CHAP. II. definite political purpose. The criticism on these Lives in professor Stubbs's preface is highly important. He repudiates altogether the stories which we meet with for the first time in the above biographers (the earlier of whom wrote nearly a century and a half after the death of Edwy,') of the cruelties practised on the monarch and his queen, and Dunstan's complicity therein. He also dismisses, as equally baseless, the charge brought against Dunstan of having persecuted the married clergy. He dissents entirely from the parallel instituted by Milman (Latin Christianity, bk. vii. c. I.) between Dunstan and Hildebrand, and maintains that Osbern and Eadmer, in attributing to the English prelate characteristics like those of the great eleventh-century pope, were guilty of a gross anachronism, conceived for the purpose of bringing their subject up to their own monastic ideal. Early EnSpecimens of laws enacted from the reign of Ethelbert glish Legis- to that of Edward the Confessor, which serve to illustrate lation. the administration of justice in England before the Conquest, are given in Stubbs's Documents illustrative of English History, (pp. 59-75). The distinction there pointed out between those laws which are mainly of the nature of amendments of custom,' and those which 'aspire to the character of codes' is not unimportant. It is however to the former class that the laws of Edgar belong, although it is in these that, in professor Stubbs's opinion, 'the true mark of Dunstan's mind must be looked for.' For the main features of Dunstan's influence in this respect, see the same writer's Preface to Memorials of St. Dunstan (p. cvi.) In the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, edited for the Record Commissioners by Mr. Benjamin Thorpe (2 vols.), a complete collection of the laws of this period is given, comprising those of the Anglo-Saxon kings, from Ethelbert to Cnut, with a translation of the Saxon text, the laws called Edward the Confessor's, those of William the Conqueror, and those ascribed to Henry I.; the above volumes also contain Monumenta Ecclesiastica Anglicana from the seventh to the tenth century, &c. CHAP. II. Pseudo- Spurious Authority.—The Historia Monasteria Croy- The landensis attributed to Ingulphus, a writer of the eleventh century, was for a long time accepted as genuine and also regarded as one of the most valuable sources of historical information, inasmuch as it includes in addition to the history of the monastery much that relates to the kingdom at large. In proportion to the estimation in which this work was held, was the amount of error of which it was productive. It has, however, been conclusively proved to be a composition of the thirteeenth or fourteenth century; the arguments and facts which support such a conclusion are given by Mr. Riley in the Archaeological Journal (i. 32-43; ii. 114-133), and by Sir T. D. Hardy in the Descriptive Catalogue (ii. 62–64). Kemble, Waitz. (c.) Modern Writers.-The History of the English Palgrave, Commonwealth, by Sir FRANCIS PALGRAVE, and MR. Stubbs, J.M. KEMBLE'S Saxons in England afford much valuable Freeman, illustration of this period, and the chapters treating of special or still controverted questions, such as the Mark, the Bretwaldas, the constitution of the Witenagemot, &c., should be studied by those who are desirous of fully investigating these subjects. Generally speaking, however, all the more important and most fully ascertained conclusions of these two writers will be found reproduced and more accurately stated in the two standard works on the period, the Constitutional History (chaps. i.—ix.) of professor STUBBS, and the Norman Conquest (chaps. i. ii. iii. v. and vi.-x.) of MR. FREEMAN. The first 'The credit given to 'Ingulphus' by Thierry in his Histoire de la Conquête d'Angleterre, appears to have been a frequent cause of misconception in his treatment of the subject. СНАР. II. Worsaae's Mr. Free- volume of WAITZ'S Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, treating of Die Verfassung des deutschen Volks vor der Zeit des grossen Wanderung, offers an excellent introduction to professor Stubbs's volume. The work of WORSAAE1 supplies a valuable collection of facts which tend to prove the permanence of the results that followed upon the Danish conquest and occupation. The writer, himself an eminent Danish antiquary, pushes his conclusions, however, beyond reasonable limits, maintaining that the combined effects of the Danish and Norman conquests were such as almost entirely to substitute Scandinavian for AngloSaxon influences, while the representatives of the latter race, he holds, sank entirely, 'leaving only a part of their civilisation and their institutions to their successors in dominion.' The merits of MR. FREEMAN'S History of the Norman Conquest have been so generally recognised that it is unnecessary here any further to insist upon them. It may, however, be observed that the first two volumes. are held by competent judges to have been conceived in a spirit of too unreserved admiration of the early English character and institutions. He has failed, it has been said, sufficiently to recognise the very defective sense of nationality which prevailed down to the time of Henry of Anjou. The 'Imperialism' which he claims for the kings of Wessex or of England does not appear to be supported by adequate evidence. His praise of earl Godwine is overwrought, and he fails to allow sufficient weight to the facts which militate against that statesman's character. His view of the Commendation of Scotland to Eadward in 924 should be compared with Mr. Burton's comments in his History of Scotland, i. 356–9. 1 An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland. By J. J. A. Worsaae. 1852. CHAP. II. Bright, Professor BRIGHT's Early English Church History is a careful and valuable study of events from the mission of Augustine to the death of Wilfrid in 709. MILMAN'S Professor Latin Christianity (bk. iv. c. 4; bk. v. c. 10) supplies Milman, many interesting facts from the latter date to the death and Dean of Alfred. Dean CHURCH'S Beginning of the Middle Ages furnishes a very useful outline which serves to illustrate the affinities of English history to that of the Continent up to the tenth century. Church. Select The Dictionary of Christian Biography, now in Dictionary of Chriscourse of publication, includes many excellent and care- tian Bioful biographies of the chief characters both in the graphy. political and ecclesiastical world in England down to the ninth century. To this may be added, for the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Biographia Britannica Litter- Wright's Biographia, aria (Anglo-Saxon Period, 1846) by THOMAS WRIGHT. etc. The Select Charters and other Illustrations of English Stubbs's Constitutional History from the earliest Times to the Charters. Reign of Edward I., edited by professor Stubbs (Clarendon Press, 1870), form a volume best described in the editor's own words as an easily handled repertory of the Origines of English Constitutional History,' 'containing every constitutional document of importance during the period it covers.' Portions of the Introductory Sketch and interspersed criticism have since been given more fully in the same author's Constitutional History, but the volume still retains most of its original value. Monas The standard work of reference for the history of Dugdale's English and Welsh monastic foundations, from their first ticon. institution to their dissolution in the sixteenth century, is Dugdale's Monasticon.2 A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines. Edited by William Smith, D.C.L., and Henry Wace, M.A., vol. i. A-D; vol. ii. E-HER. 1877-79. 2 Monasticon Anglicanum. By Sir William Dugdale. Caley, Bandinel, and Ellis. 6 vols. in eight parts. S 1817-30. Edited by 258 CHAP. Dudo of tin. William of CHAPTER III. FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE ACCESSION (A.) Authorities for Norman History. The study of Norman history, so far as necessary to elucidate our own, should be commenced with the reign of Edward the Confessor. The sources of information are not numerous, almost the only authority for the tenth century being the de Gestis Ducum Normanniae by DUDO, dean of St. Quentin in the first quarter of the eleventh century, one of the earliest,' says Mr. Freeman, ' of a very bad class of writers, those who were employed, on account of their supposed eloquence, to write histories which were intended only as panegyrics of their patrons.' Although the work is almost wholly untrustworthy, it was the source from whence WILLIAM OF JUMIEGES, surnamed Calculus, derived much of the material for his Historiae Normannorum. William himself, whom Palgrave styles 'the perplexed and perplexing,' becomes a contemporary authority with the Conquest. Although .obscure and involved as a writer, he is free from prejudice, and Mr. Freeman pronounces his work to be one of great value. It was from the work of William, that Wace, a canon of Bayeux in the twelfth century, compiled his poetical The Roman history of the Conquest, known as the Roman de Rou. A yet more important work is the Gesta Willelmi of WILLIAM OF POITIERS; it narrates the career of the de Rou. |