Note L — APPENDIX I. AN ESSAY ON THE ANCIENT MINSTRELS IN ENGLAND.

[Two remarkable facts.] Both these facts are recorded by William of Malmesbury; and the first of them, relating to Alfred, by Ingulphus also. Now Ingulphus (afterwards abbot of Croyland) was near forty years of age at the time of the Conquest,[1118] and consequently was as proper a judge of the Saxon manners, as if he had actually written his history before that event: he is therefore to be considered as an Anti-Norman writer; so that whether the fact concerning Alfred be true or not, we are assured from his testimony, that the joculator or minstrel was a common character among the Anglo-Saxons. The same also may be inferred from the relation of William of Malmesbury, who outlived Ingulphus but thirty-three years.[1119] Both these writers had doubtless recourse to innumerable records and authentic memorials of the Anglo-Saxon times, which never descended down to us; their testimony therefore is too positive and full to be overturned by the mere silence of the two or three slight Anglo-Saxon epitomes, that are now remaining (vid. note [G]).