ir
Li
'n
Ul
71G,..........
activation








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v. 9. From Steele and Addison to Pope and
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THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORT


OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE
VOLUME I
FROM THE BEGINNINGS
TO THE


CYCLES OF ROMANCE




CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER.
Lanban:- FETTER LANE, E.C.
SIaogob3: 50, WELLINGTON STREET.
B3erlin: ASHER AND CO.
33ambap anb Calrutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.


All Rights reserved
Copyrig~hted in America




THE


CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE


EDITED BY
A. W. WARD, LITT.D., F.B.A., Master of Peterhouse
AND
A. R. WALLER, M.A., Peterhouse


VOLUME I
FROM THE BEGINNINGS
TO THE
CYCLES OF ROMANCE


CAMBRIDGE:
at the University Press
I907




Eambrtblge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.




PREFACE


IN the preliminary statement of the aims and objects of this
History, communicated to those who were invited to become
contributors to it, the editors emphasised the following purposes
of their undertaking.
(a) A connected account was to be given of the successive
movements of English literature, both main and subsidiary; and
this was intended to imply an adequate treatment of secondary
writers, instead of their being overshadowed by a few great names.
(b) Note was to be taken of the influence of foreign literatures
upon English and (though in a less degree) of that of English upon
foreign literatures.
(c) Each chapter of the work was to be furnished with a
sufficient bibliography.
Very few words seem needed here, in addition to the above, by
way of preface to the first volume of the History; this volume
and its successors must show how far editors and contributors
have been able to carry out in practice the principles by which
they have been guided. It may, however, be expedient, while
directing attention to a few details in the general plan of the
work, to dwell rather more fully on one or two of the ideas which
will be kept in view throughout its course.
In an enquiry embracing the history of motives, causes and
ends, it is often far less important to dwell on "leading" personalities and on the main tendencies of literary production, than to
consider subsidiary movements and writers below the highest rank,
and to trace, in apparently arid periods, processes which were
often carried on, as it were, underground, or seemed to be such as
could safely be ignored. It cannot be too often urged that there
are few, if any, isolated phenomena; the voices may be voices
crying in the wilderness, but they belong to those who prepare the




vi


Preface


way. While, therefore, anxious that not less than justice shall be
dealt out to the works of better-known writers, the editors have
tried so to plan these volumes that something more than the mere
justice with which works designed on a smaller scale have had to
content themselves may be given to less known writers and to
so-called fugitive literature.
In the interest both of the general reader and of the student, it
has been decided to insert footnotes below the text, where references seem required. These have been kept as brief as possible, in
order that they may not distract attention. Further notes are,
in special cases, added in the appendix and bibliographies at
the end of the volume. The names of a few writers not dealt
with in the text will be found in the bibliographies; but these
names have not, it is hoped, been forgotten in the index. And
the birth and death dates of most of the English writers mentioned in the text will be found in the index, rather than in the
body of the work.
An occasional attempt has been made to give the student some
assistance by means of critical hints in the bibliographies, and to
point out where he may best obtain fuller information of a more
special nature than can possibly be given within the limits of a
general history. To attempt an exhaustive treatment of any one
writer, however eminent or however insignificant, to supply analyses
of well-known books which are, or should be, on the same shelves
as those which may hold these volumes, or to devote much space
to the repetition of biographical facts-all this has seemed to lie
outside the scope of the present work.
While it is desired to preserve a certain unity in the contents
of each volume-an easier task, probably, in the case of those
dealing with later than of those treating of earlier times-yet the
editors have no belief in " hard and fast" limits as encompassing any
epoch, and their wish is that this History should unfold itself,
unfettered by any preconceived notions of artificial eras or controlling dates. They venture, therefore, to remind their critics, to
whom they confidently look for an indication of mistakes, that
some of the subjects which may seem to have been omitted may
prove to have been deliberately reserved for later treatment. To
force an account of literary, educational or scientific movements




Preface


vii


into chronological shackles, and make it keep step year by year
with the progress of external events, or to present it as an orderly
development when its edges are, in truth, woefully ragged, is not
always either possible or desirable. From time to time, buried
treasure comes to light; things seemingly of a day suddenly reveal
the strength that is in them and become things for all time; and
the way then lies open for a profitable retrospect. Thus, the
editors have thought it simpler to defer an enquiry into the first
glimmerings of the English drama and an account of the miracle
plays until towards the close of the second volume, and to deal,
on broad lines, with the progress of the English language, as the
vehicle of English literature, with changes in English prosody and
with the work of universities and scholarship, towards the end of
successive periods, rather than piecemeal at successive stages
of each.
With regard to future volumes-since the history of a nation's
literature cannot be divorced from some consideration of its
political, religious and social life, including its manners as well
as its phases of sentiment and fashion, its trivial thoughts no less
than its serious moments-the editors have thought it well to
make some provision for treating certain subjects more or less
closely allied to literature pure or proper. Such are the literature
of science and philosophy, and that of politics and economics; parliamentary eloquence; the work of schools and universities and
libraries; scholarship; the pamphlet literature of religious and
political controversy; the newspaper and the magazine; the
labours of the press and the services of booksellers; homely books
dealing with precept and manners and social life; domestic letters
and street songs; accounts of travel and records of sport-the
whole range of letters, in its widest acceptation, from the "Cambridge Platonists " to the "fraternity of vagabonds." And, since
the literature of the British Colonies and of the United States
are, in the main, the literature of the mother-country, produced
under other skies, it is intended to give, in their proper place,
some account of these literatures also.
Though the editors are jointly responsible for the work as
a whole-both text and bibliographies-it is obvious that an
undertaking of this nature could no more be accomplished by one




viii


Preface


or two men than the Cambridge Modern History could have been
written by a few hands. It could only be begun, and can only
be carried to completion by the continued cooperation of many
scholars, who, whether British or American, hold their common
heritage as a thing of worth, and by the ungrudging assistance of
continental scholars, whose labours in the field of our national
literature entitle them to the gratitude of Englishmen. This
twofold assistance the editors have been fortunate enough to
secure for the volumes already in immediate preparation.  In
addition to chapters written by English scholars, from without
Cambridge as well as from within, the readers of the Cambridge
History of English Literature will have the benefit of contributions from specialists of other countries; and it is the sincere
hope of the editors that they may enjoy the same generous
support until their task is done.
It remains to thank those who, apart from the actual contributors, have aided the editors in the work of the earlier
volumes now in hand. And, first, they would desire to remember
with gratitude the labours of their predecessors: Thomas Warton,
whose History of English Poetry may be, and, in many respects,
has been, superseded, but is never likely to be forgotten or cast
aside; Thomas Wright, whose industry and enthusiasm in the
cause of medieval letters and archaeology allows us to forget his
failings; George Lillie Craik, whose modest efforts kindled in
many men still living their first affection for English letters;
Henry Morley, who devoted a laborious and zealous life to the
noble end of making English writers widely accessible to students
and who died before he could complete the last and most important piece of work he set himself to do; Bernard ten Brink,
whose history of English literature to the death of Surrey must
long remain unsurpassed on its own ground-" Great things," as
he himself said of Surrey's tragic end, "he might still have accomplished, but what he did accomplish has not been lost to posterity ";
Henri Taine, the master of analysis and the first to show the full
significance of the study of a nation's literature for the study of
its general history; Hermann Hettner, in whose History of
English Literature from 1660 to 1770, and the companion accounts
of French and German literature in the eighteenth century, the




Preface                        ix
comparative method is luminously applied; Georg Brandes, whose
Main Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century reveals
an extraordinary quickness of intellectual insight and a not less
uncommon breadth of moral sympathy; Henry Duff Traill, whose
brilliant gifts are held in affectionate remembrance by those who
have come under their spell, and whose symposium, Social
England, should be in the hands of all who desire to possess "a
record of the progress of the people "; L. Petit de Julleville, whose
Histoire de la Langue et de la Litterature franfaise has been of
special value and assistance in the planning of the present work;
Grein, Kolbing, Matzner, Wiilker, Zupitza and many other eminent
Teutonic scholars who have made, and are making, the paths smoother
for their contemporaries and for their successors. The brilliant
Histoire Litte'raire du Peuple Anglais of M. J. J. Jusserand has
been constantly in the hands of the editors of this work, and the
Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Dictionary of National Biography have, as a matter of course, been laid under contribution,
together with the extremely useful Chambers's Cyclopaedia of
English Literature, a work which, used with delight by the
writers of this preface, in its old form, many years ago, has, in its
revised garb, proved of considerable use. The invaluable Beitrdge
zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprachee und Literatur, with which
is associated the names of H. Paul, W. Braune and E. Sievers, has
been repeatedly referred to, and always with advantage, while the
bibliographies will show what use has been made of Anglia,
Englische Studien, Romania, the publications of American Universities and of Modern Language associations.  In this last
connection may be mentioned the Modern Language Review,
recently reconstituted under the editorship of Prof. J. G. Robertson.
For advice on certain points in the present volume, or for
indebtedness in other ways, the editors' thanks are also due to
Dr F. J. Furnivall, whose labours, together with those of the band
of fellow-workers in the Early English Text Society, have done
much to remove the reproach that Englishmen were not alive to
the beauties of their own literature; to Professor W. W. Skeat,
Miss Steel Smith, Prof. G. L. Kittredge and to Prof. Alois
Brandl, with other eminent members of the Deutsche Shakespeare
Gesellschaft; and to the writings of Dr Stopford A. Brooke,




x                         Preface
Prof. Albert S. Cook, Prof. T. R. Lounsbury and Prof. W. H.
Schofield. Other debts, too numerous to set forth in detail, it
has only been possible to acknowledge by the insertion of names
and titles of works in the bibliographies; but our thanks will, we
trust, be read "between the lines" by all our fellow-workers.
A. W. W.
A. R. W.
PETERHOUSE, CAMBRIDGE
2 August 1907




CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS
By A. R. WALLER, M.A., Peterhouse.
PAGE
Characteristics of the earliest Poetry. The Gleeman. Theodore and
Hadrian. National Strife.........    1
CHAPTER      II
RUNES AND MANUSCRIPTS
By ANNA C. PAUES, Ph.D. Upsala, Newnham College.
The National Germanic Alphabet. Runes in Scandinavian and Old
English Literature. The Ruthwell Cross. The Franks Casket.
The Roman Alphabet. The Irish School of Writing. Tablets,
parchment, vellum, paper, pens, ink and binding. Scribes and
scriptoria............       7
CHAPTER      III
EARLY NATIONAL POETRY
By H. MUNRO CHADWICK, M.A., Fellow of Clare College.
Early National Poems the work of Minstrels. Teutonic Epic Poetry.
Beowulf: Scandinavian Traditions; Personality of the Hero; Origin
and Antiquity of the Poem; the Religious Element. Finnsburh.
The Waldhere Fragments.   Widsith. Deor. The Wanderer.
The Seafarer. The Wife's Complaint. The Husband's Message.
The Ruin. Religious Poetry of Heathen Times....   19
CHAPTER IV
OLD ENGLISH      CHRISTIAN POETRY
By M. BENTINCK SMITH, M.A.,
Headmistress of St Leonard's School, St Andrews.
Celtic Christianity. Changes wrought by the New Spirit. Caedmon's
Hymn. Genesis, Exodus, Daniel. Crist and Satan. Cynewulf.
His Personality.  Crist, Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles,
Elene. Andreas.   The Dream of the Rood.     Guthlac, The
Phoenix, Physiologus, Riddles. Minor Christian Poems. The
Riming Poem, Proverbs, The Runic Poem, Salomon and Saturn.
The Schools of Caedmon and Cynewulf......   41




xii


Contents


CHAPTER V
LATIN WRITINGS IN ENGLAND TO THE TIME OF ALFRt)i
By MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES, Litt.D.,
Provost of King's College.
Gildas and The History of the Britons. "Hisperic" Latin. Nennius
and Historia Brittonum. The Roman Mission to Kent and its
results. Aldhelm and his School. Bede's Ecclesiastical History.
Bede's Letter to Egbert of York. Alcuin. Lives of Saints.
Visions. Minor writings........       65
CHAPTER VI
ALFRED AND THE OLD ENGLISH PROSE OF HIS REIGN
By P. G. THOMAS, M.A., Professor of English Language and
Literature at Bedford College, University of London.
Asser's Life of Alfred. The Handbook and Pastoral Care. Translations of Orosius and Bede. Codes of Law. De Consolatione
Philosophiae. The metres in Alfred's Boethius. Augustine's
Soliloquies. The Chronicle. Gregory's Dialogues. Works attributed to Alfred. His Literary Achievement....   88
CHAPTER VII
FROM ALFRED TO THE CONQUEST
By JOHN S. WESTLAKE, M.A., Trinity College.
The Chronicle.   The Monastic   Reform.  Blickling Homilies.
The Works of Aelfric. Wulfstan. Byrhtferth. Lindisfarne,
Rushworth and West Saxon Glosses. Legends of the Holy Rood.
Legends of the East. Quasi-scientific works. The Ballads and
Poems in The Chronicle. Judith. The Battle of Maldon or
Byrhtnoth's Death. Menologium. Be Domes Daege...  108
CHAPTER      VIII
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
By A.- R. WALLER.


Dunstan. The Coming Change. The Wisdom of the East. Lanfranc.
Anselm. Norman Gifts....


149




Contents


xiii


CHAPTER IX
LATIN CHRONICLERS FROM THE ELEVENTH TO THE
THIRTEENTH      CENTURIES
v-:By W. LEWIS JONES, M.A., Professor of English Language and
Literature at the University College of North Wales.
PAGE
England and Normandy. Characteristics of the Chroniclers. The
Northumbrian School of English Medieval History. Simeon of
Durham. Florence of Worcester. Eadmer and Ordericus Vitalis.
William of Malmesbury. Gesta Stephani. Henry of Huntingdon.
Geoffrey of Monmouth. William of Newburgh. Benedict of
Peterborough. Richard Fitz-Neale. Roger of Hoveden. Ralph
of Diceto. Richard of Devizes. Jocelin of Brakelond. Giraldus
Cambrensis. Walter Map. Matthew Paris. Minor Chroniclers.  156
CHAPTER X
ENGLISH SCHOLARS OF PARIS AND FRANCISCANS
OF OXFORD
LATIN LITERATURE OF ENGLAND FROM JOHN OF SALISBURY TO
RICHARD OF BURY
By J. E. SANDYS, Litt.D., Fellow of St John's College and
Public Orator of the University of Cambridge.
The University of Paris. English Scholars of Paris. John of Salisbury.
Peter of Blois. Walter Map. Other Writers of Latin. Gervase.
Nigel Wireker. Jean de Hauteville. Alain de Lille. Geoffrey de
Vinsauf. Alexander Neckam. Joannes de Garlandia. Giraldus
Cambrensis. Michael Scot. Franciscans and Dominicans. Franciscans of Oxford. Alexander of Hales. Robert Grosseteste and the
Franciscans. Adam Marsh. Roger Bacon. Duns Scotus. William
of Ockham. Walter Burleigh. Scholars of Oxford. John Baconthorpe. Thomas Bradwardine. Richard of Bury.... 183
CHAPTER XI
EARLY TRANSITION        ENGLISH
By J. W. H. ATKINS, M.A., Professor of English Language and
Literature at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth,
Fellow of St John's College.
The Proverbs of Alfred. Poema Morale. Literary Revolt of the
13th Century. Ormulum. Hortatory Verse and Prose. Genesis
and Exodus. The Bestiary. An Bispel. Sawles Warde. Hali
Meidenhad. Lives of the Saints. Ancren Riwle. The Virgin
Cult and Erotic Mysticism. The Luve Ron. Layamon's Brut.
The Owl and Nightingale.....                 217




xiv


Contents


CHAPTER XII
THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
By W. LEWIS JONES, M.A., Professor of English Language and
Literature at the University College of North Wales, Bangor,
formerly Scholar of Queens' College.
PAGE
Early Welsh Tradition. Nennius and Gildas. Early Welsh Poetry.
Kulhwch and Olwen. The ilabinogion. Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Caradoc of Llancarvan. The French Romances. Wace. Layamon.
Subsidiary Legends. Merlin. Gawain. Lancelot and Guinevere.
The Holy Grail. Tristram and Iseult. Celtic Literature..  243
CHAPTER XIII
METRICAL ROMANCES, 1200-1500
I
By W. P. KER, M.A., Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford,
Professor of English Literature, University College, London.
French Influences. Benoit de Ste More and Chretien de Troyes.
Translators' difficulties. History of the English Romances. Matter
and Form. The " matter of France," " of Britain" and " of Rome."
Sources and Subjects. Forms of Verse. Traditional Plots. Breton
Lays. Fairy Tales. Sir Gawayne and Sir Tristrem. The Tale
of Gamelyn and The Tale of Beryn. Relation of Romances to
Ballads......                            277
CHAPTER XIV
METRICAL ROMANCES, 1200-1500
II
By J. W. H. ATKINS.
The Carolingian Element. English Romances: Havelok, Horn, Guy
of Warwick, Beves of Hamtoun. The literature of Antiquity:
Troy, King Alisaunder, Richard Cceur de Lion. Oriental Fable:
Flores and Blancheflour, The Seven Sages of Rome. Celtic
Romances. The Gawain Cycle. Ipomedon, Amis and Anmiloun,
Sir Cleges, Sir Isumbras, The Squire of Low Degree, William
of Palerne, etc. Anonymity of the work embodied in the Romances.
Qualities and Defects..........  301




Contents


XV


CHAPTER XV
PEARL, CLEANNESS, PATIENCE AND SIR GAWAYNE
By I. GOLLANCZ, Litt.D., Christ's College, Professor of English
Language and Literature, King's College, London, Secretary
of the British Academy.


Sources and Metre of Pearl. Cleanness and Patience. Sir Gawayne
and the Grene Knight. Sources of Sir Gawayne. The Question
of Authorship. Hypothetical Biography of the Poet. Ralph Strode.
Huchoun of the Awle Ryale. Erkenwald, etc..


PAGE
320


CHAPTER XVI
LATER TRANSITION ENGLISH
I
LEGENDARIES AND CHRONICLERS
By CLARA L. THOMSON.
Robert of Gloucester. Thomas Bek. The South English Legendary.
Northern Homilies and Legends. The Northern Psalter. Cursor
Mundi. Robert Mannyng of Brunne's Handlyng Synne. Characteristics of Mannyng's style. Mannyng's Debt to Wadington.
Mannyng's Chronicle. The Medytacyuns. William of Shoreham.
The Ayenbite of Inwyt. Adam Davy. Laurence Minot.. 335
CHAPTER XVII
LATER TRANSITION ENGLISH
II
SECULAR LYRICS; TALES; SOCIAL SATIRE*
By A. R. WALLER.
Middle English Lyrics. The Proverbs of Hendyng. The Deeds of
Hereward. The Land of Cokaygne. Dame Siriz. The Vox
and the Wolf. The Turnament of Totenham. The Tale of
Gamelyn. Gesta Romanorum. John de Bromyarde. The Childhood of Jesus. Political verses. Songs of the Soil. John Ball.
The Black Death..... 360
* Further chapters on Fugitive Social Literature of the 14th and 15th centuries
will be found in Vol. II.




xvi


Contents


CHAPTER XVIII
THE PROSODY OF OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH
By GEORGE SAINTSBURY, M.A., Merton College, Oxford, Professor
of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of
Edinburgh.
PAGE
Old English Verse. The Transition. Foreign Influence. The Alliterative Revival..... 372
CHAPTER XIX
CHANGES IN THE LANGUAGE TO THE DAYS OF CHAUCER
By HENRY BRADLEY, M.A. (Oxon.).
Continuity of the English Language. " English " and " Saxon." Periods
of English.  Changes in Grammar. Old English Grammar.
Changes in Declension. Conjugation in Middle English. Influence
of the Norman Conquest. Pronunciation and Spelling. Middle
English Spelling. Development of Sounds. Changes in Vocabulary.
Words adopted from French. Scandinavian Words in English.
Loss of Native Words. The Poetical Vocabulary. English Dialects
in the Fourteenth Century.... 379
CHAPTER XX
THE ANGLO-FRENCH LAW          LANGUAGE
By the late F. W. MAITLAND, LL.D., Downing Professor of the
Laws of England.
(By permission of the Council of the Selden Society.)
Retention of French in the Courts. The Making of Legal Terms.. 407
Appendix to Chapter VII. By J. S. Westlake.. 413
Bibliographies........ 419
Table of Dates....... 483


Index.... 485




CHAPTER I


THE BEGINNINGS
BY the time the English settlements in Britain had assumed
permanent form, little seems to have been left from the prior
Roman occupation to influence the language and literature of the
invaders. Their thought and speech, no less than their manners
and customs, were of direct Teutonic origin, though these were
afterwards, in some slight degree, modified by Celtic ideas, derived
from the receding tribes, and, later, and, in a greater measure, by
the Christian and Latin elements that resulted from the mission
of St Augustine. Danish inroads and Norman-French invasions
added fresh qualities to the national character and to its modes
of expression; but, in the main, English literature, as we know it,
arose from the spirit inherent in the viking makers of England
before they finally settled in this island.
Of the origins of Old English poetry we know nothing; what
remains to us is chiefly the reflection of earlier days. The fragments that we possess are not those of a literature in the making,
but of a school which had passed through its age of transition
from ruder elements. The days of apprenticeship were over;
the Englishman of the days of Beowulf and Widsith, The Ru'in
and The Seafarer, knew what he wished to say, and said it,
without exhibiting any apparent trace of groping after things
dimly seen or apprehended. And from those days to our own,
in spite of periods of decadence, of apparent death, of great
superficial change, the chief constituents of English literaturea reflective spirit, attachment to nature, a certain carelessness of
" art," love of home and country and an ever present consciousness
that there are things worse than death-these have, in the main,
continued unaltered. "Death is better," says Wiglaf, in Beowulf,
"for every knight than ignominious life" and, though Claudio feels
death to be "a fearful thing," the sentiment is only uttered to
enable Shakespeare to respond through the lips of Isabella, "And
shamed life a hateful."
It is, for instance, significant of much in the later history of the


E. L. I. CH. I.


I




2                    The Beginnings
English people and of their literature, that the earliest poems
in Old English have to do with journeyings in a distant land
and with the life of the sea.    Our forefathers had inhabited
maritime regions before they came to this island; the terror and
the majesty and the loneliness of the sea had already cast their
natural spells on "far-travelled" "seafarers " when English literature, as we know it, opens. The passionate joy of the struggle
between man and the forces of nature, between seamen and the
storms of the sea, finds its expression in the relation of the struggle
between Beowulf and the sea monster Grendel, and of the deeds of
Beowulf and his hard-fighting comrades.    Though die Nordsee
ist eine Mordsee, love of the sea and of sea things and a sense
of the power of the sea are evident in every page of Beowulf.
The note is struck in the very opening of the poem, wherein
the passing of the Danish king Scyld Scefing, in a golden-bannered
ship, is told in lines that recall those in which a later poet related
the passing of an English king, whose barge was seen to
pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
The life of those whose task it was to wander along " the oceanpaths" across "the ice-cold" northern sea, where feet were "fettered
by the frost," is described in The Seafarer as a northern fisher of
to-day might describe it, could he "unlock the word-hoard";
English and northern also is the spirit of the lines in the same
poem wherein is described the spell cast by the sea on its lovers:
For the harp he has no heart, nor for having of the rings,
Nor in woman is his weal; in the world he's no delight,
Nor in anything whatever save the tossing o'er the waves!
0 for ever he has longing who is urged towards the sea1.
These "wanderers" are of the same blood as the sea kings
and pirates of the old sagas, and their love of nature is love of her
wilder and more melancholy aspects. The rough woodland and
the stormy sky, "the scream of the gannet" and "the moan of the
sea-mew" find their mirror and echo in Old English literature
long before the more placid aspects of nature are noted, for it
is not to be forgotten that, as Jusserand says, the sea of our
forefathers was not a Mediterranean lake2.     The more placid
aspects have their turn later, when the conquerors of the shore
1 Stopford Brooke's version.
2 La mer des Anglo-Saxons n'est pas une Mediterranee lavant de ses flots bleus les
murs de marbre des villas: c'est la mer du Nord, aux lames grises, bordge de plages
steriles et de falaises de craie. —Histoire Litteraire du Peuple Anglais, i, 60.




The Gleemen                          3
had penetrated inland and taken to more pastoral habits; when,
also, the leaven of Christianity had worked.
The first English men of letters of whom we have recordsmiths of song, as they are called in The Ynglingla Saga-were
the gleemen or minstrels who played on the harp and chanted
heroic songs while the ale-mug or mead-cup was passed round,
and who received much reward in their calling. The teller of
the tale in Widsith is a typical minstrel of this kind, concerned
with the exercise of his art. The scop1 composed his verses and
"published" them   himself; most probably he was a great
plagiarist, a forerunner of later musicians whose "adoption" of
the labours of their predecessors is pardoned for the sake of the
improvements made on the original material. The music of
skirling bagpipes and of the regimental bands of later times
are in the direct line of succession from the chanting of tribal
lays by bards as warriors rushed to the fight; the "chanties"
of modern sailors stand in the place of the songs of sea-rovers
as they revelled in the wars of the elements, or rested inactive
on the lonely seas. And the gift of song was by no means confined
to professionals. Often the chieftain himself took up the harp
and sang, perhaps a little boastfully, of great deeds. At the other
end of the scale, we hear of the man whose duty it was to take a
turn at the stable-work of a monastery being sad at heart when
tihe harp was passed round and he had no music to give; and
the plough-lad, when he had drawn his first furrow, revealed both
his capacity for song and his nature-worship, with faint, if any,
traces of Christianity, in lines perhaps among the oldest our
language has to show:
Hal wes thu, folde, fira modor,
beo thu growende on godes faethme;
fodre gefylled firum to nytte.
Hale be thou Earth, Mother of men!
Fruitful be thou in the arms of the god.
Be filled with thy fruit for the fare-need of man2!
Of the history of these early poems, as much as is known, or as
can fairly be set forth, is given in the following pages. Beowulfromance, history and epic-is the oldest poem on a great scale,
and in the grand manner, that exists in any Teutonic language. It
is full of incident and good fights, simple in aim and clear in
execution; its characters bear comparison with those of the
1 A minstrel of high degree, usually attached to a court.
2 Stopford Brooke's version.
1-2




4


The Beginnings


Odyssey and, like them, linger in the memory; its style is dignified
and heroic. The invasion and conquest of "England" by the
English brought heathendom into a Christian communion, and
Beowulf is the literary expression of the temper, the thoughts
and the customs of these invaders. Its historical worth, apart,
altogether, from its great literary value, can scarcely be overestimated. The Christian elements in it are, probably, alterations
of later minstrels; in the main, it presents an ideal of pagan
virtues: strength, manliness, acquiescence in the decrees of fate"what is to be must be"-yet recognition of the fact that "the
must-be often helps an undoomed man when he is brave," a sentiment that finds echo in later days and in other languages besides
our own.
In The Complaint of Deor, and in its companion elegies, we
are probably nearer to original poems than in the case of narrative
verse, built up of lays and added to year after year by different
hands; and we can ask for little better at the hands of Old
English poets. Deor shows us the same spirit of courage in
adversity seen in Beowulf; and its philosophical refrain (besides
shadowing forth the later adoption of rime by reason of a refrain's
recurring sound) is that of a man unbowed by fate. In form,
as well as in utterance, the verses are those of a poet who has
little to learn in the art of translating personal feeling into fitting
words.
It is a real, an unaffected, an entirely human though nonChristian, accent that we hear in the impassioned fragment called
The Ruin. The Wyrd that every man must dree has whirled all
material things away and has left but a wreck behind. And
in The Wanderer also we see the baleful forces of nature and fate
at work as they appeared to pagan eyes:
See the storms are lashing on the stony ramparts;
Sweeping down, the snow-drift shuts up fast the earthTerror of the winter when it cometh wan!
Darkens then the dusk of night, driving from the nor'rard
Heavy drift of hail for the harm of heroes.
All is full of trouble, all this realm of earth!
Doom of weirds is changing all the world below the skies;
Here our foe is fleeting, here the friend is fleeting,
Fleeting here is man, fleeting is the woman,
All the earth's foundation is an idle thing become1.
The lighter note of love, of which we have a faint echo in The
Husband's Message, is rare in Old English poetry. The times in
1 Stopford Brooke's version.




National Strif                      5
which these poems were written were full of war and national
struggle; not until long after the settlers had made their
permanent home in the new land does the poet turn to the
quieter aspects of nature or celebrate less strenuous deeds.
We can only use comparative terms, however, in speaking
of the peaceful years. Apart from the civil struggles of the
English in their new home, only two hundred years elapsed after
St Augustine's conversion of Kent before the Danes began to
arrive and, in the centuries that followed, the language of lamentation and woe that Gildas had used in connection with the struggle
between Briton and Saxon was echoed in the writings of Alcuin
when Lindisfarne was burned, in the homilies of Wulfstan and in
the pages of the Chronicle. Yet in the years that had passed
England had risen to literary pre-eminence in Europe. She took
kindly to the Latin and Greek culture brought her in the seventh
century by the Asian Theodore and the African Hadrian, scholars
learned in worldly, as well as in divine, lore, who "made this island,
once the nurse of tyrants, the constant home of philosophy'." The
love of letters had been fostered in the north by English scholars;
by Bede's teacher, Benedict Biscop, foremost of all, who founded
the monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth, enriched them with
books collected by himself and, in his last days, prayed his pupils
to have a care over his library. Bede's disciple was Egbert of
York, the founder of its school and the decorator of its churches,
and Alcuin obtained his education in the cloister school of his
native city.
The seven liberal arts of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric)
and the quadrivium (astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, music) were
so ably taught and so admirably assimilated in the monastic schools
that, when Alcuin forsook York for Paris to aid Charles the Great
in his revival of letters, he appealed for leave to send French lads
to bring back "flowers of Britain" to Tours, from the "garden
of Paradise" in York, a "garden " described by him in often quoted
lines2.
There came an end to all this when " the Danish terror" made
a waste from the Humber to the Tyne. Northumbria had aided
Rome and Charles the Great in the service of letters while the rest
of Europe, save Ireland, had little to show, and now men were
too busy fighting for home and freedom to think of letters. It was
not until the days of Alfred that the tide began again to turn from
W illiam of Malmesbury, I, 12.
2 Poema de Pontificibus et Sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracensis.




6                  The Beginnings
continental to English shores, becoming a flood-tide when the
second invasion of Northmen added a Norman strain to English
blood.
The literature of the beginnings in England, therefore, appears
to be the literature of its successive conquerors: English ousting
Briton, Christian suppressing Pagan, Norman over-ruling English.
For a time, the works of Englishmen have to be sought in Latin;
for certain periods of civil struggle, of defeat, of serfdom, they
cannot be found at all. But the literary spirit revives, having
assimilated the foreign elements and conquered the conquerors.
The " natural magic" of the Celtic mind, the Christian spirit which
brought Greece and Rome in its train and "the matter of France"
have all three become part of the Englishman's intellectual
heritage.




CHAPTER II


RUNES AND MANUSCRIPTS
WHEN the English still lived in their continental homes they
shared with the neighbouring kindred tribes an alphabet which
may well be described as the national Germanic alphabet, since
there is evidence that it was used throughout the Germanic
territory, both in the outposts of Scandinavia and in the countries
watered by the Rhine and the Danube. The origin of this early
script is obscure; some writers hold that it was borrowed from
the Latin alphabet, whereas others think that it was of Greek
origin. From its wide use amongst the Germanic tribes, we must,
perforce, conclude that it was of considerable antiquity, at all
events older than the earliest Scandinavian inscriptions, which, in
all probability, go back as far as the third century of our era.
That it was used in the fourth century is proved since, at that
time, Ulfilas, bishop of the West Goths, had borrowed from it the
signs of u and o for his newly-constructed alphabet. Moreover,
there can be no doubt that the Goths must have brought the
knowledge of it from their early homes in the north before the
great wave of the Hunnish invasion swept them away from kith
and kindred, finally setting them down on the shores of the Danube
and the Black Sea.
The name of these early Germanic characters seems also to have
been the same amongst all the tribes. Its Old English form, riin,
differs little from the corresponding early German or Scandinavian
forms, and the meaning of the word (mystery, secret, secret
counsel) seems also widely spread. This word lived on through
Middle English times, and a derivative ruinian appears in Shakespeare as roun or round (a form still retained in the expression
"to round in one's ear"). The separate letters were known as
rlzstafas and the interpretation of them as rtdan, which, in
modern English, still lives on in the expression "to read a riddle."
The runes were, in all probability, originally carved in wood,
and sometimes filled in with red paint to make them more distinct. The technical term for this cutting or engraving is, in Old




8


Runes and Manuscripts


English, writan, which, in its transferred meaning of "to write"
has survived to the present day. The wood was fashioned into
tablets or staves, as we learn from the well-known lines of
Venantius Fortunatus, a writer of the sixth century, who refers1
to the barbaric rune as being painted on tablets of ashwood
or smooth sticks. Such a tablet was originally called bdc (a
tablet of beechwood), and may be regarded as the ancestor, in a
double sense, of the modern word "book." Other materials used
were metal, principally in the form of weapons, coins, rings and
other ornaments, household and other implements; drinking-horns
were often adorned with runic inscriptions, and runes have also been
found on smaller objects of horn and bone. Moreover, in England
and Scandinavia there occur runic inscriptions on stone monuments,
and there are also some which have been hewn out of rocks.
Parchment seems to have been introduced at a late period, and, of
the few manuscripts remaining entirely written in runes, none go
back further than the thirteenth century.
There is considerable uncertainty as to the earliest purpose of
the runes, whether they were originally used as real characters of
writing, or, as the name suggests, as mystical signs, bearers of potent
magic. But, since the power and force of the spoken word easily
pass into the symbol for which it stands, it is not improbable that
the latter meaning is secondary, the spell becoming, so to speak,
materialised in the graven letter, and, even in this form, retaining
all its original power for good or evil. For the earliest Germanic
literature abounds in proofs of the magic nature of runes; from the
Edda poems down to the latest folk-songs of the present day there
is continuous evidence of their mystic influence over mankind.
Runes could raise the dead from their graves; they could preserve
life or take it, they could heal the sick or bring on lingering
disease; they could call forth the soft rain or the violent hailstorm;
they could break chains and shackles or bind more closely than
bonds or fetters; they could make the warrior invincible and
cause his sword to inflict none but mortal wounds; they could
produce frenzy and madness or defend from the deceit of a false
friend. Their origin was, moreover, believed to be divine, since
Odin is represented in the Edda as sacrificing himself in order
to learn their use and hidden wisdom. Odin was also the greatest
"rune-master" of the ancient Germanic world, and Saxo relates2
how the god sometimes stooped to use them for purposes of
personal revenge. A cold-hearted maiden who rejected his suit he
1 Carm. In, 18, 19.        2 Ed. Holder, p. 79.




Use of Runes


9


touched with a piece of bark, whereon spells were written. This
made her mad; but, according to Saxo, it was "a gentle revenge to
take for all the insults he had received." Saxo also relates' a
gruesome tale how, by means of spells engraved on wood, and
placed under the tongue of a dead man, he was forced to utter
strains terrible to hear, and to reveal the no less terrible secrets
of the future. In the Icelandic Sagas, references to the supernatural power of the runes are equally explicit. In the Saga
of Egill Skallagrimsson, who lived in the tenth century, it is told
how a maiden's illness had been increased because the would-be
healer, through ignorance, cut the wrong runes, and thus
endangered her life. Egill destroys the spell by cutting off the
runes and burning the shavings in the fire; he then slips under
the maiden's pillow the staff whereon he had cut the true healing
runes. Immediately the maiden recovers.
Side by side with the early magic use of runes there is also
clear evidence that, at an earlier period, they served as a means of
communication, secret or otherwise. Saxo relates, in this respect2,
how Amlethus (Hamlet) travelled to England accompanied by two
retainers, to whom was entrusted a secret letter graven on wood,
which, as Saxo remarks, was a kind of writing-material frequently
used in olden times. In the Egilssaga mentioned above, Egill
Skallagrimsson's daughter Thorgersr is reported to have engraved,
on the rznakefli or "runic staff," the beautiful poem Sunatorrek,
in which her aged father laments the death of his son, the last of
his race.
These few instances, taken from amongst a great number, prove
that runes played an important part in the thoughts and lives of
the various Germanic tribes. The greater number of runic inscriptions which have come down to our times, and by far the most
important, are those engraved on stone monuments. Some of these
merely bear the name of a fallen warrior, while others commemorate
his exploits, his death, or his life as a whole. These inscriptions on
stones and rocks occur only in England and Scandinavia, from
which fact we may, perhaps, infer that this use of runes was a
comparatively late development. Some of the very earliest extant
inscriptions may be regarded as English, since they are found either
within Angeln, the ancient home of the nation-for instance, those
of Torsbjaerg,-or not far from that district.
From what has been said, it is clear that the English, on their
arrival in this island, must have been conversant with their national
1 Ed. Holder, p. 22.       2 Ed. Holder, p. 92.




0I


Runes and Manuscripts


alphabet, and the various uses thereof. It may be worth while to
examine somewhat more closely its original form and the changes
which it underwent after the migration. In its early Germanic
form the runic alphabet consisted of twenty-four signs, usually
arranged in three sets of eight which, from their respective initial
letters, bore in Old Norse the names of Freyr, Hagall and Tyr.
The alphabet itself is generally known as the fujpark from the first
six of its letters. Each rune had a name of its own, and a welldefined place in the alphabet. The order is specifically Germanic,
and can be ascertained from old alphabets found on a gold coin at
Vadstena in Sweden, and on a silver-gilt clasp dug up at Charnay
in Burgundy. After the migration and subsequent isolation of the
English, it became necessary, in course of time, to modify the early
alphabet and to make it more conformable with the changing
sounds of the language. Four new signs were added, and some of
the older ones modified in order to represent the altered value
of the sounds. Thus there arose a specifically Old English alphabet
of which not less than three specimens have been preserved. One
of these is on a small sword found in the Thames and now in the
British Museum; another is contained in the Salzburg manuscript
140 of the tenth century, now at Vienna; the third occurs in an
Old English runic song. The last two, moreover, present the
names of the runes in their Old English form. Apart from the
standard English type found in the above-mentioned three alphabets, a local Norwegian variety, of a far simpler character, was
current in the Isle of Man, as appears from certain Norse inscriptions there, dating from the latter half of the eleventh century.
It is, however, difficult to determine in what manner and to
what extent runes were used by the English settlers, for here the
evidence is by no means as abundant and explicit as in the far
north. Christianity was introduced into England at an early
period, centuries before it was brought to distant Scandinavia, and
the new religion laboured, and laboured successfully, to eradicate
all traces of practices and beliefs that smacked of the devil, with
which potentate the heathen gods soon came to be identified.
Nevertheless, we have some evidence, which, despite its scantiness, speaks eloquently enough of the tenacity of old beliefs, and
the slow lingering of superstition.  Bede furnishes us with a
striking proof that the English, at a comparatively late date,
believed in the magic properties of runes.  In his Historia
Ecclesiastica (Iv, 22) he relates the fate of a nobleman called
Imma, who was made a prisoner in the battle between Ecgfrith,




Use of Runes


II


king of Northumbria, and Aethelred, king of Mercia, AD. 679,
and whose fetters fell off whenever his brother, who thought
him dead, celebrated mass for the release of his soul  His
captor, however, who knew nothing about the prayers, wondered
greatly, and inquired whether the prisoner had on him litterae
solutoriae, that is, letters which had the power of loosening bondsl.
Again, in Beowulf (1. 591), a person who broached a theme of contention is said to "unbind the runes of war." In the poem called
Daniel (1. 741), the mysterious and terrible writing on the wall of
Belshazzar's palace is described as a rune. In the Dialogue of
Salomon and Saturn2 there is a curious travesty of an old
heathen spell. In treating of the powers and virtues of the Pater
Noster, the poet gradually inserts all the runes that serve to make
up the prayer, each, however, being accompanied by the corresponding Latin capital letter. Thereupon he advises every man
to sing the Pater Noster before drawing his sword against a
hostile band of men, and also to put the fiends to flight by means
of God's word; otherwise they will stay his hand when he has
to defend his life, and bewitch his weapon by cutting on it fatal
letters and death signs. We could scarcely wish for a better
illustration of the way in which Christianity combated the old
beliefs, substituting the Pater Noster for the ancient heathen warspell, reading a new meaning into the old rites and shifting to
fiends and devils the power of making runes of victory or of death,
a power formerly in the hands of pagan gods.
When used as ordinary writing characters, without any taint of
magic, runes appear to have met with more tolerant treatment.
The earliest inscriptions extant in this country consist mainly
of proper names, in most cases those of the owners of the engraved
article. The Thames sword, for instance, bears, in addition to the
runic alphabet, the name of its owner, Beagnop. Again, Beowulf
is represented as finding in Grendel's cave a sword of ancient workmanship, with rune-staves on the hilt, giving the name of the warrior
for whom the sword had first been made. Similarly, an eighth
century ring bears, partly in runic, partly in Roman, characters, the
legend "'Epred owns me, Eanred engraved me." There are also
references in Old English literature to the use of runes as a
means of communication. We are reminded of the runa-kefti of
the Icelandic sagas on reading the little poem called The Hzisband's


1 The Old English version renders this by alysendlecan rune, " loosening runes."
2 Ed. Kemble, pp. 14 and 99.




12


Runes and Manuscripts


Message (see p. 39), where a staff, inscribed with runes, is supposed
to convey to a wife the message of her lord, bidding her cross the
sea in search of the distant country where he had found gold and
land. But still more important are those inscriptions which have
actually survived and which are mainly found on stone monuments.
They are confined almost exclusively to the north, and the greater
number of them belong to the seventh and eighth centuries, for
absolutely no inscriptions have survived from the first one hundred
and fifty years subsequent to the English invasion. These inscriptions are almost all due to Christian influence. Chief among these
monuments, so far as English literature is concerned, are the
Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, possibly dating back to the
eighth century', on which are inscribed extracts from The Dream
of the Rood, and the Bewcastle Column in Cumberland, probably
erected to the memory of Alchfrith, son of the Northumbrian
king Oswy (642-670).
Runic inscriptions have, moreover, been discovered on coins
and various other objects, the most important being the beautiful
Clermont or Franks casket. The top and three of the sides are
now in the British Museum, the fourth side is in the Museo
Nazionale at Florence. The casket is made of whalebone, and
the scenes carved on it represent an episode from the Welandsaga, the adoration of the Magi, Romulus and Remus nursed by
the she-wolf and, lastly, a fight between Titus and the Jews. The
carving on the Florence fragment is still unexplained. The legends
engraved around these episodes are intended to represent the
capture of the whale and to elucidate the carving. On linguistic
grounds it has been thought probable that the casket was made
in Northumbria at the beginning of the eighth century2.
In several Old English MSS, runes are found in isolated cases,
for instance in Beowulf, and in the Durham Ritual. In the riddles
of the Exeter Book the occasional introduction of runes sometimes
helps to solve the mystery of the enigma, and sometimes increases
the obscurity of the passage. Occasionally a poet or scribe will
record his name by means of a runic acrostic introduced into the
vtext. Thus, the poems Crist, Juliana, Elene and the Vercelli
fragment bear the runic signature of their author, Cynewulf.
Runes went out of use during the ninth and tenth centuries.
Their place had, however, been usurped long before that period by
the Roman alphabet, which the English received from the early
1 But see A. S. Cook, The Dream of the Rood, Oxford, 1905, pp. ix ff.
2 Napier, English Misc. p. 380.




Roman Alphabet in England


I3


Irish missionaries. The advent of Christianity and the beginnings
of English literature are intimately connected, for the missionary
and the Roman alphabet travelled together, and it was owing to
the Christian scribe that the songs and sagas, the laws and customs,
the faith and the proverbial wisdom of our forefathers, were first
recorded and preserved. It is, indeed, difficult to realise that,
before the conversion of the English to Christianity, during the
sixth and seventh centuries, the whole, or, at all events, by far the
greater part, of the intellectual wealth of the nation was to be
sought on the lips of the people, or in the retentive memory of
the individual, and was handed down from generation to generation
by means of song and recitation. Caesar relates1 how this was the
case in Gaul, where the accumulated wisdom of the Druids, their
religion and their laws, were transmitted by oral tradition alone,
since they were forbidden to put any part of their lore into writing,
although, for other purposes, the Greek alphabet was used. What
wonder if the young Gauls who served their apprenticeship to the
Druids had, as Caesar says, to learn "a great number of verses,"
and often to stay as long as twenty years before they had exhausted
their instructors' store of learning.
Before entering, however, on the history of the Irish alphabet
in England, it may be of interest to note that an even earlier
attempt had been made to introduce Roman characters among
the English. This was due to the efforts of Augustine and his
missionaries, who established a school of handwriting in the south
of England, with Canterbury as a probable centre. A Psalter
of about A.D. 700, now in the Cottonian collection of the British
Museum, and a few early copies of charters constitute, however,
the only evidence of its existence that survives. From these we
learn that the type of alphabet taught was the Roman rustic
capital, though of a somewhat modified local character. This
paucity of records makes it seem likely that the school of the
Roman missionaries had but a brief period of existence, and
wholly failed to influence the native hand.
Not so, however, with the Irish school of writing in the north.
The Irish alphabet was founded on the Roman half-uncial hand,
manuscripts of this type having been brought over to Ireland
by missionaries, perhaps during the fifth century. Owing to the
isolated position of the island and the consequent absence of
extraneous influence, a strongly characteristic national hand developed, which ran its uninterrupted course down to the late
1 De Bello Gallico, vi, 14.




I4


Runes and Manuscripts


Middle Ages. This hand was at first round in character and of
great clearness, beauty and precision; but, at an early period, a
modified, pointed variety of a minuscule type developed out of it,
used for quicker and less ornamental writing.
In the seventh century Northumbria was Christianised by Irish
missionaries, who founded monasteries and religious settlements
throughout the north. What, then, more natural than that these
zealous preachers of the Word should teach their disciples not only
the Word itself, but also how to write it down in characters
pleasing to the Almighty, and not in rude and uncouth signs which
conveyed all the power and magic of the heathen gods? Thus it
came to pass that the English of the north learnt the exquisite
penmanship of the Irish, and proved themselves such apt pupils
that they soon equalled their former masters. In fact, the earliest
specimens of the Northumbrian hand can scarcely be distinguished
from their Irish models.
In course of time, moreover, the English threw off the conventions and restraints which fettered the Irish hand and developed
a truly national hand, which spread throughout England, and which,
in grace of outline and correctness of stroke, even surpassed its
prototype.
As might have been expected, the English adopted both the
round and pointed varieties of their Irish teachers. One of the
earliest and most beautiful examples of the former is The Book of
Durham or The Lindisfarne Gospels', written about A.D. 700 by
Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne. And, as a specimen of the latter,
may be mentioned a fine copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical History
in the University Library of Cambridge, written not long after 730,
which possesses an additional interest as preserving one of the
earliest pieces of poetry in the English language, The Hymn of
Caed/mon, in the original Northumbrian dialect.  The pointed
hand branched off into a number of local varieties and was
extensively used down to the tenth century, when it became
influenced by the French or Carolingian minuscule. Towards
the end of the century all Latin MSS were, as a matter of
fact, written in foreign characters, whereas the English hand
came to be exclusively used for writing in the vernacular. For
instance, a Latin charter would have the body of the text in the
French minuscule, but the English descriptions or boundaries of
the property to be conveyed would be written in the native hand.
After the conquest, the native hand gradually disappeared, the
1 Brit. Mus. Cotton Nero, D. 4.




Materials for tfriting                  I 5
only traces of it left being the adoption by the foreign alphabets
of the symbols p, 3, J (0) to express the peculiarly English sounds
for which they stood. The rune p, however, fell into disuse about
the beginning of the fourteenth century, its place having been
taken by uu (vv) or w; while 6 (th) occurs occasionally as late as
the end of the same century. Of far superior vitality were 1] and 3,
the former bearing a charmed life throughout Middle English
times, though, in the fifteenth century and later, ] often appeared
in the degenerated form of y, while 3 was retained in order to
represent spirant sounds, afterwards denoted by y or gh.
During the late twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the
history of English handwriting was practically that of the various
Latin hands of the French school. The fifteenth century finally
witnessed the dissolution of the medieval book-hand of the
minuscule type, the many varieties of it being apparent in the
types used by the early printers. The legal or charter-hand,
introduced with the Conquest, was, however, not superseded by
the printing-presses, but ran an undisturbed though ever varying
course down to the seventeenth century, when its place was taken
by the modern current hand, fashioned on Italian models. A late
variety still lingers on, however, in the so-called chancery-hand
seen in the engraved writing of enrolments and patents.
Turning to the materials used for writing in medieval England,
we gain at once a connecting link with the runic alphabet, since the
wooden tablet, the bdc, again appears, though in a somewhat
different fashion. A thin coating of wax was now spread over the
surface, and the writing was scratched on it with a pointed instrument of metal or bone which, in Old English, was known as grae/
and, in the later centuries, by the French term poyntel. The use
of these tablets was widely spread in the Middle Ages; they
served for the school-boy's exercises and for bills and memoranda
of every description, for short letters and rough copies-for anything that was afterwards to be copied out, more carefully, on
vellum. In German illuminated MSS poets are represented as
writing their songs and poems on waxen tablets, and, as early as the
sixth century, The Rule of St Benet makes provision for the
distribution of tablets and styles to monks. There is, also, evidence
of the use of these tablets by Irish monks, who, it may be supposed,
would introduce them to their English pupils. And, consequently,
we find that Aldhelm, who died in 709, writes a riddle of which
the answer is "tablet"-a fact which presupposes a knowledge
of the existence of tablets among his contemporaries. Again, in




16            Runes and Manuscripts
Ethelwold's Benedictionale of the tenth century, Zacharias (Luke,
i, 3) is represented as writing on a waxen tablet1.
In the twelfth century we learn concerning Anselm, archbishop
of Canterbury (t1109), that he was in the habit of making the first
sketch of his works on waxen tablets; and, in The Canterbulry
Tales, Chaucer relates how the summoner's "fellow" had "a pair of
tables all of ivory, and a poyntel ypolished fetisly."
Far more important, practical and durable as writing material,
however, was parchment or vellum, the use of which prevailed
throughout the Middle Ages. The Old English name for this was
bdc-fel, literally "book-skin," replaced in Middle English by the
French terms parchment and velin (vellum). These terms, originally, were not interchangeable, vellum being, as its name indicates,
prepared from calf-skins, parchment from sheep-skins2.
At first, the evidence goes to show that monasteries had to
prepare their own parchment, either by the help of the monks
themselves or of laymen engaged for the purpose. Later, however, the parchment-makers took their place as ordinary craftsmen, and supplied religious and other houses with the necessary
material. Thus we find that, in the year 1300, Ely bought five
dozen parchments and as many vellums, and, about half a century
later, no less than seventy and thirty dozen respectively, in order
to supply the want of writing material for a few years only. Vellum
was, at times, magnificently coloured, the text being, in such cases,
inscribed in letters of gold or silver. The most famous example
is the Codex argenteus at Upsala. Archbishop Wilfrid of York
(664-709) is said to have possessed the four Gospels written
on purple vellum in letters of purest gold, a fact which his
biographer records as little short of the marvellous. In the British
Museum   there remains to this day an Old English MS of the
Gospels, the first leaves of which are written in golden letters on
purple vellums.
Apart from these editions de luxe which, naturally, nust have
been of enormous cost, ordinary working parchment was a very
expensive writing material, and it is small wonder if, on that
account, it gradually had to give way before a new and less costly
material. It appears that, from times immemorial, the manufacture of paper from linen rags and hemp was known to the Chinese,
1 Archaeol. xxrv, pl. 27.
2 From Hamlet, v, 1 it appears, however, as if Shakespeare was unaware of this
difference: "Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? "-" Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins
too."
3 Royal, i, E, 6.




Manuscripts and Scribes


I7


who, apparently, taught their art to the Arabs, since paper was
exported by that nation at an early date. In the twelfth century
paper was known in Spain and Italy, and thence, it spread slowly
northwards, though it did not come into more general use until
the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century paper manuscripts
were very frequent in England, as can be assumed from the great
number still remaining in public and private libraries.
For writing, both on parchment and on paper, the quill was
used, known in Old English times as fewer, in Middle English by
the French term penne. The existence of the quill as an implement of writing is proved by one of the oldest Irish MSS, where
St John the Evangelist is represented holding a quill in his hand.
Again, Aldhelm has a riddle on penna, in the same way as he had
one on the tablet. Other necessary implements for writing and
preparing a MS were a lead for ruling margins and lines, a ruler,
a pair of compasses, scissors, a puncher, an awl, a scraping-knife
and, last, but not least, ink, which was usually kept in a horn, either
held in the hand by the scribe, or placed in a specially provided
hole in his desk. In Old English times it was known, from its
colour, as blaec, but, after the Conquest, the French term enque, our
modern English ink, was adopted. The terms horne and ink-horne
are both found in old glossaries.
When the body of the text was finally ready, the sheets were
passed to the corrector, who filled the office of the modern proofreader, and from him to the rubricator, who inserted, in more or
less elaborate designs, and in striking colours, the rubrics and
initials for which space had been left by the scribe. The pieces
of parchment were then passed to the binder, who, as a rule,
placed four on each other and then folded them, the result being a
quire of eight leaves or sixteen pages. The binding was generally
strong and solid in character: leather was used for the back and
wooden boards for the sides, which were usually covered with
parchment or leather or velvet. Thus was established the form
and fashion of the book as we know it, whether written or printed.
Beside the book-form, parchment was also made up into rolls,
which were especially used for chronological writings and deeds of
various kinds'.
The men who wrote both roll and book, and to whose patience
and devotion we owe so much of our knowledge of the times gone
by, were, at first, the monks themselves; it being held that copying,
especially of devotional books, was a work pleasing to God and one
1 Cf. the term " Master of the Rolls."
E. L  I.  CH. II.                                2




i8            Runes and      Manuscripts
of the best possible ways in which men, separated from the world,
could labour.
Gradually, however, there grew up a professional class of
scribes, whose services could be hired for money, and who can be
proved to have been employed at an early period in the monasteries
of England and abroad. Nuns were also well versed in writing.
Moreover, where schools were attached to monasteries the alumni
were early pressed into service, at all events to copy out books
needed for their own instruction.
The cloister was the centre of life in the monastery, and in the
cloister was the workshop of the patient scribe. It is hard to
realise that the fair and seemly handwriting of these manuscripts
was executed by fingers which, on winter days, when the wind
howled through the cloisters, must have been numbed by the icy
cold.  It is true that, occasionally, little carrells or studies in
the recesses of the windows were screened off from the main walk
of the cloister, and, sometimes, a small room or cell would be
partitioned off for the use of a single scribe. This room would
then be called the scriptorium, but it is unlikely that any save the
oldest or most learned of the community were afforded this luxury.
In these scriptoria of various kinds the earliest annals and chronicles
in the English language were penned, in the beautiful and painstaking forms in which we know them.
There is no evidence for the existence of buildings specially
set apart for libraries until the later Middle Ages. Books were
stored in presses, placed either in the church or in convenient
places within the monastic buildings. These presses were then
added to as need arose, or, perhaps, a small room was set apart
for the better preserving of the precious volumes. Books were
frequently lost through the widespread system of lending both
to private persons and to communities, and, though bonds were
solemnly entered into for their safe return, neither anathema
nor heavy pledges seemed sufficient to ensure the return of the
volumes.
But all losses through lending, or fire, or pillage, were as
nothing compared with the utter ruin and destruction that overtook the literature of England, as represented by the written
remains of its past, when the monasteries were dissolved. By
what remains we can estimate what we have lost, and lost irrevocably; but the full significance of this event for English literary
culture will be discussed in a later chapter.




CHAPTER III


EARLY NATIONAL POETRY
THE poetry of the Old English period is generally grouped in
two main divisions, national and Christian. To the former are
assigned those poems of which the subjects are drawn from
English, or rather Teutonic, tradition and history or from the
customs and conditions of English life; to the latter those which
deal with Biblical matter, ecclesiastical traditions and religious
subjects of definitely Christian origin. The line of demarcation
is not, of course, absolutely fixed. Most of the national poems
in their present form contain Christian elements, while English
influence often makes itself felt in the presentation of Biblical
or ecclesiastical subjects. But, on the whole, the division is a
satisfactory one, in spite of the fact that there are a certain
number of poems as to the classification of which some doubt
may be entertained.
We are concerned here only with the earlier national poems.
With one or two possible exceptions they are anonymous, and we
have no means of assigning to them with certainty even an approximate date. There can be little doubt, however, that they all
belong to times anterior to the unification of England under king
Alfred (A.D. 886). The later national poetry does not begin until
the reign of Aethelstan.
With regard to the general characteristics of these poems one
or two preliminary remarks will not be out of place. First, there is
some reason for believing that, for the most part, they are the work
of minstrels rather than of literary men. In two cases, Widsith
and Deor, we have definite statements to this effect, and from
Bede's account of Caedmon we may probably infer that the early
Christian poems had a similar origin. Indeed, it is by no means
clear that any of the poems were written down very early. Scarcely
any of the MSS date from before the tenth century and, though
they are doubtless copies, they do not betray traces of very archaic
orthography. Again, it is probable that the authors were, as a rule,
attached to the courts of kings or, at all events, to the retinues of
2-2




20


Early National Poetry


persons in high position. For this statement also we have no
positive evidence except in the cases of Widsith and Deor; but it
is favoured by the tone of the poems. Some knowledge of music
and recitation seems, indeed, to have prevailed among all classes.
Just as in Beowulf not only Hrothgar's bard but even the king
himself is said to have taken part among others in the recitation of
stories of old time, so Bede, in the passage mentioned above, relates
how the harp was passed round at a gathering of villagers, each
one of whom was expected to produce a song. But the poems
which survived, especially epic poems, are likely to have been the
work of professional minstrels, and such persons would naturally
be attracted to courts by the richer rewards-both in gold and
land-which they received for their services. It is not only in
Old English poems that professional minstrels are mentioned.
From Cassiodorus (Variarum, ii, 40 f.) we learn that Clovis begged
Theodric, king of the Ostrogoths, to send him a skilled harpist.
Again, Priscus, in the account of his visit to Attila1, describes how,
at the evening feast, two men, whom probably we may regard as
professional minstrels, came forward and sang of the king's victories
and martial deeds. Some of the warriors, he says, had their fighting
spirit roused by the melody, while others, advanced in age, burst
into tears, lamenting the loss of their strength-a passage which
bears rather a striking resemblance to Beowulf s account of the
feast in Hrothgar's hall.
It is customary to classify the early national poems in two
groups, epic and elegiac. The former, if we may judge from
Beowulf, ran to very considerable length, while all the extant
specimens of the latter are quite short. There are, however, one or
two poems which can hardly be brought under either of these
heads, and it is probably due to accident that most of the shorter
poems which have come down to us are of an elegiac character.
The history of our national epic poetry is rendered obscure
by the fact that there is little elsewhere with which it may be
compared. We need not doubt that it is descended ultimately
from the songs in which the ancients were wont to celebrate deeds
of famous men, such as Arminius2; but, regarding the form of these
songs, we are unfortunately without information. The early national
epic poetry of Germany is represented only by a fragment of
67 lines, while the national poetry of the north, rich as it is,
1 K. Muller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iv, p. 92.
2 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. n, 88.




Teutonic Epic Poetry                   21
contains nothing which can properly be called epic. It cannot,
therefore, be determined with certainty, whether the epos was
known to the English before the invasion or whether it arose
in this country, or, again, whether it was introduced from abroad
in later times. Yet the fact is worth noting that all the poems
of which we have any remains deal with stories relating to
continental or Scandinavian lands. Indeed, in the whole of our
early national poetry, there is no reference to persons who are
known to have lived in Britain. Kigel put forward the view that
epic poetry originated among the Goths, and that its appearance in the north-west of Europe is to be traced to the harpist
who was sent to Clovis by Theodric, king of the Ostrogoths.
Yet the traditions preserved in our poems speak of professional
minstrels before the time of Clovis. The explanation of the
incident referred to may be merely that minstrelsy had attained
greater perfection among the Goths than elsewhere. Unfortunately
Gothic poetry has wholly perished.
Although definite evidence is wanting, it is commonly held that
the old Teutonic poetry was entirely strophic. Such is the case
with all the extant Old Norse poems, and there is no reason for
thinking that any other form of poetry was known in the north.
Moreover, in two of the earliest Old English poems, Widsith and
Deor, the strophes may be restored practically without alteration
of the text. An attempt has even been made to reconstruct
Beowulf in strophic form; but this can only be carried out by
dealing with the text in a somewhat arbitrary manner. In
Beunidf, as indeed in most Old English poems, new sentences
and even new subjects begin very frequently in the middle of the
verse. The effect of this is, of course, to produce a continuous
metrical narrative, which is essentially foreign to the strophic type
of poetry. Further, it is not to be overlooked that all the strophic
poems which we possess are quite short. Even Atlamdl, the
longest narrative poem in the Edda, scarcely reaches one eighth
of the length of Beowulf: According to another theory epics
were derived from strophic lays, though never actually composed
in strophic form themselves. This theory is, of course, by no means
open to such serious objections. It may be noted that, in some of
the earliest Old Norse poems, e.g. Helgakvi'a Hundingsbana II.
and Helgakviza Hiorvarussonar, the strophes contain only speeches,
while the connecting narrative is given, quite briefly, in prose.
Such pieces might very well serve as the bases of epic poems. The
greater length of the latter may, then, be accounted for by the




22


Early National Poetry


substitution of detailed descriptions for the short prose passages,
by the introduction of episodes drawn from other sources and
perhaps also by the combination of two or more lays in one poem.
In any such process, however, the original materials must have been
largely transformed.
By far the most important product of the national epos is
Beowulf, a poem of 3183 lines, which has been preserved practically
complete in a MS of the tenth century, now in the British Museum.
It will be convenient at the outset to give a brief summary of its
contents.
The poem opens with a short account of the victorious Danish
king Scyld Scefing, whose obsequies are described in some detail.
His body was carried on board a ship, piled up with arms and
treasures. The ship passed out to sea, and none knew what
became of it (11. 1-52). The reigns of Scyld's son and grandson,
Beowulf and Healfdene, are quickly passed over, and we are next
brought to Hrothgar, the son of Healfdene. He builds a splendid
hall, called Heorot, in which to entertain his numerous retinue
(11. 53-100). His happiness is, however, destroyed by Grendel,
a monster sprung from Cain, who attacks the hall by night and
devours as many as thirty knights at a time. No one can withstand him, and, in spite of sacrificial offerings, the hall has to
remain empty (11. 101-193). When Grendel's ravages have lasted
twelve years, Beowulf, a nephew of Hygelac, king of the Geatas,
and a man of enormous strength, determines to go to Hrothgar's
assistance. He embarks with fourteen companions and, on reaching
the Danish coast, is directed by the watchman to Hrothgar's abode
(11. 194-319). The king, on being informed of his arrival, relates
how he had known and befriended Ecgtheow, Beowulfs father.
Beowulf states the object of his coming, and the visitors are invited
to feast (11. 320-497). During the banquet Beowulf is taunted by
Hunferth (Unferth), the king's "orator," with having failed in a
swimming contest against a certain Breca. He replies, giving a
different version of the story, according to which he was successful
(11. 498-606). Then the queen (Wealhtheow) fills Beowulf's cup,
and he announces his determination to conquer or die. As night
draws on, the king and his retinue leave the hall to the visitors
(11. 607-665). They go to sleep, and Beowulf puts off his armour,
declaring that he will not use his sword. Grendel bursts into the
hall and devours one of the knights. Beowulf, however, seizes him
by the arm, which he tears off after a desperate struggle, and the




Beowulf: Summary of the Poem


23


monster takes to flight, mortally wounded (11. 665-833). Beowulf
displays the arm, and the Danes come to express their admiration
of his achievement. They tell stories of heroes of the past, of
Sigemund and his nephew Fitela and of the Danish prince Heremod'.
Then Hrothgar himself arrives, congratulates Beowulf on his victory
and rewards him with rich gifts (11. 834-1062). During the feast
which follows, the king's minstrel recites the story of Hnaef and
Finn (11. 1063-1159), to which we shall have to return later. The
queen comes forward and, after addressing Hrothgar together
with his nephew and colleague Hrothwulf, thanks Beowulf and
presents him with a valuable necklace (11. 1160-1232). This necklace, it is stated (11. 1202-1214), was afterwards worn by Hygelac
and fell into the hands of the Franks at his death. Hrothgar and
Beowulf now retire, but a number of knights settle down to sleep
in the hall. During the night Grendel's mother appears and
carries off Aeschere, the king's chief councillor (11. 1233-1306).
Beowulf is summoned and the king, overwhelmed with grief, tells
him what has happened and describes the place where the monsters
were believed to dwell. Beowulf promises to exact vengeance
(11. 1306-1396). They set out for the place, a pool overshadowed
with trees, but apparently connected with the sea.  Beowulf
plunges into the water and reaches a cave, where he has a
desperate encounter with the monster. Eventually he succeeds in
killing her with a sword which he finds in the cave. He then
comes upon the corpse of Grendel and cuts off its head. With this
he returns to his companions, who had given him up for lost
(11. 1397-1631). The head is brought in triumph to the palace,
and Beowulf describes his adventure. The king praises his
exploit and contrasts his spirit with that of the unfortunate prince
Heremod. From this he passes to a moralising discourse on the
evils of pride (1632-1784). On the following day Beowulf bids
farewell to the king. They part affectionately, and the king
rewards him with further gifts. Beowulf and his companions
embark and return to their own land (1785-1921). The virtues
of Hygd, the young wife of Hygelac, are praised, and she is
contrasted with Thrytho, the wife of Offa, who, in her youth, had
displayed a murderous disposition (11. 1922-1962). Beowulf
greets Hygelac and gives him an account of his adventures. Part
of his speech, however, is taken up with a subject which, except for
a casual reference in 11. 83-85, has not been mentioned before,
1 For these persons cf. the Old Norse poem Hyndlulido, strophe 2, Volsunga Saga
cap. 7-10, etc.




24            Early    National Poetry
namely, the relations between Hrothgar and his son-in-law Ingeld,
prince of the Heathobeardan. Ingeld's father, Froda, had been
slain by the Danes and he was constantly incited by an old
warrior to take vengeance on the son of the slayer. Then Beowulf
hands over to Hygelac and Hygd the presents which Hrothgar and
Wealhtheow had given him, and Hygelac in turn rewards him with
a sword and with a large share in the kingdom (11. 1963-2199).
A long period is now supposed to elapse. Hygelac has fallen,
and his son Heardred has been slain by the Swedes. Then
Beowulf has succeeded to the throne and reigned gloriously for
fifty years (11. 2200-2210). In his old age the land of the Geatas
is ravaged and his own home destroyed by a fire-spitting dragon
which, after brooding for three hundred years over the treasure of
men long since dead, has had its lair robbed by a runaway slave.
Beowulf, greatly angered, resolves to attack it (11. 2210-2349).
Now comes a digression referring to Beowulfs past exploits, in the
course of which we learn that he had escaped by swimming when
Hygelac lost his life in the land of the Frisians. On his return
Hygd offered him the throne, but he refused it in favour of the
young Heardred. The latter, however, was soon slain by the
Swedish king Onela, because he had granted asylum to his nephews,
Eanmund and Eadgils, the sons of Ohthere. Vengeance was obtained
by Beowulf later, when he supported Eadgils in a campaign which
led to the king's death (11. 2349-2396). Beowulf now approaches
the dragon's lair. He reflects on the past history of his family.
Haethcyn, king of the Geatas, had accidentally killed his brother
Herebeald, and their father, Hrethel, died of grief in consequence.
His death was followed by war with the Swedes, in which first
Haethcyn and then the Swedish king Ongentheow (Onela's father)
were slain. When Hygelac, the third brother, perished among the
Frisians, Daeghrefn, a warrior of the Hugas, was crushed to death
by the hero himself (11. 2397-2509). Beowulf orders his men to
wait outside while he enters the dragon's barrow alone. He is
attacked by the dragon, and his sword will not bite. Wiglaf, one of
his companions, now comes to the rescue; but the rest, in spite of
his exhortations, flee into a wood. As the dragon darts forward
again Beowulf strikes it on the head; but his sword breaks, and the
dragon seizes him by the neck. Wiglaf succeeds in wounding it,
and Beowulf, thus getting a moment's respite, finishes it off with his
knife (11. 2510-2709). But the hero is mortally wounded. At his
request Wiglaf brings the treasure out of the lair. Beowulf gives
him directions with regard to his funeral, presents him with his




Beowulf and Scandinavian Traditions 25
armour and necklace and then dies (11. 2709-2842). The cowardly
knights now return and are bitterly upbraided by Wiglaf (11. 2842 -2891). A messenger brings the news to the warriors who have
been waiting behind. He goes on to prophesy that, now their
heroic king has fallen, the Geatas must expect hostility on all sides.
With the Franks there has been no peace since Hygelac's unfortunate expedition against the Frisians and Hetware, while the
Swedes cannot forget Ongentheow's disaster, which is now described
at length. The warriors approach the barrow and inspect the
treasure which has been found (11. 2891-3075). Wiglaf repeats
Beowulfs instructions, the dragon is thrown into the sea and the
king's body burnt on a great pyre. Then a huge barrow is
constructed over the remains of the pyre, and all the treasure
taken from the dragon's lair is placed in it. The poem ends with
an account of the mourning and the proclamation of the king's
virtues by twelve warriors who ride round the barrow.
Many of the persons and events mentioned in Beowulf are
known to us also from various Scandinavian records, especially
Saxo's Danish History, Hrdlfs Saga Kraka, Ynglinga Saga
(with the poem  Ynglingatal) and the fragments of the lost
Ski6ldunga Saga. Scyld, the ancestor of the Scyldungas (the
Danish royal family), clearly corresponds to Skiildr, the ancestor
of the Skioldungar, though the story told of him in Beowymlf does
not occur in Scandinavian literature. Healfdene and his sons
Hrothgar and Halga are certainly identical with the Danish king
Halfdan and his sons Hr6arr (Roe) and Helgi; and there can
be no doubt that Hrothwulf, Hrothgar's nephew and colleague,
is the famous Hr6lfr Kraki, the son of Helgi. Hrothgar's elder
brother Heorogar is unknown, but his son Heoroweard may be
identical with Hiorvarar, the brother-in-law of Hr6lfr. It has been
plausibly suggested also that Hrethric, the son of Hrothgar, may be
the same person as Hroerekr (Roricus), who is generally represented
as the son or successor of Ingialdr. The name of the Heathobeardan
is unknown in the north, unless, possibly, a reminiscence of it is
preserved in Saxo's Hothbroddus, the name of the king who slew
Roe. Their princes Froda and Ingeld, however, clearly correspond
to Fr66i (Frotho IV) and his son Ingialdr, who are represented as
kings of the Danes. Even the story of the old warrior who incites
Ingeld to revenge is given also by Saxo; indeed, the speaker
(Starcatherus) is one of the most prominent figures in his history.
Again, the Swedish prince Eadgils, the son of Ohthere, is certainly
identical with the famous king of the Svear, Asils, the son of




26


Early National Poetry


6ttarr, and his conflict with Onela corresponds to the battle on
lake Vener between AMils and Ali.  The latter is described as
a Norwegian; but this is, in all probability, a mistake arising from
his surname hinn Upplenzki, which was thought to refer to the
Norwegian Upplind instead of the Swedish district of the same
name. The other members of the Swedish royal family, Ongentheow
and Eanmund, are unknown in Scandinavian literature. The same
remark applies, probably, to the whole of the royal family of the
Geatas, except, perhaps, the hero himself. On the other hand, most
of the persons mentioned in the minor episodes or incidentallySigemund and Fitela, Heremod, Eormenric, Hama, Offa-are more
or less well known from various Scandinavian authorities, some
also from continental sources.
With the exception of Yniglingatal, which dates probably from
the ninth century, all the Scandinavian works mentioned above are
quite late and, doubtless, based on tradition. Hence they give us
no means of fixing the dates of the kings whose doings they
record-unless one can argue from the fact that Harold the Fairhaired, who appears to have been born in 850, claimed to be
descended in the eleventh generation from Abils. Indeed, we have
unfortunately no contemporary authorities for Swedish and Danish
history before the ninth century. Several early Frankish writings,
however, refer to a raid which was made upon the territories of the
Chattuarii on the lower Rhine about the year 520. The raiders
were defeated by Theodberht, the son of Theodric I, and their
king, who is called Chohilaicus (Chlochilaicus) or Huiglaucus, was
killed. This incident is, without doubt, to be identified with the
disastrous expedition of Hygelac against the Franks, Hetware
(Chattuarii) and Frisians, to which Beowulf contains several
references. We need not hesitate, then, to conclude that most of
the historical events mentioned in Beowulf are to be dated within
about the first three decades of the sixth century.
In Gregory of Tours' Historia Francorum (Ii, 3) and in the
Gesta Regwm Francorum    (cap. 19) the king of the raiders is
described as rex Danorum; in the Liber Monstrorwml however as
rex Getarmn. As Getarum can hardly be anything but a corruption
of Beowulf's Geatas the latter description is doubtless correct.
The Geatas are, in all probability, to be identified with the Gautar
of Old Norse literature, i.e. the people of Gdtaland in the south of
Sweden. It may be mentioned that Procopius, a contemporary
of Theodberht, in his description (Goth. ii, 15) of "Thule," i.e.
1 Berger de Xivrey, Traditions Teratologiques, p. 12.




Beowulf:


Personality of the Hero


27


Scandinavia, speaks of the Gotar (Gautoi) as a very numerous
nation.
The hero himself still remains to be discussed. On the whole,
though the identification is rejected by many scholars, there seems
to be good reason for believing that he was the same person
as BoS1varr Biarki, the chief of Hr6lfr Kraki's knights. In Hrd1fs
Saga Kraka, Biarki is represented as coming to Leire, the Danish
royal residence, from Gotaland, where his brother was king.
Shortly after his arrival he killed an animal demon (a bear, according to Saxo), which was in the habit of attacking the king's farmyard at Yule. Again, according to Skaldskaparmdl, cap. 44 (from
Skioldunga Saga), he took part with Aiils in the battle against
4li. In all these points his history resembles that of Beowulf. It
appears from Hrdlfs Saga Kraka that Biarki had the faculty of
changing into a bear. And Beowulf's method of fighting, especially
in his conflict with Daeghrefn, may point to a similar story. On
the other hand, the latter part of Biarki's career is quite different
from that of Beowulf. He stayed with Hr6lfr to the end and
shared the death of that king. But the latter part of Beowulf s
life can hardly be regarded as historical. -Indeed, his own exploits
throughout are largely of a miraculous character.
There is another Scandinavian story, however, which has a very
curious bearing on the earlier adventures of Beowulf. This is
a passage in Grettis Saga (cap. 64 ff.), in which the hero is represented as destroying two demons, male and female. The scene is
laid in Iceland; yet so close are the resemblances between the two
stories, in the character of the demons, in the description of the
places they inhabit and in the methods by which the hero deals
with them, as well as in a number of minor details, that it is
impossible to ascribe them to accident. Now Grettir seems to be
a historical person who died about the year 1031. The presumption
is, then, that an older story has become attached to his name. But
there is nothing in the account that gives any colour to the idea
that it is actually derived from the Old English poem. More
probably the origin of both stories alike is to be sought in a folktale, and, just as the adventures were attributed in Iceland to the
historical Grettir, so in England, and, possibly, also in Denmark, at
an earlier date they were associated with a historical prince of the
Gotar. From the occurrence of the local names Beowanham and
Grendles mere in a Wiltshire charter' some scholars have inferred
that the story was originally told of a certain Beowa, whom they
1 Kemble, Cod. Dipl. 353.




28            Early    National Poetry
have identified with Beaw or Beo, the son of Scyld (Sceldwea)
in the West Saxon genealogy. But since this person is, in all
probability, identical with the first (Danish) Beowulf of the poem,
and since the name Beowa may very well be a shortened form of
Beowulf, while the other names are obscure, the inference seems
to be of somewhat doubtful value. On the whole there is, perhaps,
more to be said for the view that the association of Beowulf with
the folk-tale arose out of some real adventure with an animal.
This, however, must remain largely a matter of speculation. The
fight with the dragon is, of course, a common motive in folk-tales.
An attempt has been made to show that Beowulf's adventure has
a specially close affinity with a story told by Saxo of the Danish
king Frotho I. But the resemblance between the two stories is
not very striking.
With regard to the origin and antiquity of the poem it is
impossible to arrive at any definite conclusions with certainty.
From investigations which have been made into its linguistic and
metrical characteristics the majority of scholars hold that it was
originally composed in a northern or midland dialect-though it
has been preserved only in West Saxon form-and that it is
at least as old as any other considerable piece of Old English
poetry which we possess. The question of antiquity, however, is
complicated by the doubt which is commonly felt as to the unity of
the poem. Moreover, it cannot be denied that this feeling of doubt
is, at least to some extent, justified. In its present form the poem
must date from Christian times as it contains a considerable
number of passages of distinctly Christian character. On the
other hand, the relationships of the various Danish and Swedish
kings can hardly have been remembered otherwise than in a more
or less stereotyped form of words for more than a generation after
their lifetime. Hence we are bound to conclude that the formation
of the poem, or, at all events, that of the materials from which it was
made up, must have occupied at least the greater part of a century.
It is generally thought that several originally separate lays have
been combined in the poem, and, though no proof is obtainable, the
theory in itself is not unlikely. These lays are usually supposed to
have been four in number and to have dealt with the following
subjects: (i) Beowulf's fight with Grendel, (ii) the fight with
Grendel's mother, (iii) Beowulf's return, (iv) the fight with the dragon.
In view of the story in Grettis Saga I am very much inclined
to doubt whether it is justifiable to separate the first two incidents.
The fight with the dragon, however, is certainly quite distinct, and




Beowulf:


the Religious Element


29


the part of the poem dealing with Beowulf's reception by Hygelac
may also have originally formed the subject of a separate lay.
Some scholars have gone much further than this in their analysis
of the poem. According to one view nearly half of it is the work
of interpolators; according to another the present text is a composite one made up from two parallel versions. It is much to be
doubted, however, whether any really substantial result has been
obtained from these investigations into the "inner history " of the
poem. The references to religion seem to afford the only safe
criterion for distinguishing between earlier and later elements.
Thus, it is worth noting that in 11. 175 ff. the Danes are represented
as offering heathen sacrifices, a passage which is wholly inconsistent
with the sentiments afterwards attributed to Hrothgar. But at
what stage in the history of the poem was the Christian element
introduced?
Certainly this element seems to be too deeply interwoven in the
text for us to suppose that it is due to additions made by scribes
at a time when the poem had come to be written down. Indeed,
there is little evidence for any additions or changes of this kind.
We must ascribe it, then, either to the original poet or poets or to
minstrels by whom the poem was recited in later times. The
extent to which the Christian element is present varies somewhat
in different parts of the poem. In the last portion (11. 2200 -3183) the number of lines affected by it amounts to less than four
per cent., while in the section dealing with Beowulfs return
(11. 1904-2199) it is negligible. In the earlier portions, on the
other hand, the percentage rises to between nine and ten, but this
is partly due to four long passages. One fact worth observing
is that the Christian element is about equally distributed between
the speeches and the narrative. We have noticed above that,
according to a theory which has much in its favour, epics are
derived from "mixed" pieces, in which speeches were given in
verse and narrative in prose. If Christian influence had made
itself felt at this stage, we should surely have expected to find
it more prominent in the narrative than in the speeches, for the
latter would, presumably, be far less liable to change.
There is one curious feature in the poem which has scarcely
received sufficient attention, namely the fact that, while the poet's
reflections and even the sentiments attributed to the various
speakers are largely, though not entirely, Christian, the customs
and ceremonies described are, almost without exception, heathen.
This fact seems to point, not to a Christian work with heathen




30


Early National Poetry


reminiscences, but to a heathen work which has undergone
revision by Christian minstrels. In particular, I cannot believe
that any Christian poet either could or would have composed the
account of Beowulfs funeral. It is true that we have no references to heathen gods, and hardly any to actual heathen worship.
But such references would necessarily be suppressed or altered
when the courts became Christian. Indeed, there is a fairly clear
case of alteration in 11. 175 fl, to which I have already alluded. It
may, perhaps, be urged that, if the work had been subjected to such
a thorough revision, descriptions of heathen ceremonies would not
have been allowed to stand. But the explanation may be that
the ceremonies in question had passed out of use before the change
of religion. In the case of cremation, which is the prevalent form
of funeral rite found in the poem, we have good reason for believing
this to be true. Hence, such passages could not excite the same
repugnance among the clergy as they would have done in countries
where the ceremonies were still practised.
I am disposed, then, to think that large portions at least of the
poem existed in epic form before the change of faith and that the
appearance of the Christian element is due to revision. The Christianity of Beowulf is of a singularly indefinite and undoctrinal
type, which contrasts somewhat strongly with what is found in
later Old English poetry. In explanation of this fact it has
been suggested that the poem was composed or revised under
the influence of the missionaries from Iona. But is there really
any reason for thinking that the teaching of the Irish missionaries
would tend in that direction? A more obvious explanation would
be that the minstrels who introduced the Christian element had
but a vague knowledge of the new faith. Except in 11. 1743 ff.,
where there seems to be a reference to Ephesians, vi, 16, the
only passages of the Bible made use of are those relating to
the Creation, the story of Cain and Abel and the Deluge. In
the first case (11. 90 if.) one can hardly help suspecting a reference
to Caedmon's hymn, and the others also may just as well have
been derived from Christian poems or songs as from the Bible
itself. In any case, however, the fact noted favours the conclusion
that the revision took place at an early date.
Apart from Beowulf, the only remains of national epic poetry
which have come down to us are a short, but fine, fragment (50
lines) of Finnsburh and two still shorter fragments (32 and 31 lines
respectively) of Waldhere. Regarding the former our information




The Finnsburh Fragment


31


is sadly defective. The MS is lost and the text, as given by
Hickes, is extremely corrupt. The story, however, though obscure
to us, must have been extremely popular in early times. It is the
subject of a long episode in Beowulf (see above, p. 23), and three
of the chief characters are mentioned in Widsith. Familiarity
with it is shown also by a mistake in the genealogy in the
Historia Brittonum, ~ 31.
The fragment opens with the speech of a young prince
rousing his followers to defend the hall in which they are
sleeping, apparently within Finn's fortress. They rush to the
doors, the chief men being Hengest (perhaps the prince),
Sigeferth, Eaha, Ordlaf and Guthlaf. A short altercation follows
between Sigeferth and Garulf, who is apparently one of the attacking force. The battle goes on for five days, and many of the
assailants, including Garulf, fall. The defenders, however, maintain their position without loss, and we are told that never was
a better recompense yielded by sixty knights to their lord than
Hnaef now received from his followers. Then a wounded warrior,
who is not named, brings the news to his king-at which point
the fragment breaks off.
The episode in Beowulf furnishes us with considerably more
information than the fragment itself. Hnaef, a vassal of the
Danish king Healfdene, has fallen at the hands of the Frisians,
whom apparently he had gone to visit-whether as friend or
foe is not clear. His men, however, maintain a stout defence,
and so great are the losses of the Frisians that their king, Finn,
has to make terms with them. An agreement is then arrived
at between their leader Hengest and the king. They are to
enter Finn's service and to be treated by him as generously as
the Frisians themselves; and no taunt is to be raised against
them on the ground that they have made terms with the man
who slew their lord. A great funeral pyre is constructed for the
bodies of the slain, and Hildeburh, apparently the wife of Finn
and sister of Hnaef, bewails the loss of both her brother and
her son. Hengest and his companions stay with Finn throughout the winter, though sorely tempted to exact vengeance.
Eventually, Guthlaf and Oslaf (Ordlaf?) attack and slay Finn
with many of his men. The queen is carried away to Denmark
with much treasure.
There are no certain references to this story in Scandinavian
or German literature, though Ordlaf and Guthlaf are probably
to be identified with two Danish princes mentioned in Arngrim




32


Early National Poetry


J6nsson's epitome of Skiuoldunga Saga, cap. 4. The tragic events
with which the story deals must clearly be referred to the time
of those great movements in the regions of the North Sea, between
the fourth and sixth centuries, to which Latin writers occasionally
allude. The fact that Hnaef is called a vassal of Healfdene, Hrothgar's father, points to about the middle of the fifth century. It is
by no means impossible, therefore, that the Hengest of this story
is identical with the Hengest who founded the kingdom of Kent.
The MS fragments of Waldhere (Waldere) are preserved in
the Royal Library at Copenhagen. For this story, fortunately,
information is available from a number of continental sources.
It is the subject of a Latin epic poem (Waltharius) by Ekkehard
of St Gall, dating from the first half of the tenth century, of
a Bavarian poem dating from the first half of the thirteenth
century, of which only small fragments are preserved, and of two
episodes in the Norwegian Vilkina Saga (~~ 128 f., 241-4; cf.
~ 331), which is of Low German origin. Incidental references
to it occur in several Middle High German poems, and there is
also a Polish version of the story, the earliest form of which is
in Chronicon Boguphali Episcopi, dating from the thirteenth
or fourteenth century. It will be convenient here to give a
brief summary of Ekkehard's story, as this is the earliest of the
continental authorities and appears to have the closest resemblance to our fragments.
Alphere, king of Aquitaine, had a son named Waltharius and
Heriricus, king of Burgundy, an only daughter named Hiltgund,
who was betrothed to Waltharius. While they were yet children,
however, Attila, king of the Huns, invaded Gaul, and the kings,
seeing no hope in resistance, gave up their children to him as
hostages, together with much treasure. Under like compulsion
treasure was obtained also from Gibicho, king of the Franks,
who sent as hostage a youth of noble birth named Hagano. In
Attila's service, Waltharius and Hagano won great renown as
warriors, but the latter eventually made his escape. When
Waltharius grew up he became Attila's chief general; yet he
remembered his old engagement with Hiltgund. On his return
from a victorious campaign he made a great feast for the king
and his court, and, when all were sunk in drunken sleep, he and
Hiltgund fled laden with much gold.  On their way home they
had to cross the Rhine near Worms. There the king of the
Franks, Guntharius, the son of Gibicho, heard from the ferryman




The Waldhere Fragments


33


of the gold they were carrying and determined to secure it.
Accompanied by Hagano and eleven other picked warriors, he
overtook them as they rested in a cave in the Vosges. Waltharius
offered him a large share of the gold in order to obtain peace;
but the king demanded the whole together with Hiltgund and
the horse. Stimulated by the promise of great rewards, the
eleven warriors now attacked Waltharius one after another, but
he slew them all. Hagano had tried to dissuade Guntharius
from the attack; but now, since his nephew was among the
slain, he formed a plan with the king for surprising Waltharius.
On the following day they both fell upon him after he had
quitted his stronghold, and, in the struggle that ensued, all three
were maimed. Waltharius, however, was able to proceed on his
way with Hiltgund, and the story ends happily with their marriage.
Both our fragments refer to the time immediately before
the final encounter. The first is taken up with a speech,
apparently by the lady, in which Waldhere is exhorted to acquit
himself in the coming fight in a manner worthy of his former
deeds. Guthhere has unjustly begun hostilities and refused the
offer of a sword and treasure. Now he will have to go away
empty-handed, if he does not lose his life. Between the two
fragments probably not very much has been lost. The second
is occupied by an altercation between Guthhere and Waldhere,
in which the former praises his sword and the latter his coat of
mail. Waldhere states that the king had tried to get Hagena
to attack him first. Victory, however, comes to the faithful
from above. Both the fragments contain Christian allusions.
It has been suggested that the Old English poem was a
translation from an early German one; but the evidence adduced
is far from satisfactory. The speeches given in the fragments,
have nothing corresponding to them in Ekkehard's text, and
there is a noteworthy difference in the portraiture of the heroine's
character. Probably, nothing more than the tradition was derived
from abroad, and at a very early date, if we may judge from the
form of the names.
In the fragments, Guthhere is represented as king of the
Burgundians. Since there can be no doubt that he is the
Burgundian king Gundicarius (Gundaharius) who was defeated
and slain by the Huns about the year 437, we must conclude
that Ekkehard's nomenclature was affected by the political
geography of his own day, when Worms was a Frankish town.
The other chief characters are known only from German and


E. L. I.       CH. III.


3




34


Early National Poetry


Scandinavian tradition. But the story may very well be founded
on fact, as it is likely enough that Attila did take hostages from
the princes of eastern Gaul. In the Bavarian fragments the
hero belongs not to Aquitaine but to Langres. Now, the country
round Langres and Chalon-sur-Sa6ne (Hiltgund's home in the
Latin poem), although the latter was included in the Burgundy
of the tenth century, must once have been settled by Franks
from the Netherlands; for we find here, in later times, districts
called pagus Hamauorum    and pagus Hattuariorum. This
settlement, as Zeuss pointed out long ago, probably took place
in the reign of Constantius Chlorus. Hence, there may have been
Frankish princes at Chalon and Langres in the time of Attila.
The rest of the poems which we have to treat in this
chapter are preserved in the Exeter Book. It will be convenient to take Widsith first; for, though not an epic itself, it
contains much matter in common with poems of that type.
Indeed, so many princes and peoples are mentioned in the course
of the poem that its importance for the history of the migration
period can hardly be overestimated.
In the introduction (11. 1-9) it is stated that the poet
belonged to the Myrgingas, a people or rather dynasty whose
territories, apparently, were conterminous with those of the Angli
(cf. 11. 41 ff.), and that, in company with a princess named Ealhhild,
he visited the court of the Gothic king Eormenric. Then, in
11. 10 if., he begins to enumerate the princes with whom he was
acquainted. This list contains the names of many kings famous
in history and tradition together with those of the peoples which
they governed, the formula employed being "A. ruled over B."
Among them we find Gifica (Gibicho), Breca, Finn, Hnaef, Saeferth
(Sigeferth?) and Ongentheow, who have been mentioned above,
as well as Attila, Eormenric, Theodric (king of the Franks) and
others, some of whom are not known from other sources. In
11. 35-44 there is a reference to the single combat of Offa, king
of Angel, a story which is given by Saxo (pp. 113 if.), Svend
Aagesen and the Vitae Duorum Offarum. In 11. 45-49 we
hear of the long and faithful partnership of Hrothgar and
Hrothwulf and of their victory over Ingeld, an incident to which
Beowulf (11. 83 ff.) has only a vague allusion. Then, in 11. 50 if.
the poet again speaks of his journeys and gives a list of the
nations he had visited. This list is twice interrupted (11. 65-67,
70-74) by references to the generosity with which he had been




Widsith                       35
treated by Guthhere, king of the Burgundians, and by Aelfwine
(Alboin) in Italy1. In 11. 76-78 there is another interruption
referring to the power of Casere, i.e. the Greek emperor. Then,
in 11. 88 ff., the poet tells of the gifts he had received from
Eormenric, from his lord Eadgils, prince of the Myrgingas and
from Ealhhild, and also of his own skill as a minstrel. At 1. 109,
he begins an enumeration of the Gothic heroes he had visited,
most of whom are known to us from Jordanes, Volsunga Saga
(probably also Hervarar Saga), Vilkina Saga and German traditions. In 11. 119ff. he speaks of the ceaseless warfare round the
forest of the Vistula, when the Goths had to defend their country
against the Huns. The list closes with a reference to the martial
deeds of Wudga and Hama, who are mentioned also in Waldhere
and Beoimlf as well as in Vilkina Saga, the former also in many
other continental authorities. The epilogue consists of a short
reflection on the life of wandering minstrels and on the advantages
gained by princes in treating them generously.
Apart from the introduction and epilogue, which may originally
have been in prose, this poem appears to have been composed in
strophic form. Its date cannot be determined with certainty.
There is nothing, however, to prevent us from assigning it to
the seventh century or even an earlier date; for, though a Christian
element is present (11. 15, 82-87, 131-134), it is very slight and
may be removed without affecting the structure of the poem.
Alboin, who died about 572, is, probably, the latest person mentioned. Now Ealhhild's father bears the same name (Eadwine)
as Alboin's father, i.e. Audoin, king of the Langobardi, a fact
which has led many scholars to believe that Ealhhild was Alboin's
sister, and, consequently, that the poet lived towards the close of
the sixth century. This hypothesis, however, involves, practically,
the reconstruction of the whole poem; for the poet repeatedly
speaks of his visits to Eormenric who, as we know from Ammianus
Marcellinus (xxxi, 3. 1.), died about two centuries before Alboin,
and clearly implies that Ealhhild was his contemporary, whereas
he only once alludes to Alboin, in a passage covering five lines.
The identity of the two names is, therefore, probably a mere
coincidence. As a matter of fact, the heroes commemorated in
the poem  lived at wide intervals from  one another, though
Eormenric and persons apparently contemporary with him figure
more prominently than the rest. With greater probability one
might suppose that traditions existed of a famous minstrel who
1 Cf. Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Lang. I, 27.
3-2




36


Early National Poetry


lived at the court of a prince named Eadgils, and that on the
basis of these traditions later minstrels built up lists of the
chief national heroes known to them. Against this suggestion,
however, stands the fact that the minstrel's name is really
unknown, for Widsith is an obviously fictitious name (meaning
"far-travelled ") and must be explained by the statement in 11. 2 f.
as to the extent of the poet's journeys. On the other hand, any
hypothesis which would represent the minstrel as a fictitious
character is open to the objection that, in that case, he would
hardly have been associated with so obscure a person as Eadgils,
prince of the Myrgingas, a family not mentioned except in this
poem. On the whole, then, the hypothesis that the kernel of the
poem is really the work of an unknown fourth century minstrel,
who did visit the court of Eormenric, seems to involve fewer
difficulties than any other. In that case, of course, such passages
as 11. 82 ff. must be regarded as merely the last stage in a process
of accretion which had been going on for some three centuries.
The elegy of Deor is a much shorter poem than Widsith
(42 lines in all) and in its general tone presents a striking
contrast to it. While Widsith tells of the glory of famous heroes
and, incidentally, of the minstrel's own success, Deor is taken up
with stories of misfortune, which are brought forward in illustration of the poet's troubles.  The strophic form is preserved
throughout and, except in the last fifteen lines, which seem to
have been somewhat remodelled, each strophe ends with a refrain
(a phenomenon for which it would be difficult to find a parallel in
Old English poetry): "That (trouble) was got over (or brought to
an end); so can this be."
Originally, perhaps, every strophe referred to a different story
of trouble. Thus, strophe 1 deals with the misfortunes suffered by
Weland at the hands of Nithhad and strophe 2 with the wrongs
done by Weland to Beaduhild. For both these we may refer to
the Old Norse poem Volundarkviva. In strophe 3 we hear of
the passionate love of Geat, presumably the mythical person from
whom the English kings traced their descent. Strophe 4 speaks
of the thirty years' exile of a certain Theodric, probably the same
Theodric who, in Waldhere, is associated with Widia (Wudga). In
German tradition, from the Hildebrandslied onwards, as well as by
most modern writers, he is identified with Theodric, king of the
Ostrogoths (Dietrich von Bern). Strophe 5 deals with the cruelty
of Eormenric and the sufferings of his people. What follows is not




Deor.     The Wanderer                  37
so clear, and 11. 31-34 are the work of a Christian. The closing
lines, however, are very remarkable. The poet states that he had
been the bard of the Heodeningas, and that he had been displaced
from his office by a skilful minstrel called Heorrenda. Now, the
name Heodeningas must mean either the descendants of Heoden
or, like the Old Norse HiaSningar, Heoden (Hesinn) himself and
his people. The story of HeSinn's flight with Hildr, the daughter
of H6gni, was well known in the north1 and, apparently, also in
England, if we may judge from Widsith, 1. 21. Again, Heorrenda
is identical with Hiarrandi, the name of He6inn's father in the
Norse accounts; in the Austrian poem Kudrun, however, which
seems to contain the same story in a corrupt form, Horant is a
near relative of Hetel (HeSinn) and also a famous minstrel.
Hagena (Iogni), according to Widsith, was king of the Holmryge,
a people probably in eastern Pomnerania, and Heoden also may
have belonged to the same region. When these persons lived we
do not know; but such evidence as we have points to a period
anterior to the sixth century. There is nothing in the story to
justify the supposition that they are of mythical origin.
Here again, as in the case of Widsith, it is possible that a
poem has been built up round the memory of a famous minstrel,
-one who met with misfortune in later life. Yet we have
no knowledge of such a person from other sources, while the
statement given in the poem  itself as to its origin is quite
definite. If this statement is true, the poem must, of course, be
very ancient. But there seems to be no valid reason for disputing
its antiquity; for the four lines which show Christian influence
may very well be a later addition, while the supposed identity of
the exiled Theodric with Theodric the Ostrogoth must be regarded
as a somewhat doubtful hypothesis at the best.
The rest of the shorter poems contain no proper names. Their
subjects seem to be drawn rather from typical characters and
situations than from the experiences of historical or legendary
persons. They are of quite uncertain date, though, doubtless,
much later than the two poems we have just discussed. They
betray little or no trace of strophic form.
The Wanderer is a rather long elegy (115 lines), depicting
the sufferings of a man who has lost his lord. Alone and friendless,
he travels over the sea, seeking a home where he can find


1 Cf. Skaldskaparmdl, cap. 50, S&rla Thdttr, cap. 5 ff., Saxo, pp. 158 ff.




38             Early    National Poetry
protection. In sleep, visions of his former happiness come back
to him. When he awakes, his heart sinks at the sight of the
grey waves and the falling snow. Then he passes on to reflect
on the vicissitudes of human life and on the ruined castles which
may be seen in all directions, testifying to the destruction that
has overtaken their owners. The poem throws an interesting
light on the close nature of the relationship subsisting in early
times between lord and man. It has been suggested that
Cynewulf was the author; but this view is now generally abandoned. Indeed, the Christian element is slight and may be due
to later additions.
The Seafarer is a poem of about the same length as The
Wanderer and resembles it in several passages rather closely.
The sequence of thought, however, is much less clear. The poet
begins by reflecting on the miseries which he has endured when
travelling by sea in winter-miseries of which the landsman in
his comfortable castle knows nothing. Yet in 11. 33 ff. he says
that he has an irresistible impulse to try the seaman's life. He
who feels this desire cannot be deterred by any of the pleasures
of home, however fortunately circumstanced he may be. From
1. 64 onwards, he begins a comparison between the transitory
nature of earthly pleasures and the eternal rewards of religion,
concluding with an exhortation to his hearers to fix their hopes
on heaven.
In order to explain the apparent contradictions of the poem,
some scholars have proposed to take it as a dialogue between
an old seaman and a young man who wishes to try the seaman's
life; but there is a good deal of disagreement as to the distribution of the lines. The second half of the poem, with its religious
reflections, is believed by many to be a later addition. If that
be not the case, it is at least questionable whether we are justified in classing The Seafarer among national poems.
The Wife's Complaint is another poem which presents serious
difficulties owing to obscurity in the train of thought. Indeed,
in at least one passage the obscurity is so great that one can
hardly believe the text, as it stands, to be correct. The speaker
is a woman who bewails the ever increasing troubles with which
she is beset. First, her husband departed from her over the
sea. Then, apparently at the instigation of his relatives, she is
imprisoned in an old dwelling dug out of the earth, under an




The Husband's Message


39


oak, where she sits in solitude bewailing her troubles the whole
day long. She has no friends at hand, and all the vows of lasting
love which she and her husband had exchanged in time past
have come to nothing.
The Husband's Message, so far as it can be read, is a much
simpler poem; but, unfortunately, a number of letters have been
lost in 11. 2-6 and 32-40 owing to a large rent in the MS. The
poem is in the form of a speech addressed, apparently by means
of a staff inscribed with runic letters, to a woman of royal rank.
The speech is a message from the woman's husband (or possibly
lover), who has had to leave his country in consequence of a
vendetta. It is to the effect that he has succeeded in gaining for
himself a position of wealth and dignity in another land. He now
wishes to assure her that his devotion is unchanged, to remind
her of the vows they had made in times past and to ask her
to sail southwards to join him as soon as spring comes.
This is the gist of the poem as it appears in almost all editions.
It has recently been pointed out, however, that the seventeen
lines which immediately precede it in the MS and which have
generally been regarded as a riddle-unconnected with the poem
itself-seem really to form the beginning of the speech. In these
lines the object speaking states that once it grew by the seashore,
but that a knife and human skill have fitted it to give utterance
to a message which requires to be delivered privately.
Again, more than one scholar has remarked that the poem
looks very much like a sequel to The Wife's Complaint. Others
have denied the connection between the two poems on the ground
that in The Wife's Complaint, 1. 15, the lady's imprisonment is
attributed to the husband himself. But it should be observed
that this passage is scarcely intelligible in its present form and,
further, that it seems to conflict with what is said elsewhere in
the poem. On the whole the balance of probability seems to
me to be in favour of the connection.
The Ruin follows The Husband's Message in the Exeter
Book and suffers from the same rent. It differs, somewhat, in
character from the rest of these poems in that the misfortunes
which it tells of are those not of a person but of a place. First
the poet describes an ancient building, or rather group of
buildings, deserted, roofless and tottering.  Then he goes on to
reflect that these buildings were once richly adorned, full of




40


Early National Poetry


proud warriors and gay with feasting-until the day came when
their defenders were annihilated. As it is clearly stated that
the buildings were of stone, and stress is laid on the marvellous
skill shown in their construction, there can be little doubt that
the subject is drawn from one of the Roman cities or castles in
Britain. The reference to many banqueting halls in 1. 24 seems
to point to a place of considerable size; and, from the mention
of hot baths in 11. 39 ff., several scholars have inferred that Bath
is intended. But, unfortunately, so much of the text is lost that
the description cannot clearly be made out.
A brief reference should be added, in conclusion, to the few
traces that remain of the religious poetry of heathen times. The
higher forms of such poetry, such as the hymns used in royal
sanctuaries or at great popular festivals, have entirely perished.
The songs which have been preserved seem to be in the nature of
incantations for securing the fertility of the fields or for warding
off witchcraft, and even these are largely transformed through
Christian influence. Some of them occur in descriptions of the
magical ceremonies at which they were sung. We may notice
especially the verses used for the blessing of the plough when the
first furrow is drawn. They are addressed to "Erce, the mother
of the earth," and are in the form of a prayer that the Almighty
will grant her rich fields, full of barley and wheat. Then the earth
is greeted as "mother of mankind."  Other verses, less affected
by Christian ideas, speak of the shafts shot by female beings
(witches or valkyries) which ride through the air, and of the
means by which these shafts can be averted or expelled.
Another set of verses, in which the god Woden is mentioned,
describes the magic properties of nine herbs. It is probable that
all these songs, together with the descriptions of the ceremonies
accompanying them, were written down at a comparatively late
period when the heathen practices which survived among the
peasant r-apart from the more harmful species of magic-were
no longer regarded as dangerous.




CHAPTER IV


OLD ENGLISH CHRISTIAN POETRY
ONLY two names emerge from the anonymity which shrouds
the bulk of Old English Christian poetry, namely, those of
Caedmon and Cynewulf; and, in the past, practically all the
religious poetry we possess has been attributed to one or other
of these two poets. But, as we shall see, the majority of the
poems to be considered here should rather be regarded as the
work of singers whose names have perished, as folk-song, as
manifestations of the spirit of the people-in the same sense in
which the tale of Beowulf's adventures embodied the aspirations
of all valiant thegns, or the epic of Waldhere summarised the
popular ideals of love and honour. The subject of the Christian
epic is, indeed, for the most part, apparently, foreign and even,
at times, oriental: the heroes of the Old and New Testaments,
the saints as they live in the legends of the church, furnish the
theme. The method of treatment hardly differs, however, from
that followed in non-Christian poetry; the metrical form, with
rare exceptions, is the alliterative line, constructed on the same
principles as in Beowulf; Wyrd has become the spirit of Providence, Christ and His apostles have become English kings or
chiefs, followed, as in feudal duty bound, by hosts of clansmen;
the homage paid to the Divine Son is the allegiance due to
the scion of an Anglian king, comparable to that paid by Beowulf
to his liege lord Hygelac, or to that displayed by Byrhtnoth on
the banks of the Panta; the ideals of early English Christianity
do not differ essentially from those of English paganism. And yet
there is a difference.
The Christianity of England in the seventh and eighth
centuries, and the Latin influences brought in its wake, which
inspired the poetry under discussion, was a fusion, a commingling, of two different strains. Accustomed as we are to date
the introduction of Christianity into England from the mission
of St Augustine, we are apt to forget that, prior to the landing




42


Old English Christian Poetry


of the Roman missionary on the shores of Kent, Celtic missionaries
from the islands of the west had impressed upon the northern
kingdoms, the earliest home of literary culture in these islands,
a form of Christianity differing in many respects from the more
theological type preached and practised by St Augustine and his
followers. Oswald, the martyr king of Northumbria, had been
followed from Iona, where, in his youth, he had found sanctuary,
by Aidan, the apostle of the north, to whose missionary enterprise
was due the conversion of the rude north Anglian tribes. The
monastery at Streoneshalh, or Whitby, for ever famous as the
home of Caedmon, was ruled by the abbess Hild in accordance
with Celtic, not Roman, usage; and though, at the synod of
Whitby in 664, the unity of the church in England was assured
by the submission of the northern church to Roman rule, yet
the influence of Celtic Christianity may be traced in some of
the features that most characteristically distinguish Christian
from non-Christian poetry. It would, for instance, be hard to
deny that the depth of personal feeling expressed in a poem
like The Dream of the Rood, the joy in colour attested by the
vivid painting of blossom and leaf in The Phoenix and the
melancholy sense of kinship between the sorrow of the human
heart and the moaning of the grey cold waves that make The
Seafarer a human wail, are elements contributed to English
poetry by the Celts. St Columba had built his monastery on
the surf-beaten shores of the Atlantic, where man's dependence
on nature was an ever-present reality. The Celtic monastery was
the home of a brotherhood of priests, and the abbot was the father
of a family as well as its ecclesiastical superior. The Christian
virtues of humility and meekness, in which the emissaries of the
British church found Augustine so deficient, were valued in
Iona above orthodoxy and correctness of religious observance;
and the simplicity of ecclesiastical organisation characteristic of
Celtic Christianity, differing from the comparatively elaborate
nature of Roman organisation and ritual, produced a simple
form of Christianity, readily understood by the unlettered people
of the north. It is the personal relation of the soul to God the
Father, the humanity of Christ, the brotherhood of man, the
fellowship of saints, that the Celtic missionaries seem to have
preached to their converts; and these doctrines inspired the
choicest passages of Old English religious poetry, passages worthy
of comparison with some of the best work of a later, more selfconscious and introspective age.




Changes wrought b            Christianity        43
This subjectivity is a new feature in English literature; for
non-Christian English poetry is sternly epic. Beowulf is a tale of
brave deeds nobly done, with but few reflections concerning them.
At rare intervals, scattered here and there throughout the poem, we
meet with some touch of sentiment, a foreboding of evil to come, a
few words on the inexorable character of fate, an exhortation to
do great deeds so that in Walhalla the chosen warrior may fare
the better, occasionally a half-Christian reference to an all-ruling
Father (probably the addition of a later and Christian hand);
but, as a rule, no introspection checks the even flow of narrative:
arma virumque cano. When Christianity became the source
of poetic inspiration, we find the purely epic character of a poem
modified by the introduction of a lyric element. The hero no
longer aspires to win gold from an earthly king; his prize is a
heavenly crown, to be won, it may even be, in spiritual conflict;
the glories of life on earth are transitory; earthly valour cannot
atone for the stains of sin upon the soul; the beauty of nature,
in her fairest aspects, cannot compare with the radiance of a
better land; the terror that lurks waiting for the evil-doer upon
earth fades away at the contemplation of that day of wrath and
mourning when the Judge of all the earth shall deal to every
man according to his deeds. The early Christian poet does not
sing of earthly love; we have no erotic poetry in pre-Conquest
England; but the sentiment that gives life to the poetry of Dante
and Milton is not absent from the best of our early poets' attempts
at religious self-expression.
Beyond the fact that his name seems to imply that he was of
Celtic descent, we have no knowledge of the historical Caedmon
other than that to be derived from the often-quoted passage in
Bede:
In the monastery of this abbess (i.e. the abbess Hild at Streoneshalh)
there was a certain brother specially distinguished and honoured by divine
grace, for he was wont to make songs such as tended to religion and piety.
Whatsoever he had learned from scholars concerning the Scriptures he
forthwith decked out in poetic language with the greatest sweetness and
fervour.... Many others, also, in England, imitated him in the composition of
religious songs. He had not, indeed, been taught of men, or through men, to
practise the art of song, but he had received divine aid, and his power of song
was the gift of God. Wherefore he could never compose any idle or false
song, but only those which pertained to religion and which his pious tongue
might fitly sing. The man had lived in the world till the time that he
was of advanced age, and had never learnt any poetry. And as he was
often at a feast when it was arranged, to promote mirth, that they should
all in turn sing to the harp, whenever he saw the harp come near him he
arose out of shame from the feast and went home to his house. Having




44          Old English Christian Poetry
done so on one occasion, he left the house of entertainment, and went out
to the stables, the charge of the horses having been committed to him for
that night. When, in due time, he stretched his limbs on the bed there and
fell asleep, there stood by him in a dream a man who saluted him and
greeted him, calling on him by name: "Caedmon, sing me something."
Then he answered and said: "I cannot sing anything, and therefore I
came out from this entertainment and retired here, as I know not how to sing."
Again he who spoke to him said: " Yet you could sing." Then said Caedmon:
"What shall I sing? " He said: " Sing to me the beginning of all things." On
receiving this answer, Caedmon at once began to sing, in praise of God the
Creator, verses and words which he had never heard, the order of which
is as follows [quorum iste est sensus]: "Now let us praise the guardian of
the heavenly kingdom, the power of the Creator and the counsel of His
mind, the works of the Father of glory; how He, the eternal Lord, originated
every marvel. He, the holy Creator, first created the heaven as a roof for
the children of the earth; then the eternal Lord, guardian of the human
race, the almighty Ruler, afterwards fashioned the world as a soil for men."
Then he arose from his sleep, and he had firmly in his memory all that he
sang while asleep. And to these words he soon added many others, in the
same style of song, worthy of God. Book Iv, ch. 24. (Trans. Miller.)
Bede goes on to narrate how, the matter having been made
known to the abbess, she caused the best scholars to test the
new poet's powers, and how, when it was proved that a divine
gift had, indeed, been bestowed upon the neat-herd, she urged
him to abandon his worldly calling and to become a monk.
Which thing he did, and, progressing in his new vocation,
all that he could learn by listening he pondered in his heart and, ruminating
like some clean beast, he turned it into the sweetest of songs. His song and
his music were so delightful to hear, that even his teachers wrote down
the words from his lips and learnt them. He sang first of the earth's creation
and the beginning of man and all the story of Genesis, which is the first book
of Moses; and afterwards about the departure of the people of Israel from
the land of Egypt and their entry into the land of promise; and about
many other narratives in the books of the canon of Scripture; and about
Christ's incarnation and His passion and His ascension into heaven; and
about the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the apostles;
and again about the day of judgment to come, and about the terror of
hell torment, and about the kingdom of heaven, he composed many a
song. And he also composed many others about the divine blessings and
judgments.
While making due allowance for a possible desire on Bede's part
to extol the fame of an earlier contemporary-Bede himself
died in 735-we should remember that Bede is one of the most
careful and trustworthy of historians, and that he lived not far
from  the scene of Caedmon's life; it would, therefore, appear
that we have not sufficient reason for rejecting as untrue the
enumeration of Caedmon's literary achievements as given in the
above passage.




Caedmon's Hymn


45


The hymn was first published in its Northumbrian form' by
Wanley, in his Catalogus historico-criticus (1705), p. 287, as
canticum  illud Saxonicum  Caedmonis a Baeda memoratum;
and, from that. day to this, it has been regarded by the majority
of scholars as the genuine work of Caedmon.
Bede gives a Latin version of the lines, which corresponds very
closely to the original, but which he introduces thus: Caedmon
coepit cantare...versus quorum iste est sensus; and, in conclusion,
he reiterates: Hic est sensus, non autem ordo ipse verborum,
as if he had given a merely approximate rendering of his original.
Much discussion has hinged upon the exact meaning to be
attached to the words sensus and ordo, though Bede is evidently
alluding merely to the difficulty of reproducing poetry in prose,
for he continues: neque enim possunt carmina, quamvis optime
composita, ex alia in aliam linguam ad verbum sine detrimento
sui decoris ac dignitatis transferri. The West Saxon version
of the lines is preserved in the English translation of Bede's
Ecclesiastical History2, with the introductory comment: "Jara
endebyrdnis Pis is." Now  "endebyrdnis" simply means ordo,
and it may be safe to assume that both Bede's Latin version and
the West Saxon version are attempts at translation from the
original Northumbrian.
Bede's detailed enumeration of Caedmon's other achievements
must be held responsible for the attribution to Caedmon of a large
number of religious poems of a similar character, extant only in
West Saxon form, in the Bodl. MS, Junius xi, an opinion which,
in the light of modern critical scholarship, is no longer tenable.
Indeed, no one would to-day seriously maintain even that these
poems are all by one author; it is more likely, as we shall see,
that more than one writer has had a hand in each. But the
fact that it is impossible to claim these particular poems for
Caedmon does not militate against the probability of his having
composed similar, though, perhaps, shorter pieces, which may have
been worked upon later by more scholarly hands. Religious
poetry, sung to the harp as it passed from hand to hand, must
have flourished in the monastery of the abbess Hild, and the
kernel of Bede's story concerning the birth of our earliest poet
must be that the brethren and sisters on that bleak northern
shore spoke "to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs."
1 See Cambridge Univ. MS. Lib. Kk, 5, 16, Fol. 128.
2 Cf. post, Chapter vI.




46


Old English Christian Poetry


The most important of the religious poems at one time
attributed to Caedmon are Genesis, Exodus, Daniel.
From the point of view of the historian of literature, Genesis
is the most interesting of these. It is a poetical paraphrase of
the first of the canonical books in the Old Testament, extending
to the story of the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. The poem
opens with the praise of the Creator in a style recalling the
lines quoted by Bede. The poet then proceeds to relate the revolt
and fall of the angels (which, according to ancient theology,
necessitated the creation of man to fill the vacant place in
heaven), and then the creation of the earth, in accordance with
the opening chapters of the Vldgate. At this point we have a
repetition of the first motif, the fall of the angels; Satan, in
anger at having fallen from his high estate, avenges himself on
God by tempting man; and the rest of the narrative proceeds
in accordance with the Biblical narrative.
Attention had been drawn to metrical and linguistic peculiarities
distinguishing the second version (Genesis B) of the fall of the
angels and the temptation (11. 235-851) from  the rest of
the poem; but it remained for Sievers to point out that this
obviously interpolated passage was borrowed from a foreign
source, that the structure of the alliterative lines resembled
that in vogue amongst continental Saxons and that the vocabulary and syntax were now and again Old Saxon, not English.
Relying upon the accuracy of his observation in detail, he then
hazarded the bold conjecture that these lines were an Anglicised
version of a portion of an Old Saxon paraphrase of the Old
Testament, long lost, composed by the author of the Old Saxon
paraphrase of the New Testament, commonly known as the
Heliand. This brilliant conjecture has since been confirmed
by the discovery in the Vatican library of portions of the Old
Saxon original, which dates from the latter portion of the ninth
century'. One of the Old Saxon fragments so found corresponded
to a passage in the Old English Genesis. Caedmonian authorship
is, therefore, rendered impossible for the interpolation, and the
scholarship of the author seems to preclude the-possibility that an
unlearned man was the author of the rest of the poem, though
Caedmon's hymns may have been familiar to, and used by, the
writer. It matters little whether we assume the interpolated
passage to be the work of an Old Saxon monk resident in


1 Cf. the Latin Praefatio prefixed to the Heliand.




Genesis


47


England, but unable to dissociate himself entirely from native
habits of speech, or whether we look upon it as a somewhat
imperfect translation from Old Saxon by some Old English monk
whom professional duties-we need only think of Boniface-had
brought into contact with the learning and literature of the
continent. At any rate it is an early, and a pleasing, instance
of the fruitful exchange of literary ideas between two great
nations.
The relative age of the two poems is a matter still under
discussion. Genesis B cannot have been composed earlier than
the second half of the ninth century, since we know that the author
of the IHeliand, upon whose work it is based, wrote in response to
a command from king Lewis the Pious; but we have hardly any
data for determining whether it is earlier or later in date of
composition than Genesis A. Its author, like the author of the
Heliand, apparently made use of the works of bishop Avitus of
Vienne, the medieval Latin poet.
Genesis A contains not a few passages illustrative of that
blending of heathen and Christian elements which is characteristic
of Old English religious poetry. The description of Old Testament
fights shows that the spirit of the author of the Battle of Finnsburh is to be found beneath the veneer of Christianity. And,
on the other hand, the description of the dove, seeking rest
and finding none, could only be the work of a Christian poet.
The tenderness of feeling for the dumb creation, and the joy in
" rest after toil" which it expresses, are due to Christian influences
upon the imaginative powers of an Old English scop.
Genesis B contains some fine poetic passages. The character
of Satan is admirably conceived, and the familiar theme of a
lost paradise is set forth in dignified and dramatic language
not unworthy of the height of its great argument. In the
dark regions and "swart mists" of Hell, Satan and his host,
swept thither by the Lord of Heaven himself, indulge in a
joy that is purely heathen, in contemplating the vengeance
to be taken on the race that has supplanted them in the favour
of God'.
Exodus is a paraphrase of a portion only of the book from
which it takes its name, i.e. the passage of the Israelites through
the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptians. Part of the
1 For a discussion of the possible relation between the Satan of Genesis B and the
Satan of Paradise Lost, cf. Stopford Brooke, Early English Literature, vol. 11,
pp. 101 ff. and Morley, English Writers, vol. iI, p. 109.




48


Old English Christian Poetry


poemS, in which the ancestors of the Israelites are enumerated and
described, is, possibly, the work of a second poet, as it is simpler
in style than the body of the poem, and the theme is not entirely
relevant; there is certainly a break after 1. 445. The distinctive
feature of the poem is the beauty and vigour with which martial
scenes are depicted. Here again, the feeling of the old epic
writers, under another guise, is clearly apparent. Not even in
Judith or The Battle of Maldon do we find more successful
attempts in dramatic grouping; the din and clash of battle, though
no actual battle is described, the war-wolf and the raven greedy
for prey, the heaving of the shields, the brandishing of battle-bills,
recall the martial tone of the best war-poetry of our battle-loving
ancestors. The author of Genesis A writes as though afraid to
depart even from the wording of his original; the author of
Exodus, possessed by the lust for word-painting, draws upon an
exuberant imagination steeped in reminiscences of brave blows
and doughty deeds, not even nominally Christian.
The poem   entitled Daniel need not detain us. After a
historical introduction, for which the poet is not indebted to his
source, he versifies selected portions of the book of Daniel. The
poem has one new feature. The author uses his material for
homiletic purposes and inculcates certain moral virtues: for
instance, the duty of humility and obedience to the will of God.
Daniel is transmitted in the Junian codex. A portion of the
subject, dealing with the episode of the three children in the fiery
furnace, is transmitted also in the Exeter Book, in a short poem of
75 lines called Azarias, in which are the beautiful lines descriptive
of the change wrought by the appearance of the angel of the Lord:
Then 'twas in the oven when the angel came,
Windy cool and winsome, to the weather likest
When is sent to earth in the summer tide,
Dropping down of dew-rain at the dawn of day3.
Three minor poems, originally thought to be one, and by
Grein called Crist and Satan, should be mentioned here,
since, by reason of their being transmitted in the codex MS
Bodl. xi, they, together with the three more important poems
just discussed, have been attributed to Caedmon. The first of
them deals with the subject of the Fall of the Angels, the second
with Christ's Harrowing of Hell and His resurrection, together
with a brief account of His ascension and coming to judgment,


1 L1. 362-445.


2 Up to chapter v, 22.
3 Stopford Brooke's version.




Cynewulf


49


the third with Christ's Temptation. Only the first is complete.
All three, probably, belong to the end of the ninth century and
all have a homiletic tendency. The second has been compared
with the Crist of Cynewulf, with which it is linked by virtue of
theme as well as by style. The description of the last judgment
suggests the more impressive picture of that event contained
in Crist, and the Harrowing of Hell recalls, and can sustain
comparison with, examples of later more elaborate treatment of
the same subject. By their religious fervour, and by their apparently ruder form, it is possible that these poems are nearer to
the original body of Caedmon's work than the poems previously
discussed.
The finest of all the poems erroneously attributed to Caedmon
is the fragment entitled Judith. As there seems to be ground
for supposing that this beautiful fragment, worthy of the skill
of a scop whose Christianity had not sufficed to quell his martial
instincts, his pride in battle and his manly prowess, is of later
date than has been thought by certain historians, it is dealt with
in a later chapter of the present volume.
Turning to Cynewulf and the poems that may be, or have
been, attributed to him, we are on somewhat safer ground. The
personality of the poet is, indeed, wrapped in an obscurity
hardly less deep than that which hides Caedmon. The only
truth at which we can arrive concerning him is that he must be
the author of four well-known poems, since he marked them as
his own by the insertion of his signature in runes. Conjecture
has been busy to prove that he may have been identical with
a certain abbot of Peterborough, who lived about the year 1000.
But this hypothesis has ceased to be tenable since we know that
the West Saxon transcript of his poems, the only form in which
the accredited ones are preserved, cannot be the original; moreover, the abbot invariably spelt his name Cinwulf. Equally
impossible is the theory that he was Cynewulf, bishop of
Lindisfarne, who died in 781 or 783.   The latter lived in
troublous times, and nothing we know of his life agrees with
inferences we may reasonably draw    from  autobiographical
allusions in Cynewulf's poems. A theory that the author was
certainly of Northumbrian origin was, in the first instance, based
upon an erroneous interpretation of the first riddle in a collection of Old English Riddles long attributed to him. Dietrich
gave the solution as Coenwulf, the supposed Northumbrian
form of the name Cynewulf. But, apart from the fact that


E. L. I.      CH. IV.


4




50


Old English Christian Poetry


syllabic riddles are not known in Old English literature, we
must remember that, on the four occasions when the poet
spelt his own name, he used one or other of two forms, i.e.
Cynewulf or Cynwulf. Both these forms must go back to an
older one in which the medial e appeared as i. In Northumbria,
this medial i became e, roughly speaking, about 800; in Mercia
the transition was practically accomplished by 750. This fact
lends colour to the hypothesis of Wiilker that Cynewulf was a
Mercian, a theory which A. S. Cook has adopted in support of a
conjecture of his own, namely, that the poet was a certain
Cynulf, an ecclesiastic who was present, as his signature to a
decree proves, at a synod held at Clovesho in 803. The synod
was an important one, in so far as at it the archbishop of
Canterbury was recognised as primate of the English church.
Cynulf's signature, following close upon that of the bishop of
Dunwich, leads A. S. Cook to the further assumption that he
was a priest in the diocese of Dunwich, where he would have
ample opportunity for studying those sea-effects, the description
of which is so characteristic of his poetry. Whether or not
Cynewulf is to be identified with this ecclesiastic, there is no
doubt that the assumption of Mercian origin would do away
with one or two difficulties which the assumption of Northumbrian
origin in the narrower sense leaves unsolved. During the latter
half of the eighth century, Northumbria was, politically, too
troubled to be a "kindly nurse" of letters, though, on the other
hand, it might be asserted that the political unrest of Northumbria
may be reflected in the melancholy nature and "autumnal grace"
of Cynewulf's poetry. Again, though there is no doubt that a Mercian
origin would facilitate the transcription of the poems into West
Saxon, yet we have West Saxon transcripts of other originally
Northumbrian poems, a fact which affects the value of geographical
arguments of this nature.
The most valid, albeit negative, argument against narrowing
the term Northumbrian to mean simply non-West Saxon, hence,
possibly, Mercian, is that we have no definite evidence for the
existence of a Mercian school of poetry, such as the development
of a poet like Cynewulf seems to postulate. His undisputed work
is of too mature a character to seem to be the spontaneous product
of a self-made singer, unfostered by literary society. Moreover,
he excels more especially in descriptions of the sea and the seacoast, a point in which a dweller inland might easily have been
deficient. Notable in this respect are Elene, which we know to be




His Personai/ty


5


his, and Andreas which is very possibly his. The following lines,
for instance, must, surely, be the work of one whose daily life had
been spent in contact with the sea:
Over the sea -muarges
Hourly urged they on...the wave-riding horses.
Then they let o'er Fifel's wave foaming stride along
Steep-stemmed rushers of the sea. Oft withstood the bulwark,
O'er the surging of the waters, swinging strokes of waves.
Further, assuming Guthlac B to be by Cynewulf2, we may note
the fact that the fen-journey of the original has been transformed
into a sea-voyage, and this would appear to tell against an East
Anglian authorship.
The final result of much discussion seems to resolve itself
into this: that Cynewulf was not a West Saxon, but, probably,
a Northumbrian, though Mercian origin is not impossible; and
that he wrote towards the end of the eighth century. This latter
point will find further support when we proceed to discuss the
individual poems.
We know nothing else concerning Cynewulf with any degree of
certainty. We infer from the nature of his poetry that he was of
a deeply religious nature, but it is hazardous to deduce the
character of a poet from his apparently subjective work; we
learn that he lived to an old age, which he felt to be a burden;
that, at some time of his life, he had known the favour of
princes and enjoyed the gifts of kings; he must have been the
thegn or scop of some great lord, and not merely an itinerant
singer or gleeman, as some critics have held. He was a man
of learning, certainly a good Latin scholar, for some of his work
is based upon Latin originals.  Critics are not agreed as to
the period of life in which he occupied himself with the composition of religious poetry, nor as to the chronological order of his
works. Some scholars assume that, after leading until old age the
life of a man of the world, and attaining some distinction as an
author of secular poetry-of which, by the way, if the Riddles are
rejected, we have no trace-he became converted by the vision
described in The Dream of the Rood, and devoted himself ever
afterwards to religious poetry, the last consummate effort of his
poetic powers being Elene. There are two drawbacks to this
theory, the first being that we cannot base biographical deductions
with any certainty upon a poem like The Dream of the Rood, which
we have no historical grounds for claiming as Cynewulf's; the
1 Stopford Brooke's version.    2 See p. 58.
4-2




52


Old English Christian Poetry


second, that it is difficult to assume that a man advanced in years
could have composed so large a quantity of religious poetry as,
even after the most rigid exclusion of the unlikely, we are compelled to attribute to him. Other critics hold that The Dream of
the Rood was followed immediately by Elene, and that all other
Cynewulfian poems were written later. If that be so, the poet's
art must have undergone very rapid deterioration, for all the other
poems attributed to him are inferior to Elene and The Dream.
The poems marked as Cynewulf's own by the insertion of runes
are Crist, Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles and Elene. Crist is
the first poem in the codex known as the Exeter Book, a manuscript
preserved in the cathedral library at Exeter. The first eight pages,
and, consequently, the opening portion of Crist, are missing. The
manuscript probably dates from the eleventh century and is,
apparently, written throughout by one and the same hand.
Juliana is contained in the same book, and, of other poems
attributed to Cynewulf, and certainly belonging to his school,
Guthlac, Azarias and The Phoenix will be mentioned below.
Crist falls into three clearly defined parts, the first dealing with
the advent of Christ on earth, the second with His ascension, the
third with His second advent to judge the world. The second part
contains Cynewulf's signature in runes'. The unity of the poem
has not remained unquestioned. Scholars have brought forward
linguistic and metrical arguments to prove that we are dealing not
with one but with three poems; that source, theme and treatment differ so greatly as to render the assumption of a common
authorship for all three incredible, and to reduce us to the necessity
of denying authorship by Cynewulf to any but the second part,
which is signed by him. Almost the best argument brought forward
by these iconoclastic critics is the undoubted fact that Cynewulf's
signature occurs, as a rule, near the conclusion of a poem, not
in the middle, and that it does so occur towards the end of the
second part. A further valid argument against the unity of the
poem might be derived from the theme of the second part.
This deals with Christ's reception in Heaven after His sojourn on
earth, and only by some stretch of imagination can the event be
looked upon as parallel to His twofold coming on earth. Yet
critics have discovered a link with the first part in a passage
definitely referring to Christ's first advent2, and the references to
the last judgment in the runic passage have been regarded as an


L1. 797 ff.


2 L1. 586-599.




Crist


53


anticipation of the third part. The question is a nice one and is
not, at present, capable of solution. If we assume the unity of the
poem, Cynewulf is, undoubtedly, the author; if we deny it, we are
confronted with the further difficulty of determining the authorship
of the first and third parts. From  a literary point of view,
Crist is, perhaps, the most interesting of Cynewulf's poems. It
illustrates fully the influence of Latin Christianity upon English
thought. The subject is derived from Latin homilies and hymns:
part i, the advent of Christ, seems to be largely based upon the
Roman Breviary, part II upon the ascension sermon of pope
Gregory, part iii upon an alphabetic Latin hymn on the last
judgment, quoted by Bede in De Arte Metrica. In addition, the
Gospel of St Matthew and Gregory's tenth homily have furnished
suggestions. Yet the poet is no mere versifier of Latin theology.
We are confronted, for the first time in English literature, with
the product of an original mind. The author has transmuted the
material derived from his sources into the passionate out-pourings
of personal religious feeling. The doctrines interspersed are, of
course, medieval in tone: one of the three signs by which the
blessed shall realise their possession of God's favour is the joy they
will derive from the contemplation of the sufferings of the damned.
But, for the most part, the poem is a series of choric hymns of
praise, of imaginative passages descriptive of visions not less
sublime than that of The Dream of the Rood.
Crist is followed immediately in the Exeter Book by the poem
entitled Juliana. This is an Old English version of the Acta S.
Julianae virginis martyris. The proof of Cynewulfian authorship
lies, as has already been said, in the insertion of his name in runes.
The martyr is supposed to have lived about the time of the emperor
Maximian. She, of course, successfully overcomes all the minor
temptations with which she is confronted, including an offer of
marriage with a pagan, and, finally, having routed the devil in
person, endures martyrdom by the sword.
Equally insignificant considered as poetry, but of the utmost
importance as a link in a chain of literary evidence, are the lines
known as The Fates of the Apostles. The title sufficiently indicates
the contents. The poem is preserved in the Vercelli Book, a codex
containing both verse and prose, and, for some unknown reason, in
the possession of the chapter of Vercelli, north Italy. The first
ninety-five lines, which follow immediately after the poem called
Andreas, occupy fol. 52 b-53 b. They were considered an anonymous fragment until Napier discovered that a set of verses on




54


Old English Christian Poetry


fol. 54 a, which had hitherto been assumed to have no connection
with the lines preceding them, were, in reality, a continuation of
the lines on fol. 53, and that they contained the name of Cynewulf
in runes. The authenticity of Fata Apostolorum was, thereby,
raised above dispute; but the gain to Cynewulf's literary reputation
was not great.
Yet critics, anxious to vindicate the claim of our greatest preConquest poet to whatever poetry may seem worthy of him, have
tried to twist the occurrence of Cynewulf's signature in The Fates
of the Apostles into an additional plea in favour of his authorship
of Andreas, the poem immediately preceding it in the Vercelli
Book. This poem deals with the missionary labours of St Andrew,
and is based, probably, upon a lost Latin version of a Greek original
(in Paris), the Hpade$ 'AvSpeov Kca MaTOaiov. St Andrew is commanded by God to go to the assistance of St Matthew, who is in
danger of death at the hands of the Mermedonians, cannibal
Ethiopians. He sets out in a boat manned by our Lord and two
angels. Having landed safely, he becomes of great spiritual comfort
to the captive, but is himself taken prisoner and tortured. He delivers himself and converts the Mermedonians by working a miracle.
The distinguishing feature of the poem, which links it with
passages in Beowulf and The Seafarer, is the skill with which
its author gives expression to his passion for the sea. Andreas
is a romance of the sea. Nowhere else are to be found such
superb descriptions of the raging storm, of the successful struggle
of man with the powers of the deep. It illustrates, moreover, in
an unusual degree, the blending of the old spirit with the new.
St Andrew, though professedly a Christian saint, is, in reality, a
viking, though crusader in name he is more truly a seafarer on
adventure bent. The Christ he serves is an aetheling, the apostles
are folctogan-captains of the people-and temporal victory, not
merely spiritual triumph, is the goal.
Could it be proved that The Fates of the Apostles is merely an
epilogue to the longer poem preceding it, the adventures of one of
the twelve being related in greater detail than is vouchsafed to them
treated collectively, we should be enabled to attribute with greater
certainty than is otherwise possible the poem of Andreas to
Cynewulf, an author of whom, on aesthetic grounds, it is not
unworthy. Its authenticity would then be vouched for by
the runic signature contained in the shorter poem. This hypothesis is, however, more ingenious than convincing. The poem
Andreas, as it stands, lacks, indeed, as definite a conclusion as many




Elene


55


other poems possess; there is, for instance, no finit or "amen"
to denote the end, but, unfortunately for the inventors of the
hypothesis, The Fates of the Apostles does not lack a beginning;
nor are St Andrew's labours omitted from the general review of the
good works done by the twelve, which might possibly have been
expected had the author of The Fates of the Apostles also been
the author of the longer history of St Andrew. There is more
ground for accepting a theory originated by Sievers with regard
to the last sixteen lines of the fragment containing Cynewulf's signature, discovered by Napier. In the opinion of Sievers these sixteen
lines would not only be an inordinately lengthy conclusion to
so short a poem as The Fates, but they are superfluous in so far
as they are a mere repetition of the lines which had preceded
the runic passage. He would, therefore, wish to see in them the
conclusion of some lost poem of Cynewulf, and only accidentally
attached to The Fates of the Apostles. Upholders of the theory
of the Cynewulfian authorship of Andreas might be able to
claim them as the missing conclusion to that poem, and the fact
of their being attached to a piece of undoubtedly Cynewulfian work
might strengthen the attribution of Andreas to our poet. But,
after fully weighing the arguments on either side, we must confess
that the evidence so far forthcoming does not suffice for a satisfactory solution of the question.
Elene is, undoubtedly, Cynewulf's masterpiece. The subject is
contained in the Acta Sanetorum of 3 May. Grimm also referred
to the same subject as occurring in the Legenda aurea of Jacobus
a Voragine. It is impossible to decide whether the legend first
reached England in a Latin or in an older Greek form. The story is
that of the discovery of the true cross by Helena, the mother of the
emperor Constantine. The search carried to so successful a conclusion was instituted by the emperor in consequence of the famous
vision, the sign of a cross in the sky bearing the inscription in hoc
signo vinces. Much history hangs upon this tale. Its immediate
importance for us is that the conversion of the emperor by this
means became the starting-point for the adoration of the cross: the
symbol which had hitherto been one of ignominy became one of
triumph and glory. The festival of the exaltation of the cross was
established in the western church in 701, in consequence of the
supposed discovery in Rome of a particle of the true cross. This
event is duly recorded by Bede in De sex aetatibus saeculi,
the news having, no doubt, been brought to England by abbot
Ceolfrid, who was in Rome at the time. At any rate, if this event




56         Old   English     Christian     Poetry
be considered too remote to have influenced Cynewulf's choice of
a subject, we may remember that he probably lived through a
part of the iconoclastic controversy which raged from 726 to 842,
and which contributed perhaps more than anything else to an
increased veneration of the cross. Indeed, the poetry of the cross
in England has been regarded as the first-fruit of the impetus given
to its worship by the condemnation of the worship of all other
symbols. The two festivals of the cross, the invention on 3 May
and the exaltation on 14 September, were both observed in the
old English church.
Cynewulf's poem on Helena's search for the true cross is
contained in fourteen cantos or "fitts."  It is written in a simple,
dramatic style, interspersed with imaginative and descriptive passages of great beauty. The glamour and pomp of war, the gleam of
jewels, the joy of ships dancing on the waves, give life and colour
to a narrative permeated by the deep and serious purpose of the
author. The fifteenth fitt, superfluous from the point of view of
the story, is valuable as documentary evidence bearing on the
poet's personality. It contains not only his signature in runes, but
is a "fragment of a great confession," unveiling to us the manner
of the man to whom the cross became salvation.
"I am old," he says, "and ready to depart, having woven wordcraft
and pondered deeply in the darkness of the world. Once I was gay in
the hall and received gifts, appled gold and treasures. Yet was I buffeted
with care, fettered by sins, beset with sorrows, until the Lord of all might
and power bestowed on me grace and revealed to me the mystery of the
holy cross. Now know I that the joys of life are fleeting, and that the
Judge of all the world is at hand to deal to every man his doom."
Two useful deductions may be made from this passage. In the
first place, the poet was evidently advanced in age when he composed this poem, a point already alluded to; in the second, he
ascribes his conversion to a true understanding of the cross. In
other poems, notably Crist, Cynewulf reveals an almost equal
veneration for the symbol of man's redemption.
But the poem which, above all others, betrays the spirit of
tender yet passionate veneration, of awe and adoration for "the
wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died," is The Dream
of the Rood. It is transmitted to us in a West Saxon form in the
Vercelli Book, and portions of it are to be found carved in runes
on the Ruthwell cross in Dumfriesshire1. The poem is now
1 In addition, there is cut upon the cross an inscription which was interpreted to
mean "Caedmon made me," and, upon this supposed signature, was based the
attribution of The Dream of the Rood to Caedmon. The inscription, if decipherable at




The Dream of the Rood


57


claimed as Cynewulf's by probably the majority of English scholars,
though it is possible that he worked on older material. At the
same time, we have none but aesthetic evidence to go upon.
A resemblance has been fancied or detected between the reference
to the cross in the concluding portion of Elene discussed above
and the subject and treatment of this poem. It would be possible
to overrate the value of this coincidence. References to the
cross are frequent in both prose and verse. They need prove
nothing beyond the undoubtedly early custom of the adoration.
At the same time, the two poems have much in common: the
character of the intimate self-revelation contained in each, the
elegiac tone of the reflections on the transitoriness of the world
and the sinfulness of man, the phraseology and syntactical
structure are alike to a degree which makes the Cynewulfian
authorship of both more than probable. The Dream of the Rood
is the choicest blossom of Old English Christian poetry; religious
feeling has never been more exquisitely clothed than in these one
hundred and forty lines of alliterative verse. It is full of imaginative power and enters deeply into the mysteries of sin and of
sorrow. We have no other instance of a dream-poem in preConquest England, though Bede relates several visions. The poet
dreamt a dream and in it saw the holy rood decked with gems and
shining gloriously. Angels guarded it, and, at its sight, the singer
was afeared, for he was stained with guilt. As he watched, the
tree changed colour; anon it was adorned with treasure, anon
stained with gore; and, as he watched, it spoke, and told the story
of the crucifixion, the descent from the cross, the resurrection.
This conception of the cross as being gifted with power of speech
lends a singular charm to the poem. The address is followed by
the poet's reflection on what he has seen: the cross shall be
henceforth his confidence and help. The concluding ten lines of
the poem seem superfluous and are possibly a later accretion. The
theme concludes with line 146. The characteristic opening of the
all, may have been the sculptor's autograph. In no case could it, apparently, be a
reference to the poet Caedmon, for the language of the poem on the Ruthwell cross is
younger than that of the MS poem, possibly of the tenth century. The decoration of
the cross, also, is thought to be too elaborate and ornate for eighth century work and
can hardly be dated much earlier than the tenth century. See Chapter iI ante and the
bibliography to that chapter, especially the writings of Vietor and A. S. Cook, The
Dream of the Rood.
A somewhat similar, though very short, example of an inscription in the first
person is preserved on a cross at Brussels:Rod is min nama: 3eo ic ricne cynin3
baer byfi3ende, blode bestemed.




58


Old English Christian Poetry


poem may be noted. As in Beowudf, Andreas, Exodus and other
poems the singer arrests the attention of his hearers by the
exclamation: " Hwaet! "= Lo, comparable to the " Listneth, lordings" of the later minstrels. The device must have been a common
one in days when the harp was struck at festive gatherings and
the scop urged his claim to a hearing by a preliminary chord.
We must pass on to other poems that have, with more or less
show of reason, been attributed to Cynewulf. Of these, the longest
is the life of the Mercian saint Guthlac. It falls into two parts,
the first, apparently, having been composed during the lifetime of
the anchorite who is the subject of the poem, the second being
based upon the Latin Vita by Felix of Croyland. The main
question that has been discussed has been whether both parts
are by one and the same author or not, and whether Cynewulf
can lay claim to one or both parts. If only one part can be attributed to him it should be part ii (Guthlac B). Since the conclusion
to this part is missing, it may, conceivably, have contained Cynewulf's signature in runes. There is no gap in the MS between the
conclusion of Crist and the beginning of Guthlac, and Gollancz
has assumed that the passage commonly read as the conclusion of
Crist (11. 1666-1694) really forms the introduction to Guthlac.
These lines are, no doubt, superfluous as regards Crist, but they
are yet more unsuitable considered as an introduction to Guthlac,
which begins, quite appropriately, with a common epic formula
"Mon3e sindon" (cf. the opening of The Phoenix). It would be
better to assume them to be a fragment of some independent poem
on the joys of the blessed.
The death of Guthlac is related in lines full of strength and
beauty. The writer has entered into the spirit of the last great
struggle with the powers of darkness and death, even as Bunyan
did when he related the passage of Christian through the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. The wondrous light that shines over
Guthlac's hut before he dies irresistibly recalls the waving lights
in the sky familiar to every northerner and, when we read that,
at the saint's entry into the heavenly mansions, the whole land of
England trembled with rapture, we feel that, whether Cynewulf
wrote the poem or not, we are in the presence of a poet who does
not lack imaginative power of a high order.
The Phoenix has been attributed to Cynewulf by a large
number of competent critics. The first portion of it is based
upon a Latin poem attributed to Lactantius, and there is some
ground for assuming Cynewulf's acquaintance with that Latin




The Phoenix


59


author, since a copy of the book was contained in Alcuin's library
at York, and Cynewulf may very well have been a scholar in the
school at York1. The second part of the poem, the allegorical
application of the myth to Christ, is based on the writings of
Ambrose and Bede. The characteristic feature of the poem is its
love of colour and wealth of gorgeous descriptive epithets.
Especially noteworthy, in this respect, is the description of the
land where the phoenix dwells:
Winsome is the wold there; there the wealds are green,
Spacious spread below the skies; there may neither snow nor rain,
Nor the furious air of frost, nor the flare of fire,
Nor the headlong squall of hail, nor the hoar-frost's fall,
Nor the burning of the sun, nor the bitter cold,
Nor the weather over-warm, nor the winter shower,
Do their wrong to any wight-but the wold abides
Ever happy, healthful there2.
This passage illustrates not only the feeling of English poets
towards nature, but also the development that took place in
consequence of the influence of Latin letters. The Northumbrian
poets were not unskilled in the depiction of scenes with which
they were familiar; but in The Phoenix we have, for the first time,
a poet attempting, under literary influence, and with an obviously
conscious striving after artistic effect, to paint an ideal landscape,
the beauty and gentleness of summer climes, the wealth of tropical
nature, the balminess of a softer air, where there shall be no more,
or only a sun-lit, sea, unlike the sullen gloom of the northern
waters.
The conclusion of the poem is of an unusual kind. It consists
of eleven lines in a mixture of English and Latin, the first half of
each line being English, the second half Latin, the Latin alliterating
with the English.
Portions of an Old English Physiologus have also been attributed to Cynewulf. Allegorical bestiaries were a favourite
form of literature from the fifth century down to the Middle
Ages. They consisted of descriptions of certain beasts, birds and
fishes which were considered capable of an allegorical significance.
The allegorical meaning was always attached to the description,
much as a moral is appended to a fable. The development of this
form of literature was due to the fondness for animal symbolism
characteristic of early Christian art. Only three specimens of
such descriptions are extant in Old English literature. They deal
with the panther, the whale and the partridge. The panther is
1 Cook, Christ, p. lxiv.     2 Stopford Brooke's version.




6o


Old English Christian Poetry


complete, there is a gap in the description of the whale, of the
partridge there is hardly sufficient to prove that the bird described
was really a partridge. It is uncertain whether these pieces
were merely isolated attempts at imitation of a foreign model or
whether they formed part of a complete Old English Physiologus.
Two somewhat divergent texts of a Latin Physiologus (B and C),
belonging to the ninth century, have been discovered. The resemblance between the Latin text and the Old English is fairly
striking in B where, after twenty-two other animals have been
described, we have the panther, the whale and the partridge;
probably both Old English and Latin versions are derived from a
common source. The panther, as usual, is symbolical of Christ,
and the whale, which lures seafarers to moor their "ocean-mares"
to it, thinking its back an island, represents the "accuser of the
brethren" and its gaping mouth is the gate of Hell.
The assumption that the first of a series of Old English Riddles,
95 in all, was a charade meaning Cynewulf, or Coenwulf, caused
the collection to be attributed to him. These riddles are transmitted in the Exeter Book. They are closely connected with
similar collections of Latin riddles, more especially one by Aldhelm.
Aldhelm's work is based upon that of the fifth century Latin poet
Symphosius, and Aldhelm was the first English writer to acclimatise
the Latin riddle in England. Forty riddles by archbishop Tatwin,
which were expanded by Eusebius to the number of 100, are also
extant. The author of the Old English riddles derived most of
his inspiration from Aldhelm, but he also seems to have gone
direct to Symphosius and to have made some slight use of the
work of Eusebius and Tatwine.
The theory that the solution of the first riddle was the name
Coenwulf, i.e. Cynewulf, was refuted by Trautmann, in 1883, and,
later, by Sievers, on linguistic and other grounds.
The peculiarly English tone and character of the riddles is, in
some measure, due to Aldhelm's example. For, though he wrote
in Latin, his style differentiates his work from that of the Latin
authors, and accounts for the popularity this form of literature
acquired in England. Furthermore, the author or authors of the
Old English riddles borrow themes from native folk-song and saga;
in their hands inanimate objects become endowed with life and
personality; the powers of nature become objects of worship such
as they were in olden times; they describe the scenery of their
own country, the fen, the river and the sea, the horror of the
untrodden forest, sun and moon engaged in perpetual pursuit of




The Riddles


6i


each other, the nightingale and the swan, the plough guided by
the "grey-haired enemy of the wood," the bull breaking up the
clods left unturned by the plough, the falcon, the arm-companion
of aethelings-scenes, events, characters familiar in the England of
that day. Riddle XLI, De Creatura, and Riddle Ix, on the Nightingale, which are subjects taken from Aldhelm, may be compared with
the Latin versions to prove how far the more imaginative English
poet was from being a mere imitator, and the storm and iceberg
riddles breathe the old northern and viking spirit. Riddle xxxvI
is also preserved in Northumbrian in a MS at Leyden.
The most varied solutions have, from time to time, been
suggested for some of the riddles, and the meaning of many is
by no means clear. The most recent attempt at a solution of the
first riddle has been made by Schofield and Gollancz. They see
in this short poem an Old English monodrama in five acts, wherein
a lady boasts of fidelity to her lover, but, during his absence,
proves faithless and lives to endure the vengeance of her husband
in the loss of her child.
We may note, in conclusion, a group of minor poems which have
one characteristic feature in common, namely, the note of personal
religion; they are, for the most part, lyric or didactic in character,
dealing with the soul's need of redemption. Of these, the Death
Song attributed to Bede by his pupil Cuthbert, who gives an
approximate Latin rendering of it1, is preserved in a Northumbrian
version in a MS at St Gall and belongs to the same period as
Caedmon's Hymn.
One of the most interesting of the group is the Address of the
Lost Soul to the Body, a frequent theme in later literature. It is
one of the very few Old English poems preserved in two versions,
one in the Exeter, the other in the Vercelli Book. In the latter
codex is contained a fragment of a very rare theme, the Address
of the Saved Soul to the Body. A poem on the day of doom
is transmitted in the Exeter Book. It is a general admonition
to lead a godly, righteous and sober life after the fashion of many
similar warnings in later literature.
A group of four short poems, of which three are preserved in the
Exeter Book, deal with attributes common to mankind. The Gifts
of Men (Bi monna craeftum)-based, largely, upon the 29th homily
of pope Gregory, and, hence, sometimes attributed to Cynewulf;
the Fates of Men (Bi manna wyrdum), which, though allied in
theme to the previous poem, differs very considerably from it
1 Epistola Cucberti ad Cuctwinum.




62


Old English Christian Poetry


in treatment; the Mind of Man (Bi manna mode) and the
Falsehood of Man (Bi manna lease), which may be described as
poetical homilies.
The Riming Poem is a solitary instance of the occurrence in
English poetry of the consistent use of end-rime and alliteration
in one and the same poem.    The theme, "sorrow's crown of
sorrows is remembering happier things," recalls the epilogue to
Elene, but the resemblance is not sufficiently striking to justify
the attribution of the poem to Cynewulf. The metrical form is
an accurate imitation of the Hoefucdlausn of Egill Skallagrimsson, which was composed in Northumberland at the court of
Aethelstan.
It is generally thought that gnomic or didactic poetry,
which seems to have been very popular during the Old English
period, had its origin in the religious exercises of heathen times.
Certainly it is well represented in the mythological poems of the
Edda, whether we take the proverb form, as in the first part of
Hdvamdl, or the form of question and answer, as il Vaf pruinismdl
and other poems. Old English proverbs are, however, almost
entirely deprived of heathen colouring. One collection, amounting
altogether to 206 lines in three sections, is preserved in the Exeter
Book, and another, containing 66 lines, serves as a preface to one
of the texts of the Chronicle. The proverbs in the two collections
are of much the same kind, giving, in each case, the chief characteristic of the thing mentioned, e.g. "frost shall freeze," or " a king
shall have government." Generally, however, they run into two or
more lines, beginning and ending in the middle, so that the whole
collection has the form of a connected poem. In this class of
literature we may, perhaps, also include A Father's Instruction,
a poem consisting of ten moral admonitions (94 lines in all)
addressed by a father to his son somewhat after the nature of
the Proverbs of Solomon. In form, it may be compared with
Sigrdrifnumdl and the last part of Hdvamdl, but the matter is
very largely Christian. Mention must also be made of The Runic
Poem, which, likewise, has Scandinavian parallels. Each of the
letters of the runic alphabet had its own name, which was also the
word for some animal, plant or other article, e.g. riches, buffalo,
thorn; and it is the properties of these which the poem describes,
allotting three or four lines to each. The other form of didactic
poetry, the dialogue, is represented in Old English in the poem
known as Salomon and Saturn. This alliterative poem is preserved in two MSS in the Library of Corpus Christi College,




Caedmon and Cynewuif


63


Cambridge. King Solomon, as the representative of Jewish
wisdom, is represented as measuring forces with Saturn, a docile
learner and mild disputant. The Old English dialogue has its
counterpart in more than one literature, but, in other countries,
Marcolf, who takes the place of Saturn, gets the best of the game,
and saucy wit confounds the teacher.
Any attempt to estimate the development attained by Old
English literature, as shown by the work of the two schools of
poetry which the names of Caedmon and Cynewulf connote, must,
of necessity, be somewhat superficial, in view of the fragmentary
nature of much of the work passed under review. Caedmon stands
for a group of singers whose work we feel to be earlier in tone and
feeling, though not always in age, than that which we know to be
Cynewulf's or can fairly attribute to him. Both schools of thought
are Christian, not rarely even monkish; both writers, if not in
equal measure, are sons of their age and palpably inheritors of a
philosophy of life pagan in many respects. It is safe to say that,
in both groups, there is hardly a single poem of any length and
importance in which whole passages are not permeated with the
spirit of the untouched Beoundf, in which turns of speech, ideas,
points of view, do not recall an earlier, a fiercer, a more selfreliant and fatalistic age. God the All-Ruler is fate metamnorphosed; the powers of evil are identical with those once called
giants and elves; the Paradise and Hell of the Christian are as
realistic as the Walhalla and the Niflheim of the heathen ancestor.
Yet the work of Cynewulf and his school marks an advance
upon the writings of the school of Caedmon. Even the latter
is, at times, subjective and personal in tone to a degree not
found in pure folk-epic; but in Cynewulf the personal note is
emphasised and becomes lyrical. Caedmon's hymn in praise of
the Creator is a sublime statement of generally recognised facts
calling for universal acknowledgment in suitably exalted terms;
Cynewulf's confessions in the concluding portion of Elene or in
The Dream of the Rood, or his vision of the day of judgment in
Grist, are lyrical outbursts, spontaneous utterances of a soul
which has become one with its subject and to which self-revelation
is a necessity. This advance shows itself frequently, also, in the descriptions of nature. For Cynewulf, " earth's crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God"; it is, perhaps, only in
portions of Exodus and in passages of Genesis B that the Divine
immanence in nature is obviously felt by the Caedmonian scop.




64


Old English Christian Poetry


The greatest distinction between the one school and the other
is due, however, to the degree in which Cynewulf and his group
show their power of assimilating foreign literary influences.
England was ceasing to be insular as the influence of a literary
tongue began to hold sway over her writers. They are scholars
deliberately aiming at learning from others-they borrow freely,
adapt, reproduce. Form has become of importance; at times, of
supreme importance; the attempt, architecturally imperfect as it
may be, to construct the trilogy we know as Crist is valuable as
a proof of consciousness in art, and the transformation that the
riddles show in the passage from their Latin sources furnishes
additional evidence of the desire to adorn.
Yet, it is hard not to regret much that was lost in the
acquisition of the new. The reflection of the spirit of paganism,
the development of epic and lyric as we see them in the fragments
that remain, begin to fade and change; at first, Christianity is seen
to be but a thin veneer over the old heathen virtues, and the gradual
assimilation of the Christian spirit was not accomplished without
harm to the national poetry, or without resentment on the part of the
people. "They have taken away our ancient worship, and no one
knows how this new worship is to be performed," said the hostile
common folk to the monks, when the latter were praying at Tynemouth for the safety of their brethren carried out to sea. "We are not
going to pray for them. May God spare none of them," they jibed,
when they saw that Cuthbert's prayers appeared to be ineffectual.
It was many a year before the hostility to the new faith was
overcome and the foreign elements blended with the native
Teutonic spirit. The process of blending can be seen perfectly
at work in such lines as The Charm for Barren Land, where
pagan feeling and nominal Christianity are inextricably mixed.
There, earth spells are mingled with addresses to the Mother of
Heaven. But, in due season, the fusion was accomplished, and, in
part, this was due to the wisdom with which the apostles of
Christianity retained and disguised in Christian dress many of
the festivals, observances and customs of pre-Christian days. That
so much of what remains of Old English literature is of a religious
nature does not seem strange, when it is remembered through
whose hands it has come down to us. Only what appealed to the
new creed or could be modified by it would be retained or adapted,
when the Teutonic spirit became linked with, and tamed by, that
of Rome.




CHAPTER V


LATIN WRITINGS IN ENGLAND TO THE TIME
OF ALFRED
IT is outside the scope of this work to survey the various
scattered documents of British origin which were produced
outside Britain. Moreover, the influence of most of them upon
the main stream of English literature was, beyond all doubt,
extremely slight. Among the writings thus excluded from
consideration may be mentioned the remains of Pelagius, who
seems to have been actually the earliest British author, the
short tract of Fastidius, "a British bishop," on the Christian
life, and the two wonderful books of St Patrick-the Confession
and the Letter to Coroticus-which, in spite of their barbaric style,
whereof the author was fully conscious, are among the most living
and attractive monuments of ancient Christianity. Outside our
province also falls the earliest piece of Latin verse produced in
these islands, the Hymn of St Sechnall; and also the hymns
of the Bangor antiphonary, the writings of Columban and the
lives and remains of the Irish missionaries abroad. All these are
named here principally lest it should be supposed that they
have been forgotten.
We pass to our earliest indigenous literary products; and the
list of these is headed by two somewhat uncouth fragments,
marked off from almost all that follow them by the fact that they
are British and not English in origin. These are the book of
Gildas and the History of the Britons.
Concerning the career of Gildas the Wise, we are told much in
the lives of him by a monk of Rhuys, and by Cadoc of Lancarvan,
which belong respectively to the early part of the eleventh
century and to the twelfth; but almost all the data that can
be regarded as trustworthy are derived from Gildas's own book
and from brief notices in Irish and Welsh annals. As examined
by Zimmer and Theodor Mommsen, these sources tell us that Gildas,
born about the year 500 A.D., was living in the west of England and


E. L. I.      CH. V.


5




66


Latin IFritings in England


wrote the book which we possess shortly before 547; that, perhaps,
he journeyed to Rome; that he spent the last years of his life
in Britanny and probably died there in 570; and that not long
before his death (probably also in his younger days) he visited
Ireland. He is represented by various authorities as having been
a pupil of St Iltut at Lantwit Major in Wales, together with other
great saints of the time.
The book of his which remains to us is thus entitled by its most
recent editor, Mommsen: "Of Gildas the Wise concerning the
destruction and conquest of Britain, and her lamentable castigation
uttered against the kings, princes and priests thereof." The
manuscripts differ widely in the names they assign to it.
The author himself in his opening words describes his work as
an epistle. For ten years it has been in his mind, he says, to deliver
his testimony about the wickedness and corruption of the British
state and church; but he has, though with difficulty, kept silence.
Now, he must prove himself worthy of the charge laid upon him as
a leading teacher, and speak. But, first, he will, with God's help, set
forth shortly some facts about the character of the country and
the fortunes of its people. Here follows that sketch of the history
of Britain which, largely used by Bede and by the compilers of the
History of the Britons, is almost our only literary authority for the
period. In compiling it, Gildas says he has not used native sources,
which, if they ever existed,had perished, but"narratives from beyond
the sea." What this precisely means it is not easy to determine.
The only historical authors whose influence can be directly traced in
his text are Rufinus's version of Eusebius, Jerome's Chronicle and
Orosius; and none of these records the local occurrences which
Gildas relates. Moreover, the story, as he tells it, clearly appears
to be derived from oral traditions (in some cases demonstrably
incorrect) rather than copied from any older written sources. It
may be that Gildas drew his knowledge from aged British monks
who had settled in Ireland or Britanny: it may be that by the
relatio transmarina he merely means the foreign historians just
mentioned. Brief and rather vague as it is, the narrative may
be accepted as representing truly enough the course of events.
It occupies rather more than a quarter of the whole work, and
brings us down to the time, forty-four years after the British
victory of Mount Badon, when the descendants of the hero of
that field, Ambrosius Aurelianus, had departed from the virtues
of their great ancestor, and when, in the view of our author, the
moral and spiritual state of the whole British dominion had sunk




Gildas                        67
to the lowest level of degradation. In the pages that follow, he
attacks, successively and by name, five of the princes of the west:
Constantine of Devon and Cornwall, Aurelius Caninus, whose
sphere of influence is unknown, Vortipor of Pembrokeshire,
Cuneglasus, king of an unnamed territory and the "dragon of
the isle," Maglocunus, who is known to have reigned over Anglesey
and to have died in the year 547. Each of these is savagely
reproached with his crimes-sacrilege, perjury, adultery and
murder-and each is, in milder terms, entreated to return to the
ways of peace.
Up to this point the epistle is of great interest, though tantalising from its lack of precise detail. It now becomes far less
readable. The whole of the remainder is, practically, a cento
of biblical quotations, gathering together the woes pronounced
in Scripture against evil princes and evil priests, and the exhortations found therein for their amendment. The picture which the
author draws of the principate and of the clergy is almost without
relief in its blackness. He does just allow that there are a few
good priests; but corruption, worldliness and vice are rampant
among the majority.
That Gildas was convinced of the urgency of his message there
is no room to doubt. Like Elijah at Horeb, he feels that he is left
alone, a prophet of the Lord; and every word he writes comes from
his heart. Yet, if we are certain of his sincerity, we are at least
equally confident that his picture must be too darkly coloured.
We have complained that he lacks precision: it must be added
that he loves adjectives, and adjectives in the superlative degree.
Doubtless Salonius and Sagittarius, the wicked bishops of Gap and
Embrun, of whom Gregory of Tours has so much to say, had their
counterparts in Britain: but there were also St Iltut, St David
and many another, renowned founders of schools and teachers
of the young, whose labours cannot have been wholly fruitless.
In style, Gildas is vigorous to the point of turgidity.  His
breathless periods are often wearisome and his epithets multitudinous. Perhaps the most pleasant sample of his writing is
the paragraph in which he enumerates with an ardent and real
affection the beauties of Britain.  In a few instances he shows
that tendency to adorn his page with rare and difficult words
which seems to have had a great attraction for the Celtic
mind.
It is evident that he considers himself a Roman citizen in some
sense. To him, Latin is "our tongue," as opposed to English; and
5-2




68         Latin lWritings in       England
the impression given by this phrase is confirmed by the whole
tenor of his writing. His sources of inspiration, as we have in part
seen, are Roman. To those already mentioned we may add the
names of Vergil and, perhaps, Juvenal and Claudian.
In summing up the impression which he leaves upon us, we may
say that his eyes are fixed regretfully upon a great past; there is
no hint of hope for the future. The thought that the heathen English
might become a source of light to the western world is one that
has never dawned on him. In short, Gildas is a dark and sad
figure. Night is falling round him; all that he has been taught to
prize is gone from him or going; and, when he looks upon his land,
"behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the
heavens thereof."
The literary history of the book is not very complicated. The
compilers of the History of the Britons used it, and so did Bede, and
the authors of the lives of Gildas and of other Breton saints. In
the twelfth century it was a rare book in England, as William of
Newburgh tells us: but Geoffrey of Monmouth had it before him
in the first half of that century.
We have, besides the epistle par excellence, relics of other
epistles of Gildas, in which his peculiar style is very recognisable,
and also some penitential canons. Of these latter, we need only say
that the precise extent of the material in them which can be
certainly assigned to Gildas is still in dispute.
Another fragment of Gildan literature, upon whose authenticity
a curious literary question depends, is the hymn called Lorica
or Cuirass. This is a metrical prayer, in which the suppliant
asks for divine protection against "the mortality of this year"
and against evil demons, and enumerates each limb and organ of
his body. The form which the prayer takes, though not common,
is not unique. A similar hymn in Irish is attributed to St Patrick,
and there are others of Irish origin. The attribution of this particular Lorica to Gildas (Gillus, the name in the manuscript, is
pretty clearly meant for Gildas) is not unanimous: one Lathacan,
Laidcenn, or Loding (probably an Irish prince of the seventh
century) is named by several copies-once as having brought
the hymn to Ireland. Zimmer is confident in maintaining that
Gildas is the author: Mommsen dissents from this view.
It may seem an indifferent matter whether this particular hymn
is a work of the sixth or seventh century; but the fact is that
its style and vocabulary are of considerable interest as throwing
light on the culture of its time, and they connect it with a longer




"Hisperic" Latin


69


document or group of documents, the date and provenance of which
it would be very interesting to settle.
In its latter portion, where it enumerates the various parts of the
body, Lorica is, to a large extent, a collection of the most obscure
foreign and archaic words which the author could scrape together.
Hebrew, Greek and Latin are mingled in the most curious way,
and are so disguised and corrupted that, in many cases, we are
only able to divine their meaning by the help of glosses. It may
be allowable to quote a single linegygram cephalem cum iaris et conaswhich is said to mean
head, head with hair and eyes.
The other group of writings in which a similarly extraordinary
vocabulary occurs is represented principally by the work called
Hisperica Famina, which we possess in more than one text. It
is arranged in a series of sections, numbering in all somewhat over
600 lines, of a kind of assonant non-metrical structure. Each line
usually consists of two parts. The first part contains one or two
epithets, and the verb and subject are in the second part. Each
section contains a description of some scene or object-the day's
work, the sea, fire, the wind, a chapel, an encounter with robbers.
The writer is evidently a member of something like a monastic
school; and all that we can certainly say of his surroundings is
that he is brought into contact with Irish people, for they are
distinctly mentioned in the text.
It is impossible to give any idea of the obscurity of Hisperica
Famina without quoting or translating passages; and nothing
short of the genius of Sir Thomas Urquhart could find equivalents for the amazing words used by the writer. This one point
is evident, that the same school produced Lorica and Hisperica
Famina. Was that school located in England or Ireland? If
Gildas be author of Lorica, it follows, in all probability, that the
author of Hisperica Famina was a man brought up, like Gildas,
in a south Welsh school such as that of St Iltut, and, subsequently,
settled in Ireland, where he wrote Hisperica Famina. In this
case we must place him in the sixth century. One piece of evidence which points in this direction can hardly be set aside. The
hymn attributed to St Columba and known as Altus prosator
contains very marked specimens of the Hisperic Latinity. That
this composition is really of Columba's age is the belief of its
latest editors; and, if that be granted, there is no need to seek for




70


Latin Writings in England


further proof that Hisperica Famina could have been produced
in the sixth century, and that, whether Irish in origin or not, its
peculiarities were adopted by genuinely Irish authors.
The Historia Brittonum has been the centre of many controversies as to its date and origin. As set forth in Theodor
Mommsen's edition, it consists of the following tracts, which
together form what has been called Volumen Britanniae, or
the Book of Britain. 1. A calculation of epochs of the world's
history, brought down to various dates by various scribes or
editors. 2. The history of the Britons down to a time immediately
after the death of Vortigern.   3. A short life of St Patrick.
4. A  chapter about Arthur1.    5. Genealogies of Saxon kings
and a calculation of epochs. 6. A list of cities of Britain. 7. A
tract on the wonders of Britain.
As to the probable date of this curious congeries of writings,
it is held that they were compiled by a Briton somewhere about
the year 679, after which additions were made to them. In
particular, about the year 800, a recension of the whole was made
by one Nennius. He represents himself as a pupil of Elbodugus
(who is known to have been bishop of Bangor, and to have died in
809) and also, seemingly, as a pupil of one Beulan, for whose son
Samuel he made his revision of the book. He may, very possibly,
be identical with the Nemnivus of whom we have some curious
relics preserved in a Bodleian manuscript.
The revision of Nennius is not extant in a complete form. Our
best authority for it is an Irish version made in the eleventh century
by Gilla Coemgin. Some of the Latin copies have preserved
extracts from the original, among which are the preface of Nennius
and some verses by him. A principal point to be remembered in
this connection is that it is scarcely correct to speak of the
History of the Britons as being the work of Nennius2.
The sources employed by the original compiler or compilers of
the various tracts which make up the "volume of Britain" are
both native and foreign. He or they have drawn largely upon
Celtic legend, written or oral. Other writings which have been
used to a considerable extent are Gildas, Jerome's Chronicle and
a lost life of St Germanus of Auxerre. Slighter traces of a
1 See the chapter on the early history of the Arthurian legend in the present
volume.
2 The view here expressed is, in the main, that of Zimmer and Mommsen. It must
be mentioned that another hypothesis regards Nennius as primarily responsible for
the whole compilation. If this be accepted, there can be no possibility of Bede's
having used the book.




Historia Brittonum.       rJheodore andHadrian        71
knowledge of Vergil, Caesar, Isidore, and a map resembling the
Peutinger Table, are forthcoming.
Of the authors to whom the book was known in early times it
is only necessary to name two. In all probability, Bede was
acquainted with it, though he does not mention it as having
been one of his sources of information. Geoffrey of Monmouth
made fairly extensive use of it. The copy which he had
evidently attributed the authorship to Gildas, as do three at
least of our extant manuscripts.
It is hardly possible to speak of the History as possessing a
distinctive style. Where the author attempts a detailed narrative,
his manner reminds us of the historical portions of the Old Testament. The books of Chronicles, with their mixture of genealogy
and story, afford a near and familiar parallel.
If we possessed the whole of the revision by Nennius in its
Latin form, we should most likely find that he had infused into it
something of the learned manner beloved of his race and age. At
least, his preface and his verses indicate this. Greek and Hebrew
words occur in the verses, and one set of them is so written that
the initials of the words form an alphabet. The original author of
the History had no such graces. His best passage is the wellknown tale of Vortigern.
Within a generation after the death of Gildas the Roman
mission came to Kent, and the learning of the Latins, secular as
well as sacred, was brought within reach of the English. The
seventh century saw them making copious use of this enormous
gift, and Latin literature flourished in its new and fertile soil.
Probably the coming of archbishop Theodore and abbot
Hadrian to Canterbury in the year 668 was the event which
contributed more than any other to the progress of education
in England. The personalities of these two men, both versed in
Greek as well as in Latin learning, determined, at least at first,
the quality and complexion of the literary output of the country.
But theirs was not the only strong influence at work. In the first
place, the fashion of resorting to Ireland for instruction was very
prevalent among English students; in the second place, the intercourse between England and Rome was incessant. Especially was
this the case in the monasteries of the north. To take a single
famous instance: five times did Benedict Biscop, abbot of
Wearmouth, journey from Britain to Rome, and, on each occasion,
he returned laden with books and artistic treasures. A less familiar
example may also be cited. Cuthwin, bishop of the east Angles




72         Latin   Writings in     England
about 750, brought with him from Rome a life of St Paul full of
pictures; and an illustrated copy of Sedulius, now at Antwerp
(in the Plantin Museum) has been shown to have belonged to
the same owner.
Four books which have been preserved to our times may be
cited as tangible monuments of the various influences which were
being exercised upon the English in the seventh century. The
"Gregorian Gospels" at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
(MS 286), written in the seventh century and illustrated with
pictures which, if not painted in Italy, go back to Italian originals,
represent the influence of Augustine. The Graeco-Latin copy of
the Acts of the Apostles at Oxford (Laud. Gr. 35) may well have
been brought to this country by Theodore or Hadrian. The
Lindisfarne Gospels show the blend of Celtic with Anglian art,
and contain indications of a Neapolitan archetype. The Codex
Amiatinus of the Latin Bible, now at Florence, written at
Wearmouth or Jarrow and destined as a present for the Pope,
shows England acknowledging her debt to Rome.
The first considerable literary figure among English writers of
Latin is undoubtedly Aldhelm, who died bishop of Sherborne in
709. Much of his life was passed at Malmesbury, and the account
given by William of Malmesbury, on the authority of king Alfred's
Handbook, of Aldhelm's skill as a poet in the vernacular, and
of his singing to the harp songs of his own composing by which
he hoped to teach the country people, is, probably, the only fact
associated with his name in the minds of most. Glad as we should
be to possess these English poems, it is certain that Aldhelm and
his contemporaries must have thought little of them in comparison with his Latin works. There may have been many in the
land who could compose in English; but there were assuredly very
few who were capable of producing writings such as those on which
Aldhelm's reputation rests.
For our purposes one fact derived from a letter of Aldhelm
himself is of extreme importance. In his youth he was for a
considerable time a pupil of Hadrian of Canterbury.
A late biographer, Faricius, credits Aldhelm with a knowledge
of Greek (derived from two teachers procured by king Ine from
Athens), of Hebrew and of Latin, which tongue no one had
employed to greater advantage since Vergil. These statements
cannot be taken quite as they stand. We do not hear from any
other source of the Athenian teachers, and the Greek which
Aldhelm undoubtedly knew he could perfectly well have learned




A1dhelm                        73
from Hadrian. There is, practically, nothing to show that he knew
Hebrew, and we need not spend time in examining the remark
about Vergil. In spite of this and similar exaggerations, the
fact remains that Aldhelm's learning is really very great for
his time.
The writings of his which we possess are the following:
1. A number of letters. 2. A prose treatise on the praise of
virginity. 3. A versification, in hexameters, of the same treatise.
4. A prose book on the number seven and on metres, especially
the hexameter, containing also a collection of one hundred riddles
in verse. 5. Occasional poems, principally inscriptions for altars
or the like.
Of the letters (several of which have been preserved among
the correspondence of St Boniface) two are of particular interest.
The first of these, addressed to the Welsh king Geraint, complains
of the irregularities of the British clergy in regard to the form of
the tonsure and the observance of Easter, and of their unchristian
attitude towards the English clergy, with whom they refuse to
hold any intercourse. It warns the king of the dangers incurred
by those who are out of communion with the church of Peter, and
begs him to use his influence in favour of union. The style and
vocabulary of this letter are unusually plain and straightforward.
Few words appear to be inserted simply for the sake of adorning
the page. It is a sincere and business-like document.
The other offers a wide contrast. It is written to one Eahfrid
on his return from Ireland, whither he had gone for purposes of
study, and is intended to show that equally good teaching could
be obtained in England. With this in view, Aldhelm pours out
all the resources of an extremely rich and varied vocabulary upon
his correspondent. In the opening lines the figure of alliteration
is employed to an alarming extent: out of sixteen consecutive
words fifteen begin with a p. Once or twice, the writer breaks
without rime or reason into Greek (the phrase ad doxam
onomatis kyrii is a good example); and Latinised Greek words
stud the text, together with unfamiliar Latin. Elaborate passages
of metaphor, too, occur-one about bees, of which Aldhelm is
specially fond-and the whole affords as concentrated a sample of
the author's "learned" style as it is possible to find in a small
compass. An interesting feature in the theme is a panegyric on
Theodore and Hadrian, who are extolled as capable of routing
and putting to shame all the scholars of Ireland.
It is evident that this letter was much admired, for it survives




74         Latin FWritings in      England
in a good many copies, in juxtaposition with the treatise on
virginity, with which it has no connection.
The two books in prose and verse on virginity were the most
popular of Aldhelm's writings. A short sketch of their contents
must be given.
The prose treatise is addressed to a group of nuns, some of
whom have English names, while others have adopted the names
of virgin saints. They are headed by Hildelitha, who afterwards
became abbess of Barking. We have, first, a thanksgiving for the
learning and virtue of the community, a lengthy comparison of
nuns to bees and a panegyric on the state of virginity, with a
warning against the eight principal vices. Then follows the main
body of the work, consisting of a number of examples of men and
women who have excelled in chastity. The first order of these is
taken from the Old Testament (Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Daniel,
the Three Children); the second from the New (John Baptist,
John Evangelist, Thomas, Paul, Luke). From the subsequent
history of the church come Clement of Rome, Sylvester, Ambrose,
Martin, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Felix. A group of hermits and
monks follows: Antony, Paul, Hilarion, John, Benedict. Then,
some who suffered for chastity as confessors (Malchus, Narcissus,
Athanasius) or as martyrs (Babylas, Cosmas and Damian, Chrysanthus and Daria, Julian and Basilissa). Last among the male
examples are two more hermits, Amos and Apollonius. Next
follow the heroines: the Virgin Mary, Cecilia, Agatha, Lucy,
Justina, Eugenia, Agnes, Thecla, Eulalia, Scholastica, Christina,
Dorothea, Constantina, Eustochium, Demetrias, Agape, Irene and
Chionia, Rufina and Secunda, Anatolia and Victoria. In most of
these cases the substance of the saint's history is given, sometimes
at considerable length.
After this, a few examples are cited of persons who were in
some way notable in connection with chastity, though not all
celibate: Joseph, David, Samson, Abel, Melchizedek are brought
forward. A warning against splendour of attire occupies some
space and is followed by an apology for the style of the work, as
having been written under the pressure of many occupations.
The conclusion of the whole is a request for the prayers of the
recipients.
The poetical form of the treatise is later than the prosaic. It
begins with a very elaborate double acrostic, the initials and finals
of the lines forming one and the same hexameter verse: the initials
are to be read downwards and the finals upwards. The book is this




Al dAem's Style


75


time addressed to an abbess Maxima, whose English name does
not appear to be known. The arrangement of the poem coincides
generally, but not exactly, with that of the prose book The preliminary praise of virginity is shorter. Some examples (Thomas,
Felix, Christina, Dorothea) are omitted, and a couple (Gervasius
and Protasius, and Jerome) added.
After the story of Anatolia and Victoria the poem diverges
from the prose and gives a description of the eight principal vices,
modelled, not very closely, upon Prudentius's Psychomachia. It
ends by deprecating criticism and by asking for the prayers of
the reader.
The sources and style of these books are the chief matters
which engage our attention. With regard to the sources of the prose
treatise in particular, we see that Aldhelm had access to a very
considerable library of Christian authors. It included (taking the
citations as they occur in the text) an unidentified work in which
an angel appears as speaker (not The Shepherd of Hermas),
Isidore, Pseudo-Melito's Passion of John, Acts of Thomas, Revelation of Paul (in the fullest Latin text), Recognitions of Clement,
Acts of Sylvester, Paulinus's Life of Ambrose, Sulpicius Severus,
lives of Gregory and Basil, Athanasius's Life of Antony, Vitae
Patrum, Gregory's Dialogues, Rufinus's version of Eusebius,
Jerome's letter and his Life of Malchus, and an extensive collection of Passions of Martyrs. Among poets, Vergil and Prosper
are prominent. In this enumeration only the obvious sources
have been reckoned. A list of the books whose influence is
perceptible in phrases or allusions would be of equal length.
The style recalls the intricate ornamentation of the Celtic
manuscripts of the time. The thought is simple, as are the
ingredients of the patterns in the manuscripts; but it is involved in exhausting periods, and wonderful words are dotted
about in them like spangles. We have seen that, to some scholars
in this age, learning meant chiefly the knowledge of strange words.
Aldhelm is not free from this delusion. A fairly close rendering
of a paragraph from the prose treatise will convey a better idea of
his manner than many lines of description.
Paul, formerly Saul, the Benjamin of the prophesy, at morning devouring
the prey and at evening dividing the spoil; who, by his fearsome bidding,
compelled the pythoness, prophesying the vanities of deceit through the spirit
of necromancy and thereby heaping up in abundance the sumptuous wealth
of her lords and enriching them to satiety with the pleasant treasures of her
gains to set before her impudent lips the door of dumb silence; and who,
marvellous to tell, spent unhurt four times six hours in the deep bottom of
the sea, and bore four times forty blows, less one, by the sharp torment of




76


Latin YWritings in England


cruelty: was it not in virtue of his prerogative of intact purity that, exploring
the third heaven, he beheld the souls of the citizens above with virgin glances,
and sought out the hidden things of the celestial host in an experience of
matters that might not be spoken: though the Revelation (as they call it) of
Paul babbles of his visiting the delights of flowery paradise in a golden ship.
Yet the divine law forbids the followers of the catholic faith to believe anything beyond what the ordinance of canonical truth publishes, and the decisions
of orthodox Fathers in written decretals have commanded us to give up
utterly and banish far from us this and other fevered fancies of spurious
books, as thundering words horrifying to the ear.
Another important production of our author-important as
exemplifying his secular learning, though it never attained the
popularity of his other works-is the Letter to Acircius (king
Aldfrith of Northumbria), which contains a disquisition on the
number seven, a treatise on the hexameter and a collection of
riddles in verse. The portion of the book which deals with metre
is illustrated by very many examples from Latin poets. A large
number of the classical quotations must, no doubt, be put down to
the credit of the grammarian Audax, from whom much of the
text is borrowed; but a very considerable proportion is, certainly,
derived from Aldhelm's own reading. We may be sure, for instance, that he had access to Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, Cicero, Pliny,
Sallust, Solinus. The list of Christian poets is astonishing:
Juvencus, the author of the versified Latin Old Testament, who is
now called Cyprianus, Sedulius, Arator, Alcimus Avitus, Prudentius,
Prosper, Corippus, Venantius Fortunatus, Paulinus of P6rigueux
and an otherwise unknown Paulus Quaestor are all used. A little
group of Spanish authorities, in particular the grammatical work
of Julian of Toledo, is a curious feature. The traces of Horace,
Juvenal, Persius, Seneca, Dracontius, Sidonius are slight. Orosius,
Lactantius, Junilius and a number of grammarians may close our
catalogue, which, it will be recognised, is a very impressive one.
The riddles which occur in the midst of this treatise are among
the most attractive part of Aldhelm's work. They are modelled
on those of Symphosius (a fifth century writer) but are not, like
his, confined to the limits of three lines apiece. They are, for
the most part, ingenious little descriptions of simple objects:
e.g. to take a series at random-the locust, the nightcrow, the
gnat, the spindle, the cupping-glass, the evening, the dagger,
the bubble. That this form of wit-sharpening made a great
appeal to the mind of our ancestors is amply evident from many
passages in the Old English literature,-notably The Dialogue
of Salomon and Saturn, and the documents related thereto;
and are not the periphrases of all early Scandinavian poetry




Aldhelm's Literary Yfork


77


exemplifications of the same tendency? As we have seen,
Aldhelm's riddles were copiously imitated by Englishmen in later
centuries1.
We have seen something of the number of Latin authors who
were known to Aldhelm. It may be added here that, in a letter to
Hedda, bishop of Winchester, he describes himself, apparently, as
engaged in the study of Roman law, and, certainly, as occupied
with metres and with the science of astronomical calculation.
It would be interesting to be able to show that, besides
knowing the Greek language (as we are sure he did), he possessed Greek books, apart from Latin versions; but it is not
really possible to find much evidence to this effect. He once
cites Judith " according to the Septuagint"; in another place he
calls the Acts of the Apostles the Praxapostolos; elsewhere he
gives the name of a work of St Basil in Greek, and mentions
Homer and Hesiod. Not much can be built on these small
foundations. The probability is that he read Greek books when
studying under Hadrian, but that in later life he possessed none
of his own.
Summing up the literary work of Aldhelm, we find in him a
good representative of the pupils of Theodore and Hadrian, on
whom both Roman and Greek influences have been exercised;
and we see in him also one for whom the grandiloquence of the
Celt, the love of an out of the way vocabulary, of sound rather at
the cost of sense, had great attraction. We cannot truly declare
that the literature of the world would be much the poorer for the
loss of his writings; but it is fair to say that there is in them,
despite all their affectation, a great deal of freshness and vigour;
that they are marked by the faults of youth rather than by those
of senescence. That they were immensely popular we can see
from the number of existing copies of the treatise on virginity
and the letter to Aldfrith. Most of these are early and are
distinguished by the beauty of their script. One, now at Lambeth,
has a rather well-known frontispiece representing the author and
a group of nuns.
Additional evidence of the importance of Aldhelm as a
literary figure is afforded by the existence of what we may call
the Aldhelmian school of English Latinists. The works of these
are neither many in number nor large in compass; but the distribution of the writers covers a fairly considerable space both
geographically and in time. Little attention has hitherto been
1 See ante, Chapter iv, p. 60.




78


Latin [Writings in England


paid to them in this country, and, on all accounts, they deserve
notice.
First among them may be reckoned a series of five interesting
little poems which have been preserved (as have several of Aidhelm's letters) among the correspondence of St Boniface. They
are written in pairs of eight-syllabled lines.
The first of these has in its opening couplet an allusion to
Aldhelm's name, and seems to be addressed to him by a cantor at
Malmesbury. In a very spirited fashion it describes a storm in
late June, which unroofed the dormitory or some other of the
buildings of a monastery where the writer was. It is not easy to
see whether this place was Malmesbury abbey or a monastic house
in Devonshire. The second poem is, as appears from an accompanying letter, by one Aethilwald (usually identified with Ethelbald, king
of the Mercians from 716 to 757) and describes a visit to Rome,
dwelling with great particularity upon some silken fabrics which
the pilgrims had brought back with them. Of the remaining
three, one is a short prayer, the next an address to Aldhelm, who
is called Cassis prisca (i.e. Old helmet), most likely by Aethilwald,
and the last is supposed to be Aldhelm's reply thereto. These
poems are very favourable specimens of the Aldhelmian style.
Two direct imitators of Aldhelm, Tatwin and Eusebius, come
next under consideration. Both were men of eminence: Tatwin
died archbishop of Canterbury in 734, and Eusebius is almost
certainly identical with Hwaetberct, abbot of Wearmouth and
Jarrow from 716. Two collections of riddles in Latin hexameters
by these persons have survived. In that of Tatwin ingenuity is
prominent: he makes the initials and finals of the first line of
each riddle into an acrostic of hexameters. That of Eusebius is
supplementary to Tatwin's; it makes up the forty riddles of
the latter to one hundred, the number contained in Aldhelm's
collection, which had undoubtedly served as a model to both
writers. St Boniface (d. 755) is the last noteworthy individual
who can be claimed as a member of this school. He employs the
short eight-syllabled lines as the vehicle of an acrostic on the
words Nithardus vive felix; and he writes a series of enigmas
on the virtues and vices, in hexameters, in which the acrostic is
extensively employed. Some of his letters, too, are couched in
the true Aldhelmian style. Several of his correspondents, moreover, and the authors of a good many letters not addressed to
him which are nevertheless preserved with his own, bear the
same stamp. Among them are three or four short poems in




Bede


79


eight-syllabled metre. Especially noteworthy are a letter from
Lul and others to an abbess Cuneburga and an anonymous letter
to an abbess and a nun.
The Aldhelmian school, with the single exception of Eusebius
(Hwaetberct), consists of men nurtured in the south and west of
England. The two other great men who remain to be considered
are representatives of the north. We have hinted already that
the Latin culture of the northern English was more directly dependent upon Rome, than was that of Canterbury, with its eastern
flavour, or that of the west, where Celtic influence may be suspected. We do not forget Aidan's work in the north; yet that
had but faint effects upon literature; and the fact remains that
the eccentricities and affectations of Aldhelm have no parallel in
the work of Bede.
Bede is by far the greatest name which our period presents.
Like the later Alcuin, he was of European reputation; but he
owed that reputation to the sheer excellence of his books.
Alcuin occupied a great and influential position, and used the
opportunities which it gave him with the best effect. But he has
left no writing which we value much for its own sake. Bede, on the
other hand, made an indelible mark on the literature of succeeding
centuries, and our debt to him can hardly be exaggerated.
Not many lives of great men have been less eventful. It seems
probable that the longest journey he ever took was from Jarrow
to York, and that the greatest crisis of his life was the pestilence
in i686 which decimated the monks of Jarrow. He died in 735 at
Jarrow, where, practically, his whole life of sixty-three years had
been spent. The story of his last hours, as Cuthbert (afterwards
abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow) tells it in his famous letter to
Cl4lwin, is of unapproached beauty in its kind. One of the latest
utterances of the great scholar is an index to the tone and temper
of the whole man.
" t is time," he said, "if so it seem good to my Maker, that I should be
set free from the flesh, and go to Him who, when I was not, fashioned me out
of o-wtiing. I have lived a long time, and my merciful Judge has ordained
may lit- well for me. The time for me to be set free is at hand, for indeed my
soul tech desires to behold my King Christ in His beauty."
Over and over again has the life of Bede been sketched, and
the loig and varied list of his works reviewed and discussed. By
Ron0e has this been better done than by Plummer, in connection
with his admirable edition of the History. From this source we




8o


Latin Writings in England


borrow the chronology of Bede's writings which will be here set
forth.
To the period between 691 and 703 belong the tracts on metre,
on figures of speech in Scripture, on orthography; to 703, the
small work De Temporibus; to 708 the letter to Plegwin on the
six ages. The metrical life of Cuthbert was written before 705.
In or before 716 fall the commentaries on the Apocalypse, Acts,
catholic Epistles, Luke, Samuel and two exegetical letters to
Acca; after 716, the history of the abbots of Wearmouth and
Jarrow, and commentary on Mark; about 720 the prose life of
Cuthbert and commentary on Genesis; before 725 the book De
Natura Rerum; in 725 the large work De Temporum Ratione;
in 725-731 commentaries on Ezra and Nehemiah, and books on
the Tabernacle and the Temple; the Ecclesiastical History of the
English Race in 731; Retractationes on the Acts and the letter
to Egbert must be placed after this. For the following works no
date can be accurately fixed: on the Holy Places, questions on
the books of Kings, commentaries on Proverbs, Canticles, the
Song of Habakkuk, Tobit, the martyrology, homilies, hymns and
a few minor tracts.
The names of these books suggest to us, first of all, Bede's
industry and, next, his wide range of interests. Theology, no
doubt, is a dominant factor in the list, but we have, besides,
natural science, grammar and history; nor is poetry excluded.
It is not possible here to do more than briefly characterise the
mass of his works. Of the grammatical treatises and those which
relate to natural science it may be said that they are, to a very
large extent, compilations. To Pliny and Isidore, in particular,
Bede owes much in the book De Natura Rerum. Similarly, his
commentaries are often little more than catenae of extracts from
the four Latin Doctors. Probably, the supplementary comment on
the Acts, called Retractationes, is one of the most interesting to
us of the series, since it demonstrates Bede's knowledge of Greek,
and shows that he had before him, when writing, the GraecoLatin copy of the Acts already mentioned, which is now in the
Bodleian.
The historical works are, of course, those which distinguish
Bede above all others. There are four books which come under
this head. Two of them may be very shortly dismissed. First, the
Martyrology. We cannot be sure how much of this, in its present
form, is Bede's, for it has been enlarged, as was natural enough, by
many hands. The popularity of it is evident from the fact that it




Bede's Ecclesiastical History              8
formed the basis of recensions by Florus of Lyons, Rabanus of
Mainz, Ado of Vienne, Notker of St Gall and Usuard. Next,
the short work De Temporibus, written in 705. This consists of
a few brief chapters on the divisions of time and the calculations
connected with the observance of Easter, and ends with a very
curt chronicle of the chief events in the six ages of the world's
history. In 725, Bede expanded this little tract into a much larger
book De Temporum Ratione, and the chronicle of the six ages of
the world with which this concludes has been one of the most
far-reaching in its influence of all his works. It served as a
model, and as a source of information, to numberless subsequent
chroniclers.  "In chronology," says Plummer, "Bede has the
enormous merit of being the first chronicler who gave the date
from Christ's birth, in addition to the year of the world: and thus
introduced the use of the Dionysian era into western Europe."
One of the main topics of the book, the methods of calculating the
date of Easter, is one which interested the men of his day far more
than ourselves. A principal reason for this lies in the nearness and
urgency of the controversies which so long divided the Celtic
from the English church on this subject. It was also one of the
few which brought the mathematical side of men's intellects into
play in the service of religion.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English Race is, as we know,
Bede's greatest and best work. If a panegyric were likely to
induce our readers to turn to it for themselves, that panegyric
should be attempted here. Probably, however, a brief statement
of the contents and sources of the five books will be more to the
purpose. The first book, then, beginning with a description of
Britain, carries the history from the invasion of Julius Caesar to
the year 603, after the arrival of Augustine. Among the sources
used are Pliny, Solinus, Orosius, Eutropius, Marcellinus Comes,
Gildas, probably the Historia Brittonum, a Passion of St Alban
and the Life of St Germanus of Auxerre by Constantius.
The second book begins with the death of Gregory the Great,
and ends in 633, when Edwin of Northumbria was killed and
Paulinus retired to Rochester.
It is in this book that the wonderful scene is described in which
Edwin of Northumbria takes counsel with his nobles as to the
acceptance or rejection of the Gospel as preached by Paulinus;
and here occurs the unforgetable simile of the sparrow flying out
of the winter night into the brightly-lighted hall, and out again
into the dark.


E. L. i. CH. V.


6




82         Latin [Writings in      England
In the third book we proceed as far as 664. In this section
the chief actors are Oswald, Aidan, Fursey, Cedd and Wilfrid.
The fourth book, beginning with the death of Deusdedit in 664
and the subsequent arrival of his successor Theodore, with abbot
Hadrian, deals with events to the year 698. The chief figures are
Chad, Wilfiid, Ethelburga, Etheldreda, Hilda, Caedmon, Cuthbert.
In the fifth and last book we have stories of St John of
Beverley, of the vision of Drythelm, and others, accounts of
Adamnan, Aldhelm, Wilfrid, the letter of abbot Ceolfrid to
Nechtan, king of the Picts, the end of the Paschal controversy,
a statement of the condition of the country in 731, a brief
annalistic summary and a list of the author's works.
In the dedication of the History to Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria, Bede enumerates the friends who had helped him in the
collection of materials, whether by oral or written information.
The chief of these were Albinus, abbot of Canterbury, Nothelm
afterwards archbishop, who, among other things, had copied documents preserved in the archives of Rome, and Daniel, bishop of
Winchester. Bede used to the full, besides, his opportunities of
intercourse with the clergy and monks of the north who had
known the great men of whom he writes.
It is almost an impertinence, we feel, to dwell upon the great
qualities which the History displays. That sincerity of purpose
and love of truth are foremost in the author's mind we are always
sure, with whatever eyes we may view some of the tales which he
records. "Where he gives a story on merely hearsay evidence, he
is careful to state the fact"; and it may be added that where he
has access to an original and authoritative document, he gives his
reader the full benefit of it.
From the literary point of view the book is admirable. There
is no affectation of learning, no eccentricity of vocabulary. It
seems to us to be one of the great services which Bede rendered
to English writers, that he gave currency to a direct and simple
style. This merit is, in part, due to the tradition of the northern
school in which he was brought up; but it is to his own credit
that he was not led away by the fascinations of the Latinity of
Aldhelm.
The popularity of the History was immediate and great. Nor
was it confined to England. The two actually oldest copies which
we possess, both of which may have been written before Bede
died, were both produced, it seems, on the continent, one (now
at Namur) perhaps at St Hubert's abbey in the Ardennes, the




Bede's Letter to Egbert


83


other (at Cambridge) in some such continental English colony as
Epternach.
The two lives of St Cuthbert and the lives of the abbots of
Wearmouth and Jarrow must not be forgotten. The last-named,
based to some extent upon an anonymous earlier work, has very
great beauty and interest; not many pictures of monastic life are
so sane, so human and, at the same time, so productive of reverence
and affection in the reader.
The two lives of St Cuthbert are less important in all ways.
The metrical one is the most considerable piece of verse attempted
by Bede; that in prose is a not very satisfactory expansion of an
earlier life by a Lindisfarne monk.
Enough has probably been said to give a general idea of the
character of Bede's studies and acquirements. Nothing could be
gained by transcribing the lists of authors known to him, which
are accessible in the works of Plummer and of Manitius. There
is nothing to make us think that he had access to classical or
Christian authors of importance not known to us. He quotes
many Christian poets, but not quite so many as Aldhelm, and,
clearly, does not take so much interest as his predecessor in
pagan authors.
The letter to Egbert of York, perhaps the latest document
we possess from Bede's pen, deserves a special and separate
mention. It is, in brief, a pastoral epistle; and it gives (what we
could only gather indirectly from his other works) the clearest
evidence of Bede's lively interest in the religious life of the people
at large, and his wise and noble conception of the duties of a
Christian minister. His advice to Egbert is prompted by "a real
and unassuming spirit of humility and affection," and it is
thoroughly practical in its statement, alike of the abuses which
need reform, and of the means of reforming them. The suggestions
offered by Bede are those of a man at once spiritually minded and
versed in the affairs of his time; they are, moreover, based on
an intimate knowledge of the history of the church with which he
is dealing. Rarely as he may have trodden the regions outside the
walls of his monastery, it is plain from this letter alone that Bede
may be reckoned as one of the most effective contributors, by his
advice and influence, to the spreading of Christianity in northern
England.
No enumeration of works, no accumulation of epithets will give
the picture of a man's mind. And it is the personality of Bede
which we come to regard with affection, when we have read the
6 —2




84         Latin   Writings in     England
book into which he has infused most of his own character. That
book is the History, and from the study of it few will rise without
the feeling that Bede was one of the best of men.
It cannot be maintained that the influence of Alcuin's writings
upon the literature of his country was very important. As a
product of the great school of York, he does, indeed, bear witness
to the admirable training which that school could furnish. The
debt which the schools of Charles the Great owed, through Alcuin,
to England must never be forgotten.  This is the central fact,
so far as England is concerned, in Alcuin's career. His written
works, mostly produced on the continent, were not of a kind to
affect very markedly the development of literature; and the
condition of England during the period of Alcuin's residence
abroad was such that English scholars could make no use of what
he was able to impart. The fact is that, very shortly before Alcuin
left England for ever, the Scandinavians had begun that desolating
series of raids upon this country which ended by exterminating the
learning and literature of Northumbria and paralysed intellectual
effort all over the land.
In an often quoted poem on the saints of York, Alcuin
enumerates the principal authors whose works were to be found
in the library collected there by Egbert and Albert. Within
a generation after the poem was written, that library had ceased
to exist; and so had that earlier treasury of books at Wearmouth
which Benedict Biscop commended in the last years of his life
to the special care of his monks. The end of the eighth century
and the course of the ninth saw learning gradually obliterated in
England, until the efforts of Alfred revived an interest in the things
of the mind among his countrymen.
Had it not been for this catastrophe we might have found
English scholars taking part with Alcuin in the adoptionist
controversy, or contributing to the revision of the Vulgate which
is associated with his name. As it is, the ninth century, to the
historian of our Latin literature, is almost a blank.
Alcuin, to resume, was not a great writer. The clearest
indications of his general culture and his manifold activities may,
perhaps, be gathered from his numerous poems and his letters.
These latter, with some of his grammatical works, were the only
part of his writings which attained popularity in England. His
controversial books are of less enduring interest: it is given to
few to follow with intelligent appreciation the dispute which he




Alcuin


85


waged with Felix of Urgel and Elipandus of Toledo upon the
question whether Christ, in His human nature, was or was not
to be called the "adoptive" Son of God. The liturgical works,
again-the homiiiary, lectionary and sacramentary —which made
so deep a mark upon the church-life of the continent, are works of
compilation. As to the revision of the text of the Latin Bible,
clear evidence that it was the work of Alcuin is not yet producible;
but the probability is very strong that he was at least prominent,
if not supreme, in the undertaking.
But, though the tale of Alcuin's labours is an imposing one,
it is the intellectual stimulus which he imparted, and the long
line of scholars which owed to him its existence, that forms his
true monument. He ranks with Bede as an inspirer of men; but
the vehicle by which his inspiration was conveyed was rather the
voice of the teacher than the written words.
With Alcuin we close the list of the considerable authors who
fall within our period. But there still remain some few writings
of the eighth and ninth centuries which demand a word of notice.
These consist mainly of lives of saints, visions, poems and
devotional literature.
The anonymous lives of the abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow,
and the life of Cuthbert by a Lindisfarne monk-both so extensively used by Bede-have been mentioned already. The
earliest life of Gregory the Great, to which an English origin is
attributed, should not be forgotten here. It is discussed by
Plummer in an appendix to the edition of Bede's History.
More important than this, from the literary point of view, are
the lives of Wilfrid of York by Eddius Stephanus, and of Guthlac
by Felix. Both of these belong to the eighth century. The
former begins in a way which may indicate either indolence or
modesty on the part of its author, who transcribes, with few
alterations and without acknowledgment, the preface of the
anonymous life of Cuthbert. The reading of the life will probably conduce to the most favourable interpretation being placed
upon this proceeding; for, unflinching partisan as he is, Eddius
makes us think of him kindly. Many a man would have spoken
much more bitterly of the opponents of his hero; and, though
Eddius persistently and gallantly disguises that hero's faults, we
do not feel so much that he is a bad historian, as that he is a
wrongly faithful friend.
Felix, the biographer of Guthlac, is far more picturesque in
style than Eddius. Unlike the latter, he has fallen under the




86


Latin IWritings in England


spell of Aldhelm. He has been fascinated, too, by the tales of the
demon hordes who haunted the lonely hermit of the fens, and has
portrayed them in language which, whether directly or not, was
reproduced in vernacular poetry not many generations later.
Closely connected with these biographies of saints are the
visions of the next world. Several of them are reported by Bede,
notably the vision of Fursey, the Irish hermit, and of Drythelm.
Two more (one of them in a fragmentary condition) are preserved
among the correspondence of Boniface. Like the life of Guthlac
these apocalypses had firm hold upon the popular imagination,
and some of them appear in the homilies of Aelfric in an English
dress. They owed their origin, it may be remarked, in great
measure to the Dialogues of Gregory and the apocryphal Revelation
of Paul-which latter, as we have seen, was known to Aldhelm.
It is possible that the far older Revelation of Peter may have
survived in some form accessible to the English church of the
seventh and eighth centuries. Evidence is not wanting to show
that an Italian apocalypse of the seventh century, that of
St Barontus of Pistoja, was studied in England not long after
our period.
In the department of poetry the only considerable work which
remains to be mentioned is the poem of one Ethelwulf upon the
history of a monastery, the identity of which is not yet certainly
established. The house in question was clearly connected with
Lindisfarne, and is thought to have been at Crayke near York.
The poem is dedicated to Egbert, who was bishop of Lindisfarne
in the first quarter of the ninth century, and is constructed on
the model of Alcuin's versified history of the saints of the
church of York. It contains, among other things, an account of
a vision of the next world, similar to those mentioned in the last
paragraph.
Of devotional literature, by which we mean more particularly
collections of prayers and hymns for private use, there is a fairly
large quantity preserved in manuscripts which belong to the
period under consideration. The most remarkable of these is,
perhaps, the volume called the Book of Cerne, now in the
University Library at Cambridge. Both Celtic and Spanish
influences have been traced in many of the compositions in this
and other like works. Much light may, eventually, be thrown
by this class of literature upon the intellectual as well as the
religious surroundings of the clergy and monks of the eighth and
ninth centuries.




Bede and Alcuin                      87
A not inconsiderable portion of the Latin writings of these
same centuries consists of documents connected with church law.
Books called Penitentials exist under the names of Theodore, Bede
and Egbert of York; and there are, besides, canons of church
councils and the like. But these have really no claim to the name
of literature, and a mere mention of them must suffice.
These, then, are the chief remains of the Latin literature which
was produced in England before the time of Alfred. The period
of greatest activity lasted, we have seen, for about a hundred
years, from A.D. 690 to 790. It is marked by the rise of two
great schools, those of Canterbury and York, and by the work
of one great scholar. The south of England produced works
characterised by a rather perverted and fanciful erudition. It was
the north which gave birth to Bede, the one writer of that age
whose works are of first-rate value, and to Alcuin, whose influence
was supreme in the schools of the continent.




CHAPTER VI


ALFRED AND THE OLD ENGLISH PROSE OF HIS
REIGN
THE reign of Alfred acquired its chief glory from the personality
of the king. He had many titles to fame. His character was
made up of so many diverse elements that he seemed, at one and
the same time, to be military leader, lawgiver, scholar and saint,
and these elements were so combined that the balance of the
whole was never disturbed. In the minds of posterity Alfred
lives as the type of an ideal Englishman.
In each of the departments of his activity the king's work was
of permanent value. His efforts, though essentially pioneer in
character, laid a solid and permanent foundation for the superstructure which was to be raised by his successors. As king, he
ruled a portion only of modern England and left much to be completed by his descendants. But the centralising policy which he
inaugurated and successfully realised-the policy of making Wessex
the nucleus of England's expansion-alone made possible the
growth of an enlarged kingdom. Alfred's ideals for Wessex reflect a large vision and much practical wisdom, and the reign is
as remarkable for its educational as for its political progress. His
conceptions were cosmopolitan rather than insular. He never lost
sight of the importance of keeping his kingdom in organic relation
with European civilisation-a lesson stamped upon his mind ever
since, in his early years (856), during the pontificate of one of the
greatest of the popes, Leo IV, he had visited Rome and the court
of Charles the Bald. This visit made a vivid impression upon
Alfred's mind. His father's marriage with the emperor's daughter,
Judith, cemented relationships with the continent and the
insularity of Britain was henceforth broken down. The importance for literature of this emergence from isolation cannot be
over-estimated. Charles the Great had gathered round him at
Aachen a cultured circle of scholars and writers, and had promoted a renascence of classical study, the influence of which was




Asser's Life of Alfred                 89
still powerful in the days of Charles the Bald. The illuminated
MSS of the French court of the ninth century-the St Denis
and Metz Bibles, the Psalter and book of Gospels, in particularare conspicuous examples of artistic skill. After his accession
Alfred looked to the Frankish empire for assistance in his task
of reviving learning in Wessex. At his request, Grimbald, a
monk of St Bertini in Flanders, and John of Corvey came
over to Britain, and were appointed abbots of Winchester and
Aethelney respectively. The king diligently promoted scholarship,
and himself undertook to translate into West Saxon recognised
works in Latin prose. At the same time he increased the number
of monasteries and reformed the educational side of these institutions by the introduction of teachers, English and foreign. The
story of Grimbald's visit to Oxford and of the existence there of a
community of scholars is, however, not supported by any evidence.
The legend was interpolated in an edition of Asser's Life of
Alfred, based on Parker's text, which Camden published in
1602-3. No MS, or other authority, is known to support
Camden's statement. The consequence of the educational and
literary activity of Alfred's reign was to transfer the centre of
learning from Northumbria to Wessex. The monastic communities
of Lindisfarne, Evesham and Croyland had fostered scholarship
in the north, and, in the seventh century, Whitby had produced
Caedmon. In 674 Benedict Biscop had built the monastery of
St Peter at Wearmouth and, in 682, a second house at Jarrow, at
both of which large libraries were collected. The arts of glassmaking, gold-work and embroidery were introduced from the
continent. Northumbria had thus become "the literary centre
of western Europe," producing scholars of the type of Bede, the
master of the learning of his day, and Alcuin, the scholarly helper
of Charles the Great. But with the appearance of the Danes began
the decline of learning in the north. So much did scholarship suffer
in consequence of the viking raids that, at the date of Alfred's
accession, there was no scholar even south of the Thames who could
read the mass-book in Latin. The revival of letters in Wessex was
the direct result of the king's enthusiasm and personal efforts, and
his educational aims recall irresistibly the work of Charles the Great.
The authorities for the life of Alfred are many, but of unequal
value. His own works, reflecting as they do his personal
character and convictions, furnish the most important data, the
Chronicle and the Life by Asser ranking next in value. Asser,
a Welsh cleric, was, in all probability, educated at St David's.




90              Ihe Prose of Alfred
He had already been in communication with Alfred regarding the
defence of his monastery when he was summoned by the king to
assist him in his educational schemes. According to his own
account, Asser arranged to stay with Alfred for six months of
each year, spending the remaining six in Wales. He became the
king's most intimate friend and diligently assisted him in his
study of Latin. He was eventually appointed bishop of Sherborne,
and died some ten years after the king. The authenticity of
Asser's book has been much disputed. The unique MS survives
only in charred and illegible fragments, but it is clear from
external evidence that Parker's edition (1574) contains large
editorial alterations and interpolations from the Lives of St Neots.
Formidable evidence in support of the genuineness of the original
Asser has been collected by Stevenson and others. The Welsh and
Latin forms and the scriptural quotations point to the early part of
the tenth century, and, at the same time, attest the Celtic nationality
of the author. The chronology is based on a primitive version of
the Chronicle, which the author supplements by details which none
but an eye-witness could have supplied. The very incompleteness
of the book is an argument against its being a forgery. Its abrupt
beginning and conclusion, and its awkward combination of extracts
from the Chronicle with original matter, may have been due to the
choice of Frankish models, such as Einhart's Life of Charles the
Great or Thegan's Life of Ludwig the Pious. Asser's book holds
a unique position as "the earliest biography of an English layman."
Florence of Worcester is valuable as illustrating the genuine text
of Asser, since he ignores what was, apparently, interpolated. The
later chroniclers, Simeon of Durham and William of Malmesbury,
throw occasional light on incidents in the king's career, but, on
the whole, are responsible for the growth of the Alfred legend.
The chronological order of Alfred's works is difficult to
determine. Depending, as we do, mainly upon internal evidence,
there is no absolute test whereby to fix the priority of one work
over another. Evidence of style is notoriously untrustworthy.
There are, however, a few considerations on the basis of which a
general arrangement may be attempted, though scarcely two
critics are in entire agreement as to the final order. Of these
considerations the most important is ability to reproduce in West
Saxon prose the spirit of the Latin original. A comparatively
close translation is, in Alfred's case, a sign of the 'prentice hand;
his latest work is marked by great freedom of rendering and large
insertions. Some further light is thrown on the problem by the




Alfred's Pastoral Care


91


character of the prefaces to the various books. The chroniclers
are of little assistance in the determination of the relative
order.
The Handbook may safely be considered the earliest of Alfred's
compilations. Unfortunately, no trace of the book is now to be
found, though its existence is attested by external evidence. The
circumstances under which the formation of the Handbook was
begun make it clear that it was essentially a commonplace-book of
extracts from the Latin Bible and the Fathers. Asser, to whom
was due the suggestion that a book of this nature might be of
service to the king, describes it as an assemblage of flosculi,
culled from various sources. These extracts Alfred wrote down
in Latin, in the first instance, and, afterwards, began to render them
into English. The first entries were made on 11 November 887,
in venerabili Martini solemnitate.  William  of Malmesburyl
refers to the common-place book, quern patria lingua Handboc
(Encheiridion) i.e. manualemn librum appellavit. Further, there
is in Florence of Worcester's Chronicle a reference to certain
Dicta regis Aelfredi, whereby the Handbook may, possibly, be
meant. There would, however, be no justification for identifying
the Dicta with the Handbook, were it not for the fact that
Malmesbury uses the latter as an authority for the life of Aldhelm.
It is quite conceivable that Alfred inserted among his notes an
account of Aldhelm, with whose verses he was probably acquainted.
But no importance whatever is to be attached to Florence of
Worcester's suggestion that the Handbook was a record of West
Saxon genealogy. It is possible that neither chronicler is to be
relied upon in this matter. The formation of the Handbook
was of literary importance merely: it afforded Aelfred valuable
literary training and indirectly stimulated him to try his hand
at more extensive translation.
The translation of Gregory's Cura Pastoralis may be considered
the first of Alfred's literary works, properly so called. Grein,
Pauli and Bosworth awarded first place to Boethius, but internal
evidence is altogether in favour of the priority of the Pastoral
Care. The decay of learning consequent upon Danish raids made it
imperative that an attempt should be made to revive the education
of the clergy. No work of the Middle Ages seemed better adapted
to enlighten the church than Gregory's treatise, designed to serve
as a spiritual guide for the conscience of the priest. In Moralia


1 Gesta Regum Anglorum, II, ~ 123.




92


The Prose of Alfred


Gregory had indulged to the full his passion for allegory; Cura
Pastoralis is less dominated by the tendency to allegorise, though
it contains some gross examples of the practice-the explanation,
for example, of Ezekiel's injunction to the priests not to shave
their heads. But the allegorical method of the church reformer
does not altogether obscure a vigorous and healthy tone, and this
in spite of Gregory's expressed contempt for the technical side
of letters. Cura Pastoralis appealed to Alfred by its spiritual
insight; consequently he began to turn into West Saxon "the
book called in Latin Pastoralis and in English Hierdeboc, sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense." In so doing he
availed himself of the help of his teachers, Plegmund and Asser,
Grimbald and John, and, as he understood their explanations,
he rendered the matter into English.
The preface, which gives this particular account of the
origin of the Pastoral Care, is of great importance in another
respect. An earlier passage makes it clear that the present was
only the first of a series of books which the king intended to
translate, in order that ultimately all the free-born youths of
England, who had the necessary leisure, might be instructed in
their own tongue. The preface to the Pastoral Care is thus a
preface to the whole series of translations. At the same time it
ranks among the most important of Alfred's original contributions
to literature. It gives an account of the decay of learning in
Britain, and sets forth the king's determination to reform the
schools of Wessex. It defends the use of the vernacular by
showing how the Old Testament was written first in Hebrew, then
translated into Greek and subsequently into Latin, and how all
other Christian nations had turned some portion of ancient
literature into their own tongue. From a literary point of view,
the preface is the first important piece of prose in English;
linguistically, it is, on account of its age, of unique value. A
passage in alliterative verse, containing a glowing tribute to
Gregory, "Christ's warrior, the Pope of Rome," forms a kind of
second preface. It closes with a reference to the despatch of a
copy to each bishop in the land.
The style of the Pastoral Care has just those characteristics
which might have been expected in an early work. Alfred's conception of the translator's province never limited him to a very
close rendering; but, compared with his later work, there are signs
of restraint in this effort that suggest inexperience. The double
versions and the anacolutha in the text have given rise to the




Alfred's Orosius


93


ingenious suggestion that the translation was dictated. A close
comparison of the Latin text and the West Saxon version throws
further light on the king's methods. His English audience is
always kept in view, and, for their benefit, he inserts brief explanatory notes. Thus, he interprets " manna " as "the sweet meat
which came down from heaven," "shittim wood" as "the tree
which never decays," " purple" as "the royal robe." Occasionally,
he Teutonises the terms of the Latin original by identifying
Hebrew institutions and social grades with their nearest analogues
in West Saxon civilisation. Plateis he renders by " herestraetum,"
David is described as a "salm-sceop," Uriah as a "thegn."
Blunders are naturally to be met with, as, for example, in the
derivation of sacerdotes-"in English cleansers because they are
to act as guides of believers and govern them." Compared with
later translations, Alfred's Pastoral Care is very close to the
original. The style is somewhat Latinised and abounds in pleonasms
and repetition, and the translation is remarkable for the number
of I'rra~ Xey~/Levua it contains. The copy preserved in the Bodleian
is interesting as containing the name of Werferth, and it is the
actual copy destined for the Worcester see.
The relative positions of Orosius and Bede are difficult to
determine. For a long period the prior position was assigned to
Orosius, but, latterly, there has been a tendency to reverse the
order. The argument based on closeness of translation may, in
this case, be fallacious, not only from the fact that the Latin of
Orosius presents more difficulties than that of Bede, but because,
in the latter case, Alfred would have been far less justified in
tampering with his original. Bede's work ranked, in Alfred's day,
as a standard history of the early English church; it was a recognised classic. Much of Orosius, on the other hand, was obviously
unsuitable for English readers unversed in the outlines of classical
history. The comparative closeness of the translation of Bede
does not, therefore, necessarily imply early work. Plummer has
pointed out that the account of Caesar's invasions was omitted in
the first recension of Bede-a fact which can only be understood
by assuming that Alfred had already treated these events in detail
in Orosizs.
The Historia adversus Paganos of Paulus Orosius, a Spanish
ecclesiastic, dates from the fifth century and was looked upon as
a standard text-book of universal history. Orosius, as a disciple
of Augustine, had already given expression to anti-Pelagian views
in an earlier work. His later book, likewise due to the inspiration




94


7he Prose of Alfred


of Augustine', was an attempt to expound the thesis that the
decline of the Roman empire was due to other causes than the
rise of Christianity and the neglect of pagan deities.
Alfred's interest in the work ofOrosius lay chiefly on the historical
and geographical sides, though he did not neglect to draw the
moral. He aimed at giving to the English people a compendium of
universal history and geography, handling his original with great
freedom, introducing alterations and additions, omitting much
superfluous detail and making original contributions of great value.
The account of the geography of Germania is an interpolation of the
greatest importance as a historical document. Further, the accounts
of the celebrated voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan inserted in the
volume were taken down from hearsay. The Norwegian, Ohthere,
had voyaged furthest north of all his contemporaries, reaching a
latitude of about 71~ 15'. Passing round the north of the Scandinavian peninsula, he afterwards explored the White Sea. Not till
1553 was this feat eclipsed, by Willoughby. Ohthere afterwards
made a voyage south, from Halgoland to Haddeby in the Baltic.
From this point Wulfstan set out to explore the great sea, which
Ohthere had described as running for many miles into the land.
For a time he had Wendland on his starboard and the Danish
islands on his port side. Continuing past the Swedish provinces
of Bleking and Smaland, he reached the mouth of the Vistula. He
entered the Frische Haff and sailed up the Elbing to Truso, having
accomplished the voyage in seven days. On their return both
voyagers recounted their adventures to Alfred, who gave them a
sympathetic hearing. The narrative of Ohthere must have had
particular interest for him, for the spirit of discovery which animated
the Norwegian sailor was akin to that felt by the West Saxon king.
Alfred had already formed plans for the development of a navy,
and would readily recognise the relation between the spirit of adventure and the maintenance of sea-power. Geographical conditions
were largely responsible for the unrest of the Scandinavian. The
interior of Sweden was filled with dense pine forests and Norway
was, for the most part, a barren moor. Hence expeditions, piratical
or otherwise, and the growth of that love for the sea which is
reflected in the northern sagas. "He alone," says the Ynglinga
Saga, "had full right to the name of sea-king, who never slept
under sooty beam and never drank at chimney corner." The
narrative of Ohthere's voyage holds a unique position as the first
attempt to give expression to the spirit of discovery. It is, besides,
1 Cf. De Civ. Dei, Im.




Alfred's Orosius


95


good literature, and finds an honourable place in Hakluyt's great
collection of voyages.
Alfred was too wise to burden his book with all the geographical detail given by Orosius. He confined himself to the essentials
of general geography, omitting the descriptions of north-east
Africa and of central Asia and abbreviating other passages. The
mistakes which crept into his version are to be ascribed either
to lack of acquaintance with the district described or to a
misunderstanding of the somewhat difficult Latin of Orosius. The
historical portion of the book is less original than the geographical.
Alfred omitted a great deal, particularly in the sections dealing
with classical mythology. The stories of Philomela, Tantalus and
Caligula had little to commend them, and were not inserted in the
translation. Many of the moralisings of Orosius were left out, though
a number were retained in a paraphrased form. Curiously enough,
some of the passages definitely ascribed by Alfred to Orosius are
not to be traced in the original. It is possible that, in such cases,
Alfred availed himself of materials as yet unknown to us. A more
questionable proceeding is the omission of details prejudicial to
the reputation of Germanic tribes. The alterations and additions in
the historical section are decidedly interesting. There are the
usual misunderstandings-the identification of Theseus with the
victor of Marathon, of Carthage with Cordova, and the fusion of
the consuls Lepidus and Mucius into one under the title of Lepidus
Mutius. Wherever possible the king acts as interpreter, substituting, for example, English equivalents for the Latin names
of British towns and English names of measures for Latin. The
description given by Orosius of the appearances of Commodus in
the arena is reduced to the simple statement that the emperor
was accustomed to fight duels. Alfred's imagination plays around
the details of the plague of frogs in Egypt-" No meat could be
prepared without there being as large a quantity of reptiles as of
meat in the vessel before it could be dressed." Cleopatra is described as placing the adder against her arm because she thought
it would cause less pain there. Interesting accounts are inserted
of a Roman triumph and of the temple of Janus. A side glimpse
is often to be had of the king's opinions, religious or otherwise.
He enlarges on Scipio's love for the fatherland, concluding: "he
compelled them to swear that they would all together either live
or die in their native land." His admiration is likewise moved
by the courage of Regulus, to whom he devotes considerable
space. Orosius is thus of great value for the light it throws on




96              The Prose of A/fred
Alfred's character. He is shown to have been a skilful geographer
and an interested, if not a scholarly, student of history. His
practical purpose is clearly apparent. Everywhere in dealing with
history he endeavours to bring the historical fact into vital relation
with current affairs. The military achievements of Greeks and
Romans remind him of wars in which he had himself been engaged,
and his explanations of manoeuvres are generally based on his
own experience. Though the hand of Alfred is very apparent in
the pages of Orosius, there is no good external authority for the
authorship. The first to associate his name with this translation
was William of Malmesbury1.
The translation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica may be considered next. The original is much less freely rendered than is
the case with Orosius-a fact which may have been due to the
authoritative position occupied by Bede's book. The external
testimony for Alfred's authorship is fairly trustworthy. In his
Homily on St Gregory Aelfric refers to the Historia Anglorum,
"which Alfred translated out of Latin into English," and there is
further evidence in the Cambridge MS, on the first leaf of
which is written, Historicus quondam fecit me Beda latinum,
Aelfred rex Saxo transtulit ille pius. On the ground of certain
Mercian characteristics in the text, however, Miller ventures to
doubt the Alfredian authorship, and is led by the fact of certain
omissions to fix the locality of the original MS at Lichfield. On
the other hand, Schipper holds to the orthodox view and considers
the arguments based on dialect to be unproven. The omissions in
Alfred's Bede are very considerable, and no attempt is made to
supplement the original with southern annals. No account is given
of the famous ecclesiastical controversy which took place at Whitby
-a fact which seems to Miller to confirm his view that the translator
was not a West Saxon but a Mercian, keenly aware of Scotch
susceptibilities. Bede's accounts of the great figures of the early
churches are retained, though the story of Adamnan is omitted.
In the interest of his narrative Alfred omits such documents as
letters from popes and bishops, retaining only Gregory's first
letter to the monks and this in oratio obliqua. The finest passage
in the English version is the account of Caedmon, an excellent
piece of early prose, and Caedmon's hymn is inserted in a West
Saxon form, of which the original is to be found only in the
More MS of Bede's History. The style is frequently marred
by over-literalness. Latin constructions are constantly introduced
1 Gesta Regum Anglorumn, I, ~ 123.




Old English Codes of Law                  97
in an altogether un-English fashion, and words are used in an
un-English sense as equivalents for Latin terms. A peculiarity
of the style is the employment of two English terms to represent a
single term in the original. On the whole, the translation cannot
rank very high among Alfred's works, even if it be rightly attributed to him.
There is no external evidence to enable us to decide the date of
Alfred's code of laws. The historical introduction, based on the
Vulgate, shows considerable independence and cannot be dated
very early. The composition of the code may be assigned, provisionally, to the close of Alfred's first translation period (c. 893),
without, however, attaching much importance to Malmesbury's
statement that it was undertaken "amid the clash of arms1." The
code is of a somewhat composite character, and has usually been
arranged in three sections-the introduction, the laws of Alfred
proper and the laws of Ine. In his monograph entitled The Legal
Code of Alfred the Great, Turk points out that this arrangement is
not justified by the MSS. The introduction consists properly of
two parts-the historical introduction based on the Mosaic law and
the introduction proper. The insertions from the Mosaic law give
a universal character to Alfred's code. They are rendered somewhat freely, large portions of the Latin text being omitted and
other portions altered. One of the Mosaic laws ran as follows:
" If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep,
and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, he
shall pay double. If the thief be not found, then the master of
the house shall come near unto God (or the judges), to see whether
he have not put his hand unto his neighbour's goods2." This
passage Alfred renders as follows: " If anyone entrust his property
to his friend: if he shall steal it, let him pay double; if he know
not who has stolen it, let him excuse himself." Another Mosaic
law-" If men contend, and one smiteth the other with a stone, or
with his fist, and he die not, but keep his bed: if he rise again,
and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be
quit; only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him
to be thoroughly healed3"-has been much altered in Alfred's
version: "If a man strike his neighbour with a stone or with his
fist and he may nevertheless go about with a staff, let him provide
him a leech and do his work during the time that he is not able."
The law concerning the firstborn-" the firstborn of thy sons shalt
1 Gesta Regum lAnglorum, I, ~ 129.
2 Ex. xxii, 7, 8.    3 Ex. xxi, 18, 19.


E. L. I.    CH. V1.


7




98             The Prose of Alfred
thou give unto me1 "-naturally finds no place in the West Saxon
code. Another alteration is the substitution of two oxen for five
in the Mosaic ordinance, "If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep,
and kill it, or sell it; he shall pay five oxen for an ox, and four
sheep for a sheep2." A remarkable addition, intended to counteract the severity of the Mosaic code as a whole, is that of the
apostolic letter, at the close of which Alfred continues in his own
words-"From this one law a man may learn how we ought to
judge aright. He needs no other law-books; let him bethink him
that he do not to another what he would not have done to himself."
Alfred's code is, as we have indicated, of a composite
character. He links himself with the church not only by his
insertions from the Mosaic code but by his reference to "the
many synods throughout the world and throughout England, after
they had received the faith of Christ, of holy bishops and other
distinguished counsellors." Some of the synodical laws may have
been embodied in the West Saxon code. Further, we find, alongside Alfred's own laws, those of Ine, of Offa and of Aethelbriht.
The Mercian laws ascribed to Offa are, unfortunately, lost, but the
Kentish laws of Aethelbriht, the earliest " dooms" we have,
though in a late copy, can be traced in Alfred's code, where
they have been inserted in a revised form. Bede refers to the
original Kentish laws as "written in English and still preserved.
Among which, the king in the first place set down what satisfaction should be given by those who should steal anything
belonging to the church, the bishop and the other clergy"
(II, 5). The prominence given to the church seems to have
appealed forcibly to the historian. Aethelbriht's code is mainly
taken up with the penalties payable for the infliction of personal
injuries. The compensation for the loss of an ear is fixed, tariff-like,
at 6s., of an eye at 50s., of a nose at 9s. "If one man strike another
with the fist on the nose-3s." Alfred carefully revised each of
the penalties before inserting Aethelbriht's code in his own. The
laws of Ine date back to the eighth century and are the earliest of
West Saxon laws. They were more comprehensive in character
than the laws of Kent, but seem, by Alfred's date, to have received
large accretions. Alfred adopted the developed code of Ine apparently without subjecting it to revision. But he connects his own
particular code with the earlier one in such a way as to make the
one supplementary to the other. One of Ine's laws, as it appears
in Alfred's text, is worth quoting:
1 Ex. xxii, 29.    2 Ex. xxii, 1.




De Consolatione Philosophiae


99


If a man burn a tree in a wood and it is made clear who did it, let him
pay the full penalty of 60s., because fire is a thief. If a man fell many trees
in a wood and it is found out, let him pay for three trees, each with 30s. He
need not pay for more, however many they be, because the axe is an informer
and not a thief.
It is possible that some years elapsed before Alfred began his
translation of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae. Assuming
that his energies had been fully employed during the period from
888 to 893 with his early work, he could have had little leisure
for any new undertaking before the year 897. The freedom with
which the whole of this new task is carried out points to a late
period and a mature method. Boethius's book ranked among the
most characteristic products of the Middle Ages. Its influence
on later literature was immense, and is scarcely to be estimated
by the number of translations, numerous though they were. It
was done into English, after Alfred's time, by Chaucer and
Elizabeth, into German by Notker, into French by Jean de Meun.
An early metrical version in Provencal also exists. The influence
of Boethius has been traced in Beowulf; it permeates Dante
and Chaucer. The closing words of the Paradiso-"Already my
desire and will were rolled, even as a wheel that moveth equally,
by the love that moves the sun and the other stars "-owe their
origin to the Consolation of Philosophy. The book was written
while the author was under sentence of death after having fallen
into disfavour with the Ostrogothic king Theodric. It is in the
form of a dialogue between Boethius and Philosophy, wherein are
set forth the consolations associated with the contemplative state
of mind. The famous dissertation upon fate and providence is
conducted with considerable subtlety; but the atmosphere of the
book is religious rather than philosophical, and it is signally free
from the technicalities of the schools. Boethius harks back to
the early Greek standpoint of Plato, from whom he derives his
central doctrine of submissiveness. The finite is to be realised
only in the absolute, which is identical with love, and love is
realised by faith. The Middle Ages, with their vivid sense of an
overruling fate, found in Boethius an interpretation of life closely
akin to the spirit of Christianity. The Consolation of Philosophy
stands, by its note of fatalism and its affinities with the Christian
doctrine of humility, midway between the heathen philosophy of
Seneca and the later Christian philosophy of consolation represented by Thomas B Kempis. Alfred's religious outlook had much
in common with the gentle philosophy of "the last of the Romans,"
and the translation afforded him considerable opportunity for
7-2




Ioo             Ihe Prose of      A/fred
self-expression. In some passages the king identifies himself
with the philosopher and enlarges on metaphysical themes. In
others, as in the famous seventeenth chapter, he reflects on such
problems as his duty towards the stateThou knowest, Reason, that the greed and grandeur of this temporal
power have never pleased me much, nor have I longed overmuch for this
earthly kingdom; but I desired tools and material for the work which I was
ordered to work, in order that I might virtuously and fittingly control the
power entrusted to me.
The rendering of Boethius is never close, and the additions
gve a unique character to the work. The spirit of Alfred's
version is naturally more in keeping with Christianity than is
the Neo-Platonic doctrine of Boethius. There is definite mention
of God and Christ where Boethius speaks of "the good," or "love,"
or "the true way," or "divine reason "; again, the English version
substitutes "angels" for "divine substance."  The minor additions
are often interesting. The lynx is "an animal that can see
through anything-trees or even stones"; the Parcae are "the
cruel goddesses who preside over the fates of every man"; Orpheus
is "an excellent good harper." Alfred's interest in geography
induced him to supply the information that ultima Thule is
situated "in the north-west of this earth," and Mount Etna in
"the island of Sicily." But it is in the expanded passages that
the chief value of the book consists. The preface and chapter I,
with its interesting account of the Latin author, are wholly
original. Chapter xvII, again, is original, save for a few lines.
Details concerning Busiris, Regulus and Seneca are inserted,
which are only partially translated, and the account of Cicero is
a noteworthy addition. It was a happy inspiration that led
Alfred to render the Latin-Ubi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii
manent?-in the spirit of a Teuton attached to his national
legends-" Where are the bones of Weland?" He is much interested in astrology, and refers more than once to "the cold
star," Saturn.  The reflective passages afford most instructive
glimpses into the workings of the king's mind. They are permeated by deep religious fervour: "It is," he writes, "the expectation and fancy of fools that power and wealth are the highest
good; but really it is quite otherwise." He reflects on the vanity
of earthly ambition, "0 glory of this world, why do men falsely
call thee glory, when thou art not so?" The literary beauty of
the similes employed by Alfred has been often noted. Prosperity
passes away "like a gust of wind"; blessings flow from the source




A/fred's Rendering of Boethius


IOI


of all goodness "like waters from the sea."  God is likened to
a steersman who perceives the oncoming of a storm and makes
preparations against it. In an important article, Schepss raised
the question as to how far Alfred's interpolations were based on
Latin commentaries similar to that of Froumond, or upon scholia
such as are to be found in the Munich MS. He pointed out that,
in expanding Boethius's account of the giants, who incurred the
wrath of Jupiter by assailing heaven, Alfred introduced Nimrod
and the Tower of Babel. The hint for this seems to have been
derived from the Munich MS. The famous simile of the eggThou, glorious king of hosts, through strong might wonderfully didst
establish the earth so firmly that she inclineth not on any side nor may she
sink hither and thither any more than she ever did. Yet nothing earthly
sustains her, it is equally easy for this world to fall upwards or downwards;
likest to that which happens in an egg, the yolk is in the midst yet glideth
freely about the egg. So stands the world fixed in its place, while the streams,
the play of waters, the sky and the stars and the shining shell move about
day by day as they did long agoand the other simile, of the wheel, in which God is compared to the
fixed axle round which the felly and spokes turn, are not wholly
original but, together with many other passages, show the influence
of the scholia. It is highly probable that much in Alfred's work
which has hitherto been looked upon as wholly original will be
found to have been based upon similar sources. The preface, on
the genuineness of which some doubt has been thrown, informs us
that Alfred was the translator of the book and that he rendered
his original "sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense,
as best he could amid the manifold occupations of his kingdom."
This description of the king's method is altogether in keeping with
that prefixed to the Pastoral Care. It is worthy of note that,
according to William of Malmesbury', Asser had previously glossed
the Latin for the king's benefit. In view of this statement the
present translation was, for a long time, considered to have been
the first of Alfred's undertakings. He may have intended to begin
Boethius at an early period, but it is certain that the translation
as we now have it is a late piece of work. The language has
given rise to interesting problems. The two chief MSS, the
Bodleian and the Cottonian, contain, according to Sievers, a
large number of Kentisms. These are possibly due to a scribe of
Kentish origin, the whole case being parallel to that of Bede.
Much discussion has arisen with regard to the authorship
of the alliterative metres which are to be found in the British
1 Gesta Regum Anglorum, ii, ~ 122.




102


The Prose of Alfred


Museum   MS of Boethius (Otho A. 6).  The younger MS at
Oxford contains a prose version of these metres. It is generally
agreed that the verse renderings are based, not on the Latin
directly, but on a West Saxon prose version. In the British
Museum MS the text is preceded by two prefaces, one of which
is in alliterative verse; the other, in prose, attributes the metres
to Alfred. Thomas Wright was the first to doubt the king's
authorship of the metres, but his arguments have been largely
disproved. Leicht was able to bring forward a more formidable
case. While admitting the weakness of Wright's arguments, he
contended that the case for Alfred's authorship rests on an
unsound basis. He agreed with Ten Brink in the opinion that
the preface ascribing the verses to Alfred is not authentic, and
maintained that the king, in attempting to render his own prose
into verse, would scarcely have clung so closely to his model as is
the case. On the other hand, Hartmann has pointed out that
Alfred's skill in prose argues no facility in verse-making. The
two poems in Cura Pastoralis have no more distinction than
those in the British Museum MS. Again, there are certain
expressions in this MS, not to be found in the Oxford type,
which definitely refer to passages in the latter. The author of
the verses appears to identify himself with the author of the prose
translation. On the whole, the question must be left open, though
it would seem that it rests with those who deny the king's authorship to establish their case. It is known that Alfred was an
enthusiast in regard to Old English verse, and it is not improbable
that he was well acquainted with the verses of his kinsman,
Aldhelm. A spirit of emulation may have led him to try his
hand at versification.
The West Saxon version of Augustine's Soliloquia stands last
in order of Alfred's translations, and considerable doubt has been
expressed as to its genuineness.  Pauli, on the ground that
Alfred's name does not occur in the preface, rejects it altogether,
and finds justification in the fact that the language is an impure
form of West Saxon. Wiilker, who formerly identified the Soliloquies with the Hazdbook, considers the book to be genuine. He
points out that the preface in its present form is mutilated and
that the twelfth century MS is too late to afford any evidence based
on style. Judging from the nature of the references to holy
orders, the translation appears to have been the work of a layman
rather than of a monk, and the closing words, whether genuine or
not, attribute it to Alfred. The vocabulary of the Soliloquies




Augustine's Soliloquies


I03


has much in common with that of Alfred's Boethius-and
there are close resemblances between the two works in thought
and style. Some of the original passages seem to have been
directly based upon translated portions of Boethius, and original
passages in both works sometimes correspond closely. Alfred
was attracted to Augustine by the nature of his theme.
The Latin work is a treatise on God and the soul, in which
much space is devoted to a discussion of immortality.    The
translation is undertaken quite in accordance with Alfred's
customary methods. He renders the first book somewhat closely,
but paraphrases the sense and makes a few additions, indulging his taste for simile in a comparison between the soul
at rest in God and a ship at anchor, and discoursing at length
on the changes that take place in nature, on the likeness between
God and the sun and on the relation between king and subject.
Book ii he renders very freely. He discusses the problem of
immortality from an independent standpoint, " believe thine own
reason and believe Christ, the Son of God, and believe all His
saints for they were truthful witnesses, and believe thine own soul
which ever declares through reason that she is in thee." Book III
is based on another source, Augustine's De Videndo Deo, supplemented by passages from Augustine's De Civitate Dei, Gregory's
Morals and Dialogues and Jerome's Commentary on Luke.
The dialogue form is continued for some time, though the
sources do not justify such an arrangement.  The spirit of the
whole translation is deeply religious. It is a logical discussion
of the nature and future of the soul, in which Augustine's
dialectics are rejected in favour of common-sense reasoning.
There is a natural connection between the Soliloquies and
Boethius, since its central theme had already been suggested in
the closing pages of the latter. It has already been shown that
the preface to the Pastoral Care is in the nature of a general
introduction to Alfred's translated works; the preface to the
Soliloquies may be considered an epilogue-the king's farewell
to literatureI gathered me poles and props and bars and handles for each of the tools
which I could handle, and bough-timbers and bolt-timbers for each of the
tasks which I was capable of undertaking, the fairest wood, as far as I could
bear it away. I came not home with a great burden, since it pleased me not
to bring all the wood home, even if I could have carried it. On each tree I
saw something which I needed at home. Therefore, I advise every man who
is able and has many waggons, that he direct himself to the same wood where
I cut the props, and that he procure for himself more, and load his waggons




I04


The Prose of Alfred


with fair beams, that he may construct many a fair wall, and many a beautiful
house, and many a town and dwell there merrily and peacefully, both winter
and summer, as I have not done.
With this parable Alfred closes his literary career.
The literature of the reign for which the king was not directly
responsible owed at least its inspiration to him. In the monasteries the work of producing MSS went forward with great activity,
but the scribes were engaged in merely copying out books; they
did no original work. It had been customary, however, for the
monks to keep records of events of outstanding importance.
These monastic records were of the briefest possible kind, designed to serve merely as landmarks in the passage of time and
not as historical surveys, but in these casual and unsystematic
notes Alfred perceived the nucleus for a larger survey of West
Saxon history. The change in the tone of the Chronicle has been
ascribed to Aethelwulf's reign, but it is probable that Alfred
was responsible for the systematic revision of the earlier records
back to Hengest and Horsa, and his connection with the Chronicle
is possibly referred to in Gaimar's Estorie des Engles, though the
allusion is somewhat obscure. The Chronicle, as known to us, is a
highly composite piece of work, and it consists of various recensions,
the relations between which have been carefully worked out by
Earle and Plummer1. The original nucleus belonged to Winchester,
the capital of the West Saxon kingdom. The Alfredian version
comes down to 892 only, at which date the first hand in the MS
ceases, and of this portion Alfred may be supposed to have acted
as supervisor.
From a historical point of view, the Chronicle was the first
national continuous history of a western nation in its own language;
from a literary point of view, it was the first great book in English
prose. The account of the years 893-7 is one of the most vivid
in the whole of the annals. The struggle with the Danes and
the great series of campaigns extending over the whole of the
south of England are described in detail. At one time the king
is at Exeter while Aethelred, the ealdorman, is occupied on the
Severn, the struggle extending north as far as York and Chester.
Alfred's military and naval reforms are enlarged upon, the
king's brilliant exploits, and his care for the nation's well-being,
inspiring the annalist with the spirit of a historian. The whole
1 The different recensions of the Chronicle and its further development are dealt
with in the chapter that follows.




ITe    Translation     of Gregory's Dialogues           05
narrative is a masterpiece of Old English prose, full of vigour
and life.
The West Saxon translation of Gregory's Dialogues owed its
inspiration directly to Alfred. The authorship of the translation
has never been called in question; both Asser and William of
Malmesbury attribute it to Werferth, bishop of Worcester, who
undertook the task at the king's bidding. The book is partly
in dialogue form. Gregory is found by his deacon, Peter, sitting
"in a solitary place, very fit for a sad and melancholy disposition."  The stories, which Gregory proceeds to tell, serve to
relieve his mind of its weight of thought. The monk, Martinius,
impresses the sign of the cross upon a hearth-cake with a motion
of the hand; a sweet fragrance miraculously arises from the grave
of count Theophanius; bishop Frigidianus turns the course of
the Serchio by marking out its bed with a rake. Book II is
exclusively devoted to St Benedict. The collection was an
attempt to complete the accepted lives of the saints by a recital
of miraculous deeds performed in Italy. Towards the end of the
book Gregory leaves Italy and tells the story of St Hermenegild
and his brother, king Recarede. The preface, in the Oxford and
Cambridge MSS, is the work of the king and is thus of particular
interestI, Alfred, by God's grace, dignified with the title of king, have perceived
and often learnt from the reading of sacred books, that we, to whom God hath
given so much worldly honour, have particular need to humble and subdue
our minds to the divine law, in the midst of worldly cares; accordingly,
I besought my faithful friends that they would write down out of holy
books concerning the miracles of the saints the following narrative; that I,
strengthened in my mind by admonition and love, might think upon spiritual
things in the midst of my worldly cares.
The MSS of the Dialogues have given rise to interesting
problems. The Cambridge and British Museum types are closely
related and stand apart from that of Oxford. From this fact
Krebs deduced the theory that the Dialogues were translated on
two separate occasions. A more careful comparison of the MSS
has shown that they are all derived from a single original, of which
the Oxford type represents a revised version.
The West Saxon Martyrology may be ascribed to Alfred's
reign. Cockayne was of opinion that the oldest MS-that in the
British Museum-dates from the ninth century. It is noteworthy
that the saints referred to belong either to the period preceding
the king's reign or to the reign itself. Another proof of the age




Io6


The Prose of Afred


of the collection is the fact that under 5 August Oswald is described
as buried at Bardney, though his body was moved to Gloucester
soon after Alfred's death. The story of St Milus (15 November)
seems to have been derived from the east. The Leech-book attests
Alfred's relations with Elias, the patriarch of Jerusalem, whose
rule extended from 897 to 907. The Martyrology is incomplete,
but it extends from 31 December to 21 December.
Alfred's literary reputation caused a number of other works to
be ascribed to him for which there is no trustworthy evidence. Of
these the most important is the so-called Psalter. William of
Malmesbury makes a statement to the effect that Alfred began
a translation of the Psalms, but was unable to complete itPsalteriumn   transferre aggressus vix prima parte explicata
vivendi finem fecit'. Curiously enough, an eleventh century MS
in the BibliothBque Nationale at Paris contains an Old English
prose version of the first fifty psalms, followed by an alliterative
version of the remainder (psalms li-cl).  Wiilker conjectures
that the prose portions were based on the work of Alfred referred to by William of Malmesbury. Each psalm is preceded
by an introduction, in which are set forth the circumstances
under which the psalm was written.   The translation is free,
and the method of rendering one word by two is frequently
resorted to. In this latter respect the prose Psalter resembles
Alfred's Bede and Pastoral Care2.   The alliterative portions
in the Paris MS were probably introduced to supplement the
deficiencies of the prose version; there can be no doubt that a
complete alliterative version of the Psalms was in existence when
the prose was undertaken.
Alfred has been credited with a collection of Proverbs in
metrical form. In favour of this there is not the slightest evidence.
For centuries he must have had some reputation as a philosopher,
and an anonymous collection of maxims would naturally be
associated with his name. A treatise on Falconry and a translation of Aesop's Fables have also been attributed to him, but for
neither of these is there any evidence.
Alfred's literary achievement is of immense importance. The
prominence given to the vernacular during his reign made it
possible for English literature to develop on its own lines. He
was wise enough to limit himself to the work of translation, since
he had not, apparently, great creative genius in letters. But the
1 Gesta Regum Anglorum, II, ~ 123.
2 But see Bruce's Anglo-Saxon Version of the Book of Psalms.




Alfred's Literary       Achievement        107
effect of his choice of models was to introduce a large Latin
element into Old English prose style. Compared with the abrupt
and rugged style of the king Cynewulf episode in the early part
of the Chronicle, Alfred's prose is that of an accomplished writer:
compared with later prose, it is largely tentative. It was not
until nearly a century later that more definite results were
achieved when Aelfric took up the task left incomplete by the
West Saxon king. Apart from the historic estimate, Alfred
has some personal claim to recognition as a prose-writer. His
original passages, however much they may owe to undiscovered
sources, embody his own personal convictions, and afford a remarkable proof of his ability to inform with life the materials at his
disposal. In literature, personality is of the utmost importance,
and Alfred is one of the most personal of writers. He is the
embodiment, not only of the intellectual, but of the spiritual,
thoughts of his time. His writings constantly reveal his aspirations after truth, and, even in the Laws, there is a definitely
religious tone. "I have wished," he writes in Boethius, "to live
worthily while I lived, and to leave to those who should come
after me my memory in good deeds." And, in the language of
the inscription on the monument erected to his memory at
Wantage in 1877, he "found learning dead, and he restored it;
education neglected, and he revived it."




CHAPTER VII


FROM ALFRED TO THE CONQUEST
IT seems permissible to treat the year 901, when king Alfred
died, as the dividing line between the earlier and later periods
of Old English literature. According to this classification, nearly
all the poetry composed in this country before the Norman conquest would fall within the first period; while the bulk of the
prose writings in the vernacular would be included in the second.
It was, indeed, during the tenth and eleventh centuries that our
language in its Old English stage attained its highest development as a prose medium. The circumstances of the time were
unfavourable to the production of sustained poems. This may
be owing to the gradual break-up of Old English tradition
and to the influence of another Germanic literature, then at its
height, in the English court. The chief poetical fragments that
have survived from these years deal with contemporary events,
and seem to be the outbreak of emotions too strong to be suppressed.
Like feelings find their expression also in the prose literature
of these centuries, which saw not only the rise of the West Saxon
kings to full mastery over England, but also the victories of Dane
and Norman, and the quenching of all hope of English rule over
England until the conquered should absorb the conquerors. There
was scarcely a year during this period in which the harassed rulers
of the kingdom could afford to lay aside their arms; though,
during the time of comparative quiet between the death of
Aethelstan and the accession of Aetlelred, England took an active
part in the monastic revival which was so marked a feature of
contemporary European history. In these times of struggle, letters
and learning found, for a time, their grave, and long years of patient
struggle were needed to revive them.
The gloomy tale is nowhere better told than in the Chronicle,
which, written in simple language, alone marks for more than half a
century the continuance of literary activity in England.




iTe Old English Chronicle                       o09
The beginning of the Chronicle is usually ascribed to the influence
of Alfred, and it continues for two and a half centuries after that
king's reign, long after the last English king had been slain and the
old tongue banished from court and school. Its principal recensions' differ from one another not in the main story, but in the
attention given to various details, and in the length to which they
are carried. Owing to the number of hands employed in its
composition, the literary merit is very unequal; sometimes the
entries consist of a date and the simple statement of an event; at
others we find passages of fluent and glowing narrative, as in the
record of the war-filled years from 911 to 924. The period from
925 to 975 is very bare, and such entries as exist relate mostly
to church matters. It is, however, within this time that the
principal poems of the Chronicle are inserted. Under 991 is
told the story of Anlaf's raid at Maldon in which Byrhtnoth fell.
In the years 975-1001 the Chronicle is of extreme interest, and
the annals for the year 1001 are very full. Some time about
the middle, or towards the last quarter, of the eleventh century
the present recension of the Winchester chronicle was transplanted
to Christ Church, Canterbury, and there completed with Canterbury
annals, passages being interpolated in various places from beginning to end from the chronicle kept at St Augustine's, Christ
Church library having been previously burnt. Before this, the
notice taken of Canterbury events was so extremely slight that
we do not even hear of the murder of archbishop Aelfheah (St
Alphege) by the Danes2.     The MS known as Cott. Tib. A. vI
seems to have been originally meant to serve as an introduction
to further annals, which, however, were never written; and it
is, apparently, a copy of the original Abingdon chronicle (itself
a copy of the original Winchester, written at Abingdon), which
did not reach beyond 977. The MS under consideration is shown,
by a mass of internal and external evidence, to have been written
about 977, the year to which its annals reach. It may fitly be
called the shorter Abingdon chronicle to distinguish it from the
longer Abingdon chronicle referred to below, with which it has
1 The Winchester or Parker chronicle, in the library of Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge; the shorter Abingdon chronicle (Cott. Tib. A. vi); the longer Abingdon
chronicle (Cott. Tib. B. i); the Evesham or Worcester chronicle (Cott. Tib. B. iv);
the Peterborough chronicle (Bod. Laud. 636).
2 The recension under notice is a copy of the original Winchester chronicle, which
latter was also the source of the original Abingdon chronicle. Hence the agreement
with Tib. A. vi, and Tib. B. i, up to 892. Naturally, it does not incorporate the
Mercian chronicle, but maintains a kind of separate parallelism from 894-915.




IIO


From  Alfred to the Conquest


much in commonS; both, for example, bodily insert the Mercian
annals (sometimes called the chronicle of Aethelflaed). These
extend from 902-925, and tell, with some detail, of the warlike
feats of the Lady of Mercia. It may be noted, in passing, that these
Mercian annals occur in the so-called Worcester chronicle2, where,
however, they are distributed, with some omissions, amongst other
matter. These Mercian annals are of the greatest interest, both in
origin and history. Their chronology differs considerably from that
of other chronicles. Perhaps the original document, or some copy
of it, in which they were contained, is to be traced under the
record Cronica duo Anglica in the Catalogi veteres librorum
Ecclesiae Dunelmi, where we also find the record of Elfledes Boc
in the same place. This at once suggests to us the existence
of these annals in a book of Aethelflaed, telling of her fight for
English freedom. Thus, the inscription and record bring us into
close connection with what may well have suggested and stimulated
the heroic poem of Judith3.
The (longer) Abingdon chronicle is so called because, from its
references to the affairs of that monastery, it is supposed to have
been written there. This longer chronicle is not expanded from
the shorter, nor the shorter extracted from the longer. Both have
a number of independent annals up to the very year 977 where the
common original ended. It may be surmised that the author of
the recension under notice found the original Abingdon ready up
to 977 (when the troubles consequent on Edgar's death may have
accounted for many things), and further annals up to 1018, to
which he made later additions. The MS tells of the election of
Siward, abbot of Abingdon, as archbishop of Canterbury in 1044,
the appointment of Aethelstan as his successor to the abbacy,
Aethelstan's death in 1047 and archbishop Siward's return to the
monastery after his retirement from office in 1048.
In 892, a copy of the southern chronicle was sent to a northern
cloister, and there was revised with the aid of the text of Bede's
Ecclesiastical History. There seems, also, to have been a northern
continuation of Bede's History, and, from this, were woven into
the chronicler's text annals from 737-806. Fifteen of these annals
are wholly, and sixteen partly, Northumbrian. That these annals
were taken from some such source seems to be proved by their
being found also in other works. The chronicler then followed
southern sources until 904, when he began to weave into his
text the book of Aethelflaed, mingling with it southern and
1 Cott. Tib. B.t.  2 Cott. Tib. B. iv.  3 See p. 142.




The Old English Chronicle


Ill


northern records. From 983-1022, he returned to his Abingdon
source.  After this he struck out on his own line. From the
original thus created was copied the extant MS commonly known
as the Worcester or Evesham chronicle', which shows especial
acquaintance with the midlands and north. The close connection
between Worcester and York is shown by the fact that the archbishop of York is mentioned simply as "the archbishop." The
chronicle shows strong feeling on the subject of Godwin's outlawry,
and in every way supports that nobleman. Alone amongst the
chronicles it tells the sad tale of the battle of Hastings. The
original, from which the above chronicle was copied, seems also to
have been the basis for that patriotic Kentish chronicle, now lost,
which was the chief source both of the Peterborough chronicle up
to 1123 and the recension known as Cott. Dom. A. VIII, 2.
The Peterborough chronicle2 is the longest of all, extending to
the year 1154. In 1116, the town and monastery of Peterborough
were destroyed by a terrible fire, which left standing only the
monastic chapterhouse and dormitory, and when, in 1121, the
rebuilding was completed, the annals contained in this chronicle
were undertaken to replace those lost in the fire. They were
based on the lost Kentish chronicle, which must have been forwarded to Peterborough for that purpose. This original Kentish
chronicle is full of patriotic feeling, and shows great knowledge
of southern affairs from Canute's death, the burial of Harold
Harefoot (the record of which it alone rightly tells) and the
viking raid on Sandwich, to the feuds between English and
Normans in the reign of the Confessor. It relates count Eustace's
broils with the English at Canterbury and Dover, and the flight of
archbishop Robert, leaving his pallium behind him, an annal recorded
with dangerously schismatic glee. The scribe had lived at the
court of William the Conqueror, and had, therefore, seen the face
of the great enemy of the English. The entries for the tenth
century are very meagre; but from 991 to 1075 they are much
fuller and contain, among other contemporary records, the story
of the ravages of Hereward. Towards the end of the chronicle,
which is written in a somewhat rough and ready manner, occurs
the famous passage, so often quoted by historians, telling of the
wretchedness of the common folk during the reign of Stephen and
its civil wars.
From the lost Kentish chronicle is derived the recension known
as F or Cott. Domitian A. vIII, 2, seemingly written by one hand


1 Cott. Tib. B. iv.


2 Bod. Laud. 636.




I2


From  Alfred to the Conquest


in the twelfth century, and of interest because of its mixed use
of Latin and English. In this it indicates the approach of the
employment of Latin as the general literary vehicle of English
culture. There is great confusion in its bilingual employment
of Latin and English; sometimes English is the original and
Latin the copy, at other times the process is reversed; finally,
in some passages, Latin and English become ludicrously mixed.
Two other recensions exist as mere fragments: one, of three
damaged leaves, in a hand of the eleventh century, is bound
up with a copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical Historyl; and the other2
consists of a single leaf. The manuscript to which the former of
these fragments belonged was edited by Wheloc in 1644 before it
was consumed in the Cottonian fire.
The following table adapted from Plummer shows the relations of the
various MSS to each other, the extant MSS being indicated by initial letters:
Original Winchester
(A) Winchester  Original Abingdon; --- —---— 1 --- —---— T --- —-------
(B) (shorter) Abingdon  (C) (longer) ingonnal Worcester
Lost Kentish                 (D) Worcester
Lost enlarged Kentish   (F) MS. Cotton Dom. A. viII, 2.
(E) Peterborough
The Chronicle is of inestimable value as an authority for the
history of the time. The impression it leaves on the reader
is one of almost unrelieved gloom. Records of harrying with
fire and sword occur on almost every page, and, whether the
English ealdormen or the Danes "possess the place of slaughter,"
the wild lawlessness and the contempt for human life which prevailed during the greater part of the period are plainly visible.
Sometimes the chronicler displays bitter indignation at the misgovernment of the country, as when he tells how Aethelred and
his ealdormen and the high witan forsook the navy which had
been collected with immense effort by the people and "let the
toil of all the nation thus lightly perish." But the entries are
usually of an entirely impersonal kind; the horror and desolation,
the fiery signs in the heaven, and the plagues that befell men and
cattle upon earth, are recorded without comment; such misfortunes
were too common to call for special remark in the days of the long
struggle between Dane and Englishman.


1 Cott. Oth. B. xi, 2.


2 Cott. Tib. A. in, fol. 175.




The   Monastic Reform                113
It has already been said that this portion of the Chronicle
contains several fragments of verse. These will be noticed later.
Here, it may, however, be remarked that some passages, written as
prose, are based on songs which have been inserted, after some
slight modification, by the scribe; and, towards the end of the
Peterborough chronicle, there occur some long stretches of rhythmic
prose almost akin to the sung verse of the people. These may be
either a development of the loose rhythm of Aelfric's prose, or may,
possibly, result from the incorporation of ballads and their reduction to prose. The subject is, however, still too obscure to admit
of any very definite statement on this point, and most of what has
been said on this subject seems far removed from finality.
From this brief description of the manuscripts of the Chronicle
we must turn to the homilists, who showed especial vigour between
960 and 1020. The development reached in style and in literary
tradition is at once apparent; it had its origin, doubtless, in the
religious revival of the tenth century, which emanated from Fleury,
and was identified in England with the names of Dunstan, Aethelwold and Oswald, the " three torches " of the church.
At the beginning of the tenth century, English monasticism and,
therefore, the state of learning in England, were in a deplorable
condition, from which all the efforts of king Alfred had been
unable to lift them. There were religious houses, of course, but
most of these seem to have been in the condition of Abingdon
when Aethelwold was appointed abbot-"a place in which a little
monastery had been kept up from ancient days, but then desolate,
and neglected, consisting of mean buildings and possessing only
a few hides." To the influence of the Benedictine reformers
we owe much of the prose literature of the tenth and eleventh
centuries. The great bond thus knit once more between English
literature and the literature of the continent ensured our share in
what was then living of classical and pseudo-classical lore.
With the accession of Edgar (959) better times dawned. On
the death of Odo, Dunstan became archbishop, and, in 961, Oswald,
Odo's nephew, was consecrated to the see of Worcester. His
appointment was followed in 963 by that of Aethelwold, abbot
of Abingdon, to the see of Winchester, and the three bishops set
about a vigorous ecclesiastical reform. During the reigns of
Edgar and his sons no fewer than forty monasteries for men
were founded or restored, and these were peopled chiefly by
monks trained at Abingdon or Winchester.


E. L.        CH. VII.


8




II4


From  A4fred to the Conquest


The most famous school of all was that founded at Winchester
by Aethelwold, one of the most distinguished of the pupils of
Dunstan, and himself an enthusiastic teacher, who did not scorn
to explain the difficulties of Donatus and Priscian to the postulants
and other youthful frequenters of the Benedictine school. The
most important of his scholars was Aelfric, the greatest prose
writer in the vernacular before the Conquest.
The inhabitants of the newly restored monasteries naturally
required instruction in the Benedictine rule, and to this necessity
is due the version of the rule which Aethelwold drew up under
the title Regularis Concordia Anglicae Nationis Monachorum
Sanctimonialiumque. In the beginning of this he stated that the
work had the sanction of the king, and that it was framed at a
council at Winchester. The name of the writer is nowhere given,
and, were it not that Aelfric, in his Letter to the Monks of
Eynsham, says that the source of his information is bishop
Aethelwold's De Consuetudine, and quotes long passages from the
Regularis (evidently the same work), we should be ignorant
of the authorship'.
But it was not enough to multiply copies and commentaries
of the Rule in Latin. Many of the newly admitted postulants
and novices were quite ignorant of that language, and, therefore,
king Edgar further entrusted Aethelwold with the task of
translating the Rule into English, giving him, in acknowledgment,
the manor of Southborne, which he assigned to the newly restored
monastery at Ely. There are several MSS containing an Old
English version of the Rule, and, in one of them2, it is followed
by a historical sketch of the monastic revival of the tenth century,
which recounts Edgar's share in the movement, his refounding
of Abingdon and his command to translate into English the Rule.
Schrier thinks that this tractate is by the author of the foregoing
version of the Rule; but, since the writer calls himself everywhere
"abbot," and not "bishop," if it is by Aethelwold, he must have
made it between 959, the year of Edgar's accession, and 963, when
he became bishop of Winchester.
It is possible that the Blickling Homilies, so called because
the MS is preserved at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, were also due
to this religious revival. They are nineteen in number, but several
are incomplete, and some are mere fragments.     The earlier
1 Miss Bateson, Rules for monks and secular canons after the revival under king
Edgar, Eng. Hist. Review, 1894.
2 Faustina A. x.




The    Blickling    Homilies            115
homilies are sermons, properly so called; but the later are largely
narrative in character, and are based on legendary sources.
The style of these homilies stands midway between the style
of Alfred and that of Aelfric; it is more developed than the
one, more primitive than the other; it is rude, vehement and
homely, more indulgent of legend and shows the primitive love
for recitative; the syntax is clumsy, and the vocabulary often
archaic. On the other hand, the treatment is sometimes very
poetical, though this characteristic appears rather in simile and
metaphor than in rhythm of structure. "The redness of the rose
glitters in thee, and the whiteness of the lily shines in thee," says
Gabriel to Mary; and Heaven is pictured as a place where there
"is youth without age; nor is there hunger nor thirst, nor wind
nor storm nor rush of waters." The palm branch in the hand
of the angel who announces to the Virgin her approaching death
is " bright as the morning star," and the Lord appears to Andrew
with a face "like that of a fair child." Equally poetical are the
passages that deal with more sombre themes, such as doomsday,
the lamentation of the lost at the harrowing of hell and the vision
of St Paul of the souls clinging to the cliffs from which the devils
sought to drag them away. Morris has pointed out that there is
a good deal of similarity between this last passage and the wellknown lines in Beowulf which describe the "rimy groves" which
grew above the abyss where Grendel had his home. But exactly
similar descriptions are found in all other versions of this aged
legend1. Aelfric, it is true, rejected the legend on critical grounds,
but the coming centuries were to see it become the basis of a
masterpiece of the world's poetry. Comparisons of these Old
English legends with their sources and cognate branches lead
to the conclusion that the poetic element which was inherent in
them could scarcely be destroyed altogether, however poor the
translation might be.
The probable date of these homilies is towards the close of
the third quarter of the tenth century; they refer to the universal
belief, based on a misunderstanding of the Talmudic metaphor
prevailing throughout the Revelation of St John, that the year
1000 would see the end of the world; -and one of them, the
eleventh, contains a statement to the effect that it was composed
in 971. This date cannot be accepted as indisputably that of the
whole collection; the passage may be an interpolation, and,
1 Cf. the Provengal.
8-2




I I6      From    Alfred    to  the Conquest
moreover, there is nothing to prove that all the homilies were
composed at the same time, or by one writer.
During these years Aelfric was growing up in the monastery
schooi at Winchester. The exact year of his birth is not known,
but, as he himself tells us that he spent many years as a pupil
of Aethelwold, who died in 984, we may, perhaps, put the date at
about 955. It is worth noticing that, in his Life of St Swithun,
Aelfric describes with some detail the translation of the relics
of that saint to the restored cathedral at Winchester, and, as this
took place in 971, he was probably then a postulant. We know
that he was a priest, and over thirty years of age, when, in 987,
he was sent to the abbey of Cerne in Dorsetshire to instruct
the brethren in the Benedictine rule, that is to say, when he was
novice-master of Cerne abbey.
It was soon after this that Aelfric composed his first homilies,
in two series, each of which has a Latin preface addressed to
Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury. As Sigeric's years of office
extended only from 989 to 995, and as he was absent in Rome
during the first two or three of these years, the homilies were,
probably, composed between the years 990 and 995. The second
series is more exactly dated by a reference in the Latin preface to
the Danish attack on Southampton in 994, so that we may assign
the first collection to the years 990 to 993.
In addition to the Latin prefaces, there is prefixed to each
series a statement in English composed much later, probably after
1016, recounting the reasons which had induced the author to turn
them from Latin into the vernacular. In the first, he explains that
he has done it for the sake of unlearned men, who, especially at
this time, when the end of the world is approaching, need to be
fortified against tribulation and hardship; and, remembering the
injunctions of Christ, Aelfric believed it to be his duty also to
teach the ignorant. The English preface to the second series is
much shorter, simply stating the author's reasons for dividing
the homilies into two books, and giving the sources in general
terms.
According to the original plan each collection was to consist of
forty sermons, and each was to cover the whole of the church year,
the second treating of such Sundays and feast-days as were not
mentioned in the first. But neither in the manuscripts nor in
Thorpe's edition does the number of homilies correspond with this
scheme; for, while the first series contains forty, the second has
forty-five, of which the last six do not belong to the original




7he JForks of Aelfric


II7


collection.  This gives only thirty-nine; but, if the two sermons
for mid-Lent Sunday are counted separately, we arrive at the
proper number. The two series were designed to give alternate
sermons for the greater feast-days, the first series being simple,
doctrinal and instructive, the second discursive, historical and
more elaborate, with much narrative.
Although the subjects of the sermons are appropriate to the
days for which they were intended, there is also an attempt to give
a large survey of biblical and ecclesiastical history. Thus, the first
homily of the first series, De Initio Creaturae, treats not only
of creation, but relates the stories of the fall, the flood, the
dispersal of tongues, the patriarchs and the Mosaic law. Then
follows another, De Natale Domini, which gives the life of Christ
from His birth to His ascension. The second series treats more
particularly of the history of the apostles, the origin of monastic
life, the foundation of the English church under Gregory the
Great and its expansion in the days of St Cuthbert. The didactic
element is less pronounced in the second part than in the first,
and, while the first part seems to have been intended for the
instruction of the ignorant in the primary facts of their belief,
the second is devoted mainly to the exposition of the teaching
of the church.   It is in this second series that we find the famous
sermon on the Eucharist which, owing to the difficulty of expressing
in the unaccustomed English tongue the undeveloped and indefinite
standpoint of the period, has led to much controversy, based on the
mistake of reading into the tenth century the ideas of modern
times. The reformers gave us our first editions of this sermon in
the form of controversial pamphlets.
The chief sources of these sermons were, as the homilist himself
tells us, the works of St Augustine, St Jerome, St Gregory, Bede,
Smaragdus and Haymo. Flrster regards the homilies of St Gregory
as the groundwork. Additional sources are Alcuin, Gregory of
Tours and Rufinus, the Vitae Patrum        of Ratramnus, and many
others. The English song on St Thomas he did not use, and he
1 The manuscripts of these homilies vary much in arrangement of matter, and it
has been supposed that three recensions existed. The first answers to Thorpe's edition
of the Cambridge MS, in which the two parts are kept asunder and all the prefaces
are retained, although other matter is also found. The second is represented by such
MSS as C.C.C.C. 188, which has only the first set of sermons, no prefaces, some
sermons divided and the homily on the nativity of Our Lady following that on the
birth of St John. It has also a new sermon for a confessor's feast, with the statement
that, although the author had written it for another (Aethelwold, bishop of Winchester,
1007-1013), yet he was to have a copy of it himself. Hence this recension dates after
1007. Thirdly, there are several MSS in which both parts are recast together in the
order of the church year, with additional sermons.




18       From   4Afred to the Conquest
rejected St Paul's vision in favour of English works on St Peter
and St Paul. But all these are treated very freely, and, although
Aelfric was often hampered by the inadequacy of the language to
express abstract ideas, his skill as a teacher is especially visible in
the lucidity with which he explains the mysteries of their religion
to his ignorant audience.
The treatment, throughout, is highly poetical; alliteration
abounds, and ten of the homilies are in a rhythm identified by
Einenkel and Trautmann as the four beat verse of the Old High
German poet Otfried, though the reality of this identification is
doubtful. These are the homilies on the Passion, the invention
of the cross, Joshua's victories, St James the Just, Clement,
Alexander, St Martin, St Cuthbert, Irenaeus and that on love.
Of the three senses of Scripture, the mystical is most delighted in,
and symbolism is prominent. Similar feeling and outlook is
reflected in most Middle English homilies. Thus, the dead skins
in which our first parents were clad after the fall betokened
that "they were then mortal who might have been immortal, if
they had kept that easy commandment of God." Such a use, in
the lengths to which it was then carried, although faithfully
reflecting the ideas of the early and subsequent centuries of the
Middle Ages, is strained to the modern mind, and to the modern
reader. Aelfric's imagination is better seen in the tender and
pathetic passages describing the slaughter of the Innocents or
the solitary sojourn of St Cuthbert on the island of Lindisfarne.
Aelfric's next works, though equally significant of his zeal as
a teacher, were much less ambitious. They consisted of a Latin
grammar, a Latin-English vocabulary and a Latin colloquy or dialogue, intended to instruct the novices at Winchester in the daily
speech of the monastery. The Grammar, like so many of Aelfric's
works, has two prefaces, one in English and one in Latin, the
former explaining that the book is based on the greater and lesser
Priscian, to the end that, when "tender boys" have mastered the
eight parts of speech in the grammars of Donatus (the shorter
of which was the general medieval text-book), they may proceed
to perfect their studies both in Latin and English; while the latter
tells how the grammar was undertaken after the two books of
eighty sermons, because grammar is the key to the understanding
of those books. He insists, also, on the fact that the maintenance
of religion depends on the encouragement of learning, and reminds
his readers of the evil years before Dunstan and Aethelwold, when
there was scarcely an English priest who could write or even read
a Latin letter.




The fforks of Aelfric


II9


In many of the MSS which contain the grammar it is followed
by a Latin-English Vocabulary, the earliest of its kind extant,
arranged according to subjects, not alphabetically, and largely
derived from the etymologies of St Isidore. That it is Aelfric's
is proved not only by its inclusion in the manuscript containing
the grammar, without any pause between them, but also by the
presence of many words characteristic of his vocabulary.
The Colloquy, of which only two MSS exist, is exceedingly
interesting both in method and theme. It is in the form of a
conversation between the teacher, a novice and a number of
other persons representing the various occupations of the day.
The ploughman tells how he leads his oxen to the field, while the
neatherd, like Caedmon in Bede's famous story, takes them at night
to the stable and stands watching over them for fear of thieves.
The shepherd guards his sheep against the wolf and makes butter
and cheese. The hunter captures harts and hares and is rewarded
by the king with horses and collars, while the merchant trades
in palls and silk, gold and precious stones, strange garments,
perfumes, wine and oil, ivory, brass, tin, glass and silver. Last
of all, the novice describes the division of his day, and how, if he
sleeps through the bell for nocturnes, his comrades awaken him
with rods. The authorship is proved by a note in one of the
MSS:-Hanc sententiam latini sermonis olim Aelfricus Abbas
composuit, qui meus fuit magister, sed tamen ego Aelfricus Bata
multas postea huic addidi appendices. The colloquy has an Old
English gloss, which is certainly not the work of Aelfric. The
additions made by Aelfric's disciple to the text, with the object
of providing more matter for practice, in every way destroy the
simplicity and neatness of the original.
In one MS of Aelfric's Grammar we meet the famous version
of the Distichs of Cato. Hence, there has been a certain tendency
to ascribe these also to Aelfric. They are marked by clearness of
expression and show great sense of adaptability. They seem to be
a combination of two translations, one to distich 68, the other to
the end. Two of the distichs are taken from Aelfric's Deuteronomy,
and the fact that one of the three MSS in which these distichs
are contained also includes the Grammar, both works being
written in one hand, places them, at any rate, in close connection
with Aelfric's school. It is, perhaps, best to regard them as the
result of Aelfric's influence.
These school-books were followed in 996 or 997 by a third
1 The MS is Trin. Coll. Camb. Rg. 17.




120        From    Alfred to the Conquest
series of homilies, The Lives, or Passions, of the Saints.  These
homilies, also, are introduced by two prefaces, one in Latin
explaining the origin and occasion of the work, while the other is
an English letter addressed to the eaidorman Aethelweard, the
father of the founder of Cerne abbey.
"Thou knowest, beloved," says Aelfric in the letter, "that we translated
in two former books the passions and lives of the saints whom the English
nation honours with festivals; now, it has seemed good to us that we should
write this book concerning the sufferings and lives of the saints whom monks
in their offices 1 honour among themselves."
The Latin preface further states that only such lives have been
chosen from the Vitae Patrum as are suitable for narration to the
lay attendants at monastic services.
The best manuscript of this work2 contains thirty-three lives,
six general homilies and a narrative without title on the legend
of Abgarus, thus, like the two previous series, comprising forty
sermons in all. They are arranged in the order of the church
year, beginning with an address on the nativity of Christ, ending
with the life of St Thomas (21 December) and including an interesting Rogation Sunday homily on auguries, witchcraft, etc., and one
(25 August) in which we have an early appearance of the devil
of the later mysteries.
Besides the Vitae Patrum, which is the only source mentioned
by Aelfric in his preface, other authorities cited are Ambrosius,
Augustine, Jerome, Terentian, Abbo of Fleury, Bede and St Oswald.
The story of St Swithun is partly based on a letter of Lanferth, but
owes still more to local tradition.
These homilies exhibit the style of Aelfric in its maturity;
only one, that on the Nativity, is in prose; the others are in the
loose alliterative rhythm which he had already used in some of
his previous sermons. In the long run, this excessive recourse
to alliteration became an obstacle to clear expression and was
alien to the true development of prose; but the monotonous
rhythm, so closely akin to the ballad verse of the common
people was, no doubt, very attractive to lay audiences. The
Lives, since they deal with fact and not theory, throw less light
on Aelfric's doctrine than the earlier homilies; but, on the other
hand, they provide many valuable side-lights on contemporary
manners, and on the life of the homilist himself. The most
1 i.e. the customary Divine Hours, daily chanted by the monks in choir, a public
service which the secular clergy could not, of course, maintain. The office-books for
the two, probably, also differed.
2 Cott. Jul. E. vn.




7ihe fVorks of Aelfric


121


interesting of all are those of the English saints, St Oswald,
St Edmund and St Swithun. In the first two we see portrayed
the ideal king of the Old English, protector and benefactor of his
people.  Oswald breaks in pieces the silver dish on which his
meat is served, and commands Aidan to distribute the pieces
among the suppliants for his charity; St Edmund, after his
subjects have been slaughtered by the Danes, no longer desires
life. "This I wish in my mind, that I should not be left alone
after my dear thanes, who in their very beds, with their wives and
children, have, by these sea-goers, suddenly been slain." In the
life of St Swithun we have reminiscences of the happy time under
king Edgar, "when the kingdom still continued in peace, so that,no fleet was heard of save that of the folk themselves who held
this land."
The date of these Lives is known almost to the very year.
They are not dedicated, like the others, to archbishop Sigeric,
because he had died in 995; and they cannot have been written
earlier than 996, because in the sermon on Ash Wednesday
Aethelwold, who was canonised in that year, is spoken of as " the
holy bishop who now worketh miracles." But, as Aelfric says
that he borrowed his homily on St Edmund from Abbo of Fleury's
life of that saint (986), which came into his hands a few years after
it was written, they cannot well be much later than 997.
Appended to the best MSS of the Lives of the Saints is an
English version of Alcuin's Interrogationes Sigewzlfi Presbyteri
in Genesin. It begins with a preface and introduction on Alcuin
and the Latin text, which consisted of a series of catechetical
answers to questions on Genesis, asked by Alcuin's friend, Sigewulf. Then follow the translated interrogationes, abridged from
a hundred and seventy-eight to forty-eight essentials. The first
fifteen are on the moral law of the Creator and His creatures;
the next five, relating to the material creation, contain an insertion
on the planets, derived from Bede by Aelfric, who was devoted to
the study of astronomy; then come four on the manifestations
of the Trinity in nature. These are succeeded by a series on
man's creation in the divine image and his end, followed by others
on the origin of evil. Last of all are questions on the ages of the
world, and the whole is concluded by a creed and the doxology.
Aelfric is nowhere stated to be the author, but the similarity
of the translation to his acknowledged work in style, structure
and rhythm enables us to ascribe it to him with some confidence.
Two other works, closely connected in style and theme, also




122


From Alfred to the Conguest


unsigned, but attributed to Aelfric on the ground of style and
diction, were probably composed soon after the Lives of the
Saints. These are a translation of the Hexameron of St Basil,
and a version of the De Temporibus of Bede. The former, which
is a sermon on the six days of creation, the fall of the angels, the
day of rest, the expulsion from Paradise and the atonement of
Christ, is by no means a literal translation, but is partly original,
and partly derived from Bede's Commentary on Genesis. It is
found in the best MSS, refers to former sermons and has Aelfric's
loose alliterative rhythm. It shows a close resemblance to the
version of De Temporibus, which, as the compiler distinctly states,
is not to be considered a homily. It is, indeed, a scientific treatise,
adapted from Bede, but showing much independent learning in the
matter of astronomy, the entry on the feast of the circumcision
telling how the ancient year-systems began and were reckoned.
It is almost certainly Aelfric's, and was, probably, written between
991 and 995.
So far, all Aelfric's works had been of either a homiletic or an
educational character; but now, at the request of the ealdorman
Aethelweard, he embarked somewhat reluctantly on the task of
rendering the scriptures into the vernacular. For Aelfric had
now spent the best years of his life in the service of the church
and education, bringing nearer to his people the truths and sources
of their religion and morality. He was now in advanced middle life,
and felt keenly that these labours withdrew him from further study
and from the contemplation of the supernatural, towards which his
age, profession and, above all, the grievous state of earthly affairs,
that seemed indeed to foretoken the end of the world, now drew him.
At the same time, he had a mass of homiletic material ready, and,
at a time when scarce anyone could read, he felt that the living
voice of the preacher should be mainly used with the people.
Hence, we find his version of the Bible essentially meant to be
preached rather than read; he wrote for those who should teach the
as yet unlettered people. The version was intended to be of the
nature of a homily, and was not meant to be an accurate version
of Holy Writ. Name lists, genealogies and difficult passages were
left out.
Aelfric's principal achievement in this department was editing
the paraphrase of the first seven books of the Bible. It is certain,
however, that his hand is not to be traced throughout. In the
prefatory letter, which he addressed to Aethelweard, he reminds
his friend how he had said that he need not labour any further in




Aelfric's Biblical Translations


123


the book of Genesis than the story of Isaac, since another had
translated it from that point to the end. In the MS in the Cambridge University Library only chapters i-xxiv of Genesis are given,
and Dietrich has observed that the style thenceforward to the end
of Leviticus is essentially different. In the fourth book of Moses
Aelfric's style is once more recognisable, and alliteration again
occurs. It is possible that Aelfric may have worked over another
translation of the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy; but he
himself tells us, in De Veteri et de Novo Testamento, that he had
translated Joshua and Judges at the request of Aethelweard. The
book of Judges was added afterwards: it was probably intended
originally to be included, like the homily on the Maccabees, in the
series of Saints' Lives. It is composed entirely in Aelfric's usual
rhythm, and ends with a short notice of the good kings Alfred,
Aethelstan and Edgar, who put to flight the Danes and fostered
religion and learning. With the exception of Daniel the work
consists merely of extracts. Since the Lives were written in 996, and
other homiletic work had followed, these paraphrases seem to date
from 997, and, in their completed state, from 998. It is important
to note in them that Aelfric merely signs himself as monk. They
were, probably, the last work done for Aethelweard, who is not
heard of after 999. But Aelfric's close friendship with his son
continued and bore important fruit in later years.
Three other biblical paraphrases or homilies may be traced
to Aelfric. In his tractate on the Old Testament he observes that
he formerly made in English a discourse or short exposition of
Job, and also that he had turned into English the book of Esther.
The MS of Job is lost, but a copy printed by L'Isle in 1638
shows unmistakeable signs of Aelfric's workmanship, and the
theme resembles that of his other works; thus, a passage on
Antichrist is strongly reminiscent of some sentences in the preface
to the first series of homilies, and the whole treatment corresponds
to that of the thirty-fifth homily of the second series. Esther,
which also exists only in L'Isle's transcript, seems originally to
have belonged to the Saints' Lives. It is a series of extracts in
Aelfric's customary alliterative rhythm.
Aelfric also mentions, in the same place, a work on the apocryphal book of Judith, but without claiming the authorship.
"It is also," he says, "arranged in English in our manner, as an
example to you men, that you should defend your land with
weapons against the hostile host." These words were formerly
supposed to refer to the beautiful poem Judith, which is found




124       From    Alfred    to the   Conquest
in a fragmentary state in the Beowulf MS; but Assmann has
shown that an Old English version of the story contained in two
MSS1 has all the characteristics of Aelfric's style. Moreover,
it contains many passages parallel with others in his preface to
the Old Testament.
About the year 998, Aelfric was asked by bishop Wulfsige
of Sherborne to compose a pastoral for him. It is written in
the bishop's name, and, after a short preface addressed to Wulfsige,
admonishing him to reprove his clergy more frequently for their
neglect of the ecclesiastical canons, it treats of celibacy, clerical
duties, synods and the Benedictine rule, ending with a warning
against clerical attendance at lykewakes. This concludes the first
part.  The second is entirely concerned with the rite of the
presanctified and the proper length of time for the reservation
of the sacrament, and expresses the same views that Aelfric
had already advanced in the homilies, based upon St Augustine
(probably the Enarratio in Psalm xcviii), through the famous
Ratramnus, opponent of Paschasius Radbertus, abbot of Corby.
It thus shows Aelfric as a keen follower of contemporary
"science" abroad. Aelfric sided, seemingly, against Radbertus;
his opinions are nowhere exactly reflected to-day, though the
obscure Augustinian " spiritual," rendered in English "gastlice," did
the good service of giving us editions of him in the sixteenth
century, when he was quoted by Foxe and others. It is an
anachronism to impute any fully developed modern opinion to
the tenth century.
About the same time must be dated Aelfric's Advice to a
Spiritual Son, translated from St Basil's work with the same title.
The author is not expressly named, but, from internal evidence,
we know that he was a Benedictine monk, and that he had already
written about Basil. It speaks of St Basil's Hexameron in almost the very words Aelfric used earlier; it contains passages on
St Basil closely resembling some in the Interrogationes Sigewulfi Presbyteri; and, inclusive of the preface, it is composed in
Aelfric's loose rhythm. The subject is the admonition of a spiritual
father to his son to lead a righteous life.
In a manuscript in the Bodleian2, under the general heading
Sermones Lupi, occurs a homily On the sevenfold gifts of the
Holy Ghost, which, owing to its presence in that manuscript,
was formerly ascribed to Wulfstan. But that Aelfric composed a homily on this subject we know from his own state1 Corpus Christi Coll. 303 and Cott. Oth. B. 10.  2 Junius 99.




Aelfric's Minor JIforks                125
mentl: 'Sevenfold gifts he giveth yet to mankind, concerning
which I wrote formerly in a certain other writing in the English
speech." This homily is seventh from the superscription, which
only seems to apply to those immediately following it (two in
number). We are, therefore, as Napier in his work on Wulfstan
pointed out, justified in rejecting the ascription of the seventh
homily to Wulfstan, and it may be by Aelfric.
In 1005, Aelfric was called from Wessex to Mercia. The thane
Aethelmaer, who had formerly invited him to Cerne, and for whom
so many of his works had been composed, had recently acquired
two estates in Oxfordshire, which he, in turn, presented to his
newly founded abbey of Eynsham. These are interesting on account
of their connection with the hero of Maldon, himself a patron
of learning, who had fallen, some fourteen years before, fighting
against the Danes2. Hither Aethelmaer retired for the rest of his
life, and hither he summoned Aelfric as first abbot. The monastery
followed the Benedictine rule, and it was for the instruction of its
inmates that Aelfric wrote, soon after his instalment there, the
Latin Letter to the Monks of Eynsham, to which reference has
already been made. His object was to give an account of the rule
as practised at Winchester, and he says that the source of his
information is bishop Aethelwold's De Consuetudine Monachorum,
by which title, as we have already seen, he refers, in all probability,
to Aethelwold's Regularis Concordia.
It is in the preface to this letter that Aelfric speaks of the
years spent by him in the school of Aethelwold, and, as a further
acknowledgment of the debt he owed his great master, he composed soon afterwards, in Latin, his Vita Aethelwoldi. In the
preface to this Life, Aelfric calls himself abbot and alumnus of
Winchester, and, greeting Kenulph, bishop of Winchester, and the
brethren of the monastery there, he says that it now seems right
to him to recall to men's memory some of the deeds of their father
and great teacher, St Aethelwold (d. 984), who had been dead for
twenty years. Since Kenulph was not appointed to the see till
1006, and died either the same year or the next, the Life must
have been finished about this time. Of the two recensions of the
Life, one, by Aelfric alone, shows his usual characteristics; the
other is apparently Aelfric's life, "written over" by Wulfstan,
precentor of Winchester, with additional matter concerning posthumous miracles.


De Veteri et de Novo Testamento, Preface.
2 See p. 144.




126       From    A/fred    to the  Conquest
Besides these Latin works, in the first year of his office as
abbot, Aelfric wrote an English letter addressed to a thane
called Wulfgeat, "at Ylmandun," a place which has been identified
with Ilmington, about thirty miles from Eynsham. It begins with
a six line address to Wulfgeat, in which Aelfric refers to former
English writings, lent to the thane, and to his promise to lend
him more. Since he calls himself abbot, and since in 1006 Wulfgeat
fell into disgrace and lost all his possessions, being supplanted by
Eadric the famous traitor, the letter was evidently written in
1005 or 1006.
It was probably two or three years after this that Aelfric
composed his treatise on the Old and the New Testaments-De
Veteri et de Novo Testamento. It begins with a long address
to Sigferth or Sigweard, a thane living at Easthealon, the modern
Asthall, which is only twelve miles distant from Eynsham. Aelfric
begins by saying that Sigferth had very often asked him for
English books, but that he would not grant his request till the
thane had proved his sincerity by good deeds. But, since he had
complained to Aelfric that he could not obtain his works, the
abbot had written this especially for him. The tractate, which is
based on St Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana, is, in substance,
a popular introduction to the contents of the Bible, and falls into
two parts. The first, on the Old Testament, is especially valuable
because, in the course of his summary of the various books, Aelfric
gives the particulars to which we have already referred, concerning
his translations from the Bible. The second part, on the New
Testament, begins with the story of John the Baptist, treats of
the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles and the
book of Revelation, and, after certain allegories, some words on
the duties of the three stations of life, workers, praying folk and
fighters, and a description of the capture of Jerusalem by Titus,
ends with an admonition against the Teutonic habit of setting
folk to drink beyond their measure-a native pleasantry which, it
seems, Sigferth had endeavoured to impose upon Aelfric when
visited by him.
It was to the same nobleman that Aelfric, about the same time,
addressed his letter on the celibacy of the clergy, for Sigferth
entertained among his household an anchorite who affirmed that
the marriage of mass-priests (i.e. full priests as distinguished from
"preostas," a generic name including deacons and minor orders
as well) was permissible. But Aelfric, though loth to differ from
this "good fiiend," if he were a God-fearing man, could not refrain




Aelfric's Later      WForks            I27
from pointing out that the earlier usage of the church required
celibacy from all the clergy, and the letter is a prolonged argument
on this theme.
Aelfric's last important work was a pastoral letter written for
Wulfstan, who, from 1002 to 1023, was archbishop of York,
and, till 1016, held also the see of Worcester, being thus a
neighbour of the abbot of Eynsham. It falls into two parts,
of which the first speaks of the three periods of the law, and goes
on to the theme already treated in the letters to Wulfsige and
Sigferth. The subject of the marriage of the clergy is reviewed
from a historical standpoint, and the letter further admonishes the
clergy on the celebration of the Eucharist, as their great function,
and treats of the seven grades of holy orders. The second part
deals with the use of the holy oils and the administration of the
last sacraments to the dying. Mass was not to be said in
laymen's houses, nor churches used for worldly purposes. The
work must have been composed after 1014, since it contains a
quotation from Aethelred's laws of that date; and, probably, before
1016, when Wulfstan's connection with Worcester came to an end.
The epistles were written in Latin and translated into English
by Aelfric himself, at Wulfstan's request, in the following year.
Aelfric's life was now drawing to a close. The exact date of
his death is not known, but he died, probably, soon after 1020.
His last years were passed in times not favourable for literary
work. They were eventful years for England, for they witnessed
the Danish sack of Canterbury in 1011, the murder of St Alphege
by the Danes at Greenwich, the flight of Aethelred before Sweyn,
the strife of Edmund Ironside and Canute and Canute's final
triumph.
Aelfric was not only the greatest prose writer, he was also
the most distinguished English-writing theologian, in his own time,
and for five centuries afterwards. Yet he was in no sense an
original thinker; his homilies, as he frankly states, are borrowed
from others, and in them he reflects the thought of the west,
especially the teaching of St Augustine its great Father. His chief
object was to convey to the simple and unlearned the teaching
of the Fathers; and in this he was pre-eminently successful. If
Dunstan and Aethelwold first kindled the flame, it was Aelfric who,
through dark years of strife and warfare, when men's thoughts
were absorbed by the pressing anxieties of their daily life, kept
the lamp alight and reminded them   of spiritual ideals.  His
influence lasted long after his death, as is shown by the many late




128       From    Alfred    to  the Coniuest
manuscripts of his writings, some of which date from the twelfth
century; and if it had not been for his faithful, modest labour, the
difficulties of Lanfranc and Anselm would have been even greater
than they were.
As he himself tells us, he took Alfred for his model, but, in
ease and grace, his style far surpasses that of his great predecessor.
Both Aelfric and Wulfstan write and translate in a free style, but
it is no longer the gossiping colloquialism of Alfred. English had
become a literary language, polished in the cloisters with long
use as a vehicle for translation and original works. In the cloisters
Latin was still a living language and, hence, Latin constructions
became common. The necessity of having to express difficult
ideas in a form intelligible to ignorant men helped Aelfric in his
choice of words and in his effort after lucidity, while, with the
instinct of a true teacher, he refused to be led astray by the
example of Latin syntax and preferred simple constructions.
Unfortunately, as time went on, he deferred more and more
to the preferences of his audience, and debased his prose by
throwing it into the rhythmical alliterative form so popular
with the vulgar. Perhaps it was felt that a more pompous,
rhetorical style than that of ordinary speech should be used in
treating of solemn themes.  However that may be, the later,
florid manner which Aelfric affected in the Saints' Lives, and
in some of his other treatises, is distinctly inferior to that of
the first two series of homilies. His prose is seen at its best in
simple narrative, and, to appreciate the difficulties under which
he laboured, the homilies on the Eucharist and on the Creation
(both philosophic subjects) should be read together. The first
is confused and complex, compared with the flowing ease of the
great Father upon whose work it was based and, obviously, the
language was not, at this time, equal to abstruse metaphysical
speculation. The second, which deals with a simpler subject, is
clear and comprehensive. Aelfric shows power in his treatment
of pathos as well as of philosophy, when both are simple; as may
be seen in the homilies on the Holy Innocents and on the Creation.
But, whatever his theme, he is always logical and persuasive; and
the "sweet reasonableness" of his methods especially distinguishes
his sermons from the fiery denunciations, and the direct, strenuous
language, of his contemporary and friend, archbishop Wulfstan,
who goes to the point without any of the abstract moralising to
be found in Aelfric. Wulfstan delivers his Christian doctrine as
a statement of facts, and his phrases have a legal smack about




Aeifric and      TFulfstan              129
them; while Aelfric loves what has some philosophy in it, for even
his simplicity is often profound. In a word, Wulfstan is a judge
and legalist, Aelfric a contemplative student.
This difference in tone is explained partly by temperament,
partly by the circumstances of their lives. Aelfric, following the
quiet industrious routine of duty behind the shelter of the abbey
walls, heard only the rumours of the strife that raged without;
Wulfstan, absorbed in practical, political life, was brought face
to face with the anguish and the practical needs of the time. He
was already bishop of Worcester, when, in 1002, he was appointed,
also, to the see of York. In 1014, he assisted in the compilation of
the laws of Aethelred, drawn up at the synod of Eynsham; he
died on 28 May 1023. Thus, his period of office coincided with
that of the most disastrous and devastating invasions of the
country.
It is extremely difficult to determine exactly which of the
homilies in the Bodleian  are really Wulfstan's. Owing to the
superscription at the beginning of the first: Hie incipiunt
sermones Lupi, all were ascribed to him by Wanley. Napier has
pointed out, however, that this heading was, probably, taken from
another manuscript of the archbishop's sermons, which were copied
into a miscellaneous collection containing many others, of which
the authorship is uncertain, or certainly not his. Of the fifty-three
homilies in the Bodleian MS, only five are indisputably by Wulfstan.
There are the two immediately following the superscription, dealing
with the Bible story', and with the catholic faith3; next follows a
sermon4 of which only parts are by Wulfstan, and which Napier,
rejecting the passages he considers unauthentic, has divided into
four portions': on the Christian life, on Christ's death, on Christ
as the true friend and on the duties of Christians. Then comes
the famous Address to the English6, and, last of all, a short
exhortation7 with the superscription Sermo Lupi, on the duty of
Christians, full of metrical fragments, which can be separated
from the context and show signs of sung verse united by alliteration
or assonance. Of the remaining homilies, some, which occur in
the same order in various manuscripts, are, possibly, by Wulfstan;
many, such as the paraphrase of the poem called Be Domes Daege,
and The Address of the Soul to the Body, must be entirely rejected;
while others8 appear also among the Blickling Homilies or the
1 Junius 99.   2 Wanley 1, Napier 2.   3 Wanley 2, Napier 3.
4 Wanley 4.     5 Napier xix, xx, xxi, xxIr.  6 Wanley 5, Napier 33.
7 Wanley 6, Napier 34.                 8 XLIX, LIV and LV.


E. L. I. CH. VII.


9




130       From     Alfred    to  the  Conzuest
works of Aelfric. It is noteworthy that the homilies referred to
above as possibly by Wulfstan are very similar in phraseology
to the Old English laws drawn up at the council of Eynsham in
1014; and, as we know from his own statement that Wulfstan was
responsible for the Latin paraphrase of these statutes, it is probable
that the English version was his also.
Of the five homilies which can certainly be ascribed to Wulfstan,
the most powerful is the one entitled in the Bodleian MS Sermo
Lupi ad Anglos quando Dani maxime persecuti sunt eos, quod
fuit in die Aethelredi regis, to which another MS adds more
explicitly that this was in anno millesimo xiiii ab incarnatione
Domini nostri Jesus Christi, and another, in anno millesino viii.
But it is, indeed, applicable to any year in the ill-fated reign of
Aethelred. The vices, evil deeds and cowardice of the English
are scourged with a heavy hand; the English are likened to the
Britons whom they have turned out, and are threatened with the
same fate. The archbishop's passionate patriotism breaks forth
in the burning words with which he describes the desolation and
demoralisation of the people, scattered like frightened sheep
before the onset of the heathen, without a single leader to rally
them  to resistance.  Villages are destroyed by fire, the new
minsters are stripped of their holy things; father is turned against
son and brother against brother; even the ancient bond of thane
and thrall becomes loosened in this time of universal disintegration.
And, like some Hebrew prophet, Wulfstan refuses to believe that
the Almighty would have laid so heavy an affliction upon an
innocent people; he sees in the crimes of the nation the cause,
rather than the effect, of the long strife; this evil has come upon
them for their sins; they have provoked the wrath of Heaven,
and, unless they repent and reform, a worse evil shall befall them.
But there is still room for penitence, and the sermon ends on a
gentler note:
"Let us creep to Christ," says the preacher, "and call upon Him unceasingly with trembling hearts, and deserve His mercy; let us love God and
His laws, and faithfully perform what our sponsors promised for us at our
baptism. Let us order rightly our words and our deeds, and keep faith with
one another without guile, and frequently think upon the great judgment
that awaits us all; and protect ourselves against the flaming fire of hell; and
let us earn for ourselves the glory and the joy which God has prepared for
those who do His will on earth. So God help us. Amen."
Here and there are traces of metrical character sometimes
assonant, sometimes alliterative, which may have been part of
some pessimistic folk-ballads on England's downfall.




Wuylfstan and Byrhtferth


I'3


Wulfstan's style is much more vehement than that of Aelfric.
He is preacher rather than teacher, appealing more to the emotions
than to the reason of his hearers, fertile in concrete illustrations,
and avoiding the subtle symbolism   in which Aelfric delighted.
His sentences, though not deficient in lucidity, are very long;
synonym is heaped on synonym and clause upon clause; yet the
chanting sense of rhythm is always present; epithets are balanced,
and the effect is often heightened by the use of antithesis. But,
as might be expected from one whose life was so much absorbed
by the administration of public affairs, his style is that of the
rhetorician rather than of the philosopher.
In addition to the homilies already mentioned, several isolated
tracts of the same nature by unknown authors survive. Among
these may be noted the Life of St Guthlac and of St Swithun,
the former translated from the Latin by Felix of Croyland, and, on
the ground that one MS' is in the same handwriting as Aelfric's
Pentateuch2, often attributed to him; the latter a mere fragment,
which is also supposed by some scholars to be his. There are
also the Life of St Neot, and of St Mary of Egypt, which may,
possibly, be his.
Another renowned contemporary of Aelfric was the monk
Byrhtferth, whose writings are chiefly concerned with mathematics.
He lived about 980, and is said to have been a pupil of Abbo.
Leland says he was called Thorneganus. He seems to have known
some of Dunstan's earlier disciples, and to have lived at Canterbury
for a time. His reputation as an English writer rests on his
Handboc or Enchiridion, a miscellany preserved in only one MS3.
It begins with a descriptive calendar, and then follow short
treatises of a mathematical and philological nature. After these,
come three theological tracts, on The Ages of the World, The
Loosing of Satan and The Seven Sins. The collection concludes
with two homilies, one entitled Ammonitio Amisi baet is freondlic
mynegung4, and the other on the four cardinal virtues. The sermon
on the loosing of Satan seems to indicate that it was composed
towards the close of the tenth century, and this date is corroborated
by what other information we possess about the authors.
Like Aelfric, Byrhtferth was a product of St Aethelwold's
1 Cott. Vesp. D. xxi.        2 Bod. Laud. E. 19.
3 Oxf. Ash. 328.             4 reminder.
5 Besides these English treatises Byrhtferth was also responsible for Latin commentaries on Bede's De Temporum Ratione and De Natura Rerum; two essays entitled
De Principiis Mathematicis and De Institutione Monachorum and a Vita Dunstani.
9-2




I32       From     Alfred    to  the Conqr    est
monastic reform, but his scientific leanings differentiated him
remarkably from the greater homilists.
Besides these homilies and scientific treatises, there were composed, during the tenth century, three English versions of the
Gospels, known as the Lindisfarne, Rushworth and West Saxon
glosses. The Latin text of the Lindisfarne Gospels', contained
in a magnificent manuscript, adorned with beautiful illuminations,
was written about the year 700; and it was not till at least two
hundred and fifty years later, when it had been removed to
Chester-le-Street, near Durham, for safety, that the interlinear
North Northumbrian gloss was added by Aldred, a priest of that
place. The gloss gives many variant English equivalents for the
Latin words. Aldred himself, however, seems to have written only
the latter part of the gloss, that beginning at St John v, 10 in
a new hand, though the earlier portion was, probably, made under
his supervision. The gloss is of the greatest importance from a
philological point of view, since it is our most valuable authority
for the Northumbrian dialect of the middle of the tenth century.
Equally interesting are the Rushworth Gospels2. The Latin
text, which differs very slightly from that of the Lindisfarne MS,
was, perhaps, written in the eighth century, while the gloss dates
from the second half of the tenth. It falls into two distinct
portions, the first of which, in the dialect of north Mercia, was
written by Farman, a priest of Harewood, seven miles north-east
of Leeds. This portion, which includes the gospel of St Matthew
and part of chapters i and ii of St Mark, begins as a gloss, and,
later, becomes again a gloss, but, in the main, it is a fairly free
version of the Latin text. The second part, in a dialect which
has been called South Northumbrian by Lindelbf, was written by
Owun, and shows, very strongly, the influence of the Lindisfarne
glosses, which must have been before the writer as he worked,
since he often goes astray from the Latin text to follow Aldred's
version. It seems probable that Farman, who was a good Latin
scholar, had made his gloss as far as St Mark ii, 15, when the
Lindisfarne MS came into his hands. He then entrusted the task
to Owun, who was a less accomplished linguist, and who, whenever
he was confronted by a difficulty, resorted to the Lindisfarne gloss
for its solution. It may be that Farman chose Owun as one knowing a dialect closely akin to that of Lindisfarne.
1 Cott. Nero D. iv.
2 So called because the MS in which they are contained was formerly owned by
J. Rushworth, clerk to the House of Commons during the Long Parliament.




Legends of the Ho/y Rood


I33


There also exists in six MSS a West Saxon version of the
Gospels, which, owing to a note in one MS1-ego Aelfricus scripsi
hunc librumr in monasterio Badhonio et decli Brihtwoldo preposito-Vas formerly ascribed to Aelfric of Eynsham. If we
suppose this Brihtwold to be the same as the bishop of that
name, who held the see of Sherborne from 1006-1046, as he is
here called prepositus, we may conclude that the Corpus MS
was written before 1006. It certainly belongs to the first quarter
of the eleventh century and is not of Aelfric's authorship, for it in
no wise agrees with his description of his own work on the New
Testament. He tells us that he had translated pieces from the
New Testament; but this is a full version. The other MSS are
later, and one of them, in the Cambridge University Library, contains also the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which provided
legendary material for later medieval homilists and for the growth
of the Arthurian legend in respect of Joseph of Arimathaea.
The early Christian legends, indeed, and, more particularly,
such as mark the continuance of Jewish traditions and the gradual
diffusion of Christianity in the east, seem to have had a special
attraction for English writers of this period. There are two
legends connected with the Holy Rood-one with the growth of its
wood, the other with the history of the cross after the crucifixion.
The legend of the Holy Rood itself is the same as the original
story of Cynewulf's poem. It will be remembered that St Helena
was reputed to be of British origin.
The oldest English version of the legend of the growth of the
wood is found in a MS in the Bodleian (343), which contains also
fifty-one homilies by Aelfric. The manuscript dates only from
the twelfth century, but, as the other contents are copies of
eleventh century originals, it is reasonable to suppose that the
cross legend also was composed at an earlier period. This theory
is borne out by the language, which Napier considers too archaic
for the twelfth century. From a literary point of view, as well as
linguistically, the version is of the greatest interest, as showing
the development of English prose. In its original eleventh century
form, it represented, perhaps, the best tradition of the literary
West Saxon language developed in the cloisters, and the grace and
ease of the story show considerable mastery of the art of narrative.
The theme ultimately depends on the Jewish legends contained in the Book of Adam and the Book of Enoch, and it had
originally no connection with Christianity. The story frequently
1 Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, CXL.




I34


From   A/fred to the Conquest


occurs in medieval literature (as, for instance, in the South English
Legendary and the Cursor Mundi), and a brief outline of it may,
therefore, be given here. Unfortunately, the earlier part of the
legend in its Latin form, treating of the history of the rood to
the time of Moses, is missing in the English text. The story
shapes itself as follows. Adam being on the point of death, Eve and
Seth go to Paradise to ask the guardian angel for the healing oil
of life. Seth, as fallen man, is denied entrance to Paradise, and,
instead of the oil, the angel gives him three pips of cedar, cypress
and pine. When Seth returns to his father, he finds Adam
already dead; he places the three pips under Adam's tongue,
and, God having given Adam's body to Michael, it is buried by
the four archangels in Paradise. The pips fructify in the ground,
and from them spring three rods, which remain green till the time
of Moses. The Old English version begins at this point and tells
how Moses, having led the Children of Israel over the Red Sea,
lies down to rest, and, in the morning, finds that three rods have
sprung up, one at his head, and one at each side. With these
rods he makes sweet the bitter waters, and the host continues
its journey to Arabia. Hither David, whom the legend represents
as contemporary with Moses, is sent to demand the rods, and it is
revealed to him in a vision that they betoken the Trinityl. He
carries them to Jerusalem, where there is a pit of water so bitter
that none can taste of it. The rods are placed in it, and they join
together into a mighty tree, the growth of which is marked by
silver rings. After the death of David, Solomon attempts to use
the tree for the building of the Temple; but, owing to the fact that
it continually alters in length, this proves impossible, and it remains
untouched within the sanctuary. Finally, when the Jews seek for
a tree on which to crucify Christ, they remember this rood, and
use part of it for the cross.
The legend of the finding of the cross by St Helena is entirely
Christian in origin, and is cognate to the version in The Golden
Legend of Jacobus a Voragine, and in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum for the fourth of May, and it is the same theme as that
treated so beautifully by Cynewulf in his Elene.
An important legend cycle, to which attention has recently
been drawn, is that of the letter sent from Heaven on Sunday
observance. It is found in Old English in four of Wulfstan's
homilies, and in two separate versions (C.C.C.C. 140 and 162).
1 4 Cypressus tacnas pone feeder; Cedrus tacnme' pone sunse; Pinus tacnae6 Pone
hal3s gast."




Legends of the East


I35


Of the legends printed by Cockayne, that of Jamnes and Mambres
has quite a modern "psychical" flavour. The fact of its being
a mere fragment, and breaking off when just about to become dull,
saves it in the eyes of all lovers of ghost-tales.
In addition to other legends of a sacred character there are
others of a more worldly nature, the most remarkable being the
(suppositious) Letter from Alexander to Aristotle', The Wonders
of the East2 and the story of Apollonius of Tyre3. The first two
are closely connected with the eastern legend of Alexander the
Great, which had taken shape before the Christian era in a work
known as the pseudo-Kallisthenes, which was translated into Latin
before 340 by the so-called Julius Valerius. The two Alexander
legends, as we have them, are very faithful translations from Latin
originals, each chapter of The Wonders of the East being preceded
by a copy of the text on which it is founded. They are important
in the history of literature as proving the interest taken by the
educated clergy of the eleventh century in the Latin legend
cycles. Rather later than these two works, and also of eastern
origin, is the Old English version of Apollonius of Tyre, of which
only half is extant, a translation of the 153rd chapter of the
Gesta Romannorum, which, in its turn, depends on a lost Greek
original of the third century. It tells of the wooing of the king
of Antioch's daughter by Apollonius of Tyre, and how her father,
to prevent her marriage, required her suitors to solve a riddle or
to be beheaded. The early appearance of this legend in the
vernacular is especially interesting, since Gower's version of the
story in his Confessio Amantis provided the theme for Pericles
of Tyre. The presence of these legends in Old English is
peculiarly significant as indicating the on-coming flood of foreign
literature. Hitherto, the priest had been the story-teller, after
the heroic minstrelsy of earlier days had passed away; henceforth,
the lighter touch of the deliberate tale-teller was to be heard
in English.
From these we must turn to consider the quasi-scientific
works of this period, which have all been printed by Cockayne
in his Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft in Early England.
As might be expected, they have little literary value, but are
extremely interesting from a historical standpoint, since they
throw  many valuable side-lights on the manners and social
conditions of the time. Cockayne's collection begins with the
Herbarium   that passes under the name of Apuleius, a work
1 MS. Vitell. A. xv.  2 Cott. Tib. B. v.  3 C.C.C.C. S. 18.




136


From   Alfred to the Conpuest


stating the various ills for which each plant is a remedy. It
appears in four MSS, the one printed by Cockayne1 dating
from the first half of the eleventh century. Following this
is an English version of the Medicina de quadrupedibus of
Sextus Placidus, about whom nothing is known, which describes
the various kinds of animals and the use of their bodies in
medicine.
Even more interesting is the leech-book in Cockayne's second
volume2. The author was evidently acquainted with the Greek
and Latin authorities on medicine, for the work is full of their
prescriptions, and Helias, patriarch of Jerusalem, is mentioned as
having sent such prescriptions to king Alfred.
Lastly, Cockayne printed in his third volume two collections
of miscellaneous recipes3, and a number of prognostications, interpretations of dreams and a horologium4. The first collection is
extremely interesting on account of the heathen nature of many
of the prescriptions, which require for their efficacy the repetition
of charms. Some of these are mere gibberish, in which, however,
fragments of Greek, Latin and Hebrew may be traced; others,
such as the celebrated charm against the stitch, show close connection with Scandinavian mythology; while in some, such as the
charm to bring home straying cattle, there is a curious mingling
of Christian nomenclature and heathen superstition. All these
works are deeply tinged with poetic feeling; and the desire to
propitiate the powers that distribute storm and sunshine is visible
throughout. The date of these compositions is not known, but
most of the manuscripts belong to the eleventh century.
From the foregoing survey of English prose literature during
the eleventh century, it is clear that the language had attained
considerable development as a literary medium. In the hands of
Aelfric its vocabulary became less concrete, its constructions
more logical, and, though it was still seen to best advantage in
simple narrative, it was moulded by him with fair success to
philosophic requirements. But, in the years that followed the
Norman conquest, the development of English prose met with a
great check, and four hundred years elapsed before the vernacular
was again employed with the grace and fluency of Aelfric.
The decline of Old English poetry cannot be so directly
attributed to the Norman conquest. During the course of the
tenth and eleventh centuries the classical rhetorical metre had


1 Cott. Vitell. C. III.
s MS Harl. 585 and MS Harl. 6258.


2 Printed from MS Reg. 12 D. xvYI.
4 Chiefly from MS Cott. Tib. A. II.




The Ballads and Poems in the Chronicle 137
already begun to deteriorate, and was being gradually replaced
by the sung metre of the popular ballad. For the whole of our
period we have only two great poems, the fragment of Judith
in the Beowulf MS and the East Anglian poem        of Byrhtnoth's
death at Maldon. Both poems deal with the struggle against the
same foe and both are in the alliterative rhetorical metre. Judith
contains a fair number of lines which are undoubtedly clear types
of sung verse, such as is found in the thirteenth century in
Layamon's Brut.    The Battle of Maldon also contains two much
alike'. The adoption of this metre, which, although ancient, here
exhibits what are practically its first known traces in Old English
literature, is carried to much greater lengths in the poems embedded in the Chronicle; and some observations upon this new
metre, called the "sung" or four-beat verse, as opposed to the
declamatory or two-beat metre of the older poems, will be found
in an appendix at the end of the volume.
The first poem in the Chronicle occurs under the year 937, and
celebrates the glorious victory won by Aethelstan at Brunanburh.
It is a markedly patriotic poem and shows deep feeling; its
brilliant lyrical power, and the national enthusiasm evident
throughout, have made it familiar, in one form or another, to
all lovers of English verse. Great care was taken with the metre,
which is the ancient rhetorical line.
Under the year 942 another poem in alliterative rhetorical
metre occurs. It consists only of a few lines, and its subject is
the liberation of the five boroughs, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham,
Stamford and Derby, "which were formerly Danish, constrained
by need in the captive bonds of the heathen," by Edmund, son
of Edward the Elder. It has little poetic value; but it is distinguished by the same intense patriotism   as the verses on the
battle of Brunanburh.
The first poem in sung verse contained in the Chronicle is that
for 959, on the accession of king Edgar. It contains forty-eight
half lines, making twenty-four full lines, connected, of which only
about eight show alliteration. The lines are connected in the
earlier form of rimeless rhythm, not strictly alliterative, though
1 But the reader must be cautioned against assuming that every rimed verse was
also sung verse. The shorter types of rimed verse in such poems as Judith and The
Battle of Maldon were almost certainly not. The only sure criteria are (1) conformity
to the metrical schemes given in the Appendix, (2) a tendency to neglect the rhetoric
stress and turn the two-beat rhythm into a four-beat, as shown by the riming use of
syllables not carrying the full stress. Examples are: Judith, 1. 231, (ecgum gecostO)
slogon eornbste; Maldon, 1. 309, Byrhtwold mdal lbd b6rd hafenbd&.




138


From  Alfred to the Cornpest


assonance is sometimes found. Metrically, it is our best preserved
example. The theme is the prosperity of Edgar; how his wise
rule was honoured far and wide, how he established peace in the
land and how he was rewarded by God with the willing submission
of kings and earls. Of one fault, however, says the chronicler,
he was too often guilty, namely that he loved foreign ways and
enticed outlanders into his dominions. The poem ends with a
prayer that God may be more mindful of the king's virtues than of
his evil deeds, and that they may shield his soul from harm on its
long journey hence.
The delight of the English in the peaceful rule of Edgar is
still further shown by a poem in the old rhetorical metre which
is variously given in the different recensions of the Chronicle
under the years 972, 973 and 974, and relates the coronation of
Edgar. The Peterborough chronicle has some lines which have
been written as verse, but scansion seems to raise insurmountable difficulties. It can only be scanned on the assumption
that we have an attempt to combine two stress lines with fourstress rhythm-an utter failure. They tell how kings came from
afar to do homage to Edgar, and how there was no fleet so
daring as to threaten his dominions, or host so strong as to
ravage the land while he ruled over it.
Another interesting ballad poem, on the troubles caused by
Aelfhere and other rebels in the reign of Edgar's son Edward,
is found in the MS known as Cott. Tib. B. iv. It is of 19 half
lines or 91 full lines. The linking system  seems to be mostly
alliteration, but rime and assonance show themselves most clearly
where alliteration becomes absent or weak, as in
Godes wibersiecan
Godes lage bri.econ
and
mynstra tostaeneton,
and
munecas todraefdon.
The verse is sung ballad-verse, and the alliteration what would
be called irregular in rhetorical verse. It is uncertain whether
what seems an opening verse really belongs to the song.
The murder of Edward son of Edgar, at Corfesgeat, is
related in a peculiarly distinctive poem, which is quite clearly in
sung verse, and shows traces of strophic arrangement. A later
hand has tampered greatly with the original poem; some lines
have, obviously, been lengthened, and the last six printed as verse
do not scan as such, being, possibly, only rhythmic prose added




The Ballads and Poems in the Chronicle             139
afterwards. They are exactly like the irregular lines on Edgar's
death. Probably the chronicler took a popular ballad or ballads,
broke it up, and attempted to destroy its sing-song character by
the addition of end verses. This, and the strophic character of the
original or originals, would account for its metrical variety and
uncertainty. In several places we meet with half line tags, generally trimetric, once certainly in full tetrameter. The poem declares that no worse deed than the murder of Edward had ever
been committed among the English since the invasion of Britain;
men murdered him, but God glorified him; and he who was before
an earthly king is now, after death, a heavenly saint. His earthly
kinsmen would not avenge him, but his heavenly Father has
avenged him amply, and they who would not bow to him living
now bend humbly on their knees to his dead bones. Thus, we may
perceive that men's plans are as naught before God's. The words,
" Men murdered him, but God glorified him," are alliterative, and
seem like a refrain; and the whole poem is, metrically, one of the
most interesting of the series.
There is a long interval before the next verses, which tell of
the siege of Canterbury, and the capture of archbishop Aelfheah
(Alphege) in 1011. They consist of nine half lines of sung verse,
and are, evidently, a quotation from some ballad commemorating
these disasters. They lament the imprisonment of him who was
erstwhile head of Christendom and England, and the misery that
men might now behold in the unhappy city whence first came
the joys of Christianity. There are some difficulties in scansion,
and the variant readings in certain. MSS1, though they can be
restored to something like proper metrical harmony, show what
mishandling these songs underwent when written down by the
scribes.
The metre of the next poem is much better preserved. It is
of the same Layamon sung verse type, but shows a regular
union of each two half lines by rime and assonance. Where this
fails, we can at once suspect that the scribe has tampered with the
original version. The assonance is wholly south-eastern. Its subject
is the capture and cruel fate of the aetheling Alfred, and it shows
a strong spirit of partisanship against Godwin. This is led up
to by the prose account telling how Alfred came to Winchester
to see his mother, but was hindered and captured by Godwin.
The poem relates how Godwin scattered Alfred's followers, killing
some and imprisoning others, and how the aetheling was led
1 Cott. Tib. B. iv, and Bodl. Laud. 636.




140        From     Alfred to the Conquest
bound to Ely, blinded aboard ship and given over to the monks.
It gives us the important architectural statement (since the old
minster long has perished) that he was buried at the west end
in the south porch "close to the steeple."    The story is told in
20 couplets of sung half lines (40 half lines). The few lines that
do not rime can easily be restored1.
Many of the features of this poem are paralleled in another on
a like theme, the arrival of Edward Aetheling, son of Edmund
Ironside, in England in 1057, his illness and his death, without
seeing his kinsman the king. The story is that of the death of the
last of the kingly line. The poem is in sung verse, the half lines
being mainly arranged in pairs of one short and one fuller half
line, a combination which is the great feature of this poem, whose
strophic connection depends absolutely neither on rime or assonance, but rather on rhythm. The poem is in four uneven tirades.
The first two are ended by a single half line as a tag (no. 1, of 3 full
lines + tag; no. 2, of 5 full lines + half line tag). The last two
tirades (no. 3, of 3 full lines; no. 4, of 4 fill lines) are without half
line tags. The tags may here have been lost in copying.
It is noticeable that all these poems in sung verse, which seem
to be based on popular ballads, are characterised by deep patriotic
feeling. This, however, is wanting in the alliterative rhetorical
lines on the death of Edward the Confessor, which merely tell how
he had reigned for four and twenty years and had governed
illustriously Welsh, Scots, Britons, Angles and Saxons.
Another passage in sung verse dealing with the marriage of
Margaret, the sister of Edward Aetheling, to Malcolm of Scotland,
and recording her distaste for marriage and her desire for convent
life, seems to be in ten sung half lines, of which the first four have
been completely wrecked. The last four are perfect and of great
1At the end we have the following: They buried him
"ful wur6lice I swa he wyr;e waes (no rime)
aet pam Westende I Pam styple fulgehende (rimes)
on pam suPportice I seo saul is mid Criste" (no rime).
Now on ]pam su'portice rimes with ful wurilice, although it does not rime in
its present place. It also would then follow on in sense. Seo saul is mid Criste
needs a rime in -iste and what better one can be than oSf,a aeriste? This rime was
possibly removed because, on a fullstop being lost in the last line, the first half verse
would apply to the soul, and smack of heresy to the monk. We may then read:
"ful wur'lice I on pam sufportice.
aet Pam Westende I pam styple fulgehende
o0;a aeriste I seo saul is mid Criste"
which changes the architectural sense.




The Ballads and Poems in the Chronicle              I41
interest. Less obscure are the fragments on the marriage of
earl Ralph of Norwich, the first couplet of which
paer waes paet bryd ealo
paet waes manegra manna bealo,
shows, unmistakeably, its ballad origin.
The last verses of this class are those on the reign of William
the Conqueror. Earle arranged some twelve lines as poetry, but
the whole passage claims similar treatment, since, in the portion
which he has printed as prose, there occur examples of full rime
and also of full assonance, connecting the half lines in the passages
he has not so written. The whole passage seems to be derived
from at least two ballads against the Norman conqueror. The
first begins "He rixade bfer Englaelhnd" and tells of the king's
intimate acquaintance with his dominions, so that he knew the
owner of every hide of land and how much it was worth; then, how
he conquered Wales and Scotland and, if he had lived two years
longer, would have won Ireland, also, without weapon strife. This,
which is unrimed, is followed by the passage "Castelas hb let
wyrcehn," which is invaluable because of its strong Kentish assonances. These lines tell, in bitter words, of the king's oppression, of
his heavy taxation, and of the terrible game laws, drawn up to preserve those "tall deer" which he loved as greatly as though he were
their father. This last part is 38 lines long, divided into 19 couplets
linked by rime or assonance, the nineteenth being either marred
in transcription or a monastic addition in rime. The spelling often
hides the dialectical completeness of the assonance. After this
sung ballad follows a passage of rhythmical prose, in which the
compiler states that he has written these things about the king,
both good and evil, that men may imitate the goodness and wholly
flee from the evil. It would seem that the chronicler had to be
original in telling of the Conqueror's virtues; but, for the vices, he
had plenty of popular material at hand. The unhappy people were
in no mood to exalt his virtues, and, for the description of these,
the chronicler was forced to rely on his own literary resources.
The verses in the Chronicle have little literary merit, with
the exception of the poem on the battle of Brunanburh, and this
seems to have been strongly influenced by the epic of Judith.
Of this latter, unfortunately, only a beautiful fragment, consisting
of some 350 lines, survives1. Judith was, perhaps, composed as
a eulogy of Aethelflaed, queen of Mercia, who fought nobly against
1 Cott. Vitell. xv.




I 4 2


From   Afred to the Conquest


the Danes in the first quarter of the tenth century. It has been
attributed to Caedmon; but its use of rime and the character of
its language has led some critics to place the poem comparatively
late. The use of rime, however, is no conclusive argument. It
recounts, in vigorous language, the deeds of the Apocryphal
heroine, and dwells especially on the way in which her deed
stirred up the timorous Jews to more courageous patriotism.
It is noteworthy that Aelfric himself had written a homily on
Judith, to teach the English the virtues of resistance to the
Danes. This homily must have been written earlier, and, perhaps,
it influenced the writer of Judith to choose her as a national
type in the fight for God and fatherland. The poem, as we
have it, begins at the end of the ninth canto; cantos x, xi
and XII are preserved in full, but the earlier part of the poem
is entirely wanting. This loss, however, is the less to be regretted
since the remaining cantos, containing the crisis of the story, are,
probably, the finest of all, and deal with a complete episode, to
which the fragment of canto Ix, telling of the faith of the heroine
and the invitation to the feast of Holofernes, serves as introduction. Canto x describes, with all the delight of Old English poets
in such pictures, the banquet in the Assyrian camp, the deep bowls
of wine borne along the benches, and the shouts and laughter of
the revellers. Darkness descends, and the warriors bring the maiden
to their master's tent. Overcome with wine, he falls into a deep
slumber, and the heroine, with a supplication to heaven for help,
draws the sword from its sheath. She hales the heathen towards
her by his hair, and smites twice with her weapon, till his head
rolls upon the floor. In canto xi, we read how Judith and her
maid steal from the camp with the head of Holofernes, and return
to Bethulia, where their kinsmen are waiting for them on the
wall. As soon as the two approach, men and women hasten together to meet them, and Judith bids her servant uncover the
trophy and exhibit it to the warriors. Then, with passionate
words, she exhorts them to attack the camp, to bear forth shields
and bucklers and bright helmets among the foe. So, at dawn
of day, they set out, the wolf and raven rejoicing in the tumult,
and the dewy-feathered eagle singing his war-song above them,
their sudden onset on the camp disturbing the enemy, drowsy
with mead. The next canto relates how the terrified Assyrians
hasten to tell their leader of the assault, and how, when they find
only his dead body, they, "sorrowfully minded, cast down their
weapons, and turn, sad at heart, to flight." The poem ends with




Judith                       I43
the entire overthrow of the Assyrians, the return of the conquerors
with their booty to Bethulia, and Judith's praise of the Almighty
for the triumph of her stratagem.
From  this sketch of the poem it will be seen that it is
closely allied in theme to those of Cynewulf and his school, and
this led to the assumption of Ten Brink and others that it was
composed in the early part of the ninth century. A close investigation of its diction by Gregory Foster led him to place it
a century later; and, if, as he thinks, it was composed to commemorate the valiant deeds of Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia,
who wrested the five boroughs from the Danes, it was probably
written about 918. But nothing can be said with certainty on the
subject.
As poetry, this fragment stands in the front rank of Old English
literature, with Beowulf and Elene and Andreas. In wealth of
synonym it is equal to the best poems of Cynewulf, while the
construction of the sentences is simpler, and the narrative, in
consequence, less obscure. An impression of intensity is produced
by the heaping of synonyms in moments of stress, as in the prayer
of Judith, and in the fierce lines which describe the onset against
the Assyrians; while a sense of dramatic fitness is shown in the
transitions, the divisions of the cantos and the preparation for
each great adventure. The tragedy is alive, and the actors play
their parts before our eyes.
The patriotic feeling which probably gave rise to Judith was
certainly responsible for the second great poem of our period, the
Battle of Maldon, sometimes called Byrhtnoth's Death. The
manuscript of this poem1 was destroyed by the Cottonian fire;
but it had, fortunately, been printed by Hearne in 1726, and it is
from his text that our knowledge of the poem is derived. It
celebrates the death of the great ealdorman Byrhtnoth, who was
connected by close ties of kinship with Aethelmaer, the friend of
Aelfric; it was, indeed, partly by means of legacies left by him
that Aethelmaer was enabled to support so generously the monastic
revival, and it is, therefore, fitting that he should be commemorated
by one of the finest poems in Old English. In the poem before
us he stands out as the ideal leader of men, admirable alike in his
devotion to his king, his simple piety and his sense of responsibility towards his followers. He died as became a member of
the race that thirsts for danger2, almost the last of the warriors
of that time who maintained the noble tradition of the days of
1 Oth. A. xII.        2 Tacitus, Hist. v, 19.




144


From Alfred to the Conquest


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




The Battle of Maldon


I45


up by Offa and Dunnere; and the warriors advanced to a fresh
attack. The appearance amongst the defending ranks of Aeschere,
son of Ecglaf, a Northumbrian hostage, is of great interest, as it
seems, for a moment, to give us a vivid glance of the political
troubles of the land. The poem ends by telling how Godric
exhorted his comrades and fought fiercely against the heathen
till he, too, fell.
This brief outline may, perhaps, give some idea of the great
interest of the poem, whose every word is filled with deep hatred
against the marauding foe, and with dignified sorrow for the loss
of beloved friends. The verse is as noble as the deed and instinct
with dramatic life. In it we see the heroic feeling of the earlier
national poetry, full of the Teutonic theme of loyal friendship and
warlike courage. And not until many hundreds of years have elapsed
do we find its equal in tragic strength. It is from this stirring
narrative, from Wulfstan's address to the English and from the
bitter records in the Chronicle, that we realise the degradation
of the country during the unhappy reign of Aethelred.
The remaining poems of our period in the old alliterative
metre are of a didactic character. Among them may be mentioned
the Menologium   or poetical calendar, which is prefixed to a
version of the Chronicle1. It is an interesting metrical survey
of the progress of the year, with special mention of the saints'
days observed by the church, preserving some of the Old English
names of the months, such as WeodmonaO (August), WinterfylleO
(October) and Blotmonas (November), and retaining traces of
heathen times, though the whole is Christian in basis. Its value,
as poetry, depends on the tender feeling for nature shown in such
passages as those which describe the -coming of May, tranquil
and gentle, with blossoming woods and flowers, or winter, which
cuts off the harvest with the sword of rime and snow, when all is
fettered with frost by the hest of the Creator, so that men may
no longer haunt the green meadows or the flowery fields.
Of more literary value is the poem entitled Be Domes Daege2,
a free version of the Latin poem De Die Judicii, by some scholars
ascribed to Bede and by others to Alcuin. The 157 lines of the
Latin original are expanded to 304 by the translator, whose
imaginative gift is especially visible in the way he enlarges on a
hint from his source. The opening passage is extremely beautiful.
1 Cott. Tib. B. I.
2 Found in a unique manuscript in the library of Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge.
E. L. I.  CH. VII.                                10




146


From   Alfred to the Conruest


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




Be Domes Daege


I47


of saints in these verses shows that it was not by the author of
Be Domes Daege is, however, scarcely sound, for it disregards
contemporary theology and overlooks the English verses in praise
of the Virgin added by the translator of that poem. Hence our
truest warrant for attributing these verses to a different author
lies rather in the beauty and dignity of Be Domes Daege. The
hymn in question is an ingenious piece of trickery, like many a
Provencal poem of later date. It opens with a prayer for God's
mercy on the reader, and then goes on to speak of the incarnation,
ending with an invocation to Mary and the saints. These verses,
however, are of inestimable value metrically, since they show, by
their Latin equivalents, the two-beat characters of the rhetorical
verse, just as similar Old German poems show, by their far greater
length in the Latin portions, the four-beat characters of Germanic
sung verse.
More interesting are the eleventh century metrical versions of
the Psalms, in a manuscript in the Bibliothbque Nationale. This
MS contains only Psalms 1 to cl, but Bouterwek discovered further
fragments in a Benedictine office, which partly fill up the gaps,
and point to the existence of a complete metrical version of the
Psalter in Old English. Taken altogether, however, this Benedictine office is merely a heap of fragments. The translation is,
as a rule, good, when play is given to love of nature or to feelings
common in Old English poetry. An isolated version exists of
Psalm 1 in Kentish dialect', which was formerly supposed to
belong to the eighth century, but which is shown, by its language,
to be two hundred years later. It was not, apparently, one of
a series, but was complete in itself, being rounded off at the close
by a short hymn-like passage on David's sin and his atonement.
A gloomy poem on The Grave, "For thee was a house built
Ere thou wast born," etc., written in the margin of a volume of
homilies in the Bodleian2 and known to all readers of Longfellow
and many beside, need not detain us long. It is, probably, of later
date than any of the poems already referred to and shows signs of
the coming metrical change.
Last, there must be mentioned a poem on the city of Durham,
which, though not composed within our period, is the latest in
the classical rhetorical metre that is known to exist, and is, therefore, most suitably described in this place. One version3 was
printed by Hickes in his Thesaurus (1703-5), and another copy
1 Cott. Vesp. D. v. 1.       2 NE. F. 4, 12.
3 Cott. Vitt. D. 20.
10-2




148


From   Alfred to the Conquest


occurs at the close of a manuscript of the Historia Ecelesia
Dunelmensis of Simeon of Durham in the University Library,
Cambridge. The poem, which contains twenty long lines, falls
into two parts, the first eight describing the city on the hill,
surrounded with steep rocks, girdled by the strong flowing river,
full of many kinds of fish, and environed by forests in whose deep
dells dwell countless wild beasts; while the last twelve tell of the
wonderful relics preserved there, memorials of Cuthbert and
Oswald, Aidan and Eadberg, Eadfrith and bishop Aethelwold,
as well as of the famous writers Bede and Boisil, which, amidst
the veneration of the faithful, awaited in the minster the doomsday of the Lord. It is this catalogue of saints which enables us
to fix the date of the poem, for the translation of their relics to
the new cathedral took place in 1104, and the poem follows closely
the order of enumeration found in Simeon of Durham's description
of that ceremony1. Although it is written in a strained archaistic
attempt at West Saxon spelling, yet we catch many clear glimpses
of south-eastern twelfth century phonology in its faulty attempts
at corrections.
After 1100, English poetry ceases to exist for nigh a hundred
years, although fragments remain to bear witness to that popular
verse which was to keep in the west midlands and north some
continuity with the old poetry-for the sung rhythm never died
out amongst the common folk, and rose ever and anon to such
songs as that of The Pearl, to heroic lays of Arthur, Alexander
and Troy and, in our own days, has been revived in the rhythm of
the mystic Christabel.
English prose was wrecked for many a hundred year. Centuries
elapsed before Aelfric had his equal again.


1 Capitula de Miraculis et Translationibus S. Cuthberti, Cap. vII.




CHAPTER VIII


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




150


7The Norman Conquest


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




The Coming Change


'5'


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




152


T/ e Norman Conquest


Normandy and Anjou had been lost, the mixture of the invading
race and the conquered people was approaching completion. The
more stolid native had been touched with "finer fancies" and
"lighter thought"; the natural melancholy of the Old English
spirit had been wedded to the gaiety of the Norman; England,
" meri Ingeland," was recognised to be
a wel god land, ich wene ech londe best,
Iset in the on ende of the worlde as al in the west;
The see geth him al aboute, he stond as in an yle;
Of fonl hii dorre the lasse doute-bote hit be thor3 gyle
Of fole of the sulve2 lond, as me hath iseye 3wile3 4,
in language that irresistibly recalls the "fortress built by Nature
for herself," the "happy breed of men," the "little world," the
"precious stone set in the silver sea," the "blessed plot, this earth,
this realm, this England," of Shakespeare. So it came to pass
that, though, as the immediate result of the Conquest, NormanFrench became the exclusive language of the rich and courtly
nobles and ecclesiastics, knights and priests, and Latin the
exclusive language of learning-the conduits thus formed tending
inevitably to trouble the isolated waters-yet the language
in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes,
and among the serfs, and the outlaws in the greenwood, and
"lowe men" generally, was the unforbidden, even if untaught,
English of the conquered race. And, contrary to the expectation
and, perhaps, the desire of the governing class, it was this
language which, in the end, prevailed.
The gain to English literature that accrued from the Norman
conquest in three directions is so great as to be obvious to the
most superficial observer. The language was enriched by the
naturalisation of a Romanic vocabulary; methods of expression
and ideas to be expressed were greatly multiplied by the incursion
of Norman methods and ideas; and the cause of scholarship and
learning was strengthened by the coming of scholars whose reputation was, or was to be, European, and by the links that were to
bind Paris and Oxford.
In a less obvious way, it gained by the consequent intercourse
with the continent that brought our wandering scholars into


1 Of foes they need the less fear-unless it be through guile.
2 same.             3 formerly.             4 Robert of Gloucester.




T/he WYisdom    of the East


IS3


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




I54


The Norman Conquest


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




Norman Gifts


I55


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




CHAPTER IX


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




England and Normandy


I57


of a new and powerful kingdom. Nothing is more significant than
the way in which the Anglo-Norman chroniclers, whether native
Englishmen or Normans domiciled in England, reflect the united
patriotic sentiment which it was the design of Norman statesmanship to foster. Though composed in a foreign tongue, these
chronicles are histories of England, and are written from a
national English standpoint. It was under Henry I, whose marriage
with Matilda seemed to symbolise the permanent union of the two
peoples, that a new sense of national self-consciousness began to
grow out of the Norman settlement. A shrewd observer of the next
generation, Walter Map, tells us that it was Henry who effectually
"united both peoples in a steadfast concord 1." It was Henry's reign
also that witnessed the transfer of the central seat of Norman power
from Normandy to England. William of Malmesbury, himself halfNorman, half-English, in his account of the battle of Tinchebray,
reminds his readers that it was fought "on the same day on which,
about forty years before, William had first landed at Hastings "-a
fact which the chronicler characteristically takes to prove "the
wise dispensation of God that Normandy should be subjected
to England on the same day that the Norman power had
formerly arrived to conquer that kingdom2." In other words,
England now became the predominant partner in the AngloNorman kingdom, and the twelfth century chroniclers are
fully alive to the meaning of the change. As the dreams of a
great Anglo-Norman empire began to take shape in the minds of
the new rulers of England, and came to be temporarily realised
under Henry II, the English historiographers rose to the height of
their opportunities with patriotic ardour. No other country produced, during the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, anything
to be compared with the English chronicles in variety of interest,
wealth of information and amplitude of range. So wide is their
outlook, and so authoritative is their record of events, that, as
Stubbs observes, "it is from the English chroniclers of this period
that much of the German history of the time has to be written3." The
new England had become conscious of her power, and of her growing
importance in the international economy of Europe.
In literature the most signal expression of that consciousness
is the work of our Latin chroniclers. Thus, however unattractive
much of this chronicle literature may be to the ordinary reader,
there belongs to all of it the human interest of having been
1 De Nugis Curialium, Dist. v, Cap. v.  2 Gesta Regum Anglorum, Bk. v.
3 Lectures on Medieval and Modern History, p. 125.




158


Latin   Chroniclers


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




Characteristics of the Chroniclers


I59


chroniclers. Those of them who aspire to write history, as distinguished from mere contemporary annals, are studious both of
literary ornament and of the symmetry and proportion of their
narrative. Compiling and borrowing, as Geoffrey professes to do,
fiom previous chroniclers, they all endeavour to impart some new
life and colour to their materials. They take the great Bede as
their native master in the art of historical writing. But, for their
literary models, they look beyond him, and seek, like William of
Malmesbury, to "season their crude materials with Roman art."
Even minor chroniclers, like Richard of Devizes, who confine themselves to the events of their own time, are fond of adorning their
pages with classical allusions or quotations. Henry of Huntingdon
is even more adventurous, and enlivens his narrative with frequent
metrical effusions of his own. Most of them endeavour, according
to their ability, to be readable, arming themselves, as Roger of
Wendover does, against both " the listless hearer and the fastidious
reader" by "presenting something which each may relish," and so
providing for the joint "profit and entertainment of all2."
But, far more than their embellishments of style, their fulness
and accuracy of detail and their patriotic motives, what gives life
and permanent interest to the Anglo-Norman chronicles is the
sense which they convey of intimate relationship with great men
and great affairs. Even those chroniclers who do not pretend to
write history on the larger scale, and only provide us with what
Ralph of Diceto, in describing his own work, calls "outlines of
histories," imagines historiarum, for the use of some future philosophic historian-even they succeed in conveying to us something,
at least, of the animation of the stirring age in which they lived.
They describe events of which they themselves were eye-witnesses;
they preserve documents to which they had special privilege of
access; they record impressions derived from direct contact with
great statesmen, warriors and ecclesiastics; they retail anecdotes
gathered from the cloister, the market-place and the court. For
even the monastic chroniclers were not the mere recluses of the
popular imagination. They were, in their way, men of the world,
who, though themselves taking no active part in public affairs,
lived in close intercourse with public men. The great abbeys, such
as those of Malmesbury and of St Albans, were open houses,
constantly visited by the mighty ones of the land. William of
Malmesbury tells us how his own monastery was distinguished
for its "delightful hospitality," where "guests, arriving every
1 Preface to Gesta Regum Anglorum.  2 Preface to Flowers of History.




i 6o             Latin    C  roniclers
hour, consume more than the inmates themselves." Even the
most remote of monastic writers, such as William of Newburgh in his secluded Yorkshire priory, kept in such close touch
with conteimporary affairs as fully to realise their dramatic significance. "For in our times," he writes in the preface to his
English History, "such great and memorable events have happened that the negligence of us moderns were justly to be
reprehended, should they fail to be handed down to eternal
memory in literary monuments." Other monkish writers, like
Matthew Paris in a later generation, enjoyed the royal confidence,
and occasionally wrote under royal command. Moreover, not all
the chroniclers were monks. Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of
Hoveden, Ralph of Diceto and the author of the chronicle so long
wrongly ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough-not to mention
writers like Giraldus Cambrensis and Walter Map, who have left
behind them records scarcely distinguishable from contemporary
chronicles-were all men who lived in intimate association with
the court. So much store, indeed, came, in time, to be set upon
the records of the chroniclers that they became standard authorities to which kings and statesmen appealed for confirmation of
titles and the determination of constitutional claims. The conditions under which they were composed, and the importance
which they once had as documents of state, are alone more than
sufficient sanction for the provision made by "the Treasury, under
the direction of the Master of the Rolls," for the publication of those
editions in which they can best be studied by the modern reader.
"Of the several schools of English medieval history," writes
Stubbs2, "the most ancient, the most fertile, the longest lived and
the most widely spread was the Northumbrian." At its head stands
the great name of Bede, the primary authority and the pattern of
most of the Latin historians of our period. The first conspicuous
representative of the northern school of chroniclers in the twelfth
century is Simeon, precentor of the monastery of Durham, and he,
like so many historiographers after him, makes Bede the foundation of the early part of his history. His second source of
information, covering the period from the death of Bede down
to the beginning of the ninth century, was the lost Northumbrian
annals known to us through Simeon alone. From the middle
of the ninth century down to 1121 he borrows his matter
almost entirely from the chronicle of Florence of Worcester and the
1 Gesta Regum Anglorum, Bk. v.
2 Preface to Roger of Hoveden's Chronicle, Rolls Series.




The Northern       School            16
first continuator of the latter. The rest of Simeon's narrative, extending to the year 1129, probably represents his own independent
work. Little is known of Simeon's life, and it is impossible to determine whether he was the actual compiler, or merely the editor, of the
chronicle which bears his name. His work, however, had a high
repute throughout the Middle Ages, and his fame was second only
to that of Bede among the writers of the Northumbrian school.
Simeon's chronicle was continued down to the close of the reign of
Stephen by two priors of Hexham. The elder of the two, Richard,
wrote an account of the Acts of King Stephen, and the Battle of
the Standard, which contains much original information. His son,
John, brought the narrative down to the year 1154, and is an
independent authority of considerable value. Another northcountryman, the canonised Ailred or Ethelred, a Cistercian monk
of Rievaulx, claims a place among the many chroniclers who wrote
of the battle of the Standard. His account is neither so full nor so
trustworthy as that of Richard of Hexham, but is somewhat more
ambitious, in that it professes to give, after the manner of the
classical historians, the speeches of the rival leaders before the
encounter. For a brief period about the middle of the twelfth
century there was, in Northumbria as elsewhere, a curious break
in the activity of the chroniclers. But, in the next generation, two
writers who worthily uphold the traditions of the northern school
appear in William of Newburgh and Roger of Hoveden. William
confines himself to his own times; but Roger attempts a comprehensive history of several centuries, and, gathering his materials
from the best available authorities, gives us what Stubbs calls
"the full harvest of the labours of the Northumbrian historians."
The first Latin chronicler of any importance who belongs to
southern England is Florence of Worcester, already mentioned as
one of Simeon of Durham's main sources. Florence's work is notable
as being the first attempt in England at a universal history beginning
with the Creation and embracing within its compass all the nations
of the known world. But, as the title of his chronicle-Chronicon
ex Chronicis-frankly indicates, Florence is not much more than a
laborious compiler from the works of others; and he took as the basis
of the early portions of his narrative the universal chronicle of
Marianus Scotus, an Irish monk of the eleventh century. Marianus,
in his turn, is, so far as English history is concerned, only a compiler from Bede and the Old English Chronicle. He brings his
record of events down to the year 1082, but it is so fragmentary
and perfunctory in its treatment of English affairs as to give


E. L. I.    CH. IX.


11




I62


Latin Chroniclers


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




Eadmer and Orderic


i63


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




164                Latin    Chroniclers
of prominent men. His style is, in many places, highly rhetorical.
Of it, as a whole, "an English reader," writes dean Church, "may
best form an idea by combining the Biblical pedantry and doggerel
of a Fifth-monarchy pamphlet of the seventeenth century with the
classical pedantry of the most extravagant burlesque of Dr Johnson's
English '."
Contemporary with Eadmer and Orderic, William of Malmesbury is a much greater historian, and, to the literary student, a far
more attractive writer, than either. Milton's opinion, that " both
for style and judgment " William is "by far the best writer of all"
the twelfth century chroniclers2, still holds good. William, as many
incidental confessions in his History show, had high ambitions as
an author, and aspired to restore to the historian's art the dignity
and the splendour with which it had been invested by the illustrious Bede. His design is to tell, artistically yet critically, all
that is known about his country's history from the first coming of
the English, and, especially, as he informs us in his preface, to
" fill up the chasm of two hundred and twenty-three years " after
Bede, which Eadmer had left altogether unnoticed in his Historia
Novorum. William's chronicle is in two parts. The first, divided
into five books, is called a History of the Kings of England, and
extends from A.D. 449 to 1127. The second part, entitled Historia
Novella or Modern History, is in three books, and brings the
narrative down to the year 1142. These histories represent but a
small portion of William's entire literary work, for he was one of
the most prolific writers of his time; his other productions
include a history of the prelates of England, a life of St Wulfstan
and a history of the church of Glastonbury. William of Malmesbury
possessed many of the highest qualifications of a historian; he had
learning, industry, judgment and a wide knowledge of the world
He was, for his day, a considerable traveller, and was, both by
temperament and training, a discriminating as well as an inquisitive
student of life and character. He is thus singularly free from the
prejudices and the narrow standards of the cloister. Although he
himself claims that his mixed blood3 is a guarantee of his impartiality, he has not escaped the suspicion, among modern critics,
of having been something of a time-server. He had, however,
a thoroughly disinterested love of history as a study and as an
1 St Anselm, p. 140.  2 History of England, Bk. iv, p. 172 (1st ed. 1670).
3 In the preface to the third book of his History William says that "the blood of
the two peoples flows in [his] veins," and that he is therefore qualified to " steer a middle
course " between racial partisans.




FWilliam of Malmesbury                   165
art; and the task of writing the history of England presented
itself to him as a patriotic duty, all the more clearly incumbent
upon him because of the "criminal indolence" of those who might
have continued the work of Bede.
Bede, then, is William's great exemplar, and the fount of his
inspiration-Bede, with whom "was buried almost all knowledge of
history down to our own times," and whose praises William protests
that he has "neither the abilities nor the eloquence " adequately
to blazon1. For the materials of the earlier portions of his
History William  states2 that he searched far and wide; and,
while he borrowed from nearly every known work of his time,
he evidently draws upon other sources which have not been
identified. But he by no means borrows indiscriminately. He
sifts and selects his material, and cautions his readers against
accepting the testimonyof his authorities too implicitly. That he was
not, however, so very much in advance of his time is shown by the
fact that he, in company with more credulous chroniclers, gravely
records marvels and seemingly supernatural occurrences as
authentic historical events. The evidence of a respectable eyewitness is, in most of these cases, sufficient warrant for unquestioning belief. Anecdotes, also, of every kind, seem to have had
a peculiar charm for William, and, at the end of his third book,
he quaintly excuses his fondness for including them in his History
by saying that, "if I am not too partial to myself, a variety of
anecdote cannot be displeasing to any one, unless he be morose
enough to rival the superciliousness of Cato." To the modern
reader, who looks for literary entertainment as much as for
authentic history, William's ingenuous habits of reminiscence,
of quotation, of anecdotal digression and of sententious comment
add much to the personal charm and vivacity of his narrative.
He is at his best, however, when he brings all his powers of
rhetoric and his faculty of pictorial writing to bear upon the
description of some great event or stirring public movement.
His graphic account of the first crusade, for example, has about
it a spaciousness and a wealth of colour which all but rival the
glowing periods of Gibbon.
This ardent love not only inspired the continental provinces, but even all
who had heard the name of Christ, whether in the most distant islands or
savage countries. The Welshman left his hunting, the Scot his fellowship
with vermin, the Dane his drinking-party, the Norwegian his raw fish. Lands
were deserted of their husbandmen; houses of their inhabitants; even whole


1 Bk. I, ch. 3.


2 Bk. ii, prol.




i66


Latin Chroniclers


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




Henry of Huntingdon


i67


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




I68               Latin   Chroniclers
in accuracy and vividness of detail. He is a palpable partisan of
Stephen, and has been supposed by some to have been the king's
confessor. Nothing, however, better illustrates the general trustworthiness and impartiality of the twelfth century chroniclers
than a comparison of the narrative of this historian with those
of William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. The Gesta
Stephani covers much the same ground as the Historia Novella of
William; yet, though the two works were composed from opposite
standpoints, they differ little in their presentment of the essential
facts of the history of the time.
William of Malmesbury claimed, as we have seen, the patronage
of Robert, earl of Gloucester; Henry of Huntingdon that of
Alexander, bishop of Lincoln. The favour of both these magnates,
and, if we are to trust the evidence of a MS preserved at Berne,
that of king Stephen himself, was invoked by the chronicler who
enjoys the dubious distinction of having been among British writers
the greatest disturber of the waters of history. Could he have
foreseen the influence which he was destined to exercise over the
poets of England, Geoffrey of Monmouth would doubtless have
been quite content with the prospect of forfeiting the confidence
of critical historians. Indeed, it is difficult to believe, on any
supposition, that the History of the Kings of Britain was written
as a serious contribution to authentic history. Geoffrey's manner
only too obviously betrays him. Just as William of Malmesbury
is anxious to "fill up the chasm" between Bede and Eadmer, so
Geoffrey professes to explore and map out a still more obscure
period, namely that of "the kings who dwelt in Britain before the
incarnation of Christ," and especially of "Arthur and the many
others who succeeded him after the incarnation." It so happened
that a document was placed in his hands which "set forth the
doings of them all in due succession and order from Brute, the
first king of the Britons, onward to Cadwaladr, the son of
Cadwallo, all told in stories of exceeding beauty." This document was a certain "most ancient book in the British tongue,"
which was supplied to him by Walter, archdeacon of Oxford. No
other contemporary chronicler seems to have had access to this
mysterious book, and no amount of subsequent research has been
able to discover it. Geoffrey himself evidently looked upon its
contents as his own exclusive secret; for, in the epilogue to his
History, he expressly warns William of Malmesbury and Henry of
Huntingdon, who could write competently enough about the kings
of the English, not to meddle with the kings of the Britons,




Geoffrey of Monmouth


I69


"inasmuch as they have not the book in the British speech which
Walter brought over from Britanny."
All this affectation of mystery, however, does not prevent Geoffrey
from openly commending his work to the favourable notice of the
two great men whose confidence and encouragement William and
Henry respectively enjoyed. The main body of his History is
dedicated to earl Robert of Gloucester, while the seventh book,
consisting of the famous prophecies of Merlin, is prefaced by an
almost fulsomely laudatory letter addressed to Alexander of
Lincoln. Geoffrey was thus determined to lose nothing of the
prestige and credit to be derived from aristocratic patronage;
and his dedications only confirm the assumption that he imitates
the practices and assumes the pose of an authentic chronicler with
the deliberate purpose of mystifying his readers. For Geoffrey's
History is, on the last analysis, a prose romance, and, in its
Arthurian portions in particular, a palpable excursion in fiction.
One need not believe that the entire work is, in the words of
William of Newburgh, a tissue of "impudent and shameless lies."
Even the reference to "the British book" cannot altogether be
regarded as a ruse for the deception of the ingenuous reader.
Geoffrey doubtless drew upon some documents, possibly Welsh,
which have since been lost.  He borrowed all he could from
Bede and Nennius; lie probably borrowed more from floating
British traditions. What is even more certain is that he invented a great deal. It is impossible to read the later books of
the History without feeling that Geoffrey, when he had embarked upon the history of Merlin and of Arthur, was fully
conscious of his opportunities of romantic dilatation. Arthur
was a British prince capable of being exalted into a heroic figure
who should overshadow both Alexander and Charlemagne. These
two potentates were already the titular heroes of profitably worked
romantic cycles.  Why should Britain not have its romantic
"matter," as well as Rome and France? Read in the light of the
general literary history of its time, and of its immediate and
immense popularity, Geoffrey's History can  be adequately
explained only as the response of a British writer, keenly
observant of the literary tendencies of the day, to the growing
demand for romance.   How well he succeeded in his design
appears from William of Newburgh's complaint that he had
"made the little finger of his Arthur stouter than the back of
Alexander the Great."
The History of the Kings of Britain was complete in the




170


Latin   Chroniclers


form now known to us by 1148 at the latest; but there is evidence
that it existed in some form as early as 1139. A letter from
Henry of Huntingdon, addressed to one Warinus, otherwise unknown, and prefixed to the Chronicle of Robert de Monte, gives
an abstract of "a big book" by "Geoffrey Arthur," which Henry
discovered in 1139 at the abbey of Bec in Normandy. Henry
himself had long been anxious to know something about the
kings of the Britons; and "to his amazement he found" at Bec
"a written record" of their deeds, including the history of
Arthur, "whose death the Britons deny, and still continue to
look for his return." Henry's letter contains no mention of
Merlin; but, whether then incorporated in the History or not,
the Prophecies must have been written before 1139, for Ordericus
Vitalis quotes from them in the twelfth book (ch. 47) of his
History, which was composed in 1136 or 1137. By the year 1152
Geoffrey's work seems to have been well known, and to have won
him favour in high places, as he was then consecrated bishop of
St Asaph.  He died in 1155.   The fame of his History had
spread even before his death; for Wace, and, probably, Geoffrey
Gaimar, had begun to translate it into Anglo-Norman verse before
1155.
In England a long line of chroniclers, in both prose and verse,
from Layamon and Robert of Gloucester down to Grafton and
Holinshed, accepted Geoffrey in all good faith as a revealer of
"the marvellous current of forgotten things"; while a host of
poets, great and small, have been constantly haunted by his fables.
Two hundred years after his death his repute was such that, on the
strength of his use of the Brutus legend, Chaucer gave him a high
place in his Hous of Fame. With Homer and Statius, Dares
and Dictys and Guido de Colonna, "English Gaufride " stands on
an iron pedestal,
besy for to here up Troye.
In a later age both Spenser and Drayton sang his praises; while
even Wordsworth could not withhold a tribute to "the British
record long concealed," where
We read of Spenser's fairy themes,
And those that Milton loved in youthful years;
The sage enchanter Merlin's subtle schemes,
The feats of Arthur and his knightly peers2.


1 Chronicles of Stephen (Rolls Series), iv, 65.
2 Artegal and Elidure.




Geofrey's    Fame                 171
But Geoffrey has exacted still greater homage from the poets.
Lear and Cymbeline and Sabrina, "virgin daughter of Locrine,"
are names that link his memory for ever with the two supreme
poeticl geniuses of England. Here, indeed, is a distinction which
the greatest of the chroniclers might have coveted; and it is enough
to mark the History of the Kings of Britain as the most significant
literary product of the twelfth century.
Geoffrey, however, succeeded in deluding so many honest
chroniclers who followed him that, in modern times, he has been
altogether proscribed from the company of sober historians.
Even before the twelfth century was out, his credit had come
to be gravely questioned. Giraldus Cambrensis, who had himself no mean gift for the artistic manipulation of the legendary
and the marvellous, is one of Geoffrey's severest detractors.
According to Gerald, a certain Welshman named Meilyr was
reported to have an extraordinary familiarity with unclean
spirits, and they never responded to his call in greater numbers
than when Geoffrey's book was placed on his bosom. Gerald,
as is well known, had a strong sense of humour, and, probably
all he means to imply is that Geoffrey had over-reached himself
in the art of romance. It is otherwise with William of Newburgh.
He regarded Geoffrey as one who had deliberately and flagrantly
profaned the sacred functions of the historian, and devotes the
entire preface of his chronicle to a vehement denunciation of
Geoffrey's motives and to an exposure of his fabrications.
This severe preface has contributed as much as anything to the
high repute in which William of Newburgh is held as a critical historian. Freeman's description of him as "the father of historical
criticism" has often been repeated,but scarcely seems deservedwhen
we comparehis actual achievement with that of his greater namesake
of Malmesbury. For William of Newburgh belongs to that group
of modest chroniclers who are content with treating a limited period,
and describe, mainly, the events of their own lifetime. His History
extends from the Conquest to the year 1198; but the narrative
down to the time of Stephen is so compressed as to make the work,
in effect, an account of the reigns of Stephen and Henry II. For
the latter reign there are few better authorities. His work, as a
whole, forms the best single commentary upon the history of the
twelfth century left us by any writer of his day. For William's
chronicle is no mere bare record of events, but an ordered and
critical presentment of the affairs of his time, with due regard to
1 Contemporary Review, Vol. xxxIII (1878), p. 216.




172


Latin Chroniclers


their cause and effect. His remoteness from the court and the
metropolis doubtless enabled William of Newburgh to maintain
an attitude of impartiality impossible to chroniclers thrown
into close contact with the greater actors in the drama of contemporary events. At any rate, the work of no twelfth-century
chronicler is marked by a more transparent honesty of purpose,
by greater independence of judgment, or by more acute estimates
of men and their motives. William writes in a clear, straightforward style; less studious of artistic effect and literary ornament
than his namesake of Malmesbury, he is inspired by a similar, if
not a greater, desire for accuracy. Like his predecessor, he venerates
the memory and the example of Bede, "whose wisdom and integrity
none can doubt "; and, following that historian's pious motives, he
hopes that his own labours will form some "contribution, however
scanty, to the treasure-house of the Lord."
William  of Newburgh was a contemporary of the brilliant
galaxy of scholars who flourished in the full light of the encouragement given to learning and letters at the court of Henry II. But,
living in the comparative seclusion of his monastery, he is not quite
of them, and may be regarded rather as a continuator of the
honourable traditions of the historical school of the north. In
particular, he is one of the most trustworthy authorities for a
period of some twenty years, after the turn of the twelfth century,
of which we have scarcely any contemporary record1. For the
English history of the years 1153-4, and especially for the
foreign policy of the early years of Henry II's reign, our best
contemporary authority is a chronicler who lived and wrote in
Normandy, Robert de Monte or, as he calls himself, Robert of
Torigni. He compiled a comprehensive record of events from
the close of the first Christian century down to 1186, and is indebted for much of his account of purely English affairs to Eadmer
and Henry of Huntingdon. The troubles of king Stephen's reign
appear to have had a paralysing effect upon the chroniclers in
England; and it is not until the height of Henry II's power that
they begin once more to give us a full and vivid account of contemporary affairs. The historian's art flourished anew in the
warmth of the general enthusiasm for learning which made the
England of Henry's time the paradise of scholars. In palace and
abbey, in the full glare and bustle of the court no less than in the
bookish atmosphere of the monastic cell, men were infected by a
common ardour of intellectual enterprise and literary achievement.
1 See Stubbs, Preface to Roger of Hoveden, Rolls Series, p. xl.




Benedict of Peterborough


I73


In close touch with the court were men like Gilbert Foliot and
Richard Fitz-Neale; Ralph of Diceto, who was dean of St Paul's
during Fitz-Neale's episcopate, and Ranulf de Glanville, whose
name is associated with one of the earliest and most valuable
treatises on the laws and customs of England, though the real
author of it was, more probably, his nephew, Hubert Walter;
Giraldus Cambrensis and Walter Map, Gervase of Tilbury and
Peter of Blois. In remoter haunts, though having frequent opportunities of intercourse with men of action and of affairs, were
Gervase of Canterbury and Nigel Wireker, John of Salisbury and
Richard of Devizes, Benedict of Peterborough and William of
Newburgh and Roger of Hoveden. Altogether, there was in the
country, as Stubbs says, "such a supply of writers and readers as
would be found nowhere else in Europe, except in the University
of Paris itself."
Several of these names are of the first importance in the list of
our Latin chroniclers.  That of Benedict of Peterborough is
associated with the most authoritative chronicle of the reign of
Henry II, but only (as is now known) on the strength of the fact
that one of the extant MSS of the work was transcribed under his
order. Benedict, however, was by no means a mere director of
other men's literary labours, for he is known to have either written
or edited accounts of the passion and the miracles of Becket. The
author of the chronicle so long ascribed to him still remains
undiscovered. Begun about 1172, the work bears in the main
all the marks of a contemporary narrative, and includes several
important documents. Stubbs holds that the internal evidence is
sufficient to prove not only that the chronicle was not by Benedict,
but that it is not the work of a monastic writer at all.
It has not even in its most disjointed portion the disorderly form, the disproportionate details, the unimportant memoranda, the generally undigested
character, of monastic annals. It displays no propension to monastic institutions, or to those principles and persons that were especially favoured by
monks. The author did not even trouble himself to compose an original
account of Becket's martyrdom. Whatever positive indications are to be
found point to a member of the king's court rather than to a monk, or even a
secular churchman1.
Stubbs's conjecture that the chronicle may have been the work
of Richard Fitz-Neale, and is a transcript of that writer's lost Tricolumnis, "merely altered from its inconvenient tripartite shape," has
not found much acceptance among scholars. Fitz-Neale, who was


1 Preface to edition in Rolls Series, p. lvi.




I7+


Latin Chroniclers


treasurer of England from 1168-98, and bishop of London from
1189-98, is best known as the author of the famous Dialogus de
Scaccario, or Dialogue of the Exchequer. That work, written in
the form of a dialogue, in two books, between master and pupil, is
one of the chief sources of our knowledge of constitutional principles and practice in England before the Great Charter; it "stands
out as an unique book in the history of medieval England, perhaps
in the history of medieval Europe'."
The chronicle ascribed to Benedict forms, with some slight
alterations and additions, one of the most substantial portions
of the ambitious historical compilation attempted by Roger of
Hoveden. The chroniclers generally had little scruple about thus
transcribing, and embodying in their own works, the writings of
their predecessors; it was, indeed, held among the monastic
annalists to be a perfectly legitimate, not to say a necessary,
practice. Thus Matthew Paris, the greatest monastic historian
of the thirteenth century, makes the compilations of two of his
predecessors at St Albans the nucleus of those parts of his
Chronica Majora which deal with events before his own time.
Roger of Hoveden not only borrowed the so-called Benedict
chronicle almost in its entirety, but made use of everything that
he could find from the hands of the northern chroniclers. In the
first part of his work, extending from 732 to 1148, he copies from
a Durham compilation, based upon the narratives of Simeon and of
Henry of Huntingdon, which is known as the Historia post Bedam.
His main source from 1148 down to 1169 is the chronicle of Melrose.
The third part, extending to the year 1192, is substantially
"Benedict of Peterborough," illustrated by several new documents; the final portion, ending with the year 1201, is Roger's
own work. Roger was a man of affairs, and had exceptional
opportunities for watching the development of public events. He
was at one time in attendance upon Henry II in France; he subsequently held public office, as justice itinerant of the forests. It
is disappointing, however, to find in Roger's Chronicle few of the
intimate personal revelations which might be expected in the narrative of one who had such opportunities of intercourse with the
leading men of his time. Roger makes up to some extent for this
reticence by the compass of his narrative; for the later portions of
his chronicle include not only a survey of English affairs during
the reigns of Henry II and Richard I, but a fairly comprehensive
history of Europe during the same period.
1 Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law, Vol. i, 2nd ed. p. 161.




Ralph of Diceto


I75


"Well illustrated as the reigns of Henry II and Richard are,"
says Stubbs', "one side of their character would be imperfectly
known, and some of the crises of their policies would be almost inexplicable," without Ralph of Diceto. Ralph was another chronicler
whose public life and position brought him into close contact with
the great men of his time, and gave him access to the best sources of
information. He was for many years archdeacon of Middlesex, and,
from the year 1180 until his death, about 1202, held the deanery of
St Paul's. "Diceto" appears to have been an artificial Latin name
adopted by Ralph to signify his association with some place,
probably French, which had no proper Latin name of its own.
His chief work is entitled Imagines Historiarum, or Outlines
of Histories, extending from the year 1148 down to 1202. Robert
de Monte's chronicle forms the basis of his narrative down to
1172; from that year begin his own original memoranda, which
are of especial value as contemporary records from 1183 onwards
Ralph is one of the most sober and straightforward of the
chroniclers, and is little given to gossip or rhetorical decoration.
His work is somewhat deficient in orderly arrangement, and its
chronology is not always to be relied upon. Ralph, however,
had much of the insight of the historian who seeks to analyse
and to account for, as well as to record, public events and movements, and he was a shrewd judge of character and motive. His
chronicle is illustrated by many important contemporary documents,
to which his position gave him special means of access.
Of several of the other chroniclers who wrote during the latter
part of the twelfth, and the opening years of the thirteenth, century,
only a passing mention need be made. Gervase of Canterbury, who
died about 1210, is chiefly remembered as an ecclesiastical historian,
and as one of the standard authorities on the contemporary history
of the see to which he belonged. One of his works, entitled Gesta
Regum, which is of some value as illustrating the reign of John,
perpetuates the Brutus legend to which Geoffrey of Monmouth had
given so startling a currency. A more important authority for
king John's reign is Ralph, abbot of the Cistercian abbey of
Coggeshall, whose Chronicon Anglicanum (1066-1223) contains,
among other things, a full and well-informed account of
Richard I's crusade. That crusade has been described by several
chroniclers, but by none more graphically than by a monkish
writer whose History of King Richard I is one of the briefest
of the many contemporary narratives penned in the twelfth
1 Preface to Vol. II of edition of Ralph de Diceto in Rolls Series.




176


Latin Chroniclers


century. Its author, Richard of Devizes, has, however, stamped
upon his modest essay in history the impress of a personality
which is altogether absent from many more ambitious productions.
His work has a real literary interest, on account both of the
author's fondness for classical quotations and rhetorical ornament
and of the vivid and picturesque force of his narrative. In a
flowery letter of dedication, addressed to Robert, prior of the
church of Winchester, Richard states that he has deliberately
chosen a limited period for himself, leaving a more comprehensive
survey of events to those "who produce greater works."  "My
narrative," he says, "is for the living"; and he writes with a
dramatic instinct and an eye to pictorial effect not unworthy of
a modern journalist. No chronicle gives us a more vivid picture
of the general social condition of England in Coeur de Lion's time,
or of the pageant of events in which the king took paramount part.
The persecutions of the Jews, in particular, are described with a
terrible faithfulness which reflects the author's own avowed hatred
of the race.
Social life in England at the end of the twelfth century, and
especially the internal life and economy of the monasteries, are
portrayed with intimate knowledge in the celebrated chronicle of
Jocelin of Brakelond. Jocelin has had the good fortune, denied to
the more ambitious chroniclers of great affairs of state, to engage
the attention of a brilliant modern writer, and will continue to
be known through Carlyle's Past and Present to thousands of
readers who will never have the curiosity to read his actual
Latin record. Quite apart, however, from the adventitious importance it has thus gained, Jocelin's account of the deeds of
Abbot Sampson and his community at St Edmundsbury is of unique
historical value for the light it throws upon the organisation of
monastic institutions and of their relations to the social and
industrial life of the common people.
The life and habits of a different section of society have been
illustrated, in an almost equally vivid way, by several of the
scholars who flourished in and around the court of Henry II.
John of Salisbury and Peter of Blois, Gervase of Tilbury
and Nigel Wireker, and, above all, Walter Map and Gerald of
Wales, have left behind them documents which bear, in some
respects, even more of the very "form and pressure " of the time
than the chronicles themselves. The Polycraticus of John of
Salisbury, the letters of Peter of Blois, the Otia Imperialia of
Gervase and the poems of Nigel Wireker, throw a flood of light




Giraldus and Map


I77


upon the studies and the pastimes, the intrigues and the scandals,
the humours and the passions of those who dwelt in the high
places of both state and church. Of all these writers none
has contrived to blend information and entertainment more
successfully than  Giraldus Cambrensis.  A  scholar trained
at Paris, an insatiably curious student of men and books and
every form of odd lore, a fighter and an intriguer to his
finger-tips, an inveterate gossip, yet a man capable of high
ideals and far-reaching schemes of public policy, the intimate
friend of kings and statesmen, popes and prelates, yet withal
a passionate lover of his own native little Wales-Gerald is
one of the most romantic figures in all medieval literature.
The most stirring episode in his life was the struggle in which
he engaged, as he tells us, "for the honour of Wales"; and he
is still deservedly beloved among his countrymen as the devoted
champion of one of the most creditable of lost causes and impossible loyalties. But his enduring title to fame rests upon the
writings which, alike for brilliancy of style and for variety of
interest, remain unsurpassed among the Anglo-Norman literature
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
A greater renown, however, in literary history generally has
been enjoyed by Gerald's friend, and, probably, fellow-countryman,
Walter Map. Were it possible to prove to demonstration Map's
authorship of the great Arthurian romances so commonly associated with his name, there could be no question about his claim
to rank as the greatest literary genius who appeared in England
before Chaucer. But the claim made on behalf of Map to
the authorship of these imaginative works rests on very slender
evidence.  Even the authenticity of his equally celebrated
Goliardic poems is open to grave question. The De Nugis
Curialium, or book Of Courtiers' Trifles, is, undoubtedly, his.
It was probably composed by instalments, and forms a sort
of common-place book in which Map seems to have jotted down,
from time to time, both shrewd reflections upon men and things,
and pleasant anecdotes to divert the vacant mind. Of the strictly
historical portions of the work, the most valuable are the accounts, in
the first book, of some of the heretical sects which had sprung up in
the twelfth century, and the reflections, which take up the whole of
the fifth book, upon the character and achievements of the AngloNorman kings. The fourth book includes, in company with some
lively tales, the celebrated letter, well known to the Wife of Bath's
fifth husband, from Valerius to Rufinus, upon the folly of marrying


E. L. I. CH. IX.


12




178


Latin Chroniclers


a wife. The whole work is a medley of such diverse and curious
ingredients-satire, gossip, fairy-lore, folk-tales and snatches of
serious history-as to make us easily believe that its author was,
as Gerald hints, one of the most versatile and witty talkers in
the court circles of that eager and inquisitive age.
The thirteenth century is, emphatically, the golden age of the
monastic historians.  At their head stands Matthew Paris, the
greatest of all our medieval chroniclers; but his work only represents the crowning literary achievement of an enthusiasm and an
industry that inspired every considerable monastery in the land.
The annals, most of them nameless, of Burton, of Winchester,
of Waverley, of Dunstable, of Osney, of Worcester-all testify to
the assiduity of monkish scribes in compiling, revising and adding
to the stores of historical material accumulated in their respective
houses. Invaluable, however, as these chronicles are to the student
of political and social history, they possess little interest as
literature.
But, at the powerful monastery of St Albans, there arose
a school of historians as brilliant as that which had, in the
north, closed with Roger of Hoveden. This school produced in
Matthew Paris a writer who, both in his conception of the
historian's art and in the force and picturesqueness of his
style, surpasses all the chroniclers of the twelfth century. The
historians of St Albans possessed exceptional advantages. The
wealth of the abbey, its accommodation and equipment as an
ideal home of learning, its position on the Great North Road,
and its proximity to the capital, marked it out as the chief
centre of monastic culture in the thirteenth century; and its
inmates kept up a constant intercourse with the great men of
the day as they passed through it on their way to and from
London and the provinces.    Nowhere else, perhaps, in the
kingdom could a historian of contemporary events pursue his
task at that time under more favourable conditions. Moreover, in no other abbey does the writing of history appear
to have been so carefully organised as at St Albans. Abbot
Simon, who died in 1183, established in the monastery a regular
office of historiographer. The first occupant of this office whose
complete work has come down to us was Roger of Wendover; but
his chronicle is based upon materials of which an ample wealth
already existed in the abbey. The actual nucleus of the early
part of Roger's Flowers of History is supposed to have been the
compilation of John de Cella, who was abbot of St Albans from




Matthew   Paris


179


1195 to 1214. John's work extended down to the year 1188, and
was revised and continued by Roger down to 1235, the year before
his death. Roger claims in his preface to have selected "from
the books of catholic writers worthy of credit, just as flowers of
various colours are gathered from various fields." Hence he called
his work Flores Historiarum-a title appropriated in the fourteenth century to a long compilation by various hands. Begun at
St Albans, and completed at Westminster, it was based upon the
Chronicle of Matthew Paris and continued to the year 1326.
The work was long ascribed to one Matthew of Westminster,
but it is now known that no actual chronicler of that name ever
existed. Roger of Wendover's work is, however, now valued not
so much for what he culled from previous writers as for its full
and lively narrative of contemporary events, from 1216 to 1235.
Although in accuracy, in range and in subtlety and shrewdness
of insight he falls far short of his great successor as historiographer
of St Albans, Roger largely anticipates him in the fearless candour
of his personal and moral judgments.
Matthew Paris became historiographer of St Albans upon the
death of Roger of Wendover in 1236, and proceeded in his famous
Chronica Majora to revise and continue the work of his predecessor.
Matthew Paris's own narrative is an extraordinarily comprehensive
and masterly survey of both English and continental history during
almost an entire quarter of a century. We know little of the
details of the historian's own life. He became a monk of St Albans
in 1217, and tradition ascribes to him not only a high repute for
scholarship, but the possession of varied gifts as an artist. The
most notable incident in his career was his employment by the
pope, in 1248, on a mission of reform to the Benedictine monks
of Holm, in Norway, which kept him away from England for some
eighteen months. He lived, throughout, in close intimacy with
the court, and, notwithstanding his plain-spokenness, enjoyed a
share of royal favour. He died in 1259. Courtier and scholar,
monk and man of the world, Matthew Paris was, both by training
and position, exceptionally well qualified to undertake a history of
his own time. Moreover, he had the instinct, the temper and the
judgment of the born historian. He took immense pains in the
collection and the verification of his facts, and appears to have
been in constant communication with a host of correspondents
both at home and abroad. Indeed, his work reads like a
stately journal of contemporary European events, where everything is marshalled in due order and proportion by a master
12-2




i80


Latin Chroniclers


editorial hand. Great events and small follow each other in quick,
though orderly, succession, just as in some modern review of the
world's work. Simon de Montfort's preparations for his crusade;
a dispute between the scholars and citizens of Oxford; the death of
Llywelyn, prince of Wales; the pope's dealings with foreign clerks
in England; a great storm; the decapitation of certain robbers;
war in Flanders; the burning of heretics by the Milanese; the
irruption of the Tartars-such is a brief selection of topics culled
at random from a few consecutive pages of Matthew's Chronicle.
But he is much more than a mere recorder of events. He is
a fearless critic and censor of public men and their doings.
A thoroughly patriotic Englishman, he is severe upon all misgovernment, openly rebuking the king, denouncing the greed
and rapacity of the nobles, protesting indignantly against the
extortionate exactions of the pope. He is not, indeed, altogether
free from the professional bias of his class; and in nothing is this
more apparent than in his obviously prejudiced references to the
mendicant orders. But his criticisms as a whole are animated
by a transparently honest fervour of moral indignation and by
a patriotic jealousy for the honour of England. The pope's
emissaries are "harpies and bloodsuckers, plunderers, who do
not merely shear, but skin, the sheep." For his complacent
acquiescence in the deeds of the papal legates the king is denounced as having become to the clergy "as it were the stalk of
a reed-on which those who lean in confidence are wounded by
the fragments." The king's own extortionate demands for money
from the clergy are no less boldly condemned, while his foolishness
and extravagance are constantly censured. These outspoken animadversions did not, however, blind Henry to Matthew's skill as
a writer, and the chronicler relates how, during the celebration of
the feast of Edward the Confessor, in 1247, the sovereign himself
bade him take a seat near the throne and write a full account of
the proceedings, so that the facts might stand accurately recorded
for ever. Matthew was, indeed, a ready and a picturesque writer.
Though frequently prolix and rhetorical, he is never tedious or
irrelevant. His narrative, as a rule, is wonderfully direct, clear
and nervous, while his instinct for order and literary effect is such
as to give to his Chronicle, as a whole, a unity and a sustained
interest which belong to the work of no other English medieval
historian.
Matthew Paris quite overshadows every other chronicler of
the time of Henry III. But much of the history of Henry's




Minor Chroniclers


reign would remain obscure, were Paris's Chronicle not supplemented by the monumental work of Henry of Bracton, or Bratton,
on the laws of England. Bracton scarcely belongs to the chroniclers;
but his writings throw sufficient light upon the social conditions
of his time to entitle him to stand side by side with Matthew Paris
as a contributor to the English history of the thirteenth century.
Following in the footsteps of Ranulf de Glanville (or Hubert
Walter), Henry II's great justiciar, Henry of Bracton compiled,
some time between 1250 and 1258, an elaborate treatise on
the laws and customs of England. Bracton was one of the
many ecclesiastics who held high judicial office under Henry III.
He was, in turn, a justice in eyre, a judge of the king's court,
a Devonshire rector and archdeacon of Barnstaple. In addition
to his legal treatise he left behind him a note-book, containing
some two thousand cases taken from the plea rolls of his time,
with comments which "to all appearance came from Bracton's
hand or from Bracton's head'." Indebted though he was for the
form and method of his great book to such foreign works as those
of the celebrated Italian lawyer, Azo of Bologna, Bracton's work
is, in substance, thoroughly English, and is a laborious exposition,
illustrated by some hundreds of decisions, of the approved practice
of the king's court in England. Bracton died in 1268, leaving his
work unfinished, although he appears to have been adding to and
annotating it to the very last; but, even as it stands, his treatise
is not only the most authoritative English law-book of his time,
but, in design and matter, "the crown and flower of English
medieval jurisprudence2." It "both marks and makes a critical
moment in the history of English law, and, therefore, in the essential history of the English people3."
The art of the historian proper, however, gradually began to
decline after the death of Matthew Paris. Among the chroniclers
who take us down to the fourteenth century there are few names
worthy of a place in a history of literature. Prominent among
them are Matthew's own followers at St Albans, William Rishanger
and John of Trokelowe; Nicholas Trivet or Trevet, a Dominican
friar, whose works are of considerable historical importance for
the reign of Edward I and of additional literary interest in connection with Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale; Walter of Hemingburgh, a canon of the Yorkshire priory of Guisburn, who not
1 Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, ed. 1898, Vol. i, p. 207.
2 Ib. p. 206.
3 Bracton's Note Book, ed. Maitland, Vol. i, p. 1.




1 82


Latin Chroniclers


unworthily continues the work of the northern school; John de
Tayster, or Taxster, a monk of St Edmundsbury, who adds to a
compilation from previous chroniclers what seems to be an
original narrative for the years 1258-65; and Thomas Wykes, a
monk of Osney, whose chronicle extends down to 1289, and is an
authority of the first importance "for the whole history of the
campaign of Lewes and Evesham, and the events immediately
preceding and following them'." But these, and other writers, are
largely subdued to the monastic atmosphere in which they work, and
possess few of the traits of character and style which interest us
in the personality of the greater chroniclers. The impulse of the
revival of learning had been spent, and neither in literary distinction
nor in accuracy and wealth of information are the chroniclers who
wrote during the hundred years after Matthew Paris's death worthy
of comparison with their predecessors of the twelfth and early
thirteenth centuries. The best of them are those who, by their
industry at least, endeavoured down to the end of the fourteenth
century to retain for St Albans as a historical school the
supreme repute which had been so signally established by
Matthew Paris.


1 Luard, Annales Monastici, iv (Rolls Series).




CHAPTER X


ENGLISH SCHOLARS OF PARIS AND FRANCISCANS
OF OXFORD
LATIN LITERATURE OF ENGLAND FROM JOHN OF
SALISBURY TO RICHARD OF BURY
THE university of Paris owed its origin to the cathedral school
of Notre-Dame. It was not until the time of William of Champeaux (d. 1121), that this school began to rival the scholastic
fame of Chartres. Early in the thirteenth century the schools of
Paris were connected with three important churches. On the Ile
de la Cit6 there was the cathedral of Notre-Dame; to the south
of the Seine, on rising ground near the site of the present Panthdon, was the collegiate church of Sainte-GeneviBve; and, to the
east of the walls south of the river, the church of Canons Regular
at the abbey of St Victor. The schools of Notre-Dame and
of Sainte-GeneviBve were, successively, the scenes of the evermemorable lectures of a famous pupil of William of Champeaux,
the eloquent, brilliant, vain, impulsive and self-confident disputant,
Abelard (d. 1142). The fame of his teaching made Paris the resort
of large numbers of scholars, whose presence led to its becoming
the home of the many Masters by whom the university was
ultimately founded. The earliest trace of this university has been
discovered in the passage where Matthew Paris states that his own
preceptor, an abbot of St Albans, had, as a student in Paris, been
admitted into "the fellowship of the elect Masters" (c. 1170)1. In
1136, when John of Salisbury went to Paris, the university was
not yet in existence. The first recorded "town and gown" riot,
that of 1200, led to the grant of a charter to the resident body
of Masters; the approximate date of the first statutes, ten years
later, marks the earliest recognition of the university as a legally
constituted corporation, a veritable universitas; and, about ten
years later still, the Masters of Arts were first organised into
four nations, namely, the French, the Normans, the Picards and
1 Gesta Abbatum, i, 217, ed. 1867.




184 +English             Scholars of Paris
the English, this last including the Germans and all who came
from the north and the east of Europe. In the thirteenth century
Paris was still the centre of European culture. It is sufficient to
cite as proof a passage from the English encyclopaedist, Bartholomew, who flourished in the middle of that century:
Even as Athens shone of old as the mother of liberal arts and the nurse
of philosophers, so, in our own day, Paris has raised the standard of learning
and civilisation, not only in France but in all the rest of Europe; and, as the
mother of wisdom, she welcomes guests from all parts of the world, supplies
all their wants and submits them all to her pacific rule1.
The carnival riot of 1229 led to the withdrawal of the resident
Masters and Scholars for two years; meanwhile, many of them
accepted the invitation of Henry III, and thus reinforced the
rising universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
The first important representative of England in the schools
of Paris was John of Salisbury. He began by becoming a
pupil of Abelard, who had returned to the scene of his early
triumphs, and, at the age of 57, was now lecturing on the hill
of Sainte-Genevihve.  That "illustrious and admirable teacher"
was discoursing, as of old, on logic; and "at his feet" John of
Salisbury "acquired the first rudiments of dialectics, greedily
seizing all that fell from his lips." But his brilliant instructor was
once more opposed, and once more withdrew from Paris; and the
pupil passed into the school of Master Alberic and Robert of
Melun. The first was, "in questions, acute and expansive "; the
second, "in responses, brief and lucid"; and, "if anyone could
have combined the merits of both, he would have been unrivalled
in debate2." Having thus studied logic for two years (1136-8) in
Paris, John of Salisbury spent three years (probably the latter
part of 1138, and a large part of 1139 and 1140) working at
"grammar," or the scholarly study of Latin literature. The place
is not named, but it has, rightly, been identified as the school of
Chartres3.  In that school the sound and healthy tradition of
Bernard of Chartres was still maintained by his pupils. By John
of Salisbury's time, Bernard had been succeeded as chancellor of the
cathedral school by Gilbert de la Porrde. John of Salisbury learnt
rhetoric from Richard L'Ev~que, who was "familiar with almost
every branch of learning, whose knowledge was even greater than
his eloquence, who had more truth than vanity, more virtue than
show4."  He had already attended, with less profit, the somewhat
1 xv, c. 57, p. 653, ed. 1609.            2 Metalogicus, i, 10.
3 Schaarschmidt, Joh. Saresberiensis, p. 22.  4 Metalogicus, loc. cit.




.John   of Salisbury                185
meagre lectures of Bernard's younger brother, Theodoric, who is
nevertheless described as "a most studious investigator of the
Artsl." This description was confirmed in 1888, when he was identified as the author of two large volumes containing a comprehensive
Survey of the Liberal Arts, written in a bold and clear hand, which
may now be seen in the public library of the cathedral town. It
may be added that it was between 1134 and 1150, during the time
when Theodoric was successively "master of the school" and chancellor, that the south doorway of the west front of the cathedral
was adorned with figures of the seven arts, each of them associated with the ancient representative of that art, for example,
grammar with Priscian, dialectic with Aristotle and rhetoric with
Cicero.
It was probably early in 1141 that John returned to Paris.
For a short time he attended, not only the lectures of Gilbert, who
had lately ceased to be chancellor of Chartres, but also those of
Robert Pullen, the future cardinal, who had taught at Oxford in
1133. Socially, he saw much of Adam du Petit Pont, who owed
his surname to the school that he had set up on the little bridge
between the Ile de la Cit6 and the Quartier Latin.
John of Salisbury's student life in Paris, and Chartres, and
again in Paris, probably extended from early in 1136 to late in 1145.
In the spring of 1148, he was present at the council of Rheims.
It was there that he was introduced by Bernard of Clairvaux to
Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, an introduction that had an
important effect on his literary and ecclesiastical career.
About 1150 he returned to England, and resided mainly at
the court of Canterbury, engaged on secretarial and diplomatic
work, which frequently took him to the court of Rome. On the
most celebrated of these visits, during the winter of 1155-6, his
friend the English pope, Hadrian IV, sent Henry II his written
authority to extend his rule over Ireland, together with an emerald
ring in token of his right2. It was probably John of Salisbury's
eager interest in the privileges of the church, while he was still in
the service of Theobald, that led to his soon falling into disfavour
with the king. During the enforced leisure of 1159, he revised
and completed two of his most extensive works, finishing the
Policraticus shortly before, and the Metalogicus immediately after,
the death of Hadrian IV (31 August 1159). Both of these were
dedicated to Becket, the warlike chancellor, with whose aid
Henry II was then " fulminating" at the siege of Toulouse3. When
1 Metalogicus, I, 5.   2 Ib. iv, 42.   3 Policraticus, vIII, 25.




i86         English    Scholars of Paris
Becket became archbishop in 1162, John of Salisbury entered his
service, and, soon afterwards, composed a Life of archbishop
Anselm with a view to the canonisation which was not conceded
until three centuries later. On the king's return early in 1163,
John of Salisbury found it safest to leave the country, staying for
six or seven years with Peter de la Celle, then abbot of Rheims,
under whose roof he wrote the Historia Pontificalis. His exile,
like that of Becket, lasted till late in 1170. On the fatal 29th
of December he was at Canterbury with the archbishop, who
unhappily disregarded the counsels of moderation suggested by
his devoted friend. They entered the cathedral together. In face
of the murderous attack on the archbishop's person, John of Salisbury seems to have fled at first, but to have soon returned to the
post of peril. He was probably present at the end. He was
certainly believed by his friend Peter to have been "sprinkled
with the precious blood of the blessed martyr1."
He immediately urged the inclusion of his master's name in
the calendar of martyrs, wrote his Life, and loyally served his
successor. In 1176, his devotion to the memory of St Thomas and
his friendship with the archbishop of Sens led to John of Salisbury
being made bishop of Chartres. For the last four years of his life
he was the most prominent personage in the place where he had
spent three of the most fruitful years of his youth. In the
necrology of his cathedral church he is described as vir magnae
religionis, totiusque scientiae radiis illustratus.
His Letters give abundant proof of his wide influence as a
sagacious counsellor, an able politician and a zealous ecclesiastic.
They were collected and edited by himself soon after 1170.
Of the 326 comprised in the modern editions, some were
written after the above date, and some by other writers. His
Entheticus, an elegiac poem  of no less than 1852 lines, was,
apparently, intended as an introduction to Policraticus, which
is now preceded by a short set of verses bearing the same title as
the above poem. In both of these poems, which are written in a
strong and solid but not particularly elegant style, Becket is
warmly eulogised. He is the king's right hand, the embodiment
of all excellence, the refuge of the oppressed, the light of the
church, the glory of the nation2.
The Policraticus is a work in eight books. The primary title
has led to its being regarded as a "statesman's handbook." The
alternative title, De Nugis Curialium, et Vestigiis Philosophorwm,
1 Petrus Cellensis, Ep. 117.  2 Migne, P. L. cxcix, 379, 993.




John    of Salisury.       Peter   of Blois     187
is suggestive of a satire on the vanities of courtiers, followed by a
set treatise on morals; but the latter half deals with the principles of government, and with matters of philosophy and learning,
interspersed with many digressions. It is, in fact, an "encyclopaedia
of miscellanies," reflecting the cultivated thought of the middle
of the twelfth century. It includes an interesting chapter on
Aristotlel, and a satirical account of the scholastic controversies
of the age.
The Mletalogicus, in four books, contains a defence of the
method and use of logic, vindicating the claims of "grammar," and
pleading for an intelligent study of logic. It includes an analysis
of the whole series of Aristotle's treatises on that subject, being, in
fact, the earliest work in the Middle Ages in which every part of
the Organon is turned to account.
The Historia Pontificalis is only preserved in an incomplete
form in a single manuscript at Bern; it was not printed until
1868, and was not identified as the work of John of Salisbury
until 1873. It gives an account of the ecclesiastical history of the
years 1148 to 1152.
In his attitude towards the ancient classics, John of Salisbury
is far from regarding Aristotle as infallible; he is opposed to
Plato, though he is fully conscious of Plato's greatness. His
favourite author is Cicero, and the purity of his own Latin prose
has been justly praised. Caesar and Tacitus he knows solely by
name; but, in all the literature accessible to him, he is obviously
the best-read scholar of his time. A humanist two centuries in
advance of his age, he is eager to give the widest possible interpretation to "whatsoever things were written aforetime for our
learning"2.
In his day the first period in the medieval study of logic was
drawing towards its close, and with the degenerate type of the
professional dialectician he has no sympathy. The earliest of all
the medieval theories on the nature and the functions of the
state is due to John of Salisbury. He is the first of modern
writers on the philosophy of politics, and he founds his own theory
on the records of the Old Testament and on the annals of the
ancient Roman empire.
As a representative of literature and learning, Peter of Blois
is only a pale reflection of John of Salisbury. Born at Blois,
he was probably educated at Tours; he learnt and taught at
Bologna and Paris, settled in England about 1175 as secretary
1 vII, 6.        2 Cf. Prologue to Policraticus, vII.




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to Richard of Dover, archbishop of Canterbury, and was successively archdeacon of Bath (c. 1177) and of London (c. 1204).
He was repeatedly entrusted with diplomatic duties by Henry II,
and the Letters ascribed to him purport to have been originally
collected at the request of the king. But some of them-for
example, those on the capture of Damietta in 1219-could not
possibly have been written during the life of the king, who died in
1189, or during that of Peter of Blois, who died in or before 1212.
Peter of Blois, on his appointment as secretary to the archbishop
in 1175, obviously made a diligent study of the Letters of John of
Salisbury, who had edited his Letters soon after 1170, while Peter
did not begin to edit his own until 1181, the year after John of
Salisbury's death. Many of Peter's Letters are enriched with
quotations from the classics, but most of those quotations are
borrowed from John of Salisbury. Thus, in a letter to the archdeacon of Nantes, we have a list of ancient grammarians, and a
second list of ancient historians1. Both of these are borrowed from
John of Salisbury2; but, while John of Salisbury modestly refers
his readers to Tacitus, without professing to have read that author,
Peter of Blois pretends to have "frequently looked into" Tacitus,
-an author never mentioned by such well-informed contemporaries as Giraldus Cambrensis and Ralph of Diceto. Criticised
for his constant quotations, he defends a manner of composition
which places him "like a dwarf on the shoulders of giants"3; but
this very comparison is tacitly taken from John of Salisbury, who
honestly quotes it from Bernard of Chartres4. It is improbable
that Peter was ever an actual pupil of the scholar to whom he
owed so much of his borrowed erudition; but, curiously enough,
he held preferment at Chartres, and also at Salisbury. His brief
Sermons call for no comment. Of his few poems the longest deals
with the sacraments in twenty-six chapters of riming hexameters;
while two others, written in a different metre, have for their
themes the life of the clergy, and the conflict between the flesh
and the spirit.
Walter Map, who was born about 1137 on the marches of
Wales, and, accordingly, called England his mother, and the Welsh
his fellow-countrymen, studied in Paris from about 1154 to 1160.
He returned to England before 1162, was frequently one of the
king's itinerant judges, and, after holding other preferment, was
appointed archdeacon of Oxford in 1197. About 1209, when


1 Ep. 101.
4 M1etalogicus, in, 4.


2 Policraticus, vIII, 18.


3 Ep. 92.




y[alter   Map                    189
Giraldus published the second edition of his Conquest of Ireland1,
Walter Map was no longer living.
Map was the author of an entertaining miscellany in Latin prose,
De Nugis Curialium, a work in a far lighter vein than that of John
of Salisbury, who had adopted this as an alternative title of his
Policraticus. But, even in this lighter vein, Map has often a grave
moral purpose. Stories of the follies and crimes of courts, and a
lament over the fall of Jerusalem, are here followed by an account
of the origin of the Carthusians, the Templars and the Hospitallers,
with reflections on their growing corruption, and a violent attack
on the Cistercians, together with notices of heretics and of hermits.
In the second book, we have anecdotes of the Welsh, with a collection of fairy-tales; in the third, a series of highly romantic
stories; in the fourth, the "Epistle of Valerius dissuading from
marriage the philosopher Rufinus" (sometimes erroneously ascribed
to St Jerome); and, in the fifth, an invaluable sketch of the history
of the English court from William Rufus to Henry II. Walter
Map's "courtly jests" are mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis, who,
in his latest work, describes Map as a person of distinction, endued
with literary skill and with the wit of a courtier, and as having
spent his youth (and more than his youth) in reading and writing
poetry2. Giraldus sends his friend a set of Latin elegiacs, with a
present of a walking-stick, and he has fortunately preserved the
twelve lines of his friend's reply in the same metre3. This reply is
almost the only certainly genuine product of Map's muse that
has survived. Of his poems against the Cistercian monks, only
a single line is left: Lancea Longini, grex albus, ordo nefandus4.
His notorious antipathy to the Cistercian order has led to his
being regarded as the author of another poem entitled Discipulus
Goliae episcopi de grisis monachis5. The worldly, and worse than
worldly, bishop Golias is the theme of other poems, in accentual
riming metres, ascribed to Map, notably the Apocalypse, the
Confession and the Metamorphosis of Golias. The Apocalypse
is first assigned to him in a Bodleian manuscript of the fourteenth
century. Here there is no attempt to dramatise the character of
Golias; we have simply an apocalyptic vision of the corruptions
of the church set forth in 110 riming quatrains of accentual
dactyls in lines of the type: Omnis a clericis fluit enormitas.
In the accentual trochaics of the Confession, the bishop is
dramatically represented as remembering "the tavern that he
has never scorned, nor ever will scorn until the angels sing his
1 v, 410.  2 Iv, 140.  3 I, 363.  4 Latin Poems, p. xxxv.  5 Ib. p. 54.




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requiem." Then follow the four lines, which are better known
and more misunderstood than any in the poem:
Meum est propositum in taberna mori:
Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,
Ut dicant curn venerint angelorum chori,
"Deus sit propitius huic potatori!"
These lines, with part of the subsequent context, were at an early
date extracted from their setting and made into a drinking-song;
but it cannot be too clearly stated that they were originally
meant for a dramatic representation of the character of the
degenerate "bishop." It is a mistake to regard them as reflecting
in any way the habits of the reputed author, who has been
erroneously described as the "jovial archdeacon," and the "Anacreon of his age." Giraldus, in the very same work in which he
lauds the literary skill and the wit of his friend, quotes for reprobation, and not for imitation, a series of calumnious passages,
including the above lines with their immediately previous context1.
He is clearly quite innocent of ascribing these lines to his friend.
The whole of the Confession is also preserved in the celebrated
thirteenth century Munich MS of the Carmina Burana, formerly
belonging to the Benedictine monastery of Benedictbeuern in
the Bavarian highlands. It forms part of the vast number of
anonymous Latin rimes known from 1227 onwards by the name
of Goliardi. The character of bishop Golias may possibly have
assumed dramatic form in the age of Walter Map, but the name
was certainly three centuries older. As early as the time of
Gautier, archbishop of Sens (d. 923), a sentence of condemnation
is passed on the clerici ribaldi, maxime qui vulgo dicuntur de
familia Goliae2.
Map is credited in certain MSS with the authorship of the
"original" Latin of the great prose romance of Lancelot du Lac,
including the Quest of the Holy Grail and the Death of Arthur;
but no such "Latin original" has yet been found. A version of
the Quest in French prose is assigned to " Maistres Gualters Map,"
and is described as "written by him for the love of his lord, King
Henry, who caused it to be translated from Latin into French."
In certain manuscripts, all the four parts of the romance of
Lancelot are ascribed to Map; and Hue de Rotelande (c. 1185), a
near neighbour and a contemporary of Map, after describing in his
Ipomedon a tournament, which is also an incident in Lancelot,
excuses his romance-writing in the words: "I am not the only


1 Iv, 293.


2 Labbe's Concilia, 1671, ix, 578.




Other writers of Latin


191


man who knows the art of lying; Walter Map knows well his
part of it"'. Such is the evidence, slight as it is, for ascribing
to Map any share in the great cycle of romance surveyed in
other chapters2. We have already seen that there is very little
reason for accepting him as the author of any part of the large
body of accentual Latin poetry which passes under his name.
The only thirteen lines of Latin verse, which are certainly genuine
products of his pen, are written in hexameters and pentameters
of the strictly classical type.
A century before the time of Map, Godfrey, a native of Cambrai, and prior of St Swithin's, Winchester (d. 1107), had written
Latin epigrams after the manner of Martial. He is, in fact, repeatedly quoted as "Marcial" by Gower. The 238 ordinary epigrams of his first book are followed by nineteen others, which
have a historic interest, in so far as they refer to royal or
ecclesiastical persons of the day. The Anglo-Norman poet
Reginald, a monk of St Augustine's, Canterbury (jl. 1112), wrote a
lengthy poem in leonine hexameters on the life of the Syrian
hermit St Malchus. In the next half-century, Lawrence, the
Benedictine monk who became prior and bishop of Durham
(d. 1154), composed a popular summary of Scripture history in
nine books of elegiac verse. Henry of Huntingdon (d. 1155) has
preserved, in the eleventh book of his Historia Anglorum, the
Latin epigrams and other minor poems that he had learnt to
compose as a pupil of the monks of Ramsey. A little later,
Hilarius, who is supposed to have been an Englishman, and was
a pupil of Abelard about 1125, wrote in France three Latin plays
on sacred themes, the earliest of their kind. The "raising of
Lazarus " and the "image of St Nicholas" are partly written in
French; the "story of Daniel," in Latin only. He is also the
author of twelve interesting sets of riming lyrics, in Latin interspersed with a few lines of French, the most graceful poem in the
series being addressed to an English maiden bearing the name
of Rose. About the same time the Cistercian monk, Henry of
Saltrey (fl. 1150), wrote a Latin prose version of the legend of the
Purgatory of St Patrick.   A life of Becket, now only known
through the Icelandic Thomas Saga, was written by Robert of
Cricklade, chancellor of Oxford (1159) and prior of St Frideswide's, who dedicated to Henry II his nine books of Flores from
the Natural History of the elder Pliny.
1 H. L. D. Ward's Catalogue of Romances, I, 734-41.
2 See especially post, Chapter xII.




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English Scholars of Paris


One of Map's younger contemporaries, Gervase, the author of
the Otia Imperialia, a native of Tilbury on the coast of Essex,
was brought up in Rome; he lectured on law at Bologna, and
probably died in England. The above work was written about
1211 to amuse the leisure hours of the German emperor, Otto IV.
It is a miscellaneous collection of legendary tales and superstitions. The theme of the first three books and many of the
quotations are borrowed, without acknowledgment, from the
Historia Scholastica of that omnivorous compiler, Petrus Comestor. The third book tells us of werewolves and lamias and
barnacle-geese and other marvels, and also of the enchantments
ascribed to Vergil at Naples.
Another of Map's contemporaries, Nigel Wireker, precentor
of Christ Church, Canterbury (d. 1200), was the witty author of
the Speculum Stultorum, a long elegiac poem on the adventures
of the donkey "Burnellus," or "Brunellus," a diminutive of
"Brown" (just as "donkey" is a diminutive of "dun"). The name
is borrowed from the scholastic logic of the day, in which it represents any particular horse or ass, as opposed to the abstract
idea of either of those animals1.
The author himself explains that the ass of his satire is a monk
who, discontented with his condition, wants to get rid of his old
stump of a tail, and obtain a new and longer appendage by
becoming a prior or an abbot. Brunellus, then, finding his tail
too short, consults Galen on his malady, and is, ultimately, sent off
to Salerno with a satirical prescription, which he is to bring back
in glass bottles, typical of the vanity and frailty of all human
things. On his way there and back, he is attacked by merchants
and monks and mastiffs, and is thus robbed of all his scanty goods,
and of half his diminutive tail. Ashamed to return home, and
having an immense capacity for patient labour, he resolves on,
becoming a member of the English "nation" in the university of
Paris. Then follows a satire on the idleness and extravagance of
some of the English students at that seat of learning. After
spending seven years in studying the liberal arts and thus
"completing" his education, he finds on leaving Paris that he has
even forgotten the name of the place. However, he succeeds in
recalling one syllable, but that is enough, for he has learnt in his
time that "the part may stand for the whole." Passing from the
liberal arts to theology, the hero of the story tries all the
monastic orders in their turn, and ends in resolving to found an
1 Immanuel Weber, De Nigello Wirekero, Leipzig Dissertation, 1679.




Nigel Wireker.         Alexander Neckam              193
order of his own. Meeting Galen once more, he begins discussing
the state of the church and the general condition of society, and
urges Galen to join his new order, when, suddenly, his old master,
Bernard, appears on the scene, and compels him to return to his
first allegiance as an ordinary monk.  Chaucer, in The Noonne
Preestes Tale, recalls one of the stories he had "rad in daun
Burnel the Assel."
The Architrenius or "Arch-Mourner" of the Norman satirist,
Jean de Hauteville (fl. 1184), who was born near Rouen and
passed part of his life in England, has only a slight connection with
our present subject. The pilgrim of that satire pays a visit to
Paris, and describes the hardships of the students and the fruitlessness of their studies; he afterwards arrives at the hill of
Presumption, which is the haunt of all manner of monks and
ecclesiastics, as well as the great scholastic doctors and professors.
The seven liberal arts are elaborately described in the AntiClaudianus of the Universal Doctor, Alain de Lille (1114-1203).
This fine poem, and the mingled prose and verse of the De Planctu
Naturae, were familiar to Chaucer. Alain probably passed some
time in England with the Cistercians at Waverley in Surrey (1128),
and he is the reputed author of a commentary on the prophecies
of Merlin.
Alain's contemporary, Geoffrey de Vinsauf (fl. 1200), who was
educated at St Frideswide's, Oxford, and travelled in France and
Italy, dedicated to Innocent III his Poetria Nova, an Art of
Poetry founded partly on Horace, and recommending the ancient
metres in preference to the modern rimes, with examples of the
various kinds of composition. In the same period, Alexander
Neckam, of St Albans, distinguished himself in Paris in 1180,
and, late in life, became abbot of Cirencester. He is the author
of an amusing treatise De Naturis Rerum, with many anecdotes
of animals, and with an attack on the method of teaching logic
in the university of Paris. In his lengthy elegiac poem De
Laudibus Divinae Sapientiae he traverses much of the same
ground. He further describes the chief seats of learning in his
day, summing up in a single couplet the four faculties in the
university of Paris, the paradisus deliciarum:
Hic florent artes; coelestis pagina regnat;
Stant leges; lucet jus; medicina viget2.
Joannes de Garlandia, who studied at Oxford and Paris (1204),
1 Canterbury Tales, 15318.  2 p. 453 ed. Wright, in Rolls Series, 1863.
E. L. I. CH. X.                                   13




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English Scholars of Paris


was an Englishman by birth, but regarded France as the land of
his adoption. His two principal poems, De Mysteriis and De
Triumphis Ecclesiae, are earlier than 1252. His Ars Rhythmica
quotes whole poems as examples of the rules of rhythm. His prose
works include three Vocabularies, one of which, with its interlinear
French glosses and its reference to the tricks played by Parisian
glovers on inexperienced students, was clearly written for use in
the university of Paris.
Later in the same century, a chaplain of Eleanor of Provence,
queen of Henry III, named John Hoveden (d. 1275), wrote a
number of poems in riming quatrains. The longest of these
consists of nearly 4000 lines of meditation on the life of Christ.
This was translated into French. His most popular poem, that
beginning with the line Philomela, praevia temporis amoeni, was
translated into German and Spanish and, about 1460, into English.
Latin verse was one of the early amusements of the keen and
active Norman-Welshman, Giraldus Cambrensis, who was born
at the castle of Manorbier, which he dutifully describes as
"the sweetest spot in Wales1." The grandson, on his mother's
side, of Nest, "the Helen of Wales," he celebrated the exploits
of her heroic descendants, the Geraldines, in one of his earliest
works, the Conquest of Ireland. He had himself inherited some
of Nest's beauty; he tells us that, in his youthful days, an
abbot of the Cistercian order once said of him in the presence of
Baldwin, then bishop of Worcester: "Is it possible that Youth,
which is so fair, can ever die? 2" He received his early education
from two of the chaplains of his uncle, the bishop of St David's.
After continuing his studies at St Peter's abbey, Gloucester, he
paid three visits to Paris, spending three periods of several years
in its schools, and giving special attention to rhetoric. We have
his own authority for the fact that, when his lecturers desired
to point out a model scholar, they mentioned Gerald the
Welshman3.
As archdeacon of Brecon (1175-1203) he was an ardent
reformer of ecclesiastical abuses in his native land, and his great
disappointment in life was that he never became (like his uncle)
bishop of St David's. On the first of several occasions when he
was thus disappointed, he returned to Paris, and there studied for
three years, besides lecturing with great success on canon law
(1177-80). Visits to Ireland followed in 1183 and 1185, when he
was in attendance on prince John. After the prince's return,


1 vI, 93.


2 IV, 104.


3 I, 23.




Giraldus Cambrensis


I95


Gerald stayed till Easter, 1186, collecting materials for his two
works on Ireland.  The Topography was completed in 1188.
In the following year, he resolved on reciting it publicly at Oxford,
"where the most learned and famous of the English clergy were
then to be found." He read one of the three divisions of the work
on each of three successive days. "On the first [he informs us] he
received and entertained at his lodgings all the poor of the town;
on the next, all the doctors of the different faculties, and such of
their pupils as were of fame and note; and, on the third, the rest
of the scholars with the soldiers and the townsmen." He complacently assures us that "it was a costly and a noble act; a
revival of the bygone ages of poetry"; and (he proudly adds)
"neither present nor past time could furnish any record of such
a solemnity having ever taken place in England1."
Meanwhile in 1188, Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, had
been sent to Wales to preach the coming crusade. Riding in full
armour at the head of the procession, with the white cross gleaming
on his breastplate, he was accompanied by Ranulf de Glanville,
chief justiciar of England, and attended by a young man of
slender figure, delicate features and beetling eyebrows, a man of
learning and wit, and with no small share of self-conceit, "the
leader of the clergy of St David's, the scion of the blood-royal of
Wales." The archbishop's exhortations produced little effect on
the common people, until he prompted Gerald to take up the
preaching. At Haverford, Gerald discoursed in Latin and also
in French. Although the crowd understood neither language,
they were moved to tears by the magic of his eloquence, and no
less than two hundred joined the standard of the cross2. It was
pleasantly remarked soon afterwards that, if Gerald had only
discoursed in Welsh, not a single soldier would have failed to
follow that banner. Three thousand recruits were enrolled; the
archbishop and the chief justiciar had taken the cross at Radnor;
both of them kept their vow and died in 1190 in the course of the
crusade. Gerald, meanwhile, had been appointed to write its
history in Latin prose, and the archbishop's nephew, Joseph of
Exeter, to write it in verse. Joseph had already composed an
epic on the Trojan war, England's solitary Latin epic, which was
long attributed to Cornelius Nepos, notwithstanding its dedication
to the archbishop of Canterbury. He celebrated the crusade in
his Antiocheis, now represented by a solitary fragment on the
Flos Regum Arthurus. Gerald, however, neither went on the
1 I, pp. xlvii, 72 f.      2 I, pp. xlix, 76.
13-2




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crusade, nor wrote its history; he paid his fine and he stayed at
home to help the king to keep the peace in his native land, and
to write the Itinerary and the Description of Wales.
When the bishopric of St David's once more fell vacant, Gerald
struggled for five years to win the prize of his ambition, paying
three visits to Rome, in 1199, 1201 and 1203, without success.
But he was considered by himself and his fellow-countrymen to
have waged a glorious contest. "Many and great wars," said the
prince of Powys, "have we Welshmen waged with England, but
none so great and fierce as his, who fought the king and the
archbishop, and withstood the might of the whole clergy and
people of England, for the honour of Wales1."
He had already declined two other bishoprics in Wales and four
in Ireland. When the see of St David's was again vacant in 12i4,
he was passed over. He probably died in 1223, and was buried in
the precincts of the cathedral church, for whose independence he
had fought so long. The dismantled tomb, which is shown as his,
probably belongs to a later time. He deserves to be commemorated
in that cathedral by the couplet which he placed above his archidiaconal stall, and also enshrined in one of his " epitaphs ":
Vive Deo, tibi mors requies, tibi vita labori;
Vive Deo; mors est vivere, vita mori2.
The first volume of the Rolls edition of Giraldus includes two
autobiographies and two lists of his writings. Only the most
important need here be noticed. The earliest of his works is the
Topography of Ireland. The first book gives an account of its
physical features, and its birds and beasts; the second is devoted
to the marvels of the country; and the third, to the early history,
followed by a description of the manners, dress and condition of
the inhabitants. One of the MSS in the British Museum has in
the margin many curious coloured drawings of the birds and beasts
described by the author3. It is to this work that we owe almost all
our knowledge of medieval Ireland.
It was followed by the Conquest of Ireland, a narrative of the
events of 1169-85. This is marked by a simpler style and a more
sober judgment than the Topography, and is, in fact, a historical
monograph of considerable value. But there is much bias, and
some unfairness; and an air of unreality is produced by the Irish
chiefs, who have Greek patronymics, and harangue their troops
1 I, 129 = iI, 210.        2 I, 364, 382.
8 Bibl. Reg. 13 B viii (c. 1200), copied in J. R. Green's Short History, ill. ed. p. 225.




Giraldus     Cambrensis                197
with quotations from Ovid and Caesar. Towards the close the
author cites the ominous Irish prophecy that "scarcely before the
Day of Judgment will Ireland be wholly subdued by the English1."
The Itinerary of IaTes takes us on a tour of one month in
the South, and only eight days in the North. Apart from its
topographical and ecclesiastical interest, it introduces us to Gerald
as a student of languages. He tells us of a priest, who, in his
boyhood, paid a visit to fairy-land, and learnt the language, which
proved to be akin to Greek; and he gives us one or two specimens
in the words for "salt" and "water," adding the equivalents in
Welsh, English, Irish, German and French2. It was this passage
that once prompted Freeman to call Gerald the "father of comparative philology3." In his own Latin, Gerald has no hesitation in
using werra for " war," and knipulus for "pen-knife4." At Cardiff,
we incidentally learn that Henry II understood English, but could
not speak it. In the South, our attention is drawn to the vestiges
of Roman splendour at Caerleon on Usk, and to the old Roman
walls at Carmarthen.
The companion volume, called the Description of Wales,
appeared in two editions (1194, 1215). The author patriotically
ascribes to his fellow-countrymen a keenness of intellect that
enables them to excel in whatever study they pursue. He extols
their set speeches and their songs. He also quotes examples of
alliteration in Latin and Welsh. The following are the specimens
he selects from the English of his day: "god is to-gedere gamen
and wisdom" (it is good to be merry and wise); "ne halt nocht
al sor isaid, ne al sorghe atwite" (it boots not to tell every woe,
nor to upbraid every sorrow); "betere is red thene rap, and liste
thene lither streingthe" (better is counsel than haste, and tact
than vicious strength)6. Elsewhere he tells the story of the Englishwoman, who, with her mistress, had for a complete year attended
daily mass, at which the priest had (besides the oft-repeated
Oremus) always used the introit Rorate coeli, desuper; on finding
that her mistress had, nevertheless, been disappointed in her desires,
she indignantly said to the priest: "rorisse pe rorie ne wrthe
nan" (your rories and ories are all to no purpose)7. He also
quotes the phrase, "God holde Je, cuning" (God save thee, king),
and the refrain of a love-song, "swete lemman, dhin are" (sweet
mistress, thy favour!)8. He notes that the language of North
1 v, 385.                 2 VI, 77.
3 Norman Conquest, v, 579; cf. Comparative Politics, 486.  4 II, 292.
5 VI, 64 f.  6 VI, 188.   7 II, 128.  8 vi, 64; II, 120; cf. iv, 209.




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Wales is purer than that of the South, that the language of
Cornwall and Britanny closely resembles Welsh, that the language
of the south of England (especially Devonshire) is purer than
that of the north and that the English works of Bede and king
Alfred were all written in the southern idiom1. He also tells
his readers how Wales may be conquered, how it should be
governed and how it is to hold its own.
The Gemma Ecclesiastica was its author's favourite work. It
may, perhaps, be described as a lengthy archidiaconal charge of an
exceptionally learned and lively type. It certainly presents us
with a vivid picture of the state of morality and learning in Wales,
illustrated by not a few stories of ignorance of Latin among the
inferior clergy. Thus, a priest once interpreted "St John ante
portamn Latinam" to mean that St John, ante, first, portam,
brought, Latinam, the Latin language (into England)2. This
ignorance, which even extended to some of the higher clergy, is,
here and elsewhere, attributed to the excessive study of law and
logic3.
The Book of his Acts and Deeds, in the midst of much that is
purely personal, tells the story of the holy hermit who prayed
that he might attain to the mystery of the Latin language. He
was granted the gift of the Latin tongue, without that of the Latin
syntax; but he successfully overcame all difficulties of moods and
tenses by always using the present infinitive. Gerald once asked
this hermit to pray for him that he might understand the Scriptures. The hermit warmly grasped his hand, and gravely added:
"Say not understand, but keep; it is a vain thing to understand
the word of God, and not to keep it."4
The work On the Instruction of a Prince, completed after
the death of king John in 1216, is divided into three books. The
first, on the duties of the ideal prince, is enriched with many
quotations, the virtue of patience being illustrated by nine, and
the modesty of princes by thirteen. The second and third include
a history of the life and times of Henry II. The main interest lies
in the sketches of the characters of the royal family. Gerald here
tells the story of the finding of king Arthur's body at Glastonbury
in a coffin bearing the inscription: "Here lies buried the famous
King Arthur, with Guinevere his second wife, in the Isle of Avalon5."
His other works include a Life of Geoffrey Plantagenet, archbishop of York, and several lives of saints, partly suggested by
1 VI, 177 f.      2 II, 342.       3   I, 348; III, 29 f.
4 i, 90 f.        5 viI, 126 f.




Giraldus Cambrensis.  Michael Scot


199


his stay at Lincoln in 1196-8. His Collection of Extracts from
his own works was, naturally, compiled late in life. Among his
Epistles is one urging Richard I to befriend men of letters,
"without whom all his glory would soon pass away1." His latest
work, the Mirror of the Church, depicts the principal monastic
orders of the time in violent language that, not unnaturally, led
the monastic copyists to neglect transcribing, and thus preserving,
the author's writings. The only MS of this particular work that
has survived suffered severely in a fire in the Cottonian library;
but the sketch of the state of learning with which it opens had,
happily, already been partly transcribed by Anthony Wood. In the
last book Gerald adds a description of the churches in Rome,
and closes his writings with an impressive picture of the day of
doom.
To the end of his life Gerald remained true to his early devotion
to literature; and he hopefully looked forward to the appreciation
of posterity2. Freeman, in estimating the historical value of his
writings, justly characterises him as " vain, garrulous" and "careless as to minute accuracy," but as also "one of the most learned
men of a learned age," "one who, whatever we may say as to the
soundness of his judgment, came behind few in the sharpness of his
wits," "one who looked with a keen, if not an impartial, eye on all
the events and controversies of his own time."3
Among "English" students at Paris we may briefly mention
Michael Scot, who, probably before 1209, learnt Arabic at Palermo,
where he lived at the brilliant court of Frederick II, to whom he
dedicated three of his earliest works. Leaving Palermo for Toledo
about 1209, he there completed a Latin rendering of two Arabic
abstracts of Aristotle's History of Animals. In 1223, he returned
to Palermo. He was highly esteemed as a physician and an astrologer, and his reputed skill in magic has been celebrated by Dante,
Boccaccio and Sir Walter Scott. He is described by Roger Bacon
as introducing to the scholars of the west certain of the physical
and metaphysical works of Aristotle, with the commentators on the
same4. He may have visited Bologna and Paris for this purpose
about 1232. He probably died before 1235, and tradition places
his burial, as well as his birth, in the Lowlands of Scotland.
There is no evidence that Michael Scot was ever a student at
Oxford. Like Cardinal Curson of Kedleston (d. 1218), and
Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), and the able mathematician,


1 I, 243.                2 v, 212, 411; vi, 7.
4 Opus Majus, in, 66, Bridges.


3 vi, p. 1iii.




200


Franciscans and Dominicans


Johannes de Sacro Bosco-probably of Holywood in Dumfriesshire
-(d. 1252), he owed his sole allegiance to Paris. Stephen Langton
(d. 1228), who, similarly, studied in Paris only, was restored to
England by his consecration as archbishop of Canterbury; his
successor, Edmund of Abingdon (d. 1240), owed his first allegiance
to Oxford, and his second to Paris.
We have seen that the university of Paris originated in the
cathedral school of Notre-Dame.   The education of Europe
might have long remained in the hands of the secular clergy,
but for the rise of the new orders of the Franciscans and the
Dominicans in the second decade of the thirteenth century. The
old monastic orders had made their home in solitary places, far
removed from the world, while the aim of the Franciscan order
was not to withdraw to the lonely valleys and mountains, but to
work in the densely crowded townsBernardus valles, montes Benedictus armabat,
Oppida Franciscuis.
The order of the Franciscans was founded at Assisi in 1210;
that of the Dominicans, at Toulouse in 1215; and, at an early
date, both orders resolved on establishing themselves in the great
seats of education. The Dominicans fixed their head-quarters at
Bologna and Paris (1217), besides settling at Oxford (1221) and
Cambridge (1274); while the Franciscans settled at Oxford and
Cambridge in 1224, and at Paris in 1230. When once these
orders had been founded, all the great schoolmen were either
Franciscans or Dominicans. Intellectually, the dogmatic Dominicans were mainly characterised by a conservative orthodoxy,
while the emotional Franciscans were less opposed to novel forms
of opinion. In Paris, the greatest Dominican teachers were
Albertus Magnus (1193-1280) and his favourite pupil, the great
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-7-1274), who brought scholasticism
to its highest development by harmonising Aristotelianism with
the doctrines of the church. The Angelic Doctor was the
foremost of the intellectual sons of Saint Dominic, the saint who
(in Dante's phrase) "for wisdom was on earth a splendour of
cherubic light." Meanwhile, Saint Francis, who was "all seraphic
in ardour," and felt no sympathy whatsoever for the intellectual
and academic world, nevertheless counted among his followers
men of academic, and even more than academic, renown. Foremost of these were Alexander of Hales, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus
and William of Ockham.




Alexander of Hales                   201
Alexander of Hales, a native of Gloucestershire, studied in
Paris at a time when the Physics and Metaphysics were not yet
translated into Latin, and, also, later, when their study had been
expressly prohibited (1215). This prohibition lasted until the
dispersion of the university in 1229; and (although he may have
been lecturer to the Franciscans at an earlier date) it was not
until the return of the university in 1231 that he actually joined
the order. As one of the leading teachers in Paris, he had a
distinguished career. In his scholastic teaching he was an exponent of realism. He was entrusted by Innocent IV with the
duty of preparing a comprehensive Summa Theologiae; and the
ponderous work, which remained unfinished at his death in 1245,
was completed by his pupils seven years later. In its general
plan it follows the method of Peter Lombard, being one of the
earliest comments on the Master of the Sentences. It was examined
and approved by seventy divines, and the author became known
as the Irrefragable Doctor; but a still greater Franciscan,
Roger Bacon, who describes the vast work as tamquam pondus
unius equi, declares that it was behind the times in matters of
natural science, and was already being neglected, even by members
of the author's own order1. The MS of Alexander's Exposition
of the Apocalypse, in the Cambridge University Library, includes
a portrait of the author, who is represented as reverently kneeling
in the habit of a Franciscan friar2.
St Francis himself regarded with suspicion the learning of his
age. He preferred to have his followers poor in heart and understanding, as well as in their dress and their other belongings.
Perfect poverty was, however, obviously incompatible with the
purchase of books. A provincial minister of the order, who
happened to possess books of considerable value, was not allowed
to retain them. In the same spirit, on hearing that a great doctor
in Paris had entered the order, St Francis said to his followers:
"I am afraid, my sons, that such doctors will be the destruction
of my vineyard." The preaching of the Franciscans among the
common people owed its force less to their learning than to their
practical experience. Their care for the sick, and even for the
leper, gave a new impulse to medical and physical and experimental science; and they gradually devoted themselves to a more
scientific study of theology. In their schools the student was
expected to take notes and to reproduce them in the form of a
1 Opus Minus, 326 f.
2 Reproduced in J. R. Green's Short History, ill. ed. p. 287.




202


Franciscans of Oxford


lecture, and this practice, combined with the disputation between
the teacher and the learner, brought into play readiness, memory
and invention. Speculative theology was, in their hands, modified
by the hard facts of practical life. Their sermons, however, not
unfrequently appealed to the imagination and the feelings, and
did not disdain either the sparkling anecdote or the pleasantly
didactic allegory1.
In September 1224, two years before the death of the founder,
a little band of nine Franciscans was ferried across the Channel
by the monks of Fdcamp, and found a welcome at the priory
of Canterbury. Some of them pressed forward to London, where
they were received by the Dominicans, while two of them went on
to Oxford. The Dominicans had already settled there in 1221,
when the church of St Edward had been assigned them in the
Jewry, in the very heart of the town, and a school of theology had
been opened under Robert Bacon. For about a week the two
Franciscans "ate in the refectory and slept in the dormitory"
of the Dominicans2; then they hired a house near St Ebbe's in the
south-west quarter, whence they soon moved to a marshy plot of
ground outside the walls. Part of that plot was known as Paradise.
In 1245, they were followed by the Dominicans, who left the centre
of the town for a suburban spot whose memory is now preserved
in the name of Black Friars Road. In olden days, the Trill
mill stream flowed past the Grey Friars mill and beneath the
"Preachers' Bridge," until it reached the two mills of the Black
Friars.
It was probably a migration from Paris that had, meanwhile,
made Oxford a studium generale, or a publicly recognised place
of studious resort. In 1167, John of Salisbury, then in exile
owing to his devotion to the cause of Becket, sent a letter to
Peter the Writer, stating that "the votaries of Mercury were
so depressed, that France, the mildest and most civilised of
nations, had expelled her alien scholars3"; and, either in 1165,
or in 1169, at a time when many Masters and Scholars beneficed
in England were studying in Paris, Henry II required all clerks
who possessed revenues in England to return within three months.
It has been reasonably assumed that many of the students, thus
expelled, or recalled, from Paris, migrated to Oxford4. But the
earliest certain reference to the schools of Oxford belongs to
1 Brewer's Preface to Monumenta Franciscana, i, xxviii-lv.
2 Mon. Franc. I, 5-9; Ii, 9.  3 Ep. 225 (Migne, P. L. cxcix, 253 A).
4 Rashdall's Universities of Europe, 'I, 329 f.




Grosseteste and the Franciscans


203


1189, when "all the doctors in the different faculties," and their
more distinguished pupils, and the rest of the scholars, were
(as we have seen) entertained by Giraldus Cambrensis on the
second and third days of his memorable recitation1.
The Franciscan friars of 1224 were well received by the
university, and, in those early times, were on excellent terms
with the secular clergy. They were men of cheerful temper, and
possessed the courtesy and charm that comes from    sympathy.
From Eccleston's account of the coming of the Friars Minor,
we learn that, "as Oxford was the principal place of study in
England, where the whole body (or universitas) of scholars was
wont to congregate, Friar Agnellus (the provincial Head of the
Order) caused a school of sufficiently decent appearance to be
built on the site where the Friars had settled, and induced Robert
Grosseteste of holy memory to lecture to them there; under him
they made extraordinary progress in sermons, as well as in subtle
moral themes suitable for preaching," and continued to do so until
" he was transferred by Divine Providence from the lecturer's chair
to the episcopal see." 2 He was already interested in them about
12253; and it was, possibly, before 1231 that he was appointed their
lecturer. He was then more than fifty years of age, not a friar,
but a secular priest, and one of the most influential men in Oxford.
To the friars he was much more than a lecturer; he was their
sympathetic friend and adviser, and, after he had become bishop
of Lincoln in 1235, he repeatedly commended the zeal, piety and
usefulness of their order. About 1238, he wrote in praise of them
to Gregory IX: "Your Holiness may be assured that in England
inestimable benefits have been produced by the Friars; they
illuminate the whole land by their preaching and learning4."
Grosseteste, a native of Stradbroke in Suffolk, was educated
at Oxford. It is often stated that he also studied in Paris;
but of this there is no contemporary evidence. It is true that,
as bishop of Lincoln, he writes to the regents in theology
at Oxford, recommending them to abide by the system of
lecturing adopted by the regents in theology in Paris5, but
he says nothing of Paris in connection with his own education.
While he was still at Oxford, he held an office corresponding to
that of the chancellor in Paris, but he was not allowed by the
1 Giraldus, I, 72 f., 410; in, 92, where "Magister Gualterus, magister Oxoniensis,
archidiaconus," is probably a mistake for "IMagister Gualterus M3apus, Oxoniensis
archidiaconus" (cp. I, 412).
2 Mon. Franc. I, 37; cf. ib. 64-66.    3 Ep. 2.
4 Ep. 58; cf. Epp. 20, 41, 67.        5 Ep. 123.




204


Franciscans of Oxford


then bishop of Lincoln to assume any higher title than that of
Magister Scholarzumt. At Oxford, he prepared commentaries on
some of the logical treatises of Aristotle, and on the Physics,
and a translation of the Ethics, which appeared about 1244, was
known under his name. He himself produced a Latin rendering
of the "middle recension" of the Epistles of Ignatius, besides
commenting on Dionysius the Areopagite, and causing a translation to be made of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,
the Greek MS of which (now in the Cambridge Library) had been
brought from Athens by his archdeacon, John of Basingstoke.
In his Compendium Scientiarum he classified all the departments
of knowledge recognised in his day. The printed list of his works
extends over twenty-five quarto pages2; it includes treatises on
theology, essays on philosophy, a practical work on husbandry.
Perhaps the most interesting of his works is a poem in 1757 lines
in praise of the Virgin and Son, an exquisite allegory called the
Chdteau d'Amour, originally written in "romance" for those who
had ne letture ne clergie, and soon translated from French into
Latin, and ultimately into English. Robert de Brunne, in his
translation of the Manuel des Pechiez, tells us of the bishop's love
for the music of the harp.
In the opinion of Luard, the editor of his Letters, "probably
no one has had a greater influence upon English thought and
English literature for the two centuries that followed his age."
Wyclif ranks him  even above Aristotle3, and Gower calls him
"the grete clerc4." Apart from his important position as a patriot,
a reformer and a statesman, and as a friend of Simon de Montfort,
he gave, in the words of his latest biographer, F. S. Stevenson,
"a powerful impulse to almost every department of intellectual
activity, revived the study of neglected languages, and grasped the
central idea of the unity of knowledge." One of the earliest
leaders of thought in Oxford, a promoter of Greek learning, and
an interpreter of Aristotle, he went far beyond his master in the
experimental knowledge of the physical sciences. Roger Bacon
lauds his knowledge of science, and he is probably referring to
Grosseteste, when he says that no lectures on optics "have as yet
been given in Paris, or anywhere else among the Latins, except
twice at Oxford5." Matthew Paris, who resented his zeal for the
1 Lincoln Register (Rashdall, n, 355 n. 2).  2 Life by Pegge (1793).
3 Trial, v, c. 3.                   4 Conf. Am. rv, 234.
5 Opera Inedita, 33, 37, 472.




Adam   Marsh.    Roger Bacon


205


reform of the monasteries, generously pays the following tribute to
his memory:
Thus the saintly...bishop of Lincoln passed away from the exile of this
world, which he never loved.... He had been the rebuker of pope and king, the
corrector of bishops, the reformer of monks, the director of priests, the
instructor of clerks, the patron of scholars, the preacher of the people,...the
careful student of the Scriptures, the hammer and the contemner of the
Romans. At the table of bodily food, he was liberal, courteous and affable;
at the table of spiritual food, devout, tearful and penitent; as a prelate,
sedulous, venerable and never weary in well-doingl.
Grosseteste's friend Adam   Marsh, who had been educated
under him at Oxford and had entered the priesthood, joined the
Franciscan order shortly after 1226. The first four lecturers to the
Franciscans in Oxford (beginning with Grosseteste) were seculars;
the first Franciscan to hold that office was Adam Marsh2, who was
probably appointed for the year 1247-8. Provision was then
made for a regular succession of teachers, and soon there were
fifty Franciscan lectureships in various parts of England. Out of
love for Adam Marsh, Grosseteste left his library to the Oxford
Franciscans3. Like Grosseteste, he is a friend and adviser to Simon
de Montfort, and faithfully tells him that "he who can rule his own
temper is better than he who storms a city4."  The king and the
archbishop of Canterbury urged his appointment as bishop of Ely;
but Rome decided in favour of Hugo de Balsham (1257), the future
founder of Peterhouse (1284). In his Letters Marsh's style is less
classical than that of Grosseteste; but the attainments of both of
these lecturers to the Oxford Franciscans are warmly eulogised by
their pupil, Roger Bacon. He mentions them in good companyimmediately after Solomon, Aristotle and Avicenna, describing
both of them as "perfect in divine and human wisdom5." On the
death of Alexander of Hales (1245), Grosseteste was afraid that
Adam Marsh would be captured by Paris to fill the vacant chair6.
His Letters, his only surviving work, give him no special claim to
those scholastic qualities of clearness and precision that were
possibly indicated in his traditional title of Doctor illustris.
Roger Bacon, a native of Ilchester, was the most brilliant
representative of the Franciscan order in Oxford. He there
attended the lectures of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, who had
studied in Paris, who could preach in French and who was
possibly himself the French translator of his principal Latin work,
1 Chronica Majora, v, 407, ed. Luard.  2 Mon. Franc. I, 38.
s Mon. Franc. I, 185.            4 Ib. x, 264.
5 Opus Tertium, c. 22 f., 25.     Ep. 334.




206


Franciscans of Oxford


the Speculum Ecclesiae. Rich was the first in Roger Bacon's day
to expound the SophisticiElenchi at Oxford1. It was probably under
the influence of Grosseteste and Marsh that Bacon entered the
Franciscan order, a society which, doubtless, had its attractions for
his studious temperament. He is said to have been ordained in
1233. Before 1245, he left Oxford for Paris. He there distinguished himself as a teacher; but he had little sympathy with the
scholasticism of the day, and he accordingly returned to England
about 1250.
In the order of St Francis there was room for freedom of
thought, no less than for mystic devotion; but, some seven years
later, so soon as the party of the mystics was represented in the
new general of that body, Bacon fell under suspicion for his liberal
opinions, and, by command of the "seraphic" Bonaventura, was
sent to Paris and there kept in strict seclusion for ten years
(1257-67). He probably owed his partial release to the goodwill
of Clement IV, who had heard of the studies of the Franciscan friar
before his own elevation to the papal see, and, by a letter written
at Viterbo on 22 June 1266, drew him from his obscurity and
neglect by pressing him for an account of his researches. Thereupon, in the wonderfully brief space of some eighteen months, the
grateful and enthusiastic student wrote three memorable works,
the Opus Majus, the Opus Minus and the Opus Tertium (1267).
These were followed by his Compendium   Studii Philosophiae
(1271-2), and by a Greek Grammar of uncertain date. In his
Compendium, he had attacked the clergy and the monastic orders
and the scholastic pedants of the day; and, by a chapter of the
Franciscans held in Paris in 1278, he was, on these and, doubtless,
other grounds, condemned for "certain suspected novelties" of
opinion. Accordingly, he was once more placed under restraint;
but he had again been released before writing his Compendium
Studii Theologiae (1292). At Oxford he died, and was buried
among the Friars Minor, probably in 1294.
Before entering the order, he had written nothing on science;
and, after his admission, he came under the rule that no friar
should be permitted the use of writing materials, or enjoy the
liberty of publishing his work, without the previous approval of
his superiors. The penalty was the confiscation of the work, with
many days of fasting on bread and water. He had only written a
few "chapters on various subjects at the request of his friends2."
1 Comp. Theol. (cp. J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, i, 592, ed. 2, 1906).
2 Opera Inedita, 13.




Roger Bacon


207


Possibly, he is here referring to the pages on the secret works or
nature and art, on Greek fire, on gunpowder and on the properties
of the magnet1, on which he had discoursed in letters addressed
either to William of Auvergne (d. 1248), or to John of Basingstoke
(d. 1252). He was surrounded with difficulties; he found philosophy and theology neglected in the interests of civil law, and
despised under the delusion that the world knew enough of them
already. He had spent forty years in the study of the sciences
and languages, and, during the first twenty years specially devoted by him to the attainment of fuller knowledge (possibly
before joining a mendicant order), he had expended large sums
on his learned pursuits. None would now lend him any money to
meet the expense of preparing his works for the pope, and he
could not persuade any one that there was the slightest use in
science2. Thankful, however, for the pope's interest in his studies,
he set to work with enthusiasm and delight, though he was strictly
bound by the vow of poverty, and had now nothing of his own to
spend on his literary and scientific labours.
His principal works, beginning with the three prepared for the
pope, are as follows:
The Opus Majus, which remained unknown, until its publication by Samuel Jebb in 1733. It has since been recognised
as the Encyclopedie and the Organon of the thirteenth century.
It is divided into seven parts: (1) the causes of human ignorance;
(2) the connection between philosophy and theology; (3) the
study of language; (4) mathematical science; (5) physics (especially optics); (6) experimental science; and (7) moral philosophy.
The part on language was preserved in an imperfect form; that
on moral philosophy was omitted in Jebb's edition.
The Opus Minus was first published by John Sherren Brewer
in 1859 (with portions of the Opus Tertium and the Compendium Studii Philosophiae). It was written partly to elucidate
certain points in the Opus Majus, partly to meet the risk of the
earlier treatise failing to reach its destination. It enters more
fully into an examination of the schoolmen; it exposes the pretensions of the Franciscan, Alexander of Hales, and of an unnamed
Dominican. It recapitulates the passages in the previous work
which the author deems especially important, and discusses the
six great errors that stand in the way of the studies of Latin
Christendom, namely (1) the subjection of theology to philosophy;
(2) the general ignorance of science; (3) implicit trust in the dicta of
1 Opera Inedita, 536 f.      a Ib. 16, 59, 65.




208


Franciscans of Oxford


the earlier schoolmen; (4) exaggerated respect for the lecturers on
the Sentences, in comparison with the expounders of the text of
the Scriptures; (5) mistakes in the Vulgate; (6) errors in the
spiritual interpretation of Scripture due to ignorance of Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, archaeology and natural history; and those due to
misunderstanding of the hidden meaning of the Word of God.
After a break, there next follows a comparison between the opinions
of French and English naturalists on the elementary principles
of matter, and, after a second break, an account of the various
metals. Only a fragment, equivalent to some 80 pages of print,
has been preserved in a single MS in the Bodleian.
The Opus Tertium, though written later, is intended to serve
as an introduction to the two previous works. In the first
twenty chapters we have an account of the writer's personal
history, his opinions on education, and on the impediments thrown
in its way by the ignorance, prejudice, contempt, carelessness and
indifference of his contemporaries. He next reverts to points that
had been either omitted or inadequately explained in his earlier
writings. After a digression on vacuum, motion and space, he
dwells on the utility of mathematics, geography, chronology and
geometry, adding remarks on accents and aspirates, and on punctuation, metre and rhythm. A subsequent defence of mathematics, with an excursus on the reform of the calendar, leads to a
discourse on chanting and on preaching.
The above three works, even in their incomplete form, fill as
many as 1344 pages of print. It was these three that were completed in the brief interval of eighteen months.
The Compendium Studii Philosophiae, imperfectly preserved
in a single MS in the British Museum, begins with reflections on the beauty and utility of wisdom. The impediments
to its progress are subsequently considered, and the causes of
human error investigated. The author criticises the current Latin
grammars and lexicons, and urges the importance of the study of
Hebrew, adding as many as thirteen reasons for the study of Greek,
followed by an introduction to Greek grammar.
The above is only the beginning of an encyclopaedic work on
logic, mathematics, physics, metaphysics and ethics. The part on
physics is alone preserved, and extracts from that part have been
printedl.
The Greek Grammar may be conveniently placed after the
above Compendium, and before the next. The author's know1 Emile Charles, 369-91.




Roger Bacon


209


ledge of Greek was mainly derived from the Greeks of his own
day, probably from some of the Greek teachers invited to England
by Grosseteste1. He invariably adopts the late Byzantine pronunciation; and, in his general treatment of grammar, he follows the
Byzantine tradition. This work was first published by the Cambridge University Press in 1902.
The Compendium    Studii Theologiae, Bacon's latest work,
deals with causes of error, and also with logic and grammar in
reference to theology. The above parts are extant in an imperfect
form, and only extracts from them have been printed from a MS
in the British Museum2. A " fifth part," on optics, is preserved in
a nearly complete condition in the same library.
Roger Bacon was the earliest of the natural philosophers of
western Europe. In opposition to the physicists of Paris, he
urged that "enquiry should begin with the simplest objects of
science, and rise gradually to the higher and higher," every observation being controlled by experiment. In science he was at least
a century in advance of his time; and, in spite of the long and
bitter persecutions that he endured, he was full of hope for the
future. He has been described by Diderot as "one of the most
surprising geniuses that nature had ever produced, and one of the
most unfortunate of men." He left no disciple. His unknown
grave among the tombs of the Friars Minor was marked by no
monument; a tower, traditionally known as "Friar Bacon's
Study," stood, until 1779, on the old Grand Pont (the present
Folly Bridge) of Oxford. The fact that he had revived the
study of mathematics was recorded by an anonymous writer about
13703. A long passage in his Opus Majus4, on the distance between
the extreme east and west of the habitable globe, inserted (without
mention of its source) in the Imago Mundi of Pierre d'Ailly, was
thence quoted by Columbus in 1498 as one of the authorities that
had prompted him to venture on his great voyages of discovery.
Meanwhile, in popular repute, friar Bacon was regarded only as
an alchemist and a necromancer. During the three centuries
subsequent to his death, only four of his minor works, those on
Alchemy, on the Power of Art and Nature and on the Cure of Old
Age, were published in 1485-1590. Like Vergil, he was reputed
to have used a "glass prospective" of wondrous power, and, like
others in advance of their times, such as Gerbert of Aurillac,
1 Comp. Phil. 434.               2 Emile Charles, 410-6.
3 Little's Grey Friars at Oxford, 195 n.
4 Opus Majus, ed. Bridges, i, xxxiii, 290.


E. L. I.         CH. X.


14:




210


Franciscans of Oxford


Albertus Magnus and Grosseteste, to have constructed a "brazen
head " that possessed the faculty of speech. The popular legend
was embodied in The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon, in Greene's
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (c. 1587)1 and in Terilo's satire
of 1604. At Frankfurt, the parts of the Opus JIajus dealing with
mathematics and optics were published in 1614; but a hundred
and twenty years passed before a large portion of the remainder
was published in England (1733), and the same interval of time
preceded the first appearance of the Opera Inedita (1859). The
seventh part of the Opus Majus, that on moral philosophy, was
not printed until 1897. But the rehabilitation of Roger Bacon,
begun by Brewer in 1859, had, happily, meanwhile been independently completed by Emile Charles in 1861.
Friar Bacon is associated in legend with friar Bungay, or
Thomas de Bungay (in Suffolk), who exemplifies the close connection between the Franciscan order and the eastern counties.
Bungay lectured to the Franciscans at Oxford, and, afterwards, at
Cambridge, where he was placed at the head of the Franciscan
convent. As head of the order in England, he was succeeded
(c. 1275) by John Peckham, who had studied at Paris under
Bonaventura, had joined the Franciscans at Oxford and was archbishop of Canterbury from 1279 to 1292. At Oxford, a number
of grammatical, logical, philosophical and theological doctrines
taught by the Dominicans, and already condemned by the Dominican archbishop, Robert Kilwardby (1276), a Master of Arts of
Paris, famous as a commentator on Priscian, were condemned
once more by the Franciscan archbishop, Peckham (1284). Thomas
Aquinas had held, with Aristotle, that the individualising principle
was not form but matter-an opinion which was regarded as
inconsistent with the medieval theory of the future state. This
opinion, disapproved by Kilwardby, was attacked in 1284 by
William de la Mare, probably an Englishman, possibly an Oxonian,
certainly a Franciscan. Both of them may have owed something
to Roger Bacon. They were certainly among the precursors of the
type of realism represented by Duns Scotus, the Doctor subtilis.
John Duns Scotus was a Franciscan in Oxford in 1300. There
is no satisfactory evidence as to the place of his birth; a note in
a catalogue at Assisi (1381) simply describes him as de provincia
Hiberniae2. At Oxford he lectured on the Sentences. Late in
1304, he was called to incept as D.D. in Paris, where he probably
1 Ed. A. W. Ward (1878), pp. xviii-xxvii.  2 Little, loc. cit. 219 f.




Duns Scotus


211


taught until 1307. Among the scholars from Oxford who attended
his lectures, was John Canon (fl. 1329), a commentator on Peter
Lombard, and on Aristotle's Physics. Duns Scotus died in 1308,
at Cologne, where his tomb in the Franciscan church bears the
inscription-Scotia me genuit, Anglia me suscepit, Gallia me
docuit, Colonia me tenet.
The works ascribed to his pen fill twelve folio volumes in the
edition printed at Lyons in 1639. At Oxford, Paris and Cologne,
he constantly opposed the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, thus
founding the philosophical and theological school of the Scotists.
But he was stronger in the criticism of the opinions of others than
in the construction of a system of his own. While the aim of
Aquinas is to bring faith into harmony with reason, Duns Scotus
has less confidence in the power of reason; he accordingly enlarges
the number of doctrines already recognised as capable of being
apprehended by faith alone. In philosophy, his devotion to Aristotle
is less exclusive than that of Aquinas, and he adopts many Platonic
and Neo-Platonic conceptions. "All created things (he holds)
have, besides their form, some species of matter. Not matter, but
form, is the individualising principle; the generic and specific
characters are modified by the individual peculiarity," by the
haecceitas, or "thisness," of the thing. "The universal essence is
distinct...from the individual peculiarity," but does not exist apart
from it. With the great Dominicans, Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas, the Franciscan Duns Scotus "agrees in assuming a threefold existence of the universal: it is before all things, as form in
the divine mind; in things, as their essence (quidditas); and
after things, as the concept formed by mental abstraction." He
claims for the individual a real existence, and he accordingly
condemns nominalism1.
But, even in the ranks of the realists, the extravagant realism
of Duns Scotus was followed by a reaction, led by Wyclif, who
(for England at least) is at once "the last of the schoolmen"
and "the first of the reformers." Later reformers, such as Tyndale
(1530), were joined by the humanists in opposing the subtleties
of Scotus. The influence of scholasticism in England ended with
1535, when the idol of the schools was dragged from his pedestal
at Oxford and Cambridge, and when one of Thomas Cromwell's
commissioners wrote to his master from Oxford:
We have set Dunce in Bocardo, and have utterly banished him Oxford
for ever, with all his blynd glosses....(At New College) wee fownde all the
1 Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, E. T. i, 453 f.
14-2




212


Franciscans of Oxford


great Quadrant Court full of the leaves of Dunce, the wind blowing them
into every corner1.
The teaching of Thomas Aquinas was opposed, not only by the
Franciscan realist, Duns Scotus, but also by another Franciscan,
the great nominalist, William of Ockham. Born (c. 1280) in the
little village of that name in Surrey, he became a B.D. of Oxford,
and incepted as D.D. in Paris, where he had a strong influence
over the opponent of the papacy, Marsiglio of Padua. He was
probably present at the chapter of Perugia (1322), and he certainly
took a prominent part in the struggle against pope John XXII.
He was imprisoned at Avignon for seventeen weeks in 1327, but
escaped to Italy and joined the emperor, Lewis of Bavaria, in
1328, accompanying him in 1330 to Bavaria, where he stayed for
the greater part of the remainder of his life, as an inmate of the
Franciscan convent at Munich (d. 1349). He was known to fame
as the Invincible Doctor.
The philosophical and theological writings of his earlier career
included commentaries on the logical treatises of Aristotle and
Porphyry, a treatise on logic (the Caius College MS of which
concludes with a rude portrait of the author), as well as Quaestiones
on the Physics of Aristotle and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard;
the first book of his questions on the latter having been probably
completed before he left Oxford. In the edition of 1495 his work
on the Sentences is followed by his Centilogium theologicum.
The political writings of the last eighteen years of his life include
the Opus nonaginta dierum (c. 1330-3), and the Dialogue between
the master and the disciple on the power of the emperor and the
pope (1333-43).
The philosophical school which he founded is nearly indifferent
to the doctrines of the church, but does not deny the church's
authority. While Scotus had reduced the number of doctrines
demonstrable by pure reason, Ockham declared that such doctrines
only existed as articles of faith. He opposes the real existence
of universals, founding his negation of realism on his favourite
principle that "entities must not be unnecessarily multiplied."
Realism, which had been shaken, more than two centuries before,
by Roscellinus, was, to all appearance, shattered by William of
Ockham, who is the last of the greater schoolmen.
An intermediate position between the realism of Duns Scotus
and the nominalism of William of Ockham was assumed by a pupil
of the former and a fellow-student of the latter, named Walter
1 Layton in Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, Bk. i, ch. xxix, subfinem.




Thomas Bradwardine


213


Burleigh, who studied at Paris and taught at Oxford. He was the
first in modern times who attempted to write a history of ancient
philosophy. He knew no Greek; but he, nevertheless, wrote 130
treatises on Aristotle alone, dedicating his commentary on the
Ethics and Politics to Richard of Bury.
Among the opponents of the mendicant orders at Oxford,
about 1321, was a scholar of Paris and Oxford, and a precursor of
Wyclif, named John Baconthorpe (d. 1346), a man of exceedingly
diminutive stature, who is known as the Resolute Doctor, and as
the great glory of the Carmelites. A voluminous writer of
theological and scholastic treatises (including commentaries on
Aristotle), he was long regarded as the prince of the Averroists,
and, nearly three centuries after his death, his works were still
studied in Padua.
Scholasticism survived in the person of Thomas Bradwardine,
who was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, shortly before his
death in 1349. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, he expanded
his college lectures on theology into a treatise that gained him
the title of Doctor profundus. He is respectfully mentioned by
Chaucer in company with St Augustine and Boithius:
But I ne can not bulte it to the bren,
As can the holy doctour Augustyn,
Or Boice, or the bishop Bradwardyn1.
In the favourable opinion of his editor, Sir Henry Savile (1618),
he derived his philosophy from Aristotle and Plato. His pages
abound with quotations from  Seneca, Ptolemy, Boethius and
Cassiodorus; but there is reason to believe that all this learning
was gleaned from the library of his friend, Richard of Bury, to
whom he was chaplain in 1335.
Richard of Bury was the son of Sir Richard Aungerville.
Born within sight of the Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds,
he is sometimes said to have subsequently entered the Benedictine convent at Durham. In the meantime, he had certainly
distinguished himself in philosophy and theology at Oxford.
From his academic studies he was called to be tutor to prince
Edward, the future king Edward III. The literary interests
with which he inspired the prince, may well have led to Edward's
patronage of Chaucer and of Froissart. In 1330 and 1333,
he was sent as envoy to the pope at Avignon; and it was in
recognition of these diplomatic services that he was made dean
of Wells, and bishop of Durham.
1 Canterbury Tales, 15,248.




214


Scholars of Oxford


He lives in literature as the author of the Philobiblon,
which was completed on his 58th birthday, 24 January 1345;
and, in the same year, on 14 April, at his manor of Auckland, Dominus Ricardus de Bury migravit ad Dominum. In
seven of the thirty-five manuscripts of the Philobiblon, it is
ascribed to Robert Holkot, the Dominican (d. 1349). But the
evidence is inconclusive, and the style of Holkot's Moralitates is
different from that of the Philobiblon. Holkot, who was one of
the bishop's chaplains, may well have acted as his amanuensis
during the last year of his life, and have thus been wrongly
credited with having "composed" or "compiled " the work. The
distinctly autobiographical character of the volume is in favour of
its having been written by Richard of Bury himself.
The author of the Philobiblon is more of a bibliophile than a
scholar. He has only the slightest knowledge of Greek; but he
is fully conscious of the debt of the language of Rome to that
of Greece, and he longs to remedy the prevailing ignorance by
supplying students with grammars of Greek as well as Hebrew.
His library is not limited to works on theology; he places liberal
studies above the study of law, and sanctions the reading of the
poets. His love of letters breathes in every page of his work.
He prefers manuscripts to money, and even "slender pamphlets1
to pampered palfreys." He confesses with a charming candour:
"we are reported to burn with such a desire for books, and
especially old ones, that it was more easy for any man to gain
our favour by means of books than by means of money"; but
"justice," he hastens to assure us, "suffered no detriment2." In
inditing this passage, he doubtless remembered that an abbot
of St Albans3 once ingratiated himself with the future bishop of
Durham by presenting him with four volumes from the abbey
library, besides selling him thirty volumes from the same collection, including a large folio MS of the works of John of Salisbury,
which is now in the British Museum.
In the old monastic libraries, Richard of Bury, like Boccaccio
at Monte Cassino, not unfrequently lighted on manuscripts lying
in a wretched state of neglect, murium foetibus cooperti et vermium morsibus terebrati4. But, in those of the new mendicant
orders, he often "found heaped up, amid the utmost poverty,
the utmost riches of wisdom5." He looks back with regret on
1 ~ 123 (the earliest known example of the word), panfletos exiguos.
2 ~~ 119, 122.             3 Gesta Abbatum, II, 200.
4 ~120.                    5 ~ 135.




Richard of Bury


215


the ages when the monks used to copy manuscripts "between the
hours of prayerS." He also presents us with a vivid picture of his
own eagerness in collecting books with the aid of the stationarii
and tibrarii of France, Germany and Italy.     For some of his
purchases he sends to Rome, while he dwells with rapture on his
visits to Paris, "the paradise of the world," "where the days
seemed ever few for the greatness of our love. There are the
delightful libraries, more aromatic than stores of spicery; there,
the verdant pleasure-gardens of all varieties of volumes2."  He
adds that, in his own manors, he always employed a large number
of copyists, as well as binders and illuminators3; and he pays an
eloquent tribute to his beloved books:
Truth, that triumphs over all things, seems to endure more usefully, and
to fructify with greater profit in books. The meaning of the voice perishes
with the sound; truth latent in the mind is only a hidden wisdom, a buried
treasure; but truth that shines forth from books is eager to manifest itself to
all our senses. It commends itself to the sight, when it is read; to the hearing,
when it is heard; and even to the touch, when it suffers itself to be transcribed,
bound, corrected, and preserved.... What pleasantness of teaching there is in
books, how easy, how secret! How safely and how frankly do we disclose to
books our human poverty of mind! They are masters who instruct us without
rod or ferule....If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you inquire of
them, they do not withdraw themselves; they never chide, when you make
mistakes; they never laugh, if you are ignorant4.
Towards the close, he confides to us the fact that he had "long
cherished the fixed resolve of founding in perpetual charity a
hall in the revered university of Oxford, the chief nursing-mother
of all liberal arts, and of endowing it with the necessary revenues,
for the maintenance of a number of scholars, and, moreover, to
furnish the hall with the treasures of our books5." He gives rules
for the management of the library, rules founded in part on those
adopted in Paris for the library of the Sorbonne. He contemplated the permanent endowment of the Benedictine house of
Durham College in the university of Oxford, and bequeathed
to that college the precious volumes he had collected at Bishop
Auckland. The ancient monastic house was dissolved, and Trinity
College rose on its ruins; but the library, built to contain the
bishop's books, still remains, though the books are lost, and even
the catalogue has vanished. His tomb in Durham cathedral,
marked by "a faire marble stone, whereon his owne ymage was
most curiously and artificially ingraven in brass6" has been,
1 ~ 74.               2 ~ 126.              3 ~ 143.
4 ~~ 23, 26.          5 ~ 232.
6 Description of Monuments (1593), Surtees Society, p. 2.




216              Scholars of Oxford
unfortunately, destroyed; but he lives in literature as the author
of the Philobiblon, his sole surviving memorial.  One, who was
inspired with the same love of books, has justly said of the author
-"His fame will never die."
Like the early humanists of Italy, he was one of the new
literary fraternity of Europe-men who foresaw the possibilities
of learning, and were eager to encourage it. On the first of his
missions to the pope at Avignon, he had met Petrarch, who
describes him as vir ardentis ingenii, nec litterarum inscius;
he adds that he had absolutely failed to interest the Englishman
in determining the site of the ancient Thule2. But they were
kindred spirits at heart. For, in the same vein as Richard of
Bury, Petrarch tells his brother, that he "cannot be sated with
books"; that, in comparison with books, even gold and silver,
gems and purple, marble halls and richly caparisoned steeds, only
afford a superficial delight; and, finally, he urges that brother to
find trusty men to search for manuscripts in Italy, even as he
himself had sent like messages to his friends in Spain and France
and England3.
In the course of this brief survey, we have noticed, during
the early part of the twelfth century, the revival of intellectual
interests in the age of Abelard, which resulted in the birth of
the university of Paris. We have watched the first faint traces
of the spirit of humanism in the days when John of Salisbury was
studying Latin literature in the classic calm of Chartres. Two
centuries later, Richard of Bury marks for England the time of
transition between the scholastic era and the revival of learning.
The Oxford of his day was still the " beautiful city, spreading her
gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last
enchantments of the Middle Age." "Then flash'd a yellow gleam
across the world." Few, if any, in our western islands thought to
themselves, "the sun is rising"; though, in another land, the land
of Petrarch, moonlight had already faded away-"the sun had
risen."
1 Dibdin's Reminiscences, I, 86 n.  2 Epp. Fam. II, 1.
3 Epp. Fam. iII, 18.




CHAPTER XI


EARLY TRANSITION ENGLISH
THE description which suggests itself for the century from
1150 to 1250, so far as native literature is concerned, is that of the
Early Transition period. It marks the first great advance from
the old to the new, though another period of progress was
necessary to bring about in its fulness the dawn of literary
English. The changes of the period were many and far-reaching. In politics and social affairs we see a gradual welding
together of the various elements of the nation, accompanied by a
slow evolution of the idea of individual liberty. In linguistic
matters we find not only profit and loss in details of the vocabulary,
together with innovation in the direction of a simpler syntax, but
also a modification of actual pronunciation-the effect of the
work of two centuries on Old English speech-sounds. In scribal
methods, again, a transition is visible. Manuscripts were no longer
written in the Celtic characters of pre-Conquest times, but in the
modification of the Latin alphabet practised by French scribes.
And these changes find their counterpart in literary history, in
changes of material, changes of form, changes of literary temper.
Anselm and his school had displayed to English writers a new
realm of theological writings; Anglo-Norman secular litterateurs
had further enlarged the field for literary adventurers; and, since
the tentative efforts resulting from these innovations took, for the
most part, the form of their models, radical changes in verse-form
soon became palpable. The literary temper began to betray signs
of a desire for freedom. Earlier limitations were no longer capable
of satisfying the new impulses. Legend and romance led on the
imagination; the motives of love and mysticism began lightly
touching the literary work of the time to finer issues; and, such
was the advance in artistic ideals, especially during the latter part
of the period, that it may fairly be regarded as a fresh illustration
of the saying of Ruskin that " the] root of all art is struck in the
thirteenth century."
The first half of the period (1150-1200) may be roughly




218


Early Transition English


described as a stage of timid experiment, the second half (1200 -1250) as one of experiment still, but of a bolder and less uncertain
kind. But, before dealing with such literary material as survives,
a word may be said as to the submerged section of popular
poetry. It is true that little can be said definitely concerning this
popular verse, though Layamon refers to the making of folk-songs,
and both William   of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon
mention some with which their age was familiar. The ancient
epic material must certainly, however, have lived on. Such things
as the legends of Weland and Offa, the story of Wade and his boat
Guingelot, must long have been cherished by the people at large.
This period was also the seed-time of some of the later Middle
English sagas. The stories of Horn and Havelok were silently
changing their Danish colouring and drawing new life from English
soil. The traditions of Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton
were becoming something more than local; the ancient figure of
Woden was being slowly metamorphosed into the attractive Robin
Hood. It was, in short, the rough-hewing stage of later monuments.
With regard to the actual literary remains of the earlier
period, a rough division may be made on the basis of the main
influences, native and foreign, visible in those works. The Here
Prophecyl (c. 1190) scarcely falls within the range of a literary
survey, though it is interesting from both linguistic and historical
standpoints. Among those works primarily reminiscent of earlier
times the Old English Homilies are naturally prominent. Some
of them are merely twelfth-century transcriptions of the work
of Aelfric2; in others foreign influences are seen. But even
then the mould into which the material is run is the same. The
earlier method of conveying religious instruction to English parishioners by means of the homily is still retained. The Proverbs of
Alfred are also strongly reminiscent of earlier native tradition
embodied, not only in the Old English Gnomic Verses, but also in
the proverb dialogues of Salomon and Marcolf, Adrianus and
Ritheus, and in the sententious utterances in which Old English
writers so frequently indulged. This Middle English collection of
proverbs is preserved in three MSS of the thirteenth century; but
these versions are obviously recensions of an earlier form, dating
from the second half of the preceding century. The actual con1 See Hales, Folia Litteraria, pp. 55-61; H. Morley, English Wlriters, in, 200-1.
2 See Morris, Old English Homilies (preface passim) for statements regarding the
origin of De Initio Creature, the homily for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, and
the homily for the 5th Sunday in Lent.




The Proverbs of Alfred


219


nection of the proverbs with Alfred himself must be accepted with
some reserve. His fame as a proverb-maker is implied in the
later Owl and Nightingale and is even more explicitly maintained
elsewhere: Eluredus in proverbiis ita enituit,ut nemo post illum
amplius'. But no collection of Alfredian proverbs is known to have
existed in Old English; and, since some of the sayings occur in the
later collection known by the name ofHendyng,it maywell have been
that the use of the West Saxon king's name in this collection was
nothing more than a patriotic device for adding to popular sayings
the authority of a great name. It is noteworthy that the matter
of the proverbs is curiously mixed. There is, first, the shrewd
philosophy of popular origin. Then there are religious elements:
Christ's will is to be followed; the soldier must fight that the
church may have rest; while monastic scorn possibly lurks in
the sections which deal with woman and marriage. And, thirdly,
there are utterances similar to those in Old English didactic works
like A Father's Instruction, where definite precepts as to conduct
are laid down2. The metrical form of the Proverbs is no less
interesting. The verse is of the earlier alliterative type, but it
shows precisely the same symptoms of change as that of certain
tenth and eleventh century poems3. The caesura is preserved, but
the long line is broken in two. The laws of purely alliterative
verse are no longer followed; an attempt is rather made to place
words in the order of thought. There are occasional appearances
of the leonine rime and assonance, characteristic of tenth and
eleventh century work; but, at best, the structure is irregular. In
section xxii. an attempt has apparently been made-possibly by a
later scribe-to smooth out irregularities and to approximate the
short couplet in rime and rhythm. The reforming hand of the
adapter, as in other Middle English poems, is also seen elsewhere:
but, these details apart, the work belongs entirely in both form
and spirit to the earlier period.
Alongside these survivals of an earlier day there were not
wanting signs of a new regime. In the Canute Song (c. 1167), for
instance, can be seen the popular verse striving in the direction of
foreign style. The song is of rude workmanship, but the effect
aimed at is not an alliterative one. Rime and assonance are
present, and the line, as compared with earlier examples, will be
seen to reveal definite attempts at hammering out a regular rhythm.
1 Ann. Min. Winton. Anglia Sacra, I, 289.
2 e.g. "If thou dost harbour sorrow, let not thine arrow know it; whisper it but
to thy saddle-bow, and ride abroad with song."
3 Cf. O. E. Chronicle, 975, 1036.




220


Early Transition English


In the Cantzts Beati Godrici (before 1170) is visible a similar
groping after the new style. The matter dealt with is interesting
as anticipating, in some sort, the Virgin cult of the early thirteenth
century. The writer, Godric, was an Englishman who, first a
merchant, became subsequently a recluse connected with Carlisle
and, latterly, with Durham. Three small fragmentary poems have
been handed down connected with his name, one of them, it is
alleged, having been committed to him by theVirgin Mary as he knelt
before the altar. The fragment beginning Sainte Maria Virgine is
the best of the three. The rhythm, the rimes and, also, the strophic
form were clearly suggested by Latin verse, but the diction is
almost entirely of native origin. In Paternoster, a work which
appeared about the same date, or later, in the south, may be
seen a definite advance in carrying out the new artistic notions.
It is a poem of some 300 lines, embodying a lengthy paraphrase of
the Lord's Prayer, each sentence of the prayer affording a text for
homiletic treatment. The work is notable as being the earliest
example of the consistent use of the short riming couplet in
English. The underlying influence is clearly that of some French
or Latin model. The diction is native, but it is used with Latin
simplicity; the lack of verbal ornament marks a striking departure
from the earlier English manner.
By far the most important and interesting work of this period,
however, is the Poema Morale. It is interesting in itself, interesting
also in the influence it exercised upon later writers, and its popularity is fairly established by the seven MSS which survive,
though it might also be added that the most recently discovered
of these copies1, being, apparently, due to a different original
from that of the others, affords additional proof that the work
was widely known. The writer opens his sermon-poem in a
subjective vein. He laments his years, his ill-spent life, and exhorts
his readers to pass their days wisely. He alludes to the terrors
of the last judgment. Hell is depicted in all the colours of the
medieval fancy, and the joys of Heaven are touched with corresponding charm. And so the reader is alternately intimidated
and allured into keeping the narrow way. All this, of course, is
well-worn material. The Old English work Be Domes Daege had
handled a similar theme. The terrors and glories of the hereafter
had inspired many earlier English pens, and the poet, in fact,
specifically states that part of his descriptions were drawn from
1 Anna C. Panes, A newly discovered Manuscript of the Poema Morale, Anglia, xxx
(xvII), pp. 217-38.




Poema Morale                       221
books (cf. 1. 224). But his treatment of the subject has much that
is new. It shows real feeling, though there are also the usual
conventionalities; the poem contains ripe wisdom and sage advice.
If the description of Hell is characteristically material, Heaven,
on the other hand, is spiritually conceived. The verse-form is also
interesting. Here, for the first time in English, is found the
fourteener line, the catalectic tetrameter of Latin poets. The
iambic movement of that line is adapted with wonderful facility
to the native word-form, accent-displacement is not abnormally
frequent and the lines run in couplets linked by end-rime. The
old heroic utterance is exchanged for the paler abstractions of the
Latin schools, and the loss of colour is heightened by the absence
of metaphor with its suggestion of energy. A corresponding gain
is, however, derived from the more natural order of words; and, in
general, the merits of the poem are perhaps best recognised by
comparing its workmanship with that of the songs of Godric and
by noting the advances made upon Old English forms in the direction of later verse.
Mention has already been made of the presence of foreign
influences in certain of the twelfth century Homilies.  Correspondences with the homiletic work of Radulfus Ardens of Acquitaine (c. 1100) and of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) point
to the employment of late Latin originals. Certain quotations in
these Homilies are also taken from Horace and Ovid-an exceptional proceeding in Old English works, though common in writings
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries1; and thus the inference is clear
that here Aelfric is not the sole, or even the main, influence, but
that this is rather supplied by those French writers whose religious
works became known in England after the Conquest. The influence
of the same Norman school of theology is, moreover, visible in the
Old Kentish Sermons (1150-1200). They are, in reality, translations of French texts, and signs of this origin are preserved in the
diction employed, in the use of such words as apierede, cuuenable
and others.
The latter half of the twelfth century was a period of experiment
and of conflicting elements. It was a stage necessarily unproductive,
but of great importance, notwithstanding, in the work of development. Older native traditions lived on; but access had been obtained
to continental learning, and, while themes were being borrowed
from Norman writers, as a consequence of the study of other
1 Vollhardt, Einfluss der lat. geistlichen Litt. auf einige kleinere Schopfungen der
engl. Uebergangsperiode, pp. 6-18.




222


Early Transition English


French works, the riming couplet and the septenarius had by this
time been adopted, and an alien system of versification, based on
the regular recurrence of accent, seemed in a fair way of being
assimilated. With the attainment of a certain amount of proficiency in the technique of the new style, the embargo on literary
effort was, in some degree, removed, and the literature of the first
half of the thirteenth century forthwith responded to contemporary
influences. The age became once more articulate, and the four
chief works of the time are eloquent witnesses of the impulses
which were abroad. The Ormulum is representative of purely
religious tradition, while the Ancren Riwle points to an increased
interest in the religious life of women, and also, in part, to new
mystical tendencies. Layamon's Brut, with its hoard of legendary
fancy, is clearly the outcome of an impulse fresh to English soil;
while The Owl and Nightingale is the herald of the love-theme in
England.
It must be conceded, in the first place, that the general literary
tone of the first half of the thirteenth century was determined by
the prevailing power of the church and the monastery. The intellectual atmosphere of England was mainly cleric, as opposed to
the laic independence which existed across the Channel; and
this difference is suggested by the respective traits of contemporary Gothic architecture in England and in France. From the
eleventh to the thirteenth centuries the power of the pope, so far
as western Europe was concerned, was at its height. National
enthusiasms aroused by the crusades played unconsciously into
the papal hands, and, during this time, more than one pope deposed
a ruling monarch and then disposed of his dominions. Theology
was the main study at the newly-founded universities of Paris and
Oxford; it dominated all learning. And, whereas the church,
generally, had attained the zenith of its power, its influence in
England was visible in the strong personalities of Lanfranc and
Anselm, while the religious revival under Henry I and the coming
of the friars at a later date were ample evidence of the spirit of
devotion which was abroad.
But literature was not destined to remain a religious monotone:
other and subtler influences were to modify its character. The
twelfth century renascence was a period of popular awakening,
and vigorous young nations found scope for their activities in
attempting to cast off the fetters which had bound them in
the past. As the imperial power declined, individual countries
wrested their freedom, and, in England, by 1215, clear ideas had




Literary Revolt of the Thirteenth Century             223
been formulated as to the rights of the individual citizen. This
groping for political freedom found its intellectual counterpart
in France, not only in the appearance of secular litterateurs
but also in that school of laic architects which proceeded to
modify French Gothic style1. In England, it appeared in a deliberate tendency to reject the religious themes which had been
all but compulsory and to revert to that which was elemental in
man. Fancy, in the shape of legend, was among these ineradicable
elements, long despised by erudition and condemned by religion;
and it was because the Arthurian legend offered satisfaction to
some of the inmost cravings of the human heart, while it led the
way to loftier ideals, that, when revealed, it succeeded in colouring
much of the subsequent literature. The Brut of Layamon is,
therefore, a silent witness to a literary revolt, in which the
claims of legend and fancy we"e advanced anew for recognition in
a field where religion had held the monopoly. And this spirit of
revolt was further reinforced by the general assertion of another
side of elemental man, viz. that connected with the passion of
love. France, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, had been
swept by a wave of popular love-poetry which brought in its wake
the music of the troubadours. Germany, in the twelfth century,
produced the minnesingers. The contemporary poets of Italy
were also love-poets, and, at a slightly later date, Portugal, too,
possessed many of the kind. This general inspiration, originating
in France and passing over the frontiers on the lips of the
troubadours (for, in each country, the original form of the popular
poetry was one and the same2), was destined to touch English soil
soon after 1200. Though it failed for some time to secularise
English poetry, it imparted a note of passion to much of the
religious work; and, further, in The Owl and Nightingale religious
traditions were boldly confronted with new-born ideas, and the
case for Love was established beyond all dispute.
The religious writings of the time may be divided into four
sections according to the aims which they severally have in view.
The purport of the first is to teach Biblical history; the second
to exhort to holier living; the third is connected with the religious
life of women; the last with the Virgin cult and mysticism.
Of the several attempts at scriptural exposition the Ormulum
is the most considerable. The power of literary appeal displayed
in this work is, intrinsically, of the smallest. Its matter is not
1 E. S. Prior, History of Gothic Art in England, pp. 21-2.
2 A. Jeanroy, Les origines de la poesie lyrique en France au Moyen-dge.




224


Early Transition English


attractive, its movement is prodigiously monotonous, its very
correctness is tiresome; and yet it has an interest of its own,
for, in its way, it helps to fill in the details of the literary picture
of the time. It was probably written in the first decade of the
thirteenth century in the north-east midlands. Its author, Orm, was
a member of an Augustine monastery in that district, and, in response to the wishes of his " broierr Wallterr," he undertook to turn
into English paraphrases all the gospels for the ecclesiastical year
as arranged in the mass-book, and to add to each paraphrase an
exposition for English readers. The work, as projected, entailed a
treatment of 243 passages of Scripture: the result, as extant,
embodies only one-eighth of the plan-thirty paraphrases with
the corresponding homilies. In his translation of the scriptural
text Orm faithfully followed his original; for the matter of the
homiletic sections he drew mainly on the Commentaries and
Homilies of Bede, though, occasionally, he appears to have consulted the homiletic work of Gregory as well as the writings of
Josephus and Isidore. It has been usual to point to the works of
Augustine and Aelfric as among the sources; but definite reasons
have been advanced for discountenancing this viewl. Traces of
originality on the part of Orm are few and far between. Encouraged
by the spirit of his originals, he occasionally essays short flights of
fancy; and instances of such ventures possibly occur in 11. 3710,
8019, 9390. In a work so entirely dependent on earlier material
it is not strange to find that the theology was already out of date.
Orm is orthodox; but it is the orthodoxy of Bede. Of later
developments, such as the thirteenth century mysticism, he has not
a sign. He combats heresies such as the Ebionite (1. 18,577) and
the Sabellian (1. 18,625), which had disturbed the days of Bede but
had since been laid to rest. In his introduction appear Augustinian
ideas concerning original sin; but of the propitiation theory as set
forth by Anselm there is no mention. His dogma and his erudition
are alike pre-Conquest; and, in this sense, Orm may be said to stand
outside his age and to represent merely a continuation of Old
English thought. Again, he is only following the methods of the
earlier schools in his allegorical interpretation. He is amazingly
subtle and frequently puerile in the vast significance which he gives
to individual words, even to individual letters. Personal names
and place-names furnish him with texts for small sermons, and
the frequently indulged desire to extract hidden meanings from
the most unpromising material leads to such an accumulation of
1 G. Sarrazin, Englische Stud. vi, 1-27.




Ormulum


225


strained conceits as would have made the work a veritable goldmine for seventeenth century intellect. Most illuminating as to
this fanciful treatment is his handling of the name of Jesus
(1. 4302). Of the human and personal element the work contains but
little. The simple modesty of the author's nature is revealed when
he fears his limitations and his inadequacy for the task. Otherwise,
the passionless temperament of the monk is felt in every line as
the work ambles along, innocent of all poetic exaltation, and given
over completely to pious moralisings. He shows a great regard
for scholarly exactitude; but this, in excess, becomes mere pedantry,
and, indeed, his scruples often cause him to linger needlessly over
trifles in the text and to indulge in aimless repetitions which prove
exhausting. As a monument of industry the work is beyond all
praise. Its peculiar orthography, carefully sustained through 10,000
long lines, is the joy of the philologist, though aesthetically it is open
to grave objection. By his method of doubling every consonant
immediately following a short vowel, Orm furnishes most valuable
evidence regarding vowel-length at a critical period of the language.
It is doubtful whether he was well advised in choosing verse of any
kind as the form of his ponderous work; but it must, at least,
be conceded that the verse which he did adopt-the iambic
septenarius-was not the least suitable for the purpose he had in
view. It was the simplest of Latin metres, and Orm's mechanical
handling certainly involves no great complexities. He allows
himself no licences. The line invariably consists of fifteen syllables
and is devoid of either riming or alliterative ornament.  The
former might possibly, in the author's opinion, have tended to
detract from the severity of the theme; the latter must have
appeared too vigorous for the tone desired. Except for his versification, Orm, as compared with Old English writers, appears to
have forgotten nothing, to have learnt nothing. Equally blind to
the uses of Romance vocabulary and conservative in thought,
Orm is but a relic of the past in an age fast hurrying on to new
forms and new ideas.
Other attempts at teaching Biblical history are to be found in the
Genesis and Exodus poems and in the shorter poems called The
Passion of Our Lord and The Woman of Samaria. In the Genesis
and Exodus poems may be seen a renewal of the earlier method of
telling Bible stories in "londes speche and wordes smale." They
are probably by one and the same author', who wrote about 1250
1 Fritzche, Angl. v, 42-92, and Ten Brink, History of English Literature, Vol. I,,
Appendix F.


E.    L.  I.     CH.  XI.


15




226


Early Transition English


in the south-eastern Midlands. Their theme comprises Israelitish
history down to the death of Moses. But the poet did not write
from the Biblical text; his work is founded almost wholly on
the Historia chIolastica of Petrus Comestor; although the first 600
lines appear to be drawn from some other source, while in 11. 78 if.
a reminiscence of Philipe de Thaun's Cornput is found. The poet's
aim is to tell a plain story, and it is the simple human items upon
which he concentrates. He avoids all show of moralising, and
consistently passes by the quotations with which his original was
abundantly fortified. In each, the earlier epic style has given way
to the more business-like methods of the riming chronicle, and both
works are written in a short riming couplet of excellent workmanship. They are of considerable importance in the history of English
prosody, since in them the principles upon which that prosody
is based clearly emerge. The line is based upon feet rather
than accents, and studied variations in the arrangement of the feet
produce melody of inconceivable variety in the accentual system
with its unlicensed particles. The other two poems deal with New
Testament history. The Passion is a sketch of the life of Christ
with details added concerning the later persecutions under Nero
and Domitian. It is, confessedly, a set-off to current narratives
of Karlemeyne and the Duzeper. The Woman of Samaria deals
with the episode of Christ's meeting with the woman at the
well, and, as in the previous poem, the suitable septenarits is
employed.
The corresponding section of hortatory writings is of mixed
character. It comprises both verse and prose, and its effects are
produced in divers manners. Sometimes it is by satire in which
prevailing vices are specifically arraigned, elsewhere by stock
devices for terrifying evil-doers; or, again, the method may be
the less aggressive one of allegorical teaching. All these writings
have but one aim, that of inculcating holier living. Beginning with
the satires, we have in Hwon holy chireche is under note a short
poem in septenars, in which the evils of simony within the church,
and the general hatred of the church without, are lamented. Sinners
Beware, a more ambitious effort in six-line stanzas (aabaab), is
directed against the age generally, though worldly priests, a
rapacious soldiery, cheating chapmen and haughty ladies are the
types directly aimed at. And, again, in a Lutel Soth Sermun
-a poem in septenars-bad brewers and bakers, priests' wives and
illicit lovers like Malkin and Jankin are railed against. While
thus assailing the vices of certain types and classes the writers




The Bestiary


227


frequently follow up their indictment with the argument of terror,
after the fashion of the Poema Morale. Material for thundering
of this sort lay ready to hand in medieval compositions connected
with the subjects of doomsday, death and hell, such as the Old
English Be Domes Daege, The Address of the Soul to the Body and
The Vision of St Paul. In the poem called Doomsday and in the
work On Serving Christ the first of these themes is logically
pursued. The clearest use of The Address motive appears in the
poem Death, the sequence of ideas observed in The Address being
here preserved1, while, in addition, the theme is slightly developed.
Other reminiscences of the same motive also appear in the fragmentary Signs of Death and in Sinners Beware (11. 331 ff.). Of
The Vision of St Paul traces are clearly seen in The XI Pains of
Hell. The depicting of hell was a favourite medieval exercise,
and The Vision is found in several languages. The archangel
Michael is represented as conducting St Paul into the gloomy
abode, and Dante's journey under Vergil's guidance is merely a
variation of this theme. The Vision can be traced in the twelfth
century homily In Diebus Dominicis, where sabbath-breakers
are warned. In The XI Pains of Hell-a poem in riming
couplets-the treatment is modified by the addition of the popular
Address element. A lost soul describes the place of torment
for St Paul's benefit, whereas in The Vision the description
proceeds from the apostle himself.
Besides satire and arguments of terror, allegory was employed
for the same didactic end, notably in the Bestiary, An Bispel
(a Parable) and Sawles Warde, each of which was based on a Latin
original. The Bestiary is founded on the Latin Physiologus of one
Thetbaldus, though earlier specimens had appeared in Old English
and Anglo-French. Of the thirteen animals dealt with, twelve
are taken from the work of Thetbaldus, the section relating to
the dove from Neckam's De Naturis Rerum (I, 56). The method
of teaching is venerable but effective; the habits of animals
are made to symbolise spiritual truth. The work does not,
however, represent much originality, though the metrical form
is a blending of old and new. Its six-syllable couplet is derived either from the Latin hexameters of the original or from
Philipe de Thaun's couplet, with which it is identical. But the
treatment is far from regular; alliteration, rime and assonance are promiscuously used, and syllabic equivalence is but
Mod. Lang. Notes (1890), p. 193.
15-2




228


Early Transition English


imperfectly apprehended. Occasionally delightful movements are
obtained such as exist in
Al is man so is tis erm,
wulde ge nu listen,
old in hise sinnes dern,
or he bicumeS cristen:
And tus he neweS him Sis man,
'Sanne he nime' to kirke,
or he it biSenken can,
hise egen weren mirke1.
But the whole seems to point to artistic inconsistencies rather
than whimsical handling, though the work is interesting as showing
English verse in the process of making. The second work, An
Bispel, is a free translation of Anselm's De Similitudine inter
Deum   et quemlibet regem suos judicantem. This prose parable
relates and explains God's dealings with mankind under the simile
of a feast held by a king, to which are invited, by means of five
messengers, both friend and foe. The English adapter adds certain
details, notably the incident of the five messengers, who are intended to represent the five codes of law. The Sawles Warde,
a more pretentious allegory of much the same date, is based upon
a Latin prose work of Hugo de St Victor2, the elements of which
were suggested by St Matthew, xxiv, 43. Wit (judgment) is lord of
a castle (the soul of man). His wife (Will) is capricious, and the
servants (the five senses) are hard to govern. He therefore needs
the assistance of his four daughters (the four cardinal virtues,
prudence, strength, temperance and righteousness); but the
good behaviour of his household is ultimately assured by the
appearance of two messengers, Fear (messenger of death), who
paints the terrors of hell, and Love of Life, who describes
the joys of heaven. The writer shows some originality in his
treatment, and the allegory in his hands becomes rather more
coherent and convincing; his characters are more developed, and
certain dramatic touches are added here and there. The same
motive appears in a short contemporaneous poem called Wil and
Wit. Other didactic methods which call for brief mention are
those in which the joys of heaven are persuasively described, as,
for instance, in the poems Long Life and The Duty of Christians,
or in which the dialogue form is used for the first time, as in Vices
and Virtues (c. 1200)-"a soul's confession of its sins, with reason's
description of the virtues."
1 Li. 88-95. tis ern, this eagle. dern, secret. or, ere. tus, thus. egen, eyes.
2 De anima, etc. (Works, Bk. iv, chs. 13-15.) See Vollhart, Einfluss, etc.,
pp. 26 ff




Lives of the Saints


229


The third section of the religious writings of this period is
wholly concerned with the religious life of women. The twelfth
century, the golden age of monasticism, witnessed also an increased
sympathy with convent life; and this is evident not only from the
letters of Ailred, but also from the increasing frequency with which
legacies were left to convent communities, and from the founding
of such an order as that of St Gilbert of Sempringham1. Before
the Conquest religious women had been by no means a negligible quantity. The revival of interest in their cause, at this
later date, was part of that impulse which had inspired, on
the continent, the mystical writers St Hildegard of Bingen, St
Elisabeth of Schinau and the philanthropic zeal of the noble
Hedwig. In the thirteenth century, the convent of Helfta in
Saxony was the centre of these tendencies; and, though it cannot
be said with certainty that England produced any women-writers,
yet the attention to practical religion and mystical thought, which
had been the subjects of zeal abroad, are tolerably well represented
in the writings for women in England.
Hali Meidenhad and the Lives of the Saints are connected
with this movement by the incitement they furnish to convent life.
The former, an alliterative prose homily, is based on the text of
Psalm xlv. 10; but the methods of the writer are entirely wanting
in that gentle grace and persuasion which are found elsewhere. He
sets forth his arguments in a coarse, repellent manner. Where
others dwell on the beauty of cloistered affection, he derides
rather gracelessly the troubles of the married state; and, if these
troubles are related with something like humour, it is of a grim
kind and easily slides into odious invective. Maidenly ideals are
exalted in more becoming fashion in the Lives of the Saints, which
appeared about the same date. They consist of three rhythmical
alliterative prose lives of St Margaret, St Katharine and St Juliana,
based on Latin originals. Saintly legends had revived in England
in the early thirteenth century, and were already taking the place
of the homily in the services of the church. With the later
multiplying of themes a distinct falling-off in point of style became
visible. Of the three lives, that of St Katharine is, in some
respects, the most attractive. As compared with its original,
the character of the saint becomes somewhat softened and refined
in the English version. She has lost something of that impulsiveness,.that hardy revengeful spirit which earlier writers had regarded
as not inconsistent with the Christian profession. The English
1 L. Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, pp. 213 ff.




230


Early Transition English


adapter also shows some idea of the art of story-telling, in removing certain superfluous details. But, in all three works,
sufficient horrors remain to perpetuate the terrors of an earlier
age, and, in general, the saintly heroines are more remarkable for
stern undaunted courage of the Judith type than for the milder
charms of later ideals. Their aim however is clear-to glorify the
idea of the virgin life.
Besides these, there are certain works in which definite instruction as to the secluded life is given for the guidance of those who had
already entered upon that career. Early in the thirteenth century
the Latin Rule of St Benet (516) was adapted for the nuns of
Winteney. The version is clearly based on some masculine text,
for occasional masculine forms' are inadvertently retained in the
feminine version. A chapter is also added "concerning the priests
admitted to a convent" (LXII). The aim of the Ancren Riwle
(anchoresses' rule) is of a similar kind; but this is a work which,
owing to its greater originality, its personal charm and its complete
sympathy with all that was good in contemporary literature, stands
apart by itself as the greatest prose work of the time, and as one
of the most interesting of the whole Middle English period. It
may, in the first place, be assumed that the English version is the
original one, though French and Latin forms are found, and that it
appeared in the south of England in the first quarter of the century.
The question of authorship is still unsolved. Richard Poore, bishop
of Salisbury (1217-29) and founder of its cathedral, is credited
with it, and Tarrent in Dorsetshire is regarded as the site of the
anchorhold. The aim of the work is to provide ghostly counsel
for three anchoresses, i.e. religious women, who, after a period of
training within a nunnery, dedicated themselves to a secluded life
outside. These recluses often lived in a slight dwelling attached to
a church; and such may have been the conditions of these "three
pious sisters." The work incidentally throws much light upon the
life within an anchorhold, upon the duties of the inmates, the outsisters and maids, and their sundry difficulties, whether of a business,
domestic, or spiritual kind. The admonition imparted was not
without precedent. As early as 709 Aldhelm, in his De Laudibus
Virginitatis, had depicted the glories of the celibate life, and about
1131-61 a letter (De vita erenitica) was written by Ailred of
Rievaulx to his sister, dealing with similar matters; since this
latter work is quoted in the Ancren Riwle, while the general
arrangement of both is the same, there can be little doubt of a
1 Cf. 3ear-owne, 139. 2, etc.




Ancren Riwle


23I


certain degree of indebtedness. The treatise opens with a preface,
which summarises the contents; sections I and vIII refer to
external matters, to religious ceremonies and domestic affairs;
sections n-VI to the inward life. The work has much that is
medieval commonplace, an abundance of well-digested learning,
borrowings from Anselm and Augustine, Bernard and Gregory, and
illustrations which reveal a considerable acquaintance with animal
and plant lore. The author also betrays those learned tendencies
which gloried in subtle distinctions. There is the ancient delight
in allegorical teaching: Biblical names are made to reveal hidden
truths: a play upon words can suggest a precept. And, alongside of all this, which is severely pedantic, there is much that
is quaint and picturesque. Traces are not wanting of a vein
of mysticism. Courtly motives occasionally receive a spiritual
adaptation, and, here and there, are touches of those romantic
conceptions which were elsewhere engaged in softening the severity
of religious verse. The writer, then, is possessed of the learning
of the age, its methods of teaching, its mystical and romantic
tendencies. And yet these facts are far from altogether explaining the charm of the work, its power of appeal to modern readers.
The charm lies rather in the writer's individuality, in his gentle
refinement and lovable nature. The keynote of the whole work
seems to be struck in that part of the preface where the sisters,
belonging as they did to no order of nuns, are instructed to claim
for themselves the order of St James. The work is animated by
the "pure religion and undefiled" of that apostle, and is instinct
with lofty morality and infinite tenderness. The writer's instructions as to ceremonies and observances are broad-minded and
reasonable; his remarks on love reveal the sweetness and light
which dwelt in his soul. The prose style from the historical standpoint is of very great merit. The ancient fetters are not quite
discarded; there is still constraint and a want of suppleness; but
there are also signs that the limping gait is acquiring freedom.
The style, moreover, is earnest, fresh and touched with the charm
of the sentiment it clothes. Above all it is naive: the writer
occasionally reaches the heart, while provoking a smile.
Closely connected with this woman-literature are those works
which belong to the Virgin cult and those which are touched with
erotic mysticism. This section is the outcome of those chivalrous
ideals which had dawned in the twelfth century, to soften the
harshness of earlier heroics and to refine the relation between
the sexes. These new ideals coloured the atmosphere of court




232


Early Transition English


life, and the exaltation of woman in its courtly sense found a
counterpart in the revived Virgin cult, just as knightly wooing
suggested the image of the wistful soul striving for union with the
Divine. This erotic mysticism, which was to appear again in Crashaw,
Herbert and Vaughan, was merely a phase of those allegorical
tendencies, of which Dante was the culmination. The pious soul
yearning for a closer walk with God now expressed its longings in
the language of earthly passion, just as earlier mystics had tried
to interpret the Divine nature by the use of more commonplace
allegory. And this development was encouraged by the mysticism
of Hugo de St Victor, which influenced both Paris and Oxford;
while elsewhere on the continent a school of nuns were producing
works laden with passion and breathing an intense emotion.
The Virgin cult is represented in the first place by the prose
Lofsong of ure Lefdi, a fairly close translation of the poem Oratio
ad Sanetam Mariam of Archbishop Marbod of Rheims (1035 -1138), and by On God Ureisun of ure Lefdi (A Good Orison of
our Lady), a poem in riming couplets, for which no Latin original
has yet been found, though it contains suggestions of the work of
Anselm1. Other examples of the kind are found in The Five Joys
of the Virgin, a poem in eight-line stanzas; A Song to the Virgin,
with Latin insertions; A Prayer to Our Lady, a sinner's repentance
in interesting four-line stanzas; A Prayer to the Virgin, in similar
form. Another side of the Virgin cult is represented by the Middle
English versions of the Conmpassio Mariae and the Assumptio
Mariae, which appeared about the middle of the century. The
former is a west Midland translation of a Latin hymn, and the
work is artistically interesting as illustrating how metrical innovation was made. The six-line strophe and the riming formula are
taken over from the original, though this identity of form prevents
a literal rendering. The treatment is otherwise not without
originality. Alliterative ornament is added, and use is made of a
popular piece of medieval fancy, namely the comparison of Christ's
birth to a sunbeam passing through glass and leaving it unstained2.
Assumptio Mariae rests on a venerable legend of the ascension
of Mary; it is of eastern origin, but is found in Latin, German
and French versions. The English version is written in short
couplets, and appears to be of an eclectic kind. The episode of
unbelieving Thomas is taken from a Latin version; otherwise the
poem is strongly reminiscent of Wace's Vie de la Vierge Marie.
1 Vollhardt, Einfluss der lat. geistlichen Litt. etc., pp. 41 ff.
2 A, Napier, E.E.T.S. cmII, pp. 75 ff.




The Luve Ron


233


Erotic mysticism is best represented by the Luve Ron of Thomas
de Hales, a delightful lyric in eight-line stanzas, written in the
earlier portion of the reign of Henry III, and, probably, before 1240
judging from the allusion in 11. 97 if. The writer was a native of
Hales (Gloucester), who, after a career at Paris and Oxford, attained
considerable distinction as a scholar. The main theme of the work
is the perfect love which abides with Christ and the joy and peace
of mystic union with Him. The poem is full of lofty devotion and
passionate yearning; its deep seriousness is conveyed through a
medium tender and refined, and it is, in short, one of the most
attractive and impassioned works of the time, as the following
extracts suggest:
Mayde her pun myht biholde,
his worldes luue nys bute o res,
And is by-set so fele-volde,
Vikel and frakel and wok and les.
Peos Peines Pat her weren bolde
Beo] aglyden, so wyndes bles:
Under molde hi liggel colde,
And falewe]j so do] medewe gres.
Hwer is Paris and Heleyne
Pat weren so bryht and feyre on bleo:
Amadas, Tristram, and Dideyne
Yseude and alle Peo:
Ector wip his scharpe meyne
And Cesar riche of wor[l]des feo?
Heo beoP iglyden ut, of pje reyne,
So pe schef is of pe cleo1.
The three prose prayers, The Wohung of ure Lauerd, On Lofsong
of ure Louerde and On Ureisun of ure Louerde belong to the
same category as the Luve Ron.     They are written in an alliterative prose2, which aimed at obtaining the emphatic movement of
Old English verse, and is most effective in recitation, though the
absence of metrical rules brings about a looser structure.     All
three prayers consist of passionate entreaties for closer communion
with Christ, and the personal feeling revealed in them illustrates
the use of the love motive in the service of religion. But
to interpret the love terminology literally and to connect these
prayers solely with the devotions of nuns, as one critic suggests,
seems to involve a misapprehension of their tone, for it infuses
1 L1. 9-16; 65-72. o res, passing, transitory. frakel, base. wok, feeble.
les, false. bles, blast. meyne, might. feo, wealth. schef of pe cleo, corn from the
hill-side.
2 Cf. Hwa ne mei luue pi luueli leor?




234


Early Transition English


into their being an earthliness quite out of keeping with their
rarefied sentiment. Further, these works have some points in
common, occasionally literal agreement, with the Ancren Riwle
and Hali Mieidenhad, but in all probability, it is in the works of
Anselm and Hugo de St Victor that the sources must be sought,
in which case all these English works are distinct and separate
borrowings from the same Latin originals'.
We come now to that section of the literature of the period
which represents a revolt against established religious themes.
It has been seen that religious writers occasionally made use of
the motives of legend and love, and from this it might be inferred
that these were the directions into which the general taste was
inclining. At all events, these are the lines along which the
literary revolt began to develope, Layamon, in the first instance,
setting forth in the vernacular legendary material which came to
hand. Layamon's Brut, written early in the thirteenth century,
has come down in two MSS (A text and B text), belonging
respectively to the first and second halves of the thirteenth
century. The later version has numerous scribal alterations:
there are many omissions of words and passages, the spelling is
slightly modernised, riming variants are introduced and foreign
substitutes take the place of obsolescent native words. The author
reveals his identity in the opening lines. He is Layamon, a priest
of Ernley (Arley Regis, Worcester), on the right bank of the
Severn, where he was wont to "read books" (i.e. the services of the
church). Layamon's ambitious purpose was to tell the story of
Britain from the time of the Flood. He is, however, content to
begin with the story of Troy and the arrival of Brutus, and to end
with the death of Cadwalader, 689 A.D. As regards his sources, he
mentions the English book of Bede, the Latin books of St Albin
and St Austin (by which he probably meant the Latin version of
Bede's Ecclesiastical History) and thirdly, the Brut of the
French clerk Wace. Of the first two authorities, however, it is
curious to note, he makes not the slightest use. The account of
Gregory and the English captives at Rome (11. 29,445 ff.), which is
often quoted in support of his indebtedness to Bede, in reality
proves his entire independence, for glaring discrepancies occur
between the respective narratives. Elsewhere in the Brut Bede
is directly contradicted2 and, in fact, Layamon's assertion of indebtedness, as far as Bede is concerned, can be nothing more
1 Vollhardt, Einfluss der lat. geistlichen Litt. etc., pp. 41 ff.
2 Cf. Layamon, Brut, 412; Bede, i, 3, etc.




Layamon's Brut


235


than a conventional recognition of a venerable work which dealt
with a kindred subject. Convention rather than fact also lay
behind his statement that he had consulted works in three different
languages.
His debt to Wace, however, is beyond all doubt. Innumerable
details are common to both works, and, moreover, it is clear that it
is Wace's work rather than Wace's original (Geoffrey of Monmouth's
History of the Kings of Britain) that has been laid under contribution. In the first place, Wace and Layamon have certain details in
common which are lacking in the work of Geoff-ey; in the matter
of omissions Wace and Layamon frequently agree as opposed to
Geoffrey; while again they often agree in differing from the Latin
narrative in regard to place and personal names. But if Wace's
Brut forms the groundwork of Layamon's work, in the latter there
are numerous details, not accounted for by the original, which
have generally been attributed to Celtic (i.e. Welsh) influences.
Many of these details, however, have recently been shown to be
non-Welsh. The name of Argante the elf-queen, as well as that of
Modred, for instance, point to other than Welsh territory. The
traits added to the character of Arthur are in direct opposition to
what is known of Welsh tradition. The elements of the Arthurian
saga relating to the Round Table are known to have been treated
as spurious by Welsh writers; Tysilio, in his Brut, for instance,
passes them over. Therefore the explanation of this additional
matter in Layamon, as compared with Wace, must be sought for in
other than Welsh material2.
Hitherto, when Wace's Brut has been mentioned, it has been
tacitly assumed that the printed version of that work was meant,
rather than one of those numerous versions which either remain
in manuscript or have since disappeared. One MS (Add. 32,125.
Brit. Mus.), however, will be found to explain certain name-forms,
concerning which Layamon is in conflict with the printed Wace.
And other later works, such as the Anglo-French Brut (thirteenth
or fourteenth century) and the English metrical Mort Arthur, both
of which are based on unprinted versions of Wace, contain material
which is present in Layamon, namely, details connected with the
stories of Lear, Merlin and Arthur. Therefore it seems possible
that Layamon, like the authors of the later works, used one of the
variant texts. Further, the general nature of Layamon's additions
1 R. Wiilcker, P.B.B. II, pp. 530 ff.
2 For the main points contained in the discussion of Layamon's sources see
Imelmann, Layamon, Versuch iiber seine Quellen.




236          Early    Transition    English
appear to be Breton or Norman. The names Argante and Delgan,
for instance, are derived through Norman media; the fight between
Arthur and Frollo is found in the Roman des Franceis (1204) of
Andr6 de Coutances. But Layamon seems to stand in yet closer
relation to Gaimar's Rhyming Chronicle, so far as that book can
be judged from the related Miinchner Brut. An explanation of
the Carric-Cinric confusion, for instance, would be obtained by
this assumption. The representation of Cerdic and Cinric in
Layamon as one and the same person1 might conceivably be
due, not to the account in the Old English Chronicle, but to
some such foreign version as is found in Gaimar (11. 819 ff.). To
Gaimar moreover may probably be attributed several details of
Layamon's style-his tendency to employ forms of direct speech,
his discursiveness, his appeals to the gods and his protestations
as to the truth of his narrative. It is possible that one of the
later versions of Wace may have embodied details taken from
Gaimar. Waurin's Chroniques et istoires (fifteenth century) seems
a compilation of this kind, and it is not impossible that Layamon's
original may have been a similarly compiled work, with, it should
be added, elements taken from contemporary Tristram and Lancelot
poems. In any case, the English Brut is not based on the printed
Brut of Wace, but on one of the later versions of which certain
MSS remain and of which other traces can be found. This particular version had probably been supplemented by Breton material
introduced through some Norman medium, and, since this supplementary portion is reminiscent of Gaimar, there is reason for
supposing that the particular version may have been mainly a
compilation of the earlier works of Wace and Gaimar.
This view as to sources must modify, in some degree, the estimate
to be formed of Layamon's artistic merits, and must discount the
value of some of the additions formerly ascribed to his imagination
or research. It will also account for certain matters of style already
mentioned. But, when these items have been removed, there still
remains much that is Layamon's own, sufficient to raise his work
far above the rank of a mere translation. The poet's English
individuality may be said to pervade the whole. It appears in the
reminiscences of English popular legend perceived in Wygar, the
maker of Arthur's corselet, and in the sea of Lumond, the "atteliche
pole," where " nikeres" bathe. His English temperament appears
in the fondness he betrays for maxims and proverbs, which afford
relief from the mere business of the narrative. The poet is still in
1 Cf. 11. 28,867 ff.




Layamon's Brut


237


possession of the ancient vocabulary, with its hosts of synonyms,
though the earlier parallelisms which retarded the movement are
conspicuously absent. His most resonant lines, like those of his
literary ancestors, deal with the conflict of warriors or with
that of the elements. In such passages as those which describe
the storm that overtook Ursula (II, 74), or the wrestling match
between Corineus and the giant (I, 79), he attains the true epic
note, while his words gather strength from their alliterative setting.
His verse is a compromise between the old and the new. With
the Old English line still ringing in his ears, he attempts to regulate
the rhythm, and occasionally to adorn his verse with rime or
assonance. His device of simile was, no doubt, caught from his
original, for many of the images introduced are coloured by the
Norman love of the chase, as when a fox-hunt is introduced to depict
the hunted condition of Childric (I, 452), or the pursuit of a wild
crane by hawks in the fenland to describe the chase after Colgrim
(Ii, 422). The poet, in general, handles his borrowings with accuracy,
but he has limitations-perhaps shows impatience-as a scholar.
Apart from a totally uncritical attitude-a venial sin in that age-he
betrays, at times, a certain ignorance on historical and geographical
points. But such anachronisms and irregularities are of little
importance in a work of this kind, and do not detract from its
literary merits. Other verbal errors suggest that the work of
translation was to Layamon not devoid of difficulty. Where Wace
indulges in technical terminology, as in his nautical description of
Arthur's departure from Southampton, Layamon here and elsewhere solves his linguistic difficulties by a process of frank omission.
The interest which the Brut possesses for modern readers
arises in part from the fact that much of its material is closely
bound up with later English literature. Apart from the Arthurian
legend here appear for the first time in English the story of Leir
and Kinbelin, Cloten and Arviragus. But the main interest
centres round the Arthurian section, with its haunting story of
a wondrous birth, heroic deeds and a mysterious end. The grey
king appears in a garment of chivalry. As compared with the
Arthur of Geoffiey's narrative, his figure has grown in knightliness
and splendour. He is endowed with the added traits of noble
generosity and heightened sensibility; he has advanced in courtesy;
he is the defender of Christianity; he is a lover of law and order.
And Layamon's narrative is also interesting historically. It is the
work of the first writer of any magnitude in Middle English, and,
standing at the entrance to that period, he may be said to look




238


Ear/y Transition English


before and after. He retains much of Old English tradition; in
addition, he is the first to make extensive use of French material.
And, lastly, in the place of a fast vanishing native mythology, he
endows his countrymen with a new legendary store in which lay
concealed the seeds of later chivalry.
The Owl and Nightingale, which represents another line of
literary revolt, has come down in two MSS, one dating from the
first, the other from the second, half of the thirteenth century.
Of the two MSS the earlier (Cotton MS) is the more trustworthy;
the scribe of the other has frequently omitted unimportant monosyllabic words, regardless of scansion, besides having altered
inflexional endings and made sundry substitutions in the matter
of diction; such alterations are clearly revealed in riming
positions. The authorship is a matter of conjecture; Nicholas
of Guildford, a cleric of Portisham (Dorset), who is mentioned
thrice in the poem, is supposed by some to have been the writer,
but the objections to this view are that the allusions are all in the
third person, and that lavish praise is showered on his name. On
the other hand, since the poem aims incidentally at urging the
claims of Nicholas to clerical preferment, the end may have
justified the means and may account for the unstinted praise
as well as the anonymous character of the work. But the name
of John of Guildford must also be mentioned. He is known to
have written some verse about this period, and, since the common
appellation implies a connection between the two, it may have
been that he was the advocate of Nicholas's cause. On internal
and external evidence, the poem may, approximately, be dated
1220. The benediction pronounced upon "King Henri" (11. 1091-2)
clearly refers to Henry II; but the borrowings from Neckam
make an earlier date than 1200 impossible. The mention of a
papal mission to Scotland (1. 1095) may refer to the visit of Vivian
in 1174, or to that of cardinal Guala in 1218. The poem was
probably written before the year 1227, for at that date the
regency ceased, and, with Henry III reigning, the benediction
would be ambiguous, not to say ominous. As regards sources, no
direct original has been found; the poem embodies the spirit as
well as the structure of certain Old French models without being
a copy of any one. There are certain details, however, which
appear to have been definitely borrowed, and of these the most
irnteresting is the nightingale episode (11. 1049-62). It is narrated
at length in Marie de France's lai, Laustic (c. 1170), as une
aventure dunt le Bretun firent un lai, and before the close of the




The Owl and Nightingale


239


century it appeared in a balder form in Neckam's De Naturis
Reruzm. Its subsequent popularity is attested by its frequent
reappearances in both French and English. The episode, as it
appears in The Owl and Nightingale, is due partly to Marie de
France, partly to Neckam. There are further details in the poem
which are reminiscent of Neckam's De Naturis Rerumn, while the
description of the barbarous north (11. 999 ff.) is possibly based on a
similar description in Alfred's translation of Orosius. The structure
of the poem is of a composite kind. The main elements are drawn
from the Old French debat, but there is also a proverbial element
as well as Bestiary details, which, though slight in amount, give a
colouring to the whole. Of the various kinds of the Old French
dWbat, it is the tenfon in particular upon which the poem is modelled,
for that poem, unlike thejeu-parti, has no deliberate choice of sides;
each opponent undertakes the defence of his nature and kind. And,
in addition to the general structure, the poet has borrowed further
ideas from this same genre, namely, the appointment of judge,
suggested by the challenger and commented upon by his opponent;
the absence of the promised verdict; the use of certain conventional
figures of the Old French d6bat, such as lejaloux (cf. 11. 1075 ff.), la
mal mari6e (cf. 11. 1520 ff.), and the adoption of love as the theme of
the whole. The proverbial element is derived from the lips of the
people, and, of the sixteen maxims, eleven are connected with the
name of Alfred. In representing his disputants as members of the
bird world, and in interpreting their habits to shadow forth his
truths, the poet has adopted the methods of the Bestiary. His use
of the motive is, however, so far untraditional in that the nightingale, unlike the owl, did not appear in the ancient Physiologus.
The main significance of the poem has been subjected to much
misconception. Its ultimate intention, as already stated, seems to
have been to suggest to English readers a new type of poetry.
To the medieval mind the poetic associations of the nightingale
were invariably those of love; according to her own description, her song was one of "skentinge" (amusement), and its aim
was to teach the nobility of faithful love. She is, however, induced
to emphasise (11. 1347-1450) the didactic side of her singing, in
order to meet more successfully her dour opponent; but the
emphasis is merely a passado in a bout of dialectics, and, further,
no inconsistency is involved with her own statement, "And soth hit
is of luve ich singe," when mention is made of the ignorance of the
barbarous north concerning those love-songs, or of the wantonness
at times induced by her passionate music. Her dignified defence




240


Early Transition English


of love (11. 1378 if.), moreover, finds a counterpart in many products
of the contemporary school of love-poetry. The owl, on the other
hand, unmistakably represents a poet of the religious type. Her
doleful notes and the essentially didactic character of her songs,
her special chants at Christmas, and her duties of bestowing comfort, are all in keeping with her own description of herself when
she says:
Ich wisse men mid mine songe
That hi ne sune3i nowiht longe1.
As to the writer's personal attitude, he inclines rather to the
side of the nightingale. The virtues of the religious school clearly
emerge in the course of the debate; yet it cannot but be felt
that the poem embodies "a new spirit of opposition to monastic
training 2"-only, the contending spirit was the erotic theme and
not the secular priest.
From the literary point of view the poem forms an interesting
contrast with works of the earlier period. The Old English embroidered diction is replaced by a mode of expression less
redundant, more unpretending, more natural. Words are no
longer artificially arranged, but follow the order of thought. The
similes employed in the place of earlier metaphor are of a colloquial character, effective in their unexpectedness; and the dawn
of humour is surely at hand, when the owl in her bitterness exclaims to the nightingale
pu chaterest so dol on Irish preost3;
or when the nightingale hurls back the happy retort
Ju singest so dol hen a-snowe4.
Moreover the illustrations made use of are no mere reprints of
orthodox scenes; they reflect country life and the life of the people
which, in modern times, Hardy and Barnes were to illuminate.
Freshness and originality is, however, carried at times to excess in
the vituperations in which the disputants indulge, when crudity
and naked strength seem virtues overdone. Most interesting, on
the other hand, are the signs of an appreciation of the softer side
of nature. It was the wilder aspects of nature which had appealed
to the earlier school. The present poet saw beauty in the gentle
arrival of spring, with its blossoming meadows and flower-decked
woodlands, as well as in mellow autumn with its golden hues and
1 L. 927-8. wisse, direct. sune3i, sin.
2 Courthope, History of English Poetry, Vol. I, ch. iv.
3 L. 322.                  4 L. 412. a-snowe, in the snow.




The Owl and Nightingale                      24I
fallow tints. The nightingale paints a couple of dainty wordpictures when she describes her coming and going. Upon her
arrival, she sings,
pe blostmn ginnep springe and sprede
Bope in treo and ek on mede,
pe lilie mid hire faire wlite
Wolcumel me, pat pu wite,
Bit me, mid hire faire bleo
pat ich shulle to hire fleo.
pe rose also mid hire rude,
pat cumelp ut of pe pornewude,
Bit me pat ich shul6l singe,
Vor hire luve, one skentinge1.
Her departure takes place amid other scenes:
Hwan is ido vor hwan ich com,
Ich fare a3en and do wisdom:
Hwane mon ho3ep of his sheve,
And falewi cumep on grene leve,
Ich farr hor and nime leve
Ne reecche ich no3t of winteres reve2.
Nor is the poem devoid of appreciation of dramatic situation and
dramatic methods. The debate is brought to a dramatic climax
by the appearance of the wren and his companions, while considerable skill is shown in the characterisation of the two disputants. Brief interludes are introduced for the sake of relief and
variety: they also add slight touches by the way to the character
sketches. Between the lines may be caught, here and there,
glimpses of contemporary life. The festival of Christmas with its
carol-services, the laus perennis of cathedrals and monasteries,
and the daily service of the parish priest, the rampant injustice
in the bestowal of livings, the picture of the gambler and the
tricks of the ape, all help to give a historical setting. The verse
is modelled on French octosyllabics, and the earlier staccato movement gives place to a more composed rhythm. As a rule, the
rimes are wonderfully correct, and it is instructive to note that
the proportion of masculine to feminine rimes is that of 10: 37.
This fact is interesting in connection with Chaucerian work, where
the fondness for the feminine form, which is less pronounced than
in the present poem, has been ascribed to Italian influences. It
is obvious that no such influence is at work here; nor can Old
French models have suggested the form, the masculine rime
1 L1. 437-46. wlite, beauty. bit, bids. rude, ruddy colour. skentinge, piece for
amusement.
2 L1. 453-8. ho3ep, garners. nime leve, take my leave. reve, plunder.


E. L. I.   CH. XI.


16




242          Early    Transition    English
being there preferred. It must have arisen from native riming
exigencies. Iambic lines had, necessarily, to end with accented
riming syllables: but, since the English accent fell on the root
syllable in all cases where the riming word was of two syllables,
the second would become a sort of light ending and go to form a
feminine rime. The poem is, therefore, one of many-sided interest.
Its permanent value lies in its oft-sounded note of freedom, in its
metrical innovations, its discarding of the artificial for the natural,
its grasp of new methods, its new ideals and in the daring suggestion it makes in connection with love. And, finally, it must be confessed, the poet had travelled well. Though full of appreciation
for a foreign literature, he has not changed "his Country Manners
for those of Forraigne Parts "; he has "onely pricked in some of
the Flowers of that he had Learned abroad into the Customes of
his owne Country." And in this way more than one of our poets
have since that day written.




CHAPTER XII


THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
"A GRAVE there is for March" (or "Mark ")-so runs a stanza
in one of the oldest extant Welsh poems' —"a grave for Gwythur,
a grave for Gwgawn of the Ruddy Sword; a mystery is the grave
of Arthur."   "Some men say yet," wrote Sir Thomas Malory,
many centuries later, "that king Arthur is not dead, but had by
the will of our Lord Jesu into another place." The mystery of
Arthur's grave still remains unsolved, for
Where is he who knows?
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.
Towards the end of the twelfth century, in the very heyday of the
British king's renown as a romantic hero, the monks of St Dunstan's
at Glastonbury-at the original instance, it is said, of Henry IIprofessed to have discovered the mortal remains of Arthur in the
cemetery of their abbey church2. Some sixty years before, William
of Malmesbury had given an account of the discovery in Wales
of the grave of Arthur's nephew, Gawain, but the grave of Arthur
himself was not, he said, anywhere to be found; hence ancient
songs3 prophesy his return. It was thought that the illusory
expectations thus cherished by the British Celts could be dispelled
by the Glastonbury exhumation. But so sorry an attempt to
poison the wells of romance met with the failure it deserved.
Arthur lived on, inviolate in fabled Avalon. Graven on no known
sepulchre, his name,
a ghost,
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain-peak,
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still.
The memory of no other British hero is so extensively preserved
in the place-names of these islands; "only the devil is more often
mentioned in local association than Arthur4."
1 A poem, in triplet form, entitled The Stanzas of the Graves, preserved in The
Black Book of Carmarthen, a MS of the twelfth century.
2 Giraldus Cambrensis gives the longest account of the affair (De Principis Instructione, vIII, 126-9).
3 Antiquitas naeniarum. Gesta Regum Anglorum, Bk. II.
4 Dickinson, King Arthur in Cornwall (Longmans, 1900), preface, p. vi.
16-2




244           Jize Arthurian      Legend
The nomenclature of Arthurian fable, which has a voluminous
critical literature of its own, does not concern us here. No student
of Arthurian origins, however, can fail to be impressed by the
strange disproportion between the abundance of Arthurian placenames in the British islands and the amount of early British
literature, whether in English or in the insular Celtic tongues,
dealing with the Arthurian legend. The early English Arthurian
literature, in particular, is singularly meagre and undistinguished.
The romantic exploitation of "the matter of Britain" was the
achievement, mainly, of French writers-so much so that some
modern critics would have us attach little importance to genuine
British influence on the development of the legend of Arthur.
For, when all is told, Arthurian romance owed its immense
popularity in the thirteenth century to its ideal and representative
character, and to its superiority over the other stock romantic
matters as a point de repere for every kind of literary excursion
and adventure.  Thus, the "matter of Britain" very quickly
became international property-a vast composite body of romantic
tradition, which European poets and story-tellers of every nationality
drew upon and used for their own purposes. The British king
himself faded more and more into the back-ground, and became,
in time, but the phantom monarch of a featureless " land of faery,"
which
None that breatheth living aire doth know.
His knights quite overshadow him in the later romances; but they,
in their turn, undergo the same process of denationalisation, and
appear as natives of no known clime or country, moving about
in an iridescent atmosphere of fantasy and illusion. The Arthurian
fairy-land thus became a neutral territory-an enchanted land
where the seemingly incompatible ideals of knight-errantry and
the church were reconciled, and where even east and west brought
their spoils together as to some common sanctuary. "Pilgrimage
and the holy wars" writes Gibbon, "introduced into Europe the
specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants, flying
dragons and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more
simple fictions of the west; and the fate of Britain depended
on the art, or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced
and adorned the popular romance of Arthur and the knights of
the Round Table; their names were celebrated in Greece and
Italy; and the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram
were devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who disregarded
the genuine heroes and heroines of antiquity."




Early [Velsh      Tradition            245
Britain, however, claimed the titular hero of the legend; and
it was on British soil that the full flower of Arthurian romance
in due course made its appearance.    Sir Thomas Malory's
marvellous compilation superseded, for all time, each and every
"French book" which went to its making. And, as Caxton takes
occasion to emphasise in his preface to Malory's book, Arthur,
as the "first and chief of the three best Christian kings" of the
world, deserved "most to be remembered amongst us Englishmen."
It so happens, however, that, in our own, no less than in
Caxton's, time, "divers men hold opinion that there was no such
Arthur, and that all such books as been made of him be but
feigned and fables." There is, indeed, much in the history of the
legend to justify the attitude of these sceptics. The first great
outburst of the popularity of the story was due to a writer who, in
the words of one of his earliest critics1, "cloaked fables about Arthur
under the honest name of history "-Geoffrey of Monmouth. The
historical Arthur-assuming that Geoffrey meant all that he wrote
about him to be taken as authentic fact-thus made his first
considerable appearance in literature under very dubious auspices.
The "British book" which Geoffrey professes to have used has
never been discovered, and is not unreasonably supposed by
many to have been a myth. Thus, they who would substantiate
Caxton's assertion that "there was a king of this land called
Arthur" have to produce earlier, and more authentic, evidence
than anything furnished by Geoffrey.
Old English literature, even the Chronicle, knows absolutely
nothing of Arthur. Wales, alone, has preserved any record-of his
name and fame from a date earlier than the twelfth century. But
even Welsh writers of an indisputably early date tell us very little
about him, and tell that little in a tantalisingly casual and
perfunctory way. Yet it is in a few obscure Welsh poems, in
one very remarkable but difficult Welsh prose tale and in two
meagre Latin chronicles compiled in Wales, that we discover the
oldest literary records of both the historical and the legendary
Arthur. A few stubborn critics still maintain, against the opinion
of the best Welsh scholars, that the Welsh works in question are
not, in substance, earlier than the twelfth century-that, in other
words, they contain no fragments of Arthurian lore which can be
proved to be older than the date of the MSS in which they are
preserved. None, however, will now dispute the approximate
dates assigned by the best authorities to Nennius and the Annales


1 William of Newburgh.




246


T e Arthurian Legend


Cambriae; and it is in the two Latin documents bearing these
names that we have the earliest extant records of a seemingly
historical Arthur.
The Historia Brittonum, commonly ascribed to Nennius, is
a curious compilation, which was put into its present form not
later than the first half of the ninth century'. About the year
800 a Welshman named Nennius-or, to use the native form,
Nynniaw-who calls himself a disciple of Elfod, bishop of Bangor
in North Wales2, copied and freely edited a collection of brief
notes, gathered from various sources, on early British history and
geography. Nennius claims, in his preface, after the manner of
his kind, to be an original compiler.  "I have," he says, "gathered
together all I could find not only in the Roman annals, but also in
the chronicles of holy fathers,...and in the annals of the Irish and
English, and in our native traditions." Elsewhere he avows
himself a mere copyist, and tells us that he wrote "the 'Cities'
and the 'Marvels' of Britain, as other scribes had done before
him."   Arthur appears in both the quasi-historical and the purely
legendary parts of Nennius's compilation. In what purports to be
the strictly historical part of his narrative Nennius relates how,
some time after the death of Hengist, Arthur fought against the
English along with the kings of the Britons and "was himself
their war-leader"-ipse dux erat bellorumn-in twelve battles3.
In the eighth of these encounters, at the castle of Guinnion,
"Arthur bore the image of the holy Virgin Mary on his shoulders4,
and the pagans were put to flight with great slaughter." The
ninth battle was fought at the City of Legions5; the twelfth, and
the last, on Mount Badon, where "nine hundred and sixty men
fell before Arthur's single onset-de uno impetu Arthur."       The
prominence given, even in these brief notices, to Arthur's individual
prowess shows that legend was already busy with his name. The
"Marvels of Britain" gives us nothing but legend; here Arthur
1 Zimmer contends (Nennius Vindicatus) that the History was completed in 796.
Thurneysen would fix the year 826 as the date of its completion (Zeitschrift fir
Deutsche Philologie, Halle, 1897).
2 As a disciple of Elfod (Elbodugus), Nennius must have lived about 800. His
History, it may be further noted, was known under his name to the Irish scholar,
Cormac (831-903).
3 Hist. Brit. ch. LVI.
4 Cf. Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, I, 10:
"Amazement runs before the towering casque
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field
The Virgin sculptured on his Christian shield."
5 Caerleon, or Caerlleon, upon Usk-a city to which Geoffrey of Monmouth,
probably from interested motives, gives great prominence.




Nennius and Gildas


247


is translated altogether into the realm of myth. In the Welsh
district of Buelt1, we are told, there is a mound of stones, on the
top of which rests a stone bearing the print of a dog's foot. " It
was when he was hunting the boar Troit that Cabal, the dog of
Arthur the warrior, left this mark upon the stone; and Arthur
afterwards gathered together the heap of stones under that which
bore his dog's footprint, and called it Cam Cabal." Here we
discover an early association of Arthurian fable with the topography of Britain. Another "Marvel" tells of a certain stream
called "the source of the Amir," which was so named after "Amir,
the son of Arthur the warrior," who was buried near it. The
allusion to the hunting of the boar links Nennius's narrative with
what is probably the most primitive of all the Welsh Arthurian
tales, the story of Kulhwch and Olwen2. In that fantastic fairytale the hunting of the Twrch Trwyth, which is Nennius's porcus
Troit, forms one of the chief incidents, and the hound Cabal there
appears under his Welsh name of Cavall.
The Welsh monk and historian, Gildas, mentions the battle of
Mount Badon in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae.       That
battle, according to Gildas, was signalised by "the last, almost,
though not the least, slaughter of our cruel foes, and that was
(I am sure) forty-four years and one month after the landing of
the Saxons, and also the time of my own nativity." But Gildas
makes no allusion at all to Arthur's feats in the battle. Neither
does he once mention his name in connection with the general
struggle which he describes as being carried on, with varying
fortune, against the English.  The only leader of the British in
that warfare, whom Gildas deems worthy of notice, is Ambrosius
Aurelianus3, the last of the Romans, "a modest man, who alone of
all his race chanced to survive the shock of so great a storm"
as then broke over Britain.     The silence of Gildas, who was,
presumably, a contemporary of the historical Arthur, would be
significant, were it not that he is equally reticent about the
achievements of every other native British chieftain.      Gildas
belonged to the Roman party in the Britain of his time, and
1 Builth (modern Welsh, Buallt).
2 Included in Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion.
3 Ambrosius, transformed by Geoffrey into Aurelius Ambrosius (cf. Tennyson,
Coming of Arthur, "For first Aurelius lived, and fought and died "), is known in Welsh
literature as Emrys Wledig. He appears in Nennius as Embreis Guletic. Guletic, or
Gwledig, means "over-lord," or "king," and Arthur himself would seem to bear this
title in a Welsh poem in The Book of Taliesin (No. xv). See Skene, Four Ancient
Books of Wales, Vol. I, p. 227.




248


Th e Arthurian Legend


to exalt the prowess of any British prince would ill assort with
his pious lamentations over the absolute degeneracy of his race.
The battle of Mount Badon, together with another which was
destined to overshadow it completely in the later developments
of Arthurian story, is recorded, and dated, in Annales Cambriae
-the oldest extant MS of which was compiled, probably, in
the second half of the tenth centuryL. There, under the year
516, we read: "Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders, and the Britons were
victors." The reference to the carrying of the cross is, of course,
an obvious echo of the tradition recorded by Nennius about the
image of the Virgin Mary-either, or both, being doubtless the
device borne by Arthur on his shield2. Of greater interest is
the second entry in the Annals. In the year 537 was fought "the
battle of Camlan, in which Arthur and Medraut fell."    Medraut is
the Modred, or Mordred, of romance.      The Annals tell nothing
more about him; but in this bare record lies the germ of the first
of the tragic motives of subsequent Arthurian story. Camlan is
"the dim, weird battle of the west," where Arthur met "the traitor
of his house," and
at one blow,
Striking the last stroke with Excalibur,
Slew him, and, all but slain himself, he fell.
From these meagre notices of the early Latin annalists of
Wales we pass to such Arthurian traditions as are found embodied
in the songs of the oldest Welsh bards. This, indeed, is a perilous
quest, for it is beset with difficult problems of historical and
textual criticism upon which scholarship is still far from saying
its last word. It may, however, be premised with some confidence
that there lived in Wales, in the sixth and seventh centuries,
several bards of note, of whom the best known by name are
Llywarch Hen, Taliesin and Aneirin.    The compositions attributed
to these, and other bards of this early period, are found in MSS
the dates of which range from the twelfth to the end of the
fourteenth centuries. The oldest of all the MSS is that known
1 The most likely date is 954 or 955. See Phillimore's edition in Y Cymmrodor,
Vol. Ix, p. 144.
2 It is worth noting, as bearing upon the Welsh origin of this tradition, that the
old Welsh word for "shield," iscuit, would be spelt in exactly the same way as
the word for "shoulder." Both Nennius, and the writer of the Annals, appear to
have misread it. Geoffrey of Monmouth attempts to put the matter right (Hist. Ix,
ch. iv) in describing Arthur as having "on his shoulders a shield" bearing the Virgin's
image; but he, also, confuses Welsh tradition in giving to the shield the name of
Arthur's ship, Priwen or Pridwen.




Early lffelsh Poetry


249


as The Black Book of Carmarthen, compiled during the latter
part of the twelfth century, the period to which also belongs the
oldest known MS of Welsh prose, that of the Venedotian code
of the laws of Wales. The Book of Aneirin, which contains
the famous Gododin, is the next oldest MS, and is probably to
be assigned to the thirteenth century. To the thirteenth century,
also, belongs The Book of Taliesin, while another famous MS, The
Red Book of Hergest, dates from the end of the fourteenth century.
These "four ancient books "1 constitute, together, our chief
available repertory of the early poetry of the Kymry.
Amid much that is undeniably late and spurious, these collections
of Welsh poetry contain a good deal that is, in substance, of obviously
archaic origin. In many of these poems there is, in words applied
by Matthew Arnold to the prose Mabinogion, "a detritus, as the
geologists would say, of something far older"; and their secret
is not to be "truly reached until this detritus, instead of being
called recent because it is found in contact with what is recent,
is disengaged, and is made to tell its own story2."  Nowhere,
however, is this detritus more difficult to disengage than in the
few poems in which Arthur's name appears. The most celebrated
of these early Welsh bards know nothing of Arthur. Llywarch HMn
and Taliesin never mention him; to them Urien, lord of Rheged,
is by far the most imposing figure among all the native warriors
who fought against the English. It is Urien with whom "all the
bards of the world find favour," and to whom "they ever sing after
his desire3." Neither is Arthur known to Aneirin, who sang in his
Gododin the elegy of the Kymric chieftains who met their doom
at Cattraeth. "There are only five poems" writes Skene4, "which
mention Arthur at all, and then it is the historical Arthur, the
Gwledig, to whom the defence of the wall is entrusted, and who
fights the twelve battles in the north and finally perishes at
Camlan." This is not a quite accurate summary of the facts; for
these poems, while pointing to the existence of a historical Arthur,
embody also a detritus of pure myth.
The most significant, perhaps, of all the references to Arthur
in early Welsh poetry is that already quoted from the Stanzas of
the Graves in The Black Book of Crarmarthen.     The mystery
1 The Four Ancient Books of Wales is the title under which the poems in these
MSS were published, with translations and copious dissertations, by W. F. Skene
(Edinburgh, 1868).
2 On the Study of Celtic Literature.
3 Book of Taliesin, XL (Skene, Vol. ii, p. 186).
4 Four Ancient Books of Wales, Vol. I, p. 226.




250


The Arthurian Legend


surrounding his grave at once suggests the existence of a belief
in his return, and William of Malmesbury, as we have seen, knew,
early in the twelfth century, of "ancient songs" which kept this
belief alive. The currency of such a tradition, not only in Wales,
but in Cornwall and Britanny, at the very beginning of the twelfth
century is proved by an account given by certain monks of Laon
of a tumult caused at Bodmin in the year 1113 by the refusal
of one of their number to admit that Arthur still lived1. Another
of the Stanzas of the Graves is significant, as containing an allusion both to the battle of Camlan, and to "the latest-left of all"
Arthur's knights, Bedwyr, or Bedivere, who shares with Kai, or
Kay, the pre-eminence among Arthur's followers in the primitive
Welsh fragments of Arthurian fable:
The grave of the son of Osvran is at Camlan,
After many a slaughter;
The grave of Bedwyr is on the hill of Tryvan.
Bedwyr and Kai appear together in Kulhwch and Olwen; they
are there once met with, for example, on the top of Plynlimmon
"in the greatest wind that ever was in the world."     "Bedwyr,"
the same story tells us, "never shrank from any enterprise upon
which Kai was bound."    The pair were united even in their death,
for, in Geoffrey's History, they perish together in the first great
battle with the Romans. Another of Arthur's knights figures as
the hero of an entire poem in The Black Book-Gereint, the son
of Erbin2. In this poem Arthur is represented as the leader of a
number of warriors, of whom Gereint is the most valiant, fighting
at a place called Llongborth3:
At Llongborth saw I of Arthur's
Brave men hewing with steel,
(Men of the) emperor, director of toil.
At Llongborth there fell of Gereint's
Brave men from the borders of Devon,
And, ere they were slain, they slew.
Here we find Arthur in much the same role as that of the diux
bellorum  of Nennius, or the comes Britanniae, who held "the
place of the imperator himself, when Britain ceased to be part
of the dominions of Rome4."
1 See Migne, Patrologia, 156, col. 983.
2 Gereint, the Son of Erbin is also the title of the Welsh prose romance which
corresponds, in its main features, to Chretien de Troyes's Erec.
3 Supposed by some to be Portsmouth. The Welsh name simply means "ship's
port."
4 Rhys, preface to Dent's edition of Malory, p. xxv.




Early Welsh Poetry


251


Arthur, however, appears in a distinctly different character
in yet another poem included in The Black Book. In Kulhwch
and Olwen, one of Arthur's chief porters answers to the fearsome
name of Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr, or Glewlwyd of the Mighty Grasp.
The Black Book poem is cast in the form of a dialogue between
him and Arthur. Glewlwyd would seem, in the poem, to have a
castle of his own, from the gates of which he questions Arthur
about himself and his followers. The description given of them
by Arthur is noteworthy as pointing to the existence of an early
tradition which made him the head of a sort of military court,
and foreshadows, in a rude way, the fellowship of the Round Table.
Several of the names found in it connect this curious poem with
Kulhwch and Olwen. The first, and the doughtiest, of Arthur's
champions is "the worthy Kei (Kai)." "Vain were it to boast
against Kei in battle," sings the bard; "when from a horn he
drank, he drank as much as four men; when he came into battle,
he slew as would an hundred; unless it were God's doing, Kei's
death would be unachieved."
Arthur recedes still further into the twilight of myth in the
only other old Welsh poem where any extended allusion is made
to him. The poem in question is found in The Book of Taliesin,
and is called Preideu Annwvn, or the Harrowings of Hell. This
is just one of those weird mythological poems which are very
difficult to interpret, and where, again to quote Matthew Arnold,
the author "is pillaging an antiquity of which he does not fully
possess the secret." Here Arthur sets out upon various expeditions over perilous seas in his ship Pridwen; one of them had
as its object the rape of a mysterious cauldron belonging to the
king of Hades. " Three freights of Pridwen," says the bard, "were
they who went out with Arthur; seven alone were they who
returned" from Caer Sidi, Caer Rigor and the other wholly
unidentified places whither they fared. It is in this poem that
the closest parallels of all are found with incidents described in
the story of Kulhwch and Olwen, and, as a whole, it "evidently
deals with expeditions conducted by Arthur by sea to the realms
of twilight and darkness'." But, here, the British king is much
further removed than in Knlhwch from any known country, and
appears as a purely mythical hero with supernatural attributes.
The most remarkable fragment-for the tale, as we have it, is
an obvious torso-of all the early Welsh literature about Arthur
1 Rhys, preface to Dent's Malory, p. xxxiv, where the poem's correspondences with
Kulhwch are pointed out.




252            T Ie Arthurian Legend
that has come down to us is the prose romance of Kulhwch and
Olwen. The oldest extant text of it is that of the early fourteenth
century MS known as The White Book of Rhyderchl, where we
find many remarkable archaisms which have been modernised in
the version of The Red Book of Hergest; but the original form
of the story is assigned, by the most competent authorities, to the
tenth century2. It is included in Lady Charlotte Guest's translation
of the Mabinogion; and, as that translation largely contributed
to the fashioning of the most popular presentment of Arthurian
romance in modern English poetry, a brief account of the entire
series of these Welsh tales may here be appropriately given. All
the tales translated by Lady Guest are taken from The Red Book
of Hergest, with the exception of The History of Taliesin.
Taliesin3, in the form we have it, is a compilation of obviously
late medieval origin, and is not found in any MS of an earlier
date than the end of the sixteenth century. The name Mlabinogion belongs, strictly speaking, to only four of the twelve stories
included in Lady Guest's book. Each of these four tales is called
in Welsh "ceinc y Mabinogi," which means "a branch of the
Mabinogi"; and the correct title for the group should be "the
four branches of the Mabinogi."  The term mabinogi signifies " a
tale of youth," or "a tale for the young." The "four branches" are
the tales known as Pwyll, prince of Dyved; Branwen, daughter
of LIyr; JManawydan, son of Llrr; and Math, son of Mathonwy.
They contain what is probably the most archaic body of Welsh
tradition in existence, are largely, if not entirely, mythological in
character and suggest many points of analogy with the mythic
tales of Ireland4. They deal, mainly, with the fortunes of three
great families, the children of Don, the children of Llyr and the
family of Pwyll. In these stories, the Mabinogion proper, Arthur
does not appear at all.
Of the other tales, two-The Dream of Miaxen Wledig and
Llud and Llevelys-are brief romantic excursions into the domain of ancient British history, later in date, probably, than
Geoffrey's Historia.  Arthur does not figure in either.  The
remaining five tales, however, are all Arthurian, but form two
1 In the Peniarth Library. Gwenogvryn Evans has an edition of this MS in
preparation.
2 Rhys, Dent's Malory, p. xxxiv.
3 Thomas Love Peacock drew most of his matter for The Misfortunes of Elphin from
this tale.
4 For a suggestive analysis of the probable origins and mythological significance
of the " four branches," see Rhys, Celtic Folk-lore, vol. Ii.




The Mabinogion


253


distinct groups.   In Kulhwch and Olwen and The Dream            of
Rhonabwy we have two Arthurian stories of apparently pure
British origin, in which Arthur is presented in a milieu altogether
unaffected by the French romances. The second and better known
group, consisting of the three tales entitled The Lady of the
Fountain, Geraint, son of Erbin and Peredur, son of Evrawc,
are romances palpably based upon French originals. They correspond, respectively, in their main features, to Chr6tien de Troyes's
Le chevalier au lion, Erec and Le conte del Graal 1.
The Mabinogion, as a whole, are the most artistic and delightful expression of the early Celtic genius which we possess.
Nowhere else do we come into such close touch with the real
"Celtic magic," with the true enchanted land, where "the eternal
illusion clothes itself in the most seductive hues2."    Composed
though they were, in all probability, by a professional literary
class, these stories are distinguished by a naive charm which
suggests anything but an artificial literary craftsmanship. The
supernatural is treated in them as the most natural thing in the
world, and the personages who possess magic gifts are made to
move about and speak and behave as perfectly normal human
creatures. The simple grace of their narrative, their delicacy and
tenderness of sentiment and, above all, their feeling for nature,
distinguish these tales altogether from the elaborate productions
of the French romantic schools; while in its lucid precision of form,
and in its admirable adaptation to the matter with which it deals,
no medieval prose surpasses that of the Welsh of the Mabinogion.
These traits are what make it impossible to regard even the later
Welsh Arthurian stories as mere imitations of Chrdtien's poems.
Their characters and incidents may be, substantially, the same;
but the tone, the atmosphere, the entire artistic setting of the
Welsh tales are altogether different; and "neither Chr6tien nor
Marie de France, nor any other French writer of the time, whether
in France or England, can for one moment compare with the
Welshmen as story-tellers pure and simple3."
1 Le Conte del Graal is only in part the work of Chr6tien.
2 Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic Races. (Trans. Hutchinson.)
3 A. Nutt, in his edition of Lady C. Guest's Miabinogion, p. 352. Cf. Renan:
"The charm of the Mabinogion principally resides in the amiable serenity of the
Celtic mind, neither sad nor gay, ever in suspense between a smile and a tear. We
have in them the simple recital of a child, unwitting of any distinction between the
noble and the common; there is something of that softly animated world, of that calm
and tranquil ideal to which Ariosto's stanzas transport us. The chatter of the later
medieval French and German imitators can give no idea of this charming manner of
narration. The skilful Chr6tien de Troyes himself remains in this respect far below
the Welsh story-tellers." The Poetry of the Celtic Races.




254


The Arthurian Legend


Kzlhwch and Olwen, however, is the only one of thesq tales
that need detain us here, embodying as it does, in common with
the Welsh poems already quoted, Arthurian traditions far transcending in age the appearance of the Arthur of chivalry. Here, as
Matthew Arnold has said in an oft-quoted passage, the story-teller
"is like a peasant building his hut on the site of Halicarnassus or
Ephesus; he builds, but what he builds is full of materials of which
he knows not the history, or knows by a glimmering tradition
merely-stones 'not of this building,' but of an older architecture,
greater, cunninger, more majestical."  The main theme of the
story is the wooing of Olwen, the daughter of Ysparaden Pen
Kawr, by Kulhwch, the son of Kilyd, and the long series of
labours imposed upon the suitor in order to gain her hand.
Olwen appears to have been well worth the arduous quest, for
"her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were
her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone
amidst the spray of the meadow fountain," and "four white trefoils
sprung up wherever she trod." Arthur appears, here, not as the
ideal British warrior, nor as the hope and future restorer of his
race, but as a fairy king, overcoming uncouth and monstrous
enemies by his own and his followers' magic. All the same, he
is the lord of what is to the story-teller, in many places, a very
determinate realm; for, one of the most remarkable features of
Kulhwch and Olwen, as compared with the later Arthurian tales,
is the precision of its topography. The route of the boar-hunt,
for example-or the hunting of the Twrch Trwyth-may be traced,
without much difficulty, on our maps1.
Even more remarkable, however, than the topographical detail
of the story is the congeries of fabulous and fantastic names
grouped in it around the central figure of Arthur. This feature
suggesting, as it does, the Arthurian court of the age of chivalry,
might be taken as evidence of the late redaction of the tale as we
have it, were it not that the story-teller gives details about most
of these strange characters which are evidently drawn from the
remnants of some lost saga. Arthur himself is introduced to us
in his palace, or hall, called Ehangwen, and thither Kulhwch comes
to crave his help to obtain Olwen; "and this boon I likewise seek,"
says Kulhwch, "at the hands of thy warriors."  These warriors
Kulhwch then proceeds to name in seemingly interminable succession. First in the long and weird list come Kai and Bedwyr;
others well known to early Welsh tradition include Gwynn and
1 See Rhys's account of the hunt in Celtic Folklore, Vol. ii, p. 572.




Kulhwch and Olwen


255


Edern, the sons of Nud, Geraint, the son of Erbin, Taliesin, the
chief of bards, Manawydan, the son of Llyr.  But, among the
company, there also appear several grotesque figures of whom
nothing is known save what the story-teller himself, giving rein,
as it would seem, to a deliberately mischievous humour, briefly
records. Thus we have, for example, one Sol, who "could stand
all day upon one foot "; Gwevyl, the son of Gwestad, who "on the
day he was sad, would let one of his lips drop below his waist,
while he turned up the other like a cap upon his head"; Clust, the
son of Clustveinad, who "though he were buried seven cubits
beneath the earth, would hear the ant fifty miles off rise from her
nest in the morning." Even familiar Arthurian heroes, like Kai,
are dowered with superhuman powers. " Kai had this peculiarity,
that his breath lasted nine nights and days under water, and he
could exist nine nights and nine days without sleep." "Very
subtle was Kai; when it pleased him he could make himself as
tall as the highest tree in the forest." We are remote indeed,
in such company as this, from the knights of the Round Table;
but we are not so remote from the fairy world depicted in the
"Four Branches of the Mabinogi."   The conclusion to which
Kulhwch and Olwen, and the few poems which mention Arthur,
clearly point is that the British king was far better known to
early Welsh tradition as a mythic hero than as the champion
of the Britons in their wars with the English. There may have
been a historical Arthur who was a comes Britanniae, or a dux
bellorum, of the sixth century, and his name, "re-echoed by the
topography of the country once under his protection," may have
"gathered round it legends of heroes and divinities of a past of
indefinite extent1."  What we do, however, know is that the
Arthur who emerges out of the mists of Celtic tradition at the
beginning of the twelfth century is an entirely imaginary being,
a king of fairy-land, undertaking hazardous quests, slaying monsters,
visiting the realms of the dead, and having at his call a number of
knightly henchmen, notably Kay and Bedivere, who are all but his
equals in wizardry and martial prowess. This mythical Arthurthe creation of a primitive imagination altogether unaffected by
the sophisticated conceptions of chivalry and of conscious dealers
in romantic literary wares-belongs to early Welsh literature
alone.
The transformation of the Welsh, or British, Arthur into a
romantic hero of European renown was the result of the contact
1 Rhys, preface to Dent's Malory, p. xxxvi.




256


The Arthurian Legend


of Norman culture and, as it would seem, Norman diplomacy,
with the Celtic races of the west. It was doubtless from Britanny,
rather than from Wales, that the Normans derived their first
knowledge of the Arthurian stories. Indeed, it is probable that
the nameless story-tellers of Britanny fastened upon, and expanded,
a number of popular traditions which prefigured the Arthur of
romance much more clearly than anything told or written in
Wales.  The Armorican "Bretons" are probably those whom
Wace mentions as "telling many a fable of the Table Round1."
In Britanny, also, a belief in Arthur's return must long have been
current, for Alanus de Insulis records that a denial of it in the
second half of the twelfth century would be likely to cost a man
his life in the country districts of Britanny2. By the middle of
the eleventh century the relations between the duchy of Normandy
and the Bretons had become particularly close, and the duke of
Britanny was one of William the Conqueror's staunchest allies at
the time of the invasion of Britain.
It is not, however, to Britanny that the great Latin exploitation of the legend of Arthur, under Norman auspices,
belongs, but to a section of Great Britain where the Norman
conquerors had, very rapidly, succeeded in establishing intimate
relations with the Welsh. By the beginning of the twelfth
century the Normans had effected a firm settlement in South
Wales. Now, it happens that it was a writer associated, at
least by name, with the South Wales border, and claiming the
patronage of a princely Norman who held that part of the country
in fee, who, most of all, is entitled to be called the literary father
of Arthurian romance. Robert, earl of Gloucester, and a natural
son of Henry I-for there is no evidence in support of the tradition
that his mother was the beautiful Nest, the daughter of the Welsh
prince, Rhys ap Tewdwr-acquired, early in the twelfth century, the
lordship of Glamorgan by marriage with Mabel, daughter of Robert
Fitz-hamon, conqueror of Glamorgan. Robert, like his father, was
a liberal and a diplomatic patron of letters. It was to him that
William of Malmesbury, the greatest historian of his time, dedicated his History. To him was due the foundation of the abbey
of Margam, whose chronicle is a valuable early authority for the
history of Wales. On his estates at Torigni was born Robert de
Monte, abbot of Mont St Michel, a chronicler of renown, and a
lover and student of Breton legends. Above all, it was under his
1 Roman de Brut, 1. 9994.
2 Prophetia Anglicana, etc. (Frankfort, 1603), Bk. i, p. 17.




Geoffrey of Monmouth                    257
immediate patronage that Geoffrey of Monmouth compiled his
romantic History of the Kings of Britain.
Of Geoffrey's personal history we know little. His full name
appears to have been, significantly, Geoffrey Arthur. His relentless
critic, William of Newburgh, takes "Arthur" to have been a byname given to him on the score of his Arthurian fabrications; but
the truth probably is that Arthur was the name of his fatherl
His connection with Monmouth is obscure; he may have been
born in the town, or educated at the priory founded there by
the Breton, Wihenoc. He was never, as he is commonly designated,
archdeacon of Monmouth, for there was no such archdeaconry in
existence. Whether he was by descent a Breton, or a Welshman,
we know no more than we do whether the famous " British book,"
which he professes to have used, was derived from Wales or from
Britanny. Neither matter is of much consequence. The "British
book" may very well have been an authentic document, since lost,
which was placed, as he tells us, at his disposal by his friend
Walter, archdeacon of Oxford. Much Welsh and Breton folk-lore
doubtless reached him through monastic channels. Nennius and
Bede furnished him with matter which can be clearly traced in his
text2. There can be little doubt, however, that the main source
of the Arthurian portions of his History was Geoffrey's own
imagination. The floating popular traditions about Arthur, and
the few documents which he had to his hand, plainly suggested
to him the possibilities of developing a new and striking romantic
theme. Geoffrey appears to have gauged the tastes and fancies of
the courtly readers of his day with an astuteness worthy of a
Defoe. Romance was in demand, and Geoffrey, giving the rein
to his faculty for decorative and rhetorical writing, responded
to that demand with an address that would have done credit to
the most alert of modern novelists. The time-honoured vehicle
of the chronicle was turned to new and unexpected uses. Sober
and orthodox chroniclers, like William of Malmesbury and Henry
of Huntingdon, are deliberately warned off the ground thus opened
out for the poet and the romancer. The "kings of the Saxons"
were their legitimate subject; the "kings of the Britons" were
1 His name is given as Gaufridus Arturus in the list of witnesses to the foundation
charter of the abbey of Osney in 1129. See Dugdale, Monasticon, vi, p. 251, and
Sir F. Madden in Journal of the Archaeological Institute, 1858, p. 305.
2 A full, and most suggestive, discussion of the whole subject of Geoffrey's sources
is given in The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles by R. H. Fletcher (Harvard
Studies in Phil. and Lit. Vol. x, 1906).


17


E. L. I.     CH. XII.




258


The Arthurian Legend


outside their province, for "the British book" was to them a sealed
volume.
Geoffrey's relation to the Latin chroniclers of his time is dealt
with in another chapter; here, his contributions to Arthurian
story alone claim our attention. The glorification of Arthur in
the History lends some countenance to the supposition that the
work was written with an interested motive. Geoffrey probably
aspired, like most of his class, to preferment in the church, and
may have hoped that his book would ingratiate him with the earl
of Gloucester and with Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, to whom
he dedicated, separately, the "Prophecies of Merlin." Assuming
him to have had such motives, Geoffrey's History is interpreted
as being a kind of prose epic, intended to celebrate the united
glories of the composite Anglo-Norman empire which attained
its widest extent under Henry II2. It did, indeed, provide a hero
in whom Norman and Saxon, Welshman and Breton, could take
common pride. Moreover, the ancient birthright and the essential
homogeneity of the various races embraced in the Angevin empire
were attested by an account of their descent from a branch of the
Trojan stock celebrated in the Aeneid. Brutus, whose eponymous
connection with the country had already been suggested by Nennius,
became for Britain what Aeneas was for Rome. Geoffrey's chronicle
is thus the first Brut, the first elaborate, and possibly "inspired,"
adaptation of the Brutus legend for the glorification of Britain;
and, in time, all records of the early British kings, whether in
prose or verse, which had this mythic starting-point, came to
be called Bruts-presumably in imitation of the title of Vergil's
epic.
Apart, however, from its Trojan prelude, and its possible
political or diplomatic motive, there is little real analogy between
Geoffrey's Brut and the Aeneid. For Arthur, after all, and not
Brutus, is Geoffrey's ultimate hero. The flos regumn of early
Britain, the warrior who vindicates the essential valour of the
British people, and who not only triumphs over his insignificant
enemies in Britain itself, but conquers a great part of Europe
and forces even the once victorious Romans to pay tribute to
a British king, is Arthur. In him was fulfilled the prophecy that
"for the third time should one of British race be born who should
1 See the epilogue to Geoffrey's History.
2 This hypothesis is advanced with much ingenuity, and plausibility, in the epilogue
to what is the best English translation of Geoffrey's History, by Sebastian Evans,
London, 1903.




Geoffrey   of Monmouth               259
obtain the empire of Rome." Thus, Geoffrey brings all his powers
of rhetoric, and all his imagination, to bear upon his delineation of
Arthur and his exploits. The first six books of the History tell,
with many embellishments of style and with incidental references
to contemporary events elsewhere, inserted as so many grave
guarantees of authenticity, the story of Arthur's kingly predecessors. At the close of the sixth book the weird figure of Merlin
appears on the scene; and Geoffrey pauses to give, in an entire
book, the fantastic prophecies attributed to that wonder-working
seer. Romance, frank and undisguised, now usurps the place of
sober, or affected, history. Merlin's magic arts are made largely
contributory to the birth of "the most renowned Arthur." Uther
and Gorlois and Igerna and the castle of Tintagol, or Tintagel,
now take their place, for the first time, in the fabric of Arthurian
story.
Uther, with Merlin's assistance, gains admission to Igerna's
castle in the semblance of her lord, Gorlois, and begets Arthur; upon
the death of Gorlois, Uther takes Igerna for his lawful queen, and
Arthur of due right succeeds to the throne. Crowned by Dubricius,
"archbishop of the City of Legions," at the early age of fifteen,
Arthur at once begins his career of conquest. The Saxons, Scots
and Picts are encountered and vanquished at the river Duglas;
afterwards, with the aid of his cousin, king Hoel of Britanny,
Arthur subjugates the entire island and divides Scotland among
its original rightful rulers, Lot and his two brothers, Urian and
Augusel. Lot, we are told by the way, "had, in the days of
Aurelius Ambrosius, married Arthur's own sister, who had borne
unto him Gawain and Mordred."   Having restored the whole
country to its ancient dignity, Arthur "took unto himself a wife
born of a noble Roman family, Guanhumara, who, brought up and
nurtured in the household of duke Cador, surpassed in beauty all
the other women of the island." Ireland and Iceland are next
added to his conquests, while tribute is paid and homage made
to him by the rulers of the Orkneys and of Gothland. His
court now is the centre of a brilliant assemblage of knights, his
fear "falls upon the kings of realms oversea" and his "heart
became so uplifted within him" that "he set his desire upon
subduing the whole of Europe unto himself ". Norway, Dacia
and Gaul fall in quick succession under Arthur's sway; Normandy
is made over to "Bedwyr, his butler," and Anjou to "Kay, his
seneschal." Returning to Britain, Arthur next holds high court at
1 Bk. ix, ch. xi.
17-2




260


The Arthurian Legend


Caerleon-upon-Usk, then a city whose "kingly palaces" vied in
magnificence with those of Rome itself.
At that time was Britain exalted unto so high a pitch of dignity as that
it did surpass all other kingdoms in plenty of riches, in luxury of adornment,
and in the courteous wit of them that dwelt therein. Whatsoever knight in
the land was of renown for his prowess did wear his clothes and his arms all
of one same colour. And the dames, no less witty, would apparel them in
like manner in a single colour, nor would they deign have the love of any
save he had thrice approved him in the wars. Wherefore at that time did
dames wax chaste and knights the nobler for their love1.
The pomp and colour of the age of chivalry, and its ideals of
knightly love, are thus already beginning to qualify imaginative
conceptions of the Arthurian court; while the picture of Arthur
himself, as the head of princely vassals and emulous knights, makes
the transition easy to the fellowship of the Round Table, and to all
the other accretions of later romances. But Geoffrey does not,
any more than the early Welsh poets and story-tellers or the later,
and more deliberate, purveyors of fantastic fables, altogether
remove his Arthur from wonderland. The British king still slays
monsters; by his own hand he kills a Spanish giant at St Michael's
Mount, and a still more formidable foe, the giant " Ritho of Mount
Eryri, who had fashioned him a furred cloak of the kings he had
slain." Equally marvellous is Arthur's individual might in battle,
for, in his encounters with the Romans, "nought might armour
avail" his antagonists "but that Caliburn would carve their souls
from out them with their blood."
The great battle with the Romans, in which Arthur displayed
such prowess, was a fateful one. The British hosts did, indeed,
gain the victory; and Hoel and Gawain (Walgainus) performed
prodigies of valour second only to those of Arthur himself. But
the triumph was obtained at a heavy cost; many illustrious British
chieftains, and, above all, the faithful Kay and Bedwyr, were
numbered among the slain. The result of the battle was to fire
Arthur with the design of marching upon the city of Rome itself.
He was already beginning to climb the passes of the Alps, when
"message was brought him that his nephew Mordred, unto whom
he had committed the charge of Britain, had tyrannously and
traitorously set the crown of the kingdom upon his own head, and
had linked him in unhallowed union with Guenevere, the queen,
in despite of her former marriage2". Arthur, taking with him his
British warriors only, returns home. Mordred meets him as he


I S. Evans's trans. (London, 1903).


2 Book x, ch. xIII.




Geoffrey of Monmouth


261


lands, and, in the ensuing battle, Gawain and many others are slain.
Mordred, however, is driven back, and Guinevere, in terror for her
safety, becomes a nun. The final battle is fought at the river
Camel in the west country. Mordred is defeated and slain, and
most of the leaders on both sides perish. "Even the renowned
king Arthur himself was wounded unto death, and was borne
thence unto the island of Avalon for the healing of his wounds."
Such, in brief, is the narrative through the medium of which
Arthur made his triumphant entry to the kingship of the most
splendid province of medieval romance. Let Geoffrey have the
credit which is his due. It is little to the point to seek to minimise
his influence upon the rise and growth of Arthurian romance by
emphasising his omissions,-that, for example, he knows nothing
of Lancelot, of Tristram, of the Holy Grail and of other famous
characters and incidents of the fully-developed legend. The salient
fact is that while, before the appearance of Geoffrey's History,
Arthur, as a literary hero, is virtually unknown, he becomes, almost
immediately afterwards, the centre of the greatest of the romantic
cycles. He is, indeed, transformed eventually into a very different
being from the warlike British champion of Geoffrey's book; but it
is in that book that we obtain our first full-length literary portrait of
him, and, in the Mordred and Guinevere episode, that we find the
first deliberate suggestion of the love-tragedy which the romancers
were so quick to seize upon and to expand. Geoffrey's Arthur is,
no doubt, largely a Normanised Arthur, and many of the details and
incidents woven into his narrative are derived from his knowledge
and observation of Norman manners and Norman pomp1; but his
story, as a whole, has, like every vivid product of the imagination,
a charm altogether independent of the time and the conditions
of its making, and is charged throughout with the seductive magic
of romance. Hence the spell which Geoffrey's legends exerted over
so many famous English poets, haunted by memories of
what resounds
In fable or romance of Uther's son,
Begirt with British and Armoric knights.
Possibly, no work before the age of printed books attained such
immediate and astonishing popularity. To this the number of
extant MSS of the work bears testimony2, while translations,
1 See Fletcher, The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles (Harvard, 1906),
pp. 109 sqq.
2 The British Museum alone has thirty-five, and the Bodleian sixteen.




262


The Arthurian Legena


adaptations, and continuations of it formed one of the staple
exercises of a host of medieval scribes. The sensation created
by the book at the time of its first circulation is attested by one
of the earliest, if not the earliest of all, writers who borrowed from
it-Alfred of Beverley. In the preface to his History, largely an
abridgment of Geoffrey compiled about 1150, Alfred states that
Geoffrey's book was so universally talked of that to confess ignorance
of its stories was the mark of a clown.
In the epilogue to his History, where he bids William     of
Malnesbury and Henry of Huntingdon " be silent as to the kings
of the Britons," Geoffrey commits the task of writing their further
history to " Caradoc of Llancarvan, my contemporary." No Latin
chronicle bearing Caradoc's name is known to exist; but certain
Welsh compilations, continuing Geoffrey's narrative down to the
year 1156, are, on very doubtful authority, ascribed to him 1.
Caradoc's authorship is, however, claimed with more confidence
for a work which embodies a few Arthurian traditions of which
Geoffrey seems to have been ignorant-the Latin Life of Gildas.
In this curious production, written either before or shortly after
Geoffrey's death2, Arthur is described, first of all, as being engaged
in deadly feud with Hueil, or Huel, king of Scotland and one of
Gildas's twenty-three brothers, whom he finally kills; he subsequently comes into collision with Melwas, the wicked king of "the
summer country," or Somerset, who had, unknown to him, abducted
his wife, Guenever, and concealed her in the abbey of Glastonia.
Just as the two kings are about to meet in battle, the monks of
Glastonia, accompanied by Gildas, intervene and succeed in persuading Melwas to restore Guenever to Arthur. This would seem
to be the earliest appearance of the tradition which, in the
romances, substitutes Melwas (the Mellyagraunce of Malory) for
Mordred as the abductor of Guinevere. Other Latin lives of Welsh
saints, written not long after the Life of Gildas, record traditions
about Arthur which are quite independent of Geoffrey3, a fact
which would seem to indicate that Geoffrey's direct borrowings of
Arthurian stories from Welsh sources are comparatively slight.
Popular though it immediately became elsewhere, Geoffrey's
History, it is strange to find, seems to have aroused little interest
1 See the English translation published in 1584 by David Powell.
2 According to a competent authority, about 1160 (F. Lot in Romania, xxIV, 330).
The MS (at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) is of the twelfth century.
3 See, for example, the Life of St Carannog and the Lfe of St Cadoc in Rees's
Cambro-British Saints (1853).




The French Romances


263


in Wales. An important Welsh translation of it', which was, at
one time, supposed to have been its "British" original, was, indeed,
made at an early date, but the medieval Welsh bards remained
altogether indifferent to Arthurian story. The second great period
of Welsh bardic activity extends from the twelfth century down to
the death of prince Llywelyn ap Gruffud in 1282; but we look in
vain among the works of the crowd of bards who flourished at this
period for any celebration of Arthur and his deeds. There is no
Welsh metrical romance, or epic, of Arthur. The medieval bards
sing, in preference, of living warriors or of those lately dead, well
knowing that such encomiastic poetry brought its ready rewards.
It is to her prose story-tellers that Wales owes her one incomparable
contribution to Arthurian romance in the native tongue.
The full value of the Arthurian stories as poetic and romantic
matter and, in particular, their possibilities of adaptation and
expansion as ideal tales of chivalry, were first perceived in France,
or, at any rate, by writers who used the French language. Three
stages, or forms, in the literary exploitation to which the legends
were subjected by French romantic writers, can be clearly traced.
First comes the metrical chronicle, in which Geoffrey's quasihistorical narrative appears in an expanded and highly-coloured
romantic setting, and of which Wace's Brut is the earliest standard
example. This was the literary form in which the Arthurian
legend made its first appearance in English. Next in order, and
not much later, perhaps, in their actual origin, come the metrical
romances proper. These poetical romances, of which the works
of Chretien de Troyes are at once the typical, and the most successful, examples, are concerned with the careers and achievements
of individual knights of the Arthurian court. In them, Arthur
himself plays quite a subordinate part; his wars and the complications that led to his tragic end are altogether lost sight of.
The third stage is represented by the prose romances, which began
to be compiled, probably, during the closing years of the twelfth
century, and which underwent a continuous process of expansion,
interpolation and redaction until about the middle of the thirteenth
century. Many of these prose romances, such as those of Merlin
1 Ystorya Brenhined y Brytanyeit in The Red Book of Hergest (edd. Rhys and
Gwenogvryn Evans, Oxford, 1890). Another Welsh chronicle, also at one time
supposed to have been Geoffrey's original, is Tysilio's Brut, printed in the Myvyrian
Archaeology of Wales as " from the Red Book of Hergest." No such chronicle, however, appears in The Red Book. Tysilio is supposed to have lived in the seventh
century; the chronicle ascribed to him is not found in any MS earlier than the
fifteenth.




264


7The Arthurian Legend


and Lancelot, give much greater prominence than the poems do
to Arthur's individual deeds and fortunes. The most celebrated
name associated with the authorship of these prose works is that
of Walter Map, who, calling, as he does, the Welsh his "fellowcountrymen'," brings Wales and the Angevin court, once more, into
touch with the development of the Arthurian legend.
The Norman clerk, Wace, was the first French writer who
turned Geoffrey of Monmouth's fabulous chronicle to profitable
poetical uses. Geoffrey Gaimar, an Anglo-Norman writer who
lived in the north of England, had, probably, anticipated Wace's
design2; but no copy of Gaimar's translation has been preserved.
Wace's poem was completed in 1155, and, according to Layamon3,
was dedicated to queen Eleanor, the wife of Henry II-another
fact which indicates the interest taken by the Anglo-Norman court
in the literary exploitation and the dissemination of British legends.
Wace was a courtly writer, and in his narrative Arthur appears as
the flower of chivalry, the ideal knightly warrior of the Norman
imagination. Although his poem is based, in substance, entirely
on Geoffrey's History, Wace is far from being a mere servile
translator of Geoffrey. He dresses up Geoffrey's matter with a
wealth of picturesque detail and of colour all his own. Moreover,
he seems to have had access to romantic traditions, or stories,
quite unknown to Geoffrey. The Round Table, for example, is
first heard of in Wace-and of it, as he says, "the Bretons tell
many a fable." It was made by Arthur in order to settle all
disputes about precedence among his knights4. Wace also amplifies
Geoffrey's account of the passing of Arthur. The British king is
not merely left in Avalon "to be cured of his wounds"; he is still
there, the Bretons await him, and say that he will come back and
live again 5. Wace's poem, as a whole, thus represents an intermediate stage between the chronicles and the pure romances. It
must have contributed powerfully to the popularity of "the matter
of Britain," by putting it into a form and a language which commanded a much larger constituency of readers than would be
attracted by any Latin prose narrative, however highly coloured
or agreeably written.
1 De Nugis Curialium, Dist. ii, ch. xx.
2 Gaimar had probably completed his work by 1150. His lost History of the
Britons formed a prelude to his L'Estorie des Engles, which has been preserved (ed.
Hardy and Martin, Rolls Series, 1888-9).
3 Layamon states that Wace "gave" his book to "the noble Eleanor, who was the
high king Henry's queen," Brut, 11. 42, 43.
4 L1. 9994-10,007.           5 L. 13,685.




Layamon


265


Above all, Wace's Brut is of signal interest to English readers
as forming the basis of the solitary contribution of any consequence
made by an English writer to the vast and varied mass of Arthurian
literature before the fourteenth century. Layamon, however, is
a very different poet from Wace. While not indifferent to romance,
as several significant additions to the Arthurian part of his story
will show, Layamon wrote his Brut as a frankly patriotic English
epic. Wace's work is almost as artificial and exotic a product
as the poetical romances; it was designed as a contribution to the
polite literature of the Norman aristocracy. Layamon, dwelling
in seclusion on the banks of the Severn, where "it was good to be,"
was fired by an ambition "to tell the noble deeds of England," and
to tell them in the English tongue. His poem is the first articulate
utterance of the native English genius reasserting itself in its own
language after the long silence which succeeded the Conquest.
Although he borrows most of his matter from Wace, Layamon,
in manner and spirit, is much nearer akin to the robust singers
of the Old English period than to the courtly French poet. The
simple force and vividness of the primitive English epic reappear
in descriptions of battle scenes and of heroic deeds. Even the
poet's diction is scrupulously pure English. And Arthur, who,
in the hands of the professional romancers, had already become
all but an alien to his fatherland, is restored to his rightful
place as the champion of Britain, and the great Christian king
who
Drew all the petty princedoms under him,
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reign'd.
Arthur, therefore, was to Layamon, primarily, the ideal British
hero-an actual king of England, whose character and prowess
deserved the veneration of his countrymen altogether apart from
the glamour with which romance had enshrouded his name. But
Layamon was a poet; and upon him, as upon the rest, the romantic
glamour works its inevitable spell. Elf-land claims Arthur, both
at his birth and at his death. Elves received him into the world;
they gave him gifts, to become the best of knights and a mighty
king, to have long life and to be generous above all living men.
At his passing, Arthur says he will go to Argante (Morgan le fay),
the splendid elf; she will heal him of his wounds, so that he will
return again to his kingdom2. Again, Arthur's byrnie was made
for him by Wygar, the elvish smith3, his spear by Griffin of the


1 L1. 19,254 sqq. (Madden's ed.).


2 L1. 28,610 sqq.


3 L. 21,133.




266            The Arthurian Legend
city of the wizard Merlin (Kaermerdin)1.   Caliburn, his sword,
was wrought in Avalon with magic craft2; the Round Table by
a strange carpenter from beyond the sea3. Nowhere, however,
does Layamon's poem breathe more of the spirit of pure romance
than in the passages which describe Arthur's last battle and fall.
The encounter took place at Camelford (Camlan) "a name that
will last for ever."  The stream, hard by, "was flooded with blood
unmeasured." So thick was the throng that the warriors could
not distinguish each other5, but "each slew downright, were he
swain, were he knight."   Modred and all his knights perished
and "there were slain all the brave ones, Arthur's warriors, high
and low, and all the Britons of Arthur's board."  Of all the two
hundred thousand men who fought none remained, at the end
of the fight, save Arthur and two of his knights. But Arthur was
sorely wounded, and, bidding the young Constantine, Cador's son,
take charge of his kingdom, he consigns himself to the care of
Argante, "the fairest of all maidens," who dwells in Avalon. Thence,
cured of his wounds, he will come again to "dwell with the Britons
with mickle joy."
Even with the words there came from the sea a short boat, borne on the
waves, and two women therein, wondrously arrayed; and they took Arthur
anon, and bare him quickly, and softly laid him down, and fared forth away.
Then was brought to pass that which Merlin whilom said, that there should
be sorrow untold at Arthurs forth-faring. The Britons believe yet that he is
alive, and dwelleth in Avalon, with the fairest of all elves, and ever yet the
Britons look for Arthur's coming. Was never the man born, nor ever of
woman chosen, that knoweth the sooth, to say more of Arthur. But whilom
there was a seer hight Merlin; he said with words-and his sayings were
sooth-that an Arthur should yet come to help the Britons.
In this passage, as in many others, Layamon supplies several
details not found in Wace, and his poem throughout bears abundant
evidence that he drew upon a fund of independent traditions
gleaned from   many fields.   Among the most interesting     of
Layamon's additions to, and amplifications of, Wace's narrative
are his accounts of Arthur's dream shortly before his last return
to Britain, and of the origin and the making of the Round Table.
The dream6, of which neither Geoffrey nor Wace know anything,
foreshadows the treachery of Modred and Guinevere, and disturbs
1 L. 23,783.    2 L. 21,135.   3 L. 22,910.    4 L1. 28,533 sqq.
Cf. Tennyson, Passing of Arthur:
"For friend and foe were shadows in the mist,
And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew."
6 See L1. 28,020 sqq.




Subsidiary Legends


267


Arthur with the sense of impending doom. The occasion of the
institution of the Round Table is, as in Wace, a quarrel for
precedence among Arthur's knights; but the description of the
actual making, and of the properties, of the Table is all Layamon's
own. It was while he was in Cornwall, after the quarrel among
his knights, that Arthur met the man from oversea who offered
to "make him a board, wondrous fair, at which sixteen hundred
men and more might sitl." Its huge size notwithstanding, and
though it took four weeks to make, the board could, by some
magic means, be carried by Arthur as he rode, and set by him
in what place soever he willed. Like Wace, Layamon evidently
knew stories about the Round Table, of which the origin has
never been traced; for "this was that same table" he says, "of
which the Britons boast"-the Britons, who tell "many leasings"
of king Arthur, and say of him things " that never happened in the
kingdom of this world." So it would appear that Layamon, had
he pleased, could have told us much more of Arthur. Even as it
stands, however, his poem is a notable contribution to Arthurian
story, and has the unique distinction of being the first celebration
of "the matter of Britain " in the English tongue.
When we pass from the metrical chronicles to the pure
romances, both verse and prose, we all but part with the traditional
British Arthur altogether. Not only are we suddenly transported
into the "no man's land" of chivalry, but we find ourselves
surrounded by strange apparitions from regions Geoffrey and his
translators never knew. In the romances, the Arthurian court
serves but as a convenient rendezvous for a
moving row
Of magic shadow-shapes that come and go
in quest of adventures which bear little, or no, relation to the
British king. Characters, of whom the chroniclers tell us nothing,
and who were themselves the heroes of quite independent legends,
now make a dramatic entry upon the Arthurian stage. Tristram and
Lancelot and Perceval play parts which divert our attention quite
away from that assigned to Arthur himself. Thus, a complete
history of Arthurian romance involves a series of enquiries into
the growth of a number of legends which have, for the most part,
only the most artificial connection with the original Arthurian
tradition. Some of these legends are as archaic, and as purely
mythical, as the primitive fables about the British Arthur, and


1 See 11. 22,910 sqq.


2 L. 22,987.




268


The Arthurian Legend


were probably current in popular lays long before the latter half
of the twelfth century. A full account of the romances in which
they were embodied and enriched during the age of chivalry
belongs to the history of French, and German, rather than to that
of English, literature. Not until the fourteenth century do we
come across a single English writer whose name is to be mentioned
in the same breath with those of Chr6tien de Troyes and the
authors of the French prose romances, or of Wolfram von
Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg and Hartmann von Aue.
Here, only the briefest review can be attempted of the main
features of the subsidiary legends which were imported, by these
and other writers, into the vast Arthurian miscellany.
Of all such legends, the most intimately connected with Arthur
himself is the story of Merlin. In Welsh tradition, Merlin, or
Myrdin, is a figure very similar to Taliesin-a wizard bard of the
sixth century, to whom a number of spurious poetical compositions
came, in course of time, to be ascribed. His first association with
Arthur is due to Geoffrey of Monmouth, who identifies him with
the Ambrosius of Nennius and makes of him both a magician and
a prophet; to his magic arts, as we have seen, the birth of Arthur
was largely due. His character is further developed in a Latin
hexameter poem, Vita Merlini, composed, probably, about the
year 1148 and attributed by several competent authorities to
Geoffrey. This poem, however, presents us with a conception of
the mage which is not easy to reconcile with the account given of
him in Geoffrey's History, and suggests many points of analogy
with certain early Welsh poems in which Merlin figures, and with
which Geoffrey could hardly have been acquainted1. Merlin makes
his first appearance in French romantic poetry in a poem of which
only a fragment has been preserved, supposed to be by Robert de
Borron, and dating from the end of the twelfth century. Upon
this poem was based the French prose romance of Merlin, part of
which is assigned to Robert de Borron, and which exists in two
forms-the first known as the "ordinary" Merlin, and the other
as the Suite de Merlin. For Robert de Borron, the enchanter's
arts are but so many manifestations of the powers of darkness;
Merlin himself becomes the devil's offspring and most active agent.
From the Suite de Merlin, of which Malory's first four books are
an abridged version, was derived one of the minor offshoots of
1 These resemblances are pointed out in what is the fullest account of the Merlin
saga in English, Outlines of the History of the Legend of Merlin, by W. E. Mead
(Part xv of H. B. Wheatley's edition of the prose Merlin in the E.E.T.S. series).




Gawai.


269


Arthurian romance, the striking story of Balin and Balan. The
earliest romance of Merlin in English is the metrical Arthour and
Merlin, translated from a French original at the beginning of the
fourteenth century. This work, however, is not so well known as
the great prose Merlin, a translation from the French made about
the middle of the fifteenth century.
No knight of the primitive Arthurian fellowship enjoyed a
higher renown than Arthur's nephew, Gawain. Under the name
of Gwalchmei, Gawain figures prominently in the Welsh Triads
and in the Mabinogion; while, as Walgainus, he is one of Arthur's
most faithful and doughty lieutenants in the wars recounted by
Geoffrey.  So great was the traditional fame of Gawain that
William of Malmesbury thought it worth while to record the
discovery of his grave in Pembrokeshire; and there is some
evidence that his name was well known even in Italy by the
beginning of the twelfth century1. He was, probably, the centre
of a cycle of adventures quite independent of, and quite as old as,
the original Arthur saga. He is certainly the hero of more
episodic romances than any other British knight2, and, in the
general body of Arthurian romance, none is so ubiquitous. In
Chretien de Troyes's Conte del Graal, and in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, Gawain is almost as important a personage as
Perceval himself. In the German poem Diu Kr6ne, by Heinrich
von dem Tiirlin, he, and not Perceval, is the actual achiever of
the Grail quest. It is curious, however, to note that no other knight
undergoes so marked a transformation of character in his progress
through the romances. In the Mabinogion, and the earlier stages
of the legend generally, Gawain appears as the paragon of knightly
courtesy-the gentleman, par excellence, of the Arthurian court.
In some of the later romances, particularly in the more elaborate
versions of the Grail legend, as in Malory and Tennyson,
A reckless and irreverent knight is he3.
Before Malory's time, however, Gawain is uniformly presented in
English literature in a flattering light, and no Arthurian hero was
more popular with English writers4. The finest of all Middle
English metrical romances, Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight,
1 Zimmer, Gittingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1890, No. 20, p. 831.
2 Gaston Paris gives summaries of a number of these in Histoire Litteraire de la
France, vol. xxx.
3 Tennyson, The Holy Grail, 852.
4 See the Sir Gawayne romances, ed. Madden, Bannatyne Club (London, 1839).




270


The Arthurian Legend


dealing with incidents derived, apparently, from a primitive form
of the Gawain legend, portrays him in his original character as a
model of chivalry and of all the knightly graces.
In the full-orbed Arthurian cycle the most dramatic feature of
the story which centres around the fortunes of Arthur himself is
the love of Lancelot for Guinevere. The story of Lancelot is a
comparatively late, and, to all appearance, a non-Celtic, graft upon
the original Arthurian stock.  Whether, as some surmise, its
motive was originally suggested by the Tristram legend or not,
it remains as an obvious embodiment of the French ideal of
amour courtois, and is thus the most significant example of the
direct influence of the conceptions of chivalry upon the development of Arthurian story. Lancelot first appears as the lover of
Guinevere in Chr6tien's Chevalier de la Charrette, a poem written
at the instance of Marie of Champagne, who took a lively interest
in the elaboration of the theory and practice of "courtly love."
Hence it came about that, as Chaucer tells us, women held "in
ful gret reverence the boke of Lancelot de LakeV." The book to
which Chaucer, like Dante in the famous passage about Paolo and
Francesca, refers is, doubtless, the great prose romance of Lancelot,
traditionally associated with the name of Walter Map. The
Lancelot is a vast compilation, of which there are three clear
divisions-the first usually called the Lancelot proper, the second
the Quest of the Holy Grail and the third the Morte Arthur2.
In the MSS, these romances are persistently attributed to Walter
Map; one version of the Quest is described as having been written
by him "for the love of his lord, king Henry, who caused it to be
translated from Latin into French." A passage in Hue de
Rotelande's poem, Ipomedon, following the description of a
tournament which bears some resemblance to incidents recorded
in Lancelot, has been taken to furnish additional evidence of
Map's authorship3.  The main difficulty about assigning these
romances to Map is that of reconciling the composition of works
of such size with his known activity as a courtier and a public
man. Nor, apart from one or two fairy-stories included in it,
does what may be called his common-place book, De Nugis
Curialium, afford any indication of the life-long interest which
1 Nonne Prestes Tale, 392.
2 See Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum (Vol. i, pp. 345 sqq.),
for an account of some of the MSS.
3 See ante, Chapter x, p. 190. For a full discussion of the problems suggested by
this passage, see Ward, Catalogue of Romances in B. M. (Vol. I, p. 734) and Miss
J. L. Weston's The Three Days' Tournament (Nutt, 1902).




7he Holy Grail                        271
Arthurian romance must have had for one capable of so imposing
a contribution to its literature as the great prose Lancelot.
The ascription to Walter Map of the prose Quest of the Holy
Grail links his name with the most intricate branch of Arthurian
romance. The Grail saga, in its various ramifications and extensions, is the most difficult to interpret, and to account for historically, of all the constituent elements of the "matter of Britain."
None, at any rate, affords a better illustration of the way in which
that matter came to be "subdued to what they worked in" by a
particular group of romantic hands. Just as the ideals of courtly
chivalry shape and colour the story of Lancelot, so do the ascetic
proclivities of a monastic cult assert themselves in the gradual
unfolding of the legend of the Holy Grail. The original hero of
the Grail quest appears to have been Gawain; but he is soon
displaced by the central figure of the existing versions of the
story, Perceval. Perceval, in his turn, is superseded by one who
"exemplifies, in a yet more uncompromising, yet more inhuman,
spirit, the ideal of militant asceticism'," Lancelot's son, Galahad.
The earlier versions of the legend, however, know nothing of
Galahad, nor is there any reason for assuming that the primitive
forms of the story had any religious motive. In the Grail literature
which has come down to us, two distinct strata of legend, which
are, apparently, independent of each other in their origin, are to
be clearly traced. They are distinguished as the " Quest" proper,
and the "Early History" of the Holy Grail2. The best-known versions of the "Quest" are the Conte del Graal, of which the earlier
portions are by Chr6tien de Troyes, the Parzival of Wolfram von
Eschenbach and the Welsh Mabinogi of Peredur. Of the "Early
History" the chief versions are the Joseph of Arimnathea and
Merlin of Robert de Borron, and the Quete del St Graal attributed
to Map3. In the "Quest" forms of the legend the interest turns
mainly upon the personality of the hero, Perceval, and upon his
adventures in search of certain talismans, which include a sword,
a bleeding lance and a "grail" (either a magic vessel, as in
Chrdtien, or a stone, as in Wolfram). The "Early History " versions
1 A. Nutt, The Legends of the Holy Grail (Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance
and Folklore, 1902), p. 72.
2 This is the classification made by Alfred Nutt, our chief English authority on
the Grail legends.
3 Other versions of the Grail legend are those known as the Grand St Graal, the
Didot Perceval and Perceval le Gallois. The latter, a thirteenth century prose
romance, has been excellently translated by Sebastian Evans under the name of
The High History of the Holy Grail.




272


IT e Arthurian Legend


dwell, chiefly, upon the nature and origin of these talismans. The
search for the talismans is, in the "Quest" stories, connected with
the healing of an injured kinsman, and with the avenging of the
wrong done to him. In the fifteenth century English metrical
romance of Sir Percyvelle, the vengeance of a son upon his father's
slayers is the sole argument of the story.
The Grail cycle, in its fully developed form, would thus seem
to comprise stories of mythical and pagan origin, together with
later accretions due entirely to the invention of romancers with a
deliberately ecclesiastical bias. The palpably mythical character of
the earlier "Quest" versions points to their being of more archaic
origin than the "Early History" documents, and they are almost
certainly to be traced to Celtic sources. " The texture, the colouring, the essential conception of the older Grail Quest stories can
be paralleled from early Celtic mythic romance, and from no other
contemporary European literature1."  These tales, however, proved
susceptible of being used, in the late twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries, for religious purposes; thus, the Grail came to be
identified with the cup of the Last Supper, which Pilate gave to
Joseph of Arimathea, and in which Joseph treasured the blood
that flowed from Christ's wounds on the Cross. The cup was
brought by Joseph to Britain, and its story is thus connected with
an old legend which attributed to Joseph the conversion of Britain
to Christianity. The traditions concerning this evangelisation of
Britain appear to have been specially preserved in documents kept
at the abbey of Glastonbury; and Glastonbury, associated as it
was even with Avalon itself, came, as we know, to have a significant
connection with Arthurian lore by the end of the twelfth century.
The glorification of Britain manifestly intended by this particular
use of the Grail legend suggests, once again, the interest taken by
the Angevin court in the diplomatic possibilities of adroit literary
manipulation of the Arthurian traditions. And if, indeed, Henry II
can be proved to have had anything to do with it at all, an argument
of some plausibility is established in support of the MS record
that the courtier, Walter Map, did, "for the love of his lord, king
Henry," translate from Latin into French The Quest of the Holy
Grail.
There remains one other famous legend to be noticed, which
has attached itself to the Arthurian group, and which, in its origin
and character, is the most distinctively Celtic of them all.  The
story of Tristram and Iseult is the most purely poetical, and,
1 Nutt, Legends of the Holy Grail, p. 59.




Tristram      and Iseult                273
probably, the oldest, of the subsidiary Arthurian tales. Above all, its
scene, its character and its motif mark it out as the one undoubted
and unchallenged property of "the Celtic fringe." Ireland and
Wales, Cornwall and Britanny, all claim a share in it. Tristram
appears, under the name of Drystan son of Tallwch, as a purely
mythical hero in a very old Welsh triad, which represents him as
the nephew, and swineherd, of Mark-March ab Meirchionprotecting his master's swine against Arthur's attempt to get at
them1. Mark, in the earliest poetical versions of the tale, is king of
Cornwall. Iseult, the primal heroine, is a daughter of Ireland,
while the other Iseult, she of the White Hands, is a princess of
Britanny. The entire story breathes the very atmosphere, and
reflects the dim, mysterious half-lights, of the western islands
beaten by the gray, inhospitable sea-the sea, which, in the finest
rendering of the legend in English poetry, keeps up a haunting
choral accompaniment to Iseult's anguish-stricken cries at Tintagel,
when
all their past came wailing in the wind,
And all their future thundered in the sea2.
Coloured by scarcely any trace of Christian sentiment, and only
faintly touched, as compared with the story of Lancelot, by the
artificial conventions of chivalry, the legend of Tristram bears
every mark of a remote pagan, and Celtic, origin. Neither in
classical, nor in Teutonic, saga, is there anything really comparable
with the elemental and over-mastering passion which makes the
story of Tristram and Iseult, in tragic interest and pathos, second
to none of the great love-tales of the world.
The Tristram legend was preserved, in all probability, in many
detached lays before it came to be embodied in any extant poem.
The earliest known poetical versions of the story are those of the
Anglo-Normans, B1roul (c. 1150) and Thomas (c. 1170), of which
we possess only fragments, and which were the foundations,
respectively, of the German poems of Eilhart von Oberge and
of Gottfried von Strassburg. A lost Tristan poem is also ascribed
to Chretien de Troyes, and is supposed by some to have been used
by the writer, or writers3, of the long prose Tristan, upon which
Malory largely drew. As it passed through the hands of these
1 See Rhys, The Arthurian Legend, p. 13, where it is said of March, or Mark, that
he was "according to legends, both Brythonic and Irish, an unmistakable prince of
darkness."
2 Swinburne, Tristram of Lyonesse.
3 The names, almost certainly fictitious, of Luces de Gast and of H6lie de Borron
are associated with the authorship of the prose Tristan.


E.     L.  I.    CH.  XII.


18




274           T/e Arthurian Legend
writers, the Tristram story, like the rest, was subjected to the
inevitable process of chivalric decoration; but it has managed to
preserve better than the others its bold primitive characteristics.
Its original existence in the form of scattered popular lays is, to
some extent, attested by one of the poems of Marie of FranceLe Chevrefeuille (The Honeysuckle)-recording a pretty stratagem
of Tristan during his exile from king Mark's court, whereby he
succeeded in obtaining a stolen interview with Iseult. Nor was it
the Tristram legend alone that was thus preserved in popular lays
from a period anterior to that of the great romantic efflorescence
of Arthurian story. Many isolated poems dealing with characters
and incidents subsequently drawn into the Arthurian medley must
have been based upon traditions popularised by the rude art of
some obscure minstrels, or story-tellers, "Breton" or other. One
of the best known examples of such poems is Marie of France's lay
of Lanval, a Celtic fairy-tale quite unconnected, originally, with
the Arthurian court. Even more ambitious works, such as the
Chevalier au Lion, or Yvain, and the Eree, of Chrdtien, were almost
certainly founded upon poems, or popular tales, of which the
primitive versions have been irretrievably lost. For the Welsh
prose romances of The Lady of the Fountain and of Geraintthe heroes of which, Owein and Geraint, correspond respectively to
Chrdtien's Yvain and Erec-while resembling the French poems in
their main incidents, cannot be satisfactorily accounted for except
on the supposition that the stories embodied in them originally
existed in a much older and simpler form than that in which they
are presented by Chrdtien.
In this necessarily cursory review of an extensive and complicated subject, a good deal has been claimed for Celtic sources and
Celtic influence; and it may not be out of place to conclude with
an attempt to summarise, very briefly, the actual debt of English
literature to the early literature of the Celtic peoples. Upon few
subjects has there been, in our time, so much vague and random
writing as upon so-called Celtic "traits" and "notes" in English
imaginative literature. Renan and Matthew Arnold, in two famous
essays, which, in their time, rendered a real service to letters by
calling attention to the buried literary treasures of Wales and
Ireland, set a fashion of speculating and theorising about "the
Celt" as perilous as it is fascinating. For, after all, no critical
method is more capable of abuse than the process of aesthetic
literary analysis which seeks to distinguish the Celtic from the




Celtic Literature


275


other ingredients in the genius of the greater English writers, and
which sounds Shakespeare, or Byron, or Keats for the Celtic "note."
While there is no difficulty about admitting that the authentic
literature of the Celts reveals a " sentiment," a "natural magic," a
"turn for style," and even a "Pindarism" and a "Titanism,"1 which
are all its own, it is a very different matter to assign a Celtic
source to the supposed equivalents of these things in later English
poetry. An example of the peculiar dangers besetting such
speculations is furnished by Matthew Arnold's own observations
about Macpherson and the Celtic "melancholy." The Ossianic
poems, whatever their original Gaelic sources may have been,
reflect far more of the dour melancholy peculiar to the middle
eighteenth century than of anything really characteristic of the
primitive Celtic temperament. Matthew Arnold is, indeed, able to
parallel the laments over the desolation of the halls of Balclutha,
and so on, with extracts from the old Welsh poet, Llywarch H8n.
But even Llywarch's anguish as he contemplates the vanished
glories of the hall of Kyndylan is by no means peculiar to the
Celt. The same melancholy vein is found in the early poetry of
other races; it appears in the Old English poems of The Seafarer
and The Wanderer, and even in the ancient poetry of the east, for
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep,
And Bahram, that great Hunter-the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head but cannot break his Sleep.
The direct influence 'of Celtic literature upon that of England
amounts, on any strict computation, to very little. And this is only
natural when we remember that the two languages, in which the
chief monuments of that literature are preserved-Welsh and Irish
-present difficulties which only a very few intrepid English
linguists have had the courage and the patience to surmount.
Thus it happens, for example, that the greatest of all the medieval
Welsh poets-Davyd: ap Gwilym, a contemporary of Chaucer-is
only known to English readers by fragmentary notices, and
indifferent translations, supplied by George Borrow. A few tantalising, and freely translated, scraps —for they are nothing morefrom the Welsh bards are due to Gray; while Thomas Love Peacock
has treated, in his own peculiar vein of sardonic humour, themes
borrowed from ancient Welsh poetry and tradition. Above all,
there remains the singularly graceful translation of the Welsh
1 These are some of Matthew Arnold's "notes " of the Celtic genius in The Study
of Celtic Literature.
18-2




276           The Arthurian Legend
Mabinogion by Lady Charlotte Guest. The literature of Ireland
has, at a quite recent date, been much better served by translators
than that of Wales, and several admirable English versions of
Irish poems and prose tales are making their influence felt upon
the literature of the day. So far, however, as the older Celtic
literature is concerned, it is not so much its form that has told to
any appreciable extent upon English writers as its themes and its
spirit. The main channel of this undoubted Celtic influence was
that afforded by the Arthurian and its kindred legends. The
popularity of the "matter of Britain" came about at a time when
there was, comparatively, much more intimate literary commerce
between the European nations than there is now. The Normans
succeeded in bringing Britain and France at least into much closer
contact than has ever existed between them since; and it was
France that controlled the literary destinies of Europe during the
great romantic period of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It
would be rash to endeavour to apportion between the south of
France and the northern "Celtic fringe" their respective contributions to all that is denoted by the ideals of chivalry. But, in
the mist which still overhangs the subject, we do seem to discern
with fair distinctness that it was the conjunction of these apparently diverse racial tendencies, directed by the diplomatic
genius of the Normans, that gave us our vast and picturesque body
of Arthurian romance. Through all the various strains of Arthurian
story we hear
the horns of Elfland faintly blowing;
and it is quite possible that, to the Celtic wonderland, with its
fables of "the little people," we owe much of the fairy-lore which
has, through Shakespeare and other poets of lower degree, enriched
the literature of England. Chaucer, at any rate, seemed to have
very little doubt about it, for he links all that he knew, or cared
to know, about the Arthurian stories with his recollections of
the fairy world:
In th' olde dayes of the king Arthour,
Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
Al was this land fulfild of fayerye;
The elf-queen, with hir joly companye
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene inede.
So let us believe, with the poets, and leave the British Arthur in
his unquestioned place as the supreme king of fairy-land.




CHAPTER XIII


METRICAL ROMANCES, 1200-1500
I
Men speke of romances of prys,
Of Horn child and of Ypotys,
Of Bevis and sir Gy,
Of sir Libeux and Pleyn-damour;
But sir Thopas, he bereth the flour
Of royal chivalry.          SIR THOPAS.
IT is hard to understand the process of change that made so
much difference between Old and Middle English story-telling.
At first, one is inclined to account for it by the Norman conquest, and, no doubt, that is one of the factors; the degradation
of the English and their language naturally led to a more popular
and vulgar sort of narrative literature. Beowulf was composed
for persons of quality, Havelok for the common people. Old
English narrative poetry was, in its day, the best obtainable;
English metrical romances were known by the authors, vendors
and consumers of them to be inferior to the best, i.e. to the French;
and, consequently, there is a rustic, uncourtly air about them. Their
demeanour is often lumbering, and they are sometimes conscious
of it. The English look to the French for instruction in good
manners and in the kinds of literature that belong properly to a
court. In the old times before the Conquest they had the older
courtliness which was their own, and which is represented in the
Old English epic remains, Beowumf, Waldhere and other poems.
But it will not do to regard the Conquest as a full and complete
explanation of the difference, because the same kind of change is
found in other Teutonic countries where there was no political
conquest. In Denmark and Sweden and Germany and the Netherlands there are to be found rhyming romances of the same sort as
the English, written about the same time. In Germany, it is true,
the romantic school of the early thirteenth century is much more
refined than anything in England before the days of Chaucer and
Gower; but, besides the narrative work of the great German poets




278     Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
of that time there are many riming tales that may very well be
compared with English popular romances; while in Denmark and
Sweden there is a still closer likeness to England. There the
riming narrative work is not a bit more regular or courtly than
in England; there is the same kind of easy, shambling verse, the
same sort of bad spelling, the same want of a literary standard.
But in those countries there was no Norman conquest; so that it
will not do to make the political condition of the English accountable for the manners of their popular literature. The Norman
conquest helped, no doubt, in the depression of English literature,
but like things happened in other countries without a foreign
conqueror. Just as all the Teutonic languages (except that of
Iceland) pass from the Old to the Middle stage, so in literature there is a parallel movement in Germany, England and
Denmark from an earlier to a later medieval type. In all the
Teutonic countries, though not at the same time in all, there was
a change of taste and fashion which abandoned old epic themes
and native forms of verse for new subjects and for riming
measures. This meant a great disturbance and confusion of literary
principles and traditions; hence, much of the new literature was
experimental and undisciplined. It took long for the nations to
find a literary standard. The Germans attained it about 1200;
the English in the time of Chaucer; the Danes and Swedes not
until long after the close of the Middle Ages. The progress
from Old to Middle English narrative verse is not to be understood from a consideration of England alone; it is part of a
general change in European fashions, a new mixture of Teutonic
and Roman elements, not to speak of Celtic and oriental strains
in the blending.
In the history of English narrative poetry there is a great gap
of two centuries between The Battle of Maldon and Layamon's
Brut, with very little to fill it or even to show what sort of things
have been lost, what varieties of story-telling amused the English
in the reign of Harold Godwinsson or of Henry I. In France,
on the other hand, these centuries are rich in story books still
extant; and, as the English metrical romances depend very largely
upon the French, the history of them may to some extent be explained from French history; though often more by way of contrast
than of resemblance.
In France, the twelfth century witnessed a very remarkable
change of taste in stories which spread over all Europe and
affected the English, the Germans and other peoples in different




French Influences


279


ways. The old national epics, the chansons de geste, were displaced by a new romantic school, which triumphed over the old
like a young Olympian dynasty over Saturn and his peers, or like
the new comedy of the restoration over the last Elizabethans.
The chansons de geste were meant for the hall, for Homeric
recitation after supper; the new romances were intended to be
read in my lady's bower; they were for summer leisure and daylight, as in the pretty scene described by Chr6tien de Troyes in
his Chevalier au Lion, and translated into English:
Thurgh the hal sir Ywain gase
Intil ane orcherd, playn pase;
His maiden with him ledes he:
He fand a knyght, under a tre,
Opon a clath of gold he lay;
Byfor him sat a ful fayr may;
A lady sat with tham in fere.
The mayden red, at thai myght here,
A real romance in that place,
But I ne wote of wham it was;
Sho was but fiftene yeres alde.
The knyght was lorde of al that halde,
And that mayden was his ayre;
She was both gracious gode and fayrel.
These French romances were dedicated to noble ladies, and represented everything that was most refined and elegant in the life
of the twelfth century. Furthermore, like other later romantic
schools, like Scott and Victor Hugo, authors travelled wide for
their subjects. The old French poet's well-known division of stories
according to the three "matters"-the "matter of France," the
"matter of Britain" and the "matter of Rome the great"2 -very imperfectly sums up the riches and the variety of French
romantic themes, even when it is understood that the "matter
of Rome" includes the whole of antiquity, the tales of Thebes and
Troy, the wars of Alexander. It is true that (as in later romantic
schools) the variety of scene and costume does not always prevent
monotony. The romantic hero may be a knight of king Arthur's
court, or may take his name from Protesilaus or Palaemon or
Archytas; the scene in one story may be Logres or Lyonesse, in
another Greece or Calabria; it does not really make much difference. So Mrs Radcliffe's heroes, or Victor Hugo's, are of the same
sort, whether their scene be in the Pyrenees or in Italy. But,
1 Ywain and Gawain, 11. 3081 sqq.
2 Ne sont que trois matieres a nul home attendant,
De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant.
Jean Bodel, Chanson de Saisnes.




280     Metrical Romances, 1200 -1500
nevertheless, the freedom of wandering over the world in search of
plots and characters was exhilarating and inspiriting in the twelfth
century in France; there was great industry in fiction, a stirring
literary competition. The following ages very largely lived on the
products of it, to satisfy their own wants in the way of romance.
The leaders of this school, Benoit de Ste More and Chr6tien
de Troyes, with their followers, were courtly persons, authors of
fashionable novels, bent on putting into their work the spirit and
all the graces of gentle conversation as it was then understood,
more particularly the refinements of amatory sentiment, such as
was allegorised in the next century in The Romaunt of the Rose.
This sort of thing could not be equally appreciated or appropriated
in all countries. Some people understood it, others could not.
The great houses of Germany were very quick to learn from
French masters and to rival them in their own line. Hartmann
von Aue translated Chrdtien freely-the romance of Enid, the
tale of Yvain. Wolfram von Eschenbach in his Parzival may
borrow the substance, but the rendering, the spirit, is his own,
removed far from any danger of comparison with the French
school, because it has a different kind of nobility. In England
things were otherwise, and it was not till the age of Chaucer and
Gower that there was any English narrative work of the finer sort,
with the right courtly good manners and a proper interest in
sentimental themes. The English of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries were generally unable to make much of the "finer shades"
in their French authors. They can dispose of romantic plots and
adventures, they are never tired of stories; but they have difficulty
in following the eloquent monologues of passionate damsels; the
elegant French phrasing annoyed them just as one of the later
French successors of Chrdtien, the heroic romance of Le Grand
Cyrus, affected Major Bellenden. Even the more ambitious of the
English romances generally fall far short of the French and cannot
keep up with their elaborate play of rhetoric and emotion. There
is only one English version of a romance by Chr6tien, Ywain
and Gawain. This is comparatively late; it belongs to the
time of Chaucer; it is not rude; on the contrary, it is one of the
most accomplished of all the riming tales outside the work of
Chaucer and Gower. But it cuts short the long speeches of the
original. Chrdtien's Yvain (Le Chevalier au Lion) has 6818 lines;
the English version 4032. Hartmann, on the other hand, spins his
story out to 8166 lines, being thoroughly possessed with admiration of the French ways of thinking. The English romances of




Translators' Diffculties


281


Ipomedon (there are two in rime, besides a prose version) show
well the difficulties and discrepancies, as will be explained later.
William of Palerne is an example of a different sort, showing
how hard it was for the English, even as late as the middle of the
fourteenth century, to understand and translate the work of the
French romantic school. The English poet takes up the French
Guillaume de Palerme, a sophisticated, sentimental story written
in the fluent, unemphatic, clear style which perhaps only Gower
could rightly reproduce in English. This is turned into alliterative
verse, with rather strange results, the rhetoric of the English
school being utterly different from the French: quaint in diction,
inclined to be violent and extravagant, very effective in satirical
passages (as Piers Plowman was to show) or in battle scenes
(as in the Morte Arthure), but not well adapted for polite and
conventional literature. The alliterative poets were justified when
they took their own way and did not try to compete with the
French. Their greatest work in romance is Sir Gawayne and the
Grene Knight, written by a' man who understood his business and
produced new effects, original, imaginative, without trying to copy
the manner of the French artists.
At the same time, while the great, the overruling, French
influence is to be found in the ambitious literary work of Chrdtien
de Troyes and his peers, it must not be forgotten that there was
also a simpler but still graceful kind of French romance, with
which the English translators had more success. This is best
represented in the work of Marie de France; and, in English, by
the shorter romances which profess to be taken from Breton lays,
such as Launfal, Orfeo and the Lai le Freine. Here, the scale is
smaller, and there is no superabundance of monologue and sentimental digression. The clear lines of the original could be followed
by the English without too much difficulty; for the English, though
long inferior to the French in subtlety, were not bunglers, except
when they ventured on unfamiliar ground without the proper
education.
Briefly and roughly, the history of the English romances might
be put in this way. About the year 1200 French literature came
to dominate the whole of Christendom, especially in the matter of
stories; not only sending abroad the French tales of Charlemagne
and Roland, but importing plots, scenery and so forth, from many
lands, Wales and Britanny, Greece and the further east, and giving
new French forms to them, which were admired and, as far as
possible, borrowed by foreign nations, according to their several




282     Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
tastes and abilities. The English took a large share in this trade.
Generally speaking, their taste was easily satisfied. What they
wanted was adventures; slaughter of Saracens, fights with dragons
and giants, rightful heirs getting their own again, innocent
princesses championed against their felon adversaries. Such
commodities were purveyed by popular authors, who adapted
from the French what suited them and left out the things in
which the French authors were most interested, viz. the ornamental passages. The English romance writers worked for
common minstrels and their audiences, and were not particular
about their style. They used, as a rule, either short couplets or
some variety of that simple stanza which is better known to most
readers from Sir Thopas than from Horn Childe or Sir Libeaus.
Sir Thopas illustrates and summarises, in parody, all the ways of
the popular romance for a long time before Chaucer and for long
after his death. Of course there are many differences in particular
cases, and Sir Thopas, with all his virtue, does not so far outshine
the others as to make them indistinguishable. Beves is not exactly
the same kind of thing as Sir Guy, and the story of Sir Libeaus
has merits of its own not to be confounded with those of the other
heroes. Nevertheless, they are all of one kind, and their style
is popular and hackneyed. The authors were well enough pleased
to have it so; they did not attempt to rival their eminent French
masters.
But there were exceptions. One finds ambition at work in
English poets even in days when French literature might have
appeared so strong and so exalted as to dishearten any mere
English competitor. The English Sir Tristrem is a specimen of
literary vanity; the English author is determined to improve upon
his original, and turns the simple verse of his French book into
rather elaborate lyrical stanzas. And, again, it was sometimes
possible for an Englishman to write gracefully enough without
conceit or emphasis; as in Ywain and Gawain, already quoted.
And the alliterative romances are in a class by themselves.
Chaucer and Gower disturb the progress of the popular romance,
yet not so much as one might expect. Chaucer and Gower, each
in his own way, had challenged the French on their own ground;
they had written English verse which might be approved by
French standards; they had given to English verse the peculiar
French qualities of ease and grace and urbanity. A reader to
whom the fifteenth century was unknown would, naturally, look for
some such consequences as followed in the reign of Charles II from




Matter and Form                      283
the work of Dryden and his contemporaries-a disabling of the
older schools, and a complete revolution in taste. But, for whatever reason, this was not what actually followed the age of Chaucer.
The fifteenth century, except for the fact that the anarchy of
dialects is reduced to some order, is as far from any literary good
government as the age before Chaucer. It is rather worse, indeed,
on account of the weaker brethren in the Chaucerian school who
only add to the confusion. And the popular romances go on very
much as before, down to the sixteenth century, and even further.
The lay of the last minstrel is described by Sir Walter Scott, in
prose, in a note to Sir Tristremn:
Some traces of this custom remained in Scotland till of late years.
A satire on the Marquis of Argyle, published about the time of his death,
is said to be composed to the tune of Graysteel, a noted romance reprinted
at Aberdeen so late as the beginning of the last century. Within the memory
of man, an old person used to perambulate the streets of Edinburgh, singing,
in a monotonous cadence, the tale of Rosewal and Lilian, which is, in all the
forms, a metrical romance of chivalry.
It is possible to classify the romances according to their sources
and their subjects, though as has been already remarked, the
difference of scenery does not always make much difference in
the character of the stories. The English varieties depend so
closely on the French that one must go to French literary history
for guidance. The whole subject has been so clearly summarised
and explained in the French Medieval Literature of Gaston Paris1
that it is scarcely necessary here to repeat even the general facts.
But of course, although the subjects are the same, the English
point of view is different; especially in the following respects.
The "matter of France" includes the subjects of the old French
epics. These, being national, could not bear exportation so well
as some of the other "matters." It is only in France that the Song
of Roland can be thoroughly understood and valued. Yet Roland
and Charlemagne were honoured beyond the Alps and beyond the
sea. The Karlamagnus Saga is a large book written in Norway
in the thirteenth century, bringing together in a prose version all
the chief stories of the cycle. One section, Olif and Landres, was
found "in the English tongue in Scotland" by a Norwegian envoy
who went there in 1284 after the death of king Alexander III.
Roland was almost as popular in Italy as in France. He appears
also in English, though not to very great advantage. The favourite


1 La Litterature frangaise au moyen age (with bibliography); also Esquisse historique de la litt. fr. au moyen age; English translation of this latter, Dent, 1903.




284     Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
story from the French epics was that of Oliver and Fierabras, where
the motive is not so much French patriotism as the opposition
between Christian and infidel.
In the "matter of Britain" the English had a better right to
share. They accepted at once the history of Geoffrey of Monmouth
and made king Arthur into an English national hero, the British
counterpart of Charlemagne.  The alliterative Morte Arthure,
derived from Geoffrey, is a kind of political epic, with allusions
to contemporary history and the wars of Edward III, as George
Neilson has sufficiently proved'. This touch of allegory, which one
need not be afraid to compare with the purpose of the Aeneid
or of The Faerie Queene, makes it unlike most other medieval
romances; the pretence of solidity and historical truth in Geoffrey
is not suitable for mere romantic purposes. Quite different is the
Arthur who merely sits waiting for adventures, being "somewhat
child-geared," as the poet of Sir Gawayne says. In most of the
stories, Arthur is very unlike the great imperial monarch and
conqueror as presented by Geoffrey and his followers. He has
nothing particular to do, except to be present at the beginning
and end of the story; the hero is Sir Perceval, Sir Ywain, Sir
Gawain, or the Fair Knight Unknown (Sir Libeaus); unfortunately not Sir Erec (Geraint) in any extant English poem before
Tennyson. In this second order, the proper Arthurian romances
as distinguished from the versions or adaptations of Geoffrey,
England had something to claim even before the English rimers
began their work; for some of the French poems certainly, and
probably many now lost, were written in England. This is a
debatable and difficult part of literary history; but, at any rate,
it is plain that the more elaborate French Arthurian romances
were not the only authorities for the English tales. Chretien's
Yvain is translated into English; but the French romance of
The Fair Unknown is probably not the original of the English
story of Sir Libeaus which, like the old Italian version, would
seem to have had a simpler and earlier form to work upon. Likewise, the English Sir Perceval must, surely, come from something
older and less complicated than Chr6tien's Conte del Graal. It is
at least a fair conjecture that these two romances belong to an
earlier type, such as may have been hawked about in England by
French or French-speaking minstrels; and, without any conjecture
at all, they are different in their plots (not merely in their style)
from the French work of Renaud de Beaujeu in the one case, and
1 Huchown of the Awle Ryale, Glasgow, 1902, pp. 59-66.




Sources and Subjects


285


Chretien de Troyes in the other. Sir Gawayne and the Grene
Knight, again, cannot be referred to any known French book
for its original; and, in this and other ways, the English
rendering of the "matter of Britain" goes beyond the French, or,
to be more precise, is found to differ from the existing French
documents.
The "matter of Rome the great," that is, classical antiquity, is
well represented in English. There are several poems in rime
and alliterative verse on Alexander and on Troy, some of them
being fragmentary. The tale of Thebes, though often referred
to, does not appear fully told till Lydgate took it up, nor the
romantic version of the Aeneid (Roman d'Engas) before Caxton's
prose.
The classification under the three "matters" of France, Britain
and Rome is not exhaustive; there are many romances which fall
outside these limits. Some of them are due to French invention;
for the twelfth century romantic school was not content always to
follow merely traditional fables; they drew largely on older stories,
fairy tales and relics of mythology; but, sometimes, they tried
to be original and at least succeeded in making fresh combinations,
like a modern novelist with his professional machinery. Perhaps
the English poet of Sir Gawayne may have worked in this way,
not founding his poem upon any one particular romance, but taking
incidents from older stories and arranging them to suit his purpose.
In French, the Ipomedon of Hue de Rotelande is an excellent
specimen of what may be called the secondary order of romance,
as cultivated by the best practitioners. The author's method is
not hard to understand. He is competing with the recognised and
successful artists; with Chretien de Troyes. He does not trouble
himself to find a Breton lay, but (like an Elizabethan dramatist
with no Spanish or Italian novel at hand) sets himself to spin his
own yarn. He has all the proper sentiments, and his rhetoric and
rimes are easy work for him. For theme, he takes the proud young
lady and the devoted lover; the true love beginning "in her absence,"
as the Irish story-tellers expressed it, before he has ever seen
the princess; telling of his faithful service in disguise, his apparent
slackness in chivalry, his real prowess when he "bears the gree" in
three days of tournament, with three several suits of armour, the
white, the red and the black. The incidents are not exactly new;
but it is a good novel of its kind, and successful, as the English
versions prove, for longer than one season. Hue de Rotelande
takes some trouble about his details. He does not (like Chr6tien




286     Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
in his Cliges) attach his invention to the court of Arthur. He
leaves Britain for new ground, and puts his scene in Apulia and
Calabria-which might as well have been Illyria or Bohemia. And
he does not imitate the names of the Round Table; his names are
Greek, his hero is Hippomedon. In the same way Boccaccio, or
his lost French original, took Greek names for his story of
Palamon, and let it grow out of the wars of Thebes. So also
Parthenopex de Blois, who was translated into English (Partonope),
is Parthenopaeus.  William of Palerne, without this classical
prestige of name, is another example of the invented love-story,
made by rearranging the favourite commonplaces. Another sentimental romance, Amadas and Ydoine, was well known in England,
as is proved by many allusions, though no English version is
extant; the poem was first composed, like Ipomedon, in AngloFrench1.
Further, there were many sources besides Britain and Rome
for authors in want of a plot. The far east began very early to
tell upon western imaginations, not only through the marvels of
Alexander in India, but in many and various separate stories. One
of the best of these, and one of the first, as it happens, in the list
of English romances is Flores and Blancheflour. It was ages
before The Arabian Nights were known, but this is just such a
story as may be found there, with likenesses also to the common
form of the Greek romances, the adventures of the two young
lovers cruelly separated. By a curious process it was turned, in
the Filocolo of Boccaccio, to a shape like that of Greek romance,
though without any direct knowledge of Greek authors. The
Seven Sages of Rome may count among the romances; it is an
oriental group of stories in a setting, like The Arabian Nights
-a pattern followed in the Decameron, in Confessio Amantis
and in The Canterbury Tales.
Barlaam and Josaphat is the story of the Buddha, and Robert
of Sicily, the "proud king," has been traced back to a similar
origin. Ypotis (rather oddly placed along with Horn and the
others in Sir Thopas) is Epictetus; the story is hardly a romance,
it is more like a legend. But the difference between romance and
legend is not always very deep; and one is reminded that Greek
and eastern romantic plots and ideas had come into England long
before, in the Old English Saints' Lives.
There is another group, represented, indeed, in French, but not
in the same way as the others. It contains The Gest of King Horn
1 Gaston Paris in An English Miscellany, Oxford, 1901, p. 386.




Sources and Subjects


287


and The Lay of Havelok the Dane; both of these appear in French,
but it is improbable that any French version was the origin of the
English. These are northern stories; in the case of Havelok there
is fair historical proof that the foundation of the whole story lies
in the adventures of Anlaf Cuaran, who fought at Brunanburh;
"Havelok," like "Aulay," being a Celtic corruption of the Scandinavian Anlaf or Olaf.
In Horn it is not so easy to find a definite historical beginning;
it has been suggested that the original Horn was Horm, a Danish
viking of the ninth century who fought for the Irish king Cearbhall,
as Horn helped king Thurston in Ireland against the Payns, i.e.
the heathen invaders with their giant champion. Also, it is believed
that Thurston, in the romance, may be derived from the Norwegian
leader Thorstein the Red, who married a grand-daughter of
Cearbhall. But, whatever the obscure truth may be, the general
fact is not doubtful that Horn's wanderings and adventures are
placed in scenery and conditions resembling those of the ninth and
tenth centuries in the relations between Britain and Ireland. Like
Havelok, the story probably comes from the Scandinavian settlers
in England; like Havelok, it passed to the French, but the French
versions are not the sources of the English. There must have been
other such native stories; there is still an Anglo-Norman poem of
Waldef extant, i.e. Waltheof, and the story of Hereward the Wake
is known, like that of Waltheof also, from a Latin prose tale. The
short tale of Athelston may be mentioned here, and also the
amazing long romance of Richard Cceur de Lion, which is not
greatly troubled with the cares of the historian.
The varieties of style in the English romances are very great,
under an apparent monotony and poverty of type. Between
Sir Beves of Hamtoun and Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight
there is as wide an interval as between (let us say) "Monk" Lewis
and Scott, or G. P. R. James and Thackeray. There are many
different motives in the French books from which most of the
English tales are borrowed, and there are many different ways of
borrowing.
As regards verse, there are the two great orders, riming and
blank alliterative. Of riming measures the most usual are the
short couplet of octosyllabic lines, and the stanza called rime
couee, rithmus caudatus.
King Horn is singular in its verse, an example of one stage in
the development of modern English metres. It is closely related
in prosody to Layamon's Brut, and might be described as carrying




288   Metrical Romances, 1200-1500


through consistently the riming couplet, which Layamon interchanges with blank lines. The verse is not governed by the
octosyllabic law; it is not of Latin origin; it has a strange
resemblance to the verse of Otfried in Old High German and
to the accidental riming passages in Old English, especially in
the more decrepit Old English verse:
Thanne him spac the gode king:
Wel bruc thu thi nevening;
Horn thu go wel schuille
Bi dales and bi hulle;
Horn thu lude sune
Bi dales and bi dune;
So schal thi name springe
Fram kynge to kynge,
And thi fairness6
Abute Westernesse,
The strengthe of thin/ honde
In to evrech londe1.
There is no other romance in this antique sort of verse. In the
ordinary couplets just such differences may be found as in modern
usage of the same measure. Havelok and Orfeo, King Alisaunder
and Ywain have not exactly the same effect. Havelok, though
sometimes a little rough, is not unsound; the poem of Ywain and
Gawain is nearly as correct as Chaucer; The Squire of Low Degree
is one of the pleasantest and most fluent examples of this verse in
English. There is a pause at the end of every line, and the effect
is like that of some ballads:
The squyer her hente in armes two,
And kyssed her an hundreth tymes and mo.
There was myrth and melody,
With harpe, gytron and sautry,
With rote, ribible and clokarde,
With pypes, organs and bombarde,
With other mynstrelles them amonge,
With sytolphe and with sautry songe,
With fydle, recorde and dowcemere,
With trompette and with claryon clere,
With dulcet pipes of many cordes,
In chambre revelyng all the lordes,
Unto morne that it was daye2.
Besides the short couplet different types of common metre are
used; very vigorously, with full rimes, in Sir FerumbrasNow bygynt a strong batayl betwene this knyghtes twayne,
Ayther gan other hard assayle bothe wyth myght and mayne;
They hewe togadre wyth swerdes dent, faste with bothen hondes,
Of helmes and sheldes that fyr outwent, so sparkes doth of brondes3;
1 L. 205 sqq.       2 LI. 1067 sqq.      3 L1. 602 sqq.




Forms of Verse


289


and without the internal rime, in The Tale of Gamelyn, the verse
of which has been so rightly praisedl.
Sir Thopas might be taken as the standard of the rithmus
caudatus, but Sir Thopas itself shows that variations are admitted,
and there are several kinds, besides, which Chaucer does not
introduce.
In later usage this stanza is merely twofold, as in Drayton's
Nymphidia or in The Baby's Debut. In early days it was commonly
fourfold, i.e. there are four caudae with the same rime:
And so it fell upon a daye
The palmare went to the wode to playe,
His mirthes for to mene;
The knightes brake up his chamber dore
And fand the gold right in the flore
And bare it unto the quene;
And als sone als scho saw it with sighte,
In swoning than fell that swete wighte
For scho had are it sene!
Scho kissed it and said, "Allas!
This gold aughte Sir Isambras,
My lord was wont to bene2."
Sometimes there are three lines together before each cauda, as
in Sir Perceval and Sir Degrevant and others:
Lef, lythes to me
Two wordes or thre
Off one that was fair and fre,
And felle in his fighte;
His righte name was Percyvelle,
He was fosterde in the felle,
He dranke water of the welle,
And yitte was he wyghte!
His fadir was a noble mane
Fro the tyme that he begane;
Miche worchippe he wane
When he was made knyghte;
In Kyng Arthures haulle,
Beste by-luffede of alle,
Percyvelle they gane hym calle,
Who so redis ryghte.
While, as this example shows, there are different lengths of line;
they are not all in eights and sixes. Sir Libeaus, particularly,
makes very pretty play with a kind of short metre and a peculiar
sequence of the rimes:
That maide knelde in halle
Before the knightes alle
And seide: My lord Arthour!
A cas ther is befalle,
Worse withinne walle
Was never non of dolour!
1Saintsbury, English Prosody, I, p. 195.  2 Sir Isumbras, 11. 641 sqq.
E. L. I. CH. XIII.                                     19




290      Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
My lady of Sinadoune
Is brought in strong prisoun
That was of greet valour;
Sche praith the sende her a knight
With harte good and light
To winne her with honour1.
The cauda is usually of six syllables; but there is a variety
with four, found in part of Sir Beves:
That erl is hors began to stride
His scheld he hang upon is side
Gert with swerd;
Moste non armur on him come
Himself was boute the ferthe some
Toward that ferd.
Allas that he nadde be war
Of is fomen that weren thar
Him forte schende;
With tresoun worth he ther islawe
And i-brouht of is lif-daw
Er he hom wende2.
The rime coupe is a lyrical stanza, and there are other lyrical
forms. One of the romances of Octavian is in the old Provengal and
old French measure which, by roundabout ways, came to Scotland,
and was used in the seventeenth century in honour of Habbie
Simson, the piper of Kilbarchan, and, thereafter, by Allan Ramsay,
Fergusson and Burns, not to speak of later poets.
The knyght was glad to skape so,
As every man is from hys foo;
The mayster lette ten men and moo
That ylke day,
To wende and selle that chyld hem fro
And that palfray3.
The riming Mort Arthur is in a favourite eight-line stanza.
Sir Tristrem, in most ways exceptional, uses a lyrical stave, like
one of those in the collection of Laurence Minot, and very unlike
anything that was permissible in the French schools of narrative at
that time. It may be remembered, however, that the Italian
romances of the fourteenth century and later used a form of verse
that, at first, was lyrical, the ottava rima; there are other affinities
in Italian and English popular literature, as compared with the
French, common qualities which it would be interesting to study
further4.
The French originals of these English romances are almost
universally in short couplets, the ordinary verse for all subjects,


1 L1. 145 sqq.       L1. 199 sqq.     3 LI. 379 sqq.     4 Gaston Paris, opp. citt.




Forms of Verse


29I


after the chansons de geste had grown old-fashioned1. On the
whole, and considering how well understood the short couplet
was in England even in the thirteenth century, e.g. in The Owl
and Nighti1ngale, it is rather surprising that there should be such
a large discrepancy between the French and the English forms.
There are many anomalies; thus, the fuller version of Ipomedon,
by a man who really dealt fairly and made a brave effort to get the
French spirit into English rime, is in rime coue; while the shorter
Ipomedon, scamped work by some poor hack of a minstrel, is in the
regular French couplet. It should be noted here that rime couee
is later than couplets, though the couplets last better, finally
coming to the front again and winning easily in Confessio Amantis
and in The Romaunt of the Rose. There are many examples of rewriting: tales in couplets are re-written in stanzas; Sir Beves, in
the earlier part, is one, Sir Launfal is another. Horn Childe is
in the Thopas verse; it is the same story as King Horn, though
with other sources, and different names and incidents.
In later times, the octosyllabic verse recovers its place, and,
though new forms are employed at the close of the Middle Ages,
such as rime royal (e.g. in Generydes) and the heroic couplet
(in Clariodus and Sir Gilbert Hay's Alexander), still, for simple
popular use, the short verse is the most convenient, as is proved by
the chap-book romances, Sir Eger and Roswall and Lilian-also,
one may say, by Sir David Lyndsay's Squire Meldrum. The curious
riming alliterative verse of the Awntyrs of Arthure and Rauf
Coilyear lasts well in Scotland; but it had never been thoroughly
established as a narrative measure, and, though it is one of the
forms recognised and exemplified in king James VI's Art of
Poesie, its "tumbling verse" is there regarded as most fit for
"flytings," which was indeed its usual function in the end of
its days.
Alliterative blank verse came up in the middle of the fourteenth century and was chiefly used for romance, Piers Plowman being the only considerable long poem to be compared in
weight with The Troy Book or The Wars of Alexander, though
there are others of less compass which are still remarkable enough.
Where the verse came from is not known clearly to anyone and
can only be guessed. The facts are that, whereas the old verse
1 There are exceptions; thus the French-or Anglo-Norman-Beves is in an epic
measure; and, of course, some of the English romances are borrowed from French
epics, like Roland, and Sir Ferumbras, and the alliterative poem of the Swan-Knight
(Chevelere Assigne) which, though romantic enough in subject, belongs technically, in
the original French, to the cycle of Godfrey of Bouillon.
19-2




292   Metrical Romances, 1200-1500


begins to show many signs of decay before the Conquest, and
reappears after the Conquest in very battered shapes, in Layamon
and The Bestiary and The Proverbs of Alfred, the new order, of
which William of Palerne is the earliest, has clearly ascertained
some of the main principles of the ancient Teutonic line, and adheres
to them without any excessive difficulty. The verse of these alliterative romances and of Langland, and of all the rest down to Dunbar
and the author of Scotish Feilde, is regular, with rules of its own;
not wholly the same as those of Old English epic, but partly so,
and never at all like the helpless medley of Layamon. It must have
been hidden away somewhere underground-continuing in a purer
tradition than happens to have found its way into extant manuscripts-till, at last, there is a striking revival in the reign of
Edward III. There are some hints and indications in the meantime.
Giraldus the untiring, the untamed, with his quick wit and his lively
interest in all manner of things, has a note comparing the Welsh and
the English love of alliteration-as he compares the part-singing of
Wales with that of the north country. He gives English examples:
Good is togedere gamen and wisdom,
a regular line, like those of the fourteenth century and unlike the
practice of Layamon. Plainly, many things went on besides what
is recorded in the surviving manuscripts. At any rate, the result in
the fourteenth century alliterative poems is a noble one.
The plots of the romances are, like the style of them, not so
monotonous as at first appears. They are not all incoherent, and
incoherence is not found exclusively in the minstrels' tales; there
are faults of composition in some of Chaucer's stories (e.g. The
Man of Law's Tale), as manifest as those which he satirised in
Sir Thopas. A great many of the romances are little better than
hackneyed repetitions, made by an easy kaleidoscopic shuffling of
a few simple elements. Perhaps Sir Beves is the best example of
the ordinary popular tale, the medieval book of chivalry with all
the right things in it. It might have been produced in the same
way as The Knight of the Burning Pestle, by allowing the audience
to prescribe what was required. The hero's father is murdered,
like Hamlet's; the hero is disinherited, like Horn; he is wooed by
a fair Paynim princess; he carries a treacherous letter, like Hamlet
again, "and beareth with him his own death"; he is separated
from his wife and children, like St Eustace or Sir Isumbras; and
exiled, like Huon of Bordeaux, for causing the death of the king's
son. The horse Arundel is like Bayard in The Four Sons of




Traditional Plots                   293
Aymon, and the giant Ascapart is won over like Ferumbras1. In
the French original there was one conspicuous defect-no dragon.
But the dragon is supplied, most liberally and with great success,
in the English version. It makes one think of a good puppet-show;
for example, the play of Don Gayferos, which drew Don Quixote
into a passion. " Stay, your worship, and consider that those Moors
which your worship is routing and slaying are not real Moors, but
pasteboard!" Saracens are cheap in the old romances; King Horn
rode out one day and bagged a hundred to his own sword. Yet
there are differences; in Sir Ferumbras, which is no very ambitious
poem, but a story which has shared with Sir Beves and Sir Guy
the favour of simple audiences for many generations, there is
another kind of fighting, because it comes from the Old French
epic school, which gives full particulars of every combat, on the
same scale as the Iliad. So far, the work is more solid than in
Sir Beves. There are worse things, however, than the puppet-show
of chivalry. The story of Guy of Warwick, for instance, is something of a trial for the most reckless and most "Gothic" reader;
instead of the brightly coloured figures of Sir Beves or King Horn
and their adversaries, there is a doleful, stale religion in it, a most
trashy mixture of asceticism (like the legend of St Alexius), with
the most hackneyed adventures. Not that commonplace adventures
need be dull; sometimes even an increased acquaintance with
parallels and variants and so forth may heighten the interest; as
when Horn returns in disguise and sits down in the "beggars' row."
It is natural to think of the beggars at the foot of the hall in the
Odyssey; there is the same kind of scene in an Irish popular tale
(Blaiman2), where a recognition takes place like that of King Horn.
In comparing them, one seems to get, not, indeed, any clear theory
of the way in which the ideas of stories are carried about the world,
but a pleasant sense of the community of stories, so to speak, and
of the relation between stories and real life, in different ages and
places.
Traditional plots like those of the fairy tales appear in
medieval romances; not often enough, one is inclined to say, and
not always with any distinct superiority of the literary to the
popular oral version. One example is Sir Amadas, which is the
story of the grateful ghost, the travelling companion, The Old
1 A resemblance has been traced between Sir Beves and some things in Firdusi.
The east had its books of chivalry like the west, and nearly at the same time. Cf.
Deutschbein, Englische Sagengeschichte.
2 Curtin, Hero Tales of Ireland.




294     Metrical Romances, 1200-1o500
Wives' Tale. This story, one of the best known in all languages,
has a strange power to keep its elements free of contamination.
It is found in many mixed forms, it is true, but some of the latest
folklore versions are distinct and coherent. There is an Irish
version (Beauty of the World, given by Larminie in Gaelic and
English) which, when compared with Sir Amadas, seems to prove
that the authors of the metrical romances might possibly have done
better if they had attended to the narrative, like the simple tellers
of fairy tales, without troubling themselves as to the rhetoric of the
French school. Another example of the same sort can be obtained
by comparing Sir Perceval with some of the folklore analogues.
Sir Perceval is one of the simplest of the old romances: it seems
at first almost like a rude burlesque of the Conte del Graal. It is
now commonly thought to be taken from an earlier lost French
version of the same subject. However that may be, it shows the
common roughness of the English as compared with the French
tales; it is full of spirit, but it is not gentle. Percival in this
romance is not like the Percival of Wolfram or of Malory; he is a
rollicking popular hero who blunders into great exploits. The
style, even for this sort of motive, is rather too boisterous. Again,
in this case, as with Sir Amadas, there may be found a traditional
oral rendering of some of the same matters which, in point of
style, is better than the English metrical romance. The scene
of the discourteous knight breaking in and insulting the king is
found in the west Highland tale of The Knight of the Red Shield,
in Campbell's collection, and it is told there with greater command
of language and better effect.
"Breton lays" have been mentioned; the name meant for
the English a short story in rime, like those of Marie de France,
taken from Celtic sources. Some of these were more complex than
others, but they were never spun out like the romances of Beves
and Guy, and the best of them are very good in the way they
manage their plot. Moreover there is something in them of that
romantic mystery which is less common in medieval literature than
modern readers generally suppose; it is not often to be found in
the professional fiction of the Middle Ages. But the Breton lays
are nearer than other romances to the popular beliefs out of
which romantic marvels are drawn, and they retain something
of their freshness. The best in English are Sir Orfeo and Sir
Launfal. The first of these, which is the story of Orpheus, is a
proof of what can be done by mere form; the classical fable is
completely taken over, and turned into a fairy tale; hardly any



Fairy Tales


295


thing is left to it except what it owes to the Breton form
(of thought and expression). It is a story like that of young
Tamlane in the ballad, a rescue from the fairy, for Pluto has
become the fairy king, and everything ends happily; Eurydice is
brought back in safety. There is nothing wrong in the description
of it as a " Breton lay," for it is wholly such a tale as the Bretons,
and many other people, might have told without any suggestion
from Greek or Latin. The English poem (no original is extant
in French) is an utterly different thing from the rambling tales
of chivalry. It has much of the quality that is found in some
of the ballads; and in time, through some strange fortune, it
became itself a ballad, and was found in Shetland, not very long
ago, with a Norse refrain to itl.
The different versions of Launfal-Landavall in couplets,
Launfal Miles of Thomas Chestre, in rime couee, and the degenerate Sir Lambewell of the Percy MS-have been carefully
studied and made to exhibit some of the ordinary processes of
translation and adaptation. They come from Marie de FranceThomas Chestre took something from the lay of Graelent besides
the main plot of Lanval. The story is one of the best known; the
fairy brideThe kinge's daughter of Avalon,
That is an isle of the fairie
In ocean full fair to seeand the loss of her, through the breaking of her command. The
Wedding of Sir Gawain, which, in another form, is The Wife of
Bath's Tale, is from the same mythical region, and has some of
the same merits.
The romance of Sir Libeaus, "the fair unknown," the son of
Sir Gawain, is of different proportions, less simple and direct than
Orfeo or Launfal. But it keeps some of the virtues of the fairy
tale, and is one of the most pleasing of all the company of Sir
Thopas. Adventures are too easily multiplied in it, but it is not a
mere jumble of stock incidents. It is very like the story of Gareth
in Malory, and, along with Gareth, may have suggested some things
to Spenser, for the story of the Red Cross Knight. Also, the
breaking of the enchantment in the castle of Busirane may owe
something to Sir Libeaus: there seems to have been an old
printed edition of Libius Disconius, though no printed copy is
extant. The plot is a good one, the expedition of a young and
untried knight to rescue a lady from enchantment; it is a pure
1 Child, Ballads, No. 19.




296      Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
romance of knight errantry, very fit to be taken as an example of
that order, and, possibly, the best of all the riming tales that keep
simply to the familiar adventures of books of chivalry. Sir Libeaus
takes a long time to reach the palace of the two enchanters" clerkes of nigremauncie "-who keep the lady of Sinaudon under
their spells in the shape of a loathly worm. But the excursions
and digressions have some spirit in them, and no confusion.
The elements of the plot in Sir Gawayne and the Grene
Knight1 are as ancient and unreasonable as are to be found in any
mythology. No precise original has been found in French; but
the chief adventure, the beheading game proposed by the Green
Knight to the reluctant courtiers of king Arthur occurs often in
other stories. It comes in one of the stories of Cuchulinn in Irish2;
it comes, more than once, in the French romances; e.g. in La Mule
sans Frein, one of the best of the shorter stories, a strange oldfashioned chivalrous pilgrim's progress; and this, too, sets out
from king Arthur's court, and the hero is Gawain. The beheading
"jeopardy" is a most successful piece of unreason; "you may cut
off my head, if only I may have a stroke at you some other day."
Sir Gawain cuts off the Green Knight's head; the Green Knight
picks it up; he summons Gawain to travel and find him by an
appointed day, and submit his neck to the return-stroke. This is
good enough, one would imagine, for a grotesque romance; one
hears the reader quoting aegri somnia and reaffirming his contempt for the Middle Ages. Yet this romance of Sir Gawayne is
very different from the ordinary books of chivalry; it is one of the
most singular works of the fourteenth century, and it is one of the
strongest, both in imagination and in literary art. The author
loses nothing of the fantastic value of his plot; on the contrary, he
does everything possible to heighten the effect of it, to a grotesque
sublimity; while, at the same time, he is concerned, as Shakespeare
often is, to transform the folklore with which he is working, and
make it play into his moral scheme. He is a great moralist and
he can use allegory; but, in his treatment of this story, his
imagination is generally too strong for abstract methods. He
succeeds (a very remarkable feat) in making his readers accept
strange adventures as part of a reasonable man's life; not
smoothing away or suppressing absurdities, but getting out of
them everything possible in the way of terror and wonder; and
1 See also Chapter xv, where this romance is further considered as part of the
work of the author of Pearl.
2 Cf. Bricriu's Feast, edited by G. Henderson for the Irish Texts Society.




Gawain and Tristram


297


using mockery also, like that of the northern myths of Thor and the
giants. Allegory comes in, but accidentally, in the description of
Gawain's shield and its device, the " pentangle," with its religious
motive-Gawain as the servant of Our Lady; thus adding something more to the complexity of the work. It is a different thing
from the simple beauty of the fairy tales; and, on the other
hand, the common futilities of the minstrels are kept at a
safe distance by this author. His landscape is not that of the
ordinary books; Sir Gawain is not sent wandering in the conventional romantic scenery, but in the highlands of Wales in
winter, all well known and understood by the poet, with thorough
enjoyment of the season, "the flaky shower and whirling drift."
This is not quite exceptional, for, though the winter passages of
the Scottish Chaucerians are later, the alliterative poets generally
were good at stormy weather; but there is none equal to the poet
of Sir Gawayne in this kind of description. The three hunting
scenes-of the hart, the boar and the fox-serve to bring out his
talent further, while the way they are placed in contrast with the
Christmas revels in the castle, show, at any rate, the writer's care
for composition; symmetry of this sort may not be very difficult,
but it is not too common at this time. The temptation of Sir
Gawain and the blandishments of the lady may have been suggested
by the French romance of Ider; but, as in the case of the other
ordeal-the beheading game-the English poet has given his own
rendering.
Sir Tristrem is a great contrast to Sir Gawayne, though both
works are ambitious and carefully studied. The author of Sir
Gawayne took some old wives' fables and made them into a magnificent piece of Gothic art; the other writer had one of the
noblest stories in the world to deal with, and translated it into
thin tinkling rimes.
Ysonde of heighe priis,
The maiden bright of hewe,
That wered fow and griis
And scarlet that was newe,
In warld was non so wiis
Of crafte that men knewe,
Withouten Sir Tramtris
That al games of grewe
On grounde.
Hom Iongeth Tramtris the trewe.
For heled was his wounde.


The author is so pleased with his command of verse that he loses




298      Metrical Romances, 1200              1500
all proper sense of his tragic theme. Tristram and Iseult had to
wait long for their poet, in England.
The Tale of Gamelyn may count for something on the native
English side against the many borrowed French romances. It is a
story of the youngest son cruelly treated by his tyrannical elder
brother, and coming to his own again with the help of the king of
outlaws. Thomas Lodge made a novel out of it, and kept a
number of incidents-the defeat of the wrestler (the "champioun"
as he is called), the loyalty of Adam Spencer and the meeting with
the outlaws-and so these found their way to Shakespeare, and,
along with them, the spirit of the greenwood and its freedom. The
Tale of Gamelyn is As You Like It, without Rosalind or Celia;
the motive is, naturally, much simpler than in the novel or the
play: merely the poetical justice of the young man's adventures
and restoration, with the humorous popular flouting of respectability in the opposition of the liberal outlaws to the dishonest
elder brother and the stupid abbots and priors.
"Ow!" seyde Gamelyn, "so brouke I my bon
Now I have aspyed that freendes have I non;
Cursed mot he worthe, bothe fleisch and blood
That ever do priour or abbot any good!"
The verse is, more or less, the same as that of Robert of Gloucester,
and of the southern Legends of Saints; nowhere is it used with
more freedom and spirit than in Gamelyn:
Then seide the maister, kyng of outlawes
"What seeke ye, yonge men, under woode-schawes?"
Gamelyn answerde the king with his croune,
"He moste needes walke in woode that may not walke in towne:
Sir, we walke not heer non harm for to do,
But if we meete with a deer to schute therto,
As men that ben hungry and mow no mete fynde,
And ben harde bystad under woode-lynde?'
Gamelyn is found only in MSS of The Canterbury Tales; Skeat's
conjecture is a fair one, that it was kept by Chaucer among
his papers, to be worked up, some day, into The Yeoman's Tale.
Another romance, less closely attached to Chaucer's work, the
Tale of Beryn (called The Merchant's Second Tale) is also, like
Gamelyn, rather exceptional in its plot. It is a comic story, and
comes from the east: how Beryn with his merchandise was driven
by a storm at sea to a strange harbour, a city of practical jokers;
and how he was treated by the burgesses there, and hard put to it
to escape from their knavery; and how he was helped against the
sharpers by a valiant cripple, Geoffrey, and shown the way to
defeat them by tricks more impudent than their own.




Gamelyn and Beryn


299


The verse of Beryn is of the same sort as in Gamelyn, but more
uneven; often very brisk, but sometimes falling into the tune of
the early Elizabethan doggerel drama:
After these two brethren, Romulus and Romus,
Julius Cesar was Emperour, that rightful was of domus.
But on the other hand there are good verses like these:
For after misty cloudes ther cometh a eler sonne
So after bale cometh bote, whoso bide conne.
There are, obviously, certain types and classes among the
romances; medieval literature generally ran in conventional
moulds, and its clients accepted readily the well-known turns of a
story and the favourite characters. But, at the same time, in
reading the romances one has a continual sense of change and of
experiment; there is no romantic school so definite and assured as
to make any one type into a standard; not even Chaucer succeeded
in doing what Chrdtien had done two centuries earlier in France.
The English romancers have generally too little ambition, and the
ambitious and original writers are too individual and peculiar to
found any proper school, or to establish in England a medieval
pattern of narrative that might be compared with the modern novel.
Sir Thopas he bereth the flour,
and the companions of Sir Thopas, who are the largest group,
never think of competing seriously with the great French authors
of the twelfth century, the masters, as they must be reckoned, of
medieval romantic poetry. The English, like the Italians, were too
late; they missed the twelfth century and its influences and ideals,
or only took them up when other and still stronger forces were
declaring themselves. They failed to give shape in English to the
great medieval romantic themes; they failed in Sir Tristrem; and
the Middle Ages were at an end before Sir Thomas Malory brought
out the noblest of all purely medieval English romances, translated
from "the French book " that was then nearly three centuries old.
The relation of the romances to popular ballads is not easy
to understand. The romances and their plots go through many
transformations; Horn and Launfal are proof of this. Horn
turns into a ballad, and so do many others; the ballad of Orfea
has been mentioned. But it will not do to take the ballads in a
lump as degenerate forms of earlier narrative poetry, for the ballad
is essentially a lyrical form, and has its own laws, independent of
all forms of narrative poetry in extant medieval English; and, again,




300     Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
a great number of ballads have plots which not only do not occur in
any known romances (which, of itself, would prove little or nothing)
but they are plainly not fitted for narrative of any length (e.g. Lord
Randal, Sir Patrick Spens, The Wife of Usher's Well). On the
whole, it seems best to suppose that the two forms of lyrical ballad
and narrative romance were independent, though not in antagonism,
through all the Middle Ages. They seem to have drawn their
ideas from different sources, for the most part. Though almost
anything may be made the subject of a ballad, there are certain
kinds of plot that seem to be specially fitted for the ballad and
much less for the long story; fairy adventures, like that of Tamlane, heroic defences against odds, like that of Parcy Reed and,
before all, tragic stories, like Annie of Lochryan or the Douglas
tragedy. The romances, as a rule, end happily, but there is no
such law in ballads. It will be found, too, that the romances
which have most likeness to ballads are generally among those
of the shorter and simpler kind, like Orfeo and the Lai le Freine.
The question is made more complicated by the use of ballad
measure for some of the later romances, like The Knight of
Curtesy, a strange version of The Chevalier de Coucy. Of Robin
Hood and Adam Bell and many more it is hard to say whether
they are to be ranked with ballads or with romances. But all
this is matter for another enquiry.




CHAPTER XIV


METRICAL ROMANCES, 1200-1500
II
THE metrical romances which form during three centuries a
distinctive feature of our literature must in no sense be regarded as
an isolated phenomenon. They begin under the auspices of the
twelfth century renascence. They supply a want while feudalism
lasts. And they begin to vanish when feudalism crumbles in the wars
of the Roses. It has been already said that legend and love were
the two main themes of the twelfth century literary revolt against
earlier religious traditions, and it is not without significance that
they were precisely the themes of this new creation, the romance.
It is true that the crusading zeal, and occasional Christianising
tendencies, which characterise some of the romances, still point to
militant religious forces, but religion ceases to supply the initial
impulse, or to give direction. The raison detre of the romances
is of a secular kind It was felt to be good to indulge the fancy and
to hear of love, and so legendary and historical narratives and
cheerful love-stories were, from time to time, related with no
other motive than the telling of a good tale. The romance, then,
obviously forms part of, or is, perhaps, the sequel to, that general
emancipatory movement in literature which marked the twelfth
century.'- -
But the form and tone of the English romance were determined
by more than one consideration. Political and social connections
with France and Britanny rendered available a store of French
material, and Welsh traditions, through the medium of Britanny,
were found to increase that store. The movements of the crusaders
brought the west into closer touch with the east. And, amidst all
these alien influences, something of what was native still persisted.
Nor must internal considerations be entirely forgotten. Neither
social nor intellectual development failed to leave its mark upon
this branch of literature. Woman had come to be regarded as of
more importance than ever in the community. The literary tendencies which made for love-tales found their counterpart in the striving




302     Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
towards higher ideals of conduct in relation to woman. Manners
became more refined and a code of chivalry was evolved.
Heightened sensibility was, moreover, revealed in the increased
appreciation of the beautiful-the beauty of womanhood, the
beauty of nature, the beauty of noble conduct. And the refinement of fancy made fairyland seem possible.
Jean Bodel's classification of the romances has already been
mentioned. Regarding them, however, from the point of view
of the motives and influences they embody, it is seen that they
fall into certain groups: Carolingian or Old French, Old English,
classical, oriental and Celtic.
The Carolingian element is represented in medieval English
romance by Sir Otuel, Roland and Vernagu and Sir Ferumbras.
The first is an account of a Saracen attack upon France. Sir Otuel
is the Saracen emissary who insultingly defies Charlemagne in his
own hall and is, in consequence, challenged by Roland. A stiff
fight follows; but, in answer to Charlemagne's prayers, a white
dove alights upon the shoulders of the Saracen; whereupon he
capitulates and undertakes to embrace the Christian faith. Roland
and Vernagu deals with Charlemagne's exploits in Spain. Its
main incident consists of a combat, spread over two days, between
Roland and Vernagu, the gigantic black champion of the sultan of
Babylon. At one point of the protracted duel the giant is overcome with sleep; and this leads to an exhibition of knightly
courtesy. So far from taking advantage of his slumbering rival,
Roland seeks to make those slumbers easy by improvising a
rough pillow beneath his head. Sir Ferumbras relates the capture
of Rome by the Saracen hosts and its relief by Charlemagne. The
usual combat takes place, this time between Olivier and Ferumbras,
son of the sultan of Babylon. The Saracen is, as usual, overcome
and accepts Christianity. His sister Floripas, who is in love with
the French Sir Guy, afterwards her husband, assists the Christians,
and both brother and sister are subsequently rewarded with
territory in Spain.
In these works there is obviously embalmed the fierce heroic
temper of the Carolingian era. The animating spirit is that of the
crusades. Saracen champions are consistently worsted and forcibly
persuaded, after sanguinary combat, of the beauties of Christian
doctrine. The chivalrous ideal is still in the making, and
the self-restraint and courtesy of Christian heroes are shown
to contrast favourably with the brutal manners of Saracen




Havelok


303


warriors. But chivalry, as such, is still a battle-field grace; its
softening virtues have yet to be developed in other spheres of
activity. The glory of womanhood lies in ferocity and daring, in
a strong initiative, if needs be, in affairs of love. Floripas in
Sir Ferumbras, for the sake of her love, deceives her father,
overpowers her governess and brains a jailor: and other Carolingian heroines like Blancheflour and Guiboux are similarly
formidable.
The romances which spring directly from English soil are
animated by essentially different motives and reflect a different
society from that of the French group. In Havelok and Horn,
in Guy of Warwick and Beves of Hamtoun there exists
primarily the viking atmosphere of tenth century England,
though the sagas, in their actual form, have acquired, through alien
handling, a certain crusade colouring. In Horn, for instance,
Saracens are substituted for vikings in plain disregard of historical
verisimilitude; and again, in Guy of Warwick, the English
legend has been invested with fresh motives and relentlessly
expanded with adventures in Paynim. After removing such
excrescences, however, we shall find something of earlier English
conditions. Such situations as they depict, arising out of usurpation on the part of faithless guardians of royal children, spring, in
a great measure, out of pre-Conquest unsettlement. They were
situations not uncommon in the day of small kingdoms and restless
viking hordes.  Havelok is a tale of how a Danish prince and an
English princess came to their own again. The hero, son of the
Danish king Birkabeyn, is handed over by his wicked guardian
Godard, to a fisherman Grim, to be drowned. A mystic light,
however, reveals Havelok's royal birth to the simple Grim, who
saves the situation by crossing to England. They land at Grimsby,
a town that still cherishes the name of Havelok and the characters
of the tale, in its streets and its seal; and the hero, by a happy
coincidence, drifts as a kitchen-boy, into the household of Godrich,
guardian of Goldburgh. This guardian, however, is no better than
Godard, for he has likewise deprived the daughter of the English
Aethelwold of her inheritance. Havelok is a strong, handsome
youth, who soon becomes famous for feats of strength; whereupon
Godrich, who had promised Aethelwold that he would marry
Goldburgh to the "best man" in the country, maliciously keeps
his promise by forcing her to marry his "cook's knave," a
popular hero by reason of his athletic deeds. By degrading




304     Metrical Romances,         200  -1500
Goldburgh into a churl's wife Godrich hopes to make his hold
upon her inheritance secure. The princess naturally bewails her
lot when led away by Havelok, but she becomes reconciled when
mysterious signs assure her, as they had previously assured Grim,
of her husband's royal origin. Meanwhile, the faithful Ubbe, who
has set matters right in Denmark, appears in England, when all
wrongs are righted and the united futures of hero and heroine
are straightway assured.
Horn is a viking story plainly adapted to romantic ends.
The hero is the youthful son of the king of Suddene (Isle of
Man), who, after the death of his father, at the hands of raiding
Saracens (vikings), is turned adrift in a rudderless boat. Wind
and tide bring the boat with its living freight to the land of
Westernesse (Wirral?), where the princess Rymenhild, falling
in love with the stranded hero, endeavours, with womanly art, to
win his love in return. Horn is knighted through Rymenhild's good offices; but, before he can surrender himself to the
pleasant bondage of love, he longs to accomplish knightly deeds.
He therefore departs in quest of adventure, but leaves behind
him a traitorous companion, Fikenhild, who reveals to the king the
secret of the lovers. Horn is banished and only returns on learning that Rymenhild is about to wed. He appears in pilgrim garb,
is forgiven, and rescues the princess from a distasteful suitor. But,
after marriage, the old knightly instincts again assert themselves;
and he crosses to Suddene, which he rids of invaders. The
treacherous Fikenhild had, however, in the meantime carried off
Rymenhild, and Horn, after avenging this deed, returns once more
to his homeland, this time not alone.
In the ponderous but popular Guy of Waruwick we recognise a tedious expansion of a stirring English legend. Sir Guy
was regarded as a national hero, who, by his victory over
Colbrand the Dane, had rescued England from the grip of the
invader. In the romance this appears-but in company with
other episodes which destroy the simplicity of the earlier narrative,
confuse its motive and change its colouring. When he first
comes on the scene, Guy is madly in love with Felice the
beautiful daughter of the earl of Warwick; but his suit is denied
on account of his inferiority of standing, for he is but the son of
the earl's steward. He, therefore, ventures abroad, and returns in
a few years, laden with honours: but only to be repulsed once
more by his too scrupulous mistress, who now fears that wedded
life may transform her hero into a slothful and turgid knight.




Guy of Warwick                     305
Once more he goes abroad; and, after brisk campaigning, he is
welcomed on his return by Aethelstan, at whose request he rids
Northumbria of an insatiable dragon. After this, Felice can hold
out no longer. The lovers are united; but now Guy begins to
entertain scruples. The rest of his life is to be spent in hardship
and penance, and he leaves again for uncouth lands. He returns
in due course to find king Aethelstan hard pressed by the Danish
Anlaf; but Guy's overthrow of Colbrand saves the kingdom and he
sets out forthwith on his way to Warwick. Disguised as a palmer,
he finds his wife engaged in works of charity; but, without revealing
his identity, he stoically retires to a neighbouring hermitage, where
the much-tried couple are finally united before he breathes his last.
Beves of Hamtoun, like Horn, springs from English soil,
but the transforming process traced in the one is completed
in the other. Beves presents almost entirely crusading tendencies,
but few traces remain of the earlier form. Beves, who has been
despatched as a slave to heathen parts by a treacherous mother,
ultimately arrives at the court of the Saracen king Ermyn.
Here he is the recipient of handsome favours, and is offered
the hand of the princess Josian, on condition that he forsakes the Christian faith. This he refuses to do, but the valour
he displays in staggering exploits still keeps him in favour, and
Josian, for his love, is prepared to renounce her native gods. The
king hears of this, and Beves is committed to a neighbouring
potentate, by whom he is kept in a horrible dungeon for some
seven years. After a marvellous escape from his terrible surroundings, Beves seeks out Josian, and both flee to Cologne,
where they are duly wedded. The hero's career continues to be as
eventful as ever; but he is finally induced to turn towards home,
where he succeeds in regaining his inheritance, and is recognised
as a worthy knight by the reigning king Edgar.
In attempting to estimate the contribution made by these four
works to Middle English romance, it must be remembered that,
although they originate ultimately from the England of the
vikings, of Aethelstan and Edgar, they have all been touched
with later foreign influences. In them may be perceived, however, an undeveloped chivalry, as well as reminiscences of Old
English life and thought. The code of chivalry is as yet unformulated. In Havelok we see the simple ideal of righting the
wrong. In Horn and Guy of Warwick is perceptible a refinement
of love which makes for asceticism; but the love details are not, in
general, elaborated in accordance with later chivalrous ideals.
E. L. I. CH. XIV.                               20




306     Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
Rymenhild and Josian both woo and are wooed; but they lack
the violence of Carolingian heroines. In Felice alone do we find
traces of that scrupulous niceness encouraged in the era of the
courts of love. With regard to the existence of earlier English
reminiscences, in both Horn and Havelok can be seen the joy in
descriptions of the sea characteristic of Old English verse. Both Guy
and Beves, again, have their dragons to encounter after the fashion
of Beowulf. The marvellous, which, to some extent, appears in
Havelok, is of the kind found in Germanic folk-lore; it is distinct
in its essence from the product of Celtic fancy. The plebeian
elements in the same work, which embody a detailed description
of humble life, and which are in striking contrast to the monotonous aristocratic colouring of the romance elsewhere, witness,
undoubtedly, to a primitive pre-Conquest community. And, last,
Guy's great fight with Colbrand breathes the motive of patriotism
-the motive of Byrhtnoth-rather than the religious zeal which
fired crusading heroes in their single combats.
The English medieval romance levied contributions also upon
the literature of antiquity.  Such levies were due neither to
crusading zeal, which loved to recall Charlemagne's great fights
against Saracen hosts, nor to the impulse which clung tightly to
native history and homespun stories. They were, rather, the outcome of a cherished conceit based on a piece of ingenious etymology,
according to which Englishmen, as inhabitants of Britain, held
themselves to be of Trojan descent in virtue of Brutus. In this
way did the literature of antiquity suggest itself as, to some extent,
an appropriate field for the business of romancing. The Geste
Hystoriale of the Destruction of Troy and King Alisaunder may
be taken as typical of this class. The former of these consists
of an epitome of the well-known story with, however, many
modifications characteristic of medieval genius. It sets forth the
antique world interpreted in terms of medievalism; Greek warfare,
Greek customs and Greek religion alike appearing in the garb of
the Middle Ages. And, together with these changes, were tacitly
introduced fairy reminiscences and magical details. But, most
interesting of all, in the Troy narrative, are those elements of the
story of Troilus and Briseida taken over from Benoit de Ste More,
and subsequently moulded into one of the world's greatest stories.
In King Alisaunder we see fashioned the historical and legendary hero, his career being supplemented with hosts of fanciful stories
drawn from the east. His birth is alike mysterious and marvellous.




Richard Cceur de Lion


307


His youth and manhood are passed in prodigious undertakings.
He tames the fiery Bucephalus. He captures Tyre and burns
Thebes. Darius falls before him. He advances through Persia and
onwards to the Ganges, conquering, on his way, the great Porrus
of India. His homeward journey is a progress through wonderland.
All the magic of the east lies concentrated in his path; he passes
by crowned snakes and mysterious trees, and beholds, in the
distance, cliffs sparkling with diamonds. He is ultimately poisoned
by a friend and honourably buried in a tomb of gold.
The ruling motive of these classical romances, as compared
with others of their kind, is clearly that of depicting, on a large scale,
the heroic element in humanity and of pointing out the glories of
invincible knighthood. They concern themselves, not with chivalrous
love, but with chivalrous valour and knightly accomplishments.
Their aim is to point to the more masculine elements of medieval
chivalry. The joy of battle is everywhere articulate-not least so
in the picturesque movements of warlike bodies, and in the varied
sounds of the battlefield. The method of developing this motive
is, for the most part, by bringing the west into touch with the
east. The treasuries of Babylonian and antique fable are ransacked to glorify the theme of warlike magnificence. The wider
mental horizon and the taste for wonders which attracted contemporaries in Mandeville's Travels are here enlisted in the work
of romance.
Closely akin to the Alexander romance is Richard Coeur de
Lion, which may, therefore, be considered here, though its story is
not of either eastern or classical origin. The scheme in both is much
the same. Richard's birth is mysterious as was Alexander's. In
early manhood Richard wrenches out the lion's heart; Alexander
tames Bucephalus. Both march to the east to perform great
things: both are presented as types of valorous greatness. In
the romance Richard appears as the son of Henry II and the
beautiful enchantress Cassodorien. He is imprisoned in Germany
as the result of an escapade on his way home from the Holy Land,
and it is here that he tears out the heart of a lion set loose in his
cell.  The proclamation of a general crusade soon afterwards
appeals to Richard and he joins Philip of France on his way to
the east. The French king is consistently treacherous and jealous,
while Richard is no less hasty and passionate, and, in consequence,
ruptures are frequent. After avenging an insult received from
Cyprus, Richard hastens to Syria, where fight succeeds fight
with great regularity, and the Saracens under Saladin are gradually
20-2




308     Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
discomfited. At last a truce of three years is arranged, at which
point the romancer is content to conclude. The romance is one of
the most stirring of the whole group. It deals with the crusades;
but its central theme, like that of the Alexander saga, is the glorification of the romance of war, the exaltation of the fighting hero. It is,
moreover, fiercely patriotic. Scorn is heaped on the braggadocio of
the French, and the drawing of Philip's character is far from flattering. On the other hand, Coeur de Lion's haughty arrogance is the
glory of Englishmen; on his side fight St George and big battalions
of angels. His humour appears as grim as his blows. He feasts
on Saracens and provides the same dish for Saracen ambassadors.
The ideal man of action, as here depicted, is one in whom the
elements are mixed. He is by no means deficient in knightly
instincts and courtesy; but, mingled with these, are coarse-grained
characteristics. He is rude and blunt, forceful and careless of
restraint-all of which traits represent the English contribution
to the heroic picture.
Oriental fable appears in English romance with other effects
than were obtained in the work of King Alisaunder. The more
voluptuous qualities of the east, for instance, are reproduced in
Flores and Blancheflour and result in a style of romance tolerably
distinct. In The Seven Sages of Rome, again, the story-book is
employed in oriental fashion. The heroine of the first, Blancheflour,
is a Christian princess carried off by the Saracens in Spain and
subsequently educated along with their young prince Flores.
Childish friendship develops into love, and Flores is promptly
removed-but not before his lady has given him a magic ring
which will tarnish when the giver is in danger. Danger soon
threatens her in the shape of false accusation; but this peril, being
revealed to Flores by means of his ring, is duly averted, though
subsequent treachery succeeds in despatching the princess to
Egypt as a slave. Thither Flores pursues her; and, by dint of
bribery and stratagem, he succeeds in entering the seraglio
where she is detained. The inevitable discovery follows, but the
anger of the emir having vanished on his learning all the
circumstances, the trials of the lovers come to a pleasant end.
In this work the central theme is, once again, that of love;
but, in the manner of treatment, there are visible certain
departures. According to western standards, the tone is, in fact,
somewhat sentimental. It is felt that soul-stirring passions are
not involved; the whole seems wanting in the quality of hardihood.




Flores and Blancheflour


309


Flores, for instance, swoons in your true sentimental fashion. He
finds heart's-ease in exile by tracing his lady's name in flowerdesigns He wins his cause by dint of magic and persuasion rather
than by the strength of his own right arm. An oriental colouring is
also noticeable in the sensuous descriptions of garden and seraglio,
as well as in the part played by the magic ring. We have here
material and motives which enlarged the domain of the medieval
romance, and which appealed to Chaucer when he set about
writing his Squire's Tale. In The Seven Sages of Rome other
aspects of the east are duly represented. Diocletian's wicked
queen, failing in her attempt to ensnare her stepson Florentine,
viciously accuses him of her own fell designs. Whereupon,
Florentine's seven tutors plead on his behalf by relating seven
tales of the perfidy of woman. The queen, as plaintiff, relates
a corresponding number concerning the wickedness of counsellors.
The tales are told, the queen is unmasked and duly punished.
In an age dedicated by the west to the worship of women we
have here represented the unflattering estimate of womankind
held by the east. The framework and the device of a series of
tales is, likewise, oriental, and so is the didactic tendency which
underlies the whole. The aim is to set forth the dangers to which
youth is subject, not only from the deceit of men, but, also, from
the wiles of women.
Of far greater importance, however, than any of the foregoing
influences is that derived from  Celtic sources. The stories of
Arthur, of Tristram and Gawain, while, in response to formative
influences of the time, they present certain details in common with
the other romances, have yet a distinct atmosphere, fresh motives
and new colouring. Points of similarity exist, but with a difference.
The incessant combats of the Carolingian saga find a counterpart
in the "derring-doe" of Arthurian heroes. As il Horn and
Havelok, the scene in the Celtic romances is laid in Britain; but
the background is Celtic rather than English. Again, just
as King Alisaunder and Richard Cceur de Lion are magnificats of splendid heroic figures, so the glorification of Arthur is
the persistent theme of this Celtic work. And, last, the love-strain
and the magic which came from the east, and were embodied in
Flores and Blancheflour, correspond, in some measure, with Celtic
passion and Celtic mysticism. For such points of contact the
spirit of the age must be held accountable: for such differences as
exist, individual and national genius.




310     Metrical Romances,          200-1 500
The effect of the Celtic genius upon English romance, if, indeed,
such a statement may be ventured upon, was to reveal the passions,
to extend the fancy and to inculcate sensibility. The Celtic element
revealed love as a passion in all its fulness, a passion laden with
possibilities, mysterious and awful in power and effect. It opened
up avenues to a fairy-land peopled with elvish forms and lit by
strange lights. It pointed to an exalted chivalry and lofty ideals,
to a courtesy which was the outcome of a refinement of sentiment.
In the romance of Sir Tristram is embodied the Celtic revelation of love. The English poem is based on the version of Thomas,
and is distinct from that of B4roul. This story of "death-marked"
affection is well known: how Tristram and the fair Iseult are
fatally united by the magic love-potion, quaffed in spite of
Iseult's approaching union with Mark of Cornwall; how their
love persists in spite of honour and duty; how Tristram marries
Iseult of the White Hand and comes to lie wounded in Britanny;
how his wife, distracted with jealousy, falsely announces the ominous
black sail coming over the seas; and how the fair Iseult glides
through the hall and expires on the corpse of her former lover. Here
we feel that the tragedy of love has been remorselessly enacted.
It appears to us as a new and irresistible force, differing alike
from the blandishments of the east and the crudeness of the north.
A sense of mystery and gloom enfolds it all like a misty veil over
cairn and cromlech. The problem is as enduring as life itself.
Enchantment is suggested by means of the love-potion, yet the
weakness is mortal, as, indeed, is the sombre climax. Passion
descends to the level of reality, and the comfortable medieval ending
is sternly eschewed. Love is conducted by neither code nor nice
theory: it moves, simple, sensuous, passionate, to its appointed end,
and relentlessly reveals the poetry of life.
In the romances which deal with the relations between mortal
and fairy we find elements of the richest fancy. Here and elsewhere, in this Celtic section, are discovered landscapes and scenes
which charm the imagination with their glamour and light. Fays
come and go, wrapped in ethereal beauty, and horrible spirit-shapes
appear to the accompaniment of mad symphonies of the elements.
Knights of fairie emerge out of weird forbidden tracts, strange
enchantments dictating or following their various movements.
Mystic commands lightly broken entail tragic penalties, and
mortals become the sport of elvish visitants.
Of the romances which relate to love-passages between mortal
and fairy, Sir Launfal, Sir Orfeo and Emar3 may be taken as




Celtic Romances


3I


types.  In Sir Launfal, the hero receives love-favours from a
beautiful fay, but breaks his bond by carelessly betraying his
secret to the queen. He is condemned to death and abandoned
by the fay, who, however, relents in time and, riding to Arthur's
court, succeeds in carrying the knight off to the Isle of Avalon.
Sir Orfeo may be briefly described as a Celtic adaptation of the
familiar classical story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Queen Heurodys
is carried off into fairyland, in spite of all that human efforts can
do. King Orfeo follows her in despair, as a minstrel, but his
wonderful melodies at last succeed in leading her back to the
haunts of men. In Emarg we have a beautifully told story of the
Constance type, with the addition of certain mystical elements.
The heroine is a mysterious maiden of unearthly beauty who is cast
off by her unnatural father and drifts to the shores of Wales where
she wins Sir Cador's love. After the marriage, Sir Cador goes
abroad, and the young wife is once more turned adrift by an intriguing mother-in-law. She reaches Rome, and there, in due
course, she is happily discovered by the grief-stricken Cador.
Other romances relate the deeds of the offspring of fairy and mortal
union as, for instance, Sir Degare and Sir Gowther. The former
is an account of the son of a fairy knight and a princess of Britain.
He is abandoned in infancy by the princess, who, however, leaves
with him a pair of magic gloves which will fit no hands but hers.
The child in time becomes a knight, and his prowess in the lists
renders him eligible for the hand of the princess, his mother. By
means of the gloves, however, they learn their real relationship;
whereupon Sir Degare relinquishes his claim and succeeds in the
filial task of re-uniting his parents. In Sir Gowther, the hero is the
son of a "fiendish" knight and a gentle lady whom he had betrayed.
The boy, as was predicted, proved to be of a most savage temperament, until the offending Adam was whipped out of him by means
of self-inflicted penance. He then wins the love of an earl's
daughter by glorious achievements in the lists, and piously builds
an abbey to commemorate his conversion.
It is in the Arthurian romances and, more particularly, in those
relating to Sir Gawain, that we find the loftier ideals of chivalry
set forth. Gawain is depicted as the knight of honour and courtesy,
of loyalty and self-sacrifice. Softer manners and greater magnanimity are grafted upon the earlier knighthood. Self-restraint
becomes more and more a knightly virtue. The combats are not
less fierce, but vainglorious boasting gives way to moods of humility.
Victory is followed by noble concern for the vanquished. Passing




312     Metrical Romances, 1200o-           500
over Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight, which is treated elsewhere, we find in Golagros and Gawain these knightly elements
plainly visible. The rudeness of Sir Kay, here and elsewhere, is
devised as a foil to the courtesy of Gawain. Arthur in Tuscany
sends Sir Kay to ask for quarters in a neighbouring castle. His
rude, presumptuous bearing meets with refusal, though, when
Gawain arrives, the request is readily acceded to. The domains
of Golagros are next approached. He is an aggressive knight of
large reputation, whom Arthur makes it his business forthwith to
subdue. A combat is arranged, in which Gawain proves victor;
whereupon the noble Arthurian not only grants the life of the
defiant Golagros, but spares his feelings by returning to his castle
as if he himself were the vanquished. Matters are afterwards
explained, and Golagros, conquered alike by arms and courtesy,
becomes duly enrolled in Arthur's train. In the Awntyrs [Adventures] of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne we find something of the
same elements, together with an exhortation to moral living. The
romance deals with two incidents alleged to have occurred while
Arthur was hunting near Carlisle. The first, however, is an
adaptation of the "Trentals of St Gregory." A ghastly figure is
represented as emerging from the Tarn, and appearing before
Guinevere and Gawain. It is Guinevere's mother in the direst
torments. The queen thereupon makes a vow as to her future
life, and promises, meanwhile, to have masses sung for her mother's
soul. The second incident is of a more conventional kind, and
deals with the fight between Gawain and Galleroun.
Ywain and Gawain is another romance which embodies much
that is characteristic of Arthurian chivalry. Ywain sets out on a
certain quest from Arthur's court. He defeats a knight near the
fountain of Broceliande, pursues him to his castle and marries
Laudine, mistress of that place. After further adventures in love and
war, in most of which he has the company of a friendly lion, he falls
in with Gawain and, ignorant of each other's identity, they engage
in combat. The fight is indecisive, and each courteously concedes
to the other the victory-an exchange of compliments which is
speedily followed by a joyful recognition. The Wedding of Sir
Gawain, again, points to loyalty and honour, as involving supreme
self-sacrifice. It relates how Gawain, to save Arthur's life, undertakes to marry the loathsome dame Ragnell. His noble unselfishness, however, is not unrewarded: the dame is subsequently
transformed into the most beauteous of her kind. Libeaus
Desconus, the story of Gyngalyn, Gawain's son, is constructed




T7he Gawain       Cycle              313
on rather conventional lines The fair unknown has several
adventures with giants and others. He visits a fairy castle, where
he meets with an enchantress, and rescues a lady transformed
into a dreadful serpent, who, afterwards, however, becomes his
wife. The scene of the Avowing of Arthur is once more placed
near Carlisle. Arthur is hunting with Sir Gawain, Sir Kay and
Sir Baldwin, when all four undertake separate vows. Arthur is
to capture single-handed a ferocious boar; Sir Kay to fight all
who oppose him  The king is successful; but Sir Kay falls before
a knight who is carrying off a beautiful maiden. The victor, however, is afterwards overcome in a fight with Gawain, and then
ensues a significant contrast in the matter of behaviours. Sir Kay
sustains his earlier reputation by cruelly taunting the beaten
knight; while Sir Gawain, on the other hand, mindful of the claims
of chivalry, is studiously kind and considerate towards his fallen
foe. The riming Mort Arthur, and the alliterative work of
the same name, deal with the close of Arthur's life. In the first
occurs the story of the maid of Ascolot, and her fruitless love for
the noble Lancelot. The narrative is instinct with the pathos
of love, and here, as in Tristram, the subtlety of the treatment
reveals further possibilities of the love theme. Lancelot is, moreover, depicted as Guinevere's champion. The queen is under
condemnation, but is rescued by Lancelot, who endures, in consequence, a siege in the Castle of Joyous Garde. The end of the
Arthurian story begins to be visible in the discord thus introduced between Lancelot and Gawain, Arthur and Modred. The
alliterative Morte Arthure is more seriously historical. Arthur
is represented as returning home from his wars with Lucius on
hearing of Modred's treachery. He fights the traitor, but is
mortally wounded, and is borne to Glastonbury, where he is given
a magnificent burial.
In addition to the romances already mentioned as representative
in some measure of definite influences at work, there yet remain
certain others which call for notice. We have, in the first place,
a group of some five romances which may be considered together as
studies of knightly character. They are works which may be said to
deal, incidentally perhaps, with the building up of the perfect knight
and Christian hero, though anything like psychological treatment
is, of course, entirely absent. In Ipomedon, we see the knight as
a gallant if capricious lover. Marriage having been proposed
between young Ipomedon, prince of Apulia, and the beautiful




314     Metrical Romances,        1200-1500
queen of Calabria, the former determines to woo for himself.
He arrives incognito at the court of the queen, wins her favour
by manly exploits, and then departs somewhat capriciously. He
is, however, induced to return on hearing that a tournament is
to be held of which the queen herself is to be the prize. But,
again, his conduct is strange. He loudly proclaims his dislike for
boisterous tournaments, and ostentatiously sets out on hunting
expeditions on the days of the contests. But he actually
goes to a neighbouring hermitage, whence he issues to the
tournament, clad, on successive days, in red, white and black
armour-a favourite medieval method of disguise adopted by
Sir Gowther and others. He carries all before him and then
vanishes as mysteriously as ever, without claiming his prize or
revealing his identity. Soon afterwards, the queen is hard pressed
by a neighbouring duke, and the hero appears once more to fight
her battles, this time disguised as a fool. It is only after further
adventures, when he feels he has fooled to the top of his bent,
that he declares his love with a happy result. In this stirring
romance we see the knight-errant in quest of love. The assumed
slothfulness and fondness for disguise were frequent attributes
of the medieval hero: the one added interest to actual exploits,
the other was an assurance that the love of the well-born was
accepted on his own individual merits.
In the beautiful romance of Amis and Amiloun we have friendship set forth as a knightly virtue. It is depicted as an all-absorbing
quality which involves, if necessary, the sacrifice of both family and
conscience. Amis and Amiloun are two noble foster-brothers, the
medieval counterparts of Orestes and Pylades, much alike in appearance, whose lives are indissolubly linked together. Amiloun
generously, but surreptitiously, takes the place of Amis in a trial by
combat, for which piece of unselfishness, with the deception involved
in it, he is, subsequently, visited with the scourge of leprosy. Some
time afterwards, Amis finds his friend in pitiable plight, but fails, at
first, to grasp his identity. It is only after a dramatic scene that
the discovery is made, and then Amis, grief-stricken, proceeds to
remove his friend's leprosy by the sacrifice of his own children.
But such a sacrifice is not permitted to be irrevocable. When
Amis and his wife Belisante go to view their slaughtered children,
they are found to be merely sleeping. The sacrifice had been one
upon which the gods themselves threw incense. The romance, as
it stands, is one of the most pathetic and elevating of the whole series.
Knightly love and valour were eloquent themes of the




The Squire of Low Degree


315


medieval romance: in Amis and Amiloun, the beauty of friendship is no less nobly treated. In Sir Cleges, the knightly character
is further developed by the inculcation of charity, wit and shrewdness. The story is simply, but picturesquely, told. The hero is
a knight who is reduced to poverty by reckless charity. When
his fortunes are at their lowest ebb he finds a cherry-tree
in his garden laden with fruit, though snow is on the ground and
the season is yuletide. With this goodly find he sets out to king
Uther at Cardiff, in the hope of restoring his fallen fortunes; but
court officials bar his way until he has promised to divide amongst
them all his reward. The king is gratified, and Cleges is asked
to name his reward. He asks for twelve strokes, which the
officials, in accordance with the bargain, duly receive, to the
unbounded delight of an appreciative court. The identity of
the knight then becomes known and his former charity is suitably
recognised.
The theme of Sir Isumbras is that of Christian humility, the
story itself being an adaptation of the legend of St Eustace. Sir
Isumbras is a knight who, through pride, falls from his high estate
by the will of Providence. He is severely stricken; his possessions, his children and, lastly, his wife, are taken away; and he
himself becomes a wanderer. After much privation nobly endured,
he has learnt his lesson and arrives at the court of a queen, who
proves to be his long-lost wife. His children are then miraculously
restored and he resumes once more his exalted rank.
The Squire of Low Degree is a pleasant romance which does
not belie an attractive title. Its theme suggests the idea of
the existence of knightly character in those of low estate, a
sentiment which had appealed to a conquered English people
in the earlier Havelok. The humble squire in the story wins the
affection of "the king's daughter of Hungary," as well as her
promise to wed when he shall have become a distinguished knight.
An interfering and treacherous steward is righteously slain by the
squire, who then suffers imprisonment, and the king's daughter,
who supposes her lover dead, is thereby reduced to the direst
straits. She refuses consolation, though the king categorically
reminds her of much that is pleasant in life and draws up, in fact,
an interesting list of medieval delights, its feasts, its finery, its
sports and its music. Persuasion failing, the king is obliged to relent.
The squire is released and ventures abroad on knightly quest. He
returns, in due course, to claim his own, and a pleasant romance
ends on a pleasant note. The story loses nothing from the manner




316     Metrical Romances,         200 —I500
of its telling; it is, above all, " mercifully brief." Its English origin
and sentiment, no less than its pictures of medieval life, continue
to make this romance one of the most readable of its kind.
Besides these romances which deal, in some sort, with the
knightly character, there are others which embody variations of
the Constance theme, namely, Sir Triamour, Sir Eglamour of
Artois and Torrent of Portugal. Like Emare, they belong to
the "reunion of kindred" type-a type which appealed to Chaucer
and, still more, to Shakespeare in his latest period. One well-known
romance still calls for notice. This is William ofPalerne, a tale of
love and action which embodies the primitive belief in lycanthropy,
according to which certain people were able to assume, at will,
the character and appearance of wolves. The tradition was widespread in Europe, and it still appears from time to time in modern
works dealing with ghouls and vampires. The story relates how
William, prince of Apulia, is saved from a murderous attack by the
aid of a werwolf, who, in reality, is heir to the Spanish throne. The
werwolf swims with the prince across the straits of Messina, and
again renders aid when his proteg6 is fleeing from Rome with his
love, Melchior. William, subsequently, recovers his royal rights,
and then helps to bring about the restoration to the friendly
werwolf of his human form.
It is striking and, to some extent, characteristic of the age,
that, although the field of English romance was thus wide and
varied, the personality of scarcely a single toiler in that field
has come down to posterity. The anonymity of the work embodied in our ancient cathedrals is a parallel to this, and neither
fact is without its significance. With the Tristram legend is
connected the name of Thomas, a poet of the twelfth century, who
is mentioned by Gottfried of Strassburg in the early thirteenth
century. The somewhat misty but historical Thomas of Erceldoune
has been credited with the composition of a Sir Tristram story,
but this was possibly due to a confusion of the twelfth century
Thomas with his interesting namesake of the succeeding century.
The confusion would be one to which the popular mind was
peculiarly susceptible. Thomas the Rhymer was a romantic
figure credited with prophetical gifts, and a popular tale would
readily be linked with his name, especially as such a process
was consistent with the earlier Thomas tradition as it then
existed.
In the case of three other romances there seem to be certain
grounds for attributing them to a single writer. All three works,




The Age of Romance                    317
King Alisaunder, Arthur and Merlin and Richard C(cur de Lion,
are, apparently, of much the same date, and alike hail from Kent.
Each is animated by the same purpose-that of throwing on to a
large canvas a great heroic figure; there is also to be found in
each of them a certain sympathy with magic. The handling of
the theme in each case proceeds on similar lines; the close
parallel in the schemes of King Alisaunder and Richard Ceaur de
Lion has already been noticed; and the narrative, in each, moves
along in easy animated style. Moreover, similarities of technique
are found in all. The recurrence of similes and comparisons as
well as riming peculiarities in common, suggest the working of
a single mind. In King Alisaunder and Arthur and Merlin
appears the device of beginning the various sections of the narrative with lyric, gnomic, or descriptive lines, presumably to
arouse interest and claim attention. In Richard Coeur de Lion
something of the same tendency is also visible, as when a delightful description of spring is inserted after the gruesome account of
the massacre of a horde of Saracens. All three works betray a joy
in fighting, a joy expressed in vigorous terms. In all is evinced
an ability to seize on the picturesque side of things, whether of
battle or feasting; Saracens fall "as grass before the scythe";
the helmets of the troops shine "like snow upon the mountains."
But if the identity of a common author may thus seem probable,
little or nothing is forthcoming as regards his personality. Certain
coarse details, together with rude humour, seem to suggest a
plebeian pen; and this is, apparently, supported by occasional
references to trades. But nothing certain on the subject can be
stated. The personality of the poet is, at best, but shadowy,
though, undoubtedly, his work is of outstanding merit.
In certain respects these romances may be said to reflect the age
in which they were written. They bear witness in two ways to the
communistic conception of society which then prevailed: first, by
the anonymous character of the writings generally and, secondly,
by the absence of the patriotic note. The individual, from the
communistic standpoint, was but a unit of the nation, the nation
merely a section of a larger Christendom. The sense of individualism, and all that it implied, was yet to be emphasised by a
later renascence. It is, therefore, clear that the anonymity of
the romances, as in the case of the Legendaries and Chronicle,
was, in part, the outcome of such conceptions and notions. The
works represent
The constant service of the antique world
When service sweat for duty, not for meed.




31 8    Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
And the absence of patriotism from the romances results from the
same conditions: national consciousness was not yet reallyawakened.
The mental horizon was bounded not by English shores, but by the
limits of the Holy Roman Empire. Coeur de Lion's career alone
appealed to latent sympathies; for the rest, the romance is untouched by national feeling. French and other material was
adapted without any re-colouring.
The romance also reflects the medieval love of external beauty.
The picturesqueness of the actual, of medieval streets and buildings,
the bright colours in dress, the love of pageantry and pictorial effects,
all helped to inspire, and are, indeed, reflected in, the gay colouring
of the romances. If the stories, again, make considerable demands
upon the credulity, it was not remarkable in regard to the character of the times. All things were possible in an age of faith:
the wisdom of credo quia impossibile was to be questioned in
the succeeding age of reason. Moreover, the atmosphere which
nourished the romantic growth was that of feudalism, and an
aristocratic note everywhere marks its tone and structure. But
it is a glorified feudalism which is thus represented, a feudalism
glorious in its hunting, its feasting and its fighting, in its brave men
and fair women; the lower elements are scarcely ever remembered,
and no pretence is made at holding up the mirror to the whole
of society.
Lastly, like so much of the rest of medieval work, the romance
moves largely amidst abstractions. It avoids close touch with the
concrete: for instance, no reflection is found of the struggles of the
Commons for parliamentary power, or even of the national strivings
against papal dominion. The problems of actual life are carefully
avoided; the material treated consists, rather, of the fanciful
problems of the courts of love and situations arising out of the
new-born chivalry.
The romance has many defects, in spite of all its attractions and
the immense interest it arouses both intrinsically and historically.
It sins in being intolerably long-winded and in being often devoid
of all proportion. A story may drag wearily on, long after the
last chapter has really been written, and insignificant episodes
are treated with as much concern as those of pith and moment.
It further makes demands upon the "painful" reader, not only by
its discursiveness and love of digression, but also by the minuteness
of its descriptions, relentlessly complete, which leave nothing to the
imagination. "The art of the pen is to rouse the inward vision...
because our flying minds cannot contain a protracted description."
This truth was far from being appreciated in the age of the school



General Defects                  319
men, with their encyclopaedic training. The aristocratic tone of
the romance, moreover, tends to become wearisome by its very
monotony. Sated with the sight of knights and ladies, giants and
Saracens, one longs to meet an honest specimen of the citizen
class; but such relief is never granted. To these and other shortcomings, however, the medieval eye was not always blind, though
romances continued to be called for right up to the end of
the fourteenth century and, indeed, after. Chaucer, with his
keen insight and strong human sympathies, had shown himself
aware of all these absurdities, for, in his Sir Thopas, designed
as a parody on the romance in general, these are the points
on which he seizes. When he rambles on for a hundred lines
in Sir Thopas without saying much, he is quietly making the
first point of his indictment. He is exaggerating the discursiveness and minuteness he has found so irksome. And, in the
second place, he ridicules the aristocratic monotone by introducing
a bourgeois note into his parodied romance. The knight swears
an oath on plain "ale and bread": while, in the romantic forest
through which he is wandering, lurk the harmless "buck and hare,"
as well as the homely nutmeg that flavours the ale. The lapse from
romance is sufficiently evident and the work silently embodies
much sound criticism. The host, with blunt remark, ends the
parody, and in him may be seen a matter-of-fact intelligence
declaiming against the faults of romance.
But, with all its shortcomings, the romance has a peculiar
interest from the modern standpoint in that it marks the beginning of English fiction. In it is written the first chapter of the
modern novel. After assuming a pastoral form in the days of
Elizabeth, and after being reclaimed, with all its earlier defects,
in the seventeenth century, romance slowly vanished in the dry
light of the eighteenth century, but not before it had flooded
the stage with astounding heroic plays. The later novels, however, continued the functions of the earlier romances when they
embodied tales of adventures or tales of love whether thwarted or
triumphant. Nor is Richardson's novel of analysis without its
counterpart in this earlier creation. He treated love on psychological lines. But charming love-problems had exercised the minds
of medieval courtiers and had subsequently been analysed in the
romances after the approved fashion of the courts of love. It is
only in the case of the later realistic novel that the origins have
to be sought elsewhere-in the contemporary fabliaux, which
dealt, in a ready manner, with the troubles and the humours of
a lower stratum of life.




CHAPTER XV


PEARL, CLEANNESS, PATIENCE AND
SIR GA WA YNE
AMONG the Cottonian manuscripts in the British Museum, a
small quarto volume, numbered Nero A. x, contains the four Middle
English poems known as Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir
Gawayne and the Grene Knight. The manuscript is in a hand
which seems to belong to the end of the fourteenth or the early
years of the fifteenth century; there are neither titles nor rubrics,
but the chief divisions are marked by large initial letters of blue,
flourished with red; several pictures, coarsely executed, illustrate
the poems, each occupying a full page; the writing is "small,
sharp and irregular."  No single line of these poems has been
discovered in any other manuscript.
The first of the four poems, Pearl, tells of a father's grief for a
lost child, an infant daughter who had lived not two years on earth.
In a vision he beholds his Pearl, no longer a little child, transfigured
as a queen of heaven; from the other bank of a stream which
divides them she instructs him, teaches him the lessons of faith and
resignation and leads him to a glimpse of the new Jerusalem. He
sees his "little queen" in the long procession of maidens; in his
effort to plunge into the stream and reach her he awakes, to find
himself stretched on the child's graveThen woke I in that garden fair;
My head upon that mound was laid,
there where my Pearl had strayed below.
I roused me, and felt in great dismay,
and, sighing to myself, I said:"Now all be to that Prince's pleasure'"1.
Naturally arising from the author's treatment of his subject,
many a theological problem, notably the interpretation of the
parable of the vineyard, is expounded. The student of medieval
theology may find much of interest in Pearl, but the attempt to
read the poem as a theological pamphlet, and a mere symbolical
allegory, ignores its transcendent reality as a poet's lament. The
1 The renderings into modern English, throughout the chapter, are from the
writer's edition of Pearl, 1891.




Sources of Pearl


321


personal side of the poem is clearly marked, though the author
nowhere directly refers to his fatherhood. The basis of Pearl is to
be found in that verse of the Gospel which tells of the man "that
sought the precious mgagrites; and, when he had found one to his
liking, he sold all his goods to buy that jewel." The pearl was
doomed, by the law of nature, to flower and fade like a rose; thereafter it became a "pearl of price"; "the jeweller" indicates clearly
enough the reality of his loss.
A fourteenth century poet, casting about for the form best
suited for such a poem, had two courses before him: on the one
hand, there was the great storehouse of dream-pictures, The
Romaunt of the Rose; on the other hand, the symbolic pages
of Scripture. A poet of the Chaucerian school would have chosen
the former; to him the lost Marguerite would have suggested an
allegory of "the flour that bereth our alder pris in figuringe," and
the Marguerite would have been transfigured as the type of
truest womanhood, a maiden in the train of love's queen, Alcestis.
But the cult of the daisy seems to have been altogether unknown
to our poet, or, at least, to have had no attraction for him. His
Marguerite was, for him, the pearl of the Gospel; Mary, the
queen of heaven, not Alcestis, queen of love, reigns in the
visionary paradise which the poet pictures forth. While the main
part of the poem is a paraphrase of the closing chapters of the
Apocalypse and the parable of the vineyard, the poet's debt to The
Romaunt is noteworthy, more particularly in the description of
the wonderful land through which the dreamer wanders; and it can
be traced here and there throughout the poem, in the personification of Pearl as Reason, in the form of the colloquy, in the details
of dress and ornament, in many a characteristic word, phrase
and reference; "the river from the throne," in the Apocalypse,
here meets "the waters of the wells" devised by Sir Mirth for the
garden of the Rose. From these two sources, The Book of Revelation, with its almost romantic glamour, and The Romaunt of the
Rose, with its almost oriental allegory, are derived much of the
wealth and brilliancy of the poem. The poet's fancy revels in
the richness of the heavenly and the earthly paradise; but his fancy
is subordinated to his earnestness and intensity.
The chief episodes of the poem are best indicated by the four
illustrations in the manuscript.
In the first, the author is represented slumbering in a meadow,
by the side of a beflowered mound, clad in a long red gown, with
falling sleeves, turned up with white, and a blue hood attached
E. L. I.  CH. xv.                                21




322 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
round the neck.   Madden and others who have described the
illustrations have not noticed that there are wings attached to
the shoulders of the dreamer, and a cord reaching up into the
foliage above, evidently intended to indicate that the spirit has
"sped forth into space."
In the second, there is the same figure, drawn on a larger scale,
but without the wings, standing by a river. He has now passed
through the illumined forest-land:
The hill-sides there were crowned
with crystal cliffs full clear,
and holts and woods, all bright with boles,
blue as the blue of Inde,
and trembling leaves, on every branch,
as burnished silver shonewith shimmering sheen they glistened,
touched by the gleam of the glades:
and the gravel I ground upon that strand
was precious orient pearl.
The sun's own light had paled before
that sight so wondrous fair.
In the third picture, he is again represented in a similar position,
with hands raised, and on the opposite side is Pearl, dressed in
white, in the costume of Richard II's and Henry IV's time; her
dress is buttoned tight up to the neck, and on her head is a crown.
In the fourth, the author is kneeling by the water, and, beyond
the stream, is depicted the citadel, on the embattled walls of which
Pearl again appears, with her arms extended towards him.
The metre of Pearl is a stanza of twelve lines with four accents,
rimed according to the scheme ababababbebe, and combining
rime with alliteration; there are one hundred and one such
verses; these divide again into twenty sections, each consisting of
five stanzas with the same refrain-one section exceptionally
contains six stanzas. Throughout the poem, the last or main word
of the refrain is caught up in the first line of the next stanza.
Finally, the last line of the poem is almost identical with the first,
and rounds off the whole. The alliteration is not slavishly maintained, and the trisyllabic movement of the feet adds to the ease
and music of the verse; in each line there is a well-defined caesura.
Other writers before and after the author used this form of metre;
but no extant specimen shows such mastery of the stanza, which,
whatever may be its origin, has some kinship with the sonnet,
though a less monumental form, the first eight lines resembling
the sonnet's octave, the final quatrain the sonnet's sestet, and the




Cleanness and Pearl                      323
whole hundred and one stanzas of Pearl reminding one of a great
sonnet-sequence. As the present writer has said elsewherethe refrain, the repetition of the catchword of each verse, the trammels of
alliteration, all seem to have offered no difficulty to the poet; and, if power
over technical difficulties constitutes in any way a poet's greatness, the author
of Pearl, from this point of view alone, must take high rank among English
poets. With a rich vocabulary at his command, consisting, on the one hand,
of alliterative phrases and "native mother words," and, on the other hand, of
the poetical phraseology of the great French classics of his time, he succeeded
in producing a series of stanzas so simple in syntax, so varied in rhythmical
effect, now lyrical, now epical, never undignified, as to leave the impression
that no form of metre could have been more suitably chosen for this elegiac
theme1.
The diction of the poem has been considered faulty by reason
of its copiousness; but the criticism does not appear to be just.
It should be noted that the author has drawn alike from      the
English, Scandinavian and Romance elements of English speech.
The attention of scholars has recently been directed to
Boccaccio's Latin eclogue Olympia, in which his young daughter,
Violante, appears transfigured, much in the same way as Pearl in
the English poem; and an ingenious attempt has been made to
prove the direct debt of the English poet to his great Italian
contemporary. The comparison of the two poems is a fascinating
study, but there is no evidence of direct indebtedness; both
writers, though their elegies are different in form, have drawn
from the same sources. Even were it proved that such debt must
actually be taken into account in dealing with the English poem, it
would not help, but rather gainsay, the ill-founded theory that would
make Pearl a pure allegory, a mere literary device, impersonal
and unreal. The eclogue was written soon after the year 1358.
The second poem     in the MS, Cleanness, relates, in    epic
style, three great subjects from scriptural history, so chosen as to
enforce the lesson of purity. After a prologue, treating of the
parable of the Marriage Feast, the author deals in characteristic
manner with the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
and the fall of Belshazzar. The poem    is written in long lines,
alliterative and rimeless, and is divided into thirteen sections of
varying length, the whole consisting of 1812 lines.
The third poem is a metrical rendering of the story of Jonah,
and its subject, too, as in the case of Cleanness, is indicated by its
first word, Patience. Though, at first sight, the metre of the two
poems seems to be identical throughout, it is to be noted that the
1 Introduction to Pearl (1891).
21-2




324    Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
lines of Patience divide into what may almost be described
as stanzas of four lines; towards the end of the poem, there is
a three-line group, either designed so by the poet or due to
scribal omission. The same tendency towards the four-lined stanza
is to be found in parts of Cleanness, more especially at the beginning and end of the poem. Patience consists of 531 lines;
it is terser, more vivid and more highly finished, than the
longer poem Cleanness. It is a masterly paraphrase of Scripture,
bringing the story clearly and forcibly home to English folk of
the fourteenth century. The author's delight in his subject is
felt in every line. In Cleanness, especially characteristic of the
author is the description of the holy vessels-the basins of
gold, and the cups, arrayed like castles with battlements, with
towers and lofty pinnacles, with branches and leaves portrayed
upon them, the flowers being white pearl, and the fruit flaming
gems. The two poems Cleanness and Patience, judged by the
tests of vocabulary, richness of expression, rhythm, descriptive
power, spirit and tone, delight in nature, more especially when
agitated by storm and tempest, are manifestly by the same author
as Pearl, to which poem, indeed, they may be regarded as pendants,
dwelling more definitely on its two main themes-purity and submission to the Divine will. The link that binds Cleanness to Pearl
is unmistakable. The pearl is there again taken as the type of
purity:
How canst thou approach His court save thou be clean?
Through shrift thou may'st shine, though thou hast served shame;
thou may'st become pure through penance, till thou art a pearl.
The pearl is praised wherever gems are seen,
though it be not the dearest by way of merchandise.
Why is the pearl so prized, save for its purity,
that wins praise for it above all white stones?
It shineth so bright; it is so round of shape;
without fault or stain; if it be truly a pearl.
It becometh never the worse for wear,
be it ne'er so old, if it remain but whole.
If by chance 'tis uncared for and becometh dim,
left neglected in some aldys bowe,
wash it worthily in Mune as its nature requireth:
it becometh e'en clearer thav ever before.
So if a mortal be defiled ig:obly,
yea, polluted in soul, let; dial seek shrift;
he may purify him by priest aml by penance,
and grow brighter thar beryl or clustering pearls.
If there were any doubt of identity of authorship in respect
of the two poems, it woild be readily dispelled by a comparison
of the Deluge in     C:     e with the sea-storm   in Patience.




Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight 325
Cleanness and Patience place their author among the older English
epic poets. They show us more clearly than Pearl that the poet
is a "backward link" to the distant days of Cynewulf; it is with
the Old English epic poets that he must be compared, if the special
properties of these poems are to be understood. But in one gift
he is richer than his predecessors-the gift of humour. Earlier
English literature cannot give us any such combination of didactic
intensity and grim fancy as the poet displays at times in these
small epics. One instance may be quoted, namely, the description
of Jonah's abode in the whale:
As a mote in at a minster door, so mighty were its jaws,
Jonah enters by the gills, through slime and gore;
he reeled in through a gullet, that seemed to him a road,
tumbling about, aye head over heels,
till he staggers to a place as broad as a hall;
then he fixes his feet there and gropes all about,
and stands up in its belly, that stank as the devil;
in sorry plight there, 'mid grease that savoured as hell
his bower was arrayed, who would fain risk no ill.
Then he lurks there and seeks in each nook of the navel
the best sheltered spot, yet nowhere he finds
rest or recovery, but filthy mire
wherever he goes; but God is ever dear;
and he tarried at length and called to the Prince....
Then he reached a nook and held himself there,
where no foul filth encumbered him about.
He sat there as safe, save for darkness alone,
as in the boat's stern, where he had slept ere.
Thus, in the beast's bowel, he abides there alive,
three days and three nights, thinking aye on the Lord,
His might and His mercy and His measure eke;
now he knows Him in woe, who would not in weal.
A fourth poem follows Cleanness and Patience in the MSthe romance of Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight.     At a glance
it is clear, as one turns the leaves, that the metre of the poem is
a combination of the alliterative measure with the occasional introduction of a lyrical burden, introduced by a short verse of
one accent, and riming according to the scheme ababa, which
breaks the poem at irregular intervals, evidently marking various
stages of the narrative. The metre blends the epic rhythm of
Cleanness and Patience with the lyrical strain of the Pearl. The
illustrations preceding this poem are obviously scenes from
medieval romance; above one of the pictures, representing a
stolen interview between a lady and a knight, is a couplet not
found elsewhere in the MS:
Mi mind is mukel on on, that wil me noght amende:
Sum time was trewe as ston, and fro schame couthe her defende.




326   Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
The romance deals with a weird adventure that befell Sir
Gawain, son of Loth, and nephew of king Arthur, the favourite
hero of medieval romance, more especially in the literature of the
west and northern parts of England, where, in all probability,
traditions of the knight lived on from early times; the depreciation
of the hero in later English literature was due to the direct influence
of one particular class of French romances. Gaston Paris, in
Volume xxx of L'Histoire Litteraire de la France, 1888, has
surveyed the whole field of medieval literature dealing with Sir
Gawain; according to his view, the present romance is the jewel of
English medieval literature, and it may, perhaps, be considered
the jewel of medieval romance. To Madden belongs the honour
of first having discovered the poem, and of having brought
it out in his great collection, Syr Gawayne...Ancient Romance
poems by Scottish and English Authors relating to that celebrated
Knight of the Round Table, published by the Bannatyne Club,
1839. The place of Sir Gawayne in the history of English metrical
romances is treated of elsewhere'; in the present chapter Sir
Gawayne is considered mainly as the work of the author of Pearl.
The story tells how on a New Year's Day, when Arthur and
his knights are feasting at Camelot, a great knight clad in green,
mounted on a green horse, and carrying a Danish axe, enters
the hall, and challenges one of Arthur's knights; the conditions
being that the knight must take oath that, after striking the
first blow, he will seek the Green Knight twelve months hence
and receive a blow in return. Gawain is allowed to accept
the challenge, takes the axe and smites the Green Knight so that
the head rolls from the body; the trunk takes up the head,
which the hand holds out while it repeats the challenge to Gawain
to meet him at the Green Chapel next New Year's morning, and
then departs. Gawain, in due course, journeys north, and wanders
through wild districts, unable to find the Green Chapel; on
Christmas Eve he reaches a castle, and asks to be allowed to
stay there for the night: he is welcomed by the lord of the
castle, who tells him that the Green Chapel is near, and invites
him to remain for the Christmas feast. The lord, on each of
the three last days of the year, goes a-hunting; Gawain is to
stay behind with the lady of the castle; the lord makes the
bargain that, on his return from hunting, each shall exchange
what has been won during the day; the lady puts Gawain's
honour to a severe test during the lord's absence: he receives a
1 See Chapter xiII.




he Sources of Sir Gawayne


327


kiss from her; in accordance with the compact, he does not fail to
give the kiss to the husband on his return; there is a similar
episode on the next day when two kisses are received and
given by Gawain; on the third day, in addition to three kisses,
Gawain receives a green lace from the lady, which has the
virtue of saving the wearer from harm. Mindful of his next
day's encounter with the Green Knight, Gawain gives the three
kisses to his host, but makes no mention of the lace. Next
morning, he rides forth and comes to the Green Chapel, a cave
in a wild district; the Green Knight appears with his axe;
Gawain kneels; as the axe descends, Gawain flinches, and is
twitted by the knight; the second time Gawain stands as still
as a stone, and the Green Knight raises the axe, but pauses; the
third time the knight strikes him, but, though the axe falls on
Gawain's neck, his wound is only slight. Gawain now declares
that he has stood one stroke for another, and that the compact
is settled between them. Then the Green Knight reveals
himself to Gawain as his host at the castle; he knows all that
has taken place. "That woven lace which thou wearest mine
own wife wove it; I know it well; I know too thy kisses, and
thy trials, and the wooing of my wife; I wrought it myself. I
sent her to tempt thee, and methinks thou art the most faultless
hero that ever walked the earth. As pearls are of more price
than white peas, so is Gawain of more price than other gay
knights." But for his concealing the magic lace he would have
escaped unscathed. The name of the Green Knight is given
as Bernlak de Hautdesert; the contriver of the test is Morgan
le Fay, Arthur's half-sister, who wished to try the knights, and
frighten Guinevere; Gawain returns to court and tells the story;
and the lords and ladies of the Round Table lovingly agree to
wear a bright green lace in token of this adventure, and in honour
of Gawain, who disparages himself as cowardly and covetous.
And ever more the badge was deemed the glory of the Round
Table, and he that had it was held in honour.
The author derived his materials from some lost original; he
states that the story had long been "locked in lettered lore."
His original was, no doubt, in French or Anglo-French. The
oldest form of the challenge and the beheading is an Old Irish
heroic legend, Fled Bricrend (the feast of Bricriu), preserved in
a MS of the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth
century, where the story is told by Cuchulinn, the giant being
Uath Mac Denomain, who dwelt near the lake. The Cuchulinn




328 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
episode had, in due course, become incorporated in Arthurian
literature.  The French version nearest to the Gawain story
that has so far been pointed out was discovered by Madden in
the first continuation by Gautier de Doulens of Chretien' Conte
de Graal, where the story is connected with Carados, Arthur's
nephew, and differs in many important respects from the English
version of the romance.  There is much to be said in favour
of Miss Weston's conclusion that "it seems difficult to understand
how anyone could have regarded this version, ill-motived as it is,
and utterly lacking in the archaic details of the English poem,
as the source of that work.   It should probably rather be
considered as the latest in form, if not in date, of all the
versions." There is, of course, no doubt whatsoever that we
have in the French romance substantially the same story, with
the two main episodes, namely, the beheading and the test at
the castle; our poet's direct original is evidently lost-he no
doubt well knew the Conte del Graal-but we are able to judge
that, whatever other source he may have used, he brought his
own genius to bear in the treatment of the theme. It would
seem as though the figure of Gawain, "the falcon of the month
of May," the traditional type and embodiment of all that was
chivalrous and knightly, is drawn from some contemporary knight,
and the whole poem may be connected with the foundation of
the order of the Garter, which is generally assigned to about
the year 1345. From this standpoint it is significant that at
the end of the MS, in a somewhat later hand, is found the
famous legend of the order: honi soit qui mal (y) penc; just as a
later poet, to whom we are indebted for a ballad of the Green
Knight (a rifacimento of this romance, or of some intermediate
form of it), has used the same story to account for the origin of
the order of the Bath. The romance may be taken not to have
been written before the year 1345.
The charm of Sir Gawayne is to be found in its description of
nature, more especially of wild nature; in the author's enjoyment
of all that appertains to the bright side of medieval life; in its
details of dress, armour, wood-craft, architecture; and in the artistic
arrangement of the story, three parallel episodes being so treated
as to avoid all risk of monotony, or reiteration. As a characteristic passage the following may be quoted:
O'er a mound on the morrow he merrily rides
into a forest full deep and wondrously wild;
high hills on each side and holt-woods beneath,
with huge hoary oaks, a hundred together;




The   Question     of Authorship            329
hazel and hawthorn hung clustering there,
with rough ragged moss o'ergrown all around;
unblithe, on bare twigs, sang many a bird,
piteously piping for pain of the cold.
Under them Gawayne on Gringolet glideth,
through marsh and through mire, a mortal full lonesome,
cumbered with care, lest ne'er he should come
to that Sire's service, who on that same night
was born of a bride to vanquish our bale.
Wherefore sighing he said: "I beseech Thee, 0 Lord,
and Mary, thou mildest mother so dear!
some homestead, where holily I may hear mass
and matins to-morrow, full meekly I ask;
thereto promptly I pray pater, ave,
and creed."
He rode on in his prayer,
And cried for each misdeed;
He crossed him ofttimes there,
And said: "Christ's cross me speed!"
But, much as Sir Gawayne shows us of the poet's delight in his
art, the main purpose of the poem is didactic. Gawain, the knight
of chastity, is but another study by the author of Cleanness.
On the workmanship of his romance he has lavished all care,
only that thereby his readers may the more readily grasp the
spirit of the work. Sir Gawain may best, perhaps, be understood as the Sir Calidor of an earlier Spenser.
In the brief summary of the romance, one striking passage
has been noted linking the poem to Pearl, namely, the comparison of Gawain to the pearl; but, even without this reference,
the tests of language, technique and spirit, would render identity
of authorship incontestable; the relation which this Spenserian
romance bears to the elegy as regards time of composition
cannot be definitely determined; but, judging by parallelism
of expression, it is clear that the interval between the two poems
must have been very short.
No direct statement has come down to us as to the authorship
of these poems, and, in spite of various ably contested theories,
it is not possible to assign the poems to any known poet. The
nameless poet of Pearl and Gawayne has, however, left the
impress of his personality on his work; and so vividly is this
personality revealed in the poems that it is possible, with some
degree of confidence, to evolve something approximating to an
account of the author, by piecing together the references and other
evidence to be found in his work. The following hypothetical
biography is taken, with slight modification, from a study published
elsewhere'.
1 Introduction to Pearl, p. xlvi.




330   Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
The poet was born about 1330; his birthplace was somewhere
in Lancashire, or, perhaps, a little more to the north, but not
beyond the Tweed; such is the evidence of dialect. Additional
testimony may be found in the descriptions of natural scenery
in Gawayne, Cleanness and Patience. The wild solitudes of the
Cumbrian coast, near his native home, seem to have had special
attraction for him. Like a later and greater poet, he must,
while yet a youth, have felt the subtle spell of nature's varying
aspects in the scenes around him.
Concerning the condition of life to which the boy belonged
we know nothing definite; but it may be inferred that his
father was connected, probably in some official capacity, with
a family of high rank, and that it was amid the gay scenes
that brightened life in a great castle that the poet's earlier
years were passed. In later life, he loved to picture this home
with its battlements and towers, its stately hall and spacious
parks. There, too, perhaps, minstrels' tales of chivalry first
revealed to him the weird world of medieval romance and made
him yearn to gain for himself a worthy place among contemporary English poets.
The Old English poets were his masters in poetic art; he had
also read The Romaunt of the Rose, the chief products of early
French literature, Vergil and other Latin writers; to "Clopyngel's
clean rose" he makes direct reference. The intensely religious
spirit of the poems, together with the knowledge they everywhere
display of Holy Writ and theology, lead one to infer that he
was, at first, destined for the service of the church; probably, he
became a "clerk," studying sacred and profane literature at
a monastic school, or at one of the universities; and he may
have received the first tonsure only.
The four poems preserved in the Cottonian MS seem to belong
to a critical period of the poet's life. Gawayne, possibly the
earliest of the four, written, perhaps, in honour of the patron to
whose household the poet was attached, is remarkable for the
evidence it contains of the writer's minute knowledge of the
higher social life of his time; from his evident enthusiasm it
is clear that he wrote from personal experience of the pleasures
of the chase, and that he was accustomed to the courtly life
described by him.
The romance of Gawayne contains what seems to be a personal
reference where the knight is made to exclaim: " It is no marvel
for a man to come to sorrow through a woman's wiles; so was
Adam beguiled, and Solomon, and Samson, and David, and many




Hypothetical Biography of the Poet


33I


more. It were, indeed, great bliss for a man to love them well,
and love them not-if one but could."
Gawayne is the story of a noble knight triumphing over the sore
temptations that beset his vows of chastity: evidently in a musing
mood he wrote in the blank space at the head of one of the
illustrations in his MS the suggestive couplet still preserved by
the copyist in the extant MS. His love for some woman had
brought him one happiness-an only child, a daughter, on whom
he lavished all the wealth of his love. He named the child
Margery or Marguerite; she was his "Pearl"-his emblem of
holiness and innocence; perhaps she was a love-child, hence his
privy pearL  His happiness was short-lived; before two years
had passed the child was lost to him; his grief found expression
in verse; a heavenly vision of his lost jewel brought him comfort
and taught him resignation. It is noteworthy that, throughout
the whole poem, there is no single reference to the mother of the
child; the first words when the father beholds his transfigured
Pearl are significant:
"0 Pearl," quoth I,
"Art thou my Pearl that I have plained,
Regretted by me alone" ["bi myn one"].
With the loss of his Pearl, a blight seems to have fallen on
the poet's life, and poetry seems gradually to have lost its
charm for him. The minstrel of Gawayne became the stern
moralist of Cleanness and Patience. Other troubles, too, seem
to have befallen him during the years that intervened between
the writing of these companion poems. Patience appears to be
almost as autobiographical as Pearl; the poet is evidently
preaching to himself the lesson of fortitude and hope, amid
misery, pain and poverty. Even the means of subsistence seem
to have been denied him. "Poverty and patience," he exclaims,
"are need's playfellows."
Cleanness and Patience were written probably some few years
after Pearl; and the numerous references in these two poems to the
sea would lead one to infer that the poet may have sought distraction in travel, and may have weathered the fierce tempests he
describes. His wanderings may have brought him even to the
holy city whose heavenly prototype he discerned in the visionary
scenes of Pearl.
We take leave of the poet while he is still in the prime of
life; we have no material on which to base even a conjecture as
to his future. Perhaps he turned from poetry and gave himself




332 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
entirely to theology, always with him a favourite study, or to
philosophy, at that time so closely linked with the vital questions
at issue concerning faith and belief. If the poet took any
part in the church controversies then beginning to trouble
men's minds, his attitude would have been in the main conservative. Full of intense hatred towards all forms of vice, especially
immorality, he would have spoken out boldly against ignoble
priests and friars, and all such servants of the church who,
preaching righteousness, lived unrighteously. From minor traditional patristic views he seems to have broken away, but there
is no indication of want of allegiance on his part to the authority
of the church, to papal supremacy and to the doctrine of Rome;
though it has been well said recently, with reference to his
general religious attitude, that it was evangelical rather than
ecclesiastical.
It is, indeed, remarkable that no tradition has been handed
down concerning the authorship of these poems; and many
attempts have been made to identify the author with one or
other of the known writers belonging to the end of the fourteenth
century. Perhaps the most attractive of these theories is that
which would associate the poems with Ralph Strode, Chaucer's
"philosophical Strode," to whom  (together with "the moral
Gower") was dedicated Troilus and Criseyde. According to
a Latin entry in the old catalogue of Merton College, drawn up
in the early years of the fifteenth century, Strode is described as
"a noble poet and author of an elegiac work Phantasma
Radulphi." Ralph Strode of Merton is certainly to be identified
with the famous philosopher of the name, one of the chief logicians
of the age. It is as poet and philosopher that he seems to be
singled out by Chaucer. Phantasma Radulphi might, possibly,
apply to Pearl; while Gawayne and the Grene Knight might
well be placed in juxtaposition to Troilus. An Itinerary of the
Holy Land, by Strode, appears to have been known to Nicholas
Brigham; further, there is a tradition that he left his native
land, journeyed to France, Germany and Italy, and visited Syria
and the Holy Land. His name as a Fellow of Merton is
said to occur for the last time in 1361. Strode and Wyclif
were contemporaries at Oxford, as may be inferred from  an
unprinted MS in the Imperial library in Vienna, containing
Wyclif's reply to Strode's arguments against certain of the
reformer's views. The present writer is of opinion that the
philosopher is identical with the common serjeant of the city




Theories of Authors/ip                333
of London of the same name, who held office between 1375 and
1385, and who died in 1387. But, fascinating as is the theory,
no link has, as yet, been discovered which may incontestably
connect Strode with the author of Pearl, nor has it yet been
discovered that Strode came of a family belonging to the west
midland or northern district. The fiction that Strode was a monk
of Dryburgh abbey has now been exploded.
Some seventy years ago, Guest, the historian of English
rhythms, set up a claim for the poet Huchoun of the Awle
Ryale, to whom Andrew of Wyntoun refers in his Orygynale
Cronykil1.
Guest regarded as the most decisive proof of his theory the
fact that, at the void space at the head of Sir Gawayne and the
Grene Knight in the MS, a hand of the fifteenth century has
scribbled the name Hugo de; but little can be inferred from
this piece of evidence; while the lines by Wyntoun tend to connect
the author with a set of poems differentiated linguistically and in
technique from the poems in the Cotton MS. But this is not the place
to enter into a discussion of the various problems connected with
the identity of Huchoun: it is only necessary here to state that, in
the opinion of the writer, the view which would make Huchoun
the author of Pearl, Gawayne and the Grene Knight, Cleanness
and Patience is against the weight of evidence. By the same
evidence as that adduced to establish Huchoun's authorship
of these poems, various other alliterative poems are similarly
assigned to him, namely, The Wars of Alexander, The Destruction
of Troy, Titus and Vespasian, The Parliament of Three Ages,
Wynnere and Wastoure, Erkenwald and the alliterative riming
poem Golagros and Gawain.
According to this view, The Parliament of the Three Ages
belongs to the close of the poet's career, for it is supposed
to sum up his past course through all his themes-through
Alexander, Troy, Titus and Morte Arthure. But this theory,
that, on the basis of parallel passages, would make Huchoun
the official father of all these poems, in addition to those which
may be legitimately assigned to him on the evidence of Wyntoun's
lines, fails to recognise that the author of The Parliament of
the Three Ages, far from being saturated with the Troy Book
and the Alexander romances, actually confuses Jason, or Joshua,
the high priest who welcomed Alexander, with Jason who won the
golden fleece.
1 See the Chapter on Huchoun in Volume In.




334 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
Probably the work of four or five alliterative poets comes
under consideration in dealing with the problem at issue. To
one poet may, perhaps, safely be assigned the two poems The
Parliament of, Three Ages and Wynnere and d/Wastoure, the
latter from internal evidence one of the oldest poems of the
fourteenth century, and to be dated about 1351: it is a precursor
of The Vision of Piers Plowmanl. The former poem recalls the
poet of Gawayne, more especially in its elaborate description of
deer-stalking, a parallel picture to the description of the hunting
of the deer, the boar and the fox, in Gawayne.
The alliterative poem  of Erkenwald comes nearer to the
work of the author of Cleanness and Patience than any other of
the alliterative poems grouped in the above-mentioned list. It
tells, in lines written either by this author himself or by a very
gifted disciple, an episode of the history of the saint when he
was bishop of St Paul's; and, in connection with the date of its
composition, it should be noted that a festival in honour of
the saint was established in London in the year 1386.
Internal evidence of style, metre and language, appears to
outweigh the parallel passages and other clues which are adduced
as tests of unity of authorship in respect of the Troy Book, Titus,
The Wars of Alexander and Golagros. For the present, these may
be considered as isolated remains which have come down to us of
the works of a school of alliterative poets who flourished during
the second half of the fourteenth and the early years of the
fifteenth century. So far as we can judge from these extant
poems, the most gifted poet of the school was the author of Sir
Gawayne and the Grene Knight: he may well have been regarded
as the master, and his influence on more northern poets, and on
alliterative poetry generally, may explain in part, but not wholly,
the parallel passages which link his work with that of other poets
of the school, who used the same formulae, the same phrases
and, at times, repeated whole lines, much in the same way as poets
of the Chaucerian school spoke the language of their master.


1 See Chapter i, Volume II, Piers the Plowman, p. 37.




CHAPTER XVI


LATER TRANSITION ENGLISH
I
LEGENDARIES AND CHRONICLERS
IT is significant, both of the approaching triumph of the
vernacular, and of the growing importance of the lower and middle
classes in the nation, that some of the chief contributions to our
literature during the two generations immediately preceding that
of Chaucer were translations from Latin and Norman-French,
made, as their authors point out, expressly for the delectation
of the common people. Not less significant are the facts that
much of this literature deals with the history of the nation, and
that now, for the first time since the Conquest, men seemed to
think it worth while to commit to writing political ballads in the
English tongue.
The productions of this time, dealt with in the present
chapter, fall into two main classes, religious and historical,
the former comprising homilies, saints' lives and translations
or paraphrases of Scripture, and the latter the chronicles of
Robert of Gloucester, Thomas Bek of Castleford and Robert
Mannyng, the prophecies of Adam Davy and the war songs of
Laurence Minot. The two classes have many characteristics in
common, and, while the homilists delight in illustrations drawn
from the busy life around them, the historians seldom lose an
opportunity for conveying a moral lesson.
The earliest of the three chronicles mentioned above was
written about 1300, and is generally known by the name of
Robert of Gloucester, though it is very uncertain whether he
was the original author of the whole work. It exists in two
versions, which, with the exception of several interpolations in
one of them, are identical down to the year 1135. From this
point the story is told in one version, which may be called the
first recension, in nearly three thousand lines, and in the
other, the second recension, in rather less than six hundred.




336


Later Transition English


From an investigation of the style it has been supposed that
there was a single original for lines 1-9137 of the Chronicle,
that is to say, to the end of the reign of Henry I, composed in the
abbey of Gloucester, and that, at the end of the thirteenth
century, a monk, whose name we know from internal evidence to
have been Robert, added to it the longer continuation. This must
have been made after 1297, as it contains a reference to the canonisation of Louis IX of France, which took place in that year.
Then, in the first half of the fourteenth century, another writer
found the original manuscript, added the shorter continuation,
and also interpolated and worked over the earlier part.
In any case, there can be little doubt that the Chronicle was
composed in the abbey of Gloucester. The language is that of
south Gloucestershire; and Stow, who may have had access to
information now lost, speaks in his Annals (1580) of the author as
Robert of Gloucester, or Robertus Glocestrensis. The detailed
acquaintance with local affairs shown by the writer of the longer
continuation proves that he lived near the city, while we have his
own authority for the fact that he was within thirty miles of
Evesham at the time of the battle so ably described by him.
But, in the earlier part of the Chronicle, also, there are traces
of special local knowledge, which, apart from the dialect, would
point to Gloucester as the place of its origin.
The poem begins with a geographical account of England,
borrowed from  Geoffiey of Monmouth, Henry of Huntingdon
and the life of St Kenelm in the South English Legendary.
Next, Nennius, or, perhaps, Geoffrey of Monmouth, is followed
for the genealogy of Brutus, the legendary founder of Britain;
and, from this point down to the English conquest, Geoffrey of
Monmouth is the chief authority. The compiler is, however, by
no means a slavish translator, and he treats his original with
considerable freedom. Thus, he sometimes elaborates, giving the
speeches of historical personages in a fuller form, while, on the
other hand, he frequently omits long passages. But the episodes
which stand out in the memory of the reader-the stories of
Lear, of the "virgin-daughter of Locrine" and of Arthur, are
also those which arrest us in the Latin original.
Although it has sometimes been stated that the author of this
part of the Chronicle was indebted to Wace, it seems very doubtful
whether the work of his predecessor was known to him. Such
lines as those which hint at the high place taken by Gawain
among Arthur's knights, or make mention of the Round Table,




Robert of Gloucester                 337
may be due to verbal tradition, which was especially rife in the
Welsh marches.  The coincidences are certainly not striking
enough to justify the assertion that the Gloucester Chronicle owed
anything to the Geste des Bretons, though Aldis Wright has
shown that the writer of the second recension was acquainted
with Layamon's version of Wace's poems.
For the history of England under the Old English and Norman
kings, the chief authorities consulted were Henry of Huntingdon
and William of Malmesbury, the former being followed in the
narration of events, and the latter in the descriptions and anecdotes
of famous characters. Occasionally, other sources are drawn
upon; for instance, the story of the duel between Canute and
Edmund Ironside is from the Genealogia Regum Anglorum of
Ailred of Rievaulx, and another work by the same author, the
Vita Edwardi Regis et Martyris is, probably, the chief authority
for the life and death of Edward the Confessor. For the reigns
of Henry II and Richard I the life of Thomas h Becket in the
South English Legendary, and the Annales Waverlienses supplied
some material, the former furnishing almost word for word the
accounts of the constitutions of Clarendon and of the death
of the saint. Some passages seem to depend on folk-songs; and
there are others, such as the account of the misfortunes which
befell the duke of Austria's land in revenge for his imprisonment
of Richard I, that may be due to tradition. On the whole, however,
the Chronicle does not supply much that is fresh in the way of
legendary lore.
From the beginning of the reign of Henry III the poem becomes valuable both as history and literature. The writer, whom
we may now certainly call Robert, was, as we have seen, either an
eye-witness of the facts he relates, or had heard of them from
eye-witnesses. He had, moreover, a distinct narrative gift, and
there are all the elements of a stirring historical romance in his
story of the struggle that took place between the king and the
barons for the possession of Gloucester. Not less graphic is the
description of the town and gown riot in Oxford in 1263. We
are told how the burgesses shut one of the city gates; how
certain clerks hewed it down and carried it through the suburbs,
singing over it a funeral hymn; how, for this offence, the rioters
were put in prison, and how the quarrel grew to such a height
that the citizens came out armed against the scholars. Robert
relates with evident enjoyment the discomfiture of the former,
and the vengeance taken by the clerks on their foes-how they
E. L. I. CH. XVI.                               22




338          Later    Transition    English
plundered their shops, burned their houses and punished the
mayor, who was a vintner, by taking the bungs from his casks,
and letting the wine run away. But, he adds, when the king
came and heard of all this mischief, he drove the clerks out of
the town, and forbade their returning till after Michaelmas.
Picturesque as such passages are, they are less valuable than
the powerful description of the battle of Evesham and the death
of Simon de Montfort, a passage too well known to call for
further reference.
The form of this Chronicle is no less interesting than its theme.
Its metre is an adaptation of the two half-lines of Old English
poetry into one long line, one of its nearest relations being the
Poema Morale. In spite of the well-marked caesura, a relic of
the former division into halves, the line has a swinging rhythm
especially suited to narrative verse and the poem is of metrical
importance as showing the work of development in progress1.
It was not long after Robert had added his continuation to the
Gloucester Chronicle that Thomas Bek of Castleford composed
a similar work in the northern dialect. The unique MS of this
chronicle is preserved at G6ttingen, and is as yet inedited. The
work contains altogether nearly forty thousand lines, of which
the first twenty-seven thousand are borrowed from Geoffrey of
Monmouth, while the remainder, extending to the coronation of
Edward III, are derived from sources not yet defined. The metre
is the short rimed couplet of the French'chroniclers.
Mention has already been made of the South English Legendary, a collection of versified lives of the saints in the same
dialect and metre as those of the Gloucester Chronicle. The fact
that certain passages from these lives are incorporated in the
Chronicle has led to the conclusion that one person was responsible for both; but, as we have seen, the Chronicle is probably the
work of three hands, if not of more, and it is impossible to say
anything more definite about the authorship of the Legendary
than that it had its origin in the neighbourhood of Gloucester
towards the end of the thirteenth century, and that more than
one author was concerned in it. The oldest manuscript (Laud
108 in the Bodleian) was written after 1265, and is dated by
its editor, Horstmann, as belonging to the years 1280-90.
It is probable, however, that it had been in hand a considerable
time. As the number of saints' days increased, it was found
convenient to have at hand homiletic material for each festival;
1 See Saintsbury, History of English Prosody, i, 67.




The South English Legendary


339


and, as no single monastic library would contain manuscripts of all
the independent lives required, these had to be borrowed and
copied as occasion served. This was a task too great for any one
man, and it is most probable that the monks at Gloucester had been
gathering the legends together for some years, and that a number
of them contributed towards the first redaction.  This would
partly account for the unequal merit of the lives, some of which
display much more literary and poetic feeling than others. But,
in considering this point, it must be remembered that the charm
of any particular story depends largely on its original source;
even the clumsy pen of a monkish translator could not wholly
disguise the beauty of such legends as that of St Francis.
Although the collection is of the most varied description, and
comprises the lives of saints of all countries and of all ages down
to the time of compilation, the best-told legends are those of
native saints; and, as the style of these is not unlike that of the
author of the longer continuation of the Gloucester Chronicle,
it is possible that they may be by him. Among them may be
especially mentioned the very vivid account of the career and
murder of St Thomas of Canterbury, which displays considerable
dramatic power, and the life of St Edmund of Pontigny (archbishop Edmund Rich, who died in 1240), which treats of events
that were still fresh in men's minds and, like the Gloucester
Chronicle, betrays a great admiration for Simon de Montfort.
The same predilection, it may be noted, is evident in the life of
St Dominic, where Sir Simon, "that good and gracious knight,"
is commended for having lent his support to the order of preaching
friars.
Some of the lives, such as those of St Kenelm and St Michael,
are made the vehicle of secular instruction, and contain curious
geographical and scientific disquisitions, the latter being especially
valuable for its light upon medieval folk- and devil-lore and for its
cosmology. The most interesting of all the lives are those connected
with St Patrick and St Brendan. The story of Sir Owayn's visit
to purgatory shows all the characteristic Celtic wealth of imagination in the description of the torments endured. Nothing could
be more terrible than the lines which describe him as "dragged
all about in a waste land, so black and dark that he saw nothing
but the fiends, who drove him hither and thither and thronged
around him." And, on the other hand, nothing could be more
charming in its strange mystic beauty than the story of St
Brendan's sojourn in the Isle of Birds, and his interview with the
22-2




340


Later Transition English


penitent Judas, permitted, in recompense of one charitable deed,
to enjoy a little respite from the pains of hell.
While the monks of Gloucester were thus busy with hagiology,
similar activity was exhibited in the north of England, according
to Horstmann in the diocese of Durham, though the prevalence of midland forms in the texts points to a district further
south. There exists in many manuscripts, the earliest of which,
in the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh, seems to have
been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century, a cycle
of homilies, in octosyllabic couplets, covering the whole of the
Sundays in the church year. Two of the later manuscripts
(Harleian 4196 and Tiberius E. vn), both written about 1350,
contain also a cycle of legends for use on saints' days.
Considerable diversity is shown in the recensions of the
homilies; the Edinburgh MS opens with a prologue, in which
the author, like so many writers of the time, carefully explains
that his work is intended for ignorant men, who cannot understand French; and, since it is the custom of the common people to
come to church on Sundays, he has turned into English for them
the Gospel for the day. His version, however, is not a close
translation; it resembles Ormulum in giving first a paraphrase
of the Scripture, and then an exposition of the passage chosen;
but, in addition to this, there is also a narracio, or story, to
illustrate the lesson and drive the moral home. These stories are
often quite short, sometimes mere anecdotes, and are derived from
the most diverse sources: sometimes from saints' lives, sometimes from Scripture and sometimes from Frenchfabliaux. The
homilist is an especial lover of the poor, and one of his most
striking sermons is that for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, on
the subject of Christ stilling the waves. The world, says he, is
but a sea, tossed up and down, where the great fishes eat the
small; for the rich men of the world devour what the poor earn
by their labour, and the king acts towards the weak as the whale
towards the herring. Like Mannyng of Brunne, the writer has a
special word of condemnation for usurers.
The Harleian manuscript is, unfortunately, imperfect at the
beginning, so that it is impossible to say whether it ever contained
the prologue; while the MS Tiberius E. vnI was so badly burned
in the Cottonian fire that the greater part of it cannot be deciphered. These manuscripts, however, show that the homilies
had been entirely worked over and rewritten in the half century
that had elapsed since the Edinburgh version was composed.




Homilies and Legends                 34I
The plan of paraphrase, exposition and narration is not always
followed, and, so far as Easter Sunday, the stories are taken
chiefly from Scripture. From this point, however, they depend on
other sources, and they are especially interesting when compared
with the contents of other northern poems of the same period. The
legend of the Holy Rood, for instance, which runs like a thread
through Cursor Mundi, is given at great length, and so, also, is
the graphic story of Piers the usurer, which occurs in Handlynge
Synne. Among the stories is the well-known legend of the monk
who was lured by a bird from his monastery, and only returned
to it after three hundred years, when everything was changed,
and no one knew him.
The legends which follow these homilies are much more restricted in scope than those of the southern collection, and are
confined chiefly to lives of the apostles or of the early Christian
martyrs, St Thomas of Canterbury being the only English saint
represented. But, while the Gloucester Legendary seems to have
been intended only as a reference book for the preacher, the
northern series shows the lives in a finished form, suitable for
reading or reciting in church. The verse is polished, limpid and
fluent, betraying, in its graceful movement, traces of French
influence, while, at the same time, it is not free from the tendency
to alliteration prevalent in northern poetry. The writer had
a genuine gift of narration, and possessed both humour and
dramatic power, as is shown by the story of the lord and lady
who were parted by shipwreck and restored to one another by
the favour of St Mary Magdalene; and, like most medieval
homilists, he excels in the description of horrors-of fiends
"blacker than any coal," and of dragons armed with scales as
stiff as steel. Sometimes, a little homily is interwoven with the
story; and one passage, which rebukes men for slumbering or
chattering in church, resembles a similar exhortation in Handlynge Synne. The section on the "faithful dead," also, seems
to be in close dependence on that work. Three of the stories
told occur in close juxtaposition in Mannyng's book; and a
reference to the story of Piers the usurer, which is mentioned
but not related, probably because it had already found a place
in the homilies, points to the conclusion that the compiler was
well acquainted with the work of his predecessor.
The desire to impart a knowledge of the Scriptures to men
who could understand only the vernacular likewise prompted the
author of the Northern Psalter, a translation of the Psalms in




342


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vigorous, if somewhat rough, octosyllabic couplets, composed
about the middle of the reign of Edward II. One of the three
manuscripts in which it exists belonged to the monastery of
Kirkham, but the language is that of a more northerly district,
and the author probably lived near the Scottish border.
Further evidence of literary activity in the north of England
during this period is given by Cursor Mundi, a very long poem,
which, as its name implies, treats of universal rather than
local history, and, like the cycles of miracle plays which were
just beginning to pass out of the hands of their clerical inventors
into those of laymen, relates the story of the world from the
creation to the day of doom. It opens with a prologue, which
is, practically, the author's "apology" for his undertaking. Men,
he says, rejoice to hear romances of Alexander and Julius
Caesar, of the long strife between Greece and Troy, of king
Arthur and Charlemagne. Each man is attracted by what
he enjoys the most, and all men delight especially in their
"paramours"; but the best lady of all is the Virgin Mary, and
whosoever takes her for his own shall find that her love is ever
true and loyal. Therefore, the poet will compose a work in her
honour; and, because French rimes are commonly found everywhere, but there is nothing for those who know only English, he
will write it for him who "na Frenche can."
With this explanation the author embarks on his vast theme,
which he divides according to the seven ages of the world, a
device copied from Bede. He describes the creation, the war in
heaven, the temptation of Eve, the expulsion from Paradise, the
history of the patriarchs and so on through the Bible narrative,
sometimes abridging, but more often enlarging, the story by long
additions, drawn from the most diverse authorities, which add
greatly to the interest of the narrative. One of the most interesting of these additions is the legend of the Holy Rood:
this is not told in a complete form in one place, but is introduced
in relation to the history of the men who were connected with
it. In place of the prophecies there are inserted two parables,
probably from Grosseteste's Chdteau d'Amour; and the poet
then goes on to tell with much detail of the youth of Mary, the
birth of Christ and His childhood. Then follow the story of His
life as given by the evangelists, His death and descent into hell,
the careers of the apostles, the assumption of the Virgin and a
section on doomsday. The author concludes with an address
to his fellow-men, begging them to think upon the transitory




Cursor Mundi


343


nature of earthly joys, and a prayer to the Virgin, commending
his work to her approval.
The humility betrayed in the concluding lines is all the more attractive because, as his poem shows, the writer was an accomplished
scholar, extremely well read in medieval literature. His work,
indeed, is a storehouse of legends, not all of which have been
traced to their original sources. His most important authority
was the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor; but he used
many others, among which may be mentioned Wace's Fete de la
Conception Notre Dame, Grosseteste's Chateau d'Amour, the
apocryphal gospels, a south English poem on the assumption of
the Virgin ascribed to Edmund Rich, Adso's Libellus de Antichristo, the Elucidarium  of Honorius Augustodiensis, Isidore
of Seville and the Golden Legend of Jacobus a Voragine.
The popularity of Cursor Mundi is witnessed by the large
number of manuscripts in which it is preserved, and it has
many qualities to account for this.  In the first place, the
author never loses sight of his audience, showing great skill
in appealing to the needs of rude, unlettered people whose
religious instruction must, necessarily, be conveyed by way of
concrete example. He has a keen eye for the picturesque; his
description of the Flood, for instance, may be compared with the
famous passage in the alliterative poem, Cleanness, and he lingers
over the episode of Goliath with an enjoyment due as much to
his own delight in story-telling as to a knowledge of what his
hearers will appreciate; there is a strong family likeness between
the Philistine hero and such monsters as Colbrand and Ascapart.
The strong humanity which runs through the whole book is one of
its most attractive features, and shows that the writer was full
of sympathy for his fellow creatures.
The whole poem shows considerable artistic skill. In spite of
the immense mass of material with which it deals, it is well
proportioned, and the narrative is lucid and easy. The verse
form is generally that of the eight-syllabled couplet; but, when
treating of the passion and death of Christ, the poet uses
alternately riming lines of eight and six syllables; and the
discourse between Christ and man, which follows the account of
the crucifixion, consists largely of six-lined mono-rimed stanzas.
Of the author, beyond the fact that he was, as he himself
states, a cleric, nothing whatever is known. Hupe's theory,
that his name was John of Lindebergh, which place he identifies
with Limber Magna in Lincolnshire, is based on a misreading of




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an insertion in one of the manuscripts by the scribe who copied
it; and all that can be affirmed with any confidence is that
the author lived in the north of England towards the end of
the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century. Some of
the later manuscripts show west midland and even southern
peculiarities, but this is only another testimony to the wide-spread
popularity of the poem.
The most skilful story-teller of his time was Robert Mannyng
of Brunne, who, between 1303 and 1338, translated into his
native tongue two poems written in poor French by English
clerics. These two works were William of Wadington's Manuel
des Pechiez, written, probably, for Norman settlers in Yorkshire,
and a chronicle composed by Peter of Langtoft, a canon of the
Augustinian priory of Bridlington.
Unlike most monastic writers, Mannyng supplies some valuable
information about himself. In the prologue to Handlynge Synne,
his version of the Manuel des Pechiez, he tells us that his name
is Robert of Brunne, of Brunnewake in Kestevene, and that he
dedicates his work especially to the fellowship of Sempringham,
to which he had belonged for fifteen years. He also tells us the
exact year in which he began his translation-1303. This information is supplemented by some lines in his translation of Langtoft's
chronicle. Here he adds that his name is Robert Mannyng of
Brunne, and that he wrote all this history in the reign of
Edward III, in the priory of Sixille. We gather, also, from an
allusion in the narrative, that he had spent some time at
Cambridge, where he had met Robert Bruce and his brother
Alexander, who was a skilful artist.
These particulars have been elucidated by the labours of
Furnivall. Brunne was the present Bourne, a market town
thirty-five miles to the south of Boston in Lincolnshire;
Sempringham, where was the parent house of the Gilbertine
order, is now represented by a church and a few scattered houses;
Sixille, or Six Hills, is a little hamlet not far from Market Rasen,
and here, too, was a priory of the Gilbertines.
Of William of Wadington, the author of the Manuel des
Pechiez very little is known. In the prologue to his work, however, he begs his readers to excuse his bad French, because he
was born and bred in England and took his name from a town
in that country. The apology is not altogether superfluous, for
his grammar is loose, and forms that were archaic even in the




Handlynge Synne


345


thirteenth century are of frequent occurrence. His versification
is also poor, and, though his normal form is the octosyllabic
couplet, he does not hesitate to introduce lines of six, or even
of ten syllables. His English audience, however, was not critical,
and the popularity of the manual is attested by the number of
manuscripts, fourteen in all, which have survived. Most of these
belong to the thirteenth century, and Mannyng's translation, as
we have seen, was begun in 1303.
The English version begins with an introduction of the usual
style, setting out the plan of the work, and stating the object
of the author in making the translation. He has put it into
English rime for the benefit of ignorant men, who delight in
listening to stories at all hours, and often hearken to evil tales
which may lead to their perdition. Therefore, he has provided
them in this book with stories of a more edifying description.
His instinct for selecting what he feels will interest the unlearned is at once revealed by his omission of the long and dull
section in which Wadington dwells on the twelve articles of faith.
Theory attracts him little, and he proceeds at once to the first
commandment, illustrating it by the dreadful example of a
monk, who, by his love for an Eastern woman, was tempted to
the worship of idols. Then comes a notable passage, also in
Wadington, against witchcraft, and, in expansion of this, is given
the original story of how a witch enchanted a leather bag, so that
it milked her neighbour's cows, and how her charm, in the mouth
of a bishop (who, of course, did not believe in it) was useless.
Thus he treats of the ten commandments in order, keeping
fairly closely to his original, and generally following Wadington's
lead in the stories by which he illustrates them. This occupies
nearly three thousand lines, and the poet then enters upon the
theme of the seven deadly sins.
Mannyng seems to have found this a congenial subject,
and the section throws much light on the social conditions
of his time. Tournaments, he says, are the occasion of all the
seven deadly sins, and, if every knight loved his brother, they
would never take place, for they encourage pride, envy, anger,
idleness, covetousness, gluttony and lust. Furthermore, mystery
plays-and these lines are highly significant as throwing light on
the development of the drama at the beginning of the fourteenth
century-are also occasions of sin. Only two mysteries may be performed, those of the birth of Christ and of His resurrection, and
these must be played within the church, for the moral edification of
the people. If they are presented in groves or highways, they are




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sinful pomps, to be avoided as much as tournaments; and priests
who lend vestments to aid the performance are guilty of sacrilege.
One of the best stories in the book, the tale of Piers, illustrates
the wickedness and repentance of one of the hated tribe of
usurers. It is also in illustration of this sin that the grotesque
story occurs of the Cambridge miser parson who was so much
attached to his gold that he tried to eat it, and died in the attempt.
In respect of the sin of gluttony, not only the rich are to be
blamed; most people sin by eating too much; two meals a day
are quite sufficient, except for children, and they should be fed
only at regular hours. Late suppers, too, are to be avoided,
especially by serving men, who often sit up and feast till cockcrow. People should not break their fast before partaking of the
"holy bread," or dine before they hear mass.
The seven deadly sins being disposed of, there follows a long
section on sacrilege, in which Mannyng departs freely from his
original. He says, indeed, that he will deal with some vices
coming under this head as William of Wadington teaches him; but
the lines following, in which he apologises for "foul English and
feeble rhyme," seem to show that he was conscious of some
audacity in taking so many liberties with the French poem.
However this may be, the account of the reproof that a Norfolk
bondsman gave a knight who had allowed his beasts to defile
the churchyard, which is not in the Manuel des Pechiez, and is,
evidently, a true story, is very characteristic of the attitude of
the Gilbertines to the privileged classes. The order was, as its
latest historian has pointed out, essentially democratic in its
organisation, and the fearlessness of monk towards prior is reflected in the approval that Mannyng tacitly bestows on the
thrall's behaviour.
The churchyard was not only desecrated by use as a pasture.
It was the meeting-place of youths and maidens for games and
songs, and this gives occasion for the grim legend, borrowed from
a German source, of the dancers and carol singers who, on
Christmas night, disturbed the priest in his orisons. Notwithstanding the fact that his own daughter was tempted to join the
frivolous company, he punished them with his curse; so that the
intruders were doomed to pursue their dance through rain and
snow and tempest for ever. There is something very charming in
the snatch of songBy the leved wood rode Bevolyne,
Wyth him he ledd feyre Merswyne,
Why stonde we? Why go we noght?




CAaracteristics of Mannyng's Style


347


and very grim is the irony that dooms the dancers to repeat the
last line in the midst of their involuntary perpetual motion.
These qualities are, of course, inherent in the story, but it loses
nothing in Mannyng's narration.
The discussion of the sin of sacrilege brings the author to
line 9492, and now, following Wadington, he enters on the explanation of the seven sacraments. But, as the French version
supplies few stories in illustration of these, Mannyng makes up
the deficiency by several of his own. Then follows a passage on
the necessity of shrift, the twelve points of shrift and the graces
which spring from it, all treated with comparative brevity and with
little anecdotal illustration.
It is impossible for any short account of Handlynge Synne to
convey an adequate idea of its charm and interest. Mannyng
excels in all the qualities of a narrator. He combines, in fact,
the trouvgre with the homilist, and shows the way to Gower's
Confessio Amantis. Thus, he differs from the antiquary Robert
of Gloucester by being one of the earliest of English storytellers. He had a vivid imagination which enabled him to see
all the circumstances and details of occurrences for which his
authority merely provides the suggestion, and he fills in the outlines of stories derived from Gregory or Bede with colours
borrowed from the homely life of England in the fourteenth
century. He delights, also, to play upon the emotions of his
audience by describing the torments of the damned, and his
pictures of hell are more grim and more grotesque than those of
Wadington. He shows a preference for direct narration, and,
where the French merely conveys the sense of what has been said,
Mannyng gives the very words of the speaker, in simple, colloquial
English. Homely expressions and pithy proverbs abound throughout, and the work is full of telling, felicitous metaphors, such as
"tavern is the devyl's knyfe," or "kerchief is the devyl's sail," or
"to throw a falcon at every fly."
Simplicity is, indeed, one of the most striking features of
Mannyng's style. Writing, as he says, for ignorant men, he is at
some pains to explain difficult terms or to give equivalents for
them. Thus, when he uses the word "mattock," he remarks, in a
parenthesis, that it is a pick-axe; and, in the same way, the term
"Abraham's bosom" is carefully interpreted as the place between
paradise and hell. And, in his anxiety that his hearers shall
understand the spiritual significance of religious symbols, he calls
to his aid illustrations from popular institutions familiar to all.




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Baptism, he says, is like a charter which testifies that a man has
bought land from his neighbour, confirmation is like the acknowledgment of that charter by a lord or king.
In dwelling on the personal relations of man to God, Mannyng,
like the author of Cursor Mundi, often shows much poetic feeling.
While he paints in sombre tones the dreadful fate of unrepentant sinners, he speaks no less emphatically of the love of
God for His children and the sacrifice of Christ. His simple faith
in the divine beneficence, combined with an intense sympathy for
penitent man, lends a peculiar charm to his treatment of such
stories as those of the merciful knight, and Piers the usurer.
Apart from its literary qualities, Handlynge Synne has considerable value as a picture of contemporary manners. Much of
what is said on these points is borrowed from Wadington, but still
more is due to Mannyng's personal observation. In his attacks
on tyrannous lords, and his assertion of the essential equality of
men, he resembles the author of Piers Plowman. The knight
is pictured as a wild beast ranging over the country; he goes out
"about robbery to get his prey"; he endeavours to strip poor
men of their land, and, if he cannot buy it, he devises other means
to torment them, accusing them of theft or of damage to the
corn or cattle of their lord. Great harm is suffered at the hands
of his officers; for nearly every steward gives verdicts unfavourable to the poor; and, if the latter ask for mercy, he replies that he
is only acting according to the strict letter of the law. But, says
Mannyng, he who only executes the law and adds no grace thereto
may never, in his own extremity, appeal for mercy to God.
But, if Mannyng is severe on tyrannous lords, he shows no
leniency to men of his own calling. The common sins of the
clergy, their susceptibility to bribes, their lax morality, their love
of personal adornment, their delight in horses, hounds and hawks,
all come under his lash, and, in words which may not have been
unknown to Chaucer, he draws the picture of the ideal parish
priest.
Although the order to which Mannyng belonged was originally
founded for women, they receive little indulgence at his hands. Indeed, he surpasses William of Wadington and the average monastic
writer in his strictures on their conduct. God intended woman to
help man, to be his companion and to behave meekly to her master
and lord. But women are generally "right unkind" in wedlock;
for one sharp word they will return forty, and they desire always
to get the upper hand. They spend what should be given to the




Mannyng's Debt to WYadington


349


poor in long trains and wimples; they deck themselves out to
attract masculine attention, and thus make themselves responsible
for the sins of men. Even when the author has occasion to tell
the story of a faithful wife who made constant prayer and
offerings for the husband whom she supposed to be dead, he adds,
grudgingly,
This woman pleyned (pitied) her husbonde sore,
Wuld Gode that many such women wore!
For the ordinary amusements of the people Mannyng has
little sympathy; he looks at them from the shadow of the cloister,
and, to him, "carols, wrestlings, and summer games" are all so
many allurements of the devil to entice men from heaven. The
gay song of the wandering minstrel and the loose tales of ribald
jongleurs who lie in wait for men at tavern doors are as hateful to
him as to the author or authors of Piers Plowman; even in the
garlands with which girls deck their tresses he sees a subtle snare
of Satan. Towards children he shows some tenderness, recognising their need for greater physical indulgence than their
elders; but he upholds the counsel of Solomon to give them the
sharp end of the rod, so long as no bones be broken.
Mannyng's mode of translation renders a precise estimate of
his indebtedness to Wadington somewhat difficult. A hint from
his original will sometimes set him off on a long digression, at
other times he keeps fairly close to the sense, but interweaves
with it observations and parentheses of his own. He does not
always tell the same tales as Wadington, but omits, substitutes or
adds at will; the fifty-four stories in the Manuel des Pechiez are
represented in Handlynge Synne by sixty-five. Many of his
additions are taken from local legends, and it is in these that his
skill as a narrator is most apparent. Unhampered by any precedent, the stories move quietly and lightly along, and may almost
challenge comparison with those of Chaucer.
The verse of Handlynge Synne is the eight-syllabled iambic
metre of the original; but, as in the Manuel des Pechiez, many
lines occur which defy the most ingenious scansion. The language
in its state of transition afforded special opportunity for these
irregularities; when there was no fixed standard for the sounding
of the inflectional -e this was apt to be added or omitted at the
will of the scribe. The three manuscripts in which the poem has
survived, the Harleian, dated about 1360, and the Bodleian and
Dulwich, about 1400, show many discrepancies.
The dialect of Handlynge Synne is east midland, of a northern




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type, containing more Scandinavian forms than are found in the
language of Chaucer. The number of romance words is much
greater than in the Gloucester Chronicle, which may be explained
partly by locality and partly by the fact that such forms are
always more numerous in translations from the French than in
original English compositions.
Mannyng's other work, the Chronicle of England, is of less
general importance than Handlynge Synne; though of greater
metrical interest. It consists of two parts, the first extending
from the arrival of the legendary Brut in Britain to the English
invasion, the second from the English invasion to the end of
Edward I's reign. The first part, in octosyllabic couplets, is a
close and fairly successful translation from Wace's version of
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae; the second,
in rimed alexandrines, is taken from an Anglo-Norman poem by
Peter of Langtoft.
Langtoft's alexandrines, which are arranged in sets riming on
one sound, seem to have puzzled Mannyng, and his attempt to
reproduce them in the fourteen-syllabled line of the Gloucester
Chronicle is not altogether successful. Sometimes the line is an
alexandrine, but at others, and this is most significant, it is
decasyllabic; moreover, though Mannyng tries to emulate the
continuous rime of his original, he generally succeeds in achieving
only couplet rime. Thus we see dimly foreshadowed the heroic
couplet which Chaucer brought to perfection1.
When, at the request of Dan Robert of Malton, Mannyng set
about his chronicle, it was, probably, with the intention of following
Langtoft throughout; but, on further consideration, he judged that,
since the first part of Langtoft's chronicle was merely an abridgment of Wace, it was better to go straight to the original. So,
after an introduction which contains the autobiographical details
already given, and an account of the genealogy of Brut, he gives
a somewhat monotonous and commonplace version of Wace's
poem. Sometimes, he omits or abridges; sometimes, he adds a
line or two from Langtoft, or the explanation of a word unfamiliar
to his audience, or pauses to notice contemptuously some unfounded tradition current among the unlearned. Once, he
digresses to wonder, with Geoffiey of Monmouth, that Gildas and
Bede should have omitted all mention of king Arthur, who was
greater than any man they wrote of save the saints. In all other
lands, he says, men have written concerning him, and in France
I Saintsbury, History of English Prosody, i, 113.




Mannyng's Chronicle


35


more is known of the British hero than in the lands that gave him
birth.  But Mannyng's characteristic doubt of Welsh trustworthiness leads him to question the story of Arthur's immortality.
"If he now live," he says contemptuously, "his life is long."
All through his version Mannyng, as might be expected, shows
a more religious spirit than Wace; this is especially exemplified
in the passages in which he points out that the misfortunes of the
Britons were a judgment on them for their sins, and in the long
insertion, borrowed from Langtoft and Geoffrey of Monmouth, of
Cadwalader's prayer; and, as he nears the end of the first portion
of his chronicle, he draws freely on Bede, telling at great length
the story of St Gregory and the English boy slaves and the mission
of St Augustine.
The second half of the chronicle is much more interesting than
the first, partly because Mannyng adheres less slavishly to his
original. Wright, in his edition of Langtoft's chronicle, has
accused Mannyng of having frequently misunderstood the French
of his predecessor; but, though instances of mistranslation do
occur, they are not very frequent. The version is most literal in
the earlier part; later, when Mannyng begins to introduce
internal rimes into his verse, the difficulties of metre prevent
him from maintaining the verbal accuracy at which he aimed.
But, notwithstanding the greater freedom with which Mannyng
treats this part of the chronicle, his gift as a narrator is much
less apparent here than in Handlynge Synne. Occasionally, it is
visible, as when, for the sake of liveliness, he turns Langtoft's
preterites into the present tense, and shows a preference for direct
over indirect quotation. But such interest as is due to him and
not to Langtoft is derived chiefly from his allusions to circumstances and events not reported by the latter and derived from
local tradition. Thus, he marvels greatly that none of the
historians with whom he is acquainted makes mention of the famous
story of Havelok the Dane and Aethelwold's daughter Goldburgh, although there still lay in Lincoln castle the stone which
Havelok cast further than any other champion, and the town of
Grimsby yet stood to witness the truth of the history.
For the reign of Edward I, Mannyng's additions are of very
considerable importance, and, as the authorities for these can
be traced only in a few instances, it is a reasonable conclusion to
suppose that he wrote from personal knowledge. He relates more
fully than Langtoft the incidents of the attempt on Edward's life
in Palestine, the death of Llywelyn and the treachery of the




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provost of Bruges who undertook to deliver the English king into
the hands of the enemy. It is, however, in connection with Scottish
affairs that his additions are most noteworthy. Although he
regards the Scots with the peculiar bitterness of the northern
English, he follows the fortunes of Bruce, with whom, as we have
seen, he had been brought into personal contact, with especial
interest.
The fragments of ballads celebrating the victories of the
English over the Scots given by Langtoft occur also in Mannyng's
version, and, in some cases, in a fuller, and what seems to be a more
primitive, form. They are full of barbaric exultation over the
fallen foe, and form a curious link between the battle songs in the
Old English Chronicle and the patriotic poems of Laurence Minot.
One other work has been assigned to Robert Mannyng. This
is the Medytacyuns of pe soper of oure lorde Jhesu. And also of
hys passyun. And eke of pe peynes of hys swete modyr, Mayden
Marye. pe whyche made yn latyn Bonaventure Cardynall. In
the two manuscripts in which Handlynge Synne has survived in
a complete form (Bodleian 415 and Harleian 1701), it is followed by
a translation of the above work, but this alone is not sufficient
evidence as to the authorship. The language, however, is east
midland, and the freedom with which the original is treated,
together with the literary skill indicated in some of the additions
and interpolations, may, perhaps, justify the ascription of this work
to Robert Mannyng; but the point is uncertain.
Of Mannyng's influence on succeeding authors it is impossible
to speak definitely. The fact that only three manuscripts of his
great work survive points to no very extensive circulation, and
the resemblance of certain passages in Handlynge Synne to
lines in the Vision of Piers Plowman and the Canterbury Tales
may very well be due to the general opinion of the day on the
subjects of which they treat. It has been noticed that the framework of Handlynge Synne is not unlike that of Gower's Confessio Amantis; but the custom of pointing the lesson of a dissertation by an illustrative narrative is common to didactic writers
of all periods, and Gower's adoption of a method popular among
approved moralists must have been intended to add zest to the
delight of his audience in stories which were of a distinctly secular
character.
The literary activity of the south-east of England during this
time was less remarkable than that of the west and north; never



William of Shoreham


353


theless, three writers of some importance, William of Shoreham,
Dan Michel of Northgate and Adam Davy, call for mention here.
Of these writers two were clerics; the third held the position of
"marshall" in Stratford-at-Bow.
William of Shoreham's works are contained in a single manuscript (Add. MS 17,376) now in the British Museum; and, curiously
enough, though the seven poems treat of the favourite themes of
the medieval homilist, they take the form of lyrical measures.
The first deals with the seven sacraments; the second is a translation of the well-known Latin Psalms printed in the Lay Folk's
Mass Book, of which there are other metrical versions in Middle
English; the third is a commentary on the ten commandments; and
the fourth a dissertation on the seven deadly sins. Then comes a
lyric on the joys of the Virgin, and, after that, a hymn to Mary,
indicated, by the colophon, to be a translation from Robert
Grosseteste. Last of all, is a long poem on the evidences of Christianity, the mystery of the Trinity, the Creation, the war in heaven
and the temptation of Adam and Eve. Here the manuscript
breaks off, but, from internal evidence, it is clear that the poet intended also to treat of the redemption.
Though he is handicapped by the form of verse chosen, the
author shows a good deal of artistic feeling in his treatment of
these well-worn themes. His favourite stanzas consist of seven
or six lines, the former riming abcbded, the latter, aabccb;
but he uses, also, alternately riming lines of varying length
and the quatrain abab. His poems are characterised by the
tender melancholy which pervades much English religious
verse; he dwells on the transitoriness of earthly life, the waning
strength of man and the means by which he may obtain eternal
life and he pleads with his readers for their repentance and
reformation.
From a reference in the colophon to Simon, archbishop of
Canterbury, we may conclude that the present manuscript dates
from the beginning of the reign of Edward III. From other
colophons we learn that the poems were composed by William of
Shoreham, vicar of Chart, near Leeds, in Kent.
The other important Kentish production of this time was the
Ayenbite of Inwyt (the "again-biting" of the inner wit, the remorse
of conscience) the value of which, however, is distinctly philological rather than literary. Our information as to its author
is derived from his preface in the unique manuscript in the
British Museum, which states that it was made with his own hand
E. L. I. CH. XVI.                               23




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by Dan Michel, of Northgate in Kent, and belonged to the library
of St Austin at Canterbury, and from a note at the end of the
treatise, which adds that it was written in English for the sake of
ignorant men, to guard them against sin, and that it was finished
on the vigil of the holy apostles, Simon and Jude, by a brother of
the cloister of St Austin of Canterbury, in the year 1340.
The Ayenbite of Inwyt, was not, however, an original work.
It was a translation of a very popular French treatise, the Somme
des Vices et des Vertus (known also as Li Livres roiaux des Vices
et des Vertus, and Somme le Roi), compiled, in 1279, by frrre
Lorens, a Dominican, at the request of Philip the Bold, son and
successor of Louis IX. This, in its turn, was borrowed from other
writers, and was composed of various homilies, on the ten commandments, the creed, the seven deadly sins, the knowledge of
good and evil, the seven petitions of the Paternoster, the seven
gifts of the Holy Ghost, the seven cardinal virtues and confession,
many of which exist in manuscripts anterior to the time of frbre
Lorens.
The treatment of these subjects, especially in the section on
the seven deadly sins, is allegorical. The sins are first compared
with the seven heads of the beast which St John saw in the
Apocalypse; then, by a change of metaphor, pride becomes the
root of all the rest, and each of them is represented as bringing
forth various boughs. Thus, the boughs of pride are untruth,
despite, presumption, ambition, idle bliss, hypocrisy and wicked
dread; while from untruth spring three twigs, foulhood, foolishness and apostasy. This elaborate classification into divisions and
sub-divisions is characteristic of the whole work, and becomes not
a little tiresome; on the other hand, the very frequent recourse
to metaphor which accompanies it serves to drive the lesson
home. Idle bliss is the great wind that throweth down the great
towers, and the high steeples, and the great beeches in the woods,
by which are signified men in high places; the boaster is the
cuckoo who singeth always of himself.
Sometimes these comparisons are drawn from the natural
history of the day, the bestiaries, or, as Dan Michel calls them,
the "bokes of kende." Thus, flatterers are like to nickers (seafairies), which have the bodies of women and the tails of fishes,
and sing so sweetly that they make the sailors fall asleep, and
afterwards swallow them; or like the adder called "serayn," which
runs more quickly than a horse, and whose venom is so deadly
that no medicine can cure its sting. Other illustrations are




The Ayenbite of Inwyt


355


borrowed from  Seneca, from  Aesop, Boethius, St Augustine,
St Gregory, St Bernard, St Jerome and St Anselm.
Unfortunately, Dan Michel was a very incompetent translator.
He often quite fails to grasp the sense of his original, and his
version is frequently unintelligible without recourse to the French
work. It is noticeable, however, that it improves as it proceeds,
as if he taught himself the language by his work upon it. The
same MS contains Kentish versions of the Paternoster, the creed
and the famous sermon entitled Sawles Warde, which is abridged
from an original at least one hundred years older. It is a highly
allegorical treatment of Matthew, xxiv, 43, derived from Hugo
of St Victor's De Anima, and describes how the house of Reason
is guarded by Sleight, Strength and Righteousness, and how they
receive Dread, the messenger of Death, and Love of Life Everlasting, who is sent from heaven.
Certain resemblances between the Ayenbite of Inwyt and
The Parson's Tale have led to the supposition that Chaucer
was acquainted with either the English or the French version. It
has recently been proved, however, that these resemblances are
confined to the section on the seven deadly sins, and even these
are not concerned with the structure of the argument, but consist
rather of scattered passages. And, although the immediate source
of The Parson's Tale is still unknown, it has been shown that its
phraseology and general argument are very similar to those of a
Latin tract written by Raymund of Pennaforte, general of the
Dominicans in 1238, and that the digression on the seven deadly
sins is an adaptation of the Summa se, Tractatus de Viciis, composed before 1261 by William Peraldus, another Dominican friar.
Another interesting production of the south-eastern counties
is a poem of a hundred and sixty-eight octosyllabic lines, riming
in couplets, known as the Dreams of Adam Davy, which appears
to date from the beginning of the reign of Edward II. The
author, who, as he himself informs us, lived near London, and
was well known far and wide, tells how, within the space of twelve
months, beginning on a Wednesday in August, and ending on a
Thursday in September of the following year, he dreamed five
dreams, concerning Edward the king, prince of Wales. In the
first dream he thought he saw the king standing armed and
crowned before the shrine of St Edward. As he stood there, two
knights set upon him and belaboured him with their swords, but
without effect. When they were gone, four bands of divers
coloured light streamed out of each of the king's ears.
23-2




356


Later Transition English


The second vision took place on a Tuesday before the feast of
All Hallows, and, on that night, the poet dreamed that he saw
Edward, clad in a gray mantle, riding on an ass to Rome, there to
be chosen emperor. He rode as a pilgrim, without hose or shoes,
and his legs were covered with blood. This theme is continued
in the third vision, on St Lucy's day, when the seer thought
that he was in Rome, and saw the pope in his mitre and Edward
with his crown, in token that he should be emperor of Christendom.
In the fourth vision, on Christmas night, the poet imagined
that he was in a chapel of the Virgin Mary and that Christ,
unloosing His hands from the cross, begged permission from His
Mother to convey Edward on a pilgrimage against the foes of
Christendom; and Christ's Mother gave Him leave, because Edward
had served her day and night.
Then came an interval in the dreams, but, one Wednesday in
Lent, the poet heard a voice which bade him make known his
visions to the king: and the injunction was repeated after the
last vision, in which he saw an angel lead Edward, clad in a robe
red as the juice of a mulberry, to the high altar at Canterbury.
The exact purpose of these verses is very difficult to determine. The manuscript in which they are preserved (Laud
MS 622), appears to belong to the end of the fourteenth century;
but the allusion to "Sir Edward the king, prince of Wales" is
applicable only to Edward II. Perhaps they were designed to
check the king in the course of frivolity and misrule which ended
in his deposition; but the tone is very loyal, and the references
to him are extremely complimentary. The poems are, in fact,
intentionally obscure, a characteristic which they share with other
prophecies of the same class, notably those attributed to Merlin
and Thomas of Erceldoune. The same manuscript contains poems
on the Life of St Alexius, the Battle of Jerusalem, the Fifteen
Signs before Domesday, Scripture Histories and the Lamentation
of Souls, which show many resemblances to the Dreams, and
may also be by Adam Davy; if so, he must have been a man of
education, since some of them seem to be derived directly from
Latin originals.
The most important national poems of the first half of the
fourteenth century are the war songs of Laurence Minot, preserved in MS Cotton Galba ix in the British Museum. The author
twice mentions his name; from internal evidence it is probable
that the poems are contemporary with the events they describe;
and, as the last of them deals with the taking of Guisnes, in 1352,




Laurence Minot                    357
it is supposed that he must have died about this time. Diligent
research has failed to discover anything further about him, but
Minot was the name of a well-known family connected with the
counties of York and Norfolk. The language of the poems is, in
its main characteristics, northern, though with an admixture of
midland forms; and, in three of them, the poet shows detailed
acquaintance with the affairs of Yorkshire. Thus, the expedition
of Edward Baliol against Scotland, to which reference is made in
the first poem, set sail from that county; in the ninth poem the
archbishop of York receives special mention; and, in the account
of the taking of Guisnes, Minot adopts the version which ascribes
the exploit to the daring of a Yorkshire archer, John of Doncaster.
The events which form the subject of these poems all fall
between the years 1333 and 1352. The first two celebrate the
victory of Halidon Hill, which, in the poet's opinion, is an ample
recompense for the disgrace at Bannockburn; the third tells how
Edward III went to join his allies in Flanders, and how the
French attacked Southampton and took an English warship, the
Christopher; the fourth relates the king's first invasion of France,
and Philip's refusal to meet him in battle; the fifth celebrates the
victory at Sluys, mentioning by name the most valiant knights who
took part in it; the sixth is concerned with the abortive siege of
Tournay in the same year; and the seventh tells of the campaign
of 1347 and of the battle of Crecy. Then come two poems on the
siege of Calais and the battle of Neville's Cross. These are followed
by an account of a skirmish between some English ships and some
Spanish merchantmen; and the eleventh and last poem relates the
stratagem by which the town of Guisnes was surprised and taken.
The poetical value of these songs has been somewhat unduly
depreciated by almost every critic who has hitherto treated of
them. Their qualities are certainly not of a highly imaginative
order, and they contain scarcely one simile or metaphor; but the
verse is vigorous and energetic and goes with a swing, as martial
poetry should. The author was an adept in wielding a variety of
lyrical measures, and in five poems uses the long alliterative
lines which occur in such poems as William of Palerne and Piers
Plowman in rimed stanzas of varying length. The other six
are all written in short iambic lines of three or four accents,
variously grouped together by end-rime. Alliteration is a very
prominent feature throughout, and is often continued in two
successive lines, while the last words of one stanza are constantly
repeated in the first line of the next, a frequent device in




358          Later Transition      English
contemporary verse. The constant recourse to alliteration detracts, somewhat, from the freshness of the verse, since it leads the
author to borrow from the romance writers well-worn tags, which
must have been as conventional in their way as the hackneyed
pastoral terms against which Wordsworth revolted. Such are
"cares colde," "cantly and kene," "proper and prest," "pride in
prese," "prowd in pall "; with many others of a similar nature.
In spite of the highly artificial structure of the verse, however,
the language itself is simple, even rugged, and the poems dealing
with the Scottish wars bear a strong resemblance to the rude
snatches of folk-song which have already been mentioned in
connection with Mannyng's translation of Langtoft's chronicle.
There is the same savage exultation in the discomfiture of the
Scots, the same scornful references to their "rivelings" (impromptu shoes made of raw hide) and the little bags in which
they were wont to carry their scanty provisions of oatmeal. And
the very simplicity of the narrative conveys, perhaps better than a
more elaborate description, the horrors of medieval warfare; in
reading these poems we see the flames spread desolation over the
country, while hordes of pillagers and rough riders are driven
in scattered bands to their own land; or we behold the dead
men "staring at the stars" or lying gaping "between Crecy and
Abbeville." Nor is the pomp of military array forgotten; we see the
glitter of pennons and plate armour, the shining rows of shields
and spears, the arrows falling thick as snow, the red hats of the
cardinals who consult together how they may beguile the king,
the ships heaving on the flood, ready for battle, while the
trumpets blow, and the crews dance in the moonlight, regardless
of the waning moon that foretells disaster on the morrow. Strange
merchantmen, transformed, for the time, into war vessels, loom in
the Channel, hiding in their holds great wealth of gold and silver,
of scarlet and green; but in vain do these pirates come hither
with trumpets and tabors, they are already doomed to feed the
fishes. There is no thought of mercy for a fallen foe; only in one
place does any sense of compassion seem to affect the poet.
When he tells how the burgesses of Calais came to demand mercy
from Edward, he puts into the mouth of their leader a pitiful
description of their plight. Horses, coneys, cats and dogs are all
consumed; the need of the petitioners is easily visible in their
appearance; and they that should have helped them are fled away.
But Minot says nothing about the intercession of queen Philippa,
related by Froissart.




Laurence Minot                    359
Minot seems to have been a professional gleeman, who earned
his living by following the camp and entertaining soldiers with
the recitation of their own heroic deeds. It is possible, however,
that his skill in versification may have led to his promotion to the
post of minstrel to the king, and that he held some recognised
office about the court. His poems, unlike those of Barbour, which
were composed long after the occasions they commemorated, were,
probably, struck off to celebrate the events as they arose, and, in
one of them, that on the siege of Tournay, his exultation seems to
have been somewhat premature. While Barbour's Bruce is a long,
sustained narrative, composed in the same metre throughout, the
verse of Minot is essentially lyric in character, and, as has been
seen, ranges over a large variety of measures.
Minot's patriotism is everywhere apparent. His contempt for
the "wild Scots and the tame" (the Highland and Lowland Scots)
is undisguised, and he has equally small respect for the lily-flowers
of France. When the English meet with misfortune, he always
finds plenty of excuses for them. Thus, in the fight at Southampton,
the galleymen were so many in number that the English grew
tired, but, "since the time that God was born and a hundred years
before, there were never any men better in fight than the English,
while they had the strength." His admiration and loyalty for the
king are without measure. The most is made of Edward's personal bravery at Sluys, his courteous thanks to his soldiers and
the esteem shown him by foreign dignitaries, while the poet continually insists on the righteous claim of his sovereign to the
throne of France. And, though his poems are sometimes quite
unhistorical in matters of fact, they are important in that they
evidently reflect the growing feeling of solidarity in the nation,
and the patriotic enthusiasm which made possible the victories
of Sluys and Crecy.




CHAPTER XVII


LATER TRANSITION ENGLISH
II
SECULAR LYRICS; TALES; SOCIAL SATIRE
FROM the middle of the thirteenth century to the days of Piers
Plowman, writers of English were still polishing the tools used
in the preceding century.  We have seen their predecessors at
work in monasteries on saints' lives and religious verse; chroniclers
have come under consideration; and the flourishing of romance,
both home-grown and imported, has been noted. It remains to
discuss the evidence which is gradually accumulating that neither
court nor cloister were to exercise a monopoly in the production
and patronage of English letters: there was also "the world outside." Certain of the romances-Havelok notably-bear traces,
in their extant forms, of having been prepared for ruder audiences
than those which listened, as did the ladies and gentlemen of
plague-stricken Florence towards the close of this period, to tales
of chivalry and courtly love and idle dalliance.
A famous collection of Middle English lyrics1 shows signs that
there were writers who could take a keen pleasure in "notes suete
of nyhtegales," in "wymmen" like "Alysoun" and in the "northerne
wynd." There are still poems addressed to "Jhesu, mi suete
lemman," full of that curious combination of sensuousness and
mysticism which is so notable a feature of much of the religious
verse of these centuries; but more purely worldly motifs were
beginning to be preserved; tales which were simply amusing and
cared little for a moral ending were being translated; and indications appear that the free criticism of its rulers, which has always
been a characteristic of the English race, was beginning to find
expression, or, at any rate, preservation, in the vernacular.
To the early years of the period under consideration belongs
one of the most beautiful of Middle English lyrics:
Sumer is i-cumen in,
Lhude sing cucen2.
Its popularity is attested by the existence of the music to which it
1 Harl. MS. 2253, Brit. Mus.    2 Harl. MS. 978.




Secular Lyrics


361


was sung in the first half of the thirteenth century. If summer
had not yet "come in," spring, at any rate, was well on the way when
verses like these became possible. A sense of rime, of music, of
sweetness, had arrived; the lines were settling down into moulds
of equal length, and were beginning to trip easily off the tongue to
an expected close. And, instead of the poet feeling that his spirit
was most in harmony with the darker aspects of nature, as was the
case with most of the Old English writers whose works have been
preserved, the poet of the Middle English secular lyric, in common
with the poet of The Owl and the Nightingale, feels "the springrunning" and cannot refrain from entering into the spirit of it with
a gladsome heart:
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springth the wde nu1.
Sing euccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu:
Bulluc sterteth, bueke verteth2,
Murie sing cuccu!
The same note is struck, only more often, in the Harleian lyrics
above referred to, which are dated, approximately, 1310, and were
collected, apparently, by a clerk of Leominster. The slim volume
in which these lyrics were printed sixty-five years ago, by Thomas
Wright3, contains poems familiar, perhaps, to most students of
English poetry and familiar, certainly, to all students of English
prosody. The measures of the trouveres and troubadours had
become acclimatised in England-Henry III had married a lady
of Provence-so far as the genius of the language and the nature
of the islanders permitted; and the attempt to revive the principle
of alliteration as a main feature, instead of, what it has ever been
and still is, an unessential ornament, of English verse was strong
in the land. And first among these spring poems, not so much in
respect of its testimony to the work of perfecting that was in
progress in the matter of metre, as in its sense of the open air,
and of the supremacy of "humanity," is the well-known Alison
lyric beginning
Bytuene Mershe & Averil
When spray biginneth to springe,
The Intel foul hath hire wyl
On hyre lud4 to synge;
1 now.                        2 runs to the greenwood.
8 Specimens of Lyric Poetry composed in England in the Reign of Edward I, Percy
Society, 1842. Some had been printed before by Warton and Bitson.
4 In her own language.




362


Later Transition English


Ich libbe1 in love-longinge
For semlokest of alle thynge,
He may me blisse bringe,
Icham in hire baundoun2
n hendy hap ichabbe yhent3,
Ichot from hevene it is me sent,
From alle wymmen mi love is lent4
& lyht on Alysoun.
There is a world of difference between these lines and the ideal
of convent-life set forth in Hali Meidenhad 5. By natural steps, the
erotic mysticism that produced the poems associated with the Virgin
cult passed into the recognition, not merely that there were "sun,
moon and stars," " and likewise a wind on the heath," but also that
there existed earthly beings of whom
Some be browne, and some be whit...
And some of theym be chiry ripe6.
In another of the Harleian poems, "the wind on the heath"
inspires a refrain:
Blou, northerne wynd,
Send thou me my suetyng.
Blou, northerne wynd, blon, blou, blon!
which, by its very irregularity of form, shows the flexible strength
that was to be an integral feature of the English lyric. Yet another
poem has lines:
I would I were a thrustle cock,
A bountyng7 or a laverok,
Sweet bride!
Between her kirtle and her smock
I would me hide:
which form a link in the long chain that binds Catullus to the
Elizabethan and Jacobean lyrists. And the lines beginning
Lenten ys come with love to toune,
With blosmen & with briddes roune8
are full of that passionate sense of "the wild joys of living" which
led "alle clerkys in joye and eke in merthe " to sing
Right lovesom thu art in May thu wyde wyde erthe.
1 live.                         2 power.
3 Good fortune has come to me.  4 turned away.
5 See ante, p. 229.
6 A Song on Woman, MS. Lambeth 306, 135, printed by Wright and Halliwell,
Reliquiae Antiquae, I, 248.
7 blackbird.
8 song. Cf. The Thrush and the Nightingale, Digby MS. 86, Bodl., printed in
Reliquiae Antiquae, i, 241 " Somer is comen with love to toune," etc.




Proverbs of Hendyng


363


The Proverbs of Hendyng, " Marcolves sone," are to be found
in the MS that contains the above lyrics and may, therefore, be
mentioned here. They appear to have been collected from older
material in their present form before the close of the thirteenth
century; and they recall the wisdom literature to which reference
has already been made in dealing with Old English proverbs1 and
with the poems attributed to Alfred. These proverbs are obvious
summaries of the shrewd wisdom of the common folk, which is as
old as the hills, and not confined to any one race or country:
Tel thou never thyT fo that thy fot aketh,
Quoth Hendyng...
Dere is botht the hony that is licked of the thorne;
and they enshrine many phrases that are still common property:
Brend child fur dredeth,
Quoth Hendyng;
but their main interest for us lies in the form of the stanzas which
precede the proverb, and which consist of six lines rimed aabaab;
here it is evident that the nebulous outlines of earlier attempts
have taken shape and form out of the void, and become the ballad
stanza; the unrimed shorter lines are now linked by end-rime,
and the reciter from memory is aided thereby.
The literature of the Middle Ages was of a much more
"universal," or cosmopolitan, character than that of later timesit will be remembered that "the book" in which Paolo and
Francesca "read that day no more" was the book of Lancelot
and not a tale of Rimini-and, one of the reasons for this width
of range was that letters were in the hands of a few, whose
education had been of a "universal," rather than a national, type.
English literature, in the vernacular, had to compete for many
a long year, not only with Latin, which, even so late as the days
of Erasmus, was thought to have a fair chance of becoming the
sole language of letters2, but also, though in a rapidly lessening
degree, with Norman-French, the language of all who pretended
to a culture above that of the common folk. And it is to Latin,
therefore, that we have often to turn for evidence of the thoughts
that were beginning to find expression, not only among monastic
1 Cf. A Father's Instruction, ante, p. 62.
2 Cf. also, its long use in legal documents: "' To substitute English for Latin as the
language in which the King's writs and patents and charters shall be expressed, and
the doings of the law-courts shall be preserved, requires a statute of George II's day."
Maitland, in Traill's Social England, Vol. I.




364


Later Transition English


chroniclers and historians, but also among social satirists and
writers of political verse. At first the amusement of those only
who had a knowledge of letters, Goliardic verses and political
satires in Latin became models for the imitation of minstrels and
writers who set themselves to please a wider circle, and who made
themselves the mouthpieces of those who felt and suffered but
could not express.
Some hint of what the people had liked to hear in the way of
tales is preserved for us in The Deeds ofHereward', a son of Lady
Godiva, and an offspring of the native soil, the recital of whose horseplay in the court of the king and of whose deeds on his speedy mare
Swallow would appeal to all who liked the tale of Havelok, the
strapping Grimsby fisher lad, scullery boy and king's son. But the
secular tale and satirical poem of the thirteenth and fourteenth
century appealed to a different audience and are of direct historical
value. In Latin and in English, the tyranny and vice and luxury
of the times are strongly condemned, the conduct of simoniacal
priest and sensual friar is held up to ridicule; and, in that way,
the ground was prepared for the seed to be sown later by the
Lollards.  Monasticism, which had risen to an extraordinary
height during the reign of Stephen and borne excellent fruit
in the educational labours of men like Gilbert of Sempringham,
began to decline in the early years of the thirteenth century.
Then came the friars; and their work among the people, especially
in relieving physical suffering, was characterised by a self-sacrificing zeal which showed that they were true sons of Assisi; but
there were some among those who succeeded them whose light
lives and dark deeds are faithfully reflected in the songs and
satires of Middle English; and there were others, in higher stations,
equally false to their trust, who form the subject of the political
verse coming into vogue in the vernacular. Even though it be borne
in mind that the mutual antagonism between regulars and seculars, and between members of different orders, may be responsible
for some of the scandals satirised, and that there was always a
lighter side to the picture-against bishop Golias and his clan
there were, surely, people like Richard Rolle of Hampole-yet
sufficient evidence remains, apart from the testimony of Matthew
Paris, of the steadily growing unpopularity of monks and friars,
and the equally steady growth of the revolt of the people against
clerical influence.
Social satire of the nature indicated is seen in Middle
1 Preserved in a Latin version only.




Dame Siriz


365


English in the few examples of the fabliau still extant. The
short amusing tale in verse appealed greatly to the Frenchman of the thirteenth century; and, though the few that have
survived in English show strong signs of their foreign origin,
their popularity proved that they were not only accepted as
pleasing to "the ears of the groundlings" but as reflecting, with
somewhat malicious, and wholly satiric, glee, the current manners
of monk and merchant and miller, friar and boy. The Land of
Cokaygne tells of a land of gluttony and idleness, a kitchen-land,
not exactly where it was "always afternoon," but where the monk
could obtain some of the delights of a Mohammadan paradise.
The very walls of the monastery are built "al of pasteiis," "of
fleis, of fisse and riche met," with pinnacles of "fat podinges";
The gees irostid on the spitte
Flee3 to that abbai, god hit wot,
And gredithl, gees al hote, al hot;
and entrance to this land could only be gained by wading
Seve 3ere in swineis dritte...
Al anon up to the chynne.
The Land of Cokaygne has relatives in many lands; it lacks
the deep seriousness of the Wyclifian songs that came later, and
the light satirical way in which the subject is treated would
seem to imply that a French model had been used, but its
colouring is local and its purpose is evident.
Dame Siriz, an oriental tale showing traces of the doctrine
of the transmigration of souls, was put into English after
many wanderings through other languages, about the middle of
the thirteenth century, and is excellently told in a metre varying
between octosyllabic couplets and the six-lined verse of the Sir
Thopas type. Other renderings of the same story are contained
in Gesta Romanorum (28), Disciplina Clericalis (xi) and similar
collections of tales; and the imperfect poem in the form of a
dialogue between Clericus and Puella, printed by Wright and
Halliwell2, may be compared with it. A tale of this kind was
certain of popularity, whether recited by wandering minstrel or
committed to writing for the pleasure of all lovers of comedy. To
the "common form" of an absent and betrayed husband, is added
the Indian device of the "biche" with weeping eyes (induced by
mustard and pepper), who has been thus transformed from human
shape because of a refusal to listen to the amorous solicitations of


1 cry.


2 Reliquiae Antiquae, I, 145.




366


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a "clerc."  The device is used by the pander, Dame Siriz, who,
for twenty shillings, promises another "clerc" to persuade the
merchant's wife to yield to his desires.
There is, unfortunately, very little of the famous satirical beast
epic Reynard the Fox that can be claimed for England. Some of
the animals were known to Odo of Cheriton, the fabulist, who
makes use of stories of Reynard to point the moral of his sermons;
and a short fabliau of about the same period as those above
mentioned is extant; but this is about all. In The Vox and the
Wolf is cleverly related in bold and firm couplets the familiar
story of the well and the device of Renauard for getting himself
out of it at the expense of the wolf Sigrim. The teller of the
story in Middle English is learned in his craft, and the poem is an
admirable example of comic satire, perhaps the best of its kind
left to us before the days of Chaucer. Not only are the two
characters well conceived, but they are made the vehicle, as in
the romance of the Fleming Willem, of light satire on the life of
the times. Before admitting the wolf to the paradise in the bucket
at the bottom of the well, the fox takes upon himself the duties of
a confessor, and the wolf, to gain absolution, asks forgiveness, not
only for the ordinary sins of his life, but, after a little pressing
even repents him of the resentment shown when the confessor
made free with the penitent's wife. Few things show more clearly
the failings and vices current in the Middle Ages than do the
various stories of the deeds of Reynard in his ecclesiastical disguises: stories that were carved in stone and wood and shown in
painted glass, as well as recited and written. His smug cowled face
looks out from pulpits and leers at us from under miserere seats.
The literary needs of those who were familiar with the
"romances of prys" in which deeds of chivalry were enshrined,
and who, with the author of Sir Thopas, could enjoy parodies of
them, were met by such salutary tales as The Turnament of
Totenham. A countryside wedding, preceded by the mysteries of
a medieval tournament, is described by Gilbert Pilkington, or by
the author whose work he transcribes, in language that would be
well understood and keenly appreciated by those of lower rank
than "knight and lady free." It is an admirable burlesque; rustic
laddis contend not only for Tibbe the daughter of Rondill the refe,
but for other prizes thrown in by the father:
He shalle have my gray mare [on which Tibbe "was sett"],
And my spottyd sowe;
and, therefore, Hawkyn and Dawkyn and Tomkyn and other noble




The Tale of Gamelyn


367


youths "ffro Hissiltoun to Haknay," "leid on stifly," "til theyre
hors swett," with much "clenkyng of cart sadils" and many
"brokyn hedis," and
Woo was Hawkyn, woo was Herry,
Woo was Tomkyn, woo was Terry
when they sat down to the marriage feast of the winner. The
Tale of Thopas exercises its useful office with a rapier; if The
Turnament of Totenham performs its duty with a cudgel, the
result, so far as the victim is concerned, is none the less effective.
The middle of the fourteenth century gave us The Tale of
Gamelyn which is dealt with elsewhere as a metrical romance and
in connection with the works of Chaucer. It forms an admirable
link between the courtly romance and the poetry of the outlaws
of the greenwood. A younger brother, despoiled of his share
in the inheritance, is ill-clothed and given poor food by his
eldest brother, handed over to understrappers to be thrashed and
otherwise maltreated. But, after the fashion of Havelok, Gamelyn
proves himself adept at the staff and strong in the arm; and, after
a fair supply of adventures, with much success and after further
tribulation, he becomes head of a forest band of young outlaws;
furthermore, after justice has been done to his unnatural brother,
he becomes king's officer in the woodland. It is a "loveless " tale
of the earlier Stevenson kind; no courtly dame has part or parcel
therein; nevertheless, in the form in which we now have it, The
Tale of Gamelyn is quite excellent, is, in fact, typically English in
its sense of free life and open air.
Of the two collections of stories referred to above, one, the most
famous of its kind, and the source-book for many later English
writers, the Gesta Romanorum, probably took shape in England,
in its Latin form, in the period under discussion. Early preachers
and homilists were only too willing to seize hold of stories from
every quarter in order to "point the moral," and their collections
have served many ends different from the purpose designed. If
the "moral" attached to each tale, and dragged in, often, on the
most flimsy excuse, be ignored, the tales of the Gesta Romanorum
become readable, for they are often excellently, even though baldly,
told. Other Latin collections of cognate kind, the work of English
compilers, have been referred to in a preceding chapter', and
all are of importance in the light they throw on the manners of
the time. One, the Summa Praedicantium of John de Bromyarde,
a Dominican friar, scholar of Oxford and antagonist of Wyclif,
1 See Chapter x, Map, Neckham, etc.




368          Later    Transition   Engish
devotes a thousand pages to subjects likely to be acceptable to
congregations, and deserves more attention than has hitherto been
paid it. In the legendaries and poems compiled and written by
the monks for homiletic purposes, there are many germs of the
tale-telling faculty, and much folk-lore. Things charming and
grotesque are inextricably mixed. In the legends of the Childhood of Jesus, for instance, there is a delightful account of the
reverence paid by the animal creation and by inanimate nature to
the Infant during the journey to Egypt; and then the poem is
marred by the addition of crude miraculous deeds recorded as
afterwards wrought by Him. Many of our tales have originally
come from the east; but, in spite of the proverb, they have
gathered much moss in rolling westward, and flints from the same
quarry that have travelled a fairly direct course look strangely
different from others that have zigzagged hither.
Of Middle English political verses, the earliest preserved are,
probably, those on the battle of Lewes, which was fought in 1264.
The battle was celebrated by a follower of the fortunes of Simon de
Montfort, in a poem which is of considerable philological and
metrical importance. The number of French words it contains
reveals the process of amalgamation that was going on between the
two languages, and lets us into the workshop where the new speech
was being fashioned. The interest of the poem is also considerable
from the evidence it furnishes that the free-spoken Englishman was
beginning to make the vernacular the vehicle of satire against his
superiors in the realm of politics, following the example of the
writers of the Latin satirical poems then current. The educated
part of the race was beginning to show signs of the insular prejudice
against foreigners which is not even absent from it to-day-though
it could loyally support "foreigners" when they espoused the
national cause-and it was, more happily, showing signs of the
political genius which has ever been a quality of our people. Metrically, these political lyrics in the vernacular are of importance
because of the forms of verse experimented in and naturalised.
The minstrel who sang or recited political ballads had to appeal to
more critical audiences than had the composer of sacred lyrics; he
had to endeavour to import into a vernacular in transition something of the easy flow of comic Latin verse. The Song against the
King of Almaignel, above referred to, is in mono-rimed four-lined
stanzas, followed by a "bob," or shorter fifth line, "maugre
1 Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans, brother of Henry III.




Songs of the Soil


369


Wyndesore," "to helpe Wyndesore," etc., and a constant, mocking,
two-lined refrain, with a kind of internal rime:
Richard, thah thou be ever trichard1,
trichen shalt thou never more.
The recurrence of lines consisting of perfect anapaests2 and
showing but little tendency towards alliteration, indicates the
direction in which popular rimes were looking.
In the civil struggles of the barons' wars, and in the years that
followed, the poetry of the people rose to the surface. The Robin
Hood ballads, to which we shall recur in a later volume, and a few
rude verses here and there, give voice, not only to the free, open life
of the outlaw in the greenwood, but, also, to the cry of the downtrodden at the callous luxury of the rich. The real condition of
the poor is but rarely reflected in the literature of a nation: the
unfree in feudal times were voiceless, and the labouring free of
later times have been but little better. Patient beyond belief, the
children of the soil do not, as a rule, make literature of their wrongs:
we can only learn what is at work by conscious or unconscious
revelations in other writings. The ploughman in the eleventhcentury dialogue of Aelfric had said with truth, "I work hard....Be
it never so stark winter I dare not linger at home for awe of my
lord.... I have a boy driving the oxen with a goad-iron, who is hoarse
with cold and shouting....Mighty hard work it is, for I am not
free3." The "bitter cry " of the oppressed people was echoed in the
Old English Chronicle of the sad days of Stephen and, ignored
by court historians and writers of romance, centuries had to elapse
before it could find adequate expression in the alliterative lines of
Piers Plowman, and in the preaching of the "mad priest of Kent'"
-one of the earliest among Englishmen, whose words are known
to us, to declare for the common and inalienable rights of man.
It is a far cry from the speech of the land slave to John Ball,
Jack Straw and Wat Tyler, and the intervening years show
but fragments of the literature of revolt, but the rude rimes
sent across the country by John Ball should no more be forgotten
in a history of English literature than the rude beginnings of
its prosody, for they contain the beginnings of the literature
of political strife, the first recognisable steps on the road of
political and religious liberty that was later to be trodden by
1 treacherous.
2           Sitteth alle stille & herkneth to me...
Sire Simond de Mountfort hath swore bi ys chyn, etc.
3 York Powell's translation in Social England, I.
E. L. I. CH. XVII.                                  24




370


Later Transition English


Milton and Shelley and Cobbett. In the Song of the Husbandman
one of the notable poems of the alliterative revival, which may
be dated towards the close of the thirteenth century, in octaves
and quatrains rimed alternately on two rimes with linked ending
and beginning lines-a complicated measure handled with great
skill-the tiller of the soil complains that he is robbed and picked
"ful clene"; that, because of the green wax, he is hunted "ase
hound doth the hare." And the insolence of the grooms and stable
boys, the lackeys and servants, of the great towards the peasantry
is told in the rude, coarse lines of A Song against the Retinues of
the Great People, preserved in the same MS1.
The luthernesse2 of the ladde,
The prude3 of the page,
are the subject of as keen invective as are the deeds of the
consistory courts4, where the peasants are treated as dogs.
When Edward I died, the writer of an elegy on his death
expressed the pious hope that "Edward of Carnarvon" might
ner be worse man
Then is fader, ne lasse of myht
To holden is pore-men to ryht
& understonde good consail.
It remained an unrealised hope; and the condition of things in the
times of Edward II is reflected in the fugitive literature of his
reign.  The curiously constructed lines in Anglo-Norman and
English On the King's Breaking his Coifirmation of Magna
Charta, preserved in the Auchinleck MS, Edinburgh, and the Song
on the Times in lines made up of Latin, English and Anglo-Norman
phrases, tell the same tale of ruin and corruption. Before the end
of the reign, Bannockburn had been fought and won, fought and
lost; Scottish girls could sing of the mourning of their southern
sisters for "lemmans loste"; and, in place of an elegy on the death
of a king who "ber the prys" "of Christendome5," we have a poem
in the Auchinleck MS on The Evil Times of Edward II, which, in
some 470 lines, pitilessly describes the misery of the state and
the evil of the church.  It is a sermon on the old text, "Ye
cannot serve God and Mammon," "no man may wel serve tweie
lordes to queme," and every line bites in, as with the acid of
an etcher, some fresh detail of current manners. As soon as the
1 Harl. 2253, ed. Wright.     2 malicious ill-temper.
3 conceit.                    4 Political Songs of England, 1839.
5 Elegy on Edward I, before cited.




The Black      Death                371
young priest can afford it, he has a concubine; if those in high
places protest, "he may wid a litel silver stoppen his mouth"; the
doctor is the doctor of the comedies of MoliBre, a pompous
charlatan, ready enough to take silver for his advice, "thouh he
wite no more than a gos wheither" the patient "wole live or die";
"the knights of old" no longer go forth on brave, if Quixotic,
quests, they are "liouns in halle, and hares in the field," and any
beardless boy can be dubbed of their company; everywhere are
the poor of the land oppressed
Ac if the king hit wiste, I trowe he wolde be wroth,
Hou the pore beth i-piled, and hu the silver goth;
Hit is so deskatered bothe hider and thidere,
That halvendel shal ben stole ar hit come togidere,
and acounted;
An if a pore man speke a word, he shal be foule afrounted.
Before the fourteenth century had come to a close, the ravages
of the Black Death had brought about radical changes in the
relations of labourers to the soil and had left indelible impressions
on life and letters. The presence of a disease that, at its height,
meant the death of one out of every two people in London and,
in the eastern counties, of two out of every three, led to a relaxation of the current laws of life and to the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.
The outbreak of lawlessness consequent upon the dislocation of
life in town and country, and the labour troubles that followed,
sent outlaws to the greenwood and helped to build up the legends
of Robin Hood. Murmurs of discontent grew in volume, and
protests against papal authority acquired fresh strength by the
existence of the Great Schism. The Lollards began their attacks on
social abuses and sought to reform the church at the same time.
The people "spoke," and, though the "cause" was not "finished" for
many centuries to come, yet the end of many of the political and
religious ideals of the Middle Ages was in sight. Wyclif, and
those associated with him, had begun their work, the poems that
go by the name of Piers Plowman had been written and the
"commons," in the fullest sense of the word, were beginning their
long struggle for political freedom.




CHAPTER XVIII


THE PROSODY OF OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH
OF Old English poetry, anterior to the twelfth century
and, perhaps, in a few cases of that century itself, it has
been calculated that we have nearly thirty thousand lines. But
all save a very few reduce themselves, in point of prosody, to
an elastic but tolerably isonomous form, closely resembling
that which is found in the poetry of other early Teutonic and
Scandinavian languages. This form may be specified, either
as a pretty long line rigidly divided into two halves, or as a
couplet of mostly short lines rhythmically connected together by
a system of alliteration and stress. Normally, there should be
four stressed syllables in the line, or two in each of the half
couplets; and at least three of these syllables should be alliterated, beginning with the same consonant or any vowel, as in this
line (29) of The Wanderer:
Wenian mid wynnum. Wat se pe cunna;.
Around or between the pillar or anchor stresses, unstressed
syllables are grouped in a manner which has sometimes been
regarded as almost entirely licentious, and sometimes reduced, as
by Sievers, to more or less definite laws or types. Probably, as
usual, the truth lies between the two extremes.
To any one, however, who, without previous knowledge of the
matter, turns over a fair number of pages of Old English verse, a
singular phenomenon will present itself. For many of these pages
the line-lengths, though not rigidly equated, will present a coastline not very much more irregular than that of a page of modern
blank verse. And then, suddenly, he will come to pages or
passages where the lines seem to telescope themselves out to
double their former length. The mere statistical process of enumeration, and of subsequent digestion into classes of more or less
resembling type, finds no difficulty in this, and merely regards it




Old English Verse


373


as an instance of "stretched" or "swollen" verses, with three or
four accents in each half instead of two. Curiosity of a different
kind may, perhaps, pine for a little explanation of a more real
nature-may wish to know whether this lengthening was parallel,
say, to Tennyson's at the close of The Lotos Eaters-a definitely
concerted thing-or whether it was a mere haphazard licence.
But there are no means of satisfying this curiosity except by
conjecture. Further, our means of deciding whether, as is usually
said, the stressed syllables were bound to be "long" beforehand or
not, are very scanty. It seems admitted that more than one short
syllable may do the duty of one long; and this is of the highest
importance. What, however, is certain is that, in spite of this
great variation of length, and in spite of considerable differences,
not merely in syllabic volume, between the members of the
"stretched" and unstretched groups respectively, there is a certain
community of rhythmical tone, sometimes full, sometimes muffled,
which not only distinguishes the whole body of this ancient poetry,
but is distinguishable, with some alteration, in the later revived
alliterative verse of Middle English up to the beginning of the
sixteenth century. In order to detect and check this, the student
should take the Corpus Poeticuvn of Old English and read pages of
different poems steadily, letting his voice accommodate itself to the
rhythm which will certainly emerge if he has any ear. Different ears
will, perhaps, standardise this rhythm differently, and it certainly
admits of very wide variation and substitution. The simplest
and most normal formula-not necessarily the one which mere
statistics will show to be commonest as such, but that which, in
itself, or in slight variations from it, predominates-appears to the
present writer to be
tum-ti-ti tum-i  I tum-ti tum-ti.
ti-tum-ti
These are almost the lowest terms of a fully resonant line. They
are sometimes further truncated; they are often enlarged by the
addition of unstressed syllables; but they are never far off except
in the obvious and admitted "magnums."
Long or short, these lines, in all but an infinitesimal proportion
of the total, are arranged in mere consecution. A kind of paragraph arrangement-which is, in fact, a necessity-may be often
noticed; but there are, save in one famous exception, no "stanzas."
This exception is the extremely interesting and, to all appearance,
extremely early poem Deor. Here, things which are undoubtedly




374     Prosody of Old and Middle English
like stanzas (though the number of lines in them is variable) are
formed by a refrain:
paes ofereode, pisses swa mae 1.
With some rashness, it has been assumed that this semi-lyrical
arrangement was the earlier, and that it broke down into the
continuous form. It may be so; but, in Old English, at any rate,
we have no evidence to show it.
Further, in the main range of this poetry, though not to such
an exclusive extent, rime is absent. Attempts have been made
to discover it in some of the mainly rimeless poems of later
dates; but the instances adduced are probably accidental. In
fact, the majority of them, alleged chiefly by German critics,
are not properly rimes at all, and are often mere similarities
of inflection. The real exceptions are (1) the famous piece in
the Exeter Book called, significantly, The Riming Poem, which
exhibits a system, probably imitated from the Norse, of internal,
and sometimes frequently repeated, consonance at the ends
of lines and half lines; and (2) a few fragments, especially
the inset in the Chronicle about the imprisonment and death of
the "guiltless aetheling" Alfred.  They are exceptions which
eminently prove the rule. A quest for assonance has also been
made, and a few instances of something like it have been pointed
out. But they are very few. Assonance, in fact, has never held
any important place in English prosody; and, where it exists in
unsophisticated times and instances, it is always, most probably,
the result either of inattention or of an attempt to rime. On
the whole, the body of Old English verse, as we have it, is
one of the most homogeneous to be found in any literature.
Alliteration, accent and strict separation of lines or half-lines
for its positive laws; rimelessness for its negative: these nearly
sum up its commandments, and its result is dominated by an
irregular quasi-trochaic rhythm which will retreat, but always
comes back again.
When, after the lapse of some two centuries, which furnish only
scraps of verse, we meet, at, or before, the end of the twelfth
century, with a fresh crop of English poetry, the results of prosodic
scrutiny are strikingly different. Instead of the just summarised
regularity-not in the least cast-iron, but playing freely round two
or three recognised principles, which are never absolutely deserted,


1 See ante, p. 36.




Th4e Transition                   375
and attempting nothing beyond their range-we find what may, at
first, look like chaos; what has sometimes been taken for the same
dispensation a little obsolescent and broken down, but, when
examined fully and fairly, is seen to be a true period of transition.
The old order finds itself in face of a new, which does not by any
means merely replace it or destroy it; but, after an inevitable
stage of confusion, blends with it and produces something different
from either, something destined to be permanent as far as we can
yet see. In all the pieces usually dated a little before or a
little after 1200-the fragments of St Godric, Paternoster, The
Moral Ode and others, as well as the two long compositions of
Layamon and Orm-this process and its results are observable.
The new agency is the syllabic prosody (accentual, also, in general
character, but strictly syllabic) of French and of contemporary
Latin, with its almost invariable accompaniment of rime, and its
tendency, invariable also in French, though by no means so in
Latin, to iambic rhythm. It must be sufficient here to examine
the working out of this clash in the two long poems just referred
to, the Ormulum and the Brut, with slighter remarks on the
others. In both poems it is possible to trace the older principle
of a rimeless line of more or less length, divided sharply in the
middle, or a rimeless couplet of two halves, in which, though not
invariably, there is a certain tendency to shorten the second. But
the two writers have been affected by the opposite and newer
system in ways curiously different, but quite intelligible as results
of the clash. Orm has unflinchingly kept to the old principle of
rimelessness; but he has as unflinchingly adopted the new
principles of uniformity in syllabic volume and of regular iambic
metrical beat. His lines are invariably of fifteen syllables, or his
couplets of eight and seven. That he achieves-as any example,
however selected, must show-nothing but the most exasperating
and wooden monotony, does not matter to him, and it ought not
to matter to us. He has sacrificed everything to regularity in
number and cadence, and he has achieved this.
Layamon's result, if not more actually important, is much more
complicated, much more interesting, with much more future in it;
but, for these very reasons, it is much less easy to summarise.
In fact, to summarise it in uncontroversial terms is very nearly
impossible. At first sight, if we can suppose an eye familiar with
Old English poetry and not familiar at all with Middle English,
it may seem to present no great difference from the former; and
there are still some who think that it does not present any that




376     Prosody of Old and Middle English
is vital. But, when it is examined a little more carefully, differences
the most vital, if as yet sometimes not more than embryonically vital, emerge. Regarded as alliterative verse of the old
pattern, it can only be called very bad verse-veCrse which turns
the already abundant liberties of the original into mere chaotic
licence, for the most part, and which very seldom conforms at all
successfully.  But, in addition to this, it succumbs, constantly
though irregularly, to the temptation which, except in late and
few instances, the old verse had rigidly resisted, and which Orm
was resisting absolutely-the temptation of rime. And this rime
seems to be forcing on it a new regularisation, that of equal-halved
distichs rimed together in the exact fashion of the French
octosyllabic couplet.
When we turn to the other and smaller poems of the period we
find this process of "slowly quickening into other forms" even
more importantly and interestingly exhibited. The Paternoster
is wholly in more or less regular rimed couplets of the kind just
noted. In The Moral Ode, the fifteen-syllabled line of Orm,
which, by the frequency of feminine endings, already promises
the reduction to fourteen, comes even nearer to the ballad metre
of eight and six, and exhibits a still more valuable characteristic
in its tendency towards maintaining the old syllabic freedom and
substitution of trisyllabic feet for the strict dissyllables of Ormulum.
Further, this heritage of Old English manifests itself in the
octosyllabic couplet; and, in the version of Genesis and Exodus,
which is assigned to about the middle of the thirteenth century,
anticipates exactly the Christabel metre which Coleridge thought
he invented more than five hundred years later. And, before very
long, though at dates impossible to indicate with precision, owing
to the uncertainty of the chronology of the documents, other
approximations of the old staple line or couplet to the metres
of French and Latin (especially the rime coure or combination
of two eights and a six doubled) make their appearance. These
transformations, however, as the liberty of their forms shows, and
as may be specially studied with greatest ease in the various
adaptations of the octosyllabic couplet, are neither mere aimless
haphazard experiments, nor mere slavish following of French and
Latin forms previously existing and held up as patterns. They
may be much more reasonably regarded as attempts to adjust
these latter to the old couplet with its middle division, and its
liberty of equality or inequality of syllabic length in the halves;
though, in all cases, the special rhythm of the older line or stave




Foreign InAluence


377


has become faint in the ear, and the new metrical swing prevails.
An equal division of the halves gives a distich which, for some
time, hesitates between eight and six syllables, the latter having
the additional assistance of the French alexandrine as pattern.
But it proves less suitable for English verse than the longer form,
and it is dropped or very rarely used. An unequal division-from
the first most popular-into eight and seven or eight and six,
gives the long line of Robert of Gloucester-sometimes called, for
convenience, a "fourteener" or, by Warton and others, but most
improperly, a "long alexandrine."  This, when itself "disclosed"
in "golden couplets," becomes at once the famous "common" or
ballad measure, the most distinctly popular metre for seven hundred
years past, and, at certain times, one yielding the most exquisite
harmony possible, though very easily degraded and reduced to
sing-song. In the course, moreover, of the give and take of this
commerce between material and mould, the beginnings of the
great decasyllabic, five-foot, or five-stress line emerge with a
frequency which has, for the most part, been inadequately noted;
as well as, more rarely, the alexandrine itself. In fact, it furnishes
the poet, by luck or design, with every possible line from four,
or even fewer, syllables to fourteen; while his examples in Latin
and French in turn furnish almost endless suggestions of stanzacombination.
In one all-important particular, however, the foreign influence
exercised-by French altogether and, by Latin, in the greatest
part by far of its recent and accentual verse writing-in the
direction of strict syllabic uniformity, is not, indeed, universally,
but, to a very large extent, and stubbornly, resisted. The rimelessness of Old English might be given up with pleasure; its
curious non-metrical, or hardly more than half-metrical, cadences
might be willingly exchanged for more definite harmony; the
chains of its forced alliteration might be attenuated to an agreeable
carcanet worn now and then for ornament; and its extreme lengthlicence might be curtailed and regularised. But, in one point which
had made for this latter, English refused to surrender; and that
was the admission of trisyllabic feet, as some phrase it, or, as some
prefer to describe the process, the admission of extra unstressed
syllables. The question was, indeed, not settled; as a question it, no
doubt, never arose; and, when such problems came to be considered,
there was a dangerous tendency from late in the sixteenth century
till later in the eighteenth to answer them in the wrong way. But
practice was irreconcilable. Of the octosyllabic couplet there were,




378     Prosody   of Old and      Middle English
almost from the first, two distinct forms, the strict and the elastic;
in nearly all other metres the licence is practically assumed. By
1300, or a little later, say 1325-to admit the latest possible dates
for the Harleian lyrics and the bulk of the early romances-all the
constitutive principles of modern English prosody are in operation,
and are turning out work, rougher or smoother, but unmistakable.
One curious postscript has to be made to these few general
remarks. During the period just referred to-from Layamon, that
is to say, to the appearance of William of Palerne and other
things, at a time probably nearer to the middle of the fourteenth
century than to its beginning-attempts at the old alliterative metre
are absolutely wanting. It is not unusual to meet with assumptions
that, though wanting, they must have existed, at any rate in
popular literature; and to these assumptions, as to all such, no
reasonable answer can be made, except that it may have been so.
So far, however, no trace of any such verse in the period referred
to has been discovered; nor any reference to such; nor any
evidence, direct or indirect, that it existed. About the end of the
period it reappears: sometimes, simple of itself, with a cadence
altered, indeed, but not out of all likeness, after the fashion that
was to produce its capital example in The Vision of Piers
Plowman; sometimes, in a very remarkable blend with rime, and
with metrical land stanza arrangement, after the fashion of which
the most notable instances, in less and more regular kind, are
Gawayne and the Grene Knight and Pearl. But this revival
or reappearance has no effect on the main current of English
verse; which continues to be distinctly.metrical, to be, in effect
universally, rimed and to use alliteration only for a separable and
casual ornament, not as a constituent and property.




CHAPTER XIX


CHANGES IN THE LANGUAGE TO THE DAYS OF
CHAUCER
1. CONTINUITY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
THE three Germanic peoples-the Jutes from Jutland, the
Angles from Schleswig and the Saxons from Holstein-who, in
the fifth and sixth centuries, made themselves masters of the
greater part of south Britain, spoke dialects so nearly allied that
they can have had no great difficulty in understanding each other's
speech. It does not appear, however, that, in their original seats,
they had any general name for their common race or their common
language. The sense of their unity, with the consequent need for
a general designation for themselves, would, naturally, be the product of the time when they found themselves settled among a
population speaking an alien and unintelligible tongue. In fact,
it was probably not by themselves, but by other nations, that the
Jutes, Angles and Saxons of Britain were first regarded as forming
an ethnic whole; just as in earlier times the larger kindred of
which they were part had received the name of Germans from the
Celts. The Britons applied to all the Germanic invaders of their
country the name of Saxons, because, in the days of Roman rule,
that nation had been the most conspicuous among those who
ravaged the coasts of Britain; and, as is well known, the Celticspeaking inhabitants of the British islands still continue to call the
English people and its language "Saxon." On the Continent, the
Germanic conquerors of Britain seem, for a long time, to have been
called indiscriminately sometimes Saxons, after the Celtic practice,
and sometimes Angles, the latter being the name of the people
which had the largest extent of territory. At the end of the sixth
century, Pope Gregory I uses only the name Angli. This is a
somewhat remarkable fact, because the missionaries sent by Gregory
laboured in the Jutish kingdom of Kent, which, at that time, was
paramount over all the country south of the Humber. Possibly,
the explanation of Gregory's choice of this name may be found in




380


Changes in the Language


the famous story, according to which his zeal for the conversion of
the pagans of Britain was first awakened by his admiration of the
beauty of the boy slaves from the Anglian kingdom of Deira.
On the other hand, about A.D. 660, Pope Vitalian, writing to an
Angle king, Oswiu of Northumbria, addresses him as rex
Saxonum.
The Roman missionaries naturally followed Gregory's practice;
and it was probably from the official language of the church that
the Jutes and Saxons learned to regard themselves as part of the
"Angle kindred" (Angolcynn, in Latin gens Anglorum).  The
political ascendency of the Angle kingdoms, which began in
the seventh century, and continued until the time of the Danish
invasions, doubtless contributed to ensure the adoption of this
general name. In the early years of the eighth century, Bede
sometimes speaks of Angli sive Saxones, thus treating the two
appellations as equivalent. But, with this sole exception, his
name for the whole people is always Angli or gens Anglorum, and
he calls their language sermo Anglicus, even when the special
reference is to the dialect in which the Kentish laws were written.
When he does speak of lingua Saxonica, the context, in every
instance, shows that he means the language of the East or West
Saxons. It is true that Bede was an Angle by birth, and this fact
might seem to detract from the significance of his use of the name.
But, a century and a half later, the West Saxon king Alfred, whose
works are written in his native dialect, never uses any other name
for his own language but Englisc-the language of the Angles. It
is in the great king's writings that we find the earliest vernacular
examples of the name which our language has ever since continued
to bear.
In a certain sense it may be said that this name, as applied to
the language of the south of England, became more and more
strictly appropriate as time went on. For the history of southern
English, or of the language of English literature, is, to a considerable extent, concerned with the spread of Anglian forms of words
and the disappearance of forms that were specifically Saxon.
Moreover, several of the most important of the processes of change
that transformed the English of Alfred into the English of Chaucer
-the loss of inflections and grammatical gender, and the adoption
of Danish words-began in the Anglian regions of the north, and
gradually extended themselves southward. Leaving out of account
the changes that were due to French influences, we might almost
sum up the history of the language during five centuries in the




"English" and "Saxon"


38


formula that it became more and more "English" and less and less
"Saxon."
It will be convenient at this point to give some account of the
history of the nomenclature of the various stages in the development
of the English language. When, in the sixteenth century, the remains of vernacular literature earlier than the Norman conquest
began to attract the attention of scholars, Englishmen naturally
found it inconvenient to apply the name of "English" to what to
them was, practically, a foreign language, requiring not less study
to understand than the Flemish of their own day. It became
customary, therefore, to speak of this language as "Saxon." As the
few pre-Conquest texts then known were written in the south, this
designation may be said to have been accurately descriptive. It
was so, however, merely by accident, for those who employed it
were accustomed to use the term "Saxons" as a general name for
the Germanic inhabitants of England before the Norman conquest.
The popular view was that the "English" people and the "English"
language came into being as the result of the fusion of "Saxons"
and Normans. Traces of this misuse of names, indeed, are to be
found in various forms of expression that are still current. Although
the double misnomer of "the Saxon heptarchy" no longer appears
in our school histories, modern writers continue to speak of "the
Saxon elements in the English vocabulary," and to misapply the
epithet "Saxon" to the architecture of the parts of the country
inhabited by the Angles.
The term "Saxon," besides being historically incorrect as a
designation for the whole early Germanic population of Britain,
was inconveniently ambiguous, because it survived as the proper
appellation of a portion of the inhabitants of Germany. In the last
years of the reign of Elizabeth, Camden revived the use of the old
name Anglosaxones, and, probably for the first time, used lingua
Anglosaxonica for the language of England before the Norman
conquest. He explains that Anglosaxones means the Saxons of
England, in contradistinction to those of the continent; and, in his
English Remains, he, accordingly, renders it by "English Saxons."
Throughout the seventeenth century, and even later, "English
Saxon" continued to be the name ordinarily applied by philologists to the language of king Alfred, but, in the eighteenth
century, this gave place to "Anglo-Saxon."
Camden's explanation of the compound name was, there can be
little doubt, historically correct. In its early use, it was applied
to distinguish those Saxons who were considered part of the




382


Changes in the Language


"Angolcynn," and whose language was called "English," from the
"Old Saxons," who remained in Germany; and the structure of the
native form Angulseaxe shows that the first element was intended
as a descriptive prefix. It was, however, natural that the compound should be interpreted as meaning "Angle and Saxon," and,
apparently, it was taken in this sense already at the end of the
seventeenth century by George Hickes, who also applied the
analogous name "Dano-Saxon" to the Old Northumbrian dialect,
under the mistaken notion that its peculiar features were the
result of Scandinavian admixture. As thus misunderstood, the
term "Anglo-Saxon" was accepted as supplying the need for a
general name applicable to the Anglian and Saxon dialects in
their fully inflected stage. In this comprehensive sense it continues to be extensively used. The proposal of some scholars to
restrict its application, on grounds of historical propriety, to the
Saxon dialect failed to gain acceptance, because what was wanted
was an inclusive name for the early language of England, as the
object of a well-defined branch of linguistic study. When professorships of "Anglo-Saxon" had been founded at Oxford and
Cambridge, it was hardly possible to narrow the meaning of the
name to a part of the subject which the professors were appointed
to teach.
As a popular designation, the name "Anglo-Saxon" has the
merits of definiteness and intelligibility, which may possibly long
preserve it in use. It has, however, the great disadvantage of concealing the important fact that the history of our language from
the earliest days to the present time has been one of continuous
development. When this fact became evident through the attention bestowed by scholars on the language of the thirteenth
century, the inconvenience of the traditional nomenclature could
not escape recognition. The language of this period was too
different from the Anglo-Saxon of the grammars to be conveniently
called by the same name, while, on the other hand, it could hardly
be called English, so long as "English" was understood to mean a
language which the unlearned reader could at once perceive to be
substantially identical with his own. An attempt was made to
meet the difficulty by the invention of the compound "SemiSaxon," to denote the transitional stage between "Anglo-Saxon"
and "English," but this name was so obviously infelicitous that its
introduction helped to procure acceptance for a nomenclature
which recognised that the language of Caedmon was no less
"English" than that of Chaucer. The great German philologist,




Periods   of English               383
Jacob Grimm, had introduced the practice of dividing the history
of a language into three periods, designated by the prefixes "Old,"
"Middle," and "New" or "Modern"; and, in the latter half of the
nineteenth century, many scholars in this country adopted "Old
English" as the name for that stage of the language which had, till
then, been known as Anglo-Saxon. The change found much opposition, on the not wholly unreasonable ground that "Old English"
was popularly applied to any form of English that was characterised
by abundance of obsolete words and by antiquated spelling, so that
the novel use could not but lead to frequent misunderstanding.
The advantages of the new nomenclature for purposes of historical
treatment are, however, so considerable that it has now come into
general use, although a few philologists, both in England and
Germany, still decline to adopt it.
The main reason for restoring to the language of Caedmon and
Alfred its historical name of "English," is to emphasise the truth
that there was no substitution of one language for another in
England after the Norman conquest, but only a modification of
the original language by gradual changes in pronunciation and
grammar, by the accession of new words and the obsolescence of
old ones. The change of nomenclature will be a mere useless
pedantry if we allow ourselves to imagine that there was any
definite date at which people ceased to speak "Old English" and
began to speak "Middle English," or even that there ever was a
time when the English of the older generation and that of the
younger generation differed widely from each other. Nevertheless,
owing partly to the fact that the twelfth century was an age of
exceptionally rapid linguistic change, and partly to other causes
hereafter to be explained, it is quite true that, while the literary
remains of the first half of the century exhibit a form of the
language not strikingly different from that of preceding centuries,
those of the latter half present such an amount of novelty in
spelling and grammatical features as to make the most superficial
observation sufficient to show that a new period has begun. The
date of A.D. 1150, as the approximate point of demarcation between
the Old and Middle periods of English, is, therefore, less arbitrary
than chronological boundaries in the history of a language usually
are; though, if we possessed full information respecting the spoken
English of the twelfth century, we should have to be content with
a much less precise determination. While the Middle English
period has thus a definite beginning, it has no definite ending.
It is, however, convenient to regard it as terminating about




384


Changes in the Language


AD. 1500, because the end of the fifteenth century coincides pretty
closely with the victory of the printing-press over the scriptorium;
and many of the distinctive features of literary Modern English
would never have been developed if printing had not been invented.
2. CHANGES IN GRAMMAR.
The most striking characteristic of Old English, as compared
with later stages of the language, is that it retained without
essential change the inflectional system which it possessed at the
beginning of its history. So far as regards the verbs, this system
was very imperfect in comparison with that of Greek, or even of
Latin. There was no inflected passive, the need of which was
supplied by the use of auxiliaries; and there were only two
inflected tenses: the present, which often had to serve for a future,
and the past. The use of auxiliaries for forming compound tenses
was comparatively rare. The three persons of the plural had only
one form, which, prehistorically, had been that of the third person;
and, in the past tense, the first and third person singular were alike.
On the other hand, the system of declension was nearly as elaborate
as in any of the languages of the Indogermanic family. Substantives
had four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive and dative. The
adjective had two sets of inflections for gender, number and casethe one used when the substantive was "definite" (as when preceded by the article or some equivalent), and the other when it
was "indefinite." So far as this description goes, it might appear
that the Old English machinery for expressing the grammatical
relations of substantives, adjectives and pronouns was as adequate
for its purpose as even that of Greek. But, owing to the effect of
prehistoric changes of pronunciation, which had assimilated many
terminations that were originally distinct, the Old English declension of these parts of speech was, in fact, full of inconvenient
ambiguities. This will be evident if we place side by side the
paradigms of the word guma, a man, in Gothic (which, in this
instance, agrees very nearly with primitive Germanic) and in Old
English.
Gothic.   Old English.
Sing. Nom.       guma        guma
Accus.      guman       guman
Gen.        gumins      guman
Dative      gumin       guman
Plur. Nom.       gumans      guman
Accus.      gumans      guman
Gen.        gumane      gumena
Dative      gumam       gumum




Old English Grammar


385


The Gothic declension of this noun, it will be seen, has only one
weak point, namely, that the accusative plural had assumed the form
of the nominative. But, in Old English, the one form guman had
five different functions. There were, in Old English, many other
declensions of nouns besides that of which the word guma is an
example; and all of them were, more or less, faulty. The accusative had nearly always the same form as the nominative. In some
nouns the genitive singular, and in others the nominative plural,
did not differ from the nominative singular.
These observations apply to the West Saxon or southern dialect
of Old English, in which most of the extant literature is written.
But, while the West Saxon system of noun-inflection was thus
seriously defective, that of the Northumbrian dialect was far
worse, because, in that dialect, the final -n had come to be regularly
dropped in nearly all grammatical endings; and, further, the
unaccented final vowels were pronounced obscurely, so that we
often find them confused in our texts. It was quite an exceptional
thing for the case and number of a substantive to be unambiguously
indicated by its form. The ambiguities were, to some extent, obviated by the inflection of the accompanying article or adjective;
but the declension even of these parts of speech, though better
preserved than that of the substantive, had, itself, suffered from
wear and tear, so that there were only a few of the endings that
had not a multiplicity of functions.
The imperfection of the Old English system of inflections must
sometimes have caused practical inconvenience, and some of the
changes which it underwent were due to instinctive efforts to
remedy its defects. These changes naturally began where the evil
was greatest, in the northern dialect. It used to be believed-and
the notion is not altogether extinct-that the almost universal
substitution of -es for the many Old English endings of the genitive singular and the nominative and accusative plural was a result
of the Norman conquest. But, in fact, the beginnings of this
alteration in the language can be traced to a far earlier time. In
the Northumbrian writings of the tenth century we find that, very
often, when the traditional ending of a noun failed to indicate
properly its case and number, the required clearness was gained by
assimilating its declension to that of those nouns which made
their genitives in -es and their plurals in -as. As -es was the
only ending of nouns that never marked anything but a genitive
singular, and -as the only ending that never marked anything but
a nominative or accusative plural, the improvement in lucidity was
E. L. I.  CH.  IX.                              25




386


Changes in the Language


very considerable. We lack definite evidence as to the rapidity
with which these two endings came, in the northern dialect, to
be applied to nearly all substantives, but the process probably
occupied no very long time. The change of declension synchronised with a tendency, which prevailed in all dialects, to
obscure the pronunciation of the vowels in all unstressed final
syllables, so that -as became -es. The practice of forming genitives
and plurals, as a general rule, with this ending spread from the
northern to the midland dialect; perhaps this dialect may, in part,
have developed it independently. In the Peterborough Chronicle
(about 1154), and in the north midland Ormulum (about 1200),
we find it fully established. The English of educated Londoners
had, in the fourteenth century, lost most of its original southern
peculiarities, and had become essentially a midland dialect.
Hence, the writings of Chaucer show, as a general rule, only the
-es plurals and the -es genitives; the "irregular plurals," as we
may now call them, being hardly more numerous than in modern
standard English. Words adopted from French often retained
their original plurals in -s. The dative case disappeared from
midland English in the twelfth century, so that Chaucer's declension of substantives is as simple as that of our own
day.
In purely southern dialects, the history of the noun-inflections
was quite different. The case-endings of Old English-West
Saxon and Kentish-were, to a great extent, retained, with
the alterations that resulted from the general reduction of their
vowels to an obscure e. One consequence of this "levelling" of
vowels was that there was a large number of nouns of which the
nominative singular ended in -e and the nominative plural in -en,
as name, namen, tunge (tongue), tungen (in Old English nama,
naman, tunge, tungan); and, as the -n was, in these words, felt as a
formative of the plural, it was dropped in the oblique cases of the
singular. Hence, in these words all the cases of the singular ended
in -e, and the nominative and accusative plural in -en. To the
extensive declension thus arising all nouns ending in -e came to be
assimilated, including feminine nouns in which this ending had
been extended from the oblique cases to the nominative singular,
such as honde hand (Old English hond, dative honda), sunne sin
(Old English synn, dative synne). We observe here the same
instinctive struggle against the ambiguities induced by the progress of phonetic change that we have seen in the noun-declension
of the northern and midland dialects, although the remedial




Changes in Declension


387


devices adopted were different. In the period with which we are
here concerned, southern English did not greatly extend the -es
genitives beyond their original range, while -es, as a plural ending,
was nearly confined to those nouns that had -as in Old English,
and to neuters (like word) in which the singular and plural
nominatives had had the same form. The Old English termination
-umr, which marked the dative plural in all declensions, survived
as -en. The genitive plural had two forms, -e and -ene (Old
English -a, -ena); the latter, as the more distinct, encroached on
the domain of the former, so that "king of kings" was kingene
king instead of kinge king (Old English cyninga cyning).
The history of pronominal forms, like that of the declension
of nouns, exhibits certain changes serving to relieve the want of
distinctness in the traditional system. These changes began in the
Anglian districts, and did not, for the most part, reach the Saxon
region till after Chaucer's time. The forms of the Old English
pronouns of the third person, in all dialects, were, in several
instances, curiously near to being alike in pronunciation. The
masculine nominative he was not very different from the feminine
nominative and accusative heo (also hie, hi), and this closely
resembled the plural nominative and accusative hie or hi. The
dative singular masculine and neuter was him, and the dative
plural was heom. The genitive and dative singular of the feminine
pronoun was hire, and the genitive plural was heora. The one
form his served for the genitive both of the masculine he and of
the neuter hit. (The forms here cited are West Saxon, the divergences of the other dialects being unimportant.) As the pronouns
were most commonly unemphatic, such differences as those between
him and heom, hire and heora, would, usually, be slighter in speech
than they appear in writing, and with the general weakening of
unstressed vowels that took place in Middle English they were
simply obliterated. In southern Middle English the resulting
ambiguities remained unremedied; but, in the north and a great
part of the midlands, they were got rid of by the process (very rare
in the history of languages) of adopting pronouns from a foreign
tongue. In many parts of these regions the Danes and Northmen
formed the majority, or a powerful minority, of the population, and
it is from their language that we obtain the words now written
they, their, them and, perhaps, also she, though its precise origin is
not clear. She (written sex) occurs in the Peterborough Chronicle
about 1154. It does not appear in the Ormulum (about 1200),
which retains the native pronoun in the form 3ho; the somewhat
25-2




388


Changes in the Language


later east midland Genesis and Exodus has both words, ghe or ge
and sge or sche. After 1300, scho is universal in the northern
dialect and sche in east midland; but ho was common in west
midland down to the end of the century, and still remains in the
local speech of many districts. The Ormulum has always they
(written  e33), but retains heore, hemm beside the newer their,
them (written te33re, te33m); in the fourteenth century they,
their, them are found fully established in all northern and east
midland writings, while, in the west, hy for "they" continued
in use. Early in the twelfth century, the accusative form of all
pronouns, except the neuter hit, had been replaced by the dative.
Chaucer uses she and they; but his her serves both for "her"
(accusative, genitive and dative) and for "their," and he has
always hem for "them." In the south, the curious form hise or
is was used for "them." With regard to the other pronouns it will
suffice to mention that the form ich (with ch pronounced as in
"rich") was general in the south, while, elsewhere, the Old English
ic became I early in the thirteenth century.
The Old English inflections of adjectives and article, and, with
them, the grammatical genders of nouns, disappeared almost entirely
early in Middle English. The Kentish dialect of the fourteenth
century, indeed, was exceptionally archaic in these points; in the
Ayenbite (written 1340) we find, for instance, the accusative
masculine form of the adjective and article in "ane gratne dyeuel"
(a great devil) and "thane dyath," for which Chaucer would have
written "a gret deuel" and "the deeth." In other districts of
the south, also, considerable traces of grammatical gender and
adjective inflection are found quite late. But the north midland
English of the Ormulum is, in these respects, nearly identical with
that of Chaucer. The article is regularly the undeclined; gender
is determined purely by sex; and the adjective (with rare exceptions) has no other inflectional endings than the final -e used
when the adjective precedes a definite or a plural noun. In the
north, where final unstressed vowels had been silent, the adjective and article were uninflected, and grammatical gender had
ceased to exist, before the fourteenth century.
Among the most easily recognisable characteristics of Middle
English dialects are certain differences in the conjugation of
the verb. In Old English, the third person singular, and all the
persons of the plural, of the present indicative, ended in -th, with a
difference in the preceding vowel: thus, lufian to love, 15ran to
teach, give (in West Saxon) he lufath, he lereth, and we lufiath,




Conjugation in Middle English


389


we I;rath. In the northern dialect, this -th had, in the tenth
century, already begun to give way to -s; and northern writings
of about 1300 show -es both in the third singular and in the plural
as the universal ending. The midland dialect, froim 1200 onwards,
had in the plural -en, perhaps taken over from the present subjunctive or the past indicative; this ending, often reduced to -e,
remains in the language of Chaucer. The third singular ended in
-eth in midland English (so also in Chaucer); but the northern -s,
which has now been adopted almost everywhere, even in rustic
speech, is found in many midland writings of the fourteenth
century, especially in those of the west. The southern dialect
preserved the West Saxon forms with little change: we find he
luveth, we luvieth in the fourteenth century. The plural indicative
present of the verb to be had several quite unconnected forms in
Old English: sindon and beoth in all dialects, earon, aron in Northumbrian and Mercian. In the thirteenth century, sinden occurs
in the north midland Ormulum and some southern writings. In
the fourteenth century, northern writings have are (monosyllabic),
midland varies between aren or are and been, ben, while the
southern form is beoth or buth.
The Northumbrian dialect had, in the tenth century, already
reduced the -an of the infinitive to -a, and, in the northern
English of the fourteenth century, the infinitive and the first
person singular present were destitute of endings (the final -e,
though often written, being shown by the metre to be silent). In
other dialects, the infinitive ended in -en, for which -e occurs
with increasing frequency from the thirteenth century onwards.
Chaucer and Gower have both forms; their metre requires the
final -e to be sounded in this as in most of the other instances, but
it is probable that, in ordinary speech, it was generally silent before
A.D. 1400.
The forms of the present participle, which, in Old English, ended
in -ende, afford a well-marked criterion of dialect in Middle English.
The northern dialect had falland, the southern fallinde; in the
midland dialect, fallande or fallende gradually gave place to
fallinge, which is the form used by Chaucer.
It is impossible in this chapter to pursue the history of
early English inflections in all its details, but, before leaving the
subject of the development of the grammar, we must say a few
words on the question how far the rapid simplification of the
declension and conjugation in the twelfth and succeeding centuries
was an effect of the Norman conquest. The view, once universally




390


Changes in the Language


held, and still entertained by many persons, that the establishment
of Norman rule was the main cause by which this change was
brought about, is now abandoned by all scholars. We have seen
that, in the north of England, the movement towards a simpler
grammatical system had made no small progress a hundred years
before duke William landed; and the causes to which this movement was due were such as could not fail to be increasingly
effective. The intimate mixture of Danish and native populations in the north and over a great part of the midlands must, no
doubt, have had a powerful influence in reinforcing the tendencies
to change that already existed. So far as these districts are
concerned, it is not too much to say that the history of English
grammar would have been very nearly what it actually was if the
Conquest had never taken place. It is peculiarly worthy of note
that the southern dialect, which we should expect to be most
affected by the French influence, and which, with regard to
vocabulary, certainly was so, was, of all dialects of Middle English,
the most conservative in its grammar. And there is good reason
to believe that, even in the south, the spoken language had
travelled a considerable distance towards the Middle English
stage before the fateful date A.D. 1066. Only twenty years after
the Conquest, the Norman scribes of Domesday Book, writing
phonetically and without influence from English tradition, spell local
and personal names in a way which shows that the oral language
had undergone certain changes that do not regularly manifest
themselves in native writings until much later. And some of the
charters of the time of Edward the Confessor, which exhibit
modernisms that are commonly attributed to the scribes of the
late MSS in which they are preserved, are, probably, less altered
from their original form than is generally imagined. This remark
applies especially to informal documents not proceeding from
professional scriveners, such, for instance, as the interesting letter
of the monk Edwin about 1057, printed in Kemble's Codex
Diplomaticus, No. 922.
What the Norman conquest really did was to tear away the
veil that literary conservatism had thrown over the changes of the
spoken tongue. The ambition of Englishmen to acquire the
language of the ruling class, and the influx of foreign monks into
the religious houses that were the sources of literary instruction,
soon brought about the cessation of all systematic training in the
use of English. The upper and middle classes became bilingual;
and, though English might still be the language which they




Influence of the Norman         Conquest      391
preferred to speak, they learned at school to read and write
nothing but French, or French and Latin. When those who had
been educated under the new conditions tried to write English,
the literary conventions of the past generation had no hold upon
them; they could write no otherwise than as they spoke. This is
the true explanation of the apparently rapid change in the
grammar of English about the middle of the twelfth century.
It would, however, be a mistake to say that the new conditions
produced by the Conquest were wholly without influence on the
inflectional structure of the spoken language. Under the Norman
kings and their successors, England was politically and administratively united as it had never been before; intercourse between
the different parts of the country became less difficult; and the
greater freedom of intercommunication assisted the southward
diffusion of those grammatical simplifications that had been
developed in the northern dialect.  The use of the French
language among large classes of the population, which has left
such profound traces in the English vocabulary, must have tended
to accelerate the movement towards disuse of inflectional endings;
though this influence must remain rather a matter of abstract
probability than of demonstrable fact, because we have no means
of distinguishing its effects from those of other causes that
were operating in the same direction. Perhaps the use of the
preposition of instead of the genitive inflection, and the polite
substitution of the plural for the singular in pronouns of the
second person, were due to imitation of French modes of expression;
but, in other respects, hardly any specific influence of French upon
English grammar can be shown to have existed.
In the main, therefore, the differences between the grammar of
Old English and that of the English of Chaucer's day must be
ascribed to internal agencies, helped to a certain extent by the
influence of the language of the Scandinavian settlers. The French
influence introduced by the Norman conquest had only a comparatively small effect.
3. PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING.
The runic alphabet that had been used by the heathen English
was, soon after their conversion, superseded (for most purposes) by
the Latin alphabet of 22 letters, to which afterwards were added
the three characters p (w, called wynn), p (th, called thorn), which




392


Changes in the Language


belonged to the runic alphabet, and 65, differentiated from d by the
addition of a cross-bar. The last-mentioned character was used
indifferently with ]>, the two sounds of our modern th (in thick and
in this) not being graphically distinguished. The u or v, and the i,
were, in ordinary Old English spelling, used only as vowels, the
Latin practice of using them as consonants not being followed.
On the early coins, the sound expressed in modern French by u
and in German by ii was rendered by writing a V with an I inside
it. This compound character in MSS became A, and this was
identified with the Roman y. Instead of qu, the combination cp
was used in Old English; k occurs in some MSS, but was commonly
replaced by c; z was used, though very seldom, with its contemporary Latin value of ts.
It is not necessary to give in this place any account of the
changes in orthography during the Old English period. About
A.D. 1000, the vowels were probably sounded nearly as in modern
Italian, except that a stood for a sound intermediate between
those of a and e (i.e. the modern southern sound of a in pat), and
that y, as already remarked, was like the French u. The long
vowels, which had the same sounds as the corresponding short
vowels prolonged, were, at an early period, denoted by doubling,
and, later, by a mark (about equally resembling an acute and a
circumflex accent) over the letter; but this was often omitted.
The consonants had, for the most part, the same sounds as in
modern English, but some exceptions must be mentioned. Several
consonant letters had more than one sound, and, in the case of
most of these, modern English retains the Old English pronunciation, though not always the same written symbol. Thus, in fan
fan, cefen even, sad seed, risan rise (sounded "rize "), pynne thin,
bropor brother, caru care, cealc chalk, sceap sheep, scol school,
god good, gear year, ling thing, sengan to singe, docga dog, ecg
edge, the Old English sounds of f s, }, c, sc, g, ng and cg were
exactly, or nearly, those of the letters occupying the same place
in the modern forms of these words. In the middle or at the
end of a word, g was sounded differently according to the
nature of the neighbouring vowels: in dxg day it was pronounced like y in "year," but in the plural dagas days it had
a sound that might be written gh, differing from the ch in loch
just as g differs from k. The letter h, when initial, was pronounced
as at present; but, in other positions, it was pronounced like the
German ch (either guttural as in ach or palatal as in ich, according to the sounds which it followed). It will be seen that, with




Middle English Spelling


393


few exceptions, our ancestors of the eleventh century pronounced
the consonantal part of their words much as we do, even when
they wrote it with different letters.
The striking change in the written language of England during
the twelfth century was, to a considerable extent, a matter of mere
spelling. As was pointed out in the preceding section, soon after
the Norman conquest children ceased to be regularly taught to
read and write English, and were taught to read and write French
instead. When, therefore, the mass of the new generation tried to
write English, they had no orthographical traditions to guide
them, and had to spell the words phonetically according to French
rules. They used ch instead of the old c, when it was pronounced
as in cirice church. The sound of the Old English sc in sceamnu
shame, which did not exist at that time in French, was rendered
by ss, ssh, sch, or sh. The French qu took the place of cp. Thef
between vowels (pronounced v) was replaced by u or v (these being
still, as long afterwards, treated as forms of one and the same
letter, used indifferently for vowel and consonant). The Old
English symbol w was dropped, its place being taken by a or e.
The sound of the Old English y, in the dialects where it survived,
was expressed by u; and that of the Old English long u was
written ou, as in French.
Of course, these changes did not take place all at once. It is
not to be supposed that no one ever read an Old English MS, and
there was, for a long time, some mixture of the traditional spelling
with the new one. Some few English sounds admitted of no
tolerable representation in the French alphabet; and for the
expression of these the native characters were retained in use.
The letters p, t and p were used, though often blunderingly, even
by scribes who, in other respects, were thoroughly French in their
spelling; though often we find their sounds awkwardly rendered
by t, th, ht, or d, and u. And in the twelfth century, though the
continental variety of the Roman alphabet was generally used for
writing English, it was found convenient to retain the native form
a of the letter g for those two of its sounds that the French g lacked,
namely, those of gh and y (as in year). A new letter was thus
added to the alphabet, and, though it came to be written 3, exactly
like the contemporary form of z, it preserved its name "yok"
until the fourteenth century. It may be remarked in passing that
the ambiguity of pronunciation of this letter has misled modern
writers into calling the author of the Brut " Layamon " instead of
"Laghamon "; the incorrect form, however, has become too well




394


Changes in the Language


known to be displaced. In addition to the two original values of
the "yok," it very early obtained a third use, being employed
(without indicating any change of pronunciation) instead of the
Old English h in certain positions, as in kni3t, ibro3t, rou3, for
which the older spelling was cniht, gebroht, ruh. But, in the
fourteenth century, many writers substituted y or i for 3, when
pronounced as in 3eer (year), and gh in all other cases. In the
thirteenth century, the letters p and 6 went out of use, the former
being replaced by the northern French w. The letter p was
retained; but, although it was still called "thorn" in the fourteenth century, it seems in Chaucer's time to have been regarded
as a mere compendium for th, which generally took its place except
initially. It may be noted that Thomas Usk, in the acrostic
sentence of his Testament of Love (1387) spells pim (thine) with
the four letters THIN. The adoption of a number of French
words like ioie (joy), in which i was pronounced like the modern
English j, introduced the consonantal use of this letter into
English orthography.
The Old English initial combination hi survived (written Ih) in
some dialects down to the fourteenth century; but hr was very
early reduced to r. For the Old English hw, Middle English
writers substituted wh, though the h was, at first, often omitted
in this combination as in other positions, by scribes of French
education. The northern spelling qua, quilk for wha, whilk (who,
which) arose from a dialectal pronunciation of qu as wh, which
still survives locally in a few words.
From the twelfth century onwards, the letter y, when used
as a vowel, was treated as a mere alternative form of i.
The Ormulum is written in a peculiar phonetic spelling devised
by the author himself. This is based, to a considerable extent, on
native tradition, though the handwriting is of the continental
type. There are, however, some of the new features. Orm uses
ch and sh as we do now, and retains the Old English form of g for
the two sounds which the French g had not. A device peculiar
to himself is the appropriation of different shapes of the letter g to
the two sounds in god (good) and egge (edge). But the most noteworthy characteristic of his orthography is the method of indicating
the quantity of the vowels. The shortness of a vowel, in a syllable
ending with a consonant, is shown by doubling the following
consonant, as in Crisstenndom.  When the short vowel ended a
syllable in the middle of a word, Orm marked it as in takenn,
and very often (though not always) indicated a long vowel by one,




Development of Sounds


395


two, or even three "acute accents " over the letter. This elaborate
and cumbrous system found no imitators, but, as preserved in the
author's autograph MS, it is one of the most important aids that
we possess for ascertaining the English pronunciation of the time.
The changes in spelling that we have thus far noticed are
merely changes in the manner of representing sound. There were
others that were the result of altered pronunciation. It very
often happens that very considerable changes take place in the
sounds of a language without affecting the spelling, even when (as
was, apparently, the case in Middle English) there is no general
prejudice against deviations from traditional correctness of orthography. Pronunciation, as a general rule, is not altered deliberately,
but unconsciously. In the utterance of what is intended and
believed to be one and the same vowel or consonant sound, each
generation may vary to an almost imperceptible extent from that
which preceded it; and, if these slight changes are all in the same
direction, the difference may, in the end, become indefinitely great.
The normal result in such cases is that the letter comes to have a
new phonetic value, and the spelling is not affected. The reason
why there were exceptions to this normal course of things in
Middle English was partly that sometimes two originally distinct
sounds so developed as to become identical, and partly that the
orthography of French supplied a kind of external standard.
The history of the changes in English pronunciation down to
the time of Chaucer is far too intricate to be treated here with
any approach to completeness; but a few of its salient points may
be briefly indicated.
The first remark to be made is that the course of development
of several of the Old English sounds was quite different in different
parts of the country. When we compare the modern English
pronunciation of home, stone, with the Scotch and northern hame,
stane, we see the last term of a divergent development (which
began very early) of the Old English long a (pronounced as a in
father).  While the northern dialect progressively altered the
sound in one direction, the midland and southern dialects progressively altered it in the opposite direction. We cannot precisely
tell how far the change in the northern pronunciation had proceeded in the fourteenth century, because the spelling was not
affected. But, in other dialects, as we know from various kinds of
evidence, the sound was that of the "open 6" as in lord, and it
was expressed in writing by o or oo. The words "goad" (Old
English gad) and " good " (Old English god) are both written good




396


Changes in the Language


in Chaucer's spelling, but they were not pronounced alike; if the
sounds had been confused they would not have been separated
again in later pronunciation; and Chaucer never rimes a word
that has the "open o" with one containing the "close o." The
latter retained its old pronunciation (that of the French o in rose),
perhaps a little modified in the direction of its modern equivalent,
the oo in cool.
The long e, like the long o, had an "open" and a "close"
pronunciation, which Chaucer also keeps apart in his rimes.
The open g!comes from the Old English (Anglian) a, ea, and the
close e from Old English e, eo. A word like chepe to buy (from
Old English ceapian) which had the open e, could not correctly
rime with a word like kepe to keep (from cepan) which had the
close e. In northern dialects, the distinction was so slight that
poets freely allowed the two sounds to rime with one another.
In all the dialects of Middle English, the short vowels a, e, o,
when ending an accented syllable, were lengthened, e and 6
becoming open e and open o. In Chaucer's pronunciation, mete
meat (Old English mete) was an exact rime to grete, the plural of
the adjective great (Old English greate), but not to grete to greet
(Old English gretan); Prote throat (Old English frotu) rimed
with hote to command (Old English hatan), but not with bote
benefit (Old English bot).
The Old English y (pronounced ii) kept its original sound in
the south-west, and, perhaps, in parts of the west midland, being
written u when short, and ui or uy when long; in Kent, it had
become e before the Conquest; elsewhere, it was sounded exactly
like i, and written, like that sound, indifferently i or y. The words
"fire," "sin," "knit," have, accordingly, in the different localities
the three types of formfuir, ver, fiir; sunne, zenne, sinne; knutte,
knette, knitte. Chaucer, whose London English was mainly east
midland, uses occasionally a Kentish form like knette.
With regard to the pronunciation of consonants, there is
little that needs to be said, as, for the most part, the Old English
sounds not only continued unchanged down to the end of the
fourteenth century, but remain so to the present day. The
pronunciation of initial f and s as v and z ("vather came vrom
Zummerzet"), which sounds so strange to visitors to the southwestern counties, was, in the fourteenth century, current all over
the south; in fact, the Kentish Ayenbite of Inwyt, of 1340, exhibits
this pronunciation in the orthography with greater regularity than
any other extant book. The gh sound of the letter 3 gradually




Words adopted from         French      397
changed into that of w, and this change was represented in the
spelling. In the earlier of the two MSS of the poetical chronicle
called the Brut, written at the beginning of the thirteenth
century, the author's name appears as " La3amon," but, in the later
MS, written before 1300, it is turned into "Laweman." On the
other hand, in 1340, the Kentish Ayenbite has still forms like
zor3e (sorrow) instead of Chaucer's sorwe.
4. CHANGES IN VOCABULARY.
If the Norman conquest had little influence on the development
of English grammar, its effects on the vocabulary of the language
were profound. It introduced, as we have already observed, an
age in which all educated Englishmen spoke French in addition to
their native tongue, and, for the most part, wrote nothing but
French and Latin. French became the language of law and
government, of war and of the chase, and of all that pertained to
the life of the wealthier classes. Of the vernacular literature
from the Conquest to the middle of the fourteenth century, by far
the greater part consisted of translations from French and Latin.
It is true that, down to the end of the thirteenth century, nearly
all that was written in English was intended for readers who were
comparatively unlearned; but even these readers could be reasonably supposed to have some degree of acquaintance with the
fashionable language, for, as a rule, the man who absolutely knew
nothing but English probably could not read at all. And when
once more, it became customary to write in English for highly
educated people, authors could venture, without any fear of not
being understood, to borrow freely from the literary, as well as
from the popular, vocabulary of the French language.
Under these circumstances, it is not wonderful that the English
language received a large and rapidly increasing accession of
French words. A few, indeed, seem to have come in even before
the Norman conquest: catchpoll (kecepol) occurs in a glossary of
the early eleventh century, and proud (Old English prit, Old
Norse praur), if it be really French, must have been adopted much
earlier. In the Peterborough Chronicle, written about 1154, the
French words amount to nearly a score. Their character is significant. They include emperice empress, cuntesse countess (of
Anjou), curt court (king Henry II "held mycel curt" at London
in 1154), dubbian to dub a knight, prison, privilege, rente, tenserie




398         Changes in      the Language
(the name of an impost). We are told that king Henry II " dide
god iustice and makede pais [peace]." It is noteworthy, as indicative of foreign influence in the monasteries, that we find such
words as miracle and procession, and that carited (charity) appears
as the technical name at the abbey of Peterborough for a banquet
given to the poor.
About a hundred words of French origin may be collected from
the southern and south midland homilies of the twelfth century,
although these works are, to a great extent, only slightly modernised
transcripts of older originals. Most of these new words, as might
be expected, relate to matters of religion or of ecclesiastical
observance; but a few, such as poor, poverty, riches, honour,
robbery, must have been already in popular use. The north
midland Ormulum, written about 1200, is almost entirely free
from French words. The author intended his work to be recited
to illiterate people, and, therefore, strove to use plain language.
But his employment of such a word as gyn, ingenuity (a shortened
form of the French engin) shows that, even in his neighbourhood,
the vernacular of the humbler classes had not escaped the contagion
of French influence.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Layamon uses
nearly a hundred French words, many of which, it is interesting to
note, are not identical with those occurring in the corresponding
passages of his original. In the later text of the Brut, written
about 1275, the reviser has not unfrequently substituted words
of French etymology for the native words used by Layamon
himself.
The southern version of the Ancren Riwle, which is nearly
contemporary with Layamon's Brut, is much more exotic in
vocabulary, more than four hundred French words having been
enumerated as occurring in it. It appears, however, from certain
passages in this work, that the women for whose instruction it was
primarily written were conversant not only with French, but also
with Latin. We may, therefore, presume that the author has
allowed himself greater freedom in introducing literary French
words than he would have done if he had been addressing readers
of merely ordinary culture. Still, it is probable that a very
considerable number of the words that appear in this book for
the first time had already come to be commonly used among
educated English people. The occurrence of compounds of French
verbs and adjectives with native prefixes, as bi-spused (espoused),
mis-ipaied (dissatisfied), unstable, is some evidence that the writer




Scandinavian      [Iords in    English      399
was in these instances making use of words that were already
recognised as English.
In the writings of the end of the thirteenth century and the
first half of the fourteenth, the proportion of Romanic words is so
great that we may correctly say that the literary English of the
period was a mixed language. The interesting group of poems,
perhaps all by one author, consisting of Alisaunder, Arthur and
Merlin and Coeur de Lion, contain many long passages in which
nearly every important verb, noun and adjective is French. Nor
is this mixed vocabulary at all peculiar to works written in the
south of England. In Cursor Mundi, and even in the prose
of Richard Rolle, which are in the northern dialect, there is, on
the average, at least one French word in every two lines. The
alliterative poetry of the west midland and northern dialects
from about 1350 onwards has an extraordinary abundance of
words of French origin, many of which are common to several of
the poets of this school, and do not occur elsewhere. The notion
prevalent among writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that Chaucer corrupted the English language by the copious
introduction of French words, was curiously wide of the mark.
In reality, his language is certainly less marked by Gallicisms
than that of most of the other poets of his time, and even than
that of some poets of the early years of the fourteenth century.
It cannot be absolutely proved that he ever, even in his translations, made use of any foreign word that had not already gained
a recognised place in the English vocabulary.
The English literature of the eleventh century is almost wholly
written in the southern dialect, which was comparatively little
exposed to Scandinavian influence. We find in it, therefore, only
a very small number of Norse or Danish words, such as felaga
a business partner, "fellow"; lagu law; haiscarl "house-carl,"
member of the king's household; husbonda master of a house,
"husband"; hitsting assembly of the "housecarls"; itlaga outlaw. But when, in the thirteenth century, the language spoken in
the north and the north midlands again began to appear in a
written form, the strongly Scandinavian character of its vocabulary
becomes apparent. The diction of the Ormulum, whose author
bore a Scandinavian name, is full of Danish words, many of which
are not otherwise found in English literature, though some of
these are preserved in modern rustic dialects. In Cursor Mundi,
in Genesis and Exodus, in Havelok, in the writings of Robert
Mannyng of Brunne in Lincolnshire, and in the west midland




00oo


Changes in the Language


alliterative poetry, the large Scandinavian element must, even if
other peculiarities of dialect had been absent, have been quite
sufficient to render these works very difficult reading for natives of
the south of England. In several instances, native words that were
in extremely common use were superseded by Danish synonyms:
call took the place of cgan (another Old English word of the same
meaning, cleopian, remained as clepe), niman was displaced by take
and weorpan by cast.
The freedom with which words could be adopted from French
to express complex and abstract notions had a marked effect in
checking the augmentation of the English vocabulary by means
of composition. The new compounds that arose in Middle English
down to the end of the fourteenth century are extremely
few. Individual writers occasionally ventured on experiments in
this direction, especially in translations of Latin formations like
Dan Michel's ayenbite ("again-biting") for remorse; or Wyclif's
hamersmyter for the malleator of the Vulgate, and soul-havers for
animantia; but their coinages seldom found general acceptance.
The prefixes be-, for- and with- (in the sense of "against"), were,
however, used to form many new verbs. The old derivative suffixes,
for the most part, continued in use. New abstract nouns were
formed from adjectives and substantives by the addition of the
endings -ness, -hode and -hede (the modern -hood, -head) and -ship;
new adjectives in -sum, -ful, -lich (-ly); and new agent-nouns in
-ere. The ending -ing was more and more frequently added to
verbs to form nouns of action, and, before the end of the fourteenth
century, the derivatives so formed had come to be used as mere
gerunds. The suffix -liche (-ly) became a regular means of forming
adverbs. As the Old English endings -en and -icge, used to
form nouns denoting persons of the female sex, had become
obsolete, the French -esse was adopted, and added to native words,
as in goddesse, fiendesse and sleeresse (a female slayer). In the
southern dialect of the thirteenth century, there appears a curious
abundance of feminine agent-nouns formed from verbs by adding
the suffix -ild, of which there are one or two examples in Old
English, though, singularly enough, they have been found only in
Northumbrian.  Instances of this formation from the Ancren
Riwle are beggild a woman given to begging, cheapild a female
bargainer, grucchild a female grumbler, mathelild a female
chatterer, totild a woman fond of peeping; other words of this
formation which do not imply any disparagement are fostrild
a nurse, and motild a female advocate. Besides the feminines




Loss of Native fords


o I


in -esse, the fourteenth century shows a few examples of the
practice, which afterwards became so common, of appending
Romanic suffixes to native words. Hampole has trowable for
credible, Wvyclif everlastingtee (after eternitee), and Chaucer slogardrie and slogardie ("sluggardry"), and eggement instigation
(from the verb "to egg").
Several of the new words that came into very general use in or
before the fourteenth century are of unknown or doubtful origin.
Such are the verb kill, which appears first in Layamon under the
form cullen; and the substantive smell (whence the verb), which
superseded the Old English stene (stench), originally applicable no
less to a delightful odour than to an unpleasant one. Some of the
new words, as left (hand), which took the place of the Old English
uwynstre, and qued bad, have cognates in Low German, but are not
likely to have been adopted from the continent; they more probably descend from non-literary Old English dialects. Boy and
girl (the latter originally applied to a young person of either sex),
lad and lass, are still of uncertain origin, though conjectures more
or less plausible have been offered.
Not less remarkable than the abundance of new words added
to the English vocabulary in the early Middle English period is the
multitude of Old English words that went out of use. Anyone who
will take the trouble to go through a few pages of an Old English
dictionary, noting all the words that cannot be found in any writer
later than about the year 1250, will probably be surprised at their
enormous number. Perhaps the most convenient way of illustrating the magnitude of the loss which the language sustained
before the middle of the thirteenth century will be to take a piece
of Old English prose, and to indicate those words occurring in it
that became obsolete before the date mentioned. The following passage is the beginning of Aelfric's homily on St Cuthbert,
written about A.D. 1000. Of the words printed in italics, one or
two occur in the Ormulum and other works of the beginning
of the thirteenth century, but the majority disappeared much
earlier.
Cuthbertus, se halga biscop, sci-  Cuthbert, the holy bishop, shining
nende on manegum geearnungumand  in many merits and holy honours, is
haligum gelincumn, on heofenan rice  in glory, reigning in the kingdom of
mid pam selmihtigum Scyppende on  heaven with the Almighty Creator.
ecere blisse rfxiende, wuldrap.
Beda, se snotera Engla peoda    Beda, the wise teacher of the
aIreow, pises halgan lif endebyrdl.ce  English peoples, wrote this holy
mid wunderfullum herungum, Ogler  man's life in order with wonderful
E. L. I. CH. XIX.                                  26




402


Changes in the Language


ge aefter anfealdre gereccednysse ge  praises, both according to simple
esfter leoplicere gyddunge, awrat. Us  narration and according to poetic
ssede soplice B6da paet se eadiga  song. Beda has truly told us that
Cuthberhtus, pa pa he wwes eahta-  the blessed Cuthbert, when he was
wintre cild, am, swa swa him his  a child of eight, ran, as his ignorant
nytenlice yld tihte, plegende mid his  age impelled him, playing with chilefenealdum; ac se aelmihtiga God  dren of his own age; but Almighty
wolde styran jaere nytennysse his  God willed to guide the ignorance of
gecorenan Cuthberhtus purh myne-  his chosen Cuthbert by the admonigunge gelimplices ldreowes, and  tion of a fitting teacher, and sent to
asende him to an prywintre cild, paet  him a child three years old, who
his dyslican plegan mid stxeipigum  rebuked his foolish play wisely with
wordum wislice preade.          serious words.
In the first thirty lines of Aelfric's homily on St Gregory, there
occur the following words, none of which survived beyond the
middle of the thirteenth century: andweard present, gedeorf
labour, gecnyrdnyss study, geseliglice blessedly, bigeng worship,
wetbregdan to turn away, gebTgan to subdue, drohtnung manner of
life, suttellice plainly, wer man, gereccan to relate, eawfwest pious,
acenzned born, wtelboren nobly born, mntgy kindred, wita senator,
geglengan to adorn, swegan to sound, be called, wacol watchful,
bebod command, herigendlice laudably, geswutelian to manifest.
It is common to regard the obsolescence of Old English words
after the Conquest as a mere consequence of the introduction
of new words from French. The alien words, it is supposed, drove
their native synonyms out of use. It is not to be denied that this
was, to a considerable extent, the case. On the whole, however, it
would probably be more true to say that the adoption of foreign
words was rendered necessary because the native words expressing
the same meanings had ceased to be current. When the literary
use of English had for one or two generations been almost entirely
discontinued, it was inevitable that the words that belonged purely
to the literary language should be forgotten. And a cultivated
literary dialect always retains in use a multitude of words that
were once colloquial, but which even educated persons would
consider too bookish to be employed in familiar speech. There
were also, no doubt, in the language of English writers from Alfred
onwards, very many compounds and derivatives which, though
intelligible enough to all readers, were mere artificial formations
that never had any oral currency at all. When the scholars of
England ceased to write or read English, the literary tradition was
broken; the only English generally understood was the colloquial
speech, which itself may very likely have lost not a few words in
the hundred years after Aelfric's time.




The Poetical Vocadblary


403


It might, perhaps, have been expected that the special vocabulary of Old English poetry would have survived to a greater extent
than we find it actually to have done. We should not, indeed,
expect to find much of it in that large portion of Middle English
poetry which was written in foreign metres and in imitation of
foreign models. But, about the year 1350, there arose a school
of poets who, though they were men of learning and drew
their material from French and Latin sources, had learned their
art from the unliterary minstrels who had inherited the tradition
of the ancient Germanic alliterative line. These poets have an
extraordinarily abundant store of characteristic words, which are
not found in prose literature or in the contemporary poetry of a
different school. It might naturally be supposed that this distinctive vocabulary would consist largely of the words that had
been peculiar to poetic diction in Old English times. But,
in fact, nearly all the words marked in Sweet's Anglo-Saxon
Dictionary with the sign (t) as poetical are wanting in Middle
English. The fourteenth century alliterative poets use some of
the ancient epic synonyms for "man" or "warrior": bern, renk,
nwye and freke, representing the Old English beorn, rinc, wiga
and freca. A few words that in Old English were part of the
ordinary language, such as milan (Middle English mele), to speak,
are among the characteristic archaisms of the later alliterative
poets. The adjective apele, noble, became, in the form athil, one
of the many synonyms for "man," and often appears as hathel,
probably through confusion with the Old English helep, a man.
The word burde, a lady, which is familiar to modern readers from
its survival in late ballad poetry, seems to be the feminine of the
Old English adjective byrde, high-born, of which only one instance
is known, and that in prose. Several of the poetic words of the
west midland school are of Scandinavian origin, as trine and cair
(Old Norse keyra, to drive), which are both used for "to go." The
very common word tulk, a man, represents, with curious transformation of meaning, the Old Norse tulkr, an interpreter. It is
possible that some of these words, which are not found in modern
dialects, were never colloquial English at all, but were adopted by
the poets of the Scandinavian parts of England from the language
of the ruling class.
The disappearance of the greater part of the old poetical
vocabulary is probably due to its having been, in later Old
English times, preserved only in the literary poetry which obtained
its diction from the imitation of written models. To this poetry
26-2




4o4


Chanzges in the Language


the alliterative poets of the fourteenth century owed nothing; the
many archaisms which they retained were those that had been
handed down in the unwritten popular poetry on which their
metrical art was based.
5. ENGLISH DIALECTS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
Writers on the history of the English language have been
accustomed to quote, as if it related to the condition of things
in the year 1385, the following passage from Trevisa: "All the
language of the Northumbrians, and specially at York, is so sharp,
slitting and froting, and unshape, that we southern men may that
language unnethe [hardly] understand." This sentence, however,
is not Trevisa's own, but translates a quotation by Higden from
William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontiffcum, written before 1125.
The fact that Higden and Trevisa reproduce Malmesbury's words
without comment, can hardly be said to prove anything. Still,
although Trevisa's adoption of Malmesbury's statement is not,
considered by itself, very good evidence as to the amount of
dialectal divergence existing in his own time, it appears likely
that, on the whole, the difference between the speech of the north
and that of the south had rather increased than diminished between the twelfth and the fourteenth century. It is true that the
decay of the old inflexions had removed some of the dialectal
distinctions of the earlier period, and that greater freedom of
intercommunication between different parts of the country had
not been without effect in producing some mixture of forms.
But, on the other hand, the development of pronunciation had been
divergent, and the gains and losses of the vocabulary had been, to
a great extent, different in the different regions.
It must be remembered that, throughout the fourteenth century
strongly marked differences of dialect were not, as now, confined
to the less educated classes; nor is there any clear evidence that
any writer attempted to use for literary purposes any other dialect
than that which he habitually spoke. It is true that Wyclif was
a man of northern birth, and that the language of his writings is
distinctly of the midland type. But this is only what might have
been expected in the case of a distinguished Oxford teacher, whose
life, probably from early boyhood, had been spent at the university.
Men of the highest culture continued to write in each of the three
or four principal varieties of English. The dialects may have been
somewhat less unlike in their written than in their spoken form,




Dialects    in   the Fourteenth       Century     405
because the spelling was too much under the influence of tradition
to represent accurately the divergent development of the original
sounds. But, in spite of the nearness of Canterbury to London,
it is probable that Chaucer would not have found it quite easy to
read the Ayenbite of Inwyt, which was written about the time
when he was born; nor would he have felt much more at home
with the writings of his contemporaries among the west midland
alliterative poets or those of northern poets like Laurence Minot.
At any rate, a modern reader who has learned to understand
Chaucer without great difficulty commonly finds himself very
much at a loss when first introduced to the Ayenbite, the Morte
Arthure, or Sir Gawayne.      Northern prose, indeed, is to us
somewhat easier, because, owing to the loss of inflexions, its
language is, in some respects, more modern than even that of
Chaucer.
An outline of the distinctive features of Middle English
dialects has already been given in the sections of this chapter
treating of grammar and pronunciation. The following comparative list of forms of words may assist the reader to obtain a
general notion of the extent and nature of the diversities of the
written language of different parts of the country in the fourteenth
century.
Kentish  South-Western E. Midland TV. Midland  Northern
Fire       veer       vuir, fuir  fiir     fuir       fier
Sin        zenne      sunne       sinne     sinne     sin
I shall say  Ich ssel zigge Ich schal sigge I shal seyn I shal saie  I sal sai
She says   hy zeyth   heo seyth   she seyth  ho saith  scho sais
They say   hy ziggeth  hy siggeth  they seyn  hy, thai sayn thai sai
Living    liviynde    liviinde    livinge  living     livand
Her name   hare nome  hor nome    her name  hur name  her nam
Their names hare nomen  hure nomen  hir names  hur namus  thair names
The English of Scotland, so far as we know, was hardly used
for literary purposes until the last quarter of the fourteenth
century, when Barbour wrote his Bruce. It is doubtful whether
the other works ascribed to Barbour are not of later date, and
the Bruce itself has come down to us in manuscripts written
a hundred years after the author's time. The specific features
distinguishing the Scottish dialect from northern English across
the border will, therefore, be more conveniently reserved for
treatment in a later chapter.
It must not be supposed that the forms above tabulated were
the only forms current in the districts to which they are assigned,
or that none of them were used outside the regions to which they




406


Changes in the Language


typically belong. Local varieties of speech within each dialect
area were doubtless many, and the orthography was unfixed and
only imperfectly phonetic. Literary works were copied by scribes
who belonged to other parts of the country than those in which the
works were composed; and, consequently, the texts as we have them
represent a mixture of the grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary
of different dialects. Vernacular writers, especially poets, often
added to their means of expression by adopting words and forms
from dialects other than their own. Hence, although in the
last years of the fourteenth century the establishment of a common
literary language was still in the future, and the varieties even of
the written speech continued to be strongly marked, there are few
writings of the period that can be regarded as unmixed representatives of any single dialect.
The tendencies that ultimately resulted in the formation of a
uniform written language began to act before the fourteenth
century closed. In London, the seat of legislative and administrative activity, the influx of educated persons from all parts of
the kingdom led to the displacement of the original southern
dialect by the dialect of the east midlands, which, in virtue of its
intermediate character, was more intelligible both to southern and
northern men than northern English to a southerner or southern
English to a northerner. The fact that both the university towns
were linguistically within the east midland area had, no doubt, also
its effect in bringing about the prevalence of this type of English
among the educated classes of the capital. The works of Chaucer,
which, in the next age, were read and imitated not only in the
southern kingdom but even in Scotland, carried far and wide the
knowledge of the forms of London English; and the not very
dissimilar English of Oxford was, in like manner, spread abroad
through the enormous popularity of the writings of Wyclif and his
associates.  Even in the lifetime of these two great writers, it
had already become inevitable that the future common English
of literature should be English essentially of the east midland
type.




CHAPTER XX


THE ANGLO-FRENCH LAW LANGUAGE
THE profound effects of the Norman conquest on the vocabulary
of the English language have already been considered. It remains
to notice a special cause which had its own peculiar influence on
the language, namely, the long retention of French in the courts
of law. The words thus naturalised have become a part of the
current speech of Englishmen, and have passed into the language
in which English books have been written. This long familiarity
with the structure and vocabulary of another tongue had its
effect on literary style, just as the long familiarity with Latin had
in the case of the monastic writers.
The effect on the vocabulary is certain and considerable, though
it is impossible to draw any definite line and decide which words
are due to the use of the French language in the courts, and which
to its more general use outside the courts. Again, it would
require special investigation in the case of individual words to
determine when they ceased to be known only to lawyers and
became familiar (frequently with a changed significance) to laymen.
It is to the Year Books that we must turn to see what the
language of the courts actually was in the middle ages. These
books form a series (not unbroken) of summaries of cases decided
from the reign of Edward I to that of Henry VIII, while there
is a note book of even earlier cases, of the reign of Henry III.
Maitland has shown good reason for concluding that this note
book was used by Bracton in writing his great treatise.
Some portions of these Year Books have been edited in recent
years 2: but, for the present purpose, the most important edition
is that of the year books of Edward II edited by Maitland for the
Selden Society.  To volume I of this series Maitland prefixed a
most valuable Introduction from which the following pages3 are
1 Bracton's Note Book, ed. F. W. Maitland.
2 Cf. the Rolls Series, edited by Horwood and Pike, and the Selden Society Series,
edited by Maitland, Vols. I, In, III.
3 Pp. 408-12.




408      The Anglo-French Law Language
extracts, reprinted by permission of the council of the Selden
Society:
"We know 'law French' in its last days, in the age that lies
between the Restoration and the Revolution, as a debased jargon.
Lawyers still wrote it; lawyers still pronounced or pretended to
pronounce it. Not only was it the language in which the moots
were holden at the Inns of Court until those ancient exercises
ceased, but it might sometimes be heard in the courts of law, more
especially if some belated real action made its way thither. The
pleadings, which had been put into Latin for the record, were also
put into French in order that they might be 'mumbled' by a
serjeant to the judges, who, however, were not bound to listen to
his mumblings, since they could see what was written in 'the
paper books1.' What is more, there still were men living who
thought about law in this queer slang-for a slang it had become.
Roger North has told us that such was the case of his brother
Francis. If the Lord Keeper was writing hurriedly or only for
himself, he wrote in French. 'Really,' said Roger, 'the Law is
scarcely expressible properly in English.' A legal proposition
couched in the vulgar language looked to his eyes 'very uncouth.'
So young gentlemen were adjured to despise translations and read
Littleton's Tenures in the original2.
Roger North was no pedant; but he was a Tory, and not only
was the admission of English to the sacred plea rolls one of those
exploits of the sour faction that had been undone by a joyous
monarchy, but there was a not unreasonable belief current in royalist
circles that the old French law-books enshrined many a goodly
prerogative, and that the specious learning of the parliamentarians
might be encountered by deeper and honester research. Nevertheless, that is a remarkable sentence coming from one who lived
on until 1734: 'Really the Law is scarcely expressible properly in
English.'
Had it been written some centuries earlier it would have been
very true, and its truth would have evaporated very slowly. The
Act of 1362, which tried to substitute la lange du paiis for la lange
francais, qest trope desconue as the oral language of the courts, is
an important historical landmark3.  But we know that it was
1 Roger North, Lives of the Norths, 1826, I, 30.
2 Lives of the Norths, I, 33; Roger North, A Discourse on the Study of the Laws,
1824, p. 13.
3 36 Edw. III. stat. 1, c. 15 (Commissioners' edition). Observe francais, not
francaise. Having written trop, the scribe puts a tittle over the p, which seems to




Retention    of French     in  the   Courts    409
tardily obeyed, and indeed it attempted the impossible. How tardy
the obedience was we cannot precisely tell, for the history of this
matter is involved with the insufficiently explored history of
written pleadings. Apparently French remained the language of
'pleadings' properly so called, while English became the language
of that 'argument' which was slowly differentiated from out of the
mixed process of arguing and pleading which is represented to us
by the Year Books. Fortescue's words about this matter are well
known1. In 1549 Archbishop Cranmer, contending with the rebels
of Devonshire over the propriety of using English speech in the
services of the Church, said, 'I have heard suitors murmur at the
bar because their attornies pleaded their causes in the French
tongue which they understood not2.' In Henry VIII's day, when
the advocates of a reception of Roman law could denounce 'thys
barbarouse tong and Old French, whych now seruyth to no purpose
else,' moderate reformers of the Inns of Court were urging as the
true remedy that students should be taught to plead in good
French: the sort of French, we may suppose, that John Palsgrave,
natyf de Londres et gradue de Paris, was teaching3. No doubt
they felt with Roger North that 'really the Law is scarcely
expressible properly in English.'
The law was not expressible properly in English until the lange
du paiis had appropriated to itself scores of French words; we may
go near to saying that it had to borrow a word corresponding to
almost every legal concept that had as yet been fashioned. Time
was when the Englishman who in his English talk used such a
word as 'ancestor' or 'heir,' such a word as 'descend,' 'revert,' or
'remain,' must have felt that he was levying an enforced loan.
For a while the charge of speaking a barbarous jargon would fall
rather upon those who were making countless English words by the
simple method of stealing than upon those whose French, though
it might be of a colonial type, had taken next to nothing from the
vulgar tongue.  Very gradually the relation between the two
languages was reversed. An Act of Parliament could do little
to hasten the process; more might be done by patriotic schoolmasters.
When the history of English law is contrasted with the history
show that he meant trope. The word tittle is useful. Thereby we mean 'a small line
drawn over an abridged word, to supply letters wanting' (Cotgrave). It is the Spanish
tilde, which we see, e.g. in dona.
1 Fortescue de Laudibus, c. 48.
2 Cranmer, Remains (Parker Soc.), p. 170.
3 Maitland, English Law and the Renaissance, pp. 43, 72.




410     T/e Anglo-French Law Language
of its next of kin, the existence of law French is too often forgotten.
It is forgotten that during the later middle age English lawyers
enjoyed the inestimable advantage of being able to make a technical
language. And a highly technical language they made. To take
one example, let us think for a moment of 'an heir in tail rebutted
from his formedon by a lineal warranty with descended assets.'
Precise ideas are here expressed in precise terms, every one of
which is French: the geometer or the chemist could hardly wish
for terms that are more exact or less liable to have their edges
worn away by the vulgar. Good came of this and evil. Let us dwell
for a moment on an important consequence. We have known it
put by a learned foreigner as a paradox that in the critical
sixteenth century the national system of jurisprudence which
showed the stoutest nationalism was a system that was hardly
expressible in the national language. But is there a paradox here?
English law was tough and impervious to foreign influence because
it was highly technical, and it was highly technical because English
lawyers had been able to make a vocabulary, to define their
concepts, to think sharply as the man of science thinks. It would
not be a popular doctrine that the Englishry of English law was
secured by la lange francais qest trope desconue; but does it not
seem likely that if English law had been more homely, more volksthiimlich, Romanism would have swept the board in England as it
swept the board in Germany?...
Now, as regards vocabulary, there is a striking contrast between
the earliest and the latest year books. A single case of Henry VIII's
day shows us 'deer, hound, otters, foxes, fowl, tame, thrush, keeper,
hunting.' We see that already the reporter was short of French
words which would denote common objects of the country and
gentlemanly sport.  What is yet more remarkable, he admits
'owner1.' But in Edward II's day the educated Englishman was
far more likely to introduce French words into his English than
English words into his French. The English lawyer's French
vocabulary was pure and sufficiently copious. It is fairly certain
that by this time his 'cradle speech' was English; but he had not
been taught English, and he had been taught French, the language
of good society. Even as a little boy he had been taught his
moun et ma, toun et ta, soun et sa2. Of our reporters we may be
far more certain that they could rapidly write French of a sort
than that they had ever written an English sentence. John of
1 Y. B. 12 Hen. VIII, f. 3 (Trin. pl. 3); Pollock, First Book of Jurisprudence, 281.
2 See the treatise of Walter of Biblesworth in Wright, Vocabularies, I, 144.




The Making of Legal Terms


4II


Cornwall and Richard Penkrich had yet to labour in the grammar
schools.
Let us look for a moment at some of the words which 'lay in
the mouths' of our serjea.nts and judges: words descriptive of
logical and argumentative processes: words that in course of
time would be heard far outside the courts of law. We see 'to
allege, to aver, to assert, to affirm, to avow, to suppose, to
surmise (surmettre), to certify, to maintain, to doubt, to deny,
to except (excepcioner), to demur, to determine, to reply, to
traverse, to join issue, to try, to examine, to prove.' We see
'a debate, a reason, a premiss, a conclusion, a distinction, an
affirmative, a negative, a maxim, a suggestion.'  We see 'repugnant, contrariant, discordant.' We see 'impertinent' and
'inconvenient' in their good old senses. We even see 'sophistry.'
Our French-speaking, French-thinking lawyers were the main
agents in the distribution of all this verbal and intellectual
wealth.  While as yet there was little science and no popular
science, the lawyer mediated between the abstract Latin logic
of the schoolmen and the concrete needs and homely talk of
gross, unschooled mankind.  Law was the point where life and
logic met.
And the lawyer was liberally exercising his right to make
terms of art, and yet, if we mistake not, he did this in a manner
sufficiently sanctioned by the genius of the language. Old French
allowed a free conversion of infinitives into substantives. Some of
the commonest nouns in the modern language have been infinitives:
diner, cjeuner, souper, pouvoir, devoir, plaisir; and in the list
whence we take these examples we see un manoir and un
plaidoyer.  English legal language contains many words that
were thus made: 'a voucher, an ouster, a disclaimer, an interpleader, a demurrer, a cesser, an estover, a merger, a remitter,
a render, a tender, an attainder, a joinder, a rejoinder,' though
in some cases the process has been obscured....Were we still 'to
pray oyer of a bond,' we should use a debased infinitive, and
perhaps it is well that nowadays we seldom hear of 'a possibility
of reverter' lest a pedant might say that revertir were better.
Even the Latin roll felt this French influence: 'his voucher'
is vocare sumn, and recuperare suum is 'his recovery.'
But the most interesting specimen in our legal vocabulary of a
French infinitive is 'remainder.' In Edward II's day name and
thing were coming to the forefront of legal practice. The name
was in the making. When he was distinguishing the three writs of




412      7h/e Anglo-French Law Language
formedon (or better of forme de doun) it was common for the
lawyer to slip into Latin and to say en le descendere, en le reverti,
en le remanere. But the French infinitives also were being used,
and le remeindre (the 'to remain,' the 'to stay out' instead of
the reversion or coming back) was soon to be a well-known substantive. It was not confused with a remenaunt, a remnant, a
part which remains when part is gone. What remained, what
stayed out instead of coming back, was the land'. In French
translations of such deeds as create remainders it is about as
common to see the Latin remanere rendered by demlorer as to see
an employment of remeindre, and it is little more than an accident
that we do not call a remainder a demurrer and a demurrer
a remainder. In both cases there is a 'to abide'; in the one the
land abides for the remainder-man (celui a qi le remeindre se
tailla); in the other case the pleaders express their intention of
dwelling upon what they have said, of abiding by what they have
pleaded, and they abide the judgment of the court. When a cause
'stands over,' as we say, our ancestors would say in Latin that it
remains, and in French that it demurs (loquela remanet: la parole
demoert): 'the parol demurs,' the case is 'made a renanet.'
The differentiation and specification of 'remain' and 'demur,'
'remainder' and 'demurrer,' is an instance of good technical
work....
We might dwell at some length on the healthy processes which
were determining the sense of words. There is, for example,
tailler (to cut or carve), which can be used of the action of one
who shapes or, as we say, 'limits' a gift in some special manner,
but more especially if the result of his cutting and carving is a
'tailed fee.' There is assez (enough) with a strange destiny before
it, since it is to engender a singular 'asset.' We might endeavour
to explain how, under the influence of the deponent verbs sequi
and prosequi which appear upon the Latin roll, the phrase ii fut
nounsuivy (he was non-suited) is a nearer equivalent for il ne
suivit pas than for il ne fut pas suivi. Of our lawyers as wordmakers, phrase-makers, thought-makers, much might be said."
1 Pollock and Maitland, Hist. Eng. Law, ii, 21 Challis, Law of Real Property,
2nd ed. p. 69.




APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
THE OLD ENGLISH         SUNG, OR BALLAD, METRE
[It has been thought desirable to print in this place the following account of
Old English metre as adjusted on the stress-system to ballads.]
The chief characteristic of the old popular metre, which suddenly assumes
such prominence in later Old English literature, is that in each half-line, instead
of the two beats of the rhetorical metre, we have four beats, two of which
are chief beats with full-stress, while the other two are half-stress. Between
every two of the four beats there is, generally, an unstressed sinking. Elision
of the sinking may take place in any position, and is usual before a final
half-stress.
The Old English sung, or ballad, metre is, fundamentally, a four-beat
rhythm which must end in a stress. It differs from the ordinary four-foot
ballad verse in this, that a far greater difference is postulated between the
force of the four stresses.  In any natural English four-beat doggerel,
granted it be not of expert composition, we come upon the distinction of
full-stresses (/) and minor stresses, here called half-stresses ('); e.g.
The king was in the counting-house.
In Old English verse, these stresses and half-stresses could not be arranged
as one liked: the line had to be balanced.
Fully balanced lines can be divided thus:
A. (x x) (x x), (x) x - (x)~.
Modern English forms:
The king was in the counting-house
The queen was in the parlour.
Old English examples:
and pa earme men hit beceorodon
his rice men hit maendon.
B. (x x) \ x (x) - (x x) x (x) -.
Examples in modern English are rare. Cf. the inner-rimed line:
Jack and Jill went up the hill.
Old English example:
x             \ x
ne wearS dreorlicre daed.




I41


Appendix to


C. (x i x) -x(x)-  (x)!.
Examples in modern English nursery songs are extremely rare, because of
the modern dislike to two chief stresses coming together.
Old English example:
X,      X
paet he ael]eodige.
AC. (x x) x (x)    x (x)- (x)
Examples in modern English nursery songs are extremely numerous:
and in my lady's chamber,
sing a song of sixpence.
Old English examples:
\   X    /X             \
He wear5 wide geond peodland
X    \  X     X L
and wurden underjeodde.
D. Imperfectly balanced form:  (x x) -(x) (x).
This form always tends to become
(x x) - x  (x)  or - (x) x = (x) (x).
Modern English:
four and twenty blackbirds
tends to become
four and twenty blackbirds.
Old English:
and utlaendisce.
E. Perfectly balanced form: - (x x) - x (x) - (x) x.
Modern English (with inner rime):
Jack fell down and broke his crown.
Old English:
X        \    X   \ X
se cyng waes swa swi6e stearc.
The Old English ballad verse, in contradistinction to its modern representative, was quantitative in all four stresses.
That is to say, a stress had to fall either on one long syllable or two short
ones. According to Lachmann's original theory, which he applied to some
High German ballads, but which must be applied to all Old English ballads,
the stress then fell gradually throughout the length of the two syllables,
e.g.
x       XX,x    x X X
Ac Godwine hine pa gelette,
and
Godes wi]er saecan I Godes lage braecon.




Chapter VII                             415
This is most clearly seen in B and E, where two shorts so used pair
absolutely with final stress and half-stress, e.g.
-1.  X      X ^   X   ^ C/
Eac he saette be panm haran
X   X     X     r  B \
paet hi mosten freo faran,
and
X  X, X  v X     X     _
he swa swi5e lufode pa hea deor
\ x  x   _ x, v,
swilce he waere heora faeder.
But, at the end of the line, the quality of a syllable constituting a half-stress
was indifferent, the pause lending its support; a half-stress could not at that
place be divided into two short syllables (since the second would perforce
have to fall too low), but only a full-stress. Cf. the example referred to above:
X  _L X      X
his rice men hit maendon.
It seems, then, that final feet (with indifference as to the quantity of the
half-stress) could be carried over into the middle of a half-line before either a
real or artificial inner pause or a change of musical melody
wide I and side Ij Ja hwile pe Ihe leofode,
\   x     x     x,
Eac he saette be pami haran.
a. The normal (inner) foot has a maximum of two unstressed syllables
and one stressed long (or two short) syllable(s).
3. Every foot is subject to complete elision of unstressed syllables-but
complete elision in a whole half-line is extremely rare.
-. Between a full-stress and a half-stress complete elision is frequent and
more than one syllable unusual, e.g.
x     /   \    x
and God him geuSe (no sinking)
X    _X L   X 1,, -
pa hwile pe he leofode (one syllable).
Modern English example:,  \,   \
when in came a blackbird.
On the other hand, after a half-stress before a full-stress, complete elision
is, practically, never found. In the overwhelming majority of cases (c. 98 or
990/0) one sinking syllable occurs, though two are found very frequently.
The number of exceptions is negligible:
x    /  xx v      x  x
ac Godwine hine pa gelette (two syllables)
X    \        \x X  _
ne weart dreorlicre daed (one syllable)1.
The first foot was composed of the sinking, called the anacrusis or
auftakt, and the first stress. In the earliest form of the strophe it would
seem to have been the rule that the anacrusis of the first line of the couplet
should be one syllable longer than that of the second and should never exceed
two syllables; the dissyllabic anacrusis was, apparently, used to mark the
beginning of a new passage.
1 For a further discussion of this subject, the reader may be referred to a paper
by the present writer, read before the London Philological Society, 7 June 1907.




416


App e dix to


In the poem of 959, out of some 24 couplets, 13 have the anacrusis of the
first line longer than that of the second; in 8 the anacruses are equal (or
both lacking), in only three cases is there a monosyllabic anacrusis in the
second line and none in the first, e.g.
x x    I     x,  X  x X  t
On his dagum hit godode georne
x    /      x / \
And God him genue,
x   x  v    \ x,
IJ aet he wunode in sibbe
Lx,       x  vx v
(pa hwile pe I he leofode.
The fourth, or final, foot differs from  the others in the following
characteristic:
No final sinking (- x) was allowed, i.e. feminine rime did not exist in our
sense, both such syllables being stressed.
Hence the line could only end in a stress whether full or half in strength.
In the falling types A, AC, C, D, the last foot usually consists of a single
stressed syllable:
X   \ x   0 *.   \
he saette mycel deorfri5
X   x\     x *,       \
and he laegde laga PaerwiM.
X            X,
A.    and God him geuSe.
\  X,/
C.    sySSan Dene comon.!  X   / X   / \
AC. gif hi woldon libban.
X   _ X       \
D.    his maeges Eadwardes.
Cf. the modern English nursery rimes:,      \,  \
The maid was in the garden
Took him by the left leg
as chanted by mothers to their children with the heavy final half-stress.
With the ending 4 v \.
(It must be noted that in Old English ballad verse a single long syllable
is fairly often divided into d - or, ' as well as into  o. This may be due to
LX,_X      _
the artificial stress on the second member, e.g. A. swiSost para cyninga.)
x   _,x     x,oV
A.    pa hwiile pe, he leofode
^_      - y  X
AC. Her com Eadward aepeling
\   X        v
C.    and he Par wunode.
Much less frequently the ending - x - is found in A, AC, C, e.g.
/\ x,   x   \
A.    Aelfere ealdorman




Chapter VII                             417
x          X    _   X X
AC. wala, }aet waes hreowlic siM
\    X,    x v
C.    paet he ael]eodi3e.
From this last t wo are derived the final feet of such nursery rime rhythms as
"wasn't that a dainty dish."
In the rising types B and E the usual form is one unstressed syllable and
a final full-stress, which may be divided into two syllables. The ending with
a dissyllabic sinking before the final stress is rarely met with in B and E.
X   \   XX     \ X _
B.    and his geferan he todraf
X         ' x X    \ X
E.    Se cyng waes swa swiSe stearc.
With anapaestic ending
X  X/, XX       /     \j   X X
E.    ac se uplica wrecend hafaS his gemynd.
We have several examples of the verse form - x -L v  0:
x      x  /
on?aere earman byr(i)g
\  x,  \   ^,  ',
to jan leofan Gode.
We have, further, a number of clear instances of three-beat short verses,
perhaps originally meant for strophic use, in conjunction with four-beat
verses, e.g., \    X _.
cinges geseon
x r     \
Jaet gedon wear5.
It is a question whether every one of those so-called four-beat verses
without any sinkings (even between half-stress and subsequent full-stress)
is not to be reckoned here as three-beat.
Side by side with the introduction of this metre into literary use, there
are also to be found instances of rime and assonance.
The use of rime and assonance tends to destroy the old system of linked
half-lines, but in two different directions. First, in proportion as rime and
assonance grew in power, alliteration, which had originally been the connecting link between the two half-lines, diminished in importance, until
eventually it was used mainly within each half-line as an adornment.
Different alliterating letters occurred in each half-line, and rime or assonance
succeeded as a bond.
Hence, the half-lines became independent and the four-beat couplet
resulted. Secondly, rime or assonance was further used to link the full long
lines into couplets. These long lines were then felt to be too long, and a
simple means of avoiding such undue length was to use either a weak fourbeat half-line or, more usually, a three-beat half-line together with a full
four-beat half-line (of six to eight syllables) to make up the whole. A new
line with a variable caesura, either after the 3rd or the 4th beat, was thus
constructed. Examples are found in the poem in the Chronicle under 1057, e.g.
Her com Eadward Aeeling I to Englalonde


E. L. I.


27




418


Appendix to Chapter VII


and
/   \    S   J    tL  \      <
Eadmund cing I irensid waes geclypod.
But it must not be forgotten that both strophic forms are usually found in
these Old English poems without the need of either rime, assonance or
alliteration. The strophic system seems to have been originally, perhaps,
purely rhythmic, and rime, assonance and alliteration merely its adornments.
Lastly, this sung verse is found in other Germanic languages as well as in
Old English. The most notable instance of its employment elsewhere is in
the famous paraphrase poem of Otfried, who expressly repudiates the solemn
rhetorical metre, which must have smacked to him of the worship of the
heathen gods. This metre could not have been of Otfried's own composition,
since it was not only the metre of the Nibelungenlied but the basic metre of
other German ballad poems, and is identical with the poems in the Chronicle.
The following examples of Frisian metric forms seem to show that these also
were based on the same old Germanic metrical scheme, originally the common
property of all the Teutonic peoples. It is remarkable that the Old Frisian
forms (which do not, of course, correspond to the Old English, but to the
Middle English stage of the development of this metre) show all the specific
Middle English developments.   These are:-(1) in consequence of the
lengthening of short vowels in open syllables expansions like 6 x, originally
the equivalent of -, become equal to -L x; (2) the use of alliteration as an
adornment within the half-line and rime to link the two half-lines together;
(3) the apparent loss of the final half-stress in Old Frisian is only found in
lines not of Frisian popular origin:
A.    with horne and with hlude.
B.    wel was him ande sine hei.
AC. Hi welde tha sterka Fresan
\  x,L x \       t
(riming with "under sinne tegetha tian").
C.    da dat breef reed was
x   \ x       x
(riming with "hoe froe dat manich Fresa was").
D.?   Tha thi Kening Kerl thit understod
riming with
E.    Tornig was him hir umbe sin mod.
It is probable that all D forms - x - x \ x \ had at this epoch become
-x \ x -  x - \ as most likely in the example above. The same tendency is
found in Otfried, in Middle High German and Middle English.
The Frisian and the English were the nearest akin, and we have in both
languages a common ballad metre. Perhaps the clearly popular character
of this metre explains the absence of erotic songs and popular ballads from
Old English literature. Vulgar ballads of all description were in this metre
originally, and what epic classical matter was drawn from them was transformed (not always without leaving traces) into the rhetorical courtly metre.
In England, the popular metre remained deposed in favour of its younger
sister, the rhetorical metre, longer than elsewhere, and its sphere must
have been exclusively the vulgar.
J. S. W.




BIBLIOGRAPHIES
In the bibliographies that follow, references to other histories of English
literature are only given in special cases. Similarly, The Dictionary of
National Biography is mentioned only exceptionally. Readers may be
assumed to have access to it, or, at any rate, to its valuable Index and Epitome.
And it has further been assumed that the student can refer to KWrting's
Grundriss der Geschichte der englischen Litteratur, and, if he be interested
in Old English literature, to Wiilker's Grundriss zur Geschichte der angelsachsischen Litteratur.  Both books are indispensable. W. P. Courtney's
Register of National Bibliography, 2 vols., 1905, will also be found very useful.
When no other place of publication is mentioned, it may usually be taken
to be London.
Abbreviations: Arch. = Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen
und Litteraturen (Brunswick); Ath.= Athenaeum; BBA. = Bonner Beitrage
zur Anglistik; HBeitr. = Beitrige zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache
und Literatur (Halle); JGPh. = Journal of Germanic Philology (Bloomington, Indiana); MLA. = Publications of Modern Language Association of
America; MLN. = Modern Language Notes (Baltimore); MLR.= Modern
Language Review; NQ.= Notes and Queries; QF. = Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Culturgeschichte der germanischen Volker
(Strassburg); ZDA. = Zeitschrift fur deutsches Alterthum (Leipzig); ZDPh.
=Zeitschrift fur deutsche Philologie (Halle).
CHAPTERS I AND III
THE BEGINNINGS AND EARLY NATIONAL POETRY
GENERAL AUTHORITIES.
Bode, W. Die Kenningar in der angelsachsischen Dichtung. Darmstadt,
1886. [Kenningar = descriptive appellatives, frequent in Old English
and Old Norse poetry.]
Bradley, H. The Goths. 1888.
Brooke, Stopford A. History of Early English Literature to the accession
of King Aelfred. 1892.
English Literature from the beginning to the Norman Conquest. 1898.
[Both works contain excellent verse translations.]
Chadwick, H. M. Origin of the English Nation. Cambridge, 1907.
Conybeare, J. J. Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. 1826.
Cook, A. S. and Tinker, C. B. Select translations from Old English poetry.
1902.
Courthope, W. J. History of English Poetry. Vol. I. 1895.
Dale, E. National Life and Character in the Mirror of Early English
Literature. Cambridge, 1907.
Earle, J. Anglo-Saxon Literature. 1884.
Ebert, A. Allg. Gesch. der Literat. des Mittelalters im Abendlande. 3 vols.
1874-1887. [The standard work on its subject.]
Elton, C. Origins of English History. 1890.
Ettmiiller, L. Engla and Seaxna Scopas and Boceras. Leipzig, 1850.
27-2




420


Bibliography to


Green, J. R. The Making of England. 1882.
--    The Conquest of England. 1883.
Grein, C. W. M. Bibliothek der angelsAchsischen Poesie. Vols. i and II
(Text). Gottingen, 1857, 1858. Vols. iII and iv (Glossary). Cassel and
Gottingen, 1861-4. 2nd ed. by Wi5lcker, R. P. Vol.. Cassel, 1881-3.
[This work contains the text of all the poems treated in these chapters
and is indispensable to the student of Old English poetry.]
Griffin, W. Hall. A Handbook of English Literature. 1897. [See esp.
pp. 5-15.]
Grimm, J. Deutsche Mythologie. 1835. Trans. Stallybrass, J. S. 1883.
Gummere, F. B. Germanic Origins: A Study in Primitive Culture. New
York, 1892. [A useful work on social and national life.]
Jiriczek, 0. L. Northern Hero Legends. Trans. Smith, M. Bentinck. 1902.
Jonsson, F. Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie. 1894.
Jusserand, J. J. Hist. Litt. du Peuple Anglais. Vol. I. Des Origines a la
Renaissance. 2e 6d. Paris, 1896.
Kauffmann, F. Northern Mythology. Trans. Smith, M. Steele. 1903.
Keary, C. F. The Vikings in Western Christendom. 1891.
Kemble, J. M. The Saxons in England. 2nd ed. by de G. Birch, W. 1876.
Ker, W. P. The Dark Ages. (Periods of European Literature.) 1904.
-- Epic and Romance. 1897.
Kogel, R. Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur. Vol. I, Pt. 1. Strassburg,
1894.
Kiirting, G. Grundriss der Geschichte der englischen Litteratur. Muinster,
1887, 4th ed. 1905.
Laing, S. (ed.). Heimskringla Saga. (R. B. Anderson's ed.) 4 vols.
1889.
Longfellow, H. W. Poets and Poetry of Europe. 1838.
Merbach, H. Das Meer in der Dichtung des Ags. Breslau, 1884.
Merbod, R. Asthetische Studien zur ags. Poesie. Breslau, 1883.
Mone, F. J. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der teutschen Heldensage.
Leipzig, 1836.
Morley, H. English Writers. Vols. i and 1i. 1887, 1888. [Contains many
translations.]
Morris, W. and Magnusson, E. (ed.). Saga Library. 1890 ff.
Poole, R. L. Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought. 1884.
Rask, E. A Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue. Trans. Thorpe, B.
Copenhagen, 1830. [Of historical interest.]
Rydberg, V. Teutonic Mythology. Trans. Anderson, R. B. 1889.
Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum.     Ed. Holder, A. Strassburg, 1886.
Trans. Elton, 0. London, 1894.
Simrock, K. Deutschen Mythologie. Bonn, 1853 ff.
Sweet, H. in Warton, T. History of English Poetry. Vol. I. 1871.
Ten Brink, B. Geschichte der englischen Litteratur. Vol. I. Berlin, 1877.
2nd ed. by Brandl, A. Strassburg, 1899. Trans. Kennedy, H. M.
1883.
Tolman, A. H. The Style of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. MLA. II.
Traill, H. D. Social England. Vol. I. 1898. [Contains useful lists of
authorities.]
Turner, Sharon. History of the Anglo-Saxons. 1799-1805. ['Durch dieses
Werk wurde das Interesse und die Liebe fur die iltere Zeit in England
wieder miihtig angeregt' (Wiilker).]
Vigfusson, G. Icelandic Sagas. 2 vols. 1887.
Vigfusson, G. and Powell, F. York. Corpus Poeticum Boreale. Oxford, 1883.




Chapters I and III


42 I1


Wright, T. Biographia Britannica Literaria. 1842.
Wiilcker, R. P. Kleinere angelsachsische Dichtungen. Halle, 1882.
Wiilker, R.   Grundriss zur Geschichte der angelsischsischen Litteratur.
Leipzig, 1885.
Geschichte der englischen Litteratur von den Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig, 1896,1907.
Zeuss, J. C. Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstiamme. Munich, 1837.
BEOWIULF.
[The unique 3MS is in the Cottonian collection, British Museum (Codex
Vitellius, A. xv). It was first noticed by Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726) in
the catalogue of Old English MSS which he contributed to George Hickes's
Linguarum   veterum  septentrionalium  thesaurus grammatico-criticus et
archaeologicus, Oxford, 1703-5. The MS was injured by fire in 1731 before
any transcript of it was in existence. The Icelandic scholar, G. J. Thorkelin,
had it transcribed in 1787 in the British Museum, whither it had been
removed from its Westminster home in 1753. In 1815 Thorkelin's first
edition was published. See Thorkelin, inf., and Sharon Turner, ante. An
autotype facsimile of the MS, together with transliteration and notes by
J. Zupitza, was published by the Early English Text Society in 1882.]
Arnold, T. Prose translation, introduction and bibliography. 1876.
--    Notes on Beowulf. 1898.
Binz, G. HBeitr. xx, 141-223.
Boer, R. C. Arkiv for nordisk Filologi, xv, 19-88.
Botkine, L. Beowulf, Analyse hist. et geogr. Paris, 1876. French translation. Havre, 1877.
Bouterwek, K. Das Beowulflied, Pfeiffer's Germania I, 385-418. 1856.
Zur Kritik des Beowulfliedes ZDA. xi, 59-113.
Brandl, A. Arch. cviii, 152-5.
Bugge, S. HBeitr. xII, 1-112.
- The Home of the Eddie Poems. Trans. Schofield, W. H. Grimm Lib.
1899.
Child, C. G. Translation. New York, 1904.
Dederich, H. Historische und geographische Studien zum angelsichsischen
Beowulfliede. Koln, 1877.
Earle, J. The Deeds of Beowulf.     Prose translation and introduction.
Oxford, 1892.
Ettmiiller, L.  Carmen de Beovulfi Gautarum    regis rebus...gestis, etc.
Zurich, 1875.
--  Beowulf. Ziirich, 1840.
Garnett, J. M. Verse version and bibliography [includes Finnsburh].
Boston, 1882 ff.
Grein, C. W. M. Die historischen Verhiltnisse des Beowulfliedes. Ebert's
Jahrbuch fiir romanische und englische Litteratur, Iv, 260-285.
Grettis Saga. Translated by Morris, W. and Magnusson, E. 1869.
Grundtvig, N. F. S. Bjowulfs Drape. Copenhagen, 1820.
-   eowulfes Beorh eller Bjovulfs-Drapen, det Old-Angelske Heltedigt,
paa Grund-sproget. Copenhagen, 1861.
Haigh, D. H. The Anglo-Saxon Sagas, 1861. [Favours the view that the
scenery in Beowulf is English.]
Hall, J. Leslie. Verse translation. Boston, 1892,1900.
Hall, J. R. Clark. Translation. [Good bibliography, includes Finnsburh]
1901.




422


Bibliography to


Harrison, J. A. and Sharp, R. Beowulf and Finnsburh.    Boston, 1883.
Based on Heyne.
Heinzel, R. Uber den Styl der altgerman. Poesie (QF. 10).
Heusler, A. ZDA. XLVIII, 57-87.
Heyne, M. [A good edition.] Paderborn, 1863. 7th ed. by Socin, A., 1903.
Holder, A. Freiburg and Tiibingen, 1884. 2nd ed., 1899.
Holthausen, F. [Contains a good bibliography.] Heidelberg, 1906.
Jordanes or Jornandes (6th c.). De origine actibusque Getarum.
Kemble, J. M. The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, the Traveller's Song,
and the Battle of Finnesburh. 1833. 2nd ed., 1835. Translation, 1837.
[Kemble, Leo and Ettmiiller incline towards a mythological interpretation
of the poem.]
Kohler, A. ZDPh. In, 305-321.
Kolbing, E. Zur Beovulfhandschrift. Arch. LVI, 91-118 (1876). 1876.
Krueger, Th. Geschichte der B. Kritik. See Wiilkers Grundriss, 515.
Laistner, L. Nebeisagen. Stuttgart, 1879.
Leo, H. Beowulf. Halle, 1839.
Lumsden, H. W. Beowulf, an Old English Poem, translated into Modern
Rhymes. 1881.
Moller, H. Das altenglische Volksepos. Kiel, 1883. [Considers that the
Old English epic has a strophic form.]
Moorman, F. The Interpretation of Nature in English Poetry (QF. 95).
Strassburg, 1905.
Morris, W. and Wyatt, A. J. The Tale of Beowulf (translated). 1898.
Miillenhoff, K. Be6vulf. Berlin, 1889. [M.'s view is that the poem, as we
have it, is made up of parts which were originally separate lays.]
-  Sceaf und seine Nachkommen. ZDA. vII, 410.
-   Die innere Geschichte des B. ZDA. (1869) xIv, 242.
-- Zur deutschen Heldensage. ZDA. xi, 253-386. 1865.
Miiller, N. Die Mythen im Beowulf. Leipzig, 1878.
Olrik, A. Danmarks Helte-Digtning. Copenhagen, 1903.
Sarrazin, G. Be6wulf-Studien. Berlin, 1888.
Sievers, E. Berichte der k. sachs. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. XLVII, 175-192.
-     Zur Rhythmlik des germ. Alliterationsverses. [HBeitr. x, 209 and 451.]
Simrock, Karl. Beowulf. Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1859.
Skeat, W. W. J. of Phil., July, 1886. The Monster Grendel in Beowulf.
See also Academy, 1876-7.
Ten Brink, B. Beowulf (QF. 62). Strassburg, 1888.
Tinker, C. B. The translations of Beowulf: a critical bibliography. Yale
Studies. New York, 1903. See also under Cook and Tinker above.
Thorkelin, G. J. De Danorutn Rebus Gestis Secul. III et Iv. Copenhagen,
1815. [For early discussions consequent upon the appearance of Thorkelin's work, see Morley, English Writers, I. 356, and Wiilker's Grundriss.]
Thorpe, B. The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, the Sc6p or Gleeman's
Tale, and the Fight at Finnesburg. Oxford, 1855. Includes translations.
Trautmann, M. Bonn, 1904. BBA. xv.
Volsunga Saga. Trans. Morris, W. and Magnusson, E. 1876,1888.
Wyatt, A. J. Text and Notes. Cambridge, 1894. 2nd ed., 1899.
CHARMS, ETC.
MSS.    See Grein-Wiilcker, Bibl. I, pp. 414-6; Wiilker, Grundriss,
pp. 347-355.
Bradley, H. Arch. CVIII, 144 f.




Chapters I and III                          423
Cockayne, T. 0. Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England.
3 vols. Rolls Series. 1864-6.
Grimm, J. Deutsche Mythologie (see above), pp. 1236-40,1243-5.
Kemble, J. M. Saxons in England (see above), I, pp. 403 f., 528-535.
KEgel, R. Gesch. der deutsch. Litt. (see above), I. 1, pp. 39-42, 88 f., 93-5.
Payne, J. F. English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times, pp. 137-142.
Oxford, 1904.
DEOR.
(For the Exeter Book see bibliography to Chapter iv.)
Atlantic Monthly, The, LXVII, 287 (Febr. 1891). Translation.
Miillenhoff, K. ZDA. xi, 272-5; xII, 261; VII, 530 f.
Tupper, J. W. MLN. x, 125-7.
THE FINNSBURH FRAGMENT.
This poem is included in most of the editions and translations of Beowulf
given above. See under: Garnett, Clark Hall, Ettmiiller, Grein, Moller, Bugge,
Binz, Harrison and Sharp, Kemble, Thorpe, etc.; also under general authorities
for this and the following poems, Mone, Wiilcker, etc. [Discovered by George
Hickes in the library of Lambeth Palace as part of the cover of another MS.
See Hickes, op. cit. The MS of the fragment is now lost.]
Boer, R. C. ZDA. XLVII, 125-160.
Hickes, G. Linguarum Septentrionalium Thesaurus, I, p. 192 f. Oxford, 1705.
Jellinek, M. H. HBeitr. xv, 428-431.
Miillenhoff, K. ZDA. xi, 281-3.
Rieger, M. ZDA. xvIII, 9-13.
Schilling, H. MLN. I, 178-183, 231-3; II, 291-9.
Swiggett. MLN. xx, 169-171.
Trautmann, PM. BBA. vii, 1-64.
Ten Brink, B. In Paul's Grundriss der germ. Philologie, II, 545-50.
THE RUIN.
(See also under Grein and Hicketier below.)
Earle, J. An ancient Saxon Poem of a City in Ruins, supposed to be Bath.
Bath, 1872.
-  Academy, July, 12, 1884. (Trans.) [The reader may also like to be
reminded of Browning's Love among the Ruins.]
THE SEAFARER.
(See also under Ferrell and Lawrence below.)
Hdnncher, E. Anglia, ix, 435-446.
Kluge, F. Englische Studien, vi, 322-7; vIII, 472-4.
Merry, G. R. Academy, Febr. 8,1890. (Trans.)
Rieger, M. ZDPh. I, 331-9.
WALDHERE.
[The MS consists of two leaves discovered by E. C. Werlauff in the
National Library of Copenhagen as part of the binding of another book.]
Althof, H. Waltharii Poesis. Leipzig, 1899-1905.
Dieter, F. Anglia, x, 227-234; xi, 159-170.
Dietrich, F. and Miillenhoff, K. ZDA. xii, 264-279.




424


Bibliography to


Heinzel, R. Uber die Walthersage. Vienna, 1889.
Kelle, J. Gesch. der deutschen Litt. i, pp. 218-226. Berlin, 1892.
Kolbing, E. Die Waldere Fragmente. Engl. St. v, 240 f., 292 f.
Learned, M. D. The Saga of Walther of Aquitaine. MLA. 1892.
Stephens, G. Two Leaves of King Waldere's Lay. Copenhagen and London,
1860. (Text, translation, etc.)
Symons, B. In Paul's Grundriss (2nd ed.), iII, 703-9.
Trautmann, M. BBA. xi, 133-8.
THE WANDERER.
Boer, R. C. ZDPh. xxxv, 1-28.
Brown, A. R. Poet-Lore. March, 1891. (Trans.)
Ferrell, C. MLN. ix, 402-7.
Hickey, E. H. Academy, May 14,1881. (Trans.)
Lawrence, W. W. JGPh. iv, 460-480.
Rice Sims, W. MLN. v, 402-4. (Trans.)
Rieger, M. ZDPh. i, 324-331.
WIDSITH.
(See also under Beowulf: Kemble, Thorpe.)
Binz, G. HBeitr. xx, 141-223.
Bojunga, K. HBeitr. xVI, 545-8.
Guest, E. History of English Rhythms. 1838. Ed. Skeat, W. W. 1882.
Gummere, F. MLN. iv, 418-423. (Trans.)
Moller, H. Das Altenglische Volksepos. Kiel, 1883.
Miillenhoff, K. ZDA. xi, 275-294.
N- ordalb. Stud. i, 148,165.
Schutte, G. Oldsagn om Godtjod. Copenhagen, 1907.
Ten Brink, B. In Paul's Grundriss, II, 538-545.
THE WIFE'S COMPLAINT AND THE HUSBAND'S MESSAGE.
Blackburn, F. A. JGPh. III, 1-13 (text, translation, etc. of The Husband's
Message).
Grein, C. W. M. Kurzegefasste angelsichsische Grammatik, p. 10. Cassel,
1880.
Hicketier, F. Anglia, xi, 363-8.
Roeder, F. Die Familie bei den Angelsachsen, pp. 112-126. Halle, 1899.
Trautmann, MI. Anglia, xvI, 207-225.
CHAPTER II
RUNES AND MANUSCRIPTS
I. RUNES: GENERAL LITERATURE.
Arnamagnaeanske Haandskrift, Det, No. 28, Codex Runicus, in facsimile.
Ed. Kommissionen for det Arnamagnaeanske Legat. Copenhagen, 1877.
Friesen, 0. von. Om runskriftens hirkomst. In Sprakvetenskapliga Sallskapets i Uppsala Forhandl. 1904-6. Upsala, 1904.
Grimm, J. Deutsche Mythologie. Gottingen, 1835. 4th ed. Meyer, E. H.
3 vols. Berlin, 1875. Trans. Stallybrass, J. S. 4 vols. 1882-8.
Grimm, W. Uber deutsche Runen. Gottingen, 1821.
Zur Literatur der Runen. Wiener Jahrb. der Liter. XLIII. Vienna,
1828. Reprinted in Schriften, II, 85 ff.




Chapter II                           425
Keary, C. F. A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum, AngloSaxon Series. 2 vols. 1887.
Kemble, J. 1. On Anglo-Saxon Runes. Archaeologia, xxviii (1840), pp. 327 ff.
Kirchhoff, A. Das gothisehe Runenalphabet. 2nd ed. Berlin, 1854.
Lilieneron, R. v. and u11llenhoff, K. Zur Rurnenlehre. Halle, 1852.
Massmann, H. F. Gotthica minora. Zeit. f. d. Altert. I (1841).
Montelius, O. Runornas alder i Norden. In Svenska Fornminnesfdreningens
Tidskr. vnI, 236 ff. Trans. into German in Archiv fur Anthropologie,
vIII, 151 if. [As to the age of runes.]
Olsen, Bj. M. Runerne i den oldislandske Literatur. Copenhagen, 1883.
Saxo Grammiaticus: Gesta Danorum. Ed. Holder, A. Strassburg, 1886.
Trans. Elton, O. 1894.
Schroder, E. Uber das Spell. ZDA. xxxvii, 241 f.
Sievers, E. Runen und Runeninsehriften. In Paul's Grundriss, i, 248 if.
Sijmons, B. Die Lieder der Edda. Halle, 1906. The Edda has been trans.
into German by Gering, H., Leipzig and Vienna, no date [1892]; into
English by Thorpe, B., 2 parts, 1865-6; by Magnusson, E. and Morris, W.,
Vilsunga Saga, 1870, 2nd ed., 1888; by Vigfusson, G. and Powell, F. York,
Corpus poeticum boreale, 2 vols., Oxford, 1883.
Stephens, G. The Old Northern Runic Monuments, 4 vols. Copenhagen,
1866-84.
-  Handbook of the Old Northern Runie Monuments. London and Copenhagen, 1884.
- The runes, whence came they. London and Copenhagen, 1894.
Thorsen, P. G. Om runernes Brug til Skrift udenfor det Monumentale.
Copenhagen, 1877.
Wimmer, L. F. A. Die Runenschrift. 2nd ed. Transl. by F. Holthausen.
Berlin, 1887. [Standard work.]  See further: Losch, F., Germania,
xxxiv, 397 ff.; Meyer, R. M., Paul u. Braune's Beitr. xxI, 162; v. Grienberger, Arkiv, xiv, 101 ff., xv, 1 ff.; P. u. B.'s Beitr. xxi, 185 if.; ZDPh.
xxxIn, 302 ff.; Hempl, G., Phil. Stud. fur Eduard Sievers, 1896, id. The
Journal of Germ. Phil. ii, No. 3, p. 370 (1899).
Zacher, J. Das gotische alphabet Vulfilas und das runenalphabet. Leipzig,
1855.
1. RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS IN ENGLAND.
Chadwick, H. Munro. Early Inscriptions in the North of England. [Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society, Part in, May, 1901.] Bradford.
Haigh, D. H. The Conquest of Britain by the Saxons, pp. 37-41. 1861.
Sweet, H. The Oldest English Texts. E.E.T.S. LxXXIII, pp. 124 ff. 1885.
Vietor, W. Die Northumbrischen Runensteine. Marburg, 1895.
(a) Ruthwell Cross: reproductions and text.
Anderson, J. Scotland in Early Christian Times. 2ndseries. Edinburgh,1881.
Anderson, J. and Allen, J. B. The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland.
Edinburgh, 1903.
Cardonnell, A. de. Vetusta Monumenta. Soc. Ant. Lond. ii, plates 54, 55.
1789.
Cook, A. S. Notes on the Ruthwell Cross. MLA. Vol. xvi, 367 if.
Dietrich, F. Disputatio de Cruce Ruthwellensi. Marburg, 1865.
Duncan, H. Archaeologia Scotica. Trans. Soc. Ant. Scotland, Iv, plate 13.
Edinburgh, 1833.
Gordon, A. Itinerarium Septentrionale, p. 160, plates 57, 58. 1726.
Hickes, G. Thesaurus, i, 3, plate 4. Oxford, 1703-5.




426


Bibliography to


Kemble, John. Archaeologia, xxvIII, 349-357. 1840. Cf. Additional Observations on the Runic Obelisk at Ruthwell, ibid. xxx, pp. 31-46, 1843. Cf.
P. A. Munch, Norsk Literaturtidende, Nos. 1-4, Christiania, 1845.
[MacFarlan, J.] The Ruthwell Cross. Edinburgh and London, 1885.
Yietor, W. Die Northumbrischen Runensteine, pp 2-. 213  arburg, 1895.
Wilson, D. Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. 2 vols. 2nd ed. II, 319-329.
Cambridge and London, 1863.
Zupitza, J. Verse vom Kreuze zu Ruthwell. In his Alt und Mittelenglisches
Ubungsbuch, 7th ed., 1904.
(b) The Bewcastle Column: reproductions and text.
Haigh, D. H. Archaeologia Aeliana. N.S. I. 1857.
Howard, H. Archaeologia, xiv, pp. 113 ff. 1801.
Hutchinson, W. The History of the County of Cumberland. 2 vols. Carlisle,
1794.
Lysons, D. L. and S. Magna Britannia. Vol. Iv. 6 vols. 1806-22.
Maughan, J. The Maiden Way. Archaeol. Journal, xi, pp. 130 ff. 1854.
-     Memoir on the Roman Station and Runic Cross at Bewcastle. 1857.
Nicholson, BW. Letter written in 1685, in Camden's Britannia. Ed. by
Gibson, 1695.
Smith, G. The Gentleman's Magazine, pp. 132, 318, 368 f., 529. 1742.
Stuart, J. Sculptured Stones of Scotland. 2 vols. Spalding Club Publ.
Aberdeen, 1867.
Vietor, W. Die Northumbrischen Runensteine, pp. 13-16. Marburg, 1895.
(c) The Franks Casket: reproductions and text.
Bugge, S. Tidskrift for Philologi og Paedagogik, VIII, 302.
Franks, A. VW. Memoir on the Casket. Archaeological Journal, xvI,
pp. 391 ff. 1859.
Gering, H. Zum Clermonter Runen-kiistchen. ZDPhil. xxxIII, 140 if.
Grein, C. W. M. and Wiilcker, R. P. Bibliothek der Angelsachsischen Poesie,
pp. 281-3 (with facsimile). Cassel, 1883.
Grienberger, v. Zu den Inschriften des Clermonter Runenkaistchens. Anglia,
xxvII, 436-449. Cf. ZDPhil. xxxIIm, 409-421.
Haigh, D. H. The Conquest of Britain by the Saxons, pp. 42 f. 1861.
Hemipl, G. The variant runes on the Franks Casket. Boston, 1902.
Hofmann, K. Uber die Clairmonter Runen. Sitzungsber. der kgl. bayer.
Akad. der Wissenschaften, pp. 665 if. Miinchen, 1871.
Napier, A. S. The Franks Casket. In An English Miscellany, presented to
Dr Furnivall, pp. 362-381 (with six facsimiles). Oxford, 1901.
Sweet, H. Garsecg. Engl. Stud. II, 414 ff. Heilbronn, 1879.
Vietor, W. Das angelsichsische Runenkastchen aus Auzon bei ClermontFerrand (with five plates). Marburg a. d. Lahn, 1901.
Wadstein, E. The Clermont Runic Casket (with five plates). Almquist and
Wiksell, Upsala, 1900.
III. THE ROMAN ALPHABET IN ENGLAND: MANUSCRIPTS AND THEIR
MAKERS; EARLY SCRIPTORIA AND LIBRARIES.
Arndt, W. (revised by H. Bloch). Lateinische Schrift. In Paul's Grundriss.
2nd ed. I, pp. 263-282. Strassburg, 1901.
Bateson, M. Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery, Isleworth.
Cambridge, 1898.




Chapter II                          427
Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum. Ed. E. A. Bond.
4 parts. 1873-8.
- of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (Ordnance Survey). Ed. W. B. Sanders.
3 parts. Southampton, 1878-84.
-     of National Manuscripts of England (Ordnance Survey). Ed. W. B.
Sanders. 4 parts. Southampton, 1867-71.
-      - of Ireland (Ordnance Survey). Ed. J. T. Gilbert. 4 parts (in
5 vols.). Dublin and London, 1874-84.
-   of Scotland (Ordnance Survey). Ed. C. Innes. 3 parts. Southampton, 1867-71.
Gasquet, F. A. Notes on Medieval Monastic Libraries, Downside Review,
x, pp. 87 if., and The Old English Bible and other Essays. 1897.
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English Bible and other Essays, pp. 41 ff. 1897.
Gottlieb, T. Uber Mittelalterliche Bibliotheken. Leipzig, 1890.
Hunter, Joseph. English Monastic Libraries: (i) A Catalogue of the Library
of the Priory of Bretton in Yorkshire; (ii) Notices of the Libraries
belonging to other religious houses. 1831.
James, M. R. The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover. Cambridge,
1903.
Karabacek, J. Das arabische Papier. Mitteil. aus der Sammlung der
Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer, II and iii. Vienna, 1887. Neue Quellen zur
Papiergeschichte. Ibid. iv. Vienna, 1888.
Keller, W. Angelsiehsische Palaeographie. Die Schrift der Angelsachsen,
mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die Denkmialer in der Yolkssprache. Berlin,
1907.
Kenyon, F. G. Facsimiles of Biblical Manuscripts in the Brit. Mus. 1900.
Kirchhoff, A. Die Handschriftenhandler des Mittelalters. 2nd ed. Leipzig,
1853.
Omont, H. Anciens Catalogueses s Bibliotheques Anglaises. Leipzig, 1892.
Palaeographical Society. Facsimiles of MSS and Inscriptions, edd. E. A.
Bond, E. M. Thompson, G-. F. Warner. 1873-94.
Skeat, W. W. Twelve Facsimiles of Old English MSS. Oxford, 1892.
The New Palaeographical Society. Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts, ed.
E., Thompson, G. F. Warner, F. G. Kenyon. 1903-. [In progress.]
Thompson, Sir E. Maunde. Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography.
2nd ed., 1894. [With a list of the principal palaeographical works used,
on pp. 327 ff.]
Wattenbach, W. Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter. 3rd ed. Leipzig, 1896.
-     Anleitung zur lateinischen Palaeographie. 4th ed. Leipzig, 1886.
Westwood, J. 0. Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria. 1844.
-   Facsimiles of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish
MSS. 1868.
Wiesner, Jul. Die Faijumer und Uschmuineiner Papiere. Eine naturwissenschaftliche, mit Riicksicht auf die Erkennung alter und moderner
Papiere und auf die Entwickelung der Papierbereitung durchgefiihrte
Untersuchung. Mfitteil. aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog
Rainer, ii and III. Vienna, 1887. Cf. eund., Studien fiber angebliche
Baumbastpapiere, Sitzungsber. der Wiener Akad. 1892.




428


Bibiography to


CHAPTER IV
OLD ENGLISH      CHRISTIAN     POETRY
Texts and full bibliographies will be found in Grein, Wilker and Korting.
See the bibliography to Chapters I and iii, ante, for standard works dealing
also with the contents of the present chapter, and for abbreviations.
A. CAEDMON AND THE CAEDMONIAN GROUP.
JISS and Sources.
AZARIAS, in Exeter Book, ff. 53a-55b. [The Exeter Book is a MS preserved
in Exeter cathedral library, the gift of bishop Leofric about 1071. Its
title in Old English is 'Mycel Englisc boc be gehwilculm ]ingum on
leo6-wisan geworht' ('A large English book, on all sorts of things,
wrought in verse'). To it are we indebted for much of what is known
concerning Old English literature. It was published under the editorship of B. Thorpe, in 1842 (Codex Exoniensis, text and translation),
and the first volume of a new edition in the Early English Text Society's
publications has appeared, edited by I. Gollancz, containing the first
eight poems in the MS. The contents of the MS are as follows: Crist,
Guthlac, Azarias, The Phoenix, Juliana, The Wanderer, The Gifts of
Men, A Father's Instruction, The Seafarer, The Spirit of Men, Widsith,
The Fates (or Fortunes) of Men, Gnomic Verses, The Wonders of
Creation, The Riming Song, The Panther, The Whale, The Partridge,
The Address of the Soul to the Body, Deor, Riddles 1-60, The Wife's
Complaint, The Last Judgment, A Prayer, Christ's Descent into Hell,
Alms, Pharaoh, Paternoster (fragment) and other fragments of maxims,
hymns, etc., Riddle 61 and another version of Riddle 31, The Husband's
Message, The Ruin, Riddles 62-89.]
GENESIS, EXODUS, DANIEL, CRIST and SATAN, in Bodl. Junius xI. Old
Saxon fragments in Vatican Library, Palatinus Latinus N. 1447.
HYMN, in Cambridge University Library, Kk, 5,16, fol. 128. (See Facsimiles
of Ancient MSS, ix, edd. Bond and Thompson, 1879.) Printed in Wanley,
Catalogus historico-criticus, 1705. See also Bede, Eccles. Hist., E.E.T.S.
ed. Miller, 1890, and ed. Holder, A., Freiburg u. Tiibingen, 1882.
Authorities.
(For books on the Ruthwell Cross, see bibliography to Chapter Ii.)
Acta Sanctorum, 11 February.
Balg, H. Der Dichter Caedmon und seine Werke. Bonn, 1882.
Bouterwek, K. W. Caedmon's des Angelsichsen biblische Dichtungen. 2 pts.
Elberfeld, 1851 and Giitersloh, 1854.
-   De Caedmone poeta Anglo-Saxonum vetustissimo. Elberfeld, 1845.
Ueber Caedmon, den iiltesten ags. Dichter, und desselben metrische
Paraphrase der heiligen Schrift. Elberfeld, 1845.




Chapter IV


429


Cramer, J. Quelle, Verfasser und Text des ae. Gedichts Christi Hellenfahrt.
Anglia, xix, 135 if.
Dietrich, F. Emendations. ZDA. x, 310-367.
Ebert, A. Genesis and Exodus. Anglia, v, 409, 410.
Ellis, 1. Introduction to rerodouctions of drawings in "Caedmon" MS.
Archaeologia, xxiv.
Ettmiiller, L. Handbuch der deutschen Litteraturgeschichte. Leipzig, 1847.
Gotzinger, E. Ueber die Dichtungen des Angelsachsen Caedmon und deren
Verfasser. Gottingen, 1860.
Graz, F. Die Metrik der sog. Caedmon'schen Dicht. Berlin, 1894.
Grein, C. Zur Textkritik der angelsachsischen Dichter. Germania, x, 417 ff.
Groschopp, F. Das angelsachsische Gedicht "Crist und Satan." Anglia, vI,
248-276.
Groth, E. Komposition der Altengl. Exodus. Gottingen, 1883.
Hammerich, F. De Episk-Kristelige Old Kvad. Copenhagen, 1873. Trans.
by Michelsen, Giitersloh, 1874, 1888, Aelteste Christliche Epik. pp. 23-35.
Hofer, O. Ueber die Entstehung des ags. Gedichtes Daniel. Anglia, xII, 158.
Holtmann. On Genesis. Germania, I, 470.
Honncker, F. Studien zur ags. Genesis. Anglia, VII, 469; vmI, 41.
Hunt, T. W. Exodus and Daniel. Boston.
Junius, F. Caedmonis monachi Paraphrasis Poetica Genesios ac praecipuarum sacrae paginae Historiarum, abhinc annos M.LXX. Anglo-Saxonice
conseripta, et nune primum edita a Francisco Junio, F. F. Amstelodami,
1655, Oxford, 1752.
-    Observationes in Willerami Abbatis, Franciscan Paraphrasin, Cantici
Canticorum. Amsterdam, 1655.
Kiihn, A. Ueber die ags. gedichte von Christ u. Satan. Jena, 1883.
Lawrence, J. Codex Junius xI. Anglia, xI, 598.
Muerkens, G. On Exodus. Bonner Beitr. z. Anglistik, II, 1899.
Napier, A. S. MLN. 1889.
Paul, H. Grundriss d. German. Phil. 2nd ed. 3 vols. Strassburg, 1901.
Paul-Braune. Beitr. z. gesch. d. deutsch Spr. u. Litt.
Rieger, M. ZDPh. VII, 6. On Crist and Satan.
Schipper, J. Zum Codex Exoniensis. Germania, xix, 331-4.
Sievers, E. Der Heliand und die angelsachsische Genesis. Halle a/S, 1875.
-     Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Crist and Satan. ZDA. xv, 456 ff.
In P. u. B.'s Beitr. x, xx.
Skene, W.F. Celtic Scotland. 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1876 ff.
Stoddard, F. H. The Caedmon poems in MS Junius xI. Anglia, x. 156.
Strobl, J. Zur sog. Caedmonschen Exodus. Germania, xx, 292-305.
Ten Brink, B. Early English Literature, and Appendix. [See also p. 49,
Vol. I, English trans., 1904, for early works on the theme of Christ and
Satan.]
Thorpe, B. Caedmon's Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of the Holy Scriptures,
in Anglo-Saxon; with an English translation. Soc. of Antiquaries, 1832.
Wiilker, R. Caedmon's Hymn. P. u. B.'s Beitr. III, 348-357; Anglia, II,
IV, etc.
Zangemeister, K. and Braune, W. (Genesis, etc.). Neue Heidelberger
Jahrbiicher, IV, 205.
Ziegler, H.  Der poetische Sprachgebrauch in d. Caedmon'schen Dichtungen. Miinster, 1883.
Zupitza, J. Caedmon's Hymn. ZDA. xxi, 210-223.




430


Bibliography to


B. CYNEWULF AND HIS SCHOOL.
AISS and Sources.
CRIST, JULIANA, GUTHLAC, PHOENIX, PHYSIOLOGUS, RIDDLES, in Exeter
Book.
FATES OF THE APOSTLES, ANDREAS, ELENE, DREASM OF THE ROOD, in
Vercelli Book. [The Vercelli Book is a 31S preserved in the Capitular
library, Vercelli, N. Italy, where it was discovered in 1822 by F. Blume.
It contains Homilies, Andreas, Fates of the Apostles, Address of the Soul
to the Body, Falseness of Men, Dream of the Rood, Elene, prose life of
Guthlac, and was written, probably, in the eleventh century. A heliotype
reproduction of the verse was produced by Wiilker in 1894, Leipzig. See
J. M. Kemble's Poetry of the Codex Vercellensis, with an English trans.,
2 pts., Aelfric Soc. 1843, 1856, and Wiilker in Anglia, v.]
Authorities.
Acta Sanctorum, 11 April (Guthlac), 3 May (Elene).
Baehrens, A. Poetae Latini Minores (Riddles, etc.). Leipzig, 1879 if.
Blackburn, F. A. Is the "Christ" of Cynewulf a single poem? Anglia,
xri, 89.
Bourauel, J. Zur Quellen- und Yerfasserfrage von Andreas, Crist u. Fata.
BBA. xI. 1901.
Bradley, H. (Riddles.) Academy, xxxIII, 197.
Brooke, Stopford A. Early English Literature, 1892. [Contains excellent
trans. of Riddles, etc.]
Charitius, F. Ueber die angelsachsischen Gedichte vom heiligen Guthlac.
Anglia, II, 265-308.
Cook, A. S. The Crist of Cynewulf. Boston, 1900.
--  The Dream of the Rood. Oxford, 1905. [An excellent edition, with a
thorough discussion of the evidence of authorship, etc.]
Cooper's Report on Rymer's Foedera, Appendix B (B. Thorpe.), pp. 47-92.
(Fates of the Apostles, Andreas, Dream of the Rood.) 1836.
Dietrich, F. Commentatio de Kynewulfi poetae aetate. Marburg, 1859.
Cynewulf's Crist. ZDA. IX, 193-214.
-   ie Ratsel des Exeterbuches. ZDA. XI, 448, xII, 232.
-   Ebert's Jahrbuch f. romanische und englische Literatur. Berlin, 1859.
I, 241-246.
Ebert, A. Der angelsaiehsisehe Physiologus. Anglia, v, 24241-27.
-     Der Traum vom heiligen Kreuz, Berichte der kgl. GeselIschaft der
Wissenschaften, 18 Mai, 1884, 81 ff.
-     Die Ratselpoesie der Angelsachsen, Berichte der k. siahsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, April, 1877, pp. 30-56.
Forstmann, H. Zur Guthlac-Legende. BBA. xII. 1902.
Fritzsche, A. Das angelsachsische Gedicht Andreas und der Dichter Cynewulf. Anglia, II, 441-496.
Gabler, Herin. Ueber die Autorschaft der angelsachsischen Gedichtes vom
Phoenix. Anglia, III, 488-526.
Garnett, J. M. Translations, etc. Boston, 1901.
Gl6de, 0. Cynewulf's Elene, etc. Rostock, 1885. See also Anglia, Ix.
Gollancz, I. Cynewulf's Crist. 1892.   See also same vol. for Guthiac,
Gnomic verses, etc.




Chapter IV


431


Grein, C. W. 3I. Der Vogel Phdnix. Rinteln, 1854.
Dichtungen der Angelsichsen. 2 vols. Gottingen, 1857 if.
-     Kurzgefasste angelsachsische Grammatik, pp. 11-15. 1880.
Zn den Ratseln des Exeterbuchs. Germania, x, 307-310.
- Zur Textkritik der angelsachsischen Dichter. Germania, x, 420 if.
Grimm, Jakob. Andreas und Elene. Kassel, 1840. [A valuable edition.]
Grundtvig, N. F. S. Phenix-Fuglen. Copenhagen, 1840. See also Archaeologia, xxx.
Holt, L. H. Elene. (Translated.) Yale Studies in English. 1904.
Holthausen, F. Elene. Heidelberg, 1905.
Kent, C.W..Teutonic Antiquities in Andreas and Elene. Leipzig, 1887.
-     Elene. Boston, 1889.
Klipstein, L. F. Analecta Anglo-Saxonica. 2 vols. New York, 1849.
Krapp, G. P. Andreas and Fates of the Apostles. Boston, 1906. [An
excellent edition.]
Land, J. P. N. Art. in Enc.-Brit. on Physiologus.
Lauchert, F. Geschichte des Physiologus. Strassburg, 1890.
Lefevre, P. Das altenglische Gedicht vom Guthlac. Anglia, vI, 181-240.
Leo, H. Quae de se ipso Cynevulfus, sive Cenevulfus, sive Coenevulfus, poeta
Anglo-Saxonicus tradiderit. Halle, 1857.
Mann, M. F. Zur Bibliographie des Physiologus. Anglia, Beiblatt, x, 274,
xii, 13, xii, 18. See also Jellinek, A. L., Anglia, Beiblatt, xiiI, 236.
Mather, F. J. The Cynewulf Question from a metrical point of view. MLN.
1892, pp. 193 ff.
Muller, Ed. Die Ratsel des Exeterbuches. Programm. Cithen, 1861.
Muller, S. Die Thierornamentik im Norden. Hamburg, 1881.
Napier, A. Academy, Sept. 8, 1888, and ZDA. xxxIII, pp. 60 if. (on Fata
Apostolorum).
Prehn, A. Komposition und Quellen der Ratsel des Exeterbuches, Neuphilologische Studien, Heft. 3. Paderborn, 1883.
Ramhorst, F. Andreas. Leipzig, 1886.
Rieger, M. Uber Cynewulf. Zacher's ZDPh. I, 133, etc.
Root, R.K.  Andreas (trans.). Yale Studies in English. 1899.
Sarrazin, G. Beowulf und Kynewulf. Anglia, ix, pp. 515 if. See also Anglia,
Beiblatt, vi, 205, Anglia, XII, 375.
- Beowulfstudien, pp. 109 ff. Berlin, 1888.
Schipper, J. Zum Codex Exoniensis. Germania, xIx, 329 f.
Sievers, E. Zu Cynewulf. Anglia, xIi, 1 if.
--    In P. u. B.'s Beitr. x.
Stevens, W. 0. The Cross in the Life and Literature of the Anglo-Saxons.
1904. Yale Studies in English.
Strunk, W. Juliana. Belles Lettres Series. Boston, 1905.
Swaen, A. E. H. Notes on Cynewulf's Elene. Anglia, xvi, 123.
Sweet, H. Oldest English Texts. E.E.T.S. 1885.
Tatwin's Riddles. See Wright, Anglo-Norman Poets, Rolls Series, iiI.
Ten Brink, B. Discussion of Zupitza's edition of Elene. ZDA. xxIII
(N.F. xi) 53-70.
Early English Literature, see above.
Trautmann, M. Der Andreas doch von Cynewulf. Anglia, Beiblatt, vi, 17 if.,
and later vols.
-   ynewulf der Bischof und Dichter. Bonn, 1898.
Windisch, W. O. E. Der Heliand und seine Quellen. Leipzig, 1868.
Wiilker, R. Der Dichter Cynewulf und das Andreasgedicht, Berichte der
kgl. sichs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft, 14 Nov. 1888, pp. 209 ff.




432


Bibliography to


Wuilker, R. Ueber den Dichter Cynewulf. Anglia, I, 483-507. See also
many later contributions to Anglia.
Zupitza, J. Cynewulf's Elene. 2nd ed. Berlin, 1883. See also, on Andreas,
ZDA. xxx (N.F. xviii), 175.
C. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
AISS and Sources.
GNOMIC POETRY, etc., in Brit. Mus. Cott. Tib. B. 1 and Exeter Book.
SALOMON AND SATURN. A, in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 422; B,
C.C.C.C., 41. Cf. Old English prose version BM. Cott. Yitell. A. xv, and
Adrian and Ritheus in Cott. Jul. A. 2, edited, respectively, by Thorpe
(Analecta) and Kemble; also Wright, T. in Altdeut. Blat., 1837-40.
Authorities.
Atkinson, R. The Passions and the Homilies from the Leabhar Breac
(Address of Soul to Body). Dublin, 1887.
Batiouchkof, T. Romania, xx. (Soul and Body Legend.)
Botkine, L. La Chanson des Runes. Havre, 1879.
Duff, E. G. Dialogus, or Communing between the Wise King Salomon and
Marcolphus. 1892.
Grein, Chr. Das Reimlied des Exeterbuches. Germania, x, 305-7.
Grimm, J. Heidelberger Jahrbiicher, 1809, Heft. 45. [Discussion of v. d.
Hagen.]
v. d. Hagen, F. H. In Einleitung zur Ausgabe der Salomon und Morolf;
v. d. Hagen und Biischings deutsche Gedichte des Mittelalters. Vol. I.
Berlin, 1808.
Hickes, G. Linguarum Septentrionalium Thesaurus. Oxford, 1705. For
Rune Song, etc.
Hofmann, C. Ueber Jourdain de Blaivies, Apollonius von Tyrus, Salomo
und Markulf. Sitzungsberichte der Miinchener Akademie, phil. hist.
Klasse. 1870.
Kemble, J. The Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus. Aelfric Society, 1848.
Kleinert, G. Ueber den Streit zwischen Leib und Seele. Halle, 1880.
MacCallum, M. W. Solomon in Europe, and Anglo-Saxon Jocoseria, in
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piece of work.]
Rieger, M. Addresses of Soul and Body. Germania, III, 398, 399.
-     ZDPh. I, 331-4.
Schaumberg, W. Untersuchungen fiber das deutsche Spruchgedicht: Salomo
und Morolf. P. u. B.'s Beitr. II, 1-63.
Schipper, J. Salomon and Saturn. A Comparison of MS A. with MS B.
Germania, xxi, 50-70.
Sievers, E. Collationen Angelsich. Gedichte. ZDA. xv, 466.
Strobl, J. ZDA. xxxi, 54-64.
Sweet, H. Salomon and Saturn. Collation of MSS A. Anglia, I, 150-4.
Yarnhagen, H. Addresses of Soul and Body. Anglia, II, 225 f.
Vogt, F. Die deutschen Dichtungen von Salomon und Markolf. I, liii-lv.
Wright, T. Poems of Walter Mapes. Camden Soc. See Appendix for
literature of Address of Soul to Body.
Zupitza, J. On Salomon, etc. Anglia, ii, 527.
Anglia, I, 285, and ZDA. xxxi, 45.
(See also works of a general nature under Cynewulf, above.)




Chapter V                           433
CHAPTER V
LATIN WRITINGS IN ENGLAND TO THE TIME OF ALFRED
GENERAL AUTHORITIES.
Acta Sanctorum.
Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti (Mabillon).
Annales Ord. S. Benedicti (Mabillon).
Cave, Wn. Script. Eccles. Hist. Lit. 1688,1698.
Dictionary of Christian Biography.
Patrologiae Cursus Completus (Migne).
Adamnan (625?-704), abbot of Iona.
[His Life of St Columba is of great importance in the history of the church
in Scotland. The best edition is that of Reeves,W., Dublin, 1857, new ed.
Fowler, Oxford, 1894. See also ed. Forbes, A. P. and Skene, W. F., 1874,
Edinburgh. For Adamnan's Travels of Arculfus, a very early narrative
of travel in Palestine, see Acts of the Benedictine Saints and Wright,
T., Early Travels in Palestine, 1848, which also contains accounts of the
travels of Willibald, Bernard, Saewulf, Sigurd, Benjamin of Tudela,
Sir John Maundeville, De la Brocquiere and Maundrell. The "Vision"
that goes by the name of Adamnan may be compared with other visions
referred to by Bede and similar medieval records.]
Alcuin. Ed. Frobenius. Ratisbon, 1877. Also in Migne's Patrologia, c-ci.
Letters, ed. Schiitze, H. 1879.
Ebert's Allgem. Gesch. d. Litt. des Mittelalters in Abendlande, II.
Gaskoin, C. J. B. Alcuin: his life and work. 1904.
Jaff6's Monumenta Alcuiniana. Berlin, 1873.
Lorenz, F. Alcuin's Leben. Halle, 1829. Trans. by Slee, J. M. 1837.
Mullinger, J. B. The Schools of Charles the Great. 1877.
Raine, J. Historians of the Church of York. Rolls Series. 1879 ff.
Sandys, J. E. A History of Classical Scholarship. 2nd ed. Cambridge,
1907.
West, A. F. Alcuin. 1892.
Aldhelm. Ed. Giles, J. A. Patres Eccles. Angl. Oxford, 1844. Also in
Migne, Patrologia, LXXXIX. For Faricius's life of Aldhelm see Giles,
Migne, and Acta Sanctorum 6 May. See also Capgrave's Nova Legenda
Angliae, 1516.
Baehrens, A. Poetae Latini Minores. Leipzig, 1879-83 (for Riddles).
Bucheler, F. and Riese, A. Anthologia Latina. Leipzig, 1894 (for
Riddles).
Manitius, M. Aldhelm und Baeda. Sitzungsb. d. Wien. Akad. 1886.
Norden, E. Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis in
die Zeit der Renaissance. Leipzig, 1898.
Bede. In Migne's Patrologia, xc-xcv. Early folio editions were published
at Paris (1544-5), Basel (1563), etc. Ed. Giles, J. A. 12 vols. 1843-4.
See Wright's Biogr. Brit. Lit. and Notes and Queries, 4th Ser. Ix, x
and xII. The MS containing Cuthbert's letter and the 11. of O.E. verse
quoted as Bede's is at St Gall.
E. L. I.                                                 28




434                     Bibliography to
Bede. Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. MSS, Cambridge University
Library (Moore) Kk. 5. 16 and Brit. Mus. First published? Strassburg,
c. 1473, Eggesteyn, H.; 1550, Antwerp, Gravius, etc.; in England edd.
Wheloc, A., Cambridge, 1643-4; Smith, J., Cambridge, 1722; Moberley,
t-. H., Oxford, 1881; Bks. ii and iv Mayor, J. E. B. and Lmnby, J. R.,
Cambridge, 1878. Trans. by Stapleton, T., Antwerp, 1565; Giles, J. A.,
1840. See also bibliography to Chapter vi for the Old English version.
[Bede's account of the visit of Drythelm to the underworld gives a vivid
picture of the medieval conception of hell and purgatory and holds a
substantial place in the "vision literature" of Old and Middle English.]
-    Opera Historica.  Ed. Stevenson, J., Eng. Hist. Soc., 1838-41; ed.
Plummer, C., Oxford, 1896. See also Fuller's Worthies, and Ozanam, A. F.,
La Civ. Chret. chez les Francs, Paris, 1849.
Book of Cerne. Ed. Kuypers, A. B. Cambridge, 1902.
Dicuil (fl. 825). Author of an early geography, Liber de Mensura orbis
terrae, printed by Walckenaer, C. A., Paris, 1807; Letronne, A., Paris,
1814 and Parthey, G., Berlin, 1870.
Eddi or Eddius Stephanus (fl. 669). For the Life of St Wilfrid, see Mabillon's
Acta Sanctorum Ord. S. Benedicti, Gale's Historiae britannicae saxonicae,
anglo-danicae Scriptores, Oxford, 1691 and Raine's Historians of the
Church of York, Rolls Series. There is a tenth century metrical version
of the life by Frithegode (fl. 950) a monk of Canterbury.
Erigena, Joannes Scotus or (fl. 850). A consideration of the philosophical
writings of Erigena is outside the scope of the present volume. The
reader may be referred to William of Malmesbury, to Ebert's Allgem.
Gesch. d. Litt. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, to Poole's Illustrations of
the History of Medieval Thought (1884), to the professed histories of
philosophy and to later volumes of the present work wherein philosophical writings are discussed. Erigena has been held to be a precursor
of scholasticism, and "in some respects he may be accounted the herald
of the movement of the eleventh century, but in more he is the last
prophet of a philosophy belonging to earlier ages" (Poole, D. of N. B.).
His great work on The Division of Nature has been appreciated as the
one purely philosophical argument of the Middle Ages. He was called in
by Hincmar of Rheims to strengthen the right cause against Gottscalc.
They wanted a skilled apologist; they found one whose help, like that of
the magic sword in certain fairy tales, might be dangerous for the side
that used it. They asked him to oppose the excessive cruelties of predestination, as maintained by Gottscalc. But he would not be limited to
the requisite amount of controversy, and before the Irish philosopher
could be checked, he had refuted Sin and Hell. Neo-Platonist he is
called, but in his case the name does not stand for eclectic oriental work;
his mind is as clear as Berkeley's, with a vastly greater and more articulate system to explain and develop. For literature, the merit of his
writing is that it expresses his meaning without hurry or confusion, and
that his meaning, whatever its philosophical value, is certainly no weak
repetition of commonplaces" (Ker, The Dark Ages, p. 162). For Erigena's works, see Migne's Patrologia and L. Traube's edition of the poems
in Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Mon. Germ. Hist., 1896.
Ethelwulf's Latin poem on Crayke (?). See Mabillon, Acts of Benedictine
Saints.
Felix of Croyland's Life of St Guthlac. See Acta Sanctorum, 11 April, etc.
For the Old English lives, see Chapter iv. In addition to the Exeter Book
Gn-thlac, there are prose Old English lives of the saint in the Vercelli Book
and in Brit. Mus. Cott. Yesp. D. xxI. See ed. Goodwin, C. W., 1848.




CSa/pter                             435
Gildas. "The copies which remain are few. A partially burnt manuscript
(Cott. Vitellins A. vi) of the eleventh century is the primary authority. It
is fairly well represented by the early printed editions: better by that of
John Joscelin (1568) than by that of Polydore Vergil (1525). Of two in
the Cambridge UJniversity Library, one, which belonged to Glastonbury,
is not independent of the Cottonian: the other, from  Salley Abbey,
contains only the first part. Thomas Gale, wIho edited Gildas in 1691,
followed this copy so far as it goes; and to his edition we owe the
common but erroneous division of the work into two parts, Epistle
(chapters 1-26) and History (27-110). The next oldest manuscript to the
Cottonian is one formerly at Mont t S Michel and now at Avranehes: it
is of the twelfth century and very probably had some Breton ancestor"
(3. R. James). Edd. Stevenson, J., Eng. Hist. Soc., 1838 (together with
the Life, ascribed to Caradog of Llancarvan); Hardy, T., Mon. Hist.
Brit., 1848; Williams, H., Cymmrodorion Records, 1899-1901; Mommsen,
Mon. Germ., 1894; trans. Habington, T., 1638 and Giles, J. A., in Six Old
English Chronicles, 1848 (Asser's Alfred, Ethelwerd's Chronicles, Gildas,
Nennins, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Richard of Cirencester). See also
Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, de la Borderie, A., in Revue
Celtique vi and Wright's Biogr. Brit. Lit.
Hisperica Famrina. Ed. Stowasser, Yienna, 1887; ed. Jenkinson, Cambridge
(in preparation). See also Bradshaw,, H., Collected papers, Cambridge,
1889, Ker, W. P., The Dark Ages and Zimmer, H., in Gottingische
Nachrichten, 1895.
Nennius. " The oldest copy of the Historia Britonum (incomplete, and not
offering the best text) is one of the ninth or tenth century at Chartres.
The best are a Harleian manuscript (No. 3859) of the eleventh and
twelfth century and a Cottonian (Vespasian D. xxi) of the twelfth.
A Durham copy, one at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (No. 139) and
another in the University Library at Cambridge (Ff. 1. 27), which contains
two copies of the bulk, under the names of Nennius and Gildas respectively, are also important. The first printed edition was that of
Thomas Gale in 1691" (M. R. James). Edd. Stevenson, J., Eng. Hist.
Soc., 1838; Hardy, T., Mon. Hist. Brit.; MItomrsen, T., Mon. Germ., 1894;
trans. Giles, J. A. (see above). See also de la Borderie, A., L'Hist. Brit.
attrib. a N., Paris, 1883; Zimmer, H., Nennius Vindicatus, Berlin, 1893;
iand Moimmsen in Neues Arclliv. d. Gesell. xix.
St Boniface. Opera Omnia. Ed. Giles, J.A. A 1844.
D)iummler. Poetae Latini aevi Carolini. Mon. Germ. Hist. 1880 ff.
Jaffe. Mon. Moguntina. Bibl. Rerum Germ. 1866.
St Columba. In addition to Adamnian' Life (see above), see also Manus
O'Donnell's MS concerning Columba, Bodi. ERawl. B. 514.
St Columban (543-615). See Patrick Fleming's Collectanea Sacra, Augsburg, 1621.
St Cuthibert. For the life by the Lindisfarne monk, etc., see Acta Sanetornum, 20 March.
St Patrick (373-463). See the Tripartite Life,,olls Series, ed. Whitley
Stokes; Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, ed. Whitley
Stokes, Oxford, 1889; lives by Todd, J. H., 1863 and Bury, J. B., 1905.
Tatwin. Riddles, MS Brit. Mus. Beg. 12, cxxiii. See Giles, J. A., Anecdotae
Bedae, Lanfranci et aliortum, Caxton Soc., 1851 and Wright, T., AngloNorman Poets, Rolls Series.
Willibald (700?-786), nephew of St Boniface, bishop and pilgrim to Palestine.
For the record of his travels, see Mabillon, Acta SS. O. Benedicti;
28-2




436                    Bibliography to
Wright, T., Early Travels in Palestine (see above); and Beazley, C. R.,
Dawn of Modern Geography, 1897. See also Giles, J. A., Vita Quorundam Anglo-Saxonum, Caxton Soc., 1854.
The writings of Isidore of Seville, referred to on pp. 71, 75,80, etc. can
be most easily consulted in Migne's Patrologia, LXXXI-LXXXVI. See also
Sandys' Classical Scholarship, I, for brief particulars of the Origines, "which
gathered up for the Middle Ages much of the learning of the ancient world."
A. R. W.
CHAPTER VI
ALFRED AND THE OLD ENGLISH PROSE OF HIS REIGN
MSS OF ALFRED'S WORKS AND OF WORKS CONNECTED WITH HIS NAME.
Bede's Ecclesiastical History.
(a) Tanner 10, Bodl. (b) Corpus Christi College 41, Cambridge. (c) Otho
B. xi, Brit. Mius. (d) Corpus Christi College 279, Oxford. (e) Cambridge
University Library Kk. 3. 18.
Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.
(a) Cotton Otho A. vi, Brit. Mus. [Metra in verse]. (b) Bodl. MS, 180,
Oxford [Metra in prose]. (c) Fragment forming the last leaf of Bodl. MS,
86. (See Napier in ZDA., N.F. XIX, 52.)
Gregory's Dialogues.
(a) Cotton Otho C. i. (b) Corpus Christi College S. 10, Cambridge.
(c) Hatton 76, Oxford. (die) Transcript Jun. 46 and 52.
Gregory's Pastoral Care.
(a) Hatton 20, Bodl. (b) Cotton Tiberius B. xi, Brit. Mus. (c) Junius 53,
Bodl. (d) Cotton Otho B. II, Brit. Mus. (e) Three MSS at Cambridge, in
Corpus Christi, Trinity and the University Library. [There also appears to
be a leaf at Cassel. (See Ten Brink, Hist. Eng. Lit., Eng. Trans. I, p. 84).]
The Laws.
(a) Corpus Christi College 383, Cambridge. (b) Corpus Christi College
173, Cambridge. (c) Cotton Nero E. i, Harl. 55, etc., Brit. Mus. (d) MS
Textus Roffensis. (e) Bodl., etc. (See Liebermann for complete list.)
The Martyrology.
(a) Brit. Mus. Addit. MS 23211. (b) Three Younger MSS.
Orosius's History of the TlWorld.
(a) Lauderdale-Tollemache [Helmingham, Suffolk]. (b) Cotton Tiberius
B. i. (c) Transcript of Cotton by Junius. (d) Transcripts of Junius by
Elstob and Ballard.
St Augustine's Soliloquies.
(a) Cotton Vitell. A. 15, Brit. Mus. (Beowulf MS). (b) Transcript of
above by Junius, Jun. 70. I, Oxford.
[For the Old English Chronicle see bibliography to the following Chapter.]




Chapter VI                           437
Psalms ascribed to Alfred.
MS. Bibl. Nat. Paris, Latin 8824.
EDITIONS OF ALFRED'S WORKS AND OF WORKS CONNECTED
WITH HIS NAME.
Complete   Vorks.
The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great. Ed. Giles, J. A. Jubilee
Edition. 3 vols. Oxford and Cambridge, 1858.
Bede's Ecclesiastical History.
Miller, T. The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. 2 parts.
E.E.T.S. 1890-8.
Schipper, J. Konig Alfreds Uebersetzung von Bedas Kirchengeschichte
[Bibliothek der angelsichsischen Prosa, Bd. 4]. Cassel and Gottingen,
1897.
Smith, J. Historiae ecclesiasticae Gentis Anglorum libri quinque. Cambridge, 1722. [The Old English version begins on p. 471.]
Wheloc, A. Historiae Ecclesiasticae Gentis Anglorum Libri v. Cambridge,
1643-4.
Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.
Cardale, J. S. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae: with an English Trans. 1829.
Fox, S. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version of Boethius: with a Literal
English Trans., etc. 1864.
Rawlinson, C. An. Manl. Sever. Boethi Consolationis Philosophiae Libri v.
Anglo-Saxonice redditi ab Alfredo inclyto Anglo-Saxonum rege. Oxford,
1698.
Sedgefield, W. J. King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae. Oxford, 1899.
Gregory's Dialogues.
Hecht, H. In Grein-Wiilker's Bibliothek der angelsachsischen Prosa. Vol. v.
Cassel and Gottingen, 1900.
Gregory's Pastoral Care.
Sweet, H. King Alfred's West Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care.
English trans., Latin Text, etc. E.E.T.S. 1871. (See also M. Parkers
edition of Asser, 1574.)
The Laws.
Cook, A. S. Extracts from the Anglo-Saxon Laws. New York, 1880.
Birch, De Gray. Cartularium Saxonicum. 1885 ff.
Earle, J. A Handbook to the Land Charters and other Saxonic documents.
Oxford, 1888.
Kemble, J. M. Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici. Eng. Hist. Soc. 6 vols.
1839 ff.
Lambard, G. 'Apxacovoula, sive de priscis Anglorum legibus libri, sermone
anglico, vetustate antiquissimo. 1568. [First printed edition.]
Liebermann, F. Gesetze der Angelsachsen (text and trans.). Halle, 1898 if.
[By far the ablest work on the subject.]
Schmid, R. Die Gesetze der Angelsichsen. In der Ursprache mit Uebersetzungund Erliuterung. 1. Teil, den Text nebst Uebersetzungenthaltend.
Leipzig, 1832, 1858.
Thorpe, B. Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (text and trans.).
2 vols. 1840.




438                     Bibliography to
Turk, MI. H. The Legal Code of Alfred the Great. Boston, 1893.
Wilkins, D. Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, a Synodo Verolamiensi A.D. CCCCXLVI ad Londinenseln A.D. MDCCXVII. Accedunt
Constitutiones et alia ad Historiam  Ecclesiae Anglicanae spectantia.
Vol. T, ab anno cccCLV ad al ain. MCCLXV. 1737.
The Miartyrology.
Cockayne, 0. In The Shrine. 1864-9.
Herzfeld, G. An Old English 'lartyrology. E.E.T.S. 1900.
Orosm s's Hi.story of the TWorld.
Barrington, D.   The Anglo-Saxon Version from the Historian Orosimls.
Together with an English Translation. 1773.
Bosworth, J. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version. 1855, 1859.
Pauli, R. Life of Alfred trans. from the German. To which is appended
Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version of Orosius, with a literal English trans., etc.
1853, 1878.
Sweet, H. King Alfred's Orosins. Old English Text and Latin Original.
E.E.T.S. 1883.   [See also Hakluyt for Ohthere and 5Wulfstan, and
Spelman, below.]
The Pro~:erbs.
Morris, R. An Old English M3iscellay, containing a, Bestiary, Kentish
Sermons, Proverbs of Alfred, and Religious Poems of the thirteenth
century. E.E.T.S. 1872.
St Angustine's,Soliloquies.
Cockayne, 0. The Shrine. A Colleetron of Occasional Pap ers on Dry
Subjects. 1868-9.
Hargrove, H. L. King Allred's Oldl English Version of St Augustine's
Sofiloquies. Yale Studies in English, III, xxII. New York, 1902, 1904.
thulme, W. H. Englislhe StudlSen, xvIIT.
Psa'ns ascribed to Alfred.
Bruee, J. D. Anglo-Saxon Version of the Book of Psalms. Baltimore, 1894.
See also B. Thorpe's ed. Oxford, 1835.
Wichmann, J. Anglia, xi, 39.
CRITICAL ESTI, rA TES AN1 D ILLUSTRATIVE WRITINGS.
(See also bibiogr.phly in Literature, 14 ix 1901.)
Al4?ed, his wzorks mid his reign.
Asser. De Rebus gestis Aelfredi Magni, edd. Parker, in Thomas of Walsingham, 1574; Wise, F., Oxford, 1722, from Cottonian 3S Otho A. xiI,
now burnt; Hardy, T. D., 5i[on. Hist. Brit. 1848. See also Giles, J. A.,
Six Old English Chronicles, and Stevenson, W. H., below.
Bowker, A. Alfred the Great. 1899.
Brooke, S. A. King Alfred as educator of his people and man of letters.
1901.
Ebert, A. Allg. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande. Leipzig,
1874 ff.
Freeman, E. A. In Diet. 2at. Biogr.
Lappenherg, J. M. Gesch. Yon England. Eng. trans. 2 vols. 1845 ff.
Manning, 0. King Alfreds WVill. Text and trans. 1788,1828.




Chapter VI                            439
Pauli, R. Konig Aelfred. Berlin, 1851. [Trans. rev. by auth., ed. Wright, T.,
1852; also ed. Thorpe, B., 1853.]
Plummer, C. The Life and Times of Alfred the Great. Oxford, 1902.
Spelman, J. Aelfredi Magni Vita. Oxford, 1678. [Also contains Voyages of
Ohthere and Wullfstan.] Ed. Hearne T. Oxford, 1709.
Stevenson, W. H. Asser's Life of Alfred, together with the Annals of St
Neots, erroneously ascribed to Asser. Oxford, 1904.
Stubbs, W. Constitutional Hist. I. 1874 if.
Winkelmann, E. Gesch. der Ags. bis zun Tode Konig Aelfreds. Berlin,
1883.
Wright, T. Biogr. Brit. Lit. 2 vols. 1842,1846.
Wuelfing, J. E. Die Syntax in den Werken Alfreds des Grossen. 3 parts.
Bonn, 1894-1901.
(See also Athenaeum, 3 xi 1900 if., concerning Alfred's death.)
Bede's Ecclesiastical History.
Hart, J. A. Rhetoric in the trans. of Bede. In An English Miscellany.
Oxford, 1901.
Lumby, J. R. Be Domes Daege (Bede's De Die Judicii), etc. E.E.T.S. 1876.
Miller, T. Place Names in the English Bede. QF. Berlin. 1896.
Schipper, J. Gegenwartiger Stand der Forschung fiber K. Aelfreds Bedaiibersetzung. 1898.
Schmidt. Untersuchungen fiber K. Aelfred's Beda-iibersetzumng. 1889.
Wiilker, R.  Jeber die Quellen Layamons. P. u. B.'s Beitr. In.
(See also Zupitza in ZDA., N.F. XVIII, and Klaeber, F. in Anglia, xxv.
Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.
Hartmann, M. Anglia, v.
Leicht, A. Anglia, v, VII.
Paris, Gaston. Journal des Savants. 1884.
Rieger, M. Die alt- und angelsachsische Verskunst. Halle, 1876.
Schepss, G. Archiv fiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen, 94.
Stewart, H. F.   Boethius: an essay. Edinburgh, 1891.
Tupper, J.. T Topes and Figures in Anglo-Saxon Prose. Baltimore, 1897.
Zimmerman, O. Ueber den Yerfasser der alt-englischen Metren des Boethius.
Greifswald, 1882.
Gregory's Dialogues.
Johnson, H. Gab es zwei von einander unabbihngige altenglische Uebersetzungen der Dialoge Gregor's? Berlin, 1884.
Krebs, H. Anglia, I.
Gregory's Pastoral Care.
Fleischhauer, W. Ueber den Gebrauch des Conjunctivs in Alfred's altenglischer Uebersetzung von Gregor's Cura Pastoralis. Erlangen, 1885.
Kern, J. H. P. u. B.'s Beitr. XVI.
Wack, G. Ueber das Verhaltnis von Konig Aelfreds Uebersetzung der Cura
Pastoralis zum Original. Colberg, 1889.
Wuelfing, J. E. Darstellung der Syntax in Konig Alfred's Uebersetzung
von Gregor's des Grossen " Cura Pastoralis." Bonn, 1888.
The Laws.
Adams, H. (ed.). Essays on Anglo-Saxon Law. Boston, 1876.
Maitland, F. Traill's Social England, I.
Pollock, F. English Law before the Norman Conquest. In Bowker's Alfred
the Great. 1899.




44o                    Bibliography to
Orosius's History of the World.
(For Orosius himself [ed. princeps, Vienna, 1471] see ed. Zangemeister,
c, in Corp. Scrip. Ecc. Lat., Vienna, 1882 and Migne's Patrologia.)
Geidel, H. Alfred der Grosse als Geograph. In Miinchener geographische
Studien. Stiick 15. 1904.
Hampson, R. T. On the Geography of King Alfred the Great. In Bosworth's
Orosius. 1859.
Markham, C. Alfred as a Geographer. In Bowker's Alfred the Great. 1899.
Schilling, H.  Konig Aelfred's angelsichsische Bearbeitung der Weltgeschichte des Orosius. Halle, 1886.
St Augustine's Soliloquies.
Hubbard, F. G. MLN. ix. Baltimore, 1894.
Wilker, R. P. u. B.'s Beitr. Iv.
CHAPTER VII
FROM ALFRED TO THE CONQUEST
GENERAL AUTHORITIES.
(See also similar lists in earlier bibliographies.)
Abegg, D. Die Entwicklung der hist. Dicht. der Angelsichsen. Strassburg,
1894. QF. LxxIII.
Birch, De Gray. Cartularium Saxonicum. 1885.
Camden, W. Remaines. 1605,1674,1870, etc.
Cockayne, T. 0. Leechdoms, Wort-Cunning and Starcraft...illustrating the
history of Science in this country before the Norman conquest. 1864 ff.
3 vols.
Dixon, W. R. Fasti Eboracenses. 1863.
Dugdale, W. Monasticum Anglicanum. 1655 ff., 1849.
Ebert, A. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande. 3 vols. Leipzig,
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Einenkel, E. Uber die Verfasser einiger neuangelsichsischer Schriften.
1887.
Foxe, John. Acts and Monuments. 1563, 1570 ff.
Furnivall, F. J., An English Miscellany presented to. Oxford, 1901.
Graham, R. Intellectual Influence of English Monasticism between 10th
and 12th centuries. Roy. Hist. Soc. xvI.
Grein, C. W. M. Kurzgefasste angelsaichsische grammatik. Cassel, 1880.
Grein, C. W. M. and Wiilker, R. Bibliothek der angelsaehsisohen prosa.
Cassel and Gottingen. 1872-1900.
Hickes, G. Thesaurus. Oxford, 1705.
Hook, W. F. Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. 12 vols. 1860 ff.
John, Ivor B. Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance and Folklore. xi.
1901.
Johnson, J. A Collection of the Laws and Canons of the Church of England.
Oxford, 1850.
Kemble, J. 3. Codex? Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici. Eng. Hist. Soc. 6 vols.
1839 ff. [An invaluable work.]




Chap ter VII                          44I
Korner, K. Einleitung in das Studium des Angelsachsischen. Heilbronn,
1880.
Langebeck, J. Scriptores Rerum Danicarum Hafniae. 1773.
Lappenberg, J.M. Geschichte von England. Hamburg, 1834. Eng. trans.
2 vols. 1845.
Lingard, J. The Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church. 2nd ed. 1810.
Lipsius, R. A. Die Edessenische Abgarsage. Brunswick, 1880.
Montalembert, De. The Monks of the West. Eng. trans. 7 vols. 1861 ff.
IMosheim, J. L. Eccles. Hist. Ed. Stubbs. 3 vols. 1755,1863.
Mullinger, J. Bass. Schools of Charles the Great and Restoration of Education in the Ninth Century. 1877.
Paul, H. Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie. (Ten Brink in vmII.)
Strassburg, 1889 ff.
Raine, J. The Historians of the Church of York. Rolls Series. 1879.
Saran, F. Philol. Stud. Festgabe fur E. Sievers. Halle, 1896.
Shearin, H. G. The Expression of Purpose in Old English Prose. Yale
Studies in English, xvIIi. 1903.
Sievers, E. Collationen angelsachsischer Gedichte. Haupt's ZDA. xv.
Smith, J. Gregory. The Rise of Christian Monasticism. 1891.
Somner, W. Diet. Sax.-Lat.-Angl. 1659. [For the poem on Durham.]
Spelman, H. Concilia, decreta, leges, constitutiones, in re ecclesiarum orbis
Britannici. 1639.
Thorpe, B. Diplomat. Angl. Aevi Saxonici. 1865.
Tupper, F. Hist. and Text of Benedictine Reform, 10th c. MLN. 1893.
Twisden, R. Historiae anglicanae scriptores. 1652.
Ussher, J. Eccles. Brit. Antiq. Ed. Elrington, C. R. 1842 if.
Verstegan, R. A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities. 1605.
Vietor, W. Einfiihrung in das Studium der Engl. Phil. Marburg, 1903.
Warton, T. The History of English Poetry. 1774, 1840, 1854, 1871 etc.
West, A. F. Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools. 1892.
Wharton, H. Anglia Sacra. 2 vols. 1692.
Wilkins, D. Leges Anglo-Saxonicae ecclesiasticae et civiles. 1721.
Worsaae, J. An account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland
and Ireland. 1852.
Wright, T. The Celt, Roman and Saxon. 1861.
A History of English Culture. 1871.
- Popular treatises on Science...in Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman and
English. 1841.
-    A Volume of Vocabularies. 1857,1873. Ed. Wiilker. 1883.
Aelfric and Wulfstan, etc.
For MSS, see foot of pages of text. For Aelfric's life, see Wright, T., Biogr.
Brit. Lit., Stevenson's Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, Acta Sanetorum and Mabillon's Acta SS. Bened.
Aethelwold, or Ethelwold. For the treatise on the circle attributed to
Aethelwold, see Bodl. MS, Digby 83 f. 24. See also Miss M. Bateson's
edition of De Consuet. Monach., Hampshire Record Soc., 1892. Wulfstan
of Winchester (fl. 1000) may be mentioned as a pupil of bp. Ethelwold.
He versified Lanferth's Life and Miracles of St Swithun. MS, Brit.
Mus. Royal, 15 C. vii.
Assmann, B. Abt Aelfric's ags. bearbeitung des buches Esther. Halle, 1885.
--  Abt Aelfric's A.S. Homilie iiber das Buch Judith. Anglia, x.
Bale, John. Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Scriptorum. 1548.
Bouterwek, K. W. Interrogationes Sigwulfi Presbyteri, in Screadunga.
Elberfeldae, 1858.




442


Bibliography to


Chronicle of the Monastery of Abingdon. Ed. Stevenson, J. 2 vols. Rolls
Series. 1858.
Chronicles of Evesham. Ed. Macray, W. D. Rolls Series. 1863.
Dietrich, E. Abt Aelfrik. Zur Literaturgesch. d. angelsach. Kirche. Z. f.
hist. Theol. 1855-6. [ standar-d work.]
Dunstan. See Memorials, ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series, in which the early lives
(Byrthferth's etc.) are adequately treated.
Einenkel, E. Der Sermo Lupi. Anglia, vii. See also Anglia, v.
Elstob, W. Sermo Lupi Episcopi.... Oxon. 1701.
Goodwin, C. W. The Anglo-Saxon version of the Life of St Guthlac....
[Originally written in Latin, by Felix...of Crowland.] With a trans. and
notes. 1848.
Grein, Chr. Aelfric's Auszug aus dem Buch der Richter. Anglia, H.
Kinard, J. P. A study of Wulfstan's Homilies. Baltimore, 1897.
Kock, E. A. The Rule of St Benet in Northern Prose and Verse, and
Caxton's Summary. E.E.T.S. 1902.
Lefevre, P. Das altenglische Gedicht vom heiligen Guthlac. Anglia, vi. See
also Wfilker, R. in Anglia, II (on St Neots).
L'Isle, W-. Divers ancient Monuments in the Saxon tongue. 1638.
A Saxon Treatise concerning the Old and New Testament. 1623.
Logeman, H. The rule of St Benet. Lat. and Anglo-Saxon interin. vers.
E.E.T.S. 1888.
Morris, R. The Blickling Homilies. E.E.T.S. 1874-80. See also Zupitza,
J., ZDA. XxvI.
Napier, A.   fTber die Werke des altenglischen Erzbischofs Wulfstan.
Weimar, 1882.
-   Wulfstan's Homilies. Berlin, 1883.
Nehab, J. Der altenglische Cato. Berlin, 1879.
Norman, H. W. The Anglo-Saxon version of the Hexameron of St Basil.
1849.
Oswald, St (d. 927), archbishop of York. See Historians of York, Rolls
Series, for the Ramsey and Eadmer lives.
Schrier, A. Die angelsachsischen Prosabearbeitungen der Benediktinerregel. 1885. See Grein-Wiilker, Bibliothek.
Skeat, W. W. (ed.). Lives of the Saints. E.E.T.S. 1881 ff.
Sweet, H. Selections from Aelfric's Homilies. Oxford, 1896.
Testimonie, A, of Antiquitie, showing the auncient fayth in the Church of
England touching the sacrament of the body and blonde of the Lord.
1566, etc. [For the Paschal homily.]
Thorpe, B. Analecta Anglo-Saxonica. 1834. [For Aelfric's Colloquium.
The interlinear English gloss is in the Cott. MS, Tib. A. iii, Brit. Mus.,
not in the Oxford MS of Aelfric's disciple.]
Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (Aelfric's Pastoral Letter, etc.).
2 vols. 1840.
Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon church. 2 vols. Aelfric Soc. 1844-6. See
also The Chief Sources of some Anglo-Saxon Homilies, Otia Merseiana,
Liverpool, 1899.
Thwaites, E.   Heptateuchus...Evangelium  Nicodemi.. Judith....  Oxford,
1698.
Trautmann, l. Anglia, v.
White, C. L. Aelfric. A New Study of his Life and Writings. Yale Studies
in English. 1898. [Good bibliography.]
Wyatt, A. J. and Johnson, H.H. A glossary to Aelfric's Homilies. 1891.
Zupitza, J. Aelfrics Grammatik und Glossar.     Berlin, 1880.  See also
Oxford edition of Glossary, 1659.




Chapter VII                             43
Battle of Maldon, or Byrhtnoth's Death.
[The death is mentioned in the chronicles of Florence of Worcester,
Henry of Huntingdon, etc.1
Crow, C. L. Maldon and Brunanburh. Boston, 1897.
Garnett, J. M. Translations of Byrthnoth's Death, Judith, Elene, Brunanburh. Boston, 1882 ff.
Haack. Zeugnisse zur altenglischen Heldensage. Kiel, 1892.
Hardwick, C. Lancashire Battlefields.
Hearne, T.   Johannis... Glastoniensis Chronica sive Historia de Rebus
Glastoniensibus. 2 vols. Oxford, 1726. See also Thorpe's Analecta
Anglo-Saxonica.
Heinzel, R. tber den Styl der altgermanischen Poesie. QF. x.
Hickey, E. In Verse Tales. Liverpool, 1889.
Liehermann, F. Zur Geschichte Byrhtnoths. Arch. ci.
Ker, W. P. The Dark Ages. 1904. [" There is no stronger composition in
English till the work of Chaucer; there is nothing equally heroic before
Samson Agonistes," p. 254.]
Lumsden. Trans. in Macmillan's Mag. March, 1887.
Sedgefield, WV. J. The Battle of Maldon and Short Poems from the Saxon
Chronicle. [Contains a useful bibliography.] Boston, 1904.
Sims, W. R.. MLN. vi. 1892.
Trautmann, H. Anglia, I and VIT.
Zernial, U. Das Lied von Byrhtnoths Fall. Berlin, 1882.
The Old English Chronicle.
(For MSS see text.)
The ground covered by the various recensions is as follows:
Witchester, B.C. 60-A.D. 1070.  Worcester,       A.D. 1-A.D. 1079.
Canterbury, A.D. 1-A.D. 977.    Peterborough,    A.D. 1-A.D. 1154.
Abingdon, B.c. 60-A.D. 1066.    Cott. Dom. A. vmII, A.D. 1-A.D. 1058.
[The Latin Chronicle of Aethelweard (d. 998?), from the Creation to 975, is the
earliest of a long line and may be mentioned here as being founded on
the Old English Chronicle, and on the works of Isidore and Bede. The MS
was burnt in the Cottonian fire. See Mon. Hist. Brit. 1848, ed. Hardy,
T. D., Giles's Chronicles and Stevenson's Church Historians of England.]
Ettmiiler, L. Scopes vldsidh...Aethelstans Sieg bei Brunnanburg. Ziirich,
1839.  For Brunanburh, see also Henry of Huntingdon, Warton,
Tennyson, and Crow's and Sedgefield's books under Battle of Maldon.
Grubitz, E. Kritische Unterstchung iiber die angelsachsischen Annalen bis
zum Jahre 893. Gottingen, 1868.
Plulmer, C. Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel (Parker A. and Laud E.).
Oxford, 1892-9. See also J. Earle's edition of 1865, Thorpe's in the Rolls
Series, 1861, in 2 vols., containiing 6 texts and trans. and Gibson's, Oxford,
1692.
[The story of the death of king' Cynewulf, to which reference is made on
p. 107 ante, will be found in the Chronicle under the year 755. It relates
the murder of Cynewulf by Cyneheard while the king was visiting his
mistress at Merton, Surrey.]




444                    Bibliography to
Doomsday Poems.
(See also P. u. B.'s Beitr. xx, 443.)
Brandl, A. Be Domes Daege. Anglia, Iv.
Daring. The Anglo-Saxon Poets on the Judgment Day. Halle, 1890.
Lumby, J. R. Be Domes Daege. E.E.T.S. 1876.
(For the Grave poem, see Thorpe's Analecta.)
Gospels and Psalters.
Bosworth, J. and Waring, G. The Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels with
the versions of Wyclif and Tyndale. 1865.
Bouterwek, K. W. Die vier Evangelien in alt-nordhumbrischer Sprache.
Giitersloh, 1857.
Bright, J. W. The Gospels of St Matthew, St Mark and St John, in West
Saxon. 3 vols. Belles Lettres Series.
Bruce, J. Douglas. The Anglo-Saxon version of the Book of Psalms.
MLA. ix. Baltimore, 1894.
Biulbring, K. D. The earliest English prose Psalter, etc. 1891. E.E.T.S.
Chapman, H. W. An Index to the Old English Glosses of the Durham
Hymnarium. Yale Studies in English, XXIV. 1905.
Cook, A. S. Glossary of the Old Northumbrian Gospels (Lindisfarne Gospels,
Old Durham Book). Halle, 1894.
Foley, E. H. The Phonology of the Northumbrian Gloss of St Matthew.
Yale Studies in English, XIv. 1903.
Hardwick, C. and Skeat, W. W. The Gospels in Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian.
Cambridge, 1858, 1878.
Harris, M. A. A Glossary of the West-Saxon Gospels. Yale Studies in
English, vI. 1899.
Harsley, F. Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter (Latin and Old English). E.E.T.S.
1889.
Junius, F. (F. Du Jon). Quatuor D. N. Jesu Christi Evangeliorum, etc.
Dordrecht, 1665.
Kellum, M. D. The Language of the Northumbrian Gloss to the Gospel of
S. Luke. Yale Studies in English, xxx. 1906.
Lindelof. Worterbuch zur Interlin. des Rit. Eccles. Dunelm. etc. BBA.
Ix and x. 1901.
[Parker, M.] Gospels, The, of the fower Evangelistes, trans. in the olde
Saxons tyme out of Latin. 1571. 2nd edition from an earlier copy,
ed. Marshall. Dordrecht, 1665.
Stevenson, J. Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter. Surtees Society.
1844-7.
Stevenson, J. and Waring, G. The Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels.
Surtees Society. 1854-65.
Tanger, G. Collation des Psalters. Anglia, vi.
Thorpe, B. Libri Psalmorum... cum paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica, etc. Oxford,
1835.
- Tha Halgan Godspel on Englisc. 1842.
Warren, F. E. Leofric Missal. Oxford.
Wiilker, R. Das Evangelium Nicodemi in der Abendlandisehen Litteratur.
Paderborn, 1872. [Cf. Ker's Dark Ages, p. 67.]
Zeuner, R. Die Sprache des Kentischen Psalters. Halle, 1882.




Chapter         II                    445
Judith.
Brincker, F.  Germanische Alterthiimer in dem   Angel. Ged. Judith.
Hamburg, 1898.
Cook, A. S. Judith (with trans.). 1888,1904. [Excellent editions.]
Notes on a Northumbrianised version of Judith. Amer. Phil. Ass. xx.
Elton, 0. Trans. in An Eng. Miscellany (Furnivall Memorial Vol.). Oxford,
1901.
Foster, J. Gregory.  Judith.  Studies in Metre, Language and Style.
Strassburg, 1892. QF. 71.
Hall, J. L. Judith, etc. New York, etc. 1902.
Hickey, E. H. Trans. in Jrnl. of Education, 1 Feb. 1889.
Neumann, M. UJber das Altenglische Gedichte von Judith. Kiel, 1892.
Nilsson, L. G. Judith. Copenhagen. 1858.
Legends, Sacred and Secular.
The Holy Rood, etc. (for the South English Legendary and Cursor
Mundi, see bibliography to Chapter xvi).
Baskervill, W. M. Anglia, iv, on Alexander and Aristotle.
Cockayne, 0. Narratiunculae Anglice Conscriptae. 1861. [For Alexander
to Aristotle and Wonders of the East.]
Copland, R. Apol. of Tyre. Printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1510. Ed.
Ashbee. 1870.
Goodwin, C. W. Anglo-Saxon Legends of St Andrew and St Veronica.
Camb. Antiq. Soc. 1851.
Herzfeld, G. An Old English Martyrology. E.E.T.S. 1900.
Holder, A. Inventio sanctae Crucis. Leipzig, 1889.
Klebs, E. Die Erzahlung von Ap. aus Tyrus. Berlin, 1899.
Meyer, W. Die Geschichte des Kreuzholzes vor Christus. Munich, 1882.
Morris, R. Legends of the Holy Rood. E.E.T.S. 1871.
Mussafia, A. Sulla leggenda del legno della Croce. Sitz. der Wiener Akad.
LXIII. 1869.
Napier, A. S. Legend of the Cross, a 12th c. vers. E.E.T.S. 1894.
Nestle, E. De sancta cruce. Berlin, 1889.
Rothschild, J. de. Le mistere du viel Testament. Paris, 1878-84.
Singer, S. Apollonius von Tyrus. Berlin, 1906.
Smyth, A.H. H Shakespeare's Pericles and Apollonius of Tyre. 1898. [Contains a discussion of relations.]
Thorpe, B. Apollonius of Tyre. With a trans. 1834. See also Gesta
Romanorum and similar collections.
Zupitza, J. On Apollonius. Anglia, I, and Archiv, xcI.
Menologiun.
Bouterwek, K. W. Calendewide, i.e. Menologium Ecclesiae Anglo-Saxonicae
poeticum. Giitersloh, 1857.
Fox, S. Menologium seu Calendarium Poeticumn. With Eng. trans. 1830.
Hoops. Uber die altengl. Pflanzennamem. Freib. i. B. 1889.
(See also Cosijn, P. u. B.'s Beitr. xx.)
NOTE.-An earlier year than the usually accepted 901 for the date of
Alfred's death has been held of late. See Stevenson, W. H., under Alfred.




446                    Bibliograpyh to
CHAPTER VIII
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
Anselm. For works see Migne, Patrologia. See also Dean Church on
Anselm, 1843, 1870 ff.; Eadmer in Rolls Series, ed. Rule, M., 1884; life
by de Remusat, C., Paris, 1853-68.
Bateson, M. Medieval England, 1066-1350. 1905. [An excellent work, on
Norman Feudalism, The Lawyers' Feudalism and Decadent Feudalism.
See especially the chapters on Learning, Art and Education, the Church
and the Nation, etc.]
Craik, G.L. AL Compendious Hist. of Eng. Lit. and of the Eng. Lang. from
the Norman Conquest. 2 vols. 1869. [Contains many useful sections on
Arabic learning, scholastic philosophy, Law treatises, Norman trouveres,
Mathematical and other studies, Anglo-Norman poets, the Here prophecy
and publications of literary societies.]
Dunstan. See Stubbs' invaluable Memorials in Rolls Series, which contains
Osbern's life, and other documents.
Fowke, M. F. R. Bayeux Tapestry. Arundel Soc. 1875.
Freeman, E. A. History of the Norman Conquest. 6 vols. 1867 if.
Froude, J. A. Life and Times of Becket (in Short Studies). 1867 ff.
Gaimar, Geoffrey (fl. 1140?). Lestorie des Engles. Ed. Hardy, T. D., and
Martin, E. T. Rolls Series. 1888-9. See Meyer, P., in Romania, xvII.
Hardy, T. D. Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of
Great Britain and Ireland. Rolls Series. 1862 ff.
Hunt, W. and Poole, R. L. (edd.). Political History of England. 12 vols.
In progress.
Hutton, W. H. St Thomas of Canterbury. Eng. Hist. fr. Contemp. Writers.
1890.
Jordan Fantosme.   Chronique de la Guerre entre des Anglois et les
Escossois, 1173-4, in French verse, edd. Howlett, R., in Chron. Steph.,
Henry II and Richard I, Rolls Series, 1884 if.; and Michel, Fr., Surtees
Soc. xi, 1840.
Jusserand, J. J. Hist. Litt. du peuple Angl. Vol. I. See esp. Les Lettres
francaises sos les rois Normands et Angevins, and Le Nouveau Peuple.
Laing, S. and Anderson, R. B. The Heimskringla Saga, or the Sagas of the
Norse Kings, from the Icelandic of Snorre Sturlason. 4 vols. 1889.
Lanfranc. For works, see Giles, J. A., Patres Ecclesiae, 1844. See also
Freeman's William the Conqueror and William Rufus; and, on the
Lombard handwriting in vogue at Canterbury, James, M. R., Ancient
Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, Cambridge, 1903.
Loli6e, F. A Short Hist. of Comparative Lit. Eng. trans. Power, M. D.
1906.
Maitland, F. W. Domesday Book and Beyond. Cambridge, 1897. [For
the Domesday Book itself, see the Rolls Series.]
lMaltre, L. Les ooles Episcopales et Monastiques. Paris, 1866.
Norgate, K. England under the Angevin Kings. 2 vols. 1887.
Norman Literature. For French and Anglo-Norman literature at the time
of the Conquest, and an account of the works produced both in England
and in France by Anglo-Norman writers, see Paris, Gaston, La Litt. fr.
au Moyen Age (XIe-xive siecle), 1890, and the Notes Bibliographiques




Chapter VIII                          447
at the end of that volume; Petit de Julleville, Hist. de la Langue et de
la Litt. fr. des Origines a 1900, Vols. I and II Moyen Age, des Origines a
1500; the Hist. Litt. de la France, Paris, 1733 if.; Schofield, W. H., Eng.
Lit. from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer, 1906 (contains a fuller
account of Anglo-Norman work than has hitherto been given in a history
of English literature); Edwardes, Marian, A Summary of the Literatures
of Modern Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) from the
origins to 1500, 1907 (an excellent and most useful handbook of summaries and bibliographies); and also the Bibliographies to Chapters xII,
xiii and xiv. The influence of Anglo-Norman Poetry on English verse
is discussed at length in Courthope, W. J., A History of English Poetry,
Vol. I (The Middle Ages: Influence of the Roman Empire-The
Encyclopaedic Education of the Church-The Feudal System), and
interesting details of the treatment of Old English MSS by Norman
monks will be found in Morley's English Writers, Vol. II, 107 and
Warton's English Poetry, Vol. I. For Provencal literature, the troubadours and the trouveres, see Julleville, Vols. I and II; Stimming, in
Grober's Grundriss der Rom. Phil., Strassburg, 1898 if.; Paris, G., Les
Origines de la Poesie lyrique en France au moyen age, Paris, 1889; and
Schofield. The fashions of the minstrels are discussed in the latter work
on p. 17, and, at greater length, in Chambers, E. K., The Medieval Stage,
Vol. I.
Pearson, C. H. History of England during the Early and Middle Ages.
2 vols. 1867.
Round, J. H. Feudal England. 1895.
Sandys, J. E. A History of Classical Scholarship from the sixth century B.C.
to the end of the Middle Ages. 2nd ed. 1907.
Steele, R. On Science and Pseudo-Science, 1270-1340, in Traill's Social
England, iI.
Stubbs, W. Constitutional History of England. Oxford, 1874 if.
Select Charters. Oxford, 1870 ff.
Taine, H. A. Hist. of Eng. Lit. Eng. trans. Van Laun, H. 4 vols. Latest
ed., 1906. Bk. i, The Source (Saxons, Normans and the New Tongue).
Traill, H. D. Social England, I. 1898.
Tucker, T. G. The Foreign Debt of English Literature, 1907.    [Brief
summaries, with good tables, of Greek, Latin, French, Italian and other
influences, together with an interesting chapter on Literary Currents of
the Dark Ages.]
Wace (fl. 1170).
The Roman de Rou is a valuable metrical record of the deeds of Norman
dukes, prepared for Henry II. Wace is an honest chronicler, and his
clear phrasing shows the typical Norman; the portions of his work
dealing with Hastings are of especial interest to us. There is no good
edition of the Roman. See Gaston Paris, Romania, ix, and Korting,
Ueber die Quellen des Roman de Ron, Leipzig, 1867. For Wace's
Brut-an excellent rimed version of Geoffrey of Monmouth, in which the
Round Table makes its appearance-and his connection with Layamon
and Arthur, see Chapters xi and xII; Fletcher, R. H., Harvard Studies
and Notes, x, Boston, 1906; Brown, A. C. L., The Round Table before
Wace, Studies and Notes (Harvard), vII; and also William of Poitiers'
Gesta Willelmi ducis Normannorum et regis Angliae (Giles's Scriptores,
Caxton Soc., 1845).
Wright, T. Popular Treatises on Science, 1841.
For a brief bibliography of Chansons de Geste, see M. Leon Gautier's
L']popee Nationale, in Julleville, op. cit. I. See also Bedier, J., Les




448                    Bibliography to
Legendes lpiques (in the press); Gautier, L., Les Epopees fr., Paris, 4 vols.,
1878 if.; Matzner, E., Altfr. Leider, Berlin, 1853; Meyer, P., Doe. MSS de
l'ane. Lit. de la France, cons. dans les bibl. de la Gr. Bretagne, Paris,
1871; Meyer, P., Melanges de poesie Anglo-Normande, Romania, iv, xv;
Paris, G., Hist. poet. de Charlemagne, new ed., Paris, 1905; Ten Brink, B.,
Hist. Eng. Lit., Vol. I, Appendix on the date of the English Song of Roland.
The bibliography to the Carolingian Romances in Chapters xII, xIII, post,
should also be consulted.
CHAPTER IX
LATIN    CHRONICLERS FROMI THE ELEVENTH TO THE
THIRTEENTH       CENTURIES
I. EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS.
(i) General Collections and Authorities.
Annales Monastici (A.D. 1-1432). Ed. Luard, H. R. Rolls Series. 5 vols.
1864-9.
Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of Richard I. 2 vols. Ed. Stubbs, W.
Rolls Series.
Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I. Ed.
Howlett, R. Rolls Series. 4 vols. 1884-9.
Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II. Ed. Stubbs, W.
Rolls Series. 2 vols. 1882-3.
Church Historians of England. Stevenson, J. 5 vols. in 8. 1853-8. Contains
trans. of Simeon of Durham, Chronicle of Melrose, John and Richard of
Hexham, William of Malmesbury, William of Newburgh, Robert of
Torigny, Gesta Stephani, Gervase of Canterbury, Richard of Devizes.
Dugdale, W. Monasticum Anglicanum. 8 vols. 1655 if.
Liebermann, F.   Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische     Geschichtsquellen.
Strassburg, 1879.
Migne, J. P. Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina. 221 vols. in 222.
Paris, 1844-64.
Milman, H.. H.istory of Latin Christianity. 9 vols. 1854 ff.
Monumenta Franciscana. Rolls Series. 1858-82.
Pertz, G. H. Monumenta Germaniae Historica. 30 vols. Hanover, 1826-96.
See esp. Vols. xIII, xxvII, xxviii for Anglo-Norman Chroniclers.
Pipe Roll Society's publications. 1884 ff.
Rolls Series.  For Chronicles of separate monasteries, e.g. Abingdon,
Evesham, Malmesbury, etc.
(ii) Individual writers.
Becket, St Thomas. For Chronicles of the life of Becket see Bosham and
FitzStephen below, and also the volume by Hutton, W. H., in the
admirable series entitled EnglishlHistory from Contemporary Writers.
Bosham, Herbert of (fl. 1162-86). Biographer of St Thomas of Canterbury. See ed. Giles, J. A., in Sanctus Thomas Cantuariensis, 1846
Migne's Patrologia, cxc; and Robertson, J. C., Materials for the History
of Abp. T. Becket, Rolls Series.




C/zapter IX                           449
Bracton, Henry of. De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae. Ed. Travers
Twiss. Rolls Series. 6 vols. 1878-83. Notebook. Ed. Maitland, F. W.
3 vols. Cqambridge, 1887.
Chronica de Mailros (A.D. 731-1275). Ed. by Stevenson, J. Bannatyne
Club. Edinburgh, 1839.
Chronica Monasterii St Albani. Ed. Riley, H. T. Rolls Series. 1863-76.
Clare, Osbert de (fl. 1136). For his letters on contemporary events, see
Scriptores Monastici. Brussels, 1846.
Coggeshall, Ralph of (d. about 1227). Chronicon Anglicanum (1066-1223).
Ed. Stevenson, J. Rolls Series. 1875.
Cotton, Bartholomew de (d. 1298?). Historia Anglicana (chief value for
1291-98). Ed. Luard, H. R. Rolls Series. 1859.
Devizes, Richard of. De Rebus Gestis Ricardi Primi (1189-92). Ed. Stevenson,
J., for Eng. Hist. Soc., 1838. Another edition by Howlett, R., in Rolls
Series, Chronicles of Stephen etc.  1886.  Trans. Giles, J. A., in
Chronicles of the Crusades. 1848.
Diceto, Ralph of (d. about 1202). Opera Historica. Ed. Stubbs, W. Rolls
Series. 2 vols. 1876.
Durham, Simeon of (d. after 1129). Opera Omnia. Ed. Arnold, T. Rolls
Series. 2 vols. 1882-5.
Eadmer (d. about 1124). Historia Novorum      in Anglia (A.D. 960-1122).
Ed. Rule, M. Rolls Series. 1884.
Edward the Confessor, Lives of. Ed. Luard, H. R. Rolls Series. 1858.
Ely, Thomas of (fl. 1175). For his history of Ely, see Acta Sanctorum,
Stewart's Liber Eliensis and Wharton's Angliae Sacra.
Ernulf (1040-1124). Pupil of Lanfranc, canonist and compiler of Textus
Roffensis, a valuable collection of documents of local and national interest.
Ed. Hearne. 1720.
Fitz-Neal, Richard. Dialogus de Scaccario. Ed. Stubbs, W. Select Charters.
8th ed. Oxford, 1895. Also ed. Hughes, A., Crump, C. G., Johnson, C.
Oxford, 1902. See Madox, T., History of the Exch., 1711-69.
Fitzstephen, Wim. (d. 1190?) Author of the valuable Vita Sancti Thomae
[Becket]. Ed. Robertson. Rolls Series. 1877. [Fitzstephen's book is
also of use as a contribution to the history of London.]
Flores Historiarum (from the Creation to 1326). Ed. Luard, H. R. Rolls
Series. 3 vols. 1890. Trans. Yonge, C. D. 1853. 2 vols.
Foliot, Gilbert. Epistolae. Ed. Giles, J. A., in Patres Ecclesiae Anglicanae.
2 vols. 1845.
Gervase of Canterbury (d. about 1210), The Historical Works of. Ed.
Stubbs, W. Rolls Series. 2 vols. 1879-80.
Gervase of Tilbury. Otia Imperialia. Ed. Leibnitz, G. G., in Vols. i and ii of
Scriptores Rerum  Brunsvicensimn. Hanover, 1707-10.    Extracts ed.
by Stevenson, J., in edition of Ralph of Coggeshall's Chronicle. Rolls
Series. 1875.
Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi (1169-92). Ed. Stubbs, W. Rolls Series.
1867. [Formerly ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough.]
Gesta Stephani (1135-47). Ed. Sewell, R. C., for Eng. Hist. Soc. 1846.
Also ed. by Howlett, R. Rolls Series. 1886. Trans. Forester (with
Henry of Huntingdon's Chron.). 1853.
Giraldus Cambrensis (d. about 1220). Opera. Ed. Brewer, J. S., Dimock, J. F.
and W~arner, G. F. Rolls Series. 8 vols. 1861-91. Trans. Forester, T.
and Hoare, R. C., rev. Wright, T. 1863.
Glanville, Ranulf de. Tractatus de Legibus etc. Ed. Phillips, G. 2 vols.
Berlin, 1827-8.


E. L. I.


29




450


Bibliography to


Hemingburgh, Walter of. Chronicon (1048-1346). Ed. Hamilton, H. C., for
Eng. Hist. Soc. 2 vols. 1848-9.
Henry of Huntingdon (d. about 1155). Historia Anglorum (B.C. 55-A.D. 1154).
Ed. Arnold, Thos. Rolls Series. 1879. Trans. Forester, T. 1853.
Hexham, John of. Historia (1130-54). Ed. Arnold, T., in Vol. 11 of Simeon of
Durham's works. Rolls Series. 1885.
Hexham, Richard of. Historia de gestis regis Stephani et de bello de
standardo (1135-9). Ed. Howlett, R. Chronicles of Stephen etc.. Vol..
Rolls Series. 1886.
Hoveden, Roger of (d. about 1201). Chronica (A.D. 732-1201). Ed. Stubbs, W.
Rolls Series. 4 vols. 1868-71. Trans. Riley, H. T. 2 vols. 1853.
Jocelin of Brakelond. Chronica (1173-1203). Ed. Rokewode, J. G. Camden
Society. 1840. Also ed. Arnold, Thos., in Vol. I of Memorials of St
Edmund's Abbey. Rolls Series. 3 vols. 1890-6. Trans. Toulins, T. E.,
in Mlonastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, 1844; and Clarke,
Sir E., 1903.
John of Salisbury. Opera omnia. Ed. Giles, J. A., in Patres Eccles. Anglic.
5 vols. Oxford, 1848.
Kirkstall, Hugh of (fl. 1200). Historian of Fountains Abbey. See Gale MS,
Trinity College, Camb., and Surtees Society text, ed. Walbran, J. R.,
1863.
Malmesbury, William of. De Gestis Regum Anglorum (449-1127). Historia
Novella (1125-42). Ed. Stubbs, W. Rolls Series. 2 vols. 1887-9. Trans.
Giles, J. A. 1847.
Miap, Walter. De Nugis Curialium (completed about 1190). Ed. Wright, T.
Camden Society. 1850.
Monmouth, Geoffrey of. Historia Regum     Britanniae. Ed. Giles, J. A.
1844. Also ed. by San-Marte (Schulz, A.). Halle, 1854. Trans. Giles, J. A.,
in Six Old English Chronicles. 1848. Also trans. Evans, Sebastian. 1903.
Newburgh, William    of. Historia Rerum   Anglicarum   (1066-1198). Ed.
Hamilton, H. C. Eng. Hist. Soc. 2 vols. 1856. Also ed. by Howlett, R.,
in Chronicles of Stephen etc. Rolls Series. 1884-5.
Niger, Ralph (fl. 1170). Student of Paris and precursor of Ralph Coggeshall. See Caxton Soc. edition of his Chronicles, ed. Anstruther, R., 1851.
Oxenedes or Oxnead, John de (d. 1293?). For the Chronicle attributed to
him see Liebermann in Mon. Germ. His. Script. xxvIi.
Paris, Matthew. Chronica Majora (from the Creation to 1259). Ed. Luard,
H. R. Rolls Series. 7 vols. 1872-83. Historia Anglorum (mainly an
abridgment from   the Chronica Mlajora).    Ed. Madden, F.    Rolls
Series. 3 vols. 1866-9. Trans. Giles, J. A. 3 vols. 1852-4.
Peter of Blois. Opera Omnia. Ed. Giles, J. A., in Patres Ecclesiae Anglicanae (35 vols.). volols. Oxford, 1846-7.
Rievaulx, Ailred of. Relatio de Standardo. Ed. Howlett, R., in Chronicles of
Stephen etc. Rolls Series. 1886. For other printed works, see Migne's
Patrologia, cxcv, and cf. Jusserand, J. J., English Essays from a French
Pen, 1895.
Rishanger, William. Chronica (1259-1306). Ed. Riley, H.T. Rolls Series. 1865.
Taxster or Tayster, John de. Chronica Abbreviata (down to 1265). Ed.
Thorpe, B., in Florence of Worcester's Chronicle. Eng. Hist. Soc. 1849.
Torigny, Robert of. Chronica (A.D. 94-1186). Ed. Howlett, R., in Chronicles
of Stephen etc. Rolls Series. 1889.
Trevet, Nicholas. Annales Sex Regum Angliae (1135-1307). Ed. Hog, T.
Eng. Hist. Soc. 1845.
Trokelowe, John of. Annales (1307-25). Chron. Monast. St Albani. Vol. Iv.




Ch apter IX


451


Turgot (d. 1115). [Bishop of St Andrews, probably author of the Life of
St Margaret, queen of Scotland.] See Acta Sanctorum, 10 June, and MS,
Brit. Mus. Cott. Tib. D. iii.
Vitalis, Ordericus. Historia Ecclesiastica (A.D. 1-1141). Ed. Pr6vost, A. le.
Soci6te de i'Histoire de France. 5 vols. Paris, 1838-55. Trans. Forester,
T. 4 vols. 1855-6.
Wendover, Roger of. Flores Historiarum (from the Creation to 1235). Ed.
Coxe, H. 0. Eng. Hist. Soc. 4 vols. 1841-4. Also ed. Hewlett, H. G.
Rolls Series. 3 vols. 1886-9. Trans. Giles, J. A. 2 vols. 1849.
Worcester, Florence of. Chronicon ex Chronicis (down to 1117), with two
continuations. Ed. Thorpe, B. Eng. Hist. Soc. 2 vols. 1848-9. Trans.
Forester, T. 1854.
Wykes, Thomas.     Chronicon (1066-1289).  Ed. Luard, H. R.    Annales
Monastici, iv. Rolls Series. 1869.
II. BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Hardy, T. D. Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of
Great Britain and Ireland (to 1327). 3 vols in 4 parts. Rolls Series.
1862-71.
Gardiner, S. R. and Mullinger, J. B. Introduction to the study of English
History. 1881.
Gross, C. The Sources and Literature of English History from the Earliest
Times to about 1485. 1900. See esp. Part iv, Ch. I.
III. BIOGRAP.IY A:ND tirTIC.SM,
The standard biographies of the Chroiclers are htoie in  e i  eiD uartia
of National Biography, and by the i.TioIs editoru s of Ithe p:a:bietia lsi l;@ tle
Rolls Series. For a general account of the Chroni;tie-rs the -!tr:odsttio-s to
Vols. i and II of T. D. Hardy's Descriptive Catalg1hue are of high  ae
Much general information will also be frtad n3 tihe Ini ot  c-dacot-oSe especiaely
those of Stubbs and H. R. Luard, to the colls Series editions of various
Chroniclers.  The best popular account of the Chroniclers is that of
J. Gairdner, Early Chroniclers of Europe (England), 1879. Good brief
general accounts are also given in the following works:
Potthast, A. Bibliotheca Historica Medii Aevi. 2 vols. 2nd edition. Berlin,
1896. Morley, H. English Writers. Vol. II. 1888. Social England.
Ed. Traill, H. D. Vol. I. 1893. Freeman, E. A. History of the Norman
Conquest. Vol. v. Ch. xxv. Oxford, 1876. Stubbs, W. Lectures on
Medieval and Modern History. (Let. vi and vI.) Oxford, 1886.
For individual Chroniclers the following are of value:
Birch, De Gray. Life and Writings of William      of Malmesbury. Reprinted from Trans. of Royal Soc. of Lit., vol. x. 1874.
Carlyle, T. Past and Present (Jocelin of Brakelond). 1843.
Church, R. W. St Anselm. (Ch. vi, Orderic the Chronicler.) 1895.
Evans, Sebastian.  Epilogue to Translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's
History. 1903.
Guizot, F. P. G. Preface to French translation (by Dubois, L.) of Ordericus
Vitalis. Histoire de Normandie. 4 vols. Paris. 1825-7.
Jessopp, A. Studies by a Recluse (St Albans and Her Historian). 1893.
Norgate, K. England under the Angevin Kings. [Good accounts of Wm.
of Malmesbury and Wm. of Newburgh.] 2 vols. 1887.
Owen, H. Gerald the Welshman. 1904.
Stubbs, W. Hist. Introds. to Rolls Series. Ed. Hassall, A. 1902.
29-2




452


Bibliography to


CHAPTER X
ENGLISH      SCHOLARS      OF  PARIS    AND    FRANCISCANS       OF
OXFORD. LATIN LITERATURE OF ENGLAND FROM JOHN
OF SALISBURY TO RICHARD           OF BURY
(A) ORIGINAL TEXTS.
Alain de Lille. (1) Anti-Claudianus in Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and
Epigrammatists of the xnth century, vol. 11, 268-428, ed. in Rolls
Series by Wright, Thomas. 1872.
(2) Commentary on the prophecies of Merlin in Prophetia Anglicana.
Francofurti, 1603.
(3) Opera omnia in Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. ccx. Paris, 1844, etc.
Alexander of Hales. Summa Theologiae, Joh. de Colonia, Venice, 1475;
Nuremberg, 1482; Venice, 1575; Cologne, 1622. MS of his Exposition
of the Apocalypse, in Cambridge University Library, Mam. v. 31.
Bacon, Roger. (1) Opus Majus, ed. Jebb, Samuel, 1733; ed. Bridges, J. H.,
2 vols., Oxford, 1897; supplementary vol., London, 1900; Preface first
printed by Gasquet, F. A., in Eng. Hist. Rev., 1897, p. 516.
(2) Opera Inedita, viz. Opus Tertium, Opus Minus, and Compendium
Philosophiae, ed. Brewer, J. S., in Rolls Series, 1859.
(3) Extracts from Computus rerum naturaliml, Opus Majus, Minus
and Tertium, and Compendium Philosophiae and Theologiae, in E. Charles,
Roger Bacon, pp. 335-416, Paris, 1861.
(4) Greek Grammar, ed. Nolan, E., with Introduction by Hirsch, S. A.,
Cambridge, 1902.
Baconthorpe, John. (1) Opus super quattuor Sententiarum libris. Paris,
1484; Milan, 1510 f.
(2) Quaestiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum. Cremona, 1618.
(3) Aureum   Opusculum  (on Aristotle's Ethics, Metaphysics, and
Politics). Venice, 1509. Commentaries on his writings by Zagalia in
seven folio volumes, Ferrara and Parma, 1696-1706; and in three
volumes by Aymers, H., Turin, 1667-9. [See also Fuller, Church History,
Bk. III.]
Bartholomaeus Anglicus. De Proprietatibus Rerum, Ulric Zell, Cologne,
c. 1470; Francfort, 1601; E.T. by Trevisa, printed by Wynkyn de Worde,
Westminster, c. 1495.
Bradwardine, Thomas. Arithmetica et Geometria Speculativa, Paris, 1502-30;
De Causa Dei, ed. Savile, H., 1618.
Burleigh, or Burley, Walter. Liber de vita ac moribus philosophorum, MS
in Library of Trinity Coll., Cambridge (0. 2. 50; no. 1154 M. R. James);
1472, Cologne (and several early editions without date); latest ed. (Stuttgart
Litterarischer Verein, vol. 177) Tiibingen, 1886.
Canon, or Canonicus, John (fl. 1329). Quaestiones profundissimi doctoris
Johannis Canonici ordinis minoris super octo libris Phisicorum Aristotelis.
Padua, 1475.
Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, 4 vols., edd. Denifle and Chatelain;
Paris, 1889-97.




Chapter X                            453
Conyngton, Richard de (d. 1330). Oxford and CambridgeFranciscan schoolman.
(1) Commentary on the Sentences, in the Vatican (Wadding, VII, 168).
(2) Exposition of the seven penitential psalms, in the Bodleian, Selden,
supra 6, fol. 160.
(3) Tractatus...de paupertate contra opiniones Fratris Petri
Joannis (Olivi), in the Laurentian, xxxvI, dext. cod. xII.
Curson of Kedleston. Reputed author of (1) a Summa Theologiae, (2) De
Salvatione Origenis, etc.
Dastin, or Daustin, John (fl. 1320). (1) Visio super artem Alchemicam, in
H. Condeesyanus, Harmoniae... Chemico-Philosophicae decas I, pt. 2,
Frankfurt, 1625, and in Theatrum Chemicum, Geneva, 1651; E. T. in
Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, 1652.
Duns Scotus, Joannes. (1) Quaestiones, 1474. (2) Opus Oxoniense, 1481.
(3) De Rerum Principio, Venice, 1497.
(4) De Modis Significandi sive Grammatica Speculativa, Venice, 1499.
(5) Opera, ed. Wadding, etc., in 12 folio volumes, Lyons, 1639.
Eccleston, Thomas de. De Adventu Fratrum      linorumn in Angliam, in
Monumenta Franciscana (Rolls Series), ed. Brewer, J. S., vol. I, pp. 1-72,
1858.
Gaddesden, John of (d. 1361). Rosa Medicinae (c. 1305-7). Pavia, 1492.
[Cf. Chaucers Prologue, 434.]
Garlandia, Joannes de. (1) De Triumphis Ecclesiae, ed. Wright, T., Roxburghe Club, 1856.
(2) Opus Synonymorum in Leyser, Hist. Poet. Medii Aevi, p. 311, and
in Migne, Patrologia Latina, CL, 1577 f., Paris, 1854.
(3) Dictionarius in A. Scheler's Lexicographie Latine, Leipzig, 1867.
Also unpub. MSS in Library of Gonville and Caius Coll., Cambridge.
Geoffrey de Vinsauf, Galfridus de Vino Salvo. Poetria Nova, in P. Leyser,
Historia Poetarum et Poematum Medii Aevi, Halle, 1721, pp. 862-978;
also separately, ed. Leyser, P., 1724.
Gervase of Tilbury. (1) Otia Imperiaia, Leibnitz, Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium, 1707, I, 888, 975; also Supplementa, In.
(2) Excerpts in Bouquet's Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, 1738-76,
vols. xi and xiv.
(3) Annotated Selections in Liebrecht, F., Des Gervasii von Tilbiiry
Otia Imperialia, in einer Auswahl neu herausgegeben mit Anmerkungen
begleitet, Hanover, 1856.
(4) Excerpta in Radulphi de Coggeshall Chron. Angl., ed. Stevenson, J.
(Rolls Series), 1875.
Gilbert the Englishman (fl. 1250). Compendium Medicinae. Lyons, 1510.
Giraldus Cambrensis. Opera in 8 vols. in Rolls Series, 1861-91. Vols. 1-4,
ed. Brewer, J. S.; vol. 1 (1861), De Rebus a se Gestis; De Invectionibus,
books v, vi; Symbolum Electorum; Autobiography; Letter to Stephen
Langton, and to the Chapter of Hereford; Shorter Catalogue of his
Works; and Retractationes; vol. 2 (1862), Gemma Ecclesitstica;
vol. 3 (1863), De Invectionibus, books I-IV; De Jure et Statu Menevensis Ecclesiae; Vita S. Davidis, S. Ethelberti, et Davidis II; vol. 4
(1873), Speculum Ecclesiae; Vita Galfridi Archiepiscopi Eboracensis.
Vols. 5-7, ed. Dimock, J. F.; vol. 5 (1861), Topographia Hibernica,
and Expugnatio Hibernica; vol. 6 (1868), Itinerarium Kambriae, and
Descriptio Kambriae; vol. 7, ed. Dimock, J. F. and Freeman, E. A.
(1868-77), Vita S. Remigii, S. Hugonis, and Appendix of Lincoln
Documents. Vol. vIII, ed. Warner, G. F. (1891), De Principis Institutione, with Index to vols. 1-4.




454                     Biblioraphy to
Godfrey of Winchester. Godofredi Prioris Epigrammata, in Anglo-Latin
Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the xIIth century, ed. in Rolls
Series by Wright, Thomas 1872, vol. I, 103-155.
Grosseteste, Robert. Roberti Grosseteste, Episcopi quondam Lincolniensis
Epistolae, ed. in Rolls Series by Lnard, H. R., 1861.
Chateau d'Amour, ed. Halliwell, J. O., 1849; in Carmina AngloNormannica, ed. Cooke, M., Caxton Soc., 1852; E.T. ed. Weymouth,
R. F., London Phil. Soc., 1864. [See the bibliography in S. Pegge's Life
of Grosseteste, 1793, and Stevenson, F. S., on Grosseteste.]
Hauteville, Jean de. Johannis de Altavilla Architrenius, in Anglo-Latin
Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the xIIth century, vol. i,
240-392, ed. in Rolls Series by Wright, Thomas. [Architrenius is of
considerable value as reflecting the social conditions of the day.]
Henry of Huntingdon. Epigrammata in Henrici archidiaconi historiae liber
undecimus, in Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the
xIIth century, vol. II, 163-174, ed. in Rolls Series by Wright, Thomas,
1872.
Henry of Saltrey.   Latin prose version of Purgatory of St Patrick, in
Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ii, 192-203 (ed. Luard); first printed
in Massinghan's Florilegium  insulae sanctae Hiberniae, Paris, 1624,
pp. 84ff.
Hilarius. Hilarii versus et ludi, ed. J. J. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1838;
extracts in Wright's Biographia Britannica Literaria.
Holkot, Robert of (d. 1349).    (1)  Quaestiones, on  Peter Lombard's
Sentences. Lyons, 1497, etc.
(2) Conferentiae. ib.
(3) Moralitates Historiarum. Venice, 1505.
Hoveden, John.    (1) Philomela sive meditacio, on the Life of Christ.
Ghent, 1516.
(2) Poem beginning " Philomela, praevia temporis amoeni." Printed in
the works of S. Bonaventura, e.g. vi,445 Venice; E.T. (c. 1460) in Cotton
MS, Cal. A. II, 59 f. [Bibliography in Leyser's Historia Poetarm...
Medii Aevi, 1721, pp. 1006-8, and in D. N. B.]
John of Salisbury. Joannes Saresberiensis, Opera, (1) ed. Giles, J. A., in
5 vols., Oxford and London, 1848; (2) in Migne, Patrologia Latina,
vol. cxcix, Paris, 1855.
(3) Entheticus. Johannis Saresberiensis Entheticus de dogmate philosophorum nune primum editus et commentariis instructus a Christian
Petersen, Hamburg, 1843.
(4) Policraticus, ed. Webb, C. C. J., Oxford, announced in 1906.
(5) Historia Pontificalis, ed. Pertz, in Mon. Germ. Hist. xx, 517-545
(cf. Giesebrecht, in Sitzungsb. Munich Acad. 1873, p. 124).
Joseph of Exeter. (1) Josephus Iscanus, De Bello Trojano, once current
under the names of Dares Phrygius and Cornelius Nepos (Basel, 1541,
etc.); first published as the rwork of Josephus Iscanus by Joannes
Thymius, Frankfurt, 1620; also London, 1675.
(2) De Josepho Exoniensi vel Iscano thesim proponebat J. J. Jusserand; accedunt de Bello Trojano poematis liber I, necnon notulae
s. xiii conscriptae, Paris, 1877.
(3) Fragment of 12 lines of Antiocheis in Camden's Britannia, end
of notes to Book III.
Kilwardby, Robert. (1) Commentary on Priscian, books I-xv, in Cambridge
University Library, MS, Kk. 3. 20.
(2) Thirty-nine treatises on philosophy (Haur6au, La Philosophie
Scolastique, 11, ii, 29).




Chapter X


455


Langton, Stephen. (1) Many commentaries, etc., on the books of the Old
Testament, in Oxford and Cambridge MSS.
(2) Documenta Clericormn. Latin poem in Bodl. MS, 57, f. 66 b.
(3) Sermon in Latin and French. British Museum, Arundel, 292 f. 38.
[He is credited with the division of the Bible into chapters.]
Lavenham, Richard (fl. 1380), Carmelite friar at Ipswich, prior of the
Carmelites in Bristol; studied at Oxford; reputed author of more than
60 treatises on scholastic philosophy, etc. MS of " De Causis Naturalibus"
in Cambridge University Library, Hh. Iv, 13, 55 f.
Lawrence of Durham. (1) Hypognosticon sive MIemoriale Yeteris et Novi
Testamenti, MSS in Bodleian, British Museum, Lambeth, York, and
Durham. Extracts in J. Raine's edition of the Dialogues.
(2) Dialogues. Ed. Raine, J., in Surtees Society. Vol. LXX. 1880.
Map, Walter. (1) Gualteri Mapes de Nugis Curialium, edited from the
unique MS in the Bodleian by Wright, Thomas (Camden Society, 1850).
(2) The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, collected and edited by Wright, Thomas (Camden Society, 1841).
(3) La Queste del Saint-Graal, in the French poem of (as is supposed)
Gautiers Map, or Walter Map, ed. Furnivall (Roxburghe Club, 1864).
Marsh, Adam. Adae de Marisco Epistolae, in Monumenta Franciscana,
I, 77-489, ed. Brewer, J. S., in the Rolls Series, 1858.
Neckam, Alexander. (1) De Naturis Rerum, and (2) elegiac poem, De
Laudibus Divinae Sapientiae, ed. Wright, Thomas, in Rolls Series, 1863.
(3) Elegiac poem  De Vita Monachorum, in Anglo-Latin Satirical
Poets, II, 175-200, ed. Wright, Thomas, in Rolls Series, 1872.
(4) De Utensilibus, ed. Scheler, A., Lexicographie Latine, Leipzig,
1867.
(5) Vocabularium biblicum and Repertorium vocabulorum, unpublished.
Nigel Wireker. (1) Speculum Stultorum, in Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets,
i, 11-145, ed. Wright, Thomas, in Rolls Series, 1872.
(2) Contra Curiales et Officiales Clericos, ib. 146-230.
Ockham, William of. (a) Philosophical and Theological Works.
(1) Expositio Aurea super totam artem Veterem, Bologna, 1496.
(2) Summa logices, Paris, 1488.
(3) Quaestiones in octo libros physicorum, Rome, 1637.
(4) Summulae in octo libros physicorum, Venice, 1506.
(5) Quaestiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum, Lyons, 1495.
(6) Quodlibeta septem, Paris, 1487.
(7) De Sacramento Altaris, and De Corpore Christi, Argent. 1491.
(8) Centilogium theologicum, Lyons, 1495, at end of (5).
(b) Political Works.
(1) Opus nonaginta dierum, Louvain, 1481; Lyons, 1495 (=Dialogus
part iii, tract vi).
(2) Dialogus...de Imperatorum et Pontificum Potestate, Lyons, 1495.
(3) Defensorium contra Johannemn XXII, Venice, 1513.
(4) Adversus errores Johannis XXII, Louvain, 1481; Lyons, 1495.
(5) De jurisdictione Imperatoris, Heidelberg, 1598. [Cf. also the
writings of John Walsingham.]
Peter of Blois, ed. Giles, J. A., in Patres Ecc]. Angl., London, Oxford and
Paris, 1846 f.; also in Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. ccvi, Paris, 1855.
Peckham, John. (1) Perspectiva Communis, Milan, 1482.
(2) Philomela. Cf. Hoveden, John (2), supra.
(3) De Summa Trinitate et Fide Catholica, 1510.
(4) Divinarum Sententiarum.. Collectarium, Paris, 1513.




456                    Bibliography to
(5) Registrum Epistolarum, 3 vols., ed. Martin, C. T., in Rolls Series,
1882-5.
List of unpublished works in Martin's Preface to Registrum, vol. III
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Pullen, Robert. (1) Sententiarum Theologicarum libri viii. Paris, 1655,
and in Migne, Patrologia Latina, t. CLXXXVI, col. 639 f.
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Reginald of Canterbury. Life of St Malchns, in leonine hexameters, in
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Haur6au, La Philosophic Scolastique, I, 492-3.
Sacro Bosco (Holywood?), Johannes de. Tractatus de Sphaera. Ferrara,
1472. [More than 64 editions before 1647.]
Scot, Michael. (1) Liber Physiognomiae, (Venice) 1477.
(2) Trans. of Aristotle, De Animalibus, included in Venice ed. 1496.
(3) Quaestio Curiosa de Natura Solis et Lunae, in vol. v of Theatrum
Chemicum, Strassburg, 1622.
Shirwood, William (fl. 1260). Credited with Distinctiones Theologicae, and
Conciones, and with a work Super Sententias (seen by Leland in the
Dominican library at Exeter).
Thomas de Bungay. De celo et mundo. MS in Caius College, Cambridge,
509 ~ 3.
Tournay, Simon of. Three vols. of lectures in Balliol and Merton MSS.
Wallensis, John (fl. 1283). MS of his Summa Collectionum in Peterhouse
library, no. 18, 1 (237); nineteen other works in MS (cp. Little's Grey
Friars in Oxford, 144-151).
Wallensis, Thomas, bishop of St David's. Campus Florumn, short tracts from
the Fathers and the Canonists, in Peterhouse library, no. 86 (243).
Walsingham, John (d. 1340?). MS in C.C.C. Oxon. Joannis Walsyngham
quaestiones octo disputatae apud Cantabrigiam et Norwicum.
Walter of Evesham (fl. 1320). (1) De Speculatione Musices (C.C.C. Camb.
MS, 401), in Coussemaker's Scriptores de Musica, vol. I, 182 f., Paris, 1863.
(2) Astronomical tracts in Oxford and Cambridge MSS.
William de la Mare, Oxford Franciscan (fl. 1284). Bibliography of MSS in
Little's Grey Friars in Oxford, 217 f.; cp. Denifle, in Archiv f. Litt. des
Mittelalters, 1888, p. 545; and Gasquet, F. A., in Dublin Review, 1898,
p. 21.
(B) BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Wright, Thomas. Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Norman Period,
1846.
Grober, Gustav. Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, with Survey of
Latin literature from 550 to 1350 A.D., including paragraphs on England,
in vol. II, 97-432, esp. 181-427 (1000-1350 A.D.), Strassburg, 1902.
Bibliographies are also included in the works to which (b) is prefixed in
the following list.




Czapter X                            457
(C) MODERN WORKS.
Adamson, R., on Roger Bacon, in Ency. Brit. Vol. ii.
Brewer, J. S. Prefaces to Monumenta Franciscana i, Rogeri Baconis Opera
Inedita, and Giraldus Cambrensis, in Rolls Series. 1859-61.
Brown, J. Wood. Michael Scot. Edinburgh, 1897.
(b) Budinszky, Alexander. Die Universitat Paris und die Fremden an derselben
im Mittelalter. Berlin, 1876.
Charles, Emile. Roger Bacon, sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines, d'apres des
textes inedits. Paris, 1861.
Denifle. Die Entstehung der Universitaten des Mittelalters bis 1400. Berlin,
1885.
Gasquet, F. A. English Biblical Criticism, and English Scholarship in the
Thirteenth Century, in Dublin Review, 1898, 1-21, 356-373. Dublin, 1898.
Gladstone, W. E. The Romanes Lecture, 1892; An Academic Sketch.
Oxford, 1892.
Haureau, B. La Philosophie Scolastique (1850). Ed. 2. Paris, 1872-80.
Jessopp, A. The Coming of the Friars (pp. 1-52) and other Historical Essays.
1889.
(b) Jusserand, J. J. Literary History of the English People, i, 157-203. 1895.
(b) Little, A. G. The Grey Friars in Oxford, (1) A History of the Convent,
(2) Biographical Notices of the Friars, Oxford Historical Society. 1892.
Luard, H.. Preface to Grosseteste's Epistolae in the Rolls Series. 1861.
Morley, H. English Writers, vols. in and Iv, 38-67. 1888-9.
Mullinger, J. B. The University of Cambridge, vol. i, 1-212. Camb., 1873.
Owen, H. Gerald the Welshman; new and enlarged ed. 1904.
Pauli, B. (1) Bischof Grosseteste und Adam     Marsch. Tiibingen, 1864.
(2) Geschichte von England, vol. II in Gesch. der Europ. Staaten. 1834 if.
Poole, R. L. (1) Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, 1884;
and (2) in Traill's Social England, vol. I, chaps. II-IV, 332-43, 429-40.
Pranti, C. Geschichte der Logikl im Abendlande, vol. n. Ed. 2. Leipzig, 1861.
(b) Rashdall, H. Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, vols. i and ii (in
two Parts), with Maps of Old Paris and Old Oxford. Oxford, 1895.
(b) Sandys, J. E. History of Classical Scholarship from the Sixth Century B.C.
to the end of the Middle Ages, Chapters 28-31. Cambridge, 1903. 2nd
ed. 1906.
Schaarschmidt, C. Joannes Saresberiensis, nach Leben und Studien, Schriften
und Philosophie. Leipzig, 1862.
(b) Schofield, W. H. English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer,
pp. 26-110 etc. 1906.
Searle, W. G. A critical examination of the Letters ascribed to Peter of
Blois, in manuscript, not published.
Stevenson, F. S. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, a Contribution to the
Religious, Political and Intellectual Life of the Thirteenth Century. 1899.
Stubbs, W. Literature and Learning at the Court of Henry II, Lectures vi
and vII in " Seventeen Lectures." Oxford, 1886, etc.
Thurot, Ch. De l'organisation de l'enseignement dans l'Universite de Paris
au moyen age. Paris, 1850.
(b) Ueberweg, F. History of Philosophy, I, pp. 365-464, E.T. 1872.
Warton, T. History of English Poetry. Dissertation on the Introduction of
Learning into England. 1774,1840, etc.
Wright, Thomas. (1) Prefaces to Satirical Poets of the Twelfth Century
(1872), and Alexander Neckam (1863), in Rolls Series; also to Walter
Mapes (1841, 1850); and (2) History of Caricature...in Literature...,
pp. 159-176. 1865.




458                     Bibliograp y to
CHAPTER XI
EARLY TRANSITION ENGLISH
(1) TEXTS.
An Bispel. Morris, R. E.E.T.S. xxix, 231.
Ancren Riwle. Oldest MS, C.C.C.C. Other MSS, Brit. Mus. etc. Morton,
J. Camden Soc., 1853. Extr. Morris, Spec. i, 110. Trans. Gasquet.
1905. Napier, A. S., Journal of Germ. Phil., 11, 19.
Assumptio Mariae. Lumby, J. R; E.E.T.S. xiv, XLIX. Cf. E. Stud. vni, 1 ff.
Benedictine Rule for Nuns of Winteney. Schroer, Halle, 1888.
Bestiary. MS Arundel, 292. Morris. E.E.T.S. XLIX, Rel. Ant. i,208. Extr.
Morris, Spec. i, 133.
Body and Soul, Debate of the. Matzner, E., Sprachpr. I, 90 ff.
Cantus Beati Godrici. Reginald of Coldingham's Life of St Godric, ed.
Stevenson, Surtees Soc. Zupitza, J., E. Stud. xi, 401 if.
Canute Song. Hist. El. II, 27, Gale, p. 505. Ten Brink, History of Eng.
Lit., trans. Vol. i, 148.
Compassio Mariae. Napier. E.E.T.S. CIII, 75 ff. Archiv, LXXXVIII, 181 if.
Doomsday. Morris. E.E.T.S. XLIX, 162.
XI Pains of Hell. Morris. E.E.T.S. XLIX, 147, 210. Archiv, LXII, 403 ff.
Percy Soc. xiv (1844).
XV   Signs before Doomsday.    Furnivall, F. J.  Early English Poems.
Maitzner, E. Stengel, E., Halle, 1871.
Five Joys of the Virgin. Prayer to our Lady. Song to the Virgin. Prayer
to the Virgin. Morris. E.E.T.S. XLIX, 87,194,192,195.
Genesis and Exodus. MS, C.C.C.C. 444. Morris. E.E.T.S. vI. Extr. Morris,
Spec. I, 153-170.
Hali leidenhad. Cockayne, 0. E.E.T.S. xVII.
Homilies, Old English. Morris. E.E.T.S. xxix, XXXIv (see also LIII).
Extr. Morris, Spec. i, Iff.
Hwon holy chireche is vnder uote. Sinners Beware. On Serving Christ.
Lutel soth sermun. Long Life.     Death.  Signs of Death. Morris.
E.E.T.S. XLIX, 89, 72, 141, 90, 156, 168, 101, 186.
In Diebus Dominicis. Morris, R. E.E.T.S. xxix, 41ff.
Layamon's Brut. MSS, Brit. Mus. Cott. Calig. A. ix and Otho cxIII. Madden,
F. 1847. 3 vols. Extr. Morris, Spec. I, 64.
On Lofsong of ure Lefdi. On God. Ureisun of ure Lefdi. Morris. E.E.T.S.
xxIx, 205, 191. Extr. Morris, Spec. I, 129.
Ormulum. MS, Junius I. Bodl. (probably the author's own copy). White,
R. M., 1852. Re-ed. Holt, R. 2 vols. Oxford, 1878. Extr. Morris, Spec.
I, 39-63.
Owl and Nightingale. MSS, Cott. Calig. A. Ix and Jesus Coll., Oxf. 29.
Stevenson, J. Roxburghe Club. 1838. Wright, T. Percy Soc. 1843.
Stratmann, F.H.    Krefeld, 1868. Wells, J. E. Boston, 1907. Extr.
Morris, Spec. I, 171.
Passion of our Lord.    Woman of Samaria.      Morris.  E.E.T.S. XLIX,
37-84.
Paternoster. Morris. E.E.T.S. xxIx.




Chapter XI                            459
Poema Morale. For MSS see below.       Furnivall, F. J. Early English
Poems. 1862. Morris. E.E.T.S.xxxIv. Zupitza, J., Anglia,, 6 ff. Crit.
ed. Lewin, H. Halle, 1881. Extr. Morris, Spec. I, 194. [The MSS of
this poem transcribed during different periods are of value as showing
the development of English prosody.]
Proverbs of Alfred. Morris. E.E.T.S. XLIX, Reliquiae Antiquae, I, 170.
Extr. Morris, Spec. I, 146-152.
St Juliana, Life of. Cockayne, T. 0. and Brock, E. E.E.T.S. LI. Extr.
Morris, Spec. I, 96 ff.
St Katherine, Life of. Einenkel. E.E.T.S. LXXX. Cf. Paris, G., Romania,
XIII.
St Paul, Vision of. E.E.T.S. XLIX, app. iii. Horstmann, C., Archiv, LII, 33.
Sawles Warde. Morris. E.E.T.S. xxIx, 245 if. Morris, Spec. I. 87.
Seinte Marharete. Cockayne, 0. E.E.T.S. xIII.
Sermons, Old Kentish.    Morris. E.E.T.S. XLIX, 26 ff.   Extr. Morris,
Spec. I, 141-5.
Vices and Virtues. Holthausen, F. E.E.T.S. LXXXIX.
Wil and Wit. Morris. E.E.T.S. XLIX, 192.
Wohunge of ure Louerde. On Lofsong of ure Louerde. On Ureisun of oure
Louerde. Morris. E.E.T.S. xxIx, 269,209,183. Extr. Morris, Spec., 124.
Cf. Ker, below (Ancren Riwle).
(2) CRITICAL ESSAYS AND ARTICLES, ETC.
An Bispel. Sawles Warde. Vollhardt (see O.E. Homilies below); also E.
Stud. XII, 459.
Ancren Riwle. Miihe, T. Gottingen, 1901. P. u. B.'s Beitr. I, 209ff.;
E. Stud. III, 535 if.; vII, 204 if.; Ix. 115 if.; xIX. Bramlette, E. E., in
Anglia, xv. Ker, W. P. Essays on Medieval Literature. 1905. [It has
been urged that the oldest text is much earlier than the thirteenth
century.]
Assumptio Mariae. Uber die alteste M.E. version der A.M. E. Stud. II, 4 ff.
Benedictine Rule for the Nuns of Winteney. Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen
(1888), 1013. Cf. ante, bibliography to Chapter vII, p. 442.
Bestiary. Anglia, IX, 391. Anglia, Beiblatt, x, 274 ff.
Body and Soul, Debate of. Anglia, II, 225 ff. MLN. (1890), p. 193. Cf.
Wright, T., Latin Stories; Boddeker, K., Altenglische Dichtungen,
Berlin, 1878.
Genesis and Exodus. E. Stud. VIII, 273: Ist der A. E. Story of Genesis
und Exodus das Werk eines Verfassers? Fritzsche, Anglia, v, 42-90.
Archiv, CVII, 317-92. Schumann, Anglia, Anz. vI.
Here Prophecy. See Hales, J. W., Folia Litteraria, pp. 55-61.
Homilies, Old English. Vollhardt. Einfluss der lateinischen geistlichen Litteratur auf einige kleinere Sch6pfungen der englischen Ubergangsperiode. Leipzig, 1888.
Layamon's Brut.    Imelmann.   Layamon Versuch fiber seine Quellen.
Berlin, 1906. Spruch und Bild im Layamon. Angl. I, 147 if. Trautmann, M. Uber den Vers Layamons. Anglia, II. Cf. also, Anglia
Anz. v and vIII, and Luick, K., in Paul's Grundriss, II; Wiilker, R.,
Ueber die Quellen Layamons, P. u. B.'s Beitr. III, 524-55; Brown, A. C. L.,
Welsh Traditions in Layamon's Brut., Mod. Phil. I, i, 95-103; Fletcher,
R. H., Did Layamon make any use of Geoffrey's Historia? MLA. xvII,
91-94; Morley, H., English Writers, III; Luhmann, A., in Stud. z. Engl.
Phil., Halle, 1906.




460


Bibliography to


Ormulum. Sarrazin. Ueber die Quellen des Ormulum. E. Stud. vI, 1-27.
Napier, A. S. Notes on the orthography of the Ormulum. E.E.T.S. cIII.
Cf. also E. Stud. I, 1; Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, 1775; Effer, H., Anglia, vII;
Athenaeum, 19 May 1906 ff.; Reichmann, H., in Stud. z. Engl. Phil.,
Halle, 1906.
Owl and Nightingale. Borsch. Ueber Metrik und Poetik. Miinster, 1883.
Noelle. Die Sprache, etc. Gottingen, 1870. Atkins, J. W. H. Studies
on the Owl and Nightingale (Unpublished) 1905 and Notes, Athenaeum,
p. 83, 20 Jan. 1906. [Cf. also the Latin Debates, e.g. De Phillide et
Flora, etc., and Anglo-Norman debates, e.g. Melior et Idoine (Neilson,
W. A., Origin and Sources of the Court of Love, Harvard Studies,
vi); and also the metrically interesting disputes in the Vernon MS.]
Poema Morale. Anglia, Anz. Iv, 85 ff. Anna C. Paues. A newly discovered
manuscript of the Poema Morale. Anglia xxx, 217-238.
Proverbs of Alfred. P. u. B.'s Beitr. i, 240 ff. Anglia, II, 370. Kemble, J.
Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus. 1848.
St Katherine, Life of. Cf. Einenkel's Ueber den Verfasser der neuangelsachsischen Legende von Katherina. Anglia, v, 91 ff.
St Paul, Vision of. E. Stud. i, 295 ff. Klbing, E. Stud. xxI, 134. Brandes,
H. Visio St Pauli. Halle, 1885. E. Stud. vI, 34-65.
(3) WORKS OF REFERENCE.
Alredi abbatis Monasterii de Rieualle (informacia) ad sororem suam inclusam
translata de Latino in Anglicum   per Thomas M. E. Stud. viI,
304-344.
Bestiaries, etc. [Thaun, P. de. For Li Cumpoz or Calendar (c. 1113) see ed.
Mall, E., Strassburg, 1873. For the Bestiaire see Wright, T., Popular
Treatises on Science, 1841; ed. Walberg, E., Lund, 1900; and Mann, M. F.,
Der Physiol. d. P. v. T. u. seine Quellen, in Anglia, vii; Le Bestiaire
d'amour par Richard de Fournival, ed. Hippean, C., Paris, 1860; Le
Bestiaire divin de Guillaume le Clere, ed. Hippeau, C., Caen, 1852. Cf.
also Reinsch, R., Das Thierbuch des Norm. Dichters, G. le C., Leipzig,
1890. Julleville, L. P. de, Hist. Lang. Litt. Fr. II, 214, should be referred
to for a bibliography of Lapidaries and other didactic literature of the
Middle Ages.]
Brandl, A. Mittelenglische Litteratur in Paul's Grundriss der germ. Phil.,
rI, 609-736. Strassburg, 1893.
Cutts. Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, pp. 120-151.
Eckenstein, L. Woman under Monasticism. Cambridge, 1896.
Forster, M. Friihmittelenglische Sprichw6rter. Eng. Stud. xxxI.
Gropp, E. On the Language of the Proverbs of Alfred. Halle, 1879.
Jeanroy, A. Les origines de la poesie lyrique en France au Moyen-age.
Paris, 1889. Deuxieme partie, 1904.
Lauchert, F. Uber das englische Marienlied im 13 Jahr. Eng. Stud. xvi.
Malmesbury, Wim. of. [An early rimed curse is found in W. of M., said to
have been uttered by Aldred, abp. of York against a Norman of Worcester, for building a castle too close to a monastery.
Hightest thou Urse;
Have thou God's curse.]
Mitzner, E. Altenglische Sprachproben. Berlin, 1867.
Morsbach, L. Mittelenglische Granmmatik, pp. 7-11. Halle, 1896.
Prior, E. S. History of Gothic Art in England. 1900.
Saintsbury G. Flourishing of Romance and Rise of Allegory. 1897.




Chapter XI


46I


Saintsbury, G. History of English Prosody. Vol. I. 1906.
Schofield, W. H. Eng. Lit. from Norm. Conq. to Chaucer, 1906. [Good
bibliography. See on Debates, pp. 424, 485.]
Ten Brink, B. Gesch. der engl. Litt. 2nd ed., Brandl, A. Strassburg, 1899.
Yol. T, 1st ed. trans. Kennedy, H. M. 1888.
Wace's Roman de Brut. Ed. Le Roux de Lincy. 2 vols. Rouen, 1836-8.
Warton, T. History of English Poetry. 1774, 1840,1871, etc.
Wright, T. Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages.
1841 [for Bestiaries, etc.].
Wiilker, R. Gesch. der engl. Litt. Leipzig, 1896. 2nd ed. 1906.
CHAPTER XII
THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
(See also the bibliographies to the three following chapters.)
I. TEXTS.
A. Latin.
Annales Cambriae. Ed. Phillimore, E., in Y Cymmrodor, Journal of the Hon.
Society of Cymmrodorion. Yol. ix. 1888.
Cambro-British Saints, Lives of the. Ed. with translations by Rees, W. J.
Welsh MSS Society, 1853.
Geoffrey of Monmouth. Historia Regum Britanniae. Ed. Schulz, A. (SanMarte). Halle, 1854.
H. R. B. Translated by Sebastian Evans. 1903.
Vita Merlini (Geoffrey of Mionmouth?). Edd. Wright, T. and Michel, F.
London and Paris, 1837.
Gildas. De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Ed. Mommsen. Mon. Germ.
Hist. xiii. Berlin, 1898.
-Ed., with trans., by Williams, H. Cymmrodorion Record Series. 1901.
Trans. by Giles, J. A. Six Old English Chronicles. New ed. 1901.
Vita Gildae (Caradoc of Llancarvan?). Ed. Mommsen. Berlin, 1898.
Henry of Huntingdon. Epistola ad Warinum in Vol. iv of Chronicles of
Stephen, etc. Rolls Series. 1884-9.
Nennius. Historia Britonum. Ed. Mommsen. Mon. Germ. Hist. XIII.
Berlin, 1898.
Trans. by Giles, J. A. Six Old English Chronicles. New ed. 1901.
B. Welsh.
The Gododin of Aneurin Gwawdrydd. Trans. Stephens, T. Ed. Powel, T.
Cynmmrodorion Soc. 1888.
The Black Book of Carmarthen. Ed. Evans, J. Gwenogvryn. Oxford, 1907.
The Heroic Elegies and other pieces of Llywarch Hen. Owen, W. 1792.
The Mabinogion and the Bruts from the Red Book of Hergest. Edd. Rhys, J.
and Evans, J. Gwenogvryn. 2 vols. Oxford, 1887-90.
The Mabinogion. Trans. by Lady Charlotte Guest. 3 vols. 1838. Ed. Nut+t, A.
1902.
Les Mabinogion, traduits pour la premiere fois en Frangais, par J. Loth.
2 vols. Paris, 1889.




462                    Bibliography to
The Four Ancient Books of Wales. Welsh texts and translations. Ed.
Skene, W. F. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1868.
Taliesin, or the Bards and Druids of Britain. Nash, D. W. 1858.
C. French.
Chretien de Troyes. Cliges, 1901; Le Chevalier de la Charrette, 1902; Erec
et Enide, 1896; Yvain, le chevalier au Lion, 1902; all ed. W. Firster, C. v.
T.'s Saimm. Werke, Halle. Le Conte del Graal. Ed. Potvin. Mons,
1866-71. [For a brief summary of the literary quality of the work of
C. de T. see Schofield, W. H., Eng. Lit. from the Norman Conquest to
Chaucer, pp. 176 ff. See also Paris, G., Jrnl. des Savants, 1902.]
Marie de France. Lais. Ed. Warnke, K. Halle, 1900.
Wace. Le roman de Brut. Ed. Le Roux de Lincy. 2 vols. Rouen, 1836-8.
Queste du St Graal. Ed. Furnivall, F. J. Roxburghe Club. 1864.
Le roman de St Graal. Poem by Borron, R. de, printed in Furnivall's Seynt
Graal, or the Sank Ryal. Roxburghe Club. 1861-3. Cf. Heinzel, R.,
Uber die franz. Gralromane, Vienna, 1892.
Le Saint-Graal ou le Joseph d'Arimathie (containing the Grand St Graal
and the Didot Perceval). Ed. Hucher. 3 vols. Le Mans, 1875-8.
Lancelot. [No complete ed. of this romance exists. For full accounts of it see
Paulin Paris, Romans de la Table Ronde, 5 vols., 1868-77, and Weston,
J. L., Legend of Lancelot, 1903.]
Merlin. The Ordinary or Vulgate prose romance. Ed. Sommer, H. O. 1894.
Merlin, Suite de. Edd. Paris, G. and Ulrich, J. 2 vols. Paris, 1890-1.
Perceval le Gallois. Ed. Potvin. 6 vols. Mons, 1865 ff.
Le Roman de Tristan (by Thomas). Ed. Bedier, J. Paris, 1902-5. See
also his Tristan et Iseut, Paris, 1900, and Michel, F., Recueil, 1835-9.
Tristan (by Beroul). Ed. Muret, E. Paris, 1903.
Le Roman en Prose de Tristan, summarised and analysed by Loseth, E.
Paris, 1892.
D. English (original texts and translations).
Layamon. Brut. Ed. Madden, F. 3 vols. 1847.
Marie of France. Four Lays, trans. Weston, J. L., 1900; Seven Lays, trans.
Rickert, E., 1901.
Arthur and Gorlagon. An unpublished text, with a study of its literary
relations. Kittredge, G. L. Harvard Studies and Notes, viii.
Arthour and Merlin (metrical romance). Ed. Turnbull. Abbotsford Club.
1838. Ed. Kolbing. Leipsic, 1890. See also Percy Folio MS, ed.
Furnivall and Hales.
The High History of the Holy Grail. Trans. of Perceval le Gallois by
Evans, S. 2 vols. 1898.
Merlin (prose romance, c. 1440, MS Camb. Univ. Lib.). Ed. Wheatley, H. B.
and others. 4 vols. E.E.T.S. 1865-98.
Syr Gawayne. Romance-poems. Ed. Madden, F. Bannatyne Club. 1839.
Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knyght. Edd. Morris and Gollancz. E.E.T.S.
1864; 1897.
Sir Launfal. Ritson, J. Old English Metrical Romances. 3 vols. 1802.
The Parzival of Wolfram yon Eschenbach. Ed. Martin, E. Halle, 1900-3.
Trans. into English verse by Weston, J. L. 2 vols. 1894.
Syr Percyvelle of Galles. Ed. Halliwell, J.O. The Thornton Romances. 1844.
Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg, abridged prose trans. by
Weston, J. L. 2 vols. 1899. See also Bossert, A., La L6gende Chevaleresque de T. et I., Paris, 1902.




Chapter XII                           463
II. CRITICAL STUDIES AND ESSAYS.
Arnold, M. On the Study of Celtic Literature. 1867.
Bardoux, J. De Waiterio Mappio. Paris, 1900.
Birch-Hirschfeld, A. Die Sage vom Gral. Leipzig, 1877.
Borderie, A. de la. L'Hist. Brit. attribuee a Nennius. Paris, 1883.
Brie, F. W. D. Gesch. u. Quel. der mittelengl. Prosachronik The Brute of
England. Iarburg, 1906.
Brown, A. C. L. Iwain: A Study in the History of Arthurian Romance.
Harvard Studies and Notes, vIII.
The Round Table before Wace. Harvard Studies and Notes, vII.
Cledat, L. L'Epopee Courtoise. Chap. IV in Vol. I of Petit de Julleville's
Histoire de la Langue et de la Litt6rature Frangaise. 1896.
Dickinson, W. H. King Arthur in Cornwall. 1900.
Fletcher, R. H. The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles. Harvard Studies
and Notes, x. 1906.
Golther, W. Die Sage von Trist. u. Is. Stud. fiber ihre Entstehung u. Entwickelung im Mittelalter. Munich, 1887. See also in Z. f. Litgesch. (N.F.)
III, in Sitz. der K. Bayer, Akad. Wiss. 1890, on the Conte del Graal.
Harper, G. M. Legend of the Holy Grail. MILA. vIII.
John, Ivor B. The Mabinogion. Popular Studies in Mythology, etc. 1901.
Kempe, D. The Legend of the Holy Grail. E.E.T.S. Extra Series, xcv.
Ker, W. P. Epic and Romance. 1897.
Kolbing, E. Die nordische und die englische Version der Tristan-Sage.
Heilbronn. 2 vols. 1878-83.
Lot, F. ltudes sur la provenance du cycle Arthurien. Romania, xxIv, XXv,
xxvIII, xxx. See also Annales de Bret., 1900.
Loth, J. L't1migration bretonne en Armorique. 1883.
- Les nouvelles theories sur l'origine des romans Arthuriens. Revue
Celtique, xIII.
MacCallum, M. W. Tennyson's Idylls and Arthurian Story. Glasgow, 1894.
Meyer, P. De quelques chroniques anglo-normandes qui ont port6 le nom
de Brut. S.A.T.F. Paris, 1878.
Newell, W.W. KWing Arthur and the Table Round. Boston, 1897.
Nutt, A. Celtic and Medieval Romance. Popular Studies. 1904.
-- Legends of the Holy Grail. Popular Studies in Mythology, etc. 1902.
--  Les derniers travaux allemands sur la 16gende du Saint Graal. Paris,
1891. (From Revue Celtique, xII.)
Notes to edition of Lady C. Guest's Mabinogion. 1902.
-   Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail. 1888.
Paris, G. Histoire Litt6raire de la France. Vol. xxx, pp. 1-270. Paris, 1888.
- Tristan et Iseult. Revue de Paris. 1894.
- La Litt6rature francaise au moyen-age. Paris, 1888. Trans. in Temple
Classics.
Paton, L. A. Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance.
Radcliffe College Monographs.
Renan, E. The Poetry of the Celtic Races. 1858. Trans. by Hutchinson.
1896.
Rhys, J. Celtic Folklore. 2 vols. Oxford, 1901.
-Preface to Dent's ed. of Malory's Morte Darthur. 1893.
Studies in the Arthurian Legend. Oxford, 1891.
Saintsbury, G. The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory.
Edinburgh, 1897.




464                    BibliograpAy to
Schofield, W. H. English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer.
1906.
Sommer, H. 0. Vol. III of his edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte
D'Arthur. 1889-91.
Stephens, T. The Literature of the Kymry. 2nd ed. 1872.
Ward, IH. D. L. Catalogue of Romances in British Museum. Vol. i.
EArticles on Geoffrey of Monmouth and Walter Map.]
Warton, T. History of British Poetry. Vol. I, note by Price, R., on Sir
Tristrem.
Wechssler, E. Die Sage vom heiligen Gral. Halle, 1898.
-   ber die verschiedenen Redaktionen... Boron zugeschriebenen GraalLancelot Cyklus. Halle, 1895.
Weston, J. L. King Arthur and His Knights.        Popular Studies in
Mythology, etc. 1899.
-  The Legend of Sir Gawain, 1897. The Legend of Sir Lancelot du
Lac, 1901.  The Legend of Sir Perceval, 1906. The Three Days'
Tournament, 1903. All in The Grimm Library.
Wiilker, R. Die Arthursage in der engl. Lit. Leipzig, 1895.
Zimmer, H. Bretonische Elemente in der Arthursage des Gottfried von
Monmouth, etc. Zeitschrift fur franzosische Sprache und Litteratur,
vol. XIII.
-   Nennius Vindicatus. Berlin, 1893.
G- ttingische gelehtre Anzeigen. 1890. No. 12. Review of Nutt's
Grail Studies.
Ibid. 1890. No. 20. [Review of G. Paris's contribution to Hist. Litt. de
la France.]
[A brief list of the chief materials for a study of the old Cymric and Gaelic
language and literature will be found in Morley's English Writers, Vol. I,
pp. 200 and 237, 1887.
Arthurian Ballads (e.g. The Boy and the Mantle, the latter a garment
which cannot be worn by any erring lady) will be found in the Percy Folio
MS, Child and other collections. For the male pendant to the Boy and the
Mantle, e.g. La Lai du Corn, see Bodl. MS, Digby 86, and the Note on British
Lais in Warton, Vol. II (1840). A handsome boy rides "a la court del bon rei
Artus," with a horn from which only faithful knights can drink without
spilling. See ed. Wulff, F., Lund, 1888, and cf. The CokwolPds Daunoe.]
CHAPTERS      XIII AND XIV
METRICAL ROMANCES I AND II
(See also bibliography to the Arthurian chapter.)
GENERAL COLLECTIONS AND AUTHORITIES.
See Korting's Grundriss; Schofield's English Literature from the Norman
Conquest to Chaucer, which devotes more attention to lais and romances than
any preceding work in English and has a very useful bibliography; and also
A Summary of the Literatures of Modern Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) from the Origins to 1400, by iMarian Edwardes, one
of the most useful books of its kind in English, 1907.




Chapters XIII and XIV                          465
Auchinleck MS, The. A famous MS (14th cent.), given to the Advocates'
Library, Edinburgh, by Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck, the father of
Johnson's Boswell. See Morley's English Writers,, n  281; Klbing, E,
Engl. Stud. VII, and Schofield, W. H., Eng. Lit. p. 15. It contains several
Middle English poems and romances, Owayne Miles, the Harrowing of
Hell and the Seven Deadly Sins, the Wench that loved a King, tales like
a Penniworth of Witte, the Lai le freine, Thrush and Nightingale,
Body and Soul debates, political satires, etc., etc. See below under
separate romances.
Benfey, T. (ed.). Orient u. Occident. 3 vols. Gottingen, 1862 ff.
Billings, Anna H. Guide to the Middle English Metrical Romances. Yale
Studies in English. New York, 1901. [A very useful work.]
Brandl, A. Mittelenglische Litteratur in Paul's Grundriss.  Strassburg,
1893.
Campbell. Popular Tales of the West Highlands. 4 vols. Edinburgh.
Child, F.J. English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 5 vos.. Boston, 1882 ff.
Deutschbein, M. Studien zur Sagengeschichte Englands (Horn, Havelok,
Tristan, Beves, Guy). Cothen, 1906.
Ellis, G. Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances, to which is
prefixed an historical introduction on the rise and progress of romantie
composition in France and England. Revised by Halliwell, J. 0. 1848.
Contains analyses of the following: Peter Alphonsus, Marie's Lays,
Merlin, Morte Arthur, Guy of W., Sir Bevis, Richard C. de L., Roland
and Ferragus, Sir Otuel, Sir Ferumbras, the Seven Wise Masters, Florice
and Blauncheflour, Robert of Cysille, Sir Isumbras, Sir Triamour,
Ipomydon, Sir Eglamour, Lay le Fraine, Sir Eger, Sir Grahame and Sir
Graysteel, Sir Degore, Roswal and Lillian, and Amys and Amylion.
Gautier, L. Les Epope6s franaises. Paris, 1878-82.
-     Bibl. des Chansons de Geste. Paris, 1897.
Hales, J. W. Folia Litteraria (contains papers, inter alia, on Old English
Metrical Romances, Havelok, Eger and Grime).
Halliwell, J. 0. Thornton Romances: Percival, Isumbras, Eglamour, Degravant. Camden Soc. 1844.
Hartshorne, C. H. Ancient Metrical Tales. 1829. Athelston, King Edward
and the Shepherd, Floris, William the Werwolf, etc.
Ker, W. P. Epic and Romance. 1897.
Laing, D. Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland. 1822.
Re-edited with additions by Small. 1885.
- Early Scottish Metrical Tales. 1826, 1889.
Madden, F. Sir Gawayne, etc. Bannatyne Club, 1839.
Paris, G. Histoire poetique de Charlemagne. 1865. Ed. Meyer. 1905.
-   La Litt. fr. au moyen age. Paris, 1905.
Poemes et Legendes du moyen age. Paris, 1900.
-- La Poesie du moyen age. 2 vols. Paris, 1885-95.
Percy Folio Manuscript. Ed. Hales, J. W., and Furnivall, F. J. 3 vols.
1867 ff.
Potter, M. A. Sohrab and Rustem. The Epic theme of a Combat between
Father and Son. 1902.
Ritson, J. Ancient English Metrical Romances. 3 vols. 1802. The Wedding of Sir Gawain: Ywaine and Gawin: Launfal: Lybeaus Disconus:
The geste of King Horn: The Kyng of Tars, and the Soudan of Damas:
Emare: Sir Orpheo: Chronicle of Engleland: Le bone Florence of
Rome: The Erle of Tolous: The Squyer of Lowe Degre: The Knight
of Curtesy, and the Fair Lady of Faguell: (Appendix) Horn Childe and
Maiden Rimnild.


E. L. I.


30




466                   Bibliography to
Robson, J. Three Early English Metrical Romances. Camden Society, No.
xviii. 1842. From the Ireland MS, Anturs of Arther: Sir Amadace:
The Avowynge of King Arther, Sir Gawan, Sir Kaye and Sir Bawdewyn
of Bretan.
Saintsbury, G. The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory.
Edinburgh, 1897.
Schofield, W. H. English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer.
1906.
Snell, F.J. The Fourteenth Century. Periods of European Lit. Edinburgh,
1899.
Suchier, H. and Birch-Hirschfeld, A. Gesch. der fianz. Litt. Leipzig, 1900.
Stengel, E. Die altfranz. Rolandslied. Leipzig, 1900.
Thors, W. J. A Collection of Early Prose Romances. 1828. Ed. Morley, H.
Last reprint, 1907. Contains, inter alia, the stories of Robert the Devil,
Guy of Warwick and the Knight of the Swan.
Utterson, R. Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry, from copies in the Black
Letter. 2 vols. 1817. Syr Tryamoure, Syr Isenbras, Syr Degore, Syr
Gowghter.
Ward, H. L. D. Catalogue of Romances, MSS in the British Museum.
2 vols. 1883, 1893.
Warton, T. History of British Poetry. Vol. I, Diss. i. On the Origin of
Romantic Fiction in Europe.
Weber, H. Metrical Romances. 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1810. Kyng Alisaunder,
Sir Cleges, Lay le Freine, Richard Coer de Lion, Ipomydon, Amis and
Amiloun, The Sevyn Sages, Octovian Imperator, Sir Amadas, The
Hunting of the Hare.
Weston, J. L. The Romance Cycle of Charlemagne. 1901. [The other
numbers of Nutt's series, Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance and
Folk-Lore, may also be consulted with much advantage.]
ROMANCES.
Alexander. For a summary of the growth of the saga of Alexander, and
especially of the work of Lambert li Tort (the Crooked) of Chateaudun,
and Alexandre de Bernay or de Paris, see Ten Brink, Hist. of Eng. Lit.,
Eng. trans. I. The first form of the Alexander legend is found in the
Greek Pseudo-Kallisthenes, to which reference has already been made
(see p. 135). Its Latin forms, by means of Julius Valerius and the
archpriest Leo, found their way to the west, and Lambert's and Alexandre
de Bernay's work constitute the great redaction of the story for western
readers and imitators. See Li romans d'Alixandre, par Lambert li
Tors et Alexandre de Bernay, ed. Michelant, H., Stuttgart, 1846. In
England, the adaptation by Thomas or Eustace of Kent (Roman de
toute chevalerie) led the way to the alliterative romance of King
Alisaunder. For this last, our immediate concern, see MSS Laud,
Lincoln's Inn and Auch. frag. and Weber's collection. See also the
alliterative romance of Alexander and Dindimus, E.E.T.S. Extra
Series, xxxi, ed. Skeat, W. W.; Wars of Alexander, Roxburghe Club,
1849, ed. Stevenson; E.E.T.S. Extra Series, XLVII, ed. Skeat; The
Buik of the most noble and vail3eand Conquerour, Alexander the Great,
Bannatyne Club, 1834.   Cf. Weber i, pp. lxxiii, lxxxvii, Ward,
Catalogue of Romances, I, p. 149, and the Scots Buik of King Alexander
by Sir Gilbert Hay in the Taymouth MS. See also, on the cycle as a
whole, Budge, E. A. Wallis, History of Alexander the Great, Cambridge,




Chapters XIII and XIV                           467
1889, and Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, 1896; Meyer, P.,
Alexandre le Grand dans la litt. fr. du moyen age, 2 vols., Paris, 1886;
Herrmann, A., on Sir Gilbert Hay's MS, Berlin, 1898; Trautmann,
Uber Verfasser und Entstehungszeit einiger allit. Gedichte, Halle, 1876.
Amis and Amiloun. MS, Auch., etc. Ed. Weber. Kiibing, Heilbronn,
1884.
Arthour and Merlin. (Auch. MS.) Ed. Turnbull. Abbotsford Club, 1838,
and Kolbing, 1890. See also Percy Folio MS; Biilbring, K. D., in Engl.
Stud. xvi; Robert de Boron's Merlin, ed. Paris, G. and Ulrich, J., 1886,
Soc. des Anc. Tex. Fr. [Kolbing's edition should be consulted for a discussion as to sources and authorship. He is inclined to the view of a
single author for this romance and the romances of King Alisaunder
and Richard Coeur de Lion. See also below under Lovelich, and also
the bibliography to the chapter on the Arthurian Legend, for Merlin.]
Arthur. c. 1440. Ed. Furnivall, F. J. E.E.T.S. i.
Arthur, Avowing of King. Madden (Sir Gawayne), 1839. Robson.
Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne, Awntyrs of. Robson, see above; Laing,
1822, Amours, Scot. Text Soc., 1892; Pinkerton, 1792; Madden, 1839.
See, on the metre, Luick, K., in Anglia, xII.
Athelston. A story of ordeal by fire. MS, Caius, Cambridge. Hartshorne.
Wright and Halliwell's Reliquiae Antiquae. 1845. Zupitza, in Eng.
Stud. xiII, xiv.
Barlaam  and Josaphat. See Jacobs, J., Barlaam and Josaphat, English
Lives of Buddha, 1896; the Anglo-Norman version of Chardri, ed.
Koch, J., Heilbronn, 1879; Paris, Gaston, Poemles et Legendes du moyen
age, Paris, 1900; Kuhn, E. W. A., B. u. J. bibl. litgesch. Stud., Munich,
1894; Horstmann, C., Altengl. Legenden, 1875 ff.; Gui de Cambrai's B.
und J., edd. Meyer, P. and Zotenburg, H., Stuttgart, 1864.
Benott de Sainte More. For the Roman de Troie, which has its value not
only in its telling of the legend, and in its poetry as poetry, but also as a
record of contemporary French life, see Joly, A., B. de S. M. et le Roman
de Troie, ou les Mtamnorphoses d'Homere et de l'6popee gr6co-latine au
moyen age, 2 vols., Paris, 1870-1; new edition in preparation, Soc.
des anciens textes frangais.
Beryn, Tale of. See Chalmers, Eng. Poets, I; Chaucer Soc., ed. Furnivall
and Stone, 1884.
Charlemagne Romances. In addition to those mentioned under separate
headings, see E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. xxxvI, xxxvII, Lyf of Charles the Grete,
ed. Herrtage, S. J.; xL, XLI, XLIII and L, Huon of Burdeux, ed. Lee, S. L.;
XLIV, XLV, The Four Sons of Aymon, ed. Richardson, O.
Chevelere Assigne. Ed. Utterson, Roxburghe Club, 1820, and Lord Aldenham.
E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. vi. A prose analysis of the tale of the Knight of the
Swan will be found in Thoms.
Clariodus. Maitland Club. 1830.
Dares Phrygius. See under Joseph of Exeter.
Dictys Cretensis. See under Joseph of Exeter.
Eger and Grine. Percy Folio MS. (See Hales, J. W., Folia Literaria, 1893.)
The History of Sir Eger, Sir Graham, and Sir Gray-Steel. Printed, 1687.
Aberdeen, 1711. Laing, 1826.
Emare. MS Brit. Mus. Edd. Ritson; Gough, A. B., Old and Middle
English Texts, 1901. Cf. Trivet's chronicle; Gough, A. B., The Constance
Saga, Berlin, 1902; Cox, M. R., On Cinderella, 1893; and H. Suchier's
edition (1884) of P. de Beaumanoir's Manekine. An edition in the
E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser., ed. Miss E. Rickert, is "at press."
Florence of Rome, Le Bone. Ritson. Yietor. 1893, 1899.
30-2




468                    Bibliography to
Florice and Blauncheflour. MS, Auch., etc. Ed. Hartshorne. Laing, Abbotsford Club, 1857; Lumby, J. R. and McKnight, G. H., E.E.T.S. xIv;
Hausknecht, E., Berlin, 1885, in Samml. Engl. Denkmaler, v [contains
a valuable introduction]. For the cognate French tale, Berthe aux
grands pieds, see ed. Scheler, A., 1874.
Gamelyn, Tale of. Ed. Skeat, W.W. 2nd ed., 1893. See also Lindner, F.,
Eng. Stud. II.
Generides. Furnivall, F. J. Roxburghe Club, 1865. See also Generydes,
c. 1440, ed. Aldis Wright, E.E.T.S. LV, LXX, and Zupitza in Anglia, I.
Gologrus and Gawayne. Chepman and Myllar, 1508, reprinted by Laing, D.,
1827; Madden, Bannatyne Club, 1839; Trautmann in Anglia, II; Amours,
Scot. Text Soc. 1892; Pinkerton, 1792.
Guy of Warwick (MSS, Auch. and Caius, etc.). Ed. Turnbull,Abbotsford Club,
1840, and Zuipitza, J., E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. XLII, XLIX, LIX. For the AngloNorman version see ed. Schonemann, C. P. C., Leipzig, 1842. See also Percy
Folio MS, ed. Furnivall and Hales, for Guye and Amarant, etc.; Thoms,
W. J., Early English Prose Romances (for prose analysis); and Puttenham's Arte of Poesie. See Kiirting, p. 111, for further details of MSS,
and Zupitza's edition of the second or fifteenth century version in E.E.T.S.
Ex. Ser. Xxv, xxvI, for a discussion of the versions.
Havelok the Dane (Laud MS, 108). Ed. Madden (English and French),
Roxburghe Club, 1828; Skeat, W. W., E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. IV; Holthausen,
Heidelburg, 1901; Skeat, W. W., Oxford, 1902. For the French Le lai
d'Aveloc, and for discussions as to the relative ages of the versions, see
Kupferschmidt, M., Die Haveloksage bei Gaimar, Rom. Stud. Iv;
Skeat's edition; Hupe, H., in Anglia, XIIi. See also Gollancz's Hamlet in
Iceland, 1898, and, for metre, Saintsbury, G., History of English Prosody,
I, 1906; Hales, J. T., Folia Literaria; Zupitza, in Anglia, YTI, and in
ZDA. XIX, may also be mentioned.
Horn, King. MSS, Cambridge Gg. 4. 27. 2, Harl. 2253, Laud 108. Ed.
Ritson; Michel, Paris, 1845; Bannatyne Club, 1845; Lumby, J. R. and
McKnight, G. H., E.E.T.S. xIv; Matzner, 1867; Morris and Skeat,
Specimens, I; Horstmann, in Herrig's Archiv, L; Hall, J., 1901; and the
Ballads in Child's edition (Hind Horn, etc.). See Luick, K., in Paul's
Grundriss, on metre. For various theories concerning the origin of the
different versions see Hartenstein, 0., Studien zur Hornsage, Heidelberg,
1902, a useful work; Schofield, MLA. VIII; Hall's edition mentioned
above; Wissmann, Th., in Quel. u. Forsch. xvI; and in Anglia, Iv. See
also under Horn Child below.
Horn Child and Maiden Rimnild. MS, Auch. Ed. Ritson; Michel, Bannatyne Club, 1845; Hall, 1901; Caro in Eng. Stud. II. Cf. the AngloNorman Horn et Rimenhild, ed. Brede, E. and Stengel, E., Ans. u. Abh.
Rom. Phil. vIII, Marburg, 1883.
Ipomedon. See under Rotelande.
Iwain and Gawain. MS, Brit. Ius. Edd. Ritson; Schleich, G., Oppeln
and Leipzig, 1887. See Brown, A. C. L., in Harvard Studies and Notes,
VIII; Schofield, W. H., English Literature from the Norman Conquest
to Chaucer, pp. 230 ff.
John the Reeve. Percy Folio MS. Small, in Laing's Select Remains, new
edition. 1885.
Joseph of Arimathie. MS, Oxford, Vernon. Skeat, E.E.T.S. XLIT, together
with Wynkyn de Worde's and Pynson's Lives of Joseph. [One of the
romances of the alliterative revival.]
Joseph of Exeter (Josephus Iscanus) (fl. 1190), one of the ablest of medieval
Latin poets, who accompanied archbishop Baldwin to the Holy Land.




Chapters XIII and XI                             469
Joseph's De Bello Trojano would appear to have been based on Latin
versions of Greek works by writers known by the names of Dares
Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis. His poem is in six books and exists in
several MSS. It was printed at Basel, 1558, and the first book has been
edited by Jusserand, J. J., Paris, 1877. For Dietys and Dares, see
eds. by Meister, F., in Teubner library, Leipzig, 1872-3; and Korting, G-.,
Dictys u. Dares. Ein Beitrag z. Gesch. der Troja-sage in ihrem Ubergange aus der antiken in die romantische Form, Halle, 1874. See also
below under Troy. Joseph of Exeter was also the author of a poem on
the third Crusade, Antiocheis, the greater portion of which is lost (see
Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, i), and ante, Chap. x.
Knight of Curtesy and the Fair Lady of Faguell. Copland. Ritson. Hazlitt,
W. C. 1866.
Lai le Freine. See under Marie de France.
Lancelot of the Laik. c. 1500. MS, Camb. Univ. Lib. Ed. Stevenson,
Maitland Club, 1839; Skeat, W. W., E.E.T.S. vi. See Weston, J. L.,
Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac. Studies upon its origin, development,
and position in the Arthurian Cycle, 1901.
Libeaus Desconus, the Fair Unknown. See Ritson; K6lbing in Engl. Stud. I;
Kaluza in Kolbing's Altenglische Bibliothek, Leipzig, 1890; Percy Fol.
MS; Schofield, Harvard Studies and Notes, iv; Paris, G., in Romania,
xv; Weston, J. L., Arthurian Romances, v; Horstmann, C., Altenglische
Legenden, 1875. [There is a fine French version by Renaud de Beaujeu,
and the authorities quoted above should be referred to for the relation
between the French and English versions.]
Lovelich, Henry. Holy Grail, History of. c. 1450. Ed. Furnivall, F. J.,
Roxburghe Club, 1861-3. E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. xx, xxIv, xxvII, xxx, xcv
(The Legend of the Holy Grail, ed. Kempe, Dorothy).
Merlin. Ed. Kock, E. A. E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. xcIII, XCIV.
Marie de France. The narrative lais of Marie de France were, apparently,
produced in England in the twelfth century, in the days of Henry II, to
whom they are dedicated. They are contained chiefly in Harl. MS, 978,
and consist of short verse tales, taken from Celtic tradition. She used
the legends of the Purgatory of St Patrick; Lanval (cf. the English
Sir Launfal of T. Chestre); Guingamor (cf. Bran); Laustic; Chevrefeuille
(cf. Tristram  and Iseult), etc. See Petit de Julleville's Hist. de la
Langue et de la Litt. fr., Vols. I, II; Warncke, K., in Suchier's Bibliotheca Normannica, Vol. III; Hervieux, Fabulistes Latins, 1883, 1884;
Bedier, J., in Revue des deux Mondes, Oct. 1891; Warton, Hist. Eng.
Poetry, Price's Note on Dissert. I; Ten Brink, Eng. Lit., Vol. I;
Schofield, Harvard Studies, v; Weston, J. L. (trans.), Arthurian
Romances unrepresented in Malory (Guiingamor, Lanval, Tyolet, Le
Bisclaveret), 1900; Rickert, E. (trans.), 1901; and the adaptations of
Arthur O'Shaughnessy, 1872. For the English forms of Breton lais,
see especially the very beautiful Lai le Freine, in the Auchinleck MS,
and also the tale of Sir Degarre. The Lai le Freine, the story of
the girl exposed in the ash tree, will be found in the collections of Ellis
and Weber mentioned above. See also Varnhagen, H., in Anglia, III,
and cf. the tale of patient Griselda, in its many forms. Marie de
France should also be remembered for her Ysopet, or book of fables,
based on earlier English (the so-called Alfred's Aesop) and Latin
collections. See Warncke, K., as above, Vol. vi, and Jacobs, J., Fables
of Aesop, 1889.
Melayne, Sege of. MS, Brit. Mus. Ed. Herrtage, S. J. E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser.
xxxv. See Biilbring, K. D., Engl. Stud. xiii.




470


Bibliography to


Melusine (Jean d'Arras). Unique MS, Brit. Mus. Prose romance. Ed.
Donald, A. K., E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. LXVIII.
Mort Arthur (stanza form). MS, Harl. 2252. Ed. Roxburghe Club, 1819;
Furnivall, F. J., 1864; Bruce, J. D., E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. LXXXVIII.
Morte Arthure (alliterative). c. 1440. MS, Thornton in Lincoln Cathedral.
Ed. Halliwell, 1847; Perry and Brock, E., E.E.T.S. vIII; Banks, M. M.,
1900. See also Branscheid, P., Die Quellen des Morte Arthure, Anglia,
viII, Anz.; Luick, K., in Anglia, xi, and the bibliography to Huchoun,
Vol. ii of present work.
Octavian (two versions). Weber. Sarrazin, in Altengl. Bibl., Heilbronn, 1885,
pp. 1-63, 64-167. Ed. Halliwell. Percy Soc. 1844.
Otuel. Rowland and Vernagu. MS, Auch. Ed. Maidment, J., Abbotsford
Club, 1836, and Herrtage, E.E.T.S. xxxIX, Ex. Ser.
Partenay, Romans of. Ed. Skeat, W. W. E.E.T.S. xxII. See also Melusine.
Partonope of Blois (two versions). Ed. Buckley, Roxburghe Club, 1862;
Nichols, 1873. Anglia, xI. Cf. Kolbing, E. Belt. zur vergl. Gesch. der
Romant. Poesie u. Prosa des Mittelalters. Breslau, 1876.
Protesilaus. See under Rotelande.
Rauf Coilyear, The Taill of. Lekprevik, R., St Andrews, 1572; Laing, 1822;
Herrtage, S. J., E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. xxXIx; Amours, M., Scot. Text Soc.
1892. See the chapter on Early Scots Lit., Vol. II of present work.
Richard Coeur de Lion. MSS, Caius, Auch. frag., etc. Printed by Wynkyn
de Worde, 1509-28. See Weber, Engl. Stud. VIII, xv, XVI; Needler,
G. H., Richard Coeur de Lion in Literature, Leipzig, 1890; and Archer,
T. A., Crusade of Richard I, Eng. Hist. fr. Contemp. Writers, 1889.
[The character of Richard Coeur de Lion, as portrayed in the romance,
is happily compared by Ten Brink to John Bull.]
Roberd of Cisyle. Ed. Horstmann, 1878; Halliwell, Nugae Poeticae, 1844;
Hazlitt, W. C., Early Pop. Poetry of Engl., 4 vols., 1864.
Roland. Lansdowne MS. Ed. Herrtage. EE.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. xxxv.
Roswall and Lillian. Edinburgh, 1663; Newcastle, 1775; Laing, 1822-6. See
Lengert, O., in Eng. Stud. xvI, xvII.
Rotelande, Hue de (fl. 1185), Anglo-Norman, of Credenhill, near Hereford.
Author of Hippomedon (MS, Brit. Mus. and Bodl.), and Protesilaus
(MS, Bibl. Nat., Paris). See edd. Kolbing, E., Breslau, 1889; Weber;
Mussafia, A., Sitzungsb. Kaisr. Acad. Wiss., Vienna, 1890. Three English
versions are extant in MS. See Korting, p. 122.
Rowland, Duke, and Sir Otuel of Spayne. MS, Brit. Mus. Ed. Herrtage.
E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. xxxv.
Seven Sages of Rome.   ISS, Auch. and Canmb. Dd. 1. 17, etc. Ed. Weber;
Wright, T., Percy Soc., 1845. See also The Seven Sages in Scottish
Metre, by John Rolland, Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1837; Paris, G.
Deux redactions du Roman des Sept Sages de Rome, Paris, 1876;
Campbell, K., Albion Series, Boston, 1907; Domenico Comparetti.
Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad, Folklore Soc., 1882; and
W. A. Clouston's B. of S., Glasgow, 1884.
Sir Amadas. Weber. Robson. Stephens, Copenhagen, 1860. For Amadas
and Ydoine, see Paris, G., in Furnivall Memorial vol., 1901, and Hippeau,
Paris, 1863; and cf. the reference in Cursor lundi.
Sir Beves of Hamtoun. MS, Auch., etc. Edd. Turnbull, Maitland Club, 1838;
Kolbing, E., E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. XLVI, XLVIII, LXV. [There are many
continental texts.] See Kolbing, E., Die Allit. in Sir B. of H., Eng.
Stud. XIx; and Stimming, A., Boeve de Hazumtone, Halle, 1899.
Sir Cleges. See bibliography to Arthurian chapter, ante, under Chr6tien de
Troyes.




Chapters XIII and XIV                          471
Sir Degarre. MSS, Auch., Camb. F. ii. 38 frag., Douce frag. Percy. Ed.
Laing, Abbotsford Club, 1849; Wynkyn de Worde, Copland, c. 1550,
Utterson, Percy Fol. MS (Sir Degree).
Sir Degrevant. Ed. Halliwell, J.O. Thornton Romances. Camden Soc. 1844.
Sir Eglamour. MSS, Brit. Mus. and Camrbr. Thornton Romances. Ed.
Halliwell, J. O. Camden Soc. 1844. Percy Folio MS. Schleich, G., 1906
(Palaestra, 53) also in Herrig's Archiv, XCII. [A story of the son and
mother marriage type, similar to Degarre.]
Sir Ferumbras.  Ed. Herrtage, S. J.   E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. xxxiv. For
Fierabras, see Kr6ber and Servois, Paris, 1860.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ed. Madden, Bannatyne Club, 1839;
Morris, E.E.T.S. Iv. See also Madden and Percy Folio MS, for The
Jeaste of Sir Gawayne, Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, Turke and
Gowin; and see bibliography to Chap. xv.
Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, The Weddynge of. Percy. Ritson. Madden.
Percy Folio MS. Child, Ballads.
Sir Gowther. MSS, Advoc. Edin., and Brit. Mus. Edd. Utterson; Breul, K.,
Oppeln, 1886. Contains a bibliography of the Robert the Devil legend.
See Kaluza, M., in Engl. Stud. xII. A prose version of the Robert the
Devil story will be found in Thors.
Sir Isumbras. Utterson; Halliwell, Thornton Romances, Camden Soc. 30,
1844; Schleich, 1901 (Palaestra, 15); Gerould, G. H., MLA. xx; Zupitza,
in Anglia, I; Herrig's Archiv, LXXXVIII, xc; and Kolbing, E., in Engl.
Stud. III. Cf. the mention of the legend in Cursor Mundi.
Sir Launfal. Ellis, in Way's Fabliaux, 1800; Ritson; Halliwell, Illus. of
the Fairy Myth of a Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare Soc.,
1845; Erling, 1883; Kaluza, in Engl.' Stud. xviII; Schofield, W. H.,
MLA. xv, The Lays of Graelent and Lanval. For Landavall, see MS,
Rawlinson, C 86; Kittredge, G. L., Am. Jrnl. Phil. x, 1889; Zimmermann, R., KEnigsberg, 1900. For Sir Lambewell, see Percy Fol.
MS. See also under Marie de France.
Sir Orfeo. MS, Harl., ed. Ritson. MS, Auch., ed. Laing, 1822; Zielke, O.
Breslau, 1880.  See also Kittredge, G. L., Am. Jrnl. Phil. VII;
Child, I.
Sir Perceval of Galles. Ed. Halliwell, Thornton Romances, Camden Soc.,
1844; Morris, William, 1895.
Sir Triamour. Utterson. Ed. Halliwell, Percy Soc., 1846. Percy Folio MS.
Sir Tristrem. MS, Auch. Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1804; K6lbing, E.,
Die Nordische u. Englische Version der Tristan-sage, 2 vols., Heilbronn,
1878, 1882; McNeill, Scot. Text Soc. 1886; Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet.,
Vol. I, p. 95.
Sowdone of Babylone, and Ferumbras his sone. Roxburghe Club, 1854.
Ed. Hausknecht, E. E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. XXXVIII.
Squire of Low Degree, The. Copland. Ritson. Hazlitt, W. C. Mead, W. E.
Boston, 1904.
Tars, King of. MSS, Auch., Vernon., BM1. Add. 22,283. Ed. Ritson. See
Krause, in Engl. Stud. xi, and Holthausen, F., in Anglia, xv.
Thomas of Erceldoune, 1220-97. Scott, Border Minstrelsy; Jamieson, 1806;
Laing, 1822; Halliwell, Shakespeare Soc., 1845; Child, Romance and
Prophecies of.  Ed. Murray, J. A. H., E.E.T.S. LXI; Brandl, A.,
Berlin, 1880. For foreign versions of the Tristram story see bibliography
to Arthurian chapter, and see also under Sir Tristrem above.
Titus and Vespasian. MS, Add. 10036. See Ward, Catal. Vol. I.
Tolous, Erl of, and the Eirperes of Almayn. Ritson. Liidtke, G. Berlin,
1881.




472


BiZbiography to


Torrent of Portugal. Unique MS in Chetham Lib. Ed. Halliwell, 1842;
Adam, E., E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. LI. See also Zupitza, J., in Engl. Stud. xv.
Troy, Gest Hystoriall of the Destruction of. Ed. Donaldson, D. and Panton,
G. A. E.E.T.S. xxxIX, LVI. (MS, Hunterian Coll. Glasgow.) In alliterative verse. See Luick, K., Anglia, xi. This is one of the many works
that have been ascribed to Huchoun. See Vol. II of present work. For
the Latin of Guido delle Colonne, see the Strassburg vol. of 1494; for the
French, see Joly, A., Benoit de Sainte-More et le Roman de Troie,
2 vols., Paris, 1870-71. Cf. the Latin poem of Joseph of Exeter (Josephus
Iscanus); Sommer's edition of Caxton's Recuyell of the Histories of
Troye, 1894; Berger, H., Lydgate's Troy Book, E.E.T.S. Ex. Ser. XCvII,
ci; the Troy Book from the unique Laud MS., Bodl., ed. Wilfing, J. E.,
E.E.T.S. cxxI, cxxII; Troy Book, in Barbour's Legenden-Sammlung,
Horstmann, 1881. For the French Roman de Thebes, see ed. Constans,
L., Paris, 2 vols., 1890; and for Eneas, see ed. Salvedra De Grave, J.,
Halle, 1891.
Troye, Seege of. Zietsch, A., in Herrig's Archiv, LXXII. Wager, C. A.
New York, 1899. See also Zietsch, A., Uber Quelle u. Spr. des mittelengl.
Gedichts S. of Tr., Gottingen, 1884, and other dissertations mentioned
in Korting, p. 130.
Waldef. For this Anglo-Norman romance, based on an Old English form,
see Schofield, Hist. Eng. Lit. from the Norman Conqueror to Chaucer,
and his Story of Horn and Rimenhild, MLA. xvIII.
William of Palerne, or William and the Werwolf. MS, King's Coll., Cambridge, 13. Ed. Madden, Roxburghe Club, 1832, and Skeat, E.E.T.S. I,
Ex. Ser. A romance belonging to the alliterative revival. See Trautmann, M., Altengl. allit. Gedichte, Halle, 1876; Kaluza, M., Engl. Stud. Iv.
See also Nicholson, Academy, 1893; Kittredge, G, L., Harvard Studies
and Notes, vIII; Paris, G., in Romania, v; Smith, K. F., MLA. ix;
and cf. the Werwolf lai of Biselaveret, by Marie de France.
Ypotis. Horstmann, C. Altenglische Legenden. 1881.
CHAPTER XV
PEARL, CLEANNESS, PATIENCE AND SIR GAWAYNE
Amours, M. Scottish Alliterative Poems. Golagros and Gawayne, Awntyrs
of Arthure, Pistill of Swete Susan, Rauf Coib3ear. Scot. Text. Soc.
1897.
Banks, M. M. Morte Arthur. Ed. Brock, T. E.E.T.S. 1865. Re-edited,
1900.
Bradwardine, T. De Causa Dei. Ed. Savile. 1618.
Brown, C. F. The author of the Pearl, considered in the Light of his
Theological Opinions. MLA. xix.
Brown, J. T. T. Huchown of the Awle Ryale. 1902.
Bruce, J. D. De Ortu n aluuanii. MLA. XIII.
Coulton, G-. G., in MLR. II, i.
Fischer, J. Die stabende Langzeile in den Werken des Gawaindichters.
BBA. xi.




Chapter XV                           473
Fuhrmann, J. Die alliterierenden Sprachformeln in Morris's Early English
Alliterative Poems u. im Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. Hamburg,
1886.
Gollancz, I. Gawayne and the Green Knight. Ed. Morris, Richard. E.E.T.S.
i864. Reprinted with text revised, 1897.
Gringolet, Gawain's Horse. Saga-Book of the Viking Club. 1907.
--  The Parlement of the Thre Ages and Wynnere and Wastoure. Roxburghe Club, 1897.
-   Pearl. Edited, with Modern English Rendering, 1891; revised edition
of text, privately printed, 1897; new edition, with facsimile of MS, 1907.
See also under Ralph Strode, in D. of N. B., Academy, xxxvIII, and under
Neilson, below.
-  Patience, and other alliterative poems, with facsimile of MS.
-     The Quatrefoil of Love (An English Miscellany). Oxford, 1900
Horstmann, C. Altenglische Legenden. Neue Folge. Heilbronn, 1881.
Kuhnke, B. Die allit. Langzeile in der mittelengl. Romanze Sir G. and
the G. K. Berlin, 1900.
McLaughlin, E. T. Studies in Medieval Life and Literature. 1894.
Madden, Sir F. Syr Gawayne. Bannatyne Club, 1839.
Mitchell, S. Weir. Pearl, first half of the poem rendered into Modern
English Verse. New York, 1906.
Morris, Richard. Gawayne and the Green Knight. E.E.T.S. 1864. Reprinted, 1869, 1893; and, with text revised by Gollancz, I., 1897.
-   Early English Alliterative Poems, in the West-Midland Dialect of the
fourteenth century. E.E.T.S. 1864ff.
Neilson, George. Huchown of the Awle Ryale. 1902. See also G. N. in
Trans. Phil. Soc., Glasgow, xxxni; in Scottish Antiquary, xvi; and in
Athenaeum, 1 June, 26 Oct. 1901, 21 June 1902, and discussion with
Gollancz in the same journal, 1903.
Northup, Clark S. Study of the Metrical Structure of The Pearl. MLA. xII.
Osgood, C. G. The Pearl. Belles Lettres Series. [Contains a good bibliography.]
Palgrave, F. T. Landscape in Poetry. 1897.
Panton, G. A. and Donaldson, D. The Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction
of Troy. E.E.T.S. 1869-74.
Paris, Gaston. Hist. Lift. Vol. xxx.
Schofield, W. H. The Nature and Fabric of the Pearl. MLA. Vol. XIx.
Skeat, W. W. The Wars of Alexander. E.E.T.S. 1886.
Steffler, G. Sege of Jerusalem. Marburg, 1891.
Thomas, M. C. Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, etc. Zurich, 1883.
Trautmann, M. In Anglia, i. Der Dichter Huchown u. seine Werke. See
also in TUber Yerfasser u. Entstehungszeit Einiger Allitererender Gedichte
des Altenenglischen. Halle, 1876.
Weston, Jessie L. The Legend of Sir Gawain. 1897.
-- Arthurian Romances unrepresented in Malory. 1898.
See also Kolbing, E., Engl. Stud. xvi; Holthausen; Herrig's Archiv, xc;
Bradley, H., Academy, xxxvIII; Luick, in Anglia, xI.




474                    Bibliography to
CHAPTER XVI
LATER TRANSITION         ENGLISH, I
GENERAL AUTHORITIES.
Brandl's Mittelenglische Lit. in Paul's Grundriss.
Gross, C. Sources and Literature of English History from the Earliest
Times to about 1485. 1900.
Julleville, L. Petit de (ed.). Histoire de la langue et de la Litte'rature
franlgaise des Origines a 1900. Tome i. Paris, 1896.
Ritson, J. Ancient English Metrical Romances. 3 vols. 1802. Ed. Goldsmid, E. Edinburgh, 1884.
Cursor Mundi.
Hupe. Genealogie u. Uberlieferung der MSS des C. M. Erlangen, 1886.
Morris, R. Cursor Mundi. A Northumbrian Poem of the fourteenth century.
In four versions. E.E.T.S. 3 vols. 1874 ff. (Nos. LVII, LIX, LXII, LXVI,
LXVIII, XCIX, CI, with studies by Hupe and Hanisch on the Sources, Text,
Filiation of the MS, Dialect, etc.) See Kaluza, M., in Engl. Stud. xI.
Adam Davy.
Furnivall, F. J. Adam Davy's Five Dreams about Edward II. E.E.T.S.
1878.
Legendaries, HIomilies, etc.
(For the numerous MSS, and for an excellent bibliography of separate
lives and legends of the Saints see Korting's Grundriss.)
Becker, E. Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell. Baltimore, 1899.
St Brendan. For further details of this beautiful legend see Nutt, A. and
Meyer, K., in The Voyage of Bran, 2 vols., Grimm Library, 1895, 1897;
Wright, T., Percy Soc., 1844; M. J. de Goeje's La legende de Saint
Brandan, Leyden, 1890; Fr. Michel, Paris, 1878; Schirmer, Zur Brendanus
Legende, Leipzig, 1888; Zimmer, Brendan's Meerfahrt, ZDA. xxxIII
(N. F. xxI); Benoit's Vie de St Brendan.
Crane, T. F. Medieval Sermon Books and Stories. Amer. Philos. Soc. xxI.
Caxton. The Golden Legend (Jacobus a Voragine's Legenda Aurea). 1483.
Ed. Ellis, F. S. 1900.
Furnivall, F. J. Early English Poems and Lives of Saints. Berlin, 1862.
Gerould, G. H. North Eng. Hom. Lancaster, Pa., 1902.
Henry of Saltrey (fl. 1150). Author of Purgatorium Sancti Patricii. The
popularity of the "descent" motive is evident from the numerous forms
in which it occurs, in English, Latin and French. See Wright's St
Patrick's Purgatory, 1844; also Forbes, A. P., Calendar of Scottish Saints,
Edinburgh, 1872; Krapp, G. P., Legend of St Patrick's Purgatory, Baltimore, 1900, and the French version of Marie de France; Massingham's
Florilegium insulae Sanctorum Hiberniae, Paris, 1624; Matthew Paris's
Chronica Majora; Smith, L. Toulmin, in Engl. Stud. Ix.
Horstmann, C. Altenglische Legenden. Paderborn, 1875. [See contents in
K6rting.]
-   Sammlung Altenglische Legenden. Heilbronn, 1878.
Altenglische Legenden. Neue Folge. Heilbronn, 1881.
- The Early South English Legendary or Lives of the Saints. E.E.T.S.
1887.




Chapter XVI                          475
Horstmann, C. Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, Part i. E.E.T.S. [For a list
of Miracles of Our Lady see p. 138 in the Index to Vernon MS. Other
interesting poems in the Early English Text Society's volume are: The
visions of Seynt Poul wan he was rapt in to paradys, The Pope trental, A
dispitison bitwene a god man and the devel and Castel of Love (cf. The
Myrour of lewed men, in the Appendix to Part i); and, in Part ii: Her
is a disputison bitwene child Jhesu and Maistres of the lawe of Jewus,
A disputison bytwene a cristenemon and a Jew, Proverbes of diverse
profetes and of poetes and of othur seyntes, Her biginneth luytel Caton,
Disputation between Mary and the Cross, Susannah, or Seemly Susan,
Fy on a faint Friend, This World fares as a Fantasy, etc.]
Laing, D. Owain Miles and other inedited fragments of Ancient English
Poetry. Edinburgh, 1837.
Leonard, A. L. Zwei...Geschichten aus der Holle. Zurich, 1891.
Mussafia, A. Studien zu den mittel-ilterlichen Marienlegenden. Sitz. d.
Wiener Akad. der Wissen. Vienna, 1887 ff.
Retzlaff. Untersuchungen fiber den nordenglischen Legendencyclus der
MSS, Harl. 4196 u. Cott. Tib. E. vI. Berlin, 1889.
Small, J. English Metrical Homilies, from MSS of the fourteenth century.
Edinburgh, 1862.
Stevenson, J. Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter. Surtees Society.
2 vols. 1843-4.
Wright, T. Early English Poetry. Percy Soc.
Robert Jlannyng of Brunnee.
Boerner, O. Die Sprache R. M. of B. und ihr Verhaltnis zur neuenglischen
Mundart. Stud. zur eng. Phil. 12. Halle, 1904.
Cowper, J. Meadows. Meditations on the Supper of our Lord, and the
Hours of the Passion, by Cardinal John Bonaventura. Drawn into
English Verse by R. M. of B. E.E.T.S. 1875.
Furnivall, F. J. Robert of Brunne's Handlyng Synne, A.D. 1303. With
those parts of the Anglo-French Treatise on which it was founded,
William of Wadington's Manuel des Pechiez. Re-edited from MSS in
the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries. Part i, 1901; ii, 1903.
(Prev. ed. Roxburghe Club, 1862.)
The Story of England, by R. M. of B. Ed. from MSS at Lambeth
Palace and the Inner Temple. Part II, Rolls Series. 2 vols. 1887. Cf.
Hales, J. W., in Snell's Age of Chaucer, p. xlvi, 1901.
Hearne, T. Peter Langtoft's Chronicle (as Illustrated and Improved by
Robert of Brunne). From the death of Cadwalader to the end of King
Edward I's reign. 2 vols. Oxford, 1725.
Hellmers, G. Ueber die Sprache R. M. of B., und fiber die autorschaft der
ihm zu geschriebenen " Meditations on the Supper of our Lord." Go-tingen, 1885.
Preussner, 0. R. MI. of B.'s Uebersetzung von Pierre de Langtoft's Chronicle,
und ihr Verhaltniss zum Originale. Breslau, 1891.
Thiimmig, A. Uber die Altenglischen Ubesetzung der Reimchronik Peter
Langtofts durch R. M. v. B. Anglia, xiv.
Zetsche, A. W. Ueber den ersten Theil der Bearbeitung des " Roman de
Brut" des Wace, durch R. I. of B. Reudnitz. Leipzig, 1887.
Dan iichel's Ayenbite of Inwyt.
Evers, R. W. Beitrige zur Erklarung und Text Kritik von D. M.'s A. of I.
Erlangen, 1888.
Konrath, )T. Die Lateinische Quelle zu A. of I. Eng. Stud. xII, 259.




476                    Bibliography to
Meyer, Paul. Notice sur le Manuscrit 27 de la Bibliotheque d'Alengon
(Somme le Roi). Bulletin de la Soci6te des Anciens Textes Francais,
No. 2. Paris, 1892.
Morris, R. D. M.'s A. of I., or Remorse of Conscience, in the Kentish
Dialect, with an Introduction on the Peculiarities of the Southern
Dialect. E.E.T.S. 1866.
Petersen, Kate 0. The Sources of the Parson's Tale. Radcliffe College
Monographs. No. 12. Camnb. Mass., 1901.
Stevenson, J. The A. of I. Roxburghe Club. 1855.
Varnhagen, H. Beitrige zur Erklrung und Textkritik von D. M.'s A. of I.
Engl. Stud. I, 397; II, 27.
Laurence Minot.
Hall, Joseph. Minot, Laurence, The Poems of. Oxford, 1887,1897.
Ritson. Poems on Interesting Events in the Reign of King Edward III.
Written in the Year M.C.C.C.LII by L. M. 1795, 1825.
Scholle, W. Minot, Laurence. Leider. Mit Grammatisch-Metrischer Einleitung. Strassburg. QF. LII.
Wright, T. Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History Composed during the Period From the Accession of Edward III to that of
Richard II. Rolls Series. 1859.
Robert of Gloucester.
Brossmann, K. Ueber die Quellen Mittelenglischen Chronik des R. v. OG.
Breslau, 1887.
Ellmer, W. Ueber die Quellen der Reim Chronik R. v. G. Halle, 1886.
Strohmeyer, H. Der Stil der Mittelenglischen Reim-Chronik R. v. G.
Berlin, 1891.
Wright, W. A. The Metrical Chronicle of R. of G. Rolls Series. 2 vols.
1887. See also ed. Hearne, T., Oxford, 1724; and Anglia, xiii; Archiv
f. d. stud. d. neueren Spr. u. Lit. LXXXVII.
William of Shoreham.
Konrath, M. The Poems of William of Shoreham. Re-edited from the
unique MS in the British Museum. E.E.T.S. Part I. 1902.
Wright, T. The Religious Poems of William of Shoreham. Percy Soc.
1849.
CHAPTER XVII
LATER TRANSITION         ENGLISH, II
A few works on the social and political history of England during the
Middle Ages are included in the bibliography to this chapter and in the
bibliography to the chapter on Piers the Plowman in the next volume. Further
writings will be found mentioned in the chapter in  ol. II on fugitive and
social literature to the close of the Middle Ages.
Ashley, W. J. Edward III and his Wars, 1327-60. English History from
Contemp. Writers. 1887.




Chapter XVII                           477
Ball, John. See Walsingham's Historia Anglicana and Knighton's Compilatio de eventibus Angliae in Twysden's Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores
Decem; Green, J. R., Short History, 1884, pp. 243-4; Morris, W., A
Dream of John Ball, 1888.
Bateson, Mary. 3Medieval England, 1066-1350. 1905.
Barnard, F. P. Companion to English History (Middle Ages). 1902.
Bartsch, K. and Koschwitz, E. Chrestomathie Provencale (xe-xe siecles).
2 vols. 6th ed. 1903 ff.
Bedier, J. Les Fabliaux. Paris, 1893.
Blaauw, W. H. The Barons' Wars (Lewes and Evesham       Battles). Ed.
Pearson, C. H. 1844-71.
Boddeker, K. Altenglische Dichtungen des MS Harl. 2253. Berlin, 1878.
Brunetiere, F. Les Fabliaux du moyen age, in the Revue des Deux Mondes.
1 Sept. 1893.
Chambers, E. K. and Sidgwick, F. Early English Lyrics, 1907. [Contains a
useful list of MSS and books.]
Chevalier, C. U. J. R6pert. des sources hist. du moyen age, bio-bibliog.
1877 ff.
Courthope, W. J. Hist. Eng. Poetry. See chapters on The Character and
Sources of Medieval Poetry, and the Progress of Allegory in English
Poetry.
Crane, T. F. Medieval Sermon-books and stories. Proc. Amer. Philos.
Soc. xx,.
Creighton, C. A History of Epidemics in Britain. Cambridge. 1892.
Cunningham, W. The Growth of English Industry and Commerce during
the Early and Middle Ages. Cambridge, 1905.
Davenport, F. G. A Classified List of Printed Original Materials for English
Manorial and Agrarian History during the Middle Ages. Radcliffe
College Monographs, No. 6.
Duff, E.. King Salomon and Marcolf. 1892.
Fabyan, R. New Chronicles of England and France. Pynson, 1516. Ed.
Ellis, 1811. (For Bannockburn songs, etc.)
Freeman's Norman Conquest. Vol. Iv (on Hereward).
Furnivall, F. J. Early English Poems. Berlin, 1862. For The Land of
Cokaygne, etc. MS Harl. 913. See also Hickes' Thesaurus, and cf.
L'Ordre de Bel Aise in Wright's Political Songs, Camden Soc., 1839.
Furnivall, F. J. and Horstmann, C. Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.
E.E.T.S. 1892,1901.
Garnier, R.M. M Annals of the Peasantry. 1895.
Gasquet, F..    The Great Pestilence. 1894.
Gesta Romanorum. Printed first at Utrecht, then at Cologne, c. 1472-5.
First English edition printed by Wynkyn de Worde, c. 1510-5. For
a full discussion of the different MSS used, the sources of the groups, etc.,
see the indispensable edition of Oesterley, H., Berlin, 1872. The following
editions may also be mentioned, of which the first is of most importance
for our purposes: Herrtage, S. J. H., Early English Versions of Gesta
Romanorum, E.E.T.S., 1899; Madden, F., in Roxburghe Club, 1838;
Swan, C. (Trans.), 1824-1906; Warton's History of English Poetry,
Dissert. iii.
Guillaume le Marechal, L'Histoire de. A French rimed life of the Regent of
England during the minority of Henry III. Ed. Meyer, P., 1891-1902.
[A work of much value for the social history of the times.]
Hazlitt, W. C. Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England. 4 vols.
1864-6. (Tournament of Tottenham, etc.)
Hendyng, Proverbs of. See Wright and Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae;
Kemble, J., Salomon and Saturnus, 1848; Varnhagen, in Anglia, IT, etc.




478                    Bibliography to
Hereward. For fuller (legendary) details concerning this interesting outlaw
see Gesta Herewardi Saxonis,in F. Michel's Chroniques Anglo-Normandes,
Rouen, 1836 ff., and in T. Wright's Caxton Soc. edition of Gaimar's
Estorie des Engles, and, of course, Kingsley's Hereward the Wake.
Hervieux, L. Fabulistes Latins. 1893-4.
Horstmann, C. Altenglisehe Legenden. Paderborn, 1875; Heilbronn, 1878,
1881. (For legends of the Childhood of Jesus, etc.)
Hutton, W. H. The Misrule of Henry III and Simon de Montfort. 2 vols.
English History from Contemporary Writers.
Jacobs, J. Jewish Ideals, 1896, etc. Berachyah Nakden may be mentioned
here as a fabulist, and tales against the Jews will be found in the Vernon
MS. Chaucer's tale of the schoolboy who sings the Alma Redemptoris
Mater is too well known to call for further comment.
Jataka. 6 vols. Trans. Cowell, Rouse, etc. Cambridge, in progress.
Jehan le Bel. Histoire vraye et notable des nouvelles guerres et choses
avenues l'an mil cccxxvi jusques a l'an LXJ en France, en Angleterre en
Escoce, en Bretaigne et ailleurs, et principalement des haults faitz du
roy Edowart d'Angleterre et des deux roys Philippe et Jehan de France.
A contemporary record of Edward's Scotch Wars. Ed. Polain, L.
Brussels, 1863.
Jewish writers. On the indebtedness of letters to the Jew in the Middle
Ages, and their part in the social life of the community, see Snell, F. J.,
The Fourteenth Century, p. 420; Jacobs, J. and Wolf, L., Bibliotheca
Anglo-Judaica, 1889; Jacobs, J., The Jews of Angevin England, 1893,
Eng. Hist. from Contemp. Writers Series; Steinschneider, Die hebriischen Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters, Berlin, 1893.
Joly, A. Marie de France et les Fables au moyen age. Caen, 1863.
Jusserand, J. J. English Wayfaring Life in the fourteenth cent. Eng.
trans. 1887-9.
Kingsford, C. L. The Song of Lewes. Oxford, 1890.
Laing, David. Poems from Auchinleck MS. Abbotsford Club Pub. (A
Penniworth of Witte, etc.) 1857. See also Kolbing, E., Engl. Stud. viI.
Langtoft, Peter of, Augustinian Canon of Bridlington (d. 1307?). Author
of the popular Chronicle, written in Yorkshire French, based on Geoffrey
of Monmouth, and of value as a contemporary account of the Scotch
wars. Ed. Wright, T. Rolls Series. 2 vols. 1866-8. See also, ante,
Robert Mannyng of Brunne.
Miitzner, E. Altenglische Sprachproben. Berlin, 1867. (For Dame Siriz,
Land of Cokaygne, Fox and Wolf, etc., etc.) See also his Altfranz.,
Lieder, 1853.
Mannhardt, W. Wald- und Feldkulte. Berlin, 1877.
Maurice, C. E. Lives of English Popular Leaders in the Middle Ages
(Langton, Tyler, Ball, etc.). 1872-5.
Meril, E. du. Poesie pop. lat. ant. au xIJe siecle and du moyen age. 1843.
Meyer, P. Melanges de Po6sie Anglo-Normande. Romania, iv. 1875.
R ecueil d'Anciens Textes Bas-Latins, Provencaux et Fr. 1874 ff.
Milman, H H. Latin Christianity. 1854 ff.
Montaiglon, A. de, and Raynaud, G. Reeneil g6n6ral et complet des fabliaux
des xIIe et xve siecles. 6 vols. Paris, 1872 ff.
Odo of Cheriton. See Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, 1807, and Hervieux, above.
Paris, G. Les Contes orientaux dans la litt. fr. au moyen age. Paris, 1895.
Paris, P. Chansonniers in Hist. Litt., xxIII. 1856.
Paterson, W. Romaine. The Nemesis of Nations. 1906.
Pearson, C. H. Historical Maps of England (on social and political conditions
of the Middle Ages, etc.). 1867 ff.




Chapter XVII                           479
Percy, T. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. 1765 ff.
Petrus Alphonsus. Disciplina Clericalis. See Wright's Latin Stories and
Ellis's Metrical Romances.
Pilkington, Gilbert.  See W. Bedwell's edition of The Turnament of
Tottenham, or the wooing, winning, and wedding of Tibbe, etc., 1631,
and T. Wright's, 1836.
Prothero, G. W. Simon de Montfort. 1877.
Raynaud, G. Bibliographie des Chansonniers Fr. des xIIIe et xiv~ siecles. 1884.
Reville, A., and Petit-Dutaillis, C. Le Soulevement des Travailleurs d'Angleterre en 1381. Paris, 1898. See also Eng. Hist. Rev., July, 1898, and
Powell's Rising in East Anglia, Cambridge, 1896.
Reynard the Fox. Printed by Caxton, 1481: ed. Arber, 1880; Goldsmid,
1884; Thoms, W. J., Percy Soc., 1844; Ellis, F. S., The History of
Reynard the Fox... turned into English Verse, 1897; Grimm, J.,
Reinhart Fuchs, Berlin, 1834; Jacobs, J., Reynard the Foxe, 1893;
Martin, E., Le Roman de Renart, Strassburg, 1882ff.; Paris, G., Le
Roman de Renard, Paris, 1895; Petit de Julleville, Hist. de la Lang.
et de la Litt. fr., Tome II, moyen age; Sudre, L., on Les Fables et le
Roman du Renard; Bedier, J., on Les Fabliaux; and the bibliographies
attached; Potvin, Ch., Le Roman du Renard... precede d'une introd.
et d'une bibl., Bruxelles, 1861. See also Coll. des 6pop6es nat. le roman
du Renard, Paris, 1891; Sudre, L., Les Sources du Roman de Renart,
Paris, 1893.
Ritson, J. and Hazlitt, W. C. Ancient Songs from the Time of King
Henry III to the Revolution. 5 vols. 1790-1877.
Schluter, A. On MS Harl. 2253. Archiv, LXXI.
Schmeller, J. A. Carmina Burana. Stuttgart, 1847 if.
Seebohm, F. The Black Death. Fortnightly Review. 1865.
Smith, Lucy Toulmin, and Meyer, P. Les Contes moralists de Nicole Bozon.
Paris, 1889.
Snell, F. J. The Fourteenth Century. Periods of European Literature. 1899.
Stubbs, W. Constitutional History of England. Oxford, 1874 ff.
Symonds, J. A. Wine, Women and Song: Medieval Latin Students' Songs
now first trans. into English verse, with an essay. 1907.
Ten Brink, B. Hist. Eng. Lit. Vol. i.
Traill, H. D. Social England. Vols. i, fI.
Voigt, E. Isengrimus. Halle, 1884. See also Kleinere lateinische Denkmiler
der Thiersage, Strassburg, 1878.
Wallon, M. Richard II. Paris, 1864.
Warton, T. Hist. Eng. Poetry. ~~ i, II.
Wattenbach, W. Latin Songs of the Middle Ages. ZDA. xv.
Wright, T. Anecdota Literaria; a collection of short poems in English,
Latin and French, illustrative of the literature and history of England
in the thirteenth century, and more especially of the condition and
manners of the different classes of society. 1844. (For Dame Siriz, MS
Bodl. Digby 86; etc.)
- Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the twelfth century.
Rolls Series. 2 vols. 1892.
- History of Domestic Manners during the Middle Ages. 1862, 1864.
- Essays on the Literature, Superstitions and History of England during
the Middle Ages.
A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art. 1865.
-    Latin Stories from MSS of the xIIIth and xIvth centuries. A contribution to the history of fiction. Percy Soc. 1842.
--  Political Songs of England from the Reign of John to Edward II.
Camden Society. 1839.




480


Bibliography to


Wright, T. Specimens of Lyric Poetry composed in England in the Reign
of Edward I. Percy Soc. 1842.
-    Turnament of Totenham and the Feest. Printed from Camb. Univ.
Lib. MS. 1836.
Wright, T. and Halliwell, J. 0. Reliquiae Antiquae. 2 vols. 1841-3. [A
valuable collection of early verses. Contains The Vox and the Wolf,
MS Bodl. Digby 86; Proverbs of Hendyng; etc.]
CHAPTER XVIII
THE PROSODY OF OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH
Deutschbein, M. Zur Entwicklung des engl. Alliterations Verses. Halle,
1902.
Guest, E. A. History of English Rhythms from the fifteenth century
Downwards. 1838. 2 vols., and ed. Skeat, W. W., 1882.
Kluge, F. Zur Gesch. des Reimes in Altgerm. P. and B.'s Beitr. Ix.
Lewis, C. M. The foreign sources of modern English versification. Berlin,
1898.
Luick, K. and Schipper, J. In Paul's Grundriss, ~ Ix. Strassburg.
Mayor, J. B. A Handbook of Modern English Metre. [Does not treat,
otherwise than incidentally, of metre before Henry VIII.] Cambridge,
1903.
-   Chapters on English Metre. 2nd ed. Cambridge, 1901.
Mone, F. J. Hymni Latini Medii Aevi. 3 vols. 1853 if.
Omond, T. S. English Metrists. Tunbridge Wells, 1903.
Pilch, L. Umwandlung des Altenglischen Alliterationsverses in den mittelenglischen Reimvers. Konigsberg, 1904.
Rieger, M. Die alt- und ags. Verskunst. ZDPhil. vii.
Saintsbury, G. A History of English Prosody, from the twelfth century
to the present day. Vol. i. 1906.
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory. 1897. [See esp.
the chapters on The Function of Latin, and the Making of English,
for a discussion of the influence of the medieval hymns of the 12th and
13th centuries on the prosody of the vernacular.]
Schipper, J. Englische Metrik. Bonn, 1881 ff.
-     Grundriss der Engl. Metrik. Vienna and Leipzig, 1895.
Sievers, E. In Paul and Braune's Beitr. x, xii, xmii, xv, and in Paul's
Grundriss, Ix.
Vetter, F. Zum Muspilli u. z. germ. Alliterationspoesie. Vienna, 1872.
A. R. W.
CHAPTER XIX
CHANGES IN THE LANGUAGE TO THE
DAYS OF CHAUCER
I. OLD ENGLISH.
Bosworth, Joseph, and Toller, T. N. Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. In 4 vols.
Oxford, 1882-98.
Bright, J. W. An Outline of Anglo-Saxon Grammar. 1895.




Chapter XIX                           481
Bilbring, K. D. Altenglisches Elementarbuch. Part I. Lautlehre. Heidelberg, 1902.
Cook, A. S. A First Book in Old English. Third edition. 1903.
-     A Glossary of the Old Northumbrian Gospels. Halle, 1894.
Cosijn, P. J. Altwestsichsische Grammatik. 2 vols. Haag, 1883-6.
Grein, C. W. M1. Sprachschatz der Angelsachsischen Dichter.   2 vols.
Cassel, 1861-4.
Hall, J. R. Clark. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. 1895.
Mayhew, A. L. Synopsis of Old English Phonology. Oxford, 1891.
Napier, A. S. Old English Glosses. Oxford, 1900.
Pogatscher, A.  Zur Lautlehre der Griechischen und Lateinischen und
Romanischen Lehnwrrter im Altenglischen. Strassburg, 1888.
Sievers, Eduard. Angelsichsische Grammatik. Third edition. Halle, 1898.
Sweet, Henry. An Anglo-Saxon Reader. Seventh edition. Oxford.
-The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon. Oxford, 1897.
II. MIDDLE ENGLISH.
Bjorkman, E. Scandinavian Loan-words in Middle English. Part I. Halle,
1900.
Brate, E. Nordische Lehnworter im Ormulum. Halle, 1884.
Emerson, O. F. A Middle-English Reader. 1905.
Kaluza, M.   Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache. 2nd ed.
Part II. Berlin, 1906.
Matzner, E. Altenglisehe Sprachproben. Vol. II. W6rterbuch. Berlin,
1878 ff. [In progress.]
Morris, R. and Skeat, W. W. Specimens of Early English. Part I, A.D.
1150-A.D. 1300. 2nd ed. Part II, A.D. 1298-A.D. 1393. 4th ed. Oxford,
1884-1900.
Morsbach, L. Mittelenglische Grammatik. Part i. Halle, 1896.
Stratmann, F. A Middle-English Dictionary. New Edition, revised, enlarged, and re-arranged by Henry Bradley. Oxford, 1891.
Ten Brink, B. Chaucer's Sprache und Yerskunst. Second edition by Kluge, F.
Leipzig, 1899. English translation: The Language and Metre of Chaucer.
Translated by Smith, M. Bentinck. 1901.
III. GENERAL HISTORY OF ENGLISH.
Bradley, H. The Making of English. 1904.
Emerson, 0. F. The History of the English Language. New York and
London, 1894.
Jespersen, O. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Leipzig,
1906.
Kellner, L. Historical Outlines of English Syntax. 1892.
Koch, C. F. Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache. 3 vols.
Cassel, 1863 and later years.
Matzner, E. Englische Grammatik. 3 parts. Berlin, 1860 and later years.
Kluge, F. Geschichte der Englischen Sprache, in H. Paul's Grundriss der
Germanischen Philologie, Vol. I. 2nd ed. Strassburg, 1898.
Lounsbury, T. R. The History of the English Language. New York, 1901.
Morris, R. Historical Outlines of English Accidence. Revised by L. Kellner,
with the assistance of H. Bradley. 1895.
Murray, J. A. H., Bradley, H. and Craigie, W. A. A New English Dictionary
on Historical Principles. Oxford, 1884-1907. [In progress.]


E. L. I.


31




482        Bibliography to Chapter XIX
Skeat, W. W. Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language.
New ed., re-written and re-arranged. Oxford, 1901.
-   Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 3rd ed. Oxford.
--  Notes on English Etymology. Oxford, 1901.
-   Principles of English Etymology. 2 vols. Oxford, 1887-91.
Storm, J. Englische Philologie. Leipzig, 1881 if.
Sweet, Henry. A New English Grammar, Logical and Historical. 2 vols.
Oxford, 1892-8.
A History of English Sounds from the Earliest Period. Oxford, 1888.
Toller, T. N. Outlines of the History of the English Language. Cambridge,
1900.
Webster, N. International Dictionary of the English Language.  Ed.
Porter, N.
Wyld, H. C. Historical Study of the Mother Tongue. 1907.
[See also Keogh, A., Some general bibliographical works for the students
of English, Yale, 1901.]
IV. PERIODICALS, ETC.
Anglia, Halle, 1874 if.; Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen und
Litteraturen, Berlin, 1879ff.; Beitrage zur Geschichte der Deutschen
Sprache und Litteratur, Halle, 1874 ff.; Englische Studien, Leipzig,
1877 if.; Journal of Germanic Philology, Bloomington, Indiana, 1897 ff.;
Literaturblatt fir Germanische und Romanische Philologie, Leipzig,
1879 ff.; Modern Language Notes, Baltimore, 1886 ff.; Modern Language Quarterly, 1897; Modern Language Review, Cambridge, 1905 ff.;
Modern Quarterly of Language and Literature, 1898-1904; Modern
Philology, Chicago, 1903 ff.; Philological Society, Transactions, 1842 ff.;
Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature (Harvard), Boston,
1892 if.; Yale Studies in English, 1898 if.




TABLE OF DATES


4th to 6th cent. North Sea Migrations.
373-463 St Patrick.
449 English Invasion of Britain.
c 470-525 Boithius.
516?-570? Gildas.
516? Battle of Mount Badon.
537 Battle of Camlan "in which
Arthur and Medraut fell."
563 St Columba at Iona.
570-632 Mohammad.
590-604 Papacy of St Gregory the
Great.
597 St Augustine's mission to Kent.
628?-690 Benedict Biscop.
630?-679 St Etheldreda (founded
monastic house at Ely, 673).
633 The Koran collected.
635 St Aidan sets forth for Lindisfarne (d. 653).
640?-709 Aldhelm.
664 Synod of Whitby.
668 Comingof abp Theodore (d. 690)
and abbot Hadrian to Canterbury.
669 St Wilfrid as bp at York.
673-735 Bede.
679-800 Historia Brittonumn (rev.
by Nennius).
684 St Cuthbert, bp of Lindisfarne
(d. 687).
c 700 Lindisfarne Gospels.
701 Establishment of the festival of
the exaltation of the cross.
732 Egbert abp of York (d. 766).
735-804 Alcuin.
742-814 Charlesthe Great (at Roncevaux, 778).
781-809 Caliphate of Haroun arRashid.
787 Danish irruptions begin.
c 825 The Heliand.
849-901? Alfred (in Rome, 853).
f1 850 John Scotus Erigena.
f 881 Otfried.
886-911 Normans besiege Paris and
take Rouen.


908?-984 St Aethelwold (bishop of
Winchester, 963).
918? Death of Aethelflaed, the lady
of Mercia.
924-988 St Dunstan (abbot of Glastonbury c 945).
937 Battle of Brunanburh.
954-1012 Aelfeah (St Alphege).
991 Battle of Maldon.
994?-1035 Canute (king, 1017).
fl 1000 Byrhtferth.
1000-1100  Chanson de Roland.
fl1006 Aelfric.
1043 King Edward the Confessor
(d. 1066).
1066 Battle of Hastings.
1070 Lanfranc, abp of Canterbury
(d. 1089).
1070 Hereward's rising at Ely.
fl 1071-1115 Peter the Hermit.
1079-1142 Abelard.
1086 Domesday Survey ended.
1087-1100 King William Rufus.
1091-1153 Bernard of Clairvaux.
1093 St Anselm, abp of Canterbury
(d. 1109).
12th cent. ff. Miracle plays.
1100-1135 King Henry I.
1100 Henry's Charter of Liberties.
1100-1164 Peter Lombard.
1100?-1154 Geoffrey of Monmouth.
1119 P. de Thaun's Comput.
c 1130 P. de Thaun's Bestiaire.
1135-1154 King Stephen.
1135-1204 Maimonides.
ft 1141-1143 Robert de Retines.
1143? Death of William of Malmesbury.
1146?-1220? Giraldus Cambrensis.
1147 Death of Robert Earl of Gloucester.
c 1148 Gaimar's History.
1126?-1198 Averrois.
c 1150 Nibelungenlied.
1154-1189 King Henry 1I.
31-2




484


Table of Dates


1157-1217 Alexander Neckam.
fl 1160-1180 Chr6tien de Troyes.
1162 St Thomas a Becket, abp of
Canterbury (murdered, 1170).
f 1165 f. Benoit de Ste More.
c 1167 Canute Song.
fl -169-1175 Peter Coimestor.
ft 1170 Wace.
1175?-1234? Michael Scot.
1179-1241 Snorri Sturlason.
fl 1180 Marie de France.
1180 Death of John of Salisbury.
c 1185 Hue de Roteland.
1189-1199 King Richard Coeur de
Lion.
fl 1189-1220 Hartmann v. Aue.
fl 1190 Joseph of Exeter.
fl 1190 Nigel Wireker.
1193-1280 Albertus Magnus.
1198 Death of Richard Fitz-Neale.
1199-1216 King John.
fl 1200 Layamon.
f 1200 Walter Map.
ft 1200? Orm.
fl 1200 Saxo Grammaticus.
1200-1225 Ancren RiwZle.
f1203-1217 Wolfram von Eschenbach.
1204 Loss of French provinces.
fl 1206 Walther von der Vogelweide.
fl 1210 Gottfried von Strassburg.
c 1213 Yillehardouin; Conquete de
Constantinople.
1214?-1294 Roger Bacon.
1215 Great Charter.
1216-1272 King Henry III.
c 1220  Owl and Nightingale.
c 1220  Queste del St Graal.
c 1240  Grand St Graal.
1221 Dominicans at Oxford.
c 1250 The Flemish recension of
Roman de Renart.
1221-1274. St Bonaventura.
1224 Franciscans at Oxford and
Cambridge.
c 1226-1274 St Thomas Aquinas.
1230?-1294? Brunetto Latini.
fl1230-1250 Bartholomaeus Anglicus.
1230?-1298 Jacobus a Voragine.
1236 Marriage of Henry to Eleanor
of Provence.
c 1237 Romance of the Rose,William
of Lorris, continued (c1278) by
John Clopinel of Meun.


c 1240 Thomas de Hales; Luve Ron.
1245 Death of Alexander of Hales.
1247 Death of Odo of Cheriton.
c 1250 Dies Irae.
c 1250  Genesis and Exodus.
1253 Death of Robert Grosseteste.
1259 Death of Matthew Paris.
1265?-1308? John Scotus Duns.
1265-1321 Dante.
1264-5 Battles of Lewes and Evesham,
Simon de Montfort.
1268 Death of Henry de Bracton.
fl 1270-1287  Guido delle Colonne.
1272-1307. King Edward I.
1272?-1305 Sir William Wallace.
1274 Dominicans at Cambridge.
ft 1288-1338 Robert Mannyng of
Brunne.
1290?-1349 Richard Rolle of Hampole.
1290?-1349 Thomas Bradwardine.
c 1300 Robert of Gloucester.
c 1300  Cursor Mlundi.
1300-1325 Auchinleck MS.
1300?-1352? Laurence Minot.
1304-1374 Petrarch.
1305-1377 The Popes at Avignon.
1307-1327  King Edward II.
c 1310 Lyrics of the Harleian MS.
1313-1375 Boccaccio.
1314 Battle of Bannockburn.
1316?-1395 John Barbour.
1326-1412 John Trevisa.
1327-1377 King Edward III.
1325?-1408 John Gower.
c 1337-1410? Froissart.
1340?-1400  Geoffrey Chaucer.
c 1340  Tale of Gamelyn.
1346 Battle of Cr6cy.
1349, 1361, 1369 The Black Death.
1349? Death of William Ockham.
c 1350 The Alliterative Revival.
1351 Statute of Labourers.
fl 1350 The author of Sir Gawayne
and the Grene Knight, etc.
1362 ff. Piers Plowman.
1363-1429  Jean Gerson.
1364 Death of Ranulf Higden.
1372 Death of (?) John Mandeville.
1377-1399. King Richard II.
1378 Beginning of the Great Schism.
1379-1471 Thomas a Kempis.
1381 Peasants' Revolt: Wat Tyler,
John Ball.
1384 Death of John Wyclif.




ERRATA
p. 52 line 18 for Azarias read Andreas
p. 341 lines 8 ff. for Handlynge read Handlyng
p. 472 Bibliography to Chapters xIII and xiv should be signed ' W. P. K.
and A. R. W.'








INDEX OF NAMES
[Ff. after an entry implies that there are references to the same subject on at least
two immediately succeeding pages.]


Abbo of Fleury, 120, 121, 131
Abel, 30, 74
Abelard, 183, 184, 191, 216
Abgarus, legend of, 120
Abingdon, 113, 114.   See also under
Aethelwold
Abingdon Chronicle, 109, 110, 112. See
also under Chronicle
Abraham, 46
Acca, Bede's letters to, 80
Acircius, Aldhelm's letter to, 76
Acts of the Apostles, Graeco-Latin copy
at Oxford, 72
Adam, 134, 353
du Petit Pont, 185
-  Spencer, 298
Adam, Book of, 133
Bell, 300
Adamnan (625?-704), 82, 96, 433
Adelard or Aethelard of Bath (12th century), De Eodem et Diverso, etc., 153
Ado of Vienne, 81
Adoptionist controversy, 84
Adrianus and Ritheus, 218
Adso, Libellus de Antichristo, 343
Aelfihah (St Alphege) (954-1012), 109,
127, 139, 153
Aelfhere, 138
Aelfnoth, 144
Aelfric (fl. 1006), 86, 96, 107, 113 ff., 131,
133, 136, 142, 143, 148, 150, 218, 221,
224, 369
Aelfwine (Alboin), in Widsith, 35
-      in The Battle of Maldon, 144
Aeneid, 258, 284, 285
Aeschere, in Beozuulf, 23
-  in The Battle of Maldon, 145
Aesop, 106, 355
Aethelard. See Adelard
Aethelbriht, laws of, 98
Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia (d. 918?),
110, 141, 143
Aethelmaer, 125, 143
Aethelney, 89
Aethelred, the ealdorman, 104
king of Mercia, 11, 112, 127, 129,
130, 145
Aethelstan (895-940), 62,108, 123,137, 305
-     abbot of Abingdon, 110
Aethelweard, the ealdorman, 120, 122, 123
--    the chronicler (d. 998?), 443


Aethelwold or Ethelwold, St (908?-984),
13, 16, 113, 114, 117, 118, 121, 125,
127, 148
Aethelwold in Havelok, 303, 351
Aethelwulf, 104
Aethilwald or Ethelbald, 78
JEpred's ring, 11
Agape, St, 74
Agatha, St, 74
Agnellus, friar, 203
Agnes, St, 74
Aidan (d. 651), 42, 82, 121, 148
Ailred or Ethelred of Rievaulx (1109?1166), 161, 230, 337
Alain de Lille (1114-1203), Anti-Claudianus and De Planctu Naturae, 193, 256
Alban, St, Passion of, 81
Alberic, master, 184
Albert of York, 84
Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), 200, 210,
211
Albin, St, in Layamon, 234
Albinus of Canterbury, 82
Alboin, in Widsith, 35
Alcestis, 321
Alchfrith, 12
Alcimus Avitus, 76
Alcuin or Ealhwine (735-804), 5, 59, 79,
84 ff., 89, 117, 121, 145, 153
Aldfrith, 76, 77
Aldhelm (640?-709), 15, 17, 60, 61, 72 if.,
82; 83, 86, 91, 102, 230
Aldred, 132
Alexander III, king, 283
of Blois, 166, 167
-    of Hales (d. 1245), 199 ff., 205,
207
-  of Lincoln, 156, 169, 258
the Great, Wars and Romances of,
135, 148, 169, 279, 285, 286, 291, 307,
308, 333, 334, 342, 466. See also Alisaunder
Alexander, Sir Gilbert Hay's, 291
-      to Aristotle, Letter from, 135
Alexius, St, 293, 356
Alfred (849-901?), 19, 84, 87 ff., 109, 113,
115, 123, 128, 136, 144, 150, 198, 219,
239, 363, 380 ff., 446; Falconry attributed to, 106
aetheling, 139, 374
of Beverley, 262




486


Index of Names


Alfred, Proverbs of, 218
Ali, 26, 27
Alisaunder, King, 288, 306, 308,309, 317,
356, 399
Alliterative revival, 291
Almaigne, Song against the King of, 368
Alphabet, Irish and Roman, 13
Alphege, St. See Aelfheah
Alphere, in Waltharius, 32
Altus prosator, 69
Amadas and Ydoine, 286
-   Sir, 293, 294
Ambrose, 59, 74, 75
Ambrosius Aurelianus, Aurelius Ambrosius (G. of M.), Embreis Guletic
(Nennius), Emrys Wledig in Welsh lit.,
66, 247, 268
Amis and Amiloun, 314, 315
Amlethus (Hamlet) in Saxo Grammaticus,
9. See also under Hamlet
Ammianus Marcellinus, 35
Amos, hermit, 74
An Bispel, 227, 228
Anatolia, St, 74, 75
Ancren Riwle, 222, 230, 234, 398, 400,459
Andreas, 51 ff., 58, 143
'Av^p&ov Kal MarOaiov, Ilpdeies, 54
Andrew of Wyntoun, Orygynale Cronykil,
333
-    St, 54, 115. See also Andreas
Aneirin (fl. 603?), 248, 249
Anlaf, 109, 144, 305
Cuaran, 287
Annie of Lochryan, 300
Anselm, St (1033-1109), 16, 128, 149,
151, 154, 162, 163, 186, 217, 222, 224,
228, 231, 234, 355
Antony, Life of, Athanasius's, 75
Antwerp, Plantin Museum at, 72
Apollonius, hermit, 74
Apollonius of Tyre, 135, 151
Apuleius (Herbarium), 135
Aquinas, St Thomas, 200, 210 ff.
Arabian learning, 153
Arabian Nights, 286
Arator, 76
Architecture, Anglo-Norman, 155, 222, 223
Architrenius, or Arch-Mourner, of Jean
de Hauteville, 193
Archytas, 279
Ardens, Radulphus, 221
Argante, in Layamon's Brut, 235, 236,
265, 266
Aristotle and Aristotelianism, 153, 185,
187, 200, 204, 205, 210, 212, 213;
Ethics, 204, 213; History of Animals,
199; Letter from Alexander to, 135;
Metaphysics, 201; Organon, 187, 207;
Physics, 201, 204, 211, 212; Politics,
213
Arley Regis, Worcester, 234
Arminius, 20
Armorican Bretons, 256
Arnold, Matthew, on Celtic Literature,
249, 251, 254, 274, 275
-       Thomas, on Henry of Huntingdon, 167


Arthour and Merlin, 269, 317, 399, 467
Arthur and the Arthurian legend, 70, 133,
148, 158, 169, 170, 177, 198, 223, 235 ff.,
243 ff., 279, 284, 286, 296, 309, 311 ff.,
326, 336, 342, 350, 351. See also under
the separate titles of the Arthurian
romances, Wace, Layamon, etc.
Arthur, Death of, 190. See also under
Morte
Arthurian ballads, 464
Arundel, the horse in Sir Beves, 292
Arviragus, in Layamon's Brut, 237
As You Like It, 298
Ascapart the giant, Sir Beves, 293, 343
Ascolot, Maid of, 313
Asser (d. 909?), 89 ff., 101, 105
Assisi, 200, 210, 364
Assmann, 124
Assumptio Mariae, 232
Asthall, 126
Athanasius, 74, 75
Athelston, 287, 467
A8ils, King of the Svear, 25 ff.
Atlamdl, in the Edda, 21
Attila, 20, 32, 34
Auchinleck MS, Edinburgh, 370, 465
Audax, grammarian, 76
Audoin, in Widsith, 35
Aue. See Hartmann von
Augusel, in Arthurian legend, 259
Augustine, St, of Kent (d. 604), 1, 5, 13,
41, 42, 71, 72, 351
St, of Hippo, 93, 94, 102, 103, 117,
120, 124, 126, 127, 213, 224, 231,234,355
Aulay, 287
Aungerville, Sir Richard, 213
Aurelius, Caninus, 67
Austin, St, in Layamon, 234
Avalon, Isle of, 243, 264, 266, 272, 311
Averroists, the, 213
Avicenna, 205
Avignon, 212, 213, 216
Avitus of Vienne, 47
Avowing of Arthur, 313
Awntyrs [Adventures] of Arthure at the
Terne Wathelyne, 291, 312
Ayenbite of Inwyt, 353 ff., 388, 396, 397
Azarias, 48
Azo of Bologna, 181
Babel, Tower of, in Alfred's Boethius, 101
Babylas, martyr, 74
Babylon, Sultan of, 302
Baby's Debut, 289
Bacon, Roger (1214?-1294), 199 ff., 204 ff.
Bacon, Friar, and Friar Bungay, Greene,
210; Famouts Historie of, 210
Baconthorpe, John (d. 1346), the "Resolute Doctor," 213
Badon, Mount, 66, 246 ff.
Baghdad, 153
Balclutha, 275
Baldwin, archbp of Canterbury, 194, 195
Sir, 313
Balin and Balan, 269
Baliol, Edward, 357
Ball, John, 369




Index of Names


487


Balsham, Hugo de, 205
Bangor, antiphonary hymns of, 65
Bannockburn, 357, 370
Barbour, J., 359
Barlaam and Josaphat, 286, 467
Barnes, W., 240
Barontus, St, of Pistoja, 86
Bartholomew (fl. 1230-1250), 184
-     de Cotton (d. 1298?), 449
Basil, St, 74, 75, 77, 122, 124
Basilissa, martyr, 74
Bath (The Ruin), 40
Bayard, in Four Sons of Aymon, 292
Be Domes Daege, 129, 145 ff., 220, 227
Beaduhild, in Deor, 36
Beagnop, owner of the Thames runic
sword, 11
Beauty of the World, 294
Beaw or Beo, son of Scyld (Sceldwea), 28
Bec, monastic school at, 153; "Geoffrey
Arthur's" book at, 170
Becket, St Thomas a, 173, 185, 186,
191, 202, 339, 341
Bedam, Historia post, 174
Bede or Baeda (673-735), 5, 10 (runes),
14; 19, 20, 43 if. (on Caedmon); 53,
55, 57, 59, 61 (Death Song), 66, 68, 70,
71, 79 ff., 89; 93, 96, 101, 106 (Alfred's
Bede); 96, 110, 112, 117, 119 ff., 131,
145, 148, 159 ff., 163 ff., 167 ff., 171,
198, 224, 234, 257, 342, 347, 350, 351,
380
Bedivere. See Bedwyr
Bedwyr or Bedivere, Arthurian knight,
250, 254, 255, 260
Bek, Thomas, of Castleford, 335, 338
Belisante, in Amis and Amiloun, 314
Bellenden, Major, 280
Belshazzar, in Cleanness, 323
Benedict, St, 74, 105
-  Biscop, abbot of Wearmouth (628?
-690), 5, 71, 84, 89, 151
-      of Peterborough (d. 1193), 160,
173, 174
Benedictbeuern, monastery in Bavaria,
190
Benet, St, Rule of, 15, 230
Benoit de Ste More, 280, 306, 467
Beowa, 27, 28
Beowanham, 27
Beowulf, 1 ff.; runes in, 11, 12; 20 ff.,
34, 35, 41, 43, 54, 58, 63, 99, 115, 124,
137, 143, 277, 306
Berachyah Nakden, 478
Berengarius, 154
Bernard, in Specula Stultorum, 193
- of Chartres, 184, 188
-     St, 185, 221, 231, 355
Bernlak de Hautdesert, the Green Knight.
See Sir Gawayne
Beroul (c. 1150), 273, 310
Berthe aux grands pieds, 468
Beryn, Tale of, 298, 299
Bestiaries, Old English, 59; Middle
English, 226, 227, 239, 292, 460
Bethulia, 142, 143
Beulan, teacher of Nennius, 70


Beverley. See St John of
Beves, Sir, of Hamtoun, 218, 282, 287,
291 ff., 303, 305, 306
Bewcastle Column, Cumberland, 12
Bible, Codex Amiatinus at Florence, 72;
Codex Argenteus at Upsala, 16; Metz,
89; St Denis Bible, 89
Birkabeyn, in Havelok, 303
Biscop. See Benedict
Black Book of Carmarthen, 243, 249, 250,
251
Black Death, the, 371
Blackwater river (Battle of Maldon), 144
Blaiman, Irish tale, 293
Blancheflour. See Flores and B.
Bleking, in Ohthere's voyage, 94
Blickling Homilies, 114, 129
Bloet, Robert, bp of Lincoln, 166
Blois. See Alexander, and Peter, of
Boccaccio, 199, 214, 360; B.'s Violante,
in Olympia, 323; Filocolo, 286; Decameron, 286
Bodel, Jean, Chanson de Saisnes, 279, 302
Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae,
213, 355; Alfred's version, 91, 99 ff.,
107
Boisil, 148
Bologna, schools of, 187, 192, 199, 200
Bonaventura, 110, 154, 206
Boniface, St, 73, 78, 86
Borron, Robert de, 268, 271
Borrow, George, 275
Bosham. See Herbert of
Bosworth, J., 91
BoSfvarr Biarki, 27
Bouterwek, K., 147
Bracton. See Henry of
Bradwardine, Thomas, Doctor profundus
(1290?-1349), 213
Brakelond. See Jocelin of
Brandes, G., ix
Brandl, A., ix
Branwen, daughter of Ll$-r, 252
Braune, W., ix
Breca, in Beowulf, 22; in Widsith, 34
Brendan, St, 339, 474
Breton lays, 294
saints, 68
Bretons, Geste des, 337
Brewer, John Sherren, 202 if., 207, 210
Bricriu's Feast, 296, 327
Bridlington, Augustinian priory, 344
Brigham, Nicholas, 332
Brihtwold, bishop, 133
Briseida, 306. See also under Chaucer,
Troilus
Britain, Book of, 70 ff.
Brittonum, Historia. See Nennius
Broceliande, fountain of, in Ywain and
Gawain, 312
Brooke, Stopford A., x, 2 ff., 47, 48, 51,
59
Bruce, Alexander, 344
R obert, 344, 352
Bruce's Anglo-Saxon Version of the Book
of Psalms, 106
Bruce, Barbour's, 359




488


Index of Names


Brunanburh, Battle of, 137, 141, 150,
167, 287
Brunellus, the donkey of Nigel Wireker,
192
Brunne. See Robert Mannyng of
Brunniwake in Kestevene, 344
Brussels, cross at, 57
Brut, 235, 256, 258; Layamon's, 137, 223,
234 ff., 265, 375, 397, 398; Tysilio's,
235; Wace's, 234, 235, 350
Brutus legend, 170, 175, 234, 258, 306,
336
Bucephalus, 307
Buddha, 286
Buelt, Builth or Buallt, 247
Bungay, Friar, 210
Thomas de (in Suffolk) (fl. 1290),
210
Bunyan, John, Christian and the Valley
of the Shadow of Death, 58
Burana, Carmina, 190
Burleigh, Walter (1275-1345?), 213
Burns, Robert, 290
Burton, Annals of, 178
Bury St Edmunds, Benedictine Abbey of,
213. See also St Edmundsbury
Bury. See Richard of
Busirane, castle of, 295
Busiris, in Alfred's Boethius, 100
Byrhtferth (fl. 1000), 131
Byrhtnoth, in The Battle of Maldon, 41,
109, 137, 143, 144, 306
Byrhtwold, 137
Byron, 275
Cabal the hound, in Nennius, 247
Cadoc, St, 262
Cador, in Layamon, 266; in Emar6, 311
Cadwalader, in Layamlon, 234; in Mannyng, 351
Caedmon (fl. 670), 14, 30, 41ff., 56, 57,
61, 63, 82, 89, 96, 119, 142, 382, 383
Caer Rigor, 251
Caer Sidi, 251
Caerleon, or Caerlleon, or Carleon, upon
Usk, 197, 246, 260
Caesar, Julius, 13, 71, 81, 93, 187, 197,
342
Cain, 30
Grendel's ancestor, in Beowulf, 22
Calais, siege of, Minot's poem on, 357,
358
Caliburn, Arthur's sword, 266
Caligula, in Orosius, 95
Cambrensis. See Giraldus
Cambriae Annales, 246, 248
Cambridge, Dominicans and Franciscans
at, 200
-   iser parson in Mannyng, 346
Platonists, vii
professorship of "Anglo-Saxon " at,
382
-  university, 184
Camden, William, 89, 381
Camel, river, 261
Camelford (Camlan), battle of, 248, 250,
266


Camelot, 326
Camlan. See Camelford
Campbell's Popular Tales of the West
Highlands, 294
Canon, John (fl. 1329), 211
Canterbury. See Gervase of
archbishopric of, 50
coming of Theodore and Hadrian
to, 71
Franciscans at, 202
-sack of, by Danes, 127, 139
school of, 79, 87
-school of handwriting at, 13
Canterbury Chronicle at Christ Church, 109
T ales, etc. See Chaucer
Canute, 111, 127, 150, 337
Canute Song, The, 219
Caradoc or Caradog of Llancarvan, 65,
262
Carados, in Conte del Graal, 328
Carannog, St, 262
Carlisle, in Arthurian romance, 312, 313
Carlyle's Past and Present, 176
Carmarthen, Roman walls at, 197
Carmarthen. See Black Book of
Carmelites, the, 213
Carolingian romances, 302, 309.    See
also under Charlemagne
Carric, 236
Carthage, in Alfred's Orosius, 95
Carthusians, the, 189
Casere, in Widsith, 35
Cassiodorus, 20, 213
Cassodorien, in Richard Cosur de Lion,
307
Castle of Love. See Grosseteste
Cato, Distichs of, 119
Cattraeth, 249
Catullus, 362
Cavall, the hound, in Kulhwch and Olwen,
247
Caxton, 245, 285
Cearbhall, Irish king, 287
Cecilia, St, 74
Cedd, St, 82
Celia, in As You Like it, 298
Celtic influence on English literature,
274 ff.
Ceolfrid, abbot, 55, 82
Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria
Cerdic, 236
Cerne, abbey of, in Dorsetshire, and Book
of, 86, 116, 120, 125, 150
Chad, St (d. 672), 82
Chalon-sur-Sa6ne, 34
Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature, ix
Chansons de geste, 279, 291, 448
Charlemagne in romance, 169, 281, 283,
284, 302, 306, 342, 467
Charles, Emile, 208 ff.
II, king of England, 282
the Bald, 88, 89
the Great, 84, 88 ff. For romances,
see under Charlemagne and Carolingian
Charm for Barren Land, 64
Charms, Old English, 40




Index of Names


489


Chart, near Leeds in Kent, 353
Charter, the Great, 151, 154, 174
Chartres, school of, 183ff., 216
Chateau d'Amour. See Grosseteste
Chattuarii, the, 26
Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400), 16, 99,
155, 170, 177, 193, 213, 270, 275 ff.,
280, 282, 283, 288, 289, 292, 298, 299,
309, 316, 319, 332, 335, 348 ff., 355,
366, 367, 380, 382, 386 ff., 394 ff.
-    Canterbury Tales, 16, 193, 213,
286, 298, 352
--  an of Law's Tale, 181, 292
Nonne Prestes Tale, 193, 270
Parson's Tale, The, 355
-  Sir Thopas, 277, 281, 282, 289,
291, 292, 295, 299, 319, 365 ff.
Squire's Tale, 3, 9
Wife of Bath's Tale, The, 177, 295
Yeoman's Tale, The, 298
Hous of Fame, 170
-     Troilus and Criseyde, 332
Chaucerian school, 321, 334
Chestre, Thomas, 295
Chevalier de Coucy, 300
Chevelere Assigne (Swan-Knight), 291, 467
Child, J., Ballads, 295
Childhood of Jesus, 368
Childric, in Layamon, 237
Chionia, St, 74
Chohilaicus (Chlochilaicus) or Huiglaucus,
26
Chretien de Troyes, 263, 268, 269, 271,
273, 279 ff., 285, 299, 462
Chevalier de la Charrette, 270
-  Cliges, 286
Conte del Graal, 253, 269, 271, 284,
294, 328
- Erec, 250, 253, 274
-     Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), 253,
274, 279, 280, 284
Tristan (ascribed to C. de T.), 273
Christ. See Cynewulf
Christ, On Serving, 227. See also The
Passion of our Lord, 225, 226; On Lofsong of ure Louerde; On Ureisun of ure
Louerde, and Wohung of ure Lauerd,
233
Christabel, 148, 376
Christians, Duty of, 228
Christina, St, 74, 75
Christopher,  he, English warship, 357
Chronicle, The Old English, 5, 62, 89, 90,
104, 107 ff., 137 ff., 145, 150, 161, 167,
219, 236, 245, 317, 352, 369, 374. See
also under Winchester, Peterborough,
etc.
Chronicon Boguphali Episcopi, 32
Chrysanthus, martyr, 74
Church, Dean, on St Anselm, 164
Cicero, 76, 100, 185, 187
Cinric, 236
Cistercians, the, 189
Clare. See Osbert de
Clarendon, Constitutions of, 337
Clariodus, 291
Claudian, 68


Claudio, in MIeasure for Measure, 1
Cleanness, 320 ff., 343
Cleges, Sir, 315
Clement IV, 206
of Rome, 74, 118; Recognitions of,
75
Cleopatra, 95
Clericus and Puella, dialogue between
365
Cloten, in Layamon, 237
Clovesho, synod of, 50
Clovis, 20, 21
Clust, son of Clustveinad, 255
Clustveinad, 255
Cobbett, W., 370
Cockayne, 0., 105, 135, 136
Coggeshall. See Ralph of
Cokaygne. See Land of
Colbrand, in Guy of Warwick, 304 ff.,
343
Coleridge, S. T., 148, 376
Colgrim, in Layamon, 237
Columba, St (521-597), 42, 69
Columban, St (543-615), 65, 435
Columbus, 209
Commodus, 95
Comput. See Thaun, P. de
Confessio Anmantis. See Gower
Constance, 311
Constantina, St, 74
Constantine, Emperor, 55
in Layamon, 266
-  of Devon and Cornwall, 67
Constantius, 81
Chlorus, 34
Conyngton. See Richard de
Cook, A. S., x, 50, 57, 59
Coran, The, 153
Cordova, in Alfred's Orosius, 95
Corfesgeat, 138
Corineus, in Layamon, 237
Corippus, 76
Cormac, Irish scholar (831-903), 246
Cornelius Nepos, 195
Corvey. See John of
Cosmas, martyr, 74
Cotton. See Bartholomew de
Courthope, W. J., Hist. of Eng. Poetry,
240
Coutances, Andr4 de, Roman des Franceis,
236
Craik, G. L., viii
Crashaw, R., 232
Crayke, near York, monastery at, 86
Crecy, battle of, 357, 359
Crist and Satan, 48, 49
Cromwell, Thomas, 211
Cronica duo Anglica, 110
Cross, festivals and legends of the, 55,
56, 134; Aelfric's homily, 118. See
also Dream of the Rood
Croyland, monastery of, 89
Croyland. See Felix of
Crusade, first, in Wim. of Malmesbury,
165
Cuchulinn, in Fled Bricrend (Bricriu's
Feast), 296, 327




490


Index of Names


Cuirass. See Lorica
Cuneburga, abbess, 79
Cuneglasus, king, 67
Curson of Kedleston, cardinal (d. 1218), 199
Cursor Mundi, 134, 341 f., 348, 399
Curtin, Hero Tales of Ireland, 293
Cuthbert, abbot of Wearmouth and
Jarrow, 61, 79
-- St, of Lindisfarne, 64, 80, 82, 83,
85, 117, 118, 148
Cuthwin, 61, 71, 79
Cymbeline, in Geoffrey of Monmouth,
171
Cymric language and literature, 464
Cynewulf, 38, 41, 49 ff., 133, 134, 143,
325
Cynewulf's Fata Apostolorum, 52 ff.; runes
in, 12
-     Crist, 49, 52, 53, 56, 58, 59, 63, 64;
runes in, 12; Cook's edn., 59
-     Elene, 50 ff., 55, 57, 62, 63, 134,
143; runes in, 12
-     Juliana, 52, 53; runes in, 12
Cynewulf, bishop of Lindisfarne, 49
-    king, in O.E. Chronicle, 107, 444
Cynulf of Clovesho, 50
Cyprianus, 76
Cyrus, Le Grand, 280
Dacia, in Geoffrey of Monmouth, 259
Daeghrefn, in Beowulf, 24, 27
Dame Siriz, 365, 366
Damian, martyr, 74
Dan Michel of Northgate, Kent, 353 ff.,
400
R- obert of Malton, 350
Daniel, 74
- bishop of Winchester, 82
-of Morley, 153
Daniel, Old English poem, 46, 48; runes
in, 11
-     Story of, by Hilarius, 191
Dante, 43, 99, 199, 200, 227, 232, 270,
363
Dares, 176
Dares Phrygius, 469
Daria, martyr, 74
Darius, 307
Dastin, or Daustin, John (fl. 1320), 453
David, 74, 93, 134, 147
-      St (d. 601), 67
Davy, Adam, 335, 353, 355
Davyd ap GCwilym, 275
Dawkyn, in Turnament of Totenham, 366
De Phillide et Flora, 460
Death, 227
Debats, Old French, 239
Defoe, D., 257
Degare, Sir, 311
Degrevant, Sir, 289
Delgan, in Layamon, 236
Demetrias, St, 74
Deor, Complaint of, 4, 19 ff., 36, 373
Deusdedit (d. 663/4)
Deutschbein, M., Englische   Sagengeschichte, 293
Devizes. See Richard of


Dibdin's Reminiscences, 216
Diceto. See Ralph of
Dictys, 170
Dictys Cretensis, 467
Dicuil (fl. 825), 434
Diderot, 209
Didot Percival, in the Graal legend, 271
Dietrich, F., 49, 123
von Bern, 36
Diocletian, 309
Dionysius the Areopagite, 204
Disciplina Clericalis, 365
Diu Krone, by Heinrich von dem Tuirlin,
269
Domesday Book, 390
Domesday, Fifteen Signs before, 356
Dominic, St, 200, 339
Dominicans, 200, 355
Domitian, 226
Don Gayferos, 293
Don Quixote, 293
Don, the children of, 252
Donatus, grammars of, 114, 118
Doomsday, 227
Dorothea, 74, 75
Douglas tragedy, the, 300
Dracontius, 76
Drayton, M., 170, 289 (Nymphidia)
Dream of the Rood (?Cynewulf), 42, 51 ff.,
56, 57, 63, 133; Ruthwell Cross, 12
Druids, 13
Dryburgh abbey, 333
Dryden, J., 283
Drystan, son of Tallwch (Tristram), 273
Drythelm, vision of, 82, 86
Dubricius, archbishop of the "City of
Legions," 259
Duglas river, battle of, 259
Dunbar, W., 292
Dunnere, in The Battle of Maldon, 145
Duns   Scotus, John,  Doctor  subtilis
(1265?-1308?), 200, 210 ff.
Dunstable, Annals of, 178
Dunstan, St (924-988), 113, 114, 118,
127, 131, 150, 151, 153, 243
Durham. See Simeon of
Durham, Book of (or Lindisfarne Gospels),
14
Poem on the city of, 147
Ritual, runes in, 12
Eadberg, 148
Eadfrith, 148
Eadgils, Beowulf and Widsith, 24, 25, 35
Eadmer (d. 1124?), 162 ff., 168, 172
Eadric, 126
Eadwine, in Widsith, 35
Eaha, in Finnsburh, 31
Eahfrid, 73
Ealhhild, in Widsith, 34, 35
Eanmund, in Beowulf, 24, 26
Eanred's ring, 11
Earle, J., 104, 141
Easter controversy, 73, 81, 82
Easthealon, 126
Ebionite heresy, 224
Eccleston, T. de, 203




Index of Names


491


Ecgfrith, 10
Ecglaf, 145
Ecgtheow, Beowulf's father, 22
Edda, 8, 21, 62
Eddius Stephanus, 85
Edern, son of Nun, 255
Edgar, king, 110, 113, 114, 121, 123,
137ff., 305
Edmund Ironside, 127, 140, 337
of Abingdon (d. 1240), 200
son of Edward the Elder, 137
St, 121
Edward I, 350, 351, 370
-   II, 342, 355, 356
III, 213, 284, 292, 338, 344, 353,
357 ff.
--    aetheling, 140
of Carnarvon, 370
son of Edgar, 138, 139
-  St, 355
the Confessor, 111, 140, 149, 180,
337, 390
the Elder, 137
Edward I, Elegy on, 370
--   II, Evil Times of, 370
Edwin, monk, 390
of Northumbria, 81
Egbert, bp of Lindisfarne, 86
- or Ecgberht of York, 5, 80, 83, 84,
87
Eger, Sir, 291
Egill Skallagrimsson, 9, 62
Eglamour of Artois, Sir, 316, 471
Ehangwen, Arthur's hall, 254
Eilhart von Oberge, 273
Einenkel, E., 118
Einhart's Life of Charles the Great, 90
Ekkehard of St Gall, 32, 33
Elbing, in Alfred's Orosius, 94
Elbodugus. See Elfod
Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III,
194, 361
w ife of Henry II, 264
Elfledes Boc, 110. See also Aethelflaed
Elfod, or Elbodugus, bishop of Bangor
(d. 809), 70, 246
Elias of Jerusalem, 106
Elijah, 67, 74
Elipandus of Toledo, 85
Elisabeth of Schinau, St, 229
Elisha, 74
Elizabeth, queen, 99, 319, 381
Elizabethan lyrists, 362
Ely, monastery of, 16, 114, 140
Ely. See Thomas of.
Emare, 310, 311, 316
Eneas, Roman d', 285
Encyclopedie, L', 207
Enid, 280
Enoch, Book of, 133
Eormenric, in Beowulf and Widsith, 26,
34 ff.
Epictetus, 286
Epternach, 83
Erasmus, 363
Erbin. See Geraint
Erce, "the mother of the Earth," 40


Erec (Geraint), Sir, 284
Erigena, John Scotus (fl. 850), 154, 434
Erkenwald, 333, 334
Ermyn, in Beves, 305
Ernley, or Arley Regis, Worcester, 234
Ernulf (1040-1124), 449
Eschenbach. See Wolfram von
Ethelbald. See Aethilwald
Ethelburga, St, 82
Etheldreda, St, 82
Ethelwold. See Aethelwold
Ethelwulf's poem on?Cravke, 86
Eucharist, Aelfric on the, 117, 127, 128;
Lanfranc on the, 154
Euclid, 153
Eugenia, St, 74
Eulalia, St, 74
Eurydice, 295, 311
Eusebius, 66, 75
--    (Hwaetberct), 60, 78, 79
Eustace, Count, 111
-     legend of St, 292, 315
Eustochium, St, 74
Eutropius, 81
Evans, Gwenogvryn, 252
-    Sebastian, 258, 260, 271
Eve, 134
Evesham, battle of, 336, 338
--    monastery of, 89
- or Worcester Chronicle, 109, 111
Evesham. See Walter of
Exeter Book, The, 12, 34, 39, 48, 52, 53,
60 ff., 151, 374, 428
Exodus (Old English), 46 ff., 58, 63
Eynsham, abbey of, 125, 127, 133;
Aelfric's letters, 114, 125, 126; synod
of, 129, 130
Ezekiel, 92
Fabliaux, 158, 365
Faerie Queene. See Spenser
Falsehood of Man (Bi manna lease), 62
Fantosme, Jordan, 446
Faricius, 72
Farman, priest of Harewood, Leeds, 132
Fastidius, "British bishop," a, 65
Fates of Men (Bi manna wyrdum), 61
Father's Instruction, A, 62, 219, 363
Fecamp, monks of, 202
Felice, in Guy of Warwick, 304 ff.
Felix, 74, 75
--   of Croyland, Life of St Guthlac,
58, 85, 131
-- of Urgel, 85
Fergusson, R., 290
Ferumbras, Sir, 288, 291, 293, 302, 303
Fierabras, 284
Fikenhild, in Horn, 304
Finn, in Beowulf, Finnsburh and Widsith,
23, 31, 34
Finnsburh, 30, 47
Firdusi, 293
Fitela, in Beowulf, 23, 26
Fitz-hamon, Robert, 256
Fitz-neale, Richard (d. 1198), 173
Fitzstephen, NW. (d. 1190?), 449




492


Index of Names


Fled Bricrend (the feast of Bricriu), 327
Fletcher, R. H., The Arthurian laterial
in the Chronicles, 257
Fleury, religious revival of, 113. See also
Abbo of
Florence of Worcester, 90, 91, 160 if.
Florentine, in The Seven Sages, 309
Flores and Blancheflour, 286, 303, 308,
309
Floripas, in Sir Ferumbras, 302, 303
Florus of Lyons, 81
Foliot, Gilbert (d. 1187), 173
Forster, 117
Foster, Gregory, 143
Four Sons of Aymon, 292
Foxe, John, 124
Francesca, 363
Francis, St, 200, 201, 339
Franciscans, the 200
Francorum, Gesta Regum, 26. See also
Gregory of Tours
Franks casket, 12; Franks in Beowulf,
etc., 25, 26, 32, 34
Fraternity of Vagabonds, vii
Frederick II, emperor, 199
Freeman, E. A., 163, 171, 197, 199
Freyr (Old Norse alphabet), 10
Friars Minor, 203, 209
Frigidianus, bishop, 105
Frische Haff, the, 94
Frisians, the, in Beowulf, 24 ff., 31
Froda, in Beowulf, 24, 25
Froissart, 213, 358
Frollo, 236
Fr66i (Frotho IV), 25
Frotho I, 28
Froumond, 101
Furnivall, F. J., ix, 344
Fursey, the Irish hermit, vision of in
Bede, 82, 86
Gabriel, the angel, 115
Gaddesden. See John of
Gaelic language and literature, 464
Gaimar, Geoffrey (d. 1140), Estorie des
Engles, etc., 104, 170, 236, 264
Galahad, in Arthurian legend, 271
Galen, 192, 193
Galleroun, in Awntyrs of Arthure, 312
Gamelyn, Tale of, 289, 298, 299, 367
Gareth, in Malory, 295
Garter, order of the, 328
Garulf, in Finnsburh, 31
Gaufridus Arturus, 257
Gaul, women of, 151
Gautar, the, in Old Norse literature, 26
Gautier, archbp of Sels, 190
-      de Doulens, 328
Gawain, in Arthurian legend, 243, 260
(Walgainus), 261, 269, 270, 281, 284,
285, 287, 295ff., 309, 311ff., 336. See
also Sir Gawayne, below
Gawain, Wedding of, 295, 312
Gawayne, Sir, and the/Grene Knight^'296,
297, 30, 32off., 330 ff., 33,, 334, 378
Geat, in Deor, 36 /
Geatas, the, in Beowtlf, 24 ff.


Generydes, 291
Genesis, A and B, Old English, 46 ff., 63
and Exodus, Middle English, 225,
376, 387, 399
Geoffrey de Vinsauf (fl. 1200) (Art of
Poetry), 193
of Monmouth (1100?-1154), 68,
71, 158, 159, 168 ff., 175, 235, 237,
245 ff., 250, 252, 257 ff., 264, 266 ff.,
284, 336, 338, 350, 351
the cripple, in Tale of Beryn,
298
George, St, 308
Geraint (Sir Erec), 274, 284
Gerald of Wales.  See Giraldus Cambrensis
Geraldines of Wales, the, 194
Gerbert of Aurillac, 209
Gereint or Geraint, son of Erbin, in The
Black Book, 250, 253, 255
Germanus, St, of Auxerre, 70, 81
Gervase of Canterbury (fl. 1188), 173, 175
--     of Tilbury (fl. 1211), Otia Imnperialia, 173, 176, 192
Gervasius, 75
Gesta Romanorum, 135, 365, 367, 477
Gibbon, E., 165, 244
Gibicho, in Waltharius, 32
Gifica (Gibicho), in Widsith, 34
Gifts of 1Men (Bi monna craeftum), 61
Gilbert de la Porree, 184, 185
--     of Sempringham (1083?-1189), 229,
364
the Englishman (fl. 1250), 453
Gilbertine order, 344
Gildas (516?-570?), 5, 65ff., 70, 71, 81,
247, 262, 350
Gilla Coemgin, 70
Gillus. See Gildas
Giraldus Cambrensis (1146?-1220?), 160,
171, 173, 176, 177, 188 ff., 194 ff., 202,
243, 292
Glanville. See Ranulf de
Glastonbury, 150, 164, 198, 243, 262, 272,
313
Glastonia, abbey of, in Life of Gildas, 262
Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr or Glewlwyd of the
Mighty Grasp, one of Arthur's porters,
251
Gloucester, Robert earl of, 156, 166, 256,
258
Gloucester Chronicle.  See Robert of
Gloucester
Gloucester, or South English Legendary.
See Legendary
Gnomic Verses, O. E., 218
Godard, in Havelok, 303
Godfrey of Bouillon, cycle of, 291
of Cambrai and Winchester, 191
Godiva, Lady, 364
Gododin, Aneirin, 249
Godric, in Battle of iMaldon, 145
St (1065?-1170), 375; Cantus Beati
Godrici, 220
Godrich, household of, in Havelok, 303,
304
Godwin, 111, 139




Index of
Golagros and Gawain, 312, 333, 334
Goldburgh, in Havelok, 303, 304, 351
Golden Legend, the, 55, 134, 343
Golias, bishop, and Goliardic Poems, 177,
189, 190, 364
Goliath, in Cursor Mundi, 343
Gollancz, I., 58, 61
Gorlois, in Arthurian legend, 259
Gotaland, 26, 27
Gotar (Gautoi), 27
Goths, the, 21, 35
Gottfried von Strassburg, 268, 273, 316
Gower, John (1325?-1408), 191, 204, 277,
280, 282, 332, 389; Confessio Amantis,
135, 286, 291, 347, 352
Gowther, Sir, 311, 314
Graelent, 295
Grafton, Richard (d. 1572), 170
Grail, the Holy, in Arthurian romance, 261,
269, 270 ff.; The Quest, 190, 271, 272;
Qu6te del St Graal, attributed to Map,
271
Grave, The, 147
Graves, Stanzas of the, 243, 249, 250
Gray, T., 275
Great North Road, 178
Green, J. R., 196, 201
Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,
210
Gregorian Gospels at Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, 72
Gregory IX, 203
Nazianzen, 74
- of Tours, 26, 67, 117
the Great, St, 53, 61, 75, 81, 85,
86, 96, 103, 117, 224, 231, 347, 355;
Alfred's version of Cura Pastoralis,
91, 92; Werferth's version of the Dialogues, 105; and the English boy slaves,
234, 351, 379, 380
Gregory, St, Trentals of, 312
Grein, C. W. M., ix, 48, 91
Grendel, in Beowulf, 2, 11, 22, 23, 28, 115
Grendles mere, 27
Grene Knight. See Gawayne, Sir
Grettir, 27
Grettis Saga, 27, 28
Griffin, maker of Arthur's spear, in
Layamon, 265
Grim, in Havelok, 303, 304
Grimbald of St Bertini, Flanders, abbot
of Winchester, 89, 92
Grimm, Jacob, 55, 383
Grimsby, in Havelok, 303, 351, 364
Grosseteste, Robert (d. 1253), 203, 204ff.,
209, 210, 342, 353; Chateau d'Amour,
204, 343
Guala, cardinal, 238
Guest, E. A., 333
Lady Charlotte (Mlabinogion), 247,
252, 253, 276
Guiboux, Carolingian heroine, 303
Guido de Colonna, 170
Guildford. See Nicholas of
Guillaume de Palerme, 281. See William
of P.
Guillaume le Marechal, 479


Names                         493
Guinevere, or Guenever, 261, 262, 266,
270, 312, 313, 327
Guingelot, Wade's boat, 218
Guinnion, castle of, 246
Guisburn, priory of, 181
Guisnes, 356
Gundicarius (Gundaharius), king of the
Burgundians, 33
Guntharius, in Waltharius (Waldhere),
32
Guthere, in Waldhere and WTidsith, 33,
35
Guthlac, St, in Old English, 51, 52, 58;
life of, 85, 86, 131. See Felix of Croyland
Guthlaf, in Beowulf and Finnsburh, 31
Guy of Warwick, Sir, 218, 282, 293, 294,
302 ff.
Gwalchmei = Gawain, in the Welsh Triads
and in the Malbinogion, 269
Gwestad, 255
Gwevyl, son of Gwestad, 255
Gwynn, son of Nud, 254
Gyngalyn, in Libeaus Desconus, 312
Habbie, Simson, piper of Kilbarchan, 290
Haddeby, in the Baltic, 94
Hades, king of, in Preiteu Annwvn, 251
Hadrian, abbot, 5, 71 ff., 77, 82
Hadrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear), 185
Haethcyn, in Beowulf, 24
Hagall (Old Norse alphabet), 10
Hagano, in Waldhere and Waltharius, 32,
33
Hagena, in Waldhere and Widsith, 33
Hakluyt, Richard, 95
' Hal wes thu, folde, fira modor," 3
Hales, J. W., Folia Litteraria, 218
Hales. See Alexander of
Hales. See Thomas de
Halfdan, 25
Halga, in Beowulf, 25
Halgoland, 94
Hali lMeidenhad, 229, 234, 362
Halidon Hill, 357
Hama, in Beowulf and Widsith, 26, 35
Hamauorum, pagus, 34
Hamlet, 16, 292
Handlyng Synne. See Mannyng
Hardy, T., 240
Harewood, Leeds, Rushworth   Gospels,
written by a priest of, 132
Harold, 149, 150
Godwinsson, 278
the Fair-haired, 26
Harrowing of Hell, 48, 49. See also 251
Hartmann, M., 102
von Aue, 268, 280
Harun-ar-Rashid, 153
Hastings, battle of, 111, 149 ff., 157
Hattuariorum, pagus, 34
Hdvanmdl, 62
Havelok the Dane, 218, 277, 286 (Lay of),
287, 288, 303, 305, 306, 309, 315, 351,
360, 364, 367, 399
Hawkyn and Dawkyn and Tomkyn, in
The Turnament of Totenham, 366




494                     In dex o
Hay, Sir Gilbert, 291
Haymo, 117
Headda, or Hedda, 77
Healfdene, in Beowulf, 22, 25, 31, 32
Heardred, in Beowulf, 24
Hearne, T., 143
Heathobeardan, the, in Beowulf, 24, 25
Hedwig, 229
Helena, St, finder of the Cross, 55, 56,
133, 134
Helfta, in Saxony, convent, 229
Helgakvi'ia Hiorvarftssonar, Old Norse
poem, 21
-    Hundingsbana II, Old Norse poem,
21
Helgi, son of Halfdan, 25
Heliand, 46, 47
Helias of Jerusalem, 136
Helie de Borron, 273
Hell, Eleven Pains of, 227
Eemingburgh.   See Walter of
Hendyng, Proverbs of, 219, 363
Hengest, in Finnsburh, 31, 32. See also
104, 246
Henry I, 151, 154, 157, 162, 222, 256,
278, 336
II, 156, 157, 167, 171 ff., 176, 181,
185, 188, 189, 191, 197, 198, 202, 238,
243, 258, 264, 272, 307, 337, 397, 398
-     III, 180, 184, 194, 233, 238, 337,
368
-     IV, 322
- of Bracton or Bratton (d. 1268),
181
-  of Huntingdon (1084?-1155), 159,
160,162, 166ff., 170, 172, 174, 191, 218,
257, 262, 336, 337
-    of Saltrey (fl. 1150), 191, 474
Heoden (He0inn), in Deor, 37
Heodeningas, the, in Deor, 37
Heorogar, in Beowulf, 25
Heorot, Hrothgaishall, in Beowulf, 22
Heoroweard, in Beowulf, 25
Heorrenda, ministrel, in Deor, 37
Herbarium, Old English, 135
Herbert, G., 232
-     of Bosham (fl. 1162-1186), 448
Here Prophecy, 218
Herebeald, in Beowulf, 24
Heremod, in Beowulf, 23, 26
Hereward (fl. 1070-1071), 111, 287, 364
Hergest. See Red Book of
Heriricus, in Waltharius, 32
Hermenegild, St, 105
Hervarar Saga, 35
Hesiod, 77
Hetel (He6inn), in Kudrun, 37
Heiinn, 37
Hettner, H., viii
Hetware (Chattuarii), in Beowulf, 25,
26
Heurodys, in Sir Orfeo, 311
Hiarrandi, father of Hetinn, 27
Hia6ningar, 37
Hickes, G. (1642-1715), 31, 147, 382
"Hightest thou Urse," 460
Hilarion, 74


f Names
Hilarius, 191
Hilda or Hild, St (614-680), abbess
of Streoneshalh, Whitby, 42, 43, 45,
82
Hildebrandslied, the, 36
Hildeburh, in Beowulf, 31
Hildegard, St, of Bingen, 229
Hildilid, or Hildelitha, St, abbess of
Barking, 74
Hildr, daughter of Hogni, 37
Hiltgund, in Waltharius and Waldhere,
32 ff.
Hirvar'r, brother-in-law of Hrblfr, 25
Hippomedon. See Ipomedon
Hisperica Famina, 69, 70
Hnaef, in Beowulf and Widsith, 23, 31,
32, 34
Hoefutalausn of Egill Skallagrimsson,
62
Hoel, king of Brittany, 259, 260
Hogni, 37
Holinshed, R., 170
Holkot, Robert, Mioralitates, 214
Holm, in Norway, 179
Holofernes, 142
Holy Roman Empire, 318
Holywood. See Johannes de Sacro Bosco
Homer, 77, 170
Homilies, Old English (see also Aelfric,
Wulfstan, etc.), 218
Middle English, 221
Honorius Augustodiensis, Elucidarium of,
343
Horace, 76, 193, 221
Horant, in Kudrun, 37
Horm, Danish viking, 287
Horn Childe, 260, 282, 291
Horn, King, 218, 281, 287, 291 ff., 299,
303 ff., 309
Horn, The Gest of King, 286
Horologium, Old English, 136
Horsa, 104
Horstmann, C., 338, 340
Hospitallers, the, 189
Hothbroddus, 25
Hoveden, John (d. 1275), 194
Hoveden. See Roger of
Hrethel, in Beowulf, 24
Hrethric, in Beowulf, 25
Hr6arr (Roe), son of Halfdan, 25
Hroerekr (Roricus), 25
Hr6lfr, 25
-  Kraki, 25, 27
Hrdlfs Saga Kraka, 25, 27
Hrothgar, in Beowulf and Widsith, 20,
22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 32, 34
Hrothwulf, in Beowulf and Widsith, 23,
25, 34
Huchoun of the Awle Ryale, 333
Hue de Rotelande (c. 1185), 190, 270, 285.
See also Ipomedon
Hueil or Huel, king of Scotland, 262
Hugh of Kirkstall (fl. 1200), 450
Hugo de St Victor, 228, 232, 234, 355
Hugo, Victor, 279
Hunferth (Unferth), king's "orator," in
Beowulf, 22




Index of
Huns, the, 33, 35
Huntingdon. See Henry of
Huon of Bordeaux, 292
Hupe, 343
Husbandman, Song of the, 370
Husband's Message, 4, 39; runes in,
12
Hwaetberct. See Eusebius
Hwon holy chireche is under uote, 226
Hygd, in Beowulf, 23, 24
Hygelac, in Beowulf, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29,
41
Hyndluli65, Old Norse poem, 23
Ider, 297
Igerna, in Arthurian legend, 259
Ignatius, Epistles of, rendering by Grosseteste, 204
Ilchester, 205
Iliad, 293
Illtyd, St, St Iltut or Iltutus (fl. 520) of
Lantwit Major, Wales, 66, 67, 69
Ilmington, 126
Imma, in Bede, 10
In Diebus Dominicis, 227
Ine, laws of, 97, 98
Ingeld, in Beowulf and Widsith, 24, 25,
34
Ingialdr, 25
Innocent III, 193
IV, 201
Iona, 30, 42
Ipomedon, Hue de Rotelande, 190, 270,
281, 285, 286, 291, 313, 314
Ireland, English students resort to, 71
Irenaeus, Aelfric's homily on, 118
Irene, St, 74
Isaac, 46, 123
Isabella, in Measure for Measure, 1
Iseult, 272 if., 298, 310. See also Tristram
Isidore of Seville, 71, 75, 80, 224, 343,
436
- St, etymologies of, 119
Isle of Birds, 339
of Man, in Horn, 304
Isumbras, Sir, 289, 292, 315
Jacobean lyrists, 362
Jacobus a Voragine (1230-1298), 55, 134,
343
James VI, Art of Poesie, 291
-  G. P. R., 287
St, 118, 231
Jamnes, legend of, 135
Janus, temple of, 95
Jarrow, 5, 72, 78, 79, 83, 85, 89
Jason, or Joshua, in Parliament of the
Three Ages, 333
Jean de Hauteville (fl. 1184), 193
de Meun, 99
Jebb, Samuel, 207
Jeremiah, 74
Jerome, St, 66, 70, 75, 103, 117, 120,
189, 355
Jerusalem, in the legend of the Cross, 134
Jerusalem, Battle of, 356


'Names                          495
Jesus, Orm's treatment of the name of,
225. See also Childhood of, and under
Christ
Jews, persecutions of, 176; Jewish legends,
63, 133; Jewish writers, 478; Jewry at
Oxford, 202.
Joannes de Garlandia (fl. 1230), 193, 194
Jocelin of Brakelond (fl. 1200), 176
Johannes de Sacro Bosco (d. 1252), or
John of Holywood, 200
John Chrysostom, 154
-      de Bromyarde, Summa Praedicantium, 367
-  de Cella, 178
de Oxenedes, or Oxnead (d. 1293?),
450
de Tayster or Taxster (d. 1265), 182, king, 175, 194, 198
monk of Worcester, 162
of Basingstoke (d. 1252), 204, 207
-     of Corvey, Abbot of Aethelney,
89, 92
of Doncaster, 357
-     of Gaddesden (d. 1361), 453
of Guildford, 238
-  of Lindebergh, 343
-  of Salisbury (d. 1180), 173, 176,
183ff., 202, 214, 216
-  of Trokelowe (fl. 1330), 181
of Worcester, 162
-  prior of Hexham (fl. 1180), 161
St, Evangelist, 74, 198, 354
-     St, of Beverley, 82
-  St, the Baptist, 74, 126
-  XXII, Pope, 212
John, Passion of, by Pseudo-Melito, 75
-    the Reeve, 468
Jonah, in Pearl and Patience, 323, 325
Jonsson, Arngrim, 31
Jordanes, 35
Joseph, 74
--     of Exeter (fl. 1190), Flos Regum
Arthurus (Antiocheis), 195, 468
-     of Arimathaea, 133, 271, 272
Josephus, 224
Josian, in Beves, 305, 306
Judas, 340
Jude, St, 354
Judith, 48, 49, 77, 110, 124, 137, 141 ff.,
150, 230
Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, 88
Julian, in Aldhelm's treatise on virginity,
74
of Toledo, 76
Juliana, St, 53, 229
Julius Valerius, 135
Julleville, L. Petit de, ix
Junilius, 76
Jupiter, in Alfred's Boethius, 101
Jusserand, J. J., ix, 2
Justina, St, 74
Juvenal, 68, 76
Juvencus, 76
Kaermerdin, 266
Kai or Kay, Sir, a knight of Arthur,
250, 254, 255, 260, 312, 313




496


Index of Names


Karlamagnus Saga, 283
Karlenmeyne and the Duzeper, 226
Katharine, St, Life of, 229
Keats, J., 275
Kempis, Thomas a, 99
Kenelm, St, 336, 339
Kent, laws of, 98
Kentish Chronicle, 111, 112. See also
under Chronicle
-    Sermons, Old, 221
Kenulph, bishop of Winchester, 125
Kestevene, 344
Kilbarchan, 290
Kilwardby, Robert (d. 1279), 210
Kilyd, 254
Kinbelin, in Layamon, 237
Kirkham, monastery of, 342
Kirkstall. See Hugh of
Kittredge, G. L., ix
Knight of Curtesy, 300
-  of the Burning Pestle, 292
of the Red Shield, 294
Kogel, R., 21
Klbing, E., ix
Krebs, H., 105
Kudrun, Austrian poem, 37
Kulhwch and Olwen, 247, 250 f.
Kymry, early poetry of, 249
Kyndylan, hall of, 275
Labbe's Concilia, 190
Lactantius, 58, 76
Lady of the Fountain, 253, 274
Lai le Freine. See Marie de France
Laambwell, Sir, 295
Lamentation of Souls, 356
Lancelot, 236, 261, 267, 270, 271, 273,
313, 363; prose romance, 264, 270,
271; Lancelot du Lac, 190
Land of Cokaygne, 365
Lanferth, letter of, 120
Lanfranc (1005?-1089), 128, 149, 153,
154, 222
Langland, 292. See also Piers Plowman
Langres, 34
Langtoft. See Peter of
Langton, Stephen, archbishop (d.1228), 200
Lantwit Major, 66
Lanval, 295
Laon, monks of, 250
Lapidaries, 460
Ldr, 146
Larminie, Mr, 294
Lathacan, Laidcenn or Loding, Irish
prince, 68
Laudine, in Yzwain and Gawain, 312
Launfal-Lasndavall, 295
Launfal, Miles, Thos. Chestre, 295
Sir, 281, 291, 294, 295, 299, 310
Lavenham, Richard (fl. 1380), 455
Lawrence, bishop of Durham, 191
Laws, Old English, 130. See also the
chapter on Alfred, 97ff.
Lay Folk's Mass Book, 353
Layamon (fl. 1200), 137, 139, 170, 218,
222, 234ff., 264, 265, 278, 287, 288,
292, 337, 375, 378, 393, 398


Layton,  in    Strype's  Ecclesiastical
Mlemorials, 212
Lazarus, Raising of, by Hilarius, 191
Lear or Leir, in the Bruts and Chronicles,
171, 235, 237, 336. See also Lljr
Leech-book, The, 106, 135, 136
Legendaries, 317, 335. See also under
various saints
Legendary, South English, 134, 335ff.,
340, 341
Leicht, A., 102
Leire, Danish royal residence, 27
Leland, J., 131
Leo IV, 88
Leofric (d. 1072), 151
Lepidus, Consul, 95
Mutius, 95
Lewes, battle of, 368
Lewis, "Monk," 287
of Bavaria, 212
the Pious, 47
Leyden riddle, 61
LibeausDesconus, or Sir Libeaus, orLibius
Disconius, 282, 284, 289, 295, 312
Liber iMonstrorum, 26
Limber Magna, Lincolnshire, 343
Lincoln Castle (Havelok), 351
Lindelof, 132
Lindisfarne, 5, 83, 86, 89
Lindisfarne Gospels, The, 14, 72, 132
L'Isle, W., 123
Little's Grey Friars at Oxford, 209, 210
Llongborth (supposed to be Portsmouth),
250
Llud and Llevelys, 252
Llyr, 252, 255. See also Lear
Llywarch Hen (496?-646?), 248, 249,
275
Llywelyn, in Mannyng, 351
-  Prince of Wales, 180
ap Gruffud, 263
Lodge, Thomas, 298
Logres, in Arthurian legend, 279
Lollards, the, 364, 371
Lombard, Peter, Master of the Sentences
201, 208, 210 ff.
Long Life, 228
Longfellow, 147
Lorens, frere, 354
Lorica, or Cuirass, 68, 69
Lot, F., 262
Loth and Lot, in Arthurian legend, 259,
326
Lotos Eaters, 373
Louis IX, 336, 354
Lounsbury, T. R., x
Luard, H. R., 182, 204
Lucan, 76
Luces de Gast, 273
Lucius, in Morte Arthure, 313
Lucy, St, 74, 356
Ludwig the Pious, Life of, by Thegan, 90
Luke, St, 74
Lul, letter from, 79
Lumby, J. R., 146
Lumond, sea of, in Layamon, 236
Luve Ron, Thomas de Hales, 233




Index of
Lycanthropy, belief in, 316
Lydgate, 285
Lykewakes, 124
Lyndsay, Sir David, Squire Meldrum, 291
Lyonesse, 279
Lyrics, Harleian (B.M. 2253), 360 ff., 370,
378
Mabel, daughter of Robert Fitz-hamon, 256
Mabinogion, 249, 252, 253, 255, 269,
271, 276. See also Lady C. Guest
Macpherson, J., 275
Madden, F., 269, 322, 326, 328
Maeldune. See Mialdon, Battle of
Maglocunus, king of Anglesey, 67
Magna Charta, On the King's Breaking
his Confirmation of, 376
Maitland, F. W., in Traill's Social England, 363
Malchus, St, 74, 75, 191
Malcolm of Scotland (Malcolm III), 140
Maldon, The Battle of, 48, 109, 125,
137, 143, 144, 150, 278
Malkin and Jankin, in Lutel Soth Sermun,
226
Malmesbury Abbey, 78, 159. See William
of Malmesbury
Malory, Sir Thomas, 243, 245, 268, 269,
273, 294, 295, 299
Mambres, legend of, 135
Manawytaan, Son of Llyr, 252, 255
Mandeville's Travels, 307
Manitius, 83
Mannyng, Robert, of Brunne (fl.1288-1338)
(Handlyng Synne, etc.), 204, 335, 340,
341, 344ff., 358, 399
Manorbier Castle, Wales, 194
Manuscripts, 7
Map, Walter    (fl.  1200) (De  Nugis
Curialium, Quete del St Graal, etc.),
157, 160, 173, 176, 177, 188ff., 264,
270, 271, 272, 367
Marathon, 95
Marbod of Rheims, 232
Marcellinus Comes, 81
Marcolf, 63
Margam, chronicle of the abbey of, 256
Margaret, sister of Edward aetheling, 140
Margaret, St, Life of, 229
Marguerite, in Pearl, 321
Marianus, Scotus (1028-1082?), 161
Marie de France, 238, 239, 270, 274,
281, 294, 295, 300, 469
Lai le Freine, 281, 300
Lanval, 274
Le  Chevrefeuille (The Honeysuckle), 274
Mark= March ab Meirchion, king of
Cornwall, 273, 274, 310
Mark, St, 132
Marriage Feast, parable of, in Cleanness,
323
Marsh, Adam, 205, 206
Marsiglio of Padua, 212
Martial, 191
Martin, St, 74, 118
Martinius, Monk, 105
E. L. I.


Namnes                         497
Martyrology, Bede's, 80
The, West Saxon, 105, 106
Mary, the Virgin, 64, 74, 115, 146, 147,
220, 248, 297, 321, 342, 343, 353,
356. See also the following:
Compassio  Mariae and    Assumptio
Mariae, 232
Five Joys of the Virgin, The, 231
Lofsong of ure Lefdi, 232
On God Ureisun of ure Lefdi (A
Good Orison of Our Lady), 232
Prayer to Our Lady, A, 232
Prayer to the Virgin, A, 232
Sainte Maria Virgine, 220
Song to the Virgin, A, 232
Mary of Egypt, St, Life of, 131
Mary Magdalene, St, 341
Math, son of Mathonwy, 252
Matilda, queen of Henry I, 151, 157
Matthew of Westminster, 179
St, 54
Matzner, E., ix
Maud, empress, 166
Maxen Wledig, Dream of, 252
Maxima, abbess, 75
Maximian, emperor, 53
Mead, W. E. (Merlin), 268
Medraut, or Modred, or Mordred, 248
Meilyr, story of, in Giraldus Cambrensis,171
Melchior, in William of Palerne, 316
Melchizedek, 74
MIelior et Idoine, 460
Mellyagraunce, of Malory, 262
Melrose, chronicle of, 174
Melwas, king of Somerset, 262
Menologium, 145
Merchant's Second Tale, 298, 299
Mercia, 50, 125
-- laws of, 98
Mercian annals (or Chronicle of Aethelflaed), 109, 110.   See  also  under
Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia
Merlin, prophecies of, 169, 170, 193,
258, 356; in the Bruts, 235, 259, 266
(Kaermedin, in   Layamon); in the
romances, 263, 268    (Vita Merlini,
Suite de Merlin, Myrdin, in Welsh
tradition),  269,  271  (Robert   de
Borron's)
Mermedonians, 53
Metre, Bede's tracts on, 80
Michael, St, 134, 227, 339
Middle Ages, the, 99, 153, 161, 187,
278, 294, 299, 300, 306, 363, 366, 371
Migne, Patrologia, 186, 202, 250
Miller, T., trans. of Bede, 44, 96
Milton, J., 43, 164, 370
Milus, St, 106
Mind of Man (Bi manna mode), 62
Minot, Laurence (1300?-1352?), 290, 335,
352, 356
Modred, or Mordred, in Arthurian legend,
235, 260 ff., 266, 313
Mohammadanism, 153
Moliere, J. B. P., 371
Mommsen, Theodor, 65, 66, 68, 70
Monmouth. See Geoffrey of
32




498


Index of Names


Monte Cassino, 214
Monte. See Robert of
Montfort. See Simon de
Moral Ode. See Poemna Morale
Morgam, chronicle of the abbey of, 256
Morgan le Fay, 265, 327
Morley, H., viii, 47, 218
Morley. See Daniel of
Morris, R., 115, 218
Morte Arthure (English rime and alliterative versions), 235, 270, 281, 284, 290,
313, 333
Moses, 134, 226
Mucius, consul, 95
Mule sans Frein, La, 296
Munchner Brut, 236
Myrgingas, the, in Widsith, 34, 35
Napier, A. S., 53, 55, 125, 129, 133
Narcissus, 74
Nechtan, king of the Picts, 82
Neckam, Alexander (1157-1217), 193,
227, 238, 239, 367
Neilson, George, Huchown of the Awle
Byale, 284
Nemnivus, 70
Nennius or Nynniaw (fl. 796), 31, 65,
66, 68, 70, 71, 81, 169, 245ff., 250,
257, 258, 268, 336
Neots, St, Lives of, 90, 131
Nero, 226
Nest, "the Helen of Wales," daughter of
Rhys ap Tewdwr, 194, 256
Neville's Cross, battle of, 357
Newburgh. See William of
Nicholas of Guildford (fl. 1250), cleric
of Portisham, Dorset, 238
Nicholas, St, Image of, by Hilarius, 191
Nicodemus, Gospel of, 133
Niflheim, 63
Niger, Ralph (fl. 1170), 450
Nimrod, in Alfred's Boethius, 101
Nithhad, in Deor, 36
Norman literature, 447
Normans, coming of the, 136, 149, 151,
156
North Sea, the, 32
Northumbria, 5, 14, 50, 62, 84, 89
(literary centre of western Europe),
305; school of chroniclers, 161; dialect,
132
Notker of St Gall, 81, 99
Nud, father of Gwynn, 255
Nutt, A., 253, 271, 272
Ockham. See William of
Octavian, 290
Odin, 8
Odo of Cheriton (d. 1247), 366
--   St, 153
Odyssey, 293
Offa, in Beowulf and Widsith, 26, 34
-      in The Battle of Maldon, 145;
legend of, 218
laws of, 98
Offarum, Vitae Duorum, 34
Ohthere (fl. 880), 94


Ohthere, in Beowulf, etc., 24, 25
Olaf, 287
Old German poems, 147
Old Wives' Tale, 294
Olif and Landres, 283
Olivier, or Oliver in Sir Ferumbras (Fierabras), 284, 302
Olwen, daughter of Yspadaden Pen Kawr,
254
Olwen. See Kulhwch and 0.
Onela, in Beowulf, 24, 26
Ongentheow, in Beowulf and Widsith,
24 ff., 34
Ordericus Vitalis (1075-1143?), 162, 163,
170
Ordlaf, in Finnsburh, 31
Orestes and Pylades, 314
Orfeo, Sir, 281, 288, 294, 295, 299, 300,
310, 311,
Orm (fl. 1200?) (and Ormulum), 222 ff.,
375, 376, 386 ff., 394, 398, 340, 399
Orosius, Paulus, 66, 76, 81, 93 ff., 239
Orpheus and Eurydice, 294, 311; in
Alfred's Boethius, 100
Osbern (fl. 1090), monk of Canterbury,
153
Osbert de Clare (fl. 1136), 449
Oslaf (Ordlaf?), in Beowulf, 31
Osney, Abbey of and Annals of, 178,
182, 257
Ossianic poems, the, 275
Oswald, St, king of Northumbria, 82, 106,
120, 121, 148
-    St, archbishop of York, 113
Oswy, Oswiu, of Northumbria, 12, 380
Otfried, Old High German poet, 118, 288
Otho IV, 192
6ttarr, 26
Otuel, Sir, 302
Ovid, 76, 197, 221
Owayn's, Sir, visit to Purgatory, 339
Owein, in Geraint, 274
Owl and Nightingale, 219, 222, 223,
238 ff., 291, 361
Owun, one of the scribes of the Rushworth Gospels, 132
Oxenedes. See John de
Oxford, Grimbald's visit to, 89; Trill
millstream, 202; Black Friars Mills and
Road, 202; Grey Friars Mill, 202;
Preachers' Bridge, 202; Grand Pont or
Folly Bridge, 209; Durham (Trinity)
College, 215; riot at, 180, 337; and
Paris, 152, 183 ff., 222, 233; Merton
College, 213, 332; professorships of
"Anglo-Saxon" at, 382; Jewry, 202;
Church of St Edward, 202; St Ebbe's,
202; St Frideswide, 191, 193
Padua, Baconthorpe at, 213
Palamon and Palaemon, 279, 286
Palermo, Michael Scot at, 199
Panta river, or Blackwater, 41, 144
Paolo and Francesca, 270, 363
Paradiso, 99, 154
Parcae, the, in Alfred's Boethius, 100
Parcy Reed, 300




Index of Names


499


Paris, Gaston, 269, 283, 286, 290, 326
- Matthew (d. 1259), 153, 160, 174,
178 ff., 179, 182, 183, 204, 214, 364
-      Notre-Dame, cathedral school of,
183, 200; Quartier Latin, 185; abbey
of St Victor, 183; Ile de la Cit6, 183,
185; hill and church of Sainte-Genevieve, 183, 184; English scholars of,
152, 177, 183 ff., 233; Sorbonne, 215;
influence of, 149, 222
Parker, Matthew, 89, 90
Parliament of the Three Ages, 333, 334
Parthenopaeus, 286
Parthenopex de Blois, 286
Partonope, 286
Parzival, 269, 271, 280. See also Wolfram
von Eschenbach
Paschasius Radbertus, 124
Passions of Martyrs, 75
Paternoster, 220, 375, 376
Paternoster, Kentish versions of the,
355
Patience, 320 ff., 333, 334
Patrick, St (373-463), 65, 68, 70, 339,
436
Paul, H., ix
Lanfranc's kinsman, 153
St, 72, 74, 115, 227
Paul, Revelation of, 75, 86
Vision of St, 118, 227
Pauli, R., 91, 102
Paulinus, 75, 81
- of Pdrigueux, 76
Paulus Diaconus, 35
--     Quaestor, 76
Peacock, Thomas Love, The Misfortunes
of Elphin, 252, 275
Pearl, 148, 296, 320 ff., 326, 329, 332,
333, 378
Peasants' Revolt, 371
Peckham, John (d. 1292), 210
Pegge's Life of Grosseteste, 204
Pelagius (fl. 400-418), 65
Peniarth library, Welsh MS. in, 252
Penitentials, 87
Peraldus, William, 355
Perceval le Gallois, 271
Percyvelle, Sir (Perceval, Percevall, Percival), 267, 269, 271, 272, 284, 289,
294. See also Parzival
Peredur, son of Evrawc, 253, 271
Pericles of Tyre, 135
Persius, 76
Perugia, chapter of, 212
Peter de la Celle, 186
- Gregory's deacon, 105
-    of Blois (fl. 1160-1204), 173, 176,
187, 188
of Langtoft, 344, 350ff., 358, 478
-   St, 118
-    the writer, 202
Peter, Revelation of, 86
Peterborough, abbey of, 398
Peterborough (Cynewulf), 49
Peterborough. See Benedict of
Peterborough Chronicle, 109, 111 ff., 138,
386, 387, 397


Peterhouse, 205
Petrarch, 216
Petrus Comestor, 154, 192, 226, 343
Peutinger Table, 71
Phantasma Radulphi, 332
Philip II, 307, 308
de Valois, 357
- the Bold, 354
Philippa, queen, 358
Philocosmia (Adelard), 153
Philomela, in Orosius, 95
Philosophia (Adelard), 153
Phoenix, 42, 52, 58, 59
Physiologus of Thetbaldus, 227. See also
60, 239
Old English, 59, 60.    See also
Bestiaries.
Pierre d'Ailly, Imago MEundi, 209
Piers Plowman, Vision of, 281, 291, 334,
348, 349, 352, 357, 360, 369, 371, 378
Piers the Usurer, tale of, 341, 346
Pilate, Pontius, 272
Pilkington, Gilbert, 366
Plato, 99, 187, 213
Plegmund (d. 914), 92
Plegwin, Bede's letter to, 80
Pliny, the elder, 76, 80, 81, 191
Plummer, C., 79, 81, 83, 85, 93, 104, 112
Pluto, 295
Plynlimmon, 250
Poema MIorale, 220, 227, 338, 376
Political Songs of England, 370
Pollock, Sir F. and Maitland,F.W.,HIistory
of English Law, 174, 181
Poore, Richard, bishop of Salisbury, 230
Porphyry, Commentary on, by William
of Ockham, 212
Porrus (Porus), 307
Powell, David, 262
--   York, in Social England, 369
Powys, prince of, 196
Praxapostolos, 77
Preiaeu Annwvn, or The Harrowings of
Hell, 251
Priscian, 114, 118, 185, 210
Priscus, 20
Priwen, or Pridwen, Arthur's ship, 248,
251
Procopius, 26
Prosper, 75, 76
Protasius, 75
Protesilaus, 279
Provencal legends, 115
-     version of Boethius, 99
Proverbs, Old English, 363.  See also
Hendyng and Alfred
Prudentius, 75, 76
Psalms, Old English versions, 106, 147;
Northern Psalter, 341
Pseudo-Kallisthenes, 135
Pseudo-Melito, 75
Ptolemy, 213
Pullen, Robert (d. 1147?), 185
Purgatory of St Patrick, 191, 474
Pwyll, prince of Dyved, and family of,
252
Pylades, 314




500


Index of Names


Rabanus of Mainz, 81
Radcliffe, Mrs, 279
Ragnell, in Wedding of Sir Gawain, 312
Ralph, earl of Norwich, 141
-    of Coggeshall (fl. 1207), 175
--   of Diceto (d. 1202?), 159, 160, 173,
175, 188
Ramsay, Allan, 290
Randal, Lord, 300
Ranulf de Glanville (d. 1190), 173, 181,
195
Rashdall's Universities of Europe, 202
Ratramnus, 75, 117, 120, 124
Rauf Coilyear, 291
Raymund of Pennaforte, 355
Real Presence, doctrine of the, 154
Recarede, king, 105
Red Book of Hergest, 249, 252, 263
Ree's Cambro-British Saints, 262
Reginald of St Augustine's, Canterbury,
191
Regulus, in Alfred's Boethius and Orosius,
95, 100
Reliquiae Antiquae, Wright and Halliwell, 362, 365
Renan, E., 253, 274
Renauard the fox, 366
Renaud de Beaujeu, 284
Retines. See Robert de
Retinues of the Great People, Song against
the, A, 370
Reynard the Fox, 366
Rheged, Urien's lordship of, 249
Rheims, council of, 185
Rhonabwy, Dream of, 253
Rhuys, life of Gildas by a monk of, 65
Rhys ap Tewdwr, 256
J., 250 ff., 254, 255, 273
Rich, St Edmund, of Abingdon or Pontigny (1170?-1240), 205, 339, 343
Richard I, 174 ff., 199, 337.  See also
under the romance.
-     II, 322
-     de Conyngton (d. 1330), 453
-  of Bury, (1281-1345), 183, 213,
214
- of Cornwall, brother of Henry III.,
368
-     of Devizes (fl. 1189-1192), 159,
163, 173, 176
-     of Dover, 188
L'Eveque, 184
-     prior of Hexham  (fl. 1138-1154),
161
Richard I, History of King, 175
Richard Cceur de Lion, 287, 307 ff., 317,
318, 399, 470
Richardson, S., 319
Riddles, Old English, 49, 51, 60, 61;
runes in, 12; Latin, 78
Rievaulx. See Ailred of.
Riming Poem, 62, 374
Rishanger, William (1250?-1312?), 181
Ritson, J., 361
Robert, archbishop, 111
-     de Monte (1110?-1186), or Robert
of Torigni, 168, 170, 172, 175, 256


Robert of Cricklade (1157-1170), 191
of Gloucester (c. 1300) and his
Chronicle, 152, 170, 298, 335 ff., 347,
350, 377
of Melun (d. 1167), 184
-    prior of Winchester, 176
the Englishman, or Robert de
Retines (fl. 1141-1143), 153
Robert of Sicily, 286
--   the Devil, 471
Robertson, J. G., ix
Robin Hood, 218, 300, 369, 371
Roe, 25
Roger of Hoveden, 160, 161, 172 ff., 178
--   of Wendover (d. 1236), 159, 178,179
Roland and Vernagu, 302
Roland, tales and song of, 281, 283,
291, 302
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole (1290?-1349),
364, 399
Roman Breviary, 53
Romaunt of the Rose, 280, 291, 321, 330
Rome, intercourse with and influence of,
64, 71, 79, 149, 185, 196
Rondiel, in Turnament of Totenham, 366
Rood, legend of, 133, 341, 342.   See
also Dream of the Rood and Cross
Rosalind, in As You Like It, 298
Roscellinus, 212
Rose, poem by Hilarius, 191
Roses, Wars of the, 301
Roswall and Lilian, 291
Round Table, the, 235, 251, 255, 260,
264, 266, 267, 286, 327, 336
Rufina, St, 74
Rufinus, 66, 75, 117
Ruin, The, 1, 4, 39
Runes, 7
Runic Poem, 62
Rushworth, J., 132
Rushworth Gospels, 132
Ruskin, J., 217
Ruthwell Cross, the, Dumfriesshire, 12,
56, 57
Rymenhild, princess, in Horn, 304, 306
Sabellian heresy, 224
Sabrina, in Geoffrey of Monmouth, 171
Saeferth (Sigeferth?), in Widsith, 34
Sagittarius, bishop of Embrun, 67
St Albans, 153, 159, 174, 178, 179, 181,
182, 193, 214
St David's, 89, 194, 196
St Edmundsbury, 162, 176, 182.   See
also Bury St Edmunds
St Gall, Bede's Death Song at, 61
St Hubert's abbey in the Ardennes, 82
St Michael's Mount, in Arthurian legend,
256, 260
St Swithun, 116, 120, 121, 131
Saints, Lives and Legends of, 120 ff.,
128, 151, 229, 286, 298
Saintsbury, G., English Prosody, 289,
338, 350
Saladin, 307
Salisbury. See John of
Sallust, 76




Index of Names


501


Salomon and Marcolf, proverb dialogues,
218
-    and Saturn, Dialogue of, 11, 62,
76
Salonius, bishop of Gap, 67
Saltrey. See Henry of
Samson, 74
-      abbot, 176
Samuel, son of Beulan, 70
Sandys, J. E., Classical Scholarship, 206
Saracens, in romance, 282, 293, 302,
304 ff., 317
Satan, in Genesis B and Paradise Lost,
46, 47
Saturn, in Alfred's Boethius, 100
Saturn. See Salomon and S.
Savile, Sir Henry, 213
Saules Warde, 227, 228, 355
Saxo Grammaticus, 8, 9, 25, 27, 28, 34, 37
Saxon, Old, paraphrase of Bible, 46
Scaccario, Dialogus de, or Dialogue of
the Exchequer, Rd. Fitz-Neale, 174
Sceldwea, in Beowulf, 28
Schaarschmidt (Joh. Saresberiensis), 184
Schepss, G., 101
Schipper, J., 96
Schism, the Great, 371
Schofield, W. H., x, 61
Scholastica, 74
Schroer, A., 114
Scipio, 95
Scop, the, 3, 58
Scot, Michael (1175?-1234?), 153, 199
Scotish Feilde, 292
Scotists, theological school of, 211
Scott, Sir Walter, 199, 279, 283, 287
Scottish Chaucerians, 297
Scribes, 17
Scriptoria, 18, 153
Scyld, in Beowulf, 2, 22, 25, 28
Seafarer, 1, 2, 38, 42, 54, 275
Sechnall, Hymn of St, 65
Secunda, St, 74
Sedulius, the, at Antwerp, 72, 76
Sempringham, 344. See also Gilbert of
Seneca, 76, 99, 100, 213, 355
Septuagint, The, 77
Sermun, Lutel Soth, 226
Seth, 134
Seven Sages of Rome, 286, 308, 309
Seven Sins (Byrhtferth), 131
Severn, Layamon's house on the banks
of, 234, 265
Sextus Placidus, English version of Medicina de quadrupedibus, 136
Shakespeare, 1, 7, 152, 274, 276, 296,
298, 316
Shelley, 370
Shepherd of Hermas, 75
Shirwood, W. (fl. 1260), 456
Sidonius, 76
Sievers, E., ix, 46, 55, 60, 101, 372
Sigeferth, in Finnsburh, 31
Sigemund, in Beowulf, 23, 26
Sigeric, 121
--   archbishop of Canterbury, 116
Sigewulf, 121


Sigferth or Sigweard, 126, 127
Signs of Death, 227
Sigrdrifumdl, 62
Sigrim the wolf, 366
Simeon of Durham (fl. 1130), 90, 148,
160 ff., 174
Simon, abbot, 178
archbishop of Canterbury, 353
- de Montfort, 180, 204, 205, 338,
339, 368
- of Tournay, 456
-    St, 354
Sinners Beware, 226, 227
Siward, abbot of Abingdon, 110
Sixille, priory of, or Six Hills, near Market Rasen, 344
Skaldskaparmdl, 27
Skeat, W. W., ix, 298
Skene, W. F., Four Ancient Books of
Wales, 247, 249
Skioldr and Skioldunga Saga, 25, 27, 32
Sluys, battle of, 357, 359
Smaland, 94
Smaragdus, 117
Smith, Miss Steel, ix
Social Satire in Middle English, 360
Sodom and Gomorrah, in Cleanness, 323
Sol, in Welsh tradition, 255
Solinus, 76, 81
Solomon, 62, 63, 134, 205, 349
Somme des Vices et des Virtus, or Li
Livres roiaux des Vices et des Vertus,
or Somme le Roi, 354
Somme le Roi, 354
Sophistici Elenchi, 206
Soul and Body Addresses, 61, 129, 227
Southampton, Arthur's departure from,
in Wace's Brut, 237
-   Minot's poem  on the battle of,
357, 359
Spain, Moors in, 153
Speculunz Ecclesiae, 206
Spens, Sir Patrick, 300
Spenser, E., 170; Faerie Queene, 284;
Red Cross Knight, 295; Sir Calidore,
in, 329
Squire of Low Degree, 288, 315
Starcatherus, 25
Statius, 170
Stephen, King, 111, 161, 166, 168, 171,
172, 364, 369; Acts of Stephen, 161,
163, 167, 168
Stevenson, F. S., 204
--. L., 152, 367
-     W. H., 90
Stow, J., Annals, 336
Strassburg. See Gottfried von
Straw, Jack, 369
Streoneshalh. See Whitby
Strode, Ralph, 332, 333
Stubbs, W., 157, 160, 161, 172, 173, 175
Suddene (Isle of Man), in Horn, 304
Sulpicius Severus, 75
"Sumer is i-cumen in," 360
Sunatorrek, 9
Sunday observance, letter sent from
heaven on, 134




502                      Index C
Svears, the, 25
Svend Aagesen, 34
Swallow, Hereward's mare, 364
Swedes, the, in Beowulf, 24, 25
Sweyn (d. 1014), 127
Swinburne, A. C., Tristram of Lyonesse,
273
Sylvester, 74, 75
Symphosius, 5th cent. Latin poet, 60,
76
Tacitus, 143, 187, 188
Taine, H., viii
Tales in Middle English, 360
Taliesin (fl. 550) and the Book of, 247 ff.,
251, 252, 255, 268
Tallwch (father of Tristram), 273
Tamlane, 295, 300
Tantalus, in Orosius, 95
Tarrent, in Dorset, 230
Tars, King of, 471
Tartars, irruption of the, 180
Tatwin (d. 734), 78
Tayster. See John de
Templars, the, 189
Temple, the, in the Cross legend, 134
Ten Brink, B., viii, 102, 143
Tennyson, 247, 266, 269, 284, 373
Terentian, 120
Terilo's Satire on Brazen Head, 210
Thackeray, W. M., 287
Thaun, P. de (fl. 1120), 226, 227
Thebes, wars and tale of, 279, 285, 286,
307
Thecla, 74
Thegan's Life of Ludwig the Pious, 90
Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, 185
Theodberht, 26
Theodore  (602?-690), archbishop  of
Canterbury, 5, 71 ff., 77, 82, 87
Theodoric of Chartres, 185
Theodric, Ostrogothic king, 20, 21, 34,
36, 37, 99
- in Deor, 36, 37
I., 26
Theophanius, Count, 105
Theseus, in Alfred's Orosius, 95
Thetbaldus, 227
Thomas (c. 1170), 273, 310, 316
a Becket. See Becket
-    a Kempis. See Kempis
de Hales (fl. 1250), 233
- of Ely (fl. 1175), 449
--   of Erceldoune, 316, 356
St, 74, 75, 120, 232
-  St, English Song on, 117
Thomas, Acts of, 75
Thomas Saga, 191
Thor, myths of, 297
ThorgerSr, daughter of Egill Skallagrimsson, 9
Thorneganus (or Byrhtferth), 131
Thorpe, B., 116, 117
Thorstein, the Red, 287
Three Children, the, 74
Thrush and the Nightingale, The, 362
Thrytho, in Beowulf, 23


" NAames
Thule, 26, 100, 216
Thurneysen, 246
Thurston, king, in Horn, 287
Tibbe, daughter of Rondill the refe, in
The Turnament of Totenham, 366
Tilbury. See Gervase of
Times, Song on the, 370
Tinchebray, battle of, 157
Tintagol or Tintagel, the castle of, 259,
273
Titus and Vespasian, 333, 334
Toledo, English scholars at, 153, 199
Tolous, Erl of, 471
Tomkyn, in Turnament of Totenham, 366
Torigni. See Robert of
Torrent of Portugal, 316
Toulouse, Dominicans at, 200
Tournay, siege of, Laurence Minot on,
357, 359
Traill, H. D., ix
Trautmann, M., 60, 118
Trentals of St Gregory, 312
Triamour, Sir, 316
Tristram, Sir, in Arthurian legend, 236,
261, 267, 270, 272ff., 282, 283, 290,
297 ff., 309, 310, 313, 316
Trivet, or Trevet, Nicholas (1258-1328?)
Troilus, 306. See also under Chaucer
Trokelowe, 181. See John of
Troy, legends of, 148, 195 (Joseph of
Exeter), 234 (Layamon), 258, 279, 285,
306, 342; Troy Book, 291, 333, 334;
Geste Hystoriale of the Destruction of,
306, 333
Truso, in Ohthere, 94
Turgot (d. 1115), 451
Turk's Legal Code of Alfred, 97
Tiirlin, H. von dem, 269
Turnament of Totenham, 366
Twrch Trwyth (Nennius's porcus Troit),
247, 254
Tyler, Wat, 369
Tyndale, or Tindal, W., 211
Tyr (Old Norse alphabet), 10
Tyre, in King Alisaunder, 307
Tysilio's Brut, 235, 263
Uath Mac Denomain, giant in Fled Bricrend, 327
Ubbe, in Havelok, 304
Ueberweg, F., History of Philosophy, 211
Ulfilas, bishop  of the  West Goths
(b. 311 A.D.?), 7
Upplond (Norway and Sweden), 26
Uriah, 93
Urian, in Arthurian legend, 259
Urien, lord of Rheged, 249
Urquhart, Sir Thomas, 69
Ursula, in Layamon, 237
Usk, Thomas, Testament of Love, 394
Usuard, 81
Uther in Arthurian legend, 259, 315
Vafprsinismdl, 62
Valerius, Epistle of, to Ruufinus 177, 189
Valkyries, 40
Vaughan, H., 232




Index of Names


503


Venantius Fortunatus, 8, 76
Venedotian code of laws of Wales, 249
Vener, lake, 26
Vercelli Book, The, 12, 53, 54, 56, 61, 430
Vergil, 68, 71 ff., 75, 76, 192, 209, 227,
258, 330
Vernagu, 302
Vernon MS, 474
Vices and Virtues, 228
Vices et des Vertus, Li Livres roiaux des,
354
Viciis, Summa seu Tractatus de, 355
Victoria, St, 75
Vietor, 57
Vilkina Saga, 32, 35
Virgin cult, 220, 223, 231, 232, 362. See
also under Mary
Vistula, the, 35, 94 (in Ohthere).
Vitalian, pope, 380
Vivian, 238
Volsunga Saga, 23, 35
Volumen Britanniae, or Book of Britain,
70 ff.
Volundarkvi6a, Old Norse poem, 36
Voragine, Jacobus a. See Jacobus
Vortigern (fl. 450), 71
Vortipor of Pembrokeshire, 67
Vosges, the, in Waltharius, 33
Vox and the Wolf, 366
Vulgate, the, 46, 84, 85, 91, 97, 208, 400.
See also Latin Old Testament and
Psalms, 76, 353
Wace (fl. 1170), 170, 232, 234, 235 ff.,
256, 263ff., 336, 337, 343, 350, 447
Wade, 218
Wadington. See William of
Waldef, i.e. Waltheof, 287
Waldhere, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 41, 277
Walgainus = Gawain, in Arthurian legend,
269
Walhalla, 43, 63
Wallensis, John (fl. 1283), 456
Thomas, 456
Walsingham, John (d. 1340?), 456
Walter, friend of Henry of Huntingdon,
167
archdeacon of Oxford, 168, 257
-, Hubert, 173, 181
of Hemingburgh (fl. 1300), 181
of Evesham (fl. 1320), 456
Waltharius, 32, 33
Wanderer, 4, 37, 38, 275, 372
Wanley, H., 45, 129
Wantage, 107
Ward, H. L. D., Catalogue of Romances,
191, 270
Warinus, 170
Warton, T., viii, 361, 377
Waurin, Chroniques et istoires, 236
Waverley, in   Surrey, monastery and
annals of, 178, 193, 337
Wealhtheow, in Beowulf, 22, 23, 24
Wearmouth, monastery of, 5, 71, 72, 78,
80, 83ff., 89
Weber, Immanuel, De Nigello Wirekero,
192


Wedding of Sir Gawain. See Gawain.
Weland Saga, 12; in Deor, 36.  See also
100, 218
Wells, 213
Wendland, 94
Wendover. See Roger of
Werferth, 93, 105
Werwolf, the, in William  of Palerne,
316
Wessex under Alfred, 88, 89
West Saxon Gospels, 132, 133
Westernesse (Wirral?), in Horn, 304
Weston, Miss J. L., 270, 328
Wheloc, A., 112
Whitby, 42, 96
White Book of Rhyderch, The, 252
White Sea, the, 94
Widia (Wudga), in Waldhere, 36
Widsith, 1, 3, 19, 20, 21, 31, 34, 36,
37
Wife of Usher's Well, 300
Wife's Complaint, The, 38, 39
Wiglaf, in Beowulf, 1, 24, 25
Wihenoc, the Breton, 257
Wil and Wit, 228
Wilfrid, St, archbishop of York (634 -709), 16, 82, 85
Willem, Fleming, 366
William II., 162, 189
- de la Mare (fl. 1284), 210, 456
of Auvergne, 207
of Champeaux, 183
of Malmesbury (d. 1143?), 5, 72,
90, 91, 96, 97, 101, 105, 106, 155, 157,
159, 162, 164, 168, 171, 172, 218, 243,
250, 256, 257, 262, 269, 337
-    of Newburgh (1136-1198), 68, 160,
161, 168, 169, 171ff., 245, 257
of Ockham (d. 1349?), 200, 212
of Shoreham, 353ff.
-of Wadington, 204, 344ff., 348,
349
the Conqueror, 111, 141, 149, 150,
155, 256, 396
William of Palerne, 281, 286, 292, 316,
357, 378
Willibald (700?-786), 436
Willoughby, Sir Hugh (d. 1554), 94
Winchester, Annals of, 178
monastery and    school of, 113,
114, 116, 118, 125
Winchester Chronicle, 104, 109, 112." See
also under Chronicle
Windsor, 369
Winteney, Nuns of, 230
Wireker, Nigel (fl. 1190), 173, 176, 192
Wirral, 304
Woden, 40, 218
Wolfram von Eschenbach, 268, 269, 271,
280, 294
Woman, A Song on, 362
of Samaria, 225, 226
Wonders of the East, 135
Wood, Antony, 199
Worcester, Annals of, 178
-- copy of Pastoral Care, 93
Worcester. See Florence of




504


Irndex of Names


Worcester or Evesham Chronicle, 109 ff.
See also under Chronicle
Wordsworth, 170, 246, 358
Worms as a Frankish town, 33
Wright, W. Aldis, 337
--     Thomas, viii, 351, 361
Wudga, in Widsith, 35
Wulfgeat, Aelfric's English letter to, 126
Wulfmaer, 144
Wulfsige, 124, 127
Wulfstan (d. 1023), archbishop of York,
5, 124, 125, 127, 128ff., 134, 145
-      of Winchester, 125, 442
St., 164
voyage of, 94
Wiilker, R., ix, 50, 102, 106
Wyclif, J. (d. 1384), 204, 211, 213, 332, 367,
371, 400
Wygar, the smith, maker of Arthur's
Corselet, in Layamon, 236, 265
Wykes, Thomas, of Osney (fl. 1258-1293),
182
Wynnere and TWastoure, 333, 334


Wyntoun. See Andrew of
Wyrd, 41
Ylmandun (Ilmington), 126
Ynglingatal, 25, 26
Ynglingla Saga, 3, 25, 94
York, School of, 5, 84, 87; Alcuin at, 59,
84, 86; connection with Worcester, 111,
127, 129; Bede's journey to, 79
Yorkshire, Laurence Minot and, 357;
William of Wadington and Peter of
Langtoft, 344
Ypotis, 286
Yspadaden Pen Kawr, 254
Ystorya Brenhined y Brytanyeit, 263
Ywain and Gawain, and Sir Ywain, 279,
280, 282, 284, 288, 312
Zeuss, J. C., 34
Zimmer, H., Nennius Vindicatus, etc., 65,
68, 70, 246, 269
Zupitza, J., ix


CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAYr M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.