but for the most part we are thrown upon later writers, especially Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury, who, though authors of the twelfth century, had access to older materials which are now lost.  A little may be gleaned from biographies such as that of Guthlac of Crowland; but the letters of Boniface and Alcwine, which have been edited by Jaffe in his series of “Monumenta Germanica,” form the most valuable contemporary materials for this period.

From the rise of Wessex our history rests mainly on the English Chronicle.  The earlier part of this work, as we have said, is a compilation, and consists of (1) Annals of the Conquest of South Britain, and (2) Short Notices of the Kings and Bishops of Wessex expanded by copious insertions from Baeda, and after the end of his work by brief additions from some northern sources.  These materials may have been thrown together into their present form in AElfred’s time as a preface to the far fuller annals which begin with the reign of AEthelwulf, and which widen into a great contemporary history when they reach that of AElfred himself.  After AElfred’s day the Chronicle varies much in value.  Through the reign of Eadward the Elder it is copious, and a Mercian Chronicle is imbedded in it:  it then dies down into a series of scant and jejune entries, broken however with grand battle-songs, till the reign of AEthelred when its fulness returns.

Outside the Chronicle we encounter a great and valuable mass of historical material for the age of AElfred and his successors.  The life of AElfred which bears the name of Asser, puzzling as it is in some ways, is probably really Asser’s work, and certainly of contemporary authority.  The Latin rendering of the English Chronicle which bears the name of AEthelweard adds a little to our acquaintance with this time.  The Laws, which form the base of our constitutional knowledge of this period, fall, as has been well pointed out by Mr. Freeman, into two classes.  Those of Eadward, AEthelstan, Eadmund, and Eadgar, are like the earlier laws of AEthelberht and Ine, “mainly of the nature of amendments of custom.”  Those of AElfred, AEthelred, Cnut, with those which bear the name of Eadward the Confessor, “aspire to the character of Codes.”  They are printed in Mr. Thorpe’s “Ancient Laws and Institutes of England,” but the extracts given by Professor Stubbs in his “Select Charters” contain all that directly bears on our constitutional growth.  A vast mass of Charters and other documents belonging to this period has been collected by Kemble in his “Codex Diplomaticus AEvi Saxonici,” and some are added by Mr. Thorpe in his “Diplomatarium Anglo-Saxonicum.”  Dunstan’s biographies have been collected and edited by Professor Stubbs in the series published by the Master of the Rolls.