in connexion with the chief centre of English learning at this period; other material relating to the same subject will be found in the collection by canon Raine.1 СНАР. stan. b. 925. Two Lives of St. DUNSTAN,2 the one by Adelard, the St. Dunother probably by Ebrachar, are of importance as sources of information respecting English history in the latter d. 988. half of the tenth century, for which indeed, if we except the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, they constitute almost the only contemporary materials. Scotus. d. 1086. (B.) Non-contemporary Writers. The Chronicle of Marianus MARIANUS SCOTUS,3 who wrote in the eleventh century, b. 1028. is a work of no authority, being, as regards English history, nothing more than a compilation from Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, extending to the year 1083. The manuscripts to which he had recourse were however so good, that his text has occasionally served to correct that of the sources from which he borrowed. With thirteenth and fourteenth century writers he appears to have passed for an original authority. Durham The History of the Kings of England, (616-1130) by Simeon of SIMEON OF DURHAM, written in the twelfth century, d. 1130. is especially valuable in connexion with events in Northumbria, for which, in the tenth century, he is indeed the highest authority. He gives an account of the rise of Christianity in the North which, though largely derived from Bede's History, and Life of St. Cuthbert, contains evidence, particularly towards the close of the third book, of being derived also from other sources, and furnishes many important illustrations of the secular as 1 The Historians of the Church of York, and its Archbishops. Vol. i. Edited by James Raine, M.A., R. S. 1879. 2 Memorials of Saint Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. Edited by William Stubbs, M.A., R. S. 1874. 3 Migne, P. L. cxlvii. 1844. * Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et Collectanea. Edited by J. H. Hinde. S. S. 1868. СНАР. Henry of Huntingdon. d. after 1154. Ralph of Peter well as of the ecclesiastical affairs of northern Eng land. HENRY, archdeacon of HUNTINGDON, who was connected with the monastic community at Ramsey in that shire, completed in the twelfth century, a history of England up to the end of the reign of Stephen.' Here again, Bede and the Chronicle form the staple of the work; but though little more than a compilation, it possesses some value as preserving to us many ballads and early traditions which would otherwise have been lost. It is also noticeable as the production of a secular clergyman at a time when monks were almost the only writers.? As an independent authority, Henry of Huntingdon has less claim upon our notice, and Mr. Freeman observes (Norman Conquest, iv. 3, note) that he diminishes in importance as he gets nearer to his own time. This may in some measure be accounted for by the inferiority of his means of observation in a provincial diocese when compared with those of a resident at one of the great monasteries. The Abbreviationes Chronicorum, by RALPH OF DICE TO,3 a canon of the Church in the twelfth century, and archdeacon of Middlesex, is also noticeable as written by a secular, but is of small value. The Chronicle of PETER LANGTOFT, composed in French verse, and ex 1 Henrici Archidiaconi Huntindunensis Historia Anglorum: A.c. 55– 1154. In eight Books. ed. Thomas Arnold R. S. 1879. 2 Mr. Earle observes: 'He was an amateur and an antiquarian. To him we owe the earliest mention of Stonehenge. He had a great fondness for the old Saxon Chronicles, which in his day were already something curious and out of date, although his Annals close at the same date as E. viz. 1154.' Pref. to Parallel Chronicles, p. Ixi. 3 Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica. Edited by William Stubbs, M.A. 2 vols. R. S. 1876. The Chronicle of Pierre Langtoft, in French Verse, from the earliest Period to the Death of Edward I. Edited by Thomas Wright, M.A. 2 vols. R. S. 1866-8. tending from the time of Cadwallader to the reign of Edward II., is of even less merit. CHAP. II. Malmesbury. b. 1095. d. 1148. In WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY we are presented, for William of the first time after a lapse of four centuries, with a historian who may compare with Bede, and who aspires to higher functions than those of the mere annalist. The offspring of a Norman father and an English mother, he represents the fusion of the two races, though his sympathies are manifestly on the side of the conquerors. William is an eminently favourable example of the Benedictine scholar, interpenetrated with the learning of his order, but with sympathies and an intelligence that lift him far above the ordinary level of monastic writers. By the general consent of scholars, from Leland to Mr. Freeman, he takes a foremost place among the authorities for the Anglo-Norman period of our history. Considering the age in which this author lived,' says Sir T. D. Hardy, 'the sources whence he has drawn his materials are surprisingly numerous. In many instances, it is difficult to name his authorities. Little seems to have escaped him, and his skill and judgment in arranging his materials keep such even pace with his industry, that more information is perhaps to be gathered from him than from all the writers who preceded him.' His most important work is his Gesta Regum Anglorum, extending from A.D. 449 to the 28th year of Henry I. The text of this, as given in Savile's Scriptores, ' abounds,' according to the same critic, 'with gross errors;' the best edition is that which Sir T. D. Hardy himself edited for the English Historical Society, 1840, along with another work by William, known as the Historia Novella.2 A third work from the same pen is the de Gestis Pontificum, a history of English bishops and of the principal 1 Hardy, D. C. ii. xlvii. 2 See infra, p. 260. Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi de Gestis Pontificum Anglorum Libri Quinque. Edited from William of Malmesbury's autograph MS., by CHAP. Florence of Worcester. d. 1118. Lives of Edward the Confessor. English monasteries from the mission of Augustine to the year 1123. This has been edited for the Rolls Series by Mr. N. Hamilton, who in his preface describes it as 'the foundation of the early ecclesiastical history of England on which all writers have chiefly relied.' FLORENCE OF WORCESTER, whose Chronicon1 reaches to the year 1116, and is in the earlier part little better than a compilation from the Saxon Chronicle and Marianus. Scotus, begins with the year 1030 to be of greater value and to assume the character of an independent authority. His comments are sensible and judicious, and his materials appear to have been selected with considerable care. Mr. Freeman, in the course of his History, bears frequent testimony to this writer's discrimination and good sense. Besides the contemporary Life of Edward the Confessor, there is a Life by Ailred or ETHELRED OF RIEVAULX,2 an abbat of the twelfth century, who compiled his work from that of OSBERT DE CLARE, prior of Westminster. When Edward's body was exhumed in 1066 by the Conqueror, Osbert was sent to Rome to obtain permission to establish a festival in commemoration of the deceased monarch, and he then composed the work which forms the basis of the Life by Ethelred.. These circumstances enable us to understand how it was that so much legendary matter became interwoven with Edward's history, and accounts also for the highly encomiastic character of the work. Osbert's work remains unprinted, but some of his letters, in which N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Esq., R. S. 1870; as edited by Savile, Mr. Hamilton says the text is full of errors, amounting at times to downright unintelligibility.' 1 Florentii Wigornensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ab Adventu Hengesti et Horsi in Britanniam usque ad ann. 1117. Edited by Benja min Thorpe. 2 vols. E. H. S. 1848. 2 Printed in the Decem Scriptores (see supra, p. 216). he insists strongly on Edward's merits and claims to canonisation, were published in 1846.1 Ethelred's Life became in turn the basis of a metrical Life, composed in the year 1245, on the occasion of the restoration of the church of Westminster, and written in Norman French. This is printed in the volume, Lives of Edward the Confessor, edited for the Rolls Series by Mr. Luard. Although these three Lives (especially the metrical life) are of but little historical value, they afford an excellent illustration of the manner in which the legendary element often finds its way into genuine history and of the motives which lead to its fabrication. Mr. Freeman, in his Norman Conquest (Vol. ii. Append. note B), has traced with great clearness this gradual development of popular reverence for King Edward, which at last ended in his being acknowledged the patron Saint of England.' СНАР. II. The Penitential System, instituted by the Church at Penitenthis period, may be studied in the Poenitentiale attributed tials. to THEODORUS, archbishop of Canterbury (A.D. 668-690) and printed in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents (ed. Haddan and Stubbs) iii. 177-204, in the Poenitentiale of Bede (ib. 326-334), and in that of Egbert (ib. 418-430). All these collections, while illustrating the introduction of a new conception of social relations, point, at the same time, to an extremely low standard of morality as prevailing among all classes. The Lives of St. Dunstan,2 by Osbern and Eadmer Lives of St. exemplify, like the later Lives of Edward the Confessor, Dunstan. the tendency among biographers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to invent statements regarding the career of past prominent actors (especially saints), for a 1 Osberti de Clara Epistolae. Edited by R. Anstruther. Bruxelles, 1846. 2 Memorials of St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. Edited from various MSS, by William Stubbs, M.A. R. S. 1874. |