Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England. Being a ...

PREFACE.
XXI
In this doggrel, Bald is the owner of the book ; we
have no right to improve him into iESelbald ; Cild is,
probably, the scribe ; some will contend, the author.
In classical Latin no doubt would exist, conscribere
would at once denote the composing of the work :
but in these later dciys, when millions of foreigners
learnt the Latin language as a means of interchange
thoughts, occasionally intruding their own "Gothic words,
all such niceties of the ear went for nothing ; Cild
might well be the mere penman. But then the marginal
tokens, and private memoranda, show that the
work so written had passed either through the hands
of the author, which from the use of private marks
is probable, or through those of another leech, who was
able to discover the sources of the
Bald anywise may have been the
of
authors information.
author himself
Let us give a few touches to the, as yet, bare outline q[\^_
of the penman Cild. The famous Durham book is a
charming work of ancient Saxon art ; those who cannot
inspect the original may see a copy of a piece of the
ornamentation in the Gospel of St. Matthew, edited
by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, and published by the
Surtees society. According to an entry of a later age
in the book itself, not of doubtful authenticity, this
exquisite piece of pattern work, which is a part of
the writing, was the performance of EadfriS, bishop
of Lindisfarne, who occupied that see from 698 to 721.
It is of Irish tone, and like many other dignitaries this
prelate had, very likely, completed his
Christian education
in the Isle of Saints. Cild was certainly not of the
make and metal of a bishop, for the words " conscribere
" iussit " forbid it ; Dunstan forefend ! It would be
somewhat speculative to say, that in JSTorthumbria,
A.D. 700, the art of writing was at a higher premium
than afterwards. I will not venture to say it, but
proceed upon surer data. One of the poems in the
Exeter book, of uncertain date, but before the end