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AUTHOR: 
 
 BUTLER, SIR GEOFFREY 
 GILBERT 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 GUIDE TO AN 
 EXHIBITION OF 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1920 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT 
 
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 Butler, Sir Geoffrey Gilbert, 1887-10?9 
 
 Guide to an exhibition of historical authorities 
 illustrative of British history, comp. from the 
 rSiToL'fV %^r '"^-^^^^ollesl cLbridge, 
 
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 BY nPPLIED IMRGE. INC. 
 
Guide to an Exhibition of Historical 
 
 Authorities Illustrative of British 
 
 History, compiled from the Manu- 
 
 * [scripts of Corpus Christi College, 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 by 
 SIR GEOFFREY BUTLER, K.B.E. 
 
 FELLOW AND LIBRARIAN 
 
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 Guide to an Exhibition of Historical 
 Authorities Illustrative of British 
 History, compiled from the Manu- 
 scripts of Corpus Christi College, 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 by 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY BUTLER, K.B.E. 
 
 FELLOW AND LIBRARIAN 
 
 \ 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1920 
 

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 TO 
 
 MY COLLEAGUES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 
 
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 H J5 -^ V o 
 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 T^His collection of exhibits has been formed to show the kind 
 1 of materials upon which a historian of Great Britain relies 
 for his information. It is selected from the famous library of 
 Archbishop Parker which he bequeathed to Corpus Christi 
 College in 1574. Manuscripts after the Reformation had fre- 
 quently passed from their place in the monastic libraries and had 
 wandered from hand to hand about the country. It was Parker's 
 work to seek them out, to collect them into a central spot and 
 to preserve them for the use of succeeding generations. The 
 Archbishop approached all manuscripts in a spirit of antiquarian 
 reverence; he sympathised, as we learn from his correspondence, 
 with the interests of the palaeographer, the liturgiologist and the 
 philologian and he has provided materials for all of these to 
 study. Not least of his desires was, however, to make a collection 
 of materials for the study of English History. He succeeded in 
 his purpose to such an extent that Fuller, speaking of his bequest, 
 calls It the "sun of English antiquities" while the Provost of 
 Eton, Dr M. R. James, speaks of it as "one of the richest store 
 houses of ancient learning in the country 1." The following notes 
 make no pretence to originality and are taken from secondary 
 sources for the convenience of visitors. 
 
 BEFORE THE CONQUEST 
 
 LEGENDARIES, LAWS, INSCRIPTIONS, HISTORIES 
 
 In the days before the Conquest a predominating part was 
 played by the lives of Saints and the legends of their miracles. 
 The first efforts of the chroniclers were naturally particular and 
 local. A distinct step had indeed been made when they passed 
 from describing the life-work of a saint or the passion of a 
 
 c- 'J "^^i^^ ^?r ^^^™P^^ ^^^^ o^t of the forty-three chronicles selected by 
 1^ Vr """s Hardy as the most important authorities for the period between 
 the Norman Conquest and the end of the reign of Richard I no less than 
 fifteen are to be found in the Corpus library, and that of these, eleven are 
 either umque manuscripts or manuscripts of primary authority. 
 
 ■i 
 
[ 4 ] 
 
 martyr to putting upon record the fortunes of the house to which 
 he had belonged (or which bore his name), together with a h'st 
 of its Abbots or the munificence of its founders and benefactors. 
 Yet in many cases their authority, though poor, is our only 
 authority and from their pages, along with much that is absurd 
 or untruthful or superstitious, is to be gathered invaluable sidelight 
 upon the history of the day and the customs of contemporaries. 
 
 Exhibit No. i (Parker ms. No. 389) is a Life of St Guthlac, 
 the anchorite of Crowland, undertaken by a certain Felix at 
 the command of Ethelbald, King of the East Angles, in the 
 early part of the eighth century. (See DufFus Hardy, vol. i. 
 p. 405.) The manuscript on view, which is the oldest but one 
 of the nine known (the oldest is also at Corpus), was written 
 some time in the ninth century. 
 
 The passage at which the book is open runs: 
 
 Now there was in the days of Ethelred, the illustrious King of the 
 Angles, a certain man of noble Mercian stock, by name Penwald, whose 
 house, abounding in all kinds of wealth, stood in the territory of the 
 middle English folk (Mercia)...etc. etc. 
 
 The book is written in a fine flat-topped minuscule of Celtic 
 (or insular) aspect. The page open is adorned with an initial of 
 interlaced work and dragons* heads. 
 
 By its side are Exhibits Nos. 2 and 3 (Parker mss. Nos. 286 
 and 197) which are placed here for association's sake. 
 
 Exhibit No. 2 is a copy of the famous Canterbury Gospels, 
 which a reasonable tradition asserts was sent by Pope Gregory 
 the Great to St Augustine. 
 
 Exhibit No. 3 contains the Celtic Gospel fragments. They 
 illustrate the nature of the work done by the insular Celtic 
 school of writing about the date at which Felix of Crowland 
 wrote his life of Guthlac. 
 
 Fortunately historians are not alone dependent for informa- 
 tion upon stories contained in legendaries and the lives of saints. 
 The next two exhibits (Nos. 4 and 5) are examples of a diflFerent 
 class of document. 
 
 Exhibit No. 4 (Parker ms. No. 201) is a compilation of 
 Anglo-Saxon Laws, drawn up in the eleventh century and 
 containing the laws of Edgar, Ethelred and Athelstan. The 
 oldest version of the Anglo-Saxon laws known to Dr Liebermann 
 and judged by him to be written about 925 is also in the Corpus 
 
 / t. 
 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
 Library (in Parker ms. No. 173). It is bound up with the Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle. 
 
 Exhibit No. 5 (Parker ms. No. 1 90) contains among other works 
 a Compendium of Ecclesiastical Law presented by Bishop 
 Leofric (bishop of Devon and Cornwall, then of Exeter 1 046- 
 1050) to the Cathedral Library at Exeter. 
 
 Exhibit No. 6 (Parker ms. No. 140), the Cartulary of 
 Bath Abbey, contains certain norices of manumissions by Abbot 
 Aelfsig, the last Abbot of Bath. One, which may easily be seen, 
 reads as follows: 
 
 It is declared on this Gospel that Leofnoth the son of Aegehioth 
 of Korstun hath bought him and his offspring from Aelfsig the Abbot 
 and all the brotherhood at Bath for five ores [one ore=one-eighth of 
 a mark, a Danish unit] and twelve head of sheep. Witness the port reeve 
 KasciU and all the burgesses of Bath. May Christ bHnd him that ever 
 invalidates this. 
 
 Two exhibits (Nos. 7 and 8) complete this section. 
 E3diibit No. 7 (Parker ms. No. 391) is the Portiforium (or 
 service book) of Bishop Oswald (Bishop of Worcester from 
 960-993), an eleventh century book bearing invaluable testi- 
 mony in the sphere of Anglo-Siaxon liturgiology. 
 
 Exhibit No. 8 (Parker ms. No. 23), which the late Henry 
 Bradshaw dated as tenth to eleventh century, contains the well- 
 known drawings in the Works of Prudentius (the Psycho- 
 machia), drawings which in themselves, even if unsupported by 
 other testimony, would go far to upset the idea that the art of 
 Anglo-Saxon times was of necessity crude and barbarous. 
 
 These eight works are specimens of the material upon which 
 historians have based their evidence in compiling the history of 
 England before the Conquest. It is easy to understand how an 
 intelligent and an informed study of such materials throws light 
 upon the normal life of the day, the social and legal ideas current, 
 the religious beliefs and practices, the conception of artistic 
 achievement A series of learned and adroit interpreters have 
 by means of such evidence given an entirely new picture of the 
 Anglo-Saxon epoch, its relation to the continent, and the stage of 
 development which it had reached. There is no reason to think 
 that the endeavours of such interpreters have been completed. 
 
 So much for the unconscious testimony of the literary remains 
 of these centuries. We have too the conscious testimony of the 
 
 
I 
 
 [ 6 ] 
 
 liistorians. The first history of Britain was written by Gildas, 
 about the year 545: the next by Nennius about 850. The first 
 great historian in England however was the Venerable Bede. 
 Born in 673 he lived his life as a monk at Jarrow in North- 
 umbria and died in the act of translating the scriptures into 
 English in 735. His Ecclesiastical History of the English was 
 written in Latin but is of course to a large extent a general 
 history of the country. From 597-731 the history is given in 
 full detail, being based upon contemporary records, collected by 
 Bede, and upon his own personal knowledge. It is, to take one 
 example, the chief authority for the introduction of Christianity 
 into England, both in the south by St Augustine from Rome, 
 and in the north by Aidan from lona. There are more than 
 130 MS. copies of Bede known. It has been said that King 
 Alfred caused the Ecclesiastical History to be translated into 
 Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 Eihibit No. 9 (Parker ms. No. 41) is a West Saxon version 
 of Bede's Ecclesiastical History written about the time of 
 the Norman Conquest. The passage, at which the book is open, 
 IS from the middle of the description of the test, suggested by 
 the Abbot Dinoth to the British Bishops, of St Augustine's 
 Christian humility: 
 
 And now if Augustine is meek and of lowly heart, then it is believable 
 that he bears the yoke of Christ and teaches you to bear it. If however 
 he is not meek but proud, then it is clear that he is not of God; and 
 heed not his words. 
 
 They said again, "howmay we discern this?" He said, "See that he 
 comes with his followers to the place of meeting and takes his seat. And 
 if he rises up to meet you when you come, then be sure that he is Christ's 
 servant, and listen to his words and his teaching with submissiveness. If 
 however he scorns you and will not rise to meet you, when you are in the 
 majority, then let him be scorned by you." Now they did just as he had 
 said. They came to the place of meeting: archbishop Augustine sat in 
 his chair. When they saw that he did not rise up for them, they were at 
 once angered and considered him haughty and contradicted and opposed 
 all his words. 
 
 Side by side with Bede's Ecclesiastical History must be taken 
 the following: 
 
 Exhibit No. 10 (Parker ms. No. 173) is the earliest and best 
 MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (S) (with which is bound 
 up Liebermann's "earliest authority for the laws of Alfred and 
 
 
 [ 7 ] 
 
 Ine" and an eighth century manuscript of Sedulius). The latest 
 editor of the chronicle, Mr Charles Plummer, regards this 
 manuscript as written in the reign of King Alfred, maintaining 
 that "after 892 the entries were made not very long after the 
 events which thev describe." He supposes the existence of an 
 earlier chronicle (which he calls JE) drawn up by King Alfred 
 himself, possibly even dictated in certain portions by that king, 
 to whom popular tradition is correct in attributing the idea of 
 the compilation of a national chronicle as opposed to merely 
 local annals. This original copy no longer exists, but the chief 
 claim to represent it to-day lies with the Corpus manuscript. 
 
 The passage at which the ms. is open contains an account of 
 the struggle with the Danes in 871, including the great victory 
 of Ethelred and Alfred at Ashdown, the site of which is popu- 
 larly supposed to be marked by the well-known figure of a 
 white horse cut in the chalk on the Berkshire Downs. This is 
 visible from Uffington Starion on the Great Western Railway. 
 
 871. In this year the army [i.e. the Danes] came to Reading in Wessex, 
 and, three nights after, two jarls rode up, when the aldorman Ethelwulf 
 met them at Inglefield and there fought against them and gained the 
 victory; and one of them was there slain whose name was Sidroc. Four 
 nights after this King Ethelred and Alfred his brother led a large force 
 to Reading and fought against the army, and there was great slaughter 
 made on each side: and the aldorman Ethelwulf was slain, and the Danes 
 held possession of the battleplace. And four nights after. King Ethelred 
 and Alfred his brother fought with all the army at Ashdown; and they 
 were in two divisions; in one was Bagsecg and Half dan, the heathen 
 kings, and in the other were the jarls; and then King Ethelred fought 
 with the kings' division, and there was the king Bagsecg slain: and 
 Alfred his brother fought against the jarls' division, and there was the 
 elder jarl Sidroc slain, and the younger jarl Sidroc, and Asbiom jarl and 
 Fraena jarl and Harald jarl, and both divisions put to flight and many 
 thousands slain; and they were fighting till night. 
 
 This may well have been dictated by Alfred himself. 
 • Exhibit No. 1 1 (Parker ms. No.' i 00) is a transcript, made in the 
 sixteenth century, of the famous Life of Alfred by Asser. 
 The unique manuscript of this was destroyed in the Cottonian 
 fire in 1731. The exhibited transcript becomes therefore the 
 best authority for that valuable work. It too is open at a descrip- 
 tion of the battle of Ashdown. This series is completed by the 
 next exhibit. 
 
 t 
 
[ 8 J 
 
 Exhibit No. 12 (Parker ms. No. 183) is a ms. of the Life 
 OF St Cuthbert by the Venerable Bede. We know this book 
 to have been presented to the See of Durham by King Athelstan 
 in 931. The portrait of the King, giving the book to the Saint, 
 at which the manuscript is open, is perhaps the oldest con- 
 temporary portrait of a king of England. 
 
 AFTER THE CONQUEST 
 
 Ediibit No. 13a (Parker ms. No. 332) contains two Treatises 
 BY St Anselm written by his disciple and biographer Eadmer. 
 It contains corrections which have been said to be in the auto- 
 graph of St Anselm himself 
 
 Exhibit No. 13ft (Parker ms. No. 480} is a Greek Psalter 
 of the twelfth century which belonged to Robert Grosseteste 
 (i 175-1253), Bishop of Lincoln, the patron of the Franciscans, 
 to whose library in Oxford he gave it. It contains many auto- 
 graph marginal notes of Grosseteste. 
 
 After these two exhibits, included alike for their associations 
 as also for the testimony the latter bears to the study of Greek 
 m mediaeval England, one passes to seven exhibits, each one of 
 which IS a famous chronicle of England, as also an important 
 or unique manuscript of it. That the mediaeval chroniclers 
 cannot be treated by the modern historian in the same way that 
 he can treat the ancient historians was a discovery largely of 
 the nineteenth century, and was due to the rigorous examination 
 to which they were subjected by a school of investigators, among 
 whom the chief place must be allowed to the late Bishop Stubbs 
 of Oxford. Matthew Parker's experience for example is in- 
 structive. Faced with the Flores Historiarum, attributed to 
 Matthew of Westminster, he edited the work with the greatest 
 (^re. Four years later he discovered, to his great disappointment, 
 that his text had been taken from an imperfect manuscript He 
 brought out therefore a new corrected edition. His mortification 
 must have been increased upon discovering that the Chronica 
 Majora of Matthew Paris, an earlier writer, contained the 
 materials from 1 066-1 259, from which the Flores His- 
 tonarumhsid been taken. In the year following his second 
 edition of Matthew of Westminster, he published this new author. 
 JLven that was not original but taken, up to the year 1235 at 
 
 ^||M| 
 
 f 
 
 *f r 
 
 [ 9 J 
 
 any rate, from a previous author Roger of Wendover^. The 
 experience of Parker is significant. 
 
 ^ The mediaeval chronicler, with certain exceptions, had no 
 intention of writing original history. His practice tended towards 
 fixing upon some previous chronicle, annexing its contents, with 
 or without special editing, as matter to start from, and the con- 
 tinuation of it so as to bring it up to date. Accordingly each 
 chronicle has to undergo an exhaustive process of collation with 
 others. The scholars referred to above have provided several 
 chains of descent, upon which these various manuscripts hang. 
 Few are isolated or detached from such chains, i.e. few chroni- 
 clers adopt the position of the original writer, or the detached 
 critic of events other than those which were contemporary. 
 This evolutionary development of the chroniclers gives especial 
 value to works like Bede*s Ecclesiastical History or the Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle, which are fundamental and from which most 
 subsequent writers start. 
 
 Exhibit No. 14 (Parker ms. No. i 39) is the unique manu- 
 script, written in the twelfth century, of Simeon of Durham's 
 HiSTORiA Regum. The author, a monk first of Tarrow, after- 
 wards of Durham, belonged to the northern school of historians, 
 who carried on the tradition of Bede. He wrote, beside this, 
 about the year 1 105, a history of the Church of Durham. On 
 analysis his History of the Kings proves to be based upon Bede, 
 an early Northumbrian chronicle and from 848 to 11 17 upon 
 the chronicle of Florence of Worcester, of which there is an 
 important twelfth century ms. in the Corpus Library, though 
 this is not on exhibition (No. 92). Simeon's work again was 
 continued by one John of Hexham for the years 11 29-1 154, 
 the unique manuscript of which is bound up in the present 
 volume. The whole has been edited by Mr Arnold in the 
 Rolls Series. The passage at which the manuscript is open 
 describes the Norman Conquest: 
 
 In the meantime while these events [the victory of King Harold at 
 Stamford Bridge over Harold Harfager and Tosti] took place, and the 
 King imagined that all his enemies had been destroyed, tidings were 
 brought to him that William, kinsman of King Edward and count of 
 Normandy, with a strong force of cavaby, artillery, archers and infantry 
 had arrived, with all the appearance of having rallied to his side strong 
 reinforcements from the whole of France, and had run his fleet into a 
 
 * Hardy, i. xLin. 
 
 
 
y 
 
 [ 10 ] 
 
 place called Pevensey. And so the king turned immediately to London 
 and moved his army in great haste; and albeit he was well aware that the 
 flower of EngUsh troops had fallen recently in the two battles and that 
 the mam guard of his troops had not yet arrived, he did not hesitate all 
 the same as quicldy as he might to make contact with the enemy in 
 Sussex. Thus nine miles from Hastings, where he had fixed his camp, 
 before a third of his troops could be got into order of battle, he joined 
 battle with them on the Sabbath on the eleventh day before the Kalends 
 of November. 
 
 Exhibit No. 15 (Parker ms. No. 280) is the History of 
 Henry of Huntingdon. This work forms an exception to the 
 rule that mediaeval history was the work of monks. Its author 
 was probably born at Huntingdon about 1080 and was brought 
 up m the Palace of Bishop Blouet of Lincoln. Sometime be- 
 tween 1 1 10 and 1 120 he was made archdeacon of Huntingdon 
 The greater part is based on Bede and the A.S. Chronicle, but 
 from 1 1 27 to 1 1 54 the work is original. The author was in- 
 telligent but preferred moralisation to research and generalisa- 
 tion to analysis of character. His history contrasts ill in this 
 respect with the work of William of Malmesbury but it enjoyed 
 great popularity and a European reputation. This manuscript 
 was written in the twelfth century and is placed by the editor 
 of the Rolls Series edition, Mr Arnold, at the head of the thirty- 
 three manuscripts (dating from the twelfth to the seventeenth 
 century) which have survived. It formed the object of exhaus- 
 tive examination by Dr Liebermann. 
 
 The manuscript is open at a passage describing the death of 
 Henry I from an illness caused by eating lampreys. Memorial 
 verses follow: 
 
 When therefore the king returned from the chase he eat some 
 lampreys at St Denis in the Foret des Lions, which were always bad for 
 hun and for which he always had a passion. For when his doctor em- 
 phatically forbade hmi them, the king paid no attention to this sensible 
 advice, it being a case of 
 
 We work pretty hard for forbidden fruit 
 And forbidding us makes it worse 1. 
 WeU, he had no sooner eaten them than he was suddenly and terribly 
 upset most distressing symptoms being brought on and proving a violent 
 mtroduction to worse of the same sort, accompanied by a drop in tem- 
 perature fatal to a man of his years. Then, as if by a spasmodic effort, 
 
 * The quotation is from Ovid, Amor iii. 4. 17. 
 
 " ] 
 
 nature threw him into a high fever in an attempt to expel the disastrous 
 poison. When however resistance at length failed this great king died 
 on the first of December having reigned thirty five years and three 
 months. 
 
 Exhibit No. 16 (Parker ms. No. 129) is the Itinerarium of 
 King Richard cceur-de-lion. This thirteenth century ms. 
 was used by Bishop Stubbs for his edirion in the Rolls Series. 
 Stubbs proves that the book is by Richard, a Canon of the Holy 
 Trinity in Aldgate (London). The writer enters into minute 
 particulars concerning the second Crusade and more especially 
 treats of the transactions of King Richard, with whose troops 
 in Palestine he frequently claims to have been present. The 
 work is invaluable to the student of mediaeval warfare. The 
 MS. is open at the passage in which the character of Richard is 
 described. 
 
 He certainly was of noble bearing and was a fine figure of a man. His 
 hair neither red nor golden was half way between the two; his Hmbs 
 were straight and supple; his arms somewhat elongated, which came in 
 very handy for the drawing of his sword and which rendered him a useful 
 man at wielding it. To harmonize his legs were also long and his 
 whole bodily proportions were to match. His appearance was that of 
 one born to rule, whose fitness to do so was due in no small degree to 
 his refinement and his bearing. The general recognition of his great 
 quahties he earned not by his noble birth alone but by the virtues which 
 were his adornment. 
 
 Exhibit No. 17 (Parker ms. No. 76) is a splendid twelfth 
 century presentadoii copy (made by the author for Hubert 
 Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury) of the Imagines His- 
 TORiARUM of Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St Paul's. Stubbs ranks 
 the Dean high as an authority for the reigns of Henry II and 
 Richard I. Devoted to the King and to Gilbert Foliot, Bishop 
 of London, Becket's chief opponent, he preserves a level head 
 even in the full flood of senriment which succeeded Becket's 
 martyrdom. The manuscript is open at his criticism of, and 
 comments upon, the Constitutions of Clarendon. 
 
 ^ The English king, as has been indicated before, was anxious to deal 
 rigorously with criminal practices and held it to be undesirable that the 
 dignity of the religious order should be turned into an inequitable 
 privilege. Accordingly he decreed that clerb taken in open offence 
 by his justices should be brought before the nearest bishop, in order 
 that the latter might in the presence of a justice of the King discharge 
 
[ 12 ] 
 
 from his jurisdiction those whom he should find guilty, and that in 
 due course he should hand such persons over to the King's court for 
 pumshment. In direct opposition were ahgned the bishops for they 
 felt bound to protect from the lay hand those whom they might 
 discharge lest otherwise judgement should be given twice in the sLe 
 cause (bis judicaretur m idipsum). PhUip de Broc, a canon of Bedford 
 provided an occasion for the outbreak of this controversy. He had got 
 into trouble over a murder and when brought before the King's court of 
 justice had spoken with contumely. But as he was not able to deny the 
 charge in the Archbishop's court, he was stripped of the enjoyment of 
 his prebendal stall and was banished for a couple of years from the 
 kingdom. ' 
 
 Ralph de Diceto had apparently grasped the principles in- 
 volved m the controversy but, like not a f^ contemporaries, 
 welcomed any postponement of the issue 
 
 EAibitNo. i8 (Parker ms. No. 175) is the manuscript fthir- 
 teenth to fourteenth century) of Waiter of Coventry's 
 MEMORIAI.E from which Stubbs printed the edition in the 
 Rolls SeriK The chronicle is a compilation of other compila- 
 tions (e.g Florence of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon, Roger 
 of Hoveden etc.) but from 1202-121 1 it appears to be original. 
 It was probably written in the diocese of York f? St Mirv's. 
 York) perhaps by Walter of Coventry. Perhaps it was merely 
 Walter of Coventry's present to the Library. This manuscript 
 belonged to the antiquary Leland before it came into Parker's 
 hands shortly before 1572^ The passage displayed describes King 
 John s grant of Magna Carta. ^ 
 
 «fh"i I'r, Tl""^ [''? ""' fixed where the parties might conveniently 
 gather and at length after a good deal of discussion they came to an 
 amicable settlement, the king granting them everything they wished and 
 confirming the grant by a Charter. Then those X, had .ZmhhTZe 
 
 for tt I^fiT "^7 T ""^ """^ "^e^'^"' ""d " ^y w" api^inted 
 for the fulfilmem of the terms and it was arranged that Jl action 
 necessanly ansing out of the compact should be completed by that 
 
 ahibit No. 19 (Parker MS. No. 26) is the Chronica Majora 
 OF Matthew Paris The greatest of all the monastic schools 
 of history was that of St Albans and the greatest of the St Albms 
 historians «^ Matthew Paris. The scriltoriumroHite^ry d^ 
 partment, of this abbey was established between 1077 ^nd7oqZ 
 
 » 
 
 r 13 ] 
 
 the office of historiographer, or writer of history, was created 
 between 1166 and 11 83. The first St Albans chronicle was 
 probably the work of John de Cella, Abbot of St Albans from 
 1 195 to 1214. This extends from the Creation to 1188 and is 
 a compilation from the Bible and from eariier historians and 
 romancers, of an enrirely uncrirical character. Roger of Wen- 
 dover, historiographer of the Abbey eariy in the thirteenth 
 centunr, continued this compilation from 1189 to 1201, and 
 ?[" on the history from 1 201 to 1235 as an original historian. 
 Ihe whoe work down to 1235 frequently passed under 
 Wendover s name and with the ritle of Flores Historiarum, In 
 1236, on Wendover's death, Matthew Paris, who had entered 
 the monastery in 121 7, succeeded him as historiographer. He 
 then transcribed Wendover's work with additions and correc- 
 tions of his own and continued it as far as 1259. This entire 
 work constitutes the Greater Chronicles which pass under Paris' 
 name, being— as is generally the case with mediaeval chronicles 
 —partly his own, and partly a re-ediring of his predecessors* 
 work. He also wrote an independent History of the English, 
 or Lesser History^ extending from 1066 to 1253, re-handling 
 his materials according to his own judgment instead of simply 
 adopting the records of his predecessors. As a contemporary 
 historian Matthew Paris is invaluable. He had ample means 
 of collecting information and material, as he was acquainted 
 with the leading men of the day, including Henry III. He is 
 a lively vigorous writer, criticising freely and with much inde- 
 pendence and supporting the popular cause against the King's 
 misgovernment and especially against the aggressions and ex- 
 tortions of the Pope's legates. He died in 1259I. 
 
 The text in this volume was used in the Rolls Series edition. 
 The book forms the working copy which Matthew Paris used, 
 adding autograph corrections, supplementary passages, etc. The 
 illustrations have been widely reproduced. There are also 
 interesting maps. It is open at the page containing a drawing of 
 the death of Thomas a Becket. 
 
 So the archbishop, amid the warnings of his clergy, as the evening 
 was drawing in, entered the main body of the Church in order to sing 
 vespers. The four sateUites of evil above-mentioned had meanwhile put 
 
 ^ I have taken the above description from the admirable British Museum 
 Guide Book. 
 
r H 1 
 
 on their anns and followed in the footsteps of the archbishop. And 
 when they came to the Church they found the doors open in accordance 
 with the archbishop's instructions. "For we must not change" he said 
 "the Church of Christ, which ought to be a refuge for everyone, into 
 a fortress just because the times are out of joint." A crowd immediately 
 collected as the four above-mentioned knights irreverently entered the 
 Church and began to shout aloud, "Where is the traitor to the King?" 
 " Where is the traitor to the King ? " " Where is the archbishop ? " Now he, 
 when he had caught the name archbishop, turned to meet them from 
 the third or fourth step up to the presbytery to which he had just 
 ascended, saying— "If it is the archbishop you seek, here you have me 
 right before you." And when they loaded him with abuse and threatened 
 him with death, he said, "I am ready to die, for better than life I value 
 the assertion of justice and the Church's Uberty. I do but ask that my 
 attendants are not implicated in my punishment for they are in no way 
 irapUcated in its cause." And when the abandoned murderers leaped upon 
 him with drawn swords, he said "I commend myself and the cause of 
 the Church to God, and blessed Mafy and the patron saints of this 
 Church and to the blessed Dionysius." Thus the martyr in his glory 
 was slaughtered before the altar of the Blessed Benedict, and received 
 his death wound on the very spot upon which the pouring of the holy 
 oil had specially set him aside for the Lord's service. 
 
 Exhibit No. 20 (Parker ms. No. 133) is the Scala Chronica 
 OF Sir Thomas Gray of Heton. In August 1355 the author, 
 who was a direct ancestor of Lord Grey of Fallodon, was 
 constable of King Edward IPs castle at Norham. He was de- 
 ceived by an ambush and was taken prisoner by the Scots in a 
 border raid. He was confined for two years in Edinburgh 
 Castle. Here he wrote his chronicle. The earlier parts are a 
 mere compilation. It becomes of first-rate value, when it 
 reaches the reigns of the three Edwards, especially as being 
 written by a soldier, who viewed affairs from a different stand- 
 pomt from that of the usual clerical annalist. He offers in the 
 prologue the usual apology for inexperience. How it was that 
 he (the author) found courage to treat of this matter, the story 
 tells that when he was a prisoner in the town Mount Agneth 
 (formeriy Chastel de Pucelis, now Edinburgh), he perused books 
 of chronicles, m verse and prose, in Latin, in French and in 
 English, about the deeds of the ancestore, at which he was 
 astonished; and it grieved him sore that, until that time, he had 
 not acquired a better knowledge of the course of the age. So, 
 as he had hardly anything else to do at the time, he became 
 
 It 
 
 [ 15 ] 
 
 curious and thoughtful, how he might deal with and translate 
 into shorter sentences the chronicles of Great Britain and the 
 deeds of the English. Then follows the description of a dream, 
 in which the Sibyl and a cordelier friar appeared to Gray and 
 provided him with a great ladder to scale a wall. Arrived at 
 the top, he obtained access to a mighty city, and beheld a number 
 of allegorical phenomena which inspired him with the desire to 
 carrv out the project of a chronicle. The Sibyl bade him call his 
 work Sca/a Chronica — the Ladder Chronicle; a title wherein, 
 perhaps, may be recognised an allusion to the crest adopted by 
 the Gray family— namely a scaling ladder^. There is no other 
 manuscript of the chronicle known. It is open at a passage 
 describing Edward Ts removal of the Scone coronation stone. 
 
 King Edward of England occupied all the castles of Scotland, and rode 
 tl^ough the country until he came to Stokforthe, and appointed his 
 officials, and, in returning, caused to be carried away from the abbey 
 of Scone the stone whereon the kings of Scotland were wont to be 
 seated at the beginning of a reign, and caused it to be taken to London 
 at Westminster, and made it the seat of a priest at the high altar. 
 
 Exhibit No. 21 (Parker ms. No. 258) is the unique manu- 
 script of the Mirror of Justices, edited for the Selden Society 
 with an introduction by the late Professor Maitland. This work 
 professes to be a treatise on the early jurisprudence of Anglo- 
 Saxon England. It is now known to be apocryphal, and in the 
 nature of a political treatise, by one Andrew Horn (died 1328), 
 sometime Chamberiain of the city of London and a prominent 
 fishmonger. Maitland writes thus of "The Mirror": 
 
 What then shall we say of this book? and what then shall we call its 
 author? Is he lawyer, antiquary, preacher, agitator, pedant, faddist, 
 lunatic, romancer, liar? A Uttle of all, perhaps, but the romancer seems 
 to predominate. He would Uke that some of his tales should be beUeved. 
 He hopes, as other romancers have hoped, to edify as well as to amuse 
 his readers. But he is careful not to tell us when he is in earnest, and 
 when he is at play.... He is making an attack on powerful persons, on the 
 king's justices and officers. He is hinting that the Royal Court is a den 
 of thieves. It is well for him that, if called to account for his words, he 
 can say he was but teUing stories of Alfred and Arthur, and ask you if 
 you cannot see a joke.... He has puzzled us therefore, and will puzzle us, 
 until we know much more than we know as yet of the times in which he 
 lived. It is a variegated, tessellated book, this book of his: Dichtung und 
 
 * See Sir Herbert Maxwell's Introduction to the Scala chronicle. 
 
 ^ 
 
r i6 J 
 
 Wahrhdt-^r shJl we adopt ttering's Scherz und Ermt in der Juris- 
 prudenz? But why borrow from Germany i Perhaps (but even of this 
 
 ^or;":^d W"'^ "' "'^ *"' °"" """^P*^"" °^ ''" "^ --^' it i^ 
 At the beginning are the words: 
 
 Read me, whoe'er the substance of the laws 
 
 Desires to see, or plead with sage applause. 
 
 Here Ivory's grace attracts apprentice eyes. 
 
 While profit for the coif our book supplies. 
 
 Horn— Andrew Horn— the author is who writes. 
 
 (Jstd^) Thus Horn with Iv&ry, Truth with Grace, unites. 
 
 Translation by the late Dr Verrall. 
 
 J^trnf^W^^"^'" ""'■ S°- 3°'^ '"'' fo"«^nth century 
 ^kZv " -^k u"" °^ Henley's treatise on "Hus- 
 S L.I ! n °- ^'' r-S'"'^!!r ^ "chevalier" ar,d after- 
 century, his book taking the form of advice, given by an old 
 r^n to his grandson, as to prudence in the management of 
 
 Exhibit No. 23 (Parker ms. No. 296) contains Tracts in 
 English bv John Wvclif. Written in ihe fourteentrc^^tur? 
 
 L' :yn'af t'hit:^;?""^ '°' ""-^ °' *«= ^^'^''«- --• ^ 
 
 Of feyned contemplatif lif, of song, of the ordynal of Salisbury and of 
 
 KeTti'tlTrf ""''^^ ''^.T' "' P^"«'' J""" W *^- fo-e t^e 
 nnd letnth hem fro prechynge of the gospel. 
 
 fchibit No. 24 (Parker ms. No. 121) shows the Articles 
 OF Relicon as drawn up by the London Synod of 1 562 The 
 paper is signed, in autograph, by twenty prelates. ^ ^- ' "^ 
 
 tf 
 
 '^"*"*'''*^ • '^'^T^'* BIT * IW PEACE. M.A., AT THE UNIVEISITY PRESS 
 
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 Cambridge University Press. los. net. 
 
 A HANDBOOK TO THE LEAGUE OF 
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