[322] A great many other English chroniclers wrote in Latin, and among their number: Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, Fitzstephen, the pseudo Benedict of Peterborough, William of Newburgh, Roger de Hoveden (d. ab. 1201) in the twelfth century; Gervase of Canterbury, Radulph de Diceto, Roger de Wendover, Radulph de Coggeshall, John of Oxenede, Bartholomew de Cotton, in the thirteenth; William Rishanger, John de Trokelowe, Nicolas Trivet, Richard of Cirencester, in the fourteenth. A large number of chronicles are anonymous. Most of those works have been published by the English Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries, and especially by the Master of the Rolls in the great collection: "The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland ... published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls," London, 1857 ff., in progress. See also the "Descriptive Catalogue of materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, to the end of the reign of Henry VII." by Sir T. D. Hardy, Rolls, 1862-6, 3 vols. 8vo. [323] The contrast between the time when Richard writes and the days of his youth, when he studied at Paris, is easy to explain. The Hundred Years' War had begun, and well could the bishop speak of the decay of studies in the capital, "ubi tepuit, immo fere friguit zelus scholae tam nobilis, cujus olim radii lucem dabant universis angulis orbis terrae.... Minerva mirabilis nationes hominum circuire videtur.... Jam Athenas deseruit, jam a Roma recessit, jam Parisius praeterivit, jam ad Britanniam, insularum insignissimam, quin potius microcosmum accessit feliciter." "Philobiblon," chap. ix. p. 89. In the same words nearly, but with a contrary intent, Count Cominges, ambassador to England, assured King Louis XIV. that "the arts and sciences sometimes leave a country to go and honour another with their presence. Now they have gone to France, and scarcely any vestiges of them have been left here," April 2, 1663. "A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II.," 1892, p. 205. CHAPTER IV. _LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE._ I. English in the meanwhile had survived, but it had been also transformed, owing to the Conquest. To the disaster of Hastings succeeded, for the native race, a period of stupor and silence, and this was not without some happy results. The first duty of a master is to impose silence on his pupils; and this the conquerors did not fail to do. There was silence for a hundred years. The clerks were the only exception; men of English speech remained mute. They barely recopied the manuscripts of their ancient authors, the list of whose names was left closed; they listened without comprehending to the songs the foreigner had acclimatised in their island. The manner of speech and the subjects of the discourses were equally unfamiliar; and they stood silent amidst the merriment that burst out like a note of defiance in the literature of the victors.