Even now we are not through with this story of the Arthurian legends: it does not end with the priest Layamon. After printing was invented, and an easier way of making books was in vogue than the old one of tediously copying them upon parchment—I say in this new day of printing a certain Sir Thomas Mallory, who lived at the same time with Caxton, the first English printer, did, at the instance, I think, of that printer—put all these legends we speak of into rather stiff, homely English prose—copying, Caxton tells us, from a French original: but no such full French original has been found; and the presumption is that Mallory borrowed (as so many book-makers did and do) up and down, from a world of manuscripts. And he wrought so well that his work had great vogue, and has come to frequent issue in modern times, under the hands of such editors as Southey, Wright, Strachey and Lanier. In the years following Mallory, succeeding writers poached frequently upon the old Arthur preserve—bit by bit[19]—till at last, in our day, Tennyson told his “Idyl of the King”—
“——and all the people cried,
Arthur is come again: he cannot die.
And those that stood upon the hills behind
Repeated—Come again, and thrice as fair.”
Early Norman Kings.
We come back now from this chase of Arthur, to the time of the Early Norman Kings: Orderic Vitalis,[20] of Normandy, William of Malmsbury,[21] Matthew Paris,[22] William of Newburgh,[23] (whose record has just now been re-edited and printed in England,) and Roger of Hoveden,[24] were chroniclers of this period; but I am afraid these names will hardly be kept in mind. Indeed, it is not worth much struggle to do so, unless one is going into the writing of History on his own account. Exception ought perhaps to be made in favor of Matthew Paris, who was a monk of St. Albans, who won his name from studying at Paris (as many live students of that day did), who put a brave and vehement Saxonism of thought into his Latin speech—who had art enough to illustrate his own Chronicle with his pencil, and honesty enough to steer by God’s rule only and not by the King’s. One should remember, too, that this was about the period of the best Provençal balladry (in which Richard Cœur de Lion was proficient);—that strain of mediæval music and love regaling the Crusader knights on their marches toward Judea, and that strain of music and love waking delightful echoes against Norman castle-walls on their return. Again, one should keep note of the year when Magna Charta was granted by King John (1215), and remember, furthermore, that within ten years of the same date (1205) Layamon probably put the finishing touches to his Brut, and the Arthurian stories I was but now speaking of.
Throughout these times—we will say the twelfth century and early in the thirteenth,—England was waxing every day stronger, though it grew strong in a rough and bloody way; the great Norman castles were a-building up and down the land—such as Conway and Rochester and Cardiff and Kenilworth: the older cathedrals, too, such as Durham and Winchester and Canterbury and Ely were then piling column by column and vault by vault toward the grand proportions which amaze us to-day. It was the time of growing trade too: ships from Genoa and Venice lay off the Thames banks, and had brought thither cargoes of silks and glass, jewels, Milanese armor, and spices. Cloth-makers came over from Flanders and made settlements in England.
Perhaps you have read Scott’s story of the “Betrothed.” If so, you will remember his description of just such a Flemish settlement in its earlier chapters, with its Wilkin Flammock and its charming Rose. The scene is laid in the time of Henry II., that sturdy King, who had such woful trouble with his wild sons, Richard and John, and still larger trouble with Thomas à Becket, (known now, as Harold is known, by Tennyson’s tender music) who came to his death at last by the King’s connivance, under the arches of Canterbury Cathedral; and so made that shrine sacred for pilgrims, whether they came from the “Tabard Inn,” or otherwheres.