Swithun (d. 862). 1658. EARLE, JOHN. Gloucester fragments: facsimile of some leaves in Saxon handwriting on St. Swithun. London, 1861. Essay on his life and times, 21–56. (11th century), and two other lives of Swithun, 67-81, Wilfrid (d. 709). There is a good account of the life of Wilfrid in Bright's Early Church History (No. 1591); and a paper on his life in Sussex, by F. E. Sawyer, in the Collections of the Sussex Archæological Society, 1883, xxxiii. 101-28. 1659. BROWNE, G. F. London, 1897. Theodore [of Tarsus] and Wilfrith. A series of popular lectures. On Theodore's life, see also William Stubbs's article in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography, iv. 926–32. 1660. FABER, F. W. Lives of the English saints: Wilfrid, bishop of York. London, 1844. 1661. OBSER, KARL. Heidelberg, 1884. Wilfrid der ältere, Bischof von York. 1662. STREETER, A. St. Wilfrid, archbishop of Canterbury. London, 1897. pp. 89. Willibrord (d. circa 738). 1663. ALBERDINGK-THIJM, P. P. M. Willebrordus, Apostel der Nederlanden. Louvain, 1861. - German translation: Der heilige Willibrord. Münster, 1863. PART IV FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO ABOUT 1485 CHAPTER I ORIGINAL SOURCES Most of our information regarding the political history of this period is derived from the chroniclers (§ 48); and the law-writers ($49) throw much light on legal and other institutions. The public records are very valuable for the study of legal and constitutional history. They are examined in §§ 50-55, where they are placed under the headings to which they primarily relate; but the contents of each record or series of records are usually of a miscellaneous character, throwing light on various kinds of institutions. For example, Domesday Book and the pipe rolls illustrate many subjects besides finance, and the plea rolls illustrate many subjects besides the judiciary. The language of most of the public records in this period is Latin, which was not dislodged by English until 1731 (statute 4 George II. c. 26). In the statutes and rolls of parliament French begins to be prominent in the second half of the thirteenth century, and during the next two centuries predominates over Latin; but English begins to be freely used in these two series of records during the fifteenth century. See Pollock and Maitland, English Law, 2nd edition, i. 80-87; A. Giry, Manuel de Diplomatique, 472-3; Luders, Use of the French Language in our Laws (No. 206). For books giving an account of the public records, including some series of documents not mentioned in this chapter, see § 12, especially Scargill Bird's Guide (No. 459) and the works of Rye, Cooper, and Thomas (Nos. 310, 461, 496). See also below, app. D. § 48. CHRONICLES AND ROYAL BIOGRAPHIES. a. General Collections, Nos. 1664-72. b. Alphabetical Table, Nos. 1673-1869. The most tangible effect of the Norman Conquest upon the chroniclers of England was to widen their horizon, to make their treatment of history less insular and more cosmopolitan; this was an inevitable result of the closer contact of England with the continent. The superior elegance of the Normans and their faculty of organisation, their orderly, systematic tendencies,' also soon left their impress upon the historiography of England. For these and other results of the Norman Conquest, see Hardy, Catalogue of Materials, vol. ii. preface; and Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. v. ch. xxv. § 3. Some advance in the art of writing history is visible in Eadmer (d. circa 1124), but his work is circumscribed in scope. William of Malmesbury (d. circa 1142) was the first writer after Bede who attempted a systematic general history of England, as distinguished from an arid compilation of facts presented in chronological sequence. As a true historian who looks beneath the surface of events, he is far superior to Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, Henry of Huntingdon, and other chroniclers of the period 1066-1154. There is a remarkable dearth of contemporary histories for the later years of Stephen and for the early part of the reign of Henry II. A marked feature of the historiography of England in the last quarter of the twelfth century is the prominence of certain non-monastic writers, notably 'Benedict of Peterborough,' Hoveden, Diceto, and Giraldus Cambrensis. The first three of these, who seem to have been in close touch with the courts of Henry II. and Richard I., embellished their narratives with many valuable state papers. Stubbs, in the preface to his edition of Hoveden, vol. i., gives us an account of the northern or Northumbrian school of history, which began with Bede, included his northern continuators (the lost Northumbrian annals, Simeon of Durham, and John and Richard of Hexham), and culminated in Hoveden, whose work is grafted on the Historia post Bedam. In Hoveden's time the cloisters of northern England produced William of Newburgh, a genuine historian of the type of Bede and Malmesbury, who looked upon history as something more than a record of dry facts. Newburgh displays a spirit of critical research far in advance of his age. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the historical literature of England is largely confined to the monasteries. Laymen or secular clerics, like Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry of Huntingdon, Giraldus Cambrensis, Hoveden, and Diceto, are no longer prominent among the chroniclers. The annals composed in the medieval cloisters are of three kinds : those dealing mainly or wholly with the history of the writer's monastery, which are examined in § 57; those dealing partly with local monastic history and partly with general history; and those dealing mainly with general history. The annals of the second kind are of great importance in the thirteenth century; some of the best of them have been printed in Luard's Annales Monastici (No. 1664), and some of the shorter ones in Liebermann's Geschichtsquellen (No. 586). To the third group belong the writers of the St. Albans school of history, a school which produced Wendover and Paris in the thirteenth century, Rishanger, Trokelowe, Blaneford, the Chronicon Angliæ, the Annales Ricardi II. et Henrici IV., Walsingham, Amundesham, and the Register of Whethamstede in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This series of annals, written in large part by official chroniclers of the abbey, furnishes us with the fullest account of the general history of England from about 1200 to 1422, and also gives some information concerning the period 1423-61. Matthew Paris is the greatest writer of the St. Albans school and the most eminent chronicler of the thirteenth century. The pre-eminence of St. Albans in the historiography of England, which is much greater than that of St. Denis in the historiography of France, was due partly to its proximity to London and to its position on one of the great highways of England. On the St. Albans school, see James Gairdner, Early Chroniclers of England, ch. vi. ; T. D. Hardy, Catalogue of Materials, vol. iii. preface; and Augustus Jessopp, Studies by a Recluse, ch. i. Many other abbeys, such as those of Bury St. Edmunds, Canterbury, Durham, Malmesbury, Peterborough, Winchester, and Worcester, were also more or less active in the production of chronicles during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries; and, like St. Albans, most of them were old Benedictine houses. The Cluniacs, Cistercians, Carthusians, and other reformed orders did not accomplish much in England : the most eminent of the Cistercian writers was Ralph of Coggeshall; among the friars the only prominent chroniclers were Trevet and Eccleston (Nos. 1850, 2201). The best historians of the fourteenth century, those of the St. Albans school, like Rishanger and Trokelowe, or such writers as Hemingburgh, Murimuth, and Knighton, are distinctly inferior to the best historians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the fifteenth century there was a still further decline in historical literature. Walsingham (d. circa 1422) is the most eminent |