No one but villans fought with their faces uncovered;[[43]] so that none but they could receive a blow on the face. Therefore a box on the ear, became an injury that must be expiated with blood, because the person who received it, had been treated as a villan.
The several people of Germany were not less sensible of the point of honour. The most distant relations took a very considerable share to themselves in every affront, and on this all their codes are founded. The law of the Lombards ordains, that whoever goes attended with servants to beat a man by surprize, in order to load him thereby with shame, and to render him ridiculous, should pay half the compensation, which he would owe if he had killed him; and if through the same motive he tied or bound him, he should pay three fourths of the same compensation.
GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.
Geoffrey of Monmouth was the first person, after the conquest, who attempted to write any thing concerning the ancient history of Britain. Although the century, in which he lived, is known, yet neither his family, the time of his birth, nor the place of his education has been ascertained. We are only informed that he was born at Monmouth, and became archdeacon of that place, and that he was consecrated bishop of St. Asaph, in 1152, which he resigned to live in the monastery of Abingdon. By some writers he is called a monk of the Dominican order, but, according to Leland, without sufficient authority. Warton says that he was a Benedictine monk.
The history which has made his name celebrated, is entitled Chronicon sive Historia Britonum. This history, written in the British or Armorican language, was brought into England by Walter Mapes, otherwise Calenius, archdeacon of Oxford, a learned man, and a diligent collector of histories. Travelling through France, about the year 1100, he procured in Armorica, this ancient chronicle, and, on his return, communicated it to Geoffrey, who, according to Warton, (History of English Poetry,) was an elegant Latin writer, and admirably skilled in the British tongue. Geoffrey, at the request and recommendation of Walter, translated this British chronicle into Latin, executing the translation with some degree of purity, and fidelity, insomuch that Matthew Paris speaking of him with reference to this history, says that he approved himself Interpres verus. With whatever fidelity the translation might be made, Geoffrey, however, was guilty of several interpolations, for he confesses that he took some part of his account of king Arthur’s achievements, from the mouth of his friend Walter, the archdeacon. He also owns that the account of Merlin’s prophecies was not in the Armorican original. The speeches and letters were his own forgeries, and in the description of battles, he has not scrupled to make frequent variations and additions.
Geoffrey dedicated his translation to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son of king Henry the first; this, however, did not protect him from the lash even of his contemporaries, for his fables, it appears, were soon discovered, and William Neubrigensis, who lived about the same time, in the beginning of the history which he wrote, thus speaks of him; “In these days a certain writer is risen, who has devised many foolish fictions of the Britons; he is named Geoffrey, and with what little shame, and great confidence does he frame his falsehoods.” William himself, however, did not escape censure for thus animadverting upon Geoffrey.
It is difficult to ascertain at what period the original of Geoffrey’s history was compiled. The subject of it, when divested of its romantic embellishments, is a deduction of the Welsh princes, from the Trojan Brutus to Cadwallader, who reigned in the seventh century; and this notion of their extraction from the Trojans, had so infatuated the Welsh, that even so late as the year 1284, archbishop Peckham, in his injunctions to the diocese of St. Asaph, orders the people to abstain from giving credit to idle dreams and visions, a superstition which they had contracted from their belief in the dream of their founder Brutus, in the temple of Diana, concerning his arrival in Britain. The archbishop very seriously, advises them to boast no more of their relation to the conquered and fugitive Trojans, but to glory in the victorious cross of Christ.
The Welsh were not singular in being desirous of tracing their descent from the Trojans, for several European nations were anciently fond of being considered as the offspring of that people. A French historian of the sixth century ascribes the origin of his countrymen to Francio, a son of Priam, and so universal was this humour, and to such an absurd excess of extravagance was it carried, that under the reign of Justinian, even the Greeks themselves were ambitious of being thought to be descended from their ancient enemies the Trojans. The most rational mode of accounting for this predilection, is to suppose, that the revival of Virgil’s Æneid, about the sixth or seventh century, which represents the Trojans as the founders of Rome, the capital of the supreme Pontiff, and a city on various other accounts in the early ages of christianity, highly reverenced and distinguished, occasioned an emulation in many other European nations of claiming an alliance to the same celebrated original. In the mean time it is not quite improbable, that as most of the European nations had become provinces of the Roman empire, those who fancied themselves to be of Trojan extraction might have imbibed this notion, or at least have acquired a general knowledge of the Trojan story from their conquerors, more especially the Britons, who continued so long under the Roman Government.
Geoffrey produces Homer in attestation of a fact asserted in his history; but in such a manner as shews that he knew little more than Homer’s name, and was but imperfectly acquainted with Homer’s subject. Geoffrey says that Brutus having ravaged the province of Aquitaine with fire and sword, came to a place where the city of Tours now stands, as Homer testifies.
This fable of the descent of the Britons from the Trojans was solemnly alleged as an authentic and undeniable proof in a controversy of great national importance by king Edward the first, and his nobility, without the least objection from the opposite party. It was in the famous dispute concerning the subjection of the crown of Scotland to that of England, about the year 1301. The allegations are contained in a letter to Pope Boniface, signed and sealed by the king and his lords. This is a curious instance of the implicit faith with which this tradition continued to be believed, even in a more enlightened age; and an evidence that it was equally credited in Scotland.