STEPHEN LANGTON.

CHAPTER I.

ENGLAND'S PREPARATION FOR LANGTON'S WORK.

To anyone who turns from the study of the thirteenth century of English history to the eleventh, from Magna Charta and the Parliament at Oxford to the Norman Conquest and the years immediately following it, the first feeling will probably be one of bewilderment. What is the connection between the later and earlier time? How did the English nation ever rise to such efforts; or the Norman barons restrain their ferocity and their prejudices so far as to join in a revolution so clear in its objects, so orderly in its conduct, and so beneficial to the conquered race? For, if ever men could have succeeded in effacing a nation, William of Normandy and his followers would

have done it. Against all the deepest feelings of the country, the Conqueror in some way or other offended; from all real sources of its liberty and law he took away the strength and meaning.

In a country where the whole political life of the nation, and the history of its freedom was bound up with the possession of the land,' he recklessly tore it, or allowed it to be torn, from the owners, to supply the individual wants of his Norman followers, and his own avarice.2 In a country where taxation had been hardly ever known without consultation with the witan,3 the most reckless system of plunder was carried on without reason or pity. In a country where the nation was only slowly developing central power,

1 See Kemble's Saxons in England, chap. ii. pp. 35, 43.

2 Matthæus Paris, Vitæ Abbatum vigenti trium, S. Albani, p. 47, ed. Hodgkinson, 1640 (see also Ellis' Introduction to Domesday Book, vol. i. p. 32); Henricus Huntingdoniensis, Book VI. p. 212 (Anglic. Script. post Bedam, ed. Bishop); Chronique de Normandie, p. 114, chap. 1., and p. 112, chap. xlix.; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Thorpe, p. 187, vol. ii.

3 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, passim. See also Kemble's Saxons in Eng., chap. vi. pp. 204–213.

Matt. Paris, Vit. Abb., S. Alb. as above; Ordericus Vitalis, vol. ii. p. 171, ed. Prevost; Hen. Hunt, Book VI. Hist., p. 212; Ang.-Sax. Chron., vol ii. p. 187; Florentius Wigorniensis, p. 2, ed. Luard.

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and where the true hope of freedom lay rather in the local courts than in the central witan,' he aimed a blow both at local independence and personal liberty, by sending royal justiciaries on an enquiry of the most inquisitorial character. Nor was it a point of small importance that in a country where, in the words of one of the latest. writers on English history, 'the Church councils were the national councils, and the Church was older than the State;' where, as William of Malmesbury sneeringly says, 'They wasted all their time on religion; and where, as one who had good right to speak tells us, that feeling was most strongly directed towards the monks; 5 William offended

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1 See Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. i. chap. iii. esp. p. 113; Hallam's Middle Ages, part i. chap. viii. p. 392.

2 See Hen. Hunt, as above; Roger of Wendover, vol. ii. p. 22, ed. Coxe. See, too, the descriptions of the punishments which were supposed to follow the survey, Bromton, p. 979 (Anglic. Script., ed. Twysden, vol. i.); and the comment of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicler, vol. ii. p. 186, that 'it was a shame to tell, though it seemed to the king no shame to do.' See also Simeon Dunelmensis, Hist. de Gestis Regum Anglorum (p. 211, Hist. Angl. Script., vol. i.); Florent. Wigorn., pp. 18, 19.

Stubbs' Introduction to Documents Illustrative of English History, p. 10.

* Guillielmus Malmesburiensis, vol. ii. p. 417, ed. Hardy.

Ord. Vital., vol. ii. p. 201.

part of the nation by his scepticism; all, by his oppressions and inspections of the monasteries." Above all, in a country where even insurrections of the most complete kind were made according to law,3 all sense of law and justice were rooted out.4

National feeling was so deeply scorned that 'it was a shame to be called an Englishman' 5 -the old virtues of the country were so utterly undermined, that 'the English nobles, scorning the yoke of slavery, betook themselves to the woods, where they lived by rapine, so that none could safely approach them,' while their wives and daughters took refuge from Norman lust in convents.7

1 Sim. Dunelm., Hist. de Dunelm., Eccl., chap. xix. (p. 39, vol. i. Angl. Script.).

2

Roger of Wendover, vol. ii. p. 7, ed. Coxe; Florent. Wigorn., P. 5.

See account of the expulsion of Tostig, Ang. -Sax. Chron., vol. ii. pp. 162, 163.

4 Ang.-Sax. Chron., vol. ii. p. 187; Bromton, p. 981 (vol. and ed. as above); but see esp. Hen. Hunt, Hist., Book VI. p. 212 (ed. as above). Compare Pearson's England in the Early and Middle Ages, chap. xxii. p. 259. 'The misfortune of the English was not that the laws were suppressed or changed for the worse, but that they were hardly ever executed.'

5 Bromton, p. 980 (vol. and ed, as above).

6 M. Paris, Vit. Abb., S. Alb., p. 46.

7 Wilkins' Concilia, vol. i. p. 237; Eadmer Historia Novorum, Book III. p. 362.