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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2010
Antiquorum industria nobis præ manibus est; gesta suis etiam præterita temporibus nostris reddunt præsentia, et nos obmutescimus, unde in nobis eorum vivit memoria, et nos nostri sumus immemores. Miraculum illustre! mortui vivunt, vivi proeis sepeliuntur. Habent et nostra tempora forsitan aliquid Sophoclis non indigens cothurno. Jacent tamen egregia modernorum nobilium, attolluntur fimbriæ vetustatis abjectæ. Hoc nimirum inde est, quod reprehendere scimus, et scribere ignoramus; carpere appetimus, et carpi meremur. Sic raritatem poetarum faciunt geminæ linguæ obtrectatorum. Sic torpescunt animi, depereunt ingenia; sic ingenua temporis hujus serenitas enormiter extinguitur, et lucerna non defectu materiæ sopitur, sed succumbunt artifices, et a nostris nulla est autoritas. Cæsar en Lucani, Æneas Maronis, multis vivunt in laudibus, plurimum suis meritis et non minimum vigilantia poetarum. Nobis divinam Karolorum et Pepinorum nobilitatem vulgaribus rithmis sola mimorum concelebrat nugacitas,* præsentes vero Cæsares nemo loquitur, eorum tamen mores cum fortitudine, temperantia, et omnium admiratione præsto sunt ad calamum.
page 195 note * An allusion to that popular class of medieval romances entitled the Chansons de Geste, which turned chiefly on the adventures of the age of Charlemagne and Pepin. They became popular in the twelfth century.
page 196 note * Louis Vili, of France and Henry II. of England.
page 198 note * Memorial verses of this kind were much in use in the Middle Ages, and are found scattered in great abundance through the manuscripts. The second of these couplets relating to the comet which preceded the Conquest of England by the Normans, is a well known one.
page 198 note † Andronicus I. grandson of Alexis Comnenus (1183–1185). He was at last massacred by the populace of Constantinople.
page 199 note * Ethelred the Unready. The anecdotes of this monarch's reign given here are not found in the ordinary chroniclers.
page 199 note † This is evidently an abstract of one of the Saxon romances relating to the family of Godwin. All the great Anglo-Saxon families had such romances attached to them.
page 201 note * The Norman writers almost invariably spoke ill of Godwin, because they looked upon him and his family as the enemies of their race.
page 203 note * Hor. Ep. lib. i. ep. 6.
page 203 note † This proverb occurs not unfrequently in old manuscripts. It is given thus among some English proverbs in a MS. in Trin. Coll. Camb. (O, ii. 45), of the beginning of the thirteenth century, “Nim hund to godsep anne staff in thire hond,” with the metrical Latin version, “Quisquis fungetur cane compatre virga paretur.” As explained by Mapes, it is a curious memorial of the feeling nourished by freemen towards serfs.
page 204 note * Compare this account of the meeting of Cnut and Edmund Ironside with that given by Gaimar, line 4285. Both writers perhaps used the same traditional story.
page 206 note * This is a very curious story of the death of Edmund Ironside, and differs considerably from the usual accounts. Compare that of Gaimar, 1. 4401.
page 208 note * A rather punning parody on the line of Virgil, Æn. ii. 49, “Quicquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”
page 209 note * The story of earl Godwin breaks off in the middle, as if something were omitted.
page 211 note * The MS. reads extertia, with alias, sexterna in the margin. The latter word is found elsewhere in Medieval Latin for sextercia.
page 211 note † Louis le Debonnaire, who succeeded his father Charlemagne in 814. He died in 840, a victim to the civil commotions to which his weakness had given rise.
page 216 note * Henry I. count of Champagne, son of Theobald IV. or the Great, reigned from 1152 to 1181.
page 216 note † Louis le Jeune married, in 1160, Alix daughter of Theobald the Great, count of Champagne, who was his third wife.
page 217 note * Louis VII. married Constance, the daughter of Alfonso VIII., king of Castile, in 1154, after his divorce from Eleanor of Guienne.
page 217 note † Fontainebleau. This is a direct statement that the palace of Fontainebleau was founded by Louis le Jeune. It stood in a hunting forest of the king's.
page 218 note * The death of this prince (who had been consecrated at Rheims at the age of thirteen years, by his father's command, on Easter day 1129,) took place on the 13th of October 1131, after which Louis, the younger brother, succeeded.
page 219 note * The second day of his being bled; minutio was the medieval term for letting blood.
page 220 note * Cato de Moribus, Distich. 34— Vincere cum possis, interdum cede sodali, Obsequio quoniam dulces vincuntur amici.
page 220 note † A reference to Romans xii. 20. Hoc enim faciens, carbones ignis congeres super caput ejus.
page 222 note * According to William of Malmsbury, it was a foreign monk who had this dream, and told it to Robert fitz Hamon.
page 224 note * Gerard archbishop of York was one of the distinguished prelates of his age, but he appears to have provoked the dislike of the clergy by his liberality and attachment to profane literature, and they speak ill of him in their writings. He succeeded Thomas, and not Alfred, archbishop of York, in 1100.
page 224 note † Archbishop Gerard died in 1108, suddenly and without confession and absolution, which his clergy made an excuse for refusing him burial within the church.
page 226 note * Henry I. married Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III. of Scotland, and niece of Edgar Atheling, by which he aimed at uniting the Saxon and Norman blood on the throne, and thus establishing the Normans in peaceful possession.
page 228 note * Geoffrey was made bishop of Lincoln in 1167. He subsequently resigned his bishopric, and was appointed chancellor of England, which office he retained till his father's death. He was elected to the archbishopric of York in 1191, after the accession of Richard I.
page 228 note † The emperor Henry V. who had obtained the sceptre by dethroning his father, Henry IV. in 1106. It was his elder brother, Conrad, who, having revolted from his father, the emperor Henry IV., was chosen king of the Romans, in Italy. He died at Florence in 1101, some say poisoned, but not slain by his brother Henry, who appears to have had no other brother.
page 232 note * The counts of Tancarville were hereditary chamberlains of Normandy.
page 232 note † Henry the Lion, who, in 1180, was deprived of his dominions by the emperor Frederick, and obliged to seek a refuge in England at the court of Henry II,
page 232 note ‡ Richard count of Poitiers, second son of Henry II., who succeeded him on the throne as Richard I.
page 232 note § Geoffrey, third son of Henry II., who inherited the duchy of Britany by his wife Constance, daughter of duke Conan IV.
page 234 note * Ovid, Art. Amat. ii. 13.
page 234 note † This must be William de Albini, first earl of Arundel. The way in which the name is here spelt seems to countenance the derivation given in the old romance of Bevis, or at least to shew a knowledge of it.
page 235 note * Geoffrey was never consecrated bishop of Lincoln; he received the revenues of the see during seven years, by reason of his election, but without ordination, so that in other respects the see remained as if vacant. When at length compelled to undergo ordination, or relinquish the see, Geoffrey chose the latter alternative.
page 236 note * Ep, ad Ephes. v. 1.
page 237 note * Walter de Coutances was vice-chancellor of England. In 1183, after Geoffrey had relinquished it, the see of Lincoln was given to Walter de Coutances, who was consecrated by the archbishop of Canterbury at Anjou, where the court then was.
page 237 note † Confess, lib. xi. cap. 25. See the commencement of this treatise.
page 238 note * Boethius, De Consolat. Philos, lib. ii. prosa 1. See before, the note on p. 2.
page 238 note † See Macrob. in Somn. Scip. lib. i. c. 10, and compare it with this chapter of Walter Mapes, who has borrowed many of his ideas from the old Roman writer.
page 239 note * Ezech. xxxvi. 26. Et dabo vobis cor novum, et spiritum novum ponam in mediovestri: et auferam cor lapideum de carne vestra, et dabo vobis cor carneum.
page 241 note * Boethius de Consolat. Phil. lib. iii. metr. is. 1. 3.
page 241 note † Ranulf de Glanville, who held the office of chief justiciary; see before, p. 8.
page 242 note * The quarrel between the kings of Castile and Navarre was submitted to the mediation of Henry II. of England in 1177. See Roger de Hoveden, Annal. p. 561, who has given the documents relating to this controversy at some length.
page 243 note * Horat. 1 Ep. vi. 45.
page 243 note † An allusion to Psal. ix. 5. Quoniam fecisti judicium meum et causam meam, sedisti super thronum qui judicas justitiam.