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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Literary History of the English People, by 
+Jean Jules Jusserand
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Literary History of the English People
+       From the Origins to the Renaissance
+
+Author: Jean Jules Jusserand
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #22049]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY OF THE ENGLISH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stacy Brown and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Million Book Project)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A Literary History of the English People
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ENGLISH WAYFARING LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES (XIVth Century). Translated by
+L. T. Smith. Revised and Enlarged by the Author. 4th Edition. 61
+Illustrations. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
+
+"An extremely fascinating book."--_Times._
+
+
+THE ENGLISH NOVEL IN THE TIME OF SHAKESPEARE.
+
+Translated by E. Lee. Revised and Enlarged by the Author. Illustrated by
+6 Heliogravures by Dujardin, and 21 full-page and many smaller
+illustrations. 3rd Edition. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
+
+"One of the brightest, most scholarly, and most interesting volumes of
+literary history."--_Speaker._
+
+
+A FRENCH AMBASSADOR AT THE COURT OF CHARLES II.: Le Comte de Cominges,
+from his unpublished correspondence.
+
+10 Portraits. Second Edition. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
+
+"The whole book is delightful reading."--_Spectator._
+
+
+PIERS PLOWMAN: A Contribution to the History of English Mysticism.
+
+Translated by M. E. R. Revised and Enlarged by the Author. Illustrated.
+Demy 8vo, cloth, 12s.
+
+"This masterly interpretation of an epoch-making book."--_Standard._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+London: T. FISHER UNWIN.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+HÉLIOG DUJARDIN                   IMP.CH.WITTMANN PARIS
+
+MEDIÆVAL LONDON
+_from manuscript 16 F. II in the British Museum_
+
+]
+
+
+
+
+A Literary History of
+The English People
+
+from the Origins
+To the Renaissance
+
+
+
+
+By
+
+J. J. Jusserand
+
+
+
+
+London
+T. Fisher Unwin
+Mdcccccv
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Many histories have preceded this one; many others will come after. Such
+is the charm of the subject that volunteers will never be lacking to
+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
+echoes of which, by a gift of fairies or of muses, still vibrate to the
+melody of voices long since hushed.
+
+More has been done during the last fifty years to shed light on the
+origins than in all the rest of modern times. Deciphering, annotating,
+printing, have gone on at an extraordinary pace and without
+interruption; the empire of letters has thus been enlarged, according to
+the chances of the explorers' 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 one that
+affects us more nearly. The years glide on so rapidly that the traveller
+who started to explore the lands of former times, absorbed 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, straightforward in his judgments, unmindful of consequences,
+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 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 silent realms are not the realms of death
+absolute; daylight is perceived in the distance; the continuity of life
+is felt. The dead of Westminster have left behind them a posterity,
+youthful in its turn, and life-giving. Their descendants 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,
+beautiful, 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 of thirty volumes in quarto, and only
+the year 1317 has been reached. And with all that immense past and those
+far-distant origins, those two literatures have a splendid present
+betokening a splendid future. Both are alive to-day and vigorous; ready
+to baffle the predictions of miscreants, they show no sign of decay.
+They are ever ready for transformations, not for death. Side by side or
+face to face, in peace or war, both literatures like 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 reactions
+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 descriptions, 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
+æsthetic problems, 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. The work in such a
+case will not be, properly speaking, a "History of English Literature,"
+but rather a "Literary History of the English People."
+
+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
+ages during which the national thought expressed itself in languages
+which were not the national one, will not be allowed to remain blank, as
+if, for complete 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 Westminster
+will be entered, and there will be seen how the nation, such as it was
+then represented, became conscious, even under the Plantagenets, of its
+existence, 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 Bradford-on-Avon, to Blackheath, to the "Tabard"
+and the "Mermaid," to the "Globe," to "Will's" coffee house, among
+ruined fortresses, to cloud-reaching steeples, or along the furrow sown
+to good intent by Piers the honest Plowman.
+
+The work, the first part of which is now published, 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 own day. The present version has been prepared with the
+help of M. E. R., who have once more lent me their most kind and
+valuable assistance. I beg them to accept the expression of my heartfelt
+gratitude.
+
+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
+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 one 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 difficulties of the task, the unlikeliness that he has
+overcome 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 undertaking;
+"Qu'allait-il faire dans cette galère?" 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-off subjects. No books had been dedicated to them; the attempt,
+therefore, could not be considered as an undue intrusion. But in the
+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 once had a drive in London; when it was
+finished, he offered the cabman 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, 1894._
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+  Preface                                                              1
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+_THE ORIGINS._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BRITANNIA.
+
+  I. Fusion of Races in France and in England.--First
+  inhabitants--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
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE NATIONAL POETRY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.
+
+  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, Æddi, 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 unchanged--Heroical adventures of the saints--Paraphrase
+  of the Bible--Cædmon--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--Ælfric, Wulfstan, "Blickling"
+  homilies--Attempt to reach literary dignity.
+    End of the Anglo-Saxon period                                     88
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+_THE FRENCH INVASION._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BATTLE.
+
+  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
+  successors 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--Unification of origins--Help from chroniclers and
+  poets--The Trojan ancestor                                         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                                                141
+
+  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 of 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 Cambridge--Studies, battles, feasts--Colleges, chests,
+  libraries                                                          166
+
+  III. Latin Poets.--Joseph of Exeter and the Trojan
+  war--Epigrammatists, 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
+  Monmouth--Moralised tales--"Gesta Romanorum"--John of
+  Bromyard--"Risqué" tales, fables in prose, miracles of the
+  Virgin, romantic tales--A Latin sketch of the "Merchant of
+  Venice"--John 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 encyclopædist--Roman 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 Riwle"--Translation of French treatises--Life and
+  works of Rolle of Hampole                                          204
+
+  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
+  presentment of Englishery, 1340--Survival of the French
+  language in the fourteenth century--The decline--Part 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                                                    255
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAUCER.
+
+  The Poet of the new nation                                         267
+
+  I. Youth of Chaucer.--His London life--London in
+  the fourteenth century--Chaucer as a page--His French
+  campaigns--Valettus cameræ Regis--Esquire--Married
+  life--Poetry à la mode--Machault, Deguileville, Froissart,
+  Des Champs, &c.--Chaucer's love ditties--The "Roman de la
+  Rose"--"Book of the Duchesse"                                      268
+
+  II. Period of the Missions to France and Italy.--The
+  functions of an ambassador and messenger--Various
+  missions--Chaucer in Italy, 1372-3, 1378-9--Influence of
+  Italian art and literature on Chaucer--London again; the
+  Custom House; Aldgate--Works of this period--Latin and
+  Italian deal--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 transformed--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 feelings--Her
+  inconstancy--Melancholy and grave ending--Difference
+  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
+
+  I. 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
+
+  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--Crécy, Poictiers,
+  Neville's Cross--Laurence 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 tri-lingual--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 of refuge
+  for him                                                            374
+
+  II. Analysis of the Visions.--The pilgrims 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          388
+
+  IV. Art and Aim.--Duplication of his personality--"Nuit
+  de Décembre"--Sincerity--Incoherences--Scene-shifting--Joys
+  forbidden and allowed--A motto for Langland--His language,
+  vocabulary, dialect, versification--Popularity of the
+  work--Fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--Time of the Reformation  394
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 Bourgogne and his journey through books--Immense
+  success of the Travels--Style of the English
+  translation--Chaucer's prose                                       404
+
+  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--Papal 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: communism--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
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE THEATRE.
+
+  I. 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--Feasts
+  of various sorts--Processions and pageants--"Tableaux
+  Vivants"--Compliments and dialogues--Feasts at Court--"Masks"      439
+
+  II. Religious Sources.--Mass--Dialogues introduced
+  in the Christmas service--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
+  ancestors' 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 Mediæval Stage.--Moralities--Personified
+  abstractions--The end of Mysteries--They continue being performed
+  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 transformation--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
+
+  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 social conditions. Hence the striking
+resemblances 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 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 landscape 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 both countries, many centuries
+before Christ, the Celtic race.
+
+The Celts ([Greek: keltai]) 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
+plundered, 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.[2]
+
+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 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. Cæsar, at the
+head of his legions, has avenged the city for the insults of the Celtic
+invaders, but the strife still continues; 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
+compatriots of the Continent against the Roman. Cæsar 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. Cæsar 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 possible,
+and note all he could observe concerning the customs of the natives. The
+picture he draws of the former inhabitants 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 themselves
+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 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.[3] 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."[4] 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 subterranean
+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 understood 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."[5] 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!"[6]
+
+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 Conquest it becomes hard to distinguish Celtic from
+Roman workmanship among the objects discovered in tombs. Cæsar 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 assimilation 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 of 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_).[7] 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 compositions, and with what talent the men of
+Celtic blood exercised 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,"[8] says Cæsar. 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 undergone no modification; Armoricans, Britons,
+Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, are all inexhaustible tale-tellers, skilful in
+dialogue, prompt at repartee, and never to be taken unawares. 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.[9]
+
+Ireland has preserved for us the most ancient monuments of Celtic
+thought. Nothing has reached us of those "quantities of verses" that,
+according to Cæsar, the druids taught their pupils in Gaul, with the
+command that they should never be written.[10] Only too well was the
+injunction obeyed. Nothing, again, has been transmitted to us of the
+improvisations of the Gallic or British bards ([Greek: bardoi]), 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 Christianity, the pagan origins constantly reappear in these
+narratives, and we are thus taken back to the epoch when 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 Cæsar and
+of the Christian era. Important works have, in our day, thrown a light
+on this literature[11]; 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 Cæsar had noticed in the Celts of the Continent.[12]
+
+Most of those Irish stories are part of the epic cycle of Conchobar and
+Cuchulaïnn, 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.[13] 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.
+
+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.[14] This is all the more
+noticeable as the epoch was a barbarous one, and a multitude 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: _Provincia 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.[15] The warlike valour of the heroes is carried as far
+as human nature and imagination allow; not even Roland or Ragnar Lodbrok
+die more heroically than Cuchulaïnn, 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 of his belt, he fastened his
+body to the high stone. Neither sitting nor lying would he die; but he
+would die standing. Then his enemies gathered round him. They remained
+about him, not daring to approach; he seemed to be still alive."[16]
+
+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.[17] Celtic poets excel in the art
+of giving a lifelike representation 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 "Cuchulaïnn's
+Sickness," 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 discussions
+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."[18] Ailill, king of Connaught, and
+Conchobar, king of Ulster, claim the dog; and Mac Datho, much
+perplexed, consults his wife, who suggests that he should promise 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 principal 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.
+
+In the "Murder of the Sons of Usnech,"[19] 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 following 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 foretells
+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 Noïsé, son of
+Usnech."
+
+"I shall not be happy," returned Derdriu, "until I have seen him."
+
+Noïsé 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. Noïsé 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 Scotland, and take refuge
+with the king of Albion. One day the king's steward "sees Noïsé 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 Noïsé is the one for thee, king of the
+West! Cause Noïsé 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 musicians 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; lifeless 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 Noïsé, 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 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"[20]; 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, resting 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 literatures of which it is possible to
+write a history without 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, Cæsar
+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 centuries 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 milestones, sixty of which have
+been found, and one, at Chesterholm, 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.[21] 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,
+Cirencester, Aldborough, Woodchester, Bignor, and in a multitude 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 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.[22] 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[23] 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."[24] 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 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.[25]
+
+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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[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.
+
+[2] 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 Historique," January-February, 1886.
+
+[3] "Proximi Gallis, et similes sunt.... Sermo haud multum diversus: in
+deposcendis periculis eadem audacia ... plus tamen ferociæ Britanni
+præferunt, ut quos nondum longa pax emollierit ... manent quales Galli
+fuerunt." Tacitus, "Agricola," xi. "Ædificia fere Gallicis consimilia,"
+Cæsar "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 Trinobantes were Gallo-Belgæ.
+
+[4]
+
+    Te non paventis funera Galliæ
+    Duraque tellus audit Hiberiæ.
+
+("Ad Augustum," Odes, iv. 14.)
+
+[5] "Odyssey," xi. l. 488 ff.
+
+[6]
+
+    Et vos ... Druidæ ...
+    ... nemora alta remotis
+    Incolitis lucis, vobis auctoribus, umbræ
+    Non tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi
+    Pallida regna petunt; regit idem spiritus artus
+    Orbe alio: longæ (canitis si cognita) vitæ
+    Mors media est. Certe populi quos despicit Arctos,
+    Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum
+    Maximus, haud urget leti metus.
+
+("Pharsalia," book i.)
+
+[7] "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 Cæsar, 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.
+
+[8] See _supra_, p. 7, note.
+
+[9] "De curia vero et familia viri, ut et circumstantibus risum moveant
+sibique loquendo laudem comparent, facetiam in sermone plurimam
+observant; dum vel sales, vel lædoria, nunc levi nunc mordaci, sub
+æquivocationis vel amphibolæ nebula, relatione diversa, transpositione
+verborum et trajectione, subtiles et dicaces emittunt." And he cites
+examples of their witticisms. "Descriptio Kambriæ," chap. xiv., De
+verborum facetia et urbanitate. "Opera," Brewer, 1861-91, 8 vols., vol.
+vi., Rolls.
+
+[10] 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.
+
+[11] Those, among others, of MM. Whitley Stokes, Rhys, d'Arbois de
+Jubainville, Lot, Windisch, Zimmer, Netlau, and Kuno-Meyer.
+
+[12] "Est autem hoc Galliæ consuetudinis; ut et viatores etiam invitos
+consistere cogant: et quod quisque eorum de quaque re audierit aut
+cognoverit quærant, et mercatores in oppidis vulgus circumsistat: quibus
+ex regionibus veniant, quasque res ibi cognoverint pronunciare cogant."
+Book iv.
+
+[13] To wit, two hundred and fifty long and a hundred short ones.
+D'Arbois de Jubainville, "Introduction à l'étude de la Littérature
+Celtique," Paris, 1883, 8vo, pp. 322-333.
+
+[14] 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'Épopée 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.
+
+[15] D'Arbois de Jubainville, "L'Épopée Celtique," pp. xxviii and
+following. "Celtic marriage is a sale.... Physical paternity has not the
+same importance 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.
+
+[16] The Murder of Cuchulaïnn, "L'Épopée Celtique en Irlande," p. 346.
+
+[17] The same quality is found in the literature of Brittany; the major
+part of its monuments (of a more recent epoch) consists of religious
+dramas or mysteries. These dramas, mostly unpublished, are exceedingly
+numerous.
+
+[18] "L'Épopée Celtique," pp. 66 and following.
+
+[19] "L'Épopée Celtique en Irlande," pp. 217 and following.
+
+[20] 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.
+
+[21] 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. Athenæum_, 15th and
+19th of July, 1893.
+
+[22] 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.
+
+[23] 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).
+
+[24] "Itinerarium Cambriæ," b. i. chap. v.
+
+[25] "Ut qui modo linguam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent: inde
+etiam habitus nostri honor, et frequens toga; paullatimque discessum et
+dilinimenta vitiorum, porticus et balnea, et conviviorum elegantiam."
+Tacitus, "Agricolæ 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 culture 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 impenetrable 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 slumbering sea,
+"the girdle and limit of the world," a place so near to the spot where
+Phoebus 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."[26]
+
+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 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 extending 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, Norwegians, 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,
+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, retreating 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 image; 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, _humanitas_, Tacitus said of the Britons, what was
+actually "servitude."[27] The frontiers of the empire were now so far
+distant that the roar of the advancing tide scarcely reached Rome. What
+was overheard 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 dormant energy, but only whets and renews the appetite for
+enjoyment.
+
+Meanwhile, far away towards the north, the Germanic 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 Cæsar; from their earliest infancy they endeavour
+to harden themselves physically.[28] They were not inventive; they
+learned with more difficulty than the Celts; they were violent and
+irrepressible. The little that is known of their customs and character
+points to fiery souls that may rise to great rapturous joys but have an
+underlayer of gloom, 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.[29] These men will enjoy lyric songs, but not
+charming tales; they are capable of mirth but not of gaiety; powerful
+but incomplete 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"
+(_guerre, 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 phenomenon, 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
+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, Burgundians, 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.[30]
+
+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 mountains, 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 embark, 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 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."[31]
+
+Treasure did not suffice; the town was taken and retaken. 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 Ostrogoth 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 kingdom 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,[32] the
+dwellers on the shores of the Baltic and North Sea had at first
+organised plundering expeditions against the great island. They came
+periodically and laid waste the coasts; and on account of them the
+inhabitants gave to this part of the land the name _Littus Saxonicum_.
+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, or kingdoms, that literature reached the greatest development,
+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 inhabitants 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
+agglomerations of tribes, that of the Angles and that of the Saxons.[33]
+
+In the same way as in Gaul, the invaders found themselves 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 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 _strat_, as in Stratford, and _coln_ 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 invaders. 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
+Cæsar, was dense: _hominum infinita multitudo_, he says in his
+Commentaries. The invaders, on the other hand, found themselves in
+presence of an intelligent, laborious, assimilable race, trained by the
+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 inhabitants, in
+connection with two places only: Chester and Anderida.[34] 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
+annihilated because the ruins of a Gallo-Roman city, with a theatre
+seating seven thousand people have been discovered 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
+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.[35] 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.[36] The Anglo-Saxons did not destroy them, since they are still
+extant, and only mingled 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.[37] The preservation 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 glass-works, and which
+the clumsy hands of the Saxon were certainly incapable of fusing and
+adorning.[38]
+
+The Britons, then, subsist in large numbers, even in the eastern and
+southern counties, where the Germanic settlement 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.
+
+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.[39] 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 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
+Cæsars, he would still at this day be able to worship his divine
+emperors in the temples of Nîmes and Vienne; pass, when entering Reims,
+Orange, or Saintes under triumphal arches erected by his ancestors; he
+might recognise their tombs at the "Aliscamps" of Arles; 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 tradition 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.
+
+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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] "De Moribus Germanorum," b. ii. chap. xlv.
+
+[27] "Agricola," xxi.
+
+[28] "Vita omnis in venationibus atque in studiis rei militaris
+constitit; ab parvulis labori ac duritiei student." "De Bello Gallico,"
+book vi.
+
+[29] "Saxones, sicut omnes fere Germaniam incolentes nationes, et natura
+feroces et cultui dæmonum dediti." Eginhard, "Vita Karoli," vii.
+
+[30] The arms of the Franks and those of the Anglo-Saxons, the former
+preserved 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.
+
+[31] "Innumerabiles et ferocissimæ 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.
+
+[32] 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 19
+centim. 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 description 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 Moktader, in the tenth century, as ambassador to a
+Scandinavian king established on the banks of the Volga (_Journal
+Asiatique_, 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, 1893. It
+was found to be perfectly seaworthy, even in rough weather.
+
+[33] 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 Norman 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: "Ægo Aelfredus,
+gratia Dei, Angol Saxonum rex." Æthelstan 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.
+
+[34] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," Rolls, _sub anno_ 491.
+
+[35] "De Moribus Germanorum," xv., xxvi.
+
+[36] 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. Fourteen hundred such names have been counted, of which 48
+occur in Northumberland, 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.
+
+[37] Ammianus Marcellinus: "Ipsa oppida, ut circumdata retiis busta
+declinant"; in reference to the Franks and Alemanni, "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 cohærentibus ædificiis: suam
+quisque domum spatio circumdat." "De Moribus Germanorum," xvi.
+
+[38] 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 preserved by the Anglo-Saxons as _curiosities_. Glasses with
+knobs, "_à larmes_," abound in the Anglo-Saxon tombs, and similar ones
+have been found in the Roman tombs of an earlier epoch, notably at
+Lépine, in the department of the Marne.
+
+[39] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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 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 cæsura 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"[40] (or
+consonants giving about the same sound):
+
+    _F_lod under _f_oldan · nis thät _f_eor 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:
+
+                            _Au_dit et _au_det
+    Dux _f_alli: _f_atisque _f_avet quum _f_ata recuset.[41]
+
+The famous Visions of Langland, in the fourteenth century, are in
+alliterative verse; under Elizabeth alliteration became one of the
+peculiarities of the florid prose 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 which were to save the
+Anglo-Saxon genius from the 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 continental 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 questions of date and place,
+but the difficulty is such, and that literature forms such a compact
+whole, that the best and 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.[42] 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 discovered, 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.
+
+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.[43] The resemblances between the
+two 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.[44] 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,[45] 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 literature 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
+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 abundantly 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 serpents 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 of 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 commentary 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.[46] Gunnar,
+wanting to keep for 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."[47]
+
+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 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."[48] 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 goddesses; Drunkard! is the reply of both. There is no
+question here of _argute loqui_.
+
+Violent in their speech, cruel in their actions,[49] 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.[50]
+
+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. 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.[51] 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 heartrending
+laments. It is contemplative and warlike.[52]
+
+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 Æthelstan, lord of earls, ring-giver of warriors, and
+his brother eke Edmund Ætheling, 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 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."[53]
+
+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" (où 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
+_sérénité_, 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 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 Æthelstan, 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 crossing 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 "Nibelungenlied." 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.[54]
+
+The strange poem of "Beowulf,"[55] the most important monument of
+Anglo-Saxon literature, was discovered at the end of the last century,
+in a manuscript written about the year 1000,[56] 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 particular,[57] and of
+historical facts, the various parts, after a separate literary life,
+having been put together, perhaps in the eighth century, perhaps later,
+by an Anglo-Saxon Christian, 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 Weland; 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,[58] are mixed up with tales of fantastic duels
+below the waves.
+
+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,[59] 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 "scôp." 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 (æthelinga) asleep after the feast;
+they knew no care."[60] Grendel removed thirty of them to his lair, and
+they were killed by "that dark pest 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[61]), 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.[62] 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 morning,
+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 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 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 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 remaineth, as
+useless to men as it [formerly] was."[63] 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 consisted 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 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 ses pers
+    Ed Olivier qu'il tant podeit amer,
+    Tendror en out, commencet à plorer,
+    En son visage fut molt descolorez.[64]
+
+Beowulf crushes all he touches; in his fights he upsets monsters, in his
+talks he tumbles his interlocutors headlong. 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 headlands, 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 what has preceded and what is to follow, we know
+not...."[65]
+
+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 equanimity 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 remember 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 Sévigné, 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' day with any grief of
+ours. Let us retire from life, as from a drawing-room, discreetly, "as
+from a banquet," said La Fontaine.[66] 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.[67]
+
+Examples of Anglo-Saxon poems, either dreamy or warlike, could easily be
+multiplied. We have the lamentations 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...." Or, in another song:
+"Then wakes again the friendless 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."[68]
+
+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."[69] 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] H. Sweet, "Sketch of the History of Anglo-Saxon poetry," in
+Hazlitt's Warton, ii. p. 3.
+
+[41] "De Bello Trojano," iii., line 108. 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'allitération en Roman de France."
+
+[42] "His date has been variously estimated from the eighth to the
+eleventh century. The latter is the more probable." Earle, "Anglo-Saxon
+Literature," 1884, p. 228.
+
+[43] Grein, "Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie," ed. Wülker;
+Cassel, 1883 ff., 8vo; "Corpus Poeticum Boreale, The poetry of the old
+northern tongue, from the earliest to the XIIIth Century," edited and
+translated by G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Oxford, 1883, 2 vols.
+8vo; vol. i., Eddic poetry; vol. ii., Court poetry. Other important
+monuments of Scandinavian literature are found in the following
+collections: "Edda Snorri," Ion Sigurdsson, Copenhagen, 1848, 2 vols.;
+"Norroen Fornkvædi," ed. S. Bugge, Christiania, 1867, 8vo. (contains the
+collection usually called Edda Sæmundi); "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. Vigfusson, 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.
+
+[44] 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.
+
+[45] 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.
+
+[46] "Lay of Skirni."--"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 114.
+
+[47] "Alta-Kvida."--"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 48. This is one of the most
+ancient poems in the collection.
+
+[48] "Alta-Kvida."--"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 51.
+
+[49] A single example will be as good as many: "One of the Viking
+leaders got the nickname of Börn (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.
+
+[50] "Hymis-Kvida."--"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 222.
+
+[51] The most valuable monuments of Anglo-Saxon literature and art are
+contained 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 Cædmon, written in the tenth
+century.
+
+The Paris Anglo-Saxon Psalter (Bibliothèque 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 Werferth, bishop of
+Worcester).
+
+The MS. of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," the Winchester text, in the
+library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. lxxiii.
+
+The MSS. of the homilies of Ælfric 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, fol., and "Palæographia Sacro Pictoria," London, 1844,
+fol. See also the fine pen-and-ink drawings in the above-mentioned MS.
+Junius xi., in the Bodleian Library.
+
+[52] _Cf._ Tacitus, who says of the Germans: "Celebrant carminibus
+antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriæ 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).
+
+[53] "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
+few 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.
+
+[54] G. Stephens, "Two leaves of King Waldere's lay," Copenhagen and
+London, 1860, 8vo; R. Peiper, "Ekkehardi primi Waltharius," Berlin,
+1873, 8vo.
+
+[55] "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
+VIIIth Century, with a translation," by T. Arnold, London, 1876, 8vo.
+"The deeds of Beowulf ... done into modern prose," ed. Earle, Oxford
+Clarendon Press, 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 Æneid.
+
+[56] Such is the opinion of Mr. Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. ii.,
+London, 1893, p. 1.
+
+[57] 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 resemblances, see Excursus iii. in the "Corpus
+Poeticum Boreale," vol. ii. p. 501; and H. Gering, "Der Beówulf und die
+Islaendische Grettisaga," in "Anglia," vol. iii. p 74.
+
+[58] In Gregory of Tours, book iii. chap. 3 ("Historia Ecclesiastica
+Francorum," Société de l'histoire de France, vol. i. p. 270); in
+"Beowulf" II. 1202 _et seq._--
+
+    Gehwearf thá in Francna fæthm feorh cynninges;--
+
+"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 515; 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.
+
+[59] According to the poem, the line of succession was: Scyld, Beowulf
+(not our hero), Healfdene, Heorogar, Hrothgar.
+
+[60] "Beowulf," 1876, T. Arnold's translation.
+
+[61] This last opinion has been put forward with great force by
+Fahlbeck, and accepted by Vigfusson. See Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
+ii. p. 15, and Appendix.
+
+[62] They are numerous especially in the province of Finmarken; they are
+to be found further south in winter.
+
+[63] 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.
+
+[64] "Chanson de Roland," line 2804.
+
+[65] "Talis mihi videtur, vita hominum præsens in terris ad
+comparationem ejus, quod nobis incertum est, temporis, quale cum te
+residente ad coenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali,
+accenso quidem foco in medio et calido effecto coenaculo, furentibus
+autem foris per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluviarum vel nivium,
+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 hæc vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem
+sequatur, quidve præcesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si hæc nova
+doctrina certius aliquid attulit merito esse sequenda videtur."
+"Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum," book ii. cap. 13, year 627.
+
+[66]
+
+             Je voudrais qu'à cet âge,
+    On sortît de la vie ainsi que d'un banquet,
+    Remerciant son hôte. (viii. 1.)
+
+[67] 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 of the cargo being gunpowder; the ship is about to be
+blown up; a foreign witness writes thus: "Tous jusqu'aux petits
+marmitons rivalisaient d'élan, de bravoure et de cette gaieté gauloise
+dans le péril qui forme un des beaux traits du caractère national."
+Baron de Hübner, "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.
+
+[68] "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
+Exoniensis"; the subject of this last poem has been shown by Earle to be
+probably the town of Bath.
+
+[69] T. Arnold's "Beowulf," p. 118, l. 1820.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AND PROSE LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS._
+
+
+I.
+
+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 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 Æthelberht, 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 forgivest 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 Thor. Only a short distance divided man
+from godhood in heathen times; the god had his passions and his
+adventures, 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, contradictory faiths were held side by
+side. Christ was believed in, but Woden was still feared, and secretly
+appeased by sacrifices. Kings are obliged to publish edicts, forbidding
+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.[70]
+
+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 religion
+progresses, while the old is waning; this phenomenon is brought about,
+in the south, by the influence of Augustine 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[71]; 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."[72] The Princess
+Hilda founds, in the seventh century, the monastery of Streoneshalch,
+and becomes its abbess; Ceadwalla dies at Rome in 689, and is buried in
+St. Peter's, under the _Porticus Pontificum_, opposite the tomb of St.
+Gregory the Great.[73] Æthelwulf, 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."[74] 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 following 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 numbers 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!"[75]
+
+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[76]; 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."[77] He reorganises the Church of the
+Franks, and dies martyrised 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 compiled 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 fibulæ, 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 correspond with each other
+in the language of Rome. Boniface, in the wilds of Germany, remains in
+constant communication 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 "hôtel de Rambouillet" of the Karlings, the affected
+style was as much relished as at the fair Arthénice's, and Alcuin, in
+his barbarous Latin, has a studied elegance that might vie with the
+conceits of Voiture.[78]
+
+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.[79] Æddi (Eddius Stephanus) writes a life, also in Latin,
+of his friend St. Wilfrith.[80]
+
+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 (Bæda), 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," 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,"[81] 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 straightforwardness.
+
+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,[82] 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 naïvely related the episodes of Cædmon in
+his stable,[83] 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
+they 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."[84]
+
+
+III.
+
+Anglo-Saxon monks now speak Latin; some, since the coming of Theodore of
+Tarsus,[85] even know a little Greek; 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 continues 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 uninhabited 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
+settlements of the people; frozen were the lands with cold icicles,
+shrunk the water's might; over the river streams, the ice made a bridge,
+a pale water road."[86]
+
+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 Cædmon,
+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 command 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 and dignity,"[87] a remark
+which has stood true these many centuries. Taken to the abbess Hilda, of
+Streoneshalch, Cædmon 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.[88] Cædmon 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 accompany the tales of war; the dismal landscapes are
+described with care, or rather with loving delight. Ethereal personages
+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
+himself, that on his journey he should come, the Lord of men, but he his
+vassal sendeth."[89]
+
+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,[90] 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, 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."[91]
+
+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 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 of 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."[92] 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 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"[93]
+
+                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 ditched 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.[94]
+
+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.[95]
+
+The devotional poetry of the Anglo-Saxons includes translations of the
+Psalms,[96] 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 panther[97]; 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 literature in which the warmth and hues of
+the south are preserved 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
+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.[98]
+
+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 impossibility 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. Notwithstanding 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.[99] With the Anglo-Saxons, laws,[100]
+chronicles, and sermons for the common people were written in the
+national tongue; and, as Latin was only understood by few, to these
+monuments was added a series of translations.[101] 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 Æthelred 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."[102] These men, termed Danes, Northmen, or Normans, by the
+Anglo-Saxon and French chroniclers, reappeared 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.[103] 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 disappear 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.[104]
+
+In the tumult caused by these new wars, what the
+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 translate 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 written 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." Remembering 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."[105] These learned men, and especially the Welshman
+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 himself 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,"[106] the book
+of Orosius, which will be for them as a handbook of universal history;
+the Ecclesiastical 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.[107]
+
+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 northmost of all
+Northmen. He said that he dwelt in the land to the northward, along the
+west sea.[108] 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 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
+departure; 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.[109] 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, Boethius, 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 mediæval
+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.
+
+Under his pen, the vague Christianity of Boethius[110] becomes a naïve
+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."
+
+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.[111]
+
+Following the king's example, the bishops and monks set to work again.
+Werferth, bishop of Worcester, translates the famous dialogues of St.
+Gregory, filled with miracles and marvellous tales.[112] 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.[113] It is 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.[114] 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
+were after me my memory in good works."[115] 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."[116]
+
+
+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 archbishop St. Dunstan rules under his name.[117]
+
+Helped by Bishop Æthelwold, 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.[118] 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[119]; others are due to the celebrated monk Ælfric, who became abbot
+of Eynsham in 1005, and wrote most of his works about this time[120];
+another collection includes the sermons of Wulfstan, bishop of York from
+1002 to 1023.[121]
+
+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.[122]
+
+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 extremity of the world, in the distant East.[123] This
+church 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.
+
+Ælfric 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."[124]
+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."[125]
+
+The lives of the saints told by Ælfric recall at times tales in the
+Arabian Nights. There are transformations, disparitions, enchantments,
+emperors who become hermits, 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 frightfully
+feather-clad."[126] 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,
+alliteration. Wulfstan and Ælfric 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.[127] 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 with great bitterness, and we
+follow it as it flies from us, and love it although it is passing
+away."[128]
+
+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."[129]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus Anglo-Saxon literature, in spite of the efforts of Cynewulf,
+Alfred, Dunstan, and Ælfric 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 perceptibly 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 established 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 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, Æthelstan, 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[70] "Hengest and Horsa ... were the sons of Wihtgils; 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 ... Wærmund of Wihtlæg, Wihtlæg of Woden" (_Ibid._ year 626).
+Orderic Vital, born in England, and writing in Normandy, in the twelfth
+century, continues to trace back the descent of the kings of England to
+Woden: "a quo Angh feriam [iv]am Wodenis diem nuncupant" ("Hist.
+Eccl.," ed. Le Prevost, 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 dea
+eorum quæ 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).
+
+[71] This unique monument seems to be of the eighth century. _Cf._
+"Pre-Conquest Churches of Northumbria," an article by C. Hodges in the
+"Reliquary," July, 1893.
+
+[72] For example, charter of Offa, dated 793, "Matthæi Parisiensis ...
+Chronica Majora," ed. Luard (Rolls), vol. vi., "Additamenta," pp. 1, 25,
+&c.: "Regnante Domino nostro Jesu Christo in perpetuum."
+
+[73] "King Ceadwalla's tomb in the ancient basilica of St. Peter," by M.
+Tesoroni, Rome, 1891, 8vo.
+
+[74] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," year 855. The princess was Judith,
+daughter of Charles the Bald. Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, blessed the
+marriage.
+
+[75] "Quid dicam de tot episcopis ..." &c. "Willelmi Malmesbiriensis....
+Gesta regum Anglorum," ed. Hardy, London, 1840, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. ii. p.
+417.
+
+[76] See his will and various documents concerning him in Migne's
+"Patrologia," vol. lxxxix., col. 535 _et seq._
+
+[77] "Fraternitatis vestræ pietatem intimis obsecramus precibus ut nos
+inter feras et ignaras gentes Germaniæ laborantes, vestris sacrosanctis
+orationibus adjuvemur." Boniface to Cuthberht and others, year 735, in
+Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix., col. 735.
+
+[78] "Ideo hæc Vestræ Excellentiæ dico ... ut aliquos ex pueris nostris
+remittam, qui excipiant nobis necessaria quæque, et revehant in Franciam
+flores Britanniæ: ut non sit tantummodo in Eborica hortus conclusus, sed
+in Turonica emissiones Paradisi cum pomorum fructibus, ut veniens Auster
+perflare hortos Ligeris fluminis et fluant aromata illius...." Migne's
+"Patrologia," vol. c., col. 208. 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 Merciorum;" "Ad Coenulvum regem Merciorum,"
+year 796, col. 213, 232.
+
+[79] Works in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix. col. 87 _et seq._ They
+include, besides his poetry ("De laude Virginum," &c.), a prose
+treatise: "De Laudibus Virginitatis," and other works in prose. He uses
+alliteration in his Latin poems.
+
+[80] "Vita Sancti Wilfridi episcopi Eboracensis, auctore Eddio
+Stephano," in Gale's "Historiæ Britannicæ, Saxonicæ, Anglo-Danicæ
+Scriptores x." Oxford, 1691, 2 vols. fol., vol. i. pp. 50 ff.
+
+[81] 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. ff.
+
+[82] Letter of Cuthberht, later abbot of Jarrow, to his friend Cuthwine,
+on the 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 uniurthit
+    Thonc snoturra...."
+
+Bede had translated the Gospel of St. John, but this work is lost.
+
+[83] See below, p. 70.
+
+[84] 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. lxxxix.
+
+[85] Archbishop of Canterbury, seventh century.
+
+[86] J. M. Kemble, "Codex Vercellensis," London, Ælfric Society,
+1847-56; Part I., ll. 1 ff., 2507 ff., "Andreas," attributed to
+Cynewulf. On this question, see Gollancz, "Cynewulf's Christ," London,
+1892, p. 173.
+
+[87] "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.
+
+[88] "Cædmon's metrical paraphrase of parts of the Holy Scripture in
+Anglo-Saxon, with an English translation," by B. Thorpe, London, Society
+of Antiquaries, 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._ "Cædmon
+und Milton," by R. Wülcker, 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 Cædmon.
+"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 conclusively shown that lines 1 to
+234, and 852 to the end, belong to the same and older version (possibly
+by Cædmon); 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.
+
+[89] "Metrical Paraphrase," pp. 29 ff.
+
+[90] 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.
+
+[91] "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 frequence 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 1100. H. Logeman,
+"L'Inscription Anglo-Saxonne du reliquaire de la vraie croix au trésor
+de l'église des SS. Michel et Gudule," Gand, Paris and London, 1891, 8vo
+(with facsimile), pp. 7 and 11.
+
+[92] "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 "[Greek: Praxeis
+Andreou kai Matthaiou];" a copy of it is preserved in the National
+Library, Paris, Greek MS. 881, fol. 348.
+
+[93] "Departed Soul's Address to the Body," "Codex Vercellensis," part
+ii. p. 104.
+
+[94] Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." See also, "Be Domes Dæge," a poem on the
+terrors of judgment (ed. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1876).
+
+[95] See examples of such dialogues and speeches in "Andreas", "The Holy
+Rood" (in "Cod Vercell"); in Cynewulf's "Christ" ("Cod. Exoniensis"),
+&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, Ælfric 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 Ages and the Renaissance; it was well
+known to Rabelais: "Qui ne s'adventure n'a cheval ni mule, ce dict
+Salomon.--Qui trop s'adventure perd cheval et mule respondit Malcon."
+"Vie de Gargantua." Saturnus 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).
+
+[96] MS. Lat. 8824 in the Paris National Library, Latin and Anglo-Saxon,
+some pen-and-ink drawings: "Ce livre est au duc 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.
+
+[97] 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."
+
+[98] "Codex Exoniensis," pp. 197 ff. This poem is a paraphrase of a
+"Carmen de Phoenice" attributed to Lactantius, filled with conceits in
+the worst taste:
+
+    Mors illi venus est; sola est in morte voluptas;
+      Ut possit nasci hæc appetit ante mori.
+    Ipsa sibi proles, suus est pater et suus hæres.
+      Nutrix ipsa sui, semper alumna sibi;
+    Ipsa quidem, sed non eadem, quæ est ipsa nec ipsa est....
+
+"Incerti auctoris Phoenix, Lactantio tributus," in Migne's
+"Patrologia," vol. vii. col. 277.
+
+[99] The most important of which is the famous Strasbourg pledge,
+February 19, 842, preserved by the contemporary historian Nithard. See
+"Les plus anciens monuments de la langue française," by Gaston Paris,
+Societé des anciens Textes, 1875, fol.
+
+[100] Thorpe, "Ancient Laws and Institutes of England," London, 1840, 1
+vol. fol.; laws of Ina, king of Wessex, 688-726, of Alfred, Æthelstan,
+&c. We have also considerable quantities of deeds and charters, some in
+Latin and some in Anglo-Saxon. See J. M. Kemble, "Codex Diplomaticus Ævi
+Saxonici," English Historical Society, 1839-40, 6 vols. 8vo; De Gray
+Birch, "Cartularium Saxonicum, or a Collection 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.
+
+[101] 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, "Narratiunculæ," 1861,
+8vo, and "Anglia," vol. iv. p. 139); of the history of "Apollonius of
+Tyre" (Thorpe, London, 1834, 12mo).--Translations by King Alfred and his
+bishops, see below pp. 81 ff. The monuments of Anglo-Saxon prose have
+been collected by Grein, "Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Prosa," ed.
+Wülker, Cassel, 1872 ff.
+
+[102] Grueber and Keary, "A Catalogue of English Coins in the British
+Museum," Anglo-Saxon series, vol. ii. 1893, 8vo, p. lxxxi.
+
+[103] 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.
+
+[104] 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.
+
+[105] H. Sweet, "King Alfred's West-Saxon version of Gregory's Pastoral
+Care, with an English translation," London, Early English Text Society,
+1871-72, 8vo, pp. 2 ff. Plegmund was an Anglo-Saxon, Asser a Welshman,
+Grimbold a Frank, John a Saxon from continental Saxony.
+
+[106] Preface of Gregory's "Pastoral Care."
+
+[107] 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 Alfred's West-Saxon version of Gregory's
+Pastoral Care," ed. H. Sweet, E.E.T.S., 1871-2. 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.
+
+[108] The sea to the west of Norway, that is the German Ocean.
+
+[109] 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.
+
+[110] 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 "inspirée d'Aristote et de Platon."
+Gaston Paris, _Journal des Savants_, 1884, p. 576.
+
+[111] S. Fox, "King Alfred's Boethius," 1864, 8vo, chap. xxxv.
+
+[112] 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.
+
+[113] 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 Cæsar to Britain, &c., and usually come down to the
+eleventh century. The Peterborough text alone continues as late as the
+year 1154. 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 preserved in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge; the
+Peterborough MS. is in the Bodleian Library (Laud, 636).
+
+[114] 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.
+
+[115] 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 original. 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.
+
+[116] In the "Proverbs of Alfred," an apocryphal compilation made after
+the Norman Conquest; published by Kemble with the "Dialogue of Salomon
+and Saturnus," 1848, 8vo.
+
+[117] King from 959 to 975; St. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, died
+in 988. See Stubbs, "Memorials of St. Dunstan" (Rolls Series).
+
+[118] The anonymous translation of the Gospels compiled in the time of
+Alfred was copied and vulgarised in this period; ed. Skeat, "The Gospels
+in Anglo-Saxon," Cambridge, 1871-87, 4 vols. 4to.
+
+[119] See Sermon XI.; "The Blickling Homilies," ed. R. Morris, 1874 ff.
+E.E.T.S., 8vo.
+
+[120] "The Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric," ed. Thorpe,
+London, Ælfric Society, 1844-6, 2 vols. 8vo; "Ælfric's Lives of Saints,
+being a set of Sermons," &c., ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1881 ff. Ælfric
+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: "Ælfric's
+Grammatik und Glossar," ed. J. Zupitza, 1880, 8vo, &c.
+
+[121] The homilies of Wulfstan were published by Arthur Napier:
+"Wulfstan, Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst
+Untersuchungen über ihre Echtheit," Berlin, 1883, 8vo (sixty-two pieces,
+some of which are very short).
+
+[122] "Transtulimus hunc codicem ex libris latinorum ... ob
+ædificationem simplicium ... ideoque nec 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. Nec 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." Ælfric's preface for his "Sermones
+Catholici." In the preface of his sermons on the lives of Saints, Ælfric
+states that he intends not to translate any more, "ne forte despectui
+habeantur margarite Christi."
+
+[123] "The Blickling Homilies," Sermon XI.
+
+[124] "Sermones Catholici", pp. 12-13.
+
+[125] _Ibid._ pp. 304-5. See also, in the sermon on St. John the
+Baptist, a curious satire on wicked talkative women, pp. 476-7.
+
+[126] 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 of body, and has deep eyes and
+moderate nose," &c.
+
+[127] Skeat, "Ælfric's Lives of Saints," 1881.
+
+[128] "The Blickling Homilies," Sermons X. and XI.
+
+[129] _Ibid._, Sermon XVII.
+
+
+
+
+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 between 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.
+
+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.[130] 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 Norman 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 remained the Normans of France.
+
+Who were these Normans? Very different from those of the other army,
+they no longer had anything Scandinavian 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 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 Alexander 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 Roncevaux."[131]
+
+The army, moreover, was not exclusively composed of men from
+Normandy.[132] 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: "Hic Franci pugnant" (Here fight the French). Crowned
+king of England, William continues to call his followers
+"Frenchmen."[133] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, on the other side,
+describe the invaders sometimes as Normans and sometimes as Frenchmen,
+"Frenciscan." "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
+not after the coming of William of Normandy, "because he was
+French."[134]
+
+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 loqui_). 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 Scandinavian poem, "if thou stumble on thy feet when
+marching to battle, for evil fairies stand on either side of thee,
+wishing to see thee wounded."[135] 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 duchée
+    Verreiz de due en rei torné;
+    Reis serai qui duc ai esté.[136]
+
+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.
+
+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."[137] 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 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 pressing 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 domination 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."[138]
+
+People with a mind so full of elegiac sentiments fall an 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!"[139]
+
+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 boundaries, protects its approaches, and, in spite
+of the immensity of the work, takes a minute inventory of it.[140]
+
+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 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 concerning the hares that they
+should go free."[141] 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 conquests
+in peace; in good as in evil they never stop half-way; those who incline
+to tyranny become, like Stephen, the most atrocious tyrants[142]; those
+who incline to the manners and customs of chivalry carry them, like
+Richard Coeur 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 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 offer 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 reigning 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,[143] which count among the grandest ever built. The splendid
+naves of St. Albans, Westminster, Canterbury, Winchester, York,
+Salisbury, rise heavenwards; 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 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
+manuscripts 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 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
+(Westmoreland, Warwick), the Montgomerys (Shrewsbury, Pembroke,
+Arundel), the Beaumonts and the Montforts (Leicester), are Frenchmen.
+People of less importance married to English women--"matrimonia quoque
+cum subditis jungunt"[144]--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, education, manners, and language, is
+in France. William the Conqueror bequeaths Normandy to his eldest son,
+and England to his younger. Not one of them is buried at Westminster
+before 1272; they sleep their last sleep most of them at Caen or
+Fontevrault[145]; out of the thirty-five years of his reign, Henry II.
+spends more than twenty-one in France, and less than fourteen in
+England.[146] Before his accession Richard Coeur-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 England the fashion of tournaments, "conflictus gallici," says
+Matthew Paris. They wish to have a University, and they 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 archbishop of
+Canterbury, becomes bishop of Chartres; Ralph de Sarr, born in Thanet,
+becomes dean of Reims[147]; 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 undertaken 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
+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.[148] 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 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, 1158, Henry
+II. and his wife Aliénor 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.[149]
+
+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 Aliénor 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; others were
+very strong and brave as Arthur, Edmond, and Cnut."[150]
+
+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 preconceived 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.[151] The origin of the inhabitants of the land
+must 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 Æneas, 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.[152]
+
+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
+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
+at Poictiers; 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[130] 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, 1178): "The Heimskringla Saga, or the Sagas of the
+Norse kings, from the Icelandic of Snorre Sturlason," ed. Laing and R.
+B. Anderson, London, 1889, 4 vols. 8vo, 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.
+
+[131]
+
+    Taillefer ki mult bien chantout,
+    Sor un cheval ki tost alout
+    Devant le duc 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: "Tunc cantilena Rollandi inochata...." William of
+Malmesbury, "Gesta Regum Anglorum," ed. Hardy, London, 1840, English
+Historical Society, book iii., p. 415.
+
+[132] 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 consisted of "Mancels, French, Bretons, Aquitains, and
+Normans"; his statement is reproduced by Orderic Vital: "Insisterunt eis
+Cenomannici, Franci, Britanni, Aquitani et miserabiliter 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.
+
+[133] 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 Coeur-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.
+
+[134] "Gunnlangs Saga," in "Three northern Love Stories and other
+Tales," edited by Erikr Magnusson, and William Morris, London, 1875,
+12mo.
+
+[135] "The old play of the Wolsungs," in "Corpus Poeticum Boreale," i.
+p. 34.
+
+[136] "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, fortitudo comitatus mei in regnum."
+"Gesta Regum Anglorum," 1840, English Historical Society, book iii. p.
+415.
+
+[137] William of Malmesbury, _Ibid._
+
+[138] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (Rolls), year 1066, Worcester text (Tib.
+B. IV.). Same statement in William of Malmesbury, who says of his
+compatriots that "uno prælio et ipso perfacili se patriamque
+pessundederint." "Gesta Regum Anglorum," English Historical Society, p.
+418.
+
+[139] 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 Angligenæ
+... Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ, Libri XIII.," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol.
+clxxxviii. col. 297.
+
+[140] The inventory is carried down to details; answers are required to
+a number of questions: "... Deinde quomodo vocatur mansio, quis tenuit
+eam tempore Regis Eadwardi; quis modo tenet; quot hidæ; quot carrucæ in
+dominio; quot hominum; quot villani; quot cotarii; quot servi; quot
+liberi homines; quot sochemani; quantum silvæ; quantum prati; quot
+pascuorum; quot molendina; quot piscinæ," &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, 1086," edited by Sir
+Henry James, London and Southampton, 1861-3, 2 vols. 4to.
+
+[141] Peterborough text of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," year 1086.
+
+[142] 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 summatim recenseat, historiam Josephi possint excedere." John of
+Salisbury, "Policraticus," book vi chap. xviii.
+
+[143] "Videas ubique in villis ecclesias, in vicis et urbibus
+monasteria, novo ædificandi genere consurgere." The buildings of the
+Anglo-Saxons, according to the testimony of the same, who may have seen
+many as his lived in the twelfth century, were very poor; they were
+pleased with "pravis et abjectis domibus." "Gesta Regum Anglorum," ed.
+Hardy, 1840, book iii. p. 418.
+
+[144] William of Malmesbury, _ut supra_, p. 420.
+
+[145] The Conqueror was buried at Caen; Henry II. and Richard
+Coeur-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).
+
+[146] "Henry II.," by Mrs. J. R. Green, 1888, p. 22 ("Twelve English
+Statesmen").
+
+[147] Stubbs, "Seventeen Lectures," 1886, p. 131.
+
+[148] 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
+justitiæ Christus illuxit ... ad jus B. Petri et sacrosanctæ Romanæ
+Ecclesiæ (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 Hiberniæ
+insulam, ad subdendum illum 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 laudabile
+desiderium tuum cum favore congruo prosequentes ... gratum et acceptum
+habemus ut ... illius terræ populus honorifice te recipiat et sicut
+Dominum veneretur." "Adriani papæ epistolæ et privilegia.--Ad Henricum
+II. Angliæ regem," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. clxxxviii. col. 1441.
+
+[149] 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 nec
+regiis consiliis interesse poterat." Matthew Paris, "Chronica Majora,"
+year 1095.
+
+[150]
+
+    En mund ne est, (ben vus l'os dire)
+    Pais, reaume, ne empire
+    U tant unt esté bons rois
+    E seinz, cum en isle d'Englois,
+    Ki après règne terestre
+    Or règnent reis en célestre,
+    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;
+beginning of the "Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei."
+
+[151] 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 1147 and 1151 (P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xviii. p. 314),
+his "Estorie des Engles" (ed. Hardy and Martin, Rolls, 1888, 2 vols.,
+8vo), and, about 1145, a translation in French verse of the "Historia
+Britonum" of Geoffrey of Monmouth (see below, p. 132).--Wace, born at
+Jersey (1100?-1175, 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 1174 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 ducs de Normandie" (ed. Francisque Michel,
+"Documents inédits," Paris, 1836, 3 vols. 4to).
+
+[152] 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
+Trojæ fugientes Græcos ubique dispersos, loca hæc 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 Æneas the Troian, begotten of his wife
+Creusa, and borne in Troie, before the citie was destroied." Chronicles,
+1807, 6 vols. fol. book ii. chap. 1. 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."
+
+
+
+
+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 the high men of this land, who are come of their
+race, keep all to that 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."[153]
+
+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 necessary 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.[154]
+
+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."[155] Such being the case, it spread quickly in
+England, where it was, for a long time, the language used in laws and
+deeds, in the courts of justice, in Parliamentary debates,[156] 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 fourteenth
+centuries, Jordan Fantosme[157] and Peter de Langtoft; 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,[158] or _fabliaux_,[159] like those composed 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.[160] 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 studying 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 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 æsthetic 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 Philosophie," "Lumière des laïques," "Secret des
+Secrets," &c.[161]; or those chronicles which so efficaciously served
+the political views of the 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.[162]
+
+In the following century the most remarkable work is the biography in
+verse of William le Maréchal, earl of Pembroke, 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.[163]
+
+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,[164] is a contemporary 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 somewhat 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."[165]
+
+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 penitence, miracles of Our Lady, moralised
+tales, bestiaries, and sermons.[166] The number of the French-speaking
+population had so increased in the kingdom that it was not absurd to
+preach in French, and some of the clergy inclined 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 letré
+    Car miel entendrunt
+    La langue dunt sunt
+    Dès enfance usé.[167]
+
+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 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 mediæval 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.[168] 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; Charlemagne'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; 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!"[169] 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. Archbishop 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,"[170] 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."[171]
+
+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."[172]
+
+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 was born more than
+a hundred years after the great host was gathered together."[173]
+
+But the worst forger of Alexandria obtains the confidence 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.[174] For the history of Thebes they are obliged to content
+themselves with Statius, and for that of Rome with Virgil, that same
+Virgil who became by degrees, in mediæval 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 "Æneid" their place of abode: no one was surprised at
+seeing Dante take him for a guide.
+
+What these poets wished for was a certificate of authenticity at
+starting. Once they had it, they took no further 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.[175]
+Oedipus is dubbed a knight; Æneas 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
+_paniers_ 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-More, in which is related, for the first
+time in any modern language, the story of Troilus and Cressida; the
+"Roman de Thèbes," 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 "Prothesilaus,"
+by Hue of Rotelande, composed before 1191; and many others besides[176]:
+all romances destined to people of leisure, delighting in long
+descriptions, in prodigious 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 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 transcribo quam credo," Quintus
+Curtius had already said.[177]
+
+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 compatriots. 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; nevertheless 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.[178]
+
+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 recommendation 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."[179]
+
+One thing, however, was lacking for a time to the complete success of
+the Arthurian epic: the stamp of authenticity, 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.[180] Geoffrey of
+Monmouth makes up for this deficiency.[181]
+
+His predecessors knew nothing, he knows everything; 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 themselves
+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 1153, between Stephen of
+Blois and the future Henry II. In 1139, the "Historia Regum Britanniæ"
+had appeared, and copies began to circulate. Henry of Huntingdon,
+passing at the Abbey of Bec, 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 Cæsar.... But to my
+amazement I have just discovered--stupens inveni--a narrative of these
+times."[182] It was Geoffrey's book.
+
+The better to establish his authority, Geoffrey himself had been careful
+to appeal to a mysterious source, a certain book of which no trace has
+ever been found, and which he pretends was given him by his friend
+Walter, Archdeacon 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.
+
+Such a book could not fail of success; it had a prodigious 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."[183]
+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 1155, with the addition of several legends omitted by
+Geoffrey, that of the Round Table among others.[184] 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,[185] whom Dante 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."[186]
+
+Tristan's youth was spent in a castle of Léonois, 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."[187] 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 concerning 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. 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."[188]
+
+Tristan's task being accomplished, he returns to Cornwall. 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.[189] Tristan starts in quest of the woman. The
+woman is Iseult; he brings her to Cornwall. While at sea the two young
+people swallow by mistake an enchanted 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;
+    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.[190]
+
+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."[191]
+
+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 forgotten. 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; 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
+"Astrée," 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 transformed 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 words that shall make me a _preux_, 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 and 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."[192]
+
+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 André le Chapelain, to guide the
+perfect lover.[193] After having been first an accessory, then an
+irresistible passion, love, that the poets think to magnify, will soon
+be nothing but a ceremonial. 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.[194]
+
+
+IV.
+
+They have also shorter narratives in prose and verse, the subject of
+which is generally love, drawn from French, Latin, Greek, and even
+Hindu legends,[195] stories like those of Amis and Amile, of Floire and
+Blanchefleur, lays like those of Marie de France.[196] 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, 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 garment: "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.[197]
+
+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 Englishmen, 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.[198] 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.
+
+    Il n'est mie jors, saverouze au cors gent,
+    Si m'aït amors, l'aloete nos ment.[199]
+
+"It is not yet near day, my sweet one; love be my help, the lark lies."
+In these songs, the women are slight and 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 à roses assis,
+    N'en ferunt colur plus fine
+    Ke n'ad ma dame au cler vis.[200]
+
+With these songs, Love ventures out of castles; we find him "in cellars,
+or in lofts under the hay."[201] 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?"[202] The idea of turning worldly songs
+and music to religious ends is not, as we see, one of yesterday.
+
+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.[203] 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, 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; Aïmer 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 incomparable 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."[204] This romance, of which the branches are
+of various epochs and by various authors, was composed partly in the
+continental 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,[205]
+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:
+
+"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."[206]
+
+The personages are animals; their sentiments are human; king lion swears
+like a man[207]; 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
+pulled her about with his teeth, that her thigh was broken, and a wing
+torn off her side."[208]
+
+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?"[209] She is very near
+adding in Racine's words: "Mes filles, soutenez votre reine éperdue!"
+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."[210]
+
+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'"[211]....
+
+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 Géronte, and
+Figaro over Bridoison. 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.
+
+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.[212]
+
+Above, below, around these greater works, swarms the innumerable legion
+of satirical fabliaux and laughable tales. They, too, cross the sea,
+slight, imperceptible, wandering, 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;"[213] 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 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.[214]
+
+From the thirteenth century, another medium of diffusion, 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."[215]
+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 buffooneries are preached.... St.
+Anthony's swine fattens by these means, and others, worse than swine,
+fatten too."[216] 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 all, as it came from India,
+and is found everywhere, in Italy, France, and England, among fabliaux,
+in sermons, and even on the stage.[217]
+
+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 convince 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,"[218]
+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 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."[219]
+
+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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[153]
+
+    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 hom 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.
+
+[154] Letter of the year 1209, by which Gerald sends to King John the
+second edition of his "Expugnatio Hiberniæ"; in "Giraldi Cambrensis
+Opera" (Rolls), vol. v. p. 410. Further on he speaks of French as of
+"communi idiomate."
+
+[155] "La parleure est plus delitable et plus commune à toutes gens."
+"Li livres dou Trésor," thirteenth century (a sort of philosophical,
+historical, scientific, &c., cyclopædia), ed. Chabaille, Paris,
+"Documents inédits," 1863, 4to. Dante cherished "the dear and sweet
+fatherly image" of his master, Brunetto, who recommended to the poet his
+"Trésor," for, he said, "in this book I still live." "Inferno," canto
+xv.
+
+[156] For the laws, see the "Statutes of the Realm," 1819-28, Record
+Commission, 11 vols, fol.; for the accounts of the sittings of
+Parliament, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," London, 1767-77, 6 vols. fol.; for
+the accounts of lawsuits, the "Year Books," ed. Horwood, Rolls, 1863 ff.
+
+[157] 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 ff., vol.
+iii. p. 203.
+
+[158] See below, pp. 122, 123, 130, 214.
+
+[159] Example: "Romanz de un chivaler e de sa dame e de un clerk,"
+written 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
+_fabliau_ of the "Bourgeoise d'Orléans" (in Montaiglon and Raynaud,
+"Recueil général des Fabliaux," 1872, vol. i. p. 117). See below, p.
+225.
+
+[160] "Croniques de London ... jusqu'à l'an 17 Ed. III.," ed. Aungier
+Camden Society, 1844, 4to.
+
+[161] "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
+Philosophie," also in verse, being an "abrégé de cosmographie et de
+géographie," "Romania," xv. p. 255.--"Lumière des laïques," 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 Littéraire 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.
+
+[162] 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 inédits"); 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, 8vo; _cf._ P. Meyer, "Romania,"
+vol. xxi. p. 444), &c.
+
+[163] 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 Guillaume le Maréchal," Paris, 1892 ff., Société 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.
+
+[164] 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.
+
+[165]
+
+    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 _Athenæum_, 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."
+
+[166] 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
+Greteham, 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, Société 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" in verse (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 moralisés de
+Nicole Bozon," ed. P. Meyer and Lucy Toulmin Smith, Paris, 1889, 8vo,
+Société 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 française an moyen âge," Paris, 1886,
+8vo, 2nd ed.; at p. 282, sermon on the Passion by Geoffrey de Waterford
+in French verse, Anglo-Norman dialect.
+
+[167] "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 literaturæ ostensio," year 1200
+(Camden Society, 1840, p. 95).
+
+[168] "La Chanson de Roland, texte critique, traduction et commentaire,"
+by Léon Gautier, Tours, 1881, 8vo; "La Chanson de Roland, traduction
+archaïque et rythmée," by L. Clédat, Paris, 1887, 8vo. On the romances
+of the cycle of Charlemagne composed in England, see G. Paris, "Histoire
+poétique de Charlemagne," 1865, 8vo, pp. 155 ff. The unique MS. of the
+"Chanson," written about 1170, is at Oxford, where it was found in our
+century. It was printed for the first time in 1837. 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.
+
+[169]
+
+    Croist li aciers, ne fraint ne s'esgruignet;
+    Et dist li cuens: "Sainte Marie, aiude!...
+    E! Durendal, com iés et clére et blanche!
+    Contre soleil si reluis et reflambes!...
+    E! Durendal, com iés bèle et saintisme!"
+
+[170]
+
+    Cil Sarrazins me semblet mult herites.
+
+[171]
+
+    Ne a muillier n'a dame qu'as veüt
+    N'en vanteras el' regne dunt tu fus.
+
+[172] "Car le Royaume de France ne fut oncques si desconfis que on n'y
+trouvast bien tousjours à qui combattre." Prologue of the Chronicles,
+Luce's edition, vol. i. p. 212.
+
+[173]
+
+    Car bien scavons sanz nul espoir
+    Q'il ne fu pius de c ans née
+    Q'il grans ost fu assemblée.
+
+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."
+
+[174] "Alexandre le Grand, dans la littérature française du moyen âge,"
+by P. Meyer, Paris, 1886, 2 vols. 8vo (vol. i. texts, vol. ii. history
+of the legend); vol. ii. p. 182.
+
+[175] MS. fr. 782 at the National Library, Paris, containing poems by
+Benoit de Sainte-More, fol. 151, 155, 158.
+
+[176] 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 Thèbes," 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 "Æneid."--The immense poem of
+Eustache or Thomas de Kent is still unpublished; 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 1176-7 and 1190-1; see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
+1883, vol. i. pp. 728 ff.; his "Ipomedon" has been edited by Kölbing and
+Koschwitz, Breslau, 1889, 8vo; his "Prothesilaus" is still unpublished.
+
+[177] Lib. IX. cap. ii.
+
+[178] "Hic est Arthur de quo Britonum nugæ hodieque delirant, dignus
+plane quod non fallaces somniarent fabulæ, sed veraces prædicarent
+historiæ." "De Gestis," ed. Stubbs, Rolls, vol. i. p. 11. 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 auræ,
+laudis adulatoriæ, famæ transitoriæ...." "Historia Anglorum," Rolls, p.
+49.
+
+[179] Says the Wolf:
+
+    Dont estes vos? de quel païs?
+    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.
+
+[180] Gildas, "De Excidio Britanniæ," ed. J. Stevenson, English
+Historical Society, 1838, 8vo; Nennius, "Historia Britonum," same
+editor, place, and date.
+
+[181] His "Historia" was edited by Giles, London, 1844, 8vo, and by San
+Marte, "Gottfried von Monmouth Historia regum Britanniæ," 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, 1154. See Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. i. pp. 203
+ff.
+
+[182] Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. i. p. 210.
+
+[183] "Quidam nostris temporibus, pro expiandis his Britonum maculis,
+scriptor emersit, ridicula de eisdem figmenta contexens, ... Gaufridus
+hic 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.
+
+[184] "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
+porté le nom de Brut," Paris, 1878, "Bulletin de la Société des Anciens
+Textes français."
+
+[185] 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 Bérou
+about 1150. Another version, also in French verse, was written about
+1170 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
+reconstitute the poem of Thomas "by means of three versions: a German
+one (by Gotfrid of Strasbourg, unfinished), a Norwegian one (in prose,
+ab. 1225, faithful but compressed), and an English one (XIVth century, a
+greatly impaired text)." G. Paris, "La Littérature française au moyen
+âge," 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. Kölbing,
+Heilbronn, 1878-83, 2 vols. 8vo; vol. i., "Tristrams Saga ok Isoudar"
+(Norwegian prose); vol. ii., "Sir Tristram" (English verse).--"Gottfried
+von Strassburg Tristan," ed. Reinhold Bachstein, Leipzig, 1869, 2 vols.
+8vo (German verse).
+
+[186] "Inferno," canto v.
+
+[187] The following analysis is mainly made after "Tristan et Iseult,
+poème de Gotfrit de Strasbourg, comparé à d'autres poèmes sur le même
+sujet," by A. Bossert, Paris, 1865, 8vo. Gotfrit wrote before 1203 (G.
+Paris, "Histoire Littérarie de la France," vol. xxx. p. 21).
+
+[188]
+
+    En sa chambre se set un jor,
+    E fait un lai pitus d'am[o]r:
+    Coment dan Guirun fu surpris,
+    Pur l'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.
+
+[189] 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.
+
+[190] Swinburne, "Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems."
+
+[191] Bosert, pp. 62, 68, 72, 82.
+
+[192] "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 à 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 gardé de tous périlz; cilz moz m'a saoulé en toutes
+mes faims; cilz moz me fait riche en toutes mes pouretés. 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 là où 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).
+
+[193] "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 André
+le Chapelain, thirteenth century; "Romania," vol. xii. p. 532.
+
+[194] On these romances, see, in "Histoire Littéraire 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 Erceldoune," Berlin, 1880, 8vo, "Sammlung Englischer
+Denkmäler," and by the Early English Text Society, 1875).
+
+[195] 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. Bédier, "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.
+
+[196] For Amis, very popular in England, see Kölbing, "Amis and
+Amiloun," Heilbronn, 1884 (_cf._ below, p. 229), and "Nouvelles
+françoises en prose du treizième siècle," edited by Moland and
+d'Héricault, Paris, 1856, 16mo; these "Nouvelles" include: "l'Empereur
+Constant," "les Amitiés 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
+Méril, "Poèmes du treizième siècle," Paris, 1856, 16mo.--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
+"Poésies de Marie de France," ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1819, 2 vols. 8vo.
+See also Bédier's article in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Oct. 15, 1891,
+also the chapter on Marie in Hervieux, "Fabulistes Latins," 1883-4, 2nd
+part, chap. i.
+
+[197] On this subject, see Gaston Paris's criticism of the "Origines de
+la poésie lyrique en France" of Jeanroy, in the "Journal des Savants,"
+1892.
+
+[198] 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 Ib and XIV. in Martin's
+edition.)
+
+[199] Jeanroy, "Origines de la poésie lyrique en France, au moyen âge,"
+Paris, 1889, 8vo, p. 68. An allusion in a crusade song of the twelfth
+century shows that this _motif_ was 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 "Mélanges de
+poésie anglo-normande," by P. Meyer, in "Romania," vol. iv. p. 370, and
+"Les Manuscrits Français de Cambridge," by the same, _ibid._, vol. xv.
+
+[200] Anglo-Norman song, written in England, in the thirteenth century,
+"Romania," vol. xv. p. 254.
+
+[201] "La Plainte d'amour," from a MS. in the University Library,
+Cambridge, GG I. 1, "Romania," _ibid._
+
+[202]
+
+    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 là
+      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.
+
+[203] "Le Pélerinage de Charlemagne," eleventh century. Only one MS. has
+been preserved, written in England, in the thirteenth century; it has
+been edited by Koschwitz, "Karls des Grossen Reise nach Jerusalem und
+Konstantinopel," Heilbronn, 1880, 8vo. _Cf._ G. Paris, "La poésie
+française au moyen âge," 1885, p. 119, and "Romania," vol. ix.
+
+[204] "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, 8vo.
+
+[205] Caricature of a funeral ceremony:--
+
+    Brun li ors, prenez vostre estole ...
+    Sire Tardis li limaçons
+    Lut par lui sol les trois leçons
+    Et Roenel chanta les vers. (Vol. i. p. 12.)
+
+[206]
+
+    Seigneurs, oï 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'oïstes la guerre,
+    Qui tant fu dure et de grant fin
+    Entre Renart et Ysengrin.
+
+(Prologue of Branch II.)
+
+[207]
+
+    "Or dont," dit Nobles, "au deable!
+    Por le cuer be, sire Ysengrin,
+    Prendra ja vostre gerre fin?"
+
+(Vol. i. p. 8.)
+
+[208]
+
+    ... 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 litère
+    Fete autresi con une bère.
+    Renart l'avoit si maumenée
+    Et as denz si desordenée
+    Que la cuisse li avoit frete
+    Et une ele hors del cors trete.
+
+(Vol. i. p. 9.)
+
+[209]
+
+    ... Renart ne l'en laissa
+    De totes cinc que une soule:
+    Totes passèrent par sa goule.
+    Et vos qui là gisez en bère,
+    Ma douce suer m'amie chère,
+    Con vos estieez tendre et crasse!
+    Que fera vostre suer la lasse?
+
+(Vol. i. p. 10.)
+
+[210]
+
+    Pinte la lasse à ces paroles
+    Chaï, pamée el pavement
+    Et les autres tot ensement.
+    Por relever les quatre dames,
+    Se levèrent de leurs escames
+    Et chen et lou et autres bestes,
+    Eve lor getent sor les testes.
+
+[211]
+
+    Par mautalant drece la teste.
+    Onc n'i ot si hardie beste,
+    Or ne sangler, que poor n'et
+    Quant lor sire sospire et bret.
+    Tel poor ot Coars li lèvres
+    Que il en ot deus jors les fèvres.
+    Tote la cort fremist ensemble,
+    Li plus hardis de peor tremble.
+    Par mautalent sa coue drece,
+    Si se débat par tel destrece
+    Que tot en sone la meson,
+    Et puis fu tele sa reson.
+    Dame Pinte, fet l'emperere,
+    Foi que doi à l'ame mon père....
+
+[212] 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 à Humfrey
+duc de Gloucester, liber lupi et vulpis"; of a translation in English of
+part of the romance: "Of the Vox and the Wolf" (time of 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 Thoms, 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.
+
+[213] In Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxvii. col. 153. "Dialogorum Liber
+I."; Prologue.
+
+[214] "De vita eremitica," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. xxxii. col.
+1451, text below, p. 213.
+
+[215] Council of Sens, 1528, in "The Exempla, or illustrative Stories
+from the Sermones Vulgares of 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. 1180, d. ab. 1239), was one of
+the most popular, and is one of the most curious of its kind.
+
+[216]
+
+    Si che le pecorelle, che non sanno,
+      Tornan dal pasco pasciute di vento ...
+
+    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.)
+
+[217] 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.
+
+[218] Bédier, "Les Fabliaux," Paris, 1893, 8vo, p. 241; Bédier's
+definition of the same is as follows: "Les fabliaux sont des contes à
+rire, en vers," p. 6. The principal French collections are: Barbazan and
+Méon, "Fabliaux et contes des poètes français," Paris, 1808, 4 vols.
+8vo; Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil général et complet des Fabliaux,"
+Paris, 1872-90, 6 vols. 8vo.
+
+[219]
+
+    Ge sai contes, ge sai fableax,
+    Ge sai conter beax diz noveax, &c.
+
+"Des deux bordeors ribauz," in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil
+général," vol. i. p. 11.
+
+
+
+
+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 continued 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 England and all the kingdom of Ireland for the remission of our
+sins,"[220] May 15, 1213.
+
+From the day after Hastings the Church is seen establishing 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."[221]
+
+The religious foundations are innumerable, especially at the beginning;
+they decrease as the time of the Renaissance 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.[222]
+
+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 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 Romewards.
+
+This clergy was very numerous; in the thirteenth century its ranks were
+swelled by the arrival of the mendicant friars: Franciscans and
+Dominicans, the latter representing more especially doctrine, and the
+former practice. The Dominicans expound dogmas, fight heresy, and
+furnish the papacy with its Grand Inquisitors[223]; 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.'"[224]
+
+Thirty-two years after their first coming there were in England twelve
+hundred and forty-two Franciscans, with forty-nine convents, divided
+into seven custodies: London, York, Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford,
+Newcastle, Worcester.[225] "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 Holiness 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!..."[226] 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 considerable 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 the jurisdiction of the religious
+magistrate. This justice interfered in the private life of the citizens;
+it had an inquisitorial 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 of 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 ecclesiastical 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.[227] 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.
+
+Bishops kept seigneurial retinues, built fortresses[228] 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 Longchamp, 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."[229]
+
+Nothing gives so vivid an impression of the time that has elapsed, and
+the transformation in manners that has occurred, as the sight of that
+religious and warlike tournament 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, 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.[230]
+
+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 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 Bec, 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
+Christendom 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 confirmed[231]; Robert Grosseteste,[232] 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.
+
+
+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."[233] 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 beginning: "O
+mortalium validissimi!"[234]
+
+A prelate who had been the tutor of the heir to the throne, and died
+bishop palatine of Durham, Richard de Bury,[235] collects books with a
+passion equal to that which 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 propitiatory offering sends him a
+Terence, a Virgil, and a Quinctilian. His bedchamber is so encumbered
+with books that one can hardly move in it.[236] 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."[237] 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.[238] Eve's descendants continue,
+thinks the bishop, to wrongfully meddle with the tree of knowledge.
+
+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."[239] The worthy bishop
+looks upon letters with a religious veneration, 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."[240]
+
+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
+compatriots; most of them have studied not only in England but in
+Paris; science has made of them cosmopolitans; 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 has 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."[241] 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...."[242] 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 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 Abélard's teaching gave birth to on St.
+Geneviève'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, _universitas_.[243]
+
+According to a mediæval 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
+"déterminance" 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_.
+
+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.[244] 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
+_ribaudes_, "mulieres immundæ!" 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."[245]
+
+Teaching, the principal object of which was logic, consisted in the
+reading and interpreting of such books as were considered authorities.
+"The method in expounding is always the same. The commentator discusses
+in a 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 continues 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."[246]
+
+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. Geneviève'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 rêveux
+et rassotés." 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 detained on St.
+Geneviève'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."[247]
+
+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.[248]
+
+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 1214 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 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 1313 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.[249] 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."[250] In 1364 war breaks out again 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: excommunication against the belligerents;
+exclusion from the University against those students who harboured
+"little women" (_mulierculas_) in their lodgings, major excommunication
+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,
+prohibit the fellows from fighting, from holding immodest conversations
+together, from telling each other love tales, "fubulas de amasiis," and
+from singing improper songs.[251]
+
+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."[252] 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 Wykeham. Sometimes books are
+bequeathed, as by Richard de Bury and Thomas de Cobham in the fourteenth
+century, or by Humphrey of Gloucester, in the fifteenth.[253] 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 themselves 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,[254] who composed it between 1178 and 1183, had
+dedicated his work to Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, and mentioned
+in it Arthur, "flos 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.[255] 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, however, 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
+commencement of the twelfth century; by Henry of Huntingdon, the
+historian who wrote some also; by Alexander Neckham, author of a prose
+treatise on the "Natures of Things"; Alain de l'Isle and John de
+Hauteville, who both, long before Jean de Meun, made Nature discourse,
+"de omni re scibili"[256]; Walter the Englishman, and Odo of Cheriton,
+authors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of Latin fables,[257]
+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.[258]
+
+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.[259] 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, however, by
+drowning him in the Rhone, and, lifting up his voice, he makes then the
+valley ring with a "canticle" celebrating his triumph.[260]
+
+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 light; he will become
+"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.[261] 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 Grandmont, 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 Thélème 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 subjects 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 formulating 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 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,"[262] 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[263]; it closes
+with a comparison 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?"[264]
+
+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 Coeur-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 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!"[265]
+
+Then follow counsels as to the manner of treating ridiculous
+people[266]: 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 prescribing
+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, sanguinary night!"[267] &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 remarkable in England than that of the
+poets. Had they only 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 Britanniæ," 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 something 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...."[268]
+
+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 in England about the end of the thirteenth
+century.[269] 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.[270]
+
+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.[271]
+
+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 recognised
+that have become popular under their French, English, or Italian shape,
+such as the lay of the "Oiselet,"[272] 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.[273]
+
+The Virgin plays her usual part of an indulgent protectress; 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 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."[274] 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."[275] 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."[276] 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 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 when 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 succeeds 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 all 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, 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."[277]
+
+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 naïve,
+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.
+Foremost among them were John of Salisbury and Walter Map.
+
+John of Salisbury,[278] a former pupil of Abélard, 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,"[279] or "De nugis Curialium,"
+his "Metalogic," his "Enthetic" (in verse), and his eulogy on
+Becket.[280] 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 observation, 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."[281] 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."[282] 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 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 æquum 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"[283]; 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.[284] This Welshman has the
+vivacity of the Celts his compatriots; he was celebrated at the court of
+Henry II., and throughout 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,[285] 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 Salisbury'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[286]; 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, fulfilled 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 Abélard, 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."[287] Women also are for Map the subject of constant satires; he
+was the author of that famous "Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum de ducenda
+uxore,"[288] 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 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 gluttonous 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!'"[289] 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,[290] but what he wrote in
+that language is uncertain. The "Lancelot" is assigned to him in many
+manuscripts and is perhaps his work.[291]
+
+
+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"[292]; Duns Scot, the
+"subtle doctor"; Adam de Marisco, friend and adviser of Simon de
+Montfort, the "illustrious doctor"; Ockham, the "invincible 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."[293] His
+reputation 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 "Ratepenade des Cardinaux," the works of the subtle
+doctor under the irreverent title of "Barbouillamenta Scoti."[294]
+
+Ockham, in the pay of Philippe-le-Bel--for England, that formerly had to
+send for Lanfranc and Anselm, can now 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.[295] Roger Bacon endeavours to clear up the chaos of the
+sciences; he forestalls his illustrious namesake, and classifies the
+causes of human errors.[296] Archbishop Bradwardine,[297] 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.[298]
+
+No longer is Salerno alone to produce illustrious physicians, or Bologne
+illustrious jurists. A "Rosa Anglica," the work of John of Gaddesden,
+court physician 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."[299] A multitude of
+prescriptions, of the same stamp most of them, are set down in this
+book, which was still printed and considered as an authority at the
+Renaissance.
+
+Bartholomew the Englishman,[300] 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,[301] 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, 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.[302] 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"[303];
+Richard, bishop of London, compiles a "Dialogue of the Exchequer,"[304]
+full of wisdom, life, and even a sort of humour; Henry of Bracton,[305]
+the most renowned of all, logician, observer, and thinker, composes in
+the thirteenth century an ample treatise, of which several
+abridgments[306] 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 mediæval
+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
+inscribed 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 inserting the entire text of the official documents sent by
+authority for the monastery to keep, according to the custom of the
+time.[307] 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 temptations and ridding himself of vain thoughts and the
+remembrance of a former worldly life.[308] Thus there exists 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
+England[309]; Eadmer, St. Anselm's biographer[310]; Gerald de Barry,
+otherwise Geraldus Cambrensis; a fiery, bragging Welshman, who exhibited
+both in his life and works the temperament of a Gascon[311]; William of
+Malmesbury,[312] Henry of Huntingdon,[313] &c.
+
+These two 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 Abbé Vertot,
+that "son siège 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 Mérimée, he tells in his own way the story of
+the "Vénus d'Ille."[314] 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 already paints in colours. To please his reader, he
+suddenly and naïvely 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,[315] 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,"[316] 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,"[317] drawn from nature, with a replica of
+his trunk in another position, "the first, he says, that had been seen
+in the country."[318] 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
+prætorium 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.[319]
+
+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[320]; Walter of Hemingburgh, Robert of Avesbury,
+Thomas Walsingham,[321] not to mention many anonymous authors. Several
+among the historians of that date, and Walsingham in particular, would,
+on account of the dramatic vigour of their pictures, have held a
+conspicuous place in the literature of mediæval England had they not
+written in Latin, like their predecessors.[322]
+
+From these facts, and from this ample, many-coloured literary growth,
+may be gathered how complete the transformation 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 illiteratos," 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."[323] Thus could speak concerning his country,
+about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[220] "Volentes nos ipsos humiliare pro Illo Qui Se pro nobis humiliavit
+usque ad mortem ... offerimus et libere concedimus Deo et ... domino
+nostro papæ Innocentio ejusque catholicis successoribus, totum regnum
+Angliæ et totum regnum Hiberniæ, 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.
+
+[221] 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.
+
+[222] "Historical maps of England during the first thirteen centuries,"
+by C. H. Pearson, London, 1870, fol. p. 61.
+
+[223] Concerning their power and the part they played, see for example
+the confirmation by Philip VI. of France, in November, 1329, of the
+regulations submitted 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: "_Premièrement_, quod domus, plateæ et loca in quibus hæreses
+fautæ fuerunt, diruantur et nunquam postea reedificentur, sed perpetuo
+subjaceant in sterquilineæ vilitati," &c. Isambert's "Recueil des
+anciennes Lois," vol. iv. p. 364.
+
+[224] "Speculum vitæ B. Francisci et sociorum ejus," opera Fratris G.
+Spoelberch, Antwerp, 1620, 8vo, part i. chap. iv.
+
+[225] Brewer and Howlett, "Monumenta Franciscana," Rolls, 1858-82, 8vo,
+vol. i. p. 10.
+
+[226] Letter of the year 1238 or thereabout; "Roberti Grosseteste
+Epistolæ," ed. Luard, Rolls, 1861, p. 179.
+
+[227]
+
+    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," l. 94.)
+
+[228] 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 Fécamp:
+"Mercatis igitur prædiis, in ipso vertice urbis juxta castellum turribus
+fortissimis eminens, in loco forti fortem, pulchro pulchrum, virgini
+virgineam construxit ecclesiam; quæ et grata esset Deo servientibus et,
+ut pro tempore oportebat, invincibilis hostibus." Henry of Huntingdon,
+"Historia Anglorum," Rolls, p. 212.
+
+[229] "Epistola Hugonis ... de dejectione Willelmi Eliensis episcopi
+Regis cancellarii," in Hoveden, "Chronica," ed. Stubbs, Rolls, vol. iii.
+p. 141, year 1191: "Hic 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.
+
+[230] See Stubbs, Introductions to the "Chronica Magistri Rogeri de
+Hovedene." Rolls, 1868, 4 vols. 8vo, especially vols. iii. and iv.
+
+[231] Lanfranc, 1005?-1089, archbishop in 1070; "Opera quæ 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.
+
+[232] 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
+... Epistolæ," London, 1861, Rolls. See below, p. 213. Roger Bacon
+praised highly his learned works, adding, however: "quia Græcum et
+Hebræum non scivit sufficienter ut per se transferret, sed habuit multos
+adjutores." "Rogeri Bacon Opera ... inedita," ed. Brewer, 1859, Rolls,
+p. 472.
+
+[233] "Gesta Regum Anglorum," by William of Malmesbury, ed. Hardy, 1840,
+"Prologus." He knew well the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and used it: "Sunt
+sane quædam vetustatis indicia chronico more et patrio sermone, per
+annos Domini ordinata," p. 2.
+
+[234] "Henrici archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum," Rolls,
+1879, p. 201.
+
+[235] 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.
+
+[236] See "Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense," ed. Hardy, Rolls, vol. iii.
+Introduction, p. cxlvi.
+
+[237] The best edition is that given by E. C. Thomas, "The Philobiblon
+of Richard de Bury," London, 1888, 8vo, Latin text with an English
+translation. 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.
+
+[238] "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 defunctæ araneæ de sola tela protectos ... mox in capitogia
+pretiosa ... vestes et varias furraturas ... nos consulit commutandos"
+(chap. iv. p. 32).
+
+[239] Chap. viii. p. 66.
+
+[240] Chap. i. pp. 11, 13.
+
+[241] "Sicut quondam Athenarum civitas mater liberalium artium et
+literarum, philosophorum nutrix et fons omnium scientiarum Græciam
+decoravit, sic Parisiæ nostris temporibus, non solum Franciam imo totius
+Europæ partem residuam in scientia et in moribus sublimarunt. Nam velut
+sapientiæ mater, de omnibus mundi partibus advenientes recolligunt,
+omnibus in necessariis subveniunt, pacifice omnes regunt...."
+"Bartholomæi Anglici De ... Rerum ... Proprietatibus Libri xviii.," ed.
+Pontanus, Francfort, 1609, 8vo. Book xv. chap. 57, "De Francia," p. 653.
+
+[242] "Philobiblon," ed. Thomas, chap. viii. p. 69. _Cf._ Neckham, "De
+Naturis Rerum," chap. clxxiv. (Rolls, 1863, p. 311).
+
+[243] On the old University of Paris, see Ch. Thurot's excellent essay:
+"De l'organisation de l'enseignement dans l'Université de Paris au moyen
+âge," 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.
+
+[244] 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 pinceps erat hujus modi latrocinii." Th. Wright,
+"Latin stories from MSS. of the XIIIth and XIVth Centuries," London,
+1842, tale No. cxxv.
+
+[245] May, 1358, in Isambert's "Recueil des anciennes Lois," vol. v. p.
+26.
+
+[246] Thurot, _ut supra_, pp. 73, 89.
+
+[247] In his "Metalogicus," "Opera Omnia," ed. Giles, Oxford, 1848, 5
+vols. 8vo, vol. v. p. 81.
+
+[248] Innocent IV. confirms (ab. 1254) all the "immunitates et
+laudabiles, antiquas, rationabiles consuetudines" of Oxford: "Nulli ergo
+hominum liceat hanc paginam nostræ 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.
+
+[249] "Rolls of Parliament," 8 Ed. III. vol. ii. p. 76.
+
+[250] Robert of Avesbury (a contemporary, he died ab. 1357), "Historia
+Edvardi tertii," ed. Hearne, Oxford, 1720, 8vo, p. 197.
+
+[251] "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.
+
+[252] 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 illa penitus sit
+omissa." "Munimenta Academica," i. p. 437.
+
+[253] 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 scientiæ margaritam ... favorem libenter et gratiam impertimus
+... ut in loco ubi generale viget studium, a data præsentium usque in
+biennium revolutum morari valeas." "Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense," ed.
+Hardy, Rolls, 1873, 4 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 288 (many other similar
+letters).
+
+[254] Josephus Exoniensis, or Iscanus, followed Archbishop Baldwin to
+the crusade in favour of which this prelate had delivered the sermons,
+and undertaken 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 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).
+
+[255] For example, in his opening lines, where he adheres to the
+simplicity recommended in "Ars Poetica":
+
+    Iliadum lacrymas concessaque Pergama fatis,
+    Prælia bina ducum, bis adactam cladibus urbem,
+    In cineres quærimus.
+
+[256] "Anglo-Latin satirical poets and epigrammatists of the XIIth
+Century," ed. Th. Wright, London, 1872, Rolls, 2 vols. 8vo; contains,
+among other works: "Godfredi prioris Epigrammata" (one in praise of the
+Conqueror, vol. ii. p. 149); "Henrici archidiaconi Historiæ liber
+undecimus" (that is, Henry of Huntingdon, fine epigram "in seipsum,"
+vol. ii. p. 163); "Alexandri 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 Naturæ" (_cf._ "Opera," Antwerp, 1654,
+fol., the nationality of Alain de l'Isle is doubtful); "Joannis 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.
+1184).
+
+[257] 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.).
+
+[258] "Speculum Stultorum," in Wright, "Anglo-Latin satirical poets";
+_ut supra_. Nigel (twelfth century) had for his patron William de
+Longchamp, bishop of Ely (see above, p. 163), and fulfilled
+ecclesiastical functions in Canterbury.
+
+[259]
+
+    In titulo caudæ Francorum rex Ludovicus
+      Non tibi præcellit pontificesve sui.
+
+(Vol. i. p. 17.)
+
+[260]
+
+    Cantemus, socii! festum celebremus aselli!
+      Vocibus et votis organa nostra sonent.
+    Exultent asini, læti modulentur aselli,
+      Laude sonent celebri tympana, sistra, chori!
+
+(p. 48.)
+
+[261]
+
+    Jam pertransierat Burnellus tempora multa
+      Et prope completus septimus annus erat,
+    Cum nihil ex toto quodcunque docente magistro
+      Aut socio potuit discere præter ya.
+    Quod natura dedit, quod secum detulit illuc,
+      Hoc habet, hoc illo nemo tulisse potest ...
+    Semper ya repetit.
+
+(p. 64)
+
+[262] "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
+Hauréau, "Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits," vol. xxix. pp. 321 ff.
+According to Stubbs ("Itinerarium peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi,"
+1864, Rolls), the real author is Richard, canon of the Holy Trinity,
+London.
+
+[263]
+
+    Papa stupor mundi, si dixero Papa _Nocenti_:
+    Acephalum nomen tribuam tibi; si caput addam,
+    Hostis erit metri, &c.
+
+[264]
+
+    Nec Deus es nec 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 coelum.
+    Quid potuit melius? quid majus? cui meliori?
+
+(p. 95.)
+
+[265]
+
+    Tota peris ex morte sua. Mors non fuit ejus,
+    Sed tua. Non una, sed publica, mortis origo.
+    O Veneris lacrimosa dies! o sydus amarum!
+    Illa dies tua nox fuit et Venus illa venenum;
+    Illa 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.)
+
+[266]
+
+    Contra ridiculos si vis insurgere plene
+    Surge sub hac forma. Lauda, sed ridiculose.
+    Argue, sed lepide, &c.
+
+(p. 21.)
+
+[267]
+
+    Nox, fera nox, vere nox noxia, turbida, tristis,
+    Insidiosa, ferox, &c.
+
+("De Bello Trojano," book vi. l. 760.)
+
+[268] "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. clv.
+
+[269] 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.
+
+[270] Seven kilos, 200 gr. "Doctissimi viri fratris Johannis de Bromyard
+... Summ[a] prædicantium," Nurenberg, 1485, fol. The subjects are
+arranged in alphabetical order: Ebrietas, Luxuria, Maria, &c.
+
+[271] Such is the case in several of the stories collected by Th.
+Wright: "A Selection of Latin Stories from MSS, of the XIIIth and XIVth
+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 justitiæ"; 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.
+
+[272] 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 XIIth and XIIIth
+Centuries," ed. Th. Wright, London, 1838, 8vo, p. 97. _Cf._ G. Paris,
+"Lai de l'Oiselet," Paris, 1884.
+
+[273] 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 historians 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.
+
+[274] "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 Méon, "Nouveau Recueil," vol. ii. p. 154: "De la Segretaine
+qui devint fole au monde."
+
+[275] "Latin Stories," p. 97; French text in Barbazan and Méon, vol. ii.
+p. 443: "Du larron qui se commandoit à Nostre Dame toutes les fois qu'il
+aloit embler."
+
+[276] "Latin Stories," p. 114, from the version of the "Gesta
+Romanorum," compiled in England: "De milite conventionem faciente cum
+mercatore."
+
+[277] "Ait miles, 'o carissima domina, mihi præ omnibus prædilecta hodie
+fere vitam amsi; sed cum ad mortem judicari debuissem, intravit subito
+quidam 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 solutione pecuniæ 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._
+
+[278] Born ab. 1120. To him it was that Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas
+Breakspeare) 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 præ
+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 meritis Sancti
+Thomæ" (Demimuid, "Jean de Salisbury," 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.
+
+[279] From [Greek: polis] and [Greek: chratein].
+
+[280] "Joannis Saresberiensis ... Opera omnia," ed. Giles, Oxford, 1848,
+5 vols. 8vo, "Patres Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ."
+
+[281] "Ipsum quoque cultum religionis incestat, quod ante conspectum
+Domini, in ipsis penetralibus sanctuarii, lascivientis vocis luxu,
+quadam ostentatione sui, muliebribus modis notularum articulorumque
+cæsuris stupentes animulas emollire nituntur. Quum præcinentium et
+succinentium, canentium et decinentium, præmolles 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 coæquare." "Opera," vol. iii. p. 38 (see on this
+same subject, below, p. 446).
+
+[282] "Quæ autem de curialibus nugis dicta sunt, in nullo eorum, sed
+forte in me aut mei similibus deprehendi; et plane nimis arcta lege
+constringor, si meipsum et amicos castigare et emendare non licet."
+"Opera," vol. iv. p. 379 (Maupassant used to put forth in conversation
+exactly the same plea as an apology for "Bel-Ami.")
+
+[283] "Afflictus namque populus, quasi principis podagram arguit et
+convicit. Tunc autem totius reipublicæ salus incolumis præclaraque erit,
+si superiora membra si impendant inferioribus et inferiora superioribus
+pari jure respondeant." "Policraticus"; "Opera," vol. iv. p. 52.
+
+[284] Born probably in Herefordshire, studied at Paris, fulfilled
+various diplomatic missions, was justice in eyre 1173, canon of St.
+Paul's 1176, archdeacon of Oxford, 1197. He spent his last years in his
+living of Westbury on the Severn, and died about 1210.
+
+[285] "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.
+
+[286] For example, _ibid._ iii. 2, "De Societate Sadii et Galonis,"
+Dialogue between three women, Regina, Lais, Ero, pp. 111 ff.
+
+[287] "Galtere, veni foras!--Galterus autem, quia non audivit vocem
+Jhesus, non habuit aures Lazari et non venit." "De Nugis," p. 42.
+
+[288] "De Nugis," Dist. iv.
+
+[289] Th. Wright, "The Latin poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes,"
+London, Camden Society, 1841, 4to (_cf._ "Romania," vol. vii. p. 94):
+
+    Meum est propositum in taberna mori;
+    Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,
+    Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori:
+    Deus sit propitius huic potatori.
+
+("Confessio Goliæ.")
+
+On "Goliardois" clerks, see Bédier, "les Fabliaux," Paris, 1893, 8vo,
+pp. 348 ff.
+
+[290] 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.
+
+[291] Map, however, never claimed the authorship of this work. The
+probability 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.
+
+[292] Alexander, of Hales, Gloucestershire, lectured at Paris, d. 1245;
+wrote a "Summa" at the request of Innocent II.: "Alexandri Alensis
+Angli, Doctoris irrefragabilis ... universæ theologiæ Summa," Cologne,
+1622, 4 vols. fol. He deals in many of his "Quæstiones" 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.
+
+[293] 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 Littéraire de la France," vol. xxiv.
+p. 404.
+
+[294] "Pantagruel," II., chap. 7.
+
+[295] The works of Ockham (fourteenth century) have not been collected.
+See his "Summa totius logicæ," ed. Walker, 1675, 8vo, his "Compendium
+errorum Johannis papæ," Lyons, 1495, fol., &c.
+
+[296] 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 possunt fieri ut sine animali moveantur impetu inæstimabili," p.
+533. On the causes of errors, that is authority, habit, &c., see "Opus
+majus," I.
+
+[297] 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.
+
+[298] Conclusion of chap. i. Book I.: "Contra Aristotelem, astruentem
+mundum non habuisse principium temporale et non fuisse creatum, nec
+præsentem generationem hominum terminandam, neque mundum nec statum
+mundi ullo tempore finiendum."
+
+[299] "Joannis Anglici praxis medica Rosa Anglica dicta," Augsbourg,
+1595, 2 vols. 4to. Vol. i. p. 496.
+
+[300] Concerning Bartholomæus Anglicus, sometimes but wrongly called de
+Glanville, see the notice by M. Delisle ("Histoire Littéraire 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, 8vo, Rolls, pp. 419 ff.
+
+[301] There are eighteen in the National Library, Paris. One of the
+finest is the MS. 15 E ii. and iii. in the British Museum (French
+translation) with beautiful miniatures in the richest style; _in fine_:
+"Escript par moy Jo Duries et finy à Bruges le XXVe jour de May, anno
+1482."
+
+[302] 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.
+
+[303] "Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ," finished about
+1187 (ed. Wilmot and Rayner, London, 1780, 8vo); was perhaps the work of
+his nephew, Hubert Walter, but written under his inspiraton.
+
+[304] "Dialogus de Scaccario," written 23 Henry II., text in Stubbs,
+"Select Charters," Oxford, 1876, p. 168.
+
+[305] "Henrici de Bracton de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ, 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 hæres legittimus est quando nuptiæ demonstrant," vol. ii. p. 18;
+a treasure is "quædam vetus depositio pecuniæ vel alterius metalli cujus
+non extat modo memoria," vol. ii. p. 230. On "Bracton and his relation
+to Roman law," see C. Güterbock, translated with notes by Brinton Coxe,
+Philadelphia, 1866, 8vo.
+
+[306] By Gilbert de Thornton, ab. 1292; by the author of "Fleta," ab.
+the same date.
+
+[307] 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 transmittendum, in corpore libri 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. Concerning the "Scriptoria" in monasteries
+and in particular the "Scriptorium" of St. Albans, see Hardy,
+"Descriptive Catalogue," 1871, Rolls, vol. iii. pp. xi. ff.
+
+[308] "Sedens igitur in claustro pluries fatigatus, sensu habetato,
+virtutibus frustratus, pessimis cogitationibus sæpe sauciatus, tum
+propter lectionum longitudinem ac orationum lassitudinem, propter vanas
+jactantias et opera pessima in sæculo præhabita...." 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.
+
+[309] "Orderici Vitalis Angligenæ Historiæ ecclesiasticæ, 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."
+
+[310] "Eadmeri Historia novorum in Anglia," ed. Martin Rule, Rolls,
+1884, 8vo; in the same volume: "De vita and conversatione Anselmi."
+Eadmer died ab. 1144.
+
+[311] "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 se
+gestis;" "Gemma Ecclesiastica;" "De Invectionibus, Libri IV.;" "Speculum
+Ecclesiæ;" "Topographia Hibernica;" "Expugnatio Hibernica;" "Itinerarium
+Kambriæ;" "Descriptio Kambriæ;" "De Principis Instructione."
+
+[312] "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, 1887 ff.; "De Gestis
+Pontificum Anglorum," ed. Hamilton, Rolls, 1870. William seems to have
+written between 1114 and 1123 and to have died ab. 1142, or shortly
+after.
+
+[313] "Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum ... from
+A.C. 55 to A.D. 1154," 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.
+
+[314] "De Annulo statuæ commendato," "Gesta," vol. i. p. 354.
+
+[315] "Matthæi 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.
+
+[316] So says Walsingham; see Madden's preface to the "Historia
+Anglorum," vol. iii. p. xlviii.
+
+[317] MS. Nero D i. in the British Museum, fol. 22, 23, 146, 169. The
+attribution 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.
+
+[318] Year 1255: "Missus est in Angliam quidam elephas quem rex
+Francorum pro magno munere dedit regi Angliæ.... Nec credimus alium
+unquam visum fuisse in Anglia." "Abbreviatio Chronicorum," following the
+"Historia Anglorum" in Madden's edition, vol. iii. p. 344.
+
+[319] "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.
+
+[320] "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.
+
+[321] See below, p. 405.
+
+[322] 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 of 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.
+
+[323] The contrast 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 scholæ tam
+nobilis, cujus olim radii lucem dabant universis angulis orbis terræ....
+Minerva mirabilis nationes hominum circuire videtur.... Jam Athenas
+deseruit, jam a Roma recessit, jam Parisius præterivit, jam ad
+Britanniam, insularum insignissimam, quin potius microcosmum accessit
+feliciter." "Philobiblon," chap. ix. p. 89. In the same words nearly,
+but with a contrary intent, Count Cominges, ambassador to England,
+assured King Louis XIV. that "the arts and sciences sometimes 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 manuscripts 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 English. "All people cannot,"
+had said Bishop Grosseteste in his French "Château 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.[324]
+
+The first works written in English, after the Conquest, were sermons and
+pious treatises, some imitated from Bede, Ælfric, and the ancient Saxon
+models, others translated 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.[325]
+
+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 rudimentary rendering of legends interpreted in their
+turn by Dante in his poem, and Giotto in his fresco.[326] 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 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 equanimity. 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 predominates, 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!"[327]
+
+The Psalter,[328] portions of the Bible,[329] lives of saints,[330]
+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.[331] The earliest complete manuscript was written about 1300, an
+older but incomplete one belongs to the years 1280-90, or
+thereabout.[332] 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;
+
+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.[333]
+
+With this we have graceful legends, like that of St. Brandan, adapted
+from a French original, being the story of that Irish monk who, in a
+leather bark, sailed in search of Paradise,[334] 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."[335]
+
+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, and
+Tristan, and Iseult, and Cæsar? 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.[336]
+
+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,"[337] 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 themselves to God, a sort of "Introduction à la Vie
+dévote," 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 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 forbidden 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.'"[338]
+
+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 captivating 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."[339]
+
+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 "Château 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 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."[340]
+
+These attempts become rare as we approach the fourteenth century, and
+English translations and imitations, on the contrary, multiply. We find,
+for example, translations in English verse of the "Château"[341] and the
+"Manuel"[342]; a prose translation of that famous "Somme des Vices et
+des Vertus," composed by Brother Lorens in 1279, for Philip III. of
+France, a copy of which, chained to a pillar of the church of the
+Innocents, remained open for the convenience of the faithful[343]; (a
+bestiary in verse, thirteenth century), devotional writings on the
+Virgin, legends of the Cross, visions of heaven and hell[344]; a Courier
+of the world, "Cursor Mundi," in verse,[345] 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.
+
+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 inserted 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."[346]
+
+Somewhat above this group of translators and adaptators rises a more
+original writer, Richard Rolle of Hampole, noticeable for his English
+and Latin compositions, in prose and verse, and still more so by his
+character.[347] 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 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."[348] But
+though the wicked one shows himself 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.[349]
+
+His style and ideas correspond well to such a life. His thoughts are
+sombre, Germanic anxieties and doubts reappear 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 delittabyll name! This es the name that es abowve all names.... I
+yede (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."[350] 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.
+
+
+II.
+
+We are getting further and further away from the Conquest, 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 beginning 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 literature possesses.[351] 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 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 himself, "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."[352] He follows mainly Wace's
+poem, but paraphrases 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 himself 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 land live in bliss.'"[353] 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.[354]
+
+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,[355] 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 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![356]
+
+They stop also on the public places, where the common people flock to
+hear of Charlemagne and Roland[357]; they even get into the cloister. In
+the thirteenth and fourteenth 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.[358]
+
+"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.[359]
+
+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,[360] 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.[361]
+
+Some English heroes of a more recent period find also 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 Palestine, kills the
+giant Colbrant on his return, and dies piously in a hermitage.[362] 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,[363] as Robin Hood will do later with Maid Marian.[364] 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, Richardson, and
+Fielding, novels of another kind took their place in the drawing-room,
+their life continued still in the lower sphere to which they had been
+consigned. They supplied the matter for those popular _chap books_[365]
+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._[366]
+
+"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 _risqué_
+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,"[367] "Le lai du Cor,"[368] "La
+Bourse pleine de sens,"[369] the praise of the land of "Coquaigne,"[370]
+&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;
+
+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."[371] 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[372]; or at the elegancies of the
+bad parson who puts in his bag a comb and "a shewer" (mirror).[373]
+Other poems are adaptations of the "Roman de Renart."[374] 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 determined 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 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, forgiven 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 frère, enfants, mère et femme,
+    Que je m'en soucierais autant que de cela.[375]
+
+      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 translated 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.[376] As for _chansons_, there were
+imitations of May songs, "disputoisons,"[377] and carols; love, roses,
+and birds were sung in sweet words to soft music[378]; 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.[379]
+
+Their beauties and merits are celebrated one by one, as in a litany;
+for, said one of those poets, an Englishman who wrote in French:
+
+    Beauté de femme passe rose.[380]
+
+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"[381] 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[382]; 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 wynd,
+    Sent thou me my suetyng,
+    Blow, northerne wynd, blou, blou, blou![383]
+
+says the English poet. Contact with the new-comers had modified the
+gravity of the Anglo-Saxons, but without sweeping it away wholly and for
+ever: the possibility of 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 Crécy.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[324] "Castel of Love," "made in the latter half of the XIIIth 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.)
+
+[325] 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 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 XIIth and XIIIth centuries," ed. Morris,
+E.E.T.S., 1867-73, 2 vols. 8vo; 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 paraphrase 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 XIIIth 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).
+
+[326] 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.
+
+[327] "Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and
+XIIIth Centuries," ed. with translation, by R. Morris, London, E.E.T.S.,
+1867, 8vo, vol. i. p. 39.
+
+[328] 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. Bülbring, 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.
+
+[329] "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.
+
+[330] 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.
+
+[331] Horstmann, "The early South-English 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._
+
+[332] 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 Furnivall in his "Early
+English poems" (_ut supra_).
+
+[333] From MS. Harl. 2277, in Furnivall's "Early English poems," 1862,
+p. 34.
+
+[334]
+
+    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 mediæval
+Legend of the Sea," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society, 1844; Francisque
+Michel, "Les Voyages Merveilleux de St. Brandan à la recherche du
+Paradis terrestre, légende en vers du XIIe. Siècle," Paris, 1878; _cf._
+"Navigation de la barque de Mael Duin," in d'Arbois de Jubainville's
+"L'Epopée Celtique en Irlande," 1892, pp. 449 ff. (above p. 12).
+
+[335] Renan, "Essais de morale et de critique," Paris, 1867, 3rd
+edition, p. 446.
+
+[336] By Thomas de Hales, "Incipit quidam cantus quem 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.
+
+[337] 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 Kaines, in Dorset, where a convent for monks
+had been founded by Ralph de Kaines, 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.
+
+[338] 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
+ionswered? 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."
+
+[339] "Vix aliquam inclusarum hujus temporis solam invenies, ante cujus
+fenestram non anus garrula vel nugigerula mulier sedeat quæ eam fabulis
+occupet, rumoribus aut detractionibus pascat, illius vel illius monachi
+vel clerici, vel alterius cujuslibet ordinis viri formam, vultum,
+moresque describat. Illecebrosa quoque interserat, puellarum lasciviam,
+viduarum, quibus libet quidquid 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 eremetica 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."
+
+[340]
+
+    De le franceis, ne del rimer
+    Ne me dait nuls hom blamer,
+    Kar en Engleterre fu né
+    E norri ordiné et alevé.
+
+Furnivall, "Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne," &c., Roxburghe Club,
+1862, 4to, p. 413.
+
+[341] French text of the "Château" 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, 407; 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.
+
+[342] The "Manuel des Pechiez," by William de Wadington, as well as the
+English 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, 4to, 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.
+
+[343] "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 "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.
+
+[344] See in particular: "Legends of the Holy Rood, symbols of the
+Passion and Cross Poems, in old English of the XIth, XIVth, 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 XIIIth century," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1872.--"The
+religious poems of William de Shoreham," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society,
+1849, on sacraments, commandments, 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 dispitison 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, vol.
+ii. pp. 397 ff.
+
+[345] "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 "Fête de la Conception" of Wace, the "Château
+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).
+
+[346]
+
+    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.
+
+[347] There exist Latin and English texts of his works, the latter being
+generally considered as translations made by himself. His principal
+composition 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. S., 1866, 8vo. Most of his works
+in Latin have been collected under the title: "D. Richardi Pampolitani
+Anglo-Saxonis eremitæ ... Psalterium Davidicum atque alia ...
+Monumenta," Cologne, 1536, fol.
+
+[348] "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 Prose
+Treatises," p. 5.
+
+[349] "Officium de Sancto Ricardo eremita." The office contains hymns in
+the 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.
+
+[350] "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.
+
+[351] "Layamon's Brut or Chronicle of Britain, a poetical Semi-Saxon
+paraphrase 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 de Brut," written in 1155, was ed. by
+Leroux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836, 2 vols. 8vo. _Cf._ P. Meyer, "De quelques
+Chroniques Anglo-Normandes qui ont porté le nom de Brut," Bulletin de la
+Société des Anciens Textes français, 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.
+
+[352] Madden, _ut supra_, vol. i. p. 1.
+
+[353] 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 hæghe,
+    Swulc thu woldest to hævene · nu thu scalt to hælle;
+    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.
+
+[354] "Roman de Brut," vol. ii. p. 57.
+
+[355] On Robert, see above, pp. 117, 122. On the sources of his
+chronicle, see Ellmer, "Anglia," vol. x. pp. 1 ff and 291 ff.
+
+[356] "Lay of Havelok," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868, end of thirteenth
+century, p. 1.
+
+[357] On wandering minstrels and jongleurs, see "English Wayfaring
+Life," ii., chap. i., and below, p. 345, above, p. 162.
+
+[358] "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. l. 5533.
+
+[359] "Cursor Mundi," ed. Morris, part v. p. 1651. A large number of
+English mediæval romances will be found among the publications of the
+Early English Text Society (including among others: Ferumbras, Otuel,
+Huon of Burdeux, Charles the Grete, 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 Kölbing in his "Altenglische Bibliothek," Heilbronn;
+by H. W. Weber: "Metrical Romances of the XIIIth, XIVth 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.
+
+[360] "King Horn, with Fragments of Floriz and Blauncheflur, and of the
+Assumption of Our Lady," ed. Rawson 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. Brede and E. Stengel: "Das Anglonormannische Lied vom
+wackern Ritter Horn," Marbourg, 1883, 8vo: "Hic 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).
+
+[361] 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 engraved in the thirteenth century represents, besides
+"Habloc" and "Goldeburgh," "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 _Athenæum_, Feb. 23, 1889), _cf._ Ward's "Catalogue," i. p.
+423.
+
+[362] "Guy of Warwick," ed. Zupitza, E.E.T.S., 1875-91 (_cf._ Ward's
+"Catalogue 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).
+
+[363] 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'Héricault in their "Nouvelles en prose du quatorzième Siècle," Paris,
+1858. See also the life of the outlaw Hereward, in Latin, twelfth
+century: "De Gestis Herewardi Saxonis," in the "Chroniques
+Anglo-Normandes," of F. Michel, Rouen, 1836-40, vol. ii.
+
+[364] 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.
+
+[365] 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.
+
+[366] "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.
+
+[367] 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 père à son fils," Barbazan and Méon, "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.
+
+[368] 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 Mautaillé,"
+in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil Général," vol. iii. and "La Coupe
+Enchantée," by La Fontaine.
+
+[369] French text: "De pleine Bourse de Sens," by Jean le Galois, in
+Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil Général," vol. iii. 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.
+
+[370] 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 Méon, "Fabliaux," vol. iii. p. 175: "C'est
+li Fabliaus de Coquaigne."
+
+[371] "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'Héricault, "Nouvelles
+françoises en prose, du treizième siècle" (the editors wrongly referred
+"Aucassin" to that century), Paris, 1856, 16mo.
+
+[372] 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.
+
+[373]
+
+    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.
+
+[374] "The Vox and Wolf," time of Edward I., 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's "Roman de Renart," Strasbourg,
+1882, vol. i. p. 146.
+
+[375] Tartufe, i. 6.
+
+[376] "Amis and Amiloun," ed. Kölbing, Heilbronn, 1884, 8vo, French and
+English texts, in verse. French text in prose, in Moland and
+d'Héricault, "Nouvelles ... du XIIIe. Siècle," 1856, 16mo.--French text
+of "Floire" in Edelstand du Méril, "Poèmes du XIIIe. Siècle," Paris,
+1856. English text: "Floris and Blauncheflur, mittelenglisches Gedicht
+aus dem 13 Jahrhundert," ed. Hausknecht, Berlin, 1885, 8vo; see also
+Lumby, "Horn ... with fragments 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 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.
+
+[377] 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" (Matzner'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.
+
+[378] 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
+Méon, vol. ii.
+
+[379] Th. Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry, composed in England in the
+reign of Edward I.," Percy Society, 1842, 8vo, p. 43.
+
+[380] They wrote in French, Latin, and English, using sometimes the
+three languages in the same song, sometimes only two of them:
+
+    Scripsi hæc 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.
+
+[381]
+
+    Femmes portent les oyls veyrs
+      E regardent come faucoun.
+
+T. Wright, "Specimens," p. 4.
+
+[382]
+
+    Heo hath a mury mouth to mele,
+    With lefly rede lippes lele
+       Romaunz forte rede.
+
+Ibid., p. 34.
+
+[383] Ibid., p. 51.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+_ENGLAND TO THE ENGLISH._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_THE NEW NATION._
+
+
+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, whenever a murder was
+committed and the authors of it remained unknown, the victim was _primâ
+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_."[384] 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 1340, which abolishes the "presentement d'Englescherie,"[385] 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 1311, 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[386]; 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
+Lancastre, chalenge yis Rewme of Yngland."[387]
+
+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 omni nisu_; they wish to frenchify, _francigenare_,[388]
+themselves, in order to imitate the nobles, and be more thought of.
+Their efforts had a remarkable result, precisely for the 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 _rurales_, 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 _rurales_. 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 distinguish the genders. They have to be taught by manuals,
+and the popularity of one written by Walter de Biblesworth,[389] in the
+fourteenth century, shows how greatly such 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_ and _je_." And he goes on showing at the
+same time the maze and the way out of it: "You have _la lèvre_ and
+_le lièvre_; and _la livre_ and _le livre_. The _lèvre_ closes the teeth
+in; _le lièvre_ the woods inhabits; _la livre_ is used in trade; _le
+livre_ is used at church."[390]
+
+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
+paraphrasing the usual formula: "Allez à Dieu," or "Adieu," and wishing
+the defendant, none other than the bishop of Chester, to "go to the
+great devil"--"Allez au grant déable."[391]--("'What,' said Ponocrates,
+'brother John, do you swear?' 'It is only,' said the monk, 'to adorn my
+speech. These are colours of Ciceronian rhetoric.'")--But from most of
+the speeches registered in French in the "Year-books," it is easily
+gathered that advocates, _serjeants_ 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."[392] In the second half of the
+century, the difficulties 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,"[393] shall be discontinued.
+
+This ignorance is now notorious. Froissart remarks on it; the English,
+he says, do not observe treaties faithfully, "and to this they are
+inclined by their not understanding very well all the terms of the
+language of France; and one does not know how to force a thing into
+their head unless it be all to their advantage."[394] 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."[395]
+
+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."[396]
+
+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
+Council, conforming to a tradition which has remained unbroken down to
+our day, refuse to employ for the negotiation any language but their
+own.[397] 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 composed 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 compared to the speech of the
+angels of heaven for its great sweetness and beauty."[398]
+
+In spite of these praises, the end of French, as the language "most
+esteemed and beloved," was near at hand in 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"[399]; 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 Sévigné 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
+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 _monasterium_, _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 especially 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.[400]
+
+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,"[401]
+there is a table of the words of the language classified according to
+their derivation; the words borrowed 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 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, conjunctions, 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.[402] 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 uses both words at once, sure of
+being thus intelligible to all:
+
+    They callen love a woodnes or a folye.[403]
+
+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 occasionally both at once. The fourteenth century is the last in
+which alliterative verse really flourished, though it survived 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, Definite and
+Indefinite, Strong and Weak, just like that which makes the beginner's
+despair in German."[404] 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 terminations. 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 variations 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
+inflections, 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 _mæden_,
+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."[405] Anglo-Saxon gentlemen were in about the
+same predicament, before 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
+declensions; 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 instance, 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 combination 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 bulkheads; a
+singular misapprehension of history besides. The English people is the
+offspring of two nations; it has 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 prohibited,[406] 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; 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 owed to him as king
+of England, and not as king of France.[407] 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 experiment 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 elements, 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 characteristics
+have been infused into their new compatriots: so much so that from the
+first day Parliament begins to feel 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 compromises 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; "à
+Normand, Normand et demi." The Plantagenets behold with astonishment 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."[408] He forms the habit of appealing 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[409]; 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 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."[410]
+
+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 definitive privileges. The Commons have their Speaker, "M. Thomas de
+Hungerford, knight, who had the words for the Commons of England"[411];
+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 voting.[412]
+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 orfèvre."[413]
+
+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 present, 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! (Oïl! Oïl!)"[414]
+
+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 Purgatory."[415]
+Convents claim privileges that time has effaced; 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.[416]
+
+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[417]; 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."[418] 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."[419] 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, and that statutes
+and ordinances cannot touch you.... "[420] 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 subsidies 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, unenlightened 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 of thought in the two
+countries; they also excited the wonder and sometimes the admiration of
+the French. "The king of England must obey his subjects," says
+Froissart, "and do all they want him to."[421] "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."[422] "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."[423]
+
+
+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."[424] 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."[425]
+
+Its mines are worked, even those of "sea-coal," as it was then called,
+"carboun de meer."[426] It has a numerous 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 Orléans,
+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 complain
+to the king in remonstrances more than once heard 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."[427] 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.[428] Their nature has been
+modified; the island no longer suffices them as it sufficed the
+Anglo-Saxons. "Il 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, whatsoever 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 portrait on the wall.[429] On every occasion they
+behave like Normans; in the halls of Westminster, in their City counting
+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."[430] 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.[431] The wealthy 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; devotional 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,"[432] all
+those precious articles with which our museums are filled. Edward II.
+sends to the Pope in 1317, 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.[433] 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 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[434] 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, following his
+example, take their falconers and their hounds along with them, as
+though they were going to a hunt.[435] 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 indignant if it is
+threatened, very sad when the end draws near; with more lasting
+happinesses we smile less often. Froissart 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.
+
+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 lasting 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.[436] 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.[437]
+
+The outside is less rude, and the inside is adorned and enriched; life
+becomes more private than it used to be; 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.[438] 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,[439] 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 1417), 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.[440]
+
+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 concerning 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 mixtures. 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.[441]
+
+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.[442] 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 Aliénor a gilded carriage, tapestried and embroidered, with
+cushions and curtains of silk, for which he pays one thousand
+pounds.[443] 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 composed for his tomb at
+Canterbury, the Black Prince mourns over "his beauty which has all
+gone." Richard II., while still alive, has graven on his tomb that he
+was "corpore procerus."[444] 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."[445]
+
+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
+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."[446]
+
+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 1350-1 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.[447]
+
+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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[384] "De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ," 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."
+
+[385] "Statutes of the Realm," 14 Ed. III. chap. 4.
+
+[386] "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_ 1311, vol.
+i. p. 168.
+
+[387] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 422; see below, p. 421.
+
+[388] Ralph Higden, "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 158. "Hæc
+quidem nativæ linguæ corruptio provenit hodie multum ex duobus quod
+videlicet pueri in scolis contra morem cæterarum 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."
+
+[389] "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.
+
+[390]
+
+    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.
+
+[391] Apostrophe of judge John de Moubray, Easter session, 44 Ed. III.,
+"Year-books of Edward I.," ed. Horwood (Rolls), 1863 ff., 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._
+
+[392] "Grosso modo et idiomate quocunque communiter intelligibili factum
+proponant." "Munimenta Academica" (Rolls), p. 77.
+
+[393] "Pur ce qe monstré est souventefoitz au Roi par prélatz, ducs,
+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 communément 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."
+
+[394] "Chroniques," ed. Luce, vol. i. p. 306.
+
+[395] "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 159 (contains the Latin text
+of Higden and the English translation of Trevisa).
+
+[396]
+
+    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 of
+the University Library, Cambridge, contains "a treatise on French
+conjugations." It does not furnish any useful information as regards the
+history of French conjugations; "it can only serve to show how great was
+the corruption of current French in England in the fourteenth century."
+P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xv. p. 262.
+
+[397] The ambassadors are: "Thomas Swynford, miles, custos castri villæ
+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 treugæ
+generales inter Angliam et Franciam per Dominos et Principes temporales,
+videlicet duces Lancastriæ et Eboraci necnon Buturiæ ac Burgundiæ, bonæ
+memoriæ, qui perfecte non intellexerunt latinum sicut Gallicum, de
+consensu eorumdem expresso, in Gallico fuerunt captæ et firmatæ, litteræ
+tamen missivæ ultro citroque transmissæ ... continue citra in Latino,
+tanquam idiomate communi et vulgari extiterunt formatæ; quæ 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 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, 1860 (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.
+
+[398] "Doulz françois qu'est la plus bel et la plus gracious language et
+plus noble parler, après latin d'escole, qui soit ou monde, et de tous
+gens mieulx prisée et amée que nul autre.... Il peut bien comparer au
+parler des angels du ciel, pour la grant doulceur et biaultée d'icel."
+"La manière de Langage," composed in 1396, at Bury St. Edmund's, ed.
+Paul Meyer, "Revue Critique," vol. x. p. 382.
+
+[399] Middle of the fourteenth century, ed. Aungier, Camden Society,
+1884, 4to.
+
+[400] 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."
+"Reliquiæ Antiquæ."
+
+[401] London, 1882.
+
+[402] 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.
+
+[403] "Troilus," iii. stanza 191.
+
+[404] Earle's "Philology of the English Tongue," 5th ed., Oxford, 1892,
+p. 379.
+
+[405] _Ibid._ p. 377.
+
+[406] See the series of the statutes of _Provisors_ and _Præmunire_, 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 protest 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.
+
+[407] Year 1340, 14 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104.
+
+[408] "Sicut lex justissima, provida circumspectione sacrorum principum
+stabilita, hortatur et statuit ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus
+approbetur...." Rymer, "Foedera," 1705, vol. ii. p. 689. This Roman
+maxim was known and appealed to, but not acted upon in France. See
+Commines, "Mémoires," book v. chap. xix.
+
+[409] "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, "Foedera", 1705, vol. ii.
+p. 783.
+
+[410] Rymer, "Foedera," 1705, vol. ii. p. 783, year 1297; original in
+French.
+
+[411] "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.
+
+[412] Examples: that the deputies of the counties "soient esluz par
+commune élection de les meillours gentz des dity countées et nemye
+certifiez par le viscont (sheriff) soul, saunz due élection." 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: "Ils n'oseront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et
+avysez les communes de lour pais." 1339, "Rot. Parl.", vol. ii. p. 104;
+see below, p. 418.
+
+[413] "Return of the names of every member returned to serve in each
+Parliament," 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.
+
+[414] "Rot. Parl.," vol. ii. p. 262.
+
+[415] 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 des almes les fondours que
+sont en Purgatorie." 4 Ed. III. "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 49.
+
+[416] 4 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 33.
+
+[417] Good Parliament of 1376.
+
+[418] 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 meignée; et aussi de pluseurs dames et leur
+meignée qui demuront en l'ostel du Roy et sont à ses costages." Richard
+replies in an angry manner that he "voet avoir sa régalie et la libertée
+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.
+
+[419] "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.
+
+[420] Chéruel, "Dictionnaire des Institutions de la France," at the word
+_Parlement_. 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 quæ frenum est
+potentiæ, quod secundum leges vivat, quod hoc sanxit lex humana quod
+leges suum ligent latorem." "De Legibus," 3rd part chap. ix.
+
+[421] "Chroniques," ed. S. Luce, i. p. 337.
+
+[422] "Mémoires," ed. Dupont, Société de l'histoire de France, 1840 ff.,
+vol. ii. p. 142, _sub anno_, 1477.
+
+[423] Unpublished letter to M. de Lionne, from London, July 6, 1665,
+Archives of the Affaires Étrangères, vol. lxxxvi.
+
+[424] "Esprit des Lois," vol. xx. chap. vii., "Esprit de l'Angleterre
+sur le Commerce."
+
+[425] A. Sorel, "l'Europe et la Révolution Française," vol. i. p. 337.
+
+[426] 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."
+
+[427] 46 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 311. The king
+returns a vague answer. See below, pp. 515, 517.
+
+[428] "They travaile in every londe," says Gower of them, in his
+"Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, vol. iii. p. 109.
+
+[429] "Joannes Acutus, eques 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.
+
+[430] "Polychronicon," ed. Babington, Rolls, vol. ii. pp. 166, 168.
+
+[431] 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 ("Foedera," 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.
+
+[432] 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
+inédits"), 1879, 4to.
+
+[433] 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_l._ 13_s._ and 4_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_l._ ("Issues of the Exchequer," ed. Devon, 1837, pp. 144, 213). On
+English miniaturists, see "Histoire Littéraire de la France," xxxi. p.
+281.
+
+[434] More than forty for the reign of Edward II. are to be found in the
+"Foedera."
+
+[435] "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.
+
+[436] 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 Brétigny, 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.
+
+[437] 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.
+
+[438]
+
+    Now hath uche riche a reule · to eten by hym-selve
+    In a 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.
+
+[439] For this tapestry the king paid thirty pounds to Thomas de
+Hebenhith, mercer of London. ("Wardrobe accounts of Edward
+II."--"Archæologia," vol. xxvi. p. 344.)
+
+[440] 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.), "Archæologia," 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 made at Norwich; the finest came from Flanders.
+
+[441] 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, 8vo (found
+too in the "Antiquitates Culinariæ," of Warner, 1791, 4to). The prologue
+informs us 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 philosophie 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.
+
+[442] Year 1363. The "aignel" and the "gopil" are, however, tolerated.
+"Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 281.
+
+[443] "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.
+
+[444] 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 Westminster was
+built in his lifetime and under his eyes. The original indentures have
+been preserved, by which "Nicholas Broker et Godfrey Prest, citeins et
+copersmythes 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,"
+"Miscellanea," 3/40.
+
+[445] "Le livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l'enseignement de
+ses filles," ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1854, 12mo, pp. 46 and 98, written
+in 1371.
+
+[446] "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.
+
+[447] 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 à Nostre Seigneur le Roi que desoremes tiels arbres ne seront
+copés ne pris en contre la volonté des seigneurs des ditz mansions."
+
+Answer: "Il semble au conseil qe ceste petition est resonable." "Rotuli
+Parliamentorum," 25 Ed. III., vol. ii. p. 250.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_CHAUCER._
+
+
+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, 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 connection 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.[448]
+
+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 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 Mediterranean 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.[449] 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
+surrounded by walls, portions of which still remain, with Roman
+foundations in some places.[450] 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.[451]
+
+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.[452] In his turn, and not as a merchant, 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 he 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 Brétigny. Chaucer was taken by the French,[453] 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 Edward in the
+capacity of valet of the chamber, "valettus cameræ regis"; this is
+exactly the title that Molière 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.[454] 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,[455] 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.[456]
+
+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 Phébus de Foix; and at
+Eltham, at the 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 civilisation. 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 beforehand 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
+prepared 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 ornamented 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 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."[457]
+
+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.[458] He sings like them of love, of
+spring, of the field-daisy[459]; he had read with passionate admiration
+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 sermons 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
+resurrection; 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 paradise, 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."[460]
+
+The discrepancies in the book did not shock the generality of readers;
+art at that time was full of contrasts, 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 Guillaume, others for Jean, some rejecting
+the whole romance, others, the most numerous, accepting it all. These
+dissensions added still more to the fame of the work, and it was so
+popular that there exist more than two hundred manuscripts of it.[461]
+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
+woman"; he has known none save those of "dissolute and evil life," and
+has taken all the others to be according to that pattern.[462] 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 cameræ regis." This translation by Chaucer is
+lost,[463] 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,[464] congratulates him, above all things,
+on having "planted the rose-tree" in "the isle of giants," 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 Angélique ...
+    En bon anglès 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 Gower:
+
+    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."[465] A few poems, however, 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 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 disappeared 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.[466]
+
+Already the descriptions have a freshness that no contemporaries 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.
+
+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," beloved 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.[467]
+
+From these "knakkes smale" we may judge what the others must have been.
+They discourse thus a long 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 observation; 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."[468] 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 illustrious writers of the century,
+Boccaccio in Italy, Chaucer 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"[469]; 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."[470]
+
+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."[471]
+
+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 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."[472] The
+negotiation failed, but the poet's services seem nevertheless 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 Hawkwood,[473] who led, in the most 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.[474]
+
+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 ornamentation 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
+Phædra 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 campanile had been
+finished by his pupil 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 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.[475] An antique statue found within her territory
+was provoking universal admiration, and was erected on the Gaïa 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.[476]
+
+The taste for collections was spreading; the commerce of antiquities
+flourished in Northern Italy. Petrarch bought medals, and numbered among
+his artistic treasures a Madonna of Giotto, "whose beauty," he says in
+his will, "escaped the ignorant and enraptured the masters of the
+art."[477] This brightening of the land was the result of concurring
+wills, nor did it pass unobserved even then; towns enjoyed their
+masterpieces, and, like young women, "se miraient en leur beauté."
+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 1341, 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.[478] 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.[479]
+
+It was impossible that a mind, from infancy friendly to art and books,
+should not be struck by this general expansion; the charm of this
+literary springtime was too penetrating 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 resemblance, as if we
+found in his verses an echo of the conversations they very likely had
+together by Padua in 1373.[480]
+
+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
+demesned."[481] 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.[482] After
+having himself been present at the weighing 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[483]; his friend the philosopher and logician, Ralph Strode, lived
+in the same way in rooms above "Aldrichgate"[484]; 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 world was done with; his neighbours
+were to him as though they had lived at the ends of earth[485]; 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 "Compleynt of Mars," 1380; 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.[486] 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
+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, "untressed," 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 defence;
+
+or with less draperies still:
+
+    I saw Beautee withouten any atyr[487];
+
+or again:
+
+    Naked fleting in a see;
+
+her brows circled with a "rose-garlond white and reed."[488] 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.[489]
+
+His "Compleynt of Anelida" is dedicated to
+
+    Thou ferse god of armes, Mars the rede,
+
+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.[490]
+
+Old books of antiquity possess for him, as they did for 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 of olde 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.[491]
+
+Poggio or Poliziano could not have spoken in more feeling words.
+
+    Glory and honour, Virgil Mantuan,
+    Be to thy name![492]
+
+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.[493]
+
+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 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.[494]
+
+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, sometimes 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
+"Paradiso." The same poet is quoted in the "Parlement of Foules," where
+we find a paraphrase of the famous "Per me si va"[495]; 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
+introduces into it a sonnet of Petrarch[496]; the idea of the "Legend of
+Good Women" is borrowed from the "De claris Mulieribus" of Boccaccio.
+Dante's journeys to the spirit-world served as models for the "Hous of
+Fame," where the 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.[497]
+
+The eagle is not an invention of Chaucer's; it had already appeared in
+the "Purgatorio."[498]
+
+Notwithstanding the quantity of reminiscences of ancient or Italian
+authors that recur at every page; notwithstanding the story of Æneas
+related wholly from Virgil, the first lines being translated word for
+word[499]; notwithstanding incessant allusions and quotations, the "Hous
+of Fame"[500] 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 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 forgiven; 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.[501]
+
+He is modern, too, in the part he allots to his own self, a self which,
+far from being odious ("le moi est haïssable," 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 temple itself is built in the Gothic style of the period, all
+bristling with "niches, pinnacles, and statues," and
+
+    ... ful eek of windowes
+    As flakes falle in grete snowes.[502]
+
+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 full "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 celebrates the deeds of
+the warriors:
+
+    For in fight and blood-shedinge
+    Is used gladly clarioninge.[503]
+
+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.[504]
+
+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, 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."[505]
+
+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.[506]
+
+
+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 illuminations, blazons, or oriflammes; his
+nights are of sable, and his meadows seem of sinople, his flowers are
+"whyte, blewe, yelowe, and rede."[507] 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 discourse subtly about their desires and their mishaps.[508]
+
+Chaucer appropriates the plot,[509] 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 accomplished in
+the same time by the nation. With the Parliament 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 contribute 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 confidants, diminished reproductions of their
+own selves, invented 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
+Calprenède's heroic romances; the characters have muscles, bones and
+sinews, and at the same time, hearts and souls; 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 circumstances 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 tornest ful ofte."[510]
+
+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 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 Molière's or
+Shakespeare's comic heroes than with Musset's lovers. Pandarus is as
+fond of comparisons as Gros-René, as fond of old saws as Polonius; he is
+coarse and indecent, unintentionally and by nature, like Juliet's
+nurse.[511] 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 for tangible and present
+realities, and does not believe in ever foregoing an immediate and
+certain pleasure in consideration 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."[512] 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 rôle, Pandarus manages so as to bring to a sufficiently serious
+mood the laughter-loving Cressida; he contrives that she shall praise
+Troilus herself, incidentally, 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.[513]
+
+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; 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 imagination 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 unflattering; 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 loven 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.
+
+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.[514]
+
+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 hypothesis. 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 workings 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 produced 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 access to her heart, and that, where one enters so easily, it
+is usually that the door is open. She paces in her melancholy 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 sentiments. 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![515]
+
+The passion and merits of Troilus, the inventions of
+Pandarus, the secret good-will of Cressida, a thunderstorm which breaks
+out opportunely (we know how impressionable 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.[516]
+
+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![517]
+
+Were they happy?
+
+    But juggeth, ye that han ben at the feste
+    Of swich gladnesse.[518]
+
+The gray morn appears in the heavens; the shriek of "the cok, comune
+astrologer," is heard; the lovers sing their song of dawn.[519] All the
+virtues of Troilus are increased and 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.[520]
+
+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 return; true,
+it will not be in ten days; it will be when she can.[521]
+
+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, 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.[522]
+
+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 difference 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
+Beauveau: "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,[523] which 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."[524] 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 employments 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 had described, with "pinacles, imageries, and tabernacles,"
+and
+
+                ful eek of windowes
+    As flakes falle in grete snowes.[525]
+
+His great literary occupation, during that time, was the composition of
+his famous "Canterbury Tales."[526] Experience 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"[527]; the inns were all
+close to each other. It was springtime, 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 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;
+
+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 instead of healing them, and to the pardoner, a
+rascal 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? April has come.
+
+The characters of romance, the statues on cathedrals, the 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 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.[528]
+
+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 rôle 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 coachman, 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 1731.[529]
+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."[530] 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 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 conditions 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
+remains of Henry the Second's former adversary, the Chancellor Thomas
+Becket, assassinated on the steps of the altar, and canonised.[531]
+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 in the saddle; the way will be
+long.[532] 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."[533] 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, beautiful,
+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 surrounded 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 cicadæ 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 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 contrast. 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. "Wel," says the host,
+
+             "Tel on, a devel wey!
+    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 innkeeper; Chaucer never commits the
+fault of making him step out of his rôle; 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 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 shapeless; 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 mowe 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![534]
+
+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 interrupt him; he cannot
+make up his mind to launch into his 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 excellent ones,
+but it is she who has the very best. She is a whole _École des Maris_ in
+herself.
+
+The tales are of every sort,[535] and taken from everywhere. Chaucer
+never troubled himself to invent any; he received them from all hands,
+but he modelled them after his own fashion, and adapted them to his
+characters. They 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 somewhat 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 inspiration.
+
+Next to these great scenes of noise there are little familiar scenes,
+marvellously observed, and described to 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.[536]
+
+Or else, we have representations of those interested visits that
+mendicant friars paid to the dying. The friar, low, trivial,
+hypocritical, approaches:
+
+    "Deus hic," 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. What 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.
+
+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 ban our labour al for noght.[537]
+
+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;
+    Wel 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!
+
+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 boterflye," and what should he see but a fox!
+"Cok, cok!" he cries, with a jump, and means to flee.
+
+        "Gentil sire, allas! 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?[538]
+
+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;
+
+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 "Clavilegno," the steed of Don Quixote in the Duchesse's
+park; biographies of Appius and Virginia, of Cæsar, 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 illuminations of manuscripts.[539]
+
+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,[540] which Chaucer modestly ascribes to
+himself); story of the patient Griselda; discourse 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
+inextinguishable; it rose and fell and rose again, rebounding
+indefinitely; despair was immeasurable; the sense of _measure_ was
+precisely what was wanting; its vulgarisation 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
+scholastic 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, 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;[541] it was turned several times into French.[542] 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.[543] These 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.'"[544]
+
+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 suddenly 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; everything 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 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.[545]
+
+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 sentiments.
+In giving them place in his collection, he belongs to his time and helps
+to make it known; but a few mocking 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 sometimes he can stand their talk no longer,
+and interrupts 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
+shows 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 adventures of the matchless
+Sir Thopas.[546] 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 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;[547]
+
+that, in the education of children, parents should be careful 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 himself very freely about great captains, each of whom would
+have been called "an outlawe or a theef" had they done less harm.[548]
+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 knowledge 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 Arabians 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."[549] 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.[550]
+
+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 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
+celebrated 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:
+
+    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![551]
+
+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,
+copying once more "Boece" or "Troilus," he leaves as many errors
+again.[552] 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."[553]
+
+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.[554]
+
+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 versification, 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 English, 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.
+
+
+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,[555] 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:
+
+    Fle 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.[556]
+
+In spite of this melancholy, he was at that time the uncontested king of
+English letters; a life-long friendship bound him to Gower[557]; 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."
+
+Age had bestowed on him a corpulency which made him a match for Harry
+Bailey himself.[558]
+
+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 a year, a
+house in the garden of St. Mary's, Westminster. The lease is still
+preserved in the archives of the Abbey.[559] He passed away in the
+following year, in that tranquil retreat, and was interred at
+Westminster, 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,
+      Allas that thou thyn excellent prudence
+        In thi bed mortel mightist noght byquethe![560]
+
+At the time of the Renaissance Caxton printed his works twice,[561] and
+Henry VIII. made an exception in their favour in his prohibition of
+"printed bokes, printed balades, ... and other fantasies."[562] Under
+Elizabeth, Thynne annotated them,[563] Spenser declared that he "of
+Tityrus," that is of Chaucer, "his songs did lere,"[564] and Sidney
+exalted him to the skies.[565] In the seventeenth century Dryden
+rejuvenates his tales, in the eighteenth century the admiration is
+universal, and extends to Pope and Walpole.[566] 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,[567] 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[448] 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.
+
+[449] 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.
+
+[450] Such is the case with a tower in the churchyard of St. Giles's,
+Cripplegate.
+
+[451] "Et qi pork voedra norir, le norise deinz sa measoun." Four
+jurymen were to act as public executors: "Quatuor homines electi et
+jurati ad interficiendos porcos inventos vagantes infra muros
+civitatis." Riley "Munimenta Gildhallæ," Rolls, 1859, 4 vols. 8vo;
+"Liber Albus," pp. 270 and 590.
+
+[452] April, 1357, an information gathered from a fragment of the
+accounts of the household of Elizabeth found in the binding of a book.
+
+[453] In the controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert
+Grosvenor, concerning a question of armorial bearings, Chaucer, being
+called as witness, declares (1386) 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 controversy, 1385-90," London, 2 vols.
+fol., vol. i. p. 178. "Retters" is Réthel in Champagne (not Retiers in
+Brittany, where the expedition did not go). Chaucer took part in another
+campaign "in partibus Franciæ," in 1369.
+
+[454] On this see Furnivall, "Chaucer as valet and esquire," Chaucer
+Society, 1876.
+
+[455] 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 holdë 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? (l. 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.
+
+[456] 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 were the same person: same name, same
+function, same pension of ten marks, referred to in the same words in
+public documents, for example: 1º 42 Ed. III., 1368, "Philippæ Chaucer
+cui dominus Rex decem marcas annuatim ad scaccarium percipiendas pro
+bono servitio per ipsam Philippam Philippe Regine Anglie impenso per
+literas suas patentes nuper concessit...." 2º 4 Ric. II., 1381,
+"Philippæ Chaucer nuper uni domicellarum Philippæ 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 tam 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.
+
+[457] Book iv. chap. 40.
+
+[458] Froissart declares concerning his own poems that he "les commencha
+à faire sus l'an de grâce Nostre Seigneur, 1362." He wrote them "à
+l'ayde de Dieu et d'Amours, et à 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, vol. ii. p. 558; 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 Tarbé, "Oeuvres 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
+"Oeuvres Complètes publiées d'après le Manuscrit de la Bibliothèque
+Nationale," by the Marquis de Queux de St. Hilaire, Société des Anciens
+Textes, 1878 ff. (which MS. contains, _e.g._, 1175 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 poésies,"
+"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."
+
+[459] 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 favour 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 "Poésies," ed.
+Scheler, Brussels, 1870, 3 vols. 8vo), vol. i. p. 49. Des Champs praised
+the same flower; Machault wrote a "Dit de la Marguerite" ("Oeuvres
+Choisies," ed. Tarbé, 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.
+
+[460] 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," 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.
+
+[461] 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 à Thomas fiz au Roy, duc 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."
+
+[462] "A vous qui belles filles avez et bien les désirez à introduire à
+vie honneste, bailliez leur, bailliez le Rommant de la Rose, pour
+aprendre à discerner le bien du mal, que diz-je, mais le mal du bien. Et
+à quel utilité ne à quoy proufite aux oyans oïr tant de laidures?" Jean
+de Meun "oncques n'ot acointance ne hantise de femme honorable ne
+vertueuse, mais par plusieurs femmes dissolues et de male vie hanter,
+comme font communément les luxurieux cuida ou faingny savoir que toutes
+telles feussent car d'autres n'avoit congnoissance." "Débat sur le
+Rommant de la Rose," in MS. Fr. 604 in the National Library, Paris, fol.
+114 and 115.
+
+[463] 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.
+
+[464]
+
+    Mais pran en gré les euvres d'escolier
+    Que par Clifford de moy avoir pourras.
+
+For Des Champs, Chaucer is a Socrates, a Seneca, an Ovid, an "aigle très
+hault," "Oeuvres Completes," Paris, 1878 ff., vol. ii. p. 138.
+
+[465] "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.
+
+[466]
+
+    And every day hir beaute newed.
+
+(ll. 906, 963.)
+
+[467] "Book of the Duchesse," ll. 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.
+
+[468]
+
+    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!
+    Il fault que vostre fait soit mis
+    Au conseil pour respondre à plain;
+    Attendez encore mes amis ...
+    Il faut parler au chancelier
+    De vostre fait et à plusours ...
+    Temps passe et tout vint arrebours.
+
+"Oeuvres Complètes," Société des Anciens Textes, vol. vii. p. 117.
+
+[469]
+
+    De laissier aux champs me manace,
+    Trop souvent des genoulx s'assiet,
+    Par ma foy, mes chevaulx se lace.
+
+(_Ibid._, p. 32.)
+
+[470]
+
+    Mal fait mangier à l'appétit d'autruy.
+
+(_Ibid._, p. 81.)
+
+[471]
+
+    O doulz pais, terre très honorable,
+    Où chascuns a ce qu'il veult demander
+    Pour son argent, et à pris raisonnable,
+    Char, pain et vin, poisson d'yaue et de mer,
+    Chambre à par soy, feu, dormir, reposer,
+    Liz, orilliers blans, draps flairans la graine,
+    Et pour chevaulz, foing, litière et avaine,
+    Estre servis, et par bonne ordonnance,
+    Et en seurté de ce qu'on porte et maine;
+    Tel pais n'est qu'en royaume de France.
+
+(_Ibid._, p. 79.)
+
+[472] Book i. chap. 692.
+
+[473] The order for the payment of the expenses of "nostre cher et féal
+chivaler Edward de Berklé," and "nostre féal 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 duc de Melan
+Barnabo come à nostre cher et foial Johan Haukwode ès 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
+_Athenæum_ of Sept. 9, 1893. During this 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.
+
+[474] ll. 1982, 1990, 1997.
+
+[475] Figure of "Peace," by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1339. See a drawing of
+it in Müntz, "Les Précurseurs de la Renaissance," Paris, 1882, 4to, p.
+29.
+
+[476] Müntz, _ibid._, p. 30.
+
+[477] "F. Petrarcæ Epistolæ," ed. Fracassetti, Florence, 1859, vol. iii.
+p. 541.
+
+[478] Letter of Boccaccio "celeberrimi nominis militi Jacopo Pizzinghe."
+Corazzini, "Le Lettere edite ed inedite di Giovanni Boccaccio,"
+Florence, 1877, 8vo, p. 195.
+
+[479] 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 Mondes_, July 15, 1888.
+
+[480] 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 Griselda.
+
+[481] "The Othe of the Comptroler of the Customes," in Thynne's
+"Animadversions," Chaucer Society, 1875, p. 131.
+
+[482] 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
+Galfridi Chaucer."
+
+[483] 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 Angliæ,"
+Rolls, p. 370) caused by a rumour of the coming of the French. See
+Riley, "Memorials of London," pp. 388, 489. A study on the too neglected
+Ralph Strode is being prepared (1894) by M. Gollancz.
+
+[484] "Dimissio Portæ de Aldgate facta Galfrido Chaucer.--Concessio de
+Aldrichgate Radulpho Strode.--Sursum-redditio domorum supra
+Aldrichesgate per Radulphum Strode." Among the "Fundationes et
+præsentationes cantariarum ... shoparum ... civitati pertinentium."
+"Liber Albus," Rolls, pp. 553, 556, 557.
+
+[485] 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. l. 647; "Complete Works," iii. p. 20.
+
+[486] All these dates are merely approximative. Concerning the
+chronology of Chaucer's works, see Ten Brink, "Chaucer Studien,"
+Münster, 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 lawe." He wrote his "Legend" to make amends.
+
+[487] "Parlement of Foules," ll. 272, 225, "Complete Works," vol. i.
+
+[488] "Hous of Fame," l. 133 _ibid._, vol. iii.
+
+[489] "Hous of Fame," l. 518.
+
+[490] "Complete Works, "vol. i. p. 365. This beginning is imitated from
+Boccaccio's "Teseide."
+
+[491] "Parlement of Foules," in "Complete Works," vol. i. p. 336.
+Chaucer alludes here to a book which "was write with lettres olde," and
+which contained "Tullius of the dreme of Scipioun."
+
+[492] "Legend of Dido," in "Complete Works," vol. iii. p. 117.
+
+[493] Book v. st. 256.
+
+[494] "Hous of Fame," ll. 469, 473, 492.
+
+[495]
+
+    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," ll. 124,
+127.
+
+[496]
+
+    S'amor non è, che dunque è 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.)
+
+[497] l. 449.
+
+[498]
+
+    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, fleinge, at a swappe he hente,
+    And with his sours agayn up wente,
+    Me caryinge in his clawes starke.
+
+(ll. 449, 503, 542.)
+
+[499]
+
+    I wol now singe, if that I can
+    The armes, and al-so the man, &c.
+
+(l. 142.)
+
+Hereupon follows a complete but abbreviated account of the events in the
+Æneid, Dido's story being the only part treated at some length.
+
+[500] "Complete Works," vol. iii. The poem was left unfinished; it is
+written in octosyllabic couplets, with four accents or beats.
+
+[501] Compare, for example, the beginning of "Hous of Fame," and No. 487
+of _The Spectator_ (Sept. 18, 1712):
+
+    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.
+
+[502] l. 1191.
+
+[503] l. 1242.
+
+[504] l. 1830.
+
+[505] l. 2047.
+
+[506] l. 2078. _Cf._ La Fontaine's "Les Femmes et le Secret."
+
+[507] "Parlement of Foules," l. 186.
+
+[508] Boccaccio's story is told in stanzas of eight lines, and has for
+its title "Il 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.
+
+[509] 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, compared with Boccaccio's Filostrato," Chaucer
+Society, 1875. 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.
+
+[510] Book i. st. 28.
+
+[511] 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?
+
+[512] Turned later into English verse by Lydgate, to be read as a
+supplementary Tale of 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.
+
+[513] Book ii. st. 46.
+
+[514] Book ii. st. 100 ff.
+
+[515] Book ii. st. 182.
+
+[516] Book iii. st. 163 and 170.
+
+[517] 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 ff.).
+
+[518] Book iii. st. 188.
+
+[519]
+
+                      What me is wo
+    That day of us mot make desseveraunce!
+
+(Book iii. st. 203, 204.)
+
+[520] Book iv. st. 98 ff.
+
+[521]
+
+    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.
+
+[522] Book v. st. 263.
+
+[523] Pierre de Beauveau's translation of the passage (in Moland and
+d'Héricault, "Nouvelles françoises en prose, du XIVe Siècle," 1858, p.
+303) does not differ much from the original. Here is the Italian text:
+
+    Giovane donna è mobile, e vogliosa
+    È negli amanti molti, e sua bellezza
+    Estima piu ch'allo specchio, e pomposa
+    Ha vanagloria di sua giovinezza;
+    La qual quanto piaccevole e vezzosa
+    È piu, cotanto più seco l'apprezza;
+    Virtù non sente ni conoscimento,
+    Volubil sempre come foglia al vento.
+
+("Opere Volgari," Florence, 1831, vol. xiii. p. 253.)
+
+[524] "Return of the names of every member [of Parliament]," 1878, fol.
+a Blue Book, p. 229.
+
+[525] "Hous of Fame," l. 1189.
+
+[526] "Complete Works," ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1894, 6 vols. 8vo, vol. iv.
+
+[527] 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.
+
+[528] Beginning of the "Shipmannes Tale."
+
+[529] "Vie de Marianne," Paris, 1731-41.
+
+[530] Book i. chap. 81, Luce's edition.
+
+[531] 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 restored, to indicate the place in the choir where the
+shrine used to be.
+
+[532] 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.
+
+[533] "E forse a queste cose scrivere, quantunque sieno umilissime, si
+sono elle venute parecchi volte a starsi meco." Prologue of "Giornata
+Quarta."
+
+[534] "Pardoner's Tale," ll. 904, 920, 931.
+
+[535] 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 story which Chaucer intended to remodel; it
+would suit the Yeoman better than the Cook (in "Complete Works," as an
+appendix to vol. iv.).
+
+_2nd 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. 1393.--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, Cæsar, Croesus; 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.
+
+_3rd 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.
+
+_4th 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.
+
+[536] "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.
+
+[537] l. 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 à chaque saison." Friar John "ne passait pas dans
+les rues que les pères, les mères et les enfants n'allassent à lui et ne
+lui criassent: Bonjour, frère Jean, comment vous portez vous, frère
+Jean? Il est sûr que quand il entrait dans une maison, la bénédiction du
+ciel y entrait avec lui." "Jacques le Fataliste et son Maître," ed.
+Asseline, p. 46.
+
+[538] "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 285; on Geoffrey de Vinesauf and
+Richard, see above, p. 180.
+
+[539] 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, l. 190,
+"Complete Works," iv. p. 31.
+
+[540] 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 appelé Melibée, puissant et riches ot une femme nommé
+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).
+
+[541] 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_.
+
+[542] It is to be found in the "Ménagier de Paris," ab. 1393, the author
+of which declares that he will "traire un exemple qui fut ja pieça
+translaté par maistre François Petrarc qui à Romme fut couronné poète"
+("Ménagier," 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 Marquise de Saluces ou la patience de
+Griselidis," Paris, 1691, 12mo. 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 Edgeworth's novels has for its title and subject: "The Modern
+Griselda."
+
+[543] 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
+Mystère de Griselidis"; one in German was written by Hans Sachs in 1550.
+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.).
+
+[544] Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson, January 11, 1749. "Correspondence
+of Samuel Richardson," ed. Barbauld, London, 1804, 6 vols. 12mo, vol.
+iv. p. 240.
+
+[545] "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 568.
+
+[546]
+
+    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).
+
+[547] Tale of the Canon's Yeoman, l. 995.
+
+[548]
+
+    ... 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 mescheef,
+    Men clepen him an outlawe or a theef.
+
+(Maunciple's tale, in "Complete Works," iv. p. 562.)
+
+[549] "A Treatise on the Astrolabe" in "Complete Works," vol. iii. p.
+175.
+
+[550] "General Prologue," l. 742.
+
+[551] "Troilus," Book v. st. 257.
+
+[552] "Chaucer's wordes unto Adam, his owne Scriveyn," in "Complete
+Works," vol. i. p. 379.
+
+[553] "Je te suppliray seulement d'une chose, lecteur, de vouloir bien
+prononcer mes vers et accomoder ta voix à leur passion ... et je te
+supplie encore de rechef, où tu verras cette marque: (!) vouloir un peu
+eslever ta voix pour donner grâce à ce que tu liras." Preface of the
+"Franciade."
+
+[554] So says the Parson, who adds:
+
+    Ne, God wot, rym holde I but litel bettre.
+
+Parson's Prologue, l. 43. It will be observed that while _naming_ simply
+rhyme, he _caricatures_ alliteration.
+
+[555] 1391, in "Complete Works," vol. iii. On that other, _possible_ son
+of Chaucer, Thomas, see _ibid._, vol. i. p. xlviii., and above, p. 273.
+
+[556] "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 à Scogan"; "L'Envoy de Chaucer à
+Bukton," on marriage, with an allusion to the Wife of Bath; "The
+Compleynt of Venus"; "The Compleint of Chaucer to his empty purse," &c.,
+all in vol. i. of "Complete Works."
+
+[557] It has been said, but without sufficient cause, that this
+friendship came to an end some time before the death of Chaucer.
+
+[558]
+
+    He in the waast is shape as wel as I.
+
+(Prologue to Sir Thopas.)
+
+[559] To be seen (1894) under glass in the Chapter House.
+
+[560] "Hoccleve's Works," ed. Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 1892, vol. i. p. xxi.
+
+[561] 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 representing the pilgrims seated at the table of the Tabard inn.
+
+[562] "Animadversions uppon the Annotacions and corrections of some
+imperfections of impressiones of Chaucers workes...." by Francis Thynne,
+ed. Furnivall and Kingsley, Chaucer Society, 1876, p. xiv.
+
+[563] _Ibid._
+
+[564] "Shepheard's Calender," December.
+
+[565] "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.
+
+[566] 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. iii. ch. vii., "Chaucer in Literary History."
+
+[567] 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 "Canterbury 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 Canterbury. 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 Crécy, 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, jugglers, and
+minstrels have not disappeared; on the contrary, they are more numerous
+than ever. "Merry England" favours them; they continue to play, as
+under the first Angevins,[568] 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.[569]
+
+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."[570] Without any 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 devill; but of dyvines, so
+few there be as they maye hardly be seene."[571]
+
+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,[572] 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, composed in the very style
+of his own burlesque poem, about heroes who, being all peerless, are
+necessarily all alike: one is "stalworthe and wyghte," 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[573]; 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.[574] Specimens of this facile art swarm indefinitely; they
+are scattered over the country, penetrate into hamlets, find their way
+into cottages, 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 be listened to. Far above those empty, tripping
+metrical stories, and superior even to "Morte Arthure" and to "William
+of Palerne,"[575] written in English verse at the time of Chaucer, ranks
+"Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight,"[576] 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 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,"[577] jests, and the laughter of ladies.[578] 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![579]
+
+She seats herself, and refuses to go. Gawayne is assailed 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 coeurs 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-Désert, and that his guest has
+been the sport of "Morgan the fairy," the companion 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 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 contains another, on a
+totally different subject, which seems to be by the same author. This
+poem has been called "The Pearl;"[580] 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 landscape 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.[581] He sees a forest, 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.[582]
+
+So great is the beauty of the place that the father's grief is soothed,
+and he has a marvellous vision. On the opposite 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.[583] 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 painting at St. Bavon of Ghent.
+
+
+II.
+
+An immense copse surrounds the oak. About Chaucer swarm innumerable
+minstrels, anonymous poets, rhyming clerks, knightly ballad makers.[584]
+The fragile works of 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."[585]
+
+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 "Dormi Secure"[586] (Sleep in peace, tomorrow's sermon is
+ready). We find also in English manuscripts rubrics like the following:
+"Loo here begynnethe a Balade whiche that Lydegate wrote at the request
+of a squyer yt served in Love's court."[587] In their most elegant
+language, with all the studied refinement of the flowery style, the
+poets, writing to order, amplified, embellished, 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.
+
+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."[588] Chaucer's good parson bears witness to the
+popularity of another song, and declares in the course of his sermon:
+"Wel may that man that no good werke ne dooth, singe thilke newe Frenshe
+song: "J'ay tout perdu mon temps et mon labour."[589]
+
+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.[590] In the
+fourteenth century the Pui of London was at the height of its
+prosperity; 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 "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 whatsoever." 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 _chanson_, neither can a _chanson 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 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 _chansons 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 endeavour to cherish and praise women even in their
+absence, other makers of songs follow another mediæval 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.[591]
+
+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,[592] are, with women, the
+subjects of these satirical songs:
+
+    Preste, ne monke, ne yit chanoun,
+    Ne no man of religioun,
+    Gyfen 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.[593]
+
+An account follows of doings, studies, and prayers, by no means
+edifying, and which recalls Chaucer rather than St. Francis.
+
+
+III.
+
+The tone becomes more elevated; and then we have forest songs in honour
+of the outlaw Robin Hood.[594] 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
+1381, 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?[595]
+
+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.[596] 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 the famous poets of the time saw fit to celebrate Crécy 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.[597]
+
+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.[598]
+
+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,[599] concerning whom
+nothing is 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 unskilful artists they run the risk of recalling the Sir
+Thopas example: this risk Edward incurs at the hands of Laurence 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![600]
+
+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.[601] 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 Franciæ quæ nihil ei nocebat quæritur apud
+Deum."[602]
+
+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.
+
+"The Bruce," composed about 1375 by John Barbour,[603] 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 because 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 disappears, 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.[604]
+
+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
+congratulated on his return:
+
+                  "Perfay," said he,
+    "I slew bot ane forouten ma,
+    God and my hound has slane the twa."[605]
+
+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.[606]
+
+To England's threats Barbour replies by challenges, and by his famous
+apostrophe to liberty:
+
+    A! fredome is a noble thing!...[607]
+
+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
+discussion; but in bondage one cannot live, one dies.
+
+
+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 recognisable 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."[608]
+
+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 vouchen sauf, ther nede is, to corecte
+    Of your benignitees and zeles gode.[609]
+
+Gower, in his turn, represents Venus addressing him as follows:
+
+    ... Grete 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.[610]
+
+Gower 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
+convent 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.[611]
+
+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.[612] 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,[613] Court poems, imitations
+of Petrarch,[614] the light verses of a well-taught man. He promises
+eternal service to his "douce dame"; his "douce dame" being no one in
+particular. He writes for others, and they are welcome to draw from his
+works: "The love-songs thus far are composed 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."[615] 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."[616]
+
+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,"[617] 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 new "Romaunt of the
+Rose." It is springtime, 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."[618]
+
+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
+scholastic methods. Firstly, there are the vices of churchmen; these
+vices are of different kinds, as are ecclesiastics themselves; 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
+hounds[619]; others trade. Knights are too fond of women "with golden
+locks"; peasants are slothful; merchants rapacious and dishonest; they
+make "false gems out of glass."[620] 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."[621]
+
+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, and the whole community to which
+he belonged, 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,[622] offers
+explanations:
+
+    And for that fewe men endite
+    In oure Englishe, I thenke make,
+    A boke for Englondes sake.[623]
+
+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,[624] wherein Gower seeks both to amuse and to instruct, 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.[625] The rest resembles the Gower of the "Vox
+Clamantis."
+
+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.[626]
+
+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"[627]: "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.[628]
+
+We find ourselves again among vices and virtues, classifications,
+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
+Actæon; and your ears, witness the Sirens. He passes on to the seven
+deadly sins which were apparently studied in 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[568] See above, p. 162.
+
+[569] Against those practices Langland strongly protests in his
+"Visions," text C. x. 133; xvi. 200. See following Chapter.
+
+[570] Rymer, "Foedera," 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 français des
+XIIe et XIIIe Siècles," vol. ii. p. 321.
+
+[571] "Anatomy of Abuses," ed. Furnivall, London, 1877-79, 8vo, pp. 171,
+172.
+
+[572] 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.)
+
+[573]
+
+    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 "Catalogue of MS. Romances," 1883, vol. i. pp. 760
+ff.
+
+[574] 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."
+
+[575] Both published by the Early English Text Society: "Morte Arthure,"
+ed. Brock, 1871; "William of Palerne," ed. Skeat, 1867. Both are in
+alliterative verse; the first composed about the end, and the second
+about the middle, of the fourteenth century.
+
+[576] The unique MS. of this poem is in the British Museum: Cotton, Nero
+A 10. 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, however, certainly a French poem. See
+on this subject Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," 1883, p. 387, and G.
+Paris, "Histoire Littéraire de la France," vol. xxx.
+
+[577]
+
+    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....
+
+[578]
+
+    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).
+
+(l. 1952.)
+
+[579] l. 1746.
+
+[580] "Pearl, an English Poem of the Fourteenth Century, edited with
+modern rendering by Israel Gollancz," London, 1891, 8vo. The poem is
+written in stanzas (_a b a b a b a b b c b c_); 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.
+
+[581]
+
+    I entred in that erber grene,
+    In Augoste in a hygh seysoun,
+    Quen corne 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.
+            Yif hit wacz semly on to sene,
+            A fayrie tiayr yet fro hit flot. (St. 4.)
+
+[582]
+
+    As stremande sternes quen strothe men slepe,
+    Staren in welkyn in wynter nyght. (St. 10.)
+
+[583]
+
+    For that thou lestes wacs bot a rose,
+    That flowred and fayled as kynde hit gefe. (St. 23.)
+
+[584] The principal collections containing lyrical works and popular
+ballads of that period are: "Ancient Songs and Ballads from the reign of
+Henry II. to the Revolution," collected by John Ritson, revised by W. C.
+Hazlitt, London, 1877, 12mo; "Specimens of Lyric Poetry, composed in
+England in the reign of Edward I.," ed. Th. Wright, Percy Society, 1842,
+8vo; "Reliquiæ Antiquæ, scraps from ancient MSS. illustrating chiefly
+Early English Literature," ed. T. Wright and J. O. Halliwell, London,
+1841-43, 2 vols. 8vo; "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.
+8vo; "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.
+
+[585]
+
+    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,
+    Terre, mesons et grand tresor,
+    Draps, chivalx, argent et or,
+    Mes ore su-je povres et cheitifs,
+    Perfond en la terre gys,
+    Ma grand beauté est tout alée ...
+    Et si ore me veissez,
+    Je ne quide pas qe vous deeisez
+    Qe j'eusse onqes hom esté.
+
+(Stanley, "Historical Memorials of Canterbury.")
+
+[586] Compiled in France in 1395. Lecoy de la Marche, "la Chaire
+française au moyen âge," 2nd ed., Paris, 1886, 8vo, p. 334.
+
+[587] 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'Orléans, Pierre de Beauveau writes: "Le joyeulx temps passé
+souloit estre occasion que je faisoie de plaisant diz et gracieuses
+chançonnetes et balades." "Nouvelles Françoises du XIVe Siècle," ed.
+Moland and d'Héricault, 1858, p. 303.
+
+[588] "Visions concerning Piers Plowman," A. Prol. l. 103, written about
+1362-3. See following Chapter.
+
+[589] "Parson's Tale."--"Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 581.
+
+[590] "Munimenta Gildhallæ 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, "Littérature française au moyen
+âge," paragraph 127. To these we can add the English imitation which now
+occupies us.
+
+[591] "Songs and Carols now first printed," ed. Th. Wright, Percy
+Society, 1847, 8vo, p. 4.
+
+[592]
+
+    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.
+
+[593] "Political Poems," _ibid._, vol. i. p. 263.
+
+[594] 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.
+
+[595] 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.
+
+[596]
+
+    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.
+
+[597] "Political Poems." _ibid._, vol. i. pp. 26 ff.
+
+[598] Ballad by Eustache des Champs, "Oeuvres Complètes," ii. p. 34.
+
+[599] "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.
+
+[600] _Ibid._, p. 21.
+
+[601] Vices and faults of Edward: "Political Poems," vol. i. p. 159,
+172, &c.
+
+[602] "Political Poems," vol. i. p. 172.
+
+[603] "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.
+
+[604] "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,"
+Advertisement to the first edition.
+
+[605] Book vii. line 483.
+
+[606] Book xvi. line 270.
+
+[607] Book i. line 235.
+
+[608]
+
+    Et si jeo n'ai de François 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_.
+
+[609] Book v. st. 266.
+
+[610] "Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, London, 1857, 3 vols, 8vo. vol.
+iii. p. 374.
+
+[611] 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.
+
+[612] "Primus liber, gallico sermone editus in decem dividitur partes et
+tractans de viciis et virtutibus necnon de variis hujus seculi gradibus
+viam, qua peccator 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 mediæval literature, which were
+called "bibles." See for example "La Bible Guiot de Provins":
+
+    Dou siècle 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 Méon, "Fabliaux," 1808, vol.
+ii. p. 307.
+
+[613] "Balades and other Poems," Roxburghe Club, 1818, 4to.
+
+[614]
+
+    Jeo ris en plour et en santé languis,
+    Ars en gelée et en chalour frémis.
+
+Ballad ix. No passage in Petrarch has been oftener imitated. Villon
+wrote:
+
+    Je meurs de soif auprès de la fontaine ...
+    Je ris en pleurs et attens sans espoir, &c.
+
+[615] "Les balades d'amour jesqes enci sont fait especialement pour
+ceaux q'attendont lours amours par droite mariage. Les balades d'ici
+jesqes au fin du livere sont universeles à tout le monde selonc les
+propertés et les condicions des amants qui sont diversement travailez en
+la fortune d'amour."
+
+[616]
+
+    Camélion c'est une beste fière
+    Qui vit tansoulement de l'air sanz plus;
+    Ensi pour dire en mesme la manière,
+    De soule espoir qe j'ai d'amour conçuz
+    Sont mes pensers en vie sustenuz.
+
+Ballad xvi; what a chameleon is, was thus explained in a Vocabulary of
+the fifteenth century: "Hic gamelion, animal varii coloris et sola aere
+vivit--_a buttyrfle_" (Th. Wright, "Vocabularies," 1857, 4to, p, 220).
+
+[617] "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."
+
+[618] 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, quem spiritus ante malignus
+      Edocuit ...
+
+(p. 50.)
+
+The famous John Ball is here referred to, the apostle of the revolt, who
+died quartered. See below, p. 413.
+
+[619]
+
+    Est sibi crassus equus, restatque scientia macra ...
+    Ad latus et cornu sufflans gerit, unde redundant
+      Mons, nemus, unde lepus visa pericla fugit....
+
+    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. 176.)
+
+[620]
+
+    Conficit ex vitris gemma oculo pretiosas.
+
+(p. 275.)
+
+[621]
+
+    Rex es, regina satis est, tibi sufficit una.
+
+(p. 316.)
+
+[622] "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, 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 père à son fils," thirteenth century, a series of
+tales in verse, told by the father to castigate and edify the son, text
+in Barbazan and Méon, "Fabliaux," Paris, 1808, 4 vols. 8vo, vol. ii.
+
+[623] "Confessio," Pauli's ed., p. 2.
+
+[624] 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.
+
+[625] Vol. i. pp. 89 ff. In Chaucer, the story is told by the Wife of
+Bath.
+
+[626] Beginning of Book i.
+
+[627] Already had been seen in the "Roman":
+
+    Comment Nature la déesse
+    A son prêtre se confesse ...
+    "Génius, dit-elle, beau prêtre,
+    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.
+
+[628] In Mrs. Egerton, 1991, fol. 7, in the British Museum, reproduced
+in my "Piers Plowman," p. 11.
+
+
+
+
+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 Scandinavians. 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 "Canterbury 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. Langland
+is without comparison the greatest poet after Chaucer in the mediæval
+literature of England.[629]
+
+
+I.
+
+His Visions have been preserved for us in a considerable 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,
+desultory, 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 mediæval 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 poem enable us to
+date it. Three principal versions exist,[630] 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.[631]
+
+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 childhood 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
+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 Ymagynatyf, 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; 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![632]
+
+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, Clergye says most appropriately, one of those
+who want to know but hate to study:
+
+    The wer lef to lerne · but loth for to stodie.[633]
+
+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.[634] 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 livelihood, he went to
+London, and tried to earn his daily bread by means of it, of "that
+labour" which he had "lerned best."[635]
+
+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 remunerative 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
+sometimes began, their good works at that hour. They endeavoured 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 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.[636]
+
+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,[637] 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 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.[638] 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 elucidate,
+but, on the contrary, only darkens them:
+
+    The more I muse there-inne · the mistier it seemeth,
+    And the depper I devyne · the darker me it thinketh.[639]
+
+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 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![640]
+
+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 noster_ · the paleys of hevene![641]
+
+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 London, where he had led his
+troubled life to return to the Western country.[642] 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!" pardoners, 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 Canterbury. This crowd has likewise a
+pilgrimage to make, not, however, on the sunny high-road that leads from
+Southwark 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.
+
+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 contains "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 celebrated map of the Tendre. Opposition is made to the marriage,
+and the whole wedding party starts for Westminster, 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 _cortège_, publicly declares he
+will deal justice to the knaves, and the procession 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 apprentice, and make him wait on their
+customers. "Lyer" has at first hard work to find shelter; he hides in
+the obscure holes of the alleys, "lorkynge thorw lanes"; no door opens,
+his felonies are too notorious. At last, the pardoners "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.[643]
+
+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 willing; 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."
+
+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."[644]
+
+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!"[645]
+
+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,[646] 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 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 confession of England in the time of the Plantagenets.[647]
+
+That the conversion may be a lasting one, Truth must be sought after.
+Piers Plowman appears, a mystic personage, a variable emblem, that here
+simply represents the man of "good will," and elsewhere stands for
+Christ himself. He teaches the way; gates must be entered, castles
+encountered, and the Ten Commandments will be passed 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 talkative, 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 Englishman.
+
+The vision rises and fades away; another vision and another pilgrimage
+commence, and occupy all the remainder 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
+intermingled with these sermons: visions of the arrival of Christ in
+Jerusalem, and of the Passion; visions of hell 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.[648]
+
+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 sympathise with the most diverse specimens of
+humanity, has drawn an immortal picture of mediæval England. In certain
+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 singleness 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 subterranean lavas
+which simmer beneath a brittle crust of good order and regular
+administration, all the latent possibilities 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 individualised; 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 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.[649]
+
+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."[650]
+
+The deposition of Richard, accused of having stated, nearly in the same
+terms, "that he dictated from his lips the laws of his kingdom,"[651]
+and the fall of the Stuarts, are contained, so to say, in these almost
+prophetic words.
+
+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 Brétigny, 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 sovereign-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 Parliament towards what they do not hesitate to term the
+sinful town of Avignon: "la peccherouse cité d'Avenon."[652] 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.[653]
+
+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 they "hadden leve to lye al here lyf after."[654] 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 between 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 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 (he)
+    In prisons and in poore cotes?[655]
+
+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 disinterestedness, 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 pretend 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 the
+legende of lif" must take life seriously.[656] 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, without 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 careless, 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 à pas lents
+    Dans un bois, sur une bruyère;
+    Au pied d'un arbre vint s'asseoir
+    Un jeune homme vêtu de noir
+    Qui me ressemblait comme un frère ...[657]
+
+Filled with a similar feeling, the wandering dreamer had met, five
+hundred years before, in a "wilde wildernesse 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)?"[658]
+
+"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 arranged, 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 dispensed
+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.
+
+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 flowering lindens; now they are storm-clouds,
+threatening destruction 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 uppermost 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 unconquerable 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 mediæval 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 constantly 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 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 unworthy 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 compromise 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.[659]
+
+If we allege that there may be some shade of exaggeration 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 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 disappears 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."[660] 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!"[661]
+
+The truth is that there was a tender heart under the rough and rugged
+exterior of the impassioned, indignant, 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."[662]
+
+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 into 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 will 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.[663] 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 accusation 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.
+
+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.[664]
+
+While their author continued to live obscure and unknown, 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.[665] 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, "Complayntes" of the Plowman, &c. Piers'
+credit was made use of at the time of the Reformation, and in his name
+were demanded the suppression of abuses and the transformation 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 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 for 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[629] 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.
+
+[630] Mr. Skeat has given two excellent editions of these three texts
+(called texts A. B. and C.): Iº "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; 2º
+"The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, in three parallel
+texts, together with Richard the Redeless," Oxford (Clarendon Press),
+1886, 2 vols. 8vo.
+
+[631] The reasons in favour of these dates are given in "Piers Plowman,
+a contribution to the history of English Mysticism," chap, ii., and in a
+paper I published in the _Revue Critique_, 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 1398 or shortly after.
+
+[632] B. xv. 48.
+
+[633] A. xii. 6.
+
+[634]
+
+    _Concupiscencia carnis_ · 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.)
+
+[635] C. vi. 42.
+
+[636] C. vi. 45.
+
+[637] On which see W. S. Simpson, "St. Paul's Cathedral and old City
+life," London, 1894, 8vo, 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.
+
+[638] C. beginning of passus vi.; B. beginning of passus xv.: "My witte
+wex and wanyed til I a fole were."
+
+[639] B. x. 181.
+
+[640] B. x. 420.
+
+[641]
+
+    ... 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.)
+
+    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.)
+
+[642] 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.
+
+[643] C. iii. 211 ff.
+
+[644] B. iii. 328.
+
+[645] B. iv. 3.
+
+[646] Daughter of Piers Plowman:
+
+    Hus douhter hihte Do-ryght-so- · other-thy-damme-shal-the-bete.
+
+(C. ix. 81.)
+
+[647] See in particular Gloton's confession, with a wonderfully
+realistic description of an English tavern, C. vii. 350.
+
+[648] "Paradise Lost," canto vi. 601; invention of guns, 470.
+
+[649] B. Prol. 112.
+
+[650] B. xix. 474.
+
+[651] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 419. See above, p. 253.
+
+[652] Good Parliament of 1376.
+
+[653] B. Prol. 95.
+
+[654] B. Prol. 49.
+
+[655] B. Prol. 46; xii. 37; v. 57; C. v. 122.
+
+[656] B. vi. 71; C. ix. 122.
+
+[657] Musset, "Nuit de Décembre."
+
+[658] B. viii. 62.
+
+[659] B. ix. 90.
+
+[660] B. xi. 114.
+
+[661]
+
+    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.
+
+[662] B. xiii. 137.
+
+[663]
+
+    Thei timbrede not so hye.
+
+(A. iii. 76.)
+
+[664] 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 _sh_ópe me in _sh_roúdes · as I a _sh_épe wére.
+
+(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.
+
+[665] Walsingham, "Historia Anglicana," vol. ii. p. 33. Rolls.
+
+
+
+
+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 the translation of which is
+one of the best and oldest specimens of simple and flowing English
+prose.
+
+
+I.
+
+The same phenomenon already pointed out in connection 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 monuments 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 of 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 Molière'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 Conquest, 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 speaking 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 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 perceptible 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,[666] 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,"[667] and goes back to his 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
+Angliæ,"[668] 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,[669] and the scientific encyclopædia,
+"De Proprietatibus Rerum,"[670] of Bartholomew 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.[671] It has
+been found out to-day that the 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 Liège 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.[672] John seems to have
+invented the character of Mandeville as Swift invented Gulliver, and
+Defoe Robinson Crusoe. Now that his imposture is discovered, 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); elsewhere 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 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.[673]
+
+Nothing, indeed, is more cleverly persuasive than the manner in which
+Jean de Bourgogne introduces his hero. He is an honest man, somewhat
+naïve 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 narrative for want of memory or for
+any cause, they will be able to check and correct me: for things seen
+long ago, may be forgotten, and man's memory cannot embrace and keep
+everything."[674]
+
+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,[675]
+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 à 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 (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 passionately 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 compatriots could not fail therefore greatly to please them; they
+delighted in Mandeville's book; it was speedily translated,[676] 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.[677]
+
+Various scientific and religious treatises were also written in prose;
+those of Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole, count amongst the oldest and
+most remarkable.[678] 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 Melibeus,
+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-shaken with sodein light, and smyteth with his bemes in
+mervelinge eyen."[679] 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.[680]
+
+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.
+
+
+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,
+sometimes 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 innumerable 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."[681]
+
+Many eloquent speeches were delivered at this time, 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.[682]
+
+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. Moreover, some of
+the buildings where these scenes took place still exist to-day.[683]
+
+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 woodwork of which was replaced by Richard II., and
+that has been lately cleared of its cumbrous additions.[684] 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 proclamation 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.[685]
+
+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.[686] 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 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 Parliament 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 suffertis 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."
+
+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_.[687] 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 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 exultavit infans in utero ejus._"[688]
+
+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, you well know how, in the last Parliament, the
+king, _with your consent_, again took the title of King of
+France...."[689]
+
+These speeches being heard, and the "receivers" and "triers" of
+petitions having been appointed,[690] 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,"[691] 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
+concessions 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."[692] The
+discussions are long 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."[693] 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.[694] 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,"[695] 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,"[696] 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'Engleterre en cest
+Parlement."[697] 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 boldness of the answers and of the
+remonstrances is extraordinary, 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 Parliament 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
+mistress, 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.[698]
+
+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 remembered that God has
+committed his flock to the care of our Holy Father the Pope, that they
+might be fed and not shorn."[699] 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.[700]
+
+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 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 Westminster. From 1363,[701] 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 himself 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 Temporel, and alle the
+Astates of the lond."[702] There is no more memorable sign of the
+changes that had taken place than 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 originality (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.[703] 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 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 recognised, and Wyclif was asked to draw up a pamphlet
+justifying the decision.[704] In 1374 a diplomatic mission was entrusted
+to him, and he went to Bruges, with several other "ambassatores," to
+negotiate with the Pope's representatives.[705] He then had the title of
+doctor of divinity.
+
+Various provincial livings were successively bestowed upon him: that of
+Fillingham in 1361; that of Ludgarshall 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 excessive 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 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 indescribable 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.[706]
+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 solidarity
+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.[707]
+
+He is found, therefore, in London in the beginning of 1378; the
+bishops are assembled in the still existing chapel of Lambeth Palace.
+But by one of those singularities 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 condemn
+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.[708]
+
+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 town,
+in certain habits under dissimulation of great holiness, without license
+of our Holy Father the Pope, or of the ordinary of the diocese."[709]
+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."[710]
+
+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 condemned 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 _protégé_; 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 Ecclesiæ, confusio vulgi, hæreticorum idolum,
+hypocritarum speculum, schismatis incentor, odii seminator, mendacii
+fabricator"[711]: 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
+Marmaduke Tunstall, on the strength of his reputed descent."[712]
+
+
+IV.
+
+Wyclif had begun early to write, using at first only Latin.[713]
+Innumerable treatises of his exist, many of which 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."[714] He obviously attracted the notice of
+his contemporaries, 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 from 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 conclusions were,
+some of them, bold and practical. A superhuman ideal had been proposed
+by St. Francis to his disciples; 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 influence 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.[715]
+
+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, domination, 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
+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."[716] 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 communia"[717]; 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.[718]--Royalty is not the best form
+of government; an aristocratic system is better, similar to that of the
+Judges in Israel.[719]--Neither heirship nor popular election is
+sufficient for the transmission of the crown; grace is needed
+besides.[720]--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."[721]--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 it.[722]
+
+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."[723] But the dissatisfied only adopted the first part of the
+theory, and instead of submitting to Simon Sudbury, their archbishop, of
+whom they disapproved, they cut off his head.
+
+These were certainly extreme and exceptional consequences, to which
+Wyclif only contributed in a slight 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.[724]
+
+
+V.
+
+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.[725]
+
+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 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 complete one in French, written in the thirteenth
+century,[726] 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 translated 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.[727]
+
+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 complete, of Wyclif's 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.[728] 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 Wyclif's 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 impassioned 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 workable 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."[729] How should popes be above kings?
+"Thus shulden popis be suget to kynges, for thus weren bothe Crist and
+Petre."[730] 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 rewarded
+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."[731]
+
+Next to these brief arguments are familiar jests, gravely uttered, with
+scarcely any perceptible change in the expression 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."[732]
+
+It is difficult to follow him in all the places where he would fain lead
+us. He terrified the century by the boldness 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.[733] 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 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.[734]
+
+The other sacraments,[735] 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,"[736] 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 demands 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.
+
+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, trustworthy gentlemen, who will defend the country; and he does
+not perceive that these riches would have fallen principally into the
+hands of turbulent and grasping courtiers, as happened in the sixteenth
+century.[737] He is carried away by his own reasonings, so that the
+Utopian or paradoxical 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."[738]
+
+His disciples, _Lollards_ as they were usually called, a name the origin
+of which has been much discussed, survived him, and his simple priests
+continued, for a time, to propagate his doctrines. The master's
+principal propositions 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 included
+that of the goldsmiths, and another art of which, however, the Puritans
+were to make a somewhat notorious use, that of the armorers.[739]
+
+At the University, the followers of Wyclif were numerous; in the country
+they continued to increase until the end of the fourteenth century.
+Energetic measures were adopted in the beginning of the fifteenth; the
+statute "De hæretico 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
+introduced 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, 1415. But the doctrine
+survived; it was adopted with modifications by the Taborites and the
+Moravian Brethren, and borrowed from them by the Waldenses[740]; 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.[741]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[666] "Historia Anglicana," vol. i. pp. 453 ff. By the same: "Gesta
+abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani," 3 vols., "Ypodigma Neustriæ," 1 vol.
+ed. Riley, Rolls, 1863, 1876.
+
+[667] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 27. See above, p. 201.
+
+[668] "Chronicon Angliæ," 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 of Gaunt, which are not found elsewhere.
+
+[669] "Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden ... with the English translation of
+John Trevisa," ed. Babington and Lumby, Rolls, 1865, 8 vols. 8vo.
+
+[670] See above, p. 195.
+
+[671] "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," by G. F. Warner; Westminster, Roxburghe Club,
+1889, fol. In the introduction will be found the series of proofs
+establishing the fact that Mandeville never existed; the chain seems now
+complete, owing to a succession of discoveries, 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 Société 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.
+
+[672] The church and its dependencies were sold and demolished in 1798:
+"Adjugés le 12 nivôse an vi., à la citoyenne épouse, J. J. Fabry, pour
+46,000 francs." Warner, _ibid._, p. xxxiii.
+
+[673] Warner, _ibid._, p. v.
+
+[674] "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 esté oultre mer sachent et
+entendent se je dis voir ou non at se je erre en devisant pour non
+souvenance ou autrement que il le puissent adrecier et amender, car
+choses de lonc temps passées par la veue tournent en oubli et mémoire
+d'omme ne puet tout mie retenir ne comprendre." MS. fr. 5637 in the
+National Library, Paris, fol. 4, fourteenth century.
+
+[675] On Odoric and Mandeville, see H. Cordier, "Odoric de Pordenone,"
+Paris, 1891, Introduction.
+
+[676] 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.
+
+[677] 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 beit that I dide none my self, for myn unable
+insuffisance) now I am comen hom (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.
+
+[678] See above, p. 216.
+
+[679] "Boethius," in "Complete Works," vol. ii. p. 6.
+
+[680] "Troilus," II. 100. See above, p. 306. _Cf._ Boece's "De
+Consolatione," Metrum III.
+
+[681] "Et ut patesceret totius regni communitati eos non respectu
+avaritiæ quicquam facere, proclamari fecerunt sub poena decollationis,
+ne quis præsumeret aliquid vel aliqua ibidem reperta ad proprios usus
+servanda contingere, sed ut vasa aurea et argentea, quæ 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).
+
+[682] "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 utique in 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 æqua
+libertas, par dignitas, similisque potestas." "Chronicon Angliæ," ed.
+Maunde Thompson (Rolls), 1874, 8vo, p. 321; Walsingham, vol. ii. p. 32.
+
+[683] "Rotuli Parliamentorum, ut et petitiones et placita in
+Parliamento." London, 7 vols. fol. (one volume contains the index).
+
+[684] 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.
+
+[685] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 103.
+
+[686] Ex. 13 Ed. III., 17 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii.
+pp. 107, 135.
+
+[687] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 361.
+
+[688] "Seigneurs et Sires, ces paroles qe j'ay dist sont tant à due en
+Franceys, vostre Roi vient à 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'Angleterre q'est le plus habundant Angle de richesse
+parmy tout le monde, avait estée par longe temps mesnez, reulez et
+governez par enfantz et conseil de vefves...." 1399, _Ibid._, p. 415.
+
+[689] "Rotuli Parliamentorum." Speech of Knyvet, vol. ii. p. 316; of
+Wykeham, 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.
+
+[690] 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 à nostre seigneur le Roi et à son conseil, les mette
+entre cy et le lundy prochein à venir.... Et serront assignez de
+receivre les pétitions ... les sousescritz." _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 135.
+
+[691] _Ibid._, vol. ii. pp. 136, 163. "Fut dit à les ditz Communes de
+par le Roy, q'ils se retraiassent par soi à lour aunciene place en la
+maison du chapitre de l'abbeye de Westm', et y tretassent et
+conseillassent entre eux meismes."
+
+[692] Vol. ii. p. 107, second Parliament of 1339.
+
+[693] "Ils tretèrent longement," _Ibid._, ii. p. 104.
+
+[694] "Sur quele demonstrance il respoundrent q'il voleient parler
+ensemble et treter sur cest bosoigne.... Sur quel bosoigne ceux de la
+Commune demorèrent de lour respons doner tant qe à Samedi, le XIX. jour
+de Feverer." A.D. 1339, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 107.
+
+[695] "Ils n'osoront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et avysez
+les Communes de lour pais." They promise to do their best to persuade
+their constituents. A.D. 1339; "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104.
+
+[696] "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 Parliament of 1339.
+
+[697] 51 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. p. 374.
+
+[698] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 323. This speech created a
+great stir; another analysis of it exists in the "Chronicon Angliæ"
+(written by a monk of St. Albans, the abbot of which, Thomas de la Mare,
+sat in Parliament): "Quæ omnia ferret æquanimeter [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, nec regem commodum, nec regnum ex hac
+fructum aliquem percepisse.... Non enim est credible 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.
+
+[699] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. pp. 337 ff.
+
+[700] June 25, 1376.
+
+[701] 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.
+
+[702] "Sires, I thank God, and yowe Spirituel and Temporal and alle the
+Astates of the lond; and do yowe to wyte, it es noght my will that no
+man thynk yt 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 Parliamentary documents are written
+sometimes in French, sometimes in English; French predominates in the
+first half of the century, and English in the second.
+
+[703] On Wyclif's family, see "The Birth and Parentage of Wyclif," by L.
+Sergeant, _Athenæum_, 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.)
+
+[704] "Determinatio quedam magistri Johannis Wyclyff de Dominio contra
+unum monachum." The object of this treatise is to show "quod Rex potest
+juste dominari regno Anglic 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.
+
+[705] "Ambassatores, nuncios et procuratores nostros speciales." Lewis,
+_ibid._, p. 304.
+
+[706] All these details are found in the "Chronicon Angliæ," 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.)
+
+[707] This extreme leniency caused an indignation of which an echo is
+found in Walsingham: "Oxoniense studium generale," he exclaims, "quam
+gravi lapsu a sapientiæ et scientiæ culmine decidisti!... Pudet
+recordationis tantæ impudentiæ, et ideo supersedeo in husjusmodi materia
+immorari, ne materna videar ubera decerpere dentibus, quæ dare lac,
+potum scientiæ, consuevere." "Historia Anglicana," Rolls, vol. i. p.
+345, year 1378.
+
+[708] 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, quæsitum ab eo, per dominum
+regem Angliæ Ricardum secundum et magnum suum consilium anno regni sui
+primo." The point to be elucidated was the following: "Dubium est utrum
+regnum Angliæ possit legitime, imminente necessitate suæ defensionis,
+thesaurum regni detinere, ne deferatur ad exteros, etiam domino papa sub
+poena censurarum et virtute obedientiæ hoc petente."
+
+[709] "Statutes of the Realm," 5 Rich. II., st. 2, chap. 5. Walsingham
+thus describes them; "Congregavit ... comites ... talaribes indutos
+vestibus de russeto in signum perfectionis amplioris, incedentes nudis
+pedibus, qui suos errores in populo ventilarent, et palam ac publice in
+suis sermonibus prædicarent." "Historia Anglicana," _sub anno_ 1377,
+Rolls, vol. i. p. 324. A similar description is found (they present
+themselves, "sub magnæ 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.
+
+[710] "Select English Works," ed. T. Arnold, Oxford, 1869, vol. i. p.
+176.
+
+[711] "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 Wyclif's name: "Non nominandus Joannes Wicliffe, vel
+potius Wykbeleve." Year 1381 vol. i. p. 450.
+
+[712] L. Sergeant, "The Birth and Parentage of Wyclif," in the
+_Athenæum_ of March 12, 1892.
+
+[713] 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; "Joannis 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 prædicamentali," ed. R.
+Beer, 1891; "De Eucharistia tractatus maior; accedit tractatus de
+Eucharistia et Poenitentia," ed. Loserth and Matthew, 1892. Many
+others are in preparation.
+
+Among the Latin works published outside of the Society, see "Tractatus
+de officio pastorali," ed. Lechler, Leipzig, 1863, 8vo; "Trialogus cum
+supplemento Trialogi," ed. Lechler, Oxford, 1869, 8vo; "De Christo et
+suo Adversario 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, "Wycliffe Exhibition in the King's
+Library," London, 1884, 8vo.
+
+[714] R. Lane Poole, "Wycliffe and Movements for Reform," London, 1889,
+8vo, p. 85.
+
+[715] 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.
+
+[716] "Quilibet existens in gratia gratificante, finaliter nedum habet
+jus, sed in re habet omnia bona Dei." "De Dominio Civili," chap. i. p.
+1.
+
+[717] "De Dominio Civili," chap. xiv. p. 96, chap. xvii. pp. 118-120.
+
+[718] "Vel esset lex superaddita in lege evangelica implicata, vel
+impertinens, vel repugnans." "De Dominio Civili," chap. xvii.
+
+[719] 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.
+
+[720] Chap. xxx. p. 212.
+
+[721] Chap. xxxv. p. 250.
+
+[722] Chap. xxxvii. p. 266.
+
+[723] A conclusion pointed out as heretical by the archbishop of
+Canterbury in his letter of 1382. "Fasciculi," p. 278.
+
+[724] "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.
+
+[725] 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 unprinted," 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.
+
+[726] S. Berger, "La Bible française au moyen âge," 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. français de Cambridge,"
+in "Romania," 1886, p. 265.
+
+[727] "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).
+
+[728] Labbe, "Sacrorum Conciliorum ... Collectio," vol. xxvi. col. 1038.
+
+[729] "Select English Works," vol. iii. p. 100.
+
+[730] "Select English Works," vol. ii. p. 296.
+
+[731] _Ibid._, i. p. 189.
+
+[732] _Ibid._, i. p. 381.
+
+[733] His adversaries, perhaps exaggerating his sayings, attribute to
+him declarations 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 Zizaniorum," p. 108.
+
+[734] "Ille panis est bene miraculose, vere el realiter, spiritualiter,
+virtualiter et sacramentaliter corpus Christi. Sed grossi non
+contentantur de istis modis, sed exigunt quod panis ille, vel saltem 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 1381. 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.
+
+[735] 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.
+
+[736] "Doctor in theologia eminentissimus in diebus illis, in
+philosophia nulli reputabatur secundus, in scolasticis disciplinis
+incomparabilis." "Chronica de eventibus Angliæ," _sub anno_ 1382, in
+Twysden, "Decem Scriptores," col. 2644.
+
+[737] "Select English Works," vol. iii. pp 216, 217.
+
+[738] _Ibid._, ii. p. 414.
+
+[739] Conclusion No. 12. "Henrici de Blandeforde ... Annales," ed.
+Riley, Rolls, 1866, p. 174.
+
+[740] "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. Loserth, "Hus und Wiclif," Leipzig, 1884.
+
+[741] 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 Böhler, 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 laughable 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 constantly incurred: and so it is that the
+best information concerning these men is not to be sought for in the
+monuments of the gay literature, but rather in pious treatises and in
+the acts of Councils.
+
+Treatises and Councils, however, might to our advantage 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 scandalous 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."[742]
+
+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[743]; 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 benches.
+
+Besides their horseplay, jugglers and histrions had, to please their
+audience, retorts, 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 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.[744]
+
+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."[745]
+
+This is a mere sample of an art that lent itself to many uses, and to
+which belonged debates, "estrifs," "disputoisons," "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."[746] 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.[747] 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.[748] 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.[749]
+
+Debates enjoyed great favour in castle halls; impromptu ones which, as
+Cathos and Madelon said, centuries later, "exerçaient les esprits de
+l'assemblée," were greatly liked; they constituted a sort of society
+game, one of the oldest on record. A person among 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."[750] By a phenomenon 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.[751]
+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 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;[752] 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, gives some unexpected
+particulars. He describes the movements and attitudes of certain
+chanters by which they "resembled actors": so that we thus get
+information 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
+inordinate 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."[753]
+
+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, 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.[754]
+
+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.[755] 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?
+
+    _Puella._   By Gode, es noner her at hame.
+
+    _Clericus._ Wel wor suile (such) a man to life
+                That suile 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.
+
+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,"[756] by
+opposition 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 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 Innocent
+III. at the beginning of the thirteenth century, to perform "theatrical
+games" in churches. Be this prohibition enforced, says Gregory IX. a
+little later.[757] 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.[758] 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."[759] Be it forbidden, the University
+of Oxford decrees in the same century, to dance and sing in churches,
+and wear there disguises and wreaths of flowers and leaves.[760]
+
+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 Everyday 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 infallibility; 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."[761] In those bacchanals parodies of the Church prayers were
+introduced; 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
+    Exultet fidelis chorus,
+      Alleluia!
+      Regem Regum
+    Intacte perfundit thorus:
+      Res miranda!
+
+    Angelus consilii
+    Natus est de Virgine,
+      Sol de Stella,
+    Sol occasum nesciens,
+    Stella semper rutilans,
+      Semper clara.
+
+      Or i parra:
+    La Cerveise nos chantera
+      _Alleluia!_
+      Qui que en beit,
+    Se tele seit com estre deit,
+      _Res miranda!_
+
+    Bevez quant l'avez en poing;
+    Bien est droit, car mout est loing
+      _Sol de Stella_;
+    Bevez bien et bevez bel,
+    El vos vendra del tonel
+      _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)."[762]
+
+So rose from earth at Christmastide, borne on the same 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 celebrated 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.[763]
+
+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.[764] Nuns even were known to 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.[765]
+
+The passion for sightseeing, which was then very keen, and which was to
+be fed, later, mainly on theatrical entertainments, was indulged in
+during the Middle Ages in various other ways. Processions were one of
+them; occasions 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, including 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.[766] The procession 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 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 Coeur-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 Aliénor 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."[767]
+
+The same town, fond above all others of such exhibitions, and one of the
+last to preserve vestiges of them in her Lord 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.[768] 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 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, beautiful 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 était au voir," as
+Froissart says so well on an occasion of this sort.[769] There were also
+for the people the May celebrations with their dances and songs, the
+impersonation of Robin Hood, later the performance of short plays of
+which he was the hero[770]; 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 foreshadowed 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 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
+antiphoned 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 _chansons_, 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; religious 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.'"[771]
+
+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 platform, 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."[772]
+
+These adventitious ornaments were greatly appreciated, and from year to
+year they were increased and perfected. 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 mediæval 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.[773] 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, representing
+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
+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 Orléans by
+Joan of Arc, &c.[774] 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
+increased 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 paganism by dint of
+their eloquence. The fifty orators received baptism, and were burnt
+alive.[775] The representation was managed by a Mancel of good family
+called Geoffrey, whom Richard, abbot of St. Albans, 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 quem
+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 1146, after a reign of twenty-six years,[776]
+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 Abbey.[777]
+
+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.[778] In the following century, under Henry III., some
+were written in the English language.[779] During the fourteenth
+century, in 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 may be turned into
+husbands when she wants them. "Hendy Nicholas" quotes 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.[780] The enthusiasm was so general and boundless
+that it seems to the author indispensable 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 with hym;" and yet the lord's vengeance cannot be
+considered 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 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.[781] 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[782] 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 forsené!"[783]
+Purely liturgical drama, of course, is permissible (an additional proof
+of its existence in England); certain representations can be held,
+"provided 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."[784] 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.[785] 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 in former days, have
+come down to us. Besides separate pieces, histories of saints (very
+scarce in England), or fragments 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 merchants, 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 neighbours!' Hence the keeping up of that play in times
+to come" (year 1389).[786]
+
+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.[787] Old Mysteries did not escape the hand of the improvers, any
+more than old churches, where any one who pleased added paintings,
+porches, and tracery, according 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 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.
+
+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 discrete 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."[788] These texts belong to the fifteenth century,
+but there are older ones; and they show that from the beginning the
+difference between good and bad actors was appreciated and great
+importance was attached to the gestures and delivery. The Mystery of
+"Adam" (in French, the work, 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."[789] 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 itself; 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 1417 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 performed 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."[790] In some cases the
+scaffolds were not so high, and boards made a communication 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."[791]
+
+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, shewyng Herowdes in astat, alle the Jewys
+knelyng except Annas and Cayaphas."[792] 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 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 supposed 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.[793] The main
+action takes place on the ground; Apollinia is there, in the middle of
+the executioners. 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
+_fleurs-de-lys_, 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 spectators 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 Molière. "I was on the stage, meaning to
+listen to the play ..." says the Éraste 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 represented
+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
+acknowledged, of water) were supposed to be the Mediterranean;
+Marseilles was at one end, and Jaffa at the other. A few minutes did
+duty for months, years, or centuries. Herod sends a messenger to
+Tiberius; the tetrarch has scarcely finished his speech when his man is
+already at Rome, 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.[794] 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 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."[795] 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 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."[796] 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."[797] 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."[798]
+
+If painted scenery was greatly neglected, machinery received more
+attention. That characteristic of modern times, yeast through which the
+old world has been transformed, 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 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 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.[799] But such splendid inventions were too costly to be
+transferred to the stages for which Shakespeare 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, childishness, 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
+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 sometimes 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 Comédie Française, one of the audience astonished
+his neighbours by crying: "Mais signe donc! Est-elle bête!..." 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:
+
+"_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."[800]
+
+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 _à propos_ of Chaucer; the
+cleverest _compensated_, as Chaucer did, their Miller's tales with
+stories of Griselda. 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 civilisation, 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 sweetness
+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 cascades 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 packing before his
+journey to Egypt; he will take his tools with him, his "_smale_
+instrumentes."[801] 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.
+
+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
+commendable motive was added a sly pleasure felt in caricaturing 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
+unexpectedly 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
+manuscripts 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 "Confrères 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, 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 maintain 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.[802]
+
+Silence! cries Tiberius. Silence! cries Herod:
+
+    Styr not bot ye have lefe,
+    For if ye do I clefe
+            You smalle as flesh to pott.[803]
+
+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.[804]
+
+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.[805]
+
+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.[806]
+
+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![807]
+
+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.[808]
+
+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.'"[809] 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 experience of Courts; they
+drew their caricatures somewhat haphazard. They were neither very
+learned nor very careful; 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
+replies, "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).[810]
+
+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 Shakespeare.
+
+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?" 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.[811]
+
+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 range of mediæval 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.[812]
+
+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, 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.[813] 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 water, 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 house; 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:
+
+    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 farne, youre hartys wold be sore.
+             Ye do wrang, I you warne, that thus commys before
+             To a woman that has farne, 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 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[814]; 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, elementary and
+excessive at the same time, and very different from the delicate art in
+favour to-day. Individuals disappeared; they were replaced by
+abstractions, and these abstractions represented only a single quality
+or defect. Sins and virtues fought together and tried to draw mankind 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 allegories 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.[815] The names of the
+speakers are inscribed in the margin, as if it were a real play. When he
+admitted into his collection 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 separated 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 Protestants,
+and the Reformation by Catholics.[816] 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![817]
+
+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.[818]
+
+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 accordingly 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.[819]
+
+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."[820]
+
+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; and some representations of them took place even later.[821] 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," 1579.[822] 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 development of the drama. They continued to be
+represented in the sixteenth century, and the Parliament of Paris
+complained in 1542 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 performance of Mysteries was forbidden at Paris; but the cross
+and ladder, emblems of the "Confrères de la Passion," continued to be
+seen above the gates of the "Hôtel de Bourgogne," and the privilege of
+the Confrères, which dated three centuries back, was definitely
+abolished in the reign of Louis XIV., in December, 1676.[823] Molière
+had then been dead for three years.
+
+In England, at the date when my Lord Archbishop stopped the
+representation at York,[824] 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, "où damnés sont boulus,"
+as the poor old mother of Villon says in a ballad of her son's.[825]
+
+At the date of the York prohibition, William Shakespeare was fifteen.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[742] "Nostra ætas prolapsa ad fabulas et quævis inania, non modo sures
+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 spectacula 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
+æmiliani, gladiatores, palæstritæ, gignadii, præstigiatores, malefici
+quoque multi et tota joculatorum scena procedit. Quorum adeo error
+invaluit, ut a præclaris domibus non arceantur, etiam illi qui obscenis
+partibus corporis oculis omnium eam ingerunt turpitudinem, quam
+erubescat videre vel cynicus. Quodque magis mirere, nec tunc ejiciuntur,
+quando tumultuantes inferius crebro sonitu aerem foedant, et turpiter
+inclusum turpius produnt.... Jucundum quidem est et ab honeste non
+recedit virum probum quandoque modesta hilaritate mulcere."
+"Policraticus," Book i. chap. viii., in "Opera Omnia," ed. Giles,
+Oxford, 1848, vol. iii. p. 42.
+
+[743] C., xvi. 205.
+
+[744] "De Mimo et Rege Francorum," in Wright, "Latin Stories," 1842, No.
+cxxxvii.
+
+[745]
+
+    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 apelé, par amours?
+    L'em ne l'apele pas, eynz vint tous jours.
+
+Concerning the horse:
+
+    Mange il bien, ce savez dire.
+    Oïl certes, bel douz sire;
+    Yl mangereit plus un jour d'aveyne
+    Que vus ne frez pas tote la semeyne.
+
+Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil général des Fabliaux," vol. ii. p. 243.
+
+[746] "Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus," in prose, ed. Kemble, Ælfric
+Society, 1848, 8vo. See also the "estrif" between Joseph and Mary in
+"Cynewulf's Christ," ed. Gollancz, 1892, p. 17; above, p. 75.
+
+[747] "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," 1864, 4 vols. 8vo,
+vol. i. pp. 50, 58, 79.
+
+[748] "Anonymi Petroburgensis Descriptio Norfolcensicum" (end of the
+twelfth century); "Norfolchiæ Descriptionis Impugnatio," in Latin verse,
+with some phrases in English, in Th. Wright, "Early Mysteries and other
+Latin Poems of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries," London, 1838, 8vo.
+
+[749] "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.
+
+[750] This game is described in the (very coarse) fabliau of the
+"Sentier batu" by Jean de Condé, 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 demander.
+
+Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil général des Fabliaux," vol. iii. p.
+248.
+
+[751] "Prohibemus etiam clericis ne intersint ludis inhonestis, vel
+choreis, vel ludant ad aleas, vel taxillos; nec sustineant ludos fieri
+de Rege et Regina," &c. "Constitutiones Walteri de Cantilupo,
+Wigorniensis episcopi ... promulgatæ ... A.D. 1240," art. xxxviii., in
+Labbe, "Sacrorum conciliorum ... Collectio," l. xxiii. col. 538.
+
+[752] The two sorts are well described by Baudouin de Condé in his
+"Contes des Hiraus," thirteenth century. The author meets a servant and
+asks him questions about his master.
+
+    Dis-moi, par l'âme de ton père,
+    Voit-il volentiers menestreus?
+    --Oïl voir, biau frère, et estre eus
+    En son hostel à giant solas....
+    ... Et quant avient
+    C'aucuns grans menestreus là vient,
+    Maistres en sa menestrandie,
+    Que bien viele ou ki bien die
+    De bouce, mesires l'ascoute
+    Volenticis....
+    Mais peu souvent i vient de teus
+    Mais des félons 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 Condé," ed. Scheler, Brussels, 1866, 3
+vols. 8vo, vol. i. p 154.
+
+[753] "Ad quid illa vocis contractio et infractio? Hic succinit, ille
+discinit.... Aliquando, quod pudet dicere, in equinos hinnitus cogitur;
+aliquando virili vigore deposito in femineæ 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 hæc ridiculosa dissolutio vocatur
+religio!.... Vulgus ... miratur ... sed lascivas cantantium
+gesticulationes, meretricias vocum alternationes et infractiones, non
+sine cachinno risuque intuetur, ut eos non ad oratorium sed ad theatrum,
+nec ad orandum sed ad spectandum æstimes convenisse." "Speculum
+Chantatis," Book ii. chap. 23, in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. cxcv. col.
+571.
+
+[754] 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 Méon,
+"Fabliaux," vol. ii., included into the "Castoiement d'un père à 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."
+
+[755] Text in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," London, 1841, 2
+vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 145. "Hic incipit interludiam de Clerico and
+Puella."
+
+[756] "Here bigynnis a tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge," end of fourteenth
+century, in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," vol. ii. p. 46.
+Elsewhere in the same treatise, "to pley in rebaudye" is opposed to
+"pley in myriclis," p. 49.
+
+[757] "Ludi theatrales, etiam prætextu 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.
+
+[758] "Constitutiones Walteri de Cantilupo, A.D. 1240," in Labbe's
+"Sacrorum Conciliorum ... Collectio," vol. xxiii. col. 526.
+
+[759] Wilkins, "Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ," London, 1737, 4 vols. fol.,
+vol. i. p. 617, Nos. lxxiv., lxxv. The same prohibition is made by
+Walter de Chanteloup, _ut supra_, art. lv. The custom was a very old
+one, and existed already in Anglo-Saxon times; see "Ælfric's Lives of
+Saints," 1881, E.E.T.S., p. 461.
+
+[760] "... Ne quis choreas cum larvis seu strepitu aliquo in ecclesiis
+vel plateis ducat, vel sertatus, vel coronatus corona ex folus arborum,
+vel florum vel aliunde composita, alicubi incedat ... prohibemus,"
+thirteenth century, "Munimenta Academica," ed. Anstey, Rolls, 1868, p.
+18.
+
+[761] Decretal of Innocent III., reissued by Gregory IX. "In aliquibus
+anni festivitalibus, quæ continue natalem Christi sequuntur, diaconi,
+presbyteri ac subdiaconi vicissim insaniæ suæ ludibria exercere
+præsumunt, per gesticulationum suarum debacchationes obscoenas in
+conspectu populi decus faciunt clericale vilescere, quem potius illo
+tempore verbi Dei deberent prædicatione mulcere." Richter and Friedberg,
+"Corpus Juris Canonici," vol. ii. p. 453.
+
+[762] Thirteenth century. See Gaston Paris, "Romania," vol. xxi. p. 262.
+Songs 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 præcipue cantus inhonestos et turpes qui libidinem excitant
+et provocant ... et ymagines imprimunt in mente quas expellere
+difficillimum est. Novi ego, scilicet Gascoigne, doctor sacræ paginæ qui
+hæc 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, 1881, 4to. On the
+Christmas festivities at the University and on the "Rex Natalicius"
+(sixteenth century and before), see C. R. L. Fletcher, "Collectanea,"
+Oxford, 1885, 8vo, p. 39.
+
+[763] "Cum domus Dei, testaute propheta Filioque Dei, domus sit
+orationis, nefandum est eam in domum jocationis, scurrilitatis et
+nugacilatis convertere, locumque Deo dicatum diabolicis adinventionibus
+execrare; cumque circumcisio Domini nostri Jesu Christi prima fuerit nec
+modicum acerba ejusdem passio, signum quoque sit circumcisionis
+spiritualis qua cordium præputia tolluntur ... execrabile est
+circumcisionis Domini venerandam solemnitatem libidinosarum voluptatum
+sordibus prophanare: quapropter vobis mandamus in virtute obedientiæ
+firmiter injungentes, quatenus Festum Stultorum cum sit vanitate plenum
+et voluptatibus spurcum, Deo odibile et dæmonibus amabile, ne de cætero
+in ecclesia Lincolniensi, die venciandæ solemnitatis circumcisionis
+Domini permittatis fieri." "Epistolæ," ed. Luard, Rolls, 1861, p. 118,
+year 1236(?). Same defence for the whole diocese, p. 161.
+
+[764] "Wardrobe Accounts," in "Archæologia," 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.
+
+[765] "Inhibemus ne de cetero in festis Innocentium et Beate Marie
+Magdalene ludibria exerceatis consueta, induendo vos scilicet vestis
+secularium aut inter vos, sed cum secularibus, choreas ducendo, nec
+extra refectorium comedatis," &c. Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, to
+the nuns of Villarciaux, thirteenth century. "Registrum Visitationum"
+ed. Bonnin, 1842, 4to, p. 44.
+
+[766] "Historia Major," Rolls, vol. iii. p. 336.
+
+[767] Matthew Paris, _ibid._
+
+[768] 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.
+
+[769] Entry of Isabeau of Bavaria into Paris, in 1384.
+
+[770] 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.
+
+[771] "Quem quæritis in præsepe, pastores? Respondent: Salvatorem
+Christum Dominum." Petit de Julleville, "Histoire du Théâtre en
+France.--Les Mystères," 1880, vol. i. p. 25.
+
+[772] Petit de Julleville, _ibid._, vol. i. p. 26.
+
+[773] Same beginning and same gradual development: "Quem queritis in
+sepulchro o Christicole?--Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum o celicole.--Non
+est hic, surrexit sicut predixerat; ite nunciate quia surrexit.
+Alleluia." In use at Limoges, eleventh century. "Die lateinischen
+Osterfeiern, untersuchungen über den Ursprung und die Entwicklung der
+liturgisch-dramatischen Auferstehungsfeier," by Carl Lange, Munich,
+1887, 8vo, p. 22.
+
+[774] "Ci comence l'estoire de Griselidis;" MS. fi. 2203, in the
+National Library, Paris, dated 1395, outline drawings (privately
+printed, Paris, 1832, 4to).--"Le Mistère du siège d'Orléans," ed.
+Guessard and Certain, Paris, 1862, 4to (Documents inédits).
+
+[775] 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.
+
+[776] "Vitæ ... viginti trium abbatum Sancti Albani," in "Matthæi Paris
+monachi Albanensis [Opera]," London, 1639-40, 2 vols. fol., vol. ii. p.
+56 "Gaufridus decimus sextus [abbas]."
+
+[777] _Ibid._, p. 64.
+
+[778] He writes, twelfth century: "Londonia pro spectaculis
+theatralibus, pro ludis scenicis, ludos habet sanctiores,
+representationes miraculorum...." "Descriptio nobilissimæ civitatis
+Londoniæ," printed with Stow's "Survey of London," 1599, 4to
+
+[779] 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 disciple of Abélard, twelfth century, who
+seems to have been an Anglo-Norman; "Hilarii versus et Ludi," ed.
+Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1838. A few lines in French are mixed with
+his Latin.
+
+[780] "Here bigynnis a tretise of miraclis pleyinge," in Wright and
+Halliwell, "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," London, 1842, vol. ii. p. 42; end of
+fourteenth century.
+
+[781] "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 sæcularia 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.
+
+[782] "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.
+
+[783]
+
+    Un autre folie apert
+    Unt les fols clercs contrové,
+    Qe "miracles" sunt apelé;
+    Lur faces unt la déguisé
+    Par visers, li forsené.
+
+[784]
+
+    Fere poent representement,
+    Mes qe ceo seit chastement
+    En office de seint église
+    Quant hom fet la Deu servise,
+    Cum Jesu Crist le fiz Dee
+    En sepulcre esteit posé,
+    Et la resurrectiun
+    Pur plus aver devociun.
+
+[785]
+
+    Ki en lur jus se délitera,
+    Chivals on 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 presté
+    Bien dust estre chaustié.
+
+[786] Toulmin Smith, "English Gilds," London, 1870, E.E.T.S., p. 139.
+
+[787] The principal monuments of the English religious stage are the
+following: "Chester Plays," ed. Th. Wright, Shakespeare Society, 1843-7,
+2 vols., 8vo (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, 4to (illustrated).
+
+"Ludus Coventriæ," 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 _Athenæum_, 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 Brome,
+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 to be played
+on part on gudfriday afternone, and the other part opon Esterday
+afternone," in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," 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, 8vo.
+
+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 altenglischen kollektivmisterien," in "Anglia," xi. p. 219, and Ch.
+Davidson, "Studies in the English Mystery Plays, a thesis," Yale
+University, 1892, 8vo.
+
+[788] "York Plays," pp. xxxiv, xxxvii.
+
+[789] This preliminary note is in Latin: "Sit ipse Adam bene instructus
+quando respondere debeat, ne ad respondendum nimis sit velox aut nimis
+tardus, nec solum ipse, sed omnes persone sint. Instruantur ut composite
+loquentur; et gestum faciant convenientem rei de qua loquuntur, et, in
+rithmis nec sillabam addant nec demant, sed omnes firmiter pronuncient."
+"Adam, Mystère du XIIe. Siècle," ed. Palustre, Paris, 1877, 8vo.
+
+[790] "Digby Mysteries," p. xix.
+
+[791] "The Pageants ... of Coventry," ed. Sharp.
+
+[792] [So called] "Coventry Mysteries," Trial of Christ.
+
+[793] 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 Mystères," by Petit de Julleville, vol. ii. chap, xxiii., "Mystères
+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 vivero 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 præacutos ut sic dentes ejus et per
+tales stipites læderent, radices dentium cum forcipe everentur
+radicitus. In illa hora oravit S. Apollinia dicens: 'Domine Jesu
+Christe, precor te ut quicumque diem passionis meæ 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. Apolloniæ," 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. fi. 15,236 in the National Library, and
+the model made after one of them, exhibited in the Opéra Museum, Paris.
+
+[794] What the place is--
+
+    ... Vous le povez congnoistre
+    Par l'escritel que dessus voyez estre.
+
+Prologue of a play of the Nativity, performed at Rouen, 1474; Petit de
+Julleville, "Les Mystères," vol. i. p. 397.
+
+[795] "Digby Mysteries," ed. Furnivall, p. 127.
+
+[796] "Mystère du vieil Testament," Paris, 1542, with curious cuts,
+"pour plus facile intelligence." Many other editions; one modern one by
+Baron J. de Rothschild, Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1878 ff.
+
+[797] "Chester Plays," ii.
+
+[798] "Adoncques doit Adam couvrir son humanité, faignant avoir honte.
+Icy se doit semblablement vergongner la femme et se musser de sa main."
+"Mystère du vieil Testament."
+
+[799] Reproduced by Mr. R. T. Blomfield, in the _Portfolio_, May, June,
+July, 1889.
+
+[800]
+
+    _Diabolus._ Jo vis Adam, mais trop est fols.
+
+    _Eva._      Un poi est durs.
+
+    _Diabolus._                  Il serra mols;
+                Il 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.
+                Mal cuple en fist le criatur;
+                Tu es trop tendre et il trop dur ...
+                Por ço fait bon se treire à tei;
+                Parler te voil.
+
+[801]
+
+    All my smale instrumentes is putt in my pakke.
+
+("Digby Mysteries," p. 11.)
+
+[802] "Towneley Mysteries."
+
+[803] _Ibid._--Magnus Herodes.
+
+[804] "Towneley Mysteries."--Processus Talentorum.
+
+[805] "Digby Mysteries."--Candlemas Day, p. 3.
+
+[806] "Digby Mysteries."--Mary Magdalen, p. 55.
+
+[807] _Ibid._, p. 90.
+
+[808] "Chester Plays."--Salutation and Nativity.
+
+[809] "Digby Mysteries," p. 56.
+
+[810] "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 Normandie, insbesondere seine
+Magdalenenlegende," in "Romanische Studien" vol. iv. p. 493; Doncieux,
+"Fragment d'un Miracle de Sainte Madeleine, texte restitué," in
+"Romania," 1893, p. 265. There was also a drama in French based on the
+same story: "La Vie de Marie Magdaleine ... Est à xxii. personages,"
+Lyon, 1605, 12mo (belongs to the fifteenth century).
+
+[811] "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 Sacrament": "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 yt 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).
+
+[812] "Chester Plays."--Salutation and Nativity.
+
+[813] "Towneley Mysteries."--Secunda Pastorum.
+
+[814] See, for instance, "Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages," ed.
+G. Paris and U. Robert, Société des Anciens Textes, 1876-91, 6 vols.
+8vo.
+
+[815] In Méon's edition, Paris, 1813, vol. ii. pp. 326 ff.
+
+[816] Plays of this kind were written (without speaking of many anonyms)
+by Medwall: "A goodly Enterlude of Nature," 1538, fol.; by Skelton,
+"Magnyfycence," 1531, fol.; by Ingelend, "A pretie Enterlude called the
+Disobedient Child," printed about 1550: by John Bale, "A comedye
+concernynge thie 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.
+
+[817] "Interlude of the four Elements," London, 1510(?), 8vo.
+
+[818] See, for example, the mournful passages in the "Disobedient
+Child," the "Triall of Treasure," London, 1567, 4to, and especially in
+"Everyman," ed. Goedeke, Hanover, 1865, 8vo, written at the beginning of
+the reign of Henry VIII.
+
+[819] Song of the Clown in "Twelfth Night," iv. 3.
+
+[820] "Pantagruel," iii. 37.
+
+[821] Furnivall, "Digby Mysteries," p. xxvii.
+
+[822] "York Plays," p. xvi.
+
+[823] Petit de Julleville, "Les Mystères," 1880, vol. i. pp. 423 ff.
+
+[824] 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.
+
+[825] 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 perceive 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, like an echo that repeats another echo. Lydgate
+imitates Chaucer, and Stephen Hawes imitates Lydgate.[826]
+
+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."[827]
+
+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 aristocracy 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 endowments; 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 works, 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."[828]
+
+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,[829] a worthy
+man, it seems, if ever there was one, and industrious, and prolific,
+above all prolific, writes according to established standards, tales,
+lays,[830] fabliaux satires,[831] romances of chivalry, poetical
+debates, ballads of former times,[832] allegories, lives of the saints,
+love poems, fables[833]; 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 counting his longer works.
+Virgil had only written fourteen thousand.
+
+He copies Latin, French, and English models, but especially
+Chaucer,[834] he adds his "Story of Thebes"[835] 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"[836] is an imitation of the
+"Hous of Fame"; his "Complaint of the Black Knight" resembles the "Book
+of the Duchesse"; his "Falle of Princes"[837] 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 uplifted pen to
+yawn at his ease in the face of his reader.[838] 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[839]; a translation of that same "Pélerinage" of Deguileville,
+which had inspired Langland; a Guy of Warwick[840]; 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.[841] 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 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.[842]
+
+But let us not blame him; Chaucer, his good master, would, he assures
+us, have excused his faulty prosody, and what right have we to be more
+severe than Chaucer?[843] 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[844]; his duties consist in copying documents; an occupation he
+finds at length somewhat tiresome.[845] 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
+doubtless held back by a remembrance of officialdom and promotion.[846]
+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 acquainted 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 compilation
+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, 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.[847]
+
+
+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 imitation 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 comfort 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 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 destinies; 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 kings 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 unwonted 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 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.[848] 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 of "that noble senatoure"
+who had also known great reverses, 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?
+
+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."[849]
+
+Blind Harry, the minstrel, sings the popular hero, William Wallace.[850]
+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.
+
+Blind Harry continues Barbour rather than Chaucer, but Chaucer resumes
+his rights as an ancestor with Henryson and Dunbar. The former[851] 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,
+    Writtin 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 "disputoison" 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.
+
+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 Æsop, "poet laureate;" there is no room for doubt:
+we are in the Middle Ages. Æsop 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 epigrammatic 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 importance, 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 "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 sall 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.
+
+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 illustrious 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, nevertheless,
+the Chaucerian tradition is continued. Douglas writes a "Palice of
+Honour," imitated from Chaucer.[852] Dunbar,[853] with never flagging
+spirit, attempts every style; he composes sentimental allegories and
+coarse tales (very coarse indeed), satires, parodies, laments.[854] His
+fits of 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 imitations 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 perfumes. 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.[855]
+
+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.,[856] 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,[857] and which have come down stirring and touching; love-songs,
+doleful ditties, the ride of the Percy and the Douglas[858] ("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 Henryson 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,"[859] 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 time, Lydgate, Henryson, Dunbar,
+Stephen Hawes,[860] represent 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 preparing. 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 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 development, 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 suspected that one day perhaps there may be chairs for
+everybody. In the course of an examination bearing on thousands of
+documents, Thorold Rogers found but two allusions to the civil
+wars.[861] 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
+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 degraded 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.[862]
+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,[863] is a sign of these
+improvements. The letters of the Paston family are another.[864] 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 lamentations, 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."[865] John Paston, shut in
+the Fleet prison, where he makes the acquaintance of Lord Henry Percy,
+for prisons were then 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.[866]
+
+Books of advice to travellers, itineraries or guides to foreign
+parts,[867] vocabularies, dictionaries, and grammars,[868] commercial
+guides, the "Libelle of Englyshe Polycye,"[869] 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 should be the
+first on the sea, and able to impose "pease by auctorité." 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 information 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 cité,
+    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 prose, a treatise on absolute and limited
+monarchy[870]; 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 subsydyes.... 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 confesses, 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 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."[871] 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 policemen; 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 employs Wyclif's
+irony to defend what Wyclif had attacked; pilgrimages, friars, the
+possessions of the clergy, the statues and paintings in churches.[872]
+His forcible eloquence is embittered by sarcasms; he continues a
+tradition, dear to the English race, and one which, constantly renewed,
+will come down to Swift and to the humourists of the eighteenth
+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?[873] 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 published by Caxton, the first English printer,
+who was also a prose-writer.[874] They even write on love; prose now
+retaliates upon verse, and trespasses on the domains of poetry.[875]
+
+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 necessary 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 "Sejanus"; the fear of the pit prevented him;
+he grumbles, but submits.[876] The thrift and the toil of the English
+peasant and craftsman in the fifteenth century had thus 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 Demosthenes.
+Never had the town of Constantine been more Greek than on the eve of its
+destruction.[877] The fame of its rhetoricians is spread abroad; men
+come from Italy to hear John Argyropoulos, the Chrysoloras, the famous
+Chrysococcès, 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 Nicopolis and Kossovo. The illustrious towns of the
+Greek world fall one after the other, and the exiled grammarians seek
+shelter with the literate tyrants of Italy, bringing with them their
+manuscripts. Some, like Theodore 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., Dragassès. 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
+11th 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, contains 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 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[826] I try, repeatedly says Stephen Hawes,
+
+    To followe 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.
+
+[827] 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 his 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), "Life of St. 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 Cronykil of Scotland," finished, about
+1424, ed. Laing, Edinburgh, 1872 ff., 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 palæography, spurious
+charters establishing England's sovereignty over Scotland; those
+charters exist at the Record Office, the fraud was proved by Palgrave.
+All these chronicles are in "rym dogerel."
+
+[828] "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.
+
+[829] 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.
+
+[830] 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."
+
+[831] Ex. his picturesque "London Lickpenny."
+
+[832] Same idea as in Villon; refrain:
+
+    All stant in chaunge like a mydsomer rose,
+
+Halliwell, "Selections from Lydgate," 1840, p. 25.
+
+[833] "Lydgate's Æsopübersetzung," ed. Sauerstein; "Anglia," 1866, p. 1;
+eight fables. He excuses himself:
+
+    Have me excused, I was born in Lydegate,
+    Of Tullius gardyn I entrid nat the gate. (p. 2.)
+
+[834]
+
+    O ye maysters, that cast shal yowre looke
+      Upon this dyté 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.
+
+[835] 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.
+
+[836] "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," ed. J. Schick, 1891, 8vo, Early
+English Text Society.
+
+[837] First edition: "Here begynnethe the boke calledde John Bochas,
+descrivinge the Falle of Princes." [1494], folio.
+
+[838]
+
+    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 iii., Schick, "Story of Thebes," p.
+cv.
+
+[839] 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 iii., chap xxii. First edition, 1513. 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.
+
+[840] Ed. Zupitza, Early English Text Society.
+
+[841] 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.
+
+[842] "Troy Book"; in Schick, "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," p. lvi. In his
+learned essay Mr. Schick pleads extenuating circumstances in favour of
+Lydgate.
+
+[843] 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 yt 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 Historie," London, 1554, 4to, Book v. chap, xxxviii.
+
+[844] 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, 1860, 4to. Two or three of his tales in
+verse are imitated from the "Gesta Romanorum"; another, the "Letter of
+Cupid," from the "Epistre an 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.
+
+[845] It seems like nothing, he says, but just try and see:
+
+    Many men, fadir, wennen that writynge
+    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.)
+
+[846] "La Male Règle de Thomas Hoccleve," in the "Minor Poems," pp. 25
+ff.
+
+[847]
+
+    Al-thogh his lyfe be queynt, the résemblaunce
+      Of him hath me so fressh lyflynesse,
+    That, to putte othir men in rémembraunce
+      Of his persone, I have heere his lyknesse
+    Do makë, to this ende, in sothfastnesse,
+      That thei that have of him lest thought and mynde,
+      By this peynturë may ageyn him fynde.
+
+("Minor Poems," p. xxxiii.; on this portrait see above, p. 341.)
+
+[848] "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'Écosse," with details from an unprinted MS., Paris,
+1894.
+
+[849] 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 poetis laureate,
+      In moralitee and eloquence ornate,
+    I recommend my buk in lynis sevin,
+    And eke thair soulis un-to the blisse of hevin.
+
+[850] "The Actis and Deidis of ... Schir William Wallace, Knicht of
+Ellerslie," by Henry the Minstrel, commonly known as Blind Harry, ed. J.
+Moir, Edinburgh, 1884-99, Scottish Text Society. Blind Harry died
+towards the end of the fifteenth century.
+
+[851] 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.
+
+[852] "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 1501, 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 Æneid was printed only in 1553.
+
+[853] 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.
+
+[854] See, for example, his "Lament for the Makaris quhen he wes seik,"
+a kind of "Ballade des poètes 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.
+
+[855] 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....
+
+[856] Text in the Morris edition of Chaucer's poetical works, London,
+Aldine poets, vol. iv.
+
+[857] Principal work to consult: F. J. Child, "The English and Scottish
+Popular Ballads," Boston, 1882. See above, p. 352.
+
+[858] In "Bishop Percy's Folio MS.," ed. Hales and Furnivall, London,
+Ballad Society, 1867, 8vo.
+
+[859] 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.
+
+[860]
+
+    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.
+
+[861] "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, 1894, 2 vols. 8vo, vol.
+i. chaps. ii. and iii.
+
+[862] 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, indigens, and causes oftymes grete
+extortion, embracere and mayntenaunce to be had.... Wherfore the kyng,
+by the advyse ... [&c.] exactith 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 effecte." 17 Ed. IV. year 1477, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. vi. p.
+173.
+
+[863] 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. iii. p. 23. Many other treatises on
+etiquette 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).
+
+[864] "The Paston Letters," 1422-1509, ed. J. Gairdner, 1872, 3 vols.
+8vo.
+
+[865] Or in the worthy Margaret's spelling: "Yf I mythe 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).
+
+[866] Sept. 21, 1465, vol. ii. p. 237.
+
+[867] _E.g._, "The Itineraries of William Wey" (pilgrimages), London,
+Roxburghe 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).
+
+[868] See among others: "Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies," by
+Th. Wright, ed. Wülcker, London, 1884, 2 vols. 8vo; "Promptorium
+Parvulorum, 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, 8vo.
+
+[869] In the "Political Poems," ed. Th. Wright, Rolls, vol. ii. p. 157.
+Probable date, 1436. _Cf._ the "Débat des hérauts de France et
+d'Angleterre," (written about 1456), ed. P. Meyer, Société des Anciens
+Textes, 1877, 8vo; on the navy, p. 9.
+
+[870] "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 Naturæ," and
+another, "De laudibus Legum Angliæ."--"Works of Sir John Fortescue ...
+now first collected," by Thomas [Fortescue] Lord Clermont, London, 1869,
+2 vols. 4to.
+
+[871] Chaps. xii. and xiii., vol. i. pp. 465 ff.
+
+[872] In his principal work, the "Repressor of over much blaming of the
+Clergy," ed. Babington, Rolls, 1860, 2 vols. 8vo. Pecock was born about
+1395; he was a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, bishop of St. Asaph,
+then bishop of Chichester. He wrote, besides the "Repressor," a quantity
+of works ("Donet"; "Book of Faith"; "Follower of Donet," &c.,
+unpublished), 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.
+
+[873] "Repressor," i, ch. xix.
+
+[874] "The Boke of St. Albans, by Dame Juliana Berners, containing
+treatises on hawking, hunting and cote armour, printed at St. Albans, by
+the Schoolmaster printer in 1486, reproduced in fac simile," by W.
+Blades, London, 1881, 4to (partly in verse and partly in prose; adapted
+from the French).--"A Chronicle of England" (from the creation to 1417),
+by Capgrave, born in 1394, died in 1464, ed. Hingeston, 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 Darthur," by Sir Thomas
+Malory) by O. Sommer and Andrew Lang, London, 1889, 2 vols. 8vo. Malory
+and Caxton will be mentioned again in connection with the Renaissance.
+
+[875] 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 Kitsun: "Margaret of Virtw have mercy on Kitsun"
+(_Academy_, March 11, 1893).
+
+[876] He has not observed, he admits, "the strict laws of time," and he
+has introduced no chorus; but it is not his fault. "Nor is it needful,
+or almost possible in these our times, and to such auditors as commonly
+things are presented, to observe the old state and splendor of dramatic
+poems, with preservation of any popular delight."--_To the readers._
+
+[877] H. Vast, "Le Cardinal Bessarion," Paris, 1878, 8vo, p. 14.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+Abbeys, 158 ff.
+
+_A. B. C._, 275.
+
+Abel, 475.
+
+Abélard, 170, 461.
+
+Abernun, P. d', 120.
+
+Abraham 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 ff.
+
+Adam, "scriveyn," 339.
+
+Addison, 296.
+
+Adgar, 123.
+
+Adrian IV., pope, 111, 188.
+
+Ælfric, 45, 88 ff., 205, 449.
+
+Aelred of Rievaulx, 154, 193, 213, 445 ff.
+
+Æneas the Trojan, 114, 129, 295, _see_ "Enéas."
+
+Æsop, 508.
+
+Æthelberht, 61.
+
+Æthelred, 79.
+
+Æthelstan, 28, 46, 93.
+
+Æthelwold, 88.
+
+Æthelwulf, 63.
+
+Aetius, 26.
+
+Agricola, 20.
+
+Ailill, 13.
+
+Aïmer, 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.
+
+Aliénor of Aquitaine, 112.
+
+Aliénor 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 Coeur-de-Lion, 121.
+
+America, discovered, 491.
+
+_Amis and Amile_, 142, 229.
+
+Ammianus Marcellinus, 32, 114.
+
+_Anatomy of Abuses_, 346.
+
+Anchoresses, 153, 211 ff.
+
+_Ancren Riwle_, 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, vocabulary, 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, 203 ff., 250, mind and genius of, 300, 316, 344, 402,
+  Chaucer and the, 338 ff.
+
+_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 46, 47, 62, 86 ff., on Hastings, 100, 103,
+  on William, 105 ff.
+
+Anne of Bohemia, 265, 454 ff.
+
+Annebaut, R. d', 120.
+
+Anselm, St., 165, 193, 198.
+
+Antenor, the Trojan, 113.
+
+_Antigone_ of Sophocles, 34.
+
+_Antiocheis_, 176.
+
+Antoninus Pius, 19, 20.
+
+Apelles, 286, 294.
+
+Apollinia, life of St., and drama on, 470 ff.
+
+_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, 5 ff.
+
+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.
+
+Aristotle, 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., portrait 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; _see_ Architecture, Miniatures.
+
+Arthur, King, early songs on, 32; 112, 113, 127; cycle of, 131 ff.; 177,
+  in Layamon, 220 ff.; 222, 226, 348 ff.
+
+Ass, feast of the, 452.
+
+Asser, 81, 82.
+
+_Astrée_, 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 Vienna, 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 ff., 321 ff., 341.
+
+_Balade 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., 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, 10; 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.
+
+Becket, St. Thomas, life in French, 123; 156, 165, 188 ff., 208, 319.
+
+Bede, 57, 62, life and works, 66 ff., 81, translated by Alfred, 82 ff.;
+  205, 220.
+
+Bedford, George Neville, duke of, 515.
+
+Bédier, on fabliaux, 142.
+
+_Bello Trojano, De_, 176.
+
+_Beowulf_, 37 ff., 45, 47, analysis of, 48 ff., compared with
+  Roland, 54 ff.; 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 Désert, 350.
+
+Bérou, author of a _Tristan_, 134.
+
+Berry, Jean duc de, 76.
+
+_Beryn_, tale of, 320.
+
+Bessarion, 168, 525.
+
+_Bestiaire d'Amour_, 123.
+
+Bestiaries, 76, 123, 214, 276, 409.
+
+Betenham, William, 312.
+
+_Bevis of Hampton_, 223.
+
+Bible, in Anglo-Saxon, 71 ff., by Ælfric, 87, in English, in French,
+  207; 315, quoted in Parliament, 415 ff., translated 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 ff., 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.
+
+Böhler, Peter, 438.
+
+Bohun, 109, 250.
+
+Boileau, 330, 473.
+
+_Boke of Nurture_, 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 Duchesse_, 272, 279 ff., 499,
+  _of Nurture_, 264, _of St. Albans_, 522.
+
+"Börn," 44.
+
+Bossert, on _Tristan_, 135 ff.
+
+Bourgogne, Jean de, à 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, 111, 188.
+
+Brescia, Albertano de, 325, 331.
+
+Brétigny, 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 populated, 33; 132.
+
+Broker, Nicolas, 265.
+
+Bromyard, John of, 183.
+
+Brooke, Stopford, 39, 72.
+
+Browning, Robert, 342, and Preface.
+
+Bruce, David, 115.
+
+_Bruce_, the, 361.
+
+_Brunanburh_, ode on, 46.
+
+Brunne, _see_ Mannyng.
+
+_Brut_ of Layamon, 219 ff.
+
+Brutus 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.
+
+
+Cædmon, 45, 68, life and works, 70 ff.
+
+Cæsar, on Celts, 6, 7, 11, 18, on Germans, 23; 29, 222.
+
+Cain, 475.
+
+Callisthenes, pseudo, 128, 129.
+
+Cambinscan, 325.
+
+Cambrensis, _see_ Barry.
+
+Cambridge, University of, 173 ff.
+
+Canterbury, Gervase of, 202.
+
+    "       Thomas of, 258.
+
+_Canterbury Tales_, 245, 296, 313 ff., 373, 497, 499, 511.
+
+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 Perseverance_, 491.
+
+_Castoiement d'un père à son fils_, 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
+  Scotland, 503.
+
+Cemeteries, dances in, 448 ff.
+
+_Cento Novelle 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.
+
+Chanteloup, Walter de, 444, 449.
+
+Chantries, 378 ff.
+
+Chap-books, 225, 506.
+
+Chapelain, André le, 140.
+
+Chapu, Guillaume, 120.
+
+Chardry, 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, 171, 195, 259.
+
+    "   VI.       ",  456.
+
+    "   V. of Germany, 101.
+
+Charnay, Henri de, inquisitor, 159.
+
+_Chastoiement des Dames_, 230.
+
+_Château 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, 372 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, in Anglo-Saxon England, 30, 57,
+  60 ff.
+
+Christmas, how celebrated, 450 ff., plays, 457 ff.
+
+Chronicles, Anglo-Norman, 113 ff., 121, Latin, 166 ff., 197 ff., in the
+  XVth century, 496 ff.
+
+Chrysococcès, 523.
+
+Chrysoloras, 523.
+
+Church, the English, 157 ff., Wyclif on, 423 ff., 430 ff., decaying in
+  the XVth century, 497.
+
+Cicero, 168, 498.
+
+Cirencester, Richard of, 202.
+
+_Claris Mulieribus, De_, 294.
+
+Clarissa Harlowe, 333, 484.
+
+Classic influences and models, 166, 374.
+
+Claudian, 295, 297.
+
+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 University, 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.
+
+Coenewulf, 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 Lover's Life_, 279,
+  _unto Pite_, 272, 279, _of the Plowman_, 401, _of
+  Venus_, 275, 341.
+
+Communism, Wyclif on, 430 ff.
+
+_Comus_, 456.
+
+Conchobar, 11 ff.
+
+Condé, Baudouin de, 445.
+
+  " Jean de, 444.
+
+_Confessio Amantis_, 365, 366, 369 ff.
+
+"Confrères de la Passion," 480, 493.
+
+Conquest, Norman-French, Bk. ii., 95 ff., silence after the, 204 ff.
+
+Constance, Chaucer's Story of, 325, 331, 335.
+
+_Constant du Hamel_, 496.
+
+Constantius Chlorus, 19.
+
+Constantine the Great, 20.
+
+Constantine XII., 524.
+
+Constantinople, taken by the Turks, 524.
+
+_Conte des Hiraus_, 445.
+
+Corbichon, Jean, translates Bartholomew the Englishman, 195, 225.
+
+Cook, Captain, 7.
+
+Cookery, 263 ff., 516.
+
+Cordier, H., on Mandeville, 407, 409.
+
+Corneille, Pierre, 156, 471.
+
+Cornelius Gallus, 33.
+
+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 Enchantée_, 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.
+
+Courtenay, bishop of London, 426.
+
+Courtesy, books of, 515 ff.
+
+Courtin, Honoré, 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.
+
+Cuchulaïnn, 11 ff.
+
+_Cursor Mundi_, 215 ff., 222, 225, 260.
+
+Cuthberht, 64, 67, 68.
+
+Cuthwine, 67.
+
+Cycles of France, Rome and Britain, 125 ff.
+
+Cynewulf, 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, 118, 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.
+
+Deadly Sins, in Langland, 386.
+
+Death, Celts' idea of, 7 ff., Greeks', 7 ff., Frenchmen's, 57 ff.,
+  Anglo-Saxons', 56 ff., 74, Rolle of Hampole's, 218, Black Prince's,
+  353; an occasion for jokes, 449, on the stage, 490, 491.
+
+_Débat des Hérauts de France et d'Angleterre_, 517.
+
+_Decameron_, 287, 320 ff., 325.
+
+Defoe, 162, 224, 407.
+
+_Degrevant_, 347.
+
+Deguileville, 275, 498, 500.
+
+Dekker, 332.
+
+Delisle, Leopold, on Bartholomew the Englishman, 195.
+
+Des Champs, Eustache, 257, 275, on Chaucer, 278, on diplomatic service,
+  282; 289, 340, 360.
+
+_Deor_, 38, 59.
+
+_Departed Soul's Address_, 75.
+
+Derdriu, 15 ff.
+
+Dermot, 121.
+
+Despencer, Henry le, bishop of Norwich, 164.
+
+Devil, described by Ælfric, 90, and St. Dunstan, 209, tempts Rolle of
+  Hampole, 217, on the stage, 471, 475.
+
+Dialect, of Chaucer, 338 ff., of Langland, 401, Scotch, 503.
+
+Dialogues, in Celtic Literature, 13 ff., in Anglo-Saxon, 75, in Latin,
+  187, 191, in _Troilus_, 303; 442 ff., after dinner, 444, in
+  interludes, 446 ff., in pageants, 454 ff., in Mysteries, 477 ff., in
+  _Roman de la Rose_, 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.
+
+Diodorus Siculus, 101.
+
+"Dirige," 379.
+
+_Disobedient Child_, 491.
+
+"Disputoisons" or Debates, 144, 230, 441 ff.
+
+_Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum_, 191.
+
+"Doctors," 193 ff.
+
+Dogmas, attacked by Wyclif, 425, 435 ff.
+
+Domesday Book, 100, 104 ff., 158.
+
+Dominicans, 159 ff.
+
+"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 ff., religious, 456 ff.
+
+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, 510, 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.
+
+
+Eadgar child, 103.
+
+Eadmer, 198.
+
+_Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter_, 76.
+
+Eadwine, earl, 103.
+
+Ealdred, archbishop of York, 103.
+
+Ealwhine (Alcuin), 65.
+
+Earle, on A.S. Literature, 39, on _Beowulf_, 48, on A.S.
+  Chronicle, 87.
+
+Easter, origin of the name, 62, drama, 457 ff.
+
+Ecgberht, 68.
+
+Ecgferth, 87.
+
+_École des Maris_, 324.
+
+_Edda_, 40 ff.
+
+Edgar, king, 87, 88 ff.
+
+Edgeworth, Miss, 332.
+
+Edmund, St., 113, 209.
+
+Edrisi, 129.
+
+Eduini, king, 57.
+
+Edward, king, the confessor, 97, 111, 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, 264, 266, 272, 284, 360 ff.,
+  406, 415, 495.
+
+Edward IV., 513 ff.
+
+Eginhard, 24, 46.
+
+_Eglamour_, 347.
+
+Ekkehard, 48.
+
+_Elene_, 72 ff.
+
+Elizabeth, queen, 372.
+
+    "      wife of Lionel son of Edward III., 270.
+
+Eloi, St., 209.
+
+_Enéas_, 130.
+
+England, first inhabitants of, 3 ff., between northern and southern
+  civilisations, 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.,
+  Chaucer'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_, 113 ff.
+
+"Estrifs," 230, 443, _see_ Disputoisons.
+
+_Eulogium 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 _Hous of_.
+
+Fantosme, Jordan, 118.
+
+_Fasciculi Zizaniorum_, 425, 428, 431, 435.
+
+Fashions, 265, ridiculed, 358.
+
+_Fates of the Apostles_, 72.
+
+_Ferumbras_, 223.
+
+Fielding, H., 224, 336, 517.
+
+Figaro, 151, 229.
+
+"File," 11.
+
+_Filocopo_, 325.
+
+_Filostrato_, 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, mediæval, 286 ff., plague at, 320.
+
+_Flower and Leaf_, 497, 512.
+
+Foix, Gaston Phébus 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 Aymon_, 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_, 114, 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.
+
+French, invasion, Bk. ii., 95 ff., followers of William, 100, families
+  and manners, 109, literature under Norman 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.; fusion of the, with the English,
+  Bk. iii. c. i., 235 ff., in the courts of law, 238 ff., at Oxford,
+  239, disuse of, 239 ff., in diplomatic relations, 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., Langland'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,
+  Langland'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., 301, 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 Regum Anglorum_, 199.
+
+_Gesta Romanorum_, 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.
+
+_Gombert_, 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.
+
+Gregory of Tours, 49.
+
+Gregory the Great, St., 63; translated by Alfred, 81 ff.; 123, 153.
+
+Gregory IX., 160, 449 ff., 463.
+
+Grein's _Bibliothek_, 40, 79.
+
+Grendel, 50 ff., 69.
+
+Greteham, Robert of, 118, 123.
+
+Gretti and Beowulf, 49.
+
+Grignan, Madame de, 57.
+
+Grim, of Grimsby, 223.
+
+Grimbold, 81.
+
+Grindecobbe, 405.
+
+Griselda, 142, 289, 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.
+
+Güterbock 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.
+
+_Handlyng Synne_, 214, 216.
+
+Hardy, Sir T. D., on Matthew Paris, 200.
+
+Hardyng, 497.
+
+Harold, Godwinson, 97 ff., 198.
+
+Harold Hardrada, 98 ff.
+
+_Harrowing 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.
+
+Hauréau, on G. de Vinesauf, 180.
+
+Hauteville, Jean de, 177.
+
+_Havelok_, lay of, 222, 223.
+
+Hawes, Stephen, 496, 513.
+
+Hawkwood, Sir J., 257, 284.
+
+Hebenhith, Thomas de, 262.
+
+Hector of Troy, 305.
+
+Helen of Troy, 210.
+
+_Heliand_, 71.
+
+Hell, painted by Giotto, 206, represented at Torcello, 207, described,
+  210, besieged, 388, in Mysteries, 475, painted at Stratford-on-Avon,
+  494.
+
+Helwis, 448.
+
+Hemingburgh, Walter of, 201.
+
+Hengest, 62, 112, 220.
+
+Hengham, Judge, 238.
+
+Henry I., Beauclerc, 176.
+
+Henry II. of England, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 133, 156, 165, 176, 190,
+  198, 319.
+
+Henry III., 107 ff., 112, 200, 201, 262, 417, 441, 454.
+
+Henry IV., 236, 240, 342, 365, 421.
+
+Henry V., 500.
+
+Henry VII., 202, 504, 511, 513.
+
+Henry VIII., 242, 342, 436.
+
+Henryson, 497, 507 ff., 513.
+
+Henslowe, Philip, 332.
+
+Hereford, Nicolas de, 433.
+
+Hereward, 224.
+
+_Hermit who got drunk_, 183.
+
+Herod, King, 326, 461, 469, 473, 479, 480 ff.
+
+Herrtage, on _Gesta Romanorum_, 183.
+
+Hervieux, on fabulists, 178.
+
+Heyroun, Thomas, 268.
+
+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.
+
+_Historia Anglorum_, 199.
+
+_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.
+
+Hohlfield, on Mysteries, 466.
+
+Holinshed, 114.
+
+Holkot, Robert, 167.
+
+Holy-Church, in Langland, 380.
+
+Holy-Grail, 223.
+
+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, 112.
+
+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.
+
+Hübner, baron de, 58.
+
+Hugh, St., bishop of Lincoln, 165.
+
+Hugo, Victor, 3.
+
+Hugolino, 325, 330.
+
+Hugon, of Constantinople, 146.
+
+Humour, Chaucer's, 317 ff., Wyclif'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_, 118.
+
+Ingelend, 491.
+
+Innocent III., 170, 449, 450, 463.
+
+Innocent IV., 173.
+
+Innocents, feast of, 452.
+
+Invasions, 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, 442.
+
+Jonson, Ben, 456, 522.
+
+Joseph and Mary, 479, 484, as a workman, 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. Dujon), 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, 504.
+
+Knighton, on Wyclif, 436.
+
+Knights, in Langland, 399.
+
+Knyvet, John, 416, 417.
+
+Koch, on Chaucer, 291.
+
+Kölbing, on romances, 223.
+
+
+La Calprenède, 300.
+
+Lactantius, 77.
+
+La Fontaine, 58, 179, 183, 226, 296, 298, 324, 325, 508.
+
+_Lai de l'Oiselet_, 142.
+
+_Lai du Cor_, 225.
+
+Lamartine, 17.
+
+_Lament for the Makaris_, 510.
+
+Lancaster, Blanche, duchess of, 280 ff.
+
+Lancaster, Henry of, 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, 359, life and 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, Brunetto, 118, 241.
+
+Latymer, impeached, 253.
+
+Lauchert, on _Physiologus_, 76.
+
+"Laudabiliter," bull, 110.
+
+_Launfal_, 230.
+
+Lavoix, H., on mediæval 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 Tormes, 184.
+
+Leechdoms, A.S., 79.
+
+_Legende of Good Women_, 279, 294, 343.
+
+_Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ, De_, 196.
+
+Leo IV., Pope, 79.
+
+Leovenath, 219.
+
+Letters of the Paston family, 516.
+
+Leven, Hugues of, 265.
+
+Lewis, son of Chaucer, 341.
+
+Lewis, John, on Wyclif, 423.
+
+_Lex Salica_, 78.
+
+_Libelle of Englyshe Polycye_, 517 ff.
+
+_Liber Festivalis_, 208.
+
+Libraries, 166 ff., 175, 524.
+
+Lincoln cathedral, 162.
+
+Lindbergh, John of, 215.
+
+Lindner on _Romaunt of the Rose_, 278.
+
+Lionne, Hugues de, 255.
+
+L'Isle, Alain de, 177.
+
+Lison, Richard de, 147.
+
+"Littus Saxonicum," 27, 30.
+
+Lives of Saints, in A.S., 76, by Ælfric, 91, in French, 121 ff., in
+  English, 203, 303, by Lydgate, 500.
+
+Lodbrok, Ragnar, 58.
+
+Logeman, on A.S. reliquary, 73.
+
+Logic, taught in the Universities, 171.
+
+Loki, 44, 55.
+
+Lollards, 359, 437 ff.
+
+"Lollius," 289.
+
+Lombards, 22, 23, 25, 26, 114.
+
+London, mediæval, 268 ff., Chaucer's life in, 289 ff., pageants in,
+  453 ff., 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.      "      110, 201.
+
+Louis XI.      "      519.
+
+Louis XIV.     "      203, 241, 493.
+
+Lounsbury, on Chaucer, 343.
+
+Love, in Irish literature, 15 ff., in Scandinavian literature, 42, in
+  _Tristan_, 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 ff., 279, by Froissart, 274 ff., in
+  _Roman de la Rose_, 276 ff., in Boccaccio, 299, 321, in Chaucer's
+  _Troilus_, 301 ff., in _Gawayne_, 349, songs, 354, in Gower,
+  366 ff., 370 ff., in Langland, 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; 114, 293, 297.
+
+_Lumière des laïques_, 120.
+
+Lutterworth, 423, 426.
+
+Lydgate, 303, 341, 354, 496, life and works, 498 ff.; 502, 513, 515.
+
+_Lyf of Seinte Cecile_, 291, 294, 325, 331.
+
+
+_Mabinogion_, 9, 17.
+
+Macaulay, 122.
+
+_Mac Datho's Pig_, 13.
+
+Machault, 275, 325.
+
+Machinery, stage, 474 ff.
+
+Macpherson, 16.
+
+Mael Duin, 12.
+
+_Magnyfycence_, 491.
+
+Mahomet, 472, 483.
+
+Mahomet II., 524.
+
+Maidstone, Richard of, 207, 454 ff.
+
+Maldon, battle of, 47.
+
+_Male règle 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.
+
+_Manière de Langage_, 241.
+
+_Mantel Mautaillé_, 226.
+
+Mannyng, Robert, of Brunne, 214, 216, 243, 462.
+
+_Manuel des Pechiez_, 213, 216, 463 ff.
+
+Manuscripts, A.S., 45, purchased for the king, 259, rich, 274, 303,
+  of the _Roman de la Rose_, 277, of Chaucer, 338, of
+  _Gawayne_, 351.
+
+Map, Walter, 188, life and works, 190 ff.
+
+Marcel, Etienne, 271.
+
+Marcol, 76.
+
+Mare, Peter de la, 419, Thomas de la, 419.
+
+Maréchal, William le, 121.
+
+Margaret, queen of Scotland, 511.
+
+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, 110.
+
+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.
+
+_Ménagier 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.
+
+Mérimée, 199.
+
+Merlin, 134, 141.
+
+Merovingians, in _Beowulf_, 53.
+
+_Metalogicus_, 188 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, 341, 351, 371, by Fouquet, 470 ff.; in the MS. of
+  the Valenciennes Passion, 470; 503.
+
+Minot, Laurence, 360 ff.
+
+Minstrels, 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.
+
+_Mireio_, 144.
+
+Mirk, 496.
+
+_Miroir de Justice_, 239.
+
+Minstral, 144.
+
+Moktader, Caliph Al, 27.
+
+Molière, 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, 114, 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, uplandis_, 508 ff.
+
+Mowbray, family of, 109.
+
+Müntz, 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's, 27, English, 256 ff.,
+  in the XVth century, 515, 517 ff.
+
+Neckham, Alexander, 177.
+
+Nennius, 114, 132.
+
+Netlau, 11.
+
+Netter, Thomas, 428.
+
+Neville, impeached, 253.
+
+Nevilles, family of the, 109.
+
+Newbury, William of, 134, 202.
+
+_Nibelungenlied_, 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.
+
+_Nova Poetria_, 179 ff.
+
+_Nugis Curialium, De_, 188 ff., 190 ff.
+
+Nunant, Hugh de, 162 ff.
+
+_Nut-brown Maid_, 512.
+
+
+"Oblar," 11.
+
+Ockham, 193, 194.
+
+Octa, 220.
+
+Octavian, 482.
+
+Odo, Bishop, 103, 105.
+
+Oedipus, 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.
+
+Orléans, Charles d', 354.
+
+Ormin, 206.
+
+_Ormulum_, 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, 110, 173 ff., 248, and Wyclif, 423 ff., council
+  of, 434, lollardry at, 437; bacchanals at, 449.
+
+
+Pageants, 453 ff., 468 ff.
+
+_Palace of Honour_, 510.
+
+_Palladius on Husbondrie_, 516.
+
+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.
+
+Paris, Gaston, 135, 141, 355.
+
+Paris, Matthew, 62, 63, 109, 112, 114, 200 ff., 453, 459 ff.
+
+_Parlement of Foules_, 294.
+
+Parliament, churchmen in, 160, institution and authority of, 249 ff.,
+  "good," 246, 419; Chaucer in, 312, Langland on, 386, 390 ff.,
+  sittings and debates, 413 ff.
+
+Parodies, 444 ff.
+
+Parson, Chaucer's, 315, 319, 325, 335, 339, 355, Langland's, 359.
+
+_Paston 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, 405 ff., 412,
+  reach heaven, 381, in the XVth century, 514.
+
+_Pechiez_, _see_ Manuel.
+
+Peckham, Pierre de, 120.
+
+Pecock, Bishop, 520 ff.
+
+Pedro the cruel, 325.
+
+_Pélerinage 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 Philosophie_, 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.
+
+_Philobiblon_, 167 ff.
+
+Philpot, John, 256, 284, 419.
+
+_Phoenix_, 76 ff.
+
+_Physiologus_, 76 ff.
+
+_Piers Plowman_, 374 ff., 490.
+
+Pilate, 461, 480 ff., his wife, 484.
+
+Pilgrims, Canterbury, 313 ff., Langland's, 382 ff.
+
+Pinte, the hen, 150.
+
+Pisa, mediæval, 286.
+
+Pisa, Andrew of, 285, Nicholas of, 286, William of, 286.
+
+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, 110, William of, 100, 104.
+
+Pole, Michel de la, 312, William de la, 417.
+
+_Policraticus_, 188 ff.
+
+Poliziano, 293.
+
+Polo, Marco, 408, 409.
+
+Poole, R. Lane on Wyclif, 428 ff.
+
+Pope, the, William blessed by, 99, and Norman kings, 110, gives Ireland
+  to Henry II., 110, derided, 148, suzerainty of, over England, 157,
+  appeals to, 158, and the University, 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 Wyclif, 423 ff., on drama, 449 ff., and
+  king, 432.
+
+Pordenone, Odoric de, 409.
+
+Porto, county of, 107.
+
+Powell, York, 40.
+
+"Præmunire," 248.
+
+_Praise of Peace_, 370.
+
+Prest, Godfrey, 265.
+
+_Pricke 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 Rerum, De_, 195.
+
+Prose, A.S., 78 ff., English, 211 ff., of Rolle of Hampole, 218,
+  Chaucer's, 337, 411; XIVth century, Bk. iii. c. v., 403 ff., English,
+  compared with French, 404 ff., Wyclif's, 432 ff., 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," 248.
+
+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.
+
+Quintus Curtius, 131.
+
+
+Racine, Jean, 150.
+
+Rabelais, 76, 91, 97, 172, 179, 193, 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.
+
+_Regula 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, 11.
+
+Rhys ap Theodor, 198.
+
+Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 100, 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 Redeless_, 375, 382.
+
+Richardson, Samuel, 224, 333.
+
+Richenda, sister of W. de Longchamp, 163 ff.
+
+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.;
+  remains, 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 Thèbes_, 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 ff., notion of Church and State,
+  derived from, 60 ff., ties with, 157 ff.; 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.
+
+Rutebeuf, 397.
+
+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.;
+  copies 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, 110, 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, 110.
+
+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 ff., 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.
+
+_Secretum Secretorum_, 500.
+
+_Secunda Pastorum_, 486 ff.
+
+_Sejanus_, 522.
+
+Selred, King, 87.
+
+Seneca, 278.
+
+_Sentier 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.
+
+Sévigné, 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, 486 ff.
+
+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.
+
+_Siège d'Orléans_, a drama, 459.
+
+Sienna, mediæval, 287.
+
+Sievers, E., on Cædmon, 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.
+
+_Somme 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.
+
+Squire, Chaucer's, 314, 325.
+
+_Squyr of Lowe Degre_, 347.
+
+_Stacions 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.
+
+Statius, 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, Chaucer'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, II., 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 Gamelyn, 324, of Melibeus, 325, 331, 332, 490, by Gower, 370, told
+  by histrions, 441, by Dunbar, 510.
+
+Tapestries, 262.
+
+_Tartufe_, 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 Lawes_, a comedy by John Bale, 491.
+
+_Thrissil and the Rois_, 511.
+
+_Thrush and Nightingale_, 230, 443.
+
+Thurkill, 215.
+
+Thurot, on the Paris University, 170 ff.
+
+Thynne, F., 343.
+
+Tiberius, 473.
+
+Til Ulespiegel, 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 Treasure_, 491.
+
+_Tristan and Iseult_, 134 ff., 211, 222, 273, 372.
+
+Trivet, Nicholas, 202, 325.
+
+Trogus Pompeius, 33.
+
+_Troilus_ (and Cressida), 130, 293 ff., 298 ff., 339, 346, 364,
+  370, 372, 411, 454, 497, 500, 507, 512.
+
+Trojans, ancestors of European nations, 111 ff.
+
+_Trojan War_, 176.
+
+Trokelowe, John de, 202.
+
+_Troy Book_, 498 ff.
+
+Troyes, Chrestien de, 140.
+
+Tudors, 456, 490.
+
+_Turnament of Totenham_, 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.
+
+
+Vacarius, 196.
+
+Valenciennes Passion, 470.
+
+Valerius (_alias_ Map), 191.
+
+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 Vertus_, _see_ Somme.
+
+_Vieil Testament_, Mystère 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, 510.
+
+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
+  Hampole, 217, concerning Piers Plowman, 373 ff.
+
+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.
+
+Voiture, 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 _Beowulf_, 49, on Map, 192.
+
+Warwick, _see_ Guy.
+
+Washbourn, Richard, 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,
+  traditions, 210.
+
+Wendover, Roger de, 200 ff.
+
+Werferth, bishop of Worcester, 83, 86.
+
+Wesley, 216, 438.
+
+Westminster Abbey, 342.
+
+Wey, 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., 110, 111, 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., satirised 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.
+
+Wülcker, on Cædmon, 71.
+
+Wyclif, 154, 218, 389, life and works, 422 ff., 520 ff.
+
+Wyclif Society, 427.
+
+Wykeham, William 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.
+
+Zimmer, 11.
+
+Zupitza, on _Beowulf_, 48, on Guy of Warwick, 224.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+The year in Roman numerals has been retained as it is in the original.
+Changed owned to owed on page 249, "allegiance is only owed"
+Added opening parenthesis in footnote 166, "see also P. Meyer"
+Added opening parenthesis in footnote 337, "cf. Bramlette's article"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Literary History of the English
+People, by Jean Jules Jusserand
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Literary History of the English People, by 
+Jean Jules Jusserand
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Literary History of the English People
+       From the Origins to the Renaissance
+
+Author: Jean Jules Jusserand
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #22049]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY OF THE ENGLISH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stacy Brown and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Million Book Project)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>A Literary History of the English People</h1>
+
+
+<div class="bbox center padtop" style="margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">
+
+<p class="subhead1">BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 10%;' />
+
+<div style="margin-left: 2%; margin-right: 2%;">
+<p><b>ENGLISH WAYFARING LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES (XIVth Century).</b> Translated by
+<span class="smcap">L. T. Smith</span>. Revised and Enlarged by the Author. 4th Edition. 61
+Illustrations. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p style="font-size: .8em;">"An extremely fascinating book."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><b>THE ENGLISH NOVEL IN THE TIME OF SHAKESPEARE.</b></p>
+
+<p>Translated by <span class="smcap">E. Lee</span>. Revised and Enlarged by the Author. Illustrated by
+6 Heliogravures by <span class="smcap">Dujardin</span>, and 21 full-page and many smaller
+illustrations. 3rd Edition. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p style="font-size: .8em;">"One of the brightest, most scholarly, and most interesting volumes of
+literary history."&mdash;<i>Speaker.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><b>A FRENCH AMBASSADOR AT THE COURT OF CHARLES II.: Le Comte de Cominges,
+from his unpublished correspondence.</b></p>
+
+<p>10 Portraits. Second Edition. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p style="font-size: .8em;">"The whole book is delightful reading."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><b>PIERS PLOWMAN: A Contribution to the History of English Mysticism.</b></p>
+
+<p>Translated by <span class="smcap">M. E. R.</span> Revised and Enlarged by the Author. Illustrated.
+Demy 8vo, cloth, 12s.</p>
+
+<p style="font-size: .8em;">"This masterly interpretation of an epoch-making book."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 10%;' />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">London</span>: T. FISHER UNWIN.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="padtop"><br /></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="600" height="733" alt="stylized image of London" />
+<span class="caption">H&Eacute;LIOG DUJARDIN&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;IMP.CH.WITTMANN PARIS<br />
+MEDI&AElig;VAL LONDON<br />
+<i>from manuscript 16 F. II in the British Museum</i></span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h1 class="padtop">
+A Literary History of<br />
+The English People</h1>
+
+<h2>from the Origins<br />
+To the Renaissance</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead2">By<br />
+<br />
+J. J. Jusserand</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">
+London<br />
+T. Fisher Unwin<br />
+Mdcccccv<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead1"><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</p>
+
+
+<p>Many histories have preceded this one; many others will come after. Such
+is the charm of the subject that volunteers will never be lacking to
+undertake this journey, so hard, so delightful too.</p>
+
+<p>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
+echoes of which, by a gift of fairies or of muses, still vibrate to the
+melody of voices long since hushed.</p>
+
+<p>More has been done during the last fifty years to shed light on the
+origins than in all the rest of modern times. Deciphering, annotating,
+printing, have gone on at an extraordinary pace and without
+interruption; the empire of letters has thus been enlarged, according to
+the chances of the explorers' 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.</p>
+
+<p>The field of literary history widens in another manner yet, and one that
+affects us more nearly. The years glide on so rapidly that the traveller
+who started to explore the lands of former times, absorbed 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, straightforward in his judgments, unmindful of consequences,
+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 its clear, soft, and
+dignified tones? The life of Taine is a work which his other works have
+not sufficiently made known.</p>
+
+<p>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 silent realms are not the realms of death
+absolute; daylight is perceived in the distance; the continuity of life
+is felt. The dead of Westminster have left behind them a posterity,
+youthful in its turn, and life-giving. Their descendants 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,
+beautiful, 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 of thirty volumes in quarto, and only
+the year 1317 has been reached. And with all that immense past and those
+far-distant origins, those two literatures have a splendid present
+betokening a splendid future. Both are alive to-day and vigorous; ready
+to baffle the predictions of miscreants, they show no sign of decay.
+They are ever ready for transformations, not for death. Side by side or
+face to face, in peace or war, both literatures like 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 reactions
+began long ago, in Norman times and even before; when Taillefer sang
+Roland, and when Alcuin taught Charlemagne.</p>
+
+<p>The duty of the traveller visiting already visited countries is to not
+limit himself to general descriptions, 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
+&aelig;sthetic problems, 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. The work in such a
+case will not be, properly speaking, a "History of English Literature,"
+but rather a "Literary History of the English People."</p>
+
+<p>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
+ages during which the national thought expressed itself in languages
+which were not the national one, will not be allowed to remain blank, as
+if, for complete 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 Westminster
+will be entered, and there will be seen how the nation, such as it was
+then represented, became conscious, even under the Plantagenets, of its
+existence, 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 Bradford-on-Avon, to Blackheath, to the "Tabard"
+and the "Mermaid," to the "Globe," to "Will's" coffee house, among
+ruined fortresses, to cloud-reaching steeples, or along the furrow sown
+to good intent by Piers the honest Plowman.</p>
+
+<p>The work, the first part of which is now published, 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 own day. The present version has been prepared with the
+help of M. E. R., who have once more lent me their most kind and
+valuable assistance. I beg them to accept the expression of my heartfelt
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>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 (<i>absit
+omen!</i>), 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+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 one quality was <i>more</i> developed in one particular race of men and
+that in another.</p>
+
+<p>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 difficulties of the task, the unlikeliness that he has
+overcome 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 undertaking;
+"Qu'allait-il faire dans cette gal&egrave;re?" 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-off subjects. No books had been dedicated to them; the attempt,
+therefore, could not be considered as an undue intrusion. But in the
+present case, what can be said, what excuse can be found, when so many
+have written, and so well too?</p>
+
+<p>The author of this book once had a drive in London; when it was
+finished, he offered the cabman 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right;">J.</p>
+
+<p><i>All Souls Day, 1894.</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="subhead1"><a name="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS"></a>TABLE OF CONTENTS.</p>
+
+
+<table summary="table of contents" style="width: 60%;">
+<tbody>
+<tr>  <td class="hang"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td>                                                     <td class="right" style="width: 14%;"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan">BOOK I.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan"><i>THE ORIGINS.</i></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">CHAPTER I.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">BRITANNIA.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Fusion of Races in France and in England.</span>&mdash;First
+  inhabitants&mdash;Celtic realms&mdash;The Celts in Britain&mdash;Similitude with
+  the Celts of Gaul&mdash;Their religion&mdash;Their quick minds&mdash;Their gift
+  of speech</td>                                                            <td class="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Celtic Literature.</span>&mdash;Irish stories&mdash;Wealth of that
+  literature&mdash;Its characteristics&mdash;The dramatic
+  gift&mdash;Inventiveness&mdash;Heroic deeds&mdash;Familiar dialogues&mdash;Love
+  and woman&mdash;Welsh tales</td>                                               <td class="right"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Roman Conquest.</span>&mdash;Duration and results&mdash;First coming
+  of the Germanic invader</td>                                             <td class="right"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td>
+
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER II.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">THE GERMANIC INVASION.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">The mother country of the Germanic invader&mdash;Tacitus&mdash;Germans
+  and Scandinavians&mdash;The great invasions&mdash;Character of the Teutonic
+  nations&mdash;Germanic kingdoms established in formerly Roman provinces.</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">Jutes, Frisians, Angles, and Saxons&mdash;British resistance and
+  defeat&mdash;Problem of the Celtic survival&mdash;Results of the Germanic
+  invasions in England and France</td>                                     <td class="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER III.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">THE NATIONAL POETRY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">The Poetry of the North.</span>&mdash;The Germanic period of
+  English literature&mdash;Its characteristics&mdash;Anglo-Saxon poetry
+  stands apart and does not submit to Celtic influence&mdash;Comparison
+  with Scandinavian literature&mdash;The Eddas and Sagas; the "Corpus
+  Poeticum Boreale"&mdash;The heroes; their tragical adventures&mdash;Their
+  temper and sorrows</td>                                                  <td class="right"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Anglo-Saxon Poems</span>.&mdash;War-songs&mdash;Epic tales&mdash;Waldhere,
+  Beowulf&mdash;Analysis of "Beowulf"&mdash;The ideal of happiness in
+  "Beowulf"&mdash;Landscapes&mdash;Sad meditations&mdash;The idea of
+  death&mdash;Northern snows</td>                                               <td class="right"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER IV.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AND PROSE LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Conversion.</span>&mdash;Arrival of Augustine&mdash;The new
+  teaching&mdash;The imperial idea and the Christian idea&mdash;Beginnings
+  of the new faith&mdash;Heathen survivals&mdash;Convents and
+  schools&mdash;Religious kings and princes&mdash;Proselytism, St. Boniface</td>     <td class="right"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Latin Culture.</span>&mdash;Manuscripts&mdash;Alcuin, St. Boniface,
+  Aldhelm, &AElig;ddi, Bede&mdash;Life and writings of Bede&mdash;His
+  "Ecclesiastical History"&mdash;His sympathy for the national
+  literature</td>                                                          <td class="right"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Christian Poems.</span>&mdash;The genius of the race remains
+  nearly unchanged&mdash;Heroical adventures of the saints&mdash;Paraphrase
+  of the Bible&mdash;C&aelig;dmon&mdash;Cynewulf&mdash;His sorrows and despair&mdash;"Dream
+  of the Rood"&mdash;"Andreas"&mdash;Lugubrious sights&mdash;The idea of
+  death&mdash;Dialogues&mdash;Various poems&mdash;The "Physiologus"&mdash;"Ph&oelig;nix"</td>     <td class="right"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">Prose&mdash;Alfred the Great.</span>&mdash;Laws and charters&mdash;Alfred
+  and the Danish invasions&mdash;The fight for civilisation&mdash;Translation
+  of works by St. Gregory, Orosius (travels of Ohthere), Boethius
+  (story of Orpheus)&mdash;Impulsion given to
+  prose&mdash;Werferth&mdash;Anglo-Saxon Chronicles&mdash;Character of Alfred.</td>       <td class="right"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">V. <span class="smcap">St. Dunstan&mdash;Sermons.</span>&mdash;St. Dunstan (tenth century)
+  resumes the work of Alfred&mdash;Translation of pious
+  works&mdash;Collections of sermons&mdash;&AElig;lfric, Wulfstan, "Blickling"
+  homilies&mdash;Attempt to reach literary dignity.</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">End of the Anglo-Saxon period</td>                                     <td class="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan"><br />BOOK II.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan"><i>THE FRENCH INVASION.</i></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">CHAPTER I.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">BATTLE.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">The Invaders of the Year 1066.</span>&mdash;England between
+  two civilisations&mdash;The North and South&mdash;The Scandinavians at
+  Stamford-bridge.</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">The Normans of France&mdash;The army of William is a French
+  army&mdash;Character of William&mdash;The battle&mdash;Occupation of
+  the country</td>                                                         <td class="right"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">England bound to Southern Civilisations.</span>&mdash;Policy
+  of William&mdash;Survey of his new domains&mdash;Unification&mdash;The
+  successors of William&mdash;Their practical mind and their taste
+  for adventures&mdash;Taste for art&mdash;French families settled in
+  England&mdash;Continental possessions of English kings&mdash;French
+  ideal&mdash;Unification of origins&mdash;Help from chroniclers and
+  poets&mdash;The Trojan ancestor</td>                                         <td class="right"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER II.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">LITERATURE IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE UNDER THE NORMAN AND ANGEVIN KINGS.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Diffusion of the French Language.</span>&mdash;The French
+  language superimposed on the English one&mdash;Its progress; even
+  among "lowe men"&mdash;Authors of English blood write their works
+  in French</td>                                                          <td class="right"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">The French Literature of the Normans and
+  Angevins.</span>&mdash;It is animated by their own practical and
+  adventurous mind&mdash;Practical works: chronicles, scientific
+  and pious treatises</td>                                                <td class="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Epic Romances.</span>&mdash;The Song of Roland and the
+  Charlemagne cycle&mdash;Comparison with "Beowulf"&mdash;The matter
+  of Rome&mdash;How antiquity is <i>translated</i>&mdash;Wonders&mdash;The
+  matter of Britain&mdash;Love&mdash;Geoffrey of Monmouth&mdash;Tristan and
+  Iseult&mdash;Lancelot and Guinevere&mdash;Woman&mdash;Love as a passion
+  and love as a ceremonial</td>                                           <td class="right"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">Lays and Chansons</span>.&mdash;Shorter stories&mdash;Lays of
+  Marie de France&mdash;Chansons of France&mdash;Songs in French
+  composed in England</td>                                                <td class="right"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">V. <span class="smcap">Satirical and Ironical Works.</span>&mdash;Such works
+  introduced in England&mdash;The pilgrimage of Charlemagne&mdash;The
+  "Roman de Renart," a universal comedy&mdash;Fabliaux&mdash;Their
+  migrations&mdash;Their aim&mdash;Their influence in England</td>                  <td class="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER III.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">LATIN.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">The Ties with Rome.</span>&mdash;William I., Henry II.,
+  John&mdash;Church lands&mdash;The "exempt" abbeys&mdash;Coming of the
+  friars&mdash;The clergy in Parliament&mdash;Part played by prelates
+  in the State&mdash;Warrior prelates, administrators, scavants, saints</td>   <td class="right"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Spreading of Knowledge.</span>&mdash;Latin education&mdash;Schools
+  and libraries&mdash;Book collectors: Richard of Bury&mdash;Paris, chief
+  town for Latin studies&mdash;The Paris University; its origins,
+  teaching, and organisation&mdash;English students at Paris&mdash;Oxford
+  and Cambridge&mdash;Studies, battles, feasts&mdash;Colleges, chests,
+  libraries</td>                                                          <td class="right"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Latin Poets.</span>&mdash;Joseph of Exeter and the Trojan
+  war&mdash;Epigrammatists, satirists, fabulists, &amp;c.&mdash;Nigel Wireker
+  and the ass whose tail was too short&mdash;Theories: Geoffrey of
+  Vinesauf and his New Art of Poetry</td>                                 <td class="right"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">Latin Prosators&mdash;Tales and Exempla.</span>&mdash;Geoffrey of
+  Monmouth&mdash;Moralised tales&mdash;"Gesta Romanorum"&mdash;John of
+  Bromyard&mdash;"Risqu&eacute;" tales, fables in prose, miracles of the
+  Virgin, romantic tales&mdash;A Latin sketch of the "Merchant of
+  Venice"&mdash;John of Salisbury; Walter Map&mdash;Their pictures of
+  contemporary manners</td>                                               <td class="right"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">V. <span class="smcap">Theologians, Jurists, Scientists, Historians.</span>&mdash;The
+  "Doctors"; Scot, Bacon, Ockham, Bradwardine, &amp;c.&mdash;Gaddesden
+  the physician&mdash;Bartholomew the encyclop&aelig;dist&mdash;Roman law and
+  English law&mdash;Vacarius, Glanville, Bracton, &amp;c.
+  History&mdash;Composition of chronicles in monasteries&mdash;Impartiality
+  of chroniclers&mdash;Their idea of historical art&mdash;Henry of
+  Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, Matthew Paris&mdash;Observation
+  of manners, preservation of characteristic anecdotes, attempt
+  to paint with colours&mdash;Higden, Walsingham and others</td>               <td class="right"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER IV.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Pious Literature.</span>&mdash;A period of silence&mdash;First works
+  (pious ones) copied, translated or composed in English after the
+  Conquest&mdash;Sermons&mdash;Lives of saints&mdash;Treatises of various
+  sort&mdash;"Ancren Riwle"&mdash;Translation of French treatises&mdash;Life and
+  works of Rolle of Hampole</td>                                          <td class="right"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Worldly Literature.</span>&mdash;Adaptation and imitation of
+  French writings&mdash;The "Brut" of Layamon&mdash;Translation of romances
+  of chivalry&mdash;Romances dedicated to heroes of English
+  origin&mdash;Satirical fabliaux&mdash;Renard in English&mdash;Lays and
+  tales&mdash;Songs&mdash;Comparison with French chansons</td>                      <td class="right"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan"><br />BOOK III.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan"><i>ENGLAND TO THE ENGLISH.</i></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">CHAPTER I.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">THE NEW NATION.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Fusion of Races and Languages.</span>&mdash;Abolition of the
+  presentment of Englishery, 1340&mdash;Survival of the French
+  language in the fourteenth century&mdash;The decline&mdash;Part played
+  by "lowe men" in the formation of the English language&mdash;The
+  new vocabulary&mdash;The new prosody&mdash;The new grammar&mdash;The
+  definitive language of England an outcome of a transaction
+  between the Anglo-Saxon and the French language</td>                    <td class="right"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Political Formation.</span>&mdash;The nation coalesces&mdash;The
+  ties with France and Rome are loosening or breaking&mdash;A new
+  source of power, Westminster&mdash;Formation, importance,
+  privileges of Parliament under the Plantagenets&mdash;Spirit of
+  the Commons&mdash;Their Norman bargains&mdash;Comparison with France</td>         <td class="right"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Maritime Power; Wealth and Arts.</span>&mdash;Importance
+  of the English trade in the fourteenth century&mdash;The great
+  traders&mdash;Their influence on State affairs&mdash;The English,
+  "rois de la mer"&mdash;Taste for travels and adventures.</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">Arts&mdash;Gold, silver and ivory&mdash;Miniatures and
+  enamels&mdash;Architecture&mdash;Paintings and tapestries&mdash;Comparative
+  comfort of houses&mdash;The hall and table&mdash;Dresses&mdash;The nude&mdash;The
+  cult for beauty</td>                                                    <td class="right"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER II.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">CHAUCER.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">The Poet of the new nation</td>                                         <td class="right"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Youth of Chaucer.</span>&mdash;His London life&mdash;London in
+  the fourteenth century&mdash;Chaucer as a page&mdash;His French
+  campaigns&mdash;Valettus camer&aelig; Regis&mdash;Esquire&mdash;Married
+  life&mdash;Poetry &agrave; la mode&mdash;Machault, Deguileville, Froissart,
+  Des Champs, &amp;c.&mdash;Chaucer's love ditties&mdash;The "Roman de la
+  Rose"&mdash;"Book of the Duchesse"</td>                                      <td class="right"><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Period of the Missions to France and Italy.</span>&mdash;The
+  functions of an ambassador and messenger&mdash;Various
+  missions&mdash;Chaucer in Italy, 1372-3, 1378-9&mdash;Influence of
+  Italian art and literature on Chaucer&mdash;London again; the
+  Custom House; Aldgate&mdash;Works of this period&mdash;Latin and
+  Italian deal&mdash;The gods of Olympus, the nude, the
+  classics&mdash;Imitation of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio&mdash;"Hous
+  of Fame"</td>                                                           <td class="right"><a href="#Page_282">282</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Troilus and Criseyde.</span>&mdash;Plot derived from
+  Boccaccio but transformed&mdash;A novel and a drama&mdash;Life and
+  variety&mdash;Heroism and vulgarity&mdash;Troilus, Pandarus,
+  Cressida&mdash;Scenes of comedy&mdash;Attempt at psychological
+  analysis&mdash;<i>Nuances</i> in Cressida's feelings&mdash;Her
+  inconstancy&mdash;Melancholy and grave ending&mdash;Difference
+  with Boccaccio and Pierre de Beauveau</td>                              <td class="right"><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">English Period.</span>&mdash;Chaucer a member of
+  Parliament&mdash;Clerk of the king's works&mdash;"Canterbury
+  Tales"&mdash;The meeting at the "Tabard"&mdash;Gift of observation&mdash;Real
+  life, details&mdash;Difference with Froissart&mdash;Humour,
+  sympathy&mdash;Part allotted to "lowe men."</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">The collections of tales&mdash;The "Decameron"&mdash;The aim of
+  Chaucer and of Boccaccio&mdash;Chaucer's variety; speakers and
+  listeners&mdash;Dialogues&mdash;Principal tales&mdash;Facetious and coarse
+  ones&mdash;Plain ones&mdash;Fairy tales&mdash;Common life&mdash;Heroic
+  deeds&mdash;Grave examples&mdash;Sermon.</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">The care for truth&mdash;Good sense of Chaucer&mdash;His language
+  and versification&mdash;Chaucer and the Anglo-Saxons&mdash;Chaucer and
+  the French</td>                                                         <td class="right"><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">V. <span class="smcap">Last Years.</span>&mdash;Chaucer, King of Letters&mdash;His retreat
+  in St. Mary's, Westminster&mdash;His death&mdash;His fame</td>                    <td class="right"><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER III.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">THE GROUP OF POETS.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">Coppice and forest trees</td>                                           <td class="right"><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Metrical Romances.</span>&mdash;Jugglers and minstrels&mdash;Their
+  life, deeds, and privileges&mdash;Decay of the profession towards
+  the time of the Renaissance&mdash;Romances of the "Sir Thopas"
+  type&mdash;Monotony; inane wonders&mdash;Better examples: "Morte
+  Arthure," "William of Palerne," "Gawayne and the Green
+  Knight"&mdash;Merits of "Gawayne"&mdash;From (probably) the same author,
+  "Pearl," on the death of a young maid&mdash;Vision of the Celestial
+  City</td>                                                               <td class="right"><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Amorous Ballads and Popular Poetry.</span>&mdash;Poetry at
+  Court&mdash;The Black Prince and the great&mdash;Professional poets
+  come to the help of the great&mdash;The <i>Pui</i> of London; its
+  competitions, music and songs&mdash;Satirical songs on women,
+  friars, fops, &amp;c.</td>                                                  <td class="right"><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Patriotic Poetry.</span>&mdash;Robin Hood&mdash;"When Adam
+  delved"&mdash;Claims of peasants&mdash;Answers to the peasants'
+  claims&mdash;National glories&mdash;Adam Davy&mdash;Cr&eacute;cy, Poictiers,
+  Neville's Cross&mdash;Laurence Minot&mdash;Recurring sadness&mdash;French
+  answers&mdash;Scottish answers&mdash;Barbour's "Bruce"&mdash;Style of
+  Barbour&mdash;Barbour and Scott</td>                                         <td class="right"><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">John Gower.</span>&mdash;His origin, family, turn of mind&mdash;He
+  belongs to Angevin England&mdash;He is tri-lingual&mdash;Life and
+  principal works&mdash;French ballads&mdash;Latin poem on the rising of
+  the peasants, 1381, and on the vices of society&mdash;Poem in
+  English, "Confessio Amantis"&mdash;Style of Gower&mdash;His tales and
+  <i>exempla</i>&mdash;His fame</td>                                           <td class="right"><a href="#Page_364">364</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER IV.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">WILLIAM LANGLAND AND HIS VISIONS.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">Langland first poet of the period after Chaucer</td>                    <td class="right"><a href="#Page_373">373</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Life and Works.</span>&mdash;A general view&mdash;Birth, education,
+  natural disposition&mdash;Life at Malvern&mdash;His unsettled state of
+  mind&mdash;Curiosities and failures&mdash;Life in
+  London&mdash;Chantries&mdash;Disease of the will&mdash;Religious
+  doubts&mdash;The faith of the simple&mdash;His book a place of refuge
+  for him</td>                                                            <td class="right"><a href="#Page_374">374</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Analysis of the Visions.</span>&mdash;The pilgrims of
+  Langland and the pilgrims of Chaucer&mdash;The road to Canterbury
+  and the way to Truth&mdash;Lady Meed; her betrothal, her
+  trial&mdash;Speech of Reason&mdash;The hero of the work, Piers the
+  Plowman&mdash;A declaration of duties&mdash;Sermons&mdash;The siege of
+  hell&mdash;The end of life</td>                                              <td class="right"><a href="#Page_382">382</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Political Society and Religious
+  Society.</span>&mdash;Comparison with Chaucer&mdash;Langland's
+  crowds&mdash;Langland an insular and a parliamentarian&mdash;The
+  "Visions" and the "Rolls of Parliament" agree on nearly
+  all points&mdash;Langland at one with the Commons&mdash;Organisation
+  of the State&mdash;Reforms&mdash;Relations with France, with the
+  Pope&mdash;Religious buyers and sellers&mdash;The ideal of Langland</td>          <td class="right"><a href="#Page_388">388</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">Art and Aim.</span>&mdash;Duplication of his personality&mdash;"Nuit
+  de D&eacute;cembre"&mdash;Sincerity&mdash;Incoherences&mdash;Scene-shifting&mdash;Joys
+  forbidden and allowed&mdash;A motto for Langland&mdash;His language,
+  vocabulary, dialect, versification&mdash;Popularity of the
+  work&mdash;Fourteenth and fifteenth centuries&mdash;Time of the Reformation</td>  <td class="right"><a href="#Page_394">394</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER V.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">PROSE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">The "father of English prose"</td>                                      <td class="right"><a href="#Page_403">403</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Translators and Adaptators.</span>&mdash;Slow growth of the
+  art of prose&mdash;Comparison with France; historians and
+  novelists&mdash;Survival of Latin prose&mdash;Walsingham and other
+  chroniclers&mdash;Their style and eloquence&mdash;Translators&mdash;Trevisa&mdash;The
+  translation of the Travels of "Mandeville"&mdash;The "Mandeville"
+  problem&mdash;Jean de Bourgogne and his journey through books&mdash;Immense
+  success of the Travels&mdash;Style of the English
+  translation&mdash;Chaucer's prose</td>                                       <td class="right"><a href="#Page_404">404</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Oratorical Art.</span>&mdash;Civil eloquence&mdash;Harangues and
+  speeches&mdash;John Ball&mdash;Parliamentary eloquence&mdash;A parliamentary
+  session under the Plantagenet kings&mdash;Proclamation&mdash;Opening
+  speech&mdash;Flowery speeches and business speeches&mdash;Debates&mdash;Answers
+  of the Commons&mdash;Their Speaker&mdash;Government orators, Knyvet,
+  Wykeham, &amp;c.&mdash;Opposition orators, Peter de la Mare&mdash;Bargains
+  and remonstrances&mdash;Attitude and power of the Commons&mdash;Use of
+  the French language&mdash;Speeches in English</td>                           <td class="right"><a href="#Page_412">412</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Wyclif. His Life.</span>&mdash;His parentage&mdash;Studies at
+  Oxford&mdash;His character&mdash;Functions and dignities&mdash;First
+  difficulties with the religious authority&mdash;Scene in St.
+  Paul's&mdash;Papal bulls&mdash;Scene at Lambeth&mdash;The "simple
+  priests"&mdash;Attacks against dogmas&mdash;Life at Lutterworth&mdash;Death</td>       <td class="right"><a href="#Page_422">422</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">Latin Works of Wyclif.</span>&mdash;His Latin&mdash;His theory
+  of the <i>Dominium</i>&mdash;His starting-point: the theory of
+  Fitzralph&mdash;Extreme, though logical, consequence of the
+  doctrine: communism&mdash;Qualifications and attenuations&mdash;Tendency
+  towards Royal supremacy</td>                                            <td class="right"><a href="#Page_427">427</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">V. <span class="smcap">English Works of Wyclif.</span>&mdash;He wants to be understood
+  by all&mdash;He translates the Bible&mdash;Popularity of the
+  translation&mdash;Sermons and treatises&mdash;His style&mdash;Humour,
+  eloquence, plain dealing&mdash;Paradoxes and utopies&mdash;Lollards&mdash;His
+  descendants in Bohemia and elsewhere</td>                               <td class="right"><a href="#Page_432">432</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER VI.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">THE THEATRE.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Origins. Civil Sources.</span>&mdash;Mimes and
+  histrions&mdash;Amusements and sights provided by histrions&mdash;How
+  they raise a laugh&mdash;Facetious tales told with appropriate
+  gestures&mdash;Dialogues and repartees&mdash;Parodies and
+  caricatures&mdash;Early interludes&mdash;Licence of amusers&mdash;Bacchanals
+  in churches and cemeteries&mdash;Holy things derided&mdash;Feasts
+  of various sorts&mdash;Processions and pageants&mdash;"Tableaux
+  Vivants"&mdash;Compliments and dialogues&mdash;Feasts at Court&mdash;"Masks"</td>      <td class="right"><a href="#Page_439">439</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Religious Sources.</span>&mdash;Mass&mdash;Dialogues introduced
+  in the Christmas service&mdash;The Christmas cycle (Old
+  Testament)&mdash;The Easter cycle (New Testament).</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">The religious drama in England&mdash;Life of St. Catherine
+  (twelfth century)&mdash;Popularity of Mysteries in the fourteenth
+  century&mdash;Treatises concerning those representations&mdash;Testimony
+  of Chaucer William of Wadington&mdash;Collection of Mysteries in
+  English.</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">Performances&mdash;Players, scaffolds or pageants, dresses, boxes,
+  scenery, machinery&mdash;Miniature by Jean Fouquet&mdash;Incoherences and
+  anachronisms</td>                                                       <td class="right"><a href="#Page_456">456</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Literary and Historical value of Mysteries.</span>&mdash;The
+  ancestors' feelings and tastes&mdash;Sin and redemption&mdash;Caricature
+  of kings&mdash;Their "boast"&mdash;Their use of the French tongue&mdash;They
+  have to maintain silence&mdash;Popular scenes&mdash;Noah and his wife&mdash;The
+  poor workman and the taxes&mdash;A comic pastoral&mdash;The Christmas
+  shepherds&mdash;Mak and the stolen sheep</td>                                <td class="right"><a href="#Page_476">476</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">Decay of the Medi&aelig;val Stage.</span>&mdash;Moralities&mdash;Personified
+  abstractions&mdash;The end of Mysteries&mdash;They continue being performed
+  in the time of Shakespeare</td>                                         <td class="right"><a href="#Page_489">489</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm"><br />CHAPTER VII.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tspan-sm">THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Decline.</span>&mdash;Chaucer's successors&mdash;The decay of art
+  is obvious even to them&mdash;The society for which they write is
+  undergoing a transformation&mdash;Lydgate and Hoccleve</td>                  <td class="right"><a href="#Page_495">495</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Scotsmen.</span>&mdash;They imitate Chaucer but with more
+  freedom&mdash;James I.&mdash;Blind Harry&mdash;Henryson&mdash;The town mouse
+  and the country mouse&mdash;Dunbar&mdash;Gavin Douglas&mdash;Popular
+  ballads&mdash;Poetry in the flamboyant style</td>                            <td class="right"><a href="#Page_503">503</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Material welfare; Prose.</span>&mdash;Development of the
+  lower and middle class&mdash;Results of the wars&mdash;Trade, navy,
+  savings.</td><td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="nohang">Books of courtesy&mdash;Familiar letters; Paston Letters&mdash;Guides
+  for the traveller and trader&mdash;Fortescue and his praise of
+  English institutions&mdash;Pecock and his defence of the
+  clergy&mdash;His style and humour&mdash;Compilers, chroniclers,
+  prosators of various sort&mdash;Malory, Caxton, Juliana Berners,
+  Capgrave, &amp;c.</td>                                                      <td class="right"><a href="#Page_513">513</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">The Dawn of the Renaissance.</span>&mdash;The literary
+  movement in Italy&mdash;Greek studies&mdash;Relations with Eastern
+  men of letters&mdash;Turkish wars and Greek exiles&mdash;Taking of
+  Constantinople by Mahomet II.&mdash;Consequences felt in Italy,
+  France, and England</td>                                                <td class="right"><a href="#Page_523">523</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+
+<td class="hang"><span class="smcap"><br />Index</span></td>                                                     <td class="right"><a href="#Page_527">527</a></td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="subhead1"><a name="BOOK_I" id="BOOK_I"></a>BOOK I.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead1"><i>THE ORIGINS.</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER I.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>BRITANNIA.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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 social conditions. Hence the striking
+resemblances 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.</p>
+
+<p>Ancient writers have left us little information concerning the remotest
+period and the oldest inhabitants of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> 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 landscape familiar to the eyes of the Celts and Germans
+has reappeared before us.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, by a Greek of
+Marseilles named Pytheas, a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander the
+Great, of which a few sentences only have been preserved.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> But even
+now the darkness which enveloped the origin has been partly cleared
+away.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>both countries, many centuries
+before Christ, the Celtic race.</p>
+
+<p>The Celts (<span title="keltai">&kappa;&epsilon;&lambda;&tau;&alpha;&iota;</span>) 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
+plundered, 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.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>Three centuries elapse; the Romans are settled in Gaul. C&aelig;sar, at the
+head of his legions, has avenged the city for the insults of the Celtic
+invaders, but the strife still continues; 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
+compatriots of the Continent against the Roman. C&aelig;sar 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. C&aelig;sar 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 possible,
+and note all he could observe concerning the customs of the natives. The
+picture he draws of the former inhabitants 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 themselves
+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."</p>
+
+<p>Did we forget the original is in Latin, we might think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of a few details, the Celtic tribes of future England
+were similar to those of future France.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> 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 subterranean
+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 understood <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> The race was an
+optimistic one. It made the best of life, and even of death.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the fear of
+death!"<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 Conquest it becomes hard to distinguish Celtic from
+Roman workmanship among the objects discovered in tombs. C&aelig;sar 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 assimilation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>possessed by
+this race, and manifested to the same extent by no other in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The Latin authors also admired another characteristic gift in the men of
+this race: a readiness of 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
+(<i>argute loqui</i>).<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> 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 compositions, and with what talent the men of
+Celtic blood exercised their gift of speech.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> says C&aelig;sar. 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 undergone <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>no modification; Armoricans, Britons,
+Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, are all inexhaustible tale-tellers, skilful in
+dialogue, prompt at repartee, and never to be taken unawares. 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.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>Ireland has preserved for us the most ancient monuments of Celtic
+thought. Nothing has reached us of those "quantities of verses" that,
+according to C&aelig;sar, the druids taught their pupils in Gaul, with the
+command that they should never be written.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Only too well was the
+injunction obeyed. Nothing, again, has been transmitted to us of the
+improvisations of the Gallic or British bards (<span title="bardoi">&beta;&alpha;&rho;&delta;&omicron;&iota;</span>), 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 Christianity, the pagan origins constantly reappear in these
+narratives, and we are thus taken back to the epoch when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>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 C&aelig;sar and
+of the Christian era. Important works have, in our day, thrown a light
+on this literature<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>; 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 C&aelig;sar had noticed in the Celts of the Continent.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>Most of those Irish stories are part of the epic cycle of Conchobar and
+Cuchula&iuml;nn, 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 <i>File</i>, or seers, was
+divided into ten classes, from the <i>Oblar</i>, who knew only seven stories,
+to the <i>Ollam</i>, who knew three hundred and fifty.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> This is all the more
+noticeable as the epoch was a barbarous one, and a multitude 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: <i>Provincia ferox</i>, 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.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The warlike valour of the heroes is carried as far
+as human nature and imagination allow; not even Roland or Ragnar Lodbrok
+die more heroically than Cuchula&iuml;nn, who, mortally wounded, dies
+standing:</p>
+
+<p>"He fixed his eye on this hostile group. Then he leaned himself against
+the high stone in the plain, and, by means <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>of his belt, he fastened his
+body to the high stone. Neither sitting nor lying would he die; but he
+would die standing. Then his enemies gathered round him. They remained
+about him, not daring to approach; he seemed to be still alive."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, such a dramatic gift is displayed as to stand unparalleled in
+any European literature at its dawn.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Celtic poets excel in the art
+of giving a lifelike representation 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 "Cuchula&iuml;nn's
+Sickness," 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 discussions
+abound, together with the scenes of blood loved by all nations in the
+season of their early manhood.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Ailill, king of Connaught, and
+Conchobar, king <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>of Ulster, claim the dog; and Mac Datho, much
+perplexed, consults his wife, who suggests that he should promise 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 principal dish of which is a rare kind of pig&mdash;"three hundred
+cows had fed him for seven years." Scarcely are the guests seated, when
+the dialogues begin:</p>
+
+<p>"That pig looks good," says Conchobar.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, yes," replies Ailill; "but, Conchobar, how shall he be carved?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"So be it," said Ailill.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis fair," said Conchobar. "We have with us the warriors who defended
+our frontiers."</p>
+
+<p>Then each one rises in turn and claims the honour of carving: I did
+this.&mdash;I did still more.&mdash;I slew thy father.&mdash;I slew thy eldest son.&mdash;I
+gave thee that wound that still aches.</p>
+
+<p>The warrior Cet had just told his awful exploits when Conall of Ulster
+rises against him and says:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He is here!" cried Conall, and drawing from his belt Anluan's head, he
+flung it on the table.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the "Murder of the Sons of Usnech,"<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> 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 following example we
+may see how the insular Celts could love and die.</p>
+
+<p>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 foretells
+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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art lucky," answered Leborcham, "the man thou desirest is not far
+to seek, he is near thee, in this very castle; it is No&iuml;s&eacute;, son of
+Usnech."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not be happy," returned Derdriu, "until I have seen him."</p>
+
+<p>No&iuml;s&eacute; 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. No&iuml;s&eacute; 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 Scotland, and take refuge
+with the king of Albion. One day <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>the king's steward "sees No&iuml;s&eacute; and his
+wife sleeping side by side. He went at once and awoke the king.</p>
+
+<p>"'Till now,' he said, 'never had we found a woman worthy of thee; but
+the one who lies in the arms of No&iuml;s&eacute; is the one for thee, king of the
+West! Cause No&iuml;s&eacute; to be put to death, and marry his wife.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' answered the king; 'but bid her come to me daily in secret.'</p>
+
+<p>"The steward obeyed the king's commands, but in vain; what he told
+Derdriu by day she repeated to her husband the following night."</p>
+
+<p>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 musicians 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."</p>
+
+<p>"I sleep not, I dye no more my nails with purple; lifeless 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."</p>
+
+<p>Conchobar out of revenge delivers her over for a year to the man she
+most hates, the murderer of No&iuml;s&eacute;, 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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> 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"<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>; 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, resting 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.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder if the descendants of these indefatigable inventors are men
+with rich literatures, not meagre literatures of which it is possible to
+write a history without <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>After a second journey, during which he passed the Thames, C&aelig;sar
+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 centuries 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 milestones, sixty of which have
+been found, and one, at Chesterholm, 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.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> 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,
+Cirencester, Aldborough, Woodchester, Bignor, and in a multitude 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Angli</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 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 Historique," January-February, 1886.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> "Proximi Gallis, et similes sunt.... Sermo haud multum
+diversus: in deposcendis periculis eadem audacia ... plus tamen feroci&aelig;
+Britanni pr&aelig;ferunt, ut quos nondum longa pax emollierit ... manent
+quales Galli fuerunt." Tacitus, "Agricola," xi. "&AElig;dificia fere Gallicis
+consimilia," C&aelig;sar "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 Trinobantes were Gallo-Belg&aelig;.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Te non paventis funera Galli&aelig;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Duraque tellus audit Hiberi&aelig;.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("Ad Augustum," Odes, iv. 14.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> "Odyssey," xi. l. 488 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Et vos ... Druid&aelig; ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">... nemora alta remotis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Incolitis lucis, vobis auctoribus, umbr&aelig;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Non tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pallida regna petunt; regit idem spiritus artus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Orbe alio: long&aelig; (canitis si cognita) vit&aelig;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mors media est. Certe populi quos despicit Arctos,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maximus, haud urget leti metus.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("Pharsalia," book i.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> "Pleraque Gallia duas res industriosissime persequitur, rem
+militarem et argute loqui." "Origins," quoted by the grammarian
+Charisius. In Cato's time (third-second centuries <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>) the word Gallia
+had not the restricted sense it had after C&aelig;sar, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See <i>supra</i>, p. 7, note.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> "De curia vero et familia viri, ut et circumstantibus risum
+moveant sibique loquendo laudem comparent, facetiam in sermone plurimam
+observant; dum vel sales, vel l&aelig;doria, nunc levi nunc mordaci, sub
+&aelig;quivocationis vel amphibol&aelig; nebula, relatione diversa, transpositione
+verborum et trajectione, subtiles et dicaces emittunt." And he cites
+examples of their witticisms. "Descriptio Kambri&aelig;," chap. xiv., De
+verborum facetia et urbanitate. "Opera," Brewer, 1861-91, 8 vols., vol.
+vi., Rolls.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Those, among others, of MM. Whitley Stokes, Rhys, d'Arbois
+de Jubainville, Lot, Windisch, Zimmer, Netlau, and Kuno-Meyer.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> "Est autem hoc Galli&aelig; consuetudinis; ut et viatores etiam
+invitos consistere cogant: et quod quisque eorum de quaque re audierit
+aut cognoverit qu&aelig;rant, et mercatores in oppidis vulgus circumsistat:
+quibus ex regionibus veniant, quasque res ibi cognoverint pronunciare
+cogant." Book iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> To wit, two hundred and fifty long and a hundred short
+ones. D'Arbois de Jubainville, "Introduction &agrave; l'&eacute;tude de la Litt&eacute;rature
+Celtique," Paris, 1883, 8vo, pp. 322-333.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 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.&mdash;The island of large birds.&mdash;The
+monstrous horse.&mdash;The demon's race.&mdash;The house of the salmon.&mdash;The
+marvellous fruits.&mdash;Wonderful feats of the beast of the island.&mdash;The
+horse-fights.&mdash;The fire beasts and the golden apples.&mdash;The castle
+guarded by the cat.&mdash;The frightful mill.&mdash;The island of black weepers."
+Translation by Lot in "L'&Eacute;pop&eacute;e 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> D'Arbois de Jubainville, "L'&Eacute;pop&eacute;e Celtique," pp. xxviii
+and following. "Celtic marriage is a sale.... Physical paternity has not
+the same importance 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." <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. xxvii-xxix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The Murder of Cuchula&iuml;nn, "L'&Eacute;pop&eacute;e Celtique en Irlande,"
+p. 346.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The same quality is found in the literature of Brittany;
+the major part of its monuments (of a more recent epoch) consists of
+religious dramas or mysteries. These dramas, mostly unpublished, are
+exceedingly numerous.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> "L'&Eacute;pop&eacute;e Celtique," pp. 66 and following.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> "L'&Eacute;pop&eacute;e Celtique en Irlande," pp. 217 and following.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> 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. <i>Cf.
+Athen&aelig;um</i>, 15th and 19th of July, 1893.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Quantities of statuettes, pottery, glass cups and vases,
+arms, utensils of all kinds, sandals, styles for writing, fragments of
+colossal statues, mosaics, &amp;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, &amp;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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> "Itinerarium Cambri&aelig;," b. i. chap. v.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> "Ut qui modo linguam abnuebant, eloquentiam
+concupiscerent: inde etiam habitus nostri honor, et frequens toga;
+paullatimque discessum et dilinimenta vitiorum, porticus et balnea, et
+conviviorum elegantiam." Tacitus, "Agricol&aelig; Vita," xxi.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER II.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>THE GERMANIC INVASION.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>"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 culture 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.</p>
+
+<p>The great historian's book shows how little of impenetrable 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 slumbering sea,
+"the girdle and limit of the world," a place so near to the spot where
+Ph&oelig;bus 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."<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>This group of Teutonic peoples, with ramifications extending 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, &amp;c.; and the Scandinavian branch, settled farther north and
+composed of the Danes, Norwegians, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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, retreating step by step before the Latin
+invader; alarming symptoms of retaliation manifest themselves, like the
+rumblings that herald the great cataclysms of nature.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman, in the meanwhile, wrapped in his glory, continued to rule the
+world and mould it to his image; 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, <i>humanitas</i>, Tacitus said of the Britons, what was
+actually "servitude."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The frontiers of the empire were now so far
+distant that the roar of the advancing tide scarcely reached Rome. What
+was overheard 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 dormant energy, but only whets and renews the appetite for
+enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, far away towards the north, the Germanic 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 C&aelig;sar; from their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>earliest infancy they endeavour
+to harden themselves physically.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> They were not inventive; they
+learned with more difficulty than the Celts; they were violent and
+irrepressible. The little that is known of their customs and character
+points to fiery souls that may rise to great rapturous joys but have an
+underlayer of gloom, 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.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> These men will enjoy lyric songs, but not
+charming tales; they are capable of mirth but not of gaiety; powerful
+but incomplete 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"
+(<i>guerre, guerra</i>). 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 phenomenon, the
+sign of terrible transformations.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>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, Burgundians, 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.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 mountains, 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 embark, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>Treasure did not suffice; the town was taken and retaken. 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 Ostrogoth 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 kingdom 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> the
+dwellers on the shores of the Baltic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>and North Sea had at first
+organised plundering expeditions against the great island. They came
+periodically and laid waste the coasts; and on account of them the
+inhabitants gave to this part of the land the name <i>Littus Saxonicum</i>.
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> or kingdoms, that literature reached the greatest development,
+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 inhabitants 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
+agglomerations of tribes, that of the Angles and that of the Saxons.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the same way as in Gaul, the invaders found themselves 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>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: <i>castrum</i>,
+<i>strata</i>, <i>colonia</i>; which became in their language <i>chester</i>, <i>street</i>,
+or <i>strat</i>, as in Stratford, and <i>coln</i> as in Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p>The Britons who had taken to the toga&mdash;"frequens toga," says
+Tacitus&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 invaders. 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
+C&aelig;sar, was dense: <i>hominum infinita multitudo</i>, he says in his
+Commentaries. The invaders, on the other hand, found themselves in
+presence of an intelligent, laborious, assimilable race, trained by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 inhabitants, in
+connection with two places only: Chester and Anderida.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> 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
+annihilated because the ruins of a Gallo-Roman city, with a theatre
+seating seven thousand people have been discovered 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
+<i>Littus Saxonicum</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to this, it is only by the preservation of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> 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,
+&amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> The Anglo-Saxons did not destroy them, since they are still
+extant, and only mingled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> The preservation 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 glass-works, and which
+the clumsy hands of the Saxon were certainly incapable of fusing and
+adorning.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Britons, then, subsist in large numbers, even in the eastern and
+southern counties, where the Germanic settlement 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>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
+C&aelig;sars, he would still at this day be able to worship his divine
+emperors in the temples of N&icirc;mes and Vienne; pass, when entering Reims,
+Orange, or Saintes under triumphal arches erected by his ancestors; he
+might recognise their tombs at the "Aliscamps" of Arles; could see
+<i>Antigone</i> played at Orange, and seated on the gradines of the
+amphitheatre, facing the blue horizon of Provence, still behold blood
+flowing in the arena.</p>
+
+<p>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 tradition was so
+powerful that it was accepted by Clovis himself. That long-haired
+chieftain donned the toga and chlamys; he became a <i>patrice</i>; 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> "De Moribus Germanorum," b. ii. chap. xlv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> "Agricola," xxi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> "Vita omnis in venationibus atque in studiis rei militaris
+constitit; ab parvulis labori ac duritiei student." "De Bello Gallico,"
+book vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> "Saxones, sicut omnes fere Germaniam incolentes nationes,
+et natura feroces et cultui d&aelig;monum dediti." Eginhard, "Vita Karoli,"
+vii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> The arms of the Franks and those of the Anglo-Saxons, the
+former preserved 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
+<i>umbo</i> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> "Innumerabiles et ferocissim&aelig; 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> 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 19 centim. 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 description
+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 Moktader, in the tenth century, as
+ambassador to a Scandinavian king established on the banks of the Volga
+(<i>Journal Asiatique</i>, 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"
+(<i>sub anno</i> 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, 1893. It was found to be perfectly seaworthy, even
+in rough weather.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> 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 Norman 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: "&AElig;go Aelfredus,
+gratia Dei, Angol Saxonum rex." &AElig;thelstan 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," Rolls, <i>sub anno</i> 491.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> "De Moribus Germanorum," xv., xxvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> 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. Fourteen hundred such names have been counted, of
+which 48 occur in Northumberland, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Ammianus Marcellinus: "Ipsa oppida, ut circumdata retiis
+busta declinant"; in reference to the Franks and Alemanni, "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 coh&aelig;rentibus
+&aelig;dificiis: suam quisque domum spatio circumdat." "De Moribus
+Germanorum," xvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> 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 preserved by the Anglo-Saxons as <i>curiosities</i>.
+Glasses with knobs, "<i>&agrave; larmes</i>," abound in the Anglo-Saxon tombs, and
+similar ones have been found in the Roman tombs of an earlier epoch,
+notably at L&eacute;pine, in the department of the Marne.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER III.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>THE NATIONAL POETRY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> 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,
+<i>alliteration</i>, 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 c&aelig;sura 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"<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> (or
+consonants giving about the same sound):</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>F</i>lod under <i>f</i>oldan &middot; nis th&auml;t <i>f</i>eor heonon.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"The water sinks underground; it is not far from here." (<i>Beowulf.</i>) 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8"><i>Au</i>dit et <i>au</i>det<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dux <i>f</i>alli: <i>f</i>atisque <i>f</i>avet quum <i>f</i>ata recuset.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The famous Visions of Langland, in the fourteenth century, are in
+alliterative verse; under Elizabeth alliteration became one of the
+peculiarities of the florid prose <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>called Euphuism. Nearer to our own
+time, Byron makes a frequent use of alliteration:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Our bay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Receives that prow which proudly spurns the spray;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How gloriously her gallant course she goes:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her white wings flying&mdash;never from her foes. (<i>Corsair.</i>)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 which were to save the
+Anglo-Saxon genius from the 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 continental 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 questions of date and place,
+but the difficulty is such, and that literature forms such a compact
+whole, that the best and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> 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.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> 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 discovered, 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>rem militarem</i>, is
+shared by the dwellers on the shores of the northern ocean; the other,
+<i>argute loqui</i>, is unknown to them.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> The resemblances between the
+two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>As happened with the Celts, the greater number of the monuments of
+ancient Germanic and Scandinavian literature 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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>Manners and beliefs of the northern people are abundantly 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 serpents 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 of 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 commentary would be necessary, as for the "Ancient Mariner" of
+Coleridge, in whom lives again something of the spirit of this
+literature.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> Gunnar,
+wanting to keep for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>himself the secret of the Niblungen treasure, asks
+for the heart of his own brother, Hogni:</p>
+
+<p>"Hogni's bleeding heart must be laid in my hand, carved with the
+keen-cutting knife out of the breast of the good knight.</p>
+
+<p>"They carved the heart of Hialli (the thrall) from out his breast, and
+laid it bleeding on a charger, and bore it to Gunnar.</p>
+
+<p>"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.'</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>
+
+<p>From this example, and from others which it would be easy to add, it can
+be inferred that <i>nuances</i> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> 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 goddesses; Drunkard! is the reply of both. There is no
+question here of <i>argute loqui</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Violent in their speech, cruel in their actions,<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p>
+
+<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>With beliefs, traditions, and ideas of the same sort, the Anglo-Saxons
+had landed in Britain and settled there.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>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 heartrending
+laments. It is contemplative and warlike.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"This year, King &AElig;thelstan, lord of earls, ring-giver of warriors, and
+his brother eke Edmund &AElig;theling, 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."</p>
+
+<p>The poet describes the enemy's defeat and flight, the slaughter that
+ensues, and with cries of joy calls upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p>
+
+<p>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" (o&ugrave; le vent balaya des roses).</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>s&eacute;r&eacute;nit&eacute;</i>, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>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 &AElig;thelstan, lord of earls, ring-giver of
+warriors&mdash;not a myth that one, not a fable his deeds&mdash;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 crossing 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 "Nibelungenlied." 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.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
+
+<p>The strange poem of "Beowulf,"<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> the most important <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>monument of
+Anglo-Saxon literature, was discovered at the end of the last century,
+in a manuscript written about the year 1000,<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>This poem, like the old Celtic tales, is a medley of pagan legends,
+which did not originally concern Beowulf in particular,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> and of
+historical facts, the various parts, after a separate literary life,
+having been put together, perhaps in the eighth century, perhaps later,
+by an Anglo-Saxon Christian, 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 Weland; 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,<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> are mixed up with tales of fantastic duels
+below the waves.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>One of his successors, Hrothgar,<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> 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 "sc&ocirc;p." 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 (&aelig;thelinga) asleep after the feast;
+they knew no care."<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> Grendel removed thirty of them to his lair, and
+they were killed by "that dark pest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>Higelac, king of the Geatas (who the Geatas were is doubtful; perhaps
+Goths of Gothland in Sweden, perhaps Jutes of Jutland<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a>), 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.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Beowulf landed on the
+Danish shore, and proposed to Hrothgar to rid him of the monster.</p>
+
+<p>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 morning,
+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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>hands a chased ale-flagon, and poured the
+pure bright liquor."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> 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
+(<i>Mere-Wioinga</i>). 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> 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 remaineth, as
+useless to men as it [formerly] was."<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> 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."</p>
+
+<p>The ideal of a happy life has somewhat changed since the days of
+Beowulf. Then, as we see, happiness consisted 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 <i>milieu</i>, where his soul has been softened.
+"When Earl Roland saw that his peers lay <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>dead, and Oliver too, whom he
+so dearly loved, his heart melted; he began to weep; colour left his
+face."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Li cons Rodlanz, quant il veit morz ses pers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ed Olivier qu'il tant podeit amer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tendror en out, commencet &agrave; plorer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">En son visage fut molt descolorez.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Beowulf crushes all he touches; in his fights he upsets monsters, in his
+talks he tumbles his interlocutors headlong. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 headlands, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> what has preceded and what is to follow, we know
+not...."<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p>
+
+<p>Would not Hamlet have spoken thus, or Claudio?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ay, to die and go we know not where;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lie in cold obstruction....<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Another view of the problem was held by races imbued with classical
+ideas, the French and others; classical equanimity 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 remember 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 S&eacute;vign&eacute;, 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' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>day with any grief of
+ours. Let us retire from life, as from a drawing-room, discreetly, "as
+from a banquet," said La Fontaine.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p>Examples of Anglo-Saxon poems, either dreamy or warlike, could easily be
+multiplied. We have the lamentations 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:</p>
+
+<p>"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...." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>Or, in another song:
+"Then wakes again the friendless 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."<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> H. Sweet, "Sketch of the History of Anglo-Saxon poetry,"
+in Hazlitt's Warton, ii. p. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> "De Bello Trojano," iii., line 108. 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," &amp;c., see Paul Meyer,
+"Romania," vol. xi. p. 572: "De l'allit&eacute;ration en Roman de France."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> "His date has been variously estimated from the eighth to
+the eleventh century. The latter is the more probable." Earle,
+"Anglo-Saxon Literature," 1884, p. 228.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Grein, "Bibliothek der Angels&auml;chsischen Poesie," ed.
+W&uuml;lker; Cassel, 1883 ff., 8vo; "Corpus Poeticum Boreale, The poetry of
+the old northern tongue, from the earliest to the XIIIth Century,"
+edited and translated by G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Oxford, 1883,
+2 vols. 8vo; vol. i., Eddic poetry; vol. ii., Court poetry. Other
+important monuments of Scandinavian literature are found in the
+following collections: "Edda Snorri," Ion Sigurdsson, Copenhagen, 1848,
+2 vols.; "Norroen Fornkv&aelig;di," ed. S. Bugge, Christiania, 1867, 8vo.
+(contains the collection usually called Edda S&aelig;mundi); "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. Vigfusson,
+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).
+<i>Edda</i> 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. <i>Saga</i> means a
+narrative; the Sagas are narratives in prose of an epic character; they
+flourished especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> The most ancient fragments of this epic are found in the
+<i>Edda</i> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> "Lay of Skirni."&mdash;"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 114.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> "Alta-Kvida."&mdash;"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 48. This is one of
+the most ancient poems in the collection.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> "Alta-Kvida."&mdash;"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> A single example will be as good as many: "One of the
+Viking leaders got the nickname of B&ouml;rn (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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> "Hymis-Kvida."&mdash;"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 222.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The most valuable monuments of Anglo-Saxon literature and
+art are contained in the following MSS.:
+</p><p>
+I. <i>Poetry.</i>&mdash;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," &amp;c.
+</p><p>
+A fragment of a poem on Waldhere, preserved in the Copenhagen Library.
+</p><p>
+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, &amp;c.).
+</p><p>
+The "Codex Vercellensis," preserved at Vercelli in Lombardy, containing:
+Andreas, The Departed Soul's Address to the Body, Dream of the Holy
+Rood, Elene, &amp;c., written in the eleventh century.
+</p><p>
+The Bodleian MS., Junius xi., containing a poetical version of part of
+the Bible, some of which is attributed to C&aelig;dmon, written in the tenth
+century.
+</p><p>
+The Paris Anglo-Saxon Psalter (Biblioth&egrave;que Nationale, Lat. 8824),
+written in the eleventh century, 50 psalms in prose, 100 in verse.
+</p><p>
+II. <i>Prose.</i>&mdash;The Epinal MS. containing an Anglo-Saxon glossary (eighth
+century according to Mr. Sweet, ninth according to Mr. Maunde Thompson).
+</p><p>
+The Bodleian MS., Hatton 20, containing King Alfred's translation of St.
+Gregory's "Regula Pastoralis" (the copy of Werferth, bishop of
+Worcester).
+</p><p>
+The MS. of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," the Winchester text, in the
+library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. lxxiii.
+</p><p>
+The MSS. of the homilies of &AElig;lfric and Wulfstan, Junius xxii. and Junius
+xcix., in the Bodleian, and the MS. of the Blickling homilies (Blickling
+Hall, Norfolk).
+</p><p>
+III. <i>Miniatures.</i>&mdash;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, fol., and "Pal&aelig;ographia Sacro Pictoria," London, 1844,
+fol. See also the fine pen-and-ink drawings in the above-mentioned MS.
+Junius xi., in the Bodleian Library.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Tacitus, who says of the Germans: "Celebrant
+carminibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memori&aelig; 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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> "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 few 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> G. Stephens, "Two leaves of King Waldere's lay,"
+Copenhagen and London, 1860, 8vo; R. Peiper, "Ekkehardi primi
+Waltharius," Berlin, 1873, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> "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 VIIIth Century, with a translation," by T. Arnold, London, 1876,
+8vo. "The deeds of Beowulf ... done into modern prose," ed. Earle,
+Oxford Clarendon Press, 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 &AElig;neid.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Such is the opinion of Mr. Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
+vol. ii., London, 1893, p. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> 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 resemblances, see Excursus iii. in
+the "Corpus Poeticum Boreale," vol. ii. p. 501; and H. Gering, "Der
+Be&oacute;wulf und die Islaendische Grettisaga," in "Anglia," vol. iii. p 74.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> In Gregory of Tours, book iii. chap. 3 ("Historia
+Ecclesiastica Francorum," Soci&eacute;t&eacute; de l'histoire de France, vol. i. p.
+270); in "Beowulf" II. 1202 <i>et seq.</i>&mdash;
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Gehwearf th&aacute; in Francna f&aelig;thm feorh cynninges;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"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 515; 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> According to the poem, the line of succession was: Scyld,
+Beowulf (not our hero), Healfdene, Heorogar, Hrothgar.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> "Beowulf," 1876, T. Arnold's translation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> This last opinion has been put forward with great force by
+Fahlbeck, and accepted by Vigfusson. See Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
+ii. p. 15, and Appendix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> They are numerous especially in the province of Finmarken;
+they are to be found further south in winter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> According to the account of a Scandinavian burial left by
+Ahmed Ibn Fozlan (tenth century, see above, p. <a href="#Page_27">27</a>), the custom was to
+bury with the dead ornaments and gold embroideries to the value of a
+third part of what he left.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> "Chanson de Roland," line 2804.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> "Talis mihi videtur, vita hominum pr&aelig;sens in terris ad
+comparationem ejus, quod nobis incertum est, temporis, quale cum te
+residente ad c&oelig;nam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali,
+accenso quidem foco in medio et calido effecto c&oelig;naculo, furentibus
+autem foris per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluviarum vel nivium,
+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 h&aelig;c vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem
+sequatur, quidve pr&aelig;cesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si h&aelig;c nova
+doctrina certius aliquid attulit merito esse sequenda videtur."
+"Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum," book ii. cap. 13, year 627.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Je voudrais qu'&agrave; cet &acirc;ge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On sort&icirc;t de la vie ainsi que d'un banquet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remerciant son h&ocirc;te. (viii. 1.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> 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 <i>chansons</i>. The mail steamer
+<i>la France</i> caught fire, part of the cargo being gunpowder; the ship is
+about to be blown up; a foreign witness writes thus: "Tous jusqu'aux
+petits marmitons rivalisaient d'&eacute;lan, de bravoure et de cette gaiet&eacute;
+gauloise dans le p&eacute;ril qui forme un des beaux traits du caract&egrave;re
+national." Baron de H&uuml;bner, "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> "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
+Exoniensis"; the subject of this last poem has been shown by Earle to be
+probably the town of Bath.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> T. Arnold's "Beowulf," p. 118, l. 1820.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER IV.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AND PROSE LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> rude, to bring it about were
+rare, and have remained for ever famous: Charlemagne in France and
+Alfred the Great in England.</p>
+
+<p>The miracle of conversion was accomplished in the isle, as it had been
+on the Continent. Augustine baptized King &AElig;thelberht, 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 forgivest so shalt thou be forgiven; thou shalt not
+despise the weak, thou shalt <i>love</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The new converts of Great Britain understood the religion of Christ much
+as they had understood that of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> Thor. Only a short distance divided man
+from godhood in heathen times; the god had his passions and his
+adventures, 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, contradictory faiths were held side by
+side. Christ was believed in, but Woden was still feared, and secretly
+appeased by sacrifices. Kings are obliged to publish edicts, forbidding
+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.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 religion
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>progresses, while the old is waning; this phenomenon is brought about,
+in the south, by the influence of Augustine 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<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a>; 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."<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> The Princess
+Hilda founds, in the seventh century, the monastery of Streoneshalch,
+and becomes its abbess; Ceadwalla dies at Rome in 689, and is buried in
+St. Peter's, under the <i>Porticus Pontificum</i>, opposite the tomb of St.
+Gregory the Great.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> &AElig;thelwulf, 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."<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The notion of moderation and measure is unknown to these enthusiasts,
+who easily fall into despair. In the following <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>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 numbers 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!"<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a>; 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."<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> He reorganises the Church of the
+Franks, and dies martyrised <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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 compiled 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 fibul&aelig;, 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.</p>
+
+<p>The Anglo-Saxon missionaries and learned men correspond with each other
+in the language of Rome. Boniface, in the wilds of Germany, remains in
+constant communication 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 "h&ocirc;tel de Rambouillet" of the Karlings, the affected
+style was as much relished as at the fair Arth&eacute;nice's, and Alcuin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> in
+his barbarous Latin, has a studied elegance that might vie with the
+conceits of Voiture.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> &AElig;ddi (Eddius Stephanus) writes a life, also in Latin,
+of his friend St. Wilfrith.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 (B&aelig;da), the most important
+Latin monument of all the Anglo-Saxon period.</p>
+
+<p>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," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>Bede allowed the years of his life to glide on, his sole
+ambition being to learn and teach.</p>
+
+<p>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, &amp;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,"<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> 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 straightforwardness.</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>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 na&iuml;vely related the episodes of C&aelig;dmon in
+his stable,<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> and of the Saxon chief comparing human life to the
+sparrow flying across the banquet hall.</p>
+
+<p>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
+they 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."<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>Anglo-Saxon monks now speak Latin; some, since the coming of Theodore of
+Tarsus,<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> even know a little Greek; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>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 continues 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 uninhabited 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
+settlements of the people; frozen were the lands with cold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> icicles,
+shrunk the water's might; over the river streams, the ice made a bridge,
+a pale water road."<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>pacifici</i>,
+and in the Anglo-Saxon poems they are constantly termed "warriors."</p>
+
+<p>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 C&aelig;dmon,
+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 command 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>and dignity,"<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> a remark
+which has stood true these many centuries. Taken to the abbess Hilda, of
+Streoneshalch, C&aelig;dmon 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.</p>
+
+<p>An incomplete translation of the Bible in Anglo-Saxon verses has come
+down to us, the work apparently of several authors of different
+epochs.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> C&aelig;dmon may be one of them: the question has been the cause
+of immense discussion, and remains doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>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 accompany the tales of war; the dismal landscapes are
+described with care, or rather with loving delight. Ethereal personages
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>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
+himself, that on his journey he should come, the Lord of men, but he his
+vassal sendeth."<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Cynewulf,<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>St. Andrew decides to punish by a miracle the wild <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>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....</p>
+
+<p>"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 of men, a gushing
+ocean!...</p>
+
+<p>"The stone split open, the stream bubbled forth; it flowed over the
+ground, the foaming billows at break of day covered the earth...."</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>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"<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">This soul should fly from me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I be changed into some brutish beast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All beasts are happy, for when they die<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their souls are soon ditched in elements<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O soul! be changed into small water drops,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fall into the ocean; ne'er be found<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So will, unknown to him, the very same thoughts be expressed by an
+English poet of a later day.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>The devotional poetry of the Anglo-Saxons includes translations of the
+Psalms,<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> 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 panther<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a>; 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 literature in which the warmth and hues of
+the south are preserved 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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>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 impossibility of resisting; Latin
+as in general use, they have their national law written in Latin, <i>Lex
+Salica</i>. The popular speech, which will later become the French
+language, is nothing but a Latin <i>patois</i>, and is not admitted to the
+honour of being written. Notwithstanding 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.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> With the Anglo-Saxons, laws,<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a>
+chronicles, and sermons for the common people were written in the
+national tongue; and, as Latin <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>was only understood by few, to these
+monuments was added a series of translations.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> The English country
+can thus pride itself upon a literature which for antiquity is
+unparalleled in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>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 &AElig;thelred 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."<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> These men, termed Danes, Northmen, or Normans, by the
+Anglo-Saxon and French chroniclers, reappeared <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Harassed by the Danes, having had to flee and disappear 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.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the tumult caused by these new wars, what the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>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 translate 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 written 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." Remembering 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."<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> These learned men, and especially the Welshman
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 himself 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,"<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> the book
+of Orosius, which will be for them as a handbook of universal history;
+the Ecclesiastical 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.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Ohthere told his lord, king Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all
+Northmen. He said that he dwelt in the land to the northward, along the
+west sea.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>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
+departure; 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.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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, Boethius, 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 medi&aelig;val
+stage, and the strange plays called <i>Moralities</i> were to enjoy a lasting
+popularity. The first in date of the numerous translations made of
+Boethius is that of Alfred.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Under his pen, the vague Christianity of Boethius<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> becomes a na&iuml;ve
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;for with Alfred everything has a moral&mdash;when going to
+Christ, never look behind, for fear of being beguiled by the tempter: a
+practical conclusion not to be found in Boethius.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p>
+
+<p>Following the king's example, the bishops and monks set to work again.
+Werferth, bishop of Worcester, translates the famous dialogues of St.
+Gregory, filled with miracles and marvellous tales.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> It is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> 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.&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>were after me my memory in good works."<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">V.</p>
+
+<p>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 archbishop St. Dunstan rules under his name.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p>
+
+<p>Helped by Bishop &AElig;thelwold, 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.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a>; others are due to the celebrated monk &AElig;lfric, who became abbot
+of Eynsham in 1005, and wrote most of his works <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>about this time<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a>;
+another collection includes the sermons of Wulfstan, bishop of York from
+1002 to 1023.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 extremity of the world, in the distant East.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> This
+church <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>&AElig;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."<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p>
+
+<p>The lives of the saints told by &AElig;lfric recall at times tales in the
+Arabian Nights. There are transformations, disparitions, enchantments,
+emperors who become hermits, 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 frightfully
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>feather-clad."<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+alliteration. Wulfstan and &AElig;lfric 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.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>with great bitterness, and we
+follow it as it flies from us, and love it although it is passing
+away."<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Thus Anglo-Saxon literature, in spite of the efforts of Cynewulf,
+Alfred, Dunstan, and &AElig;lfric 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 perceptibly 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.</p>
+
+<p>The political state of the country leaves on the mind a similar
+impression. The men of Germanic blood established 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, &AElig;thelstan, 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> "Hengest and Horsa ... were the sons of Wihtgils; 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 ... W&aelig;rmund of Wihtl&aelig;g, Wihtl&aelig;g of Woden" (<i>Ibid.</i> year 626).
+Orderic Vital, born in England, and writing in Normandy, in the twelfth
+century, continues to trace back the descent of the kings of England to
+Woden: "a quo Angh feriam [iv]<sup>am</sup> Wodenis diem nuncupant" ("Hist.
+Eccl.," ed. Le Prevost, 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 dea
+eorum qu&aelig; 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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> This unique monument seems to be of the eighth century.
+<i>Cf.</i> "Pre-Conquest Churches of Northumbria," an article by C. Hodges in
+the "Reliquary," July, 1893.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> For example, charter of Offa, dated 793, "Matth&aelig;i
+Parisiensis ... Chronica Majora," ed. Luard (Rolls), vol. vi.,
+"Additamenta," pp. 1, 25, &amp;c.: "Regnante Domino nostro Jesu Christo in
+perpetuum."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> "King Ceadwalla's tomb in the ancient basilica of St.
+Peter," by M. Tesoroni, Rome, 1891, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," year 855. The princess was
+Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald. Hincmar, archbishop of Reims,
+blessed the marriage.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> "Quid dicam de tot episcopis ..." &amp;c. "Willelmi
+Malmesbiriensis.... Gesta regum Anglorum," ed. Hardy, London, 1840, 2
+vols. 8vo, vol. ii. p. 417.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> See his will and various documents concerning him in
+Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix., col. 535 <i>et seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> "Fraternitatis vestr&aelig; pietatem intimis obsecramus precibus
+ut nos inter feras et ignaras gentes Germani&aelig; laborantes, vestris
+sacrosanctis orationibus adjuvemur." Boniface to Cuthberht and others,
+year 735, in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix., col. 735.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> "Ideo h&aelig;c Vestr&aelig; Excellenti&aelig; dico ... ut aliquos ex pueris
+nostris remittam, qui excipiant nobis necessaria qu&aelig;que, et revehant in
+Franciam flores Britanni&aelig;: ut non sit tantummodo in Eborica hortus
+conclusus, sed in Turonica emissiones Paradisi cum pomorum fructibus, ut
+veniens Auster perflare hortos Ligeris fluminis et fluant aromata
+illius...." Migne's "Patrologia," vol. c., col. 208. 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 Merciorum;" "Ad C&oelig;nulvum regem
+Merciorum," year 796, col. 213, 232.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Works in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix. col. 87 <i>et
+seq.</i> They include, besides his poetry ("De laude Virginum," &amp;c.), a
+prose treatise: "De Laudibus Virginitatis," and other works in prose. He
+uses alliteration in his Latin poems.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> "Vita Sancti Wilfridi episcopi Eboracensis, auctore Eddio
+Stephano," in Gale's "Histori&aelig; Britannic&aelig;, Saxonic&aelig;, Anglo-Danic&aelig;
+Scriptores x." Oxford, 1691, 2 vols. fol., vol. i. pp. 50 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> 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. ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Letter of Cuthberht, later abbot of Jarrow, to his friend
+Cuthwine, on the 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:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fore the nei-faerae<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Naenig uniurthit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thonc snoturra...."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Bede had translated the Gospel of St. John, but this work is lost.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> See below, p. 70.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> 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. lxxxix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Archbishop of Canterbury, seventh century.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> J. M. Kemble, "Codex Vercellensis," London, &AElig;lfric
+Society, 1847-56; Part I., ll. 1 ff., 2507 ff., "Andreas," attributed to
+Cynewulf. On this question, see Gollancz, "Cynewulf's Christ," London,
+1892, p. 173.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> "C&aelig;dmon's metrical paraphrase of parts of the Holy
+Scripture in Anglo-Saxon, with an English translation," by B. Thorpe,
+London, Society of Antiquaries, 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
+(<i>cf.</i> "C&aelig;dmon und Milton," by R. W&uuml;lcker, 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 C&aelig;dmon. "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 conclusively shown that lines
+1 to 234, and 852 to the end, belong to the same and older version
+(possibly by C&aelig;dmon); 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.
+</p><p>
+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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> "Metrical Paraphrase," pp. 29 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> 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?"&mdash;"Ale." "Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 87.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> "Elene," in "Codex Vercellensis," part ii. p. 73, and
+"Holy Rood" (this last of doubtful authorship), <i>ibid.</i> 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 frequence 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 1100. H. Logeman,
+"L'Inscription Anglo-Saxonne du reliquaire de la vraie croix au tr&eacute;sor
+de l'&eacute;glise des SS. Michel et Gudule," Gand, Paris and London, 1891, 8vo
+(with facsimile), pp. 7 and 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> "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 "<span title="Praxeis Andreou kai Matthaiou">&Pi;&rho;&alpha;&xi;&epsilon;&iota;&sigma;
+&Alpha;&nu;&delta;&rho;&epsilon;&omicron;&upsilon; &kappa;&alpha;&iota; &Mu;&alpha;&tau;&theta;&alpha;&iota;&omicron;&upsilon;</span>;" a copy of it is preserved in the
+National Library, Paris, Greek MS. 881, fol. 348.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> "Departed Soul's Address to the Body," "Codex
+Vercellensis," part ii. p. 104.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." See also, "Be Domes D&aelig;ge," a poem
+on the terrors of judgment (ed. Lumby, Early English Text Society,
+1876).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> See examples of such dialogues and speeches in "Andreas",
+"The Holy Rood" (in "Cod Vercell"); in Cynewulf's "Christ" ("Cod.
+Exoniensis"), &amp;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 <i>Genesis</i> (<i>Cf.</i> "S. Aviti
+... Viennensis Opera," Paris, 1643 p. 230). See also the prose "Dialogue
+of Salomon and Saturnus" (Kemble, &AElig;lfric 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 Ages and the
+Renaissance; it was well known to Rabelais: "Qui ne s'adventure n'a
+cheval ni mule, ce dict Salomon.&mdash;Qui trop s'adventure perd cheval et
+mule respondit Malcon." "Vie de Gargantua." Saturnus 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.&mdash;I tell thee of eight
+pounds by weight.&mdash;Tell me what they are called.&mdash;I tell thee the first
+was a pound of earth," &amp;c. (p. 181).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> MS. Lat. 8824 in the Paris National Library, Latin and
+Anglo-Saxon, some pen-and-ink drawings: "Ce livre est au duc de
+Berry&mdash;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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> 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, &amp;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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> "Codex Exoniensis," pp. 197 ff. This poem is a paraphrase
+of a "Carmen de Ph&oelig;nice" attributed to Lactantius, filled with
+conceits in the worst taste:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mors illi venus est; sola est in morte voluptas;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ut possit nasci h&aelig;c appetit ante mori.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ipsa sibi proles, suus est pater et suus h&aelig;res.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nutrix ipsa sui, semper alumna sibi;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ipsa quidem, sed non eadem, qu&aelig; est ipsa nec ipsa est....<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Incerti auctoris Ph&oelig;nix, Lactantio tributus," in Migne's
+"Patrologia," vol. vii. col. 277.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> The most important of which is the famous Strasbourg
+pledge, February 19, 842, preserved by the contemporary historian
+Nithard. See "Les plus anciens monuments de la langue fran&ccedil;aise," by
+Gaston Paris, Societ&eacute; des anciens Textes, 1875, fol.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Thorpe, "Ancient Laws and Institutes of England," London,
+1840, 1 vol. fol.; laws of Ina, king of Wessex, 688-726, of Alfred,
+&AElig;thelstan, &amp;c. We have also considerable quantities of deeds and
+charters, some in Latin and some in Anglo-Saxon. See J. M. Kemble,
+"Codex Diplomaticus &AElig;vi Saxonici," English Historical Society, 1839-40,
+6 vols. 8vo; De Gray Birch, "Cartularium Saxonicum, or a Collection 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> 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).&mdash;Translation of the
+so-called "Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem" (Cockayne,
+"Narratiuncul&aelig;," 1861, 8vo, and "Anglia," vol. iv. p. 139); of the
+history of "Apollonius of Tyre" (Thorpe, London, 1834,
+12mo).&mdash;Translations by King Alfred and his bishops, see below pp. 81
+ff. The monuments of Anglo-Saxon prose have been collected by Grein,
+"Bibliothek der Angels&auml;chsischen Prosa," ed. W&uuml;lker, Cassel, 1872 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Grueber and Keary, "A Catalogue of English Coins in the
+British Museum," Anglo-Saxon series, vol. ii. 1893, 8vo, p. lxxxi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> H. Sweet, "King Alfred's West-Saxon version of Gregory's
+Pastoral Care, with an English translation," London, Early English Text
+Society, 1871-72, 8vo, pp. 2 ff. Plegmund was an Anglo-Saxon, Asser a
+Welshman, Grimbold a Frank, John a Saxon from continental Saxony.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Preface of Gregory's "Pastoral Care."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> 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.&mdash;"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.&mdash;"King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version of Boethius," ed. S.
+Fox, London, 1864, 8vo.&mdash;"King Alfred's West-Saxon version of Gregory's
+Pastoral Care," ed. H. Sweet, E.E.T.S., 1871-2. 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> The sea to the west of Norway, that is the German Ocean.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> 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 "inspir&eacute;e d'Aristote et de Platon."
+Gaston Paris, <i>Journal des Savants</i>, 1884, p. 576.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> S. Fox, "King Alfred's Boethius," 1864, 8vo, chap. xxxv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> 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 C&aelig;sar to Britain, &amp;c., and usually come
+down to the eleventh century. The Peterborough text alone continues as
+late as the year 1154. 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 (<i>supra</i>, p. 46), the accession of Edgar,
+&amp;c.; the MS. is preserved in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge;
+the Peterborough MS. is in the Bodleian Library (Laud, 636).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> 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 original. 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> In the "Proverbs of Alfred," an apocryphal compilation
+made after the Norman Conquest; published by Kemble with the "Dialogue
+of Salomon and Saturnus," 1848, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> King from 959 to 975; St. Dunstan, archbishop of
+Canterbury, died in 988. See Stubbs, "Memorials of St. Dunstan" (Rolls
+Series).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> The anonymous translation of the Gospels compiled in the
+time of Alfred was copied and vulgarised in this period; ed. Skeat, "The
+Gospels in Anglo-Saxon," Cambridge, 1871-87, 4 vols. 4to.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> See Sermon XI.; "The Blickling Homilies," ed. R. Morris,
+1874 ff. E.E.T.S., 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> "The Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of &AElig;lfric," ed.
+Thorpe, London, &AElig;lfric Society, 1844-6, 2 vols. 8vo; "&AElig;lfric's Lives of
+Saints, being a set of Sermons," &amp;c., ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1881
+ff. &AElig;lfric translated part of the Bible: "Heptateuchus, Liber Job," &amp;c.,
+ed. Thwaites, Oxford, 1698, 8vo. He wrote also important works on
+astronomy and grammar, a "Colloquium" in Latin and Anglo-Saxon:
+"&AElig;lfric's Grammatik und Glossar," ed. J. Zupitza, 1880, 8vo, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> The homilies of Wulfstan were published by Arthur Napier:
+"Wulfstan, Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst
+Untersuchungen &uuml;ber ihre Echtheit," Berlin, 1883, 8vo (sixty-two pieces,
+some of which are very short).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> "Transtulimus hunc codicem ex libris latinorum ... ob
+&aelig;dificationem simplicium ... ideoque nec 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. Nec 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." &AElig;lfric's preface for his "Sermones
+Catholici." In the preface of his sermons on the lives of Saints, &AElig;lfric
+states that he intends not to translate any more, "ne forte despectui
+habeantur margarite Christi."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> "The Blickling Homilies," Sermon XI.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> "Sermones Catholici", pp. 12-13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 304-5. See also, in the sermon on St. John
+the Baptist, a curious satire on wicked talkative women, pp. 476-7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> 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 of body, and has deep eyes and
+moderate nose," &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Skeat, "&AElig;lfric's Lives of Saints," 1881.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> "The Blickling Homilies," Sermons X. and XI.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Sermon XVII.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span><br /></p>
+<p class="subhead1"><a name="BOOK_II" id="BOOK_II"></a>BOOK II.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead1"><i>THE FRENCH INVASION.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER I.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>BATTLE.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 between 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> 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 Norman of Scandinavia and the Normans
+of France were about to play a match of which England was the stake.</p>
+
+<p>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 remained the Normans of France.</p>
+
+<p>Who were these Normans? Very different from those of the other army,
+they no longer had anything Scandinavian 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>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 Alexander 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Roncevaux."<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+The army, moreover, was not exclusively composed of men from
+Normandy.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> 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: "Hic Franci pugnant" (Here fight the French). Crowned
+king of England, William continues to call his followers
+"Frenchmen."<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, on the other side,
+describe the invaders sometimes as Normans and sometimes as Frenchmen,
+"Frenciscan." "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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>not after the coming of William of Normandy, "because he was
+French."<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 (<i>argute loqui</i>). 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 Scandinavian poem, "if thou stumble on thy feet when
+marching to battle, for evil fairies stand on either side of thee,
+wishing to see thee wounded."<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> 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":</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Le nom qui ert de duch&eacute;e<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Verreiz de due en rei torn&eacute;;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reis serai qui duc ai est&eacute;.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>petals on the grass,
+amidst fragments to which is attached one of the greatest memories in
+the history of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>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 pressing 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 domination 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."<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p>
+
+<p>People with a mind so full of elegiac sentiments fall an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>easy prey to
+men who know how to <i>will</i>. 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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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!"<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 boundaries, protects its approaches, and, in spite
+of the immensity of the work, takes a minute inventory of it.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> 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 concerning the hares that they
+should go free."<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 conquests
+in peace; in good as in evil they never stop half-way; those who incline
+to tyranny become, like Stephen, the most atrocious tyrants<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a>; those
+who incline to the manners and customs of chivalry carry them, like
+Richard C&oelig;ur 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>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 offer both to all
+comers. They constantly risk their lives; out of twelve Norman or
+Angevin princes six die a violent death.</p>
+
+<p>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 reigning 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,<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> which count among the grandest ever built. The splendid
+naves of St. Albans, Westminster, Canterbury, Winchester, York,
+Salisbury, rise heavenwards; 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>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"!</p>
+
+<p>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
+manuscripts 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> 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
+(Westmoreland, Warwick), the Montgomerys (Shrewsbury, Pembroke,
+Arundel), the Beaumonts and the Montforts (Leicester), are Frenchmen.
+People of less importance married to English women&mdash;"matrimonia quoque
+cum subditis jungunt"<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a>&mdash;rear families which for many years remain
+French.</p>
+
+<p>During a long period, the centre of the thoughts and interests of the
+kings of England, French by origin, education, manners, and language, is
+in France. William the Conqueror bequeaths Normandy to his eldest son,
+and England to his younger. Not one of them is buried at Westminster
+before 1272; they sleep their last sleep most of them at Caen or
+Fontevrault<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a>; out of the thirty-five years of his reign, Henry II.
+spends more than twenty-one in France, and less than fourteen in
+England.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> Before his accession Richard C&oelig;ur-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 England the fashion of tournaments, "conflictus gallici," says
+Matthew Paris. They wish to have a University, and they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>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 archbishop of
+Canterbury, becomes bishop of Chartres; Ralph de Sarr, born in Thanet,
+becomes dean of Reims<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a>; others are appointed bishops of Palermo,
+Messina, and Syracuse.</p>
+
+<p>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 undertaken 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The bull "Laudabiliter," by which the English Pope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+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.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, 1158, Henry
+II. and his wife Ali&eacute;nor 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.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 Ali&eacute;nor 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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>others were
+very strong and brave as Arthur, Edmond, and Cnut."<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 preconceived 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.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> The origin of the inhabitants of the land
+must <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>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 &AElig;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.<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>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
+at Poictiers; 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> 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, 1178): "The Heimskringla Saga, or
+the Sagas of the Norse kings, from the Icelandic of Snorre Sturlason,"
+ed. Laing and R. B. Anderson, London, 1889, 4 vols. 8vo, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Taillefer ki mult bien chantout,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sor un cheval ki tost alout<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Devant le duc alout chantant<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">De Karlemaigne et de Rolant<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E d'Oliver et des vassals<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui morurent en Rencevals.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Maistre Wace's Roman de Rou," ed. Andresen, Heilbronn, 1877, 2 vols.
+8vo, p. 349, a statement reproduced or corroborated by several
+chroniclers: "Tunc cantilena Rollandi inochata...." William of
+Malmesbury, "Gesta Regum Anglorum," ed. Hardy, London, 1840, English
+Historical Society, book iii., p. 415.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> 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 consisted of "Mancels, French, Bretons, Aquitains,
+and Normans"; his statement is reproduced by Orderic Vital: "Insisterunt
+eis Cenomannici, Franci, Britanni, Aquitani et miserabiliter 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> 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 C&oelig;ur-de-Lion, in a charter for
+Lincoln, sends his greetings to his subjects "tam Francis quam Anglis,"
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1194. Stubbs, "Select Charters," Oxford, 1876, pp. 82 and 266.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> "Gunnlangs Saga," in "Three northern Love Stories and
+other Tales," edited by Erikr Magnusson, and William Morris, London,
+1875, 12mo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> "The old play of the Wolsungs," in "Corpus Poeticum
+Boreale," i. p. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> "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, fortitudo comitatus mei in
+regnum." "Gesta Regum Anglorum," 1840, English Historical Society, book
+iii. p. 415.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> William of Malmesbury, <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (Rolls), year 1066, Worcester
+text (Tib. B. IV.). Same statement in William of Malmesbury, who says of
+his compatriots that "uno pr&aelig;lio et ipso perfacili se patriamque
+pessundederint." "Gesta Regum Anglorum," English Historical Society, p.
+418.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> 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 Angligen&aelig;
+... Histori&aelig; Ecclesiastic&aelig;, Libri XIII.," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol.
+clxxxviii. col. 297.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> The inventory is carried down to details; answers are
+required to a number of questions: "... Deinde quomodo vocatur mansio,
+quis tenuit eam tempore Regis Eadwardi; quis modo tenet; quot hid&aelig;; quot
+carruc&aelig; in dominio; quot hominum; quot villani; quot cotarii; quot
+servi; quot liberi homines; quot sochemani; quantum silv&aelig;; quantum
+prati; quot pascuorum; quot molendina; quot piscin&aelig;," &amp;c., &amp;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, 1086,"
+edited by Sir Henry James, London and Southampton, 1861-3, 2 vols. 4to.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Peterborough text of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," year
+1086.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> 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 summatim recenseat, historiam Josephi possint
+excedere." John of Salisbury, "Policraticus," book vi chap. xviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> "Videas ubique in villis ecclesias, in vicis et urbibus
+monasteria, novo &aelig;dificandi genere consurgere." The buildings of the
+Anglo-Saxons, according to the testimony of the same, who may have seen
+many as his lived in the twelfth century, were very poor; they were
+pleased with "pravis et abjectis domibus." "Gesta Regum Anglorum," ed.
+Hardy, 1840, book iii. p. 418.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> William of Malmesbury, <i>ut supra</i>, p. 420.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> The Conqueror was buried at Caen; Henry II. and Richard
+C&oelig;ur-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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> "Henry II.," by Mrs. J. R. Green, 1888, p. 22 ("Twelve
+English Statesmen").</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> Stubbs, "Seventeen Lectures," 1886, p. 131.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> 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 justiti&aelig; Christus illuxit ... ad jus B. Petri et sacrosanct&aelig;
+Roman&aelig; Ecclesi&aelig; (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 Hiberni&aelig;
+insulam, ad subdendum illum 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 laudabile
+desiderium tuum cum favore congruo prosequentes ... gratum et acceptum
+habemus ut ... illius terr&aelig; populus honorifice te recipiat et sicut
+Dominum veneretur." "Adriani pap&aelig; epistol&aelig; et privilegia.&mdash;Ad Henricum
+II. Angli&aelig; regem," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. clxxxviii. col. 1441.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> 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 nec regiis consiliis interesse poterat." Matthew Paris,
+"Chronica Majora," year 1095.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">En mund ne est, (ben vus l'os dire)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pais, reaume, ne empire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">U tant unt est&eacute; bons rois<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E seinz, cum en isle d'Englois,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ki apr&egrave;s r&egrave;gne terestre<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or r&egrave;gnent reis en c&eacute;lestre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seinz, martirs, e cunfessurs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ki pur Deu mururent plursurs;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Li autre, forz e hardiz mutz,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cum fu Arthurs, Aedmunz e Knudz.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Lives of Edward the Confessor," ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls), 1858;
+beginning of the "Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> 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 1147 and 1151 (P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xviii. p.
+314), his "Estorie des Engles" (ed. Hardy and Martin, Rolls, 1888, 2
+vols., 8vo), and, about 1145, a translation in French verse of the
+"Historia Britonum" of Geoffrey of Monmouth (see below, p. 132).&mdash;Wace,
+born at Jersey (1100?-1175, 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 1174 his "Geste des Normands" or "Roman
+de Rou" (ed. Andresen, Heilbronn, 1877, 2 vols. 8vo). He wrote also
+metrical lives of saints, &amp;c.&mdash;Benoit de Sainte-More, besides his
+metrical romances (see below, p. 129), wrote, by command of Henry II., a
+great "Chronique des ducs de Normandie" (ed. Francisque Michel,
+"Documents in&eacute;dits," Paris, 1836, 3 vols. 4to).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> 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 Troj&aelig; fugientes Gr&aelig;cos ubique dispersos, loca h&aelig;c 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 &AElig;neas the Troian, begotten
+of his wife Creusa, and borne in Troie, before the citie was destroied."
+Chronicles, 1807, 6 vols. fol. book ii. chap. 1. 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."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER II.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>LITERATURE IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE UNDER THE NORMAN AND ANGEVIN KINGS.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> the high men of this land, who are come of their
+race, keep all to that 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."<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 necessary 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.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> Such being the case, it spread quickly in
+England, where it was, for a long time, the language used in laws and
+deeds, in the courts of justice, in Parliamentary debates,<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> the
+language used by the most refined poets of the period.</p>
+
+<p>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 fourteenth
+centuries, Jordan Fantosme<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> and Peter de Langtoft; 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,<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> or <i>fabliaux</i>,<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> like those composed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 studying 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>manuscripts. What <i>is</i> 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 &aelig;sthetic ideal and even the way of thinking
+of the inhabitants. What, then, were these ideas, and what was this
+literature?</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The useful works are those so-called scientific treatises in which
+everything is taught that can be learned, including virtue: "Image du
+Monde," "Petite Philosophie," "Lumi&egrave;re des la&iuml;ques," "Secret des
+Secrets," &amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a>; or those chronicles which so efficaciously served
+the political views of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>rulers of the land; or else pious works that
+showed men the way to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the following century the most remarkable work is the biography in
+verse of William le Mar&eacute;chal, earl of Pembroke, 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.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>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,<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> is a contemporary 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 somewhat 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."<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>penitence, miracles of Our Lady, moralised
+tales, bestiaries, and sermons.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> The number of the French-speaking
+population had so increased in the kingdom that it was not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>absurd to
+preach in French, and some of the clergy inclined 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."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A la simple gent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ai fait simplement<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Un simple sarmun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nel fis as letrez<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Car il unt assez<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Escriz e raisun.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Por icels enfanz<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Le fis en romanz<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui ne sunt letr&eacute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Car miel entendrunt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La langue dunt sunt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">D&egrave;s enfance us&eacute;.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>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 medi&aelig;val 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.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> 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; Charlemagne'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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>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!"<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>At Roncevaux, as well as at Hastings, French readiness of wit appears
+even in the middle of the battle. Archbishop 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,"<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>was born more than
+a hundred years after the great host was gathered together."<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a></p>
+
+<p>But the worst forger of Alexandria obtains the confidence 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> For the history of Thebes they are obliged to content
+themselves with Statius, and for that of Rome with Virgil, that same
+Virgil who became by degrees, in medi&aelig;val 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 "&AElig;neid" their place of abode: no one was surprised at
+seeing Dante take him for a guide.</p>
+
+<p>What these poets wished for was a certificate of authenticity at
+starting. Once they had it, they took no further <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>No need to add that manners and dresses were scarcely better observed
+than probability. Everything in these poems was really <i>translated</i>; 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.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a>
+&OElig;dipus is dubbed a knight; &AElig;neas 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
+<i>paniers</i> on the English stage.</p>
+
+<p>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-More, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>in which is related, for the first
+time in any modern language, the story of Troilus and Cressida; the
+"Roman de Th&egrave;bes," 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 "Prothesilaus,"
+by Hue of Rotelande, composed before 1191; and many others besides<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a>:
+all romances destined to people of leisure, delighting in long
+descriptions, in prodigious 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>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 transcribo quam credo," Quintus
+Curtius had already said.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 compatriots. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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; nevertheless 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.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>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 recommendation 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."<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a></p>
+
+<p>One thing, however, was lacking for a time to the complete success of
+the Arthurian epic: the stamp of authenticity, 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.<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> Geoffrey of
+Monmouth makes up for this deficiency.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p>
+
+<p>His predecessors knew nothing, he knows everything; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>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 themselves
+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 1153, between Stephen of
+Blois and the future Henry II. In 1139, the "Historia Regum Britanni&aelig;"
+had appeared, and copies began to circulate. Henry of Huntingdon,
+passing at the Abbey of Bec, 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 C&aelig;sar.... But to my
+amazement I have just discovered&mdash;stupens inveni&mdash;a narrative of these
+times."<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> It was Geoffrey's book.</p>
+
+<p>The better to establish his authority, Geoffrey himself had been careful
+to appeal to a mysterious source, a certain book of which no trace has
+ever been found, and which he pretends was given him by his friend
+Walter, Archdeacon 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Such a book could not fail of success; it had a prodigious 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."<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a>
+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 1155, with the addition of several legends omitted by
+Geoffrey, that of the Round Table among others.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> whom Dante <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a></p>
+
+<p>Tristan's youth was spent in a castle of L&eacute;onois, 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."<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> 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 concerning the dress of the knights, I will tell
+him in a few words; it was composed of four stuffs: courage, richness,
+skill, and courtesy."</p>
+
+<p>Morolt, the giant, comes to claim a tribute of sixty youths and maidens,
+in the name of the king of Ireland. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a></p>
+
+<p>Tristan's task being accomplished, he returns to Cornwall. 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.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> Tristan starts in quest of the woman. The
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>woman is Iseult; he brings her to Cornwall. While at sea the two young
+people swallow by mistake an enchanted 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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"&mdash;thought the old poet, and said a
+more recent one&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nor till the might of August overhead<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weighed on the world, was yet one roseleaf shed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all their joys warm coronal, nor aught<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Touched them in passing ever with a thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ever this might end on any day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or any night not love them where they lay;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span><br />
+<span class="i0">But like a babbling tale of barren breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seemed all report and rumour held of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a false bruit the legend tear impearled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That such a thing as change was in the world.<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 forgotten. 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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+"Astr&eacute;e," in Byron, and in Musset.</p>
+
+<p>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 transformed 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> words that shall make me a <i>preux</i>, 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 and made
+me wealthy when poor."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 Andr&eacute; le Chapelain, to guide the
+perfect lover.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> After having been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>first an accessory, then an
+irresistible passion, love, that the poets think to magnify, will soon
+be nothing but a ceremonial. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>They have also shorter narratives in prose and verse, the subject of
+which is generally love, drawn from French, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>Latin, Greek, and even
+Hindu legends,<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> stories like those of Amis and Amile, of Floire and
+Blanchefleur, lays like those of Marie de France.<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>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 garment: "Except her shift, no
+other stuff she wore";</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">N'ot drap vestu fors la chemise.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>chansons</i>. 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.<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 Englishmen, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>soldiers, clerks, minstrels, messengers,
+followed the king and stayed with him in the parts where the main wells
+and fountains of the French <i>chanson</i> happened to be.<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">It is not yet near day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was the nightingale and not the lark.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Il n'est mie jors, saverouze au cors gent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Si m'a&iuml;t amors, l'aloete nos ment.<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"It is not yet near day, my sweet one; love be my help, the lark lies."
+In these songs, the women are slight and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Si les flurs d[el] albespine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fuissent &agrave; roses assis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">N'en ferunt colur plus fine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ke n'ad ma dame au cler vis.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>With these songs, Love ventures out of castles; we find him "in cellars,
+or in lofts under the hay."<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> 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?"<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> The idea of turning worldly songs
+and music to religious ends is not, as we see, one of yesterday.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>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
+<i>chansons</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">V.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>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 <i>gabs</i>, or boasts, that are
+overheard by a spy, and carefully noted. Ogier the Dane will uproot the
+pillar which supports the whole palace; A&iuml;mer 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 <i>gabs</i> or pay for their lies with their heads.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>gabs</i> are realised; Hugon
+acknowledges the superiority of Charles, who returns to France, enriches
+St. Denis with incomparable relics, and forgives the queen. This poem is
+exactly contemporaneous with the Song of Roland.</p>
+
+<p>But there is better still, and the comedy is much more general in the
+famous "Roman de Renart."<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>romance, of which the branches are
+of various epochs and by various authors, was composed partly in the
+continental 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.</p>
+
+<p>For many Frenchmen of ancient France, a <i>chanson</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a>
+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:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;such a hard
+one it was, and of such great import&mdash;between Renard and Ysengrin."<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p>
+
+<p>The personages are animals; their sentiments are human; king lion swears
+like a man<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a>; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>pulled her about with his teeth, that her thigh was broken, and a wing
+torn off her side."<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a></p>
+
+<p>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?"<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> She is very near
+adding in Racine's words: "Mes filles, soutenez votre reine &eacute;perdue!"
+Anyhow, she faints.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>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'"<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a>....</p>
+
+<p>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 G&eacute;ronte, and
+Figaro over Bridoison. 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a></p>
+
+<p>Above, below, around these greater works, swarms the innumerable legion
+of satirical fabliaux and laughable tales. They, too, cross the sea,
+slight, imperceptible, wandering, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>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&mdash;exempla&mdash;than by sermons;"<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p>
+
+<p>From the thirteenth century, another medium of diffusion, 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."<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a>
+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 buffooneries are preached.... St.
+Anthony's swine fattens by these means, and others, worse than swine,
+fatten too."<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>all, as it came from India,
+and is found everywhere, in Italy, France, and England, among fabliaux,
+in sermons, and even on the stage.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>gab</i> of theirs. The more one protests,
+the more they insist; they adduce proofs and instances; they are
+convinced and finally convince 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,"<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a>
+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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>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 <i>lived</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>dits</i>.... 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."<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thus com lo Engelond &middot; in to Normandies hond;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the Normans ne couthe speke tho &middot; bot hor owe speche,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And speke French as hii dude atom &middot; and hor children dude also teche,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that heiemen of this lond &middot; that of hor blod come<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Holdeth alle thulke speche &middot; that hii of hom nome;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vor bote a man conne Frenss &middot; me telth of him lute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ac lowe men holdeth to engliss &middot; and to hor owe speche yute.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ich wene ther ne beth in al the world &middot; contreyes none<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ne holdeth to hor owe speche &middot; bote Engelonde one.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+W. A. Wright, "Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester" (Rolls),
+1887, vol. ii. p. 543. Concerning Robert, see below, p. 122.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> Letter of the year 1209, by which Gerald sends to King
+John the second edition of his "Expugnatio Hiberni&aelig;"; in "Giraldi
+Cambrensis Opera" (Rolls), vol. v. p. 410. Further on he speaks of
+French as of "communi idiomate."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> "La parleure est plus delitable et plus commune &agrave; toutes
+gens." "Li livres dou Tr&eacute;sor," thirteenth century (a sort of
+philosophical, historical, scientific, &amp;c., cyclop&aelig;dia), ed. Chabaille,
+Paris, "Documents in&eacute;dits," 1863, 4to. Dante cherished "the dear and
+sweet fatherly image" of his master, Brunetto, who recommended to the
+poet his "Tr&eacute;sor," for, he said, "in this book I still live." "Inferno,"
+canto xv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> For the laws, see the "Statutes of the Realm," 1819-28,
+Record Commission, 11 vols, fol.; for the accounts of the sittings of
+Parliament, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," London, 1767-77, 6 vols. fol.; for
+the accounts of lawsuits, the "Year Books," ed. Horwood, Rolls, 1863
+ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> 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 ff.,
+vol. iii. p. 203.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> See below, pp. 122, 123, 130, 214.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Example: "Romanz de un chivaler e de sa dame e de un
+clerk," written 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 <i>fabliau</i> of the "Bourgeoise d'Orl&eacute;ans" (in Montaiglon and
+Raynaud, "Recueil g&eacute;n&eacute;ral des Fabliaux," 1872, vol. i. p. 117). See
+below, p. 225.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> "Croniques de London ... jusqu'&agrave; l'an 17 Ed. III.," ed.
+Aungier Camden Society, 1844, 4to.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> "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.&mdash;"Petite Philosophie," also in verse, being an "abr&eacute;g&eacute; de
+cosmographie et de g&eacute;ographie," "Romania," xv. p. 255.&mdash;"Lumi&egrave;re des
+la&iuml;ques," a poem, written in the thirteenth century, by the Anglo-Norman
+Pierre de Peckham or d'Abernun, <i>ibid.</i> p. 287.&mdash;"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 Litt&eacute;raire de la France," vol. xxi. p. 216).&mdash;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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> 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, &amp;c.); the "Histoire de la Guerre Sainte," an account of
+the third crusade, by Ambrose, a companion of King Richard
+C&oelig;ur-de-Lion (in preparation, by Gaston Paris, "Documents in&eacute;dits");
+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, 8vo; <i>cf.</i> P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xxi. p. 444), &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> 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 Guillaume le Mar&eacute;chal," Paris, 1892 ff., Soci&eacute;t&eacute; 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Engelond his a wel god lond &middot; ich wene ech londe best ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The see geth him al aboute &middot; he stond as in an yle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of fon hii dorre the lasse doute &middot; bote hit be thorgh gyle ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plente me may in Engelond &middot; of alle gode ise.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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 <i>Athen&aelig;um</i>, 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> 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).&mdash;Explanation of the Gospels: the "Miroir,"
+by Robert de Greteham, in 20,000 French verses (<i>Ibid.</i>).&mdash;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,
+Soci&eacute;t&eacute; 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," &amp;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.&mdash;Manuals and treatises: by
+Robert Grosseteste, William de Wadington and others (see below, p.
+214).&mdash;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.).&mdash;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" in verse (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 moralis&eacute;s de Nicole Bozon," ed. P. Meyer and Lucy Toulmin
+Smith, Paris, 1889, 8vo, Soci&eacute;t&eacute; des Anciens Textes, in French prose,
+fourteenth century.&mdash;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 fran&ccedil;aise an moyen &acirc;ge,"
+Paris, 1886, 8vo, 2nd ed.; at p. 282, sermon on the Passion by Geoffrey
+de Waterford in French verse, Anglo-Norman dialect.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> "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 literatur&aelig;
+ostensio," year 1200 (Camden Society, 1840, p. 95).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> "La Chanson de Roland, texte critique, traduction et
+commentaire," by L&eacute;on Gautier, Tours, 1881, 8vo; "La Chanson de Roland,
+traduction archa&iuml;que et rythm&eacute;e," by L. Cl&eacute;dat, Paris, 1887, 8vo. On the
+romances of the cycle of Charlemagne composed in England, see G. Paris,
+"Histoire po&eacute;tique de Charlemagne," 1865, 8vo, pp. 155 ff. The unique
+MS. of the "Chanson," written about 1170, is at Oxford, where it was
+found in our century. It was printed for the first time in 1837. 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Croist li aciers, ne fraint ne s'esgruignet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et dist li cuens: "Sainte Marie, aiude!...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E! Durendal, com i&eacute;s et cl&eacute;re et blanche!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Contre soleil si reluis et reflambes!...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E! Durendal, com i&eacute;s b&egrave;le et saintisme!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Cil Sarrazins me semblet mult herites.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ne a muillier n'a dame qu'as ve&uuml;t<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">N'en vanteras el' regne dunt tu fus.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> "Car le Royaume de France ne fut oncques si desconfis que
+on n'y trouvast bien tousjours &agrave; qui combattre." Prologue of the
+Chronicles, Luce's edition, vol. i. p. 212.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Car bien scavons sanz nul espoir<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Q'il ne fu pius de c ans n&eacute;e<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Q'il grans ost fu assembl&eacute;e.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+MS. fr. 60 in the National Library, Paris, fol. 42; contains: "Li
+Roumans de Tiebes qui fu racine de Troie la grant.&mdash;Item toute
+l'histoire de Troie la grant."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> "Alexandre le Grand, dans la litt&eacute;rature fran&ccedil;aise du
+moyen &acirc;ge," by P. Meyer, Paris, 1886, 2 vols. 8vo (vol. i. texts, vol.
+ii. history of the legend); vol. ii. p. 182.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> MS. fr. 782 at the National Library, Paris, containing
+poems by Benoit de Sainte-More, fol. 151, 155, 158.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> 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.&mdash;"Le Roman de Th&egrave;bes," ed. L. Constans, Paris,
+1890, 2 vols. 8vo, wrongly attributed to Benoit de Sainte-More,
+indirectly imitated from the "Thebaid" of Statius.&mdash;"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 "&AElig;neid."&mdash;The immense poem of
+Eustache or Thomas de Kent is still unpublished; the author imitates the
+romance in "alexandrines" of Lambert le Tort and Alexandre de Paris,
+twelfth century, ed. Michelant, Stuttgart, 1846.&mdash;The romances of Hue de
+Rotelande (Rhuddlan in Flintshire?) are also in French verse, and were
+composed between 1176-7 and 1190-1; see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
+1883, vol. i. pp. 728 ff.; his "Ipomedon" has been edited by K&ouml;lbing and
+Koschwitz, Breslau, 1889, 8vo; his "Prothesilaus" is still unpublished.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> Lib. IX. cap. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> "Hic est Arthur de quo Britonum nug&aelig; hodieque delirant,
+dignus plane quod non fallaces somniarent fabul&aelig;, sed veraces
+pr&aelig;dicarent histori&aelig;." "De Gestis," ed. Stubbs, Rolls, vol. i. p. 11.
+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
+aur&aelig;, laudis adulatori&aelig;, fam&aelig; transitori&aelig;...." "Historia Anglorum,"
+Rolls, p. 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Says the Wolf:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dont estes vos? de quel pa&iuml;s?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vos n'estes mie nes de France ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;Nai, mi seignor, mais de Bretaing ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;Et savez vos neisun mestier?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;Ya, ge fot molt bon jogler ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ge fot savoir bon lai Breton.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Roman de Renart," ed. Martin, vol. i. pp. 66, 67.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> Gildas, "De Excidio Britanni&aelig;," ed. J. Stevenson, English
+Historical Society, 1838, 8vo; Nennius, "Historia Britonum," same
+editor, place, and date.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> His "Historia" was edited by Giles, London, 1844, 8vo,
+and by San Marte, "Gottfried von Monmouth Historia regum Britanni&aelig;,"
+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, 1154. See Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. i.
+pp. 203 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. i. p. 210.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> "Quidam nostris temporibus, pro expiandis his Britonum
+maculis, scriptor emersit, ridicula de eisdem figmenta contexens, ...
+Gaufridus hic 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> "Le Roman de Brut," ed. Le Roux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836-38,
+2 vols. 8vo. <i>Cf.</i> P. Meyer, "De quelques chroniques anglo-normandes qui
+ont port&eacute; le nom de Brut," Paris, 1878, "Bulletin de la Soci&eacute;t&eacute; des
+Anciens Textes fran&ccedil;ais."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> 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 B&eacute;rou about 1150. Another version, also in French verse, was
+written about 1170 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 reconstitute the poem of Thomas "by means of three
+versions: a German one (by Gotfrid of Strasbourg, unfinished), a
+Norwegian one (in prose, ab. 1225, faithful but compressed), and an
+English one (XIVth century, a greatly impaired text)." G. Paris, "La
+Litt&eacute;rature fran&ccedil;aise au moyen &acirc;ge," 2nd ed., 1890, p. 94. See also
+"Tristan et Iseut," by the same, <i>Revue de Paris</i>, April 15, 1894.
+</p><p>
+Texts: "The poetical Romances of Tristan in French, in Anglo-Norman, and
+in Greek," ed. Francisque Michel, London, 1835-9, 3 vols. 8vo.&mdash;"Die
+Nordische und die Englische Version der Tristan-Sage," ed. K&ouml;lbing,
+Heilbronn, 1878-83, 2 vols. 8vo; vol. i., "Tristrams Saga ok Isoudar"
+(Norwegian prose); vol. ii., "Sir Tristram" (English verse).&mdash;"Gottfried
+von Strassburg Tristan," ed. Reinhold Bachstein, Leipzig, 1869, 2 vols.
+8vo (German verse).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> "Inferno," canto v.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> The following analysis is mainly made after "Tristan et
+Iseult, po&egrave;me de Gotfrit de Strasbourg, compar&eacute; &agrave; d'autres po&egrave;mes sur le
+m&ecirc;me sujet," by A. Bossert, Paris, 1865, 8vo. Gotfrit wrote before 1203
+(G. Paris, "Histoire Litt&eacute;rarie de la France," vol. xxx. p. 21).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">En sa chambre se set un jor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E fait un lai pitus d'am[o]r:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Coment dan Guirun fu surpris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pur l'amur de sa dame ocis....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La reine chante dulcement,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La voiz acorde el estrument;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Les mainz sunt bels, li lais b[o]ns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dulce la voiz [et] bas li tons.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Francisque Michel, <i>ut supra</i>, vol. iii. p. 39.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> On this incident, the earliest version of which is as old
+as the fourteenth century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, having been found in an Egyptian papyrus
+of that date, see the article by Gaston Paris's, Part I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> Swinburne, "Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> Bosert, pp. 62, 68, 72, 82.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> "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 &agrave; 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 gard&eacute; de tous p&eacute;rilz; cilz moz m'a
+saoul&eacute; en toutes mes faims; cilz moz me fait riche en toutes mes
+pouret&eacute;s. 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 l&agrave; o&ugrave; 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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> "Omnis consuevit amans in coamantis aspectu pallescere,"
+&amp;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 Andr&eacute; le Chapelain, thirteenth century; "Romania," vol. xii.
+p. 532.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> On these romances, see, in "Histoire Litt&eacute;raire 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 Erceldoune," Berlin, 1880, 8vo, "Sammlung Englischer
+Denkm&auml;ler," and by the Early English Text Society, 1875).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> 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. B&eacute;dier, "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> For Amis, very popular in England, see K&ouml;lbing, "Amis and
+Amiloun," Heilbronn, 1884 (<i>cf.</i> below, p. 229), and "Nouvelles
+fran&ccedil;oises en prose du treizi&egrave;me si&egrave;cle," edited by Moland and
+d'H&eacute;ricault, Paris, 1856, 16mo; these "Nouvelles" include: "l'Empereur
+Constant," "les Amiti&eacute;s de Ami et Amile," "le roi Flore et la belle
+Jehanne," "la Comtesse de Ponthieu," "Aucassin et Nicolette."&mdash;The
+French text of "Floire et Blanceflor" is to be found in Edelstand du
+M&eacute;ril, "Po&egrave;mes du treizi&egrave;me si&egrave;cle," Paris, 1856, 16mo.&mdash;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
+"Po&eacute;sies de Marie de France," ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1819, 2 vols. 8vo.
+See also B&eacute;dier's article in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, Oct. 15, 1891,
+also the chapter on Marie in Hervieux, "Fabulistes Latins," 1883-4, 2nd
+part, chap. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> On this subject, see Gaston Paris's criticism of the
+"Origines de la po&eacute;sie lyrique en France" of Jeanroy, in the "Journal
+des Savants," 1892.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> 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 I^b and XIV. in
+Martin's edition.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Jeanroy, "Origines de la po&eacute;sie lyrique en France, au
+moyen &acirc;ge," Paris, 1889, 8vo, p. 68. An allusion in a crusade song of
+the twelfth century shows that this <i>motif</i> was 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," <i>ibid.</i>, p. 70.
+</p><p>
+On <i>chansons</i> written in French by Anglo-Normans, see "M&eacute;langes de
+po&eacute;sie anglo-normande," by P. Meyer, in "Romania," vol. iv. p. 370, and
+"Les Manuscrits Fran&ccedil;ais de Cambridge," by the same, <i>ibid.</i>, vol. xv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Anglo-Norman song, written in England, in the thirteenth
+century, "Romania," vol. xv. p. 254.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> "La Plainte d'amour," from a MS. in the University
+Library, Cambridge, GG I. 1, "Romania," <i>ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bele Aliz matin leva,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sun cors vesti e para,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enz un verger s'entra,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cink flurettes y truva,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Un chapelet fet en a<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">De rose flurie;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pur Deu, trahez vus en l&agrave;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Vus ki ne amez mie.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> "Le P&eacute;lerinage de Charlemagne," eleventh century. Only
+one MS. has been preserved, written in England, in the thirteenth
+century; it has been edited by Koschwitz, "Karls des Grossen Reise nach
+Jerusalem und Konstantinopel," Heilbronn, 1880, 8vo. <i>Cf.</i> G. Paris, "La
+po&eacute;sie fran&ccedil;aise au moyen &acirc;ge," 1885, p. 119, and "Romania," vol. ix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> "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, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> Caricature of a funeral ceremony:&mdash;
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Brun li ors, prenez vostre estole ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sire Tardis li lima&ccedil;ons<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lut par lui sol les trois le&ccedil;ons<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et Roenel chanta les vers. (Vol. i. p. 12.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Seigneurs, o&iuml; avez maint conte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que maint conterre vous raconte,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conment Paris ravi Eleine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Le mal qu'il en ot et la paine ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et fabliaus, chansons de geste ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mais onques n'o&iuml;stes la guerre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui tant fu dure et de grant fin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Entre Renart et Ysengrin.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Prologue of Branch II.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Or dont," dit Nobles, "au deable!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Por le cuer be, sire Ysengrin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prendra ja vostre gerre fin?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Vol. i. p. 8.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... Sire Chanticler li cos,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et Pinte qui pont les ues gros<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et Noire et Blanche et la Rossete<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amenoient une charete<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui envouxe ert d'une cortine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dedenz gisoit une geline<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que l'en amenoit en lit&egrave;re<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fete autresi con une b&egrave;re.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Renart l'avoit si maumen&eacute;e<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et as denz si desorden&eacute;e<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que la cuisse li avoit frete<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et une ele hors del cors trete.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Vol. i. p. 9.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... Renart ne l'en laissa<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">De totes cinc que une soule:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Totes pass&egrave;rent par sa goule.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et vos qui l&agrave; gisez en b&egrave;re,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ma douce suer m'amie ch&egrave;re,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Con vos estieez tendre et crasse!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que fera vostre suer la lasse?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Vol. i. p. 10.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Pinte la lasse &agrave; ces paroles<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cha&iuml;, pam&eacute;e el pavement<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et les autres tot ensement.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Por relever les quatre dames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Se lev&egrave;rent de leurs escames<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et chen et lou et autres bestes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eve lor getent sor les testes.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Par mautalant drece la teste.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Onc n'i ot si hardie beste,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or ne sangler, que poor n'et<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quant lor sire sospire et bret.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tel poor ot Coars li l&egrave;vres<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que il en ot deus jors les f&egrave;vres.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tote la cort fremist ensemble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Li plus hardis de peor tremble.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Par mautalent sa coue drece,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Si se d&eacute;bat par tel destrece<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que tot en sone la meson,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et puis fu tele sa reson.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dame Pinte, fet l'emperere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Foi que doi &agrave; l'ame mon p&egrave;re....<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> Examples of sculptures in the stalls of the cathedrals at
+Gloucester, St. David's, &amp;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 &agrave; Humfrey
+duc de Gloucester, liber lupi et vulpis"; of a translation in English of
+part of the romance: "Of the Vox and the Wolf" (time of 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 Thoms, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> In Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxvii. col. 153.
+"Dialogorum Liber I."; Prologue.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> "De vita eremitica," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. xxxii.
+col. 1451, text below, p. 213.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> Council of Sens, 1528, in "The Exempla, or illustrative
+Stories from the Sermones Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry," ed. T. F.
+Crane, London, 1890, 8vo, p. lxix. The collection of sermons with
+<i>exempla</i>, compiled by Jacques de Vitry (born ab. 1180, d. ab. 1239),
+was one of the most popular, and is one of the most curious of its
+kind.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Si che le pecorelle, che non sanno,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tornan dal pasco pasciute di vento ...<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ora si va con motti, e con iscede<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A predicare....<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Di questo ingrassa il porco Sant' Antonio,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ed altri assai, che son peggio che porci,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Pagando di moneta senza conio.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("Paradiso," canto xxix.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> To be found, <i>e.g.</i>, in Jacques de Vitry, <i>ibid.</i> p. 105:
+"Audivi de quadam vetula que non poterat inducere quandam matronam ut
+juveni consentiret," &amp;c. See below, pp. 225, and 447.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> B&eacute;dier, "Les Fabliaux," Paris, 1893, 8vo, p. 241;
+B&eacute;dier's definition of the same is as follows: "Les fabliaux sont des
+contes &agrave; rire, en vers," p. 6. The principal French collections are:
+Barbazan and M&eacute;on, "Fabliaux et contes des po&egrave;tes fran&ccedil;ais," Paris,
+1808, 4 vols. 8vo; Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil g&eacute;n&eacute;ral et complet
+des Fabliaux," Paris, 1872-90, 6 vols. 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ge sai contes, ge sai fableax,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ge sai conter beax diz noveax, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Des deux bordeors ribauz," in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil
+g&eacute;n&eacute;ral," vol. i. p. 11.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER III.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>LATIN.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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 continued under his
+successors.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> England and all the kingdom of Ireland for the remission of our
+sins,"<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> May 15, 1213.</p>
+
+<p>From the day after Hastings the Church is seen establishing 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."<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a></p>
+
+<p>The religious foundations are innumerable, especially at the beginning;
+they decrease as the time of the Renaissance 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.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>through the local episcopal
+authority. This was the case with St. Augustine of Canterbury, St.
+Albans, St. Edmund's, Waltham, Evesham, Westminster, &amp;c. The clergy of
+England had its eyes constantly turned Romewards.</p>
+
+<p>This clergy was very numerous; in the thirteenth century its ranks were
+swelled by the arrival of the mendicant friars: Franciscans and
+Dominicans, the latter representing more especially doctrine, and the
+former practice. The Dominicans expound dogmas, fight heresy, and
+furnish the papacy with its Grand Inquisitors<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a>; 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.'"<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>Thirty-two years after their first coming there were in England twelve
+hundred and forty-two Franciscans, with forty-nine convents, divided
+into seven custodies: London, York, Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford,
+Newcastle, Worcester.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> "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 Holiness 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!..."<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The English clergy was not only numerous and largely endowed; it was
+also very influential, and played a considerable 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>the jurisdiction of the religious
+magistrate. This justice interfered in the private life of the citizens;
+it had an inquisitorial 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 of 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 ecclesiastical 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.<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bishops kept seigneurial retinues, built fortresses<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> 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 Longchamp, bishop of Ely, and Chancellor of England,
+in a letter still extant, of having inspired the verses&mdash;one might
+almost say the articles&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nothing gives so vivid an impression of the time that has elapsed, and
+the transformation in manners that has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>occurred, as the sight of that
+religious and warlike tournament of which England was the field under
+Richard C&oelig;ur-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, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>reign</i> 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.<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Side by side with these warriors shine administrators, men of learning,
+saints, all important and influential <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>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 Bec, 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
+Christendom 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 confirmed<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a>; Robert Grosseteste,<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> 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 beginning: "O
+mortalium validissimi!"<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a></p>
+
+<p>A prelate who had been the tutor of the heir to the throne, and died
+bishop palatine of Durham, Richard de Bury,<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> collects books with a
+passion equal to that which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>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 propitiatory offering sends him a
+Terence, a Virgil, and a Quinctilian. His bedchamber is so encumbered
+with books that one can hardly move in it.<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> Eve's descendants continue,
+thinks the bishop, to wrongfully meddle with the tree of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> The worthy bishop
+looks upon letters with a religious veneration, 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."<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>compatriots; most of them have studied not only in England but in
+Paris; science has made of them cosmopolitans; they belong, above all,
+to the Latin country, and the Latin country has not suffered.</p>
+
+<p>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 has 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."<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> 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...."<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Its lustre dates from the twelfth century. At that time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>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 Ab&eacute;lard's teaching gave birth to on St.
+Genevi&egrave;ve'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, <i>universitas</i>.<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a></p>
+
+<p>According to a medi&aelig;val 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+"d&eacute;terminance" or bachelorship; then a second one, the licence, after
+which, in a solemn ceremony termed <i>inceptio</i>, 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, <i>Magister
+regens</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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," &amp;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.<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> 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
+<i>ribaudes</i>, "mulieres immund&aelig;!" 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 <i>sanctum</i> of philosophers, who, says the ordinance of the
+wise king Charles V., "should be clean and honest, and inhabit clean,
+decent, and honest places."<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a></p>
+
+<p>Teaching, the principal object of which was logic, consisted in the
+reading and interpreting of such books as were considered authorities.
+"The method in expounding is always the same. The commentator discusses
+in a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>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 continues these divisions until he comes to having
+before him only one phrase including one single complete idea."</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p>
+
+<p>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. Genevi&egrave;ve'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 r&ecirc;veux
+et rassot&eacute;s." 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>detained on St.
+Genevi&egrave;ve'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."<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 1214 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 1313 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.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> In 1364 war breaks out again between the
+citizens and students, "commissum fuit bellum," and lasts four days.</p>
+
+<p>Regulations, frequently renewed, show the nature of the principal
+abuses. These laws pronounce: excommunication against the belligerents;
+exclusion from the University against those students who harboured
+"little <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>women" (<i>mulierculas</i>) in their lodgings, major excommunication
+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,
+prohibit the fellows from fighting, from holding immodest conversations
+together, from telling each other love tales, "fubulas de amasiis," and
+from singing improper songs.<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> Objectionable passages are to be avoided; Ovid's "Art of
+Love" and the book of love by Pamphilus are prohibited.</p>
+
+<p>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 Wykeham. Sometimes books are
+bequeathed, as by Richard de Bury and Thomas de Cobham in the fourteenth
+century, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>or by Humphrey of Gloucester, in the fifteenth.<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> The
+journey to Paris continues a title to respect, but it is no longer
+indispensable.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>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 themselves 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> who composed it between 1178 and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>1183, had
+dedicated his work to Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, and mentioned
+in it Arthur, "flos 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.<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> 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, however, it
+was anything but a common one, and, in truth, Joseph of Exeter alone
+possessed it.</p>
+
+<p>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
+commencement of the twelfth century; by Henry of Huntingdon, the
+historian who wrote some also; by Alexander Neckham, author of a prose
+treatise on the "Natures of Things"; Alain de l'Isle and John de
+Hauteville, who both, long before Jean de Meun, made Nature discourse,
+"de omni re scibili"<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a>; Walter the Englishman, and Odo <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>of Cheriton,
+authors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of Latin fables,<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a>
+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.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> 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, however, by
+drowning him in the Rhone, and, lifting up his voice, he makes then the
+valley ring with a "canticle" celebrating his triumph.<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>light; he will become
+"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> 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 Grandmont, 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 Th&eacute;l&egrave;me even before Rabelais.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Not satisfied with the writing of Latin poems, the subjects 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 formulating 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>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,"<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a>; it closes
+with a comparison 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?"<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a></p>
+
+<p>Precepts and examples are in the same style. Geoffrey teaches how to
+praise, blame, and ridicule; he gives models of good prosopop&oelig;ias;
+prosopop&oelig;ias for times of happiness: an apostrophe to England
+governed by Richard C&oelig;ur-de-Lion (we know how well he governed);
+prosopop&oelig;ia for times of sorrow: an apostrophe to England, whose
+sovereign (this same Richard) has been killed on a certain Friday:</p>
+
+<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>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!"<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a></p>
+
+<p>Then follow counsels as to the manner of treating ridiculous
+people<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a>: 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 prescribing
+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, sanguinary night!"<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> &amp;c.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>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 remarkable in England than that of the
+poets. Had they only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>suspected the importance of the native language
+and left Latin, several of them would have held a very high rank in the
+national literature.</p>
+
+<p>Romance is represented by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who in the twelfth
+century wrote his famous "Historia Regum Britanni&aelig;," 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!"</p>
+
+<p>In these innumerable well-told tales, full of sprightly dialogue, can be
+already detected something of the art of the <i>conteur</i> which will appear
+in Chaucer, and something 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...."<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>in England about the end of the thirteenth
+century.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>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 recognised
+that have become popular under their French, English, or Italian shape,
+such as the lay of the "Oiselet,"<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Virgin plays her usual part of an indulgent protectress; 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> He is caught and hanged; but the Virgin
+herself holds him up, and keeps him alive; he is taken down, and turns
+monk.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>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?"</p>
+
+<p>He then offers money: "It will be a hundred marks," says the emperor's
+daughter. But when 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 succeeds 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 all the flesh off thy body."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> sealed, and settled between us."
+They go before the judge; the sentence is not a doubtful one.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Maiden.</i>&mdash;Thou might'st have been more generous, and brought home
+to supper the knight who had saved thy life.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Knight.</i>&mdash;He appeared and disappeared so suddenly I could not.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Maiden.</i>&mdash;Would'st thou recognise him again if he returned?</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Knight.</i>&mdash;I should, assuredly."<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+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 na&iuml;ve,
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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.
+Foremost among them were John of Salisbury and Walter Map.</p>
+
+<p>John of Salisbury,<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> a former pupil of Ab&eacute;lard, 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,"<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> or "De nugis Curialium,"
+his "Metalogic," his "Enthetic" (in verse), and his eulogy on
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>Becket.<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> 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 observation, 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
+<i>curialis</i>, 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."<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &aelig;quum 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"<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a>; he must not imagine he is
+in health; let him try to walk, and down he falls.</p>
+
+<p>Characteristics of the same sort are found, with much more sparkling
+wit, in the Latin works of Walter Map.<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> This Welshman has the
+vivacity of the Celts his compatriots; he was celebrated at the court of
+Henry II., and throughout 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,<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> all the
+curious things he had heard&mdash;"ego verbum audivi"&mdash;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 Salisbury's, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>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<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a>; others again are anecdotes of the East,
+"quoddam mirabile," told on their return by pilgrims or crusaders.</p>
+
+<p>Like John of Salisbury, Map had studied in Paris, fulfilled 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 Ab&eacute;lard, 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!'&mdash;But Walter, as he did not hear the
+voice of Jesus, so did he not listen with the ears of Lazarus, and came
+not."<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> Women also are for Map the subject of constant satires; he
+was the author of that famous "Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum de ducenda
+uxore,"<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>being married, not loved, and aspired to the fate of
+Vulcan, not of Mars."</p>
+
+<p>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 gluttonous and debauched prelate.
+Some of those poems were merry songs full of humour and <i>entrain</i>,
+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!'"<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> but what he wrote in
+that language is uncertain. The "Lancelot" is assigned to him in many
+manuscripts and is perhaps his work.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">V.</p>
+
+<p>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"<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a>; Duns Scot, the
+"subtle doctor"; Adam de Marisco, friend and adviser of Simon de
+Montfort, the "illustrious doctor"; Ockham, the "invincible doctor";
+Roger Bacon, the "admirable doctor"; Bradwardine, the "profound doctor,"
+and yet others.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> His
+reputation 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 "Ratepenade des Cardinaux," the works of the subtle
+doctor under the irreverent title of "Barbouillamenta Scoti."<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a></p>
+
+<p>Ockham, in the pay of Philippe-le-Bel&mdash;for England, that formerly had to
+send for Lanfranc and Anselm, can now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>furnish the Continent with
+doctors&mdash;makes war on Boniface VIII., and, drawing his arguments from
+both St. Paul and Aristotle, attacks the temporal power of the
+popes.<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> Roger Bacon endeavours to clear up the chaos of the
+sciences; he forestalls his illustrious namesake, and classifies the
+causes of human errors.<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> Archbishop Bradwardine,<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a></p>
+
+<p>No longer is Salerno alone to produce illustrious physicians, or Bologne
+illustrious jurists. A "Rosa Anglica," the work of John of Gaddesden,
+court physician 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."<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> A multitude of
+prescriptions, of the same stamp most of them, are set <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>down in this
+book, which was still printed and considered as an authority at the
+Renaissance.</p>
+
+<p>Bartholomew the Englishman,<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>sets her
+impression in the air and engenders dew"; and about everything in fact.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> 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"<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a>;
+Richard, bishop of London, compiles a "Dialogue of the Exchequer,"<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a>
+full of wisdom, life, and even a sort of humour; Henry of Bracton,<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a>
+the most renowned of all, logician, observer, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>thinker, composes in
+the thirteenth century an ample treatise, of which several
+abridgments<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> were afterwards made for the convenience of the judges,
+and which is still consulted.</p>
+
+<p>In the monasteries, the great literary occupation consists in the
+compiling of chronicles. Historians of Latin tongue abounded in medi&aelig;val
+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
+inscribed 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 inserting the entire text of the official documents sent by
+authority for the monastery to keep, according to the custom of the
+time.<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> 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 temptations and ridding himself of vain thoughts and the
+remembrance of a former worldly life.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> Thus there exists <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+England<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a>; Eadmer, St. Anselm's biographer<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a>; Gerald de Barry,
+otherwise Geraldus Cambrensis; a fiery, bragging Welshman, who exhibited
+both in his life and works the temperament of a Gascon<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a>; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>William of
+Malmesbury,<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> Henry of Huntingdon,<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>These two 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 Abb&eacute; Vertot,
+that "son si&egrave;ge 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 M&eacute;rim&eacute;e, he tells in his own way the story of
+the "V&eacute;nus d'Ille."<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>already paints in colours. To please his reader, he
+suddenly and na&iuml;vely 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.</p>
+
+<p>In the thirteenth century rose above all others Matthew Paris,<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> drawn from nature, with a replica of
+his trunk in another position, "the first, he says, that had been seen
+in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>country."<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> 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
+pr&aelig;torium 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.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a>; Walter of Hemingburgh, Robert of Avesbury,
+Thomas Walsingham,<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> not to mention many anonymous authors. Several
+among the historians of that date, and Walsingham in particular, would,
+on account of the dramatic vigour of their pictures, have held a
+conspicuous place <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>in the literature of medi&aelig;val England had they not
+written in Latin, like their predecessors.<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a></p>
+
+<p>From these facts, and from this ample, many-coloured literary growth,
+may be gathered how complete the transformation 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 illiteratos," 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."<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> Thus could speak concerning his country,
+about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> "Volentes nos ipsos humiliare pro Illo Qui Se pro nobis
+humiliavit usque ad mortem ... offerimus et libere concedimus Deo et ...
+domino nostro pap&aelig; Innocentio ejusque catholicis successoribus, totum
+regnum Angli&aelig; et totum regnum Hiberni&aelig;, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> "Historical maps of England during the first thirteen
+centuries," by C. H. Pearson, London, 1870, fol. p. 61.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Concerning their power and the part they played, see for
+example the confirmation by Philip VI. of France, in November, 1329, of
+the regulations submitted 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: "<i>Premi&egrave;rement</i>, quod domus, plate&aelig; et loca in quibus h&aelig;reses
+faut&aelig; fuerunt, diruantur et nunquam postea reedificentur, sed perpetuo
+subjaceant in sterquiline&aelig; vilitati," &amp;c. Isambert's "Recueil des
+anciennes Lois," vol. iv. p. 364.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> "Speculum vit&aelig; B. Francisci et sociorum ejus," opera
+Fratris G. Spoelberch, Antwerp, 1620, 8vo, part i. chap. iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> Brewer and Howlett, "Monumenta Franciscana," Rolls,
+1858-82, 8vo, vol. i. p. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> Letter of the year 1238 or thereabout; "Roberti
+Grosseteste Epistol&aelig;," ed. Luard, Rolls, 1861, p. 179.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A bettre felaw sholde men noght finde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wolde suffre, for a quart of wyn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A good felawe to have his concubyn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A twelf-month and excuse him atte fulle.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Prologue of the "Canterbury Tales." The name of summoner was held in
+little esteem, and no wonder:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Artow thanne a bailly?"&mdash;"Ye," quod he;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He dorste nat for verray filthe and shame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seye that he was a somnour for the name."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("Freres Tale," l. 94.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> 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
+F&eacute;camp: "Mercatis igitur pr&aelig;diis, in ipso vertice urbis juxta castellum
+turribus fortissimis eminens, in loco forti fortem, pulchro pulchrum,
+virgini virgineam construxit ecclesiam; qu&aelig; et grata esset Deo
+servientibus et, ut pro tempore oportebat, invincibilis hostibus." Henry
+of Huntingdon, "Historia Anglorum," Rolls, p. 212.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> "Epistola Hugonis ... de dejectione Willelmi Eliensis
+episcopi Regis cancellarii," in Hoveden, "Chronica," ed. Stubbs, Rolls,
+vol. iii. p. 141, year 1191: "Hic 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> See Stubbs, Introductions to the "Chronica Magistri
+Rogeri de Hovedene." Rolls, 1868, 4 vols. 8vo, especially vols. iii. and
+iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> Lanfranc, 1005?-1089, archbishop in 1070; "Opera qu&aelig;
+supersunt," ed. Giles, Oxford, 1843, 2 vols. 8vo.&mdash;St. Anselm,
+1033-1109, archbishop of Canterbury in 1093; works ("Monologion,"
+"Proslogion," "Cur Deus homo," &amp;c.) in Migne's "Patrologia," vol.
+clviii. and clix.&mdash;Stephen Langton, born ab. 1150, of a Yorkshire
+family, archbishop in 1208, d. 1228.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> 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 ... Epistol&aelig;," London, 1861, Rolls. See below, p. 213. Roger
+Bacon praised highly his learned works, adding, however: "quia Gr&aelig;cum et
+Hebr&aelig;um non scivit sufficienter ut per se transferret, sed habuit multos
+adjutores." "Rogeri Bacon Opera ... inedita," ed. Brewer, 1859, Rolls,
+p. 472.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> "Gesta Regum Anglorum," by William of Malmesbury, ed.
+Hardy, 1840, "Prologus." He knew well the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and
+used it: "Sunt sane qu&aelig;dam vetustatis indicia chronico more et patrio
+sermone, per annos Domini ordinata," p. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> "Henrici archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum,"
+Rolls, 1879, p. 201.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> See "Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense," ed. Hardy, Rolls,
+vol. iii. Introduction, p. cxlvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> The best edition is that given by E. C. Thomas, "The
+Philobiblon of Richard de Bury," London, 1888, 8vo, Latin text with an
+English translation. 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> "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 defunct&aelig; arane&aelig; de sola tela protectos ...
+mox in capitogia pretiosa ... vestes et varias furraturas ... nos
+consulit commutandos" (chap. iv. p. 32).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> Chap. viii. p. 66.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> Chap. i. pp. 11, 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> "Sicut quondam Athenarum civitas mater liberalium artium
+et literarum, philosophorum nutrix et fons omnium scientiarum Gr&aelig;ciam
+decoravit, sic Parisi&aelig; nostris temporibus, non solum Franciam imo totius
+Europ&aelig; partem residuam in scientia et in moribus sublimarunt. Nam velut
+sapienti&aelig; mater, de omnibus mundi partibus advenientes recolligunt,
+omnibus in necessariis subveniunt, pacifice omnes regunt...."
+"Bartholom&aelig;i Anglici De ... Rerum ... Proprietatibus Libri xviii.," ed.
+Pontanus, Francfort, 1609, 8vo. Book xv. chap. 57, "De Francia," p.
+653.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> "Philobiblon," ed. Thomas, chap. viii. p. 69. <i>Cf.</i>
+Neckham, "De Naturis Rerum," chap. clxxiv. (Rolls, 1863, p. 311).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> On the old University of Paris, see Ch. Thurot's
+excellent essay: "De l'organisation de l'enseignement dans l'Universit&eacute;
+de Paris au moyen &acirc;ge," 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> 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 pinceps erat hujus modi
+latrocinii." Th. Wright, "Latin stories from MSS. of the XIIIth and
+XIVth Centuries," London, 1842, tale No. cxxv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> May, 1358, in Isambert's "Recueil des anciennes Lois,"
+vol. v. p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> Thurot, <i>ut supra</i>, pp. 73, 89.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> In his "Metalogicus," "Opera Omnia," ed. Giles, Oxford,
+1848, 5 vols. 8vo, vol. v. p. 81.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> Innocent IV. confirms (ab. 1254) all the "immunitates et
+laudabiles, antiquas, rationabiles consuetudines" of Oxford: "Nulli ergo
+hominum liceat hanc paginam nostr&aelig; 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. <i>Cf.</i> W. E. Gladstone, "An Academic Sketch," Oxford,
+1892.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> "Rolls of Parliament," 8 Ed. III. vol. ii. p. 76.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> Robert of Avesbury (a contemporary, he died ab. 1357),
+"Historia Edvardi tertii," ed. Hearne, Oxford, 1720, 8vo, p. 197.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> 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 illa penitus sit
+omissa." "Munimenta Academica," i. p. 437.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> 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 scienti&aelig; margaritam ... favorem libenter et gratiam impertimus
+... ut in loco ubi generale viget studium, a data pr&aelig;sentium usque in
+biennium revolutum morari valeas." "Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense," ed.
+Hardy, Rolls, 1873, 4 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 288 (many other similar
+letters).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Josephus Exoniensis, or Iscanus, followed Archbishop
+Baldwin to the crusade in favour of which this prelate had delivered the
+sermons, and undertaken 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 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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> For example, in his opening lines, where he adheres to
+the simplicity recommended in "Ars Poetica":
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Iliadum lacrymas concessaque Pergama fatis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pr&aelig;lia bina ducum, bis adactam cladibus urbem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In cineres qu&aelig;rimus.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> "Anglo-Latin satirical poets and epigrammatists of the
+XIIth Century," ed. Th. Wright, London, 1872, Rolls, 2 vols. 8vo;
+contains, among other works: "Godfredi prioris Epigrammata" (one in
+praise of the Conqueror, vol. ii. p. 149); "Henrici archidiaconi
+Histori&aelig; liber undecimus" (that is, Henry of Huntingdon, fine epigram
+"in seipsum," vol. ii. p. 163); "Alexandri 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 Natur&aelig;" (<i>cf.</i> "Opera," Antwerp,
+1654, fol., the nationality of Alain de l'Isle is doubtful); "Joannis 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.
+1184).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> For the Latin fables of Walter the Englishman, Odo de
+Cheriton, Neckham, &amp;c., see Hervieux, "les Fabulistes latins," Paris,
+1883-4, 2 vols. (text, commentary, &amp;c.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> "Speculum Stultorum," in Wright, "Anglo-Latin satirical
+poets"; <i>ut supra</i>. Nigel (twelfth century) had for his patron William
+de Longchamp, bishop of Ely (see above, p. <a href="#Page_163">163</a>), and fulfilled
+ecclesiastical functions in Canterbury.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In titulo caud&aelig; Francorum rex Ludovicus<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Non tibi pr&aelig;cellit pontificesve sui.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Vol. i. p. 17.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Cantemus, socii! festum celebremus aselli!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Vocibus et votis organa nostra sonent.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exultent asini, l&aelig;ti modulentur aselli,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Laude sonent celebri tympana, sistra, chori!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 48.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Jam pertransierat Burnellus tempora multa<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Et prope completus septimus annus erat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cum nihil ex toto quodcunque docente magistro<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Aut socio potuit discere pr&aelig;ter ya.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quod natura dedit, quod secum detulit illuc,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hoc habet, hoc illo nemo tulisse potest ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Semper ya repetit.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 64)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> "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 Haur&eacute;au, "Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits,"
+vol. xxix. pp. 321 ff. According to Stubbs ("Itinerarium peregrinorum et
+Gesta Regis Ricardi," 1864, Rolls), the real author is Richard, canon of
+the Holy Trinity, London.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Papa stupor mundi, si dixero Papa <i>Nocenti</i>:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Acephalum nomen tribuam tibi; si caput addam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hostis erit metri, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nec Deus es nec homo, quasi neuter es inter utrumque,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quem Deus elegit socium. Socialiter egit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tecum, partibus mundum. Sed noluit unus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Omnia. Sed voluit tibi terras et sibi c&oelig;lum.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quid potuit melius? quid majus? cui meliori?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 95.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tota peris ex morte sua. Mors non fuit ejus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sed tua. Non una, sed publica, mortis origo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O Veneris lacrimosa dies! o sydus amarum!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Illa dies tua nox fuit et Venus illa venenum;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Illa dedit vulnus ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O dolor! o plus quam dolor! o mors! o truculenta<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mors! Esses utinam mors mortua! quid meministi<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ausa nefas tantum? Placuit tibi tollere solem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et tenebris tenebrare solum.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 18.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Contra ridiculos si vis insurgere plene<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surge sub hac forma. Lauda, sed ridiculose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Argue, sed lepide, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 21.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nox, fera nox, vere nox noxia, turbida, tristis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Insidiosa, ferox, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("De Bello Trojano," book vi. l. 760.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> "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. clv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> Seven kilos, 200 gr. "Doctissimi viri fratris Johannis de
+Bromyard ... Summ[a] pr&aelig;dicantium," Nurenberg, 1485, fol. The subjects
+are arranged in alphabetical order: Ebrietas, Luxuria, Maria, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> Such is the case in several of the stories collected by
+Th. Wright: "A Selection of Latin Stories from MSS, of the XIIIth and
+XIVth 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 justiti&aelig;"; in No. XCVII. the hermit who got
+drunk repents and says "anglice":
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whil that I was sobre sinne ne dede I nowht,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in drunkeschipe I dede ye werste that mihten be thowte.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> That one in verse, with a mixture of English words. Ha!
+says the peasant:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ha thu mi swete bird, ego te comedam.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Early Mysteries and other Latin poems of the XIIth and XIIIth
+Centuries," ed. Th. Wright, London, 1838, 8vo, p. 97. <i>Cf.</i> G. Paris,
+"Lai de l'Oiselet," Paris, 1884.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> 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 historians of Spanish fiction),
+&amp;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, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> "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 M&eacute;on, "Nouveau Recueil," vol. ii. p. 154: "De
+la Segretaine qui devint fole au monde."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> "Latin Stories," p. 97; French text in Barbazan and M&eacute;on,
+vol. ii. p. 443: "Du larron qui se commandoit &agrave; Nostre Dame toutes les
+fois qu'il aloit embler."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> "Latin Stories," p. 114, from the version of the "Gesta
+Romanorum," compiled in England: "De milite conventionem faciente cum
+mercatore."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> "Ait miles, 'o carissima domina, mihi pr&aelig; omnibus
+pr&aelig;dilecta hodie fere vitam amsi; sed cum ad mortem judicari debuissem,
+intravit subito quidam 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 solutione pecuni&aelig; 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.'" <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Born ab. 1120. To him it was that Pope Adrian IV.
+(Nicholas Breakspeare) 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 pr&aelig; 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
+meritis Sancti Thom&aelig;" (Demimuid, "Jean de Salisbury," 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> From
+<span title="polis">&pi;&omicron;&lambda;&iota;&sigma;</span> and <span title="chratein">&chi;&rho;&alpha;&tau;&epsilon;&iota;&nu;</span>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> "Joannis Saresberiensis ... Opera omnia," ed. Giles,
+Oxford, 1848, 5 vols. 8vo, "Patres Ecclesi&aelig; Anglican&aelig;."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> "Ipsum quoque cultum religionis incestat, quod ante
+conspectum Domini, in ipsis penetralibus sanctuarii, lascivientis vocis
+luxu, quadam ostentatione sui, muliebribus modis notularum
+articulorumque c&aelig;suris stupentes animulas emollire nituntur. Quum
+pr&aelig;cinentium et succinentium, canentium et decinentium, pr&aelig;molles
+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 co&aelig;quare." "Opera," vol. iii. p.
+38 (see on this same subject, below, p. 446).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> "Qu&aelig; autem de curialibus nugis dicta sunt, in nullo
+eorum, sed forte in me aut mei similibus deprehendi; et plane nimis
+arcta lege constringor, si meipsum et amicos castigare et emendare non
+licet." "Opera," vol. iv. p. 379 (Maupassant used to put forth in
+conversation exactly the same plea as an apology for "Bel-Ami.")</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> "Afflictus namque populus, quasi principis podagram
+arguit et convicit. Tunc autem totius reipublic&aelig; salus incolumis
+pr&aelig;claraque erit, si superiora membra si impendant inferioribus et
+inferiora superioribus pari jure respondeant." "Policraticus"; "Opera,"
+vol. iv. p. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> Born probably in Herefordshire, studied at Paris,
+fulfilled various diplomatic missions, was justice in eyre 1173, canon
+of St. Paul's 1176, archdeacon of Oxford, 1197. He spent his last years
+in his living of Westbury on the Severn, and died about 1210.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> For example, <i>ibid.</i> iii. 2, "De Societate Sadii et
+Galonis," Dialogue between three women, Regina, Lais, Ero, pp. 111 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> "Galtere, veni foras!&mdash;Galterus autem, quia non audivit
+vocem Jhesus, non habuit aures Lazari et non venit." "De Nugis," p. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> "De Nugis," Dist. iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> Th. Wright, "The Latin poems commonly attributed to
+Walter Mapes," London, Camden Society, 1841, 4to (<i>cf.</i> "Romania," vol.
+vii. p. 94):
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Meum est propositum in taberna mori;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deus sit propitius huic potatori.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+("Confessio Goli&aelig;.")
+</p><p>
+On "Goliardois" clerks, see B&eacute;dier, "les Fabliaux," Paris, 1893, 8vo,
+pp. 348 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> Map, however, never claimed the authorship of this work.
+The probability 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> Alexander, of Hales, Gloucestershire, lectured at Paris,
+d. 1245; wrote a "Summa" at the request of Innocent II.: "Alexandri
+Alensis Angli, Doctoris irrefragabilis ... univers&aelig; theologi&aelig; Summa,"
+Cologne, 1622, 4 vols. fol. He deals in many of his "Qu&aelig;stiones" 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> 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 Litt&eacute;raire de la France,"
+vol. xxiv. p. 404.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> "Pantagruel," II., chap. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> The works of Ockham (fourteenth century) have not been
+collected. See his "Summa totius logic&aelig;," ed. Walker, 1675, 8vo, his
+"Compendium errorum Johannis pap&aelig;," Lyons, 1495, fol., &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> 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 possunt fieri ut sine animali
+moveantur impetu in&aelig;stimabili," p. 533. On the causes of errors, that is
+authority, habit, &amp;c., see "Opus majus," I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> Conclusion of chap. i. Book I.: "Contra Aristotelem,
+astruentem mundum non habuisse principium temporale et non fuisse
+creatum, nec pr&aelig;sentem generationem hominum terminandam, neque mundum
+nec statum mundi ullo tempore finiendum."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> "Joannis Anglici praxis medica Rosa Anglica dicta,"
+Augsbourg, 1595, 2 vols. 4to. Vol. i. p. 496.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> Concerning Bartholom&aelig;us Anglicus, sometimes but wrongly
+called de Glanville, see the notice by M. Delisle ("Histoire Litt&eacute;raire
+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, &amp;c.; unpublished but for a few
+extracts given by Stevenson in his "Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon,"
+1875, 8vo, Rolls, pp. 419 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> There are eighteen in the National Library, Paris. One of
+the finest is the MS. 15 E ii. and iii. in the British Museum (French
+translation) with beautiful miniatures in the richest style; <i>in fine</i>:
+"Escript par moy Jo Duries et finy &agrave; Bruges le XXV<sup>e</sup> jour de May, anno
+1482."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> "Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angli&aelig;,"
+finished about 1187 (ed. Wilmot and Rayner, London, 1780, 8vo); was
+perhaps the work of his nephew, Hubert Walter, but written under his
+inspiraton.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> "Dialogus de Scaccario," written 23 Henry II., text in
+Stubbs, "Select Charters," Oxford, 1876, p. 168.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> "Henrici de Bracton de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angli&aelig;,
+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 h&aelig;res legittimus est quando nupti&aelig; demonstrant," vol. ii.
+p. 18; a treasure is "qu&aelig;dam vetus depositio pecuni&aelig; vel alterius
+metalli cujus non extat modo memoria," vol. ii. p. 230. On "Bracton and
+his relation to Roman law," see C. G&uuml;terbock, translated with notes by
+Brinton Coxe, Philadelphia, 1866, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> By Gilbert de Thornton, ab. 1292; by the author of
+"Fleta," ab. the same date.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> 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 transmittendum, in corpore libri 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. Concerning the
+"Scriptoria" in monasteries and in particular the "Scriptorium" of St.
+Albans, see Hardy, "Descriptive Catalogue," 1871, Rolls, vol. iii. pp.
+xi. ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> "Sedens igitur in claustro pluries fatigatus, sensu
+habetato, virtutibus frustratus, pessimis cogitationibus s&aelig;pe sauciatus,
+tum propter lectionum longitudinem ac orationum lassitudinem, propter
+vanas jactantias et opera pessima in s&aelig;culo pr&aelig;habita...." He has
+recourse, as a cure, to historical studies "ad rogationem superiorum
+meorum." "Eulogium historiarum ab orbe condito usque ad <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1366," by a
+monk of Malmesbury, ed. Haydon, Rolls, 1858, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> "Orderici Vitalis Angligen&aelig; Histori&aelig; ecclesiastic&aelig;, 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> "Eadmeri Historia novorum in Anglia," ed. Martin Rule,
+Rolls, 1884, 8vo; in the same volume: "De vita and conversatione
+Anselmi." Eadmer died ab. 1144.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> "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. <a href="#Page_117">117</a>); "De Rebus a
+se gestis;" "Gemma Ecclesiastica;" "De Invectionibus, Libri IV.;"
+"Speculum Ecclesi&aelig;;" "Topographia Hibernica;" "Expugnatio Hibernica;"
+"Itinerarium Kambri&aelig;;" "Descriptio Kambri&aelig;;" "De Principis
+Instructione."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> "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, 1887 ff.;
+"De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum," ed. Hamilton, Rolls, 1870. William
+seems to have written between 1114 and 1123 and to have died ab. 1142,
+or shortly after.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> "Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum
+... from <span class="smcap">a.c.</span> 55 to <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1154," 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. <a href="#Page_177">177</a>), he introduces in his Chronicle Latin poems of his own composition.
+His chronology is vague and faulty.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> "De Annulo statu&aelig; commendato," "Gesta," vol. i. p. 354.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> "Matth&aelig;i 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> So says Walsingham; see Madden's preface to the "Historia
+Anglorum," vol. iii. p. xlviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> MS. Nero D i. in the British Museum, fol. 22, 23, 146,
+169. The attribution of these drawings to Matthew has been contested:
+their authenticity seems, however, probable. See, <i>contra</i>, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> Year 1255: "Missus est in Angliam quidam elephas quem rex
+Francorum pro magno munere dedit regi Angli&aelig;.... Nec credimus alium
+unquam visum fuisse in Anglia." "Abbreviatio Chronicorum," following the
+"Historia Anglorum" in Madden's edition, vol. iii. p. 344.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> See below, p. 405.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> 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 of 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> The contrast 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
+schol&aelig; tam nobilis, cujus olim radii lucem dabant universis angulis
+orbis terr&aelig;.... Minerva mirabilis nationes hominum circuire videtur....
+Jam Athenas deseruit, jam a Roma recessit, jam Parisius pr&aelig;terivit, jam
+ad Britanniam, insularum insignissimam, quin potius microcosmum accessit
+feliciter." "Philobiblon," chap. ix. p. 89. In the same words nearly,
+but with a contrary intent, Count Cominges, ambassador to England,
+assured King Louis XIV. that "the arts and sciences sometimes 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.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER IV.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The clerks were the only exception; men of English speech remained mute.
+They barely recopied the manuscripts 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> English. "All people cannot,"
+had said Bishop Grosseteste in his French "Ch&acirc;teau d'Amour," "know
+Hebrew, Greek, and Latin"&mdash;"nor French," adds his English translator
+some fifty years later; for which cause:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">On Englisch I-chul mi resun schowen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ffor him that con not i-knowen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nouther Ffrench ne Latyn.<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The first works written in English, after the Conquest, were sermons and
+pious treatises, some imitated from Bede, &AElig;lfric, and the ancient Saxon
+models, others translated from the French. No originality or invention;
+the time is one of depression and humiliation; the victor sings, the
+vanquished prays.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>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 rudimentary rendering of legends interpreted in their
+turn by Dante in his poem, and Giotto in his fresco.<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>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 equanimity. 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 predominates, a fatal law against which nothing can prevail; fate
+seems to preside, as it did in the antique tragedies.</p>
+
+<p>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!"<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Psalter,<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> portions of the Bible,<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> lives of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>saints,<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a>
+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,"
+&amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> The earliest complete manuscript was written about 1300, an
+older but incomplete one belongs to the years 1280-90, or
+thereabout.<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> In these collections a large place, as might be
+expected, is allowed to English saints:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wolle ye nouthe i-heore this englische tale &middot; that is here i-write?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is the story of St. Thomas Becket: "Of Londone is fader was." St.
+Edward was "in Engeland oure kyng"; St. Kenelm,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Kyng he was in Engelond &middot; of the march of Walis;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>St. Edmund the Confessor "that lith at Ponteneye,"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ibore he was in Engelond &middot; in the toun of Abyndone.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>St. Swithin "was her of Engelonde;" St. Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Was here of Engelonde ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The while he was a yong child &middot; clene lif he ladde i-nough;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whenne other children ornen to pleye &middot; toward churche he drough.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seint Edward was kyng tho &middot; that nouthe in heovene is.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As god the schrewe hadde ibeo &middot; atom ysnyt his nose.<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>With this we have graceful legends, like that of St. Brandan, adapted
+from a French original, being the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>story of that Irish monk who, in a
+leather bark, sailed in search of Paradise,<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a></p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>and
+Tristan, and Iseult, and C&aelig;sar? They have fled out of this world as the
+shaft from the bowstring:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Heo beoth iglyden ut of the reyne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So the scheft is of the cleo.<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> 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 themselves to God, a sort of "Introduction &agrave; la Vie
+d&eacute;vote," 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;'My
+dear master, thou art in the wrong, why dost thou find fault with me?
+The apple which I look upon is forbidden me to eat, not to look
+at.'&mdash;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?'&mdash;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.'"<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+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 captivating 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."<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 "Ch&acirc;teau 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a></p>
+
+<p>These attempts become rare as we approach the fourteenth century, and
+English translations and imitations, on the contrary, multiply. We find,
+for example, translations in English verse of the "Ch&acirc;teau"<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> and the
+"Manuel"<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a>; a prose translation of that famous "Somme des Vices et
+des Vertus," composed by Brother Lorens in 1279, for Philip III. of
+France, a copy of which, chained to a pillar of the church of the
+Innocents, remained open for the convenience of the faithful<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a>; (a
+bestiary in verse, thirteenth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>century), devotional writings on the
+Virgin, legends of the Cross, visions of heaven and hell<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a>; a Courier
+of the world, "Cursor Mundi," in verse,<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> 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, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>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 inserted 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."<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a></p>
+
+<p>Somewhat above this group of translators and adaptators rises a more
+original writer, Richard Rolle of Hampole, noticeable for his English
+and Latin compositions, in prose and verse, and still more so by his
+character.<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>through the ages, and
+the same humanity heaps on him at once blessings and ridicule.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> But
+though the wicked one shows himself 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>His style and ideas correspond well to such a life. His thoughts are
+sombre, Germanic anxieties and doubts reappear 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 delittabyll name! This es the name that es abowve all names.... I
+yede (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."<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>We are getting further and further away from the Conquest, the wounds
+inflicted by it begin to heal, and an audience is slowly forming among
+the English race, ready for something else besides sermons.</p>
+
+<p>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 beginning of the thirteenth, the translation of
+the French romances began. First came war stories, then love tales.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was written by Layamon, about 1205, the first metrical romance,
+after "Beowulf," that the English literature possesses.<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>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 himself, "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."<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> He follows mainly Wace's
+poem, but paraphrases 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 himself 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>land live in bliss.'"<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> This is an example of a speech
+added to Wace, who simply concludes his account of the battle by:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mors fu Balduf, mors fu Colgrin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et Cheldric s'en ala fuiant.<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>their French
+brethren, bespeak a cup of ale, sure not to be refused:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At the beginning of ure tale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fil me a cuppe of ful god ale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And y wile drinken her y spelle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Crist us shilde all fro helle!<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>They stop also on the public places, where the common people flock to
+hear of Charlemagne and Roland<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a>; they even get into the cloister. In
+the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, nearly all the stories of the
+heroes of Troy, Rome, France, and Britain are put into verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For hem that knowe no Frensche &middot; ne never underston.<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Men like," writes shortly after 1300, the author of the "Cursor Mundi":</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Men lykyn jestis for to here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And romans rede in divers manere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Alexandre the conqueroure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Julius Cesar the emperoure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Grece and Troy the strong stryf<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There many a man lost his lyf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Brute that baron bold of hond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The first conqueroure of Englond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Kyng Artour....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How Kyng Charlis and Rowlond fawght<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Sarzyns nold they be cawght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Trystrem and Isoude the swete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How they with love first gan mete ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stories of diverce thynggis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of pryncis, prelatis and of kynggis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Many songgis of divers ryme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As English Frensh and Latyne.<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>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,<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a></p>
+
+<p>Some English heroes of a more recent period find also <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>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 Palestine, kills the
+giant Colbrant on his return, and dies piously in a hermitage.<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> as Robin Hood will do later with Maid Marian.<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> 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, Richardson, and
+Fielding, novels of another kind took their place in the drawing-room,
+their life continued still in the lower <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>sphere to which they had been
+consigned. They supplied the matter for those popular <i>chap books</i><a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a>
+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." <i>Englis lede of meri
+Ingeland.</i><a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a></p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>risqu&eacute;</i>
+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,"<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> "Le lai du <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>Cor,"<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> "La
+Bourse pleine de sens,"<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> the praise of the land of "Coquaigne,"<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a>
+&amp;c.:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thogh paradis be miri and bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cokaygn is of fairir sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What is ther in paradis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bot grasse and flure and grene ris (branches)?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thogh ther be joi and grete dute (pleasure)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther nis mete bote frute....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bot watir manis thurste to quenche;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beth ther no man but two,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hely and Enok also<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Al is dai, nis ther no nighte,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther nis baret (quarrel) nother strif....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther nis man no womman wroth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther nis serpent, wolf no fox;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a> We must not take
+Aucassin at his word; there was ever froth on French wine.</p>
+
+<p>Other English poems scoff at chivalrous manners, which are ridiculed in
+verse, in paintings, and sculptures<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a>; or at the elegancies of the
+bad parson who puts in his bag a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>comb and "a shewer" (mirror).<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a>
+Other poems are adaptations of the "Roman de Renart."<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a> The new
+spirit has penetrated so well into English minds that the adaptation is
+sometimes worthy of the original.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A vox gon out of the wode go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Afingret (hungered) so that him wes wo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He nes (ne was) nevere in none wise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Afingret erour (before) half so swithe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ne hoeld nouther wey ne strete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For him wes loth men to mete;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Him were levere meten one hen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than half an oundred wimmen.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 determined 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>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, forgiven all his
+enemies&mdash;Renard being one&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Et je verrais mourir fr&egrave;re, enfants, m&egrave;re et femme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que je m'en soucierais autant que de cela.<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Nou ich am in clene live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ne recche ich of childe ne of wive.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The wolf goes down, Renard goes up; as the pails meet, the rogue
+wickedly observes:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ac ich am therof glad and blithe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That thou art nomen in clene live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thi soul-cnul (knell) ich wile do ringe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And masse for thine soule singe.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Some graceful love tales, popular in France, were translated 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.<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> As for <i>chansons</i>, there were
+imitations <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>of May songs, "disputoisons,"<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> and carols; love, roses,
+and birds were sung in sweet words to soft music<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a>; so was spring,
+the season of lilies, when the flowers give more perfume, and the moon
+more light, and women are more beautiful:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wymmen waxeth wonder proude.<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Their beauties and merits are celebrated one by one, as in a litany;
+for, said one of those poets, an Englishman who wrote in French:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beaut&eacute; de femme passe rose.<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>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"<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a>; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Blow northerne wynd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sent thou me my suetyng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, northerne wynd, blou, blou, blou!<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>says the English poet. Contact with the new-comers had modified the
+gravity of the Anglo-Saxons, but without sweeping it away wholly and for
+ever: the possibility of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>recurring sadness is felt even in the midst of
+the joy of "Merry England."</p>
+
+<p>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 Cr&eacute;cy.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> "Castel of Love," "made in the latter half of the XIIIth
+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:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... Trestuz ne poent mie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saver le langage en fin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">D'Ebreu de griu ne de latin.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(<i>Ibid.</i> p. 355.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> 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 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."&mdash;"Old English
+homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries,"
+ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1867-73, 2 vols. 8vo; 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," &amp;c., in rhymed verse (<i>cf.</i> "Old
+English Miscellany," p. 58, and "Anglia," i. p. 6).&mdash;"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 paraphrase of the gospel of the day followed by an
+explanatory sermon; <i>cf.</i> Napier, "Notes on Ormulum" in "History of the
+Holy Rood Tree," E.E.T.S., 1894&mdash;"Hali Meidenhad ... an alliterative
+Homily of the XIIIth century," ed. Cockayne, E.E.T.S., 1866, in
+prose.&mdash;"English metrical Homilies," ed. J. Small, Edinburgh, 1862, 8vo,
+homilies interspersed with <i>exempla</i>, compiled ab. 1330.&mdash;"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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> 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, &amp;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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> "Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the
+XIIth and XIIIth Centuries," ed. with translation, by R. Morris, London,
+E.E.T.S., 1867, 8vo, vol. i. p. 39.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> 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.
+B&uuml;lbring, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> See, <i>e.g.</i>, "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.&mdash;Furnivall, "Early
+English Poems and Lives of Saints," Berlin, Philological Society, 1862,
+8vo.&mdash;"Materials for the history of Thomas Becket," ed. Robertson,
+Rolls, 1875 ff., 7 vols. 8vo.&mdash;Several separate Lives of Saints have
+been published by the E.E.T.S.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> Horstmann, "The early South-English 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." <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> 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 Furnivall in his "Early
+English poems" (<i>ut supra</i>).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> From MS. Harl. 2277, in Furnivall's "Early English
+poems," 1862, p. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the faireste lond huy weren &middot; that evere mighte beo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So cler and so light it was &middot; that joye thare was i-nogh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Treon thare weren fulle of fruyt &middot; wel thicke ever-ech bough ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hit was evere-more day: heom thoughte, and never-more nyght.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Life of St. Brendan who "was here of oure londe," in Horstmann's
+"South-English Legendary," p. 220. See also "St. Brandan, a medi&aelig;val
+Legend of the Sea," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society, 1844; Francisque
+Michel, "Les Voyages Merveilleux de St. Brandan &agrave; la recherche du
+Paradis terrestre, l&eacute;gende en vers du XII^e. Si&egrave;cle," Paris, 1878; <i>cf.</i>
+"Navigation de la barque de Mael Duin," in d'Arbois de Jubainville's
+"L'Epop&eacute;e Celtique en Irlande," 1892, pp. 449 ff. (above p. 12).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> Renan, "Essais de morale et de critique," Paris, 1867,
+3rd edition, p. 446.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> By Thomas de Hales, "Incipit quidam cantus quem 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> 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 (<i>cf.</i> 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 Kaines, in Dorset, where a convent for monks
+had been founded by Ralph de Kaines, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> 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 ionswered? 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> "Vix aliquam inclusarum hujus temporis solam invenies,
+ante cujus fenestram non anus garrula vel nugigerula mulier sedeat qu&aelig;
+eam fabulis occupet, rumoribus aut detractionibus pascat, illius vel
+illius monachi vel clerici, vel alterius cujuslibet ordinis viri formam,
+vultum, moresque describat. Illecebrosa quoque interserat, puellarum
+lasciviam, viduarum, quibus libet quidquid 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 eremetica 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">De le franceis, ne del rimer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne me dait nuls hom blamer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kar en Engleterre fu n&eacute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E norri ordin&eacute; et alev&eacute;.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Furnivall, "Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne," &amp;c., Roxburghe Club,
+1862, 4to, p. 413.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> French text of the "Ch&acirc;teau" 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, 407; 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> The "Manuel des Pechiez," by William de Wadington, as
+well as the English 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,
+4to, contains a number of <i>exempla</i> and curious stories. The same
+Mannyng wrote, after Peter de Langtoft, an Englishman who had written in
+French (see above, p. <a href="#Page_122">122</a>), and after Wace, a metrical chronicle, from
+the time of Noah down to Edward I.: "The Story of England ... <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>
+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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> "The Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of Conscience, in the
+Kentish Dialect, 1340 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, edited from the autograph MS.," by R.
+Morris, E.E.T.S. The "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> See in particular: "Legends of the Holy Rood, symbols of
+the Passion and Cross Poems, in old English of the XIth, XIVth, and XVth
+centuries," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1871.&mdash;"An Old English Miscellany
+containing a Bestiary, Kentish sermons, Proverbs of Alfred and religious
+poems of the XIIIth century," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1872.&mdash;"The
+religious poems of William de Shoreham," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society,
+1849, on sacraments, commandments, deadly sins, &amp;c., first half of the
+fourteenth century.&mdash;"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 dispitison bitweene a good man and the
+devel," p. 329, meditations, laments, vision of St. Paul, &amp;c., of
+various authors and dates, mostly of the thirteenth and fourteenth
+centuries.&mdash;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, vol.
+ii. pp. 397 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> "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 "F&ecirc;te de la Conception" of Wace,
+the "Ch&acirc;teau d'Amour" of Grosseteste, &amp;c. (Haenisch "Inquiry into the
+sources of the Cursor Mundi," <i>ibid.</i> part vii.). The work has been
+wrongly attributed to John of Lindbergh. See Morris's preface, p. xviii.
+<i>Cf.</i> Napier, "History of the Holy Rood Tree," E.E.T.S., 1894 (English,
+Latin, and French prose texts of the Cross legend).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For lewde men y undyrtoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Englyssh tunge to make thys boke:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For many ben of swyche manere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That talys and rymys wyl blethly here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yn gamys and festys and at the ale.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne, written <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1303 with ... Le Manuel
+des Pechiez by William of Wadington," ed. Furnivall, London, Roxburghe
+Club, 1862, 4to, Prologue, p. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> There exist Latin and English texts of his works, the
+latter being generally considered as translations made by himself. His
+principal composition 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. S., 1866, 8vo.
+Most of his works in Latin have been collected under the title: "D.
+Richardi Pampolitani Anglo-Saxonis eremit&aelig; ... Psalterium Davidicum
+atque alia ... Monumenta," Cologne, 1536, fol.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> "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
+Prose Treatises," p. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> "Officium de Sancto Ricardo eremita." The office contains
+hymns in the honour of the saint: "Rejoice, mother country of the
+English!..."
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Letetur felix Anglorum patria ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pange lingua graciosi Ricardi preconium,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pii, puri, preciosi, fugientis vicium.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"English Prose Treatises," pp. xv and xvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> "English Prose Treatises," pp. 1, 4, 5. <i>Cf.</i> Rolle's
+Latin text, "Nominis Iesu encomion": "O bonum nomen, o dulce nomen,"
+&amp;c., in "Richardi Pampolitani, ... Monumenta," Cologne, 1536, fol.
+cxliii. At the same page, the story of the young woman.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> "Layamon's Brut or Chronicle of Britain, a poetical
+Semi-Saxon paraphrase of the Brut of Wace," ed. by Sir Fred. Madden,
+London, Society of Antiquaries, 1847, 3 vols. 8vo.&mdash;<i>Cf.</i> 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 de Brut," written in 1155,
+was ed. by Leroux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836, 2 vols. 8vo. <i>Cf.</i> P. Meyer,
+"De quelques Chroniques Anglo-Normandes qui ont port&eacute; le nom de Brut,"
+Bulletin de la Soci&eacute;t&eacute; des Anciens Textes fran&ccedil;ais, 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, <i>ibid.</i>). On
+Layamon and his work, see "Anglia," i. p. 197, and ii. p. 153.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> Madden, <i>ut supra</i>, vol. i. p. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> Madden, <i>ut supra</i>, vol. ii. p. 476. The original text
+(printed in short lines by Madden and here in long ones) runs thus:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tha loh Arthur &middot; the althele king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus yeddien agon &middot; mid gommenfulle worden:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lien nu there Colgrim &middot; thu were iclumben haghe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thu clumbe a thissen hulle &middot; wunder ane h&aelig;ghe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swulc thu woldest to h&aelig;vene &middot; nu thu scalt to h&aelig;lle;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther thu miht kenne &middot; muche of thine cunne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gret thu ther Hengest &middot; the cnihten wes fayerest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ebissa and Ossa &middot; Octa and of thine cunne ma,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bide heom ther wunie &middot; wintres and sumeres,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we scullen on londe &middot; libben in blisse.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> "Roman de Brut," vol. ii. p. 57.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> On Robert, see above, pp. <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>. On the sources of his
+chronicle, see Ellmer, "Anglia," vol. x. pp. 1 ff and 291 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> "Lay of Havelok," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868, end of
+thirteenth century, p. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> On wandering minstrels and jongleurs, see "English
+Wayfaring Life," ii., chap. i., and below, p. 345, above, p. 162.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> "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. l. 5533.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> "Cursor Mundi," ed. Morris, part v. p. 1651. A large
+number of English medi&aelig;val romances will be found among the publications
+of the Early English Text Society (including among others: Ferumbras,
+Otuel, Huon of Burdeux, Charles the Grete, 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, &amp;c.), the Camden
+and the Percy Societies, the Roxburghe and the Bannatyne Clubs. Some
+also have been published by K&ouml;lbing in his "Altenglische Bibliothek,"
+Heilbronn; by H. W. Weber: "Metrical Romances of the XIIIth, XIVth and
+XVth centuries," Edinburgh, 1810, 3 vols. 8vo. &amp;c. See also H. L. D.
+Ward, "Catalogue of MS. Romances in the British Museum," 1883 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> "King Horn, with Fragments of Floriz and Blauncheflur,
+and of the Assumption of Our Lady," ed. Rawson 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. Brede and E. Stengel: "Das Anglonormannische Lied vom
+wackern Ritter Horn," Marbourg, 1883, 8vo: "Hic 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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> 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 engraved in the thirteenth century represents,
+besides "Habloc" and "Goldeburgh," "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 <i>Athen&aelig;um</i>, Feb. 23, 1889), <i>cf.</i> Ward's "Catalogue," i. p.
+423.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> "Guy of Warwick," ed. Zupitza, E.E.T.S., 1875-91 (<i>cf.</i>
+Ward's "Catalogue 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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> 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'H&eacute;ricault in their "Nouvelles en prose du quatorzi&egrave;me Si&egrave;cle," Paris,
+1858. See also the life of the outlaw Hereward, in Latin, twelfth
+century: "De Gestis Herewardi Saxonis," in the "Chroniques
+Anglo-Normandes," of F. Michel, Rouen, 1836-40, vol. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> "Cursor Mundi," i. p. 21. <i>Cf.</i> 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."&mdash;"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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> 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 p&egrave;re &agrave; son fils," Barbazan and M&eacute;on, "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> 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. <i>Cf.</i> Le "Mantel
+Mautaill&eacute;," in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil G&eacute;n&eacute;ral," vol. iii. and
+"La Coupe Enchant&eacute;e," by La Fontaine.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> French text: "De pleine Bourse de Sens," by Jean le
+Galois, in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil G&eacute;n&eacute;ral," vol. iii. p. 88.
+English text: "How a Merchande dyd his wyfe betray," in Hazlitt's
+"Remains" (<i>ut supra</i>), 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> 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 M&eacute;on, "Fabliaux," vol.
+iii. p. 175: "C'est li Fabliaus de Coquaigne."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> "Aucassin and Nicolete," Andrew Lang's translation,
+London, 1887, p. 12. The French original in verse and prose, a
+<i>cante-fable</i>, belongs to the twelfth century. Text in Moland and
+d'H&eacute;ricault, "Nouvelles fran&ccedil;oises en prose, du treizi&egrave;me si&egrave;cle" (the
+editors wrongly referred "Aucassin" to that century), Paris, 1856,
+16mo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> 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:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ther hoppyd Hawkyn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther dawnsid Dawkyn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther trumpyd Tymkyn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And all were true drynkers.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He putteth in hys pawtener<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A kerchyf and a comb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A shewer and a coyf<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bynd with his loks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ratyl on the rowbyble<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in non other boks<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Ne mo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mawgrey have the bysshop<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That lat hyt so goo.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"A Poem on the times of Edward II.," ed. Hardwick, Percy Society, 1849,
+p. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> "The Vox and Wolf," time of Edward I., 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's "Roman de
+Renart," Strasbourg, 1882, vol. i. p. 146.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> Tartufe, i. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> "Amis and Amiloun," ed. K&ouml;lbing, Heilbronn, 1884, 8vo,
+French and English texts, in verse. French text in prose, in Moland and
+d'H&eacute;ricault, "Nouvelles ... du XIII^e. Si&egrave;cle," 1856, 16mo.&mdash;French text
+of "Floire" in Edelstand du M&eacute;ril, "Po&egrave;mes du XIII^e. Si&egrave;cle," Paris,
+1856. English text: "Floris and Blauncheflur, mittelenglisches Gedicht
+aus dem 13 Jahrhundert," ed. Hausknecht, Berlin, 1885, 8vo; see also
+Lumby, "Horn ... with fragments 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.&mdash;Lays by Marie de France
+were also translated into English: "Le Lay le 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> 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" (Matzner'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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> Litanies of love:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love is wele, love is wo, love is geddede,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love is lif, love is deth, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Th. Wright, "Anecdota Literaria," London, 1844, 8vo, p. 96, time of
+Edward I., imitated from the "Chastoiement des Dames," in Barbazan and
+M&eacute;on, vol. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> Th. Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry, composed in
+England in the reign of Edward I.," Percy Society, 1842, 8vo, p. 43.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> They wrote in French, Latin, and English, using sometimes
+the three languages in the same song, sometimes only two of them:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Scripsi h&aelig;c carmina in tabulis!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mon ostel est en mi la vile de Paris:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May y sugge namore, so wel me is;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yef hi deye for love of hire, duel hit ys.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry," p. 64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Femmes portent les oyls veyrs<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">E regardent come faucoun.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+T. Wright, "Specimens," p. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Heo hath a mury mouth to mele,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With lefly rede lippes lele<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Romaunz forte rede.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Ibid., p. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> Ibid., p. 51.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1"><a name="BOOK_III" id="BOOK_III"></a>BOOK III.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead1"><i>ENGLAND TO THE ENGLISH.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER I.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>THE NEW NATION.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Until the fourteenth year of Edward III.'s reign, whenever a murder was
+committed and the authors of it remained unknown, the victim was <i>prim&acirc;
+facie</i> 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 <i>Anglicus</i> fuerit, vel
+<i>Francigena</i>."<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> The <i>Anglicus</i> and the <i>Francigena</i> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>1340, which abolishes the "presentement d'Englescherie,"<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> thus
+sweeping away one of the most conspicuous marks left behind by the
+Conquest.</p>
+
+<p>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 1311, 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<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a>; 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
+Lancastre, chalenge yis Rewme of Yngland."<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a></p>
+
+<p>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," <i>rurales homines</i>, are still keen to learn French,
+<i>satagunt omni nisu</i>; they wish to frenchify, <i>francigenare</i>,<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a>
+themselves, in order to imitate the nobles, and be more thought of.
+Their efforts had a remarkable result, precisely for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>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 <i>rurales</i>, 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."</p>
+
+<p>Even the nobles had not been able to completely escape the consequences
+of a perpetual contact with the <i>rurales</i>. 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 <i>mon</i> and <i>ma</i>&mdash;"kaunt dewunt dire moun et ma"&mdash;that
+is how to distinguish the genders. They have to be taught by manuals,
+and the popularity of one written by Walter de Biblesworth,<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> in the
+fourteenth century, shows how greatly such <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>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 <i>mon</i> and <i>ma</i>, <i>son</i> and
+<i>sa</i>, <i>le</i> and <i>la</i>, <i>moi</i> and <i>je</i>." And he goes on showing at the
+same time the maze and the way out of it: "You have <i>la l&egrave;vre</i> and <i>le li&egrave;vre</i>;
+and <i>la livre</i> and <i>le livre</i>. The <i>l&egrave;vre</i> closes the teeth in; <i>le li&egrave;vre</i> the woods
+inhabits; <i>la livre</i> is used in trade; <i>le livre</i> is used at church."<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+paraphrasing the usual formula: "Allez &agrave; Dieu," or "Adieu," and wishing
+the defendant, none other than the bishop of Chester, to "go to the
+great devil"&mdash;"Allez au grant d&eacute;able."<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a>&mdash;("'What,' said Ponocrates,
+'brother John, do you swear?' 'It is only,' said the monk, 'to adorn my
+speech. These are colours of Ciceronian rhetoric.'")&mdash;But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>from most of
+the speeches registered in French in the "Year-books," it is easily
+gathered that advocates, <i>serjeants</i> as they were called, did not
+express themselves without difficulty, and that they delivered in French
+what they had thought in English.</p>
+
+<p>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 "<i>any</i> language generally understood."<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> In the second half of the
+century, the difficulties 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,"<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> shall be discontinued.</p>
+
+<p>This ignorance is now notorious. Froissart remarks on it; the English,
+he says, do not observe treaties faithfully, "and to this they are
+inclined by their not understanding very well all the terms of the
+language of France; and one does not know how to force a thing into
+their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>head unless it be all to their advantage."<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>Council, conforming to a tradition which has remained unbroken down to
+our day, refuse to employ for the negotiation any language but their
+own.<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> 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 composed 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 compared to the speech of the
+angels of heaven for its great sweetness and beauty."<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a></p>
+
+<p>In spite of these praises, the end of French, as the language "most
+esteemed and beloved," was near at hand in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>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"<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a>; 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.</p>
+
+<p>The survival of French was at last nothing but an elegance; it was still
+learnt, but only as Madame de S&eacute;vign&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>vocabulary. It less resembles the Anglo-Saxon of Alfred's time than the
+Italian of Dante resembles Latin.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>street</i> and <i>chester</i>, from <i>strata</i> and
+<i>castrum</i>, or else words borrowed from the language of the clerks, and
+concerning mainly religion, such as <i>mynster</i>, <i>tempel</i>, <i>bisceop</i>,
+derived from <i>monasterium</i>, <i>templum</i>, <i>episcopus</i>, &amp;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 especially 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.<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a></p>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a>
+there is a table of the words of the language classified according to
+their derivation; the words borrowed from Germanic or Scandinavian
+idioms fill seven columns and a half; those taken from the French, and
+the Romance or classic tongues, sixteen columns.</p>
+
+<p>It is true the proportion of words used in a page of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>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, conjunctions, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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: <i>act</i> and <i>deed</i>; <i>captive</i> and
+<i>thrall</i>; <i>chief</i> and <i>head</i>, &amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> It is a trace of the Conquest,
+like the formula: "La Reine le veut."</p>
+
+<p>Chaucer, in whose time these double survivals were naturally far more
+numerous than they are to-day, often <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>uses both words at once, sure of
+being thus intelligible to all:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They callen love a woodnes or a folye.<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 occasionally both at once. The fourteenth century is the last in
+which alliterative verse really flourished, though it survived 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>Definite and
+Indefinite, Strong and Weak, just like that which makes the beginner's
+despair in German."<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> 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 terminations. 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 variations 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
+inflections, 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; <i>mona</i>, moon, was masculine as in German; <i>sunne</i>, sun, was
+feminine; <i>wif</i>, wife, was not feminine but neuter; as was also <i>m&aelig;den</i>,
+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."<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> Anglo-Saxon gentlemen were in about the
+same predicament, before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>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; <i>wife</i> and <i>maiden</i> resumed their sex, while <i>nation</i>,
+<i>sun</i> and <i>moon</i> were neuter. Nouns and adjectives lost their
+declensions; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 instance, 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."</p>
+
+<p>Thus was formed the new language out of a combination 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 bulkheads; a
+singular misapprehension of history besides. The English people is the
+offspring of two nations; it has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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 prohibited,<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a> 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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>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 owed to him as king
+of England, and not as king of France.<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> No longer is the nation
+Anglo-French, Norman, Angevin, or Gascon; it is English; the nebula
+condenses into a star.</p>
+
+<p>The first consequences of the Conquest had been to bind England to the
+civilisations of the south. The experiment 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 elements, with power, prerogatives, and an influence
+in the State that it has rarely surpassed at any time.</p>
+
+<p>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 characteristics
+have been infused into their new compatriots: so much so that from the
+first day Parliament begins to feel <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>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, <i>bargain</i>. All compromises 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
+man&oelig;uvres with more skill, and remains master of the situation; "&agrave;
+Normand, Normand et demi." The Plantagenets behold with astonishment the
+rise of a power they are now unable to control; their offspring is
+hardy, and strong, and beats its nurse.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> He forms the habit of appealing 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<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a>; he behaves on occasion as if he felt that <i>over</i> him was
+the nation. And this strange sight is seen: the descendant of the Norman
+autocrats <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 definitive privileges. The Commons have their Speaker, "M. Thomas de
+Hungerford, knight, who had the words for the Commons of England"<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a>;
+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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>voting.<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a>
+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 orf&egrave;vre."<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 present, 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! (O&iuml;l! O&iuml;l!)"<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 Purgatory."<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a>
+Convents claim privileges that time has effaced; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a>; 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."<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>and that statutes
+and ordinances cannot touch you.... "<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> The ideas on political
+"sacrilege" differed widely in the two countries.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>habeas corpus</i>, 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 subsidies 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, unenlightened 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.</p>
+
+<p>These differences between the two political bodies had important
+consequences with regard to the development <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>of thought in the two
+countries; they also excited the wonder and sometimes the admiration of
+the French. "The king of England must obey his subjects," says
+Froissart, "and do all they want him to."<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> "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."<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> "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."<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a></p>
+
+<p>Its mines are worked, even those of "sea-coal," as it was then called,
+"carboun de meer."<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> It has a numerous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>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 Orl&eacute;ans,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 complain
+to the king in remonstrances more than once heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> 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."<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> At this time,
+1372, the country is, without possibility of doubt, the England of the
+English.</p>
+
+<p>From that period the English are found either singly or in small bands
+on all the seas and on all the highways.<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> Their nature has been
+modified; the island no longer suffices them as it sufficed the
+Anglo-Saxons. "Il ne sait rien, qui ne va hors"&mdash;he knows nothing who
+stirs not out&mdash;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, whatsoever 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 portrait on the wall.<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> On every occasion they
+behave like Normans; in the halls of Westminster, in their City counting
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a> They
+are themselves, and no longer seek to be any one else; they cease by
+degrees to <i>francigenare</i>. 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> The wealthy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>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; devotional 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,"<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> all
+those precious articles with which our museums are filled. Edward II.
+sends to the Pope in 1317, 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.<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>That such things were coeval is not so astonishing as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>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<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> 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, following his
+example, take their falconers and their hounds along with them, as
+though they were going to a hunt.<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> 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 indignant if it is
+threatened, very sad when the end draws near; with more lasting
+happinesses we smile less often. Froissart 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>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 lasting 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.<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a></p>
+
+<p>The outside is less rude, and the inside is adorned and enriched; life
+becomes more private than it used to be; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> 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 1417), 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.<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>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 concerning 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.</p>
+
+<p>The food is rich and combines extraordinary mixtures. 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Maydon Mary that holy virgyne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Gabrielle gretynge hur with an Ave.<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a> 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 Ali&eacute;nor a gilded carriage, tapestried and embroidered, with
+cushions and curtains of silk, for which he pays one thousand
+pounds.<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> At that time one might for the same sum have bought a herd
+of sixteen hundred oxen.</p>
+
+<p>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 composed for his tomb at
+Canterbury, the Black Prince <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>mourns over "his beauty which has all
+gone." Richard II., while still alive, has graven on his tomb that he
+was "corpore procerus."<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a></p>
+
+<p>Owing to the attention paid to physical beauty in England, sculptors now
+begin&mdash;a rare thing at that time&mdash;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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 1350-1 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.<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> "De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angli&aelig;," 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> "Statutes of the Realm," 14 Ed. III. chap. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> "Si rex fuerit litteratus, talis est.... Forma juramenti
+si Rex non fuerit litteratus: Sire, voilez vous graunter et garder ...
+les leys et les custumes ... &amp;c." "Statutes of the Realm," <i>sub anno</i>
+1311, vol. i. p. 168.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 422; see below, p.
+421.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> Ralph Higden, "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 158.
+"H&aelig;c quidem nativ&aelig; lingu&aelig; corruptio provenit hodie multum ex duobus quod
+videlicet pueri in scolis contra morem c&aelig;terarum 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Vus avet la levere et le levere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E la livere et le livere.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La levere si enclost les dens;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Le levre en boys se tent dedens,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La livere sert en marchaundye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Le livere sert en seynt eglise.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> Apostrophe of judge John de Moubray, Easter session, 44
+Ed. III., "Year-books of Edward I.," ed. Horwood (Rolls), 1863 ff., 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."&mdash;"Ne glosez point le statut; nous le savoms meuz de vous,
+qar nous le feimes." <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> "Grosso modo et idiomate quocunque communiter
+intelligibili factum proponant." "Munimenta Academica" (Rolls), p. 77.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> "Pur ce qe monstr&eacute; est souventefoitz au Roi par pr&eacute;latz,
+ducs, 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 commun&eacute;ment 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> "Chroniques," ed. Luce, vol. i. p. 306.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 159 (contains the
+Latin text of Higden and the English translation of Trevisa).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I can no Frenche in feith &middot; but of the ferthest ende of Norfolke.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Visions," ed. Skeat, text B, passus v. line 239. The MS. DD 12.23 of
+the University Library, Cambridge, contains "a treatise on French
+conjugations." It does not furnish any useful information as regards the
+history of French conjugations; "it can only serve to show how great was
+the corruption of current French in England in the fourteenth century."
+P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xv. p. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> The ambassadors are: "Thomas Swynford, miles, custos
+castri vill&aelig; 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 treug&aelig; generales inter Angliam et Franciam per Dominos et
+Principes temporales, videlicet duces Lancastri&aelig; et Eboraci necnon
+Buturi&aelig; ac Burgundi&aelig;, bon&aelig; memori&aelig;, qui perfecte non intellexerunt
+latinum sicut Gallicum, de consensu eorumdem expresso, in Gallico
+fuerunt capt&aelig; et firmat&aelig;, litter&aelig; tamen missiv&aelig; ultro citroque
+transmiss&aelig; ... continue citra in Latino, tanquam idiomate communi et
+vulgari extiterunt format&aelig;; qu&aelig; 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 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, 1860
+(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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> "Doulz fran&ccedil;ois qu'est la plus bel et la plus gracious
+language et plus noble parler, apr&egrave;s latin d'escole, qui soit ou monde,
+et de tous gens mieulx pris&eacute;e et am&eacute;e que nul autre.... Il peut bien
+comparer au parler des angels du ciel, pour la grant doulceur et
+biault&eacute;e d'icel." "La mani&egrave;re de Langage," composed in 1396, at Bury St.
+Edmund's, ed. Paul Meyer, "Revue Critique," vol. x. p. 382.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> Middle of the fourteenth century, ed. Aungier, Camden
+Society, 1884, 4to.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> 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."
+"Reliqui&aelig; Antiqu&aelig;."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> London, 1882.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> "Troilus," iii. stanza 191.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> Earle's "Philology of the English Tongue," 5th ed.,
+Oxford, 1892, p. 379.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 377.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> See the series of the statutes of <i>Provisors</i> and
+<i>Pr&aelig;munire</i>, 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 protest 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> Year 1340, 14 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii.
+p. 104.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> "Sicut lex justissima, provida circumspectione sacrorum
+principum stabilita, hortatur et statuit ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus
+approbetur...." Rymer, "F&oelig;dera," 1705, vol. ii. p. 689. This Roman
+maxim was known and appealed to, but not acted upon in France. See
+Commines, "M&eacute;moires," book v. chap. xix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> "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, "F&oelig;dera",
+1705, vol. ii. p. 783.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> Rymer, "F&oelig;dera," 1705, vol. ii. p. 783, year 1297;
+original in French.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> Examples: that the deputies of the counties "soient esluz
+par commune &eacute;lection de les meillours gentz des dity count&eacute;es et nemye
+certifiez par le viscont (sheriff) soul, saunz due &eacute;lection." Good
+Parliament of 1376.&mdash;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.&mdash;Petition of
+the members of Parliament to be allowed to return and consult their
+constituents: "Ils n'oseront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et
+avysez les communes de lour pais." 1339, "Rot. Parl.", vol. ii. p. 104;
+see below, p. 418.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> "Return of the names of every member returned to serve in
+each Parliament," London, 1878, fol. (a Blue Book).&mdash;There is no doubt
+in several cases that by such descriptions was meant the <i>actual</i>
+profession of the member. Ex.: "Johannes Kent, mercer," p. 217.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> "Rot. Parl.," vol. ii. p. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> Petition of the "poverail" of Greenwich and Lewisham on
+whom alms are no longer bestowed (one <i>maille</i> a week to every beggar
+that came) to the "grant damage des poores entour, et des almes les
+fondours que sont en Purgatorie." 4 Ed. III. "Rotuli Parliamentorum,"
+vol. ii. p. 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> 4 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 33.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> Good Parliament of 1376.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> 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 meign&eacute;e; et aussi de pluseurs dames et leur
+meign&eacute;e qui demuront en l'ostel du Roy et sont &agrave; ses costages." Richard
+replies in an angry manner that he "voet avoir sa r&eacute;galie et la libert&eacute;e
+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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> Ch&eacute;ruel, "Dictionnaire des Institutions de la France," at
+the word <i>Parlement</i>. 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 qu&aelig;
+frenum est potenti&aelig;, quod secundum leges vivat, quod hoc sanxit lex
+humana quod leges suum ligent latorem." "De Legibus," 3rd part chap.
+ix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> "Chroniques," ed. S. Luce, i. p. 337.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> "M&eacute;moires," ed. Dupont, Soci&eacute;t&eacute; de l'histoire de France,
+1840 ff., vol. ii. p. 142, <i>sub anno</i>, 1477.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> Unpublished letter to M. de Lionne, from London, July 6,
+1665, Archives of the Affaires &Eacute;trang&egrave;res, vol. lxxxvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> "Esprit des Lois," vol. xx. chap. vii., "Esprit de
+l'Angleterre sur le Commerce."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> A. Sorel, "l'Europe et la R&eacute;volution Fran&ccedil;aise," vol. i.
+p. 337.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> 46 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 311.
+The king returns a vague answer. See below, pp. 515, 517.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> "They travaile in every londe," says Gower of them, in
+his "Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, vol. iii. p. 109.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> "Joannes Acutus, eques 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> "Polychronicon," ed. Babington, Rolls, vol. ii. pp. 166,
+168.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> 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 ("F&oelig;dera," 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> 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. <i>Cf.</i> for
+France, "Inventaire du mobilier de Charles V.," ed. Labarte ("Documents
+in&eacute;dits"), 1879, 4to.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> 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<i>l.</i> 13<i>s.</i> and 4<i>d.</i> 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<i>l.</i> ("Issues of the Exchequer," ed. Devon, 1837, pp. 144, 213).
+On English miniaturists, see "Histoire Litt&eacute;raire de la France," xxxi.
+p. 281.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> More than forty for the reign of Edward II. are to be
+found in the "F&oelig;dera."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> 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 Br&eacute;tigny, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now hath uche riche a reule &middot; to eten by hym-selve<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a pryve parloure &middot; for pore mennes sake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or in a chambre with a chymneye &middot; and leve the chief halle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That was made for meles &middot; men te eten inne.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Visions Concerning Piers Plowman" (ed. Skeat), text B, passus x. line
+96.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> For this tapestry the king paid thirty pounds to Thomas
+de Hebenhith, mercer of London. ("Wardrobe accounts of Edward
+II."&mdash;"Arch&aelig;ologia," vol. xxvi. p. 344.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> 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.), "Arch&aelig;ologia," 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"&mdash;that is to say, suits of hangings for a room.
+Common ones were made at Norwich; the finest came from Flanders.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> These recipes and counsels are found in: "The forme of
+Cury, a roll of ancient English cookery compiled about <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1390, by the
+master-cook of King Richard II.," ed. Pegge, London, 1780, 8vo (found
+too in the "Antiquitates Culinari&aelig;," of Warner, 1791, 4to). The prologue
+informs us 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 philosophie that dwellid in his
+court."&mdash;"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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> Year 1363. The "aignel" and the "gopil" are, however,
+tolerated. "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 281.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> "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. <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 236 and 263.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> 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
+Westminster was built in his lifetime and under his eyes. The original
+indentures have been preserved, by which "Nicholas Broker et Godfrey
+Prest, citeins et copersmythes 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," "Miscellanea," 3/40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> "Le livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry pour
+l'enseignement de ses filles," ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1854, 12mo, pp. 46
+and 98, written in 1371.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> 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 &agrave; Nostre Seigneur le Roi que desoremes tiels arbres
+ne seront cop&eacute;s ne pris en contre la volont&eacute; des seigneurs des ditz
+mansions."
+</p><p>
+Answer: "Il semble au conseil qe ceste petition est resonable." "Rotuli
+Parliamentorum," 25 Ed. III., vol. ii. p. 250.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER II.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>CHAUCER.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 connection 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.<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>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 Mediterranean 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.<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> 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
+surrounded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>by walls, portions of which still remain, with Roman
+foundations in some places.<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a> At intervals gates opened on the
+country, defended by bastions, their memory being preserved at this day
+by names of streets: Aldgate, Bishopsgate, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a> In his turn, and not as a merchant, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>In 1359 he 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 Br&eacute;tigny. Chaucer was taken by the French,<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>After his return Chaucer was attached to the person of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>Edward in the
+capacity of valet of the chamber, "valettus camer&aelig; regis"; this is
+exactly the title that Moli&egrave;re 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, <i>armiger</i>, <i>scutifer</i>,
+and as such served the prince at table, and rode after him in his
+journeys.<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a> 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&mdash;without ceasing however, because he
+could not, as he assures us, do otherwise, still to love his unknown
+beauty.<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>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 Ph&eacute;bus de Foix; and at
+Eltham, at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> 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 civilisation. 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 beforehand 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
+prepared 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 ornamented 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the king asked me of what it treated, and I told him: of Love.</p>
+
+<p>"With this answer he was much rejoiced, and looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> 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."<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> He sings like them of love, of
+spring, of the field-daisy<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a>; he had read with passionate admiration
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>the poem, composed in the preceding century, which was most liked of
+all the literature of the time, the "Roman de la Rose."</p>
+
+<p>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 sermons 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+resurrection; 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 paradise, 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."<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a></p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+The discrepancies in the book did not shock the generality of readers;
+art at that time was full of contrasts, 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 Guillaume, others for Jean, some rejecting
+the whole romance, others, the most numerous, accepting it all. These
+dissensions added still more to the fame of the work, and it was so
+popular that there exist more than two hundred manuscripts of it.<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a>
+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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>woman"; he has known none save those of "dissolute and evil life," and
+has taken all the others to be according to that pattern.<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>There were several English translations, and one of them was the work of
+our young "Valettus camer&aelig; regis." This translation by Chaucer is
+lost,<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a> congratulates him, above all things,
+on having "planted the rose-tree" in "the isle of giants," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>the "angelic
+land," "Angleterre," and on being there the god of worldly loves:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tu es d'amours mondains dieux on Albie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et de la Rose en la terre Ang&eacute;lique ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">En bon angl&egrave;s le livre translatas.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 Gower:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lande fulfylled is over all.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">bokes, songes, dytees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In ryme, or elles in cadence,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>each and all "in reverence of Love."<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a> A few poems, however, of that
+early period, have reached us. They are, amongst others, his "Compleynte
+unto Pite"&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Pite, that I have sought so yore ago<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With herte sore, and ful of besy peyne ...<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&mdash;a rough sketch of a subject that Sidney was to take up later and bring
+to perfection, and his "Book of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>Duchesse," composed on the occasion
+of the death of Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt.</p>
+
+<p>The occasion is sad, but the setting is exquisite, for Chaucer wishes to
+raise to the Duchess who has disappeared 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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That she was lyk to torche bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That every man may take of light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ynogh, and hit hath never the lesse.<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Already the descriptions have a freshness that no contemporaries 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">the welken was so fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blew, bright, clere was the air ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne in al the welken was a cloude.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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," beloved of the English, amid meadows thick
+studded with flowers,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As thogh the erthe envye wolde<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To be gayer than the heven.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hit com and creep to me as lowe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Right as hit hadde me y-knowe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hild doun his heed and joyned his eres,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leyde al smothe down his heres.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wolde han caught hit, and anoon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hit fledde and was fro me goon.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She ne used no suche knakkes smale.<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>From these "knakkes smale" we may judge what the others must have been.
+They discourse thus a long <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>while; the clock strikes noon, and the poet
+awakes, his head on the book which had put him to sleep.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>nuances</i>; that
+<i>nuance</i> which distinguishes an ambassador from a messenger was held as
+insignificant, and escaped observation; 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."<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> Precedents are a great thing in diplomacy; here we find a
+time-honoured one.</p>
+
+<p>Recourse was often had to men of letters, for these mixed functions, and
+they were filled by the most illustrious writers of the century,
+Boccaccio in Italy, Chaucer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>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"<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a>; 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."<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>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 <i>damoisel</i> 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."<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a> The
+negotiation failed, but the poet's services seem nevertheless 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 Hawkwood,<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> who led, in the most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>agreeable
+manner possible, the life of a condottiere for the benefit of the Pope,
+and of any republic that paid him well.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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":</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For certeynly, he that me made<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To comen hider, seyde me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shulde bothe here et see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In this place wonder thinges ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For yit peraventure, I may lere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some good ther-on, or sumwhat here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That leef me were, or that I wente.<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>ensemble</i>, monuments of which Giotto's campanile is
+the type, wherein we still recognise the Middle Ages, even while we
+foresee the Renaissance&mdash;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 ornamentation 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
+Ph&aelig;dra 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 campanile had been
+finished by his pupil 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> An antique statue found within her territory
+was provoking universal admiration, and was erected on the Ga&iuml;a 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.<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a></p>
+
+<p>The taste for collections was spreading; the commerce of antiquities
+flourished in Northern Italy. Petrarch bought medals, and numbered among
+his artistic treasures a Madonna of Giotto, "whose beauty," he says in
+his will, "escaped the ignorant and enraptured the masters of the
+art."<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a> This brightening of the land was the result of concurring
+wills, nor did it pass unobserved even then; towns enjoyed their
+masterpieces, and, like young women, "se miraient en leur beaut&eacute;."
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>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 1341, 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.<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was impossible that a mind, from infancy friendly to art and books,
+should not be struck by this general expansion; the charm of this
+literary springtime was too penetrating 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 resemblance, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>as if we
+found in his verses an echo of the conversations they very likely had
+together by Padua in 1373.<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+demesned."<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> After
+having himself been present at the weighing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a>; his friend the philosopher and logician, Ralph Strode, lived
+in the same way in rooms above "Aldrichgate"<a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a>; 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 <i>other life</i>, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>world was done with; his neighbours
+were to him as though they had lived at the ends of earth<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a>; his real
+neighbours were Dante and Virgil.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote during this period, and chiefly in his tower of Aldgate, the
+"Lyf of Seinte Cecile," 1373; the "Compleynt of Mars," 1380; 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.<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a> 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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>nation, dropping in a large measure foreign elements, will show himself
+above all and mainly an Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>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, "untressed," reclining on her couch,
+"a bed of golde," clothed in transparent draperies,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Right with a subtil kerchef of Valence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther was no thikker cloth of no defence;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>or with less draperies still:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I saw Beautee withouten any atyr<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a>;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>or again:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Naked fleting in a see;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>her brows circled with a "rose-garlond white and reed."<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a> He calls
+her to his aid:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now faire blisful, O Cipris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So be my favour at this tyme!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ye, me to endyte and ryme<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Helpeth, that on Parnaso dwelle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Elicon the clere welle.<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>His "Compleynt of Anelida" is dedicated to</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou ferse god of armes, Mars the rede,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>and to Polymnia:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Be favourable eek, thou Polymnia,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Parnaso that, with thy sustres glade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Elicon, not fer from Cirrea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Singest with vois memorial in the shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Under the laurer which that may not fade.<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Old books of antiquity possess for him, as they did for 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For out of olde feldes, as men seith,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And out of olde bokes, in good feith,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cometh al this newe science that men lere.<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Poggio or Poliziano could not have spoken in more feeling words.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Glory and honour, Virgil Mantuan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be to thy name!<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>exclaims he elsewhere. "Go, my book," he says to his "Troilus and
+Criseyde,"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And kis the steppes, wher-as thou seest pace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Virgile, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan, Stace.<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>is likewise a church: "This noble
+temple ... this chirche." Before penetrating into its precincts, the
+poet appeals to Christ:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O Crist," thought I, "that art in blisse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fro fantom and illusioun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Me save!" and with devocioun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Myn yen to the heven I caste.<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Italians, Chaucer borrows from them, sometimes 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
+"Paradiso." The same poet is quoted in the "Parlement of Foules," where
+we find a paraphrase of the famous "Per me si va"<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a>; 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
+introduces into it a sonnet of Petrarch<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a>; the idea of the "Legend of
+Good Women" is borrowed from the "De claris Mulieribus" of Boccaccio.
+Dante's journeys to the spirit-world served as models for the "Hous of
+Fame," where the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>English poet is borne off by an eagle of golden hue.
+In it Dante is mentioned together with the classic authors of antiquity.
+Read:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">On Virgil, or on Claudian,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or Daunte.<a name="FNanchor_497_497" id="FNanchor_497_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The eagle is not an invention of Chaucer's; it had already appeared in
+the "Purgatorio."<a name="FNanchor_498_498" id="FNanchor_498_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a></p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the quantity of reminiscences of ancient or Italian
+authors that recur at every page; notwithstanding the story of &AElig;neas
+related wholly from Virgil, the first lines being translated word for
+word<a name="FNanchor_499_499" id="FNanchor_499_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a>; notwithstanding incessant allusions and quotations, the "Hous
+of Fame"<a name="FNanchor_500_500" id="FNanchor_500_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>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 forgiven; 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.<a name="FNanchor_501_501" id="FNanchor_501_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a></p>
+
+<p>He is modern, too, in the part he allots to his own self, a self which,
+far from being odious ("le moi est ha&iuml;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>temple itself is built in the Gothic style of the period, all
+bristling with "niches, pinnacles, and statues," and</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... ful eek of windowes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As flakes falle in grete snowes.<a name="FNanchor_502_502" id="FNanchor_502_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 full "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 celebrates the deeds of
+the warriors:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For in fight and blood-shedinge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is used gladly clarioninge.<a name="FNanchor_503_503" id="FNanchor_503_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We ben shrewes, every wight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And han delyt in wikkednes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As gode folk han in goodnes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And joye to be knowen shrewes ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherfor we preyen yow, a-rowe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That our fame swich be-knowe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In alle thing right as it is.<a name="FNanchor_504_504" id="FNanchor_504_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As pressing as any, they urgently claim a bad reputation, a favour which
+the goddess graciously grants them.</p>
+
+<p>Elsewhere we are transported into the house of news, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i19">"Nost not thou<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is betid, lo, late or now?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"No," quod the other, "tel me what."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And than he tolde him this and that,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And swoor ther-to that hit was sooth&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Thus hath he seyd"&mdash;and "thus he dooth"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Thus shal hit be"&mdash;"Thus herde I seye"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"That shal be found"&mdash;"That dar I leye."<a name="FNanchor_505_505" id="FNanchor_505_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As fyr is wont to quikke and go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From a sparke spronge amis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Til al a citee brent up is.<a name="FNanchor_506_506" id="FNanchor_506_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>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 illuminations, blazons, or oriflammes; his
+nights are of sable, and his meadows seem of sinople, his flowers are
+"whyte, blewe, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>yelowe, and rede."<a name="FNanchor_507_507" id="FNanchor_507_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 discourse subtly about their desires and their mishaps.<a name="FNanchor_508_508" id="FNanchor_508_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a></p>
+
+<p>Chaucer appropriates the plot,<a name="FNanchor_509_509" id="FNanchor_509_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> 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 accomplished <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>in
+the same time by the nation. With the Parliament of Westminster as with
+Chaucer's poetry, the real definitive England is beginning.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 contribute 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 confidants, diminished reproductions of their
+own selves, invented 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
+Calpren&egrave;de's heroic romances; the characters have muscles, bones and
+sinews, and at the same time, hearts and souls;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> they are real men. The
+date of "Troilus and Criseyde" is a great date in English literature.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 circumstances 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.</p>
+
+<p>Troilus despised love, and mocked at lovers:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If knight or squyer of his companye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gan for to syke, or lete his eyen bayten<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On any woman that he coude aspye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wolde smyle, and holden it folye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And seye him thus, "God wot she slepeth softe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For love of thee, whan thou tornest ful ofte."<a name="FNanchor_510_510" id="FNanchor_510_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Moli&egrave;re's or
+Shakespeare's comic heroes than with Musset's lovers. Pandarus is as
+fond of comparisons as Gros-Ren&eacute;, as fond of old saws as Polonius; he is
+coarse and indecent, unintentionally and by nature, like Juliet's
+nurse.<a name="FNanchor_511_511" id="FNanchor_511_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> He is totally unconscious, and thinks himself the best
+friend in the world, and the most reserved; he concludes interminable
+speeches by:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I jape nought, as ever have I joye.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>for tangible and present
+realities, and does not believe in ever foregoing an immediate and
+certain pleasure in consideration of merely possible consequences.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_512_512" id="FNanchor_512_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>With a thousand precautions, and although still keeping to the vulgarity
+of his r&ocirc;le, Pandarus manages so as to bring to a sufficiently serious
+mood the laughter-loving Cressida; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>he contrives that she shall praise
+Troilus herself, incidentally, 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">... the kinges dere sone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The goode, wyse, worthy, fresshe, and free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which alwey for to do wel is his wone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The noble Troilus, so loveth thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, bot ye helpe, it wol his bane be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lo, here is al, what sholde I more seye?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do what yow list.<a name="FNanchor_513_513" id="FNanchor_513_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 imagination 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 unflattering; 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</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Men loven wommen al this toun aboute.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be they the wers? Why, nay, withouten doute.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Al wolde I that noon wiste of this thought.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>After all I am free; "I am myn owene woman"; no husband to say to me
+"chekmat!" And "<i>par dieux!</i> I am nought religious!" I am not a nun.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But right as whan the sonne shyneth brighte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In March that chaungeth ofte tyme his face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that a cloud is put with wind to flighte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which over-sprat the sonne as for a space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A cloudy thought gan thorugh hir soule pace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That over-spradde hir brighte thoughtes alle.<a name="FNanchor_514_514" id="FNanchor_514_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Now she unfolds contradictory arguments supported by considerations
+equally decisive; she is suffering from that <i>diboulia</i> (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.</p>
+
+<p>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 hypothesis. 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 workings 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 produced 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>access to her heart, and that, where one enters so easily, it
+is usually that the door is open. She paces in her melancholy 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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And whyte thinges wexen dimme and donne;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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 sentiments. 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!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... She hath now caught a thorn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She shal not pulle it out this next wyke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God sende mo swich thornes on to pyke!<a name="FNanchor_515_515" id="FNanchor_515_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The passion and merits of Troilus, the inventions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+Pandarus, the secret good-will of Cressida, a thunderstorm which breaks
+out opportunely (we know how impressionable 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">For ought I can espyen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This light nor I ne serven here of nought.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And he goes, adding, however, one more recommendation:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">If ye ben wyse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swowneth not now, lest more folk aryse.<a name="FNanchor_516_516" id="FNanchor_516_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>What says Cressida?&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ne hadde I er now, my swete herte dere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ben yolde, y-wis, I were now not here!<a name="FNanchor_517_517" id="FNanchor_517_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Were they happy?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But juggeth, ye that han ben at the feste<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of swich gladnesse.<a name="FNanchor_518_518" id="FNanchor_518_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The gray morn appears in the heavens; the shriek of "the cok, comune
+astrologer," is heard; the lovers sing their song of dawn.<a name="FNanchor_519_519" id="FNanchor_519_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a> All the
+virtues of Troilus are increased and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>intensified by happiness; it is
+the eternal thesis of poets who are in love with love.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_520_520" id="FNanchor_520_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>return; true,
+it will not be in ten days; it will be when she can.<a name="FNanchor_521_521" id="FNanchor_521_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a></p>
+
+<p>Troilus is told of his misfortune, but he will never believe it:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thou seyst nat sooth," quod he, "thou sorceresse!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A brooch torn from Diomedes which he had given her on the day of
+parting,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In remembraunce of him and of his sorwe,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>allows him to doubt no more, and he gets killed by Achilles after a
+furious struggle.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In which that love up groweth with your age.<a name="FNanchor_522_522" id="FNanchor_522_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 difference 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
+Beauveau: "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,<a name="FNanchor_523_523" id="FNanchor_523_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a> which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_524_524" id="FNanchor_524_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a> 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 employments 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>had described, with "pinacles, imageries, and tabernacles,"
+and</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">ful eek of windowes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As flakes falle in grete snowes.<a name="FNanchor_525_525" id="FNanchor_525_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>His great literary occupation, during that time, was the composition of
+his famous "Canterbury Tales."<a name="FNanchor_526_526" id="FNanchor_526_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a> Experience 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.</p>
+
+<p>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"<a name="FNanchor_527_527" id="FNanchor_527_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a>; the inns were all
+close to each other. It was springtime, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"as it were a mede"&mdash;with white and red flowers; a stout
+merchant, who looked so rich, was so well furred, and "fetisly" dressed
+that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ther wiste no wight that he was in dette;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Twenty bokes, clad in blak and reed;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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
+<i>sauce piquante</i> and beer all day long, so popular in the county that,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ful ofte tyme he was knight of the shire;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>a shipman who knew every creek, from Scotland to Spain, and had
+encountered many a storm, with his good ship "the Maudelayne,"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With many a tempest hadde his berd been shake;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>a physician who had driven a thriving trade during the plague, learned,
+and acquainted with the why and the wherefore of every disease,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Were it of hoot or cold, or moiste or drye;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>who knew by heart Hippocrates and Galen, but was on bad terms with the
+Church, for</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His studie was but litel on the Bible.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His mouth as greet was as a great forneys,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>a group of men-at-law devoured with cares, close shaven, bitter of
+speech&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ful longe were his legges, and ful lene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Y-lyk a staf, ther was no calf y-sene&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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":</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A bettre felawe sholde men noght finde.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 instead of healing them, and to the pardoner, a
+rascal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> 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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>who imitated the style of the Court, and, consequently,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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"?</p>
+
+<p>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? April has come.</p>
+
+<p>The characters of romance, the statues on cathedrals, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Somwhat he lipsed for his wantonnesse&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> than merely prick skin-deep; and in so doing, he
+laughs silently to himself. There was once a merchant,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That riche was, for which men helde him wys.<a name="FNanchor_528_528" id="FNanchor_528_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The "Sergeant of Lawe" was a busy man indeed:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No wher so bisy a man as he ther nas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet he semed bisier than he was.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 r&ocirc;le 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 coachman, 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 1731.<a name="FNanchor_529_529" id="FNanchor_529_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_530_530" id="FNanchor_530_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>material of feats of arms, and as such only figure in
+the narrative.</p>
+
+<p>They figure in Chaucer's narrative, because Chaucer <i>loves</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>One after another, all these persons of such diverse conditions 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
+remains of Henry the Second's former adversary, the Chancellor Thomas
+Becket, assassinated on the steps of the altar, and canonised.<a name="FNanchor_531_531" id="FNanchor_531_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a>
+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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>in the saddle; the way will be
+long.<a name="FNanchor_532_532" id="FNanchor_532_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_533_533" id="FNanchor_533_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a> They bestowed the same favour on Chaucer.</p>
+
+<p>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, beautiful,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"A fine large court, disposed in the centre, was surrounded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>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 cicad&aelig; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> 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 contrast. 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. "Wel," says the host,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"Tel on, a devel wey!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou art a fool, thy wit is overcome,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>What would Donna Pampinea and Donna Filomena have said, hearing such
+words?</p>
+
+<p>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 innkeeper; Chaucer never commits the
+fault of making him step out of his r&ocirc;le; but the poet is too keen an
+observer not to discern <i>nuances</i> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My lady Prioresse, by your leve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that I wist I sholde yow nat greve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wolde demen that ye telle sholde<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A tale next, if so were that ye wolde.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now wol ye vouche-sauf, my lady dere?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"Gladly," quod she, and seyde as ye shal here.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The answer is not less suitable than the request.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> 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 shapeless; 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now, goode men, God forgeve yow your trespas ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have relikes and pardon in my male<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As faire as any man in Engelond ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is an honour to everich that is heer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ye mowe have a suffisant pardoneer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tassoille yow, in contree as ye ryde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For aventures which that may bityde.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Peraventure ther may falle oon or two<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doun of his hors, and breke his nekke atwo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Look what a seuretee is it to yow alle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I am in your felaweship y-falle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That may assoille yow, bothe more and lasse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whan that the soule shal fro the body passe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I rede that our hoste heer shal biginne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he is most envoluped in sinne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Com forth sir hoste, and offre first anon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thou shalt kisse the reliks everichon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye, for a grote! unbokel anon thy purs!<a name="FNanchor_534_534" id="FNanchor_534_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A most happy idea! Mine host makes a reply which cannot be repeated.</p>
+
+<p>In other cases the personage is so wordy and impetuous that it is
+impossible to stop him, or set him right, or interrupt him; he cannot
+make up his mind to launch into his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">By God, in erthe I was his purgatorie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For which I hope his soule be in glorie.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 excellent ones,
+but it is she who has the very best. She is a whole <i>&Eacute;cole des Maris</i> in
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>The tales are of every sort,<a name="FNanchor_535_535" id="FNanchor_535_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a> and taken from everywhere. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>Chaucer
+never troubled himself to invent any; he received them from all hands,
+but he modelled them after his own fashion, and adapted them to his
+characters. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> 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 somewhat 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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He kempte hise lokkes brode, and made him gay.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Go forth thy wey, or I wol caste a ston.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>Next to these great scenes of noise there are little familiar scenes,
+marvellously observed, and described to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> 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;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The pot to-breketh, and farewel! al is go!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then they discuss; it is the fault of the pot, of the fire, of the
+metal; it is just as I thought;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Som seyde, it was long on the fyr-making,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Som seyde, nay! it was on the blowing....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Straw," quod the thridde, "ye been lewede and nyce,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was nat tempred as it oghte be."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_536_536" id="FNanchor_536_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a></p>
+
+<p>Or else, we have representations of those interested visits that
+mendicant friars paid to the dying. The friar, low, trivial,
+hypocritical, approaches:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Deus hic," quod he, "O Thomas, freend, good day."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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. What could he eat? Oh!
+next to nothing, a fowl's liver, a pig's head roasted, the lightest
+repast; his "stomak is destroyed;"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My spirit hath his fostring in the Bible.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A! yif that covent half a quarter otes!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A! yif that covent four and twenty grotes!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A! yif that frere a peny and let him go....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thomas, of me thou shalt nat ben y-flatered;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou woldest ban our labour al for noght.<a name="FNanchor_537_537" id="FNanchor_537_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Pay then, give then, give me this, or only that; Thomas gives less
+still.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A poure widwe, somdel stope in age<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was whylom dwelling in a narwe cotage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bisyde a grove, standing in a dale.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In al the land of crowing nas his peer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His vois was merier than the mery orgon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On messe-days that in the chirche gon;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wel sikerer was his crowing in his logge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than is a clokke, or an abbey orlogge....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His comb was redder than the fyn coral,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And batailed, as it were a castel-wal!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This storie is al-so trewe, I undertake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As is the book of Launcelot de Lake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That wommen holde in ful gret reverence,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&mdash;he was looking for "a boterflye," and what should he see but a fox!
+"Cok, cok!" he cries, with a jump, and means to flee.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Gentil sire, allas! wher wol ye gon?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be ye affrayed of me that am your freend?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>says the good fox; I came only to hear you sing; you have the family
+talent:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My lord your fader (God his soule blesse!),<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O Gaufred, dere mayster soverayn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That whan the worthy King Richard was slayn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With shot, compleynedest his deth so sore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why ne had I now thy sentence and thy lore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Friday for to chide, as diden ye?<a name="FNanchor_538_538" id="FNanchor_538_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ran cow and calf, and eek the verray hogges;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>the ducks scream,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The gees for fere flowen over the trees,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In tholde dayes of the King Arthour<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of which that Britons speken greet honour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Al was this land fulfild of fayerye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The elf-queen, with hir joly companye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 "Clavilegno," the steed of Don Quixote in the Duchesse's
+park; biographies of Appius and Virginia, of C&aelig;sar, 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 illuminations of manuscripts.<a name="FNanchor_539_539" id="FNanchor_539_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a></p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+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,<a name="FNanchor_540_540" id="FNanchor_540_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a> which Chaucer modestly ascribes to
+himself); story of the patient Griselda; discourse 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
+inextinguishable; it rose and fell and rose again, rebounding
+indefinitely; despair was immeasurable; the sense of <i>measure</i> was
+precisely what was wanting; its vulgarisation 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
+scholastic 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>they bore a striking
+resemblance to Griselda, Janicola, and many other heroes of the most
+popular stories.</p>
+
+<p>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;<a name="FNanchor_541_541" id="FNanchor_541_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a> it was turned several times into French.<a name="FNanchor_542_542" id="FNanchor_542_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_543_543" id="FNanchor_543_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> These <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;perhaps not
+three lines&mdash;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.'"<a name="FNanchor_544_544" id="FNanchor_544_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 suddenly 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; everything 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>killed, as they tell her, by order of the marquis. So be it, replies
+Griselda:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Goth now," quod she, "and dooth my lordes heste;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But o thing wil I preye yow of your grace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, but my lord forbad yow, atte leste,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burieth this litel body in som place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That bestes ne no briddes it to-race."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he no word wol to that purpos seye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But took the child and wente upon his weye.<a name="FNanchor_545_545" id="FNanchor_545_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 sentiments.
+In giving them place in his collection, he belongs to his time and helps
+to make it known; but a few mocking 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 sometimes he can stand their talk no longer,
+and interrupts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>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
+shows 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 adventures of the matchless
+Sir Thopas.<a name="FNanchor_546_546" id="FNanchor_546_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Why sholde I sowen draf out of my fest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whan I may sowen whete if that me lest?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The good sense which caused the poet to write his "Canterbury Tales"
+according to a plan so conformable to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Of every ordre som shrewe is, parde;<a name="FNanchor_547_547" id="FNanchor_547_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>that, in the education of children, parents should be careful 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 himself very freely about great captains, each of whom would
+have been called "an outlawe or a theef" had they done less harm.<a name="FNanchor_548_548" id="FNanchor_548_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we owe to this same common sense of Chaucer's a thing more
+remarkable yet: namely, that with his knowledge <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>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 Arabians 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&mdash;"the king that is lord of this
+langage."<a name="FNanchor_549_549" id="FNanchor_549_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The wordes mote be cosin to the dede.<a name="FNanchor_550_550" id="FNanchor_550_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>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
+celebrated 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.</p>
+
+<p>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:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And for ther is so greet diversitee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In English, and in writyng of our tonge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So preye I God, that noon miswryte thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne thee mysmetre for defaute of tonge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That thou be understonde I God beseche!<a name="FNanchor_551_551" id="FNanchor_551_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,
+copying once more "Boece" or "Troilus," he leaves as many errors
+again.<a name="FNanchor_552_552" id="FNanchor_552_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_553_553" id="FNanchor_553_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I can nat geste&mdash;run, ram, ruf&mdash;by lettre.<a name="FNanchor_554_554" id="FNanchor_554_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>The same cheerful, tranquil common sense which made him adopt the
+language of his country and the usual versification, 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.</p>
+
+<p>For this cause Des Champs, a great enemy of the English, 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">V.</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_555_555" id="FNanchor_555_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fle fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste out of thy stal!...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And trouth shal delivere, hit is no drede.<a name="FNanchor_556_556" id="FNanchor_556_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In spite of this melancholy, he was at that time the uncontested king of
+English letters; a life-long friendship bound him to Gower<a name="FNanchor_557_557" id="FNanchor_557_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a>; 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">"What man artow?" quod he;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Thou lokest as thou woldest finde an hare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ever up-on the ground I see thee stare."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>Age had bestowed on him a corpulency which made him a match for Harry
+Bailey himself.<a name="FNanchor_558_558" id="FNanchor_558_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 a year, a
+house in the garden of St. Mary's, Westminster. The lease is still
+preserved in the archives of the Abbey.<a name="FNanchor_559_559" id="FNanchor_559_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a> He passed away in the
+following year, in that tranquil retreat, and was interred at
+Westminster, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O maister deere and fadir reverent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mi maister Chaucer, flour of eloquence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mirour of fructuous entendement,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O universal fadir of science,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Allas that thou thyn excellent prudence<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In thi bed mortel mightist noght byquethe!<a name="FNanchor_560_560" id="FNanchor_560_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At the time of the Renaissance Caxton printed his works twice,<a name="FNanchor_561_561" id="FNanchor_561_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a> and
+Henry VIII. made an exception in their favour in his prohibition of
+"printed bokes, printed balades, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>... and other fantasies."<a name="FNanchor_562_562" id="FNanchor_562_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a> Under
+Elizabeth, Thynne annotated them,<a name="FNanchor_563_563" id="FNanchor_563_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> Spenser declared that he "of
+Tityrus," that is of Chaucer, "his songs did lere,"<a name="FNanchor_564_564" id="FNanchor_564_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a> and Sidney
+exalted him to the skies.<a name="FNanchor_565_565" id="FNanchor_565_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a> In the seventeenth century Dryden
+rejuvenates his tales, in the eighteenth century the admiration is
+universal, and extends to Pope and Walpole.<a name="FNanchor_566_566" id="FNanchor_566_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_567_567" id="FNanchor_567_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> Such is the case with a tower in the churchyard of St.
+Giles's, Cripplegate.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> "Et qi pork voedra norir, le norise deinz sa measoun."
+Four jurymen were to act as public executors: "Quatuor homines electi et
+jurati ad interficiendos porcos inventos vagantes infra muros
+civitatis." Riley "Munimenta Gildhall&aelig;," Rolls, 1859, 4 vols. 8vo;
+"Liber Albus," pp. 270 and 590.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> April, 1357, an information gathered from a fragment of
+the accounts of the household of Elizabeth found in the binding of a
+book.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> In the controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir
+Robert Grosvenor, concerning a question of armorial bearings, Chaucer,
+being called as witness, declares (1386) 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 controversy, 1385-90," London, 2
+vols. fol., vol. i. p. 178. "Retters" is R&eacute;thel in Champagne (not
+Retiers in Brittany, where the expedition did not go). Chaucer took part
+in another campaign "in partibus Franci&aelig;," in 1369.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> On this see Furnivall, "Chaucer as valet and esquire,"
+Chaucer Society, 1876.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> 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":
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I hold&euml; hit be a siknesse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I have suffred this eight yere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet my bote is never the nere;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ther is phisicien but oon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That may me hele.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For kindly by your heritage right<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye been annexed ever unto Bountee? (l. 71).<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+There were numerous families of Bonamy, Bonenfaut, Bonc&oelig;ur. A William
+de Boncuor is named in the "Excerpta e Rotulis Finium," of Roberts, vol.
+ii. pp. 309, 431, 432.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> 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 were the same person: same name,
+same function, same pension of ten marks, referred to in the same words
+in public documents, for example: 1&ordm; 42 Ed. III., 1368, "Philipp&aelig;
+Chaucer cui dominus Rex decem marcas annuatim ad scaccarium percipiendas
+pro bono servitio per ipsam Philippam Philippe Regine Anglie impenso per
+literas suas patentes nuper concessit...." 2&ordm; 4 Ric. II., 1381,
+"Philipp&aelig; Chaucer nuper uni domicellarum Philipp&aelig; nuper Regine
+Anglie"&mdash;she had died in 1369&mdash;"cui dominus Rex Edwardus avus Regis
+hujus X marcas annuatim ad scaccarium suum percipiendas pro bono
+servitio per ipsam tam 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&mdash;hence her connection with the queen&mdash;and
+sister of Catherine Roet who became the mistress and then the third wife
+of John of Gaunt&mdash;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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> Book iv. chap. 40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> Froissart declares concerning his own poems that he "les
+commencha &agrave; faire sus l'an de gr&acirc;ce Nostre Seigneur, 1362." He wrote
+them "&agrave; l'ayde de Dieu et d'Amours, et &agrave; 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.&mdash;On Guillaume de
+Deguileville, who wrote about 1330-5, see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
+1893, vol. ii. p. 558; 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.&mdash;On
+Machault, who died in 1377, see Tarb&eacute;, "&OElig;uvres Choisies," Reims and
+Paris, 1849, 8vo, and Thomas, "Romania," x. pp. 325 ff. (papal bulls
+concerning him, dated 1330, 1332, 1333, 1335).&mdash;On Des Champs, see
+"&OElig;uvres Compl&egrave;tes publi&eacute;es d'apr&egrave;s le Manuscrit de la Biblioth&egrave;que
+Nationale," by the Marquis de Queux de St. Hilaire, Soci&eacute;t&eacute; des Anciens
+Textes, 1878 ff. (which MS. contains, <i>e.g.</i>, 1175 ballads, 171
+roundels, and 80 virelais), and A. Sarradin, "Etude sur Eustache des
+Champs," Versailles, 1878, 8vo.&mdash;On Granson, a knight and a poet slain
+in a judicial duel, in 1397, see Piaget, "Granson et ses po&eacute;sies,"
+"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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> 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 favour 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 "Po&eacute;sies,"
+ed. Scheler, Brussels, 1870, 3 vols. 8vo), vol. i. p. 49. Des Champs
+praised the same flower; Machault wrote a "Dit de la Marguerite"
+("&OElig;uvres Choisies," ed. Tarb&eacute;, p. 123):
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">J'aim une fleur qui s'uevre et qui s'encline<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vers le soleil, de jour quand il chemine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et quand il est couchiez soubz sa courtine<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Par nuit obscure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Elle se clost ainsois que le jour fine.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> 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," 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> 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 &agrave; Thomas fiz au Roy, duc
+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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> "A vous qui belles filles avez et bien les d&eacute;sirez &agrave;
+introduire &agrave; vie honneste, bailliez leur, bailliez le Rommant de la
+Rose, pour aprendre &agrave; discerner le bien du mal, que diz-je, mais le mal
+du bien. Et &agrave; quel utilit&eacute; ne &agrave; quoy proufite aux oyans o&iuml;r tant de
+laidures?" Jean de Meun "oncques n'ot acointance ne hantise de femme
+honorable ne vertueuse, mais par plusieurs femmes dissolues et de male
+vie hanter, comme font commun&eacute;ment les luxurieux cuida ou faingny savoir
+que toutes telles feussent car d'autres n'avoit congnoissance." "D&eacute;bat
+sur le Rommant de la Rose," in MS. Fr. 604 in the National Library,
+Paris, fol. 114 and 115.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mais pran en gr&eacute; les euvres d'escolier<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que par Clifford de moy avoir pourras.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+For Des Champs, Chaucer is a Socrates, a Seneca, an Ovid, an "aigle tr&egrave;s
+hault," "&OElig;uvres Completes," Paris, 1878 ff., vol. ii. p. 138.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> "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&mdash;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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And every day hir beaute newed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">(ll. 906, 963.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> "Book of the Duchesse," ll. 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Vous Ambasseur et messagier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui alez par le monde es cours<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Des grans princes pour besongnier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vostre voyage n'est pas cours ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne soiez mie si hastis!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Il fault que vostre fait soit mis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Au conseil pour respondre &agrave; plain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Attendez encore mes amis ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Il faut parler au chancelier<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">De vostre fait et &agrave; plusours ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Temps passe et tout vint arrebours.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"&OElig;uvres Compl&egrave;tes," Soci&eacute;t&eacute; des Anciens Textes, vol. vii. p. 117.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">De laissier aux champs me manace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trop souvent des genoulx s'assiet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Par ma foy, mes chevaulx se lace.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 32.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mal fait mangier &agrave; l'app&eacute;tit d'autruy.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 81.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O doulz pais, terre tr&egrave;s honorable,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O&ugrave; chascuns a ce qu'il veult demander<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pour son argent, et &agrave; pris raisonnable,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Char, pain et vin, poisson d'yaue et de mer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chambre &agrave; par soy, feu, dormir, reposer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Liz, orilliers blans, draps flairans la graine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et pour chevaulz, foing, liti&egrave;re et avaine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Estre servis, et par bonne ordonnance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et en seurt&eacute; de ce qu'on porte et maine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tel pais n'est qu'en royaume de France.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 79.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> Book i. chap. 692.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> The order for the payment of the expenses of "nostre cher
+et f&eacute;al chivaler Edward de Berkl&eacute;," and "nostre f&eacute;al 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 duc
+de Melan Barnabo come &agrave; nostre cher et foial Johan Haukwode &egrave;s 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 <i>Athen&aelig;um</i> of Sept. 9, 1893. During this 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> ll. 1982, 1990, 1997.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> Figure of "Peace," by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1339. See a
+drawing of it in M&uuml;ntz, "Les Pr&eacute;curseurs de la Renaissance," Paris,
+1882, 4to, p. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> M&uuml;ntz, <i>ibid.</i>, p. 30.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> "F. Petrarc&aelig; Epistol&aelig;," ed. Fracassetti, Florence, 1859,
+vol. iii. p. 541.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> Letter of Boccaccio "celeberrimi nominis militi Jacopo
+Pizzinghe." Corazzini, "Le Lettere edite ed inedite di Giovanni
+Boccaccio," Florence, 1877, 8vo, p. 195.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> 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 <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, July 15,
+1888.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> 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,"
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wol yow telle a tale which that I<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He is now deed and nayled in his cheste ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poet.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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 Griselda.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> "The Othe of the Comptroler of the Customes," in Thynne's
+"Animadversions," Chaucer Society, 1875, p. 131.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> 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 Galfridi Chaucer."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> 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, <i>e.g.</i>, in the "Chronicon
+Angli&aelig;," Rolls, p. 370) caused by a rumour of the coming of the French.
+See Riley, "Memorials of London," pp. 388, 489. A study on the too
+neglected Ralph Strode is being prepared (1894) by M. Gollancz.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> "Dimissio Port&aelig; de Aldgate facta Galfrido
+Chaucer.&mdash;Concessio de Aldrichgate Radulpho Strode.&mdash;Sursum-redditio
+domorum supra Aldrichesgate per Radulphum Strode." Among the
+"Fundationes et pr&aelig;sentationes cantariarum ... shoparum ... civitati
+pertinentium." "Liber Albus," Rolls, pp. 553, 556, 557.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> Chaucer represents Jupiter's eagle, addressing him thus:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And noght only fro fer contree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ther no tyding comth to thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of thy verray neyghebores,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That dwellen almost at thy dores,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou herest neither that ne this;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For whan thy labour doon al is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou sittest at another boke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Til fully daswed is thy loke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And livest thus as an hermyte.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Hous of Fame," book ii. l. 647; "Complete Works," iii. p. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> All these dates are merely approximative. Concerning the
+chronology of Chaucer's works, see Ten Brink, "Chaucer Studien,"
+M&uuml;nster, 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" (<i>cf.</i> 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, &amp;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 lawe." He wrote his "Legend" to make amends.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> "Parlement of Foules," ll. 272, 225, "Complete Works,"
+vol. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> "Hous of Fame," l. 133 <i>ibid.</i>, vol. iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> "Hous of Fame," l. 518.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> "Complete Works, "vol. i. p. 365. This beginning is
+imitated from Boccaccio's "Teseide."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> "Parlement of Foules," in "Complete Works," vol. i. p.
+336. Chaucer alludes here to a book which "was write with lettres olde,"
+and which contained "Tullius of the dreme of Scipioun."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> "Legend of Dido," in "Complete Works," vol. iii. p. 117.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> Book v. st. 256.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> "Hous of Fame," ll. 469, 473, 492.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thorgh me men goon in-to that blisful place ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thorgh me men goon unto the welle of Grace, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+These lines were "over the gate with lettres large y-wroghte," ll. 124,
+127.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">S'amor non &egrave;, che dunque &egrave; quel ch'i sento?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+which becomes in Chaucer the "Cantus Troili":
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If no love is, O God, what fele I so?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Book i. stanza 58.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_497_497" id="Footnote_497_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_497"><span class="label">[497]</span></a> l. 449. </p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_498_498" id="Footnote_498_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_498"><span class="label">[498]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In sogno mi parea veder sospesa<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Un' aquila nel ciel con penne d'oro<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Con l'ali aperte, ed a calare intesa....<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Poi mi parea, che piu rotata un poco,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Terribil come folgor discendesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">E me rapisse suso infino al foco.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("Purgatorio," canto ix.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+In Chaucer:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Me thoughte I saw an egle sore ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hit was of golde and shoon so bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That never saw men such a sighte ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Me, fleinge, at a swappe he hente,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with his sours agayn up wente,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Me caryinge in his clawes starke.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(ll. 449, 503, 542.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_499_499" id="Footnote_499_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_499"><span class="label">[499]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wol now singe, if that I can<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The armes, and al-so the man, &amp;c. (l. 142.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Hereupon follows a complete but abbreviated account of the events in the
+&AElig;neid, Dido's story being the only part treated at some length.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_500_500" id="Footnote_500_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_500"><span class="label">[500]</span></a> "Complete Works," vol. iii. The poem was left unfinished;
+it is written in octosyllabic couplets, with four accents or beats.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_501_501" id="Footnote_501_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_501"><span class="label">[501]</span></a> Compare, for example, the beginning of "Hous of Fame,"
+and No. 487 of <i>The Spectator</i> (Sept. 18, 1712):
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">God turne us every dreem to gode!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For hit is wonder, by the rode,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To my wit what causeth swevenes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Either on morwes or on evenes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And why the effect folweth of somme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of somme hit shal never come;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why this is an avisioun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this a revelacioun ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why this a fantom, these oracles.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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," &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_502_502" id="Footnote_502_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_502"><span class="label">[502]</span></a> l. 1191.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_503_503" id="Footnote_503_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_503"><span class="label">[503]</span></a> l. 1242.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_504_504" id="Footnote_504_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_504"><span class="label">[504]</span></a> l. 1830.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_505_505" id="Footnote_505_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_505"><span class="label">[505]</span></a> l. 2047.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_506_506" id="Footnote_506_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_506"><span class="label">[506]</span></a> l. 2078. <i>Cf.</i> La Fontaine's "Les Femmes et le Secret."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_507_507" id="Footnote_507_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_507"><span class="label">[507]</span></a> "Parlement of Foules," l. 186.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_508_508" id="Footnote_508_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_508"><span class="label">[508]</span></a> Boccaccio's story is told in stanzas of eight lines, and
+has for its title "Il 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_509_509" id="Footnote_509_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_509"><span class="label">[509]</span></a> Text in "Complete Works," vol. iii. It is divided into
+five books and written in stanzas of seven lines, rhyming <i>a b a b b c
+c</i>. 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, compared with Boccaccio's
+Filostrato," Chaucer Society, 1875. About one-third of Chaucer's poem is
+derived from Boccaccio. It is dedicated to Gower and to "philosophical
+Strode" (see above, p. <a href="#Page_290">290</a>), both friends of the poet.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_510_510" id="Footnote_510_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_510"><span class="label">[510]</span></a> Book i. st. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_511_511" id="Footnote_511_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_511"><span class="label">[511]</span></a> And, as the nurse, gets out of breath, so that he cannot
+speak:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... O veray God, so have I ronne!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lo, nece myn, see ye nought how I swete?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Book ii. st. 210. Says the Nurse:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Jesu, what haste! can you not stay awhile?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do you not see that I am out of breath?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_512_512" id="Footnote_512_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_512"><span class="label">[512]</span></a> Turned later into English verse by Lydgate, to be read as
+a supplementary Tale of 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_513_513" id="Footnote_513_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_513"><span class="label">[513]</span></a> Book ii. st. 46.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_514_514" id="Footnote_514_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_514"><span class="label">[514]</span></a> Book ii. st. 100 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_515_515" id="Footnote_515_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_515"><span class="label">[515]</span></a> Book ii. st. 182.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_516_516" id="Footnote_516_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_516"><span class="label">[516]</span></a> Book iii. st. 163 and 170.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_517_517" id="Footnote_517_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_517"><span class="label">[517]</span></a> 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 ff.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_518_518" id="Footnote_518_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_518"><span class="label">[518]</span></a> Book iii. st. 188.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_519_519" id="Footnote_519_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_519"><span class="label">[519]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">What me is wo<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That day of us mot make desseveraunce!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Book iii. st. 203, 204.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_520_520" id="Footnote_520_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_520"><span class="label">[520]</span></a> Book iv. st. 98 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_521_521" id="Footnote_521_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_521"><span class="label">[521]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet preye I yow on yvel ye ne take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That it is short which that I to yow wryte;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I dar not, ther I am, wel lettres make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne never yet ne coude I wel endyte.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eek greet effect men wryte in place lyte.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thentente is al, and nought the lettres space<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fareth now wel, God have you in his grace.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">La vostre C.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Book v. st. 233. Troilus had written at great length, of course, "the
+papyr al y-pleynted." St. 229.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_522_522" id="Footnote_522_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_522"><span class="label">[522]</span></a> Book v. st. 263.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_523_523" id="Footnote_523_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_523"><span class="label">[523]</span></a> Pierre de Beauveau's translation of the passage (in
+Moland and d'H&eacute;ricault, "Nouvelles fran&ccedil;oises en prose, du XIV^e
+Si&egrave;cle," 1858, p. 303) does not differ much from the original. Here is
+the Italian text:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Giovane donna &egrave; mobile, e vogliosa<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&Egrave; negli amanti molti, e sua bellezza<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Estima piu ch'allo specchio, e pomposa<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ha vanagloria di sua giovinezza;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La qual quanto piaccevole e vezzosa<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&Egrave; piu, cotanto pi&ugrave; seco l'apprezza;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Virt&ugrave; non sente ni conoscimento,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Volubil sempre come foglia al vento.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("Opere Volgari," Florence, 1831, vol. xiii. p. 253.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_524_524" id="Footnote_524_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_524"><span class="label">[524]</span></a> "Return of the names of every member [of Parliament],"
+1878, fol. a Blue Book, p. 229.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_525_525" id="Footnote_525_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_525"><span class="label">[525]</span></a> "Hous of Fame," l. 1189.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_526_526" id="Footnote_526_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_526"><span class="label">[526]</span></a> "Complete Works," ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1894, 6 vols. 8vo,
+vol. iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_527_527" id="Footnote_527_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_527"><span class="label">[527]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_528_528" id="Footnote_528_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_528"><span class="label">[528]</span></a> Beginning of the "Shipmannes Tale."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_529_529" id="Footnote_529_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_529"><span class="label">[529]</span></a> "Vie de Marianne," Paris, 1731-41.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_530_530" id="Footnote_530_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_530"><span class="label">[530]</span></a> Book i. chap. 81, Luce's edition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_531_531" id="Footnote_531_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_531"><span class="label">[531]</span></a> 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 restored, to indicate the place in the choir where the
+shrine used to be.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_532_532" id="Footnote_532_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_532"><span class="label">[532]</span></a> 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&mdash;I.
+The Tale of Beryn," Chaucer Society, 1876, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_533_533" id="Footnote_533_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_533"><span class="label">[533]</span></a> "E forse a queste cose scrivere, quantunque sieno
+umilissime, si sono elle venute parecchi volte a starsi meco." Prologue
+of "Giornata Quarta."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_534_534" id="Footnote_534_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_534"><span class="label">[534]</span></a> "Pardoner's Tale," ll. 904, 920, 931.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_535_535" id="Footnote_535_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_535"><span class="label">[535]</span></a> 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:&mdash;
+</p><p>
+<i>1st Day.</i> London to Dartford, 15 miles.&mdash;Tale of the Knight, history of
+Palamon and Arcyte, derived from Boccaccio's "Teseide."&mdash;Tale of the
+Miller: story of Absolon, Nicholas and Alisoun the carpenter's wife,
+source unknown.&mdash;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."&mdash;Cook's tale,
+unfinished; the tale of Gamelyn attributed by some MSS. to the Cook
+seems to be simply an old story which Chaucer intended to remodel; it
+would suit the Yeoman better than the Cook (in "Complete Works," as an
+appendix to vol. iv.).
+</p><p>
+<i>2nd Day.</i> Stopping at Rochester, 30 miles.&mdash;Tale of the Man of Law:
+history of the pious Constance, from the French of Trivet, an Englishman
+who wrote also Latin chronicles, &amp;c., same story in Gower, who wrote it
+ab. 1393.&mdash;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.&mdash;Tale of the Prioress: a child killed by Jews, from the French of
+Gautier de Coinci.&mdash;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.&mdash;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, C&aelig;sar, Cr&oelig;sus; from Boccaccio, Machault, Dante,
+the ancients, &amp;c.&mdash;Tale of the Nun's Priest: Story of Chauntecleer, same
+story in "Roman de Renart" and in Marie de France.
+</p><p>
+<i>3rd Day.</i> Rest at Ospringe, 46 miles.&mdash;Tale of the Physician: Appius
+and Virginia, from Titus Livius and the "Roman de la Rose;" same story
+in Gower.&mdash;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.&mdash;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."&mdash;Friar's
+tale: a summoner taken away by the devil, from one of the old
+collections of <i>exempla</i>.&mdash;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."&mdash;Clerk of Oxford's
+tale: story of Griselda from Petrarch's Latin version of the last tale
+in the "Decameron."&mdash;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.
+</p><p>
+<i>4th Day.</i> Reach Canterbury, 56 miles.&mdash;Squire's tale: unfinished story
+of Cambinscan, king of Tartary; origin unknown, in part from the French
+romance of "Cleomades."&mdash;Franklin's tale: Aurelius tries to obtain
+Dorigen's love by magic; same story in Boccaccio's "Filocopo," and in
+the "Decameron," x. 5.&mdash;Tale of the second nun: story of St. Cecilia,
+from the Golden Legend.&mdash;Tale of the Canon's Yeoman: frauds of an
+alchemist (from Chaucer's personal experience?).&mdash;Manciple's tale: a
+crow tells Ph&oelig;bus of the faithlessness of the woman he loves; from
+Ovid, to be found also in Gower.&mdash;Parson's tale, from the French "Somme
+des Vices et des Vertus" of Friar Lorens, 1279.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_536_536" id="Footnote_536_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_536"><span class="label">[536]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_537_537" id="Footnote_537_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_537"><span class="label">[537]</span></a> l. 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 &oelig;ufs, de la laine, du
+chanvre, des fruits &agrave; chaque saison." Friar John "ne passait pas dans
+les rues que les p&egrave;res, les m&egrave;res et les enfants n'allassent &agrave; lui et ne
+lui criassent: Bonjour, fr&egrave;re Jean, comment vous portez vous, fr&egrave;re
+Jean? Il est s&ucirc;r que quand il entrait dans une maison, la b&eacute;n&eacute;diction du
+ciel y entrait avec lui." "Jacques le Fataliste et son Ma&icirc;tre," ed.
+Asseline, p. 46.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_538_538" id="Footnote_538_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_538"><span class="label">[538]</span></a> "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 285; on Geoffrey de
+Vinesauf and Richard, see above, p. <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_539_539" id="Footnote_539_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_539"><span class="label">[539]</span></a> 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,
+l. 190, "Complete Works," iv. p. 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_540_540" id="Footnote_540_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_540"><span class="label">[540]</span></a> 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 appel&eacute; Melib&eacute;e, puissant et riches ot une femme nomm&eacute;
+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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_541_541" id="Footnote_541_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_541"><span class="label">[541]</span></a> Unlike most of the tales, this one is written in stanzas,
+Chaucer's favourite seven-line stanza, rhyming <i>a b a b b c c</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_542_542" id="Footnote_542_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_542"><span class="label">[542]</span></a> It is to be found in the "M&eacute;nagier de Paris," ab. 1393,
+the author of which declares that he will "traire un exemple qui fut ja
+pie&ccedil;a translat&eacute; par maistre Fran&ccedil;ois Petrarc qui &agrave; Romme fut couronn&eacute;
+po&egrave;te" ("M&eacute;nagier," 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 Marquise de Saluces ou la patience de
+Griselidis," Paris, 1691, 12mo. 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 Edgeworth's novels has for its title and subject: "The Modern
+Griselda."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_543_543" id="Footnote_543_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_543"><span class="label">[543]</span></a> 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
+Myst&egrave;re de Griselidis"; one in German was written by Hans Sachs in 1550.
+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, &amp;c.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_544_544" id="Footnote_544_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_544"><span class="label">[544]</span></a> Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson, January 11, 1749.
+"Correspondence of Samuel Richardson," ed. Barbauld, London, 1804, 6
+vols. 12mo, vol. iv. p. 240.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_545_545" id="Footnote_545_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_545"><span class="label">[545]</span></a> "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 568.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_546_546" id="Footnote_546_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_546"><span class="label">[546]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Listeth, lordes, in good entent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I wol telle verrayment<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of mirthe and of solas, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+The caricature of the popular heroic stories of the day is extremely
+close (see below, p. 347).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_547_547" id="Footnote_547_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_547"><span class="label">[547]</span></a> Tale of the Canon's Yeoman, l. 995.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_548_548" id="Footnote_548_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_548"><span class="label">[548]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... For the tyrant is of gretter might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By force of meynee for to sleen doun-right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And brennen hous and hoom, and make al plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lo! therfor is he cleped a capitain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, for the outlawe hath but smal meynee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And may nat doon so greet an harm as he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne bringe a contree to so greet mescheef,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men clepen him an outlawe or a theef.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Maunciple's tale, in "Complete Works," iv. p. 562.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_549_549" id="Footnote_549_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_549"><span class="label">[549]</span></a> "A Treatise on the Astrolabe" in "Complete Works," vol.
+iii. p. 175.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_550_550" id="Footnote_550_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_550"><span class="label">[550]</span></a> "General Prologue," l. 742.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_551_551" id="Footnote_551_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_551"><span class="label">[551]</span></a> "Troilus," Book v. st. 257.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_552_552" id="Footnote_552_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_552"><span class="label">[552]</span></a> "Chaucer's wordes unto Adam, his owne Scriveyn," in
+"Complete Works," vol. i. p. 379.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_553_553" id="Footnote_553_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_553"><span class="label">[553]</span></a> "Je te suppliray seulement d'une chose, lecteur, de
+vouloir bien prononcer mes vers et accomoder ta voix &agrave; leur passion ...
+et je te supplie encore de rechef, o&ugrave; tu verras cette marque: (!)
+vouloir un peu eslever ta voix pour donner gr&acirc;ce &agrave; ce que tu liras."
+Preface of the "Franciade."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_554_554" id="Footnote_554_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_554"><span class="label">[554]</span></a> So says the Parson, who adds:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ne, God wot, rym holde I but litel bettre.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Parson's Prologue, l. 43. It will be observed that while <i>naming</i> simply
+rhyme, he <i>caricatures</i> alliteration.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_555_555" id="Footnote_555_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_555"><span class="label">[555]</span></a> 1391, in "Complete Works," vol. iii. On that other,
+<i>possible</i> son of Chaucer, Thomas, see <i>ibid.</i>, vol. i. p. xlviii., and
+above, p. 273.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_556_556" id="Footnote_556_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_556"><span class="label">[556]</span></a> "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 &agrave; Scogan"; "L'Envoy de
+Chaucer &agrave; Bukton," on marriage, with an allusion to the Wife of Bath;
+"The Compleynt of Venus"; "The Compleint of Chaucer to his empty purse,"
+&amp;c., all in vol. i. of "Complete Works."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_557_557" id="Footnote_557_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_557"><span class="label">[557]</span></a> It has been said, but without sufficient cause, that this
+friendship came to an end some time before the death of Chaucer.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_558_558" id="Footnote_558_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_558"><span class="label">[558]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He in the waast is shape as wel as I.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Prologue to Sir Thopas.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_559_559" id="Footnote_559_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_559"><span class="label">[559]</span></a> To be seen (1894) under glass in the Chapter House.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_560_560" id="Footnote_560_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_560"><span class="label">[560]</span></a> "Hoccleve's Works," ed. Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 1892, vol.
+i. p. xxi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_561_561" id="Footnote_561_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_561"><span class="label">[561]</span></a> 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 representing the pilgrims seated at the table
+of the Tabard inn.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_562_562" id="Footnote_562_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_562"><span class="label">[562]</span></a> "Animadversions uppon the Annotacions and corrections of
+some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucers workes...." by Francis
+Thynne, ed. Furnivall and Kingsley, Chaucer Society, 1876, p. xiv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_563_563" id="Footnote_563_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_563"><span class="label">[563]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_564_564" id="Footnote_564_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_564"><span class="label">[564]</span></a> "Shepheard's Calender," December.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_565_565" id="Footnote_565_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_565"><span class="label">[565]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_566_566" id="Footnote_566_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_566"><span class="label">[566]</span></a> 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. iii. ch. vii., "Chaucer in Literary History."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_567_567" id="Footnote_567_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_567"><span class="label">[567]</span></a> 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 "Canterbury Tales," &amp;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."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER III.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>THE GROUP OF POETS.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He has companions of all kinds, nearly as diverse as those with whom he
+had associated on the road to Canterbury. 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 Cr&eacute;cy, of which Chaucer had not
+spoken; others resemble lovers' serenades; others a dirge for the dead.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>The old styles are continued; the itinerant poets, jugglers, and
+minstrels have not disappeared; on the contrary, they are more numerous
+than ever. "Merry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> England" favours them; they continue to play, as
+under the first Angevins,<a name="FNanchor_568_568" id="FNanchor_568_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_569_569" id="FNanchor_569_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_570_570" id="FNanchor_570_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> Without any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>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 devill; but of dyvines, so
+few there be as they maye hardly be seene."<a name="FNanchor_571_571" id="FNanchor_571_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a></p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_572_572" id="FNanchor_572_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> 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, composed in the very style
+of his own burlesque poem, about heroes who, being all peerless, are
+necessarily all alike: one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>is "stalworthe and wyghte," 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<a name="FNanchor_573_573" id="FNanchor_573_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a>; 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.<a name="FNanchor_574_574" id="FNanchor_574_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a> Specimens of this facile art swarm indefinitely; they
+are scattered over the country, penetrate into hamlets, find their way
+into cottages, and make the people acquainted with the doughty deeds of
+Eglamour and Roland. We now find ourselves really in the copse.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>be listened to. Far above those empty, tripping
+metrical stories, and superior even to "Morte Arthure" and to "William
+of Palerne,"<a name="FNanchor_575_575" id="FNanchor_575_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> written in English verse at the time of Chaucer, ranks
+"Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight,"<a name="FNanchor_576_576" id="FNanchor_576_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The year passes. Gawayne leaves the Court with his horse "Gringolet,"
+and without quitting England, rides <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>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,"<a name="FNanchor_577_577" id="FNanchor_577_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a> jests, and the laughter of ladies.<a name="FNanchor_578_578" id="FNanchor_578_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hir breste bare bifore, and bihinde eke.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>She goes to the window, opens it, and says, "with hir riche wordes":</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A! mon, hou may thou sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This morning is so clere!<a name="FNanchor_579_579" id="FNanchor_579_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>She seats herself, and refuses to go. Gawayne is assailed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>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 c&oelig;urs donnez quelques
+faiblesses," our author obviously thinks, with Boileau.</p>
+
+<p>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-D&eacute;sert, and that his guest has
+been the sport of "Morgan the fairy," the companion of his hostess:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thurgh myght of Morgne la Faye that in my hous lenges (dwells).<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Gawayne declares that should he ever be tempted by pride, he need only
+look at the belt, and the temptation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> will vanish. He rejoins Arthur and
+his peers, and tells his adventures, which afford food both for laughter
+and for admiration.</p>
+
+<p>The poem is anonymous. The same manuscript contains another, on a
+totally different subject, which seems to be by the same author. This
+poem has been called "The Pearl;"<a name="FNanchor_580_580" id="FNanchor_580_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a> 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 landscape 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.<a name="FNanchor_581_581" id="FNanchor_581_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_581_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a> He sees a forest, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_582_582" id="FNanchor_582_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_582_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a></p>
+
+<p>So great is the beauty of the place that the father's grief is soothed,
+and he has a marvellous vision. On the opposite 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.<a name="FNanchor_583_583" id="FNanchor_583_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_583_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> 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 painting at St. Bavon of Ghent.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>An immense copse surrounds the oak. About Chaucer swarm innumerable
+minstrels, anonymous poets, rhyming clerks, knightly ballad makers.<a name="FNanchor_584_584" id="FNanchor_584_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_584_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a>
+The fragile works of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_585_585" id="FNanchor_585_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_585_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a></p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+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 "Dormi Secure"<a name="FNanchor_586_586" id="FNanchor_586_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_586_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a> (Sleep in peace, tomorrow's sermon is
+ready). We find also in English manuscripts rubrics like the following:
+"Loo here begynnethe a Balade whiche that Lydegate wrote at the request
+of a squyer y^t served in Love's court."<a name="FNanchor_587_587" id="FNanchor_587_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_587_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> In their most elegant
+language, with all the studied refinement of the flowery style, the
+poets, writing to order, amplified, embellished, 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_588_588" id="FNanchor_588_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_588_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a> Chaucer's good parson bears witness to the
+popularity of another song, and declares in the course of his sermon:
+"Wel may that man that no good werke ne dooth, singe thilke newe Frenshe
+song: "J'ay tout perdu mon temps et mon labour."<a name="FNanchor_589_589" id="FNanchor_589_589"></a><a href="#Footnote_589_589" class="fnanchor">[589]</a></p>
+
+<p>In imitation of what was done in the northern provinces of France, a
+<i>Pui</i> had been founded in London, that is an association established for
+the purpose of encouraging the art of the <i>chanson</i>, which awarded
+prizes to the authors of the best verses and the best music.<a name="FNanchor_590_590" id="FNanchor_590_590"></a><a href="#Footnote_590_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a> In the
+fourteenth century the Pui of London was at the height of its
+prosperity; 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>"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."</p>
+
+<p>To pass judgment on <i>chansons</i> 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 whatsoever." 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 <i>chanson</i>, neither can a <i>chanson royale</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> 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 <i>chansons royales</i> shall be
+covered with cloth of gold."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 endeavour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> to cherish and praise women even in their
+absence, other makers of songs follow another medi&aelig;val tradition and
+satirise them mercilessly. Triads were dedicated to them, which were
+nothing but slanderous litanies:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Herfor, and therfor, and therfor I came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for to preysse this praty woman.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There wer three wylly, three wyly ther wer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fox, a fryyr and a woman.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther wer three angry, three angry ther wer:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wasp a wesyll and a woman.<a name="FNanchor_591_591" id="FNanchor_591_591"></a><a href="#Footnote_591_591" class="fnanchor">[591]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_592_592" id="FNanchor_592_592"></a><a href="#Footnote_592_592" class="fnanchor">[592]</a> are, with women, the
+subjects of these satirical songs:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Preste, ne monke, ne yit chanoun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne no man of religioun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gyfen hem so to devocioun<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">As done thes holy frers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For summe gyven ham chyvalry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Somme to riote and ribaudery;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bot ffrers gyven ham to grete study<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And to grete prayers.<a name="FNanchor_593_593" id="FNanchor_593_593"></a><a href="#Footnote_593_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>An account follows of doings, studies, and prayers, by no means
+edifying, and which recalls Chaucer rather than St. Francis.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>The tone becomes more elevated; and then we have forest songs in honour
+of the outlaw Robin Hood.<a name="FNanchor_594_594" id="FNanchor_594_594"></a><a href="#Footnote_594_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a> 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
+1381, the priest John Ball takes from a popular song the burden that
+comprises his whole theory:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whan Adam dalf and Eve span,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who was thanne the gentilman?<a name="FNanchor_595_595" id="FNanchor_595_595"></a><a href="#Footnote_595_595" class="fnanchor">[595]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_596_596" id="FNanchor_596_596"></a><a href="#Footnote_596_596" class="fnanchor">[596]</a> Others
+sound the praises of the English heroes of the Hundred Years' War.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>the famous poets of the time saw fit to celebrate Cr&eacute;cy 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Lynxea, viperea, vulpina, lupina, medea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Callida, syrena, crudelis, acerba, superba.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Such is France according to them, and as to her king, his fate is
+predicted in the following pun:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O Philippus Valeys, Xerxes, Darius, Bituitus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Te faciet <i>maleys</i> Edwardus, aper polimitus.<a name="FNanchor_597_597" id="FNanchor_597_597"></a><a href="#Footnote_597_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To which the French replied:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Puis passeront Gauloys le bras marin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Le povre Anglet destruiront si par guerre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qu'adonc diront tuit passant ce chemin:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ou temps jadis estoit ci Angleterre.<a name="FNanchor_598_598" id="FNanchor_598_598"></a><a href="#Footnote_598_598" class="fnanchor">[598]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But both countries have survived, for other quarrels, other troubles,
+and other glories.</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_599_599" id="FNanchor_599_599"></a><a href="#Footnote_599_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a> concerning whom
+nothing is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>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 unskilful artists they run the risk of recalling the Sir
+Thopas example: this risk Edward incurs at the hands of Laurence 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Help me God, my wit es thin!<a name="FNanchor_600_600" id="FNanchor_600_600"></a><a href="#Footnote_600_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_601_601" id="FNanchor_601_601"></a><a href="#Footnote_601_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a> 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 Franci&aelig; qu&aelig; nihil ei nocebat qu&aelig;ritur apud
+Deum."<a name="FNanchor_602_602" id="FNanchor_602_602"></a><a href="#Footnote_602_602" class="fnanchor">[602]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>"The Bruce," composed about 1375 by John Barbour,<a name="FNanchor_603_603" id="FNanchor_603_603"></a><a href="#Footnote_603_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Barbour's intention is to write a true history; he thus expects, he
+says, to give twofold pleasure: firstly because 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 disappears, 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.<a name="FNanchor_604_604" id="FNanchor_604_604"></a><a href="#Footnote_604_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>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
+congratulated on his return:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">"Perfay," said he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I slew bot ane forouten ma,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God and my hound has slane the twa."<a name="FNanchor_605_605" id="FNanchor_605_605"></a><a href="#Footnote_605_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_606_606" id="FNanchor_606_606"></a><a href="#Footnote_606_606" class="fnanchor">[606]</a></p>
+
+<p>To England's threats Barbour replies by challenges, and by his famous
+apostrophe to liberty:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A! fredome is a noble thing!...<a name="FNanchor_607_607" id="FNanchor_607_607"></a><a href="#Footnote_607_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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
+discussion; but in bondage one cannot live, one dies.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>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 recognisable 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."<a name="FNanchor_608_608" id="FNanchor_608_608"></a><a href="#Footnote_608_608" class="fnanchor">[608]</a></p>
+
+<p>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":</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O moral Gower, this book I directe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To thee and to the philosophical Strode,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To vouchen sauf, ther nede is, to corecte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of your benignitees and zeles gode.<a name="FNanchor_609_609" id="FNanchor_609_609"></a><a href="#Footnote_609_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>Gower, in his turn, represents Venus addressing him as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... Grete well Chaucer whan ye mete<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As my disciple and my poete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For in the floures of his youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In sundry wise as he well couth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of dittees and of songes glade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The which he for my sake made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lond fulfilled is over all.<a name="FNanchor_610_610" id="FNanchor_610_610"></a><a href="#Footnote_610_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Gower 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
+convent 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.<a name="FNanchor_611_611" id="FNanchor_611_611"></a><a href="#Footnote_611_611" class="fnanchor">[611]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_612_612" id="FNanchor_612_612"></a><a href="#Footnote_612_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Some French works of Gower have, however, come down to us; they are
+ballads and madrigals, for imaginary Iris,<a name="FNanchor_613_613" id="FNanchor_613_613"></a><a href="#Footnote_613_613" class="fnanchor">[613]</a> Court poems, imitations
+of Petrarch,<a name="FNanchor_614_614" id="FNanchor_614_614"></a><a href="#Footnote_614_614" class="fnanchor">[614]</a> the light verses of a well-taught man. He promises
+eternal service to his "douce dame"; his "douce dame" being no one in
+particular. He writes for others, and they are welcome to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>draw from his
+works: "The love-songs thus far are composed 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."<a name="FNanchor_615_615" id="FNanchor_615_615"></a><a href="#Footnote_615_615" class="fnanchor">[615]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_616_616" id="FNanchor_616_616"></a><a href="#Footnote_616_616" class="fnanchor">[616]</a></p>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_617_617" id="FNanchor_617_617"></a><a href="#Footnote_617_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>In order to treat this terrible subject, Gower, who is not inventive,
+adopts the form of a dream, just as if it were a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>new "Romaunt of the
+Rose." It is springtime, 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&mdash;"Vox Clamantis!" His hearers open an eye,
+wonder where they are, recognise Gower, and go off to sleep again.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_618_618" id="FNanchor_618_618"></a><a href="#Footnote_618_618" class="fnanchor">[618]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+scholastic methods. Firstly, there are the vices of churchmen; these
+vices are of different kinds, as are ecclesiastics themselves; 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
+hounds<a name="FNanchor_619_619" id="FNanchor_619_619"></a><a href="#Footnote_619_619" class="fnanchor">[619]</a>; others <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>trade. Knights are too fond of women "with golden
+locks"; peasants are slothful; merchants rapacious and dishonest; they
+make "false gems out of glass."<a name="FNanchor_620_620" id="FNanchor_620_620"></a><a href="#Footnote_620_620" class="fnanchor">[620]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_621_621" id="FNanchor_621_621"></a><a href="#Footnote_621_621" class="fnanchor">[621]</a></p>
+
+<p>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, and the whole community to which
+he belonged, 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.</p>
+
+<p>Chaucer wrote in English, naturally, his sole reason being that it was
+the language of the country. Gower, when he uses this idiom,<a name="FNanchor_622_622" id="FNanchor_622_622"></a><a href="#Footnote_622_622" class="fnanchor">[622]</a> offers
+explanations:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And for that fewe men endite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In oure Englishe, I thenke make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A boke for Englondes sake.<a name="FNanchor_623_623" id="FNanchor_623_623"></a><a href="#Footnote_623_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_624_624" id="FNanchor_624_624"></a><a href="#Footnote_624_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a> wherein Gower seeks both to amuse and to instruct, giving
+as he does,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Somwhat of lust, somwhat of lore.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_625_625" id="FNanchor_625_625"></a><a href="#Footnote_625_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> The rest resembles the Gower of the "Vox
+Clamantis."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>What will be the subject of this philosopher's talk? He will tell us of
+a thing:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... wherupon the world mote stonde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hath done sithen it began,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shall while there is any man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that is love.<a name="FNanchor_626_626" id="FNanchor_626_626"></a><a href="#Footnote_626_626" class="fnanchor">[626]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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"<a name="FNanchor_627_627" id="FNanchor_627_627"></a><a href="#Footnote_627_627" class="fnanchor">[627]</a>: "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.<a name="FNanchor_628_628" id="FNanchor_628_628"></a><a href="#Footnote_628_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a></p>
+
+<p>We find ourselves again among vices and virtues, classifications,
+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
+Act&aelig;on; and your ears, witness the Sirens. He passes on to the seven
+deadly sins which were apparently studied in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_568_568" id="Footnote_568_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_568"><span class="label">[568]</span></a> See above, p. 162.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_569_569" id="Footnote_569_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_569"><span class="label">[569]</span></a> Against those practices Langland strongly protests in his
+"Visions," text C. x. 133; xvi. 200. See following Chapter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_570_570" id="Footnote_570_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_570"><span class="label">[570]</span></a> Rymer, "F&oelig;dera," 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
+fran&ccedil;ais des XII^e et XIII^e Si&egrave;cles," vol. ii. p. 321.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_571_571" id="Footnote_571_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_571"><span class="label">[571]</span></a> "Anatomy of Abuses," ed. Furnivall, London, 1877-79, 8vo,
+pp. 171, 172.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_572_572" id="Footnote_572_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_572"><span class="label">[572]</span></a> Chaucer himself expected his poem to be said or <i>sung</i>;
+he says to his book:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That thou be understonde, I God beseche!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Book v. st. 257.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_573_573" id="Footnote_573_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_573"><span class="label">[573]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wille yow telle of a knyghte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That bothe was stalworthe and wyghte.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(<i>Isumbras.</i>)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Y schalle telle yow of a knyght<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That was bothe hardy and wyght.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(<i>Eglamour.</i>)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And y schalle karppe off a knyght<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That was both hardy and wyght.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(<i>Degrevant.</i>)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"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, &amp;c., copied in the first half of
+the fifteenth century, on more ancient texts. See notes on many similar
+romances in Ward's "Catalogue of MS. Romances," 1883, vol. i. pp. 760
+ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_574_574" id="Footnote_574_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_574"><span class="label">[574]</span></a> 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, &amp;c., the second, Guy of
+Warwick, Graund Amoure, and the "Squyr of Lowe Degre."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_575_575" id="Footnote_575_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_575"><span class="label">[575]</span></a> Both published by the Early English Text Society: "Morte
+Arthure," ed. Brock, 1871; "William of Palerne," ed. Skeat, 1867. Both
+are in alliterative verse; the first composed about the end, and the
+second about the middle, of the fourteenth century.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_576_576" id="Footnote_576_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_576"><span class="label">[576]</span></a> The unique MS. of this poem is in the British Museum:
+Cotton, Nero A 10. 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,
+<i>e.g.</i>, 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, however, certainly a French
+poem. See on this subject Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," 1883, p. 387,
+and G. Paris, "Histoire Litt&eacute;raire de la France," vol. xxx.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_577_577" id="Footnote_577_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_577"><span class="label">[577]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Much glam and gle glent up ther-inne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aboute the fyre upon flat (floor) and on fele (many) wyse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the soper and after, mony athel songez,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As coundutes of Kryst-masse and caroles newe....<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_578_578" id="Footnote_578_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_578"><span class="label">[578]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With merthe and mynstralsye, wyth metez at hor wylle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thay maden as mery as any men moghten<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With laghyng of ladies, with lotes of bordes (play upon words).<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(l. 1952.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_579_579" id="Footnote_579_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_579"><span class="label">[579]</span></a> l. 1746.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_580_580" id="Footnote_580_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_580"><span class="label">[580]</span></a> "Pearl, an English Poem of the Fourteenth Century, edited
+with modern rendering by Israel Gollancz," London, 1891, 8vo. The poem
+is written in stanzas (<i>a b a b a b a b b c b c</i>); 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_581_581" id="Footnote_581_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581_581"><span class="label">[581]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I entred in that erber grene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Augoste in a hygh seysoun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quen corne is corven with crokez kene;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On huyle ther perle it trendeled doun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Schadowed this wortes (plants) full schyre and schene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gilofre, gyngure and gromylyoun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pyonys powdered ay betwene.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Yif hit wacz semly on to sene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">A fayrie tiayr yet fro hit flot. (St. 4.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_582_582" id="Footnote_582_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582_582"><span class="label">[582]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As stremande sternes quen strothe men slepe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Staren in welkyn in wynter nyght. (St. 10.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_583_583" id="Footnote_583_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583_583"><span class="label">[583]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For that thou lestes wacs bot a rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That flowred and fayled as kynde hit gefe. (St. 23.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_584_584" id="Footnote_584_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584_584"><span class="label">[584]</span></a> The principal collections containing lyrical works and
+popular ballads of that period are: "Ancient Songs and Ballads from the
+reign of Henry II. to the Revolution," collected by John Ritson, revised
+by W. C. Hazlitt, London, 1877, 12mo; "Specimens of Lyric Poetry,
+composed in England in the reign of Edward I.," ed. Th. Wright, Percy
+Society, 1842, 8vo; "Reliqui&aelig; Antiqu&aelig;, scraps from ancient MSS.
+illustrating chiefly Early English Literature," ed. T. Wright and J. O.
+Halliwell, London, 1841-43, 2 vols. 8vo; "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. 8vo; "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_585_585" id="Footnote_585_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585_585"><span class="label">[585]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tiel come tu es je autie fu,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tu seras til come je su.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">De la mort ne peusay-je mie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tant come j'avoy la vie.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">En terre avoy grand richesse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dont je y fis grand noblesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Terre, mesons et grand tresor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Draps, chivalx, argent et or,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mes ore su-je povres et cheitifs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perfond en la terre gys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ma grand beaut&eacute; est tout al&eacute;e ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et si ore me veissez,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Je ne quide pas qe vous deeisez<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qe j'eusse onqes hom est&eacute;.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(Stanley, "Historical Memorials of Canterbury.")<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_586_586" id="Footnote_586_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586_586"><span class="label">[586]</span></a> Compiled in France in 1395. Lecoy de la Marche, "la
+Chaire fran&ccedil;aise au moyen &acirc;ge," 2nd ed., Paris, 1886, 8vo, p. 334.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_587_587" id="Footnote_587_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587_587"><span class="label">[587]</span></a> 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":
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Quel desplaysier, quel courous quel destresse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quel griefs, quelx mauls viennent souvent d'amours, &amp;c. (fol. 36).<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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'Orl&eacute;ans, Pierre de Beauveau writes: "Le joyeulx temps pass&eacute;
+souloit estre occasion que je faisoie de plaisant diz et gracieuses
+chan&ccedil;onnetes et balades." "Nouvelles Fran&ccedil;oises du XIV^e Si&egrave;cle," ed.
+Moland and d'H&eacute;ricault, 1858, p. 303.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_588_588" id="Footnote_588_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588_588"><span class="label">[588]</span></a> "Visions concerning Piers Plowman," A. Prol. l. 103,
+written about 1362-3. See following Chapter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_589_589" id="Footnote_589_589"></a><a href="#FNanchor_589_589"><span class="label">[589]</span></a> "Parson's Tale."&mdash;"Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 581.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_590_590" id="Footnote_590_590"></a><a href="#FNanchor_590_590"><span class="label">[590]</span></a> "Munimenta Gildhall&aelig; Londiniensis."&mdash;"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 <i>puis</i>," established in the north of France, "seem to have given
+rise to German and Dutch imitations, such as the <i>Master Singers</i> and
+the <i>Chambers of Rhetoric</i>." G. Paris, "Litt&eacute;rature fran&ccedil;aise au moyen
+&acirc;ge," paragraph 127. To these we can add the English imitation which now
+occupies us.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_591_591" id="Footnote_591_591"></a><a href="#FNanchor_591_591"><span class="label">[591]</span></a> "Songs and Carols now first printed," ed. Th. Wright,
+Percy Society, 1847, 8vo, p. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_592_592" id="Footnote_592_592"></a><a href="#FNanchor_592_592"><span class="label">[592]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For hortyng of here hosyn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Non inclinare laborant.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_593_593" id="Footnote_593_593"></a><a href="#FNanchor_593_593"><span class="label">[593]</span></a> "Political Poems," <i>ibid.</i>, vol. i. p. 263.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_594_594" id="Footnote_594_594"></a><a href="#FNanchor_594_594"><span class="label">[594]</span></a> 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:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But I can rymes of Robin Hood &middot; and Randolf erle of Chestre.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Ed. Skeat, text B. v. 402. See above, p. 224.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_595_595" id="Footnote_595_595"></a><a href="#FNanchor_595_595"><span class="label">[595]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_596_596" id="Footnote_596_596"></a><a href="#FNanchor_596_596"><span class="label">[596]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nede they fre be most,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Vel nollent pacificari, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Political Poems," vol. i. p. 225. Satire of the heretical Lollards:
+"Lollardi sunt zizania," &amp;c. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 232; of friars become peddlers,
+p. 264.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_597_597" id="Footnote_597_597"></a><a href="#FNanchor_597_597"><span class="label">[597]</span></a> "Political Poems." <i>ibid.</i>, vol. i. pp. 26 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_598_598" id="Footnote_598_598"></a><a href="#FNanchor_598_598"><span class="label">[598]</span></a> Ballad by Eustache des Champs, "&OElig;uvres Compl&egrave;tes," ii.
+p. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_599_599" id="Footnote_599_599"></a><a href="#FNanchor_599_599"><span class="label">[599]</span></a> "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, &amp;c. Various
+pious works, a life of St. Alexius, a poem on the signs betokening
+Doomsday, &amp;c., have been attributed to Davy without sufficient reason.
+See on this subject, Furnivall, <i>ibid.</i>, who gives the text of these
+poems.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_600_600" id="Footnote_600_600"></a><a href="#FNanchor_600_600"><span class="label">[600]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_601_601" id="Footnote_601_601"></a><a href="#FNanchor_601_601"><span class="label">[601]</span></a> Vices and faults of Edward: "Political Poems," vol. i. p.
+159, 172, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_602_602" id="Footnote_602_602"></a><a href="#FNanchor_602_602"><span class="label">[602]</span></a> "Political Poems," vol. i. p. 172.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_603_603" id="Footnote_603_603"></a><a href="#FNanchor_603_603"><span class="label">[603]</span></a> "The Bruce, or the book of the most excellent and noble
+Prince Robert de Broyss, King of Scots," <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_604_604" id="Footnote_604_604"></a><a href="#FNanchor_604_604"><span class="label">[604]</span></a> "The incidents on which the ensuing novel mainly turns
+are derived from the ancient metrical chronicle of the Bruce by
+Archdeacon Barbour, and from," &amp;c. "Castle Dangerous,"
+Introduction.&mdash;"The authorities used are chiefly those ... of Archdeacon
+Barbour...." "Lord of the Isles," Advertisement to the first edition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_605_605" id="Footnote_605_605"></a><a href="#FNanchor_605_605"><span class="label">[605]</span></a> Book vii. line 483.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_606_606" id="Footnote_606_606"></a><a href="#FNanchor_606_606"><span class="label">[606]</span></a> Book xvi. line 270.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_607_607" id="Footnote_607_607"></a><a href="#FNanchor_607_607"><span class="label">[607]</span></a> Book i. line 235.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_608_608" id="Footnote_608_608"></a><a href="#FNanchor_608_608"><span class="label">[608]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Et si jeo n'ai de Fran&ccedil;ois la faconde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pardonetz moi qe jeo de ce forsvoie;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jeo suis Englois.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Balades and other Poems by John Gower," London, Roxburghe Club, 1818
+4to, <i>in fine</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_609_609" id="Footnote_609_609"></a><a href="#FNanchor_609_609"><span class="label">[609]</span></a> Book v. st. 266.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_610_610" id="Footnote_610_610"></a><a href="#FNanchor_610_610"><span class="label">[610]</span></a> "Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, London, 1857, 3 vols,
+8vo. vol. iii. p. 374.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_611_611" id="Footnote_611_611"></a><a href="#FNanchor_611_611"><span class="label">[611]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_612_612" id="Footnote_612_612"></a><a href="#FNanchor_612_612"><span class="label">[612]</span></a> "Primus liber, gallico sermone editus in decem dividitur
+partes et tractans de viciis et virtutibus necnon de variis hujus seculi
+gradibus viam, qua peccator 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&aelig;val literature, which were
+called "bibles." See for example "La Bible Guiot de Provins":
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dou si&egrave;cle puant et orrible<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">M'estuet commencier une bible.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"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 M&eacute;on, "Fabliaux," 1808, vol.
+ii. p. 307.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_613_613" id="Footnote_613_613"></a><a href="#FNanchor_613_613"><span class="label">[613]</span></a> "Balades and other Poems," Roxburghe Club, 1818, 4to.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_614_614" id="Footnote_614_614"></a><a href="#FNanchor_614_614"><span class="label">[614]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Jeo ris en plour et en sant&eacute; languis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ars en gel&eacute;e et en chalour fr&eacute;mis.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Ballad ix. No passage in Petrarch has been oftener imitated. Villon
+wrote:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Je meurs de soif aupr&egrave;s de la fontaine ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Je ris en pleurs et attens sans espoir, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_615_615" id="Footnote_615_615"></a><a href="#FNanchor_615_615"><span class="label">[615]</span></a> "Les balades d'amour jesqes enci sont fait especialement
+pour ceaux q'attendont lours amours par droite mariage. Les balades
+d'ici jesqes au fin du livere sont universeles &agrave; tout le monde selonc
+les propert&eacute;s et les condicions des amants qui sont diversement
+travailez en la fortune d'amour."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_616_616" id="Footnote_616_616"></a><a href="#FNanchor_616_616"><span class="label">[616]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Cam&eacute;lion c'est une beste fi&egrave;re<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui vit tansoulement de l'air sanz plus;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ensi pour dire en mesme la mani&egrave;re,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">De soule espoir qe j'ai d'amour con&ccedil;uz<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sont mes pensers en vie sustenuz.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Ballad xvi; what a chameleon is, was thus explained in a Vocabulary of
+the fifteenth century: "Hic gamelion, animal varii coloris et sola aere
+vivit&mdash;<i>a buttyrfle</i>" (Th. Wright, "Vocabularies," 1857, 4to, p, 220).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_617_617" id="Footnote_617_617"></a><a href="#FNanchor_617_617"><span class="label">[617]</span></a> "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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_618_618" id="Footnote_618_618"></a><a href="#FNanchor_618_618"><span class="label">[618]</span></a> P. 31. He jeers at the vulgarity of their names:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hudde ferit, quos Judde terit, dum Cobbe minatur ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hogge suam pompam vibrat, dum se putat omni<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Majorem Rege nobilitate fore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Balle propheta docet, quem spiritus ante malignus<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Edocuit ...<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 50.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+The famous John Ball is here referred to, the apostle of the revolt, who
+died quartered. See below, p. 413.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_619_619" id="Footnote_619_619"></a><a href="#FNanchor_619_619"><span class="label">[619]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Est sibi crassus equus, restatque scientia macra ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ad latus et cornu sufflans gerit, unde redundant<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mons, nemus, unde lepus visa pericla fugit....<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Clamor in ore canum, dum vociferantur in unum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Est sibi campana psallitur unde Deo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stat sibi missa brevis devotio longaque campis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Quo sibi cantores deputat esse canes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 176.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_620_620" id="Footnote_620_620"></a><a href="#FNanchor_620_620"><span class="label">[620]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Conficit ex vitris gemma oculo pretiosas.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 275.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_621_621" id="Footnote_621_621"></a><a href="#FNanchor_621_621"><span class="label">[621]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rex es, regina satis est, tibi sufficit una.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(p. 316.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_622_622" id="Footnote_622_622"></a><a href="#FNanchor_622_622"><span class="label">[622]</span></a> "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, 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 p&egrave;re &agrave; son fils," thirteenth century, a
+series of tales in verse, told by the father to castigate and edify the
+son, text in Barbazan and M&eacute;on, "Fabliaux," Paris, 1808, 4 vols. 8vo,
+vol. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_623_623" id="Footnote_623_623"></a><a href="#FNanchor_623_623"><span class="label">[623]</span></a> "Confessio," Pauli's ed., p. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_624_624" id="Footnote_624_624"></a><a href="#FNanchor_624_624"><span class="label">[624]</span></a> 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,
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A boke for Englondes sake,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+he had written:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A boke for King Richardes sake.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_625_625" id="Footnote_625_625"></a><a href="#FNanchor_625_625"><span class="label">[625]</span></a> Vol. i. pp. 89 ff. In Chaucer, the story is told by the
+Wife of Bath.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_626_626" id="Footnote_626_626"></a><a href="#FNanchor_626_626"><span class="label">[626]</span></a> Beginning of Book i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_627_627" id="Footnote_627_627"></a><a href="#FNanchor_627_627"><span class="label">[627]</span></a> Already had been seen in the "Roman":
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Comment Nature la d&eacute;esse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A son pr&ecirc;tre se confesse ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"G&eacute;nius, dit-elle, beau pr&ecirc;tre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">D'une folie que j'ai faite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A vous m'en vuel faire confesse;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+and under pretence of confessing herself, she explains the various
+systems of the universe at great length.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_628_628" id="Footnote_628_628"></a><a href="#FNanchor_628_628"><span class="label">[628]</span></a> In Mrs. Egerton, 1991, fol. 7, in the British Museum,
+reproduced in my "Piers Plowman," p. 11.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER IV.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>WILLIAM LANGLAND AND HIS VISIONS.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Scandinavians. 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 "Canterbury 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> Langland
+is without comparison the greatest poet after Chaucer in the medi&aelig;val
+literature of England.<a name="FNanchor_629_629" id="FNanchor_629_629"></a><a href="#Footnote_629_629" class="fnanchor">[629]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>His Visions have been preserved for us in a considerable 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&mdash;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,
+desultory, 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 medi&aelig;val 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.</p>
+
+<p>Allusions to events of the day which abound in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>poem enable us to
+date it. Three principal versions exist,<a name="FNanchor_630_630" id="FNanchor_630_630"></a><a href="#Footnote_630_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a> without counting several
+intermediate remodellings; the first contains twelve cantos or <i>passus</i>,
+the second twenty, the third twenty-three; their probable dates are
+1362-3, 1376-7, and 1398-9.<a name="FNanchor_631_631" id="FNanchor_631_631"></a><a href="#Footnote_631_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 childhood 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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>existed at Malvern, and there in all likelihood Langland first studied.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 Ymagynatyf, 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;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> at others, it is a strange beast, fit only to dwell among the
+stone foliage of a cathedral cornice.</p>
+
+<p>He knows French and Latin; he has some tincture of the classics; he
+would like to know everything:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alle the sciences under sonne &middot; and alle the sotyle craftes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wolde I knewe and couth &middot; kyndely in myne herte!<a name="FNanchor_632_632" id="FNanchor_632_632"></a><a href="#Footnote_632_632" class="fnanchor">[632]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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, Clergye says most appropriately, one of those
+who want to know but hate to study:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The wer lef to lerne &middot; but loth for to stodie.<a name="FNanchor_633_633" id="FNanchor_633_633"></a><a href="#Footnote_633_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Even in early youth his mind seems to lack balance; being as yet a boy,
+he is already a soul in trouble.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_634_634" id="FNanchor_634_634"></a><a href="#Footnote_634_634" class="fnanchor">[634]</a> 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 livelihood, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>he went to
+London, and tried to earn his daily bread by means of it, of "that
+labour" which he had "lerned best."<a name="FNanchor_635_635" id="FNanchor_635_635"></a><a href="#Footnote_635_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous semi-religious and slightly remunerative 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
+sometimes began, their good works at that hour. They endeavoured 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 "<i>chantries</i>." 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>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 <i>Placebos</i> and <i>Diriges</i>. The word
+"dirge" has passed into the English language, and is derived from the
+latter.</p>
+
+<p>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; <i>Placebo</i> and <i>Dirige</i> became
+his <i>tools</i>:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lomes that ich laboure with &middot; and lyflode deserve.<a name="FNanchor_636_636" id="FNanchor_636_636"></a><a href="#Footnote_636_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_637_637" id="FNanchor_637_637"></a><a href="#Footnote_637_637" class="fnanchor">[637]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_638_638" id="FNanchor_638_638"></a><a href="#Footnote_638_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 elucidate,
+but, on the contrary, only darkens them:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The more I muse there-inne &middot; the mistier it seemeth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the depper I devyne &middot; the darker me it thinketh.<a name="FNanchor_639_639" id="FNanchor_639_639"></a><a href="#Footnote_639_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>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&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A robbere was yraunceouned &middot; rather than thei alle!<a name="FNanchor_640_640" id="FNanchor_640_640"></a><a href="#Footnote_640_640" class="fnanchor">[640]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Percen with a <i>pater noster</i> &middot; the paleys of hevene!<a name="FNanchor_641_641" id="FNanchor_641_641"></a><a href="#Footnote_641_641" class="fnanchor">[641]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>What was the end of that life? No one knows. Some indications tend to
+show that in his later years he left <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>London, where he had led his
+troubled life to return to the Western country.<a name="FNanchor_642_642" id="FNanchor_642_642"></a><a href="#Footnote_642_642" class="fnanchor">[642]</a> 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."</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Al the welthe of this worlde &middot; and the woo bothe;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and, in an immense plain, a "feld ful of folke," he notices the bustle
+and movements of mankind,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Of alle maner of men &middot; the mene and the riche.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mankind is represented by typical specimens of all sorts: knights,
+monks, parsons, workmen singing French songs, cooks crying: Hot pies!
+"Hote pyes, hote!" pardoners, 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 Canterbury. This crowd has likewise a
+pilgrimage to make, not, however, on the sunny high-road that leads from
+Southwark 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 contains "Wronge." Holy-Church points out how
+mankind ought to live, and teaches kings and knights their duties with
+regard to Truth.</p>
+
+<p>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 celebrated map of the Tendre. Opposition is made to the marriage,
+and the whole wedding party starts for Westminster, where the cause is
+to be determined; friends, relations, bystanders; on foot, on horseback,
+and in carriages; a singular procession!</p>
+
+<p>The king, notified of the coming of this <i>cort&egrave;ge</i>, publicly declares he
+will deal justice to the knaves, and the procession 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 apprentice, and make him wait on their
+customers. "Lyer" has at first hard work to find shelter; he hides in
+the obscure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> holes of the alleys, "lorkynge thorw lanes"; no door opens,
+his felonies are too notorious. At last, the pardoners "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.<a name="FNanchor_643_643" id="FNanchor_643_643"></a><a href="#Footnote_643_643" class="fnanchor">[643]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 willing; she is always
+willing.</p>
+
+<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_644_644" id="FNanchor_644_644"></a><a href="#Footnote_644_644" class="fnanchor">[644]</a></p>
+
+<p>Enough, says the king; I can stand you no longer; you must both serve
+me:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Kisse hir," quod the kynge &middot; "Conscience, I hote (bid)."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"Nay bi Criste!"<a name="FNanchor_645_645" id="FNanchor_645_645"></a><a href="#Footnote_645_645" class="fnanchor">[645]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_646_646" id="FNanchor_646_646"></a><a href="#Footnote_646_646" class="fnanchor">[646]</a> scarcely a
+practical name for everyday life; another personage, Evan the Welshman,
+rejoices in a name six lines long.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 confession of England in the time of the Plantagenets.<a name="FNanchor_647_647" id="FNanchor_647_647"></a><a href="#Footnote_647_647" class="fnanchor">[647]</a></p>
+
+<p>That the conversion may be a lasting one, Truth must be sought after.
+Piers Plowman appears, a mystic personage, a variable emblem, that here
+simply represents the man of "good will," and elsewhere stands for
+Christ himself. He teaches the way; gates must be entered, castles
+encountered, and the Ten Commandments will be passed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And ye lovely ladyes &middot; with youre longe fyngres.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 talkative, 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 Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>The vision rises and fades away; another vision and another pilgrimage
+commence, and occupy all the remainder 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
+intermingled with these sermons: visions of the arrival of Christ in
+Jerusalem, and of the Passion; visions of hell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">By thousands, Angel on Archangel rolled.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_648_648" id="FNanchor_648_648"></a><a href="#Footnote_648_648" class="fnanchor">[648]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Lerne to love," quod Kynde &middot; "and leve of alle othre."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>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 sympathise with the most diverse specimens of
+humanity, has drawn an immortal picture of medi&aelig;val England. In certain
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>respects, however, the description is incomplete, and one must borrow
+from Langland some finishing touches.</p>
+
+<p>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 singleness 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 <i>ensemble</i>, the nation.</p>
+
+<p>The active and actual passions of the multitude, the subterranean lavas
+which simmer beneath a brittle crust of good order and regular
+administration, all the latent possibilities 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.</p>
+
+<p>Langland thus shows us what we find in none of his contemporaries:
+crowds, groups, classes, living and individualised; 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">Knyghthod hym ladde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might of the comunes &middot; made hym to regne.<a name="FNanchor_649_649" id="FNanchor_649_649"></a><a href="#Footnote_649_649" class="fnanchor">[649]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In condicioun," quod Conscience, &middot; "that thow konne defende<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rule thi rewme in resoun &middot; right wel, and in treuth."<a name="FNanchor_650_650" id="FNanchor_650_650"></a><a href="#Footnote_650_650" class="fnanchor">[650]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The deposition of Richard, accused of having stated, nearly in the same
+terms, "that he dictated from his lips the laws of his kingdom,"<a name="FNanchor_651_651" id="FNanchor_651_651"></a><a href="#Footnote_651_651" class="fnanchor">[651]</a>
+and the fall of the Stuarts, are contained, so to say, in these almost
+prophetic words.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>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 Br&eacute;tigny, he hopes the Crusades may not recommence. He is above
+all <i>insular</i>. Like the Commons he recognises the religious authority of
+the Pope, but protests against the Pope's encroachments, and against the
+interference of the sovereign-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 Parliament towards what they do not hesitate to term the
+sinful town of Avignon: "la peccherouse cit&eacute; d'Avenon."<a name="FNanchor_652_652" id="FNanchor_652_652"></a><a href="#Footnote_652_652" class="fnanchor">[652]</a> He is
+indignant with the bishops, masters, and doctors that allow themselves
+to become domesticated, and:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... serven as servantz &middot; lordes and ladyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in stede of stuwardes &middot; sytten and demen.<a name="FNanchor_653_653" id="FNanchor_653_653"></a><a href="#Footnote_653_653" class="fnanchor">[653]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>they "hadden leve to lye al here lyf after."<a name="FNanchor_654_654" id="FNanchor_654_654"></a><a href="#Footnote_654_654" class="fnanchor">[654]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 between 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>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</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">be souht &middot; ther poure syke lyggen (he)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In prisons and in poore cotes?<a name="FNanchor_655_655" id="FNanchor_655_655"></a><a href="#Footnote_655_655" class="fnanchor">[655]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>They seek St. James in Spain, and St. James is at their gates; they
+elbow him each day, and they recognise him not.</p>
+
+<p>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 disinterestedness, 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.</p>
+
+<p>Around him the idle sleep, the careless sing; they pretend 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>the
+legende of lif" must take life seriously.<a name="FNanchor_656_656" id="FNanchor_656_656"></a><a href="#Footnote_656_656" class="fnanchor">[656]</a> 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, without 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 careless, 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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Je marchais un jour &agrave; pas lents<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dans un bois, sur une bruy&egrave;re;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Au pied d'un arbre vint s'asseoir<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Un jeune homme v&ecirc;tu de noir<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui me ressemblait comme un fr&egrave;re ...<a name="FNanchor_657_657" id="FNanchor_657_657"></a><a href="#Footnote_657_657" class="fnanchor">[657]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Filled with a similar feeling, the wandering dreamer had met, five
+hundred years before, in a "wilde wildernesse <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>and bi a wode-syde," a
+"moche man" who looked like himself; who knew him and called him by
+name:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And thus I went wide-where &middot; walkyng myne one (alone),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By a wilde wildernesse &middot; and bi a wode-syde ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And under a lynde uppon a launde &middot; lened I a stounde ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A moche man, as me thoughte &middot; and lyke to my-selve<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come and called me &middot; by my kynde name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"What artow," quod I tho (then) &middot; "that thow my name knowest?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"That thow wost wel," quod he &middot; "and no wyghte bettere."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Wote I what thow art?" &middot; "Thought," seyde he thanne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I have suwed (followed) the this sevene yere &middot; sey thow me no rather (sooner)?"<a name="FNanchor_658_658" id="FNanchor_658_658"></a><a href="#Footnote_658_658" class="fnanchor">[658]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"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 arranged, 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 dispensed
+with in his poem as at the opera: a whistle of the scene-shifter&mdash;an
+"and thanne" of the poet&mdash;the palace of heaven fades away, and we find
+ourselves in a smoky tavern in Cornhill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 flowering lindens; now they are storm-clouds,
+threatening destruction 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 uppermost summits of the realm of thought, and there will
+remain in our hands a flickering rushlight that can at most help us
+upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>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 unconquerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> 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 medi&aelig;val 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!</p>
+
+<p>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 constantly 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> 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 unworthy 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.</p>
+
+<p>No need to say whether he is then master of his words, and able to
+measure them. With him, in such cases, no <i>nuances</i> or extenuations are
+admissible; you are with or against Fals-Semblant; there is no middle
+way; a compromise 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He is worse than Judas &middot; that giveth a japer silver.<a name="FNanchor_659_659" id="FNanchor_659_659"></a><a href="#Footnote_659_659" class="fnanchor">[659]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If we allege that there may be some shade of exaggeration in such a
+sentence, he will shrug his shoulders. The doubt is not possible, he
+thinks, and his plain proposition is self-evident.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 disappears 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_660_660" id="FNanchor_660_660"></a><a href="#Footnote_660_660" class="fnanchor">[660]</a> 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!"<a name="FNanchor_661_661" id="FNanchor_661_661"></a><a href="#Footnote_661_661" class="fnanchor">[661]</a></p>
+
+<p>The truth is that there was a tender heart under the rough and rugged
+exterior of the impassioned, indignant, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>suffering poet; and thus he was
+able to sum up his life's ideal in this beautiful motto: <i>Disce, Doce,
+Dilige</i>; in these words will be found the true interpretation of Dowel,
+Dobet, and Dobest: "Learn, Teach, Love."<a name="FNanchor_662_662" id="FNanchor_662_662"></a><a href="#Footnote_662_662" class="fnanchor">[662]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 into 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 will 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&mdash;raise such magnificent houses.<a name="FNanchor_663_663" id="FNanchor_663_663"></a><a href="#Footnote_663_663" class="fnanchor">[663]</a> In other
+parts he uses realistic terms, noisy, ill-favoured expressions, which it
+is impossible to quote.</p>
+
+<p>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 accusation 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_664_664" id="FNanchor_664_664"></a><a href="#Footnote_664_664" class="fnanchor">[664]</a></p>
+
+<p>While their author continued to live obscure and unknown, 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.<a name="FNanchor_665_665" id="FNanchor_665_665"></a><a href="#Footnote_665_665" class="fnanchor">[665]</a> 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, "Complayntes" of the Plowman, &amp;c. Piers'
+credit was made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>use of at the time of the Reformation, and in his name
+were demanded the suppression of abuses and the transformation 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.</p>
+
+<p>Chaucer and Langland, the two great poets of the period, represent
+excellently 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 for 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_629_629" id="Footnote_629_629"></a><a href="#FNanchor_629_629"><span class="label">[629]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_630_630" id="Footnote_630_630"></a><a href="#FNanchor_630_630"><span class="label">[630]</span></a> Mr. Skeat has given two excellent editions of these three
+texts (called texts A. B. and C.): I&ordm; "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&ordm; "The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, in three
+parallel texts, together with Richard the Redeless," Oxford (Clarendon
+Press), 1886, 2 vols. 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_631_631" id="Footnote_631_631"></a><a href="#FNanchor_631_631"><span class="label">[631]</span></a> The reasons in favour of these dates are given in "Piers
+Plowman, a contribution to the history of English Mysticism," chap, ii.,
+and in a paper I published in the <i>Revue Critique</i>, 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 1398 or shortly after.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_632_632" id="Footnote_632_632"></a><a href="#FNanchor_632_632"><span class="label">[632]</span></a> B. xv. 48.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_633_633" id="Footnote_633_633"></a><a href="#FNanchor_633_633"><span class="label">[633]</span></a> A. xii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_634_634" id="Footnote_634_634"></a><a href="#FNanchor_634_634"><span class="label">[634]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Concupiscencia carnis</i> &middot; colled me aboute the nekke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And seyde, "Thou art yonge and yepe &middot; and hast yeres yn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forto lyve longe &middot; and ladyes to lovye.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in this myroure thow myghte se &middot; myrthes ful manye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That leden the wil to lykynge &middot; al thi lyf-tyme."<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The secounde seide the same &middot; "I shal suwe thi wille;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Til thow be a lorde and have londe." (B. xi. 16.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_635_635" id="Footnote_635_635"></a><a href="#FNanchor_635_635"><span class="label">[635]</span></a> C. vi. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_636_636" id="Footnote_636_636"></a><a href="#FNanchor_636_636"><span class="label">[636]</span></a> C. vi. 45.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_637_637" id="Footnote_637_637"></a><a href="#FNanchor_637_637"><span class="label">[637]</span></a> On which see W. S. Simpson, "St. Paul's Cathedral and old
+City life," London, 1894, 8vo, 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. <i>Ibid.</i>, p.
+99.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_638_638" id="Footnote_638_638"></a><a href="#FNanchor_638_638"><span class="label">[638]</span></a> C. beginning of passus vi.; B. beginning of passus xv.:
+"My witte wex and wanyed til I a fole were."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_639_639" id="Footnote_639_639"></a><a href="#FNanchor_639_639"><span class="label">[639]</span></a> B. x. 181.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_640_640" id="Footnote_640_640"></a><a href="#FNanchor_640_640"><span class="label">[640]</span></a> B. x. 420.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_641_641" id="Footnote_641_641"></a><a href="#FNanchor_641_641"><span class="label">[641]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... None sonner saved &middot; ne sadder of bileve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than plowmen and pastoures &middot; and pore comune laboreres.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Souteres and shepherdes &middot; suche lewed jottes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Percen with a <i>pater-noster</i> &middot; the paleys of hevene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And passen purgatorie penaunceles &middot; at her hennes-partynge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In-to the blisse of paradys &middot; for her pure byleve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That inparfitly here &middot; knewe and eke lyved. (B. x. 458.)<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And thow medlest with makynges &middot; and myghtest go sey thi sauter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bidde for hem that giveth the bred &middot; for there ar bokes ynowe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To telle men what Dowel is.... (B. xii. 16.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_642_642" id="Footnote_642_642"></a><a href="#FNanchor_642_642"><span class="label">[642]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_643_643" id="Footnote_643_643"></a><a href="#FNanchor_643_643"><span class="label">[643]</span></a> C. iii. 211 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_644_644" id="Footnote_644_644"></a><a href="#FNanchor_644_644"><span class="label">[644]</span></a> B. iii. 328.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_645_645" id="Footnote_645_645"></a><a href="#FNanchor_645_645"><span class="label">[645]</span></a> B. iv. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_646_646" id="Footnote_646_646"></a><a href="#FNanchor_646_646"><span class="label">[646]</span></a> Daughter of Piers Plowman:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hus douhter hihte Do-ryght-so- &middot; other-thy-damme-shal-the-bete.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">(C. ix. 81.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_647_647" id="Footnote_647_647"></a><a href="#FNanchor_647_647"><span class="label">[647]</span></a> See in particular Gloton's confession, with a wonderfully
+realistic description of an English tavern, C. vii. 350.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_648_648" id="Footnote_648_648"></a><a href="#FNanchor_648_648"><span class="label">[648]</span></a> "Paradise Lost," canto vi. 601; invention of guns, 470.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_649_649" id="Footnote_649_649"></a><a href="#FNanchor_649_649"><span class="label">[649]</span></a> B. Prol. 112.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_650_650" id="Footnote_650_650"></a><a href="#FNanchor_650_650"><span class="label">[650]</span></a> B. xix. 474.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_651_651" id="Footnote_651_651"></a><a href="#FNanchor_651_651"><span class="label">[651]</span></a> "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 419. See above, p.
+253.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_652_652" id="Footnote_652_652"></a><a href="#FNanchor_652_652"><span class="label">[652]</span></a> Good Parliament of 1376.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_653_653" id="Footnote_653_653"></a><a href="#FNanchor_653_653"><span class="label">[653]</span></a> B. Prol. 95.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_654_654" id="Footnote_654_654"></a><a href="#FNanchor_654_654"><span class="label">[654]</span></a> B. Prol. 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_655_655" id="Footnote_655_655"></a><a href="#FNanchor_655_655"><span class="label">[655]</span></a> B. Prol. 46; xii. 37; v. 57; C. v. 122.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_656_656" id="Footnote_656_656"></a><a href="#FNanchor_656_656"><span class="label">[656]</span></a> B. vi. 71; C. ix. 122.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_657_657" id="Footnote_657_657"></a><a href="#FNanchor_657_657"><span class="label">[657]</span></a> Musset, "Nuit de D&eacute;cembre."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_658_658" id="Footnote_658_658"></a><a href="#FNanchor_658_658"><span class="label">[658]</span></a> B. viii. 62.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_659_659" id="Footnote_659_659"></a><a href="#FNanchor_659_659"><span class="label">[659]</span></a> B. ix. 90.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_660_660" id="Footnote_660_660"></a><a href="#FNanchor_660_660"><span class="label">[660]</span></a> B. xi. 114.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_661_661" id="Footnote_661_661"></a><a href="#FNanchor_661_661"><span class="label">[661]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But I loked what lyflode it was: that Pacience so preysed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thanne was it a pece of the <i>Pater noster</i> &middot; "<i>Fiat voluntas tua</i>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+B. xiv. 47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_662_662" id="Footnote_662_662"></a><a href="#FNanchor_662_662"><span class="label">[662]</span></a> B. xiii. 137.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_663_663" id="Footnote_663_663"></a><a href="#FNanchor_663_663"><span class="label">[663]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thei timbrede not so hye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(A. iii. 76.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_664_664" id="Footnote_664_664"></a><a href="#FNanchor_664_664"><span class="label">[664]</span></a> 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:"
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I <i>sh</i>&oacute;pe me in <i>sh</i>ro&uacute;des &middot; as I a <i>sh</i>&eacute;pe w&eacute;re.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+(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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_665_665" id="Footnote_665_665"></a><a href="#FNanchor_665_665"><span class="label">[665]</span></a> Walsingham, "Historia Anglicana," vol. ii. p. 33. Rolls.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER V.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>PROSE.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>One thing however remains, and cannot be blotted out: namely, the book
+of travels bearing the name of Mandeville<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> the translation of which is
+one of the best and oldest specimens of simple and flowing English
+prose.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>The same phenomenon already pointed out in connection 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 monuments 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 of 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 Moli&egrave;re's Monsieur Jourdain "de la
+prose sans le savoir."</p>
+
+<p>At the epoch at which we have arrived, and owing to the renovation and
+new beginnings occasioned by the Conquest, 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 speaking 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>In England nothing so far resembles this scarcely perceptible 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,<a name="FNanchor_666_666" id="FNanchor_666_666"></a><a href="#Footnote_666_666" class="fnanchor">[666]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_667_667" id="FNanchor_667_667"></a><a href="#Footnote_667_667" class="fnanchor">[667]</a> and goes back to his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>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
+Angli&aelig;,"<a name="FNanchor_668_668" id="FNanchor_668_668"></a><a href="#Footnote_668_668" class="fnanchor">[668]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_669_669" id="FNanchor_669_669"></a><a href="#Footnote_669_669" class="fnanchor">[669]</a> and the scientific encyclop&aelig;dia,
+"De Proprietatibus Rerum,"<a name="FNanchor_670_670" id="FNanchor_670_670"></a><a href="#Footnote_670_670" class="fnanchor">[670]</a> of Bartholomew 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.</p>
+
+<p>The English translation of the Travels of Mandeville enjoyed still
+greater popularity. This translation is an anonymous one.<a name="FNanchor_671_671" id="FNanchor_671_671"></a><a href="#Footnote_671_671" class="fnanchor">[671]</a> It has
+been found out to-day that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>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 Li&egrave;ge 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.<a name="FNanchor_672_672" id="FNanchor_672_672"></a><a href="#Footnote_672_672" class="fnanchor">[672]</a> John seems to have
+invented the character of Mandeville as Swift invented Gulliver, and
+Defoe Robinson Crusoe. Now that his imposture is discovered, 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); elsewhere 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_673_673" id="FNanchor_673_673"></a><a href="#Footnote_673_673" class="fnanchor">[673]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nothing, indeed, is more cleverly persuasive than the manner in which
+Jean de Bourgogne introduces his hero. He is an honest man, somewhat
+na&iuml;ve 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 narrative for want of memory or for
+any cause, they will be able to check and correct me: for things seen
+long ago, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>may be forgotten, and man's memory cannot embrace and keep
+everything."<a name="FNanchor_674_674" id="FNanchor_674_674"></a><a href="#Footnote_674_674" class="fnanchor">[674]</a></p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_675_675" id="FNanchor_675_675"></a><a href="#Footnote_675_675" class="fnanchor">[675]</a>
+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 &agrave; 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>(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.</p>
+
+<p>In the Middle Ages the English were already passionately 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 compatriots could not fail therefore greatly to please them; they
+delighted in Mandeville's book; it was speedily translated,<a name="FNanchor_676_676" id="FNanchor_676_676"></a><a href="#Footnote_676_676" class="fnanchor">[676]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_677_677" id="FNanchor_677_677"></a><a href="#Footnote_677_677" class="fnanchor">[677]</a></p>
+
+<p>Various scientific and religious treatises were also written <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>in prose;
+those of Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole, count amongst the oldest and
+most remarkable.<a name="FNanchor_678_678" id="FNanchor_678_678"></a><a href="#Footnote_678_678" class="fnanchor">[678]</a> 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 Melibeus,
+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-shaken with sodein light, and smyteth with his bemes in
+mervelinge eyen."<a name="FNanchor_679_679" id="FNanchor_679_679"></a><a href="#Footnote_679_679" class="fnanchor">[679]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But right as whan the sonne shyneth brighte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In march that chaungeth ofte tyme his face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that a cloud is put with wind to flighte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which over-sprat the sonne as for a space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A cloudy thought gan thorugh hir soule pace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That over-spradde hir brighte thoughtes alle.<a name="FNanchor_680_680" id="FNanchor_680_680"></a><a href="#Footnote_680_680" class="fnanchor">[680]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>Under a different form, however, prose progressed in England during the
+course of the fourteenth century. This form is the oratorical.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+sometimes 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 innumerable 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."<a name="FNanchor_681_681" id="FNanchor_681_681"></a><a href="#Footnote_681_681" class="fnanchor">[681]</a></p>
+
+<p>Many eloquent speeches were delivered at this time, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_682_682" id="FNanchor_682_682"></a><a href="#Footnote_682_682" class="fnanchor">[682]</a></p>
+
+<p>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. Moreover, some of
+the buildings where these scenes took place still exist to-day.<a name="FNanchor_683_683" id="FNanchor_683_683"></a><a href="#Footnote_683_683" class="fnanchor">[683]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>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 woodwork of which was replaced by Richard II., and
+that has been lately cleared of its cumbrous additions.<a name="FNanchor_684_684" id="FNanchor_684_684"></a><a href="#Footnote_684_684" class="fnanchor">[684]</a> 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 proclamation 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.<a name="FNanchor_685_685" id="FNanchor_685_685"></a><a href="#Footnote_685_685" class="fnanchor">[685]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_686_686" id="FNanchor_686_686"></a><a href="#Footnote_686_686" class="fnanchor">[686]</a> Another day is then fixed upon for the solemn
+opening of the business.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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 Parliament 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: <i>Libenter suffertis insipientes cum
+sitis ipsi sapientes.</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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: <i>Quos diligo castigo</i>, which
+proves that God him loves, and that he is blessed of God." The king is
+to be a "vessel of grace," <i>vas electionis</i>.<a name="FNanchor_687_687" id="FNanchor_687_687"></a><a href="#Footnote_687_687" class="fnanchor">[687]</a> The Chancellor
+continues thus at length, heedless of the fact that the return of Alice
+Perrers to the old king belies his Biblical applications.</p>
+
+<p>Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>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.:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Rex tuus venit tibi.</i>&mdash;Lords and Gentlemen, the words which I have
+spoken signify in French: Your king comes to thee.&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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: "<i>Et exultavit infans in utero ejus.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_688_688" id="FNanchor_688_688"></a><a href="#Footnote_688_688" class="fnanchor">[688]</a></p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, all did not lose themselves in such flowery mazes. William
+Thorpe, William of Shareshull, William of Wykeham, John Knyvet, &amp;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 <i>us</i>, which they do, but
+are hard pressed by the enemy. If they protect us, we must help them."</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>you well know how, in the last Parliament, the
+king, <i>with your consent</i>, again took the title of King of
+France...."<a name="FNanchor_689_689" id="FNanchor_689_689"></a><a href="#Footnote_689_689" class="fnanchor">[689]</a></p>
+
+<p>These speeches being heard, and the "receivers" and "triers" of
+petitions having been appointed,<a name="FNanchor_690_690" id="FNanchor_690_690"></a><a href="#Footnote_690_690" class="fnanchor">[690]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_691_691" id="FNanchor_691_691"></a><a href="#Footnote_691_691" class="fnanchor">[691]</a> that beautiful Chapter
+House still in existence, which had been built under Henry III.</p>
+
+<p>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
+concessions 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."<a name="FNanchor_692_692" id="FNanchor_692_692"></a><a href="#Footnote_692_692" class="fnanchor">[692]</a> The
+discussions are long <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_693_693" id="FNanchor_693_693"></a><a href="#Footnote_693_693" class="fnanchor">[693]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_694_694" id="FNanchor_694_694"></a><a href="#Footnote_694_694" class="fnanchor">[694]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_695_695" id="FNanchor_695_695"></a><a href="#Footnote_695_695" class="fnanchor">[695]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_696_696" id="FNanchor_696_696"></a><a href="#Footnote_696_696" class="fnanchor">[696]</a> this cause
+being lack of money.</p>
+
+<p>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'Engleterre en cest
+Parlement."<a name="FNanchor_697_697" id="FNanchor_697_697"></a><a href="#Footnote_697_697" class="fnanchor">[697]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>boldness of the answers and of the
+remonstrances is extraordinary, 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.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable case is that of the Good Parliament 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
+mistress, 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.<a name="FNanchor_698_698" id="FNanchor_698_698"></a><a href="#Footnote_698_698" class="fnanchor">[698]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>
+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 remembered that God has
+committed his flock to the care of our Holy Father the Pope, that they
+might be fed and not shorn."<a name="FNanchor_699_699" id="FNanchor_699_699"></a><a href="#Footnote_699_699" class="fnanchor">[699]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_700_700" id="FNanchor_700_700"></a><a href="#Footnote_700_700" class="fnanchor">[700]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>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 Westminster. From 1363,<a name="FNanchor_701_701" id="FNanchor_701_701"></a><a href="#Footnote_701_701" class="fnanchor">[701]</a> 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 himself 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 Temporel, and alle the
+Astates of the lond."<a name="FNanchor_702_702" id="FNanchor_702_702"></a><a href="#Footnote_702_702" class="fnanchor">[702]</a> There is no more memorable sign of the
+changes that had taken place than <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>All these translators were necessarily wanting in originality (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.</p>
+
+<p>Wyclif belonged to the rich and respected family of the Wyclifs, lords
+of the manor of Wyclif, in Yorkshire.<a name="FNanchor_703_703" id="FNanchor_703_703"></a><a href="#Footnote_703_703" class="fnanchor">[703]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>He was hardly thirty-five when, the college of Balliol at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>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 recognised, and Wyclif was asked to draw up a pamphlet
+justifying the decision.<a name="FNanchor_704_704" id="FNanchor_704_704"></a><a href="#Footnote_704_704" class="fnanchor">[704]</a> In 1374 a diplomatic mission was entrusted
+to him, and he went to Bruges, with several other "ambassatores," to
+negotiate with the Pope's representatives.<a name="FNanchor_705_705" id="FNanchor_705_705"></a><a href="#Footnote_705_705" class="fnanchor">[705]</a> He then had the title of
+doctor of divinity.</p>
+
+<p>Various provincial livings were successively bestowed upon him: that of
+Fillingham in 1361; that of Ludgarshall 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 excessive 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span>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 indescribable 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.<a name="FNanchor_706_706" id="FNanchor_706_706"></a><a href="#Footnote_706_706" class="fnanchor">[706]</a>
+The summoning of Wyclif thus had no result.</p>
+
+<p>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 solidarity
+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.<a name="FNanchor_707_707" id="FNanchor_707_707"></a><a href="#Footnote_707_707" class="fnanchor">[707]</a></p>
+
+<p>He is found, therefore, in London in the beginning of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>1378; the bishops are assembled in the still existing chapel of Lambeth
+Palace. But by one of those singularities 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 condemn
+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.<a name="FNanchor_708_708" id="FNanchor_708_708"></a><a href="#Footnote_708_708" class="fnanchor">[708]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>town,
+in certain habits under dissimulation of great holiness, without license
+of our Holy Father the Pope, or of the ordinary of the diocese."<a name="FNanchor_709_709" id="FNanchor_709_709"></a><a href="#Footnote_709_709" class="fnanchor">[709]</a>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_710_710" id="FNanchor_710_710"></a><a href="#Footnote_710_710" class="fnanchor">[710]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 condemned 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 <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;</i>; 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 Ecclesi&aelig;, confusio vulgi, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>h&aelig;reticorum idolum,
+hypocritarum speculum, schismatis incentor, odii seminator, mendacii
+fabricator"<a name="FNanchor_711_711" id="FNanchor_711_711"></a><a href="#Footnote_711_711" class="fnanchor">[711]</a>: 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
+Marmaduke Tunstall, on the strength of his reputed descent."<a name="FNanchor_712_712" id="FNanchor_712_712"></a><a href="#Footnote_712_712" class="fnanchor">[712]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>Wyclif had begun early to write, using at first only Latin.<a name="FNanchor_713_713" id="FNanchor_713_713"></a><a href="#Footnote_713_713" class="fnanchor">[713]</a>
+Innumerable treatises of his exist, many of which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_714_714" id="FNanchor_714_714"></a><a href="#Footnote_714_714" class="fnanchor">[714]</a> He obviously attracted the notice of
+his contemporaries, not by the elegance of his style, but by the power
+of his thought.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 from 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.</p>
+
+<p>His starting-point was as humble and abstract as his conclusions were,
+some of them, bold and practical. A superhuman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span>ideal had been proposed
+by St. Francis to his disciples; 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 influence 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?</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_715_715" id="FNanchor_715_715"></a><a href="#Footnote_715_715" class="fnanchor">[715]</a></p>
+
+<p>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, domination, 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.</p>
+
+<p>The theory of "Dominium," adopted and popularised by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_716_716" id="FNanchor_716_716"></a><a href="#Footnote_716_716" class="fnanchor">[716]</a> 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 communia"<a name="FNanchor_717_717" id="FNanchor_717_717"></a><a href="#Footnote_717_717" class="fnanchor">[717]</a>; wives
+should be alone excepted.&mdash;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.<a name="FNanchor_718_718" id="FNanchor_718_718"></a><a href="#Footnote_718_718" class="fnanchor">[718]</a>&mdash;Royalty is not the best form
+of government; an aristocratic system is better, similar to that of the
+Judges in Israel.<a name="FNanchor_719_719" id="FNanchor_719_719"></a><a href="#Footnote_719_719" class="fnanchor">[719]</a>&mdash;Neither heirship nor popular election is
+sufficient <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span>for the transmission of the crown; grace is needed
+besides.<a name="FNanchor_720_720" id="FNanchor_720_720"></a><a href="#Footnote_720_720" class="fnanchor">[720]</a>&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_721_721" id="FNanchor_721_721"></a><a href="#Footnote_721_721" class="fnanchor">[721]</a>&mdash;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 it.<a name="FNanchor_722_722" id="FNanchor_722_722"></a><a href="#Footnote_722_722" class="fnanchor">[722]</a></p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>de facto</i>, 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."<a name="FNanchor_723_723" id="FNanchor_723_723"></a><a href="#Footnote_723_723" class="fnanchor">[723]</a> But the dissatisfied only adopted the first part of the
+theory, and instead of submitting to Simon Sudbury, their archbishop, of
+whom they disapproved, they cut off his head.</p>
+
+<p>These were certainly extreme and exceptional consequences, to which
+Wyclif only contributed in a slight <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_724_724" id="FNanchor_724_724"></a><a href="#Footnote_724_724" class="fnanchor">[724]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">V.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_725_725" id="FNanchor_725_725"></a><a href="#Footnote_725_725" class="fnanchor">[725]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span>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 complete one in French, written in the thirteenth
+century,<a name="FNanchor_726_726" id="FNanchor_726_726"></a><a href="#Footnote_726_726" class="fnanchor">[726]</a> 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 translated 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.<a name="FNanchor_727_727" id="FNanchor_727_727"></a><a href="#Footnote_727_727" class="fnanchor">[727]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span>complete, of Wyclif's 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.<a name="FNanchor_728_728" id="FNanchor_728_728"></a><a href="#Footnote_728_728" class="fnanchor">[728]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>But Wyclif's 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 impassioned 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 workable 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."<a name="FNanchor_729_729" id="FNanchor_729_729"></a><a href="#Footnote_729_729" class="fnanchor">[729]</a> How should popes be above kings?
+"Thus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span>shulden popis be suget to kynges, for thus weren bothe Crist and
+Petre."<a name="FNanchor_730_730" id="FNanchor_730_730"></a><a href="#Footnote_730_730" class="fnanchor">[730]</a> 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 rewarded
+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."<a name="FNanchor_731_731" id="FNanchor_731_731"></a><a href="#Footnote_731_731" class="fnanchor">[731]</a></p>
+
+<p>Next to these brief arguments are familiar jests, gravely uttered, with
+scarcely any perceptible change in the expression 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."<a name="FNanchor_732_732" id="FNanchor_732_732"></a><a href="#Footnote_732_732" class="fnanchor">[732]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to follow him in all the places where he would fain lead
+us. He terrified the century by the boldness 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.<a name="FNanchor_733_733" id="FNanchor_733_733"></a><a href="#Footnote_733_733" class="fnanchor">[733]</a> He did not,
+however, carry his doubt to the extreme end; according to his doctrine
+the <i>substance</i> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_734_734" id="FNanchor_734_734"></a><a href="#Footnote_734_734" class="fnanchor">[734]</a></p>
+
+<p>The other sacraments,<a name="FNanchor_735_735" id="FNanchor_735_735"></a><a href="#Footnote_735_735" class="fnanchor">[735]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_736_736" id="FNanchor_736_736"></a><a href="#Footnote_736_736" class="fnanchor">[736]</a> 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 demands 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span>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, trustworthy gentlemen, who will defend the country; and he does
+not perceive that these riches would have fallen principally into the
+hands of turbulent and grasping courtiers, as happened in the sixteenth
+century.<a name="FNanchor_737_737" id="FNanchor_737_737"></a><a href="#Footnote_737_737" class="fnanchor">[737]</a> He is carried away by his own reasonings, so that the
+Utopian or paradoxical 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."<a name="FNanchor_738_738" id="FNanchor_738_738"></a><a href="#Footnote_738_738" class="fnanchor">[738]</a></p>
+
+<p>His disciples, <i>Lollards</i> as they were usually called, a name the origin
+of which has been much discussed, survived him, and his simple priests
+continued, for a time, to propagate his doctrines. The master's
+principal propositions 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 included
+that of the goldsmiths, and another art of which, however, the Puritans
+were to make a somewhat notorious use, that of the armorers.<a name="FNanchor_739_739" id="FNanchor_739_739"></a><a href="#Footnote_739_739" class="fnanchor">[739]</a></p>
+
+<p>At the University, the followers of Wyclif were numerous; in the country
+they continued to increase until the end of the fourteenth century.
+Energetic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>measures were adopted in the beginning of the fifteenth; the
+statute "De h&aelig;retico 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
+introduced into England.</p>
+
+<p>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, 1415. But the doctrine
+survived; it was adopted with modifications by the Taborites and the
+Moravian Brethren, and borrowed from them by the Waldenses<a name="FNanchor_740_740" id="FNanchor_740_740"></a><a href="#Footnote_740_740" class="fnanchor">[740]</a>; 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.<a name="FNanchor_741_741" id="FNanchor_741_741"></a><a href="#Footnote_741_741" class="fnanchor">[741]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_666_666" id="Footnote_666_666"></a><a href="#FNanchor_666_666"><span class="label">[666]</span></a> "Historia Anglicana," vol. i. pp. 453 ff. By the same:
+"Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani," 3 vols., "Ypodigma Neustri&aelig;,"
+1 vol. ed. Riley, Rolls, 1863, 1876.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_667_667" id="Footnote_667_667"></a><a href="#FNanchor_667_667"><span class="label">[667]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, vol. ii. p. 27. See above, p. 201.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_668_668" id="Footnote_668_668"></a><a href="#FNanchor_668_668"><span class="label">[668]</span></a> "Chronicon Angli&aelig;," 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 of Gaunt, which are not found elsewhere.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_669_669" id="Footnote_669_669"></a><a href="#FNanchor_669_669"><span class="label">[669]</span></a> "Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden ... with the English
+translation of John Trevisa," ed. Babington and Lumby, Rolls, 1865, 8
+vols. 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_670_670" id="Footnote_670_670"></a><a href="#FNanchor_670_670"><span class="label">[670]</span></a> See above, p. 195.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_671_671" id="Footnote_671_671"></a><a href="#FNanchor_671_671"><span class="label">[671]</span></a> "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," by G. F. Warner; Westminster, Roxburghe
+Club, 1889, fol. In the introduction will be found the series of proofs
+establishing the fact that Mandeville never existed; the chain seems now
+complete, owing to a succession of discoveries, those especially of Mr.
+E. B. Nicholson, of the Bodleian, Oxford (<i>Cf.</i> an article of H. Cordier
+in the <i>Revue Critique</i> of Oct. 26, 1891). A critical edition of the
+French text is being prepared by the Soci&eacute;t&eacute; 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_672_672" id="Footnote_672_672"></a><a href="#FNanchor_672_672"><span class="label">[672]</span></a> The church and its dependencies were sold and demolished
+in 1798: "Adjug&eacute;s le 12 niv&ocirc;se an vi., &agrave; la citoyenne &eacute;pouse, J. J.
+Fabry, pour 46,000 francs." Warner, <i>ibid.</i>, p. xxxiii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_673_673" id="Footnote_673_673"></a><a href="#FNanchor_673_673"><span class="label">[673]</span></a> Warner, <i>ibid.</i>, p. v.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_674_674" id="Footnote_674_674"></a><a href="#FNanchor_674_674"><span class="label">[674]</span></a> "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 est&eacute; oultre mer
+sachent et entendent se je dis voir ou non at se je erre en devisant
+pour non souvenance ou autrement que il le puissent adrecier et amender,
+car choses de lonc temps pass&eacute;es par la veue tournent en oubli et
+m&eacute;moire d'omme ne puet tout mie retenir ne comprendre." MS. fr. 5637 in
+the National Library, Paris, fol. 4, fourteenth century.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_675_675" id="Footnote_675_675"></a><a href="#FNanchor_675_675"><span class="label">[675]</span></a> On Odoric and Mandeville, see H. Cordier, "Odoric de
+Pordenone," Paris, 1891, Introduction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_676_676" id="Footnote_676_676"></a><a href="#FNanchor_676_676"><span class="label">[676]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_677_677" id="Footnote_677_677"></a><a href="#FNanchor_677_677"><span class="label">[677]</span></a> 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 beit that I dide none my self, for myn unable
+insuffisance) now I am comen hom (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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_678_678" id="Footnote_678_678"></a><a href="#FNanchor_678_678"><span class="label">[678]</span></a> See above, p. 216.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_679_679" id="Footnote_679_679"></a><a href="#FNanchor_679_679"><span class="label">[679]</span></a> "Boethius," in "Complete Works," vol. ii. p. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_680_680" id="Footnote_680_680"></a><a href="#FNanchor_680_680"><span class="label">[680]</span></a> "Troilus," II. 100. See above, p. 306. <i>Cf.</i> Boece's "De
+Consolatione," Metrum III.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_681_681" id="Footnote_681_681"></a><a href="#FNanchor_681_681"><span class="label">[681]</span></a> "Et ut patesceret totius regni communitati eos non
+respectu avariti&aelig; quicquam facere, proclamari fecerunt sub p&oelig;na
+decollationis, ne quis pr&aelig;sumeret aliquid vel aliqua ibidem reperta ad
+proprios usus servanda contingere, sed ut vasa aurea et argentea, qu&aelig;
+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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_682_682" id="Footnote_682_682"></a><a href="#FNanchor_682_682"><span class="label">[682]</span></a> "Ad le Blakeheth, ubi ducenta millia communium fuere
+simul congregata hujuscemodi sermonem est exorsus:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whann Adam dalfe and Eve span<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who was thanne a gentil man?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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 utique in 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 &aelig;qua
+libertas, par dignitas, similisque potestas." "Chronicon Angli&aelig;," ed.
+Maunde Thompson (Rolls), 1874, 8vo, p. 321; Walsingham, vol. ii. p. 32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_683_683" id="Footnote_683_683"></a><a href="#FNanchor_683_683"><span class="label">[683]</span></a> "Rotuli Parliamentorum, ut et petitiones et placita in
+Parliamento." London, 7 vols. fol. (one volume contains the index).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_684_684" id="Footnote_684_684"></a><a href="#FNanchor_684_684"><span class="label">[684]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_685_685" id="Footnote_685_685"></a><a href="#FNanchor_685_685"><span class="label">[685]</span></a> "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_686_686" id="Footnote_686_686"></a><a href="#FNanchor_686_686"><span class="label">[686]</span></a> Ex. 13 Ed. III., 17 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum,"
+vol. ii. pp. 107, 135.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_687_687" id="Footnote_687_687"></a><a href="#FNanchor_687_687"><span class="label">[687]</span></a> "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 361.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_688_688" id="Footnote_688_688"></a><a href="#FNanchor_688_688"><span class="label">[688]</span></a> "Seigneurs et Sires, ces paroles qe j'ay dist sont tant &agrave;
+due en Franceys, vostre Roi vient &agrave; toy." <i>Ibid.</i>, 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'Angleterre q'est le plus habundant Angle de
+richesse parmy tout le monde, avait est&eacute;e par longe temps mesnez, reulez
+et governez par enfantz et conseil de vefves...." 1399, <i>Ibid.</i>, p.
+415.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_689_689" id="Footnote_689_689"></a><a href="#FNanchor_689_689"><span class="label">[689]</span></a> "Rotuli Parliamentorum." Speech of Knyvet, vol. ii. p.
+316; of Wykeham, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_690_690" id="Footnote_690_690"></a><a href="#FNanchor_690_690"><span class="label">[690]</span></a> 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 &agrave; nostre seigneur le Roi et &agrave; son conseil, les
+mette entre cy et le lundy prochein &agrave; venir.... Et serront assignez de
+receivre les p&eacute;titions ... les sousescritz." <i>Ibid.</i>, vol. ii. p. 135.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_691_691" id="Footnote_691_691"></a><a href="#FNanchor_691_691"><span class="label">[691]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, vol. ii. pp. 136, 163. "Fut dit &agrave; les ditz
+Communes de par le Roy, q'ils se retraiassent par soi &agrave; lour aunciene
+place en la maison du chapitre de l'abbeye de Westm', et y tretassent et
+conseillassent entre eux meismes."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_692_692" id="Footnote_692_692"></a><a href="#FNanchor_692_692"><span class="label">[692]</span></a> Vol. ii. p. 107, second Parliament of 1339.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_693_693" id="Footnote_693_693"></a><a href="#FNanchor_693_693"><span class="label">[693]</span></a> "Ils tret&egrave;rent longement," <i>Ibid.</i>, ii. p. 104.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_694_694" id="Footnote_694_694"></a><a href="#FNanchor_694_694"><span class="label">[694]</span></a> "Sur quele demonstrance il respoundrent q'il voleient
+parler ensemble et treter sur cest bosoigne.... Sur quel bosoigne ceux
+de la Commune demor&egrave;rent de lour respons doner tant qe &agrave; Samedi, le XIX.
+jour de Feverer." <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1339, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 107.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_695_695" id="Footnote_695_695"></a><a href="#FNanchor_695_695"><span class="label">[695]</span></a> "Ils n'osoront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et
+avysez les Communes de lour pais." They promise to do their best to
+persuade their constituents. <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1339; "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol.
+ii. p. 104.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_696_696" id="Footnote_696_696"></a><a href="#FNanchor_696_696"><span class="label">[696]</span></a> "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 Parliament of 1339.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_697_697" id="Footnote_697_697"></a><a href="#FNanchor_697_697"><span class="label">[697]</span></a> 51 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. p. 374.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_698_698" id="Footnote_698_698"></a><a href="#FNanchor_698_698"><span class="label">[698]</span></a> "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 323. This speech
+created a great stir; another analysis of it exists in the "Chronicon
+Angli&aelig;" (written by a monk of St. Albans, the abbot of which, Thomas de
+la Mare, sat in Parliament): "Qu&aelig; omnia ferret &aelig;quanimeter [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, nec regem commodum, nec regnum ex hac
+fructum aliquem percepisse.... Non enim est credible 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. <i>Ibid.</i>, p.
+200.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_699_699" id="Footnote_699_699"></a><a href="#FNanchor_699_699"><span class="label">[699]</span></a> "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. pp. 337 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_700_700" id="Footnote_700_700"></a><a href="#FNanchor_700_700"><span class="label">[700]</span></a> June 25, 1376.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_701_701" id="Footnote_701_701"></a><a href="#FNanchor_701_701"><span class="label">[701]</span></a> 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 ..." &amp;c., vol. ii. p. 283.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_702_702" id="Footnote_702_702"></a><a href="#FNanchor_702_702"><span class="label">[702]</span></a> "Sires, I thank God, and yowe Spirituel and Temporal and
+alle the Astates of the lond; and do yowe to wyte, it es noght my will
+that no man thynk y^t 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 Parliamentary documents are written
+sometimes in French, sometimes in English; French predominates in the
+first half of the century, and English in the second.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_703_703" id="Footnote_703_703"></a><a href="#FNanchor_703_703"><span class="label">[703]</span></a> On Wyclif's family, see "The Birth and Parentage of
+Wyclif," by L. Sergeant, <i>Athen&aelig;um</i>, March 12 and 26, 1892. This
+spelling of his name is the one which appears oftenest in contemporary
+documents. (Note by F. D. Matthew, <i>Academy</i>, June 7, 1884.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_704_704" id="Footnote_704_704"></a><a href="#FNanchor_704_704"><span class="label">[704]</span></a> "Determinatio quedam magistri Johannis Wyclyff de Dominio
+contra unum monachum." The object of this treatise is to show "quod Rex
+potest juste dominari regno Anglic 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_705_705" id="Footnote_705_705"></a><a href="#FNanchor_705_705"><span class="label">[705]</span></a> "Ambassatores, nuncios et procuratores nostros
+speciales." Lewis, <i>ibid.</i>, p. 304.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_706_706" id="Footnote_706_706"></a><a href="#FNanchor_706_706"><span class="label">[706]</span></a> All these details are found in the "Chronicon Angli&aelig;,"
+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.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_707_707" id="Footnote_707_707"></a><a href="#FNanchor_707_707"><span class="label">[707]</span></a> This extreme leniency caused an indignation of which an
+echo is found in Walsingham: "Oxoniense studium generale," he exclaims,
+"quam gravi lapsu a sapienti&aelig; et scienti&aelig; culmine decidisti!... Pudet
+recordationis tant&aelig; impudenti&aelig;, et ideo supersedeo in husjusmodi materia
+immorari, ne materna videar ubera decerpere dentibus, qu&aelig; dare lac,
+potum scienti&aelig;, consuevere." "Historia Anglicana," Rolls, vol. i. p.
+345, year 1378.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_708_708" id="Footnote_708_708"></a><a href="#FNanchor_708_708"><span class="label">[708]</span></a> 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, qu&aelig;situm ab eo, per dominum
+regem Angli&aelig; Ricardum secundum et magnum suum consilium anno regni sui
+primo." The point to be elucidated was the following: "Dubium est utrum
+regnum Angli&aelig; possit legitime, imminente necessitate su&aelig; defensionis,
+thesaurum regni detinere, ne deferatur ad exteros, etiam domino papa sub
+p&oelig;na censurarum et virtute obedienti&aelig; hoc petente."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_709_709" id="Footnote_709_709"></a><a href="#FNanchor_709_709"><span class="label">[709]</span></a> "Statutes of the Realm," 5 Rich. II., st. 2, chap. 5.
+Walsingham thus describes them; "Congregavit ... comites ... talaribes
+indutos vestibus de russeto in signum perfectionis amplioris, incedentes
+nudis pedibus, qui suos errores in populo ventilarent, et palam ac
+publice in suis sermonibus pr&aelig;dicarent." "Historia Anglicana," <i>sub
+anno</i> 1377, Rolls, vol. i. p. 324. A similar description is found (they
+present themselves, "sub magn&aelig; 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_710_710" id="Footnote_710_710"></a><a href="#FNanchor_710_710"><span class="label">[710]</span></a> "Select English Works," ed. T. Arnold, Oxford, 1869, vol.
+i. p. 176.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_711_711" id="Footnote_711_711"></a><a href="#FNanchor_711_711"><span class="label">[711]</span></a> "Historia Anglicana," Rolls, vol. ii. p. 119. Elsewhere,
+in another series of unflattering epithets ("old hypocrite," "angel of
+Satan," &amp;c.), the chronicler had allowed himself the pleasure of making
+a little pun upon Wyclif's name: "Non nominandus Joannes Wicliffe, vel
+potius Wykbeleve." Year 1381 vol. i. p. 450.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_712_712" id="Footnote_712_712"></a><a href="#FNanchor_712_712"><span class="label">[712]</span></a> L. Sergeant, "The Birth and Parentage of Wyclif," in the
+<i>Athen&aelig;um</i> of March 12, 1892.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_713_713" id="Footnote_713_713"></a><a href="#FNanchor_713_713"><span class="label">[713]</span></a> 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; "Joannis 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 pr&aelig;dicamentali," ed. R.
+Beer, 1891; "De Eucharistia tractatus maior; accedit tractatus de
+Eucharistia et P&oelig;nitentia," ed. Loserth and Matthew, 1892. Many
+others are in preparation.
+</p><p>
+Among the Latin works published outside of the Society, see "Tractatus
+de officio pastorali," ed. Lechler, Leipzig, 1863, 8vo; "Trialogus cum
+supplemento Trialogi," ed. Lechler, Oxford, 1869, 8vo; "De Christo et
+suo Adversario 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, "Wycliffe Exhibition in the King's
+Library," London, 1884, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_714_714" id="Footnote_714_714"></a><a href="#FNanchor_714_714"><span class="label">[714]</span></a> R. Lane Poole, "Wycliffe and Movements for Reform,"
+London, 1889, 8vo, p. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_715_715" id="Footnote_715_715"></a><a href="#FNanchor_715_715"><span class="label">[715]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_716_716" id="Footnote_716_716"></a><a href="#FNanchor_716_716"><span class="label">[716]</span></a> "Quilibet existens in gratia gratificante, finaliter
+nedum habet jus, sed in re habet omnia bona Dei." "De Dominio Civili,"
+chap. i. p. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_717_717" id="Footnote_717_717"></a><a href="#FNanchor_717_717"><span class="label">[717]</span></a> "De Dominio Civili," chap. xiv. p. 96, chap. xvii. pp.
+118-120.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_718_718" id="Footnote_718_718"></a><a href="#FNanchor_718_718"><span class="label">[718]</span></a> "Vel esset lex superaddita in lege evangelica implicata,
+vel impertinens, vel repugnans." "De Dominio Civili," chap. xvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_719_719" id="Footnote_719_719"></a><a href="#FNanchor_719_719"><span class="label">[719]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_720_720" id="Footnote_720_720"></a><a href="#FNanchor_720_720"><span class="label">[720]</span></a> Chap. xxx. p. 212.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_721_721" id="Footnote_721_721"></a><a href="#FNanchor_721_721"><span class="label">[721]</span></a> Chap. xxxv. p. 250.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_722_722" id="Footnote_722_722"></a><a href="#FNanchor_722_722"><span class="label">[722]</span></a> Chap. xxxvii. p. 266.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_723_723" id="Footnote_723_723"></a><a href="#FNanchor_723_723"><span class="label">[723]</span></a> A conclusion pointed out as heretical by the archbishop
+of Canterbury in his letter of 1382. "Fasciculi," p. 278.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_724_724" id="Footnote_724_724"></a><a href="#FNanchor_724_724"><span class="label">[724]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_725_725" id="Footnote_725_725"></a><a href="#FNanchor_725_725"><span class="label">[725]</span></a> 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 unprinted," 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_726_726" id="Footnote_726_726"></a><a href="#FNanchor_726_726"><span class="label">[726]</span></a> S. Berger, "La Bible fran&ccedil;aise au moyen &acirc;ge," 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. fran&ccedil;ais de
+Cambridge," in "Romania," 1886, p. 265.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_727_727" id="Footnote_727_727"></a><a href="#FNanchor_727_727"><span class="label">[727]</span></a> "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,
+&amp;c., in the work, see pp. vi, xvi, xvii, xx, xxiv. <i>Cf.</i> 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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_728_728" id="Footnote_728_728"></a><a href="#FNanchor_728_728"><span class="label">[728]</span></a> Labbe, "Sacrorum Conciliorum ... Collectio," vol. xxvi.
+col. 1038.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_729_729" id="Footnote_729_729"></a><a href="#FNanchor_729_729"><span class="label">[729]</span></a> "Select English Works," vol. iii. p. 100.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_730_730" id="Footnote_730_730"></a><a href="#FNanchor_730_730"><span class="label">[730]</span></a> "Select English Works," vol. ii. p. 296.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_731_731" id="Footnote_731_731"></a><a href="#FNanchor_731_731"><span class="label">[731]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, i. p. 189.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_732_732" id="Footnote_732_732"></a><a href="#FNanchor_732_732"><span class="label">[732]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, i. p. 381.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_733_733" id="Footnote_733_733"></a><a href="#FNanchor_733_733"><span class="label">[733]</span></a> His adversaries, perhaps exaggerating his sayings,
+attribute to him declarations 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 Zizaniorum," p. 108.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_734_734" id="Footnote_734_734"></a><a href="#FNanchor_734_734"><span class="label">[734]</span></a> "Ille panis est bene miraculose, vere el realiter,
+spiritualiter, virtualiter et sacramentaliter corpus Christi. Sed grossi
+non contentantur de istis modis, sed exigunt quod panis ille, vel saltem
+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 1381. 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_735_735" id="Footnote_735_735"></a><a href="#FNanchor_735_735"><span class="label">[735]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_736_736" id="Footnote_736_736"></a><a href="#FNanchor_736_736"><span class="label">[736]</span></a> "Doctor in theologia eminentissimus in diebus illis, in
+philosophia nulli reputabatur secundus, in scolasticis disciplinis
+incomparabilis." "Chronica de eventibus Angli&aelig;," <i>sub anno</i> 1382, in
+Twysden, "Decem Scriptores," col. 2644.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_737_737" id="Footnote_737_737"></a><a href="#FNanchor_737_737"><span class="label">[737]</span></a> "Select English Works," vol. iii. pp 216, 217.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_738_738" id="Footnote_738_738"></a><a href="#FNanchor_738_738"><span class="label">[738]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ii. p. 414.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_739_739" id="Footnote_739_739"></a><a href="#FNanchor_739_739"><span class="label">[739]</span></a> Conclusion No. 12. "Henrici de Blandeforde ... Annales,"
+ed. Riley, Rolls, 1866, p. 174.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_740_740" id="Footnote_740_740"></a><a href="#FNanchor_740_740"><span class="label">[740]</span></a> "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. <i>Cf.</i> J. Loserth, "Hus und Wiclif," Leipzig, 1884.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_741_741" id="Footnote_741_741"></a><a href="#FNanchor_741_741"><span class="label">[741]</span></a> 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 B&ouml;hler, who had convinced him, he
+says in his Journal, "of the want of that faith whereby we are saved."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER VI.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>THE STAGE.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In England, as in the rest of Europe, the sources of modern drama were
+of two sorts: there were civil and religious sources.</p>
+
+<p>The desire for amusement and the craving for laughable 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 constantly incurred: and so it is that the
+best information concerning these men is not to be sought for in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span>
+monuments of the gay literature, but rather in pious treatises and in
+the acts of Councils.</p>
+
+<p>Treatises and Councils, however, might to our advantage 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 scandalous 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."<a name="FNanchor_742_742" id="FNanchor_742_742"></a><a href="#Footnote_742_742" class="fnanchor">[742]</a></p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>
+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<a name="FNanchor_743_743" id="FNanchor_743_743"></a><a href="#Footnote_743_743" class="fnanchor">[743]</a>; 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 benches.</p>
+
+<p>Besides their horseplay, jugglers and histrions had, to please their
+audience, retorts, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>repeated them;
+clerks turned them into Latin, and gave them place in their collections
+of <i>exempla</i>. They afforded amusement for a king, an amusement of a
+mixed sort, sometimes:</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Why, says the king, are there no longer any Rolands?&mdash;Because, the
+fool answers, there are no longer any Charlemagnes.<a name="FNanchor_744_744" id="FNanchor_744_744"></a><a href="#Footnote_744_744" class="fnanchor">[744]</a></p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;The name of his father.&mdash;Whom does he belong
+to?&mdash;To his lord.&mdash;How is this river called?&mdash;No need to call it; it
+comes of its own accord.&mdash;Does the jongleur's horse eat
+well?&mdash;"Certainly yes, my sweet good lord, he can eat more oats in a day
+than you would do in a whole week."<a name="FNanchor_745_745" id="FNanchor_745_745"></a><a href="#Footnote_745_745" class="fnanchor">[745]</a></p>
+
+<p>This is a mere sample of an art that lent itself to many uses, and to
+which belonged debates, "estrifs," "disputoisons," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span>"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."<a name="FNanchor_746_746" id="FNanchor_746_746"></a><a href="#Footnote_746_746" class="fnanchor">[746]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_747_747" id="FNanchor_747_747"></a><a href="#Footnote_747_747" class="fnanchor">[747]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_748_748" id="FNanchor_748_748"></a><a href="#Footnote_748_748" class="fnanchor">[748]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A strif will I tellen on,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>says he in his prologue.<a name="FNanchor_749_749" id="FNanchor_749_749"></a><a href="#Footnote_749_749" class="fnanchor">[749]</a></p>
+
+<p>Debates enjoyed great favour in castle halls; impromptu ones which, as
+Cathos and Madelon said, centuries later, "exer&ccedil;aient les esprits de
+l'assembl&eacute;e," were greatly liked; they constituted a sort of society
+game, one of the oldest on record. A person among <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_750_750" id="FNanchor_750_750"></a><a href="#Footnote_750_750" class="fnanchor">[750]</a> By a phenomenon 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.<a name="FNanchor_751_751" id="FNanchor_751_751"></a><a href="#Footnote_751_751" class="fnanchor">[751]</a>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span>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;<a name="FNanchor_752_752" id="FNanchor_752_752"></a><a href="#Footnote_752_752" class="fnanchor">[752]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>On histrionic liberties introduced even into church services, Aelred,
+abbot of Rievaulx in the twelfth century, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span>gives some unexpected
+particulars. He describes the movements and attitudes of certain
+chanters by which they "resembled actors": so that we thus get
+information 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
+inordinate 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."<a name="FNanchor_753_753" id="FNanchor_753_753"></a><a href="#Footnote_753_753" class="fnanchor">[753]</a></p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_754_754" id="FNanchor_754_754"></a><a href="#Footnote_754_754" class="fnanchor">[754]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_755_755" id="FNanchor_755_755"></a><a href="#Footnote_755_755" class="fnanchor">[755]</a> Here is the
+conversation between the young man and the young maid when they meet:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+
+
+<span class="i0"><i>Clericus.</i> Damishel, reste wel.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Puella.</i> Sir, welcum, by Saynt Michel!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Clericus.</i> Wer esty (is thy) sire, wer esty dame?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Puella.</i> By Gode, es noner her at hame.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Clericus.</i> Wel wor suile (such) a man to life</span><br />
+<span class="i4">That suile a may (maid) mihte have to wyfe!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Puella.</i> Do way, by Crist and Leonard....</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Go forth thi way, god sire,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">For her hastu losye al thi wile.</span><br />
+
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>In this way, some time before Chaucer's birth, the lay drama came into
+existence in Shakespeare's country.</p>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_756_756" id="FNanchor_756_756"></a><a href="#Footnote_756_756" class="fnanchor">[756]</a> by
+opposition to the performance of religious dramas.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>prohibitions at once; the day
+for the beast had come, and it challenged the angel in its turn.</p>
+
+<p>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 Innocent
+III. at the beginning of the thirteenth century, to perform "theatrical
+games" in churches. Be this prohibition enforced, says Gregory IX. a
+little later.<a name="FNanchor_757_757" id="FNanchor_757_757"></a><a href="#Footnote_757_757" class="fnanchor">[757]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_758_758" id="FNanchor_758_758"></a><a href="#Footnote_758_758" class="fnanchor">[758]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_759_759" id="FNanchor_759_759"></a><a href="#Footnote_759_759" class="fnanchor">[759]</a> Be it forbidden, the University
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span>of Oxford decrees in the same century, to dance and sing in churches,
+and wear there disguises and wreaths of flowers and leaves.<a name="FNanchor_760_760" id="FNanchor_760_760"></a><a href="#Footnote_760_760" class="fnanchor">[760]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 Everyday 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 infallibility; 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."<a name="FNanchor_761_761" id="FNanchor_761_761"></a><a href="#Footnote_761_761" class="fnanchor">[761]</a> In those bacchanals parodies of the Church prayers were
+introduced; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Letabundus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exultet fidelis chorus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alleluia!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Regem Regum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Intacte perfundit thorus:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Res miranda!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Angelus consilii<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Natus est de Virgine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sol de Stella,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sol occasum nesciens,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stella semper rutilans,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Semper clara.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Or i parra:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La Cerveise nos chantera<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Alleluia!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Qui que en beit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Se tele seit com estre deit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Res miranda!</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bevez quant l'avez en poing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bien est droit, car mout est loing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Sol de Stella</i>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bevez bien et bevez bel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">El vos vendra del tonel<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Semper clara</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"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)."<a name="FNanchor_762_762" id="FNanchor_762_762"></a><a href="#Footnote_762_762" class="fnanchor">[762]</a></p>
+
+<p>So rose from earth at Christmastide, borne on the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span>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 celebrated 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.<a name="FNanchor_763_763" id="FNanchor_763_763"></a><a href="#Footnote_763_763" class="fnanchor">[763]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_764_764" id="FNanchor_764_764"></a><a href="#Footnote_764_764" class="fnanchor">[764]</a> Nuns even were known to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_765_765" id="FNanchor_765_765"></a><a href="#Footnote_765_765" class="fnanchor">[765]</a></p>
+
+<p>The passion for sightseeing, which was then very keen, and which was to
+be fed, later, mainly on theatrical entertainments, was indulged in
+during the Middle Ages in various other ways. Processions were one of
+them; occasions were numerous, and causes for them were not difficult to
+find. Had the <i>Pui</i> of London awarded the crown to the writer of the
+best <i>chanson</i>, 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, including 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.</p>
+
+<p>The town at such times was swept with extraordinary care; even
+"insignificant filth" was removed, Matthew Paris notes with wondering
+pen in 1236.<a name="FNanchor_766_766" id="FNanchor_766_766"></a><a href="#Footnote_766_766" class="fnanchor">[766]</a> The procession 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span>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 C&oelig;ur-de-Lion, fought the
+champion of Islam. At times it was a dumb-show, a sort of <i>tableau
+vivant</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>In 1236, Henry III. of England having married Ali&eacute;nor 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&mdash;<i>sinu suo capace</i>.&mdash;All the town
+was adorned with silk banners, wreaths, hangings, candles and lamps,
+mechanisms and inventions of extraordinary kinds."<a name="FNanchor_767_767" id="FNanchor_767_767"></a><a href="#Footnote_767_767" class="fnanchor">[767]</a></p>
+
+<p>The same town, fond above all others of such exhibitions, and one of the
+last to preserve vestiges of them in her Lord 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.<a name="FNanchor_768_768" id="FNanchor_768_768"></a><a href="#Footnote_768_768" class="fnanchor">[768]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span>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, beautiful 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," <i>sors bona</i>; but there was nothing of Fragonard in him
+except this word: he was a Carmelite and Doctor of Divinity.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Many other examples might be adduced; feasts were numerous, and for a
+time caused pains to be forgotten: "oubliance &eacute;tait au voir," as
+Froissart says so well on an occasion of this sort.<a name="FNanchor_769_769" id="FNanchor_769_769"></a><a href="#Footnote_769_769" class="fnanchor">[769]</a> There were also
+for the people the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span>May celebrations with their dances and songs, the
+impersonation of Robin Hood, later the performance of short plays of
+which he was the hero<a name="FNanchor_770_770" id="FNanchor_770_770"></a><a href="#Footnote_770_770" class="fnanchor">[770]</a>; 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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>While histrions and amusers give a foretaste of farce and comedy in
+castle halls, while romantic drama is foreshadowed 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span>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
+antiphoned 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 <i>chansons</i>, 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; religious drama begins then to have an
+existence of its own.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell us, shepherds, whom do you seek in this stable?&mdash;They will
+answer: 'Christ the Saviour, our Lord.'"<a name="FNanchor_771_771" id="FNanchor_771_771"></a><a href="#Footnote_771_771" class="fnanchor">[771]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 platform, 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 <i>Pax in terris</i>. Two priests of the
+first rank, wearing a dalmatic, will represent the midwives and stand by
+the crib."<a name="FNanchor_772_772" id="FNanchor_772_772"></a><a href="#Footnote_772_772" class="fnanchor">[772]</a></p>
+
+<p>These adventitious ornaments were greatly appreciated, and from year to
+year they were increased and perfected. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span>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 medi&aelig;val 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.</p>
+
+<p>Easter was the occasion for ornaments and additions similar to those
+introduced into the Christmas service.<a name="FNanchor_773_773" id="FNanchor_773_773"></a><a href="#Footnote_773_773" class="fnanchor">[773]</a> 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, representing
+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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>represented at Whitsuntide, on Corpus Christi day, or on the occasion
+of some solemnity or other.</p>
+
+<p>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 Orl&eacute;ans by
+Joan of Arc, &amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_774_774" id="FNanchor_774_774"></a><a href="#Footnote_774_774" class="fnanchor">[774]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+increased considerably; within the first century after Hastings we find
+them numerous and largely attended.</p>
+
+<p>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 paganism by dint of
+their eloquence. The fifty orators received baptism, and were burnt
+alive.<a name="FNanchor_775_775" id="FNanchor_775_775"></a><a href="#Footnote_775_775" class="fnanchor">[775]</a> The representation was managed by a Mancel of good family
+called Geoffrey, whom Richard, abbot of St. Albans, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span>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 quem
+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 1146, after a reign of twenty-six years,<a name="FNanchor_776_776" id="FNanchor_776_776"></a><a href="#Footnote_776_776" class="fnanchor">[776]</a>
+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 Abbey.<a name="FNanchor_777_777" id="FNanchor_777_777"></a><a href="#Footnote_777_777" class="fnanchor">[777]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_778_778" id="FNanchor_778_778"></a><a href="#Footnote_778_778" class="fnanchor">[778]</a> In the following century, under Henry III., some
+were written in the English language.<a name="FNanchor_779_779" id="FNanchor_779_779"></a><a href="#Footnote_779_779" class="fnanchor">[779]</a> During the fourteenth
+century, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>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 may be turned into
+husbands when she wants them. "Hendy Nicholas" quotes 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."</p>
+
+<p>A treatise, written in English at this period, against such
+representations, shows the extreme favour in which they stood with all
+classes of society.<a name="FNanchor_780_780" id="FNanchor_780_780"></a><a href="#Footnote_780_780" class="fnanchor">[780]</a> The enthusiasm was so general and boundless
+that it seems to the author indispensable 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>with hym;" and yet the lord's vengeance cannot be
+considered a trifling one.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_781_781" id="FNanchor_781_781"></a><a href="#Footnote_781_781" class="fnanchor">[781]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_782_782" id="FNanchor_782_782"></a><a href="#Footnote_782_782" class="fnanchor">[782]</a> 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 forsen&eacute;!"<a name="FNanchor_783_783" id="FNanchor_783_783"></a><a href="#Footnote_783_783" class="fnanchor">[783]</a>
+Purely liturgical drama, of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span>course, is permissible (an additional proof
+of its existence in England); certain representations can be held,
+"provided 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."<a name="FNanchor_784_784" id="FNanchor_784_784"></a><a href="#Footnote_784_784" class="fnanchor">[784]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_785_785" id="FNanchor_785_785"></a><a href="#Footnote_785_785" class="fnanchor">[785]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Not a few among these English dramas, so popular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span>in former days, have
+come down to us. Besides separate pieces, histories of saints (very
+scarce in England), or fragments 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 merchants, 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, &amp;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 neighbours!' Hence the keeping up of that play in times
+to come" (year 1389).<a name="FNanchor_786_786" id="FNanchor_786_786"></a><a href="#Footnote_786_786" class="fnanchor">[786]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_787_787" id="FNanchor_787_787"></a><a href="#Footnote_787_787" class="fnanchor">[787]</a> Old Mysteries did not escape the hand of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>improvers, any
+more than old churches, where any one who pleased added paintings,
+porches, and tracery, according to the fashion of the day.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>their very best</i>: 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 discrete 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."<a name="FNanchor_788_788" id="FNanchor_788_788"></a><a href="#Footnote_788_788" class="fnanchor">[788]</a> These texts belong to the fifteenth century,
+but there are older ones; and they show that from the beginning the
+difference between good and bad actors was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span>appreciated and great
+importance was attached to the gestures and delivery. The Mystery of
+"Adam" (in French, the work, 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."<a name="FNanchor_789_789" id="FNanchor_789_789"></a><a href="#Footnote_789_789" class="fnanchor">[789]</a> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Once emerged from the Church, the drama had the whole town in which to
+display itself; and it filled the whole town. On these days the city
+belonged to dramatic art; each company had its cars or scaffolds,
+<i>pageants</i> (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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span>1417 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 performed only
+at one place.</p>
+
+<p>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 y^e 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."<a name="FNanchor_790_790" id="FNanchor_790_790"></a><a href="#Footnote_790_790" class="fnanchor">[790]</a> In some cases the
+scaffolds were not so high, and boards made a communication 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."<a name="FNanchor_791_791" id="FNanchor_791_791"></a><a href="#Footnote_791_791" class="fnanchor">[791]</a></p>
+
+<p>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, shewyng Herowdes in astat, alle the Jewys
+knelyng except Annas and Cayaphas."<a name="FNanchor_792_792" id="FNanchor_792_792"></a><a href="#Footnote_792_792" class="fnanchor">[792]</a> Chaucer speaks of the "scaffold
+hye" on which jolif Absolon played Herod; king Herod in fact was always
+enthroned high above the common rabble.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span>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 supposed 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_793_793" id="FNanchor_793_793"></a><a href="#Footnote_793_793" class="fnanchor">[793]</a> The main
+action takes place on the ground; Apollinia is there, in the middle of
+the executioners. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span>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
+<i>fleurs-de-lys</i>, 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 spectators 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 Moli&egrave;re. "I was on the stage, meaning to
+listen to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> the play ..." says the &Eacute;raste 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>signs</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 represented
+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
+acknowledged, of water) were supposed to be the Mediterranean;
+Marseilles was at one end, and Jaffa at the other. A few minutes did
+duty for months, years, or centuries.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> Herod sends a messenger to
+Tiberius; the tetrarch has scarcely finished his speech when his man is
+already at Rome, 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").</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_794_794" id="FNanchor_794_794"></a><a href="#Footnote_794_794" class="fnanchor">[794]</a> 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 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."<a name="FNanchor_795_795" id="FNanchor_795_795"></a><a href="#Footnote_795_795" class="fnanchor">[795]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_796_796" id="FNanchor_796_796"></a><a href="#Footnote_796_796" class="fnanchor">[796]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_797_797" id="FNanchor_797_797"></a><a href="#Footnote_797_797" class="fnanchor">[797]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_798_798" id="FNanchor_798_798"></a><a href="#Footnote_798_798" class="fnanchor">[798]</a></p>
+
+<p>If painted scenery was greatly neglected, machinery received more
+attention. That characteristic of modern times, yeast through which the
+old world has been transformed, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> it, drew forth lugubrious sounds, which went to the heart of the
+audience.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_799_799" id="FNanchor_799_799"></a><a href="#Footnote_799_799" class="fnanchor">[799]</a> But such splendid inventions were too costly to be
+transferred to the stages for which Shakespeare 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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be thought of so much simplicity, childishness, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span>or dreamt about. Means of realisation were rude, but the public held
+them satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 sometimes 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 Com&eacute;die Fran&ccedil;aise, one of the audience astonished
+his neighbours by crying: "Mais signe donc! Est-elle b&ecirc;te!..." 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:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Diabolus.</i>&mdash;I saw Adam; he is an ass."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Eva.</i>&mdash;He is a little hard."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Diabolus.</i>&mdash;We shall melt him; but at present he is harder than iron."</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_800_800" id="FNanchor_800_800"></a><a href="#Footnote_800_800" class="fnanchor">[800]</a></p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Middle Ages were the age of contrasts; what measure meant was then
+unknown. This has already been noticed <i>&agrave; propos</i> of Chaucer; the
+cleverest <i>compensated</i>, as Chaucer did, their Miller's tales with
+stories of Griselda. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span>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 civilisation, 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 sweetness
+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 cascades 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 packing before his
+journey to Egypt; he will take his tools with him, his "<i>smale</i>
+instrumentes."<a name="FNanchor_801_801" id="FNanchor_801_801"></a><a href="#Footnote_801_801" class="fnanchor">[801]</a> 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 <i>rude</i> 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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
+commendable motive was added a sly pleasure felt in caricaturing 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
+unexpectedly 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").</p>
+
+<p>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
+manuscripts 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 "Confr&egrave;res 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> in the same way
+as any sword would do as an emblem for St. Paul.</p>
+
+<p>One of the duties of these strutting heroes was to maintain 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Be stylle, beshers, I commawnd you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That no man speke a word here now<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Bot I my self alon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if ye do, I make a vow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thys brand abowte youre nekys shalle bow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">For-thy by stylle as ston.<a name="FNanchor_802_802" id="FNanchor_802_802"></a><a href="#Footnote_802_802" class="fnanchor">[802]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Silence! cries Tiberius. Silence! cries Herod:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Styr not bot ye have lefe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For if ye do I clefe<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">You smalle as flesh to pott.<a name="FNanchor_803_803" id="FNanchor_803_803"></a><a href="#Footnote_803_803" class="fnanchor">[803]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Tiberius knows Latin, and does not conceal it from the audience:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Stynt, I say, gyf men place, quia sum dominus dominorum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He that agans me says rapietur lux oculorum.<a name="FNanchor_804_804" id="FNanchor_804_804"></a><a href="#Footnote_804_804" class="fnanchor">[804]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And each of them hereupon moves about his scaffold, and gives the best
+idea he can of the magnitude of his power:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Above all kynges under the cloudys crystall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Royally I reigne in welthe without woo ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am Kyng Herowdes.<a name="FNanchor_805_805" id="FNanchor_805_805"></a><a href="#Footnote_805_805" class="fnanchor">[805]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span>Be it known, says another:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That of heven and hell chyff rewlar am I,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To wos magnyfycens non stondyt egall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I am soveren of al soverens.<a name="FNanchor_806_806" id="FNanchor_806_806"></a><a href="#Footnote_806_806" class="fnanchor">[806]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Make room, says a third:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A-wantt, a-want the, on-worthy wrecchesse!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why lowtt ye nat low to my lawdabyll presens?...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am a sofereyn semely, that ye se butt seyld;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Non swyche onder sonne, the sothe for to say ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am kyng of Marcylle!<a name="FNanchor_807_807" id="FNanchor_807_807"></a><a href="#Footnote_807_807" class="fnanchor">[807]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Boye, their be ladyes many a one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amonge them all chouse thee one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take the faierest, or elles non,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And freely I geve her thee.<a name="FNanchor_808_808" id="FNanchor_808_808"></a><a href="#Footnote_808_808" class="fnanchor">[808]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Every lord bows to my law, observes Tiberius:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Is it nat so? Sey yow all with on showte.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and a note in the manuscript has: "Here answerryt all the pepul at
+ons,'Ya, my lord, ya.'"<a name="FNanchor_809_809" id="FNanchor_809_809"></a><a href="#Footnote_809_809" class="fnanchor">[809]</a> 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."</p>
+
+<p>The authors of English Mysteries had no great experience of Courts; they
+drew their caricatures somewhat haphazard. They were neither very
+learned nor very careful; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+replies, "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?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Soppes in wyne, how love ye?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mary does not resist those proofs of true love, and answers:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As ye dou, so doth me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am ryth glad that met be we;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My love in yow gynnyt to close.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then, "derlyng dere," let us go, says the "galaunt."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i0"><i>Mary.</i> Ewyn at your wyl, my dere derlyng!</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Thow ye wyl go to the woldes eynd,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">I wol never from yow wynd (turn).<a name="FNanchor_810_810" id="FNanchor_810_810"></a><a href="#Footnote_810_810" class="fnanchor">[810]</a></span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span></p>
+<p>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 Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A! worthy lorde, wolde thou take heede,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am full olde and oute of qwarte.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> This she will not do. She meant to go this very day to
+town, and she will:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Doo barnes, goo we and trusse to towne.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I pray the, dame, be stille.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The wife at length gets in, and, as we may believe, stormy days in more
+senses than one are in store for the patriarch.<a name="FNanchor_811_811" id="FNanchor_811_811"></a><a href="#Footnote_811_811" class="fnanchor">[811]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span>range of medi&aelig;val 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,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">what doth this man nowe heare!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poore mens weale is ever in were (doubt),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wotte by this bolsters beare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That tribute I muste paye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for greate age and no power<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wan no good this seven yeaire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nowe comes the kinges messingere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gette all that he maye.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With this axe that I beare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This perscer and this nagere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hamer all in feare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have wonnen my meate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Castill, tower ne manere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had I never in my power;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as a simple carpentere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With these what I mighte gette.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yf I have store nowe anye thing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I must paye unto the kinge.<a name="FNanchor_812_812" id="FNanchor_812_812"></a><a href="#Footnote_812_812" class="fnanchor">[812]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_813_813" id="FNanchor_813_813"></a><a href="#Footnote_813_813" class="fnanchor">[813]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+
+
+<span class="i0"><i>Wife.</i> It were a fowlle blotte to be hanged for the case.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Mak.</i> I have skapyd, Gelott, oft as hard as glase.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Wife.</i> Bot so long goys the pott to the water, men says,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">At last</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Comys it home broken.</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 house; 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:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bot ar ye in this towne to-day?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Now how fare ye?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye have ryn in the myre, and ar weytt yit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shalle make you a fyre, if ye wille syt.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>His offers are coldly received, and the visitors explain what has
+happened.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nowe if you have suspowse, to Gille or to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Com and rype oure howse!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The woman moans more pitifully than ever:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i0"><i>Wife.</i>  Outt, thefys, fro my barne! negh hym not thore.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Mak.</i>   Wyst ye how she had farne, youre hartys wold be sore.</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Ye do wrang, I you warne, that thus commys before</span><br />
+<span class="i4">To a woman that has farne, bot I say no more.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Wife.</i>  A my medylle!</span><br />
+<span class="i4">I pray God so mylde,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">If ever I you begyld,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">That I ete this chylde</span><br />
+<span class="i4">That lyges in this credylle.</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i0"><i>Tertius Pastor.</i> Mak, with youre lefe, let me gyf youre barne</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Bot six pence.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Mak.</i>            Nay, do way, he slepys.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Pastor.</i>         Me thynk he pepys.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Mak.</i>            When he wakyns he wepys;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">I pray you go hence.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Pastor.</i> Gyf me lefe hym to kys, and lyft up the clowth.</span><br />
+<span class="i4">What the deville is this? he has a long snowte!</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> rejuvenated.... Anger disappears, hatreds are effaced, and the
+rough shepherds of England take, with penitent heart, the road to
+Bethlehem.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_814_814" id="FNanchor_814_814"></a><a href="#Footnote_814_814" class="fnanchor">[814]</a>; 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.</p>
+
+<p>In the same period another sort of drama was to flourish, the origin of
+which was as old as the fourteenth century, namely, <i>Moralities</i>. 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, elementary and
+excessive at the same time, and very different from the delicate art in
+favour to-day. Individuals disappeared; they were replaced by
+abstractions, and these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span>abstractions represented only a single quality
+or defect. Sins and virtues fought together and tried to draw mankind 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 allegories 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.<a name="FNanchor_815_815" id="FNanchor_815_815"></a><a href="#Footnote_815_815" class="fnanchor">[815]</a> The names of the
+speakers are inscribed in the margin, as if it were a real play. When he
+admitted into his collection 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, &amp;c.; the same thing happens in the so-called Coventry
+collection.</p>
+
+<p>This sort of drama, for us unendurable, gradually separated 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span>Protestants,
+and the Reformation by Catholics.<a name="FNanchor_816_816" id="FNanchor_816_816"></a><a href="#Footnote_816_816" class="fnanchor">[816]</a> The discovery, then quite new, of
+America was discoursed about, and great regret was expressed at its
+being not due to an Englishman:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O what a thynge had be than,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If they that be Englyshemen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Myght have ben furst of all<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That there shuld have take possessyon!<a name="FNanchor_817_817" id="FNanchor_817_817"></a><a href="#Footnote_817_817" class="fnanchor">[817]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_818_818" id="FNanchor_818_818"></a><a href="#Footnote_818_818" class="fnanchor">[818]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 accordingly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span>entrusted to the best actor.
+Shakespeare had seen Vice still alive, and he commemorated his deeds in
+a song:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">I am gone, sir,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And anon, sir,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll be with you again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In a trice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Like to the old Vice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your need to sustain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who, with dagger of lath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In his rage and his wrath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Cries, ah ha! to the devil.<a name="FNanchor_819_819" id="FNanchor_819_819"></a><a href="#Footnote_819_819" class="fnanchor">[819]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_820_820" id="FNanchor_820_820"></a><a href="#Footnote_820_820" class="fnanchor">[820]</a></p>
+
+<p>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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span>and some representations of them took place even later.<a name="FNanchor_821_821" id="FNanchor_821_821"></a><a href="#Footnote_821_821" class="fnanchor">[821]</a> 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," 1579.<a name="FNanchor_822_822" id="FNanchor_822_822"></a><a href="#Footnote_822_822" class="fnanchor">[822]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 development of the drama. They continued to be
+represented in the sixteenth century, and the Parliament of Paris
+complained in 1542 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 performance of Mysteries was forbidden at Paris; but the cross
+and ladder, emblems of the "Confr&egrave;res de la Passion," continued to be
+seen above the gates of the "H&ocirc;tel de Bourgogne," and the privilege of
+the Confr&egrave;res, which dated three centuries back, was definitely
+abolished in the reign of Louis XIV., in December, 1676.<a name="FNanchor_823_823" id="FNanchor_823_823"></a><a href="#Footnote_823_823" class="fnanchor">[823]</a> Moli&egrave;re
+had then been dead for three years.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>In England, at the date when my Lord Archbishop stopped the
+representation at York,<a name="FNanchor_824_824" id="FNanchor_824_824"></a><a href="#Footnote_824_824" class="fnanchor">[824]</a> 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, "o&ugrave; damn&eacute;s sont boulus,"
+as the poor old mother of Villon says in a ballad of her son's.<a name="FNanchor_825_825" id="FNanchor_825_825"></a><a href="#Footnote_825_825" class="fnanchor">[825]</a></p>
+
+<p>At the date of the York prohibition, William Shakespeare was fifteen.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_742_742" id="Footnote_742_742"></a><a href="#FNanchor_742_742"><span class="label">[742]</span></a> "Nostra &aelig;tas prolapsa ad fabulas et qu&aelig;vis inania, non
+modo sures 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 spectacula 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 &aelig;miliani, gladiatores, pal&aelig;strit&aelig;, gignadii,
+pr&aelig;stigiatores, malefici quoque multi et tota joculatorum scena
+procedit. Quorum adeo error invaluit, ut a pr&aelig;claris domibus non
+arceantur, etiam illi qui obscenis partibus corporis oculis omnium eam
+ingerunt turpitudinem, quam erubescat videre vel cynicus. Quodque magis
+mirere, nec tunc ejiciuntur, quando tumultuantes inferius crebro sonitu
+aerem f&oelig;dant, et turpiter inclusum turpius produnt.... Jucundum
+quidem est et ab honeste non recedit virum probum quandoque modesta
+hilaritate mulcere." "Policraticus," Book i. chap. viii., in "Opera
+Omnia," ed. Giles, Oxford, 1848, vol. iii. p. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_743_743" id="Footnote_743_743"></a><a href="#FNanchor_743_743"><span class="label">[743]</span></a> C., xvi. 205.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_744_744" id="Footnote_744_744"></a><a href="#FNanchor_744_744"><span class="label">[744]</span></a> "De Mimo et Rege Francorum," in Wright, "Latin Stories,"
+1842, No. cxxxvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_745_745" id="Footnote_745_745"></a><a href="#FNanchor_745_745"><span class="label">[745]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Le roi demaund par amour:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ou qy estes vus, sire Joglour?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E il respount sauntz pour:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sire, je su ou mon seignour.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quy est toun seignour? fet le Roy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Le baroun ma dame, par ma foy....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quei est le eve apel&eacute;, par amours?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">L'em ne l'apele pas, eynz vint tous jours.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Concerning the horse:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mange il bien, ce savez dire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O&iuml;l certes, bel douz sire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yl mangereit plus un jour d'aveyne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que vus ne frez pas tote la semeyne.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil g&eacute;n&eacute;ral des Fabliaux," vol. ii. p.
+243.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_746_746" id="Footnote_746_746"></a><a href="#FNanchor_746_746"><span class="label">[746]</span></a> "Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus," in prose, ed. Kemble,
+&AElig;lfric Society, 1848, 8vo. See also the "estrif" between Joseph and Mary
+in "Cynewulf's Christ," ed. Gollancz, 1892, p. 17; above, p. 75.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_747_747" id="Footnote_747_747"></a><a href="#FNanchor_747_747"><span class="label">[747]</span></a> "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. <a href="#Page_228">228</a>); "The Debate of the Carpenter's
+Tools," in Hazlitt, "Remains of the early Popular Poetry of England,"
+1864, 4 vols. 8vo, vol. i. pp. 50, 58, 79.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_748_748" id="Footnote_748_748"></a><a href="#FNanchor_748_748"><span class="label">[748]</span></a> "Anonymi Petroburgensis Descriptio Norfolcensicum" (end
+of the twelfth century); "Norfolchi&aelig; Descriptionis Impugnatio," in Latin
+verse, with some phrases in English, in Th. Wright, "Early Mysteries and
+other Latin Poems of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries," London, 1838,
+8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_749_749" id="Footnote_749_749"></a><a href="#FNanchor_749_749"><span class="label">[749]</span></a> "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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_750_750" id="Footnote_750_750"></a><a href="#FNanchor_750_750"><span class="label">[750]</span></a> This game is described in the (very coarse) fabliau of
+the "Sentier batu" by Jean de Cond&eacute;, fourteenth century:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">De plusieurs deduis s'entremistrent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et tant c'une royne fistrent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pour jouer au Roy qui ne ment.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ele s'en savoit finement<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Entremettre de commander<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et de demandes demander.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil g&eacute;n&eacute;ral des Fabliaux," vol. iii. p.
+248.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_751_751" id="Footnote_751_751"></a><a href="#FNanchor_751_751"><span class="label">[751]</span></a> "Prohibemus etiam clericis ne intersint ludis inhonestis,
+vel choreis, vel ludant ad aleas, vel taxillos; nec sustineant ludos
+fieri de Rege et Regina," &amp;c. "Constitutiones Walteri de Cantilupo,
+Wigorniensis episcopi ... promulgat&aelig; ... <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1240," art. xxxviii., in
+Labbe, "Sacrorum conciliorum ... Collectio," l. xxiii. col. 538.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_752_752" id="Footnote_752_752"></a><a href="#FNanchor_752_752"><span class="label">[752]</span></a> The two sorts are well described by Baudouin de Cond&eacute; in
+his "Contes des Hiraus," thirteenth century. The author meets a servant
+and asks him questions about his master.
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dis-moi, par l'&acirc;me de ton p&egrave;re,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Voit-il volentiers menestreus?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;O&iuml;l voir, biau fr&egrave;re, et estre eus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">En son hostel &agrave; giant solas....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">... Et quant avient<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">C'aucuns grans menestreus l&agrave; vient,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maistres en sa menestrandie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Que bien viele ou ki bien die<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">De bouce, mesires l'ascoute<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Volenticis....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mais peu souvent i vient de teus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mais des f&eacute;lons et des honteus,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+who speak but nonsense and know nothing, and who, however, receive
+bread, meat, and wine,
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... l'un por faire l'ivre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">L'autre le cat, le tiers le sot;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Li quars, ki onques rien ne sot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">D'armes s'en parole et raconte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">De ce preu due, de ce preu conte.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Dits et Contes de Baudouin de Cond&eacute;," ed. Scheler, Brussels, 1866, 3
+vols. 8vo, vol. i. p 154.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_753_753" id="Footnote_753_753"></a><a href="#FNanchor_753_753"><span class="label">[753]</span></a> "Ad quid illa vocis contractio et infractio? Hic
+succinit, ille discinit.... Aliquando, quod pudet dicere, in equinos
+hinnitus cogitur; aliquando virili vigore deposito in femine&aelig; 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 h&aelig;c ridiculosa
+dissolutio vocatur religio!.... Vulgus ... miratur ... sed lascivas
+cantantium gesticulationes, meretricias vocum alternationes et
+infractiones, non sine cachinno risuque intuetur, ut eos non ad
+oratorium sed ad theatrum, nec ad orandum sed ad spectandum &aelig;stimes
+convenisse." "Speculum Chantatis," Book ii. chap. 23, in Migne's
+"Patrologia," vol. cxcv. col. 571.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_754_754" id="Footnote_754_754"></a><a href="#FNanchor_754_754"><span class="label">[754]</span></a> 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
+M&eacute;on, "Fabliaux," vol. ii., included into the "Castoiement d'un p&egrave;re &agrave;
+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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_755_755" id="Footnote_755_755"></a><a href="#FNanchor_755_755"><span class="label">[755]</span></a> Text in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliqui&aelig; Antiqu&aelig;," London,
+1841, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 145. "Hic incipit interludiam de Clerico
+and Puella."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_756_756" id="Footnote_756_756"></a><a href="#FNanchor_756_756"><span class="label">[756]</span></a> "Here bigynnis a tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge," end of
+fourteenth century, in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliqui&aelig; Antiqu&aelig;," vol.
+ii. p. 46. Elsewhere in the same treatise, "to pley in rebaudye" is
+opposed to "pley in myriclis," p. 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_757_757" id="Footnote_757_757"></a><a href="#FNanchor_757_757"><span class="label">[757]</span></a> "Ludi theatrales, etiam pr&aelig;textu 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_758_758" id="Footnote_758_758"></a><a href="#FNanchor_758_758"><span class="label">[758]</span></a> "Constitutiones Walteri de Cantilupo, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1240," in
+Labbe's "Sacrorum Conciliorum ... Collectio," vol. xxiii. col. 526.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_759_759" id="Footnote_759_759"></a><a href="#FNanchor_759_759"><span class="label">[759]</span></a> Wilkins, "Concilia Magn&aelig; Britanni&aelig;," London, 1737, 4
+vols. fol., vol. i. p. 617, Nos. lxxiv., lxxv. The same prohibition is
+made by Walter de Chanteloup, <i>ut supra</i>, art. lv. The custom was a very
+old one, and existed already in Anglo-Saxon times; see "&AElig;lfric's Lives
+of Saints," 1881, E.E.T.S., p. 461.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_760_760" id="Footnote_760_760"></a><a href="#FNanchor_760_760"><span class="label">[760]</span></a> "... Ne quis choreas cum larvis seu strepitu aliquo in
+ecclesiis vel plateis ducat, vel sertatus, vel coronatus corona ex folus
+arborum, vel florum vel aliunde composita, alicubi incedat ...
+prohibemus," thirteenth century, "Munimenta Academica," ed. Anstey,
+Rolls, 1868, p. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_761_761" id="Footnote_761_761"></a><a href="#FNanchor_761_761"><span class="label">[761]</span></a> Decretal of Innocent III., reissued by Gregory IX. "In
+aliquibus anni festivitalibus, qu&aelig; continue natalem Christi sequuntur,
+diaconi, presbyteri ac subdiaconi vicissim insani&aelig; su&aelig; ludibria exercere
+pr&aelig;sumunt, per gesticulationum suarum debacchationes obsc&oelig;nas in
+conspectu populi decus faciunt clericale vilescere, quem potius illo
+tempore verbi Dei deberent pr&aelig;dicatione mulcere." Richter and Friedberg,
+"Corpus Juris Canonici," vol. ii. p. 453.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_762_762" id="Footnote_762_762"></a><a href="#FNanchor_762_762"><span class="label">[762]</span></a> Thirteenth century. See Gaston Paris, "Romania," vol.
+xxi. p. 262. Songs 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 pr&aelig;cipue cantus inhonestos et turpes
+qui libidinem excitant et provocant ... et ymagines imprimunt in mente
+quas expellere difficillimum est. Novi ego, scilicet Gascoigne, doctor
+sacr&aelig; pagin&aelig; qui h&aelig;c 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, 1881, 4to. On the Christmas festivities at the University and on
+the "Rex Natalicius" (sixteenth century and before), see C. R. L.
+Fletcher, "Collectanea," Oxford, 1885, 8vo, p. 39.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_763_763" id="Footnote_763_763"></a><a href="#FNanchor_763_763"><span class="label">[763]</span></a> "Cum domus Dei, testaute propheta Filioque Dei, domus sit
+orationis, nefandum est eam in domum jocationis, scurrilitatis et
+nugacilatis convertere, locumque Deo dicatum diabolicis adinventionibus
+execrare; cumque circumcisio Domini nostri Jesu Christi prima fuerit nec
+modicum acerba ejusdem passio, signum quoque sit circumcisionis
+spiritualis qua cordium pr&aelig;putia tolluntur ... execrabile est
+circumcisionis Domini venerandam solemnitatem libidinosarum voluptatum
+sordibus prophanare: quapropter vobis mandamus in virtute obedienti&aelig;
+firmiter injungentes, quatenus Festum Stultorum cum sit vanitate plenum
+et voluptatibus spurcum, Deo odibile et d&aelig;monibus amabile, ne de c&aelig;tero
+in ecclesia Lincolniensi, die venciand&aelig; solemnitatis circumcisionis
+Domini permittatis fieri." "Epistol&aelig;," ed. Luard, Rolls, 1861, p. 118,
+year 1236(?). Same defence for the whole diocese, p. 161.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_764_764" id="Footnote_764_764"></a><a href="#FNanchor_764_764"><span class="label">[764]</span></a> "Wardrobe Accounts," in "Arch&aelig;ologia," 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_765_765" id="Footnote_765_765"></a><a href="#FNanchor_765_765"><span class="label">[765]</span></a> "Inhibemus ne de cetero in festis Innocentium et Beate
+Marie Magdalene ludibria exerceatis consueta, induendo vos scilicet
+vestis secularium aut inter vos, sed cum secularibus, choreas ducendo,
+nec extra refectorium comedatis," &amp;c. Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen,
+to the nuns of Villarciaux, thirteenth century. "Registrum Visitationum"
+ed. Bonnin, 1842, 4to, p. 44.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_766_766" id="Footnote_766_766"></a><a href="#FNanchor_766_766"><span class="label">[766]</span></a> "Historia Major," Rolls, vol. iii. p. 336.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_767_767" id="Footnote_767_767"></a><a href="#FNanchor_767_767"><span class="label">[767]</span></a> Matthew Paris, <i>ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_768_768" id="Footnote_768_768"></a><a href="#FNanchor_768_768"><span class="label">[768]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_769_769" id="Footnote_769_769"></a><a href="#FNanchor_769_769"><span class="label">[769]</span></a> Entry of Isabeau of Bavaria into Paris, in 1384.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_770_770" id="Footnote_770_770"></a><a href="#FNanchor_770_770"><span class="label">[770]</span></a> On the popularity of Robin Hood in the fourteenth
+century, see above, p. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>. In the fifteenth century he was the hero of
+plays performed during the May festivities: "Rece^d 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 <i>Academy</i>, October
+6, 1883, p. 231.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_771_771" id="Footnote_771_771"></a><a href="#FNanchor_771_771"><span class="label">[771]</span></a> "Quem qu&aelig;ritis in pr&aelig;sepe, pastores? Respondent:
+Salvatorem Christum Dominum." Petit de Julleville, "Histoire du Th&eacute;&acirc;tre
+en France.&mdash;Les Myst&egrave;res," 1880, vol. i. p. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_772_772" id="Footnote_772_772"></a><a href="#FNanchor_772_772"><span class="label">[772]</span></a> Petit de Julleville, <i>ibid.</i>, vol. i. p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_773_773" id="Footnote_773_773"></a><a href="#FNanchor_773_773"><span class="label">[773]</span></a> Same beginning and same gradual development: "Quem
+queritis in sepulchro o Christicole?&mdash;Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum o
+celicole.&mdash;Non est hic, surrexit sicut predixerat; ite nunciate quia
+surrexit. Alleluia." In use at Limoges, eleventh century. "Die
+lateinischen Osterfeiern, untersuchungen &uuml;ber den Ursprung und die
+Entwicklung der liturgisch-dramatischen Auferstehungsfeier," by Carl
+Lange, Munich, 1887, 8vo, p. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_774_774" id="Footnote_774_774"></a><a href="#FNanchor_774_774"><span class="label">[774]</span></a> "Ci comence l'estoire de Griselidis;" MS. fi. 2203, in
+the National Library, Paris, dated 1395, outline drawings (privately
+printed, Paris, 1832, 4to).&mdash;"Le Mist&egrave;re du si&egrave;ge d'Orl&eacute;ans," ed.
+Guessard and Certain, Paris, 1862, 4to (Documents in&eacute;dits).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_775_775" id="Footnote_775_775"></a><a href="#FNanchor_775_775"><span class="label">[775]</span></a> This story was very popular during the Middle Ages, in
+France and in England. It was, <i>e.g.</i>, the subject of a poem in English
+verse, thirteenth century: "The Life of St. Katherine," ed. Einenkel,
+Early English Text Society, 1884, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_776_776" id="Footnote_776_776"></a><a href="#FNanchor_776_776"><span class="label">[776]</span></a> "Vit&aelig; ... viginti trium abbatum Sancti Albani," in
+"Matth&aelig;i Paris monachi Albanensis [Opera]," London, 1639-40, 2 vols.
+fol., vol. ii. p. 56 "Gaufridus decimus sextus [abbas]."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_777_777" id="Footnote_777_777"></a><a href="#FNanchor_777_777"><span class="label">[777]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_778_778" id="Footnote_778_778"></a><a href="#FNanchor_778_778"><span class="label">[778]</span></a> He writes, twelfth century: "Londonia pro spectaculis
+theatralibus, pro ludis scenicis, ludos habet sanctiores,
+representationes miraculorum...." "Descriptio nobilissim&aelig; civitatis
+Londoni&aelig;," printed with Stow's "Survey of London," 1599, 4to</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_779_779" id="Footnote_779_779"></a><a href="#FNanchor_779_779"><span class="label">[779]</span></a> 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 disciple of Ab&eacute;lard, twelfth
+century, who seems to have been an Anglo-Norman; "Hilarii versus et
+Ludi," ed. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1838. A few lines in French are
+mixed with his Latin.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_780_780" id="Footnote_780_780"></a><a href="#FNanchor_780_780"><span class="label">[780]</span></a> "Here bigynnis a tretise of miraclis pleyinge," in Wright
+and Halliwell, "Reliqui&aelig; Antiqu&aelig;," London, 1842, vol. ii. p. 42; end of
+fourteenth century.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_781_781" id="Footnote_781_781"></a><a href="#FNanchor_781_781"><span class="label">[781]</span></a> "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 s&aelig;cularia 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_782_782" id="Footnote_782_782"></a><a href="#FNanchor_782_782"><span class="label">[782]</span></a> "Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne (written <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_783_783" id="Footnote_783_783"></a><a href="#FNanchor_783_783"><span class="label">[783]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Un autre folie apert<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unt les fols clercs controv&eacute;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qe "miracles" sunt apel&eacute;;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lur faces unt la d&eacute;guis&eacute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Par visers, li forsen&eacute;.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_784_784" id="Footnote_784_784"></a><a href="#FNanchor_784_784"><span class="label">[784]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fere poent representement,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mes qe ceo seit chastement<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">En office de seint &eacute;glise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quant hom fet la Deu servise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cum Jesu Crist le fiz Dee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">En sepulcre esteit pos&eacute;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et la resurrectiun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pur plus aver devociun.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_785_785" id="Footnote_785_785"></a><a href="#FNanchor_785_785"><span class="label">[785]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ki en lur jus se d&eacute;litera,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chivals on harneis les aprestera.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vesture ou autre ournement,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sachez il fet folement.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Si vestemens seient dediez,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plus grant d'assez est le pechez;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Si prestre ou clerc les ust prest&eacute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bien dust estre chausti&eacute;.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_786_786" id="Footnote_786_786"></a><a href="#FNanchor_786_786"><span class="label">[786]</span></a> Toulmin Smith, "English Gilds," London, 1870, E.E.T.S.,
+p. 139.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_787_787" id="Footnote_787_787"></a><a href="#FNanchor_787_787"><span class="label">[787]</span></a> The principal monuments of the English religious stage
+are the following: "Chester Plays," ed. Th. Wright, Shakespeare Society,
+1843-7, 2 vols., 8vo (seem to have been adapted from the French, perhaps
+from an Anglo-Norman original, not recovered yet).
+</p><p>
+"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, 4to (illustrated).
+</p><p>
+"Ludus Coventri&aelig;," ed. Halliwell, Shakespeare Society, 1841, 8vo (the
+referring of this collection to the town of Coventry is probably wrong).
+</p><p>
+"Towneley Mysteries" (a collection of plays performed at Woodkirk,
+formerly Widkirk, near Wakefield; see Skeat's note in <i>Athen&aelig;um</i>, Dec.
+3; 1893) ed. Raine, Surtees Society, Newcastle, 1836, 8vo.
+</p><p>
+"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.
+</p><p>
+"The Digby Mysteries," ed. Furnivall, New Shakspere Society, 1882, 8vo.
+</p><p>
+"Play of Abraham and Isaac" (fourteenth century), in the "Boke of Brome,
+a commonplace book of the xvth century," ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith. 1886,
+8vo.&mdash;"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.&mdash;"A Mystery of the Burial of
+Christ"; "A Mystery of the Resurrection": "This is a play to be played
+on part on gudfriday afternone, and the other part opon Esterday
+afternone," in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliqui&aelig; Antiqu&aelig;," 1841-3, vol.
+ii. pp. 124 ff., from a MS. of the beginning of the sixteenth
+century.&mdash;See also "The ancient Cornish Drama," three mysteries in
+Cornish, fifteenth century, ed. Norris, Oxford, 1859, 2 vols. 8vo (with
+a translation).&mdash;For extracts, see A. W. Pollard, "English Miracle
+Plays, Moralities and Interludes," Oxford, 1890, 8vo.
+</p><p>
+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 altenglischen kollektivmisterien," in "Anglia," xi. p. 219, and Ch.
+Davidson, "Studies in the English Mystery Plays, a thesis," Yale
+University, 1892, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_788_788" id="Footnote_788_788"></a><a href="#FNanchor_788_788"><span class="label">[788]</span></a> "York Plays," pp. xxxiv, xxxvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_789_789" id="Footnote_789_789"></a><a href="#FNanchor_789_789"><span class="label">[789]</span></a> This preliminary note is in Latin: "Sit ipse Adam bene
+instructus quando respondere debeat, ne ad respondendum nimis sit velox
+aut nimis tardus, nec solum ipse, sed omnes persone sint. Instruantur ut
+composite loquentur; et gestum faciant convenientem rei de qua
+loquuntur, et, in rithmis nec sillabam addant nec demant, sed omnes
+firmiter pronuncient." "Adam, Myst&egrave;re du XII^e. Si&egrave;cle," ed. Palustre,
+Paris, 1877, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_790_790" id="Footnote_790_790"></a><a href="#FNanchor_790_790"><span class="label">[790]</span></a> "Digby Mysteries," p. xix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_791_791" id="Footnote_791_791"></a><a href="#FNanchor_791_791"><span class="label">[791]</span></a> "The Pageants ... of Coventry," ed. Sharp.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_792_792" id="Footnote_792_792"></a><a href="#FNanchor_792_792"><span class="label">[792]</span></a> [So called] "Coventry Mysteries," Trial of Christ.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_793_793" id="Footnote_793_793"></a><a href="#FNanchor_793_793"><span class="label">[793]</span></a> 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 Myst&egrave;res," by Petit de Julleville, vol. ii. chap,
+xxiii., "Myst&egrave;res 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 vivero 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 pr&aelig;acutos ut sic dentes ejus
+et per tales stipites l&aelig;derent, radices dentium cum forcipe everentur
+radicitus. In illa hora oravit S. Apollinia dicens: 'Domine Jesu
+Christe, precor te ut quicumque diem passionis me&aelig; 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. Apolloni&aelig;," in Bollandus, "Acta Sanctorum," Antwerp, vol.
+ii. p. 280, under the 9th February.
+</p><p>
+See also the miniatures of a later date (sixteenth century) in the MS.
+of the Valenciennes Passion, MS. fi. 15,236 in the National Library, and
+the model made after one of them, exhibited in the Op&eacute;ra Museum, Paris.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_794_794" id="Footnote_794_794"></a><a href="#FNanchor_794_794"><span class="label">[794]</span></a> What the place is&mdash;
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... Vous le povez congnoistre<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Par l'escritel que dessus voyez estre.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Prologue of a play of the Nativity, performed at Rouen, 1474; Petit de
+Julleville, "Les Myst&egrave;res," vol. i. p. 397.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_795_795" id="Footnote_795_795"></a><a href="#FNanchor_795_795"><span class="label">[795]</span></a> "Digby Mysteries," ed. Furnivall, p. 127.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_796_796" id="Footnote_796_796"></a><a href="#FNanchor_796_796"><span class="label">[796]</span></a> "Myst&egrave;re du vieil Testament," Paris, 1542, with curious
+cuts, "pour plus facile intelligence." Many other editions; one modern
+one by Baron J. de Rothschild, Soci&eacute;t&eacute; des Anciens Textes Fran&ccedil;ais, 1878
+ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_797_797" id="Footnote_797_797"></a><a href="#FNanchor_797_797"><span class="label">[797]</span></a> "Chester Plays," ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_798_798" id="Footnote_798_798"></a><a href="#FNanchor_798_798"><span class="label">[798]</span></a> "Adoncques doit Adam couvrir son humanit&eacute;, faignant avoir
+honte. Icy se doit semblablement vergongner la femme et se musser de sa
+main." "Myst&egrave;re du vieil Testament."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_799_799" id="Footnote_799_799"></a><a href="#FNanchor_799_799"><span class="label">[799]</span></a> Reproduced by Mr. R. T. Blomfield, in the <i>Portfolio</i>,
+May, June, July, 1889.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_800_800" id="Footnote_800_800"></a><a href="#FNanchor_800_800"><span class="label">[800]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+
+
+<span class="i0"><i>Diabolus.</i> Jo vis Adam, mais trop est fols.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Eva.</i>      Un poi est durs.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Diabolus.</i>             Il serra mols;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Il est plus durs que n'est un fers ...</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Tu es fieblette et tendre chose,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Et es plus fresche que n'est rose;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Tu es plus blanche que cristal,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Que nief qui chiet sor glace en val.</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Mal cuple en fist le criatur;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Tu es trop tendre et il trop dur ...</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Por &ccedil;o fait bon se treire &agrave; tei;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Parler te voil.</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_801_801" id="Footnote_801_801"></a><a href="#FNanchor_801_801"><span class="label">[801]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All my smale instrumentes is putt in my pakke.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("Digby Mysteries," p. 11.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_802_802" id="Footnote_802_802"></a><a href="#FNanchor_802_802"><span class="label">[802]</span></a> "Towneley Mysteries."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_803_803" id="Footnote_803_803"></a><a href="#FNanchor_803_803"><span class="label">[803]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>&mdash;Magnus Herodes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_804_804" id="Footnote_804_804"></a><a href="#FNanchor_804_804"><span class="label">[804]</span></a> "Towneley Mysteries."&mdash;Processus Talentorum.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_805_805" id="Footnote_805_805"></a><a href="#FNanchor_805_805"><span class="label">[805]</span></a> "Digby Mysteries."&mdash;Candlemas Day, p. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_806_806" id="Footnote_806_806"></a><a href="#FNanchor_806_806"><span class="label">[806]</span></a> "Digby Mysteries."&mdash;Mary Magdalen, p. 55.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_807_807" id="Footnote_807_807"></a><a href="#FNanchor_807_807"><span class="label">[807]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 90.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_808_808" id="Footnote_808_808"></a><a href="#FNanchor_808_808"><span class="label">[808]</span></a> "Chester Plays."&mdash;Salutation and Nativity.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_809_809" id="Footnote_809_809"></a><a href="#FNanchor_809_809"><span class="label">[809]</span></a> "Digby Mysteries," p. 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_810_810" id="Footnote_810_810"></a><a href="#FNanchor_810_810"><span class="label">[810]</span></a> "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 Normandie, insbesondere seine
+Magdalenenlegende," in "Romanische Studien" vol. iv. p. 493; Doncieux,
+"Fragment d'un Miracle de Sainte Madeleine, texte restitu&eacute;," in
+"Romania," 1893, p. 265. There was also a drama in French based on the
+same story: "La Vie de Marie Magdaleine ... Est &agrave; xxii. personages,"
+Lyon, 1605, 12mo (belongs to the fifteenth century).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_811_811" id="Footnote_811_811"></a><a href="#FNanchor_811_811"><span class="label">[811]</span></a> "York Plays," viii., ix. See also, <i>e.g.</i>, as specimens
+of comical scenes, the discussions between the quack and his man in the
+"Play of the Sacrament": "Y^e play of y^e conversyon of ser Jonathas y^e
+Jewe by myracle of y^e 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,
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What dysease or syknesse y^t ever ye have,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wyll never leve yow tylle ye be in your grave.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Ed. Whitley Stokes, Philological Society, Berlin, 1860-61, p. 127
+(fifteenth century).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_812_812" id="Footnote_812_812"></a><a href="#FNanchor_812_812"><span class="label">[812]</span></a> "Chester Plays."&mdash;Salutation and Nativity.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_813_813" id="Footnote_813_813"></a><a href="#FNanchor_813_813"><span class="label">[813]</span></a> "Towneley Mysteries."&mdash;Secunda Pastorum.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_814_814" id="Footnote_814_814"></a><a href="#FNanchor_814_814"><span class="label">[814]</span></a> See, for instance, "Miracles de Nostre Dame par
+personnages," ed. G. Paris and U. Robert, Soci&eacute;t&eacute; des Anciens Textes,
+1876-91, 6 vols. 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_815_815" id="Footnote_815_815"></a><a href="#FNanchor_815_815"><span class="label">[815]</span></a> In M&eacute;on's edition, Paris, 1813, vol. ii. pp. 326 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_816_816" id="Footnote_816_816"></a><a href="#FNanchor_816_816"><span class="label">[816]</span></a> Plays of this kind were written (without speaking of many
+anonyms) by Medwall: "A goodly Enterlude of Nature," 1538, fol.; by
+Skelton, "Magnyfycence," 1531, fol.; by Ingelend, "A pretie Enterlude
+called the Disobedient Child," printed about 1550: by John Bale, "A
+comedye concernynge thie Lawes," London, 1538, 8vo (against the
+Catholics); all of them lived under Henry VIII., &amp;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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_817_817" id="Footnote_817_817"></a><a href="#FNanchor_817_817"><span class="label">[817]</span></a> "Interlude of the four Elements," London, 1510(?), 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_818_818" id="Footnote_818_818"></a><a href="#FNanchor_818_818"><span class="label">[818]</span></a> See, for example, the mournful passages in the
+"Disobedient Child," the "Triall of Treasure," London, 1567, 4to, and
+especially in "Everyman," ed. Goedeke, Hanover, 1865, 8vo, written at
+the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_819_819" id="Footnote_819_819"></a><a href="#FNanchor_819_819"><span class="label">[819]</span></a> Song of the Clown in "Twelfth Night," iv. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_820_820" id="Footnote_820_820"></a><a href="#FNanchor_820_820"><span class="label">[820]</span></a> "Pantagruel," iii. 37.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_821_821" id="Footnote_821_821"></a><a href="#FNanchor_821_821"><span class="label">[821]</span></a> Furnivall, "Digby Mysteries," p. xxvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_822_822" id="Footnote_822_822"></a><a href="#FNanchor_822_822"><span class="label">[822]</span></a> "York Plays," p. xvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_823_823" id="Footnote_823_823"></a><a href="#FNanchor_823_823"><span class="label">[823]</span></a> Petit de Julleville, "Les Myst&egrave;res," 1880, vol. i. pp.
+423 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_824_824" id="Footnote_824_824"></a><a href="#FNanchor_824_824"><span class="label">[824]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_825_825" id="Footnote_825_825"></a><a href="#FNanchor_825_825"><span class="label">[825]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1">CHAPTER VII.</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2"><i>THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>So evident is the decline that even contemporaries perceive 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> like an echo that repeats another echo. Lydgate
+imitates Chaucer, and Stephen Hawes imitates Lydgate.<a name="FNanchor_826_826" id="FNanchor_826_826"></a><a href="#Footnote_826_826" class="fnanchor">[826]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_827_827" id="FNanchor_827_827"></a><a href="#Footnote_827_827" class="fnanchor">[827]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span>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 aristocracy 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 endowments; 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.</p>
+
+<p>How innovate when versifying for a society about to end? Chaucer's
+successors do not innovate; they fasten their work to his works, 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."<a name="FNanchor_828_828" id="FNanchor_828_828"></a><a href="#Footnote_828_828" class="fnanchor">[828]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Lydgate and Hoccleve are the two principal successors of Chaucer.
+Lydgate, a monk of the monastery of Bury St. Edmund's,<a name="FNanchor_829_829" id="FNanchor_829_829"></a><a href="#Footnote_829_829" class="fnanchor">[829]</a> a worthy
+man, it seems, if ever there was one, and industrious, and prolific,
+above all prolific, writes according to established standards, tales,
+lays,<a name="FNanchor_830_830" id="FNanchor_830_830"></a><a href="#Footnote_830_830" class="fnanchor">[830]</a> fabliaux satires,<a name="FNanchor_831_831" id="FNanchor_831_831"></a><a href="#Footnote_831_831" class="fnanchor">[831]</a> romances of chivalry, poetical
+debates, ballads of former times,<a name="FNanchor_832_832" id="FNanchor_832_832"></a><a href="#Footnote_832_832" class="fnanchor">[832]</a> allegories, lives of the saints,
+love poems, fables<a name="FNanchor_833_833" id="FNanchor_833_833"></a><a href="#Footnote_833_833" class="fnanchor">[833]</a>; 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span>counting his longer works.
+Virgil had only written fourteen thousand.</p>
+
+<p>He copies Latin, French, and English models, but especially
+Chaucer,<a name="FNanchor_834_834" id="FNanchor_834_834"></a><a href="#Footnote_834_834" class="fnanchor">[834]</a> he adds his "Story of Thebes"<a name="FNanchor_835_835" id="FNanchor_835_835"></a><a href="#Footnote_835_835" class="fnanchor">[835]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I answerde my name was Lydgate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Monk of Bery, nygh fyfty yere of age.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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"<a name="FNanchor_836_836" id="FNanchor_836_836"></a><a href="#Footnote_836_836" class="fnanchor">[836]</a> is an imitation of the
+"Hous of Fame"; his "Complaint of the Black Knight" resembles the "Book
+of the Duchesse"; his "Falle of Princes"<a name="FNanchor_837_837" id="FNanchor_837_837"></a><a href="#Footnote_837_837" class="fnanchor">[837]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span>uplifted pen to
+yawn at his ease in the face of his reader.<a name="FNanchor_838_838" id="FNanchor_838_838"></a><a href="#Footnote_838_838" class="fnanchor">[838]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_839_839" id="FNanchor_839_839"></a><a href="#Footnote_839_839" class="fnanchor">[839]</a>; a translation of that same "P&eacute;lerinage" of Deguileville,
+which had inspired Langland; a Guy of Warwick<a name="FNanchor_840_840" id="FNanchor_840_840"></a><a href="#Footnote_840_840" class="fnanchor">[840]</a>; 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.<a name="FNanchor_841_841" id="FNanchor_841_841"></a><a href="#Footnote_841_841" class="fnanchor">[841]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The rules of his prosody were rather lax. No one will be surprised at
+it; he could say like Ovid, but for other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I toke none hede nouther of shorte nor longe.<a name="FNanchor_842_842" id="FNanchor_842_842"></a><a href="#Footnote_842_842" class="fnanchor">[842]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But let us not blame him; Chaucer, his good master, would, he assures
+us, have excused his faulty prosody, and what right have we to be more
+severe than Chaucer?<a name="FNanchor_843_843" id="FNanchor_843_843"></a><a href="#Footnote_843_843" class="fnanchor">[843]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>This other poet is a public functionary; he is a clerk of the Privy
+Seal<a name="FNanchor_844_844" id="FNanchor_844_844"></a><a href="#Footnote_844_844" class="fnanchor">[844]</a>; his duties consist in copying documents; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span>an occupation he
+finds at length somewhat tiresome.<a name="FNanchor_845_845" id="FNanchor_845_845"></a><a href="#Footnote_845_845" class="fnanchor">[845]</a> 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
+doubtless held back by a remembrance of officialdom and promotion.<a name="FNanchor_846_846" id="FNanchor_846_846"></a><a href="#Footnote_846_846" class="fnanchor">[846]</a>
+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 acquainted 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 compilation
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_847_847" id="FNanchor_847_847"></a><a href="#Footnote_847_847" class="fnanchor">[847]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">II.</p>
+
+<p>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 imitation 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 comfort 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span>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 destinies; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 kings 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 unwonted 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> resistance, though unarmed; the foe were too numerous, and they
+stretched him dead, pierced with sixteen sword wounds.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_848_848" id="FNanchor_848_848"></a><a href="#Footnote_848_848" class="fnanchor">[848]</a> 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 of "that noble senatoure"
+who had also known great reverses, occupied his thoughts while the night
+hours glided on. The silence is broken by the matin bell:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Bot now, how trowe ye? suich a fantasye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fell me to mynd, that ay me-thoght the bell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said to me: "Tell on, man, quhat the befell."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fairest or the freschest yong floure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ever I sawe.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The maid was so beautiful that all at once his "hert became hir thrall":</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A! suete, are ye a warldly creature,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or hevinly thing in likenesse of nature?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_849_849" id="FNanchor_849_849"></a><a href="#Footnote_849_849" class="fnanchor">[849]</a></p>
+
+<p>Blind Harry, the minstrel, sings the popular hero, William Wallace.<a name="FNanchor_850_850" id="FNanchor_850_850"></a><a href="#Footnote_850_850" class="fnanchor">[850]</a>
+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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span>Blind Harry continues Barbour rather than Chaucer, but Chaucer resumes
+his rights as an ancestor with Henryson and Dunbar. The former<a name="FNanchor_851_851" id="FNanchor_851_851"></a><a href="#Footnote_851_851" class="fnanchor">[851]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I mend the fyre, and beikit (basked) me about,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than tuik ane drink my spreitis to comfort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And armit me weill fra the cold thairout;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To cut the winter nicht and mak it schort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I tuik ane quair and left all uther sport,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Writtin be worthie Chaucer glorious<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of fair Cresseid and worthie Troilus.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A greater pleasure will be taken in his rustic poems, ballads, or
+fables. His "Robene and Makyne" is a "disputoison" 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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Makyne, the nicht is soft and dry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The weddir is warme and fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the grene woid rycht neir us by<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To walk atour (over) all quhair (everywhere);<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thair ma na janglour us espy<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That is to lufe contrair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thairin, Makyne, bath ye and I<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unsene we ma repair.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Another day, Henryson has a dream, after the fashion of the Middle Ages.
+In summer-time, among the flowers, a personage appears to him,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His hude of scarlet, bordowrit weill with silk.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In spite of the dress he is a Roman: "My native land is Rome;" and this
+Roman turns out to be &AElig;sop, "poet laureate;" there is no room for doubt:
+we are in the Middle Ages. &AElig;sop 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.</p>
+
+<p>Henryson takes his time; he observes animals and nature, and departs as
+much as possible from the epigrammatic 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.</p>
+
+<p>The two mice are sisters; the elder, a mouse of importance, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> "burges
+mous" looks on, unable to quite conceal her astonishment. Is it not
+nice? inquires the little sister. Excuse me, replies the other, but:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thir widderit (withered) peis and nuttis, or thay be bord,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will brek my teith and make my wame full sklender....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sister, this victuall and your royal feist<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May well suffice unto ane rurall beist.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Lat be this hole, and cum in-to my place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I sall to yow schaw be experience<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My Gude-fryday is better nor your Pace (Easter).<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And off they trot through the bushes, and through those heathery bogs
+which have by turns charmed and wearied many others besides mice.</p>
+
+<p>They reach the elder sister's. There are delicious provisions, cheese,
+butter, malt, fish, and dishes without number.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">And lordis fair thus couth thay counterfeit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Except ane thing: thay drank the watter cleir<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Instead of wyne; bot yit thay maid gude cheir.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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 <i>spenser</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Luckily, the man was in a hurry; he takes what he came for, and departs.
+The elder mouse creeps out of her hole:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How fair ye sister? cry peip quhair-ever ye be.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Cum to your meit, this perell is overpast.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>With Gavin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld, of the illustrious 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, nevertheless,
+the Chaucerian tradition is continued. Douglas writes a "Palice of
+Honour," imitated from Chaucer.<a name="FNanchor_852_852" id="FNanchor_852_852"></a><a href="#Footnote_852_852" class="fnanchor">[852]</a> Dunbar,<a name="FNanchor_853_853" id="FNanchor_853_853"></a><a href="#Footnote_853_853" class="fnanchor">[853]</a> with never flagging
+spirit, attempts every style; he composes sentimental allegories and
+coarse tales (very coarse indeed), satires, parodies, laments.<a name="FNanchor_854_854" id="FNanchor_854_854"></a><a href="#Footnote_854_854" class="fnanchor">[854]</a> His
+fits of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 imitations 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 perfumes. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt.<a name="FNanchor_855_855" id="FNanchor_855_855"></a><a href="#Footnote_855_855" class="fnanchor">[855]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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," &amp;c.,<a name="FNanchor_856_856" id="FNanchor_856_856"></a><a href="#Footnote_856_856" class="fnanchor">[856]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_857_857" id="FNanchor_857_857"></a><a href="#Footnote_857_857" class="fnanchor">[857]</a> and which have come down stirring and touching; love-songs,
+doleful ditties, the ride of the Percy and the Douglas<a name="FNanchor_858_858" id="FNanchor_858_858"></a><a href="#Footnote_858_858" class="fnanchor">[858]</a> ("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 Henryson 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,"<a name="FNanchor_859_859" id="FNanchor_859_859"></a><a href="#Footnote_859_859" class="fnanchor">[859]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>But apart from the songs the wayfarer hums along the lanes, the works of
+the poets most appreciated at that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span>time, Lydgate, Henryson, Dunbar,
+Stephen Hawes,<a name="FNanchor_860_860" id="FNanchor_860_860"></a><a href="#Footnote_860_860" class="fnanchor">[860]</a> represent 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.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">III.</p>
+
+<p>The end of the feudal world has come, its literature is dying out; but
+at the same time a double revival is preparing. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>bravi</i> 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 development, 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 suspected that one day perhaps there may be chairs for
+everybody. In the course of an examination bearing on thousands of
+documents, Thorold Rogers found but two allusions to the civil
+wars.<a name="FNanchor_861_861" id="FNanchor_861_861"></a><a href="#Footnote_861_861" class="fnanchor">[861]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span>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 <i>Mary Canynge</i> and a <i>Mary and John</i>, which exceed in size
+all that has hitherto been seen. A duke of Bedford is degraded 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.<a name="FNanchor_862_862" id="FNanchor_862_862"></a><a href="#Footnote_862_862" class="fnanchor">[862]</a>
+For the progress is noticeable only by comparison, and, without speaking
+of open wars, brigandage, which is dying out, is not yet quite extinct.</p>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_863_863" id="FNanchor_863_863"></a><a href="#Footnote_863_863" class="fnanchor">[863]</a> is a sign of these
+improvements. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span>The letters of the Paston family are another.<a name="FNanchor_864_864" id="FNanchor_864_864"></a><a href="#Footnote_864_864" class="fnanchor">[864]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 lamentations, 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."<a name="FNanchor_865_865" id="FNanchor_865_865"></a><a href="#Footnote_865_865" class="fnanchor">[865]</a> John Paston, shut in
+the Fleet prison, where he makes the acquaintance of Lord Henry Percy,
+for prisons were then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span>a place where the best society met, sends
+Margaret playful verses to amuse her:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My lord Persy and all this house,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Recommend them to yow, dogge catte and mowse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wysshe ye had be here stille,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they sey ye are a good gille.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_866_866" id="FNanchor_866_866"></a><a href="#Footnote_866_866" class="fnanchor">[866]</a></p>
+
+<p>Books of advice to travellers, itineraries or guides to foreign
+parts,<a name="FNanchor_867_867" id="FNanchor_867_867"></a><a href="#Footnote_867_867" class="fnanchor">[867]</a> vocabularies, dictionaries, and grammars,<a name="FNanchor_868_868" id="FNanchor_868_868"></a><a href="#Footnote_868_868" class="fnanchor">[868]</a> commercial
+guides, the "Libelle of Englyshe Polycye,"<a name="FNanchor_869_869" id="FNanchor_869_869"></a><a href="#Footnote_869_869" class="fnanchor">[869]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span>should be the
+first on the sea, and able to impose "pease by auctorit&eacute;." 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, &amp;c.; he has even information 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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Kepte (keep) than the see about in specialle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whiche of England is the rounde walle;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As thoughe England were lykened to a cit&eacute;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the walle enviroun were the see;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Keep than the see that is the walle of Englond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then is Englond kepte by Goddes sonde.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> prose, a treatise on absolute and limited
+monarchy<a name="FNanchor_870_870" id="FNanchor_870_870"></a><a href="#Footnote_870_870" class="fnanchor">[870]</a>; 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 subsydyes.... 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."</p>
+
+<p>Some people might say that there are a great many thieves in England.
+They are numerous, Fortescue confesses, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_871_871" id="FNanchor_871_871"></a><a href="#Footnote_871_871" class="fnanchor">[871]</a> 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 <i>Punch</i> represents a London
+drunkard carried off by two policemen; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 employs Wyclif's
+irony to defend what Wyclif had attacked; pilgrimages, friars, the
+possessions of the clergy, the statues and paintings in churches.<a name="FNanchor_872_872" id="FNanchor_872_872"></a><a href="#Footnote_872_872" class="fnanchor">[872]</a>
+His forcible eloquence is embittered by sarcasms; he continues a
+tradition, dear to the English race, and one which, constantly renewed,
+will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span>come down to Swift and to the humourists of the eighteenth
+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?<a name="FNanchor_873_873" id="FNanchor_873_873"></a><a href="#Footnote_873_873" class="fnanchor">[873]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 published by Caxton, the first English printer,
+who was also a prose-writer.<a name="FNanchor_874_874" id="FNanchor_874_874"></a><a href="#Footnote_874_874" class="fnanchor">[874]</a> They even write on love; prose now
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span>retaliates upon verse, and trespasses on the domains of poetry.<a name="FNanchor_875_875" id="FNanchor_875_875"></a><a href="#Footnote_875_875" class="fnanchor">[875]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 necessary 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 "Sejanus"; the fear of the pit prevented him;
+he grumbles, but submits.<a name="FNanchor_876_876" id="FNanchor_876_876"></a><a href="#Footnote_876_876" class="fnanchor">[876]</a> The thrift and the toil of the English
+peasant and craftsman in the fifteenth century had thus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span>an unexpected
+influence on literature: they contributed to form an audience for
+Shakespeare.</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>The new times are preparing, in still another manner; the gods are to
+come down from Olympus and dwell once more among men.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Demosthenes.
+Never had the town of Constantine been more Greek than on the eve of its
+destruction.<a name="FNanchor_877_877" id="FNanchor_877_877"></a><a href="#Footnote_877_877" class="fnanchor">[877]</a> The fame of its rhetoricians is spread abroad; men
+come from Italy to hear John Argyropoulos, the Chrysoloras, the famous
+Chrysococc&egrave;s, deacon of St. Sophia and chief Saccellary.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span>Nicopolis and Kossovo. The illustrious towns of the
+Greek world fall one after the other, and the exiled grammarians seek
+shelter with the literate tyrants of Italy, bringing with them their
+manuscripts. Some, like Theodore Gaza, have been driven from
+Thessalonica, and teach at Mantua and at Sienna; others left after the
+fall of Trebizond.</p>
+
+<p>On the throne of the Paleologues sits Constantine XII., Dragass&egrave;s. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+11th 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, contains now only corpses.
+The smoke of an immense fire rises under the sky.</p>
+
+<p>All that could flee exiled themselves; the Greeks flocked to Italy. Out
+of the plundered libraries came a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_826_826" id="Footnote_826_826"></a><a href="#FNanchor_826_826"><span class="label">[826]</span></a> I try, repeatedly says Stephen Hawes,
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To followe the trace and all the perfitnes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of my maister Lydgate.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"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, &amp;c. Hawes lived under Henry VII.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_827_827" id="Footnote_827_827"></a><a href="#FNanchor_827_827"><span class="label">[827]</span></a>
+On the fabliaux introduced into England, see above, p. <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;
+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 his play, "The
+Picture," and Musset with that of "la Quenouille de Barberine."&mdash;On the
+romances of chivalry, see above, pp. <a href="#Page_219">219</a> ff. A great number of rhymed
+versions of these romances are of the fifteenth century.&mdash;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), "Life of St. 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.&mdash;Ex. of chronicles:
+Andrew de Wyntoun, "Orygynal Cronykil of Scotland," finished, about
+1424, ed. Laing, Edinburgh, 1872 ff., 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 pal&aelig;ography, spurious
+charters establishing England's sovereignty over Scotland; those
+charters exist at the Record Office, the fraud was proved by Palgrave.
+All these chronicles are in "rym dogerel."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_828_828" id="Footnote_828_828"></a><a href="#FNanchor_828_828"><span class="label">[828]</span></a> "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," &amp;c. They are found in the Morris edition of Chaucer's
+works. All these poems are of the fifteenth century.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_829_829" id="Footnote_829_829"></a><a href="#FNanchor_829_829"><span class="label">[829]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_830_830" id="Footnote_830_830"></a><a href="#FNanchor_830_830"><span class="label">[830]</span></a> 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_831_831" id="Footnote_831_831"></a><a href="#FNanchor_831_831"><span class="label">[831]</span></a> Ex. his picturesque "London Lickpenny."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_832_832" id="Footnote_832_832"></a><a href="#FNanchor_832_832"><span class="label">[832]</span></a> Same idea as in Villon; refrain:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All stant in chaunge like a mydsomer rose,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Halliwell, "Selections from Lydgate," 1840, p. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_833_833" id="Footnote_833_833"></a><a href="#FNanchor_833_833"><span class="label">[833]</span></a> "Lydgate's &AElig;sop&uuml;bersetzung," ed. Sauerstein; "Anglia,"
+1866, p. 1; eight fables. He excuses himself:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Have me excused, I was born in Lydegate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Tullius gardyn I entrid nat the gate. (p. 2.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_834_834" id="Footnote_834_834"></a><a href="#FNanchor_834_834"><span class="label">[834]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O ye maysters, that cast shal yowre looke<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon this dyt&eacute; made in wordis playne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remembre sothely that I the refreyn tooke<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of hym that was in makyng soverayne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My maister, Chaucier, chief poete of Bretayne.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_835_835" id="Footnote_835_835"></a><a href="#FNanchor_835_835"><span class="label">[835]</span></a> The British Museum possesses a splendid copy of it (Royal
+18 D ii., with miniatures of the time of the Renaissance, see above, p. <a href="#Page_303">303</a>). 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_836_836" id="Footnote_836_836"></a><a href="#FNanchor_836_836"><span class="label">[836]</span></a> "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," ed. J. Schick, 1891, 8vo,
+Early English Text Society.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_837_837" id="Footnote_837_837"></a><a href="#FNanchor_837_837"><span class="label">[837]</span></a> First edition: "Here begynnethe the boke calledde John
+Bochas, descrivinge the Falle of Princes." [1494], folio.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_838_838" id="Footnote_838_838"></a><a href="#FNanchor_838_838"><span class="label">[838]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Myn hand gan tremble, my penne I felte quake ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I stode chekmate for feare whan I gan see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In my way how little I had runne.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"Fall of Princes," prologue to Book iii., Schick, "Story of Thebes," p.
+cv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_839_839" id="Footnote_839_839"></a><a href="#FNanchor_839_839"><span class="label">[839]</span></a> Example, fight between Ulysses and Troilus:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He smote Ulyxes throughout his viser ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Ulyxes tho lyke a manly man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that stroke astoned not at all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But on his stede, stiffe as any wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his swerde so mightely gan race,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the umber into Troylus face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That he him gave a mortal wounde,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+of which, naturally, Troilus does not die. "The auncient historie ... of
+the Warres, betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans," London, 1555, 4to,
+Book iii., chap xxii. First edition, 1513. 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_840_840" id="Footnote_840_840"></a><a href="#FNanchor_840_840"><span class="label">[840]</span></a> Ed. Zupitza, Early English Text Society.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_841_841" id="Footnote_841_841"></a><a href="#FNanchor_841_841"><span class="label">[841]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_842_842" id="Footnote_842_842"></a><a href="#FNanchor_842_842"><span class="label">[842]</span></a> "Troy Book"; in Schick, "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," p.
+lvi. In his learned essay Mr. Schick pleads extenuating circumstances in
+favour of Lydgate.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_843_843" id="Footnote_843_843"></a><a href="#FNanchor_843_843"><span class="label">[843]</span></a> This appeal to Chaucer is in itself quite touching; here
+it is:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For he that was grounde of well sayinge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In all his lyfe hyndred no makyng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My maister Chaucer y^t founde ful many spot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hym list not pynche nor grutche at every blot....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sufferynge goodly of his gentilnesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full many thynge embraced with rudenesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if I shall shortly hym discrive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was never none to thys daye alive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To reken all bothe of yonge and olde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That worthy was his ynkehorne for to holde.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+"The Auncient Historie," London, 1554, 4to, Book v. chap, xxxviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_844_844" id="Footnote_844_844"></a><a href="#FNanchor_844_844"><span class="label">[844]</span></a> 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, 1860, 4to. Two or three of
+his tales in verse are imitated from the "Gesta Romanorum"; another, the
+"Letter of Cupid," from the "Epistre an 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_845_845" id="Footnote_845_845"></a><a href="#FNanchor_845_845"><span class="label">[845]</span></a> It seems like nothing, he says, but just try and see:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Many men, fadir, wennen that writynge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No travaile is; thei hold it but a game ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But who-so list disport hym in that same,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Let hym continue and he shall fynd it grame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">It is wel gretter labour than it seemeth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">("Minor Poems," p. xvii.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_846_846" id="Footnote_846_846"></a><a href="#FNanchor_846_846"><span class="label">[846]</span></a> "La Male R&egrave;gle de Thomas Hoccleve," in the "Minor Poems,"
+pp. 25 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_847_847" id="Footnote_847_847"></a><a href="#FNanchor_847_847"><span class="label">[847]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Al-thogh his lyfe be queynt, the r&eacute;semblaunce<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of him hath me so fressh lyflynesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, to putte othir men in r&eacute;membraunce<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of his persone, I have heere his lyknesse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do mak&euml;, to this ende, in sothfastnesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That thei that have of him lest thought and mynde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By this peyntur&euml; may ageyn him fynde.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+("Minor Poems," p. xxxiii.; on this portrait see above, p. <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_848_848" id="Footnote_848_848"></a><a href="#FNanchor_848_848"><span class="label">[848]</span></a> "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,
+<i>Cf.</i> "Le roman d'un roi d'&Eacute;cosse," with details from an unprinted MS.,
+Paris, 1894.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_849_849" id="Footnote_849_849"></a><a href="#FNanchor_849_849"><span class="label">[849]</span></a> Though used by others before him, and especially by
+Chaucer; they rhyme <i>a b a b b c c</i>. Chaucer wrote in this metre
+"Troilus," "Parlement of Foules," &amp;c. Here is an example, consisting in
+the commendation of the book to Chaucer and Gower:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Unto [the] impnis of my maisteris dere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gowere and Chaucere, that on the steppis satt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of rethorike quhill thai were lyvand here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Superlative as poetis laureate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In moralitee and eloquence ornate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I recommend my buk in lynis sevin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And eke thair soulis un-to the blisse of hevin.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_850_850" id="Footnote_850_850"></a><a href="#FNanchor_850_850"><span class="label">[850]</span></a> "The Actis and Deidis of ... Schir William Wallace,
+Knicht of Ellerslie," by Henry the Minstrel, commonly known as Blind
+Harry, ed. J. Moir, Edinburgh, 1884-99, Scottish Text Society. Blind
+Harry died towards the end of the fifteenth century.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_851_851" id="Footnote_851_851"></a><a href="#FNanchor_851_851"><span class="label">[851]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_852_852" id="Footnote_852_852"></a><a href="#FNanchor_852_852"><span class="label">[852]</span></a> "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 1501, an allegorical poem resembling the ancient models:
+May morning, Vision of Diana, Venus and their trains, descriptions of
+the Palace of Honour, &amp;c. We shall find, at the Renaissance, Douglas a
+translator of Virgil; his &AElig;neid was printed only in 1553.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_853_853" id="Footnote_853_853"></a><a href="#FNanchor_853_853"><span class="label">[853]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_854_854" id="Footnote_854_854"></a><a href="#FNanchor_854_854"><span class="label">[854]</span></a> See, for example, his "Lament for the Makaris quhen he
+wes seik," a kind of "Ballade des po&egrave;tes du temps jadis," a style which
+Lydgate and Villon had already furnished models of. In it he weeps:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The noble Chaucer, of makaris flouir,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The monk of Bery and Gower all three.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_855_855" id="Footnote_855_855"></a><a href="#FNanchor_855_855"><span class="label">[855]</span></a> Beginning of the "Thrissil and the Rois" (to be compared
+with the opening of the "Canterbury Tales"):
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Quhen March wes with variand windis past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Appryl had, with his silver schouris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tane leif at Nature with ane orient blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And lusty May, that muddir is of flouris,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Had maid the birdis to begyn their houris<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quhois armony to heir it was delyt....<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_856_856" id="Footnote_856_856"></a><a href="#FNanchor_856_856"><span class="label">[856]</span></a> Text in the Morris edition of Chaucer's poetical works,
+London, Aldine poets, vol. iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_857_857" id="Footnote_857_857"></a><a href="#FNanchor_857_857"><span class="label">[857]</span></a> Principal work to consult: F. J. Child, "The English and
+Scottish Popular Ballads," Boston, 1882. See above, p. 352.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_858_858" id="Footnote_858_858"></a><a href="#FNanchor_858_858"><span class="label">[858]</span></a> In "Bishop Percy's Folio MS.," ed. Hales and Furnivall,
+London, Ballad Society, 1867, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_859_859" id="Footnote_859_859"></a><a href="#FNanchor_859_859"><span class="label">[859]</span></a> Text, <i>e.g.</i>, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_860_860" id="Footnote_860_860"></a><a href="#FNanchor_860_860"><span class="label">[860]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The pillers of yvery garnished with golde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With perles sette and brouded many a folde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The flore was paved with stones precious, &amp;c.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Stephen Hawes, "Pastime of Pleasure," Percy Society, 1845, p. 125.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_861_861" id="Footnote_861_861"></a><a href="#FNanchor_861_861"><span class="label">[861]</span></a> "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, 1894, 2 vols. 8vo,
+vol. i. chaps. ii. and iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_862_862" id="Footnote_862_862"></a><a href="#FNanchor_862_862"><span class="label">[862]</span></a> 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, indigens, and causes
+oftymes grete extortion, embracere and mayntenaunce to be had....
+Wherfore the kyng, by the advyse ... [&amp;c.] exactith 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 effecte." 17 Ed. IV. year 1477, "Rotuli
+Parliamentorum," vol. vi. p. 173.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_863_863" id="Footnote_863_863"></a><a href="#FNanchor_863_863"><span class="label">[863]</span></a> See "Stans puer ad mensam," by Lydgate, printed by
+Caxton:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">T' enboce thi jowes with brede it is not due ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy teth also ne pike not with the knyff ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The best morsell, have this in remembraunce,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hole to thiself alway do not applye.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+Hazlitt, "Remains," 1864, vol. iii. p. 23. Many other treatises on
+etiquette cooking, &amp;c. See chiefly: "The Babes Book ... The Book of
+Norture," &amp;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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_864_864" id="Footnote_864_864"></a><a href="#FNanchor_864_864"><span class="label">[864]</span></a> "The Paston Letters," 1422-1509, ed. J. Gairdner, 1872, 3
+vols. 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_865_865" id="Footnote_865_865"></a><a href="#FNanchor_865_865"><span class="label">[865]</span></a> Or in the worthy Margaret's spelling: "Yf I mythe 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).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_866_866" id="Footnote_866_866"></a><a href="#FNanchor_866_866"><span class="label">[866]</span></a> Sept. 21, 1465, vol. ii. p. 237.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_867_867" id="Footnote_867_867"></a><a href="#FNanchor_867_867"><span class="label">[867]</span></a> <i>E.g.</i>, "The Itineraries of William Wey" (pilgrimages),
+London, Roxburghe Club, 1857; much practical information; specimens of
+conversations in Greek, &amp;c.; "The Stacions of Rome," ed. Furnivall,
+E.E.T.S, 1868 (on Rome and Compostella).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_868_868" id="Footnote_868_868"></a><a href="#FNanchor_868_868"><span class="label">[868]</span></a> See among others: "Anglo-Saxon and Old English
+Vocabularies," by Th. Wright, ed. W&uuml;lcker, London, 1884, 2 vols. 8vo;
+"Promptorium Parvulorum, sive clericorum ... <i>circa</i> <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 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, 8vo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_869_869" id="Footnote_869_869"></a><a href="#FNanchor_869_869"><span class="label">[869]</span></a> In the "Political Poems," ed. Th. Wright, Rolls, vol. ii.
+p. 157. Probable date, 1436. <i>Cf.</i> the "D&eacute;bat des h&eacute;rauts de France et
+d'Angleterre," (written about 1456), ed. P. Meyer, Soci&eacute;t&eacute; des Anciens
+Textes, 1877, 8vo; on the navy, p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_870_870" id="Footnote_870_870"></a><a href="#FNanchor_870_870"><span class="label">[870]</span></a> "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 Natur&aelig;,"
+and another, "De laudibus Legum Angli&aelig;."&mdash;"Works of Sir John Fortescue
+... now first collected," by Thomas [Fortescue] Lord Clermont, London,
+1869, 2 vols. 4to.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_871_871" id="Footnote_871_871"></a><a href="#FNanchor_871_871"><span class="label">[871]</span></a> Chaps. xii. and xiii., vol. i. pp. 465 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_872_872" id="Footnote_872_872"></a><a href="#FNanchor_872_872"><span class="label">[872]</span></a> In his principal work, the "Repressor of over much
+blaming of the Clergy," ed. Babington, Rolls, 1860, 2 vols. 8vo. Pecock
+was born about 1395; he was a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, bishop of
+St. Asaph, then bishop of Chichester. He wrote, besides the "Repressor,"
+a quantity of works ("Donet"; "Book of Faith"; "Follower of Donet," &amp;c.,
+unpublished), 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_873_873" id="Footnote_873_873"></a><a href="#FNanchor_873_873"><span class="label">[873]</span></a> "Repressor," i, ch. xix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_874_874" id="Footnote_874_874"></a><a href="#FNanchor_874_874"><span class="label">[874]</span></a> "The Boke of St. Albans, by Dame Juliana Berners,
+containing treatises on hawking, hunting and cote armour, printed at St.
+Albans, by the Schoolmaster printer in 1486, reproduced in fac simile,"
+by W. Blades, London, 1881, 4to (partly in verse and partly in prose;
+adapted from the French).&mdash;"A Chronicle of England" (from the creation
+to 1417), by Capgrave, born in 1394, died in 1464, ed. Hingeston, Rolls,
+1858. (Of the same, a "Liber de illustribus Henricis," in Latin, ed.
+Hingeston, Rolls, 1858, and other works; see above, p. <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.) "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 Darthur," by
+Sir Thomas Malory) by O. Sommer and Andrew Lang, London, 1889, 2 vols.
+8vo. Malory and Caxton will be mentioned again in connection with the
+Renaissance.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_875_875" id="Footnote_875_875"></a><a href="#FNanchor_875_875"><span class="label">[875]</span></a> 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 Kitsun: "Margaret of Virtw have mercy on
+Kitsun" (<i>Academy</i>, March 11, 1893).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_876_876" id="Footnote_876_876"></a><a href="#FNanchor_876_876"><span class="label">[876]</span></a> He has not observed, he admits, "the strict laws of
+time," and he has introduced no chorus; but it is not his fault. "Nor is
+it needful, or almost possible in these our times, and to such auditors
+as commonly things are presented, to observe the old state and splendor
+of dramatic poems, with preservation of any popular delight."&mdash;<i>To the
+readers.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_877_877" id="Footnote_877_877"></a><a href="#FNanchor_877_877"><span class="label">[877]</span></a> H. Vast, "Le Cardinal Bessarion," Paris, 1878, 8vo, p.
+14.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span><br /></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span></p>
+<p class="subhead1"><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX.</p>
+
+<div>
+
+Abbeys, <a href="#Page_158">158</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>A. B. C.</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Abel, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ab&eacute;lard, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Abernun, P. d', <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Abraham and Isaac, a play, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Abstractions, personified, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Achilles, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Acta Sanctorum</i>, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Actors, <a href="#Page_446">446</a> ff., <a href="#Page_467">467</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Adam, in Anglo-Saxon Bible, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, and Eve, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>; <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, a mystery, <a href="#Page_468">468</a> ff.,
+  <a href="#Page_474">474</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Adam, "scriveyn," <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Addison, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Adgar, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Adrian IV., pope, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /><br />
+
+&AElig;lfric, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> ff., <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aelred of Rievaulx, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_445">445</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+&AElig;neas the Trojan, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <i>see</i> "En&eacute;as."<br /><br />
+
+&AElig;sop, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>.<br /><br />
+
+&AElig;thelberht, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.<br /><br />
+
+&AElig;thelred, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /><br />
+
+&AElig;thelstan, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br /><br />
+
+&AElig;thelwold, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /><br />
+
+&AElig;thelwulf, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aetius, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Agricola, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ailill, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /><br />
+
+A&iuml;mer, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aix, Albert d', <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Alaric, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Albin, St., <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Alchemist, in Chaucer, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Alcuin, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> ff., <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aldhelm, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, his riddles, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Alemanni," <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Alexander, romances on, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Alfred the Great, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ali&eacute;nor of Aquitaine, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ali&eacute;nor of Provence, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Allegories, in <i>Roman de la Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Allen, Grant, on Germanic names, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, on Norman names, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Alliteration, in Anglo-Saxon and in French, <a href="#Page_37">37</a> ff., in Aldhelm, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>,
+  after the Conquest, <a href="#Page_205">205</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, Chaucer's opinion about, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>; <a href="#Page_348">348</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, in Langland, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ambrose, companion of Richard C&oelig;ur-de-Lion, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /><br />
+
+America, discovered, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Amis and Amile</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ammianus Marcellinus, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Anatomy of Abuses</i>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Anchoresses, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ancren Riwle</i>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> ff., <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Anderida, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Andreas</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Anelida</i> see <i>Complaint</i>.<br /><br />
+
+Angevin England,
+  literature of, Bk. ii. c. ii., iii., iv., <a href="#Page_116">116</a> ff.;
+  survives in Gower, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Angle, Sir Guichard d', <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Angles, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Angli," <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Anglo-Saxons, their name, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, vocabulary, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, national poetry, Bk. i. c.
+  iii., <a href="#Page_36">36</a> ff., Mss. and art of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, despondency of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a> ff., <a href="#Page_56">56</a>
+  ff., their idea of death, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> ff., their Christian literature, Bk. i.
+  c. iv., <a href="#Page_60">60</a> ff., their internal divisions, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, how transformed by
+  Norman conquest, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> ff., <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, mind and genius of, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>,
+  Chaucer and the, <a href="#Page_338">338</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span>
+
+<i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a> ff., on Hastings, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>,
+  on William, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Anne of Bohemia, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Annebaut, R. d', <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Anselm, St., <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Antenor, the Trojan, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Antigone</i> of Sophocles, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Antiocheis</i>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Antoninus Pius, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Apelles, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Apollinia, life of St., and drama on, <a href="#Page_470">470</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Apollonius of Tyre</i>, in A.S., <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Appius and Virginia</i>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aquinas, St. Thomas, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Arabian Nights</i>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Arbois de Jubainville, d', on Celts, <a href="#Page_5">5</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Arc, Joan of, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Architecture, of the Anglo-Saxons, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, Norman, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, perpendicular, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>,
+  with "pinnacles," 297; <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, of Westminster Hall, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Argentille, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Argyropoulos, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ariosto, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aristotle, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Armachanus," <i>see</i> Fitzralph.<br /><br />
+
+Armenia, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Armorica, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Army," the Danish, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Arnold, T., on <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, on Wyclif, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Art: Henry III.'s style, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, gold and silver tablets, cups, &amp;c.,
+  <a href="#Page_258">258</a> ff., pictures, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, miniatures, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, tapestries, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>,
+  embroidery, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, statue from the nude, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, painted walls and stained
+  glass, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, in Italy, <a href="#Page_285">285</a> ff., antique, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> ff., portrait of Chaucer,
+  <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>, favoured by Plantagenets, <a href="#Page_353">353</a> ff., tomb of Gower, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>,
+  Malvern Church, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, picture by Fouquet, <a href="#Page_470">470</a> ff., fresco at
+  Stratford-on-Avon, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>; <i>see</i> Architecture, Miniatures.<br /><br />
+
+Arthur, King, early songs on, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>; <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, 113, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>; cycle of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_177">177</a>,
+  in Layamon, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Ass, feast of the, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Asser, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Astr&eacute;e</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Astrolabe</i>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Attila, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aucassin, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Augier, of St. Frideswide's, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Augustine, comes to England, <a href="#Page_60">60</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Augustus, the emperor, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aungerville, Sir R., <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ausonius, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Avebury, circles at, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Avesbury, Robert of, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Avignon, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Avit, St., bishop of Vienna, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ayenbite of Inwyt</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Aymon, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<br /><br />
+Bacchanals, <a href="#Page_449">449</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Bacchus, theatre of, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bacon, Roger, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Badin," on the stage, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bailey, Harry, of the "Tabard," <a href="#Page_316">316</a> ff., <a href="#Page_321">321</a> ff., <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Balade de bon Conseyl</i>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Balduf, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+John Ball, priest, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ballads, by Chaucer, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, on Griselda, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>; <a href="#Page_352">352</a> ff., by Gower, <a href="#Page_366">366</a> ff.;
+  <a href="#Page_512">512</a>, <i>see</i> "Chansons," and Songs.<br /><br />
+
+Ballets, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Barbour, J., <a href="#Page_361">361</a> ff., <a href="#Page_507">507</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bards, Celtic, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Barking, Clemence of, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Barry, Gerald de, on Welshmen, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Barry, Richard de, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Barry, William de, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bartholomew, St., life of, in A.S., <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bartholomew the Englishman, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bath, ruins at, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Battle," Bk. ii. c. i., <a href="#Page_97">97</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Battle abbey, <a href="#Page_102">102</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Bavaria, Isabeau of, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bayard, a horse, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bayeux tapestry, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Beauchamp, family of, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Beaufort, Jane, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Beaumont, Louis de, bishop of Durham, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Beauty, physical, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, Chaucer's idea of, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>; <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, ff.<br /><br />
+
+Beauveau, Pierre de, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span>
+
+Becket, St. Thomas, life in French, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>; <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> ff., <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bede, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> ff., <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, translated by Alfred, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> ff.;
+  <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bedford, George Neville, duke of, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>.<br /><br />
+
+B&eacute;dier, on fabliaux, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Bello Trojano, De</i>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a> ff., <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, analysis of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> ff., compared with
+  Roland, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bercheur, Pierre, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Berger, S., on Bible, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Berkeley, Edward of, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bernard, St., <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Berners, Dame Juliana, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bernlak de Haut D&eacute;sert, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.<br /><br />
+
+B&eacute;rou, author of a <i>Tristan</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Berry, Jean duc de, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Beryn</i>, tale of, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bessarion, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_525">525</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Bestiaire d'Amour</i>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bestiaries, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Betenham, William, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Bevis of Hampton</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bible, in Anglo-Saxon, <a href="#Page_71">71</a> ff., by &AElig;lfric, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, in English, in French,
+  <a href="#Page_207">207</a>; <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, quoted in Parliament, <a href="#Page_415">415</a> ff., translated by Wyclif, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>
+  ff., dramatised, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>, Pecock on, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Bibles," moral works, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Biblesworth, Walter de, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bigod, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Biquet, Robert, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Biscop, Benedict, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bishops, warrior, learned, saintly, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Blacke, Anthony, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Black Prince, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Blanket, of Bristol, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Blickling Homilies</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Boccaccio, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a> ff., <a href="#Page_299">299</a> ff., <a href="#Page_320">320</a> ff., <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a> ff., <a href="#Page_499">499</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Body and Soul</i>, debate of, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Boece, translated by Alfred, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, translated by
+  Chaucer, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>; <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bohemia, heresies in, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bohemond, of Antioch, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /><br />
+
+B&ouml;hler, Peter, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bohun, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Boileau, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Boke of Nurture</i>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>,
+  <i>of St. Albans</i>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Boldensele, William of, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bollandus, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bonaventure, St., <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Boncuor, William de, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Boniface, St., <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Boniface VIII., <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Book of Cupid</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <i>of the Duchesse</i>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a> ff., <a href="#Page_499">499</a>,
+  <i>of Nurture</i>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <i>of St. Albans</i>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"B&ouml;rn," <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bossert, on <i>Tristan</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Bourgogne, Jean de, &agrave; la barbe, <a href="#Page_407">407</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Bourse pleine de sens</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bozon Nicole, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bracton, H. de, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bradford-on-Avon, Anglo-Saxon Church at, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bradshaigh, lady, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bradshaw, on Chaucer, <a href="#Page_324">324</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Bradwardine, archbishop, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Brakelonde, Jocelin de, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Brampton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Brandan, St., <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Brantingham, Thomas de, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Breakspeare, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Brescia, Albertano de, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Br&eacute;tigny, peace of, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Britain, Celtic, Bk. i. c. i., <a href="#Page_3">3</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Britons, <a href="#Page_7">7</a> ff., not destroyed by Anglo-Saxons, <a href="#Page_29">29</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, "gentil,"
+  <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Brittany, its literature, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, how populated, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>; <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Broker, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bromyard, John of, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Brooke, Stopford, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Browning, Robert, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, and Preface.<br /><br />
+
+Bruce, David, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Bruce</i>, the, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Brunanburh</i>, ode on, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Brunne, <i>see</i> Mannyng.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Brut</i> of Layamon, <a href="#Page_219">219</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Brutus the Trojan, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bukton, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bunyan, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Burgundy, Henry of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Burnellus, the ass, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Burns, Robert, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Burton, Thomas of, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Bury, Richard of, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> ff., <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Byrhtnoth, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Byron, lord, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+C&aelig;dmon, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_70">70</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+C&aelig;sar, on Celts, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, on Germans, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>; <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span>
+
+Cain, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Callisthenes, pseudo, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cambinscan, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cambrensis, <i>see</i> Barry.<br /><br />
+
+Cambridge, University of, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Canterbury, Gervase of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+     <span class="inquote">"</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thomas of, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Canterbury Tales</i>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a> ff., <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Canynges, of Bristol, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Capet, Hugues, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Capgrave, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Caracalla, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Carlyle, T., <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Carols, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Carpenter's Tools</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cartaphilus, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Castle of Love</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Castle of Perseverance</i>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Castoiement d'un p&egrave;re &agrave; son fils</i>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cathedrals, Norman, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> ff., <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Catherine, life of St., <a href="#Page_459">459</a>, drama on St., <a href="#Page_459">459</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Cato on Gauls, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Causa Dei, De</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Caxton, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ceadwalla, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Celestinus, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cecile, St., <i>see</i> Lyf of.<br /><br />
+
+Celts, name, origin, literature, religion of the, <a href="#Page_5">5</a> ff.; fate after the
+  A.S. conquest, <a href="#Page_29">29</a> ff., their ideal, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, wit and genius, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, in
+  Scotland, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cemeteries, dances in, <a href="#Page_448">448</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Cento Novelle Antiche</i>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cervantes, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Champeaux, Guillaume de, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Chanson de Roland</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> ff., <a href="#Page_125">125</a> ff., <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chansons, French, <a href="#Page_142">142</a> ff., <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, sung in London, <a href="#Page_355">355</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Chantecleer, the cock, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> ff., <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Chanteloup, Walter de, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chantries, <a href="#Page_378">378</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Chap-books, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chapelain, Andr&eacute; le, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chapu, Guillaume, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chardry, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Charisius, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Charlemagne, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> ff., <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>; caricatured, <a href="#Page_146">146</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_156">156</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Charles the Bald, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Charles V. of France, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /><br />
+
+     <span class="inquote">"</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+     <span class="inquote">"</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; V. of Germany, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Charnay, Henri de, inquisitor, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Chastoiement des Dames</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ch&acirc;teau d'Amour</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chaucer, Alice, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.<br /><br />
+
+   <span class="inquote">"</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Geoffrey, his "somnour," 161; <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;
+  life and works, Bk. iii. c. ii., <a href="#Page_267">267</a> ff., his contemporaries, Bk. iii.
+  c. iii., <a href="#Page_344">344</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_369">369</a>; compared with Langland, <a href="#Page_372">372</a> ff, <a href="#Page_388">388</a> ff., <a href="#Page_392">392</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_402">402</a>; <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>; on miracle plays, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>; successors
+  and imitators, Bk. iii. c. vii., <a href="#Page_495">495</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Chaucer, John, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br /><br />
+
+   <span class="inquote">"</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Philippa, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br /><br />
+
+   <span class="inquote">"</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thomas, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Chaucer Society," <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cheldric, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cheriton, Odo de, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Chester Plays</i>, <a href="#Page_465">465</a> ff., their end, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chester, Randolf, earl of, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chestre, Thomas, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Chests," at the University, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chettle, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Chevy Chase</i>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Chienne qui pleure</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a> ff., <a href="#Page_447">447</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Child, Prof., on ballads, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chimneys, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chlochilaicus, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Christ</i>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Christianity, in Roman England, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, in Anglo-Saxon England, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_60">60</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Christmas, how celebrated, <a href="#Page_450">450</a> ff., plays, <a href="#Page_457">457</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Chronicles, Anglo-Norman, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> ff., <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, Latin, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> ff., <a href="#Page_197">197</a> ff., in the
+  XVth century, <a href="#Page_496">496</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Chrysococc&egrave;s, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Chrysoloras, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Church, the English, <a href="#Page_157">157</a> ff., Wyclif on, <a href="#Page_423">423</a> ff., <a href="#Page_430">430</a> ff., decaying in
+  the XVth century, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cicero, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cirencester, Richard of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Claris Mulieribus, De</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Clarissa Harlowe, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Classic influences and models, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Claudian, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span>
+
+Claudius the emperor, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Clavilegno," <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Cleges</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Cleomades</i>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cleopatra, on the stage, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Clerc, Guillaume le, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Clerk of Oxford, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Clerks, slothful, <a href="#Page_167">167</a> ff., at the University, <a href="#Page_169">169</a> ff., belong to the
+  Latin country, <a href="#Page_176">176</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Clovis, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, a Romanised barbarian, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cnut the Dane, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Coal mines, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cobham, Thomas de, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cobsam, Adam de, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cochin, H., on Boccaccio, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Codex Exoniensis</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Codex Vercellensis</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /><br />
+
+C&oelig;newulf, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Coggeshall, Radulphus de, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Coinci, Gautier de, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Coins, Anglo-Saxon, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Cokaygne</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Cokwolds' Dance</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Coleridge, S. T., <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Colgrim, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Colonna, Gui de, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Columba, St., <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Comedy, scenes of, <a href="#Page_484">484</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Comestor, Pierre, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cominges, Count de, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Commines, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Commons, of England, <a href="#Page_250">250</a> ff., <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, Langland on the, <a href="#Page_389">389</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Complaint of Anelida</i>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <i>of a Lover's Life</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>,
+  <i>unto Pite</i>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <i>of the Plowman</i>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <i>of
+  Venus</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Communism, Wyclif on, <a href="#Page_430">430</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Comus</i>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Conchobar, <a href="#Page_11">11</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Cond&eacute;, Baudouin de, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>.<br /><br />
+
+  <span class="inquote">"</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Jean de, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Confessio Amantis</i>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+"Confr&egrave;res de la Passion," <a href="#Page_480">480</a>, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Conquest, Norman-French, Bk. ii., <a href="#Page_95">95</a> ff., silence after the, <a href="#Page_204">204</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Constance, Chaucer's Story of, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Constant du Hamel</i>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Constantius Chlorus, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Constantine the Great, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Constantine XII., <a href="#Page_524">524</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Constantinople, taken by the Turks, <a href="#Page_524">524</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Conte des Hiraus</i>, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Corbichon, Jean, translates Bartholomew the Englishman, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cook, Captain, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cookery, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> ff., <a href="#Page_516">516</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cordier, H., on Mandeville, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Corneille, Pierre, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cornelius Gallus, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cornelius, Nepos, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cornish drama, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cornwall, Celtic, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Corpus Christi plays, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Corpus Poeticum Boreale</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Cotton, Bartholomew de, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cotton, John, a painter, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Councils, on the drama, <a href="#Page_440">440</a> ff., <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Coupe Enchant&eacute;e</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Court, amusements at, <a href="#Page_441">441</a> ff., fool, <a href="#Page_441">441</a> ff., dramas, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>, poetry, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>
+  ff., <a href="#Page_366">366</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Court of Love</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Courtenay, embroiderer, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Courtenay, bishop of London, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Courtesy, books of, <a href="#Page_515">515</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Courtin, Honor&eacute;, ambassador, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Coventry Mysteries</i> and <i>pageants</i>, <a href="#Page_465">465</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Cowper, William, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Coxe, Brinton, on Bracton, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Credon, Sir Richard, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cressida, <a href="#Page_301">301</a> ff., <i>see</i> Troilus.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Croniques de London</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cuchula&iuml;nn, <a href="#Page_11">11</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Cursor Mundi</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a> ff., <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cuthberht, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cuthwine, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Cycles of France, Rome and Britain, <a href="#Page_125">125</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Cynewulf, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, works and genius of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a> ff., <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Daisy, praise of the, <a href="#Page_275">275</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Dalila, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Dame Siriz</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Danes, place names recalling them, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>; <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dante, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a> ff., <a href="#Page_325">325</a> ff., <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dares the Phrygian, <a href="#Page_128">128</a> ff., <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.<br /><br />
+
+David, King, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Davidson, Ch., on Mysteries, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Davy Adam, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span>
+
+Deadly Sins, in Langland, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Death, Celts' idea of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a> ff., Greeks', <a href="#Page_7">7</a> ff., Frenchmen's, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> ff.,
+  Anglo-Saxons', <a href="#Page_56">56</a> ff., <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, Rolle of Hampole's, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, Black Prince's,
+  <a href="#Page_353">353</a>; an occasion for jokes, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>, on the stage, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>D&eacute;bat des H&eacute;rauts de France et d'Angleterre</i>, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Decameron</i>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a> ff., <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Defoe, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Degrevant</i>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Deguileville, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dekker, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Delisle, Leopold, on Bartholomew the Englishman, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Des Champs, Eustache, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, on Chaucer, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, on diplomatic service,
+  <a href="#Page_282">282</a>; <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Deor</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Departed Soul's Address</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Derdriu, <a href="#Page_15">15</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Dermot, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Despencer, Henry le, bishop of Norwich, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Devil, described by &AElig;lfric, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, and St. Dunstan, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, tempts Rolle of
+  Hampole, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, on the stage, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dialect, of Chaucer, <a href="#Page_338">338</a> ff., of Langland, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, Scotch, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dialogues, in Celtic Literature, <a href="#Page_13">13</a> ff., in Anglo-Saxon, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, in Latin,
+  <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, in <i>Troilus</i>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>; <a href="#Page_442">442</a>, ff., after dinner, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>, in
+  interludes, <a href="#Page_446">446</a> ff., in pageants, <a href="#Page_454">454</a> ff., in Mysteries, <a href="#Page_477">477</a> ff., in
+  <i>Roman de la Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Dialogus de Scaccario</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Diceto, Radulph de, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dictys of Crete, <a href="#Page_128">128</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Diderot, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dido (in Chaucer), <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dietrich, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Digby Mysteries</i>, <a href="#Page_466">466</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Diodorus Siculus, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Dirige," <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Disobedient Child</i>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Disputoisons" or Debates, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum</i>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Doctors," <a href="#Page_193">193</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Dogmas, attacked by Wyclif, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Domesday Book, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> ff., <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dominicans, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+"Dominium" Fitzralph and Wyclif on, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Domitius Afer, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Donatus, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Dormi Secure</i>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Douglas, Gavin, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Dowel, Dobet, Dobest," <a href="#Page_375">375</a> ff., <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dragons and monsters, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Drama, Bk. iii. c. vi., <a href="#Page_439">439</a> ff.; civil 439 ff., religious, <a href="#Page_456">456</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Dramatic genius of the Celts, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dreams, Chaucer and Addison on, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, Davy's, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, Gower's, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>,
+  poets', <a href="#Page_497">497</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dresemius, S., <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Druids, <a href="#Page_9">9</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Dryden, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Duchesse</i>, <i>see</i> Book of.<br /><br />
+
+Dujon, <i>see</i> Junius.<br /><br />
+
+Dunbar, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dunstable, play at, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Dunstan, St., <a href="#Page_88">88</a> ff., <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Durham, Simeon of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+   <span class="inquote">"</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    William of, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Duries, J., a scribe, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Duties of a Parish Priest</i>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Eadgar child, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Eadmer, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Eadwine, earl, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ealdred, archbishop of York, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ealwhine (Alcuin), <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Earle, on A.S. Literature, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, on <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, on A.S.
+  Chronicle, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Easter, origin of the name, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, drama, <a href="#Page_457">457</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Ecgberht, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ecgferth, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>&Eacute;cole des Maris</i>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Edda</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Edgar, king, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Edgeworth, Miss, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Edmund, St., <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Edrisi, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Eduini, king, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Edward, king, the confessor, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, life of, in French, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>; <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Edward I., <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.<br /><br />
+
+   <span class="inquote">"</span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  II., <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Edward III., <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a> ff.,
+  <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Edward IV., <a href="#Page_513">513</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Eginhard, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Eglamour</i>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ekkehard, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Elene</i>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Elizabeth, queen, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.<br /><br />
+
+  <span class="inquote">"</span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;wife of Lionel son of Edward III., <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Eloi, St., <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>En&eacute;as</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /><br />
+
+England, first inhabitants of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a> ff., between northern and southern
+  civilisations, <a href="#Page_97">97</a> ff., described by Robert of Gloucester, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>,
+  "merry," <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, to the English, Bk. iii., <a href="#Page_232">232</a> ff.,
+  trade and navy of, <a href="#Page_255">255</a> ff., Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_314">314</a> ff., threatening and
+  threatened, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, Langland's, <a href="#Page_374">374</a> ff., <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, parliamentary, <a href="#Page_413">413</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+"Englescherie," presentment of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /><br />
+
+English, literature, under Norman and Angevin kings, <a href="#Page_204">204</a> ff., revived,
+  <a href="#Page_216">216</a>; use of, by upper classes, <a href="#Page_219">219</a> ff., authors adopt French tastes,
+  <a href="#Page_219">219</a> ff., fusion of, with French, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> ff., people, how formed, <a href="#Page_247">247</a> ff.,
+  Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, Gower's, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, used in Parliament, <a href="#Page_421">421</a> ff., Wyclif's,
+  <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, dramas, <a href="#Page_460">460</a> ff., spoken in Scotland, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>, pride, <a href="#Page_518">518</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Enoch, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Eostra, the goddess, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Epinal Glossary</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Erceldoune, Thomas of, his prophecies, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Estorie des Engles</i>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+"Estrifs," <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <i>see</i> Disputoisons.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Eulogium Historiarum</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Euphuism, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Eutrope, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Everyman</i>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Exempla," <a href="#Page_153">153</a> ff., <a href="#Page_182">182</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Exeter, Joseph of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a> ff., <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Eyck, van, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Eyrum, Robert de, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Fables, Latin, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, by Lydgate, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>, by Henryson, <a href="#Page_508">508</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+"Fabliaux," French, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a> ff., Latin, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, English, <a href="#Page_225">225</a> ff.,
+  <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_442">442</a> ff., turned into dramas, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>, of the XVth century, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fahlbeck, on Geatas, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Falle of Princes</i>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Fals Semblant, <a href="#Page_397">397</a> ff., <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Falstofe, Sir J., <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Fame</i>, see <i>Hous of</i>.<br /><br />
+
+Fantosme, Jordan, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Fasciculi Zizaniorum</i>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fashions, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, ridiculed, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Fates of the Apostles</i>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ferumbras</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fielding, H., <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Figaro, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"File," <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Filocopo</i>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Filostrato</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Finsburg</i>, song on the battle of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fitzosbern, William, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fitzralph, Richard, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Fitzstephen, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fitzwarin, Fulke, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Fleta</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Floire and Blanchefleur</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Florence, medi&aelig;val, <a href="#Page_286">286</a> ff., plague at, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Flower and Leaf</i>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Foix, Gaston Ph&eacute;bus de, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Foliot, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fontevrault, royal tombs at, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fools, feast of, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Forme of Cury</i>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fortescue, Sir John, <a href="#Page_518">518</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fouquet, Jean, picture by, <a href="#Page_470">470</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Four Elements</i>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Four Sons of Aymon</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fournival, Richard de, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fournivall, lord, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fox, George, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Fox and Wolf</i>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a> ff., <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fozlan, Ahmed Ibn, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fragonard, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.<br /><br />
+
+France, first inhabitants of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a> ff., a home for fabliaux, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;
+  satirised, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <i>see</i> French.<br /><br />
+
+France, Marie de, <i>see</i> Marie.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Franciade</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Francis, St., of Assisi, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Francis, St., of Sales, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Francis I., King of France, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Franciscans, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> ff., <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Francus the Trojan, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Franklin, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Franks, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, in <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, loved by Christ, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Freeman, Prof., <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span>
+
+French, invasion, Bk. ii., <a href="#Page_95">95</a> ff., followers of William, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, families
+  and manners, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, literature under Norman and Angevin kings, Bk. ii. c.
+  ii., <a href="#Page_116">116</a> ff.; language, in general use, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> ff., at Court and in
+  Parliament, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a> ff., character, <a href="#Page_126">126</a> ff., ideal, <a href="#Page_155">155</a> ff., taught
+  at the University, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, not known by the "lowe men," <a href="#Page_205">205</a>; used by
+  English authors, <a href="#Page_213">213</a> ff., <a href="#Page_219">219</a> ff.; fusion of the, with the English,
+  Bk. iii. c. i., <a href="#Page_235">235</a> ff., in the courts of law, <a href="#Page_238">238</a> ff., at Oxford,
+  <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, disuse of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a> ff., in diplomatic relations, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> ff., survival
+  of, <a href="#Page_242">242</a> ff., Chaucer studies, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, spoken by Richard II. and Gaston
+  de Foix, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, words in Chaucer, <a href="#Page_337">337</a> ff., used by the Black Prince, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>
+  ff., songs, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, Gower's, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a> ff., Langland's 377, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>,
+  Mandeville in, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, not used by Christ, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, of kings in Mysteries,
+  <a href="#Page_480">480</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Friar, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a> ff., Diderot's, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, derided, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>,
+  Langland's, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a> ff., <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Friday, "chidden," <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Friend of God of the Oberland," <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Frisians, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, in <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>; <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Fritzsche, on <i>Andreas</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Froissart, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> ff., <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, compared with
+  Chaucer, <a href="#Page_317">317</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a> ff., <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Furnivall, F. J., founder of the Early English Text Society, Chaucer,
+  and Wyclif Society, &amp;c., on Chaucer's tales, <a href="#Page_324">324</a> ff.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Gaddesden, John of, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gaddi, Taddeo, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gaillard, Claude, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gaimar, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> ff., <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Galen, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Galois, Jean le, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Gamelyn</i>, tale of, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Games, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a> ff., <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gascoigne, the theologian, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gaunt, John of, Duke of Lancaster, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a> ff., <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Gauvain</i>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Gawayne and the Green Knight</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Gaytrige, John, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gaza, Theodore, <a href="#Page_524">524</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Geatas, <a href="#Page_51">51</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Genesis and Exodus</i> in English, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Genius," <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Genseric, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Geoffrey, abbot of St. Albans, his play, <a href="#Page_459">459</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Geoffrey the grammarian, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gerald, <i>see</i> Barry.<br /><br />
+
+Gerda, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gering, H., on Gretti, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Germans, origin, manners, religion, war-songs of the, <a href="#Page_21">21</a> ff., compared
+  with the Celts, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Gerson, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Gesta Regum Anglorum</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Gesta Romanorum</i>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a> ff., <a href="#Page_496">496</a>, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gibbon, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gildas, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gilds, perform religious plays, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Giotto, <a href="#Page_206">206</a> ff., <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a> ff., <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Giraldus Cambrensis, <i>see</i> Barry.<br /><br />
+
+Gladstone, W. E., on University life, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Glanville, Ralph, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Glascurion, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Globe," the, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gloucester, Robert of, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> ff., <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gloucester, Thomas, Duke of, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Goethe, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grosseteste, Robert, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a> ff., <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Goldborough, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Golias, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gollancz, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Gombert</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gospels, copied by Anglo-Saxons, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, in A.S., <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, in French, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gower, John, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, life and
+  works, <a href="#Page_364">364</a> ff., compared with Langland, <a href="#Page_373">373</a> ff., <a href="#Page_502">502</a> ff., <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gower, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Graal, quest of the, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Graham, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grammar, A.S. and English, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Granson, O. de, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Graund Amoure," <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Graystanes, Robert de, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Greek classics, <a href="#Page_523">523</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Green, Mrs., on XVth century trade and navy, <a href="#Page_514">514</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span>
+
+Gregory of Tours, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gregory the Great, St., <a href="#Page_63">63</a>; translated by Alfred, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gregory IX., <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a> ff., <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grein's <i>Bibliothek</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grendel, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> ff., <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Greteham, Robert of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gretti and Beowulf, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grignan, Madame de, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grim, of Grimsby, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grimbold, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grindecobbe, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Griselda, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a> ff., <a href="#Page_459">459</a>, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grosvenor, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Grueber (and Keary) on A.S. coins, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gudrun, Queen, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Guesclin, Du, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Guinevere, Queen, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Guiron, lay of, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Guiscard, Robert, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Gulliver</i>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Gunnar, <a href="#Page_42">42</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+G&uuml;terbock on Bracton, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Guthrum, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Guy of Warwick</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a> ff., <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Hacon, King, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hadrian, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Haigh, D. H., on <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hales, Alexander of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /><br />
+
+    <span class="inquote">"</span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thomas of, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Hali Meidenhad</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hamlet, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hampole, Rolle of, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_216">216</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_411">411</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Handlyng Synne</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hardy, Sir T. D., on Matthew Paris, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hardyng, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Harold, Godwinson, <a href="#Page_97">97</a> ff., <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Harold Hardrada, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Harrowing of Hell</i>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Harry, Blind, the minstrel, <a href="#Page_506">506</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Hartley, Mrs., the actress, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hastings, battle of, Bk. ii. c. i., <a href="#Page_97">97</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Haughton, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Haur&eacute;au, on G. de Vinesauf, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hauteville, Jean de, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Havelok</i>, lay of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hawes, Stephen, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hawkwood, Sir J., <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hebenhith, Thomas de, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hector of Troy, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Helen of Troy, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Heliand</i>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hell, painted by Giotto, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, represented at Torcello, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, described,
+  <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, besieged, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, in Mysteries, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>, painted at Stratford-on-Avon,
+  <a href="#Page_494">494</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Helwis, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hemingburgh, Walter of, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hengest, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hengham, Judge, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henry I., Beauclerc, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henry II. of England, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henry III., <a href="#Page_107">107</a> ff., <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henry IV., <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henry V., <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henry VII., <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henry VIII., <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henryson, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>, <a href="#Page_507">507</a> ff., <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Henslowe, Philip, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hereford, Nicolas de, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hereward, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Hermit who got drunk</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Herod, King, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>, <a href="#Page_480">480</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Herrtage, on <i>Gesta Romanorum</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hervieux, on fabulists, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Heyroun, Thomas, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Heywood, Thomas, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Higden, Ralph, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Higelac (in <i>Beowulf</i>), <a href="#Page_50">50</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Hilary, his Latin plays, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hilda, abbess of Streonshalch, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hildgund, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hincmar, of Reims, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hippocrates, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Hirdboc</i>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Historia Anglorum</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Historia ecclesiastica</i> of Bede, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> ff., of Orderic Vital, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Historia Novorum</i>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Historia Regum Britannia</i>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Histrions, <a href="#Page_440">440</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Hniflungs (Niblungs), <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hoccleve, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hohlfield, on Mysteries, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Holinshed, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Holkot, Robert, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Holy-Church, in Langland, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Holy-Grail, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span>
+
+Homer, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> ff., <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Homilies, English, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Honecourt, Villard de, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hood, Robin, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Horace, on Gauls, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>; <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Horn</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Horsa, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Horstmann, on Lives of Saints, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Houghton, Adam, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Hous of Fame</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a> ff., <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hoveden, Roger de, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hrothgar, in <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+H&uuml;bner, baron de, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hugh, St., bishop of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hugo, Victor, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hugolino, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hugon, of Constantinople, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Humour, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_317">317</a> ff., Wyclif's, <a href="#Page_434">434</a> ff., Pecock's, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hundred Years' War, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hungerford, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Huntingdon, Henry de, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Huntingdon, earl of, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Huon de Burdeux</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Hus, John, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Iceland, its literature, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Image du Monde</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Inferno</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ingelend, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Innocent III., <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Innocent IV., <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Innocents, feast of, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Invasions, Germanic, Bk. i. c. ii., <a href="#Page_21">21</a> ff., Scandinavian, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> ff.,
+  Frankish, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, Anglo-Saxon, <a href="#Page_28">28</a> ff., Danish, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> ff., French,
+  Bk. ii., <a href="#Page_95">95</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ipomedon</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ireland, its literature, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> ff., monks from, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>; <a href="#Page_518">518</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Irish language and literature, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> ff., at the University, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Iscanus, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Iseult, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <i>see</i> Tristan.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Isle of Ladies</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Isumbras</i>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Italy, models from, copied by Chaucer, <a href="#Page_291">291</a> ff., travels in, <a href="#Page_283">283</a> ff.,
+  early Renaissance in, <a href="#Page_285">285</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Itineraries, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ivain</i>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Jacquerie, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Jacques le Fataliste</i>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.<br /><br />
+
+James, St., <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.<br /><br />
+
+James I. of Scotland, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+   <span class="inquote">"</span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;IV. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  <a href="#Page_510">510</a>, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jarrow, monastery of, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jerome, St., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jessopp, Dr., on Matthew Paris, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jew, Wandering, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jews, saved, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>.<br /><br />
+
+John the Baptist, St., <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.<br /><br />
+
+John, King, Lackland, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.<br /><br />
+
+John, King of France, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /><br />
+
+John, the Saxon, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Johnson, Dr., <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Joinville, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Jonathan Wild</i>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jonathas, the Jew, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jones, Inigo, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jongleur, d'Ely, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jonson, Ben, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Joseph and Mary, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>, as a workman, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Joseph of Arimathea, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Judas, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Judith</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jugglers, <a href="#Page_439">439</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Julian the Apostate, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Juliana</i>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Julleville, Petit de, on Mysteries, <a href="#Page_457">457</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Junius (F. Dujon), <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jurists, <a href="#Page_196">196</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Justinian, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Jutes, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> ff., <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Kaines, Ralph de, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Kaluza, on <i>Romaunt of the Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Keary, C. F., on Vikings, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, on coins, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, on Danish place-names, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Kellawe, Richard de, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Kenelm, St., <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Kent, Eustache or Thomas of, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Kent, John, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"King and Queen," Game of the, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>King Horn</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>King's Quhair</i>, <a href="#Page_505">505</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Kings, Wyclif on, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Kitredge, on <i>Troilus</i>.<br /><br />
+
+Kitsun, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Knight, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Knighton, on Wyclif, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Knights, in Langland, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Knyvet, John, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Koch, on Chaucer, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br /><br />
+
+K&ouml;lbing, on romances, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span>
+<br /><br />
+
+La Calpren&egrave;de, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lactantius, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.<br /><br />
+
+La Fontaine, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Lai de l'Oiselet</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Lai du Cor</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lamartine, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Lament for the Makaris</i>, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lancaster, Blanche, duchess of, <a href="#Page_280">280</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Lancaster, Henry of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <i>see</i> Henry IV.<br /><br />
+
+Lancaster, <i>see</i> Gaunt.<br /><br />
+
+Lancaster, Isabella of, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lancelot of the Lake, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> ff., <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Landscapes, in Anglo-Saxon literature, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a> ff., <a href="#Page_69">69</a> ff., <a href="#Page_71">71</a> ff., <a href="#Page_74">74</a>,
+  92; in <i>Renart</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, in Chaucer, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, Scotch, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_508">508</a> ff.,
+  Shakespeare's, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lanfranc, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lang, Andrew, on Aucassin, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lange, C., on Easter, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Langland, William, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, life and works, Bk.
+  iii. c. iv., <a href="#Page_373">373</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_422">422</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Langlois, on <i>Roman de la Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Langtoft, Peter de, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Langton, Stephen, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lapidaire, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Latimer, Hugh, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Latin, in Roman Britain, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, in A.S. Britain, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> ff., in France, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>,
+  in England after the Conquest, Bk. ii. c. iii., <a href="#Page_157">157</a> ff., used by
+  summoners, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, poems, <a href="#Page_176">176</a> ff., fables, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, romances and tales,
+  <a href="#Page_182">182</a> ff., treatises 188 ff., chronicles 197 ff., despatches, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>,
+  models of Chaucer, <a href="#Page_291">291</a> ff., Gower's, <a href="#Page_367">367</a> ff., Langland's, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>,
+  survival of, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, chroniclers, <a href="#Page_405">405</a> ff.; Wyclifs, <a href="#Page_427">427</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_434">434</a>;dramas,
+  <a href="#Page_457">457</a> ff., <a href="#Page_460">460</a>, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Latini, Brunetto, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Latymer, impeached, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lauchert, on <i>Physiologus</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Laudabiliter," bull, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Launfal</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lavoix, H., on medi&aelig;val music, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Laws, Welsh, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, A.S., <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, Roman, Anglo-Norman and English, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lay, of Guiron, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, of Havelok, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Layamon, <a href="#Page_219">219</a> ff., <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lazarillo de Tormes, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Leechdoms, A.S., <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Legende of Good Women</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angli&aelig;, De</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Leo IV., Pope, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Leovenath, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Letters of the Paston family, <a href="#Page_516">516</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Leven, Hugues of, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lewis, son of Chaucer, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lewis, John, on Wyclif, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Lex Salica</i>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Libelle of Englyshe Polycye</i>, <a href="#Page_517">517</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Liber Festivalis</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Libraries, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> ff., <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_524">524</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lincoln cathedral, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lindbergh, John of, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lindner on <i>Romaunt of the Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lionne, Hugues de, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br /><br />
+
+L'Isle, Alain de, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lison, Richard de, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Littus Saxonicum," <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lives of Saints, in A.S., <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, by &AElig;lfric, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, in French, <a href="#Page_121">121</a> ff., in
+  English, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, by Lydgate, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lodbrok, Ragnar, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Logeman, on A.S. reliquary, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Logic, taught in the Universities, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Loki, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lollards, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_437">437</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+"Lollius," <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lombards, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /><br />
+
+London, medi&aelig;val, <a href="#Page_268">268</a> ff., Chaucer's life in, <a href="#Page_289">289</a> ff., pageants in,
+  <a href="#Page_453">453</a> ff., Mysteries, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>London Lickpeny</i>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lonelich, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Longchamp, William de, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> ff., <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lorens, friar, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lorris, Guillaume de, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> ff., <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Loserth, on Hus, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lot, J., <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Louis VII. of France, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Louis IX. " <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Louis XI. " <a href="#Page_519">519</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Louis XIV. " <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lounsbury, on Chaucer, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Love, in Irish literature, <a href="#Page_15">15</a> ff., in Scandinavian literature, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, in
+  <i>Tristan</i>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a> ff., in Arthurian poems, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> ff., as a ceremonial,
+  <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, in chansons, <a href="#Page_143">143</a> ff., in Latin tales, <a href="#Page_185">185</a> ff., in English songs,
+  <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, poems by Chaucer, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> ff., <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, by Froissart, <a href="#Page_274">274</a> ff., in
+  <i>Roman de la Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> ff., in Boccaccio, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, in Chaucer's
+  <i>Troilus</i>, 301 ff., in <i>Gawayne</i>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, songs, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, in Gower,
+  <a href="#Page_366">366</a> ff., <a href="#Page_370">370</a> ff., in Langland, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, in the early drama, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>, in
+  <i>Mary Magdalene</i>, <a href="#Page_483">483</a> ff., "king of," <a href="#Page_505">505</a>, in <i>King's
+  Quhair</i>, <a href="#Page_505">505</a> ff., written about in prose, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span>
+
+"Lowe men," their English, <a href="#Page_204">204</a> ff., and their French, <a href="#Page_236">236</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Lowell, on Chaucer, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lucanus, on Druids, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>; <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Lumi&egrave;re des la&iuml;ques</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lutterworth, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Lydgate, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_498">498</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_502">502</a>, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Lyf of Seinte Cecile</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+<i>Mabinogion</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Macaulay, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Mac Datho's Pig</i>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Machault, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Machinery, stage, <a href="#Page_474">474</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Macpherson, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mael Duin, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Magnyfycence</i>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mahomet, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mahomet II., <a href="#Page_524">524</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Maidstone, Richard of, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Maldon, battle of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Male r&egrave;gle de T. Hoccleve</i>, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Malmesbury, William of, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a> ff., <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, on Arthurian legends, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>
+  ff., <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Malmesbury, Monk of, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Malory, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Malvern, <a href="#Page_375">375</a> ff., <a href="#Page_382">382</a> ff., <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mandeville, Sir John, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Mani&egrave;re de Langage</i>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Mantel Mautaill&eacute;</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mannyng, Robert, of Brunne, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Manuel des Pechiez</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_463">463</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Manuscripts, A.S., <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, purchased for the king, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, rich, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>,
+  of the <i>Roman de la Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, of Chaucer, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, of
+  <i>Gawayne</i>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Map, Walter, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_190">190</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Marcel, Etienne, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Marcol, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mare, Peter de la, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>, Thomas de la, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mar&eacute;chal, William le, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Margaret, queen of Scotland, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Marguerite, la, poems on, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Marie de France, <a href="#Page_142">142</a> ff., <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Marisco, Adam de, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Marivaux, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Marlowe, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Marseilles, king of, <a href="#Page_430">430</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Martin, St., of Tours, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mary, <i>see</i> Virgin.<br /><br />
+
+Mary Magdalen, St., <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Mary Magdalene</i>, a drama, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>, <a href="#Page_483">483</a> ff., <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Masks," <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mass, caricatured, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Massinger, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Matthew, F. D., on Wyclif, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Matthew, <i>see</i> Paris.<br /><br />
+
+Maupassant, Gui de, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Maximinus, emperor, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.<br /><br />
+
+May plays, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+May songs, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Measure, sense of, <a href="#Page_331">331</a> ff., <a href="#Page_479">479</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Medicine, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Medwall, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Meed, Lady, <a href="#Page_383">383</a> ff., <a href="#Page_397">397</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Melibeus</i>, tale of, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>M&eacute;nagier de Paris</i>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Merchant of Venice</i>, Latin sketch of, <a href="#Page_185">185</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Merchants, English, their wealth, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, fond of art, <a href="#Page_258">258</a> ff., Chaucer's,
+  <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, fond of songs, <a href="#Page_355">355</a> ff., Gower's, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, Langland's, <a href="#Page_383">383</a> ff.,
+  <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, of London, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, at the play, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.<br /><br />
+
+M&eacute;rim&eacute;e, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Merlin, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Merovingians, in <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Metalogicus</i>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Meun, Jean de, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Meyer, Kuno, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Meyer, Paul, on Alexander the Great, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, on <i>Brut</i>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Miller, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Milton, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mimes, <a href="#Page_440">440</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Miniatures, A.S., <a href="#Page_45">45</a>; <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, attributed to Matthew Paris, <a href="#Page_201">201</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_227">227</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, by Fouquet, <a href="#Page_470">470</a> ff.; in the MS. of
+  the Valenciennes Passion, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>; <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Minot, Laurence, <a href="#Page_360">360</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Minstrels, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a> ff., in Langland, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>; <a href="#Page_439">439</a>, ff., high and low,
+  <a href="#Page_445">445</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Miracle plays, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Miracles de Notre Dame</i>, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Miraclis pleyinge</i>, treatise on, <a href="#Page_461">461</a> ff., <a href="#Page_468">468</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span>
+
+<i>Mireio</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mirk, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Miroir de Justice</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Minstral, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Moktader, Caliph Al, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Moli&egrave;re, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Monasteries, their wealth, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>; <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, literary work in, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> ff.,
+  Wyclif on, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Monk, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Monmouth, Geoffrey of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_132">132</a> ff., <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Monsters, in A.S. literature, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a> ff., <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Montaigne, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Monteflor, Paul de, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Montesquieu, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Montfort, Simon de, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Moral Ode</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Moralities, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_489">489</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Moravian Brethren, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Morgan the fairy, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Morley, John, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Morris, William, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Morte Arthure</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Moubray, John de, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Mous, uplandis</i>, <a href="#Page_508">508</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Mowbray, family of, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /><br />
+
+M&uuml;ntz, on Renaissance, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Musset, Alfred de, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Mysteries, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_459">459</a> ff., decay of, <a href="#Page_489">489</a> ff., French, their end, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Napier, on <i>Ormulum</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Nature," her discourses, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Nature</i>, an interlude, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Naturis Rerum, De</i>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Navy, German and Scandinavian, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> ff., Alfred's, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, English, <a href="#Page_256">256</a> ff.,
+  in the XVth century, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>, <a href="#Page_517">517</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Neckham, Alexander, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Nennius, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Netlau, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Netter, Thomas, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Neville, impeached, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Nevilles, family of the, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Newbury, William of, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Nibelungenlied</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Niblungs, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Nicholas V., <a href="#Page_524">524</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Nicholson, E. B., on Mandeville, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Nithard, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Noah, his ark, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, his wife, <a href="#Page_484">484</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Norfolk, men of, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Normans, of France, Bk. ii. c. i., <a href="#Page_97">97</a> ff., their turn of mind, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Norsemen, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Northgate, Michel of, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Nova Poetria</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Nugis Curialium, De</i>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> ff., <a href="#Page_190">190</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Nunant, Hugh de, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Nut-brown Maid</i>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+"Oblar," <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ockham, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Octa, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Octavian, <a href="#Page_482">482</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Odo, Bishop, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br /><br />
+
+&OElig;dipus, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Oesterley, on <i>Gesta Romanorum</i>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Offa, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ogier, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ohthere, travels of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+"Old English," <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Oliver (and Roland), <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Ollam," <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Orcagna, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Orl&eacute;ans, Charles d', <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ormin, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ormulum</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Orosius, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, translated by Alfred, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Orpheus, history of, told by Alfred, <a href="#Page_85">85</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Osric, King, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ossa, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ossian, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Otia Imperialia</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Otuel, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ovid, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Owl and Nightingale</i>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Oxenede, John of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Oxford, University of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> ff., <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, and Wyclif, <a href="#Page_423">423</a> ff., council
+  of, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, lollardry at, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>; bacchanals at, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Pageants, <a href="#Page_453">453</a> ff., <a href="#Page_468">468</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Palace of Honour</i>, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Palladius on Husbondrie</i>, <a href="#Page_516">516</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Palmieri, villa, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pamphilus, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pandarus, <a href="#Page_302">302</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Panurge, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pardoner, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>; <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Parfait, the brothers, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Paris, University of, <a href="#Page_169">169</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Paris, Alexander de, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span>
+
+Paris, Gaston, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Paris, Matthew, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a> ff., <a href="#Page_453">453</a>, <a href="#Page_459">459</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Parlement of Foules</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Parliament, churchmen in, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, institution and authority of, <a href="#Page_249">249</a> ff.,
+  "good," <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>; Chaucer in, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, Langland on, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a> ff.,
+  sittings and debates, <a href="#Page_413">413</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Parodies, <a href="#Page_444">444</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Parson, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, Langland's, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Paston Letters</i>, <a href="#Page_516">516</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Patient Grissil</i>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Patrick, St., <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Patroclus, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Paul, St., <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, his vision, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>; <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Paul, monk of Caen, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pauli, on Alfred the Great, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Pearl</i>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Peasants, aspirations and revolt of, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a> ff., <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a> ff., <a href="#Page_412">412</a>,
+  reach heaven, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, in the XVth century, <a href="#Page_514">514</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Pechiez</i>, <i>see</i> Manuel.<br /><br />
+
+Peckham, Pierre de, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pecock, Bishop, <a href="#Page_520">520</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Pedro the cruel, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>P&eacute;lerinage de Charlemagne</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Penthesilea, Queen, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pepin, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Percival, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Percy, Bishop, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Percy, Lord Henry, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_516">516</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Pericles</i>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Perrault, on Griselda, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Perrers, Alice, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Peter, St., <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Peterborough, pseudo Benedict of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Petite Philosophie</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Petrarch, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> ff., meets Chaucer (?) <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>; <a href="#Page_293">293</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Petronius, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pharaoh, <a href="#Page_480">480</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Philip III., of France, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Philip le Bel, &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  193.<br /><br />
+
+Philip VI.,  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Philippa of Hainaut, Queen, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Philippa Chaucer, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Philobiblon</i>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Philpot, John, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ph&oelig;nix</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Physiologus</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Piers Plowman</i>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a> ff., <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pilate, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>, <a href="#Page_480">480</a> ff., his wife, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pilgrims, Canterbury, <a href="#Page_313">313</a> ff., Langland's, <a href="#Page_382">382</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Pinte, the hen, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pisa, medi&aelig;val, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pisa, Andrew of, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, Nicholas of, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, William of, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pisan, Christina de, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pizzinghe, Jacopo, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Placebo," <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Plantagenet, Geoffrey, archbishop of York, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Players, <a href="#Page_446">446</a> ff., <a href="#Page_467">467</a> ff., <a href="#Page_477">477</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Plays, Bk. iii. c. vi., <a href="#Page_439">439</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Plegmund, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pliny, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Plowman's Crede, Complaint</i>, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_401">401</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Poggio, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Poictiers, John of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, William of, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pole, Michel de la, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, William de la, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Policraticus</i>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Poliziano, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Polo, Marco, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Poole, R. Lane on Wyclif, <a href="#Page_428">428</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Pope, the, William blessed by, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, and Norman kings, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, gives Ireland
+  to Henry II., <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, derided, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, suzerainty of, over England, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>,
+  appeals to, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, and the University, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> ff., praised by Geoffrey
+  of Vinesauf, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, revenues of, drawn from England, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, receives
+  presents from Edward II., <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, has no peer, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, Langland on, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>,
+  Commons hostile to, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, and Wyclif, <a href="#Page_423">423</a> ff., on drama, <a href="#Page_449">449</a> ff., and
+  king, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pordenone, Odoric de, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Porto, county of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Powell, York, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Pr&aelig;munire," <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Praise of Peace</i>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Prest, Godfrey, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Pricke of Conscience</i>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Pride of Life</i>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Priests, simple or poor," Wyclif's, <a href="#Page_425">425</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Priests at the play, <a href="#Page_450">450</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Prioress, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Priscian, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Processions, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Proprietatibus Rerum, De</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span>
+
+Prose, A.S., <a href="#Page_78">78</a> ff., English, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> ff., of Rolle of Hampole, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>,
+  Chaucer's, 337, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>; XIVth century, Bk. iii. c. v., <a href="#Page_403">403</a> ff., English,
+  compared with French, <a href="#Page_404">404</a> ff., Wyclif's, <a href="#Page_432">432</a> ff., Sir John
+  Fortescue's, <a href="#Page_519">519</a> ff., Pecock's, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>, Malory's, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>, Caxton's, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Prosody, English, after the Conquest, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>,
+  Lydgate's, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>, Hoccleve's, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Prothesilaus, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Proverbs of Alfred</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Provins, Guiot de, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Provisors," <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pryderi, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Psalter, A.S., <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, French, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, English, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Pui" of London, <a href="#Page_355">355</a> ff., <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Puiset, Hugh de, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> ff., <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Punch</i>, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Purgatorio</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Puritans, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Purvey, J., <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Pytheas, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+<i>Quenouille de Barberine</i>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Quinctilian, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Quintus Curtius, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Racine, Jean, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rabelais, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Reason, speech of, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Recluse women, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Reformation, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>, and the drama, <a href="#Page_492">492</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Regimine Principum, De</i>, <a href="#Page_501">501</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Regula Pastoralis</i>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Remi, bishop of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Renaissance, early in Italy, <a href="#Page_285">285</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>, <a href="#Page_523">523</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Renan, E., <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Renart</i>, <i>see</i> Roman de.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Repressor</i>, Pecock's, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Resurrection</i>, Mystery of the, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Reverdies," <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Rhyme Royal," <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rhys on Celts, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rhys ap Theodor, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Richard C&oelig;ur-de-Lion, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, praised by Geoffrey
+  de Vinesauf, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>; <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Richard II., <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a> ff., <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a> ff., <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a> ff., <a href="#Page_495">495</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Richard, bishop of London, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Richard, canon of Holy Trinity, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Richard the Redeless</i>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Richardson, Samuel, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Richenda, sister of W. de Longchamp, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Riddles, A.S. and Scandinavian, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rigaud, Eudes, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rishanger, William, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Robene and Makyne</i>, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Robert the Devil, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rocamadour, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Roet, Sir Payne, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>; Catherine, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rogers, Thorold, <a href="#Page_514">514</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Roland, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> ff., <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>, see
+  <i>Chanson de</i>.<br /><br />
+
+Rollo, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rolle, <i>see</i> Hampole.<br /><br />
+
+Rolls, Master of the, Chronicles ed. under his direction, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Roman,
+  conquest of Britain, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> ff.;
+  remains, <a href="#Page_33">33</a> ff.;
+  law, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Roman de la Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> ff., English translation
+  of, <a href="#Page_278">278</a> ff., 280, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>; <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Roman de Renart</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a> ff., <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Roman de Rou</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Roman de Th&egrave;bes</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Roman de Troie</i>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Romances, French, <a href="#Page_126">126</a> ff., caricatured, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>; English, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;
+  read by Chaucer, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rome, sends monks to England, <a href="#Page_60">60</a> ff., notion of Church and State,
+  derived from, <a href="#Page_60">60</a> ff., ties with, <a href="#Page_157">157</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, blamed, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, religious
+  life in, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, Langland on, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, encroachments of, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>; <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Romulus</i>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ronsard, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rood, A.S., dream of the, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, legends of the, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Rose</i>, see <i>Roman de la</i>.<br /><br />
+
+Rossetti, on <i>Troilus</i>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rotelande, Hue de, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rothschild, Baron James de, on Mysteries, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Round Table, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rufinus, Map's friend, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Ruin</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Runes, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Russell, John, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rutebeuf, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span>
+
+Ruthwell cross, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rymenhild, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Rysshetoun, Nicholas de, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Sachs, Hans, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Sacrament</i>, play of the, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Sad Shepherd</i>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sagas, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+St. Albans, "Scriptorium" of, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>; chronicles of, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a> ff.;
+  copies burnt, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /><br />
+
+St. David's, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>St. Josaphaz</i>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+St. Paul's Cathedral, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Sainte Madeleine</i>, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sainte More, Benoit de, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Saladin, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Salisbury, John of, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, on Paris University, <a href="#Page_172">172</a> ff., life and
+  works, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> ff., on jugglers, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Salomon and Saturnus</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sanxay, ruins at, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Saracens, saved, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>; <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sarr, Ralph de, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sarradin, on Des Champs, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Satan, in A.S. poems, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Satires and satirical poems, French, <a href="#Page_146">146</a> ff., Latin, <a href="#Page_178">178</a> ff., English,
+  <a href="#Page_225">225</a> ff., <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, by Langland, <a href="#Page_391">391</a> ff., <a href="#Page_397">397</a> ff., by Dunbar, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Saturnalia," <a href="#Page_450">450</a>, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Saxons, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> ff., <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Scandinavian Literature, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Schick, J., on Lydgate, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Schmidt, A., on Mary Magdalen, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sciences, among Anglo Saxons, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, under Angevin kings, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, ff.<br /><br />
+
+Scogan, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Scot, Duns, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Scotland, poets of, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Scriptoria," <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Scroby, Allan, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Scrope, Sir R., <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Scyld, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Seafarer</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Secret des Secrets</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Secretum Secretorum</i>, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Secunda Pastorum</i>, <a href="#Page_486">486</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Sejanus</i>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Selred, King, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Seneca, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Sentier batu</i>, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sergeant, L., on Wyclif, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sergeant, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sermons, A.S., <a href="#Page_88">88</a> ff., French, <a href="#Page_123">123</a> ff., Latin, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, with "exempla," <a href="#Page_154">154</a>,
+  English, <a href="#Page_205">205</a> ff., in Chaucer, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, in Langland, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, by Wyclif,
+  434.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Serpent of Division</i>, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Severus, Emperor, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /><br />
+
+S&eacute;vign&eacute;, Madame de, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Shakespeare, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a> ff., <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_472">472</a> ff., <a href="#Page_476">476</a> ff., <a href="#Page_482">482</a>, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Shareshull, William de, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Shepherds, play of, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>, <a href="#Page_486">486</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Sheridan, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Shipman, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Shoreham, William de, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Shows, <a href="#Page_453">453</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Sidney, Sir Philip, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sidonius Apollinaris, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Si&egrave;ge d'Orl&eacute;ans</i>, a drama, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sienna, medi&aelig;val, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sievers, E., on C&aelig;dmon, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sigfried, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Simon, bishop of Ely, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Simpson, W. S., on St. Paul's, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Siriz, Dame</i>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Skeat, W. W., <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, on Langland, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, on <i>Testament of
+  Love</i>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Skelton, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Skirni, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Smith, Lucy Toulmin, on Mysteries, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>; <a href="#Page_499">499</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Socrates, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Soderhjelm, on <i>Horn</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Solomon, King, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Somme des Vices et des Vertus</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Songs, "Goliardois," <a href="#Page_192">192</a>; English, <a href="#Page_230">230</a> ff., <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, at Christmas, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>
+  ff.; <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sophocles, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sorel, Albert, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Southwark, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Speaker, the, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Spectator</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Speculum Charitatis</i>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Speculum Meditantis</i>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Speculum Stultorum</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Speeches, in Parliament, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Spencer, H., <i>see</i> Despencer.<br /><br />
+
+Spenser, Edmund, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Spont, on Chaucer, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span>
+
+Squire, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Squyr of Lowe Degre</i>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Stacions of Rome</i>, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stafford, earl of, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stage, the, Bk. iii. c. vi., <a href="#Page_439">439</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Stamford-bridge, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /><br />
+
+State, Roman idea of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a> ff., Wyclif on the rights of, <a href="#Page_423">423</a> ff., <a href="#Page_430">430</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+States General, in France, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Statius, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stephen, King, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sterne, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stilicho, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stoker, Whitley, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stonehenge, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stow, J., <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Strasbourg, Gotfrit of, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Stratford-at-Bow, French of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Strode, Ralph, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stuarts, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stubbes, Philip, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Stury, Sir Richard, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sudbury, Simon, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sudre, on <i>Renart</i>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Suffolk, Duke of, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sully, Maurice de, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Summoners or Somnours, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, Chaucer's, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Swalwe, John, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Swedes, in <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Sweet, H., <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Swevenyng</i>, Book of, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Swift, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Swinburne, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Swithin, St., <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Swynford, Thomas, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Tabard inn, <a href="#Page_313">313</a> ff., <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Taborites, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tacitus, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a> ff., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a> ff., <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Taillefer, at Hastings, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Taine, II., <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, and Preface.<br /><br />
+
+Talbot, J., earl of Shrewsbury, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tale, tales, moralised, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, French, <a href="#Page_152">152</a> ff., Latin, <a href="#Page_182">182</a> ff., English,
+  <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, of the Basyn, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, of Beryn, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, and short stories, <a href="#Page_320">320</a> ff.,
+  of Gamelyn, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, of Melibeus, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>, by Gower, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, told
+  by histrions, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, by Dunbar, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tapestries, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Tartufe</i>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Temple of Glas</i>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Ten Brink, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, on Chaucer, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tennyson, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a> ff., and Preface.<br /><br />
+
+Terence, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Teseide</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tesoroni, on Ceadwalla, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Testament of Cresseid</i>, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Testament of Love</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Teutonic races, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Thaon, Philippe de, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Thebes</i>, Story of, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Theodebert, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Theodore of Tarsus, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Theodoric the Great, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Theseus, duke of Athens, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thierri, king of Austrasia, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thomas, author of <i>Horn</i>, in French, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thomas, author of a <i>Tristan</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thompson, Maunde, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Thopas, Sir</i>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thor, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thornton, Gilbert of, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Thornton Romances</i>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thorpe, W., <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Thre Lawes</i>, a comedy by John Bale, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Thrissil and the Rois</i>, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Thrush and Nightingale</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thurkill, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Thurot, on the Paris University, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Thynne, F., <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tiberius, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Til Ulespiegel, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tilbury, Gervase of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Titus, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Torcello, mosaic at, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tort, Lambert le, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tour Landry, Kt. de la, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_516">516</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tournaments, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Towneley Mysteries</i>, <a href="#Page_466">466</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Toynbee, on Mandeville, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Trade, English, <a href="#Page_256">256</a> ff., <a href="#Page_514">514</a> ff., <a href="#Page_517">517</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Travels, by Englishmen, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> ff., in France, Bohemia, Italy, <a href="#Page_282">282</a> ff.,
+  of Mandeville, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Treasures in Scandinavian literature, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, in A.S. literature, <a href="#Page_52">52</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Trees, not to be cut, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Trevisa, John of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Triall of Treasure</i>, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Tristan and Iseult</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> ff., <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span>
+
+Trivet, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Trogus Pompeius, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Troilus</i> (and Cressida), <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a> ff., <a href="#Page_298">298</a> ff., <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Trojans, ancestors of European nations, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Trojan War</i>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Trokelowe, John de, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Troy Book</i>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Troyes, Chrestien de, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tudors, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Turnament of Totenham</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tundal, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tunstall, Sir Marmaduke, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Turks, besiege Constantinople, <a href="#Page_524">524</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Turpin, archbishop, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Tybert, the cat, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> ff., <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Uccello, Paolo, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ulysses, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Unam Sanctam," bull, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.<br /><br />
+
+University of Paris, <a href="#Page_169">169</a> ff., of Oxford and Cambridge, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> ff., <a href="#Page_181">181</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Uplandis Mous</i>, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Urban VI., <a href="#Page_426">426</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Usener, on Boece, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Usnech, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Utopia</i>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Vacarius, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Valenciennes Passion, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Valerius (<i>alias</i> Map), <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Valkyrias, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Vandals, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Vandois, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Venus, described by Chaucer, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, by Gower, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, by James I., <a href="#Page_506">506</a>,
+  <i>see</i> Complaint.<br /><br />
+
+Vercingetorix, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Vespasian, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Vice," in Moralities, <a href="#Page_491">491</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Vices et Vertus</i>, <i>see</i> Somme.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Vieil Testament</i>, Myst&egrave;re du, <a href="#Page_472">472</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Vigfusson, G., <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Vigny, Alfred de, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Vikings, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Villon, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Vinesauf, Geoffrey de, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> ff., <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Virgil, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Virgin Mary, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> ff., <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <i>see</i> Joseph.<br /><br />
+
+Visconti, Barnabo, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Visions, of St. Paul, Tundal, Thurkill, St. Patrick, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, of Rolle of
+  Hampole, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, concerning Piers Plowman, <a href="#Page_373">373</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Vital, Orderic, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Vitry, Jacques de, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Vocabulary, <a href="#Page_237">237</a> ff., after the Conquest, <a href="#Page_243">243</a> ff., of Chaucer, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, of Langland, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, in the XVth century, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Voiture, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Volsungs, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Voltaire, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Volucraire</i>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Vox and Wolf</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Vox Clamantis</i>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a> ff.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Wace, on Hastings, 99, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>; <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a> ff., <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wadington, William of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, on drama, <a href="#Page_463">463</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Waldhere</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wales, partly conquered by William, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, described by Gerald de
+  Barry, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>; <i>see</i> Welsh.<br /><br />
+
+Walhalla, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wall, of Hadrian, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wallace, William, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Walsingham, Thomas, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a> ff., <a href="#Page_412">412</a> ff., on Wyclif,
+  <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Walter the Englishman, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Walter, Hubert, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Waltheof, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Walworth, Sir William, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Warner, G. F., on Mandeville, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Wanderer</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wandering Jew, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /><br />
+
+War-songs, Germanic, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, A.S., <a href="#Page_46">46</a> ff., <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ward, H. L. D., on <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, on Map, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Warwick, <i>see</i> Guy.<br /><br />
+
+Washbourn, Richard, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Waterford, Geoffrey de, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Waurin Jean de, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Weber, H. W., on Romances, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wedmore, peace of, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /><br />
+
+"Wednesday," <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Weeping Bitch</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a> ff., <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Weland, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Welsh language, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, laws, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, literature, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, legends on Arthur, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>,
+  traditions, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wendover, Roger de, <a href="#Page_200">200</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span>
+
+Werferth, bishop of Worcester, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wesley, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Westminster Abbey, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wey, William, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Whitsuntide plays, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Whittington, Richard, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Widsith</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wife of Bath, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Wife's Complaint</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wilfrith, St., <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /><br />
+
+William the Conqueror, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> ff., <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br /><br />
+
+William Rufus, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>William of Palerne</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Willibrord, St., <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Winchester, Godfrey of, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Windisch, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Winfrith (St. Boniface), <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wireker, Nigel, <a href="#Page_178">178</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Woden, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a> ff., <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Woman, in Celtic literature, <a href="#Page_15">15</a> ff., in Scandinavian literature, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, in
+  A.S. sermons, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, in <i>Chanson de Roland</i>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a> ff., in chansons,
+  <a href="#Page_144">144</a> ff., satirised by Map, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, in English songs, <a href="#Page_230">230</a> ff., in Chaucer,
+  <a href="#Page_303">303</a> ff., <a href="#Page_332">332</a> ff., in Boccaccio, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, in <i>Gawayne</i>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>,
+  excluded from the <i>Pui</i> Society, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, satirised, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, in
+  Langland, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Women, <i>see</i> Legend.<br /><br />
+
+Woodkirk Mysteries, <a href="#Page_465">465</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Worcester, Florence of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wordsworth, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Workmen, London, in Chaucer, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, singing, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, St. Joseph one of
+  them, <a href="#Page_485">485</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Wren, Christopher, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wright, Aldis, on Robert of Gloucester, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Wright's Chaste Wife</i>, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wulfstan, the homilist, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wulfstan, the traveller, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /><br />
+
+W&uuml;lcker, on C&aelig;dmon, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wyclif, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, life and works, <a href="#Page_422">422</a> ff., <a href="#Page_520">520</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Wyclif Society, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Wykeham, William of, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Wyntoun, Andrew de, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+<i>Year Books</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a> ff.<br /><br />
+
+Ymagynatyf, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.<br /><br />
+
+<i>York plays</i>, <a href="#Page_465">465</a> ff., their end, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ypres, John of, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Ysengrin, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> ff.<br /><br />
+<br /><br />
+
+Zeno, Apostolo, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Zimmer, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /><br />
+
+Zupitza, on <i>Beowulf</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, on Guy of Warwick, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br />
+</div>
+<hr />
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;">Transcriber's Notes</p>
+<p>The year in Roman numerals has been retained as it is in the original.<br />
+Changed <b>owned</b> to <b>owed</b> on page 249, "allegiance is only owed"<br />
+Added opening parenthesis in footnote 166, "see also P. Meyer"<br />
+Added opening parenthesis in footnote 337, "cf. Bramlette's article"<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Literary History of the English
+People, by Jean Jules Jusserand
+
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Literary History of the English People, by
+Jean Jules Jusserand
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Literary History of the English People
+       From the Origins to the Renaissance
+
+Author: Jean Jules Jusserand
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #22049]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY OF THE ENGLISH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stacy Brown and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Million Book Project)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A Literary History of the English People
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ENGLISH WAYFARING LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES (XIVth Century). Translated by
+L. T. Smith. Revised and Enlarged by the Author. 4th Edition. 61
+Illustrations. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
+
+"An extremely fascinating book."--_Times._
+
+
+THE ENGLISH NOVEL IN THE TIME OF SHAKESPEARE.
+
+Translated by E. Lee. Revised and Enlarged by the Author. Illustrated by
+6 Heliogravures by Dujardin, and 21 full-page and many smaller
+illustrations. 3rd Edition. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
+
+"One of the brightest, most scholarly, and most interesting volumes of
+literary history."--_Speaker._
+
+
+A FRENCH AMBASSADOR AT THE COURT OF CHARLES II.: Le Comte de Cominges,
+from his unpublished correspondence.
+
+10 Portraits. Second Edition. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
+
+"The whole book is delightful reading."--_Spectator._
+
+
+PIERS PLOWMAN: A Contribution to the History of English Mysticism.
+
+Translated by M. E. R. Revised and Enlarged by the Author. Illustrated.
+Demy 8vo, cloth, 12s.
+
+"This masterly interpretation of an epoch-making book."--_Standard._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+London: T. FISHER UNWIN.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+HELIOG DUJARDIN                   IMP.CH.WITTMANN PARIS
+
+MEDIAEVAL LONDON
+_from manuscript 16 F. II in the British Museum_
+
+]
+
+
+
+
+A Literary History of
+The English People
+
+from the Origins
+To the Renaissance
+
+
+
+
+By
+
+J. J. Jusserand
+
+
+
+
+London
+T. Fisher Unwin
+Mdcccccv
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Many histories have preceded this one; many others will come after. Such
+is the charm of the subject that volunteers will never be lacking to
+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
+echoes of which, by a gift of fairies or of muses, still vibrate to the
+melody of voices long since hushed.
+
+More has been done during the last fifty years to shed light on the
+origins than in all the rest of modern times. Deciphering, annotating,
+printing, have gone on at an extraordinary pace and without
+interruption; the empire of letters has thus been enlarged, according to
+the chances of the explorers' 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 one that
+affects us more nearly. The years glide on so rapidly that the traveller
+who started to explore the lands of former times, absorbed 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, straightforward in his judgments, unmindful of consequences,
+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 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 silent realms are not the realms of death
+absolute; daylight is perceived in the distance; the continuity of life
+is felt. The dead of Westminster have left behind them a posterity,
+youthful in its turn, and life-giving. Their descendants 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,
+beautiful, 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 of thirty volumes in quarto, and only
+the year 1317 has been reached. And with all that immense past and those
+far-distant origins, those two literatures have a splendid present
+betokening a splendid future. Both are alive to-day and vigorous; ready
+to baffle the predictions of miscreants, they show no sign of decay.
+They are ever ready for transformations, not for death. Side by side or
+face to face, in peace or war, both literatures like 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 reactions
+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 descriptions, 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 problems, 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. The work in such a
+case will not be, properly speaking, a "History of English Literature,"
+but rather a "Literary History of the English People."
+
+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
+ages during which the national thought expressed itself in languages
+which were not the national one, will not be allowed to remain blank, as
+if, for complete 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 Westminster
+will be entered, and there will be seen how the nation, such as it was
+then represented, became conscious, even under the Plantagenets, of its
+existence, 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 Bradford-on-Avon, to Blackheath, to the "Tabard"
+and the "Mermaid," to the "Globe," to "Will's" coffee house, among
+ruined fortresses, to cloud-reaching steeples, or along the furrow sown
+to good intent by Piers the honest Plowman.
+
+The work, the first part of which is now published, 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 own day. The present version has been prepared with the
+help of M. E. R., who have once more lent me their most kind and
+valuable assistance. I beg them to accept the expression of my heartfelt
+gratitude.
+
+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
+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 one 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 difficulties of the task, the unlikeliness that he has
+overcome 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 undertaking;
+"Qu'allait-il faire dans cette galere?" 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-off subjects. No books had been dedicated to them; the attempt,
+therefore, could not be considered as an undue intrusion. But in the
+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 once had a drive in London; when it was
+finished, he offered the cabman 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, 1894._
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+  Preface                                                              1
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+_THE ORIGINS._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BRITANNIA.
+
+  I. Fusion of Races in France and in England.--First
+  inhabitants--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
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE NATIONAL POETRY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.
+
+  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, AEddi, 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 unchanged--Heroical adventures of the saints--Paraphrase
+  of the Bible--Caedmon--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--AElfric, Wulfstan, "Blickling"
+  homilies--Attempt to reach literary dignity.
+    End of the Anglo-Saxon period                                     88
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+_THE FRENCH INVASION._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BATTLE.
+
+  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
+  successors 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--Unification of origins--Help from chroniclers and
+  poets--The Trojan ancestor                                         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                                                141
+
+  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 of 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 Cambridge--Studies, battles, feasts--Colleges, chests,
+  libraries                                                          166
+
+  III. Latin Poets.--Joseph of Exeter and the Trojan
+  war--Epigrammatists, 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
+  Monmouth--Moralised tales--"Gesta Romanorum"--John of
+  Bromyard--"Risque" tales, fables in prose, miracles of the
+  Virgin, romantic tales--A Latin sketch of the "Merchant of
+  Venice"--John 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--Roman 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 Riwle"--Translation of French treatises--Life and
+  works of Rolle of Hampole                                          204
+
+  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
+  presentment of Englishery, 1340--Survival of the French
+  language in the fourteenth century--The decline--Part 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                                                    255
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAUCER.
+
+  The Poet of the new nation                                         267
+
+  I. Youth of Chaucer.--His London life--London in
+  the fourteenth century--Chaucer as a page--His French
+  campaigns--Valettus camerae Regis--Esquire--Married
+  life--Poetry a la mode--Machault, Deguileville, Froissart,
+  Des Champs, &c.--Chaucer's love ditties--The "Roman de la
+  Rose"--"Book of the Duchesse"                                      268
+
+  II. Period of the Missions to France and Italy.--The
+  functions of an ambassador and messenger--Various
+  missions--Chaucer in Italy, 1372-3, 1378-9--Influence of
+  Italian art and literature on Chaucer--London again; the
+  Custom House; Aldgate--Works of this period--Latin and
+  Italian deal--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 transformed--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 feelings--Her
+  inconstancy--Melancholy and grave ending--Difference
+  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
+
+  I. 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
+
+  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--Laurence 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 tri-lingual--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 of refuge
+  for him                                                            374
+
+  II. Analysis of the Visions.--The pilgrims 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          388
+
+  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--Fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--Time of the Reformation  394
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 Bourgogne and his journey through books--Immense
+  success of the Travels--Style of the English
+  translation--Chaucer's prose                                       404
+
+  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--Papal 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: communism--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
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE THEATRE.
+
+  I. 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--Feasts
+  of various sorts--Processions and pageants--"Tableaux
+  Vivants"--Compliments and dialogues--Feasts at Court--"Masks"      439
+
+  II. Religious Sources.--Mass--Dialogues introduced
+  in the Christmas service--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
+  ancestors' 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 Mediaeval Stage.--Moralities--Personified
+  abstractions--The end of Mysteries--They continue being performed
+  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 transformation--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
+
+  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 social conditions. Hence the striking
+resemblances 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 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 landscape 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 both countries, many centuries
+before Christ, the Celtic race.
+
+The Celts ([Greek: keltai]) 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
+plundered, 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.[2]
+
+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 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 continues; 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
+compatriots 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 possible,
+and note all he could observe concerning the customs of the natives. The
+picture he draws of the former inhabitants 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 themselves
+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 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.[3] 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."[4] 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 subterranean
+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 understood 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."[5] 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!"[6]
+
+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 Conquest 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 assimilation 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 of 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_).[7] 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 compositions, and with what talent the men of
+Celtic blood exercised 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,"[8] 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 undergone no modification; Armoricans, Britons,
+Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, are all inexhaustible tale-tellers, skilful in
+dialogue, prompt at repartee, and never to be taken unawares. 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.[9]
+
+Ireland has preserved for us the most ancient monuments 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.[10] Only too well was the
+injunction obeyed. Nothing, again, has been transmitted to us of the
+improvisations of the Gallic or British bards ([Greek: bardoi]), 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 Christianity, the pagan origins constantly reappear in these
+narratives, and we are thus taken back to the epoch when 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[11]; 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 Continent.[12]
+
+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.[13] 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.
+
+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.[14] This is all the more
+noticeable as the epoch was a barbarous one, and a multitude 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: _Provincia 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.[15] The warlike valour of the heroes is carried as far
+as human nature and imagination allow; not even Roland or Ragnar Lodbrok
+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 of his belt, he fastened his
+body to the high stone. Neither sitting nor lying would he die; but he
+would die standing. Then his enemies gathered round him. They remained
+about him, not daring to approach; he seemed to be still alive."[16]
+
+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.[17] Celtic poets excel in the art
+of giving a lifelike representation 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
+Sickness," 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 discussions
+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."[18] Ailill, king of Connaught, and
+Conchobar, king of Ulster, claim the dog; and Mac Datho, much
+perplexed, consults his wife, who suggests that he should promise 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 principal 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.
+
+In the "Murder of the Sons of Usnech,"[19] 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 following 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 foretells
+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 Scotland, and take refuge
+with the king of Albion. One day 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 musicians 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; lifeless 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 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"[20]; 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, resting 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 literatures of which it is possible to
+write a history without 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 centuries 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 milestones, sixty of which have
+been found, and one, at Chesterholm, 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.[21] 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,
+Cirencester, Aldborough, Woodchester, Bignor, and in a multitude 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 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.[22] 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[23] 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."[24] 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 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.[25]
+
+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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[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.
+
+[2] 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 Historique," January-February, 1886.
+
+[3] "Proximi Gallis, et similes sunt.... Sermo haud multum diversus: in
+deposcendis periculis eadem audacia ... plus tamen ferociae Britanni
+praeferunt, ut quos nondum longa pax emollierit ... manent quales Galli
+fuerunt." Tacitus, "Agricola," xi. "AEdificia 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 Trinobantes were Gallo-Belgae.
+
+[4]
+
+    Te non paventis funera Galliae
+    Duraque tellus audit Hiberiae.
+
+("Ad Augustum," Odes, iv. 14.)
+
+[5] "Odyssey," xi. l. 488 ff.
+
+[6]
+
+    Et vos ... Druidae ...
+    ... nemora alta remotis
+    Incolitis lucis, vobis auctoribus, umbrae
+    Non tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi
+    Pallida regna petunt; regit idem spiritus artus
+    Orbe alio: longae (canitis si cognita) vitae
+    Mors media est. Certe populi quos despicit Arctos,
+    Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum
+    Maximus, haud urget leti metus.
+
+("Pharsalia," book i.)
+
+[7] "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.
+
+[8] See _supra_, p. 7, note.
+
+[9] "De curia vero et familia viri, ut et circumstantibus risum moveant
+sibique loquendo laudem comparent, facetiam in sermone plurimam
+observant; dum vel sales, vel laedoria, nunc levi nunc mordaci, sub
+aequivocationis vel amphibolae nebula, relatione diversa, transpositione
+verborum et trajectione, subtiles et dicaces emittunt." And he cites
+examples of their witticisms. "Descriptio Kambriae," chap. xiv., De
+verborum facetia et urbanitate. "Opera," Brewer, 1861-91, 8 vols., vol.
+vi., Rolls.
+
+[10] 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.
+
+[11] Those, among others, of MM. Whitley Stokes, Rhys, d'Arbois de
+Jubainville, Lot, Windisch, Zimmer, Netlau, and Kuno-Meyer.
+
+[12] "Est autem hoc Galliae consuetudinis; ut et viatores etiam invitos
+consistere cogant: et quod quisque eorum de quaque re audierit aut
+cognoverit quaerant, et mercatores in oppidis vulgus circumsistat: quibus
+ex regionibus veniant, quasque res ibi cognoverint pronunciare cogant."
+Book iv.
+
+[13] 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, 8vo, pp. 322-333.
+
+[14] 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.
+
+[15] D'Arbois de Jubainville, "L'Epopee Celtique," pp. xxviii and
+following. "Celtic marriage is a sale.... Physical paternity has not the
+same importance 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.
+
+[16] The Murder of Cuchulainn, "L'Epopee Celtique en Irlande," p. 346.
+
+[17] The same quality is found in the literature of Brittany; the major
+part of its monuments (of a more recent epoch) consists of religious
+dramas or mysteries. These dramas, mostly unpublished, are exceedingly
+numerous.
+
+[18] "L'Epopee Celtique," pp. 66 and following.
+
+[19] "L'Epopee Celtique en Irlande," pp. 217 and following.
+
+[20] 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.
+
+[21] 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. Athenaeum_, 15th and
+19th of July, 1893.
+
+[22] 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.
+
+[23] 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).
+
+[24] "Itinerarium Cambriae," b. i. chap. v.
+
+[25] "Ut qui modo linguam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent: inde
+etiam habitus nostri honor, et frequens toga; paullatimque discessum et
+dilinimenta vitiorum, porticus et balnea, et conviviorum elegantiam."
+Tacitus, "Agricolae 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 culture 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 impenetrable 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 slumbering sea,
+"the girdle and limit of the world," a place so near to the spot where
+Phoebus 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."[26]
+
+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 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 extending 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, Norwegians, 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,
+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, retreating 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 image; 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, _humanitas_, Tacitus said of the Britons, what was
+actually "servitude."[27] The frontiers of the empire were now so far
+distant that the roar of the advancing tide scarcely reached Rome. What
+was overheard 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 dormant energy, but only whets and renews the appetite for
+enjoyment.
+
+Meanwhile, far away towards the north, the Germanic 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 earliest infancy they endeavour
+to harden themselves physically.[28] They were not inventive; they
+learned with more difficulty than the Celts; they were violent and
+irrepressible. The little that is known of their customs and character
+points to fiery souls that may rise to great rapturous joys but have an
+underlayer of gloom, 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.[29] These men will enjoy lyric songs, but not
+charming tales; they are capable of mirth but not of gaiety; powerful
+but incomplete 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"
+(_guerre, 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 phenomenon, 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
+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, Burgundians, 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.[30]
+
+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 mountains, 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 embark, 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 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."[31]
+
+Treasure did not suffice; the town was taken and retaken. 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 Ostrogoth 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 kingdom 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,[32] the
+dwellers on the shores of the Baltic and North Sea had at first
+organised plundering expeditions against the great island. They came
+periodically and laid waste the coasts; and on account of them the
+inhabitants gave to this part of the land the name _Littus Saxonicum_.
+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, or kingdoms, that literature reached the greatest development,
+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 inhabitants 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
+agglomerations of tribes, that of the Angles and that of the Saxons.[33]
+
+In the same way as in Gaul, the invaders found themselves 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 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 _strat_, as in Stratford, and _coln_ 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 invaders. 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: _hominum infinita multitudo_, he says in his
+Commentaries. The invaders, on the other hand, found themselves in
+presence of an intelligent, laborious, assimilable race, trained by the
+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 inhabitants, in
+connection with two places only: Chester and Anderida.[34] 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
+annihilated because the ruins of a Gallo-Roman city, with a theatre
+seating seven thousand people have been discovered 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
+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.[35] 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.[36] The Anglo-Saxons did not destroy them, since they are still
+extant, and only mingled 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.[37] The preservation 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 glass-works, and which
+the clumsy hands of the Saxon were certainly incapable of fusing and
+adorning.[38]
+
+The Britons, then, subsist in large numbers, even in the eastern and
+southern counties, where the Germanic settlement 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.
+
+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.[39] 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 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 Nimes and Vienne; pass, when entering Reims,
+Orange, or Saintes under triumphal arches erected by his ancestors; he
+might recognise their tombs at the "Aliscamps" of Arles; 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 tradition 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.
+
+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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] "De Moribus Germanorum," b. ii. chap. xlv.
+
+[27] "Agricola," xxi.
+
+[28] "Vita omnis in venationibus atque in studiis rei militaris
+constitit; ab parvulis labori ac duritiei student." "De Bello Gallico,"
+book vi.
+
+[29] "Saxones, sicut omnes fere Germaniam incolentes nationes, et natura
+feroces et cultui daemonum dediti." Eginhard, "Vita Karoli," vii.
+
+[30] The arms of the Franks and those of the Anglo-Saxons, the former
+preserved 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.
+
+[31] "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.
+
+[32] 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 19
+centim. 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 description 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 Moktader, in the tenth century, as ambassador to a
+Scandinavian king established on the banks of the Volga (_Journal
+Asiatique_, 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, 1893. It
+was found to be perfectly seaworthy, even in rough weather.
+
+[33] 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 Norman 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: "AEgo Aelfredus,
+gratia Dei, Angol Saxonum rex." AEthelstan 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.
+
+[34] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," Rolls, _sub anno_ 491.
+
+[35] "De Moribus Germanorum," xv., xxvi.
+
+[36] 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. Fourteen hundred such names have been counted, of which 48
+occur in Northumberland, 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.
+
+[37] Ammianus Marcellinus: "Ipsa oppida, ut circumdata retiis busta
+declinant"; in reference to the Franks and Alemanni, "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 aedificiis: suam
+quisque domum spatio circumdat." "De Moribus Germanorum," xvi.
+
+[38] 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 preserved 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.
+
+[39] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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 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"[40] (or
+consonants giving about the same sound):
+
+    _F_lod under _f_oldan | nis thaet _f_eor 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:
+
+                            _Au_dit et _au_det
+    Dux _f_alli: _f_atisque _f_avet quum _f_ata recuset.[41]
+
+The famous Visions of Langland, in the fourteenth century, are in
+alliterative verse; under Elizabeth alliteration became one of the
+peculiarities of the florid prose 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 which were to save the
+Anglo-Saxon genius from the 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 continental 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 questions of date and place,
+but the difficulty is such, and that literature forms such a compact
+whole, that the best and 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.[42] 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 discovered, 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.
+
+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.[43] The resemblances between the
+two 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.[44] 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,[45] 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 literature 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
+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 abundantly 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 serpents 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 of 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 commentary 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.[46] Gunnar,
+wanting to keep for 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."[47]
+
+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 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."[48] 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 goddesses; Drunkard! is the reply of both. There is no
+question here of _argute loqui_.
+
+Violent in their speech, cruel in their actions,[49] 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.[50]
+
+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. 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.[51] 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 heartrending
+laments. It is contemplative and warlike.[52]
+
+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 AEthelstan, lord of earls, ring-giver of warriors, and
+his brother eke Edmund AEtheling, 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 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."[53]
+
+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 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 AEthelstan, 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 crossing 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 "Nibelungenlied." 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.[54]
+
+The strange poem of "Beowulf,"[55] the most important monument of
+Anglo-Saxon literature, was discovered at the end of the last century,
+in a manuscript written about the year 1000,[56] 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 particular,[57] and of
+historical facts, the various parts, after a separate literary life,
+having been put together, perhaps in the eighth century, perhaps later,
+by an Anglo-Saxon Christian, 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 Weland; 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,[58] are mixed up with tales of fantastic duels
+below the waves.
+
+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,[59] 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."[60] Grendel removed thirty of them to his lair, and
+they were killed by "that dark pest 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[61]), 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.[62] 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 morning,
+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 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 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 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 remaineth, as
+useless to men as it [formerly] was."[63] 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 consisted 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 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 ses pers
+    Ed Olivier qu'il tant podeit amer,
+    Tendror en out, commencet a plorer,
+    En son visage fut molt descolorez.[64]
+
+Beowulf crushes all he touches; in his fights he upsets monsters, in his
+talks he tumbles his interlocutors headlong. 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 headlands, 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 what has preceded and what is to follow, we know
+not...."[65]
+
+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 equanimity 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 remember 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' day with any grief of
+ours. Let us retire from life, as from a drawing-room, discreetly, "as
+from a banquet," said La Fontaine.[66] 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.[67]
+
+Examples of Anglo-Saxon poems, either dreamy or warlike, could easily be
+multiplied. We have the lamentations 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...." Or, in another song:
+"Then wakes again the friendless 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."[68]
+
+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."[69] 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] H. Sweet, "Sketch of the History of Anglo-Saxon poetry," in
+Hazlitt's Warton, ii. p. 3.
+
+[41] "De Bello Trojano," iii., line 108. 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."
+
+[42] "His date has been variously estimated from the eighth to the
+eleventh century. The latter is the more probable." Earle, "Anglo-Saxon
+Literature," 1884, p. 228.
+
+[43] Grein, "Bibliothek der Angelsaechsischen Poesie," ed. Wuelker;
+Cassel, 1883 ff., 8vo; "Corpus Poeticum Boreale, The poetry of the old
+northern tongue, from the earliest to the XIIIth Century," edited and
+translated by G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Oxford, 1883, 2 vols.
+8vo; vol. i., Eddic poetry; vol. ii., Court poetry. Other important
+monuments of Scandinavian literature are found in the following
+collections: "Edda Snorri," Ion Sigurdsson, Copenhagen, 1848, 2 vols.;
+"Norroen Fornkvaedi," ed. S. Bugge, Christiania, 1867, 8vo. (contains the
+collection usually called Edda Saemundi); "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. Vigfusson, 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.
+
+[44] 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.
+
+[45] 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.
+
+[46] "Lay of Skirni."--"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 114.
+
+[47] "Alta-Kvida."--"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 48. This is one of the most
+ancient poems in the collection.
+
+[48] "Alta-Kvida."--"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 51.
+
+[49] A single example will be as good as many: "One of the Viking
+leaders got the nickname of Boern (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.
+
+[50] "Hymis-Kvida."--"Corpus Poeticum," i. p. 222.
+
+[51] The most valuable monuments of Anglo-Saxon literature and art are
+contained 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 Caedmon, 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 Werferth, bishop of
+Worcester).
+
+The MS. of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," the Winchester text, in the
+library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. lxxiii.
+
+The MSS. of the homilies of AElfric 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, fol., and "Palaeographia Sacro Pictoria," London, 1844,
+fol. See also the fine pen-and-ink drawings in the above-mentioned MS.
+Junius xi., in the Bodleian Library.
+
+[52] _Cf._ Tacitus, who says of the Germans: "Celebrant carminibus
+antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriae 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).
+
+[53] "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
+few 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.
+
+[54] G. Stephens, "Two leaves of King Waldere's lay," Copenhagen and
+London, 1860, 8vo; R. Peiper, "Ekkehardi primi Waltharius," Berlin,
+1873, 8vo.
+
+[55] "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
+VIIIth Century, with a translation," by T. Arnold, London, 1876, 8vo.
+"The deeds of Beowulf ... done into modern prose," ed. Earle, Oxford
+Clarendon Press, 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 AEneid.
+
+[56] Such is the opinion of Mr. Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. ii.,
+London, 1893, p. 1.
+
+[57] 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 resemblances, 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.
+
+[58] In Gregory of Tours, book iii. chap. 3 ("Historia Ecclesiastica
+Francorum," Societe de l'histoire de France, vol. i. p. 270); in
+"Beowulf" II. 1202 _et seq._--
+
+    Gehwearf tha in Francna faethm feorh cynninges;--
+
+"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 515; 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.
+
+[59] According to the poem, the line of succession was: Scyld, Beowulf
+(not our hero), Healfdene, Heorogar, Hrothgar.
+
+[60] "Beowulf," 1876, T. Arnold's translation.
+
+[61] This last opinion has been put forward with great force by
+Fahlbeck, and accepted by Vigfusson. See Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
+ii. p. 15, and Appendix.
+
+[62] They are numerous especially in the province of Finmarken; they are
+to be found further south in winter.
+
+[63] 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.
+
+[64] "Chanson de Roland," line 2804.
+
+[65] "Talis mihi videtur, vita hominum praesens in terris ad
+comparationem ejus, quod nobis incertum est, temporis, quale cum te
+residente ad coenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali,
+accenso quidem foco in medio et calido effecto coenaculo, furentibus
+autem foris per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluviarum vel nivium,
+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 praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec nova
+doctrina certius aliquid attulit merito esse sequenda videtur."
+"Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum," book ii. cap. 13, year 627.
+
+[66]
+
+             Je voudrais qu'a cet age,
+    On sortit de la vie ainsi que d'un banquet,
+    Remerciant son hote. (viii. 1.)
+
+[67] 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 of 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 Huebner, "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.
+
+[68] "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
+Exoniensis"; the subject of this last poem has been shown by Earle to be
+probably the town of Bath.
+
+[69] T. Arnold's "Beowulf," p. 118, l. 1820.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AND PROSE LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS._
+
+
+I.
+
+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 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 AEthelberht, 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 forgivest 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 Thor. Only a short distance divided man
+from godhood in heathen times; the god had his passions and his
+adventures, 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, contradictory faiths were held side by
+side. Christ was believed in, but Woden was still feared, and secretly
+appeased by sacrifices. Kings are obliged to publish edicts, forbidding
+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.[70]
+
+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 religion
+progresses, while the old is waning; this phenomenon is brought about,
+in the south, by the influence of Augustine 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[71]; 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."[72] The Princess
+Hilda founds, in the seventh century, the monastery of Streoneshalch,
+and becomes its abbess; Ceadwalla dies at Rome in 689, and is buried in
+St. Peter's, under the _Porticus Pontificum_, opposite the tomb of St.
+Gregory the Great.[73] AEthelwulf, 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."[74] 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 following 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 numbers 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!"[75]
+
+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[76]; 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."[77] He reorganises the Church of the
+Franks, and dies martyrised 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 compiled 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 correspond with each other
+in the language of Rome. Boniface, in the wilds of Germany, remains in
+constant communication 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, in
+his barbarous Latin, has a studied elegance that might vie with the
+conceits of Voiture.[78]
+
+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.[79] AEddi (Eddius Stephanus) writes a life, also in Latin,
+of his friend St. Wilfrith.[80]
+
+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," 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,"[81] 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 straightforwardness.
+
+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,[82] 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,[83] 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
+they 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."[84]
+
+
+III.
+
+Anglo-Saxon monks now speak Latin; some, since the coming of Theodore of
+Tarsus,[85] even know a little Greek; 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 continues 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 uninhabited 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
+settlements of the people; frozen were the lands with cold icicles,
+shrunk the water's might; over the river streams, the ice made a bridge,
+a pale water road."[86]
+
+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 command 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 and dignity,"[87] a remark
+which has stood true these many centuries. Taken to the abbess Hilda, of
+Streoneshalch, 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.[88] 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 accompany the tales of war; the dismal landscapes are
+described with care, or rather with loving delight. Ethereal personages
+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
+himself, that on his journey he should come, the Lord of men, but he his
+vassal sendeth."[89]
+
+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,[90] 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, 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."[91]
+
+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 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 of 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."[92] 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 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"[93]
+
+                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 ditched 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.[94]
+
+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.[95]
+
+The devotional poetry of the Anglo-Saxons includes translations of the
+Psalms,[96] 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 panther[97]; 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 literature in which the warmth and hues of
+the south are preserved 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
+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.[98]
+
+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 impossibility 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. Notwithstanding 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.[99] With the Anglo-Saxons, laws,[100]
+chronicles, and sermons for the common people were written in the
+national tongue; and, as Latin was only understood by few, to these
+monuments was added a series of translations.[101] 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 AEthelred 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."[102] These men, termed Danes, Northmen, or Normans, by the
+Anglo-Saxon and French chroniclers, reappeared 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.[103] 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 disappear 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.[104]
+
+In the tumult caused by these new wars, what the
+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 translate 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 written 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." Remembering 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."[105] These learned men, and especially the Welshman
+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 himself 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,"[106] the book
+of Orosius, which will be for them as a handbook of universal history;
+the Ecclesiastical 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.[107]
+
+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 northmost of all
+Northmen. He said that he dwelt in the land to the northward, along the
+west sea.[108] 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 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
+departure; 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.[109] 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, Boethius, 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.
+
+Under his pen, the vague Christianity of Boethius[110] 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."
+
+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.[111]
+
+Following the king's example, the bishops and monks set to work again.
+Werferth, bishop of Worcester, translates the famous dialogues of St.
+Gregory, filled with miracles and marvellous tales.[112] 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.[113] It is 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.[114] 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
+were after me my memory in good works."[115] 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."[116]
+
+
+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 archbishop St. Dunstan rules under his name.[117]
+
+Helped by Bishop AEthelwold, 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.[118] 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[119]; others are due to the celebrated monk AElfric, who became abbot
+of Eynsham in 1005, and wrote most of his works about this time[120];
+another collection includes the sermons of Wulfstan, bishop of York from
+1002 to 1023.[121]
+
+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.[122]
+
+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 extremity of the world, in the distant East.[123] This
+church 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.
+
+AElfric 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."[124]
+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."[125]
+
+The lives of the saints told by AElfric recall at times tales in the
+Arabian Nights. There are transformations, disparitions, enchantments,
+emperors who become hermits, 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 frightfully
+feather-clad."[126] 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,
+alliteration. Wulfstan and AElfric 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.[127] 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 with great bitterness, and we
+follow it as it flies from us, and love it although it is passing
+away."[128]
+
+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."[129]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus Anglo-Saxon literature, in spite of the efforts of Cynewulf,
+Alfred, Dunstan, and AElfric 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 perceptibly 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 established 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 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, AEthelstan, 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[70] "Hengest and Horsa ... were the sons of Wihtgils; 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 ... Waermund of Wihtlaeg, Wihtlaeg of Woden" (_Ibid._ year 626).
+Orderic Vital, born in England, and writing in Normandy, in the twelfth
+century, continues to trace back the descent of the kings of England to
+Woden: "a quo Angh feriam [iv]am Wodenis diem nuncupant" ("Hist.
+Eccl.," ed. Le Prevost, 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 dea
+eorum 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).
+
+[71] This unique monument seems to be of the eighth century. _Cf._
+"Pre-Conquest Churches of Northumbria," an article by C. Hodges in the
+"Reliquary," July, 1893.
+
+[72] For example, charter of Offa, dated 793, "Matthaei Parisiensis ...
+Chronica Majora," ed. Luard (Rolls), vol. vi., "Additamenta," pp. 1, 25,
+&c.: "Regnante Domino nostro Jesu Christo in perpetuum."
+
+[73] "King Ceadwalla's tomb in the ancient basilica of St. Peter," by M.
+Tesoroni, Rome, 1891, 8vo.
+
+[74] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," year 855. The princess was Judith,
+daughter of Charles the Bald. Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, blessed the
+marriage.
+
+[75] "Quid dicam de tot episcopis ..." &c. "Willelmi Malmesbiriensis....
+Gesta regum Anglorum," ed. Hardy, London, 1840, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. ii. p.
+417.
+
+[76] See his will and various documents concerning him in Migne's
+"Patrologia," vol. lxxxix., col. 535 _et seq._
+
+[77] "Fraternitatis vestrae pietatem intimis obsecramus precibus ut nos
+inter feras et ignaras gentes Germaniae laborantes, vestris sacrosanctis
+orationibus adjuvemur." Boniface to Cuthberht and others, year 735, in
+Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix., col. 735.
+
+[78] "Ideo haec Vestrae Excellentiae dico ... ut aliquos ex pueris nostris
+remittam, qui excipiant nobis necessaria quaeque, 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
+perflare hortos Ligeris fluminis et fluant aromata illius...." Migne's
+"Patrologia," vol. c., col. 208. 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 Merciorum;" "Ad Coenulvum regem Merciorum,"
+year 796, col. 213, 232.
+
+[79] Works in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxxix. col. 87 _et seq._ They
+include, besides his poetry ("De laude Virginum," &c.), a prose
+treatise: "De Laudibus Virginitatis," and other works in prose. He uses
+alliteration in his Latin poems.
+
+[80] "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.
+
+[81] 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. ff.
+
+[82] Letter of Cuthberht, later abbot of Jarrow, to his friend Cuthwine,
+on the 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 uniurthit
+    Thonc snoturra...."
+
+Bede had translated the Gospel of St. John, but this work is lost.
+
+[83] See below, p. 70.
+
+[84] 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. lxxxix.
+
+[85] Archbishop of Canterbury, seventh century.
+
+[86] J. M. Kemble, "Codex Vercellensis," London, AElfric Society,
+1847-56; Part I., ll. 1 ff., 2507 ff., "Andreas," attributed to
+Cynewulf. On this question, see Gollancz, "Cynewulf's Christ," London,
+1892, p. 173.
+
+[87] "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.
+
+[88] "Caedmon's metrical paraphrase of parts of the Holy Scripture in
+Anglo-Saxon, with an English translation," by B. Thorpe, London, Society
+of Antiquaries, 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. Wuelcker, 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 conclusively 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.
+
+[89] "Metrical Paraphrase," pp. 29 ff.
+
+[90] 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.
+
+[91] "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 frequence 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 1100. H. Logeman,
+"L'Inscription Anglo-Saxonne du reliquaire de la vraie croix au tresor
+de l'eglise des SS. Michel et Gudule," Gand, Paris and London, 1891, 8vo
+(with facsimile), pp. 7 and 11.
+
+[92] "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 "[Greek: Praxeis
+Andreou kai Matthaiou];" a copy of it is preserved in the National
+Library, Paris, Greek MS. 881, fol. 348.
+
+[93] "Departed Soul's Address to the Body," "Codex Vercellensis," part
+ii. p. 104.
+
+[94] Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." See also, "Be Domes Daege," a poem on the
+terrors of judgment (ed. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1876).
+
+[95] See examples of such dialogues and speeches in "Andreas", "The Holy
+Rood" (in "Cod Vercell"); in Cynewulf's "Christ" ("Cod. Exoniensis"),
+&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, AElfric 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 Ages and the Renaissance; it was well
+known to Rabelais: "Qui ne s'adventure n'a cheval ni mule, ce dict
+Salomon.--Qui trop s'adventure perd cheval et mule respondit Malcon."
+"Vie de Gargantua." Saturnus 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).
+
+[96] MS. Lat. 8824 in the Paris National Library, Latin and Anglo-Saxon,
+some pen-and-ink drawings: "Ce livre est au duc 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.
+
+[97] 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."
+
+[98] "Codex Exoniensis," pp. 197 ff. This poem is a paraphrase of a
+"Carmen de Phoenice" attributed to Lactantius, filled with conceits in
+the worst taste:
+
+    Mors illi venus est; sola est in morte voluptas;
+      Ut possit nasci haec appetit ante mori.
+    Ipsa sibi proles, suus est pater et suus haeres.
+      Nutrix ipsa sui, semper alumna sibi;
+    Ipsa quidem, sed non eadem, quae est ipsa nec ipsa est....
+
+"Incerti auctoris Phoenix, Lactantio tributus," in Migne's
+"Patrologia," vol. vii. col. 277.
+
+[99] The most important of which is the famous Strasbourg pledge,
+February 19, 842, preserved by the contemporary historian Nithard. See
+"Les plus anciens monuments de la langue francaise," by Gaston Paris,
+Societe des anciens Textes, 1875, fol.
+
+[100] Thorpe, "Ancient Laws and Institutes of England," London, 1840, 1
+vol. fol.; laws of Ina, king of Wessex, 688-726, of Alfred, AEthelstan,
+&c. We have also considerable quantities of deeds and charters, some in
+Latin and some in Anglo-Saxon. See J. M. Kemble, "Codex Diplomaticus AEvi
+Saxonici," English Historical Society, 1839-40, 6 vols. 8vo; De Gray
+Birch, "Cartularium Saxonicum, or a Collection 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.
+
+[101] 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, "Narratiunculae," 1861,
+8vo, and "Anglia," vol. iv. p. 139); of the history of "Apollonius of
+Tyre" (Thorpe, London, 1834, 12mo).--Translations by King Alfred and his
+bishops, see below pp. 81 ff. The monuments of Anglo-Saxon prose have
+been collected by Grein, "Bibliothek der Angelsaechsischen Prosa," ed.
+Wuelker, Cassel, 1872 ff.
+
+[102] Grueber and Keary, "A Catalogue of English Coins in the British
+Museum," Anglo-Saxon series, vol. ii. 1893, 8vo, p. lxxxi.
+
+[103] 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.
+
+[104] 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.
+
+[105] H. Sweet, "King Alfred's West-Saxon version of Gregory's Pastoral
+Care, with an English translation," London, Early English Text Society,
+1871-72, 8vo, pp. 2 ff. Plegmund was an Anglo-Saxon, Asser a Welshman,
+Grimbold a Frank, John a Saxon from continental Saxony.
+
+[106] Preface of Gregory's "Pastoral Care."
+
+[107] 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 Alfred's West-Saxon version of Gregory's
+Pastoral Care," ed. H. Sweet, E.E.T.S., 1871-2. 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.
+
+[108] The sea to the west of Norway, that is the German Ocean.
+
+[109] 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.
+
+[110] 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.
+
+[111] S. Fox, "King Alfred's Boethius," 1864, 8vo, chap. xxxv.
+
+[112] 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.
+
+[113] 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 as late as the
+year 1154. 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 preserved in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge; the
+Peterborough MS. is in the Bodleian Library (Laud, 636).
+
+[114] 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.
+
+[115] 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 original. 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.
+
+[116] In the "Proverbs of Alfred," an apocryphal compilation made after
+the Norman Conquest; published by Kemble with the "Dialogue of Salomon
+and Saturnus," 1848, 8vo.
+
+[117] King from 959 to 975; St. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, died
+in 988. See Stubbs, "Memorials of St. Dunstan" (Rolls Series).
+
+[118] The anonymous translation of the Gospels compiled in the time of
+Alfred was copied and vulgarised in this period; ed. Skeat, "The Gospels
+in Anglo-Saxon," Cambridge, 1871-87, 4 vols. 4to.
+
+[119] See Sermon XI.; "The Blickling Homilies," ed. R. Morris, 1874 ff.
+E.E.T.S., 8vo.
+
+[120] "The Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of AElfric," ed. Thorpe,
+London, AElfric Society, 1844-6, 2 vols. 8vo; "AElfric's Lives of Saints,
+being a set of Sermons," &c., ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1881 ff. AElfric
+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: "AElfric's
+Grammatik und Glossar," ed. J. Zupitza, 1880, 8vo, &c.
+
+[121] The homilies of Wulfstan were published by Arthur Napier:
+"Wulfstan, Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst
+Untersuchungen ueber ihre Echtheit," Berlin, 1883, 8vo (sixty-two pieces,
+some of which are very short).
+
+[122] "Transtulimus hunc codicem ex libris latinorum ... ob
+aedificationem simplicium ... ideoque nec 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. Nec 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." AElfric's preface for his "Sermones
+Catholici." In the preface of his sermons on the lives of Saints, AElfric
+states that he intends not to translate any more, "ne forte despectui
+habeantur margarite Christi."
+
+[123] "The Blickling Homilies," Sermon XI.
+
+[124] "Sermones Catholici", pp. 12-13.
+
+[125] _Ibid._ pp. 304-5. See also, in the sermon on St. John the
+Baptist, a curious satire on wicked talkative women, pp. 476-7.
+
+[126] 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 of body, and has deep eyes and
+moderate nose," &c.
+
+[127] Skeat, "AElfric's Lives of Saints," 1881.
+
+[128] "The Blickling Homilies," Sermons X. and XI.
+
+[129] _Ibid._, Sermon XVII.
+
+
+
+
+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 between 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.
+
+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.[130] 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 Norman 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 remained the Normans of France.
+
+Who were these Normans? Very different from those of the other army,
+they no longer had anything Scandinavian 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 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 Alexander 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 Roncevaux."[131]
+
+The army, moreover, was not exclusively composed of men from
+Normandy.[132] 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: "Hic Franci pugnant" (Here fight the French). Crowned
+king of England, William continues to call his followers
+"Frenchmen."[133] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, on the other side,
+describe the invaders sometimes as Normans and sometimes as Frenchmen,
+"Frenciscan." "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
+not after the coming of William of Normandy, "because he was
+French."[134]
+
+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 loqui_). 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 Scandinavian poem, "if thou stumble on thy feet when
+marching to battle, for evil fairies stand on either side of thee,
+wishing to see thee wounded."[135] 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 torne;
+    Reis serai qui duc ai este.[136]
+
+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.
+
+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."[137] 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 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 pressing 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 domination 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."[138]
+
+People with a mind so full of elegiac sentiments fall an 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!"[139]
+
+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 boundaries, protects its approaches, and, in spite
+of the immensity of the work, takes a minute inventory of it.[140]
+
+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 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 concerning the hares that they
+should go free."[141] 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 conquests
+in peace; in good as in evil they never stop half-way; those who incline
+to tyranny become, like Stephen, the most atrocious tyrants[142]; those
+who incline to the manners and customs of chivalry carry them, like
+Richard Coeur 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 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 offer 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 reigning 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,[143] which count among the grandest ever built. The splendid
+naves of St. Albans, Westminster, Canterbury, Winchester, York,
+Salisbury, rise heavenwards; 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 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
+manuscripts 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 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
+(Westmoreland, Warwick), the Montgomerys (Shrewsbury, Pembroke,
+Arundel), the Beaumonts and the Montforts (Leicester), are Frenchmen.
+People of less importance married to English women--"matrimonia quoque
+cum subditis jungunt"[144]--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, education, manners, and language, is
+in France. William the Conqueror bequeaths Normandy to his eldest son,
+and England to his younger. Not one of them is buried at Westminster
+before 1272; they sleep their last sleep most of them at Caen or
+Fontevrault[145]; out of the thirty-five years of his reign, Henry II.
+spends more than twenty-one in France, and less than fourteen in
+England.[146] Before his accession Richard Coeur-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 England the fashion of tournaments, "conflictus gallici," says
+Matthew Paris. They wish to have a University, and they 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 archbishop of
+Canterbury, becomes bishop of Chartres; Ralph de Sarr, born in Thanet,
+becomes dean of Reims[147]; 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 undertaken 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
+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.[148] 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 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, 1158, 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.[149]
+
+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; others were
+very strong and brave as Arthur, Edmond, and Cnut."[150]
+
+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 preconceived 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.[151] The origin of the inhabitants of the land
+must 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 AEneas, 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.[152]
+
+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
+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
+at Poictiers; 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[130] 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, 1178): "The Heimskringla Saga, or the Sagas of the
+Norse kings, from the Icelandic of Snorre Sturlason," ed. Laing and R.
+B. Anderson, London, 1889, 4 vols. 8vo, 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.
+
+[131]
+
+    Taillefer ki mult bien chantout,
+    Sor un cheval ki tost alout
+    Devant le duc 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: "Tunc cantilena Rollandi inochata...." William of
+Malmesbury, "Gesta Regum Anglorum," ed. Hardy, London, 1840, English
+Historical Society, book iii., p. 415.
+
+[132] 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 consisted of "Mancels, French, Bretons, Aquitains, and
+Normans"; his statement is reproduced by Orderic Vital: "Insisterunt eis
+Cenomannici, Franci, Britanni, Aquitani et miserabiliter 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.
+
+[133] 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 Coeur-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.
+
+[134] "Gunnlangs Saga," in "Three northern Love Stories and other
+Tales," edited by Erikr Magnusson, and William Morris, London, 1875,
+12mo.
+
+[135] "The old play of the Wolsungs," in "Corpus Poeticum Boreale," i.
+p. 34.
+
+[136] "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, fortitudo comitatus mei in regnum."
+"Gesta Regum Anglorum," 1840, English Historical Society, book iii. p.
+415.
+
+[137] William of Malmesbury, _Ibid._
+
+[138] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (Rolls), year 1066, Worcester text (Tib.
+B. IV.). Same statement in William of Malmesbury, who says of his
+compatriots that "uno praelio et ipso perfacili se patriamque
+pessundederint." "Gesta Regum Anglorum," English Historical Society, p.
+418.
+
+[139] 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
+... Historiae Ecclesiasticae, Libri XIII.," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol.
+clxxxviii. col. 297.
+
+[140] The inventory is carried down to details; answers are required to
+a number of questions: "... Deinde quomodo vocatur mansio, quis tenuit
+eam tempore Regis Eadwardi; quis modo tenet; quot hidae; quot carrucae in
+dominio; quot hominum; quot villani; quot cotarii; quot servi; quot
+liberi 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, 1086," edited by Sir
+Henry James, London and Southampton, 1861-3, 2 vols. 4to.
+
+[141] Peterborough text of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," year 1086.
+
+[142] 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 summatim recenseat, historiam Josephi possint excedere." John of
+Salisbury, "Policraticus," book vi chap. xviii.
+
+[143] "Videas ubique in villis ecclesias, in vicis et 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 his lived in the twelfth century, were very poor; they were
+pleased with "pravis et abjectis domibus." "Gesta Regum Anglorum," ed.
+Hardy, 1840, book iii. p. 418.
+
+[144] William of Malmesbury, _ut supra_, p. 420.
+
+[145] The Conqueror was buried at Caen; Henry II. and Richard
+Coeur-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).
+
+[146] "Henry II.," by Mrs. J. R. Green, 1888, p. 22 ("Twelve English
+Statesmen").
+
+[147] Stubbs, "Seventeen Lectures," 1886, p. 131.
+
+[148] 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
+justitiae Christus illuxit ... ad jus B. Petri et sacrosanctae Romanae
+Ecclesiae (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 illum 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 laudabile
+desiderium tuum cum favore congruo prosequentes ... gratum et acceptum
+habemus ut ... illius terrae populus honorifice te recipiat et sicut
+Dominum veneretur." "Adriani papae epistolae et privilegia.--Ad Henricum
+II. Angliae regem," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. clxxxviii. col. 1441.
+
+[149] 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 nec
+regiis consiliis interesse poterat." Matthew Paris, "Chronica Majora,"
+year 1095.
+
+[150]
+
+    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;
+beginning of the "Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei."
+
+[151] 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 1147 and 1151 (P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xviii. p. 314),
+his "Estorie des Engles" (ed. Hardy and Martin, Rolls, 1888, 2 vols.,
+8vo), and, about 1145, a translation in French verse of the "Historia
+Britonum" of Geoffrey of Monmouth (see below, p. 132).--Wace, born at
+Jersey (1100?-1175, 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 1174 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 ducs de Normandie" (ed. Francisque Michel,
+"Documents inedits," Paris, 1836, 3 vols. 4to).
+
+[152] 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
+Trojae fugientes Graecos ubique dispersos, loca haec 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 AEneas the Troian, begotten of his wife
+Creusa, and borne in Troie, before the citie was destroied." Chronicles,
+1807, 6 vols. fol. book ii. chap. 1. 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."
+
+
+
+
+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 the high men of this land, who are come of their
+race, keep all to that 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."[153]
+
+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 necessary 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.[154]
+
+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."[155] Such being the case, it spread quickly in
+England, where it was, for a long time, the language used in laws and
+deeds, in the courts of justice, in Parliamentary debates,[156] 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 fourteenth
+centuries, Jordan Fantosme[157] and Peter de Langtoft; 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,[158] or _fabliaux_,[159] like those composed 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.[160] 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 studying 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 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 Philosophie," "Lumiere des laiques," "Secret des
+Secrets," &c.[161]; or those chronicles which so efficaciously served
+the political views of the 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.[162]
+
+In the following century the most remarkable work is the biography in
+verse of William le Marechal, earl of Pembroke, 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.[163]
+
+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,[164] is a contemporary 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 somewhat 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."[165]
+
+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 penitence, miracles of Our Lady, moralised
+tales, bestiaries, and sermons.[166] The number of the French-speaking
+population had so increased in the kingdom that it was not absurd to
+preach in French, and some of the clergy inclined 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.[167]
+
+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 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.[168] 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; Charlemagne'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; 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!"[169] 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. Archbishop 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,"[170] 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."[171]
+
+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."[172]
+
+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 was born more than
+a hundred years after the great host was gathered together."[173]
+
+But the worst forger of Alexandria obtains the confidence 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.[174] For the history of Thebes they are obliged to content
+themselves 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 "AEneid" their place of abode: no one was surprised at
+seeing Dante take him for a guide.
+
+What these poets wished for was a certificate of authenticity at
+starting. Once they had it, they took no further 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.[175]
+Oedipus is dubbed a knight; AEneas 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
+_paniers_ 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-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 "Prothesilaus,"
+by Hue of Rotelande, composed before 1191; and many others besides[176]:
+all romances destined to people of leisure, delighting in long
+descriptions, in prodigious 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 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 transcribo quam credo," Quintus
+Curtius had already said.[177]
+
+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 compatriots. 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; nevertheless 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.[178]
+
+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 recommendation 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."[179]
+
+One thing, however, was lacking for a time to the complete success of
+the Arthurian epic: the stamp of authenticity, 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.[180] Geoffrey of
+Monmouth makes up for this deficiency.[181]
+
+His predecessors knew nothing, he knows everything; 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 themselves
+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 1153, 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 Bec, 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."[182] It was Geoffrey's book.
+
+The better to establish his authority, Geoffrey himself had been careful
+to appeal to a mysterious source, a certain book of which no trace has
+ever been found, and which he pretends was given him by his friend
+Walter, Archdeacon 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.
+
+Such a book could not fail of success; it had a prodigious 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."[183]
+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 1155, with the addition of several legends omitted by
+Geoffrey, that of the Round Table among others.[184] 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,[185] whom Dante 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."[186]
+
+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."[187] 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 concerning 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. 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."[188]
+
+Tristan's task being accomplished, he returns to Cornwall. 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.[189] Tristan starts in quest of the woman. The
+woman is Iseult; he brings her to Cornwall. While at sea the two young
+people swallow by mistake an enchanted 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;
+    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.[190]
+
+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."[191]
+
+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 forgotten. 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; 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 transformed 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 words that shall make me a _preux_, 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 and 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."[192]
+
+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.[193] After having been first an accessory, then an
+irresistible passion, love, that the poets think to magnify, will soon
+be nothing but a ceremonial. 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.[194]
+
+
+IV.
+
+They have also shorter narratives in prose and verse, the subject of
+which is generally love, drawn from French, Latin, Greek, and even
+Hindu legends,[195] stories like those of Amis and Amile, of Floire and
+Blanchefleur, lays like those of Marie de France.[196] 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, 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 garment: "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.[197]
+
+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 Englishmen, 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.[198] 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.
+
+    Il n'est mie jors, saverouze au cors gent,
+    Si m'ait amors, l'aloete nos ment.[199]
+
+"It is not yet near day, my sweet one; love be my help, the lark lies."
+In these songs, the women are slight and 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 cler vis.[200]
+
+With these songs, Love ventures out of castles; we find him "in cellars,
+or in lofts under the hay."[201] 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?"[202] The idea of turning worldly songs
+and music to religious ends is not, as we see, one of yesterday.
+
+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.[203] 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, 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 incomparable 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."[204] This romance, of which the branches are
+of various epochs and by various authors, was composed partly in the
+continental 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,[205]
+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:
+
+"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."[206]
+
+The personages are animals; their sentiments are human; king lion swears
+like a man[207]; 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
+pulled her about with his teeth, that her thigh was broken, and a wing
+torn off her side."[208]
+
+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?"[209] 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."[210]
+
+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'"[211]....
+
+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 Bridoison. 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.
+
+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.[212]
+
+Above, below, around these greater works, swarms the innumerable legion
+of satirical fabliaux and laughable tales. They, too, cross the sea,
+slight, imperceptible, wandering, 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;"[213] 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 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.[214]
+
+From the thirteenth century, another medium of diffusion, 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."[215]
+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 buffooneries are preached.... St.
+Anthony's swine fattens by these means, and others, worse than swine,
+fatten too."[216] 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 all, as it came from India,
+and is found everywhere, in Italy, France, and England, among fabliaux,
+in sermons, and even on the stage.[217]
+
+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 convince 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,"[218]
+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 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."[219]
+
+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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[153]
+
+    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 hom 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.
+
+[154] Letter of the year 1209, by which Gerald sends to King John the
+second edition of his "Expugnatio Hiberniae"; in "Giraldi Cambrensis
+Opera" (Rolls), vol. v. p. 410. Further on he speaks of French as of
+"communi idiomate."
+
+[155] "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.
+
+[156] For the laws, see the "Statutes of the Realm," 1819-28, Record
+Commission, 11 vols, fol.; for the accounts of the sittings of
+Parliament, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," London, 1767-77, 6 vols. fol.; for
+the accounts of lawsuits, the "Year Books," ed. Horwood, Rolls, 1863 ff.
+
+[157] 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 ff., vol.
+iii. p. 203.
+
+[158] See below, pp. 122, 123, 130, 214.
+
+[159] Example: "Romanz de un chivaler e de sa dame e de un clerk,"
+written 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
+_fabliau_ of the "Bourgeoise d'Orleans" (in Montaiglon and Raynaud,
+"Recueil general des Fabliaux," 1872, vol. i. p. 117). See below, p.
+225.
+
+[160] "Croniques de London ... jusqu'a l'an 17 Ed. III.," ed. Aungier
+Camden Society, 1844, 4to.
+
+[161] "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
+Philosophie," 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.
+
+[162] 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, 8vo; _cf._ P. Meyer, "Romania,"
+vol. xxi. p. 444), &c.
+
+[163] 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 Guillaume 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.
+
+[164] 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.
+
+[165]
+
+    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 _Athenaeum_, 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."
+
+[166] 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
+Greteham, 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" in verse (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 francaise 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.
+
+[167] "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 literaturae ostensio," year 1200
+(Camden Society, 1840, p. 95).
+
+[168] "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, Paris, 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 1170, is at Oxford, where it was found in our
+century. It was printed for the first time in 1837. 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.
+
+[169]
+
+    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!"
+
+[170]
+
+    Cil Sarrazins me semblet mult herites.
+
+[171]
+
+    Ne a muillier n'a dame qu'as veuet
+    N'en vanteras el' regne dunt tu fus.
+
+[172] "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.
+
+[173]
+
+    Car bien scavons sanz nul espoir
+    Q'il ne fu pius de c ans nee
+    Q'il 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."
+
+[174] "Alexandre le Grand, dans la litterature francaise du moyen age,"
+by P. Meyer, Paris, 1886, 2 vols. 8vo (vol. i. texts, vol. ii. history
+of the legend); vol. ii. p. 182.
+
+[175] MS. fr. 782 at the National Library, Paris, containing poems by
+Benoit de Sainte-More, fol. 151, 155, 158.
+
+[176] 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 "AEneid."--The immense poem of
+Eustache or Thomas de Kent is still unpublished; 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 1176-7 and 1190-1; see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"
+1883, vol. i. pp. 728 ff.; his "Ipomedon" has been edited by Koelbing and
+Koschwitz, Breslau, 1889, 8vo; his "Prothesilaus" is still unpublished.
+
+[177] Lib. IX. cap. ii.
+
+[178] "Hic est Arthur de quo Britonum nugae hodieque delirant, dignus
+plane quod non fallaces somniarent fabulae, sed veraces praedicarent
+historiae." "De Gestis," ed. Stubbs, Rolls, vol. i. p. 11. 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 aurae,
+laudis adulatoriae, famae transitoriae...." "Historia Anglorum," Rolls, p.
+49.
+
+[179] 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.
+
+[180] Gildas, "De Excidio Britanniae," ed. J. Stevenson, English
+Historical Society, 1838, 8vo; Nennius, "Historia Britonum," same
+editor, place, and date.
+
+[181] His "Historia" was edited by Giles, London, 1844, 8vo, and by San
+Marte, "Gottfried von Monmouth Historia regum Britanniae," 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, 1154. See Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. i. pp. 203
+ff.
+
+[182] Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. i. p. 210.
+
+[183] "Quidam nostris temporibus, pro expiandis his Britonum maculis,
+scriptor emersit, ridicula de eisdem figmenta contexens, ... Gaufridus
+hic 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.
+
+[184] "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."
+
+[185] 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 1150. Another version, also in French verse, was written about
+1170 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
+reconstitute the poem of Thomas "by means of three versions: a German
+one (by Gotfrid of Strasbourg, unfinished), a Norwegian one (in prose,
+ab. 1225, faithful but compressed), and an English one (XIVth 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. Koelbing,
+Heilbronn, 1878-83, 2 vols. 8vo; vol. i., "Tristrams Saga ok Isoudar"
+(Norwegian prose); vol. ii., "Sir Tristram" (English verse).--"Gottfried
+von Strassburg Tristan," ed. Reinhold Bachstein, Leipzig, 1869, 2 vols.
+8vo (German verse).
+
+[186] "Inferno," canto v.
+
+[187] 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).
+
+[188]
+
+    En sa chambre se set un jor,
+    E fait un lai pitus d'am[o]r:
+    Coment dan Guirun fu surpris,
+    Pur l'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.
+
+[189] 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.
+
+[190] Swinburne, "Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems."
+
+[191] Bosert, pp. 62, 68, 72, 82.
+
+[192] "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).
+
+[193] "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.
+
+[194] 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 Erceldoune," Berlin, 1880, 8vo, "Sammlung Englischer
+Denkmaeler," and by the Early English Text Society, 1875).
+
+[195] 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.
+
+[196] For Amis, very popular in England, see Koelbing, "Amis and
+Amiloun," Heilbronn, 1884 (_cf._ below, p. 229), and "Nouvelles
+francoises en prose du treizieme siecle," edited by Moland and
+d'Hericault, Paris, 1856, 16mo; 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, 16mo.--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," 1883-4, 2nd
+part, chap. i.
+
+[197] On this subject, see Gaston Paris's criticism of the "Origines de
+la poesie lyrique en France" of Jeanroy, in the "Journal des Savants,"
+1892.
+
+[198] 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 Ib and XIV. in Martin's
+edition.)
+
+[199] 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_ was 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.
+
+[200] Anglo-Norman song, written in England, in the thirteenth century,
+"Romania," vol. xv. p. 254.
+
+[201] "La Plainte d'amour," from a MS. in the University Library,
+Cambridge, GG I. 1, "Romania," _ibid._
+
+[202]
+
+    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.
+
+[203] "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, "Karls des Grossen Reise nach Jerusalem und
+Konstantinopel," Heilbronn, 1880, 8vo. _Cf._ G. Paris, "La poesie
+francaise au moyen age," 1885, p. 119, and "Romania," vol. ix.
+
+[204] "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, 8vo.
+
+[205] Caricature of a funeral ceremony:--
+
+    Brun li ors, prenez vostre estole ...
+    Sire Tardis li limacons
+    Lut par lui sol les trois lecons
+    Et Roenel chanta les vers. (Vol. i. p. 12.)
+
+[206]
+
+    Seigneurs, oi 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.)
+
+[207]
+
+    "Or dont," dit Nobles, "au deable!
+    Por le cuer be, sire Ysengrin,
+    Prendra ja vostre gerre fin?"
+
+(Vol. i. p. 8.)
+
+[208]
+
+    ... 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.)
+
+[209]
+
+    ... Renart ne l'en laissa
+    De totes cinc 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.)
+
+[210]
+
+    Pinte la lasse a ces paroles
+    Chai, pamee el pavement
+    Et les autres tot ensement.
+    Por relever les quatre dames,
+    Se leverent de leurs escames
+    Et chen et lou et autres bestes,
+    Eve lor getent sor les testes.
+
+[211]
+
+    Par mautalant drece la teste.
+    Onc 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 l'emperere,
+    Foi que doi a l'ame mon pere....
+
+[212] 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
+duc de Gloucester, liber lupi et vulpis"; of a translation in English of
+part of the romance: "Of the Vox and the Wolf" (time of 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 Thoms, 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.
+
+[213] In Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxvii. col. 153. "Dialogorum Liber
+I."; Prologue.
+
+[214] "De vita eremitica," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. xxxii. col.
+1451, text below, p. 213.
+
+[215] Council of Sens, 1528, in "The Exempla, or illustrative Stories
+from the Sermones Vulgares of 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. 1180, d. ab. 1239), was one of
+the most popular, and is one of the most curious of its kind.
+
+[216]
+
+    Si che le pecorelle, che non sanno,
+      Tornan dal pasco pasciute di vento ...
+
+    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.)
+
+[217] 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.
+
+[218] Bedier, "Les Fabliaux," Paris, 1893, 8vo, 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.
+
+[219]
+
+    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. 11.
+
+
+
+
+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 continued 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 England and all the kingdom of Ireland for the remission of our
+sins,"[220] May 15, 1213.
+
+From the day after Hastings the Church is seen establishing 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."[221]
+
+The religious foundations are innumerable, especially at the beginning;
+they decrease as the time of the Renaissance 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.[222]
+
+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 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 Romewards.
+
+This clergy was very numerous; in the thirteenth century its ranks were
+swelled by the arrival of the mendicant friars: Franciscans and
+Dominicans, the latter representing more especially doctrine, and the
+former practice. The Dominicans expound dogmas, fight heresy, and
+furnish the papacy with its Grand Inquisitors[223]; 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.'"[224]
+
+Thirty-two years after their first coming there were in England twelve
+hundred and forty-two Franciscans, with forty-nine convents, divided
+into seven custodies: London, York, Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford,
+Newcastle, Worcester.[225] "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 Holiness 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!..."[226] 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 considerable 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 the jurisdiction of the religious
+magistrate. This justice interfered in the private life of the citizens;
+it had an inquisitorial 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 of 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 ecclesiastical 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.[227] 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.
+
+Bishops kept seigneurial retinues, built fortresses[228] 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 Longchamp, 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."[229]
+
+Nothing gives so vivid an impression of the time that has elapsed, and
+the transformation in manners that has occurred, as the sight of that
+religious and warlike tournament 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, 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.[230]
+
+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 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 Bec, 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
+Christendom 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 confirmed[231]; Robert Grosseteste,[232] 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.
+
+
+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."[233] 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 beginning: "O
+mortalium validissimi!"[234]
+
+A prelate who had been the tutor of the heir to the throne, and died
+bishop palatine of Durham, Richard de Bury,[235] collects books with a
+passion equal to that which 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 propitiatory offering sends him a
+Terence, a Virgil, and a Quinctilian. His bedchamber is so encumbered
+with books that one can hardly move in it.[236] 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."[237] 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.[238] Eve's descendants continue,
+thinks the bishop, to wrongfully meddle with the tree of knowledge.
+
+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."[239] The worthy bishop
+looks upon letters with a religious veneration, 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."[240]
+
+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
+compatriots; most of them have studied not only in England but in
+Paris; science has made of them cosmopolitans; 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 has 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."[241] 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...."[242] 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 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.
+Genevieve'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, _universitas_.[243]
+
+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_.
+
+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.[244] 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
+_ribaudes_, "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."[245]
+
+Teaching, the principal object of which was logic, consisted in the
+reading and interpreting of such books as were considered authorities.
+"The method in expounding is always the same. The commentator discusses
+in a 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 continues 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."[246]
+
+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 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."[247]
+
+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.[248]
+
+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 1214 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 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 1313 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.[249] 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."[250] In 1364 war breaks out again 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: excommunication against the belligerents;
+exclusion from the University against those students who harboured
+"little women" (_mulierculas_) in their lodgings, major excommunication
+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,
+prohibit the fellows from fighting, from holding immodest conversations
+together, from telling each other love tales, "fubulas de amasiis," and
+from singing improper songs.[251]
+
+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."[252] 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 Wykeham. Sometimes books are
+bequeathed, as by Richard de Bury and Thomas de Cobham in the fourteenth
+century, or by Humphrey of Gloucester, in the fifteenth.[253] 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 themselves 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,[254] who composed it between 1178 and 1183, had
+dedicated his work to Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, and mentioned
+in it Arthur, "flos 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.[255] 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, however, 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
+commencement of the twelfth century; by Henry of Huntingdon, the
+historian who wrote some also; by Alexander Neckham, author of a prose
+treatise on the "Natures of Things"; Alain de l'Isle and John de
+Hauteville, who both, long before Jean de Meun, made Nature discourse,
+"de omni re scibili"[256]; Walter the Englishman, and Odo of Cheriton,
+authors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of Latin fables,[257]
+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.[258]
+
+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.[259] 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, however, by
+drowning him in the Rhone, and, lifting up his voice, he makes then the
+valley ring with a "canticle" celebrating his triumph.[260]
+
+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 light; he will become
+"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.[261] 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 Grandmont, 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 subjects 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 formulating 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 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,"[262] 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[263]; it closes
+with a comparison 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?"[264]
+
+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 Coeur-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 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!"[265]
+
+Then follow counsels as to the manner of treating ridiculous
+people[266]: 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 prescribing
+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, sanguinary night!"[267] &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 remarkable in England than that of the
+poets. Had they only 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 something 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...."[268]
+
+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 in England about the end of the thirteenth
+century.[269] 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.[270]
+
+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.[271]
+
+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 recognised
+that have become popular under their French, English, or Italian shape,
+such as the lay of the "Oiselet,"[272] 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.[273]
+
+The Virgin plays her usual part of an indulgent protectress; 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 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."[274] 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."[275] 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."[276] 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 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 when 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 succeeds 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 all 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, 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."[277]
+
+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.
+Foremost among them were John of Salisbury and Walter Map.
+
+John of Salisbury,[278] 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,"[279] or "De nugis Curialium,"
+his "Metalogic," his "Enthetic" (in verse), and his eulogy on
+Becket.[280] 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 observation, 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."[281] 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."[282] 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 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"[283]; 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.[284] This Welshman has the
+vivacity of the Celts his compatriots; he was celebrated at the court of
+Henry II., and throughout 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,[285] 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 Salisbury'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[286]; 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, fulfilled 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."[287] Women also are for Map the subject of constant satires; he
+was the author of that famous "Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum de ducenda
+uxore,"[288] 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 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 gluttonous 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!'"[289] 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,[290] but what he wrote in
+that language is uncertain. The "Lancelot" is assigned to him in many
+manuscripts and is perhaps his work.[291]
+
+
+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"[292]; Duns Scot, the
+"subtle doctor"; Adam de Marisco, friend and adviser of Simon de
+Montfort, the "illustrious doctor"; Ockham, the "invincible 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."[293] His
+reputation 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 "Ratepenade des Cardinaux," the works of the subtle
+doctor under the irreverent title of "Barbouillamenta Scoti."[294]
+
+Ockham, in the pay of Philippe-le-Bel--for England, that formerly had to
+send for Lanfranc and Anselm, can now 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.[295] Roger Bacon endeavours to clear up the chaos of the
+sciences; he forestalls his illustrious namesake, and classifies the
+causes of human errors.[296] Archbishop Bradwardine,[297] 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.[298]
+
+No longer is Salerno alone to produce illustrious physicians, or Bologne
+illustrious jurists. A "Rosa Anglica," the work of John of Gaddesden,
+court physician 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."[299] A multitude of
+prescriptions, of the same stamp most of them, are set down in this
+book, which was still printed and considered as an authority at the
+Renaissance.
+
+Bartholomew the Englishman,[300] 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,[301] 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, 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.[302] 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"[303];
+Richard, bishop of London, compiles a "Dialogue of the Exchequer,"[304]
+full of wisdom, life, and even a sort of humour; Henry of Bracton,[305]
+the most renowned of all, logician, observer, and thinker, composes in
+the thirteenth century an ample treatise, of which several
+abridgments[306] 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
+inscribed 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 inserting the entire text of the official documents sent by
+authority for the monastery to keep, according to the custom of the
+time.[307] 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 temptations and ridding himself of vain thoughts and the
+remembrance of a former worldly life.[308] Thus there exists 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
+England[309]; Eadmer, St. Anselm's biographer[310]; Gerald de Barry,
+otherwise Geraldus Cambrensis; a fiery, bragging Welshman, who exhibited
+both in his life and works the temperament of a Gascon[311]; William of
+Malmesbury,[312] Henry of Huntingdon,[313] &c.
+
+These two 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'Ille."[314] 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 already paints in colours. To please his reader, he
+suddenly 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,[315] 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,"[316] 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,"[317] drawn from nature, with a replica of
+his trunk in another position, "the first, he says, that had been seen
+in the country."[318] 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.[319]
+
+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[320]; Walter of Hemingburgh, Robert of Avesbury,
+Thomas Walsingham,[321] not to mention many anonymous authors. Several
+among the historians of that date, and Walsingham in particular, would,
+on account of the dramatic vigour of their pictures, have held a
+conspicuous place in the literature of mediaeval England had they not
+written in Latin, like their predecessors.[322]
+
+From these facts, and from this ample, many-coloured literary growth,
+may be gathered how complete the transformation 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 illiteratos," 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."[323] Thus could speak concerning his country,
+about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[220] "Volentes nos ipsos humiliare pro Illo Qui Se pro nobis humiliavit
+usque ad mortem ... offerimus et libere concedimus Deo et ... domino
+nostro papae Innocentio ejusque catholicis successoribus, totum regnum
+Angliae et totum regnum Hiberniae, 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.
+
+[221] 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.
+
+[222] "Historical maps of England during the first thirteen centuries,"
+by C. H. Pearson, London, 1870, fol. p. 61.
+
+[223] Concerning their power and the part they played, see for example
+the confirmation by Philip VI. of France, in November, 1329, of the
+regulations submitted 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: "_Premierement_, quod domus, plateae et loca in quibus haereses
+fautae fuerunt, diruantur et nunquam postea reedificentur, sed perpetuo
+subjaceant in sterquilineae vilitati," &c. Isambert's "Recueil des
+anciennes Lois," vol. iv. p. 364.
+
+[224] "Speculum vitae B. Francisci et sociorum ejus," opera Fratris G.
+Spoelberch, Antwerp, 1620, 8vo, part i. chap. iv.
+
+[225] Brewer and Howlett, "Monumenta Franciscana," Rolls, 1858-82, 8vo,
+vol. i. p. 10.
+
+[226] Letter of the year 1238 or thereabout; "Roberti Grosseteste
+Epistolae," ed. Luard, Rolls, 1861, p. 179.
+
+[227]
+
+    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," l. 94.)
+
+[228] 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 praediis, 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.
+
+[229] "Epistola Hugonis ... de dejectione Willelmi Eliensis episcopi
+Regis cancellarii," in Hoveden, "Chronica," ed. Stubbs, Rolls, vol. iii.
+p. 141, year 1191: "Hic 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.
+
+[230] See Stubbs, Introductions to the "Chronica Magistri Rogeri de
+Hovedene." Rolls, 1868, 4 vols. 8vo, especially vols. iii. and iv.
+
+[231] Lanfranc, 1005?-1089, archbishop in 1070; "Opera quae 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.
+
+[232] 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, 1861, Rolls. See below, p. 213. Roger Bacon
+praised highly his learned works, adding, however: "quia Graecum et
+Hebraeum non scivit sufficienter ut per se transferret, sed habuit multos
+adjutores." "Rogeri Bacon Opera ... inedita," ed. Brewer, 1859, Rolls,
+p. 472.
+
+[233] "Gesta Regum Anglorum," by William of Malmesbury, 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.
+
+[234] "Henrici archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum," Rolls,
+1879, p. 201.
+
+[235] 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.
+
+[236] See "Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense," ed. Hardy, Rolls, vol. iii.
+Introduction, p. cxlvi.
+
+[237] The best edition is that given by E. C. Thomas, "The Philobiblon
+of Richard de Bury," London, 1888, 8vo, Latin text with an English
+translation. 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.
+
+[238] "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 defunctae araneae de sola tela protectos ... mox in capitogia
+pretiosa ... vestes et varias furraturas ... nos consulit commutandos"
+(chap. iv. p. 32).
+
+[239] Chap. viii. p. 66.
+
+[240] Chap. i. pp. 11, 13.
+
+[241] "Sicut quondam Athenarum civitas mater liberalium artium et
+literarum, philosophorum nutrix et fons omnium scientiarum Graeciam
+decoravit, sic Parisiae 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...."
+"Bartholomaei Anglici De ... Rerum ... Proprietatibus Libri xviii.," ed.
+Pontanus, Francfort, 1609, 8vo. Book xv. chap. 57, "De Francia," p. 653.
+
+[242] "Philobiblon," ed. Thomas, chap. viii. p. 69. _Cf._ Neckham, "De
+Naturis Rerum," chap. clxxiv. (Rolls, 1863, p. 311).
+
+[243] On the old University of Paris, 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.
+
+[244] 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 pinceps erat hujus modi latrocinii." Th. Wright,
+"Latin stories from MSS. of the XIIIth and XIVth Centuries," London,
+1842, tale No. cxxv.
+
+[245] May, 1358, in Isambert's "Recueil des anciennes Lois," vol. v. p.
+26.
+
+[246] Thurot, _ut supra_, pp. 73, 89.
+
+[247] In his "Metalogicus," "Opera Omnia," ed. Giles, Oxford, 1848, 5
+vols. 8vo, vol. v. p. 81.
+
+[248] Innocent IV. confirms (ab. 1254) all the "immunitates et
+laudabiles, antiquas, rationabiles consuetudines" of Oxford: "Nulli ergo
+hominum liceat hanc paginam nostrae 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.
+
+[249] "Rolls of Parliament," 8 Ed. III. vol. ii. p. 76.
+
+[250] Robert of Avesbury (a contemporary, he died ab. 1357), "Historia
+Edvardi tertii," ed. Hearne, Oxford, 1720, 8vo, p. 197.
+
+[251] "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.
+
+[252] 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 illa penitus sit
+omissa." "Munimenta Academica," i. p. 437.
+
+[253] 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 scientiae margaritam ... favorem libenter et gratiam impertimus
+... ut in loco ubi generale viget studium, a data praesentium usque in
+biennium revolutum morari valeas." "Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense," ed.
+Hardy, Rolls, 1873, 4 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 288 (many other similar
+letters).
+
+[254] Josephus Exoniensis, or Iscanus, followed Archbishop Baldwin to
+the crusade in favour of which this prelate had delivered the sermons,
+and undertaken 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 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).
+
+[255] For example, in his opening lines, where he adheres to the
+simplicity recommended in "Ars Poetica":
+
+    Iliadum lacrymas concessaque Pergama fatis,
+    Praelia bina ducum, bis adactam cladibus urbem,
+    In cineres quaerimus.
+
+[256] "Anglo-Latin satirical poets and epigrammatists of the XIIth
+Century," ed. Th. Wright, London, 1872, Rolls, 2 vols. 8vo; contains,
+among other works: "Godfredi prioris Epigrammata" (one in praise of the
+Conqueror, vol. ii. p. 149); "Henrici archidiaconi Historiae liber
+undecimus" (that is, Henry of Huntingdon, fine epigram "in seipsum,"
+vol. ii. p. 163); "Alexandri 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,
+fol., the nationality of Alain de l'Isle is doubtful); "Joannis 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.
+1184).
+
+[257] 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.).
+
+[258] "Speculum Stultorum," in Wright, "Anglo-Latin satirical poets";
+_ut supra_. Nigel (twelfth century) had for his patron William de
+Longchamp, bishop of Ely (see above, p. 163), and fulfilled
+ecclesiastical functions in Canterbury.
+
+[259]
+
+    In titulo caudae Francorum rex Ludovicus
+      Non tibi praecellit pontificesve sui.
+
+(Vol. i. p. 17.)
+
+[260]
+
+    Cantemus, socii! festum celebremus aselli!
+      Vocibus et votis organa nostra sonent.
+    Exultent asini, laeti modulentur aselli,
+      Laude sonent celebri tympana, sistra, chori!
+
+(p. 48.)
+
+[261]
+
+    Jam pertransierat Burnellus tempora multa
+      Et prope completus septimus annus erat,
+    Cum nihil ex toto quodcunque docente magistro
+      Aut socio potuit discere praeter ya.
+    Quod natura dedit, quod secum detulit illuc,
+      Hoc habet, hoc illo nemo tulisse potest ...
+    Semper ya repetit.
+
+(p. 64)
+
+[262] "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 Extraits des Manuscrits," vol. xxix. pp. 321 ff.
+According to Stubbs ("Itinerarium peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi,"
+1864, Rolls), the real author is Richard, canon of the Holy Trinity,
+London.
+
+[263]
+
+    Papa stupor mundi, si dixero Papa _Nocenti_:
+    Acephalum nomen tribuam tibi; si caput addam,
+    Hostis erit metri, &c.
+
+[264]
+
+    Nec Deus es nec 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 coelum.
+    Quid potuit melius? quid majus? cui meliori?
+
+(p. 95.)
+
+[265]
+
+    Tota peris ex morte sua. Mors non fuit ejus,
+    Sed tua. Non una, sed publica, mortis origo.
+    O Veneris lacrimosa dies! o sydus amarum!
+    Illa dies tua nox fuit et Venus illa venenum;
+    Illa 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.)
+
+[266]
+
+    Contra ridiculos si vis insurgere plene
+    Surge sub hac forma. Lauda, sed ridiculose.
+    Argue, sed lepide, &c.
+
+(p. 21.)
+
+[267]
+
+    Nox, fera nox, vere nox noxia, turbida, tristis,
+    Insidiosa, ferox, &c.
+
+("De Bello Trojano," book vi. l. 760.)
+
+[268] "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. clv.
+
+[269] 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.
+
+[270] Seven kilos, 200 gr. "Doctissimi viri fratris Johannis de Bromyard
+... Summ[a] praedicantium," Nurenberg, 1485, fol. The subjects are
+arranged in alphabetical order: Ebrietas, Luxuria, Maria, &c.
+
+[271] Such is the case in several of the stories collected by Th.
+Wright: "A Selection of Latin Stories from MSS, of the XIIIth and XIVth
+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 justitiae"; 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.
+
+[272] 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 XIIth and XIIIth
+Centuries," ed. Th. Wright, London, 1838, 8vo, p. 97. _Cf._ G. Paris,
+"Lai de l'Oiselet," Paris, 1884.
+
+[273] 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 historians 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.
+
+[274] "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 Segretaine
+qui devint fole au monde."
+
+[275] "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."
+
+[276] "Latin Stories," p. 114, from the version of the "Gesta
+Romanorum," compiled in England: "De milite conventionem faciente cum
+mercatore."
+
+[277] "Ait miles, 'o carissima domina, mihi prae omnibus praedilecta hodie
+fere vitam amsi; sed cum ad mortem judicari debuissem, intravit subito
+quidam 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 solutione 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._
+
+[278] Born ab. 1120. To him it was that Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas
+Breakspeare) 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 prae
+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 meritis Sancti
+Thomae" (Demimuid, "Jean de Salisbury," 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.
+
+[279] From [Greek: polis] and [Greek: chratein].
+
+[280] "Joannis Saresberiensis ... Opera omnia," ed. Giles, Oxford, 1848,
+5 vols. 8vo, "Patres Ecclesiae Anglicanae."
+
+[281] "Ipsum quoque cultum religionis incestat, quod ante conspectum
+Domini, in ipsis penetralibus sanctuarii, lascivientis vocis luxu,
+quadam ostentatione sui, muliebribus modis notularum articulorumque
+caesuris stupentes animulas emollire nituntur. Quum praecinentium et
+succinentium, canentium et decinentium, praemolles 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 coaequare." "Opera," vol. iii. p. 38 (see on this
+same subject, below, p. 446).
+
+[282] "Quae autem de curialibus nugis dicta sunt, in nullo eorum, sed
+forte in me aut mei similibus deprehendi; et plane nimis arcta lege
+constringor, si meipsum et amicos castigare et emendare non licet."
+"Opera," vol. iv. p. 379 (Maupassant used to put forth in conversation
+exactly the same plea as an apology for "Bel-Ami.")
+
+[283] "Afflictus namque populus, quasi principis podagram arguit et
+convicit. Tunc autem totius reipublicae salus incolumis praeclaraque erit,
+si superiora membra si impendant inferioribus et inferiora superioribus
+pari jure respondeant." "Policraticus"; "Opera," vol. iv. p. 52.
+
+[284] Born probably in Herefordshire, studied at Paris, fulfilled
+various diplomatic missions, was justice in eyre 1173, canon of St.
+Paul's 1176, archdeacon of Oxford, 1197. He spent his last years in his
+living of Westbury on the Severn, and died about 1210.
+
+[285] "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.
+
+[286] For example, _ibid._ iii. 2, "De Societate Sadii et Galonis,"
+Dialogue between three women, Regina, Lais, Ero, pp. 111 ff.
+
+[287] "Galtere, veni foras!--Galterus autem, quia non audivit vocem
+Jhesus, non habuit aures Lazari et non venit." "De Nugis," p. 42.
+
+[288] "De Nugis," Dist. iv.
+
+[289] Th. Wright, "The Latin poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes,"
+London, Camden Society, 1841, 4to (_cf._ "Romania," vol. vii. p. 94):
+
+    Meum est propositum in taberna mori;
+    Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,
+    Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori:
+    Deus sit propitius huic potatori.
+
+("Confessio Goliae.")
+
+On "Goliardois" clerks, see Bedier, "les Fabliaux," Paris, 1893, 8vo,
+pp. 348 ff.
+
+[290] 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.
+
+[291] Map, however, never claimed the authorship of this work. The
+probability 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.
+
+[292] Alexander, of Hales, Gloucestershire, lectured at Paris, d. 1245;
+wrote a "Summa" at the request of Innocent II.: "Alexandri Alensis
+Angli, Doctoris irrefragabilis ... universae theologiae 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.
+
+[293] 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.
+
+[294] "Pantagruel," II., chap. 7.
+
+[295] The works of Ockham (fourteenth century) have not been collected.
+See his "Summa totius logicae," ed. Walker, 1675, 8vo, his "Compendium
+errorum Johannis papae," Lyons, 1495, fol., &c.
+
+[296] 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 possunt fieri ut sine animali moveantur impetu inaestimabili," p.
+533. On the causes of errors, that is authority, habit, &c., see "Opus
+majus," I.
+
+[297] 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.
+
+[298] Conclusion of chap. i. Book I.: "Contra Aristotelem, astruentem
+mundum non habuisse principium temporale et non fuisse creatum, nec
+praesentem generationem hominum terminandam, neque mundum nec statum
+mundi ullo tempore finiendum."
+
+[299] "Joannis Anglici praxis medica Rosa Anglica dicta," Augsbourg,
+1595, 2 vols. 4to. Vol. i. p. 496.
+
+[300] Concerning Bartholomaeus 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, 8vo, Rolls, pp. 419 ff.
+
+[301] There are eighteen in the National Library, Paris. One of the
+finest is the MS. 15 E ii. and iii. 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."
+
+[302] 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.
+
+[303] "Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae," finished about
+1187 (ed. Wilmot and Rayner, London, 1780, 8vo); was perhaps the work of
+his nephew, Hubert Walter, but written under his inspiraton.
+
+[304] "Dialogus de Scaccario," written 23 Henry II., text in Stubbs,
+"Select Charters," Oxford, 1876, p. 168.
+
+[305] "Henrici de Bracton de 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 haeres legittimus est quando nuptiae demonstrant," vol. ii. p. 18;
+a treasure is "quaedam 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. Gueterbock, translated with notes by Brinton Coxe,
+Philadelphia, 1866, 8vo.
+
+[306] By Gilbert de Thornton, ab. 1292; by the author of "Fleta," ab.
+the same date.
+
+[307] 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 transmittendum, in corpore libri 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. Concerning the "Scriptoria" in monasteries
+and in particular the "Scriptorium" of St. Albans, see Hardy,
+"Descriptive Catalogue," 1871, Rolls, vol. iii. pp. xi. ff.
+
+[308] "Sedens igitur in claustro pluries fatigatus, sensu habetato,
+virtutibus frustratus, pessimis cogitationibus saepe sauciatus, tum
+propter lectionum longitudinem ac orationum lassitudinem, propter vanas
+jactantias et opera pessima in saeculo praehabita...." 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.
+
+[309] "Orderici Vitalis Angligenae Historiae ecclesiasticae, 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."
+
+[310] "Eadmeri Historia novorum in Anglia," ed. Martin Rule, Rolls,
+1884, 8vo; in the same volume: "De vita and conversatione Anselmi."
+Eadmer died ab. 1144.
+
+[311] "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 se
+gestis;" "Gemma Ecclesiastica;" "De Invectionibus, Libri IV.;" "Speculum
+Ecclesiae;" "Topographia Hibernica;" "Expugnatio Hibernica;" "Itinerarium
+Kambriae;" "Descriptio Kambriae;" "De Principis Instructione."
+
+[312] "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, 1887 ff.; "De Gestis
+Pontificum Anglorum," ed. Hamilton, Rolls, 1870. William seems to have
+written between 1114 and 1123 and to have died ab. 1142, or shortly
+after.
+
+[313] "Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum ... from
+A.C. 55 to A.D. 1154," 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.
+
+[314] "De Annulo statuae commendato," "Gesta," vol. i. p. 354.
+
+[315] "Matthaei 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.
+
+[316] So says Walsingham; see Madden's preface to the "Historia
+Anglorum," vol. iii. p. xlviii.
+
+[317] MS. Nero D i. in the British Museum, fol. 22, 23, 146, 169. The
+attribution 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.
+
+[318] Year 1255: "Missus est in Angliam quidam elephas quem rex
+Francorum pro magno munere dedit regi Angliae.... Nec credimus alium
+unquam visum fuisse in Anglia." "Abbreviatio Chronicorum," following the
+"Historia Anglorum" in Madden's edition, vol. iii. p. 344.
+
+[319] "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.
+
+[320] "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.
+
+[321] See below, p. 405.
+
+[322] 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 of 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.
+
+[323] The contrast 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 scholae tam
+nobilis, cujus olim radii lucem dabant universis angulis orbis terrae....
+Minerva mirabilis nationes hominum circuire videtur.... Jam Athenas
+deseruit, jam a Roma recessit, jam Parisius praeterivit, jam ad
+Britanniam, insularum insignissimam, quin potius microcosmum accessit
+feliciter." "Philobiblon," chap. ix. p. 89. In the same words nearly,
+but with a contrary intent, Count Cominges, ambassador to England,
+assured King Louis XIV. that "the arts and sciences sometimes 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 manuscripts 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 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.[324]
+
+The first works written in English, after the Conquest, were sermons and
+pious treatises, some imitated from Bede, AElfric, and the ancient Saxon
+models, others translated 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.[325]
+
+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 rudimentary rendering of legends interpreted in their
+turn by Dante in his poem, and Giotto in his fresco.[326] 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 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 equanimity. 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 predominates, 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!"[327]
+
+The Psalter,[328] portions of the Bible,[329] lives of saints,[330]
+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.[331] The earliest complete manuscript was written about 1300, an
+older but incomplete one belongs to the years 1280-90, or
+thereabout.[332] 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;
+
+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.[333]
+
+With this we have graceful legends, like that of St. Brandan, adapted
+from a French original, being the story of that Irish monk who, in a
+leather bark, sailed in search of Paradise,[334] 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."[335]
+
+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, 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.[336]
+
+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,"[337] 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 themselves 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 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 forbidden 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.'"[338]
+
+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 captivating 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."[339]
+
+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 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."[340]
+
+These attempts become rare as we approach the fourteenth century, and
+English translations and imitations, on the contrary, multiply. We find,
+for example, translations in English verse of the "Chateau"[341] and the
+"Manuel"[342]; a prose translation of that famous "Somme des Vices et
+des Vertus," composed by Brother Lorens in 1279, for Philip III. of
+France, a copy of which, chained to a pillar of the church of the
+Innocents, remained open for the convenience of the faithful[343]; (a
+bestiary in verse, thirteenth century), devotional writings on the
+Virgin, legends of the Cross, visions of heaven and hell[344]; a Courier
+of the world, "Cursor Mundi," in verse,[345] 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.
+
+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 inserted 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."[346]
+
+Somewhat above this group of translators and adaptators rises a more
+original writer, Richard Rolle of Hampole, noticeable for his English
+and Latin compositions, in prose and verse, and still more so by his
+character.[347] 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 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."[348] But
+though the wicked one shows himself 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.[349]
+
+His style and ideas correspond well to such a life. His thoughts are
+sombre, Germanic anxieties and doubts reappear 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 delittabyll name! This es the name that es abowve all names.... I
+yede (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."[350] 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.
+
+
+II.
+
+We are getting further and further away from the Conquest, 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 beginning 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 literature possesses.[351] 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 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 himself, "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."[352] He follows mainly Wace's
+poem, but paraphrases 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 himself 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 land live in bliss.'"[353] 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.[354]
+
+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,[355] 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 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![356]
+
+They stop also on the public places, where the common people flock to
+hear of Charlemagne and Roland[357]; they even get into the cloister. In
+the thirteenth and fourteenth 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.[358]
+
+"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.[359]
+
+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,[360] 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.[361]
+
+Some English heroes of a more recent period find also 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 Palestine, kills the
+giant Colbrant on his return, and dies piously in a hermitage.[362] 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,[363] as Robin Hood will do later with Maid Marian.[364] 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, Richardson, and
+Fielding, novels of another kind took their place in the drawing-room,
+their life continued still in the lower sphere to which they had been
+consigned. They supplied the matter for those popular _chap books_[365]
+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._[366]
+
+"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,"[367] "Le lai du Cor,"[368] "La
+Bourse pleine de sens,"[369] the praise of the land of "Coquaigne,"[370]
+&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;
+
+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."[371] 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[372]; or at the elegancies of the
+bad parson who puts in his bag a comb and "a shewer" (mirror).[373]
+Other poems are adaptations of the "Roman de Renart."[374] 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 determined 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 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, forgiven 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.[375]
+
+      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 translated 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.[376] As for _chansons_, there were
+imitations of May songs, "disputoisons,"[377] and carols; love, roses,
+and birds were sung in sweet words to soft music[378]; 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.[379]
+
+Their beauties and merits are celebrated one by one, as in a litany;
+for, said one of those poets, an Englishman who wrote in French:
+
+    Beaute de femme passe rose.[380]
+
+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"[381] 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[382]; 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 wynd,
+    Sent thou me my suetyng,
+    Blow, northerne wynd, blou, blou, blou![383]
+
+says the English poet. Contact with the new-comers had modified the
+gravity of the Anglo-Saxons, but without sweeping it away wholly and for
+ever: the possibility of 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[324] "Castel of Love," "made in the latter half of the XIIIth 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.)
+
+[325] 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 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 XIIth and XIIIth centuries," ed. Morris,
+E.E.T.S., 1867-73, 2 vols. 8vo; 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 paraphrase 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 XIIIth 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).
+
+[326] 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.
+
+[327] "Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and
+XIIIth Centuries," ed. with translation, by R. Morris, London, E.E.T.S.,
+1867, 8vo, vol. i. p. 39.
+
+[328] 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. Buelbring, 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.
+
+[329] "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.
+
+[330] 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.
+
+[331] Horstmann, "The early South-English 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._
+
+[332] 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 Furnivall in his "Early
+English poems" (_ut supra_).
+
+[333] From MS. Harl. 2277, in Furnivall's "Early English poems," 1862,
+p. 34.
+
+[334]
+
+    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).
+
+[335] Renan, "Essais de morale et de critique," Paris, 1867, 3rd
+edition, p. 446.
+
+[336] By Thomas de Hales, "Incipit quidam cantus quem 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.
+
+[337] 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 Kaines, in Dorset, where a convent for monks
+had been founded by Ralph de Kaines, 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.
+
+[338] 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
+ionswered? 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."
+
+[339] "Vix aliquam inclusarum hujus temporis solam invenies, ante cujus
+fenestram non anus garrula vel nugigerula mulier sedeat quae eam fabulis
+occupet, rumoribus aut detractionibus pascat, illius vel illius monachi
+vel clerici, vel alterius cujuslibet ordinis viri formam, vultum,
+moresque describat. Illecebrosa quoque interserat, puellarum lasciviam,
+viduarum, quibus libet quidquid 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 eremetica 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."
+
+[340]
+
+    De le franceis, ne del rimer
+    Ne me dait nuls hom blamer,
+    Kar en Engleterre fu ne
+    E norri ordine et aleve.
+
+Furnivall, "Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne," &c., Roxburghe Club,
+1862, 4to, p. 413.
+
+[341] 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, 407; 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.
+
+[342] The "Manuel des Pechiez," by William de Wadington, as well as the
+English 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, 4to, 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.
+
+[343] "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 "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.
+
+[344] See in particular: "Legends of the Holy Rood, symbols of the
+Passion and Cross Poems, in old English of the XIth, XIVth, 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 XIIIth century," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1872.--"The
+religious poems of William de Shoreham," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society,
+1849, on sacraments, commandments, 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 dispitison 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, vol.
+ii. pp. 397 ff.
+
+[345] "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).
+
+[346]
+
+    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.
+
+[347] There exist Latin and English texts of his works, the latter being
+generally considered as translations made by himself. His principal
+composition 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. S., 1866, 8vo. Most of his works
+in Latin have been collected under the title: "D. Richardi Pampolitani
+Anglo-Saxonis eremitae ... Psalterium Davidicum atque alia ...
+Monumenta," Cologne, 1536, fol.
+
+[348] "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 Prose
+Treatises," p. 5.
+
+[349] "Officium de Sancto Ricardo eremita." The office contains hymns in
+the 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.
+
+[350] "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.
+
+[351] "Layamon's Brut or Chronicle of Britain, a poetical Semi-Saxon
+paraphrase 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 de Brut," written in 1155, 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.
+
+[352] Madden, _ut supra_, vol. i. p. 1.
+
+[353] 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 haeghe,
+    Swulc thu woldest to haevene | nu thu scalt to haelle;
+    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.
+
+[354] "Roman de Brut," vol. ii. p. 57.
+
+[355] On Robert, see above, pp. 117, 122. On the sources of his
+chronicle, see Ellmer, "Anglia," vol. x. pp. 1 ff and 291 ff.
+
+[356] "Lay of Havelok," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868, end of thirteenth
+century, p. 1.
+
+[357] On wandering minstrels and jongleurs, see "English Wayfaring
+Life," ii., chap. i., and below, p. 345, above, p. 162.
+
+[358] "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. l. 5533.
+
+[359] "Cursor Mundi," ed. Morris, part v. p. 1651. A large number of
+English mediaeval romances will be found among the publications of the
+Early English Text Society (including among others: Ferumbras, Otuel,
+Huon of Burdeux, Charles the Grete, 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 Koelbing in his "Altenglische Bibliothek," Heilbronn;
+by H. W. Weber: "Metrical Romances of the XIIIth, XIVth 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.
+
+[360] "King Horn, with Fragments of Floriz and Blauncheflur, and of the
+Assumption of Our Lady," ed. Rawson 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. Brede and E. Stengel: "Das Anglonormannische Lied vom
+wackern Ritter Horn," Marbourg, 1883, 8vo: "Hic 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).
+
+[361] 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 engraved in the thirteenth century represents, besides
+"Habloc" and "Goldeburgh," "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 _Athenaeum_, Feb. 23, 1889), _cf._ Ward's "Catalogue," i. p.
+423.
+
+[362] "Guy of Warwick," ed. Zupitza, E.E.T.S., 1875-91 (_cf._ Ward's
+"Catalogue 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).
+
+[363] 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 Herewardi Saxonis," in the "Chroniques
+Anglo-Normandes," of F. Michel, Rouen, 1836-40, vol. ii.
+
+[364] 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.
+
+[365] 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.
+
+[366] "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.
+
+[367] 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.
+
+[368] 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. iii. and "La Coupe
+Enchantee," by La Fontaine.
+
+[369] French text: "De pleine Bourse de Sens," by Jean le Galois, in
+Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil General," vol. iii. 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.
+
+[370] 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."
+
+[371] "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, 16mo.
+
+[372] 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.
+
+[373]
+
+    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.
+
+[374] "The Vox and Wolf," time of Edward I., 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's "Roman de Renart," Strasbourg,
+1882, vol. i. p. 146.
+
+[375] Tartufe, i. 6.
+
+[376] "Amis and Amiloun," ed. Koelbing, Heilbronn, 1884, 8vo, French and
+English texts, in verse. French text in prose, in Moland and
+d'Hericault, "Nouvelles ... du XIIIe. Siecle," 1856, 16mo.--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 fragments 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 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.
+
+[377] 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" (Matzner'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.
+
+[378] 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.
+
+[379] Th. Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry, composed in England in the
+reign of Edward I.," Percy Society, 1842, 8vo, p. 43.
+
+[380] 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.
+
+[381]
+
+    Femmes portent les oyls veyrs
+      E regardent come faucoun.
+
+T. Wright, "Specimens," p. 4.
+
+[382]
+
+    Heo hath a mury mouth to mele,
+    With lefly rede lippes lele
+       Romaunz forte rede.
+
+Ibid., p. 34.
+
+[383] Ibid., p. 51.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+_ENGLAND TO THE ENGLISH._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_THE NEW NATION._
+
+
+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, whenever 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_."[384] 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 1340, which abolishes the "presentement d'Englescherie,"[385] 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 1311, 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[386]; 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
+Lancastre, chalenge yis Rewme of Yngland."[387]
+
+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 omni nisu_; they wish to frenchify, _francigenare_,[388]
+themselves, in order to imitate the nobles, and be more thought of.
+Their efforts had a remarkable result, precisely for the 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 _rurales_, 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 _rurales_. 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 distinguish the genders. They have to be taught by manuals,
+and the popularity of one written by Walter de Biblesworth,[389] in the
+fourteenth century, shows how greatly such 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_ and _je_." 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_. The _levre_ closes the teeth
+in; _le lievre_ the woods inhabits; _la livre_ is used in trade; _le
+livre_ is used at church."[390]
+
+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
+paraphrasing 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."[391]--("'What,' said Ponocrates,
+'brother John, do you swear?' 'It is only,' said the monk, 'to adorn my
+speech. These are colours of Ciceronian rhetoric.'")--But from most of
+the speeches registered in French in the "Year-books," it is easily
+gathered that advocates, _serjeants_ 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."[392] In the second half of the
+century, the difficulties 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,"[393] shall be discontinued.
+
+This ignorance is now notorious. Froissart remarks on it; the English,
+he says, do not observe treaties faithfully, "and to this they are
+inclined by their not understanding very well all the terms of the
+language of France; and one does not know how to force a thing into
+their head unless it be all to their advantage."[394] 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."[395]
+
+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."[396]
+
+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
+Council, conforming to a tradition which has remained unbroken down to
+our day, refuse to employ for the negotiation any language but their
+own.[397] 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 composed 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 compared to the speech of the
+angels of heaven for its great sweetness and beauty."[398]
+
+In spite of these praises, the end of French, as the language "most
+esteemed and beloved," was near at hand in 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"[399]; 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
+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 _monasterium_, _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 especially 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.[400]
+
+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,"[401]
+there is a table of the words of the language classified according to
+their derivation; the words borrowed 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 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, conjunctions, 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.[402] 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 uses both words at once, sure of
+being thus intelligible to all:
+
+    They callen love a woodnes or a folye.[403]
+
+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 occasionally both at once. The fourteenth century is the last in
+which alliterative verse really flourished, though it survived 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, Definite and
+Indefinite, Strong and Weak, just like that which makes the beginner's
+despair in German."[404] 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 terminations. 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 variations 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
+inflections, 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 _maeden_,
+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."[405] Anglo-Saxon gentlemen were in about the
+same predicament, before 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
+declensions; 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 instance, 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 combination 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 bulkheads; a
+singular misapprehension of history besides. The English people is the
+offspring of two nations; it has 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 prohibited,[406] 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; 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 owed to him as king
+of England, and not as king of France.[407] 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 experiment 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 elements, 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 characteristics
+have been infused into their new compatriots: so much so that from the
+first day Parliament begins to feel 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 compromises 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 astonishment 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."[408] He forms the habit of appealing 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[409]; 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 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."[410]
+
+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 definitive privileges. The Commons have their Speaker, "M. Thomas de
+Hungerford, knight, who had the words for the Commons of England"[411];
+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 voting.[412]
+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."[413]
+
+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 present, 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!)"[414]
+
+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 Purgatory."[415]
+Convents claim privileges that time has effaced; 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.[416]
+
+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[417]; 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."[418] 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."[419] 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, and that statutes
+and ordinances cannot touch you.... "[420] 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 subsidies 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, unenlightened 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 of thought in the two
+countries; they also excited the wonder and sometimes the admiration of
+the French. "The king of England must obey his subjects," says
+Froissart, "and do all they want him to."[421] "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."[422] "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."[423]
+
+
+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."[424] 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."[425]
+
+Its mines are worked, even those of "sea-coal," as it was then called,
+"carboun de meer."[426] It has a numerous 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 complain
+to the king in remonstrances more than once heard 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."[427] 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.[428] Their nature has been
+modified; the island no longer suffices them as it sufficed the
+Anglo-Saxons. "Il 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, whatsoever 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 portrait on the wall.[429] On every occasion they
+behave like Normans; in the halls of Westminster, in their City counting
+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."[430] 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.[431] The wealthy 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; devotional 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,"[432] all
+those precious articles with which our museums are filled. Edward II.
+sends to the Pope in 1317, 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.[433] 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 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[434] 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, following his
+example, take their falconers and their hounds along with them, as
+though they were going to a hunt.[435] 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 indignant if it is
+threatened, very sad when the end draws near; with more lasting
+happinesses we smile less often. Froissart 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.
+
+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 lasting 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.[436] 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.[437]
+
+The outside is less rude, and the inside is adorned and enriched; life
+becomes more private than it used to be; 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.[438] 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,[439] 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 1417), 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.[440]
+
+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 concerning 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 mixtures. 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.[441]
+
+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.[442] 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.[443] 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 composed for his tomb at
+Canterbury, the Black Prince mourns over "his beauty which has all
+gone." Richard II., while still alive, has graven on his tomb that he
+was "corpore procerus."[444] 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."[445]
+
+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
+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."[446]
+
+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 1350-1 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.[447]
+
+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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[384] "De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae," 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."
+
+[385] "Statutes of the Realm," 14 Ed. III. chap. 4.
+
+[386] "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_ 1311, vol.
+i. p. 168.
+
+[387] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 422; see below, p. 421.
+
+[388] Ralph Higden, "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 158. "Haec
+quidem nativae 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."
+
+[389] "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.
+
+[390]
+
+    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.
+
+[391] Apostrophe of judge John de Moubray, Easter session, 44 Ed. III.,
+"Year-books of Edward I.," ed. Horwood (Rolls), 1863 ff., 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._
+
+[392] "Grosso modo et idiomate quocunque communiter intelligibili factum
+proponant." "Munimenta Academica" (Rolls), p. 77.
+
+[393] "Pur ce qe monstre est souventefoitz au Roi par prelatz, ducs,
+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."
+
+[394] "Chroniques," ed. Luce, vol. i. p. 306.
+
+[395] "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 159 (contains the Latin text
+of Higden and the English translation of Trevisa).
+
+[396]
+
+    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 of
+the University Library, Cambridge, contains "a treatise on French
+conjugations." It does not furnish any useful information as regards the
+history of French conjugations; "it can only serve to show how great was
+the corruption of current French in England in the fourteenth century."
+P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xv. p. 262.
+
+[397] The ambassadors are: "Thomas Swynford, miles, custos castri villae
+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 treugae
+generales inter Angliam et Franciam per Dominos et Principes temporales,
+videlicet duces Lancastriae et Eboraci necnon Buturiae ac Burgundiae, bonae
+memoriae, qui perfecte non intellexerunt latinum sicut Gallicum, de
+consensu eorumdem expresso, in Gallico fuerunt captae et firmatae, litterae
+tamen missivae ultro citroque transmissae ... continue citra in Latino,
+tanquam idiomate communi et vulgari extiterunt formatae; 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 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, 1860 (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.
+
+[398] "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.... Il peut bien comparer au
+parler des angels du ciel, pour la grant doulceur et biaultee d'icel."
+"La maniere de Langage," composed in 1396, at Bury St. Edmund's, ed.
+Paul Meyer, "Revue Critique," vol. x. p. 382.
+
+[399] Middle of the fourteenth century, ed. Aungier, Camden Society,
+1884, 4to.
+
+[400] 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."
+"Reliquiae Antiquae."
+
+[401] London, 1882.
+
+[402] 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.
+
+[403] "Troilus," iii. stanza 191.
+
+[404] Earle's "Philology of the English Tongue," 5th ed., Oxford, 1892,
+p. 379.
+
+[405] _Ibid._ p. 377.
+
+[406] See the series of the statutes of _Provisors_ and _Praemunire_, 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 protest 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.
+
+[407] Year 1340, 14 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104.
+
+[408] "Sicut lex justissima, provida circumspectione sacrorum principum
+stabilita, hortatur et statuit ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus
+approbetur...." Rymer, "Foedera," 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.
+
+[409] "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, "Foedera", 1705, vol. ii.
+p. 783.
+
+[410] Rymer, "Foedera," 1705, vol. ii. p. 783, year 1297; original in
+French.
+
+[411] "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.
+
+[412] Examples: that the deputies of the counties "soient esluz par
+commune election de les meillours gentz des dity countees 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: "Ils n'oseront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et
+avysez les communes de lour pais." 1339, "Rot. Parl.", vol. ii. p. 104;
+see below, p. 418.
+
+[413] "Return of the names of every member returned to serve in each
+Parliament," 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.
+
+[414] "Rot. Parl.," vol. ii. p. 262.
+
+[415] 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 des almes les fondours que
+sont en Purgatorie." 4 Ed. III. "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 49.
+
+[416] 4 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 33.
+
+[417] Good Parliament of 1376.
+
+[418] 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.
+
+[419] "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.
+
+[420] Cheruel, "Dictionnaire des Institutions de la France," at the word
+_Parlement_. 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.
+
+[421] "Chroniques," ed. S. Luce, i. p. 337.
+
+[422] "Memoires," ed. Dupont, Societe de l'histoire de France, 1840 ff.,
+vol. ii. p. 142, _sub anno_, 1477.
+
+[423] Unpublished letter to M. de Lionne, from London, July 6, 1665,
+Archives of the Affaires Etrangeres, vol. lxxxvi.
+
+[424] "Esprit des Lois," vol. xx. chap. vii., "Esprit de l'Angleterre
+sur le Commerce."
+
+[425] A. Sorel, "l'Europe et la Revolution Francaise," vol. i. p. 337.
+
+[426] 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."
+
+[427] 46 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 311. The king
+returns a vague answer. See below, pp. 515, 517.
+
+[428] "They travaile in every londe," says Gower of them, in his
+"Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, vol. iii. p. 109.
+
+[429] "Joannes Acutus, eques 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.
+
+[430] "Polychronicon," ed. Babington, Rolls, vol. ii. pp. 166, 168.
+
+[431] 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 ("Foedera," 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.
+
+[432] 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.
+
+[433] 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_l._ 13_s._ and 4_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_l._ ("Issues of the Exchequer," ed. Devon, 1837, pp. 144, 213). On
+English miniaturists, see "Histoire Litteraire de la France," xxxi. p.
+281.
+
+[434] More than forty for the reign of Edward II. are to be found in the
+"Foedera."
+
+[435] "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.
+
+[436] 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.
+
+[437] 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.
+
+[438]
+
+    Now hath uche riche a reule | to eten by hym-selve
+    In a 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.
+
+[439] For this tapestry the king paid thirty pounds to Thomas de
+Hebenhith, mercer of London. ("Wardrobe accounts of Edward
+II."--"Archaeologia," vol. xxvi. p. 344.)
+
+[440] 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.), "Archaeologia," 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 made at Norwich; the finest came from Flanders.
+
+[441] 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, 8vo (found
+too in the "Antiquitates Culinariae," of Warner, 1791, 4to). The prologue
+informs us 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 philosophie 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.
+
+[442] Year 1363. The "aignel" and the "gopil" are, however, tolerated.
+"Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 281.
+
+[443] "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.
+
+[444] 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 Westminster was
+built in his lifetime and under his eyes. The original indentures have
+been preserved, by which "Nicholas Broker et Godfrey Prest, citeins et
+copersmythes 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,"
+"Miscellanea," 3/40.
+
+[445] "Le livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l'enseignement de
+ses filles," ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1854, 12mo, pp. 46 and 98, written
+in 1371.
+
+[446] "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.
+
+[447] 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: "Il semble au conseil qe ceste petition est resonable." "Rotuli
+Parliamentorum," 25 Ed. III., vol. ii. p. 250.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_CHAUCER._
+
+
+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, 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 connection 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.[448]
+
+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 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 Mediterranean 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.[449] 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
+surrounded by walls, portions of which still remain, with Roman
+foundations in some places.[450] 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.[451]
+
+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.[452] In his turn, and not as a merchant, 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 he 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,[453] 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 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.[454] 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,[455] 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.[456]
+
+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 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 civilisation. 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 beforehand 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
+prepared 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 ornamented 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 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."[457]
+
+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.[458] He sings like them of love, of
+spring, of the field-daisy[459]; he had read with passionate admiration
+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 sermons 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
+resurrection; 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 paradise, 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."[460]
+
+The discrepancies in the book did not shock the generality of readers;
+art at that time was full of contrasts, 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 Guillaume, others for Jean, some rejecting
+the whole romance, others, the most numerous, accepting it all. These
+dissensions added still more to the fame of the work, and it was so
+popular that there exist more than two hundred manuscripts of it.[461]
+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
+woman"; he has known none save those of "dissolute and evil life," and
+has taken all the others to be according to that pattern.[462] 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 camerae regis." This translation by Chaucer is
+lost,[463] 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,[464] congratulates him, above all things,
+on having "planted the rose-tree" in "the isle of giants," 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 Gower:
+
+    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."[465] A few poems, however, 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 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 disappeared 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.[466]
+
+Already the descriptions have a freshness that no contemporaries 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.
+
+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," beloved 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.[467]
+
+From these "knakkes smale" we may judge what the others must have been.
+They discourse thus a long 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 observation; 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."[468] 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 illustrious writers of the century,
+Boccaccio in Italy, Chaucer 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"[469]; 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."[470]
+
+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."[471]
+
+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 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."[472] The
+negotiation failed, but the poet's services seem nevertheless 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 Hawkwood,[473] who led, in the most 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.[474]
+
+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 ornamentation 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 campanile had been
+finished by his pupil 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 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.[475] An antique statue found within her territory
+was provoking universal admiration, and was erected on the Gaia 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.[476]
+
+The taste for collections was spreading; the commerce of antiquities
+flourished in Northern Italy. Petrarch bought medals, and numbered among
+his artistic treasures a Madonna of Giotto, "whose beauty," he says in
+his will, "escaped the ignorant and enraptured the masters of the
+art."[477] This brightening of the land was the result of concurring
+wills, nor did it pass unobserved even then; towns enjoyed their
+masterpieces, and, like young women, "se miraient en leur beaute."
+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 1341, 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.[478] 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.[479]
+
+It was impossible that a mind, from infancy friendly to art and books,
+should not be struck by this general expansion; the charm of this
+literary springtime was too penetrating 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 resemblance, as if we
+found in his verses an echo of the conversations they very likely had
+together by Padua in 1373.[480]
+
+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
+demesned."[481] 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.[482] After
+having himself been present at the weighing 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[483]; his friend the philosopher and logician, Ralph Strode, lived
+in the same way in rooms above "Aldrichgate"[484]; 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 world was done with; his neighbours
+were to him as though they had lived at the ends of earth[485]; 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 "Compleynt of Mars," 1380; 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.[486] 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
+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, "untressed," 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 defence;
+
+or with less draperies still:
+
+    I saw Beautee withouten any atyr[487];
+
+or again:
+
+    Naked fleting in a see;
+
+her brows circled with a "rose-garlond white and reed."[488] 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.[489]
+
+His "Compleynt of Anelida" is dedicated to
+
+    Thou ferse god of armes, Mars the rede,
+
+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.[490]
+
+Old books of antiquity possess for him, as they did for 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 of olde 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.[491]
+
+Poggio or Poliziano could not have spoken in more feeling words.
+
+    Glory and honour, Virgil Mantuan,
+    Be to thy name![492]
+
+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.[493]
+
+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 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.[494]
+
+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, sometimes 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
+"Paradiso." The same poet is quoted in the "Parlement of Foules," where
+we find a paraphrase of the famous "Per me si va"[495]; 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
+introduces into it a sonnet of Petrarch[496]; the idea of the "Legend of
+Good Women" is borrowed from the "De claris Mulieribus" of Boccaccio.
+Dante's journeys to the spirit-world served as models for the "Hous of
+Fame," where the 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.[497]
+
+The eagle is not an invention of Chaucer's; it had already appeared in
+the "Purgatorio."[498]
+
+Notwithstanding the quantity of reminiscences of ancient or Italian
+authors that recur at every page; notwithstanding the story of AEneas
+related wholly from Virgil, the first lines being translated word for
+word[499]; notwithstanding incessant allusions and quotations, the "Hous
+of Fame"[500] 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 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 forgiven; 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.[501]
+
+He is modern, too, in the part he allots to his own self, a self which,
+far from being odious ("le moi est haissable," 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 temple itself is built in the Gothic style of the period, all
+bristling with "niches, pinnacles, and statues," and
+
+    ... ful eek of windowes
+    As flakes falle in grete snowes.[502]
+
+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 full "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 celebrates the deeds of
+the warriors:
+
+    For in fight and blood-shedinge
+    Is used gladly clarioninge.[503]
+
+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.[504]
+
+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, 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."[505]
+
+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.[506]
+
+
+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 illuminations, blazons, or oriflammes; his
+nights are of sable, and his meadows seem of sinople, his flowers are
+"whyte, blewe, yelowe, and rede."[507] 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 discourse subtly about their desires and their mishaps.[508]
+
+Chaucer appropriates the plot,[509] 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 accomplished in
+the same time by the nation. With the Parliament 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 contribute 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 confidants, diminished reproductions of their
+own selves, invented 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; 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 circumstances 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 tornest ful ofte."[510]
+
+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 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, unintentionally and by nature, like Juliet's
+nurse.[511] 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 for tangible and present
+realities, and does not believe in ever foregoing an immediate and
+certain pleasure in consideration 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."[512] 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; he contrives that she shall praise
+Troilus herself, incidentally, 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.[513]
+
+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; 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 imagination 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 unflattering; 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 loven 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.
+
+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.[514]
+
+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 hypothesis. 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 workings 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 produced 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 access to her heart, and that, where one enters so easily, it
+is usually that the door is open. She paces in her melancholy 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 sentiments. 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![515]
+
+The passion and merits of Troilus, the inventions of
+Pandarus, the secret good-will of Cressida, a thunderstorm which breaks
+out opportunely (we know how impressionable 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.[516]
+
+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![517]
+
+Were they happy?
+
+    But juggeth, ye that han ben at the feste
+    Of swich gladnesse.[518]
+
+The gray morn appears in the heavens; the shriek of "the cok, comune
+astrologer," is heard; the lovers sing their song of dawn.[519] All the
+virtues of Troilus are increased and 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.[520]
+
+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 return; true,
+it will not be in ten days; it will be when she can.[521]
+
+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, 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.[522]
+
+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 difference 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
+Beauveau: "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,[523] which 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."[524] 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 employments 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 had described, with "pinacles, imageries, and tabernacles,"
+and
+
+                ful eek of windowes
+    As flakes falle in grete snowes.[525]
+
+His great literary occupation, during that time, was the composition of
+his famous "Canterbury Tales."[526] Experience 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"[527]; the inns were all
+close to each other. It was springtime, 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 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;
+
+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 instead of healing them, and to the pardoner, a
+rascal 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? April has come.
+
+The characters of romance, the statues on cathedrals, the 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 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.[528]
+
+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 coachman, 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 1731.[529]
+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."[530] 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 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 conditions 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
+remains of Henry the Second's former adversary, the Chancellor Thomas
+Becket, assassinated on the steps of the altar, and canonised.[531]
+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 in the saddle; the way will be
+long.[532] 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."[533] 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, beautiful,
+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 surrounded 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 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 contrast. 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. "Wel," says the host,
+
+             "Tel on, a devel wey!
+    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 innkeeper; 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 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 shapeless; 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 mowe 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![534]
+
+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 interrupt him; he cannot
+make up his mind to launch into his 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 excellent 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,[535] and taken from everywhere. Chaucer
+never troubled himself to invent any; he received them from all hands,
+but he modelled them after his own fashion, and adapted them to his
+characters. They 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 somewhat 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 inspiration.
+
+Next to these great scenes of noise there are little familiar scenes,
+marvellously observed, and described to 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.[536]
+
+Or else, we have representations of those interested visits that
+mendicant friars paid to the dying. The friar, low, trivial,
+hypocritical, approaches:
+
+    "Deus hic," 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. What 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.
+
+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 ban our labour al for noght.[537]
+
+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;
+    Wel 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!
+
+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 boterflye," and what should he see but a fox!
+"Cok, cok!" he cries, with a jump, and means to flee.
+
+        "Gentil sire, allas! 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?[538]
+
+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;
+
+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 "Clavilegno," the steed of Don Quixote in the Duchesse's
+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 illuminations of manuscripts.[539]
+
+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,[540] which Chaucer modestly ascribes to
+himself); story of the patient Griselda; discourse 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
+inextinguishable; it rose and fell and rose again, rebounding
+indefinitely; despair was immeasurable; the sense of _measure_ was
+precisely what was wanting; its vulgarisation 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
+scholastic 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, 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;[541] it was turned several times into French.[542] 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.[543] These 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.'"[544]
+
+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 suddenly 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; everything 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 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.[545]
+
+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 sentiments.
+In giving them place in his collection, he belongs to his time and helps
+to make it known; but a few mocking 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 sometimes he can stand their talk no longer,
+and interrupts 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
+shows 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 adventures of the matchless
+Sir Thopas.[546] 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 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;[547]
+
+that, in the education of children, parents should be careful 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 himself very freely about great captains, each of whom would
+have been called "an outlawe or a theef" had they done less harm.[548]
+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 knowledge 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 Arabians 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."[549] 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.[550]
+
+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 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
+celebrated 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:
+
+    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![551]
+
+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,
+copying once more "Boece" or "Troilus," he leaves as many errors
+again.[552] 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."[553]
+
+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.[554]
+
+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 versification, 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 English, 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.
+
+
+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,[555] 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:
+
+    Fle 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.[556]
+
+In spite of this melancholy, he was at that time the uncontested king of
+English letters; a life-long friendship bound him to Gower[557]; 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."
+
+Age had bestowed on him a corpulency which made him a match for Harry
+Bailey himself.[558]
+
+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 a year, a
+house in the garden of St. Mary's, Westminster. The lease is still
+preserved in the archives of the Abbey.[559] He passed away in the
+following year, in that tranquil retreat, and was interred at
+Westminster, 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,
+      Allas that thou thyn excellent prudence
+        In thi bed mortel mightist noght byquethe![560]
+
+At the time of the Renaissance Caxton printed his works twice,[561] and
+Henry VIII. made an exception in their favour in his prohibition of
+"printed bokes, printed balades, ... and other fantasies."[562] Under
+Elizabeth, Thynne annotated them,[563] Spenser declared that he "of
+Tityrus," that is of Chaucer, "his songs did lere,"[564] and Sidney
+exalted him to the skies.[565] In the seventeenth century Dryden
+rejuvenates his tales, in the eighteenth century the admiration is
+universal, and extends to Pope and Walpole.[566] 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,[567] 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[448] 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.
+
+[449] 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.
+
+[450] Such is the case with a tower in the churchyard of St. Giles's,
+Cripplegate.
+
+[451] "Et qi pork voedra norir, le norise deinz sa measoun." Four
+jurymen were to act as public executors: "Quatuor homines electi et
+jurati ad interficiendos porcos inventos vagantes infra muros
+civitatis." Riley "Munimenta Gildhallae," Rolls, 1859, 4 vols. 8vo;
+"Liber Albus," pp. 270 and 590.
+
+[452] April, 1357, an information gathered from a fragment of the
+accounts of the household of Elizabeth found in the binding of a book.
+
+[453] In the controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert
+Grosvenor, concerning a question of armorial bearings, Chaucer, being
+called as witness, declares (1386) 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 controversy, 1385-90," London, 2 vols.
+fol., 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 Franciae," in 1369.
+
+[454] On this see Furnivall, "Chaucer as valet and esquire," Chaucer
+Society, 1876.
+
+[455] 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? (l. 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.
+
+[456] 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 were the same person: same name, same
+function, same pension of ten marks, referred to in the same words in
+public documents, for example: 1º 42 Ed. III., 1368, "Philippae Chaucer
+cui dominus Rex decem marcas annuatim ad scaccarium percipiendas pro
+bono servitio per ipsam Philippam Philippe Regine Anglie impenso per
+literas suas patentes nuper concessit...." 2º 4 Ric. II., 1381,
+"Philippae Chaucer nuper uni domicellarum Philippae 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 tam 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.
+
+[457] Book iv. chap. 40.
+
+[458] 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, vol. ii. p. 558; 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, "Oeuvres 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
+"Oeuvres 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._, 1175 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."
+
+[459] 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 favour 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. 8vo), vol. i. p. 49. Des Champs praised
+the same flower; Machault wrote a "Dit de la Marguerite" ("Oeuvres
+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.
+
+[460] 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," 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.
+
+[461] 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, duc 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."
+
+[462] "A vous qui belles filles avez et bien les desirez a introduire a
+vie honneste, bailliez leur, bailliez le Rommant de la Rose, pour
+aprendre a discerner le bien du mal, que diz-je, mais le mal du bien. Et
+a quel utilite ne a quoy proufite aux oyans oir tant de laidures?" Jean
+de Meun "oncques n'ot acointance ne hantise de femme honorable ne
+vertueuse, mais par plusieurs femmes dissolues 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.
+
+[463] 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.
+
+[464]
+
+    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," "Oeuvres Completes," Paris, 1878 ff., vol. ii. p. 138.
+
+[465] "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.
+
+[466]
+
+    And every day hir beaute newed.
+
+(ll. 906, 963.)
+
+[467] "Book of the Duchesse," ll. 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.
+
+[468]
+
+    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!
+    Il fault que vostre fait soit mis
+    Au conseil pour respondre a plain;
+    Attendez encore mes amis ...
+    Il faut parler au chancelier
+    De vostre fait et a plusours ...
+    Temps passe et tout vint arrebours.
+
+"Oeuvres Completes," Societe des Anciens Textes, vol. vii. p. 117.
+
+[469]
+
+    De laissier aux champs me manace,
+    Trop souvent des genoulx s'assiet,
+    Par ma foy, mes chevaulx se lace.
+
+(_Ibid._, p. 32.)
+
+[470]
+
+    Mal fait mangier a l'appetit d'autruy.
+
+(_Ibid._, p. 81.)
+
+[471]
+
+    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 flairans 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.)
+
+[472] Book i. chap. 692.
+
+[473] 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 duc 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
+_Athenaeum_ of Sept. 9, 1893. During this 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.
+
+[474] ll. 1982, 1990, 1997.
+
+[475] Figure of "Peace," by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1339. See a drawing of
+it in Muentz, "Les Precurseurs de la Renaissance," Paris, 1882, 4to, p.
+29.
+
+[476] Muentz, _ibid._, p. 30.
+
+[477] "F. Petrarcae Epistolae," ed. Fracassetti, Florence, 1859, vol. iii.
+p. 541.
+
+[478] Letter of Boccaccio "celeberrimi nominis militi Jacopo Pizzinghe."
+Corazzini, "Le Lettere edite ed inedite di Giovanni Boccaccio,"
+Florence, 1877, 8vo, p. 195.
+
+[479] 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 Mondes_, July 15, 1888.
+
+[480] 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 Griselda.
+
+[481] "The Othe of the Comptroler of the Customes," in Thynne's
+"Animadversions," Chaucer Society, 1875, p. 131.
+
+[482] 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
+Galfridi Chaucer."
+
+[483] 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 Angliae,"
+Rolls, p. 370) caused by a rumour of the coming of the French. See
+Riley, "Memorials of London," pp. 388, 489. A study on the too neglected
+Ralph Strode is being prepared (1894) by M. Gollancz.
+
+[484] "Dimissio Portae de Aldgate facta Galfrido Chaucer.--Concessio de
+Aldrichgate Radulpho Strode.--Sursum-redditio domorum supra
+Aldrichesgate per Radulphum Strode." Among the "Fundationes et
+praesentationes cantariarum ... shoparum ... civitati pertinentium."
+"Liber Albus," Rolls, pp. 553, 556, 557.
+
+[485] 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. l. 647; "Complete Works," iii. p. 20.
+
+[486] All these dates are merely approximative. Concerning the
+chronology of Chaucer's works, see Ten Brink, "Chaucer Studien,"
+Muenster, 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 lawe." He wrote his "Legend" to make amends.
+
+[487] "Parlement of Foules," ll. 272, 225, "Complete Works," vol. i.
+
+[488] "Hous of Fame," l. 133 _ibid._, vol. iii.
+
+[489] "Hous of Fame," l. 518.
+
+[490] "Complete Works, "vol. i. p. 365. This beginning is imitated from
+Boccaccio's "Teseide."
+
+[491] "Parlement of Foules," in "Complete Works," vol. i. p. 336.
+Chaucer alludes here to a book which "was write with lettres olde," and
+which contained "Tullius of the dreme of Scipioun."
+
+[492] "Legend of Dido," in "Complete Works," vol. iii. p. 117.
+
+[493] Book v. st. 256.
+
+[494] "Hous of Fame," ll. 469, 473, 492.
+
+[495]
+
+    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," ll. 124,
+127.
+
+[496]
+
+    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.)
+
+[497] l. 449.
+
+[498]
+
+    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, fleinge, at a swappe he hente,
+    And with his sours agayn up wente,
+    Me caryinge in his clawes starke.
+
+(ll. 449, 503, 542.)
+
+[499]
+
+    I wol now singe, if that I can
+    The armes, and al-so the man, &c.
+
+(l. 142.)
+
+Hereupon follows a complete but abbreviated account of the events in the
+AEneid, Dido's story being the only part treated at some length.
+
+[500] "Complete Works," vol. iii. The poem was left unfinished; it is
+written in octosyllabic couplets, with four accents or beats.
+
+[501] Compare, for example, the beginning of "Hous of Fame," and No. 487
+of _The Spectator_ (Sept. 18, 1712):
+
+    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.
+
+[502] l. 1191.
+
+[503] l. 1242.
+
+[504] l. 1830.
+
+[505] l. 2047.
+
+[506] l. 2078. _Cf._ La Fontaine's "Les Femmes et le Secret."
+
+[507] "Parlement of Foules," l. 186.
+
+[508] Boccaccio's story is told in stanzas of eight lines, and has for
+its title "Il 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.
+
+[509] 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, compared with Boccaccio's Filostrato," Chaucer
+Society, 1875. 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.
+
+[510] Book i. st. 28.
+
+[511] 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?
+
+[512] Turned later into English verse by Lydgate, to be read as a
+supplementary Tale of 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.
+
+[513] Book ii. st. 46.
+
+[514] Book ii. st. 100 ff.
+
+[515] Book ii. st. 182.
+
+[516] Book iii. st. 163 and 170.
+
+[517] 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 ff.).
+
+[518] Book iii. st. 188.
+
+[519]
+
+                      What me is wo
+    That day of us mot make desseveraunce!
+
+(Book iii. st. 203, 204.)
+
+[520] Book iv. st. 98 ff.
+
+[521]
+
+    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.
+
+[522] Book v. st. 263.
+
+[523] 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 negli amanti molti, e sua bellezza
+    Estima piu ch'allo specchio, e pomposa
+    Ha vanagloria di sua giovinezza;
+    La qual quanto piaccevole e vezzosa
+    E piu, cotanto piu seco l'apprezza;
+    Virtu non sente ni conoscimento,
+    Volubil sempre come foglia al vento.
+
+("Opere Volgari," Florence, 1831, vol. xiii. p. 253.)
+
+[524] "Return of the names of every member [of Parliament]," 1878, fol.
+a Blue Book, p. 229.
+
+[525] "Hous of Fame," l. 1189.
+
+[526] "Complete Works," ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1894, 6 vols. 8vo, vol. iv.
+
+[527] 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.
+
+[528] Beginning of the "Shipmannes Tale."
+
+[529] "Vie de Marianne," Paris, 1731-41.
+
+[530] Book i. chap. 81, Luce's edition.
+
+[531] 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 restored, to indicate the place in the choir where the
+shrine used to be.
+
+[532] 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.
+
+[533] "E forse a queste cose scrivere, quantunque sieno umilissime, si
+sono elle venute parecchi volte a starsi meco." Prologue of "Giornata
+Quarta."
+
+[534] "Pardoner's Tale," ll. 904, 920, 931.
+
+[535] 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 story which Chaucer intended to remodel; it
+would suit the Yeoman better than the Cook (in "Complete Works," as an
+appendix to vol. iv.).
+
+_2nd 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. 1393.--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, Croesus; 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.
+
+_3rd 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.
+
+_4th 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.
+
+[536] "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.
+
+[537] l. 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 chaque 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? Il est sur que quand il entrait dans une maison, la benediction du
+ciel y entrait avec lui." "Jacques le Fataliste et son Maitre," ed.
+Asseline, p. 46.
+
+[538] "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 285; on Geoffrey de Vinesauf and
+Richard, see above, p. 180.
+
+[539] 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, l. 190,
+"Complete Works," iv. p. 31.
+
+[540] 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).
+
+[541] 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_.
+
+[542] 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 Romme 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 Marquise de Saluces ou la patience de
+Griselidis," Paris, 1691, 12mo. 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 Edgeworth's novels has for its title and subject: "The Modern
+Griselda."
+
+[543] 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 1550.
+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.).
+
+[544] Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson, January 11, 1749. "Correspondence
+of Samuel Richardson," ed. Barbauld, London, 1804, 6 vols. 12mo, vol.
+iv. p. 240.
+
+[545] "Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 568.
+
+[546]
+
+    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).
+
+[547] Tale of the Canon's Yeoman, l. 995.
+
+[548]
+
+    ... 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 mescheef,
+    Men clepen him an outlawe or a theef.
+
+(Maunciple's tale, in "Complete Works," iv. p. 562.)
+
+[549] "A Treatise on the Astrolabe" in "Complete Works," vol. iii. p.
+175.
+
+[550] "General Prologue," l. 742.
+
+[551] "Troilus," Book v. st. 257.
+
+[552] "Chaucer's wordes unto Adam, his owne Scriveyn," in "Complete
+Works," vol. i. p. 379.
+
+[553] "Je te suppliray seulement d'une chose, lecteur, de vouloir bien
+prononcer mes vers et accomoder ta voix a leur passion ... et je te
+supplie encore de rechef, ou tu verras cette marque: (!) vouloir un peu
+eslever ta voix pour donner grace a ce que tu liras." Preface of the
+"Franciade."
+
+[554] So says the Parson, who adds:
+
+    Ne, God wot, rym holde I but litel bettre.
+
+Parson's Prologue, l. 43. It will be observed that while _naming_ simply
+rhyme, he _caricatures_ alliteration.
+
+[555] 1391, in "Complete Works," vol. iii. On that other, _possible_ son
+of Chaucer, Thomas, see _ibid._, vol. i. p. xlviii., and above, p. 273.
+
+[556] "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
+Compleynt of Venus"; "The Compleint of Chaucer to his empty purse," &c.,
+all in vol. i. of "Complete Works."
+
+[557] It has been said, but without sufficient cause, that this
+friendship came to an end some time before the death of Chaucer.
+
+[558]
+
+    He in the waast is shape as wel as I.
+
+(Prologue to Sir Thopas.)
+
+[559] To be seen (1894) under glass in the Chapter House.
+
+[560] "Hoccleve's Works," ed. Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 1892, vol. i. p. xxi.
+
+[561] 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 representing the pilgrims seated at the table of the Tabard inn.
+
+[562] "Animadversions uppon the Annotacions and corrections of some
+imperfections of impressiones of Chaucers workes...." by Francis Thynne,
+ed. Furnivall and Kingsley, Chaucer Society, 1876, p. xiv.
+
+[563] _Ibid._
+
+[564] "Shepheard's Calender," December.
+
+[565] "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.
+
+[566] 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. iii. ch. vii., "Chaucer in Literary History."
+
+[567] 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 "Canterbury 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 Canterbury. 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, jugglers, and
+minstrels have not disappeared; on the contrary, they are more numerous
+than ever. "Merry England" favours them; they continue to play, as
+under the first Angevins,[568] 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.[569]
+
+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."[570] Without any 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 devill; but of dyvines, so
+few there be as they maye hardly be seene."[571]
+
+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,[572] 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, composed in the very style
+of his own burlesque poem, about heroes who, being all peerless, are
+necessarily all alike: one is "stalworthe and wyghte," 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[573]; 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.[574] Specimens of this facile art swarm indefinitely; they
+are scattered over the country, penetrate into hamlets, find their way
+into cottages, 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 be listened to. Far above those empty, tripping
+metrical stories, and superior even to "Morte Arthure" and to "William
+of Palerne,"[575] written in English verse at the time of Chaucer, ranks
+"Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight,"[576] 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 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,"[577] jests, and the laughter of ladies.[578] 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![579]
+
+She seats herself, and refuses to go. Gawayne is assailed 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 coeurs 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 companion 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 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 contains another, on a
+totally different subject, which seems to be by the same author. This
+poem has been called "The Pearl;"[580] 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 landscape 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.[581] He sees a forest, 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.[582]
+
+So great is the beauty of the place that the father's grief is soothed,
+and he has a marvellous vision. On the opposite 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.[583] 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 painting at St. Bavon of Ghent.
+
+
+II.
+
+An immense copse surrounds the oak. About Chaucer swarm innumerable
+minstrels, anonymous poets, rhyming clerks, knightly ballad makers.[584]
+The fragile works of 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."[585]
+
+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 "Dormi Secure"[586] (Sleep in peace, tomorrow's sermon is
+ready). We find also in English manuscripts rubrics like the following:
+"Loo here begynnethe a Balade whiche that Lydegate wrote at the request
+of a squyer yt served in Love's court."[587] In their most elegant
+language, with all the studied refinement of the flowery style, the
+poets, writing to order, amplified, embellished, 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.
+
+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."[588] Chaucer's good parson bears witness to the
+popularity of another song, and declares in the course of his sermon:
+"Wel may that man that no good werke ne dooth, singe thilke newe Frenshe
+song: "J'ay tout perdu mon temps et mon labour."[589]
+
+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.[590] In the
+fourteenth century the Pui of London was at the height of its
+prosperity; 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 "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 whatsoever." 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 _chanson_, neither can a _chanson 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 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 _chansons 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 endeavour 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.[591]
+
+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,[592] are, with women, the
+subjects of these satirical songs:
+
+    Preste, ne monke, ne yit chanoun,
+    Ne no man of religioun,
+    Gyfen 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.[593]
+
+An account follows of doings, studies, and prayers, by no means
+edifying, and which recalls Chaucer rather than St. Francis.
+
+
+III.
+
+The tone becomes more elevated; and then we have forest songs in honour
+of the outlaw Robin Hood.[594] 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
+1381, 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?[595]
+
+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.[596] 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 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.[597]
+
+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.[598]
+
+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,[599] concerning whom
+nothing is 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 unskilful artists they run the risk of recalling the Sir
+Thopas example: this risk Edward incurs at the hands of Laurence 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![600]
+
+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.[601] 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."[602]
+
+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.
+
+"The Bruce," composed about 1375 by John Barbour,[603] 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 because 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 disappears, 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.[604]
+
+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
+congratulated on his return:
+
+                  "Perfay," said he,
+    "I slew bot ane forouten ma,
+    God and my hound has slane the twa."[605]
+
+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.[606]
+
+To England's threats Barbour replies by challenges, and by his famous
+apostrophe to liberty:
+
+    A! fredome is a noble thing!...[607]
+
+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
+discussion; but in bondage one cannot live, one dies.
+
+
+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 recognisable 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."[608]
+
+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 vouchen sauf, ther nede is, to corecte
+    Of your benignitees and zeles gode.[609]
+
+Gower, in his turn, represents Venus addressing him as follows:
+
+    ... Grete 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.[610]
+
+Gower 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
+convent 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.[611]
+
+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.[612] 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,[613] Court poems, imitations
+of Petrarch,[614] the light verses of a well-taught man. He promises
+eternal service to his "douce dame"; his "douce dame" being no one in
+particular. He writes for others, and they are welcome to draw from his
+works: "The love-songs thus far are composed 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."[615] 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."[616]
+
+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,"[617] 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 new "Romaunt of the
+Rose." It is springtime, 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."[618]
+
+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
+scholastic methods. Firstly, there are the vices of churchmen; these
+vices are of different kinds, as are ecclesiastics themselves; 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
+hounds[619]; others trade. Knights are too fond of women "with golden
+locks"; peasants are slothful; merchants rapacious and dishonest; they
+make "false gems out of glass."[620] 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."[621]
+
+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, and the whole community to which
+he belonged, 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,[622] offers
+explanations:
+
+    And for that fewe men endite
+    In oure Englishe, I thenke make,
+    A boke for Englondes sake.[623]
+
+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,[624] wherein Gower seeks both to amuse and to instruct, 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.[625] The rest resembles the Gower of the "Vox
+Clamantis."
+
+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.[626]
+
+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"[627]: "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.[628]
+
+We find ourselves again among vices and virtues, classifications,
+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 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[568] See above, p. 162.
+
+[569] Against those practices Langland strongly protests in his
+"Visions," text C. x. 133; xvi. 200. See following Chapter.
+
+[570] Rymer, "Foedera," 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 des
+XIIe et XIIIe Siecles," vol. ii. p. 321.
+
+[571] "Anatomy of Abuses," ed. Furnivall, London, 1877-79, 8vo, pp. 171,
+172.
+
+[572] 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.)
+
+[573]
+
+    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 "Catalogue of MS. Romances," 1883, vol. i. pp. 760
+ff.
+
+[574] 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."
+
+[575] Both published by the Early English Text Society: "Morte Arthure,"
+ed. Brock, 1871; "William of Palerne," ed. Skeat, 1867. Both are in
+alliterative verse; the first composed about the end, and the second
+about the middle, of the fourteenth century.
+
+[576] The unique MS. of this poem is in the British Museum: Cotton, Nero
+A 10. 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, however, 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.
+
+[577]
+
+    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....
+
+[578]
+
+    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).
+
+(l. 1952.)
+
+[579] l. 1746.
+
+[580] "Pearl, an English Poem of the Fourteenth Century, edited with
+modern rendering by Israel Gollancz," London, 1891, 8vo. The poem is
+written in stanzas (_a b a b a b a b b c b c_); 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.
+
+[581]
+
+    I entred in that erber grene,
+    In Augoste in a hygh seysoun,
+    Quen corne 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.
+            Yif hit wacz semly on to sene,
+            A fayrie tiayr yet fro hit flot. (St. 4.)
+
+[582]
+
+    As stremande sternes quen strothe men slepe,
+    Staren in welkyn in wynter nyght. (St. 10.)
+
+[583]
+
+    For that thou lestes wacs bot a rose,
+    That flowred and fayled as kynde hit gefe. (St. 23.)
+
+[584] The principal collections containing lyrical works and popular
+ballads of that period are: "Ancient Songs and Ballads from the reign of
+Henry II. to the Revolution," collected by John Ritson, revised by W. C.
+Hazlitt, London, 1877, 12mo; "Specimens of Lyric Poetry, composed in
+England in the reign of Edward I.," ed. Th. Wright, Percy Society, 1842,
+8vo; "Reliquiae Antiquae, scraps from ancient MSS. illustrating chiefly
+Early English Literature," ed. T. Wright and J. O. Halliwell, London,
+1841-43, 2 vols. 8vo; "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.
+8vo; "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.
+
+[585]
+
+    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,
+    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 ne quide pas qe vous deeisez
+    Qe j'eusse onqes hom este.
+
+(Stanley, "Historical Memorials of Canterbury.")
+
+[586] Compiled in France in 1395. Lecoy de la Marche, "la Chaire
+francaise au moyen age," 2nd ed., Paris, 1886, 8vo, p. 334.
+
+[587] 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." "Nouvelles Francoises du XIVe Siecle," ed.
+Moland and d'Hericault, 1858, p. 303.
+
+[588] "Visions concerning Piers Plowman," A. Prol. l. 103, written about
+1362-3. See following Chapter.
+
+[589] "Parson's Tale."--"Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 581.
+
+[590] "Munimenta Gildhallae 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 moyen
+age," paragraph 127. To these we can add the English imitation which now
+occupies us.
+
+[591] "Songs and Carols now first printed," ed. Th. Wright, Percy
+Society, 1847, 8vo, p. 4.
+
+[592]
+
+    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.
+
+[593] "Political Poems," _ibid._, vol. i. p. 263.
+
+[594] 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.
+
+[595] 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.
+
+[596]
+
+    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.
+
+[597] "Political Poems." _ibid._, vol. i. pp. 26 ff.
+
+[598] Ballad by Eustache des Champs, "Oeuvres Completes," ii. p. 34.
+
+[599] "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.
+
+[600] _Ibid._, p. 21.
+
+[601] Vices and faults of Edward: "Political Poems," vol. i. p. 159,
+172, &c.
+
+[602] "Political Poems," vol. i. p. 172.
+
+[603] "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.
+
+[604] "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,"
+Advertisement to the first edition.
+
+[605] Book vii. line 483.
+
+[606] Book xvi. line 270.
+
+[607] Book i. line 235.
+
+[608]
+
+    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_.
+
+[609] Book v. st. 266.
+
+[610] "Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, London, 1857, 3 vols, 8vo. vol.
+iii. p. 374.
+
+[611] 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.
+
+[612] "Primus liber, gallico sermone editus in decem dividitur partes et
+tractans de viciis et virtutibus necnon de variis hujus seculi gradibus
+viam, qua peccator 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 mediaeval 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.
+
+[613] "Balades and other Poems," Roxburghe Club, 1818, 4to.
+
+[614]
+
+    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.
+
+[615] "Les balades d'amour jesqes enci 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."
+
+[616]
+
+    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: "Hic gamelion, animal varii coloris et sola aere
+vivit--_a buttyrfle_" (Th. Wright, "Vocabularies," 1857, 4to, p, 220).
+
+[617] "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."
+
+[618] 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, quem spiritus ante malignus
+      Edocuit ...
+
+(p. 50.)
+
+The famous John Ball is here referred to, the apostle of the revolt, who
+died quartered. See below, p. 413.
+
+[619]
+
+    Est sibi crassus equus, restatque scientia macra ...
+    Ad latus et cornu sufflans gerit, unde redundant
+      Mons, nemus, unde lepus visa pericla fugit....
+
+    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. 176.)
+
+[620]
+
+    Conficit ex vitris gemma oculo pretiosas.
+
+(p. 275.)
+
+[621]
+
+    Rex es, regina satis est, tibi sufficit una.
+
+(p. 316.)
+
+[622] "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, 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.
+
+[623] "Confessio," Pauli's ed., p. 2.
+
+[624] 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.
+
+[625] Vol. i. pp. 89 ff. In Chaucer, the story is told by the Wife of
+Bath.
+
+[626] Beginning of Book i.
+
+[627] 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.
+
+[628] In Mrs. Egerton, 1991, fol. 7, in the British Museum, reproduced
+in my "Piers Plowman," p. 11.
+
+
+
+
+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 Scandinavians. 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 "Canterbury 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. Langland
+is without comparison the greatest poet after Chaucer in the mediaeval
+literature of England.[629]
+
+
+I.
+
+His Visions have been preserved for us in a considerable 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,
+desultory, 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 poem enable us to
+date it. Three principal versions exist,[630] 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.[631]
+
+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 childhood 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
+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 Ymagynatyf, 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; 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![632]
+
+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, Clergye says most appropriately, one of those
+who want to know but hate to study:
+
+    The wer lef to lerne | but loth for to stodie.[633]
+
+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.[634] 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 livelihood, he went to
+London, and tried to earn his daily bread by means of it, of "that
+labour" which he had "lerned best."[635]
+
+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 remunerative 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
+sometimes began, their good works at that hour. They endeavoured 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 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.[636]
+
+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,[637] 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 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.[638] 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 elucidate,
+but, on the contrary, only darkens them:
+
+    The more I muse there-inne | the mistier it seemeth,
+    And the depper I devyne | the darker me it thinketh.[639]
+
+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 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![640]
+
+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 noster_ | the paleys of hevene![641]
+
+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 London, where he had led his
+troubled life to return to the Western country.[642] 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!" pardoners, 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 Canterbury. This crowd has likewise a
+pilgrimage to make, not, however, on the sunny high-road that leads from
+Southwark 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.
+
+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 contains "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 celebrated map of the Tendre. Opposition is made to the marriage,
+and the whole wedding party starts for Westminster, 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 procession 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 apprentice, and make him wait on their
+customers. "Lyer" has at first hard work to find shelter; he hides in
+the obscure holes of the alleys, "lorkynge thorw lanes"; no door opens,
+his felonies are too notorious. At last, the pardoners "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.[643]
+
+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 willing; 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."
+
+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."[644]
+
+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!"[645]
+
+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,[646] 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 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 confession of England in the time of the Plantagenets.[647]
+
+That the conversion may be a lasting one, Truth must be sought after.
+Piers Plowman appears, a mystic personage, a variable emblem, that here
+simply represents the man of "good will," and elsewhere stands for
+Christ himself. He teaches the way; gates must be entered, castles
+encountered, and the Ten Commandments will be passed 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 talkative, 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 Englishman.
+
+The vision rises and fades away; another vision and another pilgrimage
+commence, and occupy all the remainder 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
+intermingled with these sermons: visions of the arrival of Christ in
+Jerusalem, and of the Passion; visions of hell 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.[648]
+
+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 sympathise with the most diverse specimens of
+humanity, has drawn an immortal picture of mediaeval England. In certain
+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 singleness 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 subterranean lavas
+which simmer beneath a brittle crust of good order and regular
+administration, all the latent possibilities 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 individualised; 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 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.[649]
+
+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."[650]
+
+The deposition of Richard, accused of having stated, nearly in the same
+terms, "that he dictated from his lips the laws of his kingdom,"[651]
+and the fall of the Stuarts, are contained, so to say, in these almost
+prophetic words.
+
+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 sovereign-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 Parliament towards what they do not hesitate to term the
+sinful town of Avignon: "la peccherouse cite d'Avenon."[652] 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.[653]
+
+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 they "hadden leve to lye al here lyf after."[654] 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 between 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 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 (he)
+    In prisons and in poore cotes?[655]
+
+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 disinterestedness, 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 pretend 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 the
+legende of lif" must take life seriously.[656] 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, without 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 careless, 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 ...[657]
+
+Filled with a similar feeling, the wandering dreamer had met, five
+hundred years before, in a "wilde wildernesse 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)?"[658]
+
+"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 arranged, 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 dispensed
+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.
+
+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 flowering lindens; now they are storm-clouds,
+threatening destruction 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 uppermost 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 unconquerable 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 constantly 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 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 unworthy 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 compromise 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.[659]
+
+If we allege that there may be some shade of exaggeration 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 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 disappears 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."[660] 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!"[661]
+
+The truth is that there was a tender heart under the rough and rugged
+exterior of the impassioned, indignant, 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."[662]
+
+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 into 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 will 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.[663] 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 accusation 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.
+
+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.[664]
+
+While their author continued to live obscure and unknown, 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.[665] 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, "Complayntes" of the Plowman, &c. Piers'
+credit was made use of at the time of the Reformation, and in his name
+were demanded the suppression of abuses and the transformation 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 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 for 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[629] 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.
+
+[630] Mr. Skeat has given two excellent editions of these three texts
+(called texts A. B. and C.): Iº "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; 2º
+"The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, in three parallel
+texts, together with Richard the Redeless," Oxford (Clarendon Press),
+1886, 2 vols. 8vo.
+
+[631] The reasons in favour of these dates are given in "Piers Plowman,
+a contribution to the history of English Mysticism," chap, ii., and in a
+paper I published in the _Revue Critique_, 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 1398 or shortly after.
+
+[632] B. xv. 48.
+
+[633] A. xii. 6.
+
+[634]
+
+    _Concupiscencia carnis_ | 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.)
+
+[635] C. vi. 42.
+
+[636] C. vi. 45.
+
+[637] On which see W. S. Simpson, "St. Paul's Cathedral and old City
+life," London, 1894, 8vo, 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.
+
+[638] C. beginning of passus vi.; B. beginning of passus xv.: "My witte
+wex and wanyed til I a fole were."
+
+[639] B. x. 181.
+
+[640] B. x. 420.
+
+[641]
+
+    ... 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.)
+
+    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.)
+
+[642] 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.
+
+[643] C. iii. 211 ff.
+
+[644] B. iii. 328.
+
+[645] B. iv. 3.
+
+[646] Daughter of Piers Plowman:
+
+    Hus douhter hihte Do-ryght-so- | other-thy-damme-shal-the-bete.
+
+(C. ix. 81.)
+
+[647] See in particular Gloton's confession, with a wonderfully
+realistic description of an English tavern, C. vii. 350.
+
+[648] "Paradise Lost," canto vi. 601; invention of guns, 470.
+
+[649] B. Prol. 112.
+
+[650] B. xix. 474.
+
+[651] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 419. See above, p. 253.
+
+[652] Good Parliament of 1376.
+
+[653] B. Prol. 95.
+
+[654] B. Prol. 49.
+
+[655] B. Prol. 46; xii. 37; v. 57; C. v. 122.
+
+[656] B. vi. 71; C. ix. 122.
+
+[657] Musset, "Nuit de Decembre."
+
+[658] B. viii. 62.
+
+[659] B. ix. 90.
+
+[660] B. xi. 114.
+
+[661]
+
+    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.
+
+[662] B. xiii. 137.
+
+[663]
+
+    Thei timbrede not so hye.
+
+(A. iii. 76.)
+
+[664] 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 _sh_ope me in _sh_roudes | as I a _sh_epe 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.
+
+[665] Walsingham, "Historia Anglicana," vol. ii. p. 33. Rolls.
+
+
+
+
+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 the translation of which is
+one of the best and oldest specimens of simple and flowing English
+prose.
+
+
+I.
+
+The same phenomenon already pointed out in connection 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 monuments 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 of 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 Conquest, 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 speaking 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 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 perceptible 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,[666] 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,"[667] and goes back to his 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,"[668] 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,[669] and the scientific encyclopaedia,
+"De Proprietatibus Rerum,"[670] of Bartholomew 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.[671] It has
+been found out to-day that the 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.[672] John seems to have
+invented the character of Mandeville as Swift invented Gulliver, and
+Defoe Robinson Crusoe. Now that his imposture is discovered, 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); elsewhere 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 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.[673]
+
+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 narrative for want of memory or for
+any cause, they will be able to check and correct me: for things seen
+long ago, may be forgotten, and man's memory cannot embrace and keep
+everything."[674]
+
+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,[675]
+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 (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 passionately 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 compatriots could not fail therefore greatly to please them; they
+delighted in Mandeville's book; it was speedily translated,[676] 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.[677]
+
+Various scientific and religious treatises were also written in prose;
+those of Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole, count amongst the oldest and
+most remarkable.[678] 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 Melibeus,
+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-shaken with sodein light, and smyteth with his bemes in
+mervelinge eyen."[679] 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.[680]
+
+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.
+
+
+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,
+sometimes 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 innumerable 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."[681]
+
+Many eloquent speeches were delivered at this time, 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.[682]
+
+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. Moreover, some of
+the buildings where these scenes took place still exist to-day.[683]
+
+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 woodwork of which was replaced by Richard II., and
+that has been lately cleared of its cumbrous additions.[684] 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 proclamation 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.[685]
+
+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.[686] 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 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 Parliament 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 suffertis 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."
+
+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_.[687] 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 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 exultavit infans in utero ejus._"[688]
+
+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, you well know how, in the last Parliament, the
+king, _with your consent_, again took the title of King of
+France...."[689]
+
+These speeches being heard, and the "receivers" and "triers" of
+petitions having been appointed,[690] 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,"[691] 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
+concessions 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."[692] The
+discussions are long 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."[693] 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.[694] 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,"[695] 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,"[696] 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'Engleterre en cest
+Parlement."[697] 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 boldness of the answers and of the
+remonstrances is extraordinary, 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 Parliament 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
+mistress, 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.[698]
+
+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 remembered that God has
+committed his flock to the care of our Holy Father the Pope, that they
+might be fed and not shorn."[699] 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.[700]
+
+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 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 Westminster. From 1363,[701] 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 himself 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 Temporel, and alle the
+Astates of the lond."[702] There is no more memorable sign of the
+changes that had taken place than 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 originality (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.[703] 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 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 recognised, and Wyclif was asked to draw up a pamphlet
+justifying the decision.[704] In 1374 a diplomatic mission was entrusted
+to him, and he went to Bruges, with several other "ambassatores," to
+negotiate with the Pope's representatives.[705] He then had the title of
+doctor of divinity.
+
+Various provincial livings were successively bestowed upon him: that of
+Fillingham in 1361; that of Ludgarshall 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 excessive 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 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 indescribable 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.[706]
+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 solidarity
+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.[707]
+
+He is found, therefore, in London in the beginning of 1378; the
+bishops are assembled in the still existing chapel of Lambeth Palace.
+But by one of those singularities 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 condemn
+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.[708]
+
+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 town,
+in certain habits under dissimulation of great holiness, without license
+of our Holy Father the Pope, or of the ordinary of the diocese."[709]
+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."[710]
+
+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 condemned 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, haereticorum idolum,
+hypocritarum speculum, schismatis incentor, odii seminator, mendacii
+fabricator"[711]: 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
+Marmaduke Tunstall, on the strength of his reputed descent."[712]
+
+
+IV.
+
+Wyclif had begun early to write, using at first only Latin.[713]
+Innumerable treatises of his exist, many of which 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."[714] He obviously attracted the notice of
+his contemporaries, 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 from 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 conclusions were,
+some of them, bold and practical. A superhuman ideal had been proposed
+by St. Francis to his disciples; 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 influence 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.[715]
+
+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, domination, 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
+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."[716] 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 communia"[717]; 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.[718]--Royalty is not the best form
+of government; an aristocratic system is better, similar to that of the
+Judges in Israel.[719]--Neither heirship nor popular election is
+sufficient for the transmission of the crown; grace is needed
+besides.[720]--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."[721]--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 it.[722]
+
+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."[723] But the dissatisfied only adopted the first part of the
+theory, and instead of submitting to Simon Sudbury, their archbishop, of
+whom they disapproved, they cut off his head.
+
+These were certainly extreme and exceptional consequences, to which
+Wyclif only contributed in a slight 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.[724]
+
+
+V.
+
+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.[725]
+
+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 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 complete one in French, written in the thirteenth
+century,[726] 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 translated 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.[727]
+
+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 complete, of Wyclif's 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.[728] 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 Wyclif's 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 impassioned 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 workable 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."[729] How should popes be above kings?
+"Thus shulden popis be suget to kynges, for thus weren bothe Crist and
+Petre."[730] 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 rewarded
+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."[731]
+
+Next to these brief arguments are familiar jests, gravely uttered, with
+scarcely any perceptible change in the expression 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."[732]
+
+It is difficult to follow him in all the places where he would fain lead
+us. He terrified the century by the boldness 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.[733] 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 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.[734]
+
+The other sacraments,[735] 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,"[736] 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 demands 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.
+
+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, trustworthy gentlemen, who will defend the country; and he does
+not perceive that these riches would have fallen principally into the
+hands of turbulent and grasping courtiers, as happened in the sixteenth
+century.[737] He is carried away by his own reasonings, so that the
+Utopian or paradoxical 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."[738]
+
+His disciples, _Lollards_ as they were usually called, a name the origin
+of which has been much discussed, survived him, and his simple priests
+continued, for a time, to propagate his doctrines. The master's
+principal propositions 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 included
+that of the goldsmiths, and another art of which, however, the Puritans
+were to make a somewhat notorious use, that of the armorers.[739]
+
+At the University, the followers of Wyclif were numerous; in the country
+they continued to increase until the end of the fourteenth century.
+Energetic 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
+introduced 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, 1415. But the doctrine
+survived; it was adopted with modifications by the Taborites and the
+Moravian Brethren, and borrowed from them by the Waldenses[740]; 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.[741]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[666] "Historia Anglicana," vol. i. pp. 453 ff. By the same: "Gesta
+abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani," 3 vols., "Ypodigma Neustriae," 1 vol.
+ed. Riley, Rolls, 1863, 1876.
+
+[667] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 27. See above, p. 201.
+
+[668] "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 of Gaunt, which are not found elsewhere.
+
+[669] "Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden ... with the English translation of
+John Trevisa," ed. Babington and Lumby, Rolls, 1865, 8 vols. 8vo.
+
+[670] See above, p. 195.
+
+[671] "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," by G. F. Warner; Westminster, Roxburghe Club,
+1889, fol. In the introduction will be found the series of proofs
+establishing the fact that Mandeville never existed; the chain seems now
+complete, owing to a succession of discoveries, 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.
+
+[672] 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.
+
+[673] Warner, _ibid._, p. v.
+
+[674] "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 at se je erre en devisant pour non
+souvenance ou autrement que il le puissent adrecier et amender, car
+choses de lonc 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.
+
+[675] On Odoric and Mandeville, see H. Cordier, "Odoric de Pordenone,"
+Paris, 1891, Introduction.
+
+[676] 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.
+
+[677] 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 beit that I dide none my self, for myn unable
+insuffisance) now I am comen hom (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.
+
+[678] See above, p. 216.
+
+[679] "Boethius," in "Complete Works," vol. ii. p. 6.
+
+[680] "Troilus," II. 100. See above, p. 306. _Cf._ Boece's "De
+Consolatione," Metrum III.
+
+[681] "Et ut patesceret totius regni communitati eos non respectu
+avaritiae quicquam facere, proclamari fecerunt sub poena decollationis,
+ne quis praesumeret aliquid vel aliqua ibidem reperta ad proprios usus
+servanda contingere, sed ut vasa aurea et argentea, quae 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).
+
+[682] "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 utique in 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 Angliae," ed.
+Maunde Thompson (Rolls), 1874, 8vo, p. 321; Walsingham, vol. ii. p. 32.
+
+[683] "Rotuli Parliamentorum, ut et petitiones et placita in
+Parliamento." London, 7 vols. fol. (one volume contains the index).
+
+[684] 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.
+
+[685] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 103.
+
+[686] Ex. 13 Ed. III., 17 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii.
+pp. 107, 135.
+
+[687] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 361.
+
+[688] "Seigneurs et Sires, ces paroles qe j'ay dist sont tant a due 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'Angleterre q'est le plus 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.
+
+[689] "Rotuli Parliamentorum." Speech of Knyvet, vol. ii. p. 316; of
+Wykeham, 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.
+
+[690] 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.
+
+[691] _Ibid._, vol. ii. pp. 136, 163. "Fut dit a les ditz Communes de
+par le Roy, q'ils se retraiassent par soi a lour aunciene place en la
+maison du chapitre de l'abbeye de Westm', et y tretassent et
+conseillassent entre eux meismes."
+
+[692] Vol. ii. p. 107, second Parliament of 1339.
+
+[693] "Ils treterent longement," _Ibid._, ii. p. 104.
+
+[694] "Sur quele demonstrance il respoundrent q'il voleient parler
+ensemble et treter sur cest bosoigne.... Sur quel bosoigne ceux de la
+Commune demorerent de lour respons doner tant qe a Samedi, le XIX. jour
+de Feverer." A.D. 1339, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 107.
+
+[695] "Ils n'osoront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et avysez
+les Communes de lour pais." They promise to do their best to persuade
+their constituents. A.D. 1339; "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104.
+
+[696] "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 Parliament of 1339.
+
+[697] 51 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. p. 374.
+
+[698] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 323. This speech created a
+great stir; another analysis of it exists in the "Chronicon Angliae"
+(written by a monk of St. Albans, the abbot of which, Thomas de la Mare,
+sat in Parliament): "Quae omnia ferret aequanimeter [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, nec regem commodum, nec regnum ex hac
+fructum aliquem percepisse.... Non enim est credible 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.
+
+[699] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. pp. 337 ff.
+
+[700] June 25, 1376.
+
+[701] 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.
+
+[702] "Sires, I thank God, and yowe Spirituel and Temporal and alle the
+Astates of the lond; and do yowe to wyte, it es noght my will that no
+man thynk yt 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 Parliamentary documents are written
+sometimes in French, sometimes in English; French predominates in the
+first half of the century, and English in the second.
+
+[703] On Wyclif's family, see "The Birth and Parentage of Wyclif," by L.
+Sergeant, _Athenaeum_, 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.)
+
+[704] "Determinatio quedam magistri Johannis Wyclyff de Dominio contra
+unum monachum." The object of this treatise is to show "quod Rex potest
+juste dominari regno Anglic 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.
+
+[705] "Ambassatores, nuncios et procuratores nostros speciales." Lewis,
+_ibid._, p. 304.
+
+[706] All these details are found in the "Chronicon Angliae," 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.)
+
+[707] 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 scientiae culmine decidisti!... Pudet
+recordationis tantae impudentiae, et ideo supersedeo in husjusmodi materia
+immorari, ne materna videar ubera decerpere dentibus, quae dare lac,
+potum scientiae, consuevere." "Historia Anglicana," Rolls, vol. i. p.
+345, year 1378.
+
+[708] 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 Ricardum 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 obedientiae hoc petente."
+
+[709] "Statutes of the Realm," 5 Rich. II., st. 2, chap. 5. Walsingham
+thus describes them; "Congregavit ... comites ... talaribes indutos
+vestibus de russeto in signum perfectionis amplioris, incedentes nudis
+pedibus, qui suos errores in populo ventilarent, et palam ac publice in
+suis sermonibus praedicarent." "Historia Anglicana," _sub anno_ 1377,
+Rolls, vol. i. p. 324. A similar description is found (they present
+themselves, "sub magnae 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.
+
+[710] "Select English Works," ed. T. Arnold, Oxford, 1869, vol. i. p.
+176.
+
+[711] "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 Wyclif's name: "Non nominandus Joannes Wicliffe, vel
+potius Wykbeleve." Year 1381 vol. i. p. 450.
+
+[712] L. Sergeant, "The Birth and Parentage of Wyclif," in the
+_Athenaeum_ of March 12, 1892.
+
+[713] 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; "Joannis 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 Poenitentia," ed. Loserth and Matthew, 1892. Many
+others are in preparation.
+
+Among the Latin works published outside of the Society, see "Tractatus
+de officio pastorali," ed. Lechler, Leipzig, 1863, 8vo; "Trialogus cum
+supplemento Trialogi," ed. Lechler, Oxford, 1869, 8vo; "De Christo et
+suo Adversario 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, "Wycliffe Exhibition in the King's
+Library," London, 1884, 8vo.
+
+[714] R. Lane Poole, "Wycliffe and Movements for Reform," London, 1889,
+8vo, p. 85.
+
+[715] 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.
+
+[716] "Quilibet existens in gratia gratificante, finaliter nedum habet
+jus, sed in re habet omnia bona Dei." "De Dominio Civili," chap. i. p.
+1.
+
+[717] "De Dominio Civili," chap. xiv. p. 96, chap. xvii. pp. 118-120.
+
+[718] "Vel esset lex superaddita in lege evangelica implicata, vel
+impertinens, vel repugnans." "De Dominio Civili," chap. xvii.
+
+[719] 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.
+
+[720] Chap. xxx. p. 212.
+
+[721] Chap. xxxv. p. 250.
+
+[722] Chap. xxxvii. p. 266.
+
+[723] A conclusion pointed out as heretical by the archbishop of
+Canterbury in his letter of 1382. "Fasciculi," p. 278.
+
+[724] "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.
+
+[725] 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 unprinted," 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.
+
+[726] 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.
+
+[727] "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).
+
+[728] Labbe, "Sacrorum Conciliorum ... Collectio," vol. xxvi. col. 1038.
+
+[729] "Select English Works," vol. iii. p. 100.
+
+[730] "Select English Works," vol. ii. p. 296.
+
+[731] _Ibid._, i. p. 189.
+
+[732] _Ibid._, i. p. 381.
+
+[733] His adversaries, perhaps exaggerating his sayings, attribute to
+him declarations 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 Zizaniorum," p. 108.
+
+[734] "Ille panis est bene miraculose, vere el realiter, spiritualiter,
+virtualiter et sacramentaliter corpus Christi. Sed grossi non
+contentantur de istis modis, sed exigunt quod panis ille, vel saltem 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 1381. 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.
+
+[735] 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.
+
+[736] "Doctor in theologia eminentissimus in diebus illis, in
+philosophia nulli reputabatur secundus, in scolasticis disciplinis
+incomparabilis." "Chronica de eventibus Angliae," _sub anno_ 1382, in
+Twysden, "Decem Scriptores," col. 2644.
+
+[737] "Select English Works," vol. iii. pp 216, 217.
+
+[738] _Ibid._, ii. p. 414.
+
+[739] Conclusion No. 12. "Henrici de Blandeforde ... Annales," ed.
+Riley, Rolls, 1866, p. 174.
+
+[740] "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. Loserth, "Hus und Wiclif," Leipzig, 1884.
+
+[741] 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 Boehler, 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 laughable 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 constantly incurred: and so it is that the
+best information concerning these men is not to be sought for in the
+monuments of the gay literature, but rather in pious treatises and in
+the acts of Councils.
+
+Treatises and Councils, however, might to our advantage 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 scandalous 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."[742]
+
+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[743]; 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 benches.
+
+Besides their horseplay, jugglers and histrions had, to please their
+audience, retorts, 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 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.[744]
+
+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."[745]
+
+This is a mere sample of an art that lent itself to many uses, and to
+which belonged debates, "estrifs," "disputoisons," "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."[746] 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.[747] 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.[748] 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.[749]
+
+Debates enjoyed great favour in castle halls; impromptu 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 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."[750] By a phenomenon 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.[751]
+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 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;[752] 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, gives some unexpected
+particulars. He describes the movements and attitudes of certain
+chanters by which they "resembled actors": so that we thus get
+information 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
+inordinate 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."[753]
+
+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, 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.[754]
+
+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.[755] 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?
+
+    _Puella._   By Gode, es noner her at hame.
+
+    _Clericus._ Wel wor suile (such) a man to life
+                That suile 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.
+
+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,"[756] by
+opposition 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 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 Innocent
+III. at the beginning of the thirteenth century, to perform "theatrical
+games" in churches. Be this prohibition enforced, says Gregory IX. a
+little later.[757] 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.[758] 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."[759] Be it forbidden, the University
+of Oxford decrees in the same century, to dance and sing in churches,
+and wear there disguises and wreaths of flowers and leaves.[760]
+
+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 Everyday 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 infallibility; 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."[761] In those bacchanals parodies of the Church prayers were
+introduced; 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
+    Exultet fidelis chorus,
+      Alleluia!
+      Regem Regum
+    Intacte perfundit thorus:
+      Res miranda!
+
+    Angelus consilii
+    Natus est de Virgine,
+      Sol de Stella,
+    Sol occasum nesciens,
+    Stella semper rutilans,
+      Semper clara.
+
+      Or i parra:
+    La Cerveise nos chantera
+      _Alleluia!_
+      Qui que en beit,
+    Se tele seit com estre deit,
+      _Res miranda!_
+
+    Bevez quant l'avez en poing;
+    Bien est droit, car mout est loing
+      _Sol de Stella_;
+    Bevez bien et bevez bel,
+    El vos vendra del tonel
+      _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)."[762]
+
+So rose from earth at Christmastide, borne on the same 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 celebrated 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.[763]
+
+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.[764] Nuns even were known to 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.[765]
+
+The passion for sightseeing, which was then very keen, and which was to
+be fed, later, mainly on theatrical entertainments, was indulged in
+during the Middle Ages in various other ways. Processions were one of
+them; occasions 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, including 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.[766] The procession 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 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 Coeur-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."[767]
+
+The same town, fond above all others of such exhibitions, and one of the
+last to preserve vestiges of them in her Lord 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.[768] 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 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, beautiful 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.[769] There were also
+for the people the May celebrations with their dances and songs, the
+impersonation of Robin Hood, later the performance of short plays of
+which he was the hero[770]; 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 foreshadowed 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 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
+antiphoned 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 _chansons_, 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; religious 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.'"[771]
+
+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 platform, 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."[772]
+
+These adventitious ornaments were greatly appreciated, and from year to
+year they were increased and perfected. 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.[773] 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, representing
+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
+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.[774] 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
+increased 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 paganism by dint of
+their eloquence. The fifty orators received baptism, and were burnt
+alive.[775] The representation was managed by a Mancel of good family
+called Geoffrey, whom Richard, abbot of St. Albans, 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 quem
+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 1146, after a reign of twenty-six years,[776]
+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 Abbey.[777]
+
+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.[778] In the following century, under Henry III., some
+were written in the English language.[779] During the fourteenth
+century, in 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 may be turned into
+husbands when she wants them. "Hendy Nicholas" quotes 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.[780] The enthusiasm was so general and boundless
+that it seems to the author indispensable 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 with hym;" and yet the lord's vengeance cannot be
+considered 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 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.[781] 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[782] 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!"[783]
+Purely liturgical drama, of course, is permissible (an additional proof
+of its existence in England); certain representations can be held,
+"provided 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."[784] 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.[785] 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 in former days, have
+come down to us. Besides separate pieces, histories of saints (very
+scarce in England), or fragments 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 merchants, 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 neighbours!' Hence the keeping up of that play in times
+to come" (year 1389).[786]
+
+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.[787] Old Mysteries did not escape the hand of the improvers, any
+more than old churches, where any one who pleased added paintings,
+porches, and tracery, according 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 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.
+
+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 discrete 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."[788] These texts belong to the fifteenth century,
+but there are older ones; and they show that from the beginning the
+difference between good and bad actors was appreciated and great
+importance was attached to the gestures and delivery. The Mystery of
+"Adam" (in French, the work, 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."[789] 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 itself; 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 1417 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 performed 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."[790] In some cases the
+scaffolds were not so high, and boards made a communication 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."[791]
+
+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, shewyng Herowdes in astat, alle the Jewys
+knelyng except Annas and Cayaphas."[792] 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 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 supposed 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.[793] The main
+action takes place on the ground; Apollinia is there, in the middle of
+the executioners. 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
+_fleurs-de-lys_, 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 spectators 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 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 represented
+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
+acknowledged, of water) were supposed to be the Mediterranean;
+Marseilles was at one end, and Jaffa at the other. A few minutes did
+duty for months, years, or centuries. Herod sends a messenger to
+Tiberius; the tetrarch has scarcely finished his speech when his man is
+already at Rome, 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.[794] 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 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."[795] 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 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."[796] 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."[797] 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."[798]
+
+If painted scenery was greatly neglected, machinery received more
+attention. That characteristic of modern times, yeast through which the
+old world has been transformed, 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 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 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.[799] But such splendid inventions were too costly to be
+transferred to the stages for which Shakespeare 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, childishness, 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
+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 sometimes 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 donc! 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:
+
+"_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."[800]
+
+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. 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 civilisation, 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 sweetness
+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 cascades 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 packing before his
+journey to Egypt; he will take his tools with him, his "_smale_
+instrumentes."[801] 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.
+
+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
+commendable motive was added a sly pleasure felt in caricaturing 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
+unexpectedly 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
+manuscripts 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, 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 maintain 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.[802]
+
+Silence! cries Tiberius. Silence! cries Herod:
+
+    Styr not bot ye have lefe,
+    For if ye do I clefe
+            You smalle as flesh to pott.[803]
+
+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.[804]
+
+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.[805]
+
+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.[806]
+
+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![807]
+
+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.[808]
+
+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.'"[809] 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 experience of Courts; they
+drew their caricatures somewhat haphazard. They were neither very
+learned nor very careful; 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
+replies, "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).[810]
+
+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 Shakespeare.
+
+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?" 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.[811]
+
+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 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.[812]
+
+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, 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.[813] 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 water, 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 house; 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:
+
+    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 farne, youre hartys wold be sore.
+             Ye do wrang, I you warne, that thus commys before
+             To a woman that has farne, 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 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[814]; 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, elementary and
+excessive at the same time, and very different from the delicate art in
+favour to-day. Individuals disappeared; they were replaced by
+abstractions, and these abstractions represented only a single quality
+or defect. Sins and virtues fought together and tried to draw mankind 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 allegories 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.[815] The names of the
+speakers are inscribed in the margin, as if it were a real play. When he
+admitted into his collection 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 separated 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 Protestants,
+and the Reformation by Catholics.[816] 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![817]
+
+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.[818]
+
+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 accordingly 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.[819]
+
+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."[820]
+
+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; and some representations of them took place even later.[821] 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," 1579.[822] 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 development of the drama. They continued to be
+represented in the sixteenth century, and the Parliament of Paris
+complained in 1542 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 performance 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.[823] Moliere
+had then been dead for three years.
+
+In England, at the date when my Lord Archbishop stopped the
+representation at York,[824] 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 damnes sont boulus,"
+as the poor old mother of Villon says in a ballad of her son's.[825]
+
+At the date of the York prohibition, William Shakespeare was fifteen.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[742] "Nostra aetas prolapsa ad fabulas et quaevis inania, non modo sures
+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 spectacula 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
+aemiliani, gladiatores, palaestritae, 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 eam ingerunt turpitudinem, quam
+erubescat videre vel cynicus. Quodque magis mirere, nec tunc ejiciuntur,
+quando tumultuantes inferius crebro sonitu aerem foedant, et turpiter
+inclusum turpius produnt.... Jucundum quidem est et ab honeste non
+recedit virum probum quandoque modesta hilaritate mulcere."
+"Policraticus," Book i. chap. viii., in "Opera Omnia," ed. Giles,
+Oxford, 1848, vol. iii. p. 42.
+
+[743] C., xvi. 205.
+
+[744] "De Mimo et Rege Francorum," in Wright, "Latin Stories," 1842, No.
+cxxxvii.
+
+[745]
+
+    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.
+
+[746] "Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus," in prose, ed. Kemble, AElfric
+Society, 1848, 8vo. See also the "estrif" between Joseph and Mary in
+"Cynewulf's Christ," ed. Gollancz, 1892, p. 17; above, p. 75.
+
+[747] "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," 1864, 4 vols. 8vo,
+vol. i. pp. 50, 58, 79.
+
+[748] "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 XIIth and XIIIth centuries," London, 1838, 8vo.
+
+[749] "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.
+
+[750] 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 demander.
+
+Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil general des Fabliaux," vol. iii. p.
+248.
+
+[751] "Prohibemus etiam clericis ne intersint ludis inhonestis, vel
+choreis, vel ludant ad aleas, vel taxillos; nec sustineant ludos fieri
+de Rege et Regina," &c. "Constitutiones Walteri de Cantilupo,
+Wigorniensis episcopi ... promulgatae ... A.D. 1240," art. xxxviii., in
+Labbe, "Sacrorum conciliorum ... Collectio," l. xxiii. col. 538.
+
+[752] 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 giant solas....
+    ... Et quant avient
+    C'aucuns grans menestreus la vient,
+    Maistres en sa menestrandie,
+    Que bien viele ou ki bien die
+    De bouce, mesires l'ascoute
+    Volenticis....
+    Mais peu souvent i vient de teus
+    Mais des 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.
+
+[753] "Ad quid illa vocis contractio et infractio? Hic succinit, ille
+discinit.... Aliquando, quod pudet dicere, in equinos hinnitus cogitur;
+aliquando virili vigore deposito in femineae 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 haec ridiculosa dissolutio vocatur
+religio!.... Vulgus ... miratur ... sed lascivas cantantium
+gesticulationes, meretricias vocum alternationes et infractiones, non
+sine cachinno risuque intuetur, ut eos non ad oratorium sed ad theatrum,
+nec ad orandum sed ad spectandum aestimes convenisse." "Speculum
+Chantatis," Book ii. chap. 23, in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. cxcv. col.
+571.
+
+[754] 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."
+
+[755] Text in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliquiae Antiquae," London, 1841, 2
+vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 145. "Hic incipit interludiam de Clerico and
+Puella."
+
+[756] "Here bigynnis a tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge," end of fourteenth
+century, in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliquiae Antiquae," vol. ii. p. 46.
+Elsewhere in the same treatise, "to pley in rebaudye" is opposed to
+"pley in myriclis," p. 49.
+
+[757] "Ludi theatrales, etiam praetextu 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.
+
+[758] "Constitutiones Walteri de Cantilupo, A.D. 1240," in Labbe's
+"Sacrorum Conciliorum ... Collectio," vol. xxiii. col. 526.
+
+[759] Wilkins, "Concilia Magnae Britanniae," London, 1737, 4 vols. fol.,
+vol. i. p. 617, Nos. lxxiv., lxxv. The same prohibition is made by
+Walter de Chanteloup, _ut supra_, art. lv. The custom was a very old
+one, and existed already in Anglo-Saxon times; see "AElfric's Lives of
+Saints," 1881, E.E.T.S., p. 461.
+
+[760] "... Ne quis choreas cum larvis seu strepitu aliquo in ecclesiis
+vel plateis ducat, vel sertatus, vel coronatus corona ex folus arborum,
+vel florum vel aliunde composita, alicubi incedat ... prohibemus,"
+thirteenth century, "Munimenta Academica," ed. Anstey, Rolls, 1868, p.
+18.
+
+[761] Decretal of Innocent III., reissued by Gregory IX. "In aliquibus
+anni festivitalibus, quae continue natalem Christi sequuntur, diaconi,
+presbyteri ac subdiaconi vicissim insaniae suae ludibria exercere
+praesumunt, per gesticulationum suarum debacchationes obscoenas 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.
+
+[762] Thirteenth century. See Gaston Paris, "Romania," vol. xxi. p. 262.
+Songs 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 praecipue cantus inhonestos et turpes qui libidinem excitant
+et provocant ... et ymagines imprimunt in mente quas expellere
+difficillimum est. Novi ego, scilicet Gascoigne, doctor sacrae paginae 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, 1881, 4to. On the
+Christmas festivities at the University and on the "Rex Natalicius"
+(sixteenth century and before), see C. R. L. Fletcher, "Collectanea,"
+Oxford, 1885, 8vo, p. 39.
+
+[763] "Cum domus Dei, testaute propheta Filioque Dei, domus sit
+orationis, nefandum est eam in domum jocationis, scurrilitatis et
+nugacilatis convertere, locumque Deo dicatum diabolicis adinventionibus
+execrare; cumque circumcisio Domini nostri Jesu Christi prima fuerit nec
+modicum acerba ejusdem passio, signum quoque sit circumcisionis
+spiritualis qua cordium praeputia tolluntur ... execrabile est
+circumcisionis Domini venerandam solemnitatem libidinosarum voluptatum
+sordibus prophanare: quapropter vobis mandamus in virtute obedientiae
+firmiter injungentes, quatenus Festum Stultorum cum sit vanitate plenum
+et voluptatibus spurcum, Deo odibile et daemonibus amabile, ne de caetero
+in ecclesia Lincolniensi, die venciandae solemnitatis circumcisionis
+Domini permittatis fieri." "Epistolae," ed. Luard, Rolls, 1861, p. 118,
+year 1236(?). Same defence for the whole diocese, p. 161.
+
+[764] "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.
+
+[765] "Inhibemus ne de cetero in festis Innocentium et Beate Marie
+Magdalene ludibria exerceatis consueta, induendo vos scilicet vestis
+secularium aut inter vos, sed cum secularibus, choreas ducendo, nec
+extra refectorium comedatis," &c. Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, to
+the nuns of Villarciaux, thirteenth century. "Registrum Visitationum"
+ed. Bonnin, 1842, 4to, p. 44.
+
+[766] "Historia Major," Rolls, vol. iii. p. 336.
+
+[767] Matthew Paris, _ibid._
+
+[768] 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.
+
+[769] Entry of Isabeau of Bavaria into Paris, in 1384.
+
+[770] 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.
+
+[771] "Quem quaeritis in praesepe, pastores? Respondent: Salvatorem
+Christum Dominum." Petit de Julleville, "Histoire du Theatre en
+France.--Les Mysteres," 1880, vol. i. p. 25.
+
+[772] Petit de Julleville, _ibid._, vol. i. p. 26.
+
+[773] Same beginning and same gradual development: "Quem queritis in
+sepulchro o Christicole?--Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum o celicole.--Non
+est hic, surrexit sicut predixerat; ite nunciate quia surrexit.
+Alleluia." In use at Limoges, eleventh century. "Die lateinischen
+Osterfeiern, untersuchungen ueber den Ursprung und die Entwicklung der
+liturgisch-dramatischen Auferstehungsfeier," by Carl Lange, Munich,
+1887, 8vo, p. 22.
+
+[774] "Ci comence l'estoire de Griselidis;" MS. fi. 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).
+
+[775] 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.
+
+[776] "Vitae ... viginti trium abbatum Sancti Albani," in "Matthaei Paris
+monachi Albanensis [Opera]," London, 1639-40, 2 vols. fol., vol. ii. p.
+56 "Gaufridus decimus sextus [abbas]."
+
+[777] _Ibid._, p. 64.
+
+[778] He writes, twelfth century: "Londonia pro spectaculis
+theatralibus, pro ludis scenicis, ludos habet sanctiores,
+representationes miraculorum...." "Descriptio nobilissimae civitatis
+Londoniae," printed with Stow's "Survey of London," 1599, 4to
+
+[779] 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 disciple of Abelard, twelfth century, who
+seems to have been an Anglo-Norman; "Hilarii versus et Ludi," ed.
+Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1838. A few lines in French are mixed with
+his Latin.
+
+[780] "Here bigynnis a tretise of miraclis pleyinge," in Wright and
+Halliwell, "Reliquiae Antiquae," London, 1842, vol. ii. p. 42; end of
+fourteenth century.
+
+[781] "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.
+
+[782] "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.
+
+[783]
+
+    Un autre folie apert
+    Unt les fols clercs controve,
+    Qe "miracles" sunt apele;
+    Lur faces unt la deguise
+    Par visers, li forsene.
+
+[784]
+
+    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.
+
+[785]
+
+    Ki en lur jus se delitera,
+    Chivals on 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.
+
+[786] Toulmin Smith, "English Gilds," London, 1870, E.E.T.S., p. 139.
+
+[787] The principal monuments of the English religious stage are the
+following: "Chester Plays," ed. Th. Wright, Shakespeare Society, 1843-7,
+2 vols., 8vo (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, 4to (illustrated).
+
+"Ludus Coventriae," 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 _Athenaeum_, 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 Brome,
+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 to 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, 8vo.
+
+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 altenglischen kollektivmisterien," in "Anglia," xi. p. 219, and Ch.
+Davidson, "Studies in the English Mystery Plays, a thesis," Yale
+University, 1892, 8vo.
+
+[788] "York Plays," pp. xxxiv, xxxvii.
+
+[789] This preliminary note is in Latin: "Sit ipse Adam bene instructus
+quando respondere debeat, ne ad respondendum nimis sit velox aut nimis
+tardus, nec solum ipse, sed omnes persone sint. Instruantur ut composite
+loquentur; et gestum faciant convenientem rei de qua loquuntur, et, in
+rithmis nec sillabam addant nec demant, sed omnes firmiter pronuncient."
+"Adam, Mystere du XIIe. Siecle," ed. Palustre, Paris, 1877, 8vo.
+
+[790] "Digby Mysteries," p. xix.
+
+[791] "The Pageants ... of Coventry," ed. Sharp.
+
+[792] [So called] "Coventry Mysteries," Trial of Christ.
+
+[793] 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 vivero 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 praeacutos ut sic dentes ejus et per
+tales stipites laederent, radices dentium cum forcipe everentur
+radicitus. In illa hora oravit S. Apollinia dicens: 'Domine Jesu
+Christe, precor te ut quicumque diem passionis meae 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. Apolloniae," 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. fi. 15,236 in the National Library, and
+the model made after one of them, exhibited in the Opera Museum, Paris.
+
+[794] What the place is--
+
+    ... Vous le povez congnoistre
+    Par 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.
+
+[795] "Digby Mysteries," ed. Furnivall, p. 127.
+
+[796] "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, 1878 ff.
+
+[797] "Chester Plays," ii.
+
+[798] "Adoncques doit Adam couvrir son humanite, faignant avoir honte.
+Icy se doit semblablement vergongner la femme et se musser de sa main."
+"Mystere du vieil Testament."
+
+[799] Reproduced by Mr. R. T. Blomfield, in the _Portfolio_, May, June,
+July, 1889.
+
+[800]
+
+    _Diabolus._ Jo vis Adam, mais trop est fols.
+
+    _Eva._      Un poi est durs.
+
+    _Diabolus._                  Il serra mols;
+                Il 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.
+                Mal cuple en fist le criatur;
+                Tu es trop tendre et il trop dur ...
+                Por co fait bon se treire a tei;
+                Parler te voil.
+
+[801]
+
+    All my smale instrumentes is putt in my pakke.
+
+("Digby Mysteries," p. 11.)
+
+[802] "Towneley Mysteries."
+
+[803] _Ibid._--Magnus Herodes.
+
+[804] "Towneley Mysteries."--Processus Talentorum.
+
+[805] "Digby Mysteries."--Candlemas Day, p. 3.
+
+[806] "Digby Mysteries."--Mary Magdalen, p. 55.
+
+[807] _Ibid._, p. 90.
+
+[808] "Chester Plays."--Salutation and Nativity.
+
+[809] "Digby Mysteries," p. 56.
+
+[810] "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 Normandie, insbesondere seine
+Magdalenenlegende," in "Romanische Studien" vol. iv. p. 493; Doncieux,
+"Fragment d'un Miracle de Sainte Madeleine, texte restitue," in
+"Romania," 1893, p. 265. There was also a drama in French based on the
+same story: "La Vie de Marie Magdaleine ... Est a xxii. personages,"
+Lyon, 1605, 12mo (belongs to the fifteenth century).
+
+[811] "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 Sacrament": "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 yt 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).
+
+[812] "Chester Plays."--Salutation and Nativity.
+
+[813] "Towneley Mysteries."--Secunda Pastorum.
+
+[814] See, for instance, "Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages," ed.
+G. Paris and U. Robert, Societe des Anciens Textes, 1876-91, 6 vols.
+8vo.
+
+[815] In Meon's edition, Paris, 1813, vol. ii. pp. 326 ff.
+
+[816] Plays of this kind were written (without speaking of many anonyms)
+by Medwall: "A goodly Enterlude of Nature," 1538, fol.; by Skelton,
+"Magnyfycence," 1531, fol.; by Ingelend, "A pretie Enterlude called the
+Disobedient Child," printed about 1550: by John Bale, "A comedye
+concernynge thie 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.
+
+[817] "Interlude of the four Elements," London, 1510(?), 8vo.
+
+[818] See, for example, the mournful passages in the "Disobedient
+Child," the "Triall of Treasure," London, 1567, 4to, and especially in
+"Everyman," ed. Goedeke, Hanover, 1865, 8vo, written at the beginning of
+the reign of Henry VIII.
+
+[819] Song of the Clown in "Twelfth Night," iv. 3.
+
+[820] "Pantagruel," iii. 37.
+
+[821] Furnivall, "Digby Mysteries," p. xxvii.
+
+[822] "York Plays," p. xvi.
+
+[823] Petit de Julleville, "Les Mysteres," 1880, vol. i. pp. 423 ff.
+
+[824] 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.
+
+[825] 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 perceive 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, like an echo that repeats another echo. Lydgate
+imitates Chaucer, and Stephen Hawes imitates Lydgate.[826]
+
+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."[827]
+
+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 aristocracy 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 endowments; 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 works, 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."[828]
+
+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,[829] a worthy
+man, it seems, if ever there was one, and industrious, and prolific,
+above all prolific, writes according to established standards, tales,
+lays,[830] fabliaux satires,[831] romances of chivalry, poetical
+debates, ballads of former times,[832] allegories, lives of the saints,
+love poems, fables[833]; 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 counting his longer works.
+Virgil had only written fourteen thousand.
+
+He copies Latin, French, and English models, but especially
+Chaucer,[834] he adds his "Story of Thebes"[835] 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"[836] is an imitation of the
+"Hous of Fame"; his "Complaint of the Black Knight" resembles the "Book
+of the Duchesse"; his "Falle of Princes"[837] 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 uplifted pen to
+yawn at his ease in the face of his reader.[838] 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[839]; a translation of that same "Pelerinage" of Deguileville,
+which had inspired Langland; a Guy of Warwick[840]; 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.[841] 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 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.[842]
+
+But let us not blame him; Chaucer, his good master, would, he assures
+us, have excused his faulty prosody, and what right have we to be more
+severe than Chaucer?[843] 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[844]; his duties consist in copying documents; an occupation he
+finds at length somewhat tiresome.[845] 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
+doubtless held back by a remembrance of officialdom and promotion.[846]
+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 acquainted 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 compilation
+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, 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.[847]
+
+
+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 imitation 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 comfort 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 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 destinies; 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 kings 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 unwonted 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 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.[848] 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 of "that noble senatoure"
+who had also known great reverses, 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?
+
+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."[849]
+
+Blind Harry, the minstrel, sings the popular hero, William Wallace.[850]
+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.
+
+Blind Harry continues Barbour rather than Chaucer, but Chaucer resumes
+his rights as an ancestor with Henryson and Dunbar. The former[851] 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,
+    Writtin 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 "disputoison" 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.
+
+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 AEsop, "poet laureate;" there is no room for doubt:
+we are in the Middle Ages. AEsop 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 epigrammatic 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 importance, 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 "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 sall 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.
+
+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 illustrious 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, nevertheless,
+the Chaucerian tradition is continued. Douglas writes a "Palice of
+Honour," imitated from Chaucer.[852] Dunbar,[853] with never flagging
+spirit, attempts every style; he composes sentimental allegories and
+coarse tales (very coarse indeed), satires, parodies, laments.[854] His
+fits of 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 imitations 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 perfumes. 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.[855]
+
+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.,[856] 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,[857] and which have come down stirring and touching; love-songs,
+doleful ditties, the ride of the Percy and the Douglas[858] ("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 Henryson 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,"[859] 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 time, Lydgate, Henryson, Dunbar,
+Stephen Hawes,[860] represent 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 preparing. 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 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 development, 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 suspected that one day perhaps there may be chairs for
+everybody. In the course of an examination bearing on thousands of
+documents, Thorold Rogers found but two allusions to the civil
+wars.[861] 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
+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 degraded 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.[862]
+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,[863] is a sign of these
+improvements. The letters of the Paston family are another.[864] 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 lamentations, 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."[865] John Paston, shut in
+the Fleet prison, where he makes the acquaintance of Lord Henry Percy,
+for prisons were then 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.[866]
+
+Books of advice to travellers, itineraries or guides to foreign
+parts,[867] vocabularies, dictionaries, and grammars,[868] commercial
+guides, the "Libelle of Englyshe Polycye,"[869] 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 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 information 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 prose, a treatise on absolute and limited
+monarchy[870]; 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 subsydyes.... 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 confesses, 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 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."[871] 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 policemen; 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 employs Wyclif's
+irony to defend what Wyclif had attacked; pilgrimages, friars, the
+possessions of the clergy, the statues and paintings in churches.[872]
+His forcible eloquence is embittered by sarcasms; he continues a
+tradition, dear to the English race, and one which, constantly renewed,
+will come down to Swift and to the humourists of the eighteenth
+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?[873] 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 published by Caxton, the first English printer,
+who was also a prose-writer.[874] They even write on love; prose now
+retaliates upon verse, and trespasses on the domains of poetry.[875]
+
+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 necessary 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 "Sejanus"; the fear of the pit prevented him;
+he grumbles, but submits.[876] The thrift and the toil of the English
+peasant and craftsman in the fifteenth century had thus 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 Demosthenes.
+Never had the town of Constantine been more Greek than on the eve of its
+destruction.[877] 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 Nicopolis and Kossovo. The illustrious towns of the
+Greek world fall one after the other, and the exiled grammarians seek
+shelter with the literate tyrants of Italy, bringing with them their
+manuscripts. Some, like Theodore 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
+11th 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, contains 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 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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[826] I try, repeatedly says Stephen Hawes,
+
+    To followe 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.
+
+[827] 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 his 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), "Life of St. 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 Cronykil of Scotland," finished, about
+1424, ed. Laing, Edinburgh, 1872 ff., 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; those
+charters exist at the Record Office, the fraud was proved by Palgrave.
+All these chronicles are in "rym dogerel."
+
+[828] "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.
+
+[829] 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.
+
+[830] 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."
+
+[831] Ex. his picturesque "London Lickpenny."
+
+[832] Same idea as in Villon; refrain:
+
+    All stant in chaunge like a mydsomer rose,
+
+Halliwell, "Selections from Lydgate," 1840, p. 25.
+
+[833] "Lydgate's AEsopuebersetzung," ed. Sauerstein; "Anglia," 1866, p. 1;
+eight fables. He excuses himself:
+
+    Have me excused, I was born in Lydegate,
+    Of Tullius gardyn I entrid nat the gate. (p. 2.)
+
+[834]
+
+    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.
+
+[835] 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.
+
+[836] "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," ed. J. Schick, 1891, 8vo, Early
+English Text Society.
+
+[837] First edition: "Here begynnethe the boke calledde John Bochas,
+descrivinge the Falle of Princes." [1494], folio.
+
+[838]
+
+    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 iii., Schick, "Story of Thebes," p.
+cv.
+
+[839] 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 iii., chap xxii. First edition, 1513. 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.
+
+[840] Ed. Zupitza, Early English Text Society.
+
+[841] 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.
+
+[842] "Troy Book"; in Schick, "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," p. lvi. In his
+learned essay Mr. Schick pleads extenuating circumstances in favour of
+Lydgate.
+
+[843] 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 yt 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 Historie," London, 1554, 4to, Book v. chap, xxxviii.
+
+[844] 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, 1860, 4to. Two or three of his tales in
+verse are imitated from the "Gesta Romanorum"; another, the "Letter of
+Cupid," from the "Epistre an 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.
+
+[845] It seems like nothing, he says, but just try and see:
+
+    Many men, fadir, wennen that writynge
+    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.)
+
+[846] "La Male Regle de Thomas Hoccleve," in the "Minor Poems," pp. 25
+ff.
+
+[847]
+
+    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.)
+
+[848] "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.
+
+[849] 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 poetis laureate,
+      In moralitee and eloquence ornate,
+    I recommend my buk in lynis sevin,
+    And eke thair soulis un-to the blisse of hevin.
+
+[850] "The Actis and Deidis of ... Schir William Wallace, Knicht of
+Ellerslie," by Henry the Minstrel, commonly known as Blind Harry, ed. J.
+Moir, Edinburgh, 1884-99, Scottish Text Society. Blind Harry died
+towards the end of the fifteenth century.
+
+[851] 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.
+
+[852] "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 1501, 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 AEneid was printed only in 1553.
+
+[853] 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.
+
+[854] 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.
+
+[855] 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....
+
+[856] Text in the Morris edition of Chaucer's poetical works, London,
+Aldine poets, vol. iv.
+
+[857] Principal work to consult: F. J. Child, "The English and Scottish
+Popular Ballads," Boston, 1882. See above, p. 352.
+
+[858] In "Bishop Percy's Folio MS.," ed. Hales and Furnivall, London,
+Ballad Society, 1867, 8vo.
+
+[859] 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.
+
+[860]
+
+    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.
+
+[861] "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, 1894, 2 vols. 8vo, vol.
+i. chaps. ii. and iii.
+
+[862] 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, indigens, and causes oftymes grete
+extortion, embracere and mayntenaunce to be had.... Wherfore the kyng,
+by the advyse ... [&c.] exactith 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 effecte." 17 Ed. IV. year 1477, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. vi. p.
+173.
+
+[863] 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. iii. p. 23. Many other treatises on
+etiquette 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).
+
+[864] "The Paston Letters," 1422-1509, ed. J. Gairdner, 1872, 3 vols.
+8vo.
+
+[865] Or in the worthy Margaret's spelling: "Yf I mythe 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).
+
+[866] Sept. 21, 1465, vol. ii. p. 237.
+
+[867] _E.g._, "The Itineraries of William Wey" (pilgrimages), London,
+Roxburghe 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).
+
+[868] See among others: "Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies," by
+Th. Wright, ed. Wuelcker, London, 1884, 2 vols. 8vo; "Promptorium
+Parvulorum, 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, 8vo.
+
+[869] 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.
+
+[870] "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 Angliae."--"Works of Sir John Fortescue ...
+now first collected," by Thomas [Fortescue] Lord Clermont, London, 1869,
+2 vols. 4to.
+
+[871] Chaps. xii. and xiii., vol. i. pp. 465 ff.
+
+[872] In his principal work, the "Repressor of over much blaming of the
+Clergy," ed. Babington, Rolls, 1860, 2 vols. 8vo. Pecock was born about
+1395; he was a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, bishop of St. Asaph,
+then bishop of Chichester. He wrote, besides the "Repressor," a quantity
+of works ("Donet"; "Book of Faith"; "Follower of Donet," &c.,
+unpublished), 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.
+
+[873] "Repressor," i, ch. xix.
+
+[874] "The Boke of St. Albans, by Dame Juliana Berners, containing
+treatises on hawking, hunting and cote armour, printed at St. Albans, by
+the Schoolmaster printer in 1486, reproduced in fac simile," by W.
+Blades, London, 1881, 4to (partly in verse and partly in prose; adapted
+from the French).--"A Chronicle of England" (from the creation to 1417),
+by Capgrave, born in 1394, died in 1464, ed. Hingeston, 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 Darthur," by Sir Thomas
+Malory) by O. Sommer and Andrew Lang, London, 1889, 2 vols. 8vo. Malory
+and Caxton will be mentioned again in connection with the Renaissance.
+
+[875] 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 Kitsun: "Margaret of Virtw have mercy on Kitsun"
+(_Academy_, March 11, 1893).
+
+[876] He has not observed, he admits, "the strict laws of time," and he
+has introduced no chorus; but it is not his fault. "Nor is it needful,
+or almost possible in these our times, and to such auditors as commonly
+things are presented, to observe the old state and splendor of dramatic
+poems, with preservation of any popular delight."--_To the readers._
+
+[877] H. Vast, "Le Cardinal Bessarion," Paris, 1878, 8vo, p. 14.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+Abbeys, 158 ff.
+
+_A. B. C._, 275.
+
+Abel, 475.
+
+Abelard, 170, 461.
+
+Abernun, P. d', 120.
+
+Abraham 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 ff.
+
+Adam, "scriveyn," 339.
+
+Addison, 296.
+
+Adgar, 123.
+
+Adrian IV., pope, 111, 188.
+
+AElfric, 45, 88 ff., 205, 449.
+
+Aelred of Rievaulx, 154, 193, 213, 445 ff.
+
+AEneas the Trojan, 114, 129, 295, _see_ "Eneas."
+
+AEsop, 508.
+
+AEthelberht, 61.
+
+AEthelred, 79.
+
+AEthelstan, 28, 46, 93.
+
+AEthelwold, 88.
+
+AEthelwulf, 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 Coeur-de-Lion, 121.
+
+America, discovered, 491.
+
+_Amis and Amile_, 142, 229.
+
+Ammianus Marcellinus, 32, 114.
+
+_Anatomy of Abuses_, 346.
+
+Anchoresses, 153, 211 ff.
+
+_Ancren Riwle_, 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, vocabulary, 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, 203 ff., 250, mind and genius of, 300, 316, 344, 402,
+  Chaucer and the, 338 ff.
+
+_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 46, 47, 62, 86 ff., on Hastings, 100, 103,
+  on William, 105 ff.
+
+Anne of Bohemia, 265, 454 ff.
+
+Annebaut, R. d', 120.
+
+Anselm, St., 165, 193, 198.
+
+Antenor, the Trojan, 113.
+
+_Antigone_ of Sophocles, 34.
+
+_Antiocheis_, 176.
+
+Antoninus Pius, 19, 20.
+
+Apelles, 286, 294.
+
+Apollinia, life of St., and drama on, 470 ff.
+
+_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, 5 ff.
+
+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.
+
+Aristotle, 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., portrait 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; _see_ Architecture, Miniatures.
+
+Arthur, King, early songs on, 32; 112, 113, 127; cycle of, 131 ff.; 177,
+  in Layamon, 220 ff.; 222, 226, 348 ff.
+
+Ass, feast 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 Vienna, 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 ff., 321 ff., 341.
+
+_Balade 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., 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, 10; 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.
+
+Becket, St. Thomas, life in French, 123; 156, 165, 188 ff., 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_, 37 ff., 45, 47, analysis of, 48 ff., compared with
+  Roland, 54 ff.; 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 duc de, 76.
+
+_Beryn_, tale of, 320.
+
+Bessarion, 168, 525.
+
+_Bestiaire d'Amour_, 123.
+
+Bestiaries, 76, 123, 214, 276, 409.
+
+Betenham, William, 312.
+
+_Bevis of Hampton_, 223.
+
+Bible, in Anglo-Saxon, 71 ff., by AElfric, 87, in English, in French,
+  207; 315, quoted in Parliament, 415 ff., translated 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 ff., 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.
+
+Boehler, Peter, 438.
+
+Bohun, 109, 250.
+
+Boileau, 330, 473.
+
+_Boke of Nurture_, 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 Duchesse_, 272, 279 ff., 499,
+  _of Nurture_, 264, _of St. Albans_, 522.
+
+"Boern," 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, 111, 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 populated, 33; 132.
+
+Broker, Nicolas, 265.
+
+Bromyard, John of, 183.
+
+Brooke, Stopford, 39, 72.
+
+Browning, Robert, 342, and Preface.
+
+Bruce, David, 115.
+
+_Bruce_, the, 361.
+
+_Brunanburh_, ode on, 46.
+
+Brunne, _see_ Mannyng.
+
+_Brut_ of Layamon, 219 ff.
+
+Brutus 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.
+
+
+Caedmon, 45, 68, life and works, 70 ff.
+
+Caesar, on Celts, 6, 7, 11, 18, on Germans, 23; 29, 222.
+
+Cain, 475.
+
+Callisthenes, pseudo, 128, 129.
+
+Cambinscan, 325.
+
+Cambrensis, _see_ Barry.
+
+Cambridge, University of, 173 ff.
+
+Canterbury, Gervase of, 202.
+
+    "       Thomas of, 258.
+
+_Canterbury Tales_, 245, 296, 313 ff., 373, 497, 499, 511.
+
+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 Perseverance_, 491.
+
+_Castoiement d'un pere a son fils_, 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
+  Scotland, 503.
+
+Cemeteries, dances in, 448 ff.
+
+_Cento Novelle 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.
+
+Chanteloup, Walter de, 444, 449.
+
+Chantries, 378 ff.
+
+Chap-books, 225, 506.
+
+Chapelain, Andre le, 140.
+
+Chapu, Guillaume, 120.
+
+Chardry, 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, 171, 195, 259.
+
+    "   VI.       ",  456.
+
+    "   V. of Germany, 101.
+
+Charnay, Henri de, inquisitor, 159.
+
+_Chastoiement des Dames_, 230.
+
+_Chateau 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, 372 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, in Anglo-Saxon England, 30, 57,
+  60 ff.
+
+Christmas, how celebrated, 450 ff., plays, 457 ff.
+
+Chronicles, Anglo-Norman, 113 ff., 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.
+
+Cicero, 168, 498.
+
+Cirencester, Richard of, 202.
+
+_Claris Mulieribus, De_, 294.
+
+Clarissa Harlowe, 333, 484.
+
+Classic influences and models, 166, 374.
+
+Claudian, 295, 297.
+
+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 University, 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.
+
+Coenewulf, 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 Lover's Life_, 279,
+  _unto Pite_, 272, 279, _of the Plowman_, 401, _of
+  Venus_, 275, 341.
+
+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 Story of, 325, 331, 335.
+
+_Constant du Hamel_, 496.
+
+Constantius Chlorus, 19.
+
+Constantine the Great, 20.
+
+Constantine XII., 524.
+
+Constantinople, taken by the Turks, 524.
+
+_Conte des Hiraus_, 445.
+
+Corbichon, Jean, translates Bartholomew the Englishman, 195, 225.
+
+Cook, Captain, 7.
+
+Cookery, 263 ff., 516.
+
+Cordier, H., on Mandeville, 407, 409.
+
+Corneille, Pierre, 156, 471.
+
+Cornelius Gallus, 33.
+
+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.
+
+Courtenay, bishop of London, 426.
+
+Courtesy, books of, 515 ff.
+
+Courtin, Honore, 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 Mundi_, 215 ff., 222, 225, 260.
+
+Cuthberht, 64, 67, 68.
+
+Cuthwine, 67.
+
+Cycles of France, Rome and Britain, 125 ff.
+
+Cynewulf, 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, 118, 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.
+
+Deadly Sins, in Langland, 386.
+
+Death, Celts' idea of, 7 ff., Greeks', 7 ff., Frenchmen's, 57 ff.,
+  Anglo-Saxons', 56 ff., 74, Rolle of Hampole's, 218, Black Prince's,
+  353; an occasion for jokes, 449, on the stage, 490, 491.
+
+_Debat des Herauts de France et d'Angleterre_, 517.
+
+_Decameron_, 287, 320 ff., 325.
+
+Defoe, 162, 224, 407.
+
+_Degrevant_, 347.
+
+Deguileville, 275, 498, 500.
+
+Dekker, 332.
+
+Delisle, Leopold, on Bartholomew the Englishman, 195.
+
+Des Champs, Eustache, 257, 275, on Chaucer, 278, on diplomatic service,
+  282; 289, 340, 360.
+
+_Deor_, 38, 59.
+
+_Departed Soul's Address_, 75.
+
+Derdriu, 15 ff.
+
+Dermot, 121.
+
+Despencer, Henry le, bishop of Norwich, 164.
+
+Devil, described by AElfric, 90, and St. Dunstan, 209, tempts Rolle of
+  Hampole, 217, on the stage, 471, 475.
+
+Dialect, of Chaucer, 338 ff., of Langland, 401, Scotch, 503.
+
+Dialogues, in Celtic Literature, 13 ff., in Anglo-Saxon, 75, in Latin,
+  187, 191, in _Troilus_, 303; 442 ff., after dinner, 444, in
+  interludes, 446 ff., in pageants, 454 ff., in Mysteries, 477 ff., in
+  _Roman de la Rose_, 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.
+
+Diodorus Siculus, 101.
+
+"Dirige," 379.
+
+_Disobedient Child_, 491.
+
+"Disputoisons" or Debates, 144, 230, 441 ff.
+
+_Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum_, 191.
+
+"Doctors," 193 ff.
+
+Dogmas, attacked by Wyclif, 425, 435 ff.
+
+Domesday Book, 100, 104 ff., 158.
+
+Dominicans, 159 ff.
+
+"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 ff., religious, 456 ff.
+
+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, 510, 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.
+
+
+Eadgar child, 103.
+
+Eadmer, 198.
+
+_Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter_, 76.
+
+Eadwine, earl, 103.
+
+Ealdred, archbishop of York, 103.
+
+Ealwhine (Alcuin), 65.
+
+Earle, on A.S. Literature, 39, on _Beowulf_, 48, on A.S.
+  Chronicle, 87.
+
+Easter, origin of the name, 62, drama, 457 ff.
+
+Ecgberht, 68.
+
+Ecgferth, 87.
+
+_Ecole des Maris_, 324.
+
+_Edda_, 40 ff.
+
+Edgar, king, 87, 88 ff.
+
+Edgeworth, Miss, 332.
+
+Edmund, St., 113, 209.
+
+Edrisi, 129.
+
+Eduini, king, 57.
+
+Edward, king, the confessor, 97, 111, 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, 264, 266, 272, 284, 360 ff.,
+  406, 415, 495.
+
+Edward IV., 513 ff.
+
+Eginhard, 24, 46.
+
+_Eglamour_, 347.
+
+Ekkehard, 48.
+
+_Elene_, 72 ff.
+
+Elizabeth, queen, 372.
+
+    "      wife of Lionel son of Edward III., 270.
+
+Eloi, St., 209.
+
+_Eneas_, 130.
+
+England, first inhabitants of, 3 ff., between northern and southern
+  civilisations, 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.,
+  Chaucer'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_, 113 ff.
+
+"Estrifs," 230, 443, _see_ Disputoisons.
+
+_Eulogium 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 _Hous of_.
+
+Fantosme, Jordan, 118.
+
+_Fasciculi Zizaniorum_, 425, 428, 431, 435.
+
+Fashions, 265, ridiculed, 358.
+
+_Fates of the Apostles_, 72.
+
+_Ferumbras_, 223.
+
+Fielding, H., 224, 336, 517.
+
+Figaro, 151, 229.
+
+"File," 11.
+
+_Filocopo_, 325.
+
+_Filostrato_, 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 Aymon_, 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_, 114, 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.
+
+French, invasion, Bk. ii., 95 ff., followers of William, 100, families
+  and manners, 109, literature under Norman 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.; fusion of the, with the English,
+  Bk. iii. c. i., 235 ff., in the courts of law, 238 ff., at Oxford,
+  239, disuse of, 239 ff., in diplomatic relations, 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., Langland'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,
+  Langland'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., 301, 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 Regum Anglorum_, 199.
+
+_Gesta Romanorum_, 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.
+
+_Gombert_, 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.
+
+Gregory of Tours, 49.
+
+Gregory the Great, St., 63; translated by Alfred, 81 ff.; 123, 153.
+
+Gregory IX., 160, 449 ff., 463.
+
+Grein's _Bibliothek_, 40, 79.
+
+Grendel, 50 ff., 69.
+
+Greteham, Robert of, 118, 123.
+
+Gretti and Beowulf, 49.
+
+Grignan, Madame de, 57.
+
+Grim, of Grimsby, 223.
+
+Grimbold, 81.
+
+Grindecobbe, 405.
+
+Griselda, 142, 289, 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.
+
+Gueterbock 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.
+
+_Handlyng Synne_, 214, 216.
+
+Hardy, Sir T. D., on Matthew Paris, 200.
+
+Hardyng, 497.
+
+Harold, Godwinson, 97 ff., 198.
+
+Harold Hardrada, 98 ff.
+
+_Harrowing 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.
+
+Hawkwood, Sir J., 257, 284.
+
+Hebenhith, Thomas de, 262.
+
+Hector of Troy, 305.
+
+Helen of Troy, 210.
+
+_Heliand_, 71.
+
+Hell, painted by Giotto, 206, represented at Torcello, 207, described,
+  210, besieged, 388, in Mysteries, 475, painted at Stratford-on-Avon,
+  494.
+
+Helwis, 448.
+
+Hemingburgh, Walter of, 201.
+
+Hengest, 62, 112, 220.
+
+Hengham, Judge, 238.
+
+Henry I., Beauclerc, 176.
+
+Henry II. of England, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 133, 156, 165, 176, 190,
+  198, 319.
+
+Henry III., 107 ff., 112, 200, 201, 262, 417, 441, 454.
+
+Henry IV., 236, 240, 342, 365, 421.
+
+Henry V., 500.
+
+Henry VII., 202, 504, 511, 513.
+
+Henry VIII., 242, 342, 436.
+
+Henryson, 497, 507 ff., 513.
+
+Henslowe, Philip, 332.
+
+Hereford, Nicolas de, 433.
+
+Hereward, 224.
+
+_Hermit who got drunk_, 183.
+
+Herod, King, 326, 461, 469, 473, 479, 480 ff.
+
+Herrtage, on _Gesta Romanorum_, 183.
+
+Hervieux, on fabulists, 178.
+
+Heyroun, Thomas, 268.
+
+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.
+
+_Historia Anglorum_, 199.
+
+_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.
+
+Hohlfield, on Mysteries, 466.
+
+Holinshed, 114.
+
+Holkot, Robert, 167.
+
+Holy-Church, in Langland, 380.
+
+Holy-Grail, 223.
+
+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, 112.
+
+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.
+
+Huebner, baron de, 58.
+
+Hugh, St., bishop of Lincoln, 165.
+
+Hugo, Victor, 3.
+
+Hugolino, 325, 330.
+
+Hugon, of Constantinople, 146.
+
+Humour, Chaucer's, 317 ff., Wyclif'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_, 118.
+
+Ingelend, 491.
+
+Innocent III., 170, 449, 450, 463.
+
+Innocent IV., 173.
+
+Innocents, feast of, 452.
+
+Invasions, 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, 442.
+
+Jonson, Ben, 456, 522.
+
+Joseph and Mary, 479, 484, as a workman, 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. Dujon), 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, 504.
+
+Knighton, on Wyclif, 436.
+
+Knights, in Langland, 399.
+
+Knyvet, John, 416, 417.
+
+Koch, on Chaucer, 291.
+
+Koelbing, on romances, 223.
+
+
+La Calprenede, 300.
+
+Lactantius, 77.
+
+La Fontaine, 58, 179, 183, 226, 296, 298, 324, 325, 508.
+
+_Lai de l'Oiselet_, 142.
+
+_Lai du Cor_, 225.
+
+Lamartine, 17.
+
+_Lament for the Makaris_, 510.
+
+Lancaster, Blanche, duchess of, 280 ff.
+
+Lancaster, Henry of, 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, 359, life and 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, Brunetto, 118, 241.
+
+Latymer, impeached, 253.
+
+Lauchert, on _Physiologus_, 76.
+
+"Laudabiliter," bull, 110.
+
+_Launfal_, 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 Tormes, 184.
+
+Leechdoms, A.S., 79.
+
+_Legende of Good Women_, 279, 294, 343.
+
+_Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, De_, 196.
+
+Leo IV., Pope, 79.
+
+Leovenath, 219.
+
+Letters of the Paston family, 516.
+
+Leven, Hugues of, 265.
+
+Lewis, son of Chaucer, 341.
+
+Lewis, John, on Wyclif, 423.
+
+_Lex Salica_, 78.
+
+_Libelle of Englyshe Polycye_, 517 ff.
+
+_Liber Festivalis_, 208.
+
+Libraries, 166 ff., 175, 524.
+
+Lincoln cathedral, 162.
+
+Lindbergh, John of, 215.
+
+Lindner on _Romaunt of the Rose_, 278.
+
+Lionne, Hugues de, 255.
+
+L'Isle, Alain de, 177.
+
+Lison, Richard de, 147.
+
+"Littus Saxonicum," 27, 30.
+
+Lives of Saints, in A.S., 76, by AElfric, 91, in French, 121 ff., in
+  English, 203, 303, by Lydgate, 500.
+
+Lodbrok, Ragnar, 58.
+
+Logeman, on A.S. reliquary, 73.
+
+Logic, taught in the Universities, 171.
+
+Loki, 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 ff., 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.      "      110, 201.
+
+Louis XI.      "      519.
+
+Louis XIV.     "      203, 241, 493.
+
+Lounsbury, on Chaucer, 343.
+
+Love, in Irish literature, 15 ff., in Scandinavian literature, 42, in
+  _Tristan_, 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 ff., 279, by Froissart, 274 ff., in
+  _Roman de la Rose_, 276 ff., in Boccaccio, 299, 321, in Chaucer's
+  _Troilus_, 301 ff., in _Gawayne_, 349, songs, 354, in Gower,
+  366 ff., 370 ff., in Langland, 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; 114, 293, 297.
+
+_Lumiere des laiques_, 120.
+
+Lutterworth, 423, 426.
+
+Lydgate, 303, 341, 354, 496, life and works, 498 ff.; 502, 513, 515.
+
+_Lyf of Seinte Cecile_, 291, 294, 325, 331.
+
+
+_Mabinogion_, 9, 17.
+
+Macaulay, 122.
+
+_Mac Datho's Pig_, 13.
+
+Machault, 275, 325.
+
+Machinery, stage, 474 ff.
+
+Macpherson, 16.
+
+Mael Duin, 12.
+
+_Magnyfycence_, 491.
+
+Mahomet, 472, 483.
+
+Mahomet II., 524.
+
+Maidstone, Richard of, 207, 454 ff.
+
+Maldon, battle of, 47.
+
+_Male regle 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.
+
+_Maniere de Langage_, 241.
+
+_Mantel Mautaille_, 226.
+
+Mannyng, Robert, of Brunne, 214, 216, 243, 462.
+
+_Manuel des Pechiez_, 213, 216, 463 ff.
+
+Manuscripts, A.S., 45, purchased for the king, 259, rich, 274, 303,
+  of the _Roman de la Rose_, 277, of Chaucer, 338, of
+  _Gawayne_, 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, 511.
+
+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, 110.
+
+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.
+
+_Metalogicus_, 188 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, 341, 351, 371, by Fouquet, 470 ff.; in the MS. of
+  the Valenciennes Passion, 470; 503.
+
+Minot, Laurence, 360 ff.
+
+Minstrels, 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.
+
+_Mireio_, 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, 114, 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, uplandis_, 508 ff.
+
+Mowbray, family of, 109.
+
+Muentz, 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's, 27, English, 256 ff.,
+  in the XVth century, 515, 517 ff.
+
+Neckham, Alexander, 177.
+
+Nennius, 114, 132.
+
+Netlau, 11.
+
+Netter, Thomas, 428.
+
+Neville, impeached, 253.
+
+Nevilles, family of the, 109.
+
+Newbury, William of, 134, 202.
+
+_Nibelungenlied_, 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.
+
+_Nova Poetria_, 179 ff.
+
+_Nugis Curialium, De_, 188 ff., 190 ff.
+
+Nunant, Hugh de, 162 ff.
+
+_Nut-brown Maid_, 512.
+
+
+"Oblar," 11.
+
+Ockham, 193, 194.
+
+Octa, 220.
+
+Octavian, 482.
+
+Odo, Bishop, 103, 105.
+
+Oedipus, 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.
+
+_Ormulum_, 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, 110, 173 ff., 248, and Wyclif, 423 ff., council
+  of, 434, lollardry at, 437; bacchanals at, 449.
+
+
+Pageants, 453 ff., 468 ff.
+
+_Palace of Honour_, 510.
+
+_Palladius on Husbondrie_, 516.
+
+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.
+
+Paris, Gaston, 135, 141, 355.
+
+Paris, Matthew, 62, 63, 109, 112, 114, 200 ff., 453, 459 ff.
+
+_Parlement of Foules_, 294.
+
+Parliament, churchmen in, 160, institution and authority of, 249 ff.,
+  "good," 246, 419; Chaucer in, 312, Langland on, 386, 390 ff.,
+  sittings and debates, 413 ff.
+
+Parodies, 444 ff.
+
+Parson, Chaucer's, 315, 319, 325, 335, 339, 355, Langland's, 359.
+
+_Paston 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, 405 ff., 412,
+  reach heaven, 381, in the XVth 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 Philosophie_, 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.
+
+_Philobiblon_, 167 ff.
+
+Philpot, John, 256, 284, 419.
+
+_Phoenix_, 76 ff.
+
+_Physiologus_, 76 ff.
+
+_Piers Plowman_, 374 ff., 490.
+
+Pilate, 461, 480 ff., his wife, 484.
+
+Pilgrims, Canterbury, 313 ff., Langland's, 382 ff.
+
+Pinte, the hen, 150.
+
+Pisa, mediaeval, 286.
+
+Pisa, Andrew of, 285, Nicholas of, 286, William of, 286.
+
+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, 110, William of, 100, 104.
+
+Pole, Michel de la, 312, William de la, 417.
+
+_Policraticus_, 188 ff.
+
+Poliziano, 293.
+
+Polo, Marco, 408, 409.
+
+Poole, R. Lane on Wyclif, 428 ff.
+
+Pope, the, William blessed by, 99, and Norman kings, 110, gives Ireland
+  to Henry II., 110, derided, 148, suzerainty of, over England, 157,
+  appeals to, 158, and the University, 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 Wyclif, 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.
+
+_Pricke 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 Rerum, De_, 195.
+
+Prose, A.S., 78 ff., English, 211 ff., of Rolle of Hampole, 218,
+  Chaucer's, 337, 411; XIVth century, Bk. iii. c. v., 403 ff., English,
+  compared with French, 404 ff., Wyclif's, 432 ff., 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," 248.
+
+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.
+
+Quintus Curtius, 131.
+
+
+Racine, Jean, 150.
+
+Rabelais, 76, 91, 97, 172, 179, 193, 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.
+
+_Regula 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, 11.
+
+Rhys ap Theodor, 198.
+
+Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 100, 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 Redeless_, 375, 382.
+
+Richardson, Samuel, 224, 333.
+
+Richenda, sister of W. de Longchamp, 163 ff.
+
+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.;
+  remains, 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 ff., notion of Church and State,
+  derived from, 60 ff., ties with, 157 ff.; 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.
+
+Rutebeuf, 397.
+
+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.;
+  copies 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, 110, 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, 110.
+
+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 ff., 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.
+
+_Secretum Secretorum_, 500.
+
+_Secunda Pastorum_, 486 ff.
+
+_Sejanus_, 522.
+
+Selred, King, 87.
+
+Seneca, 278.
+
+_Sentier 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, 486 ff.
+
+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 d'Orleans_, a drama, 459.
+
+Sienna, mediaeval, 287.
+
+Sievers, E., on Caedmon, 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.
+
+_Somme 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.
+
+Squire, Chaucer's, 314, 325.
+
+_Squyr of Lowe Degre_, 347.
+
+_Stacions 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.
+
+Statius, 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, Chaucer'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, II., 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 Gamelyn, 324, of Melibeus, 325, 331, 332, 490, by Gower, 370, told
+  by histrions, 441, by Dunbar, 510.
+
+Tapestries, 262.
+
+_Tartufe_, 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 Lawes_, a comedy by John Bale, 491.
+
+_Thrissil and the Rois_, 511.
+
+_Thrush and Nightingale_, 230, 443.
+
+Thurkill, 215.
+
+Thurot, on the Paris University, 170 ff.
+
+Thynne, F., 343.
+
+Tiberius, 473.
+
+Til Ulespiegel, 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 Treasure_, 491.
+
+_Tristan and Iseult_, 134 ff., 211, 222, 273, 372.
+
+Trivet, Nicholas, 202, 325.
+
+Trogus Pompeius, 33.
+
+_Troilus_ (and Cressida), 130, 293 ff., 298 ff., 339, 346, 364,
+  370, 372, 411, 454, 497, 500, 507, 512.
+
+Trojans, ancestors of European nations, 111 ff.
+
+_Trojan War_, 176.
+
+Trokelowe, John de, 202.
+
+_Troy Book_, 498 ff.
+
+Troyes, Chrestien de, 140.
+
+Tudors, 456, 490.
+
+_Turnament of Totenham_, 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.
+
+
+Vacarius, 196.
+
+Valenciennes Passion, 470.
+
+Valerius (_alias_ Map), 191.
+
+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 Vertus_, _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, 510.
+
+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
+  Hampole, 217, concerning Piers Plowman, 373 ff.
+
+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.
+
+Voiture, 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 _Beowulf_, 49, on Map, 192.
+
+Warwick, _see_ Guy.
+
+Washbourn, Richard, 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,
+  traditions, 210.
+
+Wendover, Roger de, 200 ff.
+
+Werferth, bishop of Worcester, 83, 86.
+
+Wesley, 216, 438.
+
+Westminster Abbey, 342.
+
+Wey, 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., 110, 111, 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., satirised 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.
+
+Wuelcker, on Caedmon, 71.
+
+Wyclif, 154, 218, 389, life and works, 422 ff., 520 ff.
+
+Wyclif Society, 427.
+
+Wykeham, William 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.
+
+Zimmer, 11.
+
+Zupitza, on _Beowulf_, 48, on Guy of Warwick, 224.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+The year in Roman numerals has been retained as it is in the original.
+Changed owned to owed on page 249, "allegiance is only owed"
+Added opening parenthesis in footnote 166, "see also P. Meyer"
+Added opening parenthesis in footnote 337, "cf. Bramlette's article"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Literary History of the English
+People, by Jean Jules Jusserand
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