BOOKS.
THE EARLY AND MEDLEVAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.* UPON the subject of education, in which positive, probable, and possible Members of Parliament are anxiously assuring all whom it may concern that they take a real and practical interest, it can- not be denied that the Conservative party has something of the right to be heard which is usually conceded to experience. A party which at an advanced and, as it appears to many, a decrepit age has consented to go through a seven years' course of education, may be permitted to encourage their more humble neighbours by expatiating upon the pleasures and rewards which education brings with it. At school rewards are usually taken as as a measure of desert, and the old boys, if we may say so with reverence, who have been under the pressure of Mr. Disraeli's guiding hand have returned to their friends carrying off the highest prizes. Like other industrious and successful scholars, they have, during the Christmas holidays, been admitted to an ample share of the festivities of the season, and in short, they have every right to speak of education with enthusiasm, and of its results with pleasure. What may have been the curriculum of study
• History of England during the Early and Middle Ages. By Charles H. Pearson, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College; Oxford. 2 vols. London: Bell and Daldy. which has produced such curious and convincing results is a secret confined at present to the " initiate, mystic, perfected, epopt," and it cannot therefore be added to the other educational systems now submitted to the approval of intelligent constituents. Mr. Lowe, in a recent speech, declared that it was of no use to teach history, because history can only be learnt by reading ; but it seems likely that the Conservative party has been instructed by their political pastor and master in some elements of constitu- tional history. If they have acquired a taste for the study, we can sincerely recommend them as a text-book Mr. Pearson's work, which has just appeared in an enlarged and valuably revised edition. It has not been prompted by, nor put forward in the interests of any political party, but is merely a record of facts illustrating the political growth of England, and of the social and ecclesiastical development of the country, so far as controlled by or controlling political combinations.
Political facts, like others, are often startling as well as stubborn things, and we venture to think that a conscientious study of the early and mediaeval history of England, based, for instance, upon this work of Mr. Pearson's, may reveal to some of the Conservative party things which they have not heard in any political speech or lecture, either in the city of Edinburgh or elsewhere. They have certainly learnt to regard as compatible with the dignity of the nation, and with the safety of what are vaguely termed British institutions, many things which they had taught all men to consider as radical, revolu- tionary, and dangerous experiments ; but there are still many political claims which it is not good to advocate before polite Conservative ears, and which are characterized as newfangled and un-English. And yet, as Mr. Pearson sums up the matter, "reviewing the Parliaments of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies, it is curious to notice how many features they appear to possess that are now regarded as distinguishing marks of an ad- vanced Liberalism. An Upper House, composed largely of life peers or high officials ; annual Parliaments; payment of members ; a franchise, practically universal, among all freemen ; yeomen and tradesmen representing counties and cities, we may even add women summoned to the Upper House, are facts that seem to show a broad basis of constitutional liberty under the later Plantagenets." Nothing can be further from our intention than, in the discharge of a purely literary function, to use Mr. Pearson'a book as a wedge for entering into a discussion of these or similar modifications of the constitutional system, but it clearly lies within our province to invite the attention of political students to political facts. It was the abuse of most of these usages which led to their abolition, but it is important to remember that they have existed, because many abuses which were possible in the time of antiquated and obsolete political practices have been made nearly or quite impossible by improved social and political combinations ; and if such modifications as we have alluded to shall come to be proposed, they will have to be discussed on their merits, and not rejected as newfangled and un-English. For instance, knights of shires and burgesses were in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies allowed their expenses in Parliament, but the scale by which such allowances were fixed was an arbitrary one in the hands of the Government. The Crown could therefore abuse the practice, and pack the representative assembly by diminishing or withholding the proper payments. So long as such an abuse could exist the practice was certainly dangerous, but the abuse having obviously become impossible, the practice must be rejected or approved upon grounds independent of such a consideration. The constitution of the Upper House is almost certain to be made before long a political 'question,' and in anticipation of such an event a comparative study of the privileges and burdens attached to nobility in mediaeval times and in our own days may be re- commended, especially to those whose interests are likely to be disturbed. The ratio of responsibility to privileges will be found to have varied considerably from the days when the higher a noble was exalted above the level of the public, the more easily he was brought within reach of the scaffold. There is a page of Mr. Pearson's book to which we heartily wish that the attention of certain members of the present House of Peers could by some means be called. " When baronies by tenure fell into disuse, so strong were the associations that connected nobility with landed property, that a duke and a viscount have, on two separate occasions, been excluded from the Peerage from poverty." And in a note we are informed that George Nevill, Duke of Bedford, was degraded in 1477, " for so much as it is openly known that the same George bath not, nor by inheritance may have, any livelihood to support the said name,
estate, and dignity, or any name of estate," &c. We are by no means in favour of making poverty criminal except in such cases as it is the inevitable consequence of crime. A peer without a foot of landed estate, but with active hands, a brave heart, and a clear head, may exercise a better influence from his position than another with broad acres in every county in England ; but when a man has tarnished an illustrious name, forfeited ancient estates, and compromised his dignity by competing for the disreputable honours of the turf with some of the meanest and most contemptible of mankind, it becomes a serious ques- tion whether his conduct is criminal or a privilege of position. It contrasts curiously with the recorded achievements of the medieval nobility of England to read, as we read in a contempo- rary a few weeks ago, that on the morning of a race a nobleman, mentioned by name, had made the " strategic movement" (so it was called) of publicly throwing doubts upon his own horse's chance of success, that he might back it privately at longer odds.
But this is not a pleasant subject to dwell upon, though it is sure some day to prompt free discussion, and is not unlikely to provoke angry recrimination. At present, however, we can confine ourselves to the more agreeable task of impressing upon our countrymen of all ranks and stations of life the pleasure and the profit to be derived from including in their studies the early and medimval history of England. It is a many-sided subject, and presents points of interest to students of the most various tastes and inclinations. Apart from political considerations and ecclesiastical affairs viewed in the light of their influence upon secular history, there will be found many starting-points for those who take a religious interest in the instructive story of misinterpreted Christianity. Of the most universal interest must be the comparative study of social relations, their origin, growth, and development by slow degrees from a time when society was split up into castes, of which a small official aristocracy and a large pariah population were the two extremes. There were days in 'Merry Eng- land ' when even the upper classes were scarcely protected from forced marriages with the creatures of royal favour. " The artizans were forbidden to combine that they might raise the price of labour. The freedman who tried to marry his patron's wife or daughter was to be sent to the mines. The labourer could not bring a civil action against his master. The tavern-keeper had no action for his wife's adultery, and the serf no redress if his daughter were violated. The law expressly declared that it only protected the purity of well-born women !"
Mr. Pearson is careful to explain that his work is intended as a handbook of English history, and makes no pretensions to be an exhaustive narrative. It would greatly facilitate the labours of students in other departments if handbooks were always composed with the same diligence, the same impartiality, and the same enthusiasm. As an example of the author's style, when he is allowed a little free scope among the crowding mass of details which surround him, we extract a passage in which he alludes to the contrasts between mediaeval and modern times :-
"Even our advance in science, real and great though it be, is not absolute. Superstition and intolerance are as enduring as human weakness. Those who have watched the monstrous development of Mormonism, and know that the population of Utah is chiefly recruited from England, Wales, and America, may be pardoned if, for a moment, they envy the uncritical faith that never wandered out of its immature Christianity. Those who see the upper classes, the con- temporaries of Mill and Faraday, believing by thousands in spirit-rap- ping and table-moving, may well turn reverently to the Acta Sanctorum. Often puerile, sometimes gross, sometimes even un-Christian, the legends of the medimeval saints are only illustrations of a rational faith in God's personal character and intervention, they do not contradict the philo- sophy of their times. The laws of causation and gravitation had not then been developed by an illustrious line of thinkers. Yet although a con- trast like this may teach us to boast less confidently of progress, it is really in our favour. The master of ancient times was as credulous in the region of the supernatural as his pupils. Among ourselves there is a constantly widening circle of the enlightened, which restrains the half educated world from relapsing into barbarism. The same argu- ment applies to toleration. The spirit that branded Bishop Butler and Burke as concealed Papists, that instigated the burning of Priestley's house, and deprived Shelley of his children, is not less deplorable in itself than the violence that massacred Jews or headed a crusade against the Albigenses. But the belief that persecution is the witness of earthly power to God's truth, unhappily darkened the noblest minds of the Middle Ages Among ourselves there is still, no doubt, a torpid mass of bigotry, but it is restrained from all but occasional out- bursts by the righteous principles that long experience has worked into the public sense of Europe. The few active fanatics that still exist within the four seas number not a single statesman or man of learning in their ranks, and owe their power of annoyance to un- scrupulous slander and immoral political partizanship. One by one the persecuting statutes which Calvinism developed from precedents in the last worst times of the Mediaeval Church are disappearing from the English statute-book."
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