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English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History by Henry Coppee

H >> Henry Coppee >> English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History




that with such profit and for deceitful glory
labor on the wide sea explore its bays
amid the contests of the ocean in the deep waters
there they for riches till they sleep with their elders.

We may also notice the childish wonder of a rude, primitive, but brave
people, who magnified a neighboring monarch of great skill and strength,
or perhaps a malarious fen, into a giant, and who were pleased with a poem
which caters to that heroic mythus which no civilization can root out of
the human breast, and which gives at once charm and popularity to every
epic.


CAEDMON.--Next in order, we find the paraphrase of Scripture by _Caedmon_,
a monk of Whitby, who died about the year 680. The period in which he
lived is especially marked by the spread of Christianity in Britain, and
by a religious zeal mingled with the popular superstitions. The belief was
universal that holy men had the power to work miracles. The Bible in its
entire canon was known to few even among the ecclesiastics: treasure-house
as it was to the more studious clerics, it was almost a sealed book to the
common people. It would naturally be expected, then, that among the
earliest literary efforts would be found translations and paraphrases of
the most interesting portions of the Scripture narrative. It was in
accordance with the spirit of the age that these productions should be
attended with something of the marvellous, to give greater effect to the
doctrine, and be couched in poetic language, the especial delight of
people in the earlier ages of their history. Thus the writings of Caedmon
are explained: he was a poor serving-brother in the monastery of Whitby,
who was, or feigned to be, unable to improvise Scripture stories and
legends of the saints as his brethren did, and had recourse to a vision
before he exhibited his fluency.

In a dream, in a stall of oxen of which he was the appointed night-guard,
an angelic stranger asked him to sing. "I cannot sing," said Caedmon.
"Sing the creation," said the mysterious visitant. Feeling himself thus
miraculously aided, Caedmon paraphrased in his dream the Bible story of
the creation, and not only remembered the verses when he awoke, but found
himself possessed of the gift of song for all his days.

Sharon Turner has observed that the paraphrase of Caedmon "exhibits much
of a Miltonic spirit; and if it were clear that Milton had been familiar
with Saxon, we should be induced to think that he owed something to
Caedmon." And the elder D'Israeli has collated and compared similar
passages in the two authors, in his "Amenities of Literature."

Another remarkable Anglo-Saxon fragment is called _Judith_, and gives the
story of Judith and Holofernes, rendered from the Apocrypha, but with
circumstances, descriptions, and speeches invented by the unknown author.
It should be observed, as of historical importance, that the manners and
characters of that Anglo-Saxon period are applied to the time of Judith,
and so we have really an Anglo-Saxon romance, marking the progress and
improvement in their poetic art.

Among the other remains of this time are the death of _Byrhtnoth_, _The
Fight of Finsborough_, and the _Chronicle of King Lear and his Daughters_,
the last of which is the foundation of an old play, upon which
Shakspeare's tragedy of Lear is based.

It should here be noticed that Saxon literature was greatly influenced by
the conversion of the realm at the close of the sixth century from the
pagan religion of Woden to Christianity. It displayed no longer the fierce
genius of the Scalds, inculcating revenge and promising the rewards of
Walhalla; in spirit it was changed by the doctrine of love, and in form it
was softened and in some degree--but only for a time--injured by the
influence of the Latin, the language of the Church. At this time, also,
there was a large adoption of Latin words into the Saxon, especially in
theology and ecclesiastical matters.


THE ADVENT OF BEDE.--The greatest literary character of the Anglo-Saxon
period, and the one who is of most value in teaching us the history of the
times, both directly and indirectly, is the man who has been honored by
his age as the _venerable Bede_ or _Beda_. He was born at Yarrow, in the
year 673; and died, after a retired but active, pious, and useful life, in
735. He wrote an Ecclesiastical history of the English, and dedicated it
to the most glorious King Ceowulph of Northumberland, one of the monarchs
of the Saxon Heptarchy. It is in matter and spirit a Saxon work in a Latin
dress; and, although his work was written in Latin, he is placed among the
Anglo-Saxon authors because it is as an Englishman that he appears to us
in his subject, in the honest pride of race and country which he
constantly manifests, and in the historical information which he has
conveyed to us concerning the Saxons in England: of a part of the history
which he relates he was an _eye-witness_; and besides, his work soon
called forth several translations into Anglo-Saxon, among which that of
Alfred the Great is the most noted, and would be taken for an original
Saxon production.

It is worthy of remark, that after the decline of the Saxon literature,
Bede remained for centuries, both in the original Latin and in the Saxon
translations, a sealed and buried book; but in the later days, students of
English literature and history began to look back with eager pleasure to
that formative period prior to the Norman conquest, when English polity
and institutions were simple and few, and when their Saxon progenitors
were masters in the land.




CHAPTER IV.

THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.


Biography. Ecclesiastical History. The Recorded Miracles. Bede's Latin.
Other Writers. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value. Alfred the Great.
Effect of the Danish Invasions.



BIOGRAPHY.


Bede was a precocious youth, whose excellent parts commended him to Bishop
Benedict. He made rapid progress in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; was a deacon
at the unusual age of nineteen, and a priest at thirty. It seems probable
that he always remained in his monastery, engaged in literary labor and
offices of devotion until his death, which happened while he was dictating
to his boy amanuensis, "Dear master," said the boy, "there is yet one
sentence not written." He answered, "Write quickly." Soon after, the boy
said, "The sentence is now written." He replied. "It is well; you have
said the truth. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great
satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place where I was wont to pray,
that I may also sitting, call upon my Father." "And thus, on the pavement
of his little cell, singing 'Glory be unto the Father, and unto the Son,
and unto the Holy Ghost,' when he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his
last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom."


HIS ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.--His ecclesiastical history opens with a
description of Britain, including what was known of Scotland and Ireland.
With a short preface concerning the Church in the earliest times, he
dwells particularly upon the period, from the arrival of St. Augustine, in
597, to the year 731, a space of one hundred and thirty-four years, during
nearly one-half of which the author lived. The principal written works
from which he drew were the natural history of Pliny, the Hormesta of the
Spanish priest _Paulus Orosius_, and the history of Gildas. His account of
the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, "being the traditions of the Kentish
people concerning Hengist and Horsa," has since proved to be fabulous, as
the Saxons are now known to have been for a long period, during the Roman
occupancy, making predatory incursions into Britain before the time of
their reputed settlement.[9]

For the materials of the principal portions of his history, Bede was
indebted to correspondence with those parts of England which he did not
visit, and to the lives of saints and contemporary documents, which
recorded the numerous miracles and wonders with which his pages are
filled.


BEDE'S RECORDED MIRACLES.--The subject of these miracles has been
considered at some length by Dr. Arnold,[10] in a very liberal spirit; but
few readers will agree with him in concluding that with regard to some
miracles, "there is no strong _a priori_ improbability in their
occurrence, but rather the contrary." One of the most striking of the
historical lessons contained in this work, is the credulity and
superstition which mark the age; and we reason justly and conclusively
from the denial of the most palpable and absurd, to the repudiation of
the lesser demands on our credulity. It is sufficient for us that both
were eagerly believed in his day, and thus complete a picture of the age
which such a view would only serve to impair, if not destroy. The theology
of the age is set forth with wonderful clearness, in the numerous
questions propounded by Augustine to Gregory I., the Bishop of Rome, and
in the judicious answers of that prelate; in which may also be found the
true relation which the Church of Rome bore to her English mission.

We have also the statement of the establishment of the archbishoprics of
Canterbury and York, the bishopric of London, and others.

The last chapter but one, the twenty-third, gives an important account "of
the present state of the English nation, or of all Britain;" and the
twenty-fourth contains a chronological recapitulation, from the beginning
of the year 731, and a list of the author's works. Bede produced, besides
his history, translations of many books in the Bible, several histories of
abbots and saints, books of hymns and epigrams, a treatise on orthography,
and one on poetry.

To point the student to Bede's works, and to indicate their historic
teachings, is all that can be here accomplished. A careful study of his
Latin History, as the great literary monument of the Anglo-Saxon period,
will disclose many important truths which lie beneath the surface, and
thus escape the cursory reader. Wars and politics, of which the
Anglo-Saxon chronicle is full, find comparatively little place in his
pages. The Church was then peaceful, and not polemic; the monasteries were
sanctuaries in which quiet, devotion, and order reigned. Another phase of
the literature shows us how the Gentiles raged and the people were
imagining a vain thing; but Bede, from his undisturbed cell, scarcely
heard the howlings of the storm, as he wrote of that kingdom which
promised peace and good-will.


BEDE'S LATIN.--To the classical student, the language of Bede offers an
interesting study. The Latin had already been corrupted, and a nice
discrimination will show the causes of this corruption--the effects of the
other living languages, the ignorance of the clergy, and the new subjects
and ideas to which it was applied.

Bede was in the main more correct than his age, and his vocabulary has few
words of barbarian origin. He arose like a luminary, and when the light of
his learning disappeared, but one other star appeared to irradiate the
gloom which followed his setting; and that was in the person and the reign
of Alfred.


OTHER WRITERS OF THIS AGE.--Among names which must pass with the mere
mention, the following are, after Bede, the most illustrious in this time.
_Aldhelm_, Abbot of Malmesbury, who died in the year 709, is noted for his
scientific computations, and for his poetry: he is said to have translated
the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon poetry.

_Alcuin_, the pride of two countries, England and France, was born in the
year of Bede's death: renowned as an Englishman for his great learning, he
was invited by Charlemagne to his court, and aided that distinguished
sovereign in the scholastic and literary efforts which render his reign so
illustrious. Alcuin died in 804.

The works of Alcuin are chiefly theological treatises, but he wrote a life
of Charlemagne, which has unfortunately been lost, and which would have
been invaluable to history in the dearth of memorials of that emperor and
his age.

_Alfric_, surnamed Grammaticus, (died 1006,) was an Archbishop of
Canterbury, in the tenth century, who wrote eighty homilies, and was, in
his opposition to Romish doctrine, one of the earliest English reformers.

_John Scotus Erigena_, who flourished at the beginning of the ninth
century, in the brightest age of Irish learning, settled in France, and is
known as a subtle and learned scholastic philosopher. His principal work
is a treatise "On the Division of Nature," Both names, _Scotus_ and
_Erigena_, indicate his Irish origin; the original _Scoti_ being
inhabitants of the North of Ireland.

_Dunstan_, (925-988,) commonly called Saint Dunstan, was a powerful and
dictatorial Archbishop of Canterbury, who used the superstitions of
monarch and people to enable him to exercise a marvellous supremacy in the
realm. He wrote commentaries on the Benedictine rule.

These writers had but a remote and indirect bearing upon the progress of
literature in England, and are mentioned rather as contemporary, than as
distinct subjects of our study.


THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.--We now reach the valuable and purely
historical compilation known as the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which is a
chronological arrangement of events in English history, from the birth of
Christ to the year 1154, in the reign of Henry the Second. It is the most
valuable epitome of English history during that long period.

It is written in Anglo-Saxon, and was begun soon after the time of Alfred,
at least as a distinct work. In it we may trace the changes in the
language from year to year, and from century to century, as it passed from
unmixed Saxon until, as the last records are by contemporary hands, it
almost melted into modern English, which would hardly trouble an
Englishman of the present day to read.

The first part of the Chronicle is a table of events, many of them
fabulous, which had been originally jotted down by Saxon monks, abbots,
and bishops. To these partial records, King Alfred furnished additional
information, as did also, in all probability, Alfric and Dunstan. These
were collected into permanent form by Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury,
who brought the annals up to the year 891; from that date they were
continued in the monasteries. Of the Saxon Chronicle there are no less
than seven accredited ancient copies, of which the shortest extends to the
year 977, and the longest to 1154; the others extend to intermediate
dates.


ITS VALUE.--The value of the Chronicle as a statistic record of English
history cannot be over-estimated; it moves before the student of English
literature like a diorama, picturing the events in succession, not without
glimpses of their attendant philosophy. We learn much of the nation's
thoughts, troubles, mental, moral, and physical conditions, social laws,
and manners. As illustrations we may refer to the romantic adventures of
King Alfred; and to the conquest of Saxon England by William of
Normandy--"all as God granted them," says the pious chronicler, "for the
people's sins." And he afterward adds, "Bishop Odo and William the Earl
built castles wide throughout the nation, and poor people distressed; and
ever after it greatly grew in evil: may the end be good when God will."
Although for the most part written in prose, the annals of several years
are given in the alliterative Saxon verse.

A good English translation of Bede's history, and one of the Chronicle,
edited by Dr. Giles, have been issued together by Bohn in one volume of
his Antiquarian library. To the student of English history and of English
literature, the careful perusal of both, in conjunction, is an imperative
necessity.


ALFRED THE GREAT.--Among the best specimens of Saxon prose are the
translations and paraphrases of King _Alfred_, justly called the Great and
the Truth-teller, the noblest monarch of the Saxon period. The kingdoms of
the heptarchy, or octarchy, had been united under the dominion of Egbert,
the King of Wessex, in the year 827, and thus formed the kingdom of
England. But this union of the kingdoms was in many respects nominal
rather than really complete; as Alfred frequently subscribes himself _King
of the West Saxons_. It was a confederation to gain strength against their
enemies. On the one hand, the inhabitants of North, South, and West Wales
were constantly rising against Wessex and Mercia; and on the other, until
the accession of Alfred upon the death of his brother Ethelred, in 871,
every year of the Chronicle is marked by fierce battles with the troops
and fleets of the Danes on the eastern and southern coasts.

It redounds greatly to the fame of Alfred that he could find time and
inclination in his troubled and busy reign, so harassed with wars by land
and sea, for the establishment of wise laws, the building or rebuilding of
large cities, the pursuit of letters, and the interest of education. To
give his subjects, grown-up nobles as well as children, the benefits of
historical examples, he translated the work of Orosius, a compendious
history of the world, a work of great repute; and to enlighten the
ecclesiastics, he made versions of parts of Bede; of the Pastorale of
Gregory the First; of the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, and of the work of
Boethius, _De Consolatione Philosophiae_. Beside these principal works are
other minor efforts. In all his writings, he says he "sometimes interprets
word for word, and sometimes meaning for meaning." With Alfred went down
the last gleams of Saxon literature. Troubles were to accumulate steadily
and irresistibly upon the soil of England, and the sword took the place of
the pen.


THE DANES.--The Danes thronged into the realm in new incursions, until
850,000 of them were settled in the North and East of England. The
Danegelt or tribute, displaying at once the power of the invaders and the
cowardice and effeminacy of the Saxon monarchs, rose to a large sum, and
two millions[11] of Saxons were powerless to drive the invaders away. In
the year 1016, after the weak and wicked reign of the besotted _Ethelred_,
justly surnamed the _Unready_, who to his cowardice in paying tribute
added the cruelty of a wholesale massacre on St. Brice's Eve--since called
the Danish St. Bartholomew--the heroic Edmund Ironsides could not stay the
storm, but was content to divide the kingdom with _Knud_ (Canute) the
Great. Literary efforts were at an end. For twenty-two years the Danish
kings sat upon the throne of all England; and when the Saxon line was
restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, a monarch not calculated
to restore order and impart strength, in addition to the internal sources
of disaster, a new element of evil had sprung up in the power and cupidity
of the Normans.

Upon the death of Edward the Confessor, the claimants to the throne were
_Harold_, the son of Godwin, and _William of Normandy_, both ignoring the
claims of the Saxon heir apparent, Edgar Atheling. Harold, as has been
already said, fell a victim to the dissensions in his own ranks, as well
as to the courage and strength of William, and thus Saxon England fell
under Norman rule.


THE LITERARY PHILOSOPHY.--The literary philosophy of this period does not
lie far beneath the surface of the historic record. Saxon literature was
expiring by limitation. During the twelfth century, the Saxon language was
completely transformed into English. The intercourse of many previous
years had introduced a host of Norman French words; inflections had been
lost; new ideas, facts, and objects had sprung up, requiring new names.
The dying Saxon literature was overshadowed by the strength and growth of
the Norman, and it had no royal patron and protector since Alfred. The
superior art-culture and literary attainments of the South, had long been
silently making their impression in England; and it had been the custom to
send many of the English youth of noble families to France to be educated.

Saxon chivalry[12] was rude and unattractive in comparison with the
splendid armor, the gay tournaments, and the witching minstrelsy which
signalized French chivalry; and thus the peaceful elements of conquest
were as seductive as the force of arms was potent. A dynasty which had
ruled for more than six hundred years was overthrown; a great chapter in
English history was closed. A new order was established, and a new chapter
in England's annals was begun.




CHAPTER V.

THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.


Norman Rule. Its Oppression. Its Benefits. William of Malmesbury.
Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other Latin Chronicles. Anglo-Norman Poets.
Richard Wace. Other Poets.



NORMAN RULE.


With the conquest of England, and as one of the strongest elements of its
permanency, the feudal system was brought into England; the territory was
surveyed and apportioned to be held by military tenure; to guard against
popular insurrections, the curfew rigorously housed the Saxons at night; a
new legislature, called a parliament, or talking-ground, took the place of
the witenagemot, or assembly of the wise: it was a conquest not only in
name but in truth; everything was changed by the conqueror's right, and
the Saxons were entirely subjected.


ITS OPPRESSION.--In short, the Norman conquest, from the day of the battle
of Hastings, brought the Saxon people under a galling yoke. The Norman was
everywhere an oppressor. Besides his right as a conqueror, he felt a
contempt for the rudeness of the Saxon. He was far more able to govern and
to teach. He founded rich abbeys; schools like those of Oxford and
Cambridge he expanded into universities like that of Paris. He filled all
offices of profit and trust, and created many which the Saxons had not. In
place of the Saxon English, which, however vigorous, was greatly wanting
in what may be called the vocabulary of progress, the Norman French,
drawing constantly upon the Latin, enriched by the enactments of
Charlemagne and the tributes of Italy, even in its infancy a language of
social comity in Western Europe, was spoken at court, introduced into the
courts of law, taught in the schools, and threatened to submerge and drown
out the vernacular.[13] All inducements to composition in English were
wanting; delicious songs of Norman Trouveres chanted in the _Langue
d'oil_, and stirring tales of Troubadours in the _Langue d'oc_, carried
the taste captive away from the Saxon, as a regal banquet lures from the
plain fare of the cottage board, more wholesome but less attractive.


ITS BENEFITS.--Had this progress continued, had this grasp of power
remained without hinderance or relaxation, the result would have been the
destruction or amalgamation of the vigorous English, so as to form a
romance language similar to the French, and only different in the amount
of Northern and local words. But the Norman power, without losing its
title, was to find a limit to its encroachments. This limit was fixed,
_first_, by the innate hardihood and firmness of the Saxon character,
which, though cast down and oppressed, retained its elasticity; which
cherished its language in spite of Norman threats and sneers, and which
never lost heart while waiting for better times; _secondly_, by the
insular position of Great Britain, fortified by the winds and waves, which
enabled her to assimilate and mould anew whatever came into her borders,
to the discomfiture of further continental encroachments; constituting
her, in the words of Shakspeare,

"... that pale, that white-faced shore,
Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,
And coops from other lands her islanders;"

and, _thirdly_, to the Crusades, which, attracting the nobles to
adventures in Palestine, lifted the heel of Norman oppression off the
Saxon neck, and gave that opportunity, which alone was needed, to make
England in reality, if not in name--in thews, sinews, and mental strength,
if not in regal state and aristocratic privilege--Saxon-England in all its
future history. Other elements are still found, but the Saxon greatly
predominates.

The historian of that day might well bemoan the fate of the realm, as in
the Saxon Chronicle already quoted. To the philosopher of to-day, this
Norman conquest and its results were of incalculable value to England, by
bringing her into relations with the continent, by enduing her with a
weight and influence in the affairs of Europe which she could never
otherwise have attained, and by giving a new birth to a noble literature
which has had no superior in any period of the world's history.

As our subject does not require, and our space will not warrant the
consideration of the rise and progress of French literature, before its
introduction with the Normans into England, we shall begin with the first
fruits after its transplantation into British soil. But before doing so,
it becomes necessary to mention certain Latin chronicles which furnished
food for these Anglo-Norman poets and legendists.


WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY.--_William of Malmesbury_, the first Latin historian
of distinction, who is contemporary with the Norman conquest, wrote a work
called the "Heroic Deeds of the English Kings," (_Gesta Regum Anglorum_,)
which extends from the arrival of the Saxons to the year 1120; another,
"The New History," (_Historia Novella_,) brings the history down to 1142.
Notwithstanding the credulity of the age, and his own earnest recital of
numerous miracles, these works are in the main truthful, and of real value
to the historical student. In the contest between Matilda and Stephen for
the succession of the English crown, William of Malmesbury is a strong
partisan of the former, and his work thus stands side by side, for those
who would have all the arguments, with the _Gesta Stephani_, by an unknown
contemporary, which is written in the interest of Stephen.

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