[7] On this Arch-Poet see Scherer, History of German Literature (Engl. ed., Oxford, 1886), i. 68.
[8] A few more precise dates may be useful. St Bernard, 1091-1153; Bernard of Morlaix, exact years uncertain, but twelfth century; Adam of St Victor, ob. cir. 1190; Jacopone da Todi, ob. 1306; St Bonaventura, 1221-1274; Thomas of Celano, fl. c. 1226. The two great storehouses of Latin hymn-texts are the well-known books of Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, and Mone, Hymni Latini Medii Ævi. And on this, as on all matters connected with hymns, the exhaustive Dictionary of Hymnology (London, 1892) of the Rev. John Julian will be found most valuable.
[9] Of course no one of the four is a pure classical trochee; but all obey the trochaic rhythm.
[10] Sacred Latin Poetry (2d ed., London, 1864), p. 304. This admirable book has not been, and from its mixture of taste and learning is never likely to be, superseded as an introduction to, and chrestomathy of, the subject. Indeed, if a little touch of orthodox prudery had not made the Archbishop exclude the Stabat, hardly a hymn of the very first class could be said to be missing in it.
[11] I should feel even more diffidence than I do feel in approaching this proverbially thorny subject if it were not that many years ago, before I was called off to other matters, I paid considerable attention to it. And I am informed by experts that though the later (chiefly German) Histories of Philosophy, by Ueberweg, Erdmann, Windelband, &c., may be consulted with advantage, and though some monographs may be added, there are still no better guides than Hauréau, De la Philosophie Scolastique (revised edition) and Prantl, Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, who were our masters five-and-twenty years ago. The last-named book in especial may be recommended with absolute confidence to any one who experiences the famous desire for "something craggy to break his mind upon."
[12] Some exacter dates may be useful. Anselm, 1033-1109; Roscellin, 1050?-1125; William of Champeaux, ?-1121; Abelard, 1079-1142; Peter Lombard, ob. 1164; John of Salisbury, ?-1180; Alexander of Hales, ?-1245; Vincent of Beauvais, ?-1265?; Bonaventura, 1221-1274; Albertus Magnus, 1195-1280; Thomas Aquinas, 1225?-1274; Duns Scotus, 1270?-1308?; William of Occam, ?-1347; Roger Bacon, 1214-1292; Petrus Hispanus, ?-1277; Raymond Lully, 1235-1315.
[13] Rémusat on Anselm and Cousin on Abelard long ago smoothed the way as far as these two masters are concerned, and Dean Church on Anselm is also something of a classic. But I know no other recent monograph of any importance by an Englishman on Scholasticism except Mr R.L. Poole's Erigena. Indeed the "Erin-born" has not had the ill-luck of his country, for with the Migne edition accessible to everybody, he is in much better case than most of his followers two, three, and four centuries later.
[14] The Amalricans, as the followers of Amaury de Bène were termed, were not only condemned by the Lateran Council of 1215, but sharply persecuted; and we know nothing of the doctrines of Amaury, David, and the other northern Averroists or Pantheists, except from later and hostile notices.
[15] I prefer, as more logical, the plural form chansons de gestes, and have so written it in my Short History of French Literature (Oxford, 4th ed., 1892), to which I may not improperly refer the reader on the general subject. But of late years the fashion of dropping the s has prevailed, and, therefore, in a book meant for general reading, I follow it here. Those who prefer native authorities will find a recent and excellent one on the whole subject of French literature in M. Lanson, Histoire de la Littérature Française, Paris, 1895. For the mediæval period generally M. Gaston Paris, La Littérature Française au Moyen Age (Paris, 1888), speaks with unapproached competence; and, still narrowing the range, the subject of the present chapter has been dealt with by M. Léon Gautier, Les Epopées Françaises (Paris, 4 vols., 1878-92), in a manner equally learned and loving. M. Gautier has also been intrusted with the section on the Chansons in the new and splendidly illustrated collection of monographs (Paris: Colin) which M. Petit de Julleville is editing under the title Histoire de la Langue et de la Littérature Française. Mr Paget Toynbee's Specimens of Old French (Oxford, 1892) will illustrate this and the following chapters.
[16] This monotony almost follows from the title. For geste in the French is not merely the equivalent of gesta, "deeds." It is used for the record of those deeds, and then for the whole class or family of performances and records of them. In this last sense the gestes are in chief three—those of the king, of Doon de Mayence, and of Garin de Montglane—besides smaller ones.