HAMPSON'S MEDII 2EVI KALENDARIUM.

A BOOK of so sterling character as this, is not only a makeweight against a ton of the ephemeral trash which the press is continually pouring forth, but it does much towards supplying information for which we have hitherto been mainly indebted to the literature of France. It is impossible to place too high an estimate on the value of dates in all historical and antiquarian inquiries : dates are said to be " to history what the latitude and longitude are to naviga- tion—fixing the exact position of the objects to which they are applied." From the great variety and endless complexity of dates in early charters and other instruments, both public and private, it is absolutely necessary to have tables and glossaries, &c. constantly at hand for converting those dates into the present mode of computation. Yet, while the French have long possessed such in- valuable works as L' Art the Verifier les Dates, the Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique, and the Dictionnaire Raisonne de Diplomatique, it was only of late years that the attention of our own antiquaries was di- rected to the subject. That great national work the Feedera, as well in the original edition as in the one undertaken at an enormous cost by the late Record Commission of disgraceful memory, wherein numerous documents are assigned to wrong years, is a lasting monument of the ignorance of English antiquaries of what our neighbours call " la science diplomatique."

The Notitia Historica, which appeared in 1824, was one attempt to supply information of this nature ; but it was superseded in 1829 by the Chronology of History, of which a new and much improved edition appeared in 1838: and it is remarkable, that though Mr. HANirsosr alludes to the Notitia Ristorica, and has con- sulted most other works bearing on his labours, he seems ignorant even of the existence of the Chronology of History, and conse- quently does not know that the regnal years of the Kings of Eng- land are therein computed upon the recently-discovered principle, " that no interregnum has occurred from the decease of a King to the reign of his successor " ; that it contains all the tables which, he says, are wanted "for the reduction of dates into modern terms " ; and that it contains, though in an abridged form, much of the prac- tical part of the information which he has himself now given to the public. The works of Mr. HAMPSON and Sir HARRIS NICOLAS are,' however, very different from each other ; for while that of the latter is an unreadable "hand-book," filled with tables and other data for the reduction of dates of all periods and countries into modern terms, the present volumes, and especially the first, are filled with facts explanatory of ancient customs, sports, and superstitions, compiled not merely from BRAND, STRUT; and other well-known books, but also from original sources.

It is, however, desirable to point out more precisely the plan and contents of this valuable work. Mr. HAMPSON first treats, generally, " on Charters and Dates " ; showing the ex- traordinary variety of dates, and laying down rules for ascer- taining both the dates and the authenticity of early instruments. When the reader learns that he prescribes no fewer than thirty-one general and twenty-seven particular rules on the subject, besides nine additional ones in relation to English charters, he must believe that the art is somewhat more difficult than he may have imagined : but if he be still doubtful, let him read what Mr. HAMPSON says on the redundancy of dates. While many of the charters, granted during the middle ages, were without any indication of the time, an astonishing redundancy of dates appears in others. A charter of William the First is dated A.D. 1082, indiction 15, cpact 29, concurrent 5, lunar cycle 19, and regnal year 16. We also find not only these terms, but the solar cycle, the golden number, paschal term, dominicial letter, the moon's age, the position of the sun and moon in the signs of the zodiac, Easter-day, the kalends of the month, and even the hour of the day, crowded together in the same instrument. The early writers of annals and chronicles, though they could not agree in commencing the year from the same day, sometimes indulged in this profusion of dates. Taking a few cases almost at random, we find that the death of Edmund the Martyr occurred in the year of grace 870, of his age 29, and of his reign 16, on the 12th day before the kalends of December, the second day of the week, indiction 3, and in the 22d day of the moon's age. The capture of the Knights Templars, an important event, is loaded with dates—'In the year of our Lord 1306, and the first of Edward the Second, dominicial letter A, the moon current 16 days, on Wed- nesday next after the feast of the Epiphany, and in the 4th year of Pope John, all the brethren of the Temple were seized in pursuance of the King's mandate and the Papal Bull.' In a chronicle quoted by Dr. Whitaker, the death of a monk is recorded thus—' In the year of our Lord 1309 from his incarnation, on the day of St. Vincent the Martyr, died our first abbot, indiction 8, the 2d year from leap year, dominicial letter D, golden number XIX., and the 3d year of King Edward the Second.' A battle was fought between the Scots and English on Friday 10th June 1138; which, to modern ears, is thus ob- scured by the chronicler, John, Prior of Hexham—' This battle took place at Clitheroe, on the 6th feria or day of the week, the quinzime of the nativity of St. John the Baptist.' A ludicrously turgid date is employed by John Whet- hamstede to convey the information that the King arrived at St. Alban's about Easter 1458—The 7th year being completely passed, in the first term of the ensuing year, about that season in which our Lord Jesus rode upon an ass into Jerusalem, there to celebrate the Passover with his Disciples, came our Lord the King to the monastery, to cat his paschal lamb with his dukes, earls, barons, and knights. In a similar style he designates the end of July as the time when the sabbath or solstice of the year is past, and the sun has gone further and further until he has nearly described all the degrees of the sign

Leo.

" From a mistaken notion of the import of the six Persian gahan bars, or Zoroastrian thousands of light, an opinion early obtained that the world would terminate at the expiration of six thousand years; and in the tenth century it was everywhere believed that this period had nearly arrived. Theologians attempted to calculate the precise moment of the end of the world; and nume- rous charters of that age commence with the words ' As the world is now

drawing to its close.' The terror inspired by this opinion seems not to have

subsided in 1068, the date of a charter of William the Conqueror, which begins with the alarming annunciation.

" Events of national importance, and even the transactions of private per- sons, have been, from whatever motive, selected as the epochs of charters. A. Saxon grant of manumission to a serf, in the reign of William the First, re- quires a minute acquaintance with ecclesiastical history to ascertain the date. So also a charter of Alice de Gant, in 1154, which is dated on the 5th day before the ides of June, in the reign of King Stephen, during the vacancy in the church caused by the death of Archbishop William, and while he lies un- buried. Here all is particular, and yet, except the day of the month, obscure. The remarkable circumstance of the Archbishop's death and lying in state seems to have been uppermost in the mind of the clerical notary; who, no doubt, considered it to be a more memorable date than the regnal year of the prince or the year of the nativity. A charter of William de Romans was made A.D. 1172, on the kalends of April, at the abbey of St. Laurence, in the time of Abbot Hugh. Walter Fitz Gerard, impressed with the importance of the event, dates in that year in which died King Henry the younger, the son of Alianora and King Henry, and after the death of the same younger Henry, at the festival of St. Michael next ensuing. A charter of Owen de Bromfield is dated A.D. 1195, dominicial letter A, on Sunday after the feast of St. Benedict. William the Conqueror has a magnificent date, taken from the completion of the Domesday Survey. A charter, conferring upon Alan, Count of Bretagne, all Earl Edwin's towns and lands in Yorkshire, which is ascribed to the same King, but believed by Spelman to be a forgery, is dated during the siege of the city of York. A charter of the year 1164 is dated on that Easter in which the King banished the relations of the Archbishop of Canterbury from the Feast of St. Michael, after the consecration of 11. Archdeacon of Cauterbury as Bishop of Salisbury. The nativity of patrons of religious houses has been sometimes employed, probably from motives of gratitude, as a convenient point from which to compute the dates of the smaller monkish chronicles. Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicnn has a date of this kind. It was completed, lie says, 18th April 1387, 10th Richard the Secoud, ' the yere of my hordes age, sire Thomas Berkley, that made me make thys translation, fyve and thrytty.' Perhaps the most singular of historical dates is contained in a charter of Wil- liam Fitz Walter de Stancs, in 1193; it is taken from the regnal year and the year of his own marriage. Modern writers sometimes furnish dates of this kind, which would, unaccompanied by other materials, be attended with equal obscurity : thus the South Sea scheme, which ruined many hundred families, communicated its name to the year 1720, when the bubble was dissipated-

" What made Directors cheat in .ouch Sea Year."

Dr. Maty, in 1751, mentions the ' year of the South' as a remarkable epoch of human weakness, in which sudden opulence threw more people into the mad- house than unexpected reverses."

The remarks on the use of the English language in England are extremely interesting.

" In consequence of the very great publicity with which the conferring of immunities and the erection or transference of a manor were transacted in early times, an opinion might be induced that a date was unnecessary in such cases; and in fact it is not now an essential requisite. The date being optional, some charters are found with and some without indications of the time of publication. The peculiar circumstances of the Saxon monks after the Conquest, might have led them to omit dates in the numerous Latin charters which they forged in order to secure themselves in their possessions. The practice, thus introduced, would be readily adopted by the Norman in- vaders, who employed every expedient to plunder them. The Normans were constantly demanding a sight of the written evidences of their lands ; and the monks well knew that it would have been useless or impolitic to produce these evidences or charters, from which the former, besides being ignorant of the language, entertained a strong aversion. They abhorred the Saxon idiom, and administered the laws and statutes in French: even boys in schools were taught French and not English grammar ; so that the English, that is the Saxon manner of writing, was lost, and the French manner used in all charters and books. The monks were therefore compelled to the pious fraud of forging their evidences in Latin ; and great numbers, till lately supposed original, are still extant. It is not however to be supposed that English was totally neglected even under the Norman princes. Some of the charters of William the First himself are in Saxon ; and St. Godric and Layamon composed their poems in their native language. A proclamation issued in the 43d of Henry the Third is extant in Somuer, Hickes, Hearne, and the new edition of Rymer's Fudera. It is certainly written in Normanno- Saxon, though Lord Lyttleton considers it to be "old English "—a very loose and indefinite descrip. tion, for pure Saxon may be so denominated. Robert of Gloucester, in this reign, has a passage in which he says that the Normans could speak only their own tongue, and that the high men of the land, who sprang from their blood, held all that speech, which they received from them ; for if a man could speak French he was well spoken of. But low men held to English, their native language. And he weens that there is no man in any country in the world, except England alone, that does not hold to his native speech. But well he wots that it is good to know both; for the more a man knows the more is he worth. The passage itself is a specimen of English at this period-

" And the 'Normans ne couthe spoke rho but,' her owe speche

As speke French as dude atom, & here chyldreu dude al as tecbe.

So that heymen of thys loud, that of her bind coo

Holilth alle thulke specie, that !di of hem nome.

Vor bole a man couthe French, me With of hyrn wet lute, Ac lowe men holdilt the Eugligss, & to her kunde specie gate.

welle Cher ire be man in world contreyes non,

That ue holdath to her kande specie, brie Eugolond one, Ac eel me coot voeto come Mahe wet he ys Vor the more a man con, the more worth he ys."

"Eight years after the Saxon proclamation of Henry the Third, the first French statute was enacted. Mr. Hallam notices a proclamation of Edward the First, in the Fcedera, where he endeavours to excite his subjects against the King of France, by imputing to him the intention of conquering the country, and abolishing the English language; which is frequently repeated in the pro- clamations of Edward the Third. It is still more singular that the preamble of the statute of 18th Edward III., st. 2, which is itself in French, alleges the very same imputation against the French King. However, in this reign we find the oldest English instrument.known to exist ; it bears the date of 1313 ; and in 1362, a statute, written in Norman-French, was passed, requir- ing that all pleas in courts of justice should be pleaded, debated, and decided in English. Rymer has inserted an instrument in English, dated 1385. Ralph Higden, about the latter part of the reign of Edward the Third, says that gen- tlemen's children are taught to speak French from the time they are rocked in the cradle ; and nplandishmen, (i. e. countrymen, lower classes,) will liken themselves to gentlemen with great business for to speak French, for to be the more told of; which is the very remark made by Robert of Gloucester. Chau- cer, in his Prologue to the " Prioress's Tale," notices the French taught in the schools at this time, with great contempt- than the Latin; but of English he takes no notice. The lions of Parliament do not contain more than three or four entries in English before the reign of Henry the Sixth; after whose accession the use of the language became common in these records; but French continued to he the language of the Court so lately as the reign of Henry the Eighth; and from an epigram of Sir Thomas tore, quoted by Daises Barrington, it appears to have been no better than that of Stratford-le-Bow- - Creacit tamen, aibique nimirum placet,

Verbis tribus si quid loquatur Gallice; Aut Galicia si quid acquit vocabulis. Conatur id Beet, verbis non Gallicis, Caner° saltem persodare Gallica."

An article in the Gentleman's Magazine, for the present month, shows that "French of Stratford at Bowe" meant, in the reign of Queen ELIZABETH, no French at all, but simply English ; and that two English Envoys, in 1404, informed the French Ambassadors with whom they were sent to treat, that they were as ignorant of French as of Hebrew.

The second book relates to " Popular Customs and Superstitions, connected with dates" ; and we have seldom met with more curious or amusing matter. The third book is "on Ancient Kalendars" ; and contains copies of several kalendars of early periods, used at different places. The second volume consists of a "Glossary" of Saints' Days, and of the terms used in dating ecclesiastical and other instruments ; which exhibits learning and industry, and is the fullest and most complete glossary of the kind that we are ac- quainted with.