President of Trinity College, an eminent archæologist, and the man who of all men in Oxford at that time was the most capable of estimating a find of this nature[12]. The interest which he took in it was shared with Dr. Griffiths, who was afterwards Warden of Wadham College, and (whether by one or both) it was presented to the Ashmolean Museum. The date of this event does not appear to be recorded, but I suppose it must have happened in the fifties.

That gold ornaments were proper for the helmet, we gather from a passage in the Beowulf, a poem which is now, I think, among critics of proved competency, allowed to belong to the eighth century. When Beowulf, after slaying the Dragon, lies fatally wounded, he puts off the chief pieces of his armour with the insignia of royalty, and bestows them upon Wiglaf, his faithful Thane and the natural heir to his throne. In the poetic description we perceive that the insignia are largely blended with the body-armour, and that the helmet is characterized by its golden decoration:

2810

2810

Dyde him of healse

Ungearing his neck

hring gyldenne

of the golden ring

þióden þrîst-hŷdig

the courageous Captain

þegne gesealde,

on his Thane conferred it,

geongum gâr-wigan;

on the gallant youth;

gold-fâhne helm,

the gold-prankt helm also,

beáh ond byrnan;

the collar and the byrnie;

hêt hine brûcan well.

saying: ‘Brook them well!’

It would be easy to collect examples from later romances, but I will add only one, taken from Laȝamon’s description (a.d. 1200) of king Arthur putting his armour on:

Helm he set on hafde

Helm he set on head,

hæh of stele:

high of steel:

þær on wes moni ȝimston,

thereon was many a gem-stone

al mid golde bigon.

all encircled with gold[13].

The position which I have imagined for the Alfred Jewel would represent the cumulative effect of the two chief and central gems in the Crown of Queen Victoria, namely, the great Sapphire of Charles II and the great Ruby of Edward the Black Prince[14].

[12] Speaking of the archæologists in Oxford fifty years ago, I am not forgetting, indeed I could not forget, John Henry Parker, C.B., the guide and teacher of his time in much antiquarian knowledge of great value to the historian; more especially in whatever concerned ecclesiastical or domestic architecture. He was for many years Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum.

[13] Laȝamon’s Brut, ed. Madden, vol. ii, p. 464.

[14] The English Regalia, by Cyril Davenport, p. 51.

CHAPTER VI
THE BOAR’S HEAD

There is a feature in the Alfred Jewel which appears to support the theory propounded in the last chapter. I mean the Boar’s Head, which is so wrought into the composition of the piece as to represent a subordinate, or even a servile, relation to the saintly Figure which is seen through the window of crystal.

About the creature indicated by this head there has been some diversity of opinion. It has been spoken of as the head of a serpent, of a fish, of a dolphin, and strangest of all, it has been called the head of a griffin. Of these notions the last is the one that has been oftenest repeated, and yet it is the most absurd. No doubt the griffin has been variously described, nevertheless it is generally agreed that the head of this fabulous animal is either that of an eagle or that of a lion.

Many years ago, as I happened, in company with Dr. Liddon, to be passing the entrance of the Ashmolean Museum—the old original building by the Sheldonian Theatre—I asked him whether he had ever seen the Alfred Jewel. He had not, and he manifested some alacrity and we went in. It was naturally my part to act the showman, and I did it with a will, which was quickened by an interested motive. I set forth all my best exegesis of every part, except one—I left the animal’s head unnoticed. The old doubt about the nature of this head had been recently revived, and I lay in wait for testimony undesigned. I had the satisfaction of hearing my companion remark interrogatively, ‘That appears to be a boar’s head?’

Between the wild boar and the helmet there existed a close and recognized association, as is well attested by the Beowulf, which is our chief voice from the heroic age of Teutonic antiquity. In the course of that poem there are no less than five passages in which this habitual association of ideas stands out prominently. The first passage is where Beowulf and his companions have reached the Danish coast and stepped ashore and parleyed with the coast-warden, and obtained his approval of their visit and his offer of guidance to Hrothgar’s Court. As they set forth on their march inland, the poet notices the play of the sunlight glancing from the boar-figures on their helmets:

301

301

Gewiton him þâ fêran

Forth on the march they fared

—flota stille bâd,

—the floater reposing,

seomode on sæ̂le,

wearing on her cable,

sîd-fæðmed scip,

the wide-bosomed ship,

on ancre fæst.

at anchor fast.

Eoferlic scionon

Boar-figures shone

ofer hleor-bergan;

over the cheek-plates;

gehroden golde

as chequered with gold

fâh and fŷr-heard

defiant and fire-hard

ferh wearde heold.

the farrow kept ward.

The second passage occurs in the course of the Lay of Hnæf, which is inserted among the festivities that follow Beowulf’s success against Grendel, as being sung by the minstrel in Hrothgar’s hall. In the story of the Lay there is a fight, and that is followed by the burning of the dead, and here the poet notices the arms which are consumed with their owners. In the short quotation which follows, the coat of mail is called a sark, and the helmet is indicated by its crest, which was a boar of hard iron plated with gold:

1111

1111

æt þæm âde wæs

At the place of the pile

êð-gesŷne

was plain to behold

swât-fâh syrce,

the sark blood-stained,

swîn eal-gylden,

the gilded swine-crest,

eofer îren-heard.

the boar of hard iron.

The third passage presents us with an incidental description of the terrors of a hand-to-hand fight between armed champions, and it pictures a trial of strength between the tough steel of the flashing sword and the hard iron of the boar on the helmet:

1286

1286

þonne heoru bunden

When the hafted halberd

hamere geþuren,

hammer-toughened,

sweord swâte fâh,

the sword battle-spotted,

swîn ofer helme

at the swine on the helmet

ecgum dyhtig

with urgent edge

andweard scîreð.

smites importunate.

The first success of Beowulf having left an avenger alive, it becomes necessary for the hero, in pursuance of his pledged war against the monster brood, to dive all-armed to the bottom of an awful mere. In our fourth quotation he is seen arming himself and preparing to plunge into the abyss; the main pieces of his armour are described, and of his helmet it is said as follows:—

1449

1449

ac se hwîta helm

But the burnished helmet