It would be difficult to find a subject illustrating the benefits and drawbacks of religious controversy to historical inquiry more completely than the Early British Church. The zeal and vigour with which the struggle on either side was fought out at the Reformation had the effect of focussing a fierce light upon all available evidence referring to primitive times; and of spurring the diligence of controversialists. Every by-way of history was explored for some fresh matter with which to point the arguments of that critical warfare. To this we owe such monuments of industry as Archbishop Ussher's ‘Primordia,’ the works of Stillingfleet, Father Parsons, and others. Since they wrote, the interest in the subject has continued most lively; and while new materials have not been forthcoming in any great number, the old ones have been sifted and resifted with a care and perseverance which prove that something beyond the facts has been at issue, and that a fight of principles was going on behind the screen. This has not been a mere empty parade to the historian. For him it has done the most useful of all work, and that which has been most neglected till late years, namely, passing through the crucible of criticism the raw ore of evidence, and by repeated refinement extracting the pure metal which is alone likely to live. So long as the battle was fought on the old lines, little more than this was done, and the evidence, even when sifted out, has been used on either side with that distorted leaning, that want of balance, which marks the conclusion of the partisan rather than of the impartial judge.

In the following paper the term ‘Ancient Briton’ is applied to the whole of the mixed races which inhabited this island prior to the Teutonic irruption. They consisted of the two Celtic families (the Gaels and the Brythons, or Cymri), and the pre-Celtic races. On the divisions of the latter anthropology has not yet decidedly pronounced, though it seems probable that they were not homogeneous. In any case the principal pre-Celtic type at present discovered, which may generically be termed Iberian, and which appears to correspond with that of the original neolithic inhabitants, was dark, small, and short, the average stature being only sixty-three inches. The pure Celt, on the other hand, was extremely tall, the average stature being sixty-nine inches, and that of the Saxon sixty-seven. This agrees with the statements of Polybius, Strabo, and Ammianus Marcellinus as to the height of the Celt, and at the same time accounts for the Britons being spoken of as short and thick-set. For in this country the Celt was found mixed to a large extent with the short pre-Celtic race or races. The people, therefore, that the Saxons had to contend with were, on an average, of shorter stature than themselves. They varied, no doubt, in different parts of the country, but probably the purest Iberian blood, and consequently the shortest stature, would be at the bottom of the social scale. If any pure Celtic blood remained in the country it would be chiefly in the east; and it is to the permanence of this, rather than to the superior stature of the Angles over the rest of the invaders, that I attribute the height of the present inhabitants of the Anglian districts. The prevailing physiognomy of East Anglia also supports this view; the tall stature, brown hair, grey eye, and arched nose of the pure Celt is not uncommon there.

I Must preface this paper with a remark which, in the case of most, if not all, of my hearers will be, I presume, needless: but which is far from needless for those whose studies have not been in the early history of this country. The remark is this, that it is erroneous to draw in our historical consciousness a strong black line at the event of the 14th or 22nd October 1066.