two centuries, only ending in 1388. Turning to other learned subjects, we have in the twelfth century the treatise of Athelard of Bath on natural history and philosophy, and his translation of Euclid; the De Naturis Rerum of Alexander Neckham; the famous Dialogus de Scaccario, or treatise on the Exchequer, written in 1176-78 by Richard Fitz-Neal; and the work on the Laws of England attributed to the Chief Justiciary Ranulph de Glanvil. Nearly a century later another work with the same title, De Legibus Anglia, and founded on Glanvil's, was written by Henry de Bracton; and in 1268 Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar, was writing. the Opus Majus, in which and its successors, the Opus Minus and Opus Tertium, he embodied so much of the learning of his time and of his own genius, which so greatly transcended it.

Nor was this Latin literature confined to learned subjects only. Perhaps the Polycraticus, de Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum, which John of Salisbury finished in 1156, ought to come under this head, for the triflings of courtiers and footsteps of the philosophers are surveyed in a purely moral and didactic spirit. But the work for which, a generation later, Walter Map took part of the same title (De Nugis Curialium) is entirely literary, running over the whole range of courtiers' small-talk, with an abundance of anecdotes, cleverly told. With Map's name also are connected the satires on the corruption and evil-living of the clergy in the person of the bibulous Bishop Golias. The Brunellus of Nigel Wireker is another lively satire, this time on medieval philosophy. The attempt of Joseph of Exeter to write a Latin poem on the Trojan War is perhaps worth noting, as is also the composition. (c. 1195) by Geoffrey of Vinsauf of a treatise on poetry. In the following century at least a considerable part of the great medieval storybook, the Gesta Romanorum, had its origin in England. Quite at the close of the period of literary Latin (c. 1344) comes the Philobiblon of Richard de Bury, the book-loving bishop, a work which those who share his hobby still treasure, and which may remind us that from the twelfth to the fourteenth century the art of book-production in England, alike in beauty of writing and in splendour of illustration, attained the very highest excellence, equalling that of France itself.

The fact that the liturgies of the Church were all in Latin accounts for the last point we have to notice the beginning, that is,

of the drama in England in the form of Latin miracle-plays, which were acted in church on various high festivals as part of the service of the day. The earliest mention we have of a play of this kind is of one in honour of St Catherine, performed at Dunstable by a certain Geoffrey, who by 1119 had become Abbot of St Albans; but in the Life of St Thomas à Becket written, about 1182, by William Fitzstephen we are told that plays representing the miracles and sufferings of the martyrs of the Church were at that time frequently performed in London. The plays of Hilarius, an Englishman, which have come down to us, already show touches of humour; but the early dramas on such subjects as the Resurrection are thoroughly religious in feeling, following closely the Bible narrative and introducing appropriate hymns.

Besides this literature in Latin there existed a second, more popular, quite as prolific, and nearly as varied in its contents-the literature of books written in England, or by subjects of the English king, in the French or AngloNorman language. Probably the largest section of this French literature was that of the various kinds of books written with a religious aim-devotional treatises, translations or explanations of the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Apocalypse, sermons, lives of the saints, moralisations on the properties of beasts and things (Bestiaires, Lapidaires), &c. In addition to these there were what may be called educational works of all sorts, abridgments of history, treatises on geography and natural history, law-books, &c. Many of these have perished. utterly; many others have never been edited in modern times or printed in any form. Besides the mere abridgments of Latin works, there were original metrical chronicles of much higher value, such as the Roman de Rou of the Jersey poet Wace (c. 1100-1170), an account of the Norman Conquest which gives the best description of the battle of Hastings; or, again, the Song of Dermot and the Earl (edited by Mr C. H. Orpen in 1892), which is of considerable value for the history of Ireland about 1170.

In the thirteenth century we may mention two religious poems written in French, Robert Grosseteste's Chasteau d'Amour, in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and William Waddington's Manuel des Pechez, speedily Englished by Robert Mannyng of Brunne as the Handlyng Synne (see page 41). Again, as late as the last quarter

of the fourteenth century we find John Gower writing long poems in Latin and French (see page 74) before he turned to English in his Latin-named Confessio Amantis. Gower also wrote French balades which have real literary merit, but he is the last English poet who seriously used a foreign language as the medium of poetry; and though later writers, such as Sir Thomas More and Bacon, used Latin for works in prose, this was with a view to appealing to a European audience rather than from any distrust of the capabilities of their native tongue. Coincident with this final disuse of Latin and French in literature intended for Englishmen, we find, a little before 1380, the beginning of a long series of translations of foreign works into English— not merely works of devotion and religious instruction as in the previous period, but works on every variety of subject. About 1380 also we have the beginning of a new influence in English poetry, for it was then that Chaucer turned from his French and Latin sources and enriched our literature from his study of the great Italian writers, Dante and Boccaccio. Thenceforth what we may call the literary or Court poetry of England takes an entirely new turn; for, though Chaucer's successors could but very imperfectly follow in his footsteps, it was yet in his footsteps that they tried to walk. Thus the period of some three hundred and fifty years from the first revival of the literary use of English after the Norman Conquest in Layamon's Brut (c. 1205) to the accession of Elizabeth, with the nearly coincident literary landmark, the publication of Tottel's Miscellany in 1557, divides itself almost exactly at the half, about the year 1380. Before this date English is only one

three rival literary languages; after it English reigns supreme, and in prose advances

unfalteringly. In poetry, as we shall see,

there was no such steady progress, for until Surrey and Wyatt sought inspiration from the Italian models where Chaucer had found it, there was no English writer who could understand his secrets so as to prove in any way a worthy successor to him.

The Arthurian Legend.

The trilingual character of the literature written for Englishmen in the early part of our period is well illustrated by the fact that the legendary history of Britain with which English literature takes its new beginning appeared first in Latin, then in French, and only finally in English. It was the Historia Regum Britannia of Geoffrey

of Monmouth which started the legends on their literary career. This famous book, which differs widely from the ordinary Latin chronicles among which it has already been named, was extant, in a form now lost, before January 1139, and as we now have it dates from some eight or ten years later. Its author called himself Gaufridus Arturus (Geoffrey Arthur)—that is, the son of Arthur; his signature is found as witness to a charter of Oseney, near Oxford, in 1129; probably in 1140 he became Archdeacon of Monmouth; in 1152 he was consecrated Bishop of St Asaph; and in 1154 he died at Llandaff. He was certainly of Welsh origin, and Welsh tradition has it that he was born at Monmouth. He does not tell us, however, that what was new in his book was gathered from local Welsh tradition, but that he learnt it from a certain very ancient book in the British language which Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, brought out of Brittany and gave him, and in which he found the acts of all the British kings, from Brut to Cadwalader, set forth in their order. This Archdeacon Walter was one of the co-signatories of the Oseney charter of 1129, and the attempts made to get rid of both him and his Breton book are rather unnecessary. Brutus, the great-grandson of Eneas, the supposed founder of the royal line of Britain, is mentioned by the præ-Conquest historian Nennius, and Nennius and Bede speak of Lucius, the first Christian king; of Vortigern and Ambrosius Aurelius; while Arthur appears in Nennius as a warrior, not a king, who won twelve battles against the Saxons. The insertion of intermediate British kings-among them Leir, whose story, as Shakespeare knew it, here first appears and the great development, though only in part, of the Arthur legend, were

Geoffrey's innovations on the received version of British history, and they sufficed to set the literary world of France and England on fire. Writing almost certainly in 1149 or the following year, Alfred of Beverley remarks that he found it was thought a proof of clownishness to know nothing of the stories of the Britons, about which every one was talking, and he therefore made an abridgment of Geoffrey's History. Three versions or abridgments were made at early dates in Welsh. It is hardly possible to doubt that the book was used by Geoffrey Gaimar in the lost first part of his Estorie des Engles; and another French poet, Wace, the author of the Roman de Rou, with the help of some additions, turned it into a metrical chronicle of over fourteen thousand lines, to which he gave the title Geste des Bretons, or Brut d'Angleterre. This was in 1155; and about the end of the century Wace's romance and two other works, identified as the Latin original of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica and the Anglo-Saxon version of it, fell into the hands of Layamon (Lazamon), a priest at Areley Regis, on the Severn, in north Worcestershire, and spurred him to write on the same subject a poem of some thirty-two

thousand lines (or half-lines) in alliterative verse of the Old English kind, but mixed with rhyming couplets. With this poem, the Historia Britonum, or Brut, English literature takes its new start.

Whether out of his own head, or from legends of the Welsh border, or (as is most probable) from amplifications already in progress or made elsewhere, Layamon made some notable additions to the story as Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace had left it. He tells us of the 'elves' who came at Arthur's birth, and who wafted him at his death in the magic boat to Avalon. Merlin is more important; so is the Round Table (first mentioned by Wace); so is Guinevere; while Sir Gawain and Sir Bedivere make their appearance. He made additions also in the earlier part of the story, such as of a legend to account for the name Gloucester; but these are of less importance. But it is fair to note that, though as a rule he follows Wace closely, he is not a slavish translator. We may take as a specimen of his style, where it needs little explanation, the lament of Lear when the ingratitude of his elder daughters has been revealed to him. The text is that of Cotton MS. Caligula, A ix. (ll. 3454-3497), as edited by Sir F. Madden :

Tha seide the alde king: æruu e was on herten :

Wallan dæth! wela death!

that thu me nelt for-demen.

Seoth seide Cordoille :

for cuth hit is me nouthe. Mi yengestte dohter :

heo was me wel dure,

Seotthen heo me wes leathest : for heo me seiden alre sohust. That he bithe unworth and lah: the mon the litul ah.

And ich nas na wurdra: thenne ich nes weldinde.

Over soh seiden that yunge vismon : hire folweth mochel wisdom.

Tha wile the ich hævede mi kinelond: luveden me mine leoden.

For mine londe and for mine feo:
mine eorles fulle to mine cneo.
Nu ich am a wrecche mon :
ne leovet me no mon for than.
Ah mi dohter me seide seoh:
for nou ich hire ileve inoh.
And ba twa hire susteren :
lasinge me seiden.

That ich ham was swa leof:
levere thenne hire aghe lif.
And Cordoille mi dohter:
seohthe me seide

That heo me leovede swa feire: swa mon his fader scolde.

Wet wold ich bidde mare:

of mire dohter dure.

Nu ich wullen faren feorth:
and ouer sæ fusen.
I-hiren of Cordoille:
wat beon hire wille.

Then said the old king-
rueful was he at heart-
Welaway, death, death!
That thou wilt not me doom!
Sooth said Cordoille,
known it is to me now.
My youngest daughter,
she to me was right dear,
but thereafter most loathsome,
for she said me the very truth,
that little worth is he and low,
the man who little owns,
and that I was no worthier
than my wealth made me.

Over sooth said that youthful woman,
there follows her much wisdom.
What time I had my kingdom,
my people loved me;
for my land and my fee
my earls fell at my knee.
Now I am a wretched man,
no man loves me therefore.
Ah, my daughter said me sooth,
now I believe her well enough:

and both her two sisters,

lies they said me,

that I to them was so lief,

liefer than their own life.
And Cordoille my daughter,
soothly to me she said
that she loved me so fairly
as a father should be loved.
What would I ask more
of my daughter dear?
Now I will fare forth,
and haste over sea,
to hear of Cordoille
what is her will.

Her sooth word I took in ill part,
therefore I have now mickle smart.

For now I must beseech

that which erst I despised.

She will do me no worse

than warn me from her land.

Not a great speech this certainly, but yet with more simplicity and pathos in it than is to be found in either Geoffrey or Wace. Nor in the rest of the incident, where, according to Geoffrey's generous imagination, Cordelia arranges that Lear shall visit her and her husband not as a forlorn beggar but in royal state, does Layamon fall below his theme. Altogether his poem is worth more study than has been given it since it was edited by Sir F. Madden for the Society of Antiquaries in 1847. In that handsome edition two texts are printed, the first, from which we have quoted, written about 1200, in which the author calls himself 'Layamon the son of Leovenath;' while in the

second, which is shorter by nearly a fourth, the names appear as 'Laweman the son of Leuca,' and the language is considerably later. Sir F. Madden asserted that in the first text there were only fifty words of French origin, and in the second only eighty. Even if, as is probable, this is an underestimate, it is clear that the author, writing with a French text before him, studiously endeavoured to keep his vocabulary wholly English. On the other hand, even the short extract here given will have shown that he had lost the secret of Old English verse-the four beats and triple alliteration in each pair of short lines-and was pleased to fall in with the French fashion of rhyme, when, as in lah and ah, feo and cneo, grame and scame, the rhymes came readily to his hand. Thus in form as well as in matter Layamon's Brut marks the beginning of new influences in English poetry.

The poem of Wace which Layamon took as his main original had followed Geoffrey of Monmouth's with only a few additions. But the enthusiasm with which the History was received led in an extraordinarily short time to developments of far greater importance. In the Arthurian legend as we now know it the king's military exploits against Saxons, Romans, and the people of other countries are a mere incident or excrescence; the interest of the story moves within the two interlacing circles of the Quest of the Holy Graal and the love of Lancelot, the peerless knight, for Guinevere, Arthur's queen, both of them unmentioned in Geoffrey's History. The Graal (the word is possibly derived from the Low Latin gradalis, a shallow vessel) is the cup used by Christ in the institution of the Eucharist, and afterwards—so the legend ran -by Joseph of Arimathæa, to catch the blood shed upon the Cross. Brought to Britain by Joseph's son (or brother-in-law), it forms part of the treasury of a mysterious king, and can only be seen by the pure in heart. This Christian legend may, as is strenuously maintained, have been grafted upon earlier tales, purely Celtic, of a miraculous food-producing vessel, but it is only in its Christian form that it here concerns us. According to the testimony of the romances themselves the story of the Graal was first written in Latin, and translated thence into French. These earliest French versions are ascribed to Chrestien de Troyes, and to Robert de Borron, a knight of northern France, about the end of the twelfth century. The French prose romances of Lancelot and of the Queste del Saint Graal are connected with the name of Walter Map (the author of the De Nugis Curialium already mentioned), and he is also credited by some scholars with the authorship of the lost History of the Graal in Latin from which Robert de Borron translated. The whole question of the authorship and order of composition is immensely complicated, and all the study bestowed on the subject has only made it clear that materials do not exist from which any really convincing theory can be evolved. What is certain is, that by the

beginning of the thirteenth century the main outlines of the Arthurian legend, with its wonderful combination of religious mysticism, chivalry, and passion, had come into existence, and that throughout that century they were being added to, either by the invention of new exploits for individual knights, or by the incorporation of other legends, such as the wonderful Tristram romance, the Celtic origin of which is generally admitted.

In France, nearly a century before the Arthurian romance had taken root, there had sprung up a great literature round the personality of Charlemagne. These chansons de gestes, as they are called, differed from the later romances by their greater simplicity and directness, and their greater national feeling. They were being written in France in great numbers and at amazing length during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and translations of a few of them appeared at a later date in England, together with echoes of two other much smaller and less important French cycles, those connected with the stories of Alexander the Great and of the siege of Troy. As will be seen, moreover, England received back from France more than one story on an old English subject, which had passed to France (possibly in an epic form of the same kind as Beowulf, possibly merely as a legend told from mouth to mouth), had been rendered into French in the prevalent romance form, and reappeared in English verse as a translation from the French.

These various French cycles of romance and the popular French books on other subjects to which we have alluded, whether written in France or in England, formed for a long time one-half of the literature sought after by the ruling class in England, while the Latin books already mentioned formed the other; for in those days people who could read at all, and were not merely dependent on the recitations of the wandering minstrels or the instruction of their priests, could mostly read Latin in addition to French. Books written in English had thus to fight their way into a field already occupied, and it is clear that until the fourteenth century they failed to obtain any real popularity among well-to-do people. Of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ there are thirty-five manuscripts in the British Museum alone, and nearly a third of these date from the twelfth century. Of English works, on the other hand, written before 1360, perhaps the majority survive only in a single copy, which in no single case bears any trace of the fine writing or illumination found in manuscripts written for wealthy book-buyers. At a later date there is no lack of manuscripts of Langland, the Wyclifite Bible, and Chaucer, some of them most beautifully written and decorated. The inference is obvious that in the earlier period English books appealed to a very small and by no means wealthy class of readers, and the development of our literature was retarded for lack of encouragement; while