Notices of no

local life.

"catus erat in domibus Adæ majoris et Reimbaldi divitis aliorumque majorum de vico illo.") But it should be noticed that the "vicus ille" is again menclature and Wigford, part of the new English suburb of Lincoln. It is reckoned however as being part of the city; "in urbe Lincolniensi vico, sci"licet de Wikeforde." Anyhow, this passage and one or two notices of the "matronæ civitatis" in the next page and elsewhere, give us little glimpses of local Lincoln life in St. Hugh's time. In p. 139 we get another notice of the matrons and their alms, in a story where a poor needlewoman, who sinks into absolute beggary, bears the royal name of Matilda. Here we have a sign of the way in which, by the end of the twelfth century, the Norman personal names had made their way into all ranks.

References to general history. Cha

I.

The references to the general history of racter of Richard the time are not very many. The most important is that in the eighth chapter of the first Distinctio, where we get a short picture of Richard I., which it might be worth while to compare with the fuller pictures which Giraldus gives in his other works. Richard here appears as a persecutor of the Church, and the story of Hugh's constitutional opposition Relation of Rich- to Richard's exactions is told from this ard and Hugh. point of view only. The more strictly political aspect of the great Oxford gathering is brought

2

1 P. 103. "Accidit quod Rex "Ricardus, post injuriosam ipsius "in Alemannia captionem, et gravissimam ejusdem postea, "transmarinis Normaannicæ et Aquitannicæ Galliæ partibus, guerris fortissimis et pertinacibus "inquietudinem, in Anglicanam 66 capit ecclesiam duris exactioni"bus debacchari." The phrase "Normannica Gallia" is an odd

one, and " 'Aquitannica Gallia is

odd also. They were doubtless suggested by the familiar forms "Gallia Belgica" and "Celtica." Aquitania forms the third with these two; but I do not remember the form "Aquitannica Gallia" elsewhere.

2 See Topographia Hibernica, Distinctio iii., Cap 50. De Instructione Principum, Distinctio iii., Cap. 8.

out more fully, not only in the historians of the time,1 but also in the Magna Vita itself. Giraldus too cuts short in a singular way, as compared with the Magna Vita, the story which follows about Hugh's dealings with the king. He there appears, not simply as the conventional saint, but as the vigorous rebuker alike of moral and of political wrong. All this Giraldus slurs over, and we get instead only one additional fact, which certainly is not without a certain interest, that, as St. Hugh never ate meat, the king sent him a large pike for his dinner. Now it is to be noticed that this story to which Giraldus does such scant justice shows both actors, king and bishop, alike at his best. It shows that Richard, bad as he was both as man and as king, had at least grace enough left to respect goodness in others. Is it uncharitable to suspect that Giraldus would have told the tale more fully and more eloquently if it had given him any opportunity of abusing somebody?

John's campaign

In the second chapter of the third in Poitou in 1206. Distinctio, Giraldus gives as the date of a certain miracle, " tempore quo rex Johannes, cum ex"ercitus Anglicano [primo] in Pictaviam transfretavit, " et expeditionem in Gasconiam duxit." He adds that the disease which smote John Burdet, and which was afterwards cured at St. Hugh's tomb, came suddenly on the sufferer at the siege of Montauban. Mr. Dimock truly remarks that this refers to John's first expedition in 1206, in which alone he got so far south as Montauban, but that the marginal note "primo" must have been added, most likely by Giraldus himself, after John's second expedition to Poitou in 1214. But the expression.

1 As by Roger of Howden, iv. 40; Gervase, 1600. See Norman Conquest, v., 695, and Stubbs, Constitutional History, i., 509.

2 See page 249. While in Giraldus the assembly is merely

"collectus in unum regni clerus," in the Magna Vita it is "barones "Angliæ, inter quos et episcopi ❝censebantur." In Roger of Howden we get the more popular form "homines regni Angliæ."

cum exercitu Anglicano" should specially be noticed. Roger of Wendover seems purposely to insist on the English character of the army employed in the first expedition. The troops employed are not only generally spoken of as "Angligenæ," which by itself might not prove much, but, in describing the siege of Montauban, Roger makes a marked comment on one feature of the English military character:-- "Militia Angliæ, in hoc potissimum opere laudabilis, muros ascendere ictusque importabiles dare et recipere festinabat." This reads almost as when the Spartans send for the Athenians to help them against Ithômê, as being better skilled in sieges than themselves. But, in describing the expedition of 1214, Roger uses no such words, and he leaves us to guess that at that late time of John's reign the army was chiefly made up of mercenaries. It would seem then as if the phrase "exercitus Anglicanus not used without a meaning. Giraldus, as well as Roger, seems to wish to point out in a marked way that the army of 1206 was made up of natives of England, as opposed to Brabançons or other mercenaries. Their remoter origin, Norman or English, had by that time ceased to be a matter of any importance.

and others present

neral.

Notice of the king Another passage where Giraldus touches at St. Hugh's fu- lightly on an important political event is when, in the first chapter of the second Distinctio, he mentions the meeting of the kings of England and Scotland in 1200, and the share which both of them took in the burial of St. Hugh. On this last point he enlarges, but he passes by the very important homage done by William of Scotland to John of England, on which Roger of Howden (iv., 141) is very full. It is characteristic of Giraldus that, among the great crowd of prelates and nobles reckoned up by Roger, Giraldus mentions two only by name, besides the arch

1 Thucydides, i., 102.

p. 114,

bishops of Canterbury and Dublin. These are those Infra, whom he describes as "regulus Galwethiæ Rollandus," and supra. and "Anselmus archiepiscopus. Sclavonensis." Princes of Galloway and archbishops of Ragusa were not so commonly seen as the earls and bishops of England, and Giraldus remarked the strangers accordingly. The vague description of the archbishop of Ragusa as "archiepiscopus Sclavonensis " is worthy of note. It seems to point to an union of imperfect information with yearning after precision, which is eminently characteristic of Giraldus. Any Slavonic land, whether on the Baltic or on the Hadriatic, was "Sclavonia" or "Sclavinia" in the language of those days. Giraldus, ethnologer and philologer, was struck with the presence of a bishop from any Slavonic land, so struck with it as to be indifferent both to his name and to the name of his see. To the official Roger of Howden such curious points would have less interest, and he noted the Slavonic prelate in accurate and business-like fashion as Bernard archbishop of Ragusa.

Reference to the

slaughter of the Jews at Richard's coronation. Hugh's care for the burial

of the dead.

Another reference to an historical event is found in the seventh chapter of the first Distinctio, which contains a mention of the slaughter of the Jews at the coronation of Richard I. On his way towards Westminster to do homage to the new king, Hugh finds an unburied corpse. Before he proceeds to discharge the last corporal work of mercy, he inquires carefully whether the dead man were a Jew or a Christian. The man proved to be a Christian; but the story gives us a singular picture of the streets of London choked with the bodies of slaughtered Jews. But the mention of Hugh's general care for the burial of the dead is also worthy of notice. Just before, in the sixth chapter, we find stories of his care in this respect, which seem to show that neither at Lincoln nor at Le Mans was it an unusual sight to see bodies lying about uncared

VOL. VII.

e

for. In the story of his going to Westminster there is an element which is also found in one of the stories of St. Wulfstan. He insists on saying mass before he goes; he stops on the way to bury the dead man; and yet he is in as good time to render his homage as the other bishops. They, it would seem, had neither said mass before they set out nor stopped to do any good works on the road. But the king had kept them idling all the time that their more diligent brother was thus piously employed. The story is told by a contemporary and a personal acquaintance of the chief actor. Yet the moral is so obtrusively obvious that we are tempted to suspect a mythical element in the tale.

Notices of the A passage of some importance in legal heriot and the relief. history is the fourth chapter of the first Distinctio, where Giraldus mentions how St. Hugh remitted certain dues to two of his tenants. In the first case he gives back an ox, which was due to the lord as the best chattel of a dead man (" bovem defuncti cujusdam "de feudo ipsius, tanquam meliorem mortui possessionem, "juxta terræ consuetudinem domino debitam.") In the other case the due remitted is a sum of a hundred shillings, which was to be paid by the son of a deceased knight as the relief of his father's estate ("filio militis de feudo "suo centum solidos post mortem patris more patriæ "domino quasi pro relevatione debitos"). Here we have the older heriot and the later relief, two things so distinct and yet having so much in common, side by side. differences between the two come out strongly. In the case of the knightly tenant the actual feudal word "relevatio" is used; the payment is the composition for a fresh grant of the land by the lord. The bishop's prede

1 See the story of his stopping to sing nones before he goes to make answer before the king and the

The

archbishop. Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 284.

2 See Norman Conquest, vol. v., p. 373-379.