Ornament on front (left) is formed by means of plates of thin gold and wire, with bosses of ivory and red glass.]
The Anglo-Saxon prose remains consist of translations of portions of the Bible, homilies, philosophical writings, history, biography, laws, leases, charters, popular treatises on science and medicine, grammars, &c. Many of these were translations from the Latin. The Anglo-Saxon versions of the Gospels, next to the Moeso-Gothic, are the earliest scriptural translations in any modern language. The Psalms are said to have been translated by Bishop Aldhelm (died 709), and also under Alfred's direction; and the _Gospel of St. John_ by Bede; but it is not known who were the authors of the extant versions. A translation of the first seven books of the Bible is believed to have been the work of Ælfric, who was Abbot of Ensham and lived about the beginning of the eleventh century. We have also eighty homilies from his pen, several theological treatises, a Latin grammar, &c. King Alfred was a diligent author, besides being a translator of Latin works. We have under his name translations of Boethius' _De Consolatione Philosophiæ_, the _Universal History_ of Orosius, Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_, the _Pastoral Care_ of Gregory the Great, &c. The most valuable to us of the Anglo-Saxon prose writings is the _Saxon Chronicle_, as it is called, a collection of annals recording important events in the history of the country, and compiled in different religious houses. Of this _Chronicle_ there are seven MSS. in existence, and the latest text comes down to 1154. A considerable body of laws remains, as well as a large number of charters. The whole of the literature has never yet been printed. For Anglo-Saxon history, see _England_.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: (History) H. M. Chadwick, _The Origin of the English Nation_ (Cambridge); (Language) Sweet, _Anglo-Saxon Primer_ and _Reader_; (Literature) B. ten Brink, _Geschichte der Englischen Litteratur_; Stopford A. Brooke, _English Literature, from the beginning to the Norman Conquest_; Henry Morley, _English Writers_ (vols. i and ii).
ANGLO-SAXON LAW. Series of laws written in the vernacular, and unique among Teutonic peoples, were issued from the seventh century onwards by Æthelberht, Hlothhere, Eadric, and Withraed, Kings of Kent, by Ine, King of Wessex, by Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmund, Edgar, Æthelred, and Canute, in addition to a number of important by-laws and regulations of various kinds, which bear no king's name. We hear, also, of laws issued by other kings which have been lost, and there must have been a considerable body of traditional law which was never committed to writing. What laws are extant, show us a society mainly agricultural, divided by birth into a noble, a free peasant, and a servile class. There was also a dependent class in Kent, intermediate between the freeman and the slave. The strongest social ties were those of the kindred, and the relationship between lord and man.