INTRODUCTORY 5 



tained sumptuously, and on leaving is said to have acknow- 

 ledged that Oxford was a worthy rival of Paris. Cambridge 

 too is not rarely alluded to by contemporary annalists. How- 

 ever much persons may censure or ridicule the direction taken 

 by human thought in the thirteenth century, it cannot be 

 doubted that it was marked by considerable activity. Henry 

 seems to have conferred considerable privileges on the uni- 

 versities, and to have shewn them great favour. His reign 

 saw the commencement of the collegiate system, in the en- 

 dowments of Merton College and Peterhouse. 



The moral and material progress of society almost always 

 escape the attention of the contemporaneous historian. But 

 succeeding writers may detect their course in the tone taken 

 by those who criticise the acts of the government under which 

 they live. Mr. Hallam has noticed the difference between 

 the complaints of a writer like Hoveden, and of another like 

 Matthew Paris. The wail over universal oppression, violence, 

 and lawlessness, is changed for indignant comment on unwise 

 administration, and uncourtly criticism on the king's domestic 

 and foreign policy. This alone would be evidence of a radical 

 change in the general condition of the people. I do not doubt 

 that much of the condemnation passed by the monk of S. Al- 

 ban's on Henry's public acts is just; but it is clear, I think, 

 that Henry was a far better monarch than many who pre- 

 ceded him and many who followed him. The country be- 

 came prosperous during his reign, and the complaints made 

 about the greediness of his foreign relatives, and the extortions 

 of the pope, are indirect evidence of the material progress 

 which marked Henry'* government. He may not have been 

 possessed in great measure of that ferocious courage which 

 belonged to the house of Anjou, he certainly was not more 

 insincere than his father, his uncle, and his grandfather; and 

 his judgment was perhaps weak. But he succeeded to a mi- 

 nority in which the hereditary resources of the crown had 

 been narrowed by unsparing grants to the barons, and he was 

 always in difficulties. The great error of his policy, his at- 



