How innovate when versifying for a society about to end? Chaucer's successors do not innovate; they fasten their work to his works, and patch them together; they build in the shadow of his palace. They dream the same dreams on a May morning; they erect new Houses of Fame; they add a story to the "Canterbury Tales."[828]

A gift bestowed on them by a spiteful fairy makes the matter worse: they are incredibly prolific. All they write is poor, and the spiteful fairy, spiteful to us, has granted them the faculty to write thus, without any trouble, for ever. Up to this day Lydgate's works have baffled the attempts of the most enterprising literary societies; the Early English Text Society has some time ago begun to publish them; if it carries out the undertaking, it will be a proof of unparalleled endurance.

Lydgate and Hoccleve are the two principal successors of Chaucer. Lydgate, a monk of the monastery of Bury St. Edmund's,[829] a worthy man, it seems, if ever there was one, and industrious, and prolific, above all prolific, writes according to established standards, tales, lays,[830] fabliaux satires,[831] romances of chivalry, poetical debates, ballads of former times,[832] allegories, lives of the saints, love poems, fables[833]; five thousand verses a year on an average, and being precocious as well as prolific, leaves behind him at his death a hundred and thirty thousand verses, merely counting his longer works. Virgil had only written fourteen thousand.

He copies Latin, French, and English models, but especially Chaucer,[834] he adds his "Story of Thebes"[835] to the series of the "Canterbury Tales," he has met, he says, the pilgrims on their homeward journey; the host asked him who he was:

I answerde my name was Lydgate, Monk of Bery, nygh fyfty yere of age.

Admitted into the little community, he contributes to the entertainment by telling a tale of war, of love, and of valorous deeds, in which the Greeks wear knightly armour, are blessed by bishops, and batter town walls with cannon. His "Temple of Glas"[836] is an imitation of the "Hous of Fame"; his "Complaint of the Black Knight" resembles the "Book of the Duchesse"; his "Falle of Princes"[837] is imitated from Boccaccio and from the tale of the Monk in Chaucer. The "litel hevynesse" which the knight noticed in the monk's stories is particularly well imitated, so much so that Lydgate himself stops sometimes with uplifted pen to yawn at his ease in the face of his reader.[838] But his pen goes down again on the paper, and starts off with fresh energy. From it proceeds a "Troy Book, or Historie of the Warres betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans," of thirty thousand lines, where pasteboard warriors hew each other to pieces without suffering much pain or causing us much sorrow[839]; a translation of that same "Pelerinage" of Deguileville, which had inspired Langland; a Guy of Warwick[840]; Lives of Our Lady, of St. Margaret, St. Edmund, St. Alban; a "pageant" for the entry of Queen Margaret into London in 1445; a version of the "Secretum Secretorum," and a multitude of other writings.[841] Nothing but death could stop him; and, his last poem being of 1446, his biographers have unanimously concluded that he must have died in that year.

The rules of his prosody were rather lax. No one will be surprised at it; he could say like Ovid, but for other reasons: "I had but to write, and it was verses." He is ready for everything; order them, and you will have at once verses to order. These verses are slightly deformed, maybe, and halt somewhat; he does not deny it:

I toke none hede nouther of shorte nor longe.[842]

But let us not blame him; Chaucer, his good master, would, he assures us, have excused his faulty prosody, and what right have we to be more severe than Chaucer?[843] To this there is, of course, nothing to answer, but then if we cannot answer, at least we can leave. We can go and visit the other chief poet of the time, Thomas Hoccleve; he does not live far off, the journey will be a short one; we have but to call at the next door.

This other poet is a public functionary; he is a clerk of the Privy Seal[844]; his duties consist in copying documents; an occupation he finds at length somewhat tiresome.[845] By way of diversion he frequents taverns; women wait on him there, and he kisses them; a wicked deed, he admits; but he goes no further; at least so he assures us, being doubtless held back by a remembrance of officialdom and promotion.[846] At all events this little was even too much, for we soon find him sick unto death, rhyming supplications to the god of health, and to Lord Fournivall, another kind of god, very useful to propitiate, for he was Lord Treasurer. He writes a good many detached pieces in which, thanks to his mania for talking about himself, he makes us acquainted with the nooks and corners of the old city, thus supplying rare and curious information, treasured by the historian. He composes, in order to make himself noticed by the king, a lengthy poem on the Government of Princes, "De Regimine Principum," which is nothing but a compilation taken from three or four previous treatises; he adds a prologue, and in it, following the example of Gower, he abuses all classes of society. He does not fail to begin his confession over again: from which we gather that he is something of a drunkard and of a coward, that he is vain withal and somewhat ill-natured.

He had, however, one merit, and, in spite of his defects, all lovers of literature ought to be grateful to him; the best of his works is not his Government of Princes; it is a drawing. He not only, like Lydgate, loved and mourned Chaucer, but wished to keep the memory of his features, and he caused to be painted on the margin of a manuscript the portrait mentioned above, which agrees so well with the descriptions contained in the writings of the master that there is no doubt as to the likeness.[847]

II.

Let us cross the hills, and we shall still find Chaucer; as in England, so is he wept and imitated in Scotland. But the poets live there in a different atmosphere; the imitation is not so close a one; a greater proportion of a Celtic blood maintains differences; more originality survives; the decline is less apparent. The best poets of English tongue, "Inglis" as they call it, "oure Inglis," Dunbar says, are, in the fifteenth century, Scots. Among them are a king, a monk, a schoolmaster, a minstrel, a bishop.

The king is James I., son of Robert III., of the family of those Stuarts nearly all of whom were destined to the most tragic fate. This one, taken at sea by the English, when only a child, remained nineteen years confined in various castles. Like a knight of romance, and a personage in a miniature, he shortened the hours of his captivity by music, reading, and poetry; the works of Chaucer and Gower filled him with admiration. Then he found a better comfort for his sorrows; this knight of miniature and of romance saw before him one day the maiden so often painted by illuminators, the one who appears amidst the flowers and the dew, Aucassin's Nicolette, the Emily of the Knight's Tale, the one who brings happiness. She appeared to the king, not in a dream but in reality; her name was Jane Beaufort, she was the daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and great grand-daughter of John of Gaunt. In her family, too, there were many tragic destinies; her brother was killed at the battle of St. Albans; her three nephews perished in the Wars of the Roses; her grand-nephew won the battle of Bosworth and became king Henry VII. A mutual love sprang up between the two young people, and when James was able to return to Scotland he took back with him his queen of romance, whom he had wedded before the altar of St. Mary Overy's, next to the grave of one of his literary masters, the poet Gower.

His reign lasted thirteen years, and they were thirteen years of struggle: vain endeavours to regulate and centralise a kingdom composed of independent clans, all brave and ready for foreign wars, but quite as ready, too, for civil ones. Assisted by his queen of romance, the knightly poet displayed in this task an uncommon energy, and was, with all his faults, one of the best kings of Scotland. He had many children; one of his daughters became dauphiness of France, and another duchess of Brittany. Towards the end of 1436, he had so many enemies among the turbulent chieftains that sinister prophecies began to circulate; one of them announced the speedy death of a king; and as he played at chess on Christmas eve with a knight surnamed the "king of love," he said to him: "There are no other kings in Scotland save me and you; I take heed to myself, do you likewise." But the king of love had nothing to fear. During the night of the 20th of February, 1437, an unwonted noise was suddenly heard in the courtyard of the monastery of Perth where James lodged; it was Robert Graham and his rebel band. Vainly did the king offer resistance, though unarmed; the foe were too numerous, and they stretched him dead, pierced with sixteen sword wounds.

The constant love of the king for Jane Beaufort had been celebrated by himself in an allegorical poem, imitated from Chaucer: "The King's Quhair," a poem all aglow with bright hues and with the freshness of youth.[848] The prince is in bed at night, and, like Chaucer in his poem of the Duchess, unable to sleep, he takes up a book. It is the "Consolation" of Boethius, and the meditations of "that noble senatoure" who had also known great reverses, occupied his thoughts while the night hours glided on. The silence is broken by the matin bell:

Bot now, how trowe ye? suich a fantasye Fell me to mynd, that ay me-thoght the bell Said to me: "Tell on, man, quhat the befell."

And the king, invoking Clio and Polymnia, like Chaucer, and adding Tysiphone whom he takes for a Muse, because he is less familiar with mythology than Chaucer, tells what befell him, how he parted with his friends, when quite a boy, was imprisoned in a foreign land, and from the window of his tower discovered one day in the garden:

The fairest or the freschest yong floure That ever I sawe.

The maid was so beautiful that all at once his "hert became hir thrall":

A! suete, are ye a warldly creature, Or hevinly thing in likenesse of nature?

To be cleared from his doubts the royal poet ventures into the kingdom of Venus, and finds her stretched on her couch, her white shoulders covered with "ane huke," a loose dress that Chaucer had not placed upon them. Then he reaches the kingdom of Minerva; and passing through dissertations, beds of flowers, and groups of stars, he returns to earth, reassured as to his fate, with the certitude of a happiness promised him both by Venus and Minerva. A eulogy on Gower and Chaucer closes the poem, which is written in stanzas of seven lines, since called, because of James, "Rhyme Royal."[849]

Blind Harry, the minstrel, sings the popular hero, William Wallace.[850] We are in the midst of legends. Wallace causes Edward I. to tremble in London; he runs extraordinary dangers and has wonderful escapes; he slays; he is slain; he recovers; his body is thrown over the castle wall, and picked up by his old nurse; the daughter of the nurse, nurse herself, revives the corpse with her milk. The language is simple, direct and plain; the interest lies in the facts, and not in the manner in which they are told; and this, to say the truth, is also the case with chap-books.

Blind Harry continues Barbour rather than Chaucer, but Chaucer resumes his rights as an ancestor with Henryson and Dunbar. The former[851] sits with his feet to the fire one winter's night, takes "ane drink" to cheer him, and "Troilus" to while away the time. The little homely scene is described in charming fashion; one seems, while reading, to feel the warmth of the cosy corner, the warmth even of the "drink," for it must have been a warm one:

I mend the fyre, and beikit (basked) me about, Than tuik ane drink my spreitis to comfort, And armit me weill fra the cold thairout; To cut the winter nicht and mak it schort, I tuik ane quair and left all uther sport, Writtin be worthie Chaucer glorious Of fair Cresseid and worthie Troilus.

He read, but unable to understand the master's leniency towards the frail and deceitful woman, he takes pen and adds a canto to the poem: the "Testament of Cresseid," where he makes her die a dreadful death, forsaken by all.

A greater pleasure will be taken in his rustic poems, ballads, or fables. His "Robene and Makyne" is a "disputoison" between a shepherd and shepherdess. Makyne loves Robin, and tells him so; and he accordingly cares not for her. Makyne goes off, her eyes full of tears; but Robin is no sooner left alone than he begins to love:

Makyne, the nicht is soft and dry, The weddir is warme and fair And the grene woid rycht neir us by To walk atour (over) all quhair (everywhere); Thair ma na janglour us espy That is to lufe contrair; Thairin, Makyne, bath ye and I Unsene we ma repair.

In her turn Makyne is no longer willing; she laughs now, and he weeps, and she leaves him in solitude under a rock, with his sheep. This is a lamentable ending; but let us not sorrow overmuch; on these pathless moors people are sure to meet, and since they quarrelled and parted for ever, in the fifteenth century, Robin and Makyne have met many times.

Another day, Henryson has a dream, after the fashion of the Middle Ages. In summer-time, among the flowers, a personage appears to him,

His hude of scarlet, bordowrit weill with silk.

In spite of the dress he is a Roman: "My native land is Rome;" and this Roman turns out to be AEsop, "poet laureate;" there is no room for doubt: we are in the Middle Ages. AEsop recites his fables in such a new and graceful manner, with such a pleasing mixture of truth and fancy, that he never told them better, not even when he was a Greek slave, and saved his head by his wit.

Henryson takes his time; he observes animals and nature, and departs as much as possible from the epigrammatic form common to most fabulists. The story of the "uplandis Mous and the burges Mous," so often related, has never been better told than by Henryson, and this can be affirmed without forgetting La Fontaine.

The two mice are sisters; the elder, a mouse of importance, established in town, well fed on flour and cheese, remembers, one day, her little sister, and starts off at dusk to visit her. She follows lonely paths at night, creeps through the moss and heather of the interminable Scottish bogs, and at last arrives. The dwelling strikes her as strangely miserable, frail, and dark; a poor little thief like the younger sister does not care much about burning dips. Nevertheless, great is the joy at meeting; the "uplandis mous" produces her choicest stores; the "burges mous" looks on, unable to quite conceal her astonishment. Is it not nice? inquires the little sister. Excuse me, replies the other, but:

Thir widderit (withered) peis and nuttis, or thay be bord, Will brek my teith and make my wame full sklender.... Sister, this victuall and your royal feist May well suffice unto ane rurall beist.

Lat be this hole, and cum in-to my place, I sall to yow schaw be experience My Gude-fryday is better nor your Pace (Easter).

And off they trot through the bushes, and through those heathery bogs which have by turns charmed and wearied many others besides mice.

They reach the elder sister's. There are delicious provisions, cheese, butter, malt, fish, and dishes without number.

And lordis fair thus couth thay counterfeit, Except ane thing: thay drank the watter cleir Instead of wyne; bot yit thay maid gude cheir.

The little sister admires and nibbles. But how long will this last? Always, says the other. Just at that moment a rattle of keys is heard; it is the spenser coming to the pantry. A dreadful scene! The great mouse runs to her hole, and the little one, not knowing where to hide herself, faints.

Luckily, the man was in a hurry; he takes what he came for, and departs. The elder mouse creeps out of her hole:

How fair ye sister? cry peip quhair-ever ye be.

The other, half dead with fright, and shaking in her four paws, is unable to answer. The great mouse warms and comforts her: 'tis all over, do not fear;

Cum to your meit, this perell is overpast.

But no, it is not all over, for now comes "Gilbert" (for Tybert, the name of the cat in the "Roman de Renart"), "our jolie cat"; another rout ensues. This time, perched on a partition where Tybert cannot reach her, the field mouse takes leave of her sister, makes her escape, goes back to the country, and finds there her poverty, her peas, her nuts, and her tranquillity.

The mouse of Scotland has been fortunate in her painters; another, and a still better portrait was to be made of the "wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie," by the great poet of the nation, Robert Burns.

With Gavin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld, of the illustrious house of the Douglas, earls of Angus, the translator of Virgil, and with William Dunbar, a mendicant friar, favourite of James IV., sent by him on missions to London and Paris, we cross the threshold of a new century; they die in the midst of the Renaissance, but with them, nevertheless, the Chaucerian tradition is continued. Douglas writes a "Palice of Honour," imitated from Chaucer.[852] Dunbar,[853] with never flagging spirit, attempts every style; he composes sentimental allegories and coarse tales (very coarse indeed), satires, parodies, laments.[854] His fits of melancholy do not last long; he must be ill to be sad; however keen his satires, they are the work of an optimist; they end with laughter and not with tears. He is nearer to Jean des Entommeures than to William Langland.

His principal poems, "The Goldyn Targe," on the targe or shield of Reason exposed to the shafts of Love; "Thrissil and the Rois" (thistle and rose) are close imitations of the Chaucer of the "Parlement of Foules" and of the "Hous of Fame," with the same allegories, the same abstract personages, the same flowers, and the same perfumes. The "Thrissil and the Rois," written about 1503, celebrates the marriage of Margaret, rose of England, daughter of Henry VII., to James IV., thistle of Scotland, the flower with a purple crown: that famous marriage which was to result in a union of both countries under the same sceptre.

Endowed with an ever-ready mind and an unfailing power of invention, Dunbar, following his natural tastes, and wishing, at the same time, to imitate Chaucer, decks his pictures with glaring colours, and "out-Chaucers Chaucer." His flowers are too flowery, his odours too fragrant; by moments it is no longer a delight, but almost a pain. It is not sufficient that his birds should sing, they must sing among perfumes, and these perfumes are coloured; they sing

Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt.[855]

These are undoubted signs of decline; they are found, in different degrees, among the poets of England and of Scotland, nearly without exception. The anonymous poems, "The Flower and the Leaf," "The Court of Love," &c.,[856] imitated from Chaucer, exhibit the same symptoms. The only ones who escape are, chiefly in the region of the Scottish border, those unknown singers who derive their inspiration directly from the people, who leave books alone, and who would not be found, like Henryson, sitting by the fireside with "Troilus" on their knees. These singers remodel in their turn ballads that will be remade after them,[857] and which have come down stirring and touching; love-songs, doleful ditties, the ride of the Percy and the Douglas[858] ("Chevy Chase"), that, in spite of his classic tastes, Philip Sidney admired in the time of Elizabeth. Though declining in castles, poetry still thrills with youth along the hedges and in the copses; and the best works of poets with a name like Dunbar or Henryson are those in which are found an echo of the songs of the woods and moors. This same echo lends its charm to the music of the "Nut-brown Maid,"[859] that exquisite love-duo, a combination of popular and artistic poetry written by a nameless author, towards the end of the period, and the finest of the "disputoisons" in English literature.

But apart from the songs the wayfarer hums along the lanes, the works of the poets most appreciated at that time, Lydgate, Henryson, Dunbar, Stephen Hawes,[860] represent a dying art; they write as architects build, and their literature is a florid one; their poems are in Henry VII.'s style. Their roses are splendid, but too full-blown; they have expended all their strength, all their beauty, all their fragrance; no store of youth is left to them; they have given it all away; and what happens to such roses? They shed their leaves; of this past glory there will soon remain nothing save a stalk without petals.

III.

The end of the feudal world has come, its literature is dying out; but at the same time a double revival is preparing. The revival most difficult to follow, but not the least considerable, originated in the middle and lower classes of society. While great families destroy each other, humble ones thrive: only lately has this fact been sufficiently noticed. So long as the historian was only interested in battles and in royal quarrels, the fifteenth century in England was considered by every one, except by that keen observer, Commines, to be the time of the war of the Two Roses, of the murder of Edward's children, and nothing else. It seemed as though the blood of the youthful princes had stained the entire century, and as if the whole nation, stunned with horror, had remained aghast and immobile. Curiosity has been felt in our days as to whether this impression was a correct one, and it has been ascertained to be false. Instead of being absorbed in the contemplation of these dreadful struggles, holding its breath at the sight of the slaughter, the nation paid very little attention to them, and regarded these doings in the light of "res inter alios acta."

Feudalism was perishing, as human organisations often perish, from the very fact of its having attained its full development; feudal nobles had so long towered above the people that they were now almost completely severed from them; feudalism had pushed its principle so far that it was about to die, like the over-blown roses of Dunbar. While the nobles and their followers, that crowd of bravi that the statutes against maintenance had vainly tried to suppress, strewed the fields of Wakefield, Towton, and Tewkesbury with their corpses, the real nation, the mass of the people, stood apart and was engaged in a far different occupation. It strove to enrich itself, and was advancing by degrees towards equality between citizens. A perusal of the innumerable documents of that epoch, which have been preserved and which concern middle classes, leave a decided impression of peaceful development, of loosening of bondage, of a diffusion of comfort. The time is becoming more remote, when some sat on thrones and others on the ground; it begins to be suspected that one day perhaps there may be chairs for everybody. In the course of an examination bearing on thousands of documents, Thorold Rogers found but two allusions to the civil wars.[861] The duration of these wars must not, besides, be exaggerated; by adding one period of hostilities to another it will be found they lasted three years in all.

The boundaries between the classes are less strictly guarded; war helps to cross them; soldiers of fortune are ennobled; merchants likewise. The importance of trade goes on increasing; even a king, Edward IV., makes attempts at trading, and does not fear thus to derogate; English ships are now larger, more numerous, and sail farther. The house of the Canynges of Bristol has in its pay eight hundred sailors; its trading navy counts a Mary Canynge and a Mary and John, which exceed in size all that has hitherto been seen. A duke of Bedford is degraded from the peerage because he has no money, and a nobleman without money is tempted to become a dangerous freebooter and live at the expense of others.[862] For the progress is noticeable only by comparison, and, without speaking of open wars, brigandage, which is dying out, is not yet quite extinct.

The literature of the time corroborates the testimony of documents exhumed from ancient muniment rooms. It gives an impression of a wealthier nation than formerly, counting more free men, with a more extensive trade. The number of books on courtesy, etiquette, good breeding, good cooking, politeness, with an injunction not to take "always" the whole of the best morsel,[863] is a sign of these improvements. The letters of the Paston family are another.[864] In spite of all the mentions made in these letters of violent and barbarous deeds; though in them we see Margaret Paston and her twelve defenders put to flight by an enemy of the family, and Sir John Paston besieged in his castle of Caister by the duke of Norfolk, a multitude of details give something of a modern character to this collection, the oldest series of private English letters we possess.

In spite of aristocratic alliances, these people think and write like worthy citizens, economical, practical and careful. During her husband's absence, Margaret Paston keeps him informed of all that goes on, she looks after his property, renews leases, collects rents. Reading her letters one seems to see her home as neat and clean as a Dutch house. If a disaster occurs, instead of wasting her time in lamentations, she repairs it to the best of her ability and takes precautions for the future. She loves her husband, and may be believed when, knowing him to be ill, she writes: "I would ye were at home, if it were your ease, and your sore might be as well looked to here as it is where ye be, now liefer than a gown though it were of scarlet."[865] John Paston, shut in the Fleet prison, where he makes the acquaintance of Lord Henry Percy, for prisons were then a place where the best society met, sends Margaret playful verses to amuse her:

My lord Persy and all this house, Recommend them to yow, dogge catte and mowse, And wysshe ye had be here stille, For they sey ye are a good gille.

The old and new times are no longer so far apart; in such a prison, Fielding and Sheridan would not have felt out of place.[866]

Books of advice to travellers, itineraries or guides to foreign parts,[867] vocabularies, dictionaries, and grammars,[868] commercial guides, the "Libelle of Englyshe Polycye,"[869] are also signs of the times. This last document is a characteristic one; it is a sort of consular report in verse, very similar (the verses excepted) to thousands of consular reports with which "Livres Jaunes" and "Blue Books" have since been filled. The author points out for each country the goods to be imported and exported, and the guileful practices to be feared in foreign parts; he insists on the necessity of England's having a strong navy, and exaggerates the maritime power of rival countries, so that Parliament may vote the necessary supplies. England should be the first on the sea, and able to impose "pease by auctorite." She should establish herself more firmly at Calais; only the word Calais would be altered now and replaced by Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, or the Cape. The author enumerates the products of Prussia, Flanders, France, Spain, Portugal, Genoa, &c.; he has even information on the subject of Iceland, and its great cod-fish trade. He wishes for a spirited colonial policy; it is not yet a question of India, but only of Ireland; at any price "the wylde Iryshe" must be conquered.

He dwells at length on the misdeeds of the wicked Malouins, who are stopped by nothing, obey no one, and are protected by the innumerable rocks of their bays, amidst which they alone know the passages. Conclusion:

Kepte (keep) than the see about in specialle Whiche of England is the rounde walle; As thoughe England were lykened to a cite, And the walle enviroun were the see; Keep than the see that is the walle of Englond, And then is Englond kepte by Goddes sonde.

The anxious injunctions scattered in the "Libelle" must not be taken, any more than Parliamentary speeches of later date, as implying that the nation had no confidence in itself. The instinct of nationality, formerly so vague, has grown from year to year since the Conquest: the English are now proud of everything English; they are proud of their navy, in spite of its defects; of their army, in spite of the reverses it suffered; of the wealth of the Commons; they even boast of their robbers. Anything one does should be well done; if they have thieves, these thieves will prove the best in the world. The testimony of Sir John Fortescue, knight, Lord Chief Justice, and Chancellor of England, who must have known about the thieves, is decisive on this point. He writes, in English prose, a treatise on absolute and limited monarchy[870]; admiration for his country breaks out on every page. It is the time of the Two Roses, but it matters little with him; like many others in his day, he does not pay while writing much attention to the Roses. England is the best governed country in the world; it has the best laws; the king can do nothing unless his people consent. In this manner a just balance is maintained: "Our Comons be riche, and therfor they gave to their kyng, at sum tymys quinsimes and dismes, and often tymys other grete subsydyes.... This might thay not have done, if they had ben empoveryshyd by their kyng, as the Comons of Fraunce." Fortescue puts forth a theory often confirmed since then: if the Commons rebel sometimes, it is not the pride of wealth that makes them, but tyranny; for, were they poor, revolts would be far more frequent: "If thay be not poer, thay will never aryse, but if their prince so leve Justice, that he gyve hymself al to tyrannye." It is true that the Commons of France do not rebel (Louis XI. then reigned at Plessis-lez-Tours); Fortescue is shocked at that, and remonstrates against their "lacke of harte."

Some people might say that there are a great many thieves in England. They are numerous, Fortescue confesses, there is no doubt as to that; but the country finds in them one more cause to be proud: "It hath ben often seen in Englond that three or four thefes, for povertie hath sett upon seven or eight true men and robbyd them al." The thieves of France are incapable of such admirable boldness. On this account "it is right seld that French men be hangyd for robberye," says Fortescue, who had never, judging by the way he talks, passed by Montfaucon, nor come across poor Villon; "thay have no hertys to do so terryble an acte. There be therfor mo men hangyd in Englonde in a yere for robberye and manslaughter than their be hangid in Fraunce for such cause of crime in seven yers."[871] As a judge, Fortescue hangs the thieves; as an Englishman he admires their performances: the national robber is superior to all others. An engraving in Punch represents a London drunkard carried off by two policemen; the street boys make comments: "They couldn't take my Father up like that," says one of them, "it takes six Policemen to run him in!" If this boy ever becomes Chief Justice, he will write, in the same spirit, another treatise like Fortescue's.

Thus is popularised in that century the art of prose; the uses made of it are not unprecedented, but they are far more frequent. This is one more sign that the nation settles and concentrates; does not stand on tiptoe, but sits comfortably. Previous examples are followed; there are schools of prose writers as of poets. Bishop Pecock employs Wyclif's irony to defend what Wyclif had attacked; pilgrimages, friars, the possessions of the clergy, the statues and paintings in churches.[872] His forcible eloquence is embittered by sarcasms; he continues a tradition, dear to the English race, and one which, constantly renewed, will come down to Swift and to the humourists of the eighteenth century. Boiling over with passion, he does his best to speak coldly and without moving a finger. Wyclif wants everything to be found in the Bible, and forbids pilgrimages, which are not spoken of in it. But then, says Pecock, we are greatly puzzled, for how should we dare to wear breeches, which the Bible does not mention either? How justify the use of clocks to know the hour? And with great seriousness, in a calm voice, he discusses the question: "For though in eeldist daies, and though in Scripture, mensioun is maad of orologis, schewing the houris of the dai bi the schadew maad bi the sunne in a cercle, certis nevere, save in late daies, was eny clok telling the houris of the dai and nyht bi peise and bi stroke; and open it is that noughwhere in holi scripture is expresse mensioun made of eny suche." Where does the Bible say that it should be translated into English?[873] In the same tone of voice Wyclif had pointed out, in the preceding century, the abuses of the Church; in the same tone of voice the author of "Gulliver" will point out, three centuries later, the happy use that might be made of Irish children as butcher's meat.

The thing to be remembered for the moment is that the number of prose-writers increases. They write more abundantly than formerly; they translate old treatises; they unveil the mysteries of hunting, fishing, and heraldry; they compose chronicles; they rid the language of its stiffness. To this contributes Sir Thomas Malory, with his compilation called "Morte d'Arthur," in which he includes the whole cycle of Britain. The work was published by Caxton, the first English printer, who was also a prose-writer.[874] They even write on love; prose now retaliates upon verse, and trespasses on the domains of poetry.[875]

The diminished importance of the nobles and of the feudal aristocracy, the increased importance of the citizens and of the working class, bring the various elements of the nation nearer to each other, and this fact will have a considerable effect on literature: the day will come when the same author can address the whole audience and write for the whole nation. In a hundred years it will be necessary to take into consideration the judgment of the English people, both "high men" and "low men," on intellectual things; there will stand in the pit a mob whose declared tastes and exigences will cause the most stubborn of the Elizabethan poets to yield. Ben Jonson will be less classic and more English than he would have liked to be; he intended to introduce a chorus into his tragedy of "Sejanus"; the fear of the pit prevented him; he grumbles, but submits.[876] The thrift and the toil of the English peasant and craftsman in the fifteenth century had thus an unexpected influence on literature: they contributed to form an audience for Shakespeare.

IV.

The new times are preparing, in still another manner; the gods are to come down from Olympus and dwell once more among men.

While the ancient literature is dying out, another is growing which is to replace it in France, but which will continue it, transformed and rejuvenated, in England. Rome and Athens will give England a signal, not laws; but this signal is an important one; happy the nations who have heard it; it was the signal for awakening.

In that Italy visited by Chaucer in the fourteenth century, the passion for antiquity goes on increasing; the Latins no longer suffice, the Greeks must be known. Petrarch worshipped a manuscript of Homer, but it was for him a dumb fetish: the fetish has now become a god, and utters oracles that all the world understands. The city of the Greek emperors is still standing, and there letters shine with a last lustre. While the foe is at its gates, it rectifies its grammars, goes back to origins, rejects new words, and revives the ancient language of Demosthenes. Never had the town of Constantine been more Greek than on the eve of its destruction.[877] The fame of its rhetoricians is spread abroad; men come from Italy to hear John Argyropoulos, the Chrysoloras, the famous Chrysococces, deacon of St. Sophia and chief Saccellary.

But the fatal hour is at hand, the era of the Crusades is over; an irresistible ebb has set in; Christendom draws back in its turn. No longer is it necessary to go to Jerusalem to battle against the infidel; he is found at Nicopolis and Kossovo. The illustrious towns of the Greek world fall one after the other, and the exiled grammarians seek shelter with the literate tyrants of Italy, bringing with them their manuscripts. Some, like Theodore Gaza, have been driven from Thessalonica, and teach at Mantua and at Sienna; others left after the fall of Trebizond.

On the throne of the Paleologues sits Constantine XII., Dragasses. Brusa is no longer the capital of the Turks; they have left far behind them the town of the green mosques, of the great platanes and tombs of the caliphs, they have crossed the Bosphorus and are established at Salonica, Sophia, Philippopolis. Adrianople is their capital for the time being; Mahomet II. commands them. Opposite the "Castle of Asia," Anatoli Hissar, he has built on the Bosphorus the "Castle of Europe," Roumel Hissar, with rose-coloured towers; he is master of both shores.

He approaches nearer to the town, and draws up his troops under the wall facing Europe; he has a hundred and thirty cannon; he opens fire on the 11th of April, 1453. On the 28th of May, the Turks take up their positions for the onset; whilst in Byzantium a long procession of priests and monks, carrying the wood of the true cross, miraculous statues and relics of saints, wends its way for the last time. The assault begins at two o'clock in the morning; part of a wall, near the gate of St. Romanus, falls in; the "Cercoporta" gate is taken. The struggle goes on in the heart of the town; the emperor is killed; the basilica erected by Justinian to Divine Wisdom, St. Sophia, which was in the morning filled with a praying multitude, contains now only corpses. The smoke of an immense fire rises under the sky.

All that could flee exiled themselves; the Greeks flocked to Italy. Out of the plundered libraries came a number of manuscripts, with which Nicholas V. and Bessarion enriched Rome and Venice. The result of the disaster was, for intellectual Europe, a new impulse given to classic studies.

With the glare of the fire was mingled a light as of dawn; its rays were to illuminate Italy and France, and, further towards the North, England also.

FOOTNOTES:

[826] I try, repeatedly says Stephen Hawes,

To followe the trace and all the perfitnes Of my maister Lydgate.

"The Historie of Graund Amoure and La Bell Pucle, called the Pastime of Plesure, contayning the Knowledge of the Seven Sciences and the Course of Man's life in this Worlde," London, 1554, 4to, curious woodcuts (reprinted by the Percy Society, 1845, 8vo; the quotation above, p. 2). It is an allegory of unendurable dulness, in which Graund Amoure (love of knowledge apparently) visits Science in the Tower of Doctrine, then Grammar, &c. Hawes lived under Henry VII.

[827] On the fabliaux introduced into England, see above, p. 225; the greater number of them are found in Hazlitt: "Remains of the early popular Poetry of England," London, 1864, 4 vols. One of the best, "The Wright's Chaste Wife," written in English, about 1462, by Adam de Cobsam, has been published by the Early English Text Society, ed. Furnivall, 1865, with a supplement by Mr. Clouston, 1886; it is the old story of the honest woman, who dismisses her would-be lovers after having made fun of them. That story figures in the "Gesta Romanorum," in the "Arabian Nights," in the collection of Barbazan (story of Constant du Hamel). It has furnished Massinger with the subject of his play, "The Picture," and Musset with that of "la Quenouille de Barberine."—On the romances of chivalry, see above, pp. 219 ff. A great number of rhymed versions of these romances are of the fifteenth century.—Ex. of pious works in verse, of the same century: Th. Brampton, "Pharaphrase on the seven penitential psalms, 1414," Percy Society, 1842; Mirk, "Duties of a Parish Priest," ed. Peacock, E.E.T.S., 1868, written about 1450; Capgrave (1394-1464), "Life of St. Katharine," ed. Horstmann and Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 1893 (various other edifying works by the same); many specimens of the same kind are unpublished.—Ex. of chronicles: Andrew de Wyntoun, "Orygynal Cronykil of Scotland," finished, about 1424, ed. Laing, Edinburgh, 1872 ff., 3 vols. 8vo; Hardyng (1378-1465?), "Chronicle in metre," London, 1543, 8vo. Hardyng sold for a large price, to the brave Talbot, who knew little about palaeography, spurious charters establishing England's sovereignty over Scotland; those charters exist at the Record Office, the fraud was proved by Palgrave. All these chronicles are in "rym dogerel."

[828] "The Story of Thebes," by Lydgate (below p. 499); "The Tale of Beryn," with a prologue, where are related in a lively manner the adventures of the pilgrims in Canterbury and their visit to the cathedral (ed. Furnivall and Stone, Chaucer Society, 1876-87, 8vo); Henryson adds a canto to "Troilus" (below p. 507). Other poems are so much in the style of Chaucer that they were long attributed to him: "The Court of Love"; "The Flower and the Leaf"; "The Isle of Ladies, or Chaucer's Dream," &c. They are found in the Morris edition of Chaucer's works. All these poems are of the fifteenth century.

[829] Born about 1370, at Lydgate, near Newmarket; sojourned in Paris in 1426, died in 1446, or soon after. Concerning the chronological order of his works, and his versification, see "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," ed. J. Schick, Early English Text Society, 1891, Introduction. His "Troy Book" is of 1412-20; his "Story of Thebes," of 1420-22; his translation of Deguileville, of 1426-30; his "Fall of Princes" was written about 1430.

[830] He gave an English version of the famous story called in French, "Le Lai de l'Oiselet" (ed. G. Paris, 1884): "The Chorle and the Byrde."

[831] Ex. his picturesque "London Lickpenny."

[832] Same idea as in Villon; refrain:

All stant in chaunge like a mydsomer rose,

Halliwell, "Selections from Lydgate," 1840, p. 25.

[833] "Lydgate's AEsopuebersetzung," ed. Sauerstein; "Anglia," 1866, p. 1; eight fables. He excuses himself:

Have me excused, I was born in Lydegate, Of Tullius gardyn I entrid nat the gate. (p. 2.)

[834]

O ye maysters, that cast shal yowre looke Upon this dyte made in wordis playne, Remembre sothely that I the refreyn tooke Of hym that was in makyng soverayne, My maister, Chaucier, chief poete of Bretayne.

Halliwell, "Selections from ... Lydgate," 1840, p. 128. Similar praise in the "Serpent of Division" (in prose). See L. Toulmin Smith, "Gorboduc," Heilbronn, 1883, p. xxi.

[835] The British Museum possesses a splendid copy of it (Royal 18 D ii., with miniatures of the time of the Renaissance, see above, p. 303). The E.E.T.S. is preparing, 1894, an edition of it; there exist previous ones, the first of which is of 1500, "Here begynneth ... the Storye of Thebes," London, 4to.

[836] "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," ed. J. Schick, 1891, 8vo, Early English Text Society.

[837] First edition: "Here begynnethe the boke calledde John Bochas, descrivinge the Falle of Princes." [1494], folio.

[838]

Myn hand gan tremble, my penne I felte quake ... I stode chekmate for feare whan I gan see, In my way how little I had runne.

"Fall of Princes," prologue to Book iii., Schick, "Story of Thebes," p. cv.

[839] Example, fight between Ulysses and Troilus:

He smote Ulyxes throughout his viser ... But Ulyxes tho lyke a manly man, Of that stroke astoned not at all, But on his stede, stiffe as any wall, With his swerde so mightely gan race, Through the umber into Troylus face, That he him gave a mortal wounde,

of which, naturally, Troilus does not die. "The auncient historie ... of the Warres, betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans," London, 1555, 4to, Book iii., chap xxii. First edition, 1513. The work had been composed for Henry V. and at his request. Thomas Heywood gave a modernised version of it: "The Life and Death of Hector," 1614.

[840] Ed. Zupitza, Early English Text Society.

[841] A selection of his detached poems, mixed with many apocryphal ones, was edited by Halliwell: "A Selection from the minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate" (Percy Society), 1840, 8vo.

[842] "Troy Book"; in Schick, "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," p. lvi. In his learned essay Mr. Schick pleads extenuating circumstances in favour of Lydgate.

[843] This appeal to Chaucer is in itself quite touching; here it is:

For he that was grounde of well sayinge, In all his lyfe hyndred no makyng, My maister Chaucer yt founde ful many spot Hym list not pynche nor grutche at every blot.... Sufferynge goodly of his gentilnesse, Full many thynge embraced with rudenesse, And if I shall shortly hym discrive, Was never none to thys daye alive, To reken all bothe of yonge and olde, That worthy was his ynkehorne for to holde.

"The Auncient Historie," London, 1554, 4to, Book v. chap, xxxviii.

[844] Thomas Hoccleve was born about 1368-9 and entered the "Privy Seal" in 1387-8; he died about 1450. His works are being published by the Early English Text Society: "Hoccleve's Works," 1892, 8vo; I., "The Minor Poems." His great poem, "De Regimine principum," has been edited by Th. Wright, Roxburghe Club, 1860, 4to. Two or three of his tales in verse are imitated from the "Gesta Romanorum"; another, the "Letter of Cupid," from the "Epistre an Dieu d'Amours," of Christine de Pisan. "Hoccleve's metre is poor, so long as he can count ten syllables by his fingers he is content." Furnivall, "Minor Poems," p. xli.

[845] It seems like nothing, he says, but just try and see:

Many men, fadir, wennen that writynge No travaile is; thei hold it but a game ... But who-so list disport hym in that same, Let hym continue and he shall fynd it grame; It is wel gretter labour than it seemeth.

("Minor Poems," p. xvii.)

[846] "La Male Regle de Thomas Hoccleve," in the "Minor Poems," pp. 25 ff.

[847]

Al-thogh his lyfe be queynt, the resemblaunce Of him hath me so fressh lyflynesse, That, to putte othir men in remembraunce Of his persone, I have heere his lyknesse Do make, to this ende, in sothfastnesse, That thei that have of him lest thought and mynde, By this peynture may ageyn him fynde.

("Minor Poems," p. xxxiii.; on this portrait see above, p. 341.)

[848] "Poetical Remains of James I. of Scotland," ed. Ch. Rogers, Edinburgh, 1873. The "King's Quhair" is found entire in Eyre Todd: "Abbotsford series of the Scotch poets," Glasgow, 1891, 3 vols, Cf. "Le roman d'un roi d'Ecosse," with details from an unprinted MS., Paris, 1894.

[849] Though used by others before him, and especially by Chaucer; they rhyme a b a b b c c. Chaucer wrote in this metre "Troilus," "Parlement of Foules," &c. Here is an example, consisting in the commendation of the book to Chaucer and Gower:

Unto [the] impnis of my maisteris dere, Gowere and Chaucere, that on the steppis satt Of rethorike quhill thai were lyvand here, Superlative as poetis laureate, In moralitee and eloquence ornate, I recommend my buk in lynis sevin, And eke thair soulis un-to the blisse of hevin.

[850] "The Actis and Deidis of ... Schir William Wallace, Knicht of Ellerslie," by Henry the Minstrel, commonly known as Blind Harry, ed. J. Moir, Edinburgh, 1884-99, Scottish Text Society. Blind Harry died towards the end of the fifteenth century.

[851] Henryson was born before 1425, and wrote under James II. and James III. of Scotland; he was professor, perhaps schoolmaster, at Dunfermline. His works have been edited by David Laing, Edinburgh, 1865.

[852] "The Works of Gavin Douglas," ed. J. Small, Edinburgh, 1874, 4 vols. 8vo. Born in 1474-5, died in 1522. He finished his "Palice of Honour" in 1501, an allegorical poem resembling the ancient models: May morning, Vision of Diana, Venus and their trains, descriptions of the Palace of Honour, &c. We shall find, at the Renaissance, Douglas a translator of Virgil; his AEneid was printed only in 1553.

[853] Born about 1460, studies at St. Andrews, becomes a mendicant friar and is ordained priest, sojourns in France, where the works of Villon had just been printed, then returns to the Court of James IV., where he is very popular. He died probably after 1520. "The Poems of William Dunbar," ed. Small and Mackay, Edinburgh, Scottish Text Society.

[854] See, for example, his "Lament for the Makaris quhen he wes seik," a kind of "Ballade des poetes du temps jadis," a style which Lydgate and Villon had already furnished models of. In it he weeps:

The noble Chaucer, of makaris flouir, The monk of Bery and Gower all three.

[855] Beginning of the "Thrissil and the Rois" (to be compared with the opening of the "Canterbury Tales"):

Quhen March wes with variand windis past, And Appryl had, with his silver schouris, Tane leif at Nature with ane orient blast, And lusty May, that muddir is of flouris, Had maid the birdis to begyn their houris Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt, Quhois armony to heir it was delyt....

[856] Text in the Morris edition of Chaucer's poetical works, London, Aldine poets, vol. iv.

[857] Principal work to consult: F. J. Child, "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads," Boston, 1882. See above, p. 352.

[858] In "Bishop Percy's Folio MS.," ed. Hales and Furnivall, London, Ballad Society, 1867, 8vo.

[859] Text, e.g., in Skeat, "Specimens of English Literature," Oxford, 4th ed. 1887, p. 96, written, under the form in which we now have it, about the end of the fifteenth century.

[860]

The pillers of yvery garnished with golde, With perles sette and brouded many a folde, The flore was paved with stones precious, &c.

Stephen Hawes, "Pastime of Pleasure," Percy Society, 1845, p. 125.

[861] "A History of Agriculture and Prices," vol. iv., Oxford, 1882, p. 19. See also the important chapters on Industry and Commerce in Mrs. Green's "Town Life in the XVth Century," London, 1894, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. i. chaps. ii. and iii.

[862] This title, since conferred upon the Russells, had been given to George Neville. The king, who had intended to endow the new duke in a proper manner, had given up the idea; and on the other hand, "as it is openly knowen that the same George hath not, nor by enheritance mey have, eny lyffelode to support the seid name, estate and dignite, or eny name of estate; and oft time it is sen that when eny lord is called to high estate and have not liffelode conveniently to support the same dignite, it induces gret poverty, indigens, and causes oftymes grete extortion, embracere and mayntenaunce to be had.... Wherfore the kyng, by the advyse ... [&c.] exactith that fro hensfforth the same erection and making of Duke, and all the names of dignite guyffen to the seid George, or the seid John Nevele his fader, be from hens fors voyd and of no effecte." 17 Ed. IV. year 1477, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. vi. p. 173.

[863] See "Stans puer ad mensam," by Lydgate, printed by Caxton:

T' enboce thi jowes with brede it is not due ... Thy teth also ne pike not with the knyff ... The best morsell, have this in remembraunce, Hole to thiself alway do not applye.

Hazlitt, "Remains," 1864, vol. iii. p. 23. Many other treatises on etiquette cooking, &c. See chiefly: "The Babes Book ... The Book of Norture," &c., ed. Furnivall, 1868, 8vo; "Two fifteenth century Cookery Books," ed. T. Austin, 1888, 8vo; "The Book of quinte essence," about 1460-70, ed. Furnivall, 1866 (medical recipes); "Palladius on husbondrie ..." about 1420, ed. Lodge, 1872-9 (on orchards and gardens); "The Book of the Knight of la Tour Landry ... translated in the reign of Henry VI.," ed. T. Wright, 1868, 8vo (the whole published by the Early English Text Society).

[864] "The Paston Letters," 1422-1509, ed. J. Gairdner, 1872, 3 vols. 8vo.

[865] Or in the worthy Margaret's spelling: "Yf I mythe have had my wylle, I xulde a seyne yow er dystyme; I wolde ye wern at hom, yf it wer your ese, and your sor myth ben as wyl lokyth to her as it tys there ye ben, now lever dan a goune thow it wer of scarlette." (Sept 28, 1443, vol. i. p. 49).

[866] Sept. 21, 1465, vol. ii. p. 237.

[867] E.g., "The Itineraries of William Wey" (pilgrimages), London, Roxburghe Club, 1857; much practical information; specimens of conversations in Greek, &c.; "The Stacions of Rome," ed. Furnivall, E.E.T.S, 1868 (on Rome and Compostella).

[868] See among others: "Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies," by Th. Wright, ed. Wuelcker, London, 1884, 2 vols. 8vo; "Promptorium Parvulorum, sive clericorum ... circa A.D. 1440," ed. Albert Way, Camden Society, 1865, 4to, by Geoffrey the Grammarian, a Dominican of Norfolk; "Catholicon Anglicum, an English Latin wordbook, dated 1483," ed. Herrtage, E.E.T.S., 1881, 8vo.

[869] In the "Political Poems," ed. Th. Wright, Rolls, vol. ii. p. 157. Probable date, 1436. Cf. the "Debat des herauts de France et d'Angleterre," (written about 1456), ed. P. Meyer, Societe des Anciens Textes, 1877, 8vo; on the navy, p. 9.

[870] "De Dominio regali et politico." In it he treats of (chap. i.) "the difference between Dominium regale and Dominium politicum et regale," a difference that consists principally in this, that in the second case the king "may not rule hys people by other lawys than such as they assenten unto." Fortescue was born about 1395, and died after 1476. He wrote in Latin a treatise, "De natura Legis Naturae," and another, "De laudibus Legum Angliae."—"Works of Sir John Fortescue ... now first collected," by Thomas [Fortescue] Lord Clermont, London, 1869, 2 vols. 4to.

[871] Chaps. xii. and xiii., vol. i. pp. 465 ff.

[872] In his principal work, the "Repressor of over much blaming of the Clergy," ed. Babington, Rolls, 1860, 2 vols. 8vo. Pecock was born about 1395; he was a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, bishop of St. Asaph, then bishop of Chichester. He wrote, besides the "Repressor," a quantity of works ("Donet"; "Book of Faith"; "Follower of Donet," &c., unpublished), also in English prose. The Church found that he went too far, and allotted too great a part to reason; his writings were condemned and burnt; he was relegated to the abbey of Thorney in 1459, and died there a short time after.

[873] "Repressor," i, ch. xix.

[874] "The Boke of St. Albans, by Dame Juliana Berners, containing treatises on hawking, hunting and cote armour, printed at St. Albans, by the Schoolmaster printer in 1486, reproduced in fac simile," by W. Blades, London, 1881, 4to (partly in verse and partly in prose; adapted from the French).—"A Chronicle of England" (from the creation to 1417), by Capgrave, born in 1394, died in 1464, ed. Hingeston, Rolls, 1858. (Of the same, a "Liber de illustribus Henricis," in Latin, ed. Hingeston, Rolls, 1858, and other works; see above, p. 496.) "A Book of the noble Historyes of Kynge Arthur and of certen of his Knyghtes," printed by Caxton in 1485; reprinted with notes ("Le Morte Darthur," by Sir Thomas Malory) by O. Sommer and Andrew Lang, London, 1889, 2 vols. 8vo. Malory and Caxton will be mentioned again in connection with the Renaissance.

[875] The "Testament of Love," in English prose. It has been attributed to Chaucer. Mr. Skeat has shown, by deciphering an anagram, that the author's name was Kitsun: "Margaret of Virtw have mercy on Kitsun" (Academy, March 11, 1893).

[876] He has not observed, he admits, "the strict laws of time," and he has introduced no chorus; but it is not his fault. "Nor is it needful, or almost possible in these our times, and to such auditors as commonly things are presented, to observe the old state and splendor of dramatic poems, with preservation of any popular delight."—To the readers.

[877] H. Vast, "Le Cardinal Bessarion," Paris, 1878, 8vo, p. 14.



INDEX.

Abbeys, 158 ff.

A. B. C., 275.

Abel, 475.

Abelard, 170, 461.

Abernun, P. d', 120.

Abraham and Isaac, a play, 466.

Abstractions, personified, 218, 331, 490.

Achilles, 129, 310.

Acta Sanctorum, 470.

Actors, 446 ff., 467 ff.

Adam, in Anglo-Saxon Bible, 72, and Eve, 359; 381, a mystery, 468 ff., 474 ff.

Adam, "scriveyn," 339.

Addison, 296.

Adgar, 123.

Adrian IV., pope, 111, 188.

AElfric, 45, 88 ff., 205, 449.

Aelred of Rievaulx, 154, 193, 213, 445 ff.

AEneas the Trojan, 114, 129, 295, see "Eneas."

AEsop, 508.

AEthelberht, 61.

AEthelred, 79.

AEthelstan, 28, 46, 93.

AEthelwold, 88.

AEthelwulf, 63.

Aetius, 26.

Agricola, 20.

Ailill, 13.

Aimer, 147.

Aix, Albert d', 409.

Alaric, 26.

Albin, St., 220.

Alchemist, in Chaucer, 325, 327.

Alcuin, 65 ff., 81, 82.

Aldhelm, 66, his riddles, 72.

"Alemanni," 25.

Alexander, romances on, 127 ff.; 222.

Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, 162.

Alfred the Great, 27, 28, 61, 63, life and works, 79 ff.; 243.

Alienor of Aquitaine, 112.

Alienor of Provence, 112, 454.

Allegories, in Roman de la Rose, 276 ff.

Allen, Grant, on Germanic names, 31, on Norman names, 244.

Alliteration, in Anglo-Saxon and in French, 37 ff., in Aldhelm, 66, after the Conquest, 205 ff.; 245, Chaucer's opinion about, 339; 348, 351, in Langland, 401.

Ambrose, companion of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 121.

America, discovered, 491.

Amis and Amile, 142, 229.

Ammianus Marcellinus, 32, 114.

Anatomy of Abuses, 346.

Anchoresses, 153, 211 ff.

Ancren Riwle, 211 ff., 218, 247.

Anderida, 30.

Andreas, 39, 69, 73 ff.

Anelida see Complaint.

Angevin England, literature of, Bk. ii. c. ii., iii., iv., 116 ff.; survives in Gower, 364.

Angle, Sir Guichard d', 284.

Angles, 22, 25, 27, 84.

"Angli," 20.

Anglo-Saxons, their name, 28, vocabulary, 29, national poetry, Bk. i. c. iii., 36 ff., Mss. and art of, 45, 63, 65, despondency of, 47 ff., 56 ff., their idea of death, 57 ff., their Christian literature, Bk. i. c. iv., 60 ff., their internal divisions, 93, how transformed by Norman conquest, 203 ff., 250, mind and genius of, 300, 316, 344, 402, Chaucer and the, 338 ff.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 46, 47, 62, 86 ff., on Hastings, 100, 103, on William, 105 ff.

Anne of Bohemia, 265, 454 ff.

Annebaut, R. d', 120.

Anselm, St., 165, 193, 198.

Antenor, the Trojan, 113.

Antigone of Sophocles, 34.

Antiocheis, 176.

Antoninus Pius, 19, 20.

Apelles, 286, 294.

Apollinia, life of St., and drama on, 470 ff.

Apollonius of Tyre, in A.S., 79.

Appius and Virginia, 325, 330.

Aquinas, St. Thomas, 165.

Arabian Nights, 496.

Arbois de Jubainville, d', on Celts, 5 ff.

Arc, Joan of, 256, 354, 459.

Architecture, of the Anglo-Saxons, 63, Norman, 107, perpendicular, 261, with "pinnacles," 297; 353, of Westminster Hall, 414.

Argentille, 223.

Argyropoulos, 523.

Ariosto, 17, 97.

Aristotle, 120, 165, 173, 194, 380.

"Armachanus," see Fitzralph.

Armenia, 201.

Armorica, 33.

"Army," the Danish, 80.

Arnold, T., on Beowulf, 48, on Wyclif, 432.

Art: Henry III.'s style, 200, 262, gold and silver tablets, cups, &c., 258 ff., pictures, 258, 262, miniatures, 259, tapestries, 262, embroidery, 264, statue from the nude, 265, painted walls and stained glass, 280, in Italy, 285 ff., antique, 287 ff., portrait of Chaucer, 341, 503, favoured by Plantagenets, 353 ff., tomb of Gower, 365, Malvern Church, 376, picture by Fouquet, 470 ff., fresco at Stratford-on-Avon, 494; see Architecture, Miniatures.

Arthur, King, early songs on, 32; 112, 113, 127; cycle of, 131 ff.; 177, in Layamon, 220 ff.; 222, 226, 348 ff.

Ass, feast of the, 452.

Asser, 81, 82.

Astree, 139.

Astrolabe, 337, 341, 411.

Attila, 26, 44, 48.

Aucassin, 227, 404, 503.

Augier, of St. Frideswide's, 123.

Augustine, comes to England, 60 ff.

Augustus, the emperor, 129, 481, 486.

Aungerville, Sir R., 166.

Ausonius, 33.

Avebury, circles at, 4.

Avesbury, Robert of, 174, 201.

Avignon, 158, 391, 420.

Avit, St., bishop of Vienna, 75.

Ayenbite of Inwyt, 214.

Aymon, 156.

Bacchanals, 449 ff.

Bacchus, theatre of, 476.

Bacon, Roger, 165, 193, 194.

"Badin," on the stage, 492.

Bailey, Harry, of the "Tabard," 316 ff., 321 ff., 341.

Balade de bon Conseyl, 341.

Balduf, 221.

Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, 176, 177, 198.

John Ball, priest, 359, 368, 401, 413, 491.

Ballads, by Chaucer, 271, on Griselda, 332; 352 ff., by Gower, 366 ff.; 512, see "Chansons," and Songs.

Ballets, 456.

Barbour, J., 361 ff., 507.

Bards, Celtic, 10.

Barking, Clemence of, 123.

Barry, Gerald de, on Welshmen, 10; 19, 117, 134, 176, 192, 198.

Barry, Richard de, 203.

Barry, William de, 198.

Bartholomew, St., life of, in A.S., 91.

Bartholomew the Englishman, 169, 195, 225, 406.

Bath, ruins at, 19, 59.

"Battle," Bk. ii. c. i., 97 ff.

Battle abbey, 102 ff.

Bavaria, Isabeau of, 455.

Bayard, a horse, 271.

Bayeux tapestry, 100.

Beauchamp, family of, 109.

Beaufort, Jane, 504.

Beaumont, Louis de, bishop of Durham, 162.

Beauty, physical, 264, Chaucer's idea of, 292; 353 ff.

Beauveau, Pierre de, 311, 354.

Becket, St. Thomas, life in French, 123; 156, 165, 188 ff., 208, 319.

Bede, 57, 62, life and works, 66 ff., 81, translated by Alfred, 82 ff.; 205, 220.

Bedford, George Neville, duke of, 515.

Bedier, on fabliaux, 142.

Bello Trojano, De, 176.

Beowulf, 37 ff., 45, 47, analysis of, 48 ff., compared with Roland, 54 ff.; 99, 219, 338.

Bercheur, Pierre, 183.

Berger, S., on Bible, 433.

Berkeley, Edward of, 284.

Bernard, St., 188, 191.

Berners, Dame Juliana, 522.

Bernlak de Haut Desert, 350.

Berou, author of a Tristan, 134.

Berry, Jean duc de, 76.

Beryn, tale of, 320.

Bessarion, 168, 525.

Bestiaire d'Amour, 123.

Bestiaries, 76, 123, 214, 276, 409.

Betenham, William, 312.

Bevis of Hampton, 223.

Bible, in Anglo-Saxon, 71 ff., by AElfric, 87, in English, in French, 207; 315, quoted in Parliament, 415 ff., translated by Wyclif, 432 ff., dramatised, 489, Pecock on, 521.

"Bibles," moral works, 366.

Biblesworth, Walter de, 237.

Bigod, 250, 109.

Biquet, Robert, 226.

Biscop, Benedict, 66.

Bishops, warrior, learned, saintly, 162 ff.

Blacke, Anthony, 256.

Black Prince, 232, 242, 262, 264, 284, 425.

Blanket, of Bristol, 256.

Blickling Homilies, 45, 88 ff.

Boccaccio, 143, 268, 282, 288 ff., 299 ff., 320 ff., 332, 370 ff., 499.

Body and Soul, debate of, 230.

Boece, translated by Alfred, 82, 84 ff.; 165, 175, translated by Chaucer, 291; 339, 411, 490, 505.

Bohemia, heresies in, 438.

Bohemond, of Antioch, 107.

Boehler, Peter, 438.

Bohun, 109, 250.

Boileau, 330, 473.

Boke of Nurture, 264, of St. Albans, 522.

Boldensele, William of, 409.

Bollandus, 470.

Bonaventure, St., 214.

Boncuor, William de, 272.

Boniface, St., 64, 65, 68.

Boniface VIII., 432.

Book of Cupid, 279, of the Duchesse, 272, 279 ff., 499, of Nurture, 264, of St. Albans, 522.

"Boern," 44.

Bossert, on Tristan, 135 ff.

Bourgogne, Jean de, a la barbe, 407 ff.

Bourse pleine de sens, 226.

Bozon Nicole, 118, 123.

Bracton, H. de, 196, 235, 254.

Bradford-on-Avon, Anglo-Saxon Church at, 63.

Bradshaigh, lady, 333.

Bradshaw, on Chaucer, 324 ff.

Bradwardine, archbishop, 193, 194.

Brakelonde, Jocelin de, 124.

Brampton, Thomas, 496.

Brandan, St., 209, 210.

Brantingham, Thomas de, 452.

Breakspeare, Nicolas, 111, 188.

Brescia, Albertano de, 325, 331.

Bretigny, peace of, 271, 391.

Britain, Celtic, Bk. i. c. i., 3 ff.

Britons, 7 ff., not destroyed by Anglo-Saxons, 29 ff.; 177, "gentil," 330, 338.

Brittany, its literature, 13, how populated, 33; 132.

Broker, Nicolas, 265.

Bromyard, John of, 183.

Brooke, Stopford, 39, 72.

Browning, Robert, 342, and Preface.

Bruce, David, 115.

Bruce, the, 361.

Brunanburh, ode on, 46.

Brunne, see Mannyng.

Brut of Layamon, 219 ff.

Brutus the Trojan, 112, 114.

Bukton, 341.

Bunyan, 57, 216, 382.

Burgundy, Henry of, 107.

Burnellus, the ass, 178.

Burns, Robert, 510.

Burton, Thomas of, 266.

Bury, Richard of, 166 ff., 169, 175, 188, 202, 203.

Byrhtnoth, 47.

Byron, lord, 38, 139.

Caedmon, 45, 68, life and works, 70 ff.

Caesar, on Celts, 6, 7, 11, 18, on Germans, 23; 29, 222.

Cain, 475.

Callisthenes, pseudo, 128, 129.

Cambinscan, 325.

Cambrensis, see Barry.

Cambridge, University of, 173 ff.

Canterbury, Gervase of, 202.

" Thomas of, 258.

Canterbury Tales, 245, 296, 313 ff., 373, 497, 499, 511.

Canynges, of Bristol, 515.

Capet, Hugues, 99.

Capgrave, 496, 522.

Caracalla, 19.

Carlyle, T., 87.

Carols, 349.

Carpenter's Tools, 230, 443.

Cartaphilus, 201.

Castle of Love, 214.

Castle of Perseverance, 491.

Castoiement d'un pere a son fils, 370, 447.

Cathedrals, Norman, 107 ff., 124, 162.

Catherine, life of St., 459, drama on St., 459 ff.

Cato on Gauls, 9.

Causa Dei, De, 194.

Caxton, 152, 342, 366, 372, 406, 515, 521, 522.

Ceadwalla, 63.

Celestinus, 185.

Cecile, St., see Lyf of.

Celts, name, origin, literature, religion of the, 5 ff.; fate after the A.S. conquest, 29 ff., their ideal, 210, wit and genius, 300, 402, in Scotland, 503.

Cemeteries, dances in, 448 ff.

Cento Novelle Antiche, 325.

Cervantes, 97, 133, 141, 330.

Champeaux, Guillaume de, 170.

Chanson de Roland, 54 ff., 125 ff., 146, 156, 273.

Chansons, French, 142 ff., 148, sung in London, 355 ff.

Chantecleer, the cock, 149 ff., 325, 328 ff.

Chanteloup, Walter de, 444, 449.

Chantries, 378 ff.

Chap-books, 225, 506.

Chapelain, Andre le, 140.

Chapu, Guillaume, 120.

Chardry, 123.

Charisius, 9.

Charlemagne, 35, 61, 65 ff., 79, 99, 125; caricatured, 146 ff.; 156, 222, 441.

Charles the Bald, 63.

Charles V. of France, 171, 195, 259.

" VI. ", 456.

" V. of Germany, 101.

Charnay, Henri de, inquisitor, 159.

Chastoiement des Dames, 230.

Chateau d'Amour, 213.

Chaucer, Alice, 354.

" Geoffrey, his "somnour," 161; 182, 215, 218, 225, 232, 240, 244; life and works, Bk. iii. c. ii., 267 ff., his contemporaries, Bk. iii. c. iii., 344 ff.; 369; compared with Langland, 372 ff, 388 ff., 392, 402; 379, 382, 422; on miracle plays, 461, 469, 478, 490; successors and imitators, Bk. iii. c. vii., 495 ff.

Chaucer, John, 268.

" Philippa, 272.

" Thomas, 273, 354.

"Chaucer Society," 343.

Cheldric, 221.

Cheriton, Odo de, 178.

Chester Plays, 465 ff., their end, 492.

Chester, Randolf, earl of, 359.

Chestre, Thomas, 230.

"Chests," at the University, 175.

Chettle, 332.

Chevy Chase, 512.

Chienne qui pleure, 154, 184, 225 ff., 447 ff.

Child, Prof., on ballads, 353.

Chimneys, 262.

Chlochilaicus, 50.

Christ, 72, 75.

Christianity, in Roman England, 18, in Anglo-Saxon England, 30, 57, 60 ff.

Christmas, how celebrated, 450 ff., plays, 457 ff.

Chronicles, Anglo-Norman, 113 ff., 121, Latin, 166 ff., 197 ff., in the XVth century, 496 ff.

Chrysococces, 523.

Chrysoloras, 523.

Church, the English, 157 ff., Wyclif on, 423 ff., 430 ff., decaying in the XVth century, 497.

Cicero, 168, 498.

Cirencester, Richard of, 202.

Claris Mulieribus, De, 294.

Clarissa Harlowe, 333, 484.

Classic influences and models, 166, 374.

Claudian, 295, 297.

Claudius the emperor, 18, 19.

"Clavilegno," 330.

Cleges, 226.

Cleomades, 325.

Cleopatra, on the stage, 129.

Clerc, Guillaume le, 123, 483.

Clerk of Oxford, Chaucer's, 314, 325, 332 ff.

Clerks, slothful, 167 ff., at the University, 169 ff., belong to the Latin country, 176 ff.

Clovis, 26, a Romanised barbarian, 34, 50, 99.

Cnut the Dane, 93, 112, 113.

Coal mines, 255.

Cobham, Thomas de, 175.

Cobsam, Adam de, 496.

Cochin, H., on Boccaccio, 288.

Codex Exoniensis, 45.

Codex Vercellensis, 45.

Coenewulf, 66.

Coggeshall, Radulphus de, 195, 202.

Coinci, Gautier de, 325.

Coins, Anglo-Saxon, 79.

Cokaygne, 226.

Cokwolds' Dance, 226.

Coleridge, S. T., 42.

Colgrim, 220.

Colonna, Gui de, 299.

Columba, St., 63.

Comedy, scenes of, 484 ff.

Comestor, Pierre, 215, 409.

Cominges, Count de, 202.

Commines, 250, 255.

Commons, of England, 250 ff., 266, Langland on the, 389 ff.

Complaint of Anelida, 292, 294, of a Lover's Life, 279, unto Pite, 272, 279, of the Plowman, 401, of Venus, 275, 341.

Communism, Wyclif on, 430 ff.

Comus, 456.

Conchobar, 11 ff.

Conde, Baudouin de, 445.

" Jean de, 444.

Confessio Amantis, 365, 366, 369 ff.

"Confreres de la Passion," 480, 493.

Conquest, Norman-French, Bk. ii., 95 ff., silence after the, 204 ff.

Constance, Chaucer's Story of, 325, 331, 335.

Constant du Hamel, 496.

Constantius Chlorus, 19.

Constantine the Great, 20.

Constantine XII., 524.

Constantinople, taken by the Turks, 524.

Conte des Hiraus, 445.

Corbichon, Jean, translates Bartholomew the Englishman, 195, 225.

Cook, Captain, 7.

Cookery, 263 ff., 516.

Cordier, H., on Mandeville, 407, 409.

Corneille, Pierre, 156, 471.

Cornelius Gallus, 33.

Cornelius, Nepos, 176, 191.

Cornish drama, 466.

Cornwall, Celtic, 32, 132.

Corpus Christi plays, 459.

Corpus Poeticum Boreale, 40 ff.

Cotton, Bartholomew de, 202.

Cotton, John, a painter, 258.

Councils, on the drama, 440 ff., 449.

Coupe Enchantee, 226.

Court, amusements at, 441 ff., fool, 441 ff., dramas, 476, poetry, 353 ff., 366 ff.

Court of Love, 279, 497, 512.

Courtenay, embroiderer, 264.

Courtenay, bishop of London, 426.

Courtesy, books of, 515 ff.

Courtin, Honore, ambassador, 255.

Coventry Mysteries and pageants, 465 ff.

Cowper, William, 57.

Coxe, Brinton, on Bracton, 196.

Credon, Sir Richard, 275.

Cressida, 301 ff., see Troilus.

Croniques de London, 119, 242.

Cuchulainn, 11 ff.

Cursor Mundi, 215 ff., 222, 225, 260.

Cuthberht, 64, 67, 68.

Cuthwine, 67.

Cycles of France, Rome and Britain, 125 ff.

Cynewulf, 39, 70, works and genius of, 72 ff., 92.

Daisy, praise of the, 275 ff.

Dalila, 372.

Dame Siriz, 225 ff.

Danes, place names recalling them, 80; 120.

Dante, 118, 128, 154, 169, 186, 206, 288, 290, 294 ff., 325 ff., 330, 393.

Dares the Phrygian, 128 ff., 134, 297, 299.

David, King, 272.

Davidson, Ch., on Mysteries, 466.

Davy Adam, 360.

Deadly Sins, in Langland, 386.

Death, Celts' idea of, 7 ff., Greeks', 7 ff., Frenchmen's, 57 ff., Anglo-Saxons', 56 ff., 74, Rolle of Hampole's, 218, Black Prince's, 353; an occasion for jokes, 449, on the stage, 490, 491.

Debat des Herauts de France et d'Angleterre, 517.

Decameron, 287, 320 ff., 325.

Defoe, 162, 224, 407.

Degrevant, 347.

Deguileville, 275, 498, 500.

Dekker, 332.

Delisle, Leopold, on Bartholomew the Englishman, 195.

Des Champs, Eustache, 257, 275, on Chaucer, 278, on diplomatic service, 282; 289, 340, 360.

Deor, 38, 59.

Departed Soul's Address, 75.

Derdriu, 15 ff.

Dermot, 121.

Despencer, Henry le, bishop of Norwich, 164.

Devil, described by AElfric, 90, and St. Dunstan, 209, tempts Rolle of Hampole, 217, on the stage, 471, 475.

Dialect, of Chaucer, 338 ff., of Langland, 401, Scotch, 503.

Dialogues, in Celtic Literature, 13 ff., in Anglo-Saxon, 75, in Latin, 187, 191, in Troilus, 303; 442 ff., after dinner, 444, in interludes, 446 ff., in pageants, 454 ff., in Mysteries, 477 ff., in Roman de la Rose, 490.

Dialogus de Scaccario, 196.

Diceto, Radulph de, 202.

Dictys of Crete, 128 ff.

Diderot, 328.

Dido (in Chaucer), 295.

Dietrich, 72.

Digby Mysteries, 466 ff.

Diodorus Siculus, 101.

"Dirige," 379.

Disobedient Child, 491.

"Disputoisons" or Debates, 144, 230, 441 ff.

Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum, 191.

"Doctors," 193 ff.

Dogmas, attacked by Wyclif, 425, 435 ff.

Domesday Book, 100, 104 ff., 158.

Dominicans, 159 ff.

"Dominium" Fitzralph and Wyclif on, 429.

Domitius Afer, 33.

Donatus, 175.

Dormi Secure, 354.

Douglas, Gavin, 510.

"Dowel, Dobet, Dobest," 375 ff., 387, 395, 400.

Dragons and monsters, 50, 55 ff.

Drama, Bk. iii. c. vi., 439 ff.; civil 439 ff., religious, 456 ff.

Dramatic genius of the Celts, 13.

Dreams, Chaucer and Addison on, 296, Davy's, 367, Gower's, 368, poets', 497.

Dresemius, S., 117.

Druids, 9 ff.

Dryden, 343.

Duchesse, see Book of.

Dujon, see Junius.

Dunbar, 372, 503, 507, life and works, 510, 513.

Dunstable, play at, 460.

Dunstan, St., 88 ff., 209, 210, 217.

Durham, Simeon of, 202.

" William of, 175.

Duries, J., a scribe, 195.

Duties of a Parish Priest, 496.

Eadgar child, 103.

Eadmer, 198.

Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter, 76.

Eadwine, earl, 103.

Ealdred, archbishop of York, 103.

Ealwhine (Alcuin), 65.

Earle, on A.S. Literature, 39, on Beowulf, 48, on A.S. Chronicle, 87.

Easter, origin of the name, 62, drama, 457 ff.

Ecgberht, 68.

Ecgferth, 87.

Ecole des Maris, 324.

Edda, 40 ff.

Edgar, king, 87, 88 ff.

Edgeworth, Miss, 332.

Edmund, St., 113, 209.

Edrisi, 129.

Eduini, king, 57.

Edward, king, the confessor, 97, 111, life of, in French, 123; 208.

Edward I., 250, 270, 421, 443, 506.

" II., 108, 163, 194, 236, 253, 259, 260, 360, 384, 452.

Edward III., 232, 235, 247, 249, 256, 264, 266, 272, 284, 360 ff., 406, 415, 495.

Edward IV., 513 ff.

Eginhard, 24, 46.

Eglamour, 347.

Ekkehard, 48.

Elene, 72 ff.

Elizabeth, queen, 372.

" wife of Lionel son of Edward III., 270.

Eloi, St., 209.

Eneas, 130.

England, first inhabitants of, 3 ff., between northern and southern civilisations, 97 ff., described by Robert of Gloucester, 122, "merry," 225, 232, 260, 267, 345, to the English, Bk. iii., 232 ff., trade and navy of, 255 ff., Chaucer's, 314 ff., threatening and threatened, 360, 363, Langland's, 374 ff., 389, parliamentary, 413 ff.

"Englescherie," presentment of, 235.

English, literature, under Norman and Angevin kings, 204 ff., revived, 216; use of, by upper classes, 219 ff., authors adopt French tastes, 219 ff., fusion of, with French, 235 ff., people, how formed, 247 ff., Chaucer's, 337, Gower's, 369, used in Parliament, 421 ff., Wyclif's, 432, dramas, 460 ff., spoken in Scotland, 503, pride, 518.

Enoch, 227, 475.

Eostra, the goddess, 62.

Epinal Glossary, 45.

Erceldoune, Thomas of, his prophecies, 141.

Estorie des Engles, 113 ff.

"Estrifs," 230, 443, see Disputoisons.

Eulogium Historiarum, 197.

Euphuism, 38.

Eutrope, 120.

Everyman, 491.

"Exempla," 153 ff., 182 ff.

Exeter, Joseph of, 37, 176 ff., 181, 191.

Eyck, van, 352.

Eyrum, Robert de, 176.

Fables, Latin, 178, by Lydgate, 498, by Henryson, 508 ff.

"Fabliaux," French, 118, 152 ff., Latin, 183, 184, English, 225 ff., 325, 442 ff., turned into dramas, 447, of the XVth century, 496, 498.

Fahlbeck, on Geatas, 51.

Falle of Princes, 498 ff.

Fals Semblant, 397 ff., 490.

Falstofe, Sir J., 262.

Fame, see Hous of.

Fantosme, Jordan, 118.

Fasciculi Zizaniorum, 425, 428, 431, 435.

Fashions, 265, ridiculed, 358.

Fates of the Apostles, 72.

Ferumbras, 223.

Fielding, H., 224, 336, 517.

Figaro, 151, 229.

"File," 11.

Filocopo, 325.

Filostrato, 294, 299 ff.

Finsburg, song on the battle of, 47.

Fitzosbern, William, 103.

Fitzralph, Richard, 427, 429 ff.

Fitzstephen, 202, 460.

Fitzwarin, Fulke, 224.

Fleta, 197.

Floire and Blanchefleur, 142, 229.

Florence, mediaeval, 286 ff., plague at, 320.

Flower and Leaf, 497, 512.

Foix, Gaston Phebus de, 273 ff.

Foliot, Gilbert, 165.

Fontevrault, royal tombs at, 109.

Fools, feast of, 452.

Forme of Cury, 263.

Fortescue, Sir John, 518.

Fouquet, Jean, picture by, 470 ff.

Four Elements, 491.

Four Sons of Aymon, 223.

Fournival, Richard de, 123.

Fournivall, lord, 502.

Fox, George, 216.

Fox and Wolf, 228 ff., 443.

Fozlan, Ahmed Ibn, 27.

Fragonard, 455.

France, first inhabitants of, 3 ff., a home for fabliaux, 155; satirised, 360, see French.

France, Marie de, see Marie.

Franciade, 114, 339.

Francis, St., of Assisi, 159, 429.

Francis, St., of Sales, 211.

Francis I., King of France, 101, 253.

Franciscans, 159 ff., 165.

Francus the Trojan, 114.

Franklin, Chaucer's, 314, 325, 390 ff.

Franks, 22, 23, 25, 27, in Beowulf, 49, 53, loved by Christ, 147.

Freeman, Prof., 28.

French, invasion, Bk. ii., 95 ff., followers of William, 100, families and manners, 109, literature under Norman and Angevin kings, Bk. ii. c. ii., 116 ff.; language, in general use, 118 ff., at Court and in Parliament, 119, 420 ff., character, 126 ff., ideal, 155 ff., taught at the University, 175, not known by the "lowe men," 205; used by English authors, 213 ff., 219 ff.; fusion of the, with the English, Bk. iii. c. i., 235 ff., in the courts of law, 238 ff., at Oxford, 239, disuse of, 239 ff., in diplomatic relations, 240 ff., survival of, 242 ff., Chaucer studies, 273, spoken by Richard II. and Gaston de Foix, 274, words in Chaucer, 337 ff., used by the Black Prince, 353 ff., songs, 355, Gower's, 364, 366 ff., Langland's 377, 400, Mandeville in, 408, not used by Christ, 434, of kings in Mysteries, 480.

Friar, Chaucer's, 323, 325, 327 ff., Diderot's, 328, derided, 358, Langland's, 384, 429 ff., 435.

Friday, "chidden," 285, 329.

"Friend of God of the Oberland," 403.

Frisians, 22, 27, in Beowulf, 53; 65.

Fritzsche, on Andreas, 39.

Froissart, 127, 239, 255, 260, 261, 271, 273 ff., 301, compared with Chaucer, 317 ff.; 340, 404 ff., 455.

Furnivall, F. J., founder of the Early English Text Society, Chaucer, and Wyclif Society, &c., on Chaucer's tales, 324 ff.

Gaddesden, John of, 194.

Gaddi, Taddeo, 286.

Gaillard, Claude, 253.

Gaimar, 113 ff., 121, 223.

Galen, 178, 315.

Galois, Jean le, 226.

Gamelyn, tale of, 324.

Games, 414, 439 ff., 444.

Gascoigne, the theologian, 451.

Gaunt, John of, Duke of Lancaster, 272, 280 ff., 312, 406, 423, 426.

Gauvain, 141, 259.

Gawayne and the Green Knight, 223, 348 ff.

Gaytrige, John, 206.

Gaza, Theodore, 524.

Geatas, 51 ff.

Genesis and Exodus in English, 207.

"Genius," 371.

Genseric, 26.

Geoffrey, abbot of St. Albans, his play, 459 ff.

Geoffrey the grammarian, 517.

Gerald, see Barry.

Gerda, 42.

Gering, H., on Gretti, 49.

Germans, origin, manners, religion, war-songs of the, 21 ff., compared with the Celts, 240 ff.

Gerson, 278.

Gesta Regum Anglorum, 199.

Gesta Romanorum, 182, 183, 185 ff., 496, 501.

Gibbon, 122.

Gildas, 67, 132.

Gilds, perform religious plays, 465.

Giotto, 206 ff., 284, 286 ff., 294.

Giraldus Cambrensis, see Barry.

Gladstone, W. E., on University life, 173.

Glanville, Ralph, 196.

Glascurion, 338.

"Globe," the, 268.

Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of, 152, 176, 264.

Gloucester, Robert of, 116 ff., 119, 122, 221, 243, 404.

Gloucester, Thomas, Duke of, 277, 312, 365.

Goethe, 97.

Grosseteste, Robert, 118, 123, 160, 165, 205, 213 ff., 452.

Goldborough, 223.

Golias, 192.

Gollancz, 3, 39, 70, 75.

Gombert, 156, 324.

Gospels, copied by Anglo-Saxons, 65, in A.S., 88, in French, 123.

Gower, John, 119, 242, 257, 279, 285, 299, 325, 341, 354, life and works, 364 ff., compared with Langland, 373 ff., 502 ff., 510.

Gower, Sir Robert, 364.

Graal, quest of the, 141.

Graham, Sir Robert, 504.

Grammar, A.S. and English, 245.

Granson, O. de, 275.

"Graund Amoure," 347, 496.

Graystanes, Robert de, 166.

Greek classics, 523 ff.

Green, Mrs., on XVth century trade and navy, 514.

Gregory of Tours, 49.

Gregory the Great, St., 63; translated by Alfred, 81 ff.; 123, 153.

Gregory IX., 160, 449 ff., 463.

Grein's Bibliothek, 40, 79.

Grendel, 50 ff., 69.

Greteham, Robert of, 118, 123.

Gretti and Beowulf, 49.

Grignan, Madame de, 57.

Grim, of Grimsby, 223.

Grimbold, 81.

Grindecobbe, 405.

Griselda, 142, 289, 325, 331 ff., 459, 478.

Grosvenor, Sir Robert, 271.

Grueber (and Keary) on A.S. coins, 79.

Gudrun, Queen, 44.

Guesclin, Du, 115, 156.

Guinevere, Queen, 139 ff.

Guiron, lay of, 136.

Guiscard, Robert, 107.

Gulliver, 407.

Gunnar, 42 ff.

Gueterbock on Bracton, 196.

Guthrum, 80.

Guy of Warwick, 223 ff., 347, 500.

Hacon, King, 200.

Hadrian, 19.

Haigh, D. H., on Beowulf, 49.

Hales, Alexander of, 193.

" Thomas of, 211.

Hali Meidenhad, 206.

Hamlet, 57.

Hampole, Rolle of, 207, life and works, 216 ff.; 411.

Handlyng Synne, 214, 216.

Hardy, Sir T. D., on Matthew Paris, 200.

Hardyng, 497.

Harold, Godwinson, 97 ff., 198.

Harold Hardrada, 98 ff.

Harrowing of Hell, 443, 460.

Harry, Blind, the minstrel, 506 ff.

Hartley, Mrs., the actress, 129.

Hastings, battle of, Bk. ii. c. i., 97 ff.

Haughton, 332.

Haureau, on G. de Vinesauf, 180.

Hauteville, Jean de, 177.

Havelok, lay of, 222, 223.

Hawes, Stephen, 496, 513.

Hawkwood, Sir J., 257, 284.

Hebenhith, Thomas de, 262.

Hector of Troy, 305.

Helen of Troy, 210.

Heliand, 71.

Hell, painted by Giotto, 206, represented at Torcello, 207, described, 210, besieged, 388, in Mysteries, 475, painted at Stratford-on-Avon, 494.

Helwis, 448.

Hemingburgh, Walter of, 201.

Hengest, 62, 112, 220.

Hengham, Judge, 238.

Henry I., Beauclerc, 176.

Henry II. of England, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 133, 156, 165, 176, 190, 198, 319.

Henry III., 107 ff., 112, 200, 201, 262, 417, 441, 454.

Henry IV., 236, 240, 342, 365, 421.

Henry V., 500.

Henry VII., 202, 504, 511, 513.

Henry VIII., 242, 342, 436.

Henryson, 497, 507 ff., 513.

Henslowe, Philip, 332.

Hereford, Nicolas de, 433.

Hereward, 224.

Hermit who got drunk, 183.

Herod, King, 326, 461, 469, 473, 479, 480 ff.

Herrtage, on Gesta Romanorum, 183.

Hervieux, on fabulists, 178.

Heyroun, Thomas, 268.

Heywood, Thomas, 500.

Higden, Ralph, 201, 236, 240, 258, 406.

Higelac (in Beowulf), 50 ff.

Hilary, his Latin plays, 460.

Hilda, abbess of Streonshalch, 63, 70.

Hildgund, 48.

Hincmar, of Reims, 63.

Hippocrates, 315.

Hirdboc, 81.

Historia Anglorum, 199.

Historia ecclesiastica of Bede, 67 ff., of Orderic Vital, 198.

Historia Novorum, 198.

Historia Regum Britannia, 133 ff.

Histrions, 440 ff.

Hniflungs (Niblungs), 43.

Hoccleve, 341, 342, 496, 498, life and works, 501.

Hohlfield, on Mysteries, 466.

Holinshed, 114.

Holkot, Robert, 167.

Holy-Church, in Langland, 380.

Holy-Grail, 223.

Homer, 8, 127 ff., 293, 297, 299, 523.

Homilies, English, 206.

Honecourt, Villard de, 200.

Hood, Robin, 224, 359, 456.

Horace, on Gauls, 7; 177, 180.

Horn, 223.

Horsa, 62, 112.

Horstmann, on Lives of Saints, 208.

Houghton, Adam, 415.

Hous of Fame, 279, 285, 291, 294 ff., 362, 497, 499.

Hoveden, Roger de, 162, 164, 202.

Hrothgar, in Beowulf, 50 ff.

Huebner, baron de, 58.

Hugh, St., bishop of Lincoln, 165.

Hugo, Victor, 3.

Hugolino, 325, 330.

Hugon, of Constantinople, 146.

Humour, Chaucer's, 317 ff., Wyclif's, 434 ff., Pecock's, 520.

Hundred Years' War, 202.

Hungerford, Sir Thomas, 251.

Huntingdon, Henry de, 132, 133, 166, 177, 199 ff.

Huntingdon, earl of, 284.

Huon de Burdeux, 223.

Hus, John, 438.

Iceland, its literature, 40 ff.

Image du Monde, 120.

Inferno, 118.

Ingelend, 491.

Innocent III., 170, 449, 450, 463.

Innocent IV., 173.

Innocents, feast of, 452.

Invasions, Germanic, Bk. i. c. ii., 21 ff., Scandinavian, 22 ff., Frankish, 25, 33, Anglo-Saxon, 28 ff., Danish, 79 ff., French, Bk. ii., 95 ff.

Ipomedon, 130.

Ireland, its literature, 10 ff., monks from, 63; 518.

Irish language and literature, 10 ff., at the University, 173 ff.

Iscanus, 176.

Iseult, 211, see Tristan.

Isle of Ladies, 279, 497.

Isumbras, 347.

Italy, models from, copied by Chaucer, 291 ff., travels in, 283 ff., early Renaissance in, 285 ff.

Itineraries, 517.

Ivain, 141.

Jacquerie, 271.

Jacques le Fataliste, 328.

James, St., 393.

James I. of Scotland, 372, 503 ff.

" IV. " 510, 511.

Jarrow, monastery of, 66.

Jerome, St., 26, 191, 241.

Jessopp, Dr., on Matthew Paris, 200.

Jew, Wandering, 201.

Jews, saved, 399, 420, 485.

John the Baptist, St., 455.

John, King, Lackland, 108, 157, 441.

John, King of France, 115, 254.

John, the Saxon, 81.

Johnson, Dr., 57.

Joinville, 404.

Jonathan Wild, 336.

Jonathas, the Jew, 485.

Jones, Inigo, 476.

Jongleur, d'Ely, 442.

Jonson, Ben, 456, 522.

Joseph and Mary, 479, 484, as a workman, 485.

Joseph of Arimathea, 144, 223.

Judas, 398.

Judith, 39, 45, 71.

Jugglers, 439 ff.

Julian the Apostate, 471.

Juliana, 72.

Julleville, Petit de, on Mysteries, 457 ff.

Junius (F. Dujon), 71.

Jurists, 196 ff.

Justinian, 26, 50, 120, 250.

Jutes, 27 ff., 51.

Kaines, Ralph de, 211.

Kaluza, on Romaunt of the Rose, 278.

Keary, C. F., on Vikings, 44, on coins, 79, on Danish place-names, 80.

Kellawe, Richard de, 176.

Kenelm, St., 208.

Kent, Eustache or Thomas of, 130.

Kent, John, 290.

"King and Queen," Game of the, 444.

King Horn, 223.

King's Quhair, 505 ff.

Kings, Wyclif on, 432.

Kitredge, on Troilus.

Kitsun, 522.

Knight, Chaucer's, 314, 321, 324, 330, 504.

Knighton, on Wyclif, 436.

Knights, in Langland, 399.

Knyvet, John, 416, 417.

Koch, on Chaucer, 291.

Koelbing, on romances, 223.

La Calprenede, 300.

Lactantius, 77.

La Fontaine, 58, 179, 183, 226, 296, 298, 324, 325, 508.

Lai de l'Oiselet, 142.

Lai du Cor, 225.

Lamartine, 17.

Lament for the Makaris, 510.

Lancaster, Blanche, duchess of, 280 ff.

Lancaster, Henry of, 236, 240, see Henry IV.

Lancaster, see Gaunt.

Lancaster, Isabella of, 259.

Lancelot of the Lake, 139 ff., 192, 480.

Landscapes, in Anglo-Saxon literature, 55, 58 ff., 69 ff., 71 ff., 74, 92; in Renart, 152, in Chaucer, 281, 298, Scotch, 363, 508 ff., Shakespeare's, 473.

Lanfranc, 165, 193.

Lang, Andrew, on Aucassin, 237.

Lange, C., on Easter, 458.

Langland, William, 37, 240, 262, 345, 355, 359, life and works, Bk. iii. c. iv., 373 ff.; 422, 436, 441.

Langlois, on Roman de la Rose, 276.

Langtoft, Peter de, 118, 122, 214.

Langton, Stephen, 145, 165, 169.

Lapidaire, 123.

Latimer, Hugh, 436.

Latin, in Roman Britain, 20, in A.S. Britain, 65 ff., in France, 78, in England after the Conquest, Bk. ii. c. iii., 157 ff., used by summoners, 161, poems, 176 ff., fables, 178, romances and tales, 182 ff., treatises 188 ff., chronicles 197 ff., despatches, 241, models of Chaucer, 291 ff., Gower's, 367 ff., Langland's, 377, survival of, 405, chroniclers, 405 ff.; Wyclifs, 427 ff.; 434; dramas, 457 ff., 460, 481.

Latini, Brunetto, 118, 241.

Latymer, impeached, 253.

Lauchert, on Physiologus, 76.

"Laudabiliter," bull, 110.

Launfal, 230.

Lavoix, H., on mediaeval music, 345.

Laws, Welsh, 9, A.S., 78, Roman, Anglo-Norman and English, 196.

Lay, of Guiron, 222, of Havelok, 222.

Layamon, 219 ff., 243, 245, 247.

Lazarillo de Tormes, 184.

Leechdoms, A.S., 79.

Legende of Good Women, 279, 294, 343.

Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, De, 196.

Leo IV., Pope, 79.

Leovenath, 219.

Letters of the Paston family, 516.

Leven, Hugues of, 265.

Lewis, son of Chaucer, 341.

Lewis, John, on Wyclif, 423.

Lex Salica, 78.

Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, 517 ff.

Liber Festivalis, 208.

Libraries, 166 ff., 175, 524.

Lincoln cathedral, 162.

Lindbergh, John of, 215.

Lindner on Romaunt of the Rose, 278.

Lionne, Hugues de, 255.

L'Isle, Alain de, 177.

Lison, Richard de, 147.

"Littus Saxonicum," 27, 30.

Lives of Saints, in A.S., 76, by AElfric, 91, in French, 121 ff., in English, 203, 303, by Lydgate, 500.

Lodbrok, Ragnar, 58.

Logeman, on A.S. reliquary, 73.

Logic, taught in the Universities, 171.

Loki, 44, 55.

Lollards, 359, 437 ff.

"Lollius," 289.

Lombards, 22, 23, 25, 26, 114.

London, mediaeval, 268 ff., Chaucer's life in, 289 ff., pageants in, 453 ff., Mysteries, 460.

London Lickpeny, 498.

Lonelich, 223.

Longchamp, William de, 162 ff., 178, 261.

Lorens, friar, 214, 215, 325.

Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 287.

Lorris, Guillaume de, 276 ff., 293.

Loserth, on Hus, 438.

Lot, J., 11.

Louis VII. of France, 164.

Louis IX. " 110, 201.

Louis XI. " 519.

Louis XIV. " 203, 241, 493.

Lounsbury, on Chaucer, 343.

Love, in Irish literature, 15 ff., in Scandinavian literature, 42, in Tristan, 137 ff., in Arthurian poems, 139 ff., as a ceremonial, 140, in chansons, 143 ff., in Latin tales, 185 ff., in English songs, 230, poems by Chaucer, 272 ff., 279, by Froissart, 274 ff., in Roman de la Rose, 276 ff., in Boccaccio, 299, 321, in Chaucer's Troilus, 301 ff., in Gawayne, 349, songs, 354, in Gower, 366 ff., 370 ff., in Langland, 388, 399, in the early drama, 447, in Mary Magdalene, 483 ff., "king of," 505, in King's Quhair, 505 ff., written about in prose, 522.

"Lowe men," their English, 204 ff., and their French, 236 ff.

Lowell, on Chaucer, 343.

Lucanus, on Druids, 8; 114, 293, 297.

Lumiere des laiques, 120.

Lutterworth, 423, 426.

Lydgate, 303, 341, 354, 496, life and works, 498 ff.; 502, 513, 515.

Lyf of Seinte Cecile, 291, 294, 325, 331.

Mabinogion, 9, 17.

Macaulay, 122.

Mac Datho's Pig, 13.

Machault, 275, 325.

Machinery, stage, 474 ff.

Macpherson, 16.

Mael Duin, 12.

Magnyfycence, 491.

Mahomet, 472, 483.

Mahomet II., 524.

Maidstone, Richard of, 207, 454 ff.

Maldon, battle of, 47.

Male regle de T. Hoccleve, 502.

Malmesbury, William of, 64, 100 ff., 107, on Arthurian legends, 131 ff., 166, 199.

Malmesbury, Monk of, 197.

Malory, Sir Thomas, 521, 522.

Malvern, 375 ff., 382 ff., 394.

Mandeville, Sir John, 403, 406 ff.

Maniere de Langage, 241.

Mantel Mautaille, 226.

Mannyng, Robert, of Brunne, 214, 216, 243, 462.

Manuel des Pechiez, 213, 216, 463 ff.

Manuscripts, A.S., 45, purchased for the king, 259, rich, 274, 303, of the Roman de la Rose, 277, of Chaucer, 338, of Gawayne, 351.

Map, Walter, 188, life and works, 190 ff.

Marcel, Etienne, 271.

Marcol, 76.

Mare, Peter de la, 419, Thomas de la, 419.

Marechal, William le, 121.

Margaret, queen of Scotland, 511.

Marguerite, la, poems on, 275.

Marie de France, 142 ff., 229, 325.

Marisco, Adam de, 193, 211.

Marivaux, 318.

Marlowe, 75.

Marseilles, king of, 430 ff.

Martin, St., of Tours, 99, 102, 110.

Mary, see Virgin.

Mary Magdalen, St., 452.

Mary Magdalene, a drama, 475, 483 ff., 490.

"Masks," 456.

Mass, caricatured, 445.

Massinger, 496.

Matthew, F. D., on Wyclif, 422, 432.

Matthew, see Paris.

Maupassant, Gui de, 189.

Maximinus, emperor, 459.

May plays, 456.

May songs, 230.

Measure, sense of, 331 ff., 479.

Medicine, 194.

Medwall, 491.

Meed, Lady, 383 ff., 397.

Melibeus, tale of, 325, 331, 332, 490.

Menagier de Paris, 332.

Merchant of Venice, Latin sketch of, 185 ff.

Merchants, English, their wealth, 256, fond of art, 258 ff., Chaucer's, 318, 325, fond of songs, 355 ff., Gower's, 369, Langland's, 383 ff., 400, of London, 424, at the play, 463.

Merimee, 199.

Merlin, 134, 141.

Merovingians, in Beowulf, 53.

Metalogicus, 188 ff.

Meun, Jean de, 177, 276 ff.

Meyer, Kuno, 4.

Meyer, Paul, on Alexander the Great, 128, on Brut, 219.

Miller, Chaucer's, 321, 322, 324, 326, 335, 478.

Milton, 71, 72, 245, 456.

Mimes, 440 ff.

Miniatures, A.S., 45; 184, attributed to Matthew Paris, 201 ff.; 227, 259, 277, 303, 341, 351, 371, by Fouquet, 470 ff.; in the MS. of the Valenciennes Passion, 470; 503.

Minot, Laurence, 360 ff.

Minstrels, 221, 345 ff., in Langland, 382; 439 ff., high and low, 445 ff.

Miracle plays, 459.

Miracles de Notre Dame, 489.

Miraclis pleyinge, treatise on, 461 ff., 468.

Mireio, 144.

Mirk, 496.

Miroir de Justice, 239.

Minstral, 144.

Moktader, Caliph Al, 27.

Moliere, 229, 302, 404, 443, 472, 493.

Monasteries, their wealth, 158; 179, literary work in, 197 ff., Wyclif on, 437.

Monk, Chaucer's, 315, 321, 325, 499.

Monmouth, Geoffrey of, 114, life and works, 132 ff., 182, 297.

Monsters, in A.S. literature, 50, 55 ff., 92.

Montaigne, 97, 323.

Monteflor, Paul de, 264.

Montesquieu, 255.

Montfort, Simon de, 193, 250.

Moral Ode, 206.

Moralities, 84, 489 ff.

Moravian Brethren, 438.

Morgan the fairy, 134, 350.

Morley, John, 343.

Morris, William, 41.

Morte Arthure, 223, 348, 521.