of Anglo-Saxon life. No marked change in the methods of local
administration accompanied the change of kings. The rude strength of
the old manorial system was proof against radical change. Far less
complex than the centralized administration of modern France, it was
even better calculated to accommodate itself to the changes wrought
by the hand of war. Built low and strong, it stood four-square to
every shock and blast. It was only the high towers that toppled in the
sweep of the storm. When it passed, the village-group, the manorial
life, and the rude strong sons of the soil were still there. Andrews,
an authority upon early Anglo-Saxon life, gives us a picture of the
"yeoman" which leaves much to be desired in the way of picturesqueness
and charm. Upon the testimony of priests and leeches he is depicted
as a swinish, servile sort of creature--gross, stupid, sensual,
superstitious, cruel, and even "beastly"; with no conception whatever
of "freedom," and only the most bestial conceptions of life. The
routine of husbandry after the Conquest knew no change. A Norman
baron unseats the Saxon thegn, but the villein and ceorl take up the
labors of the old manorial life; the new lord receives the customary
dues, and protection against lawlessness is extended to bond and free.
This servile Saxon class were the descendants of a soldier race which
many years before the advent of the conquering Norman had rudely
dispossessed the ancient inhabitants of the soil, and were themselves
first to "harry," no doubt (for _harry_ is an old Saxon word imported
from the North), the _whole_ of that turbulent realm which William
harried only in part. But the Norman harried well. It may be said
that Northumbria never rallied from the devastation until the magical
agencies of modern industrialism came to repair the ravage that he
had wrought. But elsewhere the "Conquest" worked no such change. The
Norman simply gave completeness, variety, elevation, splendor, and
finish to the Saxon's rude but solid work. The transformation wrought
through the genius of the soldier-statesman was not the plodding
reconstruction of a shattered kingdom upon ancient lines, but the
orderly evolution of a new and splendid civilization within conditions
"visualized" by the Conqueror's creative brain. The primordial and
paramount condition of this work was the permanent establishment of
English _unity_ at the gathering of the people upon Salisbury Plain.
When the people rallied in loyal allegiance to the throne, the old
conceptions of "feudalism" ceased to exist--vanishing centuries before
Cervantes smiled Spain's "chivalry" away. In our own Websterian phrase,
England was henceforth "one and indivisible." The fusion of warring
elements was now as complete as if welded together by the hammer of
Thor. The consequences of that initial step are told in the history of
the English race--consequences which this imperial statesman alone had
the genius to forecast. To no mere man does the line of the Nineteenth
Century poet so well apply--
"He dipt into the future far as human eye could see."
This Norman adventurer who had now practically established all his
pretensions--legitimate and illegitimate--was destined to establish,
also, a line of Anglo-Norman princes who showed in varied ways that
transmitted blood would tell. Shakespeare, in his splendid series
of historical plays, has painted in vivid colors and fine dramatic
sequence the manifestation of this Anglo-Norman influence through a
succession of closely connected reigns--weaving into brilliant and
picturesque history the fireside traditions which fascinated his
youthful mind. The story that he tells is unique, not only in the
literature of the race, but in the literature of man. "The only history
that I know," said an English statesman discussing the annals of his
race, "is the history that Shakespeare wrote." No formal historic
writer has presented so faithfully or effectively the characteristic
traits and temper of that time. It is a philosophic study, resting
chiefly upon a traditional basis, and cast in a powerful dramatic form.
And who so fit as Shakespeare to depict the features of a royal race?
This strong portrayal of their salient or their subtler qualities,
in statecraft or in war, is something quite beyond the reach of a
mere historian's art. Through all this dramatic movement we note
the wild tricks of an hereditary blood; the troublous or turbulent
play of passions flowing from an alien source. It is in this record
alone we find that magical touch, that moving speech, that strange,
pathetic eloquence which flows from royal lips inspired to utterance
by the sorrows of an Anglo-Norman brain. Doubtless it is Shakespeare's
noblest work. It is certainly a product of the same imperial spirit
that breathes in the aspirations, the utterances, and the acts of the
"melancholy Dane."
Recent researches among the Scandinavian population of the Northern
States seem to show marked psychological distinctions in the several
branches of the Scandinavian stock, denoting original differences
in the mental make-up and manifestations of the Norwegian, the
Swede, and the Dane; brainy races all, but the psychological
manifestations of their daily life differing in each. The Swede and
his Norwegian brother have a strong, instinctive inclination for the
ruder activities of their social environment--building, boating,
agriculture, railway construction, commercial operations, etc.; the
Dane, on the contrary, manifesting an equally marked predilection for
life in its contemplative or æsthetic aspects--for philosophy, the
_belleslettres_, the fine arts, and the higher lines of scholastic
research. His physiognomy is differentiated, so to speak, by "the
pale cast of thought." Is it not possible that this deep intra-racial
distinction was recognized by the creator of the "melancholy Dane"?
But "Hamlet" was not altogether a product of Shakesperean imagination.
The original lines of the character seem to have been found in the
personality of a contemporary thinker, himself, like Hamlet, an
obstinate questioner of invisible things. In those eager Elizabethan
times when Drake and Raleigh were "discovering" other worlds and
Shakespeare imagining new, there lived near the ancient city of
Bordeaux a modest country gentleman--a grand seigneur of peculiar
distinction--who on his father's side was of direct English descent.
He bore a patrician title; he was lord of a rich domain, and enjoyed
social and civic distinctions of the highest sort. His scholarship was
ample and unique; his social pretensions were not in excess of his
rank; and he bore his weight of learning "lightly like a flower." Rank,
riches, scholarship, distinction--all these he had, and _more_; he had
the prodigious gift of _common sense_, with a sort of cynical humor
flashing through an habitual mood of philosophic thought that gave to
his writing--and notably to his book of observations and reflections--a
peculiar archaic charm. One could not pay a higher tribute to
his literary power than to add, that his writings had a powerful
fascination for Shakespeare himself. These philosophic essays supplied
the great dramatist with many subtle and striking thoughts, and the
very personality of the modest country gentleman made a profound
impression upon Shakespeare's mind; so marked an impression indeed
that according to the affirmation or suggestion of an ingenious modern
scholar, the great English writer--himself of Anglo-Norman blood--found
in this Anglo-French philosopher the original of that incomparable
dramatic figure--the "melancholy DANE." If this theory be correct,
it simply adds to the evidence of a certain bizarre weirdness in the
working of that old Scandinavian blood. Be this as it may, if the
mind of Shakespeare could be touched and inspired by the philosophic
reflexions of a provincial thinker in France (a Frenchman with a strong
suspicion of Anglo-Norman blood), there are doubtless others (some with
the same ethnic affinities) that may profitably be reached in the same
way; and lest the Anglo-Normans of our Bluegrass "Arcady" should take
themselves too seriously, as even the wisest may do, in the momentous
matter of "family," "rank," "blood," and "race," it would be well at
parting to introduce for their consideration the antiquated opinions
of the same ingenious Frenchman, who, wise as he was, did not always
perhaps take matters _seriously enough_. In this instance no doubt his
views will carry weight.
[Illustration: GENERAL BASIL W. DUKE.]
Thus much by way of preface and apology (if there be need of either)
in closing an excursive dissertation upon the ethnological theories of
Monsieur Paul Du Chaillu, accompanied with some interesting reflections
from the pen of another Frenchman who, though not "modern" in the same
sense, seems to have been in some of his conceptions quite judicious
and even elevated in his views. This quaint, genial, and sagacious
philosopher--the author of a famous book of "Essays"--was the Seigneur
de la Montaigne, Count of Perigord and sometime Mayor of Bordeaux,
whose greatest title to fame is this--that he was the favorite author
of William Shakespeare, the foremost writer of all time. Possibly
Montaigne by contribution of thought was an unconscious collaborator
in the construction of "Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark," a drama which
illustrates in brilliant, powerful, and fantastic fashion the varied
intellectual and emotive capacities of the Scandinavian blood. In that
royal Anglo-Norman, "Prince Hal" of England, the English dramatist
depicts the _man of action_; in Hamlet, the brooding Prince of Denmark,
he presents the _man of thought_. They were the favorite children of
Shakespeare's prolific brain.
"'Tis a scurvy custom and of very ill-consequence," says the ingenious
Chevalier Montaigne, "that we have in our kingdom of France to call
every one by the name of his manor or seigneury, and the thing in
the world that does the most prejudice and confounds families and
descents.... We need look no further for example than our own royal
family, where every partage creates a new sir-name, whilst in the
meantime the original of the family is totally lost. There is so great
liberty taken in these mutations that I have not in my time seen any
one advanced by fortune to any extraordinary condition who has not
presently had genealogical titles added to him new and unknown to his
father.
"How many gentlemen have we in France who by their own talk are of
royal extraction? More I think than who will confess they are not.
"Was it not a pleasant passage of a friend of mine? There were a great
many gentlemen assembled together; about the dispute of one lord of
the manor with another, which other had in truth some pretty eminence
of titles and alliances, above the ordinary scheme of gentry. Upon the
debate of this priority of place, every one standing up for himself,
to make himself equal to him; one, one extraction, another another;
one the near resemblance of name; another of arms; another an old
worm-eaten patent, and the least of them great-grandchild to some
foreign king. When they came to sit down to dinner, my friend, instead
of taking his place amongst them, retiring with most profound congees,
entreated the company to excuse him for having lived with them hitherto
at the saucy rate of a companion; but being now better informed of
their quality, he would begin to pay them the respect due to their
birth and grandeur; and that it would ill become him to sit down among
so many princes; and ended the farce with a thousand reproaches.
"_Let us in God's name_," continues the illustrious writer, "_satisfy
ourselves with what our fathers were contented and with what we are; we
are great enough if we understand rightly how to maintain it; let us
not disown the fortune and condition of our ancestors, and lay aside
those ridiculous pretences that can never be wanting to any one that
has the impudence to alledge them_."
XIII
The alphabetical series of Norman or Anglo-Norman names here given was
selected by an English scholar from an English official directory and
published, anonymously, in the latter half of the last century, to
illustrate a theory of the genesis of the English race. The present
selection represents only in part the series or lists originally
published, embracing several thousand names. To this selection the
writer has added Norman or Scandinavian names from other sources,
together with "notes" that serve to confirm in detail the general
theory of inherited racial traits. The list which he first published
has been greatly enlarged and many additions made from the original
English series.[7]
[7] The Norman People.
Mr. Freeman says that the Normans "lost themselves" among the people
whom they conquered. Very clearly, however, the "names" were not lost.
The original Norman may be said to have had, in a high degree, that
_personnalité absorbante_ which, according to Littré, is characteristic
of every great man. It is not remarkable, therefore, that after every
Norman invasion the resulting ethnical transmutation was complete. The
new element became at once the vitalizing power of the "absorptive"
or subjugated race. This gift of racial transformation was so great
that the Scandinavians, seizing a Gallic province, became French or
Norman; subjugating England, they became English; overflowing Ireland,
they fused at once with the native race; actually becoming "_Irisher_
than the Irish" themselves--_Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores_. The Duke of
Argyle once said in the English House of Lords that three of the Irish
leaders of that day (one of them John Redmond, the present Irish King)
were genealogically superior men--men of illustrious descent--leaders
of royal or noble Norman blood; confirming the declaration made by
the author of the "Peerage" that it is not lands but ancestors that
make a nobility. The career of the Norman as a conquering or migratory
race has been a perpetual masquerade; in England taking the form of
an Irishman and controlling the Parliament; in the same guise leading
the armies of England and France; in America, demoniacally possessed,
becoming the personal director of a lynching, the boss of a strike, or
the leader of a lawless expeditionary force. But everywhere he _leads_!
The name of the race disappears, but the original, indestructible,
irresistible, invisible and protean force is still _there_. If we
reject the existence and operation of this subtle and pervasive
influence in the ancestral strains of Kentucky, the evolution of the
typical Kentuckian can not easily be explained. The race is "lost," not
because the visiting Norman is absorbed by his host, but because the
visitor appropriates all that his host may have, even his personality
and all that it implies. The Englishman, or the Irishman, or the
Scotchman, disappear, and a transmogrified Norman takes his place.
It is not English, nor Irish, nor French absorptiveness, but Norman
appropriativeness, that has done the work. Precisely thus, to compare
great things with small: the English Whigs once went in swimming,
and the Norman Tories "stole their clothes." But the Norman's act of
appropriation usually goes deeper than the skin. He is not content with
a petty theft of "clothes." With an almost satanic subtlety and finesse
he appropriates the very soul. It becomes, indeed, his very own. That
incomparable illusionist, Benjamin Disraeli, was a past-master in
these Norman arts, and in perfect sympathy with those Anglo-Norman
Tories who followed his fortunes in victory or defeat. But Norman or
Saxon were equally indifferent to him. It was glory enough for Semitic
ambition to build success upon the needs of both; and yet, in doing
it, this man of alien blood and ancient race repeated the miracle of
Lanfranc--the scholar and statesman who, in the old Norman days, had
not only cooled the hot blood of the Normanized Scandinavian and
conciliated the respect of the proud, implacable Saxon, but, linking
their interests in inseparable association, had brightened with a
prospect of imperial splendor the destinies of the common race. So,
too, the Semitic statesman charmed the rudest elements with his Orphean
song. His brilliant successor, Salisbury, added to parts and learning
the technical information of a savant. Disraeli had something better.
He had that deep, philosophic insight which seems to be bred into the
elect of an ancient stock. It is a mystical gift.
"He saw things, now, as though they _were_,
And things _To Be_ in things that are."
This (if we may believe Haeckel) was the "inspiration" of the Jewish
Law-giver.
[Illustration: THE MARSHALL HOME AT "BUCK POND."
(Near Versailles, Kentucky.)
Built in 1783 by Colonel Thomas Marshall, father of Chief Justice
Marshall.]
How little escaped the thoughtful eyes of our Semitic statesman, as he
surveyed from his coign of vantage the shifting currents of our modern
world! In depicting Monsignore Berwick, a descendant of an old Scottish
family that for generations had mingled Italian blood with its own, the
writer looks quite beyond the native environment, and sees only the
old Northern blood in the _flaxen hair_ and _light blue eyes_ of the
young Italian priest. Describing a nineteenth century function at the
beautiful English home of Hugo Bohun, he sees at once in Mr. Gaston
Phoebus--the most gifted and attractive of the swells whom fashion has
herded in this social jungle of Bohun--not a modern Englishman,
but a _Gascon noble of the Sixteenth Century_, clothed with all the
attractions of a contemporary courtier of France--the France of Louis
le Grand. In "Gaston Phoebus"--says the philosophic statesman--"Nature,
as is sometimes her wont, had chosen to reproduce exactly the original
type." When the subtle Semitic thinker introduced an American "Colonel"
at the swell function of Hugo Bohun, why should he take him from the
_South_, and give him a _Norman_ name? Had nature reproduced in Colonel
Campian the antique Norman type?
It is a notorious fact, says Herbert Spencer, that the Celtic type
disappears altogether in the United States.
Doubtless some vague conception of a potential undercurrent of
ancestral blood must have been passing through the mind of that fine
old gentleman, Mr. Isaac Shelby of Fayette, when dispensing his
stores of bachelor wisdom to his young friends just "after the war."
He would say, "Depend on it, young gentlemen, there is no cross like
a _Virginian_ cross." The differentiating quality was there. It was
observed, but not accurately depicted perhaps, by Disraeli, by Barrett
Wendell, and by _Isaac le Bon_. What was it? If a racial quality, what
_race_? Two of these acute observers were of Scandinavian stock. The
other did not need to say, even to the proudest statesman at Potsdam
or St. James, "_Your_ race is of but yesterday compared with my own."
One of Disraeli's favorite themes was race. Indeed, a statesman could
not be ignorant of the subject in his day. The claims of race were
sweeping over diplomatic arrangements and dynastic rights. Bismarck
was unifying the German people by removing ancient landmarks, by
"appropriating" autonomous territories, and by appropriating or
absorbing a large population of the Scandinavian race; and the third
(and last) Napoleon undertook to unify the Latin races by placing an
Austrian prince upon the Mexican throne. But the Napoleonic prince
pushed his reconstructive theories of race to a destructive conclusion
when, in freeing Italy, he furnished a formidable partner to the
Triple Alliance, that ultimately destroyed France. The sentiment of
race, properly directed, has its uses. But the director must not be a
despot or a despot's agent. The feeling must be popular in origin and
expression--voluntary, spontaneous, normal, autonomous. There was never
a better illustration of its power than in the prolonged struggle of
Kentucky for existence as an American State. There was never a better
illustration of popular capacity in statecraft and of enterprise in
war than in the early years of the last century (1800-12). They--the
people--discharged the functions of an independent State. Kentucky was
in fact a little _nation_. Raising and equipping armies, receiving
diplomatic emissaries or agents, defending her frontiers, guarding the
Atlantic border, protecting the territories of the Northwest, and in
conjunction with the "sea-power" of Commodore Perry actually conducting
war upon foreign soil. The very guns on Perry's ships were "sighted"
by riflemen from Kentucky; and when the day came to try conclusions
with the bold Englishman on his own soil, one of the most efficient
aides upon Shelby's staff was Perry himself. Is there nothing in this
record to appeal to a sentiment of national pride in the Kentuckian's
heart? And does it not inspire a disposition to revive and invigorate
those pristine instincts of our common race? Probably the recent
manifestation of "home-coming" sentiment was denotive of some such
stirring of racial impulse and emotion long dormant in the soul.
XIV
When following the long dim path of Gothic migration we found but
little that seemed to be in vivid relation with the ethnology of our
own race; and it was not until we were afloat upon the Scandinavian
seas, with Rolf Ganger looking out upon the kingdoms of the earth, that
we began to feel ourselves (to speak in paradox) firmly planted upon
historic ground. Here the conditions of the old parable are reversed.
The genius of civilization is offering the kingdoms of the earth to the
Devil himself. With the old pirate of the Norwegian coast begins the
great movement that frees, elevates, and modernizes man.[8] Henceforth
all is plain sailing for the historical inquirer. The reader may
take down his map and trace the foot-prints of the Norse freebooters
wherever they dropped a Scandinavian name upon our ancestral soil.
These ancient "place names" are found everywhere north of the Avon,
and may easily be traced along the eastern coast of England, from
the Tyne to the Thames; or, proceeding westward and northward, far
beyond the line of the Cheviot Hills;--far beyond the waters of the
Tweed. The Scandinavian has resolved to stay wherever he has been
planted by the fortunes of war. When his Norman kinsman seized the
counties of Southern England, the practical result of the invasion
was to _reinforce_ the Anglo-Saxon whom he came to rob. The Norman
invader was warmly received by those English Normans--the Danes--in his
"wintry marches" to the north. From the dragon teeth thus sown sprang
the Kentuckian of to-day, two thirds "dragon" and one third "bull."
The "half horse, half alligator" was an Anglo-Norman assimilation of a
later date.
[8] When Otto, the _Saxon_, a remote kinsman of our race, became a
Roman Emperor, he became the CONSERVATOR of Rome and all her works.
When William the Norman became King of England and the leader of Gothic
races, it was his chosen mission to undo, in part, the work which
Rome had done. As a soldier and statesman, the Norman leader had been
trained in the "school" of the Saxon King. Read Mr. Freeman's "Western
Europe in the Eighth Century." It is an impressive introduction to that
"realm of shadows" which forms the background of the Norman Conquest.
It was the genetic period of modern civilization. The geographic
outlines of great modern States were just beginning to appear.