Scandinavian-Britain

8 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAINIt will be well before speaking of this movement,its causes, progress, and effects, to give some accountof the chief sources upon which our knowledge of itmust be based. The sources are of twofold origin,springing from books or from things. The latter compriseall the facts and ideas that can be drawn fromphysical geography, from archaeologic discoveries,and from numismatics. The former, our writtenauthorities, may be grouped under the heads ofBritish, Scandinavian ,and Continental.Under the firstheading come the Old EnglishChronicle by various anonymous authors, in its variousMSS., vernacular and Latin, ranging over nearly threecenturies, of the highest importance, as the work oftruthful contemporaries the different references; byOld English authors, from King Alfred to BishopWulfstan, to historical events of their days, andseveral poems. To these we must add several lives ofsaints, in Latin or English, and that vast collectionof deeds and records that makes up our Old EnglishDiplomatarium, a mine of information on places andpersons during the ninth and tenth centuries.Next come the careful and accurate Irish chronicles,especially Tighernach's Annales, the compiled Annalsof Inisf alien Chronicon>Scotorum, and the compilationknown as the Annals of the Four Masters, whichgives us an orderly mass of facts not found elsewhere,and are of main use in fixing the difficult chronologyof the periods they cover.The list of British authorities is concluded by theWelsh chronicles, especially the Brut y Tywysogion