THE BIRTH OF ENGLISH HISTORY.*
IN this very careful volume Mr. Kingsford, whose work in connexion with the London Chronicles is already well known, attempts a general treatment of a difficult and little-known subject. The fifteenth century may fairly be regarded as the cradle of English history. It is not only that the actual use of English as the medium of historical writing dates from this time, or that the century saw the production of those stories which were afterwards to supply the great Elizabethan poets with the material for their plays, and through them to feed the imagination of all future genera- tions of Englishmen. We can see in the period which Mr. Kingsford describes the definite development of a true historical method. The first quarter of the century is still dominated by the old tradition of the monkish chronicle, which reached its zenith in the school of St. Alberni, and its writers have all the prejudices and limitations of the monastic annalist. Only in the case of Adam of Usk are there signs of a more directly personal expression (the first step towards true literary form). But even Adam made little advance towards scientific writing. The first sign of real change comes with those works which gather round the personality of Henry V., and it is perhaps in his treatment of these that Mr. Kingsford's volume is most original and most con- vincing. The first of these works, Elmham's Cada Henrici Quint 1, is still thoroughly mediaeval in method and outlook, but it approaches more nearly to a true narrative style and shows, too, many traces of personal observation and experience. Much more important is the Vita Henrici Quitiii of the Italian Tito Livio da Fern, who came to England about 1436 to take service with Humphrey of Gloucester, one of the earliest English patrons of the Renaissance. The book was probably written within two years of its author's arrival in England, and soon became the official Life of Henry, and obtained a wide circulation through the medium of an English translation (first edited by Mr. Kingsford in 1911) which was made under the patronage of the fourth Earl of Ormonde and contained a certain amount of new material supplied by him. It is to this translation more than to any other work that we owe the traditional legend of Henry V., for several of the stories on which the tradition depends were supplied to the translator by Ormonde (who had taken part in the French campaigns of 1412 and was present at Agincourt and in the later expeditions of 1418 and 1419) and were afterwards adopted from the translation by Stow and Holinshed. In particular, we can trace Shakespeare's story of the robbery at Gadshill directly through Stow to Ormonde in this way. More im- portant historically is another 'Vita" founded on that of Livio and wrongly attributed by Hearne to Farnham. In this work the influence of the Renaissance and of clasaical models is clearly traceable, although in his attempt to emulate his models the author too often lapses into a windy and inexpres- sive rhetoric. With these works we see definitely introduced one of the two elements which were to make English history possible—the fertilizing touch of the Renaissance. But foreign inlInenee alone could not make a native litera- ture, and, as Chaucer had seized and transmuted the currency of France, so the race of English chroniclers now came forward to supplement the influence of Italy. It was about the date of Agincourt, Mr. Kingsford thinks, that the famous London Chronicles first began to assume the form which was to be characteristic of them during this period. The earliest known version was probably written about 1385, but it was between 1414 and 1490 that the material fled under- went a drastic process of revision and extension, and it was in the version for the years 1440 to 1485 that the city chronicle reached its highest leveL Too much importance must not be attached to the literary achievement of these com- pilations. It is true that in the matter of style one can trace a marked advance in the later versions. They are valuable, too, as showing us the attitude towards public affairs of the growing middle class of the great cities. But their chief importance is the mere fact of their coming into existence. It was through them that English writers learned to tell the story of England in her own language, and there can be little doubt that they did an immense service by stimulating publio interest in English history, and through it that essential • Jingle& Iligorieal Literals. is the Pj5mlh Cmtury. By Charles Lethbridge Kingdord. word: at the University Press. 11.5e. neh]
feeling of patriotism which must have come near to extinction during the dreadful feuds of York and Lancaster.
Almost equally important is the Brut, a history of Britain from the earliest times, begun originally in French early in the fourteenth century, translated into English with a con- tinuation in 1377, carried through the fourteenth century in versions closely related to the London Chronicles, and eventually adapted by Caxton for his Chronicles of England. Mr. Kingsford's treatment of the many versions of the city chronicles and the Brut is very careful and sound, and he devotes some interesting pages to a consideration of the place of correspondence, private and official, among the historical authorities of the period. Another chapter deals with the value of the ballad, and another traces the use made by the sixteenth-century historians, Hall, Stow, and HoUnshed, of this mass of material, while a number of specimens of the chronicles of the period, hitherto not accessible in print, are contained in a valuable appendix.
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