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a Roman d'Alexandre is ascribed to THOMAS OF KENT, who is variously placed in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. A lady Trouvère, MARIE DE FRANCE, flourished at the Court of Henry III and wrote love-songs and romances which are of considerable literary importance. The Roman de la Rose, imitated by Chaucer, is the earliest French work of the thirteenth century and may be said definitely to have inaugurated the allegorical spirit which fastened itself upon English poetry during the next three centuries. It was the

work of two Trouvères from the banks of the Loire, Guillaume de Lorris and Jehan de Meung. Other favourite romances were Havelock the Dane, the Gest of King Horn, Bevis of Hampton, and Guy of Warwick. Most of the authors of these works were native Englishmen, although they wrote in French, which had become almost the sole vehicle of popular literature.

The prose versions of the Romances in Norman-French were written chiefly by Englishmen. The most important series was formed by those of Arthur, containing the Roman du Saint Graal (the Holy Chalice of the Last Supper), the Roman de Merlin, the Roman de Lancelot, the Quête du Saint Graal, and the Roman de la Mort Artus, with a sequel in two parts, the Roman de Tristan (or Tristram). The chief writer was Walter Map (already mentioned); but the Roman du Saint Graal and the Roman de Merlin were written by ROBERT DE BORRON, the Tristan by a fictitious LUCAS DE GAST, and the continuation of the Tristan, known as Gyron le Courtois, by HELIE DE BORRON.

These Romances were collected and digested by the excellent knight SIR THOMAS MALORY, who lived during the reign of Edward IV, in the popular romance of Le Morte Arthur, now so easily accessible to all readers.

Excepting some versions of portions of Holy Scripture, these are the only important works in AngloNorman prose, until we come to the grand Chronicle of SIRE JEHAN FROISSART, the liveliest picture ENG. LIT.

which an imaginative historian ever drew of events witnessed for the most part by himself. Froissart was born at Valenciennes about 1337, but his Chronicle extends over the whole reigns of Edward III and Richard II (1326-1400). He was also a poet, and on his last visit to England (1396) presented his poetical works to Richard II.

C.-SEMI-SAXON LITERA

TURE.

A.D. 1150-1250.

The end of the Saxon Chronicle marks the close of the old AngloSaxon language as well as literature; for the chronicler does not throw down his pen before he has begun to confuse his grammar and

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corrupt his vocabulary with French words. The language dies out in literature, to appear again as almost a new creation, the basis of our English, but not at first in a finished form. The state of transition occupies about two centuries, from a time near the accession of Henry II (1154) to the middle of the reign of Edward III (1350), when Chaucer rose. The compositions of this age can hardly be divided by any clear line of demarcation; but the first of the two centuries, to the middle of Henry III's reign, may be conveniently assigned to the Semi-Saxon period, the second to the Old English. The writers in both dialects were for the most part translators and imitators of the Norman poets; and their works may be assigned to the four heads under which we have classed Norman work. There are, however, a few more original fragments, such as the Song of Canute, as he rowed past Ely, recorded by the monk of Ely, who wrote about 1166, or the Hymn of ST. GODRIC (d. 1170). But three chief works may be chosen as most characteristic of the language of the Semi-Saxon period.

(1.) LAYAMON's Brut or Chronicle of Britain, of which there are two texts, one much earlier than the other. The title of the " English Ennius," formerly applied to Robert

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of Gloucester, may now be fairly transferred to Layamon. He tells us that he was a priest of Ernley, near Redstone, on the Severn (certainly Areley Regis, near Bewdley), and that he compiled his work partly from a book in English by St. Bedewhich can only mean Alfred's translation of the Historia Ecclesiastica partly from one in Latin by Saints Albin and Austin, and partly from one made by a French clerk named Wace, and presented to Eleanor, queen of Henry II. He seems, however, to have followed Bede only in the story of St. Gregory and the English slaves at Rome; his second authority appears to be but a confused reference to the Latin text of the Historia Ecclesiastica; and his work was really founded upon the Brut of Wace, which has been already noticed. This he amplified from 15,300 lines to 32,250, partly by paraphrasing, partly by inserting speeches and other compositions, such as the Dream of Arthur, which show much imaginative power, and partly by the addition of many legends, from Welsh and other sources, not used by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He makes several allusions to works in English which are now lost. The date of the completion of the work, usually assigned to the latter years of Henry II, should probably be brought down to a date after 1200, subsequent to the accession of John. The style of the work bears witness to Norman influence, both in the structure of the verse and in the manner of the narrative, but not nearly so much as might have been expected from the translator of a French original. The earlier text has not fifty words of French origin, and both texts only about ninety. "We find preserved," says Sir F. Madden, "in Layamon's poem the spirit and style of the earlier AngloSaxon writers. No one can read his description of battles without being reminded of the Ode on Athelstan's victory at Brunanburh." After noticing resemblances in grammar and language, he adds, "A foreign scholar and poet (Grundtvig), versed both in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian literature, has found

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Layamon's verse beyond comparison the most lofty and animated in its style, at every moment reminding the reader of the splendid phraseology of Anglo-Saxon verse. It may also be added that the colloquial character of much of the work renders it peculiarly valuable as a monument of the language, since it serves to convey to us, in all probability, the current speech of the writer's time.' His verse also retains the alliterative structure of the Anglo-Saxon poetry, mingled with and predominating over the rhymed couplets of the French. Besides alliteration, which consists in the sameness of initial consonants, Layamon uses the kindred device of assonance, that is, the concurrence of syllables containing the same vowel. rhyming couplets are founded (as Dr. Guest has shown in his History of English Rhythms) on the AngloSaxon rhythms of 4, 5, 6, or 7 accents, those of 5 and 6 being the most frequent. Sir F. Madden, in his edition of the Brut (Society of Antiquaries, 3 vols., 1847), fully discusses the important bearing of Layamon's dialect on the history and formation of the English language. He concludes that "the dialects of the western, southern, and midland counties contributed together to form the language of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and consequently to lay the foundation of modern English." To the historical student the Brut is important as the last and fullest form of the old Celtic traditions concerning early British history.

(2.) The Ancren Riwle (the Rule of Female Anchorites, i.e. Nuns), a code of precepts for the nuns of Tarrant Keynes in Dorset, drawn up in prose by an unknown author about the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth, and edited for the Camden Society by the Rev. Jas. Morton (1853), is also most valuable for the history of our language. Its proportion of French words is about four times that of Layamon; the English is rude, and the spelling uncouth.

(3.) The Ormulum is so called by the author after his own name,

ORM OF ORMIN. It was a series of homilies in verse on the lessons from the New Testament in the Church Service, and was on an immense scale. The extant portion contains neary 10,000 lines (or, rather, couplets) of fifteen syllables, differing from the "common service metre only in ending with an unaccented syllable, and entirely free from the Anglo-Saxon alliteration. Apart from the peculiar system of spelling, treated by the author with great importance and thoroughly deserving study, its language differs far less than Layamon's from that of the present day. Its author was an Augustinian canon living in the east or north-east of England, and it therefore occupies a place in the Anglian literature answering to that of the Brut in the Saxon. The inference is that the Anglian dialect was the first to throw off the old inflections. The work exists only in one MS. (in the Bodleian Library), which is thought to be the autograph; its handwriting, ink, and material, seem to assign it to the earlier part of the thirteenth century. The character of the language and the regular rhythm of the verse, however, lead some to place it decidedly after the middle of the thirteenth century, and therefore in the Old English period.

The versification seems to be modelled on the contemporary Latin poetry. The language has a small admixture of Latin ecclesiastical words, with scarcely a trace of Norman-French. Mr. Marsh was "much disposed to believe that the spelling of the Ormulum constitutes as faithful a representation of the oral English of its time as any one work could be at a period of great confusion of speech." The work was edited with Notes and a Glossary by Dr. R. M. White (2 vols. ; Oxford, 1852), and the chief features of his edition have been retained by Mr. Holt in his more modern edition (Clarendon Press, 1878; 2 vols.)

Among other works in Semi-Saxon that have been printed are the Homily of St. Edmund, in Thorpe's Analecta; the Bestiary and Proverbs, falsely ascribed to King Alfred, in the Reliquiæ Antique; the

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By the middle of the reign of Henry III the language finally lost those inflectional and other peculiarities which distinguish the AngloSaxon from the English; but it retains archaisms which sufficiently distinguish it from the language of the present day to justify the title of Old English.

Some regard the short proclamation of Henry III (1258) as the earliest monument of Old English, while others consider it Semi-Saxon, The Surtees Psalter stands also on the line dividing the two periods, being probably not later than 1250.

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Among the chief literary works of this period is the metrical Chronicle of ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER, from the legendary age of Brutus to the close of Henry III's reign. date is unknown, but it is certain that Robert must have been alive during the Barons' Wars, and the latter part of the chronicle is supposed to have been written after 1297. The earlier part closely follows Geoffrey of Monmouth; but the old prose chronicler was far more of a poet than his metrical imitator. The verse is the long line (or couplet) of fourteen syllables, divisible into eight and six; its movement is rough and inharmonious. The Chronicle was printed from incorrect MSS. by Thomas Hearne (2 vols.; Oxford, 1724), and this edition was reprinted in London, 1810. A more modern edition is that of Mr. Aldis Wright (in Rolls Series; 2 vols. 1887). Short works attributed to Robert of Gloucester, on the Martyrdom of St. Thomas d Becket and the Life of St. Brandan, were printed by the Percy Society in

1845. A collection of Lives of the Saints is also attributed to this author, whose works, although of small literary merit, are valuable for the light they throw on the progress of the English language.

On a still larger scale is the metrical chronicle of ROBERT MANNYNG, or ROBERT OF BRUNNE (fl. 12881338), the last considerable work of the Old English period. It is in two parts. The first, adapted from Wace's Brut, reaches to the death of Cadwallader; the second, copied from the Anglo-Norman of Peter de Langtoft, comes down to the death of Edward I (1307). The work is evidently an imitation of Robert's and is of about equal literary merit. The language is a step nearer to modern English, the most important changes being the use of s for th in the third person singular and the closer approach to the present forms of the feminine personal pronoun. The verse is smoother than Robert of Gloucester's. The first part is in the eight-syllable line of Wace; the second is partly in the same metre, and partly in the Alexandrine, the heroic measure of the age. Mannyng was a canon of the exclusively English order of Gilbertines and was a member of their chief house at Sempringham near Bourn (or Brunne, as it was then spelt).. He also wrote a moral allegory called Handlyng Synne, which is of great literary importance.

Far more interesting in themselves are the popular poems of this age, which were, for the most part, translated or imitated from the French, and belong to the same classes of Romances, Fabliaux, and Satires. But there are some ballads and songs of genuine native origin as early as the middle of the thirteenth century. Such are the story of the Norfolk peasant-boy, Willy Grice; the song beginning"Sumer is i-cumen in (the oldest song to which the notes are added), and many of the pieces (including political ballads) printed by Warton, Percy, Ritson, and Wright.

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One of the most important of these poems is the Owl and the Nightingale, a dispute between the

two birds as to their powers of song. It consists of about 1800 verses in rhymed octosyllabic metre.

The satirical poem called The Land of Cockayne, which Warton placed before Henry II's reign, is at least as late as 1300 and has been traced to a French original. It is somewhat doubtfully ascribed, with other poems, to MICHAEL OF Kildare, the first Irishman who wrote verses in English. That the metrical Romances should have been translated from the French is a natural result of the fact that French was, for some generations after the Conquest, the language of popular literature. Many of the legends were, indeed, British and Anglo-Saxon; but this may be accounted for by the affinity of the Britons and Armoricans and the close connection between kings like Edward the Confessor and their Norman neighbours. Nor is it probable that the Trouvères would have missed many of these legends. Their poetry at first amused the leisure and enlivened the banquets of the conquerors; but, as the two races became one, and as the AngloSaxon tongue died out, these lays began to be translated into the new-formed language of the English people. The most popular of these, such as Havelock, Sir Tristram, Sir Gawayne, William of Palerne, Amis and Amiloun, Kynge Horne, Kynge Alisaundre, and Richard Cœur de Lion-some metrical, others alliterative-may be referred to the beginning of Edward I's reign. They are followed by a series of poems by unknown authors, far too numerous to mention, down to and considerably later than the age of Chaucer, many of which are printed in the collections mentioned below. The change by which these English metrical Romances superseded the French originals may be referred to the fourteenth century. In the fif teenth their popularity, besides being divided with the prose Romances, yielded, at least among the educated classes, to the regular poetry of Chaucer and his school; but they ceased to be written generally only after the beginning of the sixteenth It was not until 300 years later that

Sir Walter Scott revived the taste for a kind of poetry, similar in form, but appealing to very different sentiments. Among the minor poems, other than Romances, are many imitations of the French Fabliaux or Tales of Common Life.

The Satires, both political and ecclesiastical, undoubtedly helped the progress of freedom under Henry III and his successors and prepared the way for Wycliffe, if they do not rather exhibit a state of popular feeling demanding such a teacher.

The chief authorities for these four periods are: Wright, Biographia Britannica Literaria. Vol. I.The Anglo-Saxon Period. London, 1842. Vol. II.-The Anglo-Norman Period. London, 1846; Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, first published in 1765; Warton, History of English Poetry, 1774, edited by W. C. Hazlitt, London, 1871; Tyrwhitt, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, with preliminary essays, 1775, also Dr. Skeat's edition, 1894-7; Pinkerton, Scottish Poems, 3 vols., 1792; Herbert, Robert the Devylle, 1798; Ritson, Ancient Songs, 1783, and Ancient English Metrical Romances, 1802; George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances, 3 vols., 1805; Wright, Political Songs of England from John to Edward II, 1839; the publications

of the Roxburghe Club, the Surtees, Bannatyne, Maitland, Abbotsford, and Camden Societies, the Society of Antiquaries, etc.; Chambers, Cyclopædia of English Literature; Craik, History of English Literature and the English Language, 2 vols., 1861; Marsh, Origin and History of the English Language, 1862. Since then sources of information, especially with regard to the earlier periods, are become more abundant, and the publications of the Early English Text Society, together with the cheap editions of old texts issued by the Clarendon Press, make the study of our early literature a comparatively easy task. Students will find Mr. Stopford Brooke's Early English Literature up to the Days of Alfred (2 vols.), and his smaller book, English Literature from the Begin ning to the Norman Conquest (1898), very valuable. Professor Ten Brink's History of Early English Literature (translation published by Mr. G. Bell, 3 vols.) is a standard work on the subject. For the medieval period, Professor Courthope's History of English Poetry, vol. i. (1895), is the latest authority; and, for the philosophy of the schools, Mr. Rashdall's monumental Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (2 vols. in 3; Oxford, 1895) should be consulted..

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