Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

The illustrious name of Alfred (849-900) closes the record of Anglo-Saxon literature. From him went forth a spirit of moral strength and a thirst for enlightenment which worked marvels among an ignorant and half- barbarous people. Besides his translations from the Scriptures, he made selections from St. Augustine, Bede, and other writers; he translated "The Consolations of Philosophy," by Boethius, and he incorporates his own reflections with all these authors. It is impossible, at this time, to estimate justly the labors of Alfred, since the obstacles which in his time impeded the acquisition of knowledge cannot even now be conceived. "I have wished to live worthily," said he, "while I lived, and after my life, to leave to the men who should come after me, my remembrance in good works."

PERIOD SECOND.

FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. (1066-1509).

1. LITERATURE IN THE LATIN TONGUE.—The Norman Conquest introduced into England a foreign race of kings and barons, with their military vassals, and churchmen, who followed the conqueror and his successors. The generation succeeding the Conquest gave birth to little that was remarkable, but the twelfth century was particularly distinguished for its classical scholarship, and Norman-French poetry began to find English imitators.

The thirteenth century was a decisive epoch in the constitutional as well as in the intellectual history of England. The Great Charter was extorted from John; the representation of the commons from his successors; the universities were founded or organized; the romantic poetry of France began to be transfused into a language intelligible throughout England; and above all, the Anglo-Saxon tongue was in this century finally transformed into English. Three of the Crusades had already taken place; the other four fell within the next century; and these wars diffused knowledge, and kindled a flame of zeal and devotion to the church.

The only names which adorned the annals of erudition in England in the latter half of the eleventh century were those of two Lombard priests— Lanfranc (d. 1089) and Anselm (d. 1109). They prepared the means for diffusing classical learning among the ecclesiastics, and both acquired high celebrity as theological writers. Their influence was visible on the two most learned men whom the country produced in the next century—John of Salisbury (d. 1181). befriended by Thomas à Becket, and Peter of Blois, the king's secretary, and an active statesman.

In the thirteenth century, when the teachings of Abelard and Rosellinus had made philosophy the favorite pursuit of the scholars of Europe, England possessed many names which, in this field, stood higher than any others—among them Alexander de Hales, called "the Irrefragable Doctor," and Johannes Duns Scotus, one of the most acute of thinkers. In the same age, while Scotland sent Michael Scott into Germany, where he prosecuted his studies with a success that earned for him the fame of a sorcerer, a similar character was acquired by Roger Bacon (d. 1292), a Franciscan friar, who made many curious conjectures on the possibility of discoveries which have since been made.

Very few of the historical works of this period possess any merit, except as curious records of fact. Chronicles were kept in the various monasteries, which furnish a series extending through the greater part of the Middle Ages. Among these historians are William of Malmesbury, who belonged properly to the twelfth century; Geoffrey of Monmouth, who preserved for us the stories of Arthur, of Lear, and Cymbeline; Gerald de Barri, or Giraldus Cambrensis; Matthew Paris, a Benedictine monk, of St. Albans; Henry of Huntingdon; Gervase of Tilbury; and Roger de Hoveden.

The spirit of resistance to secular and ecclesiastical tyranny, which now began to show itself among the English people, found also a medium of expression in the Latin tongue. The most biting satires against the church, and the most lively political pasquinades, were thus expressed, and written almost always by churchmen. To give these satires a wider circulation, the Norman-French came to be frequently used, but at the close of the period the English dialect was almost the only organ of this satirical minstrelsy.

The Latin tongue also became the means of preserving and transmitting an immense stock of tales, by which the later poetry of Europe profited largely. One of these legends, narrated by Gervase of Tilbury, suggested to Scott the combat of Marmion with the spectre knight.