would not, it may be conjectured, have so rapidly acquired the strength
and polish for which it was soon after distinguished. But the refine-
ment of manners which took place in this reign, the elegance which
characterized the amusements of Edward's court, and the general dif-
fusion of a taste for poetry by means of the new romances, rendered its
cultivation when thus introduced a matter of necessity ; and we conse-
quently find that the language of the writers who lived but a short time
previous to the present period, can bear no comparison either for force
or harmony with that of the poets who now laid the foundations of our
national literature. The names of Chaucer and Gower, with some of
minor note, as those of Richard Hampole and Robert Longlande, af-
ford ample proof of this commencement of a new era ; and in the suc-
ceeding reign we see both poetry and every other branch of literature
exercising a powerful influence on manners and opinions, the best and
truest sign of the simultaneous progress of knowledge and civilization.
Those branches of science, however, which bear most directly on the
affairs of human life, were as yet but little cultivated or understood ;
and it is related that such was the ignorance of even the best instructed
classes on the subject of geography, that when Lewis of Spain was
made prince of the Fortunate Isles, or the Canaries, by Clement VI.,
the English ambassador at Rome, together with his retinue, thought
that it must be England which the pope had given away, and hastened
home with the terrible news. The historian couples this notable anec-
dote with the information given by Speed, that there were then thirty
thousand students in the university of Oxford alone, and asking what
was the occupation of all these young men ? answers, " To learn very
bad Latin, and still worse logic." 11
A somewhat exaggerated account is here given of the number of
students, if we take that word to mean only such as actually frequented
the university for the purposes of knowledge. But making allowance
for those who were mere idlers in the place, a very striking proof is
afforded by the above statement of the rapid progress which a taste for
literature was making in the nation. With regard to their learning
only very bad Latin and worse logic, it may be observed, that nothing
11 Hume, vol. ii. p. 478.
300 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION*.
could be taught in the universities but such branches of knowledge as
the age possessed, and that such institutions are generally known not
to be remarkable for anticipating the world in discoveries of practical
importance. But that very bad Latin was taught may be fairly disput-
ed. England had already produced some writers in that language whose
compositions will bear the examination of severe criticism, and who
employed it on subjects which required a fluency and grace of expres-
sion not to be obtained without a profound acquaintance with all its
niceties. John of Salisbury, author of the Policraticon, Alexander
Neckham, who wrote a poem on Divine Wisdom in seven books, and
above all, Joseph of Exeter, whose musical and elegant verses are
universally admired, 12 were examples in Latinity which could not be
without their influence ; and though the taste of the age led the greater
number to study Statius and Ovid rather than Virgil, there is no doubt
but that the Latin language was written by the scholars of the time
with considerable taste as well as fluency.
It is not so easy, perhaps, to soften the historian's aspersion of the
logical studies of the university ; but happily for the interests of truth,
those principles were about to manifest themselves which, by bringing
every species of knowledge to the test of sound reason and historical
testimony, assign to artificial rules of argument the precise place and
value they ought to hold in the intellectual system. With the poets
and philosophers who graced the reigns of Edward the Third, and of
the unfortunate Richard the Second, appeared a man whose noble ta-
lents, and the part he performed in life, give him a right to the highest
stand among the celebrated personages of the time. Wickliffe was pro-
foundly learned, he was not less acquainted with Aristotle than the
most bigoted schoolmen, but he saw that logic could have nothing to
do with the foundations of religious truth as Bacon did in a subsequent
age, that it could never properly be made the vehicle by which to ar-
rive at the knowledge of nature. So great was the esteem he acquired
by the various and deep stores of erudition which he possessed, that
his elevation to the professorship of divinity was effected in defiance of
the whole body of the mendicants. This indicates not only the in-
fluence he must have himself enjoyed in the university, but the change
which was gradually going on in the feelings and opinions of the nation
at large. The mode of teaching which he pursued greatly contributed
to accelerate this change, and while it tended to establish religion on
its only proper basis, could scarcely fail of opening the most unwilling
eyes to the hindrances which the other modes of scholastic instruction
opposed to the spread of information. Above all things, his translation
of the Scriptures acted as an engine of immeasurable force in dissipat-
ing>the dense clouds of error against which human ingenuity must have
ever proved unavailing. A love of reading, and even a disposition for
inquiry, was thereby diffused among every class of the community ; and
the taste thus inspired, springing from the strongest feelings of the hu-
man heart, and being fed with the healthiest nourishment the under-
standing can receive, would be far more permanent than a similar prin-
ciple implanted among the people by means of a different kind. The
effects of his labours in this respect may be well understood from what
" Warton on the Introduction of Learning in England, p. 163.
TO THIRD 1'EKIOD. 301
is said of them by an adversary : " Christ," observes Knyghton, " com-
mitted the gospel to the clergy and doctors of the church that they
might minister it to the laity and weaker persons, according to the exi-
gency of times and persons' wants ; but this Master John \VickliiFe
translated it out of Latin into English, and by that means laid it more
open to the laity and to women who could read than it used to be to
the most learned of the clergy, and those of them who had the best un-
derstanding. And so the gospel-pearl is cast abroad and trodden under
swine ; and that which used to be precious to both clergy and laity, is
made, as it were, the common jests of both, and the jewel of the church
is turned into the sport of the laity " The slate of tilings here de-
scribed presents a strange contrast to that which prevailed in the country
a very few years before ; and the careful observation of this period of our
national history will afford the inquirer light for a considerable portion
of the path he has to explore, till he arrive at the greater era of change
and reformation. In the earlier periods of English history or biography,
that of which we are now speaking is, therefore, by far the most inte-
resting. The preceding portion is sometimes wrapped in obscurity,
and when it presents a clear surface for observation, the energies of the
human mind are seen lying dormant under the grievous oppression of
superstition, or wholly employed on some one object of immediate de-
sire. In the portion which intervenes between the period we are upon
and the reign of Henry the Eighth, we see but the developement of
principles now beginning to operate the employment of agents of
which the power was now for the first .time discovered. Liberty,
though still subject to violence, drew strength from the circulation of
intelligence ; learning, as we have seen, though still having her home in
the cloister and the schools, began to go abroad in the world ; and while
much of the wealth of the higher ranks was expended in pleasure, a
part of it was employed in the encouragement of architecture, and the
other branches of the fine arts. Poets found a patron unknown to their
predecessors. A public now existed, and Chaucer and his contem-
poraries were respected by the great as men who could find a brighter
fame in the world than in princely halls. The cultivation of poetry
thence became an occupation in which persons of wealth and independ-
ence might engage without becoming classed with the minstrel-flatterers
whom they succeeded. Both Chaucer and Gower were engaged
through life in the duties of an arduous profession, and their composi-
tions abound in proofs that they found better materials for poetry in
their intercourse with the world at large, than they could have collected
in the courts of the greatest monarchs.
Among the prose writers of the period, Henry Knyghton and Ralph
Higden devoted themselves to historical composition. But history
requires a more advanced stage of society, of knowledge and philoso-
phy, than poetry. It makes no sudden approaches towards perfection,
the wisdom it works on is accumulated rather than discovered, and
England had yet to see several generations of eminent poets and phi-
losophers succeed each other before the appearance of an historian of
corresponding merit. Of the men who, in addition to their own labours,
contributed by their patronage to advance the cause of improvement at
this period, one deserves especial mention, William of Wykeham, who, by
the foundation of the college at Winchester, and of New College, Oxford,
302 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION'
set a noble example to the wealthy churchmen of the country, and placed
the importance of education as one of the gifts of rich benevolence in
a proper point of view.
Not a single poet of any repute graced the reign of Henry the
Fourth. The only writer deemed worthy of mention is Johannes Cu-
pellanus ; and his claim to notice rests wholly on a translation of the
treatise of Boethius, ' De Consolatione Philosophise' into English verse.
Henry, however, is stated not to have been without literary taste.
He invited to England Christine de Pisan, distinguished as one of
the most elegant memoir writers of France. 13 His conduct towards
the young prince of Scotland, afterwards James I., is a still better in-
stance of the respect he entertained for literature, and of the state of
education in his reign. James having been taken prisoner in his pas-
sage from France, whither he had been sent by his father while very
young, was kept a prisoner in England eighteen years ; but during
that time " he \vas so instructed and taught," says Hall, " by his school
masters and pedagogues appointed to him by the sole clemency of
Henry IV., that he not only flourished in good learning and fresh li-
terature, but also excelled in all points of martial feats, musical instru-
ments, poetical art, and liberal sciences, insomuch, that at his return
from captivity, he furnished his realm with both good learning and
civil policy, which before was barbarous, savage, rude, and without
all good nurture." 14
The son and successor of Henry IV. was a far more decided pa-
tron of letters than that monarch himself. Having been educated at
Oxford under the care of his uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, he was versed
in the principal sciences of the age, and had acquired a respect for
learning and ability which rendered him an intelligent as well as will-
ing protector of men of genius. Both Lydgate and Occleve acknow-
ledge him as their patron. The former in his prologue to the transla-
tion of the History of Troye, declares, that it was only at the com-
mand of the king that he would venture on the work, but that the
monarch insisted upon his attempting it :
Because that he had joye and deuitye
To reade in bokes of old antiquitye. 13
Nor is it but of the most magnificent patrons that poets are in the cus-
tom of writing in such a style as that in which he speaks of the
king's likeness to his father :
He eldest son is of the noble king,
Henry the Fourth of knighthood well and spring.
In whom is shewed of what stock he grew,
The rootis vertue can thus the set renew :
In every parte the tarage is the same,
Like his father of manners and of name.
Occleve addresses him in terms still more flattering :
Hye and noble prynce excellent!
My lord, the prince ! O my lord gracious !
11 Turner's Hist, of England during Mid. Ages, voL ii. p. ?/>0. " Ibid, note,
" Warre of Troye, p. 1.
TO TIIIKD PERIOD. 303
I, humble servaunt, and obedient
Unto your estate, hye and glorious,
Of which I am full tendir and full jelous,
Me recommende unto your worthynesse,
With hert entier, and spirite of mekenesse.
The historian, Walsingham, accuses Occleve of heresy, but Pits
observes, 16 that he would not decide on the single testimony of that
writer, and gives him the unmixed praise of having been one of tlio
first of our poets who imitated Chaucer in polishing the English lan-
guage. If Walsingham's supposition, indeed, was correct, we should
have a curious instance of the complacency of the literary men of
those days ; but when it is considered, even that Occleve was the
known friend and scholar of Chaucer, \ve can scarcely suppress a
feeling of surprise at the manner in which he commends the king's
conduct towards the unfortunate man at the burning of whom the
monarch was present :
My lord the prynce, God him save and blesse,
Was at his dedily castigacion.
And of his soule had grete tendirnesse ;
Thurstyng sore his salvacion.
Grete was his piteous lamentacion,
When this renegate would not blynne
Of the stynkiug errour that he was ynne.
But, notwithstanding the favour which Henry the Fourth and hU
distinguished successor displayed towards the poets, learning is reported
to have rather declined than advanced during their reigns, of which
signs could be discovered at an earlier date. Wood assigns as one of
the chief reasons for this circumstance, the power which the popes ex-
ercised in the English church. Let it not be presumed, he observe-*,
that we were without some apology. When the Roman bishops con-
ferred our benefices and our ecclesiastical dignities on strangers, while
even our most learned men spent their days without proHt, or were
compelled to skulk under the monkish cowl, what inducement was them
to pursue studies in themselves not possessed of any charm ? 17 But
this could scarcely be considered the cause of the decline in literature,
at the period of which we are speaking. Henry the Fifth paid particu-
lar attention to ecclesiastical affairs, and though blind to the doctrinal
errors of Rome, was not of a character to allow any interference on the
part of the pope with the management of the national church. The
archbishopric of Canterbury was no sooner vacant, than he promoted
to that see the celebrated Henry Chichely, to whose boldness and vigour
the English church was in a great measure indebted for the preservation
of its liberties. Both he and Waynttete, bishop of Winchester, followed
the example of Wykeham, and founded colleges. 18 But the interests of
literature were not to be secured by these means alone. Henry the
Fifth, hi his ambition to acquire renown as a conqueror, lost sight of the
virtues which better became the king as well as the man. With all his
accomplishments and his supposed respect for learning, he was not less
the slave of bigotry than the most uneducated of his subjects. In his
reign the Lollards were made to feel the utmost fury of their enemies,
' De Illus. Ang. Scriptorihus, p. &S7.
" History of Oxford, 1306, &o. ' Berington Lit.
Hist. p. 503, 501.
304 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
and truth and justice were taught the bitter lesson, that they might
plead in vain if they came to the bar with religion.
In such a state of things, learning and philosophy could not but
retrograde. They may far better advance when opposed by error that
has been undisturbedly gathering strength for centuries, than when met
by prejudices which have been shaken, but are re-asserting their autho-
rity. From the period of which we are now speaking, down to that of
the Reformation, truth had to struggle perpetually against the worst
enemies both of moral and intellectual good. The love of chivalry had
given a seeming sanctification to war, and the polish which society de-
rived from its precepts of gallantry, legitimatized the most odious vices.
It was from the lips of licentious soldiers that youth were to learn the
rules of life, from courtly women they were to derive their knowledge
of religion. The aid of the scholar and the churchman was not required
till his education was complete, and he waited to have his sword laid
on the altar. It was only in the pomp and ceremony of the institution
that religion had any thing to do with chivalry ; but the church was
satisfied with the part it was allowed to take in the management of the
order, and for the zeal which the knight professed in the defence of its
rights, it consented to believe that the cross he bore on his shield was
a true emblem of his heart and conduct. Catholicism, thus indulgent
to the false but glittering system which exercised so* powerful an influence
over manners, inspired the schoolmen with a more determined love of
Aristotle and his logic, continually forged new chains to keep down
the rising spirit of inquiry, taught the people to regard Roger Bacon as
a magician, Wicklifle as a pest to society, and all who presumed to
doubt the infallibility of the pope, as the ministers of Satan.
To these causes may be ascribed the slow progress which literature
made during two or three reigns after that of Edward the Third, com-
pared with its state at that period. In the reign of Henry the Sixth,
Lydgate, still the principal poet of the age, was chiefly engaged in
translating from the French, or in versifying traditions to gratify the
vanity of monks. What portion of classical learning he possessed, was
mixed up with the wildest fables of romance, and the principal Greek
writers are named by him almost in the same manner as the old heroes
of chivalry. There was, however, no indifference on the part of the
people to the improvement of minstrelsy, and Warton adduces evidence
to prove that the minstrels of this age were not unfrequently better paid
than the clergy. In the year 1430, at the feast of the fraternity of
the ' Holie Crosse,' at Abingdon, in Berkshire, twelve priests are stated
to have received only fourpence each for singing a dirge, while the
twelve minstrels who took a part in the amusements, were paid two
shillings and fourpence each, besides being provided with refreshment
for themselves and horses. Another case of a similar kind which oc-
curred eleven years after, is adduced to show the same remarkable fact.
Eight priests who were hired from Coventry to assist at a ceremony in
the church at Mantoke, were paid but two shillings each, while the six
minstrels engaged on the same occasion, received each of them double
that sum, and were allowed to sup with the sub-prior of the monastery
in the painted chamber, which was lit up by the chamberlain with eight
large wax tapers. The want of respect for ecclesiastics which this
would seem to imply, is the more difficult to be explained when the
TO THIKD PERIOD. ;}().")
character of the age is considered. There was no indifference to the
rites of the church on the part of the people, nor was there a deficiency
of talent, considered without reference to their errors and prejudices,
in the ruling members of the establishment. Some names occur in the
history of the period which deserve a respectable place among English
ecclesiastical writers. Such are those of Thomas Waldcnsis, of whom
it is said, that his works were the repository whence subsequent contro-
versialists drew many of their most favourite arguments ; 19 Walsingham
the historian, Henry Chichely, Waynflete, and others, who both by
their ability and the energy with which they defended what was then
the most popular side of the controversy, ought, it would seem, to have
secured better patronage for their brethren. Had the inferior payment
above mentioned been confined to the monks or priests engaged at
ceremonies, we might have accounted for the circumstance by suppos-
ing that the ecclesiastics thus employed were usually the least learned
members of the church ; but we find that the same low rate of payment
extended to preachers of some rank and learning. The prior of the
monastery at Mantoke who gave, as we have seen, four shillings to the
minstrels who sung at his festival paid a doctor prcdicans but sixpence
for a sermon. The inference to be drawn from all this is, that the po-
pular mind was yet in its infancy ; that it had not yet begun to take
any deep interest in subjects which require reflection ; and that changes
and improvements had to be looked for which should alter the state of
the great mass of the people, before literature could be expected to ad-
vance with equal and steady steps.
The reign of Edward the Fourth commenced amid the confusion of
civil war ; and the jealousy of the monarch, combined with the tumultu-
ary spirit which pervaded the nation, produced a state of things ill cal-
culated to promote the cause of learning and general intelligence. How
little freedom of speech the people enjoyed may in some measure be
understood from an anecdote related of the king's conduct soon after he
ascended the throne. A London shopkeeper to whose house was affixed
the sign of the crown, laughingly said that his son should be heir to the
crown. Strange to relate, Edward on being informed of the expression,
directed that the unfortunate man should be apprehended, and soon
after signed the order for his execution. 20 The prosperity, however,
which attended the close of his reign was favourable to the improve-
ment of the nation, and circumstances are on record which indicate an
increasing respect for literature on the part of the higher ranks. Though
the institution of the office of poet-laureate has contributed little to tin;
improvement of the national muse, it served to mark, at the time when
it was introduced, a higher degree of veneration for the poetical art
than had existed in previous reigns. We have observed the respecta-
bility which literature appeared to be on the eve of acquiring in the
times of Chaucer and Gower : since then minstrelsy seems to have been
oftener heard of than any of the more genuine species of poetry ; and
it is a favourable sign of Edward the Fourth's regard for literature that
we hear in his reign for the first time of a laureate poet. The custom
of crowning successful bards had been early observed by the Provencals,
and it had travelled from them into Germany and Italy. In some of
' Pits, de lllust. An?. Script. Leland. Coin, de Script. Britu
w Hume, vol. Ill Ed. IV.
I. 2 Q
306 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
the places where it was adopted with greatest zeal, it appears to have
been amalgamated with the mass of figurative rites and ceremonies,
which rose out of the same state of feeling as those of chivalry and
many of the catholic churches. In Italy, Petrarch had introduced it
from a sentiment in which veneration for his art, self-love, and patriotism,
had all a part. But wherever it prevailed, it invested the poet with a
species of dignity which greatly enhanced the value of his calling, and
placed him not only on a level with the scholars who figured in univer-
sities and academies, but with the men who boasted of their titles derived
from courts and princes. 21 Warton regards the appellation as it appears
attached to the name of the king of England's poet, simply in the light
of an academical distinction, and adduces numerous instances in which
persons who took degrees in grammar at Oxford, were styled Poetce
laureati^ It is, however, singular that no poet should have been men-
tioned before this time as king's laureate ; and whether we consider the
title as given by the monarch, or as enjoyed by this court-poet as his
proper academical distinction, it is evident that it was a title of honour
which had not been usually borne by persons occupying the office of
royal bard.
Of the state of literature, the productions of the period give but a
very unfavourable opinion. Harding's Chronicle, which stands fore-
most in the list, is characterised as " beneath criticism, and as fit only
for the attention of an antiquary." But Harding was a man of some
rank, had both experience and influence, and employed poetry, how-
ever little genius he possessed, on themes of interest and importance.