A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the RenaissanceJusserand, J. J. (Jean Jules)
History
A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the Renaissance
Jusserand, J. J. (Jean Jules)
English literature -- History and criticism
Hugh de Puiset, who was still riding about, though attacked by the
disease that was finally to carry him off, dies full of years in 1195,
after a _reign_ of forty-three years. He had had several children by
different women: one of them, Henri de Puiset, joined the Crusade;
another, Hugh, remained French, and became Chancellor to King Louis
VII.[230]
These warlike habits are only attenuated by degrees. In 1323 Edward II.
writes to Louis de Beaumont, bishop of Durham, reproaching a noble like
him for not defending his bishopric any better against the Scotch than
if he were a mutterer of prayers like his predecessor. Command is laid
upon bishop Louis to take arms and go and camp on the frontier. In the
second half of the same century, Henry le Despencer, bishop of Norwich,
hacks the peasants to pieces, during the great rising, and makes war in
Flanders for the benefit of one of the two popes.
Side by side with these warriors shine administrators, men of learning,
saints, all important and influential personages in their way. Such
are, for example, Lanfranc, of Pavia, late abbot of St. Stephen at Caen,
who, as archbishop of Canterbury, reorganised the Church of England;
Anselm of Aosta, late abbot of Bec, also an archbishop, canonised at the
Renaissance, the discoverer of the famous "ontological" proof of the
existence of God, a paradoxical proof the inanity of which it was
reserved for St. Thomas Aquinas to demonstrate; Gilbert Foliot, a
Frenchman, bishop of London, celebrated for his science, a strong
supporter of Henry II.; Thomas Becket, of Norman descent, archbishop and
saint, whose quarrel with Henry II. divided England, and almost divided
Christendom too; Hugh, bishop of Lincoln under the same king, of French
origin, and who was also canonised; Stephen Langton, archbishop of
Canterbury, who contributed as much as any of the barons to the granting
of the Great Charter, and presided over the Council of London, in 1218,
where it was solemnly confirmed[231]; Robert Grosseteste,[232] famous
for his learning and holiness, his theological treatises, his sermons,
his commentaries on Boethius and Aristotle, his taste for the divine art
of music, which according to him "drives away devils." Warriors or
saints, all these leaders of men keep, in their difficulties, their eyes
turned towards Rome, and towards the head of the Latin Church.
II.
At the same time as the monasteries, and under the shadow of their
walls, schools and libraries multiplied. The Latin education of the
nation is resumed with an energy and perseverance hitherto unknown, and
this time there will be no relapse into ignorance; protected by the
French conquest, the Latin conquest is now definitive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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