ABSTRACT
The question here is therefore: how long ago is it that the knowledge of Anglo-Saxon in England was great enough for the present poem to have been written? The Chronicle answers: 700 years at the very least, for the youngest Anglo-Saxon piece of writing known to us is from the middle of the twelfth century [note: ‘the Saxon Chronicle ends 1154’] and in all respects of somewhat poor quality. But even supposing it was rather good or considering the unlikely possibility that the monastery schools, where Anglo-Saxon is said to have been taught until the Reformation [a note refers to Hearne 1720:xvii], in later times went beyond reading it passably well and writing it indifferently, one perceives that the poem was not only written rightly in pure Anglo-Saxon, but also made into verse with the greatest care according to the old style, and furnished with all the splendour and ornamentation that the Anglo-Saxon poetic language was justly famous for possessing; and the youngest verse in that manner that we know is to be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 975, and is in all ways so closely related to that same year as with difficulty to be separated from it [a note makes clear that the reference is to The Death of Edgar], while the latest historical poem in the old fashion known to us is the famous one of 938 about the victory of King Athelstan at Brunanburh [on p. lxix, however, Grundtvig mentions The Battle of Maldon as listed by Wanley]. Thus language and style alone urge us to grant for Beowulf an age of about 900 years, although it is rather unlikely that such substantial pieces were composed in the tenth century in a style that in the twelfth was unintelligible even
not only celebrating a Nordic hero but full of Nordic legends and, what is more, with the most friendly attitude towards Denmark and Danish. If I am not quite mistaken the birth date is in this way determined as not far from the invasion and before the Danish heathens had yet made themselves notorious and hated in the island through their viking raids. I am well aware that this assertion will strike some as too rash; but even so I dare say there is nothing bold about it, especially since we are, with this calculation, taken to the very time when we know that Anglo-Saxon poetry was in its fullest bloom. For according to the general annals it was in 787, in the days of King Offa, that the Danes first visited the island as enemies [a note refers again to the Chronicle and to Wheloc 1643:524] and even if the year might be uncertain, there is no mistaking the period. Now, we know that it is precisely at the point of transition from the seventh to the eighth century that we meet both of the two famous poets: Cædmon and Ealdhelm (Oldhjelm) whose equal, surely, is to be found in the author of the present poem, if he was not, in fact, one of these two [a note dates their deaths at approx. 680, 709 respectively]. If it is objected that in this way the invasion is taken too little into account, we should bear in mind that as long as the Anglo-Saxons were heathens they were in continual contact with the North and received reinforcement from there, and also that Northumbria, the real seat of Anglo-Saxon poetry and learning, was not only captured later by Northmen but also Christianised later than the southern part. It was not until the year 547 that Ida founded the kingdom of Northumbria, in 627 Paulinus baptised King Edwin [a note refers again to the Chronicle], from this time to the first inroad of the Danes there is a period of 160 years, and just as the middle point is often chosen in such cases, it is necessary here to find a time when Christianity, which the poem presupposes, was generally accepted, and yet a time when the old legends were still in living memory: by taking the middle point we again reach the year 700, with Cædmon and Ealdhelm, and it would take some persuasion to move us from there.
