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 BRINK, TEN, BERNHARD. Early English 
 Literature. (To Wiclif.) By Bernhard Ten 
 Brink. Translated from the German by Horace 
 M. Kennedy. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 
 1883. i2mo, pp. xvi, 394. 
 
 EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE. (To 
 
 Wiclif.) By Bernhard ten Brink. Translated 
 from the German by Horace M. Kennedy. New- 
 York : Henry Holt & Co., 1883. i2mo, pp. xvi, 
 394. 
 
 LITERATURE. Early English Literature. 
 (To Wiclif.) By Bernhard ten Brink. Trans- 
 lated from the German by Horace M. Kennedy. 
 New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1883. i2mo., pp. 
 xvi, 394. 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. Early English 
 Literature. (To Wiclif.) By Bernhard ten 
 Brink. Translated from the German by Horace 
 M. Kennedy. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 
 1883. i2mo, pp. xvi, 394. 
 
EARLY 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 i^TO WICLIF) 
 
 BY 
 
 BERNHARD TEN BRINK 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 
 BY 
 
 HORACE M. KENNEDY 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE BROOKI-YN 
 COLLEGIATE AND POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE 
 
 {TRANSLATION REVISED BY THE AUTHOR) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1889 
 

 Copyright, 18S3, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO 
 
TO 
 
 FREDERIC J, FURNIVALL, 
 
 r\E. LEARNED AND DEVOTED STUDENT OF THE GREAT POETS 
 
 OF HIS NATION, 
 
 THE TIRELESS AND SUCCESSFUL EXPLORER OF THEIR WEALTH, 
 
 AND 
 GENEROUS PROMOTER OF GERMAN CO-LABOUR, 
 
 IN FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP. 
 

 FROM THE PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL. 
 
 This work has a twofold purpose. It seeks, in gen- 
 eral, to promote an historical understanding of Eng- 
 lish literature ; and at the same time to extend this 
 to wider circles. 
 
 Regard for these "wider circles," whose interest I 
 hope to gain in a subject certainly not unworthy of 
 it, has excluded from my book much that will be 
 missed by the student, and even some things which 
 will be regretted by the master. 
 
 The beginner needs a guide in the labyrinth of lit- 
 erature concerning literature ; such a guide is not 
 offered him here. The scholar will wish to know the 
 proofs supporting the views presented, and will not 
 always find his wishes satisfied. 
 
 I hope to meet both requirements in a special bro- 
 chure with the title. Manual to the History of Eng- 
 lish Literature, which, while most closely following 
 the account here given, will form an independent 
 
 whole, intelligible in itself 
 
 THE AUTHOR, 
 Sfrassburg, i, E., March, 1877. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 
 
 In submitting this work to English readers, it is proper 
 that I should indicate the nature of the revision which 
 the author has consented to make, and which can 
 scarcely fail to render it more valuable. While leav- 
 ing the body of the book substantially unchanged, he 
 has not disregarded the suggestions of critics nor ig- 
 nored the results of recent investigation. Hence 
 some passages have been modified, a number of foot- 
 notes have been added, and an Appendix touching in 
 detail various points of controversy, has been pre- 
 pared. The English of the Appendix is the author's 
 own, written at first hand to save the labour of trans- 
 lation. 
 
 I would acknowledge my grateful indebtedness to 
 the author for the acute and learned criticisms with 
 which he has aided my own work of translation ; but 
 as I have had final oversight on all points bearing 
 upon the translation, as such, it is only just to add 
 that the author must not be held accountable for its 
 faults. 
 
VIU TRANSLATORS NOTE. 
 
 Like the original, this volume will be found to con- 
 tain a large number of extracts, in prose and verse, 
 from Old and Early English authors. These have, 
 without exception, been translated from the original 
 texts into modern English. In rendering the poetical 
 passages cited, I have tried to reproduce the ancient 
 metre and tone. 
 
 HORACE M. KENNEDY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 I. — Original Home of the English. Legend of Beowa. Pred- 
 atory Excursions. The English in Britain. Kingdoms of the 
 Jutes, Saxons, and Angles. Kingship. Significance of the 
 Comitatus. Teutonic Deities, i_S 
 
 II. — State of English Culture, Influence of Romans and 
 Celts. English Language. Runes. Oral Tradition. The 
 Glee-men. Widsith. National Poetry. Hymnic Poetry 
 among the Teutonic Peoples. Development of the Epic. 
 Epic Songs. Growth of an Epos among the English Tribes. 
 This Growth not quite Complete. Epic Style. Epic Meas- 
 ure, 8-23 
 
 HI. — Development of Epic Poetry Gradual. The Saga of Beo- 
 wulf and the Beowa-myth. Origin of the Epos of Beowulf 
 among the English Tribes in Britain. Beowulf in Writing. 
 Theme and Characteristics of Beowulf. The Battle of Finns • 
 burg, . 23-32 
 
 IV. — Christianity among the English Tribes. Religious En- 
 thusiasm. Church and Culture. Importance of Canterbury, 
 Malmesbury, Wearmouth, Jarrow, York, Aldhelm and Beda. 
 Christian Poetry. Its Relation to the National Epos. Leg- 
 f end of Caedmon. Caedmon's Hymn. The Elder Genesis. 
 Perhaps a Work of the same Poet. Contents and Style of 
 the Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Judith. Metrical License of 
 
 \ the Religious Poets, .... — ; -*. . 32-48 
 
 "^ — Vr==i,egends of the Saints in Verse. Religious Lyrics. Psalms, 
 Prayers. Latin Homiletic Literature. Animal Symbolism. 
 Fragment of an Old English Fhysiologus. Cynewulf. His 
 Riddles. His Vision of the Cross. YVvs, Christ, Descent into ^ 
 Hell, Phoenix. Guthlac^ Juliana, Andreas, Elene. Cyne- 
 wulf as Poet, ..,,,,.. 4S-59 
 
 ix 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 VI. — Influence of Christianity upon the Secular Lyric. Dear's 
 Lament. The Old English Lyric. The Ruin. The Wan- 
 derer. The Seafarer. The Sentiment of Love in Old Eng- 
 lish Poetry. Message of the Husband. Gnomic Poetry. 
 Its Original Form. Later Forms. The Rune-song. For- 
 mulas of Incantation. Pagan and Christian Elements, . 59~67 
 
 VII. — Prominence of the Anglian Territories in the Develop- 
 ment of Old English Poetry. Rise of Wessex. Ecgberht. 
 Danish Invasions. Aelfred the Great. His Labours for the 
 Promotion of Morals and Education. Earliest Prose : Laws, 
 Records, etc. National Annal-writing. The y^«;zü;/j- of Win- 
 chester. Rise of Historical Writing under Aelfred. Ael- 
 fred as Translator. His Orosius. His Beda. His Boe- 
 thins. The Metra of Boethius. Aelfred's Gregory. The 
 Pastoral Care. Last Years of Aelfred's Reign. The Annals 
 from 894 to 924, 67-83 
 
 VIII. — Foreign Influence upon English Poetry. The Later 
 Genesis. The Rhyme-song. Native Tradition of Religious 
 Poetry. The Fallen Angels. Descent and Resurrection. 
 The Temptation of Christ. Gnomic Dialogue. Salo??io . 
 and Satiimus. Decline of Poetic Form. Translation of jj 
 Psalms. Historical Poetry. The Battle of Brunanburh.^ 
 The Menologium. Byrhttioth^s Death. Decline of the An- 
 cient Verse, 83-97 
 
 IX. — Prose. Literature of Medicine and Natural Science. 
 Religious Prose of the Tenth Century. Decay of Monastic 
 Discipline. Dunstan and his Reforms. Aethelwold. His 
 Translation of the Ride of St. Benedict. The Homilies of 
 the Blickling Manuscript. Aelfric. The Homiliae catholi- 
 cae. Aelfric's Grammatical and Scientific Writings. The 
 Passiones sanctorum. Pastoral Letter. Aelfric's Later 
 Writings. His Agency in the Growth of Education and Lit- 
 erature. Wulfstan and his Sermons. Translation of the 
 Gospels. Translation of the Evangeliu??i AHcodemi. Writ- 
 ings in Latin. English Annals. Canterbury. Ajtnals of 
 Worcester. Antials of Abingdon. England just before the 
 Conquest. Chivalry Prefigured. Apollonius of Tyre. The 
 Wonders of the Orienty 97"^ 1 5 
 
 BOOK XL 
 
 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 I. — The Normans and Normandy. State, Church, School. 
 Conquest and Pilgrimage. Alliance with the Papacy. Re- 
 sults of the Conquest, 1 19-122 
 
 II. — The Song of Roland. Influence of the Normans upon the 
 Development of the French National Epos. Spirit of the 
 
CONTENTS. Xi 
 
 Song of Roland. Metre and Style. Further Development 
 of the Epic under the Influence of the Crusades. Activity 
 of the Jongleurs. Materials of the Chanson de geste. The 
 Charlemagne. Science and Literature in Anglo-Norman 
 England. Relations with France. Lanfranc. Anselm. 
 Ascetic and Devotional Writings. Lives of Saints. Ailred 
 of Rievaux. Mathematics and Natural History. Athelard 
 of Bath. Latin Poetry. Godfrey of Winchester. Regi- 
 nald of Canterbury. Laurence of Durham, Historical 
 Writing. Norman Historiographers. History among the 
 Anglo-Norman Clergy. Eadmer of Canterbury. Ordericus 
 Vitalis. Florence of Worcester and Simeon of Durham. 
 William of INIalmesbury. Henry of Huntingdon. Geoffrey 
 of Monmouth. Stories of British Kings and the Arthurian 
 Saga. Alfred of Beverley, 122-136 
 
 III. — Norman Clerical Poetry. Philipe de Thaun. His Co7n- 
 ptit and Bestiare. Legend of St. Brandan. Historical Po- 
 etry. Geoffrey Gaimar. Wace. His Legends. The Ro- 
 7nan de Brut. Further Growth of the Arthurian Saga. The 
 Roman de Rou. Wace as Representative of the Earlier Nor- 
 man Clerical Poesy, 136-143 
 
 IV. — The English Language in the Background. Final Fort- 
 unes of the English Annals. Canterbury, Worcester, Pe- 
 terborough. Theological and Scientific Prose. Changes in 
 the English Language, 143-147 
 
 V. — English Folk-poetry. Continued Life of the Epic Saga. 
 Mythological Conceptions. Woden and Robin. Popular 
 Heroes. Gesta Herewardi Saxonis. Sagas of Horn and 
 Havelok. Guy of Waivjoick and Bevis of Hampton. Wal- 
 theof Recollections of Aelfred. Proverbs of Alfred. De- 
 velopment of a Short Rhymed Couplet from the Alliterative 
 Long Line, . . , 148-153 
 
 VI. — Religious Poetry. New Verse-forms. Poema morale. 
 The Catalectic Tetrameter. Explanation of the Paternoster. 
 The Short Couplet from a Foreign Model, . . . 153-156 
 
 VII. — The Empire of the Plantagenets and International Cult- 
 ure. Rise of the Troubadours. Poetry of the Troubadours. 
 Its Spirit. Forms and Varieties. Esthetic Character. Lan- 
 guage and Style. The Earliest Troubadours : Guilhem de 
 Poitiers, Cercalmon, Marcabru, Jaufre Rudel. Bernart de 
 Ventadorn. Relations with the Court of the Plantagenets. 
 Bertran de Born. Richard Coeur de Lion. Effect upon 
 Northern France. The North- French Lyric compared with 
 the Proven9al. Districts in which the Former Especially 
 Flourished. The Art-lyric among the Anglo-Normans, . 156^5164 
 
 VIII. — Development of the French Art-epic. Foreign Mate- 
 rials. The Sa.ga. of A lexander. Fsendo- Calllsthenes. Julius 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 Valerius. The Archpresbyter Leo. Alberic of Besan9on. 
 Lambert the Crooked and Alexander of Paris. VirgiUs 
 yEneid and its Renderers. The Troy-saga. Dares and Dic- 
 tys. New Elements in Dares. Joseph of Exeter. Benoit 
 de Sainte More. Episode of Troilus and Briseida. Character 
 of Benoit. Romance of Adventure. Late Greek and By- 
 zantine Materials. Celtic Materials. Further Development 
 of the Arthurian Legend. The Graal-saga. Its Antece- 
 dents. The Legend of Joseph of Arimathea. Le petit saint 
 Graal. Le grand saint Graal. La qneste del saint Graal. 
 Crestien de Troyes's Coiite del Graal. Wolfram's Parzival. 
 The Tristan-saga. Form, Style, and Spirit of the Court-ro- 
 mance, Crestien de Troyes. The Metrical Tale and its Va- 
 rieties. Cycles of Material. The Oriental Tale and the 
 Manner of its Circulation. The Book of the Seven Wise 
 Masters. The Disciplina clericalis. Attitude of French 
 Literature toward these Materials. Characteristics of the 
 Za/, Fabliau, and Dit, ....... 164-180 
 
 IX. — Anglo-Normans and the French Art-epic. Anglo-Nor- 
 man Writers of Tales. Marie de France. Corruption of the 
 Anglo-Norman Language and Metre. Historical Poetry un- 
 der Henry H. Benoit's Chronicle. Jordan Fantosme. 
 Norman Versions of English or Anglo-Danish Traditions. 
 Materials from Anglo-Norman History. The Renaissance 
 under Henry II. Relations to France. John of Sahsbury. 
 Walter Map. Peter of Blois. William of Newbury. Ger- 
 vase of Tilbury. Gerald de Bary. Richard Fitz Nigel. 
 Latin Poetry. Alexander Neckham. Joseph of Exeter. 
 Geoffrey de Vinsauf. Poetry of the Strollers. Student Life. 
 Speculum stziltomvi, ........ 180-187 
 
 X. — Return to English Literature. La^amon. His Education 
 and Character. His Brut and its Sources. Metre, Style, 
 and Treatment of Material. Oral Tradition. Broadening of 
 the Arthurian Saga. Lajamon's .Esthetic and Historical 
 Significance 187-193 
 
 XI. — English Literature and Norman-French Influence. Glee-' •, I 
 men and Clerics. The Anglian Territories. Northeastern V' 
 Mcrcia. Orm. Language and Culture. The Onnulum. 
 Verse and Style. Orthography. East Anglia. The Bes- 
 tiary. The Genesis. The Exodus, ..... 193-198 
 
 XII. — The Literature of the South. Alliterative Lives of 
 Saints. Alliterative Homily. Love in Religion. Rise of 
 Prose. Ancren Riwle. Character of the Author. Contents 
 and Plan of the Work. Style. Wohunge of ure Lauerde. 
 
 Sawles Warde. Time and Place of the Origin of these Writ- ' ^ 
 
 ings, 199-205 
 
 XIIT. — Religious Lyrical Poetry. Religious Love. Prayer n 
 to the Holy Virgin. Influence of the Poema morale, Influ- 
 
CONTENTS. XIU 
 
 ence of French and Middle Latin Poetry. New Strophic 
 Forms. The Love-song of Thomas de Hales, . . . 205-211 
 
 XIV. — Poetical Sermon. Satire on all Classes. Ecclesiastical 
 Epic. The Vision of St. Paul. Proverb Poetry. The Ozul 
 and the Nightingale. Its Class. Contents and Idea of the 
 Poem. Character of the Author. Relation to the Religious 
 Lyric, 211-218 
 
 XV. — Growth of English National Feeling. Fusion of Angles 
 and Normans. Constitutional Struggles under Henry III. 
 Simon de Montfort. The Proclamation of October 18, 1258. 
 Political Freedom and National Prosperity, . . . 218-221 
 
 BOOK IIL 
 
 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 I. — Continued Development of the English Language. -Influ- 
 ences Favourable to the Influx_ofJ[iQiaimicJBlle»iefttsr Epic 
 Poetry. -CxDrnpariKoTrofTrance and England. The Song of 
 King Ho7'n. Analysis of the Same. Character and Place 
 of Origin. The Poem of Havelok the Dane. Place of Ori- 
 gin. Analysis and Characterisation. Comparison with Kijtg 
 Born, 225-234 
 
 II. — Translation of French Romances. Origin, Cultivation, 
 and Remodelling of such Translations. Floriz and Blanche- 
 flur. Tristan and Isold. Poet of Sir Tristrem. Romance 
 and Ballad. Strophe of Sir Tristrem. ICing Alexander. 
 Richard Ccenr de Lion. Arthurian Saga. Romance of 
 Arthur and Merlin. Saga of Charlemagne. Song of Ro- 
 land. Sire Otuel. Charlemagne and Roland. National 
 Saga. Gtiy of Warwick. Bevis of Hampton. Forms of 
 the Romance Poesy. The Short Couplet. The rytjie 
 couee. Court and Popular Poetry. Amis and Amiloun. 
 The Xing of Tarsus. Sire Degarre, Character of the Old 
 English Romance, 234-253 
 
 III. — Romance and Tale. Form and Contents. Most An- 
 cient_ Materials of the Tale. French Art-form. English 
 Poetical Tales. The Fabliau of Dame Siriz. Fox and 
 Wolf The Animal-saga in England. Variations of the 
 Fabliau. The Land of Cokaigne. Debate of the Carpen- 
 ter's Tools. The Lay of the Ash. Orphe7is and Eurydice. 
 How a Merchant did his Wife Betray. The Proces of the 
 Sevyn Sages. Origin of the Gesta Romanorum. Signifi- 
 cance of the Tale in the Last Centuries of the Middle Ages, 253-264 
 
 IV. — Religious Legend Poetry. Old and New Materials. As- 
 sumption of the Virgin. Childhood of Jesus. Legend of 
 the Holy Rood. Gregorian Saga. Contes devot s. Legends 
 
nV CONTENTS. 
 
 of the Virgin. Recital in the Church of Rh)Tned Lives of 
 the Saints. Metrical Forms of the Legend : the Tail-rhyme, 
 the Short Couplet, the Middle English Alexandrine. South- 
 ern Legend-cycle. Place of Origin. Sources. Relation to 
 Jacobus a Voragine. Scope and Characteristics of the Cycle 
 of Legends. Superstition and Criticism. Role of the Devil. 
 Legends of St, Diinstan, St. Christopher^ St. Michael. De- 
 monology. Cosmology. St. Brandan. English National 
 Saints. Thomas of Canterbury. Judas and Pilate. Style of 
 the Cycle of Legends. National Historiography, Robert of 
 Gloucester. His Chronicle. Its Contents and Sources. Style. 
 Robert's Patriotism. The Description of England. Robert's 
 Relation to the Norman Conquest and to the Civil War 
 \mder Henry HI. Robert and the Cycle of Legends. Re- 
 vival of Interest in National History, .... 264-3^ 
 
 V. — The Sermon and the Religious Metrical Tract. Materials 
 and Sources. Forms. Fusion of Lyrical and Didactic Ele- 
 ments. William de Shoreham and his Poems. Kentish 
 Prose. Homilies. Dan Michel and the Ayenbite of Inwyt. 
 Connection with the more Ancient Southern Prose, . . 280-285 
 
 VI. — The Northern Territories. Northumbria and French 
 Culture. Religious Poetry in Northumbria. Metrical Form 
 and Style. The Cursor niundi. Contents. Sources. Style. 
 Northumbrian Cycle of Homilies. Northumbrian Cycle of 
 Legends. Richard of Hampole. His Life and Character. 
 His Theological Tendencies. His Works. De iiiceiidio 
 affiaris. Richard and Margaret Kirkby. The Prick of Con- 
 science. Robert Mannyng. His Character. Compared vc\i\\ 
 Robert of Gloucester. Mannyng's Handlytig Synne. His 
 Rhymed Chronicle. The Line between Fable and History 
 Obliterated. Verse and Style of Mannyng's Chronicle. 
 Mannyng's Influence upon Language and Literature, . 285-303 
 
 VII. — The Lyric. The Itinerant Clerks. Blending of Lan- 
 guages. English Songs. Diverse Influences. Influence of 
 the Folk-song. Cuckoo Song. Character of the Erotic Songs 
 of the Clerics. Various Types of Poets. Poem in Dialogue. 
 Song to Alysoun. Poetical Debate. The Thrush ajid 
 Nightingale. Influence of the Secular upon the Religious 
 Lyric. Relation to Nature. Song of Repentance. Winter 
 Song. Easter Song. Religious Songs in Dialogue. Prov- 
 erb Poetry. Proverbs of Hendyng, ..... 302-314 
 
 VIII.— Political Lyric. Ballad Poetry. Battle of Lewes. 
 Battle of Courtrai. Wars with the Scots. Execution of Sir 
 Simon Fräser. Style and Metre of the Ballads. Social Sat- 
 ire. Ballad on the Servants of the Great. Satire in the 
 Hands of the Clerics. Song on the Corruption and Slavery 
 of the Church. Song of the Husbandman. Religious Tri- 
 bunal. Women's Love of Dress. Kego, dubitOy concedo. 
 Satire on all Classes. Dirge on the Death of Edward I. 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Lament of the Captive Knight. Visions of Adam Davy. 
 Laurence Minot and his Ballads. Metre and Style. Close 
 of Book Third, 314-324 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 PRELUDE TO the' REFORMATION AND THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 I. — -The Anglo-Norman at the Middle of the Fourteenth Cent- 
 ury. English Language and Literature. English National 
 Spirit. Revival of Alliterative Poetry. West-English Ro- 
 mances. Their General Characteristics. Romance of the 
 Holy Graal. Fragments of a Romance oi Alexander. Will- 
 iam of Falerne, 327-33S 
 
 II. — ^Lancashire. The Adventures of Arthur at Tarn Wad- 
 ling. The Poet of the Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. 
 Analysis of the Romance. Estimate of the Poet's Art. Po- 
 em of The Pearl. Its Form and Relation to more Ancient 
 West-English Poems. Clamtesse and Facience, . . 336-351 
 
 III. — William Langland. His Life. Langland and Hampole. 
 Langland and Dante. His Sources of Culture and his Fore- 
 runners. The Vision concerning Piers Plozvman. Vision 
 of Do-well. Interruption and Continuation. Second Revi- 
 sion of the Poem. Do-well, Do-bet, and Do-best. Inter- 
 pretation of the Allegory. Third Revision. Poetical and 
 Religious Allusions. Langland and Wiclif. Langland's 
 Place in English Literature, 35l~367 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A — ^The Poems Ascribed to Caedmon, , . . 371-386 
 
 B — Cynewulf's Life and Works, 386-389 
 
 C — Asser's Life of Aelfred and the Winchester Annals, 389 
 
 D — The Works of King Aelfred, .... 390 
 
 E — Wulfstan's Homilies, ...... 390 
 
 F — Genesis and Exodus, 391 
 
 G — The Legends of St. Katherine, St. Margaret, and 
 
 St, Juliana, and the Homily on Hali Meidenhad, 392 
 H — The Date of the English Song of Roland, . . 392 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 Longaö ])onne ^y Ises, J)e him con leöÖa worn 
 
 oööe mid liondum con hearpan gretan, 
 
 hafaö him his gliwes giefe, J^e him god sealde. 
 
 Gnomica Exon. III., 17a 
 
EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I. 
 
 AFTER the settlement of the English tribes on British 
 soil, some time passed before English literature began. 
 Yet literary monuments are not lacking which, to judge from 
 their substance, are descended from a pre-literary age, and 
 point back to an epoch when the Teutonic conquerors of 
 Britain, either wholly or partially, still inhabited their earlier 
 home. Dim and varying is the light which these most 
 ancient products of the English muse shed upon the original 
 abode and the incipient political, and race-relations of the 
 later Englishman. There appear distinctly, however, in these 
 poem's the genius and the manners of a race who ploughed the 
 sea; who loved booty and strife; and whose intoxication 
 was the hero's fame that flowed in the mead-hall from the 
 glee-man's lips. 
 
 According to the testimony of history as well as of saga, 
 the original home of the English was the Cimbrian peninsula, 
 and the adjacent portion of the mainland, eastward from 
 the Elbe. Here dwelt the several small tribes into which 
 this people were divided : in the north were the Jutes ; 
 and next to them, the Angles, whose name the point of 
 land between the Fiord of Flensburg and the Slei still pre- 
 serves; farther southward the Saxon prevailed over a wide 
 region. They were an ambitious, enterprising race, steeled 
 by a ceaseless struggle with the sea, whose proximity often 
 became a terror to them : a terror chiefly in the spring, and 
 on the approach of autumn, when, under the pressure of 
 fierce storms, the billows surged with resistless, destroying 
 
 B I 
 
2 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 power upon the low coasts. Wearisome and relentless was 
 the sway of the winter, which bound the flood in its "ice- 
 fetters." So that the coming of summer, when the mild 
 winds blew from the sea, and the waters gleamed graciously 
 again in the sunbeams, was like a deliverance. 
 
 In such a land developed the myth of Beowa, the divine 
 hero who overcame the sea-giant, Grendel, and fighting the 
 fire-spitting dragon, — also a personification of the raging sea 
 — slew and was slain. But Beowa did not remain forever 
 dead. He is essentially Frea in a new form, the bright god 
 of warmth and fruitfulness, whose gold-bristled boar decked 
 the helmets of the English warriors. 
 
 Nor was the struggle waged only against the elements. 
 The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were often at war with each 
 other, or with neighbouring tribes. In the spring when the 
 storms were stilled, the sea enticed to expeditions of war or 
 rapine. The ocean was then a friendly element in spite of 
 its terrors; and the sea-farers committed themselves to the 
 ship, to the " sea-courser," to the " sea-wood," which, " like 
 a bird foam-necked," glided away upon the " course of the 
 swans," the "path of the whales." Not far distant were the 
 Danish islands, and the coasts of Scandinavia. - They ven- 
 tured out upon the North Sea, and followed the German 
 coast to the mouth of the Rhine, where Roman territory be- 
 gan. Oftentimes they continued their daring cruise along 
 the shore where Belgic and Gallic tribes lived under Roman 
 rule. There Britain was visible, thrusting her brilliant chalk- 
 cliffs out toward the coast of Gaul. It was deemed a pros- 
 perous land, rich in herds, a land bound to Gaul by an an- 
 cient community of race and sacerdotal mysteries. The 
 strange figures of legend haunted the channel between island 
 and mainland. Muffled voices were heard at night on the 
 Armorican coast, when the ferr)'man of the dead turned his 
 overladen boat toward the opposite shore. 
 
 Britain had been subject to Rome since the days of Agri- 
 cola. Roman highways intersected the country; a number 
 of cities with temples, baths, colonnades, had sprung up, in 
 which the proud language of the conqueror was heard. 
 Here, as in Gaul, the German sea-robber's love of plunder 
 was stronger than his fear of the Roman name. In the 
 course of the fourth century, the Saxons made more than 
 
THE ENGLISH IN BRITAIN. 3 
 
 one inroad upon the British coast. Fear seized the native 
 Britons, as it did their Roman conquerors. The imperial 
 power, threatened also in the north by Celtic barbarians, 
 gathered new strength when Theodosius, an energetic gov- 
 ernor, came to Britain. The attacks of the Saxons were 
 warded off; the Picts and Scots were thrust back to the 
 Forth. But it was like the last flare of a light before ex- 
 tinguishment. At the beginning of the fifth century, the 
 Germanic world burst with might upon the Roman empire. 
 Rome herself was pillaged by the West-Goths. The legions 
 stationed in Britain were called back. The Britons now had 
 nothing save their own strength to meet the dangers threat- 
 ened by Picts and Scots, as well as by the Teutonic bar- 
 barians. 
 
 The great migratory movement which had included nearly 
 all the Germanic peoples, now carried the English with it, 
 no longer single bands and retinues, but entire tribes. A 
 strong tide of immigration from the Cimbrian peninsula and 
 the mouth of the Elbe began to spread over Britain, es- 
 pecially toward the middle of the century. Commencing 
 at the southeast extremity of the island, the immigrants 
 seized, in the lapse of a century, a greater part of the 
 southern coast, and the eastern coast as far as the Forth. 
 
 The farther the Teutons advanced, the stronger was the 
 resistance they met. The Roman armies had indeed left 
 Britain ; the Britons had lost through the foreign regime a 
 part of their original strength. But what remained to them 
 was roused to the uttermost by hate and desperation. The 
 Celtic element, which, outside of the cities, had well nigh 
 preserved its vitaHty, gathered itself with new energy against 
 the Teuton ; and sometimes in the conflict with Germanic 
 paganism, the native religion again broke through the vesture 
 of Christianity. The struggle was bloody and hard-fought, 
 especially • where the English encountered fortified cities 
 which they could not take without long effort, ov»'ing to im- 
 perfect science of war. A large number, after being stormed, 
 were left in ashes; the sword of the victor raged pitiless, 
 often against the defenceless. 
 
 There was as little lack of heroic leaders among the Britons 
 as among the English. Many of their names are commemo- 
 rated in the Welsh bardic songs, whose ürofessed antiquity, 
 
4 6EF0RE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 it is true, cannot defend them against the suspicion of being, 
 at least in part, patriotic fictions. Later chronicles, still 
 more legendary than these songs, lavish on the name of 
 Arthur all the glory which is wont to invest the forms of 
 mighty rulers and heroes of chivalry. And through him it 
 gives rise to an apocryphal Charlemagne for the Celtic 
 world. 
 
 Toward the end of the sixth century, more than the en- 
 tire eastern half of the country between the Channel and the 
 Frith of Forth was in the hands of the Germans. Several 
 small states were formed, whose number and boundaries were 
 often changed. Some among them, however, became prom- 
 inent through their more tenacious vitality and power. 
 There was the little Jute kingdom of Kent, which compre- 
 hended the earliest civilised part of Britain, and was des- 
 tined to foster the embryo of the English Rome. Next 
 to Kent, northward and eastward, lay the kingdoms of the 
 East and the South-Saxons, adjacent to Sussex, the realm 
 of the West-Saxons, to whom the task had fallen of defend- 
 ing the Saxon boundary against the Celts, and of extend- 
 ing it. The West-Saxons soon absorbed the smaller Jutish 
 setdements established in their territory. Further northward 
 were the Anglian kingdoms : East-Anglia, north of Essex ; 
 Bcrnicia, between the Forth and the Tees ; and later, Deira, 
 between the Tees and the Humber. Of these the last two 
 states sometimes appear as independent, and sometimes as 
 togethec forming a Northumbrian kingdom. The territory 
 of the ^liddle-Angles, south of the Hum.ber, was the nucleus 
 of the later Mcrcia, which grew at the common expense of 
 the neighbouring states, especially of Strathclyde, Wales, and 
 WessexÄpd became the largest of the Germanic kingdoms 
 in Brit^l embracing nearly all of the Midland country. 
 Oftentimes the Mercian king also ruled little Middlesex 
 with its powerful London, which was at other times a sort of 
 municipal republic. 
 
 Nearly all these English kingdoms were formed by the 
 union of. smaller tracts, gradually occupied by bands of war- 
 like settlers. On their blending into gre'ater unity, these 
 original districts often retained their boundaries as shires 
 (sar) of the newly formed kingdom ; while their head still 
 bore the name of €aldor7nan (prince, lord), a title by ^'hich 
 
KINGSHIP. 5 
 
 the German chieftains were designated at their first appear- 
 ance in Britain. The prince, however, who stood at the 
 head of the united shires was made king. 
 
 This introduction of the kingly office, an old Teutonic 
 institution, though one which had not implanted itself in all 
 the German tribes, was the most weighty modification under- 
 gone by the constitutional life of the English race in conse- 
 quence of its establishment in Britain. In other respects 
 the main political forms of the mother-country were retained. 
 They could be easily transplanted from one soil to the other ; 
 for they corresponded to the military divisions of the body 
 armed for common defence ; and like it, they were originally 
 founded upon the natural division of families and clans. 
 Hence in England we find the same partition of the soil, the 
 same confederation of shires, or hundreds, and communities, 
 as in Germany ; and the same social grades ; viz. : nobles 
 {eof'las), freemen [ceorlas), serfs, and slaves. That institu- 
 tion also is not wanting which, from the^ vivid portrayal of 
 Tacitus,^ seems to have been especially Teutonic, but which 
 contained the germ of a complete dissolution of Teutonic 
 democracy : the Comitatus. 
 
 The prince, especially when conspicuous in position and 
 courage, was surrounded by a body of young men of rank 
 who had committed themselves to his personal service. They 
 were his companions, his thegns ( \egHas, knaves, servants). 
 As it was their highest aim to gain the first place in his ret- 
 inue, so was it honourable for the lord to have a large fol- 
 lowing of gallant youths. In peace they added to his pomp ; 
 in war, they were a means of defence and a source of fame. 
 It was their most sacred duty to guard his hfe^i battle ; 
 nothing was deemed more disgraceful than to fB^ake the 
 chief in time of need, or to leave the field alive when he had 
 fallen. And the glory which came from the achievements 
 of the followers crowned the head of their prince. They 
 fought for him, as he fought for victory. 
 
 From the spoils the lord dealt out to his thegns : horses, 
 weapons, ornaments. 
 
 He could also grant them land and estates as reward for 
 service; and the English kings willingly repaid their thegns 
 in a way which secured their future service. Many allot- 
 
 * Germania. Cap, 12-14. 
 
6 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 ments of the public territory were thus turned over to indi- 
 viduals with the approval of the national council; it was 
 converted from fokla7id into bocland; that is, chartered, 
 legally granted land. With the increase of the royal power, 
 the influence of the king's thegns grew in like degree. The 
 servants of the royal household gradually became great dig- 
 nitaries of the realm. Their political influence steadily ex- 
 panded. In the national assembly ( Witenagemot^ Council 
 of the Wise Men), these thegns, richly endowed with lands, 
 formed a stable and very considerable element. 
 
 Thus there grew up in the English kingdoms a nobility 
 based upon vassalage and property ; and many of the com- 
 mon freemen were received into its ranks. But it suppressed 
 the class of the "churls" as a whole, and it overshadowed 
 the aristocracy of birth. 
 
 AVhat the kings did, the lesser lords did on a smaller scale. 
 Vassalage as an accompaniment of the renting or granting 
 of lands formed ever-widening circles. So that at last it be- 
 came a principle that every man must have a lord. 
 
 Inasmuch as land could now be granted with conditions 
 at the pleasure of the grantor, as for instance, the obligation 
 of military service, the germs of the feudal system were 
 living, and they were growing steadily, though more slowly 
 than upon the continent. 
 
 At the time of the Norman Conquest they had not 
 reached full development. The old English common- 
 wealth, based upon the union of free men able to bear arms, 
 was then severely shattered, but not overthrown. 
 
 Though the political influence of the system of thegn- 
 hood made itself widely felt only in the course of time, yet its 
 ethical influence must have been great from the beginning. 
 On the battlefield the idea of the Comitatus reached full 
 realisation, a realisation that must have deepened, not only 
 the warlike passions, but also the feelings of piety, of loyalty, 
 and of attachment. These feelings are foreign to no Teu- 
 tonic race, but they found among the English, earlier than 
 among other tribes, a peculiarly tender and sympathetic ex- 
 pression. To explain this we must turn to the principal 
 features of their inner life. 
 
 The depth and intensity of feeling, characteristic of the 
 Teutonic race, seems, among the English of that early time, 
 
TEUTONIC DEITIES. j 
 
 to have been accompanied by a certain emotive excitability 
 and a disposition to sentimental exaggeration, which, op- 
 posed to stern reality, was wont to take on the character of 
 melancholy. These phases of their character are a remark- 
 able contrast to the unyielding defiance which made them 
 despise peril and laugh at death. But both spring from the 
 same source : the ascendency which the emotional nature 
 asserts in the inner hfe of the Teuton. How it happens 
 that this tenderness of feeling, which, in modern times, and 
 in truth quite recently, was held to be the inheritance of the 
 German in the narrower sense, especially distinguished the 
 English branch in the antiquity of our history, is not easy to 
 explain. But it seems scarcely doubtful that the germ of 
 this quality was already present in it before the conversion 
 to Christianity, and before the settlement in Britain ; although 
 Christianity alone carried it to complete development. 
 
 The cult of the Wane-deities, which in the old time had 
 its chief seat among the Ingaevones, seems to harmonise 
 wbll with this tendency of the English mind. For they 
 were friendly, benevolent spirits, whose life and sway closed 
 with the summer time. Both sea and land were pervaded 
 by their beneficent influences ; they vouchsafed to men a 
 plenitude of needful things, and a peaceful enjoyment of 
 them. On the coming of winter, they disappeared, died, 
 leaving behind them a mysterious awe. But in the spring 
 the longed-for gods came back again. 
 
 Tacitus ^ alludes to the worship of Nerthus, whose name 
 indicates a sea-goddess, but whom he calls Terra mafer. 
 Her sanctuary was upon an island in the ocean, where her 
 emblem, the chariot covered with a cloth, was guarded. 
 Ing, the ancestor of the Ingaevones, was no other than 
 Frea (see p. 2), who originally represented the masculine 
 side of the genial power also embodied in Nerthus. 
 
 Deities, in part of a very different nature, had been 
 adopted by the Ingaevones, through their intercourse with 
 other Teutonic nations, or, if not unknown to them before, 
 had been admitted to higher honors. The Ingaevones, too, 
 had learned, after the precedent of the Istasvones, to adore 
 the storm-god Woden, as the chief of all gods. To Woden, 
 in whom the passionateness of the Teutonic genius, the vie- 
 
 * Germania, Cap. 40. 
 
8 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 torious progi'ess of the Teutonic hordes, as well as the intel- 
 lectual activity of the race seem embodied, the royal dynasties 
 of the English traced back their pedigree. Nor were the 
 English unacquainted with the cult of the fierce sword-god 
 Tiw, whose name suggests the Old- Aryan god of the sky, 
 and who was worshipped with servile humility in the national 
 sanctuary of the Herminones. With the name of Saxneat 
 (sword-companion) Tiw stands, as Woden's son, at the head 
 of the genealogical table of the kings of Essex, with de- 
 scendants whose names denote, the activity of the god in the 
 different phases of a battle. In like manner the god of thun- 
 der was worshipped among them : Thunor, the fighter of 
 giants and monsters, the promoter of husbandry, whose feats 
 the armies sang when marching to battle. 
 
 Like their political system, the religion of the English 
 tribes may have been at first but little modified by the settle- 
 ment in Britain. It is probable that the conquest placed, 
 not only the earthly, but the celestial monarchy upon a 
 firmer basis; that it caused men everywhere to regard 
 Woden as the chief of gods. Woden was certainly deemed 
 by them the god of culture, the discoverer of the runes, as 
 by the Scandinavian races to whom they had perhaps com- 
 municated his worship. The wdse disposer of battles who 
 gave the victory to English armies under leaders descended 
 fi-om himself, deserved thanks before all other gods. 
 
 Some older deities may have been gradually forgotten, or 
 their attributes may have been transferred to other gods, or 
 certain phases of their being may have Hved on under later 
 names in the form of divine heroes, of demigods. 
 
 But the chief change was one by which demigods became 
 earthly heroes. It was the age of the migration of peoples 
 which, in the blending of myth and history, gave birth to 
 the hero-saga. 
 
 IL 
 
 Of all the Teutonic tribes that established themselves 
 within the boundaries of the Roman empire, the English were 
 in the most favourable position for the preservation of their 
 language and nationahtv. In Britain, Rome had struck her 
 
LANGUAGE. 9 
 
 roots much less deep than in Gaul or Spain. After the re- 
 moval of the Roman legions, the Celtic element, had it been 
 left to itself, must have gained the upper hand again ; for its 
 strength outside of the cities had remained almost unim- 
 paired. In their ancient home the English tribes had scarcely 
 come into contact with Romans at all. What incitements 
 and products of culture had reached them from Rome or 
 Byzantium through the agency of other German tribes, had 
 not, it is true, been wholly without influence. They had not 
 sufficed, however, to turn the course of organic develop- 
 ment into other channels.. Indeed, the most important edu- 
 cational factor which, in the olden time, had penetrated 
 from the south into Germany, the Roman alphabet, had be- 
 come, in the hands of the Teutons, an instrument for the cul- 
 mination of national tendencies, for the promotion of national 
 characteristics. Much altered in form, furnished with German 
 names, these simple sound-exponents had disguised them- 
 selves in the veil of mystery and symbolism (hence the name, 
 runes) and they were turned chiefly to religious uses. After 
 the settlement in Britain no reasons of state led the Teutonic 
 conquerors to lean upon Roman traditions, as in other prov- 
 inces of the empire. The immigrants in Britain did not live 
 with a native population, permeated by Roman culture, and 
 ready to communicate this culture. Only dumb witnesses, 
 monuments of Roman art and industry, spoke to them of 
 the greatness of the people whose place they had taken. By 
 means of the (q\v Latin words which then came into the 
 English language, as x/r^/, ceaste7\ coin, we discern what 
 creations of the antique world appealed most powerfully to 
 the imagination of the conquerors. 
 
 More noteworthy in the end was the influence of the 
 Celtic element. Yet philology teaches that, in the first 
 centuries, there was no intellectual and social intercourse be- 
 tween the Britons and Saxons. How could such intercourse 
 have been possible in a struggle which sought to extermi- 
 nate or to expel, rather than to subdue ? The words which 
 found their v/ay from the Celtic vocabulary into the English 
 language during the earlier periods of its growth, consist 
 chiefly of the names of rivers and mountains, with some 
 terms for the utensils of the house, of labour, and the like. 
 
 Language, manners, political system, religion, everything 
 
10 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 retained, for some time in the English kingdoms, an essential- 
 ly Teutonic character. 
 
 The language which, as far back as our knowledge 
 reaches, named itself Englisc, — the collective name of the 
 nation being E?igle or Angelcyri — existed only in a number of 
 dialects whose peculiarities and boundaries, however, do not 
 take definite form for us until a later time. Yet we may, 
 perhaps, assume for the period before us, in connection with 
 the three chief tribes, an Anglian, a Saxon, and a Jutish 
 dialect. The Anglian prevailed in the north and in the 
 greater part of the I^Iidland country ; the Saxon, in most 
 regions of the south ; and the Jutish, especially in Kent. 
 The most distinct contrast lay between the North-Anglian 
 and the Saxon; whereas, the old Kentish dialect seems to 
 have been more nearly allied, in some respects, to the 
 Anghan, and, as a whole, rather to the Saxon. In the 
 course of time the difference between the north and the 
 south grew wider, many peculiarities appearing at the same 
 time in the Kentish ; but in the Midland country, where the 
 Anglian and the Saxon met, there sprang up a mixed, inter- 
 mediate dialect, with a great variety of constituents. 
 \ In spite of the many vicissitudes of its history, the Eng- 
 1 lish language preserves to this day the closest relations to 
 ! the dialects of the Low German mainland, to the Frisian 
 and the Low Saxon. On the other hand, the lincruistic con- 
 
 o 
 
 nection between Englishmen and their early neighbours who 
 now inhabit South Germany is very much relaxed. The 
 change of habitation worked radical changes in the language ; 
 and we must not forget that the great modification of conso- 
 nants which, from the seventh century onwards, began 
 sharply to divide the High from the Low German stock, 
 remained confined to the southern half of the country. 
 
 Toward the close of the sixth centurv, the En dish tribes 
 had as yet no literature. The use of their runes was much 
 restricted : single signs or short sentences, proverbs, magic 
 formulas, were scratched upon staves, drinking-horas, swords, 
 ornaments, etc. When lots were cast, three rune-staves 
 were taken up at random, and their meaning was interpreted 
 poetically according to the laws of alliteration. 
 
 Law and justice, myth and saga, history and practical 
 wisdom were handed down orally in poetical sayings, or 
 
GLEE-MEN. II 
 
 flowing song. High esteem was paid to the art of " find- 
 ing sayings rightly bound," that is, in aUiterative verse, and 
 of speaking with skill and clearness. The song accompa- 
 nied by the harp awoke to mirth; at no feast were they 
 wanting: 
 
 The thegn fulfilled his office, 
 He that bore in his hand the ale-mug huge, 
 And adorned ; he poured the pure, sweet liquor. 
 Oftimes a singer sang, full merrily sang, 
 In Heorot's hall; there was joy of heroes.* 
 
 Or: 
 
 There was song and sound, where heroes sat, 
 Both for Healfdene's battle-leader; 
 The glee-wood was touched, the song oft entoned, 
 When Hrothgar's scop should tell the hall-cheer 
 Along the mead-bench. ^ 
 
 The " glee-wood " (gomenwudii, and also gleohedm) was 
 the harp, and the player and singer was called gleoman, glee- 
 man. The word scop had a pore special, and a more ex- 
 alted significance, denoting the poets and singers who dwelt 
 at a court. The scop belonged to the thegns and the mem- 
 bers of the king's household, and he might hold himself 
 equal to heroes. His art yielded him high praise and rich 
 gifts. Nevertheless a longing for distant scenes, the Teu- 
 tonic roving impulse, often seized, him ; and wandering from 
 court to court, everywhere a welcome guest, he brought 
 fresh songs, and tidings of strange peoples and events. 
 
 A typical representative of this brotherhood of itinerant 
 singers, named Widsith, or far-traveller, is the hero of an old 
 song, the oldest monument of English poetry that remains 
 to us. It may be received as a glorification of the class to 
 which Widsith belonged, as well as an introduction to the 
 ethnography and dynastic lore of the Teutonic heroic age. 
 From both points of view it deserves our attention. It be- 
 gins : 
 
 Widsith spake ; unlocked his word-hoard ; he who, of all men, had 
 journeyed most among the tribes and peoples of the earth : oft he re- 
 ceived in the hall costly gifts. His race sprang from the Myrgings.^ 
 He had visited for the first time with Ealhhild,'* the faithful peace- 
 
 ' Beow7tlf, V. 494-497. 2 Ihid., v. 1063-1067. 
 
 ' The Myrgings, Lat. Maunmgani, who lived upon and eastward of the Elbe, are 
 •ometimes identified with the Swaefs (the North Swabians), and sometimes distin- 
 guished from them. 
 
 * Daughter of the Lombard King Epdwine (Auduin) and wife of Eadgüs, king of 
 the Myrgings. 
 
12 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 weaver, the abode of the Hreth-king, eastward of Ongle, Eormanric,^ 
 the grim violator of treaties. He began to speak of many things : "I 
 learned from many men who rule over tribes : each ruler should live 
 uprightly, should govern his inheritance, one eorl after the other, he 
 who desires his throne to thrive. Aetla* ruled the Huns ; Eormanric, 
 the Goths ; Becca, the Eanings ; and over the Burgundians, Gifica.' 
 
 Then there follows in close order a long list of earlier and 
 later kings famed in saga, historical, fictitious, and mythical. 
 At the close we hear of the heroic deeds of Offa, king of 
 the Angles, in battle with the Myrgings, and of the long 
 friendship which the two cousins, Hrothwulf and Hrothgar,^ 
 held, after they had conquered their enemies at Heorot. 
 
 The singer next relates what people he has visited (and 
 here several names from the first catalogue appear a second 
 time), and how many kings have been gracious to him. 
 From the Burgundian king, Gu?5here (Günther), he has re- 
 ceived rich presents as a reward for his singing. He highly 
 commends the generosity of Aelfwine (xA.lbuin), whom he 
 has met in Italy. Eormanric has given him a costly ring, 
 with which, on his return to the Myrgings, he has honoured 
 his lord, Eadgils, in gratitude for the estate granted him. 
 For that the queen, Ealhhild, daughter of Eadwine, has be- 
 stowed a new bounty upon him. He has spread her praise 
 far and wide, and celebrated her as the most excellent of the 
 gold-decked queens v/ho confer gifts. 
 
 Finally Widsith tells us how he wandered through the 
 entire realm of the Goths, names the men of Eormanric 
 whom he visited, mentions the hard struggle the Goths had 
 to withstand in the forests of the Vistula against the Huns, 
 who were pressing upon them, and praises the courage of 
 Wudga and Hama. Then he ends his speech, and with it 
 the poem, in the following words : 
 
 Thus roving, the glee-men wander through the lands of many men, 
 as their fate wills ; they let their needs be known, and utter words of 
 thanks. They find ever, in the north or in the south, some one who 
 understands song, is not niggardly with gifts, who will exalt his fame 
 before his heroes, and show manhood until all things disappear, even 
 
 * Ermanaric, Ermenrich, king of the Goths, who are also called Hrethgoths. 
 Ongle, or Angle, in Sleswig, is the home of the Angles. 
 
 " Attila, Etzel. 
 
 * Gibich, (in whose place Dankrat appears in the Nibelungen Lied), father of 
 Günther. 
 
 * Son of Healfdene, king of the Island Danes. Of him, as well as his palace 
 Htiorot, wc shall learn more in Beowulf, 
 
NATIONAL POETRY. 1 3 
 
 light and life. He who works praise has under heaven high and 
 steady fame.* 
 
 Widsith was singer and harper by calling. We see in this 
 
 how he was at once the mediator and the teacher of peoples. 
 
 The gift of song and poetry was not, however, the monopoly 
 
 of any guild. Heroes and kings also practised the art. Of 
 
 Hrothgar it is said that. 
 
 Now the hero, battled-tried, the glee-wood touched, 
 The harp's sweet note awoke ; and now a song entoned, 
 Both sooth and sad ; now the great-hearted king 
 Told well a wondrous tale.* 
 
 And in the life of a later ecclesiastical poet,^ we see that 
 song and playing were cultivated by peasants, and even by 
 freedmen and serfs. At beer-feasts the harp went from hand 
 to hand. 
 
 But herein lies the essential difference between that age 
 and our own: the result of poetical activity was not the 
 property and not the production of a single person, but of 
 the community. The work of the individual singer endured 
 only as long as its delivery lasted. He gained personal dis- 
 tinction only as a virtuoso. The permanent elements of 
 what he presented, the material, the ideas, even the style 
 and metre, already existed. The work of the singer was 
 only a ripple in th& stream of national poetry. Who can say 
 how much the individual contributed to it, or where in his 
 poetical recitation memory ceased and creative impulse be- 
 gan ! In any case the work of the individual lived on only 
 as the ideal possession of the aggregate body of the people, 
 and it soon lost the stamp of originality. 
 
 In view of such a development of poetry, we must as- 
 sume a time when the collective consciousness of a people 
 or race is paramount in its unity ; when the intellectual life 
 of each is nourished from the same treasury of views and as- 
 sociations, of myths and sagas; when similar interests stir 
 each breast; and the ethical judgment of all applies itself to 
 the same standard. In such an age the form of poetical ex- 
 pression will also be common to all, necessarily solemn, 
 earnest and simple. 
 
 A genuine epic poetry seems first to have grown up among 
 
 * IVtdstih, V. 135-143. 
 
 ^ Beoiu-ulf, V. 2107-21 10. 
 
 • Vid. Chapter IV,, on Caedmoa. 
 
14 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 the rJennans In the migration of races. Its precursor among 
 them, as in all cases, was hymnic poetry. 
 
 In this oldest form are the germs of later species yet un- 
 defined. But form, tone, and manner of presentation cor- 
 respond chiefly to our definition of lyrical poetry. The song 
 moved onward in short strophes, and it was doubtless ar- 
 ranged for delivery by a chorus, certainly for the coopera- 
 tion of one. The recital was rich in metaphors, similes, and 
 poetical turns of expression ; but even in the narrative parts, 
 it lacked the steadiness, clearness and calmness which we 
 seek in narrative style. A knowledge, on the hearer's part, 
 of the events treated was assumed by the poet. He brought 
 into prominence only isolated points that had impressed 
 him with especial vividness. This poetry was essentially 
 adapted to time and occasion. It was a feature of religious 
 solemnities, or of the popular festivals which accompanied 
 them. It served to express sadness or joy, to praise the 
 gods and heroes, and to herald their deeds or to implore 
 their help, as well as to influence or disclose the future. 
 The march to battle was a religious act, indeed the most 
 solemn and holy of all. The gods whose sacred emblems 
 were borne before the army, and whose deeds were sung, 
 were believed to be actually present ; and in every battle- 
 roar, raised " with swords and shields," the warriors hoped 
 to hear the mighty voice of the thunderer. The burial ob- 
 sequies of kings and heroes were also accompanied by set 
 ceremonies ; among them was the singing of dirges of lament 
 and praise for the fallen. 
 
 Hymnic poetry drew its chief nourishment from the 
 myth. 
 
 As the German heroic age dawned and the hero-saga de- 
 veloped, there arose, beside the hymnic poetry, a freer, more 
 worldly art, distinct from religion ; an art in which the 
 awakened historical sense, and the more independent 
 aesthetic impulse found satisfaction ; a poetry through 
 which the great figures and events of history were pervaded 
 by a mythical colouring, and which portrayed upon a mys- 
 terious and wonder-peopled background, deeds surpassing 
 human strengtli, passions and sorrows of equal measure, 
 tragical vicissitudes. With the hero-saga appeared the epic. 
 
 The style gained in continuity and repose. Though the 
 
EPIC SONGS. 15 
 
 incidents related by the singer were known, yet it was the 
 narration of facts, as well as the reproduction of the speeches 
 of the poetical characters that was attractive. Curbing his 
 own impatience, the task of the narrator was to render the 
 single passages of the action according to their natural order. 
 In this way he roused the expectation of his audience, and 
 affected pleasurably their assthetic sense. The choral mode 
 would have been rather a hindrance than an advantage to 
 this kind of poetry ; the strophic form was discarded for the 
 same reason. Without further combination, the lines con- 
 tinuously followed each other. 
 
 The whole was, in itself however, a well-rounded epic song 
 of easy compass, and although it was naturally not repeated 
 without some variations of phraseology, its beginning and 
 end were sharply defined. It existed independently, resem- 
 bling other poems of the same kind only in style and tone, 
 and in relationship of material. 
 
 In each of these songs a passage from the life of some 
 hero of saga was taken for representation : as a rule a mo- 
 ment of commanding importance, a deed disclosing the he- 
 ro's entire strength and greatness of soul, an event involv- 
 ing a decisive turn of his fortunes, in which indeed they were 
 tragically fulfilled. What had goflie before was indicated, 
 so far as it concerned what we may call the dramatic course 
 of the action. Otherwise the antecedents were here also as- 
 sumed to be already known. Hence the representation was 
 terse, only essentials being made conspicuous. The chief im- 
 portance was attached to the speeches in which the charac- 
 ters, single types wrought at one mould, revealed their nature 
 and the significance of the a^on. The German So?ig of 
 Hildcbrand is an example. 
 
 Most of the German peoples apparently rested at this 
 stage of epic poetry. Not until centuries later, long after the 
 reception of Christianity and their permeation by foreign 
 elements of culture, did the High German tribes create, 
 under favourable circumstances, a comprehensive epos ; and 
 this, despite its unique merits, does not hide the discordancy 
 between the pagan saga, whence it grew, and the Christian 
 cult in whose ray it thrived. As regards the Franks in Gaul, 
 their immediate contact with an older, much superior civli- 
 sation, forced upon them not only a strange reUgion but a 
 
l6 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 Strange language, at the very time when they reached the 
 summit of their historical achievement. Their ancient hero- 
 saga was lost, save only meagre reminiscences; but the 
 ancient myth worked on the more potently, in that it at- 
 tached itself to personages in this new, great history ; and 
 thus was developed in the new nation a new hero-saga. 
 From the eleventh century onward we also find a grand 
 epos, which, however, no longer belongs to Germanic 
 poetry, and in which the pagan mythical element, as such, 
 is scarcely preceptible. 
 
 There were indeed Teutonic races that never attained to 
 an epic in the epoch of the migrations. With the Scandi- 
 navians, the hero-saga did not reach the same dignity as the 
 myth until the forms of hymnic poetry, in manifold variety, 
 had become fixed and enduring. The separation from 
 higher culture, the isolation from the arena of history, the 
 life in natural surroundings of colossal savagery and austere 
 beauty, there preserved longer a mental temperament favour- 
 able to the myth, while they augmented the untamable pas- 
 sionateness of the people. 
 
 A single German branch ascended in that early time to 
 a higher level of epic poetry, a level mid-way between the 
 epic surviving in detached songs, and the epos as it devel- 
 oped, in the highest sense, among the Greeks, and under 
 less favourable conditions (hence less humanly-beautiful), 
 yet quite as vigorously, in France. This branch was the 
 same that subdued Britain. 
 
 Imagine the jubilant feeling of the victor whose sword 
 has conquered broad, beautiful lands where a world-ruling 
 nation has left the traces of her activity. Among the ruins 
 of venerable monuments, the relics of a perfected art and a 
 refined culture, he disposes himself in his own way with 
 proud independence. Upon a new and broader field, he 
 re-creates the institutions of his home, and still remaining 
 essentially himself, he grows with his larger aims. In a 
 never-ending struggle, with but occasional interruptions, 
 waged in the south as well as in the north, he drives the 
 native population ever farther westward. He feels himself 
 superior to the Celt despite the higher civilisation which 
 has touched him, and from which the conqueror receives 
 hardly perceptible, yet potent, incitement. The sense of hia 
 
PROGRESS TO THE EPOS. fj 
 
 own worth, the proud confidence in his own power, grow 
 strong in the opposition of races. 
 
 What must the chieftains, just become kings, have felt in 
 their new realms, whose boundaries extended after every 
 victory ! They were surrounded by faithful thegns now 
 transformed into great personages, and who, by their own 
 influence, strengthened the authority of the prince. 
 
 More refined manners, a fixed ceremonial, grew up by de - 
 grees at the EngHsh courts. Although life was yet very 
 primitive, it took on a somewhat nobler expression. Poetry 
 constituted its most ideal side. Where all of life had gained 
 in value and meaning, it became the task of poetic art to 
 mirror, not only the violent crises, but the every-day details 
 of this life, to reproduce in the picture those things, events, 
 modes of intercourse, which pleased in reality. 
 
 Thus the epic form of the hero-saga was developed in the 
 sixth century, among the English tribes, to that fulness of 
 life indispenaable in our conception of the epos. 
 
 Those externals, those small happenings of life which po- 
 etry presents, are attractive because they are brought into re- 
 lation with significant acts and occurrences. Nor is the need 
 of a broader interdependence confined to that relation. It 
 involves the very essence of the matter. As in real life, in 
 the state, larger aims are methodically pursued, so in the saga 
 was sought a comprehensive plan. It is desirable to know of 
 the hero whom we have seen act in this or that emergency, 
 how he bore himself on an earlier or later occasion. One 
 important, decisive event calls to mind another resembling 
 it, or forming a sharp contrast with it, and the question arises, 
 if there is not a certain connection between the two. How 
 was some tragic event brought about ? What personages 
 contributed to its denouement ? The poetic fancy puts ques- 
 tions like these, and answers them while it adjusts what is 
 heterogeneous and unites what is remote. Thus the hero- 
 saga acquired a richer proportion and closer structure, and 
 simultaneously with the form was fashioned the substance of 
 the epos. And in the whole the people created an idealised 
 image of itself. 
 
 In the next chapter we shall see that the epic movement 
 in England did not reach its goal, and that the national epos 
 did not ripen to perfection. The style alone speedily devei- 
 
 Q 
 
l8 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 oped to a certain completeness. Yet it is precisely from 
 some peculiarities of this epic style, wrought, as it was, from 
 the elements of poetic expression transmitted from the hymnic 
 poetry, that we may gain an insight into the causes \vhich 
 arrested the growth of the epos in matter and composition, 
 and which were far from being merely outward obstacles. 
 
 The English epos had lost much of the imagery and sen- 
 suousness which, from comparison with other literatures, we 
 must presuppose for the old hymnic poetry, but it still re- 
 tained enough of these qualities, which it employed effect- 
 ively in its own way. 
 
 Where vast natural phenomena and events, or w^eighty hu- 
 man actions were to be presented, the poet was wont to 
 dwell with happy art upon effective minor features : as at the 
 opening of winter; the approach of an ocean storm, when 
 the garfish glides sportively through the sea, and the gray 
 sea-mew circles ravenously in the air; on the occasion of a 
 sea voyage ; at the time of strife and battle, when wolf, ra- 
 ven and eagle gather about the army for their prey, and 
 strike up their horrid notes ; when a hero prepares to act or 
 speak, and we hear the clash of his armour or see it resplen- 
 dent. 
 
 Concrete phrases were often employed instead of the di- 
 rect, but more abstract expressions : " to prepare the murder- 
 bed," for "kill;" "to bear weapons" (helmets, shields, 
 coats-of-mail), instead of "go;" "to guide the craunching 
 keel over the sea-way," instead of "to sail the sea." 
 
 Such a diction is, as a matter of course, full of figurative 
 speech, but most of these metaphors, taking root in primi- 
 tive-naive and often mythical conception, are so simple and 
 obvious that, as in the language of every-day life, they are 
 not felt to be figurative. Those turns of phrase, too, which 
 impress us as decidedly metaphorical, are seldom very strik- 
 ing and hardly ever especially daring. Winter shackles the 
 billows in ice-fetters ; frost and rime, the " gray battle-goers," 
 lock the abodes of men ; weapons wait for the decision of 
 speech. The scream of the ravenous beasts of prey, of 
 which we have spoken, is called singing, batde, or even-song. 
 The shriek of rage of the vanquished monster, Grendel, is a 
 horror-song, song without victory, and the sword whizzing 
 about the head sings a greedy battle-song. 
 
 A characteristic of the English epos, in contrast with the 
 
EPIC STYLE. 19 
 
 Homeric, is the absence of simile. The poet who, com- 
 paring the thing and the image, keeps them clearly apart 
 and is even able fondly to delineate the image in all details, 
 to endow it with traits given only for the sake of the pict- 
 ure, not of the thing, proves himself an artist who, not strait- 
 ened in his material, preserving repose in the midst of com- 
 motion, freely choosing with clear insight, seeks to shape the 
 beautiful. Such repose and fine serenity were foreign to the 
 English character. Complete artistic similes are entirely 
 wanting in the English epos ; short and obvious ones, such 
 as we often use in daily life, occur, though but rarely : the 
 ship glides away like a bird ; Grendel's eyes gleam like the 
 fire, et cetera. 
 
 Sensuous and figurative perception seems crystallised in 
 picturesque epithets, and principally in substantive expres- 
 sions which, making prominent a characteristic, a quality of 
 the person or thing meant, are put appositively beside the real 
 designation, and often take its place. There is an especial 
 abundance of these expressions pertaining to the ocean and 
 the sea-voyage, or to war and the relation of the chieftain to 
 his men. Thus among other things, the ocean is called the 
 " whale-path," " swan-path," " battle of the waves ; " the ship, 
 " wave-farer," "sea-wood," " wave-steed ; " the warrior, "hel- 
 met-bearer; " eagle and raven are conceived together as " host- 
 birds;" the king or prince is called " ring-bestower," "treas- 
 ure-giver/' " gold-friend ; " his hall is a " gift-hall; " his seat, the 
 "gift-stool." The body is often named "bone-house," or 
 " bone- vessel," and the mind, "breast-hoard." 
 
 To such circumlocution the old English poetry was par- 
 tial ; it massed synonymous expressions for the same idea, as 
 if it would show the most diverse phases of its theme. Be- 
 sides this was the peculiar effect proceeding from the order 
 of words in speech. 
 
 Like most languages which can command some wealth of 
 inflection, and are not coerced into a logical corselet by 
 grammar-masters, the Old English rejoiced in great freedom 
 of construction. How such freedom may serve a delicate, 
 artistic sense or a keen understanding, to obtain the clearest 
 effects, is attested by Greek poets and prose writers and by 
 many among the Latins. For this, however, is necessary 
 that cheerful repose of mind not vouchsafed to the Teutonic 
 races. 
 
20 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 The language of the Old English epic points to a condi- 
 tion of mind where ideas blend, vanish and reappear. With- 
 out evident ground as to subject-matter, closely connected 
 words are sometimes separated from each other. In appo- 
 sition, whose very nature involves a freer arrangement, the 
 separation of appositive words is almost the rule. Not oiily 
 substantive, but also verbal and adverbial conceptions, are 
 repeated in varying form, and thence proceeds a succession 
 of clauses, essentially the same in meaning, with manifold 
 parallelism of their elements. And the same principle holds 
 in the larger scope. The epic style requires more detail in 
 the execution, and so it often happens in the English epos 
 that single passages in a detailed account of an action or 
 an occurrence are made prominent, dropped, and again 
 taken up. The poet deems himself unable to do justice to 
 his subject; he exhausts his stock of ideas and language; 
 and in spite of all his endeavours, we feel that he does not 
 advance. 
 
 There are, besides, frequent unconnected transitions, as 
 well as a certain poverty of particles, which are the cement 
 of sentence-structure, and indicate the delicate shading in 
 the relations of thought. 
 
 Further, as he who is entirely filled with his subject is oft- 
 en least able to begin his narrative at the commencement, 
 clearly to designate throughout what is treated, as he who is 
 passionate expects, indeed requires, that the hstener shall un- 
 derstand at once who is meant by "he" or "she," soJ;his 
 epic style occasionally puts the pronoun at the hea^of the 
 sentence, and the word whose place it takes at the end, 
 as if it were apposition al; while, on the contrary, where we 
 expect only a pronoun, since an idea just broached is re- 
 sumed, we not rarely find a sententious paraphrase. The 
 treatment is similar at the resumption of an adverbial ele- 
 ment. Numerous interruptions often necessitate a new be- 
 ginning. 
 
 Everywhere we see how were impaired, not indeed the 
 fresh sensuousness in detail, but the lucidity and perspicuity 
 of the whole, by the plenitude of ideas that crowded upon 
 the poet, and the perturbation which they evoked. But 
 this excitement was neither entirely, nor even chiefly, due to 
 a passing emotion in the poet's mind. It was traditional. 
 
EtIC STYLE. 21 
 
 It clung to the poetic language as it was transmitted by the 
 hymn to the epic song and the epos. In consequence of 
 this transmission, the poetical style had lost passionateness as 
 well as imagery and sensuousness ; but if of the latter 
 qualities it still had enough, of the former there remained 
 too much. The figure of varying repetition itself, which, 
 used with moderation, well becomes the broad flow of Ho- 
 meric poetry, had been transferred by the English epic to larger 
 relations, in a measure translated to epic proportions, and it 
 thus gave birth to the method of intersecting moments, which, 
 whatever may be its merits, certainly does not excel in clear- 
 ness. 
 
 Nevertheless the style of the Old English epos yields the 
 general impression belonging to this species of poetry. The 
 uniform, stately movement of the rhythmical language, the 
 broad, formula -like periods, which recur especially at the 
 designation of time or of the beginning of a speech, the fond 
 lingering over details, the exhaustive description of occur- 
 rences that are not essential to the action — all this is strik- 
 ingly suggestive of Homer. But the lack in the Old Eng- 
 lish epic of the clearness and fine completeness of the Ho- 
 meric, is at least partially made good by the greater direct- 
 ness of expression. The poet's excitement is not seldom im- 
 parted to the listener ; in situations that seem to justify it, this 
 is very effective. Thus the portrayals of battles, although in- 
 finitely poorer in cast and artistic grouping, although much 
 less reahstic than the Homeric descriptions, are yet, at times, 
 superior to them, in so far as the demoniac rage of war elic- 
 its from the Germanic fancy a crowding affluence of vigorous 
 scenes, hastily projected, in glaring lights or grim half-gloom, 
 and makes us feel as if we were in the midst of the tumult. 
 Nor must we forget that the modes of expression we have 
 tried to analyse, are in a high degree adapted to the elegiac 
 mood, which only too often flowed from the soft melancholy 
 of the Old English temperament, and which readily led to 
 digression and reflection. They are also appropriate to the 
 presentation of tragic situations. 
 
 This style is to the Homeric what the Old English he- 
 roic verse is to the Greek hexameter. It is based upon a 
 measure which belonged to the antiquity of all Germanic 
 races ; namely, the line with eight emphatic syllables, divided 
 
22 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 into equal parts by the caesura. This verse was of venerable 
 origin, being most probably an heirloom from the Indo-Eu- 
 ropean time, and was likewise much used in classical antiq- 
 uity, where it developed several varieties, the purest of which 
 was the iambic tetrameter. 
 
 The peculiarities of versification common to the Teutonic 
 races are : firstly, the metrical law, by which accent in lan- 
 guage and arsis in verse must coincide ; secondly, liberty to 
 leave out the thesis between two arses ; thirdly, the use of 
 alliteration, which affects the most emphatic syllables of the 
 line, two in the first and one in the second section, and indi- 
 cates the unity of the verse, at the same time making promi- 
 nent the ideas ofchief importance. 
 
 But while faithfully obeying the general laws of rhythm and 
 aUiteration, the English epos did not hold itself bound at all 
 punctiliously to the original scheme of verse. Cases are very 
 frequent in which the line — chiefly in the second half, but 
 also in the first — falls short of the legal number of ictus. 
 
 Nor is there an Old Enghsh writer on rhythmic art to ex- 
 plain how metre and rhythm are to be brought into unison. 
 Some recent students of English metre, however, not consid- 
 ering the difference between the two, and wanting a broader 
 historical view, have presented theories on the Old English 
 verse that leave its later development quite unexplained, 
 and, what is worse, often ascribe to it an easy, springing 
 gait, entirely opposed to its true character. 
 
 For this measure moves majestically on with impassioned 
 emphasis, clinging most closely to the subject-matter; each 
 syllable is uttered with force. The sentence rarely closes 
 with the ending of the verse ; it cftener ends with the caesura, 
 where the joining of a new thought is frequently determined 
 by the alliteration, since one of the conspicuous words of the 
 verse suggests by relationship or contrast of meaning another 
 of the same initiatory sound. 
 
 j Thus we here meet the same phenomena as in the poetical 
 Btyle : a lack of connectives and fine finish ; a great promi- 
 ;nence given to single conceptions and ideas ; an effect sen- 
 jsuously strong, but not harmonious. The whole gives the 
 impression of a union of deep, glowing passion and a certain 
 unwieldiness. 
 
5E0WA AND BEOWULF. 23 
 
 III. 
 
 Widsith, who was in Italy with Alboin, must have " spoken " 
 when the immigration of the German tribes into England 
 had virtually ceased. If his reminiscences reach back to 
 a period when the English still dwelt in their original home, 
 if, generally speaking, the personages who appear in his nar- 
 ration, even when they are brought into mutual relation, 
 partly belong to very diverse times, this merely proves that 
 Widsith is a typical figure : the wandering glee-man of the 
 German hero-age. But if, in the enumeration of peoples, 
 the position as to the primitive abode of the English is au- 
 thoritative, this may perhaps be explained only by the 
 theory that the ground-work of the poem really descends 
 from this early age, and that consequently it was not com- 
 posed by a single poet, but grew up gradually; no account is 
 here taken of the interpolations added by an English writer 
 in the Christian time, and which criticism has eliminated. 
 
 The same conclusions hold good with regard to all extant 
 remains of the Old English epic. 
 
 In the first quarter of the sixth century, when, according- 
 ly, a part of the English races were grappling with the 
 Britons in bloody strife (a greater part still dwelt in Ger- 
 many), there happened in the coast-lands of the North and 
 Baltic seas a series of events which powerfully seized the 
 imagination of the coast -dwellers. One event above all 
 created a wide-spread sensation. In the years 512-520 
 Hygelac, king of the Geats (from the modern Götaland in 
 the south of Sweden), undertook a plundering expedition to 
 the lower Rhine. Thereupon Theudebert, the son of the 
 Frankish king Theuderich, advanced against him with an 
 army of Franks and Frisians. A fierce battle ensued which 
 sacrificed many lives on both sides; but the victory remained 
 with the Franks. Hygelac fell, his army was destroyed both 
 on land and water, and the booty already upon the ships 
 • was regained by the enemy. In this battle a vassal and rel- 
 ative of Hygelac distinguished himself beyond all others, 
 especially by the boldness with which he finally effected his 
 retreat. He seems to have been a man of gigantic physical 
 strength, and a skilled swimmer. The fame of this battle, 
 and the glory of this thegn, resounded far and wide among 
 
24 BEFORE THE CONQUEST 
 
 the Geats, Island Danes and Angles on both sides of the sea 
 that separates the Cimbrian peninsula from the Swedish main- 
 land. The deeds of Hygelac's nephew, the son of Ecgtheow, 
 were celebrated in songs. Gradually this hero-figure grew to 
 mythical proportions ; he entered upon the inheritance of 
 demi-gods. Beowulf, the son of Ecgtheow, took the place 
 of Beowa, the vanquisher of Grendel. 
 
 In England, whither the news of Beowulf and his deeds 
 was borne, presumably by Angles, this hero-saga found the 
 soil most favourable to its growth. Here the myth of Beowa 
 long retained its vitality. The names of Beowa and Grendel 
 were given to hills and lakes whose position and surroundings 
 were suggestive of the myth: as Beowan hajnm and Grendles 
 fnere, with the West- Saxons in Wiltshire. The son of Ecg- 
 theow was also celebrated in England as the conqueror of 
 Grendel, as the fighter of the dragon. 
 
 Beowulf became the subject of epic song. 
 
 This song primarily involved the two principal events of 
 the Beowa myth: the struggle with Grendel and the fight 
 with the dragon. The scene of the first act was laid upon 
 the island of Seeland, the throne-seat of the Danes ;^ of the 
 second, in Beowulf's country among the Geats. 
 
 Hrothgar, Healfdene's son, has built for himself a great and 
 splendid hall, which bears the name Heorot, or hart, from its 
 gable-omament. Here he sits with his warriors upon the 
 mead-bench, and dispenses gifts to them; here the heroes re- 
 joice in the music of harp and song. A monster that dwells 
 in the fens — it is Grendel — comes to disturb this pleasure. 
 Every night he forces his way into the hall, seizes a number 
 of the sleeping thegns, and bears them hence, a bloody prey, 
 to his subterranean dwelling. Vain are the efforts to avert 
 the terror. Thus the richly decked hall stands uninhabita- 
 ble and useless. This comes to the knowledge of Beowulf. 
 He, with fourteen chosen Geats, crosses the sea to rid Hroth- 
 gar of his enemy. He is cordially received by the king, and, 
 in the evening, revels with him and his warriors in the hall. 
 At night-fall the Danes forsake the hall; Beowulf and his 
 Geats dispose themselves there to rest. Then Grendel comes 
 stalking on. He beholds the slumbering heroes, and at once 
 
 > Historical relations between öeats and Island Danes may have given rise to this 
 location of the saga. 
 
BEOWULF. 25 
 
 kills one of them. Then he tries to seize Beowulf; but the 
 latter, stretching forth his right hand, clutches him, and the 
 monster forthwith perceives the superhuman strength of the 
 hero. Grendel seeks to flee, but Beowulf clasps him so firm- 
 ly that, after a desperate struggle, he barely escapes with the 
 loss of an arm, and wounded to the "death. Thus is Heorot 
 cleansed. In public token of the victory, the hero places 
 Grendel's arm and shoulder under the great vaulted roof. 
 
 In the second part we see Beowulf an old man. For 
 many years after the death of Hygelac he has ruled over 
 the Geats, and now himself stands at the end of his glorious 
 life. He is impelled to undertake a last difficult contest. 
 A fire-spewing dragon, which guards an immense treasure in 
 a rocky cavern near the sea, is to be subdued. 
 
 With eleven companions Beowulf betakes himself to the 
 spot where the monster has his lair, commands his men to 
 stay back, strides to the cave, and loudly calling, challenges 
 the enemy to the struggle. The dragon springs out, the 
 strife begins. Beov/ulf's sword glances off from the scale- 
 armor of his antagonist. Enraged, the dragon, spurting fire, 
 presses upon Beowulf. Beowulf covers himself with his im- 
 penetrable shield, and strikes out a second time. His retain- 
 ers see the danger in which he is, but hide themselves like 
 cowards. One only, Wiglaf, Weohstan's son, hastens to the 
 help of his lord. His shield shrivels before the fire-breath 
 of the dragon ; he springs behind the shield of Beowulf, who 
 or.ce more cuts at the enemy. His swordg^^tters. Fu- 
 riously the dragon springs upon him, and saj^Bhim by the 
 throat, poisoning his blood with his sharp bit^^Then Wig- 
 laf thrusts his sword into the belly of the beast, so that it 
 sinks back. Beowulf draws the knite that hangs at his corse- 
 let, and divides the Avorm in the middle. The enemy is 
 vanquished, the treasure won, but the aged hero himself is 
 wounded to death. He feasts his eyes on the conquered 
 treasures which Wiglaf brings forth to him, gives the young 
 warrior, with his last wishes, his helmet, collar, and corse- 
 let, then dies. Wiglaf bev/ails his death, reproaches the 
 cowards who left the battle-lord in his distress, and has the 
 news of Beowulf's death borne to the royal abode. Accord- 
 ing to the last command of their ruler, the Geats burn his 
 corpse, and place his ashes with rings and jewels in a mound 
 which is visible from afar to the sea-farers: Hrones-naes. 
 
26 BEFORE THE CONQUESt. 
 
 To this germ were gradually joined several appendages, 
 derived partly from mythical, partly from historical sources, 
 or from the analog}^ of related sagas. In the first place the 
 struggle with Grendel's mother was appended, as a variation, 
 to the struggle with Grendel.^ She comes to avenge her son 
 and thereupon, pursued to her subaqueous dwelling by Beo- 
 wulf, succumbs to a like fate. Many inequalities in the 
 transmitted text show plainly how a single event has been dif- 
 ferentiated to two which in the poetic conception v/ere some- 
 times blended. Beowulf's return from Heorot to Geataland, 
 and his reception by Hygelac were also sung. Other features 
 of Beowulfs, Hrothgar's, and Hygelac's lives v.-ere added, 
 accounts of their ancestors, and of battles v.-hich they fought. 
 Detailed description, the broader configuration of episodic 
 personages, enlivened the portrayal. All this was borne by 
 the stream of epic song, as vvcU as a mass of other traditions 
 that belonged to the same cycle of sagas, and was connected 
 more or less closely with the Beowulf epos. 
 
 Into the midst of this development, which went on during 
 the second half of the sixth, and the following century, came 
 now the promulgation of Christianity. 
 
 Its introduction was an event of most far-re?.ching and 
 potent influence, which, however, was mitigated by its very 
 gradual accomplishment, and revealed, and stili reveals, its 
 true significance only in the lapse ^f centuries. Every new 
 principle can take root only by joining and accommodating 
 itself to what is already established. fChristian missionaries 
 in all times have deferred to customs and opinions as they 
 found them, and in greater degree as their position and task 
 were more difficult. Especial consideration was necessary 
 in the English states, where the new doctrine was not trans- 
 mitted to Germans through a Romanic population, where no 
 coercion of foreign arms forced it upon them, but where, 
 with the aid of native folk-kings, a few missionaries had to 
 accomplish the conversion of the land. Here the foreign 
 elements made themselves felt at first only in church, clois- 
 ter, and school. On the whole, the national customs and 
 
 • The story of Beowulfs victory over both water-demons seems, at a later period, to 
 have become known to the Norse invaders of England, and through them, to have 
 found its way to Iceland. In this manner I am inclined to account for the striking re- 
 seniblance between p.irts of liic Old English poer.! :u-,d the Icelandic Grettis-saga, to 
 which attention has been called since the appearance of the original text of this volume 
 
BEOWULF IN WRITING. 27 
 
 speech remained dominant, and with them the taste for the 
 national songs. Neither the kings nor their thegns would 
 have hked to deny them.selves the hearing of the old chants 
 of their glee-men, in the mead-hall, as of old. Thus the 
 English epos Ijved on ; thus Beowulf and his deeds were not 
 lost to song, ' (Naturally, what reminded directly of pagan- 
 ism was gradually set aside, and much was toned down in 
 manner and expression. But the proportion and symmetry 
 of the whole underwent no change; no Christian vestment 
 was thrown over the epic hero.) 
 
 If the speeclies placed in the' mouth of this or that person- 
 age were at times m.odified by Christian opinions, if one or 
 another singer added pious reflections to his narrative, still 
 the primitive tone was preserved with the primitive subject- 
 matter. 
 
 In the mean time writing as an ordinary vehicle of thought 
 had been introduced into England; a Latin literature had 
 sprung up, which was soon followed by attempts iii the ver- 
 nacular. The popular songs likewise began to be put into 
 writing. What tradition retained of Bcoivulf was written 
 down with much tliat had only a remoter relation to it; 
 what the writer heard from others and what lived in his own 
 memory were put together and ordered and combined as 
 well as possible. Hence discrepancies in details were inevit- 
 able; variations of the same theme were sometimes set beside 
 each other. The Sßrjb« himself interfered as composer: 
 sometimes to do away with inequalities, to fill gaps, to give 
 a motive to disconnected [»assages, or, as he was generally an 
 ecclesiastic, to show his Christian erudition. Grendel, and 
 with him all giants and elves, descend from Cain, according 
 to the interpolator; the Dane-king and his people are once 
 commiserated on account of their paganism, and the like. 
 Thus the text of Beowulf took, about the close of the seventh 
 or the beginning of the eighth century, substantially the 
 shape in which it has come down to us. To later transcrib- 
 ers it probably owes little besides modernisation of language 
 and verbal corruptions. 
 
 Here then appeared for the first time the epos oi Beowulf 
 as a tangible whole; a whole, in truth, which, when we call 
 it an epos, we may not compare with the Iliad or with the 
 French Song of Rolaiid. The action not only lacks the re- 
 
28 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 quislte unity to justify such a comparison, but (which is 
 most relevant) no true hero-saga of grand, national, historical 
 importance has developed from the mythical germ. Only 
 the personages and the episodes belong to history or the 
 hero-saga. The main action lies yet entirely in the region 
 of myth. Even that theme which first kindled the epic flame, 
 Beowulf's deeds in battle against Theudebert, is treated as a 
 mere accessory. 
 
 We have thus in Beowulf a half-finished epos, as if be- 
 numbed in tlie midst of its growth. The introduction of 
 Christianity was doubtless one of the causes that destroyed 
 the productive power of 'epic poetry. The vital continuity of 
 mythical tradition was interrupted; new material and new- 
 ideas came gradually to the foreground in the nation's mind. 
 The elements which, though developed simultaneously with 
 the epos, as we have seen, bore the germs of the decay of 
 the epic style, were greatly increasing; viz., the inclination 
 to reflection, to elegiac tenderness. Besides this, the found- 
 ing of a literature raised a barrier between the learned and 
 and the unlearned. But even had Christianity and literature 
 not been introduced, Beowulf \^o\Adi hardly have become an 
 English Iliad. Such poems arise only among nations that 
 victoriously maintain ideals of higher culture against inimi- 
 cal forces. 
 
 If Beowulf is no national poem and no epos in the strict 
 .sense, taking matter and composition into account, yet as re- 
 gards style and tone, character and customs, it is both in a 
 high degree; and it is not without significance that a poem 
 stands at the head of English literature whose subject is the 
 struggle with the waves, and which is permeated by a vivid 
 perception of the sea and of sea life. 
 
 A great wealth of poetic feeling is revealed in this poem. 
 
 We are charmed by pictures of external things and actions 
 delineated with most realistic freshness, and epic minuteness. 
 Beowulf's voyage to Dane-land, his meeting with the strand- 
 watch, his reception at court, then the struggle with Grendel 
 and Grendel's mother, the gloomy, mysterious aspect of the 
 sea upon whose bottom stands Grendel's dwelling, illumined 
 by a subterranean glow, these and similar scenes are de- 
 picted by a master hand. 
 
 The characters also appear before us in clear outlines. It 
 
THEME OF BEOWULF. 29 
 
 is true they are most simple, and are all of the same mould. 
 No- great art is necessary to lay bare the springs of their ac- 
 tions. We learn, however, to feel for, and with them, and 
 some of them compel our admiration. With all their sim- 
 plicity, they are ennobled by the moral passion which pervades 
 them. A profound and serious conception of what makes 
 man great, if not happy, of what his duty exacts, testifies to 
 the devout spirit of English paganism, a paganism which the 
 Christian doctrine certainly softened, but did not transform 
 in its innermost nature. The ethical essence of this poetry 
 lies principally in the conception of manly virtue, undismay- 
 ed courage, the stoical encounter wi*"h death, silent submission 
 to fate, in the readiness to help others, in the clemency and 
 liberality of the prince toward his thegns, and the self-sacri- 
 ficing loyalty with which they reward him. The following 
 passages will illustrate some of the qualities mentioned. Beo- 
 wulf finds himself in extreme danger in the fight with the 
 dragon : 
 
 His comrades gathered not in a group about him, 
 The sons of Aethelings ; they stood not by him 
 With martial virtues. They fled in the forest; 
 There hid for life. But one in his heart by grief 
 Was stirred : for naught may set aside 
 The weal of kindred in one who tliinketh well. 
 "Wiglaf was he, son of Weohstan, 
 The dear shield-bearer, chief of the Scylfings, 
 Aelfhere's kinsman. He saw his king 
 Suffering heat under his helmet, and then 
 He thought of the good things granted him by his liege: 
 A wealthy estate of the Waegmundings, 
 Folk-rights all as his father had them. 
 Then could he not hold back; his hand-shield broad 
 Of yellow linden seized he. And he drew his sword — 
 The ancient heirloom, deemed by men Eanmund's legacy, 
 Son of Ohthere . . . .^ 
 Also: 
 
 He rushed through the reek of death; to the help 
 
 Of his lord he bore the battle-boss, and spoke 
 
 A few words : ' ' Beowulf, do all well 
 
 As thou saidst of yore in thy youth, thou wouldst 
 
 Not let thy fame sink in thy life. 
 
 O strong in deeds, brave lord, with all thy strength 
 
 Defend thou here thy life ! I will help thee." ^ 
 
 1 v. 2596-2612. Wiglaf was descended from the race of Wsegmundings, whose 
 o»[ginal seat was in Geataland ; but he was probably born in Sweden, at the time his 
 father Weohstan served the Swedish king Onela; this explains the designation, "chief 
 of the Scylfings," applied to him in v. 2603. 
 
 » y. «661-2668. 
 
f 
 
 30 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 And further the account of Beowulf's end. At his com- 
 mand Wiglaf has gathered together the treasure of the slaugh- 
 tered dragon, and brings it to him : 
 
 Bearing the hoard there found he the far famed king, 
 
 His lord, all bloody, lying at life's end. 
 
 He began to sprinkle the prince again 
 
 With water, until the word's point from the coffer 
 
 Of the breast broke through; Beowulf spake, 
 
 As he gazed with grief upon the gold: 
 
 "I thank with words the Ruler of all things, 
 
 The King of Light, the everlasting Lord, 
 
 For the hoard on which I here do look, 
 
 That it was granted me to gain such riches 
 
 For my dear people, ere my death-day came. 
 
 I have now bought this hoard of jewels 
 
 By laying down mine aged life; so grant 
 
 Ye now the people's needs ; for I may be 
 
 Here no longer. Have the battle-heroes 
 
 Build a mound, gleaming after the burning, 
 
 On a cliff by the shore. It shall, a memorial 
 
 To my people, tower high on Hrones-nces — 
 
 So that sea-farers seeing call it Beowulf's mount, 
 
 Who drive afar their keels o'er the mists of the floods." 
 
 Then the dauntless king undid from his neck 
 
 The glittering golden ring; he gave to his thegn. 
 
 The young spear-hero, the gold-hued helmet. 
 
 The collar and armour, and bade him use- them well ; 
 
 " Thou art the last of our lineage, last 
 
 Of the Weegmundings. Death hath driven 
 
 All my kindred, the earls in their might, 
 
 To their fate. I must follow them." l 
 
 Only a few short fragments of the English epos besides 
 Beowulf have been preserved. We take up first the frag- 
 ment of the Battle of Finnsburg. 
 
 The connection in which this belongs becomes clear only 
 when we compare it with a song in Beowulf v*hich one of 
 Hrothgar's glee-men sings at Heorot the day after the victory 
 over Grendel. Sixty Danes led b)^ Hnaef and Hengest are 
 attacked by Finn, the king of the Frisians, in his own castle. 
 Hnaef falls in the contest, but the Danes defend themselves 
 with heroism for five days. Finn loses nearly all of his men, 
 as well as his sons and brothers-in-law. At last a treaty is 
 brought about. Hnasf's corpse is burnt with great solemni- 
 ties, of which there is a circumstantial account in Beowulf? 
 
 » v. 2 788-2 Si 6. 
 « V. 1068 et seq. 
 
BATTLE OF FINNSBURG. 31 
 
 But the peace is not lasting. Nemesis does not rest until 
 the bloody deed has begotten new deeds of blood. The 
 complications terminate only with the deaths of Hengest and 
 Finn. 
 
 >The fragment takes us into the midst of the struggle at 
 Finnsburg, whose issue and results are related in Beowulf. 
 
 The narrative is extraordinarily poetical, vigorous, and ani- 
 mated. Indeed the Old English writings are distinguished 
 by such descriptions of battle. At the beginning of the 
 fragment is a speech of Hengest as follows: 
 
 Then cried the king, young in battle: "This dawns not from the 
 east hither; nor flies a dragon here; yet burn not the liorns of this hall; 
 but they come to surprise us. The birds sing; the cricket chirps ; the 
 war-wood sounds ; shield answers to shaft. Now the full moon shines 
 under clouds ; now deeds of woe arise, which the hate of this folk is 
 minded to do. But arouse, my warriors, lift up your hands; think of 
 your strength; fight in the fore-rank, be of courage! " 
 
 The battle rages. More than one hero covers the ground. 
 "The raven wandered swart and sallow-brown. Sword- 
 gleam stood, as if Finnsburg were all on fire." 
 
 While this epic fragment belongs with Beowulf to the 
 saga-cycle of the North and Baltic sea-coast region, the two 
 fragments of Waldere betoken the community of thought 
 which, in German antiquity, united the most diverse tribes be- 
 longing to that great race. These are the remains of an 
 epos celebrating the well-known Walther of Aquitaine, and 
 the version of the saga, followed here, is essentially the 
 same as that of the Latin poem of Ekkehard of St. Gall, 
 written about two hundred years later, /. <?., in the first half 
 of the tenth century. 
 
 Besides other treasures, Walther has carried off Hildgund 
 {IIildgif6), betrothed to him from earliest youth, from At- 
 tila's court where they were tarrying as hostages. Upon the 
 way home he is attacked in the Vosges by Günther ( Gil6here) 
 and his warriors, among whom is Hagen, Walther's boy- 
 comrade. He fights them and is victorious. The fragments 
 partially fill out both pauses coming betv/een the three phases 
 of the contest : Ekkehard gives only two. Single traits be- 
 tray an independent amplification of the legend, from which 
 we may conclude that it circulated early among the English 
 tribes. They show also the popularity which the legends of 
 
32 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 Weland and Theodoric enjoyed, both among Angles and 
 Saxons. The Enghsh tradition of Theodoric places him in 
 close relation to Weland's son Widia, who is called " Wudga" 
 in the Widsith-poem. 
 
 What is preserved to us of the Old English epic grants 
 but a very inadequate insight into the history of its develop- 
 ment, but leaves us to imagine the greatness of the loss which 
 we have here to deplore. And yet how rich may English 
 literature deem itself in this respect when compared with the 
 Old High German! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Toward the close of the sixth century, the conversion of 
 the English to Christianity was begun by Roman mission- 
 aries. 
 
 About a century later Christianity was acknowledged as 
 the dominant religion in all the Enghsh states. The power 
 of the Archbishop of Canterbury as ^'' Briianniaruin arch- 
 iepiscopus^^ was firmly established; the English church was 
 most intimately united with the papal see. This had cost 
 some struggles. Besides the hostile pagan element, there 
 were other opponents to be vanquished, who seemed, at 
 times, still more dangerous. In the Anglian states of the 
 north, especially in Northumbria, the envoys preaching as 
 delegates from Rome met missionaries of the Irish church. 
 At that time this church was pre-eminent for religious zeal 
 and erudition, but was obnoxious to the papacy because it, 
 as well as the J3ritish church, referred its origin to apostolic 
 times, and firmly maintained its own rite and independent 
 organisation against the eftbrts proceeding from Rome to es- 
 tablish the unity of the church. By the aid of native kings 
 and queens, especially through the vigorous measures of the 
 Northumbrian king Oswiu, England was gained for Cathohc 
 unity, and the refractory elements were subdued or set aside. 
 Nevertheless a liberal and truly national spirit was main- 
 tained in the Enghsh church, and has survived to the present 
 day; a spirit which seemed to slumber at times, but only to 
 break forth again with renewed vigor. This was due to the 
 political public spirit always powerful in England, to ihe insu- 
 
ENGLISH CHURCH. 33 
 
 lar exclusiveness of the country, perhaps, also, to the services 
 which the EngHsh princes had rendered to Rome, and to the 
 very enthusiasm for the greatness of the church and for the 
 papacy that actuated Angles and Saxons soon after their 
 conversion. 
 
 Although the youngest of all the Christian churches, the 
 English began, toward the close of the seventh century, to 
 signalise itself beyond all others. In no country of the world 
 were there to be found such religious zeal, such warmth and 
 depth of religious sentiment, sucii a superabundance of relig- 
 ious feeling as in the English parts of Britain. Nowhere was 
 shown such piety toward the papal throne and the grave of 
 the apostles Peter and Paul. This found expression in pil- 
 grimages, in works of Christian charity and of asceticism, in 
 rich gifts to the church, in the erection and endowment of a 
 multitude of convents for men and for women, in which many 
 princesses of royal blood, and even many kings, after sudden 
 renunciation of their crown and the world, gave themselves 
 to prayer and meditation; but above all it was manifest- 
 ed in missionary work. English apostles were unweariedly 
 active among the still pagan German tribes on the continent. 
 They there entered into the inheritance of the Irish monks, 
 whose work they supplemented, corrected, duplicated. Co- 
 operating with the increasing power of the Carlovingian 
 house in France, they labored for the politico-religious unity 
 of the West, among them, notably, that Winfrid whom the 
 Germans reverence as their apostle. 
 
 In the domain of literature and science likewise, the Eng- 
 lish church began to overshadow the Irish, from which, we 
 must concede, it had learned much, and which, at a still 
 later period, gave to the world in John Erigena, a thinker of 
 long unequalled boldness and independence. In the monas- 
 teries that covered England and formed each a nucleus of 
 general culture for the surrounding districts, the study of the- 
 ology was flourishing, and v/ith it the study of those sciences 
 of which the church had preserved a remnant from the ruins 
 of the Roman empire, and which she transmitted to posteri- 
 ty. When classic learning had almost died out in the other 
 countries of western Europe, or was no longer productive, 
 as in Italy, Angles and Saxons increased with strenuous in- 
 dustry the knowledge gained in Rome or brought to them 
 
 D 
 
34 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 by learned foreigners, and with happy talent converted 
 it to their own creations, so that they became the teachers 
 of their teachers. At a time when the Italian clergy no long- 
 er knew the rules of classic versification, English monks and 
 bishops wrote, and English nuns read, Latin verses beside 
 which the verses that might then have appeared elsewhere 
 seemed almost as barbaric as they themselves appeared be- 
 side the lines of a Virgil or a Horace. Manuscripts of the 
 works :Ji. classic authors that men began to neglect in other 
 countries, because they did not understand them, were bought 
 up and collected by English pilgrims to Rome, and stored 
 in the libraries of Kent, Wessex, and Northumbria. 
 
 Among the abodes of learned culture whose light then il- 
 lumined England, a few were conspicuous for their influence. 
 The school of Canterbury, which owed its origin to Augustine, 
 the leader of the first Roman mission, gained an enhanced 
 importance when the archbishop, Theodore of Tarsus (668 
 -690), and his companion, the abbot Hadrian, there diffus- 
 ed a knowledge of the Greek language. From the school 
 of this Hadrian came Aldhelm, born of a noble West- Saxon 
 line about 650, v»'hose exhaurjtive learning and poetic attain- 
 ment filled his contemporaries and posterity with admiration. 
 Through Aldhelm, Malmesbury abbey, in northern Wessex, 
 was elevated to an important nursery of culture. Here he 
 v.-as first active as monk, and later as abbot, and here he was 
 buried after his death (709) as Bishop of Sherborne. 
 
 The Angle, Biscop Baduking (called Benedict as his church 
 name) founded in Northumbria the closely united cloisters 
 of Wearrnouth and Jarrow, whose churches he caused to be 
 erected of stone in the Roman manner by Gallic masons, 
 and adorned with artistic windows and pictures. He en- 
 riched their libraries with many books obtained by himself 
 in his frequent pilgrimages to Rome, and he lent an ex- 
 traordinary attraction to their schools in the papal cantor 
 whom he had placed there as teacher of the art of singing. 
 It was on the territory of the house of Wearmouth that Beda 
 was born, two years before its founding. He became one 
 of the first pupils of Benedict and the most illustrious of all, 
 and he later continued his studies under the guidance of Ceol- 
 frid at Jarrow. Beda became a deacon at an early age, and 
 then a priest, remaining faithful to the monastic fife and to 
 
ALDHELM AND BEDA. 
 
 35 
 
 the service of science. In the seclusion and quiet of the 
 home monasteries, especially at Jarrow, he displayed that ac- 
 tivity of authorship which made his name renowned far be- 
 yond the borders of his own country, and to which only 
 death put an end (735). 
 
 Beda's younger friend, Bishop Ecgberht, taught in the 
 school of York. His aim was not less to diffuse learned cult- 
 ure than to restore a strict church disciphne, and he founded 
 a rich collection of books. From his school cam^c. Alcuin, 
 who later sought a second home in the Frankish empire, 
 where he, more than any other, helped to realise the great, 
 plans of Charlemagne for the promotion of learning and ed- 
 ucation. 
 
 The first florescence of English culture was already closing 
 in the time of Alcuin. Its highest splendour is associated 
 with the two names, Aldhelm and Beda. 
 
 Both filled with the same enthusiasm for rehgion and 
 science, both possessed of exhaustive learning, both firmly 
 grounded in thg soul of their own nationality, and yet strong- 
 ly attracted to antique culture, they also supplemented each 
 other in contrasts, which completely set forth for us the col- 
 lective chp.racter of the Christianity of old England. In 
 such an antithesis, Aldhelm represents what we might call the 
 feminine, Beda, the masculine principle. The former, gifted 
 with most delicate feeling and vivid fancy, more versatile, 
 more pliant, more spiritual, was less energetic, less produc- 
 tive ; the latter, conspicuous for clearness and simple grandeur 
 of view, less gifted as a poet, explored as a v/riter of prose 
 the realm of learning in every direction. 
 
 Aldhelm celebrated in flowery, at times bombastic and af- 
 fected, prose the Praise of Virginity^ which he exemplified by 
 numerous personages from, the Bible and legends of the saints 
 [De laudibiis virginitaiis slve de vlrginiiate saiictonmi) \ lie also 
 treated the same subject again, and more happily, with slight 
 modifications of material and arrangement, in well-constructed 
 and by no means unpoetical hexameters [De laicde virgiuiini). 
 He further wrote a hundred poetical enigmas after the prec- 
 edent of Symposius, but with wider scope, a greater absorp- 
 tion in his subject, and sometimes having the dignity of 
 an impassioned style. They may be compared in many 
 respects to the enigmas of Schiller, and also to some of the 
 
36 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 German poet's distichs. He intercalated his collection of 
 enigmas in a prose epistle to King Aldferth of Northumbria, 
 which is essentially a dialogue on the hexameter and the dif- 
 erent kinds of metrical feet [Episiola ad Acirciuni). In other 
 poems he did not always employ quantitative, but merely 
 rhythmical verse forms, as well as rhyme. He was fond of 
 alliteration, that ornament of the national English poetry, and 
 massed it at times very effectively. He showed, likewise, a 
 predüection for other metrical diversions, especially the acros- 
 tic and telestich. In the choice of his material, not less than 
 in the manner of treating it, in his thoughtful observation of 
 nature and human feeling, in his chaste aversion to what was 
 gross or common, in his leaning to amplification and poet- 
 ical digression, he proves an intimate relationship with that 
 side of the Old English national character, and of the Old 
 English poesy which was to be especially developed by / 
 Christianity : tenderness of spirit imbued with elegiac feeling. \ 
 Aldhelm is said to have been an excellent musician and sing- 
 er, and one of the finest poets in the vernacular, one who 
 knew how to condescend to the people and to transport them. 
 Some poems, ascribed to him by the tradition of schools, 
 were sung as late as the twelfth century. V/e can understand 
 how he came to imitate, in his Latin poems, certain peculiar- 
 ities of the national versification, which, however, are often- 
 times superfluous and disturbing elements. It is likewise 
 conceivable that such a nature often bore itself with poor 
 grace in the majestic garb of Latin prose. 
 
 Beda also wrote Latin verses, without great poetical charm, 
 it is true, but for that time correct, harmonious, and not 
 without taste. Most of his hymns and epigrams have been 
 lost, but his book concerning the miracles of Saint Cuthbert 
 (Bishop of Lindisfarne, died 687) is preserved. Far more im- 
 portant than his poetry, in scope and matter, is Beda's prose. 
 It embraces nearly all branches of the learning ofthat time, 
 and in all departments treated by him, Beda became an au- 
 thority, often consulted down to the later Middle Ages, and 
 not in his own country alone. His exhaustive commentaries 
 upon various books of the Scriptures, as well as his homiUes, 
 were used countless times by later theologists, and have even 
 yielded material for poetry. His writings on natural science, 
 especially his work on cosmography, De natura rerwn^ form- 
 
CHRISTIAN POETRY. 37 
 
 ed, for a long time, a mine for those authors to whom the 
 way to older sources was unknown or too arduous. He oc- 
 cupied himself also with grammar, rhetoric, and miCtre. His 
 book. De arte metrica, denotes extensive reading, especially 
 of Virgil, and the older Christian poets. His most valuable 
 works, however, are those pertaining to chronology and his- 
 tory : these are his manuals of the computation of time, first 
 the sketch De tempo?'ibus, then the exhaustive work De tem- 
 porum ratio/ie, to which is annexed a chronicle of the world; 
 his Aiartyi'ologiiim / his Vita beafonan abbatuni Wwemuthen- 
 slum et Girvensiiim; his Life of St. Ciithbert, whose miracles 
 he had previously sung in verse;. but above all, his Historia 
 ecdesiastica gentis Angloriun. The last work is in five books, 
 and brings the reader down to the year 713. It manifests a 
 love of truth, a diligence in the collection of docum.ental 
 material, and is conspicuous in conception and style for an 
 objectivity, clearness, and simplicity which raise it high above 
 the level of contemporary historical writings. Thus Beda, 
 compared with Aldhelm, embodies the energetic working- 
 pov/er, the positive, historical sense, the love of simplicity 
 and truth, that perhaps form the determining elements in the 
 nobler side of English nationality. 
 
 When Beda died, a Christian poetry had already bloomed 
 in the English language. The readiness with which Angles 
 and Saxons accepted Christianity (iVieicia under savage, war- 
 like kings resisted longest), the enthusiasm with which they 
 made it a living possession, point to a mental disposition that 
 in a poetically productive epoch, must necessarily lead to pre- 
 mature attempts to embody, in a poetic form, the new ideas, 
 together with the traditions clinging to them. It is prob- 
 able that even before English scholars had begun to wrestle 
 with the difficulties of Latin versification, English singers had 
 turned their epic speech and their epic measure into poems 
 to the glory of God, or the praise of biblical heroes. The .^ 
 same hall in which to-day Beowulf's fight with Grendel or \ 
 the attack at Finnsburg were sung, might resound on the 
 morrow with songs celebrating the six days' work of creation, 
 and taking the place of the p^gan cosmogonic hymns. The 
 transition to the new materials was doubtless easy for the 
 glee-men. Epithets of the gods and hgroes could often, with- 
 out change, or with only slight modification, serve for the 
 
38 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 God of the Christians, or for the patriarchs and saints. God 
 himself, in his relation to angels and men, was conceived as 
 the almighty prince, as the beloved chieftain ; the devil, as 
 the faithless vassal who antagonises his gold-friend; the heav- 
 enly throne was the gift-stool of the spirits. In like manner 
 the relation of Christ to his apostles and disciples took form 
 in the popular conception. The apostles are celebrated in a 
 poem of the eighth century as 
 
 Twelve heroes famous far beneath the stars, 
 Servants of God: their strength did yield not 
 When they hewed in battle on helmet-crest; 
 Since they had placed themselves as God, 
 Fven the high King of heaven, had set the lot.» 
 
 The fevour with which the English apprehended the feudal 
 relation prompted its transmission into a higher sphere, and 
 this, in turn, caused that eartlily relation to be ennobled and 
 deepened. The superabundance of religious sentiment that 
 was a concomitant of Christianity as well as of the English 
 national character, found a convenient medium of expression 
 in the emotive, passionate quality of epic diction, in the 
 massing of synonymous words and periods, in the oscillation 
 of movement. 
 
 It may be supposed that the religious poetry, by the em- 
 ployment of existing vocables for new conceptions, by the 
 formation of new verbal, as well as new rhetorical combina- 
 tions, gradually created a store of words, a phraseology, which, 
 although abutting closely in numberless cases on that of the 
 national epic, nevertheless wa„s distinctive and increased in 
 the same ratio as poetical production in this province. 
 Even new figures of style (although in meagre number) forc- 
 ed their way, in the course of time, from tlie Latin into the 
 English diction. Scholars, also, as shown by the example 
 of Aldhelm, cultivated the popular poetry, while on the other 
 hand, a glee-man not rarely became a priest. Ultimately 
 many sat upon the benches of the cloister schools who later 
 took up the glee-man's calling. That the Christian national 
 poetry in England was in no way first called into life by the 
 learned, is shown by its genuine popular character in lan- 
 guage and verse, and the near relation which it bore to the 
 epos. 
 
 ' AjidrtoSy V. 2-6, Bibliothek dtr a^^s. Poesie, II. 9. 
 
CAEDMON. 
 
 39 
 
 A beautiful legend transmitted to us by Beda^ explains, 
 in its own way, while celebrating the earliest Christian poet 
 of England, the origin of this new style. 
 
 In the second half of the seventh century there lived in 
 the vicinity 'of the monastery of Streoneshalh,^ in Northum- 
 bria, a man named Caedmon. The gift of song was denied 
 him, so that he was wont to rise from the banquet and to re- 
 tire with shamd when the harpjn its circuit was about to reach 
 him. One, evening after such an occasion, he had fallen into 
 slumber in the ox-stable, which was in his charge that night. 
 Then a vision appeared to him in his dream, and a voice 
 commanded him to sing of the beginning of the created world. 
 Thereupon, Ca«dmon began a song to the gle«y of God, and 
 sang: 
 
 Now shall we glorify the guardian of heaven's kingdom, 
 
 The Creator's might, and the thought of his mind, 
 
 The deeds of the Father of glory, — how he made the beginning 
 
 Of all wonders, the everlasting Lord: 
 
 First he created for the children of men 
 
 The heavens as a roof, the holy Creator; 
 
 Then the middle region, the Guardian of mankind, 
 
 The everlasting Lord, afterwards established 
 
 The earth, for men, the almighty Ruler.^ 
 
 After awaking, Caedmon repeated all this and added more 
 in the same strain. The knowledge of the miracle that had 
 taken place soon spread, and it reached the monastery, where 
 Caedmon gave proof of the gift which God had bestowed 
 
 ' Historia ecclcsiastica getitis Angloriiin, IV, c. 24. The same legend re-appears 
 in other places in a modified form. 
 
 * Better known by its later Danish name of Whitby. 
 
 3 The original is found at the end of an old manuscript of the Hisioria Ecclcsiastica. 
 Beda has a Latin prose version in his text. Aelfred, however, in his English translation 
 of the Ecclesiastical History, gives Caedraon's verses again vv-ith but slightly deviat- 
 ing meaning, if in modified writing. I'he Northumbrian original, as well as Beda's 
 prose, are subjoined: 
 
 Nu scylun hergan hcfsurlcxs uard, 
 
 Metud^s majcti end his niodgidanc. 
 
 Were uuldurfadur, sue he uundra gihua:s, 
 
 Eci dryctin, or aslelidae. 
 
 He aerist scop a;lda baraum 
 
 Heben til hrofe, haleg scepen : 
 
 Thä middungeard moncynnjes uard, 
 
 £ci dryctin, sefter tiadie 
 
 Firum, foldu, frea allmectig. 
 Nunc laudare debemus auctorem regni coelesti.s, potentla.'u Creatoris et onsiünni 
 illius, facta Patris gloriae. Quomodo ille, cum sit seteinus Deus, omnium nüraculo- 
 rum auctor exstitit, qui primo filiis hominum coelum pro culniine tecli, dehinc tenam 
 custos humani generis omnipotens creavit. On the authenticity of the Northumbrian 
 verses see Appendi.x A. 
 
40 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 on him. Then the Abbess Hild took him into the cloister to 
 dwell, and bade learned men narrate to him the Bible history 
 Everything that he heard from them, he elaborated and trans- 
 formed into noble songs, so that his teachers became in turn 
 his listeners. "Thus sang he," says Beda, "of the creation 
 of the world and the beginning of the race of men, and all 
 the history of Genesis ; of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, 
 and the entrance into the promised land; of many other sto- 
 ries of the Holy Scriptures ; of the Incarnation of the Lord, 
 his Passion, Resurrection and Ascension; of the coming of 
 the Holy Ghost, and the teachings of the apostles ; also of 
 the terrors of the future judgment, of the horror of hell-pun 
 ishment, and the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom, made 
 he many songs ; and likewise many others on the mercy and 
 judgment of God; but in all he strove to draw men away 
 from the love of sin, and to incite them to goodness." 
 
 Drawing epic, lyrical, didactic matter into its domain 
 Caedmon's poetry seems, according to Beda's account, to 
 have embraced all classes, and most of the ranö;e of material 
 to which the Old English religious poetry is in any sense con 
 genial. The question is pertinent if, of the numerous works 
 of Caedmon, nothing besides that short hymn is preserved; 
 if among the considerable remnants of the older ecclesiastical 
 literature, the majority of which have reached us without the 
 names of their authors, one or more are not to be traced to 
 Caedmon. To this inquiiy there is no satisfactory answer. 
 It has been customary, since the time of Junius, to connect 
 the poems contained in the Bodleian manuscript, Jun. 'XI., 
 with Caedmon's name, but belief in the authority for this 
 has been more and more abandoned. In the course of time 
 an ever greater variety of elements and diversity of style have 
 been discovered in the contents of that codex; and at present 
 hardly any one" feels justified in ascribing even a part of it to 
 the most ancient Christian poet of England. ^ 
 
 Perhaps the combating of an ill-founded hypothesis has 
 even gone too far, and negation has struck a too dogmatical 
 tone. As regards the most extensive and leading poem of 
 the manuscript, and this one only, it is quite possible that a 
 fragmentary and imperfectly transmitted v/ork of Caedmon 
 lies before us; a work mangled, modernised in language, 
 
 • See Appendix A- 
 
THE GENESIS. 4 1 
 
 and oftentimes corrupted in details. At all events, this poem 
 might correspond, better than any other, with the conception 
 that we must form of the Caedmonic poetry according to 
 Beda's account, which probably does not lack an historical 
 basis. In spite of the arguments which, in more recent times, 
 have been used to prove the contrary, the style and tone bear 
 the mark of high antiquity, of an art beginning, and not per- 
 chance decaying. They give evidence of a poet who belong-i, 
 ed to a time of epic productiveness, but who, himself, may^* 
 or may not have contributed anything to the national epic. 
 The whole treatment is such as we might presuppose of a 
 man who transposed into English verses several biblical books, 
 as they were imparted to him in oral instruction./ Finally 
 nearly all the expressions that occur in Caedmon's short 
 hymn are there employed repeatedly and with decided par- 
 tiality, especially the favourite phrases for the designation 
 of the God-head. 
 
 The poem is a poetical paraphrase of Genesis^ which is 
 preserved only as far as the sacrifice of Abraham, and is brok- 
 en by several gaps due to mutilation, partly of the present 
 manuscript, and partly of earher texts. The most important 
 of these gaps, which already existed at a previous stage of 
 the transmission, comprehended the story of the fall of man. 
 It is filled in rather awkwardly by the corresponding parts of 
 a later poem of the same class. As the more modern poet 
 had observed, in his fuller narrative, a different and more ar- 
 tistic plan than his predecessor,^ the reviser v/as called upon 
 to strike out some passages. But he forbore to do this, and 
 hence the same motive appears with differing treatment in 
 two rather widely separated places.^ 
 
 According to an ancient theological view, the creation of 
 the world, as described in the account of tlie six days' work, 
 was for the purpose of restoring an older system destroyed, 
 by the revolt of the angels. . Man, particularly, was destined 
 to fill the void occasioned in heaven by the fall of Lucifer and 
 his followers. There is connected with this a theory of the 
 ten (or nine) angel hierarchies ; especially as it was develop- 
 
 1 The younger poet, namely, had placed the account of the creation and the fall of 
 the angels between God's prohibition to the fu-st of mankind and their temptation by 
 the serpent. — See Appendix A. 
 
 2 The fact of tlie interpolation in this case is not made less sure by the circumstance 
 that also in other mediaeval renderings of Genesis, the revolt of the angels is twice re- 
 lated. 
 
42 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 ed in the works of Gregory, whence it spread through various 
 channels into mediaeval literature. Caedmon does not be- 
 tray knowledge of such views in his hymn, but was undoubt- 
 edly made acquainted with them by his teachers in the con- 
 vent. However this may be, the poet of the older Ge?iesis 
 presents a doxological opening, glorifying God especially as 
 the Creator of the heavenly abodes, after which he begins 
 with a description of angelic joys, joined to a powerful, if 
 somewhat vague, representation of the fall of the angels and 
 its punishment. The sight of the places vacant in the king- 
 dom of heaven has moved God to create the world, which 
 brings the poet to the beginning of the biblical Genesis. 
 
 From this point on. Genesis is his original, which, as far as 
 we can see, he paraphrases to the close with uniform fidelity. 
 He displays but the slightest knowledge, if any, of apocry- 
 phal writings.^ He rarely undertakes omissions and abbre- 
 viations of the biblical narrative; and only in passages that 
 must have been uninteUigible to Caedmon and the majority 
 of his contemporaries, or that proved quite too rigid for poet- 
 ical treatment. He gives, for instance, only an extract from 
 the chronology of Noah's posterity (Gen. X.), after having 
 exhausted in earlier genealogies his whole rich treasure of cir- 
 cumlocutory phraseology. He nowhere manifests an attempt 
 at general artistic casting; even though he does not twice re- 
 late the creation of the first pair (after the Bible), but blends 
 the first two chapters of Genesis.'^ 
 
 The originality of the poet is revealed only in detail and 
 execution. The simple, terse expression of the scriptural nar- 
 rative is exchanged for a broad, often impassioned epic style. 
 Adjectives and appositions are crowded, parallel variations 
 of the same idea follow each other, and adverb phrases im- 
 pressively repeated, often refer to what has already been 
 related and is well known. Like the poets of the English 
 epos, the author of the Genesis is fond of employing direct 
 and full quotation in dialogue, while he rather avoids it in 
 monologue. Everj'where he strives for a living assimilation 
 of the material, and for poetic realism and sensuous colouring. 
 Naturally, those passages which lend themselves m.ost easily 
 
 ' See Appendix A. 
 
 * Owing to a gap in the manuscript we cannot claim this with abi^olute certaiaty, al 
 though it is highly probable. 
 
THE GENESIS. 43 
 
 to such a treatment are executed with special care. The 
 account of the creation, though brief, is very effective. Our 
 text is unfortunately incomplete, but lines such as these oc- 
 cur: 
 
 Yet was the earth 
 Not green with grass ; the ocean was grim 
 In dreary darkness, the dusky waves, 
 In eternal night, the far and tlie near. 
 Then swift with speed the guardian spirit 
 Of heaven was borne, all glory-beaming, 
 Athwart the waters, the swarthy waste : 
 Then made command the maker of angels. 
 The Lord of life, to come forth light 
 Upon the boundless, the ocean broad. 
 The high king's behest with haste was fulfilled: 
 For him the light holy was over the waste, 
 As bade the Creator. 1 
 
 The description of the deluge is rich in effective touches ; 
 but several passages in the story of Abraham are especially 
 noteworthy. The paraphrase of the fourteenth chapter of 
 the Bible, a stirring battle-picture with many accessories, 
 shows our poet possessed by that glow of warlike enthusiasm 
 which pervades all Teutonic antiquity. 
 
 They gathered together ; 
 Then loud were the lances; the bands of slaughter 
 Were wroth and raging. The rush expecting. 
 The swart fowl sang, amid the shaft-darts. 
 Bedewed of feathers. The fearless warz-iors, 
 The heroes hastened, in powerful hordes, 
 Till now the hosts of nations had come 
 From afar and near, from north and south. 
 The helmet decked ones. Then hard was the play. 
 The change and clangor of clashing death-spears, 
 A scream of warring, a cry loud of battle. 
 With hands they drew, the warriors dread, 
 From shining sheaths their swords ring-hiltcd, 
 Of edges doughty.® 
 
 Nevertheless our poet does not appear in the character of 
 a scop or gleöma?i who has donned the cowl and turned to 
 religious poetising. He would have betrayed in other pas- 
 sages as well his preference for the customary epic armour, 
 for weapons and the hke, and would have brought out and 
 utilised more prominently the martial element in the bearing 
 
 * Genesis, v. 116-125, Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, I. <j. 
 * Genesis, v. 1982-1993. 
 
44 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 and cl'.aracter of his heroes. The passion which fills the poet 
 is essentially religious. His vocabulary is nowhere richer 
 than when he attempts to render in varying phrase his con- 
 ception of the God-head. 
 
 It is characteristic and conclusive as to the great age of the 
 poem that no sentimentality mars its epic fulness and relig- 
 ious pathos. 
 
 The man began, 
 Young in winters, to question Abraham with words: 
 "My prince, we have fire here and sword; 
 Where is the offering that thou, all-glorious, 
 Wouldst bring, a sacrifice burnt to God?" 
 Abraham spake: (In all he had willed 
 To do what his Lord ordained.) 
 "That will the true King, protector of men, 
 Find himself as seenieth to him well." 
 Steadfast he mounted the steep height then, 
 Bearing his son as the Eternal One bade, 
 Until he stood on the summit of the high land, 
 The place itself which the All-potent had pointed out, 
 As the true Creator had taught him with words, i 
 
 We recognise in the poet a virile, great, and noble nature, 
 the outcome of simple circumstances, who might have borne 
 Caedmon's name with honour. And if Beda prefers Caed- 
 mon's poems to those of all later religious poets known to 
 him, we, although not acquainted with those poets, may as- 
 sume that the Bible-friend in Beda proved stronger than the 
 artist in the forming of this judgment. In no case can the 
 great theologian's high esteem of Caedmon be a ground for 
 ascribing to him traits essentially ditfering from those of the 
 poet of the Ge?iesis. 
 
 The author of the Exodus'^ reveals quite different charac- 
 teristics. The matter of the poem is such that at a first 
 glance one might be tempted to call it a well-rounded epic 
 song. The entire narrative deals with the passage of the Is- 
 raelites through the Red Sea, and the destruction of the 
 Egyptian host. Hence only a short section of the biblical 
 account yielded material to the writer, and he has treated 
 this material with great freedom, and adorned it with all the 
 expedients of his art. Looking at the reflections interspersed 
 at the beginning and near the end, one would, as has indeed 
 
 * Genesis^ v. 2887-2900, Grein, Billioih.ek cUr ags. Poesie, I. 75. 
 2 Sec Appendix A. 
 
THE EXODUS. 43 
 
 happened, take the poem for a poetical sermon. But if we 
 surrender ourselves to the impression of the whole, the hom- 
 iletic tone becomes quite subordinate to the epic pathos. 
 This fervour finds expression in an amplitude of delineation 
 which does not belong to the fragmentary song, but to the 
 epos. The poet was evidently an epic singer who had turned 
 cleric, or at least Bible-poet, but who had retained his ancient 
 predilection for heroes and arms. In no Old English po- 
 etry is the martial passion so marked, so exclusive; and this 
 is the more striking as the action involves no battle at all, 
 but merely a struggle of the Egyptians with the waves. It 
 deals only with the preparations for battle, or with perilous 
 situations, and these suffice to exalt the poet to the highest 
 enthusiasm. Very gorgeous is the description of the two 
 hosts marching in the panoply of war, and especially so is 
 that of the advancing Egyptians. Most effective is the pict- 
 ure of the terror of Israel, dreading a sudden assault. Pas- 
 sages like this in which Moses prepares to speak before the 
 march through the Red Sea are characteristic: 
 
 The man of batile, the bold commander, 
 
 His shield upraised, then sprang before 
 
 The warriors waiting; the folk-leaders bade he 
 
 To stand, to listen, to stay the march 
 
 "While the hero's speaking the many should hear. 
 
 The guardian of the land was beginning to speak 
 
 With holy voice, through the martial host: 
 
 With dignity spake the multitude's leader .... * 
 
 The poet does not dwell long on the speeches. He is 
 quite averse to dialogue. His strength lies in the delinea- 
 tion of external actions, and particularly of situations. 
 
 He has at command a rich epic phraseology. He is truly 
 prodigal of forms of variation, both in the narrow and the 
 more general sense. His style is more prolix and detailed 
 than that of the Genesis poet, but more imaginative and sen- 
 suous as well; in short, more poetical. 
 
 Unfortunately his work has not come to us entire. Just 
 l)efore the overthrow of the Egyptian army, there is a gap. 
 It embraces the close of an episode, which, breaking into 
 the passage of the Israelites, tells of their ancestors;^ the 
 
 1 Exodus, V. 552-258, Giein, Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, I. 84. 
 
 ' According to the allusion in line 353, there may have been mention of but one fath- 
 
40 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 portion preserved treats chiefly of Abraham's sacrifice. Al- 
 though not unskilfully inserted, this episode seems written 
 in too simple a style for the Exodus poet, so that here, too, 
 we perhaps have to do with an interpolation. Comparing 
 it with the corresponding passage in the Genesis^ vre arc struck 
 by the greater delicacy and subjectivity of treatment of this 
 insertion, qualities which, in themselves, would not be incon- 
 sistent with the epic and martial pathos of the Exodus poet. 
 
 A paraphrase of the book of Daniel^ also imperfect (it 
 breaks off at about Chap. V. 22), differs in treatment from 
 the Genesis as well as the Exodus : ^ from the latter poem, in 
 that it does not present a single detached event, but fol- 
 lowing the biblical narrative, comprehends a series of events ; 
 and from the Genesis, for the reason that the poet is less re- 
 stricted by his text, and chooses systematically from the ma- 
 terial before him. His plan, however, is mainly confined to 
 the ideas found in the book of Daniel: humble submis- 
 sion to God and devout trust in His word, contrasted with 
 self-sufficient pride and lawless lust; the reward of the 
 former, the punishment of the latter. Hence the poet leaves 
 out entirely such features as have no bearing upon his pur- 
 pose, and only briefly indicates what is of secondary impor- 
 tance to it, thus throwing the central thought into stronger 
 light. The delineation is less full and sensuous, but more 
 animated than that of the Exodus, and shows a less equable 
 epic movement and a stronger admixture of subjective feel- 
 ing than we find in the Genesis. While the poet is, on the 
 whole, rather brief, making little use of direct quotation, and 
 employing little epic detail, he dwells emphatically upon the 
 chief scenes, and develops in them the entire splendour and 
 wealth of his language, as notably in the account of the three 
 men in the fiery furnace.^ 
 
 But in the art of working out a plot, all the vrriters of re- 
 ligious epics, belonging to that period, are surpassed by the 
 author of y^udith. If indeed his subject-matter is extraor- 
 
 er (Jacob?), to whose history the entire extant portion of the episode perhaps formed 
 an introduction. But Abraham may also have been meant. 
 
 ' 1 1 is possible that the composer of the Darnel was acquainted with the Exodus, 
 and wrote with reference to this poem. If this was the case he took no pains to imi- 
 tate his predecessor. 
 
 2 It is hardly by chance that a fccond version of this part of the poem is found in the 
 rich collection of poetry contained in the E.\cter manuscript {CoJcj: Exonkfisis). This 
 text, however, diverges entirely in its latter half. 
 
STYLE AND METRE. 47 
 
 dinarily happy, offering, as it does, a well-rounded plot of al- 
 most dramatic interest, still we are wont to consider a judicious 
 choice of material an added merit in the talent that can 
 shape it ^Yorthily. Only the close of the poem, little more 
 than a quarter of the whole, is preserved. This fragment, 
 however, produces an impression more like that of the nation- 
 al epos, than is the case with any other religious poetry of 
 that epoch. To a lucid, well-constructed narrative are joined 
 epic profusion, vigour, and animation. In the highest degree 
 effective is the portrayal of Judith's return to Bethulia, of 
 the warlike advance of the Hebrews, of the surprise of the 
 Assyrian camp, the terror of the Assyrian nobles, who dare 
 not disturb their lord in his rest, and finally of the disband- 
 ment and flight of the heathen host. If the poet seems 
 stirred by his theme, if he does not refrain from giving a moral 
 judgment, and occasionally anticipates the story, yet he re- 
 sembles in all this, not only most of the religious, but also 
 the national epic singers of his time. 
 
 Religious poets seem early to have indulged in a metrical 
 license which found its way, from the Bible-epics, into the later 
 portions of the popular epos, at least into the interpolations 
 of the revisers. The strictly rhythmical chant of the popular 
 singers did not prevent them, it is true, from frequently fall- 
 ing short of the number of feet required by the metrical 
 scheme, as the measure could be completed by a longer 
 dwelling upon certain syllables or by the help of pauses; 
 but it never allowed them to transcend it. In the religious ep- 
 ics, however, which were doubtless simply recited, not sung, 
 tradition, which permitted a curtailment, could in time easily 
 sanction a redundance. Hence the verses sometimes swell 
 beyond the measure of the eight accents, within fixed limits 
 only, yet yielding many varieties that conform to the unity 
 of no law save in the position of the three alliterative letters. 
 In the Genesis ^ and Exodus^ such lengthened lines are com- 
 paratively rare; they are less rare in the Daniel^ and are es- 
 pecially frequent in the Judith, where they are employed in 
 a striking, and by no means inartistic manner. 
 
 • In which, of course, we caiJiiot inchide the longintcrpoiation, whose author revels 
 in long verses. 
 
4^ BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 V. 
 
 Besides the heroes of the old covenant, those of the new, 
 the apostles, the holy martyrs and confessors, presented 
 themselves to the religious epic as subjects for glorification. 
 From the first centuries of our era onward, Christian tradi- 
 tion had gathered rich material for poetic transmutation, 
 and all Christian nations contributed their share to its in- 
 crease and development. From the Greek and Latin lan- 
 guages — Latin was usually the medium of versions originally 
 Greek — these legends were transplanted into the national 
 literatures of the different European peoples. 
 
 Religious lyrical poetry found an exalted model in the 
 psalms of the Old Testament, Thes'e may have early invit- 
 ed to imitation and poetical paraphrase; although the tradi- 
 tion that ascribes such a translation to Aldhelm does not 
 seem to rest on a sure basis. A paraphrase of the fiftieth 
 psalm ^ in the Kentish dialect, not lacking warmth and ele- 
 vation of tone, dates at the latest from a time before 800, and 
 was certainly no isolated attempt. A rendition of the whole 
 psalter ^ in the West-Saxon dialect appears to be more re- 
 cent, though hardly as recent as we might be tempted to con- 
 clude from the somewhat prosaic diction, and the frequently 
 incorrect versification. It would be hazardous to apply the 
 strictest standard of aesthetic criticism to a work undertaken 
 principally for practical purposes. But the language of this 
 translation is not without ancient elements. 
 
 The lyrico-religious mood often found expression in hymns 
 and prayers more freely than in the rendering of psalms. 
 These were partly imitations of ecclesiastical Latin models, 
 and partly independent disposal of known themes, and they 
 occasionally disclose a great intensity of subjective feeling. 
 
 A wide field extends between the epic and the lyric, touch- 
 ing sometimes the one, sometimes the other, and including 
 didactic and descriptive poesy. In this domain we find sim- 
 
 ' To this is prefixed an introductory narrative, and an independent close is append- 
 ed. Published by Dietrich, Aiiglosaxonica, Marburg, 185S, page 3; Grein, BiLiiotJiek 
 cUr angelsäcJisiscIun Poesie, II. 276. 
 
 2 1'he greater pait of it. from pp. 51-56 on, is preserved in a Parisian manuscript of 
 the eleventh centurj-, which has a later prose translation of the first fifty psalms. Of 
 tlie lost part of the metrical versi -n, not inconsiderable fragments are found dispersed 
 In an English Benedictine service contained in mss. of the time shortly befure and 
 after the Norman Conquest. 
 
LATIN INFLUENCE. 49 
 
 pie moral discussions, short poetical sermons on the arro- 
 gance and falseness of mankind, or meditations on the vast- 
 ness and splendour of creation. We also have those poems 
 to which special Christian legends of biblical or unbiblical 
 origin, and sometimes even myths of classical derivation 
 transformed to a Christian basis, furnished the material. To 
 this class belong accounts of the last judgment, and speeches 
 of the saved or rejected soul to the body with which it 
 has been united in life, which it visits every week, and with 
 which it will be reunited for common bliss or common 
 torment on the last day. Descriptions of hell and heaven as 
 revealed in the visions of many saints, and as they took ever 
 more vivid and plastic form in the Christian fancy, also be- 
 long there. We find among these poems, too, the ancient tra- 
 dition of Christ's descent into hell, that attained its definite 
 and, as it were, classical setting in the so-called Evangeliuftt 
 Nicodemi ;^ although a stricter theological bias held rather 
 to those outlines of the tradition which could be authenticat- 
 ed in the writings of th^ fathers. 
 
 In this entire range of poetical composition, the" English 
 found their sources as well as their models among Christian 
 Latin poets and wTiters of theological prose. But it was 
 more particularly the homiletic literature which acted upon 
 a class of poetry that, by a blending of narrative, reflection, 
 and admonition, itself bore a decidedly homiletic character. 
 Foremost was the influence of the great Latin fathers, and 
 above all, that of Gregory, to whom Christian England was 
 indebted more than to any other, and whom it venerated as 
 an aposde. 
 
 The most peculiar products of old Christian literature were 
 those in which the frequent attribution of a symbolic mean- 
 ing to natural phenomena determined not only the treatment, 
 but the choice of a subject. This symbolism was chiefly de- 
 rived from the animal kingdom. The Christian imagination 
 had seized eagerly upon antique, and, especially, Greek tales, 
 in which both fabulous creatures and familiar animals with 
 fabulous qualities were the heroes. In carrying these further, 
 
 1 More exactly in the Descensus ChHsti ad inferos, a work dating possibly from the 
 third century, which, in the first half of the fifth century, was united with the Gesia 
 I^'lati, an account of the passion and resurrection of Christ, and of the capture and mi- 
 raculous deliverance of Joseph of Arimathea. 
 
 £ 
 
50 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 it gave tliem a deep, mystical sense, an application to the 
 mysteries of religious faith. This animal symbolism played 
 an important part in the art of the earlier Christian centuries. 
 It often appeared in the works of the fathers, and of old 
 Christian poets and writers; it even yielded independent 
 poems. But compendious compilations served to extend 
 h among the most diverse mediaeval peoples. In them cer- 
 tain qualities {natures, as they were named) of a series of ani- 
 mals were depicted and interpreted. Such a collection was 
 called a F/iysiologus. The numerous Physiologi now extant in 
 eastern and western languages, and in several versions, dif- 
 fering in scope, method, and selection, all disclose a funda- 
 mental Greek type. Latin was again the medium of pro- 
 mulgation for western Europe. There already existed a 
 Latin FJiysiologus in the fifth century of our era, since a 
 papal decree of the year 496 proscribes as apocryphal and 
 heretical a work of this kind, attributed to St. Ambrose. 
 
 The symbolism of such literature was naturally attractive 
 to English poetry, and gave it welcome opportunity for effect- 
 ive description. The beautiful fragment of an Old English 
 Fhysio/ogus, containing the Panther, Whale, and a few lines 
 of a third section concerning a marv'ellous bird, shows us with 
 what charm a truly poetical conception could invest such a 
 subject. The interpretation is the usual one. The panther 
 seeks, after the repast, "a hidden place under the mountain 
 caves," where he sleeps three days, then awakes and, uttering 
 loud, harmonious sounds, emits a lovely fragrance; this is 
 Christ the Risen. The whale, " which is often met unwilling- 
 ly, cruel and fierce, by sea-farers," induces them, by his isl- 
 and-like repose, to mount him, and then dives with them un- 
 expectedly into the deep ; he allures the fishes with his sweet 
 breath and suddenly swallows them ; this denotes hell. 
 
 The great and really productive period of Old English re- 
 ligious poetry may be included within the years 650 and 800, 
 or about 825. The majority of the works mentioned arose 
 probably during the eighth, or in the beginning of the next 
 century; including also the Exodus, the Daniel, and the y^u- 
 dith, whose chronological order may perhaps, at a later time, 
 be more nearly determined. But the most many-sided, pro- 
 lific, and we might say, the greatest poet of this time is yet 
 to be considered. He is also the only one who lias handed 
 
CYNEWULF. 51 
 
 down his name in his works, and what is more, a part of his 
 hfe. His name was Cynewulf, or, in his own dialect, Coene- 
 wulf. 
 
 Cynewiüf, Hke Caedmon, was a Northumbrian.^ 
 
 Con jecture. places his birth between 720 and 730; hence 
 he could hardly have outlived the eighth century, and his 
 principal works may be ascribed to its second half. 
 
 He belonged to the guild of wandering glee-men, and 
 seems to have rejoiced in high favor and rich gifts at prince- 
 ly courts. He did not lack learning. He read the Latin 
 authors, and sometimes made poor Latin verses himself, which 
 points to a youth passed in the monastery school. 
 
 Of the poems which Cynewulf composed as itinerant sing- 
 er, we have knowledge only of a collection of riddles, if we 
 discard what is doubtful. 
 
 We cannot say to what extent English riddle-writing had 
 flourished before Cynewulf, and still less to what extent it grew 
 up from native, popular elements, and how much it was due to 
 the influence of a foreign literature. So much is certain : as 
 in Teutonic antiquity generally, so especially in English an- 
 tiquity, were found in abundance the many conditions, not 
 only for the production of riddles, but for a characteristic 
 poetical development of them. They lay in the popular view 
 of life and nature, in the foreboding, sombre tone of the epic 
 language, in the nature of the national gnomic verse, and in 
 the fondness for combat in word-subtleties. This originali- 
 ty of poetical treatment appears even in Aldhelm's Latin 
 enigmas, when we compare them with those of Symposius. 
 
 Aldhelm's example had great influence, perhaps in certain 
 things, a decisive influence upon Cynewulf. He was probably 
 indebted to him for the idea of arranging a greater number 
 of riddles, w^ithout a system, but in such an order that, collect- 
 ively, they covered a certain range of conceptions. In the 
 first of these, he set his own name to be guessed, not like 
 Aldhelm, in the form of an acrostic, but as a charade. 
 
 Cynewulf borrowed many of his themes from Aldhelm as 
 well as Symposius, and probably from other Latin poets,^ 
 foHowing his originals sometimes freely, sometimes more 
 closely, but always with most hfelike and spontaneous treat- 
 ment. Other themes came to him through oral tradition, 
 
 • See Appendix B. * Ibid. 
 
52 BEFORE THE CONQUES'l'. 
 
 either from learned or from popular sources. The tale of 
 the dragon, for mstance, whose tracks lead the way to the 
 gold-hoard, was taken from the folk-saga, perhaps directly 
 from the epos. In his choice of material, nearly all of which 
 deals with every-day affairs, as well as in his manner of treat- 
 ing it, he discloses a fine mind, a ready sense of the beau- 
 ties of nature and the wonders of creation. His work also 
 betokens a lively interest in the achievements of culture and 
 the practical details of life, but above all a genuine poetic, 
 creative impulse. A love of weapons and war appears be- 
 side an appreciation of the importance of learning. The 
 mead-jug and the wine-skin are likewise remembered, and 
 next to passages of exalted strain, sometimes occur coarse 
 sensuality and naive innuendo. 
 
 Conscious art is joined, in the execution, to the natural 
 impulses of English popular poetry. As with Aldhelm, and 
 still more than with him, the poet's object is not alone, and 
 not chiefly, a play of wit. He is filled with his subject, and 
 what he says of it comes from a loving, enthusiastic spirit. 
 As he borrows verse and diction from the epos, every object 
 becomes for him an epic hero, whose marvellous being the 
 poet Vv'onderingly unveils to us, or Vvho tells of his own fort- 
 unes in a feeling, and often pathetic or elegiac tone. 
 
 We have room here for only one example from Cynewulf 's 
 collection of riddles. It is selected with some reference to 
 the reader's more ready comprehension : 
 
 I was an armed warrior; now a proud one, 
 
 A young hero, decks me with gold and silver, 
 
 And with crooked wire-bows. Men sometimes kiss me; 
 
 Sometimes I call to battle the willing comrades; 
 
 Now a steed doth bear me over the boundaries. 
 
 Now a sea-courser carries me, bright with jewels, 
 
 Over the floods. And now there fills my bosom 
 
 A maiden adorned with rings; or I may be robbed 
 
 Of my gems, and hard and headless Tie; or hang 
 
 Prettily on the wall where warriors drink, 
 
 Trimmed with trappings. Sometimes as an ornament brave, 
 
 Folk-warriors wear me on horseback ; wind 
 
 From the bosom of a man must I, in gold-hues bright, 
 
 Swallow then. Sometimes to the wine 
 
 I invite with my voice the valiant men ; 
 
 Or it rescues the stolen from the robbers' grasp, 
 
 Drives away enemies. Ask what my name is.l 
 
 ' No. IS, Grein, Bibliothek der ags. Focsic, II. 376. 
 
VISION OF THE CROSS. 53 
 
 The solution is : The horn of a bull. 
 Several other extant poems have been pronounced works 
 from this early period of Cynewulf 's life ; though the argu- 
 ments supporting this opinion are not without attraction, 
 they do not carry convincing proof. 
 
 A new phase in Cynewulf's life and writing was due to a 
 remarkable event, of a kind not rare in the fancy of mediaeval 
 minds. The poet had grown older; a sad fate had robbed 
 him of friends and patrons. Poor and isolated, he began to 
 give himself up to melancholy, and a gloomy view of life. 
 His conscience reproached him with the frivolity of other 
 days, with worldly thought and endeavour. Then was vouch- 
 safed to him a marvellous vision, one due perhaps to the 
 poet's study of a certain group of Christian Latin poems, but 
 which had none the less the true impress of subjective experi- 
 ence, Cynewulf himself has immortalised this vision in a 
 poem,^ giving utterance to an irrepressible emotion, but still 
 exhibiting the delicate lines of a beautifully designed compo- 
 sition. It moreover contains single passages that forcibly 
 suggest the style of his riddle-poetry. The holy rood, now 
 glittering with gold and precious stones, now stained with 
 blood, appeared to him in a dream, and addressed him. The 
 tree of victory told him of its fortunes, and the story of the 
 Saviour whom it had been accounted worthy to bear. We 
 hear how, after the burial of Christ, the cross-tree was sunk 
 deep into earth, but later was lifted by servants of God and 
 adorned with gold and silver. The time was come when 
 heroes, far and wide, should pay homage to this sign and 
 worship it : God's son had suftered upon it ; therefore it 
 stood forth glorious under the sky, and was able to heal any 
 people that feared it. 
 
 Now bid I thee, O man, my dear one, 
 
 That this sight thou sayest to men, the sinful : 
 
 Reveal with words it is the glory-tree, 
 
 On which the great Ahiiighty God, 
 
 For mankind's grievous and manifold guilt 
 
 Had suffered shame, for Adam's ancient sins 
 
 He did taste death; there died the Lord. 
 
 But the King arose from the regions of night 
 
 With his might, the great, for the help of men. 
 
 He ascended to heaven, and will hither again 
 
 Come to judge mankind, in this mid-earth. 
 
 I pibllotfiek der ags. Poesie, II. 143. See Appendix ß. 
 
54 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 On the day of doom, the dreadful Lord, 
 
 The Ahiiighty King, with angels will come, 
 
 Will doom and condemn, who has power of death, 
 
 Each and every one as he even here, 
 
 In this life on earth, this short one, has earned it ; 
 
 Xor shall fearless go forth, before the word 
 
 The ruler shall speak, one single sinner. 
 
 Where may be the man, he asks the multitude, 
 
 ^Vho would come on the cross to death for the King,— 
 
 The bitter death taste, that the King once died ? 
 
 But they fear, and fail to find the words, 
 
 To Christ the Saviour, that they shall say. 
 
 But need fear none that named shall be, 
 
 Who bears in his breast the best of signs ; 
 
 But heaven's home through the holy cross, 
 
 All souls, from earth-ways, shall ever seek 
 
 Who tliink M'ith the Ruler to dwell. ^ 
 
 With a light heart Cynewulf prayed to the holy rood: he 
 had found peace and happiness again. His thoughts were 
 directed from that hour to the hereafter, and it was his joy 
 to revere the cross. I'he poet probably became a monk in 
 consequence of this; but, however that may be, his muse 
 subsequently served religion alone. His later poems mainly 
 develop themes already treated in the poem on the appari- 
 tion of the cross. 
 
 The most distinctive of these poems of the second period 
 is one whose unity German criticism first recognised, and to 
 w^hich it gave the name of Christ. In it Cynewulf describes 
 the threefold coming of Christ: his birth, his ascension, and 
 his advent at the last judgment. The poem accordingly con- 
 sists of three principal parts, the first unfortunately now lack- 
 ing its beginning. Each part develops in itself a fine structural 
 proportion, in which the narrative proceeds, glowing with 
 feeling and varied by the tints of changing artistic colouring. 
 As Cynewulf drew his subject-matter from the Latin homilies, 
 among others those of Gregory the Great, we are sometimes 
 tempted to pronounce his work a chain of homiletic effusion?. 
 The whole is, however, removed to a sphere so poetical that 
 we think rather of a cycle of hymns, having, with a chiefly 
 lyrico-didactic character, epic and even dramatic elements. 
 The ideas are artistically interwoven, the transition being now 
 veiled, now lightly indicated. Sometimes the movement 
 seems arrested, and we feel as if Cynewulf were using, in 
 
 » V. 95-iai. 
 
CYNEWULF S CHRIST. 55 
 
 larger scope,, the form of variation of which he is fond in de- 
 tails, and were creating in some degree, a composition with 
 intersecting moments. But the poet advances ever nearer to 
 his goal, although he gathers much upon his way. His work 
 grows steadily in changing sequence of description, dialogue, 
 and impassioned praise ; and if it does not strictly conform 
 to any of the received classes of poetry, it is still a monument 
 to a deep religious sentiment and a fine and aspiring spirit. 
 
 The intense feelinoj of love and reverence for Christ and 
 Mary here attains full expression, but without a suggestion 
 of that tone which religious lyrics borrowed in later centuries 
 from the secular love-poetry i^Minnepoesie). Never has the 
 love of Christ in contrast with the guilt of sinners been de- 
 picted more impressively, more touchingly, than here ; the 
 terrors of the last judgment have rarely been portrayed with 
 a more vivid pencil. Of all the Old English poems, Cyne- 
 wulf 's Christ is perhaps that which reveals, in the most com- 
 plete and effective manner, the spirit of Christianity, and of 
 Christian Latin poetry. 
 
 Latin influence is also evident in syntax and rhetoric. 
 Several figures appear that were either quite unknown to 
 national epic poetry — at least to the older epic — or had 
 gained but small foot-hold, and came rarely into use: as, epan- 
 aphora, complexion, and antithesis. In the Christ are found 
 for the first time,^ detailed and ample similes ; there are but 
 two, it is true, and these are veiy old ones that Cynewulf 
 found in his originals. We are, however, reminded of classic 
 poetry by the manner in which, for instance, the well-known 
 gospel-comparison is treated: 
 
 Unlooked for then the earth-dwellers, 
 
 The great day of the mighty God at midnight shall befall, 
 
 The luminous creation, as oft a crafty robber, 
 
 A thief boldly in darkness, in the dusk ventures, 
 
 In the swart night ; those bound in sleep, 
 
 The careless heroes, he cunningly falls upon, 
 
 And with evil attacks the unready ones.^ 
 
 But the national style is not fundamentally changed by 
 this adoption of foreign elements. With its afiluence of 
 words, it retains its powerful, impassionate, yet somewhat un- 
 
 • The comparison with Joseph's coat in the Panther rrix^X. be suggested; but the 
 Old English PJiysiologiis is hardly of an earlier date than the Christ, even if it is the 
 work of Cynewulf, of which I am by no means convinced. 
 
 1 V. 868-875, BibÜQthek der ags. Poesie, I. 171, 
 
56 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 wieldy movement. Certain peculiarities seem even more 
 frequent; such as the employment of variations and the use 
 of pithy circumlocutions instead of pronouns. It is essential- 
 ly the stylistic mediums of the national epos through which 
 Christian views here find expression. Genuinely popular 
 ideas are sometimes blended with those views; the concep- 
 tion of thegnhood, for instance, is greatly exalted, and not 
 unfrequently in Cynewulf's verse we seem to hear an echo 
 of those tones in which, perhaps, ancient hymns sang the re- 
 ception of Woden's elect in Walhalla or the world's doom 
 by fire. 
 
 Christ's descent into hell, mentioned in the Christ in con- 
 nection with the ascension, was made by Cynewulf the sub- 
 ject of a special poem, whose lofty and thoughtful beginning 
 makes us regret the loss of the remainder. The rendering of 
 the Latin poem of the Fh(£mx, from its relation to the resur- 
 rection, belongs to the same class. The original, according 
 to an ancient tradition, the work of Lactantius, presents the 
 antique legend, somewhat altered by time, in a style seem- 
 ingly illumined by an autumnal glow of classic poesy. The 
 legend is plainly tinged by the Christian spirit, and is mod- 
 elled in accordance with a Christian symbolism. The poet 
 may have been a Christian himself, or have taken part in 
 one of those tendencies of thought that, issuing from the 
 bosom of pagan antiquity, met those of Christianity half-way. 
 The elegance and precision of expression, characteristic of 
 this poem, are necessarily impaired in Cynewulf's unevenly 
 diffuse treatment ; nevertheless the poetic value seems aug- 
 mented in the English version, which applies the entire wealth 
 of the national style in the service of an intense, devout 
 faith, but disdains new rhetorical mediums as little as does 
 the C/u'ist. 1 To the exposition of the myth Cynewulf adds, 
 as a continuation well worthy of it, what is wanting in the 
 original: the application to the chosen servants of the Lord, 
 and then to Christ the Risen himself 
 
 Cynewulf's style appears less influenced by Latin po- 
 etry in his legends of the saints.^ To make up for this, 
 
 * Especial attention is called to the simile (v. 243-257), which is carried out with more 
 than Homeric detail. Compare with this v. 107 et seq. of the quite divergent original. 
 
 2 Certain of its essentially subjective passages must be excepted; as for example, 
 the epilogue to the Elcite. In this we find, among others, a fairly executed simile (v. 
 1272-1277) whose parts again forcibly remind us of Cynewulf's RiddUs No. 2-4. 
 
GUTHLAC. 
 
 57 
 
 the spirit of the national epic is so much the more promi- 
 nent in them. The poet did not, it is true, possess, in any 
 high degree, the talent of epic composition; he cannot be 
 compared in this respect with the author of the J^udit/h 
 His subjectivity often impairs the clearness of the narra- 
 tive, his invention is meagre as far as motifs essential to 
 the action are concerned; v/e may even say that the ac- 
 tion in itself interests him very little in comparison with 
 the feelings and ideas it suggests. On the other hand, the 
 atmosphere of the national epos is precisely that in which he 
 is at home. Whenever he encounters epic situations in his 
 sources, a chord is at once touched in him that must ever 
 have vibrated during liis wandering minstrelsy, and that 
 awakens other strains in sympathetic harmony. Then epic 
 ideas and periods, variations and images, crowd upon him in 
 abundance. It is as if youthful impressions had again be- 
 come living in him ; and, as often happens in the round of 
 life, this after-influence of the national epic in Cynewulf grew 
 the more powerful, the nearer he approached the end of his 
 days. 
 
 The poet apparently first turned his attention to an Eng- 
 lish saint, the hermit Guthlac who died in 714. Presumably 
 following oral tradition, he describes rather vaguely, but very 
 amply and feelingly, the life of Guthlac on a lonely height, his 
 cruel temptation by devils, and his consolation by a heavenly 
 messenger until his final rev/ard for the victorious struggle. 
 At a later time Cynewulf added to this poem a continuation,^ 
 based on a Latin Vita Saiicti Guthlaci by the monk Felix of 
 Croyland, in which he relates the death of the saint, his last 
 commission to a faithful follower, and its execution. The 
 continuation, another work not fully preserved, surjjasses the 
 first part in poetic value. The last division is especially full 
 of feeling, and in the highest degree effective. It contains 
 the journey of Guthlac's servant to the sister of the saint, 
 and the sorrowful message addressed to her. The Latin 
 text furnished merely the occasion for this entire episode. 
 
 In yidiana Cynewulf delineates a martyr whose existence, 
 strongly doubted by historians, is placed by the legend at 
 the time of the emperor Maximinian. Juliana withstands, 
 not less victoriously than Guthlac, the temptations to which 
 
 ' See Appendix B. 
 
$8 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 she is exposed. She steadfastly refuses to become the wife 
 of a pagan, and for her chastity and her faith, in whose 
 strength she overcomes the devil in person, she suffers the 
 most terrible tortures, that finally end in her death by the 
 svrord. Although the narrative is better conceived in the 
 yiiliana than in the first part of the Guthlac, yet it is often 
 unequal, obscure, and even interrupted by breaks. From 
 this we gather that the poet was too indifferent to the mate- 
 rial, as such, and that he was more intent upon delicately 
 modifying or altogether removing crudities in his Latin 
 original, than upon giving to tlie reader in lucid succession 
 all essential moments of the action. 
 
 The tvro religious epics, the Andreas and the Elene^ are 
 more attractive than those heretofore considered. In these 
 Cynewulf appears perhaps at the summit of his art. It is 
 true that here, too, something is wanting in the composition 
 as a whole. There are inequalities and obscure passages. 
 But the tone, the spirit, in which the Christian fable is con- 
 ceived, come nearer to the national epos than in any other 
 poems of Cynewulf, and a number of noble descriptions 
 and bold personifications recall to us the best that is pre- 
 served of old popular song. 
 
 \Yi Andreas^ he represents the man of God, who, accord- 
 ing to his Lord's command, hastens to the succour of Mat- 
 thew, capti\e in the land of the Mermedonians, and con- 
 demned to die. A boat manned by the Saviour himself 
 and two angel mariners, transports him over the sea to 
 Mermedonia. He consoles the prisoner and wondrously 
 gladdens him. But he is himself made captive for this, and 
 is most cruelly tortured. However, strengthened by God, 
 he endures all agonies and works a great miracle which awes 
 the JMermedonians into a behef in God's might, and leads 
 them to conversion. The source of this poem was probably 
 a Greek writing {Ilpa^ei^ ^Avöpeov aal Mar^eia) 
 which must have been inaccessible to Cynewulf save by 
 the help of learned monks. 
 
 The Elcjie (legends of which had probably also come to 
 England in Greek form) relates the search for the cross and 
 the holy nails. This search was instituted by Constantine, 
 
 ' See Appendix B. 
 
CYNEWULF AS POET. 59 
 
 on account of his victory gained through that glorious sign, 
 and Saint Helena is miraculously successful in it. 
 
 Not until the writing of the Elene had Cynewulf entirely 
 fulfilled the task he had set himself in consequence of his 
 vision of the cross. Hence, he recalls, at the close of the 
 poem, that greatest moment of his life, and praises the 
 divine grace that gave him deeper knowledge, and revealed 
 to him the art of song. Feeling himself near the grave, the 
 poet mournfully gazes over the past. As his youthful dream 
 has faded, so everything vanishes from him. The world 
 will pass away, and then will follow the judgment; and 
 varying former descriptions, Cynewulf once more portrays 
 it in brief, incisive language. 
 
 The poems of Cynewulf show us the artist with whom *>^ 
 Christian ideas have become spontaneous, who is com- 
 pletely filled with the fervour of Christian feeling, and who, 
 at the same time, disposes like a master of the rich legacy 
 of epic diction and perception. His taste is not so cul- 
 tivated as his faculty of imagination and his power of lan- 
 guage. Sometimes his subject-matter is obnoxious to our 
 sense ; at other times our ardour is dampened by the ever- 
 crowding outbreaks of the poet's enthusiasm. In the last 
 instance the discord between the old form and the new 
 matter prevents a quite complete enjoyment. Such a dis- 
 cord arises anew at every new stage of culture, and is re- 
 ally avoided in very i^^ products of human art. But 
 where form and matter approach more closely to the pres- 
 ent, we are less sensible of the discord between them. 
 
 Cynewulf seems nearly related to Aldhelm in tempera- 
 ment and in cast of mind. This relation is even exhibited 
 in small outward peculiarities. As Aldhelm is fond of using 
 alliteration in his Latin verses, so Cynewulf often adorns 
 his English lines with rhyme. As Aldhelm loves acrostics, 
 so Cynewulf likes to play with runes, and through them he 
 has transmitted his name to us in the Christy in the yuUana^ 
 and m the Elene. 
 
 VL 
 
 Christianity has, generally speaking, proved favourable to 
 
 lyrical poetry ; it did not, however, serve to promote its rich 
 and original development in England. 
 
6o BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 The vigorous growth of the hero-saga and of the epic 
 had left, at first, a distinct impress upon all poetic produc- 
 tion. Had English culture been left to itself, the hymnic 
 poetry, which still existed beside the epos, would perhaps 
 have yielded a secular lyric, reflecting subjective feeling in 
 independent forms. But the new religion and its culture 
 so severely taxed the assimilative pov/er of the people that 
 the general creative impulse had to yield for a time. 
 
 By a sort of tacit compromise the epos was deprived of 
 its specifically pagan elements, without, at the same time, 
 becoming Christian. It took thus a neutral character^ which, 
 in the language of a French poet, made it grow old in a 
 prolonged childhood. But hymnic poetry, which was mainly 
 nourished by pagan mythology, was banned and marked for 
 destruction by the professors of the new doctrine. The 
 pagan religious poetry survived only in the mysterious ob- 
 scurity of magic foniiulas and the like.> On the other hand, 
 the existing lyrical and gnomic elements in the epos gained 
 new importance from the influence of Christianity.^ The 
 epic metrical forms were transferred to Christian hymns and 
 prayers and translations of the psalms. Their predomi- 
 nance in both lyrical and gnomic verse was thus confirmed, 
 as the Widsith early shows, and a distinct division of these 
 classes from each other and from the epic was made more 
 difficult. 
 
 A single Old English song in strophic form has come 
 down to us.^ Most significantly, it is also the only lyric 
 product having direct relation to the epic saga. It plainly 
 betokens a tendency v/hich could not culminate in an un- 
 favourable age. 
 
 The song is put into the mouth of a figure of the epic 
 age, the singer Deor, who designates himself as the scop of 
 the Heodenings (the Hegelings of the German epos of 
 Gudrun). His contemporary and happy rival in art is Heor- 
 renda, the Horant of the Gudnm. In the sorrow that 
 weighs upon him, Deor seeks comfort by summoning up a 
 number of the heroes of saga who have suffered and over- 
 come a heavy fate: Weland fettered by Nithhad; Beadohild 
 made pregnant by Weland ; the Gothic king Theodoric cast 
 
 ^ Biblictluk der ags. Poesie, I., 249; Rieger, Alt-und aM^ehäch^isches Lesebxtch^ 
 p. 83. 
 
deor's lament. 6 1 
 
 into exile; the heroes subdued by Eormanric's victory. 
 The close runs : 
 
 I was long scop of the Heodenings, dear to my lord ; my name was 
 Deor. I had a good retainership, a gracious lord for many years, un- 
 til this Heorrenda, the song-skilled man, obtained the right of the 
 land, which the protector of eorls granted to me before.— ^That was 
 withstood; so may this be.i 
 
 Excluding an interpolation of some length, the poem is 
 run off in six strophes of six lines or less. Each strophe 
 has the following refrain : ])£ss ofereode^ \iisses swa ma^g. 
 
 No relation to the hero-saga is discoverable in the remain- 
 ing monuments of the Old English lyric ; and there proba- 
 bly existed none. They entirely lack proper names, and the 
 allusions regarding persons, places, and events are vague and 
 often very obscure. But that these poems are to be taken 
 as directly expressing each the feelings of a special poet, 
 and not rather those of another person, seems by no means 
 so certain as has been claimed. The epic introduction to 
 the Wanderer^ as well as the close, may be additions of a 
 later time ; because in them is expressed a Christian senti- 
 ment and view of life, with a distinctness quite absent from 
 the body of the poem. But that there could have been any 
 thought of making additions like these shows in what light 
 such poems were regarded. Another poem, the Seafarer^ 
 seems to have been written in the form of a dialogue; 
 though this is indicated m.erely by a succession of directly 
 opposite viev/s and ideas in repeated alternation.^ 
 
 The non-strophic form, derived from the epos, imposed 
 no external limits upon the poet ; hence it lures him to wider 
 4-ange, and yields a style closely resembhng the epic. Still 
 more than the epos, this lyrical verse is fond of general 
 propositions, suggested to the poet by his own lot, and 
 from which he returns to his own particular case. The 
 composition is based largely upon the principle of varia- 
 tions; hence repetitions are not wanting that weaken the 
 effect of single fine passages and disturb the symmetry of the 
 whole. 
 
 The Old English lyrical feeling knows in reality but one 
 art-form, that of the elegy. Painful longing for vanished 
 
 J v. 36-42. 
 
 ^ Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, L, 238. 
 
 8 tbid. , 241. 
 
62 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 happiness is its key note. It seeks to voice this mood in 
 reflective and descriptive language. It is fond of the image 
 of physical destruction, as is shown in the Wanderer, v. 77 
 et seq. The fine fragment called the Ruin ^ is founded en- 
 tirely uj)on this theme. It occurs also in the epos; as in 
 Beowulf, V. 2255-2266, where we find the lament of that 
 lonely man who is the last of a noble race. 
 
 The epic character of the ancient lyric appears especially 
 in this : that the song is less the utterance of a momentary 
 feeling than the portrayal of a lasting state, perhaps the re- 
 flection of an entire life, generally that of one isolated or 
 bereft by death or exile of protectors and friends. His rov- 
 ing upon the cold, desolate sea, and his sojourn in the dark 
 forest are graphically painted; and in contrast, the joys of 
 his early home, to which memory returns with longing. The 
 picture of the wanderer, the faithful retainer whose beloved 
 lord lies beneath the earth, is especially touching: 
 
 For that knows he who thus must long forego 
 The loving counsel of his dear lord ; then oft 
 Both sorrow and sleep bind the poor solitary ; 
 He dreams he clasps and kisses his lord, 
 And lays his hand and head upon his knee, 
 As when he whilom enjoyed the gift-stool. 
 Then awakens again the friendless wanderer, 
 Sees before him the fallow waves, 
 The sea-birds bathe and spread their feathers ; 
 Sees fall the snow and frost-rime mingled with hail. 
 Then are to him harsher the wounds of his heart ; 
 In grief for the loved one, sorrow grows anew, 
 And memories of kindred pass over his mind ; 
 He joyfully greets them, gazing eagerly on them. 
 But the presence of men again passeth away ; 
 The sense of the fleeting ones incites not many 
 Well-known sayings. Sorrow is renewed 
 With him who shall seek very often to send 
 The weary spirit over the frozen waves. "^ 
 
 Not less indicative than such sorrow and longing as to 
 
 this poetry and this people, is the manly resignation with 
 
 which the hero locks his grief in his own breast : 
 
 For sooth, I know 
 That this with a hero is high, noble custom, 
 That he bindeth firm his bosom's fa.stness, 
 Holds safe and sure his treasure-chamber, 
 
 ^ BihUoiJick der af^s. Poesie, I, 248. 
 * IVafuicrer, v. 37-57. 
 
MESSAGE OF THE HUSBAND. 6^ 
 
 And in his thoughts thinks what he will. 
 A soul of sadness cannot stand against fate, 
 Nor can get help a heart full of woe : 
 In their breast-coffer therefore often bind fast 
 Men who love honour, their unhappy spirits.' 
 
 Christianity supplemented this resignation with the solace 
 
 which springs from faith in God's providence ; 
 
 Well to him who mercy seeks. 
 Solace of the father in the heavens, where all security dwells. 
 
 The Seafarer is quite permeated by Christian views : the 
 contrast of the pains and terrors of the lonely sea-voyage 
 with the longing which yet impels the heart to the sea in 
 spring, is opposed to the contrast of this perishable earthly 
 life with the eternal jubilee of heaven to be won by bold 
 endeavour. 
 
 The passion of love is also touched upon in this poetry ; 
 if only the love between husband and v/ife whom fate has 
 parted. As Cynewulf, in his first riddle, makes his wife 
 grieve for her absent " Wolf," so there find utterance in 
 another, and unfortunately very obscure poem, the sorrow and 
 yearning of a wife exiled from her husband to a dark wood.^ 
 The love of the husband is expressed in a poem ^ in which 
 a staff', inscribed with runes, speaks as messenger of a hus- 
 band to his spouse. Enemies have driven the man from 
 his people. He now asks his wife to come to him over the 
 sea, when she hears the cuckoo's lament in the wood. Slie 
 is to let no one dissuade her from the journey, for he is 
 pining for her. He has gold enough and beauteous lands 
 among the strange people; many proud heroes serve him, 
 though, a lonely fugitive, he has forsaken his. native land : 
 
 ^ The man has now 
 Overcome the woe. He has no wishes' longing 
 For steeds nor for jewels nor joys of the mead, 
 For treasures on earth that an earl may possess, 
 Daughter of the king, if thee he must spare, 
 Against the vows by you both given.« 
 
 Gnomic verse also adapted itself to the metrical system 
 of the epos. There is evidence, it is true, of isolated at- 
 tempts at strophic division in some extant gnomic poetry. 
 
 1 Wattderer, v. ii-iS. 
 ^ Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, I., 245. " 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 246. 
 ^ Botschaß des Gemahls (Message of the Husband), v. a.3-47. 
 
64 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 Half verses are not infrequently inserted among the long 
 lines : a change which became the groundwork of a distinct 
 form in Scandinavian countries; but which in England, 
 where it was only sporadically used, does not seem to have 
 had any result. In general, long line simply follows long line, 
 and the poet is fond of beginning a new maxim or a chain 
 of them with the second half of a verse. Consistency in 
 this (as especially in the aphorisms of the Cotton manu- 
 script ^) denotes that the poet worked over a material, itself 
 essentially ancient, for his own purposes. 
 
 The original form of this gnomic poetry was long pre- 
 served. The poet seems to have set together a number 
 of aphorisms or propositions with no tie save chance se- 
 quence of thought, which was often suggested by the allit- 
 eration merely. Regard for the requirements of oral de- 
 livery, and the patience of the hearers, may have determined 
 the length of the whole. These poems, of which we have 
 four, are a succession of proverbs and short sayings, some 
 trivial, others more noteworthy, at times amplified, and oc- 
 casionally varied by pretty descriptions. Some of the 
 gnomic poets affect an edifying close. Instead of character- 
 ising farther, we give the opening of one of these poems, 
 which in their details are of the highest interest to the histo- 
 rian of human culture : 
 
 Frost shall freeze, fire melt wood, 
 The earth shall green; the ice shall arch, 
 The water-helm wear, surround wondrously 
 The earth's green blades. One shall unbind 
 The frost's hard fetters, the Almighty Father. 
 The winter shall wane, the weather renew 
 The summer's hot sky, the sea in motion ; 
 In the deep is longest the dead wave buried. 
 Into fire shall the holly, divided be the heritage 
 Of man swept away. Fame is the sweetest. 
 A king shall buy a queen for a bargain 
 With beakers and bracelets, and both shall first 
 Be good with gifts. The man shall grow 
 In war ever waging, the woman flourish 
 Beloved of the people, of lenient mood be, 
 Shall safe hold secrets and soft heart show, 
 Treasures and steeds give still at the mead-bout; 
 Before the followers, greet first the prince. 
 The shield of the nobles, she shall at all times, 
 The first brimmed cup to the high commander, 
 
 ^ BitUotltek der a^s. Poesie, II., 34G. 
 
RUNE-SONG. 65 
 
 Shall speedily hand ; the lords of the house shall 
 "Wisdom seek together, counsel sage to learn. 
 The ship shall be nailed, the shield be bound, 
 The light board of linden. Beloved is the guest 
 To the Frisian wife when the float lies still, 
 His keel is come and her husband home, 
 She hastens him in, her house provider, 
 His weedy garment washes, wet with the sea, 
 In new dress decks him : on land dwells for him 
 What his love has longed for. ^ 
 
 Another form in which the poet treats a given theme 
 with rich illustration may be a less primitive one; as in case 
 of the poems on the various Gifts ^ and on the various Des- 
 tinies ^ of men. They bear a near relation to some strictly 
 rehgious poems, as for instance, to the poetical sermons on 
 the mind and the falseness of men. Indeed, it cannot be 
 doubted that there existed especially in this species of Hter- 
 ature a direct reciprocal influence between secular and relig- 
 ious poetry. 
 
 In this connection may be mentioned a poem which might 
 as well have been named in the last chapter. It introduces 
 to us a wise father teaching his son wisdom and virtue. His 
 precepts embrace, in all, ten sections.'* The idea of this poem, 
 at least in its most general outlines, may have been taken 
 from the Proverbia Salomonis^ as is suggested partly by the 
 urgent warning against strange women. It leads us into 
 that circle of mediaeval poetry, for which the Disticha of 
 Dionysius Cato, as well as oriental writings of a kindred 
 character, yielded a rich material. 
 
 The so-called Rune-song^ although not of very great an- 
 tiquity in its present form, is most closely related to the old 
 popular poetry. It contains a poetical interpretation of the 
 names of twenty-nine runes. To each of these symbols is 
 devoted a strophe consisting of from two to five, but usu- 
 ally of three, long lines. If there are unmistakable traces of 
 Christian influence in this poem, yet plain tokens of the 
 national myth are not absent, though they appear in the 
 form of the hero-saga. The rune Ing^ bears the name af 
 the divine ancestor of the Ingasvones, and is explained as 
 
 ^Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, IL, 341, v. 72-100. 
 
 ^ Ibid., I., 204. 
 
 3 Ibid., I., ^.o-j. 
 
 ^ Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, II., 347. 
 
 'The phonetic value of this sign was, at a more ancient time, ng, later in§. 
 
 F 
 
66 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 follows : " Ing was first seen among the East-Danes, until 
 he passed over the sea, (eastward ?) ; the chariot rolled after 
 huTi . . . . " 
 
 The chariot was the, emblem of the god Ing, or Frea, as 
 well as of the goddess Nerthus. 
 
 Paganism lived most tenaciously in formulas of incanta- 
 tion. Some of these have come down in modified shape far 
 into the Middle Ages, and even to modern times. Many 
 such formulas have also been transmitted to us in their orig- 
 inal Old English form, but unfortunately they still await 
 thorough collection and consecutive explanation. With all 
 her pains to root out this superstition, the church could not 
 prevent one, in need of ])rotection, from invoking supernat- 
 ural powers not to be found in the Credo and the martyr- 
 ologies, nor a man attacked by unexpected disease or mis- 
 fortune, from having recourse to other exorcisms than those 
 sanctioned by spiritual authority. 
 
 One seized by sudden, stinging pains {/cers/icc),^ believes 
 himself wounded by the darts of gigantic vromen that pass 
 over the land with a loud noise, or by elves or gods ; while 
 another, standing covered by his shield when the hags let 
 fly their whistling spears, seeks to cure him. The healer, 
 in performing the requisite ceremonies, relates the occur- 
 rence in the epic manner, but often breaks his narrative to 
 conjure the spear to come out, to dissolve, wherever it may 
 be, in skin, flesh, blood, or limb. 
 
 Such superstition was better tolerated when it transferred it- 
 self to Christian belief; when the Virgin Mary, the apostles 
 and saints, even Christ himself, took the place of the helping, 
 protecting gods and goddesses, as grew general in the 
 course of time. The devil, on the other hand, became the 
 heir of the pagan powers of evil, many of whom lived on 
 apart as servants and followers of the evil one, or in less 
 harmful form, as teasing elves. Monuments are not want- 
 ing in which pagan and Christian elements are contiguous. 
 The Virgin Mary is addressed direcdy after the earth aijd 
 sky in one of the charms to be spoken at the disenchant- 
 ment of a field ; and in another to the same end, the bless- 
 ing of the all-ruling, eternal Lord is invoked for the goddess 
 
 *' Erke the mother of the earth." 
 
 ^ , 
 
 • Qompate Jacob Gninm, DcutscJu Mytliolcg-Uy fourth edition, p. 1039. 
 
RISE OF WESSEX. 67 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Old English poetry, as far as we can see, flourished 
 chiefly in the Anglian districts. Caedmon and Cynewulf 
 composed in Northumbria. The Beowulf epos also seems 
 to have been edited at an Anglian court. 
 
 But it is a noteworthy phenomenon that the entire Old 
 English poesy, with meagre exceptions, is transmitted to us 
 only in the West-Saxon dialect, or at least in one closely 
 related to the West-Saxon. From this we see, at a glance, 
 tliat the centre of literary growth was in time transferred 
 from the north toward the south, and also that this second 
 period of literature yielded poetry in no great degree. It 
 was, in one sense, the era of the beginning of prose, while 
 poetry mainly drew from the ancient treasures, which were 
 copied and translated into West-Saxon. 
 
 The florescence of poetry and the florescence of prose 
 are separated by an interval of public evil and misfortune, 
 by a dreadful time, whose storms destroyed the Anglian 
 states ; whereas Wessex, though grievously shattered, finally 
 came forth from them more powerful than ever. 
 
 From the beginning Wessex had been conspicuous among 
 the southern states. Mercia had, indeed, in tlie course of 
 time, taken from her a large part of her territory, and south 
 of the Thames and Avon, she had maintained her independ- 
 ence against her long dominant neighbour only by hard 
 struggles. But, on the other hand, she had constantly ex- 
 tended her boundaries westward toward the Britons of 
 Cornwall. Hence, with the accession of Ecgberht (in 800) 
 begins the epoch in which Wessex took the rank of leadirkg 
 power in Britain, more decidedly than any English state had 
 done before. The final overthrow of Mercia was achieved 
 after a long contest. All the English states, as well as the 
 Britons in Wales and Cornwall, recognised the supremacy 
 of Wessex. The smaller Saxon kingdoms and Kent were 
 united to a realm more closely dependent on the ruling 
 power, the West-Saxon king usually granting their crown 
 in fief to his successor. 
 
 But a danger from the east began to threaten the state, 
 now beginning to unify, even before the death of Ecgberht, 
 and to make precarious all that had been gained. 
 
6S BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 The Scandinavian peoples of Norway and Denmark had 
 as yet scarcely been touched at all by the influences of 
 Christianity and European culture, and continued their an- 
 cient seafaring and piratical Hfe. At the beginning of 
 the ninth century their inroads grew more extended, more 
 systematic and vigorous. The Northmen became to the 
 Christian nations of that epoch what the Huns had been 
 during the age of the great migrations. The north coast 
 of the German ocean, France, Spain, even the Mediterra- 
 nean, felt the daring and savage fury of the Vikings. But 
 no country suffered so much from their periodical inroads as 
 England. Here it was not alone the welfare of this or that 
 province, not the numberless monuments and nurseries of 
 culture, which stood in jeopardy ; but the struggle, fought 
 with varying success, involved the very life of the state and 
 the future of the collective national culture. Its issue also 
 bore decisively upon the destiny of Europe. 
 
 It became obvious, from the year _866, that the Danes 
 were trying to establish themselves upon English soil. They 
 came no longer in the character of mere plunderers, but as 
 conquerors. The English arms, though occasionally victo- 
 rious, proved upon the whole inadequate to cope with the 
 impetuous onset of their hordesj The billows of invasion 
 rose ever higher, and overflowed ever broader territories. 
 The distress reached its climax in 878, when Ecgberht's 
 youngest grandson had reigned seven years. It was that 
 Aelfred, whom the Middle Ages called England's Darling, 
 but whom after times have named the Great. 
 
 Aelfred saw the north, east, and a large part of the mid- 
 dle of his kingdom in the hands of the enemy. Even Wes- 
 sex herself v/as now invaded by his devastating hosts. But 
 this extreme danger brought out all the king's heroism and 
 military greatness, as well as the martial ability of the West- 
 Saxons. The height called the " island of Aethelings " 
 (A^pe/mga cige=AthQ\ney) rose like a natural fortress out of 
 the fen-lands of Somerset. Aelfred betook himself thither 
 with the loyal followers remaining to him. There he in- 
 trenched himself, and, maintaining his position against the 
 Danes, he succeeded in forming the nucleus of an army. 
 This was soon enabled by reinforcements from Somerset, 
 Hampshire, and Wiltshire, to advance to the attack, and 
 
A£LFRED. 6g 
 
 achieved a brilliant victory over the Danes. The outconiö 
 of this was a treaty by which England was cut into two 
 territories, the boundary between them being a line divid- 
 ing Mercia, and nearly identical with the original boundary 
 line between the Angles and the southern tribes. The Danes 
 had sway in the north-eastern territory; the south-western 
 territory was subject to the king of the West-Saxons; but in 
 such a manner that the part of Mercia belonging to it had 
 its own laws, its own parliament, and its own ealdorman, and 
 enjoyed a high degree of independence. ■ 
 
 As soon as a more peaceful state of affairs permitted it, 
 Aelfred turned his every energy to the internal improvement 
 of his country, which had sadly degenerated. The national 
 weal had vitally suffered. Commerce was ruined. The 
 people had fallen back into savagery. The servants of the 
 church had become worldly in mind and manners. A great 
 number of monasteries had been destroyed or their libraries 
 burned, and their occupants dispersed; uncertainty had come 
 into all relations of life. No king ever had a heavier task be- 
 fore him than Aelfred, and none ever performed it better. He 
 was active in all fields of improvement, helping, building, col- 
 lecting, ordering. We must pass over what he did as law- 
 giver and ruler, his work in the construction of cities and for- 
 tifications, and the building up of an English fleet. Only 
 those phases of his manifold activity can be touched upon 
 which directly influenced the literature. 
 
 The measures which Aelfred took to restore Christian cult- 
 ure and discipline in the church were likev/ise directed to 
 the advancement ofpopiilar education, and the awakening 
 of scholarship in the clergy. Old monasteries were rebuilt; 
 new ones were erected, and often filte'd'^with foreign monks, 
 who Yveve to enlighten their English colleagues in right-living 
 as well as learning. Learned and pious men were promot- 
 ed to high ecclesiastical oflices. In the monastery schools 
 the youths were instructed in reading, writing, and rehgion, 
 including those not destined for the service of the church. 
 It was Aelfred's wish that all who were free-born and did not 
 lack means should learn to read English; those ambitious to 
 advance farther, to enter the church, should have instruction 
 in Latin. With his own children, and in his own house, the 
 king set the entire land an example in the training of 
 youth. 
 
fO BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 Charlemagne had already been a model to Aelfred's grand- 
 father Ecgberht, in the domains of military art and of poli- 
 tics. He now became a model to Aelfred in another field. 
 Like him the great West-Saxon king shunned no pains and 
 cost to draw able minds into his service, from abroad as well 
 as at home; and if he did not succeed in procuring men so 
 great as those whom we find about Charlemagne, he largely 
 made up this deficiency by his personal zeal, and the en- 
 thusiasm with which he directly inspired his co-labourers. 
 Five men are pre-eminent among those v/ho helped to further 
 Aelfred's plans : two Mercians, Werferth, bishop of Worces- 
 ter, and Plegmund, who was made archbishop of Canterbury, 
 in 890 ; the Frank, Grimbald, whom Aelfred made abbot of 
 the new minster built beside the old one in Winchester;^ 
 John, a Saxon from the continent (from Corvey), to whom 
 he entrusted the convent upon the island of Athelney; but 
 nearest to the king stood the Welshman Asser, later bishop 
 of Sherborne. From him Aelfred learned most, though 
 Asser elid not willingly forsake the solitude of the convent 
 for the court, and with him he exchanged views most unre- 
 servedly. It was this Asser who began, during Aelfred's 
 lifetime, to write a biography of the king, a work v/hich ha.^' 
 come down to us, though not in its original form.^ 
 
 Aelfred's own early education had been very defective. 
 lie had doubtless become most familiar with the national 
 saga, and the English songs, which he read or heard, had 
 quickened his sense of the grandeur of the Teutonic hero- 
 world, and the latent beauties of his mother-tongue. Not 
 until after middle age did he find leisure amid the" number- 
 less duties of government to learn Latin, and to read a num- 
 ber of Latin authors. His appetite for knowledge was ex- 
 traordinarily keen. But he did not study merely to satisfy 
 this ; his object was to revive, by his example, the spirit of 
 learning which had waned and was all but extinct in the 
 land. 
 
 Owing to the great scarcity of books at that time, m.eans 
 
 had to be taken to make certain scientific and theological 
 
 writings accessible to a larger number of readers; but the 
 
 knowledge of Latin had almost disappeared from England, 
 «...«M — ■ 
 
 * The building was not completed until after Aelfred's death. 
 " See Appendix C 
 
EARUEST PROSE. ^1 
 
 Hence Aelfred himself began to translate, and he became, 
 not indeed the creator, but a most potent promoter of Eng- 
 lish prose ; he was beyond question the most widely influen- 
 tial writer of his century. 
 
 The most ancient monuments of English prose are com- 
 pilations of laws. The first Christian king in England, 
 Aethelberht of Kent, founded such collections as early as 
 thebeginningof the seventh century, and after him Hlothere 
 and Eadric; they were followed by Wihtred, of the same 
 kingdom, in the beginning of the next century. The laws 
 of Ine, the king of Wessex, were written down not long 
 before the year ö^^j those of the great Offa of Mercia follow- 
 ed after a considerable intei-val, but they were lost. Aelfred 
 also took up the role of law-giver. His code, based upon a 
 revision and sifting of the laws in force, adopted much from 
 the laws of Aethelberht, as well as from those of Ofifa, and 
 were probably meant to supplement Ine's compilation. 
 But with all its conservatism, this code does not lack new 
 statutes, and they point to the enhanced power of the king- 
 dom and the increased prominence of the church. More 
 comprehensive and more copious than the earlier codifica- 
 tions, the style of Aelfred's law-book approaches more nearly 
 the boundaries of artistic prose ; especially in some portions 
 of the introduction. In this, extracts from the Mosaic Law 
 are joined to citations from the New Testament by brief 
 narrative passages, which lead finally to the exposition of 
 Aelfred's own undertaking. 
 
 Records and like documents do not seem to have been 
 written in English before the eighth century. 
 
 Continuous translations of single books of the Holy Script- 
 ures, of theological and liturgical works, probably did not 
 exist at all in Aelfred's time ; such writings of this kind as 
 had already existed seem to have been no longer extant ; 
 as an unfinished translation of the Gospel of John undertaken 
 by Beda near his death. Teachers had to use glosses and 
 interlineary versions in instruction. 
 
 But there was already an element in that age for which 
 other nations might well have envied England. This was 
 the beginning of history in the vernacular, in the older parts 
 of the so-called Saxon, or Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 
 
 Monks, in the English monasteries, seem early to have 
 
12 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 begun to make brief notes relating to contemporary and re- 
 cent history, which were put down originally upon the edge 
 of the Easter-tables. We must leave the question undecid- 
 ed where tlie English language v.as first used in these chro- 
 nological summaries, whether in Canterbury or Winchester. 
 At all events the ancient ecclesiastical, and later secular 
 capital of the West-Saxon land was certainly the spot where 
 this annual account in the national tongue was continued 
 most uninterruptedly, and where, from such small beginnings, 
 a higher plane was first reached in the writing of annals. 
 The oldest chronicles are exceedingly meagre and broken. 
 ' Gradually, though by no means continuously, the years 
 skipped become fewer, and the accounts grow full, clear, and 
 connected. The style of these annals attains a notably loftier 
 impulse in the days of Aethelwulf, when the consciousness 
 of the greatness of Wessex established by Ecgberht, and the 
 influence of the wise and cultured bishop Swithun, combined 
 to inspire the chronicler. The idea of a complete recension 
 of the annals extant seems to have been conceived at the 
 time of Aethelwulf, or at least soon after his death. ^ JSIany 
 gaps in the older section were tilled, many years' reports 
 were enriched by new entries, and even circumstantial nar- 
 rative^ was occasionally inserted. The thread of chronicle 
 / was spun back from the seventh century as far as the times 
 V of Hengest and Horsa. Oral tradition, national saga and 
 \j5oetry, yielded perhaps most of the material for both these 
 extensions of the chronicle. The ancient catalogue of the 
 West-Saxon kin^s was continued to Aethelwulf. and with the 
 addition of his pedigree back to Cerdic, was placed at the 
 head of this work ; while another genealogy' of the prince 
 was given near the end, with the account of Aethelwulf's 
 death (855). It extended back far beyond Vv'oden to Noah, 
 and to Adam himself. 
 
 The Winchester Annals existed in this form, or but slight- 
 ly extended, when Aeltred ascended the throne; and the 
 
 1 The annals of Canterbury and Winchester were perhaps blended at this time. If 
 the oldest known recension of the West-saxon chronicles is at all based upon such a 
 union (which is possible, though in no respect proved), certainly the reign of Aethel- 
 wulf would have been a time better adapted to such a process than any earlier epoch. 
 
 2 See in the report for the year 755 the anticipatory account of King Cynewulf 's 
 death ; compared with the entry for the year 7S4, when the event really occurred, this 
 proves unquestionably to be an interpolation, whose groundwork was perhaps ao 
 English song. 
 
ENGLISH ANNALS. 73 
 
 first years of his reign were as unfavourable to the chronicler as 
 had been the reigns of his brothers who had preceded him. 
 Not until the brilliant victories of 878, and of the subsequent 
 years, had added new nourishment to the national pride, 
 and the sense of security had returned with the stronger 
 might of the realm, did a new epoch dawn for historiography, 
 an epoch created as much by the inspiring power of Ael- 
 fred's deeds as by his direct promotion of creative literary 
 endeavour. 
 
 The annals from the year S66, that of Aethelred's ascent 
 of the throne, to the year 887, seem to be the work of one 
 mind. Not a single year is passed over, and to several is 
 granted considerable space, especially to the years 871, 878, 
 and 885. The whole has gained a certain roundness and 
 fulness, because the events — nearly all of them episodes in 
 the ever-recurring conflict with the Danes — are taken in 
 their connection, and the thread dropped in one year is re- 
 sumed in the next. Not only is the style in itself concise; 
 it has a sort of nervous severity and pithy rigour. The con- 
 struction is often antiquated, and suggests at times the free- 
 dom of poetry;^ though this purely historical prose is far 
 removed from poetry in profusion of language. 
 
 The portion extending from 888 to 891, which was added 
 to the West-Saxon annals during the years next following, is 
 less noteworthy, because it relates to an epoch in which 
 England was at peace. But a new revision of the whole was 
 undertaken in those years; and like tha*- of the year 855, it 
 made additional entries in the older portions, and appended 
 an entirely new part to the whole work. Annals of the 
 pre-English history of Britain were added to the list of 
 West-Saxon kings carried down to Aelfred. These annals 
 began with our era, or more exactly with the vear 60 B. C. 
 Thus the annals of Winchester received the form in which 
 we know them, the form most perfectly transmitted in the 
 manuscript^ presented by Archbishop Parker to Corpus 
 Christi college, Cambridge. The original part of this MS., 
 written by a single hand, extends to the year 891. 
 
 1 Compare the following sentence (year 876) Earle, Two of the Saxon Chronicles 
 Parallel, page 7S : and hie ßd tinder ßäm lue 7iihtes bestcelon ßcere ß-et'de se gehor- 
 soda here into Fscanceaster. "And they meanwhile, during the night, stole away 
 from the host (English), the mounted host (Danes) into Exeter." Fierd\s the stand- 
 ing expression for the English, as here for the Danish army. 
 
 * In the library of that college it is marked M.C.C.C.C.CLXXIII. See Appendix C. 
 
f4 BEFORE THE CONQUESf. 
 
 The additions made for the older epoch in this recension * 
 seem, unlike the material added in the edition of 855, to 
 have been taken almost exclusively from Latin sources, and 
 \ especially from Beda's P'nglish church history, or rather the 
 chronological outlines appended to it. This circumstance 
 particularly betrays Aelfred's direct influence upon the work. 
 
 Meanwhile the great king had begun his own literary 
 activity in about the year 886, and this was not without in- 
 fluence upon the compilers who took part in the revision of 
 the annals. 
 
 A work whose loss cannot be sufficiently deplored was a 
 first fruit of this activity. It was Aelfred's hand-book, de- 
 [ vised for him by Asser, in which were entered all passages 
 that especially impressed him in his reading. Notes by his 
 own hand on the history of his people and house gave it 
 special value. 
 
 The list of Aelfred's writings that have reached our own 
 time begins, it would seem, with his translation, or more 
 exactly, adaptation, of the history of the Spanish presbyter 
 Orosius [Historicvum libri VII). The original was written 
 aFthe "suggestion of St. Augustine, and under the inspiration 
 of some of the ideas laid down in the treatise on the City 
 of God. About the year 418 it came from the hand of a 
 sympathetic and somewhat gifted man, but a man of no 
 deep learning nor greatness of mind. It was only an un- 
 critical and hasty compilation from older authorities; never- 
 theless, it was the first attempt at universal history, composed 
 at a standing-point free from national limitations, though 
 naturally within the bounds of Christian belief. Its com- 
 pendious character, and its constant portrayal of the world's 
 history as a history of suffering and crime, by which Chris- 
 tendom was to be freed from the reproach of having caused 
 the decay of the Roman Empire, insured the great success 
 which it enjoyed in the Middle Ages. The entirely unclas- 
 sical form of the work impaired this success the less, as the 
 subject-matter was enlivened by feeling, and at times degked 
 with rhetorical ornament. Thus Orosius became the chief 
 
 ' This seems to have been the last instituted in Winchester itself. Her writers 
 were thereafter content to continue the chponicles, and to have copies made of the 
 existing one. Such a copy was made in, or soon after, the year 887 ; for Asser, who 
 wrote in 893 shows acquaintance with the annals, in his Gesia Alfred:, only to the 
 jrtiT tij. >.ec Appendix C. 
 
 I 
 
AELFRED AS TRANSLATOR. 7§ 
 
 authority in ancient history for those epochs which, for any 
 reason, were unable to draw from purer springs, and he 
 maintained for centuries a standing at least equal to that of 
 more trustworthy historians, at a time when they had become 
 accessible. 
 
 By the translation of this work, King Aelfred gave his 
 countrymen a manual of history from which they could 
 learn much, in spite of its defects. But he had tried the 
 powers of the English language not a little in grappling with 
 the periods of a writer whose style was often far from lucid 
 and simple. 
 
 This task of moulding the English in translation was, as a 
 whole, infinitely harder than it would be to-day, but in some 
 respects it was not so difficult. Less developed than now, 
 the language was, therefore, less exacting; and if the rate 
 of its movement, corresponding to the movement of the 
 thought, was slower, it could be turned the more readily 
 into new channels. Chiefly, however, the task was made 
 less difficult by the method of mediaeval translators, who 
 did not put themselves in the place of their author as we 
 require of their successors, but put the author in their own 
 place. 
 
 This was true of no translator more than of Aelfred, and 
 from various causes. 
 
 Firstly, the naive and almost childlike point of view, to 
 which the abstraction of surrounding realities was difficult, 
 on account of meagre experience and practice of com- 
 parison. 
 
 Secondly, Aelfred's imperfect knowledge of Latin. As 
 we certainly know was the case in some of his translations, 
 so in all, he doubtless made use of the assistance of his 
 more learned friends in seeking to interpret his original. 
 He sought help especially of Asser ; but this could not shield 
 him from several strange misconceptions, and often gave 
 him an insight merely into the general sense and not into 
 the particulars of a difficult passage. 
 
 A final cause lay in the personal tastes and the pedagogic 
 considerations of the king, who wished atove ail to be 
 useful to his people, and rightly measured its needs by his 
 own. 
 
 This explains why Aelfred, even when he translates most 
 
76 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 accurately, sometimes "sets v.-ord for word," sometimes only 
 "thought for thought,"^ but usually diverges much more 
 radically from liis author. 
 
 Aelfred omits and abbreviates much in the Orosius, espe- 
 cially toward the close. The seven books of the original are 
 condensed to six, and the account of the last period, from 
 Augustus on, is little more than briefly summarised. He 
 also makes a number of additions of varying length : useful 
 facts procured from other sources, and remarks designed to 
 set the relations of antiquity more clearly before his coun- 
 trymen, or flowing unconsciously from his pen because they 
 come from his heart. 
 
 We quote but one of the shorter insertions, which also 
 found its way into the A?inals of Winchester.^ Speaking 
 of Titus, Aelfred remarks : " He was of such a right spirit 
 that he said he considered that day lost in which he had 
 done no good thing." ^ 
 
 By far the most important of the longer additions are 
 those in the geographical introduction in the first chapter kÄ 
 the first book. They consist of a complete description of 
 all the countries in which the Teutonic tongue prevailed at 
 Aelfrcd's time, and a full narrative of the travels of two 
 voyagers, which the king wrote down from their own lips. 
 One of these, a Norwegian named Ohthere, had quite cir- 
 cumnavigated the coast of Scandinavia in his travels, and 
 had even penetrated to the White Sea; the other, named 
 Wulfstan, had sailed from Slesvig to Frioche Ilaff. Tl.e 
 geographical and ethnographical details of both accounts 
 are exceedingly interesting, and their style is attractive, 
 clear, and concrete. It was long^ unfortunately, before 
 Aelfred had a successor in this field. 
 
 Aelfred's English is freest and most spontaneous in these 
 excursions. But it can nowhere be called either stiff or 
 unidiomatic, even though it leaves, here and there, an im- 
 pression of childlike awkwardness. His attempt to conform 
 the loosely constructed English speech to the close and 
 interwoven structure of the Latin yields many anacoluthons 
 and pleonasms. This applies especially to conjunctions, 
 
 ' Compare the prefaces to Aelfred's Gregorius and his Boethius. Tlie latter has 
 hwilufn he settc word be worde, Jnuiliini andgit 0/ a7idgiie. ,4 
 
 * See entry for the year 81, Earle, p. 8. ^V^ 
 
 « VI., 8, ed Thorpe, p. 480, /^ 
 
TRANSLATION OF BEDA's CHURCH HISTORY. 77 
 
 and to those cases in which, for the sake of clearness, a noun 
 is made to follow, after a short interval, the pronoun which, 
 according to strict logic, should represent it; a device, it is 
 true, which later writers still often employ.^ 
 
 After the Orosiiis, Aelfred applied himself to the Hlstoria 
 ecdes iastic ß, Anglarum of his great countryman Beda, a na- 
 tional treasure to whose great worth he, perhaps more than 
 any other, was in a position to do justice. Such freedom 
 of treatment as he had bestowed upon the universal history 
 of the Spaniard v/as not demanded in this work of English 
 origin, and dealing with English affairs. Beda's narrative, 
 it is true, would have permitted the insertion of much new 
 matter, since Jjis history of the south is much inferior in 
 thoroughness and trustworthiness to that of the north, and 
 Aelfred was especially called and adapted to this work. But 
 v/hether the royal author did not like to repeat in another 
 place what he had already put down in his hand-book, or 
 whether some other ground prevailed, Aellred observed an 
 abstinence in this respect, which posterity can only regret. 
 The deep interest felt by his age and people in the history of 
 Wessex and the south generally, found but a negative utter- 
 ance in his rendering. Among his many abridgments and 
 omissions, he discarded not only nearly all the judicial 
 measures given by Beda, but also left untranslated matter 
 regarding northern affairs.^ 
 
 Perhaps Aelfred was impelled to bring this work to a close 
 because a new and more difficult task was already beginning 
 to stimulate him. If we do not err, the translation of Boe-^) 
 thius' De consolatioue philosopJiiae should here be mentioned: 
 Whatever the antiquarian, the geographer, or the ethnologist 
 may think of this work, in the history of culture in its wider 
 sense, it holds the first rank among Aelfred's writings. 
 
 In the Middle Ages we encounter traces of the "last of 
 the Romans," at every step. His CoiisolatioJi of Philosophy, 
 especially, is one of those books by which many generations 
 of mediaeval readers v/ere both edified, and practised in 
 
 1 Compare Orosiiis, II., 4 ed. Thorpe, p. 306: he pd Cinis ky pcrr besyrods, "he 
 then, Cyrus, surprised them there " ; heo pd sed civen Dameris ftiiJ viycelre gjiornuiige 
 ytnb pees cy7ii7iges siege, Jiyre siina, deuce tide wees, "she then. Queen Tomyris, was 
 thinking, with much grief, of the death of the king, her son." 
 
 2 Attention has already been called to the error which passed from Aelfred's Beda 
 (I., 9,) into the Annals of Winchester (see the year 381). The con-.piler connected 
 the statement of the Latin chronological epitome with that of the English text of th? 
 ^cclesiasiical Histo>y. 
 
7S BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 philosophical thinking, and by which the mediaeval languages 
 were educated to the expression of abstract thought. The 
 work was not unworthy of such a distinguished lot. It 
 gleams with a last ray of classical antiquity : in its con- 
 tents, in which the purest ethical doctrines of the ancient 
 schools of philosophy — notably of the Neo-platonists and 
 Stoics — are united with the spirit of Roman manliness; in 
 its form, especially the poetical parts, which agreeably inter- 
 rupt the analytical and argumentative prose. And to that 
 last glimmer of vanishing light is wedded the glowi^ng dawn 
 of a new day, of Christianity; whose spirit, though nowhere 
 directly confessed, yet permeates the whole, and distinctly 
 embodies the ideas of divine providence and lov^. Add to 
 this the advantage of a noble yet popular presentation in the 
 form of a dialogue, and the charm of the scene which shov»s 
 us the senator Boethius in his dungeon, where, as her disci- 
 ple, he is solaced by philosophy. 
 
 ^V^e can imagine with what feelings, in the evening of his 
 eventful life, the manly heart of the great Saxon king ab- 
 sorbed those noble teachings of antiquity on the worthless- 
 ness of earthly happiness, on the supreme good, on the wise 
 man's duty of composure in the struggle of life; and how 
 he felt impelled to reveal this treasure to his people. 
 
 The task was not easy. With particular reference to this 
 work, William of Malmesbury informs us that Aelfred had 
 Asser explain the original, and then wrote dov,-n the substance 
 of it in English. This translation is most ri_markable. We 
 see how the king labours with the thoughts of his author and 
 with his own language. Misconceptions are not excluded, 
 and he could never have finished the whole, had he not 
 likewise here permitted himself the greatest freedom of 
 treatment. 
 
 But though the English Boethius lacks original insertions 
 of such evident moment as those in the first chapter of the 
 Orosiiis, yet the rendering as a vv'hole is perhaps more origi- 
 nal than that translation. At the very beginning Aelfred 
 contracts and transposes the order. He omits entire sec- 
 tions. Whenever opportunity offers, he gives the thought 
 of the Roman a more decidedly Christian colouring. He 
 oftentimes replaces antique allusions, whose meaning he does 
 pot always understand, by allusions to persons and things well 
 
THE BOETHIUS. 79 
 
 known to every Englishman. Fabricius, whose name re- 
 minds him oi fade?; becomes the smith Weland. The clas- 
 sica saeva, the savage war-trumpets, which did not resound 
 in the golden age, are transformed into a sciphere, a thing 
 which had not yet been heard of in that age of innocence,^ 
 nor in England before 787. Oftentimes — and this is most 
 important — he gives himself up to the flood of thoughts \ 
 which a word of Boethius has inspired, and writes from his 
 own experience and his own heart. 
 
 That the Roman philosopher suffers in this treatment is 
 undeniable. Many a nice shade of thought, to say nothing 
 of language, is effaced by Aelfred, and the king's learning 
 was not rich and ripe enough to replace this loss by some- 
 thing of equal value. But the translator possessed, in a 
 high degree, that delicacy and elevation of m^ind which pro- ] 
 ceeds from a noble spirit; and when he lets us view the 
 recesses of his kingly heart, he vouchsafes to us a most 
 touching and beautiful spectacle. A passage may be cited 
 here which Aelfred's recent biographer has justly made prom- 
 inent : 
 
 For that I wished material to exercise my power upon it, that my 
 talents and my power become not forgotten and concealed. For every 
 craft and every power soon becomes old and passes to oblivion, if it is 
 without wisdom; for no man may accomplish any craft without wis- 
 dom. For what is done through folly no one can ever reckon for 
 craft. This I can now especially say: that I have longed to live 
 worthily, so long as I lived, and after my life, to leave my memory in 
 good works to the men who were after me.* 
 
 Boethius required in the translator a poet as well as a 
 prose writer. Aelfred first translated the Metra into prose, 
 a prose not without the charms of fresh naivete, warmth, 
 and exalted feeling. 
 
 Both extant manuscripts of the Old English BoetJiius open 
 with a preface — hardly from Aelfred's pen — in which we are 
 told that the king afterwards recast this prose into verse. 
 And one of them actually contains the Metra reproduced in 
 alliterative verse; this is the older manuscript, belonging to 
 the tenth century, while the younger one presents the whole 
 version in prose. Under these circumstances, only very 
 weighty reasons could justify us in denying to Aelfred the 
 
 ' Boet., II., Metr. 5 ; Aelfred, c. 15, ed. Samuel Fox, p. 48. Sciphere is the standir.g 
 expression in the annals for a Danish marauding or war fleet. 
 • Aelfred's Boethius, c. 17, cd. S. Fox, p. 60, 
 
8o BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 credit of the poetical rendering of the Metra. The argu- 
 ments upon which such an opinion has hitherto been based 
 seem to proceed more from a leaning toward skepticism 
 than from the critical spirit. If the poetical version rests 
 upon, and makes use of the same words as the prose trans- 
 lation (so far as rhythm and alliteration permit), this is pre- 
 cisely what we might have expected. The misconceptions 
 in the English prose, however, that have been charged to 
 the poet, are explained, on closer examination, in a way 
 that places him in a more favourable light than the prose 
 writer. This result could hardly be anticipated, when we 
 consider that Aelfred most probab]y*put into verse, unaided, 
 a part of the translation made with Asser's help. 
 
 After the foregoing, great poetical worth Avill not be look- 
 ed for in the rhythmical version of Boethius' Mdra. The 
 prose version not rarely stirs the feelings and imagination 
 more strongly than the metrical. Yet the latter does not 
 utterly lack warmth and life, nor even a certain loftiness of 
 strain; but while we do not deny these qualities to Aelfred's 
 verse, we really take them in a quite difierent sense from 
 that applied to the poetry of the previous age. One who 
 passes from Cynewulf to Aelfred cannot evade a feeling of 
 complete disenchantment. Aelfred entirely lacked the crea- 
 *^ live poetic fancy, and the innate charm of the verses of Boe- 
 thius is so fundamentally different from that of Old English 
 poetry, that even the most gifted in England would have 
 failed to make Boethius speak in the national sty) :. The 
 laws of alliteration are somewhat deranged in Aelfred's long 
 lines; but perhaps less so than one might naturally expect. 
 The diction is much farther removed from the ancient epos 
 than the verse. 
 
 If it was an inner need that moved the king to translate 
 the Consolatio philosop/iiae, it was chiefly a regard for tlie 
 wants of his people that impelled him to his next, and so b'r 
 as we know, his last literary work. From philosophy Ael- 
 fred turned to practical theology,* v.hen he undertook tc 
 \ translate the Regula Pastoralis of the great Gregory. 
 
 The pope who had begun the conversion of England \.<h 
 Christianity, had, as we saw, exerted a decisive influence, by 
 liis writings, upon the theology as well as the poetry of that 
 country. His work on Pastoral Care presents, in four sec- 
 
THE PASTORAL CARE. Si 
 
 tions, the Ideal of a Christian pastor ; and in showing how 
 he should attain to his office, how he should live and teach, 
 and finally, how he is to preserve humility by self-examina- 
 tion, it offered, though in a form of no marked elegance, a 
 treasure of excellent teachings, from which the mediaeval 
 church long drew. Augustine, as Gregory's missionary, had 
 brought this work with him to England. There Vv'as now 
 most urgent need that these teachings of Gregory should be 
 again inculcated in the English clergy. Hence Aelfred took 
 great pains to circula.te his translation as widely as possible; 
 he had a copy of it presented to every bishop of his realm. 
 
 The translation was more carefully prepared than any of 
 Aelfred's previous versions. Of all his translations, this fol- 
 lov/s the text most faithfully; and though it often takes the 
 nature of paraphrase, yet there are no deviations that could 
 stamp the work as a free imitation. Aelfred's style here is 
 not at its best, because it is less characteristic. The histo- 
 rian of literature will be perhaps least interested in this vv^ork, 
 however important it may be to the philologist, for whom 
 its value is enhanced by the purity of its text. 
 
 The high estimation in which Aelfred himself held the 
 work appears in the long preface that he prefixed to it. This 
 preface is in the form of a letter to each of his bishops. He 
 speaks longingly of the old and happy times when the Eng- 
 lish kings obeyed God and his messengers, and prospered in 
 knowledge as well as war ; when the clergy had zeal both 
 to teach and to learn, and for all that belongs to God's ser- 
 vice; and when foreigners sought wisdom and learning 
 in England. To this he contrasts the present, when the 
 Angles must get knowledge abroad, if they would have it at 
 all. But he thanks God that his kingdom is better off as 
 regards education than it was a fev/ years before. Then 
 there were very few this side of the H umber who could un- 
 derstand their rituals, or could even translate a letter from 
 Latin into English, and there were probably not many be- 
 yond the Humber. "So few were there," he says, " that I 
 cannot remember a single one south of the Thames, when 
 I came to the throne." He urgently exhorts his bishops to 
 break away from worldly affairs as often as possible, in order 
 to fortify the knowledge which God has given them. Then 
 follow the considerations which led him to his undertaking. 
 
82 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 Bishop Werferth was induced by Aelfred to translate 
 another and more popular work by Gregory, his Dialogues. 
 In a talk with his friend, Deacon Peter, the pope gives first 
 an account of the life and miracles of Italian saints; the 
 entire second book is justly devoted to one of these, St. 
 Benedict of Nursia. It further treats (in the fourth book) 
 of the life of the soul after death, as it was revealed in a 
 series of visions transmitted to the author either orally or in 
 writing. The dialogue as such is nowhere very lifelike, 
 and the farther the work proceeds, the more it becomes 
 a mere pretext. Notwithstanding this defect, Gregory's 
 Dialogues had a m.ost enduring influence on the mediae- 
 val mind and poetry, and more particularly the last book, 
 which has a peculiar interest for the theologian on account 
 of the doctrine of purgatory developed in it. Owing to this 
 influence, if for no other reason, we must desire to become 
 acquainted with the Old English version of the work, which 
 has thus far slumbered in manuscript, but which, we may 
 noAv hope, will soon be published. 
 
 Five of the last ten years of Aelfred's reign (893-897) 
 vrere filled with the renewed tumult of war. The situation 
 of the West-Saxon kingdom again became most perilous in 
 the struggle with the Scandinavian pirates, who found will- 
 ing confederates in the English Danes. But this time also 
 the danger passed. The defensive resources of the kingdom - 
 on land, and still more on the sea, had been fostered by the 
 king during the years of peace. The defenders brilliantly 
 proved their might under their heroic leader, and at last 
 drove the enemy back to his old bounds. 
 
 The increased consciousness of power which pervaded 
 the English people, issuing victorious from this struggle, is 
 strikingly indicated by the exalted strain in which the Eng- 
 lish annals describe the occurrences of this period. The 
 entries for the years 894—897, written beyond question 
 by the same author, narrate these warlike events in lucid 
 sequence, and in a briskly animated, vigorous, and some- 
 what martial style ; and in them the subjectivity of the his- 
 torian finds utterance for the first time. The personality 
 that confronts us is one of strong and great qualities. The 
 writer has little to report concerning times of peace. The last 
 years of Aelfred's reign are hardly noticed in his annals. 
 
THE LATER GENESIS. S^ 
 
 The king's death draws from him the following short 
 notice : 
 
 901. This year died Aelfred Atliulfing six niglats before AIl-Hal- 
 low-mass. He was king over all the Angle-folk, save the portion un- 
 der the rule of the Danes. And he held the kingdom thirty years, 
 less a half year. And King Eadweard, his son, came to the 
 throne. ' 
 
 In the beginning of the new reign, the operations of 
 Aetheling Aethelwald alone give him occasion for a full and 
 stirring narrative. But with the year 910, his account be- 
 gins, in unison with the growing military interest, to regain 
 a uniformly broad and graphic vigour, and to illustrate again 
 the peculiar manner of this writer, which is maintained to 
 the year 924. This year saw Eadweard reach the summit 
 of his power; it saw him who had extended the kingdom 
 to the Humber, chosen " lord and father," i. e., overlord, by 
 the Angles and Danes of Northumbria, by the Britons of 
 Strathclyde, and even by the Scots. With it the chronicler 
 comes to a close. The age to which he belonged deserves 
 to live on in the record of a man whom, from the few pages 
 that he handed down, we may prize as one of the first, per- 
 haps the greatest, of the prose writers of Old England. 
 
 VIII. y. 
 
 What Aelfred had said of learning : that formerly foreign- 
 ers had sought it among the Angles, and now the Angles 
 must get it in foreign lands, was, in a certain sense, also true 
 of religious poetry. The most notable English poem of this 
 class from the ninth century has unfortunately reached us in 
 fragments; this work (which we will call the later Genesis) 
 is so exceptional among the English national poems, in lan- 
 guage, style, and verse, and, as recent researches teach, is so 
 intimately related to continental Saxon art, that it seems like 
 a foreign growth acclimated in England. But whether it be a 
 translation and revision of an old Saxon poem, as has been 
 claimed, or whether, as seems to me more probable, we have 
 here the work of an Old Saxon, resident in England,^ the spirit 
 
 ^ Earl, p. 96. — ^Athulfing means son of Athulf, an abbreviation of Aethelvvulf. 
 
 2 I know of no reason, for instance, why we should not here have in mind that John 
 to whom Aelfred entrusted the monastery at Aethelney, and who perhaps came over 
 from Corvey. The Gejiesis might easily have been written in the last quarter of th? 
 ninth century. The theory of a translation seems to n.e the iiiGre improbable one, 
 because an Englishman who failed to change ix'.ccr (war) into s65 would doubtless 
 ba-.e overlooke4 more Gerraauisms than can be fuund iu the poem ; but sse Appendix A. 
 
84 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 that lives in this Genesis is in either case the same as that 
 which fills the German IIeiia?id, and has flowed firom it. 
 Northern German}', where that venerable poem had sprung 
 as a splendid blossom from the germs of English learning 
 and power of expression scattered by Enghsh missionaries, 
 gave back in the Genesis a part of what it had received from 
 the great sister nation upon the British island.^ 
 
 The complete poem certainly included the creation, espe- 
 cially that of man, as well as the fall. What may have fol- 
 lowed this, cannot be known. The poet's chief source was 
 the De spiritalis historiae gesiis^ libri V. which were com- 
 posed in Latin hexameters by Bishop Avitus, of Vienne, 
 in about the last decade of the fifth century ; and we may 
 note that the five books have the following heads : De 
 origine mündig De originali peccato, De senieniia dei, De diluvio 
 mundi, De transitu maris ricbri. But it should not be over- 
 looked that in that part of our Ge?iesis corresponding to the 
 second of these books, use has also been made of the third. 
 
 The author of the later Genesis owes to Avitus, who was 
 one of the greatest Middle Latin religious poets, that more 
 artistic arrangement by which the narrative of the fall of 
 the angels, contrary to the usual order, is inserted as an epi- 
 sode between the creation and the fall of the first pair. To 
 him he is indebted for several important motives, expressive 
 traits of characterisation, and eftective passages. In tlie 
 main, however, he is very free in the use of his text; and 
 his work does not lack original features, vfhich, for the pres- 
 ent, may be regarded as products of his own individuality. 
 
 The poet was a broadly humane man, of profound and 
 noble qualities. He recasts his characters with warm sym- 
 pathy, and when possible, endows them with his own gen- 
 erous spirit. He takes pains to represent the sin of the first 
 pair as arising from no ignoble motives, but as the result of 
 an error, and this he does with true tragic power. Even 
 his Satan is not without dignity and greatness. Some of 
 that quenchless power dwells in him which filled Widukind, 
 the great antagonist of Charlemagne, or perhaps some Eng- 
 lish aetheling, who rebelled against a royal father or brother \ 
 thus the idea of the comitatus is taken up and vividly pre- 
 
 ' That, on the other hand, Engli/,h wriiings still dinted to the continent, in anH rffr 
 Aeiired's time, is proved by the discovery in Cassel of a leaf from a ni;ir.aöchyt of 
 AuJTred's R':gula pasioraUs, which is said to date from the niath century. 
 
THE LATER GENESIS. 85 
 
 sented. Criticism has long discerned a true Miltonic ring 
 in the speeches put into the mouth of Satan ; as in the fol- 
 lowing, which precedes his fall : 
 
 Why shall I toil? said he, surely need is none 
 
 To have him for my head ! With my hands I can 
 
 As many wonders work ; I have power wide 
 
 To make a mightier throne, to build for me 
 
 A higher one in heaven. Why shall I do his hest 
 
 And for his favour sue, bend to him in such fealty ? 
 
 A god like him, as great, may I become. 
 
 Strong comrades stand by me, who in the strife, 
 
 Heroes stern -hearted, will not fail their help; 
 
 Me have they chosen for chief, unchallenged warriors ! 
 
 Such may one call to counsel, with such may capture 
 
 His followers ; they are my fervent friends. 
 
 In their thoughts faithful ; of them I may be chieftain, 
 
 Reign in this realm. It seemeth me not right 
 
 That I in aught, for anything. 
 
 For any good, to God need cringe. 
 
 I will no longer live his vassal ! ' 
 
 Profoundness of psychological insight is a chief character- 
 istic of this poet, and though he is too fond of the forms of 
 variation,^ his copious, somewhat verbose style, while not 
 sentimental, is much more sympathetic and tender than 
 Caedmon's. As regards versification, the poet is partial to 
 the long-drawn lines designated on page 47 as " lengthened" 
 verses; in this he exactly resembles the author of the 
 Helia7id^ and he has often very happily adapted from him a 
 number of formal terms and phrases, though occasionally 
 without regarding differences of dialect, or the demands of 
 alliteration. 
 
 This later Genesis is only in so far preserved as it was 
 used in the tenth century to fill a gap in the elder, we will 
 say, Caedmonic GeJiesis? 
 
 The English poetry of this period was also influenced by 
 Scandinavian art. The poem called Rhyme-sofig contrasts 
 in eighty-seven verses, a past full of wealth, power, and hap- 
 piness, with a mournful present, and this in a manner some- 
 
 1 Genesis, v. 27S-291. Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, I. 9. 
 
 2 This peculiarity seems to have been augmented by later interpolations, v.'hich 
 brought an element very much like confusion into the text. 
 
 * This gap chiefly comprised God's prohibition to the first pair and the fall. More- 
 over, the sheet containing the be.ginning of the interpolation fails in the extant man- 
 uscript of the so-called Caedmonic poetry. Hence we have but 617 lines of the 
 later Genesis poetry {Gen-. 235-S51). 
 
S6 BEFORE THE Ct NQUE5T. 
 
 times vividly suggesting Job.^ Besides alliteration, the 
 method of rhyming words at the caesura witli tlie end of the 
 line is here consistently employed, a device seldom encoun- 
 tered in the older English poetry. Attention has justly 
 been called to the fact that this is exactly the form which 
 was known in Scandinavia by the term of Runhenda, and 
 critics have conjectured that the Rhyme-song was the result 
 of an influence proceeding from an Old Norse poet of the 
 tenth century, from Egil Skalagrimsson, who visited England 
 twice, enjoyed a certain celebrity at Aethelstan's court, and 
 composed a poem in this form in Northumbria. This seems 
 to have yielded no immediate results. Rhyme reappeared 
 in later popular poe is, often in the place of alliteration, and 
 always in close conj .motion with its decay, but rhyme is not 
 to be referred to this source. 
 
 The early native tradition of ecclesiastical poetry had not 
 yet died out ; but the works it inspired bear distinct tokens 
 of artistic decline. 
 
 A poem which we may fitly name The Fallen Angels'^ — 
 its subject is the torments and despair of heavenly spirits 
 changed to devils — shows us two characteristics of the Old 
 English poetical style carried to excess. And first the form 
 of variation applied to larger proportions : the poet con- 
 stantly makes the fallen spirits, especially their chief, break 
 forth in lamentations, and dwell upon the bliss of heaven 
 which they have lost, the terror and misery for which they 
 have bartered it, God's might and goodness, and their own 
 folly. At the same time he introduces his admonitions in 
 the manner of the homilist, and at the close he again con- 
 trasts the pictures of hell and of heaven, where the angels 
 revel in the jubilee of bliss, and whither all men will go who 
 take care to obey the Saviour. In closest union with this 
 form of variation, and not less sustained, there is an elegiac 
 passion whose tenderness had never yet been equalled. 
 Stirred by the rage of his pain and longing, Satan falls quite 
 out of character and speaks like a weak, repentant sinner, 
 at times even like a preacher. It would hardly have 
 occurred to the poet of another age to make the devil run 
 on in such rhapsodies as these : 
 
 * See especially c. 20 and 30 of the biblical book. 
 ^ Satan, v. 1-365, Bibliothek, d^r ags. Poesie, I. 123. 
 
FRAGMENTS OF RELIGIOUS POEMS. 87 
 
 O, thou glory of the Lord t Guardian of heaven's hosts ! 
 
 O, thou might of the Creator ! O, thou mid-circle ! 
 
 O, thou bright day of splendour ! O, thou jubilee of God! 
 
 O, ye hosts of angels ! O, thou highest heaven ! 
 
 O, that I am shut from the everlasting jubilee! 
 
 That I cannot reach my hands again up to heaven, 
 
 Nor still look, as before, with my eyes upward, 
 
 Nor hear, with my ears ever again 
 
 The clear-ringing strains of the heavenly trumpets ! ' 
 
 The poet lacks neither thought nor power of expression ; 
 yet he was not able, or did not try, to join his thoughts in 
 continuous movement. At the end the reader finds himself 
 where he began. The energy with which certain theological 
 views are held and developed is also noteworthy ; and the 
 poem mirrors a fairly defined conception of hell, as well as 
 the life and deeds of the devil. Christ the Son of God 
 appears always as the Creator; the attack led by the fallen 
 angels concerns him, and they are conquered by him. Satan, 
 too, has a son, whom he wishes to elevate to the place of 
 Christ.2 
 
 Fragments only are preserved of a poem^ which, in both 
 contents and scope, has been compared with Cynewulf's 
 Christ. The chief theme of the portion extant is Christ's 
 descent and resurrection, to which is joined, rather briefly, 
 an account of the ascension and last judgment. It begins 
 with an episode discussing the former state of the devils, who 
 are stricken with terror at the coming of Christ. Whether 
 the descent took such great prominence in the complete 
 poem as it receives in the fragment, cannot be decided. 
 Possibly this was shared by the passion; possibly the poet 
 had treated the weightier points" of the Credo relating to 
 Christ. In the latter case his poem was, as a whole, similar 
 to the Christ of Cynewulf, though it adapted itself more 
 closely to the popular Christian conceptions. The remem- 
 brance of Cynewulf causes us to feel still more strongly that 
 the execution of the plan is comparatively weak, though the 
 poem is far from wanting in happy turns of thought. The 
 
 ' Satan, v. 164-172, Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, I. 133-4. 
 
 ' Compare v. 63-4 : Segdest us to s66e, J)aet ]pin sunn wsere — meotod monoyiuies : 
 hafastu nu märe süsel. 
 
 3 Satan, v. 366-664, Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, I. 139. 
 
 * It is, however, quite possible that this fragment is a homily for Easter Suuday, be- 
 reft only of its beginning, and with contents similar to the pi-ose homily in the BUck' 
 ling Hoiu:U:s (Ed. IMorris, p. 83, et seq.). 
 
88 BEx^ORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 diction, too, has lost fulness and power, if not copiousness. 
 It reveals, however, the peculiarities of the ancient poetical 
 style. 
 
 Another and much shorter fragment^ discloses Christ 
 tempted by Satan. The portrayal of the temptation is char- 
 acteristic, though it deviates from the biblical account, more, 
 perhaps, in expression than meaning. After it is past, Christ 
 sends the devil into hell to measure it, so that he may better 
 appreciate that he has opposed God. Satan executes this 
 commission, and finds that the distance from the bottom of 
 hell to its crates is a hundred thousand leasrues. It is uncer- 
 tain whether this fragment, also, is only a poetical homily on 
 the temptation of Christ, or whether it belongs to a greater 
 whole. 
 
 These three poems probably appeared about the end of 
 the ninth, or the beginning of the following century. The 
 two last-named v/orks, as we have them, may have been 
 mutilated not long after this. They were then appended as 
 a connected whole to the Fallen Angels^ in the existing man- 
 uscript, containing the Genesis^ Exodus^ and Daniel. 
 
 At about the time to which these products of the religious 
 muse belong, gnomic verses were produced in the form of 
 dialogues. Oral contests in speaking aphorisms or riddles, 
 or in vaunting, seem to be founded on an ancient and deep- 
 rooted Germanic custom. In the Old Norse Wafthru^- 
 nisuidl, Odhin, with the name Gangradr, visits WafthruÖnir, 
 the wisest and strongest of all the giants, and both measure 
 their wisdom in a contest whose prize is the life of the loser. 
 But in England the gnomic dialogue, as far as preserved, is 
 connected with an oriental legend, at least with a legend de- 
 veloped within the range of Judaism. This legend contrasts 
 King Salomon with INIarcolis, the Mercury, or Hermes, of 
 classical antiquity, as the representative of Jewish wisdom, 
 against the wisdom and eloquence of the heathen. In the 
 place of Marcolis,^ however, we find Saturnus. This change 
 is perhaps best explained by a confusion of Marcolis with 
 Malcol (Milcol, Milcom) ; that is, ^Moloch, the oriental Sat- 
 urn. Two incomplete poetical dialogues between Salomon 
 
 ' Satan, v. 665-773, Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, I. 147. 
 
 ' As a rule, tlie nan:e Marcolis, among the Teutonic races, was exchanged for the 
 seemingly more idiomatic forms of JSIarculf ox Marcolf; thence in Middle High Ger- 
 IQan Morolf, 
 
SALOMON AND SATURNUS. 89 
 
 and Satumus have come down to us. Their contents are 
 Christian throughout, though blended with both Rabbin- 
 ical and Germanic elements. 
 
 In the first/ Saturnus, the Chaldean eorl, who has studied 
 the books of all the islands, and mastered the learning of 
 Libya, as well as the history of India, comes to Salomon for 
 instruction on the power and dignity of the Paternoster. 
 Salomon imparts this in an obscure, mysterious manner, and 
 represents a contest in which the devil is overcome by the 
 different letters of the Paternoster, both conceived as runes 
 and personified. Then are depicted the practices of the evil 
 spirits, who do not conceal their relationship with the Teu- 
 tonic elves. At the end, Saturnus finds, to his satisfaction, 
 that Salomon surpasses him in wisdom. 
 
 The second,^ and perhaps somewhat older, dialogue opens 
 with an introduction m epic style, in which Marculf's home 
 is mentioned among the many lands which Saturnus has trav- 
 ersed. Question and answer, statement and counter-state- 
 ment follow each other rapidly in the dialogue, one question 
 being sometimes answered by another. In a tone which 
 often becomes mystical, it treats the most diverse subjects, 
 as death, old age, the unequal distribution of gifts and goods, 
 fate, the fall of the angels, and the struggle of the good and 
 of the evil principles for the conquest of man. 
 
 These dialogues, and, in a still greater degree, the relig- 
 ious poems usually collected under the name of Satan^ ap- 
 proach more nearly the style and tone proper to the poetry 
 of the preceding age, than does the English version of 
 Boethius's Metra. In the latter, a new element, related to 
 prose, asserts itself. But it is chiefly in the treatment of al- 
 literative verse that the Metra differ from the poems just 
 considered. If in Salomon and Saturnus and in Satan., the 
 number and position of the alliterative letters do not always 
 agree with the ancient rule, yet the relative emphasis of the 
 syllables in alliteration is regarded with hardly an exception. 
 But in Boethius many liberties are taken in this respect. 
 Such deviations had often appeared singly, but accumulated, 
 they betoken the decline of the old metrical art. 
 
 This decline is still more significantly shown in the psalm 
 
 * Kemble, Salomon and Saturjius, p. 134-154, Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, II. 35^- 
 
 359- 
 *Kemble, p. 154-176, Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, II. 360-368. 
 
90 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 translation (see p. 48 ) which appeared in this period, though 
 hardly after the middle of the tenth century.^ The chief 
 rules of ancient alliteration are violated with indifference, 
 and the diction entirely lacks swing and copiousness. Hence 
 this translation forms a stage of transition to the sort of 
 rhythmic and alliterative prose which began to prevail toward 
 the close of the tenth century. 
 
 But the true spirit of national verse and poetic enthusiasm 
 did not expire at once in all the singers. The influence of 
 earlier poems, which were industriously copied and often 
 recited, tended to preserve this spirit. Great historical events 
 gave it new life. 
 
 The custom of celebrating such events in song was prime- 
 val, and lived on after the impulse of the English epic muse 
 had ceased. The later chroniclers oftentimes made use of 
 these songs, particularly Henry of Huntington, who wrote 
 his Historia Angloriun in the twelfth century. It has been 
 justly remarked that in such descriptions as Henry's is heard 
 the true echo of early national poetry ; as in his portrayal 
 of the batde of Burford (752), so important for the future of 
 the West-Saxons, and of the incomparable heroism of Eal- 
 dorman Aethelhun. Likewise the narrative in the Winches- 
 ter Annals, of the violent death of King Cynewulf and the 
 vengeance of his faithful followers, seems to be based upon 
 an English song. 
 
 The chroniclers themselves began, in the course of the 
 tenth century, to cultivate this kind of poetry; in conse- 
 quence of this its character was not a little changed, the 
 epic element receding before the lyrico-rhetorical, and the 
 reporting spirit of the annalist. 
 
 In the Annals of Winchester, the piece of noble prose 
 which comes down to the year 924 is followed by a section 
 of an entirely different character. It covers the period from 
 925 to 978, the days of Aethelstan, Eadmund, Eadred, Ead- 
 wig, Eadgar, when the unity of the English nation was 
 completed and fortified, and when the realm reached the 
 b.ummit of its power and glory. The annals belonging to 
 tliis period are remarkably meagre and dry, and the short, 
 broken, prose entries are enlivened only by four poems, 
 
 1 1 he poet of the Menolo^inn, which may be placed between 940 and 980 (bee p. 
 ^2), has ahready used it. 
 
THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. 9 1 
 
 which refresh the reader like oases. By far the most notable 
 in length and poetic worth is the first (for the year 937), 
 which describes the brilliant victory of King Aethelstan and 
 his brother Eadmund at Brunanburh. They there fought 
 the Scots under their King Constantine and the Northmen 
 come from Ireland. The following is a translation of the en- 
 tire poem ; 
 
 This year King Aethelstan, the lord of eorls, the ring-giver of war- 
 riors, and eke his brotlier, Eadmund the Aetheling, won hfelong fame 
 with the edges of swords in battle at Brunanburh. Tlrey clave the 
 board-wall, hewed the war-lindens, with leavings of hammers, Ead- 
 weard's offspring, as was native to them from their fathers that they 
 should defend their land, their hoard and their homes, oft in strife 
 against every foe. The foes bent low, they of the Scottish folk, and 
 ship-farers fell, doomed to death. The field was enriched with the war- 
 riors' blood, from the morning-tide when the sun, the splendid star, 
 God's beaming candle, glided over the grounds, until the noble creature 
 sank to his seat at eve. There lay many a fighter of the northern men 
 by spears laid low, shot over the shield, also of the Scots, weary, sated 
 with war. The West-Saxons followed the hated folk in rider bands, 
 forth, the livelong day. With might they hewed the fugitives from be- 
 nind with swords well-sharpened. The Mercians refused not the hard 
 hand-play to any of the heroes, who, doomed to death in battle, had 
 sought the land with Anlaf, in the ship's bosom, over the waves' blend- 
 ing. Five lay on that battle-stead, young kings put to sleep by the 
 sword ; eke seven of Anlaf's eorls, and a countless number from the 
 host of the ship-men and the Scots. There was put to flight the prince 
 of the Northmen, pressed by need to the ship's prow with a little band. 
 The boat drove afloat, the king departed, saved his life, upon the fallow 
 flood. Likewise the aged man came by flight to his home in the north, 
 Constantine, the hoary battle-hero ; he needed not to vaunt of the 
 sword-mingling : he was deprived of his kinsmen, stripped of his 
 friends on the battle-place, bereft in the struggle, and he had left his 
 son upon the slaughter-field, mangled with wounds, young in war. 
 The gray-haired man had no ground to boast of the sword-strife, the 
 old deceiver, and Anlaf no more ; with the leavings of their hosts, they 
 might not laugh that they were better in the battle -work upon the bat- 
 tle-stead in the clash of banners, in the meeting of spears, the gather- 
 ing of men, the interchange of weapons, which they played upon the 
 battle-field with Eadweard's offspring. Then the Northmen went away 
 in their nailed boats, leaving the bloody spears, upon the sea, over 
 deep water, to seek Difelin,' and their land again, ashamed in mind. 
 Likewise the brothers, both together, king and aetheling, sought their 
 home, the land of the West-Saxons, exulting in war. They left behind 
 them to share the corpses, the dark-coated fov\'l, the swart raven, horny 
 beaked, and the ash-coloured eagle, white behind, to enjoy the carrion, 
 the greedy war hawk, and that gray beast, the wolf in the wood. Never 
 yet was more slaughter on this island, of folk felled before this, by the 
 
 z Dublip, 
 
92 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 sword-edges, so far as the books tell us, old wise men, since Angles 
 and Saxons came hither from the east, sought Britain over the broad 
 sea, the proud war-smiths, overcame the Welsh, the eorls eager for 
 glory» grilled a country. 
 
 The poem does not seem to have been written by one who 
 saw the battle. At least we learn from it no more in sub- 
 stance than might have been put down in a short entry of the 
 Chronicle. The poem lacks the epic perception and direct 
 power of the folk-song, as well as invention. The patriotic 
 enthusiasm, however, upon which it is borne, the lyrical strain 
 which pervades it, yield their true effect. The rich resources 
 derived from the national epos are here happily utilised, and 
 the pure versification and brilliant style of the whole stir our 
 admiration. 
 
 A short poem (for 942) relates the final annexation by King 
 Eadmund of the five "Danish boroughs"^ in Alercia, and 
 depicts the joy of the inhabitants at their liberation from the 
 Danish yoke. More important in the matter of style are the 
 account of the coronation of Eadgar at Bath in 973, and the 
 poem on Eadgar's death in 975. These latter poems were 
 apparently written for the place in which they stand. They 
 are mere annalistic entries in poetical form. 
 
 In the same period may be placed the Poetical Calendar^ 
 known as the Mcnologium, which, in the following century, 
 was prefixed to the Abingdon recension of the English Aji- 
 nals. There had been since Beda's time abundant models 
 of martyrologies in Latin prose and verse. Neither did the 
 poet of this Calendar lack predecessors in Enghsh. He cer- 
 tainly borrowed his best passages from earlier English poets ; 
 but, like them, he had a true feeling for the life of nature, 
 which, occasionally breaking forth, animates his style in spite 
 of the dryness of his subject. 
 
 JSIeanwhile historical poetry had not died out among the 
 people, and genuine poesy still lived in the folk-song. A 
 precious relic of such verse, a song inspired by the immediale 
 impression of the event it celebrates, has been in great part 
 spared by a kind fate. Its origin is due to one of the many 
 battles with the Danes which shook England during the per- 
 nicious reign of the second Aethelred. A band of Normans 
 under Justin and Guthmund made, in the year 991, an incur- 
 
 ' Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, Derby. 
 
öYrhtnoth's death. ^3 
 
 sion into the eastern coast of England, and after plundering 
 Ipswich, penetrated into Essex as far as Maiden on the Pan- 
 ta river. Near this town the river divides into tv/o branches ; 
 the southerly arm washes the northern declivity of the hill 
 upon which Maldon lies. The Danish ships seem to have 
 taken their position in this branch, while the warriors occu- 
 pied the space between the two arms of the river. Then the 
 East-Saxon ealdorman, Byrhtnoth, advanced from the north 
 with a hastily collected band, and halted on the northern arm 
 of the Panta, on whose shores ensued the conflict celebrated 
 in the song of Byi'htnotlC s Death} 
 
 Byrhtnoth brought his force into battle array, and riding 
 about exhorted and encouraged his warriors. Then he dis- 
 mounted from his horse, and took his place among his faith- 
 ful thegns. 
 
 On the other shore stood a herald of the Vikings who, 
 with a powerful voice and threatening tone, spoke the de- 
 mand of the sea-rovers : " Active sea-men send me to thee ; 
 they bid me say to thee, that thou must quickly send rings 
 for safety ; and it is better for you that ye buy off this spear- 
 rush with tribute, than that we share such hard fight. If 
 thou who art the richest here, dost decide that thou wilt re- 
 deem thy people, wilt give the sea-men money at their own 
 prizing, in exchange for peace, then we will enter our ships 
 w^ith the treasures, go afloat, and keep peace with you," 
 Byrhtnoth held fast his shield, swung his slender ash aloft, 
 and answered with scorn and decision : " Hearest thou, sea- 
 farer, what this folk saith? They will give you spears for trib- 
 ute, the poisonous lance-point, and the old sword, war-trap- 
 pings that are not good for you in battle. Messenger of the 
 water-men, announce again, say to thy people warlike words : 
 A noble eorl stands here with his band, who will protect this 
 inheritance, Aethelred's, my prince's country, folk, and lands. 
 Heathen shall fall in the battle. To me it seems too shame- 
 ful that ye should go to your ships with your treasures, un- 
 fought, now that ye have come hither thus far into our land. 
 Ye shall not gain treasure so easily; rather shall the point and 
 the edge become us, grim battle-play, before we give tribute." 
 He drew up his warriors upon the bank. The high tide that 
 swelled the Panta stream prevented the forces from getting 
 
 1 Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, I, 343-352. 
 
94- . BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 to each other. On its shores stood opposed the East- 
 Saxons and the " host of the ashen ships." Neither could 
 injure the other; only by arrows were some struck down. 
 The ebb came; the rovers stood ready, eager for battle. 
 Then the protector of heroes commanded a hardened vet- 
 eran, Wulfstan, son of Keola, to guard the bridge. Near 
 him stood the two fearless warriors, Aelfhere and Mac- 
 cus. They defended themselves with vigour against the ene- 
 my, as long as they could wield their weapons. Then the 
 evil guests asked that passage over the ford be granted them. 
 In his haughtiness the eorl gave them the shore free. The 
 son of Byrhthelm (Byrhtnoth) called out over the cold wa- 
 ters (the warriors lay in wait) : " Now that space is cleared 
 for you, come to us at once, men, to the battle ! God alone 
 knows who shall rule the slaughter-place." Then the war- 
 wolves, the hosts of the Vikings, without shunning the water, 
 waded westward across the Panta. B}nrhtnoth stood there 
 with his heroes in readiness; he ordered them to form the 
 battle-hedge with their shields, and to maintain their ranks 
 fast against the enemy. Then the time was come when those 
 consecrated to death should fall; a cry was raised; ravens 
 circled in the air, and eagles, craving for carrion ; on the 
 earth clamour prevailed. Spears flew from the hands ; the 
 bow was busy ; the shield received the point ; bitter was the 
 rage of battle ; warriors fell. On both sides lay the young 
 fighters. Wulfmser, Byrhtnoth's kinsman, sank, struck down 
 by swords. Eadweard avenged him, as with his sword he 
 laid one of the Vikings low at hi^feet. The warriors stood 
 fast. Byrhtnoth urged them ony Wounded by the spear of 
 a sea-man, the eorl struck the shaft with his shield ; it broke 
 and sprang back. He fiercely thrust his own spear through 
 his enemy's neck to his heart, so that his corselet burst. The 
 hero rejoiced. He laughed and thanked God for the day's 
 work which had been vouchsafed him. I'hen from the hand 
 of another enemy there flew a spear which pierced him 
 through. Wulfmasr the youth, Wulfstan's son, who fought at 
 his side, drew the bloody dart from the hero's body, and 
 sent it back ; the point penetrated, and stretched him upon 
 the earth who had hit Wulfmnsr's master. Then a mailed 
 man stepped up to the eorl to rob him of his weapons. Byrht- 
 noth drew his broad brown sword from its sheath, and smote 
 
EYRHTNOTH^S DEATH. ^^ 
 
 him upon the corselet. But one of the ship-men crippled the 
 hero's hand with a blow. The fallow-hilted sword fell to the 
 ground ; he could no longer hold it. But the gray battle- 
 hero still cheered on the youths; his feet refused to serve 
 him ; he looked toward heaven and said : " I thank Thee, 
 Ruler of Peoples, for all the joys that I have had in the world. 
 Now, mild Creator, I have most need that Thou grant my 
 spirit good, that my soul may go to Thee, may pass with 
 peace into Thy power. King of Angels." Then the heathen 
 struck him down, and the two heroes who fought near him, 
 Aelfnoth and Wulfmasr, gave up their spirits at their lord's 
 side. 
 
 Cowards now turned to flight. First the sons of Adda : 
 Godric forsook the noble one who had given him many a 
 horse, and fled upon his lord's own steed ; and with him his 
 brothers, Godwine and Godwig, and more of the warriors 
 than was at all becoming. Aethelred's eorl, the people's 
 prince, had fallen ; all of his kindred saw that their lord lay 
 slain. The proud warriors rushed up, willed either to avenge 
 the dear one or to yield their lives. Aelfric's son, the young 
 warrior Aelfvvine, exhorted them. He said : " Think of the 
 speeches which we often spoke at mead, when we raised up 
 vaunting upon the bench, heroes in the hall, about hard bat- 
 tle. Now may be shown who is bold. I will show forth my 
 lineage to all, that I was of high race in Mercia. My old 
 father was called Ealhhelra, a wise ealdorman, worldly pros- 
 perous. Never shall the thegns reproach me among the peo- 
 ple, that I v/ould desert this host, and seek my country, now 
 that my prince lies slain in battle. That is my greatest grief: 
 he was both my kinsman and my lord.!' Then he strode 
 forward, thinking of blood-vengeance. To the same effect 
 spoke Offa and Leofsunu. Dunhere, too, an agedceorl, 
 took up the word. Swinging his lance, he bade all heroes 
 avenge Byrhtnoth : " Never may he hesitate who thinketh 
 to avenge his lord in the people, nor care for his life." They 
 went forward, careless of life. The kinsmen began a hard 
 fight; they prayed God it might be granted them to avenge 
 their kin and chief, and to work slaughter among their ene- 
 mies. Aescferth the Northumbrian, Ecglaf's son, helped 
 them zealously; ceaseless flew his arrows and pierced the 
 foe. Eadweard the Long swore he would not leave the field 
 
96 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 where his prince lay, a foot's breadth. He broke through 
 the shield-wall, and, before he lay with the corpses, fought until 
 he had worthily avenged the treasure-giver, among the sea- 
 warriors. So also did Aetheric and many another. Ofta slew 
 the sea-farer, Gadde's kinsman. But he himself was soon 
 struck down. He had kept the vow he made to his lord: that 
 they would ride safe homeward together, or fall in the fight, 
 die of their wounds upon the slaughter-field. And like a 
 true thegn, he lay near his lord. There fought V/ihstan, 
 Thurstan's son, and the two brothers, Oswold and Eadwold, 
 urged on the heroes. But Byrhtwold, the aged comrade, 
 spoke as he grasped fast his shield and shook his ash : " The 
 spirit sliould be all the harder, the heart all the bolder, the 
 courage should be the greater, the more our forces lessen ; 
 here lieth our prince cut down, the brave one, slain in the 
 dust. May he ever mourn who thinketh to turn now from 
 this battle-play. I am old in days; I will not go away, but 
 I think to lie by my lord's side; I will lie by such a beloved 
 warrior." Godric, Aethelgar's son, also exhorted all to the 
 struggle. He often sent his spear against the Vikings, struck 
 and flung them down, until he sank in the fight. That was 
 not the Godric who fled from the battle. . . . 
 
 At this point the fragment breaks off. 
 
 This song of Byj'htnofh's Death is one of the pearls of Old 
 English poetry, full, as it is, of dramatic life, and of the fidel- 
 ity of an eye-witness. Its deep feeling throbs in the clear 
 and powerful portrayal. In sharp contrast to the Song of 
 Bninanbin'h^ the lyrical element is still less prominent than 
 in Beoimdf. The style is simple, pithy, noble; compared 
 with the epic, it is concise and even dry. This is partly due 
 to the difference between two classes of poetry, and partly 
 to the disparity in time. But the basis of the national mind 
 is the same, and the fundamental character of the national 
 art remains unchanged. The ideas of the comitatus and its 
 heroic spirit retain their full strength and influence ; and po- 
 etry still possesses all the necessary resources for their ex- 
 pression. 
 
 There appear tokens of metrical decline, of the dissolution 
 of ancient art-forms. The law of alliteration is often vio- 
 lated, both as regards the position of the chief alliterative 
 v/ord and the emphasis of the alUterative syllables. The re- 
 
METRICAL DECLINE. 97 
 
 lation between sentence and verse has become more harmo- 
 nious ; both often close at the same place. Thus the unity 
 of the verse strikes the ear more smoothly. But at the same 
 time is opened a path leading to the complete destruction 
 of this unity. Since the caesura retains its old force, its power 
 is emphasised by the narrow limits of the now isolated verse. 
 Growing looseness in alliteration, frequent use of the leonine 
 rhyme (which rarely appears in Byrhinoth)^ will inevitably 
 convert that unity into duality. 
 
 That the popular poetry went on in this direction, we see 
 in the many historical poems which were inserted in later 
 copies of the English annals; their authors, probably monks, 
 were doubtless influenced by the folk-song. Good examples 
 are the poem, in two manuscripts^ (year 975), on Eadgar's 
 death, and especially the song on the Aethehng Aelfred, the 
 son of King Aethelred (year 1036). The latter, owing to the 
 complete dissolution of alliterative forms and the frequent use 
 of rhyme, reads like a product of the transition period, and 
 almost like a poem in short couplets. 
 
 An alternation of long and short lines, as well as utterly 
 lawless alliteration, appear in other poems, as that on the 
 death in 979^ of Eadweard the Martyr. There is often a dis- 
 position to restrict the alliteration to the short line. Here 
 and there we find passages clothed in rhythmical prose, some- 
 times alliterative, and sometimes rhymed.^ 
 
 On the other hand the writer of the song on the death of 
 Eadweard the Confessor wields the ancient forms with some 
 ease and grace. i 
 
 IX. 
 
 King Aelfred was, in truth, the first to give to his people 
 a national prose literature, and directly after him, in the 
 chronicler of his last deeds and of the successes of his son 
 Eadweard, arose an unusually talented prose writer, but one 
 who, unfortunately, does not seem to have ventured upon 
 any work of great scope. With Eadweard's death came a 
 break of some length, when production did not entirely cease, 
 
 ' Cotton Tib. IV. and Laud 636. See Thorpe, p. 228; Earle, p. 125. 
 ' Earle, p. 129. 
 
 ' For an instance, see the entry for 959 found in several manuscripts, Thorpe, p. 
 »17; Earle, p. 119. 
 
 H 
 
gS BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 but yielded no works which could, at the same time, furnish 
 models of writing and educate the people in the spirit of 
 Aelfred. 
 
 To judge from the texts transmitted, there began, in this 
 period, a medical literature in English, though i-ts first monu- 
 ment presupposes a certain learned tradition in the English 
 medical circles. The Z^ce Boc (Leech Book) is a compre- 
 hensive collection of medical prescriptions and recipes for 
 the most diverse diseases, the causes of which are also touched 
 upon. It consists of two books ; but in the manuscript that 
 preserves it to us, a third of similar contents has been added, 
 and it probably belongs to the same period.^ 
 
 The originals from which the compiler of the L(Bce Boc 
 directly or indirectly drew are many and various ; Greek and 
 Roman writers played an important part, though the former 
 were most probably accessible to the English physicians only 
 in Latin translations. Beside these, the authority of physi- 
 cians with such names as Oxa or Dun is occasionally set 
 forth, and these we may, with little doubt, regard as English- 
 men. Scandinavian influence is unmistakable in some pas- 
 sages. The entry subjoined to a number of recipes (II. C. 44) 
 is very interesting. " Dominus Helias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 
 caused all this to be communicated to King Aelfred." ^ The 
 prominent part played in the Lcece Boc by superstition may 
 be explained by the ancient relation between it and medi- 
 cine. Many diseases are traced to magic, to the influence of 
 malevolent beings endowed with higher powers, and often- 
 times very strange remedies are prescribed for their removal, 
 as especially spells and incantations. Among them is one in 
 the Gaelic language. Later medical books did not adopt a 
 different method. In a collection of prescriptions transmit- 
 ted in the Harl. MS. 585., such formulas in English or Latin, 
 and partly even in Greek and Hebrew, fill a disproportion- 
 ately large space. Among the Enghsh formulas in this manu- 
 script are several charms in verse dating back to an earlier 
 period. 
 
 Besides the larger collections, many recipes and formulas of 
 incantation have reached us written upon loose sheets. There 
 
 1 At the close of the second book are some Latin verses, the first of which runs : 
 Bald habet hunc librum Cild queM conscribere j'ussii. Saxon Leechdoms, Ed. O. 
 Cockayne, II. 298. 
 
 * Ibul., p. .ijo. 
 
RELIGIOUS PROSE. 99 
 
 are also short medical essays, treatises on various topics of 
 superstition ; as, the influence of the moon's phases or the 
 days of the week upon the fate of a man born under their 
 sway, the interpretation of dreams, etc. 
 
 Particular mention may also be made of the English Her- 
 barium^ which was probably composed in the first half of 
 the eleventh century, and whose first part is founded upon 
 Apulejus, and the second upon Dioskorides, though not upon 
 the original text. As here the medicinal uses of single plants 
 are analysed, those of quadrupeds are treated in the writing, 
 Mediana de quadrtipedibiis, connected with the name of Sex- 
 tus Placitus. This also underwent an English rendering at 
 about the same time. 
 
 Of reHgious prose, the tenth century seems to have yielded 
 more than one Engfish work of doubtful theology; though 
 this was without question more due to meagre learning than 
 to any heterodox tendency in the clergy. Aelfric, who be- 
 gan to write in the last decade of the century, says in the 
 preface to his homilies : " I saw and heard numerous errors 
 in many English books, which unlearned men, in their sim- 
 plicity, counted much wisdom." ^ In another place he asks : 
 " How can any read the false representations, which they 
 call the Vision of Paul ? since he himself says that he heard 
 unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter." ^ 
 The loss of such writings is certainly more to be regretted 
 by the historian of literature than the loss of many an ortho- 
 dox homily. 
 
 Nevertheless books were not quite lacking which the or- 
 thodoxy of that day deemed neither apochryphal nor dan- 
 gerous. We may conclude from a remark of Aelfric that 
 there existed in English, at his time, an exhaustive account 
 of the sufferings of the apostles Peter and Paul. It is true 
 that this cannot have been composed long before his own 
 first writings appeared, but, on the other hand, he may have 
 remained unacquainted with some of the works extant be- 
 fore him. Perhaps among them was the prose version of 
 the life of St. Guthlac by FeHx of Croyland. 
 
 Several interlinear versions appeared in the tenth century, 
 especially in Northumbria. But a nearer consideration of 
 
 '^ Homilies of Aelfric, Ed. Thorpe, I. 2. 
 ^ Ibid., p. 332. 
 
100 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 them belongs to the history of language, not to that of lit- 
 erature. Suffice it to note that the splendid Gospel Manu- 
 script, wrought in Lindisfarne, to St. Cuthberht's honour, and 
 afterwards brought to Durham upon the removal of the 
 bishopric, was supplied with an interlinear version in this 
 period, and so were the rituals of Durham, as well as the 
 so-called Rtishworth Gospels. 
 
 A high development of ecclesiastical literature presup- 
 posed, above all, a reformation of the clergy. With all his 
 good intentions, Aelfred had not been able adequately to 
 carry out such a reformation ; indeed, the achievement of 
 this reform, as it was brought about later, would justly have 
 caused grave scruples in the great king, who was as good a 
 statesman as he was a warm friend of the Church, and whose 
 humanity was as strong as his piety. But the enormous ad- 
 vance of national culture in his reign was ahnost entirely his 
 work, and had therefore a popular, secular character. His 
 own knowledge did not suffice to elevate the clergy and 
 scholarship in his kingdom to their former level, nor did that 
 of his co-labourers ; and what was accomplished in this di- 
 rection soon went to ruin under his successors. A necessary 
 consequence of this was, that even Aelfred's more popular 
 efforts were continued with no great vigour after his death. 
 Ever will those men form an exception in whom, as in Ael- 
 fred, the passion for knowledge and the love of humanity 
 can make up for defective learning. 
 
 The picture of the clergy in the writings of its reformers, 
 is doubtless darker than the reality. They were, however, 
 as ignorant as when Aelfred began to reign, and, doubtless, 
 still more secularised. It might not, perhaps, have greatly 
 shocked a parish of that day, if its pastor had a wife and 
 children ; but there were also cases of divorce and bigamy 
 among the English clergy. Even then, many livings were 
 apparently sinecures, whose incumbents were wont to gratify 
 their favourite passions, without troubling themselves about 
 their flocks. Horses, dogs, in short, the pleasures of the 
 chase were as highly esteemed by them as by the country 
 gentleman whose type Fielding has drawn for us. And they 
 loved, not less than that rural squire, a good draught and 
 the entertainment of a merry repast. Some of them even 
 became noted as drinking-poets. All in all, we may assume 
 
DUNSTAN. lOI 
 
 that the clergy did not stand much higher in intellectual cult- 
 ure than the laity, and consequently, that they were a grade 
 lower in morals. 
 
 The cloister hfe upon which depended the progress of 
 learning in the earher Middle Ages languished, was, indeed, 
 as good as extinct. Nearly all English monasteries were 
 empty, or lay in ruins. The monks still left were scarcely 
 conspicuous for monastic discipline. 
 
 That a reaction of strict asceticism should follow such a 
 state of things, was unavoidable. Movements in that direc- 
 tion began to be felt in England at nearly the same time as 
 on the continent, where the cloister of Cluny became their 
 centre, and they did not develop without some influence from 
 France.^ Their soul, however, was the great primate Dun- 
 stan, one of those sharply-defined figures wont to appear at 
 the turning-points of church history. 
 
 Dunstan was a passionate, energetic man, whose ecclesi- 
 astical zeal smothered many a gentler emotion. He had 
 a clear head, but an end was often plainer to him than the 
 means of reaching it. After a severe, even ascetic training,^ 
 he came to the Aethelstan's court. His youth was varied by 
 an amour and an illness. Then came the conversion, the 
 hermit life, and the study after the manner of Demosthenes, 
 to which Dunstan joined exercise in every kind of craft. 
 Under King Eadmund (940-946), he began to win public 
 notice, and to realise his maturing ideas. The king entrusted 
 to him the care of his new foundation of Glastonbury. This 
 monastery became, under Dunstan, the starting-point for the 
 revival of English monachism, to which also the succeeding 
 ruler, Eadred, (946-955) proved favourable. What Dunstan 
 wished was twofold : to bring back monastic life upon the 
 basis of the rule of St. Benedict to its original purity and 
 strict discipline, and to permeate the entire English church 
 with the spirit of monasticism. A strong party soon gath- 
 ered around the reformer; but opponents also banded to- 
 gether. The latter found a powerful support in Eadmund's 
 elder son King Eadwig (955-958). Dunstan was banished. 
 But upon the accession of Eadgar (958-975), the reform party 
 
 1 The sending of Osgar to Fleury and Abbo of Fleury's journey to England may be 
 mentioned in this connection. 
 
 2 According to the English A nnals, Dunstan was bom in the year 925, a da.te which, 
 from internal evidence, may be considered as set too late. 
 
I02 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 was victorious. One of the first acts of the new ruler was to 
 recall Duiistan, for whom he had long felt a warm admira- 
 tion. He made him, in quick succession, bishop of Worcester, 
 of London, and finally, archbishop of Canterbury. As pri- 
 mate of England and adviser of the king, he possessed an 
 influence approaching that of Richelieu, and by means of it 
 he could proceed to a full realisation of his plans. The secu- 
 lar clergy were deprived of their pleasures, and marriage was 
 forbidden among them. On the other hand, the duty of 
 preaching, of explaining to their flocks the dominical and ferial 
 pericopes was enjoined upon them. Restored or newly- 
 founded convents sprang up everywhere, which were most 
 richly endowed by the piety of the king and many of his 
 thegns. The secular clergy, with the exception of those who 
 themselves took to religious life, were expelled from a large 
 number of the chief churches of England and replaced by 
 monks. In short, it was by a violent revolution that Dun- 
 stan accomplished his ideas of reform. 
 
 In these conflicts and labours, Dunstan found powerful sup- 
 porters in such men as Bishop Oswald of Worcester ; and 
 above all, in Aethelwold, who worked for the same end as he, 
 but with greater discretion, and who was chiefly active in 
 procuring the means that could promote the central idea of 
 those aims, and thus create lasting results. 
 
 Aethelwold had passed his youth with Dunstan at King 
 Aethelstan's court, he was consecrated a priest on the same 
 day with him, and followed him to Glastonbury. Here in 
 the Benedictine garb, he continued his studies, which he had 
 ever zealously pursued, and became one of the best scholars 
 of his time. Made abbot of Abingdon by King Eadred, he 
 worked tirelessly to advance the greatness of his monastery. 
 He increased the number of monks more than fourfold (he 
 had brought some of them with him from Glastonbury) ; he 
 had one of his loyal followers, Osgar, fetch from Fleury a 
 copy of the rules of St. Benedict, together with oral directions 
 for their practice. He was able to restore former possessions 
 to his abbey, and to procure further valuable donations from 
 King Eadgar. With the king's support, even as he says, at 
 his command, he built a splendid 'minster at Abingdon, and 
 from his own means bestowed rich ornaments and costly 
 utensils upon it. He became bishop of Winchester in the 
 
AETHELWOLD. IO3 
 
 year 963, and from that time on he was Dunstan's right hand. 
 The "priests" of the new minster in the episcopal city had 
 very soon to give way before the "monks" of Abingdon. 
 The convent of Ely was restored by Aethelwold's zeal, and 
 largely endowed. A new one was founded at Peterborough, 
 where nothing is said to have remained of the former edi- 
 fice save ancient masonry in the forest ; and another cloister 
 soon after arose in its vicinity, at Thorney. The rule of St. 
 Benedict and the discipline of Glastonbury and Abingdon 
 were everywhere introduced. 
 
 But what makes Aethelwold's memory truly venerable, 
 was his care for the education of the clergy, and thence of 
 the people. The school of the Old Minster at Winchester 
 under him became the source of higher education for a large 
 part of England, and there he himself took active part in in- 
 struction and admonition. With his high station, his elo- 
 quence, and his knowledge, his zeal must indeed have inflam- 
 ed that of his pupils. But above all, he communicated to 
 them his own love for the mother-tongue, which, with the 
 Latin, was zealously studied in the writings of Aelfred. 
 
 Aethelwold himself became an author, though in a limited 
 field. His English, but by no means literal, version of the 
 Regula Sancti Benedictl is famous, though the main portion 
 of it has not yet been published ; he composed this work at 
 the request of King Eadgar, for the benefit of those entering 
 the monastic life without scholarship. He subjoined to this 
 translation an appendix^ on the history of the English 
 church, in which, with exalted language, he celebrated the 
 services of King Eadgar in the cause to which he himself had 
 consecrated his fife. » 
 
 Aethelwold outlived Eadgar and his unhappy son Ead- 
 mund the Martyr (975-979)5 and died in the year 984, four 
 years before Dunstan. He did not live to see the time v/hen 
 the seeds of a national literature v/hich he had strewn should 
 bear rich fruit. But phenomena appeared as early as during 
 Eadgar's reign which at least foreshadowed that time. 
 
 The English homihes, preserved in part fragmentarily in 
 the Blickling manuscript, were composed in the year 971. 
 Although they probably did not issue directly from Aethel- 
 wold's school in Winchester, yet they were beyond question 
 
 • ^axon Leecfidoms III., 432 et seg. 
 
104 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 a product of the tendency of thought created by Dunstan, 
 Aethelwold, and their adherents. 
 
 The homiHst speaks often' in the tone of an exhorter to re- 
 pentance, announcing the near approach of the end of all 
 things. " No man on earth is so holy and none in heaven," 
 he says in the homily on Ascension-day, *' as to know when 
 our Lord will put an end to the world on the judgment-day, 
 save only the Lord alone. Yet we know that the time is not 
 distant, since the signs and tokens which our Lord foretold 
 would happen before the last day, have all been fulfilled, with 
 the single exception that the accursed stranger, the Antichrist, 
 has not yet come to the earth. Yet it will not now be long be- 
 fore that shall also happen; for this earth must necessarily end 
 in the time which is now present, since five ages have already 
 passed. In this age of the world, then, shall this earth come 
 to an end, and the greater part of it has already elapsed : 
 exactly nine hundred and seventy-one years this year." ^ 
 The preacher, it is true, takes occasion to add that the ages 
 have not all been of equal length, and no man can know how 
 long God will make the present millennium ; but this doubt- 
 less did not prevent his hearers from looking forward with 
 terror to the end of the century. The homilist dehghts in 
 descriptions of the last judgment and of the signs preceding 
 it, of hell and its torments — things of which he has a very 
 complete conception. Seriously and impressively, he exhorts 
 to repentance, and urges even priests and bishops to a pure 
 and pious life. His learning in theology is not great, and is 
 somewhat confused, however well-informed he is in the le- 
 gends of the saints. He frequently draws from apocryphal 
 sources : from the Visio Pauli and the Evangelium JVicode??ii. 
 He sometimes makes one and the same person speak words 
 put in the mouths of different personages in the Bible, and 
 adds matter contained only in the expositions of commenta- 
 tors and homilists. He seems more concerned in effectively 
 shaping his scenes than for painstaking, historical accuracy 
 or literal fidelity to the Bible. 
 
 His language has many elements of antiquity, and is not 
 even free from clumsy pleonasms, like the use of the article 
 after the possessive pronoun, or of the substantive after the 
 personal pronoun which should replace it; the latter license 
 
 ^Bückling Homilus, Ed. R. Morris, p. 117-18. 
 
AELFRIC. 105 
 
 occurs more frequently in some of the homilies, as in I. and 
 XI. Yet the style is, on the whole, animated, is pervaded 
 by a certain heartiness of tone, and is sometimes impressive. 
 
 About twenty years after the appearance of these homilies, 
 Aelfric began to write ; he himself certainly being the chief 
 among the works of Aethelwold. 
 
 Born towards the end of Eadgar's reign, he grew up, from 
 the beginning, in that atmosphere which Dunstan and Aeth- 
 elwold first had to create about themselves. He was of a 
 gentle and loving, yet decided, nature, and was educated in 
 the monastery school of Aethelwold, whom he ever held in 
 pious remembrance, and into whose ideas he completely en- 
 tered. Though lacking special energy of creative power, he 
 possessed, in a high degree, the gift of mental assimilation 
 of facts and ideas, and of moulding them into lucid coher- 
 ence; he also had great facility of expression. At once 
 cautious and bold, with a sure judgment on the practical 
 need of the moment, a nice tact in the management of per- 
 sons and affairs, this cultured priest, this monk of spotless 
 life, this learned divine, won many friends among both clergy 
 and laity. The Ealdorman Aethelweard, the son-in-law of 
 the heroic Byrhtnoth, was especially noteworthy among the 
 latter; in him was united literary culture, wide for a lay- 
 man, with a great fondness for monks, a quality also charac- 
 teristic of his famous father-in-law. Aethelweard's son 
 Aethelmaer seems to have stood even nearer to our Aelfric 
 than his father. 
 
 Aelfric was more than once employed in various ecclesi- 
 astical affairs, and especially, as his peculiar talent became 
 known, was he often called upon to compose writings, as the 
 needs of clergymen or laymen urgently required them. It 
 was only to respond to these needs, and not from any strong 
 creative impulse or lust of fame that Aelfric wrote, while he 
 gloriously continued the work of the great Aelfred, upon 
 whose style he had formed himself 
 
 His first work was apparently a double cycle of homilies 
 numbering eighty in all,^ and covering the entire ecclesias- 
 tical year. He dedicated this collection, known by the title 
 oi Homiliae Catholicae^ to the Archbishop Sigeric, who oc- 
 
 * Aelfric added several other homilies in a new edition of the second part of this col- 
 lection. 
 
I06 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 cupied the throne of Canterbury from 990 to 994. Com 
 pared with the Bückling IIo?nilies, Aelfric's sermons were 
 conspicuous for deep and genuine theological learning, of 
 which he made moderate use, adjusting it to the position of 
 his hearers. The church fathers served as his models and 
 sources, above all Gregory and Beda ; but he ever retained 
 a certain originality, and in the abridgment as well as the ex- 
 pansion of his original, he discloses a temperate and intelli- 
 gent mind. The following passage on the birth of the Holy 
 Virgin is characteristic for this mental tendency, which, with 
 the strictest devoutness shunned many of the extravagances 
 to which religious minds easily incline : 
 
 What shall we say in regard to the time of Mary's birth, save that 
 she was begotten by her father and mother like other people, and was 
 born on the day that we call sexta idus Septembris? Her father 
 was called Joachim and her mother Anna, pious people according to 
 the ancient law ; but Ave will write no more of them, lest we fall into 
 some error. The Gospel itself for this day is very hard for laymen 
 to understand ; it is, for the most part, filled out with the names of 
 holy men, and these require a very long explanation of their spiritual 
 meaning. Hence we leave it unsaid.* 
 
 Like his originals, and also like his predecessor, the Blick- 
 ling homilist, Aelfric gave preference to the allegorical inter- 
 pretation of the biblical text, yet usually with that caution 
 which we have praised in him, 
 
 Aelfric's style is conspicuous for clearness and graceful fin- 
 ish. His language has a more modern garb as to form and 
 phrase than the Aelfredian, and adapts itself more easily to 
 the sequence of thought. The tone of his sermons is more 
 intelligent and temperate than that of the Blickling Homilies ; 
 nevertheless it betrays warmth of feeling and a high concep- 
 tion of the preacher's calling, and occasionally rises to stir- 
 ring enthusiasm. Aelfric, too, was convinced that the last 
 day was imminent, and it was this conviction that decided 
 him to write his book, so that men, strengthened by " book- 
 learning," might resist the temptation awaiting them by the 
 Antichrist.^ 
 
 Aelfric had wished, in his English homilies, to supply a 
 need, not to pander to indolence; and to make the acquisition 
 of Latin easy to beginners, he next wrote a Latin grammar 
 
 • Hotnilies of Aelfric, Ed. Thorpe, II. 466. 
 »/^wT, 1.2. 4. 
 
WRITINGS OF AELFRIC. IO7 
 
 in English, an extract from Priscian's Institufwnes grammaf- 
 icae. A Latin -English glossary, topically classified, was 
 meant to promote the same object; as also the so-called 
 CoUoqmuin Aelfrici, a Latin discourse between teacher and 
 pupil, intended to impress upon the latter some of the more 
 difficult words indispensable in conversation. To the Collo- 
 quium is added an English interlinear version — at least in one 
 of the two manuscripts^ thathavecome to us. 
 
 A short physico-astronomical treatise in English may be 
 placed in the same period as these grammatical writings. Its 
 title is sometimes De tempori/ms, sometimes De computo, and 
 also De primo die saecu/i, and it treats the division of the year, 
 the stars, and some meteorological phenomena; it is com- 
 piled on the basis of various writings of Beda : De tempori- 
 tim ratioue, De tempoi'ibus, De natura rerum. 
 
 About the year 996, Aelfric gave to the English church, 
 particularly to the monasteries, a new collection of homifies, 
 in his Fassiofis (or rather Lives) of the Saints, Fassiones sauc- 
 toricin^ of which but a few have yet been published. He 
 here makes almost constant use of a kind of metre he had 
 already frequently employed in the older collection. One 
 can hardly say that he writes in verse. The freedom with 
 which the law of alliteration is handled, and the simple dic- 
 tion, that does not rise above the level of prose, makes the 
 designation rhythmical, alUterative prose most suitable for 
 this form. The qualities of style in Aelfric's alHterative hom- 
 ilies are of the same sort as those of his simple prose homilies. 
 
 It was chiefly Ealdorman Aethelweard and his son Aeth- 
 elmaer who had incited the composition of the /^<3;^i'/^;/^i" ^^;/^- 
 torum. We also ewe to the former, Aelfric's version of sev- 
 eral books of the Old Testament, which appeared about 997. 
 
 We find already in the Lives of the Saints two homilies, 
 epitomising the Old Testament books of Kings and Macca- 
 bees and both in alliterative form. Perhaps, at about the 
 same time, Aelfric rendered, likewise in alhteration, the books 
 of Judges and Esther. The free, though not alliterative ver- 
 sion of the book of Job was possibly produced somewhat 
 
 'In the Cotton MS. (Tib. A. 3.), not in the O.xford MS., which presents the Collo- 
 quium as extended by the later Aelfric (Aelfric Bata.). 
 
 S^me of these had doubtless already appeared as independent writings ; as the very 
 exhaustive Life of St. Martin after Sulpicius Severus and the Passion of St. Ead- 
 tnund after Abbo of Fleury. There are also homilies of different subject-matter among 
 the Lives of the Saintf, 
 
Io8 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 earlier; it much resembles the homily on Job in the second 
 cycle of the Homiliae catholicae. 
 
 Aelfric was now called upon by Aethelweard to translate 
 Genesis. But he hesitated to execute this wish ; many features 
 in the lives of the old patriarchs, as their polygamy, seemed 
 little fitted to serve as examples to English Christians. But 
 when Aethelweard told him he already had a translation of 
 Genesis from Isaac to the close, and that Aelfric need trans- 
 late only the beginning of the book, he reluctantly undertook 
 the task. Availing himself of the earlier fragmentary version, 
 and leaving untouched certain peculiarities of its language, 
 he rendered Genesis into good, vigorous, flowing English, 
 not without some slight omissions, but in the main, with fidel- 
 ity. The remaining books of the Pentateuch seem already 
 to have been at least partially translated. And in rendering 
 extracts from these, Aelfric again made use of the work of 
 his predecessors. He left the impress of his own style most 
 clearly in the version of the fourth Mosaic book ; here he is 
 as independent as in the first half of Genesis. The allitera- 
 tion, which he elsewhere employs for single passages, be- 
 comes dominant in this fourth book. Aelfric soon after added 
 an abridgment of the book of Joshua, likewise in alliterative 
 form. This version of the book of Judges was evidently later 
 appended by another hand to the whole. 
 
 Aelfric's fame had meanwhile been steadily growing. Bish- 
 op Wulfsige of Sherborne now commissioned him to compose 
 a pastoral letter to the priests of his diocese, who, it seems, 
 still resisted celibacy, and needed a new inculcation of the 
 dogmas and precepts adopted for the priestly order at the 
 Council of Nice. Aelfric probably performed his task to the 
 satisfaction of the bishop, certainly in a thorough and worthy 
 manner, and produced a work in two parts, known by the 
 title Cano7ies Aelfrici. It first treats of priesthood and the 
 way priests should live, and next offers special liturgical di- 
 rections, and the Hke. As may be imagined, the chapter on 
 celibacy plays a leading part. The short Latin letter to 
 Bishop Wulfsige, with which Aelfric accompanied his pastoral, 
 is interesting and characteristic of the author. 
 
 Brother Aelfric in humility to the reverend Bishop Wulfsinus, greet- 
 ing in the Lord. We have gladly obeyed thy command, but we did 
 not venture to write of the order of bishops; for it is your affair to 
 know how ye should be an example in right living for all, and should 
 
WRITINGS OF AELFRIC. IO9 
 
 exhort your subordinates by continued admonition to the salvation that 
 is in Christ Jesus. I say, nevertheless, that ye should speak more 
 frequently to your clergy and reprove their neglect ; for the canonical 
 directions and the holy church doctrine are nearly destroyed by 
 their perversity. Free then thy spirit, and tell them what command- 
 ments the priests and servants of Christ have to keep, lest thou thyself 
 go astray in like manner, if thou art as a mute dog. But we write 
 this letter which follows, in English, as if it were set down from thy 
 lips, and thou hadst thus spoken to the clergy under thee. 
 
 In the year 1005, the learned and deserving priest was in- 
 stalled as abbot of the convent of Eynsham in Oxfordshire. 
 The monastery was most richly endowed by Aethelmasr, who 
 had peopled it with Benedictines so that it was regarded as 
 a creation of that noble man. Aethelmaer himself spent a 
 large part of his later life in Eynsham, and through him Ael- 
 fric probably made the acquaintance of a number of men of 
 note in the vicinity. These induced him to undertake new 
 v/orks, and were able, on their part, to bring powerful influ- 
 ence to bear in the realisation of his ideas. Among them 
 were Wulfgeat of Ylmandune (Ilmingdon on the boundary 
 between the counties of Warwick and Gloucester), Sigwerd 
 of Easthealon in Oxfordshire, and Sigeferth.^ 
 
 To Wulfgeat he addressed a long epistle, chiefly treating, 
 besides some points of dogma, the duty of forgiveness. He 
 wrote a letter to Sigeferth "on the chastity which ordained 
 men should maintain " : the idea that lay very close to his 
 heart, and which he defended, when he could, though his 
 views were less rigid than those of Dunstan and Aethelwold, 
 and did not bluntly disdain every concession or compro- 
 mise. Finally he directed his tract De veteri et de novo testa- 
 fnento to Sigwerd. This is a popular introduction to both 
 Testaments, showing traces of Augustine's, and particularly 
 of Isidore's influence, and mainly intended to instruct the 
 laity, who are exhorted to read those parts of the Holy 
 Scriptures that had been translated into English. 
 
 Aelfric, at the beginning of his work as abbot, had early 
 made an extract from Aethelwold's version of the Benedict- 
 ine rule, for the monks of Eynsham. Not long after, he 
 wrought a beautiful monument to his beloved teacher, whose 
 work he continued; this was the Latin sketch Vita Ethel- 
 woldi^ dedicated to Bishop Kenulf of Winchester. His 
 
 I Wulfgeat, Sigwerd, and probably Sigeferth, were, like Aethelmser, royal thegns. 
 
no BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 ceaseless activity yielded several other writings: a tract on 
 the sevenfold gift of the Holy Ghost, a translation of the 
 rule of St. Basil, several homilies, and above all, a new pas- 
 toral letter, which he wrote about the year 1014, at the com- 
 mand of Archbishop Wulfstan of York. This letter is 
 called Sermo ad Sacej'dofes, and strikes one like a second, 
 revised and enlarged edition of that written for Wulfsige.^ 
 It contains the same directions and the same ideas, but 
 somewhat amplified, otherwise arranged, and more elabo- 
 rately supported. 
 
 So far as we can follow the busy career of Aelfric, he was 
 always the same in his aims, his ideas, and the manner of 
 bringing them into practice. His knowledge might increase, 
 his arguments might gain depth and stringency, but the es- 
 sence of his nature, as of his writings, remained the same. 
 He appears to us from the beginning a finished, completely 
 developed personality. Even his style is as lucid, fluent, and 
 upon occasion as forcible, in the first collection of homilies 
 as in his latest writings, although his command of language 
 and of alliteration increased as time went on. In resfard to 
 his art, it was perhaps unfortunate that Aelfric yielded so 
 early to the allurement of alliteration, which never lost its 
 hold upon him. The writings of the second period, almost 
 without exception, even including the rule of St. Basil and 
 the introduction to the Old and New Testaments, appear 
 with this adornment. The prose expression certainly did not 
 gain precision by this. 
 
 The year of Aelfric's death is unknown. His entire life 
 is contained in his works, and the former was early forgotten 
 in view of the latter, from which proceeded a most far-reach- 
 ing influence. 
 
 The English clergy was incited and enabled by Aelfric to 
 elevate the religious culture of the people. Through his 
 efforts there began anew to develop a certain intellectual and 
 literary activity in the English church, an activity fostered 
 mostly by the Benedictines. The period of literary produc- 
 tion opened by Aelfric was, it is true, more practical and 
 popular than scholarly in character. It brought to light 
 chiefly homihes, lives of the saints, translations, adaptations 
 
 ' This second pastoral letter ^is also in two parts, and is called dua-: rfistouie by 
 Aelfric himself. First written in Latin, it was turned into English at Wulfstan's com 
 mand. 
 
WULFSTAN. 1 1 1 
 
 of books on church chronology, of benedictw?ialia^ and of 
 service-books. But their effect upon the people and their 
 language was all the more direct on this account. The mere 
 existence of this literature is a proof that the English clergy 
 at the time of the Conquest were neither so ignorant nor so 
 idle as their opponents liked to represent them. 
 
 Still in Aelfric's hfetime, we meet another notable preacher, 
 who was probably moved by the great abbot to literary pro- 
 duction. This is the Wulfstan (Lupus) already mentioned, 
 who was archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023, and was at 
 the same time bishop of Worcester up to 10 16. We have, 
 besides an epistle to the people of his church-province, a 
 number of homilies from Wulfstan's pen, amounting, so far 
 as counted, to fifty-three. Only one of them has, as yet, 
 been published.^ It dates from the year 1012, a time when 
 the surfferings of the English people under the scourge of the 
 Danish invasion had reached their summit. The homilist, 
 with deep feeling, laments the irreligion and immoral lives 
 of the people, as the cause of their sorrows, and proclaims 
 the greater punishment that impends, the coming of Anti- 
 christ, the end of the world. All this is presented with less 
 literary finish and less art than by Aelfric ; yet with its plain 
 popular tone, it is rich in life and colour. 
 
 Aelfric had rendered in the English language a part of the 
 Old Testament, and, in his homilies, had given at least the 
 pericopes from the New, and it was not long before a com- 
 plete translation of the Gospels appeared. Translators also 
 directed their industry to writings of more questionable 
 value, as the so-called Evangelium Nicodemi, which was 
 probably turned into English in the first half of the eleventh 
 century. 
 
 A knowledge of the Latin language had been unquestion- 
 ably advanced and extended by the efforts of Aethelwold 
 and Aelfric. Toward the close of the tenth century, at- 
 tempts in Latin became more frequent. A more exact 
 knowledge of classical literature, and with it a better Latin 
 style, were, it is true, not attained until the period after the 
 Conquest, and with the energetic cooperation of the Nor- 
 mans. What Aethelwold and Aelfric themselves produced, 
 
 1 Sermo Lupi ad A nglos qjiando Dani ma.xhne perseaiti sunt eos. This sermon 
 was delivered four years before Aethelred's death. 
 
112 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 and what they inspired in others was not, however, without 
 momeot for the renaissance movement of the twelfth cent- 
 ury. We may mention, for example, the later Aelfric with 
 the surname Bata, who made additions to the Colloquiiun of 
 his teacher, and the monk and cantor of Winchester, Wuls- 
 tan, a pupil of Aethehvold, who wrote a book De tononcm 
 harmonia, put the Miracula sancti Swithu?n, by Lantferth of 
 the same school, into hexameters, sang in distichs ^ the re- 
 building of his church, and remodelled the Vita Ethelwoldi, 
 which thus gained litde save a few flowers of speech. 
 
 The intrusion of Latin is also noticeable in the national 
 chronicles. The chronicle of Fabius Quaestor Ethelwerdus, 
 whose identity with Aelfric's patron, Ealdorman Aethel- 
 weard, seems to be well established, was the first of a series 
 of attempts to relate more broadly in Latin, English history, 
 which Beda had treated with special reference to ecclesias- 
 tical affairs, and Asser, in the biographical sense. Drawn in 
 the main from the Winchester Ajuials^ and having little origi- 
 nality, Aethelweard's chronicle follows the threads of the nar- 
 rative down to Eadgar's death, the point where we dropped 
 our consideration of the writing of English annals in the 
 vernacular. 
 
 The chief seat of this annal-writing had hitherto been at 
 Winchester. But the historiographic ascendency of this city 
 was now past. Aethehvold and his successors seem to have 
 taken httle interest in the continuation of this national work. 
 A brief entry for the year looi and a few meagre annals to 
 fill out foregoing space was the last matter added in Win- 
 chester to the earlier records. The Parker manuscript seems 
 to have passed to Canterbury not long afterward. Other ec- 
 clesiastical centres became prominent : Canterbury, Worces- 
 ter, Abingdon. Work in Canterbury was at first confined to 
 the multiplication of the Winchester Annals. During the 
 first half of the eleventh century, two editions of them were 
 there copied, one of which extends to 997, the other to looi ; 
 but at the same time arose a truly productive activity in 
 Worcester. As early as the time of Aelfred the Great, North- 
 umbrian and Mercian annals had been here collected (per- 
 haps by Werferth's influence), and historical records had, as 
 
 ' Wulstan inserted this poem into the introduction to the Miracula, and likewise ia 
 the Vita EtJulwoldi, 
 
ENGLISH ANNALS. II3 
 
 it appears, been carried through the tenth century, though 
 with breaks of considerable length. About the year 1016, a 
 great compilation was instituted, in which the Winchester An- 
 nals were augmented by local matter, and continued to the 
 death of the second Aethelred. The reign of the great Cnut 
 (1016-1035) gave to England a long-wanting repose, but it 
 was little favourable to the national historiography. Yet the 
 rule of the Danish king upon the island in no respect involved 
 a suppression of the English element, which, on the contrary, 
 continued to assimilate the blood-related Norse element. The 
 official language was also under Cnut the West-Saxon. In 
 this dialect he promulgated his laws, which adjusted them- 
 selves in the main to those already long in force, and did not 
 annul West-Saxon, Mercian, or Danish law. As the most 
 cultivated of the lands united under Cnut's sceptre, England 
 became conspicuous in the north, and drew advantages from 
 her widened connections which proved fruitful for the future 
 of her commerce. But the reign of Cnut was nevertheless 
 a period of alien rule, of humiliation, which those must have 
 felt most deeply upon whose spirit chronicle or poetry had 
 most vividly impressed the picture of the glorious times of 
 an Eadweard, Aethelstan, Eadmund, or Eadgar. The na- 
 tional feeling of the English was roused to a higher pitch un- 
 der Eadweard the Confessor (i 042-1 065), the last scion of 
 the ancient race of native princes. The son of Aethelred 
 and Emma, it is true, had been brought up among his ma- 
 ternal relatives at the Norman court, and had grown fond of 
 French manners and of the French language. He sur- 
 rounded the English throne with French favourites, and gave 
 up his court to their influences. But it was precisely in this 
 first direct contact with the Romance element that the English 
 nation became truly conscious of its own individual being, 
 and that the instinct of self-preservation grew strong. The 
 same spirit that animated the finally victorious national party, 
 that stirred a Godwin and a Harold, filled also the annalist 
 of Worcester, who wrote in warm and graphic language of 
 the times of King Eadweard, of Godwin's banishment, and 
 his return. Historical pursuits also received a fresh impulse 
 in Abingdon, where a new recension of the English Atmals 
 was produced about 1046. It was based upon a transcript 
 of the Winchester recension made at Canterbury and extend- 
 
 I 
 
114 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 ing to 997, and upon a copy of the Worcester Annals, but 
 it was enlarged with original matter. Continued to 1056, 
 annalistic activity seems then to have slumbered in Abing- 
 don for some years. It awoke again under King Harold ; 
 his campaign against Harold Hardrada and his victory at 
 Stamford Bridge are the last events described in the Abing- 
 don chronicle. The Worcester annalists continued their nar- 
 rative, telling of William the Conqueror, and the great and 
 decisive battle that marks the close of this period. 
 
 About the time when the events impended that were to 
 direct the history, language, and literature of England into 
 quite new channels, we see the national idea assert itself 
 more powerfully than ever before in the English people, who 
 boldly expressed their unity and independence in choosing 
 Harold for their king. The English language had by that 
 time reached a high degree of culture and of aptitude for 
 the purposes of prose writing. Compared with former epochs, 
 it had gained great flexibility and lightness of movement. 
 The eloquence of the pulpit and the literature of theology in 
 general were in full florescence. National historiography 
 again began to show signs of vigorous life. The great age 
 of poetry was indeed past; but it was not impossible that a 
 new poetical epoch was near. New forms were developing 
 in the popular poetry, and new ideas were beginning to spread. 
 Even the song of Byrhtnoth' s Death, which breathes the 
 spirit of the Teutonic hero-age, as embodied in the institu- 
 tion of thegnhood, gives a more distinct expression of Chris- 
 tian views than is to be found in the earlier epic. The an- 
 tagonism between the Christian and the Pagan, the trust in 
 the Christian God, to which the French epos largely owes its 
 peculiar character, find in the poem of Byrhttioth emphatic 
 utterance, though they are not indeed the impelling principle 
 of the poem, and though, in the Englisli song, there is quite 
 lacking the idea of a historical mission of the nation to main- 
 tain and to extend the Church and Christendom. And new 
 material, a material which the romantic Middle Age loved 
 to shape and to adorn, had found access to English Hterature. 
 The Late Greek romance of Apollofiiiis of Tyre, which had 
 N^ost probably come to England in a Latin translation, ^ had 
 
 ' The oldest of the forms of the romance now accessible, also wears the garb of the 
 Latin language. 
 
CHIVALRY PREFIGURED. 1 1 5 
 
 already been translated into flowing English by a dexterous 
 pen. It was a story full of soft sentimentality and startling, 
 ill-connected adventures; yet it was not without exciting 
 situations and suggestive motives, which could even at the 
 end of his career, inspire a Shakspere with some of his finest 
 [: scenes. Its translation now disclosed a strange, new world 
 I to men who had been wont to delight in the songs of Beowulf, 
 I of Aethelstan, and of Byrhtnoth, a world in which all things 
 were softer and more full of grace, but of smaller mould than 
 nat home. The Alexander saga had likewise just entered 
 1 English territory, in a Letter of Alexajider to Aristotle^ and 
 \ men read with amazement of the Wonders of the Orient? 
 Thus, even before the Norman Conquest, there appeared 
 in England phenomena presaging the chivalrous, romantic X 
 Middle Age. Germs of a development according to the 
 spirit of this age existed; new germs would have been blown 
 hither from south and east; and who will say that this soil 
 could not have borne new fruit, even if the Norman con- 
 queror had not sown it with new seed ? It is easy to dis- 
 cover in the politics and social condition of the English realm 
 under Eadweard and Harold, the causes which must neces- 
 sarily have led to its ruin: the growing power of land pro- 
 prietorship, the decline of the class of freemen, the formation 
 of the new great earlships. It would be equally easy to 
 point out the obstacles in the intellectual life of the nation 
 which opposed a close blending of the old national thought 
 with the ideas that began to rule the world in the eleventh 
 century. Such reflections, however, are no less idle than 
 those which, in defiance of history, seek to prove the inter- 
 nal vitality of what has been destroyed by external force. 
 History is ever right, and needs no advocate. 
 
 -\^ 1 Epistola A lexandri ad magistrtitn suutit A ristotelem de situ Indiae. Narra- 
 ' tiuncnlae a7iglice coiiscriptae, Ed. T.O. Cockayne, p. i. Cf. Anglia, IV. 139. 
 "ih ' De rebus m Oriente mirabilibus. Ibid., p. 33. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 Tant ont li conteor conto 
 Et li fableor tant fabl^ 
 Por lor contes ambeleter 
 Que tot ont feit fables sanbler. 
 
 Wace. 
 
I. 
 
 After the close of the nmth century, the Normans had set- 
 tled on the north coast of France, on both sides of the Seine. 
 In the year 912, their leader Hrolf (Rolf, Rollo), took in 
 fief the terra Northma7i7ioriim of King Charles the Simple, 
 married his liege-lord's daughter, and was baptised. Thus 
 Normandy, enlarged in the course of time by the Bessin and 
 the Cotentin, became a French vassal state of much greater 
 political independence, but still less imbued with national 
 colour than were the Danish districts in England. How cos- 
 mopolitan this Norse pirate-people, with its various foreign 
 components, really was, first appeared in the presence of a 
 culture, not only far superior to its own, but which, like the 
 language forming its medium, was entirely foreign to it. 
 Happy in lands and possessions, the Normans married 
 French women, and to these naturally fell the training of 
 their children. Hence everything became Christian and 
 French among them in an incredibly short time. In the 
 capital of the dukedom, Rouen, the language of the fathers 
 had been forgotten as early as the reign of William Long- 
 sword, the son of Hrolf. The men of later generations re- 
 tained only an obscure remembrance of the origin of their 
 people. The Norman race in France in the eleventh cent- 
 ury was not more distinct from the other population of 
 northern Gaul than the people of one province generally 
 differed from those of another. 
 
 Those traits, however, which made them distinguished 
 were characteristic of the youth as well as the childhood of 
 the race. A fresh glow of life and energy pervaded all their 
 undertakings. They knew of no slackness ; everything was 
 done with ardour and thoroughness. They united, in rare 
 degree, the fire of enthusiasm with a clear practical insight, 
 with a fine instinct for the vital and future-building forces of 
 
 119 
 
I20 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 the time. The political organisation of their dukedom early 
 attested that fitness for the organisation of states and for leg- 
 islation which was to be later proved in larger tasks. In 
 religion they adopted the strictest form of the orthodoxy of 
 the time. Monachism found in Normandy the most favour- 
 able soil for its growth. A multitude of churches and con- 
 vents arose, and united with them were schools whose fame 
 soon sounded far and wide. The opening of the cloister 
 school of Le Bee in 1046, by Lanfranc of Pavia, was of de- 
 cided moment for the rise of learning in Normandy. Among 
 the many pupils whom the fame of the great theologian drew 
 thither, appeared one who was to become his teacher's co- 
 equal successor, Anselm of Aosta. The pious and profound 
 thinker, whose bold speculations opened a new epoch in 
 mediaeval scholastic philosophy, now took his place beside 
 the opponent of Berengar of Tours, the learned founder of 
 Rome's domination in the field of dogma. 
 
 The ancient Norman impulse of migration and adventure 
 found satisfaction in pilgrimages and in campaigns made by 
 single bands of young Normans, either in the service of 
 some foreign prince, or upon their own account in the retinue 
 of a native noble. The pilgrims were sometimes warriors as 
 well, and the campaigns often had reHgious aims. Wher- 
 ever the struggle against the enemy of Christianity, against 
 the Moors and Arabs, was waged, in Spain, in Sicily, in Apu- 
 lia and Calabria, the Normans stood in the van and dis- 
 tinguished themselves for bravery and adroitness. They 
 succeeded by their boldness and craftiness in conquering all 
 of Lower Italy, and afterwards also Sicily. It was in Italy 
 that the remarkable alliance between the papacy and the 
 Normans was made which left its impress upon the history 
 of the eleventh century, and had the most far-reaching con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Thus the Normans were, in the middle of the eleventh 
 century, at the head of western nations, famous for martial 
 virtue and diplomatic skill ; zealous sons of the church, pil- 
 lars of the papacy, intermediaries of the French element, in 
 whose formation they had been most influential; by their 
 ideas, manners, and entire culture, the first representatives 
 of chivalry, the first to realise that spirit which, not without 
 their continued cooperation, was to yield at the close of the 
 century its full results in the crusades. 
 
RESULTS OF THE CONQUEST. 121 
 
 And it was in the light of a crusade that Duke William, 
 that mighty ruler, of iron will and exhaustless resources, 
 made appear his expedition against England. He prevailed 
 upon Rome to bless his undertaking, her interests again co- 
 inciding with those of the Norman, and help poured in upon 
 him from all sides. His army was admirably equipped, and 
 its Norman nucleus was strengthened by troops from the 
 most diverse quarters of France, and from the adjacent 
 countries. He crossed the Channel, landed, and marched 
 to Hastings. No sooner had Harold, with great efforts, put 
 down his northern foe, than he heard of William's landing, 
 and summoning all his forces, he threw himself in the way 
 of his new enemy. After a long and bloody struggle on the 
 hills of Senlac, the quarrel was decided by Harold's death 
 and the final overthrow of his army ; and the groundwork 
 was laid for the conquest of England, which the year 1070 
 saw accomplished. 
 
 After the introduction of Christianity, no event was so de- 
 cisive in the development of the English nation as this con- 
 quest ; its importance far surpassed that of a change of dy- 
 nasty. 
 
 Through it England received a foreign aristocracy, foreign 
 judges and officials, foreign bishops and abbots, and in large 
 part, foreign monks in her cloisters. A new spirit penetrated 
 the English polity, the spirit of a Romanic feudal state; 
 though it here found an effective barrier in the national in- 
 stitutions, spared when possible, and above all in the power 
 of a kingship, to which not only the tenants-in-chief, but 
 every freeman in the realm had to swear fealty. A foreign 
 language was spoken at the court and the castles of barons 
 and knights. It found its way into the judicial courts, and 
 gradually into the Great Council, as the national assembly 
 grew from an English into a Norman body. Foreign man- 
 ners became prevalent in the higher circles. Norman build- 
 ings rose everywhere. A Norman-French literature began 
 to spring up in England. 
 
 The decisive battle of the year 1066, symbolical as it was 
 in its progress and issue, marks a turning-point in Eng- 
 lish, and even in European history. From the deeds of 
 Harold and his true followers comes a glimmer, as of the 
 splendid sunset of the ancient Teutonic hero-age. Upon 
 
122 THE TRANSITION PERTOD. 
 
 the Normans falls the dawning^ H2:ht of the Romantic Middle 
 Age, which now began to conquer the Teutonic realm of 
 culture. 
 
 II. 
 
 \Vlien the Normans went into battle at Senlac, they struck 
 up the So?ig of Rola?id. It was by no chance, then, that the 
 oldest form of this most venerable and powerful of all French 
 poems comes to us in an Anglo-Norman manuscript. The 
 Norman race had become so firmly imbued with the PVench 
 nationality that the memories, living chiefly in the Isle de 
 France, of the former greatness of the Frankish empire and 
 the sagas of Charlemagne and Roland, had become totally 
 assimilated by them; and these sagas formed the basis of the 
 French national epos. But this was not all. A positive and 
 powerful influence for the development ofthat epos had pro- 
 ceeded fi'om the Normans. Who but they had reanimated 
 the ideas pervading those ancient traditions, and made them 
 reflect the consciousness of the present : the idea of a hero- 
 ism fighting in the service of God and the church, the idea 
 of the great mission of the Franks? And again had not the 
 Normans aided in the dispossession of the ancient Carlo vin- 
 gians by a new and purely French dynasty ? This change 
 of dynasty plainly betokened that a new nation had sprung 
 from Roman-Celtic and Teutonic elements, and allowed the 
 recollection of the original antagonism between those ele- 
 ments to disappear. Thus the Norman race assisted at the 
 birth of the French national consciousness, and of its first 
 utterance, the national epos. 
 
 The So7ig of Roland is the work of a people, more skilled 
 in the poesy of the deed than the word. How reserved and 
 sober is its manner, disdaining every ornament ! But how 
 powerful is the conception of the whole, how symmetrical 
 and finished, how illumined in every part by the dominant 
 idea, is the composition ! Roland, the true vassal of his il- 
 lustrious uncle, the rock of the Christian cause, which is also 
 the cause of France, the knight without fear and without re- 
 proach, in whom the French nation perceived the ideal type 
 of its own being, falls a sacrifice to foul treason and his own 
 too high sense of honour. But his death is bloodily avenged; 
 the enemies of the faith are completely overthrown, and the 
 
SONG OF ROLAND. 12^ 
 
 cause which he has served through life is triumphant in spite 
 of the hero's downfall, indeed through his downfall. 
 
 To give an idea of the spirit and style of this poem, we 
 select the following passage, whose effect is not impaired by 
 having been often quoted in histories of literature. It con- 
 cerns the death of Roland : 
 
 Count Roland lay under a pine tree, his face turned toward Spain. 
 Many things there came to his remembrance : the many lands the hero 
 had conquered, sweet France, the men of his kindred, Charlemagne, 
 his liege-lord, who reared him. Then he cannot keep back tears and 
 sighs. But he \vould also not forget himself; he confesses his guilt 
 and implores God's mercy: "Truth of the Father which never de- 
 ceived, which awakened St. Lazarus from death, and saved Daniel from 
 the lions, save my soul from all perils that threaten it on account of 
 the sins that I have committed in my life." He offered to God his 
 right glove ; St. Gabriel received it from his hand. He held his head 
 bowed upon his arm ; with his hands folded he passed away. God 
 sent him his cherubim and St. Michael del Peril; with them came St. 
 Gabriel ; they bear the Count's soul into Paradise.^ 
 
 Like an Old German hero, Roland thinks in death of his 
 victories, of his liege-lord, of his kindred ; no tender feeling 
 for the forsaken loved one intrudes, for Alda, who will not 
 survive his fall. But he is mindful of his eternal welfare and 
 confesses his sins; he dies a vassal, a champion of God, who 
 takes him to himself. The Christian element has formed 
 that close union with the Teutonic hero-spirit, which is char- 
 acteristic of the French epos and the French nation. Such 
 a blending was possible only in a people which, like the West- 
 Franks and the Normans, had quite forgotten its pagan past 
 together with its mother tongue, and which, with new ele- 
 ments, had moulded a new nationality. 
 
 This is a branch of the Neo-Latin family, whose spirit is 
 stamped almost more clearly in the form than in the contents 
 of its epos. The verse does not depend upon those syllables 
 which, in virtue of their significance, are put forth with greater 
 emphasis, but all syllables seem of nearly equal value, and 
 the verse grows as if formed of rhythmical atoms, whose 
 number determines its character. Their order affects it only 
 in so far as the arsis at the end of the verse and in the caesura 
 requires an accented syllable. Instead of alliteration, which 
 makes words and ideas conspicuous, we have end-rhyme in 
 its original form, involving only the vowel-sounds (assonance), 
 
 > ChaTtson de Roland^ Ed. Theodor Müller, v. 2375-2396. 
 
124 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 by means of which the unity of each line is indicated, and 
 the single lines are joined in the unity of larger rhythmical 
 systems. These systems are as yet exceedingly simple; con- 
 tinuous assonance combines an unhmited number of ten- 
 syllabled Hues into a whole, complete and distinct in matter 
 as well as form. 
 
 Effects in style are produced with equally simple means. 
 If this kind of epic diction employs appositions and epithets 
 more profusely than prose speech — and this is true only 
 within limits, — yet these appositions and epithets are in them- 
 selves no more sensuous or figurative than those of daily 
 life, and there is nothing enigmatical or poetical about them. 
 Upon the whole, images or metaphors occur very rarely, 
 and but one simile has been discovered in the entire Song of 
 Roland. The construction is little involved, and is quite 
 unadapted to the expression of a complex thought-texture. 
 One brief sentence simply follows another without inter- 
 weaving, and often without connection. Words are arranged 
 with more freedom than in the later French, but this freedom 
 is sufficiently limited to make the arrangement always lucid. 
 
 If then the poet attains such grand effects with such hum- 
 ble means, it is because his soul is filled with grand ideas and 
 feelings, because he sees with great clearness and precision 
 the pictures and scenes he would portray, because he is able 
 to retain mentally his survey of both the objective and sub- 
 jective order of events, finally because he is content with the 
 simplest expression. Hence the animation and vividness of 
 his style, which sometimes inspires, sometimes moves and 
 thrills us; hence his ability to keep distinct the true sequence 
 of things, to grade the themes according to their impor- 
 tance, and thus to hold our interest and to increase it. His 
 field of view is indeed limited, and his aesthetic, as well as 
 his ethical sense is one-sided. He has not learned to differ- 
 entiate similar situations by arts of presentation; he rises to 
 true power only when the action reaches a climax. It is the 
 poetry of a gifted, but still slightly developed people, whose 
 soul is entirely filled by a few great ideas and glows for these 
 ideas with youthful fire. 
 
 The spirit that had created the Song of Roland g2.v^ birth 
 to the crusades. Under the influence of the revolution in 
 thought and manners arising from the crusades, the national 
 
THE FRENCH EPOS. 
 
 "5 
 
 epic of the French entered a new epoch of growth and propa- 
 gation. An enlarged cuhure had more sharply drawn the 
 hnes separating the higher classes from the masses; a chiv- 
 alrous and courtly poetry began to flourish, and the popular 
 song could not have escaped speedy deterioration and decay, 
 had not the caste of wandering players and singers, the j(7/ig- 
 Idurs, taken it up, and, as a medium between the various 
 classes of society, continued the traditions of the national 
 epos. Fostered by the jongleurs, the epos gained in scope 
 and diversity, in wealth of character and situations, what it 
 lost in intrinsic value. There arose a great number of inde- 
 pendent poems, whose germs had already existed in the 
 popular song, but which now received a complete epic mount- 
 ing and decoration. The memory of the great national con- 
 flict, lasting for centuries, against the unbelievers, provided 
 exhaustless material. There were also the feuds of the later 
 Carlovingians with their vassals, feuds which, in the epic 
 song, are nearly all fought out by Charlemagne himself More 
 rarely, the composition is biographical, whether concerning 
 Charlemagne or other members of his house. But in the 
 remoter provinces there was no lack of independent sagas, 
 forming special epic cycles, though their structure, too, was 
 determined by the attraction proceeding from the centre. 
 
 Anglo-Norman England remained somewhat alien to this 
 entire epic development as it culminated in France after the 
 close of the eleventh century — or rather, it shared it but re- 
 ceptively. The Normans beyond the Channel did not cease 
 to listen gladly to the songs of Charlemagne and his battles, 
 of his vassals and his foes, to receive well the epic singers 
 who came over from the continent, and to show them hos- 
 pitality; but the time when the Norman race had taken an 
 active part in the formation of the French national epic was 
 past. Numerous as were the germs of epic production the 
 Norman had scattered in France, he did nothing to promote 
 their development. Severed from the French nation, he felt 
 self-sufiicient in England, and he soon began to be at home 
 on this foreign soil. He here found himself confronted by 
 new and great tasks. How would he have been able to 
 perform them, had he continued, as in former times, the same 
 close relation with the French national genius ? There even 
 ^.rose a feeling of antagonism among the Normans of Nor- 
 
120 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 mandy against the true Frenchman, a feeling which, from 
 the middle of the twelfth century onwards, fast grew more 
 bitter, and finally turned into keen hatred. 
 
 But this was not all. With the eleventh centuiy ended 
 the Norman heroic age. The flame of enthusiasm for youth- 
 ful ideals subsided. The sober quality directed to the prac- 
 tical and useful, as well as a certain tendency to irony, to 
 light mockery, reappeared more strongly in the race. 
 
 It is significant that even before the close of the eleventh 
 century, Norman poetry could produce a work like the 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 The poem belongs to the French national cycle, but its 
 position there is exceptional. One is almost tempted to re- 
 gard it as a parody of the c/iansons de geste. 
 
 The poet draws from the popular tradition, touching 
 Charlemagne's journey to the Holy Land, and circulated as 
 early as the tenth century. The relics in St. Denis were also 
 connected with it. In the poem, Charlemagne, returning 
 from the Orient, brings with him the chalice which Christ 
 used at the Lord's Supper, and this is not unimportant in 
 considering the origin of the Graal-saga. 
 
 The Norman poet interwove with this venerable tradition 
 a theme which would have harmonised better with the tone 
 of iht fabliau than that of the epos. Charlemagne and his 
 twelve peers, at the court of Constantinople, deport them- 
 selves like swaggerers, and take it upon tliemselves to exe- 
 cute all sorts of tricks, some of them of doubtful morality. 
 Forced to make good their jocose boasts, they get out of 
 their embarrassment only by supernatural aid. That the 
 reputation of these heroes is, nevertheless, not dragged in 
 the dust, that Charlemagne especially does not impair his 
 dignity, and that, in this strange amalgamation of a religious 
 and a frivolous secular element, the former receives no in- 
 jury, is a strong testimonial to the tact and talent of the 
 poet. 
 
 One of the many attractive qualities of the Charlemagtie is 
 its metre. The epic tirade of the poem does not flow in 
 lines of ten syllables, but in Alexandrines, which we first meet 
 here, and which, with this sole exception, were long unknown 
 to the French national epic. 
 
 Learning and literature could be more readily transplanted 
 to England than living popular poetry. 
 
CONTINENTAL LEARNING IN ENGLAND. I27 
 
 France was then, and became ever more the centre of 
 learned culture in Europe, and Normandy took an active 
 part in the intellectual movement which passed through the 
 country. 
 
 Scholarship had not failed, even before the Conquest, to 
 form relations between England and the adjacent continent. 
 Englishmen finished their training in French or Flemish con- 
 vents; French or Flemish ecclesiastics went to England, 
 where their knowledge and industry were eagerly welcomed. 
 What an impulse must this intercourse have gained when 
 England was joined to Normandy by a thousand threads, 
 when Lanfranc sat upon the archiepiscopal seat of Canter- 
 bury and began energetically to romancise the English 
 church and clergy! England, though not at once its Eng- 
 lish-speaking population, was entirely drawn into the stream 
 of scholarly Hfe v/hich circulated upon the continent. The 
 fame and prosperity of the French schools were most potent 
 in maintaining this intellectual intercourse. The lustre 
 which the university of Paris began to shed in the twelfth 
 century tended above all to promote it. Thousands of 
 youths, eager for knowledge, wandered from the British 
 island to the chief seat of scholastic learning, with which the 
 university of Oxford, then in its first stages, could not seri- 
 ously compete. The new theories set up by French think- 
 ers, the conflicts fought in the French church and theology, 
 were at once echoed in England. 
 
 A rich, learned, and ecclesiastical literature in the Latin 
 language arose in England soon after the Conquest. Among 
 the many Norman and other foreign ecclesiastics who came 
 to England in the train of the conqueror, in order there to 
 procure livings and stations of honour, to fill newly founded 
 monasteries, or to take the best places in earlier founda- 
 tions, were many who united scholarly culture with vigorous 
 productivity. They were throughout far superior to the 
 English clergy in their acquaintance with the Latin classical 
 writers, and in the purity of their Latin style as well as their 
 dialectic training. A pordon of the native clergy soon 
 joined the new-comers, learned from them, and worked on in 
 their spirit; some even in distant lands gathered new learn- 
 mg, while others lingered in a sort of national isolation upon 
 an antiquated level. In the second and third generation, 
 
128 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 besides immigrants and men of English blood, the sons of 
 the conquerors themselves, in part children of mixed nation- 
 ality, and also Welshmen, bore aloft the torch of learning, 
 which attracted an ever-increasing number of disciples 
 about it. 
 
 The most diverse branches of learning and science were 
 cultivated in England, and works were produced in nearly 
 every field. 
 
 As archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc wrote, about 1080, 
 his famous Liber scinfillanu?!. He there defended the the- 
 ory of transubstantiation as the orthodox doctrine of the 
 eucharist, and strove to prove heretical the opposite view of 
 Berengar of Tours, which was closely related to the ideas of 
 the Old English church. Anselm, who died in 1109, com- 
 posed in England his De ijicaniatione Verbiß and there he 
 began the tract Cur de us Jiomo?^ which he finished in Italy. 
 In England, too, he wrote, in later years, his treatise De 
 vohuitate^ and the profound investigation. De concordia prae- 
 scieiitiae et praedestinationis et gratiae Dei cu?n liber a?'bit?'io. 
 The monk Osberne of Gloucester wrote, in 11 50, a commen- 
 tary to the Pentateuch and the book of Judges. The learned 
 Robertus PuUus lectured at Oxford upon the Holy Script- 
 ures, and later (1144 and '45) became cardinal in Rome and 
 chancellor of the Romish church. He compiled a sort of 
 compendium of theological learning [Libri sente?iiiarum). 
 Hugo of Rouen (died 11 64), the acute author of the Quacs- 
 iioiies theohgicae, Robert de Melun (died 1167), whose spec- 
 ulations took bold flight in his Summa sententiarum (or 
 Sum7ua theotogiae), both belonged to England during part 
 of their hves ; the latter having been born and having died 
 in that country. 
 
 It is not easy to find one's way through the ascetic and 
 devotional literature, especially through the mass of hves of 
 the saints, which appeared in that age. Some of these le- 
 gends served to enlarge the circle of admirers of many saints 
 ignored by the Old Englisli authors, especially Irish and 
 Welsh worthies, while some English saints found difficulty 
 in maintaining their position before the sharp-scented Nor- 
 man orthodoxy. But a finer taste, a better Latinity, gradu- 
 ally came into vogue even in these truly monkish fields of 
 literature, since the greatest writers did not disdain to labour 
 
SCIENTIFIC WRITINGS. 1 29 
 
 in them. We would next mention an author who is note- 
 worthy, neither on account of great classical learning nor 
 aesthetic culture, but for a subjective intensity related to mys- 
 ticism; this is Ailred (Aethelred) of Rievaux (died 1166), a 
 man narrowed by monasticism, severely ascetic, but filled by 
 the warmest Christian charity. He was the author of the 
 Specuhim charitatis, of the dialogue De spirittuili aniicitia^ of 
 the Liber de institutione i7iclicsarum^ and many other theo- 
 logical and historical writings. 
 
 The mathematical and natural sciences were ardently cul- 
 tivated. As early as 1082 appeared Gerland, the author of a 
 Computus and a treatise on the Abacus. Roger, surnamed 
 Infans, composed a new Computus (or Compot^is, as he writes 
 it,) about the year 1124. By this time, Aethelard (Aethel- 
 ward) of Bath had already begun to make accessible to the 
 West the more richly- developed and bolder learning of the 
 Arabs, which he had sought at its fountain-head. He made 
 translations of both astronomical and mathematical writings, 
 including the elements of Euclid, and more original compi- 
 lations and treatises. He was animated by a passionate love 
 of scientific knowledge, a passion which he had expressed 
 under the veil of a graceful allegory in his treatise De eodem 
 et diverso. He bravely fought the bHnd faith in authority 
 dominant in the West, and asserted the rights of reason, 
 while he strove above all to estabHsh in his Quaestiones natu- 
 rales the reasonableness of the new physical theories derived 
 from the x\rabs. In 1140 the Anglo-Norman Robert de Re- 
 tines sat with his student friend the Dalmatian Hermann at 
 the feet of Arabian teachers at Evora in Spain, where he was 
 chiefly occupied with astronomical studies, which he inter- 
 rupted to translate the Koran into Latin, at the wish of the 
 abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable. 
 
 With scientific learning, Latin poetry also took a new im- 
 petus. We have a poem on the campaign of Hastings i^De 
 bello Hastingensi^ or de Hastingae praelio) by Bishop Guy of 
 Amiens, who accompanied Queen Matilda to England, as 
 almoner, in the year 1068. If in this piece the form is much 
 inferior to the substance, the epigrams of Godfrey of Win- 
 chester (died 1 107) denote great skill, happily caught from 
 Martial, in the management of his poetical resources, as well 
 as a purity of style and language noteworthy for the Middle 
 
 J 
 
 • 
 
130 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 Ages. Again, Reginald of Canterbury (about 11 20) united 
 considerable classical culture with great technical skill ; but, 
 fettered by the charm of rhyme, he wearies the ear and of- 
 fends the taste, in his long-winded legend of St. Malchus, by 
 an unbroken chain of leonine hexameters. He sometimes 
 finds the right tone, however, in minor poems, and he sings 
 a charming hymn of praise, in rhymed half-hexameters, to 
 his evidently South-French home Fagia.^ Not long before 
 the middle of the twelfth centur}', Laurence of Durham told, 
 in his Hypognosticoti^ the biblical history in well-constructed, 
 flowing distichs, — a work showing industrious study of clas- 
 sical authors, and not deficient in fine ideas and elegance of 
 expression ; whereas in the Coiisolatio pro inorte a?nici, following 
 the footsteps of Boethius, he interwove in his prose dialogue 
 varying rhythmical passages, not inartistically constructed. 
 Laurence's contemporary, Henry of Huntingdon, known 
 chiefly as a historian, also successfully tried his powers in di- 
 dactic, lyrical, and epigrammatic poetry. 
 
 Most important, however, for the uses of the present age, 
 is the historical literature of that time. There had existed a 
 Norman historiography since the end of the tenth century. 
 Dudo of St. Quentin then wrote, in vivid, lofty, but some- 
 times bombastic style, and often in barbarous Latin, his three 
 books on the manners and deeds of the earlier Norman 
 dukes (to the death of Richard L, in 996). The somewhat 
 simpler and terser Historiae Norma?iJioriwi by William of 
 Jumieges belongs to the second half of the eleventh century. 
 Depending entirely upon his predecessor for the period of the 
 earlier dirkes, he carried his account beyond the battle of 
 Senlac. Soon after 1135 he himself had a successor who 
 continued his work, and others later supplied interpolations. 
 Another William, named de Poitiers, from the city v.-here he 
 received his first training, upon his return to Normandy, 
 served the conqueror, first as soldier, then as court chaplain, 
 and he finally became archdeacon of Lisieux. He described 
 the life and acts of his mighty patron in a work breathing a 
 spirit of warmest panegyric, but containing a mass of inter- 
 esting facts. This was his Gesta Guilelmi duels Norman?io- 
 
 ' That is, in hexameters with middle and end-rhyme, according to the following 
 scheme : 
 
 _L \j o ±0 v-> JL {| L \J ^ JL V^ W JL W 
 
HISTORICAL WRITINGS. I3I 
 
 rum et regis Anglorum ; its style denotes a not unsuccessful 
 attempt to emulate the classical models, from which indeed 
 many flourishes are borrowed. 
 
 In England, too, arose, after the Conquest, a lively interest 
 in historical studies and it extended to the highest ranks of 
 the clergy. As an example we may cite Ernulf of Beau va is, 
 abbot of Peterborough (1107), and afterwards bishop of 
 Rochester (11 14). The student of history owes to him the 
 important collection of records known by the name of Texhis 
 Raffe jisis. Numerous biographies and local chronicles origi- 
 nated in the most diverse places. There were also works cf 
 broader purpose and more general import. The English 
 monk Eadmer of Canterbury, the warm follower and admirer 
 of Anselm, recounted theiiistory of his own time in the His- 
 toria 7iovorum, embracing the period from 1066 to 1122. 
 This is a very important authority to the historian, and the 
 author added a most valuable supplement to it in his Vita 
 Anselmi. Another historian, Ordericus Vitalis (1075-1143), 
 was the son of a married priest of Orleans, but was himself 
 born in England, on the banks of the Severn, and was brought 
 up there until his tenth year. He wrote a Historia ecclesias- 
 tica in thirteen books in the abbey of St. Evroult in Nor- 
 mandy, where he spent nearly all his later life. He made 
 use of many and most various authorities, especially French 
 and Norman, as well as Enghsh, and at times he inserted his 
 originals entire into his text. The parts of this vast work did 
 not originate at the same time, nor all in the order finally as- 
 signed to them. Ordericus's history offers first a chronicle 
 extending from the birth of Christ to the author's time, and 
 having special reference to ecclesiastical matters. The his- 
 tory of the Norman wars and the Norman church is then 
 traced to the death of the Conqueror, and the historical ac- 
 count continues dovv'n to the year 1 141. Tlie work of Orderi- 
 cus is a mine, rich in a material, not fully purified, but very 
 attractive and valuable, especially to the historian of culture. 
 On the whole, it is an important authority for the period after 
 the Conquest. 
 
 Florence of Worcester and Simeon of Durham, both of 
 whom wrote and died before Ordericus, stand somewhat 
 apart from the stream of Norman historiography, although 
 they were not untouched by the historical atmosphere that 
 pervaded that age; they turned to the past life of England. 
 
132 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 Florence's Chronicon ex chfonUis, carried from the creation 
 of the world to the year of the author's death (11 18), is es- 
 sentially a compilation of the universal chronicle (extending 
 to 1082) of Marianus Scotus,^ which it continues, and of the 
 English Afuials of Worcester. As a historical authority, it 
 is in itself much inferior to the continuation (to 1141) w^hich 
 it soon received from an anonymous hand. The Hisforia de 
 gestes regum Anglorum (to 1129), by Simeon of Durham, is 
 more valuable, though not more original; the author was 
 able to draw, not only from Florence and editions of the 
 English annals accessible to us, but also from lost Northum- 
 brian sources. 
 
 Since Beda, who, moreover, was chiefly a church historian, 
 no writer of Enghsh histor}' had been found equal to this 
 task; for the excellent qualities of the annals written in the 
 national language were confined to the descriptions of single 
 battles, undertakings, occurrences, or to brief retrospects, and 
 writers Hke Aethehveard, like Florence and Simeon, followed 
 the annals as regards form and matter. A connected, prag- 
 matical handling of the material, which had swollen to meas- 
 ureless proportions since Beda's day, a treatment based upon 
 cautious use of the now still more copious sources, and car- 
 ried out in an even, appropriate style, did not exist. But 
 soon after Simeon, there appeared in WiUiam, a monk and 
 librarian in the convent of ]Malmesbury, a writer who tried 
 his powers in the production of such a work. Given to 
 study from tender youth, brooding over books, WiUiam ac- 
 quired a great store of reading in the most diverse fields of 
 literature. But his favourite pursuit w^as history, and he may 
 early have become conscious of the deep chasm w^hich 
 yawmed between the ancient masters of history, and the 
 modern annalists and chroniclers, especially those of his own 
 country. The question doubtless soon arose in him whether 
 this chasm might not somehow be bridged. Of sound judg- 
 ment and not uncultivated taste, William was the man to 
 make a correct choice from the rich material which his learn- 
 ing opened to him, to connect and judiciously to group de- 
 tails, and to present them in pleasing form. Yet criticism in 
 the sense of our time is as little to. be found in his works as 
 
 ' By birth an Irishman, who lived in Germany, first as monk and then as an im- 
 mured hermit, and who died at Mainz in 1082 or 1083. 
 
WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY. 1 33 
 
 a profound view of historical development. He adopted 
 without scruple many errors and fables, and the more artistic 
 form of his composition not rarely endangered the integrity 
 of his matter. His range was, however, broad for a monk 
 of the twelfth century, and he was in the main just. He 
 was the offspring of mixed parentage, we may suppose, 
 of a Norman father and an English mother; and hence he 
 was able to do justice to the excellences of both races, and 
 not to underestimate their faults. Above all, he loved his 
 country, and particularly the spot where he lived, and where 
 centuries before Aldhelm had held sway, and now lay buried. 
 He was strongly attracted by the past of English history. 
 Its more ancient epochs after the introduction of Christianity 
 appeared to him in an ideal light, while the period just be- 
 fore the Conquest, as he saw it, was somewhat dimmed by 
 the clouds in which Norman prelates and courtly historiog- 
 raphers sought to envelop it. His writings are very valu- 
 able for the investigator of Old English history, and not least 
 so for the student of literature. First among them should be 
 mentioned his Historia regum Angloriwt, extending from the 
 English immigration to 11 20, to which was later added the 
 Historiae Jtoveliae, embracing the period from 11 26 to 1143 > 
 and further, his four books De gestis poJitificum Angloriim^ 
 his life of Aldhelm, and his work De antiquitatibus Glaston- 
 iensis ecclesiae. 
 
 As a historian, Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, does 
 not rank so high as William of Malmesbury, but he is well- 
 nigh equally important as an authority, and in another re- 
 spect is especially attractive. In his youth he had written 
 Latin verse, and, in the year 1135, he had handled in his 
 De sunitnitatibiis renim^ the then burning question as to the 
 time of the end of the world. He then undertook, at the 
 wish of Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, a history of England, 
 which he carried first to the year 1135, and later to 11 54. 
 Beda and the English Ajinals were his chief authorities for 
 the Old English period, and he often merely copied or 
 translated them. But he likewise drew from oral tradition 
 and from popular poetry. He translated from the A?t7iah 
 into his Latin, though not without some errors, the beautiful 
 song on the Battle of Brtmanbtirh ; he interwove in his prose 
 several verses from tlie now vanished works of Middle Latin 
 
134 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 poets; and, judging from analogy, the rhetorical colour of 
 his style, as well as the picturesque details of his narrative, 
 not rarely seem to be the reflection of a popular song no 
 longer extant. The account of the Anglo-Norman period is 
 rich in new and weighty information, particularly the epoch 
 about which Henry professes to write as an eye-witness, or 
 from the statements of eye-witnesses and well-informed per- 
 sons. 
 
 In the midst of this circle of historians we also find Geof- 
 frey of Monmouth, where he has almost the air of an in- 
 truder. He became bishop of St. Asaph in the year 1152 
 and died about 1154. He was not unlikely a native of 
 Wales ; undoubtedly he w^as acquainted with the Cymric 
 language. He was, moreover, versed in the legendary lore 
 of several nations, was well read in the poets, and him- 
 self possessed no slight liking for, and skill in story-telling. 
 So he wrote, in the fourth decade of the century (about 
 1 132-35), his Historia Britonum, a monument of stupendous 
 delusion \ but in which he seems to have been the deceiver 
 rather than the deceived. The Celtic world in England had 
 been thrown by the Conquest into a sort of ferment. The 
 ancient enemies of the British race had been crushed by a 
 foreign power, and their attempts to shake off the strange 
 yoke had been terribly punished ; so terribly that the Eng- 
 lish population was decimated in the extreme south-west of 
 the island, and the Britons rose again for a time. New hopes 
 and ancient memories aw^oke among the Celts, and the brac- 
 ing intellectual atmosphere that entered the island with the 
 Normans, the cosmopolitan character which they, unlike the 
 Angles, exhibited, as well in literature as in all other things, 
 yielded fresh impulses and fresh means to give definite shape 
 to the thoughts thus engendered. Men dreamed of the res- 
 toration of the former greatness of the British realm, and told 
 the tales of Merlin and his prophecies. Scholars ascribed 
 the origin of the British people to Troy, as had long before 
 been done concerning the Franks. The long interval between 
 the settlement of Britons in Albion and the beginning of au- 
 thentic history seemed veiled in mysterious gloom, from 
 which a few vague legendary forms now and then emerged. 
 But the period of the Saxon immigration was peopled by 
 many heroes celebrated in bardic songs, though their glory 
 
GliOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, I35 
 
 was beginning to be eclipsed by the name of Arthur. This 
 name first denoted a heroic leader of the Britons, a conqueror 
 of the Saxons in twelve battles, and later, when the British 
 traditions had received a richer cast and form under the in- 
 fluence of the Charlemagne-saga, a mighty king and world- 
 conqueror. Arthur's heroic deeds and the origin of the Brit- 
 ons, whose name is connected with a Roman consul called 
 Brutus, were treated in a Latin history of the Britons, of 
 most doubtful age. Its author bears very diverse names, 
 but is best known by that of Nennius. This work arose per- 
 haps not long before the time of Geoffrey, and upon it he 
 founded his new Histofia Brifomim or Historia regiim Brit- 
 an7iiae. He drew from ancient poets and prose writers, as 
 well as the most various traditions and fables, and often gave 
 rein to his own fancy. He thus clothed the skeleton with 
 flesh and blood, and submitted to an amazed world and to 
 his colleagues William of Malmesbury and Henry of Hunt- 
 ingdon, who had heard nothing of these things, a long com- 
 plete genealogy of British rulers, together with an account 
 of the cities they had founded, the deeds they had done, and 
 the events of their lives. The learned world now heard for 
 the first time of Locrine, of Gorboduc, of Leir (Lear) and his 
 daughters. But above all the figure of Arthur now stood forth 
 in brilliant fight, a chivalrous king and hero, endowed and 
 guarded by supernatural powers, surrounded by brave war- 
 riors and a splendid court, a man of marvellous life, and a 
 tragic death. Accurate chronological and geographical state- 
 ments, a thread of authenticated English and general history, 
 gave to this narrative an air of historical fidefity ; and this 
 was heightened by the fiction of a British (or Cymric) book, 
 which Geoffrey professed to have received from Walter, arch- 
 deacon of Oxford, and to have used conscientiously as his 
 authority. 
 
 If there were many scholars who saw through this tissue 
 of fies, the great mass were carried away by it. Men believed 
 the stories presented with so much gravity by a Benedictine 
 and a bishop, and they certainly found their contents most 
 fascinating. The sense of the marvellous and the mysterious 
 was nourished not less than the sense of the chivalric and 
 heroic, or the love for the glitter and splendour of a kingly 
 life; and Geoffrey's rhetorical, even poetical, style brought 
 to bear with their full force all these elements. 
 
136 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 The effect of the work was therefore tremendous. Geof- 
 frey's influence grew through the entire course of the Middle 
 Ages, and spreading in a thousand channels, reached far into 
 modern times, down to Shakspere, nay to Tennyson. 
 
 The Historia Britoincm was epitomised, before the middle 
 of the twelfth century, by Alfred of Beverley, and he appended 
 to his extract fi-om Geoffrey an account from other authors 
 of the English, and of the Norman period (to 11 29), in his 
 Afuiales sive Historia de gestis regum jBrita?miae. About the 
 same time, Geoffrey's fictions entered the Norman national 
 literature. 
 
 III. 
 
 Anglo-Norman poetry, to judge from its remnants, made 
 its debut, in the beginning of the twelfth century, with didac- 
 tic rhymes and legendary poems, to which were soon added 
 chronicles in verse. The connection with the Latin litera- 
 ture of the epoch is clearly evident. 
 
 As regards metre, these poems were the first in which non- 
 strophic couplets were employed. The older French poesy 
 •was strophic throughout, because it was sung, though in part 
 merely, in the manner of a recitative. This is likewise true 
 of the legendary poetr}^; not only in those cases where, as in 
 the Chanson d' Alexis, it made use of the epic measure and 
 continuous assonance (the epic tirades having, however, a 
 fixed number of lines), but also in poems where it offers a 
 series of shorter lines rhymed in pairs, as in the Song of 
 Lcodegar. Learned treatises could indeed be put into rhyme 
 and metre, but they could be sung less readily, and as soon 
 as men began to read and recite, it was no longer necessary 
 to make a pause after every two or three pairs of Hnes. 
 Hence the non-strophic couplet followed of itself. Another 
 result of reading and writing in the place of singing was the 
 conversion of assonance into rhyme, though at first the lat- 
 ter was not used without occasional liberties. 
 
 Henr}^ I. was a pupil of Lanfranc, and, as his surname 
 Beauclerc seems to indicate, himself gave proof of a literary 
 interest. Under him wrote Philipe de Thaun, whose family 
 probably originally resided in the city of Than, near Caen, 
 in Normandy, and may in part have emigrated to England. 
 
PHILIPE DE THAUN. I3 
 
 About II 13 or 1 1 19 he produced his Compuhis or Cumpoz. 
 Like his Latin predecessors, he treats, in the interest of the 
 church fservice, the divisions of time, the zodiac, the moon, 
 etc., as well as the church seasons of fasting and festival, 
 now and then adding an allegorical interpretation. His 
 authorities were Beda, Gerland, and other computers named 
 by him. This work was dedicated to the author's uncle, 
 Hunfrei de Thaun, chaplain of the royal seneschal Yun 
 (Eudo). It has come to us in incomplete form. There is 
 not much to regret in this, however; for the rather unpoetical 
 topic gained little by the poetical form adopted, and Philipe's 
 short six-syllabled^ verse, in which the rhyme so often recurs, 
 impaired his style, as well by the excessive curtailment as 
 by the meaningless expansion of his sentences. He displayed 
 greater skill in his next poem, the Bestiaire, whose subject- 
 matter is more entertaining. He dedicated it to Adelaide de 
 Louvain, who had married King Henry in 11 21. The 
 Bestiaire is an Anglo-Norman Physiologies, whose Latin 
 sources are not yet accurately established, but which system- 
 atically separates the " beasts " [bestes) from the birds, and 
 then, apparently as an afterthought, adds to these two divis- 
 ions a third on stones. Philipe wrote this poem, too, mainly 
 in lines of six syllables. He chose in the third section, how- 
 ever, a more convenient metre, the octosyllabic. This meas- 
 ure had been employed, with the strophic form, as early as 
 the tenth century (compare the poems on the Passion of 
 Christ and on Leodegar); and in the non-strophic form, it 
 was to become the prevailing metre for scholastic poesy, for 
 the romance of chivalry, and for the poetical tale. 
 
 Before Philipe's Physiologus another poem by another 
 hand had been dedicated to Queen Adelaide : the Legend of 
 St. Brandan. Its author called himself Benedeit (Benedict), 
 with the designation apostoile {apostoliciis), which surely can- 
 not here mean pope, as it usually does. It is significant 
 that the Anglo-Norman poetry, from the very beginning, 
 celebrated Celtic saints, and did not confine itself to such as 
 had taken a part in the conversion of England, as had the 
 Scottish monks in Northumbria. The legend of Brandan, 
 it is true, was peculiarly suitable to an age in which the cru- 
 
 1 The couplet of lines in six syllables can, from its origin, be regarded as an Alexan- 
 drine with leonine rhymes. 
 
138 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 sades flourished, and the eyes of men were directed long- 
 ingly toward the far-away East, with its hidden wonders. 
 Brandan was an Irish abbot of the sixth century; in the 
 legend, founded upon the tales of Irish sailors, he makes a 
 journey of discovery to the earthly paradise, the terra repro- 
 juissionis sa?iciorum. The holy abbot sails far over bound- 
 less seas, accompanied by seventeen of his monks, not all 
 of whom are again to see their native land. Upon this 
 journey they encounter strange adventures, marvellous creat- 
 ures, often of frightful, and sometimes of pleasing or ven- 
 erable aspect, enchanted islands, danger and distress, from 
 which God's hand ever saves them. They even glance in 
 passing at the terrors of hell, and meet the traitor Judas upon 
 a rock in the sea, a helpless victim of the waves, which make 
 their horrid sport with him, on the few days when he is 
 allowed to take breath after the torments of hell. Finally, 
 after more than seven years of wandering, they reach para- 
 dise, which is veiled in thick clouds and surrounded by a 
 wall of gold and precious stones. An angel receives them, 
 and opens to them the gate guarded by dragons and a fiery 
 sword, and lets them gaze upon some of the deHghts and 
 wonders which it contains. He then dismisses them to re- 
 turn home enhghtened and comforted. This legend had 
 been written down in Latin in the tenth century, or per- 
 haps earlier, with the title Navigatio sa?icti Brendaui. The 
 Anglo-Norman poet drew from this source, and, in the main, 
 followed it faithfully ; three adventures are omitted by him, 
 but the hell-torments of Judas are specified for each day of 
 the week. In his verse the legend appears at its best, pos- 
 sessing, as it does, the naive charm of mystery, though it has 
 likewise the blemish of a fancy distorted by prejudice. His 
 style is simple and clear, and not without a tinge of that se- 
 vere elegance which distinguished the Norman clerical po- 
 etry generally. The metrical form of this poem is peculiar. 
 There are short couplets, all of whose lines literally number 
 eight syllables. But considered from the standing-point of Ro- 
 manic versification, we must say that couplets of octosylla- 
 bics with masculine rhymes alternate with couplets of seven- 
 syllabled lines having double endings. Is this to be ascribed 
 to the influence of English versification, according to which 
 
GEOFFREY GAIMAR. I39 
 
 the double ending beginning with a long syllable was sup- 
 posed to have two accents ? ^ 
 
 Philipe, as well as Benedeit, in the course of time, had 
 many successors. 
 
 Poetical translations of the distichs of Cato and the Pro- 
 verbia Salomonis appeared not long after them, as well as 
 poetical sermons. But historical poetry stood forth above 
 all in the reign of King Stephen. The position it took at 
 the very first, international and intermediary, was most re- 
 markable. It deemed nothing foreign to it that had hap- 
 pened on English soil. 
 
 In the fifth decade of the century, Geoffrey Gaimar wrote 
 a history of the Britons [Estorie des Bretons)^ which is un- 
 fortunately lost. We know that his authority was the His- 
 ioria Britofium; his patroness, Constance, wife of Raul Fitz 
 Gilebert, at whose commission he wrote, had obtained a copy 
 from the Count of Gloucester through the mediation of the 
 nobleman Walter Espec, who dwelt in Yorkshire. Like Al- 
 fred of Beverley, Gaimar then added the English to the Brit- 
 ish history [Estorie des Engleis). He rendered this accord- 
 ing to various authorities, following in great part the Winches- 
 ter Aftnals, and continued it from the Conquest to the end of 
 the eleventh century. He expresses at the close — for the 
 Estorie des E?igteis is preserved — an intention of describing 
 the history of Henry 1., but he does not seem to have car- 
 ried it out. Another poet named David had, at about the 
 same time, also tried his hand upon this material, as Gaimar 
 informs us. Gaimar's English history is composed in short 
 couplets ^ and in flowing, often animated language. The 
 poet at times enhances the charm of his narrative by inter- 
 weaving popular traditions; as when he relates at length the 
 Danish-EngHsh saga of Havelok, which we shall consider 
 later.y/ 
 
 Geoffrey's history was again rendered in verse about ten 
 years later, in a version which eclipsed that of Gaimar, and 
 may have contributed to its downfall. This more modern 
 
 * Compare, for instance, the following couplets in King Horn, ed. Wissman, v. 5-8 : 
 
 King he was bi weste, 
 so longe so hit 16ste. 
 Godhild het his quen, 
 fairer non mijte ben. 
 
 • By the term "short couplets," when used by itself, and with regard to French 
 verse, we mean those consisting of eight-syllabled lines. 
 
140 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 version arose in Normandy, whose literature for this period 
 cannot, without some violence, be separated from the Anglo- 
 Norman. Its author was called Wace (/. e. Wistace, Eustace). 
 
 Bom not long after the beginning of the twelfth centurj 
 on the island of Jersey, Wace received his first school train- 
 ing at Caen, and completed his studies in the Isle de France, 
 and probably in Paris. Having returned to Caen, he seems 
 then to have become a teacher {clers lisanz) in one of the 
 schools of that city. His leisure hours were given to po- 
 etry. He himself tells us that during his long stay in Caen, 
 he translated a large number of Latin writings into the Ro- 
 mance language [romans), which here of course means the 
 Norman dialect, and at that time such work was generally 
 done in the form of poetry. He doubtless put chiefly legends 
 into verse; the demand for them being the greater, as it was 
 customary on the feast-days of the church to explain to the 
 congregation in their own language, and usually in verse, the 
 occasion of the festival, or, what generally amounted to the 
 same thing, to recite the saint's legend of the day. In his 
 day, Aelfric had written his alliterative lives of the saints for 
 a similar purpose. 
 
 A true Norman, Wace was fain to apply himself to sub- 
 jects that were popular among his people, and could lay 
 claim to a certain national significance. Hence he wrote the 
 life of that Nicholas of Patras whose bones Norman mer- 
 chants of Bari, in southern Italy, had stolen in 1087 from 
 the church at Myra in Lycia, and had brought home. 
 Thence the fame of the saint, and the knowledge of the con- 
 tinuing miraculous power of his mortal remains, had spread 
 quickly over Europe and especially in Normandy. In the 
 same spirit, he celebrated in another poem the feast of the 
 conception, fixed at the instance of William the Conqueror, 
 and appropriately known by the name la fete atix Normarids. 
 
 He does not seem to have attempted larger tasks until 
 after the year 1150. When the son of Geotfrey of Anjou 
 and Matilda ascended the English throne as Henry II., 
 Wace was occupied with the translation of the history of 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth. This he dedicated after its com- 
 pletion (1155) to Henry's consort Eleanor of Poitou, who 
 was sung by the minstrels of the time. Perhaps the bene- 
 fice at Bayeux, granted to the poet by Henry, was a recom* 
 
WAGE AND THE LEGEND OF ARTHUR. 14I 
 
 pense for this dedication. Wace's Geste des Bretons^ or, as 
 the poem, owing to its Celtic subject-matter, came to be 
 called in the course of time, Wace's Brut d'' Engleterre} served 
 greatly to spread the fables of the ancient British kings. 
 Thus it tended powerfully to develop them, at least the legends 
 of Arthur, who, in the romances of French poets and of their 
 German imitators, took the name of Artus. 
 
 Tales of Arthur were told in the lesser as well as the greater 
 Britanny, and the more his history, as given in Geoffrey's ac- 
 count, became known, the greater was the temptation to 
 bring all sorts of traditions, sagas, and tales into direct or in- 
 direct relation with him, and the more active became the 
 intellectual intercourse in this field between Armorica and 
 the British isle. What new things were thus sung of him by 
 Briton Jongleurs, who early acquired great celebrity, were 
 repeated in Normandy, in Anjou, and soon in the rest of 
 France, in the French language, and the conditions were 
 probably similar in England. As early as the time of Wace, 
 the Britons recounted many fables of the Round Table, 
 which Arthur was said to have founded. Geoffrey does not 
 seem to have known anything of this institution; Wace was 
 content to mention its establishment, but he shrugged his 
 shoulders at the stories connected with it. The doubtful 
 quality of the materials involved in his work, made him all 
 the more cautious with regard to oral tradition. Nothing 
 less than the authority of a grave Latin author would suffice 
 to make the Arthurian legend in any way credible to him, 
 and he would give nothing but the truth. In a later poem^ 
 he alluded to a forest of Broceliande and the marvellous 
 spring, which, according to Briton stories, was to be found 
 there, but he added that he had visited the spot and expe- 
 rienced no miracles. Wace's additions to the narrative of 
 Geoffrey are inconsiderable ; he owes them chiefly to Latin 
 sources, especially to legends of the saints. He is wont, 
 however, to expand and adorn the narrative of his author in 
 the description of battles, festivals, and the like; as for in- 
 stance, when music is given, he enumerates the different 
 kinds of instruments used. According to mediaeval stand- 
 
 ^ And at last simply Briit. Thence in more recent times it was called Ro7nan (U 
 Brut, that Brutus doubtless being meant from whom the Britons were said to be de- 
 scended. In Cymric, however, Brut means history , chronicle. 
 
 * In the Ro nance 0/ RoUo. 
 
142 THE TRANSITION PKRIOD. 
 
 ards he is in this not disloyal to his authority ; but the entire 
 tone of the work thus becomes more animated and richly 
 coloured, and distinctly reflects the chivalric age to which 
 Wace belonged. 
 
 In later years Wace began, in honour of his royal patron, 
 who was descended from the race of Rollo (Hrolf), a history 
 of the Normans, Geste des Normans, now generally known 
 under the name Roman de Ron. This work apparently suf- 
 fered a long interruption before he had finished the reign of 
 Duke Richard I., and was then continued by him to the year 
 1106. When he laid down his pen (after 1170), he had lost 
 the favour of the king, of whose parsimony he complains, and 
 another had been made historiographer in his place. The 
 Romance of Rollo worthily closes the works of the patriotic 
 poet. In this Wace relates the history of his race and of his 
 dukes, founding it upon the historical books of Dudo de St. 
 Quentin and William de Jumiege.s, as well as other, in part, 
 unknown authorities. His style is pleasing and animated, 
 and on certain occasions, as in the portrayal of the battle of 
 Senlac, the rich abundance of details and the enthusiasm 
 which breathes in the simple words of the poet, do not fail 
 to produce a strong effect. He frequently drew from oral 
 traditions, when trustworthy persons and not jongleurs were 
 their bearers. He interwove many tales bequeathed from 
 father to son, and told them so well that Uhland deemed 
 some of them worthy of translation. Unfortunately we have 
 in its original form only the second, though much the larger 
 part of the Romance of Rollo. We know the first part only 
 through a later recast, in which the metre in the portion be- 
 ginning with the appearance of Rollo is changed, Wace's 
 short couplets being converted into epic tirades of Alexan- 
 drines.^ 
 
 Wace may pass for the typical representative of the older 
 Norman poesy, in so far as it is not clothed in popular forms. 
 The characteristics of this poetry are scarcely anywhere re- 
 vealed so fully as with him ; in his manner, severity and re- 
 
 ' At the beginning of the part in Alexandrines, the poet says he intends to shorten 
 the '*vers." Vers of course does not mean lines, but as usual, rhythmical sections of 
 some length, and these do certainly become shorter, the contents being the same, when 
 the measures which compose them grow lyncher. Hut since the sections formed out of 
 rhyming couplets are determined only by the subject-matter, and may therefore vary 
 greatly in length, this remark only has meaning if ihe writer of the Alexandrines had 
 short couplets before him, which he remodelled in the epic measure. 
 
THE ENGLISH ANNALS. I43 
 
 serve are mingled with a sort of playful naivete. The dic- 
 tion has no great sweep or fulness, though it by no means 
 lacks finish and elegance. It is preeminently simple and 
 transparent, and moves easily in smoothly flowing short 
 couplets. His expression is laconic, and given to antithesis, 
 beiag well adapted to convey the popular proverbial wisdom. 
 The same idea is usually expressed by the same word, so that 
 there is no lack of emphatical repetitions. The same thought 
 sometimes reappears in a new form, either directly after the 
 form first chosen, or after an interval, at the close of a digres- 
 sion, when the poet returns with eas^e and precision into the 
 direct path. He likes to amplify in enumeration. But no- 
 where is there a massing of phrase or varying repetitions 
 which would impair clearness and smoothness. Nowhere 
 do we feel that his is a soul stirred by passion, that seeks to 
 correct and surpass itself in expression; sequence is never 
 broken, nor the logico- grammatical structure of the sentence 
 disturbed. 
 
 The poet works more from the head than the heart; and 
 since his thought is not very deep nor his fancy very lofty, 
 \^f^ is able to instruct and amuse, but neither to thrill nor to 
 exaic. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The English language could not maintain itself in the fore- 
 ground of Hterature against the twofold competition of the 
 Latin, which more than ever held the ear of scholars, and 
 of the Anglo-Norman which was the idiom of power and 
 of fashion. It witlidrew more and more into obscurity, as 
 if to gather strength for better times. 
 
 The fortunes of the English Annals were most significant 
 in this respect. 
 
 The Parker manuscript of the Amials of Winchester had 
 been kept in Christ Church, Canterbury, since the first half 
 of the eleventh century. Soon after Lanfranc's elevation to 
 the archbishopric, eleven scattered entries, covering the pe- 
 riod from 1005 to 1070, were there made in this manuscript. 
 They consist, in the main, of matters pertaining to Canter- 
 bury. The last refers to the new primate and his dispute 
 with the archbishop Thomas of York. Then ensues a silence 
 
144 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 until long after Lanfranc's death, when a writer appears v/ho. 
 in a connected narrative and in Latin, treats of the time of 
 Lanfranc's primacy. Ecclesiastical affairs are especially con- 
 sidered, and time is computed according to the number of 
 years elapsed since the archbishop's ordination. The record 
 closes with a mention of the election and consecration of 
 Anselm. 
 
 The national annals fared better in Worcester. The 
 archiepiscopal seat there was held, from 1062 until 1095, by 
 that Wulfstan who was accused of illiteracy to William the 
 Conqueror, though unsuccessfully, by Lanfranc, and who 
 certainly possessed neither the classical culture nor the dia- 
 lectical skill of the Norman prelates. His mind was, how- 
 ever, as acute and well informed as his character was ener- 
 getic and upright ; nor did he in any respect lack interest in 
 scholarship, particularly in history. At his commission the 
 sub-prior Hemming compiled a cartulary of the church of 
 Worcester. The monk Colman, Wulfstan's chaplain, and 
 prior of Westbury by his promotion, wrote, after the death of 
 his patron, his life in English. According to William of 
 IMalmesbury, this work, as to matter, was written with seri- 
 ous grace ( lepo re gravi) ; as to form, with artless simplicity 
 ( sinipUcitate rtidi). The Worcester Annals were also con- 
 tinued under W\ilfstan. We find an annalist in the last quarter 
 of the tweKöi century whose productions have a certain 
 breadth and depth of thought, together with a touch of 
 melancholy, and who is one of the best writers in his sphere. 
 He seems to have been conversant with Wulfstan, and may 
 be identical with Colman, however plain that writers lan- 
 guage might appear to a William of Malmesbury. Our an- 
 nalist sketches the character of the mighty conqueror whom 
 he saw with his own eyes, as follows : 
 
 King William, of ^vhom we speak, was a very wise and very power- 
 ful man, and more stately and strong than any of his predecessors. 
 He was mild toward the good man who loved God, but beyond meas- 
 ure severe toward those who opposed his will. . . He made earls pris- 
 oners who acted against his will. Bishops he put out of their bishop- 
 rics, and abbots out of their abbacies, and he cast thegns into prison, 
 and at last he spared not his own brother Odo. . . Among other things 
 is not to be forgotten the good peace which he made in this land, so 
 that a man who himself took heed might travel through his kingdon? 
 
ANNALS OF PETERBOROUGH. 145 
 
 unharmed with his bosom full of gold; and no man dared slay another, 
 though he had done never so much evil against him. . .1 
 
 The work of this Worcester annalist is preserved to us in 
 a compilation made at Peterborough. This extant Worcester 
 recension extends only to the year 1079. 
 
 In the year 11 16 a conflagration destroyed the minster at ^ 
 Peterborough, with nearly all the adjacent buildings, and 
 certainly the greater part of the existing books and records. 
 This gave occasion as well for the building of a new minster 
 as for the drawing up of a new set of annals. The work 
 seems to have been started about the year 1 12 1. The great- 
 est care and pains were taken, certainly less in the interest 
 of historical truth than of the monasterv, things which fort- 
 unately did not always clash. Variojas authorities were 
 used ; as the Annals of Winchester and Abingdon, and for 
 the later period particularly, those of Worcester, whence 
 a revision reaching to the year 11^)7 seems^to have beet re- 
 ceived. Local knowledge^ was also^used, and.a number ^f 
 false records were skilfully interpQ^lated, which were to cer-^* 
 tify to ancient gifts and privileges conferred upon the abbey. 
 Thus a complete whole was put together, extending to the ' 
 year 1121. It is entertaining reading; excellent passages 
 of serious interest alternate with edifying, sometimes with 
 idyllic information, as accounts of the weather or crops. 
 
 This compilation plainly manifests, on the one hand, a 
 more limited range, narrowed by monasticism, in contrast 
 with the national standing-point of most of the older annal- 
 ists ; on the other hand, it indicates an effort to secure literary 
 effects by the selection of what is attractive in the historical 
 material, a tendency which later constantly spread in Latin 
 historiography. The Aniials of Peterborough were appar- 
 ently continued with Httle interruption from 1122 to 1131. 
 Then, after the lapse of several years (as shown by the more 
 modern cast of the language), the period from 1132 to 1154 
 was described by a not untalented hand. With the opening 
 of Henry II, 's reign, the thread of the Enghsh Annals was 
 broken off in this last workshop. Gaimar had already writ- 
 ten his history of the Britons and the Angles, and Wace was 
 working at his Brut. A Latin chronicle was kept at Peter- 
 borough after 1122, and, as in 11 17 Florence had mainly 
 
 * Earle, p. 221, et seq. 
 K 
 
146 Tut TRAKSiTiÖN PEftlOO. 
 
 adopted the substance of the English Annals of Worcestef 
 in his Chronicon ex chrojiicis^ so Hugo Candidus Hkewise 
 embodied those of Peterborough, though to a less extent, in 
 his Coenobii Burgensis /listoria, which he finished in 1155. 
 
 The religious needs of divines and laymen insured the 
 theological literature in the English language against com- 
 plete extinction. The works of famous homilists of former 
 times were still diligently copied and read. The words were 
 in part modernised by the scribe ; obsolete and difficult ex- 
 pressions were replaced by more current phrase. An error 
 sometimes betrays the hand which converted older into more 
 modern characters. But this work was not confined to copy- 
 ing and paraphrasing; there were compilations and imita- 
 tions, and passages from ancient authors w^re inserted in 
 later writings. It is not easy, without the help of externaF 
 criteria, to set apart, in the extant collections of homilies of 
 this epoch, the portions belonging to different minds and 
 times. But there is no doubt that this hterature is, in essence, 
 partly a renewal, and partly a reflection of the labours of the 
 tenth and eleventh centuries. It was nourished particularly 
 by the spirit of Aelfric. The homilies of the great abbot 
 were more than once copied, modernised, imitated. Pas- 
 sages relating to the eucharist and opposed to the orthodox 
 doctrine, victoriously defended by Lanfranc, were wont to be 
 erased. Aelfric's potent word, however, reached the people 
 but slightly altered. The Norman preachers had in truth 
 nothing better to offer their hearers. 
 
 The translation of the Gospels made in the first half of the 
 eleventh century, also appeared in modernised form, in the 
 course of the twelfth (Hatton Gospels) ; new glosses to the 
 psalter and a new version of the ^ule of St. Benedict were 
 written. There was indeed some activity in natural science 
 and medicine. A newly prepared illustrated manuscript of 
 the Herbarinni Apiileii was provided with English glosses. 
 The Old English Herbarium., based upon Apuleius and 
 Dioskorides, together with the Medicijia de quad7'iipedibus., 
 was modernised, though not without change in the arrange- 
 ment of matter, and with many omissions and additions. 
 AVe may perhaps likewise regard the collection of recipes 
 which appeared at this time as a copy or working over of an 
 older English original, and hardly as a direct translation 
 
Ei^GLlStt LANGUAGE. 147 
 
 from Latin sources. From the brief review of the more an- 
 cient history of medicine with which it opens, it has received 
 the title peri didaxeoji [nepl Sida^eoDv), i. e., " of the 
 schools," or " of the systems of doctrine." 
 
 This entire prose literature of the twelfth century, especial- 
 ly the horailetic, is exceedingly attractive and important to 
 the grammarian. 
 
 For we see that the English language in this period un- 
 derwent a momentous transformation, which was very grad- 
 ually consummated, yet after the middle of the century, with 
 a somewhat accelerated movement. Many sounds, particu- 
 larly among the vowels, were modified, the value of unac- 
 cented final syllables was weakened, former distinctions were 
 obUterated, and the inflections were becoming deranged. 
 Certain words of the vocabulary came to be rarely used, or 
 disappeared entirely as others took their place. The lan- 
 guage was roughened and impoverished. 
 
 The influence of Norman rule was more negative than 
 direct in this regard. The language followed its natural 
 course of development. When the national state ceased, the 
 unity of the literary language crumbled ; provincial and pop- 
 ular elements invaded it from all sides. Hence, in the liter- 
 ary monuments, which, as we saw, were chiefly the work of 
 the scribe or compiler, the language was chaotic and heter- 
 ogeneous; ancient forms strove with new ones for prece- 
 dence, until toward the close of the century, when victory 
 decidedly inchned to the latter. 
 
 This language was still entirely Teutonic, both in its struct- 
 ure and component parts. A hardly appreciable number of 
 Romance elements entered its vocabulary (mainly in the 
 second half of the century), and as a rule they did not at 
 once displace the corresponding English vocables. They 
 chiefly concerned, as was to be expected, things and ideas 
 connected with church and cult, with the constitution of the 
 feudal state, the military system, or the external life of a 
 feudal-chivalric society. Words like castel, jiistise, prisun^ 
 on Saxon lips, are to us very significant. 
 
148 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 V. 
 
 The English popular song had not been silenced .mder 
 Norman rule; and surely the people did not sing such 
 songs only as that whose beginning the monk of Ely gives 
 us in the history of his church/ naming as the poet King 
 Cuut himself: 
 
 Merie sungen muneches binnen Ely, 
 "" Tha Cnut chyning reu ther by ; 
 
 Roweth, cnihtes, noer the land, 
 
 And here -we thes muneches sang. 
 Merrily sang the monks in Ely, as Cnut the king rowed by ; row, 
 knights, near the land, and let us hear the song of these monks — 
 
 "With many other words, quae bisque hodie (in 11 66) i?i 
 choris publice caritaJitur et in prcrcerbiis 7?ie?fwra?!tur." Wil- 
 Ham of Malmesbury tells us that in his day men sang upon 
 the open street of the marriage of Gunhild, the daughter of 
 Cnut, with the Emperor Henry. Undoubtedly were heard 
 also historical songs of another kind — songs of battle and 
 strife. 
 
 The ancient epos hardly survived, yet many a bit of epic 
 saga was transmitted, if in modified form : as, the saga of 
 the ancient epic king of the Angles, Offa, which had been 
 transferred to the srreat Offa of Mercia. The Middle Ens;- 
 lish poem of Wade, to which Chaucer alludes, — it is unfort- 
 unately lost — was, without doubt, based upon traditions, as 
 well as songs, which vrere surely circulated in the twelfth 
 century, as they had been earher; for this Wade, as the 
 book ascribed to him attests, was no other than the ancient 
 Wada (old Norse Vadi, M. H. G. Wate), the father of We- 
 land. The name of Weland the Smith appeared in the 
 poetry of the fourteenth century, and in certain districts it 
 has remained current among the English people far into 
 modern times. 
 
 Mythological conceptions were still strong among the peo- 
 ple. English writers of the twelfth century related many 
 marvellous things of elves and other supernatural beings, and 
 the fairies of Romance origin were now added to them. 
 The ancient gods also survived, though shorn of much of 
 their greatness, and with new names. It may have been in 
 
 1 HisL El. II., 27; Gale, p. 505. We have ventured to make two slight changes io 
 the text 
 
POPULAR HEROES. I49 
 
 this period, or a little later, that Woden received the name 
 Robin, which is the French popular form for the German 
 Ruprecht ; the latter reminds us more vividly of the ancient 
 title of the god, Hruodperaht [i. e., splendid in fame). Robin 
 Goodfellow corresponds to the German Kjiecht Ruprecht. 
 But in the saga of Robin Hood, the ancient conception of 
 the wild huntsman (likewise connected with Woden) seems 
 to have been transferred from heaven to earth, thus receiv- 
 ing the more prosaic earthly form of a bold poacher and 
 outlaw. 
 
 Such outlaws were at all times favourite popular heroes, 
 but this was especially true in the Norman period, when (at 
 the beginning at least) a sort of national, and even patriotic, 
 feeling was mingled with the sympathetic admiration for 
 them, and when the terrible severity of the game laws drew 
 down the bitterest hatred upon those who had to see them 
 executed. The poetic fancy, therefore, early took possession 
 of the history of such heroes. 
 
 The Latin account of the deeds of Hereward the Saxon, 
 who, with a few followers, defied the power of the conqueror 
 in the marshes of Ely, contains, beyond all question, both 
 truth and poetry, and it arose, to judge from appearances, 
 in the first part of the twelfth century. It may here be 
 noted that the author of the Gesta Herewardi Saxonis men- 
 tions, as one of his authorities, the history of Hereward's 
 youth from the pen of Leofric of Brun, a priest in Here- 
 ward's service. He says that this Leofric had endeavoured 
 to become acquainted with the deeds of the giants and war- 
 riors from ancient tales (fabulis)^ or from trustworthy state- 
 ments, and to record them, which he seems to have done in 
 the English language.^ 
 
 At a later time, Norman barons also were proscribed, as 
 in the case of Fulke Fitz Warin, under King John. He was 
 celebrated in an Anglo-Norman poem which has come to us 
 in a prose recast; there was besides an imitation in English 
 verse. 
 
 Among the sagas current in the twelfth century are some 
 which extend to the Old English period, but in substance 
 they have no connection with the subject-matter of the 
 
 ' The expression ob meinoriam Angliae Uteris commendare {^Chroniques anglo-tior» 
 mandes, 1 1. 2) is peculiar and ambiguous. 
 
150 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 ancient epos. Their historical background is formed by the 
 inroads and settlement of the Danes, and the relations be- 
 tween England and Denmark growing out of them. Hence 
 they may have been chiefly native to eastern England. They 
 reached a fair degree of completeness, in part in the eleventh, 
 in part perhaps not before the twelfth century; but they were 
 still quite susceptible of new growths and transformadons. 
 They were evidenUy a favourite theme of the English glee- 
 men, who never lacked willing hearers among the people, 
 although deeply degraded from their former position, and 
 eclipsed by {oxQ\g\\ Jo?igIeurs and menestrels. Even Norman 
 poets did not disdain to handle such material, more or less 
 closely following their English models; and their method ot 
 treatment was not without influence upon the form given to 
 these sagas by the national poesy. The course of develop- 
 ment of this glee-men's poetry was determined still more 
 decisively by the manners of the time, now being transformed 
 by Norman-French influence, and by the new views and 
 ideas that filled the air. 
 
 This influence is plainly evident in the saga of Hojit^ 
 which, although possibly of somewhat older origin, did not 
 receive the form in which it has come to us until a later day; 
 whereas, the saga of Havelok^ as we must conclude from Gai- 
 mar's account, was definitely settled in its main outlines as early 
 as the beginning of the twelfth century. Both sagas have to do 
 with a king's son, who either flees or is driven over the sea to 
 a foreign land ; he tarries there many years, and, after numer- 
 ous adventures, reconquers his kingdom and takes revenge on 
 his enemies. A princess next appears in both sagas, the bride 
 or spouse of the hero ; but while the passion of love virtually 
 plays no part in Havelok^ it forms in Hor?i the very centre 
 of interest. In Havelok the geographical, if not the histor- 
 ical, points of union with fact are clearly defined. The 
 Horn-saga is inextricably confused in both these respects. 
 
 Both sagas emerged in English poetry soon after the mid- 
 dle of the thirteenth century. 
 
 The sagas of Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton^ less 
 primitive, seem to have sprung from a combination of local 
 traditions, historical reminiscences, current fabulous and ro- 
 mantic themes, and pure invention. They were first treated 
 by Anglo- Norman poets, and after them, in English verse, 
 
PROVERBS OF AELFRED. I5I 
 
 The saga of Waltheof m^Lj take an intermediate position. 
 We readily discern in its contents, taking into account the 
 name of the hero, the historical nucleus, however distorted 
 it may be. The English poem on Waltheof is lost; the 
 French romance of IValdef, which is said to be an imitation 
 of it, has not yet been published, and was, until a short time 
 ago, practically inaccessible. There is, however, a Latin 
 prose translation ^ dating from the beginning of the fifteenth 
 century, whose author was John Bramis, a monk of Thet- 
 ford near Ely, and who seems for a part to have used the 
 English original ; for the rest, the French text. 
 
 Many a memory from the more ancient period of its his- 
 tory may still have been living among the English peo- 
 ple in the twelfth century. But above all shone forth the 
 image of King Aelfred, that had descended from father 
 to son as a precious heirloom. Single features had been im- 
 paired, and some new traits added, but in the main it was 
 like the original : the ruler who loved his subjects as did no 
 other, the man of power and gentleness, who was at once 
 king, father, and teacher of his people. 
 
 From this latter office, Aelfred came gradually to be re- 
 garded as a source of popular wisdom. A number of prov- 
 erbs and maxims were ascribed to him. 
 
 There existed, in the twelfth century, collections of gnomic 
 poems with the tide Proverbs {^Parabolce) or Precepts [Docu- 
 tnenta) of Aelfred, These were given to posterity in several 
 versions, varying in compass, arrangement, and, partly, in 
 contents. 
 
 A few recensions from the thirteenth century are preserved; 
 the existence of others is proved by citations in a contempo- 
 rary poem. Three distinct parts have recently been pointed 
 out in the more complete text; though it is still doubtful if 
 they really owe their origin to three different epochs, since 
 ancient and modern matters are intermingled within the 
 compass of shorter sections. 
 
 The opening of the poem shows King Aelfred seated in 
 solemn assembly, surrounded by the great men of his realm : 
 
 At Seaford sat many thegns, many bishops, and many book-learned 
 men, proud earls, warlike knights. There was the eorl Alfrich, who 
 
 ' See on this subject Wright, Essays on S-tibjects connected with the Literature etc, 
 (^ England in the Middle Ages, II., 97, et seq. 
 
152 THE TR.\NSITION PERIOD. 
 
 was very learned in the law, and also Alfred, the shepherd of the Angles, 
 the Angles' darling, in England he was king. Them he began to teach, 
 as ye may hear, how they their life should lead. Alfred was a very 
 strong king in England. He was king and he was clerk, well he loved 
 God's work. He was wise in word and prudent in works. He was the 
 wisest man in England. 
 
 Then follow the admonitions and proverbs in sections, each 
 of which begins with the words : ]>7/s que\ A lured ( ^pus quad 
 Alfred). Piety, Avisdom, justice, diligence, the transitoriness 
 of life, the vanity of earthly possessions, such are the topics 
 treated. More specific precepts for special emergencies and 
 rules of worldly wisdom are added to these; prudence in 
 the choice of a wife and shrewd management of the spouse 
 are very urgently enjoined. 
 
 Thus quoth Alfred : be never so mad nor so drunk with wine, as to 
 say all thy will to thy wife. For should she see thee before all thy 
 foes, and thou hadst angered her with words, she would not refrain 
 for any living thing from upbraiding thee with thy times of adversity. 
 Woman is word-mad and hath a too swift tongue. If she would, she 
 cannot rule it.* 
 
 The metrical form in which these proverbs of Aelfred are 
 clothed is of moment. In them we find the ancient long 
 line in the midst of its transformation into the short couplet. 
 Alliteration, imperfectly carried out and often too lavishly 
 employed, alternates with, or accompanies rhyme, which, 
 like the alliteration, connects the two halves of a long line.^ 
 But the rhyme falls upon the final syllables of the members 
 of the line which it binds; further, unlike the alliteration, it 
 can make no difference between the first and second half- 
 line; hence it makes us feel — as we have already pointed 
 out — that what it joins is dual, is a pair. The following seems 
 clearly a unit : 
 
 ivxi and ■zt'isdom — and izcriten rede, 
 and in spite of the massing of alliteration, the following is 
 also felt to be a imit : 
 
 He wes ?cäs on his zc'ord — and war on his 7£/erke. 
 But in the line, 
 
 He wes king and he wes clerk — well he luuede godes werk 
 
 * Proverbs of Alfred, No. 17 ; in Kemble, Dialogzte of Sahttwn and Satumus, p. 
 235 et seq. 
 
 2 As a matter of course, the rhj-me is more consistently used, the alliteration more 
 deranged, in some proverbs than in others. The former are not necessarily older ihas 
 the latter on this account. 
 
POEM A MORALE. 1 53 
 
 we perceive a rhyming couplet, and the alliteration, confined 
 to the short Hne (-^ing, derk — wel, werk) seems merely an 
 ornament. 
 
 We noted the same or similar peculiarities of form in a 
 few poems of the eleventh century, especially in the song on 
 Aetheling Aelfred (for the year 1036). If we place later 
 products side by side with them, we are compelled to con- 
 clude that the popular poetry of the twelfth century, so far 
 as it was original, ranged chiefly within such forms as these. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Rhyme soon came into use also in strictly religious poetry, 
 to which the Proverbs of Aelfred can hardly be said to be- 
 long. The ancient long Hne, it is true, seems to have been 
 longer retained intact in this poetry. We have from the 
 twelfth century two poetical speeches of the soul to the 
 body, one of which is almost exclusively written in aUitera- 
 tion, although this is oftentimes not employed in strict ac- 
 cordance with the rule. 
 
 On the other hand, the ecclesiastical poets began early to 
 make use of quite new forms, taken from foreign models ; 
 forms which, in spite of probable ancient relationship, differ 
 more radically from the indigenous forms than may appear 
 at a superficial view. For in them lives the rhythm of a 
 foreign language which now began to affect the English. 
 
 These new rhythms appeared first in the south of England, 
 from w^hich fact, however, no hasty inferences must be 
 drawn. 
 
 In the district lying between the Avon and the Stour, 
 where join the boundaries of three counties, Dorset, Wilts, 
 and Hants, originated, perhaps as early as the reign of Henry 
 I., the poem known in the history of literature as the Foef?ia 
 morale. It is a sermon in verse, but it rises above the level 
 of its class, by a greater freedom of movement and by the 
 admixture of a subjective, even lyrical element. 
 
 The preacher begins by alluding with melancholy to his 
 advanced age, to his life that has sped without his having 
 much profited from it: 
 
154 THE TR^VNSITION PERIOD. 
 
 I am now older than I was, in winters and in lore, 
 I wield more pDwer than I did : were but my wisdom more. 
 
 Too long have I been like a child in word and eke in deed; 
 Yet, though I am in winters old, too young am I in heed. 
 
 JNIethinks my life a useless one, like to the one I've led; 
 And when I ponder on it well, full sorely I dread, 
 
 For almost all that I have done befits unto childhood, 
 And very late have me bethought, unless God helps to good. 
 
 I've spoken many idle words since I to speak was able, 
 Full many deeds I've done that now seem most unprofitable. 
 
 And almost all that I once liked is hateful now to me : 
 Who follows overmuch his will, himself deceiveth he. 
 
 I might in truth have better done had my ill-luck been less ; 
 Now that I would, I can no more for age and helplessness. 
 
 Old Age his foot-step on me stole ere I his coming wist : 
 I could not see before me for the dark smoke and the mist. 
 
 Laggards we are in doing good, in evil all too bold ; 
 Men stand in greater fear of man than of the Christ of old. 
 
 Who doth not well the while he may, repenting oft shall rue 
 The day when men shall mow and reap what they erstwhile did strew. 
 
 Thus the poet admonishes every man not to let the time 
 pass away unemployed, but to lay up good works in heaven, 
 to depend upon nobody, but to provide for himself. In 
 heaven our treasure is safely stored, thither we should send 
 what we hold best. Ever}^body can gain heaven for him- 
 self, since God is content with little : He looks at the will. 
 God knows and sees all things. Then what shall we say or 
 do at the last judgment, which even the angels fear ? The 
 poet speaks in two places of the last judgment; twice he 
 depicts the torments of hell, drawing from the treasure of 
 mediaeval tradition. The description of the souls struggling 
 from the heat to the cold, and from the cold to the heat is 
 very graphic. The frost seems a blessing to them when in 
 the fire, the fire when in the frost. They move resdessly to 
 and fro like water before the wind. " These be they who 
 were inconstant in mind, who made to God promises they 
 did not keep, who began a good work and did not fin- 
 ish it, who now were here, now there, and did not know 
 their own minds." The preacher then proceeds to the means 
 by which we may shield ourselves against hell : the essence 
 of all God's commandments lies in love to Him and to our 
 neighbour. He warns men against the broad road that easily 
 goes do\\Ti through a dark wood into a barren field, and com- 
 mends the straight and narrow path that leads to heaven. 
 
POEMA MORALE. 1 55 
 
 He next portrays the bliss of heaven, which does not con- 
 sist in earthly splendour and in sensual pleasure, but in 
 the sight of God, who is the true sun, full of brightness, 
 the day without night. " To this bliss may God bring us ! " 
 
 Depth of thought, warmth of sentiment, nobility of feel- 
 ing, and a spiritual conception of spiritual things, — such 
 qualities show the author of the Poema morale to be of the 
 same family with the homilists of the Old English church ; 
 but while he moves within their range of ideas, he clothes 
 his thought in a new form. 
 
 We easily discern in his verse the iambic septeiiarius, or 
 more exactly, the catalectic tetrameter, well known to an- 
 tique poetry. The poet sometimes takes the liberty of omit- 
 ting the up-beat {^^ Auftakt,'' avajcpovais) in the first as 
 well as in the second section of the line ; but otherwise he 
 observes a very regular alternation of arsis and tJiesis. Such 
 a rhythm necessarily involves a treatment of accent at vari- 
 ance with the ancient usage ; hence we here for the first 
 time encounter a principle of accentuation which was to 
 leave its impress upon the entire future development of 
 English metre, and v/as of moment to the language itself, 
 especially as regards unaccented syllables and secondary ac- 
 cents. But the old principle was not put aside suddenly and 
 without a struggle. It lived on for centuries in the native 
 verse. It is, however, very doubtful if, near the close of the 
 Middle Ages, men were able to read the aUiterative verse as 
 correctly as they constructed it, in accordance with tradi- 
 tion. 
 
 Another innovation, of which the Middle Latin and the 
 French poesy could both furnish models, was the regular 
 employment of an end-rhyme, joining, not the cassura and 
 close of the same line, but different lines. With our poet 
 two long lines form a strophe, at whose close the sentence 
 usually ends; a minor pause parts the two halves of the 
 strophe. 
 
 Not less than rhythm and metre, the poetical language of 
 the Poema morale diverges from the ancient manner. How 
 much less does it seem to flow from the fulness of imagina- 
 tion, how abstract and meagre it seems beside the diction 
 of a Cynewulf ! But to compensate for this, it is clearer, 
 simpler, and easier; and if the regularly recurring pauses, 
 
156 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 made prominent by the rhyme, are somewhat monotonous, 
 especially in connection with the brevity of the strophes and 
 the length of the poem, yet they lend a pleasing finish and 
 increased emphasis to the expression. The plan of the 
 Poema ffiorale, regarded either as a homily or as a poem, is 
 not faultless. Hence it is not easy for us to reahse the full 
 impression which the poem must have made upon con- 
 temporaries, upon devout-minded auditors. That this was 
 considerable is shown as well by the numerous copies ex- 
 tant, as by the influence that it unmistakably exercised upon 
 later poets. 
 
 Another writer, the author of a poetical exposition of the 
 Pafernoste?', proved much poorer in ideas, in poetic talent, 
 and metrical skill ; he Ukewise belonged to the south of 
 England, and lived in the second half of the twelfth century. 
 His work is especially notew^orthy because it is the oldest 
 known poem in which a short rhyming couplet is consistent- 
 ly and regularly employed. But this is not an early devel- 
 opment of the national form occurring in Aelfred's Proverbs. 
 The short line, it is true, has in both cases four accents and 
 the couplet eight; but while the sonorous close ^ of the na- 
 tive verse has two accents, or at least is reckoned equivalent 
 to two accents, it numbers, as a rule, but one in the Pate)-- 
 noster. Accordingly Vv'e find the endings in this poem to be 
 masculine and feminine rhymes in the Romanic sense, and 
 we are reminded of the French short couplet of eight-syl- 
 labled lines, which, it may be taken for granted, is, in its 
 turn, based upon a long line of eight accents, the iambic töt- 
 rameter. 
 
 VII. 
 
 While the English poesy was attempting new forms, and 
 did not in spirit and subject-matter yet betray the influence 
 of foreign art, the Romanic poetry was in the midst of a 
 powerful development. But by this time England was 
 united by new bonds with the Romanic world. Indeed such 
 parts of this world as had formerly been remote now became 
 connected with her, and especially those territories in which 
 poetry had taken a new and peculiar impulse. 
 
 ■ /. ^., a double ending In which the first or accented syllable is long. 
 
RISE OF THE TROUBADOURS. 1 57 
 
 Henry, Count of Anjou and Maine, Duke of Normandy 
 and lord of Britanny, had, by his marriage with Eleanor of 
 Poitou (1152), become Count of Poitou and Duke of Aqui 
 taine. After 11 54 he also wore the English crown. The 
 king of England thus had sway over the entire western part 
 of France, a dominion twice as large as that ruled by 
 his liege-lord, the king of France. In the vast empire of 
 the Plantagenets, races speaking French and Provengal, Teu- 
 tonic and Celtic idioms came into closer contact, and this in 
 an epoch of rapidly advancing culture and general intellect- 
 ual activity, when the crusades brought European nations 
 into intercourse with each other and with the oriental peo- 
 ples. The court gathered about Henry H. formed the cen- 
 tre where the various currents of culture that traversed this 
 wide territory met and formed new combinations. 
 
 It was between 11 52 and 1156, in Normandy, that the 
 seductive Eleanor of Poitou received the enthusiastic homage 
 of a young poet of southern France, without rank and with- 
 out name, save that which he had made himself by his songs ; 
 this poet followed her to England. It was the famous trou- 
 badour Bernart de Ventadorn, with whom the South French, 
 or as it is usually called, the Provengal, art-poesy entered 
 upon the period of its florescence. The beginnings of this 
 new class of poetry date from the eleventh century. At the 
 head of the series of troubadours known to us stands an an- 
 cestor of Eleanor, beautiful, spiritual, captivating, and frivo- 
 lous like his granddaughter, a brilliant, chivalric personage, 
 William of Poitiers, Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine 
 (1071-1127). 
 
 Southern France was a land marvellously favoured by nat- 
 ure, pervaded by ancient culture, and opened by the Medi- 
 terranean to intercourse with Italy, Greece, and the Orient; a 
 more refined enjoyment of life had earlier than elsewhere 
 sprung up as a consequence of increased prosperity and pro- 
 duced, in its turn, finer manners and culture. The nobility 
 was early distinct from the people, not alone because of 
 greater power, wealth, and splendid Hving, but also through 
 a certain elegance of forms, through an intellectual culture 
 not entirely lacking scholarship, but essentially that of the man 
 of the world. If the masculine side of chivalry, \}i^Q prouesse^ 
 appeared in full vigour for the first time among the Normans, 
 
158 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 we first find its feminine side, the courtoisie^ among the Pro- 
 ven9als. Reverence for woman formed the centre of the 
 courtly chivalr}' unfolding in the south of France, which, as 
 ever is the case in privileged, exclusive classes, especially in 
 epochs of growing culture, soon received an extremely con- 
 ventional tone. Love was, therefore, the key-note to the 
 poesy which developed in the circles of the South-French 
 nobility, and which, destined to express individual feelings 
 and to serve personal ends, from the first was extremely sub- 
 jective, but at the same time was strongly influenced by 
 prevailing customs. 
 
 So for the first time in the occidental literature of the Mid- 
 dle Ages sprang up a poetry truly erotic and lyrical in spirit 
 and conception, and eminently artistic in its form. 
 
 That love which, from the first, was the topic of the trou- 
 badour, and continued to be the soul of his song, even after 
 quite different themes had been introduced, was of a very 
 mixed character. It was oftentimes broadly sensual, some- 
 times fiivolous. Its object was usually a married woman, 
 as the young maidens were wont to be held in monastic se- 
 clusion. Thus arose for the lover the difliculty in approach- 
 ing his beloved ; or, in case she was the spouse of the lord, 
 there was also the danger connected with his wooing, the 
 deeper reverence with which he looked up to the mistress of 
 his heart. Hence the custom of giving the lady-love an as- 
 sumed name, and the obscure allusions of which these poems 
 are full ; hence the enhanced duty of silence when a suitor 
 won the favour of his love. Hence, too, the soft, ardent, 
 gushing sentiment which found early and ever stronger ex- 
 pression in this poesy, the sentiment to which the sHghtest 
 token of favour from the mistress was paramount to every 
 thing, to which her aspect itself yielded high delight, nay, 
 which was happy in mere pensive musing. This love was 
 therefore not entirely without ideality, which did not, indeed, 
 with many poets, rise above conventionality, but with others 
 came from the deepest feeling. And does not the custom it- 
 self which makes the gentle sex the object of respectful devo- 
 tion, and grants to it sovereignty and precedence, rest upon an 
 ideal basis ? — since it cannot adequately be accounted for 
 v^•ithout the influence of Christianity (and we may add. of the 
 Teutonic spirit) ; the cult of the Virgin Mary forms the begin- 
 
POETRY OF THE TROUBADOURS. 1 59 
 
 niiig of the extravagant devotion to woman. And if a gallant 
 troubadour, reversing the ancient relation, calls the love of a 
 married man for other women a " false, bad love," but finds 
 nothing to say against the love of wedded women when di- 
 rected to a worthy object, this may, in one respect, seem 
 rather questionable, it may even be deemed " morbid " ; yet 
 it betokens the spirit of an age in which there had been a 
 great refining of the feelings as a natural reaction against the 
 rude arrogance of force. 
 
 Technically, the poesy of the troubadours was, as a matter 
 of course, constructed upon the basis of popular poetry ; 
 but it strove, from the first, in accordance with the social 
 atmosphere in which it flourished, to mould itself in artistic 
 and individual forms. It was upon the invention of new 
 strophic forms and melodies — for his songs were sung — that 
 the poet mainly founded his claim to the title troubadour (tro- 
 baire, irobador) i. <?., finder, as opposed to the jojigleur (jug- 
 lar), who recited the songs of others or handed down the tra- 
 dition of popular poetry. 
 
 Pv.hyme took the place of assonance ; it no longer merely 
 tied successive verses, but as an alternating or inserted rhyme, 
 glided pleasingly through the strophe, or even the entire 
 poem, often falling within the verse, or uniting the close of a 
 line with the beginning of the next, or perhaps in each 
 strophe changing its position in artistic order. Various 
 metres were gradually employed in the service of song ; the 
 strophe was oftentimes constructed out of different rhythms, 
 which a fine ear combined into a musical whole. Moreover, 
 there was gradually formed a technical classification of the 
 lyrical divisions, which received special names, determined 
 partly by the subject-matter and partly by the form. Thus we 
 have the vers to designate the simpler song-form of the older 
 troubadours ; the chanso, for the artistically developed love- 
 song; the sirventes (service-poem), for the political or moral 
 song, composed in the service of a lord, which also included 
 as subdivisions the crusader's song and the elegy (plaiih); 
 the tenso^ or joe partit (dispute, divided play), in which two 
 poets, alternating by strophes, defend and oppose some prop- 
 osition. Other classes followed these in order, containing 
 epic and in part dramatic matter, and, in spite of the artistic 
 cultivation they received, concealing their popular origin less 
 
l6o THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 than the vers, viz : the romance, in which the poet relate^* 
 an experience or an adventure of his own ; the pastoral (pcu- 
 torelaj, which presents him in gallant discourse with a shep- 
 herdess ; the morning-song (alba), which depicts the parting 
 of two lovers at dawn ; the dancing-song, in various forms, 
 and others. In the course of time arose a tendency to 
 classify still more minutely, as regards form and matter. Of 
 these subdivisions the descort deserves mention, since, con- 
 trary to the usual manner of art-poesy, it was constructed 
 of unequal strophes, like the church sequences with which 
 it was connected, and like the North-French lai. 
 
 In such forms and classes was cast this lyrical poesy of 
 Provence. It generally lacked plastic individualisation, and 
 often directness ; it was fond of a scholastic analysis of the 
 feelings, of abstractions, and generalisations, and it was apt, 
 especially in the love-song, to fall into conventional monot- 
 ony ; but, nevertheless, it often rouses our admiration by its 
 technical finish and euphonious language, by the ingenious 
 manner in which the same theme is presented with ever new 
 variation, by its refinement and delicacy, and often by its 
 boldness of thought; and it not rarely receives from the 
 power of its passion or the depth of its feeling a warmly 
 pulsing life, which irresistibly bears us with it. The con- 
 struction is with most poets simple and lucid. But the sense 
 is oftentimes obscured when the writer, either from caution 
 or to gain artistic distinction, purposely clothes his thoughts 
 in vague, peculiar phrase, and seeks rare words and difiicult 
 rhymes to which the language, with its mass of ambiguous 
 vocables, lent itself only too readily. Detailed similes are 
 not rare with the troubadours, though they are at times far- 
 fetched. Besides what life and nature afford to experience, 
 reminiscences from classical mythology, mediaeval heroes 
 of romance, and personages from the Fhysiologus serve for 
 comparison. 
 
 As has already been remarked, princes and nobles first 
 cultivated the new art, and so long as it flourished, there 
 was no lack of poets from the nobility. But ver)^ soon the 
 lowly born worked their way into courtly customs, and a 
 courtly manner of writing; and it was precisely this class 
 that contained troubadours able to strike the fullest note of 
 genuine feeling. In the course of time ecclesiastics and 
 
GUILHEM DE POITIERS. l6l 
 
 monks also appeared in the ranks of the art- and love-poets, 
 at which we can hardly wonder as occurring in the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 The most ancient troubadour of whom we know, Guil- 
 hem de Poitiers, employs comparatively simple forms. Be- 
 sides the canzone (chanso), he is also partial to more popu- 
 lar kinds of verse, as the " z/(?rj," and the "romance," the 
 latter having a frivolous and even lascivious tone. His 
 songs are, for the most part, fresh, audacious, and self-con- 
 scious; he does not conceal his pride in his own personal 
 qualities, or in his art. Even when he appears as a languish- 
 ing lover, he cannot always suppress a humorous feeling 
 arising from his sense of superiority. One of his songs is 
 especially tender; that in which, in the phrase of a great 
 connoisseur in this branch of literature, " the chief traits of 
 the minne-poesy, which later unfolded completely, lie to- 
 gether as in the bud." 
 
 We give a (qw strophes from it that we may hear the ne\? 
 chord then sounding in the poetry of the West : 
 
 Each joy must bow before her throne, 
 ' All might obey, in every place, 
 For my sweet lady's kindly grace 
 And lovesome glance. He that would OAvn 
 Her love's deep bliss, would taste alone, 
 Must live a hundred years' full space. . . . 
 
 Since none more gentle can be found, 
 Nor, named with mouth, nor with eye seen, 
 I'll keep her for myself, my queen. 
 My heart within, refreshed, shall bound, 
 With youth my body be recrowned, 
 An^ I shall ne'er grow old, I ween. 
 
 If but my lady will give her love 
 To me, with thankful heart I will 
 It take, and keep her secret still ; 
 Enhance her praise; her worth above 
 All others set ; both speak and move 
 As doth her pleasure best fulfil. 
 
 No word I risk to send her, lest 
 She angry be. Myself, I dare 
 Not speak, — Alas, to fail ! I fear 
 My love too strongly be expressed ! 
 Yet she should choose all for my best, 
 Knowing my cure lies in her care. 
 L 
 
102 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 Guilhem was followed by a non-noble bard, Cercalmon, 
 in whose songs there is the ring of a softer note. Soon after 
 him came Marcabru, a foundhng who worked his way up 
 to the rank of a troubadour by sheer strength of mind. He 
 was a man of peculiar, though completely rounded views of 
 life, and of great parts ; he had a strong bent toward the di- 
 dactic, and he sharply scourged the moral defects of his time. 
 He exhorted men to the crusades with burning words ; but 
 at another time, with deepest feeHng he portrayed in a 
 " romance " a forsaken maiden as a sacrifice to the crusades. 
 All his art is full of popular notes, notwithstanding his 
 partiality for rare and obscure words. Jaufre Rudel, the 
 Prince of Blaya, wrote at about the same time, perhaps 
 somewhat earHer. His romantic history, known from 
 Uhlan d's ballad, accords well with the deep yearning ex- 
 pressed in his songs. 
 
 The canzone reached its full artistic perfection in Bernart 
 de Ventadorn, our point of departure. In tecJuiiqiie it prob- 
 ably owed to him the gain of the epic ten-syllabled line, 
 whose caesura Bernart modified for lyrical purposes, — and 
 hence it received a broader flow and more majestic strain. 
 As to matter, it owes still more to him. Beyond all other 
 troubadours, Bernart can move us by the deep feeling which 
 speaks to the heart. This he clothes in artistic, sometimes 
 rich, but never overcharged, metrical forms, in chastely noble 
 language, and often with childlike jiaivete. 
 
 We find, after Bernart's time, frequent allusions in the lyr- 
 ical poetry of Provence to the Plantagenets and to affairs of 
 their realm. Many troubadours had close relations with the 
 English court ; some even took active part in politics. In 
 this connection we are at once reminded of Bertran de 
 Born, that restless, combative lord of Autafort, who gave 
 Henry II. so much trouble, who incited now the barons of 
 Aquitaine against their liege-lord, now the sons against their 
 father. Bertran brought the political sirve7ites to its highest 
 perfection. His songs give utterance to passion, life, energy, 
 which, joined to finished mastery of form, move us with 
 kindling, startling power. 
 
 One of the Plantagenets, Richard Coeur de Lion, himself 
 appeared in the ranks of the troubadours with the title " the 
 Count of Poitiers," though one of the two songs that we 
 
THE FRENCH LYRIC. 163 
 
 possess from him has come to us also in French, and though 
 perhaps both were written by him in this language. 
 
 At about the time when Bernart de Ventadorn came to 
 Eleanors court, the Provencal poetry began powerfully to 
 tell upon that of northern France. Proximity and the simi- 
 larity of languages made unavoidable what was notably pro- 
 moted by complicated dynastic and territorial relations, and 
 the roving impulse of many poets and singers. 
 
 A lyrical poetry had already begun in northern France to 
 form upon a popular basis and in a more popular spirit, and it 
 was now quickly brought by its advanced Proven9al sister to a 
 higher finish of form and a tone of courtly refinement. The 
 French poetry acquired a love-song and jeii parti, which, in 
 form and matter, are repetitions — generally weak ones — of 
 the Provencal models. But the sii'ventes did not grow to 
 an independent class in the North ; what was understood by 
 the sirveiitois rather corresponds to the religious song. Of 
 the sub-classes of the Proven9al sirventes, only the crusader's 
 song is more fully represented in French territory ; as in- 
 deed the religious song in general, which sings the love of 
 God with the fervour and tenderness of earthly love, was 
 there more developed. 
 
 The French lyric was original and significant chiefly when 
 it rested upon its own folk-poesy, in the lai, the romance, the 
 pastoral. There it far surpassed the Provengal poetry in 
 freshness of execution, in depth of feeling, or in naive arch- 
 ness and wit. The Provengals had nothing to compare with 
 the chanson d'histoire, which nearly corresponds to the bal- 
 lad ; and in this the song- form that preceded the origin of the 
 epos is applied to romantic, instead of national subjects; 
 the structure of its strophe is limited by art, and, soon 
 adorned with pure rhymes, it for a time accompanies the 
 epos in its growth. 
 
 As among the troubadours, we also meet with noble poets 
 among the lyrical tronveres, Hke the chatelain of Coucy, 
 like Quesnes of Bethune and even princes, like the Duke of 
 Brabant, and the famous Thibaut of Champagne, king of 
 Navarre. But, from the first, men of meaner descent took 
 part in the new art, as did Crestien de Troyes in Champagne. 
 Especially in Flanders, in Artois, in Picardy, did the com- 
 mons take strong hold upon the development of the art- 
 lyric. 
 
164 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 The court-lyric seems to have been mainly cultivated in 
 the north and east of the French-speaking territory, and 
 much less so in the west, in Normandy. 
 
 In Anglo-Norman England, the nobility became ac- 
 quainted with the Provencal, as well as the North-French 
 love-poetry, but the English soil was little adapted to an in- 
 dependent production of this kind. An art which, using 
 the materials of the French language, sought above all a 
 courtly tone and a courtly form could even then freely flour- 
 ish only where Paris was regarded as the real centre. As 
 early as the second half of the twelfth century, French art- 
 poets begin to show a consciousness that the idiom of the 
 Isle de France was the only proper court-language. At the 
 same time the Norman dialect in England, which, like the 
 Norman dialect of the Continent, was more than half a cent- 
 ury behind the French in development, began to degenerate 
 in consequence of the confusion of original vowel shadings. 
 Anglo-Norman versification also was losing its Romanic 
 purity and smoothness under the influence of the English. 
 
 No school of lyrical art arose in England. Compositions 
 there in the lyric strain probably seldom attained the courtly 
 finish. The chief production apparently lay in religious lyr- 
 ical verse. We also find in the thirteenth century political 
 songs in the Anglo-Norman tongue, which, however, are 
 anything but courtly. 
 
 Notwithstanding the meagre participation of England in 
 the French love-poetry, the latter scattered many germs 
 there that were of moment in the later development of the 
 national lyrical poetry. Working through the most various 
 channels, it affected the manners and ideas of society, and thus 
 indirectly the literature of the country. Hence it has been 
 requisite to consider it at length and in its origin. The court - 
 epic of the French had indeed a stronger and more direct 
 bearing upon EngHsh poetry, and, in its turn, it owed much 
 to Anglo-Norman England. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The court-epos, or more appropriately the court-romance, 
 grew up under the influence of the lyrical art-poetry, partly 
 from scholarly and partly from more popular elements. 
 
SAGA OF ALEXANDER. 1 65 
 
 Especially characteristic of this class, as distinguished from 
 the national epos, is, first, the subject-matter derived from 
 foreign countries. It was drawn from Alexandria, from By- 
 zantium, from Italy, in all these cases through the Latin ; 
 or from Wales, Cornwall, Britanny, either through Breton 
 songs* and French imitations of them, or through the medium 
 of Latin and French prose versions, full of arbitrary and de- 
 liberate invention. It is easy to understand that an epic 
 which aimed to amuse a select class should be at pains to 
 secure new and far-fetched subject-matter, that was mainly 
 crowded with remarkable adventures and marvels, and pre- 
 sented manners and ideas responding to the taste of a more 
 refined age. 
 
 The saga of Alexander first found access to western lit- 
 erature. It belongs essentially to antiquity. Alexandria, in 
 its cosmopolitan life, did not ill express the world-embracing 
 ideas of its great founder, and there the saga seems chiefly 
 to have been formed, and there, about the beginning of the 
 third century,^ it seems to have crystallised in the Greek 
 narrative known by the name Callisthe?ies. The work of the 
 pseudo-Callisthenes was in time circulated in the West in sev- 
 eral Latin versions, which were generally based upon vari- 
 ous recensions of the original text. Among these, two are 
 conspicuous : that of Julius Valerius for its age; that of the 
 Neapolitan arch-presbyter, Leo, who wrote in the tenth 
 century, for its intrinsic importance. 
 
 Before the Norman Conquest we saw a letter translated 
 into English, in which Alexander sent home an account of 
 the marvels he had seen and experienced in India. Several 
 such letters are inserted in the ^'s>^\!i^Q-Callisthenes, the epis- 
 tolary form being perhaps the most ancient embodiment of 
 the saga. The entire work of the arch-presbyter Leo was 
 poetically rendered by Alberic of BesanQon, in the second 
 half of the eleventh century. We possess in the original 
 only the opening of his simple, noble, life-like narrative; 
 while the whole has come to us in the German imitation by 
 the priest Lamprecht (about 1125). Other French Alexan- 
 der-poems followed. The most famous came in the second 
 half of the twelfth century from the pen of a monk of Cha- 
 
 1 As will be readily understood, my estimate as to the time when the pseudo-Ca//?!?- 
 thenes originated refers only to its most ancient cast as a whole, and not to the single 
 parts. Some of these date from a considerably earlier period. 
 
l66 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 teaudun, Lambert the Crooked; to this poem the twelve- 
 syllabled line seems to owe the name of Alexandrine. It 
 found a translator and reviser in Alexander de Paris of Ber- 
 nay, whose work can now scarcely be distinguished from 
 that of Lambert. Drawn from a less pure source, written 
 with less simple grandeur than Alberic's poem, this Alexan- 
 der-romance presents nevertheless the exalted image of the 
 great man — in whom the Middle Ages found nothing to 
 censure save that he was not a Christian — in a light clear 
 enough to justify the poet who holds up this image as a 
 standard, not only for kings, but also for knights, ecclesias- 
 tics, matrons, and maidens. The rendering is rich in fine 
 details and descriptions, and aphorisms are not wanting, 
 which leave a lasting impression upon the memory, com- 
 prised as they are, in the true French manner, within the 
 compass of a Hne, and often pointed with antithesis. Lam- 
 bert rightly chose the epic strain for his poetry, although it 
 never occurred to him, as to more modern scholars, to name 
 his romance a song. The figure of the hero, the saga itself, 
 are too grand for the form of the courdy narrative. In the 
 former, the Middle Ages could see the model of a king, of a 
 man, of a knight; in the latter, the outlines at least of the 
 grand reality are yet to be discerned. This is especially 
 true of the heroics of the first part, and also, in some degree, 
 of the fabulous second part, although it was here, in the 
 description of Alexander's expeditions in the far East, that 
 an exuberant oriental imagination came into play, and fell 
 into extravagant vagaries. 
 
 Among the sagas of classical antiquity belonging essen- 
 tially to poetry, the story of ^•^neas was accessible in Virgil, 
 that of Thebes in Statins, both familiar and favourite poets 
 in the Middle Ages. Virgil's yEncid had an imitator com- 
 paratively early, I conjecture, in the sixties of the twelfth 
 centur)^ He was gifted with gi-eat talent, but he took a too 
 independent attitude toward his classical author, and turned 
 his finely proportioned epos into a prolix romance of chiv- 
 alry, tricked out with all sorts of mediaeval courtly detail, 
 but otherwise vividly written.^ 
 
 > We are acquainted as yet only with fragments of this French ^neas-romance — 
 this time not by an unlucky chance, but through the fault of scholars. This is so 
 much the more to be regretted, because the poem may have had a similar, if not an 
 equally great influence in the perfecting of the court-epic in France, as did the 
 
SAGA OF TROY. 1 67 
 
 On the contrary, the story of Troy, with which that of 
 ^neas is connected, flowed down to that age only from 
 very turbid sources. If Homer was then not absolutely in- 
 accessible to the West, so much is certain : that among the 
 thousands who named his name, there was scarcely one who 
 had a suspicion of his place in literature, and that the most 
 classically educated poets of the twelfth century, as Joseph 
 of Exeter, drew their material, not from him, but from those 
 turbid sources. 
 
 Two Latin prose versions of the Troy-saga were then 
 most conspicuous : one with full details, the other brief. 
 Both were professedly translated from the Greek, and the 
 name of an author so well known as Cornelius Nepos is at- 
 tached to the shorter. Each claims to have been origi- 
 nally composed by one contemporary with the Trojan war, 
 and who took part in it ; the longer work, by the Cretan 
 Dictys, who fought upon the Greek side ; the shorter by the 
 Phrygian Dares, who fought upon the side of the Trojans. 
 
 It is not impossible ^ that the Ephemeris belli Troiani of 
 the pseudo-Dictys, which, in its present form, may be placed 
 near the beginning of the fifth century, was really founded 
 upon a Greek original. However distorted, the saga, as 
 here given, much more resembles the ancient tradition than 
 does the narrative of Dares. The author drew from good 
 sources, from Homer, from the cyclic poets, and especially 
 from the tragic writers of Greek antiquity. But the real 
 poetry of the subject vanished in his hands, the saga was 
 robbed of its mythical value, and the epic machinery was 
 discarded. 
 
 Bad as he was, Dictys was too good for the Middle Ages, 
 and I do not speak as an enemy of the " Dark Ages." At 
 least his rival Dares was preferred to him, though he was 
 well known and occasionally utilised. 
 
 Two circumstances seem to have made Dares attractive 
 to that age : his epitomising, by which his matter could 
 readily be adapted, and then adorned and expanded at will ; 
 further, his identification with that people to which medi- 
 
 romance of Heinrich of Veldeke, patterned after it, upon the same art-class in Germany 
 (in and after 1175). It is to be hoped that we will soon have a complete publication of 
 the original. 
 
 • Although, it must be added, in the light of recent Investigations of the subject, 
 nighly improbable. 
 
1 68 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 seval nations were fond of ascribing their origin, as proud 
 Roma had done before them. 
 
 Dares's writing, De excidio Troiae historia, is a wretched, 
 barren, often self-contradictory piece of work, written in the 
 worst of Latin; it dates from about the sixth century of 
 our era. But with interest we discern in it the first outHnes 
 of personages who were richly developed in mediaeval poesy, 
 and were to be moulded still further by Shakspere himself. 
 Troilus is hardly mentioned in older traditions, and in Dictys 
 he merely enters the scene to be killed by Achilles and 
 mourned by the Trojans; but with Dares he plays an im- 
 portant role among the sons of Priam. After Hector's death 
 he comes decidedly into the foreground. Calchas, by birth, 
 belongs to the Trojan side, and goes over to the Greek camp 
 only at the direction of the Delphic oracle. 
 
 This story of Dares was the source of two poetical Troy- 
 books, composed during the second half of the twelfth cent- 
 ury. One of them was written in Latin verses in 1188, by 
 the Englishman Joseph of Exeter; it is particularly inter- 
 esting as regards form, since its diction for that age was 
 highly cultivated and even brilliant. The other, of some- 
 what earlier origin, is very important in the growth of the 
 saga ; it is the French Roman de Troie. 
 
 The poet Benoit de Sainte More most probably belonged 
 to the western part of northern France under the Angevin 
 sceptre. Besides Dares, his authorities were Dictys and other 
 writers in part unknown. How far the new matter presented 
 by him came from his own invention and combination can- 
 not be determined with certainty. The details, the exter- 
 nals, the mediaeval courtly colouring of the whole, are with- 
 out doubt his own ; for the rest we are confined to conject- 
 ure. To generalise, Benoit presents not only the elements, 
 or the impulse, of the mediaeval tale of Troilus as we find 
 them in Dares, but its essential outlines are also discernible. 
 Briseida (for Briseis), of whom Dares ^ furnished an attractive 
 portrait, but nothing more, with him becomes the heroine of 
 a fine and carefully executed episode. The beloved of Troilus 
 and the daughter of Calchas, she has remained in Troy. 
 After the capture of Antenor, Calchas proposes to the Greeks 
 to exchange the latter for his daughter. The proposition is ap- 
 
 1 At the close of the thirteenth chapter, which Hkewise contains the portraits of the 
 Greek princes ; as does the preceding those of the Trojans and the Trojan women. 
 
THE ROMANCE OF ADVENTURE. 1 69 
 
 proved and is ratified in Troy. Briseida is to be given back 
 to her father. The great pain and sad parting of the two lov- 
 ers, who swear eternal fidelity to each other, is then described. 
 But Briseida soon forgets her pain and her love in the woo- 
 ing of a new lover, Diomedes.^ 
 
 Benoit's poem suffers from too great length and breadth. 
 He likes to begin ab ovo ; to add learned geographical, 
 ethnographical, mythological digressions, to describe at 
 length, and to make as many words as possible. Yet we 
 cannot deny a certain charm to his style, and to many pas- 
 sages, true poetry. Benoit was a sensitive, somewhat finely 
 organised nature, not lacking imagination, and w^th either 
 too much or too little learning, whence comes a touch of 
 pedantry. He stood, in other respects, entirely within the 
 influence of the age of chivalric courtliness and its poetry, 
 and he surpassed most of his fellow-writers, both in their 
 virtues and their faults. 
 
 We are wont to include the sagas of Alexander, of Troy, 
 of ^neas, of Thebes, and whatever else came from the 
 ancient history or epic, in the comprehensive phrase, the 
 antique saga-cycle. The Middle Ages likewise conceived of 
 them as homogeneous and connected, and contrasted the 
 romances treating them with the contes d'aveiitures. 
 
 The romance of adventure was the true; field for original 
 invention, that is, an invention producing new combinations 
 out of well-known elements, and often making free with 
 time, place, and names of persons ; and this, whether the in- 
 vention belonged mainly to one person, or equally to many, 
 whether it sprang from the fancy of the French poets, or 
 was transmitted to them, whether, finally, the elements from 
 which it created new combinations flowed to it from art- 
 poetry or the folk-song. 
 
 In this connection the elements taken from Late-Greek 
 and Byzantine romances, hold an important place. 
 
 The history of Apollonius of Tyre very early became 
 known among the western nations through a Latin transla- 
 tion, which must also for us replace the supposed original. 
 As we have seen, it was translated into English before the 
 
 1 This account of the Troilus episode in BcHoit is so far inaccurate that, in the 
 Roman de Troie, Briseida is not exchanged for Antenor. She is, however, demanded 
 by her father and restored to him in connection with the exchange occasioned by 
 Anten or' s capture. 
 
1 70 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 Conquest. In France the story was, in the second half of 
 the twelfth century, connected with the Charlemagne-saga, 
 though very loosely, and with change of names and places ; 
 and it was treated in the form of the chansoji de geste in 
 Jourdain de Blaivies at about the same time that Godfrey of 
 Viterbo, in Italy, worked over the story in Latin verse and 
 embodied it in his Pantheon. 
 
 The crusades brought the western nations into frequent 
 contact with Byzantium, and doubtless procured for them a 
 certain acquaintance with the Late -Greek and Byzantine 
 romance literature. Whether entire works, which would 
 have to be regarded as lost in the original tongue, were 
 translated into the French, traversing perhaps the Latin, 
 whether complete plots were carried by oral tradition into 
 western Europe, or single themes only were thus trans- 
 planted, so much is certain, that a not inconsiderable part 
 of the French tales of adventure received their material, or 
 their peculiar colouring, from Byzantium. 
 
 In many of them the typical character of their models 
 may be discerned. As to subject-matter, we find a pair of 
 lovers who are pursued or parted, who endure all sorts of 
 adventures, and are happily rescued from ever-recurring 
 perils. The execution shows an absence of all analysis of 
 motives and of all portrayal of character. There is a pre- 
 dominance of chance, an effeminate sentimentality in the 
 treatment of the erotic element, together with detailed de- 
 scriptions of beautiful gardens, fountains, etc. The favourite 
 romantic apparatus consists of storms, shipwreck, land or 
 sea-robbers, whose place may be taken by merchants trad- 
 ing in human beings, caves in which men hide, and the like. 
 
 Late-Greek and oriental elements mingled are unmistaka- 
 ble in the history of Floris and Blanc heflur (Floire et Blajiche- 
 flor). Byzantine originals have been claimed (whether cor- 
 rectly we do not say) for other romances, as that of Partono- 
 peusof Blois, which employs the beautiful allegorical myth of 
 Amor and Psyche, and that of Athis and Prophilias. In 
 Crestien de Troyes's Cliget we are led now to the court at 
 Constantinople, now to that of Arthur, and an incident is 
 used which occurs in the Ephesian tales of Xenophon of 
 Ephesus, and then in Chariton's story of Chcereas and Calir- 
 rhoe. This is the feigning of death by the heroine, the same 
 
THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND. 17I 
 
 motif \}i\2X reappears in the saga oi Romeo and Jidiet^ although 
 it is there made to bring about a tragical conclusion. We 
 can also perceive in William of Palermo a certain relation- 
 ship with Sophistic or Byzantine love-romances. Its plot, 
 in which various elements are blended, may have been elab- 
 orated among the Normans in Sicily or southern Italy. 
 
 But the Celtic traditions were of paramount importance 
 in the tales of adventure.^ Several of them were treated in 
 Breton lais^ and afterwards recited and sung by Yx^x\c\\ Jong- 
 leurs. Then followed the romances, in prose or verse, of art- 
 poets and professional authors. Many foreign elements, ori- 
 ental and otherwise, were mingled with these sagas in their mi- 
 gration, sometimes naively, sometimes with conscious purpose. 
 Since Geoffrey of Monmouth had given the tradition of 
 Arthur a permanent form, it had drawn a mass of other 
 Celtic traditions, sagas, and tales into its magic circle. The 
 names of new Arthurian heroes, besides those well known 
 in Geoffrey, were now added, as well as numerous advent- 
 ures and exploits ascribed to them. The same tales were 
 in some cases transferred from more ancient to more recent 
 names ; thus, Launcelot is made the lover of the queen in 
 Arthurian romance, a role filled by Mordred in Geoffrey. 
 Quite independent invention began to act upon the saga- 
 formation as early as Crestien de Troyes, the most ancient 
 poet of the Arthurian romances known to us; the Cliget, for 
 instance, looks Hke an attempt to cater to the interest felt in 
 France concerning Byzantium during the seventies of the 
 twelfth century, by introducing a Byzantine hero into the 
 circle of Arthurian knights, at the same time, as we have 
 seen, employing fictions borrowed from Late -Greek ro- 
 mances. 
 
 The Arthurian saga even drew ecclesiastical legends to 
 itself It did not lack religious moments in Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth, and they sometimes gave a shade of mystery to 
 his narrative. Mysticism first entered the Arthurian cycle 
 in the Graal-saga. 
 
 In the second half of the eleventh century, fancy seems to 
 have been often busied with the question. What had become 
 
 1 Some recent scholars do not class the romances of Arthur and Tristan ivith the 
 romatis d' aveniures — so far rightly as the Middle Ages, to speak with Shakspere, 
 had a "particular addition" in readiness for this group within the class; nevertheless 
 they "go in the catalogue " with the others. 
 
172 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 of the chalice, the dish with which Christ had celebrated the 
 Lord's supper ? Men's hearts were drawn by a longing de- 
 sire toward the Holy Land, toward the places where the 
 Saviour had lived and suffered ; with their memories and rel- 
 ics. And how could there be a more sacred relic than that 
 cup ? It was holier than the cross itself on which Christ 
 had redeemed the world. The dogmatic controversy on 
 transubstantiation between Lanfranc and Berengar turned 
 men's thoughts in the same direction. It is no wonder, 
 therefore, that the poet of the Charlemagne makes the great 
 emperor bring the holy cup with him, among other relics. 
 This was, however, only a sign of the time ; it formed no 
 starting-point for the development of a legend of the com- 
 munion-cup. 
 
 Nothing was perhaps better adapted to originate such a 
 legend than the history of the man who had taken the body 
 of Christ from the cross and buried it, Joseph of Arimathea. 
 The older church-legend had made him a new witness to 
 the resurrection of Christ ; since the Risen One was said to 
 have liberated him from the dungeon into which the Jews 
 had cast him, and to have guided him to his dwelling. It 
 was but natural to make Joseph also a witness to the mys- 
 tery of transubstantiation. Again, Joseph's imprisonment 
 had been changed, by the mingling of legends and by 
 chronological confusion, from a very brief one into a con- 
 finement lasting forty years. Another expedient now took 
 the place of Joseph's liberation by the risen Christ ; the 
 Saviour provides the prisoner with food and light, by bring- 
 ing to him the communion chalice, the Graal, (/. ^., dish). 
 
 The Graal-saga seems to have been attached in France 
 to the legend of Joseph of Arimathea, and many tokens 
 point to the eastern territory, then belonging to the German 
 empire, the region of the Vosges, as its location. 
 
 This was probably also the home of the knight Robert 
 de Boron, who, in the sixties of the twelfth century, wrote 
 nis poem on the Graal known by the name Le petit sai?it 
 Graal. It was later put into prose. It has, throughout, the 
 character of a legend, whose centre is the Graal. The per- 
 sonages are Joseph, his brother-in-law Bron, the children of 
 die latter, and their companions. The action lies in the 
 Orient. Near the close, Bron's children go at God's com- 
 
LEGEND OF THE GRAAL. 1 73 
 
 mand to the valleys of Avaron (?) to convert the nations ; 
 Bron is to bear the Graal with him to the Occident. There 
 one of his descendants will succeed him in its guardianship, 
 as its last custodian. The idea of a mystical church, beside 
 the visible and official one, seems to underlie the whole ; a 
 church having its own apostles and ministers. It would be 
 interesting to examine into the question, how far the dog- 
 matic views of certain sects of that age were here involved. 
 
 This legend found fruitful soil in England, where, under 
 Henry IL, the tendencies toward ecclesiastical independence 
 were reviving. It was used to prove the origin of the Eng- 
 lish church as independent of Rome. Joseph, who remains 
 in the Orient in Robert de Boron's version, now comes to 
 England with his son Josephe and other associates ; the son 
 is a new and important personage, consecrated a bishop by 
 Christ himself. They convert the land to Christianity; 
 Joseph and his son die and are buried there. This is the 
 legend as given in the prose narrative known by the title Le 
 grand St. Graal. The story is otherwise much modified, and 
 has been prolonged by new characters and episodes. The 
 Graal plays an important part, as does the mystery of tran- 
 substantiation. There is further a marvellous shield, pos- 
 sessed by Joseph. A martial, chivalric element has in this 
 already united with the rehgious, and connected the legend 
 with the Arthurian saga. The dynasties founded by the 
 missionaries of Great Britain, who espoused daughters of the 
 native kings, are carried down to Arthur. The Graal is kept 
 in a Northumbrian forest, and there a " pure youth," Gala- 
 had, the son of Launcelot, is at last to find it. 
 
 Continuing this narrative, another prose romance. La 
 queste del Saint Graal, conducts us into the midst of the 
 time and the knightly circle of Arthur. Among all the 
 knights who seek the Graal, Galahad alone succeeds. The 
 Graal, from which Christ himself has come forth and admin- 
 istered the eucharist, is then borne back to the Orient by 
 Galahad, accompanied by Parcival and Bohors. On the 
 death of Galahad it is removed to heaven. 
 
 Both of these romances, as well as others, are ascribed, 
 from manuscript notes, to Walter Map, who lived in the 
 reign of Henry II., and who is said to have translated them 
 fronj the Latin. Whether this is accurate can be decided, if 
 
174 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 ever, only when we have a critical edition of these texts, 
 made from the manuscripts, which are evidently much later, 
 and are in no respect Anglo-Norman. But, from internal 
 evidence, there seems no doubt that these romances arose, 
 in substance, in the reign of Henry II. 
 
 Crestien de Troyes wrote his Conte del Graal in the ninth 
 or tenth decade of the twelfth century. In this the hero is 
 not Galahad, but Parcival, and the chivalric, romantic ele- 
 ment comes so far into the foreground that the legend prop- 
 er is but dimly visible; the Graal is still the remote object 
 of the action, but it no longer forms the central theme of the 
 narrative. Unhappily, Crestien did not finish his poem, and 
 did not reach the point where most of the links connecting 
 it with the legend would have become visible. Those who 
 continued, interpolated, and imitated his work in France, 
 interest us here less than his German interpreter. Wolfram. 
 He completed the narrative, diverging throughout from the 
 legend, and if, as an artist, he did not quite master his fan- 
 tastic subject-matter, he at least raised it, as a whole, by 
 psychological profundity, and a pervading ideal spirit of true 
 piety and beautiful humanity, into a higher, truly poetical 
 sphere. What new matter he offered must be ascribed 
 either to himself or to the Provengal Kyot, whom he names, 
 but who has otherwise left no traces. 
 
 The saga of Tristan takes the first place among the Cel- 
 tic traditions which continued long independent of the Ar- 
 thurian saga, and therefore purer. Several of its Old French 
 versions are preserved (the larger, only in fragments), while 
 the Tristan romance of Crestien de Troyes seems to have 
 been entirely lost. The strophic form employed by the 
 jongleurs in the recital of their songs has been plainly made 
 out in some passages of ancient Tristan romances. This 
 confirms the theory by which a portion of the court-romances 
 actually rest upon such songs, which in their turn oftentimes 
 presuppose a basis of Breton lais. At the same time, we 
 see how the short couplet, which is the standing form of 
 the court-romance, was not only transmitted to it from the 
 legendary, didactic, historical poems, but was also sug- 
 gested to it by those songs to which it was indebted for its 
 own subject-matter. Other tokens indicate that a short 
 strophe composed of eight-syllabled lines, with single or al- 
 
METRE AND STVLE. I75 
 
 ternating rhymes, was a favourite form for many subjects in 
 this jongleur-'^ot\xy . Even the most ancient piece of epic 
 art-poetry in France, the Alexander of Alberic de BesanQon, 
 is written in tirades of eight-syllabled lines. 
 
 The simple form of the short couplet offered to the romance- 
 poet no scope to compete in metrical technique with the 
 skilled court-lyrists. He could prove his art only within a 
 limited portion of this field ; in the treatment of the enjambe- 
 ptefit, and particularly of rhyme. The poet strove not only 
 to form pure rhymes, but often to carry them forward with 
 more syllables than were essential, and he was fond of all 
 sorts of grammatical devices in rhyme. And with this is 
 connected a tendency most fully developed, it is true, among 
 the epigonic representatives of courtly art, the tendency gen- 
 erally to place words of like sound, or cognate words, close 
 together for the stronger emphasis of the thought. 
 
 The diction is but slightly sensuous, and rarely makes use 
 of bold images. Full similes occur, but not so often as in 
 the court-lyric. 
 
 The entire language differs from prose mainly in greater 
 elegance, copiousness, and finish. Less severe than the 
 Norman clerical poetry, the French art-epic is not averse to 
 pleasing digression, to a certain freedom in construction, and 
 does not shun the parenthesis. The art of the poets of the 
 court-epic appears in the moderate use of such freedom, 
 which must not impair the clearness of speech, and in the 
 happy conquest of metrical obstacles in such a way that 
 rhyme and measure never retard the free flow of thought, 
 but seem to promote it, smoothing transitions, and more 
 clearly bringmg out contrasts. 
 
 In the higher sense, this art proves itself in the choice of 
 material; in the rejection of superfluous things; in the in- 
 vention or skilful insertion of episodes ; in the correct ar- 
 rangement of the different passages of the narrative, whereby 
 the general relation of parts is made evident at a glance ; in 
 the happy gradation of themes, whereby interest is enhanced ; 
 and finally, in the psychological deduction of action from 
 character. 
 
 Again, the age required of the epic poet as vivid a repre- 
 sentation of chivalric life and the chivalric ideal as he could 
 give.^ Hence we have the full description of battles, festivals^ 
 
176 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 love-scenes, weapons, dress; hence the dialogue, worked 
 out with special care, treating questions of knightly honour 
 and love, oi p7'ouesse and courtoisie ; now by subtle irony 
 bringing back to us an age that strove to excel by intellect- 
 ual superiority as well as by external accomplishments; now, 
 in a quick exchange of repartees, attesting the fecundity and 
 mental alertness of the epoch. 
 
 The epic poet is fond of interrupting his narrative by eth- 
 ical and psychological reflections, in which he makes a fine, 
 and often an acute, analysis of feelings. 
 
 We may expect a comprehensive unity of action only 
 when it comes to the poet with his material. With a mass 
 of disconnected adventures before him, he is content to give 
 motive and significance to the deeds of his main heroes, to 
 take care that our interest in their destinies shall not flag, 
 but, if possible, be increased, and above all that we shall not 
 be bored. The central ideas of the court-romances are 
 usually those of court and chivalry, continually repeated in 
 act or speech. 
 
 Two men in particular seem to have promoted the growth 
 of the court-romance : the unknown author of the £neas,^ 
 and still more than he, Crestien de Troyes. 
 
 Crestien was at once the most fertile and the most culti- 
 vated poet in this sphere; he was also one of the earliest, 
 having begun his career not long after 1150. 
 
 Others surpassed him at times in the choice of subject- 
 matter or in single excellences ; not one combined so per- 
 fectly as he all the traits of the court-poet ; not one moves 
 with such sureness upon the narrow line laid down by his 
 art as he; not one knew how so wisely to restrain himself 
 in indulgence. 
 
 As he was a virtuoso in language and metre, and was dis- 
 tinguished for his art in narration, for a fine sense in finding 
 and applying psychological motive, he was likewise conspic- 
 uous for the noble sentiment which enabled him to work out 
 the chivalric ideals in their most pure and humane spirit. 
 Good- will and delicacy of feeling with him underlie the po- 
 lite forms of courtly intercourse, and it is deep human sym- 
 pathy and genuine, manly honour, as well as lust of fame 
 
 ' His identity with Benoit de Sainte More seems to me very improbable. 
 
CLASSES OF THE METRICAL TALE. 1 77 
 
 and thirst for action, which impel the knight to his ad\'ent- 
 ures. 
 
 Nevertheless, the conventional element is too strong, and 
 we are not surprised that, with the epigonic poets, it almost 
 overgrew all ethical substance and soon gave birth to satire. 
 
 Beside the metrical romance appeared the shorter metrical 
 tale. It certainly developed very early from the songs of 
 \hQ Jongleurs, although its extant monuments do not go back 
 beyond the second half of the twelfth century, and it did not 
 begin truly to flourish before the thirteenth. The tale was 
 decidedly influenced in form and tone by the romance, and 
 it took a courtly cast. Nevertheless, it remained unostenta- 
 tious, and preserved much freedom, which indeed often went 
 beyond the bounds of propriety. 
 
 There are three divisions in this class : the lai, which 
 claims to rest' upon songs, usually those of Breton origin ; 
 the fabliau, and the dit. The last two do not make this 
 claim, and they differ from each other in that the former is 
 more popular, and the latter betrays a tinge of erudition, as 
 weU as a didactic, and at times rehgious, bias. Naturally 
 these classes often ran into each other, especially t\\Q fabliau 
 and the dit, the distinctive names being often arbitrarily ap- 
 plied. 
 
 The short couplet was common to all three ; besides this, 
 the dit employed other forms, particularly after the thirteenth 
 century, and the new form was often a single-rhymed strophe 
 of Alexandrines, composed usually of four lines. 
 
 These names do not always denote an epic presentation. 
 As the word lai, strictly meaning " song," in the lyrical po- 
 etry designates a poem rendered in a popular tone and com- 
 posed of unequal strophes, so the form and name of the dit 
 and the fabliau lend themselves to didactic and satirical 
 works, to enumerations, descriptions of manners, and the 
 like. Two or more personified things are often brought for- 
 ward in them and made to contend for precedence, — and thus 
 arises a class of poetry also having its special names [desbat, 
 dcsputoison, estrif) and recalling the Jeu parti of the art- 
 lyric. 
 
 So far as mere narrative is concerned, three prominent 
 cycles of material are to be distinguished : the Celtic saga, 
 which is mainly at home in the lais ; the legend, which 
 
 M 
 
178 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 by its alliance with secular narrative yields the conte devot ^ 
 that adapts itself easily to the dit ; finally and chiefly, the 
 oriental tale, which is wont to join itself to every other kind 
 of tradition. The fragments of the Teutonic myth can be- 
 long but to the second rank ; likewise matter borrowed from 
 ancient authors, who in their turn owe much to the Orient, 
 to domestic saga connected with actual occurrences, and to 
 pure invention. 
 
 The .great masi of the materials of the mediaeval tales 
 came from India. They circulated in part singly, either in 
 writing or orally; in part, and no doubt chiefly, in greater 
 collections, where a series of single tales were bound together 
 by a superior one, as by a frame. Through Persian, 
 Arabian, Rabbinic versions, these collections reached Eu- 
 rope, where they found entrance to the Middle Latin litera- 
 ture, both from the east through the Greek, and by another 
 and direct course. Often modified, expanded, abridged, 
 robbed of older stories, increased by new ones, these cycles 
 of tales and fables still frequently betray their oriental origin, 
 even in their most recent occidental forms. ^ 
 
 In the long journey from India to the Atlantic ocean, 
 many single tales became detached from their larger connec- 
 tion, and they, too, suffered many vicissitudes. They usually 
 continued their separate existence on through several meta- 
 morphoses, but they often incorporated themselves with an- 
 other equally ancient, or some newly-created whole. 
 
 Of all the western literatures, the French was the first to 
 adopt these materials, both taking up single tales, and ab- 
 sorbing entire collections. 
 
 Two such collections may be mentioned here : the Book 
 of the Seven Sages and the Disciplina dericalis. 
 
 The former, whose history may be traced back to India, 
 although the Indian original is lost, presented itself to French 
 poets in twofold form. The type, which we will call His- 
 toria Septem sapientum Ro??iae, is more widely circulated, and 
 nearer the ancient tradition, and it comprises many varieties. 
 Several French versions under the name Roman des sept sages, 
 are to be traced to this source. The other originated in 
 Lorraine in the year 1184, from the pen of John, a monk of 
 the abbey Haute Seille {altasilva). It is notable, both in 
 details and as a whole, for many distinctive and peculiar 
 
LAI AND FABLIAU. 1 79 
 
 qualities. These may be partially explained by the fact that 
 the author was but imperfectly acquainted with the tradi- 
 tion, and drew much new matter from oral communication. 
 Some of the single tales given by him were doubtless in cir- 
 culation among the people of his district. The connective 
 or frame-story, though identical in its outlines with that of 
 other compilations, underwent changes which perhaps owed 
 their origin to the Normans in Sicily or southern Italy. 
 This work, known by the title Dolopathos, was translated into 
 French verse at the beginning of the thirteenth century, by a 
 poet named Herbert. 
 
 The Disciplina clericalis, framed by a dialogue between 
 an Arabian philosopher and his son, was rendered in Spain 
 in the year iio6, from Arabian sources, by a baptised Jew, 
 Petrus Alphonsus. It was at least twice translated into 
 French ; the best known version is entitled Le castoiement 
 d^un pere a so?ißls. 
 
 In moulding these foreign materials French poetry dis- 
 played great powers of assimilation ; particularly as regards 
 single tales, whose matter it converted entirely into its own 
 flesh and blood. 
 
 The Breton lais retain most fully their native fragrance. 
 They are usually romantic even when the topic is comic. 
 But this is generally calculated to awaken seriousness and 
 emotion ; the poem is often pervaded by a tone of elegiac 
 longing. 
 
 The fabliau in no respect excludes seriousness, but its 
 dominant spirit is jocund and sportive, and though it often 
 falls into licentiousness, it always maintains, with arch 
 naivete, a certain epic dignity. It often represents husbands, 
 peasants, merchants, and especially clergymen, in delicate 
 situations, exposes the morals of the time with much spright- 
 liness, and with broad derision pillories the servants of the 
 church. ' As we saw, the dit readily lent its name to pious, 
 half-legendary tales, but was equally at home with every 
 material; later it yielded the form in which many of the 
 more compendious romances were brought within a brief 
 compass. 
 
 In the poetical tale the art of narrating, in which, even in the 
 Middle Ages, the French excelled, did not, as in the romance, 
 have to contend with a vast and confused subject-matter. 
 
l8o THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 The matter, as such, was attractive and already contained 
 the unity of interest, proceeding from the unity of conception. 
 The poet needed but dehcately to work out the details, and 
 to adorn them with the simple grace which many a French- 
 man had at command. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Both Normans and Anglo-Normans took most active part 
 in this entire epic literature. They developed the sagas of 
 Arthur and Tristan and gave them to the French, and with- 
 out them the Graal-saga would not have unfolded. Neither 
 did the Normans lack poets who gave these and other ma- 
 terials the form of art. They cultivated the court-romance 
 with success, but, both in England and on the Continent, 
 they won deserved fame, especially in the lai and the fabliau. 
 Other names in this field were eclipsed by that of Marie de 
 France, who, although born in France, certainly spent a 
 large part of her life in England. Marie's lais are distin- 
 guished by noble, touching simplicity, by a refined concep- 
 tion, and graceful expression. Her translation of ^sop's 
 Fables^ founded upon an English original traced to a king 
 of enigmatical name, displays many qualities which make 
 her a worthy forerunner of La Fontaine. 
 
 Marie de France cannot properly be counted among the 
 true Anglo-Norman poets, on account of the purity of her 
 language and verse. At the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, when she wrote, the corruption of the Norman 
 tongue had already proceeded far; and the influence of 
 English metrical art upon the French was making itself 
 strongly felt with most poets. The fundamental principle 
 of syllabic versification and the purport of the caesura were 
 often misconceived, and different kinds of verse mingled 
 together. Such metrical peculiarities occur even in the 
 Anglo-Norman poems of the second half of the twelfth 
 century. 
 
 Besides the romance, the lai^ and the fabliau, the Anglo- 
 Normans continued to cultivate the legend and other 
 branches of religious poetry, and not least, historical poetry. 
 
 The poetical presentation of history took a new impetus 
 under Henry H., and largely through his incitement. We 
 
HISTORICAL POETRY. l8l 
 
 have seen that Wace wrote for him his Roman de Rou. 
 When Wace lost royal favour, Master Benoit, who is certainly 
 none other than Benoit de Sainte More, had, at the commis- 
 sion of the sovereign, begun a new chronicle of the Norman 
 dukes. This is notable for faults and virtues similar to those 
 of the Roman de Troie, At about the same time, Jordan 
 Fantosme, chancellor of Winchester cathedral, described 
 the war of Henry II. against Scotland (1173-1174). This 
 work purports to have been founded upon the statements 
 of eye-witnesses and it leaves an impression of impartiality 
 and historical fidelity, save in so far as the poetical form and 
 style, to which a lively dialogue at times lends a rich charm, 
 have sometimes warped the truth. As Lambert the Crooked 
 had done in his Alexander romance, Jordan chose for his 
 poem, with happy touch, the epic strain of x\lexandrines. 
 This was then generally becoming a favourite form, and 
 was beginning to displace the ten-syllabled line in the chan- 
 son de geste, and to rival the short couplet in other classes 
 of poetry. Jordan constructed his Alexandrines with Anglo- 
 Norman freedom, in a manner suggesting both the English 
 long line and the catalectic iambic tetrameter, and unques- 
 tionably to be traced to English influence. Finally, he in- 
 serted also lines of ten syllables. Sixty or seventy years 
 later, the unknown poet of a legend of St. Alban ( Vie de 
 semt Auban) proceeded in exactly the same way. 
 
 King Henry conquered a part of Ireland in the year 1 172, 
 and in the beginning of the following century, the conquest 
 was described by an unknown poet, who seems to have been 
 both well-informed and honestly desirous of presenting, to 
 the best of his ability, what he had learned. 
 
 The national English or Anglo- Danish traditions, as has 
 been hinted, soon attracted the Norman poets. A Norman 
 song of Havelok must have appeared as early as the begin- 
 ning of the twelfth century ; and upon this was founded both 
 the version of the saga in Gaimar, and a younger poem, 
 probably not much later than 11 50. Strangely enough, this 
 poem alluded to a Breton lai as its source, and other traces 
 go to show that the Celts, either upon the British isle or the 
 Continent, had really taken up this entirely un- Celtic tradi- 
 tion. 
 
 Whjle the saga of Havelok thus took the form of a lai^ 
 
l82 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 the Horn-sdigdi was clothed in the form and style of the chan- 
 S071 de geste. 
 
 The latter change was still more pronounced in the saga 
 of Beuves de Hanstofie, which was connected, in its French 
 form, directly with the Carlovingian cycle of sagas. On the 
 contrary, Guy of Warwick was cast into a court-romance. 
 
 Personages from Anglo-Norman history, too, were cele- 
 brated in romantic poems, in the course of the thirteenth 
 century. We have already mentioned Baron Fulke Fitz 
 Warin, who was outlawed by King John. The adventurous 
 life of the monk Eustace fell in the time of the same king. 
 Eustace passed for a master of the black art. Born in the 
 territory of the Count of Boulogne, he came to England in 
 the latter part of his life, where he formed close relations 
 with King John, which were at first friendly, and later, hos- 
 tile. Finally, no less a personage than Richard Coeur de 
 Lion became a subject of poetry, as he had early been a 
 hero of the folk-saga. 
 
 Let us return to the time of Henry IL In the same 
 epoch which saw the French and Provencal poesy grow 
 to highest splendour, the mediaeval renaissance, the revival 
 of classical study in England, reached its culmination. Its 
 masters were wont to get incentive and instruction in France; 
 there, in spite of much hostility, the study of the antique had 
 not yet receded, before religious fanaticism and the over- 
 growth of dialectical scholasticism, into the background of 
 the ecclesiastical horizon, and it was already fertilising the 
 national literature. Not only Virgil and Statins v/ere turned 
 into French ; but before all others, Ovid, the poet of polite 
 Roman society, received the applause of that courtly age. 
 Crestien de Troyes (probably at the beginning of his career) 
 had already translated the Ars amaiidi and the Remcdia 
 amoris, as well as numerous myths from the Metamorphoses; 
 and many subsequently followed his example. 
 
 In greater or less proximity, there were grouped about the 
 court of Henry II, a number of ecclesiastics, who were often 
 employed also in political affairs. They united great learn- 
 ing with a certain man-of-the-world culture, and in devoting 
 their leisure hours to literature, they did not forget the pres- 
 ciU in antiquity, nor life in theory. They were fond of writ- 
 ing about the history of their time, or the topography of 
 
THE POLYCRATICUS. 1 83 
 
 their country ; they oftentimes regale us with anecdotes, as 
 well as legends and sagas illustrating the mental tendencies 
 of that time, and depict with keen observation, lifelike touch, 
 and fresh colours the morals of the epoch, the life of the 
 clergy, of the orders, and the doings at the court. 
 
 Above all others, John of Salisbury was conspicuous for 
 his learning and culture. He had laid in Chartres and Paris 
 the groundwork of his knowledge of the classics, of philoso- 
 phy and theology. He was the friend, confidant, and biog- 
 rapher of Thomas Beket, was later bishop of Chartres, and 
 died in 1180. His greatest work, called Folycraticus^ was 
 produced in about the years 1156-1159. It is remarkable 
 for the vast reading displayed, which includes the writings 
 of Plato and Aristotle, as far as they were then accessible to 
 the author in translations ; for the spirit pervading and illu- 
 minating the massive and not inartistically ordered material ; 
 and finally, for a graphic style in thoroughly good Latin. 
 Beginning with an account of the foUies and immoralities 
 of the court, the author proceeds to the most important in- 
 vestigations, notably in politics and philosophy. In the lat- 
 ter field he discusses the different systems of ancient philoso- 
 phy, and closes the subject with an exposition of his own es- 
 sentially ethical system. John's Metalogicus^ written in 1 159, 
 deals with logic, and here he duly puts down an opponent 
 who had taunted him on account of his studies in philosophy. 
 
 The famous Walter Map, John's contemporary, was less 
 subtle and profound, was more secular, and more harsh and 
 sharp in the expression of his satirical moods, but he had 
 learning and classical knowledge, was a man of great intel- 
 lectual power, and genuine moral sense. He took a high 
 place at the English court, often accompanied the king on 
 his journeys, and died soon after 11 96 as archdeacon of 
 Oxford. Posterity has connected with his name a great 
 number of Latin and French works ; among these are ro- 
 mances of Arthur and the Graal in prose, and rollicking 
 student songs. His De nugis curialium gives us a true image 
 of his personality. This, as the title shovvs,^ was suggested 
 by the Polycraticus^ but is not to be compared with it in 
 scientific importance. Yet it contains much more circum- 
 stantial description of the English court and English society, 
 
 I A sub-title of the Polycraticus is De migis curialimn. 
 
184 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 and its anecdotes and tales, its occasional comments, its 
 spice of satire, directed especially against the Cistercians, 
 offer rich material to the historian of culture. 
 
 The letters of Peter of Blois, the outcome of much art 
 and erudition, cast a welcome light upon the history of the 
 time. He, too, was an archdeacon, first of Bath, and later 
 of London, having acted meanwhile (1191-1193) as secre- 
 tary to Queen Eleanor. He survived Map but a few years. 
 In his youth, he had written love-poems ; he regretted this 
 later without being able quite to forget his pleasure in them. 
 They are lost as well as Peter's work. De gestis Henrici. 
 
 William of Newbury, who lived from 1136 to 1208, wrote 
 the history of his time down to the year 1197, in an attract- 
 ive style, influenced by the manner of William of Malmes- 
 bury. The age was beginning to make demands of the 
 historian, which could not but spur him to raise his art above 
 the level of dry annal writing, but which could easily allure 
 him into paths not compatible with the seriousness of his- 
 tory. Above all were demanded interesting details, piquant 
 tales, legends, and the like. 
 
 This taste explains the appearance of such works as the 
 Otia imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury, a layman high in 
 favour with the German emperor, Otto IV. This book was 
 written in 12 12 for the emperor's amusement. It is a re- 
 markable mixture of material from general history, geogra- 
 phy, natural philosophy, popular traditions, and legendary 
 lore, a book, too, that, to this day, can attract and hold the 
 reader. In earlier years Gervase had written a book of anec- 
 dotes (Liber facetiarum) for the young King Henry, who 
 died in the year 1183. 
 
 The historian of culture likewise finds a rich treasure of 
 varied material in the numerous writings of Gerald de Bary 
 (died 12 1 7). He was the son of a Norman father, and a 
 mother related to the Welsh princes. He was brought up, 
 as a youth, in Wales, and is known by the name of Giraldus 
 Cambrensis. He was a man of comprehensive, many-sided 
 knowledge, and great persuasiveness; he was not without 
 vanity and ambition ; with all his keenness of intellect and 
 quick observation, he was rather superstitious, although he 
 rejected with contempt the fictions of Geoffrey of Mon- 
 DiOuth. His writings treat theology, politics, topography, 
 
LATIN POETRY. 185 
 
 history, lives of the saints, and other subjects, and their style 
 is ever lucid and pleasant, oftentimes pathetic and eloquent. 
 His Topographia Hiberniae^ to which he added a work on 
 the conquest of Ireland ( Expugnatio Hibefinae), as well as 
 his Topographia Cambriae, are a mine for the antiquarian and 
 the student of history and folk-lore. His autobiography 
 (JDe gesäs Giraldi Laboj'iosis) is also interesting, and still 
 more, perhaps, his Speculum Ecclesiae, a violent satire against 
 the monks and the Roman curia. 
 
 Although less pleasing and more dry than these, the De 
 vita et gesiis Henrici IL et Ricardi I, is an invaluable historical 
 authority for the period from 1170 to 1192. It probably ap- 
 peared in the north of England. Formerly connected with 
 the name of the abbot Benedict of Peterborough, it has 
 been ascribed (probably incorrectly) by some recent investi- 
 gators to Bishop Richard of London (died 1198), the son 
 of Nigel. This Richard wrote a history of his time in three 
 rubrics, (including, i. ecclesiastical history, 2. political history, 
 3. miscellaneous matter), whence the title Tiicolwnnis or 
 Tricolumnus. This work was apparently lost, but, by the 
 scholars alluded to, it is considered identical with a part of 
 the Gesta Henrici II. Another work of Richard, royal 
 treasurer from about 11 58 to his death, is preserved; this is 
 the Diologus de scacca?'io, dating from the year 11 78, and it 
 treats, in animated style, but in barbaric Latin, of the consti- 
 tution and conduct of the exchequer. About ten years 
 later the lord chief-justice Ranulph of Glanvilla wrote his 
 Tractatus de legibus Angliae. 
 
 Latin poetry was no less cultivated in England in the 
 second half of the twelfth century than it had been in the 
 first. Nearly all of the notable Latinists whom we have con- 
 sidered wrote Latin verses — we name here only John of 
 Salisbury and Gerald de Bary. Likewise Alexander Neck- 
 am (11 57-1 2 1 7), perhaps the greatest polyhistor of his 
 time, bequeathed to us a prose and a poetical natural history, 
 besides many grammatical treatises. 
 
 But the most distinguished of all the English poets who 
 ventured to contend for the laurels of the Latin muse was 
 Joseph of Exeter, the singer of the Trojan war; he was the 
 worthy peer of his still more famous French contemporary 
 Walter de Chatillon, who, following Curtius and Justinus, 
 
l86 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 wrote an Alexandreis in verses that enchanted the Middle 
 Ages. ] 
 
 During the reign of Richard. JI. the laws of Latin versi- 
 fication were collated, with illustrative examples, and put 
 into verse, by Geoffrey of Vinsauf (de Vinosalvo), also called 
 Galfridus Anglicus. This poem, named Nova poetria, and 
 dedicated to Pope Innocent III., has litde intrinsic charm. 
 It was begun in 1193, but not finished until after King 
 Richard's death (1199). Its influence upon the versifiers of 
 the thirteenth century was decisive, and Geoffrey's name had 
 good repute down to Chaucer's time. 
 
 Besides the more scholastic poetry, the Middle Ages knew 
 a Latin poetry of another sort, a poetry which moved free 
 and unconstrained in the ancient language, as in undress, 
 and was more closely connected with actual life. This 
 poetry was throughout essentially international, and seems 
 to have been cultivated as early as the tenth century, and 
 to have received a powerful impulse in the eleventh and in 
 the twelfth. The composers of this non-academic poetry 
 came mainly from the younger and elder youth of the schools, 
 the clerks. These, inclined by nature to wandering, roved 
 from land to land in the age of the crusades, and led an ad- 
 venturous but usually a rather unedifying life, which was re- 
 flected in their songs. Their favourite themes were love 
 and wine; in which they followed the ancients, but quite 
 independently. In the manner of the late Latin popular po- 
 etry and a great part of the ecclesiastical songs, whose forms 
 they took up, they were wont to construct their verses in 
 rhythm merely, without regard to quantity, and to adorn them 
 with rhyme, which they often handled with admirable skill. 
 Their songs were most probably influential in the beginnings 
 of the Romanic love-song, as, in the wider range, there was 
 a reciprocal influence between the poetry of the itinerant 
 clerks and the national poetry of several western nations. 
 They kept aloof from conventional courtly life ; their art was 
 the undisguised expression of exuberant youthful force, carried 
 away by classical models to a sort of pantheistic enthusiasm 
 for nature and beauty. Their verses had a fresh, sprightly 
 tone, and sometimes a truly Bacchic strain, as in the famous 
 tnihi est proposiUim in taberna ??ton. This was a fragment 
 
THE VAGANTES. 1 87 
 
 of a general confession^ of the "archpoet Walter" (archi- 
 poeta Walterus), who seems to have been neither an English- 
 man nor a Frenchman, though his songs were applauded in 
 those countries no less than in Germany. Like the glee- 
 men, the jongkw's^ with whom they often mingled, the 
 vagantes were apparently in many ways intermediary be- 
 tween the courtly and the popular poetry ; their hand seems 
 discernible in many a French love and drinking-song, in 
 many a fabliau. As the troubadours had their sirventes as 
 well as their ca^izone, so the vagantes, or others in their style, 
 sang of serious things, of historical events, as well as of 
 wine, women, and dice. But they loved satire most, and 
 they directed its edge against the clergy, and chiefly against 
 the Roman curia. 
 
 A poem from the last quarter of the twelfth century gives 
 a glimpse of life and doings at Salerno and Paris, and es- 
 pecially of the " English nation " at the university of the lat- 
 ter city ; this is the Speculum stultorum of Nigellus, which is 
 in spirit most closely related to the songs of the vagantes. 
 The poem is composed in distichs, and its subject-matter 
 is the marvellous adventures of an ambitious ass named 
 Brunellus, who is discontented at the shortness of his tail, 
 and strives for loftier things. He is meant for a type of 
 monachism. The different orders, including the nuns, are 
 sharply scrutinised, and found utterly worthless. 
 
 X. 
 
 We now pass from the more aristocratic Latin and Ro- 
 manic world to the sphere where the sound of the English 
 tongue was heard. Its literature took a new impetus toward 
 the beginning of the thirteenth century. At the same time 
 it seems to have unfolded more to the influence of foreign 
 poetry, though but in a limited degree, and in no respect 
 universally. 
 
 The venerable form of La^amon confronts us at the thresh- 
 old of the century. 
 
 La3amon, son of Leovenath, was a priest of Arley Regis, 
 
 1 It is also known by the name Confessio Goliae. The wandering clerks were often 
 called Goliards, which is perhaps connected with the Romanic gaillard, gagliardo. 
 Prom this they may themselves, in mere wantonness, have formed the name Golias, as 
 a personification of the immoral clergy. 
 
l88 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 in Worcestershire, on the right bank of the Severn. His was 
 a thoughtful and poetic nature, strongly fascinated by the 
 spirit of the past, though he lacked a more profound scien- 
 tific culture. He knew little French and less Latin, and had 
 a very imperfect knowledge of native and classical history. 
 Perhaps he drew his information more from oral tradition than 
 from books. He certainly preferred writings that stirred 
 the fancy, to dry, annalistic works and learned treatises. 
 He had a sensitive ear for the spirited rhythm of the nation- 
 al songs. He had hoarded a mass of sagas and local tradi- 
 tions. The region where he dwelt must have been rich in 
 reHcs of the life and customs of the past. There the Dane 
 had never gained a lasting foothold ; there existed no great 
 commercial cities to open trade with other countries. The 
 Norman Conquest had included also that district, it is true, 
 and Frenchmen had settled there ; nor did it lack many links 
 to connect it with Normandy. Not far from Arley, a little 
 further up the Severn, was the birthplace of Ordericus Vitalis. 
 Little time had yet passed since conquerors and conquered 
 had regarded each other with a hostile eye. At that period 
 there were, perhaps, few men in Worcestershire to whom the 
 Norman-French culture had been revealed, even as fully as 
 to La^amon. But the English inhabitants of those districts 
 had lived, from the time of their first establishment there by 
 force, in constant proximity and intercourse with the Welsh. 
 An interchange of intellectual property between Celts and 
 Teutons was in time unavoidable in the Welsh marches. 
 More than one Celtic saga found its way into English tradi- 
 tion. After the rise of the Arthurian cult and the tales of 
 the British kings in the twelfth century, many a tradition of 
 Celtic or Germanic origin must have gained importance and 
 new adornment in the Welsh borders, by attaching itself to 
 the great British saga- cycle. 
 
 In such a mental atmosphere lived La^amon, when the 
 thought came to him of writing a history of those who first 
 had possession of England " after the flood," or as a Norman 
 would, perhaps, even then have called it, a Bnit. To get 
 the books needed seems to have cost the priest, living in 
 rural seclusion, much trouble and several journeys. He 
 finally succeeded in procuring Aelfred's Beda, Beda's origi- 
 nal work, and Wace's Gesie des Bretons. The first two were 
 
LAjAMOJJ. 189 
 
 of little use to him. He evidently studied them but slightly. 
 There is hardly a trace in La^amon indicating that he used 
 Beda's Ecclesiastical History^ if we except the narrative of 
 Pope Gregory's meeting with Anglo-Saxon prisoners in 
 Rome, which led to the conversion of England. He does 
 not seem to have discerned the relation of the English trans- 
 lation to the original, nor the authorship of either. He as- 
 cribes the English text to Beda himself, and he evidently 
 refers to the Latin original when he speaks of a book which 
 St. Albin^ made and the " feire Austin" who brought bap- 
 tism to England. Wace's poem, therefore, alone remains, 
 and this formed the basis of La3amon's work, although he 
 used a number of other, either oral or written, sources for 
 the details of his narrative. 
 
 Wace had translated the highly coloured, somewhat strain- 
 ed prose of Geoffrey into the French short couplet, which 
 was growing popular in his time, and which he could clev- 
 erly wield. The adventure-crowded, mystical subject-mat- 
 ter, pervaded by the spirit of chivalry, was thus treated with 
 an unostentatious naivete that better became it than the im- 
 passioned rhetoric of the original. The Celtic traditions 
 were invested in La^amon's mind with all the splendour and 
 dignity of the English epic, and he turned to the old national 
 verse as a natural resource. He handles this form as he 
 knew it from the folk-songs he had heard in Worcestershire. 
 
 The alliteration is not everywhere rigidly retained; still 
 less is rhyme excluded ; and where alliteration predominates, 
 the verse often seems, from the division of the sentence, to 
 break into two short lines. Thus we have a metre which ex- 
 ternally does not deviate much from that of the Geste des 
 Bretons. But the laws of Old English accent and rhythm 
 are everywhere in full force ; the alliteration, which holds a 
 much higher place than rhyme, transmits an abundance of 
 powerful epic chords. The diction, dignified in its simplic- 
 ity, has at times a true epic strain. Hence we breathe here 
 quite a different atmosphere from that in which the Norman 
 troiivere existed. La^amon's language adopts but few for- 
 eign elements, in spite of its French source, and it is replete 
 with ancient forms, expressions, phrases, which often give us 
 
 1 Albinus, Abbot of Canterbury (died 732), is extolled by Beda for his learning and 
 the rich material which he contributed to the Ecclesiastical History, and is called 
 auctor ante otitnes atque adjutor huius opnsculi. 
 
190 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 a glimpse into the background of English antiquity. All 
 this betokens a poet who did not simply translate his authori- 
 ty, but worked over the foreign material in popular wise, 
 and derived the form for it from his own intuitive sense. 
 
 If Geoffrey's tales had grown in volume in the hands of 
 Wace, the English poet expands them to colossal dimen- 
 sions. While La^amon skips but little of his original, he 
 amplifies and adds everywhere. He portrays in full situa- 
 tions to which Wace merely alludes. He transforms the 
 dry statement regarding a speech or a discourse into a dra- 
 matic scene. And he intersperses many quite special par- 
 ticulars, names, even entire tales, in which he often not only 
 augments the material, but departs from his author and con- 
 tradicts him. Some of La^amon's interpolations can have 
 been derived from traditions clinging to places not far dis- 
 tant from the poet's home ; as the tale of the founding of 
 Gloucester, and the story of the capture of Cirencester by 
 Gormund, which he gives more fully than Wace. But the 
 scene of the episodes interwoven by La^amon extends over 
 the entire British isle, and beyond it. Many of these addi- 
 tions seem to be derived from British sources; some rest, 
 beyond doubt, upon English tradition. In connecting single 
 tales to the whole work, the poet frequently commits flagrant 
 anachronisms ; as when he makes the cheorbs of East-Anglia, 
 under the twin brothers Ethelbald and Aelfyftld, rise against 
 Gratian long before the English immigration. Among the 
 various amplifications, those relating to Arthur are conspicu- 
 ous in extent and importance. They show bow busy the 
 Celtic and English fancy in the west of Englnd then was 
 in this sphere of tradition. La^amon's rendering of the 
 Arthurian saga even gives echoes of the Gerroanic myth. 
 Elves appear at Arthur's cradle to bestow upon him beau- 
 tiful gifts for his future life. 
 
 As soon as he came into the world, elves received him. They sang 
 over him with strong spell. They gave him power to be the best of 
 all knights; they gave him a second gift: to become a mighty king; 
 they gave him a third : to have long life; they gave the king's son 
 very excellent virtues, so that he was generous above all living men. 
 These things the elves gave him, and the child flourished.' 
 
 When Arthur equips himself for the attack on Bath, he 
 puts on the corslet which an elfish smith, called Wygar, the 
 
 * Lajamon's Brut, ed. Sir F. Madden, ii. 384, et seq. 
 
LA3AM0N's BRUt. t^t 
 
 skilful wright/ has made with his precious art. Thus dim 
 traditions from the national pre-historic age are made to 
 serve for the glorification of the national enemy. In many- 
 places Teutonic and Celtic sagas touch or blend. Who 
 could draw a distinct line between these two elements ? 
 And though it matured in Wales, is not the Arthurian saga, 
 as a whole, an international product ? 
 
 La^amon gives a pleasing account of the origin of the 
 Round Table, whose name first appears in Wace ; this ac- 
 count, it would seem, is a truly popular one, and was per- 
 haps unknown to the early stages of the Arthurian tradition. 
 
 The narrative of Arthur's last days is very poetical : as 
 his dream ^ telling him of the treachery of Modred and 
 Wenhever (Genevra), when he is in the field in Gaul and is 
 thinking of the conquest of Rome ; his return ; his conflict 
 with Modred ; and his death. The two last-named passages 
 deserve to be quoted : 
 
 They met on the Tambre,' the place is called Camelford, that name 
 will last forever. And there were collected at Camelford sixty thou- 
 sand and over : Modred was their chieftain. Then the mighty Arthur 
 rode forth with an innumerable host, which was, indeed, doomed to 
 death. On the Tambre they met each other. They raised their ban- 
 ners, moved toward each other, they drew their long swords, and smote 
 upon the helmets, so that fire sprang forth, spears were shivered, 
 shields were cut in little pieces, shafts were shattered. There fought 
 an innumerable host. The Tambre swelled with the vast blood-stream. 
 No one was able, in the struggle, to recognise any warrior, or to see 
 who fought better, who worse : so thick was the throng. For each 
 struck right out, knight or bondman. Then Modred was slain, bereft 
 of the light of life, and all his knights were felled in the battle. All 
 the brave ones were slain, Arthur's warriors, high and low, and ail 
 the Britons from Arthur's table, and all his wards, from many king- 
 doms. And Arthur himself was wounded by a broad battle-spear ; 
 he had received fifteen bloody wounds ; into the smallest one might 
 thrust two gloves. Then there survived in the battle, of 200,000 men 
 who lay there slaughtered, none save Arthur alone and two of his 
 knights. Arthur was incredibly wounded. Then a youth stepped to 
 him, his kinsman. It was the son of Cador, the count of Cornwall. 
 The youth's name was Constantine, he was dear to the king. Arthur 
 glanced at him as he lay upon the ground, and spoke these words 
 fi-om a sorrowful heart: "Thou art welcome, Constantine, thou wert 
 Cador's son. I here deliver to thee my kingdoms, and guard thou my 
 Britons, thy life long, and keep to them all laws, which have been in 
 
 1 Lajamon's B-ntt, ii. 463, et seq. 
 
 2 Wace and Geoffrey know as little of this dream of Arthur as of the manner of his 
 transfer to Avalun. 
 
 * Better Camel ; earlier Camlan. 
 
192 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 force in my days, and all the good laws in force in the days of Uther. 
 And I will go to Avalun, to the most beauteous of all maidens, to the 
 queen Argante, the splendid elf. And she will heal all my wounds, 
 and make me yet quite well with a healing drink. And afterwards I 
 will come again to my kingdom, and dwell among the Britons in great 
 bliss." While he was saying this, a little boat came from the sea, 
 borne by the waves, with two women therein of marvellous figure. 
 And they at once took Arthur and brought him to the boat, laid him 
 in it, and sailed away. Then was fulfilled what Merlin said of yore, 
 that there should be mighty grief at Arthur's demise. The Britons 
 still believe that he is alive, and dwells in Avalun, with the most beau- 
 tiful of all elves, and the Britons still watch for his return. Never 
 was the man born or chosen by a woman who could with truth say 
 more of Arthur. But of yore there was a prophet named Merlin. He 
 announced with words — his sayings were true — that an Arthur should 
 yet come to the help of the Britons. l 
 
 Thus La3amon's writing far surpasses that of his author. 
 Of all English poets after the Conquest, none approached 
 the Old English epos so closely as he, and hardly any met- 
 rical chronicle of the Middle Ages can rival La^amon's 
 Brut in poetical worth. The merits of his style appear 
 most brilliantly in the portrayal of battle and strife, and of 
 the combat with the surging sea. Tliough his diction has 
 none of the copiousness of the ancient epic language, yet in 
 comparison with later times, it must be termed rich, and 
 most graphic and effective. It is highly imaginative, but 
 contains few detailed similes. The very picturesquely and 
 delicately executed simile drawn from the fox-hunt is so ap- 
 plied that neither design nor pretension on the part of the 
 poet appears. He puts it in the mouth of his hero, Arthur, 
 who, rejoicing at the subjection of his enemy, the emperor 
 Childric, exclaims with a loud voice : 
 
 Thanks be to the Lord who rules all dooms, that Childric the 
 strong, is weary of my land. He has divided my land among his 
 knights, he thought to drive me myself from my people, to humiliate 
 me, and possess my empire, and utterly to destroy my kindred, and to 
 put my people to death. But it has gone with him as it goes with the 
 fox. When he is boldest upon the wold, and has full play and fowls 
 enough, he climbs in wantonness, and seeks rocks, works himself 
 holes in the wilderness. Whatever may fare, he knows never a care. 
 He thinks that he is strong, the boldest of all animals. But when he 
 sees men approach under the mountain with horns, with dogs, with 
 loud cries, then the hunters shout, then the dogs yelp, they drive the 
 fox over downs and dales. He flees to the holm and seeks his den ; in 
 the farthest end of his den, he hides himself Then is the bold fox 
 
 * Lajamon's Brut, iii. 140, et seq. 
 
I'ERIOD OF ORM. 193 
 
 bcr-o-ft of all joy, and men dig for him on each side. Then is the 
 proudest of all animals most wretched. So it was with Childric, the 
 strong and powerful. He thought to get all' my kingdom into his own 
 hands, but now I have driven him to bare death, whether I choose to 
 slay or hang him.i, 
 
 A most significant figure, La3amon stands upon the divid- 
 ing line between two great periods, which he unites in a 
 singular manner. He once more reproduces for us an age 
 that is forever past. At the same time he is the first Eng- 
 lish poet to draw from French sources, the first to sing of 
 King Arthur in English verse. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Some time elapsed before La^amon's example found imi- 
 tation. Traces are not lacking, it is true, which denote that 
 sagas like those of Charlemagne and the twelve peers were 
 carried, in the first third of the thirteenth century, from the 
 hall of the Norman baron to the servants' rooms, and thence 
 to the neighbouring village ; but it is very doubtful whether 
 literature had anything to do with such transference of intel- 
 lectual possessions. Of pieces sung or recited at that time by- 
 English harpers and singers, seggers or disours, there remains 
 to us but little ; and indeed nothing in the original form. 
 We do not know what their attitude was toward their gentler 
 Norman colleagues. Their service as mediators between 
 two heterogeneous spheres of thought and material is, for 
 that epoch, almost entirely beyond the reach of our judg- 
 ment. In the field of literature the task of mediation fell, 
 in the first place, to the ecclesiastics ; and the literary ac- 
 tivity of the clergy, if not its concern, was for a long time 
 confined to theological and didactic subjects. But soon af- 
 ter the appearance of La^amon, a tranquil yet powerful in- 
 fluence of the new culture-ferment, coming chiefly from 
 France, began to assert itself in these fields. 
 
 But for some time this influence was especially perceptible 
 only in the south of England. The districts, which we will 
 caU Anglian, after the old tribal name, were, during a half 
 century, but slightly pervaded by it. We will glance first at 
 these. 
 
 In the northeastern part of the former kingdom of Mercia 
 
 * Lajamon's Bj^tt, ii. 450, et seq. 
 
 N 
 
194 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 there lived in the first quarter of the thirteenth century^ 
 a monk named Orai, inmate of an Augustine monastery. 
 The spot lay wholly within the territory of the Danish inva- 
 sions and settlements ; and it is quite possible that Orm him- 
 self, whose name has no English ring, was of Danish descent 
 on his father's side. The blending of races in that region 
 had clearly left its mark on the language. Norse expres- 
 sions had come into it. Prefixes and end-syllables were in 
 great part weakened or dropped ; many distinctions of inflec- 
 tion had been obliterated. Of French elements, this lan- 
 guage as yet had none. French literature and culture had 
 probably gained no foothold in this region Into the loneli- 
 ness of the cloister where Orm dwelt their influence had cer- 
 tainly not yet penetrated. There seems to have been but 
 little knowledge of the ecclesiastical writers of the new era, 
 men like Anselm, Abelard, Bernard, the celebrities of St. 
 Victor, or like Honorius Augustodunensis. Orm's theological 
 tradition went back to Aelfric and his school. He seems quite 
 at home in Aelfric's writings, as well as in those of Beda and 
 Augustine. Dear to him as to Aelfric was the fostering of 
 the mother-tongue, and the work of teaching the ignorant 
 masses. We recognise in these qualities the man who was 
 fitted to undertake a great and important work for the Eng- 
 lish people. Another Augustine monk named Walter — 
 Orm designates him as threefold his brother : in the flesh, in 
 the faith, and in the order — urged him to translate and ex- 
 plain the gospels for the ecclesiastical year. Orm yielded 
 and gave all his industry to the work. In accordance with 
 the spirit of the time, he chose the poetical form for his ex- 
 position. But the vibrant rhythm of the alliterative verse 
 could little suit his severe taste. Hence he decided upon 
 the iambic septe7iarius ; thus following the example of the 
 author of the Poema morale^ a poem of which many copies 
 had been circulated over England, and which called forth 
 many imitations. Unlike his predecessor, Orm reproduced 
 the foreign metre with pains-taking accuracy. The up-beat 
 (Auftakt, atiacrusis) never fails ; the line always numbers 
 fifteen syllables. Violence is not seldom done to the English 
 accent to suit the demands of metre. For convenience or 
 from purism, Orm disdains rhyme as well as alliteration. 
 
 • Time and especially place are not absolutely certain; but the statement in the text 
 cannot be very far from the truth. 
 
tttE ORMULUM. 195 
 
 The work proceeds in this smooth and regular form with- 
 out poetical exaltation, and is unadorned and simple, some- 
 what stiff, but on the whole, clear and intelligible. In ordei 
 " to fill out his verse," ^ Orm adds, even in his translation, many 
 a word not in the original. And he believes he has made the 
 text more intelligible to the reader by his additions.^ The 
 diffuse paraphrase (for so it must be called) is followed, in 
 each case, by a still more diffuse commentary on the text of 
 the gospel treated. As in his originals, upon which he is 
 wholly dependent, the allegorico-mystical interpretation pre- 
 dominates, with its depth, its subtlety, and its childish play- 
 ing with words. More pedantic, less poetical than Aelfric, 
 Orm is often not so fortunate in selection as he, and what is 
 offered gains nothing by the form in which he clothes it. 
 But the melody of the verse has a certain charm ; at times 
 the accord of form and matter yields a happy finish. His 
 clear language sometimes becomes impressive. The good- 
 ness and the loving nature of the writer are often touchingly 
 disclosed. But the homilist uses far too many words to say 
 what he has in mind; and while he is both bold enough 
 to form complex sentences, and too conscientious to be 
 silent upon a single point, or to leave it in a charitable 
 half-light, like a bad orator, he resorts every moment to 
 repetition. He repeats himself in words, sentences, and 
 lines; sometimes in entire groups of sentences and Hnes, 
 possibly to gain a kind of musical effect. Orm's strength 
 lies where his weakness also appears, in his sense of com- 
 pleteness, distinctness, purity, correctness. These qualities 
 manifest themselves most strikingly in his spelling, which, 
 from a consistency and precision remarkable for the time, 
 offends the eye as much as it must rejoice the heart of the 
 grammarian. 
 
 Orm looked back upon the finished work with satisfac- 
 tion. This is perceptible throughout the dedication to his 
 brother Walter ; and not less in the line with which he be- 
 gins his introduction : 
 
 f*is5 boc is nemmnedd Orrmulum forrj)! l)att Orrm itt wrohhte. 
 This book is named Ormulum for that Orm it wrought. 
 
 The Ormulum has come down to us a torso ; perhaps only 
 one-eighth of the complete collection of homilies remains. 
 
 * Dedication, v. 44, 64. 
 2 Ibid.f V. 45. et seq. 
 
196 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 But this eighth consists of over ten thousand lines — an Im- 
 posing monument of persistent, pious industry, a rich fund 
 of instruction for the Unguist. 
 
 A poem for which no author is named appeared upon 
 Anghan territory two or three decades after the Or??iulum. 
 Romanic elements are not entirely lacking in the language 
 of this production, but they are so few as to be scarcely no- 
 ticeable. 
 
 The poem is an English Physiologus^ and is known by the • 
 name of the Bestiary. 
 
 The Latin original, formerly ascribed to Hildebert de 
 Tours, is the work of a certain Tebaldus, according to some 
 manuscripts, an Italian.^- It contains twelve sections in va- 
 rying metres, and with frequent rhymes. The first section 
 purposely treats of the lion, the symbol of Christ ; and in 
 the poet's estimation, it is the pith of the whole,^ for he says 
 the poem is written to the praise and honour of Christ.^ The 
 panther, considered in the last- section, likewise denotes 
 Christ. The style is generally dry ; the poet plainly aims 
 at elegance, but is rarely successful. 
 
 The English poet, in the main, faithfully followed this 
 model. The contents and arrangement of the single sec- 
 tions agree, save a few trifling discrepancies. He adds, how- 
 ever, a thirteenth section, in which he describes and inter- 
 prets the dove, according to a tradition then widely circulated. 
 The subject-matter in Alexander Neckam's De 7iatuns re- 
 rum (I. 56) differs but little from it. The English poet rare- 
 ly changes Tebaldus in details. He suppresses but little, 
 and adds scarcely a noteworthy feature.^ But he evidently 
 endeavours to make details more picturesque and graphic. 
 His style is much less forced than that of his original, and 
 though often exceedingly naive, it has some poetic charm. 
 The metrical fo'm fluctuates between ancient and modern 
 principles. It is founded upon a short Hne, having, as a 
 rule, four accents with a soundless, or three accents with a 
 sonorous close,'' four accents also occurring in the latter case. 
 Two short lines are sometimes united by alliteration, some- 
 
 • See the opening. 
 
 ' Compare v. 2, 3 1 7, et seq. 
 
 ' v. 610 et seq. is perhaps an exception. 
 
 * The soundless close is either a masculine ending or a feminine ending with a short 
 accented syllable; the sonorous close is a double ending in which the accented sylla 
 ble is long. 
 
VERSION OF GENESIS. I97 
 
 times by rhyme; besides couplets, there are quatiains with 
 crossed rhyme. These forms follow each other in quick 
 succession, yet long passages and entire sections some- 
 times differ in metre. As we seem to discern short or long 
 lines constructed after different laws, we are now reminded 
 of the Poema morale, now of the Paternoster, and often of 
 the ancient epic verse. It is perhaps significant that alliter- 
 ation prevails in the descriptive parts, and rhyme in the in- 
 terpretative, cross-rhyme appearing especially in the latter. 
 
 Romanic influence is much more evident in a poetical 
 version of Genesis than in the Bestiary; a version that origi- 
 nated in the same district, and certainly not much later than 
 that poem. The short couplet is regularly handled on a 
 new principle, and with great precision and dexterity, in a 
 manner closely approaching the syllabic character of the 
 corresponding French form. The style also unmistakably 
 shows that the poet was at least not unfamiliar with the 
 Norman clerical poetry. His chief source was a Latin one, 
 but it belonged emphatically to the theology of the new 
 era. He used, besides the Bible (we may almost say before 
 it), the Historia scholastica of the learned French priest 
 Petrus Comestor, which dates from between the years 11 69 
 and 1 175. This work compendiously discusses the biblical 
 history, from the creation of the empyreum to the death 
 of the apostles Peter and Paul, and it became the ground- 
 work of nearly all later mediseval Bible commentaries. 
 There is a tradition that indicates Comestor's place in theo- 
 logical literature ; it makes him the brother of the author 
 of the Sentences, Petrus Lombardus, and of the great canon- 
 ist Gratian. The English poet throughout founds his work 
 upon the Historia scholastica; or upon the section relating 
 to the book of Genesis. And he follows it even when he 
 cites more ancient authorities, as Josephus, who is often 
 utilised and quoted by Petrus. In the first division of tne 
 poem, however, he seems, if only in passing, to have drawn 
 from other sources ; the Compiit of Philipe de Thaun was 
 perhaps among them. / His chief merit lies in the skill with 
 which he selected from Comestor's copious material what 
 was useful and suitable for his readers, as well as in the liv- 
 ery he gave it. His style is simple, somewhat severe, but 
 not without life, and not unpleasing ; it often calls to mind 
 
1 98 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 the manner of Wace. Its customary clearness rarely suffers 
 ia the effort to attain succinct brevity; this effort is some- 
 times suggestive of prudery. Now and then the poet's 
 religious enthusiasm communicates a poetical glow to his 
 verse. In such cases we understand why he calls his poem 
 a " song," which term is perhaps not to be taken literally. 
 It could indeed be sung, though necessarily in unequal stro- 
 phes. Whether the fact that the same rhyme sometimes 
 appears in a succession of verse-pairs points in that direction 
 or not, must remain undecided. 
 
 The Genesis seems, soon after its appearance, to have in- 
 spired another poet to write an Exodus in a similar vein. 
 This other poet was presumably a fellow-monk or the suc- 
 cessor in some ecclesiastical office of the author of the 
 Gefiesis; indeed, the possibility that they are identical ^ is 
 not to be utterly rejected, though this is not probable. The 
 language of the Exodus poet differs from that of his prede- 
 cessor only in delicate nuances. He conforms to the latter 
 in versification and style, and successfully imitates him 
 although he does not profess to write a " song." With still 
 less claim to learning than his model, he makes use of the 
 same original, whose sense, moreover, he sometimes fails 
 accurately to reproduce. He was obliged to select from the 
 material before him to a far greater extent than the poet of 
 the Genesis. Inasmuch as he carried the history of the 
 Israelites to the death of Moses, he not only had to use the 
 Historia scholastica in the part on Exodus, but he was 
 obliged to draw historical material from Numbers and Deu- 
 teronomy. He wisely passed over Leviticus, as also the 
 detailed ritualistic parts of Exodus. 
 
 Taken as a whole, the Ge?iesis and Exodus are a monu- 
 ment of no mean interest to literary history. This is the first 
 attempt, after a long interval, to bring the ancient epochs of 
 bibhcal history more directly before the English people ; and 
 it is one of the oldest English poems in which the verse and 
 style of the French clerical poetry were successfully imitated. 
 
 The circulation of the poem does not seem to have been 
 so great as might have been expected. 
 
 1 This theory has hitherto been accepted •without question. The Exodus immedi- 
 ately follows the Genesis in the MS. of the Corpus Christi College of Cambridge, 
 though the latter does not lack a distinct closing passus; and both poems have beer 
 edited as one work by Richard Morris for the Early English Text Society: Th< 
 Story 0/ Genesis and Froius, 1865 ; 2d ed., 1874 
 
LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 1 99 
 
 XII. 
 
 The development at this time in the literature of the South 
 was unquestionably more momentous than that just consid- 
 ered. A series of phenomena, of themes and forms, suc- 
 ceeded in the space of a half-century. To a stronger echo 
 of English antiquity responded the tones of a new age and 
 culture. 
 
 The lives of three saints first attract our attention, of seinte 
 Marherete^ seinte Juliane, and seinfe Katerine. Written in 
 alHterative long liAes, or in rythmical, alliterative prose, their 
 diction, with its touch of enthusiasm, contains much that 
 recalls the good old times of poetry. Their language, as 
 compared with Orm's, has wealth and colour. Yet occasional 
 French expressions, as well as the choice of materials, remind 
 us that we are in the thirteenth century. It is true that these 
 three saints, with innumerable others, had been celebrated 
 in English speech before the Conquest. Cynewulf himself 
 had sung St. Juliana in impassioned rhythms. But it is 
 scarcely fortuitous that three female saints should now appear 
 together, in whose legends is varied the power of faith and 
 the might of virginity in conflict with the powers of hell and 
 of this world. The ideal of virgin purity was in the fore- 
 ground of the moral consciousness of the age, and it gained 
 in influence, as immorality became more gigantic in conse- 
 quence of the crusades, of unsettled life, and of contact with 
 eastern nations. The alliterative homily on the text, Audi 
 filia et vide et indina aiirem tuajfi, is closely related, in time 
 and place of origin, to these three legends. In literary his- 
 tory it is known by the name Ilali Meidenhad, Holy Maid- 
 enhood. Neither moralists nor rehgious poets wearied in 
 the praise of this crown of all virtues; directions on the 
 surest way of guarding it form one of the most important 
 chapters of practical theology. Divine love was contrasted 
 with sensual desire and impure love. The ancient theme 
 of Christ as bridegroom wooing the soul, of the soul pining 
 for the love of the heavenly bridegroom, was treated with 
 much variety and rich poetical cast. The cult of the Virgin 
 Mary was most closely connected with this ; the virgin 
 mother of God, whose beauty fills the solitary penitent and 
 the pious hermit with longing, and which St. Bernard so 
 
200 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 highly extolled, was venerated in England from the begin- 
 ning of the thirteenth century, with an enthusiasm beside 
 which the love and admiration of the Old English church 
 for her seems cold. A sort of womanly tone pervaded the 
 writings in this sphere of thought. Thus, divine love (" die 
 Gottesnwi7ie "), in the mediaeval sense, became a new theme 
 in English literature, before secular love-poetry, as it had 
 " sprung up in the valleys of Provence " ^ more than a hun- 
 dred years before, could take root there. The impulse pro- 
 ceeding from France, which then had spread over Germany 
 and was beginning to make itself felt in Italy, in English- 
 speaking England, first affected the rehgious literature.^ 
 
 From this came a new rise of prose, and the growth of a 
 new lyrical poetry. 
 
 The most notable prose monument of the time is the first 
 after a long interval that may be compared with the products 
 of former centuries. Characteristically enough, it is an 
 ascetic rule written for three young nuns by a highly edu- 
 cated and respected ecclesiastic. Three sisters of noble 
 blood, universally loved for their kindness and magnanimity, 
 had renounced^ the world in the bloom of their years and 
 withdrawn to the solitude of a cloister, where they dwelt as 
 the only inmates, with their women-servants and some at- 
 tending lay-brothers. Our author seems to have stood near 
 them as spiritual adviser, though probably not as actual pas- 
 tor. Upon their urgent and repeated request, he wrote for 
 them his Regulae inclusarum or Ancre?i Riwle (Anchoresses' 
 Rule). This work betokens much learning, great knowledge 
 of the human heart, as well as deep piety, and a refined and 
 gentle spirit. Within the scope of a sharply limited view 
 of life, it shows breadth of mind and freedom of thought. 
 
 " There are many kinds of rules," says the author in the 
 introduction, " but among them are two of which, with 
 God's help, I will speak in accordance with your request. 
 The one rules the heart, makes it even and smooth .... 
 this rule is ever with you .... it is the Caritas which 
 the apostle describes, ' out of a pure heart, and of a good 
 
 1 In den Thalen der Provence 
 1st der Minnesang entsprossen. 
 
 — Uhland, Rudello. 
 ' We otserve the same phenomenon elsewhere, and in other epochs. 
 • A ticren Riwle, p. 192. 
 
THE ANCREN RIWLE. 24 
 
 conscience, and of faith unfeigned.' .... the other rule iii 
 all outward and rules the body and bodily acts .... the 
 other is as a lady, this is as her handmaid ; for whatever 
 men do of the other outwardly is only to rule the heart 
 within." ^ The inner rule is unchangeable ; to observe it, a 
 duty. The outer has to do with persons and circumstances ; 
 the sisters may follow, in this regard, what the author imposes 
 upon them, but they are to take no vow to keep his direc- 
 tions as commandments (of God). The writer devotes to 
 the external rule only the first and the last of the eight 
 books of his work ; the former treats of " service " [seruise), 
 or of the prayers to be offered daily, ceremonies, and the 
 like ; the latter, of the ordering of the outward life. The re- 
 maining books all consider the inner rule. The five senses 
 are first taken up, " which guard the heart like watchmen, 
 when they are true •" : a theme that frequently recurs in ec- 
 clesiastical literature, and often worked out in broad allegory. 
 The anchorite's life is next presented ; the virtues it requires, 
 the contentment it yields, are depicted, and the grounds are 
 stated that admonish us to renounce the world. The fourth 
 book considers fleshly and spiritual temptations; the fifth, 
 confession, and the sixth, penance. This serves as a prepara- 
 tion for the central part of the work, whose topic is purity 
 of heart, and love of Christ. 
 
 The method is sometimes systematic, sometimes free. As 
 a whole, the work evinces the effect of a learning given to 
 subtle distinctions. And with it is that feeling for alle- 
 gory and parable which, awakened by the Scriptures and the 
 fathers of the church, developed most richly under the most 
 various influences in the later Middle Ages, and which a 
 strongly expanding mysticism moulded to its purposes. 
 Neither does the work lack popular features, touches full of 
 human life. Many legends are related or called to mind ; 
 names and examples from the Old and New Testaments, 
 from the different centuries of the Christian church, contin- 
 ually occur, and the author sometimes glances at profane 
 history. Everywhere are images, illustrations. We cannot 
 fail to recognise the workings of the new schools of preach- 
 ers, though the author neither resorts to the most common 
 topics of daily life nor interweaves any true fables into his 
 
 • A ncren Riwle, p. 2, 4. 
 
202 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 work. The text is interlarded with Latin quotations, which 
 are often left untranslated. Besides the Scriptures, from 
 which he chiefly draws, he also cites Jerome, Augustine, 
 Gregory, Anselm, and, notably, Bernard. The chapter on 
 penance confessedly follows most closely the teachings of 
 the great church father of the twelfth century. Thus the 
 theology of the new era here has a decided effect. The 
 author was, without question, acted upon by French culture 
 in the broader sense. He very often resorts to French ex- 
 pressions ; and as he distinctly presupposes a knowledge of 
 this language in his nuns, he had perhaps himself read many 
 a French book, and frequently spoken the language in polite 
 circles. He has, nevertheless, a good English construction. 
 His style is simple and dignified, and unites grace and 
 graphic picturesqueness with the free movement of that 
 period. The reader must not look for a strictly logical 
 structure of sentences, nor an artistic grouping of periods. 
 The particles have not yet acquired the power sharply to de- 
 fine and give the delicate shadings of highly cultivated 
 speech; the mysteries of word-arrangement are, in great 
 part, still unsolved. Naive and spontaneous, as it seems, 
 we are charmed by this language, which already contains so 
 much art, and has so rich a history behind it; hence it 
 strikes us as graceful, despite its clumsiness. 
 
 The passage on comfort in temptations affords a good 
 specimen : 
 
 Pe sixte kunfort is, )pet ure Louerd, hwon he iöoleö Jjet we beo5 
 itented, he plaieö mid us, ase ^e moder mid hire junge deorlinge: 
 vlihö from him, and hut hire, and let hit silten one, and loken jeorne 
 abuten, and cleopien, Dame ! dame ! and weopen one hwule ; and 
 J)eonne mid ispredde ermes leapeö lauhwinde uorö, and cluppeö and 
 cusseö, and wipeö his eien. Riht so ure Louerd let us one iwuröen 
 oöer hwules, and \vi6draweo his grace, and his cumfort, and his eine, 
 J)et we ne iuindeö swetnesse in none ^inge pet we wel doö, ne sauur 
 of heorte ; and tauh, iöet ilke point, ne luueö he us ure leoue ueder 
 neuer \>e lesce, auh he deö hit for muchel luue J)et he haueö to us. 
 Ancren Rhule, p. 230, et seq. 
 
 The sixth comfort is that our Lord, when he permits that we be 
 tempted, plays with us, as a mother with her young darling : she flies 
 from it, and hides herself, and lets it sit alone, and look about anx- 
 iously and cry "Dame! Dame! " and weep awhile; and then she leaps 
 forth laughing, with outspread arms, and embraces and kisses it, and 
 wipes its eyes. Just so our Lord sometimes leaves us alone, and with 
 draws his grace, his comfort, and his support, so that we find no sweet- 
 
THE ANCREN RIWLE, 203 
 
 ness in anything we do well, nor any satisfaction of heart. And yet 
 He loves us at the same time, our dear Father, nevertheless, but He 
 does it for the great love that He has for us. 
 
 The author reveals his innermost being in the chapter 
 that we have called the central one of his work. There 
 the theme of divine love is treated in the tender, charming 
 manner, which forms such a notable contrast to that of the 
 more ancient English writers. A beautiful parable discloses 
 Christ, who, in the person of a mighty king, does every- 
 thing to win the love of the human soul ; he hastens to the 
 help of a poor castle-lady, hard pressed by her enemies, 
 loads her with favours, woos her with all the sweetness of 
 his being, and, not deterred by her indifference or heartless- 
 ness, offers up his life as a sacrifice for her. This is dwelt 
 upon at length, and with impressive admonitions. The love 
 of Christ is compared with every other kind of love, and 
 portrayed in its glory. Christ himself is introduced speak- 
 ing to the soul. "Thy love, says the Lord, is either to be 
 given freely, or it is to be sold, or stolen and taken by force. 
 If it is to be given, where couldst thou better bestow it than 
 upon me ? Am I not the fairest thing ? Am I not the 
 richest king ? Am I not of the highest hneage ? . . . . Am 
 I not the most courteous of men ? Am I not the most lib- 
 eral of men ? Am I not of all things the sweetest and love- 
 Hest ? .... If thy love is not to be given, but thou wilt by- 
 all means that it be bought, do say how : either with other 
 love or with somewhat else ? One rightly sells love for 
 love, and thus love ought to be sold, and for nothing else. 
 If thy love is to be sold, I have bought it with love above all 
 
 other And if thou say est that thou wilt not value it 
 
 so cheaply, but thou wilt have yet more, name what it shall 
 be. Set a price upon thy love. Thou shalt not say so 
 much, that I will not give thee much more for thy love. 
 Wouldst thou have castles and kingdoms? Wouldst thou 
 rule all this world ? I will do better for thee. I will make 
 thee, with all this, queen of heaven."^ 
 
 The same theme underlies a special minor work, called 
 Wohimge of ure Laiierde, Here it is the soul that has chosen 
 Christ as her bridegroom, and while she tenders him her love, 
 she extols him in language full of poetry and warmth and 
 overflowing feeling. Many of its passages naturally accord 
 
 ' A wren Riwk, p. 397, et seg. 
 
204 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 with the seventh book of the Agieren Riwle. We are also 
 brought into the same circle of ideas and feelings by some 
 prayers to Christ or the Holy Virgin, which have come to 
 us scattered in contemporary manuscripts. 
 
 To the fondness of that age for parable and allegory, we 
 owe, among other things, the graceful homily^ on Matt. xxiv. 
 43, by a gifted writer. Man is compared to a house or 
 castle, whose innermost recess contains a precious treasure, 
 the soul. The man of the house is called Wit, which we 
 may here translate by "judgment." He is named God's 
 constable, and has the best will to guard the house and 
 treasure against the robbers that invest it. Unfortunately, 
 he has a self-willed, disobedient wife, called Will, and the 
 servants, who do partly out-of-door and partly in-door ser- 
 vice (the five senses — the thoughts), are hard to manage, 
 and follow the woman rather than the master. Hence the 
 man of the house very much needs the support of his four 
 daughters : Prudence, Strength, Moderation, and Righteous- 
 ness. The apparition of two messengers has a most benefi- 
 cent influence upon the entire household; the first, whom 
 Prudence has caused to appear, is called Fear, the messen- 
 ger of Death ; he paints for the members of the household a 
 terrifying picture of hell, whence he comes. The second, 
 whom God sends to comfort the family, is called Love of 
 Life, the messenger of Mirth ; he impressively depicts the de- 
 lights of heaven, and he does it so charmingly that some of the 
 music that fills the poet's soul seems to communicate itself 
 to his language. The high dignity of virginity reappears in 
 this work. Only when the heavenly choir of virgins suppli- 
 cate God, does he rise from his throne, while he hears the 
 other saints sitting. When the messenger of Mirth has fin- 
 ished his speech, it is resolved to retain him, but whenever 
 he becomes silent, to take the messenger of Death into the 
 house. The housewife and servants, however, have become 
 very quiet and obedient ; the house is now well ordered and 
 well guarded. 
 
 Probably all the productions considered in this chapter be- 
 long to the first quarter of the thirteenth century. We may 
 assume that they arose in the territory formed by the coun- 
 ties of Dorset, Wilton, and Southampton, including perhaps 
 
 * Sawles Warde, compare Morris, Old English Homilies, p. 245, et seq. 
 
RELIGIOUS LYRICAL POETRY. 205 
 
 Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. As to the Ancren Riwk, 
 a manuscript allusion designates Tarente, on the river Stour 
 in Dorsetshire, as the residence of the three virgins for whom 
 the rule was originally written. This notice, it is true, is not 
 absolutely authentic; but it is just as little to be absolutely 
 rejected. A clever conjecture based upon this has identified 
 the author of that work with the learned and pious Richard 
 Poor, who was successively dean of Salisbury, bishop of Chi- 
 chester, bishop of Salisbury, and finally bishop of Durham. 
 Born in Tarente, Richard is known as the benefactor of a 
 nunnery there, and there his heart was entombed after his 
 death, in 1237. However pleasing, this hypothesis leaves 
 room for many doubts. At all events, there is no authority 
 whatever for ascribing most of the remaining works just con- 
 sidered, or all of them, to the author of the Ancren Rkvle. 
 This work, however, was reproduced in several copies, and 
 afterward even translated into French and Latin, and cer- 
 tainly did exercise a potent influence upon contemporaries 
 as well as their immediate descendants. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The new lyrical poetry likewise developed mainly in the 
 South ; though the midland country took some part in its 
 growth. 
 
 The theme of the religious Minne here asserted itself from 
 the start. A prayer to the Virgin, a religious love-song full 
 of lofty enthusiasm, appeared soon after the beginning of 
 the thirteenth century. 
 
 " Gentle mother of Christ, Saint Mary, light of my life, 
 my dear, to thee I bow and bend my knees, and all my 
 heart's blood I offer to thee. Thou art the light of my soul, 
 and my heart's bliss, my life and my hope, my sure salva- 
 tion." 
 
 And thus it continues. The poet outdoes himself in hy- 
 perbole; though we are once or twice reminded that only 
 the second place in heaven falls properly to the Virgin, and 
 the first to Christ. But, as a rule, we feel as if the Deity 
 himself were addressed. Mary redeems from the power of 
 the devil, she is the source of life, heaven is full of her bless- 
 edness, and the earth of her mercy. The angels never weary 
 
206 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 of looking upon her beauty. She bestows mercy and grace 
 upon each who suppHcates her. She grants eternal rest 
 with sweet bliss. To look upon her in her splendour is the 
 most ardent wish of the poet. He will not leave her for all 
 the world. 
 
 " As long as I have life and strength, nothing shall part 
 me from thy service ; before thy feet I will lie and cry out 
 until I have forgiveness for my misdeeds. My life is thine, 
 my love is thine, my heart's blood is thine, and if I dare say 
 it, my dear mistress, thou art mine."^ 
 
 The portrayal of the joys of heaven is also characteristic. 
 Mary makes her friends rich kings, gives them princely gar- 
 ments, bracelets, golden rings. In heaven they shall have 
 golden cups, and they shall be given eternal life. Mary's 
 heavenly court is covered with cloth of gold, all wear golden 
 crowns, and are as red as the rose and white as the lily. 
 The poet's words kindle, because they come from enthu- 
 siasm. He has httle artistic culture ; his grouping and ar- 
 rangement are very imperfect. 
 
 The metre is simple. Long lines are paired by end- 
 rhyme ; their character cannot easily be defined, because the 
 poet seems to oscillate between old and new metrical prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 Several songs, clearly betraying the influence of the Poema 
 morale, may be placed in the second quarter of the century. 
 Their metrical form is manifestly founded upon the verse of 
 this poem, notwithstanding the great liberties which some 
 poets took with it, perhaps under the influence of the French 
 Alexandrines. The weightiest change, however, is the sub- 
 stitution of the strophe of four Hues, with continuous rhyme, 
 for the strophe of two lines. Besides the Middle Latin po- 
 etry, the French could also have given the precedent for this. 
 
 Various poetic individuahties assert themselves in the 
 handling of this form. We have, for instance, a virile, but 
 unproductive, somewhat harsh nature in a monk of the old 
 school, who, in a song to the Virgin,^ bitterly laments his 
 former worldly life. Well-known ideas from the Poema 
 morale were clearly in his mind ; he did not hesitate to take 
 entire verses from it. But he produced a homogeneous 
 
 ' V. 153, et seq., Morris, Old English Hoviilies, p. 169. 
 * A Prayer to Our Lady, Morris, Old English Miscellany, p. 192, et seq. 
 
LYRICAL POETRY — METRE. 207 
 
 poem, since he had the closest affinity with his source, and 
 quite assimilated what he drew from it. He is much more 
 naive and uncultured than his model, and moves within a 
 narrow horizon. We can but smile when he charges him- 
 self with genuine Teutonic sins, and confesses that he has 
 Often drunken wine, and rarely from the spring. 
 
 Quite a different personality is revealed in another song to 
 the Virgin.^ It strikes, in flowing verse, a more lyrical tone, 
 and expresses gushing feeling in less popular diction. Be- 
 sides some suggestions of the Poema morale is evident the 
 influence of a more recent school, and Romanic words ap- 
 pear in important passages. Poems on Death ^ and the 
 Last Judgment^ breathe forth the Old English seriousness 
 of doctrine and speculation. The former almost entirely 
 lacks true lyrical moments. It expresses the sombre fancy 
 which makes the departed soul speak to the corpse, and feels 
 a horrid delight in the detailed description of the physical 
 phenomena accompanying and following death, and in the 
 portrayal of the torments of hell. The latter forms a well- 
 arranged, effective picture, from a material which many poets 
 were yet to handle. 
 
 Richer and more animated strophe-forms, in shorter verses, 
 in imitation of the Latin hymn and the French lyric, appear 
 at every hand. Now it is the system of the tail-rhyme 
 (rynie cojiee), in which the couplets of the strophe are inter- 
 rupted by an isolated verse or refrain, ending always with 
 the same sound ; this form was a favourite in the ecclesias- 
 tical sequence, and it was later nationalised by the ballad- 
 singers in England more completely than in any other part 
 of Europe. Now the rhyming lines alternate in the manner 
 of the courtly art, whereby the combination of the interlaced 
 (rime croisee), and of the pairing rhyme [rime plate), enhances 
 the effect. A more decided influence of French poetry, in 
 the use of the latter form, makes itself felt also upon the 
 style; we sometimes have direct imitations of Norman mod- 
 els. But a national influence continues to act, proceeding 
 from the well-rounded style of the Poema morale, and the terse 
 expression of simple worldly-wisdom in Aelfred's Proverbs. 
 
 ' Reliquiae antiquae, \. 102, et seq. Old Engl. Misc., p. 195, et seq. 
 
 a Old Engl. Misc., p. 168, et seq. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 162, et seq. 
 
2o8 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 One of the latter furnishes the theme of an excellent poem 
 on the transitoriness of life.^ On the whole, we cannot fail 
 to perceive, in this first rise of mediaeval English lyrical 
 poetry, the folk-like originality with which were utilised the 
 incitements offered by the more recent European literature 
 in the Latin or French language. It is evident in a certain 
 restrained freedom in the use of the new forms, still more in 
 the intensity, the deep seriousness, with which the new 
 themes are conceived, and which we hear in the softer tone, 
 the quicker tempo of the new melody. 
 
 The lyrical tone becomes more perfect in the new forms. 
 It is often distinctly heard in purely reflective or didactic 
 poetry, where the poet warns sinners and points to death and 
 the judgment; but it appears most clearly when he sings 
 the joys of the Virgin, or the sufferings of Christ, when he 
 echoes the longing of spiritual love, or seeks to awaken it. 
 Most charming of all is the note of the Love-Song'^ of the 
 Franciscan Thomas de Hales, whose name is once honoura- 
 bly mentioned in the letters of his famous brother in the 
 order Adam de Marisco : ^ • 
 
 A maid of Christ entreateth me, 
 
 A love-song for her to indite, 
 That thus she may instructed be 
 
 To choose a lover true aright, 
 The best to guard a woman free, 
 
 Of all men born, most loyal knight. 
 Nor shall her wish refused be, 
 
 To teach her this, be my delight. 
 
 Maiden, thou mayest here behold, 
 
 This earthly love is but a race. 
 And is beset so manifold, 
 
 Is fickle, frail, with lying face. 
 Its servers that before were bold 
 
 Are flown as wind without a trace, 
 Beneath the mould are lying cold, 
 
 Like meadow-grass in faded place. 
 
 • Old Engl. Misc., p. 156, et seq. 
 
 ' A Luve Ron. Incipit quidam cantus quem composuit fiater Thomas de hales de 
 ordine fratrum Minorum. ad iiistanciam cuiusdam puelle deo dicate. Morris, Old 
 Engl. Misc., p. 93, et seq. 
 
 3 Ep. CCXXVII (to Brother Thomas of York) : Salutetis, obsecro, obsequio md 
 specialissimos (sic!) patres, fratrcm A. de Lexinton, fratrem Ricardum de Walda, 
 fratrem Willielmum de Basinge, fratrem TJwinam de Hales, et alios mihi devotos. 
 Monumenta Franciscatia, ed. J. S. Brewer, p. 395. 
 
LOVE-SONG. 209 
 
 None is so rich, none is so free, 
 
 But hence he soon must take his way, 
 Nor can vain pomp his safeguard be. 
 
 Ermine nor gold nor broideries gay. 
 None is so swift that he may flee, 
 
 Nor keep off death one single day. 
 Thus is this world, as thou mayst see; 
 
 Thus do its shadows glide away. 
 
 A transitory world we find ; 
 
 For when one comes, another goes. 
 What was before is now behind, 
 
 And what was dear, now hateful grows. 
 Therefore he walks as do the blind 
 
 Who in this world his love bestows. 
 The earth will vanish out of mind, 
 
 And truth come back, when error goes. 
 
 Man's love but for an hour is crowned, 
 
 For now he loveth, now is sad. 
 Now Cometh he, now hence is bound; 
 
 Now is he wroth, and now is glad. 
 His love, erst here, is distant found; 
 
 And now he loves what once he had. 
 Falseness, deceit in him abound ; 
 
 Who trusteth to him, must be mad. 
 
 If man be rich in worldly weal. 
 
 His anxious heart must smart and ache. 
 In deepest dread that men may steal, 
 
 Long, painful nights he lieth awake. 
 His sighs perplexing thoughts reveal, 
 
 How he may guard his treasure's stake. 
 His end will help these woes to heal, 
 
 For death from him his all will take. 
 
 Paris and Helen, where are they, 
 
 Fairest in beauty, bright to view? 
 Amadas, Tristram, Tdeine, yea, 
 
 Isold, that loved with love so true ? 
 And Caesar, rich in power and sway. 
 
 Hector, the strong, with might to do? 
 All glided from earth's realm away. 
 
 Like shaft that swift from bowstring flew. 
 
 It is as if they ne'er were here. 
 
 Their wondrous woes have been a-told, 
 That it is sorrow but to hear : 
 
 How anguish killed them seven-fold, 
 O 
 
2IO THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 And how with dole their lives were drear. 
 
 Now is their heat all turned to cold. 
 Thus this world gives false hope, false fear ; 
 
 A fool, who in her strength is bold. 
 
 "Were man as rich, as high of birth, 
 
 As Henry' is, our lord and king, 
 As fair as Absalom, of worth 
 
 Too great to find an equalling. 
 Yet of his pride soon would be dearth, 
 
 At last no herring's price t'would bring. 
 Maid, wish no lover upon earth, 
 
 But fix thine eyes on heaven's King. 
 
 Ah, Sweet, could'st thou but know, but view, 
 
 The virtues of this Lord of light ! 
 Fair to behold, of radiant hue. 
 
 And glad of mien, of presence bright, 
 Of lovesome mood, of trust all true. 
 
 Full free of heart, in wisdom right. 
 Never would'st thou have cause to rue, 
 
 If thou but yieldedst to his might. 
 
 His riches spread o'er field and strand, 
 
 As far as men speak aught with mouth. 
 All here belongeth to his hand. 
 
 From east to west, from north to south. 
 Henry, the king of Engeland, 
 
 His vassal is, and to him boweth. 
 Maiden, oh hear his sweet command. 
 
 For to thee now his love he troweth. 
 
 He asks of her neither lands nor people, neither treasure 
 nor costly garments ; he has enough of all and gives her for 
 her love such garb as no king and no emperor possesses. 
 His dwelling, incomparably more beautiful than any build- 
 ing of Solomon, has a firm foundation and will never totter. 
 In it prevails eternal jubilee and unclouded peace ; the sight 
 of the loved one gives highest bliss. He has entrusted a 
 jewel to his friend, surpassing all jewels in brilliancy and 
 worth, which shines brightly in heaven's bower; this is vir- 
 ginity, which she shall jealously guard against every enemy. 
 The poet has now fulfilled the wish of the virgin, and selected 
 the best lover for her that he can find. How ill would one 
 act who, having to choose between two, should choose the 
 worse ! 
 
 T 1 — ■ ■ ' ■ ■■? g ' 
 
 1 Jienrj' III. of England. 
 
THE LYRIC. 2rt 
 
 Dear maid, this rhyme I to thee send, 
 
 Open, and without clasp or seal. 
 Unroll its words, to them attend ; 
 
 Learn without book for thy soul's weal. 
 Quickly to other maidens lend, 
 
 Nor of its teachings aught conceal ; 
 Thus they may con it to the end. 
 
 And steadfast help it will reveal. 
 
 And when thou sittest sorrowing. 
 
 Draw forth this scroll now writ by me. 
 "With voice of sweetness do it sing, 
 
 Keep its commands most faithfully, 
 For thee hath greeted heaven's King. 
 
 May God Almighty bide with thee, 
 Safe to his bridal chamber bring. 
 
 High in the heavens eternally. 
 
 We have here an art-poetry not quite developed in form, 
 of the simplest, noblest mould, a contemplative lyric, which, 
 springing from warm feeling, moves calmly and quietly, 
 without subtlety of reflection or trifling with forms, in eupho- 
 nious, richly figurative speech. The poet is quite within the 
 culture of his time ; he has poetical ideas at his command, 
 and possesses the lyrical ear and fancy. He has evidently 
 not yet learned to be concise, and when he sings the praise 
 of virginity, he lavishes, as was usual in such cases, too 
 many names of jewels, whose enumeration we have spared 
 the reader. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The distinctions between the religious song and poetical 
 reflection, or even the sermon, in that epoch, are impercep- 
 tible. Only by degrees did specific literary types gain defi- 
 nite form in the growing artistic development, or given sets 
 of material become connected with given forms. Men long 
 grope for the right, and only the .happy instinct finds it. 
 The central point of a circle of ideas is, indeed, unmistaka- 
 ble. The direct expression of subjective feeling cannot be 
 confounded with a speech intended to instruct a certain 
 audience. 
 
 For even the true sermon disguised itself often enough in 
 the vesture of rhythm, as in Aelfric's time. Let us enter 
 the over-crowded church, where a monk in grey cowl stands 
 
212 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 in the pulpit, and sharply addresses the conscience of his 
 somewhat dazed hearers. He makes hell hot for them all 
 
 in turn. 
 
 All those deceiving chapmen, the devil yet will get them. 
 The bakers and the brewers, to cheat all men do set them ; 
 They hold low down the gallon, and then with foam they fill. 
 And out of each man's purse, its silver quick they spill. 
 And very poor they make their bread and eke their ale ; 
 For if they take the silver in, they never tell a tale. 
 Good people, for God's love, believe, such things are sin, 
 And at the last will lose you the heaven you would win. 
 All the wives of priests shall then, I wot, be most forlorn, 
 And of the priests themselves, all sins shall not be borne, 
 Nor of those proud young men that love their Malekin, 
 Nor yet those maidens bold that dote on Janekin. 
 At church and at the market, when they together rove, 
 They quickly gather whispering and speak of secret love. 
 "When to the church they come on any holy day. 
 Each one but goes to see his love there, if he may. 
 Then she beholdeth Watkin, as glad as she can be. 
 But home she leaves her rosary, locked up full carefully. 
 For masses and for matins she certainly cares nought; 
 To Wilkin and to Watkin, she gives her every thought, i 
 
 The ecclesiastical epic was likewise adapted to oral de- 
 livery, in church or open air, or in a large room in cloister 
 or castle. " Hear a little story which I will tell to you, as 
 we find it written in the Gospel. It is not of Charlemagne 
 and the twelve peers, but of Christ's passion which he suf- 
 fered here."^ Thus begins a rhythmical account of the pas- 
 sion, with nice adjustment, combining the facts given by the 
 evangelists into a sober, somewhat terse narrative, now and 
 then broken by brief reflection or exclamation. To the pas- 
 sion is appended an account of the resurrection, perhaps 
 from another pen, but resembling it in style and tendency. 
 A short narrative of Christ's meeting with the Samaritan is 
 complete in itself; it gives no direct evidence that it was 
 intended for oral delivery. 
 
 One form predominates in all these poems. The verse 
 oscillates between the Old French Alexandrine and the sep- 
 tenarius, so that it approaches very near to the Anglo-Nor- 
 man Alexandrines of a Jordan Fantosme. But the English 
 verse in more than one respect betrays the after-effect of the 
 
 1 Morris, Old £ tig. Misc., p. 189. 
 2 Ibid., p. 37. ^ 
 
VISION OF PAUL. 213 
 
 ancient native long line. As in many French poems of the 
 time and class, there is a disposition to make a strophic di- 
 vision. The strophe, as a rule, includes four or six lines, 
 which, however, do not require like rhymes, as with the 
 French. 
 
 Besides this metre, the short couplet occurs in the relig- 
 ious epic and descriptive poetry, and precisely that form of 
 it which we first found in the Paternoster. This form is 
 handled very skilfully by the poet of an English Visio Fault; 
 or, as the superscription in the manuscript runs, Ici comeji- 
 cent les onze pey7ies de eiifern. les queiis seynt pool 7^(ist),^ 
 " here commence the eleven pains of hell, which Saint Paul 
 saw." Yet strangely enough, the acting, that is to say, the 
 observing or narrating personage of the poem is not Saint 
 Paul, but a great sinner who has dwelt in hell, not only as 
 a guest but as an inhabitant, and is brought back to life by 
 God's omnipotence. Satan meets him on earth, and asks 
 with indignant astonishment, " Wretched ghost, what dost 
 thou here ? Thou wast my companion in hell. Who has 
 unlocked hell's door that thou hast fled the pain ? " " Wilt 
 thou hear from me, Satan, how I have escaped from hell ? 
 Worms gnawed m> flesh, and my friends forgot me. I was 
 a man, as thou well knowest, and now I am a wretched ghost. 
 I have been long in hell ; that may one see in my hue. 
 Man may take an example of me who would forsake his 
 sins. To his misfortune he was born, who was lost on account 
 of his sins. For the man who so acts that his soul goes to 
 hell, shall suffer more pains than there are birds flying un- 
 der heaven." An account of the hell torments then follows, 
 in the well-known eleven rubrics ; it essentially agrees with 
 the usual version of what St. Paul saw under the guidance 
 of Michael. Nation-al literature^ first took up this material 
 in France, and our English poem decidedly points to a 
 French model. The translator even left, in the original lan- 
 guage, the opening, the close, and a third passus ; in short, 
 all the passages in which the poet speaks in the first person.^ 
 
 * Morris, Old Engl. Misc., p. 147. 
 
 * To say " national poetry" instead of " national literature " would have been more 
 correct; for English homiletics had used this material as early as, if not earlier than, 
 French poetry. 
 
 * Of these three passages, only the closing verses are translated, and with amplifica- 
 tion. If the translation thus added is not partially or entirely the work of a transcriber, 
 tbc English poet's name was Hug. 
 
214 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 The proverb-poetry of the period was but little affected 
 by foreign art. It frequently yields notes from the ancient 
 national poetry, as in the following example : 
 
 When thou seest a people 
 With king that is wilful. 
 Covetous judge, 
 Priest that is wild, 
 Bishop of sloth, 
 Old men of lewdness, 
 Young men all liars, 
 Women shameless. 
 Unbridled children, 
 The nobles bad wretches, 
 The land without law. 
 Then, says Beda, 
 Woe to the nation.* 
 
 A theme often recurring, and in manifold variation, is 
 contained in the following saying : 
 
 Each day to me come tidings three, 
 Of which I think full sorrowingly. 
 One is that hence I must away ; 
 Another, I know not the day ; 
 The third is my soul's greatest care : 
 I know not whither I shall fare.« 
 
 The plain form of the short couplet very properly predom- 
 inates in the proverbs. Alternate rhyme is the exception. 
 
 In this connection we may appropriately mention a poem 
 which is steeped with popular proverbial wisdom : The Owl 
 and the Nightingale. Representing the highest contempo- 
 rary art, this poem diverges, in many unique qualities, from 
 the southern art-poetry, to which it belongs, in language 
 and locahty, first, in the subject, which is not religious, and 
 not less in its purely national colour and original treatment. 
 This betokens the man of polite culture, and the scholar; 
 but nowhere does the ecclesiastic become prominent in its 
 noble, simple, and popular tone. The question arises, if the 
 author was not a merry, half-ecclesiastical, half-secular wan- 
 dering cleric, a student of many years' standing, one who, 
 perhaps, had long studied at Oxford. The time had come 
 when these clerkes^ who, for several centuries, had composed 
 
 • Morris, Old Engl. Misc., p. 185. Compare also the Old English homily d^JCII 
 abusivis, as analysed by Dietrich, Zeitschriß/ür historische Theologie, 1855, p. 518, et 
 seq. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. loi. 
 
tHE Ö\VL ÄND THE NIGHTINGALE. 215 
 
 in Latin, were to turn to the national art. The deep serious- 
 ness beneath his cheerful humour indicates that the author 
 was a mature man. The wandering cleric had possibly, 
 several years before, laid aside the pilgrim's staff, and ac- 
 cepted a living, perhaps in Dorset or an adjacent county. 
 For the Master Nicholas of Guildford, whom he so highly 
 reveres, dwells in Porteshom, in Dorsetshire, and he it is 
 whom the heroines choose as an arbiter in their dispute. 
 
 This dispute between the owl and the nightingale forms 
 the subject-matter of the poem. It is the first instance in 
 the English language of the contests in verse, already long 
 current in French literature. They appeared first in the 
 poetry of the troubadours, as true poetical controversies be- 
 tween two opponents ; later, among the North French, who 
 had been preceded by Middle Latin poets in this, in the 
 form of debates between different classes personified, or 
 different animals, between water and wine, body and soul, 
 sometimes in dramatic, sometimes in epic form. As direct 
 dialogue, these desbats, estrifs, dispiitoisoiis^ or whatever they 
 may be called, were important in the development of the 
 drama. 
 
 The form of The Owl and the Nightingale is epic. It is 
 the poet who relates the occurrence, having been present, 
 unseen, at the dispute. 
 
 The nightingale picks the quarrel. Sitting upon a flower- 
 ing twig in the close hedge, she is disturbed in her sweet 
 singing by the sight of the owl upon an old ivy-grown trunk 
 near by, and abuses her in harsh and contemptuous language. 
 The owl waits until evening, and then duly responds. The 
 ice is broken, and a flood of speeches and retorts in attack 
 and defence follows, with occasional pauses. Each criticises 
 the nature, manner of life, and especially the singing of her 
 opponent, and brings forward her own good qualities. It 
 is the old conflict between beauty, brilliancy, youth, cheer- 
 fulness, and a serious, gloomy, sullen old age, between pleas- 
 ure and asceticism. Singularly enough, the poet seems to 
 side with the owl, notwithstanding his very impersonal at- 
 titude. What phase of the contrast, what strife raging in his 
 time and vicinity, did the poet have in mind ? For it is the 
 remoter background, the veiled purpose naturally looked 
 for, that attracts us in this poem. The modern reader un- 
 
2l6 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 consciously thinks of the opposition of the court-party and 
 the barons. But the poet did not conceive the matter thus 
 generally. He must have had in view definite persons and 
 relations in church or state. Yet his concern extends far 
 beyond personal issues and party strife. It embraces life 
 and nature, with warm and liberal sympathy. The aesthetic 
 side of his view is represented by the nightingale, the moral 
 by the owl; yet the nightingale, too, would promote ethical 
 or religious aims, and within this very field does her view of 
 life serve to supplement and correct the reverse phase. The 
 nightingale says : 
 
 Thou askest me, Owl, she said, whether I can do anything but sing 
 during the summer tide, and bring bliss far and wide. Why askest 
 thou of my gifts ? Better is my one than all of thine. Better is one 
 song, from my mouth, than all thy kind could ever do. And listen, 
 I will tell thee wherefore : dost thou know for what man was born ? 
 For the bliss of the kingdom of heaven ; there ever is song and mirth 
 without ceasing. Thither tendeth every man who can do anything good. 
 Hence it is that men sing in the holy church, and clerks make songs ; 
 so that man may think by the song of the place, whither he shall go, 
 to be there long; so that he may not forget joy, but think thereof and 
 attain it, and may perceive, in the voice of the church, how merry is 
 the heavenly bliss. Clerks, monks, and canons rise at midnight and 
 sing of the light of heaven, and priests sing in the country when the 
 light of day springs. And I help them what I may, I sing with them 
 night and day, and through me they are all the gladder, and the readier 
 for song. I admonish men for their good, that they be blithe in their 
 mood, and bid them that they may seek the song that is eternal, i 
 
 The owl responds as follows : 
 
 Thou sayest that thou singest to mankind and teachest them to tend 
 to the song that lasts forever. It is the greatest of all wonders that 
 thou darest lie so openly. Dost thou think they so easily come into 
 God's kingdom, all singing? No, no, they will feel that they must 
 get forgiveness of their sins by long weeping, before they may ever 
 come there. Therefore, I advise that men be ready, and more weep 
 than sing they who strive for the preserce of the Heavenly King. 
 There is no man without sin. For this he must repent with tears and 
 weeping, ere he go hence, so that what was sweet before become 
 sour to him. I help him in that, God knows. I sing him no 
 
 follies ; for all my song is of longing and mingled with whining 
 
 If right goes forth and wrong goes back — better is my weeping than 
 all thy singing.* 
 
 1 Ozvl and Nighlingale, 707-742. The passage recalls Alexander Neckam, De 
 naturis rerunt, I. c. 41, (De Phtlomena) : Quid quod noctes tota ducit insomnes, 
 dum delicioso garritui pervigil indulget? Nonne jam vitam claustralium prae oculis 
 cordis constituis, nodes cum diebus in laudem divinam expendenlium? 
 
 » 849-378. 
 
THE OWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 217 
 
 Many are the arguments and views brought forward by 
 the two opponents, and with a skill and acumen reminding 
 us that we are in an epoch when jurists and lawyers quickly 
 rose to great influence, wealth, and position, a time when 
 Bracton wrote his book on the laws and customs of Eng- 
 land. Both are fond of popular turns. Many proverbs are 
 brought to bear, and always with the citation of Aelfred's 
 authority; though the pseudo-Aelfredian collection which 
 we have offers hardly any duplicate passages. Many popu- 
 lar traditions (also recorded, it is true, in learned works) are 
 either mentioned or their existence assumed. Interesting is 
 the charge made by the owl against the nightingale, that she 
 has seduced the wife of a knight to adultery, for which the 
 husband has taken bitter revenge. The nightingale responds 
 that she has only consoled a wife confined by a jealous hus- 
 band, and that, for the wrong done her (the nightingale) by 
 the knight. King Henry has given her glorious satisfaction, 
 God be merciful to his soul. The narrative in Alexander 
 Neckam is the same, if we except the punishment of the 
 knight by the king.^ 
 
 The disputants naturally reach no conclusion. The night- 
 ingale finally gathers a great number of song-birds about 
 her, and they adjudge her the victory. Their jubilation 
 irritates the owl beyond measure; it looks as if the dispu- 
 tants are about to pass from words to blows. Then the wren 
 reminds them of the king's peace, and the decision made at 
 the beginning, to let " Maister Nichole " settle the dispute, 
 is reconsidered. All unite in his praise. The manner in 
 which his virtues, his justice, prudence, and wisdom are 
 dwelt upon, makes it impossible to regard him as the poet 
 himself, because such self-laudation would ill agree with 
 those qualities. But there is no doubt that the poet could 
 take the outlines of the portrait of Master Nicholas from 
 his own character, and that he depicts himself in his friend. 
 Perhaps the passage especially applies to him, according to 
 which Master Nicholas had formerly been dissolute, and had 
 liked the nightingale and "other gentle and small creatures," 
 
 • De7taturis rerum, I. c. 41 : Sed odedecus ! quid meruit nobilis volucrum praecen- 
 trix, instar Hippolyti Thesidae equis diripi? Miles enim quidam nimis zelotes 
 philomenam quatuor equis distrahi praecepit, eo quod secundum ipsius assertionera 
 animum uxoris suae nimis demulcens, earn ad illiciti amoris compulisset illecebras. 
 
2lS THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 but had since become staid, and would in nowise let himself 
 be led into wrong by old love.^ 
 
 The relations of the poet and his poem to the political 
 parties and events of his time will perhaps one day be re- 
 vealed. Mature study of linguistic and literary condi- 
 tions leads us to assign the poem to the reign of Henry 
 III. (1216-1272); however discordant with this theory the 
 fact may seem that Henry II. is merely designated as 
 " King Henri, Jesus his soule do merci."^ 
 
 In this connection, the question rises, whether some of 
 the religious lyrics considered in the last chapter did not 
 come from the hand of the same poet. We lack materials 
 for a decisive answer. But few of the songs extant could 
 quite correspond to the personality of the man as we know 
 him from the Owl atid the Nightingale. He certainly had 
 lyrical talent. His smooth, melodious versification, his copi- 
 ous and redundant language, his frequent musical repetition 
 of phrase and theme, betoken a poet who well knew how to 
 make a strophic song. He employs the short couplet, the 
 metre used by the author of the Elei^en Pains of Hell ; no 
 one has constructed it better than he, and scarcely any before 
 Gower more recjularlv. 
 
 He is certainly the equal of the best l}Tists of the epoch. 
 
 In his, as in their verse, dwells a peculiar charm. This 
 poetry is comparable to a maiden who returns to the pa- 
 rental house which she forsook as a child. Joyous in her 
 foreign training and experience, she nevertheless thinks of 
 her childhood again, and unconsciously practises many a 
 former habit, many a long-forgotten pastime. So the Eng- 
 lish muse, having scarcely outgrown the Norman school, 
 returned to her ancestral home and contemplated the past. 
 
 XV. 
 
 When we perceive extraordinär}' intellectual activity, we 
 inquire into its causes. What conditions led to the rise of 
 English literature under Henry III.? The growth of national 
 feeling was perhaps the most essential agency, and this pre- 
 supposes a closing of the gap between Norman and native. 
 
 As early as the reign of Henry II. this blending process 
 
 • Ov'I and Nighiingalt, 202,etseg. 
 * Jiiiä., 109 1, et seq. 
 
GkoWTH OF National feeling. 2119 
 
 had gone so far that the Dialogus de scaccario ^ says it was 
 well nigh impossible to distinguish among the free-men, the 
 man of English from the man of Norman blood. This was, 
 however, in great part a passage of the English element into 
 the Norman, rather than the reverse. Though many spoke 
 both languages, yet the use of Norman-French remained for 
 a long time a sign of aristocratic descent. And as the his- 
 tory of the literature attests, the fusion cannot have gone on 
 equally in the entire extent of the kingdom. Hence it is 
 well to interpret with care the words of the author of the 
 Dialogue. 
 
 This fusion made great progress during the reign of the 
 sons and the grandson of the second Henry. 
 
 Normandy was lost under King John, and the immigrated 
 aristocracy of England was cut off from the mother-country. 
 The separation was made complete by a measure taken, with 
 the same political motives, by Henry HI. and Louis IX. 
 They decreed that no subject of one crown should possess 
 land upon the territory of the other. 
 
 Disturbance in domestic politics also had its influence. 
 The weakness and incapacity of Kings John and Henry HI. 
 had made them dependent upon South French favourites. 
 This roused the jealousy of the haughty Norman barons, as 
 much as the absolutist tendencies of those kings provoked to 
 opposition their proud sense of freedom. In the struggle 
 between crown and aristocracy, the hatred of the English 
 race for absolutism, its abhorrence of the audacious acts of 
 the Gascons, made it a natural ally of the aristocracy. 
 
 The necessity of securing this ally was clearly seen, under 
 Henry III., by a man whose South French birth seemed to 
 predestine him for a member of the court-party, but who 
 became the leader and the soul of the popular party, and 
 who, almost adored during his lifetime, was revered as a 
 martyr after his death, — by Simon de Montfort. It is sig- 
 nificant of the situation of affairs, that all the strictly polit- 
 ical literature of the time in England, both in Latin and 
 French, sides with the barons against the king and the court- 
 party. The best spirits of the country stood for the cause of 
 freedom ; the pious and learned bishop of Lincoln, Robert 
 Grosseteste, and the famous Franciscan, Adam of Marsh (de 
 
 1 I. 10. Stubbs's Select Charters, p. 201, et seq. 
 
220 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 Marisco), were both by close friendship united to Simon de 
 Montfort. 
 
 The opposition was heightened by the intervention of the 
 papal curia. The interests of Romish politics had long been 
 hostile to the English crown, but in those days they seemed 
 entirely to coincide with them. This complication of eccle- 
 siastical and secular interests, however, only made the papacy 
 appear to the most ecclesiastically disposed Englishmen as 
 the enemy that menaced their dearest possessions. 
 
 Political tension in England reached its utmost in the 
 middle of the thirteenth century, the boundary between the 
 literary period which we have tried to sketch, and that upon 
 which we now enter. 
 
 The poems that last occupied us bloomed in the ominous 
 calm that precedes a tempest. 
 
 Soon after the middle of the century, in 1258, the storm 
 broke. Events followed in quick succession, first in politics, 
 and then in war. We see men of Norman and English 
 blood united in the struggle for ancient folk-rights ; we see 
 the beginnings of the modem English constitution forming 
 from the Old English constitution, whose spirit still breathed 
 in the Norman feudal state ; and by the side of the Upper 
 House, we already discern the outlines of the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 English speech attained, amid this commotion, an im- 
 portance that raised it, at least for a time, to the dignity of 
 a language of state and government. On the iSth of Octo- 
 ber, 1258, King Henry, under the influence of ministers and 
 councillors imposed upon him by the barons, issued a proc- 
 lamation "to all his faithful, learned and laymen"; this was 
 published simultaneously in the French and English lan- 
 guages. A French copy of general import is preseived : of 
 the English version, the copies destined for the counties of 
 Huntingdon and Oxford have reached us. 
 
 All documents written after this time down to Richard HI. 
 seem to have been composed exclusively in Latin or French, 
 the French gradually gaining the precedence. But this 
 makes the exceptional phenomenon of the year 1258 all the 
 more significant, since it shows to what importance the Eng- 
 lish element had even then risen. 
 
 The growth of the national literature was as little retarded 
 
POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL PROGRESS. 221 
 
 by the continued use of foreign languages in official docu- 
 ments and political affairs, as was the steady, though slow, 
 progress of the English constitution arrested by violent and 
 prolonged reactions. The wealth of the nation increased 
 with the growth of freedom ; indeed, the former was a con- 
 dition of the latter. The great cities, where commerce and 
 industry flourished, became the centres of political progress, 
 the schools in which the nation learned self-government. 
 London was no less conspicuous for its wealth than for the 
 free spirit of its citizens. Trade grew enormously. Aided 
 by the expanding scope of navigation, it came to include all 
 European coasts in its range. Stirring life prevailed at the 
 harbours ; strange costumes and languages, foreign products, 
 costly stufls, aroused the interest and admiration of the 
 countryman visiting the neighbouring port. But what, per- 
 haps, most moved his wonder, was the wealth and luxury of 
 the burghers, who began gradually to emulate the gentle- 
 folk in dress and mode of life, who liked to be called sire, 
 and were wont to intersperse their speech with French words. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 FROM LEWES TO CRECY, 
 
 Noch einmal sattelt mir den Hippogryphen, ihr Musen, 
 Zum Ritt in's alte romantische Land. 
 
 Wieland. 
 
Times of great political excitement, especially times of 
 civil war, are wont to leave their stamp on language. In 
 the reign of Henry III., English, with the exception of 
 the southeastern dialect, cast off the marks peculiar to the 
 transition from the ancient to the middle age. An impor- 
 tant revolution took place in the vocabulary ; foreign ele- 
 ments, or new formations and new appHcation of native 
 material crowded out much of the old stock. In syntax, 
 new losses of inflection were finally brought about by the 
 intrusion of a simpler, more logical arrangement of words. 
 These changes went hand in hand with the increasing im- 
 portance of English as a language of daily intercourse and 
 of literature. Gradually as the Anglo-Norman lost its purity, 
 together with its dominant position, it yielded more and more 
 of its own wealth to the English. It was long, however, 
 before the spirit of the English completely permeated the 
 foreign matter, and became assimilated with it. Many 
 agencies seemed to bring Englishman and Norman into 
 contact ; such as the growing needs of life in business and in 
 family intercourse ; the sway of fashion in dress ; court life 
 and chivalry, to which France still gave the tone; new dis- 
 coveries and methods in the industrial and fine arts; the 
 clergy; the itinerant monks ; the cosmopolitan orders. Of 
 the latter, the Franciscans were especially notable; they 
 came, in the beginning at least, into closest contact with the 
 poor of the larger cities. A great part in this intercourse v/as 
 also taken by the disours^ harpotirs, gestours, or as they 
 were called in pure English " seggers " and " glee-men." It 
 was they who made the French romantic literature, translated 
 either by themselves or by others, accessible to the English 
 people. The circle of their audience grew wider from year 
 
 p 225 
 
220 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 to year. The highest spheres of society still much preferred 
 French to English poetry. But there were the rich bur- 
 gess, the comfortable freeholder, the knight with his squires 
 and his yeomen, perhaps also many a one of higher degree ; 
 and finally, if the minstrel was not fastidious, a great throng 
 of meaner folk in town and country were eager to hear him. 
 
 Epic poetry again came into literature at about the mid- 
 dle of the thirteenth century. 
 
 By that time its florescence in France v/as already past. 
 The various forms and species of the epic there had followed 
 each other in rapid succession : the national epos and the 
 rhapsody of the jongleur, the chivalric court-romance, the 
 cycles of the antique and the Breton world, the national 
 epopee of the trouveres. Nearly all these materials and 
 forms still lived in oral tradition, or in literature, but the 
 sinews of production were paralysed. During the last half 
 of the century, in the extreme north of the range of the 
 French language, chivalric poetry once more revived in the 
 works of an Adenet; but the virtuosity in rhyme-making, 
 carried to excess in his works, and joined with great senti- 
 mentality and a perceptible lack of creative power, clearly re- 
 veals the features of epigonic poetry. A new spirit had 
 awakened in France, the spirit of satire and denial of the 
 mediaeval view of life. This had created an epic art-form, 
 which had grown from the plan of the court-romance by the 
 saturation of the latter with antique reminiscences and 
 themes. Jehan de Meun, the Rabelais of his time, wrote, 
 during the latter part of St. Louis's reign, his cynical contin- 
 uation of the Romance of the Rose, commenced, in the spirit 
 of a mediaeval Ovid, by Guillaume de Lorris, at the begin- 
 ning of the century. 
 
 In England, the time of conflict with the Middle Ages had 
 not yet arrived. JNIediseval romanticism had yet to win a 
 place in the national literature. But culture developed there 
 on a broader civil basis. The burgher element was predom- 
 inant in that society, whose attention the singers of chivalric 
 poetry had first to gain. And when the opposition between 
 races and tongues had disappeared in the nation, it was 
 plainly shown how much more easily the barrier separating 
 the aristocracy from the commonalty could be surmounted, 
 and how much less reason the classes had for mutual enmity 
 
LEGEND OF KING HORN. 227 
 
 than in France. The old element and the new were more 
 congenial in England than elsewhere, because the old was 
 really old and was permeated by the Teutonic spirit. 
 
 The time of the EngUsh folk-epos had long gone; its last 
 echoing sounds were silent. A certain substitute was found 
 in new popular sagas and songs, as those of Ho7'ii and of 
 Havelok^ which were probably written down towards the be- 
 ginning of the period. 
 
 King Morn is preserved in a form plainly recalling the 
 musical recital with which it had once been presented, and 
 it is not the words of the poem alone that prove it to be a 
 song: 
 
 Be of good cheer, all who listen to my singing. 
 A song I will sing you of Murry • the king.^ 
 
 There is an unmistakably strophic construction in the text 
 as we have it, though the division is unequal, and many pas- 
 sages of the poem have a thoroughly musical charm. The 
 elementary unit of the strophe, as it here appears, the short 
 couplet, is formed entirely on the Teutonic principle, with 
 two accents upon the sonorous close of the verse, so that it 
 appears to be an organic continuation of the chief form in 
 La^amon and in Aelfred's Proverbs. This circumstance 
 makes the poem exceptional among the early English ro- 
 mances. 
 
 The Song of Horn must be counted as a metrical romance, 
 in view of its contents, its structure, its dress, and mounting. 
 The age of romantic chivalry distinctly left its impress upon 
 the material derived from an obscure transition period. 
 
 Horn is the son of King Murry, or AUof, of South Dane- 
 land and of Queen Godhild. He excels all the children of 
 men in beauty. Twelve noble youths are given him as 
 companions, and among them are two whom he loves better 
 than all others : Athulf, the best of all, and the traitor, Fik- 
 enhild. 
 
 On a summer's day the king rides, as usual, along the 
 strand, when he perceives that fifteen ships have landed there, 
 
 1 Muny, according to another reading, Allof, the father of Horn. 
 2 Alle beon he blithe 
 That to my song lythe : 
 A sang ihc schal you singe 
 Of Murry the kinge. King Horn, 1-4,. 
 We use the text of Mätzner's Sprachproben, but take the libertj' of replacing ancient 
 characters by more modern ones, 
 
228 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 manned by Saracens. A contest ensues ; Murry falls, with 
 the two knights who accompanied him. The pagans swarm 
 into the country, destroy the churches, and massacre all who 
 refuse to abjure their faith. Godhild escapes their rage by 
 hiding in a cave. Horn's beauty so touches the pagan king 
 that he does not suffer him to die by the sword, but, with his 
 twelve companions, sets him adrift at the mercy of the wind 
 and the waves. 
 
 The sea began to flow and Horn child to row, the sea drove the 
 ship so fast that the children were afraid. They saw a sure fate before 
 them all day and all night, till the daylight sprang, till Horn upon the 
 strand saw men walking on the land. "Comrades," bespoke, 
 "youths, I will tell you tidings. I hear birds sing and see the grass 
 spring. Let us be blithe in life, our ship is on shore." They left the 
 ship and set foot on the ground. At the sea-side they let that ship ride. 
 Then spake child Horn — in South Daneland was he born: "Ship in 
 the flood, have thou good days. At the brink of the sea, let no waters 
 drown thee. If thou comest to South Daneland, greet well my kin, 
 greet thou well my mother Godhild, the good queen, and say to the 
 heathen king, the opposer of Jesus Christ, that I am whole and hale, 
 arrived in this land, and say that he shall feel the stroke of my hand." ^ 
 
 The youths meet the king, Ailmar of Westernesse, who 
 receives them with kindness and addresses Horn thus : 
 *' Enjoy thou well thy name, Horn, sound loud over hill and 
 dale, resound over valley and down. So shall thy name 
 spring from king to king, and thy beauty through all Wes- 
 ternesse, the strength of thy hand through every land." Ail- 
 mar delivers Horn to his steward Athelbrus, to be educated. 
 He is to be taught to hunt and to fish, to play the harp, to 
 carve, and to serve the cup before the king. Horn grows 
 
 1 The se bigan to flowe, Bi the se side 
 
 And Horn child to rowe, Hi leten that schup ride. 
 
 The se that schup so faste drof, Thanne spak him child Horn, 
 
 The children dradde therof. In Suddene he was ibom: 
 
 Hi wenden to vasse "Schup, bi the se flode 
 
 Of here lif to misse, Daies haue thu gode: 
 
 Al the day and al the night, Bi the se brinke 
 
 Til hit (hem?) sprang day light, Ko water the nadrinke : 
 
 Til Horn sagh on the stronde Yef thu cume to Suddene, 
 
 Men gon in the londe. Gret thu wel of myne kenne, 
 
 " Feren," quath he, " yonge,] Gret thu wel my moder, 
 
 Ihc telle you tithinge, Godhild quen the gode, 
 
 Ihc here fogheles singe. And seie the paene kyng, 
 
 And se that gras him springe. Jesu Cristes witherling, 
 
 Blithe beo we on lyue, That ich am hoi and fer 
 
 Ure schup is on r>-ue." On this lond ariued her: 
 
 Of schup hi gunne funde, And seie that he schal fonde 
 
 And selten fot to gründe, The dent of myne honde." 
 
 V. 117-152. 
 
KING HORN. 
 
 229 
 
 tall under the care of Athelbrus, and gains the love of all at 
 the court and outside of it, but most of all he is loved by 
 Rymenhild, the king's daughter. Very desirous to speak to 
 the youth alone, she feigns sickness and commands Athelbrus 
 to come into her chamber with Horn. This command puts 
 Athelbrus into great embarrassment. He neither dares to 
 obey nor to disobey. He therefore makes a compromise, 
 and brings Athulf instead of Horn. Rymenhild, deceived 
 in the subdued light of her chamber, loads Athulf with ca- 
 resses, until he makes clear her mistake. All her anger is 
 now directed against Athelbrus, who can only avert the 
 storm by promising to send Horn to her. Horn betakes 
 himself to Rymenhild, and kneels before her ; the apartment 
 is illumined by his beauty. A tender scene follows, in which 
 the maid sues for the love of the youth. But Horn declares 
 himself unworthy to woo the king's daughter. There is only 
 one thing that can make him worthy of her; she must help 
 him to become a knight. They resolve to work for this ob- 
 ject through the intercession of Athelbrus with the king. 
 The plan succeeds. Ailmar makes Horn a knight, where- 
 upon the latter gives the accolade to his twelve comrades, 
 Rymenhild, with rejoicing, now receives her lover, who, 
 adorned with his new dignity, steps into the room with 
 Athulf. But Horn has come only to bid her farewell. Be- 
 fore he makes her his wife, he wishes to deserve her by 
 knightly deeds. Rymenhild resigns herself to her fate. 
 
 " Knight," spoke she, " faithful one, I ween I can believe 
 thee; take thou this golden ring. Good is its adornment, 
 upon the ring is graved, ' Rymenhild the young;' there is 
 
 no better one under the sun Wear it for my love, and 
 
 bear it on thy finger. The stones thereupon have such vir- 
 tue that thou wilt dread no blow in any place, neither wilt 
 thou be dismayed in battle when thou lookest upon it and 
 thinkest of thy beloved. And Sir Athulf, thy brother, shall 
 have another. Horn, I beseech with loving speech that 
 Christ give good intercession for us, and bring thee back 
 again." ^ 
 
 The new knight has immediate occasion to test the magic 
 power of the ring. He owes to it a glorious victory over a 
 horde of Saracens just landed, and expecting to conquer the 
 
 « V. 561-582. 
 
230 FROM LEWES TO CRECV . 
 
 realm of Ailmar. After he has vanquished the enemy, he 
 carries into Ailmar's hall, on the point of his sword, the head 
 of their leader. Thus fate seems to favour the lovers ; but an 
 anxious dream fills the heart of Rymenhild with sad fore- 
 bodings, only too soon to be fulfilled. Fikenhild reveals to 
 the king the secret his jealousy has discovered. Ailmar sur- 
 prises the youth in the arms of Rymenhild, and A\TathfulIy 
 banishes him from the kingdom. The parting of the lovers 
 is very mournful : " Darling love," says Horn, " now is thy 
 dream fulfilled. . . . Farewell, Rymenhild, longer I dare 
 not stay. I go to a strange country, and shall dwell there 
 full seven years. If I come not again at the end of seven 
 years, or send thee no message, take a husband and wait no 
 longer for me. Fold me into thine arms, and kiss me long." 
 The seven years of banishment are filled with adventures 
 and deeds of heroism, over which we will not linger. The 
 period nears its close, and Rymenhild lives in great anxiety. 
 A mighty king, Modi of Reynes, sues for her hand; the day 
 of the wedding is fixed by him and Ailmar. In her trouble, 
 Rymenhild sends out a messenger for Horn, who at last 
 finds him in Ireland, where, by the name of Cutberd, he 
 lives at the court of King Thurston. Horn now hastens to 
 Westernesse, accompanied by Irish knights. When they have 
 landed, he leaves his followers behind and proceeds alone. 
 He hears from a pilgrim that the wedding has already taken 
 place. He changes clothes with the pilgrim, and betakes 
 himself to the castle where Rymenhild dwells, not having 
 yet become the \vife of Modi. He enters with great diffi- 
 culty. The scene of recognition is dramatically portrayed. 
 The rest may be imagined. Rymenhild is rescued from 
 Modi and espoused by Horn. 
 
 But the story is not finished. Horn is impelled to leave 
 his young wife's arms, and to go to his home. He wishes to 
 avenge his father's death and to regain South Daneland. 
 By the help of his Irish warriors and the faithful Athulf, he 
 accomplishes this. He has even the unexpected joy of find- 
 ing still alive his mother, who has all this time lived hidden 
 in a cave. 
 
 In the mean time a new danger threatens Rymenhild. 
 The theme of the Modi-episode is repeated. This time it is 
 the traitor Fikenhild who has succeeded in gaining a great 
 
KING HORN. 23, 
 
 following in Westernesse, and who has built a strong castle 
 in the sea. Thither he carries by force the wailing Rymen- 
 hild, and tries to compel her to be his wife. But, warned 
 by a dream, Horn returns at the decisive moment. His 
 ship lies at anchor at the foot of the tower containing Ry- 
 menhild's chamber. The castle and its inhabitants are un- 
 known to Horn. He is informed of the state of things by 
 a nephew of Athulf, Arnoldin. Quickly resolved, he and 
 several of his companions disguise themselves, and, 
 
 They stepped over the gravel to the castle. They began merrily to 
 sing and to play. Rymenhild heard it, and asked who they were. 
 They answered that they were harpers, and some of them fiddlers. 
 They let Horn in at the portal of the hall. He seated himself upon 
 the bench, and began to play the harp. He sang before Rymenhild, 
 and she answered with wailings. Rymenhild fell in a swoon; none 
 laughed then. Bitter pain smote Horn's heart. He looked upon his 
 ring, and thought of Rymenhild ; he stepped to the board, and with 
 the edge of his good sword, he struck off Fikenhild's head, and he 
 overthrew all his warriors, one after another. When they were killed, 
 he caused Fikenhild to be torn in pieces.» 
 
 Now are rewarded the faithful followers, for whom suffi- 
 cient crowns are at command. Horn himself returns to 
 South Daneland and makes Rymenhild his queen. 
 
 It is plain that this is a roman d^avcntiires, which, however, 
 does not behe its pecuhar origin. Many a trait in King 
 Horn recalls a time anterior to the Conquest. Indeed, the 
 subject-matter, taken as a whole, points to an epoch when 
 the Danish piracies were at their height ; and why should 
 the germ of the saga not be more ancient still ? But the 
 primitive relations had, in the lapse of time, all been oblit- 
 erated. The sea-robbers became Saracens in the age of the 
 crusades ; new traditions were added to more ancient legends, 
 and the ethnology as well as the geography of the poem 
 grew inextricably involved. So much is clear: the North 
 Sea and its neighbouring waters, and their shores, were the 
 scene of the action. 
 
 The influence of the age of chivalric poetry upon man- 
 ners and culture is unmistakable. Considerable space is 
 devoted to a tender love-story, which, indeed, forms the 
 nucleus of the fable. The code of gallantry, however, 
 seems to be but little developed, and of the lovers, it is the 
 maid who languishes and woos. 
 
 1 V. 1465-1492. 
 
232 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 The narrative of Horn, a prince glowing in beauty and 
 knightly virtue, seems, finally, to be the product of a society 
 not yet quite at the height of courtly refinement, but still 
 influenced by more modern culture, and containing aristo- 
 cratic elements. Perhaps we may seek the home of the 
 English song in the southern part of the country. It is 
 hardly by chance that the dialect of the most ancient edi- 
 tion points to the region of Essex. 
 
 The story of Havelok tho. Dane takes us to a more north - 
 ern region. Both saga and poem may have originated in a 
 Danish colony in Lincolnshire. Unlike King Honi, Have- 
 lok has not come to us as a song. The text before us pre- 
 supposes non-musical delivery by a segge?% who, in more than 
 one place, addresses his audience in his own behalf Like 
 the Anglo-Norman Lai de Havelok, the English poem is 
 composed of couplets not arranged in strophes of the kind 
 occurring in the Owl a?id the Nightingale, but, like that lai, 
 it may rest on more ancient songs. 
 
 The story of Havelok and Goldburgh (Goldeboru), in 
 many ways recalls that of Horn and Rymenhild, but the 
 points of difference are significant. 
 
 The story of the hero and the heroine is parallel up to the 
 point where they are brought together. Goldburgh is the 
 daughter of the good and just English king Athelwold; 
 Havelok is the son of the king Birkabeyn of Denmark. Be- 
 fore his death, Athelwold gives his kingdom and daughter, 
 in trust, to the count of Cornwall, Godrich, with the com- 
 mission to marry Goldburgh to the most beautiful and strong- 
 est man he can find. Birkabeyn likewise puts Havelok and 
 his two sisters into the care of the Count Godard. Godrich 
 and Godard are both black traitors, who try to become 
 masters of the kingdoms entrusted to their guardianship. 
 Godrich holds Goldburgh captive at Dover ; Godard kills the 
 two girls with his own hand, and commits Havelok to Grim, 
 a fisherman, with the command to throw him into the sea. 
 Of course, Grim does not fulfil this behest. A marvellous 
 light that surrounds the sleeping boy teaches Grim that he 
 has before him the true heir to the Danish crown. The 
 fisherman prepares a ship, which he boards with his wife 
 and children — three sons and two daughters — and puts to 
 sea with the prince. They land at the mouth of the Hum- 
 
POEM OF HAVELOK THE DANE. 233 
 
 ber, at a place still bearing Grim's name, Grimsby. Here 
 the fisherman follows his old calling. The breaking out of 
 a famine causes Havelok, who has meanwhile grown to 
 manhood, to leave his poor foster-father in order to provide 
 for himself. He wanders to Lincoln, where he is taken into 
 service by the cook of the count of Cornwall. The prince 
 gains a certain popularity in his narrow circle, on account of 
 his tremendous bodily strength and his good-nature. He 
 soon finds opportunity to appear upon a larger stage. At a 
 festival he, by the cook's command, takes part in the games, 
 and throws the stone farther than any one else. The renown 
 of his strength comes to the ears of Godrich, who, with bit- 
 ter irony, affects to find in him the man who is to marry 
 Goldburgh. Havelok is certainly the strongest of all. By 
 this marriage, Goldburgh will be degraded and forever ex- 
 cluded from the throne. Godrich carries out his purpose, 
 against the will of the two concerned. The marriage is 
 concluded. But with the help of a vision, Goldburgh soon 
 recognises Havelok's kingly descent by the marvellous light 
 which proceeds from his mouth, as well as by a red cross on his 
 shoulder. It may already be foreseen by what stages the 
 story is carried to a happy ending. The scene is transferred 
 to Denmark. A faithful vassal is not wanting there, the 
 good Count Ubbe, who knows the prince by his token, and 
 helps him collect followers to overthrow and punish Godard. 
 The story then follows the Danish troops to England, where 
 it closes with the conquest and punishment of Godrich, and 
 the recompense of faithful servants. Reward and punish- 
 ment are dealt out with no sparing hand. Godard is flayed, 
 dragged at the tail of an old mare over rough ground to the 
 gallows, and hanged. Godrich dies by fire. Grim's daugh- 
 ters — the father having long since died — are married to 
 counts, among them a newly-fledged count of Cornwall in 
 the person of the cook Bertram, Havelok's former master. 
 The good Danish Count Ubbe receives Denmark in fief 
 from Havelok. Havelok himself is crowned at London 
 with Goldburgh, and they live and reign happily for sixty 
 years. Their marriage is blessed by fifteen children, who 
 all become kings or queens. 
 
 In Havelok we have firm geographical soil to stand upon ; 
 but, as in King Jlorti, the bridge is lacking to connect the 
 
234 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 personages and events of the fable with history, or with the 
 ancient saga, — at least, a bridge upon which we may trust 
 ourselves. Traces of the ancient relations between Den- 
 mark and England are plainly discernible. The story, whose 
 memory is still preserved in the seal of Grimsby city, may 
 have arisen among Danish settlers in Lincolnshire — who 
 can say from what elements ? It would be hard to decide 
 how old it is, but it was probably not completed until after 
 the time of Cnut the Great. At the end of the tale, Den- 
 mark and England are at peace, and a Danish king rules 
 over England. 
 
 The opinion is evident throughout the poem that educa- 
 tion and manners are on a lower plane in Denmark than in 
 England. Public insecurity in Havelok's country is remark- 
 ably great. Quite irrelevantly to the story, not less than 
 sixty thieves break into the house of Bernard Brown, where 
 Havelok and Goldburgh sleep, and Count Ubbe sees no 
 other way of guarding the English guests from further at- 
 tacks than by taking them into his own castle and carefully 
 watching over them. 
 
 The whole poem of Havelok presupposes but little social 
 refinement. It differs from Kmg Morn by its blunt, almost 
 rude, popular tone. The good-natured giant Havelok, who, 
 though a king's son, performs menial services, presents an 
 ideal w^hich must have powerfully attracted a subjugated 
 Teutonic population, and in whose portrayal many a trait 
 may have been added from the life of English outlaws. The 
 diction of the poem of Havelok also shows that it appealed 
 to a class of less gentihty. 
 
 II. 
 
 The more truly literary work of translating and work- 
 ing Over French and Anglo-Norman romances began as 
 early as the reign of Henry III. Under Edward I. and 
 his successor this new branch of literature took a quick im- 
 petus; production grew to an incredible extent. It was as 
 if the full cornucopia of romantic poesy had been shaken 
 out over the English people. As from a cornucopia every- 
 thing streams in motley disorder, so the English seized at 
 random the rich treasures of French poetry, bringing forth 
 
IMITATION OF FRENCH ROMANCES. 235 
 
 what was valuable or worthless, ancient or modern, popular 
 or courtly, in order to adapt it for the home public. No or- 
 ganic relation between form and matter, such as we find in 
 the French epic, existed in these English imitations. The 
 chanson de geste was not handled differently from the roman 
 d^avenfures, nor the romance of Alexander otherwise than 
 the romances of the Arthurian cycle. The only question 
 considered was that of the interest, or romantic nature of 
 the material. In other respects the imitator followed his 
 model as closely as he could, save in the alterations and ad- 
 ditions made out of regard for the taste of his auditors. 
 
 The poet did not always recite his own work. Frequently 
 he was a cleric and gave his poem to some segger, who made 
 his fortune from it. With favourite subjects, competition 
 sometimes called forth more than one version. Parts of 
 different renderings were welded together by necessity or 
 accident. The segger himself oftentimes felt the throbbing 
 of a poetic vein, and even when possessing little talent, he 
 understood somewhat the technique of form, and was able, 
 in an emergency, to help himself out with a fixed formula. 
 At all events he knew his public, and had learned by long 
 experience what was pleasing and what was not. Hence he 
 omitted passages nivolving finer shading of analysis in con- 
 cession to a coarser taste, and lingered with stronger empha- 
 sis on those parts where he was sure of his effect. Mutila- 
 tions were still more frequently owing to weakness of mem- 
 ory and misconception. In the mouth of the seggers, there- 
 fore, the form of these poems diverged ever more from that 
 of the original text. Industrious monks completed their 
 manuscripts from the text-books of the minstrels, and these 
 products came to posterity on parchment or paper, in beauti- 
 ful, or in ugly characters, with or without miniatures and 
 arabesques, more or less disfigured, but rarely in their original 
 form. Many became the prey of mice or fire. In such 
 cases we can count ourselves fortunate if their contents were 
 saved from utter ruin by some old printer, a Wynkin de 
 Worde or a Copland. 
 
 The task of the historian of literature is thus rendered 
 much more difficult ; although it gains in interest. We see 
 from this general history of the Middle English romance 
 how national and popular characteristics could manifest 
 
236 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 themselves in such poetical imitations. Their fortunes also 
 involve a portion of English history, and in them is uttered 
 the English spirit, even though it seem to "speak with 
 tongues." And clear hnes, separating groups, may after all 
 be distinguished in the many-sided diversity proceeding from 
 the peculiar material, from the individuality of poet, segger, 
 landscape, epoch, and the level of culture of the respective 
 auditors. The whole gradually acquires a definite physi- 
 ognomy. A painter to delineate it is still wanting. May he 
 not delay too long. 
 
 In the reign of Henry III. a poet, apparently belonging 
 to the South, translated a romance of Floire et Bla7ichcflor, 
 The story of this charming poem was probably derived from 
 late Greek and oriental sources, and may have come to 
 France during the crusades. It had been rendered into 
 French verse according to the courtly style more than once 
 after the middle of the twelfth century. 
 
 It is a story of ardent true-love, whose "labour is won." 
 Having arisen in two child-hearts, it strengthens in the time 
 which makes the boy ajyouth and the girl a maiden, and 
 grows with the obstacles in its path. An adverse fate parts 
 the two lovers by sending the maid into distant captivity 
 and the slavery of a seraglio. But the youth goes forth to 
 find her, and in him are verified the words of the Roman 
 clegist : 
 
 Quisquis amore tenetur eat tutusque sacerque 
 Qualibet : insidias non timuisse decet. 
 
 He succeeds in tracing his beloved, and in reaching her, 
 despite all dangers and hindrances. When his presence in 
 the seraglio is discovered and the noble pair are condemned 
 to die, their love flames so high in the presence of death 
 that its power at last moves even the enervated, tyrant- 
 hearted sultan, who gives the lovers back to life and happi- 
 ness.^ He goes so far as to advance one of the ladies of 
 his seraglio, the friend of Blancheflor, to be his consort for 
 life. 
 
 A feminine, indeed an effeminate, vein runs through the 
 narrative. Magic ascribed to rings and other objects, and 
 never-failing chance, in the form of sympathising hosts and 
 
 1 The poet of the Gerusakmine UbercUa may have had this scene in mind in his sec- 
 ond canto. 
 
ROMANCE OF TRISTAN AND ISOLD. 237 
 
 accommodating warders, take the place of manly achieve- 
 ment. The primitive tone and dress were modified in the 
 West. In France a chivalric element was mixed with the 
 erotic fable. We see the hero overcome two Arabian 
 Gohaths, and maintain the innocence of his loved one in 
 trial by combat. But the outlines of the narrative were not 
 effaced, and the southern, almost oriental, tone and style, 
 appearing outwardly in the descriptions of beautiful gardens 
 and the like, still clung to the French romance. They are 
 also perceptible in the English Floriz and Blanc heßtir. -The 
 translator confined himself more closely to his original than 
 Middle English poets generally did, and quite successfully 
 reproduced it in pleasing, fluent language, and in well-con- 
 structed, short couplets. 
 
 His work is a genuine court-romance, in which the trou- 
 bles and cares of love are drawn with a delicate hand, and 
 conversation and description play an important part. It 
 may have gained approval on account of its attractive mate- 
 rial ; but it was doubtless fully appreciated only by the few. 
 
 A new version from the French was made not long after, 
 while the first began to spread in the North. 
 
 The rivals of Floriz and BlancheHur for the prize of true 
 love are Tristan and Isold, the story of whose fate is the more 
 fascinating because it contains truly tragic passages. Love 
 with them is not an innocent nor a virtuous passion. It is a 
 devouring flame, a demoniac power, that, obeying the whim 
 of destiny, seizes even him who resists, and makes him its 
 pliant tool, that compels the wise man to go with open eyes to 
 his destruction, and transforms the noble-minded into a trai- 
 tor. The sombre, mysterious trait, which in Tristan and Isold 
 makes love a Titanic natural force, may harmonise with the 
 character of the rocky coast landscapes of Cornwall and of 
 Britanny. Here lay the principal scene of the Tristan-saga^ 
 and here it was probably first cultivated. 
 
 Tristan and the fair Isold, while on the ship bearing them 
 from Ireland to Cornwall, drink, in an evil hour, of the magic 
 potion intended for Isold and King Mark; Isold is the 
 betrothed bride of Mark, the uncle of Tristan. From this 
 instant they are inseparably united for life. Nothing more 
 exists for them save their love, which knows no other laws 
 than its own. Isold continues her iUicit union with Tristan 
 
23^ FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 when she is Mark's consort. The good-natured, weak king 
 allows himself to be hoodwinked again and again by the 
 wiles of the lovers, although frequently warned, and by his 
 own eyes convinced of their faithlessness. Often parted, they 
 always know how to find a way to each other. With the great- 
 est naivete they put aside everything that stands between them 
 and the goal of their desires. When their love is in ques- 
 tion, duty, honour, morals, seem entirely absent. In one 
 respect only are they sensitive and conscientious. They 
 will, under no circumstances, betray their love, or break the 
 \o\\s they have mutually sworn. In an hour of weakness 
 Tristan makes another woman his wife — Isold of the White 
 Hand; but remorse follows close upon the deed, and he 
 avoids the bed of his spouse in order to be true to his be- 
 loved. This half-accomplished breach of faith becomes the 
 cause of his death. Tristan, very ill from a wound, lies in 
 Britanny, the home of his wife. He awaits with longing 
 suspense the arrival from Cornwall of the fair Isold, who, 
 skilled in medicine, will save him. Her presence on the ex- 
 pected ship is to be shown by a white sail ; her absence by 
 a black one. A vessel with a white sail appears; Tristan's 
 much-injured wife, filled with jealousy, knows that her rival 
 approaches. In her rage she hurries to the sick man, and 
 announces the ship's arrival. " For the sake of God, what 
 sail does it carry ? " "The sails are black." Despair at the 
 faithlessness of the beloved one seizes the heart of Tristan, 
 and, her name upon his lips, he breathes out his life. Isold 
 lands and hears of his death ; her agony finds no utterance. 
 Silently she steps through the crowd gazing at her beauty, to 
 the hall where lies the corpse. There she flings herself upon 
 the bier, and dies in a last embrace. 
 
 The Tristan-saga became a part of English literature at 
 the time of Edward I., if not earher. The essential parts of 
 the text we possess may date from that period. It originated 
 north of the H umber. 
 
 Of the many French renderings of the saga, the poet of 
 Sir Tristre??i used a version identical with, or based upon, 
 the work of a certain Thomas. Was not this the cause of 
 an error by which, in the English poem as we have it, 
 Thomas of Erceldoun (Earlstoun on the Scottish border) is 
 given as the poet's authority ? Posterity has traced back a 
 
SIk TRISTREM. ^39 
 
 number of prophecies to this Thomas, who lived in the sec- 
 ond half of the thirteenth century, and was known as the 
 Rhymer. At the time of Edward IL, in whose reign our 
 text seems to have been written down, this man may have 
 already been so renowned in Scotland and the north of Eng- 
 land that the name Thomas naturally suggested him only. 
 
 Whoever the poet of Sir Tristrem may have been, he had 
 no great genius. He followed his copy with slavish fidelity 
 so far as he understood it, but he did not smooth the ine- 
 qualities in the narrative, nor did he really feel them. These 
 inequalities were not the fault of the French writer, but were 
 caused by gaps in the transmitted text. The English trans- 
 lator was original in but one respect : in the effort to abridge, 
 he advances with long strides, and makes great leaps. This 
 does not prevent him, however, from minutely describing 
 Tristrem's carving of the game he has slain; for this noble 
 art is of so great importance in the estimation of the well- 
 born Englishman that, in a later romance,^ a princess 
 recognises by it the high birth of her lover. But he con- 
 denses in the crises of the story ; the weightiest moments 
 are only briefly indicated, sometimes not even that, and 
 the reader must be familiar with the story or in some 
 places read between the lines to understand him. This 
 abrupt style and the peculiar verse used give the compo- 
 sition something of the character of a ballad. We plain- 
 ly see in Sir Tristrem how ballads could arise from met- 
 rical romances, and, as may be shown, this was often the 
 case. 
 
 No one will deny that this brevity, these unexpected tran- 
 sitions, which, however, do not exclude the use of expletives 
 to fill out the verse, may call forth and augment the charm 
 of mystery; and this method is, perhaps, now and then 
 appropriate to the tenor of the Tristan-saga. But employed 
 by an inferior poet, it is one of the lowest expedients of art. 
 
 An episode in Sir Tristrem will show the style of the poet, 
 not at his worst, and by no means in his most exaggerated 
 manner : 
 
 From Ireland to the king 2 came a harper; he brought forth a harp, 
 such as they had never seen with sight ; himself, without doubt bore 
 it day and night. 
 
 * In the Ij>omycU>n. 
 i.. » Mark. 
 
240 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 Ysonde 1 he had loved long, he that brought the harp. About his 
 neck he bare it, richly it was wrought. He hid it evermore ; it never 
 came out: "Thy harp, why wilt thou spare, if thou knowest aught 
 of playing? " " It will not come out without free gifts." 
 
 Mark said : *' Let me see, harp as thou canst, and what thou askest 
 me, I shall give thee then." "Gladly," said he. A merry lay he 
 began, *' Sir king, herewith I have won Ysonde, I prove thee a false 
 man, or I shall have thy queen." 
 
 Mark went to counsel, and asked to hear advice. " I must lose my 
 manhood or yield Ysonde from me." Mark was full of dread, Ysonde 
 he let go. Tristrem in that need was in the wood to slay deer that 
 day. Tristrem came just as Ysonde was away. 
 
 Then Tristrem was in anger, and chid the king : " Givest thou glee- 
 men thy queen ? Hast thou no other thing ? " His rote,' without 
 doubt, he reached by the ring. Then followed Tristrem the track, 
 there they bring her so blithely to the ship; Tristrem began to sing, 
 and Ysonde began to listen. 
 
 Such a song he sang that she was very sad; to her came such love- 
 longing, that her heart nigh burst in two. The earl sprang to her with 
 many more knights, and said : " My sweet thing, why farest thou so, 
 I pray ? " Ysonde must go to land before she we'nt away. 
 
 "Within an hour of the day I shall be hale and sound; I hear a 
 minstrel say, he hath a melody of Tristrem." The earl s-aid : " Ac- 
 cursed be he forever, if he comes from Tristrem ! ' That minstrel for 
 his lay shall have a hundred pounds of me, if he will with us go, dear, 
 for thou lovest his play. " 
 
 His playing for to hear, the lady was set on land. To play by the 
 river, the earl led her by the hand. Tristrem, the true companion, 
 found merry notes on his rote of ivory, as they that hour were on the 
 strand. Through that seemly message, Ysonde was hale and sound. 
 
 She was hale and sound through virtue of his playing. Therefore 
 was the earl that hour a glad man. A hundred pounds, he gave Tris- 
 trem, the noble one. To the ship then they went ; in Ireland they 
 full fain would-be : the earl and knights three, with Ysonde and Bring- 
 wain."^ 
 
 Tristrem took his steed and leaped thereon to ride. The queen bade 
 him to lead her beside him to the ship. Tristrem did as she bade ; in 
 the wood he hid her. To the earl he said in that need : " Gone is thy 
 pride, thou dolt ; with thy harp thou didst win her that time, thou hast 
 lost her with my rote. "5 
 
 By way of illustration of the form, the last of the strophes 
 cited is given below in the original. The basis of this strophe 
 is four Alexandrines with six accents each, which are divided 
 by the middle rhyme into eight short lines ; to these is ad- 
 
 ' Isold. 
 
 * A stringed instrument whose name denotes Celtic origin. In Middle High Gei- 
 nian it is called Rotte. 
 
 * This sentence is not clear in the original 
 
 * The faithful handmaid of Ysonde. 
 
 * Sir Tristrem, Fytte, ii., st. 63-72. 
 
ROMANCE OF ALEXANDER. 241 
 
 ded, after a metre with one accent, a fifth Alexandrine, also 
 divided : 
 
 Tristrem tok his stede, 
 
 And lepe ther on to ride; 
 The quen bad him her lede, 
 
 To schip him biside ; 
 Tristrem did as hye bede ; 
 
 In wode he gan hir hide ; 
 To th'erl he seyd in that nede : 
 ** Thou hast ytent thi pride, 
 Thou dote : 
 
 With thine harp, thou wonne hir that tide, 
 Thou tint hir with mi rote." 
 
 Love was not the only theme of the Middle English ro- 
 mance. The most exalted figures of the hero-age also in- 
 spired the poet. First of all was the Alexander-saga, which 
 grew as popular in England as in France and Germany. 
 The oldest English Alexa7ider-romaiice is one of the best pro- 
 ductions of the whole class. It probably originated in the 
 north of ancient Mercia, and dates from the reign of Edward 
 I. We owe much to the unknown poet who, with great 
 skill, handled the rich, attractive material and rendered it in 
 pithy verse and forcible, animated, and often picturesque 
 language. As was usual within the range of this material, 
 and, indeed, in harmony with the saga, the poet's talent took 
 a middle ground between scholarly and chivalric verse. We 
 are reminded of the first by a frequent didactic tendency, by 
 interspersed reflections, introductory passages, and descrip- 
 tions of foreign lands and peoples, with their wonders and 
 prodigies. To the same plainly belongs the enumeration of 
 learned authorities for the statements made, — badly as some 
 of them were chosen ; — and it is still more suggested by the 
 poet's attitude in reference to his sources. He mainly fol- 
 lows, for instance, a French version of the legend (one, it 
 would seem, not yet published), but he supplements the ma- 
 terial thus gained by a Latin text. He thus ceases to be a 
 mere translator. The spirit of chivalric poetry breaks forth 
 most strongly when the writer leads us to the battle-field, 
 when he presents to us the picturesque advance of the troops, 
 the glittering weapons, the neighing of war-horses ; the roar- 
 ing onset, the tumult, and the slaughter, the war-cry of the 
 fighters and the lamentation of the wounded ; or when he 
 
 Q 
 
242 FROxM LEWES TO CRECi^ 
 
 describes brilliant festivals, gorgeous garments, and beautiful 
 women. 
 
 Throughout the whole a fresh native flavour appears in the 
 simplicity of expression, in many a detail drawn from Eng- 
 lish common life, and in frequent reflections. The lyrical 
 passages introducing the separate divisions of the poem have 
 a genuine English charm, whether they are the composer's 
 own or not. 
 
 They have no connection with the narrative, and are in- 
 tended to arouse the attention of the audience. They usually 
 contain a short portraiture of nature and life at some special 
 period of the year or day, to which is added a general re- 
 flection ; for example : 
 
 \Mian corn ripeth in every steode, 
 Mury hit is in feld and hyde ; 
 Synne hit is and schäme to chide ; 
 Knyghtis wollith on huntyng ride ; 
 The deor galopith by wodis side. 
 He that can his time abyde, 
 Al his wille him schal bytyde.* 
 
 Sometimes a generalisation takes the place of the picture of 
 
 nature : 
 
 Hers, streyngthe of herte, and hardinesse 
 
 Schewith mony faire prov.-esse. 
 
 Nis so fair a thyng, so Crist me blesse, 
 
 So knyght in queyntise, 
 
 Bote the prest in Codes serwyse. 
 
 Sitteth stille in alle wyse : 
 
 For here bigjmneth gest arise 
 
 Of doughty men and gret of prise.' 
 
 It would be easy to cite similar things in other literatures, 
 especially in the Alexander-poetry ; in its peculiar develop- 
 ment, however, this is specifically English. A prelude, 
 closely resembling it, opens the second part of Richard 
 Cceur de Lion, to which we will now turn our attention. 
 
 Richard Coeur de Lion appears in poetical tradition as a sort 
 of national Alexander. We may also call the subject-matter 
 of his story national; for the Englishman who translated 
 the French poem for his unlearned countrymen (near the 
 time of Edward I.) did not regard the hero as a foreigner: 
 
 In French books is this rhyme written. Unlearned men know it not; 
 unlearned men know no French; among a hundred there is not one. 
 
 * V. 457-463- 
 - T. 3584-3591. 
 
RICHARD CCEUR DE LION. 243 
 
 And yet many of them would hear with glad cheer, of the noble jousts 
 of the doughty knights of England. In sooth, now I will tell of a king, 
 doughty in deed, King Richard, the best warrior that one may find in 
 any tale.' 
 
 As the version followed by the poet of the English Alex- 
 ander-romance makes the Macedonian hero the son of a ma- 
 gician,^ so the Anglo-Norman saga gives Richard an en- 
 chantress as mother. The romance opens with an account 
 of the vay in which the beautiful Cassodorien becomes the 
 consort of Henry II., and of her final marvellous disappear- 
 ance. Alexander gives token of his future greatness by the 
 subjugation of Bucephalus, and Richard foreshadows his by 
 the deed of heroism to which he owes his name, and whose 
 renown echoes in Shakspere's verse : 
 
 Richard that robbed the lion of his heart 3 
 
 Like Alexander, Richard undertakes a vast warlike expedi- 
 tion to the Orient, and the busy fancy of the Middle Ages 
 enlivened it with a series of adventures not known to history. 
 While in Alexander, however, the mediaeval kingly ideal 
 shines forth in all its brilliancy, Richard generally appears 
 only in the light of a powerful knight with gigantic bodily 
 strength. One of his most conspicuous traits is uncontrolled 
 passion. With his cruelty is mixed wanton barbarity, pitiless 
 humour. He causes the heads of their nearest kindred to be 
 served at table before Saladin's embassadors, who have 
 brought him ransom for the prisoners ; and, feasting his eyes 
 on their terror, he helps himself heartily to the horrible dish. 
 " This is the Devil's brother," the Saracens whisper among 
 themselves, " that slays our men and eats them." Richard, 
 with sinister looks, says to his guests : " For my love, be all 
 glad, and look ye be well at ease ! Why carve ye nought 
 from your food and eat fast as I do ? Tell me, why glare 
 ye so ? " Speechless and trembling, the embassadors sit ex- 
 pecting certain death. Richard has other dishes served, ac- 
 companied with good wine, and calls upon his guests to be 
 merry; but appetite is wanting, mirth does not respond. 
 Then the king says : " Friends, be not squeamish. This is 
 the manner of my house, that Saracens' heads be first served 
 right hot. But 1 knew not your customs. As I am a king, 
 
 • Richard Cceur de Lion, 21-32. 
 
 * It remains to be said that other A lexattder poets, as for example, Alberic of Besaa« 
 jon, characterise this tradition as abase lie. 
 
 » King yoh7t, II. i. Compare also the close of the first act. 
 
244 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 Christian, and true man, ye shall certainly return in safe con- 
 duct. For I would not for no thing that word of me should 
 go forth into the world that I would misdo messengers."^ 
 
 The poet tells all this quite impartially, and even with visi- 
 ble enjoyment. He is plainly not more delicate than his 
 hero. He unrolls for us in his light, deftly constructed 
 verses, a vivid and variegated picture of knightly life and 
 deeds; but his poetry unconsciously reflects all the rude 
 manners and morals of his epoch, all the arrogance and un- 
 bridled coarseness of the mediaeval John Bull. 
 
 Beside the Anglo-Norman hero, Richard, appears in the 
 twilight of tradition the figure of the British Arthur, 
 whom we last encountered in La3amon's Brut. The litera- 
 ture in the French language clustering around the Arthurian 
 cycle was rich and diversified. The courtly epic reached 
 technical perfection, and here, for the first time, was achieved 
 the ideal representation of court-life and court-etiquette, with 
 its finished conventional apparatus. In this case it was 
 again evident that English poetry was more intent upon 
 borrowing matter than upon assimilating the formal excel- 
 lences of foreign models. What seems first to have incited to 
 imitation was not one of those artistically constructed poem-s 
 that Crestien de Troyes, with a skilful choice of topic, could 
 create out of diffuse material. It was a long-winded prose 
 romance, with confusing and monotonous abundance of epi- 
 sode, with numerous names, a tone of mystery, and a dim, 
 mystical background. The poet oiA7-thour and Merlin trans- 
 lated such a prose romance, in short couplets, it is true, and 
 not without characteristic deviations from the original, but 
 nowhere showing that he had learned anything from Cres- 
 tien, or had inherited any of his artistic instinct. Instead 
 of an increased courtly tone, it received, in the hands of the 
 imitator, that popular flavour, peculiar to the early English 
 romance, and first noticeable in the introductory landscapes 
 familiar to us in the Alexander. 
 
 Both Richard and Arthur belong to cycles of tradition of 
 which English territorial patriotism could boast as its own. 
 The English romance, however, had already drawn the 
 French national epic of Charlemagne into its range. It was 
 the Song of Roland \\\i\Qkv was first imitated among the peo- 
 
 * RicJtard Cceur de Lion, Weber, ch. ix. 
 
LEGEND OF CHARLEMAGNE IN THE ENGLISH EPIC. 245 
 
 pie for whose victorious conquest it had once inspired the 
 foreign foe at Senlac. The power with which the form and 
 import of the grand composition affected the EngHsh author 
 is plainly evident. He strove for a terse, pregnant diction, 
 and with some success, but he was not able to give his verses 
 an even, epic movement. His short couplets are often 
 lengthened under the influence of the French ten-syllabled 
 line, and the epic spirit in his original involuntarily moves 
 him to adopt the ancient ornament of the national poetry, 
 alliteration, which he uses without definite rules. 
 
 In harmony with the causes which soon after the Con- 
 quest alienated the Normans from the French national epic, 
 we rarely find that the more ancient English romance-writ- 
 ers drew from the purer popular wells of the Chai^lemagne- 
 saga. The Song of Roland^ brought to England by the 
 Conqueror, is an exception that only proves the rule. We 
 already see, in the rendering of this epic, traces of the re- 
 gard gained in England by versions not original and influ- 
 enced by clerical invention. The so-called Chronicle of 
 Turphi was largely used by the English Roland-poet. He 
 owes to it a very characteristic incident,^ which is as familiar 
 to the modern French opera as it was to the monkish litera- 
 ture of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Besides these, it was principally products of a waning 
 force, epopees of the thirteenth century, that came within 
 the range of the English poets. Especially popular in the 
 reign of Edward II. was the poem of Otinel. The plot of 
 this epopee is no part of the old Charlemagne-saga. It is 
 rather a collection of incidents and characters touching 
 other Carlo vingian cha?isons that were grouped around a 
 new hero scarcely original in anything save his name. The 
 whole invention is conceived as an episode in the cycle of 
 Charlemagne's Spanish wars, although the scene of action 
 lies mainly in Lombardy. This production of the epigonic 
 epic was twice translated into English, in the same period, 
 despite its slight value. A Sire Otuel was contributed, in 
 passably good verse, by one translator. It very faithfully 
 reproduced the original, and, as a romance in short couplets, 
 showed, to better advantage than the French chanson de 
 geste, whose modicum of epic spirit harmonises ill with the 
 
 * Jn brief, the secjuction of Christian heroes by heathen women. 
 
246 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 single -rhymed strain. Unless perchance the work of the 
 other translator has come to us in a revision, he had meagre 
 poetic talent, and was a bad versifier ; but he was thoroughly 
 familiar with the clerical legend of Charlemagne, and even rose 
 to the idea of making a cyclic compilation. He inserted his 
 Otuel, in what seemed to him a suitable place, in a version of 
 Turpin^s Chi'onicle, and he prefixed to the w^hole an account 
 of Charlemagne's journey to the Orient. The poem in four 
 parts, thus composed, was first taken up in its unity — a unity 
 rather intended than realised — by a modern French critic, 
 and was baptised by him with the name of Charlemaine and 
 Roland. 
 
 Nothing is perhaps more characteristic of the epoch 
 than the manner in which English poetry dealt with the 
 national past. Two romances dating from the first quarter 
 of the fourteenth century transport us to the Old English 
 period, to the time of Aethelstan and Eadgar; that is, they 
 claim to do this in the same fashion that mediaeval romances 
 of Troy claim to reveal the antique world. Guy of War- 
 wick and Bevis of Hampton are both names unknown to 
 English histoiy. They are also unknown to saga, until they 
 emerge as heroes of Anglo-Norman poems of the twelfth 
 century. It is possible, and even probable, that in Gity of 
 Wai'wick, the poet made use of Enghsh local traditions, in 
 which things really separated in time and place had already 
 blended. Each of the two poems offers a motley mixture 
 of knightly adventures, such as delighted the imagination of 
 the age of the crusades. Everything is indicative of the 
 period to which they owed their origin ; the spirit that per- 
 vades them, the combination of religious and worldly mo- 
 tives, the influence of supernatural powers, the relations 
 with the Orient, where much of the action plays — in Bevis 
 of Hamptoji, the greater part — the setting and the moral 
 atmosphere. Many other traits suggest widely dispersed 
 materials of saga and story, naturally including some 
 English ones. He who possesses the fancy of the true 
 student of folk-lore will discern a rejuvenation of Beowulf, 
 the victor over Grendel and Grendel's mother, in Bevis, who 
 kills the dreaded boar of King Ermyn's forest, and who is 
 lowered weaponless into King Inor's dungeon-keep, and by 
 means of a cudgel, accidentally found, overcomes two 
 
GUY OF WARWICK. 247 
 
 dragons that house there ; while the other dragon-fight of 
 Bevis, in the vicinity of Cologne, will, perhaps, vividly recall 
 to him Siegfried and the Drachenfels. 
 
 The legendary theme around which the Guy of Warwick 
 centres is attractive. It awakens many an ancient remin- 
 iscence. At the pinnacle of earthly happiness Guy renounces 
 the world, and forsakes his country, his people, and his 
 blooming wife to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 
 He returns to his home after a long absence, a stranger to 
 all. There he finds great distress. Kmg Athelstan is be- 
 sieged in his capital city, Winchester, by Anlaf, the king of 
 the Danes. He can only be saved from sure destruction by 
 the favourable issue of a single combat, in which the giant 
 Colbrand is to represent the Danish cause. Athelstan in vain 
 seeks a champion who can cope with Colbrand. After days 
 of fasting and prayer he receives in a dream the direction to 
 put his cause into the hands of the first pilgrim he meets 
 at his palace door. The pilgrim — Guy himself, as a matter 
 of course — is with difficulty persuaded to change the staff 
 for the sword, but he finally yields to the entreaties of 
 Athelstan and his nobles. He equips himself, enters the 
 contest, and after a severe struggle comes forth victor. Car- 
 ried in triumph to Winchester, he at once withdraws from 
 all demonstrations of thanksgiving and honour, again dons 
 the pilgrim's garb, and departs without making himself 
 known. He reveals the secret to King Athelstan, who has 
 followed him, but only after making him swear to keep it 
 inviolate for twelve months. Thereupon he parts from the 
 king and goes to Warwick. He enjoys, as pilgrim, the hos- 
 pitalities of his own house, and is an unrecognised witness 
 of his consort's life, passing in the practices of piety and 
 benevolence. He departs as he has come, a stranger, 
 and betakes himself to the forest of Ardennes. Here he 
 lives as a hermit until an angel announces his approaching 
 end. He sends for his wife, and breathes his last in her 
 arms. His consort survives him for fourteen days; the 
 same grave then closes over both. 
 
 It is a pity that so many accessories are added to this 
 ground-work. We are only slightly interested in Guy's ex- 
 periences during his pilgrimage. And we are still less 
 inoved by that part of the narrative preceding his pilgrin)- 
 
248 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 age, which includes the long-drawn tale of Guy's wooing of 
 Fenice before she happily becomes his wife. The modem 
 reader has also little sympathy with the adventures of Rein- 
 brun, the son of this marriage, which partly are inserted, in 
 the manner of a Telemachy in this Christian Odyssey, and 
 partly serve to continue it. 
 
 The effect was very different upon the naive auditors of 
 the fourteenth century, especially upon the English, who 
 keenly enjoyed the feats of Guy and Reinbrun, and were 
 not a little proud of their national fellowship with them. 
 Winchester, Warwick, and other well-known names put in 
 connection with such marvellous adventures must indeed 
 have made a deep impression. It is no wonder that Guy 
 of Warwick found two English translators as early as the 
 beginning of the century, and that a third was added fifty 
 or sixty years later. The subject-matter attracted poetic 
 treatment as late as in the fifteenth century, and even in 
 Queen Elizabeth's time. For like reasons Bevis of Hamp- 
 to7i was a great favourite. Until far into the reign of Edward 
 III. the short couplet continued to be the predominant form 
 of the English romance. In the reign of Edward I., how- 
 ever, a rival had arisen whose competition became ever more 
 dangerous. We found in the religious lyrics of the last peri- 
 od, a strophe constructed on the principle of the tail-rhyme 
 {ryjne coiiee)^ that originated in the versus tripcrtifer caudati 
 of the Latin Sequences. English popular poetry soon mas- 
 tered this form, and first, it would seem, in the North. 
 There, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the story 
 of Horn Childe and Maideji Rimnild was recited or sung in 
 twelve-lined stanzas as follows : 
 
 With Horn my son y wil ye be 
 As your faders han ben with me 
 
 And othes ye schul him swere, 
 That ye schal never fram him fle, 
 For gold no silver, lond no fe, 
 
 Oyein outlondis here ; 
 To Horn his sone he hem bitoke 
 And dede hem swere opon the boke. 
 
 Feute thai schuld him here ; 
 While that thai live might, 
 With helme on heved, and brini bright, 
 
 His londes for to were.* 
 
 1 Ritson, Anc. Eng. metr. Rom., III. 286, 
 
METRICAL FORMS. 249 
 
 Probably the seggers began in the North to clothe their pre- 
 ludes in this strophe when they recited EngHsh versions of 
 French romances. They even rewrote in that form espe- 
 cially favourite and conspicuous passages. This usage soon 
 spread over all England. Several romances, translated in 
 couplets from the French, were entirely, or in part, recast 
 into the ryrne couee. Thus under Edward II. were written 
 in this verse at least the introductions to Richard Coeur de 
 Lio7i and Beves of Hamtoim ^ and a great part of Gy of 
 Wa7"wike; including what we have termed the ground-work 
 of the poem. Chat'lemame and Roland has come to us 
 complete, and only in ryme couee. In the course of time 
 this rhyme was probably used for direct translation. 
 
 The short couplet, however, retained its charm and im- 
 portance for more select circles and more refined poets. 
 When in the second half of the fourteenth century an art 
 poetry began to flourish that may justly claim to be classic, 
 the tail -rhyme was derided as doggerel, as in Chaucer's 
 Canterbury Tales. Then the twelve-lined stanza was monop- 
 olised by the ballad-singers, while the short couplet held its 
 own for a long time by the side of newer and nobler forms. 
 
 But no such sharp division can be distinctly traced until 
 the reign of Richard II. As long as the use of French in 
 every-day hfe was counted a sign of higher rank and greater 
 refinement, it was impossible for a strictly artistic tendency 
 completely to enter the national poetry. The Enghsh 
 chivalric poetry hardly ever appeared in pure court-garb. 
 It was more or less affected by a popular element. We 
 rarely discover that purity and finish of form which is wont 
 to flourish in art-schools. Generally those liberties were 
 taken in which the folk-song delighted. There were con- 
 trasts, but they were so variously connected and indistinctly 
 defined that they seemed to blend ; as in English society no 
 impassable chasm separates the peer from the commoner, 
 the gentry from the free landholders and citizens. 
 
 So much is certain : the native and popular element of 
 the early Enghsh romance, as compared with its French 
 model, appears at best advantage in the twelve-lined strophe. 
 Foreign materials do not seem to have been quite natural- 
 ised until they had taken this shape. The reason is plain^ 
 
 1 Where the strophe has only sLx lines. 
 
250 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 Deviations of form compel and excite greater freedom of 
 treatment. A strophic structure leads to a fixed manner of 
 presentation, and, in fact, to that presentation which is most 
 acceptable to popular poetry, especially the Germanic. 
 
 The poetry of a people does not employ the strophe from 
 musical necessity merely. The strophe is like a frame in 
 which a finished picture gains its fullest effect, and folk-po- 
 etry is concerned with a series of effective pictures. To 
 reproduce fully and fondly to depict the chief crises of the 
 action, including everything able strongly to stir fancy or 
 feeling ; to present vividly these essential moments, even if 
 in themselves they are never so immaterial ; yet to indicate 
 lightly or to pass over the links necessary to comprehension, 
 but easily disregarded by a soaring fancy; — these are the 
 phases in the creation of folk-poetry. 
 
 It is these things which are characteristic of the early 
 English romances in ryme couee. One of the oldest and 
 most beautiful of these is Amis and Aviiloun. 
 
 Among the most widely dispersed traditions of the Middle 
 Ages is the affecting legend of Amicus and Amelius. It is 
 the story of two men resembling each other so nearly that 
 they cannot be told apart. They are bound together in 
 such close friendship that one takes the place of the other in 
 the trial by combat, thus loading his soul with the guilt of 
 peijury, and is punished by leprosy; the other heals, with 
 the hearts' blood of his own children, the man who has suf- 
 fered for his sake, and who is repudiated by all the world. 
 The mediaeval ideal of friendship is embodied in this legend ; 
 it is a loyalty that does not shun the greatest sacrifice, the 
 sacrifice of life and even of conscience, and which does not 
 fail of the highest reward, the capability of atoning for the 
 crime. After Amicus is healed with their blood, the slaugh- 
 tered children of Amelius awake as from a dream. It is not 
 astonishing that pious popular belief celebrated the two 
 friends as martyrs, and that their legend passed from Latin 
 into the vernaculars. The French national epic took pos- 
 session of this subject as early as the twelfth century. Al- 
 though only outwardly and loosely connected with its nucleus, 
 Ajjiis and Amiles appeared as a part of the Carlovingian 
 cycle. It was composed in single-rhymed strains, and faith- 
 fully reproduced the essential import of the legend, but in 
 
AMIS AND AMILOUN. 251 
 
 the garb of feudal chivalry, and in the epic spirit. This 
 French chanson de gesfe became the source of the English 
 romance, which explicitly refers to the geste as its original.^ 
 The principal features of the original are found in the copy ; 
 but there are various deviations in detail. That the two 
 friends here exchange names, the leprous one being Amiloun, 
 the child-slayer Amis, seems immaterial. It is of only neg- 
 ative importance that the loose connection with the Charle- 
 magne-saga is quite dissolved in the English poem ; that in- 
 stead of the great emperor, a duke of Lombardy appears, 
 whose daughter, Belisant, bears the same name as Charle- 
 magne's daughter, whose place she has taken. But how 
 characteristic are the many omissions and abbreviations of 
 the English poet, and his rarer additions! Take, for in- 
 stance, the beautiful Belisant's wooing of the youth (in the 
 original Amiles, in the English Amis) living at her father's 
 court, and notably the manner in which she finally attains 
 her end. What sensuous charm lies in the circumstantial 
 narrative of the French poet ! With the Englishman, Beli- 
 sant is, if possible, more pressing, at all events more blunt, 
 than in his original. The English Belisant, however, does 
 not employ the artifice of the French maiden. The youth 
 finally yields to her advances, we cannot clearly see why. 
 There is a dry relation of the fact, instead of the seductive 
 portrayal of the original. Less refined than his model, but 
 more honest, the English poet cannot deny himself and his 
 readers an occasional cHmactic effect, calculated for stronger 
 nerves and not to be found in the chanson de geste. Imme- 
 diately before one of the most aftecting scenes of the narra- 
 tive, the recognition of the two friends. Amis is made to 
 beat the leprous beggar most severely. He does this be- 
 cause he takes him for Amiloun's murderer, since he sees 
 him in possession of Amiloun's cup. Finally he understandi 
 that it is his own friend whom he is maltreating. 
 
 From the board he raised then, and seized his sword as a mad man, 
 and drew it out with violence. On to the castle gate he ran ; in all 
 
 1 Since the appearance of the original edition of this work, a learned writer has at- 
 tempted to show that the poem translated, or imitated, by the author of A mis and 
 Amilojin, was not the French chafison de geste, but an Anglo-Norman romance, in 
 short couplets, on the same subject. After all that has been said on this question, I con- 
 fess I am still in doubt as to the mutual relation of the English and the Anglo-Norman 
 poems. Their relation does not seem to me to exclude the possibility of the latter be- 
 ing an imitation, rather than the original of (.he former. 
 
252 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 the court there was no man that might stop him. He fell upon the 
 leper in the wagon, and seized him in his two hands, and flung him in- 
 to the ditch, and laid on as if he were mad. And all that stood about him 
 made great wailing. 
 
 "Traitor," said the duke so bold, ** whence haddest thou this cup 
 of gold, and how earnest thou thereto? For by him that Judas sold, 
 Amiloun, my brother, possessed it when he went from me." "Yes, 
 truly, sir," he began to say, " it was his when in his country, and now 
 it has happened so. But truly now that I am here, the cup is mine, I 
 bought it dear; I came to it with right." 
 
 Then was the duke full angry of mood ; no man that about him stood 
 durst lay hand upon him. He spurned him with his foot, and laid on 
 as he were mad, with his naked blade. And by his feet he drew the 
 leper, and trod upon him in the slough. He would stop for nothing. 
 And he said: " Thief, thou shalt be slain, if thou dost not confess the 
 truth where thou foundest the cup." 
 
 Childe Amoraunti stood among the people, and saw his lord, how hf» 
 was ruefully treated with injustice and wrong. He was both hardy 
 and strong; he caught the duke in his arms, and held him still upright. 
 "Sir," he said, "thou art rude and unfeeling, to slay that gentle 
 knight. Well sorely may he rue the hour that ever he took the wound 
 for thee, to save thy life in fight." 
 
 When Sir Amis heard him so say, he sprang to the knight without 
 more delay, and clasped him in his two arms. And often he said, 
 "alas; " his song was " welaway! " He looked upon his bare shoul- 
 der, and saw the gruesome wounds there, as Am.oraunt had said. He 
 fell a-swooning to the ground, and oft he said, "alas, the hour that 
 ever he bode that day." 
 
 "Alas," he said, "my joy is lost. A greater monster was never 
 born ; I know not what I may do. For he saved my life before ; I 
 have requited him with sorrow and shame, and wrought him much woe. 
 O brother," he said, " for charity, forgive thou me this rueful deed that I 
 have smitten thee so." And he forgave him all so quickly and kissed 
 him many a time weeping with " eighen two. "2 
 
 The adventures of the King of Tars were also sung in 
 twelve-hned stanzas. The king's beautiful and devout daugh- 
 ter has the heroism to marry the pagan sultan of Damascus 
 in order to save her father, and is rewarded by the conversion 
 of her husband to the Christian faith. 
 
 The story of Sire Degarre (Pe'gare), on the contrary, v/as 
 told in short couplets. He is a foundling, born out of wed- 
 lock, who goes forth to seek his father and mother. He 
 succeeds in finding them both, but is not recognised by his 
 mother until he has given her his hand at the altar, nor by 
 his father until he has fought with him. The representation 
 of the familiar theme is interrupted in this well-constructed, 
 
 ' Amiloun's faithful companion. 
 2 A mis attd A niiloun, 2065-2136. 
 
ROMANCE AND TALE. 253 
 
 symmetrical romance by only a single episode. Its heroine 
 is a maiden, beset by a giant, and the hero by combat wins 
 her for his bride. In this episode figures the lonely castle- 
 hall with the dwarf in attendance. It is, in brief, a conven- 
 tional tale of chivalry. 
 
 Let us conclude. The early English romance did not, as 
 a whole, reach the level of its French model. Not only the 
 honour of invention must be ascribed to the French (inven- 
 tion in composition, not in material), but also that of a more 
 delicate execution and more harmonious presentation. The 
 frequently abridged English versions are, as a rule, poorer, 
 ruder, and of a less complete logical structure ; and their ex- 
 celling qualities, a more popular tone, a more vigorous 
 painting within narrower compass, do not make good these 
 defects. But we are charmed by the joy they manifest in 
 nature, in the green forests, and in hunting, and we contem- 
 plate not without satisfaction this rude primeval force that 
 does not exclude deep feeling, even if it often indulges in 
 coarseness. Thus the English muse, if less delicate and 
 dainty than her French sister, was less artificial ; if more pas- 
 sionate, was less lascivious ; and in her enthusiasm for what 
 is grandly colossal, her joy in the actual, she showed, even 
 when repeating foreign romances, many of the features that 
 were to characterise her in the time of her full splendour. 
 
 III. 
 
 By the side of the romance was unfolded what Germans 
 would call the Novelle. In English there then existed, as 
 now, no comprehensive specific name to distinguish one from 
 the other; for " tale " may designate both in the same man- 
 ner as, at present, every romance is called a " novel," while 
 the word " novelette " only points out a difference of greater 
 or less extent. The element of quantity is, indeed, not un- 
 important, but it is only secondary. The real distinction 
 lies in the subject-matter and in the mode of treatment. 
 
 The Novelle, for which we will substitute the English word 
 tale, requires a simple, easily grasped subject-matter, and 
 disdains episodes. In the romance of that time we have a 
 more or less complicated action ; the unity rests in the per- 
 son of the hero, and the interest with which he imbues us, 
 
254 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 in the combination of motives, in the idea. The tale con- 
 cerns itself with the character of its heroes only so far as 
 this is revealed in the plot. In the case of historical or 
 typical personages, it assumes the necessary pre -knowledge, 
 and is content with brief hints as regards other personages, 
 if it does not simply dispose of them by the words, a " knight," 
 a " youth," or a " widow." The romance makes us inti- 
 mately know the heroes for whom our interest is claimed ; in 
 the modern novel the main stress is often laid upon the in- 
 fluence of the events related upon the character of the hero. 
 
 The tale creates a greater interest in things, the romance 
 in persons ; that appeals to the intellect, this chiefly to the 
 imagination. Hence the tale has an elegant brevity of style, 
 which, in the crisis, may become picturesquely graphic or 
 vivid with dramatic power ; but the romance has epic breadth 
 and dwells on the circumstantial. The plot of a good tale 
 is in itself a work of art ; that of the romance is made so by 
 the art of the writer. We understand why the tale was more 
 successful in the Middle Ages, and the romance at the pres- 
 ent time. It is easier to repeat a tale, an anecdote, than a 
 romance ; on the other hand it is very hard to invent a good 
 tale. 
 
 These divisions often blend. Excepting one episode, the 
 material of Sire Degarre would be well suited for a tale. 
 The style of many English romances, on the contrary, would 
 recall the tale if it did not much rather remind us of the bal- 
 lad. Romances frequently shrink into tales by abridgment ; 
 thus the Ro7nan du roi Guillaume later became a Dit du roi 
 Guillaume, The mediaeval romance resembles the saga, as 
 the tale does the fable [Maixheji)^ but fabulous traditions are 
 very often connected with a hero of saga, and likewise saga- 
 materials are moved out of their original local and personal 
 relations back to the vagueness of fable. 
 
 Thanks to the cosmopolitan, simple materials forming the 
 subject-matter of the most ancient occidental tales, no doubt 
 can arise as to their character. French fiction succeeded in 
 creating a corresponding style for this art-form. 
 
 The Yrtnch fabliau, with its lightly-flowing short couplets 
 and its elegant, often piquant diction, became a standard for 
 the English tale of this period. One of the most ancient 
 attempts shows, however, that, without this influence, the 
 
TALE OF DAME SIRIZ. 255 
 
 tale would have developed as well — though diverging some- 
 what — in England. In later times also English poets very 
 often turned directly to Latin sources. The Disciplina cleri- 
 calis and like compilations had been circulated in England in 
 the original as well as in French renderings. After the days 
 of Henry II. several collections of tales in Latin prose had 
 been made on English ground, or at least by English hands. 
 There were Walter Map's Nugae Curialkwi^ Odo of Cerin- 
 ton's Narrationes^ the Otia imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury. 
 Alexander Neckam's work, De naturis rertwi, is also full of 
 such matter. Even mere transcribers began, in their fashion, 
 to collect short Latin stories ; that is, to write them together 
 in the same codex. 
 
 The English tale seems to have begun to develop first in 
 the south-east, in the region of Kent or Sussex. There the 
 fabliau of Dame Siriz, or Siriih, arose, probably before the 
 death of Henry III. The theme is an attack on a woman's 
 chastity through threats of punishment awaiting her in case 
 of resistance. The story plainly bears the mark of its Indian 
 origin ; for the punishment threatened is transformation into 
 an animal, which points to the transmigration of souls. By 
 making his heroine come forth victorious from the tempta- 
 tion, a later Indian writer used the material for the glorifica- 
 tion of womanly constancy and conjugal fidelity. Another 
 rendering, tinged with Persian ideas, found entrance into 
 several oriental versions of the Book of the Seven Sages. By 
 means of an expedient, the reverse of which is employed with 
 Shakspere's Angelo, it reaches a conclusion that only half 
 satisfies poetical justice. In Measure fo?' Measure the tempt- 
 er's own wife is conducted to him; in the other case her 
 own husband is brought to the woman forced to yield. The 
 version that came into western literature has no satisfactory 
 close. It there spread by means of the Disciplina clericalis, 
 whence the EngUsh poet directly or indirectly drew his ma- 
 terial. He does not seem to have used a French source. 
 Without doubt he understood Latin, and belonged to the 
 fellowship of wandering clerics. This is plainly evident (in 
 spite of an occasional malediction on the procuress) in the 
 pleasure with which he represents one of his fellows as suc- 
 
 1 Here again it is not to be ignored that, at least among Odo's fables, some are to 
 be foimd that betray their passage through the French. 
 
256 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 cessful in the conquest of hearts. This conqueror, too, is 
 named WiUiam, or at least, Willekin. Willekin is a rich, 
 aristocratic clerc who has fallen desperately in love with a 
 merchant's wife. The merchant betakes himself to the an- 
 nual fair at Boston in Lincolnshire, that then attracted 
 tradesmen from far and near. Willekin takes this oppor- 
 tunity to visit the wife. Being kindly received, he ventures 
 to express his wishes, but is sharply rebuffed. Prayers 
 are as unavailing as promises; he sadly turns homeward. 
 On the advice of a friend he applies to Dame Siriz, an 
 old procuress, who has the reputation of being a kind of 
 witch. " With much misfortune I lead my life," he laments 
 to her, " and that is for a sweet wife called Margeri. I have 
 loved her many a day, and of her love she says me nay; 
 therefore I come hither. But if she does not change her 
 mind, for sorrow must I wax mad or kill myself; therefore 
 a friend has counselled me to go and tell thee of my sorrow. 
 He said to me thou couldest, without fail, help and avail 
 me and bring me out of woe through thy craft and thy deeds ; 
 if that be so, I will give thee rich meed." The prudent 
 witch, concerned for her safety and her life, is not so easily 
 won over. With impudent hypocrisy, she makes herself out 
 as innocent as a child : " Benedicite ! Here hast thou son, 
 much sin. The Lord, for his sweet name, let thee therefore 
 have no shame. Thou servest for God's anger when thou 
 sayest of me such blame. For I am old and sick and lame ; 
 sickness has made me full tame. ... I am a holy woman ; 
 of witchcraft I know nothing; but with good men's alms, 
 each day I feed my life, and pray my Paternoster and my 
 Creed ; God help them at their need who help me my life 
 to lead, and grant that they may well speed, and his life and 
 his soul be dishonoured that hath sent thee to me on this 
 errand ; may he grant me to be revenged on him who hath 
 spoken this shame on me." But the lover will not be re- 
 fused. His information is from a trustworthy source ; he 
 repeats his promises specifically, and talks of many a pound 
 and many a mark, warm furs, and warm shoes. Dame Siriz 
 relents. After she has once more satisfied herself that Wil- 
 lekin is in bitter earnest with his love, she requires from him 
 a solemn promise to keep the matter secret. " For all the 
 world I would not that I were brought before the chapter 
 
DAME SIRIZ. 257 
 
 for any such works. My judgment would soon be given to 
 be driven with shame on the ass, with priests and with clerks 
 at my back." Willekin promises secrecy by the holy rood. 
 Then she declares herself ready to help him, receives from 
 him twenty shillings, and makes ready for the enterprise. 
 She gives her little dog pepper and mustard to eat, until his 
 eyes run, and then leaves the house with him, telling Wille- 
 kin to await her return. She drags herself like a poor old 
 woman, tormented by pain and hunger, to the merchant's 
 wife. It is not hard for her to arouse the sympathy of the 
 kind-hearted housewife, who puts bread, meat, and wine be- 
 fore her, and tries to cheer her. While eating, however, 
 she is more than ever overcome by her sorrow. " Alas, alas, 
 that ever I live ! All the sin I would forgive the man that 
 would smite off my head : I would my life were bereft me ! " 
 "Poor wife, what aileth thee?" The old woman tells her 
 tale : she had a beautiful daughter, married to a noble man 
 whom she loved only too well. During the absence of her 
 husband, a clerk tried to seduce her; but she repulsed him. 
 Then he avenged himself through magic by transforming 
 her into a bitch. " This is my daughter of whom I speak ; 
 my heart breaks in anguish for her. Look how her eyes 
 weep, on her cheek the tears meet." The solicitude of the 
 merchant's wife may be imagined; she confides to Dame 
 Siriz what she has just done. " God Almighty be thy help 
 that thou be neither bitch nor whelp ! Dear lady, if any 
 clerk offers thee love, I counsel that thou grant his boon, 
 and become his lover soon ; and if thou dost not, a worse 
 counsel thou takest." The woman repents her action and 
 implores Dame Siriz to bring Willekin to her. Willekin is 
 soon found, and this time has the wished-for reception. The 
 poem closes with a few vigorous words from the procuress. 
 The audacious poet possessed unmistakable talent for 
 characterisation and psychological detail. He writes in a 
 jovial tone, and with a touch from common life. He varies, 
 with dramatic animation, the speakers and the place of the 
 action. Although his poem begins in ryine couee^ he quite 
 frequently changes to the short couplet. 
 
 1 The six-lined strophe that he uses is different from the favourite one of the ro- 
 mances. It is so constructed that in the scheme, a a b c c b, either all the lines have 
 three accents or a and c have four, and b only two. In the famiHar twelve-lined stro- 
 phe, and the six-lined stanza of the romances as well, the b line has three and the 
 other lines four accents. 
 
2$S FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 Another c/erc belonging to the same time and neighbour- 
 hood was not less bold and waggish, but his style is more 
 like that of the art -poetry. He writes in correct coup- 
 lets, with a lucid, dexterous manner and a delicate shading 
 of motive. His material and ideas, indeed, accorded as 
 little with courtly convention as did those of his models, the 
 French clerics. In their hands the animal saga, or (if the 
 pre-existence of such a thing is questioned) the animal-fable, 
 broadened into the animal-epos, and became a homogeneous 
 whole. He borrowed his subject-matter from a branch of 
 the Roman de Renart^ whose ground-work was already given 
 in the antique fable of the Fox a?id the Goat. The animial- 
 epos, however, dealt with the fox and the wolf, with Rey- 
 nard [Renart, in the English poem, Reneuard) and Isen- 
 grim [Sigrim), and was extended and modified in detail. 
 The English poet intelligently followed his excellent French 
 text, not without adding something of his own. The ab- 
 sence of various piquant features of the original will be re- 
 gretted by many ; but it cannot be gainsaid tha,t his version is 
 in the main more probable and better arranged, and that the 
 effect is heightened by the restoration of a more delicate 
 connection between the two crises of the story. The English 
 narrative is a pattern of simplicity of plan and relation of 
 theme.^ It has many touches of true psychological insight, 
 and the most delightful comic humour. When we read it 
 we keenly regret that this poet did not venture upon a 
 greater work in his specialty; he could have created an 
 English Rey7iard able to hold an honourable place beside 
 the matchless portrayal of the Fleming Willem,^ Rather 
 than lament, however, let us rejoice that in him we may 
 greet one of the greatest of Chaucer's English forerunners. 
 Our poet was Chaucer's predecessor not only as a master 
 of the art of story-telling, but because he was the only one 
 known to us before Chaucer who worked in the English 
 language upon a theme from the animal-saga. Latin ani- 
 mal-fables in prose or verse, plainly showing the partial in- 
 
 * Unfortunately the connecrion is somewhat broken, on account of a gap in the 
 text before us, that, strangely enough, seems not to have been noticed before. After v. 
 30 (or V. 32) several verses must have been dropped in which it was told how the fox 
 satisfied his hunger upon the fowls within his reach. This seems a natui^al concliis''^n, 
 and it is very positively shown in v. 68 and v. 98. 
 
 ? TJie poem Van den vos Reinaerde. 
 
IMITATION OF FRENCH FORMS. 259 
 
 fiuence of the French animal-epos, are more frequent in 
 EngHsh manuscripts of the time. 
 
 The French /a d/iau was wont to draw much into its range 
 that did not belong to the strict epic class, especially mere 
 descriptions for the purpose of satire. England followed 
 the example of France also in this respect. K fabliau, with 
 the title The Land of Cokaygne, and composed as early as 
 the thirteenth century, follows French accounts, and gives 
 an exhaustive portrayal of the land of idleness. But it adds 
 to this the description of a local monastery and its inmates, 
 in a telling, if somewhat too drastic, satire. 
 
 The Debate of the Caj'penter'' s Tools, that originated near 
 the middle of the fourteenth century, in the eastern midland 
 country, belongs to the class of estrifs or desbats. An ani- 
 mated discussion arises among the tools resting in a carpen- 
 ter's workshop. The question is whether they will be suc- 
 cessful in their effort to keep from ruin their master, who 
 loves beer too well and lives too near the tavern, or if he is 
 too far gone for help. The master's wife takes part in the 
 dispute. She naturally stands with the pessimists, and at 
 the close laments that she cannot follow the example of the 
 " draught nayle," who declares his intention of finding 
 another master. 
 
 The French lai was also soon given in English imitations 
 to a larger public. Marie de France was the best-known rep- 
 resentative of this class ; her attractive Lai le Fresne (the Lay 
 of the Ash) was translated soon after the beginning of the four- 
 teenth century. It was faithfully and with talent rendered 
 into English couplets. With all their simplicity, the contents 
 are quite romantic. The wife of a Breton knight has taken a 
 friend to task for conjugal infidelity, because she has given birth 
 to twins, and has herself the misfortune to bring two girls at 
 once into the world. In order to escape the disgrace she 
 has herself conjured up, she causes one of her children to 
 be exposed immediately after birth. The child is found in a 
 hollow ash by the porter of a neighbouring convent, is bap- 
 tised by the name " le Fresne," and brought up by the ab- 
 bess. She grows to be a charming maiden, and wins the 
 love of a young knight, who succeeds in gaining entrance to 
 the cloister, and finally carries her off Further on, the 
 knight is persuaded to marry a maiden of noble blood, and, 
 
200 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 as fate has it, she is the own sister of his beloved. Poor le 
 Fresne thus stands in almost the same relation to her sister 
 that the heroine of the later Griseldis-saga bears toward 
 her daughter. Loving and unselfish as Griseldis, much too 
 unselfish for our modern sense, le Fresne endures her hard 
 fate with a broken heart, but without one word of com- 
 plaint, and on the wedding day she is busier than any other 
 servant. She looks at the prepared nuptial bed, and, finding 
 it too unadorned for the beautiful bride, spreads over it the 
 gold- embroidered cloth in which she herself was once ex- 
 posed. This leads to her recognition. Her sister volun- 
 tarily yields. The marriage just concluded is made null by 
 the bishop, and le Fresne gives her hand to her lover as his 
 wife. 
 
 The story of Orfeo and Hetirodis, dating from about the 
 same time, appears also under the name of Lai, and with 
 the consequent claim to Breton origin. It is difficult to 
 recognise Orpheus and Eurydice in these names; the sub- 
 ject-matter, the* dress and mounting of the legend are not 
 less travestied than the names. The travesty, however, is 
 throughout naive, and is based upon such a complete appro- 
 priation and adjustment of the antique material to mediaeval 
 views that this charming poem seems like a fairy tale of 
 natural growth. The lower world is transformed into a 
 fairy kingdom. In company with the king of fairies and his 
 train, Eurydice by chance visits the dense wood to which 
 Orpheus has withdrawn after the loss of his wife. Both 
 weep at sight of each other, for Eurydice recognises her 
 husband, despite his savage aspect, and his hair rolling down 
 below his girdle. Eurydice is quickly transported again to 
 the enchanted land. But Orpheus follows her, and sees her 
 disappear through a rock. He too ventures into the dark 
 cavern, supposed to be three miles deep. He soon reaches 
 luminous fairy-land, and perceives a palace glittering with 
 gold and precious stones. He craves entrance as a minstrel. 
 In the hall he begins to touch his harp in the presence of 
 the king, who wonders no less at his appearance than did 
 many an inmate of hell at Dante's entrance. The king 
 listens in deep silence to his playing, and under the spell of 
 its tones, asks the harper to name his own reward. Orpheus 
 demands Eurydice, and leaves fairy-land with her. He then 
 
Metrical tales. 2 6 1 
 
 returns to his home, where he makes himself known, having 
 made sure of the fideUty of the servants he left there. 
 
 All these poems show the direct influence of French po- 
 etry. Perhaps the one relating "How a merchant did his 
 wife betray " is an exception. The theme in which true and 
 pretended affections, put to the proof, appear, after^long misun- 
 derstanding, as they really are, is a familiar one, and, in the 
 sense of a test of friendship, is especially frequent in mediae- 
 val literature. This poem turns upon the contrast between 
 the neglected faithful wife, and the preferred greedy mistress 
 of a rich merchant.^ The merchant undertakes a journey. 
 At his departure his wife begs him to buy her a penny's worth 
 of wit. On the way he gives the penny to an old man, and 
 at his advice, makes the love test. The test consists in his 
 representing himself, on his return, as entirely impoverished, 
 and seeking protection from the consequences of homicide. 
 We may imagine how he is received by his paramour, and 
 his very different reception by his wife. The merchant once 
 more goes to his mistress, this time in rich clothing. As a 
 matter of course, she repents her former conduct, and wishes, 
 if possible, to retrieve it. He succeeds by a stratagem in 
 obtaining all the presents he has made her, and he takes 
 these to his wife as her penny's worth. The penny and its 
 adventures is the type of the English tale, and gives to later 
 versions the title A Pennyworth of Wit for 21ie Chapman 
 of a Pcjinyworth of Wit). Our poem is set in a naive ballad 
 key. It is written in couplets, like almost all the tales of this 
 period; but these are unmistakably grouped in strophes, and 
 were sung, as appears from the opening. 
 
 Many of the shorter stories of the time have doubtless 
 been lost; for anything of limited compass is not likely to 
 be written down, and is readily destroyed when written. 
 
 An imperfect indemnity for the loss of single tales is the 
 preservation of a compilation of tales. The proces of the sevyn 
 sages, — imperfect because nothing can compensate for the 
 originality of form and treatment possible in even the short- 
 est poem. This collection was made towards the beginning 
 of the fourteenth century, from one of the many versions of 
 the Ro77ia7i des sept sages. 
 
 ' The title, as we see, only expresses the perfidy of the merchant, and by no means 
 indicates the substance of the story. 
 
202 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 The story, enclosing the short tales like a frame, is as fol- 
 lows : The emperor Diocletian of Rome, after the death of 
 his consort, entrusts his son Florentine to seven wise masters 
 to be educated. They instruct him at a retired spot near 
 Rome, in all arts and sciences. The emperor, by the ad- 
 vice of his barons, marries a second time. After a long 
 period the new empress learns of the existence of a son by 
 the first marriage. She resolves, in the interest of her own 
 children, upon Florentine's destruction. To accomplish her 
 purpose, she persuades the emperor to have his son come to 
 him. Florentine arrives at court with his teachers; but in 
 order to escape a misfortune prophesied by the stars, he 
 speaks not a word for seven days. The stepmother makes 
 good use of this time, and the seven sages are forced to 
 summon all their art to work against her machinations. The 
 empress plays the role of Potiphar's wife. The immediate 
 execution of his son intended by the emperor is postponed 
 at the remonstrance of the seven wise men. Then follows a 
 seven-days' struggle for the life of Florentine. The empress 
 relates seven stories in her cause. The effect of each of 
 them, however, is neutralised by one of the seven stories 
 told by the seven masters successively. The tales of the 
 empress are intended to inspire Diocletian with mistrust and 
 fear of his son, as well as of his wise counsellors. The 
 stories of the sages warn him against hasty action, by which 
 innocence may be punished, and against the cunning of 
 women. At the close, Florentine, who may now again 
 speak, himself tells a story that has a certain bearing upon 
 his own position, and finally discloses his stepmother's guilt. 
 The empress makes a confession, and dies by fire. 
 
 Though the connecting story differs widely from its first 
 model and is quite unlike it in livery and in colouring, 
 the disparity between India and England seems still greater 
 when we consider the single tales. Among the fifteen con- 
 tained in the Enghsh version are only three, or at the most 
 four, that belong to the oriental parent stock of the Book of 
 the Seven IVise Men. In the other cases the original tales 
 have been supplanted by new ones ; but these are, as a rule, 
 not less ancient, and many can also lay claim to Indian der- 
 ivation. Thus unceasing change in the material of old 
 formations leaves hardly more than their outlines, and old 
 material is constantly used to create new formations. 
 
täE SEVEN SAGES. 26$ 
 
 Many a familiar theme is treated in a new manner ; and 
 many a well-known name is applied to unaccustomed objects 
 and persons. Thus we recognise the treasure-house of 
 Rhampsinitus in the treasure-tower of the emperor Octavian 
 [Octovie?i). One of the seven wise men of Rome, with his 
 son, gains entrance into the tower, but at a second attempt, 
 sticks fast in a moat filled with viscous substances. In order 
 to save himself from exposure, he causes his son to cut off 
 his head. The son throws the head into a pit, and succeeds 
 by his craftiness in diverting suspicion from himself and his 
 family. The reckless conduct of this son, as regards his 
 father, is intended to prejudice the emperor Diocletian against 
 his son Florentine. 
 
 The next tale tells the old but ever new story of the locked- 
 out husband, which Boccaccio relates in his Decameron^ and 
 centuries after, Moliere, first in a youthful production, and 
 afterwards in George Dandin. 
 
 Again we meet the celebrated physician Ypocras {Hippo- 
 crates), who appears as the murderer of his own more learned 
 nephew, is punished for his deed by dysentery, and dying, 
 openly confesses his guilt. 
 
 MerHn steps upon the scene in the eleventh narrative, ^lis 
 time as counsellor of King Herod of Rome; while the ninth 
 turns upon the magic arts of the necromancer Virgil at 
 Rome. 
 
 The EngHsh renderer of the Sevy?i Sages invented nothing 
 of all this. Not only were the materials dispersed in num- 
 berless mediaeval versions ; they had all been definitely cast 
 before, and placed in The Seven Wise Masters. The most 
 important changes undergone by this book took place partly 
 in the East, and partly in the translation into Latin, and 
 while in that language. The French remodellers chiefly ar- 
 ranged the stories, and the details of the whole. The Eng- 
 lish poet can claim only the merits of a more or less faithful 
 translation. 
 
 A most exhaustive examination would be necessary more 
 exactly to determine the home of this translation ; but it is 
 certainly to be sought in eastern England. The style is fluent, 
 and the short couplets are evenly constructed. Unusual 
 talent is nowhere evident. 
 
 At the time when the Historia septem sapientum Romae 
 
264 PROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 took on an English dress, the first beginnings of another great 
 compilation in Latin already existed. 
 
 The preachers, and especially the mendicant fiiars, had 
 long been in the habit of making use of ^sopian fables and 
 other tales in the pulpit. Stories of various kinds, roman- 
 tic, allegorical, or legendary, were compiled for the moral 
 edification of inmates of monasteries. Roman history, or 
 the later Roman writers, were often searched for suitable 
 material. A collection of stories drawn from such sources, 
 fitted out with moral application or mystical interpretation, 
 formed the ground-work of the Gesta RomaJiorwn. later so 
 celebrated. Other materials were very soon added; indeed, 
 extraneous matter may have been incorporated with, or sub- 
 joined to, the original collection. In the versions that have 
 reached us hardly anything justifies the title save the fre- 
 quent references to the reign of some Roman emperor of the 
 old or the new era; names like Conrad, Frederick, Henry 
 II., also occur. 
 
 The foundation of the Gesta Romafiorum was most prob- 
 ably laid in England during the reign of Edward I. 
 
 Inexhaustible material was thus continually gathered for 
 future centuries. Cervantes, Shakspere, all the literature of 
 the Renaissance, largely subsisted on the resources stored 
 during the Middle 'Ages. But the farther course of the four- 
 teenth century clothed a great part of this matter in forms 
 that belong to universal literature, because they are imperish- 
 able. Such success, however, was possible in that time only 
 in the tale. 
 
 This was the only class of epic writing still capable of 
 the highest development in the Middle Ages; for the old 
 epos had long ago vanished forever, and the poet of the 
 JDivine Comedy had died in the year 132 1. 
 
 IV. 
 
 With the legend we enter upon the field of specifically re- 
 ligious, ecclesiastical poetry. The religious epic in this 
 period had an abundance and variety of forms and topics, 
 which, unfortunately, found no corresponding abundance and 
 variety of poetic talent. Legendary matter from the most 
 diverse centuries and places poured in from all sides. Ideas 
 
RELIGIOUS LEGENDS. 265 
 
 and themes familiar of old are found side by side with those 
 which the stricter tendency of Old English theology had 
 been able to banish, but to which the doors were now 
 opened wide in consequence of growing passion for author- 
 ship, waning erudition and increasing belief in the mar- 
 vellous. Thus we have the attractive legend of the Assump- 
 tion of the Virgin^ that originated in the East during the 
 second half of the fourth century, and had received the 
 freedom of Norman England since its rendition in the sec- 
 ond quarter of the twelfth century by the trouvere Wace.^ 
 There is the legend of the Childhood of y^esiis, blending the 
 charming and the fantastic ; this likewise reaches back far 
 into the early Christian time. On the flight into Egypt, 
 dragons and lions pay homage to the divine child. The 
 tree under whose shade the holy family rest bends low at 
 the command of Jesus, to give its fruit to the hungering and 
 thirsty Mary, while refreshing water bubbles forth from its 
 roots. Later the Saviour performs the most extraordinary 
 miracles ; he forms twelve flies from moist earth, seats him- 
 self upon a sunbeam, and the like, and he manifests his 
 power over life and death on countless occasions. 
 
 The Legend of the Holy Rood^ so much loved by the Eng- 
 lish previous to the Conquest, had gained new significance 
 from the crusades. A rich literature is connected with this 
 beautiful, ever changing and expanding tradition, which be- 
 gins in paradise and goes on after the finding of the cross 
 by St. Helena. 
 
 Such themes as Christ's descent into hell in the Evangeli- 
 tim Nicodemi or the Visio Patdi, continued to exercise their 
 old charm. To them may be added the Purgatory of St. 
 Patrick (the legend of Owain) and the widely disseminated 
 and well-known legend of Tungdalus. The oft-sung virgin 
 martyrs, Margaret and Katharine, soon reappeared, and 
 they were joined by the penitent sinner, Mary Magdalen, 
 and the " good sinner," Gregory. 
 
 The Story of Gregory differs from the great majority of 
 legends by its profundity and the poetic spirit which can 
 
 1 The Legend of the Assui)iptio7i of the Virgin was not unfamiliar to Old English 
 literature, as the publication of the Blickling Hojiiilies has markedly shown, (compare 
 p. \-i'] et seq. ed. Morris). 
 
 2 In the poem on the Conception of the Holy Virgin, in which the contents giv« 
 aiuch more than the title promises. 
 
266 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 glorify a horrible subject in the glow of religion. Gregory, 
 a child of shame, is put into a boat by his mother imme- 
 diately after his birth, and consigned to the sea. Having 
 grown up in ignorance of his descent, he becomes, like a 
 second CEdipus, the liberator of his country and the hus- 
 band of his mother. When the truth comes to light, he ex- 
 piates the guilt thus innocently incurred by severe penance 
 for seventeen years. At last, chosen pope of Rome by 
 divine command, he has as such the happiness to pronounce 
 to his own mother the forgiveness of her crime. This sub- 
 ject was worked over from the French into English verse in 
 the north midland, probably not long after the middle of the 
 thirteenth century. Both the character and poetic treat- 
 ment of the legend lie on the boundary between ecclesi- 
 astical and secular epic poetry. 
 
 A series of legends much resembling the tale, and deserv- 
 ing the name of contes devots, do not treat of the life or 
 death of a saint, but of any miracle that breaks into the 
 ordinary course of life. The Virgin Mary, especially, was 
 made by the piety of the Middle Ages to work such miracles 
 in favour of her devotees. 
 
 A southern manuscript, — the well-known Vernon m.anu- 
 script in Oxford, — has preserved eight or nine of a large 
 number of Legends of the Virgin that perhaps originated in 
 the first half of the fourteenth century in the west midland ; 
 most if not all of them may have come from French sources. 
 
 It had long been a national custom in France to recite 
 rhymed lives of the saints, either during the mass, or, where 
 the Roman curia had been able to prohibit this, at least 
 during the evening service. In England the way for this 
 custom was prepared by Aelfric's alliterative homilies, and 
 it found speedy entrance there, calling forth ever renewed 
 demand and production. Each ecclesiastical holiday was, 
 if possible, to be solemnised by its special legend in English 
 verse. 
 
 This demand was first most decidedly met in the south, 
 and there the legend gradually grew fixed in form. 
 
 Three metres claim consideration for the reHgious epic of 
 this period : the short couplet, the long line varying from 
 Alexandrine to tetrameter, and the 7yme couee. The last 
 form, originally employed only for lyrics, seems not to have 
 
METRE OE THE RELIGIOUS EPIC. ' 267 
 
 appeared in the legend until toward the close of the thir- 
 teenth century, when ballad-singers introduced it into the 
 romance of chivalry. The use of the ry^ne coiiee, or tail- 
 rhyme, was much less general in religious narrative, however, 
 than in secular. It was made available only in isolated 
 classes of subjects, as the Visio Pauli, the Ascension of the 
 Virgin^ the Owain legends, and the like; and in some of 
 these cases but temporarily. The tyme couee occurs still 
 more rarely in the true lives of the saints. But it was used 
 in the more ancient versions of the life of St. Alexius ; at 
 first, in six-lined strophes, and later, plainly affected by glee- 
 men's poetry, in stanzas of twelve lines. 
 
 The short couplet was of greater moment in the religious 
 epic. It was the metre of the older versions of the Ascen- 
 sion of the Virgi7i, of which the southern original must have 
 arisen soon after 1250. The Childhood of Jestcs (Laud 
 manuscript. No. 108), as well as most of the legends of the 
 Virgin, were also written in short couplets, and such sub- 
 jects as the Visio Pauli and the Evangelium Nicodemi were 
 mainly treated in this form. More comprehensive writings 
 from the biblical narrative, as the story of Adam and his 
 sons, were most simply presented in this metre. Neither 
 was it unknown to lives of the saints; a version of the 
 legend of St. Magdalena, dating from near the beginning of 
 the fourteenth century, was composed in short couplets, and 
 these soon came into general use in Northumbria. 
 
 In the south, however, lives of the saints seem, from the 
 first, to have been written chiefly in a verse that may be 
 termed the Middle English Alexandrine, having six or seven, 
 and even eight accents. Regular septe?ia7ii or tetrameters 
 are more rarely found; when they occur the end-rhyme 
 usually consorts with a middle-rhyme, especially in the 
 tetrameter, that thus became the basis of a strophe of short 
 verses with alternating rhyme. The long Hne first appears in 
 single-rhymed, four-lined strophes; they were the natural 
 outcome of the form-development observed at the close of 
 the last period in works like the Passio7i. At about 1270 
 the legend of St. Margaret, and, not much later, those 
 of St. Katharine and Mary Magdalen were cast in such 
 strophes. Tetrameters, thus joined, and broken by the mid- 
 dle rhyme, yielded the eight-lined strophe of the Gregorian 
 
1 
 
 26$ FROM LEWES TO CRECV. 
 
 legend.' The lives of the saints proper, however, gradually 
 abandoned the somewhat difficult form of four like end- 
 rhymes in favour of Alexandrines, merely rhymed in pairs. 
 
 By the same time, the single legends were beginning to be 
 united in a Cycle connected with the feast-days of the church 
 year. The Alexandrine couplet became, therefore, the metre 
 of the Lege?id-cycle. For this cycle a number of saints' lives 
 were put into English for the first time, and others were 
 translated anew; but occasionally the compiler was content 
 to take up earlier translations, with some alterations. Ex- 
 isting poetical versions and interpretations of Gospel texts in 
 the Christmas and Easter cycles were also put to use, and 
 longer Advent and passion poems arose from their combina- 
 tion. Thus a complete liber festivalis was composed in 
 English verse. This has come to us in various manuscripts ; 
 but, unfortunately, they are usually broken by gaps, and 
 there is always a difference in arrangement, in readings, and 
 even in the subject-matter.^ 
 
 The origin of this compilation mainly dates from the last 
 quarter of the thirteenth century. It was completed in the 
 south, as already indicated, and chiefly in those western 
 countries where the southern dialect makes a deep incision 
 toward the north into the midland country. \ye may regard 
 the great monastery at Gloucester as the centre, the home, 
 of this literary movement, whose surge made itself felt far 
 away. 
 
 The sources from which materials flowed to the monks of 
 Gloucester were various. The great part of them were, 
 doubtless, 'written in Latin. French poems may also have 
 been occasionally used, but this influence is, on the whole, 
 more perceptible in isolated legends. A direct eflect upon 
 this later Legend-cycle from English works of earlier periods 
 could hardly be proved. The progressive changes in lan- 
 guage finally made it impossible to comprehend them, and 
 the tremendous mass of Latin material made their use un- 
 necessary. Thus the lives of national English saints, of an 
 Austin, a Swithin, a Kenelm, an Edmund, a Dunstan, came 
 to our legend poets in a Latin dress. 
 
 * Maxy Magdalen (contained in the Laud MS.) seems to be written in tetrameters ; 
 the middle-rhyme also frequenüy appears, but not consistendy throughout, so that the 
 short line was not yet fully developed. 
 
 2 In the later copies much quite extraneous matter, often clothed in other metrical 
 forms, is found in the Cycle, 
 
SCOPE OF THE CYCLE OF LEGENDS. 269 
 
 At the time when their activity was at its height, the Ital- 
 ian Jacobus a Voragine, bishop of Genoa, wrote a similar 
 legend-cycle in Latin prose, with the title Legenda aiirea. 
 The exact correspondence between his work and that of 
 some of the English legends, as shown, for instance, in the 
 lives of Christopher and Margaret, has given rise to the 
 theory that the Golden Legetid was the source of many of 
 the English lives of saints. It is to be remembered, how- 
 ever, that Jacobus a Voragine often, without scruple, copied 
 older texts, so that this correspondence may arise from a use 
 of the same authorities. 
 
 What a far-reaching view into extremes of time and place 
 is opened to us when we turn over the leaves of this Middle 
 English cycle of legends ! On the one hand, the distant 
 Orient, on the other, Ireland ; the era of the founding of the 
 church, or still earlier epochs, and the thirteenth century ! 
 Archbishop Edmund of Canterbury, who died in 1242 and 
 was canonised in 1246, has a place here beside his name- 
 patron, the East Anghan king and martyr, Edmund. 
 
 Equal diversity is evident when we compare the character 
 and import of the single legends. Now we have the most 
 delicate poesy, the most fervent depth of feeling ; now gro- 
 tesque, even repulsive, scenes, and fantastic miracles. These 
 elements are sometimes united, and we are reminded of the 
 necessity of laying aside our modern aesthetic standard, if we 
 wish to do justice to the fancy of earlier days. 
 
 It is not to be denied that the farther the Middle Age 
 progressed, the more the legend-forming power was palsied, 
 and that in the same degree as the church became secularised, 
 religious fancy seemed to become gross and alien to its 
 theme. The accounts of miracles grew continually more 
 prodigious ; old motives were varied and loaded down with 
 monotonous exaggerations; the role given to the devil in the 
 world became ever more prominent. 
 
 But the cheering reverse side was not wanting. In the 
 midst of this degeneracy of official churchdom, the religious 
 feeling of select spirits, greatly refined and ennobled, rose to 
 the regions of mysticism ; and the impulse of enlightenment 
 asserted itself in various forms and degrees, including a kind 
 of criticism, however modest and at times timid it might be. 
 In our English legends, too, there are occasional traces of 
 
270 FROM LEWES TO CRECV. 
 
 such criticism, as in the Hfe of St. Margaret. According to 
 the story, the devil comes in the shape of a dragon into the 
 cell of the saint and swallows her; she, however, makes the 
 sign of the cross ; the body of the monster bursts ; and the 
 virgin steps forth unhurt. The poet thereupon remarks, in 
 harmony with Jacobus a Voragine : " But I do not tell this 
 for true, for I do not find it truly authenticated. If it is true 
 or not, who can know ? It would be against nature that 
 the devil should be brought to death ; for he is capable of 
 suffering no kind of death; hence I cannot believe it. Also 
 this I do not believe, that his might would be strong enough 
 to take up in his body so holy a creature." ^ 
 
 There was still another remedy against the fear of the en- 
 croaching dominion of the devil. For a long time men had 
 not hesitated to treat the evil spirit with a kind of humour. 
 How sadly for him ends the temptation that he has prepared 
 for St. Dunstan ! He comes in the form of a beautiful wom- 
 an to the holy abbot,^ who is, as usual, spending his leisure 
 hours at work in his smithy. Dunstan converses with the 
 apparition in a friendly manner, until a pair of tongs he has 
 laid in the fire, are glowing with heat. Then he takes them, 
 and with quick, skilful clasp, pinches the devil's nose be- 
 tween them, and squeezes and shakes it with the red-hot iron 
 until the evil one howls and dances with pain, and, after his 
 fortunate liberation, hurries away, with the loud cry : " Out, 
 what has the bald-head done! what has the bald-head 
 done!" 
 
 Such stories put the faithful into a state of serene edifica- 
 tion. With w^hat satisfaction, hov/ever, must they have heard 
 legends like that of A. Christopher^ from whose finest features, 
 stamped with its sign manual, the Teutonic spirit seems to 
 radiate ! It must have been a consoling conviction to the 
 brave heart that the arch-enemy was not the most powerful 
 on earth ; that it could choose Him for its Lord under 
 Avhose banner all foes might be defied. 
 
 A somewhat detailed description of the nature and work- 
 ings of bad spirits is found in the legend of the Archangel 
 Michael. This legend, part of which seems to be of Nor- 
 man origin,^ turns on the miracles to which the shrines on 
 
 • St. Marga7et, v. 165, et seq. 
 ' St J^unstafi, V. 70, ei scg. 
 
 * AU indications go to show that the legend of the apparition of St Michael on 
 
LEGEND OF THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL. 27 I 
 
 Mount Gargan and the rocky island of Tumba owe their ex- 
 istence. Then directly follows the account of Michael's^ fight 
 with the dragon, the evil one, whom the archangel flings 
 down from heaven into hell. The poet next enters upon a 
 demonological excursus. His theory blends ancient eccle- 
 siastical traditions and echoes from Teutonic paganism. We 
 learn of the ten angel hierarchies, of the fall of Lucifer and 
 his followers, and how God created the race of man to fill 
 the void left in the primitive order ; all this is in accordance 
 with the system of Gregory the Great, as Caedmon had al- 
 ready presented it in English verse. We are also instructed 
 in the various transition stages from good to bad spirits, and 
 as to the abode and fortunes of each species. We hear of 
 the agency of demons, of the nightmare that rides men at 
 night, of the elves that inhabit the woods by day, the high 
 hills by night, and are often seen in secret places in great 
 numbers, dancing and playing. The poet exhaustively 
 discusses the power 'of the devil over men, and his man- 
 ner of tempting them. Before the birth of Christ, the evil 
 one was able to do what he would ; had he then been as 
 fierce as afterwards, hardly one would have escaped. But 
 his fury and his hunger have grown since Christ bound him, 
 as when one chains a dog. Woe to the man who approaches 
 him, who turns his thoughts to evil ! Him he endeavours to 
 draw to himself, first by the little finger (Luttle mon), in that 
 he shows forth the insignificance of the intended sin; next 
 with the " Leech " (the ring-finger, so called because physi- 
 cians tested medicine with it), by reminding him of God's 
 goodness and mercy. If this does not ensnare, he employs 
 " Longueman," the middle finger, telling men a very long 
 life lies before them in which to repent of sins. Then the 
 " Techere's " turn comes, pointing to the sins of others, es- 
 pecially of saints. At last the evil one tempts with 
 
 Mount Tumba (Mont Saint Michel) was developed by the Normans and applied, as 
 jxirallel, to the apparition on Mount Gargan. According to Odo of Glanfeuil's His- 
 toria trattslationis S. Mauri (868), there was, it is true, a local tradition in the terri- 
 tory of Avranches, in pre-Norman times, that connected the name of the archangel 
 with that place {de loco sancti angeli Michaelis qici Ad duas vacatur Tumbas, Acta 
 S S. Jan. 15, /. 1052^. But what this tradition really was is not known, and the 
 writers of the ninth century making mention of the apparition on Mount Gargan, al- 
 lude in no way to the other vision, even including those who lived near the spot where 
 it is said to have appeared. That part of the legend pertaining to Mount Gargan was 
 well known to the Old English church as early as the days of Beda. The most an- 
 cient English account of it is probably found in tiie BUckling Homilies, p. 197, et seq 
 
272 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 " Strongue," the thumb : " Thou art strong enough to repent 
 much greater sins than these." 
 
 Fortunately for us, the poet does not stop with this theory 
 of demons. He finally gives a complete cosmology, in con- 
 nection with the description of the abyss of hell, that forms 
 ilfoTido delV wiiverso with him as with Dante, and lies in the 
 centre of the earth. Many attempts in this direction had 
 been made since the time of Beda, some of them in the Eng- 
 lish language. Nevertheless, I know of no other work that 
 combines such diverse topics in such small compass. If the 
 poet had no complete text at his disposal, which he only 
 needed to translate, he must have been a man of no slight 
 knowledge. At all events, it is significant that such endeav- 
 ours were made in the native land and in the age of Roger 
 Bacon. 
 
 According to this system, which is based on the Ptolemaic, 
 the earth forms the centre of the universe. It is much smaller 
 than the smallest of the fixed stars, one hundred and sixt}- 
 five times smaller than the sun, and nine times larger than 
 the moon. The heavens move in eight spheres around the 
 earth, which is as round as an apple, and is suspended in the 
 universe like the yolk in an egg. The uppermost sphere, 
 immeasura.bly distant from the centre, is that of the fixed 
 stars; then follow the spheres of the seven planets: Saturn, 
 Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury, the moon. The 
 influence of the planets on the weather and thriving of fruits 
 is immense. Man himself is subject to them in his tempera- 
 ment, his talents, and affections; but his free will gives him 
 the power to follow his impulses or to resist them. The days 
 of the week take their names from the planets, and because 
 Mars and Saturn are powers of darkness, man avoids under- 
 taking anything important on Tuesday ( Tyivesday, Mariis 
 dies), and on Saturday. The poet discusses in detail the 
 moon and its phases. Underneath the moon-sphere are the 
 four elements : uppermost is fire, then air, then water and 
 earth. The various meteorological phenomena are attract- 
 ively described. We are told from what proceed thunder 
 and lightning, hail and snow, dew, fog, frost and rime ; then 
 is shown the connection of all lakes, fountains, and rivers on 
 the earth with the great ocean that surrounds the land. 
 Finally, the poet reaches man, who, like every organic being, 
 
LEGENDS OF THE CYCLE. 275 
 
 is composed of the four elements. The temperament of the 
 man is determined as one element or another preponderates 
 in the combination. According to modern speech, the earth 
 would approximately correspond to the phlegmatic tempera- 
 ment, water to the melancholic, air to the choleric, and fire 
 to the sanguine. Psychology is combined with the physi- 
 ology of man and the account of his development in his 
 mother's womb. The three principal parts of the human 
 organism, liver, heart, brain, correspond to the three souls, 
 which, according to ancient philosophers, are united in man : 
 the vegetative, the animal, and the reasoning soul. The last, 
 which is immortal, suggests theological and devotional re- 
 flections, with which the poet closes. 
 
 If the legend of Sf. Alichael was thus put to use in popu- 
 larising scientific knowledge, or what passed for it, the legend 
 oiSf. Brafidan disclosing the wonder-world of the ocean, gave 
 expression to visionary conceptions of unknown parts of the 
 earth, as they had formed in the mind of the people. Pro- 
 ceeding from mysterious premonition and aspiration, this 
 legend materially aided to keep awake through all the Mid- 
 dle Ages the presentiment of an unknown world and the 
 longing for it, until the discovery of America brought the 
 time of fulfilment. 
 
 The lives of the English native saints were well suited to 
 historical retrospection. Despite the element of saga promi- 
 nent in these legends, also, there was frequent opportunity 
 to impress a bit of history or geography upon the minds of 
 the audience. Thus the biographer of St. Kenelm, like his 
 father, Kenulf, called King of the Welsh Marches, opens 
 with a description of England at the time of the pentarchy, 
 in which especial stress is laid upon the relation of the five 
 kingdoms to the counties and bishoprics.^ 
 
 One legend, however, surpasses all others in historical 
 value, that of the most popular of all English saints, Thomas 
 of Canterbury. This man's political importance, the brief 
 time elapsed since his death, and the wealth of biographical 
 material amassed by Englishmen and Normans, preserved 
 Thomas from becoming an ordinary legendary hero, although 
 they could not, as a matter of course, prevent the belief in 
 
 1 In regard to the source of this geographical introduction see page 279. 
 
 S 
 
2 74 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 the marvellous, nor deter the uncritical spirit from embellish- 
 ing and distorting the facts of his life. 
 
 At all events, the life of Thomas Beket, by its historical 
 tone and its detailed narrative, deserves exceptional rank 
 among the legends of the Cycle^ which it most worthily 
 closes.' 
 
 One of the oldest manuscripts containing the Cycle has 
 two additional legends appended to the life of St. Thomas : 
 those of yudas and of P'date. The tradition of the lives of 
 these two men gives much that is strange and horrible, but 
 little that is poetical and striking, or original. They appear 
 strangely out of place in such dignified company, but their 
 histories nevertheless belong to the same range of ideas and 
 conceptions. The form and style of these two legends also 
 entirely pertain to the lives of the saints. 
 
 The style of the Legend-cycle is defined by the metrical 
 form of the Alexandrine couplet. This determines the con- 
 struction of sentences, the transitions, the formula-like repe- 
 tition of many turns and expletives. A certain similarity of 
 style proceeds from this through all the legends, different as 
 their contents and significance may be. Supported by the 
 identity of the language, and the relationship of the materi- 
 als, this resemblance has even given rise to the theory that 
 the whole Cycle is the work of one composer, a theory that 
 more exact research utterly destroys. We discern various 
 clearly defined individualities in the treatment of the subject- 
 matter, in the greater or less fondness for certain groups of 
 ideas, and in views and knowledge. Neither does this 
 diversity fail to appear in metrical and phraseological details. 
 As regards talent for poetical form, these legend-poets, it is 
 true, seem to stand at about the same level. The somewhat 
 halting verse corresponds with a rather clumsy style, whose 
 redeeming trait is its ?iaivete. There is no trace of the copi- 
 ous diction, of the impassioned tone, that we find in more 
 ancient alliterative lives of the saints. The monotonous 
 narrative proceeds with severe plainness, with no poetical 
 ornament, no chance elevation of tone, and no elegance or 
 finish. The feeling or reflection of the poet breaks forth but 
 fitfully and without giving his verse loftier swing. As if by 
 accident, form and thought are now and then congruous, 
 
 1 The feast of St Thomas falls on the 29th of December. 
 
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER. 275 
 
 yielding a stronger effect. In some places it is the poetry 
 of the subject-matter which, not impeded by the unadorned 
 treatment, moves our hearts. Indeed, the loyal faith, the 
 pious feeling of these poets, is well able in itself to affect us 
 in like manner. 
 
 The phenomenon of this co-operation of many with one 
 thought and to one end is most significant. It shows us that 
 the spirit which created the English chronicle in the ninth 
 century, had not quite vanished from English cloisters in the 
 thirteenth. 
 
 A kind of national historiography also reappeared under 
 Edward I. At the head of the newer historical writers stood 
 a monk of the monastery designated as the probable centre 
 of the cyclic legend-poetry. 
 
 Robert of Gloucester was born during the reign of Henry 
 III. He survived the eventful years of the civil war, and 
 was profoundly impressed by it. He describes from fresh 
 recollection, in his chronicle,^ the dismal weather that 
 wrapped the land in darkness, the cloud-covered sky, from 
 which heavy rain drops slowly fell, when, thirty English 
 miles away from the poet, raged the bloody battle of Eve- 
 sham (August 4th, 1265) — the battle where Simon de Mont- 
 fort found his death, and the standard of the barons sank. 
 It was perhaps in part due to these youthful impressions that 
 Robert later resolved to write the history of his country. 
 He found many incentives to this in his monastery. The 
 busy activity there in the composition of legends, presup- 
 poses a many-sided study of Middle Latin literature, and 
 perhaps of French literature within a certain range. His- 
 torians, biographers, annalists, and chroniclers were doubt- 
 less read there, or were at least accessible. Robert as poet 
 was much less gifted than La3amon, but had in him more 
 of the scholar. Archaeology, topography, ethnology, and 
 topics of political economy roused his interest. He was 
 everywhere tempted to compare the past with the present. 
 His erudition was not especially great, nor his field of vision 
 broad, nor his insight very keen ; but he was a man of warm 
 feelings, and was clear-sighted within his sphere. He was 
 fain to discern the finger of God in historical events ; his 
 moral standard of measurement was strict, but not illiberal. 
 
 i Ed. Hearne, p. 560. 
 
276 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 Although devoted to the interests of the church, he was a 
 a good Englishman. Party considerations and prejudices 
 clouded his judgment less than they obscure that of many 
 a prominent historian. It was always his aim to distribute 
 praise or blame according to merit. 
 
 If Robert felt called to be an historian, and was resolved 
 to write English for Englishmen, he had a pattern in the 
 Life of Thomas of Canterbury, which he could follow in 
 form and style. 
 
 He seems to have begun the work during the last decade 
 of the thirteenth century. His Chro?iicle was not com- 
 pleted before 1297, perhaps not until 1300. 
 
 The work embraces the history of Britain from the earli- 
 est times, that is, from the Trojan war, to the close of the 
 reign of Henry III. Nearly half of it is devoted to the 
 fabulous period of the British kings. For this portion Rob- 
 ert follows his original, Geoffrey of Monmouth, with great 
 fidelity, but ignores several passages having little interest for 
 him ; besides Geoffrey, he occasionally takes counsel of his 
 Norman translator, Wace. The Old English period has the 
 least space in the chronicle, and Robert here conforms to 
 William of Malmesbury, and to Henry of Huntingdon as a 
 subordinate authority. His work grows more detailed with 
 the Norman Conquest, when his sources begin to yield more 
 abundantly. He makes use of Ailred de Rievaux, the A71- 
 nales Waverlienses, the French poem La Esfoire Aedivard 
 le rei, Wace's Roman de Ron, and many other writings. For 
 the time of the civil wars under Henry VI., he mainly fol- 
 lows Rishanger's Chi'onicon de hello Lewense. Legends of 
 national saints in English are also among his sources; princi- 
 pally The Life of Thomas Beket, from which he transcribes 
 several lines word for word.^ 
 
 Robert writes in the verse and style of the Legend-cycle. 
 His chronicle lacks poetical value. He has not learned the 
 art of story-telling; and the epic genre does not especially 
 attract him. He often studies brevity in the narration of 
 events, dwelling only on certain details. When he describes 
 or argues, when he looks over the past, or into the future, 
 when he compares and gives judgment, he is in his element. 
 
 1 That the composer of St. Thomas did not, by any chance, draw from Robert 
 can be as plainly proved, as that Robert himself was not its author. 
 
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER S CHRONICLE. 277 
 
 Archeeolügical and topographical detail, moral reflections, 
 and the like are the most interesting parts of his work. 
 
 Robert is a patriot, enthusiastic for England's fame and 
 greatness, and filled with the warmest interest in her well-be- 
 ing. He opens his work with a eulogy of England, that re- 
 calls the celebrated passage in Shakspere's Richard II. ; not 
 indeed on account of poetic perception and expression, but 
 because of the sentiment that underlies it : 
 
 England is a very good land, I ween, of all lands the best. It is 
 set at the end of the world in the far West. The sea goes all about 
 it, it stands an island. It need fear its foes the less, save it be through 
 guile of people of the country itself, as has of yore been seen. From 
 south to north it is eight hundred miles long, and four hundred (200?) 
 miles broad, going from east to west in the middle of the land, and 
 not as on one end. One may see plenty of all good things in England, 
 if the folk do not spoil them, or the years be worse. For England 
 is full enough of fruit and of trees, of woods and of parks that it is a 
 joy to see, of fowls and of beasts, both wild and tame ; of salt fish 
 and also fresh, and fair rivers thereto. Of wells sweet and cold 
 enough, of pasture and meadow, of silver ore and of gold, of tin and 
 of lead, of steel, of iron and of brass, of good corn in great abun- 
 dance, of wheat and of good wool, better there is none. Waters it 
 also has good enough, but before all others three, from the land into 
 the sea, that are as arms, whereby the ships may come from the sea 
 and go, and bring on land enough of good, in nearly each place : Sev- 
 ern and Thames, Humber is the third, and there is, as is said, the pure 
 land in the middle. 
 
 After the rivers come the islands, and next the cities. 
 This leads the poet to historical and political ground. He 
 enumerates the peoples who have in turn invaded and con- 
 quered England: Romans, Picts and Scots, " English," and 
 Saxons, Danes; "the fifth time England was won by the 
 folk of Normandy, who dwell among us yet, and shall for- 
 evermore " The next section is devoted to polit- 
 ical geography. We learn the names of the four British 
 kingdoms, of the thirty-five "shires" of the Angles and Sax- 
 ons, of the seventeen bishoprics (including Wales, twenty) ; 
 w.e are instructed in the relation of the five Anglo-Saxon 
 kingdoms developed from the heptarchy, to the counties and 
 the episcopal dioceses, and hear that the king of Wessex 
 finally became sole ruler in the land. The following ex- 
 tract, bringing out the peculiar advantages of the single 
 cities or districts of England, is especially interesting : " In 
 the country of Canterbury is the greatest plenty of fish; 
 
278 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 and the most important chase for wild beasts is around 
 Salisbury ; at London the most ships ; and wine at Win- 
 chester; at Hereford sheep and cattle; and fruit at Worces- 
 ter; soap about Coventry; iron at Gloucester; metal like 
 lead and tin in the country of Exeter. York has the fairest 
 wood, Lincoln the fairest men, Grantbridge and Huntingdon 
 the greatest quantity of moor-land, Ely the fairest place, 
 Rochester the most beautiful aspect. Opposite France 
 stands the country of Chichester, Norwich against Den- 
 mark, Chester against Ireland, Durham against Norway." 
 The three wonders of the land are named, and then the 
 four great military highways. At the close Robert enlarges 
 upon the superior qualities of the English race, resulting 
 from the nature of the country. People in England are 
 handsomer, whiter, and of purer blood than elsewhere ; the 
 great evil " that devours the bones of the body as if they 
 were burned " does not come thither, and those from France 
 who suffer from it and are brought to England soon recov- 
 er: "from that one can see that England is the best of 
 countries ; just as it is I write." 
 
 This description of the country vividly recalls the like ac- 
 counts with which Robert's Latin predecessors since Beda 
 had been wont to open their historical works,^ and especially 
 Henry of Huntingdon. But Robert had other authorities 
 at his disposal. There had long been special compositions, 
 in both prose and verse, that treated either the mirabilia 
 Britanfiiae, or the pohtical and ecclesiastical divisions of the 
 country. 
 
 Robert accepts the great event of the Norman Conquest, 
 first as a fact, then as a divine judgment. He regards Harold 
 through the distorting medium of Norman tradition; but 
 William is to him not the legitimate ruler (this was rather 
 Edgar the Aetheling), nor is he in entire sympathy with 
 the conqueror. He does justice to his bravery, and to his 
 stringent rule, but he strongly denounces his cruelty and his 
 violence. The enriching of Norman monasteries with Eng- 
 lish property is not at all to his mind. He proves himself 
 an Englishman throughout, and an advocate of the common 
 people. He considers the rule of the Normans in England 
 
 1 The later editions of the Old English Annals are also introduced by such a de- 
 scription of the country, derived from Beda. 
 
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER. 279 
 
 definitely established ; he does not regard their posterity as 
 foreigners ; but he laments that they, and following their ex- 
 ample, all the aristocracy, speak French. Nowhere else in 
 the world, he says, is it customary to speak another language 
 than the mother-tongue. But it is indeed well to understand 
 French as well as English, "for the more one knows, the 
 more he is worth." 
 
 Robert naturally took the part of the barons in the civil 
 war in the reign of Henry III. He did not describe the 
 reign of Edward I. But he survived a great part of that 
 momentous epoch in which the forces began for a shaping 
 of affairs whereby many of the hopes of English patriots 
 were to be fulfilled. 
 
 We know next to nothing of the circumstances of our 
 chronicler's life. The question whether Robert produced 
 other writings besides his chronicle must remain for the pres- 
 ent unanswered. It is very probable that he wrote a few 
 legends before he composed his great work. Nothing, how- 
 ever, justifies the assumption that the incitements which called 
 forth the Cycle^ came from Robert. The theory, moreover, 
 that he himself composed the whole Cycle can be most posi- 
 tively disproved. 
 
 Certain it is that Robert wrote his chronicle at a time when 
 a large part of the English liber festiv alls already existed, 
 but when it was far from completed. And as in his histor- 
 ical work sure traces are to be found of his use of several 
 legends, particularly the legend of St. Thomas, we encounter, 
 on the contrary, in other lives of the saints, passages taken 
 from the chronicle : thus the composer of St. Kenelm gives, 
 in his geographical opening, nothing but an extract from 
 Robert's introduction. 
 
 Robert's example exerted no slight influence upon later 
 English historiography. But not everything attempted after 
 him in this field was incited by his example. A rich chroni- 
 cle-literature in English verse began to unfold with the com- 
 mencement of the fourteenth century. Works of greater or 
 less extent (some condensing the entire history of England 
 upon a few leaves) attested the interest felt by the English 
 people in their history — an interest revived by an epoch 
 which established constitutional liberty upon a basis of self- 
 government. 
 
28o FROiM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 V. 
 
 The substance of didactic poetry proper consisted of ser- 
 mons and religious treatises, which frequently appeared, as 
 before, in rhythm. 
 
 A certain class of material, in this field, came ever more 
 prominently into the foreground. 
 
 Now the theme is the baseness, the detestableness, of this 
 earthly world, of material existence that ends in dust and 
 decay. The mortal part of man, in all its unaesthetic quali- 
 ties, is portrayed with glaring colours, and graphic and vig- 
 orous expression. The preachers are fond of accompany- 
 ing man from the moment of his conception to the grave, 
 and contrasting the self-sufficient pride that fills the short 
 earthly life of this creature, with his weakness and nothing- 
 ness, the loathsomeness of both his origin and his end, the 
 dangers and sufferings that oppress him. St. Bernard is often 
 cited in such connection, on the ground of writings either 
 genuine, or wrongly ascribed to him. But the most far- 
 reaching influence in this direction was, perhaps, exerted by 
 the work of the third Innocent : De contemptu 7nundi sive dc 
 miseria humanae conditionis libri tres. 
 
 Again, in contrast to the vanity and fleetingness of earthly 
 happiness, eternity is delineated, the hereafter in heaven and 
 hell. The last judgment and the signs that shall precede it 
 are dwelt upon with especial fondness, as was the case in Old 
 English poetry. Touching these legends, a tradition had 
 formed, of which the substance was stable, but left room for 
 many variations in detail. The first three gospels and the 
 fourth book of Ezra are its principal sources. There are 
 usually fifteen signs, each being connected with a special 
 day, but the number seven also appears. The more detailed 
 tradition was frequently attributed to St. Jerome in the ]\Iid- 
 dle Ages. But whoever first established it, it is certain that 
 French models often underly the English representations of 
 the fifteen signs. 
 
 Love must accompany the fear aroused by the portrayal 
 of the last day. Hence to awaken love, the preacher, talk- 
 ing to the people, points to Christ's passion and death, de- 
 picting them with reference to the fall of man. 
 
 The end sought is to move the sinner to repentance, and 
 
WILLIAM DE SHOREHAM. 28 1 
 
 through it, to penance. To enlighten the conscience, duties, 
 virtues, and sins are discussed with subtle distinctions and 
 great detail ; the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly 
 Sins form the basis of classification. 
 
 These themes perhaps recur most frequently, and are most 
 characteristic of the epoch. But much other material is 
 connected with them, above all the doctrine of the sacra- 
 ments. Encroachments are sometimes made upon profane 
 science ; as when astronomy is brought to bear in the de- 
 scription of heaven. 
 
 Let us look at the question of form. The short couplet is 
 a common metre for all writings of this sort. But strophic 
 forms were also used, especially, it would seem, in the south. 
 
 A poet of the second half of the thirteenth century, who 
 has left us a short cycle of sermons, employs a strophe of 
 four eight-syllabled lines with alternating rhyme. Another 
 introduces a poem in short couplets with a few strophes in 
 ryme couee. 
 
 The choice of such forms shows a tendency to the lyrical 
 genre, and this is also discernible in the tone and style of 
 these poems. We saw that the lyrical and didactic classes 
 oftentimes blended in the preceding period. But we find 
 much more striking examples of such a commixture in the 
 present division. It would be hard to point out another poet 
 in whose work form and contents are so entirely at variance, 
 as with William de Shoreham. 
 
 William de Shoreham wrote at the time of Edward IL in 
 the language of Kent, to which county he belonged. The 
 little village of Shoreham, near Otford, was doubtless his 
 home. He was probably for some time a monk at the priory 
 of Leeds. Walter Raynolds occupied the archiepiscopal 
 throne at Canterbury from 13 13 until 1327, and when he 
 invested the prior and convent of Leeds with the neighbour- 
 ing rectory of Chart-Sutton, William was sent thither as a 
 vicar. Here he seems to have spent the rest of his life. 
 
 His poems belong for the most part to the field of religious 
 didactics. The most important of them supplement each 
 other, yet they were evidently not composed according to a 
 fixed plan, or in systematic order. They were written as 
 need arose, or to satisfy some express wish that chanced to 
 be heard. A plan may have developed in the progress oi' 
 
282 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 the work. A poetical treatise on the Seven Sacrametits be- 
 gins the collection. Of these the sacraments of the com- 
 munion, of penance, the sacrarnentum ordi?iis, and marriage 
 are exhaustively discussed. With reference, perhaps, to the 
 sacrament of penance, William later treated in verse the 
 Ten Commandments, and next the Seven Deadly Sins. So 
 far he moved quite within the usual course. It seems, how- 
 ever, that peculiar phenomena in his time, perhaps in his 
 vicinity, caused him to add a poem that touches the founda- 
 tions of the whole edifice of church doctrine, and the deepest 
 mysteries of faith. The poet imagines himself in the pres- 
 ence of a skeptic who does not beheve in redemption, im- 
 mortality, nor even in God. He seeks to convert him by 
 proving, or illustrating, from speculative philosophy, the 
 existence of God, the Trinity, the creation of the world, the 
 fall of the angels, the fall of the first man, and original sin. 
 
 The philosophic vein, which is most marked in this poem, 
 often crops out in the others. William was plainly a thinker, 
 an educated theologian. He was well versed in dogma, as 
 in ethics. He had looked deep into the human heart. At 
 the same time he had a decided leaning to a mystical and 
 allegorical interpretation of scriptural passages and forms of 
 worship ; although he by no means disdained the moral 
 application. 
 
 He handled language and verse with apparent ease, and 
 as he had something to say and possessed warm sensibilities, 
 his poems do not lack effective passages. 
 
 He was not a poet in the higher sense of the word. A 
 poet would hardly have made such a mistake in the choice 
 of a form for his material. William clothed his theological 
 discussions in song strophes. The strophe of the last poem 
 consists of six lines on the principle of the ryme couee ; in 
 the remaining three it is founded upon the catalectic tetra- 
 meter (or septenarius), domesticated in England by the Fo- 
 ema morale. The septcnarius is sometimes employed as a 
 long line, and sometimes divided by middle-rhyme, as in 
 the Seven Deadly Sins. In the poem on the Sacraments 
 the Cauda (latter part of the strophe) is, in the favourite Eng- 
 lish manner, introduced by a little verse, with one accent. 
 
 Other poems, more or less divergent, stand between the 
 four principal ones in the collection ; they are a translation 
 
DAN MICHEL. 283 
 
 of the horae canonicae^ a poem on the 'yoys of the Holy Vir- 
 gin^ and a Song to the Virgin. In this last, William gives a 
 specimen of pure lyrical poetry. But we can only judge of 
 his talent for form, since he worked after an original of 
 Robert de Grosseteste. The poem most illustrative of the 
 author's manner is perhaps that on the Joys of the Virgin, 
 which he composed at the wish of a nun. This material 
 was suitable for lyrical treatment, as may be proved by more 
 than one example from the last period. Nor is the lyrical 
 element wanting in William's strophes, but the epico-didactic 
 is much more conspicuous. 
 
 That form of didactics belonging to the future English 
 prose did not greatly flourish in the present period. Again, 
 it is in Kent that we discover some traces of its cultivation. 
 Two Kentish prose works claim special attention, both giv- 
 ing proof of the high degree in which the culture of this 
 county was influenced by its neighbour, France. At the be- 
 ginning of the period rose a cycle of short and admirable 
 Homilies, after the French of the celebrated homilist, Mau- 
 rice de Sully. Of these, only five are preserved. Towards its 
 close an Augustine monk at Canterbury, Dan (Dominus) 
 Mithel, born at Northgate, wrote a comprehensive treatise 
 with the title Aye?ibite of Inivyt ; that is, the sting {remorsus) 
 of conscience. Dan Michel, too, followed a French origi- 
 nal. His source was the work of the Dominican friar Lo- 
 rens, Le so??ime des Vices et de Vertue. This is said to have 
 been written in 1279, for the use of King Philip III. of 
 France, and it later became very popular in England, being 
 often imitated in prose and verse. 
 
 The version of Michel of Northgate is still more interest- 
 ing, since we are told the time of its origin to a day, and 
 possess it apparently in the composer's own handwriting. 
 At the end of the work we read the following : 
 
 V Envoy : Now shall ye know how it has come to pass that this 
 book is written in the English of Kent. This book is made for un 
 learned ("lewd") people, for fathers and mothers and other kin, to 
 sliield them from all manner of sin, that in their conscience no foul 
 thought may remain. " Who (is) like God "^ is his name called who 
 has made this book. God give him the bread of the angels of heaven, 
 and thereto his help, and receive his soul when he is dead. Amen. 
 
 Observe, that this book is finished on the Vigils of the holy apostles, 
 
 I Mi ka 61. 
 
284 FROM LEWES TO CRECV. 
 
 Simon and Jude, by a brother of the monastery of St. Austin of Can- 
 terbury, in the year of our Lord. 1340.I 
 
 The Ayenbite of Inwyt is essentially a popular handbook 
 of moral theology, having special reference to the reception 
 of the sacrament of penance. The writer begins with a dis- 
 cussion of the Ten Commandments, and next takes up the 
 twelve Articles of Faith. In accordance with tradition, an 
 article is attributed to each apostle ; Matthew the Evangel- 
 ist taking the place of the betrayer Judas as the author of 
 the eighth article, pertaining to the last judgment. The 
 further course of the treatise follows the vision described in 
 the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse. The seven heads 
 of the beast are the Seven Deadlv Sins, which are described 
 with their subdivisions. Offences against the Ten Com- 
 mandments correspond to the ten horns. The poet then 
 rather abruptly proceeds to expound the art of dying, and 
 the art of distinguishing good from evil, which gives rise to 
 digressions on mind and knowledge, and on the five senses. 
 Further, the good is contrasted with the evil manifested 
 in the Seven Deadly Sins. The number seven is used alsc 
 in the analysis of the good ; it is connected with the peti- 
 tions of the Paternoster corresponding to the gifts of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 There is a strong vein of allegory in the Sting of Conscience^ 
 as in the poems of William de Shoreham. The composer 
 occasionally inserts tales and anecdotes, and sometimes sto- 
 ries of the saints ; but he is more sparing in this respect than 
 many another writer in the same field. 
 
 No real progress can be discovered in Dan Michel's style, 
 compared with that of more ancient homilists. Neither of 
 the two writings can approach the animated, graphic man- 
 ner of the Ancren Riwle. 
 
 Among the shorter pieces, following the Ayenbite of Inwyt 
 in Michel's manuscript, is a Kentish version of the beautiful 
 allegory Sawles Warde {compare p. 204). This is significant, 
 for it points to a connection between this later Kentish prose 
 and the more ancient prose that flourished on West Saxon 
 territory in the first half of the thirteenth century. 
 
 It almost seems as if the activity in legend-poetry and 
 
 1 Ed. R. Morris, p. 262. The Envoy is in verse, while the closing remark is in 
 prose. The short preface and a part of the prologue are also in verse ; the treatise \%- 
 ^elf is entirely in prose. 
 
NORTHUMERIA AND FRENCH CULTURE. 2S5 
 
 theological prose, then evident in Dorset and contiguous 
 counties, afterward branched out from its original soil in two 
 directions, without, however, entirely deserting its native 
 place.^ The legend moved to the north, to the boundary of 
 the southern dialect, and the prose toward the east. 
 
 Was it the influence of eminent abbots or bishops that in- 
 vested Gloucester and Canterbury with increased powers of 
 attraction as abodes of national ecclesiastical culture ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 After the beginning of the fourteenth century, however, 
 the main centre of this culture lay no longer within the 
 range of the southern dialect, but in the north, in Northum- 
 bria, and in Lincolnshire, which, lying on the south side of 
 the Humber, was the linguistic as well as literary link be- 
 tween the north and the eastern midland. 
 
 The Anglian territories, as a whole, had taken no conspic- 
 uous part in the national literature during the centuries im- 
 mediately following the Conquest. The most active impulse 
 for new poetical forms, and the working of new materials, 
 proceeded from the south. Nevertheless, productions like 
 those yielded by North Mercia and East Anglia, like the 
 Onnidum or Genesis and Exodus^ are of moment. But 
 Northumbria, originally the principal seat of Christian poetry, 
 hardly gave a sign of life in that transition period. 
 
 The second half of the thirteenth century saw the north 
 awake. A Northumbrian translation of the Psalms, in 
 couplets, appeared, which, despite a certain hardness and 
 stiffness, attracts by its vigorous diction. 
 
 The vocabulary of this work contains but very few Ro- 
 manic elements. It was long before French influence took 
 hold upon national culture in these districts. The number 
 of French-speaking inhabitants continued to increase until 
 towards the close of the century. But the Northumbrian 
 clergy, when it did not entirely adopt the foreign culture, 
 maintained its exclusiveness. Under Edward I., the ro- 
 mance writers and disours undertook the work of intermedia- 
 
 * The time and place where Ailred de Rievaux's Inforinatio ad sororem suatn in- 
 chtsai7i was translated into English by Thomas N. cannot as yet be accurately de- 
 termined. But we may, perhaps, assume respectively, the first half of the thirteenth 
 century, and the West Saxon territory. 
 
286 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 tion. The 3tart thus given by them affected religious po- 
 etry. 
 
 The beginning once made, the readiness of the northern 
 soil for the foreign seed at once became evident. Many 
 things made here the task of conforming to the Franco-Nor- 
 man model easier than elsewhere ; such as the fusion of the 
 English population with Danish elements, and the advanced 
 state of the language, that had retained many old expres- 
 sions, it is true, but had discarded or curtailed all but a few 
 inflections. Again, it was in Northumbria that, at a com- 
 paratively late time, an Anglo-Norman verse flourished 
 which cannot simply be classed with the forcing-house poet- 
 ry. Yorkshire produced William de Wadington, the writer 
 of the Maimel des pechiez^ and Peter Langtoft wrote his con- 
 tinuation of Wace's Brut at Bridlington, in Yorkshire, at the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century. 
 
 It thus happened that, in the reign of Edward I., the 
 culture of the north became saturated in a surprisingly short 
 time with Romanic elements, a process that resulted at once 
 in a new impetus to religious poetry. 
 
 Legends, apocryphal gospels, and the like, were trans- 
 lated into Northumbrian verse from the Latin or the French, 
 and sometimes from southern English dialects. The relig- 
 ious lyric was also cultivated anew, perhaps after the example 
 of northwestern poets. This rise was, however, most plainly 
 manifest in biblical poetry of the grand style, and in the 
 poetical homily. If we bear in mind the Ormuhim and 
 Genesis and Exodus^ this phenomenon on Anglian ground 
 will be understood. 
 
 The prevaihng form in the Northumbrian religious poetry, 
 naturally excepting the lyric, was the short couplet. The 
 northern poets handled this metre with great precision, while 
 in the south the talent for form was wont to keep even pace 
 with the poetic gift. In the north, where much skill and 
 elegance were at times coupled with great soberness, a ten- 
 dency to the counting of syllables and to outward smooth- 
 ness is discernible, and violence was often done to the Teu- 
 tonic rules of verse and accent. As with East Anglian 
 writers, and frequently even more strikingly, verse and style 
 remind us of the manner of Norman poets. Like causes 
 may have produced like effects in Northumbria as in Nor- 
 mandy. 
 
THE CURSOR MUNDI. iSj 
 
 It is noteworthy that, among the earliest writers of this 
 epoch and region, stood such a man as the composer of the 
 Cursor mundi. 
 
 A vast plan was in the mind of this poet, and he realised 
 it not unworthily. He had become familiar with most of the 
 secular poetry popular in his time, with the French romances, 
 their English imitations, and the often frivolous songs of the 
 clerics writing in Latin ; but he could find no enduring taste 
 for this literature. Against the vanity and folly of the world, 
 he put the seriousness of the Christian view of life ; against 
 sensual love, the adoration of God and the worship of the 
 Holy Virgin. In honour of the mother of God, he resolved 
 to write a poem which should teach of the decree of God as 
 embodied in her, its causes as well as its results, and should 
 represent, from the beginning, the history of the race from 
 which Mary sprang. It was likewise his purpose to help 
 his countrymen, who were put off with French poems little 
 understood by the masses. " It has rarely happened," says 
 he, " that English has been preached in France. Let us 
 give to both nations their own speech, then we shall do no 
 wrong." 
 
 The poem undertaken in this spirit is called by its author 
 Cursor mundi {cursur o werld), because its scope in rapid 
 review includes almost the entire world. In fact, it con- 
 tains all the chief passages of sacred history, and something 
 besides. Beginning with the Trinity, on which the work is 
 to rest as on a firm foundation, the poet tells of the creation, 
 the fall of the angels, the fall of the first man, and the fort- 
 unes of his immediate posterity. Then Noah, Abraham, 
 Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Saul, David, Solomon, pass be- 
 fore us. The prophecies concerning the birth of Christ 
 lead over to the New Testament portion, that begins with 
 Joachim and Anna, and the conception and birth of Mary. 
 Then come Christ's birth, life, passion, death, resurrection, 
 and descent into hell. To Christ's ascension into heaven 
 are joined the feast of Whitsuntide, the history of the 
 apostles, the assumption of the Virgin, and finally the find- 
 ing of the cross by St. Helena. Then the poet proceeds to 
 the seventh and last age of the world. The coming of Anti- 
 christ, the fifteen days before the last judgment, with theii 
 terrible signs, and the judgment of the world itself, are now 
 
2S8 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 his themes. But before he lays aside the pen, conforming 
 with the purpose of the poem, he returns to the Holy Vir- 
 gin, describes her agony at the foot of the cross, and glori- 
 fies her miraculous conception. 
 
 There is no lack of compositions in the Middle Ages fol- 
 lowing a plan similar to that of the Oirsor tmmdi. Nothing 
 of the kind existed in the English language, however. The 
 most attractive legends and traditions that occupied the age 
 were now first blended for the English people, with the most 
 momentous passages of Bible history. It formed a great 
 fabric in which earlier and later things were interwoven, as 
 promise and fulfilment, picture and reality. The plan of 
 the whole is similar to that of the Collective Mysteries^ that 
 now began to take form, not uninfluenced by the Cursor 
 viundi. 
 
 The merit of the poet is so much the greater as he was not 
 in a position to base his poem on any single text, as did the 
 authors of the Genesis and Exodus^ nor did he desire to do 
 so. He collected his material from several writings, though 
 perhaps not from so many as we might assume in our inad- 
 equate knowledge of the mediums accessible to him. Aside 
 from Holy Writ, the material was taken from biblical ex- 
 egetists and homilists ; further, many apocryphal books were 
 used, some of them, perhaps, at second-hand. From the 
 New Testament period are the Pseudo-eva?igelium Matt/mei, 
 the Evangelium de naiivitate Mariae, the Evajigeliw/u Nico- 
 demi, as well as a number of later legends. The Childhood- 
 Gospel consulted by the poet was, to say the least, nearly 
 related to the original of the English poem contained in the 
 Laud manuscript, {le enfaimce Jesu Christ)} More than 
 one version of some legends was accessible to him, as that 
 on the Ei7idi?ig of the Cross. 
 
 The poet doubtless used French and Norman texts, be- 
 side Latin sources, which is shown in the section on the 
 Fifteen Signs, preceding the day of judgment. The proph- 
 ecies of Isaiah are follovred by a parable on the Castle of 
 Love and Mercy, that is, in all probability, connected with 
 the Castel d' amour of Robert Grosseteste. 
 
 His style is chiefly epic at the beginning, although discus- 
 sions, retrospections, and forecastings occur. These gradu- 
 
 * Published by Horstmann, A Itenglische LegeTuUn. Compare pp. 265 and 267. 
 
THE CURSOR MUNDI. 289 
 
 ally grow more frequent, and a homiletic as well as a lyrical 
 tone is often struck in the New Testament division. The 
 poet preserves a certain symmetry throughout. His narra- 
 tive is nowhere out of proportion in compass and micrology, 
 but he is careful to avoid a hasty crowding, or summary dis- 
 posal of things belonging to his scheme. The picturesque 
 details that mediaeval poets were wont to supply from fancy 
 are here rarely found ; the poet generally keeps strictly to 
 facts, though naturally with the freedom that every narrator 
 of his time allowed himself. It is in this simple garb that 
 the poetry inherent to the subject-matter yields its true 
 effect. 
 
 The language of the Cursor mundi is clear, fluent, ener- 
 getic ; the verses are well constructed, not only in the North- 
 English, but the southern sense. As a rule, short couplets 
 are used ; but when the poet begins to tell of Christ's pas- 
 sion and death, he expands his verse and his rhyme-system, 
 and employs strophes of from four to seven rhymed septeiiarii. 
 This section also contains the burial of Christ, and closes 
 with meditations, finely ending with an impassioned prayer 
 to the Virgin. 
 
 Our view of the author of the Cursor mundi discloses no 
 great poet, but rather a simple, noble, and virile character, 
 of no mean culture and of decided talent for form. 
 
 A powerful influence flowed from this strong personality. 
 The Cu?'sor viundi, reproduced in numerous manuscripts, 
 gained friends and readers far beyond the borders of North- 
 umbria. The words that stand at the head of one of these 
 manuscripts : 
 
 This is the best boke of alle, 
 
 The cours of the werlde men dos hit calle,i 
 
 denote the admiration the work called forth. Probably the 
 example given by the poet greatly aided in the speedy fulfil- 
 ment of one of his dearest wishes, and preachers began to 
 read English rhymes to the people instead of French. The 
 poetical homily commenced to flourish not long after the 
 composition of the Cursor fnundi, and in the very district 
 where that poem was written, that is, in the territories belong- 
 ing to the diocese of Durham. 
 
 1 •' This is the best book of all, the course of the world men do it call." MS. Fair- 
 fax, 14, Bodleian Library at Oxford. Cursor 7nundi, ed. Morris, p. 8. 
 
 T 
 
2go FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 The poetical homily became for the north what the legend 
 was to the south. As in the south a legend-cycle was formed, 
 so in the north originated a Cyc/e of Ho7nilies that compre- 
 hended the church year. These homilies were mainly con- 
 structed according to the scheme familiar to us in the Ormu- 
 lum. There is first a paraphrase of the gospel for the day, 
 with occasional explanations of difficult passages, and then 
 an exhaustive allegorical interpretation of the whole. But 
 in concession to contemporary taste, an edifying tale is fur- 
 ther added in these Northumbrian homilies to the interpreta- 
 tion ; this is meant to confirm some assertion of the preacher, 
 and is at times very entertaining. It is taken now from 
 Bible narrative, now from saint-legends, and now from the 
 much- embracing class of writings known in France as contes 
 divots. 
 
 Latin as well as French sources seem to have been used 
 in the composition of these homilies. St. Gregory is fre- 
 quently quoted as authority. The occasional citation of 
 Beda may indicate a connection with the old Northumbrian 
 ecclesiastical tradition. The narrative passages, as well as 
 tone and st}'le, plainly bear the impress of the fourteenth 
 century and of Norman influence. 
 
 As in the Ortnuhim^ the diction of this Northumbrian 
 Cycle is prosaic and severe ; like the catalectic tetrameters 
 of Orm, the short couplet is constructed more with reference 
 to outward symmetry than to harmony between the rhythm 
 of the verse and that of natural speech. Yet how great is 
 the disparity between these two works in all other respects ! 
 How much more flexible and concise is the style of the 
 Northumbrian homilies, and how much more readily does it 
 conform to the metre ! This progress in form is largely due 
 to the Franco- Norman school. 
 
 The Cycle of Ho7nilies underwent many metamorphoses ; 
 but several independent poetical sermons or tracts also ap- 
 peared on topics such as the Last J^udgment, the Fifteen 
 Signs, and the Sevefi Deadly Sins. 
 
 The feeling for the marvellous and legendary which the 
 stories in the Cycle of Homilies had nourished, soon called 
 forth a Lege7id-cycle in the north, similar to the southern, but 
 independent and diflering fi-om it in its verse — the short 
 couplet — and its more concise style. The legend-poetry of 
 
RICHARD OF HAMPOLE. 29 1 
 
 the north, cultivated in close relation to the homily, never 
 reached the development, circulation, and importance which 
 that of the southwest had achieved. 
 
 Among poetical versions of apocryphal gospels should be 
 mentioned a Northumbrian Evangelium Nicodemi^ written in 
 somewhat artistic and cleverly constructed strophes.^ 
 
 Such works as the Cursor mündig the Cycle of Homilies^ 
 and all others in the same manner, prepared the way for 
 such a writer as the celebrated Hermit of Hampole. Yet, 
 more generally considered, Richard of Hampole presupposes 
 another series of conditions; above all he needs as back- 
 ground a period that, in its depths and its heights, went 
 through a powerful ferment of rehgious ideas and feelings. 
 Richard, son of Williarn Rolle, was born at Thornton in 
 Yorkshire. His parents sent him to school at an early age. 
 As a youth he found a patron in the archdeacon of Durham, 
 Master Thomas de Neville, who sent him to Oxford. The 
 studies which absorbed Richard there may have been mani- 
 fold ; but the Scriptures were first in importance. He doubt- 
 less felt the influence of strong minds in Oxford. The 
 impressions gained there were decisive in forming his life; 
 great sensibility and an excitable fancy were combined in 
 Richard with a pure mind and an inexorable consistency of 
 thought and deed. At the age of eighteen or nineteen he 
 reached the conclusion that the ethical and religious ideal he 
 sought was only to be won at the price of seclusion from the 
 world. He decided quickly; he left Oxford and returned 
 to his parents, but only to say farewell to them. He pro- 
 cured two garments from his sister, a white and a gray one, 
 cut from them a temporary costume, and began his hermit 
 life. His appearance and behaviour made many beHeve he 
 was insane ; but this did not disturb him. Accustomed to 
 follow only his innermost impulses, he soon won respect and 
 veneration. The wish to preach came upon him once in a 
 church, where he assisted unchallenged at the mass. He 
 then had the blessing administered to him by the priest, and 
 mounted the chancel. His words burst from the depths of 
 
 • The strophe is bipartite. The first division is founded on a system of four catalectic 
 (occasionally acatalectic) tetrameters with the same end and middle-rhymes ; the sec- 
 ond division on an Alexandrine couplet of six accents, also bound and broken by end 
 and middle-rhyme. The strophe has thus twelve short lines with the following order 
 of rhyme : ababababcdcd. 
 
292 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 his heart, and they affected his hearers with resistless power ; 
 the entire congregation broke into tears. The purity of his 
 Hfe and his strict asceticism soon gave him the fame of sanc- 
 tity. According to the legend, he healed the sick and cast 
 out devils. He himself beheved in these things, and none 
 who came in contact with him in the least doubted them. 
 This shows us the strength of his individuality, as well as the 
 glow of his imagination, which could kindle that of men 
 about him. 
 
 Richard's life was chiefly devoted to prayer and medita- 
 tion ; yet he did not forget in this the duties of active phil- 
 anthrophy. He worked for others by word and deed, con- 
 solation and admonition, tongue and pen. When he would 
 pour out the abundance of his thoughts, his pen quickly 
 flew over the sheet, and words came fluently from his lips. 
 He never troubled himself about finish of form. His writ- 
 ings give us, children of the nineteenth century, but a feeble 
 conception of what his words were to his contemporaries. 
 But in them we may guess the forces by which he stirred 
 men orally. The deepest conviction, which sought to ex- 
 press itself in its fulness, overflowing feelings, a mind filled 
 by the religious ideas and images of the time, above all a 
 rich subjective experience ; from these things came his 
 power. 
 
 Richard's hermit life did not confine him forever to the 
 same spot. He changed his habitation more than once ; but 
 he does not seem to have left the diocese of York after his 
 return from Oxford. He dwelt for some time in a small, 
 secluded hut on the estate of Sir John Dalton, a pious knight 
 who had been present in the church when Richard preached 
 his unexpected and eventful sermon, and who, after satisfy- 
 ing himself as to the hermit's sanity, had offered him a cell, 
 and looked after his support. Here, probably not far from 
 his home, Richard wrote a goodly number of his works. He 
 later removed to the county of Richmond. We find him at 
 last in the southern corner of Yorkshire at Hampole, near 
 Doncaster, where he died in 1349. The spot became the 
 goal of many pilgrims, drawn by the fame of his saintly life, 
 and of the miracles which took place at his grave. His 
 memory was greatly honoured by the nuns of the neighbour- 
 ing Cistercian convent, which drew no small advantage from 
 
RICHARD OF HAMPOLE. 2^3 
 
 the added attractions of the place. It was they who caused 
 to be written an Officium de sancto Ricardo heremita^ in 
 anticipation of the hermit's canonisation, and its Legenda 
 contain nearly all that we know of Hampole's life. They 
 preserved authentic copies of his writings, on iron chains to 
 guard them against mutilation ; the Lollards would have 
 liked, it was said, to garble Richard's works over to their 
 views, and support their teachings by his renowned name. 
 Well might it concern the nuns of Hampole to keep the 
 suspicion of heterodoxy far from their local saint. 
 
 Had Richard done anything to arouse this suspicion ? 
 There was much in his life, in the manner of his appearance, 
 that lay out of the usual course of churchly custom ; much 
 that must have been attractive to a sect like the Lollards. 
 Belonging neither to the priesthood nor to any order, he took 
 up the office of preacher and spiritual adviser. When it 
 pleased him, he exchanged the cell for the pilgrim's staff. 
 He formed his whole life, not according to the directions of 
 an external authority, but in obedience to the promptings of 
 an inner voice, which was to him the voice of God. 
 
 Yet we cannot perceive in Richard's theological views the 
 shghtest deviation from the orthodoxy of that time. He did 
 not doubt the efficacy of the sacraments or of absolution. 
 The pope was to him God's vicegerent, who bore the key to 
 the treasure of the church. He impHcitly accepted all dog- 
 mas, and in the doctrines of the schools, his guides were the 
 proved, universally received authorities. 
 
 Richard belonged to the class of men who combine a 
 childlike reverence for ecclesiastical authority and a naive 
 acquiescence in transmitted dogmas, with independent fer- 
 vour of religious life. Like so many other men of that time, 
 he sought his own way, and after he thought he had found 
 it, he did not forsake it again. Yet this way, v/hich was to 
 unite him with God, touched nowhere the field of philo- 
 sophical theory. The mystical experiences of his contem- 
 plative life were confined entirely to the sphere of feeling. 
 Nothing like a philosophical system came from them. Rich- 
 ard was not speculative. He had neither the depth nor orig- 
 inality of thought that would have raised him to the stand- 
 ing-point of the free mystic, as an Eckhart, nor the cast of 
 mind requisite to accommodate the fundamental ideas of 
 
294 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 mysticism to the letter of dogma and to the system of scho- 
 lastic philosophy. Nor did he even feel the need of such a 
 mediation ; to him there seemed to be no conflict. 
 
 Richard's many writings deal partly with that which 
 formed the heart of his inner life, and they aim partly, in 
 more popular manner, at theological teaching and religious 
 edification. He would be a guide to congenial souls in the 
 path of asceticism and contemplation; or he strives to 
 remind the sinner of the hollowness and misery of life, of 
 God's majesty, kindness, and justice, and of the eternal 
 requital of good and evil deeds. In the former instance he 
 draws from his own experience ; in the latter, entirely from 
 books. 
 
 Among the writings of the first class, the treatise De in- 
 cendio ainoris holds a significant place. The Officiutn de 
 saficto Ricardo gives the following extract from it (I., 3) : 
 
 In the lapse of time a great increase of spiritual joys was vouch- 
 safed me. From the beginning of my change of life and soul to the 
 vision of the heavenly gates, made that my spirit might contemplate 
 the celestials with the eyes of the heart, and see in what way it should 
 seek its beloved and pant itself to him, there elapsed three years 
 less three or four months. Nearly a year passed while the gate stood 
 open to the time when I was truly sensible of the warmth of eternal 
 love in my heart. I was in a chapel, and while I was delighting in 
 the sweetness of prayer or meditation, I suddenly felt in me an un- 
 wonted and blissful ardour. And after I had long wavered, doubting 
 whence it came, I experienced that it was not from a creature but from 
 the Creator ; I found it then more fervent and blissful. While this 
 ardour burned sensibly, and with unspeakable sweetness, passed a 
 half year, three months and some weeks, to the inflowing and percep- 
 tion of the celestial, or spiritual tone, which pertains to the eternal 
 hymn of praise and to the sweetness of the unearthly melody ; since it 
 cannot be produced or heard save by those who have received it, and 
 such must be cleansed and withdrawn ffom the world. And while I 
 was in the same chapel, and — it was in the night before the Easter 
 communion — sang as I was able, I heard a sound as of those playing 
 the psaltery, or, rather, of those singing above me. And while I ad- 
 dressed myself with all longing in prayer to the heavenly ones, I 
 know not how, I felt in myself a wondrous concord, and received a 
 most delicious harmony from heaven, which remained with me. For 
 my cogitation was constantly changed into the music of song, and my 
 meditations into hymns. And also in prayers and psalmodies I gave 
 the same sound from me; and furthermore, what I had before said 
 broke forth from the affluence of sweetness into singing; that is, in 
 secret, only before my Creator. This was unknown to those with 
 whom I lived; if they had known it, they would have honoured me 
 overmuch, and I should have lost the most beautiful part of the grace, 1 
 
 ' The Latin original is unintelligible here, owing to a corru{>tioa. 
 
RICHARD HAMPOLE AND MARGARET KIRKBY. 295 
 
 and fallen into desolation. Sometimes wonder seized me that I was 
 thus enraptured and that God had granted me gifts for which, to my 
 knowledge, I had never prayed, and which I did not think were 
 received by the most holy in this life. Hence I conclude that this was 
 given to no one on account of his merits, but that Christ granted it 
 freely to him whom he would. But I also believe that no one will 
 receive this grace if he does not spiritually prize the name of Jesus, 
 and so honour it that he never permit it to leave his remembrance, the 
 
 time of sleep only excepted Thus elapsed four years and about 
 
 three months from the beginning of my change of soul to the highest 
 point of the love of Christ which I was able to attain through God's 
 grace, at which point I sounded the divine praises in songs of jubilee. 
 This state, with the previous ones, shall abide to the end, and after 
 death it shall be more perfect, since the joy of love that begins here 
 shall receive a most glorious consummation in heaven. l 
 
 Margaret Kirkby, an anchoress {reclusa) of Anderby in 
 Richmondshire, seems to have had no little influence upon 
 Richard's Hterary activity, especially as regards his writings 
 in English. Hampole had come in contact with her before 
 he left John Dalton's house. Their intercourse was, perhaps, 
 mainly by correspondence. Richard was Mary's spiritual 
 adviser; he instructed her "in the art of the love of God." 
 For her he wrote an English tract {The boke maad of Rych- 
 arde hajtipole to an aiikeresse), which may be compared in 
 general purpose with the Aticren Riwle. He also composed, 
 at her request, an English commentary to the Psalms. 
 There is a Latin version of this commentary, which may 
 also be Richard's work. It was, perhaps, the basis of the 
 English composition. Hampole seems, more than once, to 
 have composed the same work both in Latin and English. 
 But some of the hermit's Latin writings, or fragments of 
 them, may later have found a translator; hence it is not 
 certain that several English treatises ascribed to Hampole 
 actually came from him in this form. So few of his works 
 have thus far been published that an account of his qualities 
 as a writer (at least in prose ^) cannot be given. No accurate 
 estimate of the extent of his writings can as yet be formed. 
 
 Richard's position in English literary history, and as an 
 English poet, rests chiefly upon the Prick of Cotiscience 
 (Stimulus Conscieiitiae ) . There is also a Latin version of 
 this work. But however it may be related to the English 
 
 ' Perry, Prose Treatises 0/ Richard Rolle de Hampole, p. XXVI I., et seq. 
 
 ' This is also true of his lyrical poetry. The poem in strophes published by George 
 G. Perry in Religious Pieces in Pj-ose and Verse, p. 79, et seq., seems to me to betray 
 % manner unlike that of Hampole. 
 
296 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 composition, there is no doubt that Richard was the author 
 of the latter. 
 
 The title and the general purport of Hampole's poem 
 suggest the work of the Kentish monk, Dan Michel, the 
 Aye7ibite of Inwyt, which appeared at about the same time. 
 The ways, however, by which both authors seek the same 
 goal are unlike. Michel would enlighten the sinner, instruct- 
 ing: him in the nature of sin and virtue. Richard would 
 bring him to look into himself, reminding him of what he is, 
 whence he came, whither he goes. In his seven books 
 Hampole considers the wretchedness of human nature, the 
 transitoriness of the world, the vicissitudes of life, death, 
 purgatory. Antichrist, the last judgment, hell, and heaven. 
 The ascetic, mediaeval view of life finds powerful expression 
 in his poem. He vividly depicts the weakness, ugliness, the 
 loathsomeness of human nature, the terrors of death and the 
 last judgment, and the torments awaiting the sinner beyond 
 the grave; while all the splendour, all the charm of the 
 poet's art are lavished upon the picture of heaven. Unlike 
 Dan Michel, who was content to translate a French work, 
 Hampole joins together what he has gained from different 
 sources into a whole, bearing the stamp of his own person- 
 ality. The Prick of Co?iscience, the chief of Hampole's more 
 popular works, gives us occasion to recognise the wide read- 
 ing of the author. It is full of citations from the fathers and 
 ecclesiastical writers. Many of them may have been taken 
 at second-hand. But there remain enough to prove that, 
 though his regular studies ceased early, and his life was 
 mainly ascetic and contemplative, yet he managed to acquire 
 no slight theological culture. Certainly the works to which 
 he was chiefly under obligation were such as had great circula- 
 tion at that time : works like the De conteniptu mundi lihri 
 tres, by Innocent III., the De proprieiatibus rerum, by Bar- 
 tholomew de Glanvilla, the Co7npe7idium theologicae veritatis^ 
 ascribed to various authors, and the Elucidariimi of Hono- 
 rius Augustodunensis. There were also many other sources, 
 and among them, English writings. Thus Hampole seems 
 to have used a medical tract, of which we now have but a 
 fragment. 
 
 The language of the poem is clear and expressive. Ham- 
 pole commands a large vocabulary, from which he draws 
 
ROBERT MANNYNG. 297 
 
 with lavish hand. He Hkes to mass synonyms, and does 
 not hesitate to repeat words and turns of expression; nor 
 does he in general proceed with pedantic uniformity, but oc- 
 casionally looks forward and backward. Making no aes- 
 thetic claims, with only the desire to instruct and edify, 
 striving only to make v/hat is black, right black, and what is 
 bright, very brilliant, he has, nevertheless, produced many 
 very effective passages. His verses are flowing, but unlike 
 most northern poets, he does not trouble himself at all 
 about the nmiiber of syllables. The verses of his short 
 couplets have always four accents, but often more than four 
 unemphatic syllables. This, too, is characteristic of the man, 
 who was indifferent to external symmetry. 
 
 All in all, Hampole is the most notable English religious 
 writer of the first half of the fourteenth century, and he had 
 a corresponding influence upon later religious literature, 
 especially that of the fifteenth century. 
 
 A remarkable contrast to Hampole was his older con- 
 temporary, Robert Manny ng, the most eminent representa- 
 tive of the literature of Lincolnshire in the first half of the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 We know little of Mannyng's external life. Born at 
 Brunne (now Bourn) near Market Deeping in Lincolnshire, 
 he seems, like Hampole, to have spent by far the greater 
 part of his life within the limits of his native shire. As 
 Gilbertine canon he belonged, from 1288 to 1303 and per- 
 haps longer, to the priory of Brimwake in the hundred of 
 Kesteven, six miles from Sempringham ; later, after 1327, he 
 was for a time connected with the priory of Sixhill. He 
 was once in the county and city of Cambridge, how long 
 or when, we do not know, perhaps merely on a visit. The 
 period of his life may be set between the years 1 260-1340 
 or 45. 
 
 What kind of a man he was, we may gather from his 
 works. His fame as a writer is based upon two poems, 
 Handlyjig Synne and a history of England. A poetical 
 translation of a tract by Bonaventura^ follows Xht Handlyng 
 Synne in both manuscripts containing that poem ; but that 
 he wrote it is very doubtful. 
 
 • Herebygrj'nneth medytacyuns of the soper of oure Lorde Jesu. And also of hys 
 passyun. And eke of pe pe^^les of hys swete mod>T Mayden marj'e. The wa^ lIi« 
 made yn latyn Bonauenture Cardynalle, (De coena et passiotie Domini et de^oenis s, 
 Maria* znrffinis.) — 
 
298 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 Robert was a pious ecclesiastic, yet any propensity to 
 asceticism was far from him. He was ever ready to grant 
 an innocent amusement to others as well as to himself, and 
 especially to the poor. His was an unassuming, genial 
 spirit, with a light touch of humour; he was a friend of 
 music and good stories. He did not ascend to the higher 
 regions of thought, and mystical contemplation was quite 
 foreign to him ; but his eye scanned the world around him 
 with all the greater interest; and his view, if not particu- 
 larly sharp, was very clear. 
 
 Robert was curious and even inquisitive ; but his curiosity 
 had the background of a warm sympathy for the lot of his 
 fellow-men. Like his namesake of Gloucester, he was the 
 friend and advocate of the poor. High position and birth 
 did not blind him to the faults and vices behind their glitter. 
 He laments that there are so few noble men and so many 
 *' lordynges," ^ and he addresses the nobleman thus : 
 
 Unwrthyly art thou made gentil, 
 
 Yyf thou yn wurdys and dedys be yl ; 2 
 
 " Thou art unworthy of thy rank if thou art evil in words 
 and deeds." Still more strongly he insisted on the highest 
 purity of morals in the priesthood, And he seems unwit- 
 tingly to leave the narrow path of orthodoxy for a moment, 
 when he contends that the effect of a mass read by a pious 
 priest is quite different from that celebrated by a sinful one. 
 
 Robert's reading was varied enough. French and Eng- 
 lish romances (in his youth he had certainly read them ; and 
 who knows if not still later?), lives of the saints, and edifying 
 miracle tales, as well as more solid matter ; as : Beda's Ec- 
 clesiastical History^ and a number of later English and 
 Anglo-Norman historiographers. It was the antiquarian 
 side of the latter that especially attracted Robert of Glouces- 
 ter. But what chiefly interested Robert of Brunne in 
 them was perhaps the epic and even the anecdotal element. 
 He had certainly a keener sense for the personal and sub- 
 jective than for the bare matter of fact. He, too, saw 
 God's finger in history ; but while his predecessor deemed 
 the Norman Conquest a judgment on all England, Man- 
 nyng discerned in it only the punishment of Harold's per- 
 
 1 Handlyng- Synne, v. 8716, et seq. 
 2 Ibid., V. 3040, et seq. 
 
THE HANDLYNG SYNNE. 299 
 
 jury. Mannyng's writing flowed from no passion for art or 
 learning, nor from ambition to immortalise his name, a thing 
 so much easier to accomplish in the fourteenth than in the 
 nineteenth century. His writings had no other object than 
 to please plain people, in an innocent and useful way to 
 entertain them during their hours of recreation. 
 
 Both of Mannyng's works are adaptations of Anglo-Nor- 
 man originals, whose authors hved in Yorkshire, and died 
 during his lifetime. 
 
 The Haiidlyng Synne, which was written in 1303, is 
 founded upon the Manuel des Pechiez of William of Wading- 
 ton (Waddington). Robert could hardly have procured a 
 more fitting book for his purpose. It deals with the same 
 subject as the Ayenbite of Inwyt, and follows a similar plan. 
 The poet successively considers the Twelve Articles of 
 Faith, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Sacraments, 
 after which he comes back to the topic of penance and dis- 
 cusses at length the Twelve Requisites of a good confes- 
 sion, as well as the Twelve Graces that flow from it. William 
 seems to have drawn from a INIiddle Latin poem in elegiac 
 measure, entitled Florettes, and also from a Sinne des Vertus et 
 des Pechiez whose relation to the original of the Ayefibite of 
 Inwyt is stifl a problem. But it is the popular character of 
 William's work which most decidedly distinguishes it from 
 that of the Kentish monk. There is much less theoretical 
 discussion, while the thought is made clear, and is verified 
 by a mass of anecdotes — tales from the Vitae Fatriwi, the 
 Dialogues of Gregory, from Beda, and many other sources. 
 Mannyng works over this material with much independence. 
 He leaves untranslated the articles of faith at the beginning, 
 a long piece of moralising in the middle, and a mass of ob- 
 servations and prayers at the end. The rest he gives faith- 
 fully, on the whole; but in no respect does he restrict him- 
 self to the letter of the original. He sometimes curtails and 
 omits, but as a rule, he amplifies. Things he has observed, 
 conjectures and reflections that came upon him, are never re- 
 served. He retains his independence especially in the nar- 
 rative portion. At times he sets aside a story for one quite 
 different, or gives the same story in another and ampler set- 
 ting; or he inserts a tale from other authors. He takes this 
 new matter partly from Beda, partly from the lives of the 
 
300 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 saints and similar writings, and partly from oral communica- 
 tion. He often indicates the scene of the action, which in 
 that case does not lie very far from his own home, as the 
 counties of Cambridge, Norfolk, and Suffolk. The scene of 
 one tale is in his immediate neighbourhood, Kesteven. 
 
 The whole receives at his hands a truly national and at 
 times a local impress. Social relations, customs, and usages 
 of the time and country are blended into one effective pict- 
 ure. 
 
 Like his original, Robert employs the most unassuming 
 of all metres, the short couplet, which he wields in the man- 
 ner of the Northumbrian poet. His style is simple and 
 clear, somewhat more prolix and graphic than William's, but 
 always rather terse. He has a certain skill in narration, 
 which rouses and increases the interest. But compared with 
 such poets as the authors of Dame Siriz or of the Fox and 
 Wolf, he is stiff and dry. 
 
 Mannyng was incited to write his History of England by 
 Robert of Malton, who was probably prior of Sixhill. This 
 work belongs to a later period of his life; it was finished in 
 May, 1338. His chief source was the rhyming chronicle of 
 the canon of Bridlington in Yorkshire, Peter, or as Robert 
 calls him, Pers of Langtoft. 
 
 Langtoft had first rendered a portion of Wace's Brut, 
 and then, with the help of other writings, continued the 
 English History to the death of Edward I. 
 
 Mannyng, who had access to Wace's poem, preferred to 
 prepare the history of the British kings according to the 
 fuller account of the original, rather than the curtailed work 
 of the compiler. Wace's temperament was in many respects 
 like his own ; his unpretentious and perspicuous, but not in- 
 elegant, diction attracted Mannyng, not less than the full 
 details with which he tells the stories of the age of the Eng- 
 lish kings. Where Wace ceased, Mannyng turned to Lang- 
 toft, and followed him very loyally to the end. But he 
 often consulted older and more trustworthy authorities, and 
 allowed himself some deviations and additions. He also 
 interpolated native legends. He was acquainted with the 
 romance of Havelok, and we see from his allusion to the fort- 
 unes of this hero, that the saga was then still far from extinct 
 in Lincolnshire. But the good Robert was greatly aston- 
 
ROMANCE AND HISTORY. 3OI 
 
 ished to find that his authorities said nothing of it. This 
 roused his distrust, and he hastened to drop the subject. 
 He was plainly ignorant of the English history of Gaimar, 
 and of the works of many later historians who were less open 
 to critical scruples than he, as the compilation written in 
 Anglo-Norman prose in 13 10 by Master Rauf de Boun for 
 Henry de Lacy, count of Lincoln ; the short contemporary 
 genealogy of the British and English kings from Brutus to 
 Edward IL ; and the larger Brut, likewise in Anglo-Nor- 
 man prose, and written in the thirties of the century. Have- 
 lok is also barely mentioned in a very summary chronicle 
 from Brutus to 1313, written in short English couplets, 
 which was soon after continued to the time of Edward IH. 
 
 The growing taste for national history was not accom- 
 panied by a growth of the true historical sense. The increas- 
 ing popularisation of history caused, in the beginning, a de- 
 cline of historical criticism. The romances of chivalry 
 yielded rich material for the historiographers, the most of 
 whom willingly embodied it in their writings. Guy of War- 
 wick and his victorious fight with Colebrand, of which we 
 learn nothing in Robert of Gloucester's chronicle, was put by 
 Langtoft and Mannyng quite in the same category with Aeth- 
 elstan and the battle of Brunanburh. Wace, and after him 
 Mannyng, made a rather unfounded but useful distinction 
 between the statements of Geoffrey of Monmouth in his 
 Latin history and the Arthurian romances. The logic of 
 things gradually obliterated this boundary. In an uncritical 
 age everything depends upon the trustworthiness of author- 
 ities. So long as historical works were mainly written in 
 Latin, this tendency to fiction was restricted. But with the 
 appearance of every writing in the national language, the 
 line between the guild of the learned historiographers and the 
 romancers grew more indistinct. The latter also professed, 
 as a rule, to relate actual events. 
 
 As historian, Robert of Brunne stands far below Robert 
 of Gloucester. He is less well informed, less independent, 
 his conception of things less clear and certain. 
 
 Yet he somewhat excels him in metre, especially in that 
 part of his work where, following Wace, he moves with ease 
 and skill in short couplets. But the Alexandrines which 
 Robert of Brunne, after Langtoft, employs in the second 
 
302 FROM LEWES TO CRECV. 
 
 part, are less uneven and more like the French form tlian 
 those of his predecessor. He is wise enough to turn the 
 single-rhymed strains of his original into Alexandrine coup- 
 lets. He but rarely uses the same rhyme in a succession of 
 verses. Unfortunately, he begins, at the time of the Con- 
 quest, to make use of the middle-rhyme, which he carries 
 out with much regularity to the close. He had found fault 
 in his prologue with the romance-poets who, to show off their 
 art, employed difficult metres (ry)7ie e7itrelacee, ryj?ie couee, 
 etc.) ; forms which the disours were accustomed to mutilate 
 in their recitations, and which, combined with involved and 
 heterogeneous language, were not intelligible to the people. 
 Now he himself falls into this mistake, for which he has to 
 pay dearly at once. To satisfy the greater demands of 
 rhyme he often takes refuge in bold inversions and abrupt 
 expressions, which make his writing very obscure and diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mannyng's chronicle has much that is at- 
 tractive and instructive, though this is, indeed, due more to 
 the originals than to the compiler. Langtoft's work is not 
 without historical value, especially in the account of the time 
 of Edward I. ; it contains an abundance of details, and gives 
 many a tradition, and many a political folk-song that were 
 adopted by the English translator. 
 
 Robert of Brunne is without doubt one of the writers who 
 served most to spread the East-Midland dialect toward the 
 south. And through him many new Romanic words were 
 probably either introduced into the English literary lan- 
 guage, or at least established there. His vocabulary con- 
 tains numerous foreign elements, many more than that of 
 the slighdy earlier Robert of Gloucester. With^such rapid- 
 ity had the north assimilated the Norman culture, which it 
 first repulsed. 
 
 Mannyng influenced the growth of hterature chiefly by 
 his Ha7idly7ig Sy7i7ie, one of the most entertaining and in- 
 structive books that Old England has bequeathed us. 
 
 vn. 
 
 Manifold points of contact between religious and secular 
 poetry have already aj^peared in the present division of our 
 researches. We have hardly touched, however, upon X^q 
 
LYRICS OF THE WANDERING SCHOLARS. 303 
 
 field in which the two appear most intimately related ; viz , 
 the lyric. 
 
 In this field, too, religious poetry prepared the way. In 
 the last period we saw its writers introduce new forms and 
 themes that, borrowed partly fi"om the Middle Latin, partly 
 from Norman art-poetry, were largely of secular origin. 
 
 When the English lyric had again won honours on re- 
 ligious ground, it was not long before the secular lyric began 
 to strive for the same laurels. There were many minds that 
 united a bright and freshly concrete conception of life with 
 literary culture; above all among the itinerant clerics. And 
 mainly among them we have to seek the fosterers of English 
 song in the present period. 
 
 The itinerant clergy knew life as well as the schools, and 
 came into contact with the most diverse classes. Their rov- 
 ing, careless, and oftentimes dissolute life invested them with 
 the cleverness of the man of the world, though it was borne 
 with a somewhat plebeian air ; their intercourse with nature 
 and the people kept the mind fresh with a sense for the naive 
 expression of feeling. 
 
 Not less at home in Paris than in Oxford, they were gen- 
 erally acquainted with French as well as English and Latin, 
 and doubtless knew by heart the most piquant love-songs 
 and drinking-catches of the former. Englishmen, both of 
 Norman and Enghsh descent, perhaps early came fraternally 
 together in these merry circles. At their drinking-bouts in 
 the tavern, a Babylonian confusion of tongues saluted the 
 ear of the honest burgher, shaking his head as he passed by. 
 This commingling of languages is illustrated in the follow- 
 ing song, in which the Enghsh element appears only at the 
 close. The composer was an English student residing in 
 Paris. 
 
 Dum ludis floribus vehtt lacinia 
 Se dieu d'amour moi tient en tiel angustia^ 
 Morir m'estuetl de duel e de miseria^ 
 Si je ne I'ay quam amo super omnia. 
 
 Ejus amor tantum mefacitfervere, 
 Que je ne soi quid possum inde facere ; 
 Pur ly covent hoc saeculu?n relinquere, 
 Si je ne pus I'amour de \\ perquirere. 
 
 1 Wright, Specimens of Lyric Poetry , p. 64, has Merour me tient, which I do not un- 
 derstand. 
 
304 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 Ele est si bele e gente dame egregia^ 
 Cum ele fust imperatoris filia. 
 De beal semblant et pulcra continencia, 
 Ele est la flur i?i omni regis curia. 
 
 Quant je la vey, je su in tali gloria. 
 Come est la lune coeli inter sidera, 
 Dieu la moi doint sua misericordia y 
 Beyser e fere quae secuntur alia ! 
 
 Scripsi haec carinina ifi tabulis. 
 Mon ostel est en mi la vile de Paris ; 
 May y sugge namore, so wel Pie is ; 
 Yefy de^e for love of hire, duel hit ys. 
 
 The national lyric that now blossomed under the nurture 
 of the English students bears the stamp of the Hfe they led, 
 and of the very heterogeneous influences to which they were 
 exposed. A tone of youthful audacity, genuine and often 
 passionate feeling, and fresh, sometimes coarse, sensuousness, 
 marked their secular songs, that were almost without excep- 
 tion amorous. The form betrays the influence of the Latin 
 strollers' songs and of French love-poetry, as well as of the 
 Ensflish religious Ivric. Celtic influence is also discernible 
 in a few songs ; a great fondness for images and comparisons, 
 united with a certain dithyrambic tone, quickly recurring 
 flashes of feeling and fancy, characterise the very poems 
 that the tokens of language and metre assign to the western 
 counties. 
 
 Technical forms appear beside simpler, more popular ones. 
 A folk-tone predominates, however, and is felt even when 
 the strophe is courtly, or when courtly themes are handled. 
 The English folk-song doubtless also acted strongly upon the 
 poetr}^ of the wandering clerics. 
 
 Have we no genuine folk-songs from this period ? The 
 celebrated Cuckoo Song, dating perhaps from the middle of 
 the thirteenth century, seems to yield the full impression of 
 such a poem. But the music to this song,^ whose notes 
 have been transmitted with the text, betokens a well-ad- 
 vanced development, and its form is relatively very correct. 
 Whoever the author was, he exactly struck the key of the 
 folk-song. The coming of summer, with the awakening of 
 all nature to new life, is described with drastic simphcity and 
 with no admixture of subjective sentiment: 
 
 1 The composition has the character of the canon. 
 
STYLE OF THE ENGLISH LYRICS. 305 
 
 Sumer is icumen in, Ihude sing cuccu ! 
 
 Groweth sed and bloweth med and springth the wde nu. 
 
 Sing cuccu ! 
 Awe bleteth after lomb, Ihouth after calue cu, 
 Bulluc sterteth, bucke uertetli, murie sing cuccu ! 
 
 Cuccu, cuccu ! 
 Wei singes thu cuccu : ne swick thu naver nu. 
 
 The itinerant clerics, to adorn their lyrics, borrowed many 
 traits and turns of phrase from songs of summer and winter, 
 as sung by the people. The love of nature evident in their 
 poems, the landscape-painting that often is the background 
 for personal feeling, markedly deviate from the corresponding 
 elements of French poetry,^ and have such an English air 
 that they can only be explained by the tradition of the Eng- 
 lish folk-song. It is plain, at a glance, that the Englishman 
 has a warmer and closer relation with nature than the 
 Frenchman. The French poet is only interested by a cer- 
 tain range of phenomena, out of which he rarely moves. As 
 regards animals, for instance, he almost entirely restricts him- 
 self, in the lyric, to singing birds, except for purposes of com- 
 parison. And the poet knows no way of combining the 
 expression of his mood and the picture he has sketched by a 
 few touches from nature, save by means of reflection. 
 " Everything rejoices in returning spring, so I must also re- 
 joice in my love; " or, " When the nightingale begins her 
 sweet song, it becomes me to sing mine." The Enghsh poet 
 has more varied and richer details at his disposal, and is not 
 wont to form an analogy of his personal sentiments with a cer- 
 tain phase of the life of nature, but rather lets his feelings appear 
 as part of that life. 
 
 There is no doubt that whole forms and verses passed 
 from the folk-song to the songs of the clerics. A poem that 
 otherwise contains many non-popular elements has the fol- 
 lowing burden, very certainly not invented by the poet : 
 
 Blow, north erne wynd, 
 
 Sent thou me my suetying (sweetheart). 
 
 Blow, northerne wynd, blou, blou, blou ! 2 
 
 There is in the entire poem no other mention of the north 
 wind ; it contains no description of nature, but, in six stanzas 
 
 1 This is true particularly of the lyric. In the French epic romances, the Iqve of nat- 
 ure is occasionally shown with the same directness as in the English lyric now con- 
 sidered. 
 
 2 Wright, Specimens of Lyric Poetry, No. i6. 
 
 U 
 
306 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 full of metaphors and similes, brings out the perfections of 
 the loved one, and depicts in four further stanzas the love- 
 pain of the poet. 
 
 The terse language and abrupt transitions of the folk-song 
 characterise these verses throughout. " How shall he sweetly 
 sing who thus in mourning pines ? She will bring me to 
 death long before my time. Greet her well, the sweet one 
 with the clear eyes." ^ And in the same poem : " I wish 
 her M'hat is good, she me evil ; I am her friend, she is my 
 foe ; I believe my heart will break with care and sighing. 
 May she go in God's keeping, the white pearl." 
 
 Nearly all of the few love-songs preserved from this period 
 date from the time of Henry III. and Edward I. They 
 originated partly in the midland district, partly in the south ; 
 alliteration and rhyme are both frequent and are more regu- 
 larly used by poets belonging to the Welsh Marches. 
 
 Though few in number, these productions^ present a fair 
 variety of talent and .style. A poet who probably lived in east- 
 ern Mercia, and composed in the single-rhymed strophes of 
 four long lines, familiar to us in the religious lyric, is dis- 
 tinguished by his simple directness of expression and warmth 
 of feeling. We have a love-plaint from him that begins thus : 
 " When the nightingale sings, the woods wax green ; leaf and 
 grass and blossom spring in April, I ween, and love is gone 
 to my heart with a spear so keen ; night and day it drinks 
 my blood, my heart doth me tene (hurt)."^ The same poet 
 wrote a song in dialogue, that is probably meant to repre- 
 sent his own lot. We translate it as follows : 
 
 jMy death I love, my life I hate, all for a lady fair ; 
 She is as bright as the day-light, none can with her compare. 
 I fade and droop as doth green leaf in summer's sunny air; 
 If all my thought me helpeth nought, what can I but despair? 
 
 Sorrows and sighs and dreary mood hold me enthralled so fast, 
 That now meseems I shall go mad if it much longer last ; 
 My pain, my care, all with a word she might forth from me cast, 
 What helps it thee, sweetheart, to see my life thus long harassed ? 
 
 Away, thou clerk, thou art a fool, with thee I will not chide ; 
 The day I give my love to thee, thou never shalt abide ; 
 
 1 Strictly, "with gray eyes," that were considered an especial beauty in the Middle 
 Ages. Wright, No. ii. 
 
 2 We have translated the poems given below, from the originals, for the general 
 reader. — Tran.slator. 
 
 ' Wright, No. 32. 
 
ENGLISH SONGS. 307 
 
 If ill my bo-'v n thou art caught, then shame may thee betide ; 
 'Tis better far on foot to go, than wicked horse to ride ! 
 
 Ah, well-a-day, why say'st thou thus ? Have rue upon my woe ! 
 For thou art alway in my thoughts, wherever I do go, 
 And if I die for thy love's lack, more shame to thee 'tis so ! 
 Then let me live and be thy love ; thy self on me bestow ! 
 
 Be still, thou fool ! I call thee aright, will'st ever words begin ? 
 Thou'rt waited for both day and night, by father and all my kin. 
 If in my chamber thou art found, they'll stop them for no sin. 
 Me they will hold, and thee will slay; so death thou mightest win ! 
 
 sweet, relent, thou grievest me, thy pity I implore ; 
 For now I am as sad a man as blithe I was before. 
 
 In window's shelter we could kiss full fifty times and more ; 
 A fair behest oft makes a man forget his trouble's store. 
 
 Alack-a-day, why wakest thou old pain thus ruthlessly? 
 
 1 loved a clerk once faithfully, and true he was to me ; 
 He was not glad on any day until he could me see ; 
 
 I loved him better than my life ; what boots a lie to thee ? 
 
 When I a clerk was in the school, much did I know of lore ; 
 
 From the deep wound dealt by thy love, sharp ache I've felt, and sore ; 
 
 Far from men's haunt, in pilgrim's garb, I've roamed the wide world 
 
 o'er ; 
 Have pity on me, lady sweet. Alas, I can no more. 
 
 Thou seemest well to be a clerk, for so thou speakest still. 
 No longer vexing dole shalt feel from my love-wounds, nor ill ; 
 Not father, mother, all my kin, shall hold me from my will. 
 For thou art mine, and I am thine, thy bidding to fulfil. 
 
 Another poet who prefers the tail-rhyme, and whose great 
 liking for alliteration often leads to obscurity, is fond of 
 painting landscapes.' A third, since he certainly belongs to 
 the west, makes a still more liberal use of alliteration ; he 
 compares, stanza by stanza, his loved one to all manner of 
 precious stones, flowers, birds, and the like.^ A fourth poet, 
 also from the west, is partial to allegory. The song having 
 the refrain " Blow, northerne wynd " contains the following : 
 " I told to Love how this Beauty had seized a heart that was 
 mine, how her knights — Sighing, Sorrowing, and Thought 
 — had sought me. These three brought me to ruin against 
 the power of Peace. I put further plaints to Love, how 
 Sighing followed me, and Thought threatened to overcome 
 me with ipastery if he might, and Sorrowing sore threatened 
 that he, for this Beauty, would lead me in baleful bands until 
 
 1 Wright, Nos. 13 and 14. 
 2 liid., No. 5. 
 
3o8 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 the end of my life, in spite of every right. Love listened to 
 every word and bent himself over to me and bade me seize 
 the treasure of my heart's weal. ' Beseech the sweetest one/ 
 said he, ' before thou fallest like mud from the foot, that she 
 share with thee, as a precious treasure, what can help thee.' " ^ 
 This recalls the manner of such writers as Thibaut of 
 Navarre. 
 
 The standing theme of these songs was praise of the be- 
 loved, or love-plaints; but the key-note of feeling varied 
 greatly with the temperament of the bard. Compared with 
 the author of the dialogue given above, how sanguine seems 
 the poet of the following strophes, despite his bitter pain : 
 
 Between soft March and April showers, 
 
 When sprays of bloom from branches spring, 
 And when the little bird 'mid flowers 
 
 Doth song of sweetness loudly sing : 
 
 To her with longing love I cling, 
 
 Of all the world the fairest thing, 
 
 Whose thrall I am, who bliss can bring. 
 And give to me life's crown. 
 A gracious fate to me is sent ; 
 Methinks it is by Heaven lent ; 
 From women all, my heart is bent, 
 To light on Alysoun. 
 
 Her sheeny locks are fair to see, 
 
 Her lashes brown, her eyes of black; 
 With lovely mouth she smiles on me; 
 
 Her waist is slim, of lissom make. 
 
 Unless as mate she will me take. 
 
 To be her own, my heart will break; 
 
 Longer to live I will forsake. 
 And dead I will fall down. 
 A gracious fate, etc. 
 
 All for thy sake I restless turn. 
 
 And wakeful hours sigh through at night ; 
 For thee, sweet lady, do I yearn ; 
 
 My cheeks wax wan in woeful plight, 
 
 No man so wise that can aright 
 
 Her goodness tell, her beauties bright ; 
 
 Her throat is than the swan's more white, 
 The fairest maid in town. 
 A gracious fate, etc. 
 
 Weary as water in the weir, 
 
 With wooing I am spent and worn ; 
 
 1 Wright, p. 53. 
 
SONGS AND RELIGIOUS LYRICS. 309 
 
 Lest any reave me, much I fear, 
 
 And leave me mateless and forlorn. 
 
 A sharp, short pain is better borne, 
 
 Than now and evermore to mourn. 
 
 My love, O fair one, do not scorn, 
 No longer on me frown ! 
 A gracious fate to me is sent ; 
 Methinks it is by Heaven lent ; "; 
 From women all, my heart is bent, 
 To light on Alysoun. 
 
 An art-form resembling the Proven9al and French ro- 
 mance was not unknown to these poets. The dialogic song 
 we have given is essentially of this kind. The poem of a 
 western minstrel corresponds still more exactly with this form; 
 he tells us of his encounter with a coy country beauty, and 
 gives the dialogue a narrative introduction.^ 
 
 The estrif took on lyrical as well as epic garb. A poet of 
 the time of Edward I., writing in ryme couee and quite in the 
 lyrical tone, brings before us the quarrel between Throstle 
 and Nightingale'^ about the value of women. The thrush 
 despises the gentle sex, and quotes from sacred and profane 
 history (or from saga) a series of examples of female faith- 
 lessness and seductive arts. The nightingale does not cease 
 to extol the perfections of woman, but without much effect, 
 until she names the Virgin Mary, when her opponent de- 
 clares herself conquered. The opening of this poem corres- 
 ponds nearly word for word with that of a Spring and Love- 
 song'^ whose author we have already called a lyrical land- 
 scape-painter. 
 
 The religious lyric having, toward the close of the last 
 period, reached a certain stage of courtly art, it was at once 
 turned into other courses by the example of the secular lyric 
 that now appeared. This did it no injury. In assimilating 
 a new style from the erotic songs of the clerics and the folk- 
 songs whence they drew, the rehgious lyric took up a popu- 
 lar element that in no sense~coarsened it ; and without los- 
 ing depth and warmth of feeling, it gained in directness of 
 expression. Perceptive imagery took the place of reflection. 
 A number of motives were taken entire from the national 
 secular lyric. Sometimes the opening words of an amorous 
 
 1 Wright, No. 10. 
 
 2 W. Carew Hazlitt, Remains o/the Early Popular Foetty of England, i. 50, etseq, 
 ' Wright, No. 13. 
 
5 T O FROM LEWES TO CRt'CY. 
 
 song were appropriated, together with the metre aiid ir.clody.' 
 The influence of the new secular lyric was felt in the con- 
 struction of the strophe, the diction, the relation of ideas, 
 and their disposal in the strophes. 
 
 Religious sentiment also put itself into communication 
 with the life of nature, as in the following : 
 
 When I see blossoms bursting, 
 
 And hear blithe bird-notes sung, 
 With sweet love-longing thirsting, 
 
 My raptured heart is stung. 
 All from a love that new is, 
 That joyous, full, and true is. 
 
 My gladsome song hath sprung; 
 For surely I know this is : 
 My joys, my hopes, my blisses. 
 
 On him alone are hung. 
 
 When with myself communing, 
 
 Him in my thoughts I see, 
 Pierced hand and foot, and swooning 
 
 With cruel nailings three : 
 Blood on his head thorn-riven, 
 To him no woe forgiven, 
 
 That I from pain be free : 
 Well should my heart be aching, 
 With love his dole partaking. 
 
 And sigh and sorry be.* 
 
 An autumnal mood is expressed in a song, one might 
 almost say a roffianze, of repentance,^ beginning thus : 
 
 Now wither rose and lily-flower. 
 That bore sweet savour for an hour. 
 
 In summer, that happy tide. 
 There is no queen so proud in power. 
 No lady fair so bright in bower. 
 
 That death shall not down-ride. 
 Whoso will lust of flesh forego 
 
 And heaven's bliss abide, 
 On Jesus he his thought bestow, 
 
 On him with pierced side. 
 
 From Peterborough one dewy morn, 
 As I went out with hound and horn, 
 
 My folly I bethought ; 
 I mourning turned, and sorrowing. 
 
 * Compare Nos. 40 and 41 in Wright, and also Reliquiae Antiquae 
 •■« Wright, No. 21. ' Ibid.^ No. 3a 
 
 •, I., 104. 
 
£NGLISH SÖNgS. Jll 
 
 To her that bore high heaven's King, 
 
 For mercy her besought : 
 Lady, O pray thy son for grace, 
 
 Who us so dear hath bought, 
 And shield us from the loathsome place 
 
 That for the fiend is wrought. 
 
 The following Winter-Song so closely joins reflection and 
 "^ perception that the whole becomes an image of subjective 
 feeling : 
 
 Winter wakeneth all my care ; 
 
 Now the leaves wax dry and bare ; 
 
 Oft I mourn and in despair, 
 
 Sigh when comes into my thought. 
 
 How this world's joy, it goeth all to nought. 
 
 Now it is and now no more, 
 
 As if it ne'er had place before. 
 
 Man hath truly said of yore, 
 
 All goeth but God's will. 
 
 We all shall die, though it may please us ill. 
 
 Sad thoughts press me sore, I ween. 
 
 When I see the fallow green. 
 
 Jesus, let thy help be seen. 
 
 Go we hence, shield us from hell ; 
 
 I know not whither I shall go nor how long here I dwell. 
 
 The tone of an Easter- Song,'^ of which we quote two 
 stanzas, is popular and very original. It probably dates 
 from the last decade of the previous period, and was per- 
 haps less influenced by the erotic songs of the clerics than by 
 the folk-song : 
 
 Summer is come and winter gone, 
 Now days are growing long. 
 And merry birdlings every one 
 Rejoice aloud with song. 
 
 But strong 
 Care me hath bound 
 Despite the joy whose echoing sound 
 
 The throng. 
 All for a child. 
 That is so mild. 
 
 Prolong. 2 
 
 • Morris, Old English Miscellany, p. 97. 
 
 2 In the original, the order of the rhymes in this first stanza has suffered from 
 textual corruption. V. 6-7 run thus: 
 
 Kare me bint 
 Al wit ioye Jjat is funde — 
 It is evident, from a comparison of the other stanzas, that the poet, instead o{ is funde 
 
312 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 That stately child, so mild of grace, 
 And with great glory crowned ; 
 In bosk and bank and woody place, 
 Hath sought me all around. 
 
 Y-found 
 Then hath he me, 
 That was for apple of a tree 
 
 Fast bound ; 
 But brake the thong 
 That was so strong 
 
 His wound. 
 
 Dialogue was known also to the religious lyric. In the 
 strophic form of the stabat mater was composed an affect- 
 ing dialogue between the crucified Jesus and his mother,^ 
 that nearly resembles the estrif. The Debate of the Body 
 and the Soul, a theme frequent in English poetry after the 
 beginning of the thirteenth century, properly belongs to this 
 class of writings. The monologue of the soul to the corpse 
 was common to the Old English time, as well as to the transi- 
 tion period; it gave way to more dramatic dialogue through 
 the influence of Middle Latin models. 
 
 In the same way the lament of Mary at the foot of the 
 cross is changed into a Dispiitatio viter Mariain et crt^ce??i, 
 that was imitated in English verse towards the close of this 
 period, and later.^ 
 
 In popular proverbial writings, new forms deserving of at- 
 tention had grown up since the middle of the thirteenth 
 century. They bear plain tokens of French influence, 
 although their substance is mainly an ancient heirloom of 
 native origin. But the name of him to whom, in earlier 
 periods, this inheritance was ascribed — the name of Aelfred — 
 had vanished. Its place was taken by the name of Hen- 
 dyng, in which some, singularly enough, discern a personifi- 
 cation of rhyme, but which rather personifies mental adroit- 
 ness. 
 
 In a Middle English collection from the second half of 
 the thirteenth century, each of the proverbs given appears at 
 the close of a six-lined strophe in ryme coiiee, illustrating it ; 
 the French collections of proverbs Les proverbes del vilaifi 
 and Les proverbes au conte de Bretaigrie, are on a similar 
 
 (is found), wrote 7ne fint (men find, one finds). The English translator has restored 
 the true order, as I had done before him in the German rendering of these stanzas. 
 
 • Wright, No. 27. 
 
 * Legends 0/ tf^t Holy Rood, ed. R. Morris, p. 131, et seq. 
 
POPULAR PROVERBS. 313 
 
 plan. In the French texts, each proverb is followed by this 
 refrain: "This said (or "says") the peasant," while in the 
 English, the refrain runs : " Quoth Hendyng." The apho- 
 risms themselves are generally alliterative, sometimes being 
 also ihymed, but they seldom appear as metrical parts or 
 members of the strophe to which they are added. 
 
 The following specimens will give an idea of the mental 
 scope and the tone of the collection : 
 
 (10) If thou wilt overcome the lust of the flesh, thou must often 
 fight and flee with eye and with heai^t ; by flesh's lust comes shame : 
 though it seems pleasure to the body, it brings smart to the soul. 
 "Well fighteth that well flyeth," quoth Hendyng. 
 
 (11) The wise man holds back his words ; for he does not begin to 
 play ere he has tempered his pipe. A fool is a fool, and that is seen ; 
 for he will speak green words before they are ripe. "A fool's bolt is 
 soon shot," quoth Hendyng. 
 
 (12) Tell thou never thy foeman the shame or mischief that thou 
 hast, thy care, nor thy woe ; for he will find if he may, both by night 
 and by day, how of one to make two. "Tell thou never thy foe that 
 thy foot acheth," quoth Hendyng.' 
 
 One of the manuscripts transmitting the collection to us 
 has an introductory strophe as follows : 
 
 Men that wish to hear wisdom, they may learn of the wise Hendyng 
 that was Marcolf 's son, good thoughts and many manners for the in- 
 struction of many vicious ones, for that was ever his custom. 
 
 Here the name Hendyng, be its origin what it may, is 
 connected with the name that was, in the Middle Ages, the 
 European representative of popular wisdom, or, more cor- 
 rectly, of popular wit. French literature served also in this 
 field as intermediator. Collections of proverbs in six-lined 
 strophes, of which the first half contains a proverb of Salo- 
 mon, and the second, the answer of Marcolph (Marcoul, 
 Marcon, etc.), are not rare in PVench literature. But it is 
 strange that the saga of Salomon and Morolf never really 
 gained foothold in England, although we find its traces in 
 different periods. Despite its close relations with France, 
 and its active commerce with North Germany and the Neth- 
 erlands, England was then, as now, isolated by the Channel, 
 and thus had a position in many respects exceptional. The 
 spirit of antiquity, more carefully perpetuated there, acted 
 upon the present with a livelier and intenser power; but 
 many a newer germ that developed richly on continental soil, 
 
 1 Wright and Halllwell, Reliquiae AtUiquae, I., no, et seq. ^ Mätzner, Alienglischt 
 Sj>rachproben, I., i, 306. 
 
3^4 FROM LEWES TO CRECV. 
 
 as the court-art and the animal-fable, never really thrived ih 
 England. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 At about the same time as the secular love-poetry (strictly 
 
 speaking, somewhat earlier), there appeared political lyrical 
 poetry in English literature. The oldest Middle English 
 song of this kind may date from the fifth decade of the thir- 
 teenth century. Yet this verse seems at the time of Henry 
 III. still to have been written principally in Latin or Anglo- 
 Norman. Under Edward I. and his successors the use of 
 the vernacular in this poetry spread more and more, and the 
 Anglo-Norman gave way, until towards the middle of the 
 fourteenth century, when Latin and English shared it in 
 common. 
 
 The fosterers of the political lyric are to be sought in this 
 period among two classes : the glee-men and the clergyjjn 
 the broadest sense. 
 
 The English glee-man was little initiated into the mysteries 
 of parties ; his audience was a very mixed one, and only in 
 rare cases had he a powerful patron, as did the Norman 
 minstrel, in the higher circles of society. Hence his poetry 
 was in the service of national interests, as they were under- 
 stood by the people. . His proper mission was to celebrate 
 victorious battles, to praise the heroes of the nation and to 
 pursue its enemies with scorn. 
 
 Thus the glee-man took sides with the people in the civil 
 wars during the reign of Henry III. A song on the Battle 
 of Lewes (1264) heaps bitter derision upon the adherents of 
 the defeated court-party, and above all on the " king of Ger- 
 many," Richard of Cornwall, King Henry's brother, who 
 was a thorn in the flesh of the people on account of his for- 
 eign sovereignty and the manner in which he gained it, his 
 equivocal attitude, his corruptibility, and the voluptuous Hfe 
 of which he was accused. The poem dwells with much 
 relish upon the circumstance that Richard, after the loss 
 of the battle, occupied a mill with a part of his men, and de- 
 fended it as if it had been a castle. The refrain recurring 
 at the close of each stanza announces, in a harsh play of 
 words, that the glorv of the traitor is at an end: 
 
Ballads. 315 
 
 Richard, thah thou be ever trichard, 
 trichen shalt thou never more.l 
 
 ** Richard, though thou be ever a traitor, thou shalt treason never 
 more." 
 
 In the reign of Edward L, a glee-man celebrates with full 
 detail the great victory of the Flemish burghers over French 
 knighthood at Courtrai, or Kortryk (1302). " Listen, Lord- 
 ings, both young and old, of the Frenchmen that were so 
 proud and bold, how the Flemish men bought and sold 
 them upon a Wednesday. Better it had been for them at 
 home in their land, than to seek Flemings on the sea-strand, 
 wherefore many a French woman wringeth her hands and 
 singeth, welaway ! "^ 
 
 The wars with the Scots gave rise to many popular poems 
 of occasion, that have, for the most part, been lost. Peter 
 de Langtoft has handed down in his chronicle a number of 
 short songs in the versus tripertitus caudatiis, as they were 
 probably first sung in the army, and afterwards by peasants 
 and citizens, especially in the north of England. 
 
 A rather long ballad has come to us complete from the 
 time of Edward I. It originated soon after the victory at 
 Kirkenclifif (1306), and is mainly occupied with the capture 
 and execution of Sir Simon Fräser, whose head was set up 
 on London Bridge close by that of William Wallace. 
 
 These ballads are borne upon an ardent, naive patriotism 
 that sees the punishing hand of God in the destruction of 
 the enemy, and utilises it as a warning example. Artless in 
 style and composition, they throughout show a combination 
 of lyrical and epic elements, but so varied that now the epic 
 element predominates, as in the Sojtg on the battle of Kor- 
 tryk, and now, as in the Song on the King of Almaigne. the 
 epic material is entirely moulded to the lyric aim. 
 
 The metrical form of such poems grew from a long line, 
 whose structure recalls both the Old English verse and the 
 Alexandrine. It generally occurred in four-lined single- 
 rhymed strophes, which are often accompanied by a refrain ; 
 the strophe more rarely consists of two tiercets, each one 
 trailing after it a shorter line in the manner of the ryme 
 couee. 
 
 1 Th. Wright, Political Songs of Englatid^ p. 69. 
 2 Ibid., p, 187. 
 
3l6 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 If the glee-men seldom touched upon higher party-politics, 
 they oftentimes ventured upon the field of social satire. But 
 it is probable that they did not choose too high marks for 
 ^^ their shafts. A glee-man's song from the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century denounces, in harsh and bitter language, 
 the behaviour of the servants of the rich and noble, the pages, 
 grooms, and stable-boys, whose love of show, gluttony, and 
 dissolute life are caustically described. " While God was on 
 earth and wandered wide, what was the reason he would not 
 ride ? For he would not a groom to go by his side, no wide- 
 mouthed fellow to neigh nor to chide." 
 
 But satire was, as a whole, the province of the clergy, the 
 learned. Neither rank nor power shielded men from their 
 attacks ; all classes of society had to submit to be pilloried 
 by them. The abuses in state and church, especially the lat- 
 ler, bad measures of government, social evils, moral rotten- 
 ness in clergy and laity, all served as material for satire. It 
 now became customary to vary in the English language the 
 themes that for a long time had been treated in Latin verse, 
 and, in France and England, in French verse. 
 
 Shortly before the middle of the thirteenth century ap- 
 peared a bitter lament on the corruption and slavery of the 
 church; its tone is dignified, and seems to proceed from a 
 deeply serious sentiment. It is called Hwon holy chireche is 
 vnder fote} 
 
 Formerly St. Peter was called Simon. Then quoth our Lord to 
 him, "Thou shalt be called stone. I will set my church upon thee." 
 . . . Those that should defend her are now her foes. Of all her for- 
 mer friends she now has none. Therefore is her honour well-nigh all 
 gone. 
 
 Then Simon was here, and now is Simony, that hath marred a great 
 part of the clergy. Bid we our Lord Jesus Christ that he save her for 
 the love of his sweet mother, St. Mary. 
 
 St. Peter was pope in Rome. There is the head, and ought to be, 
 of Christendom. Clement and Gregory that came after him often had 
 trouble and sorrow. For they held Christ's men with peace and con- 
 cord, and also the holy church without bondage. 
 
 Then she stood full fast, and afterwards for some time. Now they 
 cast at her with marks and with pounds of silver and gold to fell her 
 to the ground. No one now will suffer for her death nor wounds. 
 
 St. Thomas suffered death for her all unjustly, the archbishop 
 Stephen fought for her, and St. Edmund full fairly endowed her. To 
 keep her honour they did all their might. Now, holy church is in evil 
 
 1 Morris, Old English Miscellany, p. 89. 
 
SATIRE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 317 
 
 hands. All war against her that live in the land; bishops and clerks, 
 knights and knaves, kings and earls, have nialice toward her. And 
 the pope himself, who should defend her — if he have his gifts of silver 
 and gold, marks and pounds, with right or wrong — he lets them all do 
 their will, who are so very strong. 
 
 Woe that in our day she is so under foot. Bid we all Jesus Christ 
 that he send her help, for his sweet mother's love, that is so fair and 
 sweet, and that we may see it in this life. Amen. 
 
 Similar complaints occur more frequently in later times, 
 if not always in the dignified manner of this poem, whose 
 author belonged to that southern English school of poetry 
 that could claim the composer of the Poej7ta morale as its 
 founder. 
 
 The objects of satire grew more manifold in the reign 
 of Edward I. It became the advocate of the poor people, 
 of the peasant class, whose position in the glorious and 
 blessed reign of that great prince was perhaps not less pre- 
 carious than later under the rule of " Queen Bess." The 
 Song of the Hiisband?nan ^ is a lament of the husbandman 
 who, in spite of bad harvests and dearth, must pay the king 
 high taxes for his wars, and who is tormented and drained 
 to his life's blood by foresters, rangers, and bailiffs. They 
 hunt him as the hound does the hare; he sees himself com- 
 pelled to sell his grain while it is still as green as grass. He 
 must give up all that he has saved during the whole year. 
 Another poem ^ shows how heavily the hand of the great 
 rested upon the small people, how their greed robbed the 
 poor, either by force or by cunning, of the merest neces- 
 saries, and how the lowly were unable to procure justice. 
 The harshest truths are said of royal equity by the fable of 
 the lion, who sits in judgment over the wolf, fox, and ass, 
 and makes the innocent do penance for what the guilty have 
 committed. 
 
 Lighter themes are touched as well ; as, the trouble of the 
 layman who, charged with seducing a woman, must appear 
 before an ecclesiastical court, whose members and whose 
 actions are depicted with unsparing hand;^ or the ostenta- 
 tion of women and their passion for dress; how they often 
 buy a robe when they possess no smock,** — subjects that 
 
 • Wright, Political Songs, p. 149, et seq. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 19s, et seq. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 155, et seq. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 53. 
 
3l8 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 would please the wandering students. Sometimes the poet 
 makes merry over the fruitless disputations of the scholastics, 
 over their Jiego^ diihito^ concedo} 
 
 We have but few products of the muse of satire from the 
 mournful reign of Edward IL, but some of them are very 
 attractive. In October of the year 131 1, the king had 
 signed a document conceding the fullest rights to Parlia- 
 ment, and especially to the Upper House. But before the 
 close of the year, he had broken his word under the influ- 
 ence of his favourite. Piers de Gaveston, who had returned 
 from banishment. This fact gave rise to a poem that em- 
 ploys different metres for its different portions, and in the 
 introduction, regularly alternates between Anglo-Norman 
 and Enghsh verses. In the body of it four sages describe 
 and explain, in brief, striking aphorisms, the condition of 
 the country, according to a very popular saga that was also 
 admitted into the Gesta Romanonun. 
 
 The first said : I understand, no king may be well in the land, un- 
 der God Almighty, unless he can himself read how he shall in the land 
 lead every man with right. For might is right, light is night, and 
 fight is flight. Because might is right, the land is lawless ; because 
 night is light, the land is loreless ; because fight is flight, the land is 
 nameless.^ 
 
 The second sage follows with these apothegms : " Now 
 one is two, weal is woe, friend is foe," and similarly, the third 
 and fourth sages. 
 
 Another poem that must have originated about 1316-17, 
 shows satire in a quite advanced stage as regards scope and 
 matter. It is not content with attacks on the vices and 
 abuses of single classes or ranks of men, or with general 
 allusions to the degeneracy of society ; it takes up the vari- 
 ous classes in turn, and pitilessly lays bare their social 
 blemishes. The land suffers with a thousand evils : war, 
 murder, scarcity, famine, pestilence, — whence comes all 
 this ? The poet conceives the cause to lie in the universal 
 sinfulness that calls down God's avenging arm. Truth and 
 right are down, deceit and treachery are almighty. The 
 review is begun with the church at Rome. From thence 
 Truth should proceed, but the palace is forbidden him ; he 
 fears to enter it, even if the pope should call him. For all 
 
 ' Wright, Political Songs, p. 210. 
 ^ Ibid., p. 254. 
 
POLITICAL SATIRE. 319 
 
 the clerks of the pope have conspired for Truth's destruction, 
 and if he should meet Simony he would shake Truth's beard. 
 Without gold and silver even the most learned, most holy- 
 clerk can accomplish nothing at the Roman court; with 
 gold and silver even the adulterer and wretch can there 
 attain their ends. Covetousness and Simony rule the whole 
 world. The archbishops and bishops should keep strict 
 oversight of the servants of the church, but many of them 
 lead questionable lives themselves, and hence dare not speak. 
 Also, no man can serve two masters ; they are servants of 
 the king, and gather gold in heaps, and let the church alone. 
 The arch-deacons are open to bribery and let the parson 
 have a wife, and the curate another at will. If an old priest 
 dies, the young clerk hurries to make presents to the patron 
 and bishop : who offers most shall have the church. When 
 the young priest is installed, his first work is to amass money. 
 Then he rides with hawks and hounds, keeps a concubine, 
 wears fine clothes, and lives high. If the bishop hears of 
 this, a little silver is sufficient to stop his mouth. The par- 
 son has a curate, a good confessor, who leads a clean life. 
 Another, who can hardly read the mass, does the work some- 
 what more cheaply ; he receives the place. The outlook is 
 no better in the monasteries; pride and envy reign in all 
 orders; the abbots and priors counterfeit the knights and 
 ride a-hunting ; the poor man knocks in vain at the abbey, 
 but the knave, sent by a powerful lord who might do the 
 abbot harm, is admitted at once, and served with the best. 
 " Look how they love God who thus serve his own." The 
 monks suffer heavily for love of God : they wear socks in 
 their shoes and felt-boots over them ; they are well nourished 
 with flesh and fish, and when the roast is good they leave 
 little in the dish ; so kill they their bodies to keep Christ's 
 commandment. After meals they have a pain that hurts 
 them sore; then they are wont to drink in one draught a 
 quart or more of good, strong beer, and afterwards they go 
 to their rest. Thus they chastise their bodies by night and 
 day. The new orders, the mendicant monks, are not spared. 
 Minorites, Jacobites,^ CarmeHtes, and Augustins ; they, too, 
 do all for money. They like to visit the rich man in sick- 
 ness, and let the poor one lie. If the rich man dies, the 
 
 1 Pominigans. 
 
320 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 brethren fight for his corpse. " It is not only for the calf 
 that the cow lows, but it is for the green grass that grows on 
 the meadow so good." liext comes the turn of the knightly- 
 orders, the Hospitallers, wh^a are reminded of the fate of the 
 Templars : " Property comes and goes like clouds in March." 
 TJie chapters and consistories are then taken up. It is 
 easy to attain an end with them by bribing judges and wit- 
 nesses. Thereupon appears the physician who helps men to 
 die. The poet graphically tells how the physician, with im- 
 portant professional manner, alternately raises hope and fear 
 in the bosom of the sick man's wife, how, at great expense, 
 he has meats and drinks procured, which he himself con- 
 sumes, while he makes the patient swallow vile nostrums 
 that only aggravate his condition, and how, after he has en- 
 joyed the night in the house of the patient, he calls out 
 triumphantly the next morning, " Blessed be God, dame, the 
 master is saved ! " and leaves the house laden with silver. 
 After the clergy, which, in a measure, includes the physician, 
 the satirist turns his attention to the laity. Counts, barons, 
 and knights are brought before us, w^ho oppress the church 
 instead of defending it, stir up strife at home instead of going 
 to the Holy Land, who behave in the hall like lions, and 
 like hares in the field. The knights dress fantastically, as if 
 they were glee-men ; unripe boys are now taken into their 
 ranks; swearing and cursing are counted manly, and the 
 squires imitate their knights in all this. But we must be 
 brief, and refer the reader to the poet himself, who tells how 
 the royal justices, ministers, sheriffs, judges, bailiffs, and 
 beadles, how advocates, assize-justices, how bakers, brewers, 
 merchants, conduct themselves. Wrong and cheating are 
 everywhere; in every walk of life the poor and honest are 
 oppressed and plundered. The satirist portrays all this, not 
 without repetition in details, but still with graphic force and 
 at times with biting wit. His entire work bespeaks a pious, 
 upright spirit, roused by righteous indignation, so that here 
 the words Facit ifidigjiatio versuni apply in the fullest sense. 
 We close with one more passage from his poem : 
 
 The pope greets well all unlearned men, William, Richard, and 
 John, and gives them to understand that there is no more Truth; and 
 says that he who, without any process of law, drove Truth out of the 
 land, deserves to be hanged and drawn. Alas, as long as Truth was 
 in the land, he was certainly a good friend. 
 
ATTEMPTS AT COURTLY POETRY. 32 1 
 
 A greater diversity of metre appears in this clerical satire, 
 as compared with the patriotic ballad. Shorter lines become, 
 beside the long line, an element of the strophe ; and together 
 with the coupling-rhyme {ry me plate) ^ alternating rhyme plays 
 an important part. The poets of the w^est showed also in 
 these writings their fondness for alliteration, which in the 
 south and east was generally used casually, in certain formu- 
 las and phrases. 
 
 A species of the Provengal art-poesy, the dirge {planh), 
 already imitated by North French poets at the time of 
 Henry II., is represented in the English lyric of this period 
 by only one poem. An Anglo-Norman minstrel wrote such 
 a song upon the Death of Edward /, " the flower of chiv- 
 alry" (1307), that was afterwards fairly translated into his 
 own language by an Englishman, presumably a cleric. Still 
 earlier, perhaps as early as the reign of Henry III., the 
 descort^ had been similarly imitated in English, in the Pris- 
 oners Prayer (or lament of a captive knight, probably a victim 
 of the civil wars). This writing, by a remarkable chance, 
 was inserted at the end of the Liber de Antiqtds Legibus pre- 
 served in the Guildhall of the city of London. True court- 
 art, in the mediaeval sense, never came to more than a few 
 attempts in England. 
 
 In passing, w^e must remember a poet of the time of Ed- 
 ward (the second, or perhaps the first ?), who deserves atten- 
 tion less as a poet than as a man, less from the aesthetic 
 standing-point than from the pathological. This is Adam 
 Davy, "marchal"^ of Stratford-at-Bow, near London, w^ho 
 perhaps had wide celebrity in the neighbourhood of the capi- 
 tal. Adam was a visionary, and what he saw in visions he 
 wrote down by higher inspiration for the king, using short 
 couplets, in part of questionable construction. His Visions 
 concerned King Edward, whom he sees in his dream in 
 various situations and surroundings, but who is everywhere 
 a chosen vessel of divine mercy, the predestined emperor of 
 Christendom. Despite the sometimes halting verse, the style 
 is not bad ; and the brevity of the poem is a great advantage. 
 
 1 A descort is a poem in strophes of varjring rhythm and unequal number of lines 
 The Provenfal poets were fond of using this form to express an unsatisfied, discordant 
 mood. 
 
 2 What this much-meaning word exactly signifies here, I cannot say. 
 
 V 
 
32 2 FROM LEWES TO CRECV. 
 
 During the first half of the reign of Edward III., the 
 EngUsh poUtical lyric found a gifted representative in the 
 Northumbrian, Laurence Minot, Minot seems to have 
 been only a glee-man, though one about to become a min- 
 strel ; that is, to find permanent employment in the house- 
 hold of some nobleman. Political ballad-poetry perhaps 
 reached its highest point in the patriotic songs of Minot. 
 
 These songs were composed between 1333 and 1352, and 
 they celebrate King Edward's wars : the victory of Halidon 
 Hill, the expedition to Brabant, the first invasion of France, 
 the sea-fight at Sluys, the siege of Tournay, the battle of 
 Crecy, the siege of Calais, the victory won over David Bruce 
 by the archbishop of York at Neville's Cross, the defeat of 
 the Spanish fleet in 1350, and the capture of the Castle of 
 Guisnes in 1352. The poems were evidently written, for the 
 most part, under the immediate impression of the events. 
 When enthusiasm lasted long, the poet would perhaps, after 
 a time, add a second song to the one first written. The song 
 celebrating the day at Halidon Hill is followed by another 
 that reminds the Scots of their victory at Bannockburn (13 14, 
 reign of Edward H.), now so brilliimtly avenged by King 
 Edward HI. Sometimes a new poem was combined with an 
 earlier one; thus the song on the first invasion of France 
 was connected with the account of Edward's expedition to 
 Brabant by a few introductory verses. Minot afterward col- 
 located all the poems in their chronological sequence. The 
 copy we have seems to have been made in the days of Henry 
 v., when Azincourt revived the memory of Crecy. 
 
 Minot yields nothing to his predecessors among the glee- 
 men in glowing patriotism, in pride in England's greatness, 
 and in the heroism of her sons, or in love and reverence 
 for his king. He, too, gives these sentiments a very marked 
 religious colouring. And most inconsistently, he feels, 
 like his predecessors, only hatred and contempt for the na- 
 tion's enemies, an inconsistency that is but too common. 
 He heaps bitter scorn, often vented in coarse nicknames, 
 upon the French, their king, their leaders, and still more, 
 upon the Scots. But he stands out clearly from the more 
 ancient ballad-writers, in the subjective side of his poetry. 
 We see Laurence Minot personally anxious for the welfare 
 of England, personally praying for country and king; and 
 
LAURENCE MINOT. 323 
 
 the proud exultation over victories won that breaks forth in 
 his songs, sounds from Hps that speak in the name of the 
 whole nation, but none the less in the name of this definite 
 personality. 
 
 The style and metrical form of Minot's songs are also in- 
 dividual, however they may conform to tradition, and regard- 
 less of the fact that all the elements into which exact analysis 
 resolves them, were found already existing by the poet. His 
 originality consists in the blending of the technique of the 
 glee-men's song with that of the clerical lyric. 
 
 The art-tradition, from which his style evidently came, 
 appears to have arisen in the western counties of England, 
 It may have been transplanted by way of Lancashire into 
 Northumbria proper, east of the Peak mountains ; its traces 
 are there early evident in the religious lyric. 
 
 Minot everywhere combines end-rhyme with alliteration. 
 He does not always use the latter with the same vigour and 
 power, — not in short lines as in long ; but, on the whole, he 
 employs it consistently, though not holding to the strict Old 
 English rules. 
 
 This fundamental principle was brought to bear in a great 
 diversity of forms. Minot bequeathed to us eleven poems, 
 or more correctly ten ; for the two songs on Crecy and 
 Calais together make a single poem. Five of them are 
 written in a glee-man's stanza, which is sometimes varied. 
 The remaining five have each a special form as follows : a b 
 a b a b a b, in lines of four and of three accents ; ^ a b a b b 
 c b c, in verses of four accents ; a six-Hned strophe in ryme 
 couee; and finally the short couplet. A glance shows all 
 these to be well-known forms. 
 
 The metre exerts an unmistakable influence upon the tone 
 and style of each song. Yet all these poems have a vein in 
 common. Amplification of expression, a diction now popu- 
 lar, now possessing archaic elegance, always animated, 
 though neither graphic nor lucid, are its chief characteristics. 
 These are variously due to the alliteration; but there are 
 other causes. 
 
 Minot was fond of increasing the technical difiiculties of 
 his task. He was wont, in almost all his strophic poems, to 
 
 1 The verse has three accents in the poem on the siege of Tournay, Its last stro- 
 phes were extended so as to resemble the strophe of Sir Tristrem, 
 
324 FROM LEWES TO CRECY. 
 
 unite the end of a stanza more closely with the beginning 
 of a refrain, or of a following stanza, by the repetition of a 
 word or idea. This was unknown neither to the Provengal 
 art-poesy, nor to the lyric of western England. In this way 
 many starting-points for the development of the thought are 
 determined by chance; now the poet seems to retrograde, 
 and now to take a by-path. Nevertheless, he advances, and 
 when he reaches the end of the poem he has virtually said 
 what he wished to say. But he has not, after all, given a 
 vivid picture of the event that he sings. We obtain the parts 
 of such a picture singly, like fragments that the waves of 
 lyrical movement have borne to the shore. For with Minot 
 the lyrical element is decidedly uppermost; it is unfortunately 
 not powerful enough in itself to enchain our interest. 
 
 Thus the impression we receive is very positive, but by 
 no means unmixed ; the impression made by a gifted man, 
 who, half folk-poet and half art-poet, is neither entirely, and 
 hence must rank beneath many less important writers. 
 
 We here close the third book, although the material that 
 invites our consideration in the period just treated is by no 
 means exhausted. During the century that we have trav- 
 ersed, the more ancient forms of the English drama were 
 developing. In no province of writing, however, would it 
 be less advisable to sacrifice the advantages of a continuous 
 account for the sake of chronology, than in this. We there- 
 fore reserve the discussion on the beginnings of the drama 
 for an epoch when more copious material shall allow us more 
 fully to present its significance in the intellectual life of Old 
 England. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 PRELUDE TO THE REFORMATION AND 
 THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Per correr migliori acque alza le vele 
 Omai la navicella del mio ingegno. 
 
 Dante. 
 
I. 
 
 At the middle of the fourteenth century, the Anglo-Nor- 
 man speech had not yet died out in England, but it only 
 prolonged a partly artificial and partly starved vitality. 
 French was spoken and written at the court of him who 
 first bore the title of King of France and England, and in 
 many circles of the nobility ; in somewhat the same way as 
 it was written by Frederick the Great of Prussia. But it 
 was the brilliant victories of the third Edward over France — 
 victories, it is true, whose splendour had no correspondingly 
 permanent results — that imparted to the English national 
 feeling a lofty enthusiasm that may be compared to the 
 awakening of German self-consciousness under Frederick 
 the Great. A knowledge of the foreign language was with 
 difficulty preserved in the remoter circles of the population, 
 by the influence of legislation, and still more by the judiciary 
 and the school. In the two last-named departments, how- 
 ever, a change of practice soon became necessary. French 
 as the medium of instruction in the Latin schools was dis- 
 placed by English, under Edward III. ; and as early as the 
 ninth year of Richard II. 's reign (1386), the honest Trevisa 
 complains that the " children of grammar schools " knew 
 no more French than their left heel. In the judiciary the 
 language of the conquerors was forced to yield to English as 
 early as 1362, because it was " too little known." Parliament 
 was also, in the same year, opened for the first time in the Eng- 
 lish language. But the proceedings of this parliament were 
 still carried on in French, and this practice held its own, 
 with slight exceptions, until the reign of Henry VI. The 
 statutes continued to be published in the same language 
 down to a later period. 
 
 It is certain that in the second half of the fourteenth cent- 
 ury England was no longer a truly bi-lingual country. The 
 
 327 
 
328 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Anglo-Norman, at that time, was as a yellowed leaf on a 
 luxuriantly budding bough. 
 
 The English tongue had not yet begun to conquer its cos- 
 mopolitan position; but it was approaching the form in 
 which it was to become a universal language. In most of 
 the dialects, and not one of them had yet risen to sole pre- 
 eminence, inflection was already much reduced, in some of 
 them, to the minimum ; nearly all had that loose and simple 
 structure which gradually transferred the grammatical centre 
 of gravity into the domain of word arrangement. All, with- 
 out exception, disclosed the wealth of meaning and delicate 
 shadings characteristic of a mixed vocabulary. 
 
 English literature, despite its modest beginning, had also 
 made the most far-reaching conquests in the epochs passed, 
 and had based its future greatness upon rude but solid foun- 
 dations. The Englishman would fain draw from an ample 
 store. The noise of life, the fulness of reality, do not con- 
 fuse him, but excite his mental elasticity. He likes to find 
 his way in a labyrinth, to dispose himself at will in lavish 
 surroundings. His art thrives only on the broadest realistic 
 basis; his worldly wisdom is the sum of a prolonged series 
 of single observations; his law rests on precedent; his poli- 
 tics is all tradition. 
 
 This realism, tending to the accumulation of things and 
 facts, and rejoicing in the diversity of life, was clearly mani- 
 fested in the literature of the previous period. English po- 
 etry had acquired a wealth of materials for fiction. It 
 showed, as yet, few traces of intellectual mastery, or artistic 
 moulding of them. The Enghsh taste itself still lacked de- 
 velopment in form. Hence its power of assimilation could 
 reveal itself in but a limited degree. It was manifested in 
 the first place in the choice of matter; one theme was pre- 
 ferred, or another set aside, according to the writer's craving 
 for strong and lasting excitement. It was further manifested 
 in the skill with which concrete detail was adjusted to the 
 costume of native conceptions, or in the boldness with which 
 the popular poet drew the substance from the artistic form 
 that enveloped it, and clothed it in new and ruder garb. It 
 was manifested in the humour that now and then broke forth, 
 in the intimate relationship with the life of nature that we 
 have observed, in the moral earnestness pervading the poems 
 
REVIVAL OF ALLITERATIVE POETRY. 329 
 
 of didactic writers and satirists, in a certain melancholy in- 
 herited by the Englishman from his fathers; finally, in 
 graphic directness and simplicity of expression. All in all, 
 the old Teutonic spirit was still discernible. But this spirit 
 had been severely chastened in the school of life, and if the 
 English nation went forth steeled from the struggle with the 
 forces of history and nature, if it began to conquer wealth, 
 power, freedom, it nevertheless still bore, in consequence of 
 that struggle, traces of mental rudeness which the improve- 
 ments in the outward things of life made all the more con- 
 spicuous. The English mind had evidently forgotten and 
 lost much, and it had not adequately assimilated the new 
 matter which it had been obliged to take up. In a word, it 
 was the mind of a people, separated from its own past by a 
 long period of foreign domination. 
 
 It is strange that the new impetus of poetry accompanying 
 the growth of national consciousness under the third Ed- 
 ward should at first move in a direction leading back to that 
 past, and should seem to ignore all the development of the 
 preceding period. We mean the revival of alliterative poet- 
 ry. The phenomenon may be explained when we search- 
 ingly examine its scope and antecedents. 
 
 In the reigns of the third Henry and the first two Ed- 
 wards, rhyme had won universal and undisputed sway in 
 English poetry, and with it the new forms of verse and 
 strophe. Yet it had not been able entirely to crowd out the 
 Old English measure. Not only does alHteration, clinging 
 to certain formulas and phrases, occur in numberless poems ; 
 not only do many poets use it consciously, and some with 
 the most consistent regularity, but there is also no lack o 
 strophic forms, whose elements, loosed from their connection 
 and relieved of the end-rhyme, would appear as the legiti- 
 mate offspring of the Old English long line. We have no- 
 ticed such forms chiefly in the lyrics of the western counties ; 
 we then saw how they spread thence to Northumbria, and 
 were employed by Laurence Minot. It would not, then, 
 perhaps, be too bold to assume that purely alliterative, rhyme- 
 less poetry had never entirely disappeared during this period. 
 No such verse, from that time, has as yet come to light, and 
 may never do so; yet it remains possible, nay, probable, 
 that, in some of the more isolated monasteries of the Welsh 
 
330 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Marches, lives of saints were occasionally composed, under 
 the Edwards, in the style of the Marherete and yuUana^ 
 which date from the beginning of the thirteenth century. 
 
 If this was the case, the moment must have come when a 
 secular poet of that region became conscious of the advan- 
 tages of the alliterative long line, as an epic form, over the 
 prevailing metres of the romance-poetry, the short couplet or 
 the ryme couee, and saw how much better it was adapted to 
 epic breadth and fulness than the latter, how much more 
 easily than the former it could lend dignity and brilliance to 
 diction. The old long line must also have commended itself 
 to this poet of the west by the ease with which it could be 
 handled. Formulas of alliteration v/ere plentiful in the 
 poetry of his home, in the folk-song as well as in the erotic 
 lyrics of the clerks; nor did this poetry lack models for 
 rhythmical structure. In the imitation of these hypothetical 
 saint-lives, it was only necessary to set aside the rhyme and 
 to carry out the alliteration with somewhat greater strict- 
 ness. 
 
 The current forms of romance-poetry had proved incapa- 
 ble of bringing forth in England an art-style in the higher 
 sense. The ceaseless wavering between different principles 
 of accentuation, and, still more, the want of a fixed, univers- 
 ally recognised norm for the relation between rhythm and 
 number, had prevented that feeling of stability so essential 
 to the formation of the epic style. It is not strange, then, 
 that a newer form was tried, which, though old, was one 
 whose national character was yet felt. It is no wonder that 
 this attempt was made at a time when the native life, as a 
 whole, was beginning powerfully to react against the foreign. 
 
 This reaction, it is true, was limited by set bounds. What 
 was really dead could not be revived ; what had gone into 
 the blood and marrow of the nation could not be removed. 
 It was possible, however, to bring to light forces, hidden but 
 living, to prolong by assiduous care the life of such as were 
 fast ebbing, and to turn the uncertain into a fixed course. 
 
 The sequel will show how this was brought about in 
 poetry. 
 
 After the middle of the fourteenth century there arose a 
 series of romances, beginning in the territory of the Welsh 
 Marches, that borrowed the verse of the Old English epos, 
 
NEW ALLITERATIVE POETRY. 33 t 
 
 and a certain reflection of its stately splendour. This new 
 alliterative poetry shows the ancient fondness for the fre- 
 quent, nay, extravagant, use of synonymous expressions and 
 the employment of standing epic epithets and formulas, while 
 the diction often surprises by its sensuous freshness and ful- 
 ness. The language itself is archaic; many ancient words 
 reappear that had left the other dialects and the poetry of 
 the newer forms generally. What a wealth of Teutonic vo- 
 cables this language reveals, when certain conceptions are to 
 be expressed, as those of man or hero ! The antique tone 
 of many verses vividly reminds us of the time when the Eng- 
 lish language had taken up no Romanic element, as when 
 we read in the description of a battle : 
 
 Schon schene uppon schaft schalkene blode.l 
 Shone sheeny the warriors' blood on the shaft. 
 
 The illusion, however, is brief For the language of this 
 western alliterative poetry contains, as a whole, many Ro- 
 manic words, though they are made to conform almost ex- 
 actly to the Germanic principle of accentuation, while in the 
 current verse-forms of that time, and a couple of centuries 
 later, the accent of such words was unstable. As regards 
 the inflections, or end-syllables, the western dialect had not 
 escaped the inroads of time, and the synthetic poverty of the 
 language is not always compatible with the frequent archa- 
 isms in the arrangement of words. 
 
 If the language itself thus betokens the union of elements 
 not quite harmonious, the contrast between form and contents 
 is still more marked. For the ideal world into which we are 
 transported by this noble alliterative poetry is by no means 
 an Old Teutonic or Old English one. Manners and senti- 
 ments, costume and mounting, essentially belong to culti- 
 vated, mediaeval society, powerfully influenced by France. 
 The same is true of the subject-matter. It is the atmosphere 
 of the later Middle Ages that we breathe in these romances; 
 many of them are patterned directly from French models. 
 
 Verse and diction, however, stamp the imitations with 
 originality. The national vesture of the foreign material 
 does not suggest that the material is borrowed. Even the 
 poet cannot escape the influence of form; the altered style 
 
 I Joseph 0/ Afimathie, v. 510. 
 
332 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 brings with it a new spirit. Something old-fashioned and 
 serious, a touch of austerity or of piety, pervade the poems, 
 and sometimes this tone does not fully accord with the 
 themes adopted. This is not all : the peculiar form of pre- 
 sentation also brings with it a certain independence in the 
 adaptation of the original. It appears mostly in details; 
 but the charm of a poem depends very largely upon details. 
 
 The archaic cast of the form, combined with the thor- 
 oughly modern subject-matter (that is, modern in the four- 
 teenth century), at first has an odd and startling effect. But 
 this impression is soon overcome; one grows accustomed 
 to the novel style, and yields voluntarily to its mysterious 
 spell, a spell that is, nevertheless, broken in protracted works, 
 or in mediocre poets, by monotony. 
 
 Two poems, of which fragments alone have reached us, 
 are the most ancient monuments of this new alliterative po- 
 etry. 
 
 These are : the fragment of a romance on the Holy Graal, 
 or 'yoseph of Arimathie^ and two remnants of an Alexa7ider 
 romance. 
 
 The former poem is founded upon a diffuse work in French 
 prose, which is well condensed by the English poet, in his 
 pithy, if not faultless verse. The solemn and somewhat 
 oracular diction admirably suits this material, with its vague- 
 ness and its touch of mysticism. But the real power of the 
 poet appears chiefly in the representation of war and battle. 
 
 King Evalac of Sarras has gathered an army, and is ad- 
 vancing against King Tholomer of Bab)'lon, who has made 
 an incursion into his territory, and has already won several 
 successes. Urged by Evalac's wife, her brother Seraph 
 joins him with five hundred men. Then comes the attack 
 on the enemy : 
 
 Now they hie to the plain where the others halt ; 
 Hei arrays his rich men, and better he rights them, 
 That they rue no attack, ill-wrought through his counsel. 
 Then says to them Seraph: " Hold still and be steadfast, 
 And bethink ye, good men, of the grief to your children, 
 What thereof will befall, if we be confounded. 
 On our own land, doughty, it were better to die, 
 Than with shame to shun battle and shrink us aback." 
 They gained on them then to the length of a glaive, 
 
 ' That is, Seraph. 
 
ROMANCE Oi- iHE HOLY GRAAL. ^$^ 
 
 And when Seraph them saw, the foe might soon see 
 
 His pole-axe fall proudly, with prowess downthrust. 
 
 Where the press was thickest, he proved his weapon; 
 
 He brake apart brains and bruised the men. 
 
 Bore death in his hand and dealt it about him. 
 
 He had on high a great-helved hatchet ; 
 
 With grasp hard he held it in his two hands ; 
 
 He struck and crushed them, and proved his strength, 
 
 That few might fare from him and go to flight. 
 
 There were steeds to destroy and struggles to strive in, 
 
 Men mightful to meet, and shields through to mall. 
 
 They burst hard hauberks and breasts they thrilled; 
 
 Shone the sheen of the warriors' blood on the shaft. 
 
 They that halted on horse, they hewed down helmets ; 
 
 They that held them on foot, they hacked through shoulders. 
 
 Lay many swooning for slashing of svt'ords. 
 
 And, doomed, in a short while died the death. 
 
 There were heads unhoused and helms uplifted ; 
 
 Hard shields were cloven and shattered in quarters. 
 
 They slew man and horse, at a stroke down hurled, l 
 
 It cannot be said that the single moments forming this 
 account combine in the mind so as to give a clear picture 
 of the whole. The general impression is nevertheless height- 
 ened and carried to the climax by the many forcibly drawn 
 single scenes, that are oftentimes repeated. Happily, it is 
 the tumult and whirl of battle that is here to be treated ; and 
 the sensation of stormy, eddying commotion to be called up 
 by the picture is excited by the very manner of presentation. 
 Yet we feel how inadequate these devices of style must prove 
 to other tasks. Our poet has the tact not to attempt poi 
 trait or landscape painting, or perhaps it was merely good 
 luck that denied him the opportunity. Detailed descriptions 
 of this kind are entirely wanting in the fragment. 
 
 It contains, it is true, only seven hundred and nine verses; 
 the beginning, probably numbering upward of a hundred 
 verses, is lost. 
 
 The first of the two fragments of the Alexander romance 
 tells the things that happened before the hero's birth, and 
 the history of his boyhood, and breaks off in the midst of the 
 siege of Byzantium by PhiHp, It is based upon various 
 originals, some of them historical and some clearly romantic. 
 The first class is represented by the compilation of Radulph 
 of St. Albans (died 1151) and by the Universal History of 
 Orosius; the second, by the Historia Alexandri de proeliis of 
 
 1 yoseph o/Arimathie, ed. Skeat. v. 489, et seq. 
 
334 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 the Arch-Presbyter Leo. The style agrees with this deriva- 
 tion of the material, sometimes merely summarising in the 
 manner of a chronicle, sometimes falling into the prolixity 
 of the romance. The most brilliant passages of the frag- 
 ment are in the episode of Nectanabus and Olympias. The 
 poet portrays from head to foot the beauty of the Macedon- 
 ian queen, but with no better success than has been won by 
 a thousand other poets who have foolishly attempted to rival 
 painting. Very graphic, on the other hand, is the descrip- 
 tion of the death of Nectanabus at the hand of Alexander. 
 The second fragment, which language, style, and verse refer 
 to the same pen, treats of Alexander's expedition into the 
 land of the Oxydraches, which is followed by his correspond- 
 ence with Dindimus, king of the Brachmanes, of whose 
 identity with the Oxydraches the author does not seem to 
 have been aware. The diction of these fragments is forcible 
 and expressive ; the poet constructs his verse with a stricter 
 observance of the ancient rules of alliteration than most of 
 those who essayed the same form at that time. What we 
 have of his work causes us to regret the loss of so much of 
 it. 
 
 The example given by the author of the Alexa?ider was 
 not without result. Another poet, named WiUiam, was 
 plainly influenced by him, at least as regards m.etre and style. 
 In 1355 he translated the French romance of Guillaume de 
 Palerne into English verse, at the commission of the Earl 
 of Hereford, Humphrey de Bohun. The original was a 
 roman d'aveniures in short couplets, written towards the end 
 of the twelfth century for the Countess Yolande,^ daughter 
 of Baldwin IV. of Flanders, and it purported to be a trans- 
 lation from the Latin. The fable may have originated among 
 the Normans in Sicily, or southern Italy, and it contained 
 many a topic tempting to the taste of the Middle Ages. A 
 Spanish prince who is transformed into a were-wolf by the 
 sorcery of his wicked stepmother ; a Sicilian prince (William, 
 the hero of the story), whose Hfe is sought by his uncle, and 
 whom the good were-wolf carries away from his unsuspect- 
 ing parents, and brings to the vicinity of Rome; a Roman 
 emperor, who discovers the youth that has been found and 
 brought up by a cowherd, brings him to his court, and assigns 
 
 1 At first Countess of Solssons, after 1177, of St Paul. 
 
William of pälerM. 335 
 
 him to his daughter Melior as a page ; a tender love-intrigue 
 between William and Melior, that in many details recalls the 
 sentimentality of Greek romances ; add to this knightly 
 combats, pursuit, and the " hair-breadth scapes " of the lov- 
 ers fleeing from Rome, first enveloped in bear-skins and then 
 in deer-skins, and finally the happy meeting of all concerned 
 at Palermo, disenchantment, recognition, reconciHation, and 
 various weddings ; — all this, with some lapses into monotony, 
 but in the main, attractively and skilfully, had been told by 
 the French poet. 
 
 William, the English imitator, impresses one as a modest, 
 naively good humoured, and by no means untalented person- 
 age. While he in general closely conforms to the original, 
 he takes liberties with details, and hesitates neither to abridge 
 nor to add much new matter. Although he obliterates a few 
 of the beauties of his model, all in all, he excels the French 
 poet. Happy in the delineation of combat and of love, his 
 main strength lies in the painting of tender or unaffectedly 
 touching scenes, and many a trait thus added bears witness 
 to a refined sense and keen observation. He shows great 
 skill in managing the alliterative verse, which the precedent 
 of the Alexander poet probably led him to adopt ; and his 
 apology to the reader for the choice of this metre is quite 
 unnecessary; he tells us that he lacked confidence to write 
 in short couplets : 
 
 In this manner William has finished his work, just as it was required 
 by the French, and as far as his wit reached, that was indeed weak. 
 But if everybody is not pleased with the metre, let not the poet have 
 reproach ; he would willingly have done better if his wit had in any 
 way been sufficient.' 
 
 We are especially attracted in William of Palerne by the 
 author's mind, which is reflected in the whole work, and is 
 plainly shown in single passages. Rather naive in his judg- 
 ment of the relations between William and Melior, that, 
 from a strictly moral standing-point are somewhat ques- 
 tionable, the poet is, at the same time, a man of piety and 
 goodness of heart, capable of appreciating the nobler impulses 
 of human nature, and fond of presenting them ; an admirer 
 of virtue and strength in all relations of life, and an advocate 
 of the poor and the weak. 
 
 I Willian of Palerine, v. 5521, et. seq. 
 
336 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 II. 
 
 At first, the verse combining alliteration and rhyme seemu to 
 have been more fully developed and adapted to a wider range 
 of subjects in the northwestern counties, and chiefly in Lan- 
 cashire. It occurs earliest in romances having to do with 
 Gawayne; this was a favourite theme of poetry at the north, 
 as was the Arthurian saga in general. Cumberland, West- 
 moreland, the districts between the Tyne and Tweed, and all 
 the south of the Scotland of to-day, are rich in names of 
 places that point to a localising and a more or less inde- 
 pendent growth of the Arthurian traditions in that region. 
 This phenomenon is easily accounted for by the long dura- 
 tion of British rule in Strath-Clyde, and the intercourse kept 
 up by these Britons with their own race, on the one side, in 
 Wales, and with the Gaels of Caledonia, on the other. 
 
 The short and attractive poem. The Anturs of Aj'ther at 
 the Tarnewathelan (the Adventures of Arthur at Tarn Wad- 
 ling) is a clear case of the separate growth of known saga- 
 material. There is reason to believe that it was written in 
 Lancashire, perhaps about, or some time before the middle 
 of the fourteenth century.^ A most simple plot, giving oppor- 
 tunity for strong typical scenes, is worked out in somewhat 
 obscure, but picturesque language. The ethical purpose of 
 the author lies in the exhortation to moderation and discre- 
 tion ; but one suspects a more directly practical purpose, and 
 is tempted to ask whom the poet meant to represent by 
 Gawayne, the central subject of the whole. Barring some 
 amplihcation, the style recalls that of the ballad. The met- 
 rical form is a strophe in which nine alliterative, but rhymed 
 long lines are followed by four short lines, the rhyme-sequence 
 being ababababcdddc. Like Laurence Minot, the 
 author is fond of connecting the close of one strophe with the 
 beginning of the next by words of identical or similar sound. 
 
 Another writer, also nameless, appears in the sixties or 
 seventies of the century, not very long after the poet of 
 Arthur's adventures. This writer has stamped himself upon 
 several works, so that we are able to portray him with some 
 exactness. This is worth while because his was a personality 
 of moment. 
 
 1 But in no case long before 1350, and still less before 1300, as has been claimed. 
 
POET OF THE SIR GAWAYNE. 337 
 
 It is hard to determine his rank in life. After being edu- 
 cated at the cloister-school, he probably entered the house 
 of some nobleman, where he was occupied as scribe or reader, 
 or perhaps as director of the minstrels. Although versed in 
 Latin and French, and tolerably well-read both in the Bible 
 and profane literature, he was also at home in the mysteries 
 of the hunt and in other knightly exercises. He knew well 
 how a knight w^as armed, and what occurred in courtly circles 
 at festivals, at the reception of strangers, et cetera; for he had 
 often seen them. He evidently took pleasure in this merry, 
 brilliant life. 
 
 But he was especially attracted by nature. His musing 
 disposition found charm in watching her in the different 
 phases of the year, and he seems acquainted by personal 
 observation v/ith a great part of western England, traversed 
 perhaps in company with his lord, or at his behest. Nor 
 did he know the ocean from a merely fleeting view ; he de- 
 scribes it in storm and calm as finely as he does the thickly- 
 leaved forest or the rugged mountain landscape. 
 
 As an epic poet, for such he was, he chose his materials 
 and shaped them with the strictest regard to the moral ideas 
 he wished to present. These ideas did not merely attract 
 him unconsciously to the materials, and determine the man- 
 ner of forming them; they were the real incentives that 
 moved him to wTite. If he did not become a didactic poet 
 or allegorist, like a hundred of his contemporaries, it is because 
 his intuition saw a deep symbolism in life and nature. 
 
 Only one secular poem from his, pen is preserved. Sir 
 Gawayjie and the Green Knight. He largely borrowed his 
 subject-matter from the Perceval (or Conte del Graal) of 
 Crestien de Troyes, but in such a way that what is merely 
 episodical in the source becomes the centre of his work, is 
 put into new relations, and entirely remoulded. Few medi- 
 aeval romance-poets can so justly lay claim to originality as 
 he.i 
 
 The plot is extremely simple. King Arthur, surrounded 
 by the knights of the Round Table, solemnises the Yule 
 festival at Camelot, in Somersetshire. The festal jubilee lasts 
 fifteen days. New Year's day is kept in chapel and hall, 
 
 1 This is not incompatible with the fact that his poem has many points in common 
 with other Arthurian romances. 
 
 W 
 
53^ PRELUDE to REFOkMATtON AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 gifts are asked and bestowed, merry jests enliven the talk of 
 gain and loss. The guests seat themselves at the table, 
 each in his place. Upon the dais sit the king and Guenever, 
 most beautiful of women, in splendid attire; at one side 
 is Gawayne, at the other Agravayn ( Agrauay?i a la dure 
 mayn); Bishop Bawdewyn has the place of honour, and be- 
 side him sits Ywayn. The king is not yet disposed to eat. 
 Hot of blood and eager for action as he is, he is wont, on 
 such a day, to decline food until he either hears an adventure 
 related, or experiences one. This time he need not wait 
 long. Hardly has the first course been served amid the 
 sound of trumpets, when a knight, in green garments and of 
 gigantic figure, with flowing hair and long, bushy beard, rides, 
 mounted on a green horse, into the hall. He wears neither 
 helmet nor coat-of-mail, he carries neither spear nor shield. 
 In one hand he holds a holly-bough, in the other a huge 
 axe with a sharp edge. The poet dwells rather long on the 
 description of this knight, his figure and his dress. But if 
 he here falls into a common error of romantic poets, he proves 
 in the sequel that he understands the kind of word-paint- 
 ing alone suitable to poetry, that which presents objects 
 in progressive movement. Without salutation the knight 
 rides to the high dais, and inquires for the governor of the 
 company. Great astonishment seizes all present; all sit 
 silent and motionless, either from fear or from courtesy. 
 The king speaks, and bids the strange knight welcome. 
 But he has not come to taiTy, even if his purpose is peace- 
 ful. He seeks the most valiant hero to test his stanchness 
 by a jest. Who has the courage may give him a stroke 
 with his battle-axe, he will peacefully endure it, and in 
 twelve months and a day, he will take his turn. The hall, 
 at these words, becomes yet stiller than before. The knight 
 rises on his horse in his saddle, fiercely rolls his red eyes, 
 wrinkles his bristly brows, and waves his beard in expectation 
 of him who shall arise. No one responds. Thereupon the 
 hero speaks : " What ! Is this Arthur's house of which the 
 boast runs tlirough so many kingdoms ? Where are now 
 your pride of victory, your fierceness, your anger, and your 
 boasting words? Now is the revel and the renown of the 
 Round Table overcome by one man's speech; for all trem- 
 ble with dread before the fight has begun." And he laughs 
 
SIR GAWAYNE AND THE GREEN KNIGHt. 339 
 
 SO loud that the blood rushes to the king's face ; he leaps 
 up angrily and advances toward the knight : " Thine asking 
 is foolish, and as thou seekest foolishness, thou shalt find it. 
 I know no man that fears thy great words. In God's name 
 give me thine axe, and I will fulfil thy wish." He seizes 
 the axe, and the Green Knight alights from his horse, and 
 calmly prepares to receive»the blow. 
 
 Then Gawayne bends low before the king, and respect- 
 fully begs permission to leave the table and accept the 
 knight's challenge: " For methinks it not seemly for thee to 
 take it upon thyself, while many so bold sit about thee upon 
 the bench. I am the weakest of all, and of wit the feeblest ; 
 in my life the least would be lost. I am noble only as thy 
 nephew, because thy blood flows in my veins. And because 
 this work is too strange for thee, and I have first begged 
 thee for it, so trust it to me." Arthur grants his prayer, and 
 commands him to rise from the bench. Kneeling, the hero 
 receives the weapon from the king's hand, with best wishes 
 for success, and advances upon the Green Knight. The 
 latter first demands the name of his opponent. Gawayne 
 tells his name and promises that in a year and a day he will 
 seek the Green Knight to receive the answering blow, 
 wherever in the world he may be. Then the strange knight 
 bares his neck ; Gawayne lifts the axe and cuts off his head 
 with a sturdy stroke. The head rolls through the hall; 
 many spurn it with the foot, and the blood leaps up in thick 
 streams from the trunk. But the Green Knight does not 
 falter; he seizes his head with his hand, and seats himself 
 in the saddle again. Then the head Hfts its eyelids, opens 
 its mouth, and speaks : " Look to it, Gawayne, that, accord- 
 ing to thy promise, thou equip thyself and loyally seek me 
 until thou hast found me. Take thou the way to the Green 
 Chapel. I charge thee to fetch such a stroke as thou gavest. 
 Thou dost deserve a prompt requital on New Year's morn. 
 I am known to many as the Knight of the Green Chapel ; 
 if thou seekest me thou wilt never fail. Therefore come, or 
 be called recreant." With a violent jerk he turns the reins 
 and, his head in his hand, chases out of the hall-door, so 
 that the fire springs on the flint under the hoofs of his horse. 
 Arthur and Gawayne look laughingly after him ; the king 
 soothes the queen and causes the axe to be hung over the 
 
3+0 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 table as a memento. The king now has an appetite; they 
 seat themselves at table, Gawayne is served a double portion 
 of all dainties, and riot and revel, with the play of minstrels, 
 prevail until the day ends. This closes the first part of the 
 poem. 
 
 The opening of the second canto may be rendered thus : 
 
 This adventure amazing made Arthur's first marvel, 
 When in youth he eagerly yearned to hear. 
 If their words were wanting when they went to feast, 
 Now their hearts they full hold of hard hero-work. 
 Gawayne gladly began that game in the hall. 
 End it heavy and earnest, no wonder it is. 
 For though men at the meal make merry and drink, 
 A year quickly runs, never rests nor returns, 
 With the close the beginning keeps seldom accord. 
 Thus this Yule-tide passed over, and after, the year. 
 In its several seasons swiftly swept by. 
 After Christmas-joy cometh the Lenten-time crabbed. 
 When flesh yields to fish and more simple food. 
 But the weather of the world with winter doth struggle ; 
 The cold is less keen, and clouds uplift. 
 Spring rain down-sheddeth in warm, sweet showers. 
 On the fair valley falls ; and flowers there show. 
 And the garment is green of the grounds and the groves. 
 Birds make ready to build and burning songs trill. 
 For soft summer's solace that speedeth now soon 
 In delight ; 
 
 And blossoms swell to blow, 
 
 In flushing rows and bright; 
 
 And noble notes eno\'C, 
 
 Ring from the wooded height. 
 After the season of summer with soft-blowing winds, 
 WTien zephyr sighs sweetly on seeds and herbs. 
 Most winsome is the wort that then groweth wild. 
 When the damp drops drip from the dewy leaves, 
 A blissful blush to bide of the bright-beaming sun. 
 But then the harvest hastens to hurry it on. 
 Warns it before the winter to wax aripe. 
 With drought he drives the dust to drift about. 
 Before the face of the fold to fly full high. 
 The wroth wind of the welkin wrestles with the sun , 
 The leaves launch from the limbs and lie alow. 
 And fadeth gray the grass that erst was green ; 
 Rotteth and ripeneth all that once uprose so fresh. 
 Thus the young year grows old in many yesterdays. 
 And winter windeth round again, and Time no leave 
 Will ask. 
 Until the Michaelmas moon 
 Sure winter doth unmask. 
 Then thinks Gawayne full soon 
 Of his journey's anxious task. 
 
SIR GAWAYNE AND THE GREEN KNIGHT. 34 1 
 
 He nevertheless celebrates All-Hallow's day at the court 
 of Arthur, who prepares a great banquet in his honour. 
 All try to be cheerful, though they are filled with anxiety 
 for the hero. After the meal Gawayne begs his uncle for 
 leave of absence ; he wishes to begin his journey the next 
 morning. The morning dawns. Gawayne dresses himself, 
 and is armed with much ceremony. He hears mass in his 
 gold-gleaming armour, and then takes leave of Arthur and 
 his court. His steed, Gringolet, whose harness also gleams 
 like the sun, is led up. The hero puts on the richly-decked 
 helmet, and receives the shield that bears a golden " pent- 
 angle " on a red field, and on the other half, an image of the 
 Holy Virgin. The poet exhaustively discusses the meaning 
 of these symbols; the hero has been faultless in his five 
 senses, his five fingers have never failed him, he puts his 
 trust in the five wounds of Christ, he draws his strength from 
 the five joys of the Virgin mother, he practices five virtues 
 unceasingly : frankness, fidelity, purity, courtesy, and pity. 
 Gawayne seizes his lance, says a last farewell, he thinks for- 
 ever, and sets spurs to his horse. Those left behind with 
 tears lament the hero dashing hence. 
 
 Gawayne rides toward the north, through desolate stretches, 
 with no other companion than his horse. He reaches North 
 Wales and follows the coast; at Holyhead he passes over 
 the fords until he comes to the wilderness of Wirral. He 
 everywhere inquires for the Green Knight, but can gain no 
 tidings of him. His journey is full of difficulty and danger, 
 of privation and anxiety. He is opposed by rocks and 
 rivers ; serpents, wolves, bulls, bears, and wild boars attack 
 him, also satyrs and giants. Worse than everything else is 
 the cold winter, with ice and snow and sleet, that often 
 almost slay him when he has lain down in his armour to 
 sleep at the foot of naked rocks. On Cliristmas eve he 
 finds himself in a dense, savage mountain forest. He be- 
 seeches Christ and the Virgin to grant him means of hear- 
 ing mass and matins on Christmas morn. He has hardly 
 crossed himself thrice in prayer, before he sees upon a height 
 a beautiful, well-fortified castle, surrounded by a large park. 
 Gawayne rides toward the chief gate, but a double moat 
 winds around the wall, and the drawbridge is up. Upon 
 the call of the knight, a porter appears on the wall, who 
 
342 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 gives friendly answer to his request for entrance, disappears, 
 and soon returns with other servants. The drawbridge falls, 
 the gate is opened wide, and Gawayne rides into the castle, 
 where he is received with great honours. His horse is led 
 into the stable, knights and squires hasten to accompany the 
 guest into the hall, and to relieve him of his weapons. 
 Then the lord of the castle appears, a huge and strong hero, 
 of high old age, with broad beard. He cordially welcomes 
 Gawayne, and leads him into a chamber, where he assigns 
 him a page as servant. After Gawayne has laid off his ar- 
 mour, and put on a gorgeous robe that has been brought 
 him, he returns to the hall, where a chair has been placed 
 for him near the chimney, and a richly embroidered mantle 
 is thrown over him. Now a table is made ready, and the 
 hero is most bountifully feasted. He makes himself known 
 to his host over the wine, and there is great rejoicing in the 
 hall that Gawayne, " the father of nurture," is there. After 
 the dinner, they betake themselves to the chapel for evening 
 worship, which is also attended by the lady of the castle. 
 When service is over, the lady leaves her seat and, led by an 
 ancient dame, approaches the knightly guest. She herself 
 is young, and radiant with luxuriant beauty. By permission 
 of the lord, Gawayne goes to meet them, salutes the old 
 dame with a low bow, and kisses the young woman. The 
 evening is passed in cheerful conversation over the wine until 
 all retire. 
 
 The Christmas festival is celebrated with much joy at the 
 castle, in which are many guests. At table Gawayne sits 
 beside his beautiful hostess, and they entertain each other 
 most agreeably. The revels last for three days. On the 
 evening of St. John's day, many guests who wish to depart 
 early the next morning take leave. Gawayne also bids his 
 host farewell ; but the lord of the castle seeks to detain him 
 longer. Informed of the aim of the knight's journey, he 
 promises to take care that he shall reach it in time; the 
 Green Chapel being only two miles distant from the castle, 
 Gawayne will be there early enough if he departs on New 
 Year's morn. Relieved of this care, Gawayne gladly yields 
 to the friendly urging of his host. The lords enjoy them- 
 selves in merry conversation with the ladies until deep into 
 the night. The lord of the castle proposes to his guest that 
 
SIR GAWAYNE AND THE GREEN KNIGHT. 343 
 
 Gawayne shall keep his hostess company while he himself 
 rides, on the morrow, to the hunt. Upon his return each 
 shall present to the other what the day has brought him. 
 Gawayne cheerfully enters into the jest, and they laughingly 
 seal the bargain with a draught. At last all part and go to 
 rest. 
 
 The third canto describes the carrying out of this com- 
 pact, which is twice renewed. It thus presents the history 
 of three days. Each day the knight early rides to the hunt, 
 which the poet picturesquely describes with true national de- 
 light, and in minutest detail. The game sought on the first 
 day of the hunt is deer and hinds ; on the second day, wild 
 boars ; and the third day concerns a fox-hunt. Each time the 
 poet interrupts the description of the hunt by the account of 
 Gawayne's experiences. Our hero is every morning sur- 
 prised in bed by a visit from his beautiful hostess. The lady 
 has clearly conceived a deep attachment for the knight, and 
 brings him into a position highly dangerous to his virtue. 
 Gawayne, however, remains steadfast against the repeated 
 temptation. He rejects the lady's advances respectfully and 
 courteously, but with decision. He is glad to take her 
 kisses, however, and faithfully gives them back to the return- 
 ing lord of the castle, in exchange for the abundant booty 
 of the hunt. But our knight is not in all respects true to his 
 word. At his last meeting with her, after he has declined a 
 gold ring, he accepts a green girdle from the lady, because 
 she says that this girdle will preserve the wearer from death 
 and wounds ; and at her request, he promises to keep this 
 gift secret from all the world. Thus the hero, who has vic- 
 toriously withstood sensual temptation, ignominiousiy suc- 
 cumbs to the fear of death. 
 
 The fourth and last canto brings the hero to the goal of 
 his journey. New Year's morning draws on with snow and 
 storm. Gawayne lies sleepless, with closed eyes, in bed, and 
 hears every crowing of the cock. He springs from bed be- 
 fore dayhght, dresses himself, and buckles on his armour by 
 the light of a lamp, not forgetting to gird himself with the 
 lady's gift. Then he steps into the castle-court, and thanks 
 the servants for their good offices. Gringolet is led forth, 
 and his master recognises, in his appearance, the care he 
 has received. With words of gratitude and blessing for thtj 
 
344 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 inmates of the castle, Gawayne mounts his horse, takes his 
 shield, and rides forth. He is accompanied by a servant to 
 carry his lance, and to point out the way. They go through 
 a rocky, cold, foggy, winter landscape. Having reached a 
 high, snow-clad hill, they halt at the attendant's request. 
 They are no longer far from the goal, and now, at the last 
 hour, the servant seeks to dissuade Gawayne from his pur- 
 pose. He describes the tremendous height and strength of 
 the Green Knight, who has no mercy, but kills every one 
 that passes the Green Chapel, be he churl, monk, or priest. 
 " Therefore, noble Sir Gawayne, let this man alone, and go, 
 for God's sake, some other way. I will hie me home, and I 
 shall swear by God and all his saints to keep the secret. 
 Never will I say that tliou didst flee before any man." 
 " Many thanks," says Gawayne, and adds with displeasure : 
 " Hail to the man who wishes my good ! I believe well 
 thou wouldst faithfully keep my secret. But should I fly 
 because of fear, as thou teilest me, I should be a coward 
 knight; I should not be excused. But I will go to the 
 chapel for chance that may fall, and speak with that knight, 
 come weal or woe, as fate may have it. Though he is a 
 stern man, God is well able to save his servants." " Mary ! " 
 says the other, "if thou wilt lose thy life, I will not let nor 
 keep thee. Have here thy helmet on thy head, thy spear in 
 thy hand, and ride me down this path by yon rocky side, 
 until thou be brought to the bottom of the rugged valley. 
 Look then to the clearing at thy left, and thou shalt see the 
 chapel and the burly hero that guards it. Now fare thee 
 well in God's name, Gawayne the noble; for all the gold in 
 the world, I would not go with thee." With these words 
 the man turns his horse, puts spur to him, and gallops away. 
 Gawayne is alone. " By God's self," he says, " I will neither 
 weep nor groan ; I am full ready for God's will, and have 
 committed myself to him." He pursues his way, and soon 
 reaches the valley. He in vain looks around for the chapel ; 
 only high walls of rock and gnarled trunks confront him. At 
 last he sees a smooth hill on the bank of a stream, that bub- 
 bles like boiling water. Gawayne dismounts, ties his steed 
 to a linden bough, and examines the hill. It is covered with 
 turf, and has three entrances ; the inside is all hollow. " Can 
 this be the Green Chapel?" says the knight; '-the devil 
 
SIR GA WAYNE AND THE GREEN KNIGHT. 345 
 
 might say mass here at midnight." He begins to fear that 
 he has allowed himself to be ensnared by the fiend. After 
 he has climbed the hill, he hears aloud noise from the oppo- 
 site bank, like the grinding of a scythe on a grind-stone. 
 Gawayne thinks that the sound proceeds from his enemy, 
 who is preparing for the encounter. He lifts up his voice, 
 and calls : " Who dwells in this place to hold discourse with 
 me ? Now goes here the good Gawayne, if any man will 
 hurry hither to have his wish, now or never." " Abide ! " is 
 the answering call from the height of the opposite shore, 
 " and thou shalt speedily have what I once promised thee." 
 Once more resounds the dismal noise, and then springs forth 
 from a rocky cave the Green Knight, dreadful to behold, a 
 new Danish axe in his hand. Leaning on his axe, he jumps 
 over the river, and approaches Gawayne. " Welcome to 
 this place, Gawayne; like a true man, thou hast timed thy 
 travel. Thou knowest the covenant between us; we are 
 alone here. Take off thy helmet from thy head, and have 
 thy pay. Make no more debate than I did when thou didst 
 strike off my head with one blow." Gawayne declares him- 
 self ready, bends his head, and presents his bared neck. The 
 Green Knight seizes his grim weapon, and raises it for the 
 blow. As the axe falls, Gawayne shrinks with his shoulders. 
 His opponent holds, and reproaches him with his cowardice ; 
 he himself had not flinched in a Hke position. " I flinched 
 once," says Gawayne, " but will no more. If my head falls 
 on the stones, I cannot restore it." The Green Knight 
 raises the axe again. This time Gawayne does not move. 
 " Now that thou hast thy heart whole, I must hit thee; look 
 to thy neck, if so be it recover from my stroke ! " Gawayne 
 says angrily, " Why, thrash on, thou proud man, thou dost 
 threaten too long; I believe thine own heart fails thee." 
 " Forsooth," answers the other hero, " thou speakest so bold 
 that I will hinder thy fate no longer." Wrinkling lips and 
 brows, he reaches out for the third time, and lets the axe fall 
 upon Gawayne's neck ; but he only slightly wounds him. 
 The blood flows over the hero's shoulders to the earth. 
 When he sees his own blood on the snow, Gawayne springs 
 aside, arms himself with helmet and shield, draws his sword, 
 and speaks — never since his mother bore him, had he been 
 half so glad, — " Hold now with thy blow, offer me no more, 
 
34^ PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 one stroke I have taken in this place without strife ; if thou 
 givest me any more, I will readily requite it. For accord- 
 ing to our covenant, but one falls to me." 
 
 The Green Knight stands quietly resting on his axe, and 
 looks with pleasure at the undismayed hero. Then he speaks 
 with a loud voice : " Bold knight, be not so angry ; no one 
 has done thee unmannerly wrong here. We acted only ac- 
 cording to our agreement. I promised thee one stroke, thou 
 hast it, hold thee well paid. I release thee from the rest. 
 If I had been more wrathful, I could have dealt thee worse 
 harm. At first I menaced thee with one stroke, without 
 striking thee, on account of the agreement we made the first 
 night; thou didst keep it faithfully, and gavest me all thy 
 gain. The second feint was for the second day : thou didst 
 kiss my wife, and gavest me the kisses again. But the third 
 time thou failedst, and therefore hadst thou that tap. For 
 mine it is, that woven girdle which thou wearest, my own 
 wife wove it, I know it well. I know well thy kisses and 
 thy virtues and the wooing of my wife; I wrought it myself; 
 I sent her to tempt thee, methinks, the most faultless hero, 
 in sooth, that ever trod the earth. As pearls are of more 
 price than white peas, so is Gawayne of more price than 
 other gay knights. But here thou hast sinned a little ; a 
 little thou brokest faith. But that was not for amorous woo- 
 ing ; it was because thou lovedst thy life, hence I blame thee 
 the less." 
 
 Full of shame and remorse, Gawayne stands motionless ; 
 all the blood rushes to his face. " Cursed be cowardice and 
 covetousness both ! In you are villainy and vice, that de- 
 stroy virtue ! " He takes the girdle, and throws it to the 
 knight, while bitterly lamenting his faithlessness. " Cow- 
 ardice," he says in a manner characteristic of the poet, 
 " cowardice taught me to accord with covetousness, and to 
 forsake my nature : the generosity and loyalty that belong 
 to a knight." The lord of the chapel thinks that Gawayne 
 has sufficiently expiated his fault by his open confession, 
 and, moreover, that he has atoned for it by the wound re- 
 ceived. He presents Gawayne with the girdle, as a token 
 of the adventure, and invites him to return with him to the 
 castle and there finish the festival in pleasures. " With my 
 wife, who was thy keen enemy, we shall soon reconcile thee." 
 
CLOSE OF SIR GAWAYNE. 347 
 
 But Gawayne declines this offer. He wishes God's blessing 
 on his host, and commends himself to the ladies who have 
 so cunningly beguiled him. But how should a man escape 
 being deceived by a woman ? Did not the same thing hap- 
 pen to Adam, Solomon, Samson, and David ? How could 
 a man love women, and not believe them ? Gawayne with 
 thanks accepts the green girdle. He will wear it as a 
 sign of his guilt, as a safeguard against self-sufficiency. 
 Finally he begs the Green Knight to tell him his name. 
 The latter says he is Bernlac de Hautdesert. He declares 
 that the instigator of the whole affair is Morgan the Fay, 
 Arthur's half-sister, the pupil of Merlin, who was desirous of 
 putting Queen Guenever into deadly fear. She was the old 
 dame whom Gawayne had seen in company with the lady. 
 Sir Bernlac makes a last vain attempt to persuade Gawayne 
 to remain longer at his house. Then the two men in fare- 
 well embrace each other, and each rides his way. 
 
 There is much joy at Arthur's court over Gawayne's return. 
 The hero, sighing with grief, frankly relates his entire ad- 
 venture, and shows the girdle, the token of his shame. But 
 the king and his court comfort him with friendly words, and 
 resolve that every knight of the Round Table shall wear a 
 green girdle in his honour. 
 
 We have, perhaps, given this romance at greater length 
 than was pleasing to every reader. But does not the poem 
 deserve the fullest consideration ? Here we have for the 
 first time a conscious art of composition, capable of plan- 
 ning a symmetrical and attractive whole. The division of 
 the romance into " fyttes " (pieces, sections, cantos), which 
 earlier poets had nearly always done mechanically, of neces- 
 sity follows from the organic construction of the story. Be- 
 sides, this poet knows well how to hold our attention and 
 our expectation. How concretely graphic and truly poetical 
 is his style ! His wealth of fancy and delicate feeling appear 
 notably in the third canto, where, wäth great art, he varies 
 two themes, each thrice, and describes a most questionable 
 situation with great propriety. 
 
 Finally, all this art is in the service of moral ideas. It 
 may be objected that our poet obtrudes the Hacc fabula 
 docet altogether too plainly ; the reader may regret that the 
 whole test is the work of deliberate cunning, not of the force 
 
348 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 of circumstances or mighty passions ; and that he is, there- 
 fore, at the close, almost ashamed of the sympathy with 
 which he has followed Gawayne on his perilous journey. 
 Nevertheless, this romance is the work of a genuine poet, 
 and of a thinking artist. We do not merely discern the in- 
 tention of presenting certain ideas, they find adequate sensu- 
 ous expression; their value is brought to our consciousness 
 in concrete human types. 
 
 Sir Gawayne differs in metrical form from the Adventures 
 of Arthiir, in that the long lines of each strophe have allit- 
 eration only, without rhyme, and that their number is not 
 fixed; while the rhymed short lines at the close are intro- 
 duced by a verse of one accent, in the order, a b a b a. The 
 first strophes of the second canto, given above, illustrate this. 
 
 The transition to those creations of our poet having a de- 
 cided religious colouring is made in a poem that not only 
 suggests but directly describes a crisis in his inner life. It is 
 rightly named The Pearl. 
 
 The poet had married (his lord having, perhaps, given him 
 a home of his own as a reward for faithful service). A child, 
 a svreet girl, radiant in innocence, had blessed this union. 
 The father concentrated all his affection upon the child, and 
 so exclusively that we are led to believe the mother had not 
 long survived her birth. The dearest ideals of the thought- 
 ful poet were embodied in his daughter. But the pitiless 
 hand of fate tore her away at the tenderest age. The poem 
 describes the father's feelings at her death, and tells how he 
 was comforted. 
 
 It begins in an exalted lyrical strain, with a lament on the 
 lost pearl, whose beauty and splendour are sung in extrava- 
 gant language. We see the lonely father, spell-bound by 
 grief and longing, lingering on the grave that hides his 
 dearest treasure. He is there overcome by sleep, and a 
 beautiful vision is unfolded to him. The poet finds himself 
 in a smiling spring landscape, with stately trees and beaute- 
 ous flowers, singing birds of lovely plumage and shining 
 rocks, from which he is separated by a clear, murmuring 
 brook. On the opposite shore he beholds his vanished pearl, 
 more beautiful and resplendent than he had ever seen her. 
 His attempts to reach her are vain. A discourse between 
 the mourning father and the transfigured daughter ensues, 
 
POEM OF THE PEARL. 349 
 
 that fills the breast of the bereaved man now with great joy, 
 and now with anxious pain and doubt. But all doubts are 
 finally resolved ; the father no longer wonders at the high 
 honour vouchsafed his child in heaven. He learns to prize 
 the dignity of innocence, and the bliss of leaving the world 
 in unstained childhood. With his own eyes he beholds his 
 daughter in the ranks of those that surround the Lamb of the 
 Apocalypse. His pain passes away in joy at her happiness, 
 and in wonder at divine wisdom and love; and his longing 
 is purified in submission to the divine will. 
 
 Full of deep and delicate feeling, rich in thought and 
 creative fancy, the poem was decidedly influenced by the 
 allegorical poetry of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, 
 as regards choice, combination, and treatment of motives. 
 Yet here, as in the Divine Comedy^ the allegory is lifted 
 almost to symbolism by its earnestness and intensity, and 
 by the evident mysticism which is connected with a well- 
 known passage of the Apocalypse. The poet modelled 
 diction and form after those of a colleague in art from the 
 Welsh Marches, almost contemporary with him, and the au- 
 thor of a Song of Merci, a So7ig of Deo gracias} and other 
 poems. In these there is also a close union of lyrical and 
 didactic elements, noble language with real wealth of thought, 
 and, more rarely, an inclination to allegory and symbolism. 
 Here, too, we find the strophe employed by the poet of The 
 Pearl ; it has twelve lines with four accents, rhymed accord 
 ing to the scheme, ababababbcbc, and combin- 
 ing rhyme with alliteration. The strophes close with a sor(. 
 of refrain, to which the beginning of each following strophe 
 is often joined by the repetition of a word. All these expe- 
 dients, reminding us of the more ancient western lyrics, and, 
 above all, of Laurence Minot's ballads, are used very consist- 
 ently by the author of The Pearl. At the same time he in- 
 creases the technical difficulties by attempting symmetrical 
 relations of verse on a larger scale. The poem contains 
 twenty parts, each having five strophes,^ and, like the close 
 
 ' Published by Furnivall in Early Etiglish Poems and Lives of Saints, pp 118 
 and 124. To the same poet may belong the poems printed on pp. 130 an(' 133 of :..at 
 work. 
 
 2 In Morris's edition {Early English Alliterative Poems), the poem has twenty-one 
 divisions ; but the sixteenth and seventeenth are really one. One division, moreover, 
 Oounts six strophes (No. 15). This is certainly not due to artistic intention, but was 
 either an oversight of the poet or an iaterpoiaiion. 
 
350 PRELUDE TO REFORiMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 and beginning of the strophes, the single parts are also united 
 by the repetition of the same, or a related word, now and 
 then of a homonym, while the last Hne of the poem corre- 
 sponds with the opening one. In this most artificial form, 
 which, according to our feeling, is little adapted to the sub- 
 ject, the poet works with perfect ease. His diction is faulty 
 only in too great copiousness, and his descriptions in too 
 much wealth and brilliancy. 
 
 Two main ideas are put forth in The Pearly both already 
 presented, if not with equal force, in Gaway?ie : the ideas 
 of innocence (purity) and of submission to the divine wdll. 
 Each of them was treated by the poet later in a special work, 
 Clannesse and Pacieiice. 
 
 These, the most mature products of his art, take the 
 ground of religious didactics. The starting-point in both 
 poems is the Sermon on the Mount, in the gospel of St. Mat- 
 thew. But as the thought is perceptive and the expression 
 metaphorical, we have genuine poetry also in these works. 
 But the subjective element, so strong in The Pearly makes 
 itself but occasionally felt, appearing most clearly in the in- 
 troductions to the two poems. The aim of the writer, as in 
 Gaway?2e, is to present his idea objectively. He chooses 
 from Old Testament history those topics teaching, by the 
 depiction of their opposites, the virtues of purity and patient 
 submission. Thus he joins the religious epic poets of his 
 nation, and at once reaches the highest rank among them. 
 He is not to be compared with such men as the composers 
 of the Gejiesis and Exodus^ or the Cin'sor mimdi ; for he 
 can measure himself with the best among the Old English 
 religious poets. Tenderer than the author of the yndith, but 
 much less vague than Cynewulf, he is superior to the former 
 in delicacy and yields him nothing in clearness. He is ex- 
 celled by none in power of expression and fresh sensuous- 
 ness of description, when we take into account the youthful 
 vigour of the language and the abundant epic tradition from 
 which those older poets could draw. It is true, he has the 
 advantage of wider experience and of advanced culture; 
 with his contemporaries, however, such culture was so far 
 from harmonious that this fact rather raises than lowers his 
 individual status. The final impression given by these works 
 is admiration for the poet's talent, mingled with regret that 
 
CLANNESSE AND PACIENCE. 35 1 
 
 he did not belong to a more truly epic age, or to an age that 
 would have yielded a fitter art-style to his richer and more 
 delicate feehng. 
 
 He uses the alliterative long line in both poems, without 
 strophic division or rhyme. His language has, therefore, 
 an evener and broader flow, and becomes more distinctly 
 epic. The inner cast of these poems also betokens the artist 
 able to group masses. This grouping has more complex 
 proportion in Clannesse, where three epic subjects alternate: 
 the deluge, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and 
 the fall of Belshazzar, the desecrator of the temple. It is 
 simpler and severer in Pacience, where only the story of 
 Jonah is told. 
 
 The last-named work is perhaps the writer's masterpiece. 
 In beauty of single descriptions, it does not fall behind either 
 Gawayne or Clannesse ; it excels the latter in finish of com- 
 position and equal disposal of motives, and it excels both in 
 the evident and more practical relation of the material to the 
 personality of the author. He plainly portrays, in the fort- 
 unes of Jonah, his own struggle for inward peace and sub- 
 jection of will to Providence; and the prelude discloses the 
 aging poet, who has felt the pains of poverty and privation, 
 as well as loneliness. 
 
 These last works, too, oftentimes betray the influence of 
 the allegorical school, most distinctly so in Clamiesse where 
 the e?2fafit terrible of this school, Jehan de Meun, is ex- 
 pressly mentioned. 
 
 This name and the productions connected with it will soon 
 confi-ont us in studying one greater than the poet of the 
 Gawayne. 
 
 For we are in a period that, unhke the previous one, does 
 not force us to divide our attention among a mass of medi- 
 ocre minds, but rather invites us to concentrate it upon a 
 few great, typical figures, towering above the crowd. 
 
 III. 
 
 When the author of Gawayfte wrote his Clannesse and 
 Pacience, the alHterative measure, through the agency of an- 
 other poem, had already become popular far beyond the 
 borders of its original home. 
 
352 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 This poetry also, in its origin, belongs to the west, and to 
 the Welsh Marches ; but despite its speech wavering between 
 western and southern dialects, it soon left provincial litera- 
 ture, to enter the circle of national poetry. The author of 
 the Visio de Petro riowman is the oldest Middle English v/riter 
 whose memory, in the broader sense, has lived to the mod- 
 ern age. We know the man only from his work. A doubt- 
 ful and ill-substantiated tradition adds no essential feature 
 to his portrait. 
 
 William Langland (perhaps more correctly, Langley) was 
 bom about the year 1332. He is said to have been a na- 
 tive of Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire, The name of his 
 father is given as Stacy de Rokele (Rokayle) qui Staciiis 
 fiiit generosus. There seems, at an early time, to have been 
 intercourse between William's family and that of the Bur- 
 nels, an eminent house in Shropshire. The Burnels had by 
 marriage acquired the manor of Shipton-under-Wychwood 
 in Oxfordshire, belonging to the noble family of le Spenser; 
 Stacy de Rokele rented land connected with it, and conse- 
 quently had settled in Oxfordshire with his family. William 
 received a careful education ; he doubtless attended a Latin 
 school. That he studied at the university is not quite cer- 
 tain, although mo^t probable ; and if he did, we naturally 
 think of him at Oxford. The well-grown, serious, and 
 studious youth was evidently destined for the church, but he 
 seems to have received only the first tonsure, thus becoming 
 ckficus, but never priest. After the death of his father and 
 of his patron, William led a changeful life, and alone wan- 
 dered over a great part of his native country. His work 
 shows that he came to know care and privation. But he 
 never seems to have taken up any secular trade, nor to have 
 tried to enter practical life. Given to study and contempla- 
 tion, the activity of the world was to him a drama, which he 
 watched with keen glance and quick sympathy, but in which 
 he felt no call to take active part. He perhaps brought 
 personal endeavour to bear within a narrow circle, and upon 
 single objects, but he gained a broader field of action only 
 as author. 
 
 His great work first presents the poet on Malvern Hills 
 in Worcestershire. We afterwards find him married at 
 Cornhill in London. In the last years of his life he seems 
 
WILLIAM LANGLAND. 
 
 353 
 
 to have returned to the west. He died presumably not long 
 after the opening of the reign of Henry IV. 
 
 Like Richard Rolle, William glowed with moral and re- 
 Hgious passion ; like the hermit of Hampole, he early asked 
 himself the question what was the mission and destiny of 
 man, and by what means the ideal, when recognised, might 
 be reached. But here their paths separate. Both were re- 
 cluses and wanderers, both in a sense renounced the world 
 and retired into themselves ; both had visions and described 
 them; but they felt and did these things in quite different 
 ways. More humane, more manly, and less exalted than 
 Richard, William never rose to such asceticism and eccle- 
 siastical sanctity as did his predecessor, and he probably never 
 aimed to do so. Richard's seclusion and anxious dread of 
 contact with the material world corresponded in William 
 with an almost philosophic indifference or sobriety. The 
 sublunary world that filled Richard with fear and disgust, 
 yielded aesthetic pleasure to William. A trait at once poetic 
 and philosophic made him enjoy the beauty of this world, 
 and boldly conceive the doings of men, not less through the 
 heart than the intellect. The satirical mood thus awakened 
 was chastened and brightened by a touch of humour. Wil- 
 liam found his religious ideal in the life of Christ and in the 
 lives of the first Christians, while Richard looked for the 
 heavenly Jerusalem on earth. Richard's visions seem like 
 the outcome of a morbid ecstacy ; but the dreams of William 
 make us feel that the poet stands on firm ground, while his 
 fancy roams in the remotest spaces. 
 
 Not less unlike were their relations to the church and to 
 humanity. Richard's immediate sphere of action was a 
 much wider one, but the object of his study, as of his work, 
 was but the individual as such. William, on the other hand, 
 ever had the aggregate in view, the society living in church 
 and state ; and as his horizon was larger, so was his influence 
 deeper and broader. 
 
 Before middle life, William, like Dante, had recognised 
 that the world was out of joint. He too looked with long- 
 ing for the deliverer who should set it right ; he too, with all 
 the powers of his soul, wrestled for the knowledge of salva- 
 tion, for himself as for others; he too hfted up his voice in 
 warning and menace, before the great and mighty of the 
 
 X 
 
354 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 earth, before princes and priests ; he too held up a mirror to 
 the world, in which it saw both its own image and the ideal 
 to which it had grown faitliiess. 
 
 But unlike the Italian poet, William did not attain a full 
 and clear theory of life, and hence he failed to put together 
 what he had lived and seen, in a symmetrical, distinctly-drawn 
 picture, with the mighty personality of the poet for its centre. 
 The Vision coticeniing Piers Plowman is a series of paintings 
 whose mutual connection lies more in the intention than in 
 actual execution, and each of them has, besides clearly illum- 
 ined groups, others that seem enveloped in mist, whose out- 
 lines we may feel rather than perceive, and still others whose 
 dim figures first receive colour and life from our fancy. 
 
 But the mind of the poet is all-pervading ; it takes hold 
 upon the heart of the reader, compels it to enter into the se- 
 cret purposes of the poetry ; and thus is proved, even here, 
 despite the mass of unformed material, the superior power 
 of Teutonic poesy, needing neither the music of language 
 nor the charm of image to find its way to the heart, and 
 whose very essence is directness. 
 
 What was the author's culture, the literary atmosphere in 
 which we are to study him ? 
 
 Langland's reading was by no means slight, but it was 
 rather special than general, and somewhat one-sided. 
 
 He seems most familiar with Holy Writ and the great 
 Latin fathers ; in Roman profane literature he was acquainted 
 with satirists, as Juvenal, and moralists, as Dionysius Cato. 
 As he understood French, he had doubtless read the Romance 
 of the Rose and The Tour?iament of Antichrist, by Huon de 
 Mery (about 1228). Allegory dwelt, moreover, in the spirit 
 of the age ; mediaeval theology had taken it from the Bible 
 and the church fathers, and English literature had frequently 
 employed it in religious writings. William doubtless knew 
 such poems as Robert Grosseteste's Castel d'amour, of 
 which perhaps two renderings then existed ; the honest, but 
 exceedingly formless, imitation by the monk of Sallay being 
 probably half a century older than Langland's Vision. In 
 the Castel d'amour, a recapitulation of the religious history 
 of mankind, allegory is brought to bear, especially in the cen- 
 tral part that treats of redemption ; here the castle of love is 
 the bosom of the Holy Virgin. William, however, seems to 
 
VISION CONCERNING PIERS PLOWMAN. 355 
 
 have been impressed above all by the passage where the 
 four daughters of the most high king, Mercy, Truth, Right- 
 eousness, and Peace,^ debate on the redemption of man. 
 
 As regards the English writers preceding him, Langland 
 owed most to the preachers and satirists. Especially did the 
 poem on the Evil Times of Edward II. yield him caustic and 
 vigorous satire on all classes. There were also attempts at 
 prophecy, which were generally popular in the English Mid- 
 dle Ages, and were continually called forth anew by the ex- 
 igencies of the times. A certain infection of mysticism was 
 in the air; this led, of itself, to the idea of the vision as the 
 poetic frame, and William had not to borrow it from the ro- 
 mance-poets. 
 
 The alliterative measure had again just come into use in 
 the Welsh Marches when our poet began his work. William 
 aptly chose it for his forcible, clear-cut writing, which was at 
 once popular and noble, easy and restrained. 
 
 He put his hand to the work in the year 1362. The times 
 and the mood of the English population were favourable to 
 his purpose. In the year just passed, the plague had raged 
 in the kingdom, for the second time in the reign of Edward 
 III. Again, on the fifteenth of January, 1362, men were 
 filled with terror by a devastating tempest, that seemed to 
 usher in the judgment day. It was the right moment for 
 the appearance of a prophet and preacher of repentance. 
 
 Let us consider the poem more closely. It begins as 
 follows : 
 
 In a somer sesun, when softe was J)e sonne, 
 I schop me in-to a schroud, A scheep as I were ; 
 In Habite of an Hermite vnholy of werkes, 
 Wende I wydene in l)is world, wondres to hei^e. 
 Bote in a Mayes Morwnynge on Maluerne hulles 
 Me be-fel a ferly, A Feyrie me J)ouhte ; 
 I was weori of wandringe and wente me to reste 
 Vndur a brod banke bi a Bourne syde, 
 And as I lay and leonede and lokede on l)e watres, 
 I slumberde in A slepyng, hit sownede so murie. 
 Fenne gon I Meeten, A Meruelous sweuene, 
 Pat I was in A Wildernesse, wuste I neuer where, 
 And as I beo-heold in-to J^e Est, an-heij to J^e sonne, 
 * I sauh a Tour on A Toft [tritely] I-maket ; 
 
 1 "Mercy, Sothfastnes, Rightwysnes, Pees." Grosseteste himself owecj this alle 
 gory to a homily by St. BcrnarcJ. 
 
356 PRELUDE TO REFORiMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 A Deop Dale bi-neoJ)e, A dungun ^er-Inne, 
 
 With deop dich and derk and dredful of siht. 
 
 A Fair feld ful of folk, fond I J)er bi-twene, 
 
 Of alle nianer of men, 'pe mene and J)e riche, 
 
 Worchinge and wondringe, as J)e world askej). 
 
 Summe putten hem to ^e plou^ and pleiden hem ful seidene, 
 
 In Eringe and in Sowynge swonken ful harde, 
 
 Pat monie of J)eos wasturs In Glotonye distruen. 
 
 And summe putten hem to pruide apparaylden hem J)er-after, 
 
 In Cuntinaunce of cloJ)inge queinteliche de-Gyset; 
 
 To preyere and to penaunce putten heom monye, 
 
 For loue of vr lord liueden ful harde. 
 
 In Hope for to haue Heuene-riche blisse.l 
 
 Thus the most diverse classes and callings pass in review 
 before the poet : merchants, minstrels, jesters, beggars who 
 live in luxury ; pilgrims who go to Santiago or Rome, who 
 " went forth in their vray, with many wise tales, and had 
 leave to lie, all their life after; " mendicant friars of all four 
 orders,^ " preaching to the people for profit of their bellies, 
 glozing the gospel as they like; " a pardoner, who produces 
 a bull provided with episcopal seals, and gathers rings and 
 brooches from the ignorant who kneeling kiss it ; parsons, 
 who beg permission of their bishops to leave their parishes, 
 impoverished by the plague, and to live in London in order 
 to " sing there for simony, for silver is sweet; " sergeants-at- 
 law, whose mouths are only opened by ready money ; bishops 
 and deacons, v.ho enter into the service of the state and the 
 court ; barons and burgesses ; tradesmen of all guilds. 
 
 That " fair field full of folk " clearly represents this world. 
 The meaning of the tower on the hill and of the deep dale 
 is interpreted for us and the poet by a beautiful woman 
 clothed in Hnen, w4io comes down to him from the hill. She 
 herself is the " Holy Church," the tower is the dwelling-place 
 of "Truth," (that is, of God himself); the dungeon in the 
 dale is the castle of Care, whose lord is Wrong, the father of 
 Falsehood. In answer to his questions, William is instructed 
 as to the nature of Truth, the best of treasures. Her voice 
 speaks audibly in the bosom of every man, and tells him that 
 Love is the readiest way to heaven. 
 
 William begs farther: " For Mary's love of heaven, that 
 bore that blissful child, that bought us on the rood, teach me 
 
 1 Pz't'rs Plozi'inan. ed. Skcat, Text A, v. 1-27. 
 2 Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Aujiistins- 
 
flEHS PLOWMAN. 357 
 
 by some cvaft to know Falsehood." " Look up to thy left," 
 is the answer, " and see where they stand, both False (False- 
 hood) and Fauvel,^ and their many companions." The poet 
 follows her directions, and he discovers in the group a richly 
 and strikingly decked woman. "What is this woman so 
 strangely attired ? " " That is the maid Meed (reward, 
 bribery) who hath harmed me full oft, hath mocked my 
 teaching ; .... in the pope's palace she is as at home as my- 
 self, which should not be so, for Wrong is her father. . . . 
 I ought to be better than she, I came of a better. . . . Now 
 Meed will be married to False. Fauvel, through his fair 
 speech, hath brought them together, and all is Guile's lead- 
 ing that thus she is wedded. To-morrow will be made the 
 maiden's bridal ; and there thou mayest know, if thou wilt, 
 who they all are that belong to that lordship. Know them 
 there if thou canst. Beware of them all, if thou wiliest to 
 dwell with Truth in his bliss. I may no longer tarry. Now 
 I leave thee to God ; become a good man in spite of Covet- 
 ousness." Holy Church leaves the poet to watch the prepa- 
 rations for the wedding, and the further developments. A 
 great crowd has gathered to witness the solemnities; ten 
 thousand tents are erected to accommodate them. Sir Simony 
 and Civil, who represents office-holding, read the deed of 
 the lovers' dowry ; the document is then sealed and signed. 
 Theology, however, opposes the marriage, and contests its 
 legality. It is agreed to go to Westminster and have the 
 matter decided by the king's court. Now horses are lack- 
 ing; but help is soon provided for this emergency. Meed 
 rides upon the back of a sheriff. False on that of an assizer, 
 Fauvel on Fair Speech, and all are similarly mounted. The 
 whole company is led by Guile. Before they reach the court, 
 however, Soothness arrives there and tells the tale to 
 Conscience, who imparts it to the king. The king, in this 
 place Edward III., swears vengeance on False and Fauvel, 
 and all their companions. Dread stands at the door, and 
 
 1 In Fauvel, meaning "flattery" in Langland, we have a special application of an 
 originally more comprehensive allegorical idea. The name Fauvel, in Early French 
 and Middle English, is frequently given to animals oi fav el co\q\xx, especially to horses. 
 In the Roman de Fauvel, however, it is the name of a beast, symbolising the reigning 
 vices in church and society. The coitlettr Jauve of the beastis still alluded to, though 
 the name is, falsely, explained as a compound offauls and vel. As Fauvel's children, 
 are mentioned Flnlerle, Avarice, Vilcnie, Varieti!, Envie VinA Laschete. The initial 
 letters of these words, being combined, give the word FAVVEL. See Jahrbuch für 
 romanische und englische Literatur, VII, 321. 
 
35^ PRlELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 warns the menaced ones, and they all quickly flee. False 
 flies to the friars; Guile finds refuge with the merchants, 
 whom he serves as apprentice. Liar, hunted by all, is finally 
 received by pardoners, who wash and clothe him, and send 
 him into the church with pardons. Thereupon leeches, 
 spicers, and minstrels try to get him. Finally, the mendi- 
 cant friars succeed in procuring him. Meanwhile Meed is 
 taken to Westminster. She is in great fear, but she finds 
 many a good friend at court. She knows how to win the 
 favour of justices and clerks by presents and promises. A 
 confessor in the cowl of a friar, to whom she confesses her 
 sins, absolves her for a noble, and promises her eternal salva- 
 tion if she will provide the order with an expensive glass 
 window. When she is brought before the king, he holds her 
 bad behaviour up to her, but promises pardon if she will 
 marry his knight. Conscience. Meed is quite willing, but 
 Conscience strongly protests against this union, and launches 
 a very energetic diatribe against the maid, who has caused 
 Adam's fall, has poisoned popes, and is corrupting the holy 
 church. Meed tries to defend herself, and attacks her op- 
 ponent, but he overcomes her arguments, illustrates the results 
 of covetousness by the example of Saul, and foretells a time 
 when Reason shall reign in the world, and with her. Love, 
 Humility, and Loyalty. " Meed," says Conscience, " makes 
 of misdoers such rich people that Law (jurisprudence, the 
 jurists) has become lord, and Loyalty is poor. . . . But 
 Common Sense will return, and with it. Conscience, and will 
 make Law a labourer : (that is, will deprive lawyers of their 
 bread), such love shall arise." 
 
 The king stands by his purpose of marrying Meed to 
 Conscience, but Conscience will not obey unless Reason 
 counsels him to it. Reason is, therefore, summoned, and 
 appears accompanied by Wisdom and Wit. At the same 
 time comes Peace with a complaint against Wrong. Wrong 
 succeeds, with the help of Meed, in gaining Wisdom and 
 Wit over to his cause, and Peace herself is persuaded to 
 withdraw her complaint by a present from Meed. Reason, 
 however, is immovable, and counsels the king to carry out 
 the strictest justice. The king declares himself ready to 
 obey, and requests Reason to stay with him. " I am all 
 ready to rest with thee forever," says Reason, " so Conscience 
 
flERS PLOWMAN. 3^^ 
 
 be thy counsellor." " I gladly grant that," replies the king, 
 " God forbid he should fail. So long as I live, live we to- 
 gether." Then the king goes to church with his knights, 
 and from there to dinner. At this instant the poet awakes, 
 and the first vision ends ; its allegory is sufficiently clear. 
 
 The second vision opens with a second view of the field 
 filled with people. This time Conscience stands in their 
 midst, a cross in his hand, and exhorts them to penitence ; 
 nor does he fail to remind sinners of the plague and the de- 
 structive hurricane. The efforts of Conscience are seconded 
 by Repentance. The poet then arraigns the Seven Deadly 
 Sins, partly through colourless personifications, partly through 
 concrete types, and makes them do penance. This section 
 is full of subtle characterisation and cutting satire. With his ' 
 peculiar art, Langland always rapidly passes from the ab- 
 stract to the concrete, from allegory to reality ; next to sub- 
 lime aphorisms are traits taken from life, and piquantly real- 
 istic. The delineation of Gluttony, who appears in the 
 guise of a workman given to drink, is justly celebrated as' 
 an excellent genre picture in the manner of the Old Dutch 
 school. On the way to church. Gluttony is lured into a tav- 
 ern, which he leaves in the saddest condition, and the after- 
 nausea alone moves him to repentance. When the peniten- 
 tial sermon has thus everywhere attained its purpose, and 
 thousands of people have wept and wailed to Christ and his 
 mother, the repentant sinners take their way to Saint Truth. 
 But, who knows the way ? After long roaming about, they 
 meet a palmer coming from the Holy Land. " Knowest 
 thou a saint whom men call Truth ? " they ask him. " Nay, 
 so God help me. I never saw a palmer seek after such a 
 saint until this hour." 
 
 A plowman now steps forth — it is Piers ^ (Peter) — and de- 
 clares himself ready to show them the way. That saint is 
 well-known to him, he has worked for him, and has received 
 rich pay. At the request of the pilgrims, from whom he re- 
 fuses to accept money. Piers describes the way they seek in 
 a circumstantial yet obvious allegory. " This were a wicked 
 way without a guide," say the pilgrims. Then speaks Piers 
 the Plowman : " By Peter the apostle, I have an half-acre 
 to plow on the highway ; were that well plowed, I would go 
 
 1 Other forms of the name are Pers, Pierce. 
 
^ 
 
 \6o PRELUDE TO REFORMATION' AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 with you and teach the right way." At the question of a 
 noble lady as to what the women shall do in the mean time, 
 Piers prescribes useful occupations and works of love to each 
 of them, according to her station. To a knight who offers 
 to help him with his work, he replies that it will be sufficient 
 if he protects the holy church and Piers himself, hunts wild 
 and harmful animals, and kindly treats the poor and de- 
 pendent. It is then described how Piers sets to work, and 
 many pilgrims help him, and how, by the assistance of Hun- 
 ger, he compels the idle who oppose his orders, in which 
 connection occurs a very interesting allegory concerning ques- 
 tions of national economy. This is followed by a prophecy 
 of a famine. 
 
 In view of this impending calamity, Truth exhorts Piers 
 to renewed labour, and grants him and his heirs a full par- 
 don, in which all may share who help him work. A priest 
 wishes to see the pardon. Piers unfolds the bull ; it contains 
 nothing but the words : £f qui bona egerunt, ibunt i?i vitam 
 eterna7n ; qui vera mala, in igneni eternum. " I can find no 
 pardon," says the priest, " that means only, do well and have 
 well, do evil and have evil." Full of vexation. Piers tears 
 the bull, and says : " I shall cease of my sowing, and be 
 not so busy about my livelihood! Prayer and penance 
 shall hereafter be my plow. . . . Ne solliciti sitis, is said in 
 the Gospel. . . . The fowls in the field, who finds them 
 food in the winter ? When it freezes, they need food and 
 have no garner to go to ; but God provides for them all." 
 During the dispute that ensues between Piers and the priest, 
 the poet wakes and finds himself without food or money on 
 Malvern Hills, the sun standing in the south. Wilham long 
 meditates on the import of his dream, on Piers the Plowman 
 and his pardon, and on his dispute with the priest. He 
 comes to the conclusion that Do-well is better than pardon. 
 *' The pope," he says, " hath power to grant pardon to the 
 the people, to let them pass into joy without penance. This 
 is a part of our belief, as we are taught by learned men : 
 Quodciinque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum et ifi coelis. 
 And so I honestly beheve (the Lord forbid it else) that 
 pardon and penance and prayers do save souls that have 
 sinned seven times deadly. But to trust to Triennials is, me- 
 thinks, certainly not so safe for the soul as is to do well 
 
PIERS PLOWMAN. 36 1 
 
 Hence I advise you, men that are rich on earth, be ye never 
 the bolder to break the Ten Commandments, upon trust of 
 your treasure to procure Triennials. And especially ye may- 
 ors and master-judges that have the wealth of this world, 
 and are held wise to purchase your pardon and the pope's 
 bulls : at the dreadful day of doom, when the dead shall 
 rise and all come before Christ to yield accounts, . . . had 
 ye then a bag full of pardons and provincial letters, though 
 ye be found in the fraternity among the four orders, and have 
 indulgences double-fold, unless Do-well help you, I would 
 not give for your pardon a magpie's tail. Hence I counsel 
 all Christians to cry for Christ's mercy, and beseech Mary 
 his mother to be our intercessor, that God give us grace, ere 
 we go hence, such works to do while we be here, that after 
 our death-day, Do-well may rehearse, at the day of doom, 
 we did as he commanded." 
 
 Thus closes the Visio Wilhehni de Petro Plowman^ in the 
 more limited sense. The rest of the poem deals with the 
 problems suggested at the close of the first part : what is Do- 
 well, and what are Do-bet and Do-best ? What is virtue in 
 its different stages ? 
 
 In his search for Do-well, William, in a vision, meets vari- 
 ous allegorical personages, viz. : Thought, Wit, and his wife 
 Study, Clergy (learning), who has Scripture to wife. By de- 
 grees he learns, from different points of view, more concern- 
 ing the dwelling-place and nature of Do-well, Do-bet, and 
 Do-best, and hears, by way of episode, many discussions on 
 matrimony, on the subtle questions and quibblings of theo- 
 logians, and on the wealth of the clergy. But hesitation and 
 doubt always remain and raise new problems. William gets 
 into a dispute with Clergy on the worth of knowledge as 
 regards the final goal of man, heaven ; and William is of 
 opinion that unlettered honesty has a better prospect of gain- 
 ing everlasting life than Clergy. 
 
 At about this point, William's work upon his poem was 
 long interrupted. The fragment of a continuation ^ still pre- 
 served, though later discarded by the poet, shows that he 
 was uncertain how to spin longer the thread of his allegory. 
 He seems to have found for its completion neither the neces- 
 sary light nor the necessary leisure until the year 1377. 
 
 * Ed. Skeat, A- text, passus XII., p. 137*, et seq. 
 
362 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 He th-oroughly revised the already existing portions of 
 his poem, as appears principally in additions, and then he 
 carried further his Visio de Dowel, Dobet et Dohest secundum 
 Wit et Resoim. 
 
 The nature of Do-well is revealed in three visions. Doc- 
 trine and observation, the subjective and the objective, are 
 here so involved that discussion of details in their proper 
 sequence would require much space. The poet's purpose 
 becomes most clear in the portrait of Haukin, a minstrel 
 and wafer-vender, who typifies active life, but whose coat is 
 soiled with the dirt-spots of the Seven Deadly Sins. Con- 
 science and Patience persuade him to consider his ways and 
 repent. We conceive the central idea of Do-well to be up- 
 rightness in all things, founded on the fear of God. 
 
 Do-bet is the type of charity. Hence, in the first vision 
 of Do-bet, we find the poet speaking with Anima (the soul), 
 who explains the nature of charity on the basis of the first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians (Chapter XHI.), and other pas- 
 sages of Holy Writ. When William expresses a wish to know 
 Charity, Anima answers that this can only be by the help of 
 Piers the Plowman : the clerks can only know by means of 
 words and works, but Piers can see deeper and read the will. 
 Because Charity has gone out of the world, because men be- 
 lieve mere faith suffices, the world is out of joint. Covet- 
 ousness now rules all hearts, worldly possessions have pois- 
 oned the servants of the church. " When Constantine 
 benevolently endowed the holy church with lands and people, 
 lordships and rents, men heard an angel cry loud at Rome, 
 Dos ecclesiae hath this day drunk venom, and all that have 
 Peter's power are poisoned." ^ 
 
 In the next vision WiUiam sees the Tree of Charity itself; 
 it is supported by three props, the three persons of the God- 
 head. Piers the Plowman is the gardener of the tree, and 
 explains its meaning to William. But the apples that, at 
 William's wish, he shakes down from the tree, are gathered 
 by Satan, who takes them into the limbo of hell. Then 
 Piers calls upon the Son and the Holy Ghost to take the 
 fi"uits from the devil, and William, in quick succession, con- 
 templates the whole course of the mystery of the incarnation 
 
 1 Compare Walther von der Vogelweide and Dante. ^ 
 
Vision of do-bet. 363 
 
 and Christ's life on earth, to the moment when he is betrayed 
 by Judas. 
 
 The dreamer wakes and, with anxious longing, seeks Piers 
 the Plowman. In a new vision he meets Abraham, who 
 represents faith, and Spes (hope) who are also looking for 
 Piers. William travels in their company to Jerusalem ; on 
 the road they see near them a Samaritan riding the same 
 way. They soon find a wounded man lying on the wayside. 
 Faith and Hope pass by but the Samaritan takes pity on 
 him, cares for him, and bears him to an inn called Lex 
 Christi. William offers to become the Samaritan's servant. 
 The latter declines, saying : " Many thanks ! but thy friend 
 and thy fellow thou shalt find me at need." In farther con- 
 versation the Samaritan instructs William in the deepest 
 mysteries of faith, and tells him how he shall unite faith and 
 charity. 
 
 The last vision of Do-bet represents Christ's entrance into 
 Jerusalem, his crucifixion and his death. Christ, in whom 
 the idea of Do-bet, or of charity, is completely realised, ap- 
 pears in the armour of Piers the Plowman ; that is, in human 
 nature. We are present at the struggle between Life and 
 Death, between Light and Darkness, and, when Christ lies 
 in the tomb, we hear the dispute between Truth and Mercy, 
 Righteousness and Peace. Then comes an account of 
 Christ's descent into hell and his triumph over Satan, accord- 
 ing to the gospel of Nicodemus. The evil spirits hide them- 
 selves ; there is a sound of angels singing and playing on 
 harps; Truth, Peace, and Righteousness embrace and kiss 
 each other ; Truth strikes up a 7^ deum laitdamus, and Love 
 sings to it, Ecce quam boniini et jucimdiim frati'es habitare i?t 
 unwn. Then the dreamer wakes at the ringing of the Eas- 
 ter bells, and calling wife and daughter, bids them " Rise 
 and reverence God's resurrection, and creep to the cross on 
 your knees, and kiss it as a jewel; God's blessed body it 
 bore for our salvation, and it frighteth the fiend ; for such 
 is its might that no grisly ghost may glide where it shad- 
 oweth." 
 
 Mankind is redeemed, and death overcome by love ; but 
 in order that the fruits of this victory may benefit man, the 
 intervention of Do-best is requisite, typifying the consumma- 
 tion of the good in the power of Christ, the efiicacy of the 
 
364 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE. 
 
 church, whose soul is Christ, and whose servants above all 
 need the virtue of self-denying humility. Hence the last 
 two visions of the poem relate the history of the church from 
 the first Whitsuntide. Grace makes Piers his plowman, 
 and gives him four oxen, the evangelists, four stots, the great 
 Latin church fathers, and four seeds, the cardinal virtues. 
 
 Thereupon Piers builds the house of Unity, the holy 
 church, receives from Grace a cart called Christendom, on 
 which to load his sheaves, and two horses for his cart : Con- 
 trition and Confession. Priesthood is made field-guard, 
 while Grace goes with Piers as far as the world reaches, to 
 sow truth. Pride prepares to attack the Christians, and 
 Conscience bids them all seek refuge in the house of Unity. 
 
 Antichrist appears, tears up all the crop of truth and 
 plants weeds. The friars show him honour; hundreds fol- 
 low his banner, borne by Pride. Conscience calls Nature 
 to help, and she sends out devastating diseases; Death 
 strides about with Age in the van as standard-bearer; kings 
 and knights, emperors and popes, are stricken to the dust. 
 In answer to the prayer of Conscience, Nature pauses to 
 give men time to grow better. Then Fortune and Lechery, 
 Avarice and Simony, immediately resume their work. Fort- 
 une is married to Life, and bears him Sloth, who weds De- 
 spair, and the two oppress Conscience. Conscience calls 
 upon Age for help. Age struggles with Life, who flees to 
 physicians ; when he sees that death does not fear these, he 
 gives himself up to Revel. But now the poet, too, is seized by 
 Age, is robbed of his hearing, his teeth, and the free use of 
 his limbs. He perceives the approach of Death, and takes 
 refuge in the house of Unity. 
 
 Thus we find William, with Christianity, in the fortress 
 whose constable is Conscience. It is beleaguered by seven 
 giants (the deadly sins), who serve the cause of Antichrist, 
 and by their confederates. Envy and Hypocrisy are es- 
 pecially dangerous. Those wounded by Hypocrisy are 
 healed by Shrift, but they long for a gentler physician. 
 They ask for Flatterer, a friar, and Conscience is weak 
 enough to give him entrance. Brother Flatterer is to heal 
 Contrition, and is so successful that his patient forgets how 
 to cry and weep, and sinks into a deep slumber. Sloth and 
 Pride open a fresh attack. Conscience in vain calls upon 
 
MEANING OF PIERS PLOWMAN. 365 
 
 Contrition for aid ; the physic of Brother Flatterer is show- 
 ing its power. Conscience cries : " By Christ ! I will become 
 a pilgrim, and walk as wide as the world stretcheth to seek 
 Piers Plowman, that he may destroy Pride. . . . Now Na- 
 ture avenge me, and send me good hap and safety, till I 
 have Piers the Plowman." " And he wept for Grace till I 
 awoke." 
 
 Thus close the visions of William — in deep distress and ia 
 anxious waiting. The last words of the poem sound like a 
 note of despair, a wail from the Teutonic conscience feeling 
 the gulf between the ideal and the real. From such anguish 
 of conscience, at a later time, was born the German refor- 
 mation. 
 
 The question that first presents itself. Who or what is Piers 
 Plowman ? is almost as hard to answer as that more fre- 
 quently put : What is the Dantean Veltro ? 
 
 Piers Plowman is clearly the deliverer from the bondage 
 of sin, error, and death ; and hence, as is seen in the Vita 
 de JDobet, when disclosing the highest meaning of his being, 
 he represents human nature united in Christ with the God- 
 head. In Do-best he stands for the office of teacher and 
 judge, conferred upon the church by Christ, for the church 
 itself, so far as Christ really lives and works in her, for the 
 ideal church as opposed to the visible. Piers Plowman seems 
 to signify nearly the same at his first appearance ; but then 
 the individual and human side of his nature is more con- 
 spicuous. Piers there may be said to typify human nature 
 as blessed with divine grace, hearing God's voice in its con- 
 science, and fulfilling its life-task in the simplicity of faith, 
 and in good works. 
 
 The name of the hero has reference to the first epistle to 
 the Corinthians (X. 4), where there is mention of the spiritual 
 rock from which the Israelites, led by Moses, drank, " and 
 that Rock was Christ." Petrus id est christiis stands also in 
 our text (B. XV., 206). Piers's calling as husbandman is ex- 
 plained in the allegory in Do-best. It is moreover clear how 
 the choice of a station so humble and worthy and so often 
 despised, must in other respects also have seemed fitting to 
 the poet for his hero. 
 
 Piers Plowman is one of those poems that embody the 
 labour of a lifetime. Langland again returned in his later 
 
^66 PRELUDE TO REFORMATION AND RENAI SSANCE. 
 
 life (in 1393) to his work, to revise it anew. The result is 
 a text often expanded in detail, and in which some passages 
 have changed position, many inequalities have been removed, 
 many a harshness softened, but in which the vigour of style 
 has sometimes been weakened. 
 
 In the intervals of the three revisions, there passed an 
 eventful and most stirring period ; and while the poem itself 
 was not without influence upon events — of this we shall 
 speak later — it mirrors, as well, many a phase of their de- 
 velopment. 
 
 An animal fable, inserted in the prologue of the middle- 
 text, reminds us of the early part of Richard II. 's reign, and 
 of the wide-spread discontent regarding the influence upon 
 him of his uncle, John of Gaunt. The quick decline of the 
 king's popularity, dating from about 1392, appears in the 
 words addressed to the king by Langland in the latest text, 
 (IV., 208, et seq.) : " Unseemly forbearance, sister to bribery, 
 and this itself have almost brought it about, if Mary does 
 not help thee, that no land loves thee, and least of all thine 
 own." 
 
 The progress of religious agitation is also reflected in the 
 growth of the poem. It is significant that, in the middle 
 text, passages increase that point prophetically to the future, 
 whether they foretell a kingdom of peace or a reformation 
 of the clerical orders by an energetic king. The following 
 remarkable lines are well-known : ^ " But there shall come a 
 king, and confess you religiouses, and beat you as the Bible 
 telleth for breaking of your rule ; . . . . then shall the ab- 
 bot of Abingdon, and all his issue forever, have a knock of 
 a king, and incurable the wound." 
 
 Here the query arises as to Langland's attitude toward 
 Wiclif and the tendency he represented. 
 
 In all practical questions, Langland and Wiclif were of 
 the same opinion. We find in both the same main ethical 
 purpose, the same wrath at the moral decay of the church, 
 at the covetousness of the clergy, and the life led by the 
 friars, pardoners, and pilgrims. Both distinguish between 
 the church of Christ and its outward form in the hierarchy. 
 Many favourite ideas, images, and allusions are common to 
 both ; Wiclif may have borrowed some of them from Lang- 
 
 > B. X., 317, et seq. 
 
LANGLAND AND WICLIF. 367 
 
 land. Tlie great difference between them, despite this, re- 
 mains in the fact that Langland nowhere utters an opinion 
 decidedly antagonistic to Catholic doctrine, as it then was. 
 With all his boldness he has a conservatism that grows with 
 his years, a certain caution that at times prevents him from 
 speaking the last word, or from forming a definite conclusion. 
 He always shows great regard for the papacy; he denies 
 none of its prerogatives, even though he deems it safer to 
 base his salvation on Do-well than on a papal pardon. 
 
 Nevertheless, Langland's work was that of a reformer; 
 and the English reformers of the sixteenth century were right 
 when they saw in him a forerunner. 
 
 The Puritan element, which was destined to impress itself 
 so powerfully upon English life and literature in the seven- 
 teenth century, broke forth for the first time in Langland. 
 One of the greatest in the majestic line of English poets 
 whose muse was inspired by the highest interests of man, 
 those of rehgion, he was the worthy predecessor of a Milton. 
 He hardly equals, in purely poetical talent, and still less in 
 artistic gift the author of Gawaytie. He shows the true 
 power of plastic creation only in genre-painting. But he 
 excels him in breadth of view, in fulness and depth of 
 thought, and in power of pathos. Out of somewhat ruder 
 materials, he created a style whose dignity, vigour, and na- 
 tional spirit, endure beside the more perfect art of later and 
 greater poets. 
 
i 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
i 
 
A.— (BOOK I., CHAPTER IV., VIII). 
 
 THE POEMS ASCRIBED TO CAEDMON. 
 
 I do not intend, in this place, to discuss at any length the 
 legend of Caedmon, as reported by Bede. I would say on 
 the subject merely this: i. There is no reasonable ground 
 for doubting that an individual of the name of Caedmon really 
 lived at Streoneshalh, in the time of the abbess Hild. 2. We 
 may take it for granted that this Caedmon actually composed 
 a large amount of religious poetry on the subjects mentioned 
 by Bede. 3. There is no reason whatever to disbelieve 
 Bede's statement that Caedmon, before entering the cloister, 
 was a layman with no literary education. 4. We may even 
 go so far as to admit that Caedmon was not known to have 
 composed, nor even recited, any songs before a rather ad- 
 vanced period of his life ; that his poetical talent was first 
 stirred by a religious impulse ; and that, soon after it had 
 manifested itself, Caedmon turned monk. 5. We may safely 
 assume that Bede had read at least some of Caedmon's poems, 
 and that in his account of the poet he gave a pretty faithful 
 translation of the hymn said to be Caedmon's very first at- 
 tempt, and most probably being, to say the least, one of his 
 earliest works. 
 
 There, then, remains the question. What theory is to be 
 held as to the English poems that have been ascribed to 
 Caedmon ? Let us first consider the Old Northumbrian text 
 of the " hymn," preserved at the end of a MS. of Bede's 
 Ecclesiastical History , and in the main agreeing with the ver- 
 sion given by Aelfred in his translation of Bede's work. 
 
 I. It is well known that in 1705 Wanley pubhshed the 
 Northumbrian lines in question, in his Catalogus, p. 287, 
 designating them as " canticum illud Saxonicuni Caedmonis a 
 ßcsäa . . . memoratum" and as "■omnium quae in nostra 
 
372 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Hfigua etiammim extent 7noiiumentorum pene vetusfissimumy 
 From that time to the present day, the opinion prevalent 
 among scholars not unacquainted with this part of Wanley's 
 Catalogue, \\2iS been that in them we have " the exact words," 
 or nearly so, " of the poet." ^ The early date of the hand- 
 writing in which they have come down to us, though strongly 
 questioned by Conybeare (see Illustrations, p. 6, note 2), as 
 well as their close agreement with Bede's translation, seemed 
 to exclude any reasonable doubt. A it\N years ago, how- 
 ever, Prof R. Wülcker in an essay Ueber de7i hy?n?ius Caed- 
 nions, published in Beiti'äge zur Geschichte der deutschen 
 Sprache und Literatur, III. pp. 348-357, attempted to show 
 that the claimed authenticity of the Northumbrian poem was 
 not only doubtful, but highly improbable, nay impossible. 
 Through the author's kindness this article reached me when 
 the original ]\IS. of the present volume was finished, but the 
 printing had not yet begun. A careful perusal of the paper 
 soon convinced me that Prof. Wiilcker's arguments could 
 easily be refuted, and in pondering the matter anew, fresh 
 evidence seemed to me to arise for the genuineness of the 
 hymn. I, therefore, left unchanged what I had written, re- 
 serving the task of refuting the Professor's opinion for a 
 special article. To my great pleasure, however, this task 
 was taken from me by Prof. Zupitza, whose excellent essay 
 on Caedmon's Hymn, published in the Zeitschrift für deutsches 
 Alterthum, XXII. p. 210, et seq., contained the greater part 
 of what I had meant to say on the subject, together with 
 some things I should probably have left unsaid. This being 
 the case, I shall merely indicate the chief points of the ques- 
 tion, referring the reader for more ample information to Prof. 
 Zupitza's essay. 
 
 The main force of Wülcker's argument lies in the following 
 syllogism : According to Bede's own statement, his Latin 
 translation of Caedmon's hymn gives only the sense, not the 
 order of words of the original. Now the Northumbrian 
 poem agrees so closely with the Latin version that, suppos- 
 ing it to be its original, that version would have been a very 
 faithful, not at all a free one. Eigo, the Northumbrian poem 
 cannot be looked upon as the original in question. 
 
 In answer to this argument many things might be said. 
 
 * Henry Sweet in Warton-Hazlitt, U., p. 15. 
 
WÜLCKER's ARGUMENT. ;^J ^ 
 
 It might be hinted, that a translator's excuse for not render- 
 ing all tlie beauties of his original should never be taken too 
 literally. Moreover, attention might be called to the fact 
 that (setting aside the omission of some epithets, which did 
 not escape Wiilcker's attention) the order of the words in 
 Bede's translation does, after all, in many instances diverge 
 from the original. Prof Wiilcker, it is true, has tried to 
 show that it would have been easy for Bede to follow more 
 closely the Northumbrian text, without spoiling his Latin ; 
 but if this must be granted with regard to the beginning, I 
 absolutely deny it with regard to the latter part of the poem. 
 I for one confess my inability to imagine any form of the 
 original poem to which Wiilcker's argument might not have 
 been apphed with the same propriety, as to the form that 
 has come down to us. But the chief point is that put for- 
 ward by Prof Zupitza, to wit, that the expression orda ipse 
 verboru77i, in Bede, undoubtedly means " arrangement of 
 speech " in a wider sense, including rhythm, alliteration, and 
 parallelism of synonymous phrases. 
 
 Respecting the age of the handwriting in which the North- 
 umbrian lines have been preserved. Prof Wiilcker is inclined 
 to trust to Conybeare's impression of it, who thinks it " the 
 work of the eleventh or twelfth century, and of an inexpe- 
 rienced scribe ; " but how little Conybeare's authority is to 
 be relied on in this question, may be seen in Zupitza's 
 essay. 
 
 Prof Wiilcker then attempts to show that the language 
 and orthography do not point to a period anterior to the 
 tenth or the beginning of the following century. Here is his 
 greatest failure : for a comparison of the hymn with the earli- 
 est known monuments of the English language yields evi- 
 dence that it belongs to the same period. Many of its 
 orthographic peculiarities, it is true, occur also in Northum- 
 brian texts of later date; but the consistency with which 
 some of them are carried out, — as in the case of the final i 
 in mcecti^ eci, the ce in the genitive ending ces and in the pret- 
 erit tiddce, the a for ea in imrd, barnutn (as for middtmgeard, 
 cf. Anglia, I. p. 522), the ct for ht, etc. — together with such 
 forms dJifadtir^astelidcB, is irresistible evidence of the poem's 
 early origin. Add to this the fact that in the nine long lines 
 making up the hymn not a single form can be pointed out 
 
374 APPENDIX. 
 
 that we should not expect to find in a text written down in 
 the first half of the eighth century; whereas in any equal 
 portion of writing belonging to later centuries, I could easily 
 show at least half a dozen. 
 
 Finally, it cannot be doubted that the poem we presume 
 to call Caedmon's hymn was regarded as such by King 
 Aelfred, not only because he reproduced it, with only sHght 
 variations, in his translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History^ 
 but chiefly on account of the way in which he introduces its 
 quotation. The passage Hie est se?isus, no?i aiitem ordo 
 verborum, etc., following the Latin version in Bede, is, of 
 course, left out by him ; but there is a clear allusion to it in 
 his rendering of the phrase of Bede preceding the quotation : 
 Quoriwi iste est seiisiis — \ära endebyrdnes \is is ; efidebyrdfies 
 meaning precisely 07'do^ not se?isus. According to Wiilcker, 
 Aelfred meant simply to say something like, '' They run as 
 follows ; " but this explanation of the king's words is alto- 
 gether inadmissible.^ Granted that upon ordinary occasions 
 Aelfred, even when about to quote only a translation or 
 merely the general tenor of somebody's speech, 77iig}it have 
 written, " This is the succession " (or " order ") "of his words ; " 
 I maintain that he could not have written thus in the present 
 case, with Bede's text before him. Supposing him not to 
 have been convinced that he was giving the very words of 
 Caedmon, why, for instance, should he not have used, instead 
 of e?idebyrd?2es, such words as a?tdgit or '\poht ? 
 
 II. I come to the poems contained in the Bodleian MS. 
 Jun. XL, and ascribed to Caedmon by Junius. Hickes, it 
 will be remembered, was the first to question their authen- 
 ticity, and from the beginning of the eighteenth century 
 down to our own times, the learned author of the Thesau?'us 
 has found many followers as well as adversaries of his opinion ; 
 the former, however, as time went on, prevailing more and 
 more over the latter. It is not my intention to enter upon 
 the details of this literary war waged with alternating success ; 
 especially as the arguments used on both sides, till a very 
 recent epoch, did not denote any great insight into the means 
 with which such a question as this could be brought to issue. 
 A favourite topic of discussion, among others, was this, 
 whether the agreement between the beginning of the Old 
 
 * Compare Zupitza, 1. c. p. 218. 
 
CAEDMON AND THE GENESIS. 
 
 375 
 
 English Genesis and Caedmon's hymn, as given in Bede, was 
 such as to warrant the ascribing of the former to our poet. 
 Nearly all the writers who discussed this subject seem to 
 have argued upon the supposition that the hymn sung by 
 Caedmon in his dream was afterwards incorporated by him 
 into his poetical version of the book of Genesis. Even Mr. 
 Sweet, in his able Sketch of the History of Anglo-Saxon 
 Poetry ^^ says, " We may have in the earlier lines the rough 
 draft, which appears in the later MS. in a revised and ex- 
 panded form." Now the truth is that in Bede there is not 
 a single word to be found to the effect that the hymn he 
 translates into Latin is to be regarded as the beginning, or 
 in any way as part, of Caedmon's later Genesis-poem. He 
 says, it is true, that Caedmon upon awaking remembered the 
 words he had sung in his dream, and added to them many 
 more in the same style. But this, according to Bede's ac- 
 count, happened before the poet had entered the convent, 
 and before the " series of Scripture-history " had been ex- 
 pounded to him. When speaking of Caedmon's Bible-poetry, 
 the historian says nothing whatever to remind us of the poet's 
 first essay. The question, therefore, whether the agreement 
 between the opening lines of the Genesis-poem and Caed- 
 mon's hymn be more or less striking, has nothing to do with 
 the question of the authorship of the so-called Caedmonian 
 poems. Caedmon may more or less have repeated himself, 
 or another poet may have more or less imitated him. What 
 critic will be so confident as to decide which of the two 
 actually happened, considering that the object of imitation, 
 so far as preserved, consists of only nine lines, not distin- 
 guished by any high poetical merit ? 
 
 Before, however, putting the question whether the poems 
 contained in the Junian MS. were composed by Caedmon 
 or not, an accurate examination and analysis of the same 
 should be first attempted. Are the entire contents of the 
 MS. to be ascribed to a single poet ? If not, how many 
 hands or minds are to be distinguished in them ? 
 
 Now the most superficial examination shows at once that 
 the so-called "second part of Caedmon," containing the 
 New Testament poems, is widely different from the first, as 
 well in manner and style as in metrical and linguistic pecul- 
 
 » See Warton-HazUtt, II. p. 15. 
 
376 APPENDIX. 
 
 iarities. This difference is, indeed, so obvious that the only 
 thing to be wondered at is that it escaped the acute and 
 learned Junius. It was remarked by Hickes; it was more 
 clearly seen by Thorpe. Bouterwek, in the introduction to 
 his edition, p. ccxxxiv., insisted on the dialectical varieties 
 between the two parts, and gave a list of what seemed to 
 him the chief phonetic, and some inflectional peculiarities of 
 the second. It must be said, however, that, strictly speak- 
 ing, the only inference to be drawn from such discrepancies 
 as those remarked by Bouterwek would be that the scribe 
 who copied the second part ^ either himself belonged to, or 
 used a MS. written in, a district having a different dialect 
 from the first part, and that possibly both causes worked to- 
 gether. But fresh evidence, whether merely touched upon 
 or expanded, has been produced since,^ the substance of 
 which, together with some new matter, I have worked into 
 the characterisation of the poems making up the " second 
 part," in the eighth chapter of my first book. There can 
 hardly remain any doubt that these poems belong to a much 
 later period than the Old Testament poems contained in the 
 same MS. 
 
 To close at once with the " second part," I observe that 
 the first to see that it really consisted of three different poems, 
 or fragments of poems, most probably having different au- 
 thors, was Dr. Max Rieger. 
 
 III. A more accurate analysis of the first part was given 
 in i860, by Dr. Ernst Götzinger, in a dissertation bearing 
 the rather odd title : Ueber die Dichtungen des Angelsachsen 
 Caedmon und dere?i Verfasser (Göttingen). By a compari- 
 son of the composition, style, and phraseology of the three 
 poems. Dr. Götzinger shows that the paraphrases of the 
 books of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel must be ascribed to 
 three different authors. His phonological observations are 
 of less consequence ; but most unhappy is the inference he 
 draws from them, as well as firom the variations in phraseol- 
 ogy, with respect to the age of the Genesis-poem, which he 
 thinks to be of later date than the two other paraphrases. 
 
 • The handwriting of the second part is another and more negligent one than that 
 of the first. 
 
 2 I chiefly refer to the brief characterisation in Dietrich's essay Zu Caedjnon, 
 published in the Zeitschrift fur deutsches Alterthum, X., p. 311 ; to the metrical ob- 
 servations in various passages of Dr. Rieger's treatise on Alt- U7id Angc'säcJisiscfi^ 
 Verskunst ; and to the remarks on the style and manner of the poems in Heinzel's 
 essay Ueber den Stil der alt^crrnanischcn Poesie, Strassburg and London, 1875. 
 
THE HELIAND AND THE GENESIS. 377 
 
 As for the rest, Dr. Götzinger does not see the necessity 
 of conceding interpolations in any of the three poems, though 
 such had aheady been assumed by earUer critics, notably 
 by Bouterwek, in his edition of Caedmon, I., p. cxl., and by 
 Dietrich, Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthtim, X., p. 310. 
 
 IV. Dietrich's brief remark concerning the interpolator 
 shows that he fully appreciated some of the chief pecuHar- 
 ities in the manner of the poet who wrote v. 235-851 of 
 Genesis^ and that he had a tolerably clear notion of the por- 
 tion of that poem to be ascribed to him.^ But the first ex- 
 actly to determine the beginning as well as the end of the 
 episode, and to show that it formed part of an originally in- 
 dependent poem, differing in manner, style, metre, and lan- 
 guage from the bulk of the Genesis-poem, was Prof E. 
 Sievers in his essay. Der Heliand und die angelsächsische 
 Genesis, Halle, 1875.^ The most interesting part, however, 
 in Prof Sievers's essay is the discovery that in all these re- 
 spects the episode, while standing alone in Old English 
 poetry, is most nearly related to the Old Saxon Heliafid. 
 This relation appears very strikingly in the language and dic- 
 tion. Many formulas are to be found in the episode which, 
 occurring either very rarely or not at all, in other Old Eng- 
 lish poems, are frequently employed in the Heliand. There 
 are even a few words or word-combinations — such as wcBr, 
 wczrlice (for ^^ö, so^lice), strih (for sacu\ the preterit bedrog=. 
 " deceived," the use of swd hwd swd and swd hwcet sivd^ — 
 which must be pronounced quite un-English, but very good 
 Old Saxon. From this Prof Sievers infers that the poem to 
 which our episode formerly belonged was originally written 
 in Old Saxon, by the author of the Heliand; that an Eng- 
 lishman who had learned German in Germany translated it 
 into his own language, somewhat expanding and enlarging 
 it ; and that this translation, having lost its latter part, was, 
 in the course of the tenth century, interpolated in a more ex- 
 tensive Genesis-poem, of English growth. As may be seen 
 from the eighth chapter of my first book, these conclusions, 
 from the first, did not strike me as inevitable. Nor has my 
 
 1 He says that the interpolator's writing is more diffuse than that of the earHer poet, 
 but that he displays poetical power, at least in the exposition of characters, as may be 
 seen in his portrayal of Satan, and in the temptation-scene. 
 
 2 Sievers also showed that the author of the episode largely drew from the I^lm 
 poem De o?-igme mundi, by Avitus. 
 
 ' Observe also such a form as gettg for geöng. 
 
375 APPE^^)IX. 
 
 opinion been altered since writing that chapter, notwithstand 
 ing a certain amount of new matter with which Prof. Sievers, 
 in his edition of the Heliand, has tried to strengthen his argu- 
 ment. No doubt, an EngUshman, having Uved, perhaps still 
 living, in Germany, and translating an Old Saxon work into 
 English, might easily be induced, by the great affinity of the 
 two idioms, to adopt from his original some words and 
 phrases unknown to his own language. But is it probable 
 that, while on the whole writing in Good English (though 
 employing many new formulas), it would have escaped him 
 that an Englishman did not say wcer (Old Saxon war), but 
 so'6 : not stn"^, but sacu ? I repeat that, supposing Sievers's 
 theory to be true, we must expect to find in the fragment 
 either a greater number of purely un-English terms, or none 
 at all of this grievous kind. If it is a translation, we must 
 expect, too, to meet with some cases where, in consequence 
 of the lines being turned into another idiom, the alliteration 
 has been obliterated. Now, though we may point out some 
 instances in which, by translating the formulas used into Old 
 Saxon, we get two " staves " in the first half-line, instead of 
 but one, there is not a single instance where alliteration is 
 entirely wanting, or where its laws are in any way violated, 
 in consequence of the foreign formulas employed by the poet. 
 Sievers, it is true, says, on p. 14, that in v. 540 the allitera- 
 tion has been destroyed by turning the well-known Old Sax- 
 on formula tecaii gitogian into the English tdce?i o'^iewan ; 
 but if the English formula, as such, lacks alliteration, the line 
 in which it occurs is construed in perfect harmony with the 
 laws of alliterative measure : 
 
 n6 J)ü me oöz/west ^^nig tacen.' 
 It will be evident to every reader of Dr. Rieger's treatise 
 on Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon versification that by ex- 
 changing the verb o^iewan, in this line, for the Old Saxon 
 gitogian, the alliteration would be spoiled.^ If we, there- 
 fore, admit Sievers's supposition, we must further concede 
 either that the Enghsh translator transposed the order of 
 words in the second half-line, or that by being turned into 
 
 1 Compare Cynewulf 's Christ, V. 839. 
 
 J)2br bio oö^wed egsa raara, 
 
 2 The rhyming letter being t, the word tdcen should precede ^nig, both on account 
 of the metrical rule concerning the rhyming letter in the second half-line, and in con- 
 seauence of the laws of accentuation. 
 
ORIGIN OF THE GENESIS. 
 
 379 
 
 English the line, far from losing its rhyme, first got its cor- 
 rect alliterative shape. Now it is true that in replacing the 
 Old Saxonisms found in the fragment by their English equiv- 
 alents, (for instance, if in v. 68 1 we were to write soMin 
 wordum for wcerutn wordum), the alliteration would now 
 and then be sacrificed. But can we imagine an English 
 translator to have been at once so nice with regard to metre, 
 and so unscrupulous in the handling of his own language, 
 as to alter Old Saxon formulas only when alliteration was 
 safe, or (as in the case of v. 540) could be preserved by 
 transposition, but whenever this did not seem quite easy, to 
 leave unchanged even such words as must have been entirely 
 incomprehensible to his countrymen ? 
 
 On the other hand, 1 can easily imagine a learned Old 
 Saxon monk, one of the foreign scholars attracted to Eng- 
 land by King Aelfred, writing the English language with 
 ease, and on the whole even with purity, yet unable entirely 
 to avoid unidiomatic terms, especially when clinging to allit- 
 erative formulas familiar to him from his youth. 
 
 At all events, then, two Genesis-poems are to be distin- 
 guished, which, following Sievers, we shall call A and B. 
 In my opinion, the latter poem (B), represented by v. 235- 
 851 of Genesis, was composed during the second half (or, 
 more exactly, the last quarter) of the ninth century. Ac- 
 cording to Sievers, it must have been turned mto English at 
 about the same time. The question now arises : Is it to be 
 ascribed to an earlier or to a later period than B ? or may 
 they belong nearly to the same epoch ? 
 
 V. Sievers is inclined to assume the priority of A, think- 
 ing it possible that the poet of A himself worked the frag- 
 ment of B, then extant, into his own poetry (see above). In 
 the first book of the present work, ch. iv. and viii., I main- 
 tain the contrary opinion, calling A the Elder, B the Younger 
 Ge7iesis, and accounting for the loss of the latter part of B 
 by the assumption that the scribe or reviser of A availed him- 
 self of the later Genesis-poem only to fill up the lacunae in 
 the text of the earlier one* 
 
 The chief arguments touched upon in my fourth chapter, 
 as indicative of the high antiquity of A, concern the compo- 
 sidon, style, and spirit of the poem, the epic simplicity and 
 severity pervadmg it. Great stress is laid on the fact that in 
 
380 APPENDIX. 
 
 this poem epic fulness and a deep religious emotion are 
 found unaccompanied by the sentimental mood character- 
 istic of later writers. It would be easy to enlarge upon 
 these features, adding a great number of new illustrations to 
 those given in the text, and confronting them with parallel 
 passages from other Old English poems. I am, however, of 
 opinion that this would be of but little avail for such readers 
 as have not read the poems in question ; whereas, those who 
 have will scarcely require it. As to the class of readers wont 
 to mete out the confidence to be placed in an author's con- 
 clusions in exact proportion to the number of pages and of 
 learned quotations he has used in argument, — and this class 
 is much more numerous than is generally presumed, consist- 
 ing chiefly of people who call themselves scholars, — I con- 
 fess I don't value their assent so highly as to be willing to 
 put myself to much trouble for the sake of gaining it. 
 
 Of the language of the Elder Genesis^ an exhaustive and 
 truly critical examination is still wanting. Dr. Götzinger's 
 attempt to prove the language of the Genesis-poem, as a 
 whole, of later origin than the language of Exodus and 
 Daniel, must be pronounced a decided failure. But we must 
 not forget that inquiries of this kind were much more diffi- 
 cult to make in i860 than they would be now. Since the 
 appearance of Grein's Sprachschatz, for instance, every be- 
 ginner may easily avoid errors like that which Dr. Götzinger 
 falls into concerning the word fce.le, which he calls, on p. 44 
 of his essay, ein sehr junges Wort, apparently unaware of the 
 fact that it occurs in what may be regarded as the very 
 earliest among extant English poems, namely, in Wtdsith. 
 
 Still, even at this time, an attempt to determine the ap- 
 proximate age of the Earlier Genesis from an examination of 
 the language would meet with great difficulties, and would 
 have to grapple with very delicate questions. Not only that 
 here, as in similar cases, allowance would have to be made 
 for the modernisation the poem underwent at the hands of 
 later scribes; ill the lexicological part of his inquiry, the 
 critic would have to show himself fully aware of the poet's 
 individuality, of the difference, for instance, existing between 
 the author of the Earlier Gejiesis and the authors of Exodus 
 or of Ekjie. 
 
 As to the character of our poet, I depict him, in my fourth 
 
cAedmon's hymn and the earlier genesis. 381 
 
 chapter, as a grand and noble mind, wanting, however, a 
 more refined culture ; as an author apparently belonging to 
 an epic age, yet showing in his work but few traces of that 
 enthusiasm for the " pride and circumstance " of war, and 
 for the conventional ideas of thegnhood, common to the 
 propagators of the national epic. In short, I represent him 
 as answering, in all essential points, to the idea we are en- 
 titled to form of the poet Caedmon. I do not wish to go 
 beyond this. I am far from insinuating that we should be, 
 in any way, justified in applying to our poet the name of 
 Caedmon, except by courtesy alone. Still, an additional cir- 
 cumstance bearing upon this question, and already ahuded 
 to in my fourth chapter, perhaps deserves to be brought 
 nearer to my readers. It concerns a rather striking corre- 
 spondence in phraseology between Caedmon's " hymn " and 
 the Earlier Genesis. 
 
 The epithets serving to designate God in the Hymn are 
 the following; i, hefceruices uard^ 2, moncynnes iiard., 3, 
 metud, 4, tmldtirfadur, 5, eci dijctin (occurring twice), 6, 
 haleg scepe?i, 7, jFred allmectig. Now, turning to Prof Siev- 
 ers's list of similar expressions occurring in A, we find No. i 
 employed four times, No. 2 twice. No. 3 three and twenty 
 times, besides the combinations in which the word occurs. 
 No. 5 eleven times. No. 7 eleven times. The only expres- 
 sions not found in A are ivuldorfceder (No. 4), instead of 
 which it has wicidorcyning, four times, and hdleg scepe?i, 
 (No. 6), or as Aelfred's version has it, hdlig scyppend^ the word 
 scyppend being used in A only with his (once) or with üre 
 (five times). 
 
 If, for comparison's sake, we take up another English 
 poem, especially rich in expressions of this kind, namely 
 Cynewulf's Christy instead of but two, three of the above- 
 mentioned epithets are entirely wanting (Nos. i, 2, and 6). 
 On the other hand, the word wuldorfceder here occurs, but 
 only once, whereas Cynewulf does not employ it at all in 
 any of his other works. 
 
 We may, then, be permitted to say that, though it would 
 be rash to draw any positive inference from the phraseolog- 
 ical correspondence pointed out, yet, considering it in con- 
 nection with other features of the Earlier Genesis^ it would 
 seem to be deserving of some regard. 
 
3^2 APPENDIX. 
 
 While writing these additional pages for the English edi- 
 tion of the present work, I received the last number of the 
 Anglia (Vol. V. No. i), containing, on pp. 124-133, a short 
 essay on the Earlier Geftesis by Prof. Ebert. The chief ob- 
 ject of this essay is a comparison of the poem^ with the cor- 
 responding parts of the book of Genesis in the Vulgate. 
 Having carefully perused it, I am happy to state that I find 
 nothing to alter in the account given of the Earlier Genesis 
 in the fourth chapter of my first book. But I must say, in this 
 place, a few words on the inference the learned author thinks 
 himself entitled to draw from the results of his inquiry into 
 Bede's account of Caedmon and his poetry. 
 
 According to Prof. Ebert, it is evident that the poem in 
 question could not have been composed by Caedmon: i. 
 Because it is the work of a learned poet, having himself stud- 
 ied the Bible, and writing with the Holy Book before him ; 
 2, Because it is an epic poem, whereas the Professor infers 
 from Bede's narrative that Caedmon 's songs must have had 
 the character of hymns. 
 
 As to the first point, I confess I have but a very imperfect 
 notion both of the strength of Caedmon's memory, and of 
 the manner in which he was taught, and the work of para- 
 phrasing the Bible was carried on between him and his teach- 
 ers. I only venture to observe that from Bede's words. At 
 ipse cuncta quae aiidiendo discere poterat^ rememorando se- 
 CUM, et quasi mundum animal^ ruminando in cartnen diil- 
 cissi?nu?n converiebat^ we may safely assume that Caedmon not 
 simply translated his daily lesson, line by line, but made, in 
 some places, curtailments and transpositions of the same kind 
 as are to be found in the Ea?'lier Genesis. On the other hand, 
 from the phrase stiaviiisque resonando doctores suos vicissim 
 aiiditores sin faciebat, we are not to infer that these teachers, 
 turned auditors, when writing down Caedmon's poems from 
 his own mouth, — as they most probably did — were content 
 to write every line just as it was uttered. I cannot help 
 thinking that, now and then, they submitted to the poet's 
 judgment alterations or additions to be made, for the sake 
 of correctness or completeness, repeating to him that part of 
 the lesson required for the purpose. For aught I know, they 
 may even have gone so far as to make corrections of less im- 
 
 ' More strictly speaking, of the portion beginning at v. 852. 
 
fiBERT'S THEORY. 3^3 
 
 port, for Instance, concerning names and numbers, on their 
 own responsibility. 
 
 As to the second point, having once more read the pas- 
 sage in Bede, it seems impossible to come to a conclusion 
 respecting its purport different from that reached many years 
 ago, to wit, that Caedmon composed epic as well as lyrical 
 and didactic poems; and I entirely fail to see how Prof. 
 Ebert should have come to a different result. 
 
 To infer from the phrase Canebat autem de creatiofie mundi 
 et origine hwnani generis ei toia Genesis hisforia, etc., that the 
 poems composed by Caedmon on these and similar subjects 
 were hymns, would be much the same thing as to infer from 
 the phrase Arma virumqiie cano that Virgil meant to com- 
 pose a hymn when wriung his yEneid. When Prof Ebert 
 says with respect to the (carmina) de beneficiis et judiciis di- 
 vinis, mentioned by Bede, " that the subject of these songs 
 throws a light on the poetic manner in which Caedmon 
 treated biblical subjects," I cannot but think that he has 
 overlooked the circumstance that the new sentence, begin- 
 ning with Item de terrore, as it points to a difterent range of 
 subjects, not unlikely, in Bede's mind, was to suggest also a 
 a manner of composition differing from the poems mentioned 
 in the preceding sentence.^ It may be added that, within 
 narrower bounds, the same holds with regard to the subdi- 
 vision of the second sentence, marked by the words sed et 
 alia perplura. The Professor's supposition that Caedmon 
 " certainly " composed only in a single form or species of 
 poetry, can be admitted only in so far as all English poets, 
 almost without exception, may be said to have cultivated 
 ths same poetic form. They all employed the epic measure 
 and drew, more or less largely, from the epic vocabulary ; 
 while, on the other hand, they were wont to introduce a cer- 
 tain amount of subjective feeling and reflection even into 
 such of their composidons as come nearest to the purely epic 
 type. Notwithstanding this, we may, among Cynewulf's 
 works for instance, distinguish epic, lyrical, and didactic 
 poems ; and there is no reason whatever for supposing that 
 Caedmon's poetry excluded the epic genre. 
 
 1 As to the Apostolo-rum doctrina, closing the enumeration in the preceding sentence, 
 the expression doubtless does not mean the substance of the apostolic doctrine, but 
 rather the manner in which it was propagated : in other words, the story of the apos- 
 tles, as told in the Acts and, perhaps, in apocryphal accounts. 
 
3^4 APPENDIX. 
 
 Great stress is laid by Prof. Ebert on the pious intention 
 and the didactic tendency with which Caedmon, according 
 to Bede, composed his poems. If I do not misinterpret the 
 Professor's meaning, he seems to hold that lyrical poems, at 
 least such as answer to the character of hymns, are more 
 apt to draw people on to virtue, than compositions of the 
 truly epic kind. Now this is a point upon which I should 
 not like to enter into discussion. Looking, however, at the 
 large amount of Bible epics and the numberless lives of saints 
 composed during the Middle Ages, and considering the gen- 
 eral purpose with which these were professedly written, as 
 well as the special ends they were frequently made to serve, I 
 cannot refrain from observing that Prof Ebert's opinion, 
 whether right or wrong, was certainly not the opinion preva- 
 lent at the earlier stages of Occidental literature. Nor, if 
 we turn to a later age, does it seem to have been the opinion 
 held by such poets as Spenser and Milton. 
 
 VI. The twentieth volume of the Germania (edited by 
 Karl Bartsch) contains, on pp. 292-305, an essay on the Exodus 
 poem by Dr. Joseph Strobl, which I cannot here pass over 
 in silence, as it is a rather remarkable specimen of acute, but 
 somewhat venturesome criticism. According to Dr. Strobl, 
 the original poem, treating of the fortunes of the Israelites 
 on the Red Sea, began at v. 135 of the transmitted text, and 
 had quite the character of an epic song. To this piece v/as 
 first prefixed an introduction, from another hand, contain- 
 ing the substance of v. 1-55. Next a great many passages ^ 
 were interpolated into the text by a third poet, anxious to 
 bring about a greater conformity with the biblical narrative ; 
 and, finally, in the introduction, too, interpolations were in- 
 serted. 
 
 The evidence collected by Dr. Strobl in support of this 
 theory bears partly upon the use of certain words and epi- 
 thets, and partly upon the connection of thought. I do not 
 wish to pass a summary judgment upon the author's manner 
 of reasoning; but I will not withhold a few observations on 
 his results. 
 
 I agree with Dr. Strobl in admitting that the poem of 
 Exodus contains some interpolations ; but I must say that 
 
 1_ Among the larger interpolations assumed by Dr. Strobl are (besides v. 362-455, 
 which I, too, consider as interpolated) v. 56-134 and 515-547. 
 
PURITY OF THE EXODUS. 385 
 
 among the passages he marks as interpolated the greater 
 part afford us no sufficient grounds for doubting their gen- 
 uineness. 
 
 As to the beginning of the original poem, I feel absolutely- 
 sure that it did not begin at v. 135, even supposing the read- 
 ing proposed by Dr. Strobl to be the true one, which it is 
 certainly not : 
 
 ^sbr on fyrAJrecne fabrspell becwom, 
 oht inlende 
 
 I know of no epic song, no popular ballad, beginning in this 
 abrupt way. Much less would a writer of religious poetry, 
 imitating the epic style, have hazarded such an exordium. 
 Dr. Strobl's Liedertheorie evidently does not agree with the 
 facts. If he wants to convince himself of this, let him look 
 at any collection of ballads written in any European lan- 
 guage whatever. Take, for instance, the Romancero del Cid. 
 As a rule, in each poem the situation, together with the per- 
 sons acting, frequently also the place of action, is clearly 
 pointed out from the beginning. There are some excep- 
 tions, it is true, based, it would seem, upon the principle of 
 rousing the auditor's curiosity. In these the poem mainly 
 consists of a speech, at the end of which the person who 
 pronounced it is named. Setting aside the question as to 
 the origin of this latter sort of ballads, it is evident that their, 
 so to say, dramatic way of plunging into medias res is not at 
 all to be compared with an opening like that assumed by 
 Dr. Strobl. Turning to an instance more near at hand, 
 to the Hildebrandslied, we have the names of both heroes, 
 father and son, mentioned in the very first sentence. Dr. 
 Strobl, in corroboration of his view, refers to the opening 
 lines of what, according to Prof Müllenhoff's story, makes 
 up the first song oi Beoimilf : 
 
 Jjaet fram ham gefrsegn Hygelaces t)egn, 
 god mid Geatum, Grendles dabda. 
 
 But, granting the method of supporting one theory by an- 
 other to be legitimate, nobody, I hope, will fail to see the 
 enormous difference between the two instances. In the 
 Beowulf-lmes we have not less than three proper names (in- 
 cluding the gentile noun Gedtas), and the two chief actors 
 of the story, Beowulf (Hygelaces ]>egnj and Grendel, are 
 clearly pointed out ; whereas in the passage of Exodus cited 
 
 A2 
 
386 APPENDIX. 
 
 above there is nothing of the kind, the expression Egypta 
 cyn (v. 145) occurring not less than ten lines later, and the ex- 
 pression Moyses leode, after another interval of seven lines 
 (v. 152). In short, there cannot be the least doubt that the 
 Exodus-poem had an introduction ; and evidence quite dif- 
 ferent from that produced by Dr. Strobl would be required 
 to establish the fact that its present introduction, whether 
 containing interpolations or not, was not the original one. 
 
 I should like to say a few words on the very curious ex- 
 planation the learned critic gives of v. 467-479, which, ac- 
 cording to him, depict the perilous situation of the Israelites 
 marching across the Red Sea; but I must resist the tempta- 
 tion. 
 
 B.—(BOOK I., CHAPTER V.). 
 
 cynewulf's life and works. 
 
 My account of Cynewulf, or Coenewulf, is chiefly based 
 on the investigations of Professor Dietrich,^ whose results, 
 however, I have accepted only in so far as they seemed to 
 me fully established. I do not follow Dietrich in identifying 
 Cynewulf, the poet, with Cynewulf, the bishop of Lindis- 
 farne (737-780), nor in ascribing to him the fragment extant 
 of an Old English Physiologus. Next to the learned Mar- 
 burg professor, I feel most indebted, for this portion of my 
 work, to Heinrich Leo,^ who first showed that the charade 
 prefixed to the collection of Riddles in the Exeter MS., con- 
 tains the name of Cynewulf, and to Dr. Max Rieger,^ for 
 his excellent commentary on the same charade and his in- 
 terpretation of the runes occurring in the epilogue to Elene, 
 It is .mainly owing to Dr. Rieger's researches that Cyne- 
 wulf's Northumbrian origin, which had not been quite suffi- 
 ciently established, either by Leo or by Dietrich, now may 
 be taken for granted, and that a satisfactory explanation of 
 
 1 See Zeitschrift für deutcJies Alterßium, IX., p. 193; XI., p. 448; XII., p. 232: 
 fahrbuch für romaniscJie ufid engliscJie Literatur, I. p. 241 ; Cotntnentatio dl 
 Kynewulü poetcu aetate, etc., Marburg, i860; Disj>utatio de cruce RuthiueUensit 
 Marburg, 1865. 
 
 * Q?(ae de se ipse Cynewulfus . . . tradiderit, Halle, 1857. 
 
 * Zeitschriftfür deutsche Philologie, I., pp. 215-226, 313-334. 
 
THEORIES REGARDING CYNEWULF. 387 
 
 the epilogue mentioned has become possible. But as to the 
 explanation given by Dr. Rieger himself, I believe I have 
 shown elsewhere^ that it cannot be accepted without some es- 
 sential modifications, chiefly important on account of their bear- 
 ing upon the question of the chronology of Cynewulf's works. 
 Respecting the same critic's attempt to show that Cynev/ulf, 
 besides the greater part of the poems ascribed to him by 
 Dietrich, wrote also the Wanderer, the Seafarer, and sev- 
 eral other lyric and gnomic pieces, I shall only say that it 
 appears to me unsuccessful. The analogy in idea and ex- 
 pression existing between these poems and some of the un- 
 doubted works of Cynewulf would be sufficiently accounted 
 for by supposing one poet to have imitated the other, or 
 both an earlier writer. And, in my opinion, there is much 
 in the manner of the Wanderer, as well as the Seafarer^ 
 not exactly corresponding to Cynewulf's poetical character, 
 as displayed in his authentic productions. The same must 
 be said with regard to the Rhyming Poem, ascribed to Cyne- 
 wulf by Grein, but, as shown by Dr. Rieger, most probably 
 belonging to a later age. 
 
 More particulars concerning the above-mentioned, as well 
 as other writers, on our poet may be found in Prof. Wiilck- 
 er's essay Ueber Cy7iewulf, published in the Anglia, I. pp. 
 483-507, some months after the appearance of the original 
 edition of the present volume. It is the first of a series of 
 articles on Cynewulf, contained in the same periodical, and 
 purporting to submit to a new examination some of the chief 
 results arrived at by earlier investigators, and notably by 
 Dietrich. 
 
 Prof Wiilcker begins by drawing a rather elaborate sketch 
 of what he calls the romance concerning Cynewulf's life. 
 As the different features of his picture are borrowed from 
 different authors, it cannot be said to give, as a whole, a 
 fair representation of the views professed by any of them.^ 
 At all events, I for my own part shall be justified in saying 
 nothing about it, my own account of Cynewulf's life being 
 not in the least more romantic than the views developed by 
 
 ' See A nzeiger/ür dezitches A lterthu7n, V. , p. 64, et seq. 
 
 2 Perhaps we ought to except Grein, whose theory on Cynewulf, as developed in his 
 lectures, is alluded to by Wiilcker in several passages of the above-mentioned essay, 
 and has since been made accessible to the public ; see A ngeJsäcJisische Graminatik von 
 Pro/. Dr. C. W. M. Grein, Kassel, 1880, pp. 11-15. 
 
388 APPENDIX. 
 
 Wülcker himself, at the close of his essay, and indeed differ- 
 ing but very little from them. 
 
 Having sketched the romance, the Professor proceeds to 
 examine the foundations it is built on. The results of this 
 inquiry are summed up, on p. 506 of his essay, under the 
 following four heads : 
 
 1. " The Ruth well Cross has nothing whatever to do with 
 our poet, even if the poem written on it should have been 
 composed by Cynewulf " 
 
 2. " Our poet was certainly not the same person with that 
 Cynewulf who, having been bishop of Lindisfarena e from 
 about 737 till 780, withdrew and soon after died." 
 
 3. " There is no sufficient evidence for admitting that 
 Cynewulf was a native of Northumbria." 
 
 4. " The Dream of the Cross was not composed by Cyne- 
 wulf." 
 
 As to the first and second of these theses, being substan- 
 tially of the same opinion as Prof. Wülcker, I shall dispense 
 with discussing his arguments. Concerning the two latter 
 points, I refer the reader to my review of Prof. Zupitza's edi- 
 tion of Cynewulf's Ele?ie, printed in Anzeiger für detaches 
 Alterthtun, V. pp. 53-70. He there will find Wiilcker's ob- 
 jections refuted, the arguments establishing Cynewulf's 
 Northumbrian origin summed up, and additional evidence 
 produced for the fact that he really wrote the Dream of the 
 Cross. 
 
 The second volume of the Anglia contains two essays on 
 subjects connected with Cynewulf The first, by Dr. Char- 
 itius, (pp. 268-308) purports to show that from the two parts 
 which are to be distinguished in the poem of Guthlac^ only 
 the latter (B), founded upon the Vita Guthlaci, was written 
 by Cynewulf, whereas the former part (A) is to be regarded 
 as the work of an earlier poet. Having no leisure, for the 
 present, to enter upon the details of this question, I can only 
 express my conviction that Dr. Charitius, whilst strengthen- 
 ing Dietrich's arguments respecting the authorship of Giith- 
 lac B^ has failed to prove his own theory concerning Guthlac 
 A. I still hold it possible, nay probable, that this part, too, 
 
 'This was first remarked by Dr. Rieger : see Zeitschrift für deiiiscJie Philologie, 
 I. p. 326, note. In his essay on Attdrens (Anglia, II. p. 461) Dr. Fritzsche observes 
 that traces of an acquaintance with the Vita Guthlaci may be seen also in Guthlac 
 A from V. 500 on. 
 
ASSER'S LIFE OF AELFRED. 389 
 
 was written by Cynewulf, although I admit that a new inquiry 
 into the question would be desirable. At all events, thus 
 much seems to result from Charitius's investigations, that the 
 lapse of time intervening between the composition of Giithlac 
 A and Giithlac B must have been a rather considerable one. 
 
 The second article, by Dr. Fritzsche (pp. 441-496), dis- 
 cusses the question of the authorship of the Andreas-poem, 
 coming to the conclusion that this was not written by Cyne- 
 wulf himself, but by another poet belonging to his school. 
 This essay is, on the whole, written with great care,^ as well 
 as a certain amount of acumen, and the author's argument, 
 though not absolutely convincing, is well calculated to raise 
 serious doubts concerning CynewulPs authorship. 
 
 Finally, in an essay printed in the third volume of the 
 Afiglia, pp. 488-526, Dr. Gabler shows that Dietrich was 
 right in ascribing to Cynewulf the poem of the Phoenix. 
 
 C— (BOOK I. CHAPTER VIL). 
 
 ASSER'S life of AELFRED AND THE WINCHESTER ANNALS. 
 
 One of the critics of my Litter aiw'ge schichte pointed out 
 to me the letters written by Mr. Henry H. Howorth to the 
 editor of the Athenaeiwi, from March 25, '76 to August 4, '77 
 (which had escaped my notice when I was preparing the 
 volume for the press), as containing conclusive evidence of 
 the inauthenticity of Asser's Life of Aelfred. Having now 
 carefully read them through, as well as some other recent 
 matter on the same subject, I must say, the question, in my 
 eyes, remains nearly the same as before, surrounded by the 
 greatest difficulties and involved in dense obscurity. It 
 would be out of place in an appendix to a work of this nature 
 to enter upon the details of a problem of only secondary 
 importance with regard to the general object of the work; 
 but the serious doubts existing in respect of the date and 
 
 » I cannot, however, help wondering at the fact that Dr. Fritzsche, as well as Dr. 
 Charitius, whilst alluding to the conclusions in Prof. Wiilcker's _essay on Cynewulf, 
 »eems to be quite unaware of the existence of my article in \kic Anzeiger (v. s.}, in 
 which part of them are refuted. 
 
390 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 origin of the said biography not having been indicated in 
 my text, it may be as well to say at least in a note that I am 
 fully aware of their weight, and think it no easy, though at 
 the same time no impossible, task to remove them. 
 
 As to Mr. Howorth's attempt to show that the Parker MS. 
 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronkle was probably copied from the 
 Cottonian MS., Otho, B. xi., I hope I may be allowed to ex- 
 press my conviction that he haf) entirely failed to prove his 
 case, and that paleo graphical as well as linguistic evidence 
 is most decidedly in favour of the earlier origin of the Parker 
 MS. I am confident that, unless quite unlooked-for materi- 
 als should one day turn up, the Parker MS. will for ever 
 maintain its rank as being, on the whole, the most authentic 
 copy of the Winchester Annals^ and chiefly as presenting in 
 its earher script, extending to the year 991, the most trust- 
 worthy text of a compilation made in the days of King 
 Aelfred. 
 
 D.— (BOOK I., CHAPTER VII.). 
 
 THE WORKS OF KING AELFRED. 
 
 According to Prof. Wiilcker [Beiträge zur Geschichte der 
 deutschen Spi'ache und Literatur^ IV. pp. 100-13 1), part of 
 Aelfred's Enchiridio7i would have come down to us in the 
 Old English version of St. Augustine's Soliloquia, contained 
 in the Cottonian MS., Vitellius, A. XV. On the other hand, 
 Dr. E. Gropp [On the Language of the Proverbs of Aelfred, 
 Halis Saxonum, 1829 [read : 1879], p. 15) seeks to establish 
 a certain connection between Aelfred's JIand-book and the 
 early Middle English Proverbs, going under the name of the 
 great West-Saxon king. (Compare B. II. ch. v. of the 
 present work.) 
 
 E.— (BOOK I., CHAPTER IX.). 
 
 wulfstan's homilies. 
 
 According to Dr. Arthur Napier, who has quite recently 
 given us a good edition of two of Wulfstan's homilies, to- 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF GENESIS AND EXODUS. 391 
 
 gether with the so-called Pastoral Maftdate ( Ueher die Werke 
 des altenglischen Erzbischofs Wulf stau, Weimar, 1882), the 
 greater part of the fifty-three homilies ascribed to Wulfstan by 
 Wanley, consist of compilations from different other homilies 
 some among the number being simply taken from the Blick- 
 ling series, or from the collections composed by Aelfric, with 
 another exordium prefixed to them. Dr. Napier says that a 
 critical examination of the homilies in question, with a view 
 of establishing their authorship, should proceed upon the 
 basis afforded by the four pieces unquestionably belongin«' 
 to Wulfstan, namely Nos. i, 2, 5,1 6, according to Wanley's 
 numbering. Applying this method to the Pastoral Mandate, 
 he arrives at the conclusion that of the two parts which 
 may be distinguished in it only the former was written by 
 Wulfstan. 
 
 F.— (BOOK II., CHAPTER XL). 
 
 GENESIS AND EXODUS. 
 
 The opinion expressed in my account of the Middle 
 English Stojy of Ge?iesis and Exodus concerning the identical 
 authorship of the two poems, namely, that it was a supposi- 
 tion wanting proof and, on the whole, rather improbable, 
 has called forth an essay by Dr. Fritzsche, 1st die altenglische 
 " Story of Gc7iesis and Exodus'^ das iverk eines Verfassers? 
 (Afiglia, V. pp. 43-90). By a comparison of the versification 
 (including rhyme and alliteration), the language, and the 
 phraseology of both poems. Dr. Fritzsche attempts to show 
 that the question is to be answered in the affirmative. Un- 
 fortunately the phonological part of his treatise is quite un- 
 satisfactory, and I am sorry to say that, generally speaking, 
 the evidence collected by him does not seem sufficient to 
 me. With regard to the passage quoted from my book on 
 pp. 44-45 of the essay, I was somewhat surprised to find 
 that the author, having correctly reproduced my words in 
 that place, apparently had forgotten their meaning when 
 applying, on p. 82, what I had said about the dialect to the 
 style of the poems in question. 
 
 * No. 5 is the Sertno Lupi ad A7iglos alluded to in our text. 
 
392 APPENDIX. 
 
 G.— (BOOK IL, CHAPTER XII.). 
 
 THE LEGENDS OF ST. KATHERINE, ST. MARGARET, AND ST. 
 JULIANA, AND THE HOMILY ON " HALT MEIDENHAD." 
 
 The poems mentioned in the heading of this note have 
 been quite recently submitted to a close investigation, bear- 
 ing on their form as well as their conception, by Dr. Eugen 
 EiJienkel, Ueber die Verfasser eifiiger neuangelsächsischer 
 Schriften^ Leipzig, 1881, and Ueber den Verfasser der neu- 
 angelsächsischen Legende von Kathari?ia, published in the 
 Anglia, V. pp. 91-123. The result of Dr. Einenkel's re- 
 searches, as far as the authorship of the four poems is con- 
 cerned, is this, that St. Alarherete and St. Juliana are to be 
 ascribed to the same poet, whereas St. Katherine, being 
 probably the earliest in date, and Ifali Meidenhad, showing 
 traces that the homihst was acquainted with the Hfe of St. 
 Margaret, were written by different authors. With regard 
 to the metre of these poems, I wish to observe that the dif- 
 ference to be remarked between the judgment given upon 
 the matter in the text of the present work, and Dr. Einen- 
 kel's opinion on the same subject, may, for a large part, be 
 reduced to a mere dissimilarity of terminology ; but this dis- 
 similarity is such as to presuppose a real disparity of views 
 in respect of the Old English alliterative measure and its 
 later development. 
 
 H.— (BOOK III., CHAPTER IL) 
 
 THE DATE OF THE ENGLISH SONG OF ROLAND. 
 
 The fragment of the So7ig of Roland, contained in the 
 Lansdowne MS. 388, involves some of the most intricate 
 problems of philological criticism I know of. Whether con- 
 sidering the metre or the rhymes, or, finally, the style of the 
 poem, we meet with many striking peculiarities, and though 
 in most cases, taken separately, analogies will not be found 
 wanting, yet I hold it to be extremely difficult to attach the 
 composition, as a whole, to a neatly circumscribed group of 
 
DATE OF THE SONG OF ROLAND. 393 
 
 Middle English poems. Now this circumstance will be 
 allowed by all persons somewhat versed in literary criticism 
 to render the task of determining the date of the poem a 
 very delicate one. The chief test to be applied to a work 
 of this character will, of course, be that of the language. 
 But here a new difficulty arises. Whenever we want to fix 
 the grammatical forms used by a poet, and altered by the 
 scribes, together with the phonetic value originally attached 
 to them, we recur to an examination of the rhymes and the 
 metre employed in the poem. But the verse in the Son-g of 
 Rola7id^ being so peculiar, or what amounts nearly to the 
 same thing, so irregular, as to admit of more than one met- 
 rical theory, turns out to be of but little help in the present 
 case; and a great part of the rhymes occurring in the 
 poem are so imperfect as almost to justify Mr. Sidney J. 
 Herrtage in saying '' that a good and true rime is the excep- 
 tion, not the rule," whereas, " several lines occur in which, 
 whether from the fault of the author or his copier, no rime at 
 all is apparent." This, then, being the case, it is evident 
 either that the poet was so inconsistent in following the rules 
 of his art as to render the usual tests, when applied to his 
 work, almost useless, or that his work has been tampered 
 with by scribes and revisers in a most atrocious way. Now 
 I believe that, notwithstanding these difficulties, it is not im- 
 possible to get at a tolerably clear and exact notion of the 
 original form of the poem. But to bring this about will be 
 a very arduous task, which I hope I shall be justified in not 
 attempting in this place nor at this time. As to the recent 
 researches on the subject by Dr. Schleich (see Prolegomena 
 ad car?fien de Rolando ajiglictim, 1879, and Afiglia, IV., pp. 
 307-341), and by Mr. Sidney J. Herrtage, in the introduc- 
 tion to his edition of the English Charlemagne Romafices, 
 Part H. (E. E. T. S., 1880), I must say that, highly merito- 
 rious as they are, especially those of the former, they hardly 
 go into the heart of the question. Concerning the date of 
 the poem, the views expressed by the German and the Eng- 
 lish scholar are somewhat different. The former, judging 
 from the loss of the final e (a test, it must be said, not much 
 to be relied on in the present case, nor applied by Dr. 
 Schleich with quite sufficient accuracy), thinks it probable 
 that the Song of Roland was composed after 1400 (see es- 
 
394 APPENDIX. 
 
 pecially Anglia^ IV., p. 315); whereas, Mr. Sidney J. Herr- 
 tage is inclined to fix on that very year as the probable date, 
 and believes that in doing so, he is, " if anything, putting it 
 too late." In the short account given of the poem in the 
 present work I refrained from expressing a definite opinion 
 on the subject, but the place in which the Song is spoken of, 
 points to the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now, I 
 confess it seems rather probable that the poem was com- 
 posed at a somewhat later date, but whether it ought to be 
 assigned to the reign of Edward III. or of Richard IL, is a 
 question I shall, for the present, not undertake to decide. 
 
 Note to page 107. — I am happy to say that the edition 
 of the Passiones Sanctorum prepared by Prof. Skeat, for the 
 Early English Text Society, has now begun to appear, the 
 first Part being among the Society's publications for 1881. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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