and caves of Tipperary, he pronounces to be a work of great value, though not without serious defects. The History of the Abbé Mac Geogehan, written in 1758, is to be looked upon as a praiseworthy attempt rather than a successful performance. CHAP. III. tirists. The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigramma- Contemtists of the Twelfth Century, edited by Mr. Thomas porary SaWright,' contain much amusing and interesting illustration of the manners, vices, and follies of the period. Of Domesday Book, otherwise known as the Liber de Domesday Wintonia, the original of which is to be seen at the Book. Record Office, a verbatim edition was printed in the last century, being completed in 1783. In 1860, Her Majesty's Government, with the concurrence of the Master of the Rolls, determined to apply the art of photozincography to the production of a fac-simile edition, which was brought out under the superintendence of Colonel Sir Henry James, R.E., Director of the Ordnance Survey, Southampton. This was completed in 1863, and is sold in parts varying in price from 4s. 6d. to 1. Is. od. A full account of the whole literature of this great survey is given by Mr. Freeman in the Appendix (note A.) to the fifth volume of his Norman Conquest. The life of Lanfranc by MILO CRISPIN,2 that of ContemAnselm by EADMER,3 those of Beket in the volumes porary Bio graphies. edited by canon Robertson for the Rolls Series, and that of Hugh of Lincoln, known as the Magna Vita, are all biographies of high value and interest. 12 vols. R. S. 1872. 2 Vita Beati Lanfranci, Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis, Auctore Milone Crispino, monacho et cantore Beccensi, subpari. Migne, P. L. cl. 22-28. • Printed in Migne, P. L. clix. • Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Vols. i. ii. and iii. Edited by J. C. Robertson. R. S. 18751877. * Magna Vita S. Hugonis Episcopi Lincolniensis. Edited by James F. Dimock. R. S. 1864. СНАР. Dialogus de Scacca rio. John The Dialogus de Scaccario, or 'Dialogue on the Exchequer,' by Richard, bishop of London, is printed in full in professor Stubbs's Documents, &c. (pp. 160-241), 'as contributing an extraordinary mass of information on every important point in the development of constitutional principles before the Great Charter.' Non-Contemporary Writer.-The Chronicon of JOHN Brompton. BROMPTON, who was abbat of Jervaulx in Yorkshire at the close of the thirteenth century, is printed in Twysden's Scriptores. It terminates with the year 1199, and is a poor compilation of little authority from William of Newbury, Benedict,' Giraldus, and Hoveden. Freeman, Stubbs, Guizot, Bryce. Lives of Beket, and (c.) Modern Writers.-The fourth chapter of Mr. Freeman's Norman Conquest gives a graphic account of Norman history up to the commencement of the eleventh century. Professor Stubbs's Constitutional History, chapters x. xi. xii. (to p. 514), affords the requisite and indispensable collateral guidance. The first chapter of the sixth Essai in GUIZOT'S Essais sur l'Histoire de France, Du Gouvernement Anglo-Normand,'—brings out some of the chief points of contrast between French and English constitutional history at this period. The seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters of PROFESSOR BRYCE'S Holy Roman Empire contain a full explanation of the theory of the medieval Empire and its relations to Teutonic history in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. The main facts in the life of Lanfranc are to be found in dean Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. ii. ; but are given more fully as well as more correctly in M. de Crozal's Lanfranc: sa Vie, son Enseignement, sa Politique (Paris, 1877). The Life of Anselm, by DEAN CHURCH, is a volume of great merit, and may be compared with that contained in dean Hook's Lives, &c., from which it diverges on some not unimportant points. The essay on Thomas a Beket in CHAP. III. Mr. Freeman's Historical Essays (2nd series), is one of especial value. The Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln, by canon G. G. Perry, is a very instructive study, founded upon original materials, of the Church history of these times. The Biographia Britannica Litteraria (Anglo- Wright's Norman Period, 1842), by Mr. Wright, supplies a series Biographia. of sketches of the chief literary characters of the period arranged in chronological order. The 21st and 22nd chapters of SISMONDI'S Histoire des Français, detailing Sismondi. the history of the third Crusade and the results by which it was attended, will be found to supply a good illustration of Richard the First's real character. Stubbs's For the Crusades generally the volume by Sir G. W. Cox's Cox supplies a graphic though brief account; while Crusades. professor Stubbs's Early Plantagenets, a volume in the Plantage same series, supplies an outline of the greater part of the nets. present and of the following periods, which will be found useful both by teacher and student.' 'The Crusades, by G. W. Cox; The Early Plantagenets, by William Stubbs; volumes in Epochs of Modern History.' Longmans and Co. 1874 and 1876. CHAP. The IV. 'Chronicle' and the Historical CHAPTER IV. FROM THE ACCESSION OF KING JOHN TO THE DEATH (A.) Contemporary Writers.-A marked advance in historical composition is one of the distinguishing features of the thirteenth century when compared with the We find the mere Chronicle now giving preceding era. History.' place in the treatment of abler writers to the History, that is to say a simple arrangement of events in chronological sequence is expanded into a narrative which aims at exhibiting the relations of cause and effect, and events are pourtrayed as incidents of a coherent drama and in Advance in their supposed moral and political significance. This Composi- important advance presents itself in connexion with a new Historic School. The great Northern school culminated and ended with Hoveden, and was now succeeded by the no less remarkable school of the South associated with the monastery of St. Alban's. A very slight acquaintance with the historical literature of this ancient house, which owed its foundation to king Offa and had once been ruled by Anselm, is sufficient to disprove the representations of those who would have us look upon this period as one when history had lapsed into the hands only of ignorant, credulous, and prejudiced writers.' tion. See, for example, the very unjust representations of Buckle in the sixth chapter of his History of Civilisation. CHAP. IV. The School of St. Alban's. Paris. The town of St. Albans, the halting-place at the close of the first day's journey northwards from London, was the scene of continuous traffic and excitement, and its inonastery afforded shelter and hospitality to travellers of all classes.' Nor was it only a great centre of intelligence, it was also a great depository of documents; and hence the works of its members, such as those of Matthew Paris, Rishanger, John de Cella, Roger Wendover, and John de Trokelowe are among the most authoritative contemporary records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.2 Pre-eminent among their number is MAT- Matthew THEW PARIS, the historian, the traveller, the politician, d. 1259. the monk, and the courtier, and a comparison of his Historia Major with the Chronica of Hoveden affords decisive proof of the advance above described in this species of composition. Instead of an almost colourless narrative, we are presented with a series of brilliant historical criticisms, and although the change may in some measure be due, as professor Stubbs suggests, to the altered policy of the clergy, who found themselves compelled to abandon their former position of political neutrality for one of active partisanship, it is also undoubtedly to be regarded as one of the manifestations of that new spirit infused into the age. 1 Matthew Paris states that in the stables of the abbey set apart for the use of guess and strangers, there were stalls for nearly 300 horses. Chron. Maj. ann. 1252. 2 Chronica Monasterii S. Albani. Edited by H. T. Riley. 11 vols. R. S. 1863-76. It may here be worth while to caution students again-t the misapprehension that a Chronicle associated with the name of a particular religious house is exclusively concer ed with its special history. Sometimes, like the Annales Monastici, they incorporate documents of great national importance which had been sent to the monastery to be transcribed. See on this point the Preface to the third volume of Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue, &c. p. xx. ; and also, for some interesting observations and fac's relating to the character and 'mechanical structure' of our earlier chronicles, professor Earle's Preface to his Parallel Chronicles, pp. |
