Copy 1, Volume 1

Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright.

  • Wright, Thomas, 1810-1877.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/324 (page 1)
    ESSAYS ON THE LITERATURE, ETC. OF ENGLAND DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. ESSAY 1. ANGLO-SAXON POETRY. =) ROM the time when the Anglo-Saxon lan- re Bl guage sank into English, perhaps we may tg : say from the latter part of the twelfth cen- > tury, the pure Saxon writings could no § Sie longer be understood, and the manuscripts written in ne language were regarded as little better than lumber : they were suffered to lie on the shelves of monastic libraries, for want of better books to occupy their place, and, as opportunity occurred, were often erased, and a Latin treatise on some then more valuable and interesting subject written on the same parchment. We have an instance of this latter practice in a manuscript in the library of Jesus College, Cambridge; where, beneath the Latin decretals which now occupy it, and particularly round the margins of some of the folios, may be traced the remains of a fine _copy of Alfric’s Saxon sermons. It has nof unfrequently happened that valuable Saxon books have been preserved by the circumstance of the same manuscript containing