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A 

Literary   History 
of    the 
English   Peop 


From  the    Oi  "       us   to    the    I 


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J.J.    Jus        a  rid 


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PREFACE. 

Many  histories  have  preceded  this  one ;  mam 
others  will  come  after.  Such  is  the  charm  of  the 
subject,  that  volunteers  will  never  be  lacking  tc 
undertake  this  journey  so  hard,  so  delightful  too. 

As  years  go  on,  the  journey  lengthens  :  wider 
grows  the  field,  further  advance  the  seekers,  and 
from  the  top  of  unexplored  headlands,  through 
morning  mists,  they  descry  the  outlines  of  countries 
till  then  unknown.  They  must  be  followed  to 
realms  beyond  the  grave,  to  the  silent  domains  of 
the  dead,  across  barren  moors  and  frozen  fens, 
among  chill  rushes  and  briars  that  never  blossom, 
till  those  Edens  of  poetry  are  reached,  the  echoei 
of  which,  by  a  gift  of  fairies  or  of  muses,  still  vibrat - 
to  the  melody  of  voices  long  since  hushed. 

More  has  been  done  during  the  last  fifty  year; 
to  shed  light  on  the  origins,  than  in  all  the  rest  of 
modern  times.      Deciphering,  annotating,  printi 
have  gone  on  at  an  extraordinary  pace  and  withe 


45  3G 


vi  PREFACE. 

interruption  ;  the  empire  of  letters  has  thus  been 
enlarged,  according  to  the  chances  of  the  explora- 
tors'  discoveries,  by  gardens  and  deserts,  cloudy 
immensities,  and  boundless  forests  ;  its  limits  have 
receded  into  space  :  at  least  so  it  seems  to  us.  We 
laugh  at  the  simplicity  of  honest  Robertson,  who 
in  the  last  century  wondered  at  the  superabundance 
of  historical  documents  accessible  in  his  time  :  the 
day  is  not  far  distant  when  we  shall  be  laughed  at 
in  the  same  way  for  our  own  simplicity. 

The  field  of  literary  history  widens  in  another 
manner  yet,  and  that  affects  us  more  nearly.  The 
years  glide  on  so  rapidly  that  the  traveller  who 
started  to  explore  the  lands  of  former  times,  ab- 
sorbed by  his  task,  oblivious  of  days  and  months, 
is  surprised  on  his  return  at  beholding  how  the 
domain  of  the  past  has  widened.  To  the  past 
belongs  Tennyson,  the  laureate ;  to  the  past 
belongs  Browning,  and  that  ruddy  smiling  face, 
manly  and  kind,  which  the  traveller  to  realms 
beyond  intended  to  describe  from  nature  on  his 
coming  back  among  living  men,  has  faded  away, 
and  the  grey  slab  of  Westminster  covers  it.  A 
thing  of  the  past,  too,  the  master  who  first  in  France 
taught  the  way,  daring  in  his  researches,  straight- 
forward in  his  judgments,  unmindful  of  conse- 
quences, mindful  of  Truth  alone  ;  whose  life  was  a 
model  no  less  than  his  work.  The  work  subsists, 
but  who  shall  tell  what  the  life  has  been  and  what 
there  was  beneficent  in   that  patriarchal  voice  with 


PREFACE.  vii 

its  clear,  soft,  and  dignified  tones?  The  life  of 
Taine  is  a  work  which  his  other  works  have  not 
sufficiently  made  known. 

The  task  is  an  immense  one  ;  its  charm  can 
scarcely  be  expressed.  No  one  can  understand, 
who  has  not  been  there  himself,  the  delight  found 
in  those  far-off  retreats,  sanctuaries  beyond  the 
reach  of  worldly  troubles.  In  the  case  of  English 
literature  the  delight  is  the  greater  from  the  fact 
that  those  distant  realms  are  not  the  realms  of 
death  absolute  ;  daylight  is  perceived  in  the  dis- 
tance ;  the  continuity  of  life  is  felt.  The  dead  of 
Westminster  have  left  behind  them  a  posterity, 
youthful  in  its  turn  and  life-giving.  The  de- 
scendants move  around  us  ;  under  our  eyes  the 
inheritors  of  what  has  been  prepare  what  shall  be. 
In  this  lies  one  of  the  great  attractions  of  this 
literature  and  of  the  French  one  too.  Like  the 
French  it  has  remote  origins  ;  it  is  ample,  beauti- 
ful, measureless  ;  no  one  will  go  the  round  of  it ; 
it  is  impossible  to  write  its  complete  history.  An 
attempt  has  been  made  in  this  line  for  French 
literature  ;  the  work  undertaken  two  centuries  ago 
by  Benedictines,  continued  by  members  of  the 
Institute,  is  still  in  progress  ;  it  consists  at  this  day 
in  thirty  volumes  in  quarto,  and  only  the  year  131 7 
has  been  reached.  And  with  all  that  immense 
past  and  those  far-distant  origins,  those  two  litera- 
tures have  a  splendid  present  betokening  a  splendid 
future.      Both  are  alive  to-day  and  vigorous.    Ready 


viii  PREFACE. 

to  baffle  the  predictions  of  miscreants,  they  show- 
no  sign  of  decay.  They  are  ever  ready  for  trans- 
formations, not  for  death.  Side  by  side  or  face  to 
face,  in  peace  or  war,  both  literatures  as  both 
peoples  have  been  in  touch  for  centuries,  and  in 
spite  of  hates  and  jealousies  they  have  more  than 
once  vivified  each  other.  These  actions  and  re- 
actions began  long  ago,  in  Norman  times  and  even 
before  ;  when  Taillefer  sang  Roland,  and  when 
Alcuin  taught  Charlemagne. 

The  duty  of  the  traveller  visiting  already  visited 
countries  is  to  not  limit  himself  to  general  descrip- 
tions but  to  make  with  particular  care  the  kind  of 
observations  for  which  circumstances  have  fitted 
him  best.  If  he  has  the  eye  of  the  painter,  he  will 
trace  and  colour  with  unfailing  accuracy  hues  and 
outlines  ;  if  he  has  the  mind  of  the  scientist,  he  will 
study  the  formation  of  the  ground  and  classify  the 
flora  and  fauna.  If  he  has  no  other  advantage  but 
the  fact  that  circumstances  have  caused  him  to  live 
in  the  country,  at  various  times,  for  a  number  of 
years,  in  contact  with  the  people,  in  calm  days  and 
stormy  days,  he  will  perhaps  make  himself  useful, 
if  while  diminishing  somewhat  in  his  book  the  part 
usually  allowed  to  technicalities  and  aesthetic  prob- 
lems, he  increases  the  part  allotted  to  the  people 
and  to  the  nation  :  a  most  difficult  task  assuredly ; 
but  whatever  be  his  too  legitimate  apprehensions, 
he  must  attempt  it,  having  no  other  chance,  when 
so  much  has  been  done  already,  to  be  of  any  use. 


PREFACE.  ix 

The  work  in  such  a  case  will  not  be,  properly 
speaking,  a  "  History  of  English  Literature,"  but 
rather  a  "  Literary  History  of  the  English  Peopl<  .  ' 
Not  only  will  the  part  allotted  to  the  nation  itself 
be  greater  in  such  a  book  than  habitually  happens, 
but  several  manifestations  of  its  genius,  generally 
passed  over  in  silence,  will  have  to  be  studied.  The 
acres  during  which  the  national  thought  expressed 
itself  in  laneuaees  which  were  not  the  national  one, 
will  not  be  allowed  to  remain  blank,  as  if,  for  com- 
plete periods,  the  inhabitants  of  the  island  had 
ceased  to  think  at  all.  The  growing  into  shape  of 
the  people's  genius  will  have  to  be  studied  with 
particular  attention.  The  Chapter  House  of  West- 
minster will  be  entered,  and  there  shall  be  seen  how 
the  nation,  such  as  it  was  then  represented,  became 
conscious,  even  under  the  Plantagenets,  of  its  exist- 
ence, rights,  and  power.  Philosophers  and  reformers 
must  be  questioned  concerning  the  theories  which 
they  spread  :  and  not  without  some  purely  literary 
advantage.  Bacon,  Hobbes,  and  Locke  are  the 
ancestors  of  many  poets  who  have  never  read  their 
works,  but  who  have  breathed  an  air  impregnated 
with  their  thought.  Dreamers  will  be  followed, 
singers,  tale-tellers,  and  preachers,  wherever  it 
pleases  them  to  lead  us  :  to  the  Walhalla  of  the 
north,  to  the  green  dales  of  Erin,  to  the  Saxon 
church  of  Brad  ford-on- Avon,  to  Blackheath,  to  the 
"  Tabard  "  and  the  "  Mermaid,"  to  the  "  Globe,"  to 
"  Will's"  coffee  house,  among  ruined  fortresses,  to 


x  PREFACE. 

cloud-reaching  steeples,  or  along  the  furrow  sown 
to  good  intent  by  Piers  the  honest  Plowman. 

The  work,  the  first  part  of  which  is  being  pub- 
lished, is  meant  to  be  divided  into  three  volumes  ; 
but  as  "  surface  as  small  as  possible  must  be  offered 
to  the  shafts  of  Fortune,"  each  volume  will  make  a 
complete  whole  in  itself,  the  first  telling  the  literary- 
story  of  the  English  up  to  the  Renaissance,  the 
second  up  to  the  accession  of  King  Pope,  the  last 
up  to  our  day. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  say  everything  and 
be  complete.  Many  notes  will  however  allow  the 
curious  to  go  themselves  to  the  sources,  to  verify,  to 
see  with  their  own  eyes,  and,  if  they  find  cause 
{absit  omen/),  to  disagree.  In  those  notes  most  of 
the  space  has  been  filled  by  references  to  originals  ; 
little  has  been  left  for  works  containing-  criticisms 
and  appreciations  :  the  want  of  room  is  the  only 
reason,  not  the  want  of  reverence  and  sympathy  for 
predecessors. 

To  be  easily  understood  one  must  be  clear,  and 
to  be  clear,  qualifications  and  attenuations  must  be 
reduced  to  a  minimum.  The  reader  will  surely 
understand  that  many  more  "  perhapses "  and 
"  abouts  "  were  in  the  mind  of  the  author  than  will 
be  found  in  print  ;  he  will  make,  in  his  benevolence, 
due  allowance  for  the  roughness  of  that  instrument, 
speech,  applied  to  events,  ideas,  theories,  things  of 
beauty,  as  difficult  to  measure  with  rule  as  "  the 
myst  on   Malverne    hulles."      He    will    know  that 


PREFACE.  xi 

when  Saxons  are  described  as  having  a  sad,  solemn 
genius,  and  not  numbering  among  their  pre-eminent 
qualities  the  gift  of  repartee,  it  does  not  mean  that 
for  six  centuries  they  all  of  them  sat  and  wept 
without  intermission,  and  that  when  asked  a  question 
they  never  knew  what  to  answer.  All  men  are  men, 
and  have  human  qualities  more  or  less  developed 
in  their  minds  ;  nothing  more  is  implied  in  those 
passages  but  that  this  quality  was  more  developed 
in  one  particular  race  of  men,  and  that  in  another. 
When  a  book  is  just  finished  there  is  always  for 
the  author  a  most  doleful  hour,  when  retracing  his 
steps  he  thinks  of  what  he  has  attempted,  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  task,  the  unlikeliness  that  he  has  over- 
come them.  Misprints  taking  wrong  numbers  by 
the  hand,  black  and  thorny  creatures,  dance  their 
wild  dance  round  him.  He  is  awe-stricken,  and 
shudders  ;  he  wonders  at  the  boldness  of  his  under- 
taking ;  "  Qu'  allait-il  faire  dans  cette  ^alere  ?  "  The 
immensity  of  the  task,  the  insufficience  of  the  means 
stand  in  striking  contrast.  He  had  started  singing 
on  his  journey  ;  now  he  looks  for  excuses  to  justify 
his  having  ever  begun  it.  Usually,  it  must  be 
confessed,  he  finds  some,  prints  them  or  not,  and 
recovers  his  spirits.  I  have  published  other  works  ; 
I  think  I  did  not  print  the  excuses  I  found  to 
explain  the  whys  and  the  wherefores  ;  they  were 
the  same  in  all  cases :  roadway  stragglers,  Piers 
Plowman,  Count  Cominges,  Tudor  novelists,  were 
in  a  large  measure  left-ofT  subjects.      No  books  had 


xii  PREFACE. 

been  dedicated  to  them  ;  the  attempt,  therefore, 
could  not  be  considered  as  an  undue  intrusion.  But 
in  this  present  case,  what  can  be  said,  what  excuse 
can  be  found,  when  so  many  have  written,  and  so 
well,  too  ? 

The  author  of  this  book  had  once  a  drive  in 
London  ;  when  it  was  finished,  he  offered  the  cab- 
man his  fare.  Cabman  glanced  at  it  ;  it  did  not 
look  much  in  his  large,  hollow  hand  ;  he  said  :  "  I 
want  sixpence  more."  Author  said:  "Why?  It  is 
the  proper  fare  ;  I  know  the  distance  very  well ;  give 
me  a  reason."  Cabman  mused  for  a  second,  and 
said  :   "  I  should  like  it  so  ! " 

I  might  perhaps  allege  a  variety  of  reasons,  but 
the  true  one  is  the  same  as  the  cabman's.  I  did 
this  because  I  could  not  help  it ;  I  loved  it  so. 

J. 

All  Souls  Day,  1 894. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


PAGH 

Preface  ..         i 


BOOK    I. 

THE     ORIGINS. 

CHAPTER   I. 

BRITANNIA. 


I.  Fusion  of  Races  in  France  and  in  England. — First  inhabi- 
tants— Celtic  realms — The  Celts  in  Britain — Similitude  with  the 
Celts  of  Gaul — Their  religion — Their  quick  minds — Their  gift 
of  speech  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         3 

II.  Celtic  Literature. — Irish  stories — Wealth  of  that  literature — 
Its  characteristics — The  dramatic  gift — Inventiveness — Heroic 
deeds — Familiar  dialogues — Love  and  woman — Welsh  tales        ...         9 

III.   Roman  Conquest. — Duration  and  results— First  coming  of  the 

Germanic  invader        ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...       18 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE    GERMANIC    INVASION. 

The  mother  country  of  the  Germanic  invader — Tacitus — Germans  and 
Scandinavians — The  great  invasions — Character  of  the  Teutonic 
nations — Germanic  kingdoms  established  in  formerly  Roman 
provinces. 

Jutes,    Frisians,  Angles,    and   Saxons — British   resistance  and 
defeat — Problem  of  the  Celtic  survival — Results  of  the  Germanic 

invasions  in  England  and  France      ...         ..        21 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   III. 
THE   NATIONAL    POETRY    OF   THE    ANGLO-SAXONS. 

PAGE 

I.  The  Poetry  of  the  North. — The  Germanic  period  of  English 
literature — Its  characteristics — Anglo-Saxon  poetry  stands  apart 
and  does  not  submit  to  Celtic  influence — Comparison  with 
Scandinavian  literature — The  Eddas  and  Sagas ;  the  "  Corpus 
Poeticum  Boreale  " — The  heroes  ;  their  tragical  adventures — 
Their  temper  and  sorrows    ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...       36 

II.  Anglo-Saxon  Poems. — War-songs — Epic  tales  —  Waldhere, 
Beowulf — Analysis  of  "Beowulf" — The  ideal  of  happiness  in 
"Beowulf" — Landscapes — Sad  meditations — The  idea  of  death 
— Northern  snows 45 

CHAPTER   IV. 

CHRISTIAN     LITERATURE     AND     PROSE     LITERATURE    OF    THE 

ANGLO-SAXONS. 

I.  Conversion. — Arrival  of  Augustine — The  new  teaching — The 
imperial  idea  and  the  Christian  idea — Beginnings  of  the  new 
faith — Heathen  survivals — Convents  and  schools — Religious  kings 
and  princes — Proselytism,  St.  Boniface        ...         ...         ...         ...       60 

II.  Latin  Culture. — Manuscripts — Alcuin,  St.  Boniface,  Aldhelm, 
yEddi,  Bede — Life  and  writings  of  Bede— His  "  Ecclesiastical 
History" — His  sympathy  for  the  national  literature  65 

III.  Christian  Poems. — The  genius  of  the  race  remains  nearly  un- 

changed— Heroical  adventures  of  the  saints — Paraphrase  of  the 
Bible — Csedmon — Cynewulf — His  sorrows  and  despair — "Dream 
of  the  Rood" — "Andreas" — Lugubrious  sights — The  idea  of 
death  —  Dialogues  —  Various  poems  —  The  "  Physiologus  " — 
"Phoenix"       68 

IV.  Prose — Alfred  the  Great. — Laws   and   charters — Alfred   and 

the  Danish  invasions — The  fight  for  civilisation — Translation  of 
works  by  St.  Gregory,  Orosius  (travels  of  Ohthere),  Boethius  (story 
of  Orpheus) — Impulsion  given  to  prose — Werferth — Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicles— Character  of  Alfred      ...         ...         ...         ...         ...       78 

V.  St.  Dunstan — Sermons. — St.  Dunstan  (tenth  century)  resumes 
the  work  of  Alfred — Translation  of  pious  works — Collections  of 
sermons — /Elfric,  Wulfstan,  "Blickling"  homilies — Attempt  to 
reach  literary  dignity. 

End  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period     ...         ...         ...         ...         ...       88 


CONTENTS.  xv 

BOOK   II. 

THE  TRENCH  IN  VA  SI ON. 

CHAPTER   I. 

BATTLE. 

PAGK 

I.  The  Invaders  of  the  Year  1066.— England  between  two 
civilisations — The  North  and  South — The  Scandinavians  at 
Stamford-bridge. 

The  Normans  of  France— The  army  of  William  is  a  French 
army — Character  of  William — The  battle — Occupation  of  the 
country      ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...       97 

II.  England  bound  to  Southern  Civilisations.— Policy  of 
William — Survey  of  his  new  domains — Unification — The  suc- 
cessors of  William — Their  practical  mind  and  their  taste  for 
adventures — Taste  for  art — French  families  settled  in  England — 
Continental  possessions  of  English  kings — French  ideal — Unifica- 
tion of  origins — Help  from  chroniclers  and  poets — The  Trojan 
ancestor  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         .M         ...     104 

CHAPTER    II. 

LITERATURE    IN    THE     FRENCH     LANGUAGE    UNDER    THE    NORMAN 

AND    ANGEVIN    KINGS. 

I.  Diffusion  of  the  French  Language. — The  French  language 
superimposed  on  the  English  one — Its  progress  ;  even  among 
"  lowe  men  " — Authors  of  English  blood  write  their  works  in 
French...  ...         ...         ...         ...         116 

II.  The  French  Literature  of  the  Normans  and  Angevins. 
— It  is  animated  by  their  own  practical  and  adventurous  mind — 
Practical  works  :  chronicles,  scientific  and  pious  treatises  ...     120 

III.  Epic  Romances. — The  Song   of  Roland   and   the    Charlemagne 

cycle — Comparison  with  "  Beowulf" — The  matter  of  Rome — 
How  antiquity  is  translated — Wonders — The  matter  of  Britain — 
Love — Geoffrey  of  Monmouth — Tristan  and  Iseult — Lancelot 
and  Guinevere — Woman — Love  as  a  passion  and  love  as  a 
ceremonial         ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...      125 

IV.  Lays  and  Chansons. — Shorter  stories — Lays  of  Marie  de  France 

—  Chansons  of  France — Songs  in  French  composed  in  England  ...      14I 

I* 


xvi  CONTENTS. 


J"  AGE 


V.  Satirical  and  Ironical  Works. — Such  works  introduced  in 
England — The  pilgrimage  of  Charlemagne — The  "  Roman  de 
Renart,"  a  universal  comedy — Fabliaux — Their  migrations  — 
Their  aim — Their  influence  in  England       ...         ...         ...         ...     146 

CHAPTER   III. 

LATIN. 

I.  The   Ties  with  Rome. — William  I.,  Henry  II.,  John— Church 
lands — The  "exempt"  abbeys — Coming  of  the  friars— The  clergy 
in    Parliament — Part   played   by  prelates  in   the  State — Warrior 
prelates,  administrators,  scavants,  saints     ...         ...         ...         ...     157 

II.  Spreading  ov  Knowledge. — Latin  education — Schools  and 
libraries — Book  collectors  :  Richard  of  Bury — Paris,  chief  town 
for  Latin  studies — The  Paris  University  ;  its  origins,  teaching, 
and  organisation — English  students  at  Paris — Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge— Studies,  battles,  feasts — Colleges,  chests,  libraries  ...     166 

III.  Latin  Poets. — Joseph  of  Exeter  and  the  Trojan  war — Epigram- 

matists, satirists,  fabulists,  &c. — Nigel  Wireker  and  the  ass  whose 
tail  was  too  short — Theories  :  Geoffrey  of  Vinesauf  and  his  New 
Art  of  Poetry 176 

IV.  Latin    Prosators — Tales  and   Exempla. — Geoffrey  of  Mon- 

mouth— Moralised  tales — "  Gesta  Romanorum" — John  of  Brom- 
yard— "  Risque  "  tales,  fables  in  prose,  miracles  of  the  Virgin, 
romantic  tales — A  Latin  sketch  of  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice" — 
Tohn  of  Salisbury  ;  Walter  Map — Their  pictures  of  contemporary 
manners  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...     181 

V.  Theologians,  Jurists,  Scientists,  Historians.  —  The 
"Doctors";  Scot,  Bacon,  Ockham,  Bradwardine,  &c. — 
Gaddesden  the  physician — Bartholomew  the  encyclopaedist — 
Rinnan  law  and  English  law — Vacarius,  Glanville,  Bracton,  &c. 
History — Composition  of  chronicles  in  monasteries — Impartiality 
of  chroniclers — Their  idea  of  historical  art — Henry  of  Huntingdon, 
William  of  Malmesbury,  Matthew  Paris — Observation  of  manners, 
preservation  of  characteristic  anecdotes,  attempt  to  paint  with 
colours — Higden,  Walsingham  and  others  ...         ...         .  .         .  .     193 

CHAPTER   IV. 

LITERATURE    IN    THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE. 

I.  Pious  Literature. — A  period  of  silence — First  works  (pious  ones) 
copied,  translated  or  composed  in  English  after  the  Conquest — 
Sermons — Lives  of  saints — Treatises  of  various  sort — "  Ancren 
Kiwle  " — Translation  of  French  treatises — Life  and  works  of 
Rolle  of  Ham  pole        204 


CONTENTS.  xvii 


II.  Worldly  Literature. — Adaptation  and  imitation  of  French 
writings — The  "  Brut  "  of  Layamon — -Translation  of  romances  of 
chivalry — Romances  dedicated  to  heroes  of  English  origin- 
Satirical  fabliaux — Renard  in  English — Lays  and  tales — Songs 
— Comparison  with  French  chansons  ...         ...         ...         ...     219 


BOOK    III. 

ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 
CHAPTER  I. 

THE    NEW    NATION. 

I.  Fusion  of  Races  and  Languages. — Abolition  of  the  present- 
ment of  Englishery,  1 340 — Survival  of  the  French  language  in 
the  fourteenth  century— The  decline — Fart  played  by  "  lowe 
men "  in  the  formation  of  the  English  language — The  new 
vocabulary  —  The  new  prosody  —  The  new  grammar  —  The 
definitive  language  of  England  an  outcome  of  a  transaction 
between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  French  language         ...         ...     235 

II.  Political  Formation. — The  nation  coalesces — The  ties  with 
France  and  Rome  are  loosening  or  breaking — A  new  source  of 
power,  Westminster  —  Formation,  importance,  privileges  of 
Parliament  under  the  Plantagenets — Spirit  of  the  Commons — 
Their  Norman  bargains — Comparison  with  France  ...        '...     248 

III.  Maritime  Power;  Wealth  and  Arts. — Importance  of  the 
English  trade  in  the  fourteenth  century — The  great  traders — 
Their  influence  on  State  affairs— The  English,  "  rois  de  la  mer  " 
— Taste  for  travels  and  adventures. 

Arts — Gold,  silver  and  ivory  —  Miniatures  and  enamels — 
Architecture — Paintings  and  tapestries — Comparative  comfort  of 
houses — The  hall  and  table — Dresses — The  nude — The  cult  for 
beauty 355 

CHAPTER    II. 
CHAUCER. 
The  Poet  of  the  new  nation     ...         ...         ...         267 

I.  Youth  of  Chaucer. — His  London  life — London  in  the  four- 
teenth century — Chaucer  as  a  page — His  French  campaigns — 
Valettus  camerse  Regis — Esquire — Married  life — Poetry  a  la 
mode — Machault,  Deguileville,  Froissart,  Des  Champs,  &c. — 
Chaucer's  love  ditties — The  "Roman  de  la  Ruse"—  "Book 
of  the  Duchesse  "      268 


xviii  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


II.  Period  of  the  Missions  to  France  and  Italy. — The 
functions  of  an  ambassador  and  messenger — Various  missions — 
Chaucer  in  Italy,  1372-3,  1 378-9— Influence  of  Italian  art  and 
literature  on  Chaucer — London  again  ;  the  Custom  House  ; 
Aldgate — Works  of  this  period — Latin  and  Italian  ideal — The 
gods  of  Olympus,  the  nude,  the  classics — Imitation  of  Dante, 
Petrarch,  Boccaccio — "  Hous  of  Fame  "   ...         ...         ...         ...     282 

III.  Troilus  and  Criseyde. — Plot  derived  from  Boccaccio  but  trans- 

formed— A  novel  and  a  drama — Life  and  variety — Heroism  and 
vulgarity — Troilus,  Pandarus,  Cressida — Scenes  of  comedy — 
Attempt  at  psychological  analysis — Nuances  in  Cressida's  feel- 
ings— Her  inconstancy — Melancholy  and  grave  ending — Differ- 
ence with  Boccaccio  and  Pierre  de  Beauveau        ...         ...         ...     298 

IV.  English  Period. — Chaucer  a  member  of  Parliament — Clerk  of 

the  king's  works — "Canterbury  Tales" — The  meeting  at  the 
"  Tabard  " — Gift  of  observation — Real  life,  details — Difference 
with  Froissart — Humour,  sympathy — Part  allotted  to  "lowe 
men." 

The  collections  of  tales — The  "  Decameron  " — The  aim  of 
Chaucer  and  of  Boccaccio — Chaucer's  variety  ;  speakers  and 
listeners — Dialogues — Principal  tales — Facetious  and  coarse  ones 
— Plain  ones — Fairy  tales — Common  life — Heroic  deeds — 
Grave  examples — Sermon. 

The  care  for  truth — Good  sense  of  Chaucer — His  language 
and  versification — Chaucer  and  the  Anglo-Saxons — Chaucer  and 
the  French      ...         ...         ...  ...         ...         ...         ...  ...     312 

V.  Last    Years. — Chaucer,    King   of    Letters — His   retreat    in    St. 

Mary's,  Westminster — His  death — His  fame        ...     341 


CHAPTER    III. 
THE    GROUP    OF    POETS. 

Coppice  and  forest  trees  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...     344 

Metrical  Romances.— Jugglers  and  minstrels — Their  life,  deeds, 
and  privileges — Decay  of  the  profession  towards  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance — Romances  of  the  "  Sir  Thopas"  type — Monotony  ; 
inane  wonders — Better  examples  :  "  Morte  Arthure,"  "William 
of  Palerne,"  "  Gawayne  and  the  Green  Knight" — Merits  of 
"Gawayne" — From  (probably)  the  same  author,  "Pearl,"  on 
the  death  of  a  young  maid — Vision  of  the  Celestial  City  ...     344 


CONTENTS.  xix 


l-.V.B 


II.  Amorous  Ballads  and   Popular   Poetry.— Poetry  at   Court 

— The  Black  Prince  and  the  great — Professional  poets  come  to 
the  help  of  the  great — The  Pui  of  London  ;  its  competitions, 
music  and  songs  — Satirical  songs  on  women,  friars,  fops,  &c.    ...     352 

III.  Patriotic  Poetry. — Robin   Hood — "When  Adam  delved" — 

Claims  of  peasants — Answers  to  the  peasants'  claims — National 
glories — Adam  Davy — Crecy,  Poictiers,  Neville's  Cross — Lau- 
rence Minot — Recurring  sadness — French  answers — Scottish 
answers — Barbour's  "  Bruce  " — Style  of  Barbour — Barbour  and 
Scott ...     359 

IV.  John  Gower. — His  origin,  family,  turn  of  mind — He  belongs  to 

Angevin  England— He  is  trilingual — Life  and  principal  works — 
French  ballads — Latin  poem  on  the  rising  of  the  peasants,  1381, 
and  on  the  vices  of  society — Poem  in  English,  "  Confessio 
Amantis  " — Style  of  Gower — His  tales  and  exempla — His  fame     364 


CHAPTER   IV. 

WILLIAM     LANGLAND     AND     HIS     VISIONS. 

Langland  first  poet  of  the  period  after  Chaucer        ...         ...         ...     373 

I.  Life  and  Works. — A  general  view — Birth,  education,  natural 
disposition — Life  at  Malvern — His  unsettled  state  of  mind — 
Curiosities  and  failures — Life  in  London — Chantries — Disease 
of  the  will — Religious  doubts — The  faith  of  the  simple — His 
book  a  place  ot  refuge  for  him         ...  ...  ...  ...  ...     374 

II.  Analysis  of  the  Visions. — The  pilgrirja^of  Langland  and  the 
pilgrims  of  Chaucer — The  road  to  Canterbury  and  the  way  to 
Truth — Lady  Meed  ;  her  betrothal,  her  trial — Speech  of  Reason 
— The  hero  of  the  work,  Piers  the  Plowman — A  declaration  of 
duties — Sermons — The  siege  of  hell — The  end  of  life      ...         ...     382 

III.  Political  Society  and  Religious  Society. — Comparison 
with  Chaucer — Langland's  crowds — Langland  an  insular  and  a 
parliamentarian — The  "  Visions  "  and  the  "  Rolls  of  Parliament  " 
agree  on  nearly  all  points — Langland  at  one  with  the  Commons 
— Organisation  of  the  State — Reforms — Relations  with  France, 
with  the  Pope — Religious  buyers  and  sellers— The  ideal  of 
Langland        ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ■■•  3^S 


xx  CONTENTS. 


PAOB 


IV.  Art  and  Aim. — Duplication  of  his  personality — "  Nuit  de 
Decembre  " — Sincerity  —  Incoherences  —  Scene-shifting  — Joys 
forbidden  and  allowed — A  motto  for  Langland — His  language, 
vocabulary,  dialect,  versification — Popularity  of  the  work — Four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries — Time  of  the  Reformation  ...     394 


CHATTER   V. 
PROSE   IN   THE    FOURTEENTH  CENTURY. 

The  "  father  of  English  prose  "  403 

I.  Translators  and  Adaptators. — Slow  growth  of  the  art  of  prose 
— Comparison  with  France  ;  historians  and  novelists — Survival  of 
Latin  prose — Walsingham  and  other  chroniclers — Their  style  and 
eloquence — Translators — Trevisa — The  translation  of  the  Travels 
of  "  Mandeville  " — The  "  Mandeville  "  problem— Jean  de  Bour- 
gogne  and  his  journey  through  books — Immense  success  of  the 
Travels — Style  of  the  English  translation — Chaucer's  prose       ...     4°4 

II.  Oratorical  Art. — Civil  eloquence — Harangues  and  speeches — 
John  Ball — Parliamentary  eloquence — A  parliamentary  session 
under  the  Plantagenet  kings — Proclamation— Opening  speech — 
Flowery  speeches  and  business  speeches — Debates — Answers  of 
the  Commons — Their  Speaker — Government  orators,  Knyvet, 
Wykeham,  &c. — Opposition  orators,  Peter  de  la  Mare — Bargains 
and  remonstrances — Attitude  and  power  of  the  Commons — Use 
of  the  French  language — Speeches  in  English      ...         412 

III.  Wyclif.     His    Life — His   parentage — Studies   at   Oxford — His 

character — Functions  and  dignities — First  difficulties  with  the 
religious  authority — Scene  in  St.  Paul's — Fapal  bulls— Scene 
at  Lambeth — The  "  simple  priests  " — Attacks  against  dogmas — 
Life  at  Lutterworth — Death  422 

IV.  Latin    Works    of    Wyclif. — His    Latin — His   theory    of   the 

Dominium— His  starting-point  :  the  theory  of  Fitzralph — 
Extreme,  though  logical,  consequence  of  the  doctrine  :  com- 
munism— Qualifications  and  attenuations — Tendency  towards 
Royal  supremacy        ...         ...         ...         •••         •■•         ••■         •••     427 

V.  English  Works  of  Wyclif.  — He  wants  to  be  understood  by  all — 
He  translates  the  Bible— Popularity  of  the  translation— Sermons 
and  treatises— His  style — Humour,  eloquence,  plain  dealing — 
Paradoxes  and  utopies — Lollards — His  descendants  in  Bohemia 
and  elsewhere...         ...         ...         •••         ••■         •••         •••         •••     432 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   VI. 

THE  THEATRE. 

\|l.  Origins.  Civil  Sources. — Mimes  and  histrions— Amusements 
and  sights  provided  by  histrions — How  they  raise  a  laugh — 
Facetious  tales  told  with  appropriate  gestures — Dialogues  and 
repartees — Parodies  and  caricatures — Early  interludes — Licence 
of  amusers — Bacchanals  in  churches  and  cemeteries — Holy  things 
derided — leasts  of  various  sorts — Processions  and  pageants — 
"  Tableaux  Vivants  " — Compliments  and  dialogues — Feasts  at 
Court— "  Masks  "      


XXI 


i-ACF. 


439 


II.  Religious  Sources. — Mass— Dialogues  introduced  in  the  Christ- 
mas sen-ice — The  Christmas  cycle  (Old  Testament) — The  Easter 
cycle  (New  Testament). 

The  religious  drama  in  England — Life  of  St.  Catherine  (twelfth 
century) — Popularity  of  Mysteries  in  the  fourteenth  century — 
Treatises  concerning  those  representations — Testimony  of  Chaucer 
William  of  Wadington — Collection  of  Mysteries  in  English. 

Performances — Players,  scaffolds  or  pageants,  dresses,  boxes, 
scenery,  machinery — Miniature  by  Jean  Fouquet — Incoherences 
and  anachronisms       ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...     456 

III.  Literary  and  Historical  value  of  Mysteries. — The  ances- 

tors' feelings  and  tastes — Sin  and  redemption — Caricature  of 
kings — Their  ' '  boast " — Their  use  of  the  French  tongue—  They 
have  to  maintain  silence — Popular  scenes — Noah  and  his  wife — 
The  poor  workman  and  the  taxes — A  comic  pastoral — The 
Christmas  shepherds — Mak  and  the  stolen  sheep ...     476 

IV.  Decay  of  the  Medieval  Stage. — Moralities— Personified  ab- 

stractions —  The  end  of  Mysteries — They  continue  being  per- 
formed in  the  time  of  Shakespeare  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...     489 

CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  END  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

I.  Decline. — Chaucer's  successors — The  decay  of  art  is  obvious  even 
to  them — The  society  for  which  they  write  is  undergoing  a  trans- 
formation— Lydgate  and  Hoccleve ...  ...  ...  ...  ...     495 

II.  Scotsmen. — They  imitate  Chaucer  but  with  more  freedom — James 
I. — Blind  Harry — Henryson — The  town  mouse  and  the  country 
mouse — Dunbar — Gavin  Douglas — Popular  ballads — Poetry  in 
the  flamboyant  style  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...     503 


xxii  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


III.  Material  welfare  ;    Prose. — Development   of  the  lower  and 

middle  class — Results  of  the  wars — Trade,  navy,  savings. 

Books  of  courtesy— Familiar  letters  ;  Paston  Letters — Guides 
for  the  traveller  and  trader — Fortescue  and  his  praise  of  English 
institutions — Pecock  and  his  defence  of  the  clergy — His  style  and 
humour — Compilers,  chroniclers,  prosators  of  various  sort — 
Malory,  Caxton,  Juliana  Berners,  Capgrave,  &c 513 

IV.  The  Dawn  of  the  Renaissance. — The  literary  movement   in 

Italy— Greek  studies — Relations  with  Eastern  men  of  letters — 
Turkish  wars  and  Greek  exiles — Taking  of  Constantinople  by 
Mahomet  II. — Consequences  felt  in  Italy,  France,  and  England.     523 

Index 527 


BOOK   I. 
THE   ORIGINS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
BRITANNIA, 

I. 

The  people  that  now  occupies  England  was  formed,  like  the 
French  people,  by  the  fusion  of  several  superimposed  races. 
In  both  countries  the  same  races  met  and  mingled  at  about 
the  same  period,  but  in  different  proportions  and  under 
dissimilar  sociaj__-gonditions.  Hence  the  striking  resem- 
blances and  sharply  defined  contrasts  that  exist  in  the 
genius  of  the  two  nations.  Hence  also  the  contradictory 
sentiments  which  mutually  animated  them  from  century 
to  century,  those  combinations  and  recurrences  of  esteem 
that  rose  to  admiration,  and  jealousy  that  swelled  to  hate. 
Hence,  again,  the  unparalleled  degree  of  interest  they  offer, 
one  for  the  other.  The  two  people  are  so  dissimilar  that  in 
borrowing  from  each  other  they  run  no  risk  of  losing  their 
national  characteristics  and  becoming  another's  image ;  and 
yet,  so  much  alike  are  they,  it  is  impossible  that  what  they 
borrowed  should  remain  barren  and  unproductive.  These 
loans  act  like  leaven  :  the  products  of  English  thought 
during  the  Augustan  age  of  British  literature  were  mixed 
with  French  leaven,  and  the  products  of  French  thought 
during  the  Victor  Hugo  period  were  penetrated  with 
English  yeast. 

Ancient  writers  have  left  us  little  information  concerning 
the    remotest   period    and    the   oldest    inhabitants  of  the 

3 


4  THE   ORIGINS. 

British  archipelago  ;  works  which  would  be  invaluable  to 
us  exist  only  in  meagre  fragments.  Important  gaps  have 
fortunately  been  filled,  owing  to  modern  Science  and  to 
her  manifold  researches.  She  has  inherited  the  wand  of 
the  departed  wizards,  and  has  touched  with  her  talisman 
the  gate  of  sepulchres  ;  the  tombs  have  opened  and  the 
dead  have  spoken.  What  countries  did  thy  war-ship 
visit  ?  she  inquired  of  the  Scandinavian  viking.  And  in 
answer  the  dead  man,  asleep  for  centuries  among  the  rocks 
of  the  Isle  of  Skye,  showed  golden  coins  of  the  caliphs  in 
his  skeleton  hand.  These  coins  are  not  a  figure  of  speech  ; 
they  are  real,  and  may  be  seen  at  the  Edinburgh  Museum. 
The  wand  "has  touched  old  undeciphered  manuscripts,  and 
broken  the  charm  that  kept  them  dumb.  From  them  rose 
songs,  music,  love-ditties,  and  war-cries  :  phrases  so  full  of 
life  that  the  living  hearts  of  to-day  have  been  stirred  by 
them  ;  words  with  so  much  colour  in  them  that  the  land- 
scape familiar  to  the  eyes  of  the  Celts  and  Germans  has 
reappeared  before  us. 

Much  remains  undiscovered,  and  the  dead  hold  secrets 
they  may  yet  reveal.  In  the  unexplored  tombs  of  the 
Nile  valley  will  be  found  one  day,  among  the  papyri 
stripped  from  Ptolemaic  mummies,  the  account  of  a  journey 
made  to  the  British  Isles  about  330  B.C.,  by  a  Greek  of 
Marseilles  named  Pytheas,  a  contemporary  of  Aristotle 
and  Alexander  the  Great,  of  which  a  few  sentences  only 
have  been  preserved.1  But  even  now  the  darkness  which 
enveloped  the  origin  has  been  partly  cleared  away. 

To  the  primitive  population,  the  least  known  of  all,  that 
reared  the  stones  of  Carnac  in  France,  and  in  England  the 
gigantic  circles  of  Stonehenge  and   Avebury,  succeeded  in 

1  On  Pytheas,  see  Elton,  "Origins  of  English  History,"  London,  1890,  8vo 
(2nd  ed.),  pp.  12  and  following.  He  visited  the  coasts  of  Spain,  Gaul,  Britain, 
and  returned  by  the  Shetlands.  The  passages  of  his  journal  preserved  for  us 
by  the  ancients  are  given  on  pp.  400  and  401. 


BRITANNIA.  5 

both  countries,  many  centuries  before  Christ,  the  Celtic 
race. 

The  Celts  (/ceArat)  were  thus  called  by  the  Greeks  from 
the  name  of  one  of  their  principal  tribes,  in  the  same  way 
as  the  French,  English,  Scottish,  and  German  nations 
derive  theirs  from  that  of  one  of  their  principal  tribes. 
They  occupied,  in  the  third  century  before  our  era,  the 
greater  part  of  Central  Europe,  of  the  France  of  to-day, 
of  Spain,  and  of  the  British  Isles.  They  were  neighbours 
of  the  Greeks  and  Latins  ;  the  centre  of  their  possessions 
was  in  Bavaria.  From  there,  and  not  from  Gaul,  set  out 
the  expeditions  by  which  Rome  was  taken,  Delphi  plun- 
dered, and  a  Phrygian  province  rebaptized  Galatia. 
Celtic  cemeteries  abound  throughout  that  region;  the  most 
remarkable  of  them  was  discovered,  not  in  France,  but  at 
Hallstadt,  near  Salzburg,  in  Austria.1 

The  language  of  the  Celts  was  much  nearer  the  Latin 
tongue  than  the  Germanic  idioms  ;  it  comprised  several 
dialects,  and  amongst  them  the  Gaulish,  long  spoken  in 
Gaul,  the  Gaelic,  the  Welsh,  and  the  Irish,  still  used  in 
Scotland,  Wales,  and  Ireland.  The  most  important  of 
the  Celtic  tribes,  settled  in  the  main  island  beyond  the 
Channel,  gave  itself  the  name  of  Britons.  Hence  the 
name  of  Britain  borne  by  the  country,  and  indirectly 
that  also  of  Great  Britain,  now  the  official  appellation 
of  England.  The  Britons  appear  to  have  emigrated 
from  Gaul  and  established  themselves  among  the  other 
Celtic  tribes  already  settled  in  the  island,  about  the  third 
century  before  Christ. 

During  several  hundred  years,  from  the  time  of  Pytheas 
to  that  of  the  Roman  conquerors,  the  Mediterranean  world 
remained    ignorant    of    what    took    place    among    insular 

1  See,  on  this  subject,  A.  Bertrand,  "  La  Gaule  avant  les  Gaulois,"  Paris, 
1891,  8vo  (2nd  ed.),  pp.  7  and  13;  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville,  "Revue  His- 
torique,"  January-February,  1886. 


6  THE   ORIGINS. 

Britons,  and  we  are  scarcely  better  informed  than  they 
were.  The  centre  of  human  civilisation  had  been  moved 
from  country  to  country  round  the  great  inland  sea, 
having  now  reached  Rome,  without  anything  being  known 
save  that  north  of  Gaul  existed  a  vast  country,  surrounded 
by  water,  rich  in  tin  mines,  covered  by  forests,  prairies,  and 
morasses,  from  which  dense  mists  arose. 

Three  centuries  elapse  ;  the  Romans  are  settled  in  Gaul. 
Caesar,  at  the  head  of  his  legions,  has  avenged  the  city  for 
the  insults  of  the  Celtic  invaders,  but  the  strife  still  con- 
tinues; Vercingetorix  has  not  yet  appeared.  Actuated  by 
that  sense  of  kinship  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  Celts,  the  effects 
of  which  are  still  to  be  seen  from  one  shore  of  the  Atlantic 
to  the  other,  the  Britons  had  joined  forces  with  their  com- 
patriots of  the  Continent  against  the  Roman.  Caesar 
resolved  to  lead  his  troops  to  the  other  side  of  the  Channel, 
but  he  knew  nothing  of  the  country,  and  wished  first  to 
obtain  information.  He  questioned  the  traders  ;  they  told 
him  little,  being,  as  they  said,  acquainted  only  with  the 
coasts,  and  that  slightly.  Caesar  embarked  in  the  night  of 
August  24th-25th,  the  year  55  before  our  era ;  it  took  him 
somewhat  more  time  to  cross  the  strait  than  is  now  needed 
to  go  from  Paris  to  London.  His  expedition  was  a  real 
voyage  of  discovery  ;  and  he  was  careful,  during  his  two 
sojourns  in  the  island,  to  examine  as  many  people  as  pos- 
sible, and  note  all  he  could  observe  concerning  the  customs 
of  the  natives.  The  picture  he  draws  of  the  former  inhabi- 
tants of  England  strikes  us  to-day  as  very  strange.  "  The 
greater  part  of  the  people  of  the  interior,"  he  writes,  "  do 
not  sow  ;  they  live  on  milk  and  flesh,  and  clothe  them- 
selves in  skins.  All  Britons  stain  themselves  dark  blue 
with  woad,  which  gives  them  a  terrible  aspect  in  battle. 
They  wear  their  hair  long,  and  shave  all  their  body  except 
their  hair  and  moustaches." 

Did  we  forget  the  original  is  in  Latin,  we  might  think 


BRITANNIA.  7 

the  passage  was  extracted  from  the  travels  of  Captain 
Cook  ;  and  this  is  so  true  that,  in  the  account  of  his  first 
journey  around  the  world,  the  great  navigator,  on  arriving 
at  the  island  of  Savu,  notices  the  similitude  himself. 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  details,  the  Celtic  tribes  of 
future  England  were  similar  to  those  of  future  France.1 
Brave  like  them,  with  an   undisciplined  impetuosity  that 
often  brought  them  to  grief  (the  impetuosity  of  Poictiers 
and  Nicopolis),  curious,  quick-tempered,  prompt  to  quarrel, 
they  fought  after  the  same  fashion  as  the  Gauls,  with  the 
same  arms  ;  and  in  the  Witham  and  Thames  have  been 
found  bronze  shields  similar  in  shape  and  carving  to  those 
graven    on   the  triumphal   arch  at  Orange,   the  image  of 
which   has    now   recalled    for    eighteen    centuries    Roman 
triumph  and   Celtic  defeat.      Horace's  saying  concerning 
the    Gaulish    ancestors    applies    equally   well    to   Britons : 
never  "  feared  they  funerals." 2     The  grave  was  for  them 
without  terrors  ;  their  faith  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
absolute ;  death  for  them   was  not  the  goal,  but  the  link 
between  two  existences  ;  the  new  life  was  as  complete  and 
desirable  as  the  old,  and  bore  no  likeness  to  that  subter- 
ranean   existence,   believed    in    by    the    ancients,   partly 
localised  in  the  sepulchre,  with  nothing  sweeter  in  it  than 
those  sad  things,  rest  and  oblivion.     According  to  Celtic 
belief,  the  dead  lived  again  under  the  light  of  heaven  ;  they 
did  not  descend,  as  they  did  with  the  Latins,  to  the  land 
of  shades.    No  Briton,  Gaul,  or  Irish  could  have  under- 

1  "  Proximi  Gallis,  et  similes  sunt  .  .  .  Sermo  haud  multum  diversus  :  in 
deposcendis  periculis  eadem  audacia  .  .  .  plus  tamen  ferociae  Britanni  prae- 
ferunt,  utquosnondum  longa  pax  emollient  .  .  .  manent  quales  Galli  fuerunt." 
Tacitus,  "Agricola,"  xi.  "  yEdificia  fere  Gallicis  consimilia,"  Caesar  "  De 
Bello  Gallico,"  v.  The  south  was  occupied  by  Gauls  who  had  come  from 
the  Continent  at  a  recent  period.  The  Iceni  were  a  Gallic  tribe  ;  the  Trino- 
bantes  were  Gallo-Belgae. 

2  "  Te  non  paventis  funera  Galliae 
Duraque  tellus  audit  Hiberias." 

("Ad  Augustum,"  Odes,  iv.  14.) 


8  THE    ORIGINS. 

stood  the  melancholy  words  of  Achilles :  "Seek  not,  glorious 
Ulysses,  to  comfort  me  for  death  ;  rather  would  I  till  the 
ground  for  wages  on  some  poor  man's  small  estate  than  reign 
over  all  the  dead."  z  The  race  was  an  optimistic  one.  It 
made  the  best  of  life,  and  even  of  death. 

These  beliefs  were  carefully  fostered  by  the  druids, 
priests  and  philosophers,  whose  part  has  been  the  same  in 
Gaul,  Ireland,  and  Britain.  Their  teaching  was  a  cause  of 
surprise  and  admiration  to  the  Latins.  "And  you,  druids," 
exclaims  Lucan,  "  dwelling  afar  under  the  broad  trees  of 
the  sacred  groves,  according  to  you,  the  departed  visit  not 
the  silent  Erebus,  nor  the  dark  realm  of  pallid  Pluto  ;  the 
same  spirit  animates  a  body  in  a  different  world.  Death, 
if  what  you  say  is  true,  is  but  the  middle  of  a  long  life. 
Happy  the  error  of  those  that  live  under  Arcturus  ;  the 
worst  of  fears  is  to  them  unknown — the  fear  of  death  !  " 2 

The  inhabitants  of  Britain  possessed,  again  in  common 
with  those  of  Gaul,  a  singular  aptitude  to  understand 
and  learn  quickly.  A  short  time  after  the  Roman  Con- 
quest it  becomes  hard  to  distinguish  Celtic  from  Roman 
workmanship  among  the  objects  discovered  in  tombs. 
Caesar  is  astonished  to  see  how  his  adversaries  improve 
under  his  eyes.  They  were  simple  enough  at  first ; 
now  they  understand  and  foresee,  and  baffle  his  military 
stratagems.  To  this  intelligence  and  curiosity  is  due,  with 
all  its  advantages  and  drawbacks,  the  faculty  of  assimila- 

1  "  Odyssey,"  xi.  1.  488  ff. 

2  "  Et  vos  .   ■   .  Druidas  .   .  . 
.   .   .   nemora  alta  remotis 

Incolitis  lucis,  vobis  auctoribus,  umbrae 

Non  tacitas  Erebi  sedes,  Ditisque  profundi 

Pallida  regna  petunt ;  regit  idem  spiritus  artus 

Orbe  alio  :  longas  (canitis  si  cognita)  vita 

Mors  media  est.     Certe  populi  quos  despicit  Arctos, 

Felices  errore  suo,  quos  ille  timorum 

Maximus,  haud  urget  leti  metus." 

("Pharsalia,"  book  i.) 


BRITANNIA.  ,-, 

tion    possessed  by  this  race,  and  manifested   to  the  same 
extent  by  no  other  in  Europe. 

The  Latin  authors  also  admired  another  characteristic 
gift  in  the  men  of  this  race  :  a  readiness  ot  speech,  an 
eloquence,  a  promptness  of  repartee  that  distinguished 
them  from  their  Germanic  neighbours.  The  people  of 
Gaul,  said  Cato,  have  two  passions  :  to  fight  well  and  talk 
cleverly  [argute  loqui).1  This  is  memorable  evidence,  since 
it  reveals  to  us  a  quality  of  a  literary  order  :  we  can  easily 
verify  its  truth,  for  we  know  now  in  what  kind  of  composi- 
tions, and  with  what  talent  the  men  of  Celtic  blood  exer- 
cised their  gift  of  speech. 

II. 

That  the  Celtic  tribes  on  both  sides  of  the  Channel  closely 
resembled  each  other  in  manners,  tastes,  language,  and 
turn  of  mind  cannot  be  doubted.  "  Their  language  differs 
little,"  says  Tacitus  ;  "their  buildings  are  almost  similar,"2 
says  Caesar.  The  similitude  of  their  literary  genius  is 
equally  certain,  for  Cato's  saying  relates  to  continental  Celts 
and  can  be  checked  by  means  of  Irish  poems  and  tales. 
Welsh  stories  of  a  later  date  afford  us  evidence  fully  as 
conclusive.  If  we  change  the  epoch,  the  result  will  be  the 
same  ;  the  main  elements  of  the  Celtic  genius  have  under- 

1  "  Pleraque  Gallia  duas  res  industriosissime  persequitur,  rem  militarem  et 
argute  loqui."  "  Origins,"  quoted  by  the  grammarian  Charisius.  In  Cato's 
time  (third-second  centuries  B.C.)  the  word  Gallia  had  not  the  restricted  sense 
it  had  after  Caesar,  but  designed  the  whole  of  the  Celtic  countries  of  the 
Continent.  The  ingenuity  of  the  Celts  manifested  itself  also  in  their  laws  : 
"  From  an  intellectual  point  of  view,  the  laws  of  the  Welsh  are  their  greatest 
title  to  glory.  The  eminent  German  jurist,  F.  Walter,  points  out  that,  in 
this  respect,  the  Welsh  are  far  in  advance  of  the  other  nations  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  They  give  proof  of  a  singular  precision  and  subtlety  of  mind, 
and  a  great  aptitude  for  philosophic  speculation."  "  Les  Mabinogion,"  by 
Lot,  Paris,  1889,  2  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  7. 
2  See  supra,  p.  7,  note. 


io  THE   ORIGINS. 

gone  no  modification  ;  Armoricans,  Britons,  Welsh,  Irish, 
and  Scotch,  are  all  inexhaustible  tale-tellers,  skilful  in 
dialogue,  prompt  at  repartee,  and  never  to  be  taken  un- 
awares. Gerald  de  Barry,  the  Welshman,  gives  us  a 
description  of  his  countrymen  in  the  twelfth  century,  which 
seems  a  paraphrase  of  what  Cato  had  said  of  the  Gaulish 
•Celts  fourteen  hundred  years  before.1 

Ireland  has  preserved  for  us  the  most  ancient  monu- 
ments of  Celtic  thought.  Nothing  has  reached  us  of  those 
"  quantities  of  verses  "  that,  according  to  Caesar,  the  druids 
taught  their  pupils  in  Gaul,  with  the  command  that  they 
should  never  be  written.2  Only  too  well  was  the  injunc- 
tion obeyed.  Nothing,  again,  has  been  transmitted  to  us 
of  the  improvisations  of  the  Gallic  or  British  bards  (fidpBoi), 
whose  fame  was  known  to,  and  mentioned  by,  the  ancients. 
In  Ireland,  however,  Celtic  literature  had  a  longer  period 
of  development.  The  country  was  not  affected  by  the 
Roman  Conquest  ;  the  barbarian  invasions  did  not  bring 
about  the  total  ruin  they  caused  in  England  and  on  the 
Continent.  The  clerks  of  Ireland  in  the  seventh  and 
eighth  centuries  committed  to  writing  the  ancient  epic 
tales  of  their  land.  Notwithstanding  the  advent  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  pagan  origins  constantly  reappear  in  these 
narratives,  and  we  are  thus  taken  back  to  the  epoch  when 

1  "  De  curia  vero  et  familia  viri,  ut  et  circumstantibus  risam  moveant  sibique 
loquendo  laudem  comparent,  facetiam  in  sermone  plurimam  observant ;  dum 
vel  sales,  vel  Isedoria,  nunc  levi  nunc  mordaci,  sub  sequivocationis  vel  amphi- 
boly nebula,  relatione  diversa,  transpositione  verborum  et  trajectione,  subfiles 
et  dicaces  emittunt.''  And  he  cites  examples  of  their  witticisms.  "  De- 
scriptio  Kambrise,"  chap,  xiv.,  De  verborum  facetia  et  urbanitate.  "  Opera," 
Brewer,  1861-91,  8  vols.,  vol.  vi.,  Rolls. 

2  He  says,  in  reference  to  the  pupils  of  the  Druids,  "  De  Bello  Gallico," 
book  vi.  :  "  Magnum  ibi  numerum  versuum  ediscere  dicuntur,  itaque  nonnulli 
annos  vicenos  in  disciplina  permanent ;  neque  fas  esse  existimant  ea  litteris 
mandare."  One  of  the  reasons  of  this  interdiction  is  to  guard  against  the 
scholars  ceasing  to  cultivate  their  memory,  a  faculty  considered  by  the  Celts  as 
of  the  highest  importance. 


BRITANNIA.  1 1 

they  were  primarily  composed,  and  even  to  the  time  when 
the  events  related  are  supposed  to  have  occurred.  That 
time  is  precisely  the  epoch  of  Caesar  and  of  the  Christian 
era.  Important  works  have,  in  our  day,  thrown  a  light  on 
this  literature  J  ;  but  all  is  not  yet  accomplished,  and  it  has 
been  computed  that  the  entire  publication  of  the  ancient  Irish 
manuscripts  would  fill  about  a  thousand  octavo  volumes. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  the  people  who  produced  these 
works  were  men  of  scanty  speech  ;  and  here  again  we 
recognise  the  immoderate  love  of  tales  and  the  insatiable 
curiosity  that  Caesar  had  noticed  in  the  Celts  of  the  Con- 
tinent.2 

Most  of  those  Irish  stories  are  part  of  the  epic  cycle  of 
Conchobar  and  Cuchulainn,  and  concern  the  wars  of  Ulster 
and  Connaught.  They  are  in  prose,  interspersed  with 
verse.  Long  before  being  written,  they  existed  in  the 
shape  of  well-established  texts,  repeated  word  for  word 
by  men  whose  avocation  it  was  to  know  and  remember, 
and  who  spent  their  lives  in  exercising  their  memory. 
The  corporation  of  the  File,  or  seers,  was  divided  into  ten 
classes,  from  the  Oblar,  who  knew  only  seven  stories,  to 
the  Ollam,  who  knew  three  hundred  and  fifty.3  Unlike  the 
bards,  the  File  never  invented,  they  remembered  ;  they 
were  obliged  to  know,  not  any  stories  whatsoever,  but 
certain  particular  tales  ;  lists  of  them  have  been  found, 
and  not  a  few  of  the  stories  entered  in  these  catalogues 
have  come  down  to  us. 

1  Those,  among  others,  of  MM.  Whitley  Stokes,  Rhys,  d'Arbois  de  Jubain- 
ville,  Lot,  Windisch,  Zimmer,  Netlau,  and  Kuno-Meyer. 

2  "  Est  autem  hoc  Gallise  consuetudinis ;  ut  et  viatores  etiam  invitos 
consistere  cogant  :  et  quod  quisque  eorum  de  quaque  re  audierit  aut  cognoverit 
quadrant,  et  mercatores  in  oppidis  vulgus  circumsistat  :  quibus  ex  regionibus 
veniant,  quasque  res  ibi  cognoverint  pronunciare  cogant."     Book  iv. 

3  To  wit,  two  hundred  and  fifty  long  and  a  hundred  short  ones.  D'Arbois  de 
Jubainville,  "  Introduction  a  l'etude  de  la  Litterature  Celtique,"  Paris,  1883, 
Svo,  pp.  322-333. 


<_- 


12  THE   ORIGINS. 

If  we  look  through  the  collections  that  have  been  made 
of  them,  we  can  see  that  the  Celtic  authors  of  that  period 
are  already  remarkable  for  qualities  that  have  since  shone 
with  extreme  brilliancy  among  various  nations  belonging 
to  the  same  race :  the  sense  of  form  and  beauty,  the 
dramatic  gift,  fertility  of  invention.1  This  is  all  the  more 
noticeable  as  the  epoch  was  a  barbarous  one,  and  a  mul- 
titude of  passages  recall  the  wild  savageness  of  the  people. 
We  find  in  these  legends  as  many  scenes  of  slaughter  and 
ferocious  deeds  as  in  the  oldest  Germanic  poems  :  Pro- 
vincial ferox,  said  Tacitus  of  Britain.  The  time  is  still 
distant  when  woman  shall  become  a  deity  ;  the  murder  of 
a  man  is  compensated  by  twenty-one  head  of  cattle,  and 
the  murder  of  a  woman  by  three  head  only.2  The  warlike 
valour  of  the  heroes  is  carried  as  far  as  human  nature 
and  imagination  allow  ;  not  even  Roland  or  Ragnar  Lod- 
brok  die  more  heroically  than  Cuchulainn,  who,  mortally 
wounded,  dies  standing  : 

"  He  fixed  his  eye  on  this  hostile  group.     Then  he  leaned 
himself  against  the  high  stone  in  the  plain,  and,  by  means 


1  See,  with  reference  to  this,  the  "Navigation  of  Mael-Duin,"  a  christianised 
narrative,  probably  composed  in  the  tenth  century,  under  the  form  in  which 
we  now  possess  it,  but  "  the  theme  of  which  is  fundamentally  pagan."  Here 
are  the  titles  of  some  of  the  chapters :  "  The  isle  of  enormous  ants.— The 
island  of  large  birds. — The  monstrous  horse. — The  demon's  race. — The  house 
of  the  salmon. — The  marvellous  fruits. — Wonderful  feats  of  the  beast  of  the 
island.— The  horse-fights.—  The  fire  beasts  and  the  golden  apples.— The  castle 
guarded  by  the  cat. — The  frightful  mill. — The  island  of  black  weepers." 
Translation  by  Lot  in  "  L'Epopee  Celtique,"  of  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville, 
Paris,  1892,  8vo,  pp.  449  ff.  See  also  Joyce,  "  Old  Celtic  Romances," 
1879  ;  on  the  excellence  of  the  memory  of  Irish  narrators,  even  at  the  present 
day,  see  Joyce's  Introduction. 

2  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville,  "  L'Epopee  Celtique,"  pp.  xxviii  and  following. 
"Celtic  marriage  is  a  sale.  .  .  .  Physical  paternity  has  not  the  same  im- 
portance as  with  us  "  ;  people  are  not  averse  to  having  children  from  their 
passing  guest.  "  The  question  as  to  whether  one  is  physically  their  father  offers 
a  certain  sentimental  interest  ;  but  for  a  practical  man  this  question  presents 
only  a  secondary  interest,  or  even  none  at  all."     Ibid.,  pp.  xxvii-xxix. 


BRITANNIA.  I3 

/  of  his  belt,  he  fastened  his  body  to  the  high  stone.     Neither 

sitting  nor  lying  would  he  die  ;  but  he  would  die  standiiv 

Then  his  enemies  gathered   round  him.      They  remained 

■  about  him,  not  daring  to  approach  ;  he  seemed  to  be  still 

alive."  * 

At  the  same  time,  things  of  beauty  have  their  place  in 
these  tales.  There  are  birds  and  flowers ;  women  are 
described  with  loving  admiration  ;  their  cheeks  are  purple 
"  as  the  fox-glove,"  their  locks  wave  in  the  light. 

Above  all,  such  a  dramatic  gift  is  displayed  as  to  stand 
unparalleled  in  any  European  literature  at  its  dawn.2 
Celtic  poets  excel  in  the  art  of  giving  a  lifelike  repre- 
sentation of  deeds  and  events,  of  graduating  their  effects, 
and  making  their  characters  talk  ;  they  are  matchless  for 
speeches  and  quick  repartees.  Compositions  have  come 
down  to  us  that  are  all  cut  out  into  dialogues,  so  that 
the  narrative  becomes  a  drama.  In  such  tales  as  the 
"  Murder  of  the  Sons  of  Usnech,"  or  "  Cuchulainn's  Sick- 
ness," in  which  love  finds  a  place,  these  remarkable  traits 
are  to  be  seen  at  their  best.  The  story  of  "  Mac  Datho's 
Pig  "  is  as  powerfully  dramatic  and  savage  as  the  most 
cruel  Germanic  or  Scandinavian  songs  ;  but  it  is  at  the 
same  time  infinitely  more  varied  in  tone  and  artistic  in 
shape.  Pictures  of  everyday  life,  familiar  fireside  discus- 
y  sions  abound,  together  with  the  scenes  of  blood  loved  by 
all  nations  in  the  season  of  their  early  manhood. 

"  There  was,"  we  read,  "a  famous  king  of  Leinster,  called 
Mac  Datho.  This  king  owned  a  dog,  Ailbe  by  name, 
who  defended  the  whole  province  and  filled  Erin  with  his 
fame."  3     Ailill,  king  of  Connaught,  and  Conchobar,  king 

1  The  Murder  of  Cuchulainn,  "  L'Epopee  Celtique  en  Irlande,"  p.  346. 

2  The  same  quality  is  found  in  the  literature  of  Brittany;  the  major  pari 
of  its  monuments  (of  a  more  recent  epoch)  consists  of  religious  dramas  1  r 
mysteries.     These  dramas,  mostly  unpublished,  are  exceedingly  numerous. 

3  "  L'Epopee  Celtique,"  pp.  66  and  following. 


14  THE   ORIGINS. 

of  Ulster,  claim  the  dog ;  and  Mac  Datho,  much  per- 
plexed, consults  his  wife,  who  suggests  that  he  should  pro- 
mise Ailbe  to  both.  On  the  appointed  day,  the  warriors 
of  the  two  countries  come  to  fetch  the  dog  of  renown,  and 
a  grand  banquet  is  served  them  by  Mac  Datho,  the  prin- 
cipal dish  of  which  is  a  rare  kind  of  pig — "  three  hundred 
cows  had  fed  him  for  seven  years."  Scarcely  are  the  guests 
seated,  when  the  dialogues  begin  : 

"  That  pig  looks  good,"  says  Conchobar. 

"Truly,  yes,"  replies  Ailill ;  "but,  Conchobar,  how  shall 
he  be  carved  ?  " 

"  What  more  simple  in  this  hall,  where  sit  the  glorious 
heroes  of  Erin  ? "  cried,  from  his  couch,  Bricriu,  son  of 
Carbad.  "  To  each  his  share,  according  to  his  fights 
and  deeds.  But  ere  the  shares  are  distributed,  more 
than  one  rap  on  the  nose  will  have  been  given  and 
received." 

"  So  be  it,"  said  Ailill. 

"  'Tis  fair,"  said  Conchobar.  "  We  have  with  us  the 
warriors  who  defended  our  frontiers." 

Then  each  one  rises  in  turn  and  claims  the  honour 
of  carving :  I  did  this. — I  did  still  more. — I  slew  thy 
father. — I  slew  thy  eldest  son. —  I  gave  thee  that  wound 
that  still  aches. 

The  warrior  Cet  had  just  told  his  awful  exploits  when 
Conall  of  Ulster  rises  against  him  and  says  : 

"  Since  the  day  I  first  bore  a  spear,  not  often  have  I 
lacked  the  head  of  a  man  of  Connaught  to  pillow  mine 
upon.  Not  a  single  day  or  night  has  passed  in  which  I 
slew  not  an  enemy." 

"I  confess  it,"  said  Cet,  "thou  art  a  greater  warrior 
than  I  ;  but  were  Anluan  in  this  castle,  he  at  least  could 
compete  with  thee  ;  'tis  a  pity  he  is  not  present." 

"  He  is  here  !"  cried  Conall,  and  drawing  from  his  belt 
Anluan's  head,  he  flung  it  on  the  table. 


• 


BRITANNIA.  15 

In  the  "  Murder  of  the  Sons  of  Usnech,"1  woman  plays 
the  principal  part.  The  mainspring  of  the  story  is  love, 
and  by  it  the  heroes  are  led  to  death,  a  thing  not  to  be 
found  elsewhere  in  the  European  literature  of  the  period. 
Still,  those  same  heroes  are  not  slight,  fragile  dreamers  ;  if 
we  set  aside  their  love,  and  only  consider  their  ferocity, 
they  are  worthy  of  the  Walhalla  of  Woden.  By  the  fol- 
lowing example  we  may  see  how  the  insular  Celts  could 
love  and  die. 

The  child  of  Fedelmid's  wife  utters  a  cry  in  its  mother's 
womb.  They  question  Cathba  the  chief  druid,  who 
answers :  "  That  which  has  clamoured  within  thee  is  a 
fair-haired  daughter,  with  fair  locks,  a  majestic  glance,  blue 
eyes,  and  cheeks  purple  as  the  fox-glove "  ;  and  he  fore- 
tells the  woes  she  will  cause  among  men.  This  girl  is 
Derdriu  ;  she  is  brought  up  secretly  and  apart,  in  order  to 
evade  the  prediction.  One  day,  "  she  beheld  a  raven  drink 
blood  on  the  snow."     She  said  to  Leborcham  : 

"  The  only  man  I  could  love  would  be  one  who  united 
those  three  colours  :  hair  as  black  as  the  raven,  cheeks  red 
as  blood,  body  as  white  as  snow." 

"Thou  art  lucky,"  answered  Leborcham,  "the  man  thou 
desirest  is  not  far  to  seek,  he  is  near  thee,  in  this  very 
castle  ;  it  is  Noise,  son  of  Usnech." 

"  I  shall  not  be  happy,"  returned  Derdriu,  "  until  I  have 
seen  him." 

Noise  justifies  the  young  girl's  expectations  ;  he  and  his 
two  brothers  are  incomparably  valiant  in  war,  and  so  swift 
are  they  that  they  outrun  wild  animals  in  the  chase.  Their 
songs  are  delightfully  sweet.  Noise  is  aware  of  the  druid's 
prophecy,  and  at  first  spurns  Derdriu,  but  she  conquers 
him  by  force.  They  love  each  other.  Pursued  by  their 
enemies  the  three  brothers  and  Derdriu  emigrate  to  Scot- 
land, and  take  refuge  with  the  king  of  Albion.     One  day 

1  "  L'Epopee  Celtique  en  Irlande,"  pp.  217  and  following. 


1 6  THE   ORIGINS. 

the  king's  steward  "  sees  Noise  and  his  wife  sleeping  side 
by  side.     He  went  at  once  and  awoke  the  king. 

" '  Till  now,'  he  said,  '  never  had  we  found  a  woman 
worthy  of  thee  ;  but  the  one  who  lies  in  the  arms  of  Noise 
is  the  one  for  thee,  king  of  the  West !  Cause  Noise"  to  be 
put  to  death,  and  marry  his  wife.' 

" '  No,'  answered  the  king  ;  '  but  bid  her  come  to  me 
daily  in  secret.' 

"  The  steward  obeyed  the  king's  commands,  but  in  vain  ; 
what  he  told  Derdriu  by  day  she  repeated  to  her  husband 
the  following  night." 

The  sons  of  Usnech  perish  in  an  ambush.  Conchobar 
seizes  on  Derdriu,  but  she  continues  to  love  the  dead. 
"  Derdriu  passed  a  year  with  Conchobar  ;  during  that  time 
never  was  a  smile  seen  on  her  lips  ;  she  ate  not,  slept  not, 
raised  not  her  head  from  off  her  knees.  When  the  musi- 
cians and  jugglers  tried  to  cheer  her  grief  by  their  play, 
she  told  ..."  she  told  her  sorrow,  and  all  that  had  made 
the  delight  of  her  life  "  in  a  time  that  was  no  more." 

"  I  sleep  not,  I  dye  no  more  my  nails  with  purple  ;  life- 
less is  my  soul,  for  the  sons  of  Usnech  will  return  no  more. 
I  sleep  not  half  the  night  on  my  couch.  My  spirit  travels 
around  the  multitudes.  But  I  eat  not,  neither  do  I 
smile." 

Conchobar  out  of  revenge  delivers  her  over  for  a  year 
to  the  man  she  most  hates,  the  murderer  of  Noise,  who 
bears  her  off  on  a  chariot ;  and  Conchobar,  watching  this 
revolting  sight,  mocks  her  misery.  She  remains  silent. 
"  There  in  front  of  her  rose  a  huge  rock,  she  threw  herself 
against  it,  her  head  struck  and  was  shattered,  and  so  she 

died." 

An  inexhaustible  fertility  of  invention  was  displayed  by 
the  Celtic  makers.  They  created  the  cycle  of  Conchobar, 
and  afterwards  that  of  Ossian,  to  which  Macpherson's 
"  adaptations"  gave  such  world-wide  renown  that  in  our  own 


BRITANNIA.  l? 

century  they  directed  Lamartine's  early  steps  towards  the 
realms  of  poetry.  Later  still  they  created  the  cycle  of 
Arthur,  most  brilliant  and  varied  of  all,  a  perennial  source 
of  poetry,  from  whence  the  great  French  poet  of  the  twelfth 
century  sought  his  inspiration,  and  whence  only  yesterday 
the  poet  laureate  of  England  found  his.  They  collect  in 
Wales  the  marvellous  tales  of  the  "  Mabinogion "  x  ;  in 
them  we  find  enchanters  and  fairies,  women  with  golden 
hair,  silken  raiment,  and  tender  hearts.  They  hunt,  and  a 
white  boar  starts  out  of  the  bushes  ;  following  him  they 
arrive  at  a  castle  there,  "  where  never  had  they  seen  trace 
of  a  building  before."  Pryderi  ventures  to  penetrate  into 
the  precincts  :  "  He  entered  and  perceived  neither  man,  nor 
beast  ;  no  boar,  no  dogs,  no  house,  no  place  of  habitation. 
On  the  ground  towards  the  middle  there  was  a  fountain 
surrounded  by  marble,  and  on  the  rim  of  the  fountain,  rest- 
ing on  a  marble  slab,  was  a  golden  cup,  fastened  by  golden 
chains  tending  upwards,  the  ends  of  which  he  could  not 
see.  He  was  enraptured  by  the  glitter  of  the  gold,  and  the 
workmanship  of  the  cup.  He  drew  near  and  grasped  it- 
At  the  same  instant  his  hands  clove  to  the  cup,  and  his 
feet  to  the  marble  slab  on  which  it  rested.  He  lost  his 
voice,  and  was  unable  to  utter  a  word."  The  castle  fades 
away  ;  the  land  becomes  a  desert  once  more  ;  the  heroes 
are  changed  into  mice  ;  the  whole  looks  like  a  fragment 
drawn  out  of  Ariosto,  by  Perrault,  and  told  by  him  in  his 
own  way  to  children. 

No  wonder  if  the  descendants  of  these  indefatigable 
inventors  are  men  with  rich  literatures,  not  meagre  litera- 
tures  of  which  it   is   possible  to   write  a  history  without 

1  From  "  Mabinog  "  apprentice-bard.  They  are  prose  narratives,  of  divers 
origin,  written  in  Welsh.  They  "  appear  to  have  been  written  at  the  end  of 
the  twelfth  century" ;  the  MS.  of  them  we  possess  is  of  the  fourteenth  ;  several 
of  the  legends  in  it  contain  pagan  elements,  and  carry  us  back  "  to  the  most 
distant  past  of  the  history  of  the  Celts."  "  Les  Mabinogion,"  translated  by 
Lot,  with  commentary,  Paris,  1889,  2  vols.  8vo. 

3 


1 8  THE   ORIGINS. 

omitting  anything,  but  deep  and  inexhaustible  ones.  The 
ends  of  their  golden  chains  are  not  to  be  seen.  And  if  a 
copious  mixture  of  Celtic  blood  flows,  though  in  different 
proportions,  in  the  veins  of  the  French  and  of  the  English, 
it  will  be  no  wonder  if  they  happen  some  day  to  produce 
the  greater  number  of  the  plays  that  are  acted,  and  of  the 
novels  that  are  read,  all  over  the  civilised  world. 

III. 

After  a  second  journey,  during  which  he  passed  the 
Thames,  Caesar  departed  with  hostages,  this  time  never  to 
return.  The  real  conquest  took  place  under  the  emperors, 
beginning  from  the  reign  of  Claudius,  and  for  three  cen- 
turies and  a  half  Britain  was  occupied  and  ruled  by  the 
Romans.  They  built  a  network  of  roads,  of  which  the 
remains  still  subsist ;  they  marked  the  distances  by  mile- 
stones, sixty  of  which  have  been  found,  and  one,  at  Ches- 
terholm,  is  still  standing  ;  they  raised,  from  one  sea  to  the 
other,  against  the  people  of  Scotland,  two  great  walls  ;  one 
of  them  in  stone,  flanked  by  towers,  and  protected  by 
moats  and  earth-works.1  Fortified  after  the  Roman 
fashion,  defended  by  garrisons,  the  groups  of  British  huts 
became  cities  ;  and  villas,  similar  to  those  the  remains  of 
which  are  met  with  under  the  ashes  of  Pompeii  and  in  the 
sands  of  Africa,  rose  in  York,  Bath,  London,  Lincoln,  Ciren- 
cester, Aldborough,  Woodchester,  Bignor,  and  in  a  multi- 
tude of  other  places  where  they  have  since  been  found. 
Beneath  the  shade  of  the  druidical  oaks,  the  Roman  glazier 
blew  his  light  variegated  flasks  ;  the  mosaic  maker  seated 

1  In  several  places  have  been  found  the  quarries  from  which  the  stone  of 
Hadrian's  wall  was  taken,  and  inscriptions  bearing  the  name  of  the  legion  or 
of  the  officer  charged  with  extracting  it  :  "  Petra  Flavi[i]  Carantini,"  in  the 
quarry  of  Fallowfield.  "  The  Roman  Wall,  a  description  of  the  Mural  Barrier 
of  the  North  of  England,"  by  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Bruce,  London,  1867,  4to  (3rd 
ed.),  pp.  141,  144,  185.     Cf.  Athemzuvi,  15th  and  19th  of  July,  1893. 


BRITANNIA.  i9 

Orpheus  on  his  panther,  with  his  fingers  on  the  Thracian 
lyre.  Altars  were  built  to  the  Roman  deities  ;  later  to 
the  God  of  Bethlehem,  and  one  at  least  of  the  churches 
of  that  period  still  subsists,  St.  Martin  of  Canterbury.1 
Statues  were  raised  for  the  emperors  ;  coins  were  cast ; 
weights  were  cut  ;  ore  was  extracted  from  the  mines  ;  the 
potter  moulded  his  clay  vases,  and,  pending  the  time  when 
they  should  be  exhibited  behind  the  glass  panes  of  the 
British  Museum,  the  legionaries  used  them  to  hold  the 
ashes  of  their  dead. 

However  far  he  went,  the  Roman  carried  Rome  with 
him  ;  he  required  his  statues,  his  coloured  pavements,  his 
frescoes,  his  baths,  all  the  comforts  and  delights  of  the 
Latin  cities.  Theatres,  temples,  towers,  palaces  rose  in 
many  of  the  towns  of  Great  Britain,  and  some  years  ago 
a  bathing  room  was  discovered  at  Bath  2  a  hundred  and 
eleven  feet  long.  Several  centuries  later  Gerald  de  Barry 
passing  through  Caerleon  noticed  with  admiration  "  many 
remains  of  former  grandeur,  immense  palaces  ...  a 
gigantic  tower,  magnificent  baths,  and  ruined  temples."  3 
The  emperors  could  well  come  to  Britain ;  they  found 
themselves  at  home.  Claudius,  Vespasian,  Titus,  Hadrian, 
Antoninus  Pius  came  there,  either  to  win  the  title  of  "  the 
Britannic"  or  to  enjoy  the  charms  of  peace.  Severus  died 
at  York  in  211,  and  Caracalla  there  began  his  reign. 
Constantius  Chlorus  came  to  live  in  this  town,  and  died 

1  C.  F.  Routledge,  "History  of  St.  Martin's  Church,  Canterbury. "  The 
ruins  of  a  tiny  Christian  basilica,  of  the  time  of  the  Romans,  were  discovered 
at  Silchester,  in  May,  1892. 

2  Quantities  of  statuettes,  pottery,  glass  cups  and  vases,  arms,  utensils  of  all 
kinds,  sandals,  styles  for  writing,  fragments  of  colossal  statues,  mosaics,  &c, 
have  been  found  in  England,  and  are  preserved  in  the  British  Museum  and  in 
the  Guildhall  of  London,  in  the  museums  of  Oxford  and  of  York,  in  the 
cloisters  at  Lincoln,  &c.  The  great  room  at  Bath  was  discovered  in  1880  ; 
the  piscina  is  in  a  perfect  state  of  preservation ;  the  excavations  are  still 
going  on  (1894). 

3  "  Itinerarium  Cambriae,"  b.  i.  chap.  v. 


20  THE   ORIGINS. 

there;  and  the  prince  destined  to  sanction  the  Romans' 
change  of  religion,  Constantine  the  Great,  was  proclaimed 
emperor  in  the  same  city.  Celtic  Britain,  the  England 
that  was  to  be,  had  become  Roman  and  Christian,  a 
country  of  land    tillers  who  more  or  less  spoke  Latin.1 

But  the  time  of  transformation  was  drawing  nigh,  and 
an  enemy  was  already  visible,  against  whom  neither 
Hadrian's  wall  nor  Antoninus'  ramparts  could  prevail  ; 
for  he  came  not  from  the  Scottish  mountains,  but,  as 
he  himself  said  in  his  war-songs,  "  by  the  way  of  the 
whales."  A  new  race  of  men  had  appeared  on  the  shores 
of  the  island.  After  relating  the  campaigns  of  his  father- 
in-law,  Agricola,  whose  fleet  had  sailed  around  Britain  and 
touched  at  the  Orkneys,  the  attention  of  Tacitus  had  been 
drawn  to  Germany,  a  wild  mysterious  land.  He  had 
described  it  to  his  countrymen  ;  he  had  enumerated  its 
principal  tribes,  and  among  many  others  he  had  mentioned 
one  which  he  calls  Angli.  He  gives  the  name,  and  says 
no  more,  little  suspecting  the  part  these  men  were  to  play 
in  history.  The  first  act  that  was  to  make  them  famous 
throughout  the  world  was  to  overthrow  the  political  order, 
and  to  sweep  away  the  civilisation,  which  the  conquests  of 
Agricola  had  established  amongst  the  Britons. 

1  "  Ut  qui  modo  linguam  abnuebant,  eloquentiam  concupiscerent  :  inde 
etiam  habitus  nostri  honor,  et  frequens  toga ;  paullatimque  discessum  et  dilini- 
menta  vitiorum,  porticus  et  balnea,  et  conviviorum  elegantiam."  Tacitus, 
"  Agricolse  Vita,"  xxi. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  GERMANIC  INVASION. 

"To  say  nothing  of  the  perils  of  a  stormy  and  unknown 
sea,  who  would  leave  Asia,  Africa,  or  Italy  for  the  dismal 
land  of  the  Germans,  their  bitter  sky,  their  soil  the  cul- 
ture and  aspect  of  which  sadden  the  eye  unless  it  be  one's 
mother  country  ? "  Such  is  the  picture  Tacitus  draws  of 
Germany,  and  he  concludes  from  the  fact  of  her  being 
so  dismal,  and  yet  inhabited,  that  she  must  always  have 
been  inhabited  by  the  same  people.  What  others  would 
have  immigrated  there  of  their  own  free  will  ?  For  the 
inhabitants,  however,  this  land  of  clouds  and  morasses  is 
their  home  ;  they  love  it,  and  they  remain  there. 

The  great  historian's  book  shows  how  little  of  im- 
penetrable Germany  was  known  to  the  Romans.  All 
sorts  of  legends  were  current  respecting  this  wild  land, 
supposed  to  be  bounded  on  the  north-east  by  a  slumber- 
ing sea,  "  the  girdle  and  limit  of  the  world,"  a  place 
so  near  to  the  spot  where  Phcebus  rises  "  that  the  sound 
he  makes  in  emerging  from  the  waters  can  be  heard,  and 
the  forms  of  his  steeds  are  visible."  This  is  the  popular 
belief,  adds  Tacitus  ;  "  the  truth  is  that  nature  ends  there."  J 

In  this  mysterious  land,  between  the  forests  that  sheltered 
them  from  the  Romans  and  the  grey  sea  washing  with  long 
waves  the  flat  shores,  tribes    had    settled  and   multiplied 

1  "  De  Moribus  Germanorum,"  b.  ii.  chap.  xlv. 

21 


22  THE   ORIGINS. 

which,  contrary  to  the  surmise  of  Tacitus,  had  perhaps  left 
the  mild  climate  of  Asia  for  this  barren  country ;  and, 
though  they  had  at  last  made  it  their  home,  many  of  them 
whose  names  alone  figure  in  the  Roman's  book  had  not 
adopted  it  for  ever ;  their  migrations  were  about  to  begin 
again. 

This  group  of  Teutonic  peoples,  with  ramifications  ex- 
tending far  towards  the  pole,  was  divided  into  two  principal 
branches :  the  Germanic  branch,  properly  so  called,  which 
comprised  the  Goths,  Angles,  Saxons,  the  upper  and  lower 
Germans,  the  Dutch,  the  Frisians,  the  Lombards,  the 
Franks,  the  Vandals,  &c.  ;  and  the  Scandinavian  branch, 
settled  farther  north  and  composed  of  the  Danes,  Nor- 
wegians, and  Swedes.  The  same  region  which  Tacitus 
describes  as  bordering  on  the  place  "  where  nature  ends," 
held  thus  in  his  day  tribes  that  would  later  have  for  their 
capitals,  towns  founded  long  before  by  Celts :  London, 
Vienna,  Paris,  and  Milan. 

Many  hundred  years  before  settling  there,  these  men 
had  already  found  themselves  in  contact  with  the  Celts, 
and,  at  the  time  the  latter  were  powerful  in  Europe, 
terrible  wars  had  arisen  between  the  two  races.  But  all 
the  north-east,  from  the  Elbe  to  the  Vistula,  continued 
impenetrable  ;  the  Germanic  tribes  remained  there  intact, 
they  united  with  no  others,  and  alone  might  have  told  if 
the  sun's  chariot  was  really  to  be  seen  rising  from  the 
ocean,  and  splashing  the  sky  with  salt  sea  foam.  From 
this  region  were  about  to  start  the  wild  host  destined  to 
conquer  the  isle  of  Britain,  to  change  its  name  and 
rebaptize  it  in  blood. 

Twice,  during  the  first  ten  centuries  of  our  era,  the 
Teutonic  race  hurled  upon  the  civilised  world  its  savage 
hordes  of  warriors,  streams  of  molten  lava.  The  first 
invasion  was  vehement,  especially  in  the  fifth  century, 
and  was  principally  composed  of  Germanic  tribes,  Angles, 


THE    GERMANIC  INVASION. 

Franks,  Saxons,  Burgundians,  Vandals  ;  the  second 
exercised  its  greatest  ravages  in  the  ninth  century,  at 
the  time  of  Charlemagne's  successors,  and  proceeded 
mostly  from  the  Scandinavian  tribes,  called  Danish  or 
Norman   by  contemporary  chroniclers. 

From  the  third  century  after  Christ,  fermentation  begins 
among  the  former  of  these  two  groups.  No  longer  are  the 
Germanic  tribes  content  with  fighting  for  their  land,  retreat- 
ing step  by  step  before  the  Latin  invader ;  alarming 
symptoms  of  retaliation  manifest  themselves,  like  the 
rumblings  that  herald   the   great   cataclysms  of  nature. 

The  Roman,  in  the  meanwhile,  wrapped  in  his  glory, 
continued  to  rule  the  world  and  mould  it  to  his  imaee  ; 
he  skilfully  enervated  the  conquered  nations,  instructed 
them  in  the  arts,  inoculated  them  with  his  vices,  and 
weakened  in  them  the  spring  of  their  formerly  strong  will. 
They  called  civilisation,  Immanitas,  Tacitus  said  of  the 
Britons,  what  was  actually  "servitude."  *  The  frontiers  of 
the  empire  were  now  so  far  distant  that  the  roar  of  the 
advancing  tide  scarcely  reached  Rome.  What  was  over- 
heard of  it  acted  as  a  stimulus  to  pleasure,  added  point  to 
the  rhetorician's  speeches,  excitement  to  the  circus  games, 
and  a  halo  to  the  beauty  of  red-haired  courtesans.  The 
Romans  had  reached  that  point  in  tottering  empires,  at 
which  the  threat  of  calamities  no  longer  arouses  dor- 
mant energy,  but  only  whets  and  renews  the  appetite  for 
enjoyment. 

Meanwhile,  far  away  towards  the  north,  the  Germanic v 
tribes,  continually  at  strife  with  their  neighbours,  and 
warring  against  each  other,  without  riches  or  culture, 
ignorant  and  savage,  preserved  their  strength  and  kept 
their  ferocity.  They  hated  peace,  despised  the  arts,  and 
had  no  literature  but  drinking  and  war-songs.  They  take 
an  interest  only  in  hunting  and  war,  said  Caesar  ;  from  their 

1  "  Agricola,"  xxi. 


24  THE   ORIGINS. 

earliest  infancy  they  endeavour  to  harden  themselves 
physically.1  They  were  not  inventive  ;  they  learned  with 
more  difficulty  than  the  Celts  ;  they  were  violent  and  irre- 
pressible. The  little  that  is  known  of  their  customs  and 
character  points  to  fiery_  souls  that  may  rise  to  great 
rapturousjoys  but  have  an  underlayer  of^gjqorn^  a  gloom 
sombre-"  as  the  impenetrable  forest,  sad  as  the  grey  sea. 
For  them  the  woods  are  haunted,  the  shades  of  night  are 
peopled  with  evil  spirits,  in  their  morasses  half-divine 
monsters  lie  coiled.  "  They  worship  demons,"  wrote  the 
Christian  chroniclers  of  them  with  a  sort  of  terror.2  These 
men  will  enjoy  lyric  songs,  but  not  charming  tales  ;  they 
are  capable  of  mirth  but  not  of  gaiety ;  powerful  but  in- 
complete natures  that  will  need  to  develop  fully  without 
having  to  wait  for  the  slow  procedure  of  centuries,  an 
admixture  of  new  blood  and  new  ideas.  They  were  to 
find  in  Britain  this  double  graft,  and  an  admirable  literary 
development  was  to  be  the  consequence.  They  set  out 
then  to  accomplish  their  work  and  follow  their  destiny, 
having  doubtless  much  to  learn,  but  having  also  something 
to  teach  the  enervated  nations,  the  meaning  of  a  word 
unknown  till  their  coming,  the  word  "  war  "  {g7<erre,guerra). 
After  the  time  of  the  invasions  "  bellicose,"  "  belliqueux," 
and  such  words  lost  their  strength  and  dignity,  and  were 
left  for  songsters  to  play  with  if  they  liked  ;  a  tiny  pheno- 
menon, the  sign  of  terrible  transformations. 

The  invaders  bore  various  names.  The  boundaries  of 
their  tribes,  as  regards  population  and  territory,  were 
vague,  and  in  nowise  resembled  those  of  the  kingdoms 
traced  on  our  maps.  Their  groups  united  and  dissolved 
continually.     The  most  powerful  among  them  absorb  their 

1  "  Vita  omnis  in  venationibus  atque  in  studiis  rei  militaris  constitit ;  ab 
parvulis  labori  ac  duritiei  student."     "  De  Bello  Gallico,"  book  vi. 

2  "  Saxones,  sicut   omnes  fere    Germaniam    incolentes  nationes,  et  natura 
feroces,  et  cultui  dsemonum  dediti."     Eginhard,  "  Vita  Karoli,"  vii. 


% 


THE    GERMANIC  INVASION.  25 

neighbours  and  cause  them  to  be  forgotten  for  a  time,  their 
names  frequently  recur  in  histories  ;  then  other  tribes  grow 
up  ;  other  names  appear,  others  die  out.  Several  of  them, 
however,  have  survived  :  Angles,  Franks,  Saxons,  Burgun- 
dians,  Lombards,  Suevi,  and  Alemanni,  which  became  the 
names  of  great  provinces  or  mighty  nations.  The  more 
important  of  these  groups  were  rather  an  agglomeration 
of  tribes  than  nations  properly  so  called  ;  thus  under  the 
name  of  Franks  were  comprised,  in  the  third  century, 
the  Sicambers,  the  Chatti,  the  Chamavi  ;  while  the  Suevi 
united,  in  the  time  of  Tacitus,  the  Lombards,  Semnones, 
Angles,  and  others.  But  all  were  bound  by  the  tie  of  a 
common  origin  ;  their  passions,  customs,  and  tastes,  their 
arms  and  costumes  were  similar.1 

This  human  multitude  once  put  in  motion,  nothing  was 
able  to  stop  it,  neither  the  military  tactics  of  the  legions 
nor  the  defeats  which  it  suffered  ;  neither  rivers  nor  moun- 
tains, nor  the  dangers  of  unknown  seas.  The  Franks, 
before  settling  in  Gaul,  traversed  it  once  from  end  to  end, 
crossed  the  Pyrenees,  ravaged  Spain,  and  disappeared  in 
Mauritania.  Transported  once  in  great  numbers  to  the 
shores  of  the  Euxine  Sea,  and  imprudently  entrusted  by 
the  Romans  with  the  defence  of  their  frontiers,  they  em- 
bark, pillage  the  towns  of  Asia  and  Northern  Africa,  and 
return  to  the  mouth  of  the  Rhine.  Their  expeditions 
intercross  each  other  ,  we  find  them  everywhere  at  once  ; 
Franks  are  seen  at  London,  and  Saxons  at  Angers.  In 
406,  Gaul  is  overrun  with  barbarians,  Vandals,  Saxons, 
Burgundians,  Alemanni  ;  every  point  of  the  territory  is  in 

1  The  arms  of  the  Franks  and  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  the  former  pre- 
served in  the  Museum  of  St.  Germain,  and  the  latter  in  the  British  Museum, 
are  similar,  and  differ  widely  from  those  of  the  Celts.  The  shields,  a  part  of 
the  equipment,  which  among  all  nations  are  found  highly  ornamented,  were 
equally  plain  with  the  Franks  and  Angles  ;  the  umbo  or  boss  in  the  centre  was, 
in  those  of  both  nations,  of  iron,  and  shaped  like  a  rude  dish-cover,  which  has 
often  caused  them  to  be  catalogued  as  helmets  or  military  head-pieces. 


26  THE   ORIGINS. 

flames  ;  the  noise  of  a  falling  empire  reaches  St.  Jerome,  in 
his  cell  at  Bethlehem,  and  in  an  eloquent  letter  he  deplores 
the  disaster  of  Christendom:  "Who  could  ever  have 
believed  the  day  would  come  when  Rome  should  see  war 
at  her  very  gates,  and  fight,  not  for  glory  but  for  safety  ? 
Fight,  say  I  ?     Nay,  redeem  her  life  with  treasure."  z 

Treasure  did  not  suffice  ;  the  town  was  taken  and  re- 
taken. Alaric  sacked  the  capital  in  410,  and  Genseric  in 
455.  During  several  centuries  all  who  emerge  from  this 
human  tide,  and  are  able  to  rule  the  tempest,  are  either 
barbarians  or  crowned  peasants.  In  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries  a  Frank  reigns  at  Paris,  Clovis  to  wit  ,  an  Ostro- 
goth at  Ravenna,  Theodoric  ;  a  peasant  at  Byzantium, 
Justinian  ;  Attila's  conqueror,  Aetius,  is  a  barbarian  ,  Stilicho 
is  a  Vandal  in  the  service  of  the  Empire.  A  Frank  king- 
dom has  grown  up  in  the  heart  of  Gaul  ;  a  Visigoth 
kingdom  has  Toulouse  for  its  capital  ;  Genseric  and  his 
Vandals  are  settled  in  Carthage  ;  the  Lombards,  in  the 
sixth  century,  cross  the  mountains,  establish  themselves  in 
ancient  Cisalpine  Gaul,  and  drive  away  the  inhabitants 
towards  the  lagoons  where  Venice  is  to  rise.  The  isle  of 
Britain  has  likewise  ceased  to  be  Roman,  and  Germanic 
kingdoms  have  been  founded  there. 

Mounted  on  their  ships,  sixty  to  eighty  feet  long,  by  ten 
or  fifteen  broad,  of  which  a  specimen  can  be  seen  at  the 
museum  of  Kiel,2  the  dwellers  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic 

1  "  Innumerabiles  et  ferocissimae  nationes  universas  Gallias  occuparunt.  .  . 
Quis  hoc  crederet  ?  .  .  .  Romam  in  gremio  suo  non  pro  gloria,  sed  pro  salute 
pugnare  ?  Imo  ne  pugnare  quidem,  sed  auro  et  cuncta  supellectile  vitam 
redimere."  Epistola  cxxiii.  ad  Ageruchiam,  in  the  "  Patrologia  "  of  Migne, 
vol.  xxii.,  col.  1057-8. 

2  This  ship  was  discovered  in  1863  in  a  peat  bog  of  Schleswig  ;  that  is  in  the 
very  country  of  the  Angles  ;  judging  by  the  coins  found  at  the  same  time,  it 
must  belong  to  the  third  century.  It  measures  22  metres  67  centimetres  in  length, 
3  metres,  33  centim.  in  breadth,  and  1  metre  icjcentim.  in  height.  Specimens 
of  Scandinavian  ships  have  also  been  discovered.  When  a  chief  died  his  ship 
was  buried  with  him,  as  his  chariot  or  horse  was  in  other  countries.     A  de- 


THE   GERMANIC  INVASION.  27 

and  North  Sea  had  at  first  organised  plundering  expedi- 
tions against  the  great  island.  They  came  periodically  and 
laid  waste  the  coasts  ;  and  on  account  of  them  the  inhabi- 
tants gave  to  this  part  of  the  land  the  name  oiLittus  Saxoni- 
citin.  Each  time  the  pirates  met  with  less  resistance,  and 
found  the  country  more  disorganised.  In  the  course  of  the 
fifth  century  they  saw  they  had  no  need  to  return  annually 
to  their  morasses,  and  that  they  could  without  trouble 
remain  within  reach  of  plunder.  They  settled  first  in  the 
islands,  then  on  the  coasts,  and  by  degrees  in  the  interior. 
Among  them  were  Goths  or  Jutes  of  Denmark  (Jutland), 
Frisians,  Franks,  Angles  from  Schleswig,  and  Saxons  from 
the  vast  lands  between  the  Elbe  and  Rhine. 

These  last  two,  especially,  came  in  great  numbers, 
occupied  wide  territories,  and  founded  lasting  kingdoms. 
The  Angles,  whose  name  was  to  remain  affixed  to  the 
whole  nation,  occupied  Northumberland,  a  part  of  the 
centre,  and  the  north-east  coast,  from  Scotland  to  the 
present  county  of  Essex  ;  the  Saxons  settled  further  south, 
in  the  regions  which  were  called  from  them  Essex,  Sussex, 
Middlesex,  and  Wessex  :  Saxons  of  the  east,  south, 
centre,  and  west.     It  was  in  these  two  groups  of  tribes, 

scription  of  a  Scandinavian  funeral  (the  chief  placed  on  his  boat,  with  his  arms, 
and  burnt,  together  with  a  woman  and  some  animals  killed  for  the  occasion) 
has  been  handed  down  to  us  in  the  narrative  of  the  Arab  Ahmed  Ibn  Fozlan, 
sent  by  the  caliph  Al  Motkader,  in  the  tenth  century,  as  ambassador  to  a 
Scandinavian  king  established  on  the  banks  of  the  Volga  (Journal  Asialique, 
1825,  vol.  vi.  pp.  16  ff.).  In  some  cases  there  was  an  interment  but  no 
incineration,  and  thus  it  is  that  Norse  ships  have  been  found.  Two  of  these 
precious  relics  are  preserved  in  the  museum  of  Christiania.  One  of  them, 
discovered  in  1880,  constructed  out  of  oaken  planks  held  together  by  iron 
nails,  still  retained  several  of  its  oars  ;  they  were  about  seven  yards  long,  and 
must  have  been  thirty-two,  sixteen  on  each  side.  This  measurement  seems  to 
have  been  normal,  for  the  "  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  "  says  that  Alfred  had  ships 
built  twice  the  size  of  ordinary  ships,  and  gave  them  "  sixty  oars  or  more  "  (sub 
anno  897).  A  ship  constructed  on  the  exact  model  of  the  Scandinavian  barks 
went  from  Bergen  to  New  York  at  the  time  of  the  Chicago  Exhibition,  1S93. 
It  was  found  to  be  perfectly  seaworthy,  even  in  rough  weather. 


28  THE    ORIGINS. 

or  kingdoms,  that  literature  reached  the  greatest  develop- 
ment, and  it  was  principally  between  them  also  that  the 
struggle  for  supremacy  set  in,  after  the  conquest.  Hence 
the  name  of  Anglo-Saxons  generally  given  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  soil,  in  respect  of  the  period  during  which 
purely  Germanic  dialects  were  spoken  in  England.  This 
composite  word,  recently  the  cause  of  many  quarrels, 
has  the  advantage  of  being  clear  ;  long  habit  is  in  its 
favour  ;  and  its  very  form  suits  an  epoch  when  the  country 
was  not  unified,  but  belonged  to  two  principal  agglomera- 
tions of  tribes,  that  of  the  Angles  and  that  of  the  Saxons.1 
In  the  same  way  as  in  Gaul,  the  invaders  found  them- 
selves in  the  presence  of  a  people  infinitely  more  civilised 
than  themselves,  skilled  in  the  arts,  excellent  agriculturists, 
rich  traders,  on  whose  soil  arose  those  large  towns  that 
the  Romans  had  fortified,  and  connected  by  roads.     Never 

1  It  may  be  added  in  favour  of  this  same  word  that  it  is  difficult  to  replace 
it  by  another  as  clear  and  convenient.  Some  have  proposed  "  Old  English,'' 
an  expression  considered  as  having  the  advantage  of  better  representing  the 
continuity  of  the  national  history,  and  marking  less  conspicuously  the  break 
occasioned  by  the  N  orman  Conquest.  "Anglo-Saxon"  before  the  Conquest, 
"  English"  after,  implies  a  radical  change,  a  sort  of  renovation  in  the  people 
of  England.  It  is  added,  too,  that  this  people  already  bore  in  the  days  of 
King  Alfred  the  name  of  English.  But  besides  the  above-mentioned  reasons, 
it  may  be  pointed  out  that  this  break  and  this  renovation  are  historical  facts. 
In  language,  for  example,  the  changes  have  been  such  that,  as  it  has  been 
justly  observed,  classical  English  resembles  Anglo-Saxon  less  than  the  Italian 
of  to-day  resembles  Latin.  Still  it  would  not  be  considered  wise  on  the  part 
of  the  Italians  to  give  the  name  of  "  Old  Italians  "  to  their  Roman  ancestors, 
though  they  spoke  a  similar  language,  were  of  the  same  blood,  lived  in  the 
same  land,  and  called  it  by  the  same  name.  As  for  Alfred,  he  calls  himself 
sometimes  king  of  the  Saxons  "rex  Saxonum,"  sometimes  king  of  the  Angles, 
sometimes  king  of  the  Anglo-Saxons:  "  /Ego  Aelfredus,  gratia  Dei,  Angol 
Saxonum  rex."  /Ethelstan  again  calls  himself  "rex  Angul-Saxonum " 
(Kemble,  "Codex"  ii.  p.  124;  Grein,  "Anglia,"  i.  p.  1;  de  Gray  Birch, 
"  Cartularium  Saxonicum,"  1885,  ii.  p.  333).  They  never  call  themselves,  as 
may  be  believed,  "Old  English."  The  word,  besides,  is  not  of  an  easy  use. 
In  a  recent  work  one  of  the  greatest  historians  of  our  day,  Mr.  Freeman, 
spoke  of  people  who  were  "  men  of  old  English  birth  "  ;  evidently  it  would 
have  been  simpler  and  clearer  to  call  them  Anglo-Saxons. 


THE   GERMANIC  INVASION.  29 

had  they  beheld  anything  like  it,  nor  had  they  names  for 
such  things.  They  had  in  consequence  to  make  additions 
to  their  vocabulary.  Not  knowing  how  to  designate  these 
unfamiliar  objects,  they  left  them  the  names  they  bore 
in  the  language  of  the  inhabitants:  castrum,  strata,  colonia; 
which  became  in  their  language  Chester,  street,  or  stmt,  as 
in  Stratford,  and  coin  as  in  Lincoln. 

The  Britons  who  had  taken  to  the  toga — "  frequens 
toga,"  says  Tacitus — and  who  were  no  longer  protected 
by  the  legions,  made  a  vain  resistance  ;  the  advancing  tide 
of  barbarians  swept  over  them,  they  ceased  to  exist  as 
a  nation.  Contributions  were  levied  on  the  cities,  the 
country  was  laid  waste,  villas  were  razed  to  the  ground, 
and  on  all  the  points  where  the  natives  endeavoured  to 
face  the  enemy,  fearful  hecatombs  were  slaughtered  by 
the  worshippers  of  Woden. 

They  could  not,  however,  destroy  all  ;  and  here  comes 
in  the  important  question  of  Celtic  survival.  Some 
admirers  of  the  conquerors  credit  them  with  superhuman 
massacres.  According  to  them  no  Celt  survived  ;  and  the 
race,  we  are  told,  was  either  driven  back  into  Wales  or 
destroyed,  so  that  the  whole  land  had  to  be  repopulated, 
and  that  a  new  and  wholly  Germanic  nation,  as  pure  in 
blood  as  the  tribes  on  the  banks  of  the  Elbe,  grew  up  on 
British  soil.  But  if  facts  are  examined  it  will  be  found 
that  this  title  to  glory  cannot  be  claimed  for  the  in- 
vaders. The  deed  was  an  impossible  one  ;  let  that  be 
their  excuse.  To  destroy  a  whole  nation  by  the  sword 
exceeds  human  power,  and  there  is  no  example  of  it. 
We  know,  besides,  that  in  this  case  the  task  would  have 
been  an  especially  hard  one,  for  the  population  of  Britain, 
even  at  the  time  of  Caesar,  was  dense  :  hominnm  infinita 
multitude,  he  says  in  his  Commentaries.  The  invaders, 
on  the  other  hand,  found  themselves  in  presence  of  an 
intelligent,    laborious,    assimilable    race,    trained    by    the 


3o  THE   ORIGINS. 

Romans  to  usefulness.  The  first  of  these  facts  precludes 
the  hypothesis  of  a  general  massacre  ;  and  the  second  the 
hypothesis  of  a  total  expulsion,  or  of  such  extinction  as 
threatens  the  inassimilable  native  of  Australia. 

In  reality,  all  the  documents  which  have  come  down  to 
us,  and  all  the  verifications  made  on  the  ground,  contradict 
the  theory  of  an  annihilation  of  the  Celtic  race.     To  begin 
with,  we  can  imagine  no  systematic  destruction  after  the 
introduction    of    Christianity   among    the    Anglo-Saxons, 
which  took  place  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  century.     Then, 
the  chroniclers  speak  of  a  general  massacre  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, in  connection  with  two   places  only  :  Chester  and 
Anderida.1     We  can  ascertain  even  to-day  that  in  one  of 
these  cases  the  destruction  certainly  was  complete,  since 
this  last  town  was  never  rebuilt,  and  only  its  site  is  known. 
That  the  chroniclers  should  make  a  special  mention  of  the 
two  massacres  proves  these  cases  were  exceptional.     To 
argue  from  the  destruction  of  Anderida  to  the  slaughter 
of    the   entire    race    would    be    as    little  reasonable  as  to 
imagine  that  the  whole  of  the  Gallo-Romans  were  annihi- 
lated   because  the  ruins  of   a   Gallo-Roman  city,  with  a 
theatre   seating   seven   thousand    people    have   been    dis- 
covered   in    a    spot    uninhabited  to-day,   near    Sanxay   in 
Poictou.     Excavations   recently    made    in    England   have 
shown,    in    a    great    number    of    cemeteries,    even    in    the 
region   termed    Littus    Saxonicum,   where    the   Germanic 
population  was  densest,  Britons  and  Saxons  sleeping  side 
by  side,  and  nothing  could  better  point  to  their  having 
lived  also  side  by  side.     Had  a  wholesale  massacre  taken 
place,  the  victims  would  have  had  no  sepulchres,  or  at  all 
events  they  would  not  have  had  them  amongst  those  of 
the  slayers. 

In  addition  to  this,  it  is  only  by  the  preservation  of  the 

1  "  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,"  Rolls,  sub  anno  491. 


THE   GERMANIC  INVASION.  31 

pre-established  race  that  the  change  in  manners  and 
customs,  and  the  rapid  development  of  the  Anglo-Saxons 
can  be  explained.  These  roving  pirates  lose  their  taste  for 
maritime  adventure  ;  they  build  no  more  ships  ;  their 
intestine  quarrels  are  food  sufficient  for  what  is  left  of  their 
warlike  appetites.  Whence  comes  it  that  the  instincts  of 
this  impetuous  race  are  to  some  degree  moderated  ? 
Doubtless  from  the  quantity  and  fertility  of  the  land  they 
had  conquered,  and  from  the  facility  they  found  on  the 
spot  for  turning  that  land  to  account.  These  facilities 
consisted  in  the  labour  of  others.  The  taste  for  agriculture 
did  not  belong  to  the  race.  Tacitus  represents  the  Germans 
as  cultivating  only  what  was  strictly  necessary.1  The 
Anglo-Saxons  found  in  Britain  wide  tracts  of  country  tilled 
by  romanised  husbandmen  ;  after  the  time  of  the  first 
ravages  they  recalled  them  to  their  toil,  but  assigned  its 
fruits  to  themselves.  Well,  therefore,  might  the  same  word 
be  used  by  the  conquerors  to  designate  the  native  Celt  and 
the  slave.  They  established  themselves  in  the  fields,  and 
superintended  their  cultivation  after  their  fashion  ;  their 
encampments  became  boroughs:  Nottingham,  Buckingham, 
Glastonbury,  which  have  to  the  present  day  retained  the 
names  of  Germanic  families  or  tribes.  The  towns  of  more 
ancient  importance,  on  the  contrary,  have  retained  Celtic 
or  Latin  names :  London,  York,  Lincoln,  Winchester,  Dover, 
Cirencester,  Manchester,  &c.2  The  Anglo-Saxons  did  not 
destroy  them,  since  they  are  still  extant,  and  only  mingled 

1  "  De  Moribus  Germanorum,"  xv.,  xxvi. 

2  Names  of  villages  recalling  German  clans  or  families  are  very  numerous  on 
the  eastern  and  southern  coasts.  "  They  diminish  rapidly  as  we  move  inland, 
and  they  die  away  altogether  as  we  approach  the  purely  Celtic  west."  Four- 
teen hundred  such  names  have  been  counted,  of  which  48  occur  in  Northumber- 
land, 127  in  Yorkshire,  76  in  Lincolnshire,  153  in  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  48  in 
Essex,  60  in  Kent,  86  in  Sussex  and  Surrey,  only  2  are  found  in  Cornwall.  6  in 
Cumberland,  24  in  Devon,  13  in  Worcester,  2  in  Westmoreland,  and  none  in 
Monmouth."     Grant  Allen,  "  Anglo-Saxon  Britain  "  (S.P.C.K.),  p.  43. 


32 


THE   ORIGINS. 


in  a  feeble  proportion  with  their  population,  having,  like  all 
Germans,  a  horror  of  sojourning  in  cities.  "  They  avoided 
them,  regarding  them  as  tombs,"  they  thought  that  to 
live  in  towns  was  like  burying  oneself  alive.1  The  preser- 
vation in  England  of  several  branches  of  Roman  industry 
is  one  proof  more  of  the  continuance  of  city  life  in  the 
island  ;  had  the  British  artisans  not  survived  the  invasion, 
there  would  never  have  been  found  in  the  tombs  of  the 
conquerors  those  glass  cups  of  elaborate  ornamentation, 
hardly  distinguishable  from  the  products  of  the  Roman 
p-lass-works,  and  which  the  clumsv  hands  of  the  Saxon 
were  certainly  incapable  of  fusing  and  adorning.2 

The  Britons,  then,  subsist  in  large  numbers,  even  in  the 
eastern  and  southern  counties,  where  the  Germanic  settle- 
ment was  most  dense,  but  they  subsist  as  a  conquered  race  ; 
they  till  the  ground  in  the  country,  and  in  the  cities  occupy 
themselves  with  manual  labour.  Wales  and  Cornwall 
alone,  in  the  isle  of  Britain,  were  still  places  of  refuge  for 
independent  Celts.  The  idiom  and  traditions  of  the  ancient 
inhabitants  were  there  preserved.  In  these  distant  retreats, 
at  the  foot  of  Snowdon,  in  the  valley  of  St.  David's,  beneath 
the  trees  of  Caerleon,  popular  singers  accompany  on  their 
harps  the  old  national  poems  ;  perhaps  they  even  begin  to 
chaunt  those  tales  telling  of  the  exploits  of  a  hero  destined 
to  the  highest  renown  in  literature,  King  Arthur. 

1  Ammianus  Marcellinus :  "  Ipsa  oppida,  ut  circumdata  retiis  busta  decli- 
nant  "  ;  in  reference  to  the  Franks  and  Alenianni,  "  Rerum  Gestarum,"  lib. 
xvi.,  cap.  ii.  Tacitus  says  the  same  thing  for  the  whole  of  the  Germans  : 
"  Nullas  Germanorum  populis  urbes  habitari,  satis  notum  est.  .  .  .  Colunt 
discreti  ac  diversi,  ut  fons,  ut  campus,  ut  nemus  placuit.  Vicos  locant,  non  in 
nostrum  morem,  connexis  et  cohaerentibus  cedificiis  :  suam  quisque  domum 
spatio  circumdat."     "  De  Moribus  Germanorum,"  xvi. 

2  It  seems  impossible  to  admit,  as  has  been  suggested,  that  these  frail  objects 
should  have  been  saved  from  the  plunder  and  burning  of  the  villas  and  pre- 
served by  the  Anglo-Saxons  as  curiosities.  Glasses  with  knobs,  "a  larmes" 
abound  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  tombs,  and  similar  ones  have  been  found  in  the 
Roman  tombs  of  an  earlier  epoch,  notably  at  Lepine,  in  the  department  of  the 
Marne. 


THE   GERMANIC  INVASION.  33 

But  in  the  heart  of  the  country  the  national  tongue  had 
been  for  a  long  time  constantly  losing  ground  ;  the  Britons 
had  learnt  Latin,  many  of  them  ;  they  now  forget  it  by 
degrees,  as  they  had  previously  forgotten  Celtic,  and  learn 
instead  the  language  of  their  new  masters.  It  was  one  of 
their  national  gifts,  a  precious  and  fatal  one  ;  they  were 
swift  to  learn. 

In  France  the  result  of  the  Germanic  conquest  was 
totally  different  ;  the  Celtic  language  reappeared  there 
no  more  than  in  England.  It  has  only  survived  in  the 
extreme  west.1  But  in  France  the  Germanic  idiom  did  not 
overpower  the  Latin  ;  the  latter  persisted,  so  much  so  that 
the  French  tongue  has  remained  a  Romance  language. 
This  is  owing  to  two  great  causes.  Firstly,  the  Germans 
came  to  France  in  much  smaller  numbers  than  to  England, 
and  those  that  remained  had  been  long  in  contact  with  the 
Romans  ;  secondly,  the  romanising  of  Gaul  had  been 
more  complete.  Of  all  the  provinces  of  the  Empire,  Gaul, 
the  birthplace  of  Cornelius  Gallus,  Trogus  Pompeius, 
Domitius  Afer,  Petronius,  Ausonius,  Sidonius  Apollinaris, 
prided  itself  on  speaking  the  purest  Latin,  and  on  producing 
the  best  poets.  Whether  we  take  material  monuments  or 
literary  ones,  the  difference  is  the  same  in  the  two  countries. 
In  England  theatres,  towers,  temples,  all  marks  of  Latin 
civilisation,  had  been  erected,  but  not  so  numerous,  massive, 
or  strong  that  the  invaders  were  unable  to  destroy  them. 
At  the  present  time  only  shapeless  remnants  exist  above 
ground.  In  France,  the  barbarians  came,  plundered, 
burnt,  razed  to  the  ground  all  they  possibly  could  ;  but  the 
work  of  destruction  was  too  great,  the  multitude  of  temples 
and  palaces  was  more  than  their  strength  was  equal  to,  and 
the  torch  fell  from  their  tired  hands.     Whereas  in  England 

1  Where  the  Celtic  element  was  reinforced,  at  the  commencement  of  the 
sixth  century,  by  a  considerable  immigration  of  Britons  driven  from  England. 
Hence  the  name  of  Bretagne,  given  then  for  the  first  time  to  Armorica. 

4 


34  THE  ORIGINS. 

excavations  are  made  in  order  to  discover  the  remains  of 
ancient  Latin  civilisation,  in  France  we  need  only  raise  our 
eyes  to  behold  them.  Could  the  grave  give  up  a  Roman 
of  the  time  of  the  Caesars,  he  would  still  at  this  day  be  able 
to  worship  his  divine  emperors  in  the  temples  of  Nimesand 
Vienne  ;  pass,  when  entering  Reims,  Orange,  or  Saintes 
under  triumphal  arches  erected  by  his  ancestors  ;  he  might 
recognise  their  tombs  at  the  "  Aliscamps  "  of  Aries  ;  could 
see  Antigone  played  at  Orange,  and  seated  on  the  gradines 
of  the  amphitheatre,  facing  the  blue  horizon  of  Provence, 
still  behold  blood  flowing  in  the  arena. 

Gaul  was  not,  like  Britain,  disorganised  and  deprived 
of  its  legions  when  the  Germanic  hordes  appeared  ; 
the  victor  had  to  reckon  with  the  vanquished  ;  the  latter 
became  not  a  slave  but  an  ally,  and  this  advantage,  added 
to  that  of  superior  numbers  and  civilisation,  allowed 
the  Gallo-Roman  to  reconquer  the  invader.  Latin  tradi- 
tion was  so  powerful  that  it  was  accepted  by  Clovis 
himself.  That  long-haired  chieftain  donned  the  toga  and 
chlamys ;  he  became  a  patrice ;  although  he  knew  by 
experience  that  he  derived  his  power  from  his  sword, 
it  pleased  him  to  ascribe  it  to  the  emperor.  He  had 
an  instinct  of  what  Rome  was.  The  prestige  of  the 
emperor  was  worth  an  army  to  him,  and  assisted  him  to 
rule  his  latinised  subjects.  Conquered,  pillaged,  sacked, 
and  ruined,  the  Eternal  City  still  remained  fruitful  within 
her  crumbling  walls.  Under  the  ruins  subsisted  living 
seeds,  one,  amongst  others,  most  important  of  all,  containing 
the  great  Roman  idea,  the  notion  of  the  State.  The  Celts 
hardly  grasped  it,  the  Germans  only  at  a  late  period. 
Clovis,  barbarian  though  he  was,  became  imbued  with  it. 
He  endeavoured  to  mould  his  subjects,  Franks,  Gallo- 
Romans,  and  Visigoths,  so  as  to  form  a  State,  and  in  spite 
of  the  disasters  that  followed,  his  efforts  were  not  without 
some  durable  results. 


THE  GERMANIC  INVASION.  35 

In  France  the  vanquished  taught  the  victors  their 
language  ;  the  grandsons  of  Clovis  wrote  Latin  verses  ; 
and  it  is  owing  to  poems  written  in  a  Romance  idiom 
that  Karl  the  Frank  became  the  "  Charlemagne  "  of  legend 
and  history  ;  so  that  at  last  the  new  empire  founded  in 
Gaul  had  nothing  Germanic  save  the  name.  The  name, 
however,  has  survived,  and  is  the  name  of  France. 

Thus,  and  not  by  an  impossible  massacre,  can  be 
explained  the  different  results  of  the  invasions  in  France 
and  England.  In  both  countries,  but  less  abundantly  in 
the  latter,  the  Celtic  race  has  been  perpetuated,  and  the 
veil  which  covers  it  to-day,  a  Latin  or  Germanic  tissue,  is 
neither  so  close  nor  so  thick  that  we  cannot  distinguish 
through  its  folds  the  forms  of  British  or  Gaulish  genius  ;  a 
very  special  and  easily  recognisable  genius,  very  different 
from  that  of  the  ancients,  and  differing  still  more  from  that 
of  the  Teutonic  invaders. 


, 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE    NATIONAL    POETRY   OF    THE    ANGLO- 
SAXONS. 

I. 

TOWARDS  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,  the  greater  part 
of  England  was  conquered  ;  the  rulers  of  the  land  were 
no  longer  Celts  or  Romans,  but  men  of  Germanic  origin^ 
who  worshipped  Thor  and  Woden  instead  of  Christ,  and 
whose  language,  customs,  and  religion  differed  entirely 
from  those  of  the  people  they  had  settled  amongst  and 
subjugated. 

The  force  of  circumstances  produced  a  fusion  of  the 
two  races,  but  during  many  centuries  no  literary  fusion 
took  place.  The  mind  of  the  invader  was  not  actuated 
by  curiosity  ;  he  intrenched  himself  in  his  tastes,  content 
with  his  own  literature.  "  Each  one,"  wrote  Tacitus  of 
the  Germans,  "  leaves  an  open  space  around  his  dwelling." 
The  Anglo-Saxons  remained  in  literature  a  people  of 
isolated  dwellings.  They  did  not  allow  the  traditions  of 
the  vanquished  Celts  to  blend  with  theirs,  and,  in  spite 
of  their  conversion  to  Christianity,  they  preserved,  almost 
without  change,  the  main  characteristics  of  the  race  from 
which  they  were  descended. 

Their  vocabulary,  save  for  the  introduction  of  a  few 
words,  taken  from  the  Church  Latin,  their  grammar,  their 
prosody,  all  remain  Germanic.     In  their  verse  the  cadence 

36 


POETRY  OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS. 

is  marked,  not  by  an  equal  number  of  syllables,  but  by 
about  the  same  number  of  accents  ;  they  have  not  the 
recurring  sounds  of  rhyme,  but  they  have,  like  the 
Germans  and  Scandinavians,  alliteration,  that  is,  the 
repetition  of  the  same  letters  at  the  beginning  of  certain 
syllables.  "Each  long  verse  has  four  accented  syllables, 
while  the  number  of  unaccented  syllables  is  indifferent, 
and  is  divided  by  the  caesura  into  two  short  verses,  bound 
together  by  alliteration  :  two  accented  syllables  in  the  first 
short  line  and  one  in  the  second,  beginning  with  any  vowel 
or  the  same  consonant  "  x  (or  consonants  giving  about  the 
same  sound)  : 

/lod  under /oldan  ■  nis  that  feor  heonon. 

"  The  water  sinks  underground  ;  it  is  not  far  from  here." 
{Beowulf?)  The  rules  of  this  prosody,  not  very  difficult 
in  themselves,  are  made  still  easier  by  a  number  of 
licenses  and  exceptions.  The  taste  for  alliteration  was 
destined  to  survive  ;  it  has  never  completely  disappeared 
in  England.  We  find  this  ornamentation  even  in  the 
Latin  of  poets  posterior  to  the  Norman  Conquest,  like 
Joseph  of  Exeter  in  the  twelfth  century  : 

Atidit  et  rtz<det 
Dux /alii  :  /atisque/avet  quum/ata  recuset.2 

The  famous  Visions  of  Langland,  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  are  in  alliterative  verse;  under  Elizabeth  allitera- 
tion  became   one   of  the  peculiarities  of  the  florid    prose 

1  H.  Sweet,  "  Sketch  of  the  History  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,"  in  Hazlitt's 
Warton,  ii.  p.  3. 

"  De  Btllo  Trojano,"  hi.,  line  10S.  Rhyme,  however,  commenced  to 
appear  in  a  few  Christian  poems  of  the  end  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period. 
On  the  use,  rather  rare,  of  alliteration  in  old  French,  which  nevertheless  has 
been  preserved  in  several  current  expressions,  such  as  "gros  et  gras,"  "bel  et 
bon,"  &c,  see  Paul  Meyer,  "Romania,"  vol.  xi.  p.  572:  "  De  l'alliteration  en 
Roman  de  France." 


4-53(o 


38  THE   ORIGINS. 

called  Euphuism.     Nearer  to  our  own  time,  Byron  makes 
a  frequent  use  of  alliteration  : 

Our  bay 
Receives  that  prow  which  proudly  spurns  the  spray  ; 
How  gloriously  her  gallant  course  she  goes  : 
Her  white  wings  flying — never  from  her  foes.     (Corsair.) 

The  purely  Germanic  period  of  the  literary  history  of 
England  lasted  six  hundred  years,  that  is,  for  about  the 
same  length  of  time  as  divides  us  from  the  reign  of  Henry 
III.  Rarely  has  a  literature  been  more  consistent  with 
itself  than  the  literature  of  the  Anglo-Saxons.  They  were 
not  as  the  Celts,  quick  to  learn ;  they  had  not  the  curiosity, 
loquacity,  taste  for  art  which  were  found  in  the  subjugated 
race.  They  developed  slowly.  Those  steady  qualities 
hich   were   to   save   the  Anglo-Saxon    genius    from    the 


w 


b'"    •-'"■"■*-'"      fc,* 


absolute  destruction  which  threatened  it  at  the  time  of 
the  Norman  Conquest  resulted  in  the  production  of 
literary  works  evincing,  one  and  all,  such  a  similitude 
in  tastes,  tendencies,  and  feelings  that  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  date  and  localise  them.  At  the  furthest  end 
of  the  period,  the  Anglo-Saxons  continued  to  enjoy, 
Christian  as  they  were,  and  in  more  and  more  intimate 
contact  with  latinised  races,  legends  and  traditions  going 
back  to  the  pagan  days,  nay,  to  the  days  of  their  conti- 
nental life  by  the  shores  of  the  Baltic.  Late  manuscripts 
have  preserved  for  us  their  oldest  conceptions,  by  which 
is  shown  the  continuity  of  taste  for  them.  The  early 
pagan  character  of  some  of  the  poetry  in  "  Beowulf,"  in 
"  Widsith,"  in  the  "  Lament  of  Deor,"  is  undoubted  ;  still 
those  poems  continued  to  be  copied  up  to  the  last  century 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  rule  ;  it  is,  in  fact,  only  in  manuscripts 
of  that  date  that  we  have  them.  An  immense  amount  of 
labour,  ingenuity,  and  knowledge  has  been  spent  on  ques- 
tions of  date  and  place,  but  the  difficulty  is  such,  and  that 
literature  forms  such  a  compact  whole,  that  the  best  and 


POETRY  OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.        39 

highest  authorities  have  come  on  all  points  to  contrary 
conclusions.  The  very  greatness  of  their  labour  and 
amplitude  of  their  science  happens  thus  to  be  the  best 
proof  of  the  singular  cohesion  between  the  various  produce 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind.  Of  all  the  poets  of  the  period, 
the  one  who  had  the  strongest  individuality,  as  well  as  the 
greatest  genius,  one  whom  we  know  by  name,  Cynewulf, 
the  only  one  whose  works  are  authentic,  being  signed, 
who  thus  offered  the  best  chance  to  critics,  has  caused  as 
many  disagreements  among  them  as  any  stray  leaf  of 
parchment  in  the  whole  collection  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry. 
According  to  Ten  Brink  he  was  born  between  720  and 
730 ;  according  to  Earle  he  more  probably  lived  in  the 
eleventh  century,  at  the  other  end  of  the  period.1  One 
authority  sees  in  his  works  the  characteristics  of  the 
poetry  of  Northumbria,  another  inclines  towards  Mercia. 
All  possible  dates  have  been  assigned  to  the  beautiful 
poem  of  "  Judith,"  from  the  seventh  to  the  tenth  century. 
"Beowulf"  was  written  in  Northumbria  according  to 
Stopford  Brooke,  in  Mercia  according  to  Earle,  in  Wessex 
according  to  Ten  Brink.  The  attribution  of  "  Andreas  "  to 
Cynewulf  has  just  been  renewed  by  Gollancz,  and  denied 
by  Fritzsche.  "  Dream  of  the  Rood "  follows  similar 
fluctuations.  The  truth  is  that  while  there  were  doubtless 
movement  and  development  in  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  as 
in  all  human  things,  they  were  very  slow  and  difficult  to 
measure.  When  material  facts  and  landmarks  are  dis- 
covered, still  it  will  remain  true  that  till  then  authorities, 
judging  poems  on  their  own  merits,  could  not  agree  as 
to  their  classification,  so  little  apparent  was  the  movement 
they  represent.  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  is  like  the  river 
Saone ;  one  doubts  which  way  it  flows. 

1  "  His  date  has  been  variously  estimated  from  the  eighth  to  the  eleventh 
century.  The  latter  is  the  more  probable."  Earle,  "Anglo-Saxon  Litera- 
ture," 1884,  p.  228. 


4o  THE   ORIGINS. 

Let  us  therefore  take  this  literature  as  a  whole,  and 
confess  that  the  division  here  adopted,  of  national  and 
worldly  and  of  religious  literature,  is  arbitrary,  and  is 
merely  used  for  the  sake  of  convenience.  Religious  and 
worldly,  northern  and  southern  literature  overlap  ;  but  they 
most  decidedly  belong  to  the  same  Anglo-Saxon  whole. 

This  whole  has  strong  characteristics  of  its  own,  a  force, 
a  passion,  a  grandeur,  unexampled  at  that  day.  Contrary 
to  what  is  found  in  Celtic  literature,  there  is  no  place  in 
the  monuments  of  Anglo-Saxon  thought  for  either  light 
gaiety,  or  those  shades  of  feeling  which  the  Celts  could 
already  express  at  that  remote  period.  The  new  settlers 
are  strong,  but  not  agile.  Of  the  two  master  passions 
attributed  by  Cato  to  the  inhabitants  of  Gaul,  one  alone, 
the  love  of  war,  rem  militarem,  is  shared  by  the  dwellers 
on  the  shores  of  the  northern  ocean  ;  the  other,  argute 
loqui,  is  unknown  to  them. 

Members  of  the  same  family  of  nations  established  by 
the  shores  of  the  North  Sea,  as  the  classic  nations  were  on 
the  Mediterranean  coasts  in  the  time  of  the  emperors,  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  the  German,  and  the  Scandinavian  tribes 
spoke  dialects  of  the  same  tongue,  preserved  common 
traditions  and  the  memory  of  an  identical  origin.  Grein 
has  collected  in  his  "  Anglo-Saxon  Library "  all  that 
remains  of  the  ancient  literature  of  England  ;  Powell  and 
Vigfusson  have  comprised  in  their  "  Corpus  Poeticum 
Boreale"  all  we  possess  in  the  way  of  poems  in  the 
Scandinavian  tongue,  formerly  composed  in  Denmark, 
Norway,  the  Orkneys,  Iceland,  and  even  Greenland,  within 
the  Arctic  circle.1     The   resemblances    between   the   two 

1  Grein,  "  Bibliothek  der  Angelsachsischen  Poesie,"  ed.  Wiilker ;  Cassel, 
1883  ff.,  8vo;  "Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,  The  poetry  of  the  old  northern 
tongue,  from  the  earliest  to  the  XHIth  Century,"  edited  and  translated 
by  G.  Vigfusson  and  F.  York  Powell,  Oxford,  1883,  2  vols.  8vo ;  vol.  i., 
Eddie  poetry ;  vol.  ii. ,  Court  poetry.  Other  important  monuments  of 
Scandinavian  literature  are  found  in  the  following  collections:  "  Edda  Snorri," 


POETRY  OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.       41 

collections  are  striking,  the  differences  are  few.  In  both 
series  it  seems  as  if  the  same  people  were  revealing  its 
origins,  and  leading  its  heroes  to  Walhalla.1  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  tale  of  Beowulf  and  the  Scandinavian  saga  of 
Gretti,  the  Anglo-Saxon  story  of  Waldhere  and  the 
Scandinavian  and  Germanic  tale  of  the  Niblungs  and 
Volsungs,2  turn  on  the  same  incidents  or  are  dedicated 
to  the  same  heroes,  represent  a  similar  ideal  of  life, 
similar  manners,  the  same  race.  They  are  all  of  them 
part  of  the  literary  patrimony  common  to  the  men  of 
the  North. 

As  happened  with  the  Celts/the  greater  number  of  the 
monuments  of  ancient  Germanic  and  Scandinavian  litera- 
ture has  been  preserved  in  the  remotest  of  the  countries 
where  the  race  established  itself  ;  distance  having  better 
sheltered  it  from  wars,  the  songs   and    manuscripts  were 

Ion  Sigurdsson,  Copenhagen,  1848,  2  vols. ;  "NorroenFornkvsedi,"ed.S.Bugge, 
Christiania,  1867,  8vo  (contains  the  collection  usually  called  Edda  Ssemundi) ; 
"Icelandic  Sagas,"  ed.  Vigfusson,  London,  1887,  2  vols.  8vo  (collection  of 
the  "Master  of  the  Rolls";  contains,  vol.  i.,  "  Orkneinga  Saga"  and 
"Magnus  Saga";  vol.  ii.,  "  Hakonar  Saga  ") ;  "  Sturlunga  Saga,"  including 
the  "  Islendiga  Saga  of  Lawman  Thordsson,  and  other  works,"  ed.  Vig- 
fusson, Oxford,  1878,  2  vols.  8vo  ;  "  Heimskringla  Saga,  or  the  Sagas  of 
the  Norse  Kings,  from  the  Icelandic  of  Snorre  Sturlason,"  ed.  S.  Laing, 
second  edition,  revised  by  R.  B.  Anderson,  London,  1889,  4  vols.  8vo. 
The  two  Eddas  and  the  principal  Sagas  will  be  comprised  in  the  "  Saga 
Library,"  founded  in  1890  by  W.  Morris  and  Eirikr  Magnusson  (Quaritch, 
London).  Edda  means  great-grandmother  ;  the  prose  Edda  is  a  collection 
of  narratives  of  the  twelfth  century,  retouched  by  Snorri  in  the  thirteenth ; 
the  Edda  in  verse  is  a  collection  of  poems  of  various  dates  that  go  back  in  part 
to  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries.  Saga  means  a  narrative  ;  the  Sagas  are 
narratives  in  prose  of  an  epic  character ;  they  flourished  especially  in  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries. 

1  The  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  Scandinavian  collections  both  contain  the  same 
kind  of  poems,  and  especially  epic  poems,  elegies  and  laments,  moral  poems, 
war  songs,  aphorisms,  riddles,  some  of  which  continue  to  puzzle  the  wisest  of 
our  day. 

2  The  most  ancient  fragments  of  this  epic  are  found  in  the  Edda  in  verse 
a  complete   version   exists   in   Icelandic   prose   ("  Volsunga   Saga")   of  the 
twelfth  century  ;  the  German  version  ("  Nibelungenlied  ")  is  of  the  end  of  the 
same  century. 


42  THE   ORIGINS. 

more  easily  saved  from  destruction.  Most  of  the  Celtic 
tales  extant  at  this  day  have  been  preserved  in  Ireland  ; 
and  most  of  the  pieces  collected  in  the  "  Corpus  Poeticum 
Boreale  "  have  been  taken  from  Icelandic  documents. 

Manners  and  beliefs  of  the  northern  people  are  abun- 
dantly illustrated  by  the  poems  included  in  this  collection. 
We  find  ourselves  amid  giants  and  dwarfs,  monsters, 
dragons,  unconquerable  heroes,  bloody  battles,  gloomy 
omens,  magic  spells,  and  enchanted  treasures.  The  poet 
leads  us  through  halls  with  ornamented  seats,  on  which 
warriors  spend  long  hours  in  drinking  ;  to  pits  full  of  ser- 
pents into  which  the  vanquished  are  thrown  ;  in  the  midst 
of  dismal  landscapes  where  gibbeted  corpses  swing  in  the 
wind  ;  to  mysterious  islands  where  whirlwinds  of  flame 
shoot  from  the  tombs,  and  where  the  heroine  arrives  on  her 
ships,  her  "  ocean  steeds,"  to  evoke  the  paternal  shade, 
behold  once  more  the  beloved  being  in  the  midst  ot 
infernal  fires,  and  receive  from  his  hands  the  enchanted 
and  avenging  sword.  Armed  Valkyrias  cross  the  sky  ; 
ravens  comment  on  the  actions  of  men  ;  the  tone  is  sad 
and  doleful,  sometimes  so  curt  and  abrupt  that,  in  order  to 
follow  the  poet's  fantastic  imaginations,  a  marginal  com- 
mentary would  be  necessary,  as  for  the  "  Ancient  Mariner  " 
of  Coleridge,  in  whom  lives  again  something  of  the  spirit 
of  this  literature. 

Scenes  of  slaughter  and  torture  abound  of  course,  as 
they  do  with  all  primitive  nations  ;  the  victims  laugh  in 
the  midst  of  their  sufferings  ;  they  sing  their  death-song. 
Sigfried  roasts  the  heart  of  his  adversary,  Fafni,  the  man- 
serpent,  and  eats  it.  Eormunrek's  feet  and  hands  are  cut 
off  and  thrown  into  the  fire  before  his  eyes.  Skirni,  in 
order  to  win  Gerda's  love  for  his  master,  heaps  curses  upon 
her,  threatens  to  cut  off  her  head,  and  by  these  means 
succeeds  in  his  embassy.1      Gunnar,  wanting  to  keep  for 

1  "  Lay  of  Skirni."—"  Corpus  Poeticum,"  i.  p.  114. 


POETRY  OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.        43 

himself  the  secret  of  the  Niblungen  treasure,  asks  for  the 
heart  of  his  own  brother,  Hogni  : 

"  Hogni's  bleeding  heart  must  be  laid  in  my  hand, 
carved  with  the  keen-cutting  knife  out  of  the  breast  of  the 
good  knight. 

"  They  carved  the  heart  of  Hialli  (the  thrall)  from  out 
his  breast,  and  laid  it  bleeding  on  a  charger,  and  bore  it  to 
Gunnar. 

"  Then  spake  Gunnar,  king  of  men  :  '  Here  I  have  the 
heart  of  Hialli  the  coward,  unlike  the  heart  of  Hogni  the 
brave.  It  quakes  greatly  as  it  lies  on  the  charger,  but  it 
quaked  twice  as  much  when  it  lay  in  his  breast' 

"  Hogni  laughed  when  they  cut  out  the  quick  heart  of 
that  crested  hero  ;  he  had  little  thought  of  whimpering. 
They  laid  it  bleeding  on  the  charger  and  bore  it  before 
Gunnar. 

"Then  spake  Gunnar,  the  Hniflungs'  hero  :  'Here  I  have 
the  heart  of  Hogni  the  brave,  unlike  the  heart  of  Hialli  the 
coward  ;  it  quakes  very  little  as  it  lies  on  the  charger,  but 
it  quaked  much  less  when  it  lay  in  his  breast' ' 

Justice  being  thus  done  to  his  brother,  and  feeling  no 
regret,  Gunnar's  joy  breaks  forth  ;  he  alone  now  possesses 
the  secret  of  the  Niblungen  (Hniflungs')  treasure,  and  "the 
great  rings  shall  gleam  in  the  rolling  waters  rather  than 
they  shall  shine  on  the  hands  of  the  sons  of  the  Huns."  * 

From  this  example,  and  from  others  which  it  would  be 
easy  to  add,  it  can  be  inferred  that  nuances  and  refined 
sentiments  escape  the  comprehension  of  such  heroes  ;  they 
waste  no  time  in  describing  things  of  beauty  ;  they  care 
not  if  earth  brings  forth  flowers,  or  if  women  have  cheeks 
"  purple  as  the  fox-glove."  Neither  have  these  men  any 
aptitude  for  light  repartee  ;  they  do  not  play,  they  kill  ; 
their  jests  fell  the  adversary  to  the  ground.     "  Thou  hast 

1  "Alta-Kvida."— "Corpus  Poeticum,"  i.   p.  48.     This  is  one  of  the  most 
ancient  poems  in  the  collection. 


* 


44  THE   ORIGINS. 

eaten  the  fresh-bleeding  hearts  of  thy  sons,  mixed  with 
honey,  thou  giver  of  swords,"  says  Queen  Gudrun  to  Attila, 
the  historic  king  of  the  Huns,  who,  in  this  literature,  has 
become  the  typical  foreign  hero  ;  "  now  thou  shalt  digest 
the  gory  flesh  of  man,  thou  stern  king,  having  eaten  of  it 
as  a  dainty  morsel,  and  sent  it  as  a  mess  to  thy  friends." 
Such  is  the  kind  of  jokes  they  enjoy  ;  the  poet  describes 
the  speech  of  the  Queen  as  "  a  word  of  mockery."  z  The 
exchange  of  mocking  words  between  Loki  and  the  gods  is 
of  the  same  order  as  Gudrun's  speech.  Cowards  !  cries 
Loki  to  the  gods ;  Prostitutes !  cries  he  to  the  god- 
desses ;  Drunkard !  is  the  reply  of  both.  There  is  no 
question  here  of  argute  loqui. 

Violent  in  their  speech,  cruel  in  their  actions,2  they  love 
all  that  is  fantastic,  prodigious,  colossal  ;  and  this  tendency 
appears  even  in  the  writings  where  they  wish  to  amuse  ;  it 
is  still  more  marked  there  than  in  the  ancient  Celtic  tales. 
Thor  and  the  giant  go  a-fishing,  the  giant  puts  two  hooks 
on  his  line  and  catches  two  whales  at  once.  Thor  baits  his 
hook  with  an  ox's  head  and  draws  out  the  great  serpent 
which  encircles  the  earth.3 

Their  violence  and  energy  spend  their  force,  and  then 
the  man,  quite  another  man  it  would  seem,  veers  round  ; 
the  once  dauntless  hero  is  now  daunted  by  shadows,  by 
thoughts,  by  nothing.  Those  strong  beings,  who  laugh 
when  their  hearts  are  cut  out  alive,  are  the  prey  of  vague 
thoughts.  Already  in  that  far-off  time  their  world, 
which    appears    to    us    so    young,    seemed    old    to    them. 

1  "  Alta-Kvida."— "  Corpus  Poeticum,"  i.  p.  51. 

2  A  single  example  will  be  as  good  as  many  :  "  One  of  the  Viking  leaders 
got  the  nickname  of  Born  (Child)  because  he  had  been  so  tender-hearted  as  to 
try  and  stop  the  sport  of  his  followers,  who  were  tossing  young  children  in  the 
air  and  catching  them  upon  their  spears.  No  doubt  his  men  laughed  not 
unkindly  at  this  fancy  of  his,  and  gave  him  the  nickname  above  mentioned." 
C.  F.  Keary,  "The  Vikings  in  Western  Christendom,"  789-888,  London, 
1891,  8vo,  p.    145. 

3  "  Hymis-Kvida." — "Corpus  Poeticum,"  i.  p.  222. 


POETRY  OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.        45 

They  were  acquainted  with  causeless  regrets,  vain  sorrows, 
and  disgust  of  life.  No  literature  has  produced  a  greater 
number  of  disconsolate  poems.  Mournful  songs  abound 
in  the  "  Corpus  Poeticum  "  of  the  North. 


II. 

With  beliefs,  traditions,  and  ideas  of  the  same  sort,  the 
Anglo-Saxons  had  landed  in  Britain  and    settled    there.1 

1  The  most  valuable  monuments  of  Anglo-Saxon  literature  and  art  are  con- 
tained in  the  following  MSS.  : 

I.  Poetry.—  MS.  of  "Beowulf,"  preserved  in  the  British  Museum,  Cotton. 
Vitell.  A.  xv.,  written  towards  the  end  of  the  tenth  or  beginning  of  the  eleventh 
century.     It  contains  also  the  fine  poem  of  "Judith,"  &c. 

A  fragment  of  a  poem  on  Waldhere,  preserved  in  the  Copenhagen  Library. 

The  Exeter  MS.,  "Codex  Exoniensis,"  written  in  the  tenth  or  eleventh 
century  and  given,  in  1046,  by  Leofric,  first  bishop  of  Exeter,  to  the  cathedral 
library  of  this  town,  where  it  is  still  preserved.  It  contains  a  variety  of  poetic 
pieces  (Christ,  St.  Guthlac,  Phenix,  Wanderer,  Seafarer,  Widsith,  Panther, 
Whale,  Deor,  Ruin,  Riddles,  &c). 

The  "  Codex  Vercellensis,"  preserved  at  Vercelli  in  Lombardy,  containing  : 
Andreas,  The  Departed  Soul's  Address  to  the  Body,  Dream  of  the  Holy  Rood, 
Elene,  &c,  written  in  the  eleventh  century. 

The  Bodleian  MS.,  Junius  xi.,  containing  a  poetical  version  of  part  of  the 
Bible,  some  of  which  is  attributed  to  Credmon,  written  in  the  tenth  century. 

The  Paris  Anglo-Saxon  Psalter  (Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Lat.  8824),  written 
in  the  eleventh  century,  50  psalms  in  prose,  100  in  verse. 

II.  Prose. — The  Epinal  MS.  containing  an  Anglo-Saxon  glossary  (eighth 
century  according  to  Mr.  Sweet,  ninth  according  to  Mr.  Maunde  Thompson). 

The  Bodleian  MS.,  Hatton  20,  containing  King  Alfred's  translation  of  St. 
Gregory's  "  Regula  Pastoralis  "  (the  copy  of  Werferlh,  bishop  of  Worcester). 

The  MS.  of  the  "  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,"  the  Winchester  text,  in  the 
library  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Cambridge,  MS.  Ixxiii. 

The  MSS.  of  the  homilies  of  /Elfric  and  Wulfstan.  Junius  xxii.  and  Junius 
xcix.,  in  the  Bodleian,  and  the  MS.  of  the  Blickling  homilies  (Blickling  Hall, 
Norfolk). 

III.  Miniatures. — See  especially,  the  Lindisfarne  Gospels,  MS.  Cotton. 
Nero,  D.  iv.,  in  the  British  Museum,  eighth-ninth  century,  in  Latin  with  Anglo- 
Saxon  glosses.  Reproductions  of  these  miniatures  and  other  examples  of  the 
same  art  are  to  be  found  in  J.  O.  Westwood,  "  Facsimiles  of  the  Miniatures  and 
Ornaments  of  Anglo-Saxon  and  Irish  MSS."  London,  Quaritch,  1868,  fob, 
and  "  Palseographia  Sacro  Pictoria,"  London,  1844,  fob  See  also  the  fine  pen- 
and-ink  drawings  in  the  above-mentioned  MS.  Junius  xi. ,  in  the  Bodleian 
Library. 


46  THE   ORIGINS. 

Established  in  their  "isolated  dwellings,"  if  they  leave 
them  it  is  for  action  ;  if  they  re-enter  them  it  is  for  solitary 
reverie,  or  sometimes  for  orgies.  The  main  part  of  their 
original  literature,  like  that  of  their  brothers  and  cousins 
on  the  Continent,  consists  of  triumphal  songs  and  heart- 
rending laments.     It  is  contemplative  and  warlike.1 

They  have  to  fight  against  their  neighbours,  or  against 
their  kin  from  over  the  sea,  who  in  their  turn  wish  to  seize 
upon  the  island.  The  war-song  remains  persistently  in 
favour  with  them,  and  preserves,  almost  intact,  its 
characteristics  of  haughty  pride  and  ferocity.  Its  cruel 
accents  recur  even  in  the  pious  poems  written  after  the 
conversion,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  monotonous  tale  told 
by  the  national  annalist.  The  Anglo-Saxon  monk  who 
draws  up  in  his  cell  the  chronicle  of  the  events  of  the  year, 
feels  his  heart  beat  at  the  thought  of  a  great  victory,  and 
in  the  midst  of  the  placid  prose  which  serves  to  register 
eclipses  of  the  moon  and  murders  of  kings,  he  suddenly 
inserts  the  bounding  verse  of  an  enthusiastic  war-song : 

"  This  year,  King  vEthelstan,  lord  of  earls,  ring-giver  of 
warriors,  and  his  brother  eke  Edmund  /Etheling,  life-long 
glory  in  battle  won  at  Brunanburh.  .  .  .  The  foes  lay  low, 
the  Scots  people  and  the  shipman  death-doomed  fell. 
The  field  streamed  with  warriors'  blood  what  time  the  sun 
up,  at  morning-tide  the  glorious  star,  glided  o'er  grounds, 
God's  candle  bright  the  eternal  Lord's,  until  the  noble 
creature  sank  to  its  setting." 

The  poet  describes  the  enemy's  defeat  and  flight,  the 
slaughter  that  ensues,  and  with  cries  of  joy   calls   upon 

1  Cf.  Tacitus,  who  says  of  the  Germans:  "Celebrant  carminibus  antiquis 
(quodunum  apud  illos  memorise  et  annalium  genus  est).  .  .  ."  "De  Moribus,"i. 
Eginhard  in  the  ninth  century  notices  the  same  sort  of  songs  among  the 
Franks  established  in  Gaul  :  "  Item  barbara  et  antiquissima  carmina,  quibus 
veterum  regum  actus  et  bella  canebantur.  ..."  "  Vita  Karoli,"  cap.  xxix. 
(ed.  Ideler,  "  Leben  und  Wandel  Karl  des  Grossen,"  Hamburg  and  Gotha, 
1839,  2  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  89). 


POETRY  OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.        47 

the  flocks  of  wild  birds,  the  "  swart  raven  with  horned 
neb,"  and  "  him  of  goodly  coat,  the  eagle,"  and  the 
"greedy  war  hawk,"  to  come  and  share  the  carcases. 
Never  was  so  splendid  a  slaughter  seen,  "  from  what 
books  tell  us,  old  chroniclers,  since  hither  from  the  east 
Angles  and  Saxons  ('  Engle  and  Seaxe  '),  came  to  land, 
o'er  the  broad  seas,  Britain  ('  Brytene ')  sought,  proud  war- 
smiths,  the  Welsh  ('  Wealas ')  o'ercame,  men  for  glory 
eager,  the  country  gain'd."  * 

The  writer's  heart  swells  with  delight  at  the  thought  of 
so  many  corpses,  of  so  great  a  carnage  and  so  much  gore  ; 
he  is  happy  and  triumphant,  he  dwells  complacently  on 
the  sight,  as  poets  of  another  day  and  country  would  dwell 
on  the  thought  of  paths  "  where  the  wind  swept  roses  " 
(ou  le  vent  balaya  des  roses). 

These  strong  men  lend  themselves  willingly,  as  do  their 
kin  over  the  sea,  to  the  ebb  and  flow  of  powerful  contrary 
feelings,  and  rush  body  and  soul  from  the  extreme  of  joy 
to  the  acme  of  sorrow.  The  mild  serenite,  enjoyed  by  men 
with  classical  tendencies  was  to  them  unknown,  and  the 
word  was  one  which  no  Norman  Conquest,  no  Angevin  rule, 
no  "  Augustan  "  imitation,  could  force  into  the  language  ; 
it  was  unwanted,  for  the  thing  was  unknown.  But  they 
listen  with  unabated  pleasure,  late  in  the  period,  to  the 
story  of  heroic  deeds  performed  on  the  Continent  by  men 


1  "  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  "  (Rolls),  i.  p.  200  ;  ii.  p.  86 ;  year  937.  The 
song  on  the  battle  of  Brunanburh,  won  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  over  the  Scotch 
and  Danes,  has  been  translated  by  Tennyson.  Other  war  songs,  a  iew  out  of 
a  great  many,  have  come  down  to  us,  some  inserted  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle  (like  the  song  on  the  death  of  Byrhtnoth,  defeated  and  killed  by 
the  Danes  after  a  hard  fight,  at  the  battle  of  Maldon,  991),  some  in  separate 
fragments.  Among  the  more  remarkable  is  the  very  old  fragment  on  the 
"Battle  of  Finnsburg,"  discovered,  like  the  Waldhere  fragment,  in  the  binding  of 
a  book.  This  battle  is  alluded  to  in  "Beowulf."  The  fragment  has  been  printed 
by  Grein  in  his  "  Bibliothek,"  vol.  i.,  and  by  Harrison  and  Sharp  with  their 
"  Beowulf,"  Boston,  third  ed.,  1888. 


48  THE   ORIGINS. 

of  their  own  race,  whose  mind  was  shaped  like  theirs,  and 
who  felt  the  same  feelings.  The  same  blood  and  soul 
sympathy  which  animates  them  towards  their  own  King 
yEthelstan,  lord  of  earls,  ring-giver  of  warriors — not  a  myth 
that  one,  not  a  fable  his  deeds — warms  the  songs  they 
devote  to  King  Waldhere  of  Aquitaine,  to  the  Scandinavian 
warrior  Beowulf,  and  to  others,  probably,  who  belonged  to 
the  same  Germanic  stock.  Not  a  word  of  England  or  the 
Angles  is  said  in  those  poems  ;  still  they  were  popular  in 
England.  The  Waldhere  song,  of  which  some  sixty  lines 
have  been  preserved,  on  two  vellum  leaves  discovered  in 
the  binding  of  an  old  book,  told  the  story  of  the  hero's 
flight  from  Attila's  Court  with  his  bride  Hildgund  and  a 
treasure  (treasures  play  a  great  part  in  those  epics),  and  of 
his  successive  fights  with  Gunther  and  Hagen  while  cross- 
ing the  Vosges.  These  warriors,  after  this  one  appearance, 
vanish  altogether  from  English  literature,  but  their  literary 
life  was  continued  on  the  Continent  ;  their  fate  was  told  in 
Latin  in  the  tenth  century  by  a  monk  of  St.  Gall,  and 
again  they  had  a  part  to  play  in  the  German  "  Nibelungen- 
lied."  Beowulf,  on  the  contrary,  Scandinavian  as  he  was, 
is  known  only  through  the  Anglo-Saxon  poet.  In 
"  Beowulf,"  as  in  "  Waldhere,"  feelings,  speeches,  manners, 
ideal  of  life  are  the  same  as  with  the  heroes  of  the  "  Corpus 
Poeticum  Boreale."  The  whole  obviously  belongs  to  the 
same  group  of  nations.1 

The  strange  poem  of  "  Beowulf," 2  the  most  important 

1  G.  Stephens,  "  Two  leaves  of  King  Waldere's  lay,"  Copenhagen  and 
London,  i860,  8vo  ;  R.  Peiper,  "  Ekkehardi  primi  Waltharius,"  Berlin,  1873, 
8vo. 

2  "Autotypes  of  the  unique  Cotton  MS.  Vitellius,  A.  xv.  in  the  British 
Museum,"  with  transliteration  and  notes,  by  J.  Zupitza,  Early  English  Text 
Society,  1882,  8vo.  "Beowulf"  (Heyne's  text),  ed.  Harrison  and  Sharp, 
Boston,  third  ed.  1888,  8vo.  "Beowulf,  a  heroic  Poem  of  the  Vlllth  Century, 
with  a  translation,"  by  T.  Arnold,  London,  1876,  8vo.  "The  deeds  of 
Beowulf  .  .  .  done  into  modern  prose,"  ed.  Earle,   Oxford  Clarendon  Press, 


POETRY  OF   THE   ANGLO-SAXONS.        49 

monument  of  Anglo-Saxon  literature,  was  discovered  at 
the  end  of  the  last  century,  in  a  manuscript  written  about 
the  year  IOOO,1  and  is  now  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum.  Few  works  have  been  more  discussed  ;  it  has 
been  the  cause  of  literary  wars,  in  which  the  learned  men 
of  England,  Denmark,  Sweden,  Germany,  France,  and 
America  have  taken  part ;  and  peace  is  not  yet  signed. 

This  poem,  like  the  old  Celtic  tales,  is  a  medley  of  pagan 
legends,  which  did  not  originally  concern  Beowulf  in  par- 
ticular,2 and  of  historical  facts;  the  various  parts, after  a  sepa- 
rate literary  life,  having  been  put  together,  perhaps  in  the 
eighth  century,  perhaps  later,  by  an  Anglo-Saxon  Chris- 
tian, who  added  new  discrepancies  in  trying  to  adapt  the 
old  tale  to  the  faith  of  his  day.  No  need  to  expatiate  on 
the  incoherence  of  a  poem  formed  of  such  elements.  Its 
heroes  are  at  once  pagan  and  Christian  ;  they  believe  in 
Christ  and  in  VVeland  ;  they  fight  against  the  monsters  of 
Scandinavian  mythology,  and  see  in  them  the  descendants 
of  Cain  ;  historical  facts,  such  as  a  battle  of  the  sixth 
century,  mentioned  by  Gregory  of  Tours,  where  the  victory 
remained  to  the  Frankish  ancestor,3  are  mixed  up  with 
tales  of  fantastic  duels  below  the  waves. 

fifth  ed.,  1892,  8vo.  On  English  place  names  recalling  personages  in  "Beowulf," 
see  D.  H.  Haigh,  "  Anglo-Saxon  Sagas,"  London,  1861,  8vo  (many  doubtful 
conclusions).  The  poem  consists  of  3,183  long  lines  of  alliterative  verse, 
divided  into  41  sections ;  it  is  not  quite  equal  in  length  to  a  third  of  the 
^neid. 

1  Such  is  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Ward,  "Catalogue  of  Romances,"  vol.  ii. , 
London,  1893,  p.  1. 

2  This  explains  how  we  find  them  used  in  Scandinavian  literature  as  part  of 
the  life  of  totally  different  heroes  ;  the  Icelandic  saga  of  Gretti  tells  how  Glam, 
another  Grendel,  is  destroyed  by  Gretti,  another  Beowulf.  On  these  resem- 
blances, see  Excursus  iii.  in  the  "Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,"  vol.  ii.  p.  501  ; 
and  H.  Gering,  "  Der  Beowulf  und  die  Islaendische  Grettisaga,"  in  "Anglia," 
vol.  iii.  p.  74. 

3  In  Gregory  of  Tours,  book  iii.  chap.  3  ("  Historia  Ecclesiastica  Fran- 
corum,"  Societe  de  l'histoire  de  France,  vol.  i.  p.  270)  ;  in  "Beowulf"  11. 
1 202  ei  seq.  : — 

Gehwearf  tha  in  Francna  faethm  feorh  cynninges  ; — 

5 


50  THE   ORIGINS. 

According  to  a  legend  partly  reproduced  in  the  poem,  the 
Danes  had  no  chief.  They  beheld  one  day  a  small  ship  on 
the  sea,  and  in  it  a  child,  and  with  him  one  of  those  ever- 
recurring  treasures.  They  saw  in  this  mysterious  gift  a 
sign  from  above,  and  took  the  child  for  their  ruler  ;  "  and 
he  was  a  good  king."  When  that  king,  Scyld,  died,  they 
placed  him  once  more  on  a  bark  with  treasures,  and  the 
waters  bore  him  away,  no  one  ever  knew  whither. 

One  of  his  successors,  Hrothgar,1  who  held  his  court, 
like  the  Danish  kings  of  to-day,  in  the  isle  of  Seeland, 
built  in  his  old  age  a  splendid  hall,  Heorot,  wherein  to 
feast  his  warriors  and  distribute  rings  among  them.  They 
drank  merrily  there,  while  the  singer  sang  "  from  far-off 
ages  the  origin  of  men."  But  there  was  a  monster  named 
Grendel,  who  lived  in  the  darkness  of  lonely  morasses. 
He  "bore  impatiently  for  a  season  to  hear  each  day 
joyous  revelry  loud-sounding  in  the  hall,  where  was  the 
music  of  the  harp,  and  the  clear  piercing  song"  of  the 
"  scop."  When  night  came,  the  fiend  "  went  to  visit  the 
grand  house,  to  see  how  the  Ring- Danes  after  the  beer- 
drinking  had  settled  themselves  in  it.  Then  found  he 
therein  a  crowd  of  nobles  (aethelinga)  asleep  after  the 
feast ;  they  knew  no  care." 2  Grendel  removed  thirty  of 
them  to  his  lair,  and  they  were  killed  by  "  that  dark  pest 

"  The  life  of  the  king  [Higelac]  became  the  prey  of  the  Franks."  Grundtvig 
was  the  first  to  identify  Higelac  with  the  Chlochilaicus  of  Gregory  of  Tours. 
The  battle  took  place  about  5 1 5  ;  the  Scandinavians  led  by  "  Chlochilaicus  " 
were  plundering  lands  belonging  to  Thierri,  king  of  Austrasia  (511-534), 
eldest  son  of  Clovis,  when  he  sent  against  them  his  son  Theodebert,  famous 
since,  who  was  to  die  on  his  way  to  Constantinople  in  an  expedition 
against  the  Emperor  Justinian.  Theodebert  entirely  routed  the  enemy, 
and  took  back  their  plunder,  killing  their  chief,  the  Chlochilaicus  of  Gregory, 
the  Huiglaucus  "  qui  imperavit  Getis,  et  a  Francis  occisus  est  "  of  an  old 
"  Liber  monstrorum,"  the  Higelac  of  our  poem.  See  H.  L.  D.  Ward, 
"  Catalogue  of  Romances  in  the  British  Museum,"  vol.  ii.  1893,  pp.  6  ff. 

1  According  to  the  poem,  the  line  of  succession  was :  Scyld,  Beowulf  (not 
our  hero),  Healfdene,  Heorogar,  Hrothgar. 
"  Beowulf,"  1876,  T.  Arnold's  translation. 


POETRY  OF   THE   ANGLO-SAXONS.        51 

of  men,  that  mischief- working  being,  grim  and  greedy, 
savage  and  fierce."  Grendel  came  again  and  "wrought 
a  yet  worse  deed  of  murder."  The  thanes  ceased  to 
care  much  for  the  music  and  glee  of  Heorot.  "  He  that 
escaped  from  that  enemy  kept  himself  ever  afterwards 
far  off  in  greater  watchfulness." 

Higelac,  king  of  the  Geatas  (who  the  Geatas  were  is 
doubtful  ;  perhaps  Goths  of  Gothland  in  Sweden,  perhaps 
Jutes  of  Jutland r),  had  a  nephew,  Beowulf,  son  of 
Ecgtheow,  of  the  royal  Swedish  blood,  who  heard  of  the 
scourge.  Beowulf  went  with  his  companions  on  board  a 
ship  ;  "  the  foamy-necked  cruiser,  hurried  on  by  the  wind, 
flew  over  the  sea,  most  like  to  a  bird,"  and  followed  "  the 
path  of  the  swans."  For  the  North  Sea  is  the  path  of  the 
swans  as  well  as  of  the  whales,  and  the  wild  swan  abounds 
to  this  day  on  the  coasts  of  Norway.2  Beowulf  landed  on 
the  Danish  shore,  and  proposed  to  Hrothgar  to  rid  him  of 
the  monster. 

Hrothgar  does  not  conceal  from  his  guests  the  terrible 
danger  they  are  running :  "  Often  have  boasted  the  sons 
of  battle,  drunken  with  beer,  over  their  cups  of  ale,  that 
they  would  await  in  the  beer-hall,  with  their  deadly  sharp- 
edged  swords,  the  onset  of  Grendel.  Then  in  the  morn- 
ing, when  the  daylight  came,  this  mead-hall,  this  lordly 
chamber,  was  stained  with  gore,  all  the  bench- floor 
drenched  in  blood,  the  hall  in  carnage.  .  .  ."  The  Geatas 
persist  in  their  undertaking,  and  they  are  feasted  by  their 
host  :  "  Then  was  a  bench  cleared  for  the  sons  of  the 
Geatas,  to  sit  close  together  in  the  beer-hall  ;  there  the 
stout-hearted  ones  went  and  sat,  exulting  clamorously. 
A    thane    attended    to    their    wants,    who    carried    in    his 

1  This  last  opinion  has  been  put  orward  with  great  force  by  Fahlbeck,  and 
accepted  by  Vigfusson.  See  Ward,  "  Catalogue  of  Romances,"  ii.  p.  15,  and 
Appendix. 

2  They  are  numerous  especially  in  the  province  of  Finmarken  ;  they  are  to 
be  found  further  south  in  winter. 


52  THE  ORIGINS. 

hands  a   chased    ale-flagon,   and    poured  the  pure  bright 
liquor." 

Night  falls  ;  the  Geat  and  his  companions  remain  in  the 
hall  and  "bow  themselves  to  repose."  Grendel  the  "  night 
walker  came  prowling  in  the  gloom  of  night  .  .  .  from  his 
eyes  there  issued  a  hideous  light,  most  like  to  fire.  In  the 
hall  he  saw  many  warriors,  a  kindred  band,  sleeping  all 
together,  a  group  of  clansmen.  Then  he  laughed  in  his 
heart."  He  did  not  tarry,  but  seized  one  of  the  sleepers,. 
"  tore  him  irresistibly,  bit  his  flesh,  drank  the  blood  from 
his  veins,  swallowed  him  by  large  morsels  ;  soon  had  he 
devoured  all  the  corpse  but  the  feet  and  hands."  He  then 
finds  himself  confronted  by  Beowulf.  The  fight  begins 
under  the  sounding  roof,  the  gilded  seats  are  overthrown, 
and  it  was  a  wonder  the  hall  itself  did  not  fall  in  ;  but  it 
was  "  made  fast  with  iron  bands."  At  last  Grendel's  arm 
is  wrenched  off,  and  he  flees  towards  his  morasses  to  die. 

While  Beowulf,  loaded  with  treasure,  returns  to  his  own 
country,  another  scourge  appears.  The  mother  of  Grendel 
wishes  to  avenge  him,  and,  during  the  night,  seizes  and 
eats  Hrothgar's  favourite  warrior.  Beowulf  comes  back 
and  reaches  the  cave  of  the  fiends  under  the  waters  ;  the 
fight  is  an  awful  one,  and  the  hero  was  about  to  succumb, 
when  he  caught  sight  of  an  enormous  sword  forged  by 
the  giants.  With  it  he  slays  the  foe  ;  and  also  cuts  off 
the  head  of  Grendel,  whose  body  lay  there  lifeless.  At 
the  contact  of  this  poisonous  blood  the  blade  melts 
entirely,  "just  like  ice,  when  the  Father  looseneth  the 
bonds  of  frost,  unwindeth  the  ropes  that  bind  the  waves." 

Later,  after  having  taken  part  in  the  historic  battle 
fought  against  the  Franks,  in  which  his  uncle  Higelac  was 
killed,  Beowulf  becomes  king,  and  reigns  fifty  years.  In 
his  old  age,  he  has  to  fight  for  the  last  time,  a  monster,  "  a 
fierce  Fire-drake,"  that  held  a  treasure.  He  is  victorious  ; 
but  sits  down  wounded  on  a  stone,  feeling  that  he  is  about 


POETRY  OF   THE   ANGLO-SAXONS.        53 

to  die.  "  Now  go  thou  quickly,  dear  Wiglaf,"  he  says  to 
the  only  one  of  his  companions  who  had  come  to  his 
rescue,  "  to  spy  out  the  hoard  under  the  hoar  rock  ;  .  .  . 
make  haste  now  that  I  may  examine  the  ancient  wealth, 
the  golden  store,  may  closely  survey  the  brilliant  cunningly, 
wrought  gems,  that  so  I  may  the  more  tranquilly,  after 
seeing  the  treasured  wealth,  quit  my  life,  and  my  country 
which  I  have  governed  long."  Bowls  and  dishes,  a  sword 
"  shot  with  brass,"  a  standard  "  all  gilded,  .  locked 
by  strong  spells,"  from  which  issued  "  a  ray  of  light," 
are  brought  to  him.  He  enjoys  the  sight ;  and  here, 
out  of  love  for  his  hero,  the  Christian  compiler  of  the 
story,  after  having  allowed  him  to  satisfy  so  much  of 
his  heathen  tastes,  prepares  him  for  heaven,  and  makes 
him  utter  words  of  gratitude  to  "  the  Lord  of  all,  the  King 
of  glory,  the  eternal  Lord "  ;  which  done,  Beowulf,  a 
heathen  again,  is  permitted  to  order  for  himself  such  a 
funeral  as  the  Geatas  of  old  were  accustomed  to  :  "  Rear 
a  mound,  conspicuous  after  the  burning,  at  the  headland 
which  juts  into  the  sea.  That  shall,  to  keep  my  people 
in  mind,  tower  up  on  Hrones-ness,  that  seafaring  men 
may  afterwards  call  it  Beowulf's  Mound,  they  who  drive 
from  far  their  roaring  vessels  over  the  mists  of  the  floods." 
Wiglaf  vainly  tries  to  revive  him  with  water ;  and 
addressing  his  unworthy  companions,  who  then  only  dare 
to  come  out  of  the  wood,  expresses  gloomy  forebodings 
as  to  the  future  of  his  country :  "  Now  may  the  people 
expect  a  time  of  strife,  as  soon  as  the  king's  fall  shall 
become  widely  known  to  the  Franks  and  Frisians. 
To  us  never  after  [the  quarrel  in  which  Higelac  died]  was 
granted  the  favour  of  the  Merovingians  {Mere-  Wioinga). 
Nor  do  I  expect  at  all  any  peace  or  faith  from  the  Swedish 
people.  .  ."  The  serpent  is  thrown  "  over  the  wall-cliff ; 
they  let  the  waves  take,  the  flood  close  upon,  the  keeper 
of  the  treasures."     A  mound  is  built  on  the  hill,  "widely 


54  THE    ORIGINS. 

visible  to  seafaring  men.  .  .  .  They  placed  on  the  barrow 
rings  and  jewels,  .  .  .  they  let  the  earth  hold  the  treasure 
of  earls,  the  gold  in  the  sand  where  it  now  yet  re- 
maineth,  as  useless  to  men  as  it  [formerly]  was."  *  They 
ride  about  the  mound,  recounting  in  their  chants  the 
deeds  of  the  dead  :  "  So  mourned  the  people  of  the 
Geatas,  his  hearth-companions,  for  their  lord's  fall ;  said 
that  he  was  among  world-kings  the  mildest  and  the 
kindest  of  men,  most  gracious  to  his  people  and  most 
desirous  of  praise." 

The  ideal  of  a  happy  life  has  somewhat  changed  since 
the  days  of  Beowulf.  Then,  as  we  see,  happiness  con- 
sisted in  the  satisfaction  of  very  simple  and  primitive 
tastes,  in  fighting  well,  and  after  the  fight  eating  and 
drinking  heartily,  and  listening  to  songs  and  music,  and 
after  the  music  enjoying  a  sound  sleep.  The  possession 
of  many  rings,  handsome  weapons  and  treasure,  was  also 
indispensable  to  make  up  complete  happiness  ;  so  much 
so  that,  out  of  respect  towards  the  chief,  some  of  his  rings 
and  jewels  were  buried  with  him,  "  useless  to  men,"  as 
the.  author  of  "Beowulf"  says,  not  without  a  touch  of 
regret.  Such  was  the  existence  led  by  those  companions 
of  Hrothgar,  who  are  described  as  enjoying  the  happiest 
of  lives  before  the  appearance  of  Grendel,  and  who  "  knew 
no  care."  All  that  is  tender,  and  would  most  arouse  the 
sensibility  of  the  sensitive  men  of  to-day,  is  considered 
childish,  and  awakes  no  echo  :  "  Better  it  is  for  every  one 
that  he  should  avenge  his  friend  than  that  he  should 
mourn  exceedingly,"  says  Beowulf;  very  different  from 
Roland,  the  hero  of  France,  he  too  of  Germanic  origin, 
but  living  in  a  different  milieu,  where  his  soul  has  been 
softened.      "  When    Earl    Roland  saw   that   his  peers   lay 

1  According  to  the  account  of  a  Scandinavian  burial  left  by  Ahmed  Ibn 
Fozlan  (tenth  century,  see  above,  p.  27),  the  custom  was  to  bury  with  the  dead 
ornaments  and  gold  embroideries  to  the  value  of  a  third  part  of  what  he  left. 


POETRY  OF    THE   ANGLO-SAXONS. 

dead,  and  Oliver  too,  whom  he  so  dearly  loved,  his  heart 
melted  ;  he  began  to  weep  ;  colour  left  his  face." 


Li  cons  Rodlanz,  quant  il  veit  morz  scs  pers 
Ed  Olivier  qu'il  tant  podeit  amer, 
Tendror  en  out,  commencet  a  plorer, 
En  son  visage  fut  molt  descolorez.  ■ 


Beowulf  crushes  all  he  touches  ;  in  his  fights  he  upsets 
monsters,  in  his  talks  he  tumbles  his  interlocutors  head- 
long. His  retorts  have  nothing  winged  about  them  ;  he 
does  not  use  the  feathered  arrow,  but  the  iron  hammer. 
Hunferth  taunts  him  with  not  having  had  the  best  in  a 
swimming  match.  Beowulf  replies  by  a  strong  speech, 
which  can  be  summed  up  in  few  words  :  liar,  drunkard, 
coward,  murderer!  It  seems  an  echo  from  the  banqueting 
hall  of  the  Scandinavian  gods  ;  in  the  same  manner  Loki 
and  the  goddesses  played  with  words.  For  the  assembled 
warriors  of  Hrothgar's  court  Beowulf  goes  in  nowise 
beyond  bounds  ;  they  are  not  indignant,  they  would 
rather  laugh.     So   did   the   gods. 

Landscape  painting  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  poems  is 
adapted  to  men  of  this  stamp.  Their  souls  delight  in 
the  bleak  boreal  climes,  the  north  wind,  frost,  hail,  ice, 
howling  tempest  and  raging  seas,  recur  as  often  in  this 
literature  as  blue  waves  and  sunlit  blossoms  in  the  writings 
of  men  to  whom  these  exquisite  marvels  are  familiar. 
Their  descriptions  are  all  short,  save  when  they  refer  to 
ice  or  snow,  or  the  surge  of  the  sea.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
poets  dwell  on  such  sights  complacently  ;  their  tongue 
then  is  loosened.  In  "  Beowulf,"  the  longest  and  truest 
description  is  that  of  the  abode  of  the  monsters  :  "  They 
inhabit  the  dark   land,  wolf-haunted  slopes,  windy  head- 

1   "Chanson  de  Roland,"  line  2804. 


56  THE   ORIGINS. 

lands,  the  rough  fen-way,  where  the  mountain  stream, 
under  the  dark  shade  of  the  headlands,  runneth  down, 
water  under  land.  It  is  not  far  from  hence,  a  mile  by 
measure,  that  the  mere  lies  ;  over  it  hang  groves  of 
[rimy]  trees,  a  wood  fast-rooted,  [and]  bend  shelteringly 
over  the  water  ;  there  every  night  may  [one]  see  a  dire 
portent,  fire  on  the  flood.  No  one  of  the  sons  of  men  is 
so  experienced  as  to  know  those  lake-depths.  Though 
the  heath-ranging  hart,  with  strong  horns,  pressed  hard  by 
the  hounds,  seek  that  wooded  holt,  hunted  from  far,  he 
will  sooner  give  up  his  life,  his  last  breath  on  the  bank, 
before  he  will  [hide]  his  head  therein.  It  is  not  a  holy 
place.  Thence  the  turbid  wave  riseth  up  dark-hued  to  the 
clouds,  when  the  wind  stirreth  up  foul  weather,  until  the 
air  grows  gloomy,  the  heavens  weep." 

The  same  unchanging  genius  manifests  itself  in  the 
national  epic,  in  the  shorter  songs,  and  even  in  the  prose 
chronicles  of  the  Anglo-Saxons.  To  their  excessive 
enthusiasms  succeed  periods  of  complete  depression  ; 
their  orgies  are  followed  by  despair  ;  they  sacrifice  their 
life  in  battle  without  a  frown,  and  yet,  when  the  hour  for 
thought  has  come,  they  are  harassed  by  the  idea  of  death. 
Their  national  religion  foresaw  the  end  of  the  world  and  of 
all  things,  and  of  the  gods  even.  Listen,  once  more,  to  the 
well-known  words  of  one  of  them  : 

"  Human  life  reminds  me  of  the  gatherings  thou  holdest 
with  thy  companions  in  winter,  around  the  fire  lighted  in 
the  middle  of  the  hall.  It  is  warm  in  the  hall,  and  outside 
howls  the  tempest  with  its  whirlwinds  of  rain  and  snow. 
Let  a  sparrow  enter  by  one  door,  and,  crossing  the  hall, 
escape  by  another.  While  he  passes  through,  he  is 
sheltered  from  the  wintry  storm  ;  but  this  moment  of 
peace  is  brief.  Emerging  from  the  cold,  in  an  instant  he 
disappears  from  sight,  and  returns  to  the  cold  again.  Such 
is  the   life  of  man  ;   we  behold  it  for  a  short  time,   but 


POETRY  OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS. 

what  has  preceded  and  what  is  to  follow,  we  know 
not.  .  .  ."» 

Would  not  Hamlet  have  spoken  thus,  or  Claudio  ? 

Ay,  to  die  and  go  we  know  not  where  ; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction.  .  .  . 

Thus  spoke,  nine  centuries  before  them,  an  Anglo-Saxon 
chief  who  had  arisen  in  the  council  of  King  Eduini  and 
advised  him,  according  to  Bede,  to  adopt  the  religion  of 
the  monks  from  Rome,  because  it  solved  the  fearful 
problem.  In  spite  of  years  and  change,  this  anxiety  did 
not  die  out  ;  it  was  felt  by  the  Puritans,  and  Bunyan,  and 
Dr.  Johnson,  and  the  poet  Cowper. 

Another  view  of  the  problem  was  held  by  races  imbued 
with  classical  ideas,  the  French  and  others  ;  classical  equa- 
nimity influenced  them.  Let  us  not  poison  our  lives  by  the 
idea  of  death,  they  used  to  think,  at  least  before  this  century; 
there  is  a  time  for  all  things,  and  it  will  be  enough  to  remem- 
ber death  when  its  hour  strikes.  "  Mademoiselle,"  said  La 
Mousse  to  the  future  Madame  de  Grignan,  too  careful  of 
her  beautiful  hands,  "  all  that  will  decay."  "  Yes,  but  it  is 
not  decayed  yet,"  answered  Mademoiselle  de  SeVigne, 
summing  up  in  a  single  word  the  philosophy  of  many 
French  lives.  We  will  sorrow  to-morrow,  if  need  be,  and 
even  then,  if  possible,  without  darkening  our  neighbours' 

1  "  Talis  mihi  videtur,  vita  hominum  prsesens  in  terris  ad  comparationem 
ejus,  quod  nobis  incertum  est,  temporis,  quale  cum  te  residente  ad  ccenam 
cum  ducibus  ac  ministris  tuis  tempore  brumali,  accenso  quidem  foco  in  medio 
et  calido  effecto  ccenaculo,  furentibus  autem  foris  per  omnia  turbinibus  hiema- 
liumpluviarum  velnivium,  adveniensque  unus  passerum,  citissime  pervolaverit ; 
qui  cum  per  unum  ostium  ingrediens,  mox  per  aliud  exierit.  Ipso  quidem 
tempore  quo  intus  est,  hiemis  tempestati  non  tangitur,  sed  tamen  parvissimo 
spatio  serenitatis  ad  momentum  excurso,  mox  de  hieme  in  hiemem  regrediens, 
tuis  oculis  elabitur.  Ita  haec  vita  hominum  ad  modicum  apparet  ;  quid  autem 
sequatur,  quidve  prxcesserit,  prorsus  ignoramus.  Unde  si  hsec  nova  doctrina 
certius  aliquid  attulit  merito  esse  sequenda  videtur."  "  Historia  Ecclesiastica 
gentis  Anglorum,"  book  ii.  cap.  13,  year  627. 


58  THE   ORIGINS. 

day  with  any  grief  of  ours.  Let  us  retire  from  life,  as 
from  a  drawing-room,  discreetly,  "  as  from  a  banquet," 
said  La  Fontaine.1  And  this  good  grace,  which  is  not 
indifference,  but  which  little  resembles  the  anguish  and 
enthusiasms  of  the  North,  is  also  in  its  way  the  mark  of 
strong  minds.  For  they  were  not  made  of  insignificant 
beings,  those  generations  who  went  to  battle  and  left  the 
world  without  a  sneer  or  a  tear ;  with  ribbons  on  the 
shoulder  and  a  smile  on  the  lips.2 

Examples  of  Anglo-Saxon  poems,  either  dreamy  or 
warlike,  could  easily  be  multiplied.  We  have  the  lamen- 
tations of  the  man  without  a  country,  of  the  friendless 
wanderer,  of  the  forlorn  wife,  of  the  patronless  singer,  of 
the  wave-tossed  mariner  ;  and  these  laments  are  always 
associated  with  the  grand  Northern  landscapes  of  which 
little  had  been  made  in  ancient  literatures  : 

"  That  the  man  knows  not,  to  whom  on  land  all  falls  out 
most  joyfully,  how  I,  miserable  and  sad  on  the  ice-cold  sea, 
a  winter  pass'd,  with  exile  traces  ...  of  dear  kindred 
bereft,  hung  o'er  with  icicles,  the  hail  in  showers  flew ; 
where  I  heard  nought  save  the  sea  roaring,  the  ice-cold 
wave.  At  times  the  swan's  song  I  made  to  me  for  pastime 
.  .  .  night's  shadow  darken'd,  from  the  north  it  snow'd, 
frost  bound  the  land,  hail  fell  on  the  earth,  coldest  of  grain. 

1  Je  voudrais  qu'a  cet  age, 
On  sortit  de  la  vie  ainsi  que  d'un  banquet, 
Remerciant  son  hote.     (viii.  I.) 

3  Ragnar  Lodbrok,  thrown  among  serpents  in  a  pit,  defies  his  enemies,  and 
bids  them  beware  of  the  revenge  of  Woden  ("Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale," 
vol.  ii.  pp.  341  ff.).  In  the  prisons,  at  the  time  of  the  Terreur,  the  guillotine 
was  a  subject  for  chansons.  The  mail  steamer  la  France  caught  fire,  part  o 
the  cargo  being  gunpowder  ;  the  ship  is  about  to  be  blown  up  ;  a  foreign 
witness  writes  thus  :  "  Tous  jusqu'aux  petits  marmitons  rivalisaient  d'elan, 
de  bravoure  et  de  cette  gaiete  gauloise  dans  le  peril  qui  forme  un  des  beaux 
traits  du  caractere  national."  Baron  de  Hiibner,  "  Incendie  du  paquebot  la 
France,"  Paris,  1887.  This  account  was  written,  according  to  what  the 
author  told  me,  on  the  day  after  the  fire  was  unexpectedly  mastered. 


POETRY  OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS. 


59 


.  .  ."  Or,  in  another  song  :  "  Then  wakes  again  the  friend- 
less mortal,  sees  before  him  fallow  ways,  ocean  fowls 
bathing,  spreading  their  wings,  rime  and  snow  descending 
with  hail  mingled  ;  then  are  the  heavier  his  wounds  of 
heart."  l 

There  are  descriptions  of  dawn  in  new  and  unexpected 
terms-:  "The  guest  slept  within  until  the  black  raven, 
blithe-hearted,  gave  warning  of  the  coming  of  the  heaven's 
joy,  the  bright  sun,  and  of  robbers  fleeing  away."  2  Never 
did  the  terraces  of  Rome,  the  peristyles  of  Athens,  the 
balconies  of  Verona,  see  mornings  dawn  like  unto  these, 
to  the  raven's  merry  shriek.  The  sea  of  the  Anglo-Saxons 
is  not  the  Mediterranean,  washing  with  its  blue  waves  the 
marble  walls  of  villas  ;  it  is  the  North  Sea,  with  its  grey 
billows,  bordered  by  barren  shores  and  chalky  cliffs. 

'"Codex  Exoniensis,"  "Seafarer,"  p.  306,  "Wanderer,"  p.  291.  See 
also  "Deor  the  Scald's  Complaint,"  one  of  the  oldest  poems  in  "Codex 
Exoniensis,"  the  "Wife's  Complaint,"  the  "Ruin,"  also  in  "Codex  Exoni- 
ensis "  ;  the  subject  of  this  last  poem  has  been  shown  by  Earle  to  be  probably 
the  town  of  Bath. 

2  T.  Arnold's  "Beowulf,"  p.  11S,  1.  i8co. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE    CHRISTIAN   LITERATURE    AND    PROSE 
LITERATURE    OE  THE   ANGLO-SAXONS. 


AUGUSTINE,  prior  of  St.  Martin  of  Rome,  sent  by  Gregory 
the  Great,  arrived  in  597.  To  the  Germanic  pirates 
established  in  the  isle  of  Britain,  he  brought  a  strange 
teaching.  The  ideas  he  tried  to  spread  have  become  so 
familiar  to  us,  we  can  hardly  realise  the  amazement  they 
must  have  caused.  To  these  fearless  warriors  who  won 
kingdoms  at  the  point  of  their  spears,  and  by  means  of 
their  spears  too  won  their  way  into  Walhalla,  who  counted 
on  dying  one  day,  not  in  their  beds,  but  in  battle,  so  that 
the  Valkyrias,  "choosers  of  the  slain,"  might  carry  them  to 
heaven  on  their  white  steeds,  to  these  men  came  a  foreign 
monk,  and  said  :  Be  kind  ;  worship  the  God  of  the  weak, 
who,  unlike  Woden,  will  reward  thee  not  for  thy  valour, 
but  for  thy  mercy. 

Such  was  the  seed  that  Rome,  ever  life-giving,  now 
endeavoured  to  sow  among  triumphant  sea-rovers.  The 
notion  of  the  State  and  the  notion  of  the  Church  both  rose 
out  of  the  ruins  of  the  Eternal  City  ;  ideas  equally  powerful, 
but  almost  contradictory,  which  were  only  to  be  reconciled 
after  centuries  of  confusion,  and  alternate  periods  of  violence 
and  depression.     The  princes  able  to  foresee  the  necessary 

fusion  of  these  two  ideas,  and  who  made  attempts,  however 

60 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.     61 

rude,  to  bring  it  about  were  rare,  and  have  remained  for 
ever  famous  :  Charlemagne  in  France  and  Alfred  the 
Great  in  England. 

The  miracle  of  conversion  was  accomplished  in  the  isle, 
as  it  had  been  on  the  Continent.  Augustine  baptized  King 
yEthelberht,  and  celebrated  mass  in  the  old  Roman  church 
of  St.  Martin  of  Canterbury.  The  religion  founded  by  the 
Child  of  Bethlehem  conquered  the  savage  Saxons,  as  it  had 
conquered  the  debauched  Romans  ;  the  difficulty  and  the 
success  were  equal  in  both  cases.  In  the  Germanic  as  in 
the  Latin  country,  the  new  religion  had  to  stem  the  stream  ; 
the  Romans  of  the  decadence  and  the  men  of  the  North 
differed  in  their  passions,  but  resembled  each  other  in  the 
impetuosity  with  which  they  followed  the  lead  of  their 
instincts.  To  both,  the  apostle  came  and  whispered  :  Curb 
thy  passions,  be  hard  upon  thyself  and  merciful  to  others  ; 
blessed  are  the  simple,  blessed  are  the  poor  ;  as  thou  for- 
givest  so  shalt  thou  be  forgiven  ;  thou  shalt  not  despise  the 
weak,  thou  shalt  love  him  !  And  this  unexpected  murmur 
was  heard  each  day,  like  a  counsel  and  a  threat,  in  the 
words  of  the  morning  prayer,  in  the  sound  of  the  bells,  in 
the  music  of  pious  chants.    < 

The  conversion  was  at  first  superficial  and  limited  to 
outward  practices  ;  the  warrior  bent  the  knee,  but  his  heart 
remained  the  same.  The  spirit  of  the  new  religion  could  not 
as  yet  penetrate  his  soul  ;  he  remained  doubtful  between  old 
manners  and  new  beliefs,  and  after  fits  of  repentance  and 
relapses  into  savagery,  the  converted  chieftain  finally  left 
this  world  better  prepared  for  Walhalla  than  for  Paradise. 
Those  who  witnessed  his  death  realised  it  themselves. 
When  Theodoric  the  Great  died  in  his  palace  at  Ravenna 
piously  and  surrounded  by  priests,  Woden  was  seen, 
actually  seen,  bearing  away  the  prince's  soul  to  Walhalla. 

The    new    converts    of    Great    Britain     understood    the 
religion   of  Christ   much   as  they  had   understood  that  of 


62  THE   ORIGINS. 

Thor.  Only  a  short  distance  divided  man  from  godhood 
in  heathen  times  ;  the  god  had  his  passions  and  his  adven- 
tures, he  was  intrepid,  and  fought  even  better  than  his 
people.  For  a  long  time,  as  will  happen  with  neophytes,  the 
new  Christians  continued  to  seek  around  them  the  human 
god  who  had  disappeared  in  immensity  ;  they  addressed 
themselves  to  him  as  they  had  formerly  done  to  the  deified 
heroes,  who,  having  shared  their  troubles,  must  needs 
sympathise  with  their  sorrows.  For  a  long  time,  con- 
tradictory faiths  were  held  side  by  side.  Christ  was  be- 
lieved in,  but  Woden  was  still  feared,  and  secretly  appeased 
by  sacrifices.  Kings  are  obliged  to  publish  edicts,  forbid- 
ding their  subjects  to  believe  in  the  ancient  divinities,  whom 
they  now  term  "  demons  "  ;  but  that  does  not  prevent  the 
monks  who  compile  the  "  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle "  from 
tracing  back  the  descent  of  their  princes  to  Woden  :  if 
it  is  not  deifying,  it  is  at  least  ennobling  them.1 

Be  your  obedience  qualified  by  reason,  St.  Paul  had 
said.  That  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  was  not  so  qualified. 
On  the  contrary,  they  believed  out  of  obedience,  militarily. 
Following  the  prince's  lead,  all  his  subjects  are  converted  ; 
the  prince  goes  back  to  heathendom  ;  all  his  people  become 
heathens  again.     From  year  to  year,  however,  the  new  re- 

"  Hengest  and  Horsa  .  .  .  were  the  sons  of  Yv'ihtgils ;  Wihtgils  was  the 
son  of  Witta,  Witta  of  Wecta,  Wecta  of  Woden.  From  Woden  sprang  all  our 
royal  kin,  and  the  Southumbrians  also  "  (year  449,  "  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle," 
Peterborough  text).  "  Penda  was  the  son  of  Pybba,  Pybba  of  Cryda  .  .  . 
Wsermund  of  Wihtlceg,  Wihtlaeg  of  Woden  "  {Ibid. :  year  626).  Orderic 
Vital,  born  in  England,  and  writing  in  Normandy,  in  the  twelfth  century,  con- 
tinues to  trace  back  the  descent  of  the  kings  of  England  to  Woden  :  "  a  quo 
Angli  feriam  [iv]ara  Wodenis  diem  nuncupant "  ("  Hist.  Eccl.,"  ed.  Le  Pre- 
vost,  vol.  iii.  p.  161).  "  Wodenis  dies  "  has  become  Wednesday.  In  the  same 
fashion,  and  even  more  characteristically,  the  feast  of  the  northern  goddess 
Eostra  has  become  "Easter":  "  Eostur-monath,  qui  nunc  paschalis  mensis 
interpretatur,  quondam  a  deaeorum  quae  Eostre  vocabatur  .  .  .  nomen  habuit." 
Bede,  "  De  Temporum  Ratione"  in  Migne:s  "  Patrologia,"  xc,  col.  357. 
Similar  genealogies  occur  in  Matthew  Paris,  thirteenth  century,  "  Chronica 
Majora,"  vol.  i.  pp    188-9,  422  (Rolls). 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.     63 

ligion  progresses,  while  the  old  is  waning;  this  phenomenon 
is  brought  about,  in  the  south,  by  the  influence  of  Augus- 
tine and  the  monks  from  Rome  ;  and  in  the  north,  owing 
mainly  to  Celtic  monks  from  the  monastery  of  Iona, 
founded  in  the  sixth  century  by  St.  Columba,  on  the  model 
of  the  convents  of  Ireland.  About  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century  the  work  is  nearly  accomplished  ;  the  old  churches 
abandoned  by  the  Romans  have  been  restored  ;  many 
others  are  built  ;  one  of  them  still  exists  at  Bradford-on- 
Avon  in  a  perfect  state  of  preservation  I  ;  monasteries  are 
founded,  centres  of  culture  and  learning.  Some  of  the  rude 
princes  who  reign  in  the  country  set  great  examples  of 
devotion  to  Christ  and  submission  to  the  Roman  pontiff. 
They  date  their  charters  from  the  "  reign  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  reigning  for  ever."  2  The  Princess  Hilda  founds,  in 
the  seventh  century,  the  monastery  of  Streoneshalch,  and 
becomes  its  abbess  ;  Cead walla  dies  at  Rome  in  689,  ancns 
buried  in  St.  Peter's,  under  the  Portions  Pontificum,  oppo- 
site the  tomb  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great.3  yEthelwulf,  king 
of  the  West  Saxons,  goes  also  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome 
"  in  great  state,  and  remains  twelve  months,  after  which  he 
returns  home  ;  and  then  Charles,  king  of  the  Franks,  gave 
him  his  daughter  in  marriage."  4  He  sends  his  son  Alfred 
to  the  Eternal  City  ;  and  the  Pope  takes  a  liking  to  the 
young  prince,  who  was  to  be  Alfred  the  Great. 

The  notion  of  moderation  and  measure  is  unknown  to 
these  enthusiasts,  who  easily  fall  into  despair.     In  the  fol- 

1  This  unique  monument  seems  to  be  of  the  eighth  century.  Cf.  "  Pre- 
Conquest  Churches  of  Northumbria,"  an  article  by  C.  Hodges  in  the  "  Reli- 
quary," July,  1893. 

2  For  example,  charter  of  Offa,  dated  793,  "  Matthaei  Parisiensis  .  .  . 
Chronica  Majora,"  ed.  Luard  (Rolls),  vol.  vi.,  "  Additamenta,"  pp.  I,  25, 
&c.  :   "  Regnante  Domino  nostro  Jesu  Christo  in  perpetuum." 

*  "  King  Ceadwalla's  tomb  in  the  ancient  basilica  of  St.  Peter,"  by  M. 
Tesoroni,  Rome,  1891,  8vo. 

4  "  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,"  year  855.  The  princess  was  Judith,  daughter 
of  Charles  the  Bald.     Hincmar,  archbishop  of  Reims,  blessed  the  marriage. 


64  THE   ORIGINS. 

lowing  period,  after  the  Norman  Conquest,  when  manners 
and  customs  were  beginning  to  change,  the  chronicler, 
William  of  Malmesbury,  trying  to  draw  a  correct  picture 
of  the  ancient  owners  of  the  land,  is  struck  by  the 
exaggerations  of  the  Saxons'  temperament.  Great  num- 
bers of  them  are  drunkards,  they  lead  dissolute  lives, 
and  reign  as  ferocious  tyrants ;  great  numbers  of  them, 
too,  are  pious,  devout,  faithful  even  unto  martyrdom  : 
"  What  shall  I  say  of  so  many  bishops,  hermits,  and 
abbots  ?  The  island  is  rendered  famous  by  the  relics  of 
native  saints,  so  numerous  that  it  is  impossible  to  visit  a 
borough  of  any  importance  without  hearing  the  name  of  a 
new  saint.  Yet  the  memory  of  many  has  vanished,  for 
lack  of  writers  to  preserve  it  !  "  z 

The  taste  for  proselytism,  of  which  the  race  has  since 
given  so  many  proofs,  is  early  manifested.  Once  converted,' 
the  Anglo-Saxons  produce  missionaries,  who  in  their  turn 
carry  the  glad  tidings  to  their  pagan  brothers  on  the 
Continent,  and  become  saints  of  the  Roman  Church.  St. 
Wilfrith  leaves  Northumberland  about  680,  and  goes  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Frisians  ;  St.  Willibrord  starts 
from  England  about  690,  and  settles  among  the  Frisians 
and  Danes  2 ;  Winfrith,  otherwise  called  St.  Boniface  (an 
approximate  translation  of  his  name),  sojourns  in  Thuringia 
and  Bavaria,  "  sowing,"  as  he  says,  "  the  evangelical  seed 
among  the  rude  and  ignorant  tribes  of  Germany."3  He 
reorganises  the  Church  of  the  Franks,  and  dies  martyrised 

1  "  Quid  dicam  de  tot  episcopis  .  .  .  "&c.  "  Willelmi  Malmesbiriensis.  .  .  . 
Gesta  regum  Anglorum,"  ed.  Hardy,  London,  1840,  2  vols.  8vo,  vol.  ii. 
p.  417. 

2  See  his  will  and  various  documents  concerning  him  in  Migne's  "  Patro- 
logia,"  vol.  lxxxix.,  col.  535  et  seq. 

3  "  Fraternitatis  vestrae  pietatem  intimis  obsecramus  precibus  ut  nos  inter 
feras  et  ignaras  gentes  Germanise  laborantes,  vestris  sacrosanctis  orationibus 
adjuvemur."  Boniface  to  Cuthberht  and  others,  year  735,  in  Migne's  "  Patro- 
logia,"  vol.  lxxxix.,  col.  735. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    65 

by  the  Frisians  in  755.  Scarcely  is  the  hive  formed  when 
it  begins  to  swarm.  The  same  thing  happened  with  all 
the  sects  created  later  in  the  English  land. 


II. 

With  religion  had  come  Latin  letters.  Those  same 
Anglo-Saxons,  whose  literature  at  the  time  of  their  invasion 
consisted  in  the  songs  mentioned  by  Tacitus,  "  carmina 
antiqua,"  which  they  trusted  to  memory  alone,  who  com- 
piled no  books  and  who  for  written  monuments  had  Runic 
inscriptions  graven  on  utensils  or  on  commemorative 
stones,  now  have,  in  their  turn,  monks  who  compose 
chronicles,  and  kings  who  know  Latin.  Libraries  are 
formed  in  the  monasteries  ;  schools  are  attached  to  them  ; 
manuscripts  are  there  copied  and  illuminated  in  beautiful 
•caligraphy  and  splendid  colours.  The  volutes  and  knots 
with  which  the  worshippers  of  Woden  ornamented  their 
fibulae,  their  arms,  the  prows  of  their  ships,  are  reproduced 
in  purple  and  azure,  in  the  initials  of  the  Gospels.  The  use 
made  of  them  is  different,  the  taste  remains  the  same. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  missionaries  and  learned  men  corre- 
spond with  each  other  in  the  language  of  Rome.  Boniface, 
in  the  wilds  of  Germany,  remains  in  constant  communica- 
tion with  the  prelates  and  monks  of  England  ;  he  begs  for 
books,  asks  for  and  gives  advice  ;  his  letters  have  come 
down  to  us,  and  are  in  Latin.  Ealhwine  or  Alcuin,  of 
York,  called  by  Charlemagne  to  his  court,  freely  bestows, 
in  Latin  letters,  good  advice  on  his  countrymen.  He 
organises  around  the  great  Emperor  a  literary  academy, 
where  each  bears  an  assumed  name ;  Charlemagne  has 
taken  that  of  David,  his  chamberlain  has  chosen  that  of 
Tyrcis,  and  Alcuin  that  of  Horatius  Flaccus.  In  this 
"  hotel  de  Rambouillet  "  of  the  Karlings,  the  affected  style 
was  as  much  relished  as  at  the  fair  Arthenice's,  and  Alcuin, 

6 


66  THE  ORIGINS. 

in  his  barbarous  Latin,  has  a  studied  elegance  that  might 
vie  with  the  conceits  of  Voiture.1 

Aldhelm  (or  Ealdhelm,  d.  709)  writes  a  treatise  on  Latin 
prosody,  and,  adding  example  to  precept,  composes  riddles 
and  a  Eulogy  of  Virgins  in  Latin  verse.2  ^Eddi  (Eddius 
Stephanus)  writes  a  life,  also  in  Latin,  of  his  friend  St. 
Wilfrith.3 

The  history  of  the  nation  had  never  been  written.  On 
the  Continent,  and  for  a  time  in  the  island,  rough  war-songs 
were  the  only  annals  of  the  Anglo-Saxons.  Now  they 
have  Latin  chronicles,  a  Latin  which  Tacitus  might  have 
smiled  at;but  which  he  would  have  understood.  Above  all, 
they  have  the  work  of  the  Venerable  Bede  (Baeda),  the  most 
important  Latin  monument  of  all  the  Anglo-Saxon  period. 

Bede  was  born  in  Northumbria,  about  673,  the  time  when 
the  final  conversion  of  England  was  being  accomplished. 
He  early  entered  the  Benedictine  monastery  of  Jarrow, 
and  remained  there  till  his  death.  It  was  a  recently 
founded  convent,  established  by  Benedict  Biscop,  who  had 
enriched  it  with  books  brought  back  from  his  journeys  to 
Rome.  In  this  retreat,  on  the  threshold  of  which  worldly 
sounds  expired,  screened  from  sorrows,  surrounded  by 
disciples  who  called   him  "  dear   master,  beloved   father," 

1  "  Ideo  hcec  Vestrae  Excellentise  dico  .  .  .  ut  aliquos  ex  pueris  nostris 
remittam,  qui  excipiant  nobis  necessaria  qureque,  et  revehant  in  Franciam 
flores  Britanniae :  ut  non  sit  tantummodo  in  Eborica  hortus  conclusus,  sed  in 
Turonica  emissiones  Paradisi  cum  pomorum  fructibus,  ut  veniens  Auster  per- 
flare  hortos  Ligeris  fluminis  et  fluant  aromata  illius  .  .  ."  Migne's  "  Patro- 
logia,"  vol.  c,  col.  20S.  Many  among  Alcuin:s  letters  are  directed  to  Anglo- 
Saxon  kings  whom  he  does  not  forbear  to  castigate,  threatening  them,  if  need 
be,  with  the  displeasure  of  the  mighty  emperor  :  "Ad  Offam  regem  Mer- 
ciorum  ,  "  "Ad  Ccenulvum  regem  Merciorum,"  year  796,  col.  213,  232. 

2  Works  in  Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vol.  lxxxix.  col.  87  et  seq.  They  include, 
besides  his  poetry  ("  Delaude  Virginum,"&c),  a  prose  treatise:  "  De  Laudibus 
Virginitatis,"  and  other  works  in  prose.  He  uses  alliteration  in  his  Latin  poems. 

3  "  Vita  Sancti  Wilfridi  episcopi  Eboracensis,  auctore  Eddio  Stephano,"  in 
Gale's  "  Historiae  Britannicae,  Saxonicae,  Anglo-Danicae  Scriptores  x." 
Oxford,  1691,  2  vols.  fol.>  vol.  i.  pp.  50  ff. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    67 

Bede  allowed  the  years  of  his  life  to  glide  on,  his  sole 
ambition  being  to  learn  and  teach. 

The  peaceful  calm  of  this  sheltered  existence,  which 
came  to  an  end  before  the  time  of  the  Danish  invasions, 
is  reflected  in  the  writings  of  Bede.  He  left  a  great 
number  of  works :  interpretations  of  the  Gospels,  homilies, 
letters,  lives  of  saints,  works  on  astronomy,  a  "  De  Natura 
Rerum "  where  he  treats  of  the  elements,  of  comets,  of 
winds,  of  the  Nile,  of  the  Red  Sea,  of  Etna  ;  a  "  De 
Temporibus,"  devoted  to  bissextiles,  to  months,  to  the 
week,  to  the  solstice  ;  a  "  De  Temporum  Ratione  "  on  the 
months  of  the  Greeks,  Romans,  and  Angles,  the  moon  and 
its  power,  the  epact,  Easter,  &c.  He  wrote  hymns  in 
Latin  verse,  and  a  life  of  St.  Cuthberht  ;  lastly,  and  above 
all,  he  compiled  in  Latin  prose,  a  "  Historia  ecclesiastica 
gentis  Anglorum,"1  which  has  remained  the  basis  of  all  the 
histories  composed  after  his.  In  it  Bede  shows  himself  as 
he  was :  honest,  sincere,  sedate,  and  conscientious.  He 
quotes  his  authorities  which  are,  for  the  description  of 
the  island  and  for  the  most  ancient  period  of  his  history, 
Pliny,  Solinus,  Eutropius,  Orosius,  Gildas.  From  the 
advent  of  Augustine  his  work  becomes  his  own  ;  he 
collects  documents,  memoranda,  testimonies,  frequently 
legends,  and  publishes  the  whole  without  any  criticism, 
but  without  falsifications.  He  lacks  art,  but  not  straight- 
forwardness. 

Latinist  though  he  was,  he  did  not  despise  the  national 
literature  in  spite  of  its  ruggedness.  He  realised  it  was 
truly  a  literature;  he  made  translations  in  Anglo-Saxon, 
but  they  are  lost ;  he  was  versed  in  the  national  poetry, 
"  doctus  in  nostris  carminibus,"  writes  his  pupil  Cuthberht,2 

1  Ed.  G.  H.  Moberly,  Oxford,  Clarendon  Press,  1881,  8vo  (or  Stevenson, 
London,  1838-41,  2  vols.  8vo).  Complete  works  in  Migne's  "  Patrologia," 
vol.  xc.  ft. 

2  Letter  of  Cuthberht,  later  abbot  of  Jarrow,  to  his  friend  Cuthwine,  on  the 


68  THE    ORIGINS. 

who  pictures  him  on  his  deathbed,  muttering  Anglo-Saxon 
verses.  He  felt  the  charm  of  the  poetic  genius  of  his 
nation,  and  for  that  reason  has  preserved  and  naively- 
related  the  episodes  of  Caedmon  in  his  stable,1  and  of  the 
Saxon  chief  comparing  human  life  to  the  sparrow  flying 
across  the  banquet  hall. 

Bede  died  on  the  27th  of  May,  735,  leaving  behind  him 
such  a  renown  for  sanctity  that  his  bones  were  the  occasion 
for  one  of  those  pious  thefts  common  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
In  the  eleventh  century  a  priest  of  Durham  removed  them 
in  order  to  place  them  in  the  cathedral  of  that  town,  where 
the\r  still  remain.  St.  Boniface,  on  receiving  the  news  of 
this  death,  far  away  in  Germany,  begged  his  friends  in 
England  to  send  him  the  works  of  his  compatriot  ;  the 
homilies  of  Bede  would  assist  him,  he  said,  in  composing 
his  own,  and  his  commentaries  on  the  Scriptures  would  be 
"  a  consolation  in  his  sorrows."  ~ 


III. 

Anglo-Saxon  monks  now  speak  Latin  ;  some,  since  the 
coming  of  Theodore  of  Tarsus,3  even  know  a  little  Greek  ; 


death  of  Bede,  printed  with  the  "  Historia  ecclesiastica."  Bede  is  represented,, 
on  his  death-bed,  "in  nostra  lingua,  ut  erat  doctus  in  nostris  carminibus> 
dicens  de  terribili  exitu  animarum  e  corpore : 

Fore  the  nei-faerae 
Naenig  uuiurthit 
Thonc  snoturra.  ..." 

Bede  had  translated  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  but  this  work  is  lost. 

1  See  below,  p.  70. 

2  Letter  of  the  year  735,  "  Cuthberto  et  aliis  "  ;  letter  of  736  to  Ecgberht. 
archbishop  of  York.  He  receives  the  books,  and  expresses  his  delight  at 
them  ;  he  sends  in  exchange  pieces  of  cloth  to  Ecgberht ;  letter  of  the  year 
742  ;   "  Patrologia,"  vol.  Ixxxix. 

3  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  seventh  century. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    69 

an  Anglo-Saxon  king  sleeps  at  Rome,  under  the  portico  of 
St.  Peter's  ;  Woden  has  left  heaven  ;  on  the  soil  convulsed 
by  so  many  wars,  the  leading  of  peaceful,  sheltered  lives, 
entirely  dedicated  to  study,  has  become  possible  :  and  such 
was  the  case  with  Bede.  Has  the  nation  really  changed 
and  do  we  find  ourselves  already  in  the  presence  of  men 
with  a  partly  latinised  genius,  such  men  as  the  English 
were  hereafter  to  be?  Not  yet.  The  heart  and  mind 
remain  the  same  ;  the  surface  alone  is  modified,  and  that 
slightly.  The  full  infusion  of  the  Latin  element,  which  is 
to  transform  the  Anglo-Saxons  into  English,  will  take 
place  several  centuries  hence,  and  will  be  the  result  of  a 
last  invasion.  The  genius  of  the  Teutonic  invaders  con- 
tinues nearly  intact,  and  nothing  proves  this  more  clearly 
than  the  Christian  poetry  composed  in  the  native  tongue, 
and  produced  in  Britain  after  the  conversion.  The  same 
impetuosity,  passion,  and  lyricism,  the  same  magnificent 
apostrophes  which  gave  its  character  to  the  old  pagan 
poetry  are  found  again  in  Christian  songs,  as  well  as  the 
same  recurring  alternatives  of  deep  melancholy  and  noisy 
exultation. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  poets  describe  the  saints  of  the 
Gospel,  and  it  seems  as  though  the  companions  of  Beowulf 
stood  again  before  us :  "  So,  we  have  learned,  in  days 
of  yore,  of  twelve  beneath  the  stars,  heroes  gloriously 
blessed."  These  "  heroes,"  these  "  warriors,"  are  the  twelve 
apostles.  One  of  them,  St.  Andrew,  arrives  in  an  unin- 
habited country  ;  not  a  desert  in  Asia,  nor  a  solitude  in 
Greece  ;  it  might  be  the  abode  of  Grendel  :  "  Then  was 
the  saint  in  the  shadow  of  darkness,  warrior  hard  of 
courage,  the  whole  night  long  with  various  thoughts  beset  ; 
snow  bound  the  earth  with  winter-casts  ;  cold  grew  the 
storms,  with  hard  hail-showers  ;  and  rime  and  frost,  the 
hoary  warriors,  locked  up  the  dwellings  of  men,  the  settle- 
ments   of  the    people ;    frozen  were    the    lands  with    cold 


yo  THE   ORIGINS. 

icicles,  shrunk  the  water's  might ;  over  the  river  streams, 
the  ice  made  a  bridge,  a  pale  water  road."  z 

They  have  accepted  the  religion  of  Rome  ;  they  believe 
in  the  God  of  Mercy  ;  they  have  faith  in  the  apostles 
preaching  the  doctrine  of  love  to  the  world  :  peace  on 
earth  to  men  of  good  will  !  But  that  warlike  race  would 
think  it  a  want  of  respect  to  see  in  the  apostles  mere 
pacifici,  and  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  poems  they  are  constantly 
termed  "  warriors." 

At  several  different  times  these  new  Christians  translated 
parts  of  the  Bible  into  verse,  and  the  Bible  became  Anglo- 
Saxon,  not  only  in  language,  but  in  tone  and  feeling  as 
well.  The  first  attempt  of  this  kind  was  made  by  that 
herdsman  of  the  seventh  century,  named  Caedmon,  whose 
history  has  been  told  by  Bede.  He  was  so  little  gifted  by 
nature  that  when  he  sat,  on  feast  days,  at  one  of  those 
meals  "  where  the  custom  is  that  each  should  sing  in  turn, 
he  would  leave  the  table  when  he  saw  the  harp  approaching 
and  return  to  his  dwelling,"  unable  to  find  verses  to  sing 
like  the  others.  One  night,  when  the  harp  had  thus  put 
him  to  flight,  he  had,  in  the  stable  where  he  was  keeping 
the  cattle,  a  vision.  "  Sing  me  something,"  was  the  com- 
mand of  a  mysterious  being.  "  I  cannot,"  he  answered, 
"  and  the  reason  why  I  left  the  hall  and  retired  here  is  that 
I  cannot  sing."  "  But  sing  thou  must."  "  What  shall  I 
sing,  then  ?  "  "  Sing  the  origin  of  things."  Then  came  at 
once  into  his  mind  "  excellent  verses  "  ;  Bede  translates  a 
few  of  them,  which  are  very  flat,  but  he  generously  lays  the 
fault  on  his  own  translation,  saying:  "Verses,  even  the 
very  best,  cannot  be  turned  word  for  word  from  one 
language  into  another  without  losing  much  of  their  beauty 


1  J.  M.  Kemble,  "  Codex  Vercellensis,"  London,  JPAfric  Society,  1847-56; 
Part  I.,  11.  1  ff.,  2507  ff.,  "  Andreas,"  attributed  to  Cynewulf.  On  this  ques- 
tion, see  Gollancz,  "  Cynewulfs  Christ,"  London,  1892,  p.  173. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    71 

and  dignity,"  l  a  remark  which  has  stood  true  these 
many  centuries.  Taken  to  the  abbess  Hilda,  of  Streones- 
halch,  Caedmon  roused  the  admiration  of  all,  became  a 
monk,  and  died  like  a  saint,  "  and  no  one  since,  in  the 
English  race,  has  ever  been  able  to  compose  pious  poems 
equal  to  his,  for  he  was  inspired  by  God,  and  had  learnt 
nothing  of  men."     Some  tried,  however. 

An  incomplete  translation  of  the  Bible  in  Anglo-Saxon 
verses  has  come  down  to  us,  the  work  apparently  of 
several  authors  of  different  epochs.2  Caedmon  may  be  one 
of  them  :  the  question  has  been  the  cause  of  immense 
discussion,  and  remains  doubtful. 

The  tone  is  haughty  and  peremptory  in  the  impassioned 
parts  ;  abrupt  appositions  keep  the  attention  fixed  upon 
the  main  quality  of  the  characters,  the  one  by  which  they 
are  meant  to  live  in  memory  ;  triumphant  accents  accom- 
pany the  tales  of  war  ;  the  dismal  landscapes  are  described 
with  care,  or  rather  with  loving  delight.   Ethereal  personages 

1  "  Neque  enim  possunt  carmina,  quamvis  optime  composita  ex  alia  in 
aliam  linguam  ad  verbum  sine  detrimento  sui  decoris  ac  dignitatis  transferri." 
"  Historia  Ecclesiastica,"  book  iv.  chap.  xxiv. 

2  "  Caedmon's  metrical  paraphrase  of  parts  of  the  Holy  Scripture  in  Anglo- 
Saxon,  with  an  English  translation,"  by  B.  Thorpe,  London,  Society  of  Anti- 
quaries, 1832,  8vo.  An  edition  by  Junius  (Francis  Dujon  by  his  true  name, 
born  at  Heidelberg,  d.  at  Windsor,  1678)  had  been  published  at  Amsterdam 
in  1655,  and  may  have  been  known  to  Milton  (cf.  "  Caedmon  und  Milton,"  by 
R.  Wulcker,  in  "  Anglia,"  vol.  iv.  p.  401).  Junius  was  the  first  to  attribute 
this  anonymous  poem,  or  rather  collection  of  poems  ("  Genesis,"  "  Exodus," 
"  Daniel,"  "  Christ  and  Satan  ")  to  Caedmon.  "  Genesis  "  is  made  up  of  two 
different  versions  of  different  dates,  clumsily  put  together.  German  critics,  and 
especially  Prof.  Ed.  Sievers  ("  Der  Heliand,"  Halle,  1875),  have  conclu- 
sively shown  that  lines  1  to  234,  and  852  to  the  end,  belong  to  the  same  and 
older  version  (possibly  by  Caedmon)  ;  lines  235  to  851,  inserted  without  much 
care,  as  they  retell  part  of  the  story  to  be  found  also  in  the  older  version,  are  of 
a  more  recent  date,  and  show  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  old  Germanic  poem 
"  Heliand"  (Healer,  Saviour)  in  alliterative  verse,  of  the  ninth  century. 

Another  biblical  story  was  paraphrased  in  Anglo-Saxon  verse,  and  was  the 
subject  of  the  beautiful  poem  of  "Judith,"  preserved  in  the  same  MS.  as 
"  Beowulf."     Grein's  "  Bibliothek,"  vol.  i. 


72  THE   ORIGINS. 

become  in  this  popular  Bible  tangible  realities.  The  fiend 
approaches  Paradise  with  the  rude  wiles  of  a  peasant. 
Before  starting  he  takes  a  helmet,  and  fastens  it  tightly  on 
his  head.  He  presents  himself  to  Adam  as  coming  from 
God :  "  The  all-powerful  above  will  not  have  trouble  him- 
self, that  on  his  journey  he  should  come,  the  Lord  of 
men,  but  he  his  vassal  sendeth."  x 

Hell,  the  deluge,  the  corruption  of  the  grave,  the  last 
judgment,  the  cataclysms  of  nature,  are  favourite  subjects 
with  these  poets.  Inward  sorrows,  gnawing  thoughts  that 
"  besiege "  men,  doubts,  remorse,  gloomy  landscapes,  all 
afford  them  abundant  inspiration.  Satan  in  his  hell  has 
fits  of  anguish  and  hatred,  and  the  description  of  his 
tortures  seems  a  rude  draft  of  Milton's  awful  picture. 

Cynewulf,2  one  of  the  few  poets  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
period  known  by  name,  and  the  greatest  of  all,  feels  the 
pangs  of  despair  ;  and  then  rises  to  ecstasies,  moved  by 
religious  love  ;  he  speaks  of  his  return  to  Christ  with  a 
passionate  fervour,  foreshadowing  the  great  conversions  of 
the  Puritan  epoch.  He  ponders  over  his  thoughts  "  in  the 
narrowness  of  night.  ...  I   was  stained  with  my  deeds, 

1  "  Metrical  Paraphrase,"  pp.  29  ff. 

2  Four  poems  have  come  down  to  us  signed  by  means  of  an  acrostic  on  the 
Runic  letters  of  his  name  :  "  Elene  "  (on  the  finding  of  the  cross),  "  Fates  of 
the  Apostles"  (both  in  "Codex  Vercellensis"),  "Juliana"  and  "  Christ"  (in 
"  Codex  Exoniensis") ;  a  separate  edition  of  "  Christ"  has  been  given  by  M. 
Gollancz,  London,  1892,  8vo.  Many  other  poems,  and  even  the  whole  of 
"  Codex  Vercellensis,"  have  been  attributed  to  him.  The  eighty-nine  riddles 
of  "  Codex  Exoniensis,"  some  of  which  continue  to  puzzle  the  readers  of  our  day, 
are  also  considered  by  some  as  his :  one  of  the  riddles  is  said  to  contain  a 
charade  on  his  name,  but  there  are  doubts  ;  ample  discussions  have  taken  place, 
and  authorities  disagree  :  "The  eighty-sixth  riddle,  which  concerns  a  wolf  and 
a  sheep,  was  related,"  said  Dietrich,  "  to  Cynewulf ;"  but  Professor  Morley 
considers  that  this  same  riddle  "  means  the  overcoming  of  the  Devil  by  the  hand 
of  God."  Stopford  Brooke,  "  Early  English  Literature,"  chap.  xxii.  Many 
of  those  riddles  were  adapted  from  the  Latin  of  Aldhelm  and  others.  This  sort 
of  poetry  enjoyed  great  favour,  as  the  Scandinavian  "  Corpus  Poeticum"  also 
testifies.  What  is  "  Men's  damager,  words'  hinderer,  and  yet  words'  arouser?" 
— "  Ale."     "  Corpus  Poeticum,"  i.  p.  87. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    73 

bound  by  my  sins,  buffeted  with  sorrows,  bitterly  bound, 
with  misery  encompassed.  .  .  ."  Then  the  cross  appears 
to  him  in  the  depths  of  heaven,  surrounded  by  angels, 
sparkling  with  jewels,  flowing  with  blood.  A  sound  breaks 
through  the  silence  of  the  firmament ;  life  has  been  given 
to  "  the  best  of  trees,"  and  it  speaks  :  "  It  was  long  ago, 
yet  I  remember  it,  that  I  was  cut  down,  at  the  end  of  a 
wood,  stirred  from  my  sleep."  The  cross  is  carried  on  the 
top  of  a  mountain  :  "  Then  the  young  hero  made  ready, 
that  was  Almighty  God.  ...  I  trembled  when  the  champion 
embraced  me."  x 

The  poem  in  which  St.  Andrew  figures  as  a  "warrior 
bold  in  war,"  attributed  also  to  the  same  Cynewulf,  is  filled 
by  the  sound  of  the  sea  ;  all  the  sonorities  of  the  ocean  are 
heard,  with  the  cadence  and  the  variety  of  the  ancient 
Scandinavian  sagas  ;  a  multitude  of  picturesque  and  living 
expressions  designate  a  ship  :  "  Foamy-necked  it  fareth, 
likest  unto  a  bird  it  glideth  over  ocean  ; "  it  follows  the 
path  of  the  swans,  and  of  the  whales,  borne  by  the  ocean 
stream  "  to  the  rolling  of  the  waters  .  .  .  the  clashing  of  the 
sea-streams  .  .  .  the  clash  of  the  waves/'  The  sea  of 
these  poets,  contrary  to  what  Tacitus  thought,  was  not  a 
slumbering  sea  ;  it  quivers,  it  foams,  it  sings. 

St.  Andrew  decides  to   punish   by  a  miracle   the  wild 

1  "  Elene,"  in  "  Codex  Vercellensis,"  part  ii.  p.  73,  and  "  Holy  Rood  "  (this 
last  of  doubtful  authorship),  ibid.  pp.  84  ff.  Lines  resembling  some  of  the 
verses  in  "  Holy  Rood  "  have  been  found  engraved  in  Runic  letters  on  the  cross 
at  Ruthwell,  Scotland  ;  the  inscription  and  cross  are  reproduced  in  "  Vetusta 
Monumenta,"  vol.  iv.  p.  54  ;  see  also  G.  Stephens,  "  The  old  Northern  Runic 
monuments  of  Scandinavia  and  England,"  London,  1866-8,  2  vols,  fol., 
vol.  i.  pp.  405  ff.  Resemblances  have  also  been  pointed  out,  showing  the  fre- 
quence of  such  poetical  figures,  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  inscription  of  a  reliquary 
preserved  at  Brussels  :  "  Rood  is  my  name,  I  once  bore  the  rich  king,  I  was 
wet  with  dripping  blood."  The  reliquary  contains  a  piece  of  the  true  cross, 
which  is  supposed  to  speak  these  words.  The  date  is  believed  to  be  about  1 100. 
H.  Logeman,  "  LTnscription  Anglo-Saxonne  du  reliquaire  de  la  vraie  croix 
•au  tresor  de  l'eglise  des  SS.  Michel  et  Gudule,"  Gand,  Paris  and  London, 
1 89 1,  8vo  (with  facsimile),  pp.  7  and  II. 


74  THE   ORIGINS. 

inhabitants  of  the  land  of  Mermedonia.  We  behold,  as  in 
the  Northern  sagas,  an  impressive  scene,  and  a  fantastic 
landscape  :  "  He  saw  by  the  wall,  wondrous  fast  upon  the 
plain,  mighty  pillars,  columns  standing  driven  by  the 
storm,  the  antique  works  of  giants.  .  .  . 

"  Hear  thou,  marble  stone  !  by  the  command  of  God, 
before  whose  face  all  creatures  shall  tremble,  .  .  .  now  let 
from  thy  foundation  streams  bubble  out  ...  a  rushing 
stream  of  water,  for  the  destruction  ot  men,  a  gushing 
ocean  !  ,  .  . 

"  The  stone  split  open,  the  stream  bubbled  forth  ;  it 
flowed  over  the  ground,  the  foaming  billows  at  break  of 
day  covered  the  earth.  .  ,  ." 

The  sleeping  warriors  are  awakened  by  this  "bitter 
service  of  beer."  They  attempt  to  "  fly  from  the  yellow 
stream,  they  would  save  their  lives  in  mountain  caverns  "  ; 
but  an  angel  "  spread  abroad  over  the  town  pale  fire,  hot 
warlike  floods,"  and  barred  them  the  way  ;  "  the  waves 
waxed,  the  torrents  roared,  fire-sparks  flew  aloft,  the  flood 
boiled  with  its  waves  ; "  on  all  sides  were  heard  groans  and 
the  "  death-song."  r  Let  us  stop  ;  but  the  poet  continues  ; 
he  is  enraptured  at  the  sight ;  no  other  description  is  so 
minutely  drawn.  Ariosto  did  not  find  a  keener  delight  in 
describing  with  leisurely  pen  the  bower  of  Alcina. 

The  religious  poets  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  open  the 
graves  ;  the  idea  of  death  haunts  them  as  much  as  it 
did  their  pagan  ancestors  ;  they  look  intently  at  the 
"  black  creatures,  grasping  and  greedy,"  and  follow  the 
process  of  decay  to  the  end.  They  address  the  impious 
dead  :  "  It  would  have  been  better  for  thee  very  much  .  .  . 
that  thou  hadst  been  created  a  bird,  or  a  fish  in  the  sea,  or 

1  "  Codex  Vercellensis,"  part  i.  pp.  29,  86  ff.  "  Andreas  "  is  imitated  from 
a  Greek  story  of  St.  Andrew,  of  which  some  Latin  version  was  probably  known 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon  poet.  It  was  called  "  Ylpa^ug  'Avcpiov  icai  ~Sla-0aiov  ;  "  a 
copy  of  it  is  preserved  in  the  National  Library,  Paris,  Greek  MS.  881,  fol. 
348. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    75 

like  an  ox  upon  the  earth  hadst  found  thy  nurture  going 
in  the  field,  a  brute  without  understanding  ;  or  in  the  desert 
of  wild  beasts  the  worst,  yea,  though  thou  hadst  been  of 
serpents  the  fiercest,  then  as  God  willed  it,  than  thou  ever 
on  earth  shouldst  become  a  man,  or  ever  baptism  should 
receive."  x 

.  .   .  This  soul  should  fly  from  me, 
And  I  be  changed  into  some  brutish  beast. 
All  beasts  are  happy,  for  when  they  die 
Their  souls  are  soon  dissolved  in  elements.  .  .  . 
O  soul !  be  changed  into  small  water-drops, 
And  fall  into  the  ocean  ;  ne'er  be  found. 

So  will,  unknown  to  him,  the  very  same  thoughts  be 
expressed  by  an  English  poet  of  a  later  day.2 

Dialogues  are  not  rare  in  these  poems ;  but  they  generally 
differ  very  much  from  the  familiar  dialogue  of  the  Celts. 
They  are  mostly  epic  in  character,  lyric  in  tone  ;  with 
abrupt  apostrophes  causing  the  listener  to  start,  like  the 
sudden  sound  of  a  trumpet.  When  the  idea  is  more  fully 
developed  the  dialogue  becomes  a  succession  of  discourses, 
full  of  eloquence  and  power  sometimes,  but  still  discourses. 
We  are  equally  far  in  both  cases  from  the  conversational 
style  so  frequent  in  the  Irish  stories.3 

*  "  Departed  Soul's  Address  to  the  Body,"  "  Codex  Vercellensis,"  part  ii. 
p.  104. 

2  Marlowe's  "  Dr.  Faustus."  See  also,  "  Be  Domes  Daege,"  a  poem  on  the 
terrors  of  judgment  (ed.  Lumby,  Early  English  Text  Society,  1876). 

3  See  examples  of  such  dialogues  and  speeches  in  "Andreas  "  ;  "  The  Holy 
Rood"  (in  "Cod.  Vercell.") ;  in  CynewulPs  "Christ"  ("Cod.  Exoni- 
ensis  "),  &c.  In  this  last  poem  occurs  one  of  the  few  examples  we  have  of 
familiar  dialogue  in  Anglo-Saxon  (a  dialogue  between  Mary  and  Joseph,  the 
tone  of  which  recalls  the  Mysteries  of  a  later  date)  ;  but  it  seems  to  be  "  derived 
from  an  undiscovered  hymn  arranged  for  recital  by  half  choirs."  Gollancz, 
"Christ,"  Introd.,  p.  xxi.  Another  example  consists  in  the  scene  of  the 
temptation  in  Genesis  {Cf.  "  S.  Aviti  .  .  .  Viennensis  Opera,"  Paris,  1643 
p.  230).  See  also  the  prose  "  Dialogue  of  Salomon  and  Saturnus  "  (Kemble, 
^Elfric  Society,  1848,  8vo),  an  adaptation  of  a  work  of  eastern  origin, 
popular  on  the  Continent,  and  the  fame  of  which  lasted  all  through  the  Middle 


76  THE   ORIGINS. 

The  devotional  poetry  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  includes 
translations  of  the  Psalms,1  lives  of  saints,  maxims,  moral 
poems,  and  symbolic  ones,  where  the  supposed  habits  of 
animals  are  used  to  illustrate  the  duties  of  Christians.  One 
of  this  latter  sort  has  for  its  subject  the  whale  "  full  of 
guile,"  another  the  panther2;  a  third  (incomplete)  the 
partridge  ;  a  fourth,  by  a  different  hand,  and  evincing  a 
very  different  sort  of  poetical  taste,  the  phenix.  This  poem 
is  the  only  one  in  the  whole  range  of  Anglo-Saxon  litera- 
ture in  which  the  warmth  and  hues  of  the  south  are  pre- 
served and  sympathetically  described.  It  is  a  great  change 
to  find  a  piece  of  some  length  with  scarcely  any  frost  in  it, 
no  stormy  waves  and  north  wind.  The  poet  is  himself 
struck  by  the  difference,  and  notices  that  it  is  not  at  all 
there  "  as  here  with  us,"  for  there  "  nor  hail  nor  rime  on  the 
land  descend,  nor  windy  cloud."  In  the  land  of  the  phenix 
there  is  neither  rain,  nor  cold,  nor  too  great  heat,  nor  steep 
mountains,   nor  wild    dales  ;    there  are  no  cares,  and    no 

Ages  and  the  Renaissance  ;  it  was  well  known  to  Rabelais  :  "  Qui  ne  s'adven- 
ture  n'a  cheval  ni  mule,  ce  diet  Salomon. — Qui  trop  s'adventure  perd  cheval  et 
mule  respondit  Malcon."  "  Vie  de  Gargantua."  Sat  urn  us  plays  the  part  of 
the  Malcon  or  Marcol  of  the  French  version ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  text  is  a  didactic 
treatise,  cut  into  questions  and  answers  :  "  Tell  me  the  substance  of  which  Adam 
the  first  man  was  made. — I  tell  thee  of  eight  pounds  by  weight. — Tell  me  what 
they  are  called. — I  tell  thee  the  first  was  a  pound  of  earth,"  &c.  (p.  181). 

1  MS.  Lat.  8824  in  the  Paris  National  Library,  Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon, 
some  pen-and-ink  drawings  :  "  Ce  livre  est  au  due  de  Berry — Jehan."  It  has 
been  published  by  Thorpe:  "  Libri  Psalmorum,  cum  paraphrasi  Anglo- 
Saxonica,"  London,  1835,  8vo-  See  also  "  Eadwine's  Canterbury  psalter  " 
(Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon),  ed.  F.  Harsley,  E.E.T.S.,  1889  ff.,  8vo. 

2  In  "  Codex  Exoniensis."  Series  of  writings  of  this  kind  enjoyed  at  an  early 
date  a  wide  popularity  ;  they  were  called  "Physiologi"  ;  there  are  some  in 
nearly  all  the  languages  of  Europe,  also  in  Syriac,  Arabic,  Ethiopian,  &c.  The 
original  seems  to  have  been  composed  in  Greek,  at  Alexandria,  in  the  second 
century  of  our  era  (F.  Lauchert,"Geschichte  des  Physiologus,"  Strasbourg,  1889, 
8vo).  To  the  "Physiologi"  succeeded  in  the  Middle  Ages  "Bestiaries," 
works  of  the  same  sort,  which  were  also  very  numerous  and  very  popular.  A 
number  of  commonplace  sayings  or  beliefs,  which  have  survived  up  to  our  day 
(the  faithfulness  of  the  dove,  the  fatherly  love  of  the  pelican),  are  derived  from 
"  Bestiaries." 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    77 

sorrows.  But  there  the  plains  are  evergreen,  the  trees 
always  bear  fruit,  the  plants  are  covered  with  flowers.  It 
is  the  home  of  the  peerless  bird.  His  eyes  turn  to  the  sun 
when  it  rises  in  the  east,  and  at  night  he  "  looks  earnestly 
when  shall  come  up  gliding  from  the  east  over  the  spacious 
sea,  heaven's  beam."  He  sings,  and  men  never  heard 
anything  so  exquisite.  His  note  is  more  beautiful  than 
the  sound  of  the  human  voice,  than  that  of  trumpets  and 
horns,  than  that  of  the  harp,  than  "  any  of  those  sounds  that 
the  Lord  has  created  for  delight  to  men  in  this  sad  world." 
When  he  grows  old,  he  flies  to  a  desert  place  in  Syria. 
Then,  "  when  the  wind  is  still,  the  weather  is  fair,  clear 
heaven's  gem  holy  shines,  the  clouds  are  dispelled,  the 
bodies  of  waters  stand  still,  when  every  storm  is  lull'd 
under  heaven,  from  the  south  shines  nature's  candle 
warm,"  the  bird  begins  to  build  itself  a  nest  in  the 
branches,  with  forest  leaves  and  sweet-smelling  herbs. 
As  the  heat  of  the  sun  increases  "  at  summer's  tide,"  the 
perfumed  vapour  of  the  plants  rises,  and  the  nest  and 
bird  are  consumed.  There  remains  something  resembling 
a  fruit,  out  of  which  comes  a  worm,  that  develops  into 
a  bird  with  gorgeous  wings.  Thus  man,  in  harvest-time, 
heaps  grains  in  his  dwelling,  before  "  frost  and  snow,  with 
their  predominance  earth  deck,  with  winter  weeds."  From 
these  seeds  in  springtime,  as  out  of  the  ashes  of  the  phenix, 
will  come  forth  living  things,  stalks  bearing  fruits,  "  earth's 
treasures."  Thus  man,  at  the  hour  of  death,  renews  his 
life,  and  receives  at  God's  hands  youth  and  endless  joy.1 

1  "  Codex  Exoniensis,"  pp.  197  ff.   This  poem  is  a  paraphrase  of  a  "  Carmen 
de  Phcenice  "  attributed  to  Lactantius,  filled  with  conceits  in  the  worst  taste : 

Mors  illi  venus  est ;  sola  est  in  morte  voluptas  : 

Ut  possit  nasci  hsec  appetit  ante  mori. 
Ipsa  sibi  proles,  suus  est  pater  et  suus  hasres. 

Nutrix  ipsa  sui,  semper  alumna  sibi  ; 
Ipsa  quidem,  sed  non  eadem,  quae  est  ipsa  nee  ipsa  est.  .  .  . 

"  Incerti  auctoris   Phoenix,    Lactantio   tributus,"   in    Migne's    "  Patrologia," 
vol.  vii.  col.  277. 


78  THE   ORIGINS. 

There  are,  doubtless,  rays  of  light  in  Anglo-Saxon 
literature,  which  appear  all  the  more  brilliant  for  being 
surrounded  by  shadow ;  but  this  example  of  a  poem 
sunny  throughout  is  unique.  To  find  others,  we  must 
wait  till   Anglo-Saxon  has  become   English  literature. 


IV. 

Besides  their  Latin  writings  and  their  devotional  poems, 
the  converted  Anglo-Saxons  produced  many  prose  works 
in  their  national  tongue.  Germanic  England  greatly- 
differed  in  this  from  Germanic  France.  In  the  latter 
country  the  language  of  the  Franks  does  not  become 
acclimatised  ;  they  see  it  themselves,  and  feel  the  im- 
possibility of  resisting  ;  Latin  as  in  general  use,  they  have 
their  national  law  written  in  Latin,  Lex  Salica.  The 
popular  speech,  which  will  later  become  the  French 
language,  is  nothing  but  a  Latin  patois,  and  is  not 
admitted  to  the  honour  of  being  written.  Notwithstand- 
ing all  the  care  with  which  archives  have  been  searched, 
no  specimens  of  French  prose  have  been  discovered  for 
the  whole  time  corresponding  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  period 
save  one  or  two  short  fragments.1  With  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  laws,2  chronicles,  and  sermons  for  the  common 
people  were  written  in  the  national  tongue ;  and,  as  Latin 

1  The  most  important  of  which  is  the  famous  Strasbourg  pledge,  February  19, 
842,  preserved  by  the  contemporary  historian  Nithard.  See  "Les  plusanciens 
monuments  de  la  langue  francaise,"  by  Gaston  Paris,  Societe  des  anciens 
Textes,  1875,  fol. 

2  Thorpe,  "  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  England,"  London,  1840, 
1  vol.  fol.  ;  laws  of  Ina,  king  of  Wessex,  688-726,  of  Alfred,  ^Ethelstan, 
&c.  We  have  also  considerable  quantities  of  deeds  and  charters,  some  in 
Latin  andȤome  in  Anglo-Saxon.  See  J.  M.  Kemble,  "  Codex  Diplomaticus 
yEvi  Saxonici,"  English  Historical  Society,  1839-40,  6  vols.  8vo;  De  Gray 
Birch,  "  Cartularium  Saxonicum,  oraCollection  of  Charters  relating  to  Anglo- 
Saxon  History,"  London,  1885  ff.  4to  ;  Earle,  "A  Handbook  to  the  Land 
Charters,  and  other  Saxonic  Documents,"  Oxford,  1888,  8vo. 


ANGLO-SAXON   CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    79 

was  only  understood  by  few,  to  these  monuments  was 
added  a  series  of  translations.1  The  English  country  can 
thus  pride  itself  upon  a  literature  which  for  antiquity  is 
unparalleled  in  Europe. 

The  chief  promoter  of  the  art  of  prose  was  that  Alfred 
(or  Aelfred)  whom  Pope  Leo  IV.  had  adopted  as  a  spiritual 
son,  and  who  reigned  over  the  West  Saxons  from  871  to  901. 
Between  the  death  of  Bede  and  the  accession  of  Alfred, 
a  great  change  had  occurred  in  the  island  ;  towards  the 
end  of  the  eighth  century  a  new  foe  had  appeared,  the 
Scandinavian  invader.  Stormy  days  have  returned,  the 
flood-gates  have  reopened  ;  human  torrents  sweep  the 
land,  and  each  year  spread  further  and  destroy  more.  In 
vain  the  Anglo-Saxon  kings,  and  in  France  the  successors 
of  Charlemagne,  annually  purchase  their  departure,  thus 
following  the  example  of  falling  Rome.  The  northern 
hordes  come  again  in  greater  numbers,  allured  by  the 
ransoms,  and  they  carry  home  such  quantities  of  English 
coins  that  "  at  this  day  larger  hoards  of  ^Ethelred  the 
Second's  coins  have  been  found  in  the  Scandinavian 
countries  than  in  our  own,  .  .  .  and  the  national  museum 
at  Stockholm  is  richer  in  this  series  than  our  own  national 
collection." 2  These  men,  termed  Danes,  Northmen,  or 
Normans,  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  French  chroniclers,  reap- 

1  Translations  of  scientific  treatises  such  as  the  "  De  Natura  Rerum  "  of 
Bede,  made  in  the  tenth  century  (Wright's  "Popular  Treatises  on  Science,"  1841, 
8vo)  ;  various  treatises  published  by  Cockayne,  "  Leechdoms,  Wortcunnings 
and  Starcraft  .  .  .  being  a  Collection  of  Documents  .  .  .  illustrating  the 
History  of  Science  .  .  .  before  the  Norman  Conquest,"  1864,  3  vols.  8vo 
(Rolls). — Translation  of  the  so-called  "  Epistola  Alexandri  ad  Aristotelem  " 
(Cockayne,  "  Narratiunculse,"  1861,  8vo,  and  "  Anglia,"  vol.  iv.  p.  139)  ;  of 
the  history  of  "  Apollonius  of  Tyre"  (Thorpe,  London,  1834,  i2mo). — Trans- 
lations by  King  Alfred  and  his  bishops,  see  below  pp.  81  ff.  The  monu- 
ments of  Anglo-Saxon  prose  have  been  collected  by  Grein,  "  Bibliothek  der 
Angelsachsischen  Prosa,"  ed.  Wulker,  Cassel,  1872  ff, 

2  Grueber  and  Keary,  "  A  Catalogue  of  English  Coins  in  the  British 
Museum,"  Anglo-Saxon  series,  vol.  ii.  1893,  8vo,  p.  Ixxxi. 


80  THE   ORIGINS. 

peared  each  year;  then,  like  the  Germanic  pirates  of  the  fifth 
century,  spared  themselves  the  trouble  of  useless  journeys, 
and  remained  in  the  proximity  of  plunder.  They  settled 
first  on  the  coasts,  then  in  the  interior.  We  find  them 
established  in  France  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth 
century  ;  in  England  they  winter  in  Thanet  for  the  first 
time  in  851,  and  after  that  do  not  leave  the  country. 
The  small  Anglo-Saxon  kingdoms,  alive  only  to  local 
interests,  and  unable  to  unite  in  a  common  resistance, 
are  for  them  an  easy  prey.  The  Scandinavians  move 
about  at  their  ease,  sacking  London  and  the  other  towns. 
They  renew  their  ravages  at  regular  intervals,  as  men 
would  go  fishing  at  the  proper  season.1  They  are 
designated  throughout  the  land  by  a  terribly  significant 
word  :  "  the  Army."  When  the  Anglo-Saxon  chronicles 
make  mention  of  "  the  Army "  the  northern  vikings 
are  always  meant,  not  the  defenders  of  the  country. 
Monasteries  are  burnt  by  the  invaders  with  no  more 
remorse  than  if  they  were  peasants'  huts ;  the  vikings 
do  not  believe  in  Christ.  Once  more,  and  for  the  last 
time,  Woden  has  worshippers  in  Britain. 

Harassed  by  the  Danes,  having  had  to  flee  and  dis- 
appear and  hide  himself,  Alfred,  after  a  long  period  of 
reverses,  resumed  the  contest  with  a  better  chance,  and 
succeeded  in  setting  limits  to  the  Scandinavian  incursions. 
England  was  divided  in  two  parts,  the  north  belonging  to 
the  Danes,  and  the  south  to  Alfred,  with  Winchester  for  his 
capital.2 

In    the   tumult   caused   by   these   new   wars,  what   the 

1  According  to  evidence  derived  from  place-names,  the  Danish  invaders 
have  left  their  strongest  mark  in  Yorkshire  and  Lincolnshire,  and  after  that  in 
"  Leicestershire,  Rutland,  Nottingham,  and  East  Anglia."  Keary,  "  Vikings 
in  Western  Christendom,"  1891,  p.  353. 

2  Peace  of  Wedmore,  sworn  by  Alfred  and  Guthrum  the  Dane,  878.  The 
text  of  the  agreement  has  been  preserved  and  figures  among  the  laws  of 
Alfred. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    81 

Saxons  had  received  of  Roman  culture  had  nearly  all  been 
swept  away.  Books  had  been  burnt,  clerks  had  forgotten 
their  Latin  ;  the  people  were  relapsing  by  degrees  into 
barbarism.  Formerly,  said  Alfred,  recalling  to  mind  the 
time  of  Bede  and  Alcuin,  "  foreigners  came  to  this  land  in 
search  of  wisdom  and  instruction,  and  we  should  now  have 
to  get  them  from  abroad  if  we  wanted  to  have  them."  He 
does  not  believe  there  existed  south  of  the  Thames,  at  the 
time  of  his  accession,  a  single  Englishman  "  able  to  trans- 
late a  letter  from  Latin  into  English.  When  I  considered  all 
this,  I  remembered  also  how  I  saw,  before  it  had  been  all 
ravaged  and  burnt,  how  the  churches  throughout  the  whole 
of  England  stood  filled  with  treasures  and  books,  and  there 
was  also  a  great  multitude  of  God's  servants,  but  they  had 
very  little  knowledge  of  the  books,  for  they  could  not 
understand  anything  of  them,  because  they  were  not  writ- 
ten in  their  own  language."  It  is  a  great  wonder  that  men 
of  the  preceding  generation,  "  good  and  wise  men  who  were 
formerly  all  over  England,"  wrote  no  translation.  There 
•can  be  but  one  explanation  :  "  They  did  not  think  that 
men  would  ever  be  so  careless,  and  that  learning  would 
so  decay."  Still  the  case  is  not  absolutely  hopeless,  for 
there  are  many  left  who  "  can  read  English  writing."  Re- 
membering which,  "  I  began,  among  other  various  and 
manifold  troubles  of  this  kingdom,  to  translate  into 
English  the  book  which  is  called  in  Latin  Pastoralis,  and 
in  English  Shepherd's  Book  ('  Hirdeboc  '),  sometimes  word 
for  word,  and  sometimes  according  to  the  sense,  as  I  had 
learnt  it  from  Plegmund  my  archbishop,  and  Asser  my 
bishop,  and  Grimbold  my  mass-priest,  and  John  my  mass- 
priest."  J     These  learned  men,  and  especially  the  Welsh- 

1  H.  Sweet,  "  King  Alfred's  West-Saxon  version  of  Gregory's  Pastoral 
Care,  with  an  English  translation,"  London,  Early  English  Text  Society, 
1871-72,  Svo,  pp.  2  ff.  Plegmund  was  an  Anglo-Saxon,  Asser  a  Welshman, 
Grimbold  a  Frank,  John  a  Saxon  from  continental  Saxony. 

7 


82  THE   ORIGINS. 

man  Asser,  who  was  to  Alfred  what  Alcuin  was  to 
Charlemagne,  helped  him  to  spread  learning  by  means  of 
translations  and  by  founding  schools.  They  explained  to 
him  the  hard  passages,  to  the  best  of  their  understanding, 
which  it  is  true  was  not  always  perfect. 

Belonging  to  the  Germanic  race  by  his  blood,  and  to  the 
Latin  realm  by  his  culture,  keeping  as  much  as  he  could 
the  Roman  ideal  before  his  eyes,  Alfred  evinced  during  all 
his  life  that  composite  genius,  at  once  practical  and 
passionate,  which  was  to  be,  after  the  Norman  Conquest,  the 
genius  of  the  English  people.  He  was  thus  an  exceptional 
man,  and  showed  himself  a  real  Englishman  before  the 
time.  Forsaken  by  all,  his  destruction  being,  as  it  seemed, 
a  question  of  days,  he  does  not  yield  ;  he  bides  his  time, 
and  begins  the  fight  again  when  the  day  has  come.  His 
soul  is  at  once  noble  and  positive  ;  he  does  not  busy  him- 
self with  learning  out  of  vanity  or  curiosity  or  for  want  of 
a  pastime  ;  he  wishes  to  gather  from  books  substantial 
benefits  for  his  nation  and  himself.  In  his  wars  he 
remembers  the  ancients,  works  upon  their  plans,  and  finds 
that  they  answer  well.  He  chooses,  in  order  to  translate 
them,  books  likely  to  fill  up  the  greatest  gaps  in  the  minds 
of  his  countrymen,  "  some  books  which  are  most  needful 
for  all  men  to  know,"  I  the  book  of  Orosius,  which  will  be 
for  them  as  a  handbook  of  universal  history  ;  the  Ecclesi- 
astical History  of  Bede,  that  will  instruct  them  concerning 
their  own  past.  He  teaches  laymen  their  duties  with  the 
"  Consolation "  of  Boethius,  and  ecclesiastics  with  the 
Pastoral  Rule  of  St.   Gregory.2 

1  Preface  of  Gregory's  "  Pastoral  Care." 

2  King  Alfred's  "  Orosius,"  ed.  H.  Sweet,  Early  English  Text  Society, 
1883,  8vo.  Orosius  was  a  Spaniard,  who  wrote  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century. — "The  Old  English  Version  of  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History  of  the 
English  People,"  ed.  T.  Miller,  E.E.T.S.,  1890.  The  authenticity  of  this 
translation  is  doubtful;  see  Miller's  introduction. —  "King  Alfred's  Anglo- 
Saxon    Version    of    Boethius,"   ed.    S.    Fox,    London,    1864,    8vo. — "  King 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    83 

His  sole  aim  being  to  instruct,  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
curtail  his  authors  when  their  discourses  are  useless  or 
too  long,  to  comment  upon  them  when  obscure,  to  add 
passages  when  his  own  knowledge  allows  him.  In  his 
translation  of  Bede,  he  sometimes  contents  himself  with 
the  titles  of  the  chapters,  suppressing  the  rest  ;  in  his 
Orosius  he  supplements  the  description  of  the  world  by 
details  he  has  collected  himself  concerning  those  regions  of 
the  North  which  had  a  national  interest  for  his  compatriots. 
He  notes  down,  as  accurately  as  he  can,  the  words  of  a 
Scandinavian  whom  he  had  seen,  and  who  had  undertaken 
a  voyage  of  discovery,  the  first  journey  towards  the  pole  of 
which  an  account  has  come  down  to  us  : 

"  Ohthere  told  his  lord,  king  Alfred,  that  he  dwelt  north- 
most  of  all  Northmen.  He  said  that  he  dwelt  in  the  land  to 
the  northward,  along  the  west  sea.1  He  said,  however,  that 
that  land  is  very  long  north  from  thence,  but  it  is  all  waste, 
except  in  a  few  places  where  the  Fins  here  and  there 
dwell,  for  hunting  in  the  winter,  and  in  the  summer  for 
fishing  in  that  sea.  He  said  that  he  was  desirous  to  try, 
once  on  a  time,  how  far  that  country  extended  due  north  ; 
or  whether  any  one  lived  to  the  north  of  the  waste.  He 
then  went  due  north,  along  the  country,  leaving  all  the 
way,  the  waste  land  on  the  right,  and  the  wide  sea  on  the 
left,  for  three  days  :  he  was  as  far  north  as  the  whale- 
hunters  go  at  the  farthest.  Then  he  proceeded  in  his 
course  due  north  as  far  as  he  could  sail  within  another 
three  days.  Then  the  land  there  inclined  due  east,  or  the 
sea  into  the  land,  he  knew  not  which  ;  but  he  knew  that 
he  there  waited  for  a  west  wind,  or  a  little  north,  and 
sailed  thence  eastward  along  that  land,  as  far  as  he  could 

Alfred's  West-Saxon  version  of  Gregory's  Pastoral  Care,"  ed.  H.  Sweet, 
E.E.T.S.,  187 1-2.  This  last  is  the  most  faithful  of  Alfred's  translations  ;  he 
attached  great  importance  to  the  work,  and  sent  a  copy  of  it  to  all  his  bishops. 
The  copy  of  Werferth,  bishop  of  Worcester,  is  preserved  in  the  Bodleian  Library. 
1  The  sea  to  the  west  of  Norway,  that  is  the  German  Ocean. 


84  THE   ORIGINS. 

sail  in  four  days."  He  arrives  at  a  place  where  the  land 
turns  to  the  south,  evidently  surrounding  the  White  Sea, 
and  he  finds  a  broad  river,  doubtless  the  Dwina,  that  he 
dares  not  cross  on  account  of  the  hostility  of  the  inhabitants. 
This  was  the  first  tribe  he  had  come  across  since  his  de- 
parture ;  he  had  only  seen  here  and  there  some  Fins, 
hunters  and  fishers.  "He  went  thither  chiefly,  in  addition 
to  seeing  the  country,  on  account  of  the  walruses,  because 
they  have  very  noble  bones  in  their  teeth  ;  some  of  those 
teeth  they  brought  to  the  king  ;  and  their  hides  are  very 
good  for  ship  ropes."  Ohthere,  adds  Alfred,  was  very  rich  ; 
he  had  six  hundred  tame  reindeer  ;  he  said  the  province 
he  dwelt  in  was  called  Helgoland,  and  that  no  one  lived 
north  of  him.1  The  traveller  gave  also  some  account  of 
lands  more  to  the  south,  and  even  more  interesting  for  his 
royal  listener,  namely  Jutland,  Seeland,  and  Sleswig,  that 
is,  as  Alfred  is  careful  to  notice,  the  old  mother  country : 
"  In  these  lands  the  Angles  dwelt,  before  they  came  hither 
to  this  land." 

When  he  has  to  deal  with  a  Latin  author,  Alfred  uses  as 
much  liberty.  He  takes  the  book  that  the  adviser  of 
Theodoric  the  Great,  Eoethius,  had  composed  while  in 
prison,  and  in  which  we  see  a  personified  abstraction, 
Wisdom,  bringing  consolation  to  the  unfortunate  man 
threatened  with  death.  No  work  was  more  famous  in  the 
Middle  Ages  ;  it  helped  to  spread  the  taste  for  abstract 
personages,  owing  to  which  so  many  shadows,  men-virtues 
and  men-vices,  were  to  tread  the  boards  of  the  mediaeval 
stage,  and  the  strange  plays  called  Moralities  were  to  enjoy 
a  lasting  popularity.  The  first  in  date  of  the  numerous 
translations  made  of  Boethius  is  that  of  Alfred. 

1  To-day  Helgeland,  in  the  northern  part  of  Norway.  Alfred's  "  Orosius," 
Thorpe's  translation,  printed  with  the  "  Life  of  Alfred  the  Great,"  by  Pauli, 
in  Bohn's  Antiquarian  Library,  pp.  249  ff.  ;  Anglo-Saxon  text  in  Sweet, 
'King  Alfred's  Orosius,"  1883,  p.  17.  Alfred  adds  the  account  of  yet 
another  journey,  undertaken  by  Wulfstan. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    85 

Under  his  pen,  the  vague  Christianity  of  Boethius1  becomes 
a  naive  and  superabundant  faith ;  each  episode  is  moralised ; 
the  affected  elegance  of  the  model  disappears,  and  gives 
place  to  an  almost  childlike  and  yet  captivating  sincerity. 
The  story  of  the  misfortunes  of  Orpheus,  written  by  Boethius 
in  a  very  pretentious  style,  has  in  Alfred's  translation  a 
charm  of  its  own,  the  charm  of  the  wild  flower. 

Among  the  innumerable  versions  of  this  tale,  the  king's 
is  certainly  the  one  in  which  art  has  the  least  share,  and 
in  which  emotion  is  most  communicative  :  "  It  happened 
formerly  that  there  was  a  harper  in  the  country  called 
Thrace,  which  was  in  Greece.  The  harper  was  inconceivably 
good.  His  name  was  Orpheus.  He  had  a  very  excellent 
wife  who  was  called  Eurydice.  Then  began  men  to  say 
concerning  the  harper  that  he  could  harp  so  that  the  wood 
moved,  and  the  stones  stirred  themselves  at  the  sound,  and 
the  wild  beasts  would  run  thereto,  and  stand  as  if  they  were 
tame  ;  so  still  that  though  men  or  hounds  pursued  them, 
they  shunned  them  not.  Then  said  they  that  the  harper's 
wife  should  die,  and  her  soul  should  be  led  to  hell.  Then 
should  the  harper  become  so  sorrowful  that  he  could  not 
remain  among  other  men,  but  frequented  the  wood,  and  sat 
on  the  mountain  both  day  and  night,  weeping  and  harping, 
so  that  the  woods  shook,  and  the  rivers  stood  still,  and 
no  hart  shunned  any  lion,  nor  hare  any  hound  ;  nor  did 
cattle  know  any  hatred,  or  any  fear  of  others,  for  the 
pleasure  of  the  sound.  Then  it  seemed  to  the  harper  that 
nothing  in  this  world  pleased  him.  Then  thought  he  that 
he  would  seek  the  gods  of  hell  and  endeavour  to  allure  them 
with  his  harp,  and  pray  that  they  would  give  him  back  his 
wife." 

1  The  researches  of  Usener  have  placed  beyond  a  doubt  that  Boethius  was  a 
Christian;  but  Christianity  is  scarcely  visible  in  the  "  Consolatio,"  which  is 
entirely  "  inspiree  d'Aristote  et  de  Platon."  Gaston  Paris,  Journal  des 
Savants,  1884,  p.  576. 


86  THE   ORIGINS. 

He  goes  down  to  the  nether  region  ;  at  the  sweetness  of 
his  harping,  Cerberus  "began  to  wag  his  tail."  Cerberus 
was  "  the  dog  of  hell  ;  he  should  have  three  heads."  "  A 
very  horrible  gatekeeper,"  Charon  by  name,  "  had  also  three 
heads,"  according  to  the  calculation  of  Alfred,  whose 
mythology  is  not  very  safe.  Charon  welcomes  the  harper, 
"  because  he  was  desirous  of  the  unaccustomed  sound  "  ;  all 
sufferings  cease  at  the  melody  of  the  harp  ;  the  wheel  of 
Ixion  ceases  to  turn  ;  the  hunger  of  Tantalus  is  appeased  ; 
the  vulture  ceases  to  torment  King  Tityus ;  and  the 
prayer  of  Orpheus  is  granted. 

"  But  men  can  with  difficulty,  if  at  all,  restrain  love  ! " 
Orpheus  retraces  his  steps,  and,  contrary  to  his  promise, 
looks  behind  and  stretches  his  hand  towards  the  beloved 
shadow,  and  the  shadow  fades  away.  Moral — for  with 
Alfred  everything  has  a  moral — when  going  to  Christ, 
never  look  behind,  for  fear  of  being  beguiled  by  the 
tempter  :  a  practical  conclusion  not  to  be  found  in 
Boethius.1 

Following  the  king's  example,  the  bishops  and  monks 
set  to  work  again.  Werferth,  bishop  of  Worcester,  trans- 
lates the  famous  dialogues  of  St.  Gregory,  filled  with  miracles 
and  marvellous  tales.2  In  the  monasteries  the  old  national 
Chronicles,  written  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue,  are  copied, 
corrected,  and  continued.  These  Chronicles  existed  before 
Alfred,  but  they  were  instilled  with  a  new  life  owing  to  his 
influence.     Seven  of  them  have  come  down  to  us.3     It  is 

1  S.  Fox,  "  King  Alfred's  Boethius,"  1864,  8vo,  chap.  xxxv. 

2  The  Anglo-Saxon  translation  made  by  Werferth  (with  a  preface  by  Alfred) 
is  still  unpublished.  Earle  has  given  a  detailed  account  of  it  in  his  "  Anglo- 
Saxon  Literature,"  1884,  pp.  193  ff. 

3  These  seven  Chronicles,  more  or  less  complete,  and  differing  more  or  less 
from  one  another,  are  the  chronicles  of  Winchester,  St.  Augustine  of  Canterbury, 
Abingdon,  Worcester,  Peterborough,  the  bilingual  chronicle  of  Canterbury,  and 
the  Canterbury  edition  of  the  Winchester  chronicle.  They  begin  at  various 
dates,  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  crossing  of  Caesar  to  Britain,  &c,  and  usually 
come  down  to  the  eleventh  century.     The  Peterborough  text  alone  continues 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    87 

not  yet  history  ;  events  are  registered  in  succession,  usually 
without  comment  ;  kings  ascend  the  throne  and  they  are 
killed  ;  bishops  are  driven  from  their  seats,  a  storm  destroys 
the  crops  ;  the  monk  notes  all  these  things,  and  does  not 
add  a  word  showing  what  he  thinks  of  them.1  He  writes 
as  a  recorder,  chary  of  words.  The  reader's  feelings  will  be 
moved  by  the  deeds  registered,  not  by  the  words  used.  Of 
kings  the  chronicler  will  often  say,  "  he  was  killed,"  without 
any  observation :  "  And  king  Osric  was  killed.  .  .  .  And 
king  Selred  was  killed.  .  .  ."  Why  say  more  ?  it  was  an 
everyday  occurrence  and  had  nothing  curious  about  it. 
But  a  comet  is  not  seen  every  day ;  a  comet  is  worth 
describing  :  "  678. — In  this  year,  the  star  [called]  comet 
appeared  in  August,  and  shone  for  three  months  every 
morning  like  sunbeam.  And  bishop  Wilfrith  was  driven 
from  his  bishopric  by  king  Ecgferth."  We  are  far 
from  the  art  of  Gibbon  or  Carlyle.  Few  monuments, 
however,  are  more  precious  than  those  old  annals  ;  for  no 
people  in  Europe  can  pride  itself  on  having  chronicles  so 
ancient  written  in  its  national  language. 

"  Every  craft  and  every  power,"  said  Alfred  once, 
speaking  there  his  own  mind,  "  soon  becomes  old  and  is 
passed  over  in  silence,  if  it  be  without  wisdom.  .  .  .  This  is 
now  especially  to  be  said,  that  I  wished  to  live  honourably 
whilst  I  lived,  and,  after  my  life,  to  leave  to  the  men  who 

as  lale  as  the  year  1 154.  The  Peterborough  and  Winchester  versions  are  the 
most  important ;  both  have  been  published  by  Plummer  and  Earle,  "Two  of 
the  Saxon  Chronicles,"  Oxford,  1892,  8vo.  The  seven  texts  have  been  printed 
by  Thorpe,  with  a  translation,  "The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,"  1861,  2  vols 
8vo  (Rolls).  The  Winchester  chronicle  contains  the  poems  on  the  battle  of 
Brunanburh  {supra,  p.  46),  the  accession  of  Edgar,  &c.  ;  the  MS.  is  pre- 
served in  the  library  of  Corpus  Christi,  Cambridge  ;  the  Peterborough  MS.  is 
in  the  Bodleian  Library  (Laud,  636). 

1  Except  in  some  very  rare  cases.  For  example,  year  897  :  "  Thanks  be  to 
God,  the  Army  had  not  utterly  broken  up  the  Angle  race."  Comments  are 
more  frequent  in  the  latter  portions  of  the  Chronicles,  especially  at  the  time  of 
and  after  the  Norman  invasion. 


88  THE   ORIGINS. 

were  after  me  my  memory  in  good  works."  x  It  happened 
as  he  had  wished.  Long  after  his  death,  his  influence  was 
still  felt  ;  he  was  the  ideal  his  successors  strove  to  attain 
to ;  even  after  the  Norman  Conquest  he  continued  to  be : 
"  Englene  herde,  Englene  derling."  2 


V. 

Alfred  disappears  ;  disturbances  begin  again  ;  then,  in 
the  course  of  the  tenth  century,  comes  a  fresh  period  of 
comparative  calm.  Edgar  is  on  the  throne,  and  the  arch- 
bishop St.  Dunstan  rules  under  his  name.3 

Helped  by  Bishop  ^Ethelwold,  Dunstan  resumed  the 
never-ending  and  ever-threatened  task  of  teaching  the 
people  and  clergy  ;  he  endowed  monasteries,  and  like 
Alfred  created  new  schools  and  encouraged  the  translation 
of  pious  works.  Under  his  influence  collections  of  sermons 
in  the  vulgar  tongue  were  formed.4  Several  of  these 
collections  have  come  down  to  us  :  one  of  them,  the 
Blickling  Homilies  (from  Blickling  Hall,  Norfolk,  where 
the  manuscript  was  found),  was  compiled  before  971  5  ; 
others  are  due  to  the  celebrated  monk  /Elfric,  who  became 
abbot  of  Eynsham  in   1005,  and  wrote  most  of  his  works 

1  S.  Fox,  "  King  Alfred's  Boethius,"  London,  1864,  8vo,  chap.  xvii.  p.  61. 
This  chapter  corresponds  only  to  the  first  lines  of  chap.  vii.  book  ii.  of  the 
ori     rial.     Most  of  it  is  added  by  Alfred,  who  gives  in  it  his  opinion  of  the 

craft  "  of  a  king,  and  of  the  "  tools  "  necessary  for  the  same. 

-  In  the  "Proverbs  of  Alfred,"  an  apocryphal  compilation  made  after  the 
Norman  Conquest;  published  by    Kemble  with  the   "Dialogue  of  Salomon 

.  1  Saturnus,"  1848,  8vo. 

3  King  from  959  to  975  ;  St.  Dunstan,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  died  in 
S      See  Stubbs,  "  Memorials  of  St.  Dunstan  "  (Rolls  Series). 

4  The  anonymous  translation  of  the  Gospels  compiled  in  the  time  of  Alfred 
is  copied  and  vulgarised  in  this  period  ;  ed.  Skeat,  "  The  Gospels  in  Anglo - 

1  m,"  Cambridge,   1871-87,  4  vols.  4to. 
s  See  Sermon  XI.  ;    "  The  Blickling  Homilies,"   ed.  R.   Morris,   1874  ff. 
.E.T.S.,  8vo. 


ANGLO-SAXON   CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    89 

about  this  time  *  ;  another  collection  includes  the  sermons 
of  Wulfstan,  bishop  of  York  from  1002  to  1023.2 

These  sermons,  most  of  which  are  translated  from  the 
Latin,  "  sometimes  word  for  word  and  sometimes  sense  for 
sense,"  according  to  the  example  set  by  Alfred,  were 
destined  for  "  the  edification  of  the  ignorant,  who  knew  no 
language"  except  the  national  one.3 

The  congregation  being  made  up  mostly  of  rude, 
uneducated  people,  must  be  interested  in  order  that  it  may 
listen  to  the  sermons  ;  the  homilies  are  therefore  filled  with 
legendary  information  concerning  the  Holy  Land,  with 
minute  pictures  of  the  devil  and  apostles,  with  edifying 
tales  full  of  miracles.  In  the  homilies  of  Blickling,  the 
church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  is  described  in  detail,  with 
its  sculptured  portals,  its  stained-glass  and  its  lamps,  that 
threefold  holy  temple,  existing  far  away  at  the  other  ex- 
tremity  of  the  world,  in  the  distant  EastJ     This  church 


1  "  The  Sermones  Catholici,  or  Homilies  or  /Elfric,"  ed.  Thorpe,  London, 
/Elfric  Society,  1844-6,  2  vols.  8vo  ;  " /Elfric's  Lives  of  Saints,  being  a  set 
of  Sermons,"  &c,  ed.  W.  W.  Skeat,  E.E.T.S.,  1881  ff.  /Elfric  translated 
part  of  the  Bible:  "  Heptateuchus,  Liber  Job,':&c,  ed.  Thwaites,  Oxford, 
1698,  8vo.  He  wrote  also  important  works  on  astronomy  and  grammar,  a 
"Colloquium"  in  Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon:  "  /Elfric's  Grammatik  und 
Glossar,"  ed.  J.  Zupitza,  1880,  8vo,  &c. 

2  The  homilies  of  Wulfstan  were  published  by  Arthur  Napier  :  "  Wulfstan, 
Sammlung  der  ihm  zugeschriebenen  Homilien  nebst  Untersuchungen  iiber 
ihre  Echtheit,"  Berlin,  1883,  8vo  (sixty-two  pieces,  some  of  which  are  very 
short). 

3  "  Transtulimus  hunc  codicem  ex  libris  latinorum  .  .  .  ob  sedificationem 
simplicium  .  .  .  ideoque  nee  obscura  posuimus  verba,  sed  simplicem  Anglicam, 
quo  facilius  possit  ad  cor  pervenire  legentium  vel  audientium,  ad  utilitatem 
animarum  suarum  quia  alia  lingua  nesciunt  erudiri  quam  in  qua  nati  sunt. 
Nee  ubique  transtulimus  verbum  ex  verbo,  sed  sensum  ex  sensu.  .  .  .  Hos 
namque  auctores  in  hac  explanatione  sumus  sequuti,  videlicet  Augustinum 
Hipponensem,  Hieronimum,  Bedam,  Gregorium,  Smaragdum  et  aliquando 
Haymonem."  ^Elfric's  preface  for  his  "  Sermones  Catholici."  In  the  preface 
of  his  sermons  on  the  lives  of  Saints,  /Elfric  states  that  he  intends  not  to 
translate  any  more,  "  ne  forte  despectui  habeantur  margarite  Christi." 

4  "The  Blickling  Homilies,"  Sermon  XI. 


9Q  THE   ORIGINS. 

has  no  roof,  so  that  the  sky  into  which  Christ's  body 
ascended  can  be  always  seen  ;  but,  by  God's  grace,  rain 
water  never  falls  there.  The  preacher  is  positive  about 
his  facts  ;  he  has  them  from  travellers  who  have  seen 
with  their  own  eyes  this  cathedral  of  Christendom. 

^lfric  also  keeps  alive  the  interest  of  the  listeners  by 
propounding  difficult  questions  to  them  which  he  answers 
himself  at  once.  "  Now  many  a  man  will  think  and 
inquire  whence  the  devil  came  ?  .  .  .  Now  some  man  will 
inquire  whence  came  his  [own]  soul,  whether  from  the  father 
or  the  mother  ?  We  say  from  neither  of  them  ;  but  the 
same  God  who  created  Adam  with  his  hands  .  .  .  that 
same  giveth  a  soul  and  life  to  children."  *  Why  are  there 
no  more  miracles  ?  "  These  wonders  were  needful  at  the 
beginning  of  Christianity,  for  by  these  signs  was  the 
heathen  folk  inclined  to  faith.  The  man  who  plants  trees 
or  herbs  waters  them  so  long  until  they  have  taken  root ; 
when  they  are  growing  he  ceases  from  watering.  Also, 
the  Almighty  God  so  long  showed  his  miracles  to  the 
heathen  folk  until  they  were  believing :  when  faith  had 
sprung  up  over  all  the  world,  then  miracles  ceased."2 

The  lives  of  the  saints  told  by  .^Elfric  recall  at  times 
tales  in  the  Arabian  Nights.  There  are  transformations, 
disparitions,  enchantments,  emperors  who  become  her- 
mits, statues  that  burst,  and  out  of  which  comes  the 
devil.  "  Go,"  cries  the  apostle  to  the  fiend,  "  go  to  the 
waste  where  no  bird  flies,  nor  husbandman  ploughs,  nor 
voice  of  man  sounds."  The  "  accursed  spirit  "  obeys,  and 
he  appears  all  black,  "  with  sharp  visage  and  ample  beard. 
His  locks  hung  to  his  ankles,  his  eyes  were  scattering  fiery 
sparks,  sulphureous  flame  stood  in  his  mouth,  he  was  fright- 


1  "  Sermones  Catholici,"  pp.  12-13. 

2  Ibid.   pp.  304-5.     See  also,  in  the  sermon  on  St.  John  the   Baptist,  a 
curious  satire  on  wicked  talkative  women,  pp.  476-7. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    91 

fully  feather-clad." *  This  is  already  the  devil  of  the 
Mysteries,  the  one  described  by  Rabelais,  almost  in  the 
same  words.  We  can  imagine  the  effect  of  so  minute  a 
picture  on  the  Saxon  herdsmen  assembled  on  Sunday  in 
their  little  mysterious  churches,  almost  windowless,  like 
that  of  Bradford-on-Avon. 

One  peculiarity  makes  these  sermons  remarkable  ;  in 
them  can  be  discerned  a  certain  effort  to  attain  to  literary 
dignity.  The  preacher  tries  his  best  to  speak  well.  He 
takes  all  the  more  pains  because  he  is  slightly  ashamed, 
being  himself  learned,  to  write  in  view  of  such  an  illiterate 
public.  He  does  not  know  any  longer  Alfred's  doubts, 
who,  being  uncertain  as  to  which  words  best  express  the 
meaning  of  his  model,  puts  down  all  those  his  memory  or 
glossary  supply  :  the  reader  can  choose.  The  authors  of 
these  homilies  purposely  write  prose  which  comes  near 
the  tone  and  forms  of  poetry.  Such  are  almost  always 
the  beginnings  of  literary  prose.  They  go  as  far  as  to 
introduce  a  rude  cadence  in  their  writings,  and  adapt 
thereto  the  special  ornament  of  Germanic  verse,  allitera- 
tion. Wulfstan  and  fiLMx'vz  frequently  afford  their  audience 
the  pleasure  of  those  repeated  sonorities,  so  much  so  that 
it  has  been  possible  to  publish  a  whole  collection  of 
sermons  by  the  latter  in  the  form  of  poems.2  Moreover, 
the  subject  itself  is  often  poetic,  and  the  priest  adorns  his 
discourse  with  images  and  metaphors.  Many  passages  of 
the  "  Blickling  Homilies,"  read  in  a  translation,  might  easily 
be  taken  for  poetical  extracts.  Such  are  the  descriptions 
of  contemporaneous  evils,  and  of  the  signs  that  will  herald 
the   end  of   the  world,   that  world  that  "  fleeth  from    us 


1  Sermon  for  the  25th  of  August,  on  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
pp.  454  ff.  The  portrait  of  the  saint  is  as  minutely  drawn  :  "  he  has  fair  and 
curling  locks,  is  white  o.  body,  and  has  deep  eyes  and  moderate  nose,"  &c. 

2  Skeat,  "iElfric's  Lives  of  Saints,"  1881. 


92  THE    ORIGINS. 

with  great  bitterness,  and  we  follow  it  as  it  flies  from  us, 
and  love  it  although  it  is  passing  away."  x 

Such  are  also  the  descriptions  of  landscapes,  where  even 
now,  in  this  final  period  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  epoch, 
northern  nature,  snow  and  ice  are  visibly  described,  as  in 
"  Beowulf,"  with  delight,  by  connoisseurs  :  "  As  St.  Paul 
was  looking  towards  the  northern  region  of  the  earth, 
from  whence  all  waters  pass  down,  he  saw  above  the  water 
a  hoary  stone,  and  north  of  the  stone  had  grown  woods, 
very  rimy.  And  there  were  dark  mists  ;  and  under  the 
stone  was  the  dwelling-place  of  monsters  and  execrable 
creatures."  2 

Thus  Anglo-Saxon  literature,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of 
Cynewulf,  Alfred,  Dunstan,  and  yElfric  goes  on  repeating 
itself.  Poems,  histories,  and  sermons  are  conspicuous, 
now  for  their  grandeur,  now  for  the  emotion  that  is  in 
them  ;  but  their  main  qualities  and  main  defects  are  very 
much  alike  ;  they  give  an  impression  of  monotony.  The 
same  notes,  not  very  numerous,  are  incessantly  repeated. 
The  Angles,  Saxons,  and  other  conquerors  who  came 
from  Germany  have  remained,  from  a  literary  point  of 
view,  nearly  intact  in  the  midst  of  the  subjugated  race. 
Their  literature  is  almost  stationary  ;  it  does  not  percep- 
tibly move  and  develop.  A  graft  is  wanted ;  Rome  tried 
to  insert  one,  but  a  few  branches  only  were  vivified,  not 
the  whole  tree  ;  and  the  fruit  is  the  same  each  year,  wild 
and  sometimes  poor. 

The  political  state  of  the  country  leaves  on  the  mind  a 
similar  impression.  The  men  of  Germanic  blood  estab- 
lished in  England  remain,  or  nearly  so,  grouped  together 
in  tribes  ;  their  hamlet  is  the  mother  country  for  them. 
They  are  unable  to  unite  against  the  foreign  foe.     Their 

1  "The  Blickling  Homilies,"  Sermons  X.  and  XI. 

2  Ibid.,  Sermon  XVII. 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE.    93 

subdivisions  undergo  constant  change,  much  as  they  did, 
centuries  before,  on  the  Continent.  A  swarm  of  petty 
kings,  ignored  by  history,  are  known  to  have  lived  and 
reigned,  owing  to  their  name  having  been  found  appended 
to  charters ;  there  were  kings  of  the  Angles  of  the  South, 
kings  of  half  Kent,  kings  with  fewer  people  to  rule  than 
a  village  mayor  of  to-day.  They  are  killed,  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  thing  is  of  no  importance. 

The  Danes  come  again  ;  at  one  time  they  own  the 
whole  of  England,  which  is  thus  subject  to  the  same 
king  as  Scandinavia.  Periods  of  unification  are  merely 
temporary,  and  due  to  the  power  or  the  genius  of  a  prince : 
Alfred,  ^-Ethelstan,  Cnut  the  Dane ;  but  the  people  of 
Great  Britain  keep  their  tendency  to  break  up  into  small 
kingdoms,  into  earldoms,  as  they  were  called  in  the 
eleventh  century,  about  the  end  of  the  period  ;  into  tribes, 
in  reality,  as  when  they  inhabited  the  Germanic  land. 
Out  of  this  chaos  how  can  a  nation  arise  ?  a  nation  that 
may  give  birth  to  Shakespeare,  crush  the  Armada,  people 
the  American  continent?  No  less  than  a  miracle  is 
needed.  The  miracle  took  place :  it  was  the  battle  of 
Hastings. 


BOOK   II. 

THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 


CHAPTER    I. 
BATTLE. 

I. 

Germanic  England  gave  itself  a  king  for  the  last  time 
at  the  death  of  Edward  the  Confessor.  Harold,  son  of 
Godwin,  was  elected  to  succeed  him.  A  momentous  crisis, 
the  greatest  in  English  history,  was  drawing  near. 

An  awful  problem  had  to  be  solved.  Divided,  helpless, 
uncertain,  England  could  no  longer  remain  what  she  had 
been  for  six  hundred  years.  She  stood  vacillating,  drawn 
by  contrary  attractions  to  opposite  centres,  half-way  be- 
tween the  North,  that  had  last  populated  the  land,  and  the 
South,  that  had  taught  and  christianised  the  nation.  On 
both  sides  fresh  invaders  threaten  her  ;  which  will  be  the 
winner?  Should  the  North  triumph,  England  will  be 
bound  for  centuries  to  the  Germanic  nations,  whose  growth 
will  be  tardy,  and  whose  literary  development  will  be 
slow,  so  slow  indeed  that  men  still  alive  to-day  may  have 
seen  with  their  own  eyes  the  great  poet  of  the  race, 
Goethe,  who  died  in  1832.  Should  the  South  carry  the 
day,  the  growth  will  be  speedy  and  the  preparation  rapid. 
Like  France,  Italy,  and  Spain,  England  will  have  at  the 
Renaissance  a  complete  literature  of  her  own,  and  be  able 
to  produce  a  Shakespeare,  as  Italy  produced  an  Ariosto, 
Spain  a  Cervantes,  and  France  a  Montaigne,  a  Ronsard 
and  a  Rabelais. 

8  97 


98  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

The  problem  was  solved  in  the  autumn  of  1066.  On 
the  morrow  of  Harold's  election,  the  armies  of  the  North 
and  South  assembled,  and  the  last  of  the  invasions  began. 
The  Scandinavians  took  the  sea  again.  They  were  led 
by  Harold  Hardrada,  son  of  Sigurd,  a  true  romance 
hero,  who  had  fought  in  many  wars,  and  once  defended 
by  his  sword  the  throne  of  the  eastern  emperors.1 
To  the  South  another  fleet  collected,  commanded  by 
William  of  Normandy  ;  he,  too,  an  extraordinary  man, 
bastard  of  that  Robert,  known  in  legend  as  Robert  the 
Devil  who  had  long  since  started  on  a  pilgrimage  to 
Jerusalem  from  which  he  never  returned.  The  Normans 
of  Scandinavia  and  the  Normans  of  France  were  about 
to  play  a  match  of  which  England  was  the  stake. 

The  Scandinavians  were  the  first  to  land.  Hardrada 
entered  York,  and  for  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  victory 
would  belong  to  the  people  of  the  North.  But  Harold 
of  England  rushed  to  meet  them,  and  crushed  them  at 
Stamford-bridge  ;  his  brother,  the  rebel  Tosti,  fell  on  the 
field  of  battle,  and  Hardrada  died  of  an  arrow- wound  in 
the  throat.  All  was  over  with  Scandinavia  ;  there  re- 
mained the  Normans  of  France. 

Who  were  these  Normans  ?  Very  different  from  those 
of  the  other  army,  they  no  longer  had  anything  Scan- 
dinavian or  Germanic  about  them  ;  and  thus  they  stood 
a  chance  of  furnishing  the  Anglo-Saxons  with  the  graft 
they  needed.  Had  it  not  been  for  this,  their  invasion 
would  have  carried  no  more  important  result  than  that  of 
the  Danes  in  the  ninth  century  ;  but  the  consequences  were 

1  The  romantic  events  in  the  life  of  Harold  Hardrada  Sigurdson  are  the 
subject  of  an  Icelandic  saga  in  prose,  by  Snorre  Sturlason  (born  at  Hvam  in 
Iceland,  1 178)  :  "The  Heimskringla  Saga,  or  the  Sagas  of  the  Norse  kings, 
from  the  Icelandic  of  Snorre  Sturlason,"  ed.  Laing  and  R.  B.  Anderson, 
London,  1S89,  4  vols.  Svo,  vols.  iii.  and  iv.  A  detailed  account  of  the 
battle  at  "  Stanforda-Bryggiur  "  (Stamford-bridge),  will  be  found  in  chaps. 
89  ff.  ;  the  battle  of  "  Helsingja  port"  (Hastings),  is  told  in  chap.  100. 


BA  TTLE.  99 

to  be  very  different.  The  fusion  between  Rollo's  pirates,  and 
the  already  dense  population  of  the  rich  province  called  after 
them  Normandy,  had  been  long  accomplished.  It  was  less  a 
fusion  than  an  absorption,  for  the  natives  were  much  more 
numerous  than  the  settlers.  From  the  time  of  the  second 
duke,  French  had  again  become  the  language  of  the 
mass  of  the  inhabitants.  They  are  Christians  ;  they  have 
French  manners,  chivalrous  tastes,  castles,  convents,  and 
schools  ;  and  the  blood  that  flows  in  their  veins  is  mostly 
French.  Thus  it  is  that  they  can  set  forth  in  the  eleventh 
century  for  the  conquest  of  England  as  representatives  of 
the  South,  of  Latin  civilisation,  of  Romance  letters,  and 
of  the  religion  of  Rome.  William  comes  blessed  by  the 
Pope,  with  a  banner  borne  before  him,  the  gift  of  Alex- 
ander II.,  wearing  a  hair  of  St.  Peter's  in  a  ring,  having 
secured  by  a  vow  the  favour  of  one  of  France's  patrons, 
that  same  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  whose  church  Clovis  had 
enriched,  and  whose  cape  Hugues  Capet  had  worn:  whence 
his  surname. 

No  Beowulf,  no  northern  hero  is  sung  of  in  William's 
army  ;  but  there  resound  the  verses  of  the  most  ancient 
masterpiece  of  French  literature,  at  that  time  the  most 
recent.  According  to  the  poet  Wace,  well  informed,  since 
his  father  took  part  in  the  expedition,  the  minstrel  Taillefer 
rode  before  the  soldiers,  singing  "of  Charlemagne,  and 
of  Roland,  and  Oliver,  and  the  vassals  who  fell  at  Ronce- 
vaux."  * 


i 


Taillefer  ki  mult  bien  chantout, 
Sor  un  cheval  ki  tost  alout 
Devant  le  due  alout  chantant 
De  Karlemaigne  et  de  Rolant 
E  d'Oliver  et  des  vassals 
Qui  morurent  en  Rencevals. 


''Maistre  Wace's  Roman  de  Rou,"  ed.  Andresen,  Heilbronn,  1877,  2  vols. 
8vo,  p.  349,  a  statement  reproduced  or  corroborated  by  several  chroniclers  : 


ioo  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

The  army,  moreover,  was  not  exclusively  composed  of 
men  from  Normandy.1  It  was  divided  into  three  parts  ; 
to  the  left  the  Bretons  and  Poictevins  ;  the  Normans  in  the 
centre  ;  and  to  the  right  the  French,  properly  so  called. 
No  doubt  was  possible  ;  William's  army  was  a  French 
army  ;  all  contemporary  writers  describe  it  as  such,  and 
both  parties  give  it  that  name.  In  the  "  Domesday  Book," 
written  by  order  of  William,  his  people  are  termed 
"Franci"  ;  on  the  Bayeux  tapestry,  embroidered  soon  after 
the  Conquest,  at  the  place  where  the  battle  is  represented, 
the  inscription  runs:  "Hie  Franci  pugnant "  (Here  fight 
the  French).  Crowned  king  of  England,  William  continues 
to  call  his  followers  "  Frenchmen." 2  The  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicles,  on  the  other  side,  describe  the  invaders  sometimes 
as  Normans,  and  sometimes  as  Frenchmen,  "  Frenciscan." 
4<  And  the  French  had  possession  of  the  place  of  carnage," 
says  the  Worcester  annalist,  after  giving  an  account  of 
the  battle  of  Hastings  ;  and  he  bestows  the  appellation  of 
Normans  upon  the  men  of  Harold  Hardrada.  A  similar 
view  is  taken  farther  north.  Formerly,  we  read  in  a  saga, 
the  same  tongue  was  spoken  in  England  and  Norway,  but 

"  Tunc  cantilena  Rollandi  inochata.  .  .  ."  William  of  Malmesbury,  "  Gesta 
Regum  Anglorum,"  ed.  Hardy,  London,  1840,  English  Historical  Society, 
book  iii.,  p.  415. 

1  William  of  Poictiers,  a  Norman  by  birth  (he  derived  his  name  from  having 
studied  at  Poictiers)  and  a  chaplain  of  the  Conqueror,  says  that  his  army  con- 
sisted of  "Mancels,  French, Bretons,  Aquitains,  and  Normans";  his  statement 
is  reproduced  byOrderic  Vital :  "  Insist erunt  eisCenomannici,  Franci,  Britanni, 
Aquitani  et  miserabditer  pereuntes  cadebant  Angli."  "  Historia  Ecclesiastica," 
in  Migne,  vol.  clxxxviii.  col.  298.  Vital  was  born  nine  years  only  after 
the  Conquest,  and  he  spent  most  of  his  life  among  Normans  in  the  monastery 
of  St.  Evroult. 

2  Charter  of  William  to  the  city  of  London  :  "  Will'm  kyng  gret  .  .  .  ealle 
tha  burhwaru  binnan  Londone,  Frencisce  and  Englisce,  freondlice  "  (greets  all 
the  burghers  within  London,  French  and  English).  At  a  later  date,  again, 
Richard  Cceur-de-Lion,  in  a  charter  for  Lincoln,  sends  his  greetings  to  his 
subjects  "  tam  Francis  quam  Anglis,"  A.D.  1194.  Stubbs,  "Select  Charters," 
Oxford,  1876,  pp.  82  and  266. 


BATTLE.  ioi 

not  after  the  coming  of  William  of  Normandy,  "  because 
he  was  French."  1 

As  to  Duke  William,  he  led  his  army  of  Frenchmen  in 
French  fashion,  that  is  to  say  gaily.  His  state  of  mind 
is  characterised  not  by  any  overflow  of  warlike  joy  or  fury, 
but  by  good  humour.  Like  the  heroes  of  the  Celtic  poems, 
like  the  inhabitants  of  Gaul  in  all  ages,  he  is  prompt  at 
repartee  {argute  loqni).  He  stumbles  in  stepping  off  the 
ship,  which  is  considered  by  all  as  a  bad  omen  :  "  It  is 
a  most  fatal  omen,"  we  read  in  an  ancient  Scandi- 
navian poem,  "  if  thou  stumble  on  thy  feet  when  march- 
ing to  battle,  for  evil  fairies  stand  on  either  side  of  thee, 
wishing  to  see  thee  wounded." 2  It  means  nothing,  said 
the  duke  to  his  followers,  save  that  I  take  possession  of 
the  land.  At  the  moment  of  battle  he  puts  his  hauberk 
on  the  wrong  way  :  another  bad  omen.  Not  at  all,  he 
declares,  it  is  a  sign  I  shall  turn  out  different ;  "  King 
I  shall  be,  who  duke  was  " : 

Le  nom  qui  ert  de  duchee 
Verreiz  de  due  en  rei  tome  ; 
Reis  serai  qui  due  ai  este.3 

He  challenges  Harold  to  single  combat,  as  the  Gauls 
did  their  adversaries,  according  to  Diodorus  Siculus  ;  and 
as  Francis  I.  will  do  later  when  at  feud  with  Charles  V.  He 
was  to  die  in  an  expedition  undertaken  out  of  revenge 
for  an  epigram  of  the  king  of  France,  and  to  make  good 
his  retort. 

1  "Gunnlangs  Saga,"  in  "Three  northern  Love  Stories  and  other  Tales," 
edited  by  Erikr  Magnusson,  and  William  Morris,  London,  1875,  i2mo. 

2  "  The  old  play  of  the  Wolsungs,"  in  "  Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,"  i. 
P-  34- 

3  "  Maistre  Wace's  Roman  de  Rou,"  ed.  Andresen,  line  7749.  The  same 
story  is  reproduced  by  William  of  Malmesbury  (twelfth  century)  :  "  Arma 
poposcit,  moxque  ministrorum  tumultu  loricam  inversam  indutus,  casum  risu 
correxit,  vertetur,  inquiens,  foititudo  comitatus  mei  in  regnum.'  "  Gesta 
Regum  Anglorum,"  1840,  English  Historical  Society,  book  iii.  p.  415. 


102  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

The  evening  of  the  14th  of  October,  1066,  saw  the  fate 
of  England  decided.  The  issue  of  the  battle  was  doubtful. 
William,  by  a  series  of  ingenious  ideas,  secured  the  victory. 
His  foes  were  the  victims  of  his  cleverness  ;  they  were 
"  ingenio  circumventi,  ingenio  victi." l  He  ordered  his 
soldiers  to  simulate  a  flight ;  he  made  his  archers  shoot 
upwards,  so  that  the  arrows  falling  down  among  the 
Saxons  wrought  great  havoc.  One  of  them  put  out 
Harold's  eye  ;  the  English  chief  fell  by  his  standard,  and 
soon  after  the  battle  was  over,  the  most  memorable  ever 
won  by  an  army  of  Frenchmen. 

The  duke  had  vowed  to  erect  on  the  field  of  the  fight 
an  abbey  to  St.  Martin  of  Tours.  He  kept  his  word,  but 
the  building  never  bore  among  men  the  name  of  the  saint  ; 
it  received  and  has  retained  to  this  day  the  appellation  of 
"  Battle."  Its  ruins,  preserved  with  pious  care,  overlook 
the  dales  where  the  host  of  the  Conqueror  gathered  for 
the  attack.  Far  off  through  the  hills,  then  covered  by 
the  yellowing  leaves  of  the  forest  of  Anderida,  glistens, 
between  earth  and  sky,  the  grey  sea  that  brought  over 
the  Norman  fleet  eighteen  centuries  ago.  Heaps  of  stones, 
overgrown  with  ivy,  mark  the  place  where  Harold  fell, 
the  last  king  of  English  blood  who  ever  sat  upon  the 
throne  of  Great  Britain.  It  is  a  secluded  spot ;  large 
cedars,  alders,  and  a  tree  with  white  foliage  form  a  curtain, 
and  shut  off  from  the  outer  world  the  scene  of  the  terrible 
tragedy.  A  solemn  silence  reigns ;  nothing  is  visible 
through  the  branches,  save  the  square  tower  of  the  church 
of  Battle,  and  the  only  sound  that  floats  upwards  is  that 
of  the  old  clock  striking  the  hours.  Ivy  and  climbing 
roses  cling  to  the  grey  stones  and  fall  in  light  clusters 
along  the  low  walls  of  the  crypt ;  the  roses  shed  their 
leaves,   and    the   soft   autumn    breeze   scatters    the    white 

*  William  of  Malmesbury,  Ibia. 


BATTLE.  103 

petals  on  the  grass,  amidst  fragments  to  which  is  attached 
one  of  the  greatest  memories  in  the  history  of  humanity. 

The  consequences  of  "  the  Battle  "  were  indeed  immense, 
far  more  important  than  those  of  Agincourt  or  Austerlitz: 
a  whole  nation  was  transformed  and  became  a  new  one. 
The  vanquished  Anglo-Saxons  no  more  knew  how  to 
defend  themselves  and  unite  against  the  French  than 
they  had  formerly  known  how  to  unite  against  the  Danes. 
To  the  momentary  enthusiasm  that  had  gathered  around 
Harold  many  energetic  supporters  succeeded  a  gloomy 
dejection.  Real  life  exhibited  the  same  contrasts  as 
literature.  Stirred  by  sudden  impulses,  the  natives  vainly 
struggled  to  free  themselves,  incapable  even  in  this  press- 
ing danger  of  combined  and  vigorous  action  ;  then  they 
mournfully  submitted  to  fate.  The  only  contemporary 
interpreter  of  their  feelings  known  to  us,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
chronicler,  bewails  the  Conquest,  but  is  more  struck  by 
the  ravages  it  occasions  than  by  the  change  of  domina- 
tion it  brings  about.  "  And  Bishop  Odo  and  Earl  William 
[Fitz-Osbern],"  he  says,  "  remained  here  and  wrought 
castles  widely  throughout  the  nation,  and  oppressed  the 
poor  people,  and  ever  after  that  it  greatly  grew  in  evil.  May 
the  end  be  good  when  God  will."  So  much  for  the 
material  disaster,  now  for  the  coming  of  the  foreigner  : 
"  And  then  came  to  meet  him  Archbishop  Ealdred  [of 
York],  and  Eadgar  child  and  Earl  Eadwine,  and  Earl 
Morkere,  and  all  the  best  men  of  London,  and  then,  from 
necessity,  submitted  when  the  greatest  harm  had  been 
done,  and  it  was  very  imprudent  that  it  was  not  done 
earlier,  as  God  would  not  better  it  for  our  sins."  x 

People  with  a  mind  so  full  of  elegiac  sentiments  fall  an 

1  "Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle"  (Rolls),  year  1066,  Worcester  text  (Tib.  B.  IV.). 
Same  statement  in  William  of  Malmesbury,  who  says  of  his  compatriots  that 
"  uno  prselio  et  ipso  perfacili  se  patriamque  pessundederint."  "  Gesta  Regum 
Anglorum,"  English  Historical  Society,  p.  418. 


104  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

easy  prey  to  men  who  know  how  to  will.  Before  dying 
William  had  taken  everything,  even  a  part  of  Wales  ;  he 
was  king  of  England,  and  had  so  completely  changed  the 
fortunes  of  his  new  country  that  its  inhabitants,  so  used  to 
invasions,  were  never  again  to  see  rise,  from  that  day  to 
this,  the  smoke  of  an  enemy's  camp. 

II. 

From  the  outset  William  seems  to  have  desired  and 
foreseen  it  Practical,  clear-minded,  of  firm  will,  imbued 
with  the  notion  of  State,  he  possessed  in  the  highest  degree 
the  qualities  his  new  subjects  most  lacked.  He  knew 
neither  doubts  nor  vain  hesitations  ;  he  was  an  optimist, 
always  sure  of  success :  not  with  the  certitude  of  the 
blind  who  walk  confidently  to  the  river,  but  with  the 
assurance  of  clear-sighted  people,  who  leave  the  goddess 
Fortune  so  little  to  do,  it  were  a  miracle  if  she  did  less 
for  them.  His  lucid  and  persistent  will  is  never  at  fault. 
In  the  most  critical  moment  of  the  battle  a  fatal  report 
is  circulated  that  the  duke  has  been  killed  ;  he  instantly 
tears  off  his  helmet  and  shows  himself  with  uncovered 
face,  crying :  "  I  am  alive !  here  I  stand,  and  by  God  I 
shall  conquer  !  "  J 

All  his  life,  he  conforms  his  actions  to  his  theories  ; 
having  come  as  the  heir  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  princes,  he 
behaves  as  such.  He  visits  his  estate,  rectifies  its  boun- 
daries, protects  its  approaches,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
immensity  of  the  work,  takes   a  minute   inventory  of  it.2 

1  So  says  William  of  Poictiers,  and  Orderic  Vital  after  him  :  "  .  .  .  Nudato 
insuper  capite,  detractaque  galea  exclamans  :  me  inquit  conspicite  ;  vivo  et 
vincam,  opitulante  Deo."  "  Orderici  Vitalis  Angligenae  .  .  .  Historise 
Ecclesiasticse,  Libri  XIII.,"  in  Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vol.  clxxxviii.  col.  297. 

2  The  inventory  is  carried  down  to  details ;  answers  are  required  to  a 
number  of  questions:  "...  Deinde  quomodo  vocatur  mansio,  quis  tenuit 
earn  tempore  Regis  Eadwardi ;  quis  modo  tenet  ;  quot  hidae  ;  quot  carrucas  in 
dominio  ;  quot  hominum  ;  quot  villani  ;  quot  cotarii  ;  quot  servi ;   quot  liberi 


BA  TTLE.  105 

This  inventory  is  the  Domesday,  a  unique  monument, 
such  that  no  nation  in  Europe  possesses  the  like.  On  the 
coins,  he  so  exactly  imitates  the  type  adopted  by  his 
predecessors  that  it  is  hard  to  distinguish  the  pennies  of 
William  from  those  of  Edward.  Before  the  end  of  his 
reign,  he  was  the  master  or  conqueror  of  all,  and  had  made 
his  authority  felt  and  accepted  by  all,  even  by  his  brother 
Bishop  Odo,  whom  he  arrested  with  his  own  hands,  and 
caused  to  be  imprisoned  "  as  Earl  of  Kent,"  he  said,  with 
his  usual  readiness  of  word,  to  avoid  a  quarrel  with  the 
Church. 

And  so  it  was  that,  in  spite  of  their  terrible  sufferings, 
the  vanquished  were  unable  to  repress  a  certain  sentiment 
which  predisposed  them  to  a  fusion  with  the  victor,  namely 
admiration.  Never  had  they  seen  energy,  power,  or 
knowledge  like  unto  that.  The  judgment  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  chronicler  on  William  may  be  considered  as  being 
the  judgment  of  the  nation  itself  concerning  its  new 
masters:  "That  King  William  about  whom  we  speak  was 
a  very  wise  man,  and  very  powerful,  more  dignified  and 
strong  than  any  of  his  predecessors  were.  He  was  mild 
to  the  good  men  who  loved  God,  and  over  all  measure 
severe  to  the  men  who  gainsayed  his  will.  ...  So  also 
was  he  a  very  rigid  and  cruel  man,  so  that  no  one  durst 
do  anything  against  his  will.  .  .  .  He  spared  not  his  own 
brother  named  Odo.  .  .  .  Among  other  things  is  not  to 
be  forgotten  the  good  peace  that  he  made  in  this  land, 
so  that  a  man  who  had  any  confidence  in  himself  might 
go  over  his  realm  with  his  bosom  full  of  gold  unhurt." 
The  land  of  the  Britons,  "  Brytland  "  or  Wales,  was  in  his 

homines  ;  quot  sochemani  ;  quantum  silvae  ;  quantum  prati ;  quot  pascuorum  ; 
quot  molendina  ;  quot  piscinae,"  &c,  &c.  "Domesday  for  Ely";  Stubbs, 
*'  Select  Charters,"  Oxford,  1876,  p.  86.  The  Domesday  has  been  published 
in  facsimile  by  the  Record  Commission :  "  Domesday  Book,  or  the  great 
survey  of  England,  of  William  the  Conqueror,  10S6,"  edited  by  Sir  Henry 
James,  London  and  Southampton,  1861-3,  2  vols.  4to. 


106  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

power,  Scotland  likewise ;  he  would  have  had  Ireland 
besides  had  he  reigned  two  years  longer.  It  is  true  he 
greatly  oppressed  the  people,  built  castles,  and  made 
terrible  game-laws  :  "  As  greatly  did  he  love  the  tall 
deer  as  if  he  were  their  father.  He  also  ordained  con- 
cerning the  hares  that  they  should  go  free."  1  Even  in 
the  manner  of  presenting  grievances  we  detect  that 
special  kind  of  popularity  which  attaches  itself  to  the 
tyranny  of  great  men.  The  England  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  had  been  defeated,  but  brilliant  destinies  were 
in  store  for  the  country  ;  the  master  was  hated  but 
not  despised. 

These  great  destinies  were  realised.  The  qualities  of 
which  William  gave  the  example  were  rare  in  England, 
but  common  in  France  ;  they  were  those  of  his  race  and 
country,  those  of  his  lieutenants  ;  they  naturally  reappear 
in  many  of  his  successors.  These  are,  as  a  rule,  energetic 
and  headstrong  men,  who  never  hesitate,  who  believe  in 
themselves,  are  always  ready  to  run  all  hazards,  and  to 
attempt  the  impossible,  with  the  firm  conviction  that  they 
will  succeed  ;  they  are  never  weary  of  fighting  and  taking; 
the  moment  never  comes  when  they  can  enjoy  their  con- 
quests in  peace  ;  in  good  as  in  evil  they  never  stop  half- 
way ;  those  who  incline  to  tyranny  become,  like  Stephen, 
the  most  atrocious  tyrants 2  ;  those  who  incline  to  the 
manners  and  customs  of  chivalry  carry  them,  like  Richard 
Cceur  de  Lion,  as  far  as  possible,  and  forget  that  they 
have  a  kingdom  to  rule.  The  most  intelligent  become, 
like  Henry  II.,  incomparable  statesmen  ;  those  who  have 
a  taste  for  art  give  themselves  up  to  it  with  such  passion 


1  Peterborough  text  of  the  "Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,"  year  1086. 

2  To  the  extent  that  England  resembled  then  Jerusalem  besieged  by  Titus  : 
"Quid  multa  ?  In  diebus  eis  multiplicata  sunt  mala  in  terra,  ut  si  quis  ea 
summalim  recenseat,  historiam  Josephi  possint  excedere."  John  of  Salisbury, 
"Policraticus,"  book  vi.  chap,  xviii. 


BA  TTLE.  107 

that  they  jeopardise,  like  Henry  III.,  even  their  crown, 
and  care  for  nothing  but  their  masons  and  painters.  They 
are  equally  ready  for  sword  and  word  fights,  and  they  ofier 
both  to  all  comers.  They  constantly  risk  their  lives  ;  out 
of  twelve  Norman  or  Angevin  princes  six  die  a  violent 
death. 

All  their  enterprises  are  conceived  on  a  gigantic 
scale.  They  carry  war  into  Scotland,  into  Ireland, 
into  Wales,  into  France,  into  Gascony,  later  on  into  the 
Holy  Land  and  into  Spain.  The  Conqueror  was  on 
his  way  to  Paris  when  he  received,  by  accident,  being  at 
Mantes,  fifteen  leagues  from  the  capital,  a  wound  of 
which  he  died.  These  qualities  are  in  the  blood.  A 
Frenchman,  Henry  of  Burgundy,  seizes  on  the  county  of 
"Porto"  in  1095,  out  of  which  his  successors  make  the 
kingdom  of  "  Portugal " ;  a  Norman,  Robert  Guiscard, 
conquers  Sicily,  takes  Naples,  forces  his  alliance  upon  the 
Pope,  overawes  Venice,  and  the  same  year  beats  the  two 
emperors  ;  his  son  Bohemond  establishes  himself  as  reign- 
ing prince  in  Antioch  in  1099,  and  fighting  with  great 
composure  and  equanimity  against  Turk  and  Christian, 
establishes  out  of  hand  a  little  kingdom  which  lasted  two 
centuries.  They  find  in  England  miserable  churches  ;  they 
erect  new  ones,  "  of  a  style  unknown  till  then,"  writes 
William  of  Malmesbury,1  which  count  among  the  grandest 
ever  built.  The  splendid  naves  of  St.  Albans,  Westminster, 
Canterbury,  Winchester,  York,  Salisbury,  rise  heaven- 
wards ;  the  towers  of  Ely  reach  to  the  skies ;  the  west 
front  of  Lincoln,  adorned  with  marvellous  carvings,  rears 
itself  on  the  hill  above  the  town  ;  Peterborough  opens  its 


1  "  Videas  ubique  in  villis  ecclesias,  in  vicis  el  urbibus  monasteria,  novo 
aedificandi  genere  consurgere."  The  buildings  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  according 
to  the  testimony  of  the  same,  who  may  have  seen  many  as  he  lived  in  the 
twelfth  century,  were  very  poor  ;  they  were  pleased  with  "  pravis  et  abjectis 
domibus."     "  Gesta  Regum  Anglorum,"  ed.  Hardy,  1840,  book  hi.  p.  418. 


108  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

wide  bays,  deep  as  the  portals  of  French  churches  ; 
Durham,  a  heavy  and  massive  pile  built  by  knight-bishops, 
overlooks  the  valley  of  the  Wear,  and  seems  a  divine 
fortress,  a  castle  erected  for  God.  The  donjons  of  the 
conquerors,  Rochester,  London,  Norwich,  Lincoln,  are 
enormous,  square  and  thick,  so  high  and  so  solid  that  the 
idea  of  taking  these  giant  structures  could  never  occur  to 
the  native  dreamers,  who  wait  "  till  the  end  shall  be  good 
when  God  pleases  "  ! 

The  masters  of  the  land  are  ever  ready  for  everything, 
and  find  time  for  everything :  if  their  religious  edifices  are 
considered,  it  seems  as  though  they  had  cared  for  nothing 
else  ;  if  we  read  the  accounts  of  their  wars,  it  appears  as  if 
they  were  ever  on  their  way  to  military  expeditions,  and 
never  left  the  field  of  battle.  Open  the  innumerable  manu- 
scripts which  contain  the  monuments  of  their  literature  : 
these  works  can  be  meant,  it  seems,  but  for  men  of  leisure, 
who  have  interminable  days  to  spend  in  lengthy  pastimes  ; 
they  make  their  Benoits  de  Sainte-More  give  them  an 
account  of  their  origins  in  chronicles  of  43,000  lines.  This 
literature  is  ample,  superabundant,  with  numberless 
branches  and  endless  ramifications  ;  they  have  not  even 
one  literature  only  ;  they  have  three  :  a  French,  a  Latin, 
and  later  an  English  one. 

Their  matchless  strength  and  their  indomitable  will 
further  one  particular  cause  :  the  infusion  of  French  and 
Latin  ideas  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  people,  and  the  connection 
of  England  with  the  civilisations  of  the  South.  The  task 
was  arduous  :  Augustine,  Alfred,  Dunstan,  kings  and  saints, 
had  attempted  it  and  failed  ;  the  Normans  tried  and 
succeeded.     They  were  ever  successful. 

Powerful  means  were  at  their  disposal,  and  they  knew 
how  to  make  the  best  of  them.  Firstly,  the  chiefs  of  the 
nation  are  French  ;  their  wives  are  mostly  French  too : 
Stephen,  Henry  II.,  John,  Henry  III.,  Edward  I.,  Edward 


BA  TTLE.  109 

II.,  Richard  II.,  all  marry  Frenchwomen.  The  Bohuns 
(from  whom  came  the  Herefords,  Essexes,  Northamptons), 
the  Beauchamps  (Warwick),  the  Mowbrays  (Nottingham 
Norfolk),  the  Bigods  (Norfolk),  the  Nevilles  (Westmore- 
land, Warwick),  the  Montgomery's  (Shrewsbury,  Pembroke, 
Arundel),  the  Beaumonts  and  the  Montforts  (Leicester), 
are  Frenchmen.  People  of  less  importance  married  to 
English  women  — "  matrimonia  quoque  cum  subditis 
jungunt "  l — rear  families  which  for  many  years  remain 
French. 

During  a  long  period,  the  centre  of  the  thoughts  and 
interests  of  the  kings  of  England,  French  by  origin,  educa- 
tion, manners,  and  language,  is  in  France.  William  the  Con- 
queror bequeaths  Normandy  to  his  eldest  son,  and  England 
to  his  younger.  Not  one  of  them  is  buried  at  West- 
minster before  1272  ;  they  sleep  their  last  sleep  most  of  them 
at  Caen  or  Fontevrault 2 ;  out  of  the  thirty-five  years  of  his 
reign,  Henry  II.  spends  more  than  twenty-one  in  France, 
and  less  than  fourteen  in  England. 3  Before  his  accession 
Richard  Cceur-de-Lion  only  came  to  England  twice  in 
twenty  years.  They  successively  make  war  on  France,  not 
from  hatred  or  scorn,  not  because  they  wish  to  destroy  her, 
but  because  they  wish  to  be  kings  of  France  themselves. 
They  admire  and  wish  to  possess  her  ;  their  ideal,  whether 
moral,  literary,  administrative,  or  religious,  is  above  all  a 
French  ideal.  They  are  knights,  and  introduce  into  Eng- 
land the  fashion  of  tournaments,  "  conflictus  gallici,"  says 
Matthew  Paris.     They  wish  to  have  a  University,  and  they 

1  William  of  Malmesbury,  ut  supra,  p.  420. 

2  The  Conqueror  was  buried  at  Caen  ;  Heniy  II.  and  Richard  Cceur-de-Lion 
at  Fontevrault  in  Anjou.  Henry  III.  was  buried  at  Westminster,  but  his  heart 
was  sent  to  Fontevrault,  and  the  chapter  of  Westminster  still  possesses  the  deed 
drawn  at  the  moment  when  it  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Angevin  abbess, 
20  Ed.  I.  (exhibited  in  the  chapter  house). 

3  "Henry  II.,"  by  Mrs.  J.  R.  Green,  1888,  p.  22  ("Twelve  English 
Statesmen  "). 


no  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

copy  for  Oxford  the  regulations  of  Paris.  Henry  III. 
quarrels  with  his  barons,  and  whom  does  he  select  for  an 
arbiter  but  his  former  enemy,  Louis  IX.,  king  of  France, 
the  victor  of  Taillebourg  ?  They  organise  in  England  a 
religious  hierarchy,  so  similar  to  that  of  France  that  the 
prelates  of  one  country  receive  constantly  and  without 
difficulty  promotion  in  the  other.  John  of  Poictiers,  born 
in  Kent,  treasurer  of  York,  becomes  bishop  of  Poictiers 
and  archbishop  of  Lyons,  while  still  retaining  the  living 
of  Eynesford  in  Kent  ;  John  of  Salisbury,  secretary  of  the 
arciioishop  of  Canterbury,  becomes  bishop  of  Chartres  ; 
Ralph  de  Sarr,  born  in  Thanet,  becomes  dean  of  Reims  J  ; 
others  are  appointed  bishops  of  Palermo,  Messina,  and 
Syracuse. 

Impetuous  as  are  these  princes,  ready  at  every  instant 
to  run  all  risks  and  play  fast  and  loose,  even  when,  like 
William  I.,  old  and  ill,  one  precious  quality  of  their  temper 
diminishes  the  danger  of  their  rashness.  They  undertake, 
as  though  for  a  wager,  superhuman  tasks,  but  once  under- 
taken they  proceed  to  the  fulfilling  of  them  with  a  lucid 
and  practical  mind.  It  is  this  practical  bent  of  their  mind, 
combined  with  their  venturesome  disposition,  that  has 
made  of  them  so  remarkable  a  race,  and  enabled  them  to 
transform  the  one  over  which  they  had  now  extended 
their  rule. 

Be  the  question  a  question  of  ideas  or  a  question  of  facts, 
they  behave  in  the  same  manner.  They  perceive  the 
importance  both  of  ideas  and  of  those  who  wield  them,  and 
act  accordingly  ;  they  negotiate  with  the  Pope,  with  St. 
Martin  of  Tours,  even  with  God  ;  they  promise  nothing  for 
nothing ;  however  exalted  the  power  with  which  they 
treat,  what  they  agree  to  must  be  bargains,  Norman 
bargains. 

The    bull   "  Laudabiliter,"   by  which   the    English  Pope 

1  Stubbs,  "Seventeen  Lectures/'  1S86,  p.  131. 


BATTLE.  in 

Nicholas  Breakspeare  (Adrian  IV.)  gives  Ireland  to  Henry 
II.,  is  a  formal  bargain  ;  the  king  buys,  the  Pope  sells  ;  the 
price  is  minutely  discussed  beforehand,  and  set  down  in 
the  agreement.1  But  the  most  remarkable  view  suggested 
to  them  by  this  practical  turn  of  their  mind  consisted  in 
the  value  they  chose  to  set,  even  at  that  distant  time,  on 
"  public  opinion,"  if  we  may  use  the  expression,  and  on 
literature  as  a  means  of  action. 

This  was  a  stroke  of  genius  ;  William  endeavoured,  and 
his  successors  imitated  him,  to  do  for  the  past  what  he  was 
doing  for  the  present :  to  unify.  For  this,  the  new  dynasty 
wanted  the  assistance  of  poets,  and  it  called  upon  them. 
William  had  persistently  given  himself  out  to  be  not  only 
the  successor,  but  the  rightful  heir  of  Edward  the  Confessor, 
and  of  the  native  kings.  During  several  centuries  the  poets 
who  wrote  in  the  French  tongue,  the  Latin  chroniclers,  the 
English  rhymers,  as  though  obedient  to  a  word  of  command, 
blended  all  the  origins  together  in  their  books  ;  French, 
Danes,  Saxons,  Britons,  Trojans  even,  according  to  them, 
formed  one  sole  race  ;  all  these  men  had  found  in  England 
a  common  country,  and  their  united  glories  were  the  general 
heritage  of  posterity.  With  a  persistency  which  lasted  from 
century  to  century,  they  displaced   the   national  point  of 

1  After  having  congratulated  the  king  upon  his  intention  to  teach  manners 
and  virtues  to  a  wild  race,  "  indoctis  et  rudibus  populis,"  the  Pope  recalls  the 
famous  theory,  according  to  which  all  islands  belonged  of  right  to  the  Holy 
See  :  "  Sane  Hiberniam  et  omnes  insulas,  quibus  sol  justitias  Christus  illuxit 
...  ad  jus  B.  Petri  et  sacrosanct^  Romanse  Ecclesise  (quod  tua  et  nobilitas 
recognoscit)  non  est  dubium  pertinere  .  .  ."  The  items  of  the  bargain  are 
then  enumerated  :  "  Significasti  siquidem  nobis,  fili  in  Christo  charissime,  te 
Hiberniae  insulam,  ad  subdendum  ilium  populum  legibus,  et  vitiorum  plantaria 
inde  exstirpanda  velle  intrare,  et  de  singulis  domibus  annuam  unius  denarii  B. 
Petro  velle  solvere  pensionem  .  .  .  Nos  itaque  pium  et  laudnbile  desiderium 
tuum  cum  favore  congruo  prosequentes  .  .  .  gratum  et  acceptum  habemus  ut 
.  .  .  illius  terrse  populus  honorifice  te  recipiat  et  sicut  Dominum  veneretur. "' 
"  Adriani  paprc  epistola?  et  privilegia. — Ad  Henricum  II.  Angliae  regem,"  in 
Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vol.  clxxxviii.  col.  1441. 


ii2  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

view,  and  ended  by  establishing,  with  every  one's  assent, 
the  theory  that  the  constitution  and  unity  of  a  nation  are  a 
question  not  of  blood  but  of  place  ;  consanguinity  matters 
little  ;  the  important  point  is  to  be  compatriots.  All  the 
inhabitants  of  the  same  country  are  one  people:  the  Saxons 
of  England  and  the  French  of  England  are  nothing  but 
Englishmen. 

All  the  heroes  who  shone  in  the  British  Isle  are  now 
indiscriminately  sung  by  the  poets,  who  celebrate  Brutus, 
Arthur,  Hengist,  Horsa,  Cnut,  Edward,  and  William  in 
impartial  strains.  They  venerate  in  the  same  manner  all 
saints  of  whatever  blood  who  have  won  heaven  by  the 
practice  of  virtue  on  English  ground.  Here  again  the 
king,  continuing  the  wise  policy  of  his  ancestors,  sets 
the  example.  On  Easter  Day,  1 1 58,  Henry  II.  and  his 
wife  Alienor  of  Aquitaine  enter  the  cathedral  of  Worcester, 
wearing  their  crowns,  and  present  themselves  before  the 
tomb  of  the  holy  protector  of  the  town.  They  remove 
their  crowns,  place  them  on  his  tomb,  and  swear  never  to 
wear  them  again.  The  saint  was  not  a  French  one,  but 
Wulfstan,  the  last  Anglo-Saxon  bishop,  one  who  held  the 
see  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest.1 

The  word  of  command  has  been  given  ;  the  clerks  know 
it.  Here  is  a  poem  of  the  thirteenth  century,  on  Edward 
the  Confessor  ;  it  is  composed  in  the  French  tongue  by  a 
Norman  monk  of  Westminster  Abbey,  and  dedicated  to 
Alienor  of  Provence,  wife  of  Henry  III.  In  it  we  read  : 
"In  this  world  there  is,  we  dare  to  say,  neither  country, 
nor  kingdom,  nor  empire  where  so  many  good  kings  and 
saints  have  lived  as  in  the  isle  of  the  English  .  .  .  holy 
martyrs   and    confessors,   many   of   whom   died   for   God  ; 

1  As  little  French  as  could  be,  for  he  did  not  even  know  the  language  of  the 
conquerors,  and  was  on  that  account  near  being  removed  from  his  see  : 
"  quasi  homo  idiota,  qui  linguam  gallicam  non  noverat  nee  regiis  consiliis 
interesse  poterat."     Matthew  Paris,  "Chronica  Majora,"  year  1095. 


BATTLE.  113 

others  were  very  strong  and  brave  as  Arthur,  Edmond,  and 
Cnut."  * 

This  is  a  characteristic  example  of  these  new  tendencies. 
The  poem  is  dedicated  to  a  Frenchwoman  by  a  Norman 
of  England,  and  begins  with  the  praise  of  a  Briton,  a 
Saxon,  and  a  Dane. 

In  the  compiling  of  chronicles,  clerks  proceed  in  the 
same  manner,  and  this  is  still  more  significant,  for  it  clearly 
proves  that  the  pressing  of  literature  into  the  service  of 
political  ideas  is  the  result  of  a  decided  will,  and  of  a  pre- 
conceived plan,  and  not  of  chance.  The  chroniclers  do, 
indeed,  write  by  command,  and  by  express  desire  of  the 
kings  their  masters.  One  of  them  begins  his  history  of 
England  with  the  siege  of  Troy,  and  relates  the  adventures 
of  the  Trojans  and  Britons,  as  willingly  as  those  of  the 
Saxons  or  Normans  ;  another  writes  two  separate  books, 
the  first  in  honour  of  the  Britons,  and  the  second  in  honour 
of  the  Normans  ;  a  third,  who  goes  back  to  the  time  when 
"  the  world  was  established,"  does  not  get  down  to  the 
dukes  of  Normandy  without  having  narrated  first  the  story 
of  Antenor  the  Trojan,  an  ancestor  of  the  Normans,  as  he 
believes.2     The  origin  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  must 

1  En  mund  ne  est,  (ben  vus  l'os  dire) 
Pais,  reaume,  ne  empire 
U  tant  unt  este  bons  rois 
E  seinz,  cum  en  isle  d'Englois, 
Ki  apres  regne  terestre 
Or  regnent  reis  en  celestre, 
Seinz,  martirs,  e  cunfessurs, 
Ki  pur  Deu  mururent  plursurs  ; 
Li  autre,  forz  e  hardiz  mutz, 
Cum  fu  Arthurs,  Aedmunz  e  Knudz. 

"'Lives  of  Edward  the  Confessor,"  ed.  H.  R.  Luard  (Rolls),  1858;  begin- 
ning of  the  "  Estoire  de  Seint  Aedward  le  Rei." 

2  These  three  poets,  all  of  them  subjects  of  the  English  kings,  lived  in  the 
twelfth  century  ;  the  oldest  of  the  three  was  Gaimar,  who  wrote,  between  1 147 
and    1151  (P.    Meyer,    "Romania,"    vol.   xviii.    p.    314),  his    "  Estorie   des 

9 


ii4  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

no  longer  be  sought  for  under  Scandinavian  skies,  but  on 
Trojan  fields.  From  the  smoking  ruins  of  Pergamus  came 
Francus,  father  of  the  French,  and  y£neas,  father  of  Brutus 
and  of  the  Britons  of  England.  Thus  the  nations  on  both 
sides  of  the  Channel  have  a  common  and  classic  ancestry. 
There  is  Trojan  blood  in  their  veins,  the  blood  of  Priam 
and  of  the  princes  who  defended  Ilion.1 

From  theory,  these  ideas  passed  into  practice,  and  thus 
received  a  lasting  consecration  ;  another  bond  of  fraternity 
was  established  between  the  various  races  living  on  the 
soil  of  Britain :  that  which  results  from  the  memory  of 
wars  fought  together.     William  and  his  successors  do  not 

Engles"  (ed.  Hardy  and  Martin,  Rolls,  1888,  2  vols.,  8vo),  and,  about 
1 145,  a  translation  in  French  verse  of  the  "  Historia  Britonum  "  of  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth  (see  below,  p.  132I. — Wace,  born  at  Jersey  (iioo?-ii75, 
G.  Paris),  translated  also  Geoffrey  into  French  verse  ("  Roman  de  Brut,"  ed. 
Leroux  de  Lincy,  Rouen,  1836,  2  vols.  8vo),  and  wrote  between  1160  and 
1 174  his  "  Geste  des  Normands  "  or  "Roman  de  Rou  "  (ed.  Andresen, 
Heilbronn,  1877,  2  vols.  8vo).  He  wrote  also  metrical  lives  of  saints,  &c. — 
Benoit  de  Sainte-More,  besides  his  metrical  romances  (see  below,  p.  129),  wrote, 
by  command  of  Henry  II.,  a  great  "  Chronique  des  dues  de  Normandie"  (ed. 
Francisque  Michel,  "  Documents  inedits,"  Paris,  1836,  3  vols.  4to). 

1  Even  under  the  Roman  empire,  nations  had  been  known  to  attribute  to 
themselves  a  Trojan  origin.  Lucanus  states  that  the  men  of  Auvergne  were 
conceited  enough  to  consider  themselves  allied  to  the  Trojan  race.  Ammianus 
Marcellinus,  fourth  century,  states  that  similar  traditions  were  current  in  Gaul 
in  his  time  :  "  Aiunt  quidam  paucos  post  excidium  Trojse  fugientes  Grsecos 
ubique  dispersos,  loca  hsec  occupasse  tunc  vacua."  "  Rerum  Gestarum,"  lib. 
xv.  cap.  ix.  During  the  Middle  Ages  a  Roman  ancestry  was  attributed  to  the 
French,  the  Britons,  the  Lombards,  the  Normans.  The  history  of  Brutus, 
father  of  the  Britons,  is  in  Nennius,  tenth  century  (?) ;  he  says  he  drew  his 
information  from  "  annalibus  Romanorum"  ("Historia  Britonum,"  ed. 
Stevenson,  Historical  Society,  London,  1838,  p.  7).  The  English  historians 
after  him,  up  to  modern  times,  accepted  the  same  legend  ;  it  is  reproduced  by 
Matthew  Paris  in  the  thirteenth  century,  by  Ralph  Higden  in  the  fourteenth, 
by  Holinshed  in  Shakesperean  times:  "  This  Brutus  .  .  .  was  the  sonne  of 
Silvius,  the  sonne  of  Ascanius,  the  sonne  of  yEneas  the  Troian,  begotten  of 
his  wife  Creusa,  and  borne  in  Troie,  before  the  citie  was  destroied." 
Chronicles,  1S07,  6  vols.  fol.  book  ii.  chap.  I.  In  France  at  the 
Renaissance,  Ronsard  chose  for  his  hero  Francus  the  Trojan,  "  because," 
as  he  says,   "  he  had  an  extreme  desire  to  honour  the  house  of  France." 


BA  TTLE.  1 1 5 

distinguish  between  their  subjects.  All  are  English,  and 
they  are  all  led  together  to  battle  against  their  foes  of 
the  Continent.  So  that  this  collection  of  scattered  tribes, 
on  an  island  which  a  resolute  invader  had  formerly  found 
it  so  easy  to  conquer,  now  gains  victories  in  its  turn,  and 
takes  an  unexpected  rank  among  nations.  David  Bruce  is 
made  prisoner  at  Neville's  Cross;  Charles  de  Blois  at  Roche 
Derien;  King  John  atPoictiers;  Du  Guesclin  at  Navarette. 
Hastings  has  made  the  defeat  of  the  Armada  possible  ; 
William  of  Normandy  stamped  on  the  ground,  and  a 
nation  came  forth. 


CHAPTER  II. 

LITERATURE     IN     THE      FRENCH     LANGUAGE 
UNDER  THE  NORMAN  AND  ANGEVIN  KINGS. 

I. 

What  previous  invaders  of  the  island  had  been  unable  to 
accomplish,  the  French  of  William  of  Normandy  were 
finally  to  realise.  By  the  rapidity  and  thoroughness  of 
their  conquest,  by  securing  to  themselves  the  assistance  of 
those  who  knew  how  to  use  a  pen,  by  their  continental 
wars,  they  were  to  bring  about  the  fusion  of  all  the  races 
in  one,  and  teach  them,  whether  they  intended  it  or  not, 
what  a  mother  country  was. 

They  taught  them  something  else  besides,  and  the  results 
of  the  Conquest  were  not  less  remarkable  from  a  literary 
than  from  a  political  point  of  view.  A  new  language  and  new 
ideas  were  introduced  by  them  into  England,  and  a  strange 
phenomenon  occurred,  one  almost  unique  in  history.  For 
about  two  or  three  hundred  years,  the  French  language 
remained  superimposed  upon  the  English  ;  the  upper  layer 
slowly  infiltrated  the  lower,  was  absorbed,  and  disappeared 
in  transforming  it.  But  this  was  the  work  of  centuries. 
"And  then  comes,  lo!"  writes  an  English  chronicler 
more  than  two  hundred  years  after  Hastings,  "  England 
into  Normandy's  hand ;  and  the  Normans  could  speak 
no  language  but  their  own,  and  they  spoke  French  here  as 
they  did  at  home,  and  taught  it  to  their  children  :  so  that 

116 


LIT  ERA  TURE  IN  FRENCH  LA  NG  UAGE.     117 

the  high  men  ot  this  land,  who  are  come  of  their  race, 
keep  all  to  thaf  speech  which  they  have  taken  from  them." 
People  of  a  lower  sort,  "  low  men,"  stick  to  their  English  ; 
all  those  who  do  not  know  French  are  men  of  no  account. 
"  I  ween  that  in  all  the  world  there  is  no  country  that  holds 
not  to  her  own  speech,  save  England  alone."  J 

The  diffusion  of  the  French  tongue  was  such  that  it  seemed 
at  one  time  as  if  a  disappearance  of  English  were  possible. 
All  over  the  great  island  people  were  found  speaking  French, 
and  they  were  always  the  most  powerful,  the  strongest, 
richest,  or  most  knowing  in  the  land,  whose  favour  it  was 
well  to  gain,  and  whose  example  it  was  well  to  imitate 
Men  who  spoke  only  English  remained  all  their  lives,  as 
Robert  of  Gloucester  tells  us,  men  of  "  little,"  of  nothing. 
In  order  to  become  something  the  first  condition  was  to 
learn  French.  This  condition  remained  so  long  a  neces- 
sary one,  it  was  even  impossible  to  foresee  that  it  should 
ever  cease  to  exist;  and  the  wisest, during  that  period,  were 
of  opinion  that  only  works  written  in  French  were  assured 
of  longevity.  Gerald  de  Barry,  who  had  written  in  Latin, 
regretted  at  the  end  of  his  life  that  he  had  not  employed 
the  French  language,  "  gallicum,"  which  would  have  secured 
to  his  works,  he  thought,  a  greater  and  more  lasting  fame.2 

1  Thus  com  lo  Engelond  ■  in  to  Normandies  hond  ; 

And  the  Normans  ne  couthe  speke  tho  ■  bot  hor  owe  speche, 

And  speke  French  as  hii  dude  atom  ■  and  hor  children  dude  also  teche, 

So  that  heiemen  of  this  lond  ■  that  of  hor  blod  come 

Holdeth  alle  thulke  speche  ■  that  hii  of  horn  nome  ; 

Vor  bote  a  man  conne  Frenss  '  me  telth  of  him  lute, 

Ac  lowe  men  holdeth  to  engliss  •  and  to  hor  owe  speche  yute. 

Ich  wene  ther  ne  beth  in  al  the  world  •  contreyes  none 

That  ne  holdeth  to  hor  owe  speche  •  bote  Engelonde  one. 

W.  A.  Wright,  "  Metrical  Chronicle  of  Robert  of  Gloucester  "  (Rolls),  1887, 
vol.  ii.  p.  543.     Concerning  Robert,  see  below,  p.  122. 

2  Letter  of  the  year  1209,  by  which  Gerald  sends  to  King  John  the  second 
edition  of  his   "  Expugnatio  Hibernian  "  ;   in    "  Giraldi    Cambrensis   Opera" 
(Rolls),  vol.  v.  p.  410.      Further  on  he  speaks  of  French  as  of  "  communi 
idiomate." 


n8  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Besides  the  force  lent  to  it  by  the  Conquest,  the  diffusion 
of  the  French  tongue  was  also  facilitated  by  the  marvellous 
renown  it  then  enjoyed  throughout  Europe.  Never  had  it 
a  greater  ;  men  of  various  races  wrote  it,  and  the  Italian 
Brunetto  Latini,  who  used  it,  gave  among  other  reasons 
for  so  doing,  "  that  this  speech  is  more  delightful  and  more 
common  to  all  people."  J  Such  being  the  case,  it  spread 
quickly  in  England,  where  it  was,  for  a  long  time,  the  lan- 
guage used  in  laws  and  deeds,  in  the  courts  of  justice,  in 
Parliamentary  debates,2  the  language  used  by  the  most 
refined  poets  of  the  period. 

And  thus  it  happened  that  next  to  authors,  French  by 
race  and  language,  subjects  of  the  kings  of  England,  were 
found  others  employing  the  same  idiom,  though  of  English 
blood.  They  strove,  to  the  best  of  their  possibility,  to 
imitate  the  style  in  favour  with  the  rulers  of  the  land,  they 
wrote  chronicles  in  French,  as  did,  in  the  twelfth  and  four- 
teenth centuries,  Jordan  Fantosme3  and  Peter  de  Lang- 
toft  ;  religious  poems,  as  Robert  of  Greteham,  Robert 
Grosseteste,  William  of  Wadington  did  in  the  thirteenth  ; 
romances  in  verse,  like  those  of  Hue  of  Rotelande  (twelfth 
century)  ;  moralised  tales  in  prose,  like  those  of  Nicole 
Bozon  ;    lyric  poems,4  or  fabliaux  £  like  those  composed 

1  "  La  parleure  est  plus  delitable  et  plus  commune  a  toutes  gens."  "  Li 
livres  dou  Tresor,"  thirteenth  century  (a  sort  of  philosophical,  historical, 
scientific,  &c,  cyclopaedia),  ed.  Chabaille,  Paris,  "Documents  inedits,"  1863, 
4to.  Dante  cherished  "the  dear  and  sweet  fatherly  image"  of  his  master, 
Brunetto,  who  recommended  to  the  poet  his  "  Tresor,"  for,  he  said,  "in  this 
book  I  still  live."     "  Inferno,"  canto  xv. 

2  For  the  laws,  see  the  "Statutes  of  the  Realm,"  1819-28,  Record  Com- 
mission, 11  vols.  fol. ;  for  the  accounts  of  the  sittings  of  Parliament,  "  Rotuli 
Parliamentorum,"  London,  1767-77,  6  vols,  fob;  for  the  accounts  of  law- 
suits, the  "  Year  Books,"  ed.  Horwood,  Rolls,  1863  ff. 

3  Author  of  a  "  Chronique  de  la  guerre  entre  les  Anglois  et  les  Escossois," 
1173-74,  in  French  verse,  ed.  R.  Howlett :  "Chronicles  of  the  reigns  of 
Stephen,  Henry  II.,  and  Richard  I."  (Rolls),  1884  ft'.,  vol.  iii.  p.  203. 

*  See  below,  pp.  122,  123,  130,  214. 

5  Example  :  "  Romanz  de  un  chivaler  e  de  sa  dame  e  de  un  clerk,"  written 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.   119 

by  various  anonymous  writers  ;  ballads  such  as  those 
we  owe,  quite  at  the  end  of  the  period,  in  the  second 
half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  to  Chaucer's  friend,  John 
Gower. 

At  this  distance  from  the  Conquest,  French  still  played 
an  important,  though  greatly  diminished,  part ;  it  remained, 
as  will  be  seen,  the  language  of  the  Court  ;  the  accounts  of 
the  sittings  of  Parliament  continued  to  be  written  in 
French  ;  a  London  citizen  registered  in  French  on  his 
note-book  all  that  he  knew  concerning  the  history  of  his 
town.1  As  Robert  of  Gloucester  had  said,  the  case  was  an 
unparalleled  one.  This  French  literature,  the  work  of 
Englishmen,  consisted,  of  course,  mainly  in  imitations  of 
French  models,  and  need  not  detain  us  long ;  still,  its 
existence  must  be  remembered,  for  no  other  fact  shows 
so  well  how  thorough  and  powerful  the  French  invasion 
had  been. 

What,  then,  were  the  models  copied  by  these  imitators, 
and  what  the  literature  and  ideas  that,  thanks  to  the 
Conquest,  French-speaking  poets  acclimatised  in  lately- 
Germanic  England  ?  What  sort  of  works  pleased  the 
rulers  of  the  country  ;  what  writings  were  composed  for 
them  ;  what  manuscripts  did  they  order  to  be  copied  for 
their  libraries  ?  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  when  study- 
ing the  important  problem  of  the  diffusion  of  French  ideas 
among  men  of  English  race,  that  it  matters  little  whether 
the  works  most  liked  in  England  were  composed  by  French 
subjects  of  the  king  of  France,  or  by  French  subjects  of 
the  king  of  England  ;  it  matters  little  whether  these  ideas 
went   across    the   Channel,  carried    over    by   poets,  or   by 

in  French  by  an  Englishman  in  the  thirteenth  century,  ed.  Paul  Meyer, 
"  Romania,"  vol.  i.  p.  70.  It  is  an  adaptation  of  the  well-known/a/>//att  of  the 
"  Bourgeoise  d'Orleans  "  (in  Montaiglon  and  Raynaud,  "  Recueil  general  des 
Fabliaux,"  1872,  vol.  i.  p.  117).     See  below,  p.  225. 

1  "  Croniques   de    London  .    .    .    jusqu'a    l'an    17Ed.HL,"    ed.    Aungier, 
Camden  Society,  1844,  4to. 


120  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

manuscripts.  What  is  important  is  to  see  and  ascertain 
that  works  of  a  new  style,  with  new  aims  in  them,  and 
belonging  to  a  new  school  of  art,  enjoyed  in  England  a 
wide  popularity  after  the  Conquest,  with  the  result  that 
deep  and  lasting  transformations  affected  the  aesthetic  ideal 
and  even  the  way  of  thinking  of  the  inhabitants.  What, 
then,  were  these  ideas,  and  what  was  this  literature  ? 


II. 

This  literature  little  resembled  that  liked  by  the  late 
masters  of  the  country.  It  was  as  varied,  superabundant, 
and  many-coloured  as  the  other  was  grand,  monotonous, 
and  melancholy.  The  writings  produced  or  simply  admired 
by  the  conquerors  were,  like  themselves,  at  once  practical 
and  romantic.  They  had,  together  with  a  multitude  of 
useful  works,  a  number  of  charming  songs  and  tales,  the 
authors  of  which  had  no  aim  but  to  please. 

The  useful  works  are  those  so-called  scientific  treatises 
in  which  everything  is  taught  that  can  be  learned,  including 
virtue  :  "Image  du  Monde,"  "Petite  Philosophic,"  "Lumiere 
des  lai'ques,"  "Secret  des  Secrets,"  &C.1;  or  thos2  chronicles 
which    so    efficaciously  served   the    political  views   of   the 

1  "  Image  du  Monde,"  thirteenth  century,  a  poem,  very  popular  both  in 
France  and  in  England,  of  which  "about  sixty  MSS.  are  known,"  "Romania," 
vol.  xv.  p.  314;  some  of  the  MSS.  were  written  in  England. — "  Petite  Philo- 
sophie,"  also  in  verse,  being  an  "abrege  de  cosmographie  et  de  geographie," 
"  Romania,"  xv.  p.  255.- — "  Lumiere  des  laiques,"  a  poem,  written  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  by  the  Anglo-Norman  Pierre  de  Peckham  or  d'Abernun, 
ibid.  p.  287. — "  Secret  des  Secrets,"  an  adaptation,  in  French  prose,  of  the 
"  Secretum  Secretorum,"  wrongly  attributed  to  Aristotle,  this  adaptation  being 
the  work  of  an  Irishman,  Geoffrey  de  Waterford,  who  translated  also  Dares 
and  Eutrope,  thirteenth  century  (see  "  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,"  vol. 
xxi.  p.  216). — To  these  may  be  added  translations  in  French  of  various  Latin 
works,  books  on  the  properties  of  things,  law  books,  such  as  the  "Institutes" 
of  Justinian,  turned  into  French  verse  by  the  Norman  Richard  d'Annebaut, 
and  the  "Coutume  de  Normandie,"  turned  also  into  verse,  by  Guillaume 
Chapu,  also  a  Norman,  both  living  in  the  thirteenth  century. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  121 

rulers  of  the  land  ;  or  else  pious  works  that  showed  men 
the  way  to  heaven. 

The  principal  historical  works  are,  as  has  been  seen, 
those  rhymed  in  the  twelfth  century  by  Gaimar,  Wace,  and 
Benoit  de  Sainte-More,  lengthy  stories,  each  being  more 
flowery  than  its  predecessor,  and  more  thickly  studded 
with  digressions  of  all  sorts,  and  descriptions  in  all  colours, 
written  in  short  and  clear  verse,  with  bell-like  tinklings. 
The  style  is  limpid,  simple,  transparent :  it  flows  like  those 
wide  rivers  without  dykes,  which  cover  immense  spaces 
with  still  and  shallow  water.1 

In  the  following  century  the  most  remarkable  work  is 
the  biography  in  verse  of  William  le  Marechal,  earl  of  Pem- 
broke, one  of  those  knights  of  proud  mien  who  still  appear 
to  breathe  as  they  lie  on  their  tombs  in  Temple  Church. 
This  Life  is  the  best  of  its  kind  and  period  ;  the  anonymous 
author  who  wrote  it  to  order  has  the  gift,  unknown  to  his 
predecessors,  of  condensing  his  subject,  of  grouping  his 
characters,  of  making  them  move  and  talk.  As  in  the 
Temple  Church,  on  the  monument  he  erects  to  them,  they 
seem  to  be  living.2 

1  See  above,  p.  113.  The  wealth  of  this  historical  literature  in  the  French 
tongue  is  greater  at  first  than  that  of  the  literature  produced  by  the  subjects  of 
the  French  kings.  Besides  the  great  chronicles,  many  other  works  might  be 
quoted,  such  as  lives  of  saints,  which  are  sometimes  historical  biographies  (St. 
Edward,  St.  Thomas  Becket,  &c. );  the  "  Histoire  de  la  Guerre  Sainte,"  an 
account  of  the  third  crusade,  by  Ambrose,  a  companion  of  King  Richard 
Coeur-de-Lion  (in  preparation,  by  Gaston  Paris,  "Documents  inedits  ")  ;  the 
"  Estoire  le  roi  Dermot,"  on  the  troubles  in  Ireland,  written  in  the  thirteenth 
century  ("  Song  of  Dermot  and  the  Earl,"  ed.  Orpen,  Oxford,  1892,  Svo  ; 
cf.  P.  Meyer,  "  Romania,"  vol.  xxi.  p,  444),  &c. 

2  This  Life  was  written  in  the  thirteenth  century,  by  order  of  Earl  William, 
son  of  the  hero  of  the  story.  Its  historical  accuracy  is  remarkable.  The  MS. 
was  discovered  by  M.  Paul  Meyer,  and  published  by  him  :  "  Histoire  de  Guil- 
laume  le  Marechal,"  Paris,  1892  ff.,  Societe  de  l'histoire  de  France.  On  the 
value  of  this  Life,  see  an  article  by  the  same,  "  Romania,"  vol.  xi.  The  slab 
in  the  Temple  Church  is  in  an  excellent  state  of  preservation  ;  the  image  of 
the  earl  seems  to  be  a  portrait ;  the  face  is  that  of  an  old  man  with  many  wrinkles ; 
the  sword  is  out  of  the  scabbard,  and  held  in  the  right  hand  ;  its  point  is 
driven  through  the  head  of  an  animal  at  the  feet  of  the  earl. 


122  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Another  century  passes,  the  fashion  of  writing  history  in 
French  verse  still  subsists,  but  will  soon  die  out.  Peter  de 
Langtoft,  a  true  Englishman  as  his  language  sufficiently 
proves,  yet  versifies  in  French,  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
a  history  of  England  from  the  creation  of  the  world  to  the 
death  of  Edward  I.  But  the  times  are  changing,  and 
Peter,  last  representative  of  an  art  that  is  over,1  is  a  con- 
temporary of  that  other  Englishman,  Robert  of  Gloucester, 
first  representative  of  an  art  that  begins,  a  distant  ancestor 
of  Gibbon  and  Macaulay.  In  sedate  and  manly,  but  some- 
what monotonous  strains,  Robert  tells  in  his  turn  the  history 
of  his  country  ;  differing  in  this  respect  from  the  others,  he 
uses  the  English  tongue  ;  he  is  by  no  means  cosmopolitan, 
but  only  and  solely  English.  In  the  very  first  lines  he 
makes  this  characteristic  declaration  :  "  England  is  a  very 
good  land  ;  I  ween  the  best  of  any.  .  .  .  The  sea  goes  all 
about  it ;  it  stands  as  in  an  isle  ;  it  has  the  less  to  fear 
from  foes.  .  .  .  Plenty  of  all  goods  may  be  found  in 
England."  2 

The  way  to  heaven  is  taught,  after  the  Conquest,  in 
innumerable  French  works,  in  verse  and  prose,  paraphrases 
of  the  psalms  and  gospels,  lives  of  the  saints,  manuals  of 

1  Jean  de  Waurin,  who  wrote  in  French  prose  in  the  fifteenth  century  his 
"  Chroniques  et  anchiennes  istoires  de  la  Grant-Bretaigne"  (ed.  Hardy,  Rolls, 
1864  ff. )  was  a  Frenchman  of  France,  who  had  fought  at  Agincourt  on  the 
French  side.  The  chronicle  of  Peter  de  Langtoft,  canon  of  Bridlington, 
Yorkshire,  who  lived  under  Edward  I.  and  Edward  II.,  was  printed  by 
Thomas  Wright,  1866  (Rolls),  2  vols.  8vo. 

2  Engelond  his  a  wel  god  lond  ■  ich  wene  ech  londe  best  .  .  . 
The  see  geth  him  al  aboute  •  he  stond  as  in  an  yle, 
Of  fon  hii  dorre  the  lasse  doute  "  bote  hit  be  thorgh  gyle  .   .  . 
Plente  me  may  in  Engelond  ■  of  alle  gode  ise. 

W.  A.  Wright,  "  Metrical  Chronicle  of  Robert  of  Gloucester,"  1887  (Rolls), 
vol.  i.  pp.  1,  2.  Robert's  surname,  "  of  Gloucester,"  is  not  certain  ;  see  Mr. 
Wright's  preface,  and  his  letter  to  the  Athenceum,  May  19,  1888.  He  is  very 
hard  (too  hard  it  seems)  on  Robert,  of  whose  work  he  says  :  "  As  literature  it 
is  as  worthless  as  twelve  thousand  lines  of  verse  without  one  spark  of  poetry 
can  be." 


LITERATURE   IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.   123 

penitence,  miracles  of  Our  Lady,  moralised  tales,  bestiaries, 
and  sermons.1  The  number  of  the  French-speaking  popula- 
tion  had   so  increased    in   the   kingdom    that    it  was    not 

1  Among  writings  of  this  sort,  written  in  French  either  by  Frenchmen  or 
by  Englishmen,  and  popular  in  England,  may  be  quoted  :  Penitential  Psalms, 
a  French  version  very  popular  in  England,  in  a  MS.  preserved  at  the 
University  Library,  Cambridge,  thirteenth  century  ("  Romania,"  vol.  xv. 
p.  305).— Explanation  of  the  Gospels:  the  "  Miroir,"  by  Robert  de  Grete- 
ham,  in  20,000  French  verses  {Ibid.). — Lives  of  Saints:  life  of  Becket  in 
"Materials  for  the  history  of  Thomas  Becket,"  ed.  Robertson,  1875  ff., 
7  vols.,  and  "  Fragments  d'une  vie  de  St.  Thomas "  (with  very  curious 
engravings),  edited  by  Paul  Meyer,  1885,  4to,  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes  ; 
life  of  St.  Catherine,  by  Sister  Clemence  de  Barking,  twelfth  century  (G. 
Paris,  "  Romania,"  xiii.  p.  400)  ;  life  of  St.  Josaphaz  and  life  of  the  Seven 
Sleepers,  by  Chardry,  thirteenth  century  ("  Chardry's  Josaphaz,"  &c,  ed. 
Koch,  Heilbronn,  1879,  8vo)  ;  life  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  by  Augier,  of 
St.  Frideswide's,  Oxford,  thirteenth  century  (text  and  commentary  in 
"Romania,"  xii.  pp.  145  ff.)  ;  lives  of  St.  Edward  (ed.  Luard,  Rolls,  1858)  ; 
mention  of  many  other  lives  in  French  (others  in  English)  will  be  found  in 
Hardy's  "Descriptive  Catalogue,"  Rolls,  1862  ff.— Manuals  and  treatises  :  by 
Robert  Grosseteste,  William  de  Wadington  and  others  (see  below,  p.  214). — 
Works  concerning  Our  Lady  :  "  Adgars  Marien  Legenden,"  ed.  Carl  Neuhaus, 
Heilbronn,  1886,  8vo  (stories  in  French  verse  of  miracles  of  the  Virgin,  by 
Adgar,  an  Anglo-Norman  of  the  twelfth  century  ;  some  take  place  in  England) ; 
"Joies  de  Notre  Dame,"  "Plaintes  de  Notre  Dame,"  French  poems  written 
in  England,  thirteenth  century  (see  "  Romania,"  vol.  xv.  pp.  307  ff.).— 
Moralised  tales  and  Bestiaries  :  "  Bestiaire  "  of  Philippe  de  Thaon,  a  Norman 
priest  of  the  twelfth  century,  in  French  verse  (includes  a  "  Lapidaire  "  and 
a  "  Volucraire,"  on  the  virtues  of  stones  and  birds),  text  in  T.  Wright, 
"  Popular  Treatises  on  Science,"  London  1841,  Historical  Society,  8vo ;  see 
also  P.  Meyer,  "  Recueil  d'anciens  textes,"  Paris,  1877,  8vo,  p.  286),  the 
same  wrote  also  an  ecclesiastical  "Comput"  inverse  (ed.  Mall,  Strasbourg, 
1873,  8vo) ;  "Bestiaire  divin,"  by  Guillaume  le  Clerc,  also  a  Norman, 
thirteenth  century  (ed.  Hippeau,  Caen,  1852,  8vo),  to  be  compared  to  the 
worldly  "  Bestiaire  d'Amour,"  of  Richard  de  Fournival,  thirteenth  century 
(ed.  Hippeau,  Paris,  1840,  8vo) ;  translation  in  French  prose,  probably  by 
a  Norman,  of  the  Latin  fables  (thirteenth  century)  of  Odo  de  Cheriton, 
"Romania,"  vol.  xiv.  p.  388,  and  Hervieux,  "  Fabulistes  Latins,"  vol.  ii.  ; 
"  Contes  moralises  de  Nicole  Bozon,"  ed.  P.  Meyer  and  Lucy  Toulmin  Smith, 
Paris,  1889,  8vo,  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes,  in  French  prose,  fourteenth 
century. — Sermons  :  "  Reimpredigt,"  ed.  Suchier,  Halle,  1879,  8vo,  in  French 
verse,  by  an  Anglo-Norman  ;  on  sermons  in  French  and  in  Latin,  see  Lecoy 
de  la  Marche,  "  La  Chaire  fiancaise  an  moyen  age,"  Paris,  1886,  8vo,  2nd 
ed.  ;  at  p.  282,  sermon  on  the  Passion  by  Geoffrey  de  Waterford  in  French 
verse,  Anglo-Norman  dialect. 


124  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

absurd  to  preach  in  French,  and  some  of  the  clergy  in- 
clined all  the  more  willingly  to  so  doing  that  many  of 
the  higher  prelates  in  the  land  were  Frenchmen.  '  To 
the  simple  folk,"  says,  in  French,  an  Anglo-Norman 
preacher,  •'  have  I  simply  made  a  simple  sermon.  I  did 
not  make  it  for  the  learned,  as  they  have  enough  writings 
and  discourses.  For  these  young  people  who  are  not 
scholars  I  made  it  in  the  Romance  tongue,  for  better  will 
they  understand  the  language  they  have  been  accustomed 
to  since  childhood." 

A  la  simple  gent 
Ai  fait  simplement 
Un  simple  sarmun. 
Nel  fis  as  letrez 
Car  il  unt  assez 
Escriz  e  raisun. 

Por  icels  enfanz 
Le  fis  en  romanz 
Qui  ne  sunt  letre 
Car  miel  entendrunt 
La  langue  dunt  sunt 
Des  enfance  use.1 

Religious  works,  as  well  as  the  chronicles,  are  mainly 
written  in  a  clear,  thin,  transparent  style  ;  neither  sight  nor 
thought  is  absorbed  by  them  ;  the  world  can  be  seen 
through  the  light  religious  veil ;  the  reader's  attention 
wanders.  In  truth,  the  real  religious  poems  we  owe  to 
the  Normans  are  those  poems  in  stone,  erected  by  their 
architects  at  Ely,  Canterbury,  York,  and   Durham. 

Much  more  conspicuous  was  the  literature  of  the 
imagination  composed  for  them,  a  radiant  literature  made 
of  numberless  romaunts,  songs,  and  love-tales.    They  had 

1  "  Reimpredigt,"  ed.  Suchier,  Halle,  1879,  p.  64.  There  were  also  sermons 
in  English  (see  next  chapter)  ;  Jocelin  de  Brakelonde  says  in  his  chronicle  that 
sermons  were  delivered  in  churches,  "  gallice  vel  potius  anglice,  ut  morum 
fieret  edificatio,  non  literature  ostensio,"  year  1200  (Camden  Society,  1840,. 

P-  95)- 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  125 

no  taste  for  the  doleful  tunes  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  poet ; 
his  sadness  was  repellent  to  them,  his  despairs  they 
abhorred  ;  they  turned  the  page  and  shut  the  book  with 
great  alacrity.  They  were  happy  men  ;  everything  went 
well  with  them  ;  they  wanted  a  literature  meant  for  happy 
men. 

III. 

First  of  all  they  have  epic  tales  ;  but  how  different  from 
"Beowulf"!  The  Song  of  Roland,  sung  at  Hastings, 
which  was  then  the  national  song  of  the  Normans  as 
well  as  of  all  Frenchmen,  is  the  most  warlike  poem  in 
the  literature  of  mediaeval  France,  the  one  that  best 
recalls  the  Germanic  origins  of  the  race  ;  yet  a  wide 
interval  already  separates  these  origins  from  the  new 
nation  ;  the  change  is  striking.1  Massacres,  it  is  true,  still 
occupy  the  principal  place,  and  a  scent  of  blood  pervades 
the  entire  poem  ;  hauberks  torn  open,  bodies  hewn  in 
two,  brains  scattered  on  the  grass,  the  steam  rising  from 
the  battle,  fill  the  poet's  heart  with  rapture,  and  his  soul 
is  roused  to  enthusiasm.  But  a  place  is  also  kept  for 
tender  sentiments,  and  another  for  winged  speeches. 
Woman  is  not  yet  the  object  of  this  tenderness;  Charle- 
magne's peers  do  not  remember  Aude  while  they  fight ; 
they  expire  without  giving  her  a  sigh.  But  their  eyes  are 
dim  with  tears  at  the  recollection  of  fair  France  ;  they 
weep  to  see  their  companions  lie  prostrate  on  the  grass ; 


1  "La  Chanson  de  Roland,  texte  critique,  traduction  et  commentaire,"  by 
Leon  Gautier,  Tours,  1881,  8vo  ;  "  La  Chanson  de  Roland,  traduction 
archaique  et  rythmee,"  by  L.  Cledat,  Pans,  1887,  8vo.  On  the  romances  of 
the  cycle  of  Charlemagne  composed  in  England,  see  G.  Paris,  "  Histoire 
poetique  de  Charlemagne,"  1865,  8vo,  pp.  155  ff.  The  unique  MS.  of  the 
"Chanson,"  written  about  1 170,  is  at  Oxford,  where  it  was  found  in  our 
century.  It  was  printed  for  the  first  time  in  1S37.  Other  versions  of  the 
story  have  come  down  to  us  ;  on  which  see  Gaston  Paris's  Introduction  to  his 
"  Extraits  de  la  Chanson  de  Roland,"  1893,  4th  ed. 


126  THE   FRENCH  INVASION. 

the  real  mistress  of  Roland,  the  one  to  whom  his  last 
thought  reverts,  is  not  Aude  but  Durandal,  his  sword. 
This  is  his  love,  the  friend  of  his  life,  whose  fate,  after  he 
shall  be  no  more,  preoccupies  him.  Just  as  this  sword 
has  a  name,  it  has  a  life  of  its  own  ;  Roland  wishes  it  to 
die  with  him  ;  he  would  like  to  kill  it,  as  a  lover  kills  his 
mistress  to  prevent  her  falling  into  the  hands  of  miscreants. 
"  The  steel  grates,  but  neither  breaks  nor  notches.  And 
the  earl  cries  :  Holy  Mary,  help  me  !  ...  Ah  !  Durandal, 
so  dearly  beloved,  how  white  and  clear  thou  art !  how  thou 
shinest  and  flashest  in  the  sunlight.  ...  Ah  !  Durandal, 
fair  and  holy  art  thou  ! "  J  In  truth,  this  is  his  love. 
Little,  however,  does  it  matter  to  ascertain  with  what  or 
whom  Roland  is  in  love;  the  thing  to  be  remembered 
is  that  he  has  a  heart  which  can  be  touched  and  moved, 
and  can  indeed  feel,  suffer,  and  love. 

At  Roncevaux,  as  well  as  at  Hastings,  French  readiness 
of  wit  appears  even  in  the  middle  of  the  battle.  Arch- 
bishop Turpin,  so  imposing  when  he  bestows  the  last 
benediction  on  the  row  of  corpses,  keeps  all  through  the 
fight  a  good-humour  similar  to  that  of  the  Conqueror. 
"  This  Saracen  seems  to  me  something  of  a  heretic," 2  he 
says,  espying  an  enemy;  and  he  fells  him  to  earth.  Oliver, 
too,  in  a  passage  which  shows  that  if  woman  has  no  active 
part  assigned  to  her  in  the  poem  she  had  begun  to  play  an 
important  one  in  real  life,  slays  the  caliph  and  says  :  Thou 
at  least  shalt  not  go  boasting  of  our  defeat,  "  either  to  thy 
wife  or  to  any  lady  in  thy  land."  3 

1  Croist  li  aciers,  ne  fraint  ne  s'esgruignet ; 

Et  dist  li  cuens  :  "  Sainte  Marie,  aiude  !  .   .  . 
E  !  Durendal,  com  ies  et  clere  et  blanche  ! 
Contre  soleil  si  reluis  et  reflambes  !  .  .   . 
E  !  Durendal,  com  ies  bele  et  saintisme  ! " 

2  Cil  Sarrazins  me  semblet  mult  herites. 

3  Ne  a  muillier  n'a  dame  qu'as  veut 
N'en  vanteras  el'  regne  dunt  tu  fus. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  127 

It  will  finally  be  noticed  that  the  subject  of  this  epic,  the 
oldest  in  France,  is  a  defeat,  thus  showing,  even  in  that  far- 
distant  age,  what  the  heroic  ideal  of  the  nation  was  to  be, 
that  is,  not  so  much  to  triumph  as  to  die  well.  She  will 
never  lay  down  her  arms  merely  because  she  is  beaten  ; 
she  will  only  lay  them  down  when  enough  of  her  sons 
have  perished.  Even  when  victory  becomes  impossible, 
the  nation,  however  resigned  to  the  inevitable,  still  fights 
for  honour.  Such  as  we  see  her  in  the  Song  of  Roland, 
such  she  appears  in  Froissart,  and  such  she  has  ever  shown 
herself:  "  For  never  was  the  realm  of  France  so  broken, 
but  that  some  one  to  fight  against  could  be  found  there."  1 

The  conquerors  of  England  are  complete  men  ;  they 
are  not  only  valiant,  they  are  learned  ;  they  not  only  take 
interest  in  the  immediate  past  of  their  own  race  ;  they  are 
also  interested  in  the  distant  past  of  other  civilised  nations; 
they  make  their  poets  tell  them  of  the  heroes  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  and  immense  metrical  works  are  devoted  to 
these  personages,  which  will  beguile  the  time  and  drive 
ennui  away  from  castle-halls.  These  poems  form  a  whole 
cycle  ;  Alexander  is  the  centre  of  it,  as  Charlemagne  is 
of  the  cycle  of  France,  and  Arthur  of  the  cycle  of  Britain. 

The  poets  who  write  about  these  famous  warriors 
endeavour  to  satisfy  at  once  the  contradictory  tastes  of 
their  patrons  for  marvels  and  for  truth.  Their  works  are 
a  collection  of  attested  prodigies.  They  are  unanimous 
in  putting  aside  Homer's  story,  which  does  not  contain 
enough  miracles  to  please  them,  and,  being  in  consequence 
little  disposed  to  leniency,  they  reject  the  whole  of  it  as 
apocryphal.  I  confess,  says  one  of  them,  that  Homer 
was  a  "  marvellous  clerk,"  but  his  tales  must  not  be 
believed  :    "  For  well   we  know,  past   any   doubt,  that   he 

1  "Car  le  Royaume  de  France  ne  fut  oncques  si  desconfis  que  on  n'y 
trouvast  bien  tousjours  a  qui  combattre."  Prologue  of  the  Chronicles,  Luce's 
edition,  vol.  i.  p.  212. 


128  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

was  born  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  the  great  host 
was  gathered  together."  J 

But  the  worst  forger  of  Alexandria  obtains  the  confi- 
dence of  our  poets  ;  they  read  with  admiration  in  old 
manuscripts  a  journal  of  the  siege  of  Troy,  and  the  old 
manuscripts  declare  the  author  of  this  valuable  document 
to  be  Dares  the  Phrygian.  The  work  has  its  counterpart 
executed  in  the  Grecian  camp  by  Dictys  of  Crete.  No 
doubt  crosses  their  mind  ;  here  is  authenticity  and  truth, 
here  are  documents  to  be  trusted  ;  and  how  interesting 
they  are,  how  curious  !  the  very  journal  of  an  eye-witness  ; 
truth  and  wonder  made  into  one. 

For  Alexander  they  have  a  no  less  precious  text :  the 
Pseudo-Callisthenes,  composed  in  Greek  at  Alexandria, 
of  which  a  Latin  version  of  the  fourth  century  still  exists. 
They  are  all  the  better  disposed  towards  it  that  it  is  a 
long  tissue  of  marvels  and  fabulous  adventures.2  For 
the  history  of  Thebes  they  are  obliged  to  content  them- 
selves with  Statius,  and  for  that  of  Rome  with  Virgil, 
that  same  Virgil  who  became  by  degrees,  in  mediaeval 
legends,  an  enchanter,  the  Merlin  of  the  cycle  of  Rome. 
He  had,  they  believed,  some  weird  connection  with  the 
powers  of  darkness  ;  for  he  had  visited  them  and  described 
in  his  "  ^neid "  their  place  of  abode  :  no  one  was  sur- 
prised at  seeing  Dante  take  him  for  a  guide. 

What  these  poets  wished  for  was  a  certificate  of  authen- 
ticity at  starting.     Once  they  had  it,  they  took  no  further 

1  Car  bien  scavons  sanz  nul  espoir 
Q'il  ne  fu  pius  de  c  ans  nee 
Q'li  grans  ost  fu  assemblee. 

MS.  fr.  60  in  the  National  Library,  Paris,  fol.  42;  contains:  "Li  Roumans 
de  Tiebes  qui  fu  racine  de  Troie  la  grant. — Item  toute  l'histoire  de  Troie  la 
grant." 

E  "Alexandre  le  Grand,  dans  la  litterature  francaise  du  moyen  age,"  by 
?.  Meyer,  Paris,  1886,  2  vols.  8vo  (vol.  i.  texts,  vol.  ii.  history  of  the 
legend) ;  vol.  ii.  p.  182. 


LITERATURE  IN  TRENCH  LANGUAGE.  129 

trouble  ;  it  was  their  passport  ;  and  with  a  well-worded 
passport  one  can  go  a  long  way.  After  having  blamed 
Homer  and  appealed  to  Dares,  they  felt  themselves  above 
suspicion,  laid  hands  on  all  they  could,  and  invented  in 
their  turn.  Here  is,  for  example,  an  episode  in  the 
romance  of  Alexander,  a  story  of  maidens  in  a  forest, 
who  sink  underground  in  winter  and  reappear  in  spring 
in  the  shape  of  flowers  :  it  will  be  vainly  sought  for  in 
Callisthenes  ;  it  is  of  Eastern  origin,  and  is  found  in 
Edrisi.  For  want  of  better,  and  to  avoid  the  trouble  of 
naming  names,  the  authors  will  sometimes  refer  their 
public  to  "  Latin  books,"  and  such  was  the  'renown  of 
Rome  that  the  reader  asked  nothing  more. 

No  need  to  add  that  manners  and  dresses  were  scarcely 
better  observed  than  probability.  Everything  in  these 
poems  was  really  translated ;  not  only  the  language  of  the 
ancients,  but  their  raiment,  their  civilisation,  their  ideas. 
Venus  becomes  a  princess  ;  the  heroes  are  knights,  and 
their  costumes  are  so  much  in  the  fashion  of  the  day  that 
they  serve  us  to  date  the  poems.  The  miniatures  conform 
to  the  tale  ;  tonsured  monks  bear  Achilles  to  the  grave  ; 
they  carry  tapers  in  their  hands.  Queen  Penthesilea, 
"  doughty  and  bold,  and  beautiful  and  virtuous,"  rides 
astride,  her  heels  armed  with  huge  red  spurs.1  CEdipus 
is  dubbed  a  knight ;  ^Eneas  takes  counsel  of  his  "  barons." 
This  manner  of  representing  antiquity  lasted  till  the 
Renaissance  ;  and  till  much  later,  on  the  stage.  Under 
Louis  XIV.,  Augustus  wore  a  perruque  "in-folio";  and 
in  the  last  century  Mrs.  Hartley  played  Cleopatra  in 
panzers  on  the  English  stage. 

In  accordance  with  these  ideas  were  written  in  French, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  conquerors  of  England,  such  tales  as 
the   immense   "  Roman   de    Troie,"  by   Benoit   de   Sainte- 

1  MS.  fr.  782  at  the  National  Library,  Paris,  containing  poems  by  Benoit  de 
Sainte-More,  fol.  151,  155,  158. 

10 


130  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

More,  in  which  is  related,  for  the  first  time  in  any  modern 
language,  the  story  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  ;  the  "  Roman 
de  Thebes,"  written  about  1150  ;  that  of  "Eneas,"  composed 
during  the  same  period  ;  the  History  of  Alexander,  or 
the  "  Roman  de  toute  Chevalerie,"  a  vast  compilation,  one 
of  the  longest  and  dullest  that  be,  written  in  the  beginning 
of  the  thirteenth  century  by  Eustace  or  Thomas  of  Kent ; 
the  Romance  of  "  Ipomedon,"  and  the  Romance  of  "  Pro- 
thesilaus,"  by  Hue  of  Rotelande,  composed  before  1191  ; 
and  many  others  besides 1 :  all  romances  destined  to 
people  of  leisure,  delighting  in  long  descriptions,  in  pro- 
digious adventures,  in  enchantments,  in  transformations, 
in  marvels.  Alexander  converses  with  trees  who  foretell 
the  future  to  him  ;  he  drinks  from  the  fountain  of  youth  ; 
he  gets  into  a  glass  barrel  lighted  by  lamps,  and  is  let 
down  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  where  he  watches  the 
gambols  of  marine  monsters  ;  his  army  is  attacked  by 
wild  beasts  unaffrighted  by  flames,  that  squat  in  the  midst 
of  the  fires  intended  to  scare  them  away.  He  places  the 
corpse  of  the  admiral  who  commanded  at  Babylon  in  an 
iron  coffin,  that  four  loadstones  hold  to  the  vault.  The 
authors  give  their  imagination  full  scope  ;  their  romances 
are  operas ;    at  every  page  we  behold  a  marvel    and    a 

1  Benoit  de  Sainte-More,  a  poet  of  the  court  of  Henry  II.,  wrote  his 
"Roman  de  Troie"  about  1160  (G.  Paris);  it  was  edited  by  Joly,  Paris, 
1870,  2  vols.  4to. — "  Le  Roman  de  Thebes,"  ed.  L.  Constans,  Paris,  1890,  2  vols. 
8vo,  wrongly  attributed  to  Benoit  de  Sainte-More,  indirectly  imitated  from  the 
"  Thebaid  "  of  Statius. — "Eneas,"  a  critical  text,  ed.  J.  Salvedra  de  Grave, 
Halle,  Bibliotheca  Normannica,  1891,  8vo,  also  attributed,  but  wrongly  it 
seems,  to  Benoit ;  the  work  of  a  Norman,  twelfth  century;  imitated  from  the 
"  ^Eneid." — The  immense  poem  of  Eustache  or  Thomas  de  Kent  is  still  un- 
published ;  the  author  imitates  the  romance  in  "alexandrines"  of  Lambert  le 
Tort  and  Alexandre  de  Paris,  twelfth  century,  ed.  Michelant,  Stuttgart, 
1846. — The  romances  of  Hue  de  Rotelande  (Rhuddlan  in  Flintshire?)  are  also 
in  French  verse,  and  were  composed  between  1 176-7  and  1190-1 ;  see  Ward, 
"  Catalogue  of  Romances,"  1883,  vol.  i.  pp.  728  ff.  ;  his  "Ipomedon  "  has  been 
edited  by  Kolbing  and  Koschwitz,  Breslau,  1889,  8vo ;  his  "  Prothesilaus  "  is 
still  unpublished. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  131 

change  of  scene  ;  here  we  have  the  clouds  of  heaven,  there 
the  depths  of  the  sea.  I  write  of  these  more  than  I  believe, 
"  equidem  plura  transcribe*  quam  credo,"  Quintus  Curtius 
had  already  said.1 

Just  as  they  had  curiously  inspected  their  new  domains, 
appropriating  to  themselves  as  much  land  as  possible,  so 
the  conquerors  inspected  the  literatures  of  their  new  com- 
patriots. If,  as  will  be  seen,  they  drew  little  from  the 
Saxon,  it  is  not  because  they  were  absolutely  ignorant  of 
it,  but  because  they  never  could  well  understand  its  genius. 
Amongst  the  different  races  with  which  they  now  found 
themselves  in  contact,  they  were  at  once  attracted  by 
intellectual  sympathy  to  the  Celtic,  whose  mind  resembled 
their  own.  Alexander  had  been  an  amusement,  Arthur 
became  a  passion.  To  the  Anglo-Norman  singers  are 
due  the  most  ancient  and  beautiful  poems  of  the  Briton 
cycle  that  have  come  down  to  us. 

In  the  "  matter "  of  France,  the  heroic  valour  of  the 
defenders  of  the  country  forms  the  principal  interest  of 
the  stories  ;  in  the  matter  of  Rome,  the  "mirabilia"  ;  and, 
in  the  matter  of  Britain,  love.  We  are  farther  and  farther 
removed  from  Beowulf. 

At  the  time  of  the  Conquest  a  quantity  of  legends  and 
tales  were  current  concerning  the  Celtic  heroes  of  Britain, 
some  of  whom  were  quite  independent  of  Arthur  ;  never- 
theless all  ended  by  being  grouped  about  him,  for  he  was 
the  natural  centre  of  all  this  literature  :  "  The  Welsh  have 
never  ceased  to  rave  about  him  up  to  our  day,"  wrote  the 
grave  William  of  Malmesbury  in  the  century  after  the 
Conquest ;  he  was  a  true  hero,  and  deserved  something 
better  than  the  "  vain  fancies  of  dreamers."  William 
obviously  was  not  under  the  spell  of  Arthurian  legends.2 

1  Lib.  IX.  cap.  ii. 

2  "  Hie  est  Arthur  de  quo  Britonum  nugse  hodieque  delirant,  dignus  plane 
quod  non  fallaces  somniarent  fabulae,  sed  veraces  praedicarent  historise."    "  De 


132  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Wales,  Brittany,  and  Cornwall  were  the  centres  where 
these  legends  had  developed  ;  the  Briton  harpists  had,  by 
the  beauty  of  their  tales,  and  the  sweetness  of  their  music, 
early  acquired  a  great  reputation.  It  was  a  recommenda- 
tion for  a  minstrel  to  be  able  to  state  that  he  was  a  Briton, 
and  some  usurped  this  title,  as  does  Renard  the  fox,  in  the 
"  Roman  de  Renart."  1 

One  thing,  however,  was  lacking  for  a  time  to  the  com- 
plete success  of  the  Arthurian  epic  :  the  stamp  of  authen- 
ticity, the  Latin  starting-point.  An  Anglo-Norman  clerk 
furnished  it,  and  bestowed  upon  this  literature  the  Dares  it 
needed.  Professional  historians  were  silent,  or  nearly  so, 
respecting  Arthur  ;  Gildas,  in  the  sixth  century,  never 
mentions  him  ;  Nennius,  in  the  tenth,  only  devotes  a 
few  lines  to  him.2  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  makes  up  for 
this  deficiency.3 

His  predecessors  knew  nothing,  he   knows  everything  ; 

Gestis,"  ed.  Stubbs,  Rolls,  vol.  i.  p.  II.  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  on  the  other 
hand,  unable  to  identify  the  places  of  Arthur's  battles,  descants  upon  the  vanity 
of  fame  and  glory,  "popularis  aura?,  laudis  adulatoriae,  famse  transitoriae.  .  .  ." 
"  Historia  Anglorum,"  Rolls,  p.  49. 

1  Says  the  Wolf : 

Dont  estes  vos  ?  de  quel  pais  ? 

Vos  n'estes  mie  nes  de  France  .   .  . 

— Nai,  mi  seignor,  mais  de  Bretaing  .   .  . 

— Et  savez  vos  neisun  mestier? 

— Ya,  ge  fot  molt  bon  jogler  .  .  . 

Ge  fot  savoir  bon  lai  Breton. 

"  Roman  de  Renart,"  ed.  Martin,  vol.  i.  pp.  66,  67. 

2  Gildas,  "  De  Excidio  Britannia?,"  ed.  J.  Stevenson,  English  Historical 
Society,  1838,  8vo  ;  Nennius,  "Historia  Britonum,"  same  editor,  place,  and 
date. 

3  His  "Historia"  was  edited  by  Giles,  London,  1844,  8vo,  and  by  San 
Marte,  "  Gottfried  von  Monmouth  Historia  return  Britannia?,"  Halle,  1854, 
8vo.  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  or  rather  Geoffrey  Arthur,  a  name  which 
had  been  borne  by  his  father  before  him  (Galffrai  or  Gruffyd  in  Welsh),  first 
translated  from  Welsh  into  Latin  the  prophecies  of  Merlin,  included  afterwards 
in  his  "  Historia"  ;  bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  1152  ;  died  at  Llandaff,  1 154.  See 
Ward,  "  Catalogue  of  Romances,"  vol.  i.  pp.  203  ff. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  133 

his  British  genealogies  are  precise,  his  narratives  are 
detailed,  his  enumerations  complete.  The  mist  had  lifted, 
and  the  series  of  these  kings  about  whom  so  many  charming 
legends  were  afloat  now  appeared  as  clear  as  the  succession 
of  the  Roman  emperors.  In  their  turn  they  present  them- 
selves with  the  authority  conferred  at  that  time  in  the 
world  by  great  Latin  books.  They  ceased  to  be  the 
unacknowledged  children  of  anybody's  fancy  ;  they  had  to 
own  them,  not  some  stray  minstrel,  but  a  personage  of 
importance,  known  to  the  king  of  the  land,  who  was  to 
become  bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  and  be  a  witness  at  the 
peace  of  1 1 5  3,  between  Stephen  of  Blois  and  the  future 
Henry  II.  In  1139,  the  "  Historia  Regum  Britanniae" 
had  appeared,  and  copies  began  to  circulate.  Henry  of 
Huntingdon,  passing  at  the  Abbey  of  Bee,  in  Normandy, 
in  the  month  of  January  of  that  year,  finds  one,  and  is 
filled  with  astonishment.  "  Never,"  writes  he  to  one  of 
his  friends,  "had  I  been  able  to  obtain  any  information, 
oral  or  written,  on  the  kings  from  Brutus  to  Caesar.  .  .  . 
But  to  my  amazement  I  have  just  discovered — stupens 
inveni — a  narrative  of  these  times."1  It  was  Geoffrey's  book. 
The  better  to  establish  his  authority,  Geoffrey  himself 
had  been  careful  to  appeal  to  a  mysterious  source,  a  certain 
bock  of  which  no  trace  has  ever  been  found,  and  which 
he  pretends  was  given  him  by  his  friend  Walter,  Arch- 
deacon of  Oxford.  Armed  with  this  proof  of  authenticity, 
which  no  one  could  contest,  he  ends  his  history  by  a  half- 
serious,  half-joking  challenge  to  the  professional  chroniclers 
of  his  time.  "  I  forbid  William  of  Malmesbury  and  Henry 
of  Huntingdon  to  speak  of  the  British  kings,  seeing  that 
they  have  never  had  in  their  hands  the  book  Walter, 
Archdeacon  of  Oxford,  brought  me  from  Brittany." 
Cervantes  never  spoke  with  more  gravity  of  Cid  Hamet- 
ben-Engeli. 

1  Ward,  "  Catalogue  of  Romances,"  vol.  i.  p.  210. 


134  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Such  a  book  could  not  fail  of  success  ;  it  had  a  pro- 
digious fame.  Some  historians  lodged  protests  ;  they 
might  as  well  have  protested  against  Dares.  Gerald  de 
Barry  cried  out  it  was  an  imposture  ;  and  William  of 
Newbury  inveighed  against  the  impudence  of  "  a  writer 
called  Geoffrey,"  who  had  made  "  Arthur's  little  finger 
bigger  than  Alexander's  back."  T  In  vain  ;  copies  of  the 
"  Historia  Regum  "  multiplied  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
British  Museum  alone  now  possesses  thirty-four  of  them. 
The  appointed  chronicler  of  the  Angevin  kings,  Wace, 
translated  it  into  French  about  1 1 5 5,  with  the  addition  of 
several  legends  omitted  by  Geoffrey,  that  of  the  Round 
Table  among  others.2  It  was  turned  into  Latin  verse, 
into  French  alexandrines,  into  Welsh  prose  ;  no  honour 
was  denied  it.  From  this  time  dates  the  literary  fortune 
of  Arthur,  Merlin,  Morgan  the  fairy,  Percival,  Tristan 
and  Iseult,  Lancelot  and  Guinevere,  whose  deeds  and  loves 
have  been  sung  from  century  to  century,  down  to  the  day 
of  Shakespeare,  of  Swinburne,  and  Tennyson. 

The  finest  poems  the  Middle  Ages  devoted  to  them 
were  written  on  English  ground,  and  especially  the  most 
charming  of  all,  dedicated  to  that  Tristan,3  whom  Dante 

1  "  Quidam  nostris  temporibus,  pro  expiandis  his  Britonum  maculis,  scriptor 
emersit,  ridicula  de  eisdem  figmenta  contexens,  .  .  .  Gaufridus  hie  dictus  est  .  .  . 
Profecto  minimum  digitum  sui  Arturi  grossiorem  facit  dorso  Alexandri  magni." 
"  Guilielmi  Neubrigensis  Historia,"  ed.  Hearne,  Oxford,  1719,  3  vols.  8vo, 
"  Proemium  "  ;  end  of  the  twelfth  century. 

2  "  Le  Roman  de  Brut,"  ed.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  Rouen,  1836-38,  2  vols. 
8vo.  Cf.  P.  Meyer,  "  De  quelques  chroniques  anglo-normandes  qui  ont 
porte  le  nom  de  Brut,"  Paris,  1878,  "  Bulletin  de  la  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes 
francais." 

3  The  oldest  poem  we  have  in  which  the  early  songs  on  Tristan  were 
gathered  into  one  whole  was  written  in  French,  on  English  soil,  by  Berou 
about  1 1 50.  Another  version,  also  in  French  verse,  was  written  about  11 70 
by  another  Anglo-Norman,  called  Thomas.  A  third  was  the  work  of  the 
famous  Chrestien  de  Troyes,  same  century.  We  have  only  fragments  of  the 
two  first  ;  the  last  is  entirely  lost.  It  has  been,  however,  possible  to  recon- 
stitute the  poem  of  Thomas  "  by  means  of  three  versions  :  a  German  one  (by 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  135 

places  by  Helen  of  Troy  in  the  group  of  lovers  :  "  I  beheld 
Helen,  who  caused  such  years  of  woe,  and  I  saw  great 
Achilles.  .  .  .  Paris  and  Tristan."  x 

Tristan's  youth  was  spent  in  a  castle  of  Leonois,  by  the 
sea.  One  day  a  Norwegian  vessel,  laden  with  stuffs  and 
with  hunting-birds,  brings  to  before  the  walls.  Tristan 
comes  to  buy  falcons  ;  he  lingers  to  play  chess  with  the 
merchants  ;  the  anchor  is  weighed,  and  Tristan  is  borne 
off  in  the  ship.  A  storm  drives  the  vessel  on  the  coast 
of  Cornwall,  and  the  youth  is  conducted  before  King 
Marc.  Harpers  were  playing  ;  Tristan  remembers  Briton 
lays  ;  he  takes  the  harp,  and  so  sweet  is  his  music  that 
"many  a  courtier  remains  there,  forgetting  his  very  name."2 
Marc  (who  turns  out  to  be  his  uncle)  takes  a  fancy  to  him, 
and  dubs  him  knight.  "  Should  any  one,"  says  the  author 
of  one  of  the  versions  of  Tristan,  "  inquire  of  me  concern- 
ing the  dress  of  the  knights,  I  will  tell  him  in  a  few  words  ; 
it  was  composed  of  four  stuffs  :  courage,  richness,  skill, 
and  courtesy." 

Morolt,  the  giant,  comes  to  claim  a  tribute  of  sixty 
youths  and  maidens,  in  the  name  of  the  king  of  Ireland. 


Gotfrid  of  Strasbourg,  unfinished),  a  Norwegian  one  (in  prose,  ab.  1225, 
faithful  but  compressed),  and  an  English  one  (XlVth  century,  a  greatly 
impaired  text)."  G.  Paris,  "La  Litterature  francaise  au  moyen  age,"  2nd 
ed.,  1890,  p.  94.  See  also  "  Tristan  et  Iseut,"  by  the  same,  Revue  de  Paris, 
April  15,   1894. 

Texts  :  "  The  poetical  Romances  of  Tristan  in  French,  in  Anglo-Norman, 
and  in  Greek,"  ed.  Francisque  Michel,  London,  1835-9,  3  vols.  8vo. — "  Die 
Nordische  und  die  Englische  Version  der  Tristan-Sage,"  ed.  Kolbing, 
Heilbronn,  1878-83,  2  vols.  8vo  ;  vol.  i.,  "  Tristrams  Saga  ok  Isoudar"  (Nor- 
wegian prose);  vol.  ii.,  "Sir  Tristram"  (English  verse). — "Gottfried  von 
Strassburg  Tristan,"  ed.  Reinhold  Bachstein,  Leipzig,  1869,  2  vols.  8vo 
(German  verse). 

1  "  Inferno,"  canto  v. 

a  The  following  analysis  is  mainly  made  after  "  Tristan  et  Iseult,  poeme  de 
Gotfrit  de  Strasbourg,  compare  a  d'autres  poemes  sur  le  meme  sujet,"  by 
A.  Bossert,  Paris,  1865,  8vo.  Gotfrit  wrote  before  1203  (G.  Paris,  "  Histoire 
Litterarie  de  la  France,"  vol.  xxx.  p.  21). 


1 36  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

They  were  proceeding  to  select  these  victims,  when  Tristan 
challenges  the  giant  and  kills  him  ;  but  he  is  wounded  by 
a  poisoned  weapon,  and,  day  by  day,  death  draws  nearer. 
No  one  can  cure  this  poison  except  the  queen  of  Ireland, 
sister  of  the  dead  man.  Tristan,  disguised  as  a  poor 
harper,  has  himself  put  on  a  bark  and  arrives  in  Dublin, 
where  the  queen  heals  him.  The  queen  had  a  daughter, 
Iseult,  with  fair  hair  ;  she  begs  the  harper  to  instruct  the 
young  girl.  Iseult  becomes  perfect :  "  She  can  both  read 
and  write,  she  composes  epistles  and  songs  ;  above  all,  she 
knows  many  [Briton]  lays.  She  is  sought  after  for  her 
musical  talent,  no  less  than  for  her  beauty,  a  silent  and  still 
sweeter  music  that  through  the  eyes  insinuated  itself  into 
the  heart.''  All  her  life  she  remembered  the  teaching  of 
Tristan,  and  in  her  sorrows  had  recourse  to  the  consoling 
power  of  music.  When  sitting  alone  and  sad,  she  would 
sing  "a  touching  song  of  love,"  on  the  misfortunes  of 
Guiron,  killed  for  the  sake  of  his  lady.  This  lay  "  she 
sings  sweetly,  the  voice  accords  with  the  harp,  the  hands  are 
beautiful,  the  lay  is  fine,  sweet  the  voice  and  low  the  tone."  x 
Tristan's  task  being  accomplished,  he  returns  to  Corn- 
wall. One  day  a  swallow  drops  at  the  feet  of  King  Marc 
a  golden  hair,  so  soft  and  brilliant,  so  lovable,  that  the  king 
swears  to  marry  no  other  woman  but  her  of  the  golden 
hair.2       Tristan    starts    in    quest   of   the    woman.       The 

1  En  sa  chambre  se  set  un  jor, 
E  fait  un  lai  pitus  d'am[o]r  : 
Coment  dan  Guirun  fu  surpris, 
Pur  I'amur  de  sa  dame  ocis.  .  .  . 
La  reine  chante  dulcement, 
La  voiz  acorde  el  estrument ; 
Les  mainz  sunt  bels,  li  lais  b[o]ns 
Dulce  la  voiz  [et]  bas  li  tons. 

Francisque  Michel,  ut  supra,  vol.  iii.  p.  39. 

2  On  this  incident,  the  earliest  version  of  which  is  as  old  as  the  fourteenth 
century  B.C.,  having  been  found  in  an  Egyptian  papyrus  of  that  date,  see 
the  article  by  Gaston  Paris's,  Part  I. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  137 

woman  is  Iseult  ;  he  brings  her  to  Cornwall.  While  at 
sea  the  two  young  people  swallow  by  mistake  an  en- 
chanted draught,  a  "  boivre "  destined  for  Marc  and  his 
betrothed,  which  had  the  virtue  of  producing  a  passion 
that  only  death  could  end.  The  poison  slowly  takes 
effect  ;  their  sentiments  alter.  "  All  that  I  know  troubles 
me,  and  all  I  see  pains  me,"  says  Iseult.  "  The  sky, 
the  sea,  my  own  self  oppresses  me.  She  bent  forward, 
and  leant  her  arm  on  Tristan's  shoulder :  it  was  her 
first  caress.  Her  eyes  filled  with  repressed  tears ;  her 
bosom  heaved,  her  lips  quivered,  and  her  head  remained 
bent." 

The  marriage  takes  place.  Marc  adores  the  queen,  but 
she  thinks  only  of  Tristan.  Marc  is  warned,  and  exiles 
Tristan,  who,  in  the  course  of  his  adventures,  receives  a 
present  of  a  wonderful  dog.  This  dog  wore  a  bell  on  his 
neck,  the  sound  of  which,  so  sweet  it  was,  caused  all  sorrow 
to  be  forgotten.  He  sends  the  dog  to  Iseult  ,who,  listening 
to  the  bell,  finds  that  her  grief  fades  from  her  memory  ; 
and  she  removes  the  collar,  unwilling  to  hear  and  to 
forget. 

Iseult  is  at  last  repudiated,  and  Tristan  bears  her  off  by 
lonely  paths,  through  forest  depths,  until  they  reach  a 
grotto  of  green  marble  carved  by  giants  in  ages  past.  An 
aperture  at  the  top  let  in  the  light,  lindens  shaded  the 
entrance,  a  rill  trickled  over  the  grass,  flowers  scented 
the  air,  birds  sang  in  the  branches.  Here  nothing  more 
existed  for  them  save  love.  "  Nor  till  the  might  of 
August " — thought  the  old  poet,  and  said  a  more  recent 
one — 

Nor  till  the  might  of  August  overhead 
Weighed  on  the  world,  was  yet  one  roseleaf  shed 
Of  all  their  joys  warm  coronal,  nor  aught 
Touched  them  in  passing  ever  with  a  thought 
That  ever  this  might  end  on  any  day, 
Or  any  night  not  love  them  where  they  lay ; 


138  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

But  like  a  babbling  tale  of  barren  breath 
Seemed  all  report  and  rumour  held  of  death, 
And  a  false  bruit  the  legend  tear  impearled 
That  such  a  thing  as  change  was  in  the  world.1 

King  Marc's  hunt  passes  by  the  grotto  ;  through  an 
opening  at  the  top  he  chances  to  perceive  her  who  had 
been  "  the  springtide  of  his  life,  fairer  than  ever,  at  this 
moment  .  .  .  her  mouth,  her  brow,  every  feature  was  so 
full  of  charm  that  Marc  was  fascinated,  and,  seized  with 
longing,  would  fain  on  that  face  have  pressed  a  kiss.  ...  A 
wreath  of  clover  was  woven  in  her  unbound  locks.  .  .  . 
When  he  saw  that  the  sun  overhead  let  fall  through  the 
crevice  a  ray  of  light  on  Iseult's  face,  he  feared  lest  her 
hue  should  suffer.  He  took  grass  and  flowers  and  foliage 
with  which  he  closed  the  aperture,  then  blessing  the  lady, 
he  commended  her  to  God,  and  departed  weeping."  2 

Once  more  the  lovers  are  separated,  this  time  for  ever. 
Years  pass  ;  Tristan  has  made  himself  famous  by  his 
exploits.  He  is  without  news  of  his  love,  doubtless  for- 
gotten. He  marries  another  Iseult,  and  lives  with  her  near 
Penmarch  in  Brittany.  Wounded  to  death  in  a  fight,  he 
might  be  cured  by  the  queen  of  Cornwall,  and  in  spite  of 
his  marriage,  and  the  time  that  has  elapsed,  he  sends  her 
word  to  leave  all  and  join  him.  If  Iseult  comes,  the  ship 
is  to  have  a  white  sail  ;  if  she  refuses,  a  black  one.  Iseult 
still  loves.  At  the  first  word  she  puts  to  sea  ;  but  storms 
arise,  then  follows  a  dead  calm  ;  Tristan  feels  life  ebb  from 
him  with  hope.  At  last  the  vessel  appears,  and  Tristan's 
wife  sees  it  from  the  shore  with  its  white  sail.  She  had 
overheard  Tristan's  message ;  she  returns,  lies,  and 
announces  the  arrival  of  a  black  sail.  Tristan  tears  the 
bandage  from  his  wound  and  dies.  When  the  true  Iseult 
lands,  the  knell  is  tolling  from  the  steeples  of  Brittany ; 

1  Swinburne,  "  Tristram  of  Lyonesse  and  other  poems." 

2  Bosert,  pp.  62,  68,  72,  82. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  139 

she  rushes  in,  finds  her  lover's  corpse  already  cold,  and 
expires  beside  him.  They  were  buried  in  the  same  church 
at  Carhaix,  one  at  each  end  ;  out  of  one  of  the  tombs 
grew  a  vine,  and  out  of  the  other  grew  a  rose,  and  the 
branches,  creeping  along  the  pillars,  interlaced  under  the 
vaulted  roof.  The  magic  draught  thus  proved  stronger 
than  death. 

In  the  ancient  epic  poems,  love  was  nothing,  here  it  is 
everything  ;  and  woman,  who  had  no  part,  now  plays  the 
first ;  warlike  feats  are  henceforth  only  a  means  to  win  her 
heart.  Grass  has  grown  over  the  bloody  vale  of  Roncevaux, 
which  is  now  enamelled  with  flowers  ;  Roland's  love, 
Durandal,  has  ascended  to  heaven,  and  will  return  no 
more.  The  new  poets  are  the  exact  antithesis  of  the 
former  ones.  Religion,  virtue,  country,  now  count  for 
nothing  ;  love  defies,  nay  more,  replaces  them.  Marc's 
friends,  who  warn  him,  are  traitors  and  felons,  vowed  to 
scorn  and  hate,  as  were  formerly  Gannelons,  who  betrayed 
fair  France.  To  be  in  love  is  to  be  worthy  of  heaven, 
is  to  be  a  saint,  and  to  practise  virtue.  This  theory,  put 
forward  in  the  twelfth  century  by  the  singers  of  the  British 
cycle,  has  survived,  and  will  be  found  again  in  the  "  Astree," 
in  Byron,  and  in  Musset. 

These  tales  multiply,  and  their  worldly,  courteous, 
amorous  character  becomes  more  and  more  predominant.) 
Woman  already  plays  the  part  that  she  plays  in  the  novels 
of  yesterday.  A  glance  opens  Paradise  to  Arthur's 
knights  ;  they  find  in  a  smile  all  the  magic  which  it 
pleases  us,  the  living  of  to-day,  to  discover  there.  A  trite 
word  of  farewell  from  the  woman  they  cherish  is  trans- 
formed by  their  imagination,  and  they  keep  it  in  their 
hearts  as  a  talisman.  Who  has  not  cherished  similar 
talismans  ?  Lancelot  recalls  the  past  to  queen  Guinevere  : 
"  And  you  said,  God  be  with  you,  fair,  gentle  friend  ! 
Never  since  have  these  words  left  my  heart.     It  is  these 


140  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

words  that  shall  make  me  a  preax,  if  ever  I  am  one  ;  for 
never  since  was  I  in  such  great  peril  but  that  I  remembered 
these  words.  They  have  comforted  me  in  all  my  sorrows  ; 
these  words  have  kept  and  guarded  me  from  all  danger  ; 
these  words  have  fed  me  when  hungry  arid  made  me 
wealthy  when  poor." 

"  By  my  troth,"  said  the  queen,  "  those  words  were 
happily  spoken,  and  blessed  be  God  who  caused  me  to 
speak  them.  But  I  did  not  put  into  them  as  much 
as  you  saw,  and  to  many  a  knight  have  I  spoken  the 
same  without  thinking  of  more  than  what  they  plainly 
bear."  I 

After  being  a  saint,  the  beloved  object  becomes  a 
goddess ;  her  wishes  are  decrees,  her  mysterious  caprices 
are  laws  which  must  not  even  be  questioned  ;  harder  rules 
of  love  are  from  year  to  year  imposed  on  the  heroes  ;  they 
are  expected  to  turn  pale  at  the  sight  of  their  mistress  ; 
Lancelot  espying  a  hair  of  Guinevere  well-nigh  faints;  they 
observe  the  thirty-one  regulations  laid  down  by  Andre  le 
Chapelain,  to  guide  the  perfect  lover.2     After  having  been 

1  "  Et  vous  deistes,  ales  a  Dieu,  beau  doulx  amis.  Ne  oncques  puis  du 
cueur  ne  me  pot  issir  ;  ce  fut  li  moz  qui  preudomme  me  fera  si  je  jamais  le 
suis  ;  car  oncques  puis  ne  fus  a  si  grant  meschief  qui  de  ce  mot  ne  me 
souvenist  ;  cilz  moz  me  conforte  en  tous  mes  anuys ;  cilz  moz  m'a  tousjours 
garanti  et  garde  de  tous  perilz  ;  cilz  moz  m'a  saoule  en  toutes  mes  faims  ;  cilz 
moz  me  fait  riche  en  toutes  mes  pouretes.  Par  foi  fait  la  royne  cilz  moz  fut 
de  bonne  heure  dit,  et  benois  soit  dieux  qui  dire  le  me  fist.  Mais  je  ne  le  pris 
pas  si  acertes  comme  vous  feistes.  A  maint  chevalier  l'ay  je  dit  la  ou  oncques 
je  n'y  pensay  fors  du  dire  seulement."  MS.  fr.  118  in  the  National  Library, 
Paris,  fol.  219;  fourteenth  century.  The  history  of  Lancelot  was  told  in 
verse  and  prose  in  almost  all  the  languages  of  Europe,  from  the  twelfth 
century.  One  of  the  oldest  versions  (twelfth  century)  was  the  work  of  an 
Anglo-Norman.  The  most  famous  of  the  Lancelot  poems  is  the  "  Conte  de 
la  Charrette,"  by  Chrestien  de  Troyes,  written  between  1164  and  1172  (G. 
Paris,  "  Romania,"  vol.  xii.  p.  463). 

2  "  Omnis  consuevit  amans  in  coamantis  aspectu  pallescere,"  &c.  Rules 
supposed  to  have  been  discovered  by  a  knight  at  the  court  of  Arthur,  and 
transcribed  in  the  "Flos  Amoris,"  or  "  De  Arte  honeste  amandi,"  of  Andre 
le  Chapelain,  thirteenth  century  ;  "  Romania,"  vol.  xii.  p.  532. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  141 

first  an  accessory,  then  an  irresistible  passion,  love,  that  the 
poets  think  to  magnify,  will  soon  be  nothing  but  a  cere- 
monial. From  the  time  of  Lancelot  we  border  on  folly  ; 
military  honour  no  longer  counts  for  the  hero;  Guinevere 
out  of  caprice  orders  Lancelot  to  behave  "  his  worst "  ; 
without  hesitating  or  comprehending  he  obeys,  and  covers 
himself  with  shame.  Each  successive  romance  writer  goes 
a  step  farther,  and  makes  new  additions  ;  we  come  to 
immense  compositions,  to  strings  of  adventures  without 
any  visible  link  ;  to  heroes  so  uniformly  wonderful  that 
they  cease  to  inspire  any  interest  whatever.  Tristan's 
rose-bush  twined  itself  around  the  pillars,  the  pillars  are 
lacking  now,  and  the  clusters  of  flowers  trail  on  the 
ground.  Tristan  was  a  harbinger  of  Musset  ;  Guinevere 
gives  us  a  desire  for  a  Cervantes. 

Meanwhile,  the  minstrels  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  enjoy  their  success  and  their  fame ;  their  number 
increases  ;  they  are  welcomed  in  the  castles,  hearkened 
to  in  the  towns  ;  their  tales  are  copied  in  manuscripts, 
more  and  more  magnificently  painted.  They  celebrate, 
in  England  as  in  France,  Gauvain,  "  le  chevalier  aux 
demoiselles,"  Ivain,  "  le  chevalier  au  lion  "  ;  Merlin, 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,  Percival  and  the  quest  of  the 
mysterious  Graal,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  Round  Table 
heroes.1 

IV. 

They  have  also  shorter  narratives  in  prose  and  verse, 
the  subject  of  which  is  generally  love,  drawn  from  French, 

1  On  these  romances,  see,  in  "  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,"  vol.  xxx., 
a  notice  by  Gaston  Paris.  On  the  MSS.  of  them  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum,  see  Ward,  "  Catalogue  of  MS.  Romances,"  1883  (on  Merlin,  pp. 
278  ff.  ;  on  other  prophecies,  and  especially  those  by  Thomas  of  Erceldoune, 
p.  328;  these  last  have  been  edited  by  Alois  Brandl,  "Thomas  of  Ercel- 
doune," Berlin,  1880,  8vo,  "  Sammlung  Englischer  Denkmaler,"  and  by  the 
Early  English  Text  Society,  1875). 


1 42  THE   FRENCH  INVASION. 

Latin,  Greek,  and  even  Hindu  legends,1  stories  like  those 
of  Amis  and  Amile,  of  Floire  and  Blanchefleur,  lays  like 
those  of  Marie  de  France.2  Marie  was  Norman,  and  lived 
in  the  time  of  Henry  II.,  to  whom  she  dedicated  her 
poems.  They  are  mostly  graceful  love-tales,  sweetly 
told,  without  affectation  or  effort,  and  derived  from  Celtic 
originals,  some  being  of  Armorican  and  some  of  Welsh 
descent.  Several  are  devoted  to  Tristan  and  other 
Arthurian  knights.  In  the  lay  of  the  Ash,  Marie  tells 
a  story  of  female  virtue,  the  main  incidents  of  which  will 
be  found  again  later  in  the  tale  of  Griselda.  Her  lay  of 
the  Two  Lovers  would  have  delighted  Musset : 

"  Truth  is  that  in  Neustria,  which  we  call  Normandy," 
lived  once  a  nobleman  who  had  a  beautiful  daughter  ; 
every  one  asked  her  in  marriage,  but  he  always  refused, 
so  as  not  to  part  from  her.  At  last  he  declared  he  would 
give  his  daughter  to  the  man  who  could  carry  her  to  the 
top  of  the  mountain.     All  tried,  but  all  failed. 

A  young  count  falls  in  love  with  her,  and  is  loved  again. 
She  sends  him  to  an  old  aunt  of  hers,  who  lives  at  Salerno, 

1  On  legends  of  Hindu  origin  and  for  a  long  time  wrongly  attributed  to  the 
Arabs,  see  Gaston  Paris,  "  le  Lai  de  l'Oiselet,"  Paris,  1884,  8vo.  See  also  the 
important  work  of  M.  Bedier,  "  les  Fabliaux,"  Paris,  1893,  8vo,  in  which  the 
evidence  concerning  the  Eastern  origin  of  tales  is  carefully  sifted  and  restricted 

*  within  the  narrowest  limits :  very  few  come  from  the  East,  not  the  bulk  of 
them,  as  was  generally  admitted. 

2  For  Amis,  very  popular  in  England,  see  Kolbing,  "  Amis  and  Amiloun," 
Heilbronn,  1884  {if.  below,  p.  229),  and  "  Nouvelles  franchises  en  prose  du 
treizieme  siecle,"  edited  by  Moland  and  d'Hericault,  Paris,  1856,  i6mo; 
these  "  Nouvelles"  include  :  "  l'Empereur  Constant,"  "  les  Amities  de  Ami  et 
Amile,"  "  le  roi  Flore  et  la  belle  Jehanne,"  "  la  Comtesse  de  Ponthieu," 
"  Aucassin  et  Nicolette." — The  French  text  of  "  Floire  et  Blanceflor  "  is  to 
be  found  in  Edelstand  du  Meril,  "  Poemes  du  treizieme  siecle,"  Paris,  1856, 
i6mo. — For  Marie  de  France,  see  H.  Suchier,  "  Die  Lais  der  Marie  de  France," 
Halle,  Bibliotheca,  Normannica,  1885,  8vo  ;  her  fables  are  in  vol.  ii.  of 
"  Poesies  de  Marie  de  France,"  ed.  Roquefort,  Paris,  1819,  2  vols.  8vo. 
See  also  Bedier"s  article  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Oct.  15,  1891, 
also  the  chapter  on  Marie  in  Hervieux,  "  Fabulistes  Latins,"  1S83-4,  2nd 
part,  chap.  i. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  143 

and  will  give  him  certain  potions  to  increase  his  strength. 
He  does  all  she  bids  him.  On  the  day  appointed,  provided 
with  a  draught  to  swallow  during  the  trial,  he  takes  the 
fair  maiden  in  his  arms.  She  had  fasted  for  many  days  so 
as  to  weigh  less,  and  had  put  on  an  exceedingly  light  gar- 
ment :  "  Except  her  shift,  no  other  stuff  she  wore  "  ; 

N'ot  drap  vestu  fors  la  chemise. 

He  climbs  half-way,  then  begins  to  flag ;  but  he  wishes 
to  owe  everything  to  his  energy,  and,  without  drinking, 
slowly  continues  to  ascend.  He  reaches  the  top  and  falls 
dead.  The  young  girl  flings  away  the  now  useless  flask, 
which  breaks  ;  and  since  then  the  mountain  herbs 
moistened  by  the  potion  have  wonderful  healing  powers. 
She  looks  at  her  lover  and  dies,  like  the  Simonne  of 
Boccaccio  and  of  Musset.  They  were  buried  on  the 
mountain,  where  has  since  been  built  "the  priory  of  the 
Two  Lovers." 

The  rulers  of  England  delight  in  still  shorter  poems,  but 
again  on  the  same  subject  :  love.  Like  the  rest  of  the 
French,  they  have  an  innate  fondness  for  a  kind  of 
literature  unknown  to  their  new  compatriots  :  namely, 
chansons.  They  composed  a  great  number  of  them,  and 
listened  to  many  more  of  all  sorts.  The  subjects  of  the 
kings  of  England  became  familiar  with  every  variety  of 
the  kind  ;  for  the  Angevin  princes  now  possessed  such  wide 
domains  that  the  sources  of  French  poetry,  poetry  of  the 
North,  poetry  of  the  South,  lyrical  poetry  of  Poictou  and  of 
Maine,  gushed  forth  in  the  very  heart  of  their  empire.1 

Their  English  subjects  got  acquainted  with  these  poems 
in  two  ways :  firstly,  because  many  of  those  songs  were 
sung   in  the   island  ;    secondly,   because    many    English- 

1  On  this  subject,  see  Gaston  Paris's  criticism  of  the  "Origines  de  la  po^sie 
lyrique  en  France  "  of  Jeanroy,  in  the  "Journal  des  Savants,"  1892. 


144  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

men,  soldiers,  clerks,  minstrels,  messengers,  followed  the 
king  and  stayed  with  him  in  the  parts  where  the  main 
wells  and  fountains  of  the  French  chanson  happened  to  be.1 
They  became  thus  familiarised  with  the  "  reverdies,"  May 
songs,  which  celebrate  springtime,  flowers,  and  free  loves  ; 
"  carols,"  or  dancing  songs  ;  "  pastourelles,"  the  wise  or 
foolish  heroines  of  which  are  shepherdesses  ;  "disputoisons" 
or  debates,  to  which  kind  belongs  the  well-known  song  of 
"  transformations  "  introduced  by  Mistral  in  his  "  Mireio," 
and  set  to  music  by  Gounod  ;  "  aube  "  songs,  telling  the 
complaint  of  lovers,  parted  by  dawn,  and  in  which,  long 
before  Shakespeare,  the  Juliets  of  the  time  of  Henry  II. 
said  to  their  Romeos  : 

It  is  not  yet  near  day  ; 
It  was  the  nightingale  and  not  the  lark. 

II  n'est  mie  jors,  saverouze  au  cors  gent, 
Si  m'ait  amors,  l'aloete  nos  ment.2 

"  It  is  not  yet  near  day,  my  sweet  one  ;  love  be  my  help, 
the  lark  lies."     In  these  songs,  the  women  are  slight  and 

1  One  fact  among  many  shows  how  constant  was  the  intercourse  on  the 
Continent  between  Frenchmen  of  France  and  Englishmen  living  or  travelling 
there,  namely,  the  knowledge  of  the  English  language  shown  in  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  by  the  authors  of  several  branches  of  the  "  Roman  de 
Renart,"  and  the  caricatures  they  drew  of  English  people,  which  would  have 
amused  nobody  if  the  originals  of  the  pictures  had  not  been  familiar  to  all. 
(See  Branches  Iband  XIV.  in  Martin's  edition.) 

2  Jeanroy,  "  Origines  de  la  poesie  lyrique  en  France,  au  moyen  age,"  Paris, 
1889,  8vo,  p.  68.  An  allusion  in  a  crusade  song  of  the  twelfth  century  shows 
that  this  motif  viz.?,  already  popular  then.  It  is  found  also  in  much  older  poetry 
and  more  remote  countries,  for  Jeanroy  quotes  a  Chinese  poem,  written  before 
the  seventh  century  of  our  era,  where,  it  is  true,  a  mere  cock  and  mere  flies 
play  the  part  of  the  Verona  lark  and  nightingale :  "  It  was  not  the  cock,  it  was 
the  hum  of  flies,"  or  in  the  Latin  translation  of  Father  Lacharme  :  "  Fallor, 
non  cantavit  gallus,  sed  muscarum  fuit  strepitus,"  ibid.,  p.  70. 

On  chansons  written  in  French  by  Anglo-Normans,  see  "  Melanges  de  poesie 
anglo-normande,"  by  P.  Meyer,  in  "  Romania,"  vol.  iv.  p.  370,  and  "  Les 
Manuscrits  Francais  de  Cambridge,"  by  the  same,  ibid.,  vol.  xv. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  145 

lithe  ;  they  are  more  gentle  than  doves  ;  their  faces  are  all 
pink  and  white  :  "If  the  flowers  of  the  hawthorn  were 
united  to  the  rose,  not  more  delicate  would  be  their  colour 
than  that  on  my  lady's  clear  face." 

Si  les  flurs  d[el]  albespine 
Fuissent  a  roses  assis, 
N'en  ferunt  colur  plus  fine 
Ke  n'ad  ma  dame  au  clef  vis.1 

With  these  songs,  Love  ventures  out  of  castles  ;  we  find 
him  "  in  cellars,  or  in  lofts  under  the  hay." 2  He  steals 
even  into  churches,  and  a  sermon  that  has  come  down  to 
us,  preached  in  England  in  the  thirteenth  century,  has  for 
text,  instead  of  a  verse  of  Scripture,  a  verse  of  a  French 
song  :  "  Fair  Alice  rose  at  morn,  clothed  and  adorned  her 
body  ;  an  orchard  she  went  in,  five  flowers  there  she  found, 
a  wreath  she  made  with  them  of  blooming  roses  ;  for  God's 
sake,  get  you  gone,  you  who  do  not  love  !  "  and  with  meek 
gravity  the  preacher  goes  on  :  Belle  Alice  is  or  might  be 
the  Virgin  Mary  ;  "  what  are  those  flowers,"  if  not  "  faith, 
hope,  charity,  virginity,  humility  ?  "  3  The  idea  of  turning 
worldly  songs  and  music  to  religious  ends  is  not,  as  we  see, 
one  of  yesterday. 

1  Anglo-Norman  song,  written  in  England,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
"  Romania,"  vol.  xv.  p.  254. 

2  "  La  Plainte  d'amour,"  from  a  MS.  in  the  University  Library,  Cambridge, 
GG  I.  i,  "  Romania,"  ibid. 

3  Bele  Aliz  matin  leva, 
Sun  cors  vesti  e  para, 
Enz  un  verger  s'entra, 
Cink  flurettes  y  truva, 
Un  chapelet  fet  en  a 

De  rose  flurie  ; 
Pur  Deu,  trahez  vus  en  la 

Vus  ki  ne  amez  mie. 

The  text  of  the  sermon,  as  we  have  it  is  in  Latin  ;  it  has  long  but  wrongly 
been  attributed  to  Stephen  Langton  ;  printed  by  T.  Wright  in  his  "  Biographia 
Britannica,  Anglo-Norman  period,"  1846,  p.  446. 

II 


i46  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Tristan  has  led  us  very  far  from  Beowulf,  and  fair  Alice 
leads  us  still  farther  from  the  mariner  and  exile  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  literature.  To  sum  up  in  a  word  which  will  show 
the  difference  between  the  first  and  second  period  :  on  the 
lips   of  the    conquerors    of   Hastings,    odes    have    become 

chansons. 

V. 

Nothing  comes  so  near  ridicule  as  extreme  sentiments, 
and  no  men  had  the  sense  of  the  ridiculous  to  a  higher 
degree  than  the  new  rulers  of  the  English  country.  At 
the  same  time  with  their  chivalrous  literature,  they  had  a 
mocking  one.  They  did  not  wait  for  Cervantes  to  begin 
laughing  ;  these  variable  and  many-sided  beings  sneered 
at  high-flown  sentiments  and  experienced  them  too. 
They  sang  the  Song  of  Roland,  and  read  with  delight 
a  romance  in  which  the  great  emperor  is  represented 
strutting  about  before  his  barons,  his  crown  on  his  head 
and  his  sword  in  his  hand,  asking  the  queen  if  he  is  not  the 
most  admirable  prince  in  the  world.1  To  his  surprise,  the 
queen  says  no,  there  is  a  better,  there  is  King  Hugon, 
emperor  of  Greece  and  of  Constantinople.  Charlemagne 
wishes  to  verify  on  the  spot,  and  pledges  his  word  that  he 
will  cut  the  queen's  head  off  if  she  has  not  spoken  truth. 
He  mounts  a  donkey  ;  the  twelve  peers  follow  his  example, 
and  in  this  fashion  the  flower  of  French  chivalry  takes  its 
way  to  the  East. 

At  Constantinople,  the  city  of  marvels,  which  had  not 
yet  become  the  city  of  mosques,  but  was  still  enriched  by 
the  spoils  of  Athens  and  Rome,  where  St.  Sophia  shone 
with  all  the  glory  of  its  mosaics  intact,  where  the  palace  of 
the  emperors  dazzled  the  sight  with  its  gold  and  its  statues, 

1  "  Le  Pelerinage  de  Charlemagne,"  eleventh  century.  Only  one  MS.  has 
been  preserved,  written  in  England,  in  the  thirteenth  century  ;  it  has  been 
edited  by  Koschwitz,  "  Kails  des  Grossen  Reise  nach  Jerusalem  und  Kon- 
stantinopel,"  Heilbronn,  1880,  8vo.  Cf.  G.  Paris,  "La  poesie  francaise  au 
moyen  age,"  1S85,  p.  119,  and  "  Romania,"  vol.  ix. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  147 

the  French  princes  could  scarcely  believe  their  eyes.  At 
every  step  they  were  startled  by  some  fresh  wonder  ;  here 
bronze  children  blowing  horns  ;  there  a  revolving  hall  set 
in  motion  by  the  sea-breeze  ;  elsewhere  a  carbuncle  which 
illuminated  apartments  at  night.  The  queen  might 
possibly  have  spoken  truth.  Evening  draws  on,  they 
drink  deep,  and,  excited  by  their  potations,  indulge  in  gabs, 
or  boasts,  that  are  overheard  by  a  spy,  and  carefully  noted. 
Ogier  the  Dane  will  uproot  the  pillar  which  supports  the 
whole  palace ;  Aimer  will  make  himself  invisible  and 
knock  the  emperor's  head  on  the  table  ;  Roland  will 
sound  his  horn  so  loudly  that  the  gates  of  the  town  will  be 
forced  open.  Threatened  and  insulted  by  his  guests, 
Hugon  declares  they  shall  either  accomplish  their  gabs  or 
pay  for  their  lies  with  their  heads. 

This  is  too  much,  and  the  author  changes  his  tone.  Will 
God  permit  the  confusion  of  the  emperor  of  the  Franks, 
however  well  deserved  it  be  ?  "  Vivat  qui  Francos  diligit 
Christus  !  "  was  already  written  in  the  Salic  law  :  Christ 
continues  to  love  the  Franks.  He  takes  their  cause  into  His 
own  hands,  not  because  of  their  deserts  but  because  they 
are  Franks.  By  a  miracle,  one  after  another,  the  gabs  are 
realised  ;  Hugon  acknowledges  the  superiority  of  Charles, 
who  returns  to  France,  enriches  St.  Denis  with  incompar- 
able relics,  and  forgives  the  queen.  This  poem  is  exactly 
contemporaneous  with  the  Song  of  Roland. 

But  there  is  better  still,  and  the  comedy  is  much  more 
general    in    the    famous     "  Roman     de     Renart." *      This 

1  "  Le  Roman  de  Renart,"  ed.  E.  Martin,  Strasbourg,  1882-7,  4  vols.  8vo ; 
contains:  vol.  i. ,  the. old  series  of  branches;  vol.  ii.,  the  additional  branches  ; 
vol.  iii.,  variants ;  vol.  iv.,  notes  and  tables.  Most  of  the  branches  were 
composed  in  Normandy,  Ile-de-France,  Picardy  ;  the  twelfth  is  the  work  of 
Richard  de  Lison,  a  Norman,  end  of  the  twelfth  century  ;  several,  for  example 
the  fourteenth,  evince  on  the  part  of  their  author  a  knowledge  of  the  English 
tongue  and  manners.  Concerning  the  sources  of  the  "  Roman,"  see  Sudre,  "  Les 
Sources  du  Roman  de  Renart,"  Paris,  1892,  Svo. 


148  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

romance,  of  which  the  branches  are  of  various  epochs  and 
by  various  authors,  was  composed  partly  in  the  conti- 
nental estates  of  the  kings  of  England,  partly  in  the 
France  of  French  kings.  It  was  built  up,  part  after  part, 
during  several  centuries,  beginning  with  the  twelfth : 
built  like  a  cathedral,  each  author  adding  a  wing,  a  tower, 
a  belfry,  a  steeple  ;  without  caring,  most  of  the  time,  to 
make  known  his  name ;  so  that  the  poem  has  come 
down  to  us,  like  the  poems  in  stone  of  the  architects, 
almost  anonymously,  the  work  of  every  one,  an  expression 
and  outcome  of  the  popular  mind. 

For  many  Frenchmen  of  ancient  France,  a  chanson  was 
a  sufficient  revenge,  or  at  least  served  as  a  temporary  one. 
So  much  pleasure  was  taken  in  it,  that  by  such  means  the 
tyranny  of  the  ruler  was  forgotten.  On  more  than  one 
occasion  where  in  other  countries  a  riot  would  have  been 
unavoidable,  in  France  a  song  has  sufficed  ;  discontent,  thus 
attenuated,  no  longer  rose  to  fury.  More  than  one 
jacquerie  has  been  delayed,  if  not  averted,  by  the  "  Roman 
de  Renart." 

In  this  ample  comedy  everybody  has  a  part  to  perform  ; 
everybody  and  everything  is  in  turn  laughed  at :  the  king, 
the  nobles,  the  citizens,  the  Pope,  the  pilgrims,  the  monks, 
every  belief  and  every  custom,1  religion,  and  justice,  the 
powerful,  the  rich,  the  hypocrites,  the  simple-minded  ;  and, 
so  that  nothing  shall  be  wanting,  the  author  scoffs  at 
himself  and  his  caste  ;  he  knows  its  failings,  points 
them  out  and  laughs  at  them.  The  tone  is  heroi-comical : 
for  the  jest  to  take  effect,  the  contrast  must  be  clearly 
visible,  and  we  should  keep  in  view  the  importance  of 
principles  and  the  majesty  of  kings : 

1  Caricature  of  a  funeral  ceremony  : — 

Brun  li  ors,  prenez  vostre  estole  .  .  . 

Sire  Tardis  li  Unions 

Lut  par  lui  sol  les  trois  lecons 

Et  Roenel  chanta  les  vers.     (Vol.  i.  p.  12.) 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE,  i 


49 


"  Lordings,  you  have  heard  many  a  tale,  related  by  many 
a  tale-teller,  how  Paris  ravished  Helen,  the  trouble  it 
brought  him,  and  the  sorrow  !  .  .  .  also  gests  and  fabliaux  ; 
but  never  did  you  hear  of  the  war — such  a  hard  one  it 
was,  and  of  such  great  import — between  Renard  and 
Ysengrin."  " 

The  personages  are  animals  ;  their  sentiments  are 
human  ;  king  lion  swears  like  a  man  2 ;  but  the  way  in 
which  they  sit,  or  stand,  or  move,  is  that  of  their  species. 
Every  motion  of  theirs  is  observed  with  that  correctness 
of  eye  which  is  always  found  in  early  times  among  animal 
painters,  long  before  painters  of  the  human  figure  rise  to 
the  same  excellence.  There  are  perfect  descriptions  of 
Ysengrin,  who  feels  very  foolish  after  a  rebuke  of  the 
king's,  and  "  sits  with  his  tail  between  his  legs "  ;  of  the 
cock,  monarch  of  the  barn-yard  ;  of  Tybert  the  cat  ;  of 
Tardif  the  slug  ;  of  Espinar  the  hedgehog  ;  of  Bruin  the 
bear  ;  of  Roonel  the  mastiff;  of  Couard  the  hare  ;  of  Noble 
the  lion.  The  arrival  of  a  procession  of  hens  at  Court  is 
an  excellent  scene  of  comedy. 

"  Sir  Chanteclair,  the  cock,  and  Pinte,  who  lays  the  big 
eggs,  and  Noire,  and  Blanche,  and  la  Roussette,  were 
dragging  a  cart  with  drawn  curtains.  A  hen  lay  in  it 
prostrate.  .  .  .  Renard    had    so    maltreated   her,   and    so 

1  Seigneurs,  o'i  avez  maint  conte 
Que  maint  conterre  vous  raconte, 
Conment  Paris  ravi  Eleine, 
Le  mal  qu'il  en  ot  et  la  paine  .  .  . 
Et  fabliaus,  chansons  de  geste  ... 
Mais  onques  n'oistes  la  guerre, 
Qui  tant  fu  dure  et  de  grant  fin 
Entre  Renart  et  Ysengrin. 

(Prologue  of  Branch  II.) 

3  "  Or  dont,"  dit  Nobles,  "au  deable  ! 
Por  le  cuer  be,  sire  Ysengrin, 
Prendra  ja  vostre  gerre  fin?  "     (Vol.  i.  p.  8. 


150  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

pulled  her  about  with  his  teeth,  that  her  thigh  was  broken, 
and  a  wing  torn  off  her  side."  * 

Pinte,  moved  to  tears  and  ready  to  faint,  like  Esther 
before  Ahasuerus,  tells  the  king  her  woes.  She  had  five 
brothers,  Renard  has  devoured  every  one  ;  she  had  five 
sisters,  but  "  only  one  has  Renard  spared  ;  all  the  rest 
have  passed  through  his  jaws.  And  you,  who  lie  there 
on  your  bier,  my  sweet  sister,  my  dear  friend,  how  plump 
and  tender  you  were  !  What  will  become  of  your  poor 
unfortunate  sister?"2  She  is  very  near  adding  in 
Racine's  words  :  "  Mes  filles,  soutenez  votre  reine  eperdue  !  " 
Anyhow,  she  faints. 

"  The  unfortunate  Pinte  thereupon  fainted  and  fell  on 
the  pavement  ;  and  so  did  the  others,  all  at  once.  To 
assist  the  four  ladies  all  jumped  from  their  stools,  dog  and 
wolf  and  other  beasts,  and  threw  water  on  their  brows."  3 

1  .   .  .   Sire  Chanticler  li  cos, 
Et  Pinte  qui  pont  les  ues  gros 

Et  Noire  et  Blanche  et  la  Rossete 

Amenoient  une  charete 

Qui  envouxe  ert  d'une  cortine. 

Dedenz  gisoit  une  geline 

Que  l'en  amenoit  en  litere 

Fete  autresi  con  une  bere. 

Renart  l'avoit  si  maumenee 

Et  as  denz  si  desordenee 

Que  la  cuisse  li  avoit  frete 

Et  une  ele  hors  del  cors  trete.     (Vol.  i.  p.  9.) 

2  .  .  .   Renart  ne  l'en  laissa 
De  totes  cine  que  une  soule  : 
Totes  passerent  par  sa  goule. 
Et  vos  qui  la  gisez  en  bere, 
Ma  douce  suer  m'amie  chere, 
Con  vos  estieez  tendre  et  crasse ! 

Que  fera  vostre  suer  la  lasse?     (Vol.  i.  p.  10.) 

3  Pinte  la  lasse  a  ces  paroles 
Chai,  pamee  el  pavement 
Et  les  autres  tot  ensement. 
Por  relever  les  quatre  dames, 
Se  leverent  de  Ieurs  escames 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  [51 

The  king  is  quite  upset  by  so  moving  a  sight :  "  His 
head  out  of  anger  he  shakes  ;  never  was  so  bold  a  beast,  a 
bear  be  it  or  a  boar,  who  does  not  fear  when  their  lord 
sighs  and  howls.  So  much  afraid  was  Couard  the  hare 
that  for  two  days  he  had  the  fever  ;  all  the  Court  shakes 
together,  the  boldest  for  dread  tremble.  He,  in  his  wrath, 
raises  his  tail,  and  is  moved  with  such  pangs  that  the 
roar  fills  the  house  ;  and  then  this  was  his  speech  :  '  Lady 
Pinte,'  the  emperor  said,  '  upon  my  father's  soul'  "  *  .  .  . 

Hereupon  follows  a  solemn  promise,  couched  in  the 
most  impressive  words,  that  the  traitor  shall  be  punished  ; 
which  will  make  all  the  more  noticeable  the  utter  defeat 
which  verbose  royalty  soon  afterward  suffers.  Renard 
worsts  the  king's  messengers  ;  Bruin  the  bear  has  his  nose 
torn  off;  Tybert  the  cat  loses  half  his  tail;  Renard  jeers 
at  them,  at  the  king,  and  at  the  Court.  And  all  through 
the  story  he  triumphs  over  Ysengrin,  as  Panurge  over 
Dindenault,  Scapin  over  Geronte,  and  Figaro  over  Bridoi- 
son.  Renard  is  the  first  of  the  family ;  he  is  such  a 
natural  and  spontaneous  creation  of  the  French  mind  that 
we  see  him  reappear  from  century  to  century,  the  same 
character  under  different  names. 

Et  chen  et  lou  et  autres  bestes, 
Eve  lor  getent  sor  les  testes. 

1  Par  mautalant  drece  la  teste. 
One  n'i  ot  si  hardie  beste, 
Or  ne  sangler,  que  poor  n'et 
Quant  lor  sire  sospire  et  bret. 
Tel  poor  ot  Coars  li  levres 
Que  il  en  ot  deus  jors  les  fevres. 
Tote  la  cort  fremist  ensemble, 
Li  plus  hardis  de  peor  tremble. 
Par  mautalent  sa  coue  drece, 
Si  se  debat  par  tel  destrece 
Que  tot  en  sone  la  meson, 
Et  puis  fu  tele  sa  reson. 
Dame  Pinte,  fet  1'emperere, 
Foi  que  doi  a  l'ame  mon  pere.   .   .  . 


152  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

One  last  point  to  be  noted  is  the  impression  of  open  air 
given  by  nearly  all  the  branches  of  this  romance,  in  spite 
of  the  brevity  of  the  descriptions.  We  are  in  the  fields, 
by  the  hedges,  following  the  roads  and  the  footpaths  ;  the 
moors  are  covered  with  heather  ;  the  rocks  are  crowned  by 
oaken  copse,  the  roads  are  lined  with  hawthorn,  cabbages 
display  in  the  gardens  the  heavy  mass  of  their  clustering 
leaves.  We  see  with  regret  the  moment  when  "  the  sweet 
time  of  summer  declines."  Winter  draws  near,  a  north 
wind  blows  over  the  paths  leading  to  the  sea.  Renard 
"dedenz  sa  tour  "of  Maupertuis  lights  a  great  wood  fire, 
and,  while  his  little  ones  jump  for  joy,  grills  slices  of  eels 
on  the  embers. 

Renard  was  popular  throughout  Europe.  In  England 
parts  of  the  romance  were  translated  or  imitated ;  superb 
manuscripts  were  illustrated  for  the  libraries  of  the 
nobles ,  the  incidents  of  this  epic  were  represented  in 
tapestry,  sculptured  on  church  stalls,  painted  on  the 
margins  of  English  missals.  At  the  Renaissance  Caxton, 
with  his  Westminster  presses,  printed  a  Renard  in 
prose.1 

Above,  below,  around  these  greater  works,  swarms  the 
innumerable  legion  of  satirical  fabliaux  and  laughable  tales. 
They,  too,  cross  the  sea,  slight,  imperceptible,  wandering, 


1  Examples  of  sculptures  in  the  stalls  of  the  cathedrals  at  Gloucester,  St. 
David's,  &c.  ;  of  miniatures,  MS.  10  E  iv.  in  the  British  Museum  (English 
drawings  of  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  one  of  them  reproduced 
in  "  English  Wayfaring  Life,"  p.  309) ;  of  manuscripts  :  MS.  fr.  12,583  in  the 
National  Library,  Paris,  "  Cest  livre  est  a  Humfrey  due  de  Gloucester,  liber 
lupi  et  vulpis  "' ;  of  a  translation  in  English  of  part  ot  the  romance  :  "  Ot  the 
Vox  and  the  Wolf"  (time  o!  Edward  I.,  in  Wright's  "Selection  of  Latin 
Stories,"  Percy  Society;  see  below,  pp.  228  ff. ).  Caxton  issued  in  1481 
"  Thystorye  of  Reynard  the  Foxe,"  reprinted  by  Thorns,  Percy  Society,  1844, 
8vo.  The  MS.  in  the  National  Library,  mainly  followed  by  Martin  in  his 
edition,  offers  "a  sort  of  mixture  of  the  Norman  and  Picard  dialects.  The 
vowels  generally  present  Norman  if  not  Anglo-Norman  characteristics." 
"  Roman  de  Renart,"  vol.  i.  p.  2. 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  153 

thus  continuing  those  migrations  so  difficult  to  trace,  the 
laws  of  which  learned  men  of  all  nations  have  vainly- 
sought  to  discover.  They  follow  all  roads  ;  nothing  stops 
them.  Pass  the  mountains  and  you  will  find  them  ;  cross 
the  sea  and  they  have  preceded  you  ;  they  spring  from 
the  earth ;  they  fall  from  heaven  ;  the  breeze  bears  them 
along  like  pollen,  and  they  go  to  bloom  on  other  stems  in 
unknown  lands,  producing  thorny  or  poisonous  or  perfumed 
flowers,  and  flowers  of  every  hue.  All  those  varieties  of 
flowers  are  sometimes  found  clustered  in  unexpected 
places,  on  wild  mountain  sides,  along  lonely  paths,  on 
the  moors  of  Brittany  or  Scotland,  in  royal  parks  and  in 
convent  gardens.  At  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century 
the  great  Pope  St.  Gregory  introduces  into  his  works  a 
number  of  "  Exempla,"  saying:  "  Some  are  more  incited  to 
the  love  of  the  celestial  country  by  stories — exempla — than 
by  sermons  ;"  l  and  in  the  gardens  of  monasteries,  after  his 
day,  more  and  more  miscellaneous  grow  the  blossoms. 
They  are  gathered  and  preserved  as  though  in  herbals, 
collections  are  made  of  them,  from  which  preachers  borrow  ; 
tales  of  miracles  are  mixed  with  others  of  a  less  edifying 
nature. 

Stop  before  the  house  of  this  anchoress,  secluded  from 
the  world,  and  absorbed  in  pious  meditations,  a  holy  and 
quiet  place.  An  old  woman  sits  under  the  window  ;  the 
anchoress  appears  and  a  conversation  begins.  Let  us 
listen  ;  it  is  a  long  time  since  both  women  have  been 
listened  to.  What  is  the  subject  of  their  talk  ?  The  old 
woman  brings  news  of  the  outer  world,  relates  stories, 
curious  incidents  of  married  and  unmarried  life,  tales  of 
wicked  wives  and  wronged  husbands.  The  recluse  laughs  : 
"  os  in  risus  cachinnosque  dissolvitur  "  ;  in  a  word,  the  old 


1  In  Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vol.  Ixxvii.  col.  153.     "  Dialogorum  Liber  I."  ; 
Prologue. 


i54  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

woman  amuses  the  anchoress  with  fabliaux  in  an  embryonic 
state.  This  is  a  most  remarkable  though  little  known 
example,  for  we  can  here  observe  fabliaux  in  a  rudimentary 
stage,  and  going  about  in  one  more,  and  that  a  rather 
unexpected  way.  Is  the  case  of  this  anchoress  a  unique 
one  ?  Not  at  all ;  there  was  scarcely  any  recluse  at  that 
day,  "  vix  aliquam  inclusarum  hujus  temporis,"  without  a 
friendly  old  woman  to  sit  before  her  window  and  tell  her 
such  tales  :  of  which  testifies,  in  the  twelfth  century, 
Aelred,  abbot  of  Rievaulx.1 

From  the  thirteenth  century,  another  medium  of  diffu- 
sion, a  conspicuous  and  well-known  one,  is  added  to  the 
others  :  not  only  minstrels,  but  wandering  friars  now  carry 
tales  to  all  countries  ;  it  is  one  of  the  ways  they  count  on 
for  securing  a  welcome.  Their  sermons  raise  a  laugh,  the 
success  of  their  fables  encourages  their  rivals  to  imitate 
them  ;  the  Councils  vainly  interfere,  and  reiterate,  until 
after  the  Renaissance,  the  prohibition  "  to  provoke  shouts 
of  laughter,  after  the  fashion  of  shameless  buffoons,  by 
ridiculous  stories  and  old  wives'  tales."2  Dante  had  also 
protested,  and  Wyclif  likewise,  without  more  success  than 
the  Councils.  "Thus,"  said  Dante,  "the  ignorant  sheep 
come  home  from  pasture,  wind-fed.  .  .  .  Jests  and  buf- 
fooneries are  preached.  ...  St.  Anthony's  swine  fattens 
by  these  means,  and  others,  worse  than  swine,  fatten  too."  3 
But  collections  succeeded  to  collections,  and  room  was 
found  in  them  for  many  a  scandalous  tale,  for  that  of  the 
Weeping  Bitch,  for  example,  one  of  the  most  travelled  of 

1  "De  vita  eremitica,"  in  Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vol.  xxxii.  col.  1451,  text 
below,  p.  213. 

2  Council  o  Sens,  1528,  in  "The  Exempla,  or  illustrative  Stories  from  the 
Sermones  Vulgares  ot  Jacques  de  Vitry,"  ed.  T.  F.  Crane,  London,  1890, 
8vo,  p.  lxix.  The  collection  of  sermons  with  exempla,  compiled  by  Jacques 
de  Vitry  (born  ab.  11 80,  d.  ab.  1239),  was  one  of  the  most  popular,  and  is 
one  of  the  most  curious  of  its  kind. 

3  Si  che  le  pecorelle,  che  non  sanno, 

Toman  dal  pasco  pasciute  di  vento  .  .  . 


LITERATURE  IN  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  155 

all,  as  it  came  from  India,  and  is  found  everywhere,  in 
Italy,  France,  and  England,  among  fabliaux,  in  sermons, 
and  even  on  the  stage.1 

The  French  who  were  now  living  in  England  in  large 
numbers,  introduced  there  the  taste  for  merry  tales  of 
trickery  and  funny  adventures,  stories  of  curious  mishaps 
of  all  kinds  ;  of  jealous  husbands,  duped,  beaten,  and  withal 
perfectly  content,  and  of  fit  wives  for  such  husbands.  It 
already  pleased  their  teasing,  mocking  minds,  fond  of 
generalisations,  to  make  themselves  out  a  vicious  race, 
without  faith,  truth,  or  honour  :  it  ever  was  a  gab  of  theirs. 
The  more  one  protests,  the  more  they  insist ;  they  adduce 
proofs  and  instances  ;  they  are  convinced  and  finally  con- 
vince others.  In  our  age  of  systems,  this  magnifying  of 
the  abject  side  of  things  has  been  termed  "  realism  "  ;  for 
so-called  "  realism  "  is  nothing  more.  True  it  is  that  if  the 
home  of  tales  is  "  not  where  they  are  born,  but  where  they 
are  comfortable,"  2  France  was  a  home  for  them.  They 
reached  there  the  height  of  their  prosperity  ;  the  turn  of 
mind  of  which  they  are  the  outcome  has  by  no  means 
disappeared  ;  even  to-day  it  is  everywhere  found,  in  the 
public  squares,  in  the  streets,  in  the  newspapers,  theatres, 
and  novels.     And   it  serves,  as  it  did  formerly,  to  make 

Ora  si  va  con  motti,  e  con  iscede 
A  predicare.   .   .  . 

Di  questo  ingrassa  il  porco  Sant'  Antonio, 
Ed  altri  assai,  che  son  peggio  che  porci, 
Pagando  di  moneta  senza  conio. 

("  Paradiso,"  canto  xxix.) 

1  To  be  found,  e.g.,  in  Jacques  de  Vitry,  ibid,  p.  105  :  "  Audivi  de  quadam 
vetula  que  non  poterat  inducere  quandam  matronam  ut  juveni  consentiret," 
&c.     See  below,  pp.  225,  and  447. 

2  Bedier,  "  Les  Fabliaux,"  Paris,  1893,  &vo,  P-  241  ;  Bedier's  definition  of 
the  same  is  as  follows  :  "  Les  fabliaux  sont  des  contes  a  rire,  en  vers,"  p.  6. 
The  principal  French  collections  are  :  Barbazan  and  Meon,  "  Fabliaux  et 
contes  des  poetes  francais,"  Paris,  1808,  4  vols.  8vo  ;  Montaiglon  and 
Raynaud,  "  Recueil  general  et  complet  des  Fabliaux,"  Paris,  1872-90, 
6  vols.  8vo. 


156  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

wholesale  condemnations  easy,  very  easy  to  judges  who 
may  be  dazzled  by  this  jugglery  of  the  French  mind,  who 
look  only  at  the  goods  exhibited  before  their  eyes,  and 
who  scruple  the  less  to  pass  a  sentence  as  they  have  to 
deal  with  a  culprit  who  confesses.  But  judge  and  culprit 
both  forget  that,  next  to  the  realism  of  the  fabliaux,  there 
is  the  realism  of  the  Song  of  Roland,  not  less  real,  perhaps 
more  so  ;  for  France  has  lived  by  her  Song  of  Roland 
much  more  than  by  her  merry  tales,  that  song  which 
was  sung  in  many  ways  and  for  many  centuries.  Du 
Guesclin  and  Corneille  both  sang  it,  each  one  after  his 
fashion. 

On  the  same  table  may  be  found  "  La  Terre,"  and 
"  Grandeur  et  Servitude."  In  the  same  hall,  the  same 
minstrel,  representing  in  his  own  person  the  whole  library 
of  the  castle,  used  formerly  to  relate  the  shameful  tale  of 
Gombert  and  the  two  clerks,  juggle  with  knives,  and  sing 
of  Roland.  "  I  know  tales,"  says  one,  "  I  know  fabliaux, 
I  can  tell  fine  new  dits.  ...  I  know  the  fabliau  of  the 
'Denier'  .  .  .  and  that  of  Gombert  and  dame  Erme.  .  .  . 
I  know  how  to  play  with  knives,  and  with  the  cord  and 
with  the  sling,  and  every  fine  game  in  the  world.  I  can 
sing  at  will  of  King  Pepin  of  St.  Denis  ...  of  Charlemagne 
and  of  Roland,  and  of  Oliver,  who  fought  so  well ;  I  know 
of  Ogier  and  of  Aymon."  z 

All  this  literature  went  over  the  Channel  with  the 
conquerors.  Roland  came  to  England,  so  did  Renard, 
so  did  Gombert.  They  contributed  to  transform  the 
mind  of  the  vanquished  race,  and  the  vanquished  race 
contributed  to  transform  the  descendants  of  the  victors. 

1  Ge  sai  contes,  ge  sai  fableax, 
Ge  sai  conter  beax  diz  noveax,  &c. 

"Des  deux  bordeors  ribauz,"  in  Montaiglon  and  Raynaud,  "Recueil  general," 
vol.  i.  p.  II. 


CHAPTER   III. 

LATIN. 

I.    • 

The  ties  with  France  were  close  ones  ;  those  with  Rome 
were  no  less  so.  William  had  come  to  England,  politically 
as  the  heir  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  kings,  and  with  regard  to 
ecclesiastical  affairs  as  the  Pope's  chosen,  blessed  by  the 
head  of  Christianity.  In  both  respects,  notwithstanding 
storms  and  struggles,  the  tradition  thus  started  was  con- 
tinued under  his  successors. 

At  no  period  of  the  history  of  England  was  the  union 
with  Rome  closer,  and  at  no  time,  not  even  in  the  Augustan 
Age  of  English  literature  was  there  a  larger  infusion  of 
Latin  ideas.  The  final  consequence  of  Henry  II.'s  quarrel 
with  Thomas  Becket  was  a  still  more  complete  submission 
of  this  prince  to  the  Roman  See.  John  Lackland's  fruitless 
attempts  to  reach  absolute  power  resulted  in  the  gift  of  his 
domains  to  St.  Peter  and  the  oath  of  fealty  sworn  by  him 
as  vassal  of  the  Pope  :  "  We,  John,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
king  of  England,  lord  of  Ireland,  duke  of  Normandy, 
earl  of  Anjou,  .  .  .  Wishing  to  humiliate  ourselves  for 
Him  who  humiliated  Himself  for  us  even  unto  death  .  .  . 
freely  offer  and  concede  to  God  and  to  our  lord  Pope 
Innocent  and  his  Catholic  successors,  all  the  kingdom  of 

157 


158  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

England   and   all   the   kingdom  of  Ireland   for  the  remis- 
sion  of  our   sins,"1  May    15,    1 2 1 3. 

From  the  day  after  Hastings  the  Church  is  seen  estab- 
lishing herself  on  firm  basis  in  the  country  ;  she  receives 
as  many,  and  even  more  domains  than  the  companions  of 
the  Conqueror.  In  the  county  of  Dorset,  for  instance,  it 
appears  from  Domesday  that  "  the  Church  with  her  vassals 
and  dependents  enjoyed  more  than  a  third  of  the  whole 
county,  and  that  her  patrimony  was  greater  than  that  of 
all  the  Barons  and  greater  feudalists  combined."  2 

The  religious  foundations  are  innumerable,  especially  at 
the  beginning  ;  they  decrease  as  the  time  of  the  Renais- 
sance draws  nearer.  Four  hundred  and  eighteen  are 
counted  from  William  Rufus  to  John,  a  period  of  one 
hundred  years  ;  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine  during  the 
three  following  reigns  :  a  hundred  and  eight  years  ;  twenty- 
three  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  only  three  in  the 
fifteenth.3 

This  number  of  monasteries  necessitated  considerable 
intercourse  with  Rome ;  many  of  the  monks,  often  the 
abbots,  were  Italian  or  French  ;  they  had  suits  in  the 
court  of  Rome,  they  laid  before  the  Pope  at  Rome,  and 
later  at  Avignon,  their  spiritual  and  temporal  difficulties  ; 
the  most  important  abbeys  were  "  exempt,"  that  is  to  say, 
under   the  direct  jurisdiction  of   the  Pope  without  passing 

1  "  Volentes  nos  ipsos  humiliare  pro  Illo  Qui  Se  pro  nobis  humiliavit  usque 
ad  mortem  .  .  .  offerimus  et  libere  concedimus  Deo  et  .  .  .  domino  nostro 
papas  Innocentio  ejusque  catholicis  successoribus,  totum  regnum  Angliae  et 
totum  regnum  Hibernise,  cum  omni  jure  et  pertinentiis  suis,  pro  remissione 
peccatorum  nostrorum."  Hereupon  follows  the  pledge  to  pay  for  ever  to  the 
Holy  See  "mille  marcas  sterlingorum,"  and  then  the  oath  of  fealty  to  the 
Pope  as  suzerain  of  England.  Stubbs,  "  Select  Charters,"  Oxford,  1876,  3rd 
ed.,  pp.  284  ff. 

2  R.  W.  Eyton,  "A  key  to  Domesday,  showing  the  Method  and  Exactitude 
of  its  Mensuration  .  .  .  exemplified  by  .  .  .  the  Dorset  Survey,"  London, 
1878,  4to,  p.  156. 

3  "Historical  maps  of  England  during  the  first  thirteen  centuries,"  by 
C.  H.  Pearson,  London,  1870,  fol.  p.  61. 


LA  TIN.  1 59 

through  the  local  episcopal  authority.  This  was  the 
case  with  St.  Augustine  of  Canterbury,  St.  Albans,  St. 
Edmund's,  Waltham,  Evesham,  Westminster,  &c.  The 
clergy  of  England  had  its  eyes  constantly  turned  Rome- 
wards. 

This  clergy  was  very  numerous  ;  in  the  thirteenth 
century  its  ranks  were  swelled  by  the  arrival  of  the  mendi- 
cant friars  :  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  the  latter  repre- 
senting more  especially  doctrine,  and  the  former  practice. 
The  Dominicans  expound  dogmas,  fight  heresy,  and 
furnish  the  papacy  with  its  Grand  Inquisitors  r  ;  the 
Franciscans  do  charitable  works,  nurse  lepers  and  wretches 
in  the  suburbs  of  the  towns.  All  science  that  does  not 
tend  to  the  practice  of  charity  is  forbidden  them  :  "  Charles 
the  Emperor,"  said  St.  Francis,  "  Roland  and  Oliver,  all 
the  paladins  and  men  mighty  in  battle,  have  pursued  the 
infidels  to  death,  and  won  their  memorable  victories  at  the 
cost  of  much  toil  and  labour.  The  holy  martyrs  died 
fighting  for  the  faith  of  Christ.  But  there  are  in  our  time, 
people  who  by  the  mere  telling  of  their  deeds,  seek  honour 
and  glory  among  men.  There  are  also  some  among  you 
who  like  better  to  preach  on  the  virtues  of  the  saints  than 
to  imitate  their  labours.  .  .  .  When  thou  shalt  have  a 
psalter  so  shalt  thou  wish  for  a  breviary,  and  when  thou 
shalt  have  a  breviary,  thou  shalt  sit  in  a  chair  like  a  great 
prelate,  and  say  to  thy  brother  :  '  Brother,  fetch  me  my 
breviary.' "  2 

1  Concerning  their  power  and  the  part  they  played,  see  for  example  the  con- 
firmation by  Philip  VI.  of  France,  in  November,  1329,  of  the  regulations  sub- 
mitted to  him  by  that  "  religious  and  honest  person,  friar  Henri  de  Charnay, 
of  the  order  of  Preachers,  inquisitor  on  the  crime  of  heresy,  sent  in  that 
capacity  to  our  kingdom  and  residing  in  Carcassonne."  Sentences  attain  not 
only  men,  but  even  houses;  the  king  orders:  "  Premiere merit,  quod  domus, 
platese  et  loca  in  qulbus  h?ereses  fautse  fuerunt,  diruantur  et  nunquam  postea 
reedificentur,  sed  perpetuo  subjaceant  in  sterquilineae  vilitati,"  &c.  Isambert's 
"  Kecueil  des  anciennes  Lois,"  vol.  iv.  p.  364. 

2  "  Speculum  vitae  B.  Francisci  et  sociorum  ejus,"  opera  Fratris  G.  Spoel- 
berch,  Antwerp,  1620,  8vo,  part  i.  chap.  iv. 


160  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Thirty-two  years  after  their  first  coming  there  were  in  Eng- 
land twelve  hundred  and  forty-two  Franciscans,  with  forty- 
nine  convents,  divided  into  seven  custodies  :  London,  York, 
Cambridge,  Bristol,  Oxford,  Newcastle,  Worcester.1  "Your 
Holiness  must  know,"  writes  Robert  Grosseteste,  bishop  of 
Lincoln,  to  Pope  Gregory  IX., "  that  the  friars  illuminate  the 
whole  country  by  the  light  of  their  preaching  and  teaching. 
Intercourse  with  these  holy  men  propagates  scorn  of  the 
world  and  voluntary  poverty.  ...  Oh  !  could  your  Holi- 
ness see  how  piously  and  humbly  the  people  hasten  to 
hear  from  them  the  word  of  life,  to  confess  their  sins,  and 
learn  the  rules  of  good  conduct !  .  .  .  "  2  Such  was  the 
beginning  ;  what  followed  was  far  from  resembling  it. 
The  point  to  be  remembered  is  another  tie  with  Rome, 
represented  by  these  new  Orders :  even  the  troubles  that 
their  disorders  gave  rise  to  later,  their  quarrels  with  the 
secular  clergy,  the  monks  and  the  University,  the  constant 
appeals  to  the  Pope  that  were  a  result  of  these  disputes, 
the  obstinacy  with  which  they  endeavoured  to  form  a 
Church  within  the  Church,  all  tended  to  increase  and 
multiply  the  relations  between  Rome  and  England. 

The  English  clergy  was  not  only  numerous  and  largely 
endowed  ;  it  was  also  very  influential,  and  played  a  con- 
siderable part  in  the  policy  of  the  State.  When  the 
Parliament  was  constituted  the  clergy  occupied  many 
seats,  the  king's  ministers  were  usually  churchmen  ;  the 
high  Chancellor  was  a  prelate. 

The  action  of  the  Latin  Church  made  itself  also  felt  on 
the  nation  by  means  of  ecclesiastical  tribunals,  the  powers 
of  which  were  considerable  ;  all  that  concerned  clerks,  or 
related  to  faith  and  beliefs,  to  tithes,  to  deeds  and  contracts 
having  a  moral  character,  wills  for  instance,  came  within 

1  Brewer  and  Hewlett,  "  Monumenta  Franciscana,"    Rolls,   1858-82,  8vo, 

vol.  i.  p.  10. 

2  Letter  of  the  year  1238  or  thereabout;  "  Roberti  Grosseteste  Epistolae," 
ed.  Luard,  Rolls,  1861,  p.  179- 


LATIN.  161 

the  jurisdiction  of  the  religious  magistrate.  This  justice 
interfered  in  the  private  life  of  the  citizens  ;  it  had  an  in- 
quisitorial character ;  it  wanted  to  know  if  good  order 
reigned  in  households,  if  the  husband  was  faithful  and  the 
wife  virtuous  ;  it  cited  adulterers  to  its  bar  and  chastised 
them.  Summoners  (Chaucer's  somnours)  played  the  part 
ot  spies  and  public  accusers  ;  they  kept  themselves  well 
informed  on  these  different  matters,  were  constantly  on  the 
watch,  pried  into  houses,  collected  and  were  supposed  to 
verify  evil  reports,  and  summoned  before  the  ecclesias- 
tical court  those  whom  Jane's  or  Gilote's  beauty  had 
turned  from  the  path  of  conjugal  fidelity.  It  may  be 
readily  imagined  that  such  an  institution  afforded  full 
scope  for  abuses  ;  it  could  hardly  have  been  otherwise 
unless  all  the  summoners  had  been  saints,  which  they 
were  not ;  some  among  them  were  known  to  compound 
with  the  guilty  for  money,  to  call  the  innocent  before  the 
judge  in  order  to  gratify  personal  spite.1  Their  misdeeds 
were  well  known  but  not  easy  to  prove  ;  so  that  Chaucer's 
satires  did  more  to  ruin  the  institution  than  all  the  petitions 
to  Parliament.  These  summoners  were  also  in  their  own 
way,  mean  as  that  was,  representatives  of  the  Latin  country, 
of  the  spiritual  power  of  Rome ;  they  knew  it,  and  made 
the  best  of  the  stray  Latin  words  that  had  lodged  in  their 
memory  ;  they  used  them  as  their  shibboleth. 

1  A  bettre  felaw  sholde  men  noght  finde, 
He  wolde  suffre,  for  a  quart  of  wyn, 
A  good  felawe  to  have  his  concubyn 
A  twelf-month  and  excuse  him  atte  fulle. 

Prologue  of  the  "Canterbury  Tales."  The  name  of  summoner  was  held  in 
little  esteem,  and  no  wonder : 

"  Artow  thanne  a  bailly?" — "  Ye,"  quod  he  ; 
He  dorste  nat  for  verray  filthe  and  shame 
Seye  that  he  was  a  somnour  for  the  name." 

("Freres  Tale,"  1.  94.) 
12 


1 62  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Bishops  kept  seigneurial  retinues,  built  fortresses x  and 
lived  in  them,  had  their  archers  and  their  dogs,  hunted, 
laid  siege  to  towns,  made  war,  and  only  had  recourse  to 
excommunication  when  all  other  means  of  prevailing  over 
their  foes  had  failed.  Others  among  them  became  saints  : 
both  in  heaven  and  on  earth  they  held  the  first  rank.  Like 
the  sovereign,  they  knew,  even  then,  the  worth  of  public 
opinion  ;  they  bought  the  goodwill  of  wandering  poets,  as 
that  of  the  press  was  bought  in  the  day  of  Defoe.  The 
itinerant  minstrels  were  the  newspapers  of  the  period  ; 
they  retailed  the  news  and  distributed  praise  or  blame  ; 
they  acquired  over  the  common  people  the  same  influence 
that  "printed  matter"  has  had  in  more  recent  times.  Hugh 
de  Nunant,  bishop  of  Coventry,  accuses  William  de  Long- 
champ,  bishop  of  Ely,  and  Chancellor  of  England,  in  a 
letter  still  extant,  of  having  inspired  the  verses — one  might 
almost  say  the  articles — that  minstrels  come  from  France, 
and  paid  by  him,  told  in  public  places,  "  in  plateis,"  not 
without  effect,  "  for  already,  according  to  public  opinion, 
no  one  in  the  universe  was  comparable  to  him."  2 

Nothing  gives  so  vivid  an  impression  of  the  time  that 
has  elapsed,  and  the  transformation  in  manners  that  has 

1  They  built  a  good  many.  Alexander,  bishop  of  Lincoln,  after  having 
been  a  parish  priest  at  Caen,  first  tried  his  hand  as  a  builder,  in  erecting 
castles  ;  he  built  some  at  Newark,  Sleaford,  and  Banbury.  He  then  busied 
himself  with  holier  work  and  endowed  Lincoln  Cathedral  with  its  stone  vault. 
This  splendid  church  had  been  begun  on  a  spot  easy  to  defend  by  another 
French  bishop,  Remi,  formerly  monk  at  Fecamp  :  "  Mercatis  igitur  prsediis, 
in  ipso  vertice  urbis  juxta  castellum  turribus  fortissimis  eminens,  in  loco  forti 
fortem,  pulchro  pulchrum,  virgini  virgineam  construxit  ecclesiam  ;  quae  et  grata 
esset  Deo  servientibus  et,  ut  pro  tempore  oportebat,  invincibilis  hostibus. " 
Henry  of  Huntingdon,  "  Historia  Anglorum,"  Rolls,  p.  212. 

2  "  Epistola  Hugonis  .  .  .  de  dejectione  Willelmi  Eliensis  episcopi  Regis 
cancellarii,"  in  Hoveden,  "Chronica,"  ed.  Stubbs,  Rolls,  vol.  hi.  p.  141, 
year  1191  :  "  Hie  ad  augmentum  et  famam  sui  nominis,  emendicata  carmina  et 
rhythmos  adulatorios  comparabat,  et  de  regno  Francorum  cantores  et  joculatores 
muneribus  allexerat,  ut  de  illo  canerent  in  plateis  :  et  jam  dicebatur  ubique, 
quod  non  erat  talis  in  orbe."     See  below,  pp.  222,  345. 


LATIN.  163 

occurred,  as  the  sight  of  that  religious  and  warlike  tourna- 
ment of  which  England  was  the  field  under  Richard  Coeur- 
de-Lion,  and  of  which  the  heroes  were  all  prelates,  to  wit : 
these  same  William  de  Longchamp,  bishop  of  Ely,  and 
Hugh  de  Nunant,  bishop  of  Coventry  ;  then  Hugh  de 
Puiset,  bishop  of  Durham,  Geoffrey  Plantagenet,  archbishop 
of  York,  &c. 

Hugh  de  Puiset,  a  scion  of  the  de  Puisets,  viscounts 
of  Chartres,  grandson  of  the  Conqueror,  cousin  to  King 
Richard,  bishop  palatine  of  Durham,  wears  the  coat  of 
mail,  fortifies  his  castles,  storms  those  of  his  enemies, 
builds  ships,  adds  a  beautiful  "  Lady  chapel "  to  his 
cathedral,  and  spends  the  rest  of  his  time  in  hunting. 

William  de  Longchamp,  his  great  rival,  grandson  of  a 
Norman  peasant,  bishop  of  Ely,  Chancellor  of  England, 
seizes  on  Lincoln  by  force,  lives  like  a  prince,  has  an  escort 
of  a  thousand  horsemen,  adds  to  the  fortifications  of  the 
Tower  of  London  and  stands  a  siege  in  it.  He  is  obliged 
to  give  himself  up  to  Hugh  de  Nunant,  another  bishop  ;  he 
escapes  disguised  as  a  woman  ;  he  is  recognised,  imprisoned 
in  a  cellar,  and  exiled  ;  he  then  excommunicates  his 
enemies.  Fortune  smiles  on  him  once  more  and  he  is 
reinstated  in  his  functions. 

Geoffrey  Plantagenet,  a  natural  son  of  Henry  II.,  the 
only  child  who  remained  always  faithful  to  the  old  king, 
had  once  thought  he  would  reach  the  crown,  but  was 
obliged  to  content  himself  with  becoming  archbishop  of 
York.  As  such,  he  scorned  to  ally  himself  either  with 
Longchamp  or  with  Puiset,  and  made  war  on  both 
impartially.  Longchamp  forbids  him  to  leave  France  ; 
nevertheless  Geoffrey  lands  at  Dover,  the  castle  of  which 
was  held  by  Richenda,  sister  of  the  Chancellor.  He 
mounts  on  horseback  and  gallops  towards  the  priory  of 
St.  Martin  ;  Richenda  sends  after  him,  and  one  of  the 
lady's   men  was   putting  his   hand   on   the   horse's   bridle, 


1 64  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

when  our  lord  the  archbishop,  shod  with  iron,  gave  a 
violent  kick  to  the  enemy's  steed,  and  tore  his  belly  open  ; 
the  beast  reared,  and  the  prelate,  freeing  himself,  reached 
the  priory.  There  he  is  under  watch  for  four  days,  after 
which  he  is  dragged  from  the  very  altar,  and  taken  to  the 
castle  of  Dover.  At  last  he  is  liberated,  and  installed  in 
York  ;  he  immediately  commences  to  fight  with  his  own 
clergy  ;  he  enters  the  cathedral  when  vespers  are  half 
over  ;  he  interrupts  the  service,  and  begins  it  over  again  ; 
the  indignant  treasurer  has  the  tapers  put  out,  and  the 
archbishop  continues  his  psalm-singing  in  the  dark.  He 
excommunicates  his  neighbour  Hugh  de  Puiset,  who  is 
little  concerned  by  it ;  he  causes  the  chalices  used  by  the 
bishop  of  Durham  to  be  destroyed  as  profaned. 

Hugh  de  Puiset,  who  was  still  riding  about,  though 
attacked  by  the  disease  that  was  finally  to  carry  him  off, 
dies  full  of  years  in  1195,  after  a  reign  of  forty-three  years. 
He  had  had  several  children  by  different  women  :  one  of 
them,  Henri  de  Puiset,  joined  the  Crusade  ;  another, 
Hugh,  remained  French,  and  became  Chancellor  to  King 
Louis  VII.1 

These  warlike  habits  are  only  attenuated  by  degrees. 
In  1323  Edward  II.  writes  to  Louis  de  Beaumont,  bishop 
of  Durham,  reproaching  a  noble  like  him  for  not  defending 
his  bishopric  any  better  against  the  Scotch  than  if  he  were 
a  mutterer  of  prayers  like  his  predecessor.  Command  is 
laid  upon  bishop  Louis  to  take  arms  and  go  and  camp  on 
the  frontier.  In  the  second  half  of  the  same  century, 
Henry  le  Despencer,  bishop  of  Norwich,  hacks  the 
peasants  to  pieces,  during  the  great  rising,  and  makes 
war  in  Flanders  for  the  benefit  of  one  of  the  two  popes. 

Side  by  side  with  these  warriors  shine  administrators, 
men    of    learning,    saints,    all    important    and    influential 

1  See    Stubbs,  Introductions  to  the  "  Chronica  Magistri   Rogeri  de  Hove- 
dene,"  Rolls,  1S68,  4  vols.  8vo,  especially  vols.  iii.  and  iv. 


LATIN.  165 

personages  in  their  way.  Such  are,  for  example,  Lanfranc, 
of  Pavia,  late  abbot  of  St.  Stephen  at  Caen,  who,  as 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  reorganised  the  Church  of 
England  ;  Anselm  of  Aosta,  late  abbot  of  Bee,  also  an 
archbishop,  canonised  at  the  Renaissance,  the  discoverer 
of  the  famous  "  ontological  "  proof  of  the  existence  of  God, 
a  paradoxical  proof  the  inanity  of  which  it  was  reserved 
for  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  to  demonstrate  ;  Gilbert  Foliot, 
a  Frenchman,  bishop  of  London,  celebrated  for  his  science, 
a  strong  supporter  of  Henry  II.  ;  Thomas  Becket,  of 
Norman  descent,  archbishop  and  saint,  whose  quarrel  with 
Henry  II.  divided  England,  and  almost  divided  Christen- 
dom too  ;  Hugh,  bishop  of  Lincoln  under  the  same  king, 
of  French  origin,  and  who  was  also  canonised  ;  Stephen 
Langton,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  contributed  as 
much  as  any  of  the  barons  to  the  granting  of  the  Great 
Charter,  and  presided  over  the  Council  of  London,  in 
1218,  where  it  was  solemnly  confirmed1;  Robert  Gros- 
seteste,2  famous  for  his  learning  and  holiness,  his  theological 
treatises,  his  sermons,  his  commentaries  on  Boethius  and 
Aristotle,  his  taste  for  the  divine  art  of  music,  which 
according  to  him  "  drives  away  devils."  Warriors  or  saints, 
all  these  leaders  of  men  keep,  in  their  difficulties,  their 
eyes  turned  towards  Rome,  and  towards  the  head  of  the 
Latin  Church. 

1  Lanfranc,  ioo5?-io8q,  archbishop  in  1070;  "Opera  quse  supersunt,"  ed. 
Giles,  Oxford,  1843,  2  vols.  8vo. — St.  Anselm,  1033-1109,  archbishop  of 
Canterbury  in  1093;  works  ("  Monologion,"  "  Proslogion,"  "Cur  Deus 
homo,"  &c.)  in  Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vol.  clviii.  and  clix. — Stephen  Langton, 
born  ab.  1150,  of  a  Yorkshire  family,  archbishop  in  1208,  d.  1228. 

2  A  declared  supporter  of  the  Franciscans,  and  an  energetic  censor  of  the 
papal  court,  bishop  of  Lincoln  1235-53,  has  left  a  vast  number  of  writings,  and 
enjoyed  considerable  reputation  for  his  learning  and  sanctity.  His  letters  have 
been  edited  by  Luard,  "  Roberti  Grosseteste  .  .  .  Epistolae,"  London,  1S01, 
Rolls.  See  below,  p.  213.  Roger  Bacon  praised  highly  his  learned  works, 
adding,  however:  "  quia  Grascum  et  Hebraeum  non  scivit  sufficienter  ut  per 
se  transferret,  sed  habuit  multos  adjutores."  "  Rogeri  Bacon  Opera  .  .  . 
inedita,"  ed.  Brewer,  1859,  Rolls,  p.  472. 


1 66  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

II. 

At  the  same  time  as  the  monasteries,  and  under  the 
shadow  of  their  walls,  schools  and  libraries  multiplied. 
The  Latin  education  of  the  nation  is  resumed  with  an 
energy  and  perseverance  hitherto  unknown,  and  this  time 
there  will  be  no  relapse  into  ignorance  ;  protected  by  the 
French  conquest,  the  Latin  conquest  is  now  definitive. 

Not  only  are  religious  books  in  Latin,  psalters,  missals 
and  decretals  copied  and  collected  in  monasteries,  but  also 
the  ancient  classics.  They  are  liked,  they  are  known  by 
heart,  quoted  in  writings,  and  even  in  conversation.  An 
English  chronicler  of  the  twelfth  century  declares  he  would 
blush  to  compile  annals  after  the  fashion  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  ;  this  barbarous  manner  is  to  be  avoided  ;  he  will 
use  Roman  salt  as  a  condiment :  "  et  exarata  barbarice 
romano  sale  condire."  J  Another,  of  the  same  period,  has 
the  classic  ideal  so  much  before  his  eyes  that  he  makes 
William  deliver,  on  the  day  of  Hastings,  a  speech  begin- 
ning :  "  O  mortalium  validissimi  !  "  2 

A  prelate  who  had  been  the  tutor  of  the  heir  to  the 
throne,  and  died  bishop  palatine  of  Durham,  Richard  de 
Bury,3  collects  books  with  a  passion  equal  to  that  which 

1  "  Gesta  Regum  Anglorum,"  by  William  of  Mahnesbury,  ed.  Hardy,  1840, 
"  Prologus."  He  knew  well  the  "  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  "  and  used  it  :  "  Sunt 
sane  quaedam  vetustatis  indicia  chronico  more  et  patrio  sermone,  per  annos 
Domini  ordinata,"  p.  2. 

2  "  Henrici  archidiaconi  Huntendunensis  Historia  Anglorum,"  Rolls,  1879, 
p.  201. 

3  He  derived  his  name  from  Bury  St.  Edmund's,  near  which  he  was  born  on 
January  24,  1287.  He  was  the  son  of  Sir  Richard  Aungerville,  Knight,  whose 
ancestors  had  come  to  England  with  the  Conqueror.  He  became  the  king's 
receiver  in  Gascony,  fulfilled  missions  at  Avignon  in  1330  when  he  met 
Petrarca  ("  vir  adentis  ingenii,"  says  Petrarca  of  him),  and  in  1333.  He 
became  in  this  year  bishop  of  Durham,  against  the  will  of  the  chapter,  who 
had  elected  Robert  de  Graystanes,  the  historian.  He  was  lord  Treasurer, 
then  high  Chancellor  in  1334-5,  discharged  new  missions  on  the  Continent, 
followed  Edward  III.  on  his  expedition  of  1338,  and  died  in  1345. 


LATIN.  167 

will  be  later  displayed  at  the  court  of  the  Medici.  He  has 
emissaries  who  travel  all  over  England,  France,  and  Italy 
to  secure  manuscripts  for  him  ;  with  a  book  one  can  obtain 
anything  from  him  ;  the  abbot  of  St.  Albans,  as  a  pro- 
pitiatory offering  sends  him  a  Terence,  a  Virgil,  and  a 
Ouinctilian.  His  bedchamber  is  so  encumbered  with  books 
that  one  can  hardly  move  in  it.1  Towards  the  end  of  his 
life,  never  having  had  but  one  passion,  he  undertook  to 
describe  it,  and,  retired  into  his  manor  of  Auckland,  he 
wrote  in  Latin  prose  his  "  Philobiblon."2  In  this  short 
treatise  he  defends  books,  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity, 
poetry,  too,  with  touching  emotion  ;  he  is  seized  with 
indignation  when  he  thinks  of  the  crimes  of  high  treason 
against  manuscripts,  daily  committed  by  pupils  who  in 
spring  dry  flowers  in  their  books  ;  and  of  the  ingratitude 
of  wicked  clerks,  who  admit  into  the  library  dogs,  or 
falcons,  or  worse  still,  a  two-legged  animal,  "  bestia 
bipedalis,"  more  dangerous  "than  the  basilisk,  or  aspic," 
who,  discovering  the  volumes  "  insufficiently  concealed  by 
the  protecting  web  of  a  dead  spider,"  condemns  them  to 
be  sold,  and  converted  for  her  own  use  into  silken  hoods 
and  furred  gowns.3  Eve's  descendants  continue,  thinks 
the  bishop,  to  wrongfully  meddle  with  the  tree  of  know- 
ledge. 

1  See  "  Registrum  Palatinum  Dunelmense,"  ed.  Hardy,  Rolls,  vol.  iii. 
Introduction,  p.  cxlvi. 

2  The  best  edition  is  that  given  by  E.  C.  Thomas,  "The  Philobiblon  of 
Richard  de  Bury,"  London,  1888,  8vo,  Latin  text  with  an  English  transla- 
tion. The  Introduction  contains  a  biography  in  which  some  current  errors 
have  been  corrected,  and  notes  on  the  various  MSS.  According  to  seven 
MSS.  the  "  Philobiblon  "  would  be  the  work  of  Robert  Holkot,  and  not  of 
Richard  de  Bury,  but  this  appears  to  be  a  mistaken  attribution. 

3  "  Occupant  etenim,'  the  books  are  represented  to  say,  "  loca  nostra,  nunc 
canes,  nunc  aves,  nunc  bestia  bipedalis,  cujus  cohabitatio  cum  clericis  vetabatur 
antiquitus,  a  qua  semper,  super  aspidem  et  basilicum  alumnos  nostros  docuimus 
esse  fugiendum.  .  .  Ista  nos  conspectos  in  angulo,  jam  defuncts  aranese  de 
sola  tela  protectos  .  .  .  mox  in  capitogia  pretiosa  .  .  .  vestes  et  varias  furra- 
turas  .  .  .  nos  consulit  commutandos  "  (chap.  iv.  p.  32). 


1 68  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

What  painful  commiseration  did  he  not  experience  on 
penetrating  into  an  ill-kept  convent  library  !  "  Then  we 
ordered  the  book-presses,  chests,  and  bags  of  the  noble 
monasteries  to  be  opened  ;  and,  astonished  at  beholding 
again  the  light  of  day,  the  volumes  came  out  of  their 
sepulchres  and  their  prolonged  sleep.  .  .  Some  of  them, 
which  had  ranked  among  the  daintiest,  lay  for  ever  spoilt, 
in  all  the  horror  of  decay,  covered  by  filth  left  by  the 
rats  ;  they  who  had  once  been  robed  in  purple  and  fine 
linen  now  lay  on  ashes,  covered  with  a  cilice."  z  The 
worthy  bishop  looks  upon  letters  with  a  religious  venera- 
tion, worthy  of  the  ancients  themselves  ;  his  enthusiasm 
recalls  that  of  Cicero ;  no  one  at  the  Renaissance,  not 
even  the  illustrious  Bessarion,  has  praised  old  manuscripts 
with  a  more  touching  fervour,  or  more  nearly  attained  to 
the  eloquence  of  the  great  Latin  orator  when  he  speaks 
of  books  in  his  "  Pro  Archia  "  :  "  Thanks  to  books,"  says 
the  prelate,  "  the  dead  appear  to  me  as  though  they  still 
lived.  .  .  Everything  decays  and  falls  into  dust,  by  the 
force  of  Time  ;  Saturn  is  never  weary  of  devouring  his 
children,  and  the  glory  of  the  world  would  be  buried  in 
oblivion,  had  not  God  as  a  remedy  conferred  on  mortal 
man  the  benefit  of  books.  .  .  .  Books  are  the  masters  that 
instruct  us  without  rods  or  ferulas,  without  reprimands  or 
anger,  without  the  solemnity  of  the  gown  or  the  expense 
of  lessons.  Go  to  them,  you  will  not  find  them  asleep  ; 
question  them,  they  will  not  refuse  to  answer  ;  if  you  err, 
no  scoldings  on  their  part ;  if  you  are  ignorant,  no  mocking 
laughter."  2 

These  teachings  and  these  examples  bore  fruit;  in 
renovated  England,  Latin-speaking  clerks  swarmed.  It 
is  often  difficult  while  reading  their  works  to  discover 
whether  they  are  of  native  or  of  foreign  extraction  ;  hates 
with  them  are  less  strong  than  with  the  rest  of  their 
1  Chap.  viii.  p.  66.  a  Chap.  i.  pp.  II,  13. 


LATIN.  169 

compatriots  ;  most  of  them  have  studied  not  only  in 
England  but  in  Paris  ;  science  has  made  of  them  cosmo- 
politans ;  they  belong,  above  all,  to  the  Latin  country,  and 
the  Latin  country  has  not  suffered. 

The  Latin  country  had  two  capitals,  a  religious  capital 
which  was  Rome,  and  a  literary  capital  which  was  Paris. 
"  In  the  same  manner  as  the  city  of  Athens  shone  in 
former  days  as  the  mother  of  liberal  arts  and  the  nurse  of 
philosophers,  ...  so  in  our  times  Paris  Jias  raised  the 
standard  of  learning  and  civilisation,  not  only  in  France 
but  in  all  the  rest  of  Europe,  and,  as  the  mother  of 
wisdom,  she  welcomes  guests  from  all  parts  of  the  world, 
supplies  all  their  wants,  and  submits  them  all  to  her  pacific 
rule." 1  So  said  Bartholomew  the  Englishman  in  the 
thirteenth  century.  "  What  a  flood  of  joy  swept  over  my 
heart,"  wrote  in  the  following  century  another  Englishman, 
that  same  Richard  de  Bury,  "  every  time  I  was  able  to 
visit  that  paradise  of  the  world,  Paris  !  My  stay  there 
always  seemed  brief  to  me,  so  great  was  my  passion. 
There  were  libraries  of  perfume  more  delicious  than 
caskets  of  spices,  orchards  of  science  ever  green  .  .  ." 2 
The  University  of  Paris  held  without  contest  the  first 
rank  during  the  Middle  Ages ;  it  counted  among  its 
students,  kings,  saints,  popes,  statesmen,  poets,  learned 
men  of  all  sorts  come  from  all  countries,  Italians  like 
Dante,  Englishmen  like  Stephen  Langton. 

Its  lustre  dates  from  the  twelfth  century.     At  that  time 

1  "  Sicut  quondam  Athenarum  civitas  mater  liberalium  artium  et  literarum, 
philosophorum  nutrix  et  fons  omnium  scientiarum  Grasciam  decoravit,  sic 
Parisise  nostris  temporibus,  non  solum  Franciam  imo  totius  Europae  partem 
residuam  in  scientia  et  in  moribus  sublimarunt.  Nam  velut  sapientiae  mater, 
de  omnibus  mundi  partibus  advenientes  recolligunt,  omnibus  in  necessariis 
subveniunt,  pacifice  omnes  regunt  ..."  "  Bartholomsei  Anglici  De  .  .  . 
Rerum  .  .  .  Proprietatibus  Libri  xviii. ,"  ed.  Pontanus,  Francfort,  1609, 
8vo.     Book  xv.  chap.  57,  "  De  Francia,"  p.  653. 

2  "  Philobiblon,"  ed.  Thomas,  chap.  viii.  p.  69.  Cf.  Neckham,  "  De 
Naturis  Rerum,"  chap,  clxxiv.  (Rolls,  1863,  p.  311). 


17©  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

a  fusion  took  place  between  the  theological  school  of 
Notre-Dame,  where  shone,  towards  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  Guillaume  de  Champeaux,  and  the  schools  of 
logic  that  Abelard's  teaching  gave  birth  to  on  St.  Gene- 
vieve's Mount.  This  state  of  things  was  not  created,  but 
consecrated  by  Pope  Innocent  III.,  a  former  student  at 
Paris,  who  by  his  bulls  of  1208  and  1209  formed  the 
masters  and  students  into  one  association,  universilas* 

According  to  a  mediaeval  custom,  which  has  been 
perpetuated  in  the  East,  and  is  still  found  for  instance  at 
the  great  University  of  El  Azhar  at  Cairo,  the  students 
were  divided  into  nations  :  France,  Normandy,  Picardy, 
England.  It  was  a  division  by  races,  and  not  by 
countries  ;  the  idea  of  mother  countries  politically  divided 
being  excluded,  in  theory  at  least,  from  the  Latin  realm. 
Thus  the  Italians  were  included  in  the  French  nation,  and 
the  Germans  in  the  English  one.  Of  all  these  foreigners 
the  English  were  the  most  numerous  ;  they  had  in  Paris 
six  colleges  for  theology  alone. 

The  faculties  were  four  in  number :  theology,  law, 
medicine,  arts.  The  latter,  though  least  in  rank,  was  the 
most  important  from  the  number  of  its  pupils,  and  was  a 
preparation  for  the  others.  The  student  of  arts  was  about 
fifteen  years  of  age  ;  he  passed  a  first  degree  called 
"  determinance  "  or  bachelorship  ;  then  a  second  one,  the 
licence,  after  which,  in  a  solemn  ceremony  termed  inceptio, 
the  corporation  of  masters  invested  him  with  the  cap,  the 
badge  of  mastership.  He  had  then,  according  to  his 
pledge,  to  dispute  for  forty  successive  days  with  every 
comer  ;  then,  still  very  youthful,  and  frequently  beardless, 
he  himself  began  to  teach.  A  master  who  taught  was 
called  a  Regent,  Magister.  regens. 

1  On  the  old  University  of  Faris,  see  Ch.  Thurot's  excellent  essay  :  "  De 
l'organisation  de  l'enseignement  dans  l'Universite  de  Paris  au    moyen   age,' 
Paris,   1850,  8vo.     The  four  nations,  p.   16;  the  English  nation,  p.  32;  its 
colleges,  p.   28 ;  the  degrees  in  the  faculty  of  arts,  pp.  43  ff. 


LATIN.  171 

The  principal  schools  were  situated  in  the  "  rue  du 
Fouarre  "  (straw,  litter),  "  vico  degli  Strami,"  says  Dante,  a 
street  that  still  exists  under  the  same  name,  but  the  ancient 
houses  of  which  are  gradually  disappearing.  In  this 
formerly  dark  and  narrow  street,  surrounded  by  lanes  with 
names  carrying  us  far  back  into  the  past  ("  rue  de  la 
Parcheminerie,"  &c),  the  most  illustrious  masters  taught, 
and  the  most  singular  disorders  arose.  The  students  come 
from  the  four  corners  of  Europe  without  a  farthing,  having, 
in  consequence,  nothing  to  lose,  and  to  whom  ample 
privileges  had  been  granted,  did  not  shine  by  their 
discipline.  Neither  was  the  population  of  the  quarter  an 
exemplary  one.1  We  gather  from  the  royal  ordinances 
that  the  rue  du  Fouarre,  "  vicus  ultra  parvum  pontem, 
vocatus  gallice  la  rue  du  Feurre,"  had  to  be  closed  at  night 
by  barriers  and  chains,  because  of  individuals  who  had  the 
wicked  habit  of  establishing  themselves  at  night,  with  their 
nbaudes,  "  mulieres  immundae  ! "  in  the  lecture-rooms,  and 
leaving,  on  their  departure,  by  way  of  a  joke,  the  professor's 
chair  covered  with  "  horrible  "  filth.  Far  from  feeling  any 
awe,  these  evil-doers  found,  on  the  contrary,  a  special 
amusement  in  the  idea  of  perpetrating  their  jokes  in  the 
sanctum  of  philosophers,  who,  says  the  ordinance  of  the 
wise  king  Charles  V.,  "should  be  clean  and  honest,  and 
inhabit  clean,  decent,  and  honest  places."  2 

Teaching,  the  principal  object  of  which  was  logic,  con- 
sisted in  the  reading  and  interpreting  of  such  books  as 
were  considered  authorities.  "  The  method  in  expounding 
is    alwavs    the    same.       The    commentator  discusses  in  a 

1  Their  servants  were  of  course  much  worse  in  every  way  ;  they  lived  upon 
thefts,  and  had  even  formed  on  this  account  an  association  with  a  captain  at 
their  head  :  "Cum  essem  Parisius  audivi  quod  garciones  servientes  scholarium, 
qui  omnes  fere  latrunculi  solent  esse,  habebant  quendam  magistrum  qui 
princeps  erat  hujus  modi  latrocinii."  Th.  Wright,  "  Latin  stories  from  MSS. 
of  the  XHIth  and  XlVth  Centuries,"  London,  1842,  tale  No.  cxxv. 

2  May,  1358,  in  Isambert's  "  Recueil  des  anciennes  Lois,"  vol.  v.  p.  26. 


172  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

prologue  some  general  questions  relating  to  the  work  he 
is  about  to  lecture  upon,  and  he  usually  treats  of  its 
material,  formal,  final,  and  efficient  causes.  He  points  out 
the  principal  divisions,  takes  the  first  member  of  the 
division,  subdivides  it,  divides  the  first  member  of  this 
subdivision,  and  thus  by  a  series  of  divisions,  each  being 
successively  cleft  into  two,  he  reaches  a  division  which 
only  comprises  the  first  chapter.  He  applies  to  each  part 
of  the  work  the  same  process  as  to  its  whole.  He  con- 
tinues these  divisions  until  he  comes  to  having  before  him 
only  one  phrase  including  one  single  complete  idea." 

Another  not  less  important  part  of  the  instruction  given 
consisted  in  oratorical  jousts  ;  the  masters  disputed  among 
themselves,  and  the  pupils  did  likewise.  In  a  time  when 
paper  was  scarce  and  parchment  precious,  disputes  replaced 
our  written  exercises.  The  weapons  employed  in  these 
jousts  were  blunt  ones  ;  but  as  in  real  tournaments  where 
"  armes  courtoises"  were  used,  disputants  were  sometimes 
carried  away  by  passion,  and  the  result  was  a  true  battle : 
"  They  scream  themselves  hoarse,  they  lavish  unmannerly 
expressions,  abuse,  threats,  upon  each  other.  They  even 
take  to  cuffing,  kicking,  and  biting."  * 

Under  this  training,  rudimentary  though  it  was,  superior 
minds  became  sharpened,  they  got  accustomed  to  think,  to 
weigh  the  pros  and  cons,  to  investigate  freely  ;  a  taste  for 
intellectual  things  was  kept  up  in  them.  The  greatest 
geniuses  who  had  come  to  study  Aristotle  on  St.  Genevieve's 
Mount  were  always  proud  to  call  themselves  pupils  of 
Paris.  But  narrow  minds  grew  there  more  narrow  ;  they 
remained,  as  Rabelais  will  say  later,  foolish  and  silly, 
dreaming,  stultified  things,  "  tout  niais,  tout  reveux  et 
rassotes."  John  of  Salisbury,  a  brilliant  scholar  of  Paris  in 
the  twelfth  century,  had  the  curiosity  to  come,  after  a  long 
absence,  and  see  his  old  companions  "that  dialectics  still 

1  Thurot,  ut  supra,  pp.  73,  89. 


LA  TIN. 


173 


detained  on  St.  Genevieve's  Mount."  "  I  found  them," 
he  tells  us,  "just  as  I  had  left  them,  and  at  the  same  point ; 
they  had  not  advanced  one  step  in  the  art  of  solving  our 
ancient  questions,  nor  added  to  their  science  the  smallest 
proposition.  ...  I  then  clearly  saw,  what  it  is  easy  to 
discover,  that  the  study  of  dialectics,  fruitful  if  employed 
as  a  means  to  reach  the  sciences,  remain  inert  and  barren 
if  taken  as  being  itself  the  object  of  study."  * 

During  this  time  were  developing,  on  the  borders  of  the 
Isis  and  the  Cam,  the  Universities,  so  famous  since,  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  ;  but  their  celebrity  was  chiefly 
local,  and  they  never  reached  the  international  reputation 
of  the  one  at  Paris.  Both  towns  had  flourishing  schools  in 
the  twelfth  century  ;  in  the  thirteenth,  these  schools  were 
constituted  into  a  University,  on  the  model  of  Paris  ;  they 
were  granted  privileges,  and  the  Pope,  who  would  not  let 
slip  this  opportunity  of  intervening,  confirmed  them.2 

The  rules  of  discipline,  the  teaching,  and  the  degrees  are 
the  same  as  at  Paris.  The  turbulence  is  just  as  great ; 
there  are  incessant  battles  ;  battles  between  the  students  of 
the  North  and  those  of  the  South,  "  boreales  et  australes," 
between  the  English  and  Irish,  between  the  clerks  and  the 
laity.  In  12 14  some  clerks  are  hung  by  the  citizens  of  the 
town  ;  the  Pope's  legate  instantly  makes  the  power  of  Rome 
felt,  and  avenges  the  insult  sustained  by  privileged  persons 
belonging  to  the  Latin  country.  During  ten  years  the 
inhabitants  of  Oxford  shall  remit  the  students  half  their 
rent ;  they  shall  pay  down  fifty-two  shillings  each  year  on 

1  In  his  "  Metalogicus,"  "Opera  Omnia,"  ed.  Giles,  Oxford,  1848,  5  vols. 
8vo,  vol.  v.  p.  81. 

2  Innocent  IV.  confirms  (ab.  1254)  all  the  "  immunitates  et  laudabiles, 
antiquas,  rationabiles  consuetudines"  of  Oxford  :  "  Nulli  ergo  hominum  liceat 
hanc  paginam  nostra  protectionis  infringere  vel  ausu  temerario  contraire." 
"  Munimenta  Academica,  or  documents  illustrative  of  academical  life  and 
studies  at  Oxford,"  ed.  Anstey,  1868,  Rolls,  2  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  26.  Cf. 
W.  E.  Gladstone,  "An  Academic  Sketch,"  Oxford,  1892. 


174  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

St.  Nicholas'  day,  in  favour  of  indigent  students  ;  and  they 
shall  give  a  banquet  to  a  hundred  poor  students.  Even 
the  bill  of  fare  is  settled  by  the  Roman  authority  :  bread, 
ale,  soup,  a  dish  of  fish  or  of  meat ;  and  this  for  ever.  The 
perpetrators  of  the  hanging  shall  come  barefooted,  without 
girdle,  cloak  or  hat,  to  remove  their  victims  from  their 
temporary  resting-place,  and,  followed  by  all  the  citizens, 
bury  them  with  their  own  hands  in  the  place  assigned  to 
them  in  consecrated  ground. 

In  1252  the  Irish  and  "Northerners"  begin  to  fight  in 
St.  Mary's  Church.  They  are  obliged  by  authority  to 
appoint  twelve  delegates,  who  negotiate  a  treaty  of  peace. 
In  1 3 1 3  a  prohibition  is  proclaimed  against  bearing  names 
of  nations,  these  distinctions  being  a  constant  source  of 
quarrels.  In  1334  such  numbers  of  "  Surrois "  and 
"  Norrois "  clerks  are  imprisoned  in  Oxford  Castle  after 
a  battle,  that  the  sheriff  declares  escapes  are  sure  to  occur.1 
In  1354  a  student,  seated  in  a  tavern,  "in  taberna  vini," 
pours  a  jug  of  wine  over  the  tavern-keeper's  head,  and 
breaks  the  jug  upon  it.  Unfortunately  the  head  is  broken 
as  well  ;  the  "  laity  "  take  the  part  of  the  victim,  pursue 
the  clerks,  kill  twenty  of  them,  and  fling  their  bodies  "  in 
latrinas  "  ;  they  even  betake  themselves  to  the  books  of 
the  students,  and  "  slice  them  with  knives  and  hatchets." 
During  that  term  "  oh  !  woe !  no  degrees  in  Logic  were 
taken  at  the  University  of  Oxford."  2  In  1364  war  breaks 
out  acain  between  the  citizens  and  students,  "  commissum 
fuit  bellum,"  and  lasts  four  days. 

Regulations,  frequently  renewed,  show  the  nature  of  the 
principal  abuses.  These  laws  pronounce :  excommuni- 
cation against  the  belligerents  ;  exclusion  from  the  Uni- 
versity    against    those    students    who    harboured    "  little 

1  "  Rolls  of  Parliament,"  8  Ed.  III.  vol.  ii.  p.  76. 

2  Robert  of    Avesbury   (a   contemporary,   he   died   ab.    1357),   "  Historia 
Edvardi  tertii,"  ed.  Hearne,  Oxford,  1720,  8vo,  p.  197. 


LATIN.  175 

women "  (mulierculas)  in  their  lodgings,  major  excom- 
munication and  imprisonment  against  those  who  amuse 
themselves  by  celebrating  bacchanals  in  churches,  masked, 
disguised,  and  crowned  "  with  leaves  or  flowers  "  ;  all  this 
about  1250.  The  statutes  of  University  Hall,  1292,  pro- 
hibit the  fellows  from  fighting,  from  holding  immodest 
conversations  together,  from  telling  each  other  love  tales, 
"fubulas  de  amasiis,"  and  from  singing  improper  songs.1 

The  lectures  bore  on  Aristotle,  Boethius,  Priscian,  and 
Donatus  ;  Latin  and  French  were  studied  ;  the  fellows 
were  bound  to  converse  together  in  Latin  ;  a  regulation 
also  prescribed  that  the  scholars  should  be  taught  Latin 
prosody,  and  accustomed  to  write  epistles  "  in  decent 
language,  without  emphasis  or  hyperbole,  .  .  .  and  as 
much  as  possible  full  of  sense."  2  Objectionable  passages 
are  to  be  avoided  ;  Ovid's  "  Art  of  Love  "  and  the  book 
of  love  by  Pamphilus  are  prohibited. 

From  the  thirteenth  century  foundations  increase  in 
number,  both  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  Now  "  chests  " 
are  created,  a  kind  of  pawnbroking  institution  for  the 
benefit  of  scholars  ;  now  a  college  is  created  like  University 
College,  the  most  ancient  of  all,  founded  by  William  of 
Durham,  who  died  in  1249,  or  New  College,  established  by 
the  illustrious  Chancellor  of  Edward  III.  William  of  Wyke- 
ham.  Sometimes  books  are  bequeathed,  as  by  Richard 
de  Bury  and  Thomas  de  Cobham  in  the  fourteenth  century, 


1  "  Vivant  omnes  honeste,  ut  clerici,  prout  decet  sanctos,  non  pugnantes, 
non  scurrilia  vel  turpia  loquentes,  non  cantilenas  sive  falulas  de  amasiis  vel 
luxuriosis,  aut  ad  libidinem  sonantibus  narrantes,  cantantes  aut  libenter 
audientes."     "  Munimenta  Academica,"  i.  p.  60. 

2  Regulation  of  uncertain  date  belonging  to  the  thirteenth  (or  more  probably 
to  the  fourteenth)  century,  concerning  pupils  in  grammar  schools ;  they  will  be 
taught  prosody,  and  will  write  verses  and  epistles  :  "  Literas  compositas  verbis 
decentibus,  non  ampullosis  aut  sesquipedalibus  et  quantum  possint  sententia 
refertis."  They  will  learn  Latin,  English,  and  French  "in  gallico  ne  lingua 
ilia  penitus  sit  omissa."     "  Munimenta  Academica,"  i.  p.  437. 


176  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

or  by  Humphrey  of  Gloucester,  in  the  fifteenth.1  The 
journey  to  Paris  continues  a  title  to  respect,  but  it  is  no 
longer  indispensable. 

III. 

With  these  resources  at  hand,  and  encouraged  by  the 
example  of  rulers  such  as  Henry  "Beauclerc"  and  Henry 
II.,  the  subjects  of  the  kings  of  England  latinised  them- 
selves in  great  numbers,  and  produced  some  of  the  Latin 
writings  which  enjoyed  the  widest  reputation  throughout 
civilised  Europe.  They  handle  the  language  with  such 
facility  in  the  twelfth  century,  one  might  believe  it  to  be 
their  mother-tongue  ;  the  chief  monuments  of  English 
thought  at  this  time  are  Latin  writings.  Latin  tales, 
chronicles,  satires,  sermons,  scientific  and  medical  works, 
treatises  on  style,  prose  romances,  and  epics  in  verse,  all 
kinds  of  composition  are  produced  by  Englishmen  in 
considerable  numbers. 

One  of  them  writes  a  poem  in  hexameters  on  the  Trojan 
war,  which  doubtless  bears  traces  of  barbarism,  but  more 
resembles  antique  models  than  any  other  imitation  made 
in  Europe  at  the  time.  It  was  attributed  to  Cornelius 
Nepos,  so  late  even  as  the  Renaissance,  though  the  author, 
Joseph   of  Exeter,2  who  composed  it  between    1178  and 

1  Another  sign  of  the  times  consists  in  the  number  of  episcopal  letters 
authorizing  ecclesiastics  to  leave  their  diocese  and  go  to  the  University.  Thus, 
for  example,  Richard  de  Kellawe,  bishop  of  Durham,  1310-16,  writes  to 
Robert  de  Eyrum  :  "  Quum  per  viros  literatos  Dei  consuevit  Ecclesia  venustari, 
cupientibus  in  agro  studii  laborare  et  acquirere  sciential  margaritam  .  .  . 
favorem  libenter  et  gratiam  impertimus  .  .  .  ut  in  loco  ubi  generale  viget 
studium,  a  data  prsesentium  usque  in  biennium  revolutum  morari  valeas." 
"  Registrum  Palatinum  Dunelmense,"  ed.  Hardy,  Rolls,  1873,  4  vols.  8vo, 
vol.  i.  p.  288  (many  other  similar  letters). 

2  Josephus  Exoniensis,  or  Iscanus,  followed  Archbishop  Baldwin  to  the 
crusade  in  favour  of  which  this  prelate  had  delivered  the  sermons,  and  under- 
taken the  journey  in  Wales  described  by  Gerald  de  Barry.  Joseph  sang  the 
expedition  in  a  Latin  poem,  "  Antiocheis,"  of  which  a  few  lines  only  have 


LATIN.  i;7 

1 183,  had  dedicated  his  work  to  Baldwin,  archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  and  mentioned  in  it  Arthur,  "  fios  regum 
Arthurus,"  whose  return  was  still  expected  by  the  Britons, 
"  Britonum  ridenda  fides."  Joseph  is  acquainted  with  the 
classics  ;  he  has  read  Virgil,  and  follows  to  the  best  of  his 
ability  the  precepts  of  Horace.1  Differing  in  this  from 
Benoit  de  Sainte-More  and  his  contemporaries,  he  depicts 
heroes  that  are  not  knights,  and  who  at  their  death  are 
not  buried  in  Gothic  churches  by  monks  chanting  psalms. 
This  may  be  accounted  a  small  merit ;  at  that  time,  how- 
ever, it  was  anything  but  a  common  one,  and,  in  truth, 
Joseph  of  Exeter  alone  possessed  it. 

In  Latin  poems  of  a  more  modern  inspiration,  much 
ingenuity,  observation,  sometimes  wit,  but  occasionally 
only  commonplace  wisdom,  were  expended  by  Godfrey  of 
Winchester,  who  composed  epigrams  about  the  commence- 
ment of  the  twelfth  century  ;  by  Henry  of  Huntingdon, 
the  historian  who  wrote  some  also  ;  by  Alexander  Neck- 
ham,  author  of  a  prose  treatise  on  the  "  Natures  of 
Things  "  ;  Alain  de  l'lsle  and  John  de  Hauteville,  who 
both,  long  before  Jean  de  Meun,  made  Nature  discourse, 
"  de  omni  re  scibili"2;  Walter  the  Englishman,  and  Odo 

been  preserved.  In  his  Trojan  poem  he  follows,  as  a  matter  of  course,  Dares ; 
the  work  was  several  times  printed  in  the  Renaissance  and  since:  "  Josephi 
Iscani  .  .  .  De  Bello  Trojano  libri  .  .  .  auctori  restituti  ...  a  Samuele 
Dresemio,"  Francfort,  1620,  8vo.  The  MS.  lat.  15015  in  the  National 
Library,  Paris,  contains  a  considerable  series  of  explanatory  notes  written  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  concerning  this  poem  (I  printed  the  first  book  of  them). 

1  For  example,  in  his  opening  lines,  where  he  adheres  to  the  simplicity 
recommended  in  "  Ars  Poetica  "  : 

Iliadum  lacrymas  concessaque  Pergama  fatis, 
Praslia  bina  ducum,  bis  adactam  cladibus  urbem, 
In  cineres  qurerimus. 

2  "Anglo-Latin  satirical  poets  and  epigrammatists  of  the  Xllth  Century,"  ed. 
Th.  Wright,  London,  1S72,  Rolls,  2  vols.  8vo;  contains,  among  other  works  : 
"  Godfredi  prioris  Epigrammata"  (one  in  praise  of  the  Conqueror,  vol.  ii. 
p.  149);  "  Henrici  archidiaconi  Historise  liber  undecimus"  (that  is,  Henry  of 
Huntingdon,   fine    epigram    "  in    seipsura,"    vol.     ii.    p.    163)  ;    "  Alexandri 

13 


178  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

of  Cheriton,  authors  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries 
of  Latin  fables,1  and  last,  and  above  all,  by  Nigel  Wireker, 
who  wrote  in  picturesque  style  and  flowing  verse  the  story 
of  Burnellus,  the  ass  whose  tail  was  too  short.2 

Burnellus,  type  of  the  ambitious  monk,  escapes  from  his 
stable,  and  wishes  to  rise  in  the  world.  He  consults 
Galen,  who  laughs  at  him,  and  sends  him  to  Salerno.3  At 
Salerno  he  is  again  made  a  fool  of,  and  provided  with 
elixirs,  warranted  to  make  his  tail  grow  to  a  beautiful 
length.  But  in  passing  through  Lyons  on  his  return,  he 
quarrels  with  the  dogs  of  a  wicked  monk  called  Fromond  ; 
while  kicking  right  and  left  he  kicks  off  his  vials,  which 
break,  while  Grimbald,  the  dog,  cuts  off  half  his  tail.  A 
sad  occurrence  !  He  revenges  himself  on  Fromond,  how- 
ever, by  drowning  him  in  the  Rhone,  and,  lifting  up  his 
voice,  he  makes  then  the  valley  ring  with  a  "  canticle  " 
celebrating  his  triumph.4 

What  can  he  do  next  ?  It  is  useless  for  him  to  think  of 
attaining  perfection  of  form  ;  he  will  shine  by  his  science  ; 
he  will  go   to   the    University  of  Paris,  that   centre  of  all 

Neckham  De  Vita  Monachorum  "  (the  same  wrote  a  number  of  treatises  on 
theological,  scientific,  and  grammatical  subjects ;  see  especially  his  "  De  Naturis 
Rerum,"  ed.  Wright,  Rolls,  1863);  "  Alani  Liber  de  Planctu  Naturae"  {cf. 
"  Opera,"  Antwerp,  1654,  fob,  the  nationality  of  Alain  de  l'lsle  is  doubtful)  ; 
"  Toannis  de  Altavilla  Architrenius  "(that  is  the  arch-weeper;  lamentations 
of  a  young  man  on  his  past,  his  faults,  the  faults  of  others ;  Nature  comforts  him 
and  he  marries  Moderation  ;  the  author  was  a  Norman,  and  wrote  ab.  11 84). 

1  For  the  Latin  fables  of  Walter  the  Englishman,  Odo  de  Cheriton,  Neckham, 
&c,  see  Hervieux,  "  les  Fabulistes  latins,"  Paris,  1883-4,  2  vols,  (text, 
commentary,  &c). 

2  "Speculum  Stultorum,"  in  Wright,  "Anglo-Latin  satirical  poets";  ut  supra. 
Nigel  (twelfth  century)  had  for  his  patron  William  de  Longchamp,  bishop 
ot  Ely  (see  above,  p.    163),  and  fulfilled  ecclesiastical  functions  in  Canterbury. 

3  In  titulo  caudae  Francorum  rex  Ludovicus 

Non  tibi  prrecellit  pontificesve  sui.     (Vol.  i.  p.  17.) 

4  Cantemus,  socii  !  festum  celebremus  aselli ! 

Vocibus  et  votis  organa  nostra  sonent. 
Exultent  asini,  lreti  modulentur  aselli, 

Laude  sonent  celebri  tympana,  sistra,  chori  !     (p.  48.) 


LATIN.  179 

light  ;  he  will  bscome  "  Magister,"  and  be  appointed 
bishop.  The  people  will  bow  down  to  him  as  he  passes  ; 
it  is  a  dream  of  bliss,  La  Fontaine's  story  of  the  "  Pot  au 
Lait." 

He  reaches  Paris,  and  naturally  matriculates  among  the 
English  nation.  He  falls  to  studying  ;  at  the  end  of  a 
year  he  has  been  taught  many  things,  but  is  only  able  to 
say  "  ya "  (semper  ya  repetit).  He  continues  to  work, 
scourges  himself,  follows  the  lectures  for  many  years,  but 
still  knows  nothing  but  "  ya,"  and  remains  an  ass.1  What 
then  ?  He  will  found  an  abbey,  the  rule  of  which  shall 
combine  the  delights  of  all  the  others  :  it  will  be  possible 
to  gossip  there  as  at  Grand mont,  to  leave  fasting  alone  as 
at  Cluny,  to  dress  warmly  as  among  the  Premonstrant,  and 
to  have  a  female  friend  like  the  secular  canons  ;  it  will 
be  a  Theleme  even  before  Rabelais. 

But  suddenly  an  unexpected  personage  appears  on  the 
scene,  the  donkey's  master,  Bernard  the  peasant,  who  had 
long  been  on  the  look-out  for  him,  and  by  means  of  a  stick 
the  magister,  bishop,  mitred  abbot,  is  led  back  to  his  stall. 

Not  satisfied  with  the  writing  of  Latin  poems,  the  sub- 
jects of  the  English  kings  would  construct  theories  and 
establish  the  rules  of  the  art.  It  was  carrying  boldness 
very  far  ;  they  did  not  realise  that  theories  can  only  be  laid 
down  with  safety  in  periods  of  maturity,  and  that  in  formu- 
lating them  too  early  there  is  risk  of  propagating  nothing 
but  the  rules  of  bad  taste.  This  was  the  case  with 
Geoffrey  de  Vinesauf,  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century.     Geoffrey  is  sure  of  himself  ;  he  learnedly  joins 

1  Jam  pertransierat  Burnellus  tempora  multa 
Et  prope  completus  Septimus  annus  erat, 

Cum  nihil  ex  toto  quodcunque  docente  magistro 
Aut  socio  potuit  discere  prseter  ya. 

Quod  natura  dedit,  quod  secum  detulit  illuc, 
Hoc  habet,  hoc  illo  nemo  tulisse  potest  .  .  . 

Semper  ya  repetit.     (p.  64.) 


180  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

example  to  precept,  he  juggles  with  words  ;  he  soars  on 
high,  far  above  men  of  good  sense.  It  was  with  great 
reason  his  work  was  called  the  New  art  of  poetry,  "  Nova 
Poetria,"  x  for  it  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  old  one, 
with  Horace's.  It  is  dedicated  to  the  Pope,  and  begins  by 
puns  on  the  name  of  Innocent  2  ;  it  closes  with  a  com- 
parison between  the  Pope  and  God  :  "  Thou  art  neither 
God  nor  man,  but  an  intermediary  being  whom  God  has 
taken  into  partnership.  .  .  .  Not  wishing  to  keep  all  for 
himself,  he  has  taken  heaven  and  given  thee  earth  ;  what 
could  he  do  better  ?  "  3 

Precepts  and  examples  are  in  the  same  style.  Geoffrey 
teaches  how  to  praise,  blame,  and  ridicule  ;  he  gives 
models  of  good  prosopopoeias ;  prosopopoeias  for  times 
of  happiness  :  an  apostrophe  to  England  governed  by 
Richard  Cceur-de-Lion  (we  know  how  well  he  governed) ; 
prosopopoeia  for  times  of  sorrow :  an  apostrophe  to 
England,  whose  sovereign  (this  same  Richard)  has  been 
killed  on  a  certain  Friday  : 

"  England,  of  his  death  thou  thyself  diest !  .  .  .  O 
lamentable  day  of  Venus !  O  cruel  planet !  this  day  has 
been  thy  night,  this  Venus  thy  venom  ;  by  her  wert  thou 

1  "  Galfridi  de  Vinosalvo  Ars  Poetica,"  ed.  Leyser,  Helmstadt,  1724,  8vo. 
He  wrote  other  works  ;  an  "  Itinerarium  regis  Anglorum  Richardi  I."  (text  in 
the  "  Rerum  Anglicarum  Scriptores"  of  Gale,  1684  ff.,  fol.,  vol.  ii.)  has  been 
attributed  to  him,  but  there  are  grave  doubts  ;  see  Haureau,  "  Notices  et  Ex- 
traits  des  Manuscrits,"  vol.  xxix.  pp.  321  ff.  According  to  Stubbs  ("  Itinera- 
rium peregrinorum  et  Gesta  Regis  Ricardi,"  1864,  Rolls),  the  real  author  is 
Richard,  canon  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  London. 

2  Papa  stupor  mundi,  si  dixero  Papa  Nocenti : 
Acephalum  nomen  tribuam  tibi ;  si  caput  addam, 
Hostis  erit  metri,  &c. 

3  Nee  Deus  es  nee  homo,  quasi  neuter  es  inter  utrumque, 
Quem  Deus  elegit  socium.     Socialiter  egit 

Tecum,  partibus  mundum.  Sed  noluit  unus 
Omnia.  Sed  voluit  tibi  terras  et  sibi  ccelum. 
Quid  potuit  melius?  quid  majus ?  cui  meliori?     (p.  95.) 


LATIN.  181 

vulnerable !  .  .  .  O  woe  and  more  than  woe  !  O  death  ! 
O  truculent  death  !  O  death.  I  wish  thou  wert  dead  !  It 
pleased  thee  to  remove  the  sun  and  to  obscure  the  soil 
with  obscurity  !  "  x 

Then  follow  counsels  as  to  the  manner  of  treating 
ridiculous  people 2 :  they  come  in  good  time,  and  we 
breathe  again,  but  we  could  have  wished  them  even  more 
stringent  and  sweeping.  Such  exaggerations  make  us 
understand  the  wisdom  of  the  Oxford  regulations  pre- 
scribing simplicity  and  prohibiting  emphasis ;  the  more  so 
if  we  consider  that  Geoffrey  did  not  innovate,  but  merely 
turned  into  rules  the  tastes  of  many.  Before  him  men  of 
comparatively  sound  judgment,  like  Joseph  of  Exeter, 
forgot  themselves  so  far  as  to  apostrophise  in  these  terms 
the  night  in  which  Troy  was  taken  :  "  O  night,  cruel  night ! 
night  truly  noxious  !  troublous,  sorrowful,  traitorous,  san- 
guinary night ! "  3  &c. 

IV. 

The  series  of  Latin  prose  authors  of  that  epoch,  grave  or 
facetious,  philosophers,  moralists,  satirists,  historians,  men 
of  science,  romance  and  tale  writers,  is  still  more  remark- 
able in  England  than  that  of  the  poets.     Had  they  only 

1  Tota  peris  ex  morte  sua.     Mors  non  fuit  ejus, 
Sed  tua.     Non  una,  sed  publica,  mortis  origo. 
O  Veneris  lacrimosa  dies  !  o  sydus  amarum  ! 
Ilia  dies  tua  nox  fuit  et  Venus  ilia  venenum  ; 
Ilia  dedit  vulnus  .  .  . 

O  dolor  !  o  plus  quam  dolor  !  o  mors  !  o  truculenta 
Mors  !     Esses  utinam  mors  mortua  !  quid  meministi 
Ausa  nefas  tantum  ?     Placuit  tibi  tollere  solem 
Et  tenebris  tenebrare  solum,     (p.  18.) 

3  Contra  ridiculos  si  vis  insurgere  plene 
Surge  sub  hac  forma.     Lauda,  sed  ridiculose. 
Argue,  sed  lepide,  &c.     (p.  21.) 

3  Nox,  fera  nox,  vere  nox  noxia,  turbida,  tristis. 
Insidiosa,  ferox,  &c.      ("  De  Bello  Trojano,"  book  vi.  1.  760.) 


1 82  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

suspected  the  importance  of  the  native  language  and  left 
Latin,  several  of  them  would  have  held  a  very  high  rank 
in  the  national  literature. 

Romance  is  represented  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth, 
who  in  the  twelfth  century  wrote  his  famous  "  Historia 
Regum  Britanniae,"  the  influence  of  which  in  England 
and  on  the  Continent  has  already  been  seen.  Prose  tales 
were  written  in  astonishing  quantities,  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries,  by  those  pious  authors  who,  under 
pretext  of  edifying  and  amusing  their  readers  at  the 
same  time,  began  by  amusing,  and  frequently  forgot 
to  edify.  They  put  into  their  collections  all  they  knew 
in  the  way  of  legends,  jokes,  and  facetious  stories. 
England  produced  several  such  collections  ;  their  authors 
usually  add  a  moral  to  their  tales,  but  sometimes 
omit  it,  or  else  they  simply  say :  "  Moralise  as  thou 
wilt  !  " 

In  these  innumerable  well-told  tales,  full  of  sprightly 
dialogue,  can  be  already  detected  something  of  the  art 
of  the  conteur  which  will  appear  in  Chaucer,  and  some- 
thing almost  of  the  art  of  the  novelist,  destined  five 
hundred  years  later  to  reach  such  a  high  development  in 
England.  The  curiosity  of  the  Celt,  reawakened  by  the 
Norman,  is  perpetuated  in  Great  Britain  ;  stories  are 
doted  on  there.  "  It  is  the  custom,"  says  an  English 
author  of  the  thirteenth  century,  "  in  rich  families,  to 
spend  the  winter  evenings  around  the  fire,  telling  tales 
of  former  times.  .  .  ."  * 

Subjects  for  tales  were  not  lacking.  The  last  researches 
have  about  made  it  certain  that  the  immense  "  Gesta 
Romanorum,"  so  popular  in  the  Middle  Ages,  were  compiled 

1  "  Cum  in  hyemis  intemperie  post  cenam  noctu  familia  divitis  ad  focum,  ut 
potentibus  moris  est,  recensendis  antiquis  gestis  operam  daret.  .  .  ."  "Gesta 
Romanorum,"  version  compiled  in  England,  ed.  Hermann  Oesterley,  Berlin, 
1872,  8vo,  chap.  civ. 


LATIN.  183 

in  England  about  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century.1  The 
collection  of  the  English  Dominican  John  of  Bromyard, 
composed  in  the  following  century,  is  still  more  voluminous. 
Some  idea  can  be  formed  of  it  from  the  fact  that  the  printed 
copy  preserved  at  the  National  Library  of  Paris  weighs 
fifteen  pounds.2 

Everything  is  found  in  these  collections,  from  mere  jokes 
and  happy  retorts  to  real  novels.  There  are  coarse  fabliaux 
in  their  embryonic  stage,  objectionable  tales  where  the  frail 
wife  derides  the  injured  husband,  graceful  stories,  miracles 
of  the  Virgin.  We  recognise  in  passing  some  fable  that 
La  Fontaine  has  since  made  famous,  episodes  out  of  the 
"  Roman  de  Renart,"  anecdotes  drawn  from  Roman  history, 
adventures  that,  transformed  and  remodelled,  have  at  length 
found  their  definitive  rendering  in  Shakespeare's  plays. 

All  is  grist  that  comes  to  the  mill  of  these  authors  ;  their 
stories  are  of  French,  Latin,  English,  Hindu  origin.  It  is 
plain,  however,  that  they  write  for  Englishmen,  from  the  fact 
that  many  of  their  stories  are  localised  in  England,  and 
that  quotations  in  English  are  here  and  there  inserted  into 
the  tale.3 

1  Such  is  the  conclusion  come  to  by  Oesterley.  The  original  version, 
according  to  him,  was  written  in  England  ;  on  the  Continent,  where  it  was 
received  with  great  favour,  it  underwent  considerable  alterations,  and  many 
stories  were  added.  The  "Gesta"  have  been  wrongly  attributed  to  Pierre 
Bercheur.  Translations  into  English  prose  were  made  in  the  fifteenth  century  : 
"  The  early  English  version  of  the  Gesta  Romanorum,"  ed.  S.  J.  H.  Herrtage, 
Early  English  Text  Society,  1879,  8vo. 

2  Seven  kilos,  200  gr.  "  Doctissimi  viri  fratris  Johannis  de  Bromyard  .  .  . 
Summ[a]  prasdicantium,"  Nurenberg,  1485,  fol.  The  subjects  are  arranged  in 
alphabetical  order  :  Ebrietas,  Luxuria,  Maria,  &c. 

3  Such  is  the  case  in  several  of  the  stories  collected  by  Th.  Wright :  "A 
Selection  of  Latin  Stories  from  MSS.  of  the  XHIth  and  XIV th  Centuries,  a 
contribution  to  the  History  of  Fiction,"  London,  Percy  Society,  1842,  8vo.  In 
No.  XXII.,  "  De  Muliere  et  Sortilega,"  the  incantations  are  in  English  verse  ; 
in  No.  XXXIV.  occurs  a  praise  of  England,  "  terra  pacis  et  justitke  "  ;  in  No. 
XCVII.  the  hermit  who  got  drunk  repents  and  says  "anglice  "  : 

Whil  that  I  was  sobre  sinne  ne  dede  I  nowht, 

But  in  drunkeschipe  I  dede  ye  werste  that  mihten  be  thowte. 


1 84  THE  FRENCH  INVASION 

In  turning  the  pages  of  these  voluminous  works,  glimpses 
will  be  caught  of  the  Wolf,  the  Fox,  and  Tybert  the  cat ; 
the  Miller,  his  son  and  the  Ass  ;  the  Women  and  the  Secret 
(instead  of  eggs,  it  is  here  a  question  of  "  exceedingly  black 
crows  ") ;  the  Rats  who  wish  to  hang  a  bell  about  the  Cat's 
neck.  Many  tales,  fabliaux,  and  short  stories  will  be  re- 
cognised that  have  become  popular  under  their  French, 
English,  or  Italian  shape,  such  as  the  lay  of  the  "  Oiselet,"  1 
the  "Chienne  qui  pleure,"  or  the  Weeping  Bitch,  the  lay 
of  Aristotle,  the  Geese  of  Friar  Philip,  the  Pear  Tree,  the 
Hermit  who  got  drunk.  Some  of  them  are  very  indecent, 
but  they  were  not  left  out  of  the  collections  on  that  account, 
any  more  than  miniaturists  were  forbidden  to  paint  on  the 
margins  of  holy,  or  almost  holy  books,  scenes  that  were  far 
from  being  so.  A  manuscript  of  the  decretals,  for  example, 
painted  in  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  exhibits  a  series  of  drawings  illustrating  some  of 
these  stories,  and  meant  to  fit  an  obviously  unexpurgated 
text.2 

The  Virgin  plays  her  usual  part  of  an  indulgent  protec- 
tress ;  the  story-tellers  strangely  deviate  from  the  sacred 
type  set  before  them  in  the  Scriptures.  They  represent 
her  as  the  Merciful  One  whose  patience  no  crime  can 
exhaust,  and  whose  goodwill  is  enlisted  by  the  slightest 
act  of  homage.     She  is  transformed  and  becomes  in  their 

1  That  one  in  verse,  with  a  mixture  of  English  words.    Ha !  says  the  peasant : 

Ha  thu  mi  swete  bird,  ego  te  comedam. 

"Early  Mysteries  and  other  Latin  poems  of  the  Xllth  and  XIHth  Centuries," 
ed.  Th.  Wright,  London,  1838,  8vo,  p.  97.  Cf.  G.  Paris,  "  Lai  de  l'Oiselet," 
Paris,  1884. 

2  These  series  of  drawings  in  the  margins  are  like  tales  without  words; 
several  among  the  most  celebrated  of  the  fabliaux  are  thus  represented  ;  among 
others  :  the  Sacristan  and  the  wife  of  the  Knight ;  the  Hermit  who  got  drunk  ; 
a  story  recalling  the  adventures  of  Lazarillo  de  Tormes  (unnoticed  by  the  his- 
torians of  Spanish  fiction),  &c.  Some  drawings  of  this  sort  from  MS.  10  E  iv. 
in  the  British  Museum  are  reproduced  in  "  English  Wayfaring  Life,"  pp. 
21,  28,  405,  &c. 


LATIN.  185 

hands  an  intermediate  being  between  a  saint,  a  goddess, 
and  a  fairy.  The  sacristan-nun  of  a  convent,  beautiful  as 
may  be  believed,  falls  in  love  with  a  clerk,  doubtless  a 
charming  one,  and,  unable  to  live  without  him,  "throws 
her  keys  on  the  altar,  and  roves  with  her  friend  for  five 
years  outside  the  monastery."  Passing  by  the  place  at  the 
end  of  that  time,  she  is  impelled  by  curiosity  to  go  to  the 
convent  and  inquire  concerning  herself,  the  sacristan-nun 
of  former  years.  To  her  great  surprise  she  hears  that  the 
sister  continues  there,  and  edifies  the  whole  community  by 
her  piety.  At  night,  while  she  sleeps,  the  Virgin  appears 
to  her  in  a  vision,  saying  :  "  Return,  unfortunate  one,  to  thy 
convent!  It  is  I  who,  assuming  thy  shape,  have  fulfilled 
thy  duties  until  now."  r  A  conversion  of  course  follows.  A 
professional  thief,  who  robbed  and  did  nothing  besides, 
"always  invoked  the  Virgin  with  great  devotion, even  when 
he  set  out  to  steal."2  He  is  caught  and  hanged  ;  but  the 
Virgin  herself  holds  him  up,  and  keeps  him  alive ;  he  is 
taken  down,  and  turns  monk. 

Another  tale,  of  a  romantic  turn,  is  at  once  charming, 
absurd,  immoral,  edifying,  and  touching :  "  Celestinus 
reigned  in  the  City  of  Rome.  He  was  exceedingly 
prudent,  and  had  a  pretty  daughter."3  A  knight  fell  in 
love  with  her,  but,  being  also  very  prudent  after  a  fashion, 
he  argued  thus  :  "  Never  will  the  emperor  consent  to  give 
me  his  daughter  to  wife,  I  am  not  worthy  ;  but  if  I  could 
in  some  manner  obtain  the  love  of  the  maiden,  I  should 
ask  for  no  more."     He  went  often  to  see  the  princess,  and 

1  "  Redi,  misera,  ad  monasterium,  quia  ego,  sub  tua  specie  usque  modo 
officium  tuum  adimplevi."  Wright's  "  Latin  Stories,"  p.  95.  Same  story 
in  Barbazan  and  Meon,  "  Nouveau  Recueil,"  vol.  ii.  p.  154:  "De  la  Segre- 
taine  qui  devint  fole  au  monde." 

2  "  Latin  Stories,"  p.  97  ;  French  text  in  Barbazan  and  Meon,  vol.  ii.  p. 
443  :  "  Du  larron  qui  se  commandoit  a  Nostre  Dame  toutes  les  fois  qu'il  aloit 
embler." 

3  "  Latin  Stories,"  p.  114,  from  the  version  of  the  "  Gesta  Romanorum," 
compiled  in  England  :  "  De  milite  conventionem  faciente  cum  mercatore." 


1 86  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

tried  to  find  favour  in  her  eyes,  but  she  said  to  him  :  "Thy 
trouble  is  thrown  away  ;  thinkest  thou  I  know  not  what 
all  these  fine  speeches  mean  ?  " 

He  then  offers  money  :  "  It  will  be  a  hundred  marks," 
says  the  emperor's  daughter.  But  \vrhen  evening  comes 
the  knight  falls  into  such  a  deep  sleep  that  he  only  awakes 
on  the  following  morning.  The  knight  ruins  himself  in 
order  to  obtain  the  same  favour  a  second  time,  and  suc- 
ceeds no  better  than  at  first.  He  has  spent  all  he  had, 
and,  more  in  love  than  ever,  he  journeys  afar  to  seek  a 
lender.  He  arrives  "  in  a  town  where  were  many  merchants, 
and  a  variety  of  philosophers,  among  them  master  Virgil." 
A  merchant,  a  man  of  singular  humour,  agrees  to  lend 
the  money  ;  he  refuses  to  take  the  lands  of  the  young 
man  as  a  security  ;  "  but  thou  shalt  sign  with  thy  blood 
the  bond,  and  if  thou  dost  not  return  the  entire  sum  on 
the  appointed  day,  I  shall  have  the  right  to  remove  with  a 
well-sharpened  knife  ail  the  flesh  off  thy  body." 

The  knight  signs  in  haste,  for  he  is  possessed  by  his 
passion,  and  he  goes  to  consult  Virgil.  "  My  good 
master,"  he  says,  using  the  same  expression  as  Dante, 
"  I  need  your  advice  ; "  and  Virgil  then  reveals  to  him 
the  existence  of  a  talisman,  sole  cause  of  his  irresistible 
desire  to  sleep.  The  knight  returns  with  speed  to  the 
strange  palace  inhabited  by  the  still  stranger  daughter  of 
this  so  "  prudent  "  emperor  ;  he  removes  the  talisman,  and 
is  no  longer  overpowered  by  sleep. 

To  many  tears  succeeds  a  mutual  affection,  so  true,  so 
strong,  accompanied  by  so  much  happiness,  that  both 
forget  the  fatal  date.  However,  start  he  must.  "  Go,"  says 
the  maiden,  and  offer  him  double,  or  treble  the  sum  ;  offer 
him  all  the  gold  he  wishes  ;  I  will  procure  it  for  thee." 
He  arrives,  he  offers,  but  the  merchant  refuses  :  "  Thou 
speakest  in  vain  !  Wert  thou  to  offer  me  all  the  wealth  of 
the  city,  nothing  would  I  accept  but  what  has  been  signed, 


LATIN.  187 

sealed,  and  settled  between  us."    They  go  before  the  judge  ; 
the  sentence  is  not  a  doubtful  one. 

The  maiden,  however,  kept  herself  well  informed  of  all 
that  went  on,  and,  seeing  the  turn  affairs  were  taking,  "■  she 
cut  her  hair,  donned  a  rich  suit  of  men's  clothes,  mounted 
a  palfrey,  and  set  out  for  the  palace  where  her  lover  was 
about  to  hear  his  sentence."  She  asks  to  be  allowed  to 
defend  the  knight.  "  But  nothing  can  be  done,"  says  the 
judge.  She  offers  money  to  the  merchant,  which  he 
refuses  ;  she  then  exclaims  :  "  Let  it  be  done  as  he 
desires  ;  let  him  have  the  flesh,  and  nothing  but  the  flesh  ; 
the  bond  says  nothing  of  the  blood."  Hearing  this,  the 
merchant  replies  :  "  Give  me  my  money  and  I  hold  you 
clear  of  the  rest."  "  Not  so,"  said  the  maiden.  The 
merchant  is  confounded,  the  knight  released  ;  the  maiden 
returns  home  hurriedly,  puts  on  her  female  attire,  and 
hastens  out  to  meet  her  lover,  eager  to  hear  all  that  has 
passed. 

"  O  my  dear  mistress,  that  I  love  above  all  things,  I 
nearly  lost  my  life  this  day  ;  but  as  I  was  about  to  be 
condemned,  suddenly  appeared  a  knight  of  an  admirable 
presence,  so  handsome  that  I  never  saw  his  like."  How 
could  she,  at  these  words,  prevent  her  sparkling  eyes  from 
betraying  her  ?  "  He  saved  me  by  his  wisdom,  and  nought 
had  I  even  to  pay. 

"  The  Maiden. — Thou  might'st  have  been  more  generous, 
and  brought  home  to  supper  the  knight  who  had  saved 
thy  life. 

"  The  Knight. — He  appeared  and  disappeared  so  suddenly 
I  could  not. 

"  The  Maiden. — Would'st  thou  recognise  him  again  if  he 
returned  ? 

"  The  Knight. — I  should,  assuredly."  r 

1  "  Ait  miles,  '  o  carissima  domina,  mihi  prse  omnibus  prsedilecta  hodie  fere 
vitam  amsi ;  sed   cum  ad   mortem  judicari  debuissem,  intravit  subito  quidam 


1 88  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

She  then  puts  on  again  her  male  attire,  and  it  is  easy  to 
imagine  with  what  transports  the  knight  beheld  his  saviour 
in  his  friend.  The  end  of  this  first  outline  of  a  "  Merchant 
of  Venice "  is  not  less  naive,  picturesque,  and  desultory 
than  the  rest :  "  Thereupon  he  immediately  married  the 
maiden,"  and  they  led  saintly  lives.  We  are  not  told 
what  the  prudent  emperor  Celestinus  thought  of  this 
"  immediately'' 

Next  to  these  compilers  whose  works  became  celebrated, 
but  whose  names  for  the  most  part  remained  concealed, 
were  professional  authors,  who  were  and  wanted  to  be 
known,  and  who  enjoyed  a  great  personal  fame.  Fore- 
most among  them  were  John  of  Salisbury  and  Walter 
Map. 

John  of  Salisbury,1  a  former  pupil  of  Abelard,  a  friend 
of  St.  Bernard,  Thomas  Becket,  and  the  English  Pope 
Adrian  IV.,  the  envoy  of  Henry  II.  to  the  court  of  Rome, 
which  he  visited  ten  times  in  twelve  years,  writes  in  Latin 
his  ''  Policratic,"  2  or  "  De  nugis  Curialium,"  his  "  M  eta- 
logic,"    his    "  Enthetic "    (in    verse),    and    his    eulogy   on 

miles  formosus  valde,  bene  militem  tam  formosum  nunquam  antea  vidi,  et  me 
per  prudentiam  suam  non  tantum  a  morte  salvavit,  sed  etiam  me  ab  omni  solu- 
tione  pecuniae  liberavit.'  Ait  puella  :  '  Ergo  ingratus  fuisti  quod  militem  ad 
prandium,  quia  vitam  tuam  taliter  salvavit,  non  invitasti.'  Ait  miles  :  '  Subito 
intravit  et  subito  exivit. '  Ait  puella  :  '  Si  cum  jam  videres,  haberes  notitiam 
ejus  ?  '     At  ille  '  Etiam  optime.'  "     Ibid. 

1  Born  ab.  1 120.  To  him  it  was  that  Pope  Adrian  IV.  (Nicholas  Break- 
speare)  delivered  the  famous  bull  "  Laudabiliter,"  which  gave  Ireland  to 
Henry  II.  Adrian  had  great  friendship  for  John  :  "  Fatebatur  etiam,"  John 
wrote  somewhat  conceitedly,  "  publice  et  secreto  quod  me  prse  omnibus 
mortalibus  diligebat.  .  .  .  Et  quum  Romanus  pontifex  esset,  me  in  propria 
mensa  gaudebat  habere  convivum,  et  eundem  scyphum  et  discum  sibi  et  mihi 
volebat,  et  faciebat,  me  renitente,  esse  communem  "  ("  Metalogicus,"  in  the 
"Opera  Omnia,"  ed.  Giles,  vol.  v.  p.  205).  John  of  Salisbury  died  in  1180, 
being  then  bishop  of  Chartres,  a  dignity  to  which  he  had  been  raised,  he  said, 
"divina  dignatione  et  mentis  Sancti  Thomse  "  (Demimuid,  "Jean  de  Salis- 
bury," 1873,  p.  275).  The  very  fine  copy  of  John's  "  Policraticus,"  which 
belonged  to  Richard  de  Bury,  is  now  in  the  British  Museum :  MS.  13  D  iv. 

2  From  7roXic  and  xpanlv. 


LATIN.  189 

Becket.1  John  is  only  too  well  versed  in  the  classics,  and 
he  quotes  them  to  an  extent  that  does  more  credit  to  his 
erudition  than  to  his  taste  ;  but  he  has  the  gift  of  observa- 
tion, and  his  remarks  on  the  follies  of  his  time  have  a  great 
historical  value.  In  his  "Policratic  "  is  found  a  satire  on  a 
sort  of  personage  who  was  then  beginning  to  play  his  part 
again,  after  an  interruption  of  several  centuries,  namely,  the 
curialis,  or  courtier  ;  a  criticism  on  histrions  who,  with 
their  indecent  farces,  made  a  rough  prelude  to  modern 
dramatic  art ;  a  caricature  of  those  fashionable  singers  who 
disgraced  the  religious  ceremonies  in  the  newly  erected 
cathedrals  by  their  songs  resembling  those  "  of  women  .  .  . 
of  sirens  ...  of  nightingales  and  parrots."  2  He  ridicules 
hunting-monks,  and  also  those  chiromancers  for  whom 
Becket  himself  had  a  weakness.  "  Above  all,"  says  John, 
by  way  of  conclusion  and  apology,  "  let  not  the  men  of 
the  Court  upbraid  me  with  the  follies  I  trust  them  with  ; 
let  them  know  I  did  not  mean  them  in  the  least,  I  satirised 
only  myself  and  those  like  me,  and  it  would  be  hard  indeed 
if  I  were  forbidden  to  castigate  both  myself  and  my  peers."  3 
In  his  "  Metalogic,"  he  scoffs  at  the  vain  dialectics  of  silly 
logicians,  Cornificians,  as  he  calls  them,  an  appellation  that 
stuck  to  them  all  through  the  Middle  Ages,  and  at  their  long 


1 


"Joannis  Saresberiensis  .  .   .  Opera   omnia,"  ed.    Giles,    Oxford,   1848, 
5  vols.  8vo,  "  Patres  Ecclesise  Anglicanse." 

2  "  Ipsum  quoque  cultum  religionis  incestat,  quod  ante  conspectum  Domini, 
in  ipsis  penetralibus  sanctuarii,  lascivientis  vocis  luxu,  quadam  ostentatione 
sui,  muliebribus  modis  notularum  articulorumque  CEesuris  stupentes  animulas 
emollire  nituntur.  Quum  praecinentium  et  succinentium,  canentium  et  deci- 
nentium,  pnemolles  modulationes  audieris,  Sirenarum  concentus  credas  esse, 
non  hominum,  et  de  vocum  facilitate  miraberis  quibus  philomena  vel  psitaccus, 
aut  si  quid  sonorius  est,  modos  suos  nequeunt  cosequare."  "  Opera,"  vol.  iii. 
p.  38  (see  on  this  same  subject,  below,  p.  446). 

3  "  Quae  autem  de  curialibus  nugis  dicta  sunt,  in  nullo  eorum,  sed  forte  in  me 
aut  mei  similibusdeprehendi ;  et  plane  nimis  arcta  lege  constringor,  si  meipsum 
et  amicos  castigare  et  emendare  non  licet."  "  Opera,"  vol.  iv.  p.  379  (Mau- 
passant used  to  put  forth  in  conversation  exactly  the  same  plea  as  an  apology 
for  "  Bel-Ami.") 


i9o  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

phrases  interlarded  with  so  many  negative  particles  that,  in 
order  to  find  out  whether  yes  or  no  was  meant,  it  became 
necessary  to  examine  if  the  number  of  noes  was  an  odd  or 

even  one. 

Bold  ideas  abound  with  John  of  Salisbury  ;  he  praises 
Brutus  ;  he  is  of  opinion  that  the  murder  of  tyrants 
is  not  only  justifiable,  but  an  honest  and  commendable 
deed  :  "  Non  modo  licitum  est,  sed  aequum  et  justum." 
Whatever  may  be  the  apparent  prosperity  of  the  great,  the 
State  will  go  to  ruin  if  the  common  people  suffer :  "  When 
the  people  suffer,  it  is  as  though  the  sovereign  had  the 
gout " 1  ;  he  must  not  imagine  he  is  in  health  ;  let  him  try 
to  walk,  and  down  he  falls. 

Characteristics  of  the  same  sort  are  found,  with  much  more 
sparkling  wit,  in  the  Latin  works  of  Walter  Map.2  This 
Welshman  has  the  vivacity  of  the  Celts  his  compatriots ; 
he  was  celebrated  at  the  court  of  Henry  II.,  and  through- 
out England  for  his  repartees  and  witticisms,  so  celebrated 
indeed  that  he  himself  came  to  agree  to  others'  opinion, 
and  thought  them  worth  collecting.  He  thus  formed  a 
very  bizarre  book,  without  beginning  or  end,  in  which  he 
noted,  day  by  day,3  all  the  curious  things  he  had  heard — 
"  ego  verbum  audivi  " — and  with  greater  abundance  those 
he  had  said,  including  a  great  many  puns.  Thus  it 
happens  that  certain  chapters  of  his  "  De  Nugis  Curialium," 
a  title  that  the  work  owes  to  the  success  of  John  of  Salis- 

1  "  Afflictus  namque  populus,  quasi  principis  podagram  arguit  et  convicit. 
Tunc  autem  totius  reipublicse  salus  incolumis  prasclaraque  erit,  si  superiora 
membra  si  impendant  inferioribus  et  inferiora  superioribus  pari  jure  respon- 
deat."    "  Policraticus  "  ;  "  Opera,"  vol.  iv.  p.  52. 

2  Born  probably  in  Herefordshire,  studied  at  Paris,  fulfilled  various  diplo- 
matic missions,  was  justice  in  eyre  1173,  canon  of  St.  Paul's  1176,  archdeacon 
of  Oxford,  1 197.  He  spent  his  last  years  in  his  living  of  Westbury  on  the 
Severn,  and  died  about  12 10. 

3  ««  Hunc  in  curia  regis  Henrici  libellum  raptim  annotavi  schedulis." 
"  Gualteri  Mapes  de  Nugis  Curialium  Distinctiones  quinque,"  ed.Th.  Wright, 
London,  Camden  Society,  1850,  4to,  Dist.  iv.,  Epilogus,  p.  140. 


LA  TIN. 


191 


bury's,  are  real  novels,  and  have  the  smartness  of  such  ; 
others  are  real  fabliaux,  with  all  their  coarseness  ;  others 
are  scenes  of  comedy,  with  dialogues,  and  indications  of 
characters  as  in  a  play  z  ;  others  again  are"  anecdotes  of  the 
East,  "quoddam  mirabile,"  told  on  their  return  by  pilgrims 
or  crusaders. 

Like  John  of  Salisbury,  Map  had  studied  in  Paris,-ful- 
filled  missions  to  Rome,  and  known  Becket  ;  but  he  shared 
neither  his  sympathy  for  France,  nor  his  affection  for  St. 
Bernard.  In  the  quarrel  which  sprung  up  between  the 
saint  and  Abelard,  he  took  the  part  of  the  latter.  Though 
he  belonged  to  the  Church,  he  is  never  weary  of  sneering 
at  the  monks,  and  especially  at  the  Cistercians  ;  he  imputes 
to  St.  Bernard  abortive  miracles.  "  Placed,"  says  Map,  "  in 
the  presence  of  a  corpse,  Bernard  exclaimed  :  '  Walter, 
come  forth !  '-—But  Walter,  as  he  did  not  hear  the  voice  of 
Jesus,  so  did  he  not  listen  with  the  ears  of  Lazarus,  and 
came  not." 2  Women  also  are  for  Map  the  subject  of 
constant  satires ;  he  was  the  author  of  that  famous  "  Dis- 
suasio  Valerii  ad  Rufinum  de  ducenda  uxore,"  3  well  known 
to  the  Wife  of  Bath  and  which  the  Middle  Ages  persistently 
attributed  to  St.  Jerome.  Map  had  asserted  his  authorship 
and  stated  that  he  had  written  the  dissertation  "  changing 
only  our  names,"  assuming  for  himself  the  name  of  Valerius 
"me  qui  Walterus  sum,"  and  calling  his  uxorious  friend 
Rufinus  because  he  was  red-haired.  But  it  was  of  no  avail, 
and  St.  Jerome  continued  to  be  the  author,  in  the  same 
way  as  Cornelius  Nepos  was  credited  with  having  written 
Joseph  of  Exeter's  "  Trojan  War,"  dedicated  though  it  was 
to  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Map  is  very  strong  in 
his  advice  to  his  red-haired  friend,  who  "was  bent  upon 

1  For  example,   ibid.   iii.   2,    "  De  Societate  Sadii  et  Galonis,"  Dialogue 
between  three  women,  Regina,  Lais,  Ero,  pp.  m  ft". 

2  "  Galtere,  veni  foras  ! — Galterus  autem,  quia  non  audivit  vocem  Jhesus, 
non  habuit  aures  Lazari  et  non  venit."    "  De  Nugis,"  p.  42. 

3  "De  Nugis,"  Dist.  iv. 


192  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

being  married,  not  loved,  and  aspired  to  the  fate  of  Vulcan, 
not  of  Mars." 

As  a  compensation  many  poems  in  Latin  and  French 
were  attributed  to  Map,  of  doubtful  authenticity.  That  he 
wrote  verses  and  was  famous  as  a  poet  there  is  no  question, 
but  what  poems  were  his  we  do  not  know  for  certain.  To 
him.  was  ascribed  most  of  the  "Goliardic"  poetry  current 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  so  called  on  account  of  the  principal 
personage  who  figures  in  it,  Golias,  the  type  of  the  glut- 
tonous and  debauched  prelate.  Some  of  those  poems  were 
merry  songs  full  of  humour  and  entrain,  perfectly  consistent 
with  what  we  know  of  Map's  fantasy  :  "  My  supreme  wish 
is  to  die  in  the  tavern  !  May  my  dying  lips  be  wet  with 
wine !  So  that  on  their  coming  the  choirs  of  angels  will 
exclaim  :  '  God  be  merciful  to  this  drinker  ! '"  J  Doubts 
exist  also  as  to  what  his  French  poems  were  ;  most  of  his 
jokes  and  repartees  were  delivered  in  French,  as  we  know 
from  the  testimony  of  Gerald  de  Barry,2  but  what  he  wrote 
in  that  language  is  uncertain.  The  "  Lancelot  "  is  assigned 
to  him  in  many  manuscripts  and  is  perhaps  his  work.3 

1  Th.  Wright,  "The  Latin  poems  commonly  attributed  to  Walter  Mapes," 
London,  Camden  Society,  1841,  4to  {cf.  "Romania,"  vol  vii.  p.  94)  : 

Meum  est  proposition  in  taberna  mori  ; 
Vinum  sit  appositum  morientis  ori, 
Ut  dicant  cum  venerint  angelorum  chori : 
Deus  sit  propitius  huic  potatori. 

("Confessio  Golise.") 

On  "  Goliardois"  clerks,  see  Bedier,  "les  Fabliaux,"  Paris,   1893,  8vo,  pp. 
348  ff. 

2  In  his  prefatory  letter  to  king  John,  Gerald  says  that  "  vir  ille  eloquio 
clarus,  W.  Mapus,  Oxoniensis  archidiaconus,"  used  to  tell  him  that  he  had 
derived  some  fame  and  benefits  from  his  witticisms  and  sayings,  "dicta," 
which  were  in  the  common  idiom,  that  is  in  French,  "  communi  quippe 
idiomate  prolata."     "  Opera,"  Rolls,  vol.  v.  p.  410. 

3  Map,  however,  never  claimed  the  authorship  of  this  work.  The  prob- 
ability of  his  being  the  author  rests  mainly  on  the  allusion  discovered  by  Ward 
in  the  works  of  Hue  de  Rotelande,  a  compatriot  and  contemporary  of  Map, 
who  seems  to  point  him  out  as  having  written  the  "  Lancelot."  "  Catalogue 
of  Romances,"  1883,  vol.  i.  pp.  734  ff. 


LATIN.  193 

V. 

The  subjects  of  the  Angevin  kings  also  took  part  in  the 
scientific  movement.  In  the  ranks  of  their  literary  men 
using  the  Latin  language  are  jurists,  physicians,  savants, 
historians,  theologians,  and,  among  the  latter,  some  of  the 
most  famous  doctors  of  the  Middle  Ages  :  Alexander  of 
Hales,  the  "  irrefragable  doctor  "  *  ;  Duns  Scot,  the  "  subtle 
doctor "  ;  Adam  de  Marisco,  friend  and  adviser  of  Simon 
de  Montfort,  the  "  illustrious  doctor"  ;  Ockham,  the  "  invin- 
cible doctor";  Roger  Bacon,  the  "admirable  doctor"; 
Bradwardine,  the  "  profound  doctor,"  and  yet  others. 

Scot  discusses  the  greatest  problems  of  soul  and  matter, 
and  amid  many  contradictions,  and  much  obscurity,  arrives 
at  this  conclusion,  that  matter  is  one :  "  Socrates  and  the 
brazen  sphere  are  identical  in  nature."  He  almost  reaches 
this  further  conclusion,  that  "  being  is  one."2  His  reputa- 
tion is  immense  during  the  Middle  Ages  ;  it  diminishes  at 
the  Renaissance,  and  Rabelais,  drawing  up  a  list  of  some 
remarkable  books  in  St.  Victor's  library,  inscribes  on  it, 
between  the  "  Maschefaim  des  Advocats  "  and  the  "  Rate- 
penade  des  Cardinaux,"  the  works  of  the  subtle  doctor  under 
the  irreverent  title  of  "  Barbouillamenta  Scoti."  3 

Ockham,  in  the  pay  of  Philippe-le-Bel — for  England,  that 
formerly  had  to  send  for  Lanfranc  and  Anselm,  can  now 

1  Alexander,  of  Hales,  Gloucestershire,  lectured  at  Paris,  d.  1245  ;  wrote  a 
"  Summa  "  at  the  request  of  Innocent  II. :  "  Alexandri  Alensis  Angli,  Doctoris 
irrefragabilis  .  .  .  universal  theologise  Summa,"  Cologne,  1622,  4  vols.  fol. 
He  deals  in  many  of  his  "  Quaestiones  "  with  subjects,  usual  then  in  theological 
books,  but  which  seem  to  the  modern  reader  very  strange  indeed.  A  large 
number  of  sermons  and  pious  treatises  were  also  written  in  Latin  during  this 
period,  by  Aelred  of  Rievaulx  for  example,  and  by  others  :  "  Beati  Ailredi 
Rievallis  abbatis  Sermones  "  (and  other  works)  in  Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vols. 
xxxii.  and  cxcv. 

2  Studied  at  Oxford,  then  at  Paris,  where  he  taught  with  great  success,  d.  at 
Cologne  in  1308.  "Opera  Omnia,"  ed.  Luc  Wadding,  1639,  12  vols.  fol.  See, 
on  him,  "  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,"  vol.  xxiv.  p.  404. 

3  "Pantagruel,"  II.,  chap.  7. 

14 


i94  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

furnish  the  Continent  with  doctors — makes  war  on  Boniface 
VIII.,  and,  drawing  his  arguments  from  both  St.  Paul  and 
Aristotle,  attacks  the  temporal  power  of  the  popes.1  Roger 
Bacon  endeavours  to  clear  up  the  chaos  of  the  sciences  ;  he 
forestalls  his  illustrious  namesake,  and  classifies  the  causes 
of  human  errors.2  Archbishop  Bradwardine,3  who  died  in 
the  great  plague  of  1349,  restricts  himself  to  theology,  and 
in  a  book  famous  during  the  Middle  Ages,  defends  the 
"  Cause  of  God  "  against  all  sceptics,  heretics,  infidels,  and 
miscreants,  confuting  them  all,  and  even  Aristotle  himself.4 
No  longer  is  Salerno  alone  to  produce  illustrious 
physicians,  or  Bologne  illustrious  jurists.  A  "  Rosa 
Anglica,"  the  work  of  John  of  Gaddesden,  court  physi- 
cian under  Edward  II.,  has  the  greatest  success  in 
learned  Europe,  and  teaches  how  the  stone  can  be  cured 
by  rubbing  the  invalid  with  a  paste  composed  of  crickets 
and  beetles  pounded  together,  "  but  taking  care  to  first 
remove  the  heads  and  wings."  5  A  multitude  of  pre- 
scriptions,  of    the   same    stamp    most   of    them,    are   set 

1  The  works  of  Ockham  (fourteenth  century)  have  not  been  collected.  See 
his  "  Summa  totius  logicse,"  ed.  Walker,  1675,  8vo,  his  "  Compendium  errorum 
Johannis  papse,"  Lyons,  1495,  fol.,  &c. 

2  Born  in  Somersetshire,  studied  at  Oxford  and  Paris,  d.  about  1294 ;  wrote 
"Opus  majus,"  "Opus  minus,"  "Opus  tertium."  See  "Opus  majus  ad 
Clementem  papam,"  ed.  Jebb,  London,  1733,  fol.;  "Opera  inedita,"  ed. 
Brewer,  Rolls,  1859.  Many  curious  inventions  are  alluded  to  in  this  last 
volume  :  diving  bells,  p.  533  ;  gunpowder,  p.  536  ;  oarless  and  very  swift  boats  ; 
carriages  without  horses  running  at  an  extraordinary  speed :  "  Item  currus 
possum  fieri  ut  sine  animali  moveantur  impetu  inaestimabili,"  p.  533-  On  the 
causes  of  errors,  that  is  authority,  habit,  &c,  see  "Opus  majus,"  I. 

3  Born  at  Chichester  ab.  1290,  taught  at  Oxford,  became  chaplain  to  Edward 
III.  and  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  "  De  Causa  Dei  contra  Pelagium  et  de 
virtute  causarum  ad  suos  Mertonenses,  Libri  III.,"  London,  1618,  fol. 

4  Conclusion  of  chap.  i.  Book  I.  :  "  Contra  Aristotelem,  astruentem  mundum 
non  habuisse  principium  temporale  et  non  fuisse  cfeatum,  nee  pnesentem 
generationem  hominum  terminandam,  neque  mundum  nee  statum  mundi 
ullo  tempore  finiendum." 

s  "Joannis  Anglici  praxis  medica  Rosa  Anglica  dicta,"  Augsbourg,  1595, 
2  vols.  4to.     Vol.  i.  p.  496. 


LATIN.  195 

down    in    this    book,    which    was    still     printed    and    con- 
sidered as  an  authority  at  the  Renaissance. 

Bartholomew  the  Englishman,1  another  savant,  yet  more 
universal  and  more  celebrated,  writes  one  of  the  oldest 
encyclopedias.  His  Latin  book,  translated  into  several 
languages,  and  of  which  there  are  many  very  beautiful 
manuscripts,2  comprises  everything,  from  God  and  the 
angels  down  to  beasts.  Bartholomew  teaches  theology, 
philosophy,  geography,  and  history,  the  natural  sciences, 
medicine,  worldly  civility,  and  the  art  of  waiting  on  table. 
Nothing  is  too  high,  or  too  low,  or  too  obscure  for  him  ; 
he  is  acquainted  with  the  nature  of  angels,  as  well  as  with 
that  of  fleas :  "  Fleas  bite  more  sharply  when  it  is  going  to 
rain."  He  knows  about  diamonds,  "  stones  of  love  and 
reconciliation "  ;  and  about  man's  dreams  "  that  vary 
according  to  the  variation  of  the  fumes  that  enter  into 
the  little  chamber  of  his  phantasy  "  ;  and  about  headaches 
that  arise  from  "  hot  choleric  vapours,  full  of  ventosity  "  ; 
and  about  the  moon,  that,  "  by  the  force  of  her  dampness, 


1  Concerning  Bartholomgeus  Anglicus,  sometimes  but  wrongly  called  de 
Glanville,  see  the  notice  by  M.  Delisle  ("  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France," 
vol.  xxx.  pp.  334  fF.),  who  has  demonstrated  that  he  lived  in  the  thirteenth 
and  not  in  the  fourteenth  century.  It  is  difficult  to  admit  with  M.  Delisle  that 
Bartholomew  was  not  English.  As  we  know  that  he  studied  and  lived  on  the 
Continent  the  most  probable  explanation  of  his  surname  is  that  he  was  born  in 
England.  See  also  his  praise  of  England,  xv-14.  His  "  De  Proprietatibus  " 
(Francfort,  1609,  8vo,  many  other  editions)  was  translated  into  English  by 
Trevisa,  in  1398,  in  French  by  Jean  Corbichon,  at  the  request  of  the  wise  king 
Charles  V.,  in  Spanish  and  in  Dutch.  To  the  same  category  of  writers  belongs 
Gervase  of  Tilbury  in  Essex,  who  wrote,  also  on  the  Continent,  between  1208 
and  1214,  his  "  Otia  imperialia,"  where  he  gives  an  account  of  chaos,  the 
creation,  the  wonders  of  the  world,  &c.  ;  unpublished  but  for  a  few  extracts 
given  by  Stevenson  in  his  "  Radulphi  de  Coggeshall  Chronicon,"  1875,  Svo, 
Rolls,  pp.  419  ff. 

2  There  are  eighteen  in  the  National  Library,  Paris.  One  of  the  finest  is 
the  MS.  15  E  ii.  and  hi.  in  the  British  Museum  (French  translation)  with 
beautiful  miniatures  in  the  richest  style  ;  in  fine :  "  Escript  par  moy  Jo  Duries 
et  finy  a  Bruges  le  XXVe  jour  de  May,  anno  1482." 


196  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

sets  her  impression  in  the  air  and  engenders  dew  "  ;  and 
about  everything  in  fact. 

The  jurists  are  numerous  ;  through  them  again  the  action 
of  Rome  upon   England  is  fortified.      Even  those  among 
them  who  are  most  bent  upon  maintaining  the  local  laws 
and  traditions,  have  constantly  to  refer  to  the  ancient  law- 
makers and  commentators  ;  Roman  law  is  for  them  a  sort 
of    primordial    and    common   treasure,  open    to    all,   and 
wherewith    to     fill    the   gaps    of    the     native     legislation. 
The   first   lessons  had   been  given  after  the  Conquest  by 
foreigners :    the    Italian   Vacarius,   brought   by   Theobald, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  had  professed  law   at  Oxford 
in   1149.1      Then   Anglo-Normans   and    English   begin  to 
codify    and    interpret    their     laws  ;    they    write     general 
treatises ;    they  collect   precedents  ;    and   so  well   do  they 
understand   the   utility  of  precedents  that  these  continue 
to  have  in  legal  matters,  up  to  this  day,  an  importance  which 
no  other  nation  has  credited  them  with.     Ralph  Glanville, 
Chief  Justice  under  Henry  II.,  writes  or  inspires  a  "Treatise 
of  the  laws  and  customs  of  England  "  2  ;  Richard,  bishop 
of  London,  compiles  a  "Dialogue  of  the  Exchequer,"  3  full 
of  wisdom,  life,  and    even    a    sort  of  humour  ;    Henry  of 
Bracton,4  the  most  renowned  of  all,  logician,  observer,  and 

1  On  Vacarius,  see  "  Magister  Vacarius  primus  juris  Romani  in  Anglia 
professor  ex  annalium  monumentis  et  opere  accurate  descripto  illustratus,"  by 
C.  F.  C.  Wenck,  Leipzig,   1820,  8vo. 

2  "  Tractatus  de  Legibus  et  Consuetudinibus  Anglise,"  finished  about  1187 
(ed.  Wilmot  and  Rayner,  London,  1780,  8vo) ;  was  perhaps  the  work  of  his 
nephew,  Hubert  Walter,  but  written  under  his  inspiraton. 

3  "Dialogus  de  Scaccario,"  written  23  Henry  II.,  text  in  Stubbs,  "Select 
Charters,"  Oxford,  1876,  p.  168. 

4  "  Henrici  de  Bractonde  Legibus  et  Consuetudinibus  Angliae,  Libri  V.,"  ed. 
Travers  Twiss,  Rolls,  1878  ff.,  6  vols.  8vo.  Bracton  adopts  some  of  the  best 
known  among  the  definitions  and  maxims  of  Roman  law:  "  Filius  hseres 
legittimus  est  quando  nuptise  demonstrant,"  vol.  ii.  p.  18;  a  treasure  is 
"  quKdam  vetus  depositio  pecuniae  vel  alterius  metalli  cujus  non  extat  modo 
memoria,"  vol.  ii.  p.  230.  On  "  Bracton  and  his  relation  to  Roman  law," 
see  C.  Giiterbock,  translated  with  notes  by  Brinton  Coxe,  Philadelphia, 
1866,  8vo. 


LA  TIN.  197 

thinker,  composes  in  the  thirteenth  century  an  ample 
treatise,  of  which  several  abridgments J  were  afterwards 
made  for  the  convenience  of  the  judges,  and  which  is 
still  consulted. 

In  the  monasteries,  the  great  literary  occupation  consists 
in  the  compiling  of  chronicles.  Historians  of  Latin  tongue 
abounded  in  mediaeval  England,  nearly  every  abbey  had 
its  own.  A  register  was  prepared,  with  a  loose  leaf  at 
the  end,  "  scedula,"  on  which  the  daily  events  were  in- 
scribed in  pencil,  "cum  plumbo."  At  the  end  of  the  year 
the  appointed  chronicler,  "  non  quicumque  voluerit,  sed  cui 
injunctum  fuerit,"  shaped  these  notes  into  a  continued 
narrative,  adding  his  remarks  and  comments,  and  insertiug 
the  entire  text  of  the  official  documents  sent  by  authority 
for  the  monastery  to  keep,  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
time.2  In  other  cases,  of  rarer  occurrence,  a  chronicle  was 
compiled  by  some  monk  who,  finding  the  life  in  cloister 
very  dull,  the  offices  very  long,  and  the  prayers  somewhat 
monotonous,  used  writing  as  a  means  of  resisting  tempta- 
tions and  ridding  himself  of  vain  thoughts  and  the 
remembrance  of  a  former  worldly  life.3     Thus  there  exists 

1  By  Gilbert  de  Thornton,  ab.  1292  ;  by  the  author  of  "  Fleta,"  ab.  the  same 
date. 

2  The  loose  leaf  was  then  removed,  and  a  new  one  placed  instead,  in  view 
of  the  year  to  come  :  "In  fine  vero  anni  non  quicumque  voluerit  sed  cui 
injunctum  fuerit,  quod  verius  et  melius  censuerit  ad  posteritatis  notitiam  trans- 
mittendum,  in  corpore  Iibri  succincta  brevitate  describat  ;  et  tunc  veter  scedula 
subtracta  nova  imponatur."  "  Annales  Monastici,  ed.  Luard,  Rolls,  1864-9, 
5  vols.  8vo,  vol.  iv.  p.  355.  Annals  of  the  priory  of  Worcester  ;  preface  Con- 
cerning the  "  Scriptoria"  in  monasteries  and  in  particular  the  "  Scriptorium  " 
of  St.  Albans,  see  Hardy,  "Descriptive  Catalogue,"  1871,  Rolls,  vol.  iii. 
pp.  xi.  ff. 

3  "  Sedens  igitur  in  claustro  pluries  fatigatus,  sensu  habetato,  virtutibus 
frustratus,  pessimis  cogitationibus  ssepe  sauciatus,  turn  propter  lectionum  longi- 
tudinem  ac  orationum  lassitudinem,  propter  vanas  jactantias  et  opera  pessima  in 
sseculo  pr^ehabita  ..."  He  has  recourse,  as  a  cure,  to  historical  studies 
"ad  rogationem  superiorum  meorum."  "  Eulogium  historiarum  ab  orbe 
condito  usque  ad  A.D.  1366,"  by  a  monk  of  Malmesbury,  ed.  Haydon,  Rolls, 
1858,  2  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  2. 


1 98  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

an  almost  uninterrupted  series  of  English  chronicles, 
written  in  Latin,  from  the  Conquest  to  the  Renaissance. 
The  most  remarkable  of  these  series  is  that  of  the  great 
abbey  of  St.  Albans,  founded  by  Offa,  a  contemporary  of 
Charlemagne,  and  rebuilt  by  Paul,  a  monk  of  Caen,  who 
was  abbot  in  1077. 

Most  of  these  chronicles  are  singularly  impartial  ;  the 
authors  freely  judge  the  English  and  the  French,  the 
king  and  the  people,  the  Pope,  Harold  and  William. 
They  belong  to  that  Latin  country  and  that  religious 
world  which  had  no  frontiers.  The  cleverest  among 
them  are  remarkable  for  their  knowledge  of  the  ancients, 
for  the  high  idea  they  conceive,  from  the  twelfth  century 
on,  of  the  historical  art,  and  for  the  pains  they  take 
to  describe  manners  and  customs,  to  draw  portraits  and  to 
preserve  the  memory  of  curious  incidents.  Thus  shone, 
in  the  twelfth  century,  Orderic  Vital,  author  of  an 
"Ecclesiastical  History"  of  England1;  Eadmer,  St.  An- 
selm's  biographer 2  ;  Gerald  de  Barry,  otherwise  Geraldus 
Cambrensis,  a  fiery,  bragging  Welshman,  who  exhibited  both 
in  his  life    and    works  the    temperament   of    a    Gascon  3 ; 

1  "Orderici  Vitalis  Angligense  Historic  ecclesiastics,  Libri  XIII.,"  ed.  Le 
Prevost,  Paris,  1838-55,  5  vols.  8vo.  Vital  was  born  in  England,  but  lived 
and  wrote  in  the  monastery  of  St.  Evroult  in  Normandy,  where  he  had  been 
sent  "  as  in  exile,"  and  where,  "as  did  St.  Joseph  in  Egypt,  he  heard  spoken 
a  language  to  him  unknown." 

2  "  Eadmeri  Historia  novorum  in  Anglia,"  ed.  Martin  Rule,  Rolls,  1884, 
8vo  ;  in  the  same  volume:  "  De  vita  and  conversatione  Anselmi."  Eadmer 
died  ab.  1144. 

3  "  Giraldi  Cambrensis  Opera,"  ed.  Brewer  (and  others),  1861-91,  8  vols. 
8vo,  Rolls.  Gerald  was  born  in  the  castle  of  Manorbeer,  near  Pembroke,  of 
which  ruins  subsist.  He  was  the  son  of  William  de  Barry,  of  the  great  and 
warlike  family  that  was  to  play  an  important  part  in  Ireland.  His  mother  was 
Angareth,  grand-daughter  of  Rhys  ap  Theodor,  a  Welsh  prince.  He  studied 
at  Paris,  became  chaplain  to  Henry  II.,  sojourned  in  Ireland,  helped  Archbishop 
Baldwin  to  preach  the  crusade  in  Wales,  and  made  considerable  but  fruitless 
efforts  to  be  appointed  bishop  of  St.  Davids.  At  length  he  settled  in  peace 
and  died  there,  ab.  1216  ;  his  tomb,  greatly  injured,  is  still  to  be  seen  in 
the  church.     Principal  works,  all  in  Latin  (see  above,  p.   117) ;  "  De  Rebus  a 


LATIN.  199 

William  of  Malmesbury, 1  Henry  of  Huntingdon, 2 
&c. 

These  tVo  last  have  a  sort  of  passion  for  their  art, 
and  a  deep  veneration  for  the  antique  models.  William 
of  Malmesbury  is  especially  worthy  of  remembrance  and 
respect.  Before  beginning  to  write,  he  had  collected  a 
multitude  of  books  and  testimonies  ;  after  writing  he  looks 
over  and  revises  his  text  ;  he  never  considers,  with  famous 
Abbe  Vertot,  that  "son  siege  est  fait,"  that  it  is  too  late 
to  mend.  He  is  alive  to  the  interest  offered  for  the 
historian  by  the  customs  of  the  people,  and  by  these 
characteristic  traits,  scarcely  perceptible  sometimes,  which 
are  nevertheless  landmarks  in  the  journey  of  mankind 
towards  civilisation.  His  judgments  are  appreciative  and 
thoughtful ;  he  does  something  to  keep  awake  the  reader's 
attention,  and  notes  down,  with  this  view,  many  anecdotes, 
some  of  which  are  excellent  prose  tales.  Seven  hundred 
years  before  Merimee,  he  tells  in  his  own  way  the  story  of 
the  "  Venus  d'llle."  3  He  does  not  reach  the  supreme 
heights  of  art,  but  he  walks  in  the  right  way ;  he  does  not 
know  how  to  blend  his  hues,  as  others  have  done  since,  so 
as  to  delight  the  eye  with  many-coloured  sights  ;  but   he 

se  gestis;"  "Gemma  Ecclesiastica ;  "  "  De  Invectionibus,  Libri  IV.;" 
"Speculum  Ecclesise;"  "Topographia  Hibernica;"  "Expugnatio  Hibernica;" 
"Itinerarium  Kambriae;"  "  Descriptio  Kambrise  ;  "  "  De  Principis  Instruc- 
tione." 

1  "Willelmi  Malmesbiriensis  Monachi,  Gesta  Regum'  Anglorum  atque 
Historia  Novella,"  ed.  T.  D.  Hardy,  London,  English  Historical  Society,  1840, 
2  vols.  8vo  ;  or  the  edition  of  Stubbs,  Rolls,  18S7  ff.  ;  "  De  Gestis  Pontificum 
Anglorum,"  ed.  Hamilton,  Rolls,  1870.  William  seems  to  have  written 
between  11 14  and  1123  and  to  have  died  ab.  1142,  or  shortly  after. 

2  "  Henrici  Archidiaconi  Huntendunensis  Historia  Anglorum  .  .  .  from 
A.c.  55  to  a.d.  1 1 54,"  ed.  T.  Arnold,  Rolls,  1879,  8vo.  Henry  writes  much 
more  as  a  dilettante  than  William  of  Malmesbury ;  he  seems  to  do  it  mainly  to 
please  himself;  clever  at  verse  writing  (see  above,  p.  177),  he  introduces  in  his 
Chronicle  Latin  poems  of  his  own  composition.  His  chronology  is  vague 
and  faulty. 

3  "  De  Annulo  statuas  commendato,"  "Gesta,"  vol.  i.  p.  354. 


200  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

already  paints  in  colours.  To  please  his  reader,  he  sud- 
denly and  naively  says  :  "  Now,  I  will  tell  you  a  story. 
Once  upon  a  time.  .  .  ."  But  if  he  has  not  been  able  to 
skilfully  practice  latter-day  methods,  it  is  something  to  have 
tried,  and  so  soon  recognised  the  excellence  of  them. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  rose  above  all  others  Matthew 
Paris,1  an  English  monk  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Albans,  who 
in  his  sincerity  and  conscientiousness,  and  in  his  love  for 
the  historical  art,  resembles  William  of  Malmesbury.  He, 
too,  wants  to  interest ;  a  skilful  draughtsman,  "  pictor 
peroptimus,"  2  he  illustrates  his  own  manuscripts ;  he  depicts 
scenes  of  religious  life,  a  Gothic  shrine  carried  by  monks, 
which  paralytics  endeavour  to  touch,  an  architect  receiving 
the  king's  orders,  an  antique  gem  of  the  treasury  of  St. 
Albans  which,  curiously  enough,  the  convent  lent  pregnant 
women  in  order  to  assist  them  in  child-birth  ;  a  strange 
animal,  little  known  in  England  :  "  a  certain  elephant," 3 
drawn  from  nature,  with  a  replica  of  his  trunk  in  another 
position,   "  the  first,  he  says,  that   had   been   seen  in  the 

1  "Matthsei  Parisiensis  .  .  .  Chronica  Majora,"  ed.  H.  R.  Luard,  Rolls, 
1872  ff. ,  7  vols.  ;  "  Historia  Anglorum,  sive  ut  vulgo  dicitur  Historia  Minor,"  ed. 
Madden,  Rolls,  1866  ff. ,  3  vols.  Matthew  was  English  ;  his  surname  of  "  Paris  " 
or  "  the  Parisian  "  meant,  perhaps,  that  he  had  studied  at  Paris,  or  perhaps  that 
he  belonged  to  one  of  the  families  of  Paris  which  existed  then  in  England 
(Jessopp,  "  Studies  by  a  Recluse,"  London,  1893,  p.  46).  He  was  received 
into  St.  Albans  monastery  on  1217,  and  was  sent  on  a  mission  to  King  Hacon  in 
Norway  in  1248-9.  Henry  III.,  a  weak  king  but  an  artist  born,  valued  him 
greatly.  He  died  in  1259.  The  oldest  part  of  Matthew's  chronicle  is  founded 
upon  the  work  of  Roger  de  Wendover,  another  monk  of  St.  Albans,  who  died 
in  1236. 

2  So  says  Walsingham  ;  see  Madden's  preface  to  the  "  Historia  Anglorum," 
vol.  iii.  p.  xlviii. 

3  MS.  Nero  D  i.  in  the  British  Museum,  fol.  22,  23,  146,  169.  The  attri- 
bution of  these  drawings  to  Matthew  has  been  contested  :  their  authenticity 
seems,  however,  probable.  See,  contra,  Hardy,  vol.  iii.  of  his  "  Descriptive 
Catalogue."  See  also  the  MS.  Royal  14  C  vii.,  with  maps  and  itineraries;  a 
great  Virgin  on  a  throne,  with  a  monk  at  her  feet :  "  Fret'  Mathias  Parisiensis," 
fol.  6  ;  fine  draperies  with  many  folds,  recalling  those  in  the  album  of  Villard 
de  Honecourt. 


LA  TIN.  201 

country."  I  The  animal  came  from  Egypt,  and  was  a  gift 
from  Louis  IX.  of  France  to  Henry  III.  Matthew  notes 
characteristic  details  showing  what  manners  were ;  he 
gives  great  attention  to  foreign  affairs,  and  also  collects 
anecdotes,  for  instance,  of  the  wandering  Jew,  who  still 
lived  in  his  time,  a  fact  attested  in  his  presence  by  an 
Archbishop  of  Armenia,  who  came  to  St.  Albans  in 
1228.  The  porter  of  the  praetorium  struck  Jesus  saying: 
"  Go  on  faster,  go  on  ;  why  tarriest  thou  ? "  Jesus, 
turning,  looked  at  him  with  a  stern  countenance  and 
replied :  "I  go  on,  but  thou  shalt  tarry  till  I  come." 
Since  then  Cartaphilus  tarries,  and  his  life  begins  again 
with  each  successive  century.  Matthew  profits  by  the  same 
occasion  to  find  out  about  Noah's  ark,  and  informs  us  that 
it  was  still  to  be  seen,  according  to  the  testimony  of  this 
prelate,  in  Armenia.2 

In  the  fourteenth  century  the  most  illustrious  chroniclers 
were  Ralph  Higden,  whose  Universal  History  became  a 
sort  of  standard  work,  was  translated  into  English,  printed 
at  the  Renaissance,  and  constantly  copied  and  quoted  3  ; 
Walter  of  Hemingburgh,  Robert  of  Avesbury,  Thomas 
Walsingham,4  not  to  mention  many  anonymous  authors. 
Several  among  the  historians  of  that  date,  and  Walsing- 
ham  in  particular,  would,  on  account  of  the  dramatic 
vigour  of  their  pictures,  have   held   a   conspicuous  place 

1  Year  1255  :  "Missus  est  in  Angliam  quidam  elephas  quem  rex  Francorum 
pro  magno  munere  dedit  regi  Angliae.  .  .  .  Nee  credimus  alium  unquam 
visum  fuisse  in  Anglia."  "  Abbreviatio  Chronicorum,"  following  the  "  His- 
toria  Anglorum  "  in  Madden's  edition,  vol.  iii.  p.  344. 

2  "  Chronica  Majora,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  162  ff.  The  story  of  Cartaphilus  was 
already  in  Roger  de  Wendover,  who  was  also  present  in  the  monastery 
when  the  Armenian  bishop  came.  The  details  on  the  ark  are  added  by 
Matthew. 

3  "  Polychronicon  Ranulphi  Higden,  monachi  Cestrensis  .  .  .  with  the 
English  translation  of  John  Trevisa,"  ed.  Babington  and  Lumby,  Rolls, 
1865  ff. ,  8  vols.     Higden  died  about  1363.    See  below,  p.  406. 

4  See  below,  p.  405. 


202  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

in  the  literature  of  mediaeval  England  had  they  not  written 
in  Latin,  like  their  predecessors.1 

From  these  facts,  and  from  this  ample,  many-coloured 
literary  growth,  may  be  gathered  how  complete  the  trans- 
formation was,  and  how  strong  the  intellectual  ties  with 
Rome  and  Paris  had  become  ;  also  how  greatly  the 
inhabitants  of  England  now  differed  from  those  Anglo- 
Saxons,  that  the  victors  of  Hastings  had  found  "  agrestes 
et  pene  illiterates,"  according  to  the  testimony  of  Orderic 
Vital.  Times  are  changed :  "  The  admirable  Minerva 
visits  human  nations  in  turn.  .  .  .  she  has  abandoned 
Athens,  she  has  quitted  Rome,  she  withdraws  from  Paris ; 
she  has  now  come  to  this  island  of  Britain,  the  most 
remarkable  in  the  world ;  nay  more,  itself  an  epitome 
of  the  world."  2  Thus  could  speak  concerning  his  country, 
about  the   middle   of  the   fourteenth   century,    when   the 

1  A  great  many  other  English  chroniclers  wrote  in  Latin,  and  among 
their  number :  Florence  of  Worcester,  Simeon  of  Durham,  Fitzstephen,  the 
pseudo  Benedict  of  Peterborough,  William  of  Newburgh,  Roger  de  Hoveden 
(d.  ab.  1201)  in  the  twelfth  century;  Gervase  of  Canterbury,  Radulph  de  Diceto, 
Roger  de  Wendover,  Radulph  de  Coggeshall,  John  of  Oxenede,  Bartholomew 
de  Cotton,  in  the  thirteenth  ;  William  Rishanger,  John  de  Trokelowe,  Nicolas 
Trivet,  Richard  of  Cirencester,  in  the  fourteenth.  A  large  number  o 
chronicles  are  anonymous.  Most  of  those  works  have  been  published  by 
the  English  Historical  Society,  the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  and  especially 
by  the  Master  of  the  Rolls  in  the  great  collection  :  "The  Chronicles  and 
Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  .  .  .  published  under  the  direction 
of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,"  London,  1857  ff.,  in  progress.  See  also  the 
"Descriptive  Catalogue  of  materials  relating  to  the  History  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland,  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VII."  by  Sir  T.  D.  Hardy, 
Rolls,  1862-6    3  vols.  8vo. 

2  The  jouirast  between  the  time  when  Richard  writes  and  the  days  of  his 
youth,  when  he  studied  at  Paris,  is  easy  to  explain.  The  Hundred  Years' 
War  had  begun,  and  well  could  the  bishop  speak  of  the  decay  of  studies  in  the 
capital,  "ubi  tepuit,  immo  fere  friguit  zelus  scholse  tam  nobilis,  cujus  olim 
radii  lucem  dabant  universis  angulis  orbis  terrse  •  •  .  Minerva  mirabilis 
nationes  hominum  circuire  videtur.  .  .  .  Jam  Athenas  deseruit,  jam  a  Roma 
recessit,  jam  Parisius  preeterivit,  jam  ad  Britanniam,  insularum  insignissimam, 
quin  potius  microcosmum  accessit  feliciter."     "  Philobiblon,"  chap.  ix.  p.  89, 

Inthe  same  words  nearly,  but  with  a  contrary  intent,  Count  Cominges,  ambas- 


LA  TIN.  203 

results  of  the  attempted  experiment  were  certain  and 
manifest,  that  great  lover  of  books,  a  late  student  at  Paris, 
who  had  been  a  fervent  admirer  of  the  French  capital, 
Richard  de  Bury,  Bishop  of  Durham. 

sador  to  England,  assured  King  Louis  XIV.  that  "  the  arts  and  sciences  some- 
times leave  a  country  to  go  and  honour  another  with  their  presence.  Now 
they  have  gone  to  France,  and  scarcely  any  vestiges  of  them  have  been  left 
here,"  April  2,  1663.  "  A  French  Ambassador  at  the  Court  of  Charles  II.," 
1892,  p.  205. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
LITERATURE   IN  THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

I. 

ENGLISH  in  the  meanwhile  had  survived,  but  it  had  been 
also  transformed,  owing  to  the  Conquest.  To  the  disaster 
of  Hastings  succeeded,  for  the  native  race,  a  period  of 
stupor  and  silence,  and  this  was  not  without  some  happy- 
results.  The  first  duty  of  a  master  is  to  impose  silence 
on  his  pupils  ;  and  this  the  conquerors  did  not  fail  to  do. 
There  was  silence  for  a  hundred  years. 

The  clerks  were  the  only  exception  ;  men  of  English 
speech  remained  mute.  They  barely  recopied  the  manu- 
scripts of  their  ancient  authors,  the  list  of  whose  names 
was  left  closed  ;  they  listened  without  comprehending  to 
the  songs  the  foreigner  had  acclimatised  in  their  island. 
The  manner  of  speech  and  the  subjects  of  the  discourses 
were  equally  unfamiliar  ;  and  they  stood  silent  amidst  the 
merriment  that  burst  out  like  a  note  of  defiance  in  the 
literature  of  the  victors. 

Necessity  caused  them  to  take  up  the  pen  once  more. 
After  as  before  the  Conquest  the  rational  object  of  life 
continued  to  be  the  gaining  of  heaven,  and  it  would  have 
been  a  waste  of  time  to  use  Latin  in  demonstrating  this 
truth  to  the  common  people  of  England.  French  served 
for  the  new  masters,  and  for  their  group  of  adherents;  Latin 
for  the  clerks  ;  but  for  the  mass  of  "  lowe  men,"  who  are 

always   the   most   numerous,  it  was  indispensable   to  talk 

204 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  205 

English.  "All  people  cannot,"  had  said  Bishop  Grosseteste 
in  his  French  "  Chateau  d'Amour,"  "  know  Hebrew,  Greek, 
and  Latin  " — "  nor  French,"  adds  his  English  translator 
some  fifty  years  later;  for  which  cause  : 

On  Englisch  I-chul  mi  resun  schowen 
Ffor  him  that  con  not  i-knowen 
Nouther  Ffrench  ne  Latyn.1 

The  first  works  written  in  English,  after  the  Conquest, 
were  sermons  and  pious  treatises,  some  imitated  from 
Bede,  zElfric,  and  the  ancient  Saxon  models,  others  trans- 
lated from  the  French.  No  originality  or  invention ;  the 
time  is  one  of  depression  and  humiliation  ;  the  victor 
sings,  the  vanquished  prays. 

The  twelfth  century,  so  fertile  in  Latin  and  French 
works,  only  counts,  as  far  as  English  works  are  concerned, 
devotional  books  in  prose  and  verse.  The  verses  are 
uncouth  and  ill-shaped  ;  the  ancient  rules,  half-forgotten, 
are  blended  with  new  ones  only  half  understood.  Many 
authors  employ  at  the  same  time  alliteration  and  rhyme, 
and  sin  against  both.  The  sermons  are  usually  familiar 
in  their  style  and  kind  in  their  tone ;  they  are  meant  for 
the  poor  and  miserable  to  whom  tenderness  and  sympathy 
must  be  shown.  The  listeners  want  to  be  consoled  and 
soothed  ;  they  are  also  interested,  as  formerly,  by  stories 
of  miracles,  and  scared  into  virtue  by  descriptions  of  hell  ; 
confidence  again  is  given  them  by  instances  of  Divine 
mercy.2 

1  "Castel  of  Love,"  "  made  in  the  latter  half  of  the  XHIth  century,"  in 
Horstmann  and  Furnivall,  "  Minor  Poems  of  the  Vernon  MS.,"  E.E.T.S., 
1892,     Part  I.  p.  356,  see  below,  p.  213.     Grosseteste  had  said  : 

.  .  .   Trestuz  ne  poent  mie 

Saver  le  langage  en  fin 

D'Ebreu  de  griu  ne  de  latin.     (Ibid.  p.  355.) 

2  Among  the  collections  of  English  sermons  from  the  twelfth  to  the  fourteenth 
century,  see  "  An  Old  English  Miscellany,"  ed.  Morris,  Early  English  Text 
Society,  1872,  8vo ;  pp.  26  ff.,  a  translation  in  English  prose  of  the  thirteenth 


206  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Like  the  ancient  churches  the  collections  of  sermons 
bring  before  the  eye  the  last  judgment  and  the  region  of 
hell,  with  its  monstrous  torments,  its  wells  of  flames,  its 
ocean  with  seven  bitter  waves  :  ice,  fire,  blood  ...  a  rudi- 
mentary rendering  of  legends  interpreted  in  their  turn  by 
Dante  in  his  poem,  and  Giotto  in  his  fresco.1  The  thought 
of  Giotto  especially,  when  reading  those  sermons,  recurs  to 
the  memory,  of  Giotto  with  his  awkward  and  audacious 
attempts,  Giotto  so  remote  and  yet  so  modern,  childish 
and  noble  at  the  same  time,  who  represents  devils  roasting 
the  damned  on  spits,  and  on  the  same  wall  tries  to  paint 

century  of  some  of  the  sermons  of  Maurice  de  Sully  ;  p.  187,  "a  lutel  soth 
sermon  "  in  verse,  with  good  advice  to  lovers  overfond  of  "  Malekyn  "  or 
"Janekyn." — "   Old    English   homilies   and   homiletic  treatises  ...  of  the 
Xllth  and  Xlllth  centuries,"  ed.  Morris,  E.E.T.S.,   1867-73,  2  vols-  8vo  5 
prose  and  verse  (specimens  of  music  in  the  second  series)  ;  several  of  those 
pieces  are  mere  transcripts  of  Anglo-Saxon  works  anterior  to  the  Conquest ; 
p.  159,  the  famous  "  Moral  Ode,"  twelfth  century,  on  the  transitoriness  of  this 
life:  "  Ich  em  nu  alder  thene  ich   wes,"  &c,   in  rhymed  verse   {cf.   "Old 
English  Miscellany,"  p.  58,  and  "  Anglia,"  i.  p.  6).—"  The  Ormulum,  with  the 
notes  and  glossary  of  Dr.  R.  M.  White,"  ed.  R.  Holt,  Oxford,  1878,  2  vols.  8vo, 
an  immense  compilation  in  verse,  of  which  a  part  only  has  been  preserved,  the 
work  of  Ormin,  an  Augustinian  canon,  thirteenth  century ■;  contains  a  para- 
phrase of  the  gospel  of  the  day  followed  by  an  explanatory  sermon  ;  cf.  Napier, 
"Notes  on  Ormulum"  in  "History  of  the  Holy  Rood  Tree,"  E.E.T.S.,  1894.— 
"  Hali  Meidenhad  ...  an  alliterative   Homily  of  the  Xlllth  century,"  ed. 
Cockayne,  E.E.T.S.,   1866,  in  prose. — "  English  metrical  Homilies,"  ed.  J. 
Small,   Edinburgh,    1862,   8vo,  homilies  interspersed  with  exempla,  compiled 
ab.  1330. — "  Religious  pieces  in  prose  and  verse,"  ed.  G.  G.  Perry,  E.E.T.S-, 
1867  ;    statement   in   a  sermon   by    John    Gaytrige,   fourteenth   century,   that 
"  oure  ffadire   the   byschope  "  has  prescribed  to  each   member  of  his  clergy 
"opynly,  one  ynglysche  apone  sonnondayes,  preche  and  teche  thaym  that  thay 
hase  cure  off"  (p.  2). 

1  Sermon  IV.  on  Sunday  (imitated  from  the  French)  in  Morris's  "  Old 
English  Homilies,"  1867.  St.  Paul,  led  by  St.  Michael,  at  the  sight  of  so  many 
sufferings,  weeps,  and  God  consents  that  on  Sundays  the  condemned  souls 
shall  cease  to  suffer.  This  legend  was  one  of  the  most  popular  in  the  Middle 
Ages ;  it  was  told  in  verse  or  prose  in  Greek,  Latin,  French,  English,  &c. 
See  Ward,  "  Catalogue  of  MS.  Romances,"  vol.  ii.  1893,  pp.  397  ff. :  "Two 
versions  of  this  vision  existed  in  Greek  in  the  fourth  century."  An  English 
metrical  version  has  been  ed.  by  Horstmann  and  Furnivall,  "  Minor  Poems 
of  the  Vernon  MS.,"  E.E.T.S.,  1892,  p.  251. 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  207 

the  Unseen  and  disclose  to  view  the  Unknown,  Giotto 
with  his  search  after  the  impossible,  an  almost  painful 
search,  the  opposite  of  antique  wisdom,  and  the  sublime 
folly  of  the  then  nascent  modern  age.  Not  far  from 
Padua,  beside  Venice,  in  the  great  Byzantine  mosaic  of 
Torcello,  can  be  seen  a  last  reflection  of  antique  equani- 
mity. Here  the  main  character  of  the  judgment-scene  is 
its  grand  solemnity;  and  from  this  comes  the  impression 
of  awe  left  on  the  beholder  ;  the  idea  of  rule  and  law  pre- 
dominates, a  fatal  law  against  which  nothing  can  prevail  ; 
fate  seems  to  preside,  as  it  did  in  the  antique  tragedies. 

In  the  English  sermons  of  the  period  it  is  not  the  art 
of  Torcello  that  continues,  but  the  art  of  Giotto  that 
begins.  From  time  to  time  among  the  ungainly  phrases 
of  an  author  whose  language  is  yet  unformed,  amidst  mild 
and  kind  counsels,  bursts  forth  a  resounding  apostrophe 
which  causes  the  whole  soul  to  vibrate,  and  has  something 
sublime  in  its  force  and  brevity:  He  who  bestows  alms 
with  ill-gotten  goods  shall  not  obtain  the  grace  of  Christ, 
any  more  than  he  who  having  slain  thy  child  brings  thee 
its  head  as  a  gift !  "  * 

The      Psalter,  2     portions     of    the     Bible,  3     lives     of 

1  "  Old  English  homilies  and  homiletic  treatises  ...  of  the  Xllth  and 
XII Ith  Centuries,"  ed.  with  translation,  by  R.  Morris,  London,  E.E.T.S., 
1867,  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  39. 

2  The  Psalter  was  translated  into  English,  in  verse,  in  the  second  half  of 
the  thirteenth  century:  "Anglo-Saxon  and  Early  English  Psalter,"  Surtees 
Society,  1843-7,  8vo  ;  then  in  prose  with  a  full  commentary  by  Richard  Rolle, 
of  Hampole  (on  whom  see  below,  p.  216)  :  "The  Psalter  or  the  Psalms  of 
David,"  ed.  Bramley,  Oxford,  1884,  8vo  ;  again  in  prose,  towards  1327,  by  an 
anonym,  who  has  been  wrongly  believed  to  be  William  de  Shoreham,  a  monk 
of  Leeds  priory :  "The  earliest  English  prose  Psalter,  together  with  eleven 
Canticles,"  ed.  Biilbring,  E.E.T.S.,  1891.  The  seven  penitential  psalms  were 
translated  in  verse  in  the  second  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  by  Richard  of 
Maidstone  ;  one  is  in  Horstmann  and  Furnivall :  "  Minor  Poems  of  the 
Vernon  MS.,"  p.  12. 

3  "  The  Story  of  Genesis  and  Exodus,  an  early  English  Song,"  ab.  1250, 
ed.  R.  Morris,  E.E.T.S.,  1865  ;  shortly  before  that  date  a  translation  in 
French  prose  of  the  whole  of  the  Bible  had  been  completed. 


2o8  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

saints,1  were  put  into  verse.  Metrical  lives  of  saints  fill 
manuscripts  of  prodigious  size.  A  complete  cycle  of  them, 
the  work  of  several  authors,  in  which  are  mixed  together 
old  and  novel,  English  and  foreign,  materials,  was  written  in 
English  verse  in  the  thirteenth  century  :  "  The  collection 
in  its  complete  state  is  a  '  Liber  Festivalis,'  containing 
sermons  or  materials  for  sermons,  for  the  festivals  of  the 
year  in  the  order  of  the  calendar,  and  comprehends  not 
only  saints'  lives  for  saints'  days  but  also  a  '  Temporale  ' 
for  the  festivals  of  Christ,"  &c.2  The  earliest  complete 
manuscript  was  written  about  1300,  an  older  but  in- 
complete one  belongs  to  the  years  1280-90,  or  there- 
about.3 In  these  collections  a  large  place,  as  might  be 
expected,  is  allowed  to  English  saints : 

Wolle  ye  nouthe  i-heore  this  englische  tale  ■  that  is  here  i-write  ? 

It  is  the  story  of  St.  Thomas  Becket :  "  Of  Londone  is 
fader  was."  St.  Edward  was  "  in  Engeland  oure  kyng  "  ; 
St.  Kenelm, 

Kyng  he  was  in  Engelond  "  of  the  march  of  Walis ; 


1  See,  e.g.,  "The  early  South-English  Legendary  or  lives  of  Saints  ;  I., 
MS.  Laud,  108,  in  the  Bodleian  Library,"  ed.  C.  Horstmann,  Early  English 
Text  Society,  1887,  8vo. — Furnivall,  "  Early  English  Poems  and  Lives  of 
Saints,"  Berlin,  Philological  Society,  1862,  8vo. — "Materials  for  the  history 
of  Thomas  Becket,"  ed.  Robertson,  Rolls,  1875  ff.,  7  vols.  8vo. — Several 
separate  Lives  of  Saints  have  been  published  by  the  E.E.T.S. 

2  Horstmann,  "  The  early  South-Engiish  Legendary,"  p.  vii.  The  same 
intends  to  publish  other  texts,  and  to  clear  the  main  problems  connected  with 
them;  "but  it  will,"  he  says,  "require  more  brains,  the  brains  of  several 
generations  to  come,  before  every  question  relative  to  this  collection  can  be 
cleared."     Ibid. 

3  The  latter  is  the  MS.  Laud  108  in  the  Bodleian,  edited  by  Horstmann  ; 
the  other  is  the  Harleian  MS.  2277  in  the  British  Museum  ;  specimens  of  its 
contents  have  been  given  by  Jurnivall  in  his  "  Early  English  poems  "  (ut 
supra). 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  209 
St.  Edmund  the  Confessor  "that  lith  at  Ponteneye," 

Ibore  he  was  in  Engelond  ■  in  the  toun  of  Abyndone. 

St.  Swithin  "  was  her  of  Engelonde  ;"  St.  Wulfstan,  bishop 
of  Worcester, 

Was  here  of  Engelonde  .  .  . 
The  while  he  was  a  yong  child  ■  clene  lif  he  ladde  i-nough ; 
Whenne  other  children  ornen  to  pleye  ■  toward  churche  he  drough. 
Seint  Edward  was  kyng  tho  ■  that  nouthe  in  heovene  is. 

St.  Cuthbert  was  born  in  England  ;  St.  Dunstan  was  an 
Englishman.  Of  the  latter  a  number  of  humorous  legends 
were  current  among  the  people,  and  were  preserved  by 
religious  poets  ;  he  and  the  devil  played  on  each  other 
numberless  tricks  in  which,  as  behoves,  the  devil  had  the 
worst  ;  these  adventures  made  the  subject  of  amusing 
pictures  in  many  manuscripts.  A  woman,  of  beautiful 
face  and  figure,  calls  upon  the  saint,  who  is  clear-sighted 
enough  to  recognise  under  this  alluring  shape  the  arch- 
foe  ;  he  dissembles.  Being,  like  St.  Eloi,  a  blacksmith,  as 
well  as  a  saint  and  a  State  minister,  he  heats  his  tongs 
red-hot,  and  turning  suddenly  round,  while  the  other  was 
watching  confidently  the  effect  of  his  good  looks,  catches 
him  by  the  nose.  There  was  a  smell  of  burnt  flesh,  and 
awful  yells  were  heard  many  miles  round,  for  the  "  tonge 
was  al  afure  "  ;  it  will  teach  him  to  stay  at  home  and  blow 
his  own  nose  : 

As  god  the  schrewe  hadde  ibeo  •  atom  ysnyt  his  nose.1 

With  this  we  have  graceful  legends,   like  that   of  St. 
Brandan,   adapted    from    a    French    original,    being    the 

1  From   MS.    Harl.  2277,    in  Furnivall's."  Early  English  poems,"   1862, 
P-  34- 

15 


2io  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

story  of  that  Irish  monk  who,  in  a  leather  bark,  sailed 
in  search  of  Paradise,1  and  visited  marvellous  islands  where 
ewes  govern  themselves,  and  where  the  birds  are  angels 
transformed.  The  optimistic  ideal  of  the  Celts  reappears 
in  this  poem,  the  subject  of  which  is  borrowed  from  them. 
"  All  there  is  beautiful,  pure,  and  innocent ;  never  was  so 
kind  a  glance  bestowed  on  the  world,  not  a  cruel  idea,  not 
a  trace  of  weakness  or  regret."  2 

The  mirth  of  St.  Dunstan's  story,  the  serenity  of  the 
legend  of  St.  Brandan,  are  examples  rarely  met  with  in 
this  literature.  Under  the  light  ornamentation  copied  from 
the  Celts  and  Normans,  is  usually  seen  at  that  date  the 
sombre  and  dreamy  background  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
mind.  Hell  and  its  torments,  remorse  for  irreparable 
crimes,  dread  of  the  hereafter,  terror  of  the  judgments  of 
God  and  the  brevity  of  life,  are,  as  they  were  before  the 
Conquest,  favourite  subjects  with  the  national  poets.  They 
recur  to  them  again  and  again  ;  French  poems  describing 
the  same  are  those  they  imitate  the  more  willingly  ;  the 
tollings  of  the  funeral  bell  are  heard  each  day  in  their 
compositions.  Why  cling  to  this  perishable  world  ?  it  will 
pass  as  "  the  schadewe  that  glyt  away  ; "  man  will  fade  as 
a  leaf,  "  so  lef  on  bouh."     Where  are   Paris,  and   Helen, 

1  In  the  faireste  lond  huy  weren  •  that  evere  mighte  beo. 
So  cler  and  so  light  it  was  ■  that  joye  thare  was  i-nogh  ; 
Treon  thare  weren  fulle  of  fruyt  ■  wel  thicke  ever-ech  bough  .  .  . 
Hit  was  evere-more  day  :  heom  thoughte,  and  never-more  nyght. 

Life  of  St.  Brendan  who  "  was  here  of  oure  londe,"  in  Horstmann's  "  South- 
English  Legendary,"  p.  220.  See  also  "  St.  Brandan,  a  mediaeval  Legend  of 
the  Sea,"  ed.  T.  Wright,  Percy  Society,  1844  ;  Francisque  Michel,  "  Les 
Voyages  Merveilleux  de  St.  Brandan  a  la  recherche  du  Paradis  terrestre,  legende 
en  vers  du  XIIe.  Siecle,"  Paris,  1878  ;  cf.  "  Navigation  de  la  barque  de  Mael 
Duin,"  in  d'Arbois  de  Jubainville's  "  L'Epopee  Celtique  en  Irlande,"  1892, 
pp.  449  ff.  (above  p.  12). 

2  Renan,   "  Essais  de  morale  et  de  critique,"  Paris,   1867,   3rd  edition,  p. 

446. 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  211 

and  Tristan,  and  Iseult,  and  Caesar  ?     They  have  fled  out 
of  this  world  as  the  shaft  from  the  bowstring  : 

Heo  beoth  iglyden  ut  of  the  reyne, 
So  the  scheft  is  of  the  cleo.1 

Treatises  of  various  kinds,  and  pious  poems,  abound 
from  the  thirteenth  century  ;  all  adapted  to  English  life 
and  taste,  but  imitated  from  the  French.  The  "  Ancren 
Riwle,"  2  or  rule  for  Recluse  women,  written  in  prose  in  the 
thirteenth  century  is  perhaps  an  exception  :  it  would  be  in 
that  case  the  first  in  date  of  the  original  treatises  written 
in  English  after  the  Conquest.  This  Rule  is  a  manual  of 
piety  for  the  use  of  women  who  wish  to  dedicate  them- 
selves to  God,  a  sort  of  "  Introduction  a  la  Vie  devote,"  as 
mild  in  tone  as  that  of  St.  Francis  de  Sales,  but  far  more 
vigorous  in  its  precepts.  The  author  addresses  himself 
specially  to  three  young  women  of  good  family,  who  had 
resolved  to  live  apart  from  the  world  without  taking  any 
vows.  He  teaches  them  to  deprive  themselves  of  all  that 
makes  life  attractive  ;  to  take  no  pleasure  either  through 
the    eye,  or  through  the   ear,  or    in  any  other  way.     He 

1  By  Thomas  de  Hales,  "  Incipit  quidam  cantus  quern  composuit  frater 
Thomas  de  Hales."  Thomas  was  a  friend  of  Adam  de  Marisco  and  lived  in 
the  thirteenth  century.  "Old  English  Miscellany,"  ed.  Morris,  E.E.T.S., 
1872,  p.  94. 

2  The  "  Ancren  Riwle,"  edited  and  translated  by  J.  Morton,  London, 
Camden  Society,  1853,  4to,  thirteenth  century.  Five  MSS.  have  been 
preserved,  four  in  English  and  one  in  Latin,  abbreviated  from  the  English  cf. 
Bramlette's  article  in  "  Anglia,"  vol.  xv.  p.  478).  A  MS.  in  French:  "La 
Reule  des  femmes  religieuses  et  recluses,"  disappeared  in  the  fire  of  the 
Cottonian  Library.  The  ladies  for  whom  this  book  was  written  lived  at 
Tarrant  Raines,  in  Dorset,  where  a  convent  for  monks  had  been  founded  by 
Ralph  de  Raines,  son  of  one  of  the  companions  of  the  Conqueror.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  the  original  text  was  the  French  one  ;  French  fragments 
subsist  in  the  English  version.  The  anonymous  author  had  taken  much  trouble 
about  this  work.  "  God  knows,"  he  says,  "  it  would  be  more  agreeable  to 
me  to  start  on  a  journey  to  Rome  than  begin  to  do  it  again."  A  journey  to 
Rome  was  not  then  a  pleasure  trip. 


212  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

gives  rules  for  getting  up,  for  going  to  bed,  for  eating  and 
for  dressing.  His  doctrine  may  be  summed  up  in  a  word  :  he 
teaches  self-renunciation.  But  he  does  it  in  so  kindly  and 
affectionate  a  tone  that  the  life  he  wishes  his  penitents  to 
submit  to  does  not  seem  too  bitter  ;  his  voice  is  so  sweet 
that  the  existence  he  describes  seems  almost  sweet.  Yet  all 
that  could  brighten  it  must  be  avoided  ;  the  least  thing 
may  have  serious  consequences  :  "  of  little  waxeth  mickle." 
Not  a  glance  must  be  bestowed  on  the  world  ;  the 
young  recluses  must  even  deny  themselves  the  pleasure  of 
looking  out  of  the  parlour  windows.  They  must  bear  in 
mind  the  example  of  Eve :  "  When  thou  lookest  upon 
a  man  thou  art  in  Eve's  case  ;  thou  lookest  upon  the 
apple.  If  any  one  had  said  to  Eve  when  she  cast  her  eye 
upon  it :  '  Ah  !  Eve,  turn  thee  away  ;  thou  castest  thine 
eyes  upon  thy  death,'  what  would  she  have  answered  ? — 
'  My  dear  master,  thou  art  in  the  wrong,  why  dost  thou 
find  fault  with  me  ?  The  apple  which  I  look  upon  is  for- 
bidden me  to  eat,  not  to  look  at.' — Thus  would  Eve  quickly 
enough  have  answered.  O  my  dear  sisters,  truly  Eve 
hath  many  daughters  who  imitate  their  mother,  who 
answer  in  this  manner.  But  '  thinkest  thou,'  saith  one, 
'  that  I  shall  leap  upon  him  though  I  look  at  him  ?  ' — God 
knows,  dear  sisters,  that  a  greater  wonder  has  happened. 
Eve,  thy  mother  leaped  after  her  eyes  to  the  apple  ;  from 
the  apple  in  Paradise  down  to  the  earth  ;  from  the  earth  to 
hell,  where  she  lay  in  prison  four  thousand  years  and 
more,  she  and  her  lord  both,  and  taught  all  her  offspring  to 
leap  after  her  to  death  without  end.  The  beginning  and 
root  of  this  woful  calamity  was  a  light  look.  Thus  often, 
as  is  said,  '  of  little  waxeth  mickle.'  "  x 

1  P.  53,  Morton's  translation.  The  beginning  of  the  quotation  runs  thus  in 
the  original :  "  Hwoso  hevede  iseid  to  Eve  theo  heo  werp  hire  eien  therone, 
A  !  wend  te  awei  !  thu  worpest  eien  o  thi  death !  Hwat  heved  heo  i- 
onswered  ?  Me  leove  sire,  ther  havest  wouh.  Hwarof  kalenges  tu  me  ?  The 
eppel  that  ich  loke  on  is  forbode  me  to  etene,  and  nout  forto  biholden." 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  213 

The  temptation  to  look  and  talk  out  of  the  window  was 
one  of  the  greatest  with  the  poor  anchoresses  ;  not  a  few 
found  it  impossible  to  resist  it.  Cut  off  from  the  changeable 
world,  they  could  not  help  feeling  an  interest  in  it,  so  capti- 
vating precisely  because,  unlike  the  cellular  life,  it  was 
ever  changing.  The  authors  of  rules  for  recluses  insisted 
therefore  very  much  upon  this  danger,  and  denounced 
such  abuses  as  Aelred,  abbot  of  Rievaulx,  reveals,  as  we 
have  seen,  so  early  as  the  twelfth  century  :  old  women, 
talkative  ones  and  newsbringers,  sitting  before  the  window 
of  the  recluse,  "  and  telling  her  tales,  and  feeding  her  with 
vain  news  and  scandal,  and  telling  her  how  this  monk  or 
that  clerk  or  any  other  man  looks  and  behaves."  x 

Most  of  the  religious  treatises  in  English  that  have  come 
down  to  us  are  of  a  more  recent  epoch,  and  belong  to  the 
first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century.  In  the  thirteenth,  as  has 
been  noticed,  many  Englishmen  considered  French  to  be, 
together  with  Latin,  the  literary  language  of  the  country  ; 
they  endeavoured  to  handle  it,  but  not  always  with  great 
success.  Robert  Grosseteste,  who,  however,  recommended 
his  clergy  to  preach  in.  English,  had  composed  in  French 
a  "  Chateau  d'Amour,"  an  allegorical  poem,  with  keeps, 
castles,  and  turrets,  "  les  quatre  tureles  en  haut,"  which  are 
the  four  cardinal  virtues,  a  sort  of  pious  Romaunt  of  the 
Rose.  William  of  Wadington  had  likewise  written  in 
French  his  "  Manuel  des  Pechiez,"  not  without  an  inkling 

1  "Vix  aliquam  inclusarum  hujus  temporis  solam  invenies,  ante  cujus 
fenestram  non  anus  garrula  vel  nugigerula  mulier  sedeat  quae  earn  fabulis 
occupet,  rumoribus  aut  detractionibus  pascat,  illius  vel  illius  monachi  vel  clerici, 
vel  alterius  cujuslibet  ordinis  viri  formam,  vultum,  moresque  describat.  Ille- 
cebrosa  quoque  interserat,  puellarum  lasciviam,  viduarum,  quibus  libet  quid- 
quid  libet,  libertatem,  conjugum  in  viris  fallendis  explendisque  voluptatibus 
astutiam  depingat.  Os  interea  in  risus  cachinnosque  dissolvitur,  et  venenum 
cum  suavitate  bibitum  per  viscera  membraque  diffunditur."  "  De  vita  ere- 
metica  Liber,"  cap.  iii.,  Reclusarun  cum  externis  mulieribus  confabulationes  ; 
in  Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vol.  xxxii.  col.  1451.  See  above,  p.  153.  Aelred 
wrote  this  treatise  at  the  request  of  a  sister  of  his,  a  sister  "  carne  et  spiritu." 


214  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

that  his  grammar  and  prosody  might  give  cause  for 
laughter.  He  excused  himself  in  advance :  "  For  my 
French  and  my  rhymes  no  one  must  blame  me,  for  in 
England  was  I  born,  and  there  bred  and  brought  up 
and  educated."  x 

These  attempts  become  rare  as  we  approach  the 
fourteenth  century,  and  English  translations  and  imita- 
tions, on  the  contrary,  multiply.  We  find,  for  example, 
translations  in  English  verse  of  the  "  Chateau  " 2  and  the 
"  Manuel  "  3  ;  a  prose  translation  of  that  famous  "  Somme 
des  Vices  et  des  Vertus,"  composed  by  Brother  Lorens  in 
1 279,  for  Philip  1 1 1,  of  France,  a  copy  of  which,  chained  to  a 
pillar  of  the  church  of  the  Innocents,  remained  open  for  the 
convenience  of  the  faithful  4  ;  a  bestiary  (in  verse,  thirteenth 

x  De  le  franceis,  ne  del  rimer 
Ne  me  dait  nuls  horn  blamer, 
Kar  tn  Engleterre  fu  ne 
E  norri  ordine  et  aleve. 

Furnivall,  "  Roberd  of  Brunne's  Handlyng  Synne,"  &c,  Roxburghe  Club,  1S62, 
4to,  p.  413. 

2  French  text  of  the  "  Chateau  "  in  Cooke,  "  Carmina  Anglo-Normannica," 
1852,  Caxton  Society;  English  versions  in  Horstmann  and  Furnivall,  "The 
minor  Poems  of  the  Vernon  MS.,"  Early  English  Text  Society,  1892,  pp.  355, 
40"  ;  Weymouth  :  "  Castell  off  Love  ...  an  early  English  translation  of  an 
old  French  poem  by  Robert  Grosseteste,"  Philological  Society,  1864, 
4to ;  Halliwell,  "  Castle  of  Love,"  Brixton  Hill,  1849,  4to-  See  above, 
p.  205. 

3  The  "  Manuel  des  Pechiez,"  by  William  de  Wadington,  as  well  as  the  Eng- 
lish metrical  translation  (a  very  free  one)  written  in  1303  by  Robert  Mannyng, 
of  Brunne,  Lincolnshire  (1260?- 1340?),  have  been  edited  by  Furnivall: 
"  Handlyng  Synne,"  London,  Roxburghe  Club,  1862,  410,  contains  a  number 
of  exempla  and  curious  stories.  The  same  Mannyng  wrote,  after  Peter  de 
Langtoft,  an  Englishman  who  had  written  in  French  (see  above,  p.  122),  and 
after  Wace,  a  metrical  chronicle,  from  the  time  of  Noah  down  to  Edward  I.  : 
"The  Story  of  England  .  .  .  a.d.  1338,"  ed.  Furnivall,  Rolls,  1887,  2  vols. 
8vo.  He  is  possibly  the  author  of  a  metrical  meditation  on  the  Last  Supper 
imitated  from  his  contemporary  St.  Bonaventure  :  "  Meditacyuns  on  the  Soper 
of  our  Lorde,"  ed.  Cowper,  E.E.T.S.,  1875,  8vo. 

4  "The  Ayenbite  of  Inwyt  or  Remorse  of  Conscience,  in  the  Kentish 
Dialect,  1340  A.  D. ,  edited  from  the  autograph  MS. ,"  by  R.  Morris,  E.  E.T.S.  The 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  215 

century),  devotional  writings  on  the  Virgin,  legends  of  the 
Cross,  visions  of  heaven  and  hell I  ;  a  Courier  of  the  world, 
"  Cursor  Mundi,"  in  verse,2  containing  the  history  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments.  A  multitude  of  legends  are  found 
in  the  "  Cursor,"  that  of  the  Cross  for  instance,  made  out  of 
three  trees,  a  cypress,  a  cedar,  and  a  pine,  symbols  of  the 
Trinity.  These  trees  had  sprung  from  three  pips  given  to 
Seth  by  the  guardian  angel  of  Paradise,  and  placed  under 
Adam's  tongue  at  his  death  ;  their  miraculous  existence  is 
continued  on  the  mountains,  and  they  play  a  part  in  all 
the  great  epochs  of  Jewish  history,  in  the  time  of  Moses, 
Solomon,  &c. 

"  Ayenbite  "  is  the  work  of  Dan  Michel,  of  Northgate,  Kent,  who  belonged 
to  "  the  bochouse  of  Saynt  Austines  of  Canterberi."  The  work  deals  with  the 
Ten  Commandments,  the  seven  deadly  sins,  informs  us  that  "  the  sothe 
noblesse  comth  of  the  gentyl  herte  .  .  .  ase  to  the  bodye:  alle  we  byeth 
children  of  one  moder,  thet  is  of  erthe  "  (p.  87).  Some  of  the  chapters  of 
Lorens's  "  Somme  "  were  adapted  by  Chaucer  in  his  Parson's  tale. 

1  See  in  particular:  "  Legends  of  the  Holy  Rood,  symbols  of  the  Passion 
and  Cross  Poems,  in  old  English  of  the  Xlth,  XlVth,  and  XVth  centuries,"  ed. 
Morris,  E.E.T.S.,  1871. — "An  Old  English  Miscellany  containing  a  Bestiary, 
Kentish  sermons,  Proverbs  of  Alfred  and  religious  poems  of  the  XHIth 
century,"  ed.  Morris,  E.E.T.S.,  1872. — "  The  religious  poems  of  William  de 
Shoreham,"  ed.  T.  Wright,  Percy  Society,  1849,  on  sacraments,  command- 
ments, deadly  sins,  &c. ,  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century. — "  The  Minor 
Poems  of  the  Vernon  MS.,"  ed.  Horstmann  and  Furnivall,  E. E.T.S.,  1892; 
contains  a  variety  of  poems  in  the  honour  of  the  Virgin,  pious  tales,  "a  dis- 
pitison  bitweene  a  good  man  and  the  devel,"  p.  329,  meditations,  laments, 
vision  of  St.  Paul,  &c,  of  various  authors  and  dates,  mostly  of  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries. — On  visions  of  heaven  and  hell  (vision  of  St.  Paul 
of  Tundal,  of  St.  Patrick,  of  Thurkill),  and  on  the  Latin,  French,  and  English 
texts  of  several  of  them,  see  Ward,   "  Catalogue  of  Romances,"  1893,  v°l-  "• 

PP-  397  «"• 

2  "Cursor  Mundi,  the  cursur  of  the  world,"  ed.  R.  Morris,  E.E.T.S., 
1874-93,  7  Parts,  compiled  ab.  1300  from  the  "  Historia  Ecclesiastica "  of 
Peter  Comestor,  the  "  Fete  de  la  Conception  "  of  Wace,  the  "  Chateau 
d' Amour  "  of  Grosseteste,  &c.  (Haenisch  "  Inquiry  into  the  sources  of  the 
Cursor  Mundi,"  ibid,  part  vii. ).  The  work  has  been  wrongly  attributed  to 
John  of  Lindbergh.  See  Morris's  preface,  p.  xviii.  Cf.  Napier,  "  History  of 
the  Holy  Rood  Tree,"  E.E.T.S.,  1894  (English,  Latin,,  and  French  prose 
texts  of  the  Cross  legend). 


216  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Similar  legends  adorn  most  of  these  books  :  what  good 
could  they  accomplish  if  no  one  read  them  ?  And  to  be 
read  it  was  necessary  to  please.  This  is  why  verse  was 
used  to  charm  the  ear,  and  romantic  stories  were  in- 
serted to  delight  the  mind,  for,  says  Robert  Mannyng 
in  his  translation  of  the  "  Manuel  des  Pechiez,"  "  many 
people  are  so  made  that  it  pleases  them  to  hear  stories 
and  verses,  in  their  games,  in  their  feasts,  and  over  their 
ale."  * 

Somewhat  above  this  group  of  translators  and  adapta- 
tors  rises  a  more  original  writer,  Richard  Rolle  of  Ham- 
pole,  noticeable  for  his  English  and  Latin  compositions,  in 
prose  and  verse,  and  still  more  so  by  his  character.2  He 
is  the  first  on  the  list  of  those  lay  preachers,  of  whom 
England  has  produced  a  number,  whom  an  inward  crisis 
brought  back  to  God,  and  who  roamed  about  the  country 
as  volunteer  apostles,  converting  the  simple,  edifying  the 
wise,  and,  alas  !  affording  cause  for  laughter  to  the  wicked. 
They  are  taken  by  good  folks  for  saints,  and  for  madmen 
by  sceptics  :  such  was  the  fate  of  Richard  Rolle,  of  George 
Fox,  of  Bunyan,  and  of  Wesley  ;  the  same  man  lives  on 

1  For  lewde  men  y  undyrtoke, 
On  Englyssh  tunge  to  make  thys  boke  : 
For  many  ben  of  swyche  manere 
That  talys  and  rymys  wyl  blethly  here 
Yn  gamys  and  festys  and  at  the  ale. 

"  Roberd  of  Brunne's  Handlyng  Synne,  written  A.D.  1303  with  .  .  .  Le  Manuel 
des  Pechiez  by  William  of  Wadington,"  ed.  Furnivall,  London,  Roxburghe 
Club,  1862,  4to,  Prologue,  p.  2. 

-  There  exist  Latin  and  English  texts  of  his  works,  the  latter  being 
generally  considered  as  translations  made  by  himself.  His  principal  composi- 
tion is  his  poem:  "The  Pricke  of  Conscience,"  ed.  Morris,  Philological 
Society,  1863,  8vo.  He  wrote  also  a  prose  translation  of  "  The  Psalter,"  with 
a  commentary,  ed.  Bramley,  Oxford,  1884,  8vo,  and  also  "  English  Prose 
Treatises,"  ed.  G.  G.  Perry,  E.E.T.S.,  1866,  8vo.  Most  of  his  works  in  Latin 
have  been  collected  under  the  title  :  "  D.  Richardi  Pampolitani  Anglo-Saxonis 
eremitse  .  .  .  Psalterium  Davidicum  atque  alia  .  .  .  Monumenta,"  Cologne, 
1536,  fol. 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  217 

through  the  ages,  and  the  same  humanity  heaps  on  him  at 
once  blessings  and  ridicule. 

Richard  was  of  the  world,  and  never  took  orders.  He 
had  studied  at  Oxford.  One  day  he  left  his  father's  house, 
in  order  to  give  himself  up  to  a  contemplative  life.  From 
that  time  he  mortifies  himself,  he  fasts,  he  prays,  he  is 
tempted  ;  the  devil  appears  to  him  under  the  form  of  a 
beautiful  young  woman,  who  he  tells  us  with  less  humility 
than  we  are  accustomed  to  from  him,  "  loved  me  not  a  little 
with  good  love."  x  But  though  the  wicked  one  shows  him- 
self in  this  case  even  more  wicked  than  with  St.  Dunstan, 
and  Rolle  has  no  red-hot  tongs  to  frighten  him  away,  still 
the  devil  is  again  worsted,  and  the  adventure  ends  as  it 
should. 

Rolle  has  ecstasies,  he  sighs  and  groans  ;  people  come 
to  visit  him  in  his  solitude  ;  he  is  found  writing  much, 
"  scribentem  multum  velociter."  He  is  requested  to  stop 
writing,  and  speak  to  his  visitors  ;  he  talks  to  them,  but 
continues  writing,  "  and  what  he  wrote  differed  entirely 
from  what  he  said."  This  duplication  of  the  personality 
lasted  two  hours. 

He  leaves  his  retreat  and  goes  all  over  the  country, 
preaching  abnegation  and  a  return  to  Christ.  He  finally 
settled  at  Hampole,  where  he  wrote  his  principal  works, 
and  died  in  1349.  Having  no  doubt  that  he  would  one 
day  be  canonised,  the  nuns  of  a  neighbouring  convent 
caused  the  office  of  his  feast-day  to  be  written  ;  and  this 
office,  which  was  never  sung  as  Rolle  never  received  the 
hoped-for  dignity,  is  the  main  source  of.  our  information 
concerning  him.2 


'& 


1  "  When  I  had  takene  my  syngulere  purpos  and  lefte  the  seculere  habyte, 
and  I  be-ganne  mare  to  serve  God  than  mane,  it  fell  one  a  nyghte  als  I  lay  in 
my  reste,  in  the  begynnynge  of  my  conversyone,  thare  appered  to  me  a  full 
faire  yonge  womane,  the  whilke  I  had  sene  be-fore,  and  the  whilke  luffed  me 
noght  lyttil  in  gude  lufe."     "  English  l'rose  Treatises,"  p.  5. 

2  "  Ofhcium  de  Sancto  Ricardo  eremita."     The  office  contains  hymns  in  the 


2i8  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

His  style  and  ideas  correspond  well  to  such  a  life.  His 
thoughts  are  sombre,  Germanic  anxieties  and  doubts  re- 
appear in  his  writings,  the  idea  of  death  and  the  image  of 
the  grave  cause  him  anguish  that  all  his  piety  cannot  allay. 
His  style,  like  his  life,  is  uneven  and  full  of  change  ;  to 
calm  passages,  to  beautiful  and  edifying  tales  succeed  bursts 
of  passion  ;  his  phrases  then  become  short  and  breathless  ; 
interjections  and  apostrophes  abound.  "  Ihesu  es  thy 
name.  A  !  A  !  that  wondyrfull  name  !  A  !  that  delitta- 
byll  name !  This  es  the  name  that  es  abowve  all  names. 
.  .  .  Iyede  (went)  abowte  be  Covaytyse  of  riches  and  I 
fande  noghte  Ihesu.  I  rane  be  Wantonnes  of  flesche  and 
I  fand  noghte  Ihesu.  I  satt  in  companyes  of  Worldly 
myrthe  and  I  fand  noghte  Ihesu.  .  .  .  Tharefore  I  turnede 
by  anothire  waye,  and  I  rane  a-bowte  be  Poverte,  and  I 
fande  Ihesu  pure,  borne  in  the  worlde,  laid  in  a  crybe  and 
lappid  in  clathis." J  Rolle  of  Hampole  is,  if  we  except 
the  doubtful  case  of  the  "  Ancren  Riwle,"  the  first  English 
prose  writer  after  the  Conquest  who  can  pretend  to  the 
title  of  original  author.  To  find  him  we  have  had  to 
come  far  into  the  fourteenth  century.  When  he  died, 
in  1349,  Chaucer  was  about  ten  years  of  age  and  Wyclif 
thirty. 

honour  of  the  saint :  "  Rejoice,  mother  country  of  the  English  !  .  .  ." 

Letetur  felix  Anglorum  patria  .  .  . 
Pange  lingua  graciosi  Ricardi  preconium, 
Pii,  puri,  preciosi,  fugientis  vicium. 

"  English  Prose  Treatises,"  pp.  xv  and  xvi. 

1  "  English  Prose  Treatises,"  pp.  1,  4,  5.  Cf.  Rolle's  Latin  text,  "  Nominis 
Iesu  encomion "  :  "O  bonum  nomen,  o  dulce  nomen,"  &c,  in  "  Richardi 
Pampolitani,  .  .  .  Monumenta,"  Cologne,  1536,  fol.  cxliii.  At  the  same  page, 
the  story  of  the  young  woman. 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  219 

II. 

We  are  getting  further  and  further  away  from  the  Con- 
quest, the  wounds  inflicted  by  it  begin  to  heal,  and  an 
audience  is  slowly  forming  among  the  English  race,  ready 
for  something  else  besides  sermons. 

The  greater  part  of  the  nobles  had  early  accepted  the 
new  order  of  things,  and  had  either  retained  or  recovered 
their  estates.  Having  rallied  to  the  cause  of  the  conquerors, 
they  now  endeavoured  to  imitate  them,  and  had  also  their 
castles,  their  minstrels,  and  their  romances.  They  had,  it 
is  true,  learnt  French,  but  English  remained  their  natural 
language.  A  literature  was  composed  that  resembled  them, 
English  in  language,  as  French  as  possible  in  dress  and 
manners.  About  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  or  begin- 
ning of  the  thirteenth,  the  translation  of  the  French 
romances  began.     First  came  war  stories,  then  love  tales. 

Thus  was  written  by  Layamon,  about  1205,  the  first 
metrical  romance,  after  "Beowulf,"  that  the  English  liteia- 
ture  possesses.1  The  vocabulary  of  the  "  Brut"  is  Anglo- 
Saxon  ;  there  are  not,  it  seems,  above  fifty  words  of  French 
origin  in  the  whole  of  this  lengthy  poem,  and  yet  on  each 
page  it  is  easy  to  recognise  the  ideas  and  the  chivalrous 
tastes  introduced  by  the   French.     The  strong  will    with 

1  "  Layamon's  Brut  or  Chronicle  of  Britain,  a  poetical  Semi-Saxon  para- 
phrase of  the  Brut  of  Wace,"  ed.  by  Sir  Fred.  Madden,  London,  Society  of 
Antiquaries,  1847,  3  vols.  8vo. — Cf.  Ward,  "Catalogue  of  Romances,"  vol.  i. 
1883  :  "  Many  important  additions  are  made  to  Wace,  but  they  seem  to  be 
mostly  derived  from  Welsh  traditions,"  p.  269.  Wace's  "  Geste  des  Bretons,"  or 
"  Roman  deBrut,"  written  in  1 155,  was  ed.  by  Leroux  de  Lincy,  Rouen,  1836, 
2  vols.  8vo.  Cf.  P.  Meyer,  "  De  quelques  Chroniques  Anglo-Normandes 
qui  ont  porte  le  nom  de  Brut,"  Bulletin  de  la  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes 
francais,  1878.  Layamon,  son  of  Leovenath,  lived  at  Ernley,  now  Lower 
Arley,  on  the  Severn ;  he  uses  sometimes  alliteration  and  sometimes  rhyme  in 
his  verse.  The  MS.  Cott.  Otho  C.  xiii  contains  a  "somewhat  modernised" 
version  of  Layamon's  "  Brut,"  late  thirteenth  or  early  fourteenth  century 
(Ward,  ibid.).     On  Layamon  and  his  work,  see  "Anglia,"  i.  p.  197,  and  ii. 

P-  153- 


220  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

which  they  blended  the  traditions  of  the  country  has  borne 
its  fruits.  Layamon  considers  that  the  glories  of  the 
Britons  are  English  glories,  and  he  celebrates  their 
triumphs  with  an  exulting  heart,  as  if  British  victories 
were  not  Saxon  defeats.  Bede,  the  Anglo-Saxon,  and 
Wace,  the  Norman,  "a  Frenchis  clerc"  as  he  calls  him, 
are,  in  his  eyes,  authorities  of  the  same  sort  and  same 
value,  equally  worthy  of  filial  respect  and  belief.  "  It 
came  to  him  in  mind,"  says  Layamon,  speaking  of  him- 
self, "  and  in  his  chief  thought  that  he  would  of  the 
English  tell  the  noble  deeds.  .  .  .  Layamon  began  to 
journey  wide  over  this  land  and  procured  the  noble  books 
which  he  took  for  pattern.  He  took  the  English  book 
that  St.  Bede  made,"  and  a  Latin  book  by  "  St.  Albin  "  ; 
a  third  book  he  took  "  and  laid  in  the  midst,  that  a  French 
clerk  made,  who  was  named  Wace,  who  well  could  write. 
.  .  .  These  books  he  turned  over  the  leaves,  lovingly  he 
beheld  them  .  .  .  pen  he  took  with  fingers  and  wrote  on 
book  skin."  x  He  follows  mainly  Wace's  poem,  but  para- 
phrases it  ;  he  introduces  legends  that  were  unknown  to 
Wace,  and  adds  speeches  to  the  already  numerous  speeches 
of  his  model.  These  discourses  consist  mostly  of  warlike 
invectives  ;  before  slaying,  the  warriors  hurl  defiance  at 
each  other  ;  after  killing  his  foe,  the  victor  allows  him- 
self the  pleasure  of  jeering  at  the  corpse,  and  his  mirth 
resembles  very  much  the  mirth  in  Scandinavian  sagas. 
"Then  laughed  Arthur,  the  noble  king,  and  gan  to  speak 
with  gameful  words  :  '  Lie  now  there,  Colgrim.  .  .  .  Thou 
climbed  on  this  hill  wondrously  high,  as  if  thou  wouldst 
ascend  to  heaven,  now  thou  shalt  to  hell.  There  thou 
mayest  know  much  of  your  kindred  ;  and  greet  thou  there 
Hengest  .  .  .  and  Ossa,  Octa  and  more  of  thy  kin,  and 
bid  them  there  dwell  winter  and  summer,  and  we  shall  in 

1  Madden,  ut  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  I. 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  221 

land  live  in  bliss.' "  x  This  is  an  example  of  a  speech  added 
to  Wace,  who  simply  concludes  his  account  of  the  battle 
by: 

Mors  fu  Balduf,  mors  fu  Colgrin 
Et  Cheldric  s'en  ala  fuiant.8 

In  such  taunts  is  recognised  the  ferocity  of  the  primitive 
epics,  those  of  the  Greeks  as  well  as  those  of  the  northern 
nations.  Thus  spoke  Patroclus  to  Cebrion  when  he  fell 
headlong  from  his  chariot,  "  with  the  resolute  air  of  a  diver 
who  seeks  oysters  under  the  sea." 

After  Layamon,  translations  and  adaptations  soon 
become  very  plentiful,  metrical  chronicles,  like  the  one 
composed  towards  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  by 
Robert  of  Gloucester,3  are  compiled  on  the  pattern  of  the 
French  ones,  for  the  use  and  delight  of  the  English  people  ; 
chivalrous  romances  are  also  written  in  English.  The  love 
of  extraordinary  adventures,  and  of  the  books  that  tell  of 
them,  had  crept  little  by  little  into  the  hearts  of  these 
islanders,  now  reconciled  to  their  masters,  and  led  by  them 
all  over  the  world.  The  minstrels  or  wandering  poets  of 
English  tongue  are  many  in  number  ;  no  feast  is  complete 
without  their  music  and  their  songs  ;  they  are  welcomed 
in  the  castle  halls  ;  they  can  now,  with  as  bold  a  voice  as 

1  Madden,  ut  supra,  vol.  ii.  p.  476.     The  original  text    (printed  in  short 
lines  by  Madden  and  here  in  long  ones)  runs  thus  : 

Tha  loh  Arthur  "  the  althele  king, 

And  thus  yeddien  agon  ■  mid  gommenfulle  worden  : 

Lien  nu  there  Colgrim  ■  thu  were  iclumben  haghe  .  .  . 

Thu  clumbe  a  thissen  hulle  '  wunder  ane  hoeghe, 

Swulc  thu  woldest  to  hasvene  ■  nu  thu  scalt  to  hrelle  ; 

Ther  thu  miht  kenne  '  muche  of  thine  cunne, 

And  gret  thu  ther  Hengest  ■  the  cnihten  wes  fayerest, 

Ebissa  and  Ossa  ■  Octa  and  of  thine  cunne  ma, 

And  bide  heom  ther  wunie  *  wintres  and  sumeres, 

And  we  scullen  on  londe  ■  libben  in  blisse. 

2  "  Roman  de  Brut,"  vol.  ii.  p.  57. 

3  On  Robert,  see  above,  pp.  117,  122.     On  the  sources  of  his  chronicle, 
see  Ellmer,  "  Anglia,"  vol.  x.  pp.  1  ff.  and  291  ff. 


222  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

their  French  brethren,  bespeak  a  cup  of  ale,  sure  not  to  be 
refused  : 

At  the  beginning  of  ure  tale, 
Fil  me  a  cuppe  of  ful  god  ale, 
And  y  wile  drinken  her  y  spelle 
That  Crist  us  shilde  all  fro  helle  ! x 

They  stop  also  on  the  public  places,  where  the  common 
people  flock  to  hear  of  Charlemagne  and  Roland  2  ;  they 
even  get  into  the  cloister.  In  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries,  nearly  all  the  stories  of  the  heroes  of 
Troy,  Rome,  France,  and  Britain  are  put  into  verse : 

For  hem  that  knowe  no  Frensche  '  ne  never  underston.3 

"Men  like,"  writes  shortly  after   1300,  the  author  of  the 
"  Cursor  Mundi  "  : 

Men  lykyn  jestis  for  to  here 

And  romans  rede  in  divers  manere 

Of  Alexandre  the  conqueroure, 

Of  Julius  Cesar  the  emperoure, 

Of  Grece  and  Troy  the  strong  stryf 

There  many  a  man  lost  his  lyf, 

Of  Brute  that  baron  bold  of  hond, 

The  first  conqueroure  of  Englond, 

Of  Kyng  Artour.   ,  .  . 

How  Kyng  Charlis  and  Rowlond  fawght 

With  Sarzyns  nold  they  be  cawght, 

Of  Trystrem  and  Isoude  the  swete, 

How  they  with  love  first  gan  mete  .   .  . 

Stories  of  diverce  thynggis, 

Of  pryncis,  prelatis  and  of  kynggis, 

Many  songgis  of  divers  ryme, 

As  English  Frensh  and  Latyne.4 


1  "Lay  of  Havelok,"  ed.  Skeat,  E.E.T.S.,  1868,  end  of  thirteenth  century, 
p.  I. 

2  On  wandering  minstrels  and  jongleurs,  see  "  English  Wayfaring  Life," 
ii.,  chap,  i.,  and  below,  p.  345,  above,  p.  162. 

3  "  Romance  of  William  of  Palerne,  translated  from   the   French,  at  the 
command  of  Sir  Humphrey  de  Bohun,  ab.  1350,"  ed.  Skeat,  E.E.T.S.,  1867, 

8vo.  1.  5533- 

4  "Cursor   Mundi,"    ed.    Morris,    part   v.    p.    1651.      A  large  number  of 
English  mediaeval    romances  will   be  found   among   the  publications  of  the 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  223 

Some  very  few  Germanic  or  Saxon  traditions,  such  as 
the  story  of  Havelok,  a  Dane  who  ended  by  reigning  in 
England,  or  that  of  Horn  and  Rymenhild,1  his  betrothed, 
had  been  adopted  by  the  French  poets.  They  were  taken 
from  them  again  by  the  English  minstrels,  who,  however, 
left  these  old  heroes  their  French  dress :  had  they  not 
followed  the  fashion,,  no  one  would  have  cared  for  their 
work.  Goldborough  or  Argentille,  the  heroine  of  the 
romance  of  Havelok,  was  originally  a  Valkyria  ;  now, 
under  her  French  disguise,  she  is  scarcely  recognisable, 
but  she  is  liked  as  she  is.2 

Some  English  heroes  of  a  more  recent  period  find  also 

Early  English  Text  Society  (including  among  others :  Ferumbras,  Otuel, 
Huon  of  Burdeux,  Charles  the  Crete,  Four  Sons  of  Aymon,  Sir  Bevis  of 
Hamton,  King  Horn,  Havelok  the  Dane,  Guy  of  Warwick,  William  of 
Palerne,  Generides,  Morte  Arthure,  Lonelich's  History  of  the  Holy  Grail, 
Joseph  of  Arimathie,  Sir  Gawaine  and  the  Green  Knight,  &c),  the  Camden 
and  the  Percy  Societies,  the  Roxburghe  and  the  Bannatyne  Clubs.  Some  also 
have  been  published  by  Kolbing  in  his  "  Altenglische  Bibliothek,"  Heilbronn  ; 
by  H.  W.  Weber  :  "  Metrical  Romances  of  the  XHIth,  XlVth  and  XVth 
centuries,"  Edinburgh,  1810,  3  vols.  8vo,  &c.  See  also  H.  L.  D.  Ward, 
"  Catalogue  of  MS.  Romances  in  the  British  Museum,"  1883  ff. 

1  "  King  Horn,  with  Fragments  of  Floriz  and  Blauncheflur,  and  of  the 
Assumption  of  Our  Lady,"  ed.  Kawson  Lumby,  E.  E.T.S.,  1886,  8vo.  "  Horn  " 
is  printed  from  a  Cambridge  MS.  of  the  thirteenth  century.  A  French  metrical 
version  of  this  story,  written  by  "  Thomas "  about  1170,  was  edited  by  R. 
Brcde  and  E.  Stengel:  "  Das  Anglonormannische  Lied  vom  wackern  Ritter 
Horn,"  Marbourg,  1883,  8vo  :  "Hie  est  de  Horn  bono  milite."  Concerning 
"  Horn,"  see  Ward,  "  Catalogue  of  Romances,"  i.  p.  447  ;  "  Anglia,"  iv.  p.  342 ; 
"  Romania,"  xv.  p.  575  (an  article  by  W.  Soderhjelm,  showing  that  the 
Thomas  of  "  Tristan  "  and  the  Thomas  of  "  Horn  "  are  not  the  same  man). 

2  Another  sign  of  a  Scandinavian  origin  consists  in  the  flame  that  comes  out 
of  the  mouth  of  Havelok  at  night,  and  betrays  his  royal  origin.  The  events 
take  place  at  Lincoln,  Grimsby,  and  in  Denmark  ;  the  seal  of  Grimsby  en- 
graved in  the  thirteenth  century  represents,  besides  "  Habloc"  and  "  Golde- 
burgh,"  "Gryem,"  the  founder  of  the  town,  and  supposed  father  of  the 
hero.  Gaimar,  the  chronicler,  wrote  in  French  verse  the  story  of  Havelok, 
and  we  have  it:  "  Le  Lai  d'Haveloc  le  Danois,"  in  Hardy  and  Martin 
"Lestorie  des  Engles,"  Rolls,  1888,  vol.  i.  p.  290.  The  English  text, 
"Havelok  the  Dane,"  ed.  Skeat,  E.E.T.S.,  1868,  was  probably  written 
between  1296  and  1300  (see  the  letter  of  J.  W.  Hales  to  the  Athenaum,  Feb. 
23,  1889),  cf.  Ward's  "  Catalogue,"  i.  p.  423- 


224  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

a  place  in  this  poetic  pantheon,  thanks  again  to  French 
minstrels,  who  make  them  fashionable  by  versifying 
about  them.  In  this  manner  were  written,  in  French,  then 
in  English,  the  adventures  of  Waltheof,  of  Sir  Guy  of 
Warwick,  who  marries  the  beautiful  Felice,  goes  to  Pales- 
tine, kills  the  giant  Colbrant  on  his  return,  and  dies  piously 
in  a  hermitage.1  Thus  are  likewise  told  the  deeds  of 
famous  outlaws,  as  Fulke  Fitz-Warin,  a  prototype  of 
Robin  Hood,  who  lived  in  the  woods  with  the  fair 
Mahaud,2  as  Robin  Hood  will  do  later  with  Maid  Marian.3 
Several  of  these  heroes,  Guy  of  Warwick  in  particular, 
enjoyed  such  lasting  popularity  that  it  has  scarcely  died 
out  to  this  day.  Their  histories  were  reprinted  at  the 
Renaissance  ;  they  were  read  under  Elizabeth,  and  plays 
were  taken  from  them  ;  and  when,  with  Defoe,  Richard- 
son, and  Fielding,  novels  of  another  kind  took  their  place 
in  the  drawing-room,  their  life  continued  still   in  the  lower 


1  "Guy  of  Warwick,"  ed.  Zupitza,  E.E.T.S.,  1875-91  (cf.  Ward's  "  Cata- 
logue of  Romances,"  i.  p.  471).  "All  the  Middle  English  versions  of  the 
Romances  of  Guy  of  Warwick  are  translations  from  the  French.  .  .  .  The 
French  romance  was  done  into  English  several  times.  We  possess  the  whole 
or  considerable  fragments  of,  at  least,  four  different  Middle  English  versions  " 
(Zupitza?s  Preface). 

2  Part  of  the  adventures  of  Fulke  belongs  to  history  ;  his  rebellion  actually 
took  place  in  1201.  His  story  was  told  in  a  French  poem,  written  before  1314 
and  turned  into  prose  before  1320  (the  text,  though  in  French,  is  remarkable 
for  its  strong  English  bias) ;  an  English  poem  on  the  same  subject  is  lost. 
(Ward,  "Catalogue  of  Romances,"  i.  pp.  501  ff. )  The  version  in  French 
prose  has  been  edited  by  J.  Stephenson,  with  his  Ralph  de  Coggeshall,  Rolls, 
1875,  p.  277,  and  by  Moland  and  d'Hericault  in  their  "  Nouvelles  en  prose  du 
quatorzieme  Siecle,"  Paris,  1858.  See  also  the  life  of  the  outlaw  Hereward, 
in  Latin,  twelfth  century  :  "  De  Gestis  Fferewardi  Saxonis,"  in  the 
"  Chroniques  Anglo-Normandes,"  of  F.  Michel,  Rouen,  1836-40,  vol.  ii. 

3  It  is  possible  that  Robin  Hood  existed,  in  which  case  it  seems  probable  he 
lived  under  Edward  II.  "  The  stories  that  are  told  about  him,  however,  had 
almost  all  been  previously  told,  connected  with  the  names  of  other  outlaws 
such  as  Hereward  and  Fulke  Fitz-Warin."  Ward,  "  Catalogue  of  Romances," 
i.  pp.  517  ff.  He  was  the  hero  of  many  songs,  from  the  fourteenth  century  ; 
most  of  those  we  have  belong,  however,  to  the  sixteenth. 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  225 

sphere  to  which  they  had  been  consigned.  They  supplied 
the  matter  for  those  popular  chap  books  I  that  have  been 
reprinted  even  in  our  time,  the  authors  of  which  wrote,  as 
did  the  rhymers  of  the  Middle  Ages  "  for  the  love  of  the 
English  people,  of  the  people  of  merry  England."  Englis 
lede  of  meri  Ingeland? 

"  Merry  England  "  became  acquainted  with  every  form 
of  French  mirth  ;  she  imitated  French  chansons,  and  gave  a 
place  in  her  literature  to  French  fabliaux.  Nothing  could 
be  less  congenial  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  than  the  spirit 
of  the  fabliaux.  This  spirit,  however,  was  acclimatised  in 
England  ;  and,  like  several  other  products  of  the  French 
mind,  was  grafted  on  the  original  stock.  The  tree  thus 
bore  fruit  which  would  never  have  ripened  as  it  did, 
without  the  Conquest.  Such  are  the  works  of  Chaucer, 
of  Swift  perhaps,  and  of  Sterne.  The  most  comic 
and  risque'  stories,  those  same  stories  meant  to  raise 
a  laugh  which  we  have  seen  old  women  tell  at  parlour 
windows,  in  order  to  cheer  recluse  anchoresses,  were  put 
into  English  verse,  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  fifteenth 
century.  Thus  we  find  under  an  English  form  such 
stories  as  the  tale  of  "  La  Chienne  qui  pleure,"3  "Le  lai  du 

1  On  the  transformations  of  Guy  of  Warwick  and  representations  of  him  in 
chap  books,  see  "  English  Novel  in  the  Time  of  Shakespeare,"  pp.  64,  350. 

2  "  Cursor  Mundi,"  i.  p.  21.  Cf.  Bartholomew  the  Englishman,  in  his  "  De 
Proprietatibus  Rerum,"  book  xv.,  chap,  xiv.,  thus  translated  by  Trevisa: 
"Englonde  is  fulle  of  myrthe  and  of  game  and  men  oft  tymes  able  to  myrth 
and  game,  free  men  of  harte  and  with  tongue,  but  the  honde  is  more  better 
and  more  free  than  the  tongue." — "  Cest  acteur  monstre  bien  en  ce  chapitre 
qu'il  fut  Anglois,"  observes  with  some  spite  Corbichon,  the  French  translator 
of  Bartholomew,  writing,  it  is  true,  during  the  Hundred  Years'  War. 

3  English  text:  "Dame  Siriz "  in  Th.  Wright,  "  Anecdota  Literaria," 
London,  1844,  8vo,  p.  1;  and  in  Goldbeck  and  Matzner,  "  Altenglische 
Sprachproben,"  Berlin,  1867,  p.  103.  French  text  in  the  "  Castoiement  d'un 
pere  a  son  fils,"  Barbazan  and  Meon,  "Fabliaux,"  vol.  ii.  The  English  text 
belongs  to  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  the  story  is  localised  in 
England;  mention  is  made  of  "  Botolfston,"  otherwise,  St.  Botolph  or 
Boston.      See  above,  p.   154;    on  a   dramatisation  of  the  story,  see  below, 

P.  447- 

16 


226  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

Cor,"1  "  La  Bourse  pleine  de  sens,"  2  the  praise  of  the  land 
of  "  Coquaigne,"3  &c. : 

Thogh  paradis  be  miri  and  bright 

Cokaygn  is  of  fairir  sight. 

What  is  ther  in  paradis 

Bot  grasse  and  flure  and  grene  ris  (branches)  ? 

Thogh  ther  be  joi  and  grete  dute  (pleasure) 

Ther  nis  mete  bote  frute  .  .  . 

Bot  watir  manis  thurste  to  quenche  ; 

Beth  ther  no  man  but  two, 

Hely  and  Enok  also 

And  it  cannot  be  very  pleasant  to  live  without  more 
company  ;  one  must  feel  "  elinglich."  But  in  "  Cokaygne  " 
there  is  no  cause  to  be  "  elinglich  "  ;  all  is  meat  and  drink 
there  ;  all  is  day,  there  is  no  night  : 

Al  is  dai,  nis  ther  no  nighte, 
Ther  nis  baret  (quarrel)  nother  strif  ... 
Ther  nis  man  no  womman  wroth, 
Ther  nis  serpent,  wolf  no  fox  ; 


1  Story  of  a  drinking  horn  from  which  husbands  with  faithless  wives  cannot 
drink  without  spilling  the  contents.  Arthur  invites  his  knights  to  try  the 
experiment,  and  is  not  a  little  surprised  to  find  that  it  turns  against  himself. 
French  text :  "  Le  lai  du  Cor,  restitution  critique,"  by  F.  Wulff,  Lund, 
1888,  8vo,  written  by  Robert  Biquet  in  the  twelfth  century  ;  only  one  MS. 
(copied  in  England)  has  been  preserved.  English  text  :  "  The  Cokwolds 
Daunce,"  from  a  MS.  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  Hazlitt's  "  Remains  of 
the  early  popular  poetry  of  England,"  London,  1864,  4  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i. 
p.  35.  Cf.  Le  "  Mantel  Mautaille,"  in  Montaiglon  and  Raynaud,  "  Recueil 
General,"  vol.  hi.,  and  "  La  Coupe  Enchantee,"  by  La  Fontaine. 

2  French  text  :  "De  pleine  Bourse  de  Sens,"  by  Jean  le  Galois,  in  Mon- 
taiglon and  Raynaud,  "Recueil  General,"  vol.  hi.  p.  88.  English  text: 
"How  a  Merchande  dyd  his  wyfe  betray,"  in  Hazlitt's  "Remains"  (ut 
supra),  vol.  i.  p.  196.  Of  the  same  sort  are  "  Sir  Cleges  "  (Weber,  "  Metrical 
Romances,"  1810,  vol.  i.),  the  "Tale  of  the  Basyn  "  (in  Hartshorne,  "Ancient 
Metrical  Tales,"  London,  1829,  p.  202),  a  fabliau,  probably  derived  from  a 
French  original,  etc. 

3  English  text  :  "  The  Land  of  Cokaygne"  (end  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
seems  to  have  been  originally  composed  in  the  thirteenth),  in  Goldbeck  and 
Matzner,  "  Altengische  Sprachproben,"  Berlin,  1867,  part  i.,  p.  147;  also 
in  Furnivall,  "  Early  English  Poems,"  Berlin,  1862,  p.  156.  French  text 
in  Barbazan  and  Meon,  "  Fabliaux,"  vol.  iii.  p.  175  :  "  C'est  li  Fabliaus  de 
Coquaigne." 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  227 

no  storm,  no  rain,  no  wind,  no  flea,  no  fly  ;  there  is  no 
Enoch  nor  any  Elias  to  be  sure  ;  but  there  are  women  with 
nothing  pedantic  about  them,  who  are  as  loving  as  they 
are  lovable. 

Nothing  less  Saxon  than  such  poems,  with  their  semi- 
impiety,  which  would  be  absolute  impiety  if  the  author 
seriously  meant  what  he  said.  It  is  the  impiety  of 
Aucassin,  who  refuses  (before  it  is  offered  him)  to  enter 
Paradise  :  "  In  Paradise  what  have  I  to  win  ?  Therein 
I  seek  not  to  enter,  but  only  to  have  Nicolete,  my 
sweet  lady  that  I  love  so  well.  .  .  .  But  into  Hell 
would  I  fain  go ;  for  into  Hell  fare  the  goodly  clerks, 
and  goodly  knights  that  fall  in  harness  and  great 
wars,  and  stout  men-at-arms,  and  all  men  noble.  .  .  . 
With  those  would  I  gladly  go,  let  me  but  have  with 
me  Nicolete,  my  sweetest  lady."  I  We  must  not  take 
Aucassin  at  his  word  ;  there  was  ever  froth  on  French 
wine. 

Other  English  poems  scoff  at  chivalrous  manners,  which 
are  ridiculed  in  verse,  in  paintings,  and  sculptures  2  ;  or  at 
the  elegancies  of  the  bad  parson  who  puts  in  his  bag  a 

1  "Aucassin  and  Nicolete,"  Andrew  Lang's  translation,  London,  1887, 
p.  12.  The  French  original  in  verse  and  prose,  a  cante-fable,  belongs  to  the 
twelfth  century.  Text  in  Moland  and  d'Hericault,  "Nouvelles  francoises 
en  prose,  du  treizieme  siecle"  (the  editors  wrongly  referred  "Aucassin "to 
that  century),  Paris,  1856,  161110. 

-  Knights  are  represented  in  many  MSS.  of  English  make,  fighting  against 
butterflies  or  snails,  and  undergoing  the  most  ridiculous  experiences  ;  for 
example,  in  MS.  10  E  iv.  and  2  B  vii.  in  the  British  Museum,  early  fourteenth 
century;  the  caricaturists  derive  their  ideas  from  French  tales  written  in  derision 
of  knighthood.  Poems  with  the  same  object  were  composed  in  English  ;  one  of 
a  later  date  has  been  preserved  :  "  The  Turnament  of  Totenham  "  (Hazlitt's 
"  Remains,"  iii.  p.  82) ;  the  champions  of  the  tourney  are  English  artisans  : 

Ther  hoppyd  Hawkyn, 
Ther  dawnsid  Dawkyn, 
Ther  trumpyd  Tymkyn, 
And  all  were  true  drynkers. 


228  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

comb  and  "  a  shewer  "  (mirror).1  Other  poems  are  adapta- 
tions of  the  "  Roman  de  Renart."  2  The  new  spirit  has 
penetrated  so  well  into  English  minds  that  the  adaptation 
is  sometimes  worthy  of  the  original. 

A  vox  gon  out  of  the  wode  go, 
Afingret  (hungered)  so  that  him  wes  wo ; 
He  nes  {ne  was)  nevere  in  none  wise 
Afingret  erour  (before)  half  so  swithe. 
He  ne  hoeld  nouther  wey  ne  strete, 
For  him  wes  loth  men  to  mete  ; 
Him  were  levere  meten  one  hen, 
Than  half  an  oundred  wimmen. 

But"  not  a  hen  does  he  come  across  ;  they  are  suspicious, 
and  roost  out  of  reach.  At  last,  half  dead,  he  desires  to 
drink,  and  sees  a  well  with  two  pails  on  the  chain  ;  he 
descends  in  one  of  the  pails,  and  finds  it  impossible  to 
scramble  out :  he  weeps  for  rage.  The  wolf,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  comes  that  way,  and  they  begin  to  talk.  Though 
wanting  very  much  to  go,  hungrier  than  ever,  and  deter- 
mined to  make  the  wolf  take  his  place,  Renard  would  not 
have  been  Renard  had  he  played  off  this  trick  on  his 
gossip  plainly  and  without  a  word.  He  adds  many  words, 
all  sparkling  with  the  wit  of  France,  the  wit  that  is  to  be 


1  He  putteth  in  hys  pawtener 
A  kerchyf  and  a  comb, 
A  shewer  and  a  coyf 
To  bynd  with  his  loks, 
And  ratyl  on  the  rowbyble 
And  in  non  other  boks 

Ne  mo  ; 
Mawgrey  have  the  bysshop 
That  lat  hyt  so  goo. 

"A  Poem  on  the  times  of  Edward  II.,"  ed.  Hardwick,  Percy  Society,  1849, 
p.  8. 

2  "The  Vox  and  Wolf,"  time  of  Edward  L,  in  Matzner,  " Altenglische 
Sprachproben,"  Berlin,  1867,  part  i.  p.  130;  also  in  Th.  Wright,  "Latin 
Stories,"  1842,  p.  xvi.  This  story  of  the  adventure  in  the  well  forms  Branch 
IV.  of  the  French  text.  Martin'  "Roman  de  Renart,"  Strasbourg,  1882, 
vol.  i.  p.  146. 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  229 

inherited  by  Scapin  and  by  Figaro.  The  wolf,  for  his 
part,  replies  word  for  word  by  a  verse  of  Orgon's.  Renard 
will  only  allow  him  to  descend  into  the  Paradise  whither 
he  pretends  to  have  retired,  after  he  has  confessed,  for- 
given all  his  enemies — Renard  being  one — and  is  ready  to 
lead  a  holy  life.  Ysengrin  agrees,  confesses,  and  forgives  ; 
he  feels  his   mind  quite  at  rest,  and  exclaims  in  his  own 

way  : 

Et  je  verrais  mourir  frere,  enfants,  mere  et  femme, 
Que  je  m'en  soucierais  autant  que  de  cela. * 

Nou  ich  am  in  clene  live, 

Ne  recche  ich  of  childe  ne  of  wive. 

The  wolf  goes  down,  Renard  goes  up  ;  as  the  pails 
meet,  the  rogue  wickedly  observes  : 

Ac  ich  am  therof  glad  and  blithe 
That  thou  art  nomen  in  clene  live, 
Thi  soul-cnul  (knell)  ich  wile  do  ringe, 
And  masse  for  thine  soule  singe. 

But  he  considers  it  enough  for  his  purpose  to  warn  the 
monks  that  the  devil  is  at  the  bottom  of  their  well.  With 
great  difficulty  the  monks  draw  up  the  devil,  which  done 
they  beat  him,  and  set  the  dogs  on  him. 

Some  graceful  love  tales,  popular  in  France,  were  trans- 
lated and  enjoyed  no  less  popularity  in  England,  where 
there  was  now  a  public  for  literature  of  this  sort.  Such 
was  the  case  for  Amis  and  Amile,  Floire  and  Blanchefleur, 
and  many  others.2     As  for  chansons,  there  were  imitations 

1  Tartufe,  i.  6. 

2  "Amis  and  Amiloun,"  ed.  Kolbing,  Heilbronn,  1884,  8vo,  French  and 
English  texts,  in  verse.  French  text  in  prose,  in  Moland  and  d'Hericault, 
"Nouvelles  .  .  .  du  XIIIe.  Siecle,"  1856,  i6mo.— French  text  of  "Floire"  in 
Edelstand  du  Meril,  "  Poemes  du  XIIIe.  Siecle,"  Paris,  1856.  English  text : 
"  Floris  and  Blauncheflur,  mittelenglisches  Gedicht  aus  dem  13  Jahrhundert," 
ed.  Hausknecht,  Berlin,  1885,  8vo  ;  see  also  Lumby,  "Horn  .  .  .  with  frag- 
ments of  Floriz,"  E.E.T.S.,  1886.  The  popularity  of  this  tale  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  four  or  five  different  versions  of  it  in  English  have  come  down  to 
us. — Lays  by  Marie  de  France  were  also  translated  into  English  :  "  Le  Lay  le 


230  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

of  May  songs,  "  disputoisons,"  x  and  carols  ;  love,  roses,  and 
birds  were  sung  in  sweet  words  to  soft  music  2  ;  so  was 
spring,  the  season  of  lilies,  when  the  flowers  give  more 
perfume,  and  the  moon  more  light,  and  women  are  more 
beautiful : 

Wymmen  waxeth  wonder  proude.3 

Their  beauties  and  merits  are  celebrated  one  by  one,  as  in 
a  litany  ;  for,  said  one  of  those  poets,  an  Englishman  who 
wrote  w  French : 

Beaute  de  femme  passe  rose.4 


Freine,"  in  verse,  of  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century.  English  text  in 
"  Anglia,"  vol.  iii.  p.  415  ;  "  Sir  Launfal,"  by  Thomas  Chestre,  fifteenth 
century,  in  "  Ritson's  Metrical  Romances,"  1802. 

1  Examples  of  "  estrifs,"  debates  or  "  disputoisons  "  :  "  The  Thrush  and  the 
Nightingale,"  on  the  merits  of  women,  time  of  Edward  I.  (with  a  title  in 
French:  "Si  comence  le  cuntent  par  entre  le  mauvis  et  la  russinole"); 
"  The  Debate  of  the  Carpenter's  Tools  "  (both  in  Hazlitt's  "  Remains,"  vol.  i. 
p.  50,  and  i.  p.  79)  ;  "The  Debate  of  the  Body  and  the  Soul"  (Miitzner's 
"  Altenglische  Sprachproben,"  part  i.  p.  90),  same  subject  in  French  verse, 
thirteenth  century,  "  Monumenta  Franciscana,"  vol.  i.  p.  587  ;  "  The  Owl 
and  the  Nightingale  "  (ed.  Stevenson,  Roxburghe  Club,  1838,  4to).  This  last, 
one  of  the  most  characteristic  of  all,  belongs  to  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
consists  in  a  debate  between  the  two  birds  concerning  their  respective  merits ; 
they  are  very  learned,  and  quote  Alfred's  proverbs,  but  they  are  not  very  well 
bred,  and  come  almost  to  insults  and  blows. 

2  Litanies  of  love : 

■    Love  is  wele,  love  is  wo,  love  is  geddede, 
Love  is  lif,  love  is  deth,  &c. 

Th.  Wright,  "  Anecdota  Literaria,"  London,  1844,  8vo,  p.  96,  time  of 
Edward  I.,  imitated  from  the  "  Chastoiement  des  Dames,"  in  Barbazan  and 
Meon,  vol.  ii. 

3  Th.  Wright,  "  Specimens  of  Lyric  Poetry,  composed  in  England  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  I.,"  Percy  Society,  1842,  8vo,  p.  43. 

4  They  wrote  in  French,  Latin,  and  English,  using  sometimes  the  three 
languages  in  the  same  song,  sometimes  only  two  of  them  : 

Scripsi  haec  carmina  in  tabulis  ! 
Mon  ostel  est  en  mi  la  vile  de  Paris  : 
May  y  sugge  namore,  so  wel  me  is  ; 
Yef  hi  deye  for  love  of  hire,  duel  hit  ys. 

Wright,  "  Specimens  of  Lyric  Poetry,"  p.  64. 


LITERATURE  IN  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  231 

In  honour  of  them  were  composed  stanzas  spangled 
with  admiring  epithets,  glittering  like  a  golden  shower  ; 
innumerable  songs  were  dedicated  to  their  ideal  model,  the 
Queen  of  Angels  ;  others  to  each  one  of  their  physical 
charms,  their  "  vair  eyes  "  J  and  their  eyes  "  gray  y-noh  "  : 
those  being  the  colours  preferred  ;  their  skin  white  as 
milk,  "  soft  ase  sylk  "  ;  those  scarlet  lips  that  served  them 
to  read  romances,  for  romances  were  read  aloud,  and  not 
only  with  the  eyes  2  ;  their  voice  more  melodious  than  a 
bird's  song.  In  short,  from  the  time  of  Edward  II.  that 
mixture  of  mysticism  and  sensuality  appears  which  was 
to  become  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  fourteenth 
century. 

The  poets  who  made  these  songs,  charming  as  they  were, 
rarely  succeeded  however  in  perfectly  imitating  the  light 
pace  of  the  careless  French  muse.  In  reading  a  great 
number  of  the  songs  of  both  countries,  one  is  struck  by 
the  difference.  The  English  spring  is  mixed  with  winter, 
and  the  French  with  summer  ;  England  sings  the  verses 
of  May,  remembering  April,  France  sings  them  looking 
forward  to  June. 

Blow  northerne  wjnd, 

Sent  thou  me  my  suetyng, 

Blow,  northerne  wynd,  blou,  blou,  blou  !3 

says  the  English  poet.  Contact  with  trie  new-comers  had 
modified  the  gravity  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  but  without 
sweeping  it  away  wholly  and  for  ever:  the  possibility  of 

1  Femmes  portent  les  oyls  veyrs 

E  regardent  come  faucoun. 

T.  Wright,  "  Specimens,"  p.  4. 

2  Heo  hath  a  mury  mouth  to  mele, 
With  lefiy  rede  lippes  lele 

Romaunz  forte  rede. 
Ibid.,  p.  34. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  51. 


232  THE  FRENCH  INVASION. 

recurring  sadness  is  felt  even  in  the  midst  of  the  joy  of 
"Merry  England." 

But  the  hour  draws  near  when  for  the  first  time,  and  in 
spite  of  all  doleful  notes,  the  joy  of  "  Merry  England  " 
will  bloom  forth  freely.  Edward  III.  is  on  the  throne, 
Chaucer  is  just  born,  and  soon  the  future  Black  Prince 
will  win  his  spurs  at  Crecy. 


BOOK  III. 
ENGLAND  TO  THE  ENGLISH. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  NE  W  NA  TION. 

I. 

In  the  course  of  the  fourteenth  century,  under  Edward  III. 
and  Richard  II.,  a  double  fusion,  which  had  been  slowly- 
preparing  during  the  preceding  reigns,  is  completed  and 
sealed  for  ever ;  the  races  established  on  English  ground 
are  fused  into  one,  and  the  languages  they  spoke  become 
One  also.  The  French  are  no  longer  superposed  on  the 
natives  ;  henceforth  there  are  only  English  in  the  English 
island. 

Until  the  fourteenth  year  of  Edward  III.'s  reign,  when- 
ever a  murder  was  committed  and  the  authors  of  it  remained 
unknown,  the  victim  was  prima  facie  assumed  to  be  French, 
"  Francigena,"  and  the  whole  county  was  fined.  But  the 
county  was  allowed  to  prove,  if  it  could,  that  the  dead  man 
was  only  an  Englishman,  and  in  that  case  there  was 
nothing  to  pay.  Bracton,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  is  very 
positive  ;  an  inquest  was  necessary,  "  ut  sciri  possit  utrum 
interfectus  Anglicus  fuerit,  vel  Francigena!'  *  The  Anglicus 
and  the  Francigena  therefore  still  subsisted,  and  were  not 
equal  before  the  law.  The  rule  had  not  fallen  into  disuse, 
since  a  formal  statute  was  needed  to  repeal  it ;  the  statute  of 

1  "  De  Legibus  et  Consuetudinibus  Anglise,"  book  iii.  treatise  ii.  chap.  xv. 
(Rolls,  vol.  ii.  p.  385.)  No  fine  if  the  defunct  is  English  :  "  Pro  Anglico  vero 
et  de  quo  constari  possit  quod  Anglicus  sit,  non  dabitur  murdrum." 

235 


236  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

1340,  which  abolishes  the  "  presentement  d'Englescherie,"  x 
thus  sweeping  away  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  marks 
left  behind  by  the  Conquest 

About  the  same  time  the  fusion  of  idioms  took  place, 
and  the  English  language  was  definitively  constituted.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  towards  131 1,  the 
text  of  the  king's  oath  was  to  be  found  in  Latin  among 
the  State  documents,  and  a  note  was  added  declaring  that 
"  if  the  king  was  illiterate,"  he  was  to  swear  in  French  2  ;  it 
was  in  the  latter  tongue  that  Edward  II.  took  his  oath  in 
1307  ;  the  idea  that  it  could  be  sworn  in  English  did  not 
occur.  But  when  the  century  was  closing,  in  1399,  an 
exactly  opposite  phenomenon  happened.  Henry  of 
Lancaster  usurped  the  throne  and,  in  the  Parliament 
assembled  at  Westminster,  pronounced  in  English  the 
solemn  words  by  which  he  claimed  the  crown  :  "  In  the 
name  of  Fadir,  Son  and  Holy  Gost,  I,  Henry  of  Lan- 
castre,  chalenge  yis  Rewme  of  Yngland."  3 

During  this  interval,  the  union  of  the  two  languages  had 
taken  place.  The  work  of  aggregation  can  be  followed  in 
its  various  phases,  and  almost  from  year  to  year.  In  the 
first  half  of  the  century,  the  "  lowe  men,"  the  "  rustics," 
rurales  homines,  are  still  keen  to  learn  French,  satagunt 
ornni  nisu  ;  they  wish  to  frenchify,  francigenare,*-  them- 
selves, in  order  to  imitate  the  nobles,  and  be  more  thought 
of.     Their  efforts  had  a  remarkable  result,  precisely  for  the 

1  "  Statutes  of  the  Realm,"  14  Ed.  III.  chap.  4. 

"  "  Si  rex  fuerit  litteratus,  talis  est.  .  .  .   Forma  juramenti  si  Rex  non  fuerit 
litteratus  :  Sire,  voilez  vous  graunter  et  garder  .  .  .  les  leys  et  les  custumes  .  . 
&c."     "  Statutes  of  the  Realm,"  sub  anno  131 1,  vol.  i.  p.  168. 

3  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  iii.  p.  422  ;  see  below,  p.  421. 

4  Ralph  Higden,  "  Polychronicon  "  (Rolls),  vol.  ii.  p.  158.  "  Hsec  quidem 
nativse  linguae  corruptio  provenit  hodie  multum  ex  duobus  quod  videlicet  pueri 
in  scolis  contra  morem  caeterarum  nationum,  a  primo  Normannorum  adventu 
derelicto  proprio  vulgari,  construere  gallice  compelluntur  ;  item  quod  filii 
nobilium  ab  ipsis  cunabulorum  crepundiis  ad  gallicum  idioma  informantur. 
Quibus  profecto  rurales  homines  assimilari  volentes  ut  per  hoc  spectabiliores 
videantur,  francigenare  satagunt  omni  nisu." 


THE  NEW  NATION.  237 

reason  that  they  never  succeeded  in  speaking  pure  French, 
and  that  in  their  ill-cleared  brains  the  two  languages  were 
never  kept  distinctly  apart.  The  nobles,  cleverer  men, 
could  speak  both  idioms  without  confounding  them,  but  so 
could  not  these  rarales,  who  lisped  the  master's  tongue 
with  difficulty,  mixing  together  the  two  vocabularies  and  the 
two  grammars,  mistaking  the  genders,  assigning,  for  want 
of  better  knowledge,  the  neuter  to  all  the  words  that  did 
not  designate  beings  with  a  sex,  in  other  words,  strange  as 
it  may  seem,  creating  the  new  language.  It  was  on  the  lips 
of  "lowe  men"  that  the  fusion  first  began ;  they  are  the  real 
founders  of  modern  English  ;  the  "  French  of  Stratford-at- 
Bow  "  had  not  less  to  do  with  it  than  the  "  French  of  Paris." 
Even  the  nobles  had  not  been  able  to  completely  escape 
the  consequences  of  a  perpetual  contact  with  the  mrales. 
Had  these  latter  been  utterly  ignorant  of  French,  the 
language  of  the  master  would  have  been  kept  purer,  but 
they  spoke  the  French  idiom  after  a  fashion,  and  their 
manner  of  speaking  it  had  a  contagious  influence  on  that 
of  the  great.  In  the  best  families,  the  children  being  in 
constant  communication  with  native  servants  and  young 
peasants,  spoke  the  idiom  of  France  less  and  less  correctly. 
From  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  the  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth,  they  confuse  French  words  that  bear  a 
resemblance  to  each  other,  and  then  also  commences  for 
them  that  annoyance  to  which  so  many  English  children  have 
been  subjected,  from  generation  to  generation  down  to  our 
time  :  the  difficulty  of  knowing  when  to  say  mon  and  ma — 
"  kaunt  dewunt  dire  moun  et  ma  " — that  is  how  to  distin- 
guish the  genders.  They  have  to  be  taught  by  manuals, 
and  the  popularity  of  one  written  by  Walter  de  Bibles- 
worth,1  in  the  fourteenth  century,  shows  how  greatly  such 

1  "A  volume  of  Vocabularies,  from  the  Xth  to  the  XVth  Century,"  ed. 
Thomas  Wright,  London,  1857,  4to,  pp.  143  ff.  See  also  P.  Meyer, 
"  Romania,"  vol.  xiii.  p.  502. 


238  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

treatises  were  needed.  "  Dear  sister,"  writes  Walter  to  the 
Lady  Dionyse  de  Montchensy,  "I  have  composed  this  work 
so  that  your  children  can  know  the  properties  of  the  things 
they  see,  and  also  when  to  say  mon  and  ma,  son  and  sa,  le  and 
la,moi  andyk"  And  he  goes  on  showing  at  the  same  time 
the  maze  and  the  way  out  of  it :  "  You  have  la  levre  and  le 
lievre  ;  and  la  livre  and  le  livre.  "Wit  levre  closes  the  teeth 
in  ;  le  lievre  the  woods  inhabits  ;  la  livre  is  used  in  trade  ; 
le  livre  is  used  at  church."  x 

Inextricable  difficulties  !  And  all  the  harder  to  unravel 
that  Anglo-Saxon  too  had  genders,  equally  arbitrary,  which 
did  not  agree  with  the  French  ones.  It  is  easy  to  conceive 
that  among  the  various  compromises  effected  between  the 
two  idioms,  from  which  English  was  finally  to  emerge,  the 
principal  should  be  the  suppression  of  this  cumbersome 
distinction  of  genders. 

What  happened  in  the  manor  happened  also  in  the 
courts  of  justice.  There  French  was  likewise  spoken,  it 
being  the  rule,  and  the  trials  were  apparently  not  lacking 
in  liveliness,  witness  this  judge  whom  we  see  para- 
phrasing the  usual  formula  :  "  Allez  a  Dieu,"  or  "  Adieu," 
and  wishing  the  defendant,  none  other  than  the  bishop 
of  Chester,  to  "  go  to  the  great  devil  "— "  Allez  au  grant 
deable."  2— (" '  What,'  said  Ponocrates,  'brother  John,  do 
you  swear?'  'It  is  only,' said  the  monk,  '  to  adorn  my 
speech.     These   are   colours    of    Ciceronian    rhetoric' ") — 

1  Vus  avet  la  levere  et  le  levere 
E  la  livere  et  le  livere. 
La  levere  si  enclost  les  dens  ; 
Le  levre  en  boys  se  tent  dedens, 
La  livere  sert  en  marchaundye, 
Le  livere  sert  en  seynt  eglise. 

2  Apostrophe  of  judge  John  de  Moubray,  Easter  session,  44Ed.HL, 
"Year-books  of  Edward  L,"  ed.  Horwood  (Rolls),  1863  ft".,  vol.  i.  p.  xxxi. 
Judge  Hengham  interrupts  a  counsel,  saying :  "  Do  not  interpret  the  statute  in 
your  own  way  ;  we  know  it  better  than  you,  for  we  made  it  " — "  Ne  glosez 
point  le  statut ;  nous  le  savoms  meuz  de  vous,  qar  nous  le  feimes."     Ibid. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  239 

But  from  most  of  the  speeches  registered  in  French  in  the 
"  Year-books,"  it  is  easily  gathered  that  advocates,  Ser- 
jeants as  they  were  called,  did  not  express  themselves 
without  difficulty,  and  that  they  delivered  in  French  what 
they  had  thought  in  English. 

Their  trouble  goes  on  increasing.  In  1300  a  regulation 
in  force  at  Oxford  allowed  people  who  had  to  speak  in 
a  suit  to  express  themselves  in  "  any  language  generally 
understood."  1  In  the  second  half  of  the  century,  the  diffi- 
culties have  reached  such  a  pitch  that  a  reform  becomes 
indispensable  ;  counsel  and  clients  no  longer  understand 
each  other.  In  1362,  a  statute  ordains  that  henceforward 
all  pleas  shall  be  conducted  in  English,  and  they  shall  be 
enrolled  in  Latin  ;  and  that  in  the  English  law  courts 
"  the  French  language,  which  is  too  unknown  in  the  said 
realm," 2  shall  be  discontinued. 

This  ignorance  is  now  notorious.  Froissart  remarks  on 
it ;  the  English,  he  says,  do  not  observe  treaties  faith- 
fully, "  and  to  this  they  are  inclined  by  their  not  under- 
standing very  well  all  the  terms  of  the  language  of  France ; 
and   one  does  not  know  how  to  force  a  thing  into  their 

1  "Grosso  modo  et  idiomate  quocunque  communiter  intelligibili  factum  pro- 
ponant."     "  Munimenta  Academica  "  (Rolls),  p.  77. 

2  "  Pur  ce  qe  monstre  est  souventefoitz  au  Roi  par  prelatz,  dues,  counts, 
barons  et  toute  la  commune,  les  grantz  meschiefs  qe  sont  advenuz  as  plusours 
du  realme  de  ce  qe  les  leyes,  custumes  et  estatutz  du  dit  realme  ne  sont  pas 
conuz  communement  en  mesme  le  realme,  par  cause  q'ils  sont  pledez,  monstrez 
et  juggez  en  lange  Franceis  q'est  trop  desconue  en  dit  realme,  issint  qe  les 
gentz  qi  pledent  ou  sont  empledez  en  les  courtz  le  Roi  et  les  courtz  d'autres 
n'ont  entendement  ne  conissance  de  ce  q'est  dit  por  eulx  ne  contre  eulx  par 
lour  sergeantz  et  autres  pledours  .  .  ."  that  henceforth  all  plaids  "  soient 
pledetz,  monstretz,  defenduz,  responduz,  debatuz  et  juggez  en  la  lange  engleise ; 
et  q'ils  soient  entreez  et  enroullez  en  latin."  36  Ed.  III.,  stat.  i.  chap.  15, 
"  Statutes  of  the  Realm."  In  spite  of  these  arrangements,  the  accounts  of  the 
pleas  continued  to  be  transcribed  in  French  into  the  "  Year-books,"  of  which 
several  have  been  published  in  the  collection  of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls. 
Writing  about  the  year  1300,  the  author  of  the  Mirror  of  Justice  had  still 
made  choice  of  French  as  being  the  "  language  best  understood  by  you  and 
the  common  people." 


240  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

head  unless  it  be  all  to  their  advantage."  x  Trevisa,  about 
the  same  time,  translating  into  English  the  chronicle  of 
Ralph  Higden,  reaches  the  passage  where  it  is  said  that  all 
the  country  people  endeavour  to  learn  French,  and  inserts 
a  note  to  rectify  the  statement.  This  manner,  he  writes,  is 
since  the  great  pestilence  (1349)  "  sumdel  i-chaunged,"  and 
to-day,  in  the  year  1385,  "in  alle  the  gramere  scoles  of 
Engelond,  children  leveth  Frensche  and  construeth  and 
lerneth  an  Englische."  This  allows  them  to  make  rapid 
progress  ;  but  now  they  "  conneth  na  more  Frensche  than 
can  hir  (their)  lift  heele,  and  that  is  harme  for  hem,  and 
(if)  they  schulle  passe  the  see  and  travaille  in  straunge 
landes  and  in  many  other  places.  Also  gentil  men  haveth 
now  moche  i-left  for  to  teche  here  children  Frensche."  2 

The  English  themselves  laugh  at  their  French  ;  they  are 
conscious  of  speaking,  like  Chaucer's  Prioress,  the  French 
of  Stratford-at-Bow,  or,  like  Avarice  in  the  "  Visions  "  of 
Langland,  that  "  of  the  ferthest  end  of  Norfolke."  3 

There  will  shortly  be  found  in  the  kingdom  personages 
of  importance,  exceptions  it  is  true,  with  whom  it  will  be 
impossible  to  negotiate  in  French.  This  is  the  case  with 
the  ambassadors  sent  by  Henry  IV.,  that  same  Henry  of 
Lancaster  who  had  claimed  the  crown  by  an  English 
speech,  to  Flanders  and  France  in  1404.  They  beseech 
the  "Paternitates  ac  Magnificentias"  of  the  Grand  Council 
of  France  to  answer  them  in  Latin,  French  being  "  like 
Hebrew "  to  them  ;    but  the  Magnificents  of  the  Grand 

1  "  Chroniques,"  ed.  Luce,  vol.  i.  p.  306. 

2  "  Polychronicon  "  (Rolls),  vol.  ii.  p.  159  (contains  the  Latin  text  of  Higden 
and  the  English  translation  of  Trevisa). 

3  And  I  can  no  Frenche  in  feith  •  but  of  the  ferthest  ende  of  Norfolke. 

"Visions,"  ed.  Skeat,  text  B,  passus  v.  line  239.  The  MS.  DD  12.23  °* 
the  University  Library,  Cambridge,  contains  "a  treatise  on  French  con- 
jugations." It  does  not  furnish  any  useful  information  as  regards  the  history 
of  French  conjugations ;  "it  can  only  serve  to  show  how  great  was  the  cor- 
ruption of  current  French  in  England  in  the  fourteenth  century."  P.  Meyer, 
"Rcmania,"  vol.  xv.  p.  262. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  241 

Council,  conforming  to  a  tradition  which  has  remained 
unbroken  down  to  our  day,  refuse  to  employ  for  the  ,. 
negotiation  any  language  but  their  own.1  Was  it  not  still, 
as  in  the  time  of  Brunetto  Latini,  the  modern  tongue  most 
prized  in  Europe  ?  In  England  even,  men  were  found  who 
agreed  to  this,  while  rendering  to  Latin  the  tribute  due  to 
it  ;  and  the  author  of  one  of  the  numerous  treatises  com- 
posed in  this  country  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  wished 
to  keep  up  their  knowledge  of  French  said  :  "  Sweet  French 
is  the  finest  and  most  graceful  tongue,  the  noblest  speech  in 
the  world  after  school  Latin,  and  the  one  most  esteemed 
and  beloved  by  all  people.  .  .  .  And  it  can  be  well  com- 
pared to  the  speech  of  the  angels  of  heaven  for  its  great 
sweetness  and  beauty."  2 

In  spite  of  these  praises,  the  end  of  French,  as  the  lan- 
guage "  most  esteemed  and  beloved,"  was  near  at  hand  in 

1  The  ambassadors  are  :  "  Thomas  Swynford,  miles,  custos  castri  vilke 
'Calisii  et  Nicholaus  de  Rysshetoun,  utriusque  juris  professor."  They  admit 
that  French  is  the  language  of  treatises  ;  but  Latin  was  used  by  St.  Jerome. 
They  write  to  the  duchess  of  Burgundy  :  "  Et  quamvis  treugse  generales  inter 
Angliam  et  Franciam  per  Dominos  et  Principes  temporales,  videlicet  duces 
Lancastrise  et  Eboraci  necnon  Buturise  ac  Burgundice,  bona?  memoriae,  qui 
perfecte  non  intellexerunt  latinum  sicut  Gallicum,  de  consensu  eorumdem 
expresso,  in  Gallico  fuerunt  capta?  et  firmatse,  litters  tamen  missivse  ultro 
citroque  transmissa?  .  .  .  continue  citra  in  Latino,  tanquam  idiomate  communi 
et  vulgari  extiterunt  formatse  ;  quae  omnia  habemus  parata  ostendere,  exemplo 
Beati  Ieronimi  .  .  ."  In  no  wise  touched  by  this  example,  the  French  reply 
in  their  own  language,  and  the  ambassadors,  vexed,  acknowledge  the  receipt  k 
of  the  letter  in  somewhat  undiplomatic  terms  :  "  Vestras  litteras  scriptas  in 
Gallico,  nobis  indoctis  tanquam  in  idiomate  Hebraico  .   .   .   recipimus  Calisii." 

"  Royal  and  Historical  Letters,"  ed.  Hingeston,  i860  (Rolls),  vol.  i.  pp.  357 
and  397.  A  discussion  of  the  same  kind  takes  place,  with  the  same  result, 
under  Louis  XIV.  See  "A  French  Ambassador  at  the  Court  of  Charles  II.," 
p.  140. 

2  "  Doulz  francois  qu'est  la  plus  bel  et  la  plus  gracious  language  et  plus 
noble  parler,  apres  latin  d'escole,  qui  soit  ou  monde,  et  de  tous  gens  mieulx 
prisee  et  amee  que  nul  autre.  ...  II  peut  bien  comparer  au  parler  des  angels 
du  del,  pour  la  grant  doulceur  et  biaultee  d'icel."  "  La  maniere  de  Lan- 
gage,"  composed  in  1396,  at  Bury  St.  Edmund's,  ed.  Paul  Meyer,  "Revue 
Critique,"  vol.  x.  p.  382. 

l7 


242  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

England.  Poets  like  Gower  still  use  it  in  the  fourteenth 
century  for  their  ballads,  and  prose  writers  like  the  author 
of  the  "  Croniques  de  London"  *  ;  but  these  are  exceptions. 
It  remains  the  idiom  of  the  Court  and  the  great;  the  Black 
Prince  writes  in  French  the  verses  that  will  be  graven  on 
his  tomb :  these  are  nothing  but  curious  cases.  Better 
instructed  than  the  lawyers  and  suitors  in  the  courts  of 
justice,  the  members  of  Parliament  continue  to  use  it ;  but 
English  makes  its  appearance  even  among  them,  and  in 
1363  the  Chancellor  has  opened  the  session  by  a  speech 
in   English,  the  first  ever  heard  in  Westminster. 

The  survival  of  French  was  at  last  nothing  but  an 
elegance ;  it  was  still  learnt,  but  only  as  Madame  de 
Sevigne  studied  Italian,  "  pour  entretenir  noblesse." 
Among  the  upper  class  the  knowledge  of  French  was  a 
traditional  accomplishment,  and  it  has  continued  to  be 
one  to  our  day.  At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  laws  were  still,  according  to  habit,  written 
in  French  ;  but  complaints  on  this  score  were  made  to 
Henry  VIII.,  and  his  subjects  pointed  out  to  him  that 
this  token  of  the  ancient  subjection  of  England  to  the 
Normans  of  France  should  be  removed.  This  mark  has 
disappeared,  not  however  without  leaving  some  trace 
behind,  as  laws  continue  to  be  assented  to  by  the  sovereign 
'  in  French  :  "  La  Reine  le  veut."  They  are  vetoed  in  the 
same  manner :  "  La  Reine  s'avisera "  ;  though  this  last 
manner  is  less  frequently  resorted  to  than  in  the  time  of 
the  Plantagenets. 

French  disappears.  It  does  not  disappear  so  much 
because  it  is  forgotten  as  because  it  is  gradually  absorbed. 
It  disappears,  and  so  does  the  Anglo-Saxon  ;  a  new 
language  is  forming,  an  offspring  of  the  two  others,  but 
distinct  from  them,  with  a  new  grammar,  versification,  and 

1  Middle  of  the  fourteenth   century,  ed.  Aungier,  Camden  Society,   1884, 
4to. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  243 

vocabulary.  It  less  resembles  the  Anglo-Saxon  of  Alfred's 
time  than  the  Italian  of  Dante  resembles  Latin. 

The  vocabulary  is  deeply  modified.  It  numbered 
before  the  Conquest  a  few  words  of  Latin  origin,  but  not 
many  ;  they  were  words  recalling  the  great  works  of  the 
Romans,  such  as  street  and  Chester,  from  strata  and  castrum, 
or  else  words  borrowed  from  the  language  of  the  clerks, 
and  concerning  mainly  religion,  such  as  mynster,  tempel, 
bisceop,  derived  from  monasterhim,  templum,  episcopus,  &c. 
The  Conquest  was  productive  of  a  great  change,  but  not 
all  at  once  ;  the  languages,  as  has  been  seen,  remained  at 
first  distinctly  separate  ;  then  in  the  thirteenth,  and  especi- 
ally in  the  fourteenth  century,  they  permeated  each  other, 
and  were  blended  in  one.  In  1205,  only  fifty  words  of 
Latin  origin  were  found  in  the  sixteen  thousand  long  lines 
of  Layamon's  "  Brut  ";  a  hundred  can  be  counted  in  the  first 
five  hundred  lines  of  Robert  of  Gloucester  about  1298,  and 
a  hundred  and  seventy  in  the  first  five  hundred  lines  of 
Robert  Mannyng  of  Brunne,  in  1303.1 

As  we  advance  further  into  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
change  is  still  more  rapid.  Numerous  families  of  words 
are  naturalised  in  England,  and  little  by  little  is  constituted 
that  language  the  vocabulary  of  which  contains  to-day 
twice  as  many  words  drawn  from  French  or  Latin  as  from 
Germanic  sources.  At  the  end  of  Skeat's  "  Etymological 
Dictionary,"  2  there  is  a  table  of  the  words  of  the  language 
classified  according  to  their  derivation  ;  the  words  bor- 
rowed from  Germanic  or  Scandinavian  idioms  fill  seven 
columns  and  a  half ;  those  taken  from  the  French,  and  the 
Romance  or  classic  tongues,  sixteen  columns. 

It  is  true  the  proportion  of  words  used  in  a  page  of 

1  As  an  example  of  a  composition  showing  the  parallelism  of  the  two 
vocabularies  in  their  crude  state,  one  may  take  the  treatise  on  Dreams  (time 
of  Edward  II.),  published  by  Wright  and  Halliwell,  which  begins  with  the 
characteristic  words:  "Her  comensez  a  bok  of  Swevenyng."  "  Reliquise 
Antiquse."  2  London,  1882. 


244  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

ordinary  English  does  not  correspond  to  these  figures. 
With  some  authors  in  truth  it  is  simply  reversed  ;  with 
Shakespeare,  for  instance,  or  with  Tennyson,  who  exhibit 
a  marked  predilection  for  Anglo-Saxon  words.  It  is 
nevertheless  to  be  observed  :  first,  that  the  constitution  of 
the  vocabulary  with  its  majority  of  Franco-Latin  words  is 
an  actual  fact  ;  then  that  in  a  page  of  ordinary  English 
the  proportion  of  words  having  a  Germanic  origin  is 
increased  by  the  number  of  Anglo-Saxon  articles,  conjunc- 
tions, and  pronouns,  words  that  are  merely  the  servants  of 
the  others,  and  are,  as  they  should  be,  more  numerous  than 
their  masters.  A  nearer  approach  to  the  numbers  supplied 
by  the  lists  of  Skeat  will  be  made  if  real  words  only  are 
counted,  those  which  are  free  and  independent  citizens  of  the 
language,  and  not  the  shadow  nor  the  reflection  of  any  other. 

The  contributive  part  of  French  in  the  new  vocabulary 
corresponds  to  the  branches  of  activity  reserved  to  the 
new-comers.  From  their  maternal  idiom  have  been 
borrowed  the  words  that  composed  the  language  of  war, 
of  commerce,  of  jurisprudence,  of  science,  of  art,  of 
metaphysics,  of  pure  thought,  and  also  the  language  of 
games,  of  pastimes,  of  tourneys,  and  of  chivalry.  In 
some  cases  no  compromise  took  place,  neither  the  French 
nor  the  Anglo-Saxon  word  would  give  way  and  die,  and 
they  have  both  come  down  to  us,  alive  and  irreducible  :  act 
and  deed ;  captive  and  thrall ;  chief  and  head,  &C.1  It  is 
a  trace  of  the  Conquest,  like  the  formula :  "  La  Reine  le 
veut." 

Chaucer,  in  whose  time  these  double  survivals  were 
naturally  far  more  numerous  than  they  are  to-day,  often 


1  See  a  list  of  such  words  in  Earle,  "  Philology  of  the  English  Tongue," 
5th  edition,  Oxford,  1892,  8vo,  p.  84.  On  the  disappearance  of  Anglo-Saxon 
proper  names,  and  the  substitution  of  Norman- French  names,  "  William, 
Henry,  Roger,  Walter,  Ralph,  Richard,  Gilbert,  Robert,"  see  Grant  Allen, 
"Anglo-Saxon  Britain,"  ch.  xix.,  Anglo-Saxon  Nomenclature. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  245 

uses  both  words  at  once,  sure  of  being  thus  intelligible  to 
all: 

They  callen  love  a  woodnes  or  a  folye.1 

Versification  is  transformed  in  the  same  proportion ; 
here  again  the  two  prosodies  arrive  at  a  compromise. 
Native  verse  had  two  ornaments :  the  number  of  accents 
and  alliteration  ;  French  verse  in  the  fourteenth  century- 
had  also  two  ornaments,  the  number  of  syllables  and 
rhyme.  The  French  gave  up  their  strict  number  of 
syllables,  and  consented  to  note  the  number  of  accents  ; 
the  natives  discarded  alliteration  and  accepted  rhyme  in  its 
stead.  Thus  was  English  verse  created,  its  cadence  being 
Germanic  and  its  rhyme  French,  and  such  was  the  prosody 
of  Chaucer,  who  wrote  his  "  Canterbury  Tales  "  in  rhymed 
English  verse,  with  five  accents,  but  with  syllables  varying 
in  number  from  nine  to  eleven. 

The  fusion  of  the  two  versifications  was  as  gradual  as 
that  of  the  two  vocabularies  had  been.  Layamon  in  the 
thirteenth  century  mingled  both  prosodies  in  his  "  Brut," 
sometimes  using  alliteration,  sometimes  rhyme,  and  occa- 
sionally both  at  once.  The  fourteenth  century  is  the  last 
in  which  alliterative  verse  really  flourished,  though  it  sur- 
vived even  beyond  the  Renaissance.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  a  new  form  was  tried  ;  rhyme  was  suppressed 
mainly  in  imitation  of  the  Italians  and  the  ancients,  and 
blank  verse  was  created,  which  Shakespeare  and  Milton 
used  in  their  masterpieces  ;  but  alliteration  never  found 
place  again  in  the  normal  prosody  of  England. 

Grammar  was  affected  in  the  same  way.  In  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  grammar,  nouns  and  adjectives  had  declensions  as 
in  German  ;  and  not  very  simple  ones.  "  Not  only  had 
our  old  adjectives  a  declension  in  three  genders,  but  more 
than   this,   it   had  a  double   set  of   trigeneric    inflexions, 

1  "  Troilus,"  iii.  stanza  191. 


246  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Definite  and  Indefinite,  Strong  and  Weak,  just  like  that 
which  makes  the  beginner's  despair  in  German."  J     Verbs 
were  conjugated  without  auxiliaries  ;  and  as  there  was  no 
particular  inflection  to  indicate  the  future,  the  present  was 
used  instead,  a  very  indifferent  substitute,  which  did  not 
contribute  much  to  the  clearness  of  the  phrase.     Degrees 
of    comparison    in    the    adjectives    were    marked,  not   by 
adverbs,  as  in  French,  but  by  differences'  in  the  termina- 
tions.    In  short,  the  relations  of  words  to  each  other,  as 
well  as  the  particular  part  they  had  to  play  in  the  phrase, 
were   not  indicated  by  other   special  words,    prepositions, 
adverbs  or  auxiliaries,  those  useful  menials,  but  by  varia- 
tions in  the  endings  of  the  terms  themselves,  that  is,  by 
inflections.      The    necessity   for   a   compromise    with   the 
French,  which  had  lost  its  primitive  declensions  and   in- 
flections, hastened  an  already  begun   transformation  and 
resulted  in  the  new  language's  possessing  in  the  fourteenth 
century  a   grammar   remarkably   simple,    brief  and   clear. 
Auxiliaries  were  introduced,  and  they  allowed  every  shade 
of  action,  action  that  has  been,  or  is,  or  will  be,  or  would 
be,  to  be  clearly  defined.     The  gender  of  nouns  used  to 
present  all  the  singularities  which  are  one  of  the  troubles 
in  German  or  French  ;  mona,  moon,  was  masculine  as  in 
German  ;    sunne,   sun,  was    feminine;    wif,   wife,  was  not 
feminine   but   neuter  ;    as   was  also  mczden,  maiden.     "  A 
German  gentleman,"  as  "  Philologus,"  has  so  well  observed, 
"  writes  a  masculine  letter  of  feminine  love   to  a  neuter 
young  lady  with  a  feminine   pen    and    feminine   ink   on 
masculine   sheets   of   neuter   paper,  and   encloses  it  in  a 
masculine  envelope  with  a  feminine  address  to  his  darling, 
though    neuter,   Gretchen.      He  has  a  masculine  head,  a 
feminine    hand,    and    a    neuter    heart."2       Anglo-Saxon 
gentlemen    were    in   about  the  same  predicament,  before 

*  Earle's    "Philology  of  the   English    Tongue,"    5th    ed.,   Oxford,   1892, 
p.  379.  2  Ibid.  p.  377. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  247 

William  the  Conqueror  came  in  his  own  way  to  their  help 
and  rescued  them  from  this  maze.  In  the  transaction 
which  took  place,  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  French  both 
gave  up  the  arbitrariness  of  their  genders  ;  nouns  denoting 
male  beings  became  masculine,  those  denoting  female 
beings  became  feminine  ;  all  the  others  became  neuter  ; 
wife  and  maiden  resumed  their  sex,  while  nation,  sun  and 
moon  were  neuter.  Nouns  and  adjectives  lost  their  declen- 
sions ;  adjectives  ceased  to  vary  in  their  endings  according 
to  the  nouns  they  were  attached  to,  and  yet  the  clearness 
of  the  phrase  was  not  in  the  least  obscured. 

In  the  same  way  as  with  the  prosody  and  vocabulary, 
these  changes  were  effected  by  degrees.  Great  confusion 
prevailed  in  the  thirteenth  century  ;  the  authors  of  the 
"Brut"  and  the  "  Ancren  Riwle"  have  visibly  no  fixed 
ideas  on  the  use  of  inflections,  or  on  the  distinctions  of 
the  genders.  Only  under  Edward  III.  and  Richard  II. 
were  the  main  principles  established  upon  which  English 
grammar  rests.  As  happened  also  for  the  vocabulary,  in 
certain  exceptional  cases  the  French  and  the  Saxon  uses 
have  been  both  preserved.  The  possessive  case,  for  in- 
stance, can  be  expressed  either  by  means  of  a  proposition, 
in  French  fashion  :  "  The  works  of  Shakespeare,"  or  by 
means  of  the  ancient  genitive  :  "  Shakespeare's  works." 

Thus  was  formed  the  new  language  out  of  a  combina- 
tion of  the  two  others.  In  our  time,  moved  by  a  patriotic 
but  rather  preposterous  feeling,  some  have  tried  to  react 
against  the  consequences  of  the  Conquest,  and  undo  the 
work  of  eight  centuries.  They  have  endeavoured  to 
exclude  from  their  writings  words  of  Franco- Latin  origin, 
in  order  to  use  only  those  derived  from  the  Anglo-Saxon 
spring.  A  vain  undertaking :  the  progress  of  a  ship 
cannot  be  stopped  by  putting  one's  shoulder  to  the  bulk- 
heads ;  a  singular  misapprehension  of  history  besides. 
The  English  people  is  the  offspring  of  two  nations  ;  it  has 


248  ENGLAND   TO   THE  ENGLISH. 

a  father  and  a  mother,  whose  union  has  been  fruitful  if 
stormy  ;  and  the  parent  disowned  by  some  to-day,  under 
cover  of  filial  tenderness,  is  perhaps  not  the  one  who 
devoted  the  least  care  in  forming  and  instructing  the 
common  posterity  of  both. 

II. 

The  race  and  the  language  are  transformed  ;  the  nation 
also,  considered  as  a  political  body,  undergoes  change. 
Until  the  fourteenth  century,  the  centre  of  thought,  of  desire, 
and  of  ambition  was,  according  to  the  vocation  of  each, 
Rome,  Paris,  or  that  movable,  ever-shifting  centre,  the 
Court  of  the  king.  Light,  strength,  and  advancement  in 
the  world  all  proceeded  from  these  various  centres.  In 
the  fourteenth  century,  what  took  place  for  the  race  and 
language  takes  place  also  for  the  nation.  It  coalesces 
and  condenses;  it  becomes  conscious  of  its  own  limits  ;  it 
discerns  and  maintains  them.  The  action  of  Rome  is 
circumscribed  ;  appeals  to  the  pontifical  Court  are  pro- 
hibited,1 and,  though  they  still  continue  to  be  made,  the 
oft-expressed  wish  of  the  nation  is  that  the  king  should  be 
judge,  not  the  pope  ;  it  is  the  beginning  of  the  religious 
supremacy  of  the  English  sovereigns.     Oxford  has  grown  ; 

1  See  the  series  of  the  statutes  of  Provisors  and  Prcemunire,  and  the 
renewals  of  the  same  (against  presentations  to  benefices  by  the  Pope  and 
appeals  to  the  Court  of  Rome),  25  Ed.  III.  st.  6;  27  Ed.  III.  st.  2; 
3  Rich.  II.  chap.  3;  12  Rich.  II.  chap.  15;  13  Rich.  II.  st.  2,  chap.  2; 
16  Rich.  II.  chap.  5.  All  have  for  their  object  to  restrict  the  action  of  the 
Holy  See  in  England,  conformably  to  the  desire  of  the  Commons,  who  pro- 
test against  these  appeals  to  the  Roman  Court,  the  consequences  of  which  are 
"to  undo  and  adnul  the  laws  of  the  realm"  (25  Ed.  III.  1350-1),  and  who 
also  protest  against  "  the  Court  of  Rome  which  ought  to  be  the  fountain-head, 
root,  and  source  of  holiness,"  and  which  from  coveteousness  has  assumed  the 
right  of  presenting  to  numberless  benefices  in  England,  so  much  so  that  the 
taxes  collected  for  the  Pope  on  this  account  "  amount  to  five  times  as  much 
as  what  the  king  gets  from  all  his  kingdom  each  year."  Good  Parliament  of 
1376,  "Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  337;  see  below,  p.  419. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  249 

it  is  no  longer  indispensable  to  go  to  Paris  in  order  to 
learn.  Limits  are  established :  the  wars  with  France  are 
royal  and  not  national  ones.  Edward  III.,  having  assumed 
the  title  of  king  of  France,  his  subjects  compel  him  to 
declare  that  their  allegiance  is  only  owned  to  him  as  king 
of  England,  and  not  as  king  of  France.1  No  longer  is 
the  nation  Anglo-French,  Norman,  Angevin,  or  Gascon  ; 
it  is  English  ;  the  nebula  condenses  into  a  star. 

The  first  consequences  of  the  Conquest  had  been  to  bind 
England  to  the  civilisations  of  the  south.  The  experi- 
ment had  proved  a  successful  one,  the  results  obtained 
were  definitive  ;  there  was  no  need  to  go  further,  the  ties 
could  now  without  harm  slacken  or  break.  Owing  to 
that  evolutionary  movement  perpetually  evinced  in  human 
affairs,  this  first  experiment  having  been  perfected  after 
a  lapse  of  three  hundred  years,  a  counter-experiment  now 
begins.  A  new  centre,  unknown  till  then,  gradually  draws 
to  itself  every  one's  attention  ;  it  will  soon  attract  the  eyes 
of  the  English  in  preference  to  Rome,  Paris,  or  even  the 
king's  Court.  This  new  centre  is  Westminster.  There, 
an  institution  derived  from  French  and  Saxonic  sources, 
but  destined  to  be  abortive  in  France,  is  developed  to  an 
extent  unparalleled  in  any  other  country.  Parliament, 
which  was,  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  in  an 
embryonic  state,  is  found  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
completely  constituted,  endowed  with  all  its  actual  ele- 
ments, with  power,  prerogatives,  and  an  influence  in  the 
State  that  it  has  rarely  surpassed  at  any  time. 

Not  in  vain  have  the  Normans,  Angevins,  and  Gascons 
given  to  the  men  of  the  land  the  example  of  their 
clever  and  shrewd  practice.  Not  in  vain  have  they 
blended  the  two  races  into  one :  their  peculiar  character- 
istics have  been  infused  into  their  new  compatriots :  so 
much  so  that  from  the  first  day  Parliament  begins  to  feel 

1  Year  1340,  14  Ed.  III.,  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  104. 


250  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

conscious  of  its  strength,  it  displays  bias  most  astonishing 
to  behold  :  it  thinks  and  acts  and  behaves  as  an  assembly 
of  Normans.  The  once  violent  and  vacillating  Anglo- 
Saxons,  easily  roused  to  enthusiasm  and  brought  down  to 
despair,  now  calculate,  consider,  deliberate,  do  nothing  in 
haste,  act  with  diplomatic  subtlety,  bargain.  All  com- 
promises between  the  Court  and  Parliament,  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  are  a  series  of  bargains  ;  Parliament 
pays  on  condition  that  the  king  reforms  ;  nothing  for 
nothing :  and  the  fulfilling  of  the  bargain  is  minutely 
watched.  It  comes  to  this  at  last,  that  Parliament  proves 
more  Norman  than  the  Court  ;  it  manoeuvres  with  more 
skill,  and  remains  master  of  the  situation  ;  "  a  Normand, 
Normand  et  demi."  The  Plantagenets  behold  with  aston- 
ishment the  rise  of  a  power  they  are  now  unable  to 
control ;  their  offspring  is  hardy,  and  strong,  and  beats  its 
nurse. 

After  the  attempts  of  Simon  de  Montfort,  Edward  I.  had 
convened,  in  1295,  the  first  real  Parliament.  He  had 
reasserted  the  fundamental  principle  of  all  liberties,  by 
appropriating  to  himself  the  old  maxim  from  Justinian's 
code,  according  to  which  "  what  touches  the  interests  of  all 
must  be  approved  by  all."  z  He  forms  the  habit  of  appeal- 
ing to  the  people ;  he  wants  them  to  know  the  truth,  and 
decide  according  to  truth  which  is  in  the  right,  whether  the 
king  or  his  turbulent  barons  2  ;  he  behaves  on  occasion  as 
if  he  felt  that  over  him  was  the  nation.  And  this  strange 
sight  is   seen  :   the  descendant  of  the  Norman  autocrats 

1  "  Sicut  lex  justissima,  provida  circumspectione  sacrorum  principum  stabi- 
lita,  hortatur  et  statuit  ut  quod  omnes  tangit  ab  omnibus  approbetur.  .  .  ." 
Rymer,  "  Fcedera,"  1705,  vol.  ii.  p.  689.  This  Roman  maxim  was  known 
and  appealed  to,  but  not  acted  upon  in  France.  See  Commines,  "  Memoires," 
book  v.  chap.  xix. 

2  "  For  some  folks,"  says  he,  "  might  say  and  make  the  people  believe  things 
that  were  not  true."  By  some  folks,  "  acuns  gentz,"  he  means  Bohun  and 
Bigod.     Proclamation  of  1297,  in  Rymer,  "  Fcedera,"  1705,  vol.  ii.  p.  783. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  251 

modestly  explains   his  plans  for  war   in   Flanders  and  in 
France,  excuses  himself  for  the  aid  he  is  obliged  to  ask  of  his 
subjects,  and  even  condescends  to  solicit  the  spiritual  benefit 
of  their  prayers  :  "  He  the  king,  on  this  and  on  the  state 
of  himself  and  of  his  realm,  and  how  the  business   of  his 
realm  has  come  to  nothing,  makes  it  known  and  wants  that 
all    know    the    truth,    which    is    as    follows  ...    He  can 
neither  defend  himself  nor  his  realm  without  the  help  of 
his  good  people.     And  it  grieves  him  sorely  to  have  them, 
on   this  account,  so  heavily  charged.  .  .  .  And  he  prays 
them  to  take  as  an  excuse  for  what  he  has  done,  that  that 
he  did   not  do  in   order   to   buy  lands  and   tenements,  or 
castles  and  towns,  but  to  defend  himself,  and  them,  and  the 
whole  kingdom.  .  .  .  And  as  he  has  great  faith  that  the 
good    prayers    of    his    good    people    will    help    him    very 
much  in  bringing  this   business  to  a  good  end,  he  begs 
that  they  will  intently  pray  for  him  and  those  that  with 
him  go."  J 

At  first,  Parliament  is  astonished  :  such  excess  of  honour 
alarms  it ;  then  it  understands  the  chance  that  offers,  and 
guesses  that  in  the  proffered  bargain  it  may  very  well  be 
the  winner.  This  once  understood,  progress  is  rapid,  and 
from  year  to  year  can  be  observed  the  growth  of  its  defini- 
tive privileges.  The  Commons  have  their  Speaker,  "  M. 
Thomas  de  Hungerford,  knight,  who  had  the  words  for  the 
Commons  of  England  "  2  ;  they  want  deputies  to  be  elected 
by  "  due  election,"  and  they  protest  against  all  interference 
of  the  Government ;  against  official  candidatures,  and 
against  the  election  of  royal  functionaries.  On  difficult 
questions,  the  members  request  to  be  allowed  to  return  to 
their  counties  and  consult  with  their  constituents  before 

1  Rymer,  "  Foedera,"  1705,  vol.  ii.  p.  783,  year  1297  ;  original  in  French. 

2  "  Monsieur  Thomas  de  Hungerford,  chivaler,  qui  avoit  les  paroles  pour  les 
Communes  d'Engleterre  en  cest  Parlement."  Parliament  of  1376-7,  51  Ed. 
III.     "  Rotuli,"  vol.  ii.  p.  374. 


252  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

voting.1  In  spite  of  all  the  aristocratic  ideas  with  which 
they  are  still  imbued,  many  of  those  audacious  members 
who  clamour  for  reforms  and  oppose  the  king  are  very 
inconsiderable  people,  and  such  men  are  seen  taking  their 
seats  at  Westminster  as  "  Walterus  l'espicer,"  "  Paganus  le 
tailour,"  "  Radulphus  le  teynturer,"  "  Ricardus  orfevre."  2 

Great  is  the  power  of  this  mixed  gathering.  No  new 
taxes  can  be  levied  without  its  consent ;  every  individual, 
every  personage,  every  authority  having  a  petition  to  pre- 
sent, or  a  complaint  to  make,  sends  it  to  the  assembly  of 
Westminster.  The  king  consults  it  on  peace  or  war  :  "  So," 
says  the  Chamberlain  to  the  Commons  in  1354,  "you  are 
willing  to  assent  to  a  permanent  treaty  of  peace,  if  one  can 
be  obtained  ?  And  the  said  Commons  answered  entirely 
and  unanimously  :  Yes,  yes  !  (Oil  !  Oil !)  "  3 

Nothing  is  too  great  or  too  small  for  Parliament  to 
attend  to  ;  the  sovereign  appeals  to  it,  and  the  clergy  too, 
and  beggars  also.  In  1330,  the  poor,  the  "  poverail  "  of 
Greenwich,  complain  that  alms  are  no  longer  bestowed  on 
them  as  formerly,  to  the  great  detriment,  say  they,  of  the 
souls  of  the  benefactors  of  the  place  "  who  are  in  Purga- 
tory.'^    Convents  claim  privileges  that  time  has  effaced  ; 

1  Examples  :  that  the  deputies  of  the  counties  ' '  soient  esluz  par  commune 
election  de  les  meillours  gentz  des  dity  count  ees  et  nemye  certifiez  par  le  viscont 
(sheriff)  soul,  saunz  due  election."  Good  Parliament  of  1376. — Petition  that 
the  sheriffs  shall  not  be  able  to  stand  for  the  counties  while  they  continue  in 
office,  1372,  46  Ed.  III.,  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  310;  that  no 
representative  "ne  soit  viscont  ou  autre  ministre,"  13  Ed.  III.,  year  1339-— 
Petition  of  the  members  of  Parliament  to  be  allowed  to  return  and  consult  their 
constituents  :  "  lis  n'oseront  assentir  tant  qu'ils  eussent  conseillez  et  avysez 
les  communes  de  lour  pais."     1339,  "  Rot.  Pari.,"  vol.  ii.  p.   104  ;  see  below, 

p.  418. 

2  "  Return  of  the  names  of  every  member  returned  to  serve  in  each  Parlia- 
ment," London,  1878,  fol.  (a  Blue  Book).— There  is  no  doubt  in  several  cases 
that  by  such  descriptions  was  meant  the  actual  profession  of  the  member.  Ex.  : 
"Johannes  Kent,  mercer,"  p.  217.  3  "  Rot.  Pari.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  262. 

4  Petition  of  the  "  poverail  "  of  Greenwich  and  Lewisham  on  whom  alms 
are  no  longer  bestowed  (one  maille  a  week  to  every  beggar  that  came)  to  the 
"  grant  damage  des  poores  entour,  et  desalmes  les  fondours  que  sont  en  Purga- 
torie."     4  Ed.  III.  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  49. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  253 

servants  ask  for  their  wages;  the  barber  of  Edward  II. 
solicits  the  maintenance  of  favours  granted  by  a  prince  he 
had  bled  and  shaved  for  twenty-six  years.1 

And  before  the  same  gathering  of  men,  far  different 
quarrels  are  brought  forth.  The  king's  ministers,  Latymer 
and  Neville,  are  impeached  ;  his  mistress  Alice  Perrers 
hears  sentence  2  ;  his  household,  personal  attendants  and 
expenses  are  reformed ;  and  from  then  can  be  foreseen  a  time 
when,  owing  to  the  tread  of  centuries,  the  king  will  reign 
but  no  longer  govern.  Such  is  almost  the  case  even  in  the 
fourteenth  century.  Parliament  deposes  Richard  II.,  who 
fancied  himself  king  by  right  divine,  and  claimed,  long 
before  the  Stuarts,  to  hold  his  crown,  "  del  doun  de  Dieu," 
as  a  "  gift  of  God."  3  In  the  list  of  grievances  drawn  up  by 
the  assembly  to  justify  the  deposition,  figures  the  assertion 
attributed  to  the  king  "  that  the  laws  proceeded  from  his  lips 
or  from  his  heart,  and  that  he  alone  could  make  or  alter  the 
laws  of  his  kingdom."4  In  1399  such  language  was  already 
held  to  be  criminal  in  England.  In  1527  Claude  Gaillard, 
prime  President  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  says  in  his 
remonstrance  to  Francis  I.,  king  of  France  :  "  We  do  not 
wish,  Sire,  to  doubt  or  question  your  power ;  it  would  be  a 
kind  of  sacrilege,  and  we  well  know  you  are  above  all  law, 


1  4  Ed.  III.,  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  33. 

2  Good  Parliament  of  1376. 

3  The  Commons  had  been  bold  enough  to  complain  of  the  expenses  of  the 
king  and  of  the  too  great  number  of  prelates  and  ladies  he  supported  :  "  de  la 
multitude  d'Evesques  qui  ont  seigneuries  et  sont  avancez  par  le  Roy  et  leur 
meignee  ;  et  aussi  de  pluseurs  dames  et  leur  meignee  qui  demuront  en  l'ostel 
du  Roy  et  sont  a  ses  costages."  Richard  replies  in  an  angry  manner  that  he 
"  voet  avoir  sa  regalie  et  la  libertee  roiale  de  sa  corone,"  as  heir  to  the  throne 
of  England  "  del  doun  de  Dieu."  1397,  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  iii.  p. 
339.  The  Commons  say  nothing  more,  but  they  mark  the  words,  to  remember 
them  in  due  time. 

4  "  Dixit  expresse,  velut  austero  et  protervo,  quod  leges  sue  erant  in  ore  suo 
et  aliquotiens  in  pectore  suo.  Et  quod  ipse  solus  posset  mutare  et  condere 
leges  regni  sui."     "Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  iii.  p.  419. 


254  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

and  that  statutes  and  ordinances  cannot  touch  you.  .  .  ."  T 
The  ideas  on  political  "  sacrilege  "  differed  widely  in  the 
two  countries. 

From  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  an  Englishman 
could  already  say  as  he  does  to-day:  My  business  is  not 
the  business  of  the  State,  but  the  business  of  the  State  is 
my  business.  The  whole  of  the  English  constitution,  from 
the  vote  on  the  taxes  to  the  habeas  corpus,  is  comprised  in 
this  formula.  In  France  the  nation,  practical,  lucid,  and 
logical  in  so  many  things,  but  easily  amused,  and  too  fond 
of  chansons,  neglected  the  opportunities  that  offered  ;  the 
elect  failed  to  attend  the  sittings  ;  the  bargains  struck  were 
not  kept  to.  The  Westminster  Parliament  voted  sub- 
sidies on  condition  that  reforms  would  be  instituted ; 
the  people  paid  and  the  king  reformed.  In  France,  on 
the  contrary,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  the  people  tried  not 
to  pay,  and  the  king  tried  not  to  reform.  Thus  the  levying 
of  the  subsidy  voted  by  the  States-General  of  1356-7,  was 
the  cause  of  bloody  riots  in  France  ;  the  people,  un- 
enlightened as  to  their  own  interests,  did  their  best  to 
destroy  their  defenders  :  the  agents  of  the  States-General 
were  massacred  at  Rouen  and  Arras  ;  King  John  "  the 
Good  "  published  a  decree  forbidding  the  orders  of  the 
States  to  be  fulfilled,  and  acquired  instant  popularity  by 
this  the  most  tyrannic  measure  of  all  his  reign. 

These  differences  between  the  two  political  bodies  had 
important    consequences   with  regard  to  the  development 

1  Cheruel,  "  Dictionnaire  des  Institutions  de  la  France,"  at  the  word 
Parlcment.  As  early  as  the  thirteenth  century,  Bracton,  in  England,  declared 
that  "  laws  bound  the  legislator,"  and  that  the  king  ought  to  obey  them  ;  his 
theory,  however,  is  less  bold  than  the  one  according  to  which  the  Commons  act 
in  the  fourteenth  century  :  "  Dicitur  enim  rex,"  Bracton  observes,  "  a  bene 
regendo  et  non  a  regnando,  quia  rex  est  dum  bene  regit,  tyrannus  dum  populum 
sibi  creditum  violenter  opprimit  dominatione.  Temperet  igitur  potentiam  suam 
per  legem  quae  frenum  est  potentiae,  quod  secundum  leges  vivat,  quod  hoc 
sanxit  lex  humana  quod  leges  suum  ligent  latorem."  "  De  Legibus,"  3rd  part 
chap.  ix. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  255 

of  thought  in  the  two  countries ;  they  also  excited  the 
wonder  and  sometimes  the  admiration  of  the  French. 
"  The  king  oi  England  must  obey  his  subjects,"  says 
Froissart,  "and  do  all  they  want  him  to."  x  "  To  my  mind," 
writes  Commines,  "  of  all  the  communities  I  know  in  the 
world,  the  one  where  public  business  is  best  attended  to, 
where  the  people  are  least  exposed  to  violence,  where 
there  are  no  buildings  ruined  and  pulled  down  on  account 
of  wars,  that  one  is  England."  2  "  The  English  are  the 
masters  of  their  king,"  writes  Ambassador  Courtin  in  1665, 
in  almost  the  same  words  as  Froissart,  "  their  king  can 
do  nothing,  unless  what  he  wants  is  what  they  will."  3 

III. 

Now  are  the  vanquished  and  the  victors  of  Hastings 
blended  into  one  nation,  and  they  are  endowed  with  a 
Parliament  as  a  safeguard  for  their  liberties.  "  This  is," 
Montesquieu  said  later,  "  the  nation  in  the  world  that  has 
best  known  how  to  avail  itself  at  the  same  time  of  those 
three  great  things :  religion,  trade,  and  liberty."  4  Four 
hundred  years  before  Montesquieu  it  already  availed  itself 
of  these  three  great  things  ;  under  Edward  and  Richard 
Plantagenets,  England  was  what  it  has  ever  been  since, 
a  "  merchant  island."  5 

Its  mines  are  worked,  even  those  of  "  sea-coal,"  as  it 
was  then  called,  "  carboun  de  meer."  6     It  has  a  numerous 

1  "  Chroniques,"  ed.  S.  Luce,  i.  p.  337. 

2  "Memoires,"  ed.  Dupont,  Societe  de  l'histoire  de  France,  1840  ff. ,  vol.  ii. 
p.  142,  sub  anno,  1477. 

3  Unpublished  letter  to  M.  de  Lionne,  from  London,  July  6,  1665,  Archives 
of  the  Affaires  Etrangeres,  vol.  lxxxvi. 

4  "Esprit  des  Lois,"  vol.  xx.  chap,  vii.,  "Esprit  de  l'Angleterre  sur  le 
Commerce." 

5  A.  Sorel,  "  l'Europe  et  la  Revolution  Francaise,"  vol.  i.  p.  337. 

6  Parliament  reverts  at  different  times  to  these  mines  in  the  fourteenth 
century  :  "  Come  en  diverses  parties  deinz  le  Roialme  d'Engleterre  sont  diverses 
miners  des  carbons,  dont  les  Communes  du  dit  partie  ont  lour  sustenantz  en 
grande  partie  .   .  ."'    51  Ed.  III.,  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum." 


256  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

mercantile  navy  which  carries  to  the  Baltic,  to  Iceland, 
to  Flanders,  to  Guyenne,  and  to  Spain,  wool,  skins,  cloth, 
wheat,  butter  and  cheese,  "  buyre  et  furmage."  Each  year 
the  galleys  of  Venice  come  laden  with  cotton,  silks  from 
Damascus,  sugar,  spices,  perfumes,  ivory,  and  glass.  The 
great  commercial  houses,  and  the  merchant  corporations 
are  powers  in  the  State;  Edward  III.  grants  to  the  London 
gilds  the  right  of  electing  members  to  Parliament,  and 
they  preserved  this  right  until  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832. 
The  wealthy  merchants  lent  money  to  the  king  ;  they  were 
called  to  his  councils  ;  they  behaved  as  great  citizens. 
Anthony  Blache  lends  Edward  III.  11,720  pounds;  the 
Blankets  of  Bristol  gather  enormous  wealth;  John  Blanket 
dies  in  1405,  bequeathing  a  third  of  his  fortune  to  his  wife, 
a  third  to  his  children,  and  a  third  to  the  poor  ;  John 
Philpot,  a  grocer  of  London,  embarks  on  his  ships  and 
fights  for  the  kingdom  ;  Richard  Whittington,  he  of  the 
legendary  cat,  is  famed  in  history  for  his  wealth  and 
liberality,  and  was  mayor  of  London  in  1398,  1406,  and 
1419.  These  merchants  are  ennobled,  and  from  their  stock 
spring  earls  and  dukes  ;  the  De  la  Poles,  wool-merchants 
of  Hull,  mortgage  their  property  for  the  king.  William 
de  la  Pole  rescues  Edward  III.,  detained  in  Flanders  by 
want  of  money,  and  is  made  a  knight-banneret  ;  his  son 
Michael  is  created  earl  of  Suffolk;  one  of  his  grandsons 
is  killed  at  Agincourt  ;  another  besieges  Orleans,  which 
is  delivered  by  Joan  of  Arc  ;  he  becomes  duke  of  Suffolk, 
is  impeached  in  1450  for  high  treason  and  beheaded  ;  no 
honour  is  lacking  to  the  house. 

From  the  time  of  the  Edwards,  the  Commons  are  very 
touchy  upon  the  subject  of  the  maritime  power  and  glory 
of  their  country ;  they  already  consider  the  ocean  as  their 
appointed  realm.  Do  they  observe,  or  fancy  they  observe, 
any  diminution  in  the  strength  of  England  ?  They  com- 
plain to  the  king  in  remonstrances  more  than  once  heard 


THE  NEW  NATION.  257 

again,  word  for  word,  within  the  halls  of  Westminster: 
"Twenty  years  ago,  and  always  before,  the  shipping  of  the 
Realm  was  in  all  the  ports  and  good  towns  upon  the  sea 
or  rivers,  so  noble  and  plenteous  that  all  the  countries  held 
and  called  our  said  sovereign,  the  King  of  the  Sea." x 
At  this  time,  1372,  the  country  is,  without  possibility  of 
doubt,  the  England  of  the  English. 

From  that  period  the  English  are  found  either  singly 
or  in  small  bands  on  all  the  seas  and  on  all  the  highways.2 
Their  nature  has  been  modified  ;  the  island  no  longer 
suffices  them  as  it  sufficed  the  Anglo-Saxons.  "  II  ne 
sait  rien,  qui  ne  va  hors" — he  knows  nothing  who  stirs  not 
out — think  they  with  Des  Champs  ;  they  are  keen  to  see 
what  goes  on  elsewhere,  and  like  practical  folks  to  profit 
by  it.  When  the  opportunity  is  good  they  seize  it,  what- 
soever its  nature  ;  encountering  Saracens  they  slay  them  : 
so  much  towards  Paradise  ;  moving  about  in  Italy  they 
are  not  long  in  discovering  the  advantages  offered  by  a 
condottiere's  existence.  They  adopt  and  even  perfect  it, 
and  after  their  death  are  magnificently  buried  in  the 
cathedral  of  Florence,  and  Paolo  Uccello  paints  their  por- 
trait on  the  wall.3  On  every  occasion  they  behave  like 
Normans  ;  in  the  halls  of  Westminster,  in  their  City  count- 


1  46  Ed.  III.,  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  311.  The  king  returns 
a  vague  answer.      See  below,  pp.  515,  517. 

2  "  They  travaile  in  every  londe,"  says  Gower  of  them,  in  his  "  Confessio 
Amantis,"  ed.  Pauli,  vol.  ill-  p.  109. 

3  "  Joannes  Acutus,  :ques  Britannicus  (John  Hawkwood)  .  .  .  rei  militaris 
peritissimus  .  .  .  Pauli  Vccelli  opus,"  inscription  on  the  "  grisaille,"  painted 
by  Uccello,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  in  memory  of  Hawkwood,  who  died  in  the 
pay  of  Florence,  in  1394.  He  was  the  son  of  a  tanner,  and  was  born  in  Essex  ; 
the  Corporation  of  Tailors  claimed  that  he  had  started  in  life  among  them  ; 
popular  tales  were  written  about  him:  "The  honour  of  the  Taylors,  or  the 
famous  and  renowned  history  of  Sir  John  Hawkwood,  knight,  containing  his 
.  .  .  adventures  .  .  .  relating  to  love  and  arms,"  London,  1687,  4to.  The 
painting  by  Uccello  has  been  removed  from  the  choir,  transferred  on  canvas 
and  placed  against  the  wall  at  the  entrance  of  the  cathedral  at  Florence. 

18 


258  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

ing  houses,  on  the  highroads  of  Italy  and  on  the  ocean 
they  everywhere  resemble  the  rulers  whose  spirit  has 
passed  into  them,  and  prove  themselves  to  be  at  once 
adventurous  and  practical.  "  They  are  good  walkers  and 
good  horsemen,"  said  Ralph  Higden  of  them  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  adding:  "They  are  curious,  and  like 
to  tell  the  wonders  they  have  seen  and  observed."  How 
many  books  of  travel  we  owe  to  this  propensity  !  "  They 
roam  over  all  lands,"  he  continues,  "  and  succeed  still 
better  in  other  countries  than  in  their  own.  .  .  .  They 
spread  over  the  earth  ;  every  land  they  inhabit  becomes 
as  their  own  country."  x  They  are  themselves,  and  no 
longer  seek  to  be  any  one  else  ;  they  cease  by  degrees  to 
francigenare.  This  combination  of  boldness  and  obstinacy 
that  is  theirs,  is  the  blend  of  qualities  by  which  distant 
settlements  can  be  established  and  kept  ;  to  these  qualities 
must  be  traced  the  founding  of  the  English  colonial  empire, 
and  the  power  which  allowed  the  Plantagenet  kings  to 
aspire,  as  early  as  the  fourteenth  century,  to  be  the  "  Rois 
de  la  Mier." 

Trade  brings  luxury,  comfort,  and  the  love  of  art  in  its 
train.  The  same  happened  in  London  as  in  Venice, 
Florence,  and  Bruges ;  these  merchants  and  nobles  were 
fond  of  beautiful  things.  It  is  an  era  of  prosperity  for 
imagers,  miniaturists,  painters,  and  sculptors.2    The  wealthy 

1  "  Polychronicon,"  ed.  Babington,  Rolls,  vol.  ii.  pp.  166,  168. 

2  The  most  brilliant  specimens  of  the  paintings  of  the  time  were,  in  England, 
those  to  be  seen  in  St.  Stephen's  chapel  in  the  palace  of  Westminster.  It  was 
finished  about  1348,  and  painted  afterwards.  The  chief  architect  was  Thomas 
of  Canterbury,  master  mason  ;  the  principal  painters  (judging  by  the  highest 
salaries)  were  Hugh  of  St.  Albans  and  John  Cotton  ("  Fcedera,"  1705,  vol.  v. 
p.  670  ;  vi.  417).  This  chapel  was  burnt  in  our  century  with  the  rest  of  the 
Houses  of  Parliament  ;  nothing  remains  but  the  crypt ;  fragments  of  the 
paintings  have  been  saved,  and  are  preserved  in  the  British  Museum.  They 
represent  the  story  of  Job.  The  smiling  aspect  of  the  personages  should  be 
noted,  especially  that  of  the  women ;  there  is  a  look  of  happiness  about 
them. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  259 

order  to  be  chiselled  for  themselves  ivory  Virgins  whose 
tender,  half-mundane  smile,  is  not  less  charming  for  the 
doubt  it  leaves  whether  it  is  of  earth  or  of  heaven  ;  devo- 
tional tablets  in  painted  ivory,  in  gold,  or  translucid  enamels; 
golden  goblets  with  figures,  silver  cups  "enamelled  with 
children's  games,"  salt-cellars  in  the  shape  of  lions  or  dogs, 
"golden  images  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  in  the  wilderness,"  x 
all  those  precious  articles  with  which  our  museums  are  filled. 
Edward  II.  sends  to  the  Pope  in  13 17,  among  other  gifts, 
a  golden  ewer  and  basin,  studded  with  translucid  enamels, 
supplied  by  Roger  de  Frowyk,  a  London  goldsmith,  for  the 
price  of  one  hundred  and  forty-seven  pounds.  Humphrey 
de  Bohun,  who  died  in  1361,  said  his  prayers  to  beads  of 
gold  ;  Edward  III.  played  chess  on  a  board  of  jasper 
and  crystal,  silver  mounted.  The  miniaturists  represent 
Paradise  on  the  margin  of  missals,  or  set  forth  in  colours 
some  graceful  legend  or  fantastic  tale,  with  knights,  flowers, 
and  butterflies.2  In  spite  of  foreign  wars,  local  insurrections, 
the  plague  that  returns  periodically,  1349,  1362,  1369,  1375, 
the  great  uprising  of  the  peasantry,  1381,  the  troubles  and 
massacres  which  followed,  art  prospers  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  what  chiefly  characterises  it  is  that  it  is  all 
a-smile. 

That  such  things  were  coeval  is  not  so  astonishing  as 

1  See  the  jewels  and  other  valuables  enumerated  in  the  English  wills  of  the 
fourteenth  century:  "A  collection  of  .  .  .  wills,"  London,  Nichols,  1780, 
4to,  pp.  37,  50,  112,  113,  and  in  "The  ancient  Kalendars  and  Inventories 
of  the  Treasury,"  ed.  Palgrave,  London,  1836,  3  vols.  8vo,  Chess-table  of 
Edward  III.,  vol.  iii.  p.  173.  Cf.  for  France,  "  Inventaire  du  mobilier 
de  Charles  V.,"  ed.  Labarte  ("  Documents  inedits  "),  1879,  4to. 

2  Edward  III.  buys  of  Isabella  of  Lancaster,  a  nun  of  Aumbresbury,  a 
manuscript  romance  that  he  keeps  always  in  his  room,  for  the  price  of  66/. 
135.  and  <\d.  for  (at  that  time  the  price  of  an  ox  was  about  twelve  shillings). 
For  the  young  Richard  were  bought  two  volumes,  one  containing  the  Romaunt 
of  the  Rose,  the  other  the  Romances  of  Perceval  and  Gawain  ;  the  price  paid 
for  them,  and  for  a  Bible  besides  being  28/.  ("  Issues  of  the  Exchequer,"  ed. 
Devon,  1837,  pp.  144,213).  On  English  miniaturists,  see  "  Histoire  Litte- 
raire  de  la  France,"  xxxi.  p.  281. 


260  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

it  may  seem.  Life  was  still  at  that  time  so  fragile  and 
so  often  threatened,  that  the  notion  of  its  being  suddenly 
cut  off  was  a  familiar  one  even  from  childhood.  Wars, 
plagues,  and  massacres  never  took  one  unawares  ;  they 
were  in  the  due  course  of  things,  and  were  expected  ;  the 
possibility  of  such  misfortunes  saddened  less  in  prospective 
than  it  does  now  that  they  have  become  less  frequent. 
People  were  then  always  ready  to  fight,  to  kill,  and  to  be 
killed.  Games  resembled  battles,  and  battles  games  :  the 
favourite  exercises  were  tournaments  ;  life  was  risked  for 
nothing,  as  an  amusement.  Innumerable  decrees  z  forbade 
those  pastimes  on  account  of  the  deaths  they  caused, 
and  the  troubles  they  occasioned  ;  but  the  amusement  was 
the  best  available,  and  the  decrees  were  left  unobserved. 
Edward  starts  on  his  war  to  France,  and  his  knights,  fol- 
lowing his  example,  take  their  falconers  and  their  hounds 
along  with  them,  as  though  they  were  going  to  a  hunt.2 
Never  was  felt  to  a  greater  degree  what  Rabelais  terms 
"the  scorn  of  fortuitous  things."  Times  have  changed,  and 
until  we  go  back  to  a  similar  state  of  affairs,  which  is  not 
impossible,  we  come  into  the  world  with  ideas  of  peace  and 
order,  and  of  a  life  likely  to  be  a  long  one.  We  are  indig- 
nant if  it  is  threatened,  very  sad  when  the  end  draws  near  ; 
with  more  lasting  happinesses  we  smile  less  often.  Frois- 
sart  paints  in  radiant  colours,  and  the  subject  of  his  pictures 
is  the  France  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War.  The  "  merry 
England  "  of  the  "  Cursor  Mundi  "  and  after  is  the  England 
of  the  great  plagues,  and  of  the  rising  of  the  peasants, 
which  had  two  kings  assassinated  out  of  four.  It  is  also 
the  England  whose  Madonnas  smile. 


1  More  than  forty  for  the  reign  of  Edward  II.  are  to  be  found  in  the 
"Fcedera." 

2  "  Et  si  y  avoit  pluiseurs  des  seigneurs  et  des  riches  hommes  qui  avoient 
leurs  chiens  et  leurs  oizins  ossi  bien  comme  li  rois  leurs  sirs."  Campaign  of 
1360,  ed.  Luce,  book  i.  chap.  83. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  261 

In  architecture  the  English  favour  the  development  of 
that  kind  of  special  Gothic  of  which  they  are  the  inventors, 
the  Perpendicular,  a  rich  and  well-ordered  style,  terrestrial, 
practical,  pleasant  to  look  upon.  No  one  did  more  to 
secure  it  a  latsing  fame  than  the  Chancellor  of  Edward 
III.  and  of  Richard  II.,  William  of  Wykeham,  bishop  of 
Winchester,  the  restorer  of  Windsor,  founder  of  New 
College  at  Oxford,  the  greatest  builder  of  the  century.1 
The  walls  and  vaulted  roofs  of  chapels  are  thick  inlaid 
with  ornaments  ;  broad  windows  let  in  different  coloured 
lights  through  their  stained-glass  panes  ;  golden-haired 
angels  start  from  the  cornices  ;  architecture  smiles  too, 
and  its  smile,  like  that  of  the  Madonnas,  is  half  religious 
and  half  mundane. 

Less  care  is  taken  to  raise  strong  houses  than  formerly  ; 
among  the  numerous  castles  with  which  the  land  bristles 
may  be  seen,  in  the  distant  valley  where  the  ancient 
town  of  St.  David's  lies  screened,  a  bishop's  palace 
that  would  have  suited  neither  William  de  Longchamp 
nor  Hugh  de  Puiset,  a  magnificent  dwelling,  without 
towers  of  defence,  or  moats,  or  drawbridges,  an  exceptional 
dwelling,  built  as  though  the  inhabitants  were  already 
secure  of  the  morrow.2 

The  outside  is  less  rude,  and  the  inside  is  adorned  and 
enriched  ;  life  becomes  more  private  than  it  used  to  be  ; 

1  Born  at  Wykeham,  Hampshire,  1324,  of  an  obscure  family  (whence  his 
famous  motto,  "  Manners  makyth  man,"  that  is  to  say,  moral  qualities 
alone  make  a  man  of  worth),  clerk  of  the  king's  works  in  1356,  present  at  the 
peace  of  Bretigny,  bishop  of  Winchester  1366,  Chancellor  in  1367,  and  again 
under  Richard  II.  He  died  at  eighty-four  years  of  age,  under  Henry  IV.  The 
list  of  his  benefices  (Oct. ,  1366)  fills  more  than  four  pages  in  Lowth  ("Life 
of  W.  of  Wykeham,"  Oxford,  1777,  pp.  28  ff.).  Froissart  notes  the  immense 
influence  which  "  Wican  "  had  in  the  State. 

2  Built  almost  entirely  by  Bishop  Gower,  1328-47,  the  "Wykeham  of  Saint 
David's."  "  History  and  Antiquities  of  St.  David's,"  by  Jones  and  Freeman, 
London,  1856,  4to,  pp.  189  ff.  There  now  remain  only  ruins,  but  they  are 
among  the  most  beautiful  that  can  be  seen. 


262  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

existence  less  patriarchal  and  more  refined  ;  those  who 
still  cling  to  old  customs  complain  that  the  rich  man  dines 
in  a  chamber  with  a  chimney,  and  leaves  the  large  hall 
which  was  made  for  men  to  take  their  meals  in  together.1 
The  walls  of  these  chambers  with  chimneys  are  painted 
or  covered  with  hangings  ;  tapestries  represent  (as  do 
those  of  Edward  II.)  the  king  surrounded  by  his  nobles,2 
or  (like  those  of  the  Black  Prince)  the  "  Pas  de  Saladin," 
or  "  sea-sirens,"  with  a  border  of  "  swans  with  ladies' 
heads,"  in  other  words,  chimeras,  "  and  ostrich  feathers"; 
or,  again,  like  those  of  Sir  John  Falstofe,  in  the  following 
century,  the  adoration  of  the  shepherds,  a  hawking  scene, 
the  siege  of  Falaise  (taken  in  14 17),  a  woman  playing  the 
harp  near  a  castle,  "  a  giant  piercing  a  boar  with  a  spear  "  : 
all  of  which  are  the  more  noticeable  as  they  are  nothing 
but  literature  put  into  colours  or  embroidery.3 

1  Now  hath  uche  riche  a  reule  *  to  eten  by  hym-selve 
lira  pryve  parloure  ■  for  pore  mennes  sake, 
Or  in  a  chambre  with  a  chymneye  ■  and  leve  the  chief  halle, 
That  was  made  for  meles  '  men  te  eten  inne. 

"  Visions  Concerning  Piers  Plowman"  (ed.  Skeat),  text  B,  passus  x.  line  96. 

2  For  this  tapestry  the  king  paid  thirty  pounds  to  Thomas  de  Hebenhith, 
mercer  of  London.  ("  Wardrobe  accounts  of  Edward  II." — "  Archaeolosia," 
vol.  xxvi.  p.  344.) 

3  Will  of  the  Black  Prince,  in  Nichols,  "A  Collection  of  Wills,"  London. 
1780,  4to  ;  inventory  of  the  books  of  Falstofe  (who  died  under  Henry  VI.), 
"  Archasologia,"  vol.  xxi.  p.  232  ;  in  one  single  castle  belonging  to  him,  that  of 
Caister  near  Yarmouth,  were  found  after  his  death  13,400  ounces  of  silver. 
Already  in  the  thirteenth  century,  Henry  III.,  who  had  a  passion  for  art,  had 
caused  to  be  painted  in  his  chamber  in  the  Tower  the  history  of  Antioch  (3rd 
crusade),  and  in  his  palace  of  Clarendon  that  "  Pas  de  Saladin  "  which  was  the 
subject  of  one  of  the  Black  Prince's  tapestries;  he  had  a  painting  of  Jesse  on  the 
mantelpiece  of  his  chimney  at  Westminster.  (Hardy,  "  A  description  of  the 
close  rolls  in  the  Tower,"  London,  1833,  8vo,  p.  179,  and  Devon,  "Issues 
of  the  Exchequer,"  1837,  p.  64.)  He  was  so  fond  of  the  painting  executed  for 
him  at  Clarendon,  that  he  ordered  it  to  be  covered  with  a  linen  cloth  in  his 
absence,  so  that  it  would  not  get  injured.  In  the  fourteenth  century  the  walls 
were  hung  instead  of  being  painted,  as  in  the  thirteenth  ;  rich  people  had 

salles    — that  is  to  say,  suits  of  hangings  for  a  room.     Common  ones  were 
at  Norwich  ;  the  finest  came  from  Flanders. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  263 

The  conveniences  and  elegancies  of  the  table  are  now 
attended  to  ;  cooks  write  out  their  recipes  in  English  ; 
stewards  draw  up  in  the  same  language  protocols  con- 
cerning precedence,  and  the  rules  which  a  well-trained 
servant  should  observe.  Such  a  one  does  not  scratch  his 
head,  and  avoids  sneezing  in  the  dish  ;  he  abstains  from 
wiping  the  plates  with  his  tongue,  and  in  carving  takes 
the  meat  in  his  left  hand  and  the  knife  in  his  right,  forks 
being  then  unknown  ;  he  gives  each  one  his  proper  place, 
and  remembers  "  that  the  Pope  hath  no  peere."  When 
the  master  dresses,  he  must  be  seated  on  a  chair  by  the 
fire,  a  "  kercheff "  is  spread  over  his  shoulders,  and  he  is 
"  curteisly "  combed  with  an  ivory  comb  ;  he  is  rinsed 
"  with  rose-watur  warme  "  ;  when  he  takes  a  bath  the  air 
is  scented  with  herbs  hanging  from  the  ceiling.  When 
he  goes  to  bed  the  cats  and  dogs  which  happen  to  be  in 
his  room  should  be  driven  away,  or  else  a  little  cloth 
provided  for  them. 

The  food  is  rich  and  combines  extraordinary  rnixtures. 
Hens  and  rabbits  are  eaten  chopped  up  with  pounded 
almonds,  raisins,  sugar,  ginger,  herbs  dipped  in  grease, 
onions  and  salt ;  if  the  mixture  is  not  thick  enough,  rice 
flour  is  added,  and  the  whole  coloured  with  saffron. 
Cranes,  herons,  and  peacocks  are  cooked  with  ginger. 
Great  attention  is  paid  to  outward  appearance  and  to 
colour  ;  the  dishes  must  be  yellow  or  green,  or  adorned 
with  leaves  of  gold  and  silver,  a  fashion  still  preserved  in 
the  East.  Elaborate  cakes,  "  subtleties  "  as  they  were  then 
termed,  are  also  served  ;  they  represent  : 

Maydon  Mary  that  holy  virgyne 

And  Gabrielle  gretynge  hur  with  an  Ave.1 


1  These  recipes  and  counsels  are  found  in  :  "The  forme  of  Cury,  a  roll  of 
ancient  English  cookery  compiled  about  a.d.  1390,  by  the  master-cook 
of  King  Richard  II.,"  ed.  Pegge,  London,  1780,  8vc  (found  too  in  the 
"  Antiquitates  Culinariae,"  of  Warner,   1791,  4to).     The  prologue  informs  us 


264  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

People  adorn  their  bodies  as  well  as  their  houses  ;  luxury 
in  dress  is  carried  to  such  an  excess  that  Parliament  finds 
it  necessary  to  interfere,  and  forbids  women  of  the  lower 
classes  to  wear  any  furs  except  cat  and  rabbit.1  Edward 
III.  buys  of  master  Paul  de  Monteflor  gowns  for  the  queen, 
in  "  stuffs  from  over  the  sea,"  to  the  enormous  amount 
of  1,330  pounds.  He  himself  wears  a  velvet  waistcoat, 
on  which  he  has  caused  golden  pelicans  to  be  embroidered 
by  William  Courtenay,  a  London  embroiderer.  He  gives 
his  mistress  Alice  Perrers  21,868  large  pearls,  and  thirty 
ounces  of  smaller  ones.  His  daughter  Margaret  receives 
from  him  two  thousand  pearls  as  a  wedding  present  ;  he 
buys  his  sister  Alienor  a  gilded  carriage,  tapestried  and 
embroidered,  with  cushions  and  curtains  of  silk,  for  which 
he  pays  one  thousand  pounds.2  At  that  time  one  might 
for  the  same  sum  have  bought  a  herd  of  sixteen  hundred 
oxen. 

The  sense  of  beauty,  together  with  a  reverence  for  and 
a  worship  of  it,  was  spreading  among  the  nation  whose 
thoughts  shortly  before  used  to  run  in  quite  different  lines. 
Attention  is  paid  to  physical  beauty,  such  as  it  had  never 
received  before.  Men  and  women  wear  tight  garments, 
showing  the  shape  of  the  figure.  In  the  verses  he  com- 
posed   for    his   tomb   at    Canterbury,   the    Black    Prince 

that  this  master-cook  of  Richard's  had  been  guided  by  principle,  and  that  the 
book  "  was  compiled  by  assent  and  avysement  of  maisters  [of]  phisik  and  of 
philosophic  that  dwellid  in  his  court." — "The  boke  of  Nurture  folowyng 
Englondis  gise  by  me  John  Russell,"  ed.  Furnivall,  Early  English  Text 
Society,  1868,  8vo.  Russell  was  marshal  of  the  hall  to  Humphrey,  duke  of 
Gloucester  ;  he  wrote  when  he  was  old,  in  the  first  part  of  the  fifteenth  century  ; 
as  he  claims  to  teach  the  traditions  and  good  manners  of  former  times,  it  must 
be  supposed  the  customs  he  describes  date  from  the  reign  of  Richard  II.  See 
below,  p.  515. 

1  Year  1363.  The  "  aignel  "  and  the  "gopil"  are,  however,  tolerated. 
"  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  281. 

2  "  Issues  of  the  Exchequer,"  ed.  Devon,  1837,  pp.  142,  147,  189,  209, 
6  Ed.  III.  Richard  II.  pays  400  pounds  for  a  carriage  for  the  queen,  and  for 
a  simple  cart  2  pounds  only.     Ibid.,  pp.  236  and  263. 


THE  NEW  NATION.  265 

mourns  over  "  his  beauty  which  has  all  gone."  Richard 
II.,  while  still  alive,  has  graven  on  his  tomb  that  he  was 
"  corpore  procerus."1  The  taste  of  the  English  for  finery 
becomes  so  well  known,  that  to  them  is  ascribed,  even 
in  France,  the  invention  of  new  fashions.  Recalling  to 
his  daughters,  in  order  to  teach  them  modesty,  that  "  the 
deluge  in  the  time  of  Noah  happened  for  the  pride  and 
disguises  of  men,  and  mostly  of  women,  who  remodelled 
their  shapes  by  means  of  gowns  and  attire,"  the  Knight 
de  la  Tour  Landry  gives  the  English  ladies  the  credit,  or 
rather  the  discredit,  of  having  invented  the  immeasurable 
head-dresses  worn  at  that  day.  It  is  an  evil  sign  ;  in 
that  country  people  amuse  themselves  too  much  :  "  In 
England  many  there  are  that  have  been  blamed,  the 
report  goes,  I  know  not  whether  it  is  wrongly  or 
rightly."  2 

Owing  to  the  attention  paid  to  physical  beauty  in 
England,  sculptors  now  begin — a  rare  thing  at  that  time 
— to  have  living  models,  and  to  copy  the  nude.  In  the 
abbey  of  Meaux,  "  Melsa,"  near  Beverley,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Humber,  was  seen  in  the  fourteenth  century  a  sight 
that  would  have  been  rather  sought  for  by  the  banks  of 
the  Arno,  under  the  indulgent  sky  of  Italy.  The  abbot 
Hugh  of  Leven    having   ordered   a  new  crucifix  for  the 

1  The  verses  of  the  Black  Prince  (below,  page  353)  are  found  in  his 
will,  together  with  minute  details  concerning  the  carvings  with  which  his 
tomb  must  be  adorned,  and  the  manner  he  wishes  to  be  represented  on 
it,  "tout  armez  de  fier  de  guerre."  Stanley,  "Historical  Memorials  of 
Canterbury,"  1885,  p.  132.  The  tomb  of  Richard  II.  at  Westnvnster  was 
built  in  his  lifetime  and  under  his  eyes.  The  original  indentures  have  been 
preserved,  by  which  "Nicholas  Broker  et  Godfrey  Prest,  citeins  et  coper- 
smythes  de  Loundres "  agree  to  have  the  statues  of  Richard  and  Anne 
made,  such  as  they  are  seen  to  day  with  "  escriptures  en  tour  la  dite 
toumbe,"  April  14,  1395.  Another  contract  concerns  the  marble  masonry  ; 
both  are  in  the  Record  Office,  "  Exchequer  Treasury  of  the  recipt,"  "  Mis- 
cellanea," 3/40. 

2  "  Le  livre  du  chevalier  de  la  Tour  Landry  pour  1'enseignement  de  ses  filles," 
ed  Montaiglon,  Paris,  1854,  i2mo,  pp.  46  and  98,  written  in  1371. 


266  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

convent  chapel,  the  artist  "  had  always  a  naked  man  under 
his  eyes,  and  he  strove  to  give  to  his  crucifix  the  beauty 
of  form  of  his  model."  * 

One  last  trait  may  be  added  to  the  others  :  not  only  the 
beauty  of  live  beings,  but  that  also  of  inanimate  things 
is  felt  and  cared  for,  the  beauty  of  landscapes,  and  of 
trees.  In  1 3  50- 1  the  Commons  complain  of  the  cutting  down 
of  the  large  trees  overshadowing  the  houses,  those  large 
trees,  dear  already  to  English  hearts,  and  point  out  in 
Parliament  the  loss  of  this  beauty,  the  great  "  damage, 
loss,  and  blemish  "  that  results  from  it  for  the  dwellings.2 

In  nearly  every  respect,  thus,  the  Englishman  of  to-day 
is  formed,  and  receives  his  chief  features,  under  the 
Angevin  princes  Edward  III.  and  Richard  II.  :  practical, 
adventurous,  a  lover  of  freedom,  a  great  traveller,  a  wealthy 
merchant,  an  excellent  sailor.  We  have  had  a  glimpse  of 
what  he  is ;  let  us  now  listen  to  what  he  says. 

1  "  Et  hominem  nudum  coram  se  stantem  prospexit,  secundum  cujus 
formosam  imaginem  crucifixum  ipsum  aptius  decoraret. "  "  Chronica 
monasterii  de  Melsa,"  ed.  Bond,  Rolls,  1868,  vol.  iii.  p.  35.  Hugh  of  Leven, 
who  ordered  this  crucifix,  was  abbot  from  1339  to  1349.  Thomas  of  Burton, 
author  of  the  chronicle,  compiled  it  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

2  The  Commons  point  out  that,  as  the  royal  purveyors  "abatent  et  ount 
abatuz  les  arbres  cressauntz  entour  les  mansions  des  gentz  de  ladite  commune, 
en  grant  damage,  gast  et  blemissement  de  lour  mansions,  qe  plese  a  Nostre 
Seigneur  le  Roi  que  desoremes  tiels  arbres  ne  seront  copes  ne  pris  en  contre 
la  volonte  des  seigneurs  des  ditz  mansions." 

Answer:  "II  semble  au  conseil  qe  ceste  petition  est  resonable."  "  Rotuli 
Parliamentorum,"  25  Ed.  III.,  vol.  ii.  p.  250. 


CHAPTER    II. 

CHA  UCER. 

The  new  nation  had  its  poet,  Geoffrey  Chaucer.  By  his 
origin,  his  education,  his  tastes,  his  manner  of  life,  as  well 
as  by  his  writings,  Chaucer  represents  the  new  age  ;  he 
paints  it  from  nature,  and  is  a  part  of  it.  His  biography 
is  scarcely  less  characteristic  than  his  works,  for  he  describes 
nothing  through  hearsay  or  imagination.  He  is  himself 
an  actor  in  the  scenes  he  depicts  ;  he  does  not  dream,  he 
sees  them. 

His  history  is  a  sort  of  reduction  of  that  of  the  English 
people  at  that  day.  They  are  enriched  by  trade,  and 
Chaucer,  the  son  of  merchants,  grows  up  among  them. 
The  English  people  no  longer  repair  to  Paris  in  order  to 
study,  and  Chaucer  does  not  go  either  ;  their  king  wages 
war  in  France,  and  Chaucer  follows  Edward  along  the 
military  roads  of  that  country  ;  they  put  more  and  more 
trust  in  Parliament,  and  Chaucer  sits  in  Parliament  as 
member  for  Kent.  They  take  an  interest  in  things  of 
beauty,  they  are  fond  of  the  arts,  and  want  them  to  be  all 
aglow  with  ornamentation  and  bright  with  smiles  ;  Chaucer 
is  clerk  of  the  king's  works,  and  superintends  the  repairs 
and  embellishments  of  the  royal  palaces.  Saxon  monotony, 
the  sadness  that  followed  after  Hastings,  are  forgotten  past 
memory ;  this  new  England  knows  how  to  laugh  and  also 
how  to  smile ;  she  is  a  merry  England,  with  bursts  of  joy, 

267 


268  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

and  also  an  England  of  legends,  of  sweet  songs,  and  of 
merciful  Madonnas.  The  England  of  laughter  and  the 
England  of  smiles  are  both  in  Chaucer's  works. 


I. 

Chaucer's  life  exactly  fills  the  period  we  have  now 
come  to,  during  which  the  English  people  acquired  their 
definitive  characteristics  :  he  was  born  under  Edward  III. 
and  he  died  shortly  after  the  accession  of  Henry  of 
Lancaster.  At  that  time  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  were 
long  since  dead,  France  had  no  poet  of  renown,  and 
Chaucer  was  without  comparison  the  greatest  poet  of 
Europe. 

His  family  belonged  to  the  merchant  class  of  the  City. 
His  father,  John  Chaucer,  his  uncle,  Thomas  Heyroun,  and 
other  relations  besides,  were  members  of  the  Corporation 
of  Wine  Merchants,  or  Vintners.  John  Chaucer  was 
purveyor  to  the  Court,  and  he  accompanied  Edward  III. 
on  his  first  expedition  to  the  Continent :  hence  a  connec- 
tion with  the  royal  family,  by  which  the  future  poet  was  to 
profit.  The  Chaucers'  establishment  was  situated  in  that 
Thames  Street  which  still  exists,  but  now  counts  only 
modern  houses  ;  Geoffrey  was  probably  born  there  in 
1340,  or  a  little  earlier.1 

Chaucer  spent  the  years  of  his  childhood  and  youth  in 
London:  a  London  which  the  great  fire  of  1666  almost 
totally  destroyed,  that  old  London,  then  quite  young,  of 

1  The  date  1328  has  long  but  wrongly  been  believed  to  be  the  true  one. 
The  principal  documents  concerning  Chaucer  are  to  be  found  in  the  Appendix 
to  his  biography  by  Sir  H.  Nicolas,  in  "  Poetical  Works,"  ed.  R.  Morris, 
Aldine  Poets,  vol.  i.  p.  93  ff.,  in  the  "Trial  Forewords,"  of  Dr.  Furnivall, 
1871,  and  in  the  "  Life  Records  of  Chaucer,"  1875  ff->  Chaucer  Society. 
One  of  the  municipal  ordinances  meant  to  check  the  frauds  of  the  vintners  is 
signed  by  several  members  of  the  corporation,  and  among  others  by  John 
Chaucer,  1342.    See  Riley,  "Memorials,  of  London,"  p.  211. 


CHA  UCER.  269 

which  illuminated  manuscripts  have  preserved  to  us  the 
picturesque  aspect.  The  paternal  house  was  near  the 
river,  and  by  the  side  of  the  streamlet  called  Walbrook, 
since  covered  over,  but  which  then  flowed  in  the  open  air. 
On  the  noble  river,  the  waters  of  which  were  perhaps  not 
as  blue  as  illuminators  painted  them,  but  which  were  not 
yet  the  liquid  mud  we  all  know,  ships  from  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  the  Baltic  glided  slowly,  borne  by  the  tide. 
Houses  with  several  stories  and  pointed  roofs  lined  the 
water,  and  formed,  on  the  ground  floor,  colonnades  that 
served  for  warehouses,  and  under  which  merchandise  was 
landed.1  The  famous  London  Bridge,  built  under  King 
John,  almost  new  still,  for  it  was  only  entering  upon  its 
second  century  and  was  to  live  six  hundred  years,  with  its 
many  piers,  its  sharp  buttresses,  the  houses  it  bore,  its 
chapel  of  St.  Thomas,  stood  against  the  line  of  the  horizon, 
and  connected  the  City  with  the  suburb  of  Southwark. 
On  that  side  were  more  houses,  a  fine  Gothic  church, 
which  still  exists,  hostelries  in  abundance,  for  it  was  the 
place  of  arrival  for  those  coming  by  land  ;  and  with  the 
hostelries,  places  of  amusement  of  every  kind,  a  tradition 
so  well  established  that  most  of  the  theatres  in  the  time  of 
Elizabeth  were  built  there,  and  notably  the  celebrated 
Globe,  where  Shakespeare's  plays  were  performed.  Save 
for  this  suburb,  the  right  shore  of  the  Thames,  instead  of 
the  warehouses  of  to-day,  offered  to  view  the  open 
country,  trees,  and  green  meadows.  Some  way  down,  on 
the  left  side,  rose  the  walls  of  the  Tower  ;  and  further  up, 
towards  the  interior  of  the  City,  the  massive  pile  of  St. 
Paul's  stood  out  above  the  houses.  It  was  then  a  Gothic 
cathedral  ;  Wren,  after  the  great  fire,  replaced  it  by  the 
Renaissance  edifice  we   see  to-day.     The  town  was  sur- 

1  See  the  view  of  London,  painted  in  the  fifteenth  century,  obviously  from 
nature,  reproduced  at  the  beginning  of  this  vol.,  from  MS.  Royal  16  F  ii,  in  the 
British  Museum,  showing  the  Tower,  the  Bridge,  the  wharfs.  Old  St.  Paul's,  etc. 


270  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

rounded  by  walls,  portions  of  which  still  remain,  with 
Roman  foundations  in  some  places.1  At  intervals  gates 
opened  on  the  country,  defended  by  bastions,  their  memory 
being  preserved  at  this  day  by  names  of  streets :  Aldgate, 
Bishopsgate,  &c. 

The  town  itself  was  populous  and  busy.  The  streets, 
in  which  Chaucer's  childhood  was  spent,  were  narrow, 
bordered  by  houses  with  projecting  stories,  with  signs 
overhanging  the  way,  with  "  pentys  "  barring  the  footpath, 
and  all  sorts  of  obstructions,  against  which  innumerable 
municipal  ordinances  protested  in  vain.  Riders'  heads 
caught  in  the  signs,  and  it  was  enjoined  to  make  the 
poles  shorter ;  manners  being  violent,  the  wearing  of  arms 
was  prohibited,  but  honest  folk  alone  conformed  to  the 
law,  thus  facilitating  matters  for  the  others  ;  cleanliness 
was  but  indifferent ;  pigs  ran  hither  and  thither.  A  decree 
of  the  time  of  Edward  I.  had  vainly  prescribed  that  they 
should  all  be  killed,  except  those  of  St.  Anthony's  Hospital, 
which  would  be  recognised  by  the  bell  hanging  at  their 
neck  :  "  And  whoso  will  keep  a  pig,  let  him  keep  it  in  his 
own  house."  Even  this  privilege  was  withdrawn  a  little 
later,  so  elegant  were  manners  becoming.2 

In  this  laborious  city,  among  sailors  and  merchants, 
acquiring  a  taste  for  adventure  and  for  tales  of  distant 
lands,  hearing  his  father  describe  the  beautiful  things  to  be 
seen  at  Court,  Geoffrey  grew  up,  from  a  child  became  a 
youth,  and,  thanks  to  his  family's  acquaintances,  was 
appointed,  at  seventeen,  page  to  Elizabeth,  wife  of  Lionel, 
son  of  Edward  III. 3     In  his  turn,  and  not  as  a  merchant, 

1  Such  is  the  case  with  a  tower  in  the  churchyard  of  St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate. 

2  "  Et  qi  pork  voedra  norir,  le  norise  deinz  sa  measoun."  Four  jurymen 
were  to  act  as  public  executors  :  "  Quatuor  homines  electi  et  jurati  ad  inter- 
ficiendos  porcos  inventos  vagantes  infra  muros  civitatis."  Riley  "Munimenta 
Gildhallse,"  Rolls,  1859,  4  vols.  8vo  ;  "  Liber  Albus,"  pp.  270  and  590. 

3  April,  1357,  an  information  gathered  from  a  fragment  of  the  accounts  of 
the  household  of  Elizabeth  found  in  the  binding  of  a  book. 


CHAUCER.  271 

he  had  access  to  the  Court  and  belonged  to  it.  He 
dressed  in  the  fashion,  and  spent  seven  shillings  for  a 
short  cloak  or  paltock,  shoes,  and  a  pair  of  red  and  black 
breeches. 

In  1359  ne  took  part  in  the  expedition  to  France,  led  by 
the  king.  It  seemed  as  if  it  must  be  a  death-blow  to  the 
French  :  the  disaster  of  Poictiers  was  not  yet  repaired  ;  the 
Jacquerie  had  just  taken  place,  as  well  as  the  Parisian  riots 
and  the  betrayal  and  death  of  Marcel  ;  the  king  of  France 
was  a  prisoner  in  London,  and  the  kingdom  had  for  its  leader 
a  youth  of  twenty-two,  frail,  learned,  pious,  unskilled  in 
war.  It  looked  as  though  one  had  but  to  take  ;  but  once 
more  the  saying  of  Froissart  was  verified  ;  in  the  fragile 
breast  of  the  dauphin  beat  the  heart  of  a  great  citizen,  and 
the  event  proved  that  the  kingdom  was  not  "  so  discomfited 
but  that  one  always  found  therein  some  one  against  whom 
to  fight."  The  campaign  was  a  happy  one  neither  for 
Edward  nor  for  Chaucer.  The  king  of  England  met  with 
nothing  but  failures  :  he  failed  before  Reims,  failed  before 
Paris,  and  was  only  too  pleased  to  sign  the  treaty  of 
Bretigny.  Chaucer  was  taken  by  the  French,1  and  his  fate 
would  not  have  been  an  enviable  one  if  the  king  had  not 
paid  his  ransom.  Edward  gave  sixteen  pounds  to  recover 
his  daughter-in-law's  page.  Everything  has  its  value  :  the 
same'  Edward  had  spent  fifty  pounds  over  a  horse  called 
Bayard,  and  seventy  for  another  called  Labryt,  which  was 
dapple-grey. 

After  his  return  Chaucer  was  attached  to  the  person  of 

1  In  the  controversy  between  Sir  Richard  Scrope  and  Sir  Robert  Grosvenor, 
concerning  a  question  of  armorial  bearings,  Chaucer,  being  called  as  witness, 
declares  (13S6)  that  he  has  seen  Sir  Richard  use  the  disputed  emblems  "en 
France,  devant  la  ville  de  Retters  .  .  .  et  issint  il  [le]  vist  armez  par  tout  le 
dit  viage  tanque  le  dit  Geffrey  estoit  pris. "  "The  Scrope  and  Grosvenor  con- 
troversy, 1385-90,"  London,  2  vols,  fob,  vol.  i.  p.  178.  "  Retters"  is  Rethel 
in  Champagne  (not  Retiers  in  Brittany,  where  the  expedition  did  not  go). 
Chaucer  took  part  in  another  campaign  "  in  partibus  Francise,"  in  1369. 


272  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Edward  in  the  capacity  of  valet  of  the  chamber,  "  valettus 
camerae  regis  ''  ;  this  is  exactly  the  title  that  Moliere  was 
later  to  honour  in  his  turn.  His  functions  consisted  in 
making  the  royal  bed,  holding  torches,  and  carrying 
messages.  A  little  later  he  was  squire,  armiger,  scutifer, 
and  as  such  served  the  prince  at  table,  and  rode  after  him 
in  his  journeys.1  His  duties  do  not  seem  to  have  absorbed 
all  his  thoughts,  for  he  found  time  to  read  many  books,  to 
write  many  poems,  to  be  madly  enamoured  of  a  lovely 
unknown  person  who  did  not  respond  to  his  passion,2  to 
marry  "  Domicella"  or  "  Damoiselle  "  Philippa,  attached  to 
the  service  of  the  queen,  then  to  the  service  of  Constance, 
second  wife  of  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster — without 
ceasing  however,  because  he  could  not,  as  he  assures  us,  do 
otherwise,  still  to  love  his  unknown  beauty.3 

1  On  this  see  Furnivall,  "  Chaucer  as  valet  and  esquire,"  Chaucer  Society, 
1876. 

2  A  passage  in  Chaucer's  "  Book  of  the  Duchesse"  (1369),  lines  30  ff.,  leaves 
little  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  the  unlucky  passion  he  describes.  The  poet 
interrupts  the  train  of  his  speech  to  answer  a  supposed  question  put  to  him  as 
to  the  causes  of  his  depression  and  "  melancolye"  : 

I  holde  hit  be  a  siknesse 
That  I  have  suffred  this  eight  yere, 
And  yet  my  bote  is  never  the  nere  ; 
For  ther  is  phisicien  but  oon, 
That  may  me  hele. 

Proem  of  the  "Book."  See,  in  connection  with  this,  the  "  Compleynte  unto 
Pite."  Who  was  the  loved  one  we  do  not  know  ;  could  it  be  that  the  poet 
was  playing  upon  her  name  in  such  lines  as  these  : 

For  kindly  by  your  heritage  right 

Ye  been  annexed  ever  unto  Bountee?  (1.  71). 

There  were  numerous  families  of  Bonamy,  Bonenfaut,  Boncoeur.  A  William 
de  Boncuor  is  named  in  the  "  Excerpta  e  Rotulis  Finium,"  of  Roberts,  vol. 
ii.  pp.  309,  431,  432. 

3  The  date  of  Chaucer's  marriage  has  not  been  ascertained.  We  know  that 
his  wife  was  called  Philippa,  that  one  Philippa  Chaucer  belonged  to  the 
queen's  household  in  1366,  and  that  the  Philippa  Chaucer,  wife  of  the  poet, 
was  at  a  later  date  in  the  service  of  the  Duchess  of  Lancaster,  after  having 
been  in  the  service  of  the  queen.     It  seems  most  likely  that  the  two  women 


CHA  UCER.  273 

He  reads,  he  loves,  he  writes,  he  is  a  poet.  We  do  not 
know  whom  he  loved,  but  we  know  what  he  read  and  what 
he  wrote  at  that  time.  He  read  the  works  which  were  in 
fashion  in  the  elegant  society  he  lived  among  :  romances 
of  chivalry,  love-songs,  allegorical  poems,  from  "  Roland  " 
and.  "  Tristan"  to  the  "Roman  de  la  Rose."  Poets,  even 
the  greatest,  rarely  show  their  originality  at  twenty,  and 
Chaucer  was  no  exception  to  the  rule  ;  he  imitated  the 
writings  best  liked  by  those  around  him,  which,  at  the 
Court  of  the  king,  were  mostly  French  books.  However 
it  might  be  with  the  nation,  the  princes  had  remained 
French  ;  the  French  language  was  their  native  tongue ;  the 
beautiful  books,  richly  illustrated,  that  they  kept  to  divert 
themselves  with  on  dull  days,  in  their  "withdrawing-room," 
or  "  chambre  de  retrait,"  were  French  books,  of  which  the 
subject  for  the  most  part  was  love.  In  this  respect  there 
was,  even  at  that  time,  no  difference  between  the  north  and 
the  south.  Froissart  stays  at  Orthez,  in  1388,  with 
Monseigneur  Gaston  Phebus  de  Foix  ;  and  at  Eltham,  at  the 

were  the  same  person  :  same  name,  same  function,  same  pension  often  marks, 
referred  to  in  the  same  words  in  public  documents,  for  example  :  i°  42  Ed. 
III.,  1368,  "  Philippse  Chaucer  cui  dominus  Rex  decern  marcas  annuatim  ad 
scaccarium  percipiendas  pro  bono  servitio  per  ipsam  Philippam  Philippe  Regine 
Anglie  impenso  per  literas  suas  patentes  nuper  concessit.  .  .  ."  2°  4  Ric. 
II.,  1381,  "  Philippce  Chaucer  nuper  uni  domicellarum  Philippce  nuper 
Regine  Anglie" — she  had  died  in  1369 — "cui  dominus  Rex  Edwardus  avus 
Regis  hujus  X  marcas  annuatim  ad  scaccarium  suum  percipiendas  pro  bono 
servitio  per  ipsam  tarn  eidem  domino  Regi  quam  dicte  Regine  impenso  per 
literas  suas  patentes  nuper  concessit  ...  in  denariis  sibi  liberatis  per 
manus  predicti  Galfridi  mariti  sui.  ..."  "  Poetical  Works,"  ed.  Morris, 
i.  p.  108.  Who  Philippa  was  by  birth  is  doubtful,  but  it  seems  likely 
that  she  was  Philippa  Roet,  daughter  of  Sir  Payne  Roet,  who  hailed,  like 
the  queen  herself,  from  Hainault — hence  her  connection  with  the  queen 
— and  sister  of  Catherine  Roet  who  became  the  mistress  and  then  the 
third  wife  of  John  of  Gaunt — hence  the  favour  in  which  the  poet  and  his 
family  stood  with  the  Lancastrians.  It  seems  again  very  probable,  though  not 
absolutely  certain,  that  Thomas  Chaucer,  who  used  at  different  times  both  the 
Chaucer  and  the  Roet  arms,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  under  Henry 
V.,  a  man  of  great  influence,  was  one  of  the  children  of  the  poet. 

19 


274  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Court  of  Richard  II.  in  1394.  In  each  case  he  uses  exactly 
the  same  endeavours  to  please  :  both  personages  are  men 
of  the  same  kind,  having  the  same  ideal  in  life,  imbued 
with  the  same  notions,  and  representing  the  same  civilisa- 
tion. He  finds  them  both  speaking  French  very  well  ; 
Gaston  "talked  to  me,  not  in  his  own  Gascon,  but  in  fair 
and  good  French"  ;  Richard,  too, "  full  well  spoke  and  read 
French."  The  historian  was  duly  recommended  to  each  of 
them,  but  he  relied  especially,  to  make  himself  welcome, 
on  a  present  he  had  brought,  the  same  in  both  cases,  a 
French  manuscript  containing  amorous  poems,  which 
manuscript  "  the  Comte  de  Foix  saw  full  willingly  ;  and 
every  night,  after  his  supper,  I  read  to  him  from  it.  But 
in  reading  none  durst  speak  nor  say  a  word  ;  for  he  wanted 
me  to  be  well  heard." 

He  takes  the  same  precautions  when  he  goes  to  England, 
where  he  had  not  been  seen  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
where  he  scarcely  knew  any  one  now  :  "  And  I  had  before- 
hand caused  to  be  written,  engrossed  and  illuminated  and 
collected,  all  the  amorous  and  moral  treatises  that,  in  the 
lapse  of  thirty-four  years,  I  had,  by  the  grace  of  God  and 
of  Love,  made  and  compiled."  He  waits  a  favourable 
opportunity,  and  one  day  when  the  councils  on  the  affairs 
of  State  are  ended,  "  desired  the  king  to  see  the  book  that  I 
had  brought  him.  Then  he  saw  it  in  his  chamber,  for  all  pre- 
pared I  had  it ;  I  put  it  for  him  upon  his  bed.  He  opened 
it  and  looked  inside,  and  it  pleased  him  greatly  :  and  please 
him  well  it  might,  for  it  was  illuminated,  written  and  orna- 
mented and  covered  in  scarlet  velvet,  with  ten  silver  nails 
gilded  with  gold,  and  golden  roses  in  the  middle,  and  with 
two  great  clasps  gilded  and  richly  worked  in  the  middle 
with  golden  roses. 

"  Then  the  king  asked  me  of  what  it  treated,  and  I  told 
him  :  of  Love. 

"  With  this  answer  he  was  much  rejoiced,  and    looked 


CHAUCER.  275 

inside  in  several  places,  and  read  therein,  for  he  spoke  and 
read  French  full  well  ;  and  then  had  it  taken  by  one  of  his 
knights,  whom  he  called  Sir  Richard  Credon,  and  carried 
into  his  withdrawing-room,  and  treated  me  better  and 
better."  r 

Long  before  this  last  journey  of  the  illustrious  chronicler, 
Chaucer  was  familiar  with  his  poems,  and  he  was  acquainted, 
as  most  men  around  him  were,  with  those  of  his  French 
contemporaries  :  Deguileville,  Machault,  Des  Champs,  and 
later  Granson.2  He  sings  like  them  of  love,  of  spring,  of 
the  field-daisy3;  he  had  read  with  passionate  admiration 

1  Book  iv.  chap.  40. 

2  Froissart  declares  concerning  his  own  poems  that  he  "  les  commencha  a 
faire  sus  l'an  de  grace  Nostre  Seigneur,  1362."  He  wrote  them  "a  l'ayde  de 
Dieu  et  d'Amours,  et  a  le  contemplation  et  plaisance  de  pluisours  haus  et 
nobles  signours  et  de  pluisours  nobles  et  vaillans  dames."  MS.  Fr.  831  in  the 
National  Library,  Paris. — On  Guillaume  de  Deguileville,  who  wrote  about 
1330-5,  see  Ward,  "  Catalogue  of  Romances,"  1893,  v°l-  "■  P-  55&  ;  Hill, 
"  An  Ancient  Poem  of  G.  de  Guileville,"  London,  1858,  4to,  illustrated,  and  my 
"  Piers  Plowman,"  chap.  vii.  Chaucer  imitated  from  him  his  "  A. B.C.,"  one  of 
his  first  works. — On  Machault,  who  died  in  1377,  see  Tarbe,  "  Guivres  Choisies," 
Reims  and  Paris,  1849,  8vo,  and  Thomas,  "  Romania,"  x.  pp.  325  ff.  (papal 
bulls  concerning  him,  dated  1330,  1332,  1333,  1335)- — On  Des  Champs,  see 
"  GLuvres  Completes  publiees  d'apres  le  Manuscrit  de  la  Bibliotheque 
Nationale,"  by  the  Marquis  de  Queux  de  St.  Hilaire,  Societe  des  Anciens 
Textes,  1878  ff.  (which  MS.  contains,  e.g.,  1 175  ballads,  171  roundels,  and  80 
virelais),  and  A.  Sarradin,  "  Etude  sur  Eustache  des  Champs,"  Versailles, 
1878,  8vo. — On  Granson,  a  knight  and  a  poet  slain  in  a  judicial  duel,  in  1397, 
see  Piaget,  "  Granson  et  ses  poesies,"  "Romania,"  vol.  xix.  ;  Chaucer  imitated 
in  his  later  years  his  "  Compleynt  of  Venus,"  from  a  poem  of  "  Graunson, 
flour  of  hem  that  make  in  Fraunce." 

3  Chaucer's  favourite  flower  ;  he  constantly  praises  it ;  it  is  for  him  a  woman- 
flower  (see  especially  the  prologue  of  the  "  Legend  of  Good  Women").  This 
flower  enjoyed  the  same  favoui  with  the  French  models  of  Chaucer.  One  of 
the  ballads  of  Froissart  has  for  its  burden  :  "  Sus  toutes  flours  j'aime  la 
margherite  "  ("  Le  Paradis  d' Amour,"  in  "  Poesies,"  ed.  Scheler,  Brussels, 
1870,  3  vols.  Svo),  vol.  i.  p.  49.  Des  Champs  praised  the  same  flower ;  Machault 
wrote  a  "  Dit  de  la  Marguerite"  ("  QEuvres  Choisies,"  ed.  Tarbe,  p.  123)  : 

J'aim  une  fleur  qui  s'uevre  et  qui  s'encline 
Vers  le  soleil,  de  jour  quand  il  chemine  ; 
Et  quand  il  est  couchiez  soubz  sa  courtine 

Par  nuit  obscure, 
Elle  se  clost  ainsois  que  le  jour  fine. 


276  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

the  poem,  composed  in  the  preceding  century,  which  was 
most  liked  of  all  the  literature  of  the  time,  the  "  Roman  de 
la  Rose." 

This  famous  poem  was  then  at  the  height  of  a  reputation 
which  was  to  last  until  after  the  Renaissance.     The  faults 
which   deter  us   from   it   contributed   to  its   popularity  as 
much  as  did  its  merits  ;  digressions,  disquisitions,  and  ser- 
mons did  not  inspire  the  terror  they  do  now  ;  twenty-three 
thousand    lines    of    moralisation,    psychological    analysis, 
abstract  dissertations,  delivered  by  personified  abstractions, 
did   not   weary   the  young   imagination  of   the   ancestors. 
The  form  is  allegorical :  the  rose  is  the  maiden  whom  the 
lover  desires  to  conquer  :    this  form,  which  fell  later  into 
disfavour,  delighted  the  readers  of  the  fourteenth  century 
for  whom  it  was  an  additional  pleasure  to  unriddle  these 
easy  enigmas. 

The  Church  had  helped  to  bring  allegories  into  vogue  ; 
commentators  had  early  explained  the  New  Testament  by 
the  Old,  one  being  an  allegory  of  the  other  :  the  adventure 
of  Jonah  and  the  whale  was  an  allegory  of  the  resurrec- 
tion ;  the  Bestiaries  were  series  of  allegories  ;  the  litanies 
of    the  Virgin   lists   of   symbols.     The  methods   of   pious 
authors    were    adopted    by    worldly    ones ;    Love    had    his 
religion,  his  allegories,  his    litanies,    not    to   speak    of   his 
Daradise,  his  hell,  and  his  ten  commandments.      He  had  a 
whole  celestial  court  of  personified  abstractions,  composed 
of  those  tenuous  and  transparent  beings  who  welcome  or 
repel  the  lover  in  the  garden  of  the  Rose.     It  was  a  new 
religion,  this  worship  of  woman,  unknown  to  the  ancients  ; 
Ovid  no  longer  sufficed,  imitators  could  not  help  altering 
his  aim  and  ideal  ;  the  new  cult  required  a  gospel  ;  that 
gospel  was  the  "  Roman  de  la  Rose."  l 

1  Guillaume  de  Lorris  wrote  the  first  part  of  the  "  Roman  "  ab.  1237  ;  Jean 
de  Meun  wrote  the  second  towards  1277.  On  the  sources  of  the  poem  see  the 
important  work  of  Langlois :  "  Origines  et  Sources  du  Roman  de  la  Rose," 


CHA  UCER.  277 

The  discrepancies  in  the  book  did  not  shock  the 
generality  of  readers  ;  art  at  that  time  was  full  of  con- 
trasts, and  life  of  contradictions,  and  the  thing  was  so 
usual  that  it  went  unnoticed.  Saints  prayed  on  the 
threshold  of  churches,  and  gargoyles  laughed  at  the 
saints.  Guillaume  de  Lorris  built  the  porch  of  his 
cathedral  of  Love,  and  placed  in  the  niches  tall,  long 
figures  of  pure  and  noble  mien.  Jean  de  Meun,  forty 
years  later,  continued  the  edifice,  and  was  not  sparing 
of  gargoyles,  mocking,  grotesque,  and  indecent.  Thence 
followed  interminable  discussions,  some  holding  for  Guil- 
laume, others  for  Jean,  some  rejecting  the  whole  romance, 
others,  the  most  numerous,  accepting  it  all.  These  dissen- 
sions added  still  more  to  the  fame  of  the  work,  and  it  was 
so  popular  that  there  exist  more  than  two  hundred  manu- 
scripts of  it.1  The  wise  biographer  of  the  wise  king 
Charles  V.,  Christina  of  Pisan,  protested  in  the  name  of 
insulted  women  :  "  To  you  who  have  beautiful  daughters, 
and  desire  well  to  introduce  them  to  honest  life,  give  to 
them,  give  the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  to  learn  how  to 
discern  good  from  evil  ;  what  do  I  say,  but  evil  from  good  ! 
And  of  what  utility,  nor  what  does  it  profit  listeners 
to  hear  such  horrible  things  ?  "  The  author  "  never  had 
acquaintance  nor  association  with  an  honourable  or  virtuous 


Paris,  1891,  8vo.  M.  Langlois  has  traced  the  originals  for  12,000  out  of  the 
17,500  lines  of  Jean  de  Meun  ;  he  is  preparing  (1894)  a  much-needed  critical 
edition  of  the  text. 

1  One  of  them  has  a  sort  of  biographical  interest  as  having  belonged  to  Sir 
Richard  Stury,  Chaucer's  colleague  in  one  of  his  missions  (see  below,  p.  284) ; 
it  was  afterwards  purchased  for  Thomas,  duke  of  Gloucester,  son  of  Edward 
III.,  and  is  now  in  the  British  Museum,  MS.  Royal  19  B  xiii.  "  Ceste 
livre  est  a  Thomas  fiz  au  Roy,  due  de  Glouc',  achates  dez  executeurs  Mons' 
Ric'  Stury."  It  has  curious  miniatures  exemplifying  the  way  in  which  people 
pictured  to  themselves  at  that  time  Olympian  gods  and  romance  heroes.  The 
"  Dieu  d'amour  "  figures  as  a  tall  person  with  a  tunic,  a  cloak,  and  a  crown,  a 
bow  in  his  hand  and  large  red  wings  on  his  back.  See  fol.  16,  "  coment  li 
diex  d'amours  navra  l'amant  de  ses  saietes." 


278  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

woman  " ;  he  has  known  none  save  those  of  "  dissolute 
and  evil  life,"  and  has  taken  all  the  others  to  be  according 
to  that  pattern.1  The  illustrious  Gerson,  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  did  the  romance  the  honour  of  refuting  it  by  a 
treatise  according  to  rule  ;  but  the  poem  was  none  the  less 
translated  into  Latin,  Flemish,  and  English,  printed  a 
number  of  times  at  the  Renaissance  and  rejuvenated  and 
edited  by  Marot. 

There  were  several  English  translations,  and  one  of  them 
was  the  work  of  our  young  "  Valettus  camerse  regis." 
This  translation  by  Chaucer  is  lost,2  but  we  are  aware  not 
only  that  it  existed,  but  even  that  it  was  celebrated  ;  its 
merit  was  known  in  France,  and  Des  Champs,  in  sending 
his  works  to  Chaucer,3  congratulates  him,  above  all  things, 
on  having  "  planted  the  rose-tree  "  in  "  the  isle  of  giants," 

1  "A  vous  qui  belles  filles  avez  et  bien  les  desirez  a  introduire  a.  vie  hon- 
neste,  bailliez  leur,  bailliez  le  Rommant  de  la  Rose,  pour  aprendre  adiscerner  le 
bien  du  mal,  que  diz-je,  raais  le  mal  du  bien.  Et  a  quel  utilite  neaquoy  prou- 
fite  aux  oyans  o'ir  tant  de  laidures?"  Jean  de  Meun  "  oncques  n'ot  acointance 
ne  hantise  de  femme  honorable  ne  vertueuse,  mais  par  plusieurs  femmes  dis- 
solues  et  de  male  vie  hanter,  comme  font  communement  les  luxurieux  cuida  ou 
faingny  savoir  que  toutes  telles  feussent  car  d'autres  n'avoit  congnoissance." 
"  Debat  sur  le  Rommant  de  la  Rose,"  in  MS.  Fr.  604  in  the  National 
Library,  Paris,  fol.  114  and  115. 

2  An  incomplete  translation  of  the  "  Roman  "  in  English  verse  has  come 
down  to  us  in  a  single  MS.  preserved  in  the  Hunterian  collection,  Glasgow. 
It  is  anonymous  ;  a  study  of  this  text,  by  Lindner  and  by  Kaluza,  has  shown  that 
it  is  made  up  of  three  fragments  of  different  origin,  prosody,  and  language. 
The  first  fragment  ends  with  line  1705,  leaving  a  sentence  unfinished  ;  between 
the  second  and  third  fragments  there  is  a  gap  of  more  than  5,000  lines.  The 
first  fragment  alone  might,  on  account  of  its  style  and  versification,  be  the 
work  of  Chaucer,  but  this  is  only  a  surmise,  and  we  have  no  direct  proof  of  it. 
The  "  Romaunt "  is  to  be  found  in  Skeat's  edition  of  the  "  Complete  Works" 
of  Chaucer,  1894,  vol.  i.  For  Fragment  I.  the  French  text  is  given  along  with 
the  English  translation. 

3  Mais  pran  en  gre  les  euvres  d'escolier 
Que  par  Clifford  de  moy  avoir  pourras. 

For  Des  Champs,  Chaucer  is  a  Socrates,  a  Seneca,  an  Ovid,  an  "  aigle  tres 
hault,"  "  CEuvres  Completes,"  Paris,  1878  ff.,  vol.  ii.  p.  138. 


CHA  UCER.  279 

the  "  angelic  land,"  "  Angleterre,"  and  on  being  there  the 
god  of  worldly  loves  : 

Tu  es  d'amours  mondains  dieux  on  Albie 
Et  de  la  Rose  en  la  terre  Angelique  .  •  . 
En  bon  angles  le  livre  translatas. 

This  authority  in  matters  of  love  which  Des  Champs 
ascribes  to  his  English  brother-author,  is  real.  Chaucer 
composed  then  a  quantity  of  amorous  poems,  in  the 
French  style,  for  himself,  for  others,  to  while  away  the 
time,  to  allay  his  sorrows.     Of  them  said  Govver  : 

The  lande  fulfylled  is  over  all. 

Most  of  them  are  lost ;  but  we  know,  from  contemporaneous 

allusions,   that   they  swarmed,  and    from   himself   that  he 

wrote  "  many  an  ympne  "   to  the   God   of  love,  "  balades, 

roundels,  virelayes," 

bokes,  songes,  dytees, 
In  ryme,  or  elles  in  cadence, 

each  and  all  "  in  reverence  of  Love."  x  A  few  poems,  how- 
ever, of  that  early  period,  have  reached  us.  They  are, 
amongst  others,  his  "  Compleynte  unto  Pite  " — 

Pite,  that  I  have  sought  so  yore  ago 

With  herte  sore,  and  ful  of  besy  peyne  .  .   . 

— a  rough  sketch  of  a  subject  that  Sidney  was  to  take  up 
later    and    bring    to    perfection,    and    his    "  Book    of   the 

1  "  Hous  of  Fame,"  line  622  ;  "  Legend  of  Good  Women,"  line  422, 
"  Complete  Works,"  1894,  vol.  i.  pp.  19  and  96.  Such  was  the  reputation  of 
Chaucer  that  a  great  many  writings  were  attributed  to  him— a  way  to  increase 
their  reputation,  not  his.  The  more  important  of  them  are  :  "  The  Court  of 
Love";  the  "Book  of  Cupid,"  otherwise  "Cuckoo  and  Nightingale"; 
"  Flower  and  Leaf,"  the  "  Romaunt  of  the  Rose,"  such  as  we  have  it  ;  the 
"Complaint  of  a  Lover's  Life";  the  "Testament  of  Love"  (in  prose,  see 
below,  page  522)  ;  the  "  Isle  of  Ladies,"  or  "  Chaucer's  Dream  "  ;  various 
ballads.  Most  of  those  works  (not  the  "Testament")  are  to  be  found  in 
the  "  Poetical  Works"  of  Chaucer,  Aldine  Poets,  ed.  Morris. 


28o  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Duchesse,"   composed    on   the   occasion   of  the   death   of 
Blanche  of  Lancaster,  wife  of  John  of  Gaunt. 

The  occasion  is  sad,  but  the  setting  is  exquisite,  for 
Chaucer  wishes  to  raise  to  the  Duchess  who  has  dis- 
appeared a  lasting  monument,  that  shall  prolong  her 
memory,  an  elegant  one,  graceful  as  herself,  where  her 
portrait,  traced  by  a  friendly  hand,  shall  recall  the  charms 
of  a  beauty  that  each  morning  renewed.  So  lovable  was 
she,  and  so  full  of  accomplishment, 

That  she  was  lyk  to  torche  bright, 
That  every  man  may  take  of  light 
Ynogh,  and  hit  hath  never  the  lesse.1 

Already  the  descriptions  have  a  freshness  that  no  con- 
temporaries equal,  and  show  a  care  for  truth  and  a  gift  of 
observation  not  often  found  in  the  innumerable  poems  in 
dream-form  left  to  us  by  the  writers  of  the  fourteenth 
century. 

Tormented  by  his  thoughts  and  deprived  of  sleep,  the 
poet  has  a  book  brought  to  him  to  while  away  the  hours 
of  night,  one  of  those  books  that  he  loved  all  his  life,  where 
'  clerkes  hadde  in  olde  tyme  "  rhymed  stories  of  long  ago. 
The  tale,  "  a  wonder  thing "  though  it  was,  puts  him  to 
sleep,  and  it  seems  to  him  that  it  is  morning.  The  sun 
rises  in  a  pure  sky  ;  the  birds  sing  on  the  tiled  roof,  the 
light  floods  the  room,  which  is  all  painted  according  to 
the  taste  of  the  Plantagenets.  On  the  walls  is  represented 
"  al  the  Romaunce  of  the  Rose"  ;  the  window-glass  offers 
to  view  the  history  of  Troy  ;  coloured  rays  fall  on  the 
bed  ;  outside, 

the  welken  was  so  fair, 
Blew,  bright,  clere  was  the  air  .  .  . 
Ne  in  al  the  welken  was  a  cloude. 


1  And  every  day  hir  beaute  newed. 

(11.  906,  963.) 


CHAUCER.  281 

A  hunt  goes  by,  'tis  the  hunt  of  the  Emperor  Octavian ; 
the  young  man  mounts  and  rides  after  it  under  those 
great  trees,  "  so  huge  of  strengthe,  so  ful  of  leves,"  be- 
loved of  the  English,  amid  meadows  thick  studded  with 
flowers, 

As  thogh  the  erthe  envye  wolde 
To  be  gayer  than  the  heven. 

A  little  dog  draws  near ;  his  movements  are  observed  and 
noted  with  an  accuracy  that  the  Landseers  of  to-day  could 
scarcely  excel.  The  dog  would  like  to  be  well  received, 
and  afraid  of  being  beaten,  he  creeps  up  and  darts  suddenly 
away : 

Hit  com  and  creep  to  me  as  lowe, 
Right  as  hit  hadde  me  y-knowe, 
Hild  doun  his  heed  and  joyned  his  eres, 
And  leyde  al  smothe  down  his  heres. 
I  wolde  han  caught  hit,  and  anoon 
Hit  fledde  and  was  fro  me  goon. 

In  a  glade  apart  was  a  knight  clothed  in  black,  John 
of  Lancaster.  Chaucer  does  not  endeavour  to  console 
him  ;  he  knows  the  only  assuagement  for  such  sorrows, 
and  leads  him  on  to  speak  of  the  dead.  John  recalls  her 
grace  and  gentleness,  and  praises  qualities  which  carry  us 
back  to  a  time  very  far  from  our  own.  She  was  not  one 
of  those  women  who,  to  try  their  lovers,  send  them  to 
Wallachia,  Prussia,  Tartary,  Egypt,  or  Turkey  : 

She  ne  used  no  suche  knakkes  smale.1 

From  these  "  knakkes  smale  "  we  may  judge  what  the 
others    must    have    been.     They   discourse    thus   a   long 

1  "  Book  of  the  Duchesse,"  11.  339,  406,  391,  1033.  John  of  Gaunt  found 
some  consolation  in  marrying  two  other  wives.  Blanche,  the  first  wife,  was 
buried  with  him  in  old  St.  Paul's.  See  a  view  of  their  tomb  from  Dugdale's 
"  St.  Paul's,"  in  my  "  Piers  Plowman,"  p.  92. 


282  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

while ;  the  clock  strikes  noon,  and  the  poet  awakes,  his 
head  on  the  book  which  had  put  him  to  sleep. 

II. 

In  the  summer  of  1370  Chaucer  left  London  and 
repaired  to  the  Continent  for  the  service  of  the  king  ;  this 
was  the  first  of  his  diplomatic  missions,  which  succeeded 
each  other  rapidly  during  the  ensuing  ten  years.  The 
period  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  not  a  period  of  nuances ; 
that  nuance  which  distinguishes  an  ambassador  from  a 
messenger  was  held  as  insignificant,  and  escaped  obser- 
vation ;  the  two  functions  formed  but  one.  "  You,"  said 
Eustache  Des  Champs,  "  you,  ambassador  and  messenger, 
who  go  about  the  world  to  do  your  duty  at  the  Courts  of 
great  princes,  your  journeys  are  not  short  ones!  .  .  .  Don't 
be  in  such  a  hurry ;  your  plea  must  be  submitted  to 
council  before  an  answer  can  be  returned  :  just  wait  a 
little  more,  my  good  friend  ;  ...  we  must  talk  of  the 
matter  with  the  chancellor  and  some  others.  .  .  .  Time 
passes  and  all  turns  out  wrong."  *  Precedents  are  a  great 
thing  in  diplomacy  ;  here  we  find  a  time-honoured  one. 

Recourse  was  often  had  to  men  of  letters,  for  these 
mixed  functions,  and  they  were  filled  by  the  most  illus- 
trious writers  of  the  century,  Boccaccio  in  Italy,  Chaucer 

1  Vous  Ambasseur  et  messagier, 
Qui  alez  par  le  monde  es  cours 
Des  grans  princes  pour  besongnier, 
Vostre  voyage  n'est  pas  cours  .  .  . 
Ne  soiez  mie  si  hastis  ! 
II  fault  que  vostre  fait  soit  mis 
Au  conseil  pour  respondre  a  plain  ; 
Attendez  encore  mes  amis  .  .  . 
II  faut  parler  au  chancelier 
De  vostre  fait  et  a  plusours  .  .  . 
Temps  passe  et  tout  vint  arrebours. 

"  CEuvres  Completes,"  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes,  vol.  vii.  p.  117 


CHA  UCER.  283 

in  England,  Des  Champs  in  France.  The  latter,  whose 
career  much  resembles  Chaucer's,  has  traced  the  most 
lamentable  pictures  of  the  life  led  by  an  "  ambassador  and 
messenger  "  on  the  highways  of  Europe  :  Bohemia,  Poland, 
Hungary  ;  in  these  regions  the  king's  service  caused  him 
to  journey.  His  horse  is  half  dead,  and  "sits  on  his 
knees " * ;  the  inhabitants  have  the  incivility  to  speak 
only  their  own  language,  so  that  one  cannot  even  order 
one's  dinner  ;  you  must  needs  take  what  is  served  :  "  'Tis 
ill  eating  to  another's  appetite."  2 

The  lodging  is  worse  :  "  No  one  may  lie  by  himself,  but 
two  by  two  in  a  dark  room,  or  oftener  three  by  three,  in 
one  bed,  haphazard."  One  may  well  regret  sweet  France, 
"  where  each  one  has  for  his  money  what  he  chooses  to 
ask  for,  and  at  reasonable  price :  room  to  himself,  fire, 
sleep,  repose,  bed,  white  pillow,  and  scented  sheets."  3 

Happily  for  Chaucer,  it  was  in  Flanders,  France,  and 
Italy  that  he  negotiated  for  Edward  and  Richard.  In 
December,  1372,  he  traverses  all  France,  and  goes  to 
Genoa  to  treat  with  the  doge  of  commercial  matters  ;  then 

1  De  laissier  aux  champs  me  manace, 
Trop  souvent  des  genoulx  s'assiet, 
Par  ma  foy,  mes  chevaulx  se  lace. 

{Ibid.,  p.  32.) 

•  Mai  fait  mangier  a  l'appetit  d'autruy. 

{Ibid.,  p.  81.) 

3  O  doulz  pais,  terre  tres  honorable, 
Ou  chascuns  a  ce  qu'il  veult  demander 
Pour  son  argent,  et  a  pris  raisonnable, 
Char,  pain  et  vin,  poisson  d'yaue  et  de  mer, 
Chambre  a  par  soy,  feu,  dormir,  reposer, 
Liz,  orilliers  blans,  draps  fiairans  la  graine, 
Et  pour  chevaulz,  foing,  litiere  et  avaine, 
Estre  servis,  et  par  bonne  ordonnance, 
Et  en  seurte  de  ce  qu'on  porte  et  maine  ; 
Tel  pais  n'est  qu'en  royaume  de  France. 

{Ibid.,  p.  79.) 


284  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

he  repairs  to  Florence,  and  having  thus  passed   a  whole 
winter  far  from  the  London  fogs  (which  already  existed  in 
the  Middle  Ages),  he  returns  to  England  in  the  summer  of 
1373.     In   1376  a  new  mission   is  entrusted  to  him,  this 
time  a  secret  one,  the  secret  has  been   well  kept  to  this 
day;    more    missions    in   1377    and   1378.      "On  Trinity 
Sunday,"    1376,   says   Froissart,  "passed    away   from   this 
world  the  flower   of  England's  chivalry,  my  lord  Edward 
of  England,  Prince  of  Wales  and  Aquitaine,  in  the  palace 
of  Westminster  by  London,  and  was  embalmed  and  put 
into  a  leaden  chest."     After  the  obsequies,  "the  king  of 
England    made    his    children    recognise   .   .    .   the    young 
damoisel  Richard  to  be  king  after  his  death."     He  sends 
delegates  to  Bruges  to  treat  of  the   marriage  of  his  heir, 
aged  ten,  with  "  Madame  Marie,  daughter  of  the  king  of 
France "  ;   in   February  other  ambassadors   are  appointed 
on  both  sides:  "Towards  Lent,  a  secret  treaty  was  made 
between  the  two  kings  for  their  party  to  be  at  Montreuil- 
on-sea.     Thus  were  sent  to  Calais,  by  the  English,  Messire 
Guichard  d'Angle,  Richard  Stury,  and  Geoffrey  Chaucer."  1 
The  negotiation  failed,  but  the  poet's  services  seem  never- 
theless to  have  been  appreciated,  for  in  the  following  year 
he  is  again  on   the  highways.     He  negotiates  in  France, 
in  company  with  the  same  Sir  Guichard,  now  become  earl 
of  Huntingdon  ;  and  again  in   Italy,  where  he  has  to  treat 
with   his  compatriot    Hawk  wood,2   who  led,  in   the   most 

1  Book  i.  chap.  692. 

2  The  order  for  the  payment  of  the  expenses  of  "nostre  cher  et  feal 
chivaler  Edward  de  Berkle,"  and  "  nostre  feal  esquier  Geffray  Chaucer,"  is 
directed  to  William  Walworth,  then  not  so  famous  as  he  was  to  be,  and  to  the 
no  less  notorious  John  Philpot,  mercer  and  naval  leader.  Both  envoys  are 
ordered  "  d'aler  en  nostre  message  si  bien  au  due  de  Melan  Barnabo  come  a 
nostre  cher  et  foial  Johan  Haukwode  es  parties  de  Lumbardie,  pur  ascunes 
busoignes  touchantes  l'exploit  de  nostre  guerre,"  May  12, 1378.  Berkeley  receives 
200  marcs  and  Chaucer  100  ;  the  sums  are  to  be  paid  out  of  the  war  subsidy 
voted  by  Parliament  the  year  before.  The  French  text  of  the  warrant  has 
been  published  by  M.  Spont  in  the  Athenceum  of  Sept.  9,  1893.     During  this 


CHAUCER.  285 

agreeable  manner  possible,  the  life  of  a  condottiere  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Pope,  and  of  any  republic  that  paid  him 
well. 

These  journeys  to  Italy  had  a  considerable  influence  on 
Chaucer's  mind.  Already  in  that  privileged  land  the 
Renaissance  was  beginning.  Italy  had,  in  that  century, 
three  of  her  greatest  poets  :  the  one  whom  Virgil  had 
conducted  to  the  abode  of  "  the  doomed  race  "  was  dead  ; 
but  the  other  two,  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  still  lived, 
secluded,  in  the  abode  which  was  to  be  their  last  on  earth, 
one  at  Arqua,  near  Padua,  the  other  in  the  little  fortified 
village  of  Certaldo,  near  Florence. 

In  art,  it  is  the  century  of  Giotto,  Orcagna,  and  Andrew 
of  Pisa.  Chaucer  saw,  all  fresh  still  in  their  glowing 
colours,  frescoes  that  time  has  long  faded.  Those  old 
things  were  then  young,  and  what  seems  to  us  the  first 
steps  of  an  art,  uncertain  yet  in  its  tread,  seemed  to 
contemporaries  the  supreme  effort  of  the  audacious,  who 
represented  the  new  times. 

Chaucer's  own  testimony  is  proof  to  us  that  he  saw, 
heard,  and  learnt  as  much  as  possible  ;  that  he  went  as 
far  as  he  could,  letting  himself  be  guided  by  "  adventure, 
that  is  the  moder  of  tydinges."  He  arrived  without  any 
preconceived  ideas,  curious  to  know  what  occupied  men's 
minds,  as  attentive  as  on  the  threshold  of  his  "  Hous  of 
Fame  " : 

For  certeynly,  he  that  me  made 

To  comen  hider,  seyde  me, 

I  shulde  bothe  here  et  see, 

In  this  place  wonder  thinges  .  .  . 

For  yit  peraventure,  I  may  lere 

Some  good  ther-on,  or  sumwhat  here, 

That  leef  me  were,  or  that  I  wente.1 


absence  Chaucer  appointed  to  be  his  representatives  or  attorneys  two  of  his 
friends,  one  of  whom  was  the  poet  Gower.  See  document  dated  May  22, 
1378,  in  "  Poetical  Works,"  ed.  Morris,  i.  p.  99.  ^ 

1  11.  1982,  1990,  1997. 


286  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

He  was  thus  able  to  see  with  his  own  eyes  the  admirable 
activity,  owing  to  which  rose  throughout  Italy  monuments 
wherein  all  kinds  of  contradictory  aspirations  mingled,  and 
which  are  nevertheless    so   harmonious   in   their  ensemble, 
monuments    of    which    Giotto's    campanile    is    the    type, 
wherein   we   still  recognise  the   Middle   Ages,  even   while 
we  foresee  the  Renaissance — with  Gothic  windows  and  a 
general    aspect  which  is  classic,   where   the    sentiment  of 
realism  and  everyday  life  is  combined  with  veneration  for 
antique  art,  where  Apelles  is  represented  painting  a  triptych 
of  Gothic  shape.      Pisa  had  already,  at  that  day,  its  leaning 
tower,  its  cathedral,  its  baptistery,  the  exterior   ornamen- 
tation of  which  had  just  been  changed,  its  Campo  Santo, 
the  paintings  of  which  were  not  finished,  and  were  not  yet 
attributed  to  Orcagna.     Along  the  walls  of  the  cemetery 
he  could  examine  that   first  collection   of  antiques   which 
inspired    the    Tuscan    artists,    the    sarcophagus,   with    the 
story  of  Phaedra  and   Hippolytus,  which  Nicholas  of  Pisa 
took  for  his  model.      He   could  see   at   Pistoja  the  pulpit 
carved    by   William    of   Pisa,   with   the    magnificent  nude 
torso  of  a  woman,  imitated  from  the  antique.    At  Florence 
the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  which  was  not  yet  called  thus,  was 
finished  ;  so  were  the  Bargello,  Santa-Croce,  Santa-Maria- 
Novella.     Or-San-Michele  was  being  built ;  the  Loggia  of 
the  Lansquenets  was   scarcely  begun  ;  the  baptistery  had 
as    yet    only    one    of  its    famous    doors    of    bronze  ;    the 
cathedral   disappeared    under    scaffoldings  ;   the  workmen 
were  busy  with    the   nave    and    the  apse.     Giotto's  cam- 
panile had   been  finished   by  his  pulpil  Gaddi,  the  Ponte 
Vecchio,  which  did  not  deserve  that  name  any  better  than 
the  palace,  had  been  rebuilt  by  the  same  Gaddi,  and  along 
the    causeway    which    continued    it,    through    clusters    of 
cypress  and  olive  trees,  the  road  led  up  to  San  Miniato, 
all    resplendent    with    its    marbles,   its    mosaics,    and    its 
paintings.     On   other  ranges  of  hills,  amid  more  cypress 


CHA  UCER.  287 

and  more  olive  trees,  by  the  side  of  Roman  ruins,  arose 
the  church  of  Fiesole,  and  half-way  to  Florence  waved  in 
the  sunlight  the  thick  foliage  overshadowing  the  villa 
which,  during  the  great  plague  had  sheltered  the  young 
men  and  the  ladies  of  the  "  Decameron." 

The  movement  was  a  general  one.  Each  town  strove 
to  emulate  its  neighbour,  not  only  on  the  battlefields, 
which  were  a  very  frequent  trysting-place,  but  in  artistic 
progress  ;  paintings,  mosaics,  carvings,  shone  in  all  the 
palaces  and  churches  of  every  city  ;  the  activity  was 
extreme.  Giotto,  who  had  his  studio,  his  "  botega,"  in 
Florence,  worked  also  at  Assisi,  Rome,  and  Padua. 
Sienna  was  covering  the  walls  of  her  public  palace  with 
frescoes,  some  figures  of  which  resemble  the  paintings  at 
Pompeii.1  An  antique  statue  found  within  her  territory 
was  provoking  universal  admiration,  and  was  erected  on 
the  GaTa  fountain  by  the  municipality  ;  but  the  Middle 
Ages  did  not  lose  their  rights,  and,  the  republic  having 
suffered  reverses,  the  statue  fell  into  disgrace.  The  god 
became  nothing  more  than  an  idol  ;  the  marble  was 
shattered  and  carried  off,  to  be  treacherously  interred 
in  the  territory  of  Florence.2 

The  taste  for  collections  was  spreading  ;  the  commerce 
of  antiquities  flourished  in  Northern  Italy.  Petrarch 
bought  medals,  and  numbered  among  his  artistic  trea- 
sures a  Madonna  of  Giotto,  "  whose  beauty,"  he  says 
in  his  will,  "escaped  the  ignorant  and  enraptured  the 
masters  of  the  art."  3  This  brightening  of  the  land 
was  the  result  of  concurring  wills,  nor  did  it  pass  un- 
observed even  then ;  towns  enjoyed  their  masterpieces, 
and,    like    young    women,   "  se  miraient    en   leur  beaute." 

1  Figure  of  "  Peace,"  by  Ambrogio  Lorenzetti,  1339.  See  a  drawing  of  it 
in  Miintz,  "  Les  Precurseurs  de  la  Renaissance,"  Paris,  1882,  4to,  p.  29. 

2  Miintz,  ibid.,  p.  30. 

3  "  F.  Petrarcse  Epistolse,"  ed.  Fracassetti,  Florence,  1859,  vol.  iii.  p.  541. 


288  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Contemporaries  did  not  leave  to  posterity  the  care  of 
crowning  the  great  poets  of  the  time.  Italy,  the  mother 
of  art,  wished  the  laurel  to  encircle  the  brow  of  the 
living,  not  to  be  simply  the  ornament  of  a  tomb.  Rome 
had  crowned,  in  1 341,  him  who,  "cleansing  the  fount  of 
Helicon  from  slime  and  marshy  rushes,  had  restored  to 
the  water  its  pristine  limpidity,  who  had  opened  Castalia's 
grotto,  obstructed  by  a  network  of  wild  boughs,  and 
destroyed  the  briers  in  the  laurel  grove":  the  illustrious 
Francis  Petrarch.1  Though  somewhat  tardy,  the  honour 
was  no  less  great  for  Dante:  public  lectures  on  the 
"  Divine  Comedy "  were  instituted  in  Florence,  and  the 
lecturer  was  Boccaccio.2 

It  was  impossible  that  a  mind,  from  infancy  friendly  to 
art  and  books,  should  not  be  struck  by  this  general  expan- 
sion ;  the  charm  of  this  literary  springtime  was  too  pene- 
trating for  Chaucer  not  to  feel  it  ;  he  followed  a  movement 
so  conformable  to  his  tastes,  and  we  have  a  proof  of  it. 
Before  his  journeys  he  was  ignorant  of  Italian  literature  ; 
now  he  knows  Italian,  and  has  read  the  great  classic 
authors  of  the  Tuscan  land :  Boccaccio,  Petrarch,  and 
Dante.  The  remembrance  of  their  works  haunts  him  ; 
the  "  Roman  de  la  Rose "  ceases  to  be  his  main  literary 
ideal.  He  was  acquainted  with  the  old  classics  before 
his  missions;  but  the  tone  in  which  he  speaks  of  them 
now  has  changed ;  to-day  it  is  a  tone  of  veneration  ;  one 
should  kiss  their  "steppes."  He  expresses  himself  about 
them  as  Petrarch  did  ;  it   seems,  so  great  is  the  resem- 

1  Letter  of  Boccaccio  "  celeberrimi  nominis  militi  Jacopo  Pizzinghe." 
Corazzini,  "  Le  Lettere  edite  ed  inedite  di  Giovanni  Boccaccio,"  Florence, 
1877,  8vo,  p.  195. 

2  Chaucer  could  not  be  present  at  the  lectures  of  Boccaccio,  who  began 
them  on  Sunday,  October  23,  1373;  he  had  returned  to  London  in  the 
summer.  Disease  (probably  diabetes)  soon  obliged  Boccaccio  to  interrupt  his 
lectures;  he  died  in  his  house  at  Certaldo  on  December  21,  1375.  See 
Cochin,  in  Revue  des  Deux  Moiides,  July  15,  18S8. 


CHA  UCER.  289 

blance,  as  if  we  found  in  his  verses  an  echo  of  the 
conversations  they  very  likely  had  together  by  Padua 
in   1373. 1 

In  the  intervals  between  his  missions  Chaucer  would 
return  to  London,  where  administrative  functions  had 
been  entrusted  to  him.  For  twelve  years,  dating  from 
1374,  he  was  comptroller  of  the  customs,  and  during  the 
ten  first  years  he  was  obliged,  according  to  his  oath,  to 
write  the  accounts  and  to  draw  up  the  rolls  of  the  receipts 
with  his  own  hand  :  "  Ye  shall  swere  that  ...  ye  shall 
write  the  rolles  by  your  owne  hande  lemesned."2  To 
have  an  idea  of  the  work  this  implies,  one  should  see, 
at  the  Record  Office,  the  immense  sheets  of  parchment 
fastened  together,  one  after  the  other,  which  constitute  these 
rolls.3     After  having  himself  been  present  at  the  weighing 

1  This  meeting,  concerning  which  numerous  discussions  have  taken  place, 
seems  to  have  most  probably  happened.  "  I  wol,"  says  the  clerk  of  Oxford 
in  the  "Canterbury  Tales," 

I  wol  yow  telle  a  tale  which  that  I 
Lerned  at  Padowe  of  a  worthy  clerk  .  .   . 
He  is  now  deed  and  nayled  in  his  cheste  .  .  . 
Fraunceys  Petrark,  the  laureat  poet. 

Such  a  circumstantial  reference  is  of  a  most  unusual  sort ;  in  most  cases, 
following  the  example  of  his  contemporaries,  Chaucer  simply  says  that  he 
imitates  "  a  book,"  or  sometimes  he  refers  to  his  models  by  a  wrong  or  fancy 
name,  such  being  the  case  with  Boccaccio,  whom  he  calls  "Lollius,"  a  name 
which,  however,  does  duty  also  with  him,  at  another  place,  for  Petrarch.  But 
on  this  occasion  it  seems  as  if  the  poet  meant  to  preserve  the  memory  of 
personal  intercourse.  We  know  besides  that  at  that  date  Chaucer  was  not 
without  notoriety  as  a  poet  on  the  Continent  (Des  Champs'  praise  is  a  proof 
of  it),  and  that  at  the  time  when  he  came  to  Italy  Petrarch  was  at  Arqua,  near 
Padua,  where  he  was  precisely  busy  with  his  Latin  translation  of  Boccaccio's 
story  of  Grisekla. 

2  "The  Othe  of  the  Comptroler  of  the  Customes,''  in  Thynne's  "Animad- 
versions," Chaucer  Society,  1875,  p.  131. 

3  None  in  the  handwriting  of  Chaucer  have  been  discovered  as  yet  ;  but 
some  are  to  be  seen  drawn,  as  he  was  allowed  to  have  them  later,  by  another's 
hand,  under  his  own  responsibility  :  "  per  visum  et  testimonium  Gaifridi 
Chaucer." 

20 


290  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

and  verifying  of  the  merchandise,  Chaucer  entered  the 
name  of  the  owner,  the  quality  and  quantity  of  the 
produce  taxed,  and  the  amount  to  be  collected  :  endless 
';  rekeninges  !  "  Defrauders  were  fined  ;  one,  John  Kent, 
of  London,  having  tried  to  smuggle  some  wools  to 
Dordrecht,  the  poet,  poet  though  he  was,  discovered 
the  offence  ;  the  wools  were  confiscated  and  sold,  and 
Chaucer  received  seventy-one  pounds  four  shillings  and 
sixpence  on  the  amount  of  the  fine  John    Kent   had  to 

pay- 
Chaucer  lived   now  in   one  of  the  towers  under  which 

opened  the  gates  of  London.  The  municipality  had  granted 
him  lodgings  in  the  Aldgate  tower  1  ;  his  friend  the  philo- 
sopher and  logician,  Ralph  Strode,  lived  in  the  same  way 
in  rooms  above  "  Aldrichgate"  2  ;  both  were  to  quit  the 
place  at  any  moment  if  the  defence  of  the  town  rendered 
it  necessary.  Chaucer  lived  there  twelve  years,  from  1374 
to  1386.  There,  his  labour  ended,  he  would  come  home 
and  begin  his  other  life,  his  poet's  life,  reading,  thinking, 
remembering.  Then  all  he  had  known  in  Italy  would 
return  to  his  memory,  campaniles,  azure  frescoes,  olive 
groves,  sonnets  of  Petrarch,  poems  of  Dante,  tales  of 
Boccaccio  ;  he  had  brought  back  wherewithal  to  move 
and  to  enliven  "  merry  England "  herself.  Once  more 
in  his  tower,  whither  he  returned  without  speaking  to 
any  one,  "  domb,"  he  says,  "  as  any  stoon,"  the  everyday 

1  The  lease  is  dated  May  10,  1374;  Furnivall,  "Trial  Forewords,"  p.  1. 
Such  grants  of  lodgings  in  the  gates  were  forbidden  in  1386  in  consequence  of 
a  panic  (described,  e.g.,  in  the  "  Chronicon  Anglise,"  Rolls,  p.  370)  caused  by 
a  rumour  of  the  coming  of  the  "  ~nch.  See  Riley,  "  Memorials  of  London," 
pp.  388,  489.  A  study  on  the  too  n^o  -  ^ed  Ralph  Strode  is  being  prepared 
(1894)  by  M.  Gollancz. 

2  "  Dimissio  Porta?  de  Aldgate  facta  Galfrido  Chaucer. — Concessio  de 
Aldrichgate  Radulpho  Strode. — Sursum-redditio  domorum  supra  Aldrichesgate 
per  Radulphum  Strode."  Among  the  "  Fundationes  et  prtesentationes 
cantariarum  .  .  .  shoparum  .  .  .  civitati  pertinentium."  "  Liber  Albus," 
Rolls,  pp.  553,  556,  557. 


CHAUCER.  291 

world  was  done  with  ;  his  neighbours  were  to  him  as 
though  they  had  lived  at  the  ends  of  earth  *  ;  his  real 
neighbours  were  Dante  and  Virgil. 

He  wrote  during  this  period,  and  chiefly  in  his  tower 
of  Aldgate,  the  "  Lyf  of  Seinte  Cecile,"  1373;  the  "  Com- 
pleynt  of  Mars,"  13S0  ;  a  translation  of  Boethius  in  prose  ; 
the  "  Parlement  of  Foules  ;  "  "  Troilus  and  Criseyde," 
1382;  the  "  Hous  of  Fame,"  1383-4;  the  "Legend  of 
Good  Women,"  1385.2  In  all  these  works  the  ideal  is 
principally  an  Italian  and  Latin  one  ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  we  see  some  beginning  of  the  Chaucer  of  the  last 
period,  who,  having  moved  round  the  world  of  letters,  will 
cease  to   look   abroad,  and,  after  the  manner  of  his  own 

*  Chaucer  represents  Jupiter's  eagle,  addressing  him  thus : 

And  noght  only  fro  fer  contree 
That  ther  no  tyding  comth  to  thee 
But  of  thy  verray  neyghebores, 
That  dwellen  almost  at  thy  dores, 
Thou  herest  neither  that  ne  this  ; 
For  whan  thy  labour  doon  al  is, 
Thou  gost  hoom  to  thy  hous  anoon, 
Thou  sittest  at  another  boke, 
Til  fully  daswed  is  thy  loke, 
And  livest  thus  as  an  hermyte. 

"  Hous  of  Fame,"  book  ii.  1.  647  ;  "  Complete  Works,"  iii.  p.  20. 

2  All  these  dates  are  merely  approximative.  Concerning  the  chronology  of 
Chaucer's  works,  see  Ten  Brink,  "  Chaucer  Studien,"  Munster,  1870,  8vo  ; 
Furnivall,  "Trial  Forewords,"  1871,  Chaucer  Society;  Koch,  "Chronology." 
Chaucer  Society,  1890;  Pollard,  "Chaucer,"  "Literature  Primers,"  1893; 
Skeat,  "  Complete  Works  of  Chaucer,"  vol.  i.,  "  Life  "  and  the  introductions 
to  each  poem.  "  Boece"  is  in  vol.  ii.  of  the  "  Complete  Works  "  (cf.  Morris's 
ed.,  1868,  E.E.T.S.).  The  "  Lyf  of  Seinte  Cecile"  was  transferred  by 
Chaucer  to  his  "  Canterbury  Tales,"  where  it  became  the  tale  of  the  second 
nun.  The  good  women  of  the  "  Legend"  are  all  of  them  love's  martyrs: 
Dido,  Ariadne,  Thisbe,  &c.  ;  it  was  Chaucer's  first  attempt  to  write  a 
collection  of  stories  with  a  Prologue.  In  the  Prologue  Venus  and  Cupid 
reproach  him  with  having  composed  poems  where  women  and  love  do  not 
appear  in  a  favourable  light,  such  as  "Troilus"  and  the  translation  of  the 
"  Roman  de  la  Rose,"  which  "is  an  heresye  ageyns  my  awe."  He  wrote 
his  "  Legend  "  to  make  amends. 


292  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

nation,  dropping  in  a  large  measure  foreign  elements,  will 
show  himself  above  all  and  mainly  an  Englishman. 

At  this  time,  however,  he  is  as  yet  under  the  charm  of 
Southern  art  and  of  ancient  models  ;  he  does  not  weary  of 
invoking  and  depicting  the  gods  of  Olympus.  Nudity, 
which  the  image-makers  of  cathedrals  had  inflicted  as 
a  chastisement  on  the  damned,  scandalises  him  no  more 
than  it  did  the  painters  of  Italy.  He  sees  Venus,  "  un- 
tressed,"  reclining  on  her  couch,  "  a  bed  of  golde,"  clothed 
in  transparent  draperies, 

Right  with  a  subtil  kerchef  of  Valence, 
Ther  was  no  thikker  cloth  of  no  dtience ; 

or  with  less  draperies  still: 

I  saw  Beautee  withouten  any  atyr l ; 

or  again : 

Naked  fleting  in  a  see ; 

her  brows  circled  with  a  "  rose-garlond  white  and  reed."  2 
He  calls  her  to  his  aid  : 

Now  faire  blisful,  O  Cipris, 
So  be  my  favour  at  this  tyme  ! 
And  ye,  me  to  endyte  and  ryme 
Helpeth,  that  on  Parnaso  dwelle 
By  Elicon  the  clere  welle.3 

His  "  Compleynt  of  Anelida  "  is  dedicated  to 

Thou  ferse  god  of  armes,  Mars  the  rede, 


1  "  Parlement  of  Foules,"  11.  272,  225,  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  i. 

2  "  Hous  of  Fame,"  1.  133,  ibid.,  vol.  iii. 

3  "  Hous  of  Fame,"  1.  518. 


CHA  UCER.  293 

and  to  Polymnia  : 

Be  favourable  eek,  thou  Polymnia, 

On  Parnaso  that,  with  thy  sustres  glade, 

By  Elicon,  not  fer  from  Cirrea, 

Singest  with  vois  memorial  in  the  shade, 

Under  the  laurer  which  that  may  not  fade.1 

Old  books  of  antiquity  possess  for  him,  as  they  did  tor 
the  learned  men  of  the  Renaissance,  or  for  Petrarch,  who 
cherished  a  manuscript  of  Homer  without  being  able  to 
decipher  it,  a  character  almost  divine  : 

For  out  ofolde  feldes,  as  men  seith, 
Cometh  al  this  newe  corn  fro  yeer  to  yere  ; 
And  out  of  olde  bokes,  in  good  feith, 
Cometh  al  this  newe  science  that  men  lere.2 

Poggio   or    Poliziano    could    not    have   spoken    in    more 
feeling  words. 


Glory  and  honour,  Virgil  Mantuan, 
Be  to  thy  name  !  3 


to  thy  name  !  3 

exclaims   he  elsewhere.     "  Go,  my  book,"    he  says  to  his 
"  Troilus  and  Criseyde," 

And  kis  the  steppes,  wher-as  thou  seest  pace 
Virgile,  Ovyde,  Omer,  Lucan,  Stace.4 

Withal  strange  discrepancies  occur :  none  can  escape 
entirely  the  influence  of  his  own  time.  With  Chaucer  the 
goddess  of  love  is  also  a  saint,  "  Seint  Venus  "  ;  her  temple 

1  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  i.  p.  365.  This  beginning  is  imitated  from 
Boccaccio's  "  Teseide." 

2  "  Parlement  of  Foules,"  in  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  i.  p.  336.  Chaucer 
alludes  here  to  a  book  which  "  was  write  with  lettres  olde,"  and  which  con- 
tained "  Tullius  of  the  dreme  of  Scipioun." 

3  "  Legend  of  Dido,"  in  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  iii.  p.  117. 

4  Book  v.  st.  256. 


294  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

is  likewise  a  church  :  "  This  noble  temple  .  .  .  this  chirche." 
Before  penetrating  into  its  precincts,  the  poet  appeals  to 
Christ : 

"  O  Crist,"  thought  I,  "  that  art  in  blisse, 

Fro  fantom  and  illusioun 

Me  save  !  "  and  with  devocioun 

Myn  yen  to  the  heven  I  caste. ' 

This  medley  was  inevitable ;  to  do  better  would  have  been 
to  excel  the  Italians,  and  Dante  himself,  who  places  the 
Erinnyes  within  the  circles  of  his  Christian  hell,  or  Giotto, 
who  made  Apelles  paint  a  triptych. 

As  for  the  Italians,  Chaucer  borrows  from  them,  some- 
times a  line,  an  idea,  a  comparison,  sometimes  long  passages 
very  closely  translated,  or  again  the  plot  or  the  general 
inspiration  of  his  tales.  In  the  "  Lyf  of  Seinte  Cecile"  a 
passage  (lines  36-51)  is  borrowed  from  Dante's  "  Paradise." 
The  same  poet  is  quoted  in  the  "  Parlement  of  Foules," 
where  we  find  a  paraphrase  of  the  famous  "  Per  me  si  va  "  2  ; 
another  passage  is  imitated  from  the  "  Teseide "  of 
Boccaccio  ;  "  Anelida  and  Arcite  "  contains  several  stanzas 
taken  from  the  same  original  ;  "  Troilus  and  Criseyde"  is 
an  adaptation  of  Boccaccio's  "  Filostrato  "  ;  Chaucer  intro- 
duces into  it  a  sonnet  of  Petrarch  3  ;  the  idea  of  the  "  Legend 
of  Good  Women  "  is  borrowed  from  the  "  De  claris  Muli- 
eribus  "  of  Boccaccio.  Dante's  journeys  to  the  spirit-world 
served    as    models    for   the   "  Hous  of   Fame,"  where  the 

1  "  Hous  of  Fame,"  11.  469,  473,  492. 

3  Thorgh  me  men  goon  in-to  that  blisful  place  .  .  . 
Thorgh  me  men  goon  unto  the  welle  of  Grace,  &c. 

These  lines  were  "over  the  gate  with  lettres  large  y-wroghte,"  11.  124,  127. 

3  S'amor  non  e,  che  dunque  e  quel  ch'i  sento  ? 

which  becomes  in  Chaucer  the  "  Cantus  Troili": 

If  no  love  is,  O  God,  what  fele  I  so  ? 

(Book  i.  stanza  58.) 


CHA  UCER.  295 

English  poet  is  borne  off  by  an  eagle  of  golden  hue.  In  it 
Dante  is  mentioned  together  with  the  classic  authors  of 
antiquity.     Read  : 

On  Virgil,  or  on  Claudian, 
Or  Daunte.1 

The  eagle  is  not  an  invention  of  Chaucer's  ;  it  had  already 
appeared  in  the  "  Purgatorio."  2 

Notwithstanding  the  quantity  of  reminiscences  of  ancient 
or  Italian  authors  that  recur  at  every  page  ;  notwithstanding 
the  story  of  ^Eneas  related  wholly  from  Virgil,  the  first 
lines  being  translated  word  for  word  3  ;  notwithstanding 
incessant  allusions  and  quotations,  the  "  Hous  of  Fame  "  4 
is  one  of  the  first  poems  in  which  Chaucer  shows  forth 
clearly  his  own  personality.  Already  we  see  manifested 
that  gift  for  familiar  dialogue  which  is  carried  so  far  in 
"  Troilus  and  Criseyde,"  and    already  appears  that  sound 

•  1.  449. 

*  In  sogno  mi  parea  veder  sospesa 

Un'  aquila  nel  ciel  con  penne  d'oro 
Con  l'ali  aperte,  ed  a  calare  intesa.  .  .  . 

Poi  mi  parea,  che  piu  rotata  un  poco, 
Terribil  come  folgor  discendesse, 
E  me  rapisse  suso  infino  al  foco. 

("  Purgatorio,"  canto  ix.) 
In  Chaucer : 

Me  thoughte  I  saw  an  egle  sore  .  .  . 
Hit  was  of  golde  and  shoon  so  bright 
That  never  saw  men  such  a  sighte.  .   .  . 
Me,  fieinge,  at  a  swappe  he  hente, 
And  with  his  sours  agayn  up  wente, 
Me  caryinge  in  his  clawes  starke. 

(11.  449,  503,  542.) 

3  I  wol  now  singe,  if  that  I  can 
The  armes,  and  al-so  the  man,  &c.     (1.  142.) 

Hereupon  follows  a  complete  but  abbreviated  account  of  the  events  in  the 
iEneid,  Dido's  story  being  the  only  part  treated  at  some  length. 

A  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  iii.     The  poem  was  left  unfinished ;  it  is  written 
in  octosyllabic  couplets,  with  four  accents  or  beats. 


296  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

and  kindly  judgment  with  which  the  poet  will  view  the 
things  of  life  in  his  "  Canterbury  Tales."  Evil  does  not 
prevent  his  seeing  good  ;  the  sadness  he  has  known  does 
not  make  him  rebel  against  fate  ;  he  has  suffered  and  for- 
given ;  joys  dwell  in  his  memory  rather  than  sorrows; 
despite  his  moments  of  melancholy,  his  turn  of  mind  makes 
him  an  optimist  at  heart,  an  optimist  like  La  Fontaine 
and  Addison,  whose  names  often  recur  to  the  memory  in 
reading  Chaucer.  His  philosophy  resembles  the  "  bon- 
homme "  La  Fontaine's  ;  and  several  passages  in  the 
"  Hous  of  Fame  "  are  like  some  of  Addison's  essays.1 

He  is  modern,  too,  in  the  part  he  allots  to  his  own  self, 
a  self  which,  far  from  being  odious  ("  le  moi  est  hai'ssable," 
Pascal  said),  is,  on  the  contrary,  charming ;  he  relates  the 
long  vigils  in  his  tower,  where  he  spends  his  nights  in 
writing,  or  at  other  times  seated  before  a  book,  which  he 
reads  until  his  eyes  are  dim  in  his  "  hermyte's  "  solitude. 

The  eagle,  come  from  heaven  to  be  his  guide,  bears  him 
off  where  his  fancy  had  already  flown,  above  the  clouds, 
beyond  the  spheres,  to  the  temple  of  Fame,  built  upon  an 
ice  mountain.  Illustrious  names  graven  in  the  sparkling 
rock  melt  in  the  sun,  and  are  already  almost  illegible.     The 

1  Compare,  for  example,  the  beginning  of  "Hous  of  Fame,"  and  No.  487 
of  The  Spectator  (Sept.  18,  17 12) : 

God  turne  us  every  dreem  to  gode  ! 
For  hit  is  wonder,  by  the  rode, 
To  my  wit  what  causeth  swevenes 
Either  on  morwes  or  on  evenes  ; 
And  why  the  effect  folweth  of  somme, 
And  of  somme  hit  shal  never  come ; 
Why  this  is  an  avisioun, 
And  this  a  revelacioun  .  .  . 
Why  this  a  fantom,  these  oracles. 

Addison  writes  :  "  Tho'  there  are  many  authors  who  have  written  on  Dreams, 
they  have  generally  considered  them  only  as  revelations  of  what  has  already 
happened  in  distant  parts  of  the  world,  or  as  presages  of  what  is  to  happen  in 
future  periods  of  time,"  &c. 


CHAUCER.  297 

temple  itself  is  built  in  the  Gothic  style  of  the  period,  all 
bristling  with  "  niches,  pinnacles,  and  statues,"  and 

...  fill  eek  of  windowes 

As  flakes  falle  in  grete  snowes.1 

There  are  those  rustling  crowds  in  which  Chaucer  loved 
to  mix  at  times,  whose  murmurs  soothed  his  thoughts, 
musicians,  harpists,  jugglers,  minstrels,  tellers  of  tales  fuil 
"of  weping  and  of  game,"  magicians,  sorcerers  and  prophets, 
curious  specimens  of  humanity.  Within  the  temple,  the 
statues  of  his  literary  gods,  who  sang  of  the  Trojan  war  : 
Homer,  Dares,  and  also  the  Englishman  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth,  "  English  Gaufride,"  and  with  them,  Virgil, 
Ovid,  Lucan,  Claudian,  and  Statius.  At  the  command 
of  Fame,  the  names  of  the  heroes  are  borne  by  the  wind 
to  the  four  corners  of  the  world  ;  a  burst  of  music  cele- 
brates the  deeds  of  the  warriors  : 

For  in  fight  and  blood-shedinge 
Is  used  gladly  clarioninge.2 

Various  companies  flock  to  obtain  glory ;  the  poet  does 
not  forget  the  group,  already  formed  in  his  day,  of  the 
braggarts  who  boast  of  their  vices  : 

We  ben  shrewes,  every  wight, 

And  han  delyt  in  wikkednes, 

As  gode  folk  han  in  goodnes  ; 

And  joye  to  be  knowen  shrewes  .  .  . 

Wherfor  we  preyen  yow,  a-rowe, 

That  our  fame  swich  be-knowe 

In  alle  thing  right  as  it  is.3 

As  pressing  as  any,  they  urgently  claim  a  bad  reputation, 
a  favour  which  the  goddess  graciously  grants  them. 

Elsewhere  we  are  transported  into  the  house  of  news, 

1  1.  1191-  2  l-  1242.  3  1.  !83o. 


298  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

noisy  and  surging  as  the  public  square  of  an  Italian  city 

on     a    day   when    "  something "    has    happened.       People 

throng,  and  crush,  and  trample  each  other  to  see,  although 

there  is  nothing   to  see :  Chaucer  describes  from    nature. 

There  are  assembled    numbers    of   messengers,  travellers, 

pilgrims,  sailors,  each  bearing  his  bag,  full  of  news,  full  of 

lies  ; 

"  Nost  not  thou 
That  is  betid,  lo,  late  or  now  ?  " 
— "  No,"  quod  the  other,  "  tel  me  what." 
And  than  he  tolde  him  this  and  that, 
And  swoor  ther-to  that  hit  was  sooth — 
"  Thus  hath  he  seyd  "—and  "  thus  he  dooth  "— 
"  Thus  shal  hit  be  "— "  Thus  herde  I  seye  "— 
"  That  shal  be  found  "— "  That  dar  I  leye."  ' 

Truth  and  falsehood,  closely  united,  form  an  inseparable 
body,  and  fly  away  together.  The  least  little  nothing, 
whispered  in  secret  in  a  friend's  ear,  grows  and  grows,  as 
in  La  Fontaine's  fable  : 

As  fyr  is  wont  to  quikke  and  go, 
From  a  sparke  spronge  amis, 
Til  al  a  citee  brent  up  is.2 


III. 

Heretofore  Chaucer  has  composed  poems  of  brightest 
hue,  chiefly  devoted  to  love,  "  balades,  roundels,  virelayes," 
imitations  of  the  "Roman  de  la  Rose,"  poems  inspired  by 
antiquity,  as  it  appeared  through  the  prism  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  His  writings  are  superior  to  those  of  his  English  or 
French  contemporaries,  but  they  are  of  like  kind  ;  he  has 
fine  passages,  charming  ideas,  but  no  well-ordered  work  ; 
his  colours  are  fresh  but  crude,  like  the  colours  of  illumina- 
tions, blazons,  or  oriflammes  ;  his  nights  are  of  sable,  and  his 
meadows  seem  of  sinople,  his  flowers  are  "  whyte,  blewe, 

1  1.  2047.  2  1.  2078.      Cf.  La  Fontaine's  "  Les  Femmes  et  le  Secret." 


CHA  UCER.  299 

yelowe,  and  rede."  *  In  "  Troilus  and  Criseyde  "  we  find 
another  Chaucer,  far  more  complete  and  powerful  ;  he 
surpasses  now  even  the  Italians  whom  he  had  taken  for 
his  models,  and  writes  the  first  great  poem  of  renewed 
English  literature. 

The  fortunes  of  Troilus  had  grown  little  by  little  in  the 
course  of  centuries.  Homer  merely  mentions  his  name  ; 
Virgil  devotes  three  lines  to  him  ;  Dares,  who  has  seen 
everything,  draws  his  portrait  ;  Benoit  de  Sainte-More  is 
the  earliest  to  ascribe  to  him  a  love  first  happy,  then  tragic  ; 
Gui  de  Colonna  intermingles  sententious  remarks  with  the 
narrative  ;  Boccaccio  develops  the  story,  adds  characters, 
and  makes  of  it  a  romance,  an  elegant  tale  in  which  young 
Italian  noblemen,  equally  handsome,  youthful,  amorous, 
and  unscrupulous,  win  ladies'  hearts,  lose  them,  and  dis- 
course subtly  about  their  desires  and  their  mishaps.2 

Chaucer  appropriates  the  plot,3  transforms  the  personages, 
alters  the  tone  of  the  narrative,  breaks  the  monotony  of  it, 
introduces  differences  of  age  and  disposition,  and  moulds 
in  his  own  way  the  material  that  he  borrows,  like  a  man 
now  sure  of  himself,  who  dares  to  judge  and  to  criticise ; 
who  thinks  it  possible  to  improve  upon  a  romance  even  of 
Boccaccio's.  The  literary  progress  marked  by  this  work  is 
astonishing,  not  more  so,  however,  than  the  progress  accom- 

1  "  Parlement  of  Foules,"  1.  186. 

2  Boccaccio's  story  is  told  in  stanzas  of  eight  lines,  and  has  for  its  title  "  II 
Filostrato  "  (love's  victim  :  such  was  at  least  the  sense  Boccaccio  attributed  to 
the  word).  Text  in  "  Le  Opere  volgari  di  Giov.  Boccaccio,"  Florence,  1831, 
8vo,  vol.  xiii. 

3  Text  in  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  iii.  It  is  divided  into  five  books  and 
written  in  stanzas  of  seven  lines,  rhyming  a  b  a  b  b  c  c.  See  the  different  texts 
of  this  poem  published  by  the  Chaucer  Society  ;  also  Kitredge,  "  Chaucer's 
Language  in  his  Troilus,"  Chaucer  Society,  1891.  For  a  comparison  between 
the  English  and  the  Italian  texts  see  Rossetti  "  Troylus  and  Cressida,  com- 
pared with  Boccaccio's  Filostrato,"  Chaucer  Society,  1873.  About  one-third 
of  Chaucer's  poem  is  derived  from  Boccaccio.  It  is  dedicated  to  Gower  and 
to  "  philosophical  Strode  "  (see  above,  p.  290),  both  friends  of  the  poet. 


300  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

plished  in  the  same  time  by  the  nation.  With  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Westminster  as  with  Chaucer's  poetry,  the  real 
definitive  England  is  beginning. 

In  Chaucer,  indeed,  as  in  the  new  race,  the  mingling  of 
the  origins  has  become  intimate  and  indissoluble.  In 
"  Troilus  and  Criseyde "  the  Celt's  ready  wit,  gift  of 
repartee,  and  sense  of  the  dramatic  ;  the  care  for  the  form 
and  ordering  of  a  narrative,  dear  to  the  Latin  races  ;  the 
Norman's  faculty  of  observation,  are  allied  to  the  emotion 
and  tenderness  of  the  Saxon.  This  fusion  had  been 
brought  about  slowly,  when  however  the  time  came,  its 
realisation  was  complete  all  at  once,  almost  sudden. 
Yesterday  authors  of  English  tongue  could  only  lisp ; 
to-day,  no  longer  content  to  talk,  they  sing. 

In  its  semi-epic  form,  the  poem  of  "Troilus  and  Criseyde" 
is  connected  with  the  art  of  the  novel  and  the  art  of  the 
drama,  to  the  development  of  which  England  was  to  con- 
tribute so  highly.  It  is  already  the  English  novel  and 
drama  where  the  tragic  and  the  comic  are  blended  ;  where 
the  heroic  and  the  trivial  go  side  by  side,  as  in  real  life  ; 
where  Juliet's  nurse  interrupts  the  lovers  leaning  over  the 
balcony  of  the  Capulets,  where  princesses  have  no  confi- 
dants, diminished  reproductions  of  their  own  selves,  in- 
vented to  give  them  their  cue  ;  where  sentiments  are 
examined  closely,  with  an  attentive  mind,  friendly  to 
experimental  psychology  ;  and  where,  nevertheless,  far 
from  holding  always  to  subtile  dissertations,  all  that  is 
material  fact  is  clearly  exposed  to  view,  in  a  good 
light,  and  not  merely  talked  about.  The  vital  parts  of 
the  drama  are  all  exhibited  before  our  eyes  and  not 
concealed  behind  the  scenes  ;  heroes  are  not  all  spirit, 
neither  are  they  mere  images  ;  we  are  as  far  from  the 
crude  illuminations  of  degenerate  minstrels  as  from  La 
Calprenede's  heroic  romances;  the  characters  have  muscles, 
bones  and  sinews,  and  at  the  same  time,  hearts  and  souls  ; 


CHA  UCER.  301 

they  are  real  men.  The  date  of  "  Troilus  and  Criseyde  " 
is  a  great  date  in  English  literature. 

The  book,  like  Froissart's  collection  of  poems,  treats  "of 
love."  It  relates  how  Criseyde,  or  Cressida,  the  daughter 
of  Calchas,  left  in  Troy  while  her  father  returned  to  the 
Greek  camp,  loves  the  handsome  knight  Troilus,  son  of 
Priam.  Given  back  to  the  Greeks,  she  forgets  Troilus, 
who  is  slain. 

How  came  this  young  woman,  as  virtuous  as  she  was 
beautiful,  to  love  this  youth,  whom  at  the  opening  of  the 
story  she  did  not  even  know  ?  What  external  circum- 
stances brought  them  together,  and  what  workings  of  the 
heart  made  them  pass  from  indifference  to  doubts  and 
anxieties,  and  then  to  love  ?  These  two  orders  of 
thought  are  untwined  simultaneously,  on  parallel  lines 
by  Chaucer,  that  dreamer  who  had  lived  so  much  in 
real  life,  that  man  of  action  who  had  dreamed  so  many 
dreams. 

Troilus  despised  love,  and  mocked  at  lovers  : 

If  knight  or  squyer  of  his  companye 

Gan  for  to  syke,  or  lete  his  eyen  bayten 

On  any  woman  that  he  coude  aspye ; 

He  wolde  smyle,  and  holden  it  folye, 

And  seye  him  thus,  "  God  wot  she  slepeth  softe 

For  love  of  thee,  whan  thou  tomest  ful  ofte. "  x 

One  day,  in  the  temple,  he  sees  Cressida,  and  his  fate  is 
sealed  ;  he  cannot  remove  his  gaze  from  her  ;  the  wind 
of  love  has  swept  by  ;  all  his  strength  has  vanished  ; 
his  pride  has  fallen  as  the  petals  fall  from  a  rose  ;  he 
drinks  deep  draughts  of  an  invincible  poison.  Far  from 
her,  his  imagination  completes  what  reality  had  begun  : 
seated  on  the  foot  of  his  bed,  absorbed  in  thought,  he  once 
more  sees  Cressida,  and  sees  her  so  beautiful,  depicted  in 
outlines  so  vivid,  and  colours  so  glowing,  that  this  divine 

1  Book  i.  st.  28. 


302  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

image  fashioned  in  his  own  brain  is  henceforth  the  only 
one  he  will  behold  ;  forever  will  he  have  before  his  eyes 
that  celestial  form  of  superhuman  beauty,  never  more  the 
real  earthly  Cressida,  the  frail  daughter  of  Calchas.  Troilus 
is  ill  for  life  of  the  love  illness. 

He  has  a  friend,  older  than  himself,  sceptical,  trivial, 
experienced,  "  that  called  was  Pandare,"  Cressida's  uncle. 
He  confides  to  him  his  woes,  and  asks  for  help.  Pandarus, 
in  Boccaccio,  is  a  young  nobleman,  sceptical  too,  but 
frivolous,  disdainful,  elegant,  like  a  personage  of  Musset. 
Chaucer  transforms  the  whole  drama  and  makes  room  for 
the  grosser  realities  of  life,  by  altering  the  character  of 
Pandarus.  He  makes  of  him  a  man  of  mature  years, 
devoid  of  scruples,  talkative,  shameless,  wily,  whose 
wisdom  consists  in  proverbs  chosen  among  the  easiest 
to  follow,  much  more  closely  connected  with  Moliere's 
or  Shakespeare's  comic  heroes  than  with  Musset's  lovers. 
Pandarus  is  as  fond  of  comparisons  as  Gros-Rene,  as  fond 
of  old  saws  as  Polonius  ;  he  is  coarse  and  indecent,  unin- 
tentionally and  by  nature,  like  Juliet's  nurse.1  He  is  totally 
unconscious,  and  thinks  himself  the  best  friend  in  the 
world,  and  the  most  reserved  ;  he  concludes  interminable 
speeches  by : 

I  jape  nought,  as  ever  have  I  joye. 

Every  one  of  his  thoughts,  of  his  words,  of  his  attitudes  is 
the  very  opposite  of  Cressida's  and  her  lover's,  and  makes 
them  stand  out  in  relief  by  a  contrast  of  shade.     He  is  all 

1  And,  as  the  nurse,  gets  out  of  breath,  so  that  he  cannot  speak : 

.  .  .  O  veray  God,  so  have  I  ronne  ! 

Lo,  nece  myn,  see  ye  nought  how  I  swete? 

Book  ii.  st.  210.     Says  the  Nurse  : 

Jesu,  what  haste  !  can  you  not  stay  awhile  ? 
Do  you  not  see  that  I  am  out  of  breath  ? 


CHA  UCER.  303 

for  tangible  and  present  realities,  and  does  not  believe  in 
ever  foregoing  an  immediate  and  certain  pleasure  in  con- 
sideration of  merely  possible  consequences. 

With  this  disposition,  and  in  this  frame  of  mind,  he 
approaches  his  niece  to  speak  to  her  of  love.  The  scene, 
which  is  entirely  of  Chaucer's  invention,  is  a  true  comedy 
scene  ;  the  gestures  and  attitudes  are  minutely  noted. 
Cressida  looks  down  ;  Pandarus  coughs.  The  dialogue  is 
so  rapid  and  sharp  that  one  might  think  this  part  written 
for  a  play,  not  for  a  tale  in  verse.  The  uncle  arrives  ; 
the  niece,  seated  with  a  book  on  her  knees,  was  reading 
a  romance. 

Ah  !  you  were  reading  !  What  book  was  it  ?  "  What 
seith  it  ?  Tel  it  us.  Is  it  of  Love?  "  It  was  of  Thebes  ; 
"  this  romaunce  is  of  Thebes  ;  "  she  had  secured  as  it  seems 
a  very  early  copy.  She  excuses  herself  for  indulging  in 
so  frivolous  a  pastime  ;  she  would  perhaps  do  better  to 
read  "on  holy  seyntes  lyves."  Chaucer,  mindful  above  all 
of  the  analysis  of  passions,  does  not  trouble  himself  about 
anachronisms  ;  he  cares  nothing  to  know  if  the  besieged 
Trojans  could  really  have  drawn  examples  of  virtue  from 
the  Lives  of  the  Saints  ;  history  matters  little  to  him  :  let 
those  who  take  an  interest  in  it  look  "  in  Omer  or  in 
Dares."  I  The  motions  of  the  human  heart,  that  is  his 
real  subject,  not  the  march  of  armies  ;  from  the  moment 
of  its  birth,  the  English  novel  is  psychological. 

With  a  thousand  precautions,  and  although  still  keeping 
to  the  vulgarity  of  his  role,  Pandarus  manages  so  as  to  bring 
to  a  sufficiently  serious  mood  the  laughter-loving  Cressida; 

1  Turned  later  into  English  verse  by  Lydgate,  to  be  read  as  a  supplementary 
Tale  ot  Canterbury  :  "  Here  begynneth  the  sege  of  Thebes,  ful  lamentably  told 
by  Johnn  Lidgate  monke  of  Bury,  annexynge  it  to  ye  tallys  of  Canterbury/' 
MS.  Royal  18  D  ii.  in  the  British  Museum.  The  exquisite  miniatures  of 
this  MS.  represent  Thebes  besieged  with  great  guns,  fol.  158  ;  Creon's 
coronation  by  two  bishops  wearing  mitres  and  gold  copes,  fol.  160,  see  below, 
p.  499. 


304  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

he  contrives  that  she  shall  praise  Troilus  herself,  inciden- 
tally, before  he  has  even  named  him.  With  his  frivolities 
he  mingles  serious  things,  wise  and  practical  advice  like 
a  good  uncle,  the  better  to  inspire  confidence ;  then  he 
rises  to  depart  without  having  yet  said  what  brought  him. 
Cressida's  interest  is  excited  at  once,  the  more  so  that 
reticence  is  not  habitual  to  Pandarus  ;  her  curiosity, 
irritated  from  line  to  line,  becomes  anxiety,  almost 
anguish,  for  though  Cressida  be  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  heroines  of  romance,  with  her 
appears  already  the  nervous  woman.  She  starts  at  the 
least  thing,  she  is  the  most  impressionable  of  beings,  "  the 
ferfullest  wight  that  might  be "  ;  even  the  state  of  the 
atmosphere  affects  her.  What  is  then  the  matter  ?  Oh  ! 
only  this  : 

.  .  .  the  kinges  dere  sone, 
The  goode,  wyse,  worthy,  fresshe,  and  free, 
Which  alwey  for  to  do  wel  is  his  wone, 
The  noble  Troilus,  so  loveth  thee, 
That,  bot  ye  helpe,  it  wol  his  bane  be. 
Lo,  here  is  al,  what  sholde  I  more  seye  ? 
Do  what  yow  list.1 

The  conversation  continues,  more  and  more  crafty  on  the 
part  of  Pandarus  ;  his  friend  asks  for  so  little  :  look  less 
unkindly  upon  him,  and  it  will  be  enough. 

But  here  appears  Chaucer's  art  in  all  its  subtilty.  The 
wiles  of  Pandarus,  carried  as  far  as  his  character  will  allow, 
might  have  sufficed  to  make  a  Cressida  of  romance  yield  ; 
but  it  would  have  been  too  easy  play  for  the  master  already 
sure  of  his  powers.  He  makes  Pandarus  say  a  word  too 
much  ;  Cressida  unmasks  him  on  the  spot,  obliges  him  to 
acknowledge  that  in  asking  less  he  desired  more  for  his 
friend,  and  now  she  is  blushing  and  indignant.  Chaucer 
does  not  want  her  to  yield  to  disquisitions  and  descriptions; 

1  Book  ii.  st.  46. 


CHA  UCER.  305 

all  the  cleverness  of  Pandarus  is  there  only  to  make  us  better 
appreciate  the  slow  inward  working  that  is  going  on  in 
Cressida's  heart  ;  her  uncle  will  have  sufficed  to  stir  her  ; 
that  is  all,  and,  truth  to  say,  that  is  something.  She  feels 
for  Troilus  no  clearly  defined  sentiment,  but  her  curiosity 
is  aroused.  And  just  then,  while  the  conversation  is  still 
going  on,  loud  shouts  are  heard,  the  crowd  rushes,  balconies 
are  filled,  strains  of  music  burst  forth  ;  'tis  the  return,  after 
a  victorious  sally,  of  one  of  the  heroes  who  defend  Troy. 
This  hero  is  Troilus,  and  in  the  midst  of  this  triumphal 
scene,  the  pretty,  frail,  laughing,  tender-hearted  Cressida 
beholds  for  the  first  time  her  royal  lover. 

In  her  turn  she  dreams,  she  meditates,  she  argues.  She 
is  not  yet,  like  Troilus,  love's  prisoner ;  Chaucer  does  not 
proceed  so  fast.  She  keeps  her  vision  lucid  ;  her  imagina- 
tion and  her  senses  have  not  yet  done  their  work  and 
reared  before  her  that  glittering  phantom,  ever  present, 
which  conceals  reality  from  lovers.  She  is  still  mistress 
of  herself  enough  to  discern  motives  and  objections  ;  she 
discusses  and  reviews  elevated  reasons,  low  reasons,  and 
even  some  of  those  practical  reasons  which  will  be  instantly 
dismissed,  but  not  without  having  produced  their  effect. 
Let  us  not  make  an  enemy  of  this  king's  son.  Besides, 
can  I  prevent  his  loving  me  ?  His  love  has  nothing  un- 
flattering ;  is  he  not  the  first  knight  of  Troy  after  Hector? 
What  is  there  astonishing  in  his  passion  for  me?  If  he 
loves  me,  shall  I  be  the  only  one  to  be  loved  in  Troy? 
Scarcely,  for 

Men  ioven  wommen  al  this  toun  aboute. 

Be  they  the  wers  ?     Why,  nay,  withouten  doute. 

Am  I  not  pretty  ?  "I  am  oon  of  the  fayrest  "  in  all  "  the 
toun  of  Troye,"  though  I  should  not  like  people  to  know 
that  I  know  it : 

Al  wolde  I  that  noon  wiste  of  this  thought. 
21 


306  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

After  all  I  am  free  ;  "I  am  myn  owene  woman "  ;  no 
husband  to  say  to  me  "  chekmat !  "  And  "par  dieux  !  I  am 
nought  religious  !  "     I  am  not  a  nun. 

But  right  as  whan  the  sonne  shyneth  brighte 
In  March  that  chaungeth  ofte  tyme  his  face 
And  that  a  cloud  is  put  with  wind  to  flighte 
Which  over-sprat  the  sonne  as  for  a  space, 
A  cloudy  thought  gan  thorugh  hir  soule  pace, 
That  over-spradde  hir  brighte  thoughtes  alle.1 

Now  she  unfolds  contradictory  arguments  supported  by 
considerations  equally  decisive  ;  she  is  suffering  from  that 
diboulia  (alternate  will)  familiar  to  lovers  who  are  not  yet 
thoroughly  in  love.  There  are  two  Cressidas  in  her  ;  the 
dialogue  begun  with  Pandarus  is  continued  in  her  heart  ; 
the  scene  of  comedy  is  renewed  there  in  a  graver  key. 

Her  decision  is  not  taken  ;  when  will  it  be  ?  At  what 
precise  moment  does  love  begin  ?  One  scarcely  knows  ; 
when  it  has  come  one  fixes  the  date  in  the  past  by  hypo- 
thesis. We  say  :  it  was  that  day,  but  when  that  day  was 
the  present  day,  we  said  nothing,  and  knew  nothing  ;  a 
sort  of  "  perhaps  "  filled  the  soul,  delightful,  but  still  only  a 
perhaps.  Cressida  is  in  that  obscure  period,  and  the  work- 
ings within  her  are  shown  by  the  impression  which  the 
incidents  of  daily  life  produce  upon  her  mind.  It  seems  to 
her  that  everything  speaks  of  love,  and  that  fate  is  in 
league  against  her  with  Pandarus  and  Troilus  :  it  is  but  an 
appearance,  the  effect  of  her  own  imagination,  and  pro- 
duced by  her  state  of  mind  ;  in  reality  it  happens  simply 
that  now  the  little  incidents  of  life  impress  her  more  when 
they  relate  to  love  ;  the  others  pass  so  unperceived  that 
love  alone  has  a  place.  She  might  have  felt  anxious  about 
herself  if  she  had  discerned  this  difference  between  then 
and  now  ;  but  the  blindness  has  commenced,  she  does  not 
observe  that   the   things    appertaining    to    love    find    easy 

1  Book  ii.  st.  ioo  ff. 


CHA  UCER.  307 

access  to  her  heart,  and  that,  where  one  enters  so  easily,  it 
is  usually  that  the  door  is  open.  She  paces  in  her  melan- 
choly mood  the  gardens  of  the  palace  ;  while  she  wanders 
through  the  shady  walks,  a  young  girl  sings  a  song  of 
passion,  the  words  of  which  stir  Cressida  to  her  very  soul. 
Night  falls, 

And  whyte  thinges  wexen  dimme  and  donne  ; 

the  stars  begin  to  light  the  heavens ;  Cressida  returns 
pensive;  the  murmurs  of  the  city  die  out.  Leaning  at  her 
window,  facing  the  blue  horizon  of  Troas,  with  the  trees  of 
the  garden  at  her  feet,  and  bathed  in  the  pale  glimmers  of 
the  night,  Cressida  dreams,  and  as  she  dreams  a  melody 
disturbs  the  silence  :  hidden  in  the  foliage  of  a  cedar,  a 
nightingale  is  heard  ;  they  too,  the  birds,  celebrate  love. 
And  when  sleep  comes,  of  what  will  she  think  in  her 
dreams  if  not  of  love  ? 

She  is  moved,  but  not  vanquished  ;  it  will  take  yet 
many  incidents  ;  they  will  all  be  small,  trivial,  insignificant, 
and  will  appear  to  her  solemn,  superhuman,  ordered  by 
the  gods.  She  may  recover,  at  times,  before  Pandarus,  her 
presence  of  mind,  her  childlike  laugh,  and  baffle  his  wiles  : 
for  the  double-story  continues.  Cressida  is  still  able  to 
unravel  the  best-laid  schemes  of  Pandarus,  but  she  is  less 
and  less  able  to  unravel  the  tangled  web  of  her  own  senti- 
ments. The  meshes  draw  closer  ;  now  she  promises  a 
sisterly  friendship  :  even  that  had  been  already  invented 
in  the  fourteenth  century.  She  can  no  longer  see  Troilus 
without  blushing  ;  he  passes  and  bows  :  how  handsome  he 
is! 

.    .  .  She  hath  now  caught  a  thorn  ; 
She  shal  not  pulle  it  out  this  next  wyke. 
God  sende  mo  swich  thornes  on  to  pyke  ! * 

The  passion  and    merits  of  Troilus,  the  inventions  of 

1  Book  ii.  st.  182. 


3o8  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Pandarus,  the  secret  good-will  of  Cressida,  a  thunderstorm 
which  breaks  out  opportunely  (we  know  how  impression- 
able Cressida  is),  lead  to  the  result  which  might  be 
expected  :  the  two  lovers  are  face  to  face.  Troilus,  like  a 
sensitive  hero,  swoons  :  for  he  is  extremely  sensitive  ; 
when  the  town  acclaims  him,  he  blushes  and  looks  down  ; 
when  he  thinks  his  beloved  indifferent  he  takes  to  his  bed 
from  grief,  and  remains  there  all  day  ;  in  the  presence  of 
Cressida,  he  loses  consciousness.  Pandarus  revives  him, 
and  is  not  slow  to  perceive  that  he  is  no  longer  wanted : 

For  ought  I  can  espyen 
This  light  nor  I  ne  serven  here  of  nought. 

And  he  goes,  adding,  however,  one  more  recommendation  : 

If  ye  ben  wyse, 
Swowneth  not  now,  lest  more  folk  aryse.1 

What  says  Cressida  ? — What  may  "  the  sely  larke  seye  " 
when  "  the  sparhauk  "  has  caught  it  ?  Cressida,  however, 
says  something,  and,  of  all  the  innumerable  forms  of 
avowal,  chooses  not  the  least  sweet : 

Ne  hadde  I  er  now,  my  swete  herte  dere 
Ben  yolde,  y-wis,  I  were  now  not  here  ! 2 


Were  they  happy 


? 


But  juggeth,  ye  that  han  ben  at  the  feste 
Of  swich  gladnesse.3 

The  gray  morn  appears  in  the  heavens  ;  the  shriek  of  "  the 
cok,  comune  astrologer,"  is  heard  ;  the  lovers  sing  their 
song  of  dawn.4   All  the  virtues  of  Troilus  are  increased  and 

1  Book  iii.  st.  163  and  170. 

2  Book  iii.  st.  173.  Boccaccio's  Griselda  has  nothing  to  be  compared  to 
those  degrees  in  feeling  and  tenderness.  She  laughs  at  the  newly  wedded  ones, 
and  ignores  blushes  as  well  as  doubts  ("  Filostrato,"  iii.  st.  29  ft".). 

3  Book  iii.  st.  188. 

4  What  me  is  wo 
That  day  of  us  mot  make  desseveraunce ! 

(Book  iii.  st.  203,  204.) 


CHA  UCER.  309 

intensified  by  happiness ;  it  is  the  eternal  thesis  of  poets 
who  are  in  love  with  love. 

The  days  and  weeks  go  by :  each  one  of  our  characters 
pursues  his  part.  Pandarus  is  very  proud  of  his  ;  what  could 
one  reproach  him  with  ?  He  does  unto  others  as  he  would 
be  done  by  ;  he  is  disinterested  ;  he  has  moreover  certain 
principles  of  honour,  that  limit  themselves,  it  is  true,  to 
recommending  secrecy,  which  he  does  not  fail  to  do.  Can 
a  reasonable  woman  expect  more  ? 

Calchas  and  the  Greeks  claim  Cressida,  and  the  Trojans 
decide  to  give  her  up.  The  unhappy  young  woman  faints, 
but  must  needs  submit.  In  an  excellent  scene  of  comedy, 
Chaucer  shows  her  receiving  the  congratulations  of  the 
good  souls  of  the  town :  so  she  is  going  to  see  once  more 
her  worthy  father,  how  happy  she  must  be  !  The  good 
souls  insist  very  much,  and  pay  interminable  visits.1 

She  goes,  swearing  to  return,  come  what  may,  within  ten 
days.  The  handsome  Diomedes  escorts  her  ;  and  the 
event  proves,  what  experience  alone  could  teach,  and  what 
she  was  herself  far  from  suspecting,  that  she  loved  Troilus, 
no  doubt,  above  all  men,  but  likewise,  and  apart  from  him, 
love.  She  is  used  to  the  poison,  and  can  no  longer  do 
without  it  ;  she  prefers  Troilus,  but  to  return  to  him  is 
not  so  easy  as  she  had  thought,  and  to  love  or  not  to  love 
is  now  for  her  a  question  of  being  or  being  not.  Troilus, 
who  from  the  start  had  most  awful  presentiments,  feeling 
that,  happen  what  may,  his  happiness  is  over,  though  yet 
not  doubting  Cressida,  writes  the  most  pressing  letters,  and 
signs  them  in  French,  "  le  vostre  T."  Cressida  replies  by 
little  short  letters  (that  she  signs  "  la  vostre  C"),  in  which 
she  excuses  herself  for  her  brevity.  The  length  of  a  letter 
means  nothing  ;  besides  she  never  liked  to  write,  and  where 
she  is  now  it  is  not  convenient  to  do  it  ;  let  Troilus  rest 
easy,  he  can   count  upon  her  friendship,  she  will  surely 

1  Book  iv.  st.  98  ff. 


3io  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

return  ;  true,  it  will  not  be  in  ten  days  ;  it  will  be  when  she 
can.1 

Troilus   is   told    of  his    misfortune,    but    he   will    never 
believe  it : 

"  Thou  seyst  nat  sooth,"  quod  he,  "  thou  sorceresse  !" 

A  brooch  torn  from  Diomedes  which  he  had  given  her  on 
the  day  of  parting, 

In  remembraunce  of  him  and  of  his  sorwe, 

allows  him  to  doubt  no  more,  and  he  gets  killed  by  Achilles 
after  a  furious  struggle. 

As  we  have  drawn  nearer  to  the  catastrophe,  the  tone  of 
the  poem  has  become  more  melancholy  and  more  tender. 
The  narrator  cannot  help  loving  his  two  heroes,  even  the 
faithless  Cressida  ;  he  remains  at  least  merciful  for  her, 
and  out  of  mercy,  instead  of  letting  us  behold  her  near  as 
formerly,  in  the  alleys  or  on  her  balcony,  dreaming  in  the 
starlight,  he  shows  her  only  from  afar,  lost  among  the 
crowd  in  which  she  has  chosen  to  mix,  the  crowd  in  every 
sense,  the  crowd  of  mankind  and  the  crowd  of  sentiments, 
all  commonplace.  Let  us,  he  thinks,  remember  only  the 
former  Cressida. 

He  ends  with  reflections  which  are  resigned,  almost  sad, 
and  he  contemplates  with  a  tranquil  look  the  juvenile 
passions  he  has  just  depicted.  Troilus,  resigned  too, 
beholds,  from  heaven,  the  field  under  the  walls  of  Troy, 

1  Yet  preye  I  yow  on  yvel  ye  ne  take, 
That  it  is  short  which  that  I  to  yow  wryte ; 
I  dar  not,  ther  I  am,  wel  lettres  make, 
Ne  never  yet  ne  coude  I  wel  endyte. 
Eek  greet  effect  men  wryte  in  place  lyte. 
Thentente  is  al,  and  nought  the  lettres  space 
And  fareth  now  wel,  God  have  you  in  his  grace. 

La  vostre  C. 

Book  v.  st.  233.     Troilus  had  written  at  great  length,  of  course,  "the  papyr  al 
y-pleynted."     St.  229. 


CHAUCER.  311 

where  he  was  slain,  and  smiles  at  the  remembrance  of  his 
miseries  ;  and  Chaucer,  transforming  Boccaccio's  conclusion 
like  all  the  rest,  addresses  a  touching  appeal,  and  wise, 
even  religious  advice,  to  you, 

O  yonge  fresshe  folkes,  he  or  she. 

In  which  that  love  up  groweth  with  your  age.1 

This  return  to  seriousness  is  quite  as  noteworthy  as 
the  mixture  of  everyday  life,  added  by  the  poet  to  the 
idea  borrowed  from  his  model.  By  these  two  traits,  which 
will  be  seen  again  from  century  to  century,  in  English 
literature,  Chaucer  manifests  his  true  English  character  ; 
and  if  we  wish  to  see  precisely  in  what  consists  the  differ- 
ence between  this  temperament  and  that  of  the  men  of  the 
South,  whom  Chaucer  was  nevertheless  so  akin  to,  let  us 
compare  this  conclusion  with  that  of  the  "  Filostrato  "  as 
translated  at  the  same  time  into  French  by  Pierre  de  Beau- 
veau  :  "  You  will  not  believe  lightly  those  who  give  you 
ear  ;  young  women  are  wilful  and  lovely,  and  admire  their 
own  beauty,  and  hold  themselves  haughty  and  proud 
amidst  their  lovers,  for  vain-glory  of  their  youth  ;  who, 
although  they  be  gentle  and  pretty  more  than  tongue  can 
say,  have  neither  sense  nor  firmness,  but  are  variable  as  a 
leaf  in  the  wind."  Unlike  Chaucer,  Pierre  de  Beauveau 
contents    himself  with  such  graceful   moralisation,2   which 

1  Book  v.  st.  263. 

2  Pierre  de  Beauveau's  translation  of  the  passage  (in  Moland  and  d'Hericault, 
"  Nouvelles  francoises  en  prose,  du  XIVe  Siecle,"  1858,  p.  303)  does  not  differ 
much  from  the  original.      Here  is  the  Italian  text  : 

Giovane  donna  e  mobile,  e  vogliosa 
E  nei;li  amanti  molti,  e  sua  bellezza 
Estima  piu  ch'allo  specchio,  e  pompcsa 
Ha  vanagloria  di  sua  giovinezza  ; 
La  qual  quanto  piaccevole  e  vezzosa 
E  piu,  cotanto  piu  seco  l'apprezza  j 
Virtu  non  sente  ni  conoscimento, 
Volubil  sempre  come  fogha  al  vento. 

("Opere  Volgari,"  Florence,  1831,  vol.  xiii.  p.  253.) 


312  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

will  leave  no  very  deep  impression  on  the  mind,  and  which 
indeed  could  not,  for  it  is  itself  as  light  as  "  a  leaf  in  the 
wind." 


IV. 


After  1379  Chaucer  ceased  to  journey  on  the  Continent, 
and  until  his  death  he  lived  in  England  an  English 
life.  He  saw  then  several  aspects  of  that  life  which  he 
had  not  yet  known  from  personal  experience.  After 
having  been  page,  soldier,  prisoner  of  the  French,  squire 
to  the  king,  negotiator  in  Flanders,  France,  and  Italy,  he 
entered  Westminster  the  1st  of  October,  1386,  as  member 
of  Parliament  ;  the  county  of  Kent  had  chosen  for  its 
representatives  :  "  Willielmus  Betenham  "  and  "  Galfridus 
Chauceres."1  It  was  one  of  the  great  sessions  of  the 
reign,  and  one  of  the  most  stormy ;  the  ministers  of 
Richard  II.  were  impeached,  and  among  others  the  son 
of  the  Hull  wool  merchant,  Michel  de  la  Pole,  Chancellor 
of  the  kingdom.  For  having  remained  faithful  to  his 
protectors,  the  king  and  John  of  Gaunt,  Chaucer,  looked 
upon  with  ill  favour  by  the  men  then  in  power,  of  whom 
Gloucester  was  the  head,  lost  his  places  and  fell  into  want. 
Then  the  wheel  of  Fortune  revolved,  and  new  employ- 
ments offered  a  new  field  to  his  activity.  At  the  end  of 
three  years,  Richard,  having  dismissed  the  Council  which 
Parliament  had  imposed  upon  him,  took  the  authority 
into  his  own  hands,  and  the  poet,  soldier,  member  of 
Parliament,  and  diplomate,  was  appointed  clerk  of  the 
royal  works  (1389).  For  two  years  he  had  to  attend  to 
the  constructions  and  repairs  at  Westminster,  at  the  Tower, 
at  Berkhamsted,  Eltham,  Sheen,  at  St.  George's  Chapel, 
Windsor,  and  in  many  others  of  those  castles  which   he 

1  "  Return  of  the  names  of  every  member  [of  Parliament],"  1878,  fol. 
a  Blue  Book,  p.  229. 


CHAUCER.  313 

had  described,  with  "  pinacles,  imageries,  and  tabernacles," 
and 

ful  eek  of  windowes 
As  flakes  falle  in  grete  snowes.1 

His  great  literary  occupation,  during  that  time,  was  the 
composition  of  his  famous  "  Canterbury  Tales."  2  Ex- 
perience had  ripened  him  ;  he  had  read  all  there  was  to 
read,  and  seen  all  there  was  to  see  ;  he  had  visited  the 
principal  countries  where  civilisation  had  developed  :  he  had 
observed  his  compatriots  at  work  on  their  estates  and  in 
their  parliaments,  in  their  palaces  and  in  their  shops. 
Merchants,  sailors,  knights,  pages,  learned  men  of  Oxford 
and  suburban  quacks,  men  of  the  people  and  men  of  the 
Court,  labourers,  citizens,  monks,  priests,  sages  and  fools, 
heroes  and  knaves,  had  passed  in  crowds  beneath  his 
scrutinising  gaze  ;  he  had  associated  with  them,  divined 
them,  and  understood  them  ;  he  was  prepared  to  describe 
them  all. 

On  an  April  day,  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II.,  in  the 
noisy  suburb  of  Southwark,  the  place  for  departures  and 
arrivals,  with  streets  bordered  with  inns,  encumbered  with 
horses  and  carts,  resounding  with  cries,  calls,  and  barks, 
one  of  those  mixed  troops,  such  as  the  hostelries  of  that 
time  often  gathered  together,  seats  itself  at  the  common 
board,  in  the  hall  of  the  "  Tabard,  faste  by  the  Belle  "  3  ; 
the  inns  were  all  close  to  each  other.  It  was  spring- 
time, the  season  of  fresh  flowers,  the  season  of  love,  the 
season,  too,  of  pilgrimages.  Knights  returned  from  the 
wars  go  to  render  thanks  to  the  saints  for  having  let  them 

1  "  Hous  of  Fame,"  1.  1189. 

2  "  Complete  Works,"  ed.  Skeat,  Oxford,  1894,  6  vols.  8vo,  vol.  iv. 

3  The  "  Tabard,"  a  sleeveless  overcoat,  then  in  general  use,  was,  like  the 
"  Bell,"  a  frequent  sign  for  inns.  The  Tabard  Inn,  famous  in  Chaucer's  day, 
was  situated  in  the  Southwark  High  Street ;  often  repaired  and  restored, 
rebaptised  the  "  Talbot,"  it  lasted  till  our  century. 


3H  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

behold  again  their  native  land  ;  invalids  render  thanks  for 
their  restoration  to  health ;  others  go  to  ask  Heaven's 
grace.  Does  not  every  one  need  it  ?  Every  one  is  there  ; 
all  England. 

There  is  a  knight  who  has  warred,  all  Europe  over, 
against  heathens  and  Saracens.  It  was  easy  to  meet 
them  ;  they  might  be  found  in  Prussia  and  in  Spain,  and 
our  "  verray  parfit  gentil  knight"  had  massacred  enormous 
numbers  of  them  "  at  mortal  batailles  fiftene  "  for  "  our 
faith."  Next  to  him,  a  squire  who  had,  like  Chaucer, 
fought  in  France,  with  May  in  his  heart,  a  song  upon  his 
lips,  amorous,  elegant,  charming,  embroidered  as  a  meadow 
— "  as  it  were  a  mede  " — with  white  and  red  flowers  ;  a 
stout  merchant,  who  looked  so  rich,  was  so  well  furred, 
and  "  fetisly  "  dressed  that 

Ther  wiste  no  wight  that  he  was  in  dette ; 

a  modest  clerk,  who  had  come  from  the  young  University 
of  Oxford,  poor,  patched,  threadbare,  with  hollow  cheeks, 
mounted  on  a  lean  horse,  and  whose  little  all  consisted  in 

Twenty  bokes,  clad  in  blak  and  reed  ; 

an  honest  country  franklin,  with  "  sangwyn  "  visage  and 
beard  white  "  as  is  the  dayesye,"  a  sort  of  fourteenth- 
century  Squire  Western,  kindly,  hospitable,  good- 
humoured,  holding  open  table,  with  fish  and  roasts  and 
sauce  piquante  and  beer  all  day  long,  so  popular  in  the 
county  that, 

Ful  ofte  tyme  he  was  knight  of  the  shire  ; 

a  shipman  who  knew  every  creek,  from  Scotland  to  Spain, 
and  had  encountered  many  a  storm,  with  his  good  ship 
"the  Maudelayne," 

With  many  a  tempest  hadde  his  berd  been  shake  ; 


CHAUCER.  315 

a  physician  who  had  driven  a  thriving  trade  during  the 
plague,  learned,  and  acquainted  with  the  why  and  the 
wherefore  of  every  disease, 

Were  it  of  hoot  or  cold,  or  moiste  or  drye  ; 

who  knew  by  heart  Hippocrates  and  Galen,  but  was  on 
bad  terms  with  the  Church,  for 

His  studie  was  but  litel  on  the  Bible. 

With  them,  a  group  of  working  men  from  London,  a 
haberdasher,  a  carpenter,  dyer,  weaver,  and  cook  ;  people 
from  the  country,  a  ploughman,  a  miller, 

His  mouth  as  greet  was  as  a  great  forneys, 

a  group  of  men-at-law  devoured  with  cares,  close  shaven, 
bitter  of  speech — 

Ful  longe  were  his  legges,  and  ful  lene, 
Y-lyk  a  staf,  ther  was  no  calf  y-sene — 

bringing  out  their  Latin  on  every  occasion,  terrible  as 
adversaries,  but  easy  to  win  over  for  money,  and  after  all, 
as  Chaucer  himself  says,  "  les  meilleurs  fils  du  monde  "  : 

A  bettre  felawe  sholde  men  noght  finde. 

Then  a  group  of  Church-folk,  men  and  women,  of  every 
garb  and  every  character,  from  the  poor  parish  priest,  who 
lives  like  a  saint,  obscure  and  hidden,  visiting,  in  rain  and 
cold,  the  scattered  cottages  of  his  peasants,  forgetting  to 
receive  his  tithes,  a  model  of  abnegation,  to  the  hunting 
monk,  dressed  like  a  layman,  big,  fat,  with  a  head  as  shiny 
as  a  ball,  who  will  make  one  day  the  finest  abbot  in  the 
world,  to  the  degenerate  friar,  who  lives  at  the  expense 
of  others,  a  physician  become  poisoner,  who  destroys 
souls  instead  of  healing  them,  and  to  the  pardoner,  a  rascal 


316  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

of  low  degree,  who  bestows  heaven  at  random  by  his  own 
"  heigh  power"  on  whoever  will  pay,  and  who  manufactures 
precious  relics  out  of  the  pieces  of  his  "  old  breech." 
Finally  there  are  nuns,  reserved,  quiet,  neat  as  ermines, 
who  are  going  to  hear  on  the  way  enough  to  scandalise 
them  all  the  rest  of  their  lives.  Among  them,  Madame 
Eglantine,  the  prioress,  with  her  French  of  Stratford, 

For  Frensh  of  Paris  was  to  hir  unknowe, 

who  imitated  the  style  of  the  Court,  and,  consequently, 

Ne  wette  hir  fingres  in  hir  sauce  depe. 

She  was  "  so  pitous  "  that  she  wept  to  see  a  mouse  caught, 
or  if  one  of  her  little  dogs  died.  Can  one  be  more 
"pitous"? 

All  those  personages  there  were,  and  many  more  besides. 
There  was  the  Wife  of  Bath,  that  incomparable  gossip, 
screaming  all  the  louder  as  she  was  "  som-del  deef."  There 
was  the  jovial  host,  Harry  Bailey,  used  to  govern  and 
command,  and  to  drown  with  his  brazen  voice  the  tumult 
of  the  common  table.  There  is  also  a  person  who  looks 
thoughtful  and  kindly,  who  talks  little  but  observes 
everything,  and  who  is  going  to  immortalise  the  most 
insignificant  words  pronounced,  screamed,  grumbled,  or 
murmured  by  his  companions  of  a  day,  namely,  Chaucer 
himself.  With  its  adventurers,  its  rich  merchants,  its 
Oxford  clerks,  its  members  of  Parliament,  its  workmen, 
its  labourers,  its  saints,  its  great  poet,  it  is  indeed  the 
new  England,  joyous,  noisy,  radiant,  all  youthful  and  full 
of  life,  that  sits  down,  this  April  evening,  at  the  board  of 
"  the  Tabard  faste  by  the  Belle."  Where  are  now  the 
Anglo-Saxons  ?  But  where  are  the  last  year's  snows  r 
April  has  come. 

The  characters  of  romance  the  statues  on  cathedrals,  the 


CHAUCER.  317 

figures  in  missals,  had  been  heretofore  slender  or  slim, 
or  awkward  or  stiff;  especially  those  produced  by  the 
English.  Owing  to  one  or  the  other  of  these  defects,  those 
representations  were  not  true  to  nature.  Now  we  have,  in 
an  English  poem,  a  number  of  human  beings,  drawn  from 
the  original,  whose  movements  are  supple,  whose  types  are 
as  varied  as  in  real  life,  depicted  exactly  as  they  were  in 
their  sentiments  and  in  their  dress,  so  that  it  seems  we 
see  them,  and  when  we  part  the  connection  is  not  broken. 
The  acquaintances  made  at  "the  Tabard  faste  by  the  Belle  " 
are  not  of  those  that  can  be  forgotten  ;  they  are  life-long 
remembrances. 

Nothing  is  omitted  which  can  serve  to  fix,  to  anchor  in 
our  memory,  the  vision  of  these  personages.  A  half-line, 
that  unveils  the  salient  trait  of  their  characters,  becomes 
impossible  to  forget ;  their  attitudes,  their  gestures,  their 
clothes,  their  warts,  the  tones  of  their  voices,  their  defects 
of  pronunciation — 

Somwhat  he  lipsed  for  his  wantonnesse — 

their  peculiarities,  the  host's  red  face  and  the  reeve's 
yellow  one,  their  elegances,  their  arrows  with  peacock 
feathers,  their  bagpipes,  nothing  is  left  out ;  their  horses 
and  the  way  they  ride  them  are  described  ;  Chaucer  even 
peeps  inside  their  bags  and  tells  us  what  he  finds  there. 

So  the  new  England  has  its  Froissart,  who  is  going  to 
tell  feats  of  arms  and  love  stories  glowing  with  colour,  and 
take  us  hither  and  thither,  through  highways  and  byways, 
giving  ear  to  every  tale,  observing,  noting,  relating?  This 
young  country  has  Froissart  and  better  than  Froissart. 
The  pictures  are  as  vivid  and  as  clear,  but  two  great 
differences  distinguish  the  ones  from  the  others  :  humour 
and  sympathy.  Already  we  find  humour  well  developed 
in  Chaucer  ;  his  sly  jests  penetrate  deeper  than  French 
jests  ;  he  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  wound,  but  he  does  more 


318  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

than  merely  prick  skin-deep  ;  and  in  so  doing,  he  laughs 
silently  to  himself.     There  was  once  a  merchant, 

That  riche  was,  for  which  men  helde  him  wys.1 

The  "  Sergeant  of  Lawe  "  was  a  busy  man  indeed  : 

No  wher  so  bisy  a  man  as  he  ther  nas, 
And  yet  he  semed  bisier  than  he  was. 

Moreover,  Chaucer  sympathises ;  he  has  a  quivering 
heart  that  tears  move,  and  that  all  sufferings  touch,  those 
of  the  poor  and  those  of  princes.  The  role  of  the  people, 
so  marked  in  English  literature,  affirms  itself  here,  from 
the  first  moment.  "  There  are  some  persons,"  says,  for 
his  justification,  a  French  author,  "  who  think  it  beneath 
them  to  bestow  a  glance  on  what  opinion  has  pronounced 
ignoble  ;  but  those  who  are  a  little  more  philosophic,  who 
are  a  little  less  the  dupes  of  the  distinctions  that  pride 
has  introduced  into  the  affairs  of  this  world,  will  not  be 
sorry  to  see  the  sort  of  man  there  is  inside  a  coach- 
man, and  the  sort  of  woman  inside  a  petty  shopkeeper." 
Thus,  by  a  great  effort  of  audacity,  as  it  seems  to  him, 
Marivaux  expresses  himself  in  173 I.2  Chaucer,  even  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  is  curious  to  see  the  sort  of  man  a 
cook  of  London  may  be,  and  the  sort  of  woman  a  Wife  of 
Bath  is.  How  many  wretches  perish  in  Froissart !  What 
blood  ;  what  hecatombs ;  and  how  few  tears  !  Scarcely 
here  and  there,  and  far  apart,  words  absently  spoken  about 
so  much  suffering  :  "  And  died  the  common  people  of 
hunger,  which  was  great  pity."  3  Why  lament  long,  or 
marvel  at  it  ?  It  is  the  business  and  proper  function  of 
the  common  people  to  be  cut  to  pieces  ;  they  are  the  raw 

1  Beginning  of  the  "  Shipmannes  Tale." 
3  "Vie  de  Marianne,"  Paris,  1731-41. 
3  Book  i.  chap.  81,  Luce's  edition. 


CHAUCER.  319 

material  of  feats  of  arms,  and  as  such  only  figure  in  the 
narrative. 

They  figure  in  Chaucer's  narrative,  because  Chaucer 
loves  them  ;  he  loves  his  plowman,  "a  true  swinker  and 
a  good,"  who  has  strength  enough  and  to  spare  in  his  two 
arms,  and  helps  his  neighbours  for  nothing  ;  he  suffers  at 
the  thought  of  the  muddy  lanes  along  which  his  poor 
parson  must  go  in  winter,  through  the  rain,  to  visit  a 
distant  cottage.  The  poet's  sympathy  is  broad  ;  he  loves, 
as  he  hates,  with  all  his  heart. 

One  after  another,  all  these  persons  of  such  diverse  con- 
ditions have  gathered  together,  twenty-nine  in  all.  For 
one  day  they  have  the  same  object  in  view,  and  are  going 
to  live  a  common  life.  Fifty-six  miles  from  London  is  the 
shrine,  famous  through  all  Europe,  which  contains  the  re- 
mains of  Henry  the  Second's  former  adversary,  the  Chan- 
cellor Thomas  Becket,  assassinated  on  the  steps  of  the 
altar,  and  canonised.1  Mounted  each  on  his  steed,  either 
good  or  bad,  the  knight  on  a  beast  sturdy,  though  of 
indifferent  appearance ;  the  hunting  monk  on  a  superb 
palfrey,  "  as  broun  as  is  a  berye "  ;  the  Wife  of  Bath 
sitting  astride  her  horse,  armed  with  great  spurs  and 
showing  her  red  stockings,  they  set  out,  taking  with  them 
mine  host  of  the  "  Tabard,"  and  there  they  go,  at  an  easy 
pace,  along  the  sunny  road  lined  with  hedges,  among  the 
gentle  undulations  of  the  soil.  They  will  cross  the 
Medway  ;  they  will  pass  beneath  the  walls  of  Rochester's 
gloomy  keep,  then  one  of  the  principal  fortresses  of  the 
kingdom,  but  sacked  recently  by  revolted  peasantry  ;  they 
will  see  the  cathedral  built  a  little  lower  down,  and,  as  it 
were,  in  its  shade.  There  are  women  and  bad  riders  in  the 
group  ;  the  miller  has  drunk  too  much,  and  can  hardly  sit 

1  The  canonisation  took  place  shortly  after  the  death  of  the  archbishop, 
1170-73.  There  is  nothing  left  to-day  but  an  old  marble  mosaic,  greatly  re- 
stored, to  indicate  the  place  in  the  choir  where  the  shrine  used  to  be. 


320  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

in  the  saddle  ;  the  way  will  be  long.1  To  make  it  seem 
short,  each  one  will  relate  two  tales,  and  the  troop,  on  its 
return,  will  honour  by  a  supper  the  best  teller. 

Under  the  shadow  of  great  romances,  shorter  stories 
had  sprung  up.  The  forest  of  romance  was  now  losing 
its  leaves,  and  the  stories  were  expanding  in  the  sunlight. 
The  most  celebrated  collection  was  Boccaccio's,  written  in 
delightful  Italian  prose,  a  many-sided  work,  edifying  and 
licentious  at  the  same  time,  a  work  audacious  in  every  way, 
even  from  a  literary  point  of  view.  Boccaccio  knows  it, 
and  justifies  his  doings.  To  those  who  reproach  him  with 
having  busied  himself  with  "  trifles,"  neglecting  "  the 
Muses  of  Parnassus,"  he  replies  :  Who  knows  whether  I 
have  neglected  them  so  very  much  ?  "  Perhaps,  while  I 
wrote  those  tales  of  such  humble  mien,  they  may  have 
come  sometimes  and  seated  themselves  at  my  side."2 
They  bestowed  the  same  favour  on  Chaucer. 

The  idea  of  "  Troilus  and  Criseyde,"  borrowed  from 
Boccaccio,  had  been  transformed  ;  the  general  plan  and 
the  setting  of  the  "  Tales  "  are  modified  more  profoundly 
yet.  In  Boccaccio,  it  is  always  young  noblemen  and  ladies 
who  talk  :  seven  young  ladies,  "  all  of  good  family,  beauti- 
ful, elegant,  and  virtuous,"  and  three  young  men,  "  all  three 
affable  and  elegant,"  whom  the  misfortunes  of  the  time 
"  did  not  affect  so  much  as  to  make  them  forget  their 
amours."  The  great  plague  has  broken  out  in  Florence  ; 
they  seek  a  retreat  "  wherein  to  give  themselves  up  to 
mirth  and  pleasure "  ;  they  fix  upon  a  villa  half-way  to 
Fiesole,  now  villa  Palmieri. 

"  A  fine  large  court,  disposed   in   the  centre,  was  sur- 

1  A  map  of  the  road  from  London  to  Canterbury,  drawn  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  but  showing  the  line  of  the  old  highway,  has  been  reproduced  by 
Dr.  Furnivall  in  his  "  Supplementary  Canterbury  Tales— I.  The  Tale  of 
Beryn,"  Chaucer  Society,  1876,  8vo. 

2  "  E  forse  a  queste  cose  scrivere,  quantunque  sieno  umilissime,  si  sono  elle 
venute  parecchi  volte  a  starsi  meco."     Prologue  of  "  Giornata  Quarta." 


CHAUCER.  321 

rounded  by  galleries,  halls  and  chambers  all  ornamented 
with  the  gayest  paintings.  The  dwelling-house  rose  in  the 
midst  of  meadows  and  magnificent  gardens,  watered  by 
cool  streams  ;  the  cellars  were  full  of  excellent  wines." 
Every  one  is  forbidden,  "  whencesoever  he  may  come,  or 
whatever  he  may  hear  or  see,  to  bring  hither  any  news 
from  without  that  be  not  agreeable."  They  seat  themselves 
"  in  a  part  of  the  garden  which  the  foliage  of  the  trees 
rendered  impenetrable  to  the  sun's  rays,"  at  the  time  when, 
the  heat  being  in  all  its  strength,  one  heard  nothing 
save  the  cicadae  singing  among  the  olive-trees."  Thanks 
to  the  stories  they  relate  to  each  other,  they  pleasantly 
forget  the  scourge  which  threatens  them,  and  the  public 
woe  ;  yonder  it  is  death  ;  here  they  play. 

Chaucer  has  chosen  for  himself  a  plan  more  humane, 
and  truer  to  nature.  It  is  not  enough  for  him  to  saunter 
each  day  from  a  palace  to  a  garden  ;  he  is  not  content 
with  an  alley,  he  must  have  a  road.  He  puts  his  whole 
troop  of  narrators  in  motion  ;  he  stops  them  at  the  inns, 
takes  them  to  drink  at  the  public-houses,  obliges  them  to 
hurry  their  pace  when  evening  comes,  causes  them  to  make 
acquaintance  with  the  passers-by.  His  people  move,  bestir 
themselves,  listen,  talk,  scream,  sing,  exchange  compliments, 
sometimes  blows  ;  for  if  his  knights  are  real  knights,  his 
millers  are  real  millers,  who  swear  and  strike  as  in  a  mill 

The  interest  of  each  tale  is  doubled  by  the  way  in  which 
it  is  told,  and  even  by  the  way  it  is  listened  to.  The  knight 
delights  his  audience,  which  the  monk  puts  to  sleep  and  the 
miller  causes  to  laugh  ;  one  is  heard  in  silence,  the  other 
is  interrupted  at  every  word.  Each  story  is  followed  by  a 
scene  of  comedy,  lively,  quick,  unexpected,  and  amusing  ; 
they  discuss,  they  approve,  they  lose  their  tempers  ;  no 
strict  rules,  but  all  the  independence  of  the  high-road,  and 
the  unforeseen  of  real  life  ;  we  are  not  sauntering  in  alleys  ! 
Mine  host  himself,  with  his  deep  voice  and  his  peremptory 

22 


322  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

decisions,  does  not  always  succeed  in  making  himself 
obeyed.  After  the  knight's  tale,  he  would  like  another  in 
the  same  style  to  match  it ;  but  he  will  have  to  listen 
to  the  miller's,  which,  on  the  contrary,  will  serve  as  a  con- 
trast. He  insists  ;  the  miller  shouts,  he  shouts  "  in  Pilates 
vois,"  he  threatens  to  leave  them  all  and  "  go  his  wey  "  if 
they  prevent  him  from  talking.     "  Wei,"  says  the  host, 

"  Tel  on,  a  devel  wey  1 
Thou  art  a  fool,  thy  wit  is  overcome," 

What  would  Donna  Pampinea  and  Donna  Filomena 
have  said,  hearing  such  words  ? 

At  other  times  the  knight  is  obliged  to  interfere,  and 
then  the  tone  is  very  different.  He  does  not  have  to 
scream  ;  a  word  from  him  is  enough,  and  the  storms  are 
calmed.  Moreover,  the  host  himself  becomes  more  gentle 
at  times  ;  this  innkeeper  knows  whom  he  has  to  deal  with  ; 
with  all  his  roughness,  he  has  a  rude  notion  of  differences 
and  distances.  His  language  is  the  language  of  an  inn- 
keeper ;  Chaucer  never  commits  the  fault  of  making  him 
step  out  of  his  role  ;  but  the  poet  is  too  keen  an  observer 
not  to  discern  nuances  even  in  the  temper  of  a  jovial  host. 
One  should  see  with  what  politeness  and  what  salutations 
and  what  embarrassed  compliments  he  informs  the  abbess 
that  her  turn  has  come  to  relate  a  story  : 

"  My  lady  Prioresse,  by  your  leve, 

So  that  I  wist  I  sholde  yow  nat  greve, 

I  wolde  demen  that  ye  telle  sholde 

A  tale  next,  if  so  were  that  ye  wolde. 

Now  wol  ye  vouche-sauf,  my  lady  dere  ?  " 

— "  Gladly,"  quod  she,  and  seyde  as  ye  shal  here. 

The  answer  is  not  less  suitable  than  the  request. 

Thus,  in  these  little  scenes,  we  see,  put  into  action,  the 
descriptions  of  the  prologue  ;  the  portraits  step  out  of 
their  frames  and  come  down  into  the  street  \  their  limbs 
have   become  immediately  supple  and  active ;   the  blood 


CHAUCER.  323 

courses  through  their  veins  ;  life  fills  them  to  the  end  of 
their  fingers.  No  sooner  are  they  on  their  feet  than  they 
turn  somersaults  or  make  courtesies  ;  and  by  their  words 
they  charm,  enliven,  edify,  or  scandalise.  Their  personality 
is  so  accentuated  that  it  makes  them  unmanageable  at 
times  ;  their  temper  rules  them  ;  they  are  not  masters  of 
their  speech.  The  friar  wants  to  tell  a  story,  but  he  is  so 
blinded  by  anger  that  he  does  not  know  where  he  is  going; 
he  stammers,  he  chokes,  and  his  narrative  remains  shape- 
less ;  the  pardoner  is  so  closely  bound  to  his  profession  that 
he  cannot  for  a  moment  move  out  of  it  ;  shirt  and  skin 
make  one,  to  use  a  familiar  phrase  of  Montaigne's  ;  his 
tale  resembles  a  sermon,  and  he  concludes  as  though  he 
were  in  church : 

Now,  goode  men,  God  forgeve  yow  your  trespas  .  .  . 

I  have  relikes  and  pardon  in  my  male 

As  faire  as  any  man  in  Engelond  .  .   . 

It  is  an  honour  to  everich  that  is  heer, 

That  ye  movve  have  a  suffisant  pardoneer 

Tassoille  yow,  in  contree  as  ye  ryde, 

For  aventures  which  that  may  bityde. 

Peraventure  ther  may  falle  oon  or  two 

Doun  of  his  hors,  and  breke  his  nekke  atwo. 

Look  what  a  seuretee  is  it  to  yow  alle 

That  I  am  in  your  felaweship  y-falle, 

That  may  assoille  yow,  bothe  more  and  lasse, 

Whan  that  the  soule  shal  fro  the  body  passe. 

I  rede  that  our  hoste  heer  shal  biginne, 

For  he  is  most  envoluped  in  sinne. 

Com  forth  sir  hoste,  and  offre  first  anon, 

And  thou  shalt  kisse  the  reliks  everichon, 

Ye,  for  a  grote  !  unbokel  anon  thy  purs  ! l 

A  most  happy  idea  !  Mine  host  makes  a  reply  which 
cannot  be  repeated. 

In  other  cases  the  personage  is  so  wordy  and  impetuous 
that  it  is  impossible  to  stop  him,  or  set  him  right,  or  inter- 
rupt him  ;  he  cannot  make  up  his  mind  to  launch  into  his 

1  "  Pardoner's  Tale,"  11.  904,  920,  931. 


324  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

narrative  ;  he  must  needs  remain  himself  on  the  stage  and 
talk  about  his  own  person  and  belongings  ;  he  alone  is  a 
whole  comedy.  One  must  perforce  keep  silence  when  the 
Wife  of  Bath  begins  to  talk,  irresistible  gossip,  chubby- 
faced,  over-fed,  ever-buzzing,  inexhaustible  in  speech,  never- 
failing  in  arguments,  full  of  glee.  She  talks  about  what  she 
knows,  about  her  specialty  ;  her  specialty  is  matrimony  ; 
she  has  had  five  husbands,  "three  of  hem  were  gode  and 
two  were  badde  ;  "  the  last  is  still  living,  but  she  is  already 
thinking  of  the  sixth,  because  she  does  not  like  to  wait, 
and  because  husbands  are  perishable  things  ;  they  do  not 
last  long  with  her  ;  in  her  eyes  the  weak  sex  is  the  male 
sex.  She  is  not  going  to  break  her  heart  about  a  husband 
who  gives  up  the  ghost  ;  her  conscience  is  easy ;  the  spouse 
departs  quite  ready  for  a  better  world  : 

By  God,  in  erthe  I  was  his  purgatorie, 
For  which  I  hope  his  soule  be  in  glorie. 

Some  praise  celibacy,  or  reason  about  husbands'  rights  ; 
the  merry  gossip  will  answer  them.  She  discusses  the 
matter  thoroughly  ;  sets  forth  the  pros  and  cons  ;  allows 
her  husband  to  speak,  then  speaks  herself ;  she  has  the 
best  arguments  in  the  world  ;  her  husband,  too,  has  ex- 
cellent ones,  but  it  is  she  who  has  the  very  best.  She  is  a 
whole  Ecole  des  Maris  in  herself. 

The  tales  are  of  every  sort,1  and  taken  from  everywhere. 

1  The  setting  of  the  tales  into  their  proper  order  is  due  to  Bradshaw  and 
Furnivall ;  see  Furnivall's  "  Temporary  Preface"  for  the  "  Six-text  edition  of 
Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales,"  Chaucer  Society,  1868.  The  order,  subject,, 
and  originals  of  the  tales  are  follows  : — - 

1st  Day.  London  to  Dartford,  15  miles. — Tale  of  the  Knight,  history  of 
Palamon  and  Arcyte,  derived  from  Boccaccio's  "  Teseide." — Tale  of  the 
Miller  :  story  of  Absolon,  Nicholas  and  Alisoun  the  carpenter's  wife,  source 
unknown. — Reeve's  tale,  imitated  from  the  French  fabliau  of  Gombert  and 
the  two  clerks  (above,  p.  155);  same  tale  in  Boccaccio,  ix.  6,  from  whom 
La  Fontaine  took  it :  "  le  Berceau." — Cook's  tale,  unfinished  ;  the  tale  of 
Gamelyn  attributed  by  some  MSS.  to  the  Cook  seems  to  be  simply  an  old 


CHAUCER.  325 

Chaucer  never  troubled  himself  to  invent  any ;  he  re- 
ceived them  from  all  hands,  but  he  modelled  them  after 
his  own  fashion,  and  adapted  them  to  his  characters.    They 

story  which  Chaucer  intended  to  remodel ;  it  would  suit  the  Yeoman  better 
than  the  Cook  (in  "  Complete  Works,"  as  an  appendix  to  vol.  iv. ). 

2tid Day.  Stopping  at  Rochester,  30  miles. — Tale  of  the  Man  of  Law: 
history  of  the  pious  Constance,  from  the  French  of  Trivet,  an  Englishman  who 
wrote  also  Latin  chronicles,  &c. ,  same  story  in  Gower,  who  wrote  it  ab.  1 393.  — 
Shipman's  tale  :  story  of  a  merchant  of  St.  Denys,  his  wife,  and  a  wicked 
monk,  from  some  French  fabliau,  or  from  "Decameron,"  viii.  1. — Tale  of  the 
Prioress:  a  child  killed  by  Jews,  from  the  French  of  Gautier  de  Coinci. — Tales 
by  Chaucer  :  Sir  Thopas,  a  caricature  of  the  romances  of  chivalry  ;  story  of 
Melibeus,  from  a  French  version  of  the  "Liber  consolationis  et  consilii"  of 
Albertano  of  Brescia,  thirteenth  century. — Monk's  tale  :  "  tragedies  "  of 
Lucifer,  Adam,  Sampson,  Hercules,  Nebuchadnezzar,  Belshazzar,  Zenobia, 
Pedro  the  Cruel,  Pierre  de  Lusignan  king  of  Cyprus,  Barnabo  Visconti 
(d.  1385),  Hugolino,  Nero,  Holofernes,  Antiochus,  Alexander,  Caesar,  Crcesus  ; 
from  Boccaccio,  Machault,  Dante,  the  ancients,  &c—  Tale  of  the  Nun's  Priest : 
Story  of  Chauntecleer,  same  story  in  "  Roman  de  Renart "  and  in  Marie  de 
France. 

yd  Day.  Rest  at  Ospringe,  46  miles. — Tale  of  the  Physician  :  Appius  and 
Virginia,  from  Titus  Livius.and  the  "Roman  de  la  Rose;"  same  story  in 
Gower. — Pardoner's  tale  :  three  young  men  find  a  treasure,  quarrel  over  it 
and  kill  each  other,  an  old  legend,  of  which,  however,  we  have  no  earlier 
version  than  the  one  in  the  "  Cento  Novelle  antiche,"  nov.  82. — Tale  of  the 
Wife  of  Bath  :  story  of  the  young  knight  saved  by  an  old  sorceress,  whom  he 
marries  and  who  recovers  her  youth  and  beauty  ;  the  first  original  of  this  old 
legend  is  not  known  ;  same  story  in  Gower  (Story  of  Florent),  and  in  Voltaire  : 
"  Ce  qui  plait  aux  Dames." — Friar's  tale:  a  summoner  taken  away  by  the 
devil,  from  one  of  the  old  collections  of  exempla.—  Tale  of  the  Summoner 
(somnour,  sompnour)  :  a  friar  ill-received  by  a  moribund  ;  a  coarse,  popular 
story,  a  version  of  which  is  in  "Til  Ulespiegel."— Clerk  of  Oxford's  tale: 
story  of  Griselda  from  Petrarch's  Latin  version  of  the  last  tale  in  the 
"  Decameron." — Merchant's  tale  :  old  January  beguiled  by  his  wife  May  and 
by  Damian;  there  are  several  versions  of  this  story,  one  in  the  "Decameron," 
vii.  9,  which  was  made  use  of  by  La  Fontaine,  ii.  7. 

4/A  Day.  Reach  Canterbury,  56  miles.— Squire's  tale  :  unfinished  story  of 
Cambinscan,  king  of  Tartary  ;  origin  unknown,  in  part  from  the  French  romance 
of  "  Cleomades."— Franklin's  tale  :'  Aurelius  tries  to  obtain  Dorigen's  love  by 
magic  ;  same  story  in  Boccaccio's  "  Filocopo,"  and  in  the  "  Decameron,"  x. 
5. — Tale  of  the  second  nun  :  story  of  St.  Cecilia,  from  the  Golden  Legend. — 
Tale  of  the  Canon's  Yeoman  :  frauds  of  an  alchemist  (from  Chaucer's  personal 
experience?).— Manciple's  tale  :  a  crow  tells  Phoebus  of  the  faithlessness  of 
the  woman  he  loves  ;  from  Ovid,  to  be  found  also  in  Gower. — Parson's  tale, 
from  the  French  "  Somme  des  Vices  et  des  Vertus  "  of  Friar  Lorens,  1279. 


326  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

are  borrowed  from  France,  Italy,  ancient  Rome ;  the  knight's 
tale  is  taken  from  Boccaccio,  that  of  the  nun's  priest  is 
imitated  from  the  "  Roman  de  Renart "  ;  that  of  "  my  lord 
the  monk"  from  Latin  authors  and  from  Dante,  "the  grete 
poete  of  Itaille."  The  miller,  the  reeve,  the  somnour,  the 
shipman,  relate  coarse  stories,  and  their  licentiousness  some- 
what embarrasses  the  good  Chaucer,  who  excuses  himself 
for  it.  It  is  not  he  who  talks,  it  is  his  road-companions  ; 
and  it  is  the  Southwark  beer  which  inspires  them,  not  he  ; 
you  must  blame  the  Southwark  beer.  The  manners  of  the 
people  of  the  lower  classes,  their  loves,  their  animosities 
and  their  jealousies,  are  described  to  the  life  in  these 
narratives.  We  see  how  the  jolly  Absolon  goes  to  work 
to  charm  the  carpenter's  wife,  who  prefers  Nicholas  ;  he 
makes  music  under  her  windows,  and  brings  her  little 
presents  ;  he  is  careful  of  his  attire,  wears  "  hoses  rede," 
spreads  out  hair  that  shines  like  gold, 

He  kempte  hise  lokkes  brode,  and  made  him  gay. 

If  on  a  feast-day  they  play  a  Mystery  on  the  public  place 
before  the  church,  he  gets  the  part  of  Herod  allotted  to 
him  :  who  could  resist  a  person  so  much  in  view?  Alison 
resists,  however,  not  out  of  virtue,  but  because  she  prefers 
Nicholas.  She  does  not  require  fine  phrases  to  repel 
Absolon's  advances  ;  village-folk  are  not  so  ceremonious : 

Go  forth  thy  wey,  or  I  wol  caste  a  ston. 

Blows  abound  in  stories  of  that  kind,  and  the  personages 
go  off  with  "their  back  as  limp  as  their  belly,"  as  we  read 
in  one  of  the  narratives  from  which  Chaucer  drew  his  in- 
spiration. 

Next  to  these  great  scenes  of  noise  there  are  little 
familiar  scenes,  marvellously  observed,  and  described  to 


CHA  UCER.  327 

perfection  ;  scenes  of  home-life  that  might  tempt  the  pencil 
of  a  Dutch  painter  ;  views  of  the  mysterious  laboratory 
where  the  alchemist,  at  once  duped  and  duping,  surrounded 
with  retorts,  "  cucurbites  and  alembykes,"  his  clothes  burnt 
to  holes,  seeks  to  discover  the  philosopher's  stone.  They 
heat,  they  pay  great  attention,  they  stir  the  mixture  ; 

The  pot  to-breketh,  and  farewel !  al  is  go  ! 

Then  they  discuss  ;  it  is  the  fault  of  the  pot,  of  the  fire, 
of  the  metal  ;  it  is  just  as  I  thought ; 

Som  seyde,  it  was  long  on  the  fyr-making, 

Som  seyde,  nay  !  it  was  on  the  blowing.  .   .  . 

"  Straw,"  quod  the  thridde,  "  ye  been  lewede  and  nyce, 

It  was  nat  tempred  as  it  oghte  be." 

A  fourth  discovers  a  fourth  cause :  "  Our  fyr  was  nat 
maad  of  beech."  What  wonder,  with  so  many  causes  for 
a  failure,  that  it  failed  ?     We  will  begin  over  again.1 

Or  else,  we  have  representations  of  those  interested 
visits  that  mendicant  friars  paid  to  the  dying.  The  friar, 
low,  trivial,  hypocritical,  approaches  : 

"  Deus  hie,"  quod  he,  "  O  Thomas,  freend,  good  day." 

He  lays  down  his  staff,  wallet,  and  hat  ;  he  takes  a  seat, 
the  cat  was  on  the  bench,  he  makes  it  jump  down  ;  he 
settles  himself ;  the  wife  bustles  about,  he  allows  her  to, 
and  even  encourages  her.  WThat  could  he  eat  ?  Oh  ! 
next  to  nothing,  a  fowl's  liver,  a  pig's  head  roasted,  the 
lightest  repast  ;  his  "  stomak  is  destroyed  ; " 

My  spirit  hath  his  fostring  in  the  Bible. 


1  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  iv.  p.  538.  The  canon  and  his  man  join  the 
pilgrims  during  the  fourth  day's  journey.  Contrary  to  Chaucer's  use,  such  a 
keen  animosity  appears  in  this  satire  of  alchemists  that  it  seems  as  if  the  poet, 
then  rather  hard  up,  had  had  himself  a  grudge  against  such  quacks. 


328  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

He  thereupon  delivers  to  the  sick  man  a  long  and  interested 
sermon,  mingled  with  Latin  words,  in  which  the  verb  "  to 
give"  comes  in  at  every  line :  whatever  you  do,  don't  give 
to  others,  give  to  me  ;  give  to  my  convent,  don't  give  to 
the  convent  next  door : 

A  !  yif  that  covent  half  a  quarter  otes  ! 
A  !  yif  that  covent  four  and  twenty  grotes  ! 
A  !  yif  that  frere  a  peny  and  let  him  go.   .  .  . 
Thomas,  of  me  thou  shalt  nat  ben  y-flatered  ; 
Thou  woldest  hah  our  labour  al  for  noght.1 

Pay  then,  give  then,  give  me  this,  or  only  that ;  Thomas 
gives  less  still. 

Familiar  scenes,  equally  true  but  of  a  more  pleasing 
kind,  are  found  in  other  narratives,  for  instance  in  the 
story  of  Chauntecleer  the  cock,  so  well  localised  with  a  few 
words,  in  a  green,  secluded  country  nook : 

A  poure  widwe,  somdel  stope  in  age 
Was  whylom  dwelling  in  a  narwe  cotage, 
Bisyde  a  grove,  standing  in  a  dale. 

Her  stable,  her  barn-yard  are  described  ;  we  hear  the 
lowing  of  the  cows  and  the  crowing  of  the  cock  ;  the 
tone  rises  little  by  little,  and  we  get  to  the  mock-heroic 
style.     Chauntecleer  the  cock, 

In  al  the  land  of  crowing  nas  his  peer. 
His  vois  was  merier  than  the  mery  orgon 
On  messe-days  that  in  the  chirche  gon  ; 
Wei  sikerer  was  his  crowing  in  his  logge 
Than  is  a  clokke,  or  an  abbey  orlogge.  .   .  . 
His  comb  was  redder  than  the  fyn  coral, 
And  batailed,  as  it  were  a  castel-wal ! 


1  1.  1963.  Compare  the  mendicant  friar  in  Diderot,  who  drew  him  from 
nature,  centuries  later;  it  is  the  same  sort  of  nature.  Friar  John  "venait 
dans  notre  village  demander  des  oeufs,  de  la  laine,  du  chanvre,  des  fruits  a 
cbaque  saison."  Friar  John  "  ne  passait  pas  dans  les  rues  que  les  peres,  les 
meres  et  les  enfants  n'allassent  a  lui  et  ne  lui  criassent :  Bonjour,  frere  Jean, 
comment  vous  portez  vous,  frere  Jean  ?  II  est  sur  que  quand  il  entrait  dans 
une  maison,  la  benediction  du  ciel  y  entrait  avec  lui."  "Jacques  le  Fataliste 
et  son  Maine,"  ed.  Asseline,  p.  46. 


CHA  UCER.  329 

He  had  a  black  beak,  white  "  nayles,"  and  azure  legs  ;  he 
reigned  unrivalled  over  the  hens  in  the  barn-yard.  One 
of  the  hens  was  his  favourite,  the  others  filled  subalternate 
parts.     One  day — 

This  storie  is  al-so  trewe,  I  undertake 
As  is  the  book  of  Launcelot  de  Lake, 
That  wommen  holde  in  ful  gret  reverence, 

— he  was  looking  for  "  a  boterfiye,"  and  what  should  he 
see  but  a  fox  !  "  Cok,  cok  ! "  he  cries,  with  a  jump,  and 
means  to  flee. 

"  Gentil  sire,  alias  !  wher  wol  ye  gon  ? 
Be  ye  affrayed  of  me  that  am  your  freend  ?  " 

says  the  good  fox  ;  I  came  only  to  hear  you  sing  ;  you  have 
the  family  talent : 

My  lord  your  fader  (God  his  soule  blesse  !), 

sang  so  well ;  but  you  sing  better  still.  To  sing  better 
still,  the  cock  shuts  his  eye,  and  the  fox  bears  him  off. 
Most  painful  adventure  !  It  was  a  Friday  :  such  things 
always  befall   on   Fridays. 

O  Gaufred,  dere  mayster  soverayn, 
That  whan  the  worthy  King  Richard  was  slayn 
With  shot,  compleynedest  his  deth  so  sore, 
Why  ne  had  I  now  thy  sentence  and  thy  lore, 
The  Friday  for  to  chide,  as  diden  ye  ?  * 

Great  commotion  in  the  barn-yard;  and  here  we  find  a 
picture  charming  for  its  liveliness  :  "  Out !  harrow !  and 
weyl-away  !  Ha,  ha,  the  fox  !  "  every  one  shrieks,  yells, 
runs  ;  the  dogs  bark, 

Ran  cow  and  calf,  and  eek  the  verray  hogges ; 


1  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  iv.  p.  285  ;  on  Geoffrey  de  Vinesauf  and  Richard 
see  above,  p.  180.  ' 


330  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

the  ducks  scream, 

The  gees  for  fere  flowen  over  the  trees, 

and  the  bees  come  out  of  their  hives.  The  prisoner  is 
set  free  ;  he  will  be  more  prudent  another  time ;  order 
reigns  once  more  in  the  domains  of  Chauntecleer. 

Side  by  side  with  such  tales  of  animals,  we  have  elegant 
stories  of  the  Round  Table,  borrowed  from  the  lays  of 
"  thise  olde  gentil  Britons,"  and  which  carry  us  back  to  a 
time  when, 

In  tholde  dayes  of  the  King  Arthour 

Of  which  that  Britons  speken  greet  honour, 

Al  was  this  land  fulfild  of  fayerye  ; 

The  elf-queen,  with  hir  joly  companye, 

Daunced  ful  ofte  in  many  a  grene  mede  ; 

oriental  legends,  which  the  young  squire  will  relate,  with 
enchantments,  magic  mirrors,  a  brass  horse  that  transports 
its  rider  through  the  air,  here  or  there  according  as  one 
touches  a  peg  in  its  ears,  an  ancestor  doubtless  of  "  Clavi- 
legno,"  the  steed  of  Don  Quixote  in  the  Duchesses  park  ; 
biographies  of  Appius  and  Virginia,  of  Caesar,  of  Nero, 
of  Holophernes,  of  Hugolino  in  the  tower  of  hunger,  taken 
from  Roman  history,  the  Bible  and  Dante  ;  adventures  of 
chivalry,  in  which  figures  Theseus,  duke  of  Athens,  where 
blood  flows  profusely,  with  all  the  digressions  and  all  the 
embellishments  which  still  continued  to  please  great  men 
and  great  ladies,  and  that  is  why  the  story  is  told  by  the 
knight,  and  Chaucer  retains  purposely  all  the  faults  of  that 
particular  sort  of  story.  In  opposition  to  his  usual  custom, 
he  contents  himself  here  with  lending  a  little  life  to  illu- 
minations of  manuscripts.1 

1  See  for  example  his  description  of  a  young  lady  gathering  flowers  at 
dawn  in  a  garden,  at  the  foot  of  a  "dongeoun,"  Knight's  Tale,  1.  190,  "  Com- 
plete Works,"  iv.  p.  31. 


CHA  UCER. 


55 


Grave  personages  relate  grave  stories,  like  canticles  or 
sermons,  coloured  as  with  the  light  of  stained  glass, 
perfumed  with  incense,  accompanied  by  organ  music  : 
story  of  the  pious  Constance,  of  St.  Cecilia,  of  a  child 
killed  by  the  Jews  ;  dissertations  of  dame  Prudence  (a 
tale  of  wondrous  dulness,1  which  Chaucer  modestly 
ascribes  to  himself)  ;  story  of  the  patient  Griselda  ;  dis- 
course of  the  poor  parson.  A  while  ago  we  were  at  the 
inn  ;  now  we  are  in  church  ;  in  the  Middle  Ages  striking 
colours  and  decided  contrasts  were  best  liked  ;  the  faded 
tints  that  have  since  been  in  fashion,  mauve,  cream,  old- 
green,  did  not  touch  any  one  ;  and  we  know  that  Chaucer, 
when  he  was  a  page,  had  a  superb  costume,  of  which  one 
leg  was  red  and  the  other  black.  Laughter  was  inextin- 
guishable ;  it  rose  and  fell  and  rose  again,  rebounding 
indefinitely ;  despair  was  immeasurable  ;  the  sense  of 
measure  was  precisely  what  was  wanting  ;  its  vulgarisa- 
tion was  one  of  the  results  of  the  Renaissance.  Panegyrics 
and  satires  were  readily  carried  to  the  extreme.  The 
logical  spirit,  propagated  among  the  learned  by  a  scho- 
lastic education,  was  producing  its  effect :  writers  drew 
apart  one  single  quality  or  characteristic  and  descanted 
upon  it,  neglecting  all  the  rest.  Thus  it  is  that  Griselda 
becomes  Patience,  and  Janicola  Poverty,  and  that  by  an 
easy  and  imperceptible  transition  the  abstract  personages 
of  novels  and  the  drama  are  created  :  Cowardice,  Valiance, 
Vice.  Those  typical  beings,  whose  names  alone  make  us 
shudder,  were   considered  perfectly   natural  ;  and,  indeed, 

1  But  very  popular,  derived  from  the  "Liber  Consolationis"  of  Albertano  of 
Brescia,  written  ab.  1246,  ed.  Thor  Sundby,  Chaucer  Society,  1873.  It  was 
translated  into  French  (several  times),  Italian,  German,  Dutch.  French  text 
in  MS.  Reg.  19,  C  vii.  in  the  British  Museum  :  "  Uns  jouvenceauls  appele 
Melibee,  puissant  et  riches  ot  une  femme  nomme  Prudence,  et  de  celle  femme 
ot  une  fille.  Advint  un  jour.  .  .  ."  "A  young  man,"  says  Chaucer,  whose 
tale  is  also  in  prose,  "  called  Melibeus,  mighty  and  riche,  bigat  up-on  his  wyf 
that  called  was  Prudence,  a  doghter  which  that  called  was  Sophie.  Upon  a 
day  befel.  .  .  ."  (iv.  119). 


332  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

they  bore  a  striking  resemblance  to  Griselda,  Janicola,  and 
many  other  heroes  of  the  most  popular  stories. 

The  success  of  Griselda  is  the  proof  of  it.  That  poor  girl, 
married  to  the  marquis  of  Saluces,  who  repudiates  her  in 
order  to  try  her  patience,  and  then  gives  her  back  her 
position  of  wife,  enjoyed  an  immense  popularity.  Boccaccio 
had  related  her  misfortunes  in  the  "  Decameron  " ;  Petrarch 
thought  the  story  so  beautiful  that  it  appeared  to  him 
worthy  of  that  supreme  honour,  a  Latin  translation  : 
Chaucer  translated  it  in  his  turn  from  Latin  into  English, 
and  made  of  it  his  Clerk  of  Oxford's  tale ; *  it  was  turned 
several  times  into  French.2  Pinturicchio  represented  the 
adventures  of  Griselda  in  a  series  of  pictures,  now  preserved 
in  the  National  Gallery  ;  the  story  furnished  the  subject 
of  plays  in    Italy,  in   France,  and    in    England.3      These 

1  Unlike  most  of  the  tales,  this  one  is  written  in  stanzas,  Chaucer's  favourite 
seven-line  stanza,  rhyming  a  b  a  b  b  c  c. 

2  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  "Menagier  de  Paris,"  ab.  1393,  the  author  of 
which  declares  that  he  will  "  traire  un  exemple  qui  fut  ja  pieca  translate  par 
maistre  Francois  Petrarc  qui  a  Ronime  fut  couronne  poete  "  ("  Menagier," 
1846,  vol.  i.  p.  99).  The  same  story  finds  place  in  "  Melibeus,"  MS.  Reg. 
19  C  vii.  in  the  British  Museum,  fol.  140.  Another  French  translation  was 
printed  ab.  1470:  "La  Patience  Griselidis  Marquise  de  Saluces."  Under 
Louis  XIV.,  Perrault  wrote  a  metrical  version  of  the  same  story  :  "  La  Mar- 
quise de  Saluces  ou  la  patience  de  Griselidis,"  Paris,  1691,  i2mo.  A  number 
of  ballads  in  all  countries  were  dedicated  to  Griselda  ;  the  popularity  of  an 
English  one  is  shown  by  the  fact  of  other  ballads  being  "  to  the  tune  of  Patient 
Grissel."  One  of  Miss  Edgewortrrs  novels  has  for  its  title  and  subject :  "  The 
Modern  Griselda." 

3  One  in  French  was  performed  at  Paris  in  1395  ("  Estoire  de  Griselidis 
.  .  .  par  personnages,"  MS.  Fr.  2203  in  the  National  Library,  Paris),  and  was 
printed  at  the  Renaissance,  by  Bonfons,  ab.  1550:  "Le  Mystere  de  Griselidis"; 
one  in  German  was  written  by  Hans  Sachs  in  1 550.  In  Italy  it  was  the 
subject  of  an  opera  by  Apostolo  Zeno,  1620.  In  England,  Henslowe,  on  the 
15th  of  December,  1599,  lends  three  pounds  to  Dekker,  Chettle  and  Haughton 
for  their  "  Pleasant  comodie  of  Patient  Grissil,"  printed  in  1603,  reprinted  by 
the  Shakespeare  Society,  1841.  The  English  authors  drew  several  hints  from 
the  French  play,  but  theirs  is  the  best  written  on  the  subject  (parts  of  Julia, 
the  witty  sister  of  the  Marquis,  of  Laureo,  the  poor  student,  brother  of  Griselda, 
as  proud  as  she  is  humble,  &c). 


CHAUCER.  333 

exaggerated  descriptions  were  just  what  went  to  the 
very  heart ;  people  wept  over  them  in  the  fourteenth 
century  as  over  Clarissa  in  the  eighteenth.  Petrarch, 
writing  to  Boccaccio  about  Griselda,  uses  almost  the  same 
terms  as  Lady  Bradshaigh,  writing  to  Richardson  about 
Clarissa  : 

"  Had  you  seen  me,  I  surely  should  have  moved  your 
pity.  When  alone,  in  agonies  would  I  lay  down  the  book, 
take  it  up  again,  walk  about  the  room,  let  fall  a  flood  of 
tears,  wipe  my  eyes,  read  again — perhaps  not  three  lines — 
throw  away  the  book,  crying  out :  '  Excuse  me,  good  Mr. 
Richardson,  I  cannot  go  on;  it  is  your  fault,  you  have  done 
more  than  I  can  bear.'  "  1 

I  made  "  one  of  our  mutual  friends  from  Padua,"  writes 
Petrarch,  "  a  man  of  elevated  mind  and  vast  learning,  read 
this  story.  He  had  hardly  got  half  through,  when  sud- 
denly he  stopped,  choking  with  tears  ;  a  moment  after, 
having  composed  himself,  he  took  up  the  narrative  once 
more  to  continue  reading,  and,  behold,  a  second  time  sobs 
stopped  his  utterance.  He  declared  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  continue,  and  he  made  a  person  of  much  instruction,  who 
accompanied  him,  finish  the  reading."  About  that  time,  in 
all  probability,  Petrarch,  who,  as  we  see  in  the  same  letter, 
liked  to  renew  the  experience,  gave  the  English  poet  and 
negotiator,  who  had  come  to  visit  him  in  his  retreat, 
this  tale  to  read,  and  Chaucer,  for  that  very  reason 
less  free  than  with  most  of  his  other  stories,  scarcely 
altered  anything  in  Petrarch's  text.  With  him  as  with 
his  model,  Griselda  is  Patience,  nothing  more ;  every- 
thing is  sacrificed  to  that  virtue  ;  Griselda  is  neither  woman 
nor  mother ;  she  is  only  the  patient  spouse,  Patience 
made    wife.       They  take    her    daughter  from    her,    to  be 

1  Lady  Bradshaigh  to  Richardson,  January  n,  1749.  "Correspondence 
of  Samuel  Richardson,"  ed.  Barbauld,  London,  1804,  6  vols.  i2mo,  vol.  iv. 
p.  240. 


334  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

killed,  as  they  tell  her,  by  order  of  the  marquis.  So  be 
it,  replies  Griselda  : 

"  Goth  now,"  quod  she,  "and  dooth  my  lordes  heste  ; 

But  o  thing  wil  I  preye  yow  of  your  grace, 

That,  but  my  lord  forbad  yow,  atte  leste, 

Burieth  this  litel  body  in  som  place, 

That  bestes  ne  no  briddes  it  to-race." 

But  he  no  word  wol  to  that  purpos  seye, 

But  took  the  child  and  wente  upon  his  weye.1 

Whereupon  every  one  goes  into  ecstasies,  and  is  greatly 
affected.  The  idea  of  entreating  her  husband,  of  throwing 
herself  at  his  feet,  of  trying  to  move  him,  never  enters  her 
mind  ;  she  would  no  longer  be  playing  her  part,  which  is 
not  to  be  a  mother,  but  to  be :  Patience. 

Chaucer  left  his  collection  of  tales  uncompleted ;  we 
have  less  than  the  half  of  it ;  but  he  wrote  enough  to  show 
to  the  best  his  manifold  qualities.  There  appear  in  perfect 
light  his  masterly  gifts  of  observation,  of  comprehension, 
and  of  sympathy  ;  we  well  see  with  what  art  he  can  make 
his  characters  stand  forth,  and  how  skilfully  they  are 
chosen  to  represent  all  contemporaneous  England.  The 
poet  shows  himself  full  of  heart,  and  at  the  same  time  full 
of  sense  ;  he  is  not  without  suspicion  that  his  pious 
stories,  indispensable  to  render  his  picture  complete,  may 
offend  by  their  monotony  and  exaggerated  good  senti- 
ments. In  giving  them  place  in  his  collection,  he  belongs 
to  his  time  and  helps  to  make  it  known  ;  but  a  few  mock- 
ing notes,  scattered  here  and  there,  show  that  he  is  superior 
to  his  epoch,  and  that,  in  spite  of  his  long  dissertations  and 
his  digressions,  he  has,  what  was  rare  at  that  period,  a 
certain  notion,  at  least  theoretical,  of  the  importance  of 
proportion.  He  allows  his  heroes  to  speak,  but  he  is  not 
their  dupe  ;  in  fact  he  is  so  little  their  dupe  that  some- 
times  he  can    stand   their  talk  no   longer,  and   interrupts 

1  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  iv.  p.  56S. 


CHAUCER.  335 

them  or  laughs  at  them  to  their  very  face.  He  laughs  in 
the  face  of  the  tiresome  Constance,  on  the  night  of  her 
wedding  ;  he  shov/s  us  his  companions  riding  drowsily  on 
their  horses  to  the  sound  of  the  monk's  solemn  stories,  and 
hardly  preserved  from  actual  slumber  by  the  noise  of  the 
horse's  bells.  He  allows  the  host  abruptly  to  interrupt 
him  when,  to  satirise  the  romances  of  chivalry,  he  relates, 
in  "  rym  dogerel,"  the  feats  of  arms  and  marvellous  adven- 
tures of  the  matchless  Sir  Thopas.1  Before  we  could  even 
murmur  the  word  "  improbable,"  he  warns  us  that  the  time 
of  Griseldas  has  passed,  and  that  there  exist  no  more  such 
women  in  our  day.  As  the  pilgrims  draw  near  Canterbury, 
and  it  becomes  seemly  to  finish  on  a  graver  note,  he 
causes  his  poor  parson  to  speak,  and  the  priest  announces 
beforehand  that  his  discourse  will  be  a  sermon,  a  real 
sermon,  with  a  text  from  Scripture  :  "  Incipit  sermo,"  says 
one  of  the  manuscripts.  He  will  speak  in  prose,  as  in 
church  : 

Why  sholde  I  sowen  draf  out  of  my  fest, 
Whan  I  may  sowen  whete  if  that  me  lest  ? 

All  agree,  and  it  is  with  the  assent  of  his  companions,  who 
become  more  serious  as  they  approach  the  holy  city,  that 
he  commences,  for  the  good  of  their  souls,  his  ample 
"  meditation."  The  coarse  story  told  by  the  miller  had 
been  justified  by  excuses  no  less  appropriate  to  the  person 
and  to  the  circumstances  ;  the  person  was  a  clown,  and 
chanced  to  be  drunk  ;  now  the  person  is  a  saint,  and,  as  it 
happens,  they  are  just  nearing  the  place  of  pilgrimage. 

The    good    sense   which    caused    the  poet   to   write  his 
"  Canterbury  Tales"  according  to  a  plan  so  conformable  to 

1  Listeth,  lordes,  in  good  entent, 
And  I  wol  telle  verrayment 
«    Of  mirthe  and  of  solas,  &c. 

The  caricature  of  the  popular  heroic  stories  of  the  day  is  extremely  close  (see 
below,  p.  347). 


336  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

reason  and  to  nature,  is  one  of  the  most  eminent  of 
Chaucer's  qualities.  It  reveals  itself  in  the  details  as  in 
the  whole  scheme,  and  inspires  him,  in  the  midst  of  his 
most  fanciful  inventions,  with  reassuring  remarks  which 
show  that  earth  and  real  life  are  not  far  away,  and  that  we 
are  not  in  danger  of  falling  from  the  clouds.  He  reminds 
us  at  an  opportune  moment  that  there  is  a  certain  nobility, 
the  highest  of  all,  which  cannot  be  bequeathed  in  a  will  ; 
that  the  corrupt  specimens  of  a  social  class  should  not 
cause  the  whole  class  to  be  condemned  : 

Of  every  ordre  som  shrewe  is,  parde  ;x 

that,  in  the  education  of  children,  parents  should  be  care- 
ful not  to  treat  them  too  soon  as  men  ;  if  one  takes  them 
to  merry-makings  before  time,  they  become  "  to  sone  rype 
and  bold,  .  .  .  which  is  ful  perilous."  He  expresses  him- 
self very  freely  about  great  captains,  each  of  whom  would 
have  been  called  "an  outlawe  or  a  theef"  had  they  done 
less  harm.2  This  last  idea  is  put  forth  in  a  few  lines  of  a 
humour  so  truly  English  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  think 
of  Swift  and  Fielding  ;  and,  indeed,  Fielding  can  the  more 
appropriately  be  named  here  as  he  has  devoted  all  his 
novel  of  "Jonathan  Wild  the  Great"  to  the  expounding  of 
exactly  the  same  thesis. 

Finally,  we  owe  to  this  same  common  sense  of  Chaucer's 
a  thing  more  remarkable  yet :  namely,  that  with  his  know- 

1  Tale  of  the  Canon's  Yeoman,  1.  995. 

2  .  .   .  For  the  tyrant  is  of  gretter  might, 
By  force  of  meynee  for  to  sleen  doun-right, 
And  brennen  hous  and  hoom,  and  make  al  plain, 
Lo  !  therfor  is  he  cleped  a  capitain  ; 
And,  for  the  outlawe  hath  but  smal  meynee, 
And  may  nat  doon  so  greet  an  harm  as  he, 
Ne  bringe  a  contree  to  so  greet  rnescheef, 
Men  clepen  him  an  outlawe  or  a  theef. 

(Maunciple's  tale,  in  "  Complete  Works,"  iv.  p.  562.) 


CHA  UCER.  337 

ledge  of  Latin  and  of  French,  and  living  in  a  circle  where 
those  two  languages  were  in  great  favour,  he  wrote  solely 
in  English.  His  prose,  like  his  verse,  his  "  Treatise  on  the 
Astrolabe  "  like  his  tales,  are  in  English.  He  belongs  to  the 
English  nation,  and  that  is  why  he  writes  in  that  language  ; 
a  reason  of  that  sort  is  sufficient  for  him  :  "  Suffyse  to  thee 
thise  trewe  conclusiouns  in  English,  as  wel  as  suffyseth  to 
thise  noble  clerkes  Grekes  thise  same  conclusiouns  in 
Greek,  and  to  Arabiens  in  Arabik,  and  to  Jewes  in  Ebrew, 
and  to  the  Latin  folk  in  Latin."  Chaucer,  then,  will  make 
use  of  plain  English,  "  naked  wordes  in  English  "  ;  he  will 
employ  the  national  language,  the  king's  English — "the 
king  that  is  lord  of  this  langage."  x  And  he  will  use  it,  as 
in  truth  he  did,  to  express  exactly  his  thoughts  and  not 
to  embellish  them  ;  he  hates  travesty,  he  worships  truth  ; 
he  wants  words  and  things  to  be  in  the  closest  possible 
relation  : 

The  wordes  mote  be  cosin  to  the  dede.2 

The  same  wisdom  is  again  the  cause  why  Chaucer  does 
not  spend  himself  in  vain  efforts  to  attempt  impossible 
reforms,  and  to  go  against  the  current.  It  has  been  made 
a  subject  of  reproach  to  him  in  our  day  ;  and  some,  from 
love  of  the  Saxon  past,  have  been  indignant  at  the  number 
of  French  words  Chaucer  uses  ;  why  did  he  not  go 
back  to  the  origins  of  the  language  ?  But  Chaucer  was  not 
one  of  those  who,  as  Milton  says,  think  "  to  pound  up  the 
crows  by  shutting  their  park  gates ; "  he  employed  the 
national  tongue,  as  it  existed  in  his  day  ;  the  proportion 
of  French  words  is  not  greater  with  him  than  with  the 
mass  of  his  contemporaries.  The  words  he  made  use  of 
were  living  and  fruitful,  since  they  are  still  alive,  they 
and  their  families  ;  the  proportion  of  those  that  have 
disappeared  is  wonderfully  small,  seeing  the  time  that  has 

1  "  A  Treatise  on  the  Astrolabe  "  in  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  iii.  p.  175. 
8  "  General  Prologue,"  1.  742. 

23 


338       •     ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

elapsed.  As  to  the  Anglo-Saxons,  he  retained,  as  did 
the  nation,  but  without  being  aware  of  it,  something  of 
their  grave  and  powerful  genius  ;  it  is  not  his  fault  if  he 
ignored  these  ancestors  ;  every  one  in  his  day  ignored  them, 
even  such  thinkers  as  Langland,  in  whom  lived  again 
with  most  force  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Germanic  race. 
The  tradition  was  broken  ;  in  the  literary  past  one  went 
back  to  the  Conquest,  and  thence  without  transition  to 
"  thise  olde  gentil  Britons."  In  his  enumeration  of  cele- 
brated bards,  Chaucer  gives  a  place  to  Orpheus,  to  Orion, 
and  to  the  "  Bret  Glascurion "  ;  but  no  author  of  any 
"  Beowulf"  is  named  by  him.  Shakespeare,  in  the  same 
manner,  will  derive  inspiration  from  the  national  past  ;  he 
will  go  back  to  the  time  of  the  Roses,  to  the  time  of  the 
Plantagenets,  to  the  time  of  Magna  Charta,  and,  passing 
over  the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  he  will  take  from  the  Britons 
the  stories  of  Lear  and  of  Cymbeline. 

The  brilliancy  with  which  Chaucer  used  this  new  tongue, 

the  instant  fame  of  his  works,  the  clear  proof  afforded  by  his 

writings  that  English  could  fit  the  .highest  and  the  lowest 

themes,  assured  to  that  idiom  its  definitive  place  among  the 

great    literary  languages.     English  still  had,  in  Chaucer's 

day,  a  tendency  to  resolve  itself  into  dialects  ;  as,  in   the 

time  of  the  Conquest,  the  kingdom  had  still  a  tendency  to 

resolve  itself  into  sub-kingdoms.     Chaucer  knew  this,  and 

was    concerned    about    it  ;    he    was    anxious    about    those 

differences  of  tongue,  of  orthography,  and  of  vocabulary  ; 

he  did  all  in  his  power  to  regularise  these  discordances  ;  he 

had  set  ideas  on  the  subject  ;  and,  what  was  rare  in  those 

days,  the  whims  of  copyists  made  him  shudder.     Nothing 

shows   better  the  faith   he  had  in    the  English  tongue,  as 

a  literary  language,  than  his  reiterated  injunctions  to  the 

readers  and  scribes  who  shall  read  his  poems  aloud  or  copy 

them.     He  experiences  already,  concerning  his  work,  the 

anxieties  of  the  poets  of  the  Renaissance  : 


CHA  UCER.  339 

And  for  ther  is  so  greet  diversitee 
In  English,  and  in  writyng  of  our  tonge, 
So  preye  I  God,  that  noon  miswryte  thee, 
Ne  thee  mysmetre  for  defaute  of  tonge, 
And  red  wher-so  thou  be,  or  elles  songe, 
That  thou  be  understonde  I  God  beseche  ! ' 

Chaucer  himself  looked  over  the  transcriptions  done 
from  his  original  manuscripts  by  his  amanuensis  Adam  ; 
he  corrected  with  minute  care  every  fault  ;  he  calls  down 
all  manner  of  woe  upon  the  "scriveyn's"  head,  if,  copy- 
ing once  more  "  Boece  "  or  "  Troilus,"  he  leaves  as  many 
errors  again.2  We  seem  to  hear  Ronsard  himself  addressing 
his  supplications  to  the  reader  :  "  I  implore  of  you  one 
thing  only,  reader,  to  pronounce  well  my  verses  and  suit 
your  voice  to  their  passion  .  .  .  and  I  implore  you  again, 
where  you  will  see  this  sign  :  (!)  to  raise  your  voice  a  little, 
to  give  grace  to  what  you  read."  3 

Chaucer's  efforts  were  not  exercised  in  vain  ;  they  assisted 
the  work  of  concentration.  After  him,  the  dialects  lost 
their  importance ;  the  one  he  used,  the  East  Midland 
dialect,  has  since  become  the  language  of  the  nation. 

His  verse,  too,  is  the  verse  of  the  new  literature,  formed 

by  a  compromise  between  the  old  and  the   new  prosody. 

Alliteration,  which  is  not  yet  dead,  and  which  is  still  used 

in  his  time,   he  does    not  like  ;  its   jingle    seems   to    him 

ridiculous  : 

I  can  nat  geste — run,  ram,  ruf — by  lettre.4 

1  "  Troilus,"  Book  v.  st.  257. 

2  "  Chaucer's  wordes  unto  Adam,  hisowne  Scriveyn,"  in  "  Complete  Works," 
vol.  i.  p.  379. 

3  "Je  te  suppliray  seulement  d'une  chose,  lecteur,  de  vouloir  bien  pro- 
noncer  mes  vers  et  accomoder  ta  voix  a  leur  passion  .  .  .  et  je  te  supplie 
encore  de  rechef,  oil  tu  verras  cette  marque :  (!)  vouloir  un  peu  eslever  ta  voix 
pour  donner  grace  a  ce  que  tu  liras. "     Preface  of  the  "  Franciade.' 

4  So  says  the  Parson,  who  adds  : 

Ne,  God  wot,  rym  holde  I  but  litel  bettre. 

Parson's  Prologue,   1.   43.       It  will   be    observed  that  while    naming  simply 
rhyme,  he  caricatures  alliteration. 


340  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Ridiculous,  too,  in  his  eyes  is  the  "  rym  dogerel  "  of  the 
popular  romances  of  which  "  Sir  Thopas "  is  the  type. 
His  verse  is  the  rhymed  verse,  with  a  fixed  number  of 
accents  or  beats,  and  a  variable  number  of  syllables.  Nearly 
all  the  "  Tales  "  are  written  in  heroic  verse,  rhyming  two 
by  two  in  couplets  and  containing  five  accentuated  syllables. 

The  same  cheerful,  tranquil  common  sense  which  made 
him  adopt  the  language  of  his  country  and  the  usual  versi- 
fication, which  prevented  him  from  reacting  with  excess 
against  received  ideas,  also  prevented  his  harbouring  out  of 
patriotism,  piety,  or  pride,  any  illusions  about  his  country, 
his  religion,  or  his  time.  He  belonged  to  them,  however, 
as  much  as  any  one,  and  loved  and  honoured  them  more 
than  anybody.  Still  the  impartiality  of  judgment  of  this 
former  prisoner  of  the  French  is  wonderful,  superior  even 
to  Froissart's,  who,  the  native  of  a  border-country,  was  by 
birth  impartial,  but  who,  as  age  crept  on,  showed  in  the 
revision  of  his  "  Chronicles  "  decided  preferences.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  century  Froissart,  like  the  Limousin  and 
the  Saintonge,  ranked  among  the  conquests  recovered  by 
France.  Chaucer,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his 
career,  continues  the  same,  and  the  fact  is  all  the  more 
remarkable  because  his  turn  of  mind,  his  inspiration  and 
his  literary  ideal,  become  more  and  more  English  as  he 
grows  older.  He  remains  impartial,  or,  rather,  outside  the 
great  dispute,  in  which,  however,  he  had  actually  taken 
part  ;  his  works  do  not  contain  a  single  line  directed 
against  France,  nor  even  any  praise  of  his  country  in 
which  it  is  extolled  as  the  successful  rival  of  its  neighbour. 
For  this  cause  Des  Champs,  a  great  enemy  of  the  Eng- 
lish, who  had  not  only  ravaged  the  kingdom  in  general 
but  burnt  down  his  own  private  country  house,  made  an 
exception  in  his  hatred,  and  did  homage  to  the  wisdom 
and  genius  of  the  "  noble  Geoffrey  Chaucer,"  the  ornament 
of  the  "  kingdom  of  Eneas,"  England, 


CHAUCER.  341 

V. 

The  composition  of  the  "  Canterbury  Tales  "  occupied 
the  last  years  of  Chaucer's  life.  During  the  same  period  he 
also  wrote  his  "  Treatise  on  the  Astrolabe  "  in  prose,  for 
the  instruction  of  his  son  Lewis,1  and  a  few  detached 
poems,  melancholy  pieces  in  which  he  talks  of  shunning 
the  world  and  the  crowd,  asks  the  prince  to  help  him  in 
his  poverty,  retreats  into  his  inner  self,  and  becomes  graver 
and  more  and  more  resigned  : 

Fie  fro  the  prees,  and  dwelle  with  sothfastnesse, 
Suffyce  unto  thy  good,  though  hit  be  smal.  .  .  . 
Forth,  pilgrim,  forth  !     Forth,  beste  out  of  thy  stal  !  .  .  . 
Hold  the  hye  wey,  and  lat  thy  gost  thee  lede : 
And  trouth  shal  delivere,  hit  is  no  drede.2 

In  spite  of  this  melancholy,  he  was  at  that  time  the  un- 
contested king  of  English  letters  ;  a  life-long  friendship 
bound  him  to  Gower 3 ;  the  young  poets,  Hoccleve, 
Scogan,  Lydgate,  came  to  him  and  proclaimed  him  their 
master.  His  face,  the  features  of  which  are  known  to  us, 
thanks  to  the  portrait  we  owe  to  Hoccleve,  had  gained  an 
expression  of  gentle  gravity  ;  he  liked  better  to  listen  than 
to  talk,  and,  in  the  "  Canterbury  Tales,"  the  host  rallies  him 
on  his  pensive  air  and  downcast  eyes  : 

"  What  man  artow  ?  "  quod  he  ; 
"  Thou  lokest  as  thou  woldest  finde  an  hare, 
For  ever  up-on  the  ground  I  see  thee  stare." 


1  1391,  in  "Complete  Works,"  vol.  hi.  On  that  other,  possible  son  of 
Chaucer,  Thomas,  see  ibid. ,  vol.  i.  p.  xlviii. ,  and  above,  p.  273. 

3  "Truth,"  or  "  Balade  de  bon  Conseyl,"  in  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  i.  p. 
390.  Belonging  to  the  same  period  :  "  Lak  of  Stedfastnesse"  (advice  to  the 
king  himself) ;  "  L'Envoy  de  Chaucer  a  Scogan  "  ;  "  L' Envoy  de  Chaucer  a 
Bukton,"  on  marriage,  with  an  allusion  to  the  Wife  of  Bath;  "  The  Com- 
pleynt  of  Venus"  ;  "The  Compleint  of  Chaucer  to  his  empty  purse,"  &c, 
all  in  vol  i.  of  "  Complete  Works." 

3  It  has  been  said,  but  without  sufficient  cause,  that  this  friendship  came  to 
an  end  some  time  before  the  death  of  Chaucer. 


342  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Age  had  bestowed  on  him  a  corpulency  which  made  him 
a  match  for  Harry  Bailey  himself.1 

When  Henry  IV.  mounted  the  throne,  within  the  four 
days  that  followed  his  accession,  he  doubled  the  pension  of 
the  poet  (Oct.  3,  1399),  who  then  hired,  for  two  pounds 
thirteen  shillings  and  four  pence  ayear,a  house  in  the  garden 
of  St.  Mary's,  Westminster.  The  lease  is  still  preserved  in 
the  archives  of  the  Abbey.2  He  passed  away  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  in  that  tranquil  retreat,  and  was  interred  at  West- 
minster, not  far  from  the  sepulchres  where  slept  his  patrons, 
Edward  III.  and  Richard  II.,  in  that  wing  of  the  transept 
which  has  since  been  called  the  Poets'  Corner,  where  lately 
we  saw  Browning's  coffin  lowered,  and  where,  but  yesterday, 
Tennyson's  was  laid. 

No  English  poet  enjoyed  a  fame  more  constantly  equal 
to  itself.  In  the  fifteenth  century  writers  did  scarcely 
anything  but  lament  and  copy  him  :  "  Maister  deere,"  said 
Hoccleve, 

O  maister  deere  and  fadir  reverent, 

Mi  maister  Chaucer,  flour  of  eloquence, 
Mirour  of  fructuous  entendement, 

O  universal  fadir  of  science, 

Alias  that  thou  thyn  excellent  prudence 

In  thi  bed  mortel  mightist  noght  byquethe  !3 

At  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  Caxton  printed  his 
works  twice,4  and  Henry  VIII.  made  an  exception  in  their 
favour  in  his  prohibition  of  "  printed  bokes,  printed  balades, 


1  He  in  the  waast  is  shape  as  wel  as  I. 

(Prologue  to  Sir  Thopas. ) 

2  To  be  seen  (1894)  under  glass  in  the  Chapter  House. 

3  "  Hoccleve's  Works,"  ed.  Furnivall,  E.E.T.S.,  1892,  vol.  i.  p.  xxi. 

4  One  ab.  1478,  the  other  ab.  1484  ;  this  last  is  illustrated.  See  in  "  English 
Novel  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare,"  p.  45,  a  facsimile  of  the  woodcut  repre- 
senting the  pilgrims  seated  at  the  table  of  the  Tabard  inn. 


CHA  UCER.  343 

.  .  .  and  other  fantasies."  J  Under  Elizabeth,  Thynne  an- 
notated them,2  Spenser  declared  that  he  "  of  Tityrus,"  that 
is  of  Chaucer,  "his  songs  did  lere,"  3  and  Sidney  exalted 
him  to  the  skies. 4  In  the  seventeenth  century  Dryden 
rejuvenates  his  tales ;  in  the  eighteenth  century  the 
admiration  is  universal,  and  extends  to  Pope  and  Walpole.5 
In  our  time  the  learned  men  of  all  countries  have  applied 
themselves  to  the  task  of  commentating  his  works  and  of 
disentangling  his  biography  ;  a  Society  has  been  founded 
to  publish  the  best  texts  of  his  writings,6  and  but  lately 
his  "  Legend  of  Good  Women  "  inspired  with  an  exquisite 
poem  the  Laureate  who  sleeps  to-day  close  to  the  great 
ancestor,  beneath  the  stones  of  the  famous  Abbey. 

1  "  Animadversions  uppon  the  Annotacions  and  corrections  of  some  imperfec- 
tions of  impressiones  of  Chaucers  workes  ..."  by  Francis  Thynne,  ed.  Furnivall 
and  Kingsley,  Chaucer  Society,  1876,  p.  xiv. 

2  Ibid. 

3  "  Shepheard's  Calender,"  December. 

*  "  Of  whom,  truly  I  know  not,  whether  to  mervaile  more,  either  that  he  in 
that  mistie  time  could  see  so  clearly,  or  that  wee  in  this  cleare  age  walke  so 
stumblingly  after  him."     "  Apologie  for  Poetrie,"  ed.  Arber,  p.  62. 

5  The  subject  of  Chaucer's  fame  is  treated  at  great  length  in  Lounsbury's 
"  Studies  in  Chaucer,  his  life  and  writings,"  London,  1892,  3  vols.  8vo,  vol.  hi. 
ch.  vii.,  "  Chaucer  in  Literary  History." 

6  The  Chaucer  Society,  founded  by  Dr.  Furnivall,  which  has  published  among 
other  things  :  the  "Six-text  edition  of  the  Canterbury  Tales";  some  "Life 
Records  of  Chaucer";  various  "  Essays"  on  questions  concerning  the  poet's 
works  ;  a  collection  of  "  Originals  and  Analogues  "  illustrative  of  the  "  Canter- 
bury Tales,"  &c.  Among  modern  tributes  paid  to  Chaucer  may  be  added 
Wordsworth's  modernisation  of  part  of  "  Troilus  "  (John  Morley's  ed.  ,p.  165), 
and  Lowell's  admirable  essay  in  his  "  Study  Windows." 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE  GROUP  OF  POETS. 

The  nation  was  young,  virile,  and  productive.  Around 
Chaucer  was  a  whole  swarm  of  poets  ;  he  towers  above 
them  as  an  oak  towers  above  a  coppice  ;  but  the  oak  is  not 
isolated  like  the  great  trees  that  are  sometimes  seen  beneath 
the  sun,  alone  in  the  midst  of  an  open  country.  Chaucer  is 
without  peer  but  not  without  companions  ;  and,  among 
those  companions,  one  at  least  deserves  to  be  ranked  very 
near  him. 

He  has  companions  of  all  kinds,  nearly  as  diverse  as 
those  with  whom  he  had  associated  on  the  road  to  Canter- 
bury. Some  are  continuators  of  the  old  style,  and  others 
are  reformers  ;  some  there  are,  filled  with  the  dreamy  spirit 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons  ;  there  are  others  who  care  little  for 
dreams  and  theories,  who  are  of  the  world,  and  will  not 
leave  the  earth  ;  some  who  sing,  others  who  hum,  others 
who  talk.  Certain  poems  are  like  clarions,  and  celebrate 
the  battle  of  Crecy,  of  which  Chaucer  had  not  spoken  ; 
others  resemble  lovers'  serenades  ;  others  a  dirge  for  the 
dead. 

I. 

The  old  styles  are  continued  ;  the  itinerant  poets,  jug- 
glers, and  minstrels  have  not  disappeared  ;  on  the  con- 
trary,   they    are    more    numerous    than    ever.       "  Merry 

344 


THE    GROUP   OF  POETS.  345 

England  "  favours  them  ;  they  continue  to  play,  as  under 
the  first  Angevins,1  a  very  considerable  and  multiple  part, 
which  it  is  difficult  to  estimate.  Those  people,  with  their 
vast  memory,  are  like  perambulating  libraries;  they  instruct, 
they  amuse,  they  edify.  Passing  from  county  to  county, 
hawking  news,  composing  satirical  songs,  they  fill  also 
the  place  of  a  daily  gazette  ;  they  represent  public  opinion, 
sometimes  create  it,  and  often  distort  it ;  they  are  living 
newspapers  ;  they  furnish  their  auditors  with  information 
about  the  misdeeds  of  the  Government,  which,  from  time  to 
time,  seizes  the  most  talkative,  and  imprisons  them  to  keep 
them  silent.  The  king  has  minstrels  in  his  service  ;  they 
are  great  personages  in  their  way,  pensioned  by  the  prince 
and  despising  the  others.  The  nobles  also  keep  some  in 
their  pay,  which  does  not  prevent  their  welcoming  those 
who  pass  ;  they  feast  them  when  they  have  sung  well,  and 
give  them  furred  robes  and  money.2 

They  continue  to  prosper  in  the  following  century.  We 
see  at  that  time  the  king  of  England's  minstrels,  people 
clever  and  of  good  instruction,  protesting  against  the 
increasing  audacity  of  sham  minstrels,  whose  ignorance 
casts  discredit  on  the  profession.  "  Uncultured  peasants," 
says  the  king  in  a  vengeful  statute,  "  and  workmen  of 
different  kinds  in  our  kingdom  of  England  .  .  .  have  given 
themselves  out  to  be  our  own  minstrels."  3     Without  any 

1  See  above,  p.  162. 

2  Against  those  practices  Langland  strongly  protests  in  his  "  Visions,"  text 
C.  x.  133  ;  xvi.  200.     See  following  Chapter. 

3  Rymer,  "  Fcedera,"  April  24,  1469.  The  classic  instrument  of  the 
minstrel  was  the  vielle  or  viol,  a  sort  of  violin,  which  only  true  artists  knew 
how  to  use  well  (one  is  reproduced  in  "  English  Wayfaring  Life,"  p.  202). 
Therefore  many  minstrels  early  replaced  this  difficult  instrument  by  the 
common  tabor,  which  sufficed  to  mark  the  cadence  of  their  chants.  Many 
other  musical  instruments  were  known  in  the  Middle  Ages  ;  a  list  of  them 
has  been  drawn  up  by  H.  Lavoix  :  "  La  Musique  au  temps  de  St.  Louis,  '  in 
G.  Raynaud's  "  Recueil  des  motets  francais  desXIIe  et  XIIIe  Siecles,"  vol.  ii. 
p.  321. 


346        -  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

experience  or  understanding  of  the  art,  they  go  from  place 
to  place  on  festival  days,  and  gather  all  the  money  that 
should  have  enriched  the  true  artists,  those  who  really 
devote  themselves  to  their  profession  and  ply  no  manual 
craft.  Vain  efforts  ;  decline  was  imminent  ;  minstrels  were 
not  to  recover  their  former  standing.  The  Renaissance  and 
the  Reformation  came  ;  and,  owing  to  the  printing-press, 
gay  scavoir  found  other  means  of  spreading  through  the 
country.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  it  is  true,  minstrels  still 
abound,  but  they  are  held  in  contempt  ;  right-minded 
people,  like  Philip  Stubbes,  have  no  terms  strong  enough 
to  qualify  "  suche  drunken  sockets  and  bawdye  parasits  as 
range  the  cuntreyes,  ryming  and  singing  of  uncleane, 
corrupt,  and  filthie  songes  in  tavernes,  ale-houses,  innes, 
and  other  publique  assemblies.  .  .  .  Every  towne,  citie, 
and  countrey  is  full  of  these  minstrelles  to  pype  up  a  dance 
to  the  devil  1 ;  but  of  dy vines,  so  few  there  be  as  they  maye 
hardly  be  seene."  x 

Before  this  awful  time  comes  for  them,  however,  the 
minstrels  thrive  under  the  last  Plantagenets.  Their  bill  is 
a  varied  one,  and  includes  the  best  and  the  worst  ;  they 
sometimes  recite  the  "  Troilus  "  of  Chaucer,2  and  sometimes 
the  ancient  romances  of  chivalry,  altered,  spoiled,  shorn  of 
all  their  poetry.  Chaucer  had  ridiculed  these  versions  of 
the  old  heroic  stories,  written  in  tripping  verses,  but  in  vain- 
Throughout  his  life,  after  as  well  as  before  "  Sir  Thopas," 
he  could  wonder  and  laugh  at  the  success  of  stories,  com- 
posed in  the  very  style  of  his  own  burlesque  poem,  about 
heroes  who,  being  all  peerless,  are  necessarily  all  alike  :  one 

i 

T  "  Anatomy  of  Abuses,"  ed.  Furnivall,  London,  1877-79,  8V°>  PP-  I7I» 
172. 

2  Chaucer  himself  expected  his  poem  to  be  said  or  sung  ;  he  says  to  his 
book  : 

And  red  wher-so  thou  be,  or  elles  songe  ; 
That  thou  be  understonde,  I  God  beseche  ! 

(Book  v.  st.  257.) 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  347 

is  "  stalworthe  and  vvyghte,"  another  "  hardy  and  wyght," 
a  third  also  "  hardy  and  wyght  "  ;  and  the  fourth,  fifth, 
and  hundredth  are  equally  brave  and  invincible.  They 
are  called  Isumbras,  Eglamour,  Degrevant *  ;  but  they 
differ  in  their  names  and  in  nothing  more.  The  booksellers 
of  the  Renaissance  who  printed  their  histories  could  make 
the  same  woodcut  on  the  cover  serve  for  all  their  portraits. 
By  merely  altering  the  name  beneath,  they  changed  all 
there  was  to  change  ;  one  and  the  same  block  did  duty  in 
turn  for  Romulus  or  Robert  the  Devil.2  Specimens  of  this 
facile  art  swarm  indefinitely  ;  they  are  scattered  over  the 
country,  penetrate  into  hamlets,  find  their  way  into  cot- 
tages, and  make  the  people  acquainted  with  the  doughty 
deeds  of  Eglamour  and  Roland.  We  now  find  ourselves 
really  in  the  copse. 

In  the  middle  of  the  copse  are  trees  of  finer  growth. 
Some  among  the  poets,  while  conforming  to  the  old  style, 
improve  upon  their  models  as  they  proceed  ;  they  add  an 
original  note  of  their  own,  and  on  that  account  deserve  to 

1  I  wille  yow  telle  of  a  knyghte 
That  bothe  was  stalworthe  and  wyghte. 
,  (Isumbras.) 

Y  schalle  telle  yow  of  a  knyght 
That  was  bothe  hardy  and  wyght. 

(Eglamour.) 

And  y  schalle  karppe  off  a  knyght 
That  was  both  hardy  and  wyght. 

(Degrevant. ) 

"  The  Thornton  Romances,"  ed.  Halliwell  (Camden  Society,  1844,  pp.  88, 
121,  177),  from  a  MS.  preserved  in  the  cathedral  of  Lincoln,  that  contains 
romances,  recipes,  prayers,  &c,  copied  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
on  more  ancient  texts.  See  notes  on  many  similar  romances  in  Ward's  "  Cata- 
logue of  MS.  Romances,"  1883,  vol.  i.  pp.  760  ff. 

2  See  in  "English  Novel  in  the  Time  of  Shakespeare,"  pp.  57  and  65, 
facsimiles  of  woodcuts  which  served  about  1510  and  1560  to  represent,  the 
first,  Romulus,  Robert  the  Devil,  &c,  the  second,  Guy  of  Warwick,  Graund 
Amoure,  and  the  "  Squyr  of  Lowe  Degre. " 


348  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

be  listened  to.  Far  above  those  empty,  tripping  metrical 
stories,  and  superior  even  to  "  Morte  Arthure "  and  to 
"  William  of  Palerne,"  r  written  in  English  verse  at  the 
time  of  Chaucer,  ranks  "  Sir  Gavvayne  and  the  Green 
Knight,"  2  being  incomparably  the  best  specimen  of  the 
style.  Instead  of  puppets  with  jerky  movements,  and 
wooden  joints  that  we  hear  crack,  the  English  poet  shows 
in  this  work  real  men  and  women,  with  supple  limbs  and 
red  lips  ;  elegant,  graceful,  and  charming  to  behold. 
These  knights  and  ladies  in  their  well-fitting  armour  or 
their  tight  dresses,  whom  we  see  stretched  in  churches  on 
their  fourteenth-century  tombs,  have  come  back  to  life 
once  more  ;  and  now  they  move,  they  gaze  on  each  other, 
they  love  again. 

On  Christmas  day,  in  presence  of  Arthur  and  his 
whole  Court,  Sir  Gawayne  cuts  off  the  head  of  the  Green 
Knight.  This  giant  knight  is  doubtless  an  enchanter,  for 
he  stoops,  picks  up  his  head,  and,  remounting  his  horse, 
bids  Sir  Gawayne  meet  him  a  year  hence  at  the  Green 
Chapel,  where  he  will  give  him  blow  for  blow. 

The  year  passes.  Gawayne  leaves  the  Court  with  his 
horse    "  Gringolet,"   and   without    quitting    England,   rides 

1  Both  published  by  the  Early  English  Text  Society  :  "  Morte  Arthure,"  ed. 
Brock,  1871  ;  "William  of  Palerne,"  ed  Skeat,  1S67.  Both  are  in  alliterative 
verse;  the  first  composed  about  the  end,  and  the  second  about  the  middle, 
of  the  fourteenth  century. 

2  The  unique  MS.  of  this  poem  is  in  the  British  Museum  :  Cotton,  Nero 
A  IO.  It  is  of  small  size,  and  in  a  good  handwriting  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
but  the  ink  is  faded.  It  contains  some  curious,  though  not  fine,  miniatures, 
representing  the  Green  Knight  leaving  the  Court,  his  head  in  his  hand  ; 
Gawayne  and  his  hostess  ;  the  scene  at  the  Green  Chapel ;  the  return  to  King 
Arthur.  The  text  has  been  published,  e.g.,  by  R.  Morris  :  "  Sir  Gawayne 
and  the  Green  Knight,  an  alliterative  romance  poem,"  London,  Early  English 
Text  Society,  1864,  8vo.  The  date  assigned  to  the  poem  by  Morris  (1320-30) 
seems  to  be  too  early  ;  the  work  belongs  more  probably  to  the  second  half  of 
the  century.  The  immediate  original  of  the  tale  is  not  known ;  it  was,  how- 
ever, certainly  a  French  poem.  See  on  this  subject  Ward,  "Catalogue  of 
Romances,"  1883,  p.  387,  and  G.  Paris,  "  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France," 
vol.  xxx. 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  349 

through  unknown  lands,  having  no  one  to  speak  to  save 
God.  He  reaches  the  gate  of  a  splendid  castle,  and  is 
welcomed  by  a  knight  of  ordinary  stature,  under  whose 
present  appearance  he  does  not  recognise  his  adversary 
the  giant.  Three  days  are  left  before  the  date  of  the  tryst ; 
they  are  spent  in  amusements.  The  knight  goes  daily  to 
hunt  ;  he  agrees  to  give  all  his  game  to  his  guest,  who 
remains  at  home  with  the  lady  of  the  castle,  the  most 
beautiful  woman  ever  seen,  on  condition  that  Gawayne,  in 
his  turn,  will  give  him  what  he  has  taken  during  his 
absence.  Every  night  they  gaily  sup  in  the  hall  ;  a  bright 
light  burns  on  the  walls,  the  servants  set  up  wax  torches, 
and  serve  at  table.  The  meal  is  cheered  by  music  and 
"  caroles  newe," *  jests,  and  the  laughter  of  ladies.2  At 
three  o'clock  each  morning  the  lord  of  the  castle  rises, 
hears  mass,  and  goes  a-hunting.  Gawayne  is  awakened 
from  sleep  by  his  hostess  ;  she  enters  his  room,  with  easy 
and  graceful  movements,  dressed  in  a  "  mery  mantyle  "  and 
furred  gown,  trailing  on  the  floor,  but  very  low  in  the 
neck : 

Hir  breste  bare  bifore,  and  bihinde  eke. 

She  goes  to  the  window,  opens  it,  and  says,  "  with  hir  riche 
wordes  "  : 

A  !  mon,  hou  may  thou  sleep, 
This  morning  is  so  clere !  3 

She  seats  herself,  and  refuses  to  go.     Gawayne  is  assailed 

1  Much  glam  and  gle  glent  up  ther-inne, 

Aboute  the  fyre  upon  flat  (floor)  and  on  fele  (many)  wyse, 

At  the  soper  and  after,  mony  athel  songez, 

As  coundutes  of  Kryst-masse  and  caroles  newe.   .   .   . 

2  With  merthe  and  mynstralsye,  wyth  metez  at  hor  wylle, 
Thay  maden  as  mery  as  any  men  moghten 

With  laghyng  of  ladies,  with  lotes  of  bordes  (play  upon  words). 

(1.  1952.) 

3  1.  1746. 


350  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

by  terrible  temptations.'  The  thought  of  the  Green  Chapel, 
fortunately,  helps  him  to  overcome  them,  and  the  first, 
second,  and  third  night  his  fair  friend  finds  him  equally 
coy.  She  kisses  him  once,  twice,  thrice,  and  jeers  at  him 
for  forgetting  each  day  what  she  had  taught  him  on  the 
previous  one,  namely,  to  kiss.  When  the  hunter  returns 
in  the  evening,  Gawayne  gives  him  the  kisses  he  has 
received  in  exchange  for  the  spoils  of  the  chase :  a  buck, 
a  boar,  and  a  fox.  He  had,  however,  accepted  besides  a 
marvellous  belt,  which  protected  the  wearer  from  all 
danger,  but  he  says  nothing  about  this,  and  puts  it  on  : 
"  Aux  grands  cceurs  donnez  quelques  faiblesses,"  our 
author  obviously  thinks,  with  Boileau. 

On  the  fourth  day  Gawayne  starts  with  a  guide,  and 
reaches  the  Green  Chapel  ;  the  Green  Giant  is  there, 
ready  to  give  him  back  the  blow  received  a  year  before. 
Gawayne  stoops  his  head  under  the  dreadful  axe,  and  just 
as  it  falls  cannot  help  bending  his  shoulders  a  little.  You 
are  not  that  Gawayne,  says  the  giant,  held  in  such  high 
esteem.  At  this,  Arthur's  knight  straightens  himself; 
the  giant  lifts  his  axe  again  and  strikes,  but  only  inflicts  a 
slight  wound.  All  is  now  explained  :  for  the  kisses 
Gawayne  should  have  received  mortal  blows,  but  he  gave 
them  back  ;  he  kept  the  belt,  however,  and  this  is  why  he 
will  bear  through  life  a  scar  on  his  neck.  Vexed,  he  throws 
away  the  belt,  but  the  giant  returns  it  to  him,  and  consoles 
him  by  admitting  that  the  trial  was  a  superhuman  one, 
that  he  himself  is  Bernlak  de  Haut-Desert,  and  that  his 
guest  has  been  the  sport  of  "  Morgan  the  fairy,"  the  com- 
panion of  his  hostess  : 

Thurgh  myght  of  Morgne  la  Faye  that  in  my  hous  lenges  (dwells). 

Gawayne  declares  that  should  he  ever  be  tempted  by 
pride,  he  need  only  look  at  the  belt,  and  the  temptation 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  351 

will  vanish.  He  rejoins  Arthur  and  his  peers,  and  tells 
his  adventures,  which  afford  food  both  for  laughter  and  for 
admiration. 

The  poem  is  anonymous.  The  same  manuscript  con- 
tains another,  on  a  totally  different  subject,  which  seems  to 
be  by  the  same  author.  This  poem  has  been  called  "  The 
Pearl  ;  "  l  it  is  a  song  of  mourning.  It  must  have  been 
written  some  time  after  the  sad  event  which  it  records, 
when  the  bitterness  of  sorrow  had  softened.  The  land- 
scape is  bathed  in  sunlight,  the  hues  are  wonderfully 
bright.  The  poet  has  lost  his  daughter,  his  pearl,  who  is 
dead  ;  his  pearl  has  fallen  in  the  grass,  and  he  has  been 
unable  to  find  it  ;  he  cannot  tear  himself  away  from  the 
spot  where  she  had  been.  He  entered  in  that  arbour 
green  ;  it  was  August,  that  sunny  season,  when  the  corn 
has  just  fallen  under  the  sickle  ;  there  the  pearl  had 
"  trendeled  doun "  among  the  glittering,  richly-coloured 
plants,  gilly-flowers,  gromwell  seed,  and  peonies,  splendid 
in  their  hues,  sweeter  in  their  smell.2     He  sees  a  forest, 

1  "  Pearl,  an  English  Poem  of  the  Fourteenth  Century,  edited  with  modern 
rendering  by  Israel  Gollancz,"  London,  1891,  8vo..  The  poem  is  written  in 
stanzas  {ababababbcbc);  the  author  employs  both  rhyme  and  alliteration. 
"Pearl"  belongs  apparently,  like  "Sir  Gawayne,"  and  some  other  poems  on 
religious  subjects,  contained  in  the  same  MS.,  to  the  second  half  of  the 
fourteenth  century  ;  there  are,  however,  doubts  and  discussions  concerning 
the  date.  Some  coarsely-painted  miniatures,  by  no  means  corresponding  to 
the  gracefulness  of  the  poem,  represent  the  chief  incidents  of  "Pearl ;  "  they 
are  by  the  same  hand  as  those  of  "  Sir  Gawayne."  See  the  reproduction  of 
one  of  them  in  "  Piers  Plowman,  a  contribution  to  the  History  of  English 
Mysticism,"  London,  1894,  8vo,  p.  12. 


3 


I  entred  in  that  erber  grene, 

In  Augoste  in  a  hygh  seysoun, 

Quen  come  is  corven  with  crokez  kene  ; 

On  huyle  ther  perle  it  trendeled  doun  ; 

Schadowed  this  wortes  (plants)  full  schyre  and  schene, 

Gilofre,  gyngure  and  gromylyoun, 

And  pyonys  powdered  ay  betwene. 

Yil  hit  wacz  semly  on  to  sene, 

A  fayne  fiayr  yet  fro  hit  flot.     (St.  4.) 


352  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

rocks  that  glisten  in  the  sun,  banks  of  crystal  ;  birds  sing 
in  the  branches,  and  neither  cistern  nor  guitar  ever  made 
sweeter  music.  The  sound  of  waters,  too,  is  heard  ;  a 
brook  glides  over  pebbles  shining  like  the  stars  in  a 
winter's  night,  at  the  hour  when  the  weary  sleep.1 

So  great  is  the  beauty  of  the  place  that  the  father's  grief 
is  soothed,  and  he  has  a  marvellous  vision.  On  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  stream  he  sees  a  maiden  clothed  in  white  ; 
and  as  he  gazes  he  suddenly  recognises  her  :  O  pearl  art 
thou  in  sooth  my  pearl,  so  mourned  and  wept  for  through 
so  many  nights  ?  Touching  and  consoling  is  the  answer  : 
Thou  hast  lost  no  pearl,  and  never  hadst  one  ;  that  thou 
lost  was  but  a  rose,  that  flowered  and  faded  ;  now  only 
has  the  rose  become  a  pearl  for  ever.2  The  father  follows 
his  child  to  where  a  glimpse  can  be  caught  of  the  Celestial 
City,  with  its  flowers  and  jewels,  the  mystic  lamb,  and  the 
procession  of  the  elect  ;  it  seems  as  if  the  poet  were 
describing  beforehand,  figure  by  figure,  Van  Eyck's  paint- 
ing at  St.  Bavon  of  Ghent. 

II. 

An  immense  copse  surrounds  the  oak.  About  Chaucer 
swarm  innumerable  minstrels,  anonymous  poets,  rhyming 
clerks,  knightly  ballad    makers.3       The    fragile  works    of 

1  As  stremande  sternes  quen  strothe  men  slepe, 
Staren  in  welkyn  in  wynter  nyght.      (St.  IO.) 

2  For  that  thou  lestes  wacs  bot  a  rose, 

That  flowred  and  fayled  as  kynde  hit  gefe.    (St.  23.) 

3  The  principal  collections  containing  lyrical  works  and  popular  ballads  of 
that  period  are  :  "  Ancient  Son<;s  and  Ballads  from  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  to 
the  Revolution,"  collected  by  John  Ritson,  revised  by  W.  C.  Hazlitt,  London, 
1877,  121110  ;  "  Specimens  of  Lyric  Poetry,  composed  in  England  in  the  reign 
of  Edward  I.,"  ed.  Th.  Wright,  Percy  Society,  1842,  Svo ;  "  Reliquia? 
Antique,  scraps  from  ancient  MSS.  illustrating  chiefly  Early  English  Litera- 
ture," ed.  T.  Wright  and  J.   O.  Halliwell,  London,    1841-43,   2  vols.  8vo  ; 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  353 

these  rhyming  multitudes  are  for  the  most  part  lost,  yet 
great  quantities  of  them  still  exist.  They  are  composed 
by  everybody,  and  written  in  the  three  languages  used  by 
the  English  ;  some  being  in  French,  some  in  English,  some 
in  Latin. 

The  Plantagenets  were  an  art-loving  race.  Edward  III. 
never  thought  of  cost  when  it  came  to  painting  and  gilding 
the  walls  of  St.  Stephen's  Chapel  ;  Richard  II.  disliked  a 
want  of  conformity  in  architectural  styles,  and,  having  the 
conscience  of  an  artist,  gave  an  example  of  a  rare  sort  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  for  he  continued  Westminster  Abbey  in 
the  style  of  Henry  III.  Members  of  the  royal  family  were 
known  to  write  verses.  The  hero  of  Poictiers  inserted  in 
his  will  a  piece  of  poetry  in  French,  requesting  that  the 
lines  should  be  graven  on  his  tomb,  where  they  can  still  be 
read  in  Canterbury  Cathedral  :  "  Such  as  thou  wast,  so  was 
I  ;  of  death  I  never  thought  so  long  as  I  lived.  On  earth 
I  enjoyed  ample  wealth,  and  I  used  it  with  great  splendour, 
land,  houses,  and  treasure,  cloth,  horses,  silver  and  gold  ;  but 
now  I  am  poor  and  bereft,  I  lie  under  earth,  my  great  beauty 
is  all  gone.  .  .  .  And  were  you  to  see  me  now,  I  do  not  think 
you  would  believe  that  ever  I  was  a  man."  z 

"  Political  Songs  of  England,  from  the  reign  of  John  to  that  of  Edward  II."  ed. 
Th.  Wright,  Camden  Society,  1839,  4to  ;  "  Songs  and  Carols  now  first  printed 
from  a  MS.  of  the  XVth  Century,"  ed.  Th.  Wright,  Percy  Society,  1847,  8vo  ; 
"Political  Poems  and  Songs,  from  Edward  III.  to  Richard  III.,"  ed.  Th. 
Wright,  Rolls,  1859-61,  2  vols.  Svo;  "Political,  Religious  and  Love  Poems," 
ed.  Furnivall,  London,  Early  English  Text  Society,  1866,  8vo ;  "Bishop 
Percy's  Folio  MS."  ed.  J.  W.  Hales  and  F.  J.  Furnivall,  Ballad  Society,  1867 
8vo;  "The  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads,"  ed.  F.  J.  Child,  Boston, 
1882  ff.  Useful  indications  will  be  found  in  H.  L.  D.  Ward's  "  Catalogue  of 
MS.  Romances  in  the  British  Museum,"  vol.  i.,  1883. 

1  Tiel  come  tu  es  je  autie  fu, 
Tu  seras  til  come  je  su. 
De  la  mort  ne  peusay-je  mie 
Tant  come  j'avoy  la  vie. 
En  terre  avoy  grand  richesse 
Dont  je  y  fis  grand  noblesse, 
24 


354  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

The  nobles  followed  suit  ;  they  put  their  passions  into 
verse  ;  but  all  had  not  sufficient  skill  for  such  delicate 
pastimes.  Many  contented  themselves  with  copying  some 
of  those  ready-made  ballads,  of  which  professional  poets 
supplied  ready-made  collections  ;  just  as  sermons  were 
written  for  the  benefit  of  obtuse  parish  priests,  under  the 
significant  title  of  "  Uormi  Secure  "  *  (Sleep  in  peace,  to- 
morrow's sermon  is  ready).  We  find  also  in  English 
manuscripts  rubrics  like  the  following  :  "  Loo  here  begyn- 
nethe  a  Balade  whiche  that  Lydegate  wrote  at  the  request 
of  a  squyer  y1  served  in  Love's  court."2  In  their  most 
elegant  language,  with  all  the  studied  refinement  of  the 
flowery  style,  the  poets,  writing  to  order,  amplified,  embel- 
lished, and  spoilt  :  "  ce  mot,  le  mot  des  dieux  et  des 
hommes  :  je  t'aime  !  "  We  are  not  even  in  the  copse  now, 
and  we  must  stoop  close  to  earth  in  order  to  see  these 
blossoms  of  a  day. 

Terre,  mesons  et  grand  tresor, 

Draps,  chivalx,  argent  et  or, 

Mes  ore  su-je  povres  et  cheitifs, 

Perfond  en  la  terre  gys, 

Ma  grand  beaute  est  tout  alee  .  .  . 

Et  si  ore  me  veissez, 

Je  he  quide  pas  qe  vous  deeisez 

Qe  j'eusse  onqes  hom  este. 

(Stanley,  "  Historical  Memorials  of  Canterbury.") 

1  Compiled  in  France  in  1395.  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  "la  Chaire  francaise 
au  moyen  age,"  2nd  ed.,  Paris,  1886,  8vo,  p.  334. 

2  MS.  R.  iii.  20,  in  the  Library  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  fol.  33.  In 
the  same  MS.  :  "  A  roundell  made  ...  by  my  lorde  therlle  of  Suffolk  "  : 

Quel  desplaysier,  quel  courous  quel  destresse, 

Quel  griefs,  quelx  mauls  viennent  souvent  d'amours,  &c.  (fol.  36). 

The  author  is  the  famous  Earl,  afterwards  Duke  of  Suffolk,  who  was  beaten 
by  Joan  of  Arc,  who  married  Alice,  daughter  of  Thomas  Chaucer,  and  was 
beheaded  in  1450.  For  ballads  of  the  same  kind,  by  Gower,  see  below,  p.  367. 
The  same  taste  reigned  in  France  ;  without  mentioning  Charles  d'Orleans, 
Pierre  de  Beauveau  writes  :  "  Le  joyeulx  temps  passe  souloit  estre  occasion 
que  je  faisoie  de  plaisant  diz  et  gracieuses  chanconnetes  et  balades."  "  Nou- 
velles  Francoises  du  XIVe  Siecle,"  ed.  Moland  and  d'Hericault,  1S58,  p.  303. 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  355 

Among  men  of  the  people,  and  plain  citizens,  as  well  as 
at  Court,  the  taste  for  ballads  and  songs  imported  from 
France  became  general  in  the  fourteenth  century.  In  the 
streets  of  London,  mere  craftsmen  could  be  heard  singing 
French  burdens  :  for  in  spite  of  the  progress  of  the  national 
tongue,  French  was  not  yet  entirely  superseded  in  Great 
Britain.  Langland  in  his  Visions  has  London  workmen 
who  sing  :  "  Dieu  vous  sauve  dame  Emma."  J  Chaucer's 
good  parson  bears  witness  to  the  popularity  of  another 
song,  and  declares  in  the  course  of  his  sermon  :  "  Wei  may 
that  man  that  no  good  werke  ne  dooth,  singe  thilke  newe 
Frenshe  song:  "Jay  tout  perdu  mon  temps  et  mon 
labour."  2 

In  imitation  of  what  was  done  in  the  northern  provinces 
of  France,  a  Pui  had  been  founded  in  London,  that  is  an 
association  established  for  the  purpose  of  encouraging  the 
art  of  the  chanson,  which  awarded  prizes  to  the  authors  of 
the  best  verses  and  the  best  music.3  In  the  fourteenth 
century  the  Pui  of  London  was  at  the  height  of  its  pros- 
perity ;  it  included  both  foreign  and  English  merchants. 
It  had  been  instituted  so  that  "  jolity,  peace,  courtesy, 
gentleness,  debonairity,  and  love  without  end  might  be 
maintained,  all  good  promoted,  and  evil  prevented."  These 
merchants  of  divers  countries  evidently  agreed  in  thinking 
that  music  softens  the  manners,  and  tried  to  extinguish 
their  quarrels   by  songs.     At   the   head  of  the  Pui  was  a 

1  "  Visions  concerning  Piers  Plowman,"  A.  Prol.  1. 103,  written  about 
1362-3.     See  following  Chapter. 

2  "  Parson's  Tale."—"  Complete  Works,"  vol.  iv.  p.  581. 

3  "  Munimenta  Gildhallse  Londiniensis." — "  Liber  albus,  Liber  custumarum  ; 
Liber  Horn,"  Rolls,  1859,  ed.  Riley.  The  regulations  (in  French)  relating  to 
the  Pui  are  drawn  from  the  "  Liber  Custumarum,"  compiled  in  1320  (14  Ed.  II.), 
pp.  216  ff.  "  The  poetical  competitions  called  puis"  established  in  the  north 
of  France.  "  seem  to  have  given  rise  to  German  and  Dutch  imitations,  such  as 
the  Master  Singers  and  the  Chambers  of  Rhetoric."  G.  Paris,  "  Litterature 
francaise  au  moy en  age,"  paragraph  127.  To  these  we  can  add  the  English 
imitation  which  now  occupies  us. 


356  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

"  prince  "  surrounded  by  twelve  "  compaignouns,"  elected 
by  the  brotherhood,  whose  mission  included  the  duty  of 
pacifying  the  squabblers.  Each  year  a  new  prince  was 
chosen  and  solemnly  enthroned.  On  the  appointed  day 
"  the  old  prince  and  his  companions  must  go  from  one  end 
of  the  hall  to  the  other,  singing  ;  the  old  prince  will  bear 
on  his  head  the  crown  of  the  Pui,  and  have  in  his  hand  a 
gilt  cup  full  of  wine.  And  when  they  shall  have  gone  all 
round,  the  old  prince  must  give  the  one  they  have  elected 
to  drink,  and  also  give  him  the  crown,  and  that  one  shall 
be  prince." 

To  pass  judgment  on  chansons  is  no  trifle,  and  the  deed 
is  surrounded  by  every  precaution  befitting  so  important  a 
sentence.  The  decision  rests  with  the  old  prince  and  the 
new,  assisted  by  about  fifteen  "of  the  most  knowing  among 
the  companions,"  who  are  all  obliged  to  take  a  solemn 
oath  :  "  They  must  find  which  is  the  best  song,  to  the  best 
of  their  capacity,  under  oath  that  they  will  not  fail  for 
love,  for  hate,  for  favour,  for  promise,  for  neighbourhood, 
for  lineage,  for  any  tie  old  or  new,  or  for  any  reason  whatso- 
ever." Moreover,  two  or  three  judges  shall  be  appointed 
"  who  are  skilled  in  singing  and  music,"  to  examine  the 
tune  of  the  song  :  "  For  unless  it  be  accompanied  by  music, 
a  written  text  cannot  be  called  a  cJianson,  neither  can  a 
cJianson  royale  be  crowned  unless  it  be  accompanied  with 
the  sweetness  of  melodious  singing."  The  winner  is  to 
receive  the  crown,  and  his  composition,  copied  and  fairly 
written  out,  will  be  posted  up  in  the  hall,  under  the 
prince's  coat  of  arms  :  "  The  prince  shall  cause  to  be 
fastened  under  his  coat  of  arms  the  song  crowned  on  the 
day  he  was  chosen  to  be  the  new  prince,  clearly  written, 
and  correctly,  without  fault." 

At  one  time  the  Pui  society  was  nearly  ruined,  owing  to 
the  expense  incurred  for  decking  the  hall.  In  future  it 
will  be  more  moderate :  "  It  is  agreed  henceforth  that  the 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  357 

part  of  the  hall  where  the  feast  of  the  Pui  is  held,  be  not 
hung  with  silk  or  cloth  of  gold,  neither  shall  the  hall  itself 
be  draped,  but  only  fairly  garnished  with  green  boughs, 
the  floor  strewn  with  rushes,  benches  prepared,  as  befits 
such  a  feast  royal  ;  only  the  seat  for  the  singers  who  are 
to  sing  the  cJicuisons  royales  shall  be  covered  with  cloth  of 
gold." 

After  the  competition,  all  dine  together.  Here  is  the 
bill  of  fare  for  the  feast  :  "  And  the  bill  of  fare  is  thus 
ordained  ;  be  all  the  companions  liberally  served,  the 
poorest  as  well  as  the  richest,  after  this  fashion,  to  wit, 
that  to  them  be  served  good  bread,  good  ale  and  good 
wine,  and  then  potage  and  a  course  of  strong  meat,  and 
after  that  a  double  roast  in  a  dish,  and  cheese,  and  nothing 
else."  Women  were  not  admitted  to  these  gatherings,  and 
so  that  slanderers  might  not  say  it  was  for  fear  of  quarrels, 
or  worse,  we  are  told  by  the  society  itself  that  it  was  to 
teach  the  members  to  "  honour,  cherish,  and  praise  them  as 
much  in  their  absence  as  in  their  presence." 

No  feast  was  complete  in  the  Middle  Ages  without  a 
procession  or  progress  through  the  streets  ;  the  amusement 
was  thus  shared  by  the  people.  The  members  of  the  Pui 
did  not  fail  in  this  :  "  As  soon  as  they  shall  have  given  the 
crown  to  the  best  singer,  they  shall  mount  their  horses 
and  ride  through  the  town,  and  then  accompany  their  new 
prince  to  his  hostel,  and  there  all  get  down,  and  dance 
before  departing  ;  and  drink  once,  and  return  each  to  his 
hostel."  With  its  songs  and  music,  its  kind  purpose,  its 
crowns  and  green  branches,  this  association  seems  like  a 
peaceful  and  verdant  corner  of  Arcadia  in  the  midst  of 
London  City,  peaceful  and  merry  in  spite  of  mercantile 
jealousies  and  international  hatreds. 

This  oasis  is  all  the  more  charming  to  the  sight  because 
it  is  only  an  oasis.  Such  sentiments  were  too  courteous 
to  be  very  common.     While    our  friends   of  the   Pui  en- 


358  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

deavour  to  cherish  and  praise  women  even  in  their  absence, 
other  makers  of  songs  follow  another  mediaeval  tradition 
and  satirise  them  mercilessly.  Triads  were  dedicated  to 
them,  which  were  nothing  but  slanderous  litanies  : 

Herfor,  and  therfor,  and  therfor  I  came 
And  for  to  preysse  this  praty  woman. 
There  wer  three  wylly,  three  wyly  ther  wer, 
A  fox,  a  fryyr  and  a  woman. 
Ther  wer  three  angry,  three  angry  ther  wer : 
A  wasp  a  wesyll  and  a  woman.1 

So  the  litany  continues,  very  different  from  the  litany  of 
the  beauties  of  woman  sung  in  the  same  period,  perhaps 
by  the  same  men.  Friars,  monks,  and  fops  who  adopt 
absurd  fashions,  and  wear  hose  so  tight  that  they  cannot 
stoop  for  fear  of  bursting  them,2  are,  with  women,  the 
subjects  of  these   satirical   songs : 


Preste,  ne  monke,  ne  yit  chanoun, 
Ne  no  man  of  religioun, 
Gyien  hem  so  to  devocioun 

As  done  thes  holy  frers, 
For  summe  gyven  ham  chyvalry, 
Somme  to  riote  and  ribaudery ; 
Bot  ffrers  gyven  ham  to  grete  study 

And  to  grete  prayers.3 

An  account  follows  of  doings,  studies,  and  prayers, 
by  no  means  edifying,  and  which  recalls  Chaucer  rather 
than  St.  Francis. 

1  "  Songs  and  Carols  now  first  printed,"  ed.   Th.  Wright,  Percy  Society, 
1847,  8vo,  p.  4. 

2  For  hortyng  of  here  hosyn 
Non  inclinare  laborant. 

In  the  same  piece,  large  collars,  wide  sleeves,  big  spurs  are  satirised.  Th. 
Wright,  "  Political  Poems  and  Songs  from  Ed.  III.  to  Ric.  III.,"  Rolls,  1859, 
2  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  275. 

3  "Political  Poems,"  ibid.,  vol.  i.  p.  263. 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  359 


III. 

The  tone  becomes  more  elevated  ;  and  then  we  have 
forest  songs  in  honour  of  the  outlaw  Robin  Hood.1  The 
satire  ceases  to  be  simply  mocking  ;  the  singer's  laughter 
no  longer  consoles  him  for  abuses  ;  he  wants  reforms  ;  he 
chides  and  threatens.  In  his  speech  to  the  rebel  peasants 
in  1 38 1,  the  priest  John  Ball  takes  from  a  popular  song 
the  burden  that  comprises  his  whole  theory  : 

Whan  Adam  dalf  and  Eve  span, 
Who  was  thanne  the  gentilman  ? 2 

The  anonymous  poet  makes  the  dumb  peasant  speak, 
describe  his  woes,  and  draw  up  a  list  of  his  complaints. 
By  way  of  reply,  anonymous  clerks  compose  songs,  half 
English  and  half  Latin,  a  favourite  mixture  at  that  time, 
in  which  they  express  their  horror  of  the  rebels.3  Others 
sound  the  praises  of  the  English  heroes  of  the  Hundred 
Years'  War. 

Contrary  to  what  might  be  supposed,  the  number  of 
these  last  songs  is  not  great,  and  their  inspiration  not 
exalted.  The  war,  as  has  been  seen,  was  a  royal  and  not 
a  national  one ;  and  it  happened,  moreover,  that  none  of 

1  The  greater  part  of  those  that  have  come  down  to  us  are  of  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries  ;  but  Robin  was  very  popular,  and  his  praises  were  sung 
as  early  as  the  fourteenth  century.  The  lazy  parson  in  Langland's  Visions 
confesses  that  he  is  incapable  of  chanting  the  services  : 

But  I  can  rymes  of  Robin  Hood  ■  and  Randolf  erle  of  Chestre. 

Ed.  Skeat,  text  B.  v.  402.     See  above,  p.  224. 

2  Walsingham,  "  Historia  Anglicana,"  Rolls,  vol.  ii.  p.  32.  See  an  English 
miniature  representing  Adam  and  Eve,  so  occupied,  reproduced  in  "  English 
Wayfaring  Life,"  p.  283. 

3  Nede  they  fre  be  most, 
Vel  nollent  pacificari,  &c. 

"  Political  Poems,"  vol.  i.  p.  225.     Satire  of  the  heretical  Lollards  :  "  Lollardi 
sunt  zizania,"  &c.     Ibid.,  p.  232  ;  of  friars  become  peddlers,  p.  264. 


360  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

the  famous  poets  of  the  time  saw  fit  to  celebrate  Crecy 
and  Poictiers.  We  have,  therefore,  nothing  but  rough 
sketches,  akin  to  popular  prints,  barbarous  in  design, 
and  coarse  in  colouring,  but  of  strong  intent.  Clerks,  in 
their  Latin,  pursue  France  and  Philip  de  Valois,  with 
opprobrious  epithets  : 

Lynxea,  viperea,  vulpina,  lupina,  medea, 
Callida,  syrena,  crudelis,  acerba,  superba. 

Such  is  France  according  to  them,  and  as  to  her  king, 
his  fate  is  predicted  in  the  following  pun  : 

O  Philippus  Valeys,  Xerxes,  Darius,  Bituitus, 
Te  faciet  maleys  Edwardus,  aper  polimitus.1 

To  which  the  French  replied  : 

Puis  passeront  Gauloys  le  bras  marin, 
Le  povre  Anglet  destruiront  si  par  guerre, 
Qu'adonc  diront  tuit  passant  ce  chemin : 
Ou  temps  jadis  estoit  ci  Angleterre.2 

But  both  countries  have  survived,  for  other  quarrels,  other 
troubles,  and  other  glories. 

The  battles  of  Edward  III.  were  also  celebrated  in  a 
series  of  English  poems,  that  have  been  preserved  for  us 
in  a  single  manuscript,  together  with  the  name  of  their 
author,    Laurence    Minot,3   concerning   whom    nothing   is 

1  "  Political  Poems,"  ibid.,  vol.  i.  pp.  26  ff. 

2  Ballad  by  Eustache  des  Champs,  ' '  CEuvres  Completes,"  ii.  p.  34. 

3  "The  Poems  of  Laurence  Minot,"  ed.  J.  Hall,  Oxford,  1887,  8vo, 
eleven  short  poems  on  the  battles  of  Edward  III.  Adam  Davy  may  also  be 
classed  among  the  patriotic  poets:  "  Davy's  five  dreams  about  Edward  II.," 
ed.  Furnivall,  Early  English  Text  Society,  1878,  8vo.  They  are  dreams 
interspersed  with  prophecies  ;  the  style  is  poor  and  aims  at  being  apocalyptic. 
Edward  II.  shall  be  emperor  of  Christendom,  &c.  Various  pious  works,  a  life 
of  St.  Alexius,  a  poem  on  the  signs  betokening  Doomsday,  &c,  have  been 
attributed  to  Davy  without  sufficient  reason.  See  on  this  subject,  Furnivall, 
ibid.,  who  gives  the  text  of  these  poems. 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  361 

known.  In  his  rude  verse,  where  alliteration  is  sometimes 
combined  with  rhyme,  both  being  very  roughly  handled, 
Minot  follows  Edward  step  by  step,  and  extols  his  prowess 
with  the  best  will,  but  in  the  worst  poetry.  Grand  subjects 
do  not  need  magnifying  ;  and  when  magnified  by  unskil- 
ful artists  they  run  the  risk  of  recalling  the  Sir  Thopas 
example  :  this  risk  Edward  incurs  at  the  hands  of  Lau- 
rence Minot.  On  the  other  hand  absurd  and  useless 
expletives,  "suth  to  saine,"  "  i-wis,"  and  especially  "both 
day  and  night"  continually  help  Minot  to  eke  out  his 
rhymes  ;  and  the  reader  is  sorely  tempted  uncourteously 
to  agree  with  him  when  he  exclaims  : 

Help  me  God,  my  wit  es  thin  ! * 

Besides  these  war-songs,  and  at  the  same  time,  laments 
are  heard,  as  in  former  days,  sad  and  desponding  accents. 
Defeats  have  succeeded  to  victories,  and  they  contribute  to 
raise  doubts  as  to  the  validity  of  Edward's  claims.2  What 
if,  after  all,  this  ruinous  war,  the  issue  of  which  is  uncertain, 
should  turn  out  to  be  an  unjust  war  as  well  ?  Verses 
are  even  composed  on  the  subject  of  wrongs  done  to 
inoffensive  people  in  France  :  "  Sanguis  communitatis 
Franciae  quae  nihil  ei  nocebat  quaeritur  apud  Deum."  3 

In  war  literature  the  Scots  did  not  fare  better  than  the 
French  at  the  hands  of  their  neighbours.  At  this  time,  and 
for  long  after,  they  were  still  the  foe,  just  as  the  Irish  or 
French  were.  Following  the  example  given  by  the  latter, 
the  Scots  replied  ;  several  of  their  replies,  being  in  English, 
belong  to  the  literature  of  England.  The  most  energetic 
is  the  semi-historical  romance  called  "  The  Bruce  "  ;  it  is 
the  best  of  the  patriotic  poems  deriving  their  inspiration 
from  the  wars  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  21. 

2  Vices  and  faults  of  Edward  :  "  Political  Poems,"  vol.  i.  pp.  159,  172,  &c. 

3  "Political  Poems,"  vol.  i.  p.  172. 


362  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

"  The  Bruce,"  composed  about  1375  by  John  Barbour,1 
is  divided  into  twenty  books  ;  it  is  written  in  the  dialect 
spoken  in  the  south  of  Scotland  from  Aberdeen  to  the 
frontier,  the  dialect  employed  later  by  James  I.  and 
Sir  David  Lyndesay,  who,  like  Barbour  himself,  called 
it  "  inglis."  Barbour's  verse  is  octo-syllabic,  forming 
rhymed  couplets  ;  it  is  the  same  as  Chaucer's  in  his 
"  Hous  of  Fame." 

Barbour's  intention  is  to  write  a  true  history  ;  he  thus 
expects,  he  says,  to  give  twofold  pleasure :  firstly  be- 
cause it  is  a  history,  secondly  because  it  is  a  true  one. 
But  where  passion  has  a  hold  it  is  rare  that  Truth  reigns 
paramount,  and  Barbour's  feeling  for  his  country  is  nothing 
short  of  passionate  love  ;  so  much  so  that,  when  a  legend 
is  to  the  credit  of  Scotland,  his  critical  sense  entirely  dis- 
appears, and  miracles  become  for  him  history.  Thus  with 
monotonous  uniformity,  throughout  his  poem  a  handful  of 
Scotchmen  rout  the  English  multitudes  ;  the  highlanders 
perform  prodigies,  and  the  king  still  surpasses  them  in 
valour ;  everything  succeeds  with  him  as  in  a  fairy  tale. 
This  love  of  the  soil,  of  its  rocks  and  its  lochs,  of  its  clans 
and  their  chieftains,  brings  to  mind  the  most  illustrious 
of  the  literary  descendants  of  Barbour,  Walter  Scott,  who 
more  than  once  borrowed  from  "  The  Bruce  "  the  subjects 
of  his  stories.2 

1  "  The  Bruce,  or  the  book  of  the  most  excellent  and  noble  Prince  Robert 
de  Broyss,  King  of  Scots,"  a.d.  1375,  ed.  Skeat,  E.E.T.S.,  1879-89. 
Barbour,  having  received  safe  conducts  from  Edward  III.,  went  to  Oxford,  and 
studied  there  in  1357  and  in  1364,  and  went  also  to  France,  1365,  1368. 
Besides  his  "Bruce"  he  wrote  a  "  Brut,"  and  a  genealogy  of  the  Stuarts, 
"The  Stewartis  Oryginale,"  beginning  with  Ninus  founder  of  Nineveh  ;  these 
two  last  poems  are  lost.  Barbour  was  archdeacon  of  Aberdeen  ;  he  died  in 
1395  in  Scotland,  where  a  royal  pension  had  been  bestowed  upon  him. 

2  "  The  incidents  on  which  the  ensuing  novel  mainly  turns  are  derived  from 
the  ancient  metrical  chronicle  of  the  Bruce  by  Archdeacon  Barbour,  and  from," 
&c.  "Castle  Dangerous,"  Introduction. — "The  authorities  used  are  chiefly 
those  .  .  .  of  Archdeacon  Barbour.  ..."  "Lord  of  the  Isles,"  Advertise- 
ment to  the  first  edition. 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  363 

Besides  the  love  of  their  land,  the  two  compatriots  have 
in  common  a  taste  for  picturesque  anecdotes,  and  select 
them  with  a  view  of  making  their  heroes  popular  ;  the 
sense  of  humour  is  not  developed  to  an  equal  degree,  but 
it  is  of  the  same  quality  in  both  ;  and  the  same  kind  of 
happy  answers  are  enjoyed  by  the  two.  Barbour  delights, 
and  with  good  reason,  in  preserving  the  account  of  the  fight 
in  which  the  king,  traitorously  attacked  by  three  men 
while  alone  in  the  mountains,  "  by  a  wode  syde,"  smites 
them  "  rigorously,"  and  kills  them  all,  and,  when  congratu- 
lated on  his  return : 

"  Ferfay,"  said  he, 
"  I  slew  bot  ane  forouten  ma, 
God  and  my  hound  has  slane  the  tvva."  * 

Barbour  likes  to  show  the  king,  simple,  patriarchal  and 
valorous,  stern  to  his  foes,  and  gentle  to  the  weak.  He 
makes  him  halt  his  army  in  Ireland,  because  the  screams 
of  a  woman  have  been  heard  ;  it  is  a  poor  laundress  in 
the  pangs  of  child-birth  ;  the  march  is  interrupted  ;  a  tent 
is  spread,  under  which  the  poor  creature  is  delivered  in 
peace.2 

To  England's  threats  Barbour  replies  by  challenges,  and 
by  his  famous  apostrophe  to  liberty  : 

A  !  fredome  is  a  noble  thing  !  .  .   .  3 

Some  people,  continues  the  good  archdeacon,  who  cannot 
long  keep  to  the  lyric  style,  have  compared  marriage  to 
bondage,  but  they  are  unexperienced  men  who  know 
nothing  about  it  ;  of  course  marriage  is  the  worst  state 
in  which  it  is  possible  to  live,  the  thing  is  beyond  discus- 
sion ;  but  in  bondage  one  cannot  live,  one  dies. 

1  Book  vii.  line  483.  2  Book  xvi.  line  270.  3  Book  i.  line  225. 


364  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

IV. 

A  little  above  the  copse  another  head  rises  ;  that  of 
Chaucer's  great  friend,  John  Gower.  Unlike  Chaucer  in 
this,  Gower  hated  and  despised  common  people  ;  when  he 
allows  them  room  in  his  works,  the  place  assigned  to  them 
is  an  unenviable  one.  He  is  aristocratic  and  conservative 
by  nature,  so  that  he  belongs  to  old  England  as  much  as 
to  the  new  nation,  and  is  the  last  in  date  of  the  recog- 
nisable representatives  of  Angevin  Britain.  Like  the  latter, 
Gower  hesitates  between  several  idioms  ;  he  is  not  sure  that 
English  is  the  right  one  ;  he  is  tri-lingual,  just  as  England 
had  been  ;  he  writes  long  poems  in  Latin  and  English,  and 
when  he  addresses  himself  to  "  the  universality  of  all  men  " 
he  uses  French.  He  writes  French  "  of  Stratford,"  it  is 
true ;  he  knows  it  and  confesses  it ;  but  nothing  shows 
better  how  truly  he  belongs  to  the  England  of  times  gone, 
the  half-French  England  of  former  days  :  he  excuses 
himself  and  persists.  "  And  if  I  stumble  in  my  French, 
forgive  me  my  mistakes  ;  English  I  am  ;  and  beg  on  this 
plea  to  be  excused."  x 

Unlike  Chaucer,  Gower  was  rich  and  of  good  family.  His 
life  was  a  long  one  ;  born  about  1325,  he  died  in  1408.  He 
was  related  to  Sir  Robert  Gower  ;  he  owned  manors  in  the 
county  of  Kent  and  elsewhere  ;  he  was  known  to  the 
king,  and  to  the  royal  family,  but  undertook  no  public 
functions.  To  him  as  we  have  seen,  and  to  Strode, 
Chaucer  dedicated  his  "  Troilus  "  : 

O  moral  Gower,  this  book  I  directe 
To  thee  and  to  the  philosophical  Strode, 
To  voucher,  sauf,  ther  nede  is,  to  corecte 
Of  your  benignitees  and  zeles  gode.  2 


1  Et  si  jeo  n'ai  de  Francois  la  faconde, 
Pardonetz  moi  qe  jeo  de  ce  forsvoie  ; 
Jeo  suis  Englois. 
"Balades  and  other  Poems  by  John  Gower,"  London,  Roxburghe  Club.  1818, 
4to,  in  fine.  2  Book  v.  st.  266. 


THE    GROUP    OF  POETS.  365 

Gower,  in   his  turn,  represents  Venus  addressing  him  as 
follows: 


.   .  .  Crete  well  Chaucer  whan  ye  mete 

As  my  disciple  and  my  poete, 

For  in  the  floures  of  his  youth, 

In  sundry  wise  as  he  well  couth, 

Of  dittees  and  of  songes  glade, 

The  which  he  for  my  sake  made, 

The  lond  fulfilled  is  over  all. * 

Govver  was  exceedingly  pious.  When  old  age  came  he 
retired  with  his  wife  to  the  priory  of  St.  Mary  Overy's  (now 
St.  Saviour),  in  that  same  suburb  of  Southwark  where 
Chaucer  preferred  to  frequent  the  "  Tabard,"  and  spent 
his  last  years  there  in  devout  observances.  He  became 
blind  in  1400,  and  died  eight  years  after.  He  bequeathed 
to  his  wife  three  cups,  two  salt-cellars,  twelve  silver  spoons, 
all  his  beds  and  chests,  and  the  income  of  two  manors  ;  he 
left  a  number  of  pious  legacies  in  order  to  have  lamps  kept 
burning,  and  masses  said  for  his  soul.  He  gave  the  con- 
vent two  chasubles  of  silk,  a  large  missal,  a  chalice,  a 
martyrology  he  had  caused  to  be  copied  for  this  purpose, 
and  begged  that  in  exchange  he  might  be  buried  in  the 
chapel  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  at  St.  Mary  Overy's  ;  which 
was  done.  His  tomb,  restored  and  repainted,  still  exists. 
He  is  represented  lying  with  his  hands  raised  as  if  for 
prayer,  his  thick  locks  are  bound  by  a  fillet  adorned  with 
roses.  The  head  of  the  plump,  round-cheeked  poet  rests 
on  his  three  principal  works  ;  he  wears  about  his  neck 
a  collar  of  interwoven  SS,  together  with  the  swan,  emblem 
of  Henry  IV.  of  England.2 


1  "  Confessio  Amantis,"   ed.   Pauli,   London,   1857,   3  vols,  8vo.  vol.   iii. 

P-  374- 

8  Henry,  then  earl  of  Derby,  had  given  him  a  collar  in  1393  ;  the  swan  was 
the  emblem  of  Thomas,  duke  of  Gloucester,  Henry's  uncle,  assassinated  in 
1397  ;  Henry  adopted  it  from  that  date.  A  view  of  Gower"s  tomb  is  in  my 
"  Piers  Plowman,"  1894,  p.  46. 


366  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

The  worthy  man  wrote  immoderately,  and  in  especial 
three  great  poems :  the  "  Speculum  Meditantis,"  in 
French  ;  the  "  Vox  Clamantis,"  in  Latin  ;  the  "  Confessio 
Amantis,"  in  English.  The  first  is  lost ;  only  an  analysis 
of  it  remains,  and  it  shows  that  Gower  treated  there  of  the 
vices  and  virtues  of  his  day.1  The  loss  is  not  very  great : 
Gower  has  told  pretty  clearly  elsewhere  what  he  thought 
of  the  vices  of  his  time,  and,  even  had  he  not,  it  would 
have  been  easy  to  guess,  for  he  was  too  right-minded  a 
man  not  to  have  thought  of  them  all  the  evil  possible. 

Some  French  works  of  Gower  have,  however,  come 
down  to  us  ;  they  are  ballads  and  madrigals,  for  imaginary 
Iris,2  Court  poems,  imitations  of  Petrarch,3  the  light  verses 
of  a  well-taught  man.  He  promises  eternal  service  to  his 
"  douce  dame  "  ;  his  "  douce  dame  "  being  no  one  in  par- 
ticular.    He  writes  for  others,  and  they  are  welcome  to 

1  "  Primus  liber,  gallico  sermone  editus  in  decern  dividitur  partes  et  tractans 
de  viciis  et  virtutibus  necnon  de  variis  hujus  seculi  gradibus  viam,  qua  pecca- 
tor  transgressus,  ad  sui  Creatoris  agnicionem  redire  debet,  recto  tramite  docere 
conatur.  Titulusque  libelli  istius  Speculum  Meditantis  nuncupatus  est." 
This  analysis  is  to  be  found  in  several  MSS.  ;  also  in  the  edition  of  the 
"  Confessio,"  printed  by  Caxton  ;  Pauli  gives  it  too  :  "  Confessio,"  i.  p.  xxiii. 
The  "Speculum  Meditantis"  was  sure  to  resemble  much  those  works  of 
moralisation  (hence  Chaucer's  "moral  Gower"),  numerous  in  French  medi- 
aeval literature,  which  were  called  "  bibles."    See  for  example  "  La  Bible  Guiot 

de  Provins  "  : 

Dou  siecle  puant  et  orrible 

M'estuet  commencier  une  bible. 

"  On  this  stinking  and  horrid  world,  I  want  to  begin  a  bible ; "  and  Guiot 
reviews  all  classes  of  society,  all  trades  and  professions,  and  blames  everything 
and  everybody;  Gower  did  the  same;  everything  for  them  is  "puant." 
Rome  is  not  spared  :  "  Rome  nos  suce  et  nos  englot,"  says  Guiot.  See  text 
of  Guiot's  "  Bible  "  in  Barbazan  and  Meon,  "  Fabliaux,"  1808,  vol.  ii.  p.  307. 

2  "  Balades  and  other  Poems,"  Roxburghe  Club,  1818,  4to. 

3  Jeo  ris  en  plour  et  en  sante  languis, 
Ars  en  gelee  et  en  chalour  fremis. 

Ballad  ix.     No  passage  in  Petrarch  has  been  oftener  imitated.      Villon  wrote  : 

Je  meurs  de  soif  aupres  de  la  fontaine  .  .   . 
Je  ris  en  pleurs  et  attens  sans  espoir,  &c. 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  367 

draw  from  his  works  :  "The  love-songs  thus  far  are  com- 
posed specially  for  those  who  expect  love  favours  through 
marriage.  .  .  .  The  ballads  from  here  to  the  end  of  the 
book  are  common  to  all,  according  to  the  properties  and 
conditions  of  lovers  who  are  diversely  wrought  upon  by 
fickle  love."  x  Here  and  there  some  fine  similes  are  found  in 
which  figure  the  chameleon,  for  instance,  who  was  supposed 
to  live  on  air  alone,  or  the  hawk  :  "  Chameleon  a  proud 
creature  is,  that  lives  upon  air  without  more  ;  thus  may  I 
say  in  similar  fashion  only  through  the  love  hopes  which  I 
entertain  is  my  soul's  life  preserved."  2 

He  excused  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  for  the  mistakes 
in  his  French  works,  but  neglected  to  do  the  same  for  his 
Latin  poems  :  in  which  he  was  wrong.  The  principal  one, 
the  "  Vox  Clamantis,"  3  was  suggested  to  him  by  the  great 
rising  of  1381,  which  had  imperilled  the  Crown  and  the 
whole  social  order.  Gower,  being  a  landowner  in  Kent, 
was  in  the  best  situation  fully  to  appreciate  the  danger. 

In  order  to  treat  this  terrible  subject,  Gower,  who  is  not 
inventive,  adopts  the  form  of  a  dream,  just  as  if  it  were  a 

1  "  Les  balades  d'amour  jesqes  end  sont  fait  especialement  pour  ceaux 
q'attendont  lours  amours  par  droite  mariage.  Les  balades  d'ici  jesqes  au  fin  du 
livere  sont  universeles  a  tout  le  monde  selonc  les  propertes  et  les  condicions 
des  amants  qui  sont  diversement  travailez  en  la  fortune  d'amour." 

2  Camelion  c'est  une  beste  fiere 
Qui  vit  tansoulement  de  l'air  sanz  plus  ; 
Ensi  pour  dire  en  mesme  la  maniere, 
De  soule  espoir  qe  j'ai  d'amour  concuz 
Sont  mes  pensers  en  vie  sustenuz. 

Ballad  xvi ;  what  a  chameleon  is,  was  thus  explained  in  a  Vocabulary  of  the 
fifteenth  century :  "  Hie  gamelion,  animal  varii  coloris  et  sola  aere  vivit — a 
buttyrfle"  (Th.  Wright,  "Vocabularies,"  1857,  4to,  p.  220). 

3  "  Poema  quod  dicitur  Vox  Clamantis,"  ed.  Coxe,  Roxburghe  Club, 
1850,  4to.  He  also  wrote  in  Latin  verse  "  Chronica  Tripartita"  (wherein  he 
relates,  and  judges  with  great  severity,  the  reign  of  Richard  II.,  from  1387  to 
the  accession  of  Henry  IV.),  and  several  other  poems  on  the  vices  of  the 
time,  the  whole  printed  by  Th.  Wright,  in  his  "Political  Poems,"  vol.  i. 
Rolls.     The  ''Chronica  "  are  also  printed  with  the  "  Vox  Clamantis." 


368  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

new  "  Romaunt  of  the  Rose."  It  is  spring-time,  and  he 
falls  asleep.  Let  us  not  mind  it  overmuch,  we  shall  soon 
do  likewise  ;  but  our  slumber  will  be  a  broken  one  ;  in 
the  midst  of  the  droning  of  his  sermon,  Gower  suddenly 
screams,  roars,  flies  into  a  passion — "  Vox  Clamantis  !  " 
His  hearers  open  an  eye,  wonder  where  they  are,  recognise 
Gower,  and  go  off  to  sleep  again. 

Gower  heaps  up  enormous  and  vague  invectives  ;  he 
fancies  his  style  resembles  that  of  the  apostle  in  Patmos. 
Animals  and  monsters  fight  and  scream  ;  the  common 
people  have  been  turned  into  beasts,  oxen,  hogs,  dogs, 
foxes,  flies,  frogs  ;  all  are  hideous  or  dangerous.  Cursing 
as  he  goes  along,  Gower  drives  before  him,  with  hissing 
distichs,  the  strange  herd  of  his  monsters,  who  "  dart 
sulphureous  flames  from  the  cavern  of  their  mouth."  z 

These  disasters  are  caused  by  the  vices  of  the  time, 
and  Gower  lengthily,  patiently,  complacently,  draws  up  an 
interminable  catalogue  of  them.  A  University  education 
has  taught  him  the  importance  of  correct  divisions  ;  he 
divides  and  subdivides  according  to  the  approved  scho- 
lastic methods.  Firstly,  there  are  the  vices  of  churchmen  ; 
these  vices  are  of  different  kinds,  as  are  ecclesiastics  them- 
selves ;  he  re-divides  and  re-subdivides.  Some  parsons 
"  give  Venus  the  tithes  that  belong  to  God  "  ;  others  are 
the  terror  of  hares :  "  lepus  visa  pericla  fugit,"  and  hearken 
to  no  chime  but  the  "vociferations  "  of  the  hounds2  ;  others 

1  P.  31.      He  jeers  at  the  vulgarity  of  their  names  : 

Hudde  ferit,  quos  Judde  terit,  dum  Cobbe  minatur  .   .  . 
Hogge  suam  pompam  vibrat,  dum  se  putat  omni 

Majorem  Rege  nobilitate  fore. 
Balle  propheta  docet,  quern  spiritus  ante  malign  us 
Edocuit  ...     (p.  50.) 
The  famous  John  Ball  is  here  referred  to,  the  apostle   of   the   revolt,    who 
died  quartered.      See  below,  p.  413. 

2  Est  sibi  crassus  equus,  restatque  scientia  macra  .  .  . 
Ad  latus  et  cornu  sufflans  gerit,  unde  redundant 
Mons,  nemus,  unde  lepus  visa  pericla  fugit.   .  .  . 


THE    GROUP   OF  POETS.  369 

trade.  Knights  are  too  fond  of  women  "  with  golden 
locks "  ;  peasants  are  slothful  ;  merchants  rapacious  and 
dishonest;  they  make  "false  gems  out  of  glass."1  The 
king  himself  does  not  escape  a  lecture  :  let  him  be  upright, 
pious,  merciful,  and  choose  his  ministers  with  care  ;  let  him 
beware  of  women  :  "Thou  art  king,  let  one  sole  queen 
suffice  thee."2 

In  one  particular,  however,  this  sermon  is  a  remarkable 
one.  What  predominates  in  these  long  tirades  of  poor 
verses  is  an  intense  feeling  of  horror  and  dismay ;  the 
quiet  Gower,  anc"  the  whole  community  to  which  he  be- 
longed, have  suddenly  been  brought  face  to  face  with 
something  unusual  and  terrifying  even  for  that  period. 
The  earth  shook,  and  a  gulf  opened  ;  hundreds  of  victims, 
an  archbishop  of  Canterbury  among  them,  disappeared, 
and  the  abyss  still  yawns  ;  the  consternation  is  general, 
and  no  one  knows  what  remedy  to  expect.  Happily  the 
two  edges  of  the  chasm  have  at  last  united  ;  it  has  closed 
again,  hiding  in  its  depths  a  heaving  sea  of  lava,  the 
rumblings  of  which  are  still  heard,  and  give  warning  that 
it  may  burst  forth  at  some  future  day.  Gower,  in  the 
meantime,  scans  his  distichs. 

Chaucer  wrote  in  English,  naturally,  his  sole  reason 
being  that  it  was  the  language  of  the  country.  Gower, 
when  he  uses  this  idiom,3  offers  explanations  : 


Clamor  in  ore  canum,  dum  vociferantur  in  unum, 

Est  sibi  campana  psallitur  unde  Deo. 
Stat  sibi  missa  brevis  devotio  longaque  campis, 

Quo  sibi  cantores  deputat  esse  canes,     (p.  1 76. ) 

1  Conficit  ex  vitris  gemma  oculo  pretiosas.     (p.  275.) 

2  Rex  es,  regina  satis  est,  tibi  sufficit  una.     (p.  316.) 

3  "  Confessio  Amantis."  There  exists  of  it  no  satisfactory  edition,  and  it  is 
to  be  hoped  the  Early  English  Text  Society,  that  has  already  rendered  so  many 
services,  will  soon  render  this  greatly  needed  one.  Pauli's  edition,  London, 
1857,  3  vols.  8vo,  is  very  faulty  ;   H.  Morley's  edition  (Carisbrooke  Library, 

25 


370  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

And  for  that  fewe  men  endite 

In  oure  Englishe,  I  thenke  make, 

A  boke  for  Englondes  sake.1 

He  has  no  idea  to  what  extent  this  apology,  so  common 
a  hundred  years  before,  is  now  out  of  place  after  the 
"Troilus"  of  Chaucer.  His  English  book  is  a  lengthy 
compilation,  written  at  the  request  of  the  young  'King 
Richard,2  wherein  Gower  seeks  both  to  amuse  and  to  in- 
struct, giving  as  he  does, 

Somwhat  of  lust,  somwhat  of  lore. 

In  his  turn,  and  after  Boccaccio,  he  invents  a  plot  that 
will  allow  him  to  insert  a  whole  series  of  tales  and  stories 
into  one  single  work  ;  compositions  of  this  sort  being  the 
fashion.  Gower's  collection  contains  a  hundred  and  twelve 
short  stories,  two  or  three  of  which  are  very  well  told  ; 
one,  the  adventure  of  Florent,  being,  perhaps,  related  even 
better  than  in  Chaucer.3  The  rest  resembles  the  Gower  of 
the  "  Vox  Clamantis." 

London,  1889,  8vo)  is  expurgated.  Gower  wrote  in  English  some  minor 
poems,  in  especial  "The  Praise  of  Peace"  (in  the  "Political  Poems,"  of 
Wright,  Rolls).  The  "  Confessio "  is  written  in  octo-syllabic  couplets, 
with  four  accents.  This  poem  should  be  compared  with  French  compilations 
of  the  same  sort,  and  especially  with  the  "  Castoiement  d'un  pere  a  son  fils," 
thirteenth  century,  a  series  of  tales  in  verse,  told  by  the  father  to  castigate 
and  edify  the  son,  text  in  Barbazan  and  Meon,  "  Fabliaux,"  Paris,  1808,. 
4  vols.  8vo,  vol.  ii. 

1  "  Confessio,"  Pauli's  ed.,  p.  2. 

2  Gower  wrote  two  successive  versions  of  his  poem  :  the  first  about  1384,. 
the  second  about  1393.  In  this  last  one,  having  openly  taken  the  side  of  the 
future  Henry  IV.  (which  was  very  bold  of  him),  he  suppressed  all  allusions  to 
Richard.     In  the  first  version,  instead  of, 

A  boke  for  Englondes  sake, 

he  had  written : 

A  boke  for  King  Richardes  sake. 

3  Vol.  i.  pp.  89  ff.     In  Chaucer,  the  story  is  told  by  the  Wife  of  Bath. 


THE   GROUP   OF  POETS.  371 

What  will  be  the  subject  of  this  philosopher's  talk  ?  He 
will  tell  us  of  a  thing  : 

.   .   .  wherupon  the  world  mote  stonde, 
And  hath  done  sithen  it  began, 
And  shall  while  there  is  any  man, 
And  that  is  love.1 

In  order  to  treat  of  this  subject,  and  of  many  others, 
Boccaccio  had  conceived  the  idea  of  his  gathering  in  the 
villa  near  Florence,  and  Chaucer  that  of  his  pilgrimage. 
Moral  Gower  remains  true  to  his  character,  and  imagines 
a  confession.  The  lover  seeks  a  priest  of  Venus,  a  worthy 
and  very  learned  old  man,  called  Genius,  who  had  already 
figured  as  confessor  in  the  "  Roman  de  la  Rose " 2 : 
"  Benedicite,"  says  the  priest ;  "  Dominus,"  answers  the 
lover  ;  and  a  miniature  shows  the  lover  in  a  pink  gown, 
kneeling  in  a  meadow  at  the  feet  of  Genius,  a  tonsured 
monk  in  frock  and  cowl.3 

We  find  ourselves  again  among  vices  and  virtues,  classi- 
fications, divisions,  and  subdivisions.  Genius  condemns  the 
vices  (those  of  his  goddess  included,  for  he  is  a  free- speaking 
priest).  He  hates,  above  all  things,  Lollardry,  "  this  new 
tapinage,"  and  he  commends  the  virtues  ;  the  stories  come 
in  by  way  of  example  :  mind  what  your  eyes  do,  witness 
Actaeon  ;  and  your  ears,  witness  the  Sirens.  He  passes  on 
to  the  seven  deadly  sins  which  were  apparently  studied  in 

1  Beginning  of  Book  i. 

2  Already  had  been  seen  in  the  "  Roman  "  : 

Comment  Nature  la  deesse 

A  son  pretre  se  confesse  .  .  . 

"  Genius,  dit-elle,  beau  pretre, 

D'une  folie  que  j'ai  faite, 

A  vous  m'en  vuel  faire  confesse  ;  " 

and  under  pretence  of  confessing  herself,  she  explains  the  various  systems  of 
the  universe  at  great  length. 

3  In  Mrs.  Egerton,  1991,  fol.  7,  in  the  British  Museum,  reproduced  in  my 
"  Piers  Plowman,"  p.  II. 


372  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

the  seminary  where  this  priest  of  Venus  learnt  theology. 
After  the  deadly  sins  the  mists  and  marvels  of  the 
"  Secretum  Secretorum  "  fill  the  scene.  At  last  the  lover 
begs  for  mercy  ;  he  writes  Venus  a  letter  :  "  with  the  teres 
of  min  eye  in  stede  of  inke."  Venus,  who  is  a  goddess, 
deciphers  it,  hastens  to  the  spot,  and  scornfully  laughs  at 
this  shivering  lover,  whom  age  and  wrinkles  have  left  a 
lover.  Gower  then  decides  to  withdraw,  and  make,  as  he 
says,  "  beau  retraite."  In  a  last  vision,  the  poor  "  olde 
grisel "  gazes  upon  the  series  of  famous  loving  couples, 
who  give  themselves  up  to  the  delight  of  dancing,  in  a 
paradise,  where  one  could  scarcely  have  expected  to  find 
them  together:  Tristan  and  Iseult,  Paris  and  Helen,  Troilus 
and  Cressida,  Samson  and  Dalila,  David  and  Bathsheba, 
and  Solomon  the  wise  who  has  for  himself  alone  a  hundred 
or  so  of  "  Jewes  eke  and  Sarazines." 

In  spite  of  the  immense  difference  in  their  merit,  the 
names  of  Chaucer  and  Gower  were  constantly  coupled  ; 
James  of  Scotland,  Skelton,  Dunbar,  always  mention  them 
together  ;  the  "  Confessio "  was  printed  by  Caxton  ; 
under  Elizabeth  we  find  Gower  on  the  stage  ;  he  figures 
in  "  Pericles,"  and  recites  the  prologue  of  this  play,  the  plot 
of  which  is  borrowed  from  his  poem. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

WILLIAM  LANGLAND  AND  HIS    VISIONS. 

Gower'S  books  were  made  out  of  books.  Chaucer's  friend 
carries  us  in  imagination  to  the  paradise  of  Eros,  or  to  a 
Patmos  of  his  own  invention,  from  whence  he  foretells  the 
end  of  the  world  ;  but  whatever  he  does  or  says  we  are 
always  perfectly  aware  of  where  we  are  :  we  are  in  his 
library. 

It  is  quite  different  with  another  poet  of  this  period,  a 
mysterious  and  intangible  personage,  whose  very  name  is 
doubtful,  whose  writings  had  great  influence,  and  that  no 
one  appears  to  have  seen,  concerning  whom  we  possess  no 
contemporaneous  information.  Like  Gower,  strong  ties 
bind  him  to  the  past ;  but  Gower  is  linked  to  Angevin 
England,  and  William  Langland,  if  such  be  really  his 
name,  to  the  remote  England  of  the  Saxons  and  Scandi- 
navians. His  books  are  not  made  out  of  books  ;  they  are 
made  of  real  life,  of  things  seen,  of  dreams  dreamt,  of 
feelings  actually  experienced.  He  is  the  exact  opposite  of 
Gower,  he  completes  Chaucer  himself.  When  the  "  Can- 
terbury Tales  "  are  read,  it  seems  as  though  all  England 
were  described  in  them  ;  when  the  Visions  of  Langland 
are  opened,  it  is  seen  that  Chaucer  had  not  said  everything. 

373 


374  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Langland  is  without  comparison   the  greatest    poet  after 
Chaucer  in  the  mediaeval  literature  of  England.1 


1. 

His  Visions  have  been  preserved  for  us  in  a  consider- 
able number  of  manuscripts.  They  differ  greatly  among 
each  other  ;  Langland  appears  to  have  absorbed  himself 
in  his  work,  continually  remodelling  and  adding  to  it.  No 
poem  has  been  more  truly  lived  than  this  one  ;  it  was  the 
author's  shelter,  his  real  house,  his  real  church  ;  he  always 
came  back  there  to  pray,  to  tell  his  sorrows — to  live  in  it. 
Hence  strange  incoherencies,  and  at  the  same  time  many 
unexpected  lights.  The  spirit  by  which  Langland  is 
animated  is  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages,  powerful,  desul- 
tory, limitless.  A  classic  author  makes  a  plan,  establishes 
noble  proportions,  conceives  a  definite  work,  and  completes 
it  ;  the  poet  of  the  Middle  Ages,  if  he  makes  a  plan,  rarely 
keeps  to  it ;  he  alters  it  as  he  goes  along,  adding  a  porch, 
a  wing,  a  chapel  to  his  edifice  :  a  cathedral  in  mediaeval 
times  was  never  finished.  Some  authors,  it  is  true,  were 
already  touched  by  classic  influence,  and  had  an  idea  of 
measure  ;  such  was  the  case  with  Chaucer,  but  not  with 
Langland ;  anything  and  everything  finds  place  in  his 
work.  By  collecting  the  more  characteristic  notes  scattered 
in  his  poem,  sketch-books  full  of  striking  examples  might 
be  formed,  illustrative  of  English  life  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  to  compare  with  Chaucer's,  of  the  political  and 
religious  history  of  the  nation,  and  also  of  the  biography  of 
the  author. 

Allusions  to  events  of  the  day  which  abound   in   the 

1  Further  details  on  Langland  and  his  Visions,  and  in  particular  the 
elucidation  (as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  furnish  it)  of  several  doubtful  points, 
may  be  found  in  "  Piers  Plowman,  a  contribution  to  the  History  of  English 
Mysticism,"  London,  1894.  Some  passages  of  the  present  Chapter  are  taken 
from  this  work. 


WILLIAM  LANG  LAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  375 

poem  enable  us  to  date  it.  Three  principal  versions 
exist,1  without  counting  several  intermediate  remodellings  ; 
the  first  contains  twelve  cantos  or  passus,  the  second 
twenty,  the  third  twenty-three ;  their  probable  dates  are 
1362-3,  1376-7,  and  1398-9.2 

The  numerous  allusions  to  himself  made  by  the  author, 
principally  in  the  last  text  of  his  poem,  when,  according  to 
the  wont  of  old  men,  he  chose  to  tell  the  tale  of  his  past 
life,  allow  us  to  form  an  idea  of  what  his  material  as  well 
as  moral  biography  must  have  been.  He  was  probably 
born  in  1331  or  1332,  at  Cleobury  Mortimer,  as  it  seems, 
in  the  county  of  Shrewsbury,  not  far  from  the  border  of 
Wales.  He  was  (I  think)  of  low  extraction,  and  appears 
to  have  escaped  bondage  owing  to  the  help  of  patrons 
who  were  pleased  by  his  ready  intelligence.  From  child- 
hood he  was  used  to  peasants  and  poor  folk  ;  he  describes 
their  habits  as  one  familiarised  with  them,  and  their 
cottages  as  one  who  knows  them  well.  His  life  oscillated 
chiefly  between  two  localities,  Malvern  and  London. 
Even  when  he  resides  in  the  latter  place,  his  thoughts  turn 
to  Malvern,  to  its  hills  and  verdure  ;  he  imagines  himself 
there  ;  for  tender  ties,  those  ties  that  bind  men  to  mother 
earth,  and  which  are  only  formed  in  childhood,  endear 
the  place    to   him.       A    convent    and    a    school    formerly 

1  Mr.  Skeat  has  given  two  excellent  editions  of  these  three  texts  (called  text, 
A.  B.  and  C.)  :  1°  "The  Vision  of  William  concerning  Piers  Plowman, 
together  with  Vita  de  Dowel,  Dobet  et  Dobest,  secundum  Wit  et  Resoun," 
London,  Early  English  Text  Society,  1867-84,  4  vols.  8vo ;  2°  "The  Vision 
of  William  concerning  Piers  Plowman,  in  three  parallel  texts,  together  with 
Richard  the  Redeless,"  Oxford  (Clarendon  Press),  1886,  2  vols.  8vo. 

2  The  reasons  in  favour  of  these  dates  are  given  in  "  Piers  Plowman,  a  con- 
tribution to  the  history  of  English  Mysticism,"  chap,  ii.,  and  in  a  paper  I 
published  in  the  Revue  Ciitique,  Oct.  25th,  and  Nov.  1,  1879.  Mr.  Skeat 
assigns  the  date  of  1393  to  the  third  text,  adding,  however,  "  I  should  not 
object  to  the  opinion  that  the  true  date  is  later  still."  I  have  adduced  proofs 
("  Piers  Plowman,"  pp.  55  ff.)  of  this  final  revision  having  taken  place  in  139S 
or  shortly  after. 


376  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

existed  at  Malvern,  and  there  in  all  likelihood  Langland 
first  studied. 

The  church  where  he  came  to  pray  still  exists,  built  of 
red  sandstone,  a  structure  of  different  epochs,  where  the 
Norman  style  and  perpendicular  Gothic  unite.  Behind 
the  village  rise  steep  hills,  covered  with  gorse,  ferns,  heather, 
and  moss.  Their  highest  point  quite  at  the  end  of  the 
chain,  towards  Wales,  is  crowned  by  Roman  earthworks. 
From  thence  can  be  descried  the  vast  plain  where  flows 
the  Severn,  crossed  by  streams  bordered  by  rows  of  trees 
taking  blue  tints  in  the  distance,  spotted  with  lights  and 
shadows,  as  the  clouds  pass  in  the  ever- varying  sky. 
Meadows  alternate  with  fields  of  waving  grain  ;  the  square 
tower  of  Worcester  rises  to  the  left,  and  away  to  the  east 
those  mountains  are  seen  that  witnessed  the  feats  of 
Arthur.  This  wide  expanse  was  later  to  give  the  poet  his 
idea  of  the  world's  plain,  "  a  fair  feld  ful  of  folke,"  where  he 
will  assemble  all  humanity,  as  in  a  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat. 
He  enjoys  wandering  in  this  "  wilde  wildernesse,"  attracted 
by  "  the  layes  the  levely  foules  made." 

From  childhood  imagination  predominates  in  him  ;  his 
intellectual  curiosity  and  facility  are  very  great.  He  is  a 
vagabond  by  nature,  both  mentally  and  physically  ;  he 
roams  over  the  domains  of  science  as  he  did  over  his 
beloved  hills,  at  random,  plunging  into  theology,  logic,  law, 
astronomy,  "  an  harde  thynge " ;  or  losing  himself  in 
reveries,  reading  romances  of  chivalry,  following  Ymagy- 
natyf,  who  never  rests  :  "  Idel  was  I  nevere."  He  studies 
the  properties  of  animals,  stones,  and  plants,  a  little  from 
nature  and  a  little  from  books  ;  now  he  talks  as  Euphues 
will  do  later,  and  his  natural  mythology  will  cause  a  smile; 
and  now  he  speaks  as  one  country-bred,  who  has  seen  with 
his  own  eyes,  like  Burns,  a  bird  build  her  nest,  and  has 
patiently  watched  her  do  it.  Sometimes  the  animal  is  a 
living  one,  that  leaps  from  bough  to  bough  in  the  sunlight ; 


WILLIAM  LANGLAND  AND  HIS    VISIONS.  377 

at  others,  it  is  a  strange  beast,  fit  only  to  dwell  among  the 
stone  foliage  of  a  cathedral  cornice. 

He  knows  French  and   Latin  ;  he  has  some  tincture  of 
the  classics  ;  he  would  like  to  know  everything: 

Alle  the  sciences  under  sonne  •  and  alle  the  sotyle  craftes, 
I  wolde  I  knewe  and  couth  '  kyndely  in  myne  herte  ! ' 

But,  in  that  as  in  other  things,  his  will  is  not  on  a  par 
with  his  aspirations  :  this  inadequacy  was  the  cause  of 
numberless  disappointments.  Thou  art,  Clergyesays  most 
appropriately,  one  of  those  who  want  to  know  but  hate  to 
study  : 

The  wer  lef  to  lerne  •  but  loth  for  to  stodie.2 

Even  in  early  youth  his  mind  seems  to  lack  balance  ; 
being  as  yet  a  boy,  he  is  already  a  soul  in  trouble. 

His  dreams  at  this  time  were  not  all  dark  ones  ;  radiant 
apparitions  came  to  him.  Thou  art  young  and  lusty,  said 
one,  and  hast  years  many  before  thee  to  live  and  to  love  ; 
look  in  this  mirror,  and  see  the  wonders  and  joys  of  love. 
I  shall  follow  thee,  said  another,  till  thou  becomest  a  lord, 
and  hast  domains.3  But  one  by  one  the  lights  faded  around 
him  ;  his  patrons  died,  and  this  was  the  end  of  his 
ambitions  ;  for  he  was  not  one  of  those  men  able  by  sheer 
strength  of  will  to  make  up  for  outside  help  when  that 
fails  them.  His  will  was  diseased  ;  an  endless  grief  began 
for  him.     Being  dependent  on  his  "  Clergye  "  for  a  liveli- 

1  B.  xv.  48.  2  A.  xii.  6. 

3  Concupiscencia  camis  ■  colled  me  aboute  the  nekke, 

And  seyde,  "  Thou  art  yonge  and  yepe  •  and  hast  yeres  yn 

Forto  lyve  longe  ■  and  ladyes  to  lovye. 

And  in  this  myroure  thow  myghte  se  •  myrthes  ful  manye 

That  leden  the  wil  to  lykynge  ■  al  thi  lyf-tyme." 

The  secounde  seide  the  same  •  "  I  shal  suwe  thi  wille  ; 

Til  thow  be  a  lorde  and  have  londe."     (B.  xi.  16.) 


378  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

hood,  he  went  to  London,  and  tried  to  earn  his  daily  bread 
by  means  of  it,  of  "  that  labour  "  which  he  had  "  lerned 
best."  * 

Religious  life  in  the  Middle  Ages  had  not  those  well- 
defined  and  visible  landmarks  to  which  we  are  accustomed. 
Nowadays  one  either  is  or  is  not  of  the  Church  ;  formerly, 
no  such  obvious  divisions  existed.  Religious  life  spread 
through  society,  like  an  immense  river  without  dykes, 
swollen  by  innumerable  affluents,  whose  subterranean 
penetrations  impregnated  even  the  soil  through  which 
they  did  not  actually  flow.  From  this  arose  numerous 
situations  difficult  to  define,  bordering  at  once  on  the  world 
and  on  the  Church,  a  state  of  things  with  which  there  is  no 
analogy  now,  except  in  Rome  itself,  where  the  religious  life 
of  the  Middle  Ages  still  partly  continues. 

Numerous  semi-religious  and  slightly  renumerative 
functions  were  accessible  to  clerks,  who  were  not, 
however,  obliged  to  renounce  the  world  on  that  account. 
The  great  thing  in  the  hour  of  death  being  to  ensure  the 
salvation  of  the  soul,  men  of  fortune  continued,  and  some- 
times began,  their  good  works  at  that  hour.  They  en- 
deavoured to  win  Paradise  by  proxy;  they  left  directions 
in  their  will  that,  by  means  of  lawful  hire,  soldiers  should 
be  sent  to  battle  with  the  infidel  ;  and  they  also  founded 
what  were  called  "  chantries."  A  sum  of  money  was  left 
by  them  in  order  that  masses,  or  the  service  for  the  dead, 
or  both,  should  be  chanted  for  the  repose  of  their  souls. 

The  number  of  these  chantries  was  countless  ;  every 
arch  in  the  aisles  of  the  cathedrals  contained  some,  where 
the  service  for  the  dead  was  sung  ;  sometimes  separate 
edifices  were  built  with  this  view.  A  priest  celebrated 
masses  when  the  founder  had  asked  for  them  ;  and 
clerks  performed  the  office  of  choristers,  having,  for  the 
most   part,  simply    received    the   tonsure,  and    not    being 

1  C.  vi.  42. 


WILLIAM  LANG  LAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  379 

necessarily  in  holy  orders.  It  was,  for  them  all,  a  career, 
almost  a  trade  ;  giving  rise  to  discussions  concerning 
salaries,  and  even  to  actual  strikes.  These  services  derived 
the  name  under  which  they  commonly  went  from  one  of 
the  words  of  the  liturgy  sung  ;  they  were  called  Placebos 
and  Diriges.  The  word  "  dirge "  has  passed  into  the 
English  language,  and  is  derived  from  the  latter. 

To  psalmody  for  money,  to  chant  the  same  words  from 
day  to  day  and  from  year  to  year,  transforming  into  a 
mere  mechanical  toil  the  divine  gift  and  duty  of  prayer, 
could  not  answer  the  ideal  of  life  conceived  by  a  proud 
and  generous  soul  filled  with  vast  thoughts.  Langland, 
however,  was  obliged  to  curb  his  mind  to  this  work  ; 
Placebo  and  Dirige  became  his  tools  : 

The  lomes  that  ich  laboure  with  ■  and  lyflode  deserve.1 

Like  many  others  whose  will  is  diseased,  he  condemned 
the  abuse  and  profited  by  it.  The  fairies  at  his  birth  had 
promised  riches,  and  he  was  poor  ;  they  had  whispered  of 
love,  and  an  unsatisfactory  marriage  had  closed  the  door 
on  love,  and  debarred  him  from  preferment  to  the  highest 
ecclesiastical  ranks.  Langland  lives  miserably  with  his 
wife  Catherine  and  his  daughter  Nicolette,  in  a  house  in 
Cornhill,  not  far  from  St.  Paul's,  the  cathedral  of  many 
chantries,2  and  not  far  from  that  tower  of  Aldgate,  to  which 
about  this  time  that  other  poet,  Chaucer,  directed  his  steps, 
he,  too,  solitary  and  lost  in  dreams. 

Langland  has  depicted  himself  at  this  period  of  his 
existence  a  great,  gaunt  figure,  dressed  in  sombre  garments 
with  large  folds,  sad  in  a  grief  without  end,  bewailing  the 

1  C.  vi.  45- 

2  On  which  see  W.  S.  Simpson,  "  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  and  old  City  life," 
London,  1894,  Svo,  p.  95  :  "  The  chantry  priests  of  St.  Paul's."  A  list  of 
those  chantries  in  a  handwriting  of  the  fourteenth  century  has  been  preserved  ; 
there  are  seventy-three  of  them.     Ibid.,  p.  99. 


380  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

protectors  of  his  childhood  and  his  lost  illusions,  seeing 
nothing  but  clouds  on  the  horizon  of  his  life.  He  begins 
no  new  friendships  ;  he  forms  ties  with  no  one  ;  he  follows 
the  crowded  streets  of  the  city,  elbowing  lords,  lawyers, 
and  ladies  of  fashion  ;  he  greets  no  one.  Men  wearing 
furs  and  silver  pendants,  rich  garments  and  collars  of  gold, 
brush  past  him,  and  he  knows  them  not.  Gold  collars 
ought  to  be  saluted,  but  he  does  not  do  it ;  he  does  not  say 
to  them:  "  God  loke  yow  Lordes  ! "  But  then  his  air  is  so 
absent,  so  strange,  that  instead  of  quarrelling  with  him 
people  shrug  their  shoulders,  and  say  :  He  is  "  a  fole"  ;  he 
is  mad.1  Mad !  the  word  recurs  again  and  again  under  his 
pen,  the  idea  presents  itself  incessantly  to  his  mind,  under 
every  shape,  as  though  he  were  possessed  by  it  :  "  fole," 
"  frantyk,"  "  ydiote !  "  He  sees  around  him  nothing  but 
dismal  spectres  :  Age,  Penury,  Disease. 

To  these  material  woes  are  added  mental  ones.  In  the 
darkness  of  this  world  shines  at  least  a  distant  ray,  far  off 
beyond  the  grave.  But,  at  times,  even  this  light  wavers  ; 
clouds  obscure  and  apparently  extinguish  it.  Doubts 
assail  the  soul  of  the  dreamer  ;  theology  ought  to  eluci- 
date, but,  on  the  contrary,  only  darkens  them  : 

The  more  I  muse  there-inne  ■  the  mistier  it  seemeth, 
And  the  depper  I  devyne  ■  the  derker  me  it  thinketh.2 

How  is  it  possible  to  reconcile  the  teachings  of  theology 
with  our  idea  of  justice?  And  certain  thoughts  constantly 
recur  to  the  poet,  and  shake  the  edifice  of  his  faith  ;  he 
drives  them  away,  they  reappear  ;  he  is  bewitched  by  them 
and  cannot  exorcise  these  demons.  Who  had  a  more 
elevated  mind  than  Aristotle,  and  who  was  wiser  than 
Solomon  ?      Still   they  are  held  by  Holy-Church  "  bothe 

1  C.  beginning  of  passus  vi.  ;  B.  beginning  of  passus  xv.  :  "My  witte  wex 
and  vvanyed  til  I  a  fole  were."  2  B.  x.  181. 


WILLIAM  LANGLAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  381 

ydampned  !  "  and  on  Good  Friday,  what  do  we  see  ?  A 
felon  is  saved  who  had  lived  all  his  life  in  lies  and  thefts  ; 
he  was  saved  at  once  "  with-outen  penaunce  of  purgatorie." 
Adam,  Isaiah,  and  all  the  prophets  remained  "  many  longe 
yeres  "  with  Lucifer,  and — 

A  robbere  was  yraunceouned  ■  rather  than  thei  alle  !  * 

He  wishes  he  had  thought  less,  learnt  less,  "  conned  " 
fewer  books,  and  preserved  for  himself  the  quiet,  "  sad 
bileve  "  of  "  plowmen  and  pastoures "  ;  happy  men  who 
can 

Percen  with  a  pater  nosier  '  the  paleys  of  hevene  ! z 

In  the  midst  of  these  trials  and  sorrows,  Langland  had 
one  refuge :  his  book.  His  poem  made  up  for  those 
things  which  life  had  denied  him.  Why  make  verses,  why 
write,  said  Ymagynatyf  to  him  ;  are  there  not  "  bokes 
ynowe  ? " 3  But  without  his  book,  Langland  could  not 
have  lived,  like  those  fathers  whose  existence  is  bound  up 
in  that  of  their  child,  and  who  die  if  he  dies.  When  he 
had  finished  it,  and  though  his  intention  was  never  to 
touch  it  again,  for  in  it  he  announced  his  own  death,  he 
still  began  it  over  again,  once,  twice  ;  he  worked  at  it  all 
his  life. 

What  was  the  end  of  that  life  ?  No  one  knows.  Some 
indications   tend   to    show  that  in  his    later  years  he  left 

1  B.  x.  420. 

2  .  .  .  None  sonner  saved  ■  ne  sadder  of  bileve, 
Than  plowmen  and  pastoures  '  and  pore  comune  laboreres. 
Souteres  and  shepherdes  "  suche  lewed  jottes 
Percen  with  a  pater-noster  ■  the  paleys  of  hevene, 
And  passen  purgatorie  penaunceles  "  at  her  hennes-partynge, 
In-to  the  blisse  of  paradys  ■  for  her  pure  byleve, 
That  inparfitly  here  •  knewe  and  eke  lyved.      (B.  x.  458.) 

3   And  thow  medlest  with  makynges  *  and  myghtest  go  sey  thi  sauter, 
And  bidde  for  hem  that  giveth  the  bred  '  for  there  ar  bokes  ynowe 
To  telle  men  what  Dowel  is.    .  .  .     (B.  xii.  16.) 


382  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

London,  where  he  had  led  his  troubled  life  to  return  to  the 
Western  country.1  There  we  should  like  to  think  of  him, 
soothed,  healed,  resigned,  and  watching  that  sun  decline  in 
the  west  which  he  had  seen  rise,  many  years  before,  "  in  a 
somere  seyson." 

II. 

In  this  summer  season,  in  the  freshness  of  the  morning, 
to  the  musical  sound  of  waters,  "  it  sowned  so  murrie,"  the 
poet,  lingering  on  the  summit  of  Malvern  hills,  falls  asleep, 
and  the  first  of  his  visions  begins.     He  contemplates 

Al  the  welthe  of  this  worlde  "  and  the  woo  bothe  ; 

and,  in  an  immense  plain,  a  "  feld  ful  of  folke,"  he  notices 
the  bustle  and  movements  of  mankind, 

Of  alle  maner  of  men  ■  the  mene  and  the  riche. 

Mankind  is  represented  by  typical  specimens  of  all 
sorts  :  knights,  monks,  parsons,  workmen  singing  French 
songs,  cooks  crying  :  Hot  pies  !  "  Hote  pyes,  hote  !  "  par- 
doners, pilgrims,  preachers,  beggars,  janglers  who  will  not 
work,  japers  and  "  mynstralles "  that  sell  "glee."  They 
are,  or  nearly  so,  the  same  beings  Chaucer  assembled  at 
the  "  Tabard  "  inn,  on  the  eve  of  his  pilgrimage  to  Canter- 
bury. This  crowd  has  likewise  a  pilgrimage  to  make,  not, 
however,  on  the  sunny  high-road  that  leads  from  South- 
wark  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas.  No,  they  journey 
through  abstract  countries,  and  have  to  accomplish,  some 
three  hundred  years  before  Bunyan's  Christian,  their 
pilgrim's  progress  in  search  of  Truth  and  of  Supreme 
Good. 

1  He  seems  to  have  written  at  this  time  the  fragment  called  by  Mr.  Skeat : 
"  Richard  the  Redeless,"  and  attributed  by  the  same  with  great  probability 
to  our  author. 


WILLIAM  LANGLAND  AND  HIS    VISIONS.  383 

A  lady  appears,  who  explains  the  landscape  and  the 
vision  ;  she  is  Holy-Church.  Yonder  tower  is  the  tower 
of  Truth.  This  castle  is  the  "  Castel  of  Care  "  that  con- 
tains "  Wronge."  Holy-Church  points  out  how  mankind 
ought  to  live,  and  teaches  kings  and  knights  their  duties 
with  regard  to  Truth. 

Here  comes  Lady  Meed,  a  lady  of  importance,  whose 
friendship  means  perdition,  yet  without  whom  nothing  can 
be  done,  and  who  plays  an  immense  part  in  the  world. 
The  monosyllable  which  designates  her  has  a  vague  and 
extended  signification  ;  it  means  both  reward  and  bribery. 
Disinterestedness,  the  virtue  of  noble  minds,  being  rare  in 
this  world,  scarcely  anything  is  undertaken  without  hope 
of  recompense,  and  what  man,  toiling  solely  with  a  view 
to  recompense,  is  quite  safe  from  bribery  ?  So  Lady 
Meed  is  there,  beautiful,  alluring,  perplexing  ;  to  get  on 
without  her  is  impossible,  and  yet  it  is  hard  to  know  what 
to  do  with  her.  She  is  about  to  marry  "  Fals  "  ;  the  friends 
and  witnesses  have  arrived,  the  marriage  deed  is  drawn 
up;  the  pair  are  to  have  the  "  Erldome  of  Envye,"  and 
other  territories  that  recall  the  worst  regions  of  the  cele- 
brated map  of  the  Tendre.  Opposition  is  made  to  the 
marriage,  and  the  whole  wedding  party  starts  for  West- 
minster, where  the  cause  is  to  be  determined  ;  friends, 
relations,  bystanders  ;  on  foot,  on  horseback,  and  in 
carriages  ;    a  singular  procession  ! 

The  king,  notified  of  the  coming  of  this  cortege,  publicly 
declares  he  will  deal  justice  to  the  knaves,  and  the  proces- 
sion melts  away ;  most  of  the  friends  disappear  at  a  racing 
pace  through  the  lanes  of  London.  The  poet  hastens  to 
lodge  the  greatest  scoundrels  with  the  people  he  hates, 
and  has  them  received  with  open  arms.  "  Gyle "  is 
welcomed  by  the  merchants,  who  dress  him  as  an  appren- 
tice, and  make  him  wait  on  their  customers.  "  Lyer  "  has 
at  first  hard  work  to  find  shelter  ;  he  hides  in  the  obscure 


384  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

holes  of  the  alleys,  "lorkynge  thorvv  lanes";  no  door 
opens,  his  felonies  are  too  notorious.  At  last,  the  par- 
doners "  hadden  pite  and  pullede  hym  to  house  "  ;  they 
washed  him  and  clothed  him  and  sent  him  to  church  on 
Sundays  with  bulls  and  seals  appended,  to  sell  "  pardons 
for  pans  "  (pence).  Then  leeches  send  him  letters  to  say 
that  if  he  would  assist  them  "  waters  to  loke,"  he  should 
be  well  received  ;  spicers  have  an  interview  with  him  ; 
minstrels  and  messengers  keep  him  "  half  a  yere  and  eleve 
dayes  "  ;  friars  dress  him  as  a  friar,  and,  with  them,  he 
forms  the  friendliest  ties  of  all.1 

Lady  Meed  appears  before  the  king's  tribunal  ;  she  is 
beautiful,  she  looks  gentle,  she  produces  a  great  effect  ; 
she  is  Phryne  before  her  judges  with  the  addition  of  a 
garment.  The  judges  melt,  they  cheer  her,  and  so  do  the 
clerks,  the  friars,  and  all  those  that  approach  her.  She  is 
so  pretty !  and  so  kind  !  Anything  you  will,  she  wills  it 
too  ;  no  one  feels  bashful  in  her  presence  ;  she  is  indeed 
so  kind  !  A  friar  offers  her  the  boon  of  an  absolution, 
which  he  will  grant  her  "  himself"  ;  but  she  must  do  good 
to  the  brotherhood  :  We  have  a  window  begun  that  will 
cost  us  dear  ;  if  you  would  pay  for  the  stained  glass  of 
the  gable,  your  name  should  be  engraved  thereon,  and 
to  heaven  would  go  your  soul.  Meed  is  willing.  The 
king  appears  and  examines  her  ;  he  decides  to  marry  her, 
not  to  Fals,  but  to  the  knight  Conscience.  Meed  is  will- 
ing ;  she  is  always  willing. 

The  knight  comes,  refuses,  and  lays  bare  the  ill-practices 
of  Meed,  who  corrupts  all  the  orders  of  the  kingdom,  and 
has  caused  the  death  of  "  yowre  fadre  "  (your  father,  King 
Edward  II.).  She  would  not  be  an  amiable  spouse;  she 
is  as  "  comune  as  the  cart-wey."  She  connives  with  the 
Pope  in  the  presentation  to  benefices  ;  she  obtains 
bishoprics  for  fools,  "  theighe  they  be   lewed." 

1  C.  iii.  211  ff. 


WILLIAM  LANG  LAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  385 

Meed  weeps,  which  is  already  a  good  answer';  then, 
having  recovered  the  use  of  speech,  she  defends  herself 
cleverly.  The  world  would  fall  into  a  torpor  without 
Meed  ;  knights  would  no  longer  care  for  kings  ;  priests 
would  no  longer  say  masses;  minstrels  would  sing  no  more 
songs  ;  merchants  would  not  trade  ;  and  even  beggars 
would  no  longer  beg. 

The  knight  tartly  replies  :  There  are  two  kinds  of  Meed  ; 
we  knew  it ;  there  is  reward,  and  there  is  bribery,  but  they 
are  always  confounded.  Ah  !  if  Reason  reigned  in  this 
world  instead  of  Meed,  the  golden  age  would  return  ;  no 
more  wars  ;  no  more  of  these  varieties  of  tribunals,  where 
Justice  herself  gets  confused.  At  this  Meed  becomes 
"  wroth  as  the  wynde."  l 

Enough,  says  the  king  ;  I  can  stand  you  no  longer ;  you 
must  both  serve  me  : 

"  Kisse  hir,"  quod  the  kynge  *  "  Conscience,  I  hote  (bid)." 
— "  Nay  bi  Criste  !  "  3    ' 

the  knight  answers,  and  the  quarrel  continues.  They  send 
for  Reason  to  decide  it.  Reason  has  his  horses  saddled  ; 
they  have  interminable  names,  such  as  "  Suffre-til-I-see- 
my-time."  Long  before  the  day  of  the  Puritans,  our 
visionary  employs  names  equivalent  to  sentences;  we 
meet,  in  his  poem,  with  a  little  girl,  called  Behave-well-or- 
thy-mother-will-give-thee-a-whipping,3  scarcely  a  practical 
name  for  everyday  life  ;  another  personage,  Evan  the 
Welshman,  rejoices  in  a  name  six  lines  long. 

Reason  arrives  at  Court  ;  the  dispute  between  Meed  and 
Conscience  is  dropped  and  forgotten,  for  another  one  has 
arisen.      "  Thanne    come    Pees    into   Parlement  ; "    Peace 

1  B.  iii.  328.  2  B.  iv.  3. 

3  Daughter  of  Piers  Plowman  : 

Hus  douhter  hihte  Do-ryght-so-  *  other-thy-damme-shal-the-bete. 

(C.  ix.  Si. 
26 


386  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

presents  a  petition  against  Wrong,  and  enumerates  his  evil 
actions.  He  has  led  astray  Rose  and  Margaret  ;  he  keeps 
a  troup  of  retainers  who  assist  him  in  his  misdeeds  ;  he 
attacks  farms,  and  carries  off  the  crops  ;  he  is  so  powerful 
that  none  dare  stir  or  complain.  These  are  not  vain 
fancies  ;  the  Rolls  of  Parliament,  the  actual  Parliament 
that  was  sitting  at  Westminster,  contain  numbers  of  similar 
petitions,  where  the  real  name  of  Wrong  is  given,  and 
where  the  king  endeavours  to  reply,  as  he  does  in  the 
poem,  according  to  the  counsels  of   Reason. 

Reason  makes  a  speech  to  the  entire  nation,  assembled 
in  that  plain  which  is  discovered  from  the  heights  of 
Malvern,  and  where  we  found  ourselves  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Visions. 

Then  a  change  of  scene.  These  scene-shiftings  are 
frequent,  unexpected,  and  rapid  as  in  an  opera. 
"  Then,  .  .  ."  says  the  poet,  without  further  explanation  : 
then  the  scene  shifts  ;  the  plain  has  disappeared  ;  a  new 
personage,  Repentance,  now  listens  to  the  Confession  of 
the  Deadly  Sins.  This  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
passages  of  the  poem  ;  in  spite  of  their  abstract  names, 
these  sins  are  tangible  realities  ;  the  author  describes  their 
shape  and  their  costumes  ;  some  are  bony,  others  are  tun- 
bellied  ;  singular  abstractions  with  warts  on  their  noses ! 
We  were  just  now  in  Parliament,  with  the  victims  of  the 
powerful  and  the  wicked  ;  we  now  hear  the  general  con- 
fession of  England  in  the  time  of  the  Plantagenets.1 

That  the  conversion  may  be  a  lasting  one,  Truth  must 
be  sought  after.  Piers  Plowman  appears,  a  mystic  person- 
age, a  variable  emblem,  that  here  simply  represents  the 
man  of  "  good  will,"  and  elsewhere  stands  for  Christ  him- 
self. He  teaches  the  way  ;  gates  must  be 'entered,  castles 
encountered,  and  the  Ten  Commandments  will  be  passed 

1  See  in  particular  Gloton's  confession,  with  a  wonderfully  realistic  descrip- 
tion of  an  English  tavern,  C.  vii.  350. 


WILLIAM  LANGLAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  387 

through.  Above  all,  he  teaches  every  one  his  present 
duties,  his  active  and  definite  obligations  ;  he  protests 
against  useless  and  unoccupied  lives,  against  those  who 
have  since  been  termed  "dilettante,"  for  whom  life  is  a 
sight,  and  who  limit  their  function  to  being  sight-seers,  to 
amusing  themselves  and  judging  others.  All  those  who 
live  upon  earth  have  actual  practical  duties,  even  you, 
lovely  ladies : 

And  ye  lovely  ladyes  '  with  youre  longe  fyngres. 

All  must  defend,  or  till,  or  sow  the  field  of  life.  The 
ploughing  commences,  but  it  is  soon  apparent  that  some 
pretend  to  labour  and  labour  not  ;  they  are  lazy  or  talka- 
tive, and  sing  songs.  Piers  succeeds  in  mastering  them 
by  the  help  of  Hunger.  Thanks  to  Hunger  and  Truth, 
distant  possibilities  are  seen  of  a  reform,  of  a  future 
Golden  Age,  an  island  of  England  that  shall  be  similar  to 
the  island  of  Utopia,  imagined  later  by  another  English- 
man. 

The  vision  rises  and  fades  away  ;  another  vision  and 
another  pilgrimage  commence,  and  occupy  all  the  re- 
mainder of  the  poem,  that  is,  from  the  eleventh  to  the 
twenty-third  passus  (C.  text).  The  poet  endeavours  to 
join  in  their  dwellings  Dowel,  Dobet,  and  Dobest ;  in  other 
terms  :  Good-life,  Better-life,  and  Best-life.  All  this  part 
of  the  book  is  filled  with  sermons,  most  of  them  energetic, 
eloquent,  spirited,  full  of  masterly  touches,  leaving  an 
ineffaceable  impression  on  the  memory  and  the  heart  : 
sermon  of  Study  on  the  Bible  and  on  Arts  and  Letters ; 
sermons  of  Clergye  and  of  Ymagynatyf ;  dialogue 
between  Hawkyn  (active  life)  and  Patience  ;  sermons  of 
Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity.  Several  visions  are  inter- 
mingled with  these  sermons :  visions  of  the  arrival  of 
Christ  in  Jerusalem,  and  of  the  Passion  ;    visions  of  hell 


$2S  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

■ 

attacked  by  Jesus,  and  defended  by  Satan  and  Lucifer 
with  guns,  "  brasene  gonnes,"  a  then  recent  invention, 
which  appeared  particularly  diabolical.  Milton's  Satan, 
in  spite  of  having  had  three  hundred  years  in  which  to 
improve  his  tactics,  will  find  nothing  better  ;  his  batteries 
are  ranged  in  good  order  ;  a  seraph  stands  behind  each 
cannon  with  lighted  match  ;  at  the  first  discharge,  angels 
and  archangels  fall  to  the  ground  : 

By  thousands,  Angel  on  Archangel  rolled. 

They  are  not  killed,  but  painfully  suffer  from  a  knowledge 
that  they  look  ridiculous  :  "  an  indecent  overthrow,"  they 
call  it.  The  fiends,  exhilarated  by  this  sight,  roar  noisily, 
and  it  is  hard  indeed  for  us  to  take  a  tragical  view  of  the 
massacre.1 

In  the  Visions,  Christ,  conqueror  of  hell,  liberates  the 
souls  that  await  his  coming,  and  the  poet  awakes  to  the 
sounds  of  bells  on  Easter  morning. 

The  poem  ends  amid  doleful  apparitions  ;  now  comes 
Antichrist,  then  Old  Age,  and  Death.  Years  have  fled, 
death  draws  near  ;  only  a  short  time  remains  to  live  ;  how 
employ  it  to  the  best,  advantage  ?  (Dobet).  Advise  me, 
Nature  !  cries  the  poet.     "  Love  !  "  replies  Nature  : 

"  Lerne  to  love,"  quod  Kynde  "  "and  leve  of  alle  othre." 


III. 

Chaucer,  with  his  genius  and  his  manifold  qualities,  his 
gaiety  and  his  gracefulness,  his  faculty  of  observation  and 
that  apprehensiveness  of  mind  which  enables  him  to  sym- 
pathise with  the  most  diverse  specimens  of  humanity,  has 
drawn  an  immortal  picture  of  mediaeval  England.     In  cer- 

1  "  Paradise  Lost,"  canto  vi.  601  ;  invention  of  guns,  470. 


WILLIAM  LANG  LAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  389 

tain  respects,  however,  the  description  is  incomplete,  and 
one  must  borrow  from  Langland  some  finishing  touches. 

We  owe  to  Chaucer's  horror  of  vain  abstractions  the 
individuality  of  each  one  of  his  personages  ;  all  classes  of 
society  are  represented  in  his  works  ;  but  the  types  which 
impersonate  them  are  so  clearly  characterised,  their  single- 
ness is  so  marked,  that  on  seeing  them  we  think  of  them 
alone  and  of  no  one  else.  We  are  so  absorbed  in  the 
contemplation  of  this  or  that  man  that  we  think  no  more 
of  the  class,  the  ensemble,  the  nation. 

The  active  and  actual  passions  of  the  multitude,  the  sub- 
terranean lavas  which  simmer  beneath  a  brittle  crust  of 
good  order  and  regular  administration,  all  the  latent  possi- 
bilities of  volcanoes  which  this  inward  fire  betokens,  are, 
on  the  contrary,  always  present  to  the  mind  of  the  visionary ; 
rumblings  are  heard,  and  they  herald  the  earthquake.  The 
vehement  and  passionate  England  that  produced  the  great 
rising  of  1381,  and  the  heresy  of  Wyclif,  that  later  on  will 
give  birth  to  the  Cavaliers  and  Puritans,  is  contained  in 
essence  in  Langland's  work  ;  we  divine,  we  foresee  her. 
Chaucer's  book  is,  undoubtedly,  not  in  contradiction  to 
that  England,  but  it  screens  and  allows  her  to  be  forgotten. 
In  their  anger  Chaucer's  people  exchange  blows  on  the 
highway  ;  Langland's  crowds  in  their  anger  sack  the  palace 
of  the  Savoy,  and  take  the  Tower  of  London. 

Langland  thus  shows  us  what  we  find  in  none  of  his 
contemporaries  :  crowds,  groups,  classes,  living  and  indi- 
vidualised ;  the  merchant  class,  the  religious  world,  the 
Commons  of  England.  He  is,  above  all,  the  only  author 
who  gives  a  sufficient  and  contemporaneous  idea  of  that 
grand  phenomenon,  the  power  of  Parliament.  Chaucer, 
who  was  himself  a  member  of  that  assembly,  sends  his 
franklin  there  ;  he  mentions  the  fact,  and  nothing  more ; 
the  part  played  by  the  franklin  in  that  group,  amid  that 
concourse  of  human  beings,  is  not  described.    On  the  other 


39Q  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

hand,  an  admirable  picture  represents  him  keeping  open 

house,    and    ordering    capons,    partridges,    and    "  poynant 

sauce "  in   abundance.     At   home,  his  personality  stands 

out  in  relief ;  but  yonder,  at  Westminster,  the  franklin  was 

doubtless  lost  in  the  crowd  ;  and  crowds  had  little  interest 

for  Chaucer. 

In  two  documents  only  does  that  power  appear  great 

and  impressive  as  it  really  was,  and  those  documents  are : 

the  Rolls  wherein  are  recorded  the  acts  of  Parliament,  and 

the  poem  of  William  Langland.     No  one  before  him,  none 

of  his  contemporaries,  had  seen  so  clearly  how  the  matter 

stood.     The  whole  organisation  of  the    English    State   is 

summed  up  in  a  line  of  admirable  conciseness  and  energy, 

in    which   the   poet    shows   the   king   surrounded   by   his 

people  : 

Knyghthod  hym  ladde, 
Might  of  the  comunes  •  made  hym  to  regne.1 

The  power  of  the  Commons  is  always  present  to  the 
mind  of  Langland  ;  he  observes  the  impossibility  of  doing 
without  them.  When  the  king  is  inclined  to  stretch  his 
prerogative  beyond  measure,  when  he  gives  in  his  speeches 
a  foretaste  of  the  theory  of  divine  right,  when  he  speaks  as 
did  Richard  II.  a  few  years  after,  and  the  Stuarts  three 
centuries  later,  when  he  boasts  of  being  the  ruler  of  all, 
of  being  "hed  of  lawe,"  while  the  Clergy  and  Commons 
are  but  members  of  the  same,  Langland  stops  him,  and 
through  the  mouth  of  Conscience,  adds  a  menacing  clause  : 

"  In  condicioun,"  quod  Conscience,  ■  "that  thow  konne  defende 
And  rule  thi  rewme  in  resoun  ■  right  wel,  and  in  treuth."2 

The  deposition  of  Richard,  accused  of  having  stated, 
nearly  in  the  same  terms,  "  that  he  dictated  from  his  lips 
the  laws  of  his  kingdom,"  3  and  the  fall  of  the  Stuarts,  are 
contained,  so  to  say,  in  these  almost  prophetic  words. 

1  B.  Prol.  112.  2  B.  xix.  474. 

3  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  iii.  p.  419.     See  above,  p.  253. 


WILLIAM  LAN  GLAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  391 

On  nearly  all  the  questions  which  agitate  men's  minds  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  Langland  agrees  with  the  Commons, 
and,  as  we  follow  from  year  to  year  the  Rolls  of  Parliament, 
petitions  or  decisions  are  found  inspired  by  the  same  views 
as  those  Langland  entertained  ;  his  work  at  times  reads 
like  a  poetical  commentary  of  the  Rolls.  Langland,  as  the 
Commons,  is  in  favour  of  the  old  division  of  classes,  of  the 
continuance  of  bondage,  and  of  the  regulation  of  wages 
by  the  State  ;  he  feels  nothing  but  hatred  for  Lombard 
and  Jew  bankers,  for  royal  purveyors,  and  forestallers.  In 
the  same  way  as  the  Commons,  he  is  in  favour  of  peace 
with  France  ;  his  attention  is  concentrated  on  matters 
purely  English  ;  distant  wars  fill  him  with  anxiety.  He 
would  willingly  have  kept  to  the  peace  of  Bretigny,  he 
hopes  the  Crusades  may  not  recommence.  He  is  above  all 
insular.  Like  the  Commons  he  recognises  the  religious 
authority  of  the  Pope,  but  protests  against  the  Pope's 
encroachments,  and  against  the  interference  of  the  sove- 
reign-pontiff in  temporal  matters.  The  extension  of  the 
papal  power  in  England  appears  to  him  excessive ;  he 
protests  against  appeals  to  the  Court  of  Rome ;  he  is  of 
opinion  that  the  wealth  of  the  Church  is  hurtful  to  her  ;  he 
shares  the  sentiments  of  the  Commons  of  the  Good  Parlia- 
ment towards  what  they  do  not  hesitate  to  term  the  sinful 
town  of  Avignon  :  "  la  peccherouse  cite  d'Avenon."1  He  is 
indignant  with  the  bishops,  masters,  and  doctors  that  allow 
themselves  to  become  domesticated,  and  : 

.  .  .  serven  as  servantz  ■  lordes  and  ladyes, 
And  in  stede  of  stuwardes  '  sytten  and  demen.2 

Going  down  in  this  manner,  step  by  step,  Langland 
reaches  the  strange,  grimacing,  unpardonable  herd  of  liars, 
knaves,  and  cheats  who  traffic  in  holy  things,  absolve  for 
money,  sell  heaven,  deceive  the  simple,  and  appear  as  if 

1  Good  Parliament  of  1376.  2  B.  Prol.  95. 


392 


ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 


they  "hadden  leve  to  lye  al  here  lyf  after."1  In  this 
nethermost  circle  of  his  hell,  where  he  scourges  them  with 
incessant  raillery,  the  poet  confines  pell-mell  all  these 
glutted  unbelievers.  Like  hardy  parasitical  plants,  they 
have  disjoined  the  tiles  and  stones  of  the  sacred  edifice,  so 
that  the  wind  steals  in,  and  the  rain  penetrates  :  shameless 
pardoners  they  are,  friars,  pilgrims,  hermits,  with  nothing 
of  the  saint  about  them  save  the  garb,  whose  example, 
unless  a  stop  is  put  to  it,  will  teach  the  world  to  despise 
clerical  dress,  those  who  wear  it,  and  the  religion,  even,  that 
tolerates  and  supports  them. 

At  this  depth,  and  in  the  dim  recesses  where  he  casts 
the  rays  of  his  lantern,  Langland  spares  none  ;  his  ferocious 
laugh  is  reverberated  by  the  walls,  and  the  scared  night- 
birds  take  to  flight.  His  mirth  is  not  the  mirth  of  Chaucer, 
itself  less  light  than  the  mirth  of  France  ;  not  the  joyous 
peal  of  laughter  which  rang  out  on  the  Canterbury  road, 
welcoming-  the  discourses  of  the  exhibitor  of  relics,  and  the 
far  from  disinterested  sermons  of  the  friar  to  sick  Thomas. 
It  is  a  woful  and  terrible  laugh,  harbinger  of  the  final 
catastrophe  and  doom.  What  they  have  heard  in  the  plain 
of  Malvern,  the  accursed  ones  will  hear  again  in  the  Valley 
of  Jehoshaphat. 

They  have  now  no  choice,  but  must  come  out  of  their 
holes  ;  and  they  come  forward  into  the  light  of  day, 
hideous  and  grotesque,  saturated  with  the  moisture  of  their 
dismal  vaults  ;  the  sun  blinds  them,  the  fresh  air  makes 
them  giddy  ;  they  present  a  sorry  figure.  Unlike  the 
pilgrims  of  Canterbury,  they  derive  no  benefit  from  the 
feelings  of  indulgence  that  softens  our  hearts  on  a  gay 
April  morn  ;  they  will  learn  to  know  the  difference  be- 
tween the  laugh  that  pardons  and  the  laugh  that  kills. 
Langland  takes  them  up,  lets  them  fall,  and  takes  them  up 
again  ;  he  never  wearies  of  this  cruel  sport ;  he  presents 

1  B.  Prol.  49. 


WILLIAM  LANG  LAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS,  393 

them  to  us  now  separately,  and  now  collectively :  packs  of 
pilgrims,  "eremytes  on  an  hep,"  pilgrims  that  run  to  St. 
James's  in  Spain,  to  Rome,  to  Rocamadour  in  Guyenne, 
who  have  paid  visits  to  every  saint.  But  have  they  ever 
sought  for  St.  Truth  ?  No,  never  !  Will  they  ever  know 
the  real  place  where  they  might  find  St.  James  ?  Will  they 
suspect  that  St.  James  should 

be  souht  "  ther  poure  syke  lyggen  (lie) 
In  prisons  and  in  poore  cotes  ?  x 

They  seek  St.  James  in  Spain,  and  St.  James  is  at  their 
gates  ;  they  elbow  him  each  day,  and  they  recognise  him 
not. 

What  sight  can  comfort  us  for  these  sad  things  ?  That 
of  the  poor  and  disinterested  man,  of  the  honest  and 
courageous  labourer.  Langland  here  shows  himself  truly 
original :  the  guide  he  has  chosen  differs  as  much  from  the 
Virgil  of  Dante  as  from  the  Lover  that  Guillaume  de  Lorris 
follows  through  the  paths  of  the  Garden  of  the  Rose.  The 
English  visionary  is  led  by  Piers  Plowman;  Piers  is  the 
mainspring  of  the  State ;  he  realises  that  ideal  of  dis- 
interestedness, conscience,  reason,  which  fills  the  soul  of 
our  poet  ;  he  is  the  real  hero  of  the  work.  Bent  over  the 
soil,  patient  as  the  oxen  that  he  goads,  he  performs  each 
day  his  sacred  task  ;  the  years  pass  over  his  whitening 
head,  and,  from  the  dawn  of  life  to  its  twilight,  he  follows 
ceaselessly  the  same  endless  furrow,  pursuing  behind  the 
plough  his  eternal  pilgrimage. 

Around  him  the  idle  sleep,  the  careless  sing  ;  they  pre- 
tend to  cheer  others  by  their  humming  ;  they  trill :  "  Hoy  ! 
troly  lolly  !  "  Piers  shall  feed  every  one,  except  these  useless 
ones;  he  shall  not  feed  "  Jakke  the  jogeloure  and  Jonet  .  . 
and  Danyel  the  dys-playere  and  Denote  the  baude,  and 
frere  the  faytoure,  .  .  ."  for,  all  whose  name  is  entered  "  in 

1  B.  Prol.  46  ;  xii.  37  ;  v.  57  ;  C.  v.  122. 


394  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

the  legende  of  lif "  must  take  life  seriously.1  There  is  no 
place  in  this  world  for  people  who  are  not  in  earnest  ;  every 
class  that  is  content  to  perform  its  duties  imperfectly  and 
without  sincerity,  that  fulfils  them  without  eagerness,  with- 
out passion,  without  pleasure,  without  striving  to  attain  the 
best  possible  result  and  do  better  than  the  preceding 
generation,  will  perish.  So  much  the  more  surely  shall 
perish  the  class  that  ceases  to  justify  its  privileges  by  its 
services  :  this  is  the  great  law  propounded  in  our  own  day 
by  Taine.  Langland  lets  loose  upon  the  indolent,  the  care- 
less, the  busybodies  who  talk  much  and  work  little,  a  foe 
more  terrible  and  more  real  then  than  now  :  Hunger.  Piers 
undertakes  the  care  of  all  sincere  people,  and  Hunger  looks 
after  the  rest.  All  this  part  of  the  poem  is  nothing  but  an 
eloquent  declaration  of  man's  duties,  and  is  one  of  the 
finest  pages  of  this  "  Divine  Comedy  "  of  the  poor. 


IV. 

Langland  speaks  as  he  thinks,  impetuously ;  a  sort  of 
dual  personality  exists  in  him  ;  he  is  the  victim  and  not  the 
master  of  his  thought.  And  his  thought  is  so  completely 
a  separate  entity,  with  wishes  opposed  to  his  desires,  that 
it  appears  to  him  in  the  solitudes  of  Malvern  ;  and  the 
melody  of  lines  heard  not  long  ago  occurs  to  the  memory  : 

Je  marchais  un  jour  a.  pas  lents 

Dans  un  bois,  sur  une  bruyere  ; 

Au  pied  d'un  arbre  vint  s'asseoir 

Un  jeune  homme  vetu  de  noir 

Qui  me  ressemblait  comme  un  frere.  ...  * 

Filled  with  a  similar  feeling,  the  wandering  dreamer  had 
met,  five  hundred    years   before,  in    a  "  wilde  wildernesse 

1  B.  vi.  71  ;  C.  ix.  122.  "  Musset,  "  Nuit  de  Decembre." 


WILLIAM  LANG  LAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  395 

and   bi   a  wode-syde,"  a  "  moche  man"   who   looked  like 
himself;  who  knew  him  and  called  him  by  name  : 

And  thus  I  went  wide-where  '  walkyng  myne  one  (alone). 
By  a  wilde  wildernesse  ■  and  bi  a  wode-syde  .   .  . 
And  under  a  lynde  uppon  a  launde  "  lened  I  a  stounde.   .  .  . 
A  moche  man,  as  me  thoughte  •  and  lyke  to  my-selve 
Come  and  called  me  "  by  my  kynde  name, 

"  What  artow,"  quod  I  tho  (then)  "  "  that  thow  my  name  knowest?  " 
"  That  thow  wost  wel,"  quod  he  ■  "and  no  wyghte  bettere." 
"  Wote  I  what  thow  art?  "  ■  "  Thought,"  seyde  he  thanne, 
"  I    have   suwed    (followed)   the   this    sevene    yere    '  sey  thow    me   no 
rather  (sooner)  ?  "  x 

"  Thought "  reigns  supreme,  and  does  with  Langland 
what  he  chooses.  Langland  is  unconscious  of  what  he  is 
led  to  ;  his  visions  are  for  him  real  ones  ;  he  tells  them  as 
they  rise  before  him  ;  he  is  scarcely  aware  that  he  invents  ; 
he  stares  at  the  sight,  and  wonders  as  much  as  we  do ; 
he  can  change  nothing  ;  his  personages  are  beyond  his 
reach.  There  is  therefore  nothing  prepared,  artistically  ar- 
ranged, or  skilfully  contrived,  in  his  poem  ;  the  deliberate 
hand  of  a  man  of  the  craft  is  nowhere  to  be  seen.  He 
obtains  artistic  effects,  but  without  seeking  for  them  ;  he 
never  selects  or  co-ordinates  ;  he  is  suddenly  led,  and 
leads  us,  from  one  subject  to  another,  without  any  better 
transition  than  an  "  and  thanne  "  or  a  "  with  that."  And 
"  thanne  "  we  are  carried  a  hundred  miles  away,  among 
entirely  different  beings,  and  frequently  we  hear  no  more 
of  the  first  ones.  Or  sometimes,  even,  the  first  reappear, 
but  they  are  no  longer  the  same;  Piers  Plowman  personifies 
now  the  honest  man  of  the  people,  now  the  Pope,  now 
Christ.  Dowel,  Dobet,  and  Dobest  have  two  or  three 
different  meanings.  The  art  of  transitions  is  as  much  dis- 
pensed with  in  his  poem  as  at  the  opera  :  a  whistle  of  the 
scene-shifter — an  "and  thanne  "  of  the  poet  —the  palace  of 
heaven  fades  away,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  a  smoky- 
tavern  in  Cornhill. 

1  B.  viii.  62. 


396  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Clouds  pass  over  the  sky,  and  sometimes  sweep  by  the 
earth  ;  their  thickness  varies,  they  take  every  shape :  now 
they  are  soft,  indolent  mists,  lingering  in  mountain  hollows, 
that  will  rise  towards  noon,  laden  with  the  scent  of  flower- 
ing lindens  ;  now  they  are  storm-clouds,  threatening  de- 
struction and  rolling  with  thunder.  Night  comes  on,  and 
suddenly  the  blackness  is  rent  by  so  glaring  a  light  that 
the  plain  assumes  for  an  instant  the  hues  of  mid-day  ; 
then   the   darkness   falls   again,  deeper  than  before. 

The  poet  moves  among  realities  and  abstractions,  and 
sometimes  the  first  dissolve  in  fogs,  while  the  second 
condense  into  human  beings,  tangible  and  solid.  On  the 
Malvern  hills,  the  mists  are  so  fine,  it  is  impossible  to  say  : 
here  they  begin  and  here  they  end  ;  it  is  the  same  in  the 
Visions. 

In  the  world  of  ethics,  as  among  the  realities  of  actual 
life,  Langland  excels  in  summing  up  in  one  sudden 
memorable  flash  the  whole  doctrine  contained  in  the 
nebulous  sermons  of  his  abstract  preachers  ;  he  then 
attains  to  the  highest  degree  of  excellence,  without 
striving  after  it.  In  another  writer,  the  thing  would  have 
been  premeditated,  and  the  result  of  his  skill  and  cunning  ; 
here  the  effect  is  as  unexpected  for  the  author  as  for  the 
reader.  He  so  little  pretends  to  such  felicities  of  speech 
that  he  never  allows  the  grand  impressions  thus  produced  to 
last  any  time  ;  he  utilises  them,  he  is  careful  to  make  the 
best  of  the  occasion.  It  seems  as  if  he  had  conjured  the 
lightning  from  the  clouds  unawares,  and  he  thinks  it  his 
duty  to  turn  it  to  use.  The  flash  had  unveiled  the  upper- 
most summits  of  the  realm  of  thought,  and  there  will 
remain  in  our  hands  a  flickering  rushlight  that  can  at  most 
help  us  upstairs. 

The  passionate  sincerity  which  is  the  predominant  trait 
of  Langland's  character  greatly  contributed  to  the  lasting 
influence   of    his    poem.       Each   line   sets    forth    his    un- 


WILLIAM  LAN  GLAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  397 

conquerable  aversion  for  all  that  is  mere  appearance  and 
show,  self-interested  imposture  ;  for  all  that  is  antagonistic 
to  conscience,  abnegation,  sincerity.  Such  is  the  great 
and  fundamental  indignation  that  is  in  him  ;  all  the  others 
are  derived  from  this.  For,  while  his  mind  was  impressed 
with  the  idea  of  the  seriousness  of  life,  he  happened  to 
live  when  the  mediaeval  period  was  drawing  to  its  close  ; 
and,  as  usually  happens  towards  the  end  of  epochs,  people 
no  longer  took  in  earnest  any  of  the  faiths  and  feelings 
which  had  supplied  foregoing  generations  with  their 
strength  and  motive  power.  He  saw  with  his  own  eyes 
knights  preparing  for  war  as  if  it  were  a  hunt ;  learned 
men  consider  the  mysteries  of  religion  as  fit  subjects  to 
exercise  one's  minds  in  after-dinner  discussions  ;  the  chief 
guardians  of  the  flock  busy  themselves  with  their  "owelles" 
only  to  shear,  not  to  feed  them.  Meed  was  everywhere 
triumphant  ;  her  misdeeds  had  been  vainly  denounced  ; 
her  reign  had  come  ;  under  the  features  of  Alice  Perrers 
she  was  now  the  paramour  of  the  king  ! 

At  all  such  men  and  at  all  such  things,  Langland 
thunders  anathema.  Lack  of  sincerity,  all  the  shapes  and 
sorts  of  "  faux  semblants,"  or  "  merveilleux  semblants,"  as 
Rutebeuf  said,  fill  him  with  inextinguishable  hatred.  In 
shams  and  "  faux  semblants "  he  sees  the  true  source  of 
good  and  evil,  the  touchstone  of  right  and  wrong,  the  main 
difference  between  the  worthy  and  the  unworthy.  He  con- 
stantly recurs  to  the  subject  by  means  of  his  preachings, 
epigrams,  portraits,  caricatures  ;  he  broadens,  he  magnifies 
and  multiplies  his  figures  and  his  precepts,  so  as  to  deepen 
our  impression  of  the  danger  and  number  of  the  adherents 
of  "  Fals-Semblant."  By  such  means,  he  hopes,  we  shall 
at  last  hate  those  whom  he  hates.  Endlessly,  therefore,  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  among  the  mists,  across  the 
streets,  under  the  porches  of  the  church,  to  the  drowsy 
chant  of  his  orations,  to  the  whistle  of  his  satires,  ever  and 


398  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

ever  again,  he  conjures  up  before  our  eyes  the  hideous 
grinning  face  of  "  Fals-Semblant,"  the  insincere.  Fals- 
Semblant  is  never  named  by  name  ;  he  assumes  all 
names  and  shapes  ;  he  is  the  king  who  reigns  contrary  to 
conscience,  the  knight  perverted  by  Lady  Meed,  the 
heartless  man  of  law,  the  merchant  without  honesty,  the 
friar,  the  pardoner,  the  hermit,  who  under  the  garment  of 
saints  conceal  hearts  that  will  rank  them  with  the  accursed 
ones.  Fals-Semblant  is  the  pope  who  sells  benefices, 
the  histrion,  the  tumbler,  the  juggler,  the  adept  of  the 
vagrant  race,  who  goes  about  telling  tales  and  helping  his 
listeners  to  forget  the  seriousness  of  life.  From  the  un- 
worthy pope  down  to  the  lying  juggler,  all  these  men  are 
the  same  man.  Deceit  stands  before  us  ;  God's  vengeance 
be  upon  him  !  Whenever  and  wherever  Langland  detects 
Fals-Semblant,  he  loses  control  over  himself ;  anger  blinds 
him  ;  it  seems  as  if  he  were  confronted  by  Antichrist. 

No  need  to  say  whether  he  is  then  master  of  his  words, 
and  able  to  measure  them.  With  him,  in  such  cases,  no 
nuances  or  extenuations  are  admissible  ;  you  are  with  or 
against  Fals-Semblant;  there  is  no  middle  way;  a  com- 
promise is  a  treason  ;  and  is  there  anything  worse  than  a 
traitor  ?  And  thus  he  is  led  to  sum  up  his  judgment  in 
such  lines  as  this  : 

He  is  worse  than  Judas  "  that  giveth  a  japer  silver.1 

If  we  allege  that  there  may  be  some  shade  of  exaggera- 
tion in  such  a  sentence,  he  will  shrug  his  shoulders.  The 
doubt  is  not  possible,  he  thinks,  and  his  plain  proposition 
is  self-evident. 

No  compromise  !  Travel  through  life  without  bending  ; 
go  forward  in  a  straight  line  between  the  high  walls  of 
duty.     Perform  your  own  obligations  ;  do  not  perform  the 

1  B.  ix.  qo. 


WILLIAM  LAN  GLAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  399 

obligations  of  others.  To  do  your  duty  over-zealously,  to 
take  upon  you  the  duty  of  others,  would  trouble  the  State  ; 
you  approach,  in  so  doing,  the  borderland  of  Imposture. 
The  knight  will  fight  for  his  country,  and  must  not  lose 
his  time  in  fasting  and  in  scourging  himself.  A  fasting 
knight  is  a  bad  knight. 

Many  joys  are  allowed.  They  are  included,  as  a  bed  of 
flowers,  between  the  high  walls  of  duty  ;  love-flowers 
even  grow  there,  to  be  plucked,  under  the  blue  sky.  But 
take  care  not  to  be  tempted  by  that  wonderful  female 
Proteus,  Lady  Meed,  the  great  corruptress.  She  disap- 
pears and  reappears,  and  she,  too,  assumes  all  shapes  ;  she 
is  everywhere  at  the  same  time  ;  it  seems  as  if  the  serpent 
of  Eden  had  become  the  immense  reptile  that  encircles  the 
earth. 

This  hatred  is  immense,  but  stands  alone  in  the  heart 
of  the  poet.  Beside  it  there  is  place  for  treasures  of  pity 
and  mercy ;  the  idea  of  so  many  Saracens  and  Jews 
doomed  wholesale  to  everlasting  pain  repels  him  ;  he  can 
scarcely  accept  it  ;  he  hopes  they  will  be  all  converted, 
and  "  turne  in-to  the  trewe  feithe  "  ;  for  "  Cryste  cleped  us 
alle.  .  .  .  Sarasenes  and  scismatikes  .  .  .  and  Jewes." x 
There  is  something  pathetic,  and  tragic  also,  in  his  having 
to  acknowledge  that  there  is  no  cure  for  many  evils,  and 
that,  for  the  present,  resignation  only  can  soothe  the 
suffering.  With  a  throbbing  heart  he  shows  the  unhappy 
and  the  lowly,  who  must  die  before  having  seen  the  better 
days  that  were  promised,  the  only  talisman  that  may  help 
them  :  a  scroll  with  the  words,  "  Thy  will  be  done  !  "  2 

The  truth  is  that  there  was  a  tender  heart  under  the 
rough  and  rugged  exterior  of  the  impassioned,  indignant, 

1  B.  xi.  114 

2  But  I  loked  what  lyflode  it  was  ■  that  Pacience  so  preysed, 

And  thanne  was  it  a  pece  of  the  Pater  noster  •  "  Fiat  voluntas  tua." 

(B.xiv.  47.) 


4oo  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

suffering  poet  ;  and  thus  he  was  able  to  sum  up  his  life's 
ideal  in  this  beautiful  motto :  Disce,  Doce,  Dilige  ;  in  these 
words  will  be  found  the  true  interpretation  of  Dowel, 
Dobet,  and  Dobest  :  "  Learn,  Teach,  Love."  r 

The  poet's  language  is,  if  one  may  use  the  expression, 
like  himself,  above  all,  sincere.  Chaucer  wished  that  words 
were  "  cosyn  to  the  dede  ; "  Langland  holds  the  same 
opinion.  While,  in  the  mystic  parts  of  his  Visions,  he  uses 
a  superabundance  of  fluid  and  abstract  terms,  that  look 
like  morning  mists  and  float  along  with  his  thoughts,  his 
style  becomes  suddenly  sharp,  nervous,  and  sinewy  when  he 
comes  back  to  earth  and  moves  in  the  world  of  realities. 
Let  some  sudden  emotion  fill  his  soul,  and  he  will  rise 
again,  not  in  the  mist  this  time,  but  in  the  rays  of  the  sun ; 
he  will  soar  aloft,  and  we  shall  wonder  at  the  grandeur  of 
his  eloquence.  Whatever  be  his  subject,  he  will  coin  a 
word,  or  distort  a  meaning,  or  cram  into  an  idiom  more 
meaning  than  grammar,  custom,  or  dictionary  allow, 
rather  than  leave  a  gap  between  word  and  thought  ;  both 
must  be  fused  together,  and  made  one.  If  the  merchants 
were  honest,  they  would  not  "  timber  "  so  high — raise  such 
magnificent  houses.2  In  other  parts  he  uses  realistic  terms, 
noisy,  ill-favoured  expressions,  which  it  is  impossible  to 
quote. 

His  vocabulary  of  words  is  the  normal  vocabulary  of 
the  period,  the  same  nearly  as  Chaucer's.  The  poet  of 
the  "  Canterbury  Tales  "  has  been  often  reproached  with 
having  used  his  all-powerful  influence  to  obtain  rights  of 
citizenship  in  England  for  French  words ;  but  the  accusa- 
tion does  not  stand  good,  for  Langland  did  not  write  for 
courtly  men,  and  the  admixture  of  French  words  is  no 
less  considerable  in  his  work. 

1  B.  xiii.  137. 

2  Thei  timbrede  not  so  hye. 

(A.  iii.  76.) 


WILLIAM  LANG  LAND  AND  HIS   VISIONS.  401 

The  Visionary's  poem  offers  a  combination  of  several 
dialects  ;  one,  however,  prevails  ;  it  is  the  Midland  dialect. 
Chaucer  used  the  East-Midland,  which  is  nearly  the  same, 
and  was  destined  to  survive  and  become  the  English 
language. 

Langland  did  not  accept  any  of  the  metres  used  by 
Chaucer  ;  he  preferred  to  remain  in  closer  contact  with 
the  Germanic  past  of  his  kin.  Rhyme,  the  main  ornament 
of  French  verse,  had  been  adopted  by  Chaucer,  but  was 
rejected  by  Langland,  who  gave  to  his  lines  the  ornament 
best  liked  by  Anglo-Saxons,  Germans,  and  Scandinavians, 
namely,  alliteration.1 

While  their  author  continued  to  live  obscure  and  un- 
known, the  Visions,  as  soon  as  written,  were  circulated, 
and  acquired  considerable  popularity  throughout  England. 
In  spite  of  the  time  that  has  elapsed,  and  numberless 
destructions,  there  still  remain  forty-five  manuscripts  of 
the  poem,  more  or  less  complete.  "  Piers  Plowman " 
soon  became  a  sign  and  a  symbol,  a  sort  of  password,  a 
personification  of  the  labouring  classes,  of  the  honest  and 
courageous  workman.  John  Ball  invoked  his  authority  in 
his  letter  to  the  rebel  peasants  of  the  county  of  Essex  in 
1381.2  The  name  of  Piers  figured  as  an  attraction  on  the 
title  of  numerous  treatises  :  there  existed,  as  early  as  the 
fourteenth  century,  "  Credes  "  of  Piers  Plowman,  "  Com- 
playntes  "  of  the   Plowman,  &c.     Piers'  credit  was  made 

1  Langland's  lines  usually  contain  four  accentuated  syllables,  two  in  each 
half  line  ;  the  two  accentuated  syllables  of  the  first  half  line,  and  the  first 
accentuated  syllable  of  the  second  half  line  are  alliterated,  and  commence  by 
the  same  "rhyme-letter :  " 

I  s/iops  me  in  j^roudes  *  as  I  a  skepe  were. 

(B.  Prol.  2.)  It  is  not  necessary  for  alliteration  to  exist  that  the  letters  be 
exactly  the  same  ;  if  they  are  consonants,  nothing  more  is  wanted  than  a 
certain  similitude  in  their  sounds  ;  if  they  are  vowels  even  less  suffices:  it 
is  enough  that  all  be  vowels. 

2  Walsingham,  "  Historia  Anglicana,"  vol.  ii.  p.  33.     Rolls. 

27 


402  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

use  of  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  and  in  his  name 
were  demanded  the  suppression  of  abuses  and  the  trans- 
formation of  the  old  order  of  things  ;  he  even  appeared 
on  the  stage  ;  Langland  would  have  been  sometimes 
greatly  surprised  to  see  what  tasks  were  assigned  to  his 
hero. 

Chaucer  and  Langland,  the  two  great  poets  of  the 
period,  represent  excellently  the  English  genius,  and  the 
two  races  that  have  formed  the  nation.  One  more  nearly 
resembles  the  clear-minded,  energetic,  firm,  practical  race 
of  the  latinised  Celts,  with  their  fondness  fox  straight 
lines  ;  the  other  resembles  the  race  which  had  the  deepest 
and  especially  the  earliest  knowledge  of  tender,  passionate, 
and  mystic  aspirations,  and  which  lent  itself  most  willingly 
to  the  lulls  and  pangs  of  hope  and  despair,  the  race  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons.  And  while  Chaucer  sleeps,  as  he  should, 
under  the  vault  of  Westminster,  some  unknown  tuft  of 
Malvern  moss  perhaps  covers,  as  it  also  should,  the  ashes 
of  the  dreamer  who  took  Piers  Plowman  for  his  hero. 


CHAPTER  V. 

PROSE. 

For  a  long  time,  and  up  to  our  day,  the  title  and  dignity 
of  "  Father  of  English  prose"  has  been  borne  by  Sir  John 
Mandeville,  of  St.  Albans,  knight,  who,  "  in  the  name  of 
God  glorious,"  left  his  country  in  the  year  of  grace  1322, 
on  Michaelmas  Day,  and  returned  to  Europe  after  an 
absence  of  thirty-four  years,  twice  as  long  as  Robinson 
Crusoe  remained  in  his  desert  island. 

This  title  belongs  to  him  no  longer.  The  good  knight 
of  St.  Albans,  who  had  seen  and  told  so  much,  has 
dwindled  before  our  eyes,  has  lost  his  substance  and  his 
outline,  and  has  vanished  like  smoke  in  the  air.  His  coat 
of  mail,  his  deeds,  his  journeys,  his  name  :  all  are  smoke. 
He  first  lost  his  character  as  a  truthful  writer  ;  then 
out  of  the  three  versions  of  his  book,  French,  English, 
and  Latin,  two  were  withdrawn  from  him,  leaving  him  only 
the  first.  Existence  now  has  been  taken  from  him,  and  he 
is  left  with  nothing  at  all.  Sir  John  Mandeville,  knight,  of 
St.  Albans,  who  crossed  the  sea  in  1322,  is  a  myth,  and 
never  existed  ;  he  has  joined,  in  the  kingdom  of  the  shades 
and  the  land  of  nowhere,  his  contemporary  the  famous 
"  Friend  of  God  of  the  Oberland,"  who  some  time  ago  also 
ceased  to  have  existed. 

One  thing  however  remains,  and  cannot  be  blotted  out : 
namely,  the  book  of  travels  bearing  the  name  of  Mandeville 

403 


404  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

the  translation  of  which  is  one  of  the  best  and  oldest  speci- 
mens of  simple  and  flowing  English  prose. 


I. 

The  same  phenomenon  already  pointed  out  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Anglo-Saxons  occurs  again  with  regard  to 
the  new  English  people.  For  a  long  time  (and  not  to 
speak  of  practical,  useful  works),  poetry  alone  seems 
worthy  of  being  remembered  ;  most  of  the  early  monu- 
ments of  the  new  language  for  the  sake  of  which  the 
expense  of  parchment  is  incurred  are  poems  ;  verse 
is  used,  even  in  works  for  which  prose  would  appear 
much  better  fitted,  such  as  history.  Robert  of  Gloucester 
writes  his  chronicles  in  English  verse,  just  as  Wace  and 
Benoit  de  Sainte-More  had  written  theirs  in  French  verse. 
After  some  while  only  it  is  noticed  that  there  is  an  art  ot 
prose,  very  delicate,  very  difficult,  very  worthy  of  care,  and 
that  it  is  a  mistake  to  look  upon  it  in  the  light  of  a  vulgar 
instrument,  on  which  every  one  can  play  without  having 
learnt  how,  and  to  confine  oneself  to  doing  like  Moliere's 
Monsieur  Jourdain  "  de  la  prose  sans  le  savoir." 

At  the  epoch  at  which  we  have  arrived,  and  owing  to  the 
renovation  and  new  beginnings  occasioned  by  the  Con- 
quest, English  prose  found  itself  far  behind  French.  In 
the  fourteenth  century,  if  French  poets  are  poor,  prose- 
writers  are  excellent  ;  as  early  as  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
there  were,  besides  Joinville,  many  charming  tale  writers 
who  had  told  in  prose  delightful  things,  the  loves  of 
Aucassin  and  Nicolette,  for  example ;  now,  without  speak- 
ing of  the  novelists  of  the  day,  there  is  Froissart,  and  to 
name  him  is  to  say  enough  ;  for  every  one  has  read  at  least 
a  few  pages  of  him,  and  a  single  page  of  Froissart,  taken 
haphazard  in  his  works,  will  cause  him  to  be  loved.  The 
language  glides  on,  clear,  limpid,  murmuring   like  spring 


PROSE.  405 

water  ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  its  natural  flow,  art  already 
appears.  Froissart  selects  and  chooses  ;  the  title  of 
"  historian,"  which  he  gives  himself,  is  no  mean  one  in  his 
eyes,  and  he  strives  to  be  worthy  of  it.  The  spring  bubbles 
up  in  the  depths  of  the  wood,  and  without  muddying  the 
water  the  artist  knows  how  to  vary  its  course  at  times,  to 
turn  it  off  into  ready  prepared  channels,  and  make  it  gush 
forth  in  fountains. 

In  England  nothing  so  far  resembles  this  scarcely  per- 
ceptible and  yet  skilful  art,  a  mixture  of  instinct  and 
method,  and  many  years  will  pass  before  prose  becomes, 
like  verse,  an  art.  In  the  fourteenth  century  English  prose 
is  used  in  most  cases  for  want  of  something  better,  from 
necessity,  in  order  to  be  more  surely  understood,  and  owing 
to  this  its  monuments  are  chiefly  translations,  scientific  or 
religious  treatises,  and  sermons.  An  English  Froissart 
would  at  that  time  have  written  in  Latin  ;  several  of  the 
chronicles^composed  in  monasteries,  at  St.  Albans  and 
elsewhere,  are  written  in  a  brisk  and  lively  style,  animated 
now  by  enthusiasm  and  now  by  indignation  ;  men  and 
events  are  freely  judged  ;  characteristic  details  find  their 
place  ;  the  personages  live,  and  move,  and  utter  words  the 
sound  of  which  seems  to  reach  us.  Walsingham's  account 
of  the  revolt  of  the  peasants  in  1381,  for  example,  well 
deserves  to  be  read,  with  the  description  of  the  taking  of 
London  that  followed,  the  sack  of  the  Tower  and  the  Savoy 
Palace,  the  assassination  of  the  archbishop,1  the  heroic  act 
of  the  peasant  Grindecobbe  who,  being  set  free  on  condition 
that  he  should  induce  the  rebels  to  submit,  meets  them  and 
says  :  "  Act  to-day  as  you  would  have  done  had  I  been 
beheaded  yesterday  at  Hertford,"  2  and  goes  back  to  his 

1  "  Historia  Anglicana,"  vol.  i.  pp.  453  ff.  By  the  same:  "Gesta  abba- 
tum  monasterii  Sancti  Albani,"  3  vols.,  "  Ypodigma  NeustriK,"  1  vol.  ed. 
Riley,  Rolls,  1863,  1876. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  27.     See  above,  p.  201. 


406  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

prison  to  suffer  death.  Every  detail  is  found  there,  even 
the  simple  picturesque  detail  ;  the  rebels  arm  themselves 
as  they  can,  with  staves,  rusty  swords,  old  bows  blackened 
by  smoke,  arrows  "  on  which  only  a  single  feather 
remained."  The  account  of  the  death  of  Edward  III.  in 
the  same  annals  is  gloomy  and  tragic  and  full  of  grandeur. 
In  the  "  Chronicon  Angliae," «  the  anonymous  author's 
burning  hatred  for  John  of  Gaunt  inspires  him  with  some 
fiery  pages :  all  of  which  would  count  among  the  best  of 
old  English  literature,  had  these  historians  used  the 
national  idiom.  The  prejudice  against  prose  continued  ; 
to  be  admitted  to  the  honours  of  parchment  it  had  first  to 
be  ennobled  ;  and  Latin  served  for  that. 

Translations  begin  to  appear,  however,  which  is  already 
an  improvement.  Pious  treatises  had  been  early  turned 
into  English.  John  of  Trevisa,  born  in  Cornwall,  vicar  of 
Berkeley,  translates  at  a  running  pace,  with  numerous 
errors,  but  in  simple  style,  the  famous  Universal  History, 
"  Polychronicon,"  of  Ralph  Higden,2  and  the  scientific 
encyclopaedia,  "  De  Proprietatibus  Rerum," 3  of  Bartholo- 
mew the  Englishman.  The  first  of  these  works  was  finished 
in  1387,  and  had  at  the  Renaissance  the  honour  of  being 
printed  by  Caxton  ;  the  second  was  finished  in  1398. 

The  English  translation  of  the  Travels  of  Mandeville 
enjoyed  still  greater  popularity.  This  translation  is  an 
anonymous  one.4     It  has  been  found  out  to-day  that  the 

1  "  Chronicon  Angliae,"  1328-88,  Rolls,  ed.  Maunde  Thompson,  1874,  8vo. 
Mr.  Thompson  has  proved  that,  contrary  to  the  prevalent  opinion,  Walsingham 
has  been  copied  by  this  chronicler  instead  of  copying  him  himself;  but  the 
book  is  an  important  one  on  account  of  the  passages  referring  to  John  o 
Gaunt,  which  are  not  found  elsewhere. 

2  "  Polychronicon  Ranulphi  Higden  .  .  .  with  the  English  translation  of 
John  Trevisa,"  ed.  Babington  and  Lumby,  Rolls,  1865,  8  vols.  8vo. 

3  See  above,  p.  195. 

<  "  The  buke  of  John  Maundeuill,  being  the  travels  of  Sir  John  Mandeville, 
Knight,  1322-56,  a  hitherto  unpublished  English  version  from  the  unique  copy 
(Eg.  MS.  1982)  in  the  British  Museum,  edited  together  with  the  French  text," 


PROSE.  407 

original  text  of  the  "  Travels  "  was  compiled  in  French  by 
Jean  de  Bourgogne,  physician,  usually  called  John-with-the- 
Beard,  "  Joannes-ad-Barbam,"  who  wrote  various  treatises, 
one  in  particular  on  the  plague,  in  1365,  who  died  at  Liege 
in  1372,  and  was  buried  in  the  church  of  the  Guillemins, 
where  his  tomb  was  still  to  be  seen  at  the  time  of  the 
French  Revolution.1  John  seems  to  have  invented  the 
character  of  Mandeville  as  Swift  invented  Gulliver,  and 
Defoe  Robinson  Crusoe.  Now  that  his  imposture  is  dis- 
covered, the  least  we  can  do  is  to  acknowledge  his  skill : 
for  five  centuries  Europe  has  believed  in  Mandeville,  and 
the  merit  is  all  the  greater,  seeing  that  John-with-the- Beard 
did  not  content  himself  with  merely  making  his  hero  travel 
to  a  desert  island  ;  that  would  have  been  far  too  simple. 
No,  he  unites  beforehand  a  Crusoe  and  a  Gulliver  in  one  ; 
it  is  Crusoe  at  Brobdingnag  ;  the  knight  comes  to  a  land 
of  giants  ;  he  does  not  see  the  giants,  it  is  true,  but  he 
sees  their  sheep  (the  primitive  sheep  of  Central  Asia) ;  else- 
where the  inhabitants  feed  on  serpents  and  hiss  as  serpents 
do  ;  some  men  have  dogs'  faces  ;  others  raise  above  their 
head  an  enormous  foot,  which  serves  them  for  a  parasol. 
Gulliver  was  not  to  behold  anything  more  strange.  Still  the 
whole  was  accepted  :  with  enthusiasm  by  the  readers  of  the 
Middle  Ages  ;  with  kindness  and  goodwill  by  the  critics 

by  G.  F.  Warner  ;  Westminster,  Roxburghe  Club,  1889,  fol.  In  the  intro- 
duction will  be  found  the  series  of  proofs  establishing  the  fact  that  Mandeville 
never  existed ;  the  chain  seems  now  complete,  owing  to  a  succession  of  dis- 
coveries, those  especially  of  Mr.  E.  B.  Nicholson,  of  the  Bodleian,  Oxford 
(Cf.  an  article  of  H.  Cordier  in  the  Revue  Critique  of  Oct.  26,  1891).  A 
critical  edition  of  the  French  text  is  being  prepared  by  the  Societe  des  Anciens 
Textes.  The  English  translation  was  made  after  1377,  and  twice  revised  in 
the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century.  On  the  passages  borrowed  from 
"Mandeville"  by  Christine  de  Pisan,  in  her  "  Chemin  de  long  Estude,"  see 
in  "  Romania,"  vol.  xxi.  p.  229,  an  article  by  Mr.  Toynbee. 

1  The  church  and  its  dependencies  were  sold  and  demolished  in  1798  : 
"  Adjuges  le  12  nivose  an  vi.,  a  la  citoyenne  epouse,  J.  J.  Fabry,  pour  46,000 
francs,"  Warner,  ibid. ,  p.  xxxiii. 


4o8  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

of  our  time.  The  most  obvious  lies  were  excused  and  even 
justified,  and  the  success  of  the  book  was  such  that  there 
remain  about  three  hundred  manuscript  copies  of  it, 
whereas  of  the  authentic  travels  of  Marco  Polo  there 
exist  only  seventy-five.  "  Mandeville "  had  more  than 
twenty-five  editions  in  the  fifteenth  century  and  Marco 
Polo  only  five.1 

Nothing,  indeed,  is  more  cleverly  persuasive  than  the 
manner  in  which  Jean  de  Bourgogne  introduces  his  hero. 
He  is  an  honest  man,  somewhat  naive  and  credulous 
perhaps,  but  one  who  does  not  lack  good  reasons  to  justify 
if  need  be  his  credulity  ;  he  has  read  much,  and  does  not 
hide  the  use  he  makes  of  others'  journals  ;  he  reports 
what  he  has  seen  and  what  others  have  seen.  For  his  aim 
is  a  practical  one  ;  he  wants  to  write  a  guide  book,  and 
receives  information  from  all  comers.  The  information 
sometimes  is  very  peculiar  ;  but  Pliny  is  the  authority  : 
who  shall  be  believed  in  if  Pliny  is  not  trusted  ?  After  a 
description  of  wonders,  the  knight  takes  breathing  time 
and  says  :  Of  course  you  won't  believe  me  ;  nor  should  I 
have  believed  myself  if  such  things  had  been  told  me,  and 
if  I  had  not  seen  them.  He  felt  so  sure  of  his  own 
honesty  that  he  challenged  criticism  ;  this  disposition 
was  even  one  of  the  causes  why  he  had  written  in  French  : 
"  And  know  you  that  I  should  have  turned  this  booklet 
into  Latin  in  order  to  be  more  brief :  but  for  the  reason 
that  many  understand  better  romance,"  that  is  French, 
"  than  Latin,  I  wrote  in  romance,  so  that  everybody  will  be 
able  to  understand  it,  and  that  the  lords,  knights,  and 
other  noblemen,  who  know  little  Latin  or  none,  and  have 
been  over  the  sea,  perceive  and  understand  whether  I 
speak  truth  or  not.  And  if  I  make  mistakes  in  my  narra- 
tive for  want  of  memory  or  for  any  cause,  they  will  be 
able  to  check  and  correct  me  :  for  things  seen  long  ago 

1  Warner,  ibid.,  p.  v. 


PROSE.  409 

may  be  forgotten,  and  man's  memory  cannot  embrace  and 
keep  everything."  x 

And  so  the  sail  is  spread,  and  being  thus  amply  supplied 
with  oratorical  precautions,  our  imaginary  knight  sets  out 
on  his  grand  voyage  of  discovery  through  the  books  of  his 
closet.  Having  left  St.  Albans  to  visit  Jerusalem,  China, 
the  country  of  the  five  thousand  islands,  he  journeys  and 
sails  through  Pliny,  Marco  Polo,  Odoric  de  Pordenone,2 
Albert  d'Aix,  William  of  Boldensele,  Pierre  Comestor, 
Jacques  de  Vitry,  bestiaries,  tales  of  travels,  collections  of 
fables,  books  of  dreams,  patching  together  countless 
marvels,  but  yet,  as  he  assures  us,  omitting  many  so  as  not 
to  weary  our  faith  :  It  would  be  too  long  to  say  all  ;  "  y 
seroit  trop  longe  chose  a  tot  deviser."  With  fanciful 
wonders  are  mingled  many  real  ones,  which  served  to  make 
the  rest  believed  in,  and  were  gathered  from  well-informed 
authors  ;  thus  Mandeville's  immense  popularity  served  at 
least  to  vulgarise  the  knowledge  of  some  curious  and  true 
facts.  He  describes,  for  example,  the  artificial  hatching  of 
eggs  in  Cairo ;  a  tree  that  produces  "  wool  "  of  which 
clothing  is  made,  that  is  to  say  the  cotton-plant  ;  a  country 
of  Asia  where  it  is  a  mark  of  nobility  for  the  women  to 
have  tiny  feet,  on  which  account  they  are  bandaged  in 
their  infancy,  that  they  may  only  grow  to  half  their  natural 
size  ;  the  magnetic  needle  which  points  out  the  north  to 
mariners  ;    the    country    of    the    five    thousand    islands 

1  "  Et  sachies  que  je  eusse  cest  livret  mis  en  latin  pour  plus  briefment  deviser, 
mais  pour  ce  que  plusieurs  entendent  miex  roumant  que  latin,  j'e  l'ay  mis  en 
roumant  par  quoy  que  chascun  l'entende,  et  que  les  seigneurs  et  les  chevalers 
et  les  autres  nobles  hommes  qui  ne  scevent  point  de  latin  ou  pou,  qui  ont  este 
oultre  mer  sachent  et  entendent  se  je  dis  voir  ou  non  et  se  je  erre  en  devisant 
pour  non  souvenance  ou  autrement  que  il  le  puissent  adrecier  et  amender,  car 
choses  de  lone  temps  passees  par  la  veue  tournent  en  oubli  et  memoire  d'omme 
ne  puet  tout  mie  retenir  ne  comprendre."  MS.  fr.  5637  in  the  National  Library, 
Paris,  fol.  4,  fourteenth  century. 

2  On  Odoric  and  Mandeville,  see  H.  Cordier,  "Odoric  de  Pordenone," 
Paris,  1891,  Introduction. 


410  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

(Oceania)  ;  the  roundness  of  the  earth,  which  is  such  that 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Antipodes  have  their  feet  directly 
opposite  to  ours,  and  yet  do  not  fall  off  into  space  any 
more  than  the  earth  itself  falls  there,  though  of  much 
greater  weight.  People  who  start  from  their  own  country, 
and  sail  always  in  the  same  direction,  finally  reach  a  land 
where  their  native  tongue  is  spoken  :  they  have  come  back 
to  their  starting-point. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  English  were  already  pas- 
sionately fond  of  travels  ;  Higden  and  others  had,  as  has 
been  seen,  noted  this  trait  of  the  national  character.  This 
account  of  adventures  attributed  to  one  of  their  com- 
patriots could  not  fail  therefore  greatly  to  please  them  ; 
they  delighted  in  Mandeville's  book  ;  it  was  speedily 
translated,1  soon  became  one  of  the  classics  of  the  English 
language,  and  served,  at  the  time  of  its  appearance,  to 
vulgarise  in  England  the  use  of  that  simple  and  easy- 
going prose  of  which  it  was  a  model  in  its  day,  the  best 
that  had  been  seen  till  then.2 

Various  scientific  and  religious  treatises  were  also  written 

1  A  part  of  it  was  even  put  into  verse:  "The  Commonyng  of  Ser  John 
Mandeville  and  the  gret  Souden  ;  "  in  "  Remains  of  the  early  popular  Poetry 
of  England,"  ed.  Hazlitt,  London,  1864,  4  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  153. 

2  Here  is  a  specimen  of  this  style  ;  it  is  the  melancholy  end  of  the  work,  in 
which  the  weary  traveller  resigns  himself,  like  Robinson  Crusoe,  to  rest  at 
last :  "  And  I  John  Maundeville,  knyghte  aboveseyd  (alle  thoughe  I  ben 
unworthi)  that  departed  from  oure  contrees  and  passed  the  see  the  year  of  grace 
1322,  that  have  passed  many  londes  and  many  isles  and  contrees,  and  cerched 
manye  fulle  straunge  places,  and  have  ben  in  many  a  fulle  gode  honourable 
companye  and  at  many  a  faire  dede  of  armes  (alle  be  it  that  I  dide  none  my  self, 
for  myn  unable  insuffisance)  now  I  am  comen  horn  (mawgre  my  self)  to  reste  ; 
for  gowtes  artetykes,  that  me  distreynen,  tho  diffynen  the  ende  of  my  labour, 
agenst  my  wille  (God  knowethe).  And  thus  takynge  solace  in  my  wrecced 
reste,  recordynge  the  tyme  passed,  I  have  fulfilled  theise  thinges  and  putte 
hem  wryten  in  this  boke,  as  it  wolde  come  in  to  my  mynde,  the  year  of  grace 
1356  in  the  34  yeer  that  I  departede  from  oure  contrees.  Werfore  I  preye  to 
alle  the  rederes  and  hereres  of  this  boke,  yif  it  plese  hem  that  thei  wolde  preyen 
to  God  for  me,  and  I  schalle  preye  for  hem."  Ed.  Halliwell,  London,  1866, 
8vo,  p.  315. 


PROSE.  411 

in  prose  ;  those  of  Richard  Rolle,  hermit  of  Hampole, 
count  amongst  the  oldest  and  most  remarkable.1  We  owe 
several  to  Chaucer  ;  they  pass  unnoticed  in  the  splendour 
of  his  other  works,  and  it  is  only  fair  they  should.  Chaucer 
wrote  in  prose  his  tale  of  the  parson,  and  his  tale  of  Meli- 
beus,  both  taken  from  the  French,  his  translation  of 
Boethius,  and  his  treatise  on  the  Astrolabe.  His  prose  is 
laboured  and  heavy,  sometimes  obscure  ;  he,  whose 
poetical  similes  are  so  brilliant  and  graceful,  comes  to 
write,  when  he  handles  prose,  such  phrases  as  this  :  "  And, 
right  by  ensaumple  as  the  sonne  is  hid  whan  the  sterres  ben 
clustred  (that  is  to  seyn,  whan  sterres  ben  covered  with 
cloudes)  by  a  swifte  winde  that  highte  Chorus,  and  that  the 
firmament  stant  derked  by  wete  ploungy  cloudes,  and  that 
the  sterres  nat  apperen  up-on  hevene,  so  that  the  night 
semeth  sprad  up-on  erthe  :  yif  thanne  the  wind  that  highte 
Borias,  y-sent  out  of  the  caves  of  the  contree  of  Trace, 
beteth  this  night  (that  is  to  seyn,  chaseth  it  a-wey,  and 
discovereth  the  closed  day) :  than  shyneth  Phebus  y-shakcn 
with  sodein  light,  and  smyteth  with  his  bemes  in  mervelinge 
eyen."  2  Chaucer,  the  poet,  in  the  same  period  of  his  life, 
perhaps  in  the  same  year,  had  expressed,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  same  idea  thus  : 

But  right  as  whan  the  sonne  shyneth  brighte 
In  march  that  chaungeth  ofte  tyme  his  face, 
And  that  a  cloud  is  put  with  wind  to  flighte 
Which  over-sprat  the  sonne  as  for  a  space, 
A  cloudy  thought  gan  thorugh  hir  soule  pace, 
That  over-spradde  hir  brighte  thoughtes  alle.3 

Accustomed  to  poetry,  Chaucer  sticks  fast  in  prose,  the 
least  obstacle  stops  him  ;  he  needs  the  blue  paths  of  the 
air.     High-flying  birds  are  bad  walkers. 

1  See  above,  p.  216. 

2  "  Boethius,"  in  "  Complete  Works,"  vol.  ii.  p.  6. 

3  "  Troilus,"    II.    100.      See   above,   p.    306.     Cf.    Boece's    "  De    Conso- 
tatione,"  Metrum  III. 


4i2  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 


II. 

Under  a  different  form,  however,  prose  progressed  in 
England  during  the  course  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
This  form  is  the  oratorical. 

The  England  of  Chaucer  and  Langland,  that  poetical 
England  whose  prose  took  so  long  to  come  to  shape,  was 
already,  as  we  have  seen,  the  parliamentary  England  that 
has  continued  up  to  this  day.  She  defended  her  interests, 
bargained  with  the  king,  listened  to  the  speeches,  some- 
times very  modest  ones,  that  the  prince  made  her,  and 
answered  by  remonstrances,  sometimes  very  audacious. 
The  affairs  of  the  State  being  even  then  the  affairs  of  all, 
every  free  man  discussed  them  ;  public  life  had  developed 
to  an  extent  with  which  nothing  in  Europe  could  be 
compared  ;  even  bondmen  on  the  day  of  revolt  were 
capable  of  assigning  themselves  a  well-determined  goal, 
and  working  upon  a  plan.  They  destroy  the  Savoy 
as  a  means  of  marking  their  disapprobation  of  John 
of  Gaunt  and  his  policy ;  but  do  not  plunder  it,  so 
as  to  prove  they  are  fighting  for  an  idea  :  "  So  that  the 
whole  nation  should  know  they  did  nothing  for  the  love  of 
lucre,  death  was  decreed  against  any  one  who  should  dare 
to  appropriate  anything  found  in  the  palace.  The  in- 
numerable gold  and  silver  objects  there  would  be  chopped 
up  in  small  pieces  with  a  hatchet,  and  the  pieces  thrown 
into  the  Thames  or  the  sewers  ;  the  cloths  of  silk  and  gold 
would  be  torn.     And  it  was  done  so."  l 

Many  eloquent  speeches  were   delivered  at  this   time, 

1  "  Et  ut  patesceret  totius  regni  communitati  eos  non  respectu  avaritise 
quicquam  facere,  proclamari  fecerunt  sub  poena  decollationis,  ne  quis  pra^su- 
meret  aliquid  vel  aliqua  ibidem  reperta  ad  proprios  usus  servanda  contingere, 
sed  ut  vasa  aurea  et  argentea,  qure  ibi  copiosa  habebantur,  cum  securibus 
minutatim  confringerent  et  in  Tamisiam  vel  in  cloacas  projicerent,  pannos 
aureos  et  holosericos  dilacerarent.  .  .  .  Et  factum  est  ita."  Walsingham, 
"  Historia  Anglicana,"  vol.  i.  p.  457  (Rolls). 


PROSE.  413 

vanished  words,  the  memory  of  which  is  lost ;  the  most 
impassioned,  made  on  heaths  or  in  forest  glades,  are  only 
known  to  us  by  their  results  :  these  burning  words  called 
armed  men  out  of  the  earth.  These  speeches  were  in 
English  ;  no  text  of  them  has  been  handed  down  to  us; 
of  one,  however,  the  most  celebrated  of  all,  we  have  a 
Latin  summary ;  it  is  the  famous  English  harangue  made 
at  Blackheath,  by  the  rebel  priest,  John  Ball,  at  the  time 
of  the  taking  of  London.1 

Under  a  quieter  form,  which  might  already  be  called  the 
"  parliamentary  "  form,  but  often  with  astonishing  boldness 
and  eloquence,  public  interests  are  discussed  during  this 
century,  but  nearly  always  in  French  at  the  palace  of 
Westminster.  There,  documents  abound  ;  the  Rolls  of 
Parliament,  an  incomparable  treasure,  have  come  down  to 
us,  and  nothing  is  easier  than  to  attend,  if  so  inclined,  a 
session  in  the  time  of  the  Plantagenets.  Specimens  of 
questions  and  answers,  of  Government  speeches  and 
speeches  of  the  Opposition,  have  been  preserved.  More- 
over, some  of  the  buildings  where  these  scenes  took  place 
still  exist  to-day.2 

1  "Ad  le  Blakeheth,  ubi  ducenta  millia  communium  fuere  simul  congregata 
hujuscemodi  sermonem  est  exorsus  : 

Whann  Adam  dalfe  and  Eve  span 
Who  was  thanne  a  gentil  man  ? 

Continuansque  sermonem  inceptum,  nitebatur,  per  verba  proverbii  quod  pro 
themate  sumpserat,  introducere  et  probare,  ab  initio  omnes  pares  creatos  a 
natura,  servitutem  per  injustam  oppressionem  nequam  hominum  introductam, 
contra  voluntatem  Dei  ;  quia  si  Deo  placiusset  servos  creasse  utiquein  principio 
mundi  constituisset  quis  servus,  quisve  dominus  futurus  fuisset."  Let  them 
therefore  destroy  nobles  and  lawyers,  as  the  good  husbandman  tears  up  the 
weeds  in  his  field  ;  thus  shall  liberty  and  equality  reign  :  "  Sic  demum  .  .  . 
esset  inter  eos  aequa  libertas,  par  dignitas,  similisque  potestas."  "  Chronicon 
Anglise,"  ed.  Maunde  Thompson  (Rolls),  1874,  8vo,  p.  321  ;  Walsingham, 
vol.  ii.  p.  32. 

2  "  Rotuli    Parliamentorum,  ut    et    petitiones    et    placita   in    Parliamento," 
London,  7  vols.  fol.  (one  volume  contains  the  index). 


4H  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

First  of  all,  and  before  the  opening  of  the  session,  a 
"  general  proclamation "  was  read  in  the  great  hall  of 
Westminster,  that  hall  built  by  William  Rufus,  the  wood- 
work of  which  was  replaced  by  Richard  II.,  and  that  has 
been  lately  cleared  of  its  cumbrous  additions.1  This 
proclamation  forbids  each  and  all  to  come  to  the  place 
where  Parliament  sits,  "  armed  with  hoquetons,  armor, 
swords,  and  long  knives  or  other  sorts  of  weapons  ;  "  for 
such  serious  troubles  have  been  the  result  of  this  wearing 
of  arms  that  business  has  been  impeded,  and  the  members 
of  Parliament  have  been  "  effreietz,"  frightened,  by  these 
long  knives.  Then,  descending  to  lesser  things,  the  pro- 
clamation goes  on  to  forbid  the  street-boys  of  London  to 
play  at  hide-and-seek  in  the  palace,  or  to  perform  tricks  on 
the  passers-by,  such  as  "  to  twitch  off  their  hoods "  for 
instance,  which  the  proclamation  in  parliamentary  style 
terms  improper  games,  "jues  nient  covenables."  But  as 
private  liberty  should  be  respected  as  much  as  possible, 
this  prohibition  is  meant  only  for  the  duration  of  the 
session.2 

On  the  day  of  the  opening  the  king  repairs  to  the  place 
of  the  sittings,  where  he  not  unfrequently  finds  an  empty 
room,  many  of  the  members  or  of  the  "  great  "  having  been 
delayed  on  the  way  by  bad  weather,  bad  roads,  or  other 
impediments.3  Another  day  is  then  fixed  upon  for  the 
solemn  opening  of  the  business. 

All  being  at  last  assembled,  the  king,  the  lords  spiritual 
and  temporal  and  the  Commons,  meet  together  in  the 
"  Painted  Chamber."  The  Chancellor  explains  the  cause 
of  the  summons,  and  the  questions  to  be  discussed.     This 

1  Richard  restored  it  entirely,  and  employed  English  master  masons, 
"Richard  Washbourn  "  and  "  Johan  Swalwe."  The  indenture  is  of  March 
18,  1395  ;  the  text  of  it  is  in  Rymer,  1705,  vol.  vii.  p.  794. 

*  "  Rotuli  Parliainentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  103. 

3  Ex.  13  Ed.  III.,  17  Ed.  III.,  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  pp.  107, 
135. 


PROSE. 


4i5 


is  an  opportunity  for  a  speech,  and  we  have  the  text  of 
a  good  many  of  them.  Sometimes  it  is  a  simple,  clear, 
practical  discourse,  enumerating,  without  any  studied 
phrases  or  pompous  terms,  the  points  that  are  to  be 
treated  ;  sometimes  it  is  a  flowery  and  pretentious  oration, 
adorned  with  witticisms  and  quotations,  and  compliments 
addressed  to  the  king,  as  is  for  instance  the  speech  (in 
French)  of  the  bishop  of  St.  David's,  Adam  Houghton, 
Chancellor  of  England  in    1377: 

"  Lords  and  Gentlemen,  I  have  orders  from  my  lord  the 
Prince  here  present,  whom  God  save,"  the  youthful  Richard, 
heir  to  the  throne,  "to  expound  the  reason  why  this  Parlia- 
ment was  summoned.  And  true  it  is  that  the  wise  suffer 
and  desire  to  hear  fools  speak,  as  is  affirmed  by  St.  Paul  in 
his  Epistles,  for  he  saith  :  Libenter  sujfertis  insipientes  cum 
sitis  ipsi  sapientes.  And  in  as  much  as  you  are  wise  and 
I  am  a  fool,  I  understand  that  you  wish  to  hear  me  speak. 
And  another  cause  there  is,  which  will  rejoice  you  if  you 
are  willing  to  hear  me.  For  the  Scripture  saith  that  every 
messenger  bringing  glad  tidings,  must  be  always  welcome  ; 
and  I  am  a  messenger  that  bringeth  you  good  tidings, 
wherefore  I  must  needs  be  welcome." 

t  All  these  pretty  things  are  to  convey  to  them  that  the 
king,  Edward  III.,  then  on  the  brink  of  the  grave,  is  not 
quite  so  ill,  which  should  be  a  cause  of  satisfaction  for  his 
subjects.  Another  cause  of  joy,  for  everything  seems  to  be 
considered  as  such  by  the  worthy  bishop,  is  this  illness 
itself;  "  for  the  Scripture  saith:  Quos  diligo  castigo,  which 
proves  that  God  him  loves,  and  that  he  is  blessed  of  God." 
The  king  is  to  be  a  "  vessel  of  grace,"  vas  electionis.1  The 
Chancellor  continues  thus  at  length,  heedless  of  the  fact 
that  the  return  of  Alice  Perrers  to  the  old  king  belies  his 
Biblical  applications. 

Simon  Sudbury,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  was  to 

1   "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  361. 


416  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

die  such  a  dreadful  death,  from  the  eighth  blow  of  the  axe, 
after  having  lost  the  hand  which  he  carried  to  the  first 
wound,  spoke  in  much  the  same  style.  He  opened  in 
these  terms  the  first  parliament  of  Richard  II.  : 

"  Rex  tuus  venit  tibi. — Lords  and  Gentlemen,  the  words 
which  I  have  spoken  signify  in  French  :  Your  king  comes 
to  thee. — And  thereupon,  the  said  archbishop  gave  several 
good  reasons  agreeing  with  his  subject,  and  divided  his 
said  subject  in  three  parts,  as  though  it  had  been  a 
sermon." 

In  truth  it  is  a  sermon  ;  the  Gospel  is  continually  quoted, 
and  serves  for  unexpected  comparisons.  The  youthful 
Richard  has  come  to  Parliament,  just  as  the  Blessed  Virgin 
went  to  see  St.  Elizabeth  ;  the  joy  is  the  same :  "  Et  ex- 
ultavit  infans  in  utero  ejus."  * 

Fortunately,  all  did  not  lose  themselves  in  such  flowery 
mazes.  William  Thorpe,  William  of  Shareshull,  William 
of  Wykeham,  John  Knyvet,  &c,  make  business-like 
speeches,  simple,  short,  and  to  the  point :  "  My  Lords,  and 
you  of  the  Commons,"  says  Chancellor  Knyvet,  "  you  well 
know  how  after  the  peace  agreed  upon  between  our  lord 
the  King  and  his  adversaries  of  France,  and  openly 
infringed  by  the  latter,  the  king  sent  soldiers  and  nobles 
across  the  sea  to  defend  us,  which  they  do,  but  are  hard 
pressed  by  the  enemy.  If  they  protect  us,  we  must  help 
them." 

The  reasoning  is  equally  clear  in  Wykeham's  speeches, 
and  with  the  same  skill  he  makes  it  appear  as  if  the 
Commons  had  a  share  in  all  the  king's  actions:  "Gentlemen, 

1  "  Seigneurs  et  Sires,  ces  paroles  qe  j'ay  dist  sont  tant  a  dire  en  Franceys, 
vostre  Roi  vient  a  toy."  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.  p.  3.  A  speech  of  the  same  kind 
adorned  with  puns  was  made  by  Thomas  Arundel,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
to  open  the  first  Parliament  of  Henry  IV.  :  "  Cest  honorable  roialme  d'Angle- 
terre  q'est  le  pluis  habundant  Angle  de  richesse  parmy  tout  le  monde,  avait 
estee  par  longe  temps  mesnez,  reulez  et  governez  par  enfantz  et  conseil  de 
vefves.   ..."  1399,  Ibid.,  p.  415. 


PROSE.  41 7 

you  well   know  how,  in  the  last  Parliament,  the  king,  with 
your  consent,  again  took  the  title  of  King  of  France.  .  .  ."  x 

These  speeches  being  heard,  and  the  "  receivers  "  and 
"  triers "  of  petitions  having  been  appointed,2  the  two 
houses  divided,  and  deliberated  apart  from  each  other  ;  the 
Lords  retired  "  to  the  White  Chamber  "  ;  the  Commons 
remained  "  in  the  Painted  Chamber."  At  other  times  "  the 
said  Commons  were  told  to  withdraw  by  themselves  to 
their  old  place  in  the  Chapter  House  of  Westminster 
Abbey,"3  that  beautiful  Chapter  House  still  in  existence, 
which  had  been  built  under  Henry  III. 

Then  the  real  debates  began,  interrupted  by  the  most 
impassioned  speeches.  They  were  not  reported,  and  only 
a  faint  echo  has  reached  us.  Traces  of  the  sentiments 
which  animated  the  Commons  are  found,  however,  in 
the  petitions  they  drew  up,  which  were  like  so  many 
articles  of  the  bargains  contracted  by  them.  For  they  did 
not  allow  themselves  to  be  carried  away  by  the  eloquent 
and  tender  speeches  of  the  Government  orators  ;  they  were 
practical  and  cold-blooded  ;  they  agreed  to  make  conces- 
sions provided  concessions  were  made  to  them,  and  they 
added  an  annulling  clause  in  case  the  king  refused  :  "  In 
case  the  conditions  are  not  complied  with,  they  shall  not 
be  obliged  to  grant  the  aid."  4     The  discussions  are  long 

*  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum."  Speech  of  Knyvet,  vol.  ii.  p.  316  ;  of  Wyke- 
ham,  vol.  ii.  p.  303.  This  same  Knyvet  opens  the  Good  Parliament  of  1376 
by  a  speech  equally  forcible.  He  belonged  to  the  magistracy,  and  was  greatly 
respected;  he  died  in  1381. 

2  Ex  :  "  Item,  meisme  le  jour  (that  is  to  say  the  day  on  which  the  general 
proclamation  was  read)  fut  fait  une  crie  qe  chescun  qi  vodra  mettre  petition  a 
nostre  seigneur  le  Roi  et  a  son  conseil,  les  mette  entre  cy  et  le  lundy  prochein 
a  venir.  .  .  .  Et  serront  assignez  de  receivre  les  petitions  ...  les  sousescritz." 
Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  135. 

3  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  136,  163.  "  Fut  dit  a  les  ditz  Communes  de  par  le 
Roy,  q'ils  se  retraiassent  par  soi  a  louraunciene  place  en  la  maison  du  chapitre 
de  l'abbeye  de  Westm',  et  y  tretassent  et  conseillassent  entre  eux  meismes." 

4  Vol.  ii.  p.  107,  second  Parliament  of  1339. 

28 


4i 8  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

and  minute  in  both  houses  ;  members  do  not  meet  for 
form's  sake  ;  decisions  are  not  lightly  taken  :  "  Of  which 
things,"  we  read  in  the  Rolls,  "  they  treated  at  length."1 
In  another  case,  the  Commons,  from  whom  a  ready-made 
answer  was  expected,  announce  that  "  they  wish  to  talk 
together,"  and  they  continue  to  talk  from  the  24th  of 
January  to  the  19th  of  February.2  Only  too  glad  was  the 
Government  when  the  members  did  not  declare  "  that  they 
dare  not  assent  without  discussing  the  matter  with  the 
Commons  of  their  shire,"  3  that  is  to  say,  without  consulting 
their  constituents.  And  this  they  do,  though  William  de 
la  Pole  and  others,  sent  "  by  our  lord  the  king  from  thence 
(that  is  from  France)  as  envoys,"  had  modestly  explained 
the  urgency  of  the  case,  and  "  the  cause  of  the  long  stay  the 
king  had  made  in  these  aforesaid  parts,  without  riding 
against  his  enemies,"  4  this  cause  being  lack  of  money. 

When  the  Commons  have  at  last  come  to  a  decision, 
they  make  it  known  in  the  presence  of  the  Lords  through 
the  medium  of  their  Speaker,  or,  as  he  was  called  in  the 
French  of  the  period,  the  one  who  had  the  words  for 
them  :  "  Qui  avoit  les  paroles  pur  les  Communes  d'Engle- 
terre  en  cest  Parlement."5  In  these  replies  especially,  and 
in  the  petitions  presented  at  the  same  time,  are  found  traces 
of  the  vehemence  displayed  in  the  Chapter  House.     The 


1  << 

2     CC  I 


lis  treterent  longement,"  Ibid. ,  ii.  p.  104. 

Sur  quele  demonstrance  il  respoundrent  q'il  voleient  parler  ensemble  et 
treter  sur  cest  bosoigne.  .  .  .  Sur  quel  bosoigne  ceux  de  la  Commune  demore- 
rent  de  lour  respons  doner  tant  qe  a  Samedi,  le  XIX.  jour  de  Feverer."  A.D. 
1339>  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  107. 

3  "  lis  n'osoront  assentir  tant  qu'ils  eussent  conseillez  et  avysez  les  Com- 
munes de  lour  pais."  They  promise  to  do  their  best  to  persuade  their  consti- 
tuents.    A.D.  1339  ;   "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  104. 

*  "  Et  les  nuncia  auxi  la  cause  de  la  longe  demore  quele  il  avoit  faite  es 
dites  parties  saunz  chivaucher  sur  ses  enemys  ;  et  coment  il  le  covendra  faire 
pur  defaute  d'avoir."  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  103,  first  Parlia- 
ment of  1339. 

5  51  Ed.  III.,  "Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  ii.  p.  374. 


PROSE.  419 

boldness  of  the  answers  and  of  the  remonstrances  is  extra- 
ordinary, and  from  their  tone  can  be  conceived  with  what 
power  and  freedom  civil  eloquence,  of  which  England  has 
since  produced  so  many  admirable  specimens,  displayed 
itself,  even  at  that  distant  epoch. 

The  most  remarkable  case  is  that  of  the  Good  Parlia- 
ment of  1376,  in  which,  after  having  deliberated  apart,  the 
Commons  join  the  other  house,  and  by  the  mouth  of  their 
Speaker,  Peter  de  la  Mare,  bring  in  their  bill  of  complaints 
against  royalty  :  "  And  after  that  the  aforesaid  Commons 
came  to  Parliament,  openly  protesting  that  they  were  as 
willing  and  determined  to  help  their  noble  liege  lord  .  .  . 
as  any  others  had  ever  been,  in  any  time  past.  .  .  .  But 
they  said  it  seemed  to  them  an  undoubted  fact,  that  if  their 
liege  lord  had  always  had  around  him  loyal  counsellors 
and  good  officers  .  .  .  our  lord  the  king  would  have  been 
very  rich  in  treasure,  and  therefore  would  not  have  had 
such  great  need  of  burdening  his  Commons,  either  with 
subsidy,  talliage,  or  otherwise.  ..."  A  special  list  of 
grievances  is  drawn  up  against  the  principal  prevaricators  ; 
their  names  are  there,  and  their  crimes  ;  the  king's  mis- 
tress, Alice  Perrers,  is  not  forgotten.  Then  follow  the 
petitions  of  the  Commons,  the  number  of  which  is 
enormous,  a  hundred  and  forty  in  all,  in  which  abuses  are 
pointed  out  one  by  one.1 

*  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  ii.  p.  323.  This  speech  created  a  great 
stir;  another  analysis  of  it  exists  in  the  "  Chronicon  Anglias"  (written  by  a 
monk  of  St.  Albans,  the  abbot  of  which,  Thomas  de  la  Mare,  sat  in  Parlia- 
ment) :  "Quae  omnia  ferret  sequanimiter  [plebs  communis]  si  dominus  rex 
noster  sive  regnum  istud  exinde  aliquid  commodi  vel  emolumenti  sumpsisse 
videretur ;  etiam  plebi  tolerabile,  si  in  expediendis  rebus  bellicis,  quamvis 
gestis  minus  prospere,  tanta  pecunia  fuisset  expensa.  Sed  palam  est,  nee 
regem  commodum,  nee  regnum  ex  hac  fructum  aliquem  percepisse.  .  .  .  Non 
enim  est  credibile  regem  carere  infinita  thesauri  quantitate  si  fideles  fuerint  qui 
ministrant  ei"  (p.  73).  The  drift  of  the  speech  is,  as  may  be  seen,  exactly  the 
same  as  in  the  Rolls  of  Parliament.  Another  specimen  of  pithy  eloquence  will 
be  found  in  the  apostrophe  addressed  to  the  Earl  of  Stafford  by  John  Philpot, 
a  mercer  of  London,  after  his  naval  feat  of  1378.     Ibid. ,  p.  200. 


420  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

Formerly,  say  the  Commons,  "  bishoprics,  as  well  as 
other  benefices  of  Holy  Church,  used  to  be,  after  true 
elections,  in  accordance  with  saintly  considerations  and 
pure  charity,  assigned  to  people  found  to  be  worthy  of 
clerical  promotion,  men  of  clean  life  and  holy  behaviour, 
whose  intention  it  was  to  stay  on  their  benefices,  there  to 
preach,  visit,  and  shrive  their  parishioners.  .  .  .  And  so 
long  as  these  good  customs  were  observed,  the  realm  was 
full  of  all  sorts  of  prosperity,  of  good  people  and  loyal, 
good  clerks  and  clergy,  two  things  that  always  go  together. 
.  .  ."  The  encroachments  of  the  See  of  Rome  in  England 
are,  for  all  right-minded  people,  "  great  subject  of  sorrow 
and  of  tears."  Cursed  be  the  "  sinful  city  of  Avignon," 
where  simony  reigns,  so  that  "  a  sorry  fellow  who  knows 
nothing  of  what  he  ought  and  is  worthless  "  will  receive  a 
benefice  of  the  value  of  a  thousand  marcs,  "  when  a  doctor 
of  decree'  and  a  master  of  divinity  will  be  only  too  glad  to 
secure  some  little  benefice  of  the  value  of  twenty  marcs." 
The  foreigners  who  are  given  benefices  in  England  "will 
never  see  their  parishioners  .  .  .  and  more  harm  is  done 
to  Holy  Church  by  such  bad  Christians  than  by  all  the 
Jews  and  Saracens  in  the  world.  ...  Be  it  again  remem- 
bered that  God  has  committed  his  flock  to  the  care  of  our 
Holy  Father  the  Pope,  that  they  might  be  fed  and  not 
shorn."  x  The  Commons  fear  nothing  ;  neither  king  nor 
Pope  could  make  them  keep  silence.  In  their  mind  the 
idea  begins  to  dawn  that  the  kingdom  is  theirs,  and  the 
king  too  ;  they  demand  that  Richard,  heir  to  the  throne, 
shall  be  brought  to  them  ;  they  wish  to  see  him  ;  and  he  is 
shown  to  them.2 

In  spite  of  the  progress  made  by  the  English  language, 
French  continued  to  be  used  at  Westminster.  It  remained 
as  a  token  of  power  and  an  emblem  of  authority,  just  as 
modern  castles  are  still  built  with  towers,  though  not  meant 

1  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  ii.  pp.  337  ff.  2  June  25,  1376. 


PROSE.  42 1 

to  be  defended  by  cannon.  It  was  a  sign,  and  this  sign 
has  subsisted,  since  the  formula  by  which  the  laws  are 
ratified  is  still  in  French  at  the  present  time.  English, 
nevertheless,  began  to  make  an  appearance  even  at  West- 
minster. From  1363,1  the  opening  speeches  are  sometimes 
in  English  ;  in  1399,  the  English  tongue  was  used  in  the 
chief  acts  and  discourses  relating  to  the  deposition  of 
Richard.  On  Monday,  the  29th  of  September,  the  king 
signed  his  act  of  resignation  ;  on  the  following  day  a 
solemn  meeting  of  Parliament  took  place,  in  presence  of 
all  the  people,  in  Westminster  Hall  ;  the  ancient  throne 
containing  Jacob's  stone,  brought  from  Scotland  by  Edward 
I.,  and  which  can  still  be  seen  in  the  abbey,  had  been 
placed  in  the  hall,  and  covered  with  cloth  of  gold,  "  cum 
pannis  auri."  Richard's  act  of  resignation  was  read  "  first 
in  Latin,  then  in  English,"  and  the  people  showed  their 
approbation  of  the  same  by  applause.  Henry  then  came 
forward,  claimed  the  kingdom,  in  English,  and  seated  him- 
self on  the  throne,  in  the  midst  of  the  acclamations  of 
those  present.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  delivered 
an  oration,  and  the  new  king,  speaking  again,  offered  his 
thanks  in  English  to  "  God,  and  yowe  Spirituel  and  Tem- 
porel,  and  alle  the  Astates  of  the  lond."2  There  is  no  more 
memorable  sign  of  the  changes  that  had  taken  place  than 

1  The  speech  of  this  year  was  made  "en  Engleis,"  by  Simon,  bishop  of 
Ely;  but  the  Rolls  give  only  a  French  version  of  it :  "  Le  prophet  David  dit 
que  .  .  ."  &c,  vol.  ii.  p.  283. 

2  "  Sires,  I  thank  God,  and  yowe  Spirituel  and  Temporel  and  alle  the 
Astates  of  the  lond  ;  and  do  yowe  to  wyte,  it  es  noght  my  will  that  no  man 
thynk  yl  be  waye  of  conquest  I  wold  disherit  any  man  of  his  heritage,  franches, 
or  other  ryghtes  that  hym  aght  to  have,  no  put  hym  out  of  that  that  he  has  and 
has  had  by  the  gude  lawes  and  custumes  of  the  Rewme  :  Except  thos  persons 
that  has  ben  agan  the  gude  purpose  and  the  commune  profyt  of  the  Rewme." 
"  Rotuli  Parliamentorum,"  vol.  iii.  p.  423.  In  the  fifteenth  century  the  Par- 
liamentary documents  are  written  sometimes  in  French,  sometimes  in  English; 
French  predominates  in  the  first  half  of  the  century,  and  English  in  th 
second. 


422  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

the  use  made  of  the  English  language  on  an  occasion  like 
this,  by  a  prince  who  had  no  title  to  the  crown  but  popular 
favour 

III. 

All  these  translators  were  necessarily  wanting  in  origi- 
nality (less,  however,  than  they  need  have  been),  and  all 
these  orators  spoke  for  the  most  part  in  French.  In  their 
hands,  English  prose  could  not  be  perfected  to  a  very  high 
degree.  It  progressed,  however,  owing  to  them,  but  owing 
much  more  to  an  important  personage,  who  made  common 
English  his  fighting  weapon,  John  Wyclif,  to  whom  the 
title  of  "  Father  of  English  prose "  rightfully  belongs, 
now  that  Mandeville  has  dissolved  in  smoke.  Wyclif, 
Langland,  and  Chaucer  are  the  three  great  figures  of 
English  literature  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Wyclif  belonged  to  the  rich  and  respected  family  of  the 
Wyclifs,  lords  of  the  manor  of  Wyclif,  in  Yorkshire.1  He 
was  born  about  1320,  and  devoted  himself  early  to  a 
scientific  and  religious  calling.  He  studied  at  Oxford, 
where  he  soon  attracted  notice,  being  one  of  those  men  of 
character  who  occupy  from  the  beginning  of  their  lives, 
without  seeking  for  it,  but  being,  as  it  seems,  born  to  it,  a 
place  apart,  amid  the  limp  multitude  of  men.  The  turn 
of  his  mind,  the  originality  of  his  views,  the  firmness  of 
his  will,  his  learning,  raised  him  above  others  ;  he  was 
one  of  those  concerning  whom  it  is  at  once  said  they 
are  "  some  one  ;  "  and  several  times  in  the  course  of  his 
existence  he  saw  the  University,  the  king,  the  country 
even,  turn  to  him  when  "  some  one  "  was  needed. 

He  was  hardly  thirty-five  when,  the  college  of  Balliol  at 

1  On  Wyclifs  family,  see  "  The  Birth  and  Parentage  of  Wyclif,"  by  L.  Ser- 
geant, AthencEum,  March  12  and  26,  1892.  This  spelling  of  his  name  is  the 
one  which  appears  oftenest  in  contemporary  documents.  (Note  by  F.  D. 
Matthew,  Academy,  June  7,  1884.) 


PROSE.  423 

Oxford  having  lost  its  master,  he  was  elected  to  the  post. 
In  1366  Parliament  ruled  that  the  Pope's  claim  to  the 
tribute  promised  by  King  John  should  no  longer  be  recog- 
nised, and  Wyclif  was  asked  to  draw  up  a  pamphlet 
justifying  the  decision.1  In  1374  a  diplomatic  mission  was 
entrusted  to  him,  and  he  went  to  Bruges,  with  several  other 
"  ambassatores,"  to  negotiate  with  the  Pope's  representa- 
tives.2    He  then  had  the  title  of  doctor  of  divinity. 

Various  provincial  livings  were  successively  bestowed 
upon  him:  that  of  Fillingham  in  1361  ;  that  of  Ludgars- 
hall  in  1368  ;  that  of  Lutterworth,  in  Leicestershire,  in 
1374,  which  he  kept  till  his  death.  He  divided  his  time 
between  his  duties  as  rector,  his  studies,  his  lectures  at 
Oxford,  and  his  life  in  London,  where  he  made  several 
different  stays,  and  preached  some  of  his  sermons. 

These  quiet  occupations  were  interrupted  from  time  to 
time  owing  to  the  storms  raised  by  his  writings.  But  so 
great  was  his  fame,  and  so  eminent  his  personality,  that  he 
escaped  the  terrible  consequences  that  heresy  then  involved. 
He  had  at  first  alarmed  religious  authority  by  his  political 
theories  on  the  relations  of  Church  and  State,  next  on  the 
reformation  of  the  Church  itself;  finally  he  created  ex- 
cessive scandal  by  attacking  dogmas  and  by  discussing 
the  sacraments.  Summoned  the  first  time  to  answer  in 
respect  of  his  doctrines,  he  appeared  in  St.  Paul's,  in  1377, 
attended  by  the  strange  patrons  that  a  common  animosity 
against  the  high  dignitaries  of  the  Church  had  gained  for 
him  ;  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster,  and  Lord  Henry 
Percy  accompanied   him.      The  duke,  little    troubled   by 

1  "  Determinatio  quedam  magistri  Johannis  Wyclyff  de  Dominio  contra 
unum  monachum."  The  object  of  this  treatise  is  to  show  "  quod  Rex  potest 
juste  dominari  regno  Anglie  negando  tributum  Romano  pontifici."  The  text 
will  be  found  in  John  Lewis  :  "  A  history  of  the  life  and  sufferings  of  .  .  . 
John  Wiclif,"  1720,  reprinted  Oxford,  1820,  8vo,  p.  349. 

2  "  Ambassatores,  nuncios  et  procuratores  nostros  speciales."  Lewis,  ibid., 
p.  304. 


424  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

scruples,  loudly  declared,  in  the  middle  of  the  church,  that 
he  would  drag  the  bishop  out  of  the  cathedral  by  the  hair 
of  his  head.  These  words  were  followed  by  an  indescri- 
bable tumult.  Indignant  at  this  insult,  the  people  of  the 
City  drove  the  duke  from  the  church,  pursued  him  through 
the  town,  and  laid  siege  to  the  house  of  John  of  Ypres,  a 
rich  merchant  with  whom  he  had  gone  to  sup.  Luckily 
for  the  prince,  the  house  opened  on  the  Thames.  He  rose 
in  haste,  knocking  his  legs  against  the  table,  and,  without 
stopping  to  drink  the  cordial  offered  him,  slipped  into 
a  boat  and  fled,  as  fast  as  oars  could  carry  him,  to  his 
sister-in-law's,  the  Princess  of  Wales,  at  Kennington.1  The 
summoning  of  Wyclif  thus  had  no  result. 

But  the  Pope,  in  the  same  year,  launched  against  the 
English  theologian  bulls  pointing  out  eighteen  erroneous 
propositions  contained  in  his  writings,  and  enjoining  that 
the  culprit  should  be  put  in  prison  if  he  refused  to  retract. 
The  University  of  Oxford,  being  already  a  power  at  that 
time,  proud  of  its  privileges,  jealous  in  maintaining  soli- 
darity between  its  members,  imbued  with  those  ideas  of 
opposition  to  the  Pope  which  were  increasing  in  England, 
considered  the  decree  as  an  excessive  exercise  of  authority. 
It  examined  the  propositions,  and  declared  them  to  be 
orthodox,  though  capable  of  wrong  interpretations,  on 
which  account  Wyclif  should  go  to  London  and  explain 
himself.2 

He  is  found,  therefore,  in  London  in  the  beginning  of 

1  All  these  details  are  found  in  the  "  Chronicon  Anglise,"  1328-88,  ed. 
Maunde  Thompson,  Rolls,  1874,  8vo,  p.  123,  one  of  the  rare  chronicles  the 
MS.  of  which  was  not  expurgated,  in  what  relates  to  John  of  Gaunt,  at  the 
accession  of  the  Lancasters.     (See  above,  p.  406.) 

2  This  extreme  leniency  caused  an  indignation  of  which  an  echo  is  found 
in  Walsingham  :  "  Oxoniense  studium  generale,"'  he  exclaims,  "  quam  gravi 
lapsu  a  sapientiae  et  scientise  culmine  decidisti !  .  .  .  Pudet  recordationis  tantse 
impudentiae,  et  ideo  supersedeo  in  husjusmodi  materia  immorari,  ne  materna 
videar  ubera  decerpere  dentibus,  que:  dare  lac,  potum  scientiae,  consuevere." 
"  Historia  Anglicana      Rolls,  vol.  i.  p.  345,  year  1378. 


PROSE.  425 

1378  ;  the  bishops  are  assembled  in  the  still  existing 
chapel  of  Lambeth  Palace.  But  by  one  of  those  singu- 
larities that  allow  us  to  realise  how  the  limits  of  the  various 
powers  were  far  from  being  clearly  defined,  it  happened 
that  the  bishops  had  received  positive  orders  not  to  con- 
demn Wyclif.  The  prohibition  proceeded  from  a  woman, 
the  Princess  of  Wales,  widow  of  the  Black  Prince.  The 
prelates,  however,  were  spared  the  trouble  of  choosing 
between  the  Pope  and  the  lady ;  '  for  the  second  time 
Wyclif  was  saved  by  a  riot  ;  a  crowd  favourable  to  his 
ideas  invaded  the  palace,  and  no  sentence  could  be  given 
Any  other  would  have  appeared  the  more  guilty  ;  he  only 
lived  the  more  respected.  He  was  then  at  the  height  of 
his  popularity  ;  a  new  public  statement  that  he  had  just 
issued  in  favour  of  the  king  against  the  Pope  had  confirmed 
his  reputation  as  advocate  and  defender  of  the  kingdom  of 
England.1 

He  resumed,  therefore,  in  peace  his  work  of  destruction, 
and  began  to  attack  dogmas.  Besides  his  writings  and  his 
speeches,  he  used,  in  order  to  popularise  his  doctrines,  his 
"  simple  priests,"  or  "  poor  priests,"  who,  without  being 
formed  into  a  religious  order,  imitated  the  wandering  life 
of  the  friars,  but  not  their  mendicity,  and  strove  to  attain 
the  ideal  which  the  friars  had  fallen  short  of.  They  went 
about  preaching  from  village  to  village,  and  the  civil 
authority  was  alarmed  by  the  political  and  religious 
theories  expounded  to  the  people  by  these  wanderers, 
who  journeyed  "  from  county  to  county,  and  from  town  to 

1  See  in  the  "  Fasciculi  Zizaniorum  magistri  Johannis  Wyclif  cum  tritico," 
ed.  Shirley,  Rolls,  1858,  8vo,  p.  258  :  "  Responsio  magistri  Johannis  Wycclifi 
ad  dubium  infra  scriptum,  quaesitum  ab  eo,  per  dominum  regem  Angliae  Ricar- 
dum  secundum  et  magnum  suum  consilium  anno  regni  sui  primo."  The  point 
to  be  elucidated  was  the  following  :  "  Dubium  est  utrum  regnum  Angliae  possit 
legitime,  imminente  necessitate  suae  defensionis,  thesaurum  regni  detinere,  ne 
deferatur  ad  exteros,  etiam  domino  papa  sub  poena  censurarum  et  virtute  obedi- 
ential hoc  petente." 


426  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

town,  in  certain  habits  under  dissimulation  of  great  holi- 
ness, without  license  of  our  Holy  Father  the  Pope,  or  of 
the  ordinary  of  the  diocese." x  Wyclif  justified  these 
unlicensed  preachings  by  the  example  of  St.  Paul,  who, 
after  his  conversion,  "  preechide  fast,  and  axide  noo  leve  of 
Petir  herto,  for  he  hadde  leve  of  Jesus  Crist."  2 

From  this  time  forth  Wyclif  began  to  circulate  on  the 
sacraments,  and  especially  on  the  Eucharist,  opinions  that 
Oxford  even  was  unable  to  tolerate  ;  the  University  con- 
demned them.  Conformably  to  his  own  theory,  which 
tended,  as  did  that  of  the  Commons,  towards  a  royal 
supremacy,  Wyclif  appealed  not  to  the  Pope  but  to  the 
king,  and  in  the  meantime  refused  to  submit.  This  was 
carrying  boldness  very  far.  John  of  Gaunt  separates  from 
his  protege  ;  Courtenay,  bishop  of  London,  calls  together  a 
Council  which  condemns  Wyclif  and  his  adherents  (1382); 
the  followers  are  pursued,  and  retract  or  exile  themselves  ; 
but  Wyclif  continues  to  live  in  perfect  quiet.  Settled  at 
Lutterworth,  from  whence  he  now  rarely  stirred,  he  wrote 
more  than  ever,  with  a  more  and  more  caustic  and  daring 
pen.  The  papal  schism,  which  had  begun  in  1378,  had 
cast  discredit  on  the  Holy  See  ;  Wyclif's  work  was  made 
the  easier  by  it.  At  last  Urban  VI.,  the  Pope  whom 
England  recognised,  summoned  him  to  appear  in  his 
presence,  but  an  attack  of  paralysis  came  on,  and  Wyclif 
died  in  his  parish  on  the  last  day  of  the  year  1384. 
"Organum    diabolicum,   hostis    Ecclesiae,    confusio    vulgi, 

1  "Statutes  of  the  Realm,"  5  Rich.  II.,  St.  2,  chap.  5.  Walsingham  thus 
describes  them:  "  Congregavit  .  .  .  comites  .  .  .  talaribus  indutos  vestibus 
de  russeto  in  signum  perfectionis  amplioris,  incedentes  nudis  pedibus,  qui  suos 
errores  in  populo  ventilarent,  et  palam  ac  publice  in  suis  sermonibus  prsedi- 
carent."  "  Historia  Anglicana,"  sub  anno  1377,  Rolls,  vol.  i.  p.  324.  A 
similar  description  is  found  (they  present  themselves,  "  sub  magna?  sanctitatis 
velamine,"  and  preach  errors  "  tam  in  ecclesiis  quam  in  plateis  et  aliis  locis 
profanis")  in  the  letter  of  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  of  May  28,  1382, 
"  Fasciculi,"  p.  275. 

2  "  Select  English  Works,"  ed.  T.  Arnold,  Oxford,  1869,  vol.  i.  p.  176. 


PROSE.  427 

haereticorum  idolum,  hypocritarum  speculum,  schismatis 
incentor,  odii  seminator,  mendacii  fabricator "  '  :  such  is 
the  funeral  oration  inscribed  in  his  annals,  at  this  date,  by 
Thomas  Walsingham,  monk  of  St.  Albans.  By  order  of 
the  Council  of  Constance,  his  ashes  were  afterwards  thrown 
to  the  winds,  and  the  family  of  the  Wyclifs  of  Wyclif, 
firmly  attached  to  the  old  faith,  erased  him  from  their 
genealogical  tree.  When  the  Reformation  came,  the 
family  remained  Catholic,  and  this  adherence  to  the 
Roman  religion  seems  to  have  been  the  cause  of  its  decay : 
"  The  last  of  the  Wyclifs  was  a  poor  gardener,  who  dined 
every  Sunday  at  Thorpe  Hall,  as  the  guest  of  Sir  Marma- 
duke  Tunstall,  on  the  strength  of  his  reputed  descent."  2 


IV. 

Wyclif  had   begun  early  to  write,  using   at  first   only 
Latin.3     Innumerable  treatises  of  his  exist,  many  of  which 

1  "  Historia  Anglicana,"  Rolls,  vol.  ii.  p.  119.     Elsewhere,  in  another  series 
of  unflattering  epithets  ("old  hypocrite,"  "angel of  Satan,"  &c),  the  chronicler 
had  allowed  himself  the  pleasure  of  making  a  little  pun  upon  Wyclifs  name  : 
"  Non  nominandus  Joannes  Wicliffe,  vel   potius  Wykbeleve."     Year    1381 
vol.  i.  p.  450. 

2  L.  Sergeant,  "  The  Birth  and  Parentage  of  Wyclif,"  in  the  Athenaum  of 
March  12,  1892. 

3  The  Wyclif  Society,  founded  in  London  by  Dr.  Furnivall,  has  published  a 
great  part  of  the  Latin  works  of  Wyclif :  "Polemical  Works  in  Latin,"  ed. 
Buddensieg,  1883,  8vo  ;  "  Toannis  Wyclif,  de  compositione  Hominis,"  ed.  R. 
Beer,  1884;  "  Tractatus  de  civili  Dominio  .  .  .  from  the  unique  MS.  at 
Vienna,"  ed.  R.  Lane  Poole,  1885  ff.  ;  "Tractatus  de  Ecclesia,"  ed.  Loserth, 
1886  ;  "  Dialogus,  sive  speculum  Ecclesie  militantis,"  ed.  A.  W.  Pollard, 
1886;  "Tractatus  de  benedicta  Incarnatione,"ed.  Harris,  1886;  "  Sermones," 
ed.  Loserth  and  Matthew,  1887  ;  "  Tractatus  de  officio  Regis,"  ed  Pollard 
and  Sayle,  1887  ;  "  De  Dominio  divino  libri  tres,  to  which  are  added  the  first 
four  books  of  the  treatise  '  De  pauperie  Salvatoris,'  by  Richard  Fitzralph, 
archbishop  of  Armagh,"  ed.  R.  L.  Poole,  1890;  "  De  Ente  praedicamentali," 
ed.  R.  Beer,  1891  "  De  Eucharistia  tractatus  maior  ;  accedit  tractatus  de 
Eucharistia  et  Pcenitentia,"  ed.  Loserth  and  Matthew,  1892.  Many  others 
are  in  preparation. 

Among  the  Latin  works  published  outside  of  the  Society,  see  "  Tractatus  de 


428  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

are  still  unpublished,  written  in  a  Latin  so  incorrect  and 
so  English  in  its  turns  that  "often  the  readiest  way  of 
understanding  an  obscure  passage  is  to  translate  it  into 
English."  r  He  obviously  attracted  the  notice  of  his  con- 
temporaries, not  by  the  elegance  of  his  style,  but  by  the 
power  of  his  thought. 

His  thought  deserved  the  attention  it  received.  His 
mind  was,  above  all,  a  critical  one,  opposed  to  formulas, 
to  opinions  without  proofs,  to  traditions  not  justified  by 
reason.  Precedents  did  not  overawe  him,  the  mysterious 
authority  of  distant  powers  had  no  effect  on  his  feelings. 
He  liked  to  look  things  and  people  in  the  face,  with  a 
steady  gaze,  and  the  more  important  the  thing  was  and  the 
greater  the  authority  claimed,  the  less  he  felt  disposed  to 
cast  down  his  eyes. 

Soon  he  wished  to  teach  others  to  open  theirs,  and  to 
see  for  themselves.  By  "  others  "  he  meant  every  one,  and 
not  only  clerks  or  the  great.  He  therefore  adopted  the 
language  of  every  one,  showing  himself  in  that  a  true 
Englishman,  a  partisan  of  the  system  of  free  investigation, 
so  dear  since  to  the  race.  He  applied  this  doctrine  to  all 
that  was  then  an  object  of  faith,  and  step  by  step,  passing 
rom  the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  he  ended  by  calling  for 
changes,  very  similar  to  those  England  adopted  at  the 
Reformation,  and  later  on  in  the  time  of  the  Puritans. 

His  starting-point  was  as  humble  and  abstract  as  his  con- 
clusions were,  some  of  them,  bold  and  practical.     A  super- 

officio  pastorali,"  ed.  Lechler,  Leipzig,  1863,  8vo  ;  "Trialogus  cum  supple- 
mento  Trialogi,"  ed.  Lechler,  Oxford,  1869,  8vo  ;  "  De  Christo  et  suo  Adver- 
saries Antichristo,"  ed.  R.  Buddensieg,  Gotha,  1880,  4to.  Many  documents 
by  or  concerning  Wyclif  are  to  be  found  in  the  "  Fasciculi  Zizaniorum  magistri 
Joannis  Wyclif  cum  tritico,"  ed.  Shirley,  Rolls,  1858,  8vo  (compiled  by  Thomas 
Netter,  fifteenth  century).  See  also  Shirley,  "  A  Catalogue  of  the  Original 
Works  of  John  Wyclif,"  Oxford,  1865,  8vo,  and  Maunde  Thompson,  "  Wy 
cliffe  Exhibition  in  the  King's  Library,"  London,  1884,  8vo. 

1  R.  Lane  Poole,  "  Wycliffe  and  Movements  for  Reform,"  London,  1889, 
8vo,  p.  85. 


PROSE. 


429 


human  ideal  had  been  proposed  by  St.  Francis  td  his  dis- 
ciples ;  they  were  to  possess  nothing,  but  beg  their  daily 
bread  and  help  the  poor.  Such  a  rule  was  good  for  apostles 
and  angels  ;  it  was  practised  by  men.  They  were  not  long 
able  to  withstand  the  temptation  of  owning  property,  and 
enriching  themselves  ;  in  the  fourteenth  century  their  influ- 
ence was  considerable,  and  their  possessions  immense.  Thin 
subterfuges  were  resorted  to  in  order  to  justify  this  change  : 
they  had  only  the  usufruct  of  their  wealth,  the  real  proprietor 
being  the  Pope.  From  that  time  two  grave  questions  arose 
and  were  vehemently  discussed  in  Christendom  :  What 
should  be  thought  of  the  poverty  and  mendicity  of  Christ 
and  his  apostles  ?  What  is  property,  and  what  is  the  origin 
of  the  power  whence  it  proceeds  ? 

In  the  first  rank  of  the  combatants  figured,  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  an  Englishman,  Richard  Fitzralph, 
archbishop  of  Armagh,  "  Armachanus,"  who  studied  the 
question  of  property,  and  contested  the  theory  of  the  friars 
in  various  sermons  and  treatises,  especially  in  his  work  : 
"De  pauperie  Salvatoris,"  composed  probably  between  1350 
and  1356.1 

Wyclif  took  his  starting-point  from  the  perfectly  orthodox 
writings  of  Fitzralph,  and  borrowed  from  him  nearly  the 
whole  of  his  great  theory  of  "  Dominium,"  or  lordship, 
power  exercised  either  over  men,  or  over  things,  domina- 
tion, property,  possession.  But  he  carried  his  conclusions 
much  farther,  following  the  light  of  logic,  as  was  the  custom 
of  schools,  without  allowing  himself  to  be  hindered  by  the 
radicalism  of  the  consequences  and  the  material  difficulties 
of  the  execution. 

The  theory  of"  Dominium,"  adopted  and  popularised  by 

1  On  this  treatise,  and  on  the  use  made  of  it  by  Wyclif,  see:  ''Johannis 
Wycliffe  De  Dominio  divino  libri  tres.  To  which  are  added  the  first  four 
books  of  the  treatise  '  De  pauperie  Salvatoris,'  by  Richard  Fitzralph,"  ed. 
R.  Lane  Poole,  1890.  The  "  De  Dominio  divino,"  of  Wyclif,  seems  to  have 
been  written  about  1366;  his  "  De  Dominio  Civili,"  about  1372. 


430  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Wyclif,  is  an  entirely  feudal  one.  According  to  him,  all 
lordship  comes  from  God  ;  the  Almighty  bestows  it  on 
man  as  a  fief,  in  consideration  of  a  service  or  condition  : 
the  keeping  of  His  commandments.  Deadly  sin  breaks 
the  contract,  and  deprives  the  tenant  of  his  right  to  the 
fief ;  therefore  no  man  in  a  state  of  deadly  sin  possesses 
any  of  the  lordships  called  property,  priesthood,  royalty, 
magistracy.  All  which  is  summed  up  by  Wyclif  in  his 
proposition  :  any  "  dominium  "  has  grace  for  its  foundation. 
By  such  a  theory,  the  whole  social  order  is  shaken  ;  neither 
Pope  nor  king  is  secure  on  his  throne,  nor  priest  in  his 
living,  nor  lord  in  his  estate. 

The  confusion  is  all  the  greater  from  the  fact  that  a 
multitude  of  other  subversive  conclusions  are  appended  to 
this  fundamental  theory  :  While  sinners  lose  all  lordship, 
the  good  possess  all  lordship  ;  to  man,  in  a  state  of  "  gratia 
gratificante,"  belongs  the  whole  of  what  comes  from  God  ; 
"  in  re  habet  omnia  bona  Dei."  r  But  how  can  that  be  ? 
The  easiest  thing  in  the  world,  replies  Wyclif,  whom 
nothing  disturbs  :  all  goods  should  be  held  in  common, 
"  Ergo  omnia  debent  esse  comrnunia  "  2  ;  wives  should  be 
alone  excepted. — The  Bible  is  a  kind  of  Koran  in  which 
everything  is  found  ;  no  other  law  should  be  obeyed  save 
that  one  alone  ;  civil  and  canonical  laws  are  useless  if  they 
agree  with  the  Bible,  and  criminal  if  they  are  opposed 
to  it.3 — Royalty  is  not  the  best  form  of  government ;  an 
aristocratic  system  is  better,  similar  to  that  of  the  Judges 
in  Israel.4 — Neither  heirship  nor  popular  election  is  sufficient 

1  "  Quilihet  existens  in  gratia  gratificante,  finaliter  nedum  habet  jus,  sed  in 
re  habet  omnia  bona  Dei."     "  De  Dominio  Civili,"  chap.  i.  p.  i. 

2  "  De  Dominio  Civili,"  chap.  xiv.  p.  96,  chap.  xvii.  pp.  118-120. 

3  "  Vel  esset  lex  superaddita  in  lege  evangelica  implicata,  vel  impertinens, 
vel  repugnans."     "  De  Dominio  Civili,"  chap.  xvii. 

4  The  worst  is  the  ecclesiastical  form  :  "  Pessimum  omnium  est  quod  prelati 
ecclesie  secundum  tradiciones  suas  immisceant  se  negociis  et  solicitudinibus 
civilis  dominii."     Chap,  xxvii.  p.  195. 


PROSE.  431 

for  the  transmission  of  the  crown  ;  grace  is  needed  besides.1 
— The  bequeathing  to  the  Church  of  estates  which  will 
become  mortmain  lands  is  inadmissible :  "  No  one  can 
transmit  more  rights  than  he  possesses,  and  no  one  is 
personally  possessed  of  rights  of  civil  lordship  extending 
beyond  the  term  of  life."2 — If  the  convent  or  the  priest 
make  a  bad  use  of  their  wealth,  the  temporal  power  will 
be  doing  "  a  very  meritorious  thing "  in  depriving  them 
of  it3 

The  whole  order  of  things  is  unhinged,  and  we  are 
nearing  chaos.  It  is  going  so  far  that  Wyclif  cannot 
refrain  from  inserting  some  of  those  slight  restrictions 
which  the  logicians  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  fond  of 
slipping  into  their  writings.  In  time  of  danger  this  was 
the  secret  door  by  which  they  made  their  escape,  turning 
away  from  the  stake.  Wyclif  is  an  advocate  of  communism; 
but  he  gives  to  understand  that  it  is  not  for  now  ;  it  is  a 
distant  ideal.  After  us  the  deluge !  Not  so,  answer  the 
peasants  of  1381  ;  the  deluge  at  once:  "Omnia  debent 
esse  communia  ! " 

If  all  lordship  vanishes  through  sin,  who  shall  be  judge 
of  the  sin  of  others  ?  All  real  lordship  vanishes  from  the 
sinner,  answered  Wyclif,  but  there  remains  to  him,  by  the 
permission  of  God,  a  power  de  facto,  that  it  is  not  given  us 
to  remove  ;  evil  triumphs,  but  with  God's  consent ;  the 
Christian  must  obey  the  wicked  king  and  bishop :  "  Deus 
debet  obedire  diabolo."4  But  the  dissatisfied  only  adopted 
the  first  part  of  the  theory,  and  instead  of  submitting  to 
Simon  Sudbury,  their  archbishop,  of  whom  they  disap- 
proved, they  cut  off  his  head. 

These  were  certainly  extreme  and  exceptional  conse- 
quences, to    which    Wyclif  only   contributed    in    a    slight 

1  Chap.  xxx.  p.  212.       *  Chap.  xxxv.  p.  250.         3  Chap,  xxxvii.  p.  266. 
4  A  conclusion   pointed  out  as  heretical  by  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury 
in  his  letter  of  1382.     "  Fasciculi,"  p.  278. 


432  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

measure.  The  lasting  and  permanent  result  of  the 
doctrine  was  to  strengthen  the  Commons  of  England  in 
the  aim  they  already  had  in  view,  namely,  to  diminish 
the  authority  exercised  over  them  by  the  Pope,  and  to 
loosen  the  ties  that  bound  the  kingdom  to  Rome.  Wyclif 
pointed  out  that,  contrary  to  the  theory  of  Boniface  VIII. 
(bull  "  Unam  Sanctam  "),  there  does  not  exist  in  this  world 
one  single  supreme  and  unequalled  sovereignty  ;  the  Pope 
is  not  the  sole  depositary  of  divine  power.  Since  all 
lordship  proceeds  from  God,  that  of  the  king  comes  from 
Him,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Pope ;  kings  themselves  are 
"  vikeris  of  God  "  ;  beside  the  Pope,  and  not  below  him, 
there  is  the  king.1 


The  English  will  thus  be  sole  rulers  in  their  island. 
They  must  also  be  sole  keepers  of  their  consciences,  and 
for  that  Wyclif  is  to  teach  them  free  investigation.  All, 
then,  must  understand  him  ;  and  he  begins  to  write  in 
English.  His  English  works  are  numerous  ;  sermons, 
treatises,  translations ;  they  fill  volumes.2 

Before  all  the  Book  of  truth  was  to  be  placed  in  the 
hands  of  everybody,  so  that  none  need  accept  without 
check  the  interpretations  of  others.  With  the  help  of  a 
few  disciples,  Wyclif   began   to  translate   the   Bible   into 

1  "  Kingis  and  lordis  schulden  wite  that  thei  ben  mynystris  and  vikeris  of 
God,  to  venge  synne  and  ponysche  mysdoeris."  "  Select  English  Works," 
ed.  Arnold,  vol.  iii.  p.   214. 

2  The  principal  ones  will  be  found  in:  T.  Arnold,  "Select  English  Works 
of  John  Wyclif,"  Oxford,  1869-71,  3  vols.  8vo  ;  F.  D.  Matthew,  "  The  English 
Works  of  Wyclif,  hitherto  imprinted,"  London,  Early  English  Text  Society, 
1880,  8vo.  (Many  of  the  pieces  in  this  last  collection  are  not  by  Wyclif,  but 
are  the  work  of  his  followers.  In  the  first,  too,  the  authenticity  of  some  of 
the  pieces  is  doubtful.)  See  also:  "  Wyclyffe's  Wycket,  which  he  made  in 
Kyng  Richard's  days  the  Second  (a  famous  sermon  on  the  Eucharist), 
Nuremberg,   1546,  4to  ;  Oxford,  ed.  T.   P.   Pantin,   1828. 


PROSE.  433 

English.  To  translate  the  Scriptures  was  not  forbidden. 
The  Church  only  required  that  the  versions  should  be 
submitted  to  her  for  approval.  There  already  existed 
several,  complete  or  partial,  in  various  languages  ;  a  com- 
plete one  in  French,  written  in  the  thirteenth  century,1 
and  several  partial  ones  in  English.  Wyclif's  version 
includes  the  whole  of  the  canonical  books,  and  even  the 
apocryphal  ones  ;  the  Gospels  appear  to  have  been  trans- 
lated by  himself,  the  Old  Testament  chiefly  by  his  disciple, 
Nicholas  of  Hereford.  The  task  was  an  immense  one,  the 
need  pressing  ;  the  work  suffered  from  the  rapidity  with 
which  it  was  performed.  A  revision  of  the  work  of 
Nicholas  was  begun  under  Wyclif's  direction,  but  only 
finished  after  his  death.2 

No  attempt  at  elegance  is  found  in  this  translation  ;  the 
language  is  rugged,  and  on  that  account  the  better  adapted 
to  the  uncouthness  of  the  holy  Word.  Harsh  though  it  be 
we  feel,  however,  that  it  is  tending  towards  improvement ; 
the  meaning  of  the  words  becomes  more  precise,  owing  to 
the  necessity  of  giving  to  the  sacred  phrases  their  exact 
signification  ;  the  effort  is  not  always  successful,  but  it  is  a 
continued  one,  and  it  is  an  effort  in  the  right  direction.  It 
was  soon  perceived  to  what  need  the  undertaking  answered. 
Copies  of  the  work  multiplied  in  astonishing  fashion.  In 
spite  of  the  wholesale  destruction  which  was  ordered,  there 
remain  a  hundred  and  seventy  manuscripts,  more  or  less 

1  S.  Berger,  "  La  Bible  francaise  au  moyen  age,"  Paris,  1884,  p.  120.  This 
version  was  circulated  in  England,  and  was  recopied  by  English  scribes ;  a 
copy  (incomplete)  by  an  English  hand  is  preserved  in  the  University  Library  at 
Cambridge;  P.  Meyer,  "  MSS.  francais  de  Cambridge,"  in  "Romania," 
1886,  p.   265. 

2  "The  Holy  Bible  .  .  .  made  from  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate,  by  John 
Wycliffe  and  his  followers,"  ed.  by  J.  Forshall  and  Sir  Fred.  Madden,  Oxford, 
1850,  2  vols.  4to.  On  the  share  of  Wyclif,  Hereford,  &c,  in  the  work,  see 
pp.  vi,  xvi,  xvii,  xx,  xxiv.  Cf.  Maunde  Thompson,  "  Wycliffe  Exhibition," 
London,  1884,  p.  xviii.  The  first  version  was  probably  finished  in  1382,  the 
second  in  1388  (by  the  care  of  John  Purvey,  a  disciple  and  friend  of  Wyclif). 

29 


434  ENGLAND  TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

complete,  of  Wyclifs  Bible.  For  some  time,  it  is  true,  the 
copying  of  it  had  not  been  opposed  by  the  ecclesiastical 
authority,  and  the  version  was  only  condemned  twenty-four 
years  after  the  death  of  the  author,  by  the  Council  of 
Oxford.1  In  the  England  of  the  Plantagenets  could  be 
foreseen  the  England  of  the  Tudors,  under  whom  three 
hundred  and  twenty-six  editions  of  the  Bible  were  printed 
in  less  than  a  century,  from  1525  to  1600. 

But  Wyclifs  greatest  influence  on  the  development  of 
prose  was  exercised  by  means  of  his  sermons  and  treatises. 
In  these,  the  reformer  gives  himself  full  scope ;  he  alters 
his  tone  at  need,  employs  all  means,  from  the  most  im- 
passioned eloquence  down  to  the  most  trivial  pleasantry, 
meant  to   delight   men   of  the  lower  class.     Put  to  such 
varied   uses,   prose  could  not  but  become   a  more  work- 
able  instrument.      True    it    is   that   Wyclif    never   seeks 
after  artistic  effect  in  his  English,  any  more  than  in  his 
Latin.       His  sermons   regularly   begin  by:    "This  gospel 
tellith.  .  .  .  This  gospel  techith  alle  men  that  .  .  ."  and  he 
continues  his  arguments  in   a  clear  and  measured  style, 
until  he  comes  to  one  of  those  burning  questions  about 
which  he  is  battling  ;  then  his  irony  bursts  forth,  he  uses 
scathing  similes  ;   he  thunders  against  those  "  emperoure 
bishopis,"  taken  up  with  worldly  cares  ;  his  speech  is  short 
and  haughty ;  he  knows  how  to  condense  his  whole  theory  in 
one  brief,  clear-cut  phrase,  easy  to  remember,  that  every 
one  will  know  by  heart,  and  which  it  will  not  be  easy  to 
answer.      Why  are  the  people  preached   to  in  a  foreign 
tongue  ?     Christ,  when  he  was  with  his  apostles,  "  taughte 
hem  oute  this  prayer,  bot  be  thou  syker,  nother  in  Latyn 
nother  in  Frensche,  bot  in  the  langage  that  they  usede  to 
speke."  2     How  should   popes  be  above  kings  ?     "  Thus 

1  Labbe,  "  Sacrorum  Conciliorum  .  .  .  Collectio,"  vol.  xxvi.  col.  1038. 
a  "  Select  English  Works,"  vol.  iii.  p.  100. 


PROSE.  435 

shulden  popis  be  suget  to  kynges,  for  thus  weren  bothe 
Crist  and  Petre." *  How  believe  in  indulgences  sold 
publicly  by  pardoners  on  the  market-places,  and  in  that 
inexhaustible  "  treasury  "  of  merits  laid  up  in  heaven  that 
the  depositaries  of  papal  favour  are  able  to  distribute  at 
their  pleasure  among  men  for  money  ?  Each  merit  is  re- 
warded by  God,  and  consequently  the  benefit  of  it  cannot 
be  applicable  to  any  one  who  pays  :  "  As  Peter  held  his 
pees  in  grauntinge  of  siche  thingis,  so  shulden  thei  holden 
ther  pees,  sith  thei  ben  lasse  worth  than  Petir."  2 

Next  to  these  brief  arguments  are  familiar  jests,  gravely 
uttered,  with  scarcely  any  perceptible  change  in  the  ex- 
pression of  the  lips,  jests  that  Englishmen  have  been  fond 
of  in  all  times.  If  he  is  asked  of  what  use  are  the  "  letters 
of  fraternity,"  sold  by  the  friars  to  their  customers,  to  give 
them  a  share  in  the  superabundant  merits  of  the  whole 
order,  Wyclif  replies  with  a  serious  air :  "  Bi  siche  resouns 
thinken  many  men  that  this  lettris  mai  do  good  for  to 
covere  mostard  pottis."  3 

It  is  difficult  to  follow  him  in  all  the  places  where  he 
would  fain  lead  us.  He  terrified  the  century  by  the  bold- 
ness of  his  touch  ;  when  he  was  seen  to  shake  the  frail  holy 
thing  with  a  ruthless  hand,  all  eyes  turned  away,  and 
his  former  protectors  withdrew  from  him.4  He  did  not, 
however,  carry  his  doubt  to  the  extreme  end  ;  according  to 
his  doctrine  the  substance  of  the  host,  the  particle  of  matter, 
is  not  the  matter  itself,  the  living  flesh  of  the  body  that 
Jesus  Christ  had  on  earth  ;  this  substance  is  bread  ;  only 
by  a  miracle  which  is  the  effect  of  consecration,  the  body 
of  Christ  is  present  sacramentally  ;  that  is  to  say,  all  the 

1  "Select  English  Works,"  vol.  ii.  p.  296.    2/M/.,i.p.  189.     *Ibid.,\.  p.  381. 

4  His  adversaries,  perhaps  exaggerating  his  sayings,  attribute  to  him  declara- 
tions like  the  following  :  "  Quod  sacramentum  illud  visibile  est  infinitum 
abjectius  in  natura,  quam  sit  panis  equinus,  vel  panis  ratonis  ;  immo,  quod 
verecundum  est  dicere  vel  audire,  quod  stercus  ratonis."  "  Fasciculi  Zizani- 
orum,"  p.  108. 


436  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

benefits,  advantages,  and  virtues  which  emanate  from  it 
are  attached  to  the  host  as  closely  as  the  soul  of  men  is 
united  to  their  body.1 

The  other  sacraments,2  ecclesiastical  hierarchy,  the  tithes 
collected  by  the  clergy,  are  not  more  respectfully  treated 
by  him.  These  criticisms  and  teachings  had  all  the  more 
weight  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  were  delivered  from  a 
pulpit  and  fell  from  the  lips  of  an  authorised  master,  whose 
learning  was  acknowledged  even  by  his  adversaries :  "  A  very 
eminent  doctor,  a  peerless  and  incomparable  one,"  3  says 
Knighton.  Still  better  than  Langland's  verses,  his  forcible 
speech,  by  reason  of  his  station,  prepared  the  way  for  the 
great  reforms  of  the  sixteenth  century.  He  already  de- 
mands the  confiscation  of  the  estates  of  the  monasteries, 
accomplished  later  by  Henry  VIII.  ;  he  appeals  at  every 
page  of  his  treatises  to  the  secular  arm,  hoping  by  its  means 
to  bring  back  humility  by  force  into  the  heart  of  prelates. 

1  "  Ille  panis  est  bene  miraculose,  vere  et  realiter,  spiritualiter,  virtualiter  et 
sacramentaliter  corpus  Christi.  Sed  grossi  non  contentantur  de  istis  modis,  sed 
exigunt  quod  panis  ille,  vel  saltern  per  ipsum,  sit  substantialiter  et  corporaliter 
corpus  Christi ;  sic  enim  volunt,  zelo  blasphemorum,  Christum  comedere,  sed  non 
possunt.  .  .  .  Ponimus  venerabile  sacramentum  altaris  esse  naturaliter  panem 
et  vinum,  sed  sacramentaliter  corpus  Christi  et  sanguinem."  "  Fasciculi,"  pp. 
122,  125  ;  Wyclif  s  statement  of  his  beliefs  after  his  condemnation  by  the 
University  in  1 38 1.  Again,  in  his  sermons  :  "  Thes  ben  to  rude  heretikes  that 
seien  thei  eten  Crist  bodili,  and  seien  thei  parten  ech  membre  of  him,  nekke, 
bac,  heed  and  foot.  .  .  .  This  oost  is  breed  in  his  kynde  as  ben  other  oostes 
unsacrid,  and  sacramentaliche  Goddis  bodi."  "  Select  English  Works,"  vol.  ii. 
p.  169.  This  is  very  nearly  the  theory  adopted  later  by  Latimer,  who  declares 
"  that  there  is  none  other  presence  of  Christ  required  than  a  spiritual  presence; 
and  that  presence  is  sufficient  for  a  Christian  man  ; "  there  remains  in  the  host 
the  substance  of  bread.  "  Works,"  Parker  Society,  Cambridge,  1844,  vol.  ii. 
p.  250. 

2  Auricular  confession,  that  "  rowninge  in  preestis  eere,"  is  not  the  true  one, 
according  to  Wyclif;  the  true  one  is  that  made  to  God.  "  Select  English 
Works,"  vol.  i.  p.  196. 

3  "  Doctor  in  theologia  eminentissimus  in  diebus  illis,  in  philosophia  nulli 
reputabatur  secundus,  in  scolasticis  disciplinis  incomparabilis. "  "  Chronica  de 
eventibus  Anglise,"  sub  anno  1382,  in  Twysden,  "  Decern  Scriptores,"  col. 
2644. 


PROSE.  437 

But  he  is  so  far  removed  from  its  realisation  that  his 
dream  dazzles  him,  and  urges  him  on  to  defend  chimerical 
schemes.  He  wishes  the  wealth  of  the  clergy  to  be  taken 
from  them  and  bestowed  upon  poor,  honest,  brave,  trust- 
worthy gentlemen,  who  will  defend  the  country  ;  and  he 
does  not  perceive  that  these  riches  would  have  fallen  princi- 
pally into  the  hands  of  turbulent  and  grasping  courtiers, 
as  happened  in  the  sixteenth  century.1  He  is  carried 
away  by  his  own  reasonings,  so  that  the  Utopian  or  para- 
doxical character  of  his  statements  escape  him.  Wanting 
to  minimise  the  power  of  the  popes,  he  protests  against 
the  rules  followed  for  their  election,  and  goes  on  to  say 
concerning  the  vote  by  ballot :  "  Sith  ther  ben  fewe 
wise  men,  and  foolis  ben  without  noumbre,  assent  of  more 
part  of  men  makith  evydence  that  it  were  foli."  2 

His  disciples,  Lollards  as  they  were  usually  called,  a 
name  the  origin  of  which  has  been  much  discussed,  sur- 
vived him,  and  his  simple  priests  continued,  for  a  time,  to 
propagate  his  doctrines.  The  master's  principal  proposi- 
tions were  even  found  one  day  in  1395,  posted  up  on  the 
door  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  in  the  heart  of  London. 
Among  them  figure  declarations  that,  at  a  distance  of  three 
centuries,  seem  a  foreshadowing  of  the  theories  of  the 
Puritans  ;  one  for  instance,  affirming  "  that  the  multitude 
of  useless  arts  allowed  in  the  kingdom  are  the  cause  of 
sins  without  number."  Among  the  forbidden  arts  are  in- 
cluded that  of  the  goldsmiths,  and  another  art  of  which, 
however,  the  Puritans  were  to  make  a  somewhat  notorious 
use,  that  of  the  armorers.3 

At  the  University,  the  followers  of  Wyclif  were 
numerous  ,  in  the  country  they  continued  to  increase 
until    the    end    of    the    fourteenth    century.       Energetic 

1  "Select  English  Works,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  216,  217.  *  Ibid.,  ii.  p.  414. 

3  Conclusion  No.  12.    "  Henrici  de  Blandeforde.  .  .  .  Annales,"  ed.  Riley, 
Rolls,  1866,  p.  174- 


438  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

measures  were  adopted  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  ; 
the  statute  "  De  haeretico  comburendo  "  was  promulgated 
in  1401  (but  rarely  applied  at  this  period)  ;  the  master's 
books  were  condemned  and  prohibited  ;  from  that  time 
Wyclifism  declined,  and  traces  of  its  survival  can  hardly 
be  found  at  the  period  when  the  Reformation  was  in- 
troduced into  England. 

By  a  strange  fate  Wyclif's  posterity  continued  to  flourish 
out  of  the  kingdom.  Bohemia  had  just  given  a  queen  to 
England,  and  used  to  send  students  every  year  from  its 
University  of  Prague  to  study  at  Paris  and  Oxford.  In 
that  country  the  Wyclifite  tenets  found  a  multitude  of 
adepts  ;  the  Latin  works  of  the  thinker  were  transcribed 
by  Czech  students,  and  carried  back  to  their  own  land  ; 
several  writings  of  Wyclif  exist  only  in  Czech  copies. 
His  most  illustrious  disciple,  John  Hus,  rector  of  the 
University  of  Prague,  was  burnt  at  the  stake,  by  order  of 
the  Council  of  Constance,  on  the  6th  of  July,  141 5.  But  the 
doctrine  survived  ;  it  was  adopted  with  modifications  by  the 
Taborites  and  the  Moravian  Brethren,  and  borrowed  from 
them  by  the  Waldenses  x  ;  the  same  Moravian  Brethren 
who,  owing  to  equally  singular  vicissitudes,  were  to  become 
an  important  factor  in  the  English  religious  movement  of 
the  eighteenth  century :  the  Wesleyan  movement.  In 
spite  of  differences  in  their  doctrines,  the  Moravian 
Brethren  and  the  Hussites  stand  as  a  connecting  link 
between  Wesley  and  Wyclif.2 

1  "The  old  belief  that  the  Waldenses  (or  Vaudois)  represent  a  current  of 
tradition  continuous  from  the  assumed  evangelical  simplicity  of  the  primitive 
church  has  lost  credit.  .  .  .  The  imagined  primitive  Christianity  of  these 
Alpine  congregations  can  only  be  deduced  from  works  which  have  been  shown 
to  be  translations  or  adaptations  of  the  Hussite  manuals  or  treatises." 
"  Wycliffe,"  by  Reginald  Lane  Poole,  1889,  p.  174.  Cf.  J.  Loserlh,  "  Hus 
und  Wiclif,"  Leipzig,  1884. 

2  The  great  crisis  in  Wesley's  religious  life,  what  he  terms  his  "  conversion," 
took  place  on  the  24th  of  February,  1738,  under  the  influence  of  the  Moravian 
Peter  Bohler,  who  had  convinced  him,  he  says  in  his  Journal,  "  of  the  want  of 
that  faith  whereby  we  are  saved." 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE  STAGE. 

I 

DRAMATIC  art,  in  which  the  English  people  was  to  find 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  its  literary  glories,  was  evolved 
slowly  from  distant  and  obscure  origins. 

In  England,  as  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  the  sources  of 
modern  drama  were  of  two  sorts  :  there  were  civil  and 
religious  sources. 

The  desire  for  amusement  and  the  craving  for  laugh- 
able things  never  disappeared  entirely,  even  in  the  darkest 
days  ;  the  sources  of  the  lay  drama  began  to  spring  and 
flow,  owing  to  no  other  cause.  The  means  formerly 
employed  to  amuse  and  raise  a  laugh  cannot  be  expected 
to  have  shown  much  refinement.  No  refinement  was  to  be 
found  in  them,  and  all  means  were  considered  good  which 
ensured  success  ;  kicks  were  among  the  simplest  and 
oftenest  resorted  to,  but  not  at  all  among  the  grossest  ; 
others  were  worse,  and  were  much  more  popular.  Let  us 
not  wonder  overmuch  :  some  of  them  have  recovered  again, 
quite  recently,  a  part  of  their  pristine  popularity.  They 
were  used  by  jugglers  or  players,  "  joculatores,"  nomadic 
sometimes,  and  sometimes  belonging  to  the  household  of 
the  great.  The  existence  of  such  men  is  testified  to  from 
century  to  century,  during  the  whole  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  mainly  by  the  blame  and  condemnation  they  con- 
stantly incurred  :  and  so  it  is  that  the  best  information 
concerning   these  men    is    not    to  be   sought   for   in    the 

439 


44Q  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

monuments  of  the   gay   literature,   but    rather    in    pious 
treatises  and  in  the  acts  of  Councils. 

Treatises  and  Councils,  however,  might  to  our  ad- 
vantage have  been  even  more  circumstantial  ;  the  pity  is 
that  they,  naturally  enough,  consider  it  below  their  dignity 
to  descend  to  very  minute  particulars  ;  it  is  enough  for 
them  to  give  an  enumeration,  and  to  condemn  in  one 
phrase  all  the  mimes,  tumblers,  histrions,  wrestlers,  and 
the  rest  of  the  juggling  troup.  Sometimes,  however,  a  few 
particulars  are  added  ;  the  peculiar  tricks  and  the  scanda- 
lous practices  of  the  ill-famed  race  are  mentioned  ;  and  an 
idea  can  thus  be  formed  of  our  ancestors'  amusements. 
John  of  Salisbury  in  the  twelfth  century  alludes  to  a 
variety  of  pastimes,  and  while  protesting  against  the 
means  used  to  produce  laughter,  places  them  on  record  : 
a  heavy  laughter  indeed,  noisy  and  tumultuous,  Rabelais' 
laughter  before  Rabelais.  Of  course,  "  such  a  modest 
hilarity  as  an  honest  man  would  allow  himself"  is  not 
to  be  reproved,  and  John  did  not  forbear  to  use  this 
moderate  way  of  enjoyment  ;  but  the  case  is  different 
with  the  jugglers  and  tumblers:  "  much  better  it  would  be 
for  them  to  do  nothing  than  to  act  so  wickedly."  I 

1  "  Nostra  aetas  prolapsa  ad  fabulas  et  qusevis  inania,  non  modo  aures  et  cor 
prostituit  vanitati,  sed  oculorum  et  aurium  voluptate  suam  mulcet  desidiam. 
.  .  .  Nonne  piger  desidiam  instruit  et  somnos  provocat  instrumentorum 
suavitate,  aut  vocum  modulis,  hilaritate  canentium  aut  fabulantium  gratia, 
sive  quod  turpius  est  ebrietate  vel  crapula  ?  .  .  .  .  Admissa  sunt  ergo  specta- 
cula  et  infinita  tyrocinia  vanitatis,  quibus  qui  omnino  otiari  non  possunt 
perniciosius  occupentur.  Satius  enim  fuerat  otiari  quam  turpiter  occupari. 
Hinc  mimi,  salii  vel  saliares,  balatrones  semiliani,  gladiatores,  palsestritse, 
gignadii,  praestigiatores,  malefici  quoque  multi  et  tota  joculatorum  scena 
procedit.  Quorum  adeo  error  invaluit,  ut  a  praeclaris  domibus  non  arceantur, 
etiam  illi  qui  obscenis  partibus  corporis  oculis  omnium  earn  ingerunt  turpitu- 
dinem,  quam  erubescat  videre  vel  cynicus.  Quodque  magis  mirere,  nee  tunc 
ejiciuntur,  quando  tumultuantes  inferius  crebro  sonitu  aerem  fcedant,  et 
turpiter  inclusum  turpius  produnt  .  .  .  Jucundum  quidem  est  et  ab  honesto 
non  recedit  virum  probum  quandoque  modesta  hilaritate  mulcere."  "  Policra- 
ticus,"  Book  i.  chap,  viii.,  in  "Opera  Omnia,"  ed.  Giles,  Oxford,  1848, 
voL  iii.  p.  42. 


THE  STAGE.  441 

No  doubt  was  possible.  The  jesters  did  not  care  in  the 
least  to  keep  within  the  bounds  of  "  a  modest  hilarity"  ;  nor 
did  their  audience,  for  in  the  fourteenth  century  we  find 
these  men  described  in  the  poem  of  Langland,  and  they 
have  not  altered  in  any  way  x ;  their  tricks  are  the  same, 
the  same  shameful  exhibitions  take  place  with  the  same 
success  ;  for  two  hundred  years  they  have  been  laughed  at 
without  intermission.  Many  things  have  come  and  gone  ; 
the  nation  has  got  tired  of  John's  tyranny,  of  Henry  the 
Third's  weakness,  of  the  Pope's  supremacy,  but  the  histrions 
continue  to  tumble  and  jump  ;  "  their  points  being  broken, 
down  fall  their  hose,"  (to  use  Shakespeare's  words),  and 
the  great  at  Court  are  convulsed  with  laughter  on  their 
v     benches. 

Besides  their  horseplay,  jugglers  and  histrions  had,  to 
please  their  audiencepretorts,  funny  answers,  witticisms, 
merry  tales,  which  they  acted  rather  than  told,  for  gestures 
accompanied  the  delivery.  This  part  of  the  amusement, 
which  came  nearest  the  drama,  sharp  repartees,  impromptu 
dialogues,  is  the  one  we  know  least  about.  Voices  have 
long  been  silent,  and  the  great  halls  which  heard  them  are 
now  but  ivy-clad  ruins,  yielding  no  echo.  Some  idea, 
however,  can  be  formed  of  what  took  place. 

First  we  know  from  innumerable  testimonies  that  those 
histrions  spoke  and  told  endless  nonsense  ;  they  have 
been  often  enough  reproached  with  it  for  no  doubt  to 
remain  as  to  their  talking.  Then  there  is  superabundant 
proof  of  the  relish  with  which  men  enjoyed,  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  silly,  teazing  or  puzzling  answers  ;  the  questioner 
remaining  at  the  end  rolled  up  in  the  repartees,  gasping 
as  a  fly  caught  in  a  spider's  web.  The  Court  fool  or 
buffoon  had  for  his  principal  merit  his  clever  knack  of 
returning  witty  or  confusing  answers ;  the  best  of  them 
were    preserved  ;    itinerant     minstrels     remembered    and 

1  C.  xvi.  205. 


442  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

repeated  them  ;  clerks  turned  them  into  Latin,  and  gave 
them  place  in  their  collections  of  exempla.  They  afforded 
amusement  for  a  king,  an  amusement  of  a  mixed  sort, 
sometimes  : 

— Why,  says  the  king,  are  there  no  longer  any  Rolands  ? 
— Because,  the  fool  answers,  there  are  no  longer  any 
Charlemagnes.1 

Walter  Map,  as  we  saw,  was  so  fond  of  happy  answers 
that  he  formed  a  book  of  all  those  he  heard,  knew,  or 
made  in  his  day.  The  fabliau  of  the  "  Jongleur  d'Ely," 
written  in  England  in  the  thirteenth  century,  is  a  good 
specimen  of  the  word-fencing  at  which  itinerant  amusers 
were  expert.  The  king  is  unable  to  draw  from  the  jongleur 
any  answer  to  any  purpose  :  What  is  his  name  ? — The 
name  of  his  father. — Whom  does  he  belong  to  ? — To  his 
lord. — How  is  this  river  called  ? — No  need  to  call  it ;  it 
comes  of  its  own  accord. — Does  the  jongleur's  horse  eat 
well  ? — "  Certainly  yes,  my  sweet  good  lord,  he  can  eat 
more  oats  in  a  day  than  you  would  do  in  a  whole  week."2 

This  is  a  mere  sample  of  an  art  that  lent  itself  to  many 
uses,  and    to  which     belonged    debates,    "  estrifs,"    "  dis- 

1  "  De  Mimo  et  Rege  Francorum,"  in  Wright,  "  Latin  Stories,"  1842,  No. 
cxxxviL 

2    Le  roi  demaund  par  amour  : 
Ou  qy  estes  vus,  sire  Joglour  ? 
E  il  respount  sauntz  pour  : 
Sire,  je  su  ou  mon  seignour. 
Quy  est  toun  seignour  ?   fet  le  Roy. 
Le  baroun  ma  dame,  par  ma  foy.  .  .  . 
Quei  est  le  eve  apele,  par  amours  ? 
L'em  ne  l'apele  pas,  eynz  vint  tous  jours. 

Concerning  the  horse  : 

Mange  il  bien,  ce  savez  dire. 
Oil  certes,  bel  douz  sire  ; 
Yl  mangereit  plus  un  jour  d'aveyne 
Que  vus  ne  frez  pas  tote  la  semeyne. 

Montaiglon  and  Raynaud,  "  Recueil  general  des  Fabliaux,"  vol.  ii.  p.  243. 


THE  STAGE.  443 

putoisons,"  "  jeux-partis,"  equally  popular  in  England  and 
in  France.  Some  specimens  of  it  are  as  old  as  the  time 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  such  as  the  "  Dialogue  of  Salomon 
and  Saturnus."  *  There  are  found  in  the  English  language 
debates  or  dialogues  between  the  Owl  and  Nightingale, 
thirteenth  century  ;  the  Thrush  and  Nightingale  ;  the  Fox 
and  Wolf,  time  of  Edward  I.  ;  the  Carpenter's  Tools,  and 
others.2  Collections  of  silly  answers  were  also  made  in 
England  ;  one  of  them  was  composed  to  the  confusion  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Norfolk  ;  another  in  their  honour  and 
for  their  defence.3  The  influence  of  those  estrifs,  or 
debates,  on  the  development  of  the  drama  cannot  be 
doubted ;  the  oldest  dramatic  fragment  in  the  English 
language  is  nothing  but  an  estrif  between  Christ  and 
Satan.     The  author  acknowledges  it  himself: 

A  strif  will  I  tellen  on, 

says  he  in  his  prologue.4 

Debates  enjoyed  great  favour  in  castle  halls ;  im- 
promptu ones  which,  as  Cathos  and  Madelon  said, 
centuries  later,  "exercaient  les  esprits  de  l'assemblee," 
were  greatly  liked  ;  they  constituted  a  sort  of  society 
game,   one  of  the  oldest   on    record.     A    person    among 

1  "Dialogue  of  Salomon  and  Saturnus,"  in  prose,  ed.  Kemble,  ^Llfric 
Society,  1848,  8vo.  See  also  the  "estrif"  between  Joseph  and  Mary  in 
"  Cynewulf's  Christ,"  ed.  Gollancz,  1892,  p.  17  ;  above,  p.  75. 

2  "The  Owl  and  the  Nightingale,"  ed.  J.  Stevenson,  Roxburghe  Club, 
1838,  4to.  "  The  Thrush  and  the  Nightingale  "  ;  "Of  the  Vox  and  the  Wolf  " 
(see  above,  p.  228) ;  "  The  Debate  of  the  Carpenter's  Tools,"  in  Hazlitt, 
"  Remains  of  the  early  Popular  Poetry  of  England,"  1S64,  4  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i. 
pp.  50,  58,  79. 

3  "  Anonymi  Petroburgensis  Descriptio  Norfolcensicum  "  (end  of  the  twelfth 
century) ;  "  Norfolchiae  Descriptionis  Impugnatio,"  in  Latin  verse,  with  some 
phrases  in  English,  in  Th.  Wright,  "Early  Mysteries  and  other  Latin  Poems 
of  the  Xllth  and  XHIth  centuries,"  London,  1838,  8vo. 

4  "  Harrowing  of  Hell."  This  work  consists  in  a  dramatic  dialogue  or 
scene,  but  it  was  not  meant  to  be  represented.  Time  of  Henry  III. ;  text  in 
Pollard,  "  English  Miracle  Plays,"  Oxford,  1890,  p.  166. 


444  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

those  present  was  chosen  to  answer  questions,  and  the 
amusement  consisted  in  putting  or  returning  questions 
and  answers  of  the  most  unexpected  or  puzzling  character. 
This  was  called  the  game  of  the  "  King  who  does  not  lie," 
or  the  game  of  the  "  King  and  Queen."  x  By  a  pheno- 
menon which  has  been  observed  in  less  remote  periods, 
after-dinner  conversations  often  took  a  licentious  turn  ;  in 
those  games  love  was  the  subject  most  willingly  discussed, 
and  it  was  not  as  a  rule  treated  from  a  very  ethereal  point 
of  view  ;  young  men  and  young  ladies  exchanged  on  those 
occasions  observations  the  liberty  of  which  gave  umbrage 
to  the  Church,  who  tried  to  interfere  ;  bishops  in  their 
Constitutions  mentioned  those  amusements,  and  forbade 
to  their  flock  such  unbecoming  games  as  "  ludos  de  Rege 
et  Regina  ; "  Walter  de  Chanteloup,  bishop  of  Worcester, 
did  so  in  1240.2  Some  of  that  freedom  of  speech  survived, 
however,  through  the  Middle  Ages  up  to  the  time  of 
Shakespeare  ;  while  listening  to  the  dialogues  of  Beatrix 
and  Benedick  one  wonders  sometimes  whether  they  are 
not  playing  the  game  "  de  Rege  et  Regina." 

Parody  also  helped  in  its  way  to  the  formation  of  the 
drama.  There  was  a  taste  for  masking,  for  the  imitation 
of  other  people  ;  for  the  caricaturing  of  some  grave  person 


1  This  game  is  described  in  the  (very  coarse)  fabliau  of  the  "  Sentier  batu  " 
by  Jean  de  Conde,  fourteenth  century  : 

De  plusieurs  deduis  s'entremistrent 
Et  tant  c'une  royne  fistrent 
Pour  jouer  au  Roy  qui  ne  ment. 
Ele  s'en  savoit  finement 
Entremettre  de  commander 
Et  de  demandes  demand  er. 

Montaiglon  and  Raynaud,  "  Recueil  general  des  Fabliaux,"  vol.  iii.  p.  248. 

2  "  Prohibemus  etiam  clericis  ne  intersint  ludis  inhonestis,  vel  choreis,  vel 
ludant  ad  aleas,  vel  taxillos  ;  nee  sustineant  ludos  fieri  de  Rege  et  Regina,"  &c. 
"Constitutiones  Walteri  de  Cantilupo,  Wigorniensis  episcopi  .  .  .  promulgate 
.  .  .  a.d.  1240,"  art.  xxxviii.,  in  Labbe,  "  Sacrorum  conciliorum  .  .  .  Collectio," 

1.  xxiii.  col.  538. 


THE  STAGE.  445 

or  of  some  imposing  ceremony,  mass  for  example  ;  for  the 
reproduction  of  the  song  of  birds  or  the  noise  of  a  storm, 
gestures  being  added  to  the  noise,  the  song,  or  the  words. 
Some  jugglers  excelled  in  this ;  they  were  live  gargoyles 
and  were  paid  "  the  one  to  play  the  drunkard,  another  the 
fool,  a  third  to  imitate  the  cat"  The  great  minstrels, 
"  grans  menestreus,"  had  a  horror  of  those  gargoyles,  the 
shame  of  their  profession  ; J  noblemen,  however,  did  not 
share  these  refined,  if  not  disinterested,  feelings,  and  asked 
to  their  castles  and  freely  rewarded  the  members  of  the 
wandering  tribe  who  knew  how  to  imitate  the  drunkard, 
the  fool,  or  the  cat. 

On    histrionic    liberties    introduced    even    into   church 
services,  Aelred,  abbot  of  Rievaulx  in  the  twelfth  century, 

1  The  two  sorts  are  well  described  by  Baudouin  de  Conde-  in  his  "  Contes 
des  Hiraus,"  thirteenth  century.  The  author  meets  a  servant  and  asks  him 
questions  about  his  master  : 

Dis-moi,  par  l'ame  de  ton  pere, 
Voit-il  volentiers  menestreus  ? 
— Oil  voir,  biau  frere,  et  estre  eus 
En  son  hostel  a  grant  solas.  .  .  . 
.  .  .   Et  quant  avient 
C'aucuns  grans  menestreus  la  vient, 
Maistres  en  sa  menestrandie, 
Qui  bien  viele  ou  ki  bien  die 
De  bouce,  mesires  l'ascoute 
Volentiers.   .   .  . 

Mais  peu  souvent  i  vient  de  teus, 
Mais  ces  felons  et  des  honteus, 

who  speak  but  nonsense  and  know  nothing,  and  who,  however,  receive  bread, 
meat,  and  wine, 

.  .  .  l'un  por  faire  l'ivre, 
L'autre  le  cat,  le  tiers  le  sot ; 
Li  quars,  ki  onques  rien  ne  sot 
D'armes  s'en  parole  et  raconte 
De  ce  preu  due,  de  ce  preu  conte. 

"  Dits  et  Contes  de  Baudouin  de  Conde,"  ed.  Scheler,  Brussels,  1866,  3  vols. 
8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  154. 


446  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

gives  some  unexpected  particulars.  He  describes  the 
movements  and  attitudes  of  certain  chanters  by  which 
they  "  resembled  actors "  :  so  that  we  thus  get  infor- 
mation on  both  at  the  same  time.  Chanters  are  found 
in  various  churches,  he  says,  who  with  inflated  cheeks 
imitate  the  noise  of  thunder,  and  then  murmur,  whisper, 
allow  their  voice  to  expire,  keeping  their  mouth  open,  and 
think  that  they  give  thus  an  idea  of  the  death  or  ecstasy 
of  martyrs.  Now  you  would  think  you  hear  the  neighing 
of  horses,  now  the  voice  of  a  woman.  With  this  "  all  their 
body  is  agitated  by  histrionic  movements "  ;  their  lips, 
their  shoulders,  their  fingers  are  twisted,  shrugged,  or 
spread  out  as  they  think  best  to  suit  their  delivery.  The 
audience,  filled  with  wonder  and  admiration  at  those  in- 
ordinate gesticulations,  at  length  bursts  into  laughter :  "  It 
seems  to  them  they  are  at  the  play  and  not  at  church,  and 
that  they  have  only  to  look  and  not  to  pray."  x 

The  transition  from  these  various  performances  to  little 
dramas  or  interludes,  which  were  at  first  nothing  but  tales 
turned  into  dialogues,  was  so  natural  that  it  could  scarcely 
attract  any  notice.  Few  specimens  have  survived  ;  one 
English  one,  however,  is  extant,  dating  from  the  time  of 
Edward  I.,  and  shows  that  this  transition  had  then  taken 
place.  It  consists  in  the  dramatising  of  one  of  the  most 
absurd  and  most  popular  tales  told  by  wandering  minstrels, 

1  "  Ad  quid  ilia  vocis  contractio  et  infractio  ?  Hie  succinit,  ille  discinit. 
.  .  .  Aliquando,  quod  pudet  dicere,  in  equinos  hinnitus  cogitur ;  aliquando 
virili  vigore  deposito  in  feminese  vocis  gracilitates  acuitur.  .  .  .  Videas 
aliquando  hominem  aperto  ore  quasi  intercluso  habitu  expirare,  non  cantare, 
ac  ridiculosa  quadam  vocis  interceptione  quasi  minitari  silentium  ;  nunc  agones 
morientium,  vel  extasim  patientium  imitari.  Interim  histrionicis  quibusdam 
gestibus  totum  corpus  agitatur,  torquentur  labia,  rotant,  ludunt  humeri  ;  et 
ad  singulas  quasque  notas  digitorum  flexus  respondet.  Et  hsec  ridiculosa 
dissolutio  vocatur  religio  !  .  .  .  Vulgus  .  .  .  miratur  .  .  .  sed  lascivas  can- 
tantium  gesticulationes,  meretricias  vocum  alternationes  et  infractiones,  non 
sine  cachinno  risuque  intuetur,  ut  eos  non  ad  oratorium  sed  ad  theatrum,  nee 
adorandum  sed  ad  spectandum  a-stimes  convenisse."  "  Speculum  Charitatis," 
Book  ii.  chap.  23,  in  Migne's  "  Patrologia,"  vol.  exev.  col.  571. 


THE   STAGE.  447 

the  story,  namely,  of  the  Weeping  Bitch.  A  woman  or  maid 
rejects  the  love  of  a  clerk  ;  an  old  woman  (Dame  Siriz 
in  the  English  prose  text)  calls  upon  the  proud  one,  having 
in  her  hands  a  little  bitch  whom  she  has  fed  with  mustard, 
and  whose  eyes  accordingly  weep.  The  bitch,  she  says, 
is  her  own  daughter,  so  transformed  by  a  clerk  who  had 
failed  to  touch  her  heart  ;  the  young  woman  at  once 
yields  to  her  lover,  fearing  a  similar  fate.  There  exist 
French,  Latin,  and  English  versions  of  this  tale,  one  of  the 
few  which  are  of  undoubted  Hindu  origin.  The  English 
version  seems  to  belong  to  the  thirteenth  century.1 

The  turning  of  it  into  a  drama  took  place  a  few  years 
later.  Nothing  was  easier  ;  this  fabliau,  like  many  others, 
was  nearly  all  in  dialogues  ;  to  make  a  play  of  it,  the 
jongleur  had  but  to  suppress  some  few  lines  of  narrative  ; 
we  thus  have  a  drama,  in  rudimentary  shape,  where  a  deep 
study  of  human  feelings  must  not  be  sought  for.2  Here 
is  the  conversation  between  the  young  man  and  the  young 
maid  when  they  meet : 

Clericus.  Damishel,  reste  wel. 

Puella.  Sir,  welcum,  by  Saynt  Michel  ! 

Clericus.  Wer  esty  (is  thy)  sire,  wer  esty  dame  ? 

Pitella.  By  Gode,  es  noner  her  at  hame. 

Clericus.     Wel  wor  suilc  (such)  a  man  to  life 

That  suilc  a  may  (maid)  mihte  have  to  wyfe  ! 

Puella.     Do  way,  by  Crist  and  Leonard.  .  .  . 
Go  forth  thi  way,  god  sire, 
For  her  hastu  losye  al  thi  wile. 


1  Latin  text  in  "  The  Exempla  .  .  .  of  Jacques  de  Vitry,"  thirteenth  century, 
ed.  T.   F.   Crane,  London,  1890,  8vo,  p.  105  (No.  ccl.),  and  in  Th.  Wright, 

'A  Selection  of  Latin  Stories,"  1842,  Percy  Society,  p.  16:  "  De  Dolo  et 
Arte  Vetularum."  French  text  in  Barbazan  and  Meon,  "Fabliaux,"  vol.  ii., 
included  into  the  "  Castoiement  d'un  pere  a  son  fils,"  thirteenth  century. 
English  text  in  Th.  Wright,  "  Anecdota  Literaria,"  London,  1844,  8vo,  p.  1  ; 
the  title  is  in  French  :  "  Ci  commence  le  fables  et  le  cointise  de  dame  Siriz." 

2  Text   in  Wright    and  Halliwell,    "  Reliquiae  Antiquse,"   London,    1841, 
2  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i.  p.  145.      "  Hie  incipit  interludium  de  Clerico  and  Puella." 


448  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

After  some  more  supplications,  the  clerk,  who  is  a 
student  at  the  University,  goes  to  old  Helwis  (Siriz  in  the 
prose  tale)  and  then  the  author,  more  accustomed,  it 
seems,  to  such  persons  than  to  the  company  of  young 
maidens,  describes  with  some  art  the  hypocrisy  of  the 
matron.  Helwis  will  not ;  she  leads  a  holy  life,  and  what 
is  asked  of  her  will  disturb  her  from  her  pious  observances. 
Her  dignified  scruples  are  removed  at  length  by  the  plain 
offer  of  a  reward. 

In  this  way,  some  time  before  Chaucer's  birth,  the  lay 
drama  came  into  existence  in  Shakespeare's  country. 

Other  stories  of  the  same  sort  were  also  turned  into 
plays  ;  we  have  none  of  them,  but  we  know  that  they 
existed.  An  Englishman  of  the  fourteenth  century  calls 
the  performance  of  them  "  pleyinge  of  japis,"  *  by  opposi- 
tion to  the  performance  of  religious  dramas. 

Other  amusements  again,  of  a  strange  kind,  helped  in 
the  same  early  period  to  the  formation  of  the  drama.  A 
particularly  keen  pleasure  was  afforded  during  the  Middle 
Ages  by  songs,  dances,  and  carols,  when  performed  in 
consecrated  places,  such  as  cemeteries,  cloisters,  churches. 
A  preference  for  such  places  may  seem  scarcely  credible  ; 
still  it  cannot  be  doubted,  and  is  besides  easily  explainable. 
To  the  unbridled  instincts  of  men  as  yet  half  tamed,  the 
*  Church  had  opposed  rigorous  prescriptions  which  were 
enforced  wholesale.  To  resist  excessive  independence, 
excessive  severity  was  needful  ;  buttresses  had  to  be  raised 
equal  in  strength  to  the  weight  of  the  wall.  But  from 
time  to  time  a  cleft  was  formed,  and  the  loosened  passions 
burst  forth  with  violence.  Escaped  from  the  bondage  of 
discipline,  men  found  inexpressible  delight  in  violating  all 

1  "  Here  bigynnis  a  tretise  of  Miraclis  Pleyinge,"  end  of  fourteenth  century, 
in  Wright  and  Halliwell,  "  Reliquiae  Antiques,"  vol.  ii.  p.  46.  Elsewhere 
in  the  same  treatise,  "  to  pley  in  rebaudye"  is  opposed  to  "pley  in  myriclis," 
p.  49. 


THE   STAGE.  449 

prohibitions  at  once  ;  the  day  for  the  beast  had  come,  and 
it  challenged  the  angel  in  its  turn. 

The  propelling  power  of  passions  so  repressed  was  even 
increased   by   certain   weird   tastes   very   common   at  that 
period,  and    by  the   merry   reactions    they  caused.     Now 
oppressed  by,  and  now  in  revolt  against,  the  idea  of  death, 
the   faithful   would   at   times   answer  threats  with  sneers  ; 
they  found  a  particular  pleasure  in  evolving  bacchanalian 
processions    among   the   tombs   of  churchyards,   not   only 
because  it  was  forbidden,  but  also  on  account  of  the  awful 
character  of   the   place.     The  watching  of  the  dead  was 
also  an  occasion  for  orgies  and  laughter.    At  the  University, 
even,  these  same  amusements  were  greatly  liked  ;  students 
delighted    in    singing    licentious    songs,    wearing    wreaths, 
carolling  and  deep  drinking  in  the  midst  of  churchyards. 
Councils,    popes,    and  bishops    never    tired  of    protesting, 
nor  the  faithful   of  dancing.       Be    it    forbidden,  says    In- 
nocent   III.    at  the  beginning    of  the    thirteenth  century, 
to    perform    "theatrical    games"    in    churches.     Be    this 
prohibition  enforced,  says  Gregory  IX.   a  little  later.1     Be 
it     forbidden,     says     Walter     de    Chanteloup,     bishop    of 
Worcester,  to  perform  "  dishonest  games  "  in  cemeteries  and 
churches,   especially  on   feast   days    and   on   the   vigils   of 
saints.2     Be   it   forbidden,   says    the   provincial   council   of 
Scotland  in  1225,  "to  carol  and  sing  songs  at  the  funeral 
of   the  dead ;    the    tears    of  others    ought    not    to    be    an 
occasion  for  laughter."  3     Be  it  forbidden,  the  University 

1  "  Ludi  theatrales,  etiam  pnetextu  consuetudinis  in  ecclesiis  vel  per  clericos 
fieri  non  debent."  Decretal  of  Innocent  III.,  year  1207,  included  by  Gregory 
IX.  in  his  "  Compilatio."  Richter  and  Friedberg,  "  Corpus  Juris  Canonici," 
Leipzig,.  1879,  vol.  ii.  p.  453. 

2  "  Constitutiones  Walteri  de  Cantilupo,  A.D.  1240,"  in  Labbe's  "  Sacrorum 
Conciliorum  .   .   .   Collectio,"  vol.  xxiii.  col.  526. 

3  Wilkins,  "Concilia  Magnae  Britannia;,"  London,  1737,  4  vols,  fol.,  vol.  i. 
p.  617,  Nos.  Ixxiv.,  lxxv.  The  same  prohibition  is  made  by  Walter  de 
Chanteloup,  tit  supra,  art.  lv.  The  custom  was  a  very  old  one,  and  existed 
already  in  Anglo-Saxon  times;  see  "  /Elfric's  Lives  of  Saints,"  1881,  E.E.T.S., 
p.  461. 

30 


450  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

of  Oxford  decrees  in  the  same  century,  to  dance  and  sing 
in  churches,  and  wear  there  disguises  and  wreaths  of 
flowers  and  leaves.1 

The  year  was  divided  by  feasts  ;  and  those  feasts,  the 
importance  of  which  in  everybody's  eyes  has  dwindled 
much,  were  then  great  events  ;  people  thought  of  them 
long  before,  saw  them  in  the  distance,  towering  above  the 
common  level  of  days,  as  cathedrals  above  houses.  Every- 
day life  was  arrested,  and  it  was  a  time  for  rejoicings,  of  a 
religious,  and  sometimes  of  an  impious,  character  :  both 
kinds  helped  the  formation  of  drama,  and  they  were  at 
times  closely  united.  On  such  great  occasions,  more  than 
ever,  the  caricature  and  derision  of  holy  things  increased 
the  amusement.  Christmas-time  had  inherited  the  licence 
as  well  as  it  occupied  the  date  of  the  ancient  Roman 
saturnalia;  and  whatever  be  the  period  considered,  be  it 
early  or  late  in  the  Middle  Ages,  it  will  be  found  that  the 
anniversary  was  commemorated,  piously  and  merrily,  by 
sneering  and  adoring  multitudes.  For  the  one  did  not 
prevent  the  other  ;  people  caricatured  the  Church,  her 
hierarchy  and  ceremonials,  but  did  not  doubt  her  infalli- 
bility; they  laughed  at  the  devil  and  feared  him.  "  Priests, 
deacons,  and  sub-deacons,"  says  the  Pope,  are  bold 
enough,  on  those  mad  days,  "to  take  part  in  unbecoming 
bacchanals,  in  the  presence  of  the  people,  whom  they 
ought  rather  to  edify  by  preaching  the  Word  of  God."  2  In 
those  bacchanals  parodies  of  the  Church  prayers  were  in- 

i  "  .  .  .  Ne  quis  choreas  cum  larvis  seu  strepitu  aliquo  in  ecclesiis  vel 
plateis  ducat,  vel  sertatus,  vel  coronatus  corona  ex  foliis  arborum,  vel  florum 
vel  aliunde  composita,  alicubi  incedat  .  .  .  prohibemus,"  thirteenth  century, 
"  Munimenta  Academica,"  ed.  Anstey,  Rolls,  1868,  p.  18. 

2  Decretal  of  Innocent  III.,  reissued  by  Gregory  IX. :  "  In  aliquibus  anni 
festivitatibus,  qu;e  continue  natalem  Christi  sequuntur,  diaconi,  presbyteri  ac 
subdiaconi  vicissim  insaniae  suse  ludibria  exercere  praesumunt,  per  gesticula- 
tionum  suarum  debacchationes  obsccenas  in  conspectu  populi  decus  faciunt 
clericale  vilescere,  quem  potius  illo  tempore  verbi  Dei  deberent  praedicatione 
mulcere."     Richter  and  Friedberg,  "  Corpus  Juris  Canonici,"  vol.  ii.  p.  453. 


THE   STAGE.  451 

troduced  ;  a  Latin  hymn  on  the  Nativity  was  transposed 
line  for  line,  and  became  a  song  in  honour  of  the  good  ale. 
Here,  as  a  sample,  are  two  stanzas,  both  of  the  original  and 
of  the  parody,  this  last  having,  as  it  seems,  been  composed 
in  England  : 

Letabundus  Or  i  parra  : 

Exultet  fidelis  chorus,  La  Cerveise  nos  chantera 

Alleluia!  Alleluia! 

Regem  Regum  Qui  que  en  beit, 

Intacte  perfundit  thorns :  Se  tele  seit  com  estre  deit, 

Res  miranda  !  Kes  miranda  ! 

Angelus  consilii  Bevez  quant  l'avez  en  poing  ; 

Natus  est  de  Virgine,  Bien  est  droit,  car  mout  est  loing 

Sol  de  Stella,  Sol  de  Stella  ; 

Sol  occasum  nesciens,  Bevez  bien  et  bevez  bel, 

Stella  semper  rutilans,  El  vos  vendra  del  tonel 

Semper  clara.  Semper  clara. 

"  You  will  see  ;  the  ale  will  make  us  sing,  Alleluia  !  all 
of  us,  if  the  ale  is  as  it  should  be,  a  wonderful  thing !  (Res 
miranda).  Drink  of  it  when  you  hold  the  jug  ;  'tis  a  most 
proper  thing,  for  it  is  a  good  long  way  from  sun  to  star 
(Sol  de  Stella) ;  drink  well !  drink  deep  !  it  will  flow  for 
you  from  the  tun,  ever  clear  !  (Semper  clara)."  x 

So  rose  from  earth  at  Christmastide,  borne  on  the  same 

»  Thirteenth  century.  See  Gaston  Paris,  "Romania,"  vol.  xxi.  p.  262 
gs  of  a  much  worse  character  were  also  sung  at  Christmas.  To  deter  his 
readers  from  listening  to  any  such  Gascoigne  writes  (first  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century)  :  "  Cavete  et  fugite  in  hoc  sacro  festo  viciosa  et  turpia,  et  prsecipue 
cantus  inhonestos  et  turpes  qui  libidinem  excitant  et  provocant  .  .  .  et 
ymagines  imprimunt  in  mente  quas  expellere  difficllimum  est.  Novi  ego, 
scilicet  Gascoigne,  doctor  sacrse  paginse  qui  haec  scripsi,  unum  magnum  et 
notabilem  virum  talem  cantum  turpem  in  festo  Natalis  audivisse."  He  could 
never  forget  the  shameful  things  he  had  heard,  and  fell  on  that  account  into 
melancholy,  by  which  he  was  driven  to  death.  "  Loci  e  libro  veritatum  .  .  . 
passages  selected  from  Gascoigne's  Theological  Dictionary,"  ed.  Thorold  Rogers, 
Oxford.  1SS1,  4to.  On  the  Christmas  festivities  at  the  University  and  on  the 
"Rex  Natalicius"  (sixteenth  century  and  belore),  see  C.  R.  L.  Fletcher, 
"Collectanea,"  Oxford,  18S5,  Svo,  p.  39. 


452  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

winds,  angels  and  demons,  and  the  ancient  feast  of  Saturn 
was  commemorated  at  the  same  time  as  Christ's.  In  the 
same  way,  again,  the  scandalous  feasts  of  the  Fools,  of  the 
Innocents,  and  of  the  Ass,  were  made  the  merrier  with 
grotesque  parodies  of  pious  ceremonies  ;  they  were  cele- 
brated in  the  church  itself,  thus  transformed,  says  the 
bishop  of  Lincoln,  Robert  Grosseteste,  into  a  place  for 
pleasure,  amusement,  and  folly  :  God's  house  was  defiled 
by  the  devil's  inventions.  He  forbade,  in  consequence,  the 
celebration  of  the  feast  of  Fools,  "  festum  Stultorum,"  on 
the  day  of  Circumcision  in  his  cathedral,  and  then  in  the 
whole  diocese.1 

The  feast  of  the  Innocents  was  even  more  popular  in 
England.  The  performers  had  at  their  head  a  "  boy 
bishop,"  and  this  diminutive  prelate  presided,  with  mitre 
on  his  head,  over  the  frolics  of  his  madcap  companions. 
The  king  would  take  an  interest  in  the  ceremony  ;  he 
would  order  the  little  dignitary  to  be  brought  before  him, 
and  give  him  a  present.  Edward  II.  gave  six  shillings- 
and  eight  pence  to  the  young  John,  son  of  Allan  Scroby, 
who  had  played  the  part  of  the  "  boy  bishop  "  in  the  royal 
chapel;  another  time  he  gave  ten  shillings;  Richard  II., 
more  liberal,  gave  a  pound.2     Nuns  even  were  known  to 

»  "Cum  domus  Dei,  testante  propheta  Filioque  Dei,  domus  sit  orationis, 
nefandum  est  earn  in  domum  jocationis,  scurrilitatis  et  nugacitatis  convertere, 
locumque  Deo  dicatum  diabolicis  adinventionibus  execrare  ;  cumque  circum- 
cisio  Domini  nostri  Jesu  Christi  prima  fuerit  nee  modicum  acerba  ejusdem 
passio,  signum  quoque  sit  circumcisionis  spiritualis  qua  cordium  prseputia 
tolluntur  .  .  .  execrabile  est  circumcisionis  Domini  venerandam  solemnitatem 
libidinosarum  voluptatum  sordibus  prophanare  :  quapropter  vobis  mandamus 
in  virtute  obedientise  firmiter  injungentes,  quatenus  Festum  Stultorum  cum  sit 
vanitate  plenum  et  voluptatibus  spurcum,  Deo  odibile  et  dtemonibus  amabile, 
ne  de  cretero  in  ecclesia  Lincolniensi,  die  venerandse  solemnitatis  circumcisionis 
Domini  permittatis  fieri."  "  Epistoke,"  ed.  Luard,  Rolls,  1861,  p.  118,  year 
1236  (?).     Same  defence  for  the  whole  diocese,  p.  161. 

2  "Wardrobe  Accounts,"  in  "  Archaeologia,"  vol.  xxvi.  p.  342;  "Issue 
Roll  of  Thomas  de  Brantingham,"  ed.  Devon,  1835,  p.  xlvi ;  "  Issues  of  the 
Exchequer,"  ed.  Devon,  p.  222,  6  Rich.  II. 


THE   STAGE. 


453 


forget  on  certain  occasions  their  own  character,  and  to 
carol  with  laymen  on  the  day  of  the  Innocents,  or  on  the 
day  of  Mary  Magdalen,  to  commemorate  the  life  of  their 
patroness,  in  its  first  part  as  it  seems.1 

The  passion  for  sightseeing,  which  was  then  very  keen, 
and  which  was  to  be  fed,  later,  mainly  on  theatrical  enter- 
tainments, was  indulged  in  during  the  Middle  Ages  in 
various  other  ways.  Processions  were  one  of  them  ;  occa- 
sions were  numerous,  and  causes  for  them  were  not  difficult 
to  find.  Had  the  Pui  of  London  awarded  the  crown  to  the 
writer  of  the  best  chanson,  a  procession  was  formed  in  the 
streets  in  honour  of  the  event.  A  marriage,  a  pilgrimage 
to  Palestine,  a  patronal  feast,  were  sufficient  motives  ; 
gilds  and  associations  donned  their  liveries,  drew  their 
insignia  from  their  chest,  and  paraded  the  streets,  in- 
cluding in  the  "  pageant,"  when  the  circumstance  allowed 
of  it,  a  medley  of  giants  and  dwarfs,  monsters,  gilt  fishes,  and 
animals  of  all  sorts.  On  grand  days  the  town  itself  was 
transformed  ;  with  its  flower-decked  houses,  its  tapestries 
and  hangings,  it  gave,  with  some  more  realism  about  it,  the 
impression  we  receive  from  the  painted  scenery  of  an  opera. 

The  town  at  such  times  was  swept  with  extraordinary 
care;  even  "insignificant  filth"  was  removed,  Matthew 
Paris  notes  with  wondering  pen  in  1236.2  The  proces- 
sion moved  forward,  men  on  horseback  and  on  foot,  with 
unfurled  banners,  along  the  decorated  streets,  to  the  sound 
of  bells  ringing  in  the  steeples.  At  road-crossings  the 
procession  stopped  ;  after  having  been  a  sight,  the  members 
of  it  became  in  their  turn  sightseers.  Wonders  had  been 
prepared  to  please  them  :   here  a  forest  with  wild  beasts 

1  "  Inhibemus  ne  de  cetero  in  festis  Innocentium  et  Beate  Marie  Magdalene 
ludibria  exerceatis  consueta,  induendo  vos  scilicet  vestis  secularium  aut  inter 
vos,  seu  cum  secularibus,  choreas  ducendo,  nee  extra  refectorium  comedatis," 
&c.  Eudes  Rigaud,  archbishop  of  Rouen,  to  the  nuns  of  Villarciaux,  thirteenth 
century.     "  Registrum  Visitationum,"  ed.  Bonnin,  1842,  4to,  p.  44 

2  "  Historia  Major,"  Rolls,  vol.  iii.  p.  336. 


454  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

and  St.  John  the  Baptist ;  elsewhere  scenes  from  the 
Bible,  or  from  knightly  romances,  the  "  pas  de  Saladin," 
for  example,  where  the  champion  of  England,  Richard 
Cceur-de-Lion,  fought  the  champion  of  Islam.  At 
times  it  was  a  dumb-show,  a  sort  of  tableau  vivant,  at 
others  actors  moved  but  did  not  speak  ;  at  others  again 
they  did  both,  and  complimented  the  king.  A  day  came 
when  the  compliments  were  cut  into  dialogues ;  such 
practice  was  frequent  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  it 
approached  very  near  to  the  real  drama. 

In  1236,  Henry  III.  of  England  having  married  Alienor 
of  Provence  made  his  solemn  entry  into  his  capital.  On 
this  occasion  were  gathered  together  "  so  many  nobles,  so 
many  ecclesiastics,  such  a  concourse  of  people,  such  a 
quantity  of  histrions,  that  the  town  of  London  could 
scarcely  hold  them  in  her  ample  bosom—  sinu  suo  capace. 
— All  the  town  was  adorned  with  silk  banners,  wreaths, 
hangings,  candles  and  lamps,  mechanisms  and  inventions 
of  extraordinary  kinds."  x 

The  same  town,  fond  above  all  others  of  such  exhibi- 
tions, and  one  of  the  last  to  preserve  vestiges  of  them  in 
her  Eord  Mayor's  Show,  outdid  all  that  had  been  seen 
before  when,  on  the  29th  of  August,  1393,  Richard  II. 
made  his  entry  in  state,  after  having  consented-  to  receive 
the  citizens  again  into  his  favour.2  The  streets  were  lined 
with  cloth  of  gold  and  purple  ;  "  sweet  smelling  flowers  " 
perfumed  the  air  ;  tapestries  with  figures  hung  from  the 
windows  ;  the  king  was  coming  forth,  splendid  to  look 
at,  very  proud  of  his  good  looks,  "  much  like  Troilus  ; " 
queen  Anne  took  part  also  in  the  procession.  A  variety 
of  scenes  stop  the  progress  and  delight  the  onlookers  ;  one 

1  Matthew  Paris,  ibid. 

2  Described  by  Richard  of  Maidstone  (d.  1396)  in  a  Latin  poem  :  "  Richardi 
Maydiston  de  Concordia  inter  Regem  Ricardum  II.  et  civitatem  London,"  in 
the  "  Political  Poems  and  Songs"  of  Wright,  Rolls,  vol.  i.  p.  282. 


THE   STAGE.  455 

had  an  unforeseen  character.  The  queen  was  nearing  the 
gate  of  the  bridge,  the  old  bridge  with  defensive  towers  and 
gates,  and  two  cars  full  of  ladies  were  following  her,  when 
one  of  the  cars,  "  of  Phaetonic  make  "  says  the  classical- 
minded  narrator,  suddenly  broke.  Grave  as  saints,  beau- 
tiful as  angels,  the  ladies,  losing  their  balance,  fell  head 
downwards  ;  and  the  crowd,  while  full  of  admiration  for 
what  they  saw,  "  could  not  suppress  their  laughter."  The 
author  of  the  description  calls  it,  as  Fragonard  would  have 
done,  "  a  lucky  chance,"  sors  bona  ;  but  there  was  nothing 
of  Fragonard  in  him  except  this  word  :  he  was  a  Carmelite 
and  Doctor  of  Divinity. 

Things  having  been  set  right  again,  the  procession 
entered  Cheapside,  and  there  was  seen  an  "admirable 
tower  "  ;  a  young  man  and  a  young  maiden  came  out  of 
it,  addressed  Richard  and  Anne,  and  offered  them  crowns  ; 
at  the  Gate  of  St.  Paul's  a  concert  of  music  was  heard  ;  at 
Temple  Bar,  "  barram  Templi,"  a  forest  had  been  arranged 
on  the  gate,  with  animals  of  all  sorts,  serpents,  lions,  a  bear, 
a  unicorn,  an  elephant,  a  beaver,  a  monkey,  a  tiger,  a  bear, 
"  all  of  which  were  there,  running  about,  biting  each  other, 
fighting,  jumping."  Forests  and  beasts  were  supposed  to 
represent  the  desert  where  St.  John  the  Baptist  had  lived. 
An  angel  was  let  down  from  the  roof,  and  offered  the  king 
and  queen  a  little  diptych  in  gold,  with  stones  and  enamel 
representing  the  Crucifixion  ;  he  made  also  a  speech.  At 
length  the  queen,  who  had  an  active  part  to  play  in 
this  opera,  came  forward,  and,  owing  to  her  intercession, 
the  king,  with  due  ceremony,  consented  to  bestow  his 
pardon  on   the  citizens. 

Many  other  examples  might  be  adduced  ;  feasts  were 
numerous,  and  for  a  time  caused  pains  to  be  forgotten  : 
"  oubliance  etait  au  voir,"  as  Froissart  says  so  well  on  an 
occasion  of  this  sort.1     There  were  also  for  the  people  the 

1   Entry  of  Isabeau  of  Bavaria  into  Paris,  in  1384. 


456  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

May  celebrations  with  their  dances  and  songs,  the  imper- 
sonation of  Robin  Hood,  later  the  performance  of  short 
plays  of  which  he  was  the  hero  *  ;  and  again  those  chimes, 
falling  from  the  steeples,  filling  the  air  with  their  joyous 
peals.  At  Court  there  were  the  "  masks  "  or  "  ballets  "  in 
which  the  great  took  part,  wrapped  in  starry  draperies, 
disguised  with  gold  beards,  dressed  in  skins  or  feathers, 
as  were  at  Paris  King  Charles  VI.  and  his  friends  on 
the  29th  of  January,  1392,  in  the  famous  Ballet  of 
Wild  Men,  since  called,  from  the  catastrophe  which 
happened,  "Ballet  des  Ardents"  (of  men  in  fire).  The 
taste  for  ballets  and  Masks  was  one  of  long  duration  ; 
the  Tudors  and  Stuarts  were  as  fond  of  them  as  the 
Plantagenets,  so  much  so  that  a  branch  apart  in  dramatic 
literature  was  created  on  this  account,  and  it  includes  in 
England  such  graceful  and  touching  masterpieces  as  the 
"  Sad  Shepherd  "  of  Ben  Jonson  and  the  "  Comus "  of 
Milton. 

II. 

While  histrions  and  amusers  give  a  foretaste  of  farce 
and  comedy  in  castle  halls,  while  romantic  drama  is  fore- 
shadowed in  the  "  pas  de  Saladin  "  and  the  "  Taking  of 
Troy,"  and  the  pastoral  drama  begins  with  May  games, 
other  sources  of  the  modern  dramatic  art  were  springing 
up  in  the  shadow  of  the  cloister  and  under  the  naves  of 
churches. 

The  imitation  of  any  action  is  a  step  towards  drama. 
Conventional,  liturgical,  ritualistic  as  the  imitation  was, 
still  there  was  an  imitation  in  the  ceremony  of  mass  ;  and 

1  On  the  popularity  of  Robin  Hood  in  the  fourteenth  century,  see  above,  p. 
224.  In  the  fifteenth  century  he  was  the  hero  of  plays  performed  during  the 
May  festivities  :  "  Reced  for  the  gathering  of  the  May-play  called  Robin  Hood, 
on  the  fair  day,  19s."  Accounts  of  the  church  of  St.  Lawrence  at  Reading, 
year  1499,  in  the  Academy,  October  6,  1883,  p.  231. 


THE  STAGE.  457 

mass  led  to  the  religious  drama,  which  was  therefore,  at 
starting,  as  conventional,  liturgical,  and  ritualistic  as  could 
be.  Its  early  beginning  is  to  be  sought  for  in  the  anti- 
phoned  parts  of  the  service,  and  then  it  makes  one  with  the 
service  itself.  In  a  similar  manner,  outside  the  Church 
lay  drama  had  begun  with  the  alternate  diansons,  debates, 
poetical  altercations  of  the  singers  of  facetious  or  love-songs. 
A  great  step  was  made  when,  at  the  principal  feasts  of  the 
year,  Easter  and  Christmas,  the  chanters,  instead  of  giving 
their  responses  from  their  stalls,  moved  in  the  Church  to 
recall  the  action  commemorated  on  that  day  ;  additions 
were  introduced  into  the  received  text  of  the  service  ;  reli- 
gious drama  begins  then  to  have  an  existence  of  its  own. 

"'  Tell  us,  shepherds,  whom  do  you  seek  in  this  stable? 
— They  will  answer  :  '  Christ  the  Saviour,  our  Lord.'  "  * 

Such  is  the  starting-point ;  it  dates  from  the  tenth 
century  ;  from  this  is  derived  the  play  of  Shepherds,  of 
which  many  versions  have  come  down  to  us.  One  of  them, 
followed  in  the  cathedral  of  Rouen,  gives  a  minute  account 
of  the  performance  as  it  was  then  acted  in  the  midst  of  the 
religious  service :  "  Be  the  crib  established  behind  the 
altar,  and  be  the  image  of  the  Blessed  Mary  placed  there. 
First  a  child,  from  before  the  choir  and  on  a  raised  plat- 
form, representing  an  angel,  will  announce  the  birth  of  the 
Saviour  to  five  canons  or  their  vicars  of  the  second  rank  ; 
the  shepherds  must  come  in  by  the  great  gate  of  the  choir. 
...  As  they  near  the  crib  they  sing  the  prose  Pax  in  terris. 
Two  priests  of  the  first  rank,  wearing  a  dalmatic,  will 
represent  the  midwives  and  stand  by  the  crib."  2 

These  adventitious  ornaments  were  greatly  appreciated, 
and  from  year  to  year  they  were  increased  and  perfected. 

1  "  Quem  quseritis  in  prresepe,  pastores  ?  Respondent :  Salvatorem  Chris- 
tum Dominum."  Petit  de  Julleville,  "  Histoire  du  Theatre  en  France. — Les 
Mysteres,"  1880,  vol.  i.  p.  25. 

2  Petit  de  Julleville,  ibid.,  vol.  i.  p.  26. 


458  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Verse  replaced  prose  ;  the  vulgar  idiom  replaced  Latin  ; 
open  air  and  the  public  square  replaced  the  church  nave 
and  its  subdued  light.  It  was  no  longer  necessary  to  have 
recourse  to  priests  wearing  a  dalmatic  in  order  to  represent 
midwives  ;  the  feminine  parts  were  performed  by  young 
boys  dressed  as  women  :  this  was  coming  much  nearer 
nature,  as  near  in  fact  as  Shakespeare  did,  for  he  never  "* 
saw  any  but  boys  play  the  part  of  his  Juliet.  There  were 
even  cases  in  which  actual  women  were  seen  on  the 
mediaeval  stage.  Those  ameliorations,  so  simple  and 
obvious,  summed  up  in  a  phrase,  were  the  work  of 
centuries,  but  the  tide  when  once  on  the  flow  was  the 
stronger  for  waiting.  The  drama  left  the  church,  because 
its  increased  importance  had  made  it  cumbersome  there, 
because  it  was  badly  seen,  and  because  having  power  it 
wanted  freedom. 

Easter  was  the  occasion  for  ornaments  and  additions 
similar  to  those  introduced  into  the  Christmas  service.1 
The  ceremonies  of  Holy  Week,  which  reproduced  each 
incident  in  the  drama  of  the  Passion,  lent  themselves 
admirably  to  it.  Additions  following  additions,  the  whole 
of  the  Old  Testament  ended  by  being  grouped  round  and 
tied  to  the  Christmas  feast,  and  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament  round  Easter.  Both  were  closely  connected, 
the  scenes  in  the  one  being  interpreted  as  symbols  of  the 
scenes  in  the  other  ;  complete  cycles  were  thus  formed,  re- 
presenting in  two  divisions  the  religious  history  of  mankind 
from  the  Creation  to  Doomsday.  Once  severed  from  the 
church,  these  groups  of  plays  often  got  also  separated 
from  the  feast  to  which  they  owed  their  birth,  and  were 

1  Same  beginning  and  same  gradual  development:  "Quern  queritis  in 
sepulchro  o  Christicole  ? — Jesum  Nazarenum  crucifixum  o  celicole. — Non  est 
hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat  ;  ite  nunciate  quia  surrexit.  Alleluia."  In  use 
at  Limoges,  eleventh  century.  "  Die  lateinischen  Osterfeiern,  untersuchungen 
iiber  den  Ursprung  und  die  Entwicklung  der  liturgisch-dramatischen  Auferste- 
hungsfeier,"  by  Carl  Lange,  Munich,  1887,  8vo,  p.  22. 


THE  STAGE.  459 

represented  at  Whitsuntide,  on  Corpus  Christi  day,  or  on 
the  occasion  of  some  solemnity  or  other. 

As  the  taste  for  such  dramas  was  spreading,  a  variety 
of  tragical  subjects,  not  from  the  Bible,  were  turned 
into  dialogues :  first  lives  of  saints,  later,  in  France,  some 
few  subjects  borrowed  from  history  or  romance  :  the  story 
of  Griselda,  the  raising  of  the  siege  at  Orleans  by  Joan 
of  Arc,  &C.1  The  English  adhered  more  exclusively  to 
the  Bible.  Dramas  drawn  from  the  lives  of  saints  were 
usually  called  Miracles  ;  those  derived  from  the  Bible, 
Mysteries  ;  but  these  appellations  had  nothing  very  definite 
about  them,  and  were  often  used  one  for  the  other. 

The  religious  drama  was  on  the  way  to  lose  its  purely 
liturgical  character  when  the  conquest  of  England  had 
taken  place.  Under  the  reign  of  the  Norman  and 
Angevin  kings,  the  taste  for  dramatic  performances  in- 
creased considerably;  within  the  first  century  after  Hastings 
we  find  them  numerous  and  largely  attended. 

The  oldest  representation  the  memory  of  which  has 
come  down  to  us  took  place  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twelfth  century,  and  had  for  its  subject  the  story  of 
that  St.  Catherine  of  Alexandria  whom  the  Emperor 
Maximinus  caused  to  be  beheaded  after  she  had  converted 
the  fifty  orators  entrusted  with  the  care  of  bringing 
her  back  to  pagapism  by  dint  of  their  eloquence.  The 
fifty  orators  received  baptism,  and  were  burnt  alive.2 
The  representation  was  managed  by  a  Mancel  of  good 
family  called  Geoffrey,  whom  Richard,  abbot  of  St.  Albans, 

1  "  Ci  comence  l'estoire  de  Griselidis  ;  "  MS.  fr.  2203,  in  the  National 
Library,  Paris,  dated  1395,  outline  drawings  (privately  printed,  Paris,  1832, 
4to). — "  Le  Mistere  du  siege  d'Orleans,"  ed.  Guessard  and  Certain,  Paris, 
1862,  4to  (Documents  inedits). 

2  This  story  was  very  popular  during  the  Middle  Ages,  in  France  and  in 
England.  It  was,  e.g.,  the  subject  of  a  poem  in  English  verse,  thirteenth 
century :  "  The  Life  of  St.  Katherine,"  ed.  Einenkel,  Early  English  Text 
Society,  1884,  8vo. 


460  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

had  asked  to  come  from  France  to  be  the  master  of  the 
Abbey  school.  But  as  he  was  late  in  starting,  he  found 
on  his  coming  that  the  school  had  been  given  to  another  ; 
in  his  leisure  he  caused  to  be  represented  at  Dunstable  a 
play,  or  miracle,  of  St.  Catherine,  "  quendam  ludum  de 
Sancta  Katerina  quern  miracula  vulgariter  appellamus." 
He  borrowed  from  the  sacristan  at  St.  Albans  the  Abbey 
copes  to  dress  his  actors  in  ;  but  the  night  following  upon 
the  performance,  the  fire  consumed  his  house ;  all  his 
books  were  burnt,  and  the  copes  too :  "  Wherefore,  not 
knowing  how  to  indemnify  God  and  St.  Albans,  he  offered 
his  own  person  as  a  holocaust  and  took  the  habit  in  the 
monastery.  This  explains  the  zeal  with  which,  having 
become  abbot,  he  strove  to  enrich  the  convent  with  precious 
copes."  For  he  became  abbot,  and  died  in  114.6,  after  a 
reign  of  twenty-six  years,1  and  Matthew  Paris,  to  whom  we 
owe  those  details,  and  whose  taste  for  works  of  art  is  well 
known,  gives  a  full  enumeration  of  the  splendid  purple  and 
gold  vestments,  adorned  with  precious  stones,  with  which 
the  Mancel  Geoffrey  enriched  the  treasury  of  the  Abbey2 

A  little  later  in  the  same  century,  Fitzstephen,  who 
wrote  under  Henry  II.,  mentions  as  a  common  occurrence 
the  "representations  of  miracles"  held  in  London.3  In  the 
following  century,  under  Henry  III.,  some  were  written  in 
the  English  language.4     During  the  fourteenth  century,  in 

*  "  Vit?e  .  .  .  viginti  trium  abbatum  Sancti  Albani,"  in  "  Mattfoei  Paris 
monachi  Albanensis  [Opera],"  London,  1639-40,  2  vols.  fol. ,  vol  ii.  p.  56 
"  Gaufridus  decimus  sextus  [abbas]." 

2  Ibid.,  p.  64. 

3  He  writes,  twelfth  century:  "  Londonia  pro  spectaculis  theatralibus 
pro  ludis  scenicis,  ludos  habet  sanctiores,  representationes  miraculorum  .  .  ." 
"  Descriptio  noLilissimse  civitatis  Londoniae."  printed  with  Stow's  "Survey 
of  London,"  1599,  4to. 

4  This  can  be  inferred  from  the  existence  of  that  "estrif  "  the  "  Harrowing 
of  Hell,"  written  in  the  style  of  mysteries,  which  has  come  down  to  us,  and 
belongs  to  that  period.  See  above,  p.  443.  Religious  dramas  were  written  in 
Latin  by  subjects  of  the  kings  of  England,  and,  among  others,  by  Hilary,  a 


THE   STAGE.  461 

the  time  of  Chaucer,  mysteries  were  at  the  height  of  their 
popularity  ;  their  heroes  were  familiar  to  all,  and  the 
sayings  of  the  same  became  proverbs.  Kings  themselves 
journeyed  in  order  to  be  present  at  the  representations  ; 
Chaucer  had  seen  them  often,  and  the  characters  in  his 
tales  make  frequent  allusions  to  them  ;  his  drunken  miller 
cries  "  in  Pilates  vois  "  ;  "  Jolif  Absolon  "  played  the  part 
of  "king  Herodes,"  and  is  it  to  be  expected  that  an  Alisoun 
could  resist  king  Herodes  ?  The  Wife  of  Bath,  dressed  in 
her  best  garments,  goes  "  to  pleyes  of  miracles,"  and  there 
tries  to  make  acquaintances  that  vmay  be  turned  into 
husbands  when  she  wants  them.  "  Hendy  Nicholas " 
Squotes  to  the  credulous  carpenter  the  example  of  Noah, 
whose  wife  would  not  go  on  board,  and  who  regretted 
that  he  had  not  built  a  separate  ship  for  "  hir-self 
allone." 

A  treatise,  written  in  English  at  this  period,  against  such 
representations,  shows  the  extreme  favour  in  which  they 
stood  with  all  classes  of  society.1  The  enthusiasm  was  so 
general  and  boundless  that  it  seems  to  the  author  indis- 
pensable to  take  the  field  and  retort  (for  the  question  was 
keenly  disputed)  the  arguments  put  forward  to  justify  the 
performance  of  mysteries.  The  works  and  miracles  of 
Christ,  he  observes,  were  not  done  for  play  ;  He  did  them 
'  ernystfully,"  and  we  use  them  "  in  bourde  and  pleye ! " 
It  is  treating  with  great  familiarity  the  Almighty,  who  may 
well  say  :  "  Pley  not  with  me,  but  pley  with  thi  pere." 
Let  us  beware  of  His  revenge  ;  it  well  may  happen  that 
"  God  takith  more  venjaunce  on  us  than  a  lord  that 
sodaynly    sleeth    his   servaunt    for    he   pleyide  to  homely 

disciple  of  Abelard,  twelfth  century,  who  seems  to  have  been  an  Anglo- 
Norman ;  "  Hilarii  versus  et  Ludi,"  ed.  Champollion-Figeac,  Paris,  183S.  A 
few  lines  in  French  are  mixed  wiih  his  Latin. 

1  "  Here  bigynnis  a  tretise  of  miraclis  pleyinge,"  in  Wright  and  Halliwell, 
"  Reliquiae  Antiquse,"  London,  1842,  vol.  ii.  p.  42  ;  end  of  fourteenth 
century. 


462  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

with  hym  ; "  and  yet  the  lord's  vengeance  cannot  be  con- 
sidered a  trifling  one. 

What  do  the  abettors  of  mysteries  answer  to  this  ?  They 
answer  that  "  thei  pleyen  these  myraclis  in  the  worschip  of 
God  "  ;  they  lead  men  to  think  and  meditate  ;  devils  are 
seen  there  carrying  the  wicked  away  to  hell  ;  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  are  represented,  and  the  hardest  are  touched, 
they  are  seen  weeping  for  pity  ;  for  people  wept  and  laughed 
at  the  representations,  openly  and  noisily,  "  wepynge  bitere 
teris."  Besides,  there  are  men  of  different  sorts,  and  some 
are  so  made  that  they  cannot  be  converted  but  by  mirthful 
means,  "  by  gamen  and  pley  "  ;  and  such  performances  do 
them  much  good.  Must  not,  on  the  other  hand,  all  men 
have  "  summe  recreatioun  "  ?  Better  it  is,  "  or  lesse  yvele, 
that  thei  han  thyre  recreacoun  by  pleyinge  of  myraclis 
than  bi  pleyinge  of  other  japis."  And  one  more  very 
sensible  reason  is  given :  "  Sithen  it  is  leveful  to  han  the 
myraclis  of  God  peyntid,  why  is  not  as  wel  leveful  to  han 
the  myraclis  of  God  pleyed  .  .  .  and  betere  thei  ben  holden 
in  mennus  mynde  and  oftere  rehersid  by  the  pleyinge  of 
hem  than  by  the  peyntynge,  for  this  is  a  deed  bok,  the 
tother  a  quick." 

To  those  reasons,  which  he  does  not  try  to  conceal,  but 
on  the  contrary  presents  very  forcibly,  the  fair-minded 
author  answers  his  best.  These  representations  are  too 
amusing  ;  after  such  enjoyments,  everyday  life  seems 
plain  and  dull;  women  of  "yvil  continaunse,"  Wives  of 
Bath  maybe,  or  worse,  flock  there  and  do  not  remain  idle. 
The  fact  that  they  come  does  not  prevent  the  priests 
from  going  too  ;  yet  it  is  "  uttirly  "  forbidden  them  "  not 
onely  to  been  myracle  pleyere  but  also  to  heren  or  to  seen 
myraclis  pleyinge."  But  they  set  the  decree  at  nought 
and  "  pleyn  in  entirlodies,"  and  go  and  see  them  :  "  The 
prestis  that  seyn  hemsilf  holy,  and  besien  hem  aboute  siche 
pleyis,  ben  verry  ypocritis  and  lyeris."     All  bounds  have 


THE   STAGE.  463 

been  overstepped  ;  it  is  no  longer  a  taste,  but  a  passion  ; 
men  are  carried  away  by  it ;  citizens  become  avaricious 
and  grasping  to  get  money  in  view  of  the  representations 
and  the  amusements  which  follow :  "  To  peyen  ther  rente 
and  ther  dette  thei  wolen  grucche,  and  to  spende  two  so 
myche  upon  ther  pley  thei  wolen  nothinge  grucche." 
Merchants  and  tradesmen  "  bygilen  ther  neghbors,  in 
byinge  and  sellyng,"  that  is  "  hideous  coveytise,"  that  is 
"  maumetrie "  ;  and  they  do  it  "  to  han  to  spenden  on 
these  miraclis." 

Many  documents  corroborate  these  statements  and 
show  the  accuracy  of  the  description.  The  fondness  of 
priests  for  plays  and  similar  pastimes  is  descanted  upon 
by  the  Council  of  London  in  1391.1  A  hundred  years 
earlier  an  Englishman,  in  a  poem  which  he  wrote  in 
French,  had  pointed  out  exactly  the  same  abuses  :  from 
which  can  be  perceived  how  deeply  rooted  they  were. 
Another  folly,  William  de  Wadington  2  had  said,  has  been 
invented  by  mad  clerks  ;  it  consists  in  what  is  called 
Miracles  ;  in  spite  of  decrees  they  disguise  themselves 
with  masks,  "  li  forsene!"3     Purely  liturgical   drama,   of 

1  "  Item  quod  tabernas,  spectacula  aut  alia  loca  inhonesta,  seu  ludos 
noxios  at  illicitos  non  frequentent,  sed  more  sacerdotali  se  habeant  et  in 
gestu,  ne  ipsorum  ministerium,  quod  absit,  vituperio,  scandalo  vel  despectui 
habeatur."  Labbe,  vol.  xxvi.  col.  767.  The  inhibition  is  meant  for  priests 
of  all  sorts  :  "  presbyteri  stipendarii  aut  alii  sacerdotes,  propriis  sumptibus  seu 
alias  sustentati."  Innocent  III.  and  Gregory  IX.  had  vainly  denounced  the 
same  abuses,  and  tried  to  stop  them  :  "  Clerici  officia  vel  commercia  saecularia 
non  exerceant,  maxime  inhonesta.  Mimis,  joculatoribus  et  histrionibus  non 
intendant.  Et  tabernas  prorsus  evitent,  nisi  forte  causa  necessitatis  in  itinere 
constituti."     Richter  and  Friedberg,  "  Corpus  Juris  Canonici,"  ii.  p.  454. 

2  "  Roberd  of  Brunne's  Handlyng  Synne  (written  a.d.  1303),  with  the  French 
treatise  on  which  it  is  founded,  '  Le  Manuel  des  Pechiez,'  by  William  de 
Wadington,"  ed.  Furnivall,  Roxburghe  Club,  1862,  4to,  pp.  146  ff. 

3  Un  autre  folie  apert 
Unt  les  fols  clercs  controve, 
Qe  "  miracles  "  sunt  apele  ; 
Lur  faces  unt  la  deguise 
Par  visers,  li  forsene. 


464  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

course,  is  permissible  (an  additional  proof  of  its  existence 
in   England);  certain   representations  can   be  held,  "pro- 
vided they  be  chastely  set  up  and  included  in  the  Church 
service,"    as    is    done    when    the    burial    of    Christ    or  the 
Resurrection  is  represented  "  to  increase  devotion."1     But 
to  have  "  those  mad  gatherings  in  the  streets  of  towns,  or 
in  the  cemeteries,  after  dinner,"  to  prepare  for  the  idle  such 
meeting-places,  is  a  quite  different  thing  ;  if  they  tell  you 
that  they  .do  it  with  good  intent  and  to  the  honour  of  God, 
do  not  believe  them  ;  it  is  all  "  for  the  devil."     If  players 
ask  you   to  lend    them    horses,    equipments,    dresses,  and 
ornaments  of  all  sorts,  don't  fail  to  refuse.     For  the  stage 
continued  to  live  upon  loans,  and  the  example  of  the  copes 
of  St.  Albans  destroyed  by  fire  had  not  deterred  convents 
from  continuing  to  lend  sacred  vestments  to  actors.2     In 
the   case  of  sacred   vestments,  says  William,  "  the  sin  is 
much  greater."     In  all  this,  as  well  as  in  all  sorts  of  dances 
and  frolics,  a  heavy  responsibility  rests  with  the  minstrels  ; 
they  ply  a  dangerous  trade,  a  "trop  perilus  mester"  ;  they 
cause  God  to  be  forgotten,  and  the  vanity  of  the  world  to 
be  cherished. 

Not   a   few   among   these    English  dramas,  so  popular 

1  Fere  poent  representement, 
Mes  qe  ceo  seit  chastement 
En  office  de  seint  eglise 
Quant  hom  fet  la  Deu  servise, 
Cum  Jesu  Crist  le  fiz  Dee 
En  sepulcre  esteit  pose, 
Et  la  resurrectiun 
Pur  plus  aver  devociun. 


2 


Ki  en  lur  jus  se  delitera, 
Chivals  ou  harneis  les  aprestera, 
Vesture  ou  autre  ournement, 
Sachez  il  fet  folement. 
Si  vestemens  seient  dediez, 
Plus  grant  d'assez  est  le  pechez  ; 
Si  prestre  ou  clerc  les  ust  preste 
Bien  dust  estre  chaustie. 


THE   STAGE.  465 

in  former  days,  have  come  down  to  us.     Besides  separate 
pieces,  histories  of  saints  (very  scarce  in  England),  or  frag- 
ments of  old  series,  several  collections  have  survived,  the 
property  whilom   of  gilds   or  municipalities.      A   number 
of  towns  kept  up  those  shows,  which  attracted  visitors,  and 
were  at  the  same  time  edifying,  profitable,  and  amusing. 
From  the  fourteenth   century  the    performances    were    in 
most    cases    intrusted  to  the    gilds,  each    craft   having  as 
much  as  possible  to  represent  a  play  in  accordance  with 
its  particular  trade.      Shipwrights  represented  the  building 
of  the  ark ;  fishermen,  the  Flood  ;  goldsmiths,  the  coming 
of  the  three  kings  with  their    golden  crowns  ;  wine  mer- 
chants, the  marriage  at  Cana,  where  a  miracle  took  place 
very  much   in  their  line.     In   other  cases   the  plays  were 
performed  by  gilds  founded    especially  for  that  purpose  : 
gild  of  Corpus  Christi,  of  the  Pater  Noster,  &c.     This  last 
had  been  created  because  "  once  on  a  time,  a  play  setting 
forth  the  goodness  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  was  played  in  the 
city  of  York,  in  which  play  all  manner  of  vices  and  sins 
were   held   up  to    scorn  and  the  virtues  were  held  up  to 
praise.     This  play  met  with  such  favour  that  many  said  : 
*  Would  that  this  play  could  be  kept  in  this  city,  for  the 
health  of  souls  and  for  the  comfort  of  citizens  and  neigh- 
bours ! '     Hence  the  keeping  up  of  that  play  in  times  to 
come"  (year  1389).1 

In  a  more  or  less  complete  state,  the  collections  of  the 
Mysteries  performed  at  Chester,  Coventry,  Woodkirk,  and 
York  have  been  preserved,  without  speaking  of  fragments 
of  other  series.  Most  of  those  texts  belong  to  the 
fourteenth  century,  but  have  been  retouched  at  a  later 
date.2     Old  Mysteries   did    not   escape   the   hand    of  the 


1  Toulmin  Smith,  "English  Gilds,"  London,  1870,  E.E.T.S.,  p.  139. 

3  The  principal  monuments  of  the  English  religious  stage  are  the  following  : 

"  Chester  Plays,"  ed.  Th.  Wright,  Shakespeare  Society,  1843-7,  2  vols.,  8vo 

31 


( 


466  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

improvers,  any  more  than  old  churches,  where  any  one 
who  pleased  added  paintings,  porches,  and  tracery,  accord- 
ing to  the  fashion  of  the  day. 

These  dramatic  entertainments,  which  thrilled  a  whole 
town,  to  which  flocked,  with  equal  zeal,  peasants  and 
craftsmen,  citizens,  noblemen,  kings  and  queens,  which  the 
Reformation  succeeded  in  killing  only  after  half  a  century's 
fight,  enlivened  with  incomparable  glow  the  monotonous 
course  of  days  and  weeks.  The  occasion  was  a  solemn 
one  ;  preparation  was  begun  long  beforehand  ;  it  was  an 

(seem  to  have  been  adapted  from  the  French,  perhaps  from  an  Anglo-Norman 
original,  not  recovered  yet). 

"  The  Pageant  of  the  Company  of  Sheremen  and  Taylors  in  Coventry  .  .  . 
together  with  other  Pageants,"  ed.  Th.  Sharp,  Coventry,  1817,  4to.  By  the 
same  :  "A  Dissertation  on  the  Pageants  or  Dramatic  Mysteries  anciently 
performed  at  Coventry  ...  to  which  are  added  the  Pageant  of  the  Shearmen 
and  Taylors  Company,"  Coventry,  1825,  4I0  (illustrated). 

"  Ludus  Coventrise,"  ed.  Halliwell,  Shakespeare  Society,  1841,  8vo  (the 
referring  of  this  collection  to  the  town  of  Coventry  is  probably  wrong). 

"  Towneley  Mysteries "  (a  collection  of  plays  performed  at  Woodkirk, 
formerly  Widkirk,  near  Wakefield  ;  see  Skeat's  note  in  Atkenczuni,  Dec. 
3,   1893),  ed.   Raine,  Surtees  Society,  Newcastle,   1836,  8vo. 

"  York  Plays,  the  plays  performed  by  the  crafts  or  mysteries  of  York  on 
the  day  of  Corpus  Christi,  in  the  14th,  15th,  and  16th  centuries,"  ed.  Lucy 
Toulmin  Smith,  Oxford,  1885,  8vo. 

"The  Digby  Mysteries,"  ed.  Furnivall,  New  Shakspere  Society,  1882,  8vo. 

"Play  of  Abraham  and  Isaac"  (fourteenth  century),  in  the  "  Boke  of 
Krome,  a  commonplace  book  of  the  xvth  century,"  ed.  Lucy  Toulmin  Smith, 
1886,  8vo. — "  Play  of  the  Sacrament "  (story  of  a  miracle,  a  play  of  a  type  scarce 
in  England),  ed.  Whitley  Stokes,  Philological  Society  Transactions,  Berlin, 
1860-61,  8vo,  p.  101. — "A  Mystery  of  the  Burial  of  Christ";  "A  Mystery 
of  the  Resurrection":  "This  is  a  play  10  be  played  on  part  on  gudfriday 
afternone,  and  the  other  part  opon  Esterday  afternone,"  in  Wright  and 
Halliwell,  "  Reliquiae  Antiquae,"  1841-3,  vol.  ii.  pp.  124  ff.,  from  a  MS. 
of  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. — See  also  "The  ancient  Cornish 
Drama,"  three  mysteries  in  Cornish,  fifteenth  century,  ed.  Norris,  Oxford, 
1859,  2  vols.  8vo  (with  a  translation).  —  For  extracts,  see  A.  W.  Pollard, 
"  English  Miracle  Plays,  Moralities  and  Interludes,"  Oxford,  1890,  Svo. 

On  the  question  of  the  formation  of  the  various  cycles  of  English  mysteries, 
and  the  way  in  which  they  are  connected,  see  A.  Hohlfield,  "  Die  altenglischera 
kollektivmisterien,"  in  "  Anglia,"  xi.  p.  219,  and  Ch.  Davidson,  "  Studies 
in  the  English  Mystery  Plays,  a  thesis,"  Yale  University,  1892,  Svo. 


THE   STAGE.  467 

important  affair,  an  affair  of  State.  Gilds  taxed  their 
members  to  secure  a  fair  representation  of  the  play 
assigned  to  them  ;  they  were  fined  by  the  municipal 
authority  in  case  they  proved  careless  and  inefficient, 
or  were  behind  their  time  to  begin.  S 

Read  as  they  are,  without  going  back  in  our  minds  to 
times  past  and  taking  into  account  the  circumstances 
of  their  composition,  Mysteries  may  well  be  judged  a  gross, 
childish,  and  barbarous  production.  Still,  they  are  worthy 
of  great  attention,  as  showing  a  side  of  the  soul  of  our 
ancestors,  who  in  all  this  did  their  very  best:  for  those 
performances  were  not  got  up  anyhow:  they  were  the  result 
of  prolonged  care  and  attention.  Not  any  man  who  wished 
was  accepted  as  an  actor  ;  some  experience  of  the  art  was 
expected  ;  and  in  some  towns  even  examinations  took 
place.  At  York  a  decree  of  the  Town  Council  ordains 
that  long  before  the  appointed  day,  "in  the  tyme  of  lentyn" 
(while  the  performance  itself  took  place  in  summer,  at  the 
Corpus  Christi  celebration)  "  there  shall  be  called  afore  the 
maire  for  the  tyme  beyng  four  of  the  moste  connyng  dis- 
crete and  able  players  within  this  Citie,  to  serche,  here  and 
examen  all  the  plaiers  and  plaies  and  pagentes  thrughoute 
all  the  artificers  belonging  to  Corpus  Christi  plaie.  And 
all  suche  as  thay  shall  fynde  sufficiant  in  personne  and 
connyng,  to  the  honour  of  the  Citie  and  worship  of  the 
saide  craftes,  for  to  admitte  and  able  ;  and  all  other 
insufficiant  personnes,  either  in  connyng,  voice,  or  personne 
to  discharge,  ammove  and  avoide."  All  crafts  were  bound 
to  bring  "  furthe  ther  pageantez  in  order  and  course  by 
good  players,  well  arayed  and  openly  spekyng,  upon  payn 
of  lesying  100  s.  to  be  paide  to  the  chambre  without  any 
pardon."  *  These  texts  belong  to  the  fifteenth  century,  but 
there  are  older  ones ;  and  they  show  that  from  the  be- 
ginning the  difference  between  good  and  bad  actors    was 

1  "York  Flays,"  pp.  xxxiv,  xxxvii. 


468  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

appreciated  and  great  importance  was  attached  to  the 
gestures  and  delivery.  The  Mystery  of  "Adam"  (in  French, 
the  wprk,  it  seems,  of  a  Norman),  which  belongs  to  the 
twelfth  century,  commences  with  recommendations  to 
players  :  "  Be  Adam  well  trained  so  as  to  answer  at  the 
appropriate  time  without  any  slackness  or  haste.  The 
same  with  the  other  actors  ;  let  them  speak  in  sedate 
fashion,  with  gestures  fitting  the  words  ;  be  they  mindful 
not  to  add  or  suppress  a  syllable  in  the  verses  ;  and  be 
their  pronunciation  constantly  clear."  *  The  amusement  - 
afforded  by  such  exhibitions,  the  personal  fame  acquired 
by  good  actors,  suddenly  drawn  from  the  shadow  in  which 
their  working  lives  had  been  spent  till  then,  acted  so 
powerfully  on  craftsmen  that  some  would  not  go  back 
to  the  shop,  and,  leaving  their  tools  behind  them,  became 
professional  actors  ;  thus  showing  that  there  was  some 
wisdom  in  the  reproof  set  forth  in  the  "  Tretise  of  Miraclis 
pleyinge." 

Once  emerged  from  the  Church,  the  drama  had  the 
whole  town  in  which  to  display  Rself;  and  it  filled  the 
whole  town.  On  these  days  the  city  belonged  to  dramatic 
art  ;  each  company  had  its  cars  or  scaffolds,  pageants 
(placed  on  wheels  in  some  towns),  each  car  being  meant  to 
represent  one  of  the  places  where  the  events  in  the  play 
happened.  The  complete  series  of  scenes  was  exhibited  at 
the  main  crossings,  or  on  the  principal  squares  or  open 
spaces  in  the  town.  The  inhabitants  of  neighbouring 
houses  sat  thus  as  in  a  front  row,  and  enjoyed  a  most 
enviable  privilege,  so  enviable  that  it  was  indeed  envied, 
and  at  York,  for  example,  they  had  to  pay  for  it.     After 

«  This  preliminary  note  is  in  Latin  :  "  Sit  ipse  Adam  bene  instructus 
quando  respondere  debeat,  ne  ad  respondendum  nimie  sit  velox  aut  nimis 
tardus,  nee  solum  ipse,  sed  omnes  persone  sint.  Instruantur  ut  composite 
oquentur  ;  et  gestum  faciant  convenientem  rei  de  qua  loquuntur,  et,  in 
rithmis  nee  sillabam  addant  nee  demant,  sed  omnes  firmiter  pronuncient." 
"Adam,  Mystere  du  XIIe.  Siecle,"  ed.  Palustre,  Paris,   1877,  8vo. 


THE   STAGE.  469 

14.17  the  choosing  of  the  places  for  the  representations  was 
regulated  by  auction,  and  the  plays  were  performed  under 
the  windows  of  the  highest  bidders.  In  other  cases  the 
scaffolds  were  fixed  ;  so  that  the  representation  was  per- 
formed only  at  one   place. 

The  form  of  the  scaffolds  varied  from  town  to 
town.  At  Chester  "  these  pagiantes  or  cariage  was  a 
highe  place  made  like  a  house  with  two  rowmes  beinge 
open  on  ye  tope :  the  lower  rowme  they  apparrelled  and 
dressed  them  selves  ;  and  in  the  higher  rowme  they 
played  :  and  they  stoode  upon  six  wheeles.  And  when 
they  had  done  with  one  cariage  in  one  place,  they  wheeled 
the  same  from  one  streete  to  an  other."  r  In  some  cases 
the  scaffolds  were  not  so  high,  and  boards  made  a  com- 
munication between  the  raised  platform  and  the  ground  ; 
a  horseman  could  thus  ride  up  the  scaffold  :  "  Here  Erode 
ragis  in  the  pagond  and  in  the  strete  also."  2 

Sometimes  the  upper  room  did  not  remain  open,  but 
a  curtain  was  drawn,  according  to  the  necessity  of  the 
action.  The  heroes  of  the  play  moved  about  the  place, 
and  went  from-  one  scaffold  to  another  ;  dialogue  then 
took  place  between  players  on  the  ground  and  players 
on  the  boards  :  "  Here  thei  take  Jhesu  and  lede  hym 
in  gret  hast  to  Herowde  ;  and  the  Herowdys  scaffald 
xal  unclose,  shevvyng  Herowdes  in  astat,  alle  the  Jewys 
knelyng  except  Annas  and  Cayaphas."  3  Chaucer  speaks 
of  the  "  scaffold  hye  "  on  which  jolif  Absolon  played 
Herod  ;  king  Herod  in  fact  was  always  enthroned  high 
above  the  common  rabble. 

The  arrangements  adopted  in  England  differed  little,  as 
we  see,  from  the  French  ones  ;  and  it  could  scarcely  be 
otherwise,  as  the  taste  for  these  dramas  had  been  imported 

1  "  Digby  Mysteries,"  p.  xix. 

3  "  The  Pageants  .    .  .   of  Coventry,"  ed.  Sharp. 

3  [So  called]  "  Coventry  Mysteries,"  Trial  of  Christ. 


4/0  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

by  the  Normans  and  Angevins.  Neither  in  England  nor 
in  France  were  there  ever  any  of  those  six-storied  theatres 
described  by  the  brothers  Parfait,  each  story  being  sup- 
posed to  represent  a  different  place  or  country.  To  keep 
to  truth,  we  should,  on  the  contrary,  picture  to  ourselves 
those  famous  buildings  stretched  all  along  on  the  ground, 
with  their  different  compartments  scattered  round  the 
public  square. 

But  we  have  better  than  words  and  descriptions  to  give 
us  an  idea  of  the  sight  ;  we  have  actual  pictures,  offering 
to  view  all  the  details  of  the  performances.  An  exquisite 
miniature  of  Jean  Fouquet,  preserved  at  Chantilly,  which 
has  never  been  studied  as  it  ought  to  be  with  reference  to 
this  question,  has  for  its  subject  the  life  of  St.  Apollinia. 
Instead  of  painting  a  fancy  picture,  Fouquet  has  chosen  to 
represent  the  martyrdom  of  the  saint  as  it  was  acted  in  a 
miracle  play.1  The  main  action  takes  place  on  the  ground  ; 
Apollinia   is   there,  in    the    middle   of    the    executioners. 

1  The  French  drama  written  on  this  subject  is  lost  (it  is,  however, 
mentioned  in  the  catalogue  of  a  bookseller  of  the  fifteenth  century  ;  see  "  Les 
Mysteres,"  by  Petit  de  Julleville,  vol.  ii.  chap,  xxiii.,  "Mysteres  perdus"); 
but  the  precision  of  details  in  the  miniature  is  such  that  I  had  no  difficulty  in 
identifying  the  particular  version  of  the  story  followed  by  the  dramatist.  It  is 
an  apocryphal  life  of  Apollinia,  in  which  is  explained  how  she  is  the  saint  to 
be  applied  to  when  suffering  toothache.  This  episode  is  the  one  Fouquet  has 
represented.  Asked  to  renounce  Christ,  she  answers  :  "  '  Quamdiu  vixero  in 
hac  fragili  vita,  lingua  mea  et  os  meum  non  cessabunt  pronuntiare  laudem  et 
honorem  omnipotentis  Dei.'  Quo  audito  jussit  [imperator]  durissimos  stipites 
parari  et  in  igne  duros  fieri  et  prseacutos  ut  sic  dentes  ejus  et  per  tales  stipites 
lsederent,  radices  dentium  cum  forcipe  everentur  radicitus.  In  ilia  hora  oravit 
S.  Apollinia  dicens :  '  Domine  Jesu  Christe,  precor  te  ut  quicuinque  diem 
passionis  mere  devote  peregerint  .  .  .  dolorem  dentium  aut  capitis  nunquam 
sentiant  passiones.' ':  The  angels  thereupon  (seated  on  wooden  stairs,  in 
Fouquet's  miniature)  come  down  and  tell  her  that  her  prayer  has  been 
granted.  "Acta  ut  videntur  apocrypha  S.  Apollonise,"  in  Bollandus,  "Acta 
Sanctorum,"  Antwerp,  vol.  ii.  p.  280,  under  the  9th  February. 

See  also  the  miniatures  of  a  later  date  (sixteenth  century)  in  the  MS.  of  the 
Valenciennes  Passion,  MS.  fr.  15,236  in  the  National  Library,  and  the 
model  made  after  one  of  them,  exhibited  in  the  Opera  Museum,  Paris. 


THE   STAGE.  471 

Round  the  place  are  scaffolds  with  a  lower  room  and  an 
upper  room,  as  at  Chester,  and  there  are  curtains  to  close 
them.  One  of  those  boxes  represents  Paradise  ;  angels 
with  folded  arms,  quietly  seated  on  the  wooden  steps  of 
their  stairs,  await  the  moment  when  they  must  speak  ; 
another  is  filled  with  musicians  playing  the  organ  and 
other  instruments ;  a  third  contains  the  throne  of  the 
king.  The  throne  is  empty  ;  for  the  king,  Julian  the 
apostate,  his  sceptre,  adorned  with.  fteurs-de-lysy  in  his  hand, 
has  come  down  his  ladder  to  take  part  in  the  main  action. 
Hell  has  its  usual  shape  of  a  monstrous  head,  with  opening 
and  closing  jaws  ;  it  stands  on  the  ground,  for  the  better 
accommodation  of  devils,  who  had  constantly  to  interfere 
in  the  drama,  and  to  keep  the  interest  of  the  crowd  alive, 
by  running  suddenly  through  it,  with  their  feathers  and 
animals'  skins,  howling  and  grinning  ;  "  to  the  great  terror 
of  little  children,"  says  Rabelais,  who,  like  Chaucer,  had 
often  been  present  at  such  dramas.  Several  devils  are  to 
be  seen  in  the  miniature  ;  they  have  cloven  feet,  and  stand 
outside  the  hell-mouth  ;  a  buffoon  also  is  to  be  seen,  who 
raises  a  laugh  among  the  audience  and  shows  his  scorn  for 
the  martyr  by  the  means  described  three  centuries  earlier 
in  John  of  Salisbury's  book,  exhibiting  his  person  in  a  way 
"  quam  erubescat  videre  vel  cynicus."  -. 

Besides  the  scaffolds,  boxes  or  "  estableis  "  meant  for 
actors,  others  are  reserved  for  spectators  of  importance,  or 
those  who  paid  best.  This  commingling  of  actors  and  spec- 
tators would  seem  to  us  somewhat  confusing  ;  but  people 
were  not  then  very  exacting  ;  with  them  illusion  was  easily 
caused,  and  never  broken.  This  magnificent  part  of  the 
audience,  besides,  with  its  rich  garments,  was  itself  a 
sight ;  and  so  little  objection  was  made  to  the  presence  of 
beholders  of  that  sort  that  we  shall  find  them  seated  on 
the  Shakesperean  stage  as  well  as  on  the  stage  of  Corneille 
and  of  Moliere.     "  I  was  on  the  stage,  meaning  to  listen  to 


472  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

the  play  .  .  ."  says  the  Eraste  of  "  Les  Facheux."  In  the 
time  of  Shakespeare  the  custom  followed  was  even  more 
against  theatrical  illusion,  as  there  were  gentlemen  not 
only  on  the  sides  of  the  scene,  but  also  behind  the  actors  ; 
they  filled  a  vast  box  fronting  the  pit. 

The  dresses  were  rich :  this  is  the  best  that  can  be  said 
of  them.  Saints  enwreathed  their  chins  with  curling  beards 
of  gold  ;  God  the  Father  was  dressed  as  a  pope  or  a  bishop. 
For  good  reasons  the  audience  did  not  ask  much  in  the  way 
of  historical  accuracy  ;  all  it  wanted  was  signs.  Copes  and 
tiaras  were  in  its  eyes  religious  signs  by  excellence,  and  in 
the  wearer  of  such  they  recognised  God  without  hesitation. 
The  turban  of  the  Saracens,  Mahomet  the  prophet  of  the 
infidels,  were  known  to  the  mob,  which  saw  in  them  the 
signs  and  symbols  of  irreligiousness  and  impiety.  Herod, 
for  this  cause,  wore  a  turban,  and  swore  premature  oaths 
by  "  Mahound."  People  were  familiar  with  symbols,  and 
the  use  of  them  was  continued  ;  the  painters  at  the 
Renaissance  represented  St.  Stephen  with  a  stone  in  his 
hand  and  St.  Paul  with  a  sword,  which  stone  and  sword 
stood  for  symbols,  and  the  sight  of  them  evoked  all  the 
doleful  tale  of  their  sufferings  and  death. 

The  authors  of  Mysteries  did  not  pay,  as  we  may  well 
believe,  great  attention  to  the  rule  of  the  three  Unities. 
The  events  included  in  the  French  Mystery  of  the  "Vieil 
Testament "  did  not  take  place  in  one  day,  but  in  four 
thousand  years.  The  most  distant  localities  were  repre- 
sented next  to  each  other :  Rome,  Jerusalem,  Marseilles. 
The  scaffolds  huddled  close  together  scarcely  gave  an  idea 
of  geographical  realities  ;  the  imagination  of  the  beholders 
was  expected  to  supply  what  was  wanting  :  and  so  it  did. 
A  few  square  yards  of  ground  (sometimes,  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged, of  water)  were  supposed  to  be  the  Mediter- 
ranean ;  Marseilles  was  at  one  end,  and  Jaffa  at  the  other. 
A  few   minutes  did  duty  for  months,  years,  or  centuries. 


THE   STAGE.  473 

Herod  sends  a  messenger  to  Tiberius  ;  the  tetrarch  has 
scarcely  finished  his  speech  when  his  man  is  already  at 
Re  me,  and  delivers  his  message  to  the  emperor.  Noah 
gets  into  his  ark  and  shuts  his  window  ;  here  a  silence 
lasting  a  minute  or  so  ;  the  window  opens,  and  Noah 
declares  that  the  forty  days  are  past  ("  Chester  Plays  "). 

To  render,  however,  his  task  easier  to  the  public,  some 
precautions  were  taken  to  let  them  perceive  where  they 
were.  Sometimes  the  name  of  the  place  was  written  on  a 
piece  of  wood  or  canvas,  a  clear  and  honest  means.1  It 
worked  so  successfully  that  it  was  still  resorted  to  in 
Elizabethan  times  ;  we  see  "  Thebes  written  in  great 
letters  upon  an  olde  doore,"  says  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and 
without  asking  for  more  we  are  bound  "  to  beleeve  that  it  J 
is  Thebes."  In  other  cases  the  actor  followed  the  sneering 
advice  Boileau  was  to  express  later,  and  in  very  simple 
fashion  declared  who  he  was  :  I  am  Herod  !  I  am  Tiberius  ! 
Or  again,  when  they  moved  from  one  place  to  another,  they 
named  both :  now  we  are  arrived,  I  recognise  Marseilles ; 
"  her  is  the  lond  of  Mercylle."  2  Most  of  those  inventions 
were  long  found  to  answer,  and  very  often  Shakespeare 
had  no  better  ones  to  use.  The  same  necessities  caused 
him  to  make  up  for  the  deficiency  of  the  scenery  by  his 
wonderful  descriptions  of  landscapes,  castles,  and  wild 
moors.  All  that  poetry  would  have  been  lost  had  he  had 
painted  scenery  at  his  disposal. 

Some  attempts  at  painted  scenery  were  made,  it  is  true,     \ 
but  so  plain  and  primitive  that  the  thing  again  acted  as  a 
symbol  rather  than  as  the  representation  of  a  place.     A 

1  What  the  place  is — 

.  .  .  Vous  le  povez  congnoistre 
Far  l'escritel  que  dessus  voyez  estre. 

Prologue   of  a   play   of  the   Nativity,   performed  at  Rouen,    1474  ;  Petit  de 
Julleville,  "  Les  Mysteres,"  vol.  i.  p.  397. 

2  "  Digby  Mysteries,"  ed.  Furnivall,  p.  127. 


474  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

throne  meant,  the  palace  of  the  king.  God  divides  light 
from  darkness  :  "  Now  must  be  exhibited  a  sheet  painted, 
know  you,  one  half  all  white  and  the  other  half  all  black." 
The  creation  of  animals  comes  nearer  the  real  truth  : 
"  Now  must  be  let  loose  little  birds  that  will  fly  in  the  air, 
and  must  be  placed  on  the  ground,  ducks,  swans,  geese 
.  .  .  with  as  many  strange  beasts  as  it  will  have  been 
.  possible  to  secure."  But  truth  absolute  was  observed  when 
the  state  of  innocence  had  to  be  represented  :  "  Now  must 
Adam  rise  all  naked  and  look  round  with  an  air  of 
admiration  and  wonder."  x  Beholders  doubtless  returned 
his  wonder  and  admiration.  In  the  Chester  Mysteries  a 
practical  recommendation  is  made  to  the  actors  who 
personate  the  first  couple  :  "  Adam  and  Eve  shall  stande 
nakede,  and  shall  not  be  ashamed."  2  The  proper  time 
to  be  ashamed  will  come  a  little  later.  The  serpent 
steals  "  out  of  a  hole  " ;  man  falls  :  "  Now  must  Adam 
cover  himself  and  feign  to  be  ashamed.  The  woman  must 
also  be  seized  with  shame,  and  cover  herself  with  her 
hands."  3 

If  painted  scenery  was  greatly  neglected,  machinery 
received  more  attention.  That  characteristic  of  modern 
times,  yeast  through  which  the  old  world  has  been  trans- 
formed, the  hankering  after  the  unattainable,  which  caused 
so  many  great  deeds,  had  also  smaller  results  ;  it  affected 
these  humble  details.  Painted  canvas  was  neglected,  but 
people  laboured  at  the  inventing  of  machinery.  While  a 
sheet  half  white  and  half  black  was  hung  to  represent  light 
and    chaos,   in   the   drama   of  "Adam,"    so  early  as    the 

1  "Mystere  du  vieil  Testament,"  Paris,  1542,  with  curious  cuts,  "pour 
plus  facile  intelligence."  Many  other  editions ;  one  modern  one  by  Baron  J. 
de  Rothschild,  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes  Francais,  1 878  ff. 

2  "  Chester  Plays,"  ii. 

3  "  Adoncques  doit  Adam  couvrix  son  humanite,  faignant  avoir  honte.  Icy 
se  doit  semblablement  vergongner  la  femme  et  se  musser  de  sa  main.' 
"  Mystere  du  vieil  Testament." 


/ 


THE   STAGE.  475 

twelfth  century,  a  self-moving  serpent,  "  serpens  artificiose 
compositus,"  tempted  the  woman  in  Paradise.  Wondering 
Eve  offered  but  small  resistance.  Elsewhere  an  angel 
carried  Enoch  "by  a  subtile  engine"  into  Paradise.  In 
the  Doomesday  play  of  the  Chester  Mysteries,  "Jesus 
was  to  come  down  as  on  a  cloud,  if  that  could  be  managed." 
But  sometimes  it  could  not ;  in  Fouquet's  miniature  the 
angels  have  no  other  machinery  but  a  ladder  to  allow 
them  to  descend  from  heaven  to  earth.  In  the  "  Mary 
Magdalene "  of  the  Digby  Mysteries  a  boat  appeared 
with  mast  and  sail,  and  carried  to  Palestine  the  King  of 
Marseilles. 

Hell  was  in  all  times  most  carefully  arranged,  and  it  \ 
had  the  best  machinery.  The  mouth  opened  and  closed, 
threw  flames  from  its  nostrils,  and  let  loose  upon  the 
crowd  devils  armed  with  hooks  and  emitting  awful  yells. 
From  the  back  of  the  mouth  appalling  noises  were  heard, 
being  meant  for  the  moans  of  the  damned.  These 
moans  were  produced  by  a  simple  process  :  pots  and 
frying-pans  were  knocked  against  each  other.  In 
"  Adam,"  the  heroes  of  the  play  are  taken  to  hell,  there 
to  await  the  coming  of  Christ  ;  and  the  scene,  according  to 
the  stage  direction  in  the  manuscript,  was  to  be  represented 
thus  :  "  Then  the  Devil  will  come  and  three  or  four  devils 
with  him  with  chains  in  their  hands  and  iron  rings  which 
they  will  put  round  the  neck  of  Adam  and  Eve.  Some 
push  them  and  others  draw  them  toward  hell.  Other 
devils  awaiting  them  by  the  entrance  jump  and  tumble  as 
a  sign  of  their  joy  for  the  event."  After  Adam  has  been 
received  within  the  precincts  of  hell,  "the  devils  will  cause 
a  great  smoke  to  rise  ;  they  will  emit  merry  vociferations, 
and  knock  together  their  pans  and  caldrons  so  as  to  be 
heard  from  the  outside.  After  a  while,  some  devils  will 
come  out  and  run  about  the  place."  Pans  were  of  frequent 
use  ;  Abel  had  one  under  his  tunic,  and  Cain,  knocking  on 


476  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

it,  drew  forth  lugubrious  sounds,  which  went  to  the  heart  of 
the  audience. 

The  machinery  became  more  and  more  complicated 
toward  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  ;  but  much  money  was 
needed,  and  for  long  the  Court  or  the  municipalities  could 
alone  use  them.  In  England  fixed  or  movable  scenery 
reaches  great  perfection  at  Court :  Inigo  Jones  shows  a  genius 
in  arranging  elegant  decorations ;  some  of  his  sketches 
have  been  preserved.1  But  such  splendid  inventions  were 
too  costly  to  be  transferred  to  the  stages  for  which  Shake- 
speare wrote  ;  and  he  never  used  any  other  magic  but  that 
of  his  poetry.  Inigo  Jones  had  fine  scene-shiftings  with 
the  help  of  his  machinists,  and  Shakespeare  with  the  help 
of  his  verses  ;  these  last  have  this  advantage,  that  they 
have  not  faded,  and  can  still  be  seen. 


III. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  so  much  simplicity,  child- 
ishness, or  barbarity  of  those  ivy-clad  ruins,  the  forms  of 
which  can  scarcely  be  discerned,  they  must  be  subjected  to 
a  closer  inspection  ;  and  if  there  were  no  other,  this  one 
consideration  would  be  enough  to  incline  us  to  it :  while 
in  the  theatre  of  Bacchus  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles  were 
played  once  and  no  more,  the  Christian  drama,  remodelled 
from  century  to  century,  was  represented  for  four  hundred 
years  before  immense  multitudes  ;  and  this  is  a  unique 
phenomenon  in  the  history  of  literature. 

The  fact  may  be  ascribed  to  several  causes,  some  of 
which  have  already  been  pointed  out.  The  desire  to  see 
was  extremely  keen,  and  there  was  seen  all  that  could  be 
wished  :  the  unattainable,  the  unperceivable,  miracles,  the 
king's  Court,  earthly  paradise,  all  that  had  been  heard  of 

1  Reproduced  by  Mr.  R.  T.  Blomfield,  in  the  Portfolio,  May,  June,  July, 
1889. 


THE   STAGE. 


477 


or  dreamt  about.     Means  of  realisation  were  rude,  but  the 
public  held  them  satisfactory. 

What  feasts  were  in  the  year,  sacraments  were  in  the 
existence  of  men  ;  they  marked  the  great  memorable 
stages  of  life.  A  complete  net  of  observances  and  religious 
obligations  surrounded  the  months  and  seasons ;  bells 
never  remained  long  silent  ;  they  rang  less  discreetly  than 
now,  and  were  not  afraid  to  disturb  conversations  by  their 
noise.  At  each  period  of  the  day  they  recalled  that  there 
were  prayers  to  say,  and  to  those  even  who  did  not  pray 
they  recalled  the  importance  of  religion.  Existences  were 
thus  impregnated  with  religion  ;  and  religion  was  in  its 
entirety  explained,  made  accessible  and  visible,  in  the 
Mysteries. 

The  verses  spoken  by  the  actors  did  not  much  resemble 
those  in  Shakespeare  ;  they  were,  in  most  cases,  mere 
tattle,  scarcely  verses  ;  rhyme  and  alliteration  were  some- 
times used  both  together,  and  both  anyhow.  And  yet  the 
emotion  was  deep  ;  in  the  state  of  mind  with  which  the 
spectators  came,  nothing  would  have  prevented  their  being 
touched  by  the  affecting  scenes,  neither  the  lame  verse  nor 
the  clumsy  machinery  ;  the  cause  of  the  emotion  was  the 
subject,  and  not  the  manner  in  which  the  subject  was 
represented.  All  the  past  of  humanity  and  its  eternal 
future  were  at  stake  ;  players,  therefore,  were  sometimes 
interrupted  by  the  passionate  exclamations  of  the  crowd. 
At  a  drama  lately  represented  on  the  stage  of  the  Comedie 
Francaise,  one  of  the  audience  astonished  his  neighbours 
by  crying :  "  Mais  signe  done  !  Est-elle  bete  !  .  .  ."  In 
the  open  air  of  the  public  place,  at  a  time  when  manners 
were  less  polished,  many  such  interjections  interrupted  the 
performance ;  many  insulting  apostrophes  were  addressed 
to  Eve  when  she  listened  to  the  serpent ;  and  the  serpent 
spoke  (in  the  Norman  drama  of  "Adam  ")  a  language  easy 
to  understand,  the  language  of  everyday  life  : 


478  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

"  Diabolus. — I  saw  Adam  ;  he  is  an  ass. 

"  Eva. — He  is  a  little  hard. 

"  Diabolus. — We  shall  melt  him  ;  but  at  present  he  is 
harder  than  iron." 

But  thou,  Eve,  thou  art  a  superior  being,  a  delicate  one, 
a  delight  for  the  eyes.  "Thou  art  a  little  tender  thing, 
fresher  than  the  rose,  whiter  than  crystal,  or  snow  falling 
on  the  ice  in  a  dale.  The  Creator  has  badly  matched  the, 
couple  ;  thou  art  too  sweet  ;  man  is  too  hard.  .  .  .  For 
which  it  is  very  pleasant  to  draw  close  to  thee.  Let  me 
have  a  talk  with  thee."  J 

And  for  such  cajolery,  for  such  folly,  thought  the  crowd, 
for  this  sin  of  our  common  mother,  we  sweat  and  we  suffer, 
we  observe  Lent,  we  experience  temptations,  and  under 
our  feet  this  awful  hell-mouth  opens,  in  which,  maybe,  we 
shall  some  day  fall.     Eve,  turn  away  from  the  serpent ! 

Greater  even  was  the  emotion  caused  by  the  drama  of 
the  Passion,  the  sufferings  of  the  Redeemer,  all  the  details 
of  which  were  familiar  to  everybody.  The  indignation  was 
so  keen  that  the  executioners  had  difficulty  sometimes  in 
escaping  the  fury  of  the  multitude. 

The  Middle  Ages  were  the  age  of  contrasts  ;  what 
measure  meant  was  then  unknown.  This  has  already  been 
noticed  a  propos  of  Chaucer  ;  the  cleverest  compensated,  as 
Chaucer  did,  their   Miller's  tales  with  stories  of  Griselda. 


i 


Diabolus.     To  vis  Adam,  mais  trop  est  fols. 

Eva.     Un  poi  est  durs. 
Diabolus.  II  serra  mols ; 

II  est  plus  durs  que  n'est  un  fers  .  .  . 

Tu  es  fieblette  et  tendre  chose, 

Et  es  plus  fresche  que  n'est  rose  ; 

Tu  es  plus  blanche  que  cristal, 

Que  nief  qui  chiet  sor  glace  en  val. 

Mai  cuple  en  fist  le  criatur  ; 

Tu  es  trop  tendre  et  il  trop  dur  .  .  . 

Por  90  fait  bon  se  treire  a  tei ; 

Parler  te  voil. 


THE   STAGE. 


479 


When  they  intend  to  be  tender  the  authors  of  Mysteries 
fall  in  most  cases  into  that  mawkish  sentimentality  by 
which  the  man  of  the  people  or  the  barbarian  is  often 
detected.  A  feeling  for  measure  is  a  produce  of  civilisa- 
tion, and  men  of  the  people  ignore  it.  Those  street 
daubers  who  draw  on  the  flags  of  the  London  foot-paths 
always  represent  heartrending  scenes,  or  scenes  of  a  sweet- 
ness unspeakable  :  here  are  fires,  storms,  and  disasters  ; 
now  a  soldier,  in  the  middle  of  a  battle,  forgets  his  own 
danger,  and  washes  the  wound  of  his  horse  ;  then  cas- 
cades under  an  azure  sky,  amidst  a  spring  landscape,  with 
a  blue  bird  flying  about.  Many  such  drawings  might  be 
detected  in  Dickens,  many  also  in  the  Mysteries.  After  a 
truly  touching  scene  between  Abraham  and  his  son,  the 
pretty  things  Isaac  does  and  says,  his  prayer  not  to  see 
the  sword  so  keen,  cease  to  touch,  and  come  very  near 
making  us  laugh.  The  contrast  between  the  fury  of 
Herod  and  the  sweetness  of  Joseph  and  Mary  is  similarly 
carried  to  an  extreme.  This  same  Joseph  who  a  minute 
ago  insulted  his  wife  in  words  impossible  to  quote,  has 
now  become  such  a  sweet  and  gentle  saint  that  one  can 
scarcely  believe  the  same  man  addresses  us.  He  is  pack- 
ing before  his  journey  to  Egypt ;  he  will  take  his  tools 
with  him,  his  "  smale  instrumentes."  z  Is  there  anything 
more  touching?  Nothing,  except  perhaps  the  appeal  of 
the  street  painter,  calling  our  attention  to  the  fact  that  he 
draws  "  on  the  rude  stone."  How  could  the  passer-by  not 
be  touched  by  the  idea  that  the  stone  is  so  hard  ?  In  the 
Middle  Ages  people  melted  at  this,  they  were  moved,  they 
wept ;  and  all  at  once  they  were  in  a  mood  to  enjoy  the 
most  enormous  buffooneries.  These  fill  a  large  place 
in  the  Mysteries,  and  beside  them  shine  scenes  of  real 
comedy,  evincing  great  accuracy  of  observation. 

1   All  my  smale  instrumentes  is  putt  in  my  pakke. 

("  Digby  Mysteries,"  p.  II.) 


48o  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

The  personages  worst  treated  in  Mysteries  are  always 
kings  ;  they  are  mostly  represented  as  being  grotesque 
and  mischievous.  The  playwrights  might  have  given  as 
their  excuse  that  their  kings  are  miscreants,  and  that  black 
is  not  dark  enough  to  paint  such  faces.  But  to  this  com- 
mendable motive  was  added  a  sly  pleasure  felt  in  carica- 
turing those  great  men,  not  only  because  they  were  heathens, 
but  also  because  they  were  kings  ;  for  when  Christian 
princes  and  lords  appear  on  the  stage,  the  satire  is  often 
continued.  Thus  Lancelot  of  the  Lake  appears  unex- 
pectedly at  the  Court  of  king  Herod,  and  after  much  rant 
the  lover  of  queen  Guinevere  draws  his  invincible  sword 
and  massacres  the  Innocents  ("  Chester  Plays  "). 

Herod,  Augustus,  Tiberius,  Pilate,  Pharaoh,  the  King  of 
Marseilles,  always  open  the  scenes  where  they  figure  with 
a  speech,  in  which  they  sound  their  own  praise.  It  was  an 
established  tradition  ;  in  the  same  way  as  God  the  Father 
delivered  a  sermon,  these  personages  made  what  the  manu- 
scripts technically  call  "  their  boast."  They  are  the  masters 
of  the  universe  ;  they  wield  the  thunder  ;  everybody  obeys 
them  ;  they  swear  and  curse  unblushingly  (by  Mahomet)  ; 
they  are  very  noisy.  They  strut  about,  proud  of  their  fine 
dresses  and  fine  phrases,  and  of  their  French,  French  being 
there  again  a  token  of  power  and  authority.  The  English 
Herod  could  not  claim  kinship  with  the  Norman  Dukes, 
but  the  subjects  of  Angevin  monarchs  would  have 
shrugged  their  shoulders  at  the  representation  of  a  prince 
who  did  not  speak  French.  It  was  for  them  the  sign  of 
princeship,  as  a  tiara  was  the  sign  of  godhead.  Herod 
therefore  spoke  French,  a  very  mean  sort  of  French,  it  is 
true,  and  the  Parliament  of  Paris  which  was  to  express 
later  its  indignation  at  the  faulty  grammar  of  the  "Confreres 
de  la  Passion"  would  have  suffered  much  if  it  had  seen  what 
became  of  the  noble  language  of  France  on  the  scaffolds 
at  Chester.  But  it  did  not  matter  ;  any  words  were  enough, 


THE   STAGE.  481 

in  the  same  way  as  any  sword  would  do  as  an  emblem  for 

St.  Paul. 

One  of  the  duties  of  these  strutting  heroes  was  to  main- 
tain silence.  It  seemed  as  if  they  had  a  privilege  for  noise 
making,  and  they  repressed  encroachments  ;  their  task  was 
not  an  easy  one.  Be  still,  "  beshers,"  cries  Augustus  ; 
"  beshers  "  means  "  beaux  sires  "  in  the  kingly  French  of 
the  Mysteries  : 

Be  stylle,  beshers,  I  commawnd  you, 
That  no  man  speke  a  word  here  now 

Bot  I  my  self  alon. 
And  if  ye  do,  I  make  a  vow, 
Thys  brand  abowte  youre  nekys  shalle  bow, 

For-thy  by  stylle  as  ston.1 

Silence  !  cries  Tiberius.     Silence  !  cries  Herod : 

Styr  not  bot  ye  have  lefe, 
For  if  ye  do  I  clefe 

You  smalle  as  flesh  to  pott.2 

Tiberius  knows  Latin,  and  does  not  conceal  it  from  the 
audience  : 

Stynt,  I  say,  gyf  men  place,  quia  sum  dominus  dominorum, 
He  that  agans  me  says  rapietur  lux  oculorum.3 

And  each  of  them  hereupon  moves  about  his  scaffold,  and 
gives  the  best  idea  he  can  of  the  magnitude  of  his  power  : 

Above  all  kynges  under  the  cloudys  crystall, 
Royally  I  reigne  in  welthe  without  woo  .  .  . 
I  am  Kyng  Herowdes.4 


"  Towneley  Mysteries."  a  Ibid. — Magnus  Herodes. 

3  "Towneley  My-teries."— Processus  Talentorum. 
*  "  Digby  Mysteries." — Candlemas  Day,  p.  3. 

32 


482  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Be  it  known,  says  another  : 

That  of  heven  and  hell  chyff  rewlar  am  I, 
To  wos  magnyfycens  non  stondyt  egall, 
For  I  am  soveren  of  al  soverens.1 

Make  room,  says  a  third  : 

A-wantt,  a-want  the,  on-worthy  wrecchesse  ! 
Why  lowtt  ye  nat  low  to  my  lawdabyll  presens  ?  .  .  . 
I  am  a  sofereyn  semely,  that  ye  se  butt  seyld  ; 
Non  swyche  onder  sonne,  the  sothe  for  to  say  .  .  . 
I  am  kyng  of  Marcylle  !  2 

Such  princes  fear  nothing,  and  are  never  abashed  ;  they 
are  on  familiar  terms  with  the  audience,  and  interpellate 
the  bystanders,  which  was  a  sure  cause  of  merriment,  but 
not  of  good  order.  Octavian,  being  well  pleased  with 
the  services  of  one  of  his  men,  tells  him  : 

Boye,  their  be  ladyes  many  a  one, 
Amonge  them  all  chouse  thee  one, 
Take  the  faierest,  or  elles  non, 
And  freely  I  geve  her  thee.3 

Every  lord  bows  to  my  law,  observes  Tiberius  : 

Is  it  nat  so?     Sey  yow  all  with  on  showte. 

and  a  note  in  the  manuscript  has  :  "  Here  answerryt  all  the 
pepul  at  ons,  '  Ya,  my  lord,  ya.' " 4  All  this  was  performed 
with  appropriate  gesture,  that  is,  as  wild  as  the  words  they 
went  with,  a  tradition  that  long  survived.  Shakespeare 
complained,  as  we  know,  of  the  delivery  of  those  actors 
who  "  out-heroded   Herod." 

The  authors  of  English  Mysteries  had  no  great  experi- 
ence of  Courts  ;  they  drew  their  caricatures  somewhat  hap- 
hazard.    They  were  neither  very  learned  nor  very  careful  ; 

1   "  Digby  Mysteries." — Mary  Magdalen,  p.  55.  2  Ibid.,  p.  90. 

3    '  Chester  Plays."- — Salutation  and  Nativity. 
*  "  Digby  Mysteries,'   p.  56. 


THE  STAGE.  483 

anachronisms  and  mistakes  swarm  under  their  pen.  While 
Herod  sacrifices  to  Mahomet,  Noah  invokes  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  and  the  Christmas  shepherds  swear  by  "  the  death 
of  Christ,"  whose  birth  is  announced  to  them  at  the  end 
of  the  play. 

The  psychology  of  these  dramas  is  not  very  deep, 
especially  when  the  question  is  of  personages  of  rank,  and 
of  feelings  of  a  refined  sort.  The  authors  of  Mysteries 
speak  then  at  random  and  describe  by  hearsay  ;  they  have 
seen  their  models  only  from  afar,  and  are  not  familiar  with 
them.  When  they  have  to  show  how  it  is  that  young  Mary 
Magdalen,  as  virtuous  as  she  was  beautiful,  consents  to  sin 
for  the  first  time,  they  do  it  in  the  plainest  fashion.  A 
*'  galaunt "  meets  her  and  tells  her  that  he  finds  her  very 
pretty,  and  loves  her.  "  Why,  sir,"  the  young  lady  re- 
plies, "  wene  you  that  I  were  a  kelle  (prostitute)  ?  "  Not 
at  all,  says  the  other,  but  you  are  so  pretty  !  Shall  we  not 
dance  together?     Shall  we  drink  something? 

Soppes  in  wyne,  how  love  ye  ? 

Mary  does  not  resist  those  proofs  of  true  love,  and  answers: 

As  ye  dou,  so  doth  me  ; 

I  am  ryth  glad  that  met  be  we ; 

My  love  in  yow  gynnyt  to  close. 

Then,  "  derlyng  dere,"  let  us  go,  says  the  "  galaunt." 

Mary.  Ewyn  at  your  wyl,  my  dere  derlyng  ! 
Thow  ye  wyl  go  to  the  woldes  eynd, 
I  wol  never  from  yow  wynd  (turn).1 


1  "  Digby  Mysteries,"  pp.  74,  75.  After  living  wickedly  Mary  Magdalen 
repents,  comes  to  Marseilles,  converts  the  local  king  and  performs  miracles. 
This  legend  was  extremely  popular  ;  it  was  told  several  times  in  French  verse 
during  the  thirteenth  century  ;  see  A.  Schmidt,  "  Guillaume,  le  Clerc  de  Nor- 
mandie,  insbesondere  seine    Magdalenenlegende,"  in  "  Romanische  Studien 


484  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

Clarissa  Harlowe  will  require  more  forms  and  more  time  ; 
here  twenty-five  verses  have  been  enough.  A  century  and 
a  half  divides  "  Mary  Magdalene "  from  the  dramatised 
story  of  the  "  Weeping  Bitch  "  ;  the  interpretation  of  the 
movements  of  the  feminine  heart  has  not  greatly  improved, 
and  we  are  very  far  as  yet  from  Richardson  and  Shake- 
speare. 

But  truth  was  more  closely  observed  when  the  authors 
spoke  of  what  they  knew  by  personal  experience,  and 
described  men  of  the  poorer  sort  with  whom  they  were 
familiar.  In  this  lies  the  main  literary  merit  of  the 
Mysteries  ;  there  may  be  found  the  earliest  scenes  of  real 
comedy  in  the  history  of  the  English  stage. 

This  comedy  of  course  is  very  near  farce  :  in  everything 
people  then  went  to  extremes.  Certain  merry  scenes  were 
as  famous  as  the  rant  of  Herod,  and  they  have  for  centuries 
amused  the  England  of  former  days.  The  strife  between 
husband  and  wife,  Noah  and  his  wife,  Pilate  and  his  wife, 
Joseph  and  Mary,  this  last  a  very  shocking  one,  were 
among  the  most  popular. 

In  all  the  collections  of  English  Mysteries  Noah's  wife 
is  an  untamed  shrew,  who  refuses  to  enter  the  ark.  In 
the  York  collection,  Noah  being  ordered  by  "  Deus "  to 
build  his  boat,  wonders  somewhat  at  first  : 


A  !  worthy  lorde,  wolde  thou  take  heede, 
I  am  full  olde  and  oute  of  qwarte. 


He  sets  to  work,  however  ;  rain  begins  ;  the  time  for 
sailing  has  arrived :  Noah  calls  his  wife  ;  she  does  not 
come.     Get  into   the    ark  and    "  leve  the  harde  lande  ? " 

vol.  iv.  p.  493  ;  Doncieux,  "  Fragment  d'un  Miracle  de  Sainte  Madeleine, 
texte  restitue,"  in  "  Romania,"  1893,  P-  2^5-  There  was  also  a  drama  in 
French  based  on  the  same  story :  "  La  Vie  de  Marie  Magdaleine  .  .  .  Est  a. 
xxii.  personages,"  Lyon,  1605,  i2mo  (belongs  to  the  fifteenth  century). 


THE   STAGE.  48 5 

This  she  will  not  do.     She  meant  to  go  this  very  day   to 
town,  and  she  will  : 

Doo  barnes,  goo  we  and  trusse  to  towne. 

She  does  not  fear  the  flood  ;  Noah  remarks  that  the 
rain  has  been  terrific  of  late,  and  has  lasted  many  days, 
and  that  her  idea  of  going  just  then  to  town  is  not  very 
wise.  The  lady  is  not  a  whit  pacified  ;  why  have  made 
a  secret  of  all  this  to  her  ?  Why  had  he  not  consulted 
her  ?  It  turns  out  that  her  husband  had  been  working  at 
the  ark  for  a  hundred  years,  and  she  did  not  know  of  it ! 
Life  in  a  boat  is  not  at  all  pleasant ;  anyhow  she  will 
want  time  to  pack  ;  also  she  must  take  her  gossips  with 
her,  to  have  some  one  to  talk  to  during  the  voyage. 
Noah,  who  in  building  his  boat  has  given  some  proof  of 
his  patience,  does  not  lose  courage  ;  he  receives  a  box  on 
the  ear  ;  he  is  content  with  saying : 

I  pray  the,  dame,  be  stille. 

The  wife  at  length  gets  in,  and,  as  we  may  believe, 
stormy  days  in  more  senses  than  one  are  in  store  for  the 
patriarch.1 

St.  Joseph  is  a  poor  craftsman,  described  from  nature, 
using  the  language  of  craftsmen,  having  their  manners, 
their  ignorances,  their  aspirations.    Few  works  in  the  whole 

1  "York  Plays,"  viii.,  ix.  See  also,  e.g.,  as  specimens  of  comical  scenes, 
the  discussions  between  the  quack  and  his  man  in  the  "  Play  of  the  Sacra- 
ment" :  "  Ye  play  of  ye  conversyon  of  ser  Jonathas  ye  Jewe  by  myracle  of  ye 
blyssed  sacrament."  Master  Brundyche  addresses  the  audience  as  if  he  were 
in  front  of  his  booth  at  a  fair.  He  will  cure  the  diseases  of  all  present. 
Be  sure  of  that,  his  man  Colle  observes, 

What  dysease  or  syknesse  y'  ever  ye  have, 

He  wyll  never  leve  yow  tylle  ye  be  in  your  grave. 

Ed.  Whitley  Stokes,  Philological  Society,  Berlin,   1860-61,  p.  127  (fifteenth 
century). 


486  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

range  of  mediaeval  literature  contain  better  descriptions  of 

the  workman  of  that  time  than  the  Mysteries  in  which  St. 

Joseph   figures  ;    some   of    his  speeches   ought    to    have  a 

place  in  the  collections  of  Political  Songs.     The  Emperor 

Augustus  has  availed  himself  of  the  occasion  afforded  by 

the  census  to  establish  a  new  tax :  "  A  !  lorde,"  says  the 

poor  Joseph, 

what  doth  this  man  nowe  heare ! 
Poore  mens  weale  is  ever  in  were  (doubt), 
I  wotte  by  this  bolsters  beare 
That  tribute  I  muste  paye ; 
And  for  greate  age  and  no  power 
I  wan  no  good  this  seven  yeaire  ; 
Nowe  comes  the  kinges  messingere, 
To  gette  all  that  he  maye. 
With  this  axe  that  I  beare, 
This  perscer  and  this  nagere, 
A  hamer  all  in  feare, 
I  have  wonnen  my  meate. 
Castill,  tower  ne  manere 
Had  I  never  in  my  power  ; 
But  as  a  simple  carpentere 
With  these  what  I  mighte  gette. 
Yf  I  have  store  nowe  anye  thing, 
That  I  must  paye  unto  the  kinge.1 

Only  an  ox  is  left  him  ;  he  will  go  and  sell  it.  It  is 
easy  to  fancy  that,  in  the  century  which  saw  the  Statutes 
of  Labourers  and  the  rising  of  the  peasants,  such  words 
found  a  ready  echo  in  the  audience. 

As  soon  as  men  of  the  people  appear  on  the  scene, 
nearly  always  the  dialogue  becomes  lively  ;  real  men  and 
women  stand  and  talk  before  us.  Beside  the  workmen 
represented  by  St.  Joseph,  peasants  appear,  represented  by 
the  shepherds  of  Christmas  night.  They  are  true  English 
shepherds  ;  if  they  swear,  somewhat  before  due  time,  by 
Christ,  all  surprise  disappears  when  we  hear  them  name 
the  places  where  they  live  :  Lancashire,  the  Clyde  valley, 

1  "  Chester  Plays." — Salutation  and  Nativity. 


THE   STAGE.  487 

Boughton  near  Chester,  Norbury  near  Wakefield.  Of  all 
possible  ales,  Ely's  is  the  one  they  prefer.  They  talk 
together  of  the  weather,  the  time  of  the  day,  the  mean 
salaries  they  get,  the  stray  sheep  they  have  been  seeking  ; 
they  eat  their  meals  under  the  hedge,  sing  merry  songs, 
exchange  a  few  blows,  in  fact  behave  as  true  shepherds 
of  real  life.  Quite  at  the  end  only,  when  the  "  Gloria  "  is 
heard,  they  will  assume  the  sober  attitude  befitting 
Christmas  Day. 

In  the  Mysteries  performed  at  Woodkirk,  the  visit  to 
the  new-born  Child  was  preceded  by  a  comedy  worthy  to 
be  compared  with  the  famous  farce  of  "  Pathelin,"  and 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  Christmas.1  It  is  night  ;  the 
shepherds  talk  ;  the  time  for  sleeping  comes.  One  among 
them,  Mak,  has  a  bad  repute,  and  is  suspected  of  being  a 
thief;  they  ask  him  to  sleep  in  the  midst  of  the  others: 
"  Com  heder,  betwene  shalle  thou  lyg  downe."  But  Mak 
rises  during  the  night  without  being  observed.  How  hard 
they  sleep  !  he  says,  and  he  carries  away  a  "  fatt  shepe," 
and  takes  it  to  his  wife. 

Wife.     It  were  a  fowlle  blotte  to  be  hanged  for  the  case. 

Mak.     I  have  skapyd,  Gelott,  oft  as  hard  as  glase. 

Wife.      Bot  so  long  goys  the  pott  to  the  watei,  men  says, 

At  last 
Comys  it  home  broken. 

I  remember  it  well,  says  Mak,  but  it  is  not  a  time  for 
proverbs  and  talk  ;  let  us  do  for  the  best.  The  shepherds 
know  Mak  too  well  not  to  come  straight  to  his  bouse  ;  and 
so  they  do.  Moans  are  heard  ;  the  cause  being,  they 
learn,  that  Mak's  wife  has  just  given  birth  to  a  child.  As 
the  shepherds  walk  in,  Mak  meets  them  with  a  cheerful 
countenance,  and  welcomes  them  heartily  : 

1  "  Towneley  Mysteries." — Secunda  Pastorum. 


488  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

Bot  ar  ye  in  this  towne  to-day  ? 

Now  how  fare  ye  ? 
Ye  have  ryn  in  the  myre,  and  ar  weytt  yit  ; 
I  shalle  make  you  a  fyre,  if  ye  wille  syt. 

His  offers  are  coldly  received,  and  the  visitors  explain 
what  has  happened. 

Nowe  if  you  have  suspowse,  to  Gille  or  to  me, 
Com  and  rype  oure  howse  ! 

The  woman  moans  more  pitifully  than  ever : 

Wife.     Outt,  thefys,  fro  my  barne !  negh  hym  not  thore. 

Mak.     Wyst  ye  how  she  had  fame,  youre  hartys  wold  be  sore. 
Ye  do  wrang,  I  you  warne,  that  thus  commys  before 
To  a  woman  that  has  fame,  bot  I  say  no  more. 

Wife.  A  my  medylle  ! 

I  pray  God  so  mylde, 
If  ever  I  you  begyld, 
That  I  ete  this  chylde 

That  lyges  in  this  credylle. 

The  shepherds,  deafened  by  the  noise,  look  none  the 
less  about  the  house,  but  find  nothing.  Their  host  is  not 
yet,  however,  at  the  end  of  his  trouble. 

Tertius  Pastor.     Mak,  with  youre  lefe,  let  me  gyf  youre  barne 

Bot  six  pence. 

Mak.  Nay,  do  way,  he  slepys. 

Pastor.  Me  thynk  he  pepys. 

Mak.  When  he  wakyns  he  wepys ; 

I  pray  you  go  hence. 

Pastor.      Gyf  me  lefe  hym  to  kys,  and  lyft  up  the  clowth. 
What  the  deville  is  this  ?  he  has  a  long  snowte  ! 

And  the  fraud  is  discovered  ;  it  was  the  sheep.  From 
oaths  they  were  coming  to  blows,  when  on  a  sudden,  amid 
the  stars,  angels  are  seen,  and  their  song  is  heard  in  the 
night  :    Glory    to    God,    peace    to    earth !    the    world    is 


THE   STAGE.  489 

rejuvenated.  .  .  .  Anger  disappears,  hatreds  are  effaced, 
and  the  rough  shepherds  of  England  take,  with  penitent 
heart,  the  road  to  Bethlehem. 


IV. 


The  fourteenth  century  saw  the  religious  drama  at  its 
height  in  England  ;  the  fifteenth  saw  its  decay  ;  the 
sixteenth  its  death.  The  form  under  which  it  was  best 
liked  was  the  form  of  Mysteries,  based  upon  the  Bible. 
The  dramatising  of  the  lives  of  saints  and  miracles  of  the 
Virgin  was  much  less  popular  in  England  than  in  France. 
In  the  latter  country  enormous  collections  of  such  plays 
have  been  preserved  T  ;  in  the  other  the  examples  of  this 
kind  are  very  few  ;  the  Bible  was  the  main  source  from 
which  the  English  dramatists  drew  their  inspiration.  As 
we  have  seen,  however,  they  did  not  forbear  from  adding 
scenes  and  characters  with  nothing  evangelical  in  them  ; 
these  scenes  contributed,  with  the  interludes  and  the 
facetious  dialogues  of  the  jongleurs,  to  the  formation  of 
comedy.  Little  by  little,  comedy  took  shape,  and  it  will 
be  found  existing  as  a  separate  branch  of  dramatic  art  at 
the  time  of  the  Renaissance. 

In  the  same  period  another  sort  of  drama  was  to  flourish, 
the  origin  of  which  was  as  old  as  the  fourteenth  century, 
namely,  Moralities.  These  plays  consisted  in  pious  treatises 
and  ethical  books  turned  into  dramas,  as  Mysteries  offered 
a  dramatisation  of  Scriptures.  Psychology  was  there 
carried  to  the  extreme,  a  peculiar  sort  of  psychology,  ele- 
mentary and  excessive  at  the  same  time,  and  very  different 
from  the  delicate  art  in  favour  to-day.  Individuals  dis- 
appeared ;  they  were  replaced  by  abstractions,  and  these 

1  See,  for  instance,  "  Miracles  de  Nostre  Dame  par  personnages,"  ed.  G. 
Paris  and  U.  Robert,  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes,  1876-91,  6  vols.  8vo. 


490  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

abstractions  represented  only  a  single  quality  or  defect. 
Sins  and  virtues  fought  together  and  tried  to  draw  man- 
kind to  them,  which  stood  doubtful,  as  Hercules  "  at  the 
starting  point  of  a  double  road  ;  "  in  this  way,  again,  was 
manifested  the  fondness  felt  in  the  Middle  Ages  for  alle- 
gories and  symbols.  The  "  Roman  de  la  Rose  "  in  France, 
"  Piers  Plowman  "  in  England,  the  immense  popularity  in  all 
Europe  of  the  Consolation  of  Boethius,  had  already  been 
manifestations  of  those  same  tendencies.  In  these  works, 
already,  dialogue  was  abundant,  in  the  "  Roman  de  la 
Rose  "  especially,  where  an  immense  space  is  occupied  by 
conversations  between  the  Lover  and  Fals-Semblant.1  The 
names  of  the  speakers  are  inscribed  in  the  margin,  as 
if  it  were  a  real  play.  When  he  admitted  into  his  collec- 
tion of  tales  the  dialogued  story  of  Melibeus  and  Prudence, 
Chaucer  came  very  near  to  Moralities,  for  the  work  he 
produced  was  neither  a  treatise  nor  a  tale,  nor  a  drama, 
but  had  something  of  the  three  ;  a  few  changes  would  have 
been  enough  to  make  of  it  a  Morality,  which  might  have 
been  called  the  Debate  of  Wisdom  and  Mankind. 

Abstractions  had  been  allowed  a  place  in  the  Mysteries 
so  far  back  as  the  fourteenth  century  ;  death  figures  in 
the  Woodkirk  collection  ;  in  "Mary  Magdalene"  (fifteenth 
century)  many  abstract  personages  are  mixed  with  the 
others :  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  Mundus,  the  King  of  the 
Flesh,  Sensuality,  &c.  ;  the  same  thing  happens  in  the 
so-called  Coventry  collection. 

This  sort  of  drama,  for  us  unendurable,  gradually  sepa- 
rated from  Mysteries  ;  it  reached  its  greatest  development 
under  the  early  Tudors.  The  authors  of  Moralities  strove 
to  write  plays  not  merely  amusing,  as  farces,  then  also  in 
great  favour,  but  plays  with  a  useful  and  practical  aim.  By 
means  of  now  unreadable  dramas,  virtues,  religion,  morals, 
sciences  were  taught  :  the  Catholic  faith  was  derided  by 

1  In  M  eon's  edition,  Paris,  1813,  vol.  ii.  pp.  326  ff. 


THE   STAGE.  491 

Protestants,  and  the  Reformation  by  Catholics.1  The 
discovery,  then  quite  new,  of  America  was  discoursed 
about,  and  great  regret  was  expressed  at  its  being  not  due 
to  an  Englishman  : 

O  what  a  thynge  had  be  than, 

If  they  that  be  Englyshemen 

Myght  have  ben  furst  of  all 

That  there  shuld  have  take  possessyon  !  2 

Death,  as  might  be  expected,  is  placed  upon  the  stage 
with  a  particular  zeal  and  care,  and  meditations  are 
dedicated  to  the  dark  future  of  man,  and  to  the  gnawing 
worm  of  the  charnel  house.3 

Fearing  the  audience  might  go  to  sleep,  or  perhaps  go 
away,  the  science  and  the  austere  philosophy  taught  in 
these  plays  were  enlivened  by  tavern  scenes,  and  by  the 
gambols  of  a  clown,  fool,  or  buffoon,  called  Vice,  armed,  as 
Harlequin,  with  a  wooden  dagger.  And  often,  such  is 
human  frailty,  the  beholders  went,  remembering  nothing 
but  the  mad  pranks  of  Vice.  It  was  in  their  eyes  the  most 
important  character  in  the  play,  and  the  part  was  accord- 

1  Plays  of  this  kind  were  written  (without  speaking  of  many  anonyms)  by 
Medwall :  "A  goodly  Enterlude  of  Nature,"  1538,  fob;  by  Skelton, 
"  Magnyfycence,"  1531,  fob;  by  Ingelend,  "A  pretie  Enterlude  called  the 
Disobedient  Child,"  printed  about  1550:  by  John  Bale,  "  A  comedye  con- 
cernynge  thre  Lawes,"  London,  1538,  8vo  (against  the  Catholics) ;  all  of 
them  lived  under  Henry  VIII.,  &c.  The  two  earliest  English  moralities  extant 
are  "  The  Pride  of  Life  "  (in  the  "Account  Roll  of  the  priory  of  the  Holy 
Trinity,"  Dublin,  ed.  J.  Mills,  Dublin,  1891,  8vo),  and  the  "  Castle  of 
Perseverance  "  (an  edition  is  being  prepared,  1894,  by  Mr.  Pollard  for  the  Early 
English  Text  Society),  both  of  the  fifteenth  century ;  a  rough  sketch  showing 
the  arrangement  of  the  representation  of  the  "Castle"  has  been  published  by 
Sharp;  "A  Dissertation  on  the  Pageants  at  Coventry,"  plate  2. 

a  "  Interlude  of  the  four  Elements,"  London,  1510  (?),  8vo. 

3  See,  for  example,  the  mournful  passages  in  the  "  Disobedient  Child,"  the 
"  Triall  of  Treasure,"  London  1567,  410,  and  especially  in  "Everyman,"  ed. 
Goedeke,  Hanover,  1865,  8vo,  written  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII. 


492  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

ingly  entrusted   to  the  best  actor.     Shakespeare  had  seen 
Vice  still  alive,  and  he  commemorated  his  deeds  in  a  song : 

I  am  gone,  sir, 

And  anon,  sir, 
I'll  be  with  you  again, 

In  a  trice, 

Like  to  the  old  Vice, 
Your  need  to  sustain, 
Who,  with  dagger  of  lath, 
In  his  rage  and  his  wrath, 

Cries,  ah  ha  !  to  the  devil.1 

This  character  also  found  place  on  the  French  stage, 
where  it  was  called  the  "  Badin."  Rabelais  had  the  "  Badin  " 
in  great  esteem :  "In  this  manner  we  see,  among  the 
jongleurs,  when  they  arrange  between  them  the  cast  of  a 
play,  the  part  of  the  Sot,  or  Badin,  to  be  attributed  to  the 
cleverest  and  most  experienced  in  their  company."  2 

In  the  meanwhile,  common  ancestors  of  the  various 
dramatic  tribes,  source  and  origin  of  many  sorts  of  plays, 
the  Mysteries,  which  had  contributed  to  the  formation  of 
the  tragical,  romantic,  allegorical,  pastoral,  and  comic 
drama,  were  still  in  existence.  Reformation  had  come, 
the  people  had  adopted  the  new  belief,  but  they  could  not 
give  up  the  Mysteries.  They  continued  to  like  Herod, 
Noah  and  his  wife,  and  the  tumultuous  troup  of  devils, 
great  and  small,  inhabiting  hell-mouth.  Prologues  had 
been  written  in  which  excuses  were  offered  on  account 
of  the  traces  of  superstition  to  be  detected  in  the  plays,  but 
conscience  being  thus  set  at  rest,  the  plays  were  performed 
as  before.  The  Protestant  bishop  of  Chester  prohibited 
the  representation  in  1572,  but  it  took  place  all  the  same. 
The  archbishop  of  York  renewed  the  prohibition  in  1575, 
but  the   Mysteries  were  performed   again   for  four  days  ; 

1  Song  of  the  Clown  in  "  Twelfth  Night,"  iv.  3. 
3  "  Pantagruel,"  iii.  37. 


THE   STAGE.  493 

and  some  representations  of  them  took  place  even  later.1 
At  York  the  inhabitants  had  no  less  reluctance  about  giving 
up  their  old  drama  ;  they  were  sorry  to  think  that  religious 
differences  now  existed  between  the  town  and  its  beloved 
tragedies.  Converted  to  the  new  faith,  the  citizens  would 
have  liked  to  convert  the  plays  too,  and  the  margins  of  the 
manuscript  bear  witness  to  their  efforts.  But  the  task  was 
a  difficult  one  ;  they  were  at  their  wits'  end,  and  appealed 
to  men  more  learned  than  they.  They  decided  that  "  the 
booke  shalbe  carried  to  my  Lord  Archebisshop  and  Mr. 
Deane  to  correcte,  if  that  my  Lord  Archebisshop  do  well 
like  theron,"  I S79-2  My  Lord  Archbishop,  wise  and  prudent, 
settled  the  question  according  to  administrative  precedent ; 
he  stored  the  book  away  somewhere,  and  the  inhabitants 
were  simply  informed  that  the  prohibition  was  maintained. 
The  York  plays  thus  died. 

In  France  the  Mysteries  survived  quite  as  late ;  but,  on 
account  of  the  radical  effects  of  the  Renaissance  there, 
they  had  not  the  same  influence  on  the  future  develop- 
ment of  the  drama.  They  continued  to  be  represented  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  Parliament  of  Paris  com- 
plained in  1 542  of  their  too  great  popularity  :  parish 
priests,  and  even  the  chanters  of  the  Holy  Chapel,  sang 
vespers  at  noon,  a  most  unbecoming  hour,  and  sang  them 
'*  post  haste,"  to  see  the  sight.  Six  years  later  the  per- 
formance of  Mysteries  was  forbidden  at  Paris  ;  but  the 
cross  and  ladder,  emblems  of  the  "  Confreres  de  la  Passion," 
continued  to  be  seen  above  the  gates  of  the  "  Hotel  de 
Bourgogne,"  and  the  privilege  of  the  Confreres,  which  dated 
three  centuries  back,  was  definitely  abolished  in  the  reign 
of  Louis  XIV.,  in  December,  1676.3  Moliere  had  then 
been  dead  for  three  years. 

1  Furnivall,  "  Digby  Mysteries,"  p.  xxvii. 

2  "  York  Plays,"  p.  xvi. 

3  Petit  de  Julleville,  "  Les  Mysteres,"  1880,  vol.  i.  pp.  423  ff. 


494  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

In  England,  at  the  date  when  my  Lord  Archbishop 
stopped  the  representation  at  York,1  the  old  religious 
dramas  had  produced  all  their  fruit :  they  had  kept  alive 
the  taste  for  stage  plays,  they  left  behind  them  authors,  a 
public,  and  companies  of  players.  Then  was  growing  in 
years,  in  a  little  town  by  the  side  of  the  river  Avon,  the 
child  who  was  to  reach  the  highest  summits  of  art.  He 
followed  on  week-days  the  teaching  of  the  grammar 
school  ;  he  saw  on  Sundays,  painted  on  the  wall  of  the 
Holy  Cross  Chapel,  a  paradise  and  hell  similar  to  those  in 
the  Mysteries,  angels  of  gold  and  black  devils,  and  that 
immense  mouth  where  the  damned  are  parboiled,  "ou 
damn6s  sont  boulus,"  as  the  poor  old  mother  of  Villon  says 
in  a  ballad  of  her  son's.2 

At  the  date  of  the  York  prohibition,  William  Shakespeare 
was  fifteen. 

1  They  continued  later  in  some  towns,  at  Newcastle,  for  example,  where 
they  survived  till  1598.  At  this  date  "  Romeo "  and  the  "  Merchant  of 
Venice  "  had  already  appeared.  There  were  even  some  performances  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

2  A  drawing  of  this  fresco,  now  destroyed,  has  been  published  by  Sharp  : 
"Hell-mouth  and  interior,  from  the  chapel  at  Stratford-upon-Avon";  "A 
Dissertation  on  the  pageants  ...  at  Coventry,"  1825,  plate  6. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE   END    OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

I. 

IN  the  autumn  of  the  year  1400,  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  the 
son  of  the  Thames  Street  vintner,  universally  acknowledged 
the  greatest  poet  of  England,  had  been  borne  to  his  tomb 
in  the  transept  of  Westminster  Abbey.  Not  far  from  him 
sleep  the  Plantagenet  kings,  his  patrons,  Edward  III.  and 
Richard  II.  wrapped  in  their  golden  robes.  With  them  an 
epoch  has  drawn  to  its  close  ;  a  new  century  begins,  and 
this  century  is,  for  English  thought,  a  century  of  decline, 
of  repose,  and  of  preparation. 

So  evident  is  the  decline  that  even  contemporaries  per- 
ceive it ;  for  a  hundred  years  poets  unceasingly  mourn  the 
death  of  Chaucer.  They  are  no  longer  able  to  discover 
new  ways  ;  instead  of  looking  forward  as  their  master  did, 
they  turn,  and  stand  with  eyes  fixed  on  him,  and  hands 
outstretched  towards  his  tomb.  An  age  seeking  its  ideal 
in  the  epoch  that  has  just  preceded  it  is  an  age  of  decline  ; 
so  had  been  in  past  times  the  age  of  Statius,  who  had 
professed  such  a  deep  veneration  for  Virgil. 

For  a  century  thus  the  poets  of  England  remain  with 
their  gaze  fastened  on  the  image  of  the  singer  they  last 
heard,  and  at  each  generation  their  voice  becomes  weaker, 

495 


496  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

like  an  echo  that  repeats  another  echo.  Lydgate  imitates 
Chaucer,  and  Stephen  Hawes  imitates  Lydgate.1 

Around  and  below  them  countless  rhymers  persist  in 
following  the  old  paths,  not  knowing  that  these  paths  have 
ceased  to  lead  anywhere,  and  that  the  time  has  come  to 
search  for  new  ones.  The  most  skilful  add  to  the  series  of 
English  fabliaux,  borrowed  from  France  ;  others  put  into 
rhyme,  disfiguring  them  as  they  go  along,  romances  of 
chivalry,  lives  of  the  saints,  or  chronicles  of  England  and 
Scotland.  Very  numerous,  nearly  all  devoid  of  talent, 
these  patient,  indefatigable  word-joiners  write  in  reality, 
they  too,  as  M.  Jourdain,  "  de  la  prose  sans  le  savoir."  2 

1  I  try,  repeatedly  says  Stephen  Hawes, 

To  foil  owe  the  trace  and  all  the  perfitnes 
Of  my  maister  Lydgate. 

"The  Historie  of  Graund  Amoure  and  La  Bell  Pucle,  called  the  Pastime 
of  Plesure,  contayning  the  Knowledge  of  the  Seven  Sciences  and  the  Course 
of  Man's  life  in  this  Worlde,"  London,  1554,  4to,  curious  woodcuts  (reprinted 
by  the  Percy  Society,  1845,  8vo  ;  the  quotation  above,  p.  2).  It  is  an  allegory 
of  unendurable  dulness,  in  which  Graund  Amoure  (love  of  knowledge  apparently) 
visits  Science  in  the  Tower  of  Doctrine,  then  Grammar,  &c.  Hawes  lived 
under  Henry  VII. 

2  On  the  fabliaux  introduced  into  England,  see  above,  p.  225  ;  the  greater 
number  of  them  are  found  in  Hazlitt  :  "  Remains  of  the  early  popular  Poetry 
of  England,"  London,  1864,  4  vols.  One  of  the  best,  "The  Wright's 
Chaste  Wife,"  written  in  English,  about  1462,  by  Adam  de  Cobsam,  has  been 
published  by  the  Early  English  Text  Society,  ed.  Furnivall,  1865,  with  a 
supplement  by  Mr.  Clouston,  1886  ;  it  is  the  old  story  of  the  honest  woman, 
who  dismisses  her  would-be  lovers  after  having  made  fun  of  them.  That  story 
figures  in  the  "  Gesta  Romanorum,"  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  in  the  collection 
of  Barbazan  (story  of  Constant  du  Hamel).  It  has  furnished  Massinger  with  the 
subject  of  bis  play,  "The  Picture," and  Musset  with  that  of  "  la  Quenouille  de 
Barberine." — On  the  romances  of  chivalry,  see  above,  pp.  219  ff.  A  great 
number  of  rhymed  versions  of  these  romances  are  of  the  fifteenth  century. — 
Ex.  of  pious  works  in  verse,  of  the  same  century :  Th.  Brampton,  "  Pharaphrase 
on  the  seven  penitential  psalms,  1414,"  Percy  Society,  1842  ;  Mirk,  "  Duties  of 
a  Parish  Priest,"  ed.  Peacock,  E.E.T.S.,  1868,  written  about  1450;  Capgrave 
(1394-1464),  "LifeofSt.  Katharine,"  ed.  Horstmann  and  Furnivall,  E.E.T.S., 
1893  (various  other  edifying  works  by  the  same) ;  many  specimens  of  the  same 
kind  are  unpublished. — Ex.  of  chronicles  :  Andrew  de  Wyntoun,  "  Orygynal 


THE  END   OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES.     497 

These  poets  of  the  decline  write  for  a  society  itself  on 
the  decline,  and  all  move  along,  lulled  by  the  same  melody 
to  a  common  death,  out  of  which  will  come  a  new  life  that 
they  can  never  know.  The  old  feudal  and  clerical  aristoc- 
racy changes,  disappears,  and  decays  ;  many  of  the  great 
houses  become  extinct  in  the  wars  with  France,  or  in  the 
fierce  battles  of  the  Two  Roses ;  the  people  gain  by  what  the 
aristocracy  lose.  The  clergy  who  keep  aloof  from  military 
conflicts  are  also  torn  by  internecine  quarrels  ;  they  live  in 
luxury  ;  abuses  publicly  pointed  out  are  not  reformed  ; 
they  are  an  object  of  envy  to  the  prince  and  of  scorn 
to  the  lower  classes ;  they  find  themselves  in  the  most 
dangerous  situation,  and  do  nothing  to  escape  from  it.  Of 
warnings  they  have  no  lack  ;  they  receive  no  new  endow- 
ments ;  they  slumber ;  at  the  close  of  the  century  nothing 
will  remain  to  them  but  an  immense  and  frail  dwelling, 
built  on  the  sand,  that  a  storm  can  blow  over. 

How  innovate  when  versifying  for  a  society  about  to 
end  ?  Chaucer's  successors  do  not  innovate  ;  they  fasten 
their  work  to  his  worl.s,  and  patch  them  together ;  they 
build  in  the  shadow  of  his  palace.  They  dream  the  same 
dreams  on  a  May  morning ;  they  erect  new  Houses  of 
Fame  ;  they  add  a  story  to  the  "  Canterbury  Tales."  z 

Cronykil  of  Scotland,"  finished  about  1424,  ed.  Laing,  Edinburgh,  18726°., 
3  vols.  8vo;  Hardyng  (1378-1465  ?),  "Chronicle  in  metre,"  London,  1543, 
8vo.  Hardyng  sold  for  a  large  price,  to  the  brave  Talbot,  who  knew  little 
about  palaeography,  spurious  charters  establishing  England's  sovereignty  over 
Scotland ;  these  charters  exist  at  the  Record  Office,  the  fraud  was  proved  by 
Palgrave.    All  these  chronicles  are  in  "  rym  dogerel." 

1  "  The  Story  of  Thebes,"  by  Lydgate  (below  p.  499) ;  "  The  Tale  of  Beryn," 
with  a  prologue,  where  are  related  in  a  lively  manner  the  adventures  of  the 
pilgrims  in  Canterbury  and  their  visit  to  the  cathedral  (ed.  Furnivall  and 
Stone,  Chaucer  Society,  1876-87,  8vo)  ;  Henryson  adds  a  canto  to  "Troilus" 
{below  p.  507).  Other  poems  are  so  much  in  the  style  of  Chaucer  that  they 
were  long  attributed  to  him  :  "  The  Court  of  Love  "  ;  "  The  Flower  and  the 
Leaf"  ;  ''  The  Isle  of  Ladies,  or  Chaucer's  Dream,"  &c.  They  are  found  in 
the  Morris  edition  of  Chaucer's  works.  All  these  poems  are  of  the  fifteenth 
century. 

33 


498  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

A  gift  bestowed  on  them  by  a  spiteful  fairy  makes  the 
matter  worse  :  they  are  incredibly  prolific.  All  they  write 
is  poor,  and  the  spiteful  fairy,  spiteful  to  us,  has  granted 
them  the  faculty  to  write  thus,  without  any  trouble,  for  ever. 
Up  to  this  day  Lydgate's  works  have  baffled  the  attempts 
of  the  most  enterprising  literary  societies ;  the  Early 
English  Text  Society  has  some  time  ago  begun  to  publish 
them  ;  if  it  carries  out  the  undertaking,  it  will  be  a  proof 
of  unparalleled  endurance. 

Lydgate  and  Hoccleve  are  the  two  principal  successors 
of  Chaucer.  Lydgate,  a  monk  of  the  monastery  of  Bury 
St.  Edmund's,1  a  worthy  man,  it  seems,  if  ever  there  was 
one,  and  industrious,  and  prolific,  above  all  prolific,  writes 
according  to  established  standards,  tales,  lays,2  fabliaux 
satires,3  romances  of  chivalry,  poetical  debates,  ballads  of 
former  times,4  allegories,  lives  of  the  saints,  love  poems,, 
fables  5 ;  five  thousand  verses  a  year  on  an  average,  and 
being  precocious  as  well  as  prolific,  leaves  behind  him  at 
his  death  a   hundred   and   thirty  thousand  verses,  merely 


1  Born  about  1370,  at  Lydgate,  near  Newmarket  ;  sojourned  in  Paris  in 
1426,  died  in  1446,  or  soon  after.  Concerning  the  chronological  order  of  his 
works,  and  his  versification,  see  "Lydgate's  Temple  of  Glas,"  ed.  J.  Schick, 
Early  English  Text  Society,  1891,  Introduction.  His  "Troy  Book"  is  of 
1412-20;  his  "  Story  of  Thebes,"  of  1420-22  ;  his  translation  of  Deguileville, 
of  1426-30;  his  "  Fall  of  Princes"  was  written  about  1430. 

2  He  gave  an  English  version  of  the  famous  story  called  in  French,  "  Le 
Lai  de  l'Oiselet  "  (ed.  G.  Paris,  1884)  =  "  The  Chorle  and  the  Byrde." 

3  Ex.  his  picturesque  "London  Lickpenny." 

4  Same  idea  as  in  Villon  ;  refrain  : 

All  stant  in  chaunge  like  a  mydsomer  rose, 

llalliwell,  "  Selections  from  Lydgate,"  1840,  p.  25. 

5  "Lydgate's  /Esopiibersetzung,"  ed.  Sauerstein  ;  "  Anglia,"  1866,  p.  i; 
eight  fables.     He  excuses  himself : 

Have  me  excused,  I  was  born  in  Lydegate, 

Of  Tullius  gardyn  I  entrid  nat  the  gate.     (p.  2.) 


THE  END    OF   THE   MIDDLE  AGES.      499 

counting  his  longer  works.  Virgil  had  only  written  fourteen 
thousand. 

He  copies  Latin,  French,  and  English  models,  but 
especially  Chaucer  ; I  he  adds  his  "  Story  of  Thebes  "  2  to 
the  series  of  the  "  Canterbury  Tales  ;"  he  has  met,  he  says, 
the  pilgrims  on  their  homeward  journey  ;  the  host  asked 
him  who  he  was  : 

I  answerde  my  name  was  Lydgate, 
Monk  of  Bery,  nygh  fyfty  yere  of  age. 

Admitted  into  the  little  community,  he  contributes  to  the 
entertainment  by  telling  a  tale  of  war,  of  love,  and  of 
valorous  deeds,  in  which  the  Greeks  wear  knightly  armour, 
are  blessed  by  bishops,  and  batter  town  walls  with  cannon. 
His  "Temple  of  Glas"3  is  an  imitation  of  the  "  Hous  of 
Fame  "  ;  his  "  Complaint  of  the  Black  Knight  "  resembles 
the  "  Book  of  the  Duchesse"  ;  his  "  Falle  of  Princes  "4  is 
imitated  from  Boccaccio  and  from  the  tale  of  the  Monk 
in  Chaucer.  The  "  litel  hevynesse "  which  the  knight 
noticed  in  the  monk's  stories  is  particularly  well  imitated  ; 
so  much  so  that  Lydgate  himself  stops  sometimes  with 

1  O  ye  maysters,  that  cast  shal  yowre  looke 

Upon  this  dyte  made  in  wordis  playne, 
Remembre  sothely  that  I  the  refreyn  tooke 

Of  hym  that  was  in  makyng  soverayne, 
My  maister,  Chaucier,  chief  poete  of  Bretayne. 

Halliwell,  "Selections  from  .  .  .  Lydgate,"  1840,  p.  128  Similar  praise  in 
the  "  Serpent  of  Division  "  (in  prose).  See  L.  Toulmin  Smith,  "  Gorboduc," 
Heilbronn,  1883,  p.  xxi. 

2  The  British  Museum  possesses  a  splendid  copy  of  it  (Royal  18  D  ii.,  with 
miniatures  of  the  time  of  the  Renaissance,  see  above,  p.  303).  The  E.  E.T.S. 
is  preparing,  1894,  an  edition  of  it;  there  exist  previous  ones,  the  first  of  which 
is  of  1500,  "Here  begynneth  .  .   .   the  Storye  of  Thebes,"  London,  4to. 

3  "  Lydgate's  Temple  of  Glas,"  ed.  J.  Schick,  1891,  8vo,  Early  English 
Text  Society. 

4  First  edition  :  "  Here  begynnethe  the  boke  calledde  John  Bochas, 
descrivinge  the  Falle  of  Princes"  [1494],  folio. 


500  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

uplifted  pen  to  yawn  at  his  ease  in  the  face  of  his  reader.1 
But  his  pen  goes  down  again  on  the  paper,  and  starts  off 
with  fresh  energy.  From  it  proceeds  a  "  Troy  Book,  or 
Historie  of  the  Warres  betwixte  the  Grecians  and  the 
Troyans,"  of  thirty  thousand  lines,  where  pasteboard 
warriors  hew  each  other  to  pieces  without  suffering  much 
pain  or  causing  us  much  sorrow  2  ;  a  translation  of  that 
same  "  Pelerinage "  of  Deguileville,  which  had  inspired 
Langland;  a  Guy  of  Warwick  3;  Lives  of  Our  Lady,  of  St. 
Margaret,  St.  Edmund,  St.  Alban  ;  a  "pageant"  for  the 
entry  of  Queen  Margaret  into  London  in  1445  '■>  a  version 
of  the  "  Secretum  Secretorum,"  and  a  multitude  of  other 
writings.4  Nothing  but  death  could  stop  him  ;  and,  his 
last  poem  being  of  1446,  his  biographers  have  unanimously 
concluded  that  he  must  have  died  in  that  year. 

The  rules  of  his  prosody  were  rather  lax.     No  one  will 
be  surprised  at  it ;  he  could  say  like  Ovid,  but  for  other 

1  Myn  hand  gan  tremble,  my  penne  I  felte  quake  .  .  . 
I  stode  chekmate  for  feare  whan  I  gan  see, 
In  my  way  how  little  I  had  runne. 

"  Fall  of  Princes,"  prologue  to  Book  hi.,  Schick,  "Story  of  Thebes,"  p.  cv. 

2  Example,  fight  between  Ulysses  and  Troilus  : 

He  smote  Ulyxes  throughout  his  viser  .  .  . 
But  Ulyxes  tho  lyke  a  manly  man, 
Of  that  stroke  astoned  not  at  all, 
But  on  his  stede,  stiffe  as  any  wall, 
With  his  swerde  so  mightely  gan  race, 
Through  the  umber  into  Troylus  face, 
That  he  him  gave  a  mortal  wounde, 

of  which,  naturally,  Troilus  does  not  die.  "The  auncient  historie  ...  of  the 
Warres,  betwixte  the  Grecians  and  the  Troyans,"  London,  1555,  4to,  Book  hi., 
chap  xxii.  First  edition,  15 13.  The  work  had  been  composed  for  Henry  V. 
and  at  his  request.  Thomas  Heywood  gave  a  modernised  version  of  it :  "  The 
Life  and  Death  of  Hector,"  1614. 

3  Ed.  Zupitza,  Early  English  Text  Society. 

4  A  selection  of  his  detached  poems,  mixed  with  many  apocryphal  ones,  was 
edited  by  Halliwell :  "A  Selection  from  the  minor  Poems  of  Dan  John 
Lydgate"  (Percy  Society),   1840,  8vo. 


THE  END   OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES.      501 

reasons  :  "  I  had  but  to  write,  and  it  was  verses."  He  is 
ready  for  everything  ;  order  them,  and  you  will  have  at 
once  verses  to  order.  These  verses  are  slightly  deformed, 
maybe,  and  halt  somewhat  ;  he  does  not  deny  it : 

I  toke  none  hede  nouther  of  shorte  nor  longe.1 

But  let  us  not  blame  him  ;  Chaucer,  his  good  master,  would, 
he  assures  us,  have  excused  his  faulty  prosody,  and  what 
risht  have  we  to  be  more  severe  than  Chaucer  ? 2  To  this 
there  is,  of  course,  nothing  to  answer,  but  then  if  we  cannot 
answer,  at  least  we  can  leave.  We  can  go  and  visit  the 
other  chief  poet  of  the  time,  Thomas  Hoccleve  ;  he  does 
not  live  far  off,  the  journey  will  be  a  short  one ;  we  have 
but  to  call  at  the  next  door. 

This  other  poet  is  a  public  functionary  ;  he  is  a  clerk  of 
the  Privy  Seal  3;  his  duties  consist  in  copying  documents  ; 

*  "  Troy  Book  "  ;  in  Schick,  "  Lydgate's  Temple  of  Glas,"  p.  lvi.  In  his 
learned  essay  Mr.  Schick  pleads  extenuating  circumstances  in  favour  of 
Lydgate. 

3  This  appeal  to  Chaucer  is  in  itself  quite  touching  ;  here  it  is  : 

For  he  that  was  grounde  of  well  sayinge, 

In  all  his  lyfe  hyndred  no  makyng, 

My  maister  Chaucer  y'  founde  ful  many  spot 

Hym  list  not  pynche  nor  grutche  at  every  blot.  .  .  . 

Sufferynge  goodly  of  his  gentilnesse, 

Full  many  thynge  embraced  with  rudenesse, 

And  if  I  shall  shortly  hym  discrive, 

Was  never  none  to  thys  daye  alive, 

To  reken  all  bothe  of  yonge  and  olde, 

That  worthy  was  his  ynkehorne  for  to  holde. 

"The  Auncient  Historic"  London,  1554,  4to,  Book  v.  chap,  xxxviii. 

3  Thomas  Hoccleve  was  born  about  1368-9  and  entered  the  "  Privy  Seal ' 
in  1387-8  ;  he  died  about  1450.  His  works  are  being  published  by  the  Early 
English  Text  Society:  "  Hoccleve's  Works,"  1892,  8vo ;  I.,  "The  Minor 
Poems."  His  great  poem,  "  De  Regimine  principum,"  has  been  edited  by  Th. 
Wright,  Roxburghe  Club,  1S60,  4to.  Two  or  three  of  his  tales  in  verse  are 
imitated  from  the  "  Gesta  Romanorum  "  ;  another,  the  "Letter  of  Cupid," 
from  the  "  Epistre  au  Dieu  d' Amours,"  of  Christine  de  Pisan.  "  Hoccleve's 
metre  is  poor,  so  long  as  he  can  count  ten  syllables  by  his  fingers  he  is  content." 
Furnivall,  "  Minor  Poems,"  p.  xli. 


502  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

an  occupation  he  finds  at  length  somewhat  tiresome.1  By- 
way of  diversion  he  frequents  taverns  ;  women  wait  on  him 
there,  and  he  kisses  them  ;  a  wicked  deed,  he  admits  ;  but 
he  goes  no  further  ;  at  least  so  he  assures  us,  being  doubt- 
less held  back  by  a  remembrance  of  officialdom  and  pro- 
motion.2 At  all  events  this  little  was  even  too  much,  for  we 
soon  find  him  sick  unto  death,  rhyming  supplications  to 
the  god  of  health,  and  to  Lord  Fournivall,  another  kind  of 
god,  very  useful  to  propitiate,  for  he  was  Lord  Treasurer. 
He  writes  a  good  many  detached  pieces  in  which,  thanks 
to  his  mania  for  talking  about  himself,  he  makes  us  ac- 
quainted with  the  nooks  and  corners  of  the  old  city,  thus 
supplying  rare  and  curious  information,  treasured  by  the 
historian.  He  composes,  in  order  to  make  himself  noticed 
by  the  king,  a  lengthy  poem  on  the  Government  of  Princes, 
"  De  Regimine  Principum,"  which  is  nothing  but  a  compi- 
lation taken  from  three  or  four  previous  treatises  ;  he  adds 
a  prologue,  and  in  it,  following  the  example  of  Gower,  he 
abuses  all  classes  of  society.  He  does  not  fail  to  begin  his 
confession  over  again  :  from  which  we  gather  that  he  is 
something  of  a  drunkard  and  of  a  coward,  that  he  is  vain 
withal  and  somewhat  ill-natured. 

He  had,  however,  one  merit,  and,  in  spite  of  his  defects, 
all  lovers  of  literature  ought  to  be  grateful  to  him  ;  the  best 
of  his  works  is  not  his  Government  of  Princes  ;  it  is  a 
drawing.  He  not  only,  like  Lydgate,  loved  and  mourned 
Chaucer,  but  wished  to  keep  the  memory  of  his  features, 

1  It  seems  like  nothing,  he  says,  but  just  try  and  see  : 

Many  men,  fadir,  vvennen  that  wrilynge 
No  travaile  is  ;  thei  hold  it  but  a  game  .   .   . 
But  who-so  list  disport  hym  in  that  same, 
Let  hym  continue  and  he  shall  fynd  it  grame  ; 
It  is  wel  gretter  labour  than  it  seemeth. 

("  Minor  Poems,"  p.  xvii.) 
"  La  Male  Regie  de  Thomas  Hoccleve,"  in  the  "  Minor  Poems,"  pp.  25  ft". 


THE  END    OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES.      503 

and  he  caused  to  be  painted  on  the  margin  of  a  manuscript 
the  portrait  mentioned  above,  which  agrees  so  well  with 
the  descriptions  contained  in  the  writings  of  the  master 
that  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  likeness.1 


II. 

Let  us  cross  the  hills,  and  we  shall  still  find  Chaucer  ;  as 
in  England,  so  is  he  wept  and  imitated  in  Scotland.  But 
the  poets  live  there  in  a  different  atmosphere  ;  the  imita- 
tion is  not  so  close  a  one  ;  a  greater  proportion  of  a  Celtic 
blood  maintains  differences  ;  more  originality  survives  ;  the 
decline  is  less  apparent.  The  best  poets  of  English  tongue, 
"  Inglis  "  as  they  call  it,  "  oure  Inglis,"  Dunbar  says,  are,  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  Scots.  Among  them  are  a  king,  a 
monk,  a  schoolmaster,  a  minstrel,  a  bishop. 

The  king  is  James  I.,  son  of  Robert  III.,  of  the  family  of 
those  Stuarts  nearly  all  of  whom  were  destined  to  the  most 
tragic  fate.  This  one,  taken  at  sea  by  the  English,  when 
only  a  child,  remained  nineteen  years  confined  in  various 
castles.  Like  a  knight  of  romance,  and  a  personage  in  a 
miniature,  he  shortened  the  hours  of  his  captivity  by  music, 
reading,  and  poetry  ;  the  works  of  Chaucer  and  Gower 
filled  him  with  admiration.  Then  he  found  a  better  com- 
fort for  his  sorrows  ;  this  knight  of  miniature  and  of 
romance  saw  before  him  one  day  the  maiden  so  often 
painted  by  illuminators,  the  one  who  appears  amidst  the 
flowers  and  the  dew,  Aucassin's  Nicolette,  the  Emily  of 

1  Al-thogh  his  lyfe  be  queynt,  the  resemblaunce 
Of  him  hath  me  so  fressh  lyflynesse, 
That,  to  putte  othir  men  in  remembraunce 
Of  his  persone,  I  have  heere  his  lyknesse 
Do  make,  to  this  ende,  in  sothfastnesse, 

That  thei  that  have  of  him  lest  thought  and  mynde, 
By  this  peynture  may  ageyn  him  fynde. 
("  Minor  Poems,"  p.  xxxiii. ;  on  this  portrait  see  above,  p.  341. ) 


5o4  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

the  Knight's  Tale,  the  one  who  brings  happiness.  She 
appeared  to  the  king,  not  in  a  dream  but  in  reality  ;  her 
name  was  Jane  Beaufort,  she  was  the  daughter  of  the 
Earl  of  Somerset,  and  great  grand-daughter  of  John  of 
Gaunt.  In  her  family,  too,  there  were  many  tragic  desti- 
nies ;  her  brother  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  St.  Albans  ; 
her  three  nephews  perished  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  ;  her 
grand-nephew  won  the  battle  of  Bosworth  and  became 
king  Henry  VII.  A  mutual  love  sprang  up  between  the 
two  young  people,  and  when  James  was  able  to  return  to 
Scotland  he  took  back  with  him  his  queen  of  romance, 
whom  he  had  wedded  before  the  altar  of  St.  Mary  Overy's, 
next  to  the  grave  of  one  of  his  literary  masters,  the  poet 
Gower. 

His  reign  lasted  thirteen  years,  and  they  were  thirteen 
years  of  struggle  :  vain  endeavours  to  regulate  and 
centralise  a  kingdom  composed  of  independent  clans,  all 
brave  and  ready  for  foreign  wars,  but  quite  as  ready,  too, 
for  civil  ones.  Assisted  by  his  queen  of  romance,  the 
knightly  poet  displayed  in  this  task  an  uncommon  energy, 
and  was,  with  all  his  faults,  one  of  the  best  kings  of 
Scotland.  He  had  many  children  ;  one  of  his  daughters 
became  dauphiness  of  France,  and  another  duchess  of 
Brittany.  Towards  the  end  of  1436,  he  had  so  many 
enemies  among  the  turbulent  chieftains  that  sinister 
prophecies  began  to  circulate  ;  one  of  them  announced 
the  speedy  death  of  a  king  ;  and  as  he  played  at  chess 
on  Christmas  eve  with  a  knight  surnamed  the  "  king  of 
love,"  he  said  to  him :  "  There  are  no  other  king's  in 
Scotland  save  me  and  you  ;  I  take  heed  to  myself,  do 
you  likewise."  But  the  king  of  love  had  nothing  to  fear. 
During  the  night  of  the  20th  of  February,  1437,  an  un- 
wonted noise  was  suddenly  heard  in  the  courtyard  of  the 
monastery  of  Perth  where  James  lodged  ;  it  was  Robert 
Graham    and   his  rebel  band.     Vainly  did  the  king  offer 


THE  END   OF   THE   MIDDLE  AGES.      505 

resistance,  though  unarmed  ;  the  foe  were  too  numerous, 
and  they  stretched  him  dead,  pierced  with  sixteen  sword 
wounds. 

The  constant  love  of  the  king  for  Jane  Beaufort  had 
been  celebrated  by  himself  in  an  allegorical  poem,  imitated 
from  Chaucer  :  "  The  King's  Quhair,"  a  poem  all  aglow 
with  bright  hues  and  with  the  freshness  of  youth.1  The 
prince  is  in  bed  at  night,  and,  like  Chaucer  in  his  poem  of 
the  Duchess,  unable  to  sleep,  he  takes  up  a  book.  It  is 
the  "  Consolation "  of  Boethius,  and  the  meditations  ot 
"  that  noble  senatoure "  who  had  also  known  great  re- 
verses, occupied  his  thoughts  while  the  night  hours  glided 
on.     The  silence  is  broken  by  the  matin  bell : 

Bot  now,  how  trowe  ye  ?  suich  a  fantasye 
Fell  me  to  mynd,  that  ay  me-thoght  the  bell 
Said  to  me  :  "  Tell  on,  man,  quhat  the  befell." 

And  the  king,  invoking  Clio  and  Polymnia,  like  Chaucer, 
and  adding  Tysiphone  whom  he  takes  for  a  Muse,  because 
he  is  less  familiar  with  mythology  than  Chaucer,  tells 
what  befell  him,  how  he  parted  with  his  friends,  when  quite 
a  boy,  was  imprisoned  in  a  foreign  land,  and  from  the 
window  of  his  tower  discovered  one  day  in  the  garden  : 

The  fairest  or  the  freschest  yong  floure 
That  ever  I  sawe. 

* 

The  maid  was  so  beautiful  that  all  at  once  his  "  hert  became 
hir  thrall " : 

A  !  suete,  are  ye  a  warldly  creature, 
Or  hevinly  thing  in  likenesse  of  nature? 


1  "  Poetical  Remains  of  James  I.  of  Scotland,"  ed.  Ch.  Rogers,  Edinburgh, 
1873.  The  "King's  Quhair"  is  found  entire  in  Eyre  Todd:  "  Abbotsford 
series  of  the  Scotch  poets,"  Glasgow,  1891,  3  vols.  Cf.  "  Le  roman  d'un 
roi  d'Ecosse,"  with  details  from  an  unprinted  MS.,  Paris,  1894. 


506  ENGLAND   TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

To  be  cleared  from  his  doubts  the  royal  poet  ventures  into 
the  kingdom  of  Venus,  and  finds  her  stretched  on  her 
couch,  her  white  shoulders  covered  with  "  ane  huke,"  a 
loose  dress  that  Chaucer  had  not  placed  upon  them.  Then 
he  reaches  the  kingdom  of  Minerva  ;  and  passing  through 
dissertations,  beds  of  flowers,  and  groups  of  stars,  he 
returns  to  earth,  reassured  as  to  his  fate,  with  the  certitude 
of  a  happiness  promised  him  both  by  Venus  and  Minerva. 
A  eulogy  on  Gower  and  Chaucer  closes  the  poem,  which 
is  written  in  stanzas  of  seven  lines,  since  called,  because  of 
James,  "  Rhyme  Royal."  x 

Blind  Harry,  the  minstrel,  sings  the  popular  hero, 
William  Wallace.2  We  are  in  the  midst  of  legends. 
Wallace  causes  Edward  I.  to  tremble  in  London  ;  he  runs 
extraordinary  dangers  and  has  wonderful  escapes ;  he 
slays  ;  he  is  slain  ;  he  recovers  ;  his  body  is  thrown  over 
the  castle  wall,  and  picked  up  by  his  old  nurse  ;  the 
daughter  of  the  nurse,  nurse  herself,  revives  the  corpse 
with  her  milk.  The  language  is  simple,  direct  and  plain  ; 
the  interest  lies  in  the  facts,  and  not  in  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  told  ;  and  this,  to  say  the  truth,  is  also  the 
case  with  chap-books. 

1  Though  used  by  others  before  him,  and  especially  by  Chaucer  ;  they  rhyme 
a  b  a  b  b  c  c.  Chaucer  wrote  in  this  metre  "  Troilus,"  "  Parlement  of  Foules," 
&c.  Here  is  an  example,  consisting  in  the  commendation  of  the  book  to 
Chaucer  and  Gower : 

Unto  [the]  impnis  of  my  maisteris  dere, 

Gowere  and  Chaucere,  that  on  the  steppis  satt 

Of  rethorike  quhill  thai  were  lyvand  here, 
Superlative  as  poelis  laureate, 
In  moralitee  and  eloquence  ornate, 

I  recommend  my  buk  in  lynis  sevin, 

And  eke  thair  soulis  un-to  the  blisse  of  hevin. 

2  "The  Actis  and  Deidis  of .  .  .  Schir  William  Wallace,  Knicht  of  Ellerslie," 
by  Henry  the  Minstrel,  commonly  known  as  Blind  Harry,  ed.  J.  Moir, 
Edinburgh,  1884-9,  Scottish  Text  Society.  Blind  Harry  died  towards  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  ctntury. 


THE  END    OF   THE  MIDDLE   AGES.      507 

Blind  Harry  continues  Barbour  rather  than  Chaucer, 
but  Chaucer  resumes  his  rights  as  an  ancestor  with 
Henryson  and  Dunbar.  The  former x  sits  with  his  feet 
to  the  fire  one  winter's  night,  takes  "  ane  drink  "  to  cheer 
him,  and  "  Troilus  "  to  while  away  the  time.  The  little 
homely  scene  is  described  in  charming  fashion;  one  seems, 
while  reading,  to  feel  the  warmth  of  the  cosy  corner,  the 
warmth  even  of  the  "  drink,"  for  it  must  have  been  a  warm 
one : 

I  mend  the  fyre,  and  beikit  (basked)  me  about, 
Than  tuik  ane  drink  my  spreitis  to  comfort, 

And  armit  me  weill  fra  the  cold  thairout  ; 
To  cut  the  winter  nicht  and  mak  it  schort, 
I  tuik  ane  quair  and  left  all  uther  sport, 

Wi  ittin  be  worthie  Chaucer  glorious 

Of  fair  Cresseid  and  worthie  Troilus. 

He  read,  but  unable  to  understand  the  master's  leniency 
towards  the  frail  and  deceitful  woman,  he  takes  pen  and 
adds  a  canto  to  the  poem  :  the  "  Testament  of  Cresseid," 
where  he  makes  her  die  a  dreadful  death,  forsaken  by  all. 

A  greater  pleasure  will  be  taken  in  his  rustic  poems, 
ballads,  or  fables.  His  "  Robene  and  Makyne  "  is  a  "  dis- 
putoison  "  between  a  shepherd  and  shepherdess.  Makyne 
loves  Robin,  and  tells  him  so  ;  and  he  accordingly  cares 
not  for  her.  Makyne  goes  off,  her  eyes  full  of  tears ; 
but  Robin  is  no  sooner  left  alone  than  he  begins  to 
love: 

Makyne,  the  nicht  is  soft  and  dry, 

The  weddir  is  warme  and  fair 
And  the  grene  woid  rycht  neir  us  by 

To  walk  atour  (over)  all  quhair  (everywhere) ; 
Thair  ma  na  janglour  us  espy 

That  is  to  lufe  contrair  ; 
Thairin,  Makyne,  bath  ye  and  I 

Unsene  we  ma  repair. 


1  Henryson  was  born  before  1425,  and  wrote  under  James  II.  and  James 
III.  of  Scotland  ;  he  was  professor,  perhaps  schoolmaster,  at  Dunfermline. 
His  works  have  been  edited  by  David  Laing,  Edinburgh,  1865. 


5o8  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

In  her  turn  Makyne  is  no  longer  willing  ;  she  laughs 
now,  and  he  weeps,  and  she  leaves  him  in  solitude  under  a 
rock,  with  his  sheep.  This  is  a  lamentable  ending  ;  but 
let  us  not  sorrow  overmuch  ;  on  these  pathless  moors 
people  are  sure  to  meet,  and  since  they  quarrelled  and 
parted  for  ever,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  Robin  and 
Makyne  have   met   many   times. 

Another  day,  Henryson  has  a  dream,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  summer-time,  among  the  flowers, 
a  personage  appears  to  him, 

His  hude  of  scarlet,  bordowrit  weill  with  silk. 

In  spite  of  the  dress  he  is  a  Roman  :  "  My  native  land 
is  Rome  ;"  and  this  Roman  turns  out  to  be  yEsop,  "  poet 
laureate ; "  there  is  no  room  for  doubt :  we  are  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  ^Esop  recites  his  fables  in  such  a  new  and 
graceful  manner,  with  such  a  pleasing  mixture  of  truth 
and  fancy,  that  he  never  told  them  better,  not  even  when 
he  was  a  Greek  slave,  and  saved  his  head  by  his  wit.  • 

Henryson  takes  his  time ;  he  observes  animals  and 
nature,  and  departs  as  much  as  possible  from  the  epi- 
grammatic form  common  to  most  fabulists.  The  story 
of  the  "  uplandis  Mous  and  the  burges  Mous,"  so  often 
related,  has  never  been  better  told  than  by  Henryson,  and 
this  can  be  affirmed  without  forgetting  La  Fontaine. 

The  two  mice  are  sisters  ;  the  elder,  a  mouse  of  impor- 
tance, established  in  town,  well  fed  on  flour  and  cheese, 
remembers,  one  day,  her  little  sister,  and  starts  off  at  dusk 
to  visit  her.  She  follows  lonely  paths  at  night,  creeps 
through  the  moss  and  heather  of  the  interminable  Scottish 
bogs,  and  at  last  arrives.  The  dwelling  strikes  her  as 
strangely  miserable,  frail,  and  dark  ;  a  poor  little  thief 
like  the  younger  sister  does  not  care  much  about  burning 
dips.  Nevertheless,  great  is  the  joy  at  meeting ;  the 
"  uplandis    mous "     produces     her    choicest     stores ;    the 


THE   END    OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES.      509 

"burges  mous"  looks  on,  unable  to  quite  conceal  her 
astonishment.  Is  it  not  nice  ?  inquires  the  little  sister. 
Excuse  me,  replies  the  other,  but  : 

Thir  widderit  (withered)  peis  and  nuttis,  or  thay  be  bord, 
Will  brek  my  teith  and  make  my  wame  full  sklender.  .  .  . 
Sister,  this  victuall  and  your  royal  feist 
May  well  suffice  unto  ane  rurall  beist. 

Lat  be  this  hole,  and  cum  in-to  my  place, 

I  sail  to  yow  schaw  be  experience 
My  Gude-fryday  is  better  nor  your  Pace  (Easter). 

And  off  they  trot  through  the  bushes,  and  through  those 
heathery  bogs  which  have  by  turns  charmed  and  wearied 
many  others  besides  mice. 

They  reach  the  elder  sister's.  There  are  delicious 
provisions,  cheese,  butter,  malt,  fish,  and  dishes  without 
number. 

» 

And  lordis  fair  thus  couth  thay  counterfeit, 
Except  ane  thing  :  thay  drank  the  watter  cleir 
Instead  of  wyne  ;  bot  yit  thay  maid  gude  cheir. 

The  little  sister  admires  and  nibbles.  But  how  long  will 
this  last?  Always,  says  the  other.  Just  at  that  moment 
a  rattle  of  keys  is  heard  ;  it  is  the  spenser  coming  to  the 
pantry.  A  dreadful  scene  !  The  great  mouse  runs  to  her 
hole,  and  the  little  one,  not  knowing  where  to  hide  herself, 
faints. 

Luckily,  the  man  was  in  a  hurry  ;  he  takes  what  he 
came  for,  and  departs.  The  elder  mouse  creeps  out  of  her 
hole : 

How  fair  ye  sister  ?  cry  peip  quhair-ever  ye  be. 

The  other,  half  dead  with  fright,  and  shaking  in  her 
four  paws,  is  unable  to  answer.  The  great  mouse  warms 
and  comforts  her  :  'tis  all  over,  do  not  fear ; 

Cum  to  your  meit,  this  perell  is  overpast. 


5io  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

But  no,  it  is  not  all  over,  for  now  comes  "  Gilbert"  (for 
Tybert,  the  name  of  the  cat  in  the  "  Roman  de  Renart "), 
"  our  jolie  cat  "  ;  another  rout  ensues.  This  time,  perched 
on  a  partition  where  Tybert  cannot  reach  her,  the  field 
mouse  takes  leave  of  her  sister,  makes  her  escape,  goes 
back  to  the  country,  and  finds  there  her  poverty,  her  peas, 
her  nuts,  and  her  tranquillity. 

The  mouse  of  Scotland  has  been  fortunate  in  her 
painters  ;  another,  and  a  still  better  portrait  was  to  be 
made  of  the  "  wee,  sleekit,  cowrin,  tim'rous  beastie,"  by 
the  great  poet  of  the  nation,  Robert  Burns. 

With  Gavin  Douglas,  bishop  of  Dunkeld,  of  the  illus- 
trious house  of  the  Douglas,  earls  of  Angus,  the  translator 
of  Virgil,  and  with  William  Dunbar,  a  mendicant  friar, 
favourite  of  James  IV.,  sent  by  him  on  missions  to  London 
and  Paris,  we  cross  the  threshold  of  a  new  century  ;  they 
die  in  the  midst  of  the  Renaissance,  but  with  them,  never- 
theless, the  Chaucerian  tradition  is  continued.  Douglas 
writes  a  "  Palice  of  Honour,"  imitated  from  Chaucer.1 
Dunbar,2  with  never  flagging  spirit,  attempts  every  style  ; 
he  composes  sentimental  allegories  and  coarse  tales  (very 
coarse    indeed),    satires,    parodies,    laments.3     His    fits    of 

1  "  The  Works  of  Gavin  Douglas,"  ed.  J.  Small,  Edinburgh,  1874,  4 
vols.  8vo.  Born  in  1474-5,  died  in  1522.  He  finished  his  "Palice  of 
Honour"  in  1 501,  an  allegorical  poem  resembling  the  ancient  models  :  May 
morning,  Vision  of  Diana,  Venus  and  their  trains,  descriptions  of  the  Palace 
of  Honour,  &c.  We  shall  find,  at  the  Renaissance,  Douglas  a  translator  of 
Virgil  ;  his  yEneid  was  printed  only  in  1553- 

2  Born  about  1460,  studies  at  St.  Andrews,  becomes  a  mendicant  friar 
and  is  ordained  priest,  sojourns  in  France,  where  the  works  of  Villon  had 
just  been  printed,  then  returns  to  the  Court  of  James  IV.,  where  he  is  very 
popular.  He  died  probably  after  1520.  "The  Poems  of  William  Dunbar," 
ed.  Small  and  Mackay,  Edinburgh,  Scottish  Text  Society. 

3  See,  for  example,  his  "Lament  for  the  Makaris  quhen  he  wes  seik,"  a 
kind  of  "  Ballade  des  poetes  du  temps  jadis,"  a  style  which  Lydgate  and 
Villon  had  already  furnished  models  of.      In  it  he  weeps  : 

The  noble  Chaucer,  of  makaris  flouir, 
The  monk  of  Bery  and  Gower  all  three. 


THE  END    OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES.      511 

melancholy  do  not  last  long  ;  he  must  be  ill  to  be  sad  ; 
however  keen  his  satires,  they  are  the  work  of  an  optimist ; 
they  end  with  laughter  and  not  with  tears.  He  is  nearer 
to  Jean  des  Entommeures  than  to  William  Langland. 

His  principal  poems,  "  The  Goldyn  Targe,"  on  the  targe 
or  shield  of  Reason  exposed  to  the  shafts  of  Love  ; 
"  Thrissil  and  the  Rois  "  (thistle  and  rose)  are  close  imita- 
tions of  the  Chaucer  of  the  "  Parlement  of  Foules"  and 
of  the  "  Hous  of  Fame,"  with  the  same  allegories,  the  same 
abstract  personages,  the  same  flowers,  and  the  same  per- 
fumes. The  "  Thrissil  and  the  Rois,"  written  about  1503, 
celebrates  the  marriage  of  Margaret,  rose  of  England, 
daughter  of  Henry  VII.,  to  James  IV.,  thistle  of  Scotland, 
the  flower  with  a  purple  crown  :  that  famous  marriage 
which  was  to  result  in  a  union  of  both  countries  under  the 
same  sceptre. 

Endowed  with  an  ever-ready  mind  and  an  unfailing 
power  of  invention,  Dunbar,  following  his  natural  tastes, 
and  wishing,  at  the  same  time,  to  imitate  Chaucer,  decks 
his  pictures  with  glaring  colours,  and  "  out-Chaucers 
Chaucer."  His  flowers  are  too  flowery,  his  odours  too 
fragrant  ;  by  moments  it  is  no  longer  a  delight,  but  almost 
a  pain.  It  is  not  sufficient  that  his  birds  should  sing,  they 
must  sing  among  perfumes,  and  these  perfumes  are  coloured ; 
they  sing 

Amang  the  tendir  odouris  reid  and  quhyt.1 


'  Beginning  of  the  "Thrissil   and   the    Rois"    (to   be    compared   with  the 
opening  of  the      Canterbury  Tales  ")  : 

Quhen  March  wes  with  variand  windis  past, 
And  Appryl  had,  with  his  silver  schouris, 

Tane  leif  at  Nature  with  ane  orient  blast, 
And  lusty  May,  that  muddir  is  of  flouris, 
Had  maid  the  birdis  to  begyn  their  houris 

Amang  the  tendir  odouris  reid  and  quhyt, 
Quhois  armony  to  heir  it  was  delyt.    .   .   . 


512  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

These  are  undoubted  signs  of  decline  ;  they  are  found, 
in  different  degrees,  among  the  poets  of  England  and  of 
Scotland,  nearly  without  exception.  The  anonymous 
poems,  "  The  Flower  and  the  Leaf,"  "  The  Court  of  Love," 
&C.,1  imitated  from  Chaucer,  exhibit  the  same  symptoms. 
The  only  ones  who  escape  are,  chiefly  in  the  region  of  the 
Scottish  border,  those  unknown  singers  who  derive  their 
inspiration  directly  from  the  people,  who  leave  books 
alone,  and  who  would  not  be  found,  like  Henryson,  sitting 
by  the  fireside  with  "  Troilus "  on  their  knees.  These 
singers  remodel  in  their  turn  ballads  that  will  be  remade 
after  them,2  and  which  have  come  down  stirring  and 
touching  ;  love-songs,  doleful  ditties,  the  ride  of  the  Percy 
and  the  Douglas  3  ("  Chevy  Chase  "),  that,  in  spite  of  his 
classic  tastes,  Philip  Sidney  admired  in  the  time  of 
Elizabeth.  Though  declining  in  castles,  poetry  still  thrills 
with  youth  along  the  hedges  and  in  the  copses  ;  and  the 
best  works  of  poets  with  a  name  like  Dunbar  or  Henry- 
son  are  those  in  which  are  found  an  echo  of  the  songs  of 
the  woods  and  moors.  This  same  echo  lends  its  charm 
to  the  music  of  the  "  Nut-brown  Maid,"  4  that  exquisite 
love-duo,  a  combination  of  popular  and  artistic  poetry 
written  by  a  nameless  author,  towards  the  end  of  the 
period,  and  the  finest  of  the  "  disputoisons  "  in  English 
literature. 

But  apart  from  the  songs  the  wayfarer  hums  along  the 
lanes,  the  works  of  the  poets    most  appreciated   at  that 

Text  in  the  Morris  edition  of  Chaucer's  poetical  works,  London,  Aldine 
poets,  vol.  iv. 

2  Principal  work  to  consult  :  F.  J.  Child,  "  The  English  and  Scottish 
Popular  Ballads,"  Boston,  1882.     See  above,  p.  352. 

3  In  "Bishop  Percy's  Folio  MS.,"  ed.  Hales  and  Fumivall,  London, 
Ballad  Society,  1867,  8vo. 

4  Text,  e.g.,  in  Skeat,  "Specimens  of  English  Literature,"  Oxford,  4th  ed. 
1887,  p.  96,  written,  under  the  form  in  which  we  now  have  it,  about  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century. 


THE  END    OF   THE  MIDDLE   AGES.      513 

time,  Lydgate,  Henryson,  Dunbar,  Stephen  Hawes,1  re- 
present a  dying  art  ;  they  write  as  architects  build,  and 
their  literature  is  a  florid  one  ;  their  poems  are  in  Henry 
VII.'s  style.  Their  roses  are  splendid,  but  too  full-blown  ; 
they  have  expended  all  their  strength,  all  their  beauty, 
all  their  fragrance  ;  no  store  of  youth  is  left  to  them  ; 
they  have  given  it  all  away  ;  and  what  happens  to  such 
roses  ?  They  shed  their  leaves  ;  of  this  past  glory  there 
will  soon  remain  nothing  save  a  stalk  without  petals. 


III. 

The  end  of  the  feudal  world  has  come,  its  literature  is 
dying  out  ;  but  at  the  same  time  a  double  revival  is  pre- 
paring. The  revival  most  difficult  to  follow,  but  not  the 
least  considerable,  originated  in  the  middle  and  lower 
classes  of  society.  While  great  families  destroy  each 
other,  humble  ones  thrive  :  only  lately  has  this  fact  been 
sufficiently  noticed.  So  long  as  the  historian  was  only 
interested  in  battles  and  in  royal  quarrels,  the  fifteenth 
century  in  England  was  considered  by  every  one,  except 
by  that  keen  observer,  Commines,  to  be  the  time  of  the 
war  of  the  Two  Roses,  of  the  murder  of  Edward's  children, 
and  nothing  else.  It  seemed  as  though  the  blood  of  the 
youthful  princes  had  stained  the  entire  century,  and  as  if 
the  whole  nation,  stunned  with  horror,  had  remained  aghast 
and  immobile.  Curiosity  has  been  felt  in  our  days  as  to 
whether  this  impression  was  a  correct  one,  and  it  has  been 
ascertained  to  be  false.  Instead  of  being  absorbed  in  the 
contemplation    of    these    dreadful    struggles,    holding    its 

1  The  pillers  of  yvery  garnished  with  golde, 
With  perles  sette  and  brouded  many  a  folde, 
The  flore  was  paved  with  stones  precious,  &c. 

Stephen  Hawes,  "  Pastime  of  Pleasure,"  Percy  Society,  1845,  p.  125. 

34 


5i4  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

breath  at  the  sight  of  the  slaughter,  the  nation  paid  very 
little  attention  to  them,  and  regarded  these  doings  in  the 
light  of  "  res  inter  alios  acta." 

Feudalism  was  perishing,  as  human  organisations  often 
perish,  from  the  very  fact  of  its  having  attained  its  full 
development ;  feudal  nobles  had  so  long  towered  above 
the  people  that  they  were  now  almost  completely  severed 
from  them  ;  feudalism  had  pushed  its  principle  so  far  that 
it  was  about  to  die,  like  the  over-blown  roses  of  Dunbar. 
While  the  nobles  and  their  followers,  that  crowd  of  bravi 
that  the  statutes  against  maintenance  had  vainly  tried  to 
suppress,  strewed  the  fields  of  Wakefield,  Towton,  and 
Tewkesbury  with  their  corpses,  the  real  nation,  the  mass 
of  the  people,  stood  apart  and  was  engaged  in  a  far 
different  occupation.  It  strove  to  enrich  itself,  and  was 
advancing  by  degrees  towards  equality  between  citizens. 
A  perusal  of  the  innumerable  documents  of  that  epoch, 
which  have  been  preserved  and  which  concern  middle 
classes,  leave  a  decided  impression  of  peaceful  develop- 
ment, of  loosening  of  bondage,  of  a  diffusion  of  comfort. 
The  time  is  becoming  more  remote,  when  some  sat  on 
thrones  and  others  on  the  ground  ;  it  begins  to  be  sus- 
pected that  one  day  perhaps  there  may  be  chairs  for  every- 
body. In  the  course  of  an  examination  bearing  on  thou- 
sands of  documents,  Thorold  Rogers  found  but  two  allusions 
to  the  civil  wars.1  The  duration  of  these  wars  must  not, 
besides,  be  exaggerated  ;  by  adding  one  period  of  hostilities 
to  another  it  will  be  found  they  lasted  three  years  in  all. 

The  boundaries  between  the  classes  are  less  strictly 
guarded  ;  war  helps  to  cross  them  ;  soldiers  of  fortune  are 
ennobled  ;  merchants  likewise.  The  importance  of  trade 
goes   on    increasing;    even    a   king.    Edward    IV.,    makes 

1  "A  History  of  Agriculture  and  Prices,"  vol.  iv.,  Oxford,  1882,  p.  19.  See 
also  the  important  chapters  on  Industry  and  Commerce  in  Mrs.  Green's  "  Town 
Life  in  the  XVth  Century,"  London,  1S94,  2  vols.  8vo,  vol.  i.  chaps,  ii.  and  hi. 


THE  END    OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES.      515 

attempts  at  trading,  and  does  not  fear  thus  to  derogate  ; 
English  ships  are  now  larger,  more  numerous,  and  sail 
farther.  The  house  of  the  Canynges  of  Bristol  has  in  its 
pay  eight  hundred  sailors  ;  its  trading  navy  counts  a  Mary 
Canynge  and  a  Mary  and  John,  which  exceed  in  size  all 
that  has  hitherto  been  seen.  A  duke  of  Bedford  is  de- 
graded from  the  peerage  because  he  has  no  money,  and  a 
nobleman  without  money  is  tempted  to  become  a  dangerous 
freebooter  and  live  at  the  expense  of  others.1  For  the 
progress  is  noticeable  only  by  comparison,  and,  without 
speaking  of  open  wars,  brigandage,  which  is  dying  out,  is 
not  yet  quite  extinct. 

The  literature  of  the  time  corroborates  the  testimony 
of  documents  exhumed  from  ancient  muniment  rooms. 
It  gives  an  impression  of  a  wealthier  nation  than  formerly, 
counting  more  free  men,  with  a  more  extensive  trade.  The 
number  of  books  on  courtesy,  etiquette,  good  breeding,  good 
cooking, politeness,  with  an  injunction  not  to  take  "always" 
the  whole  of  the  best  morsel,2  is  a  sign  of  these  improve- 

1  This  title,  since  conferred  upon  the  Russells,  had  been  given  to  George 
Neville.  The  king,  who  had  intended  to  endow  the  new  duke  in  a  proper 
manner,  had  given  up  the  idea;  and  on  the  other  hand,  "as  it  is  openly 
knowen  that  the  same  George  hath  not,  nor  by  enheritance  mey  have,  eny 
lyffelode  to  support  the  seid  name,  estate  and  dignite,  or  eny  name  of  estate ; 
and  oft  time  it  is  sen  that  when  eny  lord  is  called  to  high  estate  and  have  not 
liffelode  conveniently  to  support  the  same  dignite,  it  induces  gret  poverty,  in- 
digens,  and  causes  oftymes  grete  extortion,  embracere  and  mayntenaunce  to  be 
had.  .  .  .  Wherfore  the  kyng,  by  the  advyse  .  .  .  [&c]  exaclith  that  fro 
hensfforth  the  same  erection  and  making  of  Duke,  and  all  the  names  of  dignite 
guyffen  to  the  seid  George,  or  the  seid  John  Nevele  his  fader,  be  from  hens  fors 
voyd  and  of  no  ettecte."  17  Ed.  IV.  year  1477,  "  Rotuli  Parliamentorum," 
vol.  vi.  p.  173. 

2  See  "  Stans  puer  ad  mensam,"  by  Lydgate,  printed  by  Caxton  : 

T'  enboce  thi  jowes  with  brede  it  is  not  due.  .  .  . 
Thy  teth  also  ne  pike  not  with  the  knyff.   .  .  . 
The  best  morsell,  have  this  in  remembraunce, 
Hole  to  thiself  alway  do  not  applye. 

Hazlitt,  "  Remains,"  1864,  vol.  hi.  p.  23.     Many  other  treatises  on  etiquette 


516  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

ments.  The  letters  of  the  Paston  family  are  another.1  In 
spite  of  all  the  mentions  made  in  these  letters  of  violent 
and  barbarous  deeds ;  though  in  them  we  see  Margaret 
Paston  and  her  twelve  defenders  put  to  flight  by  an 
enemy  of  the  family,  and  Sir  John  Paston  besieged  in 
his  castle  of  Caister  by  the  duke  of  Norfolk,  a  multitude 
of  details  give  something  of  a  modern  character  to  this 
collection,  the  oldest  series  of  private  English  letters  we 
possess. 

In  spite  of  aristocratic  alliances,  these  people  think  and 
write  like  worthy  citizens,  economical,  practical  and  careful. 
During  her  husband's  absence,  Margaret  Paston  keeps  him 
informed  of  all  that  goes  on,  she  looks  after  his  property, 
renews  leases,  collects  rents.  Reading  her  letters  one 
seems  to  see  her  home  as  neat  and  clean  as  a  Dutch  house. 
If  a  disaster  occurs,  instead  of  wasting  her  time  in  lamenta- 
tions, she  repairs  it  to  the  best  of  her  ability  and  takes 
precautions  for  the  future.  She  loves  her  husband,  and 
may  be  believed  when,  knowing  him  to  be  ill,  she  writes : 
"  I  would  ye  were  at  home,  if  it  were  your  ease,  and  your 
sore  might  be  as  well  looked  to  here  as  it  is  where  ye  be, 
now  liefer  than  a  gown  though  it  were  of  scarlet."  2  John 
Paston,  shut  in  the  Fleet  prison,  where  he  makes  the 
acquaintance  of  Lord  Henry  Percy,  for  prisons  were  then 

cooking,  &c.  See  chiefly  :  "  The  Babes  Book.  .  .  .  The  Book  of  Norture,"  &c, 
ed.  Furnivall,  1868,  8vo  ;  "Two  fifteenth  century  Cookery  Books,"  ed.  T. 
Austin,  1888,  8vo ;  "The  Book  of  quinte  essence,"  about  1460-70,  ed. 
Furnivall,  1866  (medical  recipes);  "  Palladius  on  husbondrie  .  .  ."  about 
1420,  ed.  Lodge,  1872-9  (on  orchards  and  gardens);  "The  Book  of  the 
Knight  of  la  Tour  Landry  .  .  .  translated  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,"  ed. 
T.  Wright,  1868,  8vo  (the  whole  published  by  the  Early  English  Text 
Society). 

1  "The  Paston  Letters,"  1422-1509,  ed.  J.  Gairdner,  1872,  3  vols.  8vo. 

2  Or  in  the  worthy  Margaret's  spelling  :  "  Yf  I  my  the  have  had  my  wylle,  I 
xulde  a  seyne  yow  er  dystyme  ;  I  wolde  ye  wern  at  hom,  yf  it  wer  your  ese, 
and  your  sor  myth  ben  as  wyl  lokyth  to  her  as  it  tys  there  ye  ben,  now  lever 
dan  a  goune  thow  it  wer  of  scarlette  "  (Sept.  28,  1443,  vol.  i   p.  49). 


THE  END    OF    THE   MIDDLE  AGES.      517 

a  place  where  the  best  society  met,  sends  Margaret  playful 
verses  to  amuse  her  : 

My  lord  Persy  and  all  this  house, 

Recommend  them  to  yow,  dogge  catte  and  mowse, 

And  wysshe  ye  had  be  here  stille, 

For  they  sey  ye  are  a  good  gille. 

The  old  and  new  times  are  no  longer  so  far  apart  ;  in 
such  a  prison,  Fielding  and  Sheridan  would  not  have  felt 
out  of  place.1 

Books  of  advice  to  travellers,  itineraries  or  guides  to 
foreign  parts,2  vocabularies,  dictionaries,  and  grammars,3 
commercial  guides,  the  "  Libelle  of  Englyshe  Polycye,"  4 
are  also  signs  of  the  times.  This  last  document  is  a 
characteristic  one  ;  it  is  a  sort  of  consular  report  in  verse, 
very  similar  (the  verses  excepted)  to  thousands  of  consular 
reports  with  which  "  Livres  Jaunes "  and  "  Blue  Books  " 
have  since  been  filled.  The  author  points  out  for  each 
country  the  goods  to  be  imported  and  exported,  and  the 
guileful  practices  to  be  feared  in  foreign  parts  ;  he  insists 
on  the  necessity  of  England's  having  a  strong  navy,  and 
exaggerates  the  maritime  power  of  rival  countries,  so  that 
Parliament    may    vote   the  necessary   supplies.      England 

1  Sept.  21,  1465,  vol.  ii.  p.  237. 

2  E.g.,  "The  Itineraries  of  William  Wey "  (pilgrimages),  London,  Rox- 
burghe  Club,  1857  ;  much  practical  information  ;  specimens  of  conversations 
in  Greek,  &c.  ;  "The  Stacions  of  Rome,"  ed.  Furnivall,  E.E.T.S.  1868  (on 
Rome  and  Compostella). 

3  See  among  others  :  "  Anglo-Saxon  and  Old  English  Vocabularies,"  by 
Th.  Wright,  ed.  Wiilcker,  London,  1884,  2  vols.  8vo  ;  "  Promptorium  Parvu- 
lorum,  sive  clericorum  .  .  .  circa  a.d.  1440,"  ed.  Albert  Way,  Camden 
Society,  1865,  4to,  by  Geoffrey  the  Grammarian,  a  Dominican  of  Norfolk  ; 
"  Catholicon  Anglicum,  an  English  Latin  wordbook,  dated  1483,"  ed. 
Herrtage,  E.E.T.S.,  1881,  Svo. 

4  In  the  "  Political  Poems,"  ed.  Th.  Wright,  Rolls,  vol.  ii.  p.  157.  Probable 
date,  1436.  Cf.  the  "  Debat  des  herauts  de  France  et  d'Angleterre  "  (written 
about  1456),  ed.  P.  Meyer,  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes,  1877,  8vo  ;  on  the 
navy,  p.  9. 


518  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

should  be  the  first  on  the  sea,  and  able  to  impose  "  pease 
by  auctorite."  She  should  establish  herself  more  firmly  at 
Calais  ;  only  the  word  Calais  would  be  altered  now  and 
replaced  by  Gibraltar,  Malta,  Cyprus,  or  the  Cape.  The 
author  enumerates  the  products  of  Prussia,  Flanders, 
France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Genoa,  &c.  ;  he  has  even  in- 
formation on  the  subject  of  Iceland,  and  its  great  cod-fish 
trade.  He  wishes  for  a  spirited  colonial  policy  ;  it  is  not 
yet  a  question  of  India,  but  only  of  Ireland  ;  at  any  price 
"the  wylde  Iryshe  "  must  be  conquered. 

He  dwells  at  length  on  the  misdeeds  of  the  wicked 
Malouins,  who  are  stopped  by  nothing,  obey  no  one,  and 
are  protected  by  the  innumerable  rocks  of  their  bays, 
amidst  which  they  alone  know  the  passages.     Conclusion  : 

Kepte  (keep)  than  the  see  about  in  specialle 
Whiche  of  England  is  the  rounde  walle  ; 
As  thoughe  England  were  lykened  to  a  cite, 
And  the  walle  enviroun  were  the  see  ; 
Keep  than  the  see  that  is  the  walle  of  Englond, 
And  then  is  Englond  kepte  by  Goddes  sonde. 

The  anxious  injunctions  scattered  in  the  "  Libelle  "  must 
not  be  taken,  any  more  than  Parliamentary  speeches  of 
later  date,  as  implying  that  the  nation  had  no  confidence 
in  itself.  The  instinct  of  nationality,  formerly  so  vague, 
has  grown  from  year  to  year  since  the  Conquest :  the 
English  are  now  proud  of  everything  English  ;  they  are 
proud  of  their  navy,  in  spite  of  its  defects  ;  of  their  army, 
in  spite  of  the  reverses  it  suffered  ;  of  the  wealth  of  the 
Commons  ;  they  even  "boast  of  their  robbers.  Anything 
one  does  should  be  well  done  ;  if  they  have  thieves,  these 
thieves  will  prove  the  best  in  the  world.  The  testimony 
of  Sir  John  Fortescue,  knight,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  and 
Chancellor  of  England,  who  must  have  known  about  the 
thieves,  is  decisive  on  this  point.      He  writes,  in   English 


THE  END   OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES.      519 

prose,  a  treatise  on  absolute  and  limited  monarchy1; 
admiration  for  his  country  breaks  out  on  every  page. 
It  is  the  time  of  the  Two  Roses,  but  it  matters  little  with 
him  ;  like  many  others  in  his  day,  he  does  not  pay  while 
writing  much  attention  to  the  Roses.  England  is  the  best 
governed  country  in  the  world  ;  it  has  the  best  laws :  the 
king  can  do  nothing  unless  his  people  consent.  In  this 
manner  a  just  balance  is  maintained :  "  Our  Comons  be 
riche,  and  therfor  they  gave  to  their  kyng,  at  sum  tymys 
quinsimes  and  dismes,  and  often  tymys  other  grete  subsy- 
dyes.  .  .  .  This  might  thay  not  have  done,  if  they  had 
ben  empoveryshyd  by  their  kyng,  as  the  Comons  of 
Fraunce."  Fortescue  puts  forth  a  theory  often  confirmed 
since  then  :  if  the  Commons  rebel  sometimes,  it  is  not  the 
pride  of  wealth  that  makes  them,  but  tyranny  ;  for,  were 
they  poor,  revolts  would  be  far  more  frequent :  "  If  thay 
be  not  poer,  thay  will  never  aryse,  but  if  their  prince  so 
leve  Justice,  that  he  gyve  hymself  al  to  tyrannye."  It  is 
true  that  the  Commons  of  France  do  not  rebel  (Louis  XI. 
then  reigned  at  Plessis-lez-Tours)  ;  Fortescue  is  shocked 
at  that,  and  remonstrates  against  their  "  lacke  of  harte." 

Some  people  might  say  that  there  are  a  great  many 
thieves  in  England.  They  are  numerous,  Fortescue  con- 
fesses, there  is  no  doubt  as  to  that ;  but  the  country  finds 
in  them  one  more  cause  to  be  proud  :  "  It  hath  ben  often 
seen  in  Englond  that  three  or  four  thefes,  for  povertie  hath 
sett  upon  seven  or  eight  true  men  and  robbyd  them  al." 
The   thieves  of  France  are  incapable  of  such  admirable 

1  "De  Dominio  regali  et  politico."  In  it  he  treats  of  (chap,  i.)  "the 
difference  between  Dominium  regale  and  Dominium  politicum  et  regale,"  a 
difference  that  consists  principally  in  this,  that  in  the  second  case  the  king 
"  may  not  rule  hys  people  by  other  lawys  than  such  as  they  assenten  unto." 
Fortescue  was  born  about  1395,  and  died  after  1476.  He  wrote  in  Latin  a 
treatise,  "De  natura  Legis  Naturae,"  and  another,  "  De  laudibus  Legum 
Anglise."—"  Works  of  Sir  John  Fortescue  .  .  .  now  first  collected,"  by 
Thomas  [Fortescue]  Lord  Clermont,  London,   1869,  2  vols.  4to. 


52o  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

boldness.  On  this  account  "  it  is  right  seld  that  French 
men  be  hangyd  for  robberye,"  says  Fortescue,  who  had 
never,  judging  by  the  way  he  talks,  passed  by  Montfaucon, 
nor  come  across  poor  Villon  ;  "thay  have  no  hertys  to  do 
so  terryble  an  acte.  There  be  therfor  mo  men  hangyd  in 
Englonde  in  a  yere  for  robberye  and  manslaughter  than 
their  be  hangid  in  Fraunce  for  such  cause  of  crime  in 
seven  yers."  x  As  a  judge,  Fortescue  hangs  the  thieves;  as 
an  Englishman  he  admires  their  performances  :  the  national 
robber  is  superior  to  all  others.  An  engraving  in  Punch 
represents  a  London  drunkard  carried  off  by  two  police- 
men ;  the  street  boys  make  comments  :  "  They  couldn't 
take  my  Father  up  like  that,"  says  one  of  them,  "  it  takes 
six  Policemen  to  run  him  in!"  If  this  boy  ever  becomes 
Chief  Justice,  he  will  write,  in  the  same  spirit,  another 
treatise  like  Fortescue's. 

Thus  is  popularised  in  that  century  the  art  of  prose ;  the 
uses  made  of  it  are  not  unprecedented,  but  they  are  far 
more  frequent.  This  is  one  more  sign  that  the  nation 
settles  and  concentrates  ;  does  not  stand  on  tiptoe,  but  sits 
comfortably.  Previous  examples  are  followed  ;  there  are 
schools  of  prose  writers  as  of  poets.  Bishop  Pecock  em- 
ploys Wyclif's  irony  to  defend  what  Wyclif  had  attacked  : 
pilgrimages,  friars,  the  possessions  of  the  clergy,  the  statues 
and  paintings  in  churches.2  His  forcible  eloquence  is 
embittered  by  sarcasms  ;  he  continues  a  tradition,  dear  to 
the  English  race,  and  one  which,  constantly  renewed,  will 

1  Chaps,  xii.  and  xiii. ,  vol.  i.  pp.  465  ff. 

2  In  his  principal  work,  the  "  Repressor  of  over  much  blaming  of  the 
Clergy,"  ed.  Babington,  Rolls,  i860,  2  vols.  8vo.  Pecock  was  born  about 
1595  ;  he  was  a  fellow  of  Oriel  College,  Oxford,  bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  then 
lishop  of  Chichester.  He  wrote,  besides  the  "  Repressor,"  a  quantity  oi 
works  ("Donet";  "Book  of  Faith";  "Follower  of  Donet,"  &c,  un- 
published), also  in  English  prose.  The  Church  found  that  he  went  too  far, 
and  allotted  too  great  a  part  to  reason  ;  his  writings  were  condemned  and 
burnt ;  he  was  relegated  to  the  abbey  of  Thorney  in  1459,  and  died  there  a 
short  time  after. 


THE   END    OF   THE   MIDDLE  AGES.      521 

come  down  to  Swift  and  to  the  humourists  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  Boiling  over  with  passion,  he  does  his 
best  to  speak  coldly  and  without  moving  a  finger.  Wyclif 
wants  everything  to  be  found  in  the  Bible,  and  forbids 
pilgrimages,  which  are  not  spoken  of  in  it.  But  then, 
says  Pecock,  we  are  greatly  puzzled,  for  how  should  we 
dare  to  wear  breeches,  which  the  Bible  does  not  mention 
either?  How  justify  the  use  of  clocks  to  know  the  hour? 
And  with  great  seriousness,  in  a  calm  voice,  he  discusses 
the  question  :  "  For  though  in  eeldist  daies,  and  though  in 
Scripture,  mensioun  is  maad  of  orologis,  schewing  the 
houris  of  the  dai  bi  the  schadew  maad  bi  the  sunne  in  a 
cercle,  certis  nevere,  save  in  late  daies,  was  eny  clok 
telling  the  houris  of  the  dai  and  nyht  bi  peise  and  bi  stroke  ; 
and  open  it  is  that  noughwhere  in  holi  scripture  is  expresse 
mensioun  made  of  eny  suche."  Where  does  the  Bible 
say  that  it  should  be  translated  into  English  ?  *  In 
the  same  tone  of  voice  Wyclif  had  pointed  out,  in  the 
preceding  century,  the  abuses  of  the  Church  ;  in  the  same 
tone  of  voice  the  author  of  "  Gulliver"  will  point  out,  three 
centuries  later,  the  happy  use  that  might  be  made  of  Irish 
children  as  butcher's  meat. 

The  thing  to  be  remembered  for  the  moment  is  that 
the  number  of  prose-writers  increases.  They  write  more 
abundantly  than  formerly  ;  they  translate  old  treatises  ; 
they  unveil  the  mysteries  of  hunting,  fishing,  and  heraldry  ; 
they  compose  chronicles  ;  they  rid  the  language  of  its 
stiffness.  To  this  contributes  Sir  Thomas  Malory,  with 
his  compilation  called  "  Morte  d'Arthur,"  in  which  he 
includes  the  whole  cycle  of  Britain.  The  work  was  pub- 
lished by  Caxton,  the  first  English  printer,  who  was  also 
a   prose-writer.2      They   even   write  on   love ;    prose  now 


1  "  Repressor,"  i.  ch.  xix. 

2  "  The    Boke    of    St.     Albans,    by    Dame    Juliana    Berners,    containing 


522  ENGLAND    TO    THE  ENGLISH. 

retaliates  upon  verse,  and  trespasses  on    the  domains  of 
poetry.1 

The  diminished  importance  of  the  nobles  and  of  the 
feudal  aristocracy,  the  increased  importance  of  the  citizens 
and  of  the  working  class,  bring  the  various  elements  of 
the  nation  nearer  to  each  other,  and  this  fact  will  have  a 
considerable  effect  on  literature:  the  day  will  come  when 
the  same  author  can  address  the  whole  audience  and  write 
for  the  whole  nation.  In  a  hundred  years  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  take  into  consideration  the  judgment  of  the  English 
people,  both  "  high  men  "  and  "  low  men,"  on  intellectual 
things  ;  there  will  stand  in  the  pit  a  mob  whose  declared 
tastes  and  exigences  will  cause  the  most  stubborn  of  the 
Elizabethan  poets  to  yield.  Ben  Jonson  will  be  less  classic 
and  more  English  than  he  would  have  liked  to  be  ;  he 
intended  to  introduce  a  chorus  into  his  tragedy  of  "  Se- 
janus  "  ;  the  fear  of  the  pit  prevented  him  ;  he  grumbles, 
but  submits.2  The  thrift  and  the  toil  of  the  English 
peasant  and    craftsman  in  the  fifteenth  century  had  thus 

treatises  on  hawking,  hunting  and  cote  armour,  printed  at  St.  Albans,  by  the 
Schoolmaster  printer  in  i486,  reproduced  in  fee  simile,"  by  W.  Blades,  Lon- 
don, 1881, 4to  (partly  in  verse  and  pajctif  in  prose  ;  adapted  from  the  French). — 
"  A  Chronicle  of  England  "  (from  the  creation  to  1417),  by  Capgrave,  born  in 
1394,  died  in  1464,  ed.  Hyigeston,  Rolls,  1858.  (Of  the  same,  a  "Liber  de 
illustribus  Henricis,"  in  Latin,  ed.  Hingeston,  Rolls,  1858,  and  other  works; 
see  above,  p.  496.)  "A  Book  of  the  noble  Historyes  of  Kynge  Arthur  and 
of  certen  of  his  Knyghtes,"  printed  by  Caxton  in  1485  ;  reprinted  with  notes 
("  Le  Morte  Darth&r,"  by  Sir  Thomas  Malory)  by  O.  Sommer  and  Andrew 
Lang,  London,  I889,  2  vols.  8vo.  Malory  and  Caxton  will  be  mentioned 
again  in  connection  with  the  Renaissance. 

1  The  "Testament  of  Love,"  in  English  prose.  It  has  been  attributed  to 
Chaucer.  Mr.  Skeat  has  shown,  by  deciphering  an  anagram,  that  the  author's 
name  was  fcitsun  :  "Margaret  of  Virtw  have  mercy  on  Kitsun"  {Academy, 
March  1 1,  1893). 

2  He  h,as  not  observed,  he  admits,  "  the  strict  laws  of  time,"  and  he  has 
introduce(]  no  chorus  ;  but  it  is  not  his  fault.  "  Nor  is  it  needful,  or  almost 
possir  e  m  these  our  times,  and  to  such  auditors  as  commonly  things  are  pre- 
sent ;;  t0  observe  the  old  state  and  splendor  of  dramatic  poems,  with  preserva- 
t*°T  of  any  popular  delight." — To  the  readers. 


THE  END   OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES.      523 

an    unexpected  influence  on  literature:    they  contributed 
to  form  an  audience  for  Shakespeare. 


IV. 

The  new  times  are  preparing,  in  still  another  manner ; 
the  gods  are  to  come  down  from  Olympus  and  dwell  once 
more  among  men. 

While  the  ancient  literature  is  dying  out,  another  is 
growing  which  is  to  replace  it  in  France,  but  which  will 
continue  it,  transformed  and  rejuvenated,  in  England. 
Rome  and  Athens  will  give  England  a  signal,  not  laws ; 
but  this  signal  is  an  important  one  ;  happy  the  nations 
who  have  heard  it ;  it  was  the  signal  for  awakening. 

In  that  Italy  visited  by  Chaucer  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  passion  for  antiquity  goes  on  increasing  ;  the 
Latins  no  longer  suffice,  the  Greeks  must  be  known. 
Petrarch  worshipped  a  manuscript  of  Homer,  but  it  was 
for  him  a  dumb  fetish  :  the  fetish  has  now  become  a  god, 
and  utters  oracles  that  all  the  world  understands.  The 
city  of  the  Greek  emperors  is  still  standing,  and  there 
letters  shine  with  a  last  lustre.  While  the  foe  is  at  its 
gates,  it  rectifies  its  grammars,  goes  back  to  origins,  rejects 
new  words,  and  revives  the  ancient  language  of  Demos- 
thenes. Never  had  the  town  of  Constantine  been  more 
Greek  than  on  the  eve  of  its  destruction.1  The  fame  of  its 
rhetoricians  is  spread  abroad  ;  men  come  from  Italy  to 
hear  John  Argyropoulos,  the  Chrysoloras,  the  famous 
Chrysococces,  deacon  of  St.  Sophia  and  chief  Saccellary. 

But  the  fatal  hour  is  at  hand,  the  era  of  the  Crusades  is 
over ;  an  irresistible  ebb  has  set  in  ;  Christendom  draws 
back  in  its  turn.  No  longer  is  it  necessary  to  go  to 
Jerusalem   to    battle   against  the   infidel  ;    he  is   found  at 

1  H.  Vast,  "  Le  Cardinal  Bessarion,"  Paris,  1878,  8vo,  p.  14. 


524  ENGLAND    TO    THE   ENGLISH. 

Nicopolis  and  Kossovo.  The  illustrious  towns  of  the 
Greek  world  fall  one  after  the  other,  and  the  exiled  gram- 
marians seek  shelter  with  the  literate  tyrants  of  Italy, 
bringing  with  them  their  manuscripts.  Some,  like  Theo- 
dore Gaza,  have  been  driven  from  Thessalonica,  and  teach 
at  Mantua  and  at  Sienna  ;  others  left  after  the  fall  of 
Trebizond. 

On  the  throne  of  the  Paleologues  sits  Constantine  XII., 
Dragasses.  Brusa  is  no  longer  the  capital  of  the  Turks  ; 
they  have  left  far  behind  them  the  town  of  the  green 
mosques,  of  the  great  platanes  and  tombs  of  the  caliphs, 
they  have  crossed  the  Bosphorus  and  are  established 
at  Salonica,  Sophia,  Philippopolis.  Adrianople  is  their 
capital  for  the  time  being  ;  Mahomet  II.  commands  them. 
Opposite  the  "  Castle  of  Asia,"  Anatoli  Hissar,  he  has 
built  on  the  Bosphorus  the  "Castle  of  Europe,"  Roumel 
Hissar,  with  rose-coloured  towers  ;  he  is  master  of  both 
shores. 

He  approaches  nearer  to  the  town,  and  draws  up  his 
troops  under  the  wall  facing  Europe  ;  he  has  a  hundred  and 
thirty  cannon;  he  opens  fire  on  the  I  ith  of  April,  1453.  On 
the  28th  of  May,  the  Turks  take  up  their  positions  for  the 
onset;  whilst  in  Byzantium  a  long  procession  of  priests  and 
monks,  carrying  the  wood  of  the  true  cross,  miraculous 
statues  and  relics  of  saints,  wends  its  way  for  the  last 
time.  The  assault  begins  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  ; 
part  of  a  wall,  near  the  gate  of  St.  Romanus,  falls  in  ;  the 
"  Cercoporta  "  gate  is  taken.  The  struggle  goes  on  in  the 
heart  of  the  town  ;  the  emperor  is  killed  ;  the  basilica 
erected  by  Justinian  to  Divine  Wisdom,  St.  Sophia,  which 
was  in  the  morning  filled  with  a  praying  multitude,  con- 
tains now  only  corpses.  The  smoke  of  an  immense  fire 
rises  under  the  sky. 

All  that  could  flee  exiled  themselves  ;  the  Greeks 
flocked  to   Italy.     Out  of  the  plundered   libraries  came  a 


THE  END  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES.        525 

number  of  manuscripts,  with  which  Nicholas  V.  and 
Bessarion  enriched  Rome  and  Venice.  The  result  of  the 
disaster  was,  for  intellectual  Europe,  a  new  impulse  given 
to  classic  studies. 

With  the  glare  of  the  fire  was  mingled  a  light  as  of 
dawn  ;  its  rays  were  to  illuminate  Italy  and  France,  and, 
further  towards  the  North,  England  also. 


INDEX. 


-«o»- 


Abbeys,  158  ff. 
A.  B.  C,  275. 
Abel,  475. 
Abelard,  170,  461. 
Al ■■crnun,  P.  d',  120. 
Al  iraham  and  Isaac,  a  play,  466. 
Abstractions,  personified,  218,  331,  490. 
Achilles,  129,  310. 
Acta  Sanctorum,  470. 
Actors,  446  ff.,  467  ff. 
Adam,  in  Anglo-Saxon  Bible,  72,  and 
Eve,  359  ;  381,  a  mystery,  468  ff., 

474  ""• 
Adam,  "  scnveyn,"  339. 
Addison,  296. 
Adgar,  123. 

Adrian  IV.,  pope,  III,  188. 
/Elfric,  45,  88  ff.,  205,  449. 
Aelred   of    Rievaulx,    154,    193,    213, 

445  ff 
/Eneas  the  Trojan,  114,   129,  295,  see 

''■  Eneas." 

/Esop,  508. 

/Ethelberht,  61. 

/Ethelred,  79. 

/Ethelstan,  28,  46,  93. 

yEthelwold,  88. 

/Ethelwulf,  63. 

Aetius,  26. 

Agricola,  20. 

Ailill,  13. 

Aimer,  147. 

Aix,  Albert  d',  409. 

Alaric,  26. 

Albin,  St.,  220. 

Alchemist,  in  Chaucer,  325,  327. 

Alcuin,  65  ff,  81,  82. 

Aldhelm,  66,  his  riddles,  72. 

"  Alemanni,"  25. 


Alexander,  romances  on,  127  ff.  ;  222. 

Alexander,  bishop  of  Lincoln,  162. 

Alfred  the  Great,  27,  28,  61,  63,  life 
and  works,  79  ff.  ;  243. 

Alienor  of  Aquitaine,  112. 

Alienor  of  Provence,  112,  454. 

Allegories,  in  Roman  de  la  Rose,  276  ff. 

Allen,  Grant,  on  Germanic  names,  31, 
on  Norman  names,  244. 

Alliteration,  in  Anglo-Saxon  and  in 
French,  37  ff.,  in  Aldhelm,  66,  after 
the  Conquest,  205  ff. ;  245,  Chaucer's 
opinion  about,  339;  348,  351,  in 
Langland,  401. 

Ambrose,  companion  of  Richard  Cceur- 
de-Lion,  121. 

America,  discovered,  491. 

Amis  and  Amile,  142,  229. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  32,  1 14. 

Anatomy  of  Abuses,  346. 

Anchoresses,  153,  211  ff. 

Ancren  Riiule,  211  ff,  218,  247. 

Anderida,  30. 

Andreas,  39,  69,  73  ff. 

Anelida  see  Complaint. 

Angevin  England,  literature  of,  Bk.  ii. 
c.  ii.,  iii.,  iv.,  116  ff.  ;  survives  in 
Gower,  364. 

Angle,  Sir  Guichard  d',  284. 

Angles,  22,  25,  27,  84. 

"  Angli,"  20. 

Anglo-Saxons,  their  name,  28,  vocabu- 
lary, 29,  national  poetry,  Bk.  i.  c. 
iii.,  36  ff.,  Mss.  and  art  of,  45, 
63,  65,  despondency  of,  47  ff.,  56 
ff.,  their  idea  of  death,  57  ff.,  their 
Christian  literature,  Bk.  i.  c.  iv. , 
60  ff.,  their  internal  divisions,  93,  how 
transformed    by    Norman   conquest, 


527 


523 


INDEX. 


203   fiT. ,  250,    mind    and   genius  of, 

300,  316,    344,    402,    Chaucer   and 

the.  338  ff. 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  46,  47,  62,  86 

li.,     on     Hastings,     100,     103,     on 

William.  105  ff. 
Anne  of  Bohemia,  265,  454  ff. 
Annebaut.  R.  d\  120. 
Anselm,  St.,  165,  193,  198. 
Anterior,  the  Trojan,  113.  ' 
Antigone  of  Sophocles,  34. 
Antiochis,  176. 
Antoninus  Pius,  19,  20. 
Apelles,  286,  294. 
Apollinia,  life  of   St.,  and  drama  on, 

470  ft. 
Apollonius  of  Tyre,  in  A.S.,  79. 
Appius  and  Virginia,  325,  330. 
Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  165. 
Arabian  Nights,  496. 
Arbois    de   Jubainville,    d',    on    Celts, 

sff. 

Arc,  Joan  of,  256,  354,  459. 

Architecture,  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  63, 
Norman,  107,  perpendicular,  261, 
with  "pinnacles,''  297;  353,  of 
Westminster  Hall,  414. 

Argentille,  223. 

Argyropoulos,  523. 

Ariosto,  17,  97. 

Aristorle,  120,  165,  173,  194,  380. 

"  Armachanus,"  see  Fitzralph. 

Armenia,  201. 

Armorica,  33. 

"  Army,"  the  Danish,  80. 

Arnold,  T. ,  on  Beowulf,  48,  on  Wyclif, 

432. 

Art :  Henry  III.'s  style,  200,  262,  gold 
and  silver  tablets,  cups,  &c,  258  ff., 
pictures/  258,  262,  miniatures,  259, 
tapestries,  262,  embroidery,  264, 
statue  from  the  -nude,  265,  painted 
walls  and  stained  glass,  280,  in 
Italy,  285  ff.,  antique,  287  ff.,  por- 
trait of  Chaucer,  341,  503,  favoured 
by  Plantagenets,  353  ff.,  tomb  of 
Gower,  365,  Malvern  Church,  376, 
picture  by  Fouquet,  470  ff. ,  fresco 
at  Stratford-on-Avon,  494  ;  iee  Archi- 
tecture, Miniatures. 

Arthur,  King,  early  songs  on,  32;  112, 
113,  127  ;  cycle  of,  131  ff.  ;  177,  in 
Layamon,  220  ff.  ;  222,  226,  348  ff. 

Ass,  ie:isl  of  the,  452. 

Asser,  81,  82 


Astree,  139. 

Astrolabe,  337,  341,  411. 

Attila,  26,  44,  48. 

Aucassin,  227,  404,  503. 

Augier,  of  St.  Frideswide's,  123. 

Augustine,  comes  to  England,  60  ff. 

Augustus,  the  emperor,  129,  481,  486. 

Aungerville,  Sir  R.,  166. 

Ausonius,  33. 

Avebury,  circles  at,  4. 

Avesbury,  Robert  of,  174,  201. 

Avignon,  158,  391,  420. 

Avit,  St.,  bishop  of  Vienne,  75. 

Ayenbite  of  Inwyt,  214. 

Aymon,  156. 

Bacchanals,  449  ff. 

Bacchus,  theatre  of,  476. 

Bacon,  Roger,  165,  193,  194. 

"  Badin,"  on  the  stage,  492. 

Bailey,   Harry,  of  the  "  Tabard,"  316 

if.,  321  ff,  341. 
B a  lade  de  bon  Conseyl,  341. 
Balduf,  221. 
Baldwin,    archbishop     of    Canterbury, 

176,  177,  198. 
John  Ball,  priest,  359,  368,  401,  413, 

491. 
Ballads,  by  Chaucer,  271,  on  Griselda, 

332  ;  352  ff.j  by  Gower,  366  ff.  ;  512, 

see  "  Chansons,"  and  Songs. 
Ballets,  456. 

Barbour,  J.,  361  ff.,  507. 
Bards,  Celtic,  10. 
Barking,  Clemence  of,  123. 
Barry,   Gerald   de,  on  Welshmen,  IO  ; 

19,  117,  134,  176,  192,  198. 
Barry,  Richard  de,  203. 
Barry,  William  de,  198. 
Bartholomew,  St.,  life  of,  in  A.S.,  91. 
Bartholomew  the  Englishman,  169,  195, 

225,  406. 
Bath,  ruins  at,  19,  59. 
"  battle,"  Bk.  ii.  c.  i.,  97  ff. 
Battle  abbey,  102  ff. 
Bavaria,  Isabeau  of,  455. 
Bayard,  a  horse,  271. 
Bayeux  tapestry,  100. 
Beauchamp,  family  of,  109. 
Beaufort,  Jane,  504. 
Beaumont,  Louis  de,  bishop  of  Durham, 

162. 
Beauty,  physical,   264,  Chaucer's  idea 

of,  292  ;  353  ff. 
Beauveau,  Pierre  de,  311,  354. 


INDEX. 


529 


Becket,  St.  Thomas,  life  in  French, 
123;   156,  165,  188  fif.,  208,  319. 

Bede,  57,  62,  life  and  works,  66  ff.,  81, 
translated  by  Alfred,  82  ff.  ;  205,  220. 

Bedford,  George  Neville,  duke  of,  515. 

Bedier,  on  fabliaux,  142. 

Bello  Trojano,  De,  176. 

Beowulf,  11  ff.,  45,  47,  analysis  of,  48 
ff.,  compared  with  Roland,  54  ff-  j 
99.  219,  338. 

Bercheur,  Pierre,  183. 

Berger,  S.,  on  Bible,  433. 

Berkeley,  Edward  of,  284. 

Bernard,  St.,  188,  191. 

Berners,  Dame  Juliana,  522. 

Bernlak  de  Haut  Desert,  350. 

Berou,  author  of  a  Tristan,  134. 

Berry,  Jean  due  de,  76. 

Btiyn,  tale  of,  320. 

Bessarion,  168,  525. 

Bestiaire  <T  Amour,  123. 

Bestiaries,  76,  123,  214,  276,  409. 

Betenham,  William,  312. 

Bevis  of  'Hampton,  223. 

Bible,  in  Anglo-Saxon,  71  ff.,  by  .Elfric, 
87,  in  English,  in  French,  207  ;  315, 
quoted  in  Parliament,  415  ff.,  trans- 
lated by  Wyclif,  432  ff.,  dramatised, 
489,  Pecock  on,  521. 

"  Bibles,"  moral  works,  366. 

Biblesworth,  Walter  de,  237. 

Bigod,  250,  109. 

Biquet,  Robert,  226. 

Biscop,  Benedict,  66. 

Bishops,  warrior,  learned,  saintly,  162  ff. 

Blacke,  Anthony,  256. 

Black   Prince,  232,  242,  262,  264,  284, 

425. 
Blanket,  of  Bristol,  256. 
Blickling  Homilies,  45,  88  ff. 
Boccaccio,   143,  268,  282,   288  ff.,  299 

ff.,  320  ft.,  332,  370  ff.,  499. 
Body  and  Soul,  debate  of,  230. 
Boece,  translated  by  Alfred,  82,  84  ff.  ; 

165,  175,  translated  by  Chaucer,  291  ; 

339,411,490,  505. 
Bohemia,  heresies  in,  438. 
Bohemond,  of  Antioch,  107. 
Border,  Peter,  438. 
Bohun,  109,  250. 
Boileau,  330,  473. 
Boke  of  Nurtiae,  264,  of  St.  Albans, 

522. 
Boldensele,  William  of,  409. 
Bollandus,  470. 


Bonaventure,  St.,  214. 

Boncuor,  William  de,  272. 

Boniface,  St.,  64,  65,  68. 

Boniface  VIII.,  432. 

Book  of  Cupid,  279,  of  the  Diuhesse, 
272,  279  ff,  499,  of  Nurture,  264,  of 
St.  Albans,  522. 

"  Born,"  44. 

Bossert,  on  Tristan,  135  ff. 

Bourgogne,  Jean  de,  a  la  barbe,  407  ff. 

Bourse  pleine  de  sens,  226. 

Bozon  Nicole,  118,  123. 

Bracton,  H.  de,  196,  235,  254. 

Bradford-on- Avon,  Anglo-Saxon 
Church  at,  63. 

Bradshaigh,  lady,  333. 

Bradshaw,  on  Chaucer,  324  ff. 

Bradwardine,  archbishop,  193,  194. 

Brakelonde,  Jocelin  de,  124. 

Brampton,  Thomas,  496. 

Brandan,  St.,  209,  210. 

Brantingham,  Thomas  de,  452. 

Breakspeare,  Nicolas,  ill,  188. 

Brescia,  Albertano  de,  325,  331. 

Bretigny,  peace  of,  271,  391. 

Britain,  Celtic,  Bk.  i.  c.  i..  3  ff. 

Britons,  7  ff,  not  destroyed  by  Anglo- 
Saxons,  29  ff. ;   177,    "gentil,"   330, 

338- 

Brittany,  its  literature,  13,  how  popu- 
lated, 33  ;   132. 

Broker,  Nicolas,  265. 

Bromyard,  John  of,  183. 

Brooke,  Stopford,  39,  72. 

Browning,  Robert,  342,  and  Preface. 

Bruce,  David,  1 1 5. 

Bruce,  the,  361. 

Brunanburk,  ode  on,  46. 

Brunne,  see  Mannyng. 

Brut  of  Layamon,  219  ff. 

Brums  the  Trojan,  112,  114. 

Bukton,  341. 

Bunyan,  57,  216,  382. 

Burgundy,  Henry  of,  107. 

Burnellus,  the  ass,  178. 

Burns,  Robert,  510. 

Burton,  Thomas  of,  266. 

Bury,  Richard  of,  166  ff,  169,  175, 
188,  202,  203. 

Byrhtnoth,  47. 

Byron,  lord,  38,  139. 

Gedmon,  45,  68,  life  and  works,  70  ff. 
Caesar,    on    Celts,    6,    7,    11,    18,    on 
Germans,  23  ;  29,  222. 


35 


53Q 


INDEX. 


Cain,  475. 

Callisthenes,  pseudo,  128,  129. 
Cambinscan,  325. 
Cambrensis,  see  Barry. 
Cambridge,  University  of,  173  ff. 
Canterbury,  Gervase  of,  202. 
,,  Thomas  of,  25S. 

Canterbury   Tales,    245,    296,    313  ff. , 

373,497,  499,  5"- 
Canynges,  of  Bristol,  515. 

Capet,  Hugues,  99. 

Capgrave,  496,  522. 

Caracalla,  19. 

Carlyle,  T.,  87. 

Carols,  349. 

Carpenter  s  Tools,  230,  443. 

Cartaphilus,  201. 

Castle  of  Love,  214. 

Castle  of  Perstverance,  491. 

Castoiement cFunpere  asonfds,  370,447. 

Cathedrals,  Norman,    107  ff.,  124,  162. 

Catherine,  life  of  St.,  459,  drama  on 
St.,  459  ff. 

Cato  on  Gauls,  9. 

Causa  Dei,  De,  194. 

Caxton,  152,  342,  366,  372,  406,  515, 
521,  522. 

Ceadwalla,  63. 

Celestinus,  185. 

Cecile,  St.,  see  Lyf  of. 

Celts,  name,  origin,  literature,  religion 
of  the,  5  ff. ;  fate  after  the  A.S. 
conquest,  29  ff. ,  their  ideal,  210, 
wit  and  genius,  300,  402,  in  Scot- 
land, 503. 

Cemeteries,  dances  in,  448  ff. 

Cento  NoveVe  Antiche,  325. 

Cervantes,  97,  133,  141,  330. 

Champeaux,  Guillaume  de,  170. 

Chanson  de  Roland,  54  ff. ,  125  ff. , 
146,  156,  273. 

Chansons,  French,  142  ff.,  148,  sung 
in  London,  355  ff. 

Chantecleer,    the    cock,    149    ff. .    325, 
^  328  ff. 

<  lianteloup,  Walter  de,  444,  449. 

Chantries,  378  ff. 

Chap-books,  225,  506. 

Chapelain,  Andre  le,  140. 

Chapu,  Guillaume,  120. 

Chanlry,  123. 

Charisius,  9. 

Charlemagne,  35,  61,  65  ff.,  79,  99, 
125  ;  caricatured,  146  ff.  ;  156, 
222,  441. 


Charles  the  Bald,  63. 

Charles  V.   of  France,    17 1,   195,    259. 
,,       VI.  „       456- 

,,       V.  of  Germany,  101. 

Charnay,  Henri  de,  inquisitor,  159. 

Cliastoiement  des  Dames,  230. 

Ckdleau  d Amour,  213. 

Chaucer,  Alice,  354. 

,,  Geoffrey,  his  "  somnour," 
161  ;  182,  215,  218,  225,  232,  240, 
244  ;  life  and  works,  Bk.  iii.  c.  ii., 
267  ff.,  his  contemporaries,  Bk.  iii. 
c.  iii.,  344  ff.  ;  369  ;  compared  with 
Langland,  ^72  ff.,  388  ff.,  392,  402  ; 
379,  382,  422  ;  on  miracle  plays, 
461,  469,  478,  490;  successors  and 
imitators,    Bk.   iii.  c.  vii.,  495  ff. 

Chaucer,  John,  268. 
,,  Philippa,  272. 

,,         Thomas,  273,  354. 

"Chaucer  Society,"  343. 

Cheldric,  221. 

Cheriton,  Odo  de,  178. 

Chester  Plays,  465  ff.,  their  end,  492. 

Chester,  Randolf,  earl  of,  359. 

Chestre,  Thomas,  230. 

"  Chests,"  at  the  University,  175. 

Chettle,  332. 

Chevy  Chase,  512. 

Chienne  qui  pleure,  154,  184.   225  ff. , 

447  ff. 
Child,  Prof.,  on  ballads,  353. 
Chimneys,  262. 
Chlochilaicus,  50. 
Christ,  72,  75. 
Christianity,    in    Roman   England,    18, 


3°,  57, 
450  ff., 
ff., 


1  1 


in    Anglo-Saxon    England, 

60  ff. 
Christmas,    how    celebrated, 

plays,  457  ff. 
Chronicles,    Anglo-Norman, 

121,    Latin,    166  ff.,    197  ff.,   in  the 

XVth  century,  496  ff. 
Chrysococces,  523. 
Chrysoloras,  523- 
Church,   the   English,    157   ff.,   Wyclif 

on,  423  ff.,  430  ff.,  decaying  in  the 

XVth  century,  497. 
Circero,  168,  49S. 
Cirencester,  Richard  of,  202. 
Claris  Mtdieribus ,  De,  294 
Clarissa  Harlowe,  333,  484. 
Classic    influences    and    models,    166, 

374- 
Claudian,  295,  297. 


INDEX 


531 


Claudius  the  emperor,  18,  19. 

"Clavilegno,"  330. 

Cleges,  226. 

Cleomades,  325. 

Cleopatra,  on  the  stage,  129. 

Clerc,  Guillaume  le,  123,  483. 

Clerk  of  Oxford,  Chaucer's,  314,  325, 
332  ff. 

Clerks,  slothful,  167  ff.,  at  the  Uni- 
versity, 169  ff. ,  belong  to  the  Latin 
country,  176  ff. 

Clovis,  26,  a  Romanised  barbarian,  34, 

50»  99- 
Cnut  the  Dane,  93,  112,  113. 

Coal  mines,  255. 

Cobham,  Thomas  de,  175. 

Cobsam,  Adam  de,  496. 

Cochin,  H.,  on  Boccaccio,  288. 

Codex  Exoniensis,  45. 

Codex   Vercellensis,  45. 

Ccenewulf,  66. 

Coggeshall,  Radulphus  de,  195,  202. 

Coinci,  Gautier  de,  325. 

Coins,  Anglo-Saxon,  79. 

Cokaygne,  226. 

Cokwolds'  Dance,  226. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  42. 

Colgrim,  220. 

Colonna,  Gui  de,  299. 

Columba,  St.,  63. 

Comedy,  scenes  of,  484  ff. 

Comestor,  Pierre,  215,  409. 

Cominges,  Count  de,  202. 

Commines,  250,  255. 

Commons,  of  England,  250  ff.,  266, 
Langland  on  the,  389  ff. 

Complaint  of  Anelida,  292,  294,  of  a 
dozers  Life,  279,  unto  Pile,  272, 
279,  of  the  Plowman,  401,  of  Venus, 

275.  34i- 
Communism,  Wyclif  on,  430  ff. 

Comus,  456. 

Conchobar,  11  ff. 

Conde,  Baudouin  de,  445. 

,,     Jean  de,  444. 
Confessio  Amantis,  365,  366,  369  ff. 
"  Confreres  de  la  Passion,"  480,  493. 
Conquest,     Norman-French,     Bk.    ii., 

95  ff.,  silence  after  the,  204  ff. 
Constance,    Chaucer's    btory   of,    325, 

33i,  335. 
Constant  du  Hamel,  496. 
Constantius  Chlorus,  19. 
Constantine  the  Great,  20. 
Constantine  XII.,  524. 


Constantinople,  taken   by  the   Turks, 

524- 

Cottle  des  Hirans,  445. 

Corbichon,  Jean,  translates  Bartholo- 
mew the  Englishman,  195,  225. 

Cook,  Captain,  7. 

Cookery,  263  ff. ,  516. 

Cordier,  H.,  on  Mandeville,  407,  409. 

Corneille,  Pierre,  156,  471. 

Cornelius  Gallus,  2>Z- 

Cornelius,  Nepos,  176,  191. 

Cornish  drama,  466. 

Cornwall,  Celtic,  32,  132. 

Corpus  Christi  plays,  459. 

Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,  40  ff. 

Cotton,  Bartholomew  de,  202. 

Cotton,  John,  a  painter,  258. 

Councils,  on  the  drama,  440  ff.,  449. 

Coupe  Enchantee,  226. 

Court,  amusements  at,  441  ff. ,  fool, 
441  ff.,  dramas,  476,  poetry,  353  ff., 
366  ff. 

Court  of  Love,  279,  497,  512. 

Courtenay,  embroiderer,  264. 

Courteney,  bishop  of  London,  426. 

Courtesy,  books  of,  515  ff. 

Courtin,  Hono^e,  ambassador,  255. 

Coventry  Mysteries  and  pageants,  465 
ff. 

Cowper,  William,  57. 

Coxe,  Brinton,  on  Bracton,  196. 

Credon,  Sir  Richard,  275. 

Cressida,  301  ff.,  see  Troilus. 

Croniques  de  London,  119,  242. 

Cuchulainn,  11  ff. 

Cursor  A/undi,  215  ff. ,  222,  225,  260. 

Cuthberht,  64,  67,  68. 

Cuthwine,  67. 

Cycles  of  France,  Rome  and  Britain, 
125  ff- 

Cynevvulf,  39,  70,  works  and  genius  of, 
72  ff.,  92. 

Daisy,  praise  of  the,  275  ff. 

Dalila,  372. 

Dame  Siriz,  225  ff. 

Danes,  place  names  recalling  them,  80 ; 

120. 
Dante,    11S,    128,    154,   169,   186,  206, 

288,  290,  294  ff.,  325  ff.,  330,  393. 
Dares  the  Phrygian,   128  ff. ,  134,  297, 

299. 
David.  King,  272. 
Davidson,  Ch.,  on  Mysteries,  466. 
Davy  Adam,  360. 


532 


INDEX. 


Deadly  Sins,  in  Langland,  386. 

Death,  Celts'  idea  of,  7  ff.,  Greeks',  7 
ft'.,  Frenchmen's,  57  ff.,  Anglo- 
Saxons',  56  ff. ,  74,  Rolle  of  Ham- 
pole's,  218,  Black  Prince's,  353  ;  an 
occasion  for  jokes,  449,  on  the  stage, 
490,  491. 

Debat  des  Herauts  de  F?-ance  et  d'Angle- 
terre,  517. 

Decameron,  287,  320  ff.,  325. 

Defoe,  162,  224,  407. 

Degrevant,  347. 

Deguileville,  275,  498,  500. 

Dekker,  332. 

Delisle,  I  eopold,  on  Bartholomew  the 
Englishman,  195. 

Des  Champs,  E.istacrie,  257,  275,  on 
Chaucer,  27S,  on  diplomatic  service, 
282  ;  289,  340,  360. 

Dear,  38,  59. 

Departed  Soul's  Address,  75. 

Derdriu,  15  ff. 

Dermot,  121. 

Despencer,  Henry  le,  bishop  of  Nor- 
wich, 164. 

Devil,  described  by  ^Elfric,  90,  and 
St.  Dunstan,  209,  tempts  Rolle  of 
Hampole,    217,    on   the  stage,  471, 

475- 

Dialect,  of  Chaucer,  338  ft.,  of  Lang- 
land,  401,  Scotch,  503. 

Dialogues,  in  Celtic  Literature,  13  ff., 
in  Anglo-Saxon,  75,  in  Latin,  187, 
191,  in  Iroilus,  303  ;  442  ff,  after 
dinner,  444,  in  interludes,  446  ff.,  in 
pageants,  454  ff,  in  Mysteries,  477 
ff.,  in  Roman  de  la  A'ose,  490 

Dialogus  de  Scaccario,  196. 

Diceto,  Radulph  de,  202. 

Dictys  of  Crete,  128  ff. 

Diderot,  328. 

Dido  (in  Chaucer),  295. 

Dietrich,  72. 

Digby  Mysteries,  466  ff. 

1  Hodorus  Siculus,  101. 

"Dirige,"379, 

Disobedient  Child,  491. 

"  Disputoisons  "  or  Debates,  144,  230, 
441  ff- 

J'issitasio  Valerii  ad  Rujinum,  191. 

"Doctors,"  193  ff. 

Dogmas,  attacked  by  Wyclif,  425, 
435  ff. 

Domesday  Book,  100,  104  ff.,  158. 

Dominicans,  159  ft. 


"Dominium"    Fitzralph    and    Wyclif 

on,  429. 
Domitius  Afer,  33. 
Donatus,  175. 
Dormi  Secure,  354. 
Douglas,  Gavin,  510. 
"  Dowel,  Dobet,  Dobest,"  375  ff.;  387, 

395.  400. 
Dragons  and  monsters,  50,  55  ff. 
Drama,    Bk.  iii.    c.    vi.,  439  ff. ;  civil, 

439  ft'.,  religious,  456  fif; 
Dramatic  genius  of  the  Celts,  13. 
Dreams,  Chaucer  and  Addison  on,  296, 

Davy's,    367,    Gower's,   368,  poets', 

497- 
Dresemius,  S.,  117. 
Druids,  9  ff. 
Dryden,  343. 
Duchesse,  see  Book  of. 
Dujon,  see  Junius. 
Dunbar,  372,  503,  507,  life  and  works, 

5io,  513. 
Dunstable,  play  at,  460. 
Dunstan,  St.,  88  ff.,  209,  210,  217. 
Durham,  Simeon  of,  202. 
,,         William  of,  175. 
Duries,  J.,  a  scribe,  195. 
Duties  of  a  Parish  Priest,  496. 

Eadgak  child,  103. 

Eadmer,  198. 

Eadjvine's  Canterbury  Psalter,  76. 

Eadwine,  earl,  103. 

Ealdred,  archbishop  of  York,  103. 

Eahvhine  (Alcuin),  65. 

Earle,     on    A.S.     I.iierature,    39,    on 

Beoivulf,    48,    on     A.S.     Chronicle, 

87. 
Easter,  origin  of  the  name,  62,  drama, 

457  ff 
Ecgberht,  68. 
Ecgferth,  87. 
Ecole  des  Jl/aris,  324. 
Ed  da,  40  ff. 
Edgar,  king,  87,  88  ff. 
Edgeworth,  Miss,  332. 
Edmund,  St.,  113,  200. 
Edrisi,  129. 
Eduini,  king,  57. 
Edward,  king,  the  confessor,  97,   III, 

life  of,  in  French,  123  ;  208. 
Edward  I.,  250,  270,  421,  443,  506. 

II.,  108,    163,   194,  236,  253, 

259,  260,  360,  384,  452. 
Edward  III.,  232,  235,  247,  249,  256, 


INDEX. 


533 


264,  266,  272,  284,  360  ff.,  406,  415, 

495- 
Edward  IV.,  51311. 
Eginhard,  24,  46. 

Eglamour,  347. 
Ekkehard,  48. 

Elene,  72  ff. 

Elizabeth,  queen,  372. 

,,         wife  of  Lionel  son  of  Ed- 
ward III.,  270. 

Eloi,  St.,  209. 

Eneas,  130. 

England,  first  inhabitants  of,  3  ff.,  be- 
tween northern  and  southern  civilisa- 
tions, 97  ff.,  described  by  Robert  of 
Gloucester,  122,  "  merry,"  225,  232, 
260,  267,  345,  to  the  English,  Bk.  iii., 
232  ff.,  trade  and  navy  of,  255  ff., 
Chaucer's,  314  ff.,  threatening  and 
threatened,  360,  363,  Langland's, 
374  ff.,  389,  parliamentary,  413  ff. 

"  Englescherie,"  presentment  of,  235. 

English,  literature,  under  Norman  and 
Angevin  kings,  204  ff.,  revived, 
216  ;  use  of,  by  upper  classes,  219  ff., 
authors  adopt  French  tastes,  219  ff., 
fusion  of,  with  French,  235  ff., 
people,  how  formed,  247  ff.,  Chau- 
cer's, 337,  Gower's,  369,  used  in 
Parliament,  421  ff,  Wyclif's,  432, 
dramas,  460  ff.,  spoken  in  Scotland, 
503,  pride,  518. 

Enoch,  227,  475. 

Eostra,  the  goddess,  62. 

Epinal  Glossary,  45. 

Erceldoune,  Thomas  of,  his  prophecies, 
141. 

Estorie  des  Engles,  1 13  ff. 

"  Estrifs,"  230,  443,  see  Disputoisons. 

Eulogiitm  Historiarum,  197. 

Euphuism,  38. 

Eutrope,  120. 

Everyman,  491. 

"Exempla,"  153  ff.,  182  ff. 

Exeter,  Joseph  of,  37,  176  ff.,  181, 
191. 

Eyck,  van,  352. 

Eyrum,  Robert  de,  176. 

Fables,  Latin,  178,  by  Lydgate,  498, 
by  Henryson,  508  ff. 

"Fabliaux,"  French,  118,  152  ff., 
Latin,  183,  184,  English,  225  ff., 
325,  442  ff.,  turned  into  dramas,  447, 
of  the  XVth  century,  496,  498. 


Fahlbeck,  on  Geatas,  51. 

Falle  of  Princes,  498  ff. 

Fals  Semblant,  397  ff,  490. 

Falstofe,  Sir  J.,  262. 

Fame,  see  Notts  of. 

Fantosme,  Jordan,  1 18. 

Fasciculi   Zizaniorum,  425,  428,   431, 

435- 
Fashions,  265,  ridiculed,  358. 
Fates  of  the  Apostles,  72. 
/•erumbras,  223. 
Fielding,  II.,  224,  336,  517. 
Figaro,  151,  229. 
"File,"  II. 
Filocopo,  325. 
Filoslrato,  294,  299  ff. 
Finsburg,  song  on  the  battle  of,  47. 
Fitzosbern,  William,  103. 
Fitzralph,  Richard,  427,  429  ff. 
Fitzstephen,  202,  460. 
Fitzwarin,  Fulke,  224. 
Fleta,  197. 

Floire  and  Blanchefleur,  142,  229. 
Florence,  mediaeval,  286  ff.,  plague  at, 

320. 
Flower  and  Leaf ,  497,  512. 
Foix,  Gaston  Phebus  de,  273  ff. 
Foliot,  Gilbert,  165. 
Fontevrault,  royal  tombs  at,  109. 
Fools,  feast  of,  452. 
Forme  of  Cury,  263. 
Fortescue,  Sir  John,  518. 
Fouquet,  Jean,  picture  by,  470  ff. 
Four  Elements,  491. 
Four  Sons  of  Ay  mo  n,  223. 
Fournival,  Richard  de,  123. 
Fournivall,  lord,  502. 
Fox,  George,  216. 
Fox  and  Wolf,  228  ff. ,  443. 
Fozlan,  Ahmed  Ibn,  27. 
Fragonard,  455. 
France,  first  inhabitants  of,  3  ff,  a  home 

for  fabliaux,  155  ;  satirised,   360,  see 

French. 
France,  Marie  de,  see  Marie. 
Franciade,  1 14,  339. 
Francis.  St.,  of  Assisi,  159,  429. 
Francis,  St.,  of  Sales.  211. 
Francis  I.,  King  of  France,  101,  253. 
Franciscans,  159  ff.,  165. 
Francus  the  Trojan,  114. 
franklin,  Chaucer's,  314,  325,  390  ff. 
Franks,  22,  23,  25,  27,  in  Beowulf,  49, 

53,  loved  by  Christ,  147. 
Freeman,  Prof.,  28. 


534 


INDEX. 


French,  invasion,  Bk.  ii.,  95  ff.,  fol- 
lowers of  William,  100,  families  and 
manners,  109,  literature  under  Nor- 
man and  Angevin  kings,  Bk.  ii.  c. 
ii.,  116  ff.  ;  language,  in  general  use, 
118  ff.,  at  Court  and  in  Parliament, 
119,  420  ff.,  character,  126  ff. ,  ideal, 
155  ff.,  taught  at  the  University, 
175,  not  known  by  the  "  lowe  men," 
205  ;  used  by  English  authors,  213  ff., 
219  ff.  ;  lusion  of  the,  with  the  Eng- 
lish, Bk.  Hi.  c.  i.,  235  ff.,  in  the 
courts  of  law,  238  ff.,  at  Oxford,  239, 
disuse  of,  239  ff.,  in  diplomatic  rela- 
tions, 240  ff.,  survival  of,  242  ff., 
Chaucer  studies,  273,  spoken  by 
Richard  II.  and  Gaston  de  Foix, 
274,  words  in  Chaucer,  337  ff. ,  used 
by  the  Black  Prince,  353  ff. ,  songs, 
355,  Gower's,  364,  366  ff.,  Lang- 
land's  377,  400,  Mandeville  in,  408, 
not  used  by  Christ,  434,  of  kings  in 
Mysteries,  480. 

Friar,  Chaucer's,  323,  325,  327  ff., 
Diderot's,  328,  derided,  358,  Lang- 
land  s,  384,  429  ff.,  435. 

Friday,  "chidden,"  285,  329. 

"Friend  of  God  of  the  Oberland,"  403. 

Frisians,  22,  27,  in  Beowulf,  53  ;  65. 

Fritzsche,  on  Andreas,  39. 

Froissart,  127,  239,  255,  260,  261,  271, 
273  ff->  3OI>  compared  with  Chaucer, 
317  ff.  ;  340,  404  ff.,  455. 

Furnivall,  F.  J.,  founder  of  the  Early 
English  Text  Society,  Chaucer,  and 
Wyclif  Society,  &c. ,  on  Chaucer's 
tales,  324  ff. 

Gaddesden,  John  of,  194. 

Gaddi,  Taddeo,  286. 

Gaillard,  Claude,  253. 

Gaimar,  113  ff.,  121,  223. 

Galen,  178,  315. 

Galois,  Jean  le,  226. 

Gamelyn,  tale  of,  324. 

Games,  414,  439  ff.,  444. 

Gascoigne,  the  theologian,  451. 

Gaunt,  John   of,   Duke   of   Lancaster, 

272,  280  ff.,  312,  406,  423,  426. 
Gauvain,  141,  259. 
Gawayne  and  the  Green  Knight,  223, 

348  ff. 
Gaytrige,  John,  206. 
Gaza,  Theodore,  524. 
Geatas,  51  ff. 


Genesis  and  Exodus  in  English,  207. 

"  Genius,"  371. 

Genseric,  26. 

Geoffrey,  abbot  of  St.  Albans,  his  play, 

459  ff. 
Geoffrey  the  grammarian,  517. 
Gerald,  see  Barry. 
Gerda,  42. 

Gering,  H.,  on  Gretti,  49. 
Germans,    origin,    manners,    religion, 

war-songs   of  the,   21    ff.,    compared 

with  the  Celts,  240  ff. 
Gerson,  278. 

Gesta  Regiun  Anglorum,  199. 
Gesta  Komanorum,  182,    183,    185   ff., 

496,  501. 
Gibbon,  122. 
Gildas,  67,  132. 

Gilds,  perform  religious  plays,  465. 
Giotto,  206  ff.,  284,  286  ff.,  294. 
Giraldus  Cambrensis,  see  Barry. 
Gladstone,  W.   E.,  on  University  life, 

173- 
Glanville,  Ralph,  196. 
Glascurion,  338. 
"  Globe,"  the,  268. 
Gloucester,  Humphrey,  Duke  of,  152, 

176,  264. 
Gloucester,  Robert  of,  116  ff.,  119,  122, 

221,  243,  404. 
Gloucester,    Thomas,   Duke    of,    277, 

312,  365. 
Goethe,  97. 
Grosseteste,     Robert,    118,    123,    160, 

165,  205,  213  ff,  452. 
Goldborough,  223. 
Golias,  192. 
Gollancz,  3,  39,  70,  75. 
Go'iibert,  156,  324. 
Gospels,  copied  by  Anglo-Saxons,  65, 

in  A.S.,  88,  in  French,  123. 
Gower,  John,  119,  242,  257,  279,  285, 

299.  325.  341,   354,  life  and  works, 

364   ff.,    compared   with   Langland, 

373  ff.,  502  ff.,  510. 
Gower,  Sir  Robert,  364. 
Graal,  quest  of  the,  141. 
Graham,  Sir  Robert,  504. 
Grammar,  A.S.  and  English,  245. 
Granson,  O.  de,  275. 
"  Graund  Amoure,"  347,  496. 
Graystanes,  Robert  de,  166. 
Greek  classics,  523  ff. 
Green,  Mrs.,    on  XVth    century  trade 

and  navy,  514. 


IXDEX. 


535 


Gregory  of  Tours,  49. 

Gregory  the  Great,  St.,  63  ;  translated 

by  Alfred,  81  if.;    123,  153. 
Gregory  IX.,  160,  449  i(.,  463. 
Grein's  Bibliothek,  40,  79. 
Grendel,  50  ff. ,  69. 
Greteham,  Robert  of,  118,  123. 
Greiti  and  Beowulf,  49. 
Grignan,  Madame  de,  57- 
Grim,  of  Grimsby,  223. 
Grimbold,  81. 
Grindecobbe,  405. 
Griselda,    142,  2S9,   325,   331   ff.,  459, 

478. 
Grosvenor,  Sir  Robert,  271. 
Grueber   (and    Keary)   on   A.  S.   coins, 

79- 
Gudrun,  Queen,  44. 
Guesclin,  Du,  115,  156. 
Guinevere,  Queen,  139  ff. 
Guiron,  lay  of,  136. 
Guiscard,  Robert,  107. 
Gulliver,  407. 
Gunnar,  42  ff. 
Guterbock  on  Bracton,  196. 
Guthrum,  80. 
Guy  of  Warwick,  223  ff.,  347,  500. 

Hacon,  King,  200. 
Hadrian,  19. 

Haigh,  D.  H.,  on  Beowulf,  49. 
Hales,  Alexander  of,  193. 

,,       Thomas  of,  211. 
Hali  Meidenhad,  206. 
Hamlet,  57. 
Hampole,  Rolle  of,  207.  life  and  works, 

216  ff.  ;  411. 
Hana'iyng  Synne,  214,  216. 
Hardy,  Sir  T.  D.,  on  Matthew  Paris, 

200. 
Hardyng,  497. 

Harold,  Godwinson,  97  ff.,  198. 
Harold  Hardrada,  98  ff. 
Harrozving  of  Hell,  443,  460. 
Harry,  Blind,  the  minstrel,  506  ff. 
Hartley,  Mrs.,  the  actress,  129. 
Hastings,  battle  of,  Bk.  ii.  c.  i.,  97  ff. 
Haughton,  332. 

Haureau,  on  G.  de  Vinesauf,  180. 
Hauteville,  Jean  de,  177. 
Havelok,  lay  of,  222,  223. 
Hawes,  Stephen,  496,  513. 
Hawk  wood,  Sir  J.,  257,  284. 
Hebenhith,  Thomas  de,  262. 
Hector  of  Troy,  305. 


Helen  of  Troy,  210. 
He  Hand,  7 1 . 

Hell,  painted  by  Giotto,  206,  repre- 
sented at  Torcello,  207.  described, 
2IO,  besieged,  388,  in  Mysteries, 
475,  painted  at  Stratford-on-Avon, 
494. 

H  el  wis,  448. 

Hemingburgh,  Walter  of,  201. 

Hengest,  62,  1 12,  220. 

Hen^ham,  Judge,  238. 

Henry  I.,  Beauclerc,  176. 

Henry  II.  of  England,  106,  108,  109, 
in,  112,  133,  156,  165,  176,  190, 
198,  319. 

Henry  III.,  107  ff.,  112,  200,  201,  262, 

4i7>  44i>  454- 
Henry  IV.,  236,  240,  342,  365,  421. 
Henry  V.,  500. 

Henry  VIL4  202^504,  51 1,  513. 
Henry  VIII.,  242,  342,  436. 
Hemyson,  497,  507  ff.,  513. 
Henslowe,  Philip,  332. 
Hereford,  Nicolas  de,  433. 
Herevvard,  224. 
Hermit  who  got  drunk,  183. 
Herod,  King,  326,  461,  469,  473,  479, 

480  ff. 
Herrtage,  on  Ges/a  Romanorian,  183. 
Hervieux,  on  fabulists,  178. 
Heyroun,  Thomas,  26S. 
Heywood,  Thomas,  500. 
Higden,   Ralph,    201,    236,    240,    258, 

406. 
Higelac  (in  Beowulf),  50  ff. 
Hilary,  his  Latin  plays,  460. 
Hilda,  abbess  of  Streonshalch,  63,  70. 
Hildgund,  48. 
Hincmar,  of  Reims,  63. 
Hippocrates,  315. 
Hirdboc,  81. 

Hist  or  ia  Ajigloi-um,  1 99. 
Historia  ecclesiastica  of  Bede,  67  ff-  >  of 

Orderic  Vital,  198. 
Historia  Novorum,  198. 
Historia  Regum  Britannia,  133  ff. 
Histrions,  440  ff. 
Hniflungs  (Niblungs)  43. 
Hoccleve,  341,  342,  496,  498,   life  and 

works,  501. 
Hohlrield,  on  Mysteries,  466. 
Holinshed,  1 14. 
Holkot,  Robert,  167. 
Holy-Church,  in  Langland,  380. 
Holy-Grail,  223. 


536 


INDEX. 


Homer,  8,  127  ff.,  293,  297,  299,  523. 

Homilies,  English,  206. 

Honecourt,  Villard  de,  200. 

Hood,  Robin,  224,  359,  456- 

Horace,  on  Gauls,  7  ;  177,  180. 

Horn,  223. 

Horsa,  62,  IT2. 

Horstmann,  on  Lives  of  Saints,  208. 

Houghton,  Adam,  415. 

Hous  of  Fame,  279,  285,  291,  294  ff., 

362,  497,  499. 
Hoveden,  Roger  de,  162,  164,  202. 
Hrothgar,  in  Beowulf,  50  ff. 
Hiibner,  baron  de,  58. 
Hugh,  St.,  bishop  of  Lincoln,  165. 
Hugo,  Victor,  3. 
Hugolino,  325,  330. 
Hugon,  of  Constantinople,  146. 
Humour,  Chaucer "s,  317  ff.,   Wyc'.if's, 

434  ff.,  Pecock's,  520. 
Hundred  Years'  War,  202. 
Hungerford,  Sir  Thomas,  251. 
.Huntingdon,  Henry  de,  132,  133,  166, 

177,  199  ff. 
Huntingdon,  earl  of,  284. 
Huon  de  Burdeux,  223. 
Hus,  John,  438. 

Iceland,  its  literature,  40  ff. 

Image  du  Monde,  120. 

Inferno,  1 1 8. 

Ingelend,  491. 

Innocent  III.,  170,  449,  450,  463. 

Innocent  IV.,  173. 

Innocents,  feast  of,  452. 

Invasons,  Germanic,  Bk.  i.  c.  ii.,  21  ff., 

Scandinavian,    22    ff. ,   Frankish,  25, 

33,  Anglo-Saxon,  28  ff.,  Danish,  79  ff., 

French,  Bk.  ii.,  95  ff. 
Ipomedon,  130. 
Ireland,    its    literature,    10   ff . ,  monks 

from,  63  ;  518. 
Irish  language  and  literature,  10  ff.,  at 

the  University,  173  ff. 
Iscanus,  176. 
Iseult,  211,  see  Tristan. 
Isle  of  Ladies,  279,  497. 
Isumbras,  347. 
Italy,  models  from,  copied  by  Chaucer, 

291    ff. ,    travels    in,    283    ff.,    early 

Renaissance  in,  285  ff. 
Itineraries,  517. 
Ivain,  141. 

Jacquerie,  271. 


Jacques  le  Fataliste,  328. 

James,  St.,  393. 

James  I.  of  Scotland,  372,  503  ff- 

„      IV.  „         510,  511. 

Jarrow,  monastery  of,  66. 
Jerome,  St.,  26,  191,  241. 
Jessopp,  Dr.,  on  Matthew  Paris,  200. 
Jew,  Wandering,  201. 
Jews,  saved,  399,  420,  485. 
John  the  Baptist.  St.,  455. 
John,  King,  Lackland,  108,  157,  441. 
John,  King  of  France,  115,  254. 
John,  the  Saxon,  81, 
Johnson,  Dr.,  57. 
Joinville,  404. 
Jonathan  Wild,  336. 
Jonathas,  the  Jew,  485. 
Jones,  Inigo,  476. 
Jongleur,  d'Ely,  44  •■ 
Jonson,  Ben,  456,  522. 
Joseph  and  Mary,  479,  484,  as  a  work 

man,  485. 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,  144,  223. 
Judas,  398. 
Judith,  39,  45-71- 
Jugglers,  439  ff. 
Julian  the  Apostate,  471. 
Juliana,  72. 

Julleville,  Petit  de,  on  Mysteries,  457  ff 
Junius  (F.  Dnjon),  71. 
Jurists,  196  ff. 
Justinian,  26,  50,  120,  250. 
Jutes,  27  ff.,  51. 

Kaines,  Ralph  de,  211. 

Kaluza,  on  Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  278. 

Keary,  C.  F.,  on  Vikings,  44,  on  coins, 

79,  on  Danish  place-names,  80. 
Kellawe,  Richard  de,  176. 
Kenelm,  St.,  208. 
Kent,  Eustache  or  Thomas  of,  130. 
Kent,  John,  290. 

"  King  and  Queen,"  Game  of  the,  444. 
King  Horn,  223. 
King's  Quhair,  505  ff. 
Kings,  Wyclif  on,  432. 
Kitredge,  on  Troilus. 
Kitsun,  522. 
Knight,  Chaucer's,  314,  321,  324,  330, 

5°4- 
Knighton,  on  Wyclif,  436. 
Knights,  in  Langland,  399. 
Knyvet,  John,  416,  417. 
Koch,  on  Chaucer   291. 
Kolbing,  on  romances,  223 


1XDEX. 


537 


La  Calpkenede,  300. 

Lactantius,  77. 

La  Fontaine,  58,  179,  183,  226,  296, 
298,  324,  325,  508. 

Lai  de  I '  Oiselet,  142. 

Lai  dti  Cor,  225. 

Lamartine,  17. 

Lament  for  the  Makaris,  510. 

Lancaster,  Blanche,  duchess  of,  280  ft. 

Lancaster,  Henry  o(,  236,  240,  see 
Henry  IV. 

Lancaster,  see  Gaunt. 

Lancaster,  Isabella  of,  259. 

Lancelot  of  the  Lake,  139  ff.,  192,  480. 

Landscapes,  in  Anglo-Saxon  literature, 
55,  58  ff.,  69  ff.,  71  ff.,  74,  92  ;  in 
Renart,  152,  #  in  Chaucer,  281,  298, 
Scotch,   363,  '508  ff.,  Shakespeare's, 

473- 

Lanfranc,  165,  193. 

Lang,  Andrew,  on  Aucassin,  237. 

Lange,  C,  on  Easter,  458. 

Langland,  William,  37,  240,  262,  345, 
'355'"  332'  lifeand  works,  Bk.  iii.  c. 
iv.,  373  ff-;  422,  436>  441- 

Langlois,  on  Roman  de  la  Rose,  276. 

Langtoft,  Peter  de,  118,  122,  214. 

Langton,  Stephen,  145,  165,  169. 

Lapidaire, -123. 

Latimer.  Hugh,  436. 

Latin,  in  Roman  Britain,  20,  in  A.S. 
Britain,  65  ff.,  in  France,  78,  in 
England  after  the  Conquest,  Bk.  ii. 
c.  iii.,  157  ff.,  used  by  summoners, 
161,  poems,  176  ff.,  fables,  178, 
romances  and  tales,  182  ff.,  treatises 
188  ff.,  chronicles  197  ff. ,  despatches, 
241,  models  of  Chaucer.  291  ff., 
Gower's,  367  ff. ,  Langland's,  377, 
survival  of,  405,  chroniclers,  405  ff., 
Wyclifs,  427  ff.  ;  434  ;  dramas,  457 
ff.,  460,  481. 

Latini,  Brunette,  118,  241. 

Latymer,  impeached,  253. 

Lauchert,  on  Pkysiologus,  76. 

"  Laudabiliter,"  bull,  1 10. 

Launfai,  230. 

Lavoix.  H.,  on  mediaeval  music,  345. 

Laws,  Welsh,  9,  A.S  ,  78,  Roman, 
Anglo- Norman  and  English,  196. 

Lay,  of  Guiron,  222,  of  Havelok,  222. 

Layamon,  219  ff.,  243,  245,  247. 

Lazarillo  de  Tonnes,  184. 

Leechdoms,  A.S.,  79. 

Legende  of  Good  Women,  279,  294.  343. 


Legibus  et  Consuetudinibus  Anglia,  De, 
196. 

Leo  IV.,  Pope  79. 

Leovenath,  219. 

Letters  of  the  Paston  family,  516. 

Leven,  Hugues  of,  265. 

Lewis,  son  ol  Chaucer,  341. 

Lewis,  John,  on  Wyclif,  423. 

Lex  Salic  a,  78. 

Libel  le  of '  Engl y  she  Poly  eye,  517  ff. 

Liber  Festivalis,  208. 

Libraries,  166  ft'.,  175,  524. 

Lincoln  cathedral,  162. 

Lindbergh,  John  of,  215. 

Lindner  on  Roman  nt  of  the  Rose,  278. 

Lionne,  Hugues  de,  255. 

LTsle,  Alain  de,  177. 

Lison,  Richard  de,  147. 

"  Littus  Saxonicum,"  27,  30. 

Lives  of  Saints,  in  A.S.,  76,  by  .Elfric, 
91,  in  French,  121  ff. ,  in  English, 
203,  303,  by  Lydgate,  500. 

Lodbrok,  Ragnar,  58. 

Logeman,  on  A.S.  reliquaiy,  73. 

Logic,  taught  in  the  Universities,  171. 

Lo'ki,  44,  55. 

Lollards,  359,  437  ff. 

"  Lollius,"  289. 

Lombards,  22,  23,  25,  26,  114. 

London,  mediaeval,  268  ff.,  Chaucer's 
life  in,  289  ff.,  pageants  in,  453  i'i., 
Mysteries,  460. 

London  Lickpeny,  498. 

Lonelich,  223. 

Longchamp,  William  de,  162  ff,  178, 
261. 

Lorens,  friar,  214,  215.  325. 

Lorenzetti,  Ambrogio,  287. 

Lorris,  Guillaume  de,  276  ff.,  293. 

Loserth,  on  Hus,  438. 

Lot,  J.,  11. 

Louis  VII.  of  France,  164. 

Louis  IX.  „         no,  201. 

Louis  XL  ,,         519 

Louis  XIV.  „         203,  241,  493. 

Lounsbury,  on  Chaucer,  343. 

Love,  in  Irish  literature,  15  ff.,  in 
Scandinavian  literature,  42,  in  Tris- 
tan, 137  ff.,  in  Arthurian  poems,  139 
ff.,  as  a  ceremonial,  140,  in  chansons, 
143  ff.,  in  Latin  tales,  185  ff.,  in 
English  songs,  230,  poems  by  Chaucer, 
272  ft.,  279.  by  Froissart,  274  ff,  in 
Roman  de  la  Rose,  276  ff.,  in  Boc- 
caccio, 299,321,  in  Chaucer's  Troilus, 


538 


INDEX. 


301  ff.,  in  Gaivayne,  349,  songs,  354, 
in  Gower,  366  ff.,  370  ff.,  in  Lang- 
land,  388,  399,  in  the  early  drama, 
447,  in  Mary  Magdalene,  483  ff., 
"  king  of,"  505,  in  King's  Quhair, 
505  ff.,  written  about  in  prose,  522. 

"Lowe  men,"  their  English,  204  ff., 
and  their  French,  236  ff. 

Lowell,  on  Chaucer,  343. 

Lucanus,  on  Druids,  8  ;   1 14,  293,  297. 

Lumiere  des  la'iques,  120. 

Lutterworth,  423,  426. 

Lydgate,  303,  341,  354,  496,  life  and 
works,  498  ff. ;  502,  513,  515. 

Lyfof  Seinte  Cecile,  291,  294,  325,  331. 

Mabinogion,  9,  17. 

Macaulay,  122. 

Mac  Dathds  Pig,  13. 

Machault,  275,  325 

Machinery,  stage,  474  ff. 

Macphe^on,  16. 

Mael  Duin,  12. 

Magnyfycence,  491. 

Mahomet,  472,  483. 

Mahomet  II.,  524. 

Maidstone,  Richard  of,  207,  454  ff. 

Maldon,  battle  of,  47. 

Male  regie  de  T.  Hoccleve,  502. 

Malmesbury,   William   of,  64,   100  ff. , 

107,   on  Arthurian  legends,   131    ff., 

166,  199. 
Malmesbury,  Monk  of,  197. 
Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  521,  522. 
Malvern,  375  ff.,  382  ff,  394. 
Mandeville,  Sir  John,  403,  406  ff. 
Manure  de  Lattgage,  241. 
Mantel  Mautaille,  226. 
Mannyng,  Robert,  of  Brunne,  214,216, 

243,  462. 
Manuel  des  Peckiez,  213,  216,  463  ff. 
Manuscripts,    A.S-,    45,  purchased  for 

the  king,  259,  rich,  274,  303,  of  the 

Ro7nan  de  la  Rose,  277,  of  Chaucer, 

338,  of  Gaivayne,  351. 
Map,    Walter,     188,    life   and   works, 

190  ff. 
Marcel,  Etienne,  271. 
Marcol,  76. 
Mare,  Peter  de  la,  419,  Thomas  de  la, 

419. 
Marechal,  William  le,  121. 
Margaret,  queen  of  Scotland,  51 1. 
Marguerite,  la,  poems  on,  275. 
Marie  de  France,  142  ff.,  229,  325. 


Marisco,  Adam  de,  193,  211. 

Marivaux,  318. 

Marlowe,  75. 

Marseilles,  king  of,  430  ff. 

Martin,  St.,  of  Tours,  99,  102,  no. 

Mary,  see  Virgin. 

Mary  Magdalen,  St.,  452. 

Mary  Magdalene,  a  drama,  475,  483  ff., 
490. 

"  Masks,"  456. 

Mass,  caricatured,  445. 

Massinger,  496. 

Matthew,  F.  D.,  on  Wyclif,  422,  432. 

Matthew,  see  Paris. 

Maupassant,  Gui  de,  189. 

Maximinus,  emperor,  459. 

May  plays,  456. 

May  songs,  230. 

Measure,  sense  of,  331  ff.,  479. 

Medicine,  194. 

Medwall,  491. 

Meed,  Lady,  383  ff,  397. 

Melibeus,  tale  of,  325,  331,  332,  490. 

Menagier  de  Paris,  332. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  Latin  sketch  of, 
185  ff. 

Merchants,  English,  their  wealth,  256, 
fond  of  art,  258  ff.,  Chaucer's,  318, 
325,  fond  of  songs,  355  ff.,  Gower's, 
369,  Langland's,  383  ff,  400,  of 
London,  424,  at  the  play,  463. 

Merimee,  199. 

Merlin,  134,  141. 

Merovingians,  in  Beowulf,  53. 

Metalogicns,  1S8  ff. 

Meun,  Jean  de,  177,  276  ff. 

Meyer,  Kuno,  4. 

Meyer,  Paul,  on  Alexander  the  Great, 
128,  on  Brut,  219. 

Miller,  Chaucer's,  321,  322,  324,  326, 

335-  478- 

Milton,  71,  72,  245,  456. 

Mimes,  440  ff. 

Miniatures,  A.S.,  45  ;  184,  attributed 
to  Matthew  Paris,  201  ff.  ;  227,  259, 
277,  303.  34L  35 !>  37i»  by  Fouquet, 
470  ff. ;  in  the  MS.  of  the  Valen- 
ciennes Passion,  470 ;  503. 

Minot,  Laurence,  360  ff. 

Min>trels,  221,  345  ff.,  in  Langland, 
382  ;  439  ff. ,  high  and  low,  445  ff. 

Miracle  plays,  459. 

Miracles  de  Notre  Dame,  489. 

Miraclis  pleyinge,  treatise  on,  461  ff., 
468. 


INDEX. 


539 


Mircio,  144. 
Mirk,  496. 

Miroir  de  Justice,  239. 
Minstral,  144. 
Moktader,  Caliph  Al,  27. 
Moliere,  229,  302,  404,  443,  472,  493. 
Monasteries,    their  wealth,    158;    179, 
literary  work  in,    197  ff.,  Wyclif  on, 

437- 
Monk,  Chaucer's,  315,  321,  325,  499. 

Monmouth,  Geoffrey  of,  1 14,   life  and 

works,  132  ff,  182,  297. 
Monsters,  in  A.S.  literature,  50,  55  ff., 

92. 
Montaigne,  97,  323. 
Monteflor,  Paul  de,  264. 
Montesquieu,  255. 
Montfort,  Simon  de,  193,  250. 
Moral  Ode,  206. 
Moralities,  84,  489  ff. 
Moravian  Brethren,  438. 
Morgan  the  fairy,  134,  350. 
Morley,  John,  343. 
Morris,  William,  41. 
Morte  Arthure,  223,  348,  521. 
Moubray,  John  de,  238. 
Mous,  np/andis,  508  ff. 
Mowbray,  family  of,  109. 
Mttntz,  on  Renaissance,  287. 
Musset,  Alfred  de,   139,  141,   143,  302, 

394.  496. 
Mysteries,  326,  332,  459  ff,  decay  of, 
489  ff.,  French,  their  end,  493. 

Napier,  on  Ormulum,  206. 

"Nature,"  her  discourses,  177,  371. 

Nature,  an  interlude,  491. 

Naturis  Rerum,  De,  177,  178. 

Navy,  German  and  Scandinavian,  26 
ff,  Alfred^,  27,  English,  256  ff.,  in 
the  XVth  century,  515,  517  ff. 

Neckham,  Alexander,  177. 

Nennius,  114,  132. 

Netlau,  n. 

Netter,  Thomas,  428. 

Neville,  impeached,  253. 

Nevilles,  family  of  the,  109. 

Newbury,  William  of,  134,  202. 

Nibelungenlitd,  41,  48. 

Niblungs,  41,  43. 

Nicholas  V.,  524. 

Nicholson,  E.  B.,  on  Mandeville,  407. 

Nithard,  78. 

Noah,  his  ark,  201,  his  wife,  484  ff. 

Norfolk,  men  of,  443. 


Normans,  of  France,  Bk.  ii.  c.  i.,  97  ff, 

their  turn  of  mind,  182,  250. 
Norsemen,  27. 
Northgate,  Michel  of,  215. 
Njva  Poetria,  179  ff. 
A/ugis  Curialium,  De,  188  ff.,  190  ff. 
Nunant,  Hugh  de,  162  ff. 
Nutbrown  Maid,  512. 

"  Oblar,"  11. 

Ockham,  193,  194. 

Octa,  220. 

Octavian,  482. 

Odo,  Bishop,  103,  105. 

CEdipus,  129. 

Oesterley,  on  Gesta  Romanorum,    182, 

183. 
Offa,  63,  68,  198. 
Ogier,  147,  156. 
Ohthere,  travels  of,  83  ff 
"  Old  English,"  28. 
Oliver  (and  Roland),  55,  99,  159. 
"  Ollam,"  11. 
Orcagna,  285. 
Orleans,  Charles  d',  354. 
Ormin,  206. 
Orniulum,  206. 

Orosius,  67,  translated  by  Alfred,  82  ff. 
Orpheus,  history  of,  told  by  Alfred,  85, 

ff  ;  338. 

Osric,  King,  87. 

Ossa,  220. 

Ossian,  16. 

Otia  Imperialia,  195. 

Otuel,  223. 

Ovid,  175,  276,  278,  293,  297,  325, 
500. 

Owl  and  Nightingale,  330,  443. 

Oxenede,  John  of,  202. 

Oxford,  University  of,  no,  173  ff.,  248, 
and  Wyclif,  423  ff. ,  council  of,  434, 
lollardry  at,  437  ;  bacchanals  at,  449. 

Pageants,  453  ff,  46S  ff. 

Palice  of  Honour,  510. 

Palladius  on  Husbondrie,  5r6. 

Palmieri,  villa,  320. 

Pamphilus,  175. 

Pandarus,  302  ff. 

Panurge,  151. 

Pardoner,    Chaucer's,   315,    323,    325; 

435- 
Parfait,  the  brothers,  470. 
Paris,  University  of,  169  ff. 
Paris,  Alexander  de,  130. 


540 


INDEX. 


Paris,  Gaston,  135,  14I,  355. 

Paris,  Matthew,  62,  63,  109,  112,  1 14, 
200  ff.,  453,  459  ff. 

Parlement  of  Foules,  294. 

Parliament,  churchmen  in,  160,  institu- 
tion and  authority  of,  249  ff.,  "  good," 
246,  419  ;  Chaucer  in,  312,  Lang- 
land  on,  386,  390  ff.,  sittings  and 
debates,  413  ff. 

Parodies,  444  ff. 

Parson,  Chaucer's,  315,  319,  325,  335, 
339,  355-  Langland's,  359. 

Past  on  Letters,  516  ff. 

Patient  Grissil,  332. 

Patrick,  St.,  215. 

Patroclus,  221. 

Paul,  St.,  62,  his  vision,  92,  206,  215  ; 
426,  472. 

Paul,  monk  of  Caen,  198. 

Pauli,  on  Alfred  the  Great,  84. 

Pearl,  351  ff. 

Peasants,  aspirations  and  revolt  of, 
359,  367  ff-,  389,  40S  ff,  4J2,  reach 
heaven,  381,  in  the  fCVth  century, 
514. 

Pechiez,  see  Manuel. 

Peckham,  Pierre  de,  120. 

Pecock,  Bishop,  520  ff. 

Pedro  the  cruel,  325. 

Pelerinage  de  Charlemagne,  146  ff. 

Penthesilea,  Queen,  129. 

Pepin,  156. 

Percival,  134,  141,  259. 

Percy,  Bishop,  353. 

Percy,  Lord  Henry,  223,  516. 

Pericles,  372. 

Perrault,  on  Griselda,  332. 

Perrers,  Alice,  253,  264,  397,  415,  419. 

Peter,  St.,  435. 

Peterborough,  pseudo  Benedict  of,  202. 

Petite  Philosophic,  120. 

Petrarch,  166,  268,  285,  287  ff.,  meets 
Chaucer  (?)  289,  333  ;  293,  294,  325, 
332,  366,  523. 

Petronius,  33. 

Pharaoh,  480  ff. 

Philip  III.,  of  France,  214. 

Philip  le  Bel,       ,,  193. 

Philip  VI.,  „  159,  360. 

Philippa  of  Hainaut,  Queen,  273. 

Philippa  Chaucer,  272  ff. 

Philohiblon,  167  ff. 

Philpot,  John,  256,  284,  419. 

P/itinix,  76  ff. 

Physiologits,  76  ff. 


Piers  Plowman,  374  ff. ,  490. 

Pilate,  461,  480  ff.,  his  wife,  484. 

Pilgrims,    Canterbury,    313   ff.,    Lang' 
land's,  382  ff. 

Pinte,  the  hen,  150. 

Pisa,  mediaeval,  286. 

Pisa,  Andrew  of,  285,  Nicholas  of,  286, 
William  of,  2S6. 

Pisan,  Christina  de,  277,  501. 

Pizzinghe,  Jacopo,  288. 

"  Placebo,"  379. 

Plantagenet,  Geoffrey,  archbishop  of 
York,  163  ff. 

Players,  446  ff.,  467  ff.,  477. 

Plays,  Bk.  iii.  c.  vi.,  439  ff. 

Plegmund,  81. 

Pliny,  67,  408,  409 

Plowman 's  Crede,  Complaint,  &c,  401  ff. 

Poggio,  293. 

Poictiers,  John  of,  no,  William  of,  100, 
104. 

Pole,  Michel  de  la,  312,  William  de  la, 
417. 

Poucraticus,  188  ff. 

Poliziano,  293. 

Polo,  Marco,  408,  409. 

Poole,  R.  Lane  on  Wyclif,  42S  ff. 

Pope,  the,  William  blessed  by,  99,  and 
Norman  kings,  no,  gives  Ireland 
to  Henry  II.,  no,  derided,  148, 
suzerainty  of,  over  England,  157, 
appeals  to,  158,  and  the  Uni- 
versity, 170,  173  ff.,  praised  by 
Geoffrey  of  Vinesauf,  180,  revenues 
of,  drawn  from  England,  248,  receives 
presents  from  Edward  II.,  259,  has 
no  peer,  263,  Langland  on,  391, 
Commons  hostile  to,  420,  and  Wy- 
clif, 423  ff. ,  on  drama,  449  ff.,  and 
king,  432. 

Pordenone,  Odoric  de,  409. 

Porto,  county  of,  107. 

Powell,  York,  40. 

"  Praemunire,"  248. 

Praise  of  Peace,  370. 

Prest,  Godfrey,  265. 

Pj-icke  of  Conscience,  216. 

Pride  of  Life,  491. 

"  Priests,  simple  or  poor,"  Wyclif 's, 
425  ff.' 

Priests  at  the  play,  450  ff.  ;   463. 

Prioress,  Chaucer's  316,  321,  325. 

Priscian,  175. 

Processions.  357,  449,  453  ff. 

Proprietatibus  Kernm,  De,  195. 


INDEX. 


54i 


Prose,  A.S.,  78  ff.,  English,  211  ff.,  of 
Rolle  of  Hampole,  218,  Chaucer's, 
337,  411  ;  XlVth  century,  Bk.  in.  c. 
v.,  403  ff.,  English,  compared  with 
French,  404  ft",  Wyclif's,  132  ft.,  Sir 
John  Fortescue's,  519  ff.,  Pecock's, 
520,  Malory's,  521,  Caxton's.  521. 

Prosody,  English,  after  the  Conquest, 
205,  245,  Chaucer's,  339,  Lydgate's, 
501,  Hoccleve's,  501. 

Prothesilaus,  130. 

Proverbs  of  Alfred,  88. 

Provins,  Guiot  de,  366. 

"  Provisors,"  24S. 

Pryderi,  17. 

Psalter,  A.S.,  45,  76,  French,  123, 
English,  207,  496. 

"  Pui,"  of  London,  355  ff.,  452. 

Puiset,  Hugh  de,  162  ff.,  261. 

Punch,  520. 

Purgatorio,  294,  295. 

Puritans,  57,  72,  389,  428,  437. 

Purvey,  J.,  433. 

Pytheas,  4,  5. 

Quenouille  de  Barberine,  496. 
Quinctilian,  167. 
Qnintus  Curtius,  131. 

Racine,  Jean,  150. 

Rabelais,  76,   91,  97.    172,   179,    *93, 

259,  440,  471,  492. 
Reason,  speech  of,  385. 
Recluse  women,  211  ff. 
Reformation,  402,  427,  428,  491,  and 

the  drama,  492  ff. 
Regimine  Principum,  De,  501  ff. 
Kegula  Pastoralis,  81. 
Remi,  bishop  of  Lincoln,  162. 
Renaissance,  early    in    Italy,    285    ff.  ; 

346,  476,  510,   523  ff. 
Renan,  E.,  210. 
Renart,  see  Roman  de. 
Repressor,  Pecock's,  520. 
Resurrection,  Mystery  of  the,  466. 
"  Reverdies,"  144. 
"  Rhyme  Royal,"  506. 
Rhys  on  Celts,  1 1 . 
Rhys  ap  Theodor,  198. 
Richard  Cceur-de-Lion,   IOO,  106,  109, 

163,  praised  by  Geoffrey  de  Vinesauf, 

180,  181  ;  329. 
Richard  II.,  109,  247,  253,  264  ff,  274, 

284,  367,  375,  390,  414,  416,  420  ff, 

432,  452,  454  ff.,  495. 


Richard,  bishop  of  London,  196. 

Richard,  canon  of  Holy  Trinity,  180. 

Richard  the  Rede/ess,  375,  382. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  224,  333. 

Richenda,  sister  of  W.  de  Longchamp, 
163  ft". 

Riddles,  A.S.  and  Scandinavian,  72. 

Rigaud,  Eudes,  453. 

Rishanger,  William,  202. 

Robene  and  Makyne,  507. 

Robert  the  Devil,  98,  347. 

Robinson  Crusoe,  403,  407. 

Rocamadour,  393. 

Roet,  Sir  Payne,  273  ;  Catherine,  373. 

Rogers,  Thorold,  514. 

Roland,  54  ff,  99,  100,  126,  139,  147, 
159,  222,  347,  442,  see  Chanson  de. 

Rollo,  99. 

Rolle,  see  Hampole. 

Rolls,  Master  of  the,  Chronicles  ed. 
under  his  direction,  202. 

Roman,  conquest  of  Britain,  18  ff. ;  re- 
mains, 33  ff.  ;  law,  196. 

Roman  de  la  Rose,  213,  259,  273,  276 
ff.,    English    translation    of,    278    ff., 
.  280,  288  ;  291,  298,  325,  371,  490. 

Roman  de  Renart,  132,  144,  147  ff., 
183,  228,  325,  328. 

Roman  de  Rou,  99,  101. 

Roman  de  Thebes,  130. 

Roman  de  Troie,  129  ff. 

Romances,  French,  126  ff.,  caricatured, 
146,  149,  335;  English,  219;  read 
by  Chaucer,  273. 

Rome,  sends  monks  to  England,  60  ft"., 
notion  of  Church  and  State,  derived 
from,  60  ff.,  ties  with,  157  ft".  ;  248, 
blamed,  366,  religious  life  in,  378, 
Langland  on,  391,  encroachments  of, 
420;  432. 

Romulus,  347. 

Ronsard,  97,  114,  339. 

Rood,  A.S.,  dream  of  the,  39,  legends 
of  the,  215. 

Rose,  see  Roman  de  la. 

Rossetti,  on  Troilus,  299. 

Rotelande,  Hue  de,  118,  130,  192. 

Rothschild,  Baron  James  de,  on 
Mysteries,  474. 

Round  Table,  134,  330. 

Rufinus,  Map's  friend,  191. 

Ruin,  59. 

Runes,  65,  72,  73. 

Russell,  John,  264. 

Ruteber.f,  397. 


542 


INDEX. 


Ruthwell  cross,  73. 
Rymenhild,  223. 
Rysshetoun,  Nicholas  de,  241. 

Sachs,  Hans,  332. 

Sacrament,  play  of  the,  466,  485. 

Sad  Shepherd,  456. 

Sagas,  40  ff. 

St.    Albans,    "Scriptorium"   of,    197; 

chronicles    of,    198,    405   ff.  -,    copes 

burnt,    460. 
St.  David's,  32,  198,  261. 
St.  Josaphaz,  123. 
St.    Paul's   Cathedral,    269,   281,    379, 

423.  455- 
Sainte  Madeleine,  484. 
Sainte-More,  Benoit  de,  108,  114,  121, 

129,  177,  299,  404. 
Saladin,  454,  456. 
Salisbury,  John  of,  106,  no,  on  Paris 

University,    172  ff.,  life   and  works, 

188  ff.,  on  jugglers,  440,  471. 
Salomon  and  Saturnus,  75>  443- 
Sanxay,  ruins  at,  30. 
Saracens,  saved,  399  ;  420,  472. 
Sarr,  Ralph  de,  no. 
Sarradin,  on  Des  Champs,  275. 
Satan,  in  A.S.  poems,  72. 
Satires   and    satirical    poems,    French, 

146  ff. ,  Latin,   178  ff.,  English,   225 

ff.,  358,  by  Langland,  391  ff.,  397  ff., 

by  Dunbar,  510. 
"  Saturnalia,"  450,  452. 
Saxons,  22  ft".,  25,  27. 
Scandinavian  Literature,  40  ff. 
Schick,  J.,  on  Lydgate,  498,  501. 
Schmidt,  A.,  on  Mary  Magdalen,  483. 
Sciences,    among     Anglo-Saxons,    79, 

under  Angevin  kings,  193  ff.  ;  410  ff. 
Scogan,  341. 
Scot,  Duns,  193. 
Scotland,  poets  of,  362,  503  ff. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  362. 
"  Scriptoria,"  197. 
Scroby,  Allan,  452. 
Scrope,  Sir  R.,  271. 
Scyld,  50. 
Seafarer,  59. 
Secret  des  Secrets ;  120. 
Secretion  Secretornm,  500. 
Secunda  Pastorum,  486  ff. 

■ins,  522. 
Selred,  Ring,  87. 
Seneca,  278. 
Scuticr  batu,  444. 


Sergeant,  L.,  on  Wyclif,  422,  427. 

Sergeant,  Chaucer's,  318,  325. 

Sermons,  A.S.,  88  ff.,  French,  123  ff., 
Latin,  146,  with  "  exempla,"  154, 
English,  205  ff.,  in  Chaucer,  335, 
354,    in  Langland,  387,    by  Wyclif, 

434- 
Serpent  of  Division,  499. 
Severus,  Emperor,  19. 
Sevigne,  Madame  de,  242. 
Shakespeare,  57,  93,  97,  134,  144,  244 

ff.,  269,  302,  338,  441,  458,  472  ff, 

476  ff.,  482,  484,  492,  494,  523. 
Shareshull,  William  de,  416. 
Shepherds,  play  of,  457,  483,  4866". 
Sheridan,  517. 

Shipman,  Chaucer's,  314,  325. 
Shoreham,  William  de,  207,  215. 
Shows,  453  ff. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  279,  343,  473,  512. 
Sidonius  Apollinaris,  33. 
Siege  d1  Orleans,  a  drama,  459. 
Sienna,  mediaeval,  287. 
Sievers,  E.,  on  Csedmon,  71. 
Sigfried,  42. 

Simon,  bishop  of  Ely,  421. 
Simpson,  W.  S.,  on  St.  Paul's,  379. 
Siriz,  Dame,  447  ff 
Skeat,  W.  W.,  243,  244,  on  Langland, 

375,  on  Testament  of  Love,  522. 
Skelton,  372,  491. 
Skirni,  42. 
Smith,    Lucy   Toulmin,   on  Mysteries, 

466  ;  499. 
Socrates,  193,  278. 
Soderhjelm,  on  Horn,  223. 
Solomon,  King,  372,  380. 
So  in  me  des  Vices  et  des  Vertus,  214,  215, 

325- 
Songs,    "  Goliardois,"    192   ;    English, 

230  ff. ,  349,  at  Christmas,  450  ff. ; 

512. 
Sophocles,  476. 
Sorel,  Albert,  255. 
Southwark,  269,  313,  326,  365. 
Speaker,  the,  251,  418,  419. 
Spectator,  296. 
Speculum  Charitatis,  446. 
Speculum  Meditantis,  366. 
Speculum  Stultorum,  178  ff. 
Speeches,  in  Parliament,  236,  242,  413 

ff. 
Spencer,  H.,  see  Despencer. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  343. 
Spont,  on  Chaucer,  284. 


INDEX. 


543 


Squire,  Chaucer's,  314,  325. 

Squyr  of Lowe  Degre,  347. 

Stations  of  Rome,  517. 

Stafford,  earl  of,  419. 

Stage,  the,  Bk.  iii.  c.  vi.,  439  ff. 

Stamford-bridge,  98. 

State,  Roman  idea  of,  60  ff.,  Wyclif  on 
the  rights  of,  423  ff.,  430  ff. 

States  General,  in  France,  254. 

Statins,  128,  293,  297,  495. 

Stephen,  King,  106,  108,  133. 

Sterne,  225. 

Stilicho,  26. 

Stoker,  Whitley,  11. 

Stonehenge,  4. 

Stow,  J.,  460. 

Strasbourg,  Gotfrit  of,  135  ff. 

Stratford-at-Bow,  French  of,  240 

Strode,  Ralph,  290,  299,  364. 

Stuarts,  253,  362,  456,  503. 

Stubbes,  Philip,  346. 

Stury,  Sir  Richard,  284,  377. 

Sudbury,  Simon,  415,  431. 

Sudre,  on  Renart,  147. 

Suffolk,  Duke  of,  256,  354. 

Sully,  Maurice  de,  206. 

Summoners  or  Somnours,  161,  Chau- 
cer's, 325. 

Swalwe,  John,  414, 

Swedes,  in  Beowulf,  53. 

Sweet,  H.,  37,  45. 

Swevenyng,  Book  of,  243. 

Swift,  225,  336,  407,  520. 

Swinburne,  134,  136  ff. 

Swithin,  St.,  209. 

Swynford,  Thomas,  241. 

Tabard  inn,  313  ff.,  342,  365,  382. 

Taborites,  438. 

Tacitus,  7,  9,  12,  20  ff.,  29,  31  ff.,  36, 
46,  66,  73. 

Taillefer,  at  Hastings,  99. 

Taine,  H.,  394,  and  Preface. 

Talbot,  J.,  earl  of  Shrewsbury,  497. 

Tale,  tales,  moralised,  123,  French, 
152  ff,  Latin,  182  ff.,  English,  225, 
of  the  Basyn,  226,  of  Beryn,  320, 
and  short  stories,  320  ff. ,  of  GamelyH, 
324,  of  Meliheus,  325,  331,  332, 
490,  by  Gower,  370,  told  by  his- 
trions,  441,  by  Dunbar,  510. 

Tapestries,  262. 

Tattufe,  229. 

Temple  of  Glas,  498  ff. 

Ten  Brink,  39,  on  Chaucer,  291. 


Tennyson,    17,  47,   134,   244,    342  ff., 

and  Preface. 
Terence,  167. 
Teseide,  294,  324. 
Tesoroni,  on  Ceadwalla,  63. 
Testament  of  Cresseid,  507. 
Testament  of  Love,  279,  522. 
Teutonic  races,  22  ff. 
Thaon,  Philippe  de,  123. 
Thebes,  Story  of,  303,  497  ff. 
Theobald,   archbishop   of   Canterbury, 

196. 
Theodebert,  50. 
Theodore  of  Tarsus,  68. 
Theodoric  the  Great,  26,  61,  84. 
Theseus,  duke  of  Athens,  330. 
Thierri,  king  of  Austrasia,  50. 
Thomas,  author  of  Horn,   in  French, 

223. 
Thomas,  author  of  a  Tristan,  134. 
Thompson,  Maunde,  45,  406,  428,  433. 
Thopas,  Sir,  325,  335,  340,  346. 
Thor,  44,  62. 
Thornton,  Gilbert  of,  197. 
Thornton  Romances,  347. 
Thorpe,  W.,  416. 
Thre  La-wes,  a  comedy  by  John  Bale, 

491. 
Thrissil  and  the  Rois,  5 1 1 . 
Thrush  and  Nigh' ingale,  230,  443. 
Thurkill,  215. 

Thurot,  on  the  Paris  University,  170  ff. 
Thynne,  F.,  343. 
Tiberius,  473. 
Til  Ulespiegle,  325. 
Tilbury,  Gervase  of,  195. 
Titus,  19,  106. 
Torcello,  mosaic  at,  207. 
Tort,  Lambert  le,  130. 
Tour  Landry,  Kt.  de  la,  265,  516. 
Tournaments,  109,  227,  260. 
Towneley  Mysteries,  466  ff. 
Toynbee,  on  Mandeville,  407. 
Trade,  English,  256  ff,  514  ff,  517  ff. 
Travels,   by    Englishmen,    257    ff.,    in 

France,   Bohemia,  Italy,   282,  ff.,  of 

Mandeville,  403,  406  ff. 
Treasures  in    Scandinavian    literature, 

43,  in  A.S.  literature,  52  ff. 
Trees,  not  to  be  cut,  266. 
Trevisa,  John  of,   195,   201,  225,  240, 

406. 
Triall  of  Treast/re,  49 1 . 
Tristan  and  Lseult,   134  ff,   211,  222, 

273-  372. 


544 


INDEX. 


Trivet,  Nicholas,  202.  325. 

Trogus  Pompeius,  33. 

Troilus  (and  Cre  sida),  130,  293  ff. ,  298 

ff-<  339.  346.  364-  370,  372,  4".  454- 

497.  5°°-  5°7.  512- 
Trojans,  ancestors  of  European  nations, 

in  ff. 
Trojan  War,  176. 
Trokelowe,  John  de,  202. 
Troy  Book,  498  ff. 
Troyes,  Chrestien  de,  140. 
Tudors,  456,  490. 
Turname?it  of  Totenkai/i,  227. 
Tundal,  215. 

Tunstall,  Sir  Marmaduke,  427. 
Turks,  besiege  Constantinople,  524. 
Turpin,  archbishop,  126. 
Tybert,  the  cat,  149  ff,  184,  510. 

Uccello,  Paolo,  257. 

Ulysses,  500. 

"  Unam  Sanctam,"  bull,  432. 

University  of  Paris,   169  ff.,  of  Oxford 

and  Cambridge,  173  ff.,  181  ff. 
Uplandis  Mous,  508. 
Urban  VI.,  426. 
Usener,  on  Boece,  85. 
Usnech,  13. 
Utopia,  387. 

Vacaritjs,  196. 

Valenciennes  Passion,  470. 

Valerius  (alias  Map),  1 91. 

Valkyrias,  42,  60,  223. 

Vandals,  22,  23,  26. 

Vandois,  438. 

Venus,  described  by  Chaucer,   292,  by 

Gower,  365,  372,  by  James  I.,  506, 

see  Complaint. 
Vercingetorix,  6. 
Vespasian,  19. 

•'Vice,"  in  Moralities,  491  ff. 
Vices  et  Verttts,  see  Somme. 
Vieil  Testament,  Mystere  du,  472  ff. 
Vigfusson,  G.,  40. 
Vigny,  Alfred  de,  156. 
Vikings,  4,  44. 
Villon,  366,  498,  510,  520. 
Vinesauf,  Geoffrey  de,  179  ff.,  329. 
Virgil,   128,    167,    177,    186,    285,   293, 

295.  299,  393-  495-  499.  5ID- 
Virgin   Mary,    123,    183,    184    ff.,   215, 

231,  see  Joseph. 
Visconti,  Barnabo,  284,  325. 
Visions,  of  St.  Paul,  Tundal,  Thurkill, 


St.  Patrick,  215,  of  Rolle  of  Ham- 
pole,  217,  concerning  Piers  Plowman, 
373  rf. 

Vital,  Orderic,  62,  100,  104,  198,  202. 

Vitry,  Jacques  de,  154,  155,  409. 

Vocabulary,  237  ff.,  after  the  Conquest, 
243  ff.,  of  Chaucer,  338,  367,  of 
Langland,  400,  in  the  XVth 
century,  517. 

Voifure,  66. 

Volsungs,  41. 

Voltaire,  325. 

Volucraire,  123. 

Vox  and  Wolf,  152. 

Vox  Clamantis,  366  ff. 

Wace,  on  Hastings,  99,  101  ;  114,  121, 

134,  214,  215,  219  ff.,  404. 
Wadington,  William  of,   118,  123,  213, 

on  drama,  463  ff. 
Waldhere,  41,  47,  48. 
Wales,   partly  conquered    by  William, 

104,    105,    described   by   Gerald   de 

Barry,  188;  see  Welsh. 
Walhalla,  41,  60,  61. 
Wall,  of  Hadrian,  18. 
Wallace,  William,  506. 
Walsingham,  Thomas,   200,   201,  359, 

405  ff. ,  412  ff.,  on  Wyclif,  424,  426, 

427. 
Walter,  archdeacon  of  Oxford,  133. 
Walter  the  Englishman,  177. 
Walter,  Hubert,  196. 
Waltheof,  224. 
Walworth,  Sir  William,  284. 
Warner,  G.  F  ,  on  Mandeville,  406. 
Wanderer,  59 
Wandering  Jew,  201. 
War-songs,  Germanic,  46,  A. S.,  46  ff, 

65- 

Ward,  H.  L.  D.,  on  Beoivulf,  49,  on 

Map,   192. 

Warwick,  see  Guy. 

Washbourne,  Richa  d,  414. 

Waterford,  Geoffrey  de,  120,  123. 

Waurin  Jean  de,  122. 

Weber,  H.  W.,  on  Romances,  223. 

Wedmore,  peace  of,  80. 

"  Wednesday,"  62. 

Weeping  Bitch,  154,  184,  447  ff,  484. 

Weland,  49. 

Welsh  language,  5,  laws,  9,  literature, 
17,  47,  legends  on  Arthur,  131,  tra- 
ditions, 2IQ. 

Wendover,  Roger  de,  200  ff. 


INDEX. 


545 


Werferth,  bishop  of  Worcester,  83,  86. 

Wesley.  216,  438. 

Westminster  Abbey,  342. 

Wry,  William,  517. 

Whitsuntide  plays,  459. 

Whittington,  Richard,  256. 

Widsith,  38. 

Wife  of  Bath,  191,  316,  318,  324,  325, 
370,  461,  462. 

Wife's  Complaint,  59. 

Wilfrith,  St.,64,  66. 

William  the  Conqueror,  98  ff.,  1 10, 
in,   116,   157,  198,  247. 

William  Rufus,  158,  414. 

William  of  Palerne,  223,  348. 

Willibrord,  St.,  64. 

Winchester,  Godfrey  of,  177. 

Windisch,  11. 

Winfrith  (St.  Boniface),  64. 

Wireker,  Nigel,  178  ff. 

Woden,  29,  58,  60  ff.,  65,  69,  80. 

Woman,  in  Celtic  literature,  15  ff.,  in 
Scandinavian  literature,  42,  in  A.S. 
sermons,  90,  in  Chanson  de  Roland, 
125  ff.,  in  chansons,  144  ff.,  sati- 
rised by  Map,  191,  in  English  songs, 
230  ff.,  in  Chaucer,  303  ff.,  332  ff., 
in  Boccaccio,  308,  321,  in  Gawayne, 
349,  excluded  from  the  Pui  Society, 
357,  satirised,  358,  369,  in  Langland, 

387. 
Women,  see  Legend. 


Woodkirk  Mysteries,  465  ff. 
Worcester,  Florence  of,  202. 
Wordsworth,  343. 
Workmen,  London,  in  Chaucer,   315, 

singing,  355,  St.  Joseph  one  of  them, 

485  ff. 
Wren,  Christopher,  269. 
Wright,  Aldis,  on  Robert  of  Gloucester, 

122. 
Wright's  Chaste  Wife,  496. 
Wulfstan,  the  homilist,  89. 
Wulfstan,  the  traveller,  84. 
Wulfstan,  bishop   of   Worcester,    112, 

209. 
Wiilcker,  on  Csedmon,  71. 
Wyclif,  154,  218,  389,  life  and  works, 

422  ff.,  520  ff. 
Wyclif  Society,  427. 
Wykeham,  WTilliam  of,  175,  261,  416  ff. 
Wyntoun,  Andrew  de,  496. 

Year  books,  118,  238  ff. 

Ymagynatyf,  376. 

York  plays,  465  ff.,  their  end,  493. 

Ypres,  John  of,  424. 

Ysengrin,  149  ff. 


Zeno,  Apostolo,  332. 
Zimnier,  11. 
Zupitza,    on   Beowulf 
Warwick,  224. 


48,  on  Guy  of 


36 


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