Latin English literature of XI-XIV cc.

In XIII c. The anti-church satires were also written in Latin, starting a strong fight which in a century revealed itself in political poetry. French was the language of feudal Norman noblemen, court, royal administration; Anglo-Saxon was widely spoken by people but was not a state tongue. Latin had a mediatory role and was second state language. Of all the literary monuments of the remarkable revival of learning which followed the coming of the Normans and which reached its zenith under Henry II, the greatest alike, in bulk and in permanent interest and value, is the voluminous mass of Latin chronicles compiled during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The monastic chroniclers were not the mere recluses of the popular imagination. They were, in their way, men of the world, who, though themselves taking no active part in public affairs, lived in close intercourse with public men. The great abbeys, such as those of Malmesbury and of St. Albans, were open houses, constantly visited by the mighty ones of the land. William of Malmesbury tells us how his own monastery was distinguished for its “delightful hospitality,” where “guests, arriving every hour, consume more than the inmates themselves.” Even the most remote of monastic writers, such as William of Newburgh, in his secluded Yorkshire priory, kept in such close touch with contemporary affairs as fully to realise their dramatic significance. “For in our times,” he writes in the preface to his English History, “such great and memorable events have happened that the negligence of us moderns were justly to be reprehended, should they fail to be handed down to eternal memory in literary monuments.” Other monkish writers, like Matthew Paris in a later generation, enjoyed the royal confidence, and occasionally wrote under royal command. Moreover, not all the chroniclers were monks. Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of Hoveden, Ralph of Diceto and the author of the chronicle so long wrongly ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough—not to mention writers like Giraldus Cambrensis and Walter Map, who have left behind them records scarcely distinguishable from contemporary chronicles—were all men who lived in intimate association with the court. So much store, indeed, came, in time, to be set upon the records of the chroniclers that they became standard authorities to which kings and statesmen appealed for confirmation of titles and the determination of constitutional claims. The conditions under which they were composed, and the importance which they once had as documents of state, are alone more than sufficient sanction for the provision made by “the Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls,” for the publication of those editions in which they can best be studied by the modern reader.

The first Latin chronicler of any importance who belongs to southern England is Florence of Worcester, already mentioned as one of Simeon of Durham’s main sources. Florence’s work is notable as being the first attempt in England at a universal history beginning with the creation and embracing within its compass all the nations of the known world. But, as the title of his chronicle— Chronicon ex Chronicis —frankly indicates, Florence is not much more than a laborious compiler from the works of others; and he took as the basis of the early portions of his narrative the universal chronicle of Marianus Scotus, an Irish monk of the eleventh century. Marianus, in his turn, is, so far as English history is concerned, only a compiler from Bede and the Old English Chronicle. He brings his record of events down to the year 1082, but it is so fragmentary and perfunctory in its treatment of English affairs as to give Florence abundant opportunities for interpolation and addition. Florence’s account of his own times, which closes with the year 1117, possesses much independent value, and was largely drawn upon by subsequent chroniclers. It is less valuable, however, than its continuation by John, another monk of Worcester, from 1117 to 1141. A second continuation, down to 1152, was based mainly upon the work of Henry of Huntingdon. The task of still further extending Florence’s chronicle seems to have become a special concern of the monks of St. Edmundsbury, for it is to two inmates of that house that we owe two other additions to it which continue the record, without a break, down to the very end of the thirteenth century.

Contemporary with Eadmer and Orderic, William of Malmesbury is a much greater historian, and, to the literary student, a far more attractive writer, than either. Milton’s opinion, that “both for style and judgment” William is “by far the best writer of all” the twelfth century chroniclers, still holds good. William, as many incidental confessions in his History show, had high ambitions as an author, and aspired to restore to the historian’s art the dignity and the splendour with which it had been invested by the illustrious Bede. His design is to tell, artistically yet critically, all that is known about his country’s history from the first coming of the English and, especially, as he informs us in his preface, to “fill up the chasm of two hundred and twenty-three years” after Bede which Eadmer had left altogether unnoticed in his Historia Novorum. William’s chronicle is in two parts. The first, divided into five books, is called a History of the Kings of England, and extends from A.D. 449 to 1127. The second part, entitled Historia Novella or Modern History, is in three books, and brings the narrative down to the year 1142. These histories represent but a small portion of William’s entire literary work, for he was one of the most prolific writers of his time; his other productions include a history of the prelates of England, a life of St. Wulfstan, and a history of the church of Glastonbury. William of Malmesbury possessed many of the highest qualifications of a historian; he had learning, industry, judgment and a wide knowledge of the world. He was, for his day, a considerable traveller, and was, both by temperament and training, a discriminating as well as an inquisitive student of life and character. He is thus singularly free from the prejudices and the narrow standards of the cloister. Although he himself claims that his mixed blood is a guarantee of his impartiality, he has not escaped the suspicion, among modern critics, of having been something of a time-server. He had, however, a thoroughly disinterested love of history as a study and as an art; and the task of writing the history of England presented itself to him as a patriotic duty, all the more clearly incumbent upon him because of the “criminal indolence” of those who might have continued the work of Bede. Bede, then, is William’s greatest exemplar, and the fount of his inspiration—Bede, with whom “was buried almost all knowledge of history down to our own times,” and whose praises William protests that he has “neither the abilities nor the eloquence” adequately to blazon. For materials of the earlier portions of his History William states that he searched far and wide; and, while he borrowed from nearly every known work of his time, he evidently draws upon other sources which have not been identified.

Of the early XII century chroniclers, Henry of Huntingdon enjoyed, for generations, a popular repute second only to that of William of Malmesbury. Modern criticism, however, has largely destroyed Henry’s claims to rank as a first-rate historical authority, and in neither style, accuracy, nor fulness of detail is he worthy of any serious comparison with William. Henry himself appears to have rated his powers at quite as high a value as William’s; for he prefaces his chronicle with a floridly rhetorical and ambitious disquisition upon the “prerogatives” of history. But he possessed neither the learning nor the patient industry of William, and his studied endeavours after rhetorical ornament only serve to accentuate his pretentiousness by the side of his great monastic compeer. Henry was a secular clerk, who lived under the patronage, first of Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln, and afterwards of his successor, Alexander of Blois. It was, as he tells us, by command of Alexander that he wrote his History of the English, and he probably compiled the greater part of it between 1125 and 1130. The work was dedicated to Alexander; and the prefatory letter ends, characteristically, with an invocation in verse both of the Divine blessing and of the approbation of his episcopal patron. The entire History, frequently revised and extended, ends with the year 1154. Its earlier portions are borrowed, with many embellishments, from Bede and the Old English Chronicle. In many places Henry simply translates from the old English annals, and among his translations is a metrical version, though much curtailed, of the famous song on The Battle of Brunanburh. Henry prided himself on his accomplishments in verse, and his History is decorated with many poetical passages. Henry’s rhetorical pages are brought to an appropriate close with a glowing peroration, in verse, celebrating the accession of King Henry II. What appears to have been at one time intended to stand as the eighth book of the History is a treatise On the Contempt of the World —a letter, addressed to a friend named Walter, upon the fortunes of “the bishops and the illustrious men of his age.” This work, both the title and the motive of which remind us of more imposing literary achievements by greater men, contains many vivid portraits of Henry of Huntingdon’s famous contemporaries.

Could he have foreseen the influence which he was destined to exercise over the poets of England, Geoffrey of Monmouth would doubtless have been quite content with the prospect of forfeiting the confidence of critical historians. Indeed, it is difficult to believe, on any supposition, that the History of the Kings of Britain was written as a serious contribution to authentic history. Geoffrey’s manner only too obviously betrays him. Just as William of Malmesbury is anxious to “fill up the chasm” between Bede and Eadmer, so Geoffrey professes to explore and map out a still more obscure period, namely that of “the kings who dwelt in Britain before the incarnation of Christ,” and especially of “Arthur and the many others who succeeded him after the incarnation.” It so happened that a document was placed in his hands which “set forth the doings of them all in due succession and order from Brute, the first king of the Britons, onward to Cadwaladr, the son of Cadwallo, all told in stories of exceeding beauty.” This document was a certain “most ancient book in the British tongue,” which was supplied to him by Walter, archdeacon of Oxford. No other contemporary chronicler seems to have had access to this mysterious book, and no amount of subsequent research has been able to discover it. Geoffrey himself evidently looked upon its contents as his own exclusive secret; for, in the epilogue to his History, he expressly warns William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, who could write competently enough about the kings of the English, not to meddle with the kings of the Britons, “inasmuch as they have not the book in the British speech which Walter brought over from Britanny.” The main body of his History is dedicated to earl Robert of Gloucester, while the seventh book, consisting of the famous prophecies of Merlin, is prefaced by an almost fulsomely laudatory letter addressed to Alexander of Lincoln. Geoffrey was thus determined to lose nothing of the prestige and credit to be derived from aristocratic patronage; and his dedications only confirm the assumption that he imitates the practices and assumes the pose of an authentic chronicler with the deliberate purpose of mystifying his readers. For Geoffrey’s History is, on the last analysis, a prose romance, and, in its Arthurian portions in particular, a palpable excursion in fiction. One need not believe that the entire work is, in the words of William of Newburgh, a tissue of “impudent and shameless lies.” Even the reference to “the British book” cannot altogether be regarded as a ruse for the deception of the ingenuous reader. Geoffrey doubtless drew upon some documents, possibly Welsh, which have since been lost. He borrowed all he could from Bede and Nennius; he probably borrowed more from floating British traditions. What is even more certain is that he invented a great deal. It is impossible to read the later books of the History without feeling that Geoffrey, when he had embarked upon the history of Merlin and of Arthur, was fully conscious of his opportunities of romantic dilatation. Arthur was a British prince capable of being exalted into a heroic figure who should overshadow both Alexander and Charlemagne. These two potentates were already the titular heroes of profitably worked romantic cycles. Why should Britain not have its romantic “matter,” as well as Rome and France? Read in the light of the general literary history of its time, and of its immediate and immense popularity, Geoffrey’s History can be adequately explained only as the response of a British writer, keenly observant of the literary tendencies of the day, to the growing demand for romance. How well he succeeded in his design appears from William of Newburgh’s complaint that he had “made the little finger of his Arthur stouter than the back of Alexander the Great.” The History of the Kings of Britain was complete in the form now known to us by 1148 at the latest; but there is evidence that it existed in some form as early as 1139. By the year 1152 Geoffrey’s work seems to have been well known, and to have won him favour in high places, as he was then consecrated bishop of St. Asaph. He died in 1155. The fame of his History had spread even before his death; for Wace, and, probably, Geoffrey Gaimar, had begun to translate it into Anglo-Norman verse before 1155. In England a long line of chroniclers, in both prose and verse, from Layamon and Robert of Gloucester down to Grafton and Holinshed, accepted Geoffrey in all good faith as a revealer of “the marvellous current of forgotten things”; while a host of poets, great and small, have been constantly haunted by his fables. Two hundred years after his death his repute was such that, on the strength of his use of the Brutus legend, Chaucer gave him a high place in his Hous of Fame.

A greater renown, however, in literary history generally has been enjoyed by Gerald’s friend, and, probably, fellow-country-man, Walter Map. Were it possible to prove to demonstration Map’s authorship of the great Arthurian romances so commonly associated with his name, there could be no question about his claim to rank as the greatest literary genius who appeared in England before Chaucer. But the claim made on behalf of Map to the authorship of these imaginative works rests on very slender evidence. Even the authenticity of his equally celebrated Goliardic poems is open to grave question. The De Nugis Curialium, or book Of Courtiers’ Trifles, is, undoubtedly, his. It was probably composed by instalments, and forms a sort of common-place book in which Map seems to have jotted down from time to time, both shrewd reflections upon men and things, and pleasant anecdotes to divert the vacant mind. Of the strictly historical portions of the work, the most valuable are the accounts, in the first book, of some of the heretical sects which had sprung up in the twelfth century, and the reflections, which take up the whole of the fifth book, upon the character and achievements of the Anglo-Norman kings. The fourth book includes, in company with some lively tales, the celebrated letter, well known to the Wife of Bath’s fifth husband, from Valerius to Rufinus, upon the folly of marrying a wife. The whole work is a medley of such diverse and curious ingredients—satire, gossip, fairy-lore, folk-tales and snatches of serious history—as to make us easily believe that its author was, as Gerald hints, one of the most versatile and witty talkers in the court circles of that eager and inquisitive age.

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