Holland's Influence on English Language and Literature

[p. 27]

Chapter III Holland's Share in the Development of Comparative Philology

That such a movement as the development of comparative philology did not reach its present importance in one moment, or even in a few years, everybody can easily understand. Extremely difficult for every movement of this kind is its beginning, when it has to go along quite new lines. As long as it remains groping in the dark, as long as nobody knows in which direction to go, there is no advance and no progress. But as soon as a presumption arises that a solution is to be found in a certain direction, then the most wonderful success in advancing to the solution becomes a mere affair of labor and time. Now the great event in the starting of a more serious study of languages by comparative philology no doubt was the discovery and the study of what was left of the Gothic language, that ‘guiding star of the Germanic languages’ as Bopp¹ calls it. For of all the Germanic languages, including English and Dutch, the Gothic is according to Bopp ‘the mother tongue in her oldest and most perfect form,’ that language ‘so perfect in its grammar.’² I should rather call it, however, the oldest sister than the mother. What the Gothic is for the Germanic languages, that the old Asiatic language of India, the Sanskrit is for all the Indo-Germanic languages together, viz., the oldest and best preserved of all, ‘the groundwork and connecting bond of the

1 F. Bopp, Comparative Grammar, Preface, p. XV.

2 Ibidem, p. VII.

[p. 28]

comparison.’¹ ‘The close relationship between the Classical (Greek and Latin) and the Germanic languages has, with the exception of mere comparative lists of words, copious indeed, but destitute of principle and critical judgment, remained, down to the period of the appearance of the Asiatic intermediary (the Sanskrit), almost entirely unobserved, although the acquaintance with the Gothic dates now from a century and a half,’² and that language (viz., the Gothic) is so perfect in its grammar, and so clear in its affinities, that, had it been earlier submitted to a rigorous and systematic process of comparison and anatomical investigation, the pervading relation of itself, and with it, of the entire Germanic stock, to the Greek and Roman, would necessarily have long since been unveiled, tracked through all its variations, and by this time been understood and recognized by every philologist.’³ So it is clear that in the study of the Gothic and the Sanskrit lay the key for the progress of comparative philology, and for every more serious study of any one of the Indo-Germanic languages. This key lay in Sanskrit because it was the best preserved, the oldest and most fundamental of all Indo-Germanic languages, and in Gothic because it was, if not the mother tongue in the peculiar sense of the word, at least the oldest and best preserved sister language of the Western European family.

Centuries after centuries passed away during which the whole civilized world of Europe did not know anything about either Gothic or Sanskrit.

1 Ibid., p. III.

2 This is now nearly two centuries and a half.

3 F. Bopp, Comparative Grammar, I, Preface, p. VI. The study of Sanskrit in modern European philology dates from the foundation of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, in 1784. Skeat, Principles of English Etymology, p. 100. Skeat calls both the Sanskrit and the Gothic, sister languages of all the other Indo-European, and not mother languages, as at the start of comparative philology often was done.

[p. 29]

That there should come a time, when the scholars of Europe would make themselves acquainted with the enormous Sanskrit literature and language, was unavoidable. A language with a literature more expensive than the whole classic literature of Greece and Rome together, could not in our modern time, remain a secret to the scholars of the modern civilized world.

But with Gothic the case was otherwise. In the greatest possible contrast to Sanskrit literature, which is probably the most voluminous in the world, the existing literature of Gothic is probably the smallest of any civilized nation on the globe. All there is left of the Gothic language is, besides a few short fragments, a Gothic translation of the bible by Bishop Ulfilas or Vulphilas, which comprises not the whole bible but only the greatest part of the New Testament, and some chapters of the Old Testament. And even these parts of the Gothic bible are not incorrupt. More than half of what is left of this Gothic bible of Ulfilas is contained in a single manuscript, which is called the silver-codex, or codex argenteus, because it is written for the greater part in silver letters on parchment.

Now it is to Holland that the world owes the early appreciation, the preservation during many centuries, and at last the publishing - more than one and a half century earlier than any other part of this small literature was published - of this most precious codex, containing the treasures of the Gothic language.¹ By the Dutchman Ludger, the monastery of Werden was founded at the time of Charlemagne, the monastery whither the silver-codex was brought from

1 ‘Niederlander haben das Verdienst zuerst auf die Reste des Gothischen hingewiesen zu haben.’ Hermann Paul, Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie, I, p. 16.

[p. 30]

Italy probably by Ludger himself. After having been preserved there for many centuries, it was again by a Dutchman that it was discovered, who was the first to call attention to the Gothic language.

It was a Dutchman by the name of De Busbeck who in the years 1554-1564 found the only place on earth where still lived some remnant of the Gothic people, viz., in a remote corner of the Crimea in Southern Russia, and from these he collected some specimens of the old Gothic language.

Later it was again a Dutchman, Isaac Vossius, who brought the silver-codex from the library of Queen Christina of Sweden to the Netherlands to make it the subject of research for the best scholars of his time, and again another Dutchman, Franciscus Junius, who studied, and then published the silver-codex, and devoted part of his life to studying the Gothic language and to beginning the more serious movement of comparative philology.

After Junius, in the eighteenth century, it was the Dutch school of Ten Kate and Huydecoper, who, a hundred years before the brothers Grimm, carried on researches in Gothic and in comparative philology and who consequently began the study of mediaeval literature.

And even after the great work of the German school of the brothers Grimm, when, in consequence of all these researches, the attention of all Europe was called to mediaeval literature because of its significance for the further progress of the movement, it was again the Dutch school of philologists, which produced, among others, a Dr. Jonckbloet, whose elaborate work on mediaeval literature is still in our days one of the best books of reference.

It is not difficult to explain these statements a

[p. 31]

little more elaborately, as every part of them, although scattered in many books, has been told many times before, and all there is to do is to bring them together under their common source, that is under the auspices of the Dutch nation.

Ulfilas or Vulfula (310-380 A.D.) the author of the Gothic version of the bible was bishop of the East-Goths, living at that time in what was called Moesia, being the present Bulgaria and Servia. In the turmoil of the enormous migrations in Europe shortly after the death of Ulfilas, the Goths were driven from Moesia, and the West-Goths were spread over Italy, Spain and part of France, but they soon lost their own language by adopting that of their new fatherland. By the West-Goths the Gothic translation of the bible was brought to Italy, and it is in that country that the most precious part of it, the silver-codex and some minor fragments were preserved. From Italy the silver-codex was brought to the monastery of Werden on the Rhur, about ten miles north of Cologne, near the borderline of Germany and the Netherlands, and there it was preserved till the sixteenth century. The question is, who brought the precious manuscript from Italy to the monastery at Werden? Felix Dahn¹ supposes that one of the Merovingian kings of France, who often brought treasures from their conquests to monasteries of the Frankish empire, might have carried this Gothic codex to Northern shores. This is a possibility but not the most probable one, or rather it is not a possibility at all. A Frankish king would not have brought it to Werden, a pure Frisian and Saxonian institution, but rather to one of the monasteries in the center of the

1 Felix Dahn, Urgeschichte der Germanischen und Romanische Völker, I, 423.

[p. 32]

Frankish empire. Moreover it is impossible that a Merovingian king could have brought a codex to the monastery of Werden, which did not yet exist in the time of the Merovingian kings. ‘Some people,’ says Massmann,’¹ ‘have thought of Ludger, the famous founder of the Werden monastery, who lived for three years and a half in Italy.’ And this supposition looks much more probable indeed. Ludger was a man of great learning and ability. He was the son of a Frisian noble family. His grandfather Wurfing lived near Dokkum in Friesland and was closely connected with the court of King Radboud. Afraid of the treacherous and heathen king Radboud, Wurfing fled to the court of the Frankish prince Grimoald, who had married Theosinde, the daughter of Radboud. There, at the court of Grimoald was born Theadgrin the father of Ludger, and this Theadgrin settled later with his family at Zuylen near Utrecht, where in the year 744 Ludger was born. Ludger's abilities were great from his earliest boyhood, and his education was splendid.² After he had finished his courses in the trivium and the quadrivium at the episcopal school at Utrecht, and had learned his Greek and his Latin, he studied four years at York under the famous Alcuin, the intimate friend of Charlemagne. Ludger studied till his thirty-first year and then resolved to devote his life to missionary work among the Frisians and Saxons. He worked at first at Deventer, afterwards

1 H.F. Massman, Ulfilas. Einleitung, p. LVI. The same opinion in W. de Hoog, Studien, etc., I, 14.

2 On the life of Ludger see: 1. Alfridi vita Ludgeri. 2. Paris disquisitio de Ludgero, Frisionum Saxonumque Apostolo. Amstelodami 1859. 3. Uffingi monachi carmen de s. Ludgero. 4. Augustin Kusing. Der Heilige Ludger. Munster, 1878. 5. The best work is Dr. L. Th. W. Pingsmann. Der Heilige Ludgerus. Apostel der Friesen und Sachsen. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1879. Ludger was one of the most typical Dutchmen that can be thought of. A Frisian by birth, educated among the Franks, and living his whole further life among the Saxons, he imbibed from his youth until his death the spirit of the three tribes which formed the three great elements of the later Dutch nation.

[p. 33]

in the Northern part of the Netherlands, especially the province of Groningen, later among the Saxons all along the borderline between the Netherlands and Germany, from the North to the South, became the first bishop of Munster, and founded at last his famous institution, the monastery of Werden on the Rhur, an important center of learning for maintaining and continuing his great work of civilization. He fully deserves the title of apostle of the Frisians, and of the Saxons. Ludger was a man of great learning, and he must have known thoroughly the Anglo-Saxon, the old Saxon, the Frisian, the Greek and the Latin languages. Not without reason one of his biographers brings his name in contact with the authorship of the great Saxon Christian epos the Heliand.¹ Either by himself or by one of his pupils, under his inspiration and suggestion, the Heliand may have been written. That this man, who stayed for three years and a half in Italy should have brought from Italy some manuscripts and books to his beloved new monastery at Werden is not improbable, and when in later years in that monastery is found a manuscript which at the time of Ludger was some centuries old, then the presumption certainly is not quite without foundation that it was probably Ludger who brought it from Italy. Anyhow the monastery of Werden was a thoroughly Dutch institution, and its founder was one of the most learned men of his age, and was a Dutchman by birth and by education. It was in his monastery whither it was probably brought by his personal action, that the

1 ‘Dieses so hoch gefeierte Werk ist auf sächsischen Boden in sächsischer Mundart und um die Zeit des hl. Ludgerus geschaffen worden. War es die liebliche Frucht des von den heiligen Apostel der Sachsen ausgestreuten Samen? oder steht es in noch inniger Beziehung zum hl. Ludgerus? Schmeller, der Treffliche Herausgeber des Heliand, nimmt kein Anstand dem Heiliger selber oder doch seinen Schüllern in Werden oder Münster einen bedeutenden Antheil an der Abfassung desselben zuzuschreiben.’ Pingsmann. Der heilige Ludger, p. 170.

[p. 34]

famous Gothic silver-codex was preserved and it was discovered there in the sixteenth century.¹

The first discovery of the Gothic codex in the last years of the sixteenth century, and the later more serious study of it, ending in its being published in the year 1665 at Dordrecht, was almost entirely the work of Dutch scholars. Several of them before the year 1600 speak of Gothic, and show that they know the existence of the silver-codex at Werden.² The only book that deserves to be mentioned here is that of the Dutchman Bonaventura Volcanius, who was born at Bruges, and was later rector at Antwerp, and finally professor in the University of Leyden. It is entitled: On the literature and language of the Goths. It is written in Latin and published at Leyden in the year 1597.

It was at about the time of the publishing of this little book that the silver-codex was carried from Werden to Prague,³ whence in the year 1648, just before the peace of Westphalia, it was transported by the Swedish army to Stockholm, and presented to the Swedish queen Christina.⁴ In the same remarkable year, 1648, the Dutch scholar Isaac Vossius (1618-1689), son of the well known Gerardus Vossius (1577-1649), came to Sweden to be the tutor of the young queen Christina in the Greek language. Now Isaac Vossius was a man who loved old books and manuscripts; he had travelled all over Europe, and at

1 When some years ago I visited Werden in order to see what was left of the great work of Ludger, I found that the old buildings of the monastery are still there, but are now used for a prison. The situation of the monastery dominating the beautiful natural scenery along the Rhur is wonderful. A statue on the bridge connecting the two sides of the Rhur attracted my attention. It was not a statue of Ludger but of the modern general Von Moltke, whose birthplace was Werden. Sic transit gloria mundi!

2 Massmann. Ulfilas. Einleitung, p. LII.

3 Ibid, p. LIII.

4 Massmann. Ulfilas. Einleitung, p. LIII.

[p. 35]

the time of his death in 1689 he left such a remarkable collection of books and manuscripts that Leyden University bought it for the sum of thirty thousand guilders, at that time an enormous price. Isaac Vossius stayed at Stockholm from 1648 till 1654 and when he came back to the Netherlands he brought with him the silver-codex of the Gothic language.

In no country could this codex at that time have met with a better reception than in the Netherlands. ‘The Netherlands,’ says Herman Paul, ‘became in the second half of the sixteenth century, since the founding of the University of Leyden, the central fosterplace of sciences, and especially of philology, for all Europe.’¹

It seems that the silver-codex did not become the property of Isaac Vossius, but that the great liberality and friendship of the queen Christina, allowed him to borrow it for as long as he liked. This is probable because after ten years, during which time it remained at the home of Vossius and Junius, who lived together, it was returned to the chancellor of Sweden, Count de la Gardie, and probably by his order was given to the University library at Upsala, where it has been kept till the present time.

In nearly every book in which is given a story of the codex it is said that Count de la Gardie ‘presented’ it to the library of Upsala, and this gives the impression that at that time the codex was his personal property, and consequently also had been the personal property of Vossius and Junius. If that had been the case Junius and Vossius certainly never would have given or sold it to de la Gardie, and there would have been no special reason for Junius to dedicate the volume, in which he published the codex, to de la

1 Hermann Paul. Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie. I, p. 15.

[p. 36]

Gardie. But if, on the contrary, as I suppose, Count de la Gardie as chancellor of the Swedish government, with great liberality, left the codex in the hands of Dutch scholars for not less than ten years, then there was a real reason for Junius to dedicate the volume, in which at last the codex was published, to Count de la Gardie. Even in that case the statement the de la Gardie ‘presented’ it to the Upsala library may be maintained, but in the sense, that he did it in his quality as chancellor, and in the name of the Government.

Now Isaac Vossius himself, although he had studied many languages, and for instance had made a special study of Arabic, seems to have realized that he was not the right man to study the language of the silver-codex. But he had an uncle by the name of Franciscus Junius, with whom, after his return from Sweden, he lived at the same house, and in him he found a man who, because he had for several years been absorbed in the study of those languages which stood the nearest to the Gothic, was exactly qualified for this task. So Isaac Vossius entrusted the silver-codex to the hands of Franciscus Junius. And this famous son of a famous father made the precious manuscript a subject of a research, for the results of which all philologists in the world in all times to come will give him credit, and by which he opened a new era in the comparative study of languages.

Junius' father, whose name was also Franciscus Junius, a nobleman by birth, by intellect, by scholarship and by virtue, as the historian Brandt describes him, was born in 1545 at Bourges in France, studied theology at Geneva during the last years of John Calvin's life, and went from there as a young Reformed preacher to Antwerp in the Southern Netherlands.

[p. 37]

After having endured many dangers from persecution, he fled with William of Orange and with thousands of other Protestants to Germany in the year 1567, when the duke of Alva came to the Netherlands. There he stayed in several places, was for a while a preacher to William the Silent, was professor at Heidelberg and finally came back to the Netherlands in the year 1592, to be professor at Leyden University for the last ten years of his life, till he died in the year 1602. He had been married four times, and all his four wives were Dutch women.

His son, who in later years became so famous for his study of the Gothic and other languages, was a child of only three years when his father became professor at Leyden. He was born in the year 1589 at Heidelberg, where his father had married a Dutch woman from Antwerp, Johanne l' Hermite, his third wife. So the young Franciscus from his earliest childhood was educated as a Dutch boy among the brave citizens of Leyden, who had suffered so much during the famous siege and among whom also Rembrandt (1609-1669) found such an inspiring education. Only thirteen years of age when his father died, he came under the guardianship of his brother-in-law, his senior by twelve years, and rector of the Latin school at Dordrecht. There he took his first courses in languages, and later he went to the University of Leyden to study theology so that in the year 1618 we find him a young minister in the Reformed church at Hilligersberg near Rotterdam. So we see that Junius by his university examinations really was not labelled as a philologist but as a theologian. But in the world's history the question is not how a real scholar is labelled by the school courses in his youth, but rather what be proves to be able to do. And so in later years

[p. 38]

by his splendid work in the field of philology, Junius was graduated as a real doctor of philology, not by any school examination, but by the more important examination which posterity confers upon every man after it can be recognized what he has done in behalf of the human race. The course of events in the contemporaneous history of a nation sometimes has such an influence on the life of a man as to lead him along other lines than those which at first he seemed destined to follow. So it was with Junius. In the year 1619 in consequence of the resolutions taken at the synod of Dordrecht, Junius for being a Remonstrant was dismissed from his office as a minister. He left the Netherlands and went at first to France, but soon afterwards to England, where he spent many years in the service of Arundel, duke of Norfolk, later in the service of the noble family De Vere at Oxford as the tutor of the young count Albericus de Vere, whom during the years 1642-1646 he accompanied to the Netherlands, where he lived most of the time at the Hague. About this period of his life, probably from the year 1646 until 1648 Junius went for two years to Freisland to study the Frisic language. After the death of his brother-in-law, Gerardus Vossius, who had been his guardian, he went to Amsterdam and stayed there with his sister, the widow of Gerardus Vossius. After the year 1655, when Isaac Vossius came back from Sweden, bringing with him the Gothic silver-codex, Junius with his sister and her son Isaac Vossius settled at the Hague, where they remained together for several years till Junius and Vossius both went to England, Vossius in the year 1670 to live there till he died at London in 1689, and Junius in 1675 to live there till he died at the home of Vossius at Windsor in the year 1677.

[p. 39]

During his earlier years in England Junius had made a thorough study of the Anglo-Saxon and English language and literature, and one of the results was his publication of the Paraphrase of Caedmon printed at Amsterdam in 1655. Besides this he had made transcripts of many old English manuscripts.¹ As a result of his study of the Frisic language he published four works: 1. Leges Frisionum to which he added a Frisic poem of four pages entitled: Hoe dae Friesen Roem wonner; 2. Liber legum et consuetudinum frisicarum, frisice; 3. Leges Frisionum antiquae editae per Sibrand Siccama; and 4. Dictionarium Frisico-Latinum to which he added: Carmina Frisica cum notis Junii ex chartis laceris.

From all this we may draw the conclusion that Junius knew thoroughly the English, the Anglo-Saxon, the Frisic and the Dutch languages and that he was well acquainted with German, French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, as being a theologian from Leyden University, and it certainly was a fortunate event in the history of philology that to the able hands of this man came the main codex of the Gothic language. I fear no contradiction when I say that in all Europe hardly could have been found a man to whom the silver-codex could better have been entrusted than to Franciscus Junius.

After this survey of Junius' life we return to those ten years from 1655 to 1665 during which Junius studied the Gothic language from the silver-codex, living together with his sister, the widow of Gerardus Vossius and her son Isaac Vossius. How interesting it is to see those two great Dutch scholars, Isaac Vossius and his uncle Junius, living for some years

1 See Logeman. Junius' transcripts of old English Texts, in the Academy of 1890; quoted by De Hoog. Studies, etc., I, p. 10.

[p. 40]

together a quiet life, devoted to their much beloved literary and linguistic researches in the rustic town of the Hague of that time with its beautiful environs; to see these two European scholars, who were during so many years before, nearly all the time abroad, either in France with Hugo Grotius, or in England in the company of British lords, or in Sweden at the court of Queen Christina, studying and making their researches in all libraries, leading with only a few others the development of European learning, to see those two remarkable men living together in quiet devotion enjoying the company and the delightful conversation of each other, both in their daily life under the maternal care of the widow, who was the older sister of one, and the mother of the other. Here they met with one of the great problems in the history of philology, the study and the investigation of the contents of that famous Gothic manuscript that required for several years the industrious toil of the man who more than anyone was qualified for this work. During ten years Junius occupied himself with this great and difficult task, and at the end of those ten years he gave to the world and to all posterity the results of his labor by publishing in the year 1665 at Dordrecht the four gospels contained in the Gothic codex, together with an Anglo-Saxon version¹ of the same part of the bible. To this comparative edition of the four gospels in Anglo-Saxon and in Gothic, he added a little dictionary, or glossarium, as a first step for the further study of the new field. That Junius in this great effort did not immediately bring the new field of learning to its highest development, and that he made some mistakes, is no wonder indeed. The

1 This Anglo-Saxon version had been published before, viz., in the year 1571 by John Fox. De Hoog. Studies, I, p. 14. Junius however made a revised edition.

[p. 41]

best philologist of our days may look at Junius as our present engineers look at the inventor of the first steam engine. But like the work of Watts, so Junius' work was an event in history, and it began a great movement. A movement not the least in England, where Junius had lived for so many years, where he had given so much care to the old Anglo-Saxon language of the country and where he personally had gained such fame in the literary world. Scholars of good ability followed in the footsteps of Junius, and soon George Hickes,¹ although a theologian by profession like Junius himself, studied successfully the Anglo-Saxon and the Gothic languages, and after him, during the eighteenth century Edward Lye wrote his famous Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon and the Gothic languages, published after the death of the author in the year 1772. It was also Lye who ameliorated the Etymologicum Anglicanum, which Junius had left to the Bodleian library, and which was published after the death of Lye, viz., in the year 1773; a work which Samuel Johnson used for the latest editions of his Dictionary of the English Language.²

1 Hickes published at least two important works: 1. Institutiones grammaticae Anglo-Saxonicae et Moeso-Gothicae, 1669. 2. Linguarum veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus, 1705. See De Hoog, Studies, I, 16.

2 Ibid., p. 17.