CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 



461 



national songs which Charlemagne had collected from, the mouths of their 

 descendants, who had become merged in the native populations of his empire. 

 It was from the national songs, also, of the ancient Britons, of the Saxons, 

 and of the Anglians that the Venerable Bede drew the materials for his 

 Ecclesiastical History of England, composed by him in the Monastery of 

 Jarrow, near Durham, where he died in 735. 



Charlemagne is credited with the honour of having instituted the monastic 

 chronicles which were ordered to be preserved in all monastic foundations 

 formed bv the crown. In each of these it was the monk who was most 



Fig. 358. Coronation of Charlemagne. Miniature from the " Chroniques de St. Denis." 

 Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century. In the National Library, Paris. 



distinguished for his learning and uprightness who was intrusted with the 

 duty of enregistering in chronological order the events of each reign ; and, at 

 the death of the King, his notes served for the compilation of a Chronicle 

 which was deposited in the archives of the monastery. The famous Abbey of 

 St. Denis doubtless possessed, in preference to all other monasteries, the 

 privilege of thus composing the posthumous history of the Kings (Fig. 358), 

 with a degree of religious authority reminding one of the judgment of the 

 dead in ancient Egypt, and of keeping the depot of these national archives, 

 which were so famous throughout the Middle Ages. One of the oldest of 



