ibrord starts from England about 690, and
settles among the Frisians and Danes[76]; Winfrith, otherwise called St.
Boniface (an approximate translation of his name), sojourns in Thuringia
and Bavaria, "sowing," as he says, "the evangelical seed among the rude
and ignorant tribes of Germany."[77] He reorganises the Church of the
Franks, and dies martyrised by the Frisians in 755. Scarcely is the
hive formed when it begins to swarm. The same thing happened with all
the sects created later in the English land.

II.

With religion had come Latin letters. Those same Anglo-Saxons, whose
literature at the time of their invasion consisted in the songs
mentioned by Tacitus, "carmina antiqua," which they trusted to memory
alone, who compiled no books and who for written monuments had Runic
inscriptions graven on utensils or on commemorative stones, now have, in
their turn, monks who compose chronicles, and kings who know Latin.
Libraries are formed in the monasteries; schools are attached to them;
manuscripts are there copied and illuminated in beautiful caligraphy and
splendid colours. The volutes and knots with which the worshippers of
Woden ornamented their fibulae, their arms, the prows of their ships, are
reproduced in purple and azure, in the initials of the Gospels. The use
made of them is different, the taste remains the same.

The Anglo-Saxon missionaries and learned men correspond with each other
in the language of Rome. Boniface, in the wilds of Germany, remains in
constant communication with the prelates and monks of England; he begs
for books, asks for and gives advice; his letters have come down to us,
and are in Latin. Ealhwine or Alcuin, of York, called by Charlemagne to
his court, freely bestows, in Latin letters, good advice on his
countrymen. He organises around the great Emperor a literary academy,
where each bears an assumed name; Charlemagne has taken that of David,
his chamberlain has chosen that of Tyrcis, and Alcuin that of Horatius
Flaccus. In this "hotel de Rambouillet" of the Karlings, the affected
style was as much relished as at the fair Arthenice's, and Alcuin, in
his barbarous Latin, has a studied elegance that might vie with the
conceits of Voiture.[78]

Aldhelm (or Ealdhelm, d. 709) writes a treatise on Latin prosody, and,
adding example to precept, composes riddles and a Eulogy of Virgins in
Latin verse.[79] AEddi (Eddius Stephanus) writes a life, also in Latin,
of his friend St. Wilfrith.