tten more in the style of religious narrative, and to
give practical information, than to amuse.

The poems of Beowulf, a thorough Norse Saga, embodies the doings of the
Anglo-Saxons before they emigrated to England, and must have been
written long before they set foot on English soil. Older than Beowulf
is the lyric poem of Widsith, which has some historical interest as
depicting the doings of kings, princes and warriors. It contains traces
of the epic, which in Beowulf, whose English poem is next in point of
time, is more markedly developed.

During the fifth and sixth centuries the Germanic tribes who emigrated
to Britain brought with them a heathen literature. The oldest fragment
now extant are the Hexenspruche and the Charms. They have elements of
Christian teaching in them, which would seem to imply that the Church
tried to give them a Christian setting. In some respects they resemble
the old Sanskrit, and are supposed to be among the earliest examples of
lyric poetry in England.

Alfred the Great improved the Anglo-Saxon prose and soon after his time
a translation of the Bible in that language was made, forming the
second known copy in a national language, the first being the
Moeso-Gothic of Bishop Ulphilus. The Saxon Chronicles, dating from the
time of Alfred to 1154 were copies of the Latin Chronicles kept in the
monasteries.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the age of the Crusades, which
added a new impulse to learning through the co-mingling of different
races. French poetry was translated into English, which, in the
thirteenth century, in its evolution from the Anglo-Saxon became a
fixed language. Classical learning in this age was generally diffused
through the schoolmen, of whom Lanfranc, Anselm, John of Salisbury,
Duns Scotius, William of Malmesbury, and other great names of this
period, mentioned elsewhere, are instances.

In the thirteenth century appeared also the Gesta Romanorum, a
collection of fables, traditions, and various pictures of society,
changing with the different countries that the stories dealt with. The
romance of Apollonius in this collection gave Chaucer the plots for two
or three of his tales, and furnished Cowers with the theme for most of
his celebrated poem, the Confessio Amantis. This poem, in its turn,
suggested to Shakespeare the outlines for his characters of Pericles,
Prince of Tyre, and the Merchant of Venice. Other and less celebrated
works are also taken from