

ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



119 



noted, or olfro mere translations of works pm 



if in. The first Saxon author of eminence during thu 



io,l was Cii-dmon, who lived in the Hovonth wntiiry. 



to have boon originally a herdsman in tho employ - 



: tin- iiiib.-y >f Whitby. But having roddenly dertupad 



j;ift. uf jioi-try, till thru unsuspected by himself or oth' 



iiUnlniti'.l, iit'ti-r tho manner of the timea, to angelic 

 Ion, ho adopted a monastic life, and paused tho rest of his 

 i the monastery of Whitby. He was the author of a para- 

 phrase of largo portions of tho Holy Scriptures, in the old Saxon 

 litoriitive metre. This work was evidently greatly valued, 

 nd of great influence for centuries after the author's death, 

 living been long lost, a manuscript copy of it was discovered 

 ibishop Usher, and it was published abroad in 1655. 

 [any scholars have thought that Milton derived some sugges- 

 fur hi- f-reat epic, " Paradise Lost," from tho ancient poet. 

 Tho most eminent of the Saxon writers before the Conquest, 

 iiiu* as well as in station, was King Alfred. Ho reigned 

 )m 871 to 901 ; and among the many groat services which he 

 (I to his country, few were more important than the 

 icouragomcnt which he gave to literature and education. 

 By gathering learned men about him, and by appointing them 

 to tho abbeys and sees in which they were likely to exercise 

 most influence over the people, as well as by his own example and 

 persuasion, ho sought to stimulate the pursuit of knowledge. 

 But what more immediately concerns us here is his labours as 

 nn author. Ho published translations from the Latin into 

 Saxon of several works of a religious character ; but his most 

 important translations were those of Bede's " Ecclesiastical 

 History," the " Universal History " of Orosius a work written 

 by a Spanish scholar early in the fifth century, and which had 

 long been a popular text-book among those who understood 

 Latin and the " Consolations of Philosophy " of Boethius, the 

 work of a noble Roman, who, after long faithfully serving the 

 Gothic King Theodoric, was at last disgraced, and, after a long 

 imprisonment, unjustly put to death by his ungrateful master in 

 526. He wrote his famous work during his imprisonment. 



Many smaller writers in the Anglo-Saxon tongue might be 

 named ; but those we have mentioned are sufficient to indi- 

 cate the character of the vernacular literature. The only other 

 work which it is necessary to refer to is one of a very different 

 kind. Tho " Saxon Chronicle " is a work of more historical 

 than literary interest. It is a mere record from year to year of 

 the chief facts of English history, from the invasion of Julius 

 Caesar, B.C. 55, down to the death of Stephen, in A.D. 1154. The 

 opinion of the best scholars is that so much as relates the 

 history down to the time of Alfred was composed in the reign 

 of that king, and that the chronicle was afterwards continued 

 from time to time, until it finally came to a close at the period 

 we iave mentioned. 



THE PERIOD AFTER THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 



The Norman Conquest was the death-blow to all literature 

 among the conquered people. Saxon bishops and abbots gave 

 place to Norman. The richest lands passed to the Normans. 

 Every great oflice of trust and profit was reserved for the 

 Normans. The Saxons were crushed and ground beneath the 

 unflinching tyranny of a people alien in language as in race. 

 The " Saxon Chronicle," it is true, was still carried on in the 

 abbey of Peterborough; but the people were far too com- 

 pletely prostrate to have heart or energy left for any higher 

 literary effort. 



Latin literature, however, received a great impulse from the 

 Conquest, for by it England was brought into closer contact 

 with the continent of Europe. In those days the common 

 wealth of learning knew no distinction of race or country. In 

 our days every nation has its own favourite course of study, in 

 which students are taught by their own countrymen, and in 

 thoir own tongue. But in tho days of which we are speaking, 

 there was one curriculum of learning, and one language for the 

 learned. An English student would have been equally at home 

 at Oxford, at Paris, or at Bologna. In each place he would find 

 the same men teaching the same philosophy, and in the same 

 tongue. Accordingly, long before tho Conquest tho Saxon 

 Alcuin had taught at the court of Charlemagne ; and Scotus 

 Erijrena, the Irish philosopher, in France. So now the 

 archbishopric of Canterbury was occupied immediately after 

 the Conquest by two Italians in succession, Lanfranc and 



Anselm, both of them great theologians and scholar*. John 

 J )IIIM ScotuH, of Celtic race, and a native either of Scotland or 

 t infill the scholastic philosophy both at Oxford ad in 

 i'.iris ; while tho groat English schoolmen Alexander Hale* and 

 William of Occam taught in France and Germany. Of the 

 English philosophers who lired and taught in England, the 

 most eminent was Friar Roger Bacon, known to fame aa 

 tho reputed inventor of gunpowder, who pursued the study of 

 natural science with unwearied diligence and remarkable soeaeM 

 in the thirteenth century, and acquired thereby the question- 

 able reputation of a great magician. 



Poetry in Latin also was cultivated among the learned with 

 considerable success ; but most of the productions of this clam 

 are of comparatively little interest to us in the present day. 

 There is one class of Latin poems, however, which deserves to 

 be specially noted, not only because it is curious in itself, bat 

 still more because it reveals to us much of the thoughts of men 

 at the period ; and, moreover, it shows the beginning of a spirit 

 which received its full development in the days of Wycliffe. 

 Walter Map, or Mapea, was a churchman eminent for l^rning 

 and ability in the reign of Henry II., and held the office of 

 Archdeacon of Oxford. To him was popularly attributed a great 

 mass of poetry written in rhymed Latin verse, the subject of 

 which was generally the corruptions of tho clergy, and which 

 attained immense popularity. Map may very likely have 

 written some of the poems attributed to him, but there is no 

 doubt that most of them are of a later date, and are not the 

 work of one writer, but of a series of writers. The central figure 

 in most of these poems is a certain imaginary bishop " Goliaa," 

 the representative of idleness, corruption, and sensuality among 

 the clergy. There is the " Vision of Golias," tho " Confession of 

 Golias," and a vast number of other poems connected with his 

 name. Most of these compositions aro satires of the broadest 

 kind, directed against the clergy, especially the monks, and, 

 above all, the Cistercians ; but among them are to be found a 

 good many very serious exhortations and moral discourses 09 to 

 the obligations of the clerical life, and upon kindred subjects. 

 This Gobias literature, its remarkable extent, and great popu- 

 larity, are instructive, as showing how closely the popular dis- 

 gust at tho growing corruptions of the clergy, and particularly 

 of the monastic orders, was connected with the early develop- 

 ment of our literature, a subject upon which we shall have more 

 to say hereafter. 



But the class of Latin writings most especially characteristic 

 of this period are the innumerable chronicles which were 

 produced during it. These chronicles were written by monks 

 in the great monasteries scattered over the kingdom. They are 

 the histories of different periods ; some of them purporting to 

 contain the history of the world from the creation, others only 

 tho history of England, or even a small portion of it. And 

 they are of very various degrees of merit, some of them being 

 the merest transcripts of earlier writers, while others give 

 us very life-like pictures of contemporary events. Among 

 the most famous of these chroniclers famous, some for 

 thoir truth and others for their falsehood are William of 

 Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Giraldus Cambrensis, 

 Roger of Hoveden, Matthew Paris, William Rishanger, and 

 Ralph Higdon. 



But tho Norman conquerors of England were, as a class, no 

 more competent to understand a literature in Latin than the 

 conquered Saxons. They had, therefore, as was natural, a 

 literature of their own in French. In France two dialects, or 

 rather two languages, prevailed. In the South was spoken the 

 Provencal tongue, and in this tongue the Troubadours composed 

 and sang thoir poems. In the North was spoken a different 

 dialect, the ancestor of tho modern French, and its poets were 

 the Trouveres. Of the works of these latter, the Normans, no 

 doubt, brought many with them from Franco, and many more 

 camo over later, or were composed in England. The poetry 

 of tho Trouveros is the poetry of chivalry, the poetry of the 

 Crusaders. It consisted chiefly of romances in verse upon 

 subjects of chivalry, tho adventures of King Arthur and his 

 Round Table, and those of Charlemagne and his peers, occupying 

 by far t'.io largest space. But the subjects of those romances 

 were very various, though their character ia very uniform. 

 TliL-ro was, besides, a class of stories in verse or prose, founded, 

 not upon the adventures of heroes, but upon the simpler incident* 

 of real life, which were known as fabliaux. 



