Prolegomena.

After their conversion to Christianity, they were exceedingly learned; and before that, they were much addicted to soothsaying, augury, and divination by the neighing of horses, etc. And it is worth the inquiry (there being more in it than we ordinarily realize) why they in general worshiped Hertha original: "Herthus" [that is, Mother Earth] as a goddess, and honored Mercury above all the gods of the Germans, whom they called Woden original: "Wooden" (from which comes Woden's Day, now our Wednesday?). For they believed that this Mother Earth interceded in human affairs and relieved the poor. Her image was depicted as an armed woman standing among flowers, holding a staff in her right hand with a banner on it wherein a rose was painted. In her other hand she held a balance, and upon her head sat a cock; on her breast was a carved bear, and before her waist was a fixed shield original: "Scutchion". In the upper part original: "Chiefe"; a heraldic term for the top of a shield of the shield was also a balance; on the front original: "Face" was a lion; and at the bottom original: "Point" was a rose. And for their god Woden, they esteemed him as their god of battle, representing him as an armed man. Indeed, to this very day we retain the word wood original: "Wood"; an archaic term meaning mad, insane, or frantic among us to signify fierce, furious, or raging [as when someone is in a great rage, we usually say he is wood]. In the same way, the Mercury of the philosophers is hidden under the fierce and terrible names of the lion, dragon, poison, etc. But this is not all, although it is significant.

And now to come even closer to ourselves: we must say that in later times (since the Norman Conquest), our nation has produced such famous and eminently learned men that they have equaled (if not surpassed) the greatest scholars of other nations. We would be happy indeed if we could now share in the legacies they left behind, of which envy and ignorance have defrauded us. ( Regardless, we have good reason to prize the small remainder that is left,

For out of old fields, as men say,

Comes all this new corn from year to year;

And out of old books, in good faith,

Cometh all this science that men learn.

Ashmole is quoting Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Parliament of Fowls.

Our countryman John Leland (and I never heard that he was biased) abundantly testifies that England has been successively enriched with such men. He avers that generally we have had a great number of excellent wits and writers, as learned as the best of their times, who, besides their knowledge in the four languages Usually Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and the mother tongue, were skilled in