[27] The only one to be compared with it is the _History of Early Frankish Christianity_, by Gregory, the Bishop of Tours, with which, indeed, it has been compared by Canon Bright, and the comparison is made in a generous spirit. [28] _König Ælfred und seine Stelle in der Geschichte Englands_, von Dr. Reinhold Pauli, Berlin, 1851. _The Life of Alfred the Great._ Translated from the German of Dr. R. Pauli. To which is appended Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon version of Orosius. With a literal English translation, etc. London, 1853. (Bohn’s Antiquarian Library.) [29] _King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon Version of Boethius_, etc. By the Rev. Samuel Fox, M.A., 1864. (Bohn’s Antiquarian Library.) This book will continue to be in request, because of the translation which faces the Anglo-Saxon text. [30] The characters Þ þ and Ð ð are of identical value, meaning TH th. [31] _King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care_, with an English translation, etc. By Henry Sweet, Esq., Balliol College, Oxford, 1871 and 1872. (Early English Text Society.) [32] My excuse for using an obsolete word is that it is Alfred’s own, and I could not do without it. Moreover, I was fortified by the hope that some poet might adopt it and revive its transitival use. [33] It is said that a critical edition, based upon the three manuscripts, is in preparation by Herr Hans Hecht. [34] This bizarre composition was published by Dr. Krebs in _Anglia_, iii. (1880). [35] Yet there is a later edition proceeding from the press, by Dr. Schipper, Professor of English at Vienna. [36] A chapter from a work in preparation, reprinted here, with some omissions and alterations, from the _Law Quarterly Review_. [37] There is more authority for this short form than for the fuller Witena-Gemót (not witenágemot as sometimes mispronounced by persons ignorant of Old-English inflexions). [38] Such a court, after the Conquest, was that which restored and confirmed the rights of the see of Canterbury on Penenden Heath: but it was held under a very special writ from the king. [39] The common form of reference in Domesday Book. [40] _Æthelr._ ii. 9. [41] There is a curious French variant of the cold-water ordeal in which not the accused person, but some bystander taken at random, is immersed: I do not know of any English example. [42] The cold-water ordeal was apparently most feared; see the case of Ailward, _Materials for Hist. St. Thomas_, i. 156, ii. 172; Bigelow, _Plac. A.-N._ 260. For a full account, see Lea, _Superstition and Force_. [43] See more in Neilson, _Trial by Combat_, an excellent and most interesting monograph. [44] Cases from D. B. collected in Bigelow, _Plac. A.-N._ 40-44, 61. Even under Henry II. we find, in terms, such an offer, but it looks, in the light of the context, more like a rhetorical asseveration—in fact the modern “j’en mettrais ma main au feu”—than anything else: _op. cit._ 196.