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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Non Angli sed Angeli
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(not Angles but angels) A remark supposedly made by Pope Gregory the Great, on being told that some fair-haired boys on sale as slaves in Rome were *Angles. The flattering anecdote, which has naturally had a prominent place in English tradition, first appears in *Bede's Ecclesiastical History (though the neatness of Gregory's eventual epigram is a later improvement on Bede's account). The incident was traditionally believed to have prompted Gregory to send *Augustine to convert the English.
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