PREFACE.
I HAVE now been able to carry out the design which I spoke of in the Prefaces to the fifth volume and to the second edition of the fourth volume of my History of the Norman Conquest. I have endeavoured to work out in detail the two sides of the memorable years with which I deal in these volumes, their deep importance for general and specially for constitutional history, and their rich store of personal and local narrative. In the former aspect, I believe I may claim to be the first to have dealt at length with the history of Bishop William of Saint-Calais, a history of deep constitutional importance in itself, and more important still with reference to the career of Anselm. It is no small matter to be able to show that it was not Anselm, but Anselm’s enemy, who was the first to appeal from an English court to the see of Rome. In this matter I have, I trust, brought out into its full importance a piece of history which has never, as far as I know, been told at length by any modern writer, though Dr. Stubbs has shown full appreciation of its constitutional bearings. Of less importance, but still more novel, is the mission of Abbot Jeronto to England, to which I have never seen any reference in any modern writer whatever. With regard to the career of Randolf Flambard, I have now worked out more fully many points which have been already spoken of both by myself and by Dr. Stubbs; but I cannot claim to have brought forward anything of great moment that is absolutely new.
In the part which consists of military and other narrative, I have, as usual, given all the attention that I could to the topography. I have visited every place that I could, and I have generally in so doing had the help of friends, often with more observant eyes than my own. I must specially thank Mr. James Parker for his help in Normandy and Maine, the Rev. J. T. Fowler of Durham for his help in Normandy, Maine, and Northumberland, Mr. G. T. Clark in Shropshire, Mr. F. H. Dickinson at Ilchester, the Rev. William Hunt at Bristol, and the Rev. W. R. W. Stephens in Sussex and Kent. I have also to thank His Grace the Duke of Norfolk for free access to Arundel castle, and M. Henri Chardon of Le Mans for much valuable help in that city. And, above all, I must again thank Mr. James Parker for much more than help in preparing the maps and plans which illustrate the book. Without him they could not have been done at all.
In North Wales and in some parts of Normandy and France I was left to my own inquiries. In South Wales I made no particular researches for this volume; but I hope that an old-standing knowledge of a large part of that country may not have been useless. Where I feel a real deficiency is in Hampshire. I could not have made any minute inquiries there without delaying the publication of the book for many months. But I have in former years been at Portchester, and I have seen something of the New Forest. And I feel pretty certain that no amount of local research can throw any real light on the death of William Rufus, unless indeed in the way of showing how local legends grew up. But something might perhaps be done more minutely to illustrate the landing and march of Duke Robert in 1101.
On this last point the place of the conference between Henry and Robert is satisfactorily fixed in the new text of Wace published by Dr. Andresen. I did not come across his volumes till most of the references to Wace had been copied and printed from the edition of Pluquet. But in the course of revision I was able in some cases to refer to Andresen also. His text is clearly a better one than that of Pluquet. But I cannot say that I have learned much from his notes, perhaps from the singularly repulsive way in which they are printed. Another German writer, Dr. Liebermann, has done good service to my period by publishing several unpublished chronicles to which I have often referred. Those of Saint Edmundsbury are of very considerable local importance. But there are other things that want printing. I hear from Mr. E. C. Waters that there lurks in manuscript a cartulary of Colchester Abbey, which contains distinct proof that Henry the First spoke English familiarly. I have never doubted the fact, which has always seemed to me as clear as anything that rested on mere inference can be. But it is something to know that there is direct witness to the fact, though it would be more satisfactory if one could refer to that witness for oneself. In the story, as told me by Mr. Waters, a document partly in English is produced in the Kings presence; the clerk in whose hands it is put breaks down at the English part; the King takes the parchment, and reads and explains it with ease.
I may mention one point with regard to topography in Normandy and Maine. I have now carefully written the names of all places in Normandy, Maine, and the neighbouring lands, according to the forms now received, as they appear for instance on the French Ordnance map. I am sure that people constantly read names like “Willelmus de Sancto Carilepho,” “Robertus de Mellento,” without clearly taking in that “Sanctus Carilephus,” “Mellentum”, &c. are names of real places, as real as any town in England. When one reads, as I have read, of “Bishop Karilef,” “the Honour of the Eagle,” and so forth, it is plain that those who write in that way have no clear notion of Saint-Calais and Laigle as real places. Yet all these towns are still there; to most of them the railway is open, and there are trains. On the other hand, the confusions of French writers about English places are, if possible, more amazing. A German writer, meanwhile, is pretty sure to know where any place, either in France or England, is, though he may be sometimes a little lifeless in his way of dealing with it.
I have now pretty well done with the history of the Norman Conquest of England, except so far as I still hope to put forth my story on a scale intermediate between five—or rather seven—large volumes and one very small one. But I should be well pleased to go on with another piece of history of the same date, the essential importance of which and its close connexion with that with which I have been dealing is being always brought more and fully home to me. The Norman in the great island of the Ocean and the Norman in the great island of the Mediterranean naturally form companion pieces. I have made some acquaintance with the Rogers and Williams of Sicily in their own home, and I should be well pleased to make that acquaintance more intimate. Palermo follows naturally on Winchester and Rouen. The pleasure-house of William the Bad is the skeleton of the Conqueror’s Tower with a wholly different life breathed into it by Saracenic artists. But the points of view from which we may approach Sicily, the meeting-place of the nations, and the rich and various sources of interest which are supplied by the history of that illustrious island, are simply endless.
In all technical points these volumes follow the exact pattern of the History of the Norman Conquest. And I take a knowledge of that work for granted, and I assume all points which I believe myself to have explained or established in it. But I have added to these volumes, what I have not added to any of their predecessors, a Chronological Summary, distinct from the Table of Contents. It is, I think, a necessary companion to a narrative in which I could not strictly follow chronological order, but had to keep several contemporary lines of story distinct. Alongside of the History of William Rufus I set his Annals.