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twg_000012920900 | diving bells, p. ; gunpowder, p. ; oarless and very swift boats; carriages without horses running at an extraordinary speed: "Item currus possunt fieri ut sine animali moveantur impetu instimabili," p. . On the causes of errors, that is authority, habit, &c., see "Opus majus," I. [] Born at Chichester ab. , taught at Oxford, became chaplain to Edward III. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920901 | and Archbishop of Canterbury. "De Causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum ad suos Mertonenses, Libri III.," London, , fol. [] Conclusion of chap. i. .: "Contra Aristotelem, astruentem mundum non habuisse principium temporale et non fuisse creatum, nec prsentem generationem hominum terminandam, neque mundum nec statum mundi ullo tempore finiendum." [] "Joannis Anglici praxis medica Rosa Anglica dicta," | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920902 | Augsbourg, , vols. 4to. Vol. i. p. . [] Concerning Bartholomus Anglicus, sometimes but wrongly called de Glanville, see the notice by M. Delisle ("Histoire Littraire de la France," vol. xxx. pp. ff.), who has demonstrated that he lived in the thirteenth and not in the fourteenth century. It is difficult to admit with M. Delisle that Bartholomew was not | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920903 | English. As we know that he studied and lived on the Continent the most probable explanation of his surname is that he was born in England. See also his praise of England, xv-. His "De Proprietatibus" (Francfort, , 8vo, many other editions) was translated into English by Trevisa, in , in French by Jean Corbichon, at the request of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920904 | wise king Charles V., in Spanish and in Dutch. To the same category of writers belongs Gervase of Tilbury in Essex, who wrote, also on the Continent, between and , his "Otia imperialia," where he gives an account of chaos, the creation, the wonders of the world, &c.; unpublished but for a few extracts given by Stevenson in his "Radulphi | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920905 | de Coggeshall Chronicon," , 8vo, Rolls, pp. ff. [] There are eighteen in the National Library, Paris. One of the finest is the MS. E ii. and iii. in the British Museum (French translation) with beautiful miniatures in the richest style; _in fine_: "Escript par moy Jo Duries et finy Bruges le XXVe jour de May, anno ." [] On | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920906 | Vacarius, see "Magister Vacarius primus juris Romani in Anglia professor ex annalium monumentis et opere accurate descripto illustratus," by C. F. C. Wenck, Leipzig, , 8vo. [] "Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angli," finished about (ed. Wilmot and Rayner, London, , 8vo); was perhaps the work of his nephew, Hubert Walter, but written under his inspiraton. [] "Dialogus de Scaccario," | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920907 | written Henry II., text in Stubbs, "Select Charters," Oxford, , p. . [] "Henrici de Bracton de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angli, Libri V.," ed. Travers Twiss, Rolls, ff., vols. 8vo. Bracton adopts some of the best known among the definitions and maxims of Roman law: "Filius hres legittimus est quando nupti demonstrant," vol. ii. p. ; a treasure is "qudam | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920908 | vetus depositio pecuni vel alterius metalli cujus non extat modo memoria," vol. ii. p. . On "Bracton and his relation to Roman law," see C. Gterbock, translated with notes by Brinton Coxe, Philadelphia, , 8vo. [] By Gilbert de Thornton, ab. ; by the author of "Fleta," ab. the same date. [] The loose leaf was then removed, and a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920909 | new one placed instead, in view of the year to come: "In fine vero anni non quicumque voluerit sed cui injunctum fuerit, quod verius et melius censuerit ad posteritatis notitiam transmittendum, in corpore libri succincta brevitate describat; et tunc veter scedula subtracta nova imponatur." "Annales Monastici", ed. Luard, Rolls, -, vols. 8vo, vol. iv. p. . Annals of the priory | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920910 | of Worcester; preface. Concerning the "Scriptoria" in monasteries and in particular the "Scriptorium" of St. Albans, see Hardy, "Descriptive Catalogue," , Rolls, vol. iii. pp. xi. ff. [] "Sedens igitur in claustro pluries fatigatus, sensu habetato, virtutibus frustratus, pessimis cogitationibus spe sauciatus, tum propter lectionum longitudinem ac orationum lassitudinem, propter vanas jactantias et opera pessima in sculo prhabita...." He has | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920911 | recourse, as a cure, to historical studies "ad rogationem superiorum meorum." "Eulogium historiarum ab orbe condito usque ad A.D. ," by a monk of Malmesbury, ed. Haydon, Rolls, , vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. . [] "Orderici Vitalis Angligen Histori ecclesiastic, Libri XIII.," ed. Le Prevost, Paris, -, vols. 8vo. Vital was born in England, but lived and wrote in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920912 | the monastery of St. Evroult in Normandy, where he had been sent "as in exile," and where, "as did St. Joseph in Egypt, he heard spoken a language to him unknown." [] "Eadmeri Historia novorum in Anglia," ed. Martin Rule, Rolls, , 8vo; in the same volume: "De vita and conversatione Anselmi." Eadmer died ab. . [] "Giraldi Cambrensis Opera," | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920913 | ed. Brewer (and others), -, vols. 8vo, Rolls. Gerald was born in the castle of Manorbeer, near Pembroke, of which ruins subsist. He was the son of William de Barry, of the great and warlike family that was to play an important part in Ireland. His mother was Angareth, grand-daughter of Rhys ap Theodor, a Welsh prince. He studied at | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920914 | Paris, became chaplain to Henry II., sojourned in Ireland, helped Archbishop Baldwin to preach the crusade in Wales, and made considerable but fruitless efforts to be appointed bishop of St. Davids. At length he settled in peace and died there, ab. ; his tomb, greatly injured, is still to be seen in the church. Principal works, all in Latin (see | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920915 | above, p. ); "De Rebus a se gestis;" "Gemma Ecclesiastica;" "De Invectionibus, Libri IV.;" "Speculum Ecclesi;" "Topographia Hibernica;" "Expugnatio Hibernica;" "Itinerarium Kambri;" "Descriptio Kambri;" "De Principis Instructione." [] "Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi, Gesta Regum Anglorum atque Historia Novella," ed. T. D. Hardy, London, English Historical Society, , vols. 8vo; or the edition of Stubbs, Rolls, ff.; "De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum," ed. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920916 | Hamilton, Rolls, . William seems to have written between and and to have died ab. , or shortly after. [] "Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum ... from A.C. to A.D. ," ed. T. Arnold, Rolls, , 8vo. Henry writes much more as a dilettante than William of Malmesbury; he seems to do it mainly to please himself; clever at verse | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920917 | writing (see above, p. ), he introduces in his Chronicle Latin poems of his own composition. His chronology is vague and faulty. [] "De Annulo statu commendato," "Gesta," vol. i. p. . [] "Matthi Parisiensis ... Chronica Majora," ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls, ff., vols.; "Historia Anglorum, sive ut vulgo dicitur Historia Minor," ed. Madden, Rolls, ff., vols. Matthew was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920918 | English; his surname of "Paris" or "the Parisian" meant, perhaps, that he had studied at Paris, or perhaps that he belonged to one of the families of Paris which existed then in England (Jessopp, "Studies by a Recluse," London, , p. ). He was received into St. Albans monastery on , and was sent on a mission to King Hacon | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920919 | in Norway in -. Henry III., a weak king but an artist born, valued him greatly. He died in . The oldest part of Matthew's chronicle is founded upon the work of Roger de Wendover, another monk of St. Albans, who died in . [] So says Walsingham; see Madden's preface to the "Historia Anglorum," vol. iii. p. xlviii. [] | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920920 | MS. Nero D i. in the British Museum, fol. , , , . The attribution of these drawings to Matthew has been contested: their authenticity seems, however, probable. See, _contra_, Hardy, vol. iii. of his "Descriptive Catalogue." See also the MS. Royal C vii., with maps and itineraries; a great Virgin on a throne, with a monk at her feet: | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920921 | "Fret' Mathias Parisiensis," fol. ; fine draperies with many folds, recalling those in the album of Villard de Honecourt. [] Year : "Missus est in Angliam quidam elephas quem rex Francorum pro magno munere dedit regi Angli.... Nec credimus alium unquam visum fuisse in Anglia." "Abbreviatio Chronicorum," following the "Historia Anglorum" in Madden's edition, vol. iii. p. . [] "Chronica | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920922 | Majora," vol. iii. pp. ff. The story of Cartaphilus was already in Roger de Wendover, who was also present in the monastery when the Armenian bishop came. The details on the ark are added by Matthew. [] "Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, monachi Cestrensis ... with the English translation of John Trevisa," ed. Babington and Lumby, Rolls, ff., vols. Higden died about | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920923 | . See below, p. . [] See below, p. . [] A great many other English chroniclers wrote in Latin, and among their number: Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, Fitzstephen, the pseudo Benedict of Peterborough, William of Newburgh, Roger de Hoveden (d. ab. ) in the twelfth century; Gervase of Canterbury, Radulph de Diceto, Roger de Wendover, Radulph de | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920924 | Coggeshall, John of Oxenede, Bartholomew de Cotton, in the thirteenth; William Rishanger, John de Trokelowe, Nicolas Trivet, Richard of Cirencester, in the fourteenth. A large number of chronicles are anonymous. Most of those works have been published by the English Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries, and especially by the Master of the Rolls in the great collection: "The Chronicles | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920925 | and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland ... published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls," London, ff., in progress. See also the "Descriptive Catalogue of materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, to the end of the reign of Henry VII." by Sir T. D. Hardy, Rolls, -, vols. 8vo. [] The contrast between | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920926 | the time when Richard writes and the days of his youth, when he studied at Paris, is easy to explain. The Hundred Years' War had begun, and well could the bishop speak of the decay of studies in the capital, "ubi tepuit, immo fere friguit zelus schol tam nobilis, cujus olim radii lucem dabant universis angulis orbis terr.... Minerva mirabilis | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920927 | nationes hominum circuire videtur.... Jam Athenas deseruit, jam a Roma recessit, jam Parisius prterivit, jam ad Britanniam, insularum insignissimam, quin potius microcosmum accessit feliciter." "Philobiblon," chap. ix. p. . In the same words nearly, but with a contrary intent, Count Cominges, ambassador to England, assured King Louis XIV. that "the arts and sciences sometimes leave a country to go and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920928 | honour another with their presence. Now they have gone to France, and scarcely any vestiges of them have been left here," April , . "A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II.," , p. . . _LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE._ I. English in the meanwhile had survived, but it had been also transformed, owing to the Conquest. To | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920929 | the disaster of Hastings succeeded, for the native race, a period of stupor and silence, and this was not without some happy results. The first duty of a master is to impose silence on his pupils; and this the conquerors did not fail to do. There was silence for a hundred years. The clerks were the only exception; men of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920930 | English speech remained mute. They barely recopied the manuscripts of their ancient authors, the list of whose names was left closed; they listened without comprehending to the songs the foreigner had acclimatised in their island. The manner of speech and the subjects of the discourses were equally unfamiliar; and they stood silent amidst the merriment that burst out like a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920931 | note of defiance in the literature of the victors. Necessity caused them to take up the pen once more. After as before the Conquest the rational object of life continued to be the gaining of heaven, and it would have been a waste of time to use Latin in demonstrating this truth to the common people of England. French served | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920932 | for the new masters, and for their group of adherents; Latin for the clerks; but for the mass of "lowe men," who are always the most numerous, it was indispensable to talk English. "All people cannot," had said Bishop Grosseteste in his French "Chteau d'Amour," "know Hebrew, Greek, and Latin"--"nor French," adds his English translator some fifty years later; for | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920933 | which cause: On Englisch I-chul mi resun schowen Ffor him that con not i-knowen Nouther Ffrench ne Latyn.[] The first works written in English, after the Conquest, were sermons and pious treatises, some imitated from Bede, lfric, and the ancient Saxon models, others translated from the French. No originality or invention; the time is one of depression and humiliation; the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920934 | victor sings, the vanquished prays. The twelfth century, so fertile in Latin and French works, only counts, as far as English works are concerned, devotional books in prose and verse. The verses are uncouth and ill-shaped; the ancient rules, half-forgotten, are blended with new ones only half understood. Many authors employ at the same time alliteration and rhyme, and sin | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920935 | against both. The sermons are usually familiar in their style and kind in their tone; they are meant for the poor and miserable to whom tenderness and sympathy must be shown. The listeners want to be consoled and soothed; they are also interested, as formerly, by stories of miracles, and scared into virtue by descriptions of hell; confidence again is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920936 | given them by instances of Divine mercy.[] Like the ancient churches the collections of sermons bring before the eye the last judgment and the region of hell, with its monstrous torments, its wells of flames, its ocean with seven bitter waves: ice, fire, blood ... a rudimentary rendering of legends interpreted in their turn by Dante in his poem, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920937 | Giotto in his fresco.[] The thought of Giotto especially, when reading those sermons, recurs to the memory, of Giotto with his awkward and audacious attempts, Giotto so remote and yet so modern, childish and noble at the same time, who represents devils roasting the damned on spits, and on the same wall tries to paint the Unseen and disclose to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920938 | view the Unknown, Giotto with his search after the impossible, an almost painful search, the opposite of antique wisdom, and the sublime folly of the then nascent modern age. Not far from Padua, beside Venice, in the great Byzantine mosaic of Torcello, can be seen a last reflection of antique equanimity. Here the main character of the judgment-scene is its | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920939 | grand solemnity; and from this comes the impression of awe left on the beholder; the idea of rule and law predominates, a fatal law against which nothing can prevail; fate seems to preside, as it did in the antique tragedies. In the English sermons of the period it is not the art of Torcello that continues, but the art of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920940 | Giotto that begins. From time to time among the ungainly phrases of an author whose language is yet unformed, amidst mild and kind counsels, bursts forth a resounding apostrophe which causes the whole soul to vibrate, and has something sublime in its force and brevity: "He who bestows alms with ill-gotten goods shall not obtain the grace of Christ any | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920941 | more than he who having slain thy child brings thee its head as a gift!"[] The Psalter,[] portions of the Bible,[] lives of saints,[] were put into verse. Metrical lives of saints fill manuscripts of prodigious size. A complete cycle of them, the work of several authors, in which are mixed together old and novel, English and foreign, materials, was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920942 | written in English verse in the thirteenth century: "The collection in its complete state is a 'Liber Festivalis,' containing sermons or materials for sermons, for the festivals of the year in the order of the calendar, and comprehends not only saints' lives for saints' days but also a 'Temporale' for the festivals of Christ," &c.[] The earliest complete manuscript was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920943 | written about , an older but incomplete one belongs to the years -, or thereabout.[] In these collections a large place, as might be expected, is allowed to English saints: Wolle ye nouthe i-heore this englische tale that is here i-write? It is the story of St. Thomas Becket: "Of Londone is fader was." St. Edward was "in Engeland oure | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920944 | kyng"; St. Kenelm, Kyng he was in Engelond of the march of Walis; St. Edmund the Confessor "that lith at Ponteneye," Ibore he was in Engelond in the toun of Abyndone. St. Swithin "was her of Engelonde;" St. Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester, Was here of Engelonde ... The while he was a yong child clene lif he ladde i-nough; Whenne | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920945 | other children ornen to pleye toward churche he drough. Seint Edward was kyng tho that nouthe in heovene is. St. Cuthbert was born in England; St. Dunstan was an Englishman. Of the latter a number of humorous legends were current among the people, and were preserved by religious poets; he and the devil played on each other numberless tricks in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920946 | which, as behoves, the devil had the worst; these adventures made the subject of amusing pictures in many manuscripts. A woman, of beautiful face and figure, calls upon the saint, who is clear-sighted enough to recognise under this alluring shape the arch-foe; he dissembles. Being, like St. Eloi, a blacksmith, as well as a saint and a State minister, he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920947 | heats his tongs red-hot, and turning suddenly round, while the other was watching confidently the effect of his good looks, catches him by the nose. There was a smell of burnt flesh, and awful yells were heard many miles round, for the "tonge was al afure"; it will teach him to stay at home and blow his own nose: As | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920948 | god the schrewe hadde ibeo atom ysnyt his nose.[] With this we have graceful legends, like that of St. Brandan, adapted from a French original, being the story of that Irish monk who, in a leather bark, sailed in search of Paradise,[] and visited marvellous islands where ewes govern themselves, and where the birds are angels transformed. The optimistic ideal | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920949 | of the Celts reappears in this poem, the subject of which is borrowed from them. "All there is beautiful, pure, and innocent; never was so kind a glance bestowed on the world, not a cruel idea, not a trace of weakness or regret."[] The mirth of St. Dunstan's story, the serenity of the legend of St. Brandan, are examples rarely | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920950 | met with in this literature. Under the light ornamentation copied from the Celts and Normans, is usually seen at that date the sombre and dreamy background of the Anglo-Saxon mind. Hell and its torments, remorse for irreparable crimes, dread of the hereafter, terror of the judgments of God and the brevity of life, are, as they were before the Conquest, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920951 | favourite subjects with the national poets. They recur to them again and again; French poems describing the same are those they imitate the more willingly; the tollings of the funeral bell are heard each day in their compositions. Why cling to this perishable world? it will pass as "the schadewe that glyt away;" man will fade as a leaf, "so | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920952 | lef on bouh." Where are Paris, and Helen, and Tristan, and Iseult, and Csar? They have fled out of this world as the shaft from the bowstring: Heo beoth iglyden ut of the reyne, So the scheft is of the cleo.[] Treatises of various kinds, and pious poems, abound from the thirteenth century; all adapted to English life and taste, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920953 | but imitated from the French. The "Ancren Riwle,"[] or rule for Recluse women, written in prose in the thirteenth century is perhaps an exception: it would be in that case the first in date of the original treatises written in English after the Conquest. This Rule is a manual of piety for the use of women who wish to dedicate | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920954 | themselves to God, a sort of "Introduction la Vie dvote," as mild in tone as that of St. Francis de Sales, but far more vigorous in its precepts. The author addresses himself specially to three young women of good family, who had resolved to live apart from the world without taking any vows. He teaches them to deprive themselves of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920955 | all that makes life attractive; to take no pleasure either through the eye, or through the ear, or in any other way. He gives rules for getting up, for going to bed, for eating and for dressing. His doctrine may be summed up in a word: he teaches self-renunciation. But he does it in so kindly and affectionate a tone | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920956 | that the life he wishes his penitents to submit to does not seem too bitter; his voice is so sweet that the existence he describes seems almost sweet. Yet all that could brighten it must be avoided; the least thing may have serious consequences: "of little waxeth mickle." Not a glance must be bestowed on the world; the young recluses | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920957 | must even deny themselves the pleasure of looking out of the parlour windows. They must bear in mind the example of Eve: "When thou lookest upon a man thou art in Eve's case; thou lookest upon the apple. If any one had said to Eve when she cast her eye upon it: 'Ah! Eve, turn thee away; thou castest thine | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920958 | eyes upon thy death,' what would she have answered?--'My dear master, thou art in the wrong, why dost thou find fault with me? The apple which I look upon is forbidden me to eat, not to look at.'--Thus would Eve quickly enough have answered. O my dear sisters, truly Eve hath many daughters who imitate their mother, who answer in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920959 | this manner. But 'thinkest thou,' saith one, 'that I shall leap upon him though I look at him?'--God knows, dear sisters, that a greater wonder has happened. Eve, thy mother leaped after her eyes to the apple; from the apple in Paradise down to the earth; from the earth to hell, where she lay in prison four thousand years and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920960 | more, she and her lord both, and taught all her offspring to leap after her to death without end. The beginning and root of this woful calamity was a light look. Thus often, as is said, 'of little waxeth mickle.'"[] The temptation to look and talk out of the window was one of the greatest with the poor anchoresses; not | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920961 | a few found it impossible to resist it. Cut off from the changeable world, they could not help feeling an interest in it, so captivating precisely because, unlike the cellular life, it was ever changing. The authors of rules for recluses insisted therefore very much upon this danger, and denounced such abuses as Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx, reveals, as we | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920962 | have seen, so early as the twelfth century: old women, talkative ones and newsbringers, sitting before the window of the recluse, "and telling her tales, and feeding her with vain news and scandal, and telling her how this monk or that clerk or any other man looks and behaves."[] Most of the religious treatises in English that have come down | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920963 | to us are of a more recent epoch, and belong to the first half of the fourteenth century. In the thirteenth, as has been noticed, many Englishmen considered French to be, together with Latin, the literary language of the country; they endeavoured to handle it, but not always with great success. Robert Grosseteste, who, however, recommended his clergy to preach | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920964 | in English, had composed in French a "Chteau d'Amour," an allegorical poem, with keeps, castles, and turrets, "les quatre tureles en haut," which are the four cardinal virtues, a sort of pious Romaunt of the Rose. William of Wadington had likewise written in French his "Manuel des Pechiez," not without an inkling that his grammar and prosody might give cause | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920965 | for laughter. He excused himself in advance: "For my French and my rhymes no one must blame me, for in England was I born, and there bred and brought up and educated."[] These attempts become rare as we approach the fourteenth century, and English translations and imitations, on the contrary, multiply. We find, for example, translations in English verse of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920966 | the "Chteau"[] and the "Manuel"[]; a prose translation of that famous "Somme des Vices et des Vertus," composed by Brother Lorens in , for Philip III. of France, a copy of which, chained to a pillar of the church of the Innocents, remained open for the convenience of the faithful[]; (a bestiary in verse, thirteenth century), devotional writings on the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920967 | Virgin, legends of the Cross, visions of heaven and hell[]; a Courier of the world, "Cursor Mundi," in verse,[] containing the history of the Old and New Testaments. A multitude of legends are found in the "Cursor," that of the Cross for instance, made out of three trees, a cypress, a cedar, and a pine, symbols of the Trinity. These | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920968 | trees had sprung from three pips given to Seth by the guardian angel of Paradise, and placed under Adam's tongue at his death; their miraculous existence is continued on the mountains, and they play a part in all the great epochs of Jewish history, in the time of Moses, Solomon, &c. Similar legends adorn most of these books: what good | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920969 | could they accomplish if no one read them? And to be read it was necessary to please. This is why verse was used to charm the ear, and romantic stories were inserted to delight the mind, for, says Robert Mannyng in his translation of the "Manuel des Pechiez," "many people are so made that it pleases them to hear stories | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920970 | and verses, in their games, in their feasts, and over their ale."[] Somewhat above this group of translators and adaptators rises a more original writer, Richard Rolle of Hampole, noticeable for his English and Latin compositions, in prose and verse, and still more so by his character.[] He is the first on the list of those lay preachers, of whom | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920971 | England has produced a number, whom an inward crisis brought back to God, and who roamed about the country as volunteer apostles, converting the simple, edifying the wise, and, alas! affording cause for laughter to the wicked. They are taken by good folks for saints, and for madmen by sceptics: such was the fate of Richard Rolle, of George Fox, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920972 | of Bunyan, and of Wesley; the same man lives on through the ages, and the same humanity heaps on him at once blessings and ridicule. Richard was of the world, and never took orders. He had studied at Oxford. One day he left his father's house, in order to give himself up to a contemplative life. From that time he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920973 | mortifies himself, he fasts, he prays, he is tempted; the devil appears to him under the form of a beautiful young woman, who he tells us with less humility than we are accustomed to from him, "loved me not a little with good love."[] But though the wicked one shows himself in this case even more wicked than with St. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920974 | Dunstan, and Rolle has no red-hot tongs to frighten him away, still the devil is again worsted, and the adventure ends as it should. Rolle has ecstasies, he sighs and groans; people come to visit him in his solitude; he is found writing much, "scribentem multum velociter." He is requested to stop writing, and speak to his visitors; he talks | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920975 | to them, but continues writing, "and what he wrote differed entirely from what he said." This duplication of the personality lasted two hours. He leaves his retreat and goes all over the country, preaching abnegation and a return to Christ. He finally settled at Hampole, where he wrote his principal works, and died in . Having no doubt that he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920976 | would one day be canonised, the nuns of a neighbouring convent caused the office of his feast-day to be written; and this office, which was never sung as Rolle never received the hoped-for dignity, is the main source of our information concerning him.[] His style and ideas correspond well to such a life. His thoughts are sombre, Germanic anxieties and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920977 | doubts reappear in his writings, the idea of death and the image of the grave cause him anguish that all his piety cannot allay. His style, like his life, is uneven and full of change; to calm passages, to beautiful and edifying tales succeed bursts of passion; his phrases then become short and breathless; interjections and apostrophes abound. "Ihesu es | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920978 | thy name. A! A! that wondyrfull name! A! that delittabyll name! This es the name that es abowve all names.... I yede (went) abowte be Covaytyse of riches and I fande noghte Ihesu. I rane be Wantonnes of flesche and I fand noghte Ihesu. I satt in companyes of Worldly myrthe and I fand noghte Ihesu.... Tharefore I turnede by | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920979 | anothire waye, and I rane a-bowte be Poverte, and I fande Ihesu pure, borne in the worlde, laid in a crybe and lappid in clathis."[] Rolle of Hampole is, if we except the doubtful case of the "Ancren Riwle, "the first English prose writer after the Conquest who can pretend to the title of original author. To find him we | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920980 | have had to come far into the fourteenth century. When he died, in , Chaucer was about ten years of age and Wyclif thirty. II. We are getting further and further away from the Conquest, the wounds inflicted by it begin to heal, and an audience is slowly forming among the English race, ready for something else besides sermons. The | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920981 | greater part of the nobles had early accepted the new order of things, and had either retained or recovered their estates. Having rallied to the cause of the conquerors, they now endeavoured to imitate them, and had also their castles, their minstrels, and their romances. They had, it is true, learnt French, but English remained their natural language. A literature | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920982 | was composed that resembled them, English in language, as French as possible in dress and manners. About the end of the twelfth century or beginning of the thirteenth, the translation of the French romances began. First came war stories, then love tales. Thus was written by Layamon, about , the first metrical romance, after "Beowulf," that the English literature possesses.[] | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920983 | The vocabulary of the "Brut" is Anglo-Saxon; there are not, it seems, above fifty words of French origin in the whole of this lengthy poem, and yet on each page it is easy to recognise the ideas and the chivalrous tastes introduced by the French. The strong will with which they blended the traditions of the country has borne its | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920984 | fruits. Layamon considers that the glories of the Britons are English glories, and he celebrates their triumphs with an exulting heart, as if British victories were not Saxon defeats. Bede, the Anglo-Saxon, and Wace, the Norman, "a Frenchis clerc" as he calls him, are, in his eyes, authorities of the same sort and same value, equally worthy of filial respect | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920985 | and belief. "It came to him in mind," says Layamon, speaking of himself, "and in his chief thought that he would of the English tell the noble deeds.... Layamon began to journey wide over this land and procured the noble books which he took for pattern. He took the English book that St. Bede made," and a Latin book by | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920986 | "St. Albin"; a third book he took "and laid in the midst, that a French clerk made, who was named Wace, who well could write.... These books he turned over the leaves, lovingly he beheld them ... pen he took with fingers and wrote on book skin."[] He follows mainly Wace's poem, but paraphrases it; he introduces legends that were | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920987 | unknown to Wace, and adds speeches to the already numerous speeches of his model. These discourses consist mostly of warlike invectives; before slaying, the warriors hurl defiance at each other; after killing his foe, the victor allows himself the pleasure of jeering at the corpse, and his mirth resembles very much the mirth in Scandinavian sagas. "Then laughed Arthur, the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920988 | noble king, and gan to speak with gameful words: 'Lie now there, Colgrim.... Thou climbed on this hill wondrously high, as if thou wouldst ascend to heaven, now thou shalt to hell. There thou mayest know much of your kindred; and greet thou there Hengest ... and Ossa, Octa and more of thy kin, and bid them there dwell winter | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920989 | and summer, and we shall in land live in bliss.'"[] This is an example of a speech added to Wace, who simply concludes his account of the battle by: Mors fu Balduf, mors fu Colgrin Et Cheldric s'en ala fuiant.[] In such taunts is recognised the ferocity of the primitive epics, those of the Greeks as well as those of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920990 | the northern nations. Thus spoke Patroclus to Cebrion when he fell headlong from his chariot, "with the resolute air of a diver who seeks oysters under the sea." After Layamon, translations and adaptations soon become very plentiful, metrical chronicles, like the one composed towards the end of the thirteenth century by Robert of Gloucester,[] are compiled on the pattern of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920991 | the French ones, for the use and delight of the English people; chivalrous romances are also written in English. The love of extraordinary adventures, and of the books that tell of them, had crept little by little into the hearts of these islanders, now reconciled to their masters, and led by them all over the world. The minstrels or wandering | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920992 | poets of English tongue are many in number; no feast is complete without their music and their songs; they are welcomed in the castle halls, they can now, with as bold a voice as their French brethren, bespeak a cup of ale, sure not to be refused: At the beginning of ure tale, Fil me a cuppe of ful god | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920993 | ale, And y wile drinken her y spelle That Crist us shilde all fro helle![] They stop also on the public places, where the common people flock to hear of Charlemagne and Roland[]; they even get into the cloister. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, nearly all the stories of the heroes of Troy, Rome, France, and Britain are put | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920994 | into verse: For hem that knowe no Frensche ne never underston.[] "Men like," writes shortly after , the author of the "Cursor Mundi": Men lykyn jestis for to here And romans rede in divers manere Of Alexandre the conqueroure, Of Julius Cesar the emperoure, Of Grece and Troy the strong stryf There many a man lost his lyf, Of Brute | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920995 | that baron bold of hond, The first conqueroure of Englond, Of Kyng Artour.... How Kyng Charlis and Rowlond fawght With Sarzyns nold they be cawght, Of Trystrem and Isoude the swete, How they with love first gan mete ... Stories of diverce thynggis, Of pryncis, prelatis and of kynggis, Many songgis of divers ryme, As English Frensh and Latyne.[] Some | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920996 | very few Germanic or Saxon traditions, such as the story of Havelok, a Dane who ended by reigning in England, or that of Horn and Rymenhild,[] his betrothed, had been adopted by the French poets. They were taken from them again by the English minstrels, who, however, left these old heroes their French dress: had they not followed the fashion, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920997 | no one would have cared for their work. Goldborough or Argentille, the heroine of the romance of Havelok, was originally a Valkyria; now, under her French disguise, she is scarcely recognisable, but she is liked as she is.[] Some English heroes of a more recent period find also a place in this poetic pantheon, thanks again to French minstrels, who | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920998 | make them fashionable by versifying about them. In this manner were written, in French, then in English, the adventures of Waltheof, of Sir Guy of Warwick, who marries the beautiful Felice, goes to Palestine, kills the giant Colbrant on his return, and dies piously in a hermitage.[] Thus are likewise told the deeds of famous outlaws, as Fulke Fitz-Warin, a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012920999 | prototype of Robin Hood, who lived in the woods with the fair Mahaud,[] as Robin Hood will do later with Maid Marian.[] Several of these heroes, Guy of Warwick in particular, enjoyed such lasting popularity that it has scarcely died out to this day. Their histories were reprinted at the Renaissance; they were read under Elizabeth, and plays were taken | 60 | gutenberg |
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