No More Learning

In wealth of
synonym it is equal to the best poems of Cynewulf, while the
construction of the sentences is simpler, and the narrative, in
consequence, less obscure. An impression of intensity is produced
by the heaping of synonyms in moments of stress, as in the prayer
of Judith, and in the fierce lines which describe the onset against
the Assyrians ; while a sense of dramatic fitness is shown in the
transitions, the divisions of the cantos and the preparation for
each great adventure. The tragedy is alive, and the actors play
their parts before our eyes.
The patriotic feeling which probably gave rise to Judith was
certainly responsible for the second great poem of our period, the
Battle of Maldon, sometimes called Byrhtnoth's Death. The
manuscript of this poem was destroyed by the Cottonian fire;
but it had, fortunately, been printed by Hearne in 1726, and it is
from his text that our knowledge of the poem is derived. It
celebrates the death of the great ealdorman Byrhtnoth, who was
connected by close ties of kinship with Aethelmaer, the friend of
Aelfric; it was, indeed, partly by means of legacies left by him
that Aethelmaer was enabled to support so generously the monastic
revival, and it is, therefore, fitting that he should be commemorated
by one of the finest poems in Old English. In the poem before
us he stands out as the ideal leader of men, admirable alike in his
devotion to his king, his simple piety and his sense of responsi-
bility towards his followers. He died as became a member of
the race that thirsts for danger, almost the last of the warriors
of that time who maintained the noble tradition of the days of
1 Oth. A. xa.
• Tacitus, Hist. V, 19.


## p. 144 (#164) ############################################

144
Alfred to the Conquest
From
Alfred. In less than twenty years after this date, the chronicler
tells a pitiful story of divisions between those who should have
united to lead the people to battle, and of forced payment of the
shameful tribute which Byrhtnoth refused.
It was in the year 991 that the Northman Anlaf sailed with
ninety-three ships to the coast of England, and, after harrying
Stone, Sandwich and Ipswich, came to Maeldune (now Maldon)
on the banks of the river Panta or Blackwater. The stream
divides here into two branches, and, leaving their ships at anchor
in one of them, the Danes drew up their forces on the intervening
piece of land. The poem, the beginning and end of which are lost,
opens with the directions of Byrhtnoth to his men, and tells how,
after marshalling his troops, he exhorted them to stand firm,
taking his place among the band of his immediate followers. At
that moment there appeared on the other side of the stream the
viking herald, who said that he was sent by the seamen to
announce that, if Byrhtnoth would buy off the assault with tribute,
they would make peace with him and return to their own land.
But Byrhtnoth scornfully rejected the offer, saying that he would
give tribute, indeed, but it should be the tribute of the sharp spear
and the ancient sword, and their only booty would be battle. With
this message he bade his men advance to the edge of the stream;
but, owing to the inflowing flood after the ebb, neither army could
reach the other, and they waited in battle array till the tide's
going out. Then Byrhtnoth, overweeningly daring, trusting too
much in his own strength, allowed the enemy to cross by the
bridge (probably one of stepping-stones which would be covered
at high tide), and the fight became fierce. “The time had come
for the fated men to fall; then was a tumult raised, the raven,
eager for carrion, hovered in the air, and on earth was a great
cry. ” On every side fell the heroes; a kingman of Byrhtnoth was
wounded, and, at last, the brave earl himself was slain by a poisoned
spear. With his last words he exhorted his men to resistance, and
died commending his soul to God. True to the noble traditions
of the heroic age, Aelfnoth and Wulfmaer shared his fate and fell,
hewn down by the heathen beside their lord. Then cowards began
to flee and seek safety in the woods, forgetting the brave words
they had spoken when feasting in the mead-hall. But Aelfwine,
the son of Aelfric, shouted to those fleeing, reminding them of
their vows, and declaring that none among his race should twit
him with flight, now that his prince lay fallen in battle, he who
was both his kinsman and his lord His brave words were taken


## p. 145 (#165) ############################################

The Battle of Maldon
145
up by Offa and Dunnere; and the warriors advanced to a fresh
attack. The appearance amongst the defending ranks of Aeschere,
son of Ecglaf, a Northumbrian hostage, is of great interest, as it
seems, for a moment, to give us a vivid glance of the political
troubles of the land. The poem ends by telling how Godric
exhorted his comrades and fought fiercely against the heathen
till he, too, fell.
This brief outline may, perhaps, give some idea of the great
interest of the poem, whose every word is filled with deep hatred
against the marauding foe, and with dignified sorrow for the loss
of beloved friends. The verse is as noble as the deed and instinct
with dramatic life. In it we see the heroic feeling of the earlier
national poetry, full of the Teutonic theme of loyal friendship and
warlike courage. And not until many hundreds of years have elapsed
do we find its equal in tragic strength. It is from this stirring
narrative, from Wulfstan's address to the English and from the
bitter records in the Chronicle, that we realise the degradation
of the country during the unhappy reign of Aethelred.
The remaining poems of our period in the old alliterative
metre are of a didactic character. Among them may be mentioned
the Menologium or poetical calendar, which is prefixed to a
version of the Chronicle'. It is an interesting metrical survey
of the progress of the year, with special mention of the saints'
days observed by the church, preserving some of the Old English
names of the months, such as Weodmonad (August), Winterfylleð
(October) and Blotmona8 (November), and retaining traces of
heathen times, though the whole is Christian in basis. Its value,
as poetry, depends on the tender feeling for nature shown in such
passages as those which describe the coming of May, tranquil
and gentle, with blossoming woods and flowers, or winter, which
cuts off the harvest with the sword of rime and snow, when all is
fettered with frost by the hest of the Creator, so that men may
no longer haunt the green meadows or the flowery fields.
Of more literary value is the poem entitled Be Domes Daege,
a free version of the Latin poem De Die Judicii, by some scholars
ascribed to Bede and by others to Alcuin. The 157 lines of the
Latin original are expanded to 304 by the translator, whose
imaginative gift is especially visible in the way he enlarges on a
hint from his source. The opening passage is extremely beautiful.
i Cott. Tib. B. I.
· Found in a unique manuscript in the library of Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge.
E. L I. CH, VII.
10


## p. 146 (#166) ############################################

146 From Alfred to the Conquest
It tells how, as the author sat lonely within a bower in a wood,
where the streams murmured among pleasant plants, a wind sud-
denly arose that stirred the trees and darkened the sky, so that his
mind was troubled, and he began to sing of the coming of death.
He describes how he wept and lay upon the earth, beating his breast
for sorrow, and he calls upon all his fellow sinners to confess their
sins with tears and to throw themselves on the mercy of Christ.
Then comes another highly imaginative passage, describing the
terrors that will foretell the second advent. “All the earth
shaketh, and the hills also quiver and fall; the gates of the
mountains bend and melt, and the terrible tumult of the stormy
sea fearfully frights the minds of men. " Then the Lord shall come
with hosts of angels, the sins of all shall be revealed and fire
shall consume the unrepentant. The poem ends with a passage,
partly borrowed from the Latin, on the joys of the redeemed.
They shall be numbered in heaven among the angels, and there,
amidst clusters of red roses, shall shine for ever. A throng of
virgin souls shall wander there, garlanded with flowers, led by
that most blessed of maidens who bore the Lord on earth.
The translation is one of the finest in Old English. It is far
more powerful than its Latin original, and many of the most
beautiful passages are new matter put in by the Old English
translator; for example, the lengthening of the opening, telling
of the woodland scene, the section on the terrors of judgment
and hell, and the whole passage describing Mary leading the
flower-decked maiden throng in Heaven.
In the same manuscript occurs another poem to which its
editor, Lumby, gave the title of Lar, and which he ascribed to
the author of the previous poem. It has, however, none of the
imaginative power of Be Domes Daege, and consists simply of
eighty lines of exhortatory verse addressed by one friend to an-
other, bidding him work, fear God, pray, give alms and go to
church in cold weather. And, since the length of life is unknown,
and the enemies of man are ever at hand to assail him, they must
be routed by earnest prayer and meditation, and the abandonment
of all bad habits. The low poetical worth of this piece would seem
to show that it was not by the translator of Be Domes Daege.
Next follow in the manuscript some curious verses, of which
each line is half in Latin and half in English, and which were
formerly also attributed to the author of Be Domes Daege. The
poems, however, differ so much in merit that this theory must
certainly be rejected. The further theory that the invocation


## p. 147 (#167) ############################################

147
Be Domes Daege
of saints in these verses shows that it was not by the author of
Be Domes Daege is, however, scarcely sound, for it disregards
contemporary theology and overlooks the English verses in praise
of the Virgin added by the translator of that poem. Hence our
truest warrant for attributing these verses to a different author
lies rather in the beauty and dignity of Be Domes Daege. The
hymn in question is an ingenious piece of trickery, like many a
Provençal poem of later date. It opens with a prayer for God's
mercy on the reader, and then goes on to speak of the incarnation,
ending with an invocation to Mary and the saints. These verses,
however, are of inestimable value metrically, since they show, by
their Latin equivalents, the two-beat character of the rhetorical
verse, just as similar Old German poems show, by their far greater
length in the Latin portions, the four-beat character of Germanic
sung verse.
More interesting are the eleventh century metrical versions of
the Psalms, in a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale. This
MS contains only Psalms 1 to cl, but Bouterwek discovered further
fragments in a Benedictine office, which partly fill up the gaps,
and point to the existence of a complete metrical version of the
Psalter in Old English. Taken altogether, however, this Bene-
dictine office is merely a heap of fragments. The translation is,
as a rule, good, when play is given to love of nature or to feelings
common in Old English poetry. An isolated version exists of
Psalm 1 in Kentish dialect, which was formerly supposed to
belong to the eighth century, but which is shown, by its language,
to be two hundred years later. It was not, apparently, one of
a series, but was complete in itself, being rounded off at the close
by a short hymn-like passage on David's sin and his atonement.
A gloomy poem on The Grave, “For thee was a house built
Ere thou wast born,” etc. , written in the margin of a volume of
homilies in the Bodleian and known to all readers of Longfellow
and many beside, need not detain us long. It is, probably, of latere
date than any of the poems already referred to and shows signs of
the coming metrical change.
Last, there must be mentioned a poem on the city of Durham,
which, though not composed within our period, is the latest in
the classical rhetorical metre that is known to exist, and is, there-
fore, most suitably described in this place. One versions was
printed by Hickes in his Thesaurus (1703—5), and another copy
· Cott. Vesp. D. v. 1.
* NE. F. 4, 12.
3 Cott. Vitt. D. 20.
!
10-2


## p. 148 (#168) ############################################

148
Alfred to the Conquest
From
occurs at the close of a manuscript of the Historia Ecclesia
Dunelmensis of Simeon of Durham in the University Library,
Cambridge. The poem, which contains twenty long lines, falls
into two parts, the first eight describing the city on the hill,
surrounded with steep rocks, girdled by the strong flowing river,
full of many kinds of fish, and environed by forests in whose deep
dells dwell countless wild beasts; while the last twelve tell of the
wonderful relics preserved there, memorials of Cuthbert and
Oswald, Aidan and Eadberg, Eadfrith and bishop Aethelwold,
as well as of the famous writers Bede and Boisil, which, amidst
the veneration of the faithful, awaited in the minster the dooms-
day of the Lord. It is this catalogue of saints which enables us
to fix the date of the poem, for the translation of their relics to
the new cathedral took place in 1104, and the poem follows closely
the order of enumeration found in Simeon of Durham's description
of that ceremony! Although it is written in a strained archaistic
attempt at West Saxon spelling, yet we catch many clear glimpses
of south-eastern twelfth century phonology in its faulty attempts
at correctness.
After 1100, English poetry ceases to exist for nigh a hundred
years, although fragments remain to bear witness to that popular
verse which was to keep in the west midlands and north some
continuity with the old poetry-for the sung rhythm never died
out amongst the common folk, and rose ever and anon to such
songs as that of The Pearl, to heroic lays of Arthur, Alexander
and Troy and, in our own days, has been revived in the rhythm of
the mystic Christabel.
English prose was wrecked for many a hundred year. Centuries
elapsed before Aelfric had his equal again.
Capitula de Miraculis et Translationibus S. Cuthberti, Cap. VI.


## p. 149 (#169) ############################################

CHAPTER VIII
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
THE Norman conquest of England, from a literary point of
view, did not begin on the autumn day that saw Harold's levies
defeated by Norman archers on the slopes of Senlac. It began
with the years which, from his early youth onwards, Edward the
Confessor, the grandson of a Norman duke, had spent in exile in
Normandy; and with his intimacy with “foreigners" and its
inevitable consequences. The invasion of Norman favourites,
which preceded and accompanied his accession to the throne, and
their appointment, for a time, to the chief places in church and
state, led to the tightening of the bonds that bound England to
the Roman church, and paved the way for the period of Latin
influence that followed the coming of William, Lanfranc and
Anselm.
The development of the old vernacular literature was arrested
for nearly a hundred and fifty years after Hastings; and, as the
preservation of letters depended on ecclesiastics, professed scholars
and monastic chroniclers of foreign extraction, the literature of
England for practically a couple of centuries is to be found mainly
in Latin. Happily for England, her connection with the continent
became intimate at a time when Paris, “the mother of wisdom,"
was about to rise to intellectual dominance over Europe.
Of the national vernacular literature of France, at the time of
the Conquest, little was transplanted to English soil; but, in the two
centuries that followed, the cultivation of romance, aided by
“matter" that had passed through Celtic hands, flourished exceed-
ingly among the Anglo-Norman peoples and became a notable
part of English literature.
The development of Old English literature, as we have said,
was arrested. It was by no means, as some have urged, lifeless
before this break in its history; and speculation would be futile
as to what might have been its future, had there been no Norman
conquest. Where so much has been lost, there is no safety in


## p. 150 (#170) ############################################

150
The Norman Conquest
sweeping generalisations, based upon what is left. As a whole,
the evidence which we possess shows Old English literature
to have been richer than that of any other European nation
during the period of its most active life; and, though there
was, apparently, throughout Christian Europe, a lowering of
letters, in which England shared, during “the gloom and iron
and lead” of the tenth century, yet the lamps of learning and of
literature, though low, were not extinguished in this island. It was
the age of Dunstan, a lover of ballads and music and illuminated
missals and precious jewels and letters, a learned saint, a dreamer
of dreams, a worker in metal, the reformer of Glastonbury, a states-
man and teacher who "filled all England with light. " It was, as
we have seen, the age of Aelfric, in whose hands Old English prose
had been fashioned from the condition in which we find it in the
early days of the Chronicle, and in the days of Alfred, into an
instrument capable of expressing different kinds of thought in
ways of lightness and strength. And it was the age, certainly,
of The Battle of Maldon and of Brunanburh, and, possibly, of
Judith also. Old English poetry had proved itself capable of
expressing with notable aptitude, and with grave seriousness, the
nobler views of life.
A period of warfare with the Danes follows, during which
monasteries like that of Cerne, in Dorset, are sacked, and litera-
ture wanes; but there is evidence that the national spirit, fostered
by the beneficent rule of Canute, was strong in England in the
days preceding the coming of the Conqueror; and it is but
reasonable to assume that this spirit would not have withered
away and become a thing of naught, had Harold won, instead of
lost, the battle of Hastings. The main stream of its literary
expression was dammed at that time, and portions of it were
turned into other, and, so far as we can now see, into better,
because more varied, channels; but, when the barriers were
gradually broken down, and the stream regained freedom of
action, it was not the source that had been vitally altered—this
had only been changed in ways that did not greatly modify its
main character—but, between altered banks, and in freshly
wrought-out channels, the old waters ran, invigorated by the
addition of fresh springs.
Into what the folk-songs, of which we have faint glimmerings,
were about to develop, had there not been an interregnum, we
know not; but the literary spirit of the people, though they were
crushed under their Norman masters, never died out; it had little


## p. 151 (#171) ############################################

The Coming Change 151
or no assistance at first from the alien lettered classes; and, when
it revived, it was "with a difference. ”
There had not been wanting signs of some coming change.
Already, in pre-Conquest days, there had been a tendency to seek
some "new thing. " A growing sense of the existence of wonder-
ful things in the east, of which it was desirable to have some
knowledge, had led an unknown Englishman to translate the story
of Apollonius of Tyre into English. The marvellous deeds of the
Lives of the Saints had already proved that a taste for listening to
stories, if not, as yet, the capacity to tell them with conscious
literary art, grace and skill, was in existence. And, in addition to
this, we learn from the list of books acquired by Leofric for Exeter
cathedral, sixteen years only before the battle of Hastings, that
the love for books and learning which had inspired Benedict
Biscop and Dunstan had by no means died out; of some sixty
volumes, many were in English and one is the famous “mycel
Englisc boc" “ of many kinds of things wrought in verse," from
which we know much of the little we do know concerning Old
English literature.
The facility with which Englishmen adopted what Normans
had to give was, in some measure, due to the blood-relationship
that already existed between the two races. Scandinavian sea-
farers, mated with women of Gaul, had bred a race possessing
certain features akin to those of the Teutonic inhabitants of
England. It was a race that, becoming “French,” adapted itself
rapidly to its new surroundings, soon forgetting its northern home
and tongue; and, when it was master of England, further barriers
between race and race were soon broken down. The Norman con-
quest of England differed altogether from the English conquest of
Britain. The earlier conquest was a process of colonisation and gave
the land an almost entirely new population, with entirely new
thoughts and ways of looking at things, save in the borderlands
of the “Celtic fringe"; the later brought a new governing, and
then a new trading, class, and added a fresh strain to the national
blood without supplanting the mass of the people. Intermarriage,
that would begin, naturally enough, among Norman serving-men
and English women, spread from rank to rank, receiving its
ultimate sanction when Anselm crowned Matilda as Henry's queen.
Sooner or later the Norman, whether of higher or of lower degree,
adopted England as his country, spoke and acted as an English-
man and, before the Great Charter, that is to say, a hundred and
fifty years after the battle of Hastings, when the French homes of


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152
The Norman Conquest
Normandy and Anjou had been lost, the mixture of the invading
race and the conquered people was approaching completion. The
more stolid native had been touched with “finer fancies" and
“lighter thought"; the natural melancholy of the Old English
spirit had been wedded to the gaiety of the Norman; and England,
“meri Ingeland,” in due season was recognised to be
a wel god land, ich weno ech londe best,
Iset in the on ende of the worldo as al in the west;
The see geth him al aboute, he stond as in an yle;
Of fon1 hii dorre the lasse doute-bote hit be thorz gyle
of folo of the sulve? lond, as me hath iseye zwilo 84,
in language that irresistibly recalls the “fortress built by Nature
for herself,” the “happy breed of men,” the "little world,” the
“precious stone set in the silver sea,” the “ blessed plot, this earth,
this realm, this England,” of Shakespeare. So it came to pass
that, though, as the immediate result of the Conquest, Norman-
French became the exclusive language of the rich and courtly
nobles and ecclesiastics, knights and priests, and Latin the
exclusive language of learning-the conduits thus formed tending
inevitably to trouble the isolated waters—yet the language
in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes,
and among the serfs, and the outlaws in the greenwood, and
"lowe men” generally, was the unforbidden, even if untaught,
English of the conquered race. And, contrary to the expectation,
and, perhaps, the desire, of the governing class, it was this
language which, in the end, prevailed.
The gain to English literature that accrued from the Norman
conquest in three directions is so great as to be obvious to the
most superficial observer. The language was enriched by the
naturalisation of a Romance vocabulary; methods of expression
and ideas to be expressed were greatly multiplied by the incursion
of Norman methods and ideas; and the cause of scholarship and
learning was strengthened by the coming of scholars whose reputa-
tion was, or was to be, European, and by the links that were to
bind Paris and Oxford.
In a less obvious way, it gained by the consequent intercourse
with the continent that brought our wandering scholars into
1 Of foes they need the less fear-unless it be through guile.
s formerly.
Robert of Gloucester.
2 game.


## p. 153 (#173) ############################################

The Wisdom of the East
153
connection with the wisdom of the east. It is not to be forgotten,
for instance, that, for three or four hundred years, that is to say,
from about the ninth to about the twelfth century, Moham-
madanism, under the rule of enlightened caliphs in the east and in
the west, fostered learning and promoted the study of the liberal
arts at a time when many of the Christian kingdoms of Europe
were in intellectual darkness. Harun ar-Rashid was a contem-
porary of Alcuin, and he and his successors made Baghdad and the
cities of Spain centres of knowledge and storehouses of books.
The Aristotelian philosophy, which had a commanding influence
over the whole of the religious thought of the west during the
Middle Ages, was known, prior to the middle of the thirteenth
century, chiefly through Latin translations based upon Arabic
versions of Aristotle; and the attachment of the Arabs to the
study of mathematics and astronomy is too well known to call for
comment. Our own connection with Mohammadan learning during
the period of its European predominance is exemplified in the
persons of Michael Scot; of Robert the Englishman or Robert de
Retines, who first translated the Coran into Latin; of Daniel of
Morley, East Anglian astronomer, scholar of Toledo and importer
of books; and of Adelard or Aethelard of Bath, who, in many
wanderings through eastern and western lands, acquired learning
from Greek and Arab, who translated Euclid and who showed his
love of the quest for knowledge in other than purely mathemati-
cal ways in his philosophical treatise De Eodem et Diverso, an
allegory in which Philocosmia, or the Lust of the World, disputes
with Philosophia for the body and soul of the narrator.
The Christian learning of the west received fresh impetus in the
middle of the eleventh century at the hands of Lanfranc, who
made the monastic school at Bec a centre famous for its teaching,
and who, when he came to England, to work for church and state,
did not forget his earlier care for books and learning. It was
under Lanfranc's direction that Osbern, the Canterbury monk,
wrote his lives of earlier English ecclesiastics, of St Dunstan and
St Alphege and St Odo; and he gave generously to the building
of St Albans, a monastery which, under the abbacy of Lanfranc's
well-beloved kinsman Paul, encouraged the spirit of letters in
its specially endowed scriptorium, and so led the way to the
conversion of annalist into historian illustrated in the person of
Matthew Paris.
A consideration of the writings of Lanfranc himself falls outside
our province; they consist of letters, commentaries and treatises


## p. 154 (#174) ############################################

154
The Norman Conquest
on controversial theology. Prior to his appointment as arch-
bishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc had been mainly responsible for
the refutation of the "spiritual” views concerning the Eucharist
held by Berengarius, who, following in the footsteps of John
Scotus (Erigena) opposed the doctrine of Real Presence. Lanfranc's
disputation helped largely to strengthen the universal accept-
ance of the doctrine of transubstantiation throughout the Roman
church; and, as the chief officer of the English church, in the
years of its renovation under William, his influence could but tend
towards placing English religious life and thought and, therefore,
English religious literature, more in harmony with the religious
system of Europe.
Lanfranc's successor in the see of Canterbury was his fellow-
countryman and pupil, Anselm ; perhaps less of a statesman, but
a greater genius, a kindlier-natured and larger-hearted man and a
more profound thinker. As one of the greatest of English church-
men, who fought for the purity and liberty and rights of the
English church, we may claim Anselm as English, and we may
rejoice at the place given him in the Paradiso in the company of
Bonaventura and John Chrysostom and Peter “the devourer"
of books, but the consideration of his writings, also, falls rather to
the historian of religious philosophy. Inasmuch, however, as the
result of Anselm's fight against kingly tyranny led to the Charter
of Henry I and so prepared the way for the Great Charter that
followed a century later, he must be mentioned among those who
took part in the making of England.
The reflection in English literature of the gradual construction
of this new England will be seen more clearly when we have passed
through the interval of quiescence that prevailed in vernacular
letters after the Conquest. The literature of church and state
and scholarship was for those who knew Latin; and the literature
that followed the invaders was for those who were taught French;
the struggle for supremacy between native and alien tongues was
fought out; and, when the first writers of Transition English
appear, it is seen that the beaten Romance has modified the con-
quering Teutonic. The early days appear to be days of halting
steps and curious experiment; and, naturally, the imitation of
foreign models seems greater at first than later, when the naturali-
sation, or, rather, the blending, is nearer completion. Even the
manuscripts of these early days, in their comparatively simple
character, show that the vernacular is in the condition of a “poor
relation. " Writers in English were at school under the new masters


## p. 155 (#175) ############################################

Norman Gifts
155
of the land, whose cycles of romance, including much that was
borrowed from the adopted country, and, therefore, much that
was easily assimilated, afforded, both in respect of form and
of matter, excellent material for translation for many a year,
until, in fact, the clipped wings had had time to grow again.
As before hinted, we do not know the extent of what we lost,
and we cannot, with any advantage, proceed far on the road of
aesthetic comparison between old and new. We must be content,
therefore, to recognise to the full the gifts of the Norman race, and
these were not confined to the making of literary English. For, as
an outward and visible sign, still remaining in many places to
testify, with the strengthening of our literature, to the change in
art that accompanied the change in blood, and that gave expression
to the change in thought, there stand the buildings erected
throughout the land, as William of Malmesbury said, “after a style
unknown before. ”
After the axe came the chisel; and this change of tool, which
helps us to follow the steps that mark the development of
Anglo-Norman architecture, may symbolise the development of
language and letters in England under Anglo-Norman kings, a
development that had begun years before the Conqueror had
landed. When inflections had been well-nigh lopped off, and
the language had been made more copious by additions to its
ornamental vocabulary, the new “smiths of song"-whether
graceless minstrel or ascetic priest-were able to give more
adequate expression to the work of their hands and to branch out
into less imitative ways. They were beating out the material in
preparation for the coming of Chaucer.


## p. 156 (#176) ############################################

OHAPTER IX
LATIN CHRONICLERS FROM THE ELEVENTH TO THE
THIRTEENTH CENTURIES
Of all the literary monuments of the remarkable revival of
learning which followed the coming of the Normans, and which
reached its zenith under Henry II, the greatest, alike in bulk and
in permanent interest and value, is the voluminous mass of Latin
chronicles compiled during the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries.
So ample is the wealth of this chronicle literature, and so full and
trustworthy is its presentment of contemporary affairs, that few
periods in our history stand out in such clear and minute relief as
that of the Norman and Angevin kings. Priceless as these docu-
ments are to the modern historian, they are far from being, as a
whole, the colourless records which concern the student of political
and constitutional movements alone. Many of them may have but
little charm or distinction of style, and may appear to be nothing
better than laboriously faithful registers of current events. They
all, however, after their quality and kind, bear the marks of a
common inspiration, and the meanest chronicler of the time felt
that, in compiling the annals of his own country, he was working in
the tradition of the great historians of antiquity. Some few of the
chronicles are real literature, and show that their writers were well
aware that history has its muse.
While a scholarly delight and an honest pride in their art were
common to all the English chroniclers of the Norman and Angevin
period, not a few of them found an additional incentive in royal
and aristocratic patronage. Much of the activity of the twelfth
century historians was palpably due to the favour shown to men of
letters by the two Henrys, and to the personal encouragement of
princely nobles like earl Robert of Gloucester, and courtly eccle-
siastics like Alexander, bishop of Lincoln. Some of the monastic
writers enjoyed no such direct patronage; but they were none the
less responsive to the demands of the time. They not only felt the
impulse of the new learning—they were conscious of living in a
great age, and of witnessing the gradual establishment in England


## p. 157 (#177) ############################################

England and Normandy 157
of a new and powerful kingdom. Nothing is more significant than
the way in which the Anglo-Norman chroniclers, whether native
Englishmen or Normans domiciled in England, reflect the united
patriotic sentiment which it was the design of Norman statesman-
ship to foster. Though composed in a foreign tongue, these
chronicles are histories of England, and are written from a
national English standpoint. It was under Henry I, whose marriage
with Matilda seemed to symbolise the permanent union of the two
peoples, that a new sense of national self-consciousness began to
grow out of the Norman settlement. A shrewd observer of the next
generation, Walter Map, tells us that it was Henry who effectually
“united both peoples in a steadfast concord ? . " It was Henry's reign
also that witnessed the transfer of the central seat of Norman power
from Normandy to England. William of Malmesbury, himself half-
Norman, half-English, in his account of the battle of Tinchebray,
reminds his readers that it was fought “on the same day on which,
about forty years before, William had first landed at Hastings”-a
fact which the chronicler characteristically takes to prove "the
wise dispensation of God that Normandy should be subjected
to England on the same day that the Norman power had
formerly arrived to conquer that kingdom. ” In other words,
England now became the predominant partner in the Anglo-
Norman kingdom, and the twelfth century chroniclers are
fully alive to the meaning of the change. As the dreams of a
great Anglo-Norman empire began to take shape in the minds of
the new rulers of England, and came to be temporarily realised
under Henry II, the English historiographers rose to the height of
their opportunities with patriotic ardour. No other country pro-
duced, during the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, anything
to be compared with the English chronicles in variety of interest,
wealth of information and amplitude of range.
So wide is their
outlook, and so authoritative is their record of events, that, as
Stubbs observes, “it is from the English chroniclers of this period
that much of the German history of the time has to be written. ” The
new England had become conscious of her power, and of her growing
importance in the international economy of Europe.
In literature the most signal expression of that consciousness
is the work of our Latin chroniclers. Thus, however unattractive
much of this chronicle literature may be to the ordinary reader,
there belongs to all of it the human interest of having been
· De Nugis Curialium, Dist. v, Cap. v.
3 Gesta Regum Anglorum, Bk. v.
: Lectures on Medieval and Modern History, p. 125.


## p. 158 (#178) ############################################

158
Latin Chroniclers
written under the pressure of great events and the stimulus of a
glowing national feeling.
Even apart from patriotic incentives, there were other in-
fuences at work during the twelfth century which made for the
study and the writing of history. The Norman settlement in
England synchronised with a movement which shook all western
Christendom to its foundations. The crusades not only profoundly
stirred the feelings of Europe-they served indirectly to quicken
the imagination and stimulate the curiosity of the western races
as nothing had done for centuries. Intercourse with the east, and
the mingling together of different tribes in the crusading armies,
brought about a “renascence of wonder” as far-reaching in some
of its effects as the great renascence itself. The twelfth century
is, above all, the age of the birth of modern romance. The insti-
tutions of chivalry, the mystic symbolism of the church, the
international currency of popular fabliaux, the importation of
oriental stories of magic and wizardry-all contributed to the
fashioning of the fantastic creations of the medieval romances.
And of the romantic cycles none came to have so speedy and
triumphant a vogue as that which was named, originally in France,
"the matter of Britain. " This “matter of Britain" had its beginning,
as a formative influence in European literature, in the work of an
Anglo-Norman writer, who, while professing to draw his information
from a suspiciously cryptic source and frequently giving obvious
rein to his own imagination, assumes none the less the gravity and
the deliberate manner of an authentic chronicler. Geoffrey of
Monmouth, ambitious of supplying what previous writers had
failed to tell about the kings of Britain before the coming of the
English, wrote a chronicle which had all the charm and novelty of
a romance of adventure. King Arthur, as a romantic hero, is
Geoffrey's creation. Hence, the most readable Latin chronicle
of the twelfth century is one that has the least real claim to that
title. But the History of the Kings of Britain is no more to be
ruled out of a place in the chronicle literature of England than it
is to be ousted from its assured pre-eminence as the fountain-head of
Arthurian romance. For Geoffrey's legends not only wrought their
spell upon innumerable poets and imaginative writers, but con-
tinued for generations to disturb the waters of history, and to
mystify a long line of honest and laborious chroniclers.
Geoffrey's History, whatever opinion may be held as to its
author's methods and motives, well illustrates in its general style
and manner the ambitious designs of the greater Anglo-Norman


## p. 159 (#179) ############################################

Characteristics of the Chroniclers 159
chroniclers. Those of them who aspire to write history, as distin-
guished from mere contemporary annals, are studious both of
literary ornament and of the symmetry and proportion of their
narrative. Compiling and borrowing, as Geoffrey professes to do,
from previous chroniclers, they all endeavour to impart some new
life and colour to their materials. They take the great Bede as-
their native master in the art of historical writing. But, for their
literary models, they look beyond him, and seek, like William of -
Malmesbury, to "season their crude materials with Roman art? . "
Even minor chroniclers, like Richard of Devizes, who confine them-
selves to the events of their own time, are fond of adorning their
pages with classical allusions or quotations. Henry of Huntingdon
is even more adventurous, and enlivens his narrative with frequent
metrical effusions of his own. Most of them endeavour, according
to their ability, to be readable, arming themselves, as Roger of
Wendover does, against both “the listless hearer and the fastidious
reader" by “presenting something which each may relish," and so
providing for the joint "profit and entertainment of all. ”
But, far more than their embellishments of style, their fulness
and accuracy of detail and their patriotic motives, what gives life
and permanent interest to the Anglo-Norman chronicles is the
sense which they convey of intimate relationship with great men
and great affairs. Even those chroniclers who do not pretend to
write history on the larger scale, and only provide us with what
Ralph of Diceto, in describing his own work, calls “outlines of
histories,” imagines historiarum, for the use of some future philo-
sophic historian—even they succeed in conveying to us something,
at least, of the animation of the stirring age in which they lived.
They describe events of which they themselves were eye-witnesses;
they preserve documents to which they had special privilege of
access; they record impressions derived from direct contact with
great statesmen, warriors and ecclesiastics; they retail anecdotes
gathered from the cloister, the market-place and the court. For
even the monastic chroniclers were not the mere recluses of the
popular imagination. They were, in their way, men of the world,
who, though themselves taking no active part in public affairs,
lived in close intercourse with public men. The great abbeys, such
as those of Malmesbury and of St Albans, were open houses,
constantly visited by the mighty ones of the land. William of
Malmesbury tells us how bis own monastery was distinguished
for its “delightful hospitality,” where "guests, arriving every
1 Preface to Gesta Regum Anglorum. * Preface to Flowers of History.


## p. 160 (#180) ############################################

160
Latin Chroniclers
and chronnalpb to
hour, consume more than the inmates themselves ? . " Even the
most remote of monastic writers, such as William of New-
burgh in his secluded Yorkshire priory, kept in such close touch
with contemporary affairs as fully to realise their dramatic sig.
nificance. “For in our times,” he writes in the preface to his
English History, “such great and memorable events have hap-
pened that the negligence of us moderns were justly to be
reprehended, should they fail to be handed down to eternal
memory in literary monuments. ” Other monkish writers, like
Matthew Paris in a later generation, enjoyed the royal confidence,
and occasionally wrote under royal command. Moreover, not all
the chroniclers were monks. Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of
Hoveden, Ralph of Diceto and the author of the chronicle often
wrongly ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough-not to mention
writers like Giraldus Cambrensis and Walter Map, who have left
behind them records scarcely distinguishable from contemporary
chronicles—were all men who lived in intimate association with
the court. So much store, indeed, came, in time, to be set upon
the records of the chroniclers that they became standard authori.
ties to which kings and statesmen appealed for confirmation of
titles and the determination of constitutional claims. The con-
ditions under which they were composed, and the importance
which they once had as documents of state, are alone more than
sufficient sanction for the provision made by " the Treasury, under
the direction of the Master of the Rolls," for the publication of those
editions in which they can best be studied by the modern reader.
“Of the several schools of English medieval history," writes
Stubbs”, “the most ancient, the most fertile, the longest lived and
the most widely spread was the Northumbrian. " At its head stands
the great name of Bede, the primary authority and the pattern of
most of the Latin historians of our period. The first conspicuous
representative of the northern school of chroniclers in the twelfth
century is Simeon, precentor of the monastery of Durham, and
he, like many historiographers after him, makes Bede the founda-
tion of the early part of his history. His second source of
information, covering the period from the death of Bede down
to the beginning of the ninth century, was the lost Northumbrian
annals known to us through Simeon alone. From the middle
of the ninth century down to 1121 he borrows his matter
almost entirely from the chronicle of Florence of Worcester and the
clers that came, in cate associ
Gesta Regum Anglorum, Bk. v.
3 Preface to Roger of Hoveden's Chronicle, Rolls Series.


## p. 161 (#181) ############################################

The Northern School
161
first continuator of the latter. The rest of Simeon's narrative, ex-
tending to the year 1129, probably represents his own independent
work. Little is known of Simeon's life, and it is impossible to deter-
mine whether he was the actual compiler, or merely the editor, of the
chronicle which bears his name. His work, however, had a high
repute throughout the Middle Ages, and his fame was second only
to that of Bede among the writers of the Northumbrian school.
Simeon's chronicle was continued down to the close of the reign of
Stephen by two priors of Hexham. The elder of the two, Richard,
wrote an account of the Acts of King Stephen, and the Battle of
the Standard, which contains much original information. His son,
John, brought the narrative down to the year 1154, and is an
independent authority of considerable value. Another north-
countryman, the canonised Ailred or Ethelred, a Cistercian monk
of Rievaulx, claims a place among the many chroniclers who wrote
of the battle of the Standard. His account is neither so full nor so
trustworthy as that of Richard of Hexham, but is somewhat more
ambitious, in that it professes to give, after the manner of the
classical historians, the speeches of the rival leaders before the
encounter. For a brief period about the middle of the twelfth
century there was, in Northumbria as elsewhere, a curious break
in the activity of the chroniclers. But, in the next generation, two
writers who worthily uphold the traditions of the northern school
appear in William of Newburgh and Roger of Hoveden. William
confines himself to his own times; but Roger attempts a compre-
hensive history of several centuries, and, gathering his materials
from the best available authorities, gives us what Stubbs calls
" the full harvest of the labours of the Northumbrian historians. ”
The first Latin chronicler of any importance who belongs to
southern England is Florence of Worcester, already mentioned as
one of Simeon of Durham's main sources. Florence's work is notable
as being the first attempt in England at a universal history beginning
with the Creation and embracing within its compass all the nations
of the known world. But, as the title of his chronicle-Chronicon
ex Chronicis-frankly indicates, Florence is not much more than a
laborious compiler from the works of others; and he took as the basis
of the early portions of his narrative the universal chronicle of
Marianus Scotus, an Irish monk of the eleventh century. Marianus,
in his turn, is, so far as English history is concerned, only a com-
piler from Bede and the Old English Chronicle. He brings his
record of events down to the year 1082, but it is so fragmentary
and perfunctory in its treatment of English affairs as to give
E. L, I. CH. IX.
11


## p. 162 (#182) ############################################

162
Latin Chroniclers
Florence abundant opportunities for interpolation and addition.
Florence's account of his own times, which closes with the year
1117, possesses much independent value, and was largely drawn
upon by subsequent chroniclers. It is less valuable, however, than
its continuation by John, another monk of Worcester, from 1117
to 1141. A second continuation, down to 1152, was based mainly
upon the work of Henry of Huntingdon. The task of still further
extending Florence's chronicle seems to have become a special
concern of the monks of St Edmundsbury, for it is to two inmates
of that house that we owe two other additions to it which continue
the record, without a break, down to the very end of the thirteenth
century.
Neither Simeon of Durham nor Florence of Worcester can be
called a historian in any high sense. Both are, at best, but
conscientious annalists, making no effort either to present events
in their wider relations of cause and effect, or to adorn their
narrative with any studied literary graces. The earlier portions
of the chronicle which bears Simeon's name are, indeed, embellished
with frequent poetical quotations, but the work, as a whole, is as
barren of literary ornament as that of Florence. Literature of a
somewhat richer colour, and history of a higher order, are found in
the writings of two of their contemporaries, one, like them, a pure
Englishman, the other a Norman born on English soil-Eadmer
and Ordericus Vitalis. Eadmer, the follower and intimate friend
of Anselm, wrote in six books a history of his own times down to the
year 1122—Historia Novorum in Anglia—which is full of fresh
and vivid detail. In his preface Eadmer justifies the historian who
confines himself to a narrative of contemporary events; the difficulty
of obtaining an accurate knowledge of the past had convinced
him that none deserved better of posterity than he who wrote
a faithful record of the happenings of his own lifetime. His
immediate purpose, he tells us, is to give an account of the relations
of his master Anselm with William II and Henry I, and especially
of the dispute about the investiture. But, as he anticipates, bis
task will oblige him to illustrate at many points the history of
England before, during and after the investiture quarrel. While
the main interest of Eadmer's work is ecclesiastical, and, in the last
two books, turns largely upon the affairs of the see of Canterbury,
it throws much valuable light upon the general political and social
conditions of the time. Written with what William of Malmesbury
calls “a chastened elegance of style",” Eadmer's History is
i Preface to Gesta Regum Anglorum.


## p. 163 (#183) ############################################

Eadmer and Orderic
163
distinguished most of all by its design and sense of proportion. "
Eadmer is almost modern in his deliberate limitation of himself to a
period and a special subject upon which he could speak as a first-
hand authority. His example in this respect was not without
its effect upon more than one historiographer of the next gene-
ration. Richard of Devizes and the author of the Acts of
Stephen are chroniclers who make up for the brevity of their
narratives by the graphic force which belongs only to a contem-
porary record. In addition to his History, Eadmer wrote a Latin
life of Anselm, and upon all that concerns the character and the
work of that great prelate there is no more trustworthy authority.
Ordericus Vitalis, the son of Norman parents but born in
Shropshire in 1075, was a writer of much more ambitious scope
than Eadmer. His voluminous Ecclesiastical History, borrowing
its title from Bede's great work, extends from the beginning of the
Christian era down to the year 1141. It is in thirteen books, and
represents the labour and observation of some twenty years of the
writer's life. It is a characteristic product of the cloister. The
church, and all that concerns it, are, throughout, uppermost in
Orderic's mind, and determine his standpoint and design as a
historian. But he had sufficient curiosity and knowledge of the
world to gather and place on record a vast amount of information
about mundane affairs. Taken over to Normandy to be educated
at the early age of ten, he spent his life as a monk of St Evroul;
but he was not without opportunities of travel, and he paid at least
one visit to England for the express purpose of collecting material
for his History. Although he is often inaccurate in his chronology,
and confusing in the arrangement of his matter, Orderic is one of
our standard historical authorities for the Norman period. He is
especially valuable for the information he gives as to the condition
of Normandy itself during the eleventh, and part of the twelfth,
century, and his History deals even more with continental than with
English affairs. Yet he always prided himself upon his English
birth; he even called himself an Englishman, and could, in
Freeman's words, “at once admire the greatness of the Conqueror
and sympathise with the wrongs of his victims. ” Orderic's very
defects of arrangement and order as a chronicler were the result
of a curiosity and a range of interest which add much to the value
of his work as a minute and varied contemporary record. He tells
us much that is not found elsewhere about the social conditions of
his time, about property, about the monastic profession and even
about the occupations, tastes, pastimes and personal appearance
11-2


## p. 164 (#184) ############################################

164
Latin Chroniclers
of prominent men. His style is, in many places, highly rhetorical.
Of it, as a whole, “an English reader," writes dean Church, “may
best form an idea by combining the Biblical pedantry and doggerel
of a Fifth-monarchy pamphlet of the seventeenth century with the
classical pedantry of the most extravagant burlesque of Dr Johnson's
English ? . "
Contemporary with Eadmer and Orderic, William of Malmes-
bury is a much greater historian, and, to the literary student, a far
more attractive writer, than either. Milton's opinion, that “both
for style and judgment " William is “ by far the best writer of all”
the twelfth century chroniclers', still holds good. William, as many
incidental confessions in his History show, had high ambitions as
an author, and aspired to restore to the historian's art the dignity
and the splendour with which it had been invested by the illus-
trious Bede. His design is to tell, artistically yet critically, all
that is known about his country's history from the first coming of
the English, and, especially, as he informs us in his preface, to
“fill up the chasm of two hundred and twenty-three years" after
Bede, which Eadmer had left altogether unnoticed in his Historia
Novorum. William's chronicle is in two parts. The first, divided
into five books, is called a History of the Kings of England, and
extends from A. D. 449 to 1127. The second part, entitled Historia
Novella or Modern History, is in three books, and brings the
narrative down to the year 1142. These histories represent but a
small portion of William's entire literary work, for he was one of
the most prolific writers of his time; his other productions
include a history of the prelates of England, a life of St Wulfstan
and a history of the church of Glastonbury. William of Malmesbury
possessed many of the highest qualifications of a historian; he had
learning, industry, judgment and a wide knowledge of the world
He was, for his day, a considerable traveller, and was, both by
temperament and training, a discriminating, as well as an inquisitive,
student of life and character. He is thus singularly free from the
prejudices and the narrow standards of the cloister. Although he
himself claims that his mixed blood' is a guarantee of his im-
partiality, he has not escaped the suspicion, among modern critics,
of having been something of a time-server. He had, however,
a thoroughly disinterested love of history as a study and as an
1 St Anselm, p. 140.
? History of England, Bk. rv, p. 172 (1st ed. 1670).
3 In the preface to the third book of his History William says that "the blood of
the two peoples flows in [his) veins," and that he is therefore qualified to "stear a middle
course” between racial partisans.


## p. 165 (#185) ############################################

165
William of Malmesbury
art; and the task of writing the history of England presented
itself to him as a patriotic duty, all the more clearly incumbent
upon him because of the “criminal indolence” of those who might
have continued the work of Bede? .
Bede, then, is William's great exemplar, and the fount of his
inspiration-Bede, with whom “was buried almost all knowledge of
history down to our own times," and whose praises William protests
that he has "neither the abilities nor the eloquence” adequately
to blazon? For the materials of the earlier portions of his
History William states that he searched far and wide; and,
while he borrowed from nearly every known work of his time,
he evidently draws upon other sources which have not been
identified. But he by no means borrows indiscriminately. He
sifts and selects his material, and cautions his readers against
accepting the testimony of his authorities too implicitly. That he was
not, however, so very much in advance of his time is shown by the
fact that he, in company with more credulous chroniclers, gravely
records marvels and seemingly supernatural occurrences as
authentic historical events. The evidence of a respectable eye-
witness is, in most of these cases, sufficient warrant for unques-
tioning belief. Anecdotes, also, of every kind, seem to have had -
a peculiar charm for William, and, at the end of his third book,
he quaintly excuses his fondness for including them in his History
by saying that, “if I am not too partial to myself, a variety of
anecdote cannot be displeasing to any one, unless he be morose
enough to rival the superciliousness of Cato. ” To the modern
reader, who looks for literary entertainment as much as for
authentic history, William's ingenuous habits of reminiscence,
of quotation, of anecdotal digression and of sententious comment
add much to the personal charm and vivacity of his narrative.
He is at his best, however, when he brings all his powers of
rhetoric and his faculty of pictorial writing to bear upon the
description of some great event or stirring public movement.
His graphic account of the first crusade, for example, has about
it a spaciousness and a wealth of colour which all but rival the
glowing periods of Gibbon.
This ardent love not only inspired the continental provinces, but even all
who had heard the name of Christ, whether in the most distant islands or
savage countries. The Welshman left his hunting, the Scot his fellowship
with vermin, the Dane his drinking-party, the Norwegian his raw fish. Lands
were deserted of their husbandmen; houses of their inhabitants; even whole
* Bk. 1, ch. 3.
* Bk. 11, prol.


## p. 166 (#186) ############################################

166
Latin Chroniclers
cities migrated. There was no regard to relationship; affection to their
country was held in little esteem; God alone was placed before their eyes.
Whatever was stored in granaries, or hoarded in chambers, to answer the
hopes of the avaricious husbandmen or the covetousness of the miser, all, all
was deserted; they hungered and thirsted after Jerusalem alone.
Even this brief passage serves to show that William was a writer
who could make the dry bones of history live, and who had an
artist's instinct for the salient and significant features of the
panorama of events which the historian has to depict upon his
canvas. The muse of history needs, for her highest service, the
aid of the imagination ; and William of Malmesbury's pre-
eminence among the twelfth century chroniclers is due to the
art which enabled him to give a picturesque setting to his
narrative without any sacrifice of accuracy in circumstantial
detail. For he still holds his place among historians as a high
authority, not quite so impartial, perhaps, as he professes to be
in his judgments of individuals, but singularly clear and trust-
worthy in his presentment of events. William, after all, wrote
under the direct patronage of a great noble, and it was only
natural that he should have paid some deference to the wishes
and interests of earl Robert of Gloucester. Yet, even in Historia
Novella, written at Robert's request to describe the struggle
between king Stephen and the empress Maud, in which Robert
himself played a prominent part, the substantial truth of William's
narrative remains unassailed
Of the early twelfth century chroniclers, Henry of Huntingdon
enjoyed, for generations, a popular repute second only to that of
William of Malmesbury. Modern criticism, however, has largely
destroyed Henry's claims to rank as a first-rate historical authority,
and in neither style, accuracy, nor fulness of detail is be worthy of
any serious comparison with William. Henry himself appears to
have rated his powers at quite as high a value as William's; for he
prefaces his chronicle with a floridly rhetorical and ambitious
disquisition upon the "prerogatives” of history. But he possessed
neither the learning nor the patient industry of William, and
his studied endeavours after rhetorical ornament only serve to
accentuate his pretentiousness by the side of his great monastic
compeer. Henry was a secular clerk, who lived under the
patronage, first of Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln, and after-
wards of his successor, Alexander of Blois. It was, as he tells
us, by command of Alexander that he wrote his History of the
English, and he probably compiled the greater part of it between


## p. 167 (#187) ############################################

Henry of Huntingdon 167
1125 and 1130. The work was dedicated to Alexander; and the
prefatory letter ends, characteristically, with an invocation in
verse both of the Divine blessing and of the approbation of his
episcopal patron. The entire History, frequently revised and
extended, ends with the year 1154. Its earlier portions are
borrowed, with many embellishments, from Bede and the Old
English Chronicle. In many places Henry simply translates from
the old English annals, and among his translations is a metrical
version, though much curtailed, of the famous song on The Battle
of Brunanburh. Henry prided himself on his accomplishments in
verse, and his History is decorated with many poetical passages.
Of his work, as a whole, the best that can be said is that it
shows some sense of design, and of proportion in its execution ;
he treats of the history of England up to his time as dividing
itself naturally into the four periods of the Roman, the Saxon, the
Danish and the Norman occupations. It is when he comes to deal
with the Norman dominion, and especially with the events of his
own time, that he is most disappointing. At the beginning of
the seventh book he states that, after having so far relied upon
either "ancient writers or common report,” he is about to “deal
with events which have passed under” his “own observation, or have
been told to” him “by eye-witnesses. ” Neither in the seventh nor
in the eighth book do we find much to justify the expectation thus
raised. Henry was a facile writer, but a perfunctory historian.
"He was ambitious, but not laborious; literary, but not exact;
intelligent, but not penetrating. He formed large projects, but
was too indolent to execute them satisfactorily? " Henry's
rhetorical pages are brought to an appropriate close with a
glowing peroration, in verse, celebrating the accession of king
Henry II. What appears to have been at one time intended
to stand as the eighth book of the History is a treatise on the
Contempt of the World a letter, addressed to a friend named
Walter, upon the fortunes of "the bishops and the illustrious men
of his age. ” This work, both the title and the motive of which
remind us of more imposing literary achievements by greater men,
contains many vivid portraits of Henry of Huntingdon's famous
contemporaries.
A chronicler who is as great an authority, for the reign of
which he treats, as either William of Malmesbury or Henry of
Huntingdon, is the anonymous author of the Acts of Stephen
(Gesta Stephani). Not even William himself surpasses this writer
Thomas Arnold, preface to Rolls edition.


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168
Latin Chroniclers
in accuracy and vividness of detail. He is a palpable partisan of
Stephen, and has been supposed by some to have been the king's
confessor. Nothing, however, better illustrates the general trust-
worthiness and impartiality of the twelfth century chroniclers
than a comparison of the narrative of this historian with those
of William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. Gesta
Stephani covers much the same ground as the Historia Novella of
William; yet, though the two works were composed from opposite
standpoints, they differ little in their presentment of the essential
facts of the history of the time.
William of Malmesbury claimed, as we have seen, the patronage
of Robert, earl of Gloucester; Henry of Huntingdon that of
Alexander, bishop of Lincoln. The favour of both these magnates,
and, if we are to trust the evidence of a MS preserved at Berne,
that of king Stephen himself, was invoked by the chronicler who
enjoys the dubious distinction of having been among British writers
the greatest disturber of the waters of history.