The latest controversy about history is whether it is a science or an art. It is, of course, both, simply because there must be science in every art and art in every science. The antithesis is largely false; science lays stress on analysis, art on synthesis. The historian must apply scientific methods to his materials and artistic methods to his results; he must test his documents and then turn them into literature. The relative importance of the two methods is a matter of dispute. There are some who still maintain that history is merely an art, that the best history is the story that is best told, and that what is said is less important than the way in which it is said. This school generally ignores records. Others attach little importance to the form in which truth is presented; they are concerned mainly with the principles and methods of scientific criticism, and specialize in palaeography, diplomatic and sources. The works of this school are little read, but in time its results penetrate the teaching in schools and universities, and then the pages of literary historians; it is represented in England by a fairly good organization, the Royal Historical Society (with which the Camden Society has been amalgamated), and by an excellent periodical, The English Historical Review (founded in 1884), while some sort of propaganda is attempted by the Historical Association (started in 1906). Its standards have also been upheld with varying success in great co-operative undertakings, such as the Dictionary of National Biography, the Cambridge Modern History, and Messrs Longmans’ Political History of England.
These 19th-century products require some sort of classification for purposes of reference, and the chronological is the most convenient. Lingard’s, J.R. Green’s and Messrs Longmans’ histories are the only notable attempts to tell the history of England as a whole, though Stubbs’s Constitutional History (3 vols.) covers the middle ages and embodies a political survey as well (for corrections and modifications see Petit-Dutaillis, Supplementary Studies, 1908), while Hallam’s Constitutional History (3 vols.) extends from 1485 to 1760 and Erskine May’s (3 vols.) from 1760 to 1860. Sir James Ramsay’s six volumes also cover the greater part of medieval English history. There is no work on a larger scale than Lappenberg and Kemble, dealing with England before the Norman Conquest, though J.R. Green’s Making of England and Conquest of England deal with certain portions in some detail, and Freeman gives a preliminary survey in his Norman Conquest (6 vols.). For the succeeding period see Freeman’s William Rufus, J.H. Round’s Feudal England and Geoffrey de Mandeville, and Miss Norgate’s England under the Angevins and John Lackland. From 1216 we have nothing but Ramsay, Stubbs, Longmans’ Political History and monographs (some of them good), until we come to Wylie’s Henry IV. (4 vols.); and again from 1413 the same is true (Gairdner’s Lollardy and the Reformation being the most elaborate monograph) until we come to Brewer’s Reign of Henry VIII. (2 vols.; to 1530 only), Froude’s History (12 vols., 1529-1588) and R.W. Dixon’s Church History (6 vols., 1529-1570). From 1603 to 1656 we have Gardiner’s History (England, 10 vols.; Civil War, 4 vols.; Commonwealth and Protectorate, 3 vols.), and to 1714 Ranke’s History of England (6 vols.; see also Firth’s Cromwell and Cromwell’s Army, and various editions of texts and monographs). For Charles II. there is no good history; then come Macaulay, and Stanhope and Wyon’s Queen Anne, and for the 18th century Stanhope and Lecky (England, 7 vols.; Ireland, 5 vols.). From 1793 to 1815 is another gap only partially filled. Spencer Walpole deals with the period from 1815 to 1880, and Herbert Paul with the years 1846-1895.
A few books on special subjects deserve mention. For legal history see Pollock and Maitland’s History of English Law (2 vols. to Edward I.), Maitland’s Domesday Book and Beyond, and Anson’s Law and Custom of the Constitution; for economic history, Cunningham’s Growth of Industry and Commerce, and Ashley’s Economic History; for ecclesiastical history, Stephens and Hunt’s series (7 vols.); for foreign and colonial, Seeley’s British Foreign Policy and Expansion of England, and J.A. Doyle’s books on the American colonies; for military history, Fortescue’s History of the British Army, Napier’s and Oman’s works on the Peninsular War, and Kinglake’s Invasion of the Crimea; and for naval history, Corbett’s Drake and the Tudor Navy, Successors of Drake, English in the Mediterranean and Seven Years’ War, and Mahan’s Influence of Sea-Power on History and Influence of Sea-Power upon the French Revolution and Empire.
Bibliography of Bibliographies.—The sources for the middle ages have been enumerated in C. Gross’s Sources and Literature of English History ... to about 1485 (London, 1900), but there is nothing similar for modern history. G.C. Lee’s Source Book of English History is not very satisfactory. More information can be obtained from the bibliographies appended to the volumes in Longmans’ Political History, or the chapters in the Cambridge Modern History, or to the biographical articles in the D.N.B. and Ency. Brit. A series of bibliographical leaflets for the use of teachers is issued by the Historical Association. For MSS. sources see Scargill-Bird’s Guide to the Record Office, and the class catalogues in the MSS. Department of the British Museum. Lists of the state papers and other documents printed and calendared under the direction of the master of the Rolls and deputy keeper of the Records are supplied at the end of many of their volumes.
(A. F. P.)
[1] As the name Edith (Eadgyth) sounded uncouth to Norman ears, she assumed the continental name Maheut or Mahelt (Eng. Mahald, later Mold and Maud), in Latin Matildis or Matilda. Sir J.H. Ramsay, Foundations of England, ii. 235. (Ed.)
[2] The Nottingham of 1387, who had been promoted to the higher title.
[3] Mr Andrew Lang takes a different view of the character of Albany and his attitude in this matter. See Hist. of Scotland, i. 289, and the article [Scotland]: History.—Ed.
[4] The peculiar absurdity of Henry’s claim to be king of France was that if, on the original English claim as set forth by Edward III., heirship through females counted, then the earl of March was entitled to the French throne. A vote of the English parliament superseding March’s claim in favour of that of Henry IV. could obviously have no legal effect in France.