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"