master John de Liring, of Richard of Luda, clerk, of Richard the almoner, of the said vicar Henry and his clerk, and of many others. And the said archdeacon gave this book to God and St. Oswald, to the prior and convent of Barden." Books were of so much value, that they were often pledged to learned bodies; and when they were lent, a deposit was left on them. Thus Oxford had a chest for books thus pledged, which, if not redeemed by a given day, became the property of the university. After the invention of paper, indeed, they were multiplied in greater numbers; but still they remained beyond the means of ordinary individuals. The price was often enormous.-These facts, it may be said, imply a very low state of literature, yet such an inference would be at variance with truth. They prove, indeed, that laymen, unless very wealthy, must pass their lives without much intellectual relaxation; and we accordingly find very few lay names in our literary history; but the libraries of religious communities afforded a sufficient resource for learning. A multitude of books is not favourable to either imagination or close thinking, perhaps not even to erudition. Where they are few, they are not only carefully read, but pondered; not only swallowed, but digested. A thing is generally valued in proportion to its rarity; and it is possible that a multiplicity of volumes may, instead of exciting ardour, produce satiety. What, however, was deficient in one library might be supplied from the abundance of another. Nothing was so common as the loan of a book, except a journey often a distant journey - to consult or transcribe one. Let the scarcity, however, have been what it may, one thing is undoubted,—that many of the monastic fraternity could boast of an erudition which would do honour to the present age. Often have we found, in the space of two or three pages, fifty or sixty different authorities cited. Thus, Roger Bacon, in one page, refers to Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, St. Isidore, St. Jerome, and others: in another to Averroes, Avicenna, St. Thomas Aquinas and other 1066. commentators on or expounders of the great Stagyrite.* 2. NORMAN AND VERNACULAR LITERATURE. When Norman kings sat on the throne, they naturally preferred both the language and the literature of their native country. Latin was to them unknown; and English was only spoken by the lower ranks of society. The Norman French was not merely the language of the court, it was that of every man of station. The minstrels and poets of that province were attracted to the courts of our kings; there was their best reward, and there the best compositions of the language originated. The remains of this period are absolutely innumerable. Normandy, indeed, and the adjoining provinces of Brittany, have been regarded as the cradle of romantic fiction. Nothing is more true than that our vernacular tales, whether in prose or verse, are translations from that language. It is now allowed by the most eminent of the French antiquarians, that the true patrons of their literature were the English monarchs; and that the noblest productions of their language originated in this country. Norman literature opens a boundless field for research. Hitherto, whatever discoveries have been made in it, must be awarded to the French; in this country little has been done to explore it. All our writers who have incidentally treated the Warton, Ritson, Ellis, Turner, and others, have fulfilled their task in a manner so wretchedly superficial, that their labours are worse than useless. With the names of Gaimar, of Wace, of Benedict de St. Maur, of Marie de France, and others, they are fluent enough ; but not one of them had ever perused a single page of these poets. Into that subject nobody will expect us to enter; it is, in fact, somewhat foreign to our design, We will, however, give one or two extracts from Robert Wace, one of the most celebrated of these poets. Ro subject, * Wood, Historia Antiquit. Univ. Oxon. tom. ii. p. 48. Warton, His tory of English Poetry, vol. i. Dissertation 2. Bacon, Opus Majus, p. 8, &c. bert Wace was a native of Jersey, and born about the year 1124. He appears early to have attached himself to the court of his sovereign, the English monarch. In 1155, he finished his Romance (so called because it was written in the vulgar, or Roman tongue), of Brut (Brutus), which is chiefly founded on the Chronicle of the Welsh Geoffrey. This is a copious poem, more copious by far than the original Chronicle.* It is, however, certain, as we have before intimated, that Wace had other authorities before him, The Norman was his native language; he was well acquainted with its literature; in fact, he had been educated in France; and in several passages he distinctly intimates his acquaintance with the Breton traditions. Five years afterwards he produced his Roman de Rou; which he had composed at the instance of our Henry II. This is the history of Rollo (Rou) first duke of Normandy, and his successors, down to the reign of Henry I.:— "The Roman de Rou, is, beyond comparison, the most curious remnant now existing, both of the history and language of the Normans under the dominion of their dukes. That certain portions, only, of so valuable a remnant of antiquity, should hitherto have appeared in print, is the more surprising, when we consider that a multitude of authors †, of far inferior interest, have been carefully and repeatedly published. But perhaps the neglect in which the poem has so long lain may be chiefly owing to its language, which is little understood in this country, and, in no slight degree, to the superficial tone and aversion to research, so unhappily characteristic of the current literature of the day. For our own parts, we blush that, by the present publication (the Roman de Rou), Rouen has, at the expense of London, earned so noble a title to the gratitude of every man of letters. England is surely as much interested as France, if not in the language, This poem, copies of which are probably in several of our libraries, has sadly puzzled the librarians and catalogue makers:-"Poema hoc scrip tum est," says Rud (Catalogue of MSS. in Durham Cathedral, p. 311.), "sermone adeo vetusto et obsoleto, ut Gallus quidam, vir ingeniosus et doctus, cui hunc librum ostenderam, primo intuitu vix crederet Gallicum esse. Ea lingua est quam Romanensem (Roman) vocabant, quod fabularum Romanensium propria quodammodo esset." The librarian and the Frenchman merit some other epithets than ingeniosi or docti. This catalogue was published in 1825! † A monstrous exaggeration. at least in the subject, of the work; a subject which embraces, among other important matters, one of the most momentous revolutions in our history, the Norman invasion. The poem before us, which comprises above 16,000 verses, properly consists of three parts. The first, which is written in the octosyllabic measure, and which is merely an introduction to the chief subject, relates the irruption of the Scandinavians under Hastings, and his royal pupil, Biorn, into France and Italy. The second, in Alexandrine verses, contains the exploits of Rou, or Rollo, both in his own country*, and in Normandy, The third exhibits the historic events of the hero's successors until A. D. 1106, the sixth year of the reign of our Henry I."+ Whoever expects to find poetry in the Roman de Rou will be grievously disappointed; as well may he look into Sternhold and Hopkins, or into our veriest nursery rhymes. The interest of the work is derived, first from its language, and, in the second place, from its being impressed with the intellectual character of the times. Of that character one of the essential attributes was credulity; and we accordingly perceive that Wace has his full portion of it. The following legend, relating to Richard the Good, duke of Normandy (996-1026), is a fair specimen of his manner: — "Par nuit errout come par jor Unkes de rien ne out poor: *Scandinavia. + Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. ii. p. 90. Sun cheva! areigna de fors; Dedenz truva en biere un curs: Juste la biere avant passa, BRARY OF THE Sur un leitrum sis ganz jeta (UNIVERSITY Mez el partir les ublia. Unkes de rienz ne s'efréa. N'i aveit gaires demuré, -- OF CALIFORNIA Moveir li cors, cruistre la biere; Domine Deus salutis ! Al returner d' iluec dist tant: 'Dex, en tes mains m' alme cumant!' ** Roman de Rou, tom. i. pp. 278–281. |