| | | | It is curious to trace the gradual steps by which history, in | the modern world, has arrived at an adequate conception of | its true method and purpose; in other words, to run through | the interval which separates the annals of a monk of the | ninth century from such a work as this of Mr. Freeman's. | The aim of the annalist, as he jotted down the famine of | one year or the war of another, was chronological rather | than historical; the mere events he recorded were recorded | simply as marks of time, which might serve to prevent the | confusion of one year with another. In the chronicler who | followed him, this mere distinction of time sank into its | proper subordination to the narrative of events, but of | events presenting themselves under their barest and most | primary aspects, to be told in the mere order of succession, | without reference to their causes or relations in the present | or the past. The story of the chronicler has all the charm of | the world's childhood, all the definiteness and simplicity of | a first impression transferred directly from the eye or the | ear of the teller to the words he tells. It was a charm that | vanished as the growth of civilization brought reflection | with it ~~ still more as the recovery of the greater works of | classical literature suggested larger views of man's social | and political relations, and at the same time furnished | models on which the new thoughts which they suggested | might frame themselves. To the modern historian who is | simply consulting them as authorities for his own narrative, | there is something provoking in the transition from the | truthfulness and life of the English Chronicle to the vague | and rhetorical generalities | | of William of Malmesbury. But historically the progress is | immense; the simple record of facts has widened into a | picture of the mind of the writer; and in Orderic, in the two | Williams of Malmesbury or Nowborough, and in Matthew | Paris we see events under lights the most diverse, in their | relation to the Church, to the new Christendom which was | beginning to feel its own unity, to the cool skeptical | intelligence before which the old order of the world was to | pass away, to the feelings of patriotism and nationality out | of which the new order was to arise. In a word, history had | begun, but it seemed to be born only to vanish away. Partly | from the literary death of the great monastic houses which | had been its nurseries, partly from the distraction of the | intellectual forces of the world into theological and | speculative channels, partly from the growth of romance | which took from it that interest of curiosity which had till | then attached itself simply to the narratives of historic | events, the space from the close of the thirteenth century to | the Reformation is a mere blank is historical progress. | Confining ourselves here to England, we see Froissart | transferring history to the field of the new romance, and the | successors of Matthew Paris dying down into the most | meager of annalists. The Reformation quickened history | into a new life, as it quickened the world; the consciousness | of national existence, of which it was the outcome, | naturally sought its vindication in the study which is, after | all, but the mental reflection of that consciousness; and the | first purely Protestant Primate, Archbishop Parker, was the | first by his collections and publications to revive the spirit | of historical inquiry. But although a happy instinct taught | the English scholars of the seventeenth century to select | what really were the most important records of the past ~~ | and it must be remembered that, with one or two | exceptions, no addition of any real value has been made to | the stores they preserved ~~ no instinct could teach them | the true principles on which the study of these records had | to be based. On the contrary, they were led away by the | theological spirit which in every department of knowledge | has been the bane of all true progress, and the wider | questions of the development of national or social life were | subordinated to the miserable controversies of warring | sects. | But by a singular compensation, the controversies which | blighted history on one side of the Channel gave birth to its | true method of study on the other. The original aim of the | vast collection of the Lives of the Saints which was | undertaken by the Jesuits of Belgium was simply | theological; the Protestant world was to be overawed by | this gigantic panorama of the life and effort and perpetuity | of the Church which it defied. The task, however, fell into | the hands of a man of real genius, and Bolland, with the | school he formed, amongst which Papebroch and Janning | were perhaps the most eminent, became, in the collection | and revision of their multitudinous materials, and in the | fearless and really scientific examination of the questions to | which they led, the founders of historic criticism. The old | spirit of undiscriminating reverence for antiquity vanished | before the bolder skepticism of men who had started as the | official defenders of tradition; the scientific criticism which | swept away the forgeries of the middle ages was grounded, | and indeed almost perfected, by the genius of Mabillon and | the wondrous industry of his brother Benedictines; while | the vast series of chronicles which Murataori gathered in | Italy, and Dom Bouquet in France, were edited with a | critical appreciation and a patient research which our own | time finds it impossible to rival. The student who would | learn the true method of dealing with historical materials | will still learn best in the school of Bolland and Mabillon; | but for the use of his materials he must look elsewhere. | Voltaire, the strangest contrast which the world could | afford to the sober, accurate, industrious scholars of St. | Maur ~~ trivial, superficial, self-satisfied even with his | own ignorance, but with an intellectual range and a breadth | of sympathy which was denied to them ~~ was the first to | point out the principles upon which history should be | written, to free it from a mere bondage to details, and to | call on it to describe the character of nations, and the moral, | social, and intellectual advance of man. Hume is his | English representative alike in his strength and his | weakness; and it is the peculiar greatness of Gibbon that he | was the first to fuse into one the excellences of both the | historic schools which preceded him, and to combine the | philosophic breadth of the sceptic of Ferney with the | critical accuracy of a Benedictine of St. Maur. But the | familiar instances of Hume or Gibbon show how much was | yet wanting to the construction of a true theory of history. It | is easy for us to smile when the one sneers at the great | rising of 1640 as a quarrel over money-bags, or when the | other tickets off under so many perfectly natural and | reasonable headings the causes of the success of the | Christian religion. But in reality it acquired no less a shock | than the French Revolution to turn men's eyes from the | mere appreciation of the outer aspects of national or | political life to a perception of the spiritual forces from | which these mere outer phenomena proceed. History shared | in the change that passed over poetry, over art, over music; | in the startling advance from Pope to Wordsworth, from | Gainsborough to turner, from Haydn to Beethoven. Man | and the spiritual world which is within and around man; | those impalpable sentiments and aspirations after liberty | and brotherhood at which the philosophers of the last | century had sneered as superstitious, but which the wreck | of a whole political and social system had shown to be the | deepest and strongest of realities; those eternal principles of | moral consciousness which this great revolt against wrong | and falsehood triumphantly asserted ~~ the principles of | justice and truth ~~ these were henceforth to form the | groundwork and basis of the history of nations. We do not | purpose, of course, to attempt to describe what has been the | actual result of this great movement on history on the great | historic schools to which it has given birth in Germany and | France, or on its effects upon ourselves. Its real value lies | in the true foundation which it affords for all historic effort, | and in the tests which it enables us to apply to each historic | work. Great, for instance, as is the effort of Lord Macaulay | after accuracy and justice, undeniable as is the poetic | insight of Mr. Froude, one cannot but feel how the real life | of the people has escaped the constitutional and political | research of the one, and how those deeper principles on | which all hope of human progress rests are caricatured by | the sentimentalism of the other. A keen perception of | individual life, a broad philosophic vie of human and | national progress, a cool unbiased truthfulness in the | examination of documents and the narrative of events ~~ | these are the essential conditions of historical study, and it | is on the possession or absence of these qualities that the | criticism of any historical work must be based. <1545 | words> | Of all the periods of our history, that of the Norman | Conquest has been the least fortunate in its treatment. Till | the time of Thierry it was described as the beginning of a | new England; the ages before it were slighted as ages of a | race as strange to us as the | Britons whom they swept away ~~ of a race whose name | and language had vanished even more utterly than theirs. | Indeed the idea of their existence having anything to do | with our own would have sounded ridiculous to all but a | few legal and constitutional antiquaries, whose Whig and | Tory battle-ground had gradually drifted back from the | Parliament of Edward to the Witanagemot of Ethelred. | Thierry for the first time grasped the fact that this unknown | and despised race were in reality Englishmen, of the same | blood and tongue with the Englishmen of to-day; but even | his acuteness was misled, partly by the false analogy of the | history of France, and partly by the subtle power of names, | into an error just as fatal to any right understanding of the | event he undertook to describe. By exaggerating the | differences and prolonging the social severance between | conqueror and conquered, he converted our whole | subsequent history, even to the Great Rebellion, into a | warfare between

"Saxon and Norman."

To | correct Thierry, and to write the true history of the | Conquest, became next the aim of Sir Francis Palgrave, the | one man whose daring originality of mind, controlled as it | was by an intimate knowledge of facts, promised most for | its treatment; but the energies of Sir Francis were wasted on | the earlier history of the Norman Duchy, and though the | reader is brought to the very verge of the Conquest, the | Conquest remained unwritten. Literally speaking, it | remains unwritten still. <1849 words> The volume which | Mr. Freeman has laid before the public is simply an | introduction to the great task before him, ending as it does | with the story of our Danish kings, but enough has already | been done to justify the author in undertaking this great | subject. Not least among the merits of the book are its | purely literary qualities. We miss here and there, indeed, | the gift of picturesque narrative which Thierry so eminently | possessed, or the weird fantastic beauties which alternated | with as fantastic absurdities in the style of Sir Francis. We | could occasionally spare a page of argumentative | controversy to make room for a touch of that inner poetry | of life which rarely finds expression save on Mr. Freeman's | battle-fields; and the keen appreciation of historical | analogies and differences, which is among his greatest | merits, sometimes leads the author away into dissertations | which, instructive as they are in themselves, give a fitful | and spasmodic appearance to the actual flow of the story. | But the bold, clear, nervous English of the book is | throughout in admirable harmony with the clear definite | treatment of its subject, the precision with which it | expresses the principles on which its author works, and the | vigour with which he works them out. Not less remarkable | is Mr. Freeman's command over the enormous mass of | facts which he has laid under contribution. The book is a | perfect mine of learning on the subject which it treats. With | one single exception, of which we shall speak presently, its | author has explored every source ~~ English or foreign, | civil or ecclesiastical ~~ from which information could be | drawn. The reader feels throughout that he is in the hands | of an historian who is unconsciously treating the | revolutions of England as a part of the history of the world, | and that he is as thoroughly master of the wider subject as | he is of the narrower. But Mr. Freeman, we repeat, is | thoroughly master of his facts, numerous as they are; the | notes to the book, the abundance of which in a literary | point of view is less defensible, enable us to judge of the | rigid criticism to which each authority has been subjected. | Some of his comments, indeed, are models of keen | historical investigation; and in one remarkable instance ~~ | his criticism of the Northern historians in their relation to | our own ~~ he has made a memorable contribution to the | history of the time. The same clearness and self-command | appear in the plan and structure of the book itself, in the | arrangement of this mass of materials, and in the | definiteness of the author's purpose. Nothing can be better | in fact or style than the passage in which he lays down the | aim and limits of his work ~~ what, in a word, the conquest | did, and what it did not do: ~~ | | | We have quoted this passage, not because we wholly agree | with its close, for we believe the civil policy of Henry the | Angevin to have been a mere resumption and carrying out | of the ideas of his grandfather, Henry the peaceful, and it | would be difficult to draw any deep line between the | Conqueror and his son; but because the great truth of the | constitutional identity of England before and after the | Conquest has seldom been so clearly expressed or so | definitely laid down as the groundwork of our history. To | the growth and nature of that constitution Mr. Freeman has | devoted the finest section of his first volume ~~ a section | which adds little indeed, as the author modestly confesses, | to what has been before laid down by Kemble or Palgrave, | but whose merits will be test appreciated by those who | have striven to shape any connected whole out of the | half-antiquarian dissertations of the Saxons in England, | or who have hunted for any single point through the | chaotic pages of the English Commonwealth. In | the outset of his sketch, indeed, we cannot but think that | Mr. Freeman has under-estimated the influence of roman | ideas on the new society which sprang up on the wreck of | them. However terrible a conflict the war between the | invader and the provincial may have been, the conqueror | had in fact to settle himself in a roman province, not in a | new country; and the fole-land and boc-land, or the tenure | by military service, may rather have been inherited from | the older system than copied ~~ as in the last case Mr. | Freeman suggests ~~ from the mere analogy of its | institutions. No theory, however, can dispel the darkness of | our earlier annals in default of evidence, and evidence there | is none. But the growth of the English polity as it emerges | into historic light is traced step by step with singular | definiteness and accuracy, whether in its outer aspects ~~ | the local marks clustering into shires, the shires into | kingdoms, the kingdoms into the empire of Britain ~~ or in | its inner revolutions, the simultaneous development of the | civil and military distinctions of society, of the eorl and | cerol, the lord and thegn, till, through the gradual | supersession of the one by the other, the old free teutonic | community is launched on the road to feudalism. | Side by side with the growth of England went on the | growth of that wonderful people which was destined to its | conquest. Its characteristics are described in the most | eloquent passage of the book: ~~ | It is, we fear, this strange influence of the Norman race | over its historians, as well as over the Sicilian or the | Englishman, which has misled Mr. Freeman, as in still | greater measure it misled Sir Francis Palgrave, into a | treatment of the history of the duchy on a scale far larger | than its real bearing on our own at all warrants. "In order to | thoroughly to understand the Norman Conquest of England, | it is almost as needful to have a clear view of the condition | and earlier history of Normandy as it is to have a clear | view of the condition and early history of England." The | character of the conquerors, the ideas and policy, the aims | and prejudices they brought with them, form of course one | of the principal elements in the history of the Conquest. But | we fail to see how any knowledge of this character or of its | formation is gained from the annals of the Duchy, or from | the wearisome meddlings of its dukes with the perplexed | politics of France. The silent change which transformed the | Scandinavian into a Frenchman remains as obscure as | before, and the work has not yet reached that great era of | diffusion when, penetrating everywhere, the Norman | became the popularizer, as it were, of all the greater ideas | of the world. There is evidently a powerful attraction for | Mr. Freeman in the outer aspects of war and policy which | throughout tends to lead him away from the examination of | those deeper questions which lie beneath them. His book is | not, we think, sufficiently penetrated with the conviction of | the superiority of man in himself to all the outer | circumstances that surround him. We are, of course, far | from classing the History of the Norman Conquest | with the mere

"drum and trumpet histories"

| which Dr. Shirley so pungently denounced, but throughout | there is too much of wars and Witanagemots, and too little | of the life, the tendencies, the sentiments of the people. | And this is the more remarkable because, as Mr. Freeman | so clearly puts it, it was just these, and not the | constitutional outside of English existence, that the | Conquest so powerfully affected. The social condition and | progress of the nation Mr. Freeman has reserved till he can | deal with it from the basis of the Domesday book. But on | the religious and intellectual life of Englishmen before the | Conquest he is as silent as on the social, and it is | remarkable that the one class of authorities on which he | seems to have bestowed little attention is just the class from | which alone we can derive the hagiologies. Yet even on so | tempting a subject as the extent of the old Northumbrian | kingdom we find no reference to Cuthbert, whose life and | preaching brings home the facts to us better than a thousand | dissertations. Throughout, we may say, the subject of the | Church is treated in a manner very unequal to its real | importance and bearing on the development of England and | its institutions. Whatever may be its defects, however, the | merits of the work are great and incontestable. It takes rank | at once as the most learned and the ablest of all the | narratives of our earlier history. In its firm grasp and | unflinching application of the true principles of historic | criticism, in the clearness with which it defines the true | nature of our national development, it has laid down a | groundwork for after historians such as we have never had | before. It is to these great features that we have now | confined ourselves; of the detail of the story, especially in | its narrative of the later years of the West-Saxon monarchy | and the reign of the Danish kings, we hope to speak in a | subsequent notice.