Bartholomew the Englishman,[300] another savant, yet more universal and more celebrated, writes one of the oldest encyclopedias. His Latin book, translated into several languages, and of which there are many very beautiful manuscripts,[301] comprises everything, from God and the angels down to beasts. Bartholomew teaches theology, philosophy, geography, and history, the natural sciences, medicine, worldly civility, and the art of waiting on table. Nothing is too high, or too low, or too obscure for him; he is acquainted with the nature of angels, as well as with that of fleas: "Fleas bite more sharply when it is going to rain." He knows about diamonds, "stones of love and reconciliation"; and about man's dreams "that vary according to the variation of the fumes that enter into the little chamber of his phantasy"; and about headaches that arise from "hot choleric vapours, full of ventosity"; and about the moon, that, "by the force of her dampness, sets her impression in the air and engenders dew"; and about everything in fact.
The jurists are numerous; through them again the action of Rome upon England is fortified. Even those among them who are most bent upon maintaining the local laws and traditions, have constantly to refer to the ancient law-makers and commentators; Roman law is for them a sort of primordial and common treasure, open to all, and wherewith to fill the gaps of the native legislation. The first lessons had been given after the Conquest by foreigners: the Italian Vacarius, brought by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, had professed law at Oxford in 1149.[302] Then Anglo-Normans and English begin to codify and interpret their laws; they write general treatises; they collect precedents; and so well do they understand the utility of precedents that these continue to have in legal matters, up to this day, an importance which no other nation has credited them with. Ralph Glanville, Chief Justice under Henry II., writes or inspires a "Treatise of the laws and customs of England"[303]; Richard, bishop of London, compiles a "Dialogue of the Exchequer,"[304] full of wisdom, life, and even a sort of humour; Henry of Bracton,[305] the most renowned of all, logician, observer, and thinker, composes in the thirteenth century an ample treatise, of which several abridgments[306] were afterwards made for the convenience of the judges, and which is still consulted.
In the monasteries, the great literary occupation consists in the compiling of chronicles. Historians of Latin tongue abounded in mediæval England, nearly every abbey had its own. A register was prepared, with a loose leaf at the end, "scedula," on which the daily events were inscribed in pencil, "cum plumbo." At the end of the year the appointed chronicler, "non quicumque voluerit, sed cui injunctum fuerit," shaped these notes into a continued narrative, adding his remarks and comments, and inserting the entire text of the official documents sent by authority for the monastery to keep, according to the custom of the time.[307] In other cases, of rarer occurrence, a chronicle was compiled by some monk who, finding the life in cloister very dull, the offices very long, and the prayers somewhat monotonous, used writing as a means of resisting temptations and ridding himself of vain thoughts and the remembrance of a former worldly life.[308] Thus there exists an almost uninterrupted series of English chronicles, written in Latin, from the Conquest to the Renaissance. The most remarkable of these series is that of the great abbey of St. Albans, founded by Offa, a contemporary of Charlemagne, and rebuilt by Paul, a monk of Caen, who was abbot in 1077.
Most of these chronicles are singularly impartial; the authors freely judge the English and the French, the king and the people, the Pope, Harold and William. They belong to that Latin country and that religious world which had no frontiers. The cleverest among them are remarkable for their knowledge of the ancients, for the high idea they conceive, from the twelfth century on, of the historical art, and for the pains they take to describe manners and customs, to draw portraits and to preserve the memory of curious incidents. Thus shone, in the twelfth century, Orderic Vital, author of an "Ecclesiastical History" of England[309]; Eadmer, St. Anselm's biographer[310]; Gerald de Barry, otherwise Geraldus Cambrensis; a fiery, bragging Welshman, who exhibited both in his life and works the temperament of a Gascon[311]; William of Malmesbury,[312] Henry of Huntingdon,[313] &c.
These two last have a sort of passion for their art, and a deep veneration for the antique models. William of Malmesbury is especially worthy of remembrance and respect. Before beginning to write, he had collected a multitude of books and testimonies; after writing he looks over and revises his text; he never considers, with famous Abbé Vertot, that "son siège est fait," that it is too late to mend. He is alive to the interest offered for the historian by the customs of the people, and by these characteristic traits, scarcely perceptible sometimes, which are nevertheless landmarks in the journey of mankind towards civilisation. His judgments are appreciative and thoughtful; he does something to keep awake the reader's attention, and notes down, with this view, many anecdotes, some of which are excellent prose tales. Seven hundred years before Mérimée, he tells in his own way the story of the "Vénus d'Ille."[314] He does not reach the supreme heights of art, but he walks in the right way; he does not know how to blend his hues, as others have done since, so as to delight the eye with many-coloured sights; but he already paints in colours. To please his reader, he suddenly and naïvely says: "Now, I will tell you a story. Once upon a time...." But if he has not been able to skilfully practice latter-day methods, it is something to have tried, and so soon recognised the excellence of them.
In the thirteenth century rose above all others Matthew Paris,[315] an English monk of the Abbey of St. Albans, who in his sincerity and conscientiousness, and in his love for the historical art, resembles William of Malmesbury. He, too, wants to interest; a skilful draughtsman, "pictor peroptimus,"[316] he illustrates his own manuscripts; he depicts scenes of religious life, a Gothic shrine carried by monks, which paralytics endeavour to touch, an architect receiving the king's orders, an antique gem of the treasury of St. Albans which, curiously enough, the convent lent pregnant women in order to assist them in child-birth; a strange animal, little known in England: "a certain elephant,"[317] drawn from nature, with a replica of his trunk in another position, "the first, he says, that had been seen in the country."[318] The animal came from Egypt, and was a gift from Louis IX. of France to Henry III. Matthew notes characteristic details showing what manners were; he gives great attention to foreign affairs, and also collects anecdotes, for instance, of the wandering Jew, who still lived in his time, a fact attested in his presence by an Archbishop of Armenia, who came to St. Albans in 1228. The porter of the prætorium struck Jesus saying: "Go on faster, go on; why tarriest thou?" Jesus, turning, looked at him with a stern countenance and replied: "I go on, but thou shalt tarry till I come." Since then Cartaphilus tarries, and his life begins again with each successive century. Matthew profits by the same occasion to find out about Noah's ark, and informs us that it was still to be seen, according to the testimony of this prelate, in Armenia.[319]
In the fourteenth century the most illustrious chroniclers were Ralph Higden, whose Universal History became a sort of standard work, was translated into English, printed at the Renaissance, and constantly copied and quoted[320]; Walter of Hemingburgh, Robert of Avesbury, Thomas Walsingham,[321] not to mention many anonymous authors. Several among the historians of that date, and Walsingham in particular, would, on account of the dramatic vigour of their pictures, have held a conspicuous place in the literature of mediæval England had they not written in Latin, like their predecessors.[322]
From these facts, and from this ample, many-coloured literary growth, may be gathered how complete the transformation was, and how strong the intellectual ties with Rome and Paris had become; also how greatly the inhabitants of England now differed from those Anglo-Saxons, that the victors of Hastings had found "agrestes et pene illiteratos," according to the testimony of Orderic Vital. Times are changed: "The admirable Minerva visits human nations in turn ... she has abandoned Athens, she has quitted Rome, she withdraws from Paris; she has now come to this island of Britain, the most remarkable in the world; nay more, itself an epitome of the world."[323] Thus could speak concerning his country, about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the results of the attempted experiment were certain and manifest, that great lover of books, a late student at Paris, who had been a fervent admirer of the French capital, Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham.
FOOTNOTES:
[220] "Volentes nos ipsos humiliare pro Illo Qui Se pro nobis humiliavit usque ad mortem ... offerimus et libere concedimus Deo et ... domino nostro papæ Innocentio ejusque catholicis successoribus, totum regnum Angliæ et totum regnum Hiberniæ, cum omni jure et pertinentiis suis, pro remissione peccatorum nostrorum." Hereupon follows the pledge to pay for ever to the Holy See "mille marcas sterlingorum," and then the oath of fealty to the Pope as suzerain of England. Stubbs, "Select Charters," Oxford, 1876, 3rd ed., pp. 284 ff.