None of Mr Freeman's peculiar 'notes' is more familiar than this tendency, and none has given rise to bitterer controversy or more popular amusement. 'Pedantry' was the charge brought against him, and to this charge he was as keenly sensitive as was Browning to that of 'obscurity'. Of both writers it may fairly be said that they evaded rather than met the charge brought against them. The Regius Professor invariably maintained that accuracy, not 'pedantry', was his true offence. Writing, in the Fortnightly Review, on 'The Study of History', he set forth his standing defence in these words:
I would say, as the first precept, Dare to be accurate. You will be called a pedant for doing so, but dare to be accurate all the same.
He who shall venture to distinguish between two English boroughs, between two Hadriatic islands when the authorized caterer for the public information thinks good to confound them, must be content to bear the terrible name of pedant, even if no worse fate still is in store for him.
Was, then, our author a mere pedant, or was this the name that ignorance bestowed on knowledge? For an answer to this question, 'Senlac' is a test-case. 'Every child', in Macaulay's words, had heard of the Battle of Hastings; it was known by that name 'all over Europe' from time immemorial. Unless, therefore, that name was wrong, it was wanton and mischievous to change it; and, even if changed, it was indefensible to substitute the name of Senlac, unless there is proof that the battle was so styled when it was fought.
As to the first of these points, the old name was in no sense wrong. Precisely as the battle of Poitiers was fought some miles from Poitiers, so was it with that of Hastings. Yet we all speak of the Battle of Poitiers, although we might substitute the name of Maupertuis more legitimately than that of Senlac. The only plea that Mr Freeman could advance was that people were led by the old name to imagine that the battle was fought at Hastings itself! Of those who argue in this spirit, it was finely said by the late Mr Kerslake that
instead of lifting ignorance to competence by teaching what ought to be known, they cut down what ought to be known to the capacity of those who are deficient of that knowledge. Instead of making them understand the meaning of the ancient and established word 'Anglo-Saxon', they disturb the whole world of learning with an almost violent attempt to turn out of use the established word, which has been thoroughly understood for ages.
The simple answer to Mr Freeman's contention is, that it is needless to make the change in histories, because those who read them learn that the fight was at Battle; while as to those who do not read histories, it is obvious that such a name as 'Senlac' will in no way lighten their darkness.
The change, therefore, was uncalled for. But it was not merely uncalled for; it was also absolutely wrong. 'To the battle itself,' Mr Freeman wrote, 'I restore its true ancient name of Senlac.' In so doing the writer acted in the spirit of those who 'restore' our churches and who gave that word so evil a sound in the ears of all archæologists, Mr Freeman himself included. I am reminded of the protest of the Society of Antiquaries on hearing 'with much regret that a fifteenth-century pinnacle' at Rochester Cathedral 'is in danger of destruction in order that a modern pinnacle, professing to represent that which stood in the place in the twelfth century, may be set up in its stead'. Precisely such a 'restoration' is Mr Freeman's 'Senlac'. Professing to represent the ancient name of the battle, it is substituted for that name which the battle has borne from the days of the Conqueror to our own. In William of Malmesbury as in Domesday Book we read of 'the Battle of Hastings' (Bellum Hastingense), and all Mr Freeman's efforts failed admittedly to discover any record or any writer who spoke of the Battle of Senlac (Bellum Senlacium) save Orderic alone. Now Orderic wrote two generations after the battle was fought; the name he strove to give it fell from his pen stillborn; and the fact that this name was a fad of his own is shown by what Mr Freeman suppressed, namely, that Orderic, in the same breath, tells us that Battle Abbey was founded as 'cœnobium Sanctæ Trinitatis Senlac', whereas we learn from Mr Freeman himself that
the usual title is 'ecclesia Sancti Martini de Bello', 'ecclesia de Bello', or, as we have seen, in English 'þæt mynster æt þære Bataille'. The fuller form, 'Abbas Sancti Martini de loco Belli', appears in Domesday, 11b: but it is commonly called in the Survey 'ecclesia de Labatailge'.
So much for Orderic's authority.