AFTER THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
At the time of the Norman Conquest (1066), the invaders possessed
a literature in their own language, poems on the adventures of
Charlemagne, and of Roland and the other peers and paladins. But
perhaps none of the French poems on Charlemagne, or only one, the "Song
of Roland," now exists in a form as early as the date of the Conquest,
and they did not then reach the English people.
On the other hand the Norman clergy, many of whom obtained bishoprics
and abbeys in England, were much more learned than they of England;
and Lanfranc, the Conqueror's Archbishop of Canterbury, threatened to
depose Wulfstan, the English Bishop of Worcester, for his ignorance
of philosophy and literature. Yet Wulfstan excelled "in miracles and
the gift of prophecy". Many new monasteries were founded by the Norman
kings, homes of learning, each with its _scriptorium_ (writers' room),
in which new books were written, and old books were copied, almost
all of them in Latin. St. Albans became a specially learned monastery
and home of historians, while Roman law, medicine, and theology were
closely studied, and books were lent out to students from the monastic
libraries, a pledge of value being deposited by the borrower.
Latin Literature.
The books of the age which most interest us are the histories written
in Latin, by various authors of known names, who often were not
cloistered monks, but clergymen who lived much at court, and knew the
men who were making history, kings and great nobles.
Of all of these authors the most important in the interests of
literature, not of history, is Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welshman, whose
"History of the Kings of Britain" is really no veracious chronicle,
but a romance pretending to be a history of Britain, especially of
King Arthur. The name of Arthur spells romance, and Geoffrey's book is
almost the first written source of all the poems and tales of Arthur
which fill the literature of England and the Continent. But it is more
convenient to discuss Geoffrey when we reach the age of the Arthurian
romance.
It is not necessary to speak here of all the writers of Latin histories
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the North were Simeon
of Durham, and Richard, Prior of Hexham, who wrote "The Deeds of
King Stephen," and Ailred, whose account of the defeat of David I of
Scotland at the Battle of the Standard (1138) is very well told and
full of spirit. In reading Ailred we find ourselves, as it were, among
modern men: he speaks as a good English patriot, yet as a friend and
admirer, in private life, of the invading Scottish king and prince.
Florence of Worcester attempted a history of the world, compiled out of
other books, called "Chronicon ex chronicis". The habit of "beginning
at the beginning," namely with the creation, took hold of some of these
historians, whose books are of little use till they reach their own
times (if they live to do so), and speak of men and events known to
themselves.
Eadmer, on the other hand, wrote of what he himself knew, a "History
of Recent Times in England," down to 1122, and especially about the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm, and his dealings with William Rufus
and Henry I (Henry Fairclerk, a patron of learning).
William of Malmesbury (1095?-1143?) like Geoffrey of Monmouth, was
patronized by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, to whom they dedicated books.
William understood, and said that there were two Arthurs, one a warrior
of about 500-516 (?) the other a hero of fairy-land; but, as time went
on, people began to confuse them, and to believe as historical the
stories of Arthur which Geoffrey had written as a romance. William
wrote the "History of the Kings of England," with several lives of
saints and books on theology. The "History of the Kings" begins with
the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, and ends in 1127, the reign of Henry;
towards the close of its sequel, the "Historia Novella," his patron,
Robert of Gloucester, an enemy of Stephen, is his hero. The book
contains a history of the First Crusade.
William sometimes treats history in almost a modern way, he quotes his
sources of information, chiefly Bede and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle".
He refuses to vouch for the exact truth of events before his own time:
he throws the responsibility on earlier authors, his authorities.
Later, he speaks of what he has seen, or learned from trustworthy
witnesses. When he reaches the time of the British resistance to the
Anglo-Saxons, he mentions "warlike Arthur, of whom the Bretons fondly
tell so many fables, even to the present day, a man worthy to be
celebrated, not by idle tales, but by authentic history".
Happily for his readers, William is not above telling anecdotes like
the romance of the statue at Rome, with an inscription on the head,
"Strike here". How this was misunderstood, how at last a wise man
marked the place where the shadow of the fore-finger of the statue fell
at noon, and what wonderful adventures followed when men dug there,
and found a golden palace lighted up by a blazing carbuncle stone, is
narrated in a captivating way, but is not scientific history. (Bk. II,
Ch. X.) William mingles real letters and other documents with miracles
and ghost stories: indeed, he is determined to amuse as well as to
instruct, and he succeeds. In describing the enthusiasm stirred by
the preaching of the First Crusade, he falls into the very manner of
Macaulay. "The Welshman left his hunting, the Scot his fellowship with
lice, the Dane his drinking-party, the Norwegian his raw fish."
Certainly William was not a wholly scientific historian. He is never
uninteresting. If he finds any set of events tedious, he says so
plainly, and passes onwards. He is very fair, is learned in the manner
of his age, and his love of digressions and good stories reminds us of
the Greek Herodotus, "the Father of History," and the most entertaining
of historians.
Among the names of other Latin chroniclers is that of Henry of
Huntingdon (writing in 1125-1154). The author of the "Deeds of King
Stephen" is unknown: the work of William of Newburgh in the reigns of
Henry II and Richard Cœur de Lion, is well remembered for his attack
on the "lies" of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The assault on Geoffrey's
truthfulness was not so superfluous as it seems, because his romance
won the belief of many generations.
Richard Fitz Neale, who was Treasurer of England and for nine years
Bishop of London (1189-1198), wrote the Dialogue "De Scaccario,"
"concerning the Exchequer," which is still studied as the best
authority on mediaeval national finance in England, and on our early
constitutional history.
Jocelin de Brakelond left a "Chronicle" (1173-1202) much concerned with
life in his own monastery at St. Edmundsbury, and with the wise rule of
Abbot Sampson. This book forms the text on which Carlyle preaches in
his "Past and Present": it proves sufficiently that the monks were not
the lazy drones of popular tradition and abounds in vivid pictures of
men and of society.
Gerald of Wales (Girald de Barri, called Cambrensis, "the Welshman,"
1147-1217?) was of royal Welsh and noble Norman birth, his family,
the de Barris, were among the foremost Norman knights who took part
in the invasion (it can hardly be called the conquest) of Ireland,
under Strongbow; and he himself was a great fighter in the disputes
of churchmen. There was not much schooling to be had in wild Wales,
then very rebellious, but he probably learned Latin from the chaplains
of his uncle, a Bishop, before he went to the University of Paris, to
study law and science. Gerald was more like a modern literary man than
a mediaeval chronicler. He never ceased from travelling, now following
the Court, now rushing to Paris, now to Rome. When Archdeacon of St.
David's, which the Welsh wanted to make a Canterbury of their own, with
their own Archbishop, he stood up against the Bishop of St. Asaph; when
the Bishop threatened to excommunicate him, he had bell, book, and
candle ready to excommunicate the Bishop, whom he frightened away.
But Henry II would not permit Gerald to be Bishop of St. David's,
thinking him certain to stand up for Wales against England. In 1184,
Gerald went to Ireland with Henry's son, Prince John, who cannot be
better described, as an insolent ribald young man, than he is in
Scott's "Ivanhoe".
Gerald wrote a "Topography of Ireland," which is really "A Little
Tour in Ireland". His chapters on the "Marvels of Ireland" lead us
to suppose that the natives hoaxed him with strange stories, for
example the tale of a church bell that wandered about the country of
its own will: the innumerable fleas at St. Nannan's in Connaught is
more credible, but the tale of the wolves who asked to receive the
Holy Communion was not believed in England. One miracle was only a
beautifully illuminated manuscript of the kind decorated by Irish
artists 400 years earlier. The art had been lost, and the artist was
supposed to have copied the designs of an angel.
Gerald found the Irish very ignorant, lazy, dirty, and ferocious. Every
man used a battle-axe in place of a walking stick, and man-slayings
were frequent. The Irish clergy were devout and chaste, but drank
too much. On the wild beasts and birds of Ireland Gerald wrote like
a naturalist and a sportsman, though he supposed that salmon, before
leaping a fall, put their tails in their mouths, and letting go, fly
upward by the spring thus obtained.
His "History of the Invasion of Ireland" is valuable, but he
introduced, in the manner of some Greek and many Roman historians, long
speeches which were never made. He also, after an energetic wandering
life, always fighting to be made Bishop of St. David's, wrote his own
autobiography, an amusing conceited book, full of adventures of travel.
He wrote, too, on the natural history and the inhabitants of Wales, a
book very valuable to this day. He died after reaching the age of 70.
Walter Map.
Among his friends was a native of the Welsh border, Walter Map,
Archdeacon of Oxford. "You write much, Master Gerald," said Map to him,
"and you will write more; and I deliver many discourses. Your books
are better than my speeches, and will be remembered longer; but I am
much more popular, for you write in Latin, and I speak in the vulgar
tongue," meaning _French._ Poor Gerald confesses that he made nothing
by his books, and looked for his reward, not in vain, to the applause
of future ages.
But Map has had his own share of praise, more than he should get, if,
as he said, he wrote little. He was born about 1137, studied at Paris,
was one of the king's judges who rode on circuit, and, in 1197, was
made Archdeacon of Oxford. One book which he certainly wrote, "On
Courtly Trifles" ("De Nugis Curialium," in Latin) is a collection of
anecdotes clumsily told, and of reflections, with stories of the Welsh,
historical jottings, folk-lore, tales, and attacks on the clergy of the
Cistercian Order. As a judge he said that he was fair, except to Jews
and Cistercians, "who did not deserve justice, for they gave none".
Satirical Latin poems against Golias, a type of a noisy licentious
Bishop, are also attributed to him. In the confession of this Bishop
occur the famous lines, thus translated by Leigh Hunt,
I devise to end my days--in a tavern drinking;
May some Christian hold for me--the glass when I am shrinking;
That the Cherubim may cry--when they see me sinking,
God be merciful to a soul--of this gentleman's way of thinking.
The lines, in rhyming Latin, became a drinking catch, conceivably
they were that before, and were merely put into the Bishop's mouth
as a proof of his bad character. The word "Golias" as a nickname
for a ribald "Philistine" priest was hundreds of years older than
Map's time. A long romance in French, on Launcelot, the Holy Grail,
and the death of Arthur, is attributed to Map in some manuscripts,
and as a contemporary romancer says that Map "could lie as well
as himself"--that is, like himself wrote romances of love and
tournaments--he may possibly have been the author of "the great book
in Latin which treats openly of the history of the Holy Grail". But no
copy of that Latin book is known to exist, nor is it certain that it
ever existed, while Map, as we know, said that he did not write much of
any sort, especially not in Latin.
Changes Since the Conquest.
It is plain that, within a century from the battle of Hastings, new
influences of many kinds were working in England, and changing the
national character and intellect. There was the learning from Paris
University, and from the Continent in general; there was the clearer
intellect and energy of the Normans; the vivacity of such Welshmen or
men from the Welsh marches as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerald, and Map.
Anglo-Saxon literature had never been vivacious.
There were the new topics, "the matter of Britain," the Celtic legends
of Arthur, whether derived from Wales or from Brittany--matter most
romantic, and suited to the coming poets who, unlike the Anglo-Saxons,
were to glorify love. There was, too, the constant excitement and
variety that came from travel, whether in the Crusades, in pilgrimages,
or to France and Rome on public or private business, or in search of
books and teachers. In various ways knowledge of Saracen science and
learning, translations of Aristotle from the Arabic into the Latin,
and romantic ideas derived from the fables and tales of far-off India,
filtered into England.
These things were for priests and book-loving lords and courtiers.
Their wits were sharpened by knowledge of several tongues. All educated
men knew Latin; "all men of this land," said Robert of Gloucester
(about 1270) "who are of Norman blood, hold to French, and low men hold
to English," but high men of English blood would talk in English to
their farmers and servants. All who learned Latin learned it through
French books, but country priests would preach in English.
The Anglo-Saxon language and grammar were slowly changing, though very
few new words from French or Latin had yet come into common use. Cow,
sheep, calf, and swine were Anglo-Saxon words, as Gurth the swineherd
says in "Ivanhoe". Englishmen herded the animals, but the meat of them
was called by French names derived from Latin, like beef, mutton,
veal, and pork. From the Conquest (1066) to 1200, learning, Latin, and
knowledge of French books would filter slowly into the native English
mind, partly through sermons; and rich Franklins, and Englishmen in
the service of the conquering race, and English priests would be
Anglicizing French words.