is of great value. This is a chronicle of John’s reign and the early years of Henry III, from 1202 to 1226, probably written in the monastery of Barnwell about the time the narrative closes, and original and practically contemporary at least from 1212. From 1202 to 1208 the entries are brief and annalistic, with occasionally a suggestive comment. With 1209 the notices begin to be longer, and with 1212 they form a detailed narrative. The writer has a better opinion of John, at least of his ability, than other chroniclers of the time, does not attribute his misfortunes to the king’s faults, and has little sympathy with the cause of the barons. He is accurate in his statements, clear in his narrative, and shows a tendency to reflect on the causes and relations of the leading facts.
Besides these, most important of the primary authorities, there are a number of others of hardly less value. SIMEON OF DURHAM’s Historia Regum (T. Arnold, Rolls Series, 1882-85) becomes an independent chronicle from 1119 to 1129 and is continued by JOHN OF HEXHAM (ed. with Simeon of Durham) to 1154 in a narrative not contemporary, but in many places original, while RICHARD OF HEXHAM (Chronicles of Stephen, etc., iii), perhaps John’s predecessor as prior, wrote a contemporary history covering the time from the death of Henry I to early in 1139. All these are of especial value for the affairs of northern England. About the same time Master GEOFFREY GAIMAR, the Trouvere, wrote a chronicle in French verse which is mainly a translation from the Saxon chronicle and other earlier writers (T.D. Hardy and C.T. Martin, Rolls Series, 1888-89). It closes with the death of William Rufus, and is chiefly of interest as giving a glimpse of the opinion held by laymen of the noble class about that king. Valuable evidence regarding the Becket controversy is collected in the seven volumes in the Rolls Series, entitled Materials for the History of Thomas Becket (J.C. Robertson, 1875-85). They contain nine contemporary lives of the archbishop and one later one, and three volumes of letters of Becket and others. On the conquest of Ireland there is an important French poem called the Song of Dermot and the Earl (G.H. Orpen, 1892) that was written in the next century, but based on a contemporary narrative; and GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS (J.S. Brewer, J.F. Dimock, and G.P. Warner, Rolls Series, 186191) gives a lively contemporary account of the Conquest, and descriptions of Ireland as well as of Wales. He also wrote later a book called De Principis Instructione, an avowed attack on Henry II and his sons, against whom he had the grievance of disappointed ambition. The book relates in passing many incidents that fill out our knowledge of the period, and it possesses some value from the very fact of its unfriendly criticism. This, but not much more than this, is also true of RALPH NIGER’s contemporary chronicles of Henry II’s reign, written in a spirit very unfriendly to the king (R. Anstruther, Caxton Society, 1851). An account of Richard’s crusade is preserved in the Itinerarium Regis Ricardi (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, Chronicles of Richard I, 1864), which is no more than a translation from a contemporary French poem. A biography of St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1200, was written after his death by his chaplain and contains many incidental references to public affairs–a few of great value (J.F. Dimock, Rolls Series, 1864). Another biography, written in French verse not quite contemporary, but based on information from a companion of the subject, is the Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal (P. Meyer, Soc. Hist. de France, 1891-1901). It follows the life of William Marshal through the reigns of Henry II, Richard, and John, and to his death in 1219. It relates many facts, gives much information as to life and manners and suggestions of interpretation from a layman’s point of view. Foreign chronicles, of value on the foreign policy of the English kings, are that of GEOFFREY, Prior of VIGEOIS (in Bouquet’s Recueil des Historiens de France), on nearly the whole of Henry II’s reign, the contemporary histories of Philip Augustus by RIGORD, and GUILLAUME LE BRETON, and the Histoire des Ducs de Normandie (all in the collections of the Soc. Hist. de France). The last is original and contemporary on the reign of John. Collections of letters like those of Lanfranc, and monastic annals like those of Burton, Waverley, and Dunstable, aid materially in filling out our knowledge. A great school of historical writing was rising into prominence as this period closed, in the monastery of St. Albans. Its first great historiographer, ROGER OF WENDOVER (H.O. COXE, Engl. Hist. Soc., 1841-44), probably did not begin to write his chronicle until after the death of John, but his account of that king’s reign, written not long after its close, is original and has the practical value of a contemporary narrative.
Of secondary authorities of importance who have written on this period at any length the list is unfortunately short.
First and foremost for every student of Norman and early Angevin history is the work of Bishop STUBBS. With a more direct, personal interest in the growth of institutions, still in his Constitutional History and in his prefaces to the volumes he edited for the Master of the Rolls he discussed the narrative history of the whole age and very fully the reigns of Henry II and his two sons. The characteristic of Bishop Stubbs’s work, which makes it of especial value to the student of the present generation, is the remarkable clearness with which he saw the essential meaning of his material and its bearing on the problem under discussion. While he generally neglected a wide range of material of great value to the historian of institutions–the charters and legal documents–and did not always formulate clearly in his mind the exact problem to be solved, yet the keenness with which he detected in imperfect material the real solution is often marvellous. Again and again the later student finds but little more to do than to prove more fully and from a wider range of material the intuitive conclusions of his master.
For the reigns of the Conqueror and of William II we have the benefit of the minute studies of EDWARD A. FREEMAN in his History of the Norman Conquest and his Reign of William Rufus. The faults of Mr. Freeman’s work are very serious, and they mar too greatly the results of long and patient industry and much enthusiasm for his subject. The neglect of unprinted material and of almost all that is strictly constitutional in character, and the personal bias arising from his strongly held theory of Teutonic influence in early English history, make every conclusion one to be accepted with caution, but his long books on these reigns furnish a vast store of fact and suggestion of the greatest importance to the student. The Norman Conquest closes with a summary history to the death of Stephen, which is of considerable value.
The second volume of Sir JAMES RAMSAY’s Foundations of England and his Angevin Empire together form a continuous history of the whole age from 1066 to 1216. These books are to be noticed for their careful inclusion of details and their bringing all the sources together that bear on successive facts, so as to furnish an almost complete index to the original authorities.
Miss KATE NORGATE has written two books which form a continuous history from the accession of Stephen to the death of John–England under the Angevin Kings and John Lackland. In the first book the influence of John Richard Green is clearly traceable both in the style and in the selection of facts for treatment. It contains many discussions of difficult questions that must be taken into account in forming a final opinion. The second book is a sober and careful study of John’s career that brings out some new points of detail, especially in his last years, but gives little attention to constitutional changes.
Three scholars whose work does not bear immediately upon the political history, or bears only upon portions of it, but who have yet contributed greatly by their studies to our understanding of it, are Professor F.W. MAITLAND, Professor FELIX LIEBERMANN, and Mr. HORACE ROUND. Professor Maitland’s field is that of legal history, in which he has done as great a work as that of Stubbs in constitutional history, and incidentally has thrown much light on problems which Stubbs discusses. His intimate knowledge and his scientific caution of statement give to any conclusion that he puts in positive form an almost final authority. Of Dr. Liebermann it is to be said that probably no living man has so complete a knowledge of the material which the historian of this period must use, whether that be the original material of the age itself or the scattered work of secondary authorities of different ages and many languages. His own work has been mainly devoted to the preparation of scientifically edited texts, mostly of legal material, but also of extracts from a considerable range of chronicles–work unrivalled in its thoroughness and in its approach to finality. Scattered in the introductions to these texts is a mass of information on points of all kinds, which no student of the times can neglect; while an occasional formal article, like that on Anselm and Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, awakens regret that they are so few. The work of Mr. Round has nearly all appeared in short studies on isolated topics. In Geoffrey de Mandeville he has written one book on the reign of Stephen that approaches the character of narrative history. In his Feudal England and Commune of London many articles on problems of this age have been collected in a form convenient for reference. Mr. Round’s knowledge of the history of persons and families is unsurpassed; he subjects the material he uses to a minuteness of analysis that is unusual; and he has settled, so far as the evidence admits of it, some important questions and a large number of minor problems, both of the history of events and of institutions.
We owe to foreign scholars many studies of value on particular questions of Norman and Angevin history, like M. CHARLES BEMONT’s on the trial of King John for the murder of Arthur, and a few long works of first importance. Dr. H. BOeHMER’s Kirche und Staat in England und der Normandie im XI und XII Jahrhundert is of great interest on the conflict of Anselm with Henry I and the consequences that flowed from it. O. ROeESSLER’s Kaiserin Mathilde is of particular value for the foreign policy of Henry I and for the reign of Stephen, though inclined to attach too much weight to what are really conjectures. M.A. LUCHAIRE’s contribution to E. Lavisse’s Histoire de France is a very interesting piece of work, dealing fully with the French side of English foreign relations, and of especial value for the first three Angevin kings. The same subject is receiving also minute and careful treatment in Dr. ALEXANDER CARTELLIERI’s Philip II Augustus, Koenig van Frankreich, the first volume of which goes to the death of Henry II, while M. PETIT-DUTAILLIS’s Etude sur la Vie et la Regne de Louis VIII is useful for the last years of John.
It is impossible in a bibliography of this kind to speak of all the long list of monographs and special studies, English and foreign, which alone make possible the writing of a history of this age, and to which the writer must acknowledge his obligations in general terms.