gave it at once the utmost perfection which the materials at his hand would admit of."

"Chaucer did not introduce into the English language words which it had rejected as aliens before, but out of those which had been already received, he invested the better portion with the rights of citizenship, and stamped them with the mint-mark of English coinage. In this way he formed a vocabulary which, with few exceptions, the taste and opinion of succeeding generations has approved; and a literary diction was thus established, which in all the qualities required for the poetic art had at that time no superior in the languages of modern Europe." 1

The same author has affirmed that not more than one hundred of the Romance words found in the writings of Chaucer have become obsolete, by no means as many as of the Anglo-Saxon he employed, though many from both sources are now so changed in form and orthography as hardly to be identified with their originals.

What Chaucer and other poets accomplished for a poetic diction, and indirectly too for prose, was earnestly carried forward in another direction for prose by Wycliffe, and his coadjutors, through the discussion of religious and political topics, and especially by the translation of the Scriptures into the language of the common people. Never in English history had there been a time so favorable for the development of a hearty, vigorous speech. The national spirit was in all the buoyancy and elasticity of youth, raised to the highest enthusiasm by brilliant successes in arms, and stirred to its depths by discussions on the profoundest topics which can move the human mind. And there were fit men, men of largest intellectual capa

1 Second Series, pp. 381, 382.

cities, developed by the best culture the schools afforded, and a large observation, to shape the language from the mass of plastic but chaotic material into living forms of beauty and power. Such was the birth of the English character, language, and literature. New elements came in to modify, to change it somewhat, in after times; it has adapted itself to the advance in knowledge and civilization; it has developed new powers under the hands of great masters; declined and risen again according to the intellectual and moral life of the people that have used it, yet its inward essential character and spirit date back to the age of Edward III., and the middle of the fourteenth century.

CHAPTER VI.

NORMAN ELEMENT CONTINUED.

LEARNING. LITERA

TURE.

ers

William the Conqueror a Patron of Letters - Use of Latin in the Schools-Large Attendance at the Universities during the Thirteenth Century-Latin Chronicles - William of Malmesbury-Geoffrey of Monmouth-Latin Poetry - Miscellaneous Latin Literature - Richard de Bury - Roger BaconThe Scholastic Philosophy - Influence on later English Writ - Theological Literature - Native Literature of the Normans At the English Court - The Language of Provence Character of the Native Literature as indebted to the Scandinavians and the Celts - Henry I. Master Wace - The Arthurian Romance Character of the Writers - The San Greal - Walter Mapes-Wright's Opinion - Place and Time of the Composition of Romance Value Transition from Verse to Prose - Chronicles of Froissart - Lord Berners' Translation Separation of the English from the French The Physical Elements of the National Character and Language Complete.

WILLIAM the Conqueror was a patron of letters. He filled the bishoprics and abbacies of England with the most learned men of his country. Lanfranc and Anselm, both famous scholars and theologians, successively occupied the see of Canterbury. The nobles coöperated with the king in the endowment of monasteries and abbeys, for the promotion of learning. William and most of his successors were trained up in the best learn

ing of their times. Still what learning existed was in the Latin language, and was mainly confined to the clergy.

It was in Latin, says Craik, "that the teachers at the universities delivered their prelections in all the sciences, and that all the disputations and other exercises among the students were carried on. It was the same at all the monastic schools and other seminaries of learning." At a later period French found its way into the more public schools.

Few of the nobility, though patrons of learning for the sake of the Church, were initiated into the scholarship of the times. It was a wide-spread belief that learning belonged to the clergy, and they were not careful to correct the popular judgment. Some of the more liberal minded ecclesiastics, however, established schools in connection with cathedrals and monasteries, that were open to the community at large. Some of these in time became celebrated. The way was thus prepared for the founding and patronage of universities in the next century. The number of persons by whom these institutions were attended in the latter part of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth, is wellnigh incredible. They were reckoned by thousands, thirty thousand at Oxford at one time, of all ages from boyhood to advanced manhood, and poor scholars were to be found in every village mingling with all classes of people. Meagre as was the education received, it could not fail in this manner to contribute largely to awaken the popular mind, and to diffuse some degree of culture among the people. It led the way, doubtless, to the general movement and struggle of the lower classes in the next century for some share of civil rights, at least for a release from serfdom,

to which belongs the famous rising headed by Wat Tyler, in 1381, the last distinctively Saxon movement in England. It found expression still earlier in literature, and in efforts to secure ecclesiastical reforms by such men as Wycliffe and others.

As was to be expected, the language of literature for the educated classes was the Latin. In this tongue were composed not only the theological and moral treatises, but the philosophical and scientific works of the time, and a large number of historical works, perhaps the most valuable portion of the Latin literature of the period under review. Craik has cited no less than fourteen different collections made in modern times, of these old Latin historians and chroniclers, one of them extending to twenty-nine volumes. Many of these begin with the creation of the world, and bring down their narratives to their own times; others begin with the Norman Conquest. The first, in point of merit, is that of William of Malmesbury, in two parts; the "Gesta Regum Anglorum," from the arrival of the Angles and Saxons, to the year 1120; the second, "Historia Novella," which brings the narrative down to 1142. This author ranks next to Bede as an original pains-taking writer, who had a love for truth, and some critical skill in arriving at it in the mass of materials at his command.

a man

Referring the reader to Craik's larger work, it must suffice to mention one more, Geoffrey of Monmouth, because of his importance in the history of Romance literature. His work is professedly a British history, translated in the main from a Welsh chronicle given to Geoffrey by his friend Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. It consists of nine books, giving the history of the 1 Craik, History, vol. i.