[146] "Henry II.," by Mrs. J. R. Green, 1888, p. 22 ("Twelve English Statesmen").
[147] Stubbs, "Seventeen Lectures," 1886, p. 131.
[148] After having congratulated the king upon his intention to teach manners and virtues to a wild race, "indoctis et rudibus populis," the Pope recalls the famous theory, according to which all islands belonged of right to the Holy See: "Sane Hiberniam et omnes insulas, quibus sol justitiæ Christus illuxit ... ad jus B. Petri et sacrosanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ (quod tua et nobilitas recognoscit) non est dubium pertinere...." The items of the bargain are then enumerated: "Significasti siquidem nobis, fili in Christo charissime, te Hiberniæ insulam, ad subdendum illum populum legibus, et vitiorum plantaria inde exstirpanda velle intrare, et de singulis domibus annuam unius denarii B. Petro velle solvere pensionem.... Nos itaque pium et laudabile desiderium tuum cum favore congruo prosequentes ... gratum et acceptum habemus ut ... illius terræ populus honorifice te recipiat et sicut Dominum veneretur." "Adriani papæ epistolæ et privilegia.—Ad Henricum II. Angliæ regem," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. clxxxviii. col. 1441.
[149] As little French as could be, for he did not even know the language of the conquerors, and was on that account near being removed from his see: "quasi homo idiota, qui linguam gallicam non noverat nec regiis consiliis interesse poterat." Matthew Paris, "Chronica Majora," year 1095.
En mund ne est, (ben vus l'os dire)
Pais, reaume, ne empire
U tant unt esté bons rois
E seinz, cum en isle d'Englois,
Ki après règne terestre
Or règnent reis en célestre,
Seinz, martirs, e cunfessurs,
Ki pur Deu mururent plursurs;
Li autre, forz e hardiz mutz,
Cum fu Arthurs, Aedmunz e Knudz.
"Lives of Edward the Confessor," ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls), 1858; beginning of the "Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei."
[151] These three poets, all of them subjects of the English kings, lived in the twelfth century; the oldest of the three was Gaimar, who wrote, between 1147 and 1151 (P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xviii. p. 314), his "Estorie des Engles" (ed. Hardy and Martin, Rolls, 1888, 2 vols., 8vo), and, about 1145, a translation in French verse of the "Historia Britonum" of Geoffrey of Monmouth (see below, p. 132).—Wace, born at Jersey (1100?-1175, G. Paris), translated also Geoffrey into French verse ("Roman de Brut," ed. Leroux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836, 2 vols. 8vo), and wrote between 1160 and 1174 his "Geste des Normands" or "Roman de Rou" (ed. Andresen, Heilbronn, 1877, 2 vols. 8vo). He wrote also metrical lives of saints, &c.—Benoit de Sainte-More, besides his metrical romances (see below, p. 129), wrote, by command of Henry II., a great "Chronique des ducs de Normandie" (ed. Francisque Michel, "Documents inédits," Paris, 1836, 3 vols. 4to).
[152] Even under the Roman empire, nations had been known to attribute to themselves a Trojan origin. Lucanus states that the men of Auvergne were conceited enough to consider themselves allied to the Trojan race. Ammianus Marcellinus, fourth century, states that similar traditions were current in Gaul in his time: "Aiunt quidam paucos post excidium Trojæ fugientes Græcos ubique dispersos, loca hæc occupasse tunc vacua." "Rerum Gestarum," lib. xv. cap. ix. During the Middle Ages a Roman ancestry was attributed to the French, the Britons, the Lombards, the Normans. The history of Brutus, father of the Britons, is in Nennius, tenth century(?); he says he drew his information from "annalibus Romanorum" ("Historia Britonum," ed. Stevenson, Historical Society, London, 1838, p. 7). The English historians after him, up to modern times, accepted the same legend; it is reproduced by Matthew Paris in the thirteenth century, by Ralph Higden in the fourteenth, by Holinshed in Shakesperean times: "This Brutus ... was the sonne of Silvius, the sonne of Ascanius, the sonne of Æneas the Troian, begotten of his wife Creusa, and borne in Troie, before the citie was destroied." Chronicles, 1807, 6 vols. fol. book ii. chap. 1. In France at the Renaissance, Ronsard chose for his hero Francus the Trojan, "because," as he says, "he had an extreme desire to honour the house of France."