and, thirdly, to the Crusades, which, attracting the nobles to adventures in Palestine, lifted the heel of Norman oppression off the Saxon neck, and gave that opportunity, which alone was needed, to make England in reality, if not in name—­in thews, sinews, and mental strength, if not in regal state and aristocratic privilege—­Saxon-England in all its future history.  Other elements are still found, but the Saxon greatly predominates.

The historian of that day might well bemoan the fate of the realm, as in the Saxon Chronicle already quoted.  To the philosopher of to-day, this Norman conquest and its results were of incalculable value to England, by bringing her into relations with the continent, by enduing her with a weight and influence in the affairs of Europe which she could never otherwise have attained, and by giving a new birth to a noble literature which has had no superior in any period of the world’s history.

As our subject does not require, and our space will not warrant the consideration of the rise and progress of French literature, before its introduction with the Normans into England, we shall begin with the first fruits after its transplantation into British soil.  But before doing so, it becomes necessary to mention certain Latin chronicles which furnished food for these Anglo-Norman poets and legendists.

WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY.—­William of Malmesbury, the first Latin historian of distinction, who is contemporary with the Norman conquest, wrote a work called the “Heroic Deeds of the English Kings,” (Gesta Regum Anglorum,) which extends from the arrival of the Saxons to the year 1120; another, “The New History,” (Historia Novella,) brings the history down to 1142.  Notwithstanding the credulity of the age, and his own earnest recital of numerous miracles, these works are in the main truthful, and of real value to the historical student.  In the contest between Matilda and Stephen for the succession of the English crown, William of Malmesbury is a strong partisan of the former, and his work thus stands side by side, for those who would have all the arguments, with the Gesta Stephani, by an unknown contemporary, which is written in the interest of Stephen.

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.—­More famous than the monk of Malmesbury, but by no means so truthful, stands Geoffrey of Monmouth, Archdeacon of Monmouth and Bishop of St. Asaph’s, a writer to whom the rhyming chronicles and Anglo-Norman poets have owed so much.  Walter, a Deacon of Oxford, it is said, had procured from Brittany a Welsh chronicle containing a history of the Britons from the time of one Brutus, a great-grandson of AEneas, down to the seventh century of our era.  From this, partly in translation and partly in original creation, Geoffrey wrote his “History of the Britons.”  Catering to the popular prejudice, he revived, and in part created, the deeds of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table—­fabulous heroes who have figured in the best English poetry from that day to the present, their best presentation having been made in the Idyls of the King, (Arthur,) by Tennyson.