II. Spreading of Knowledge.--Latin education--Schools and libraries--Book collectors: Richard of Bury--Paris, chief town for Latin studies--The Paris University; its origins, teaching, and organisation--English students at Paris--Oxford and Cambridge--Studies, battles, feasts--Colleges, chests, libraries 166 III. Latin Poets.--Joseph of Exeter and the Trojan war--Epigrammatists, satirists, fabulists, &c.--Nigel Wireker and the ass whose tail was too short--Theories: Geoffrey of Vinesauf and his New Art of Poetry 176 IV. Latin Prosators--Tales and Exempla.--Geoffrey of Monmouth--Moralised tales--"Gesta Romanorum"--John of Bromyard--"Risque" tales, fables in prose, miracles of the Virgin, romantic tales--A Latin sketch of the "Merchant of Venice"--John of Salisbury; Walter Map--Their pictures of contemporary manners 181 V. Theologians, Jurists, Scientists, Historians.--The "Doctors"; Scot, Bacon, Ockham, Bradwardine, &c.--Gaddesden the physician--Bartholomew the encyclopaedist--Roman law and English law--Vacarius, Glanville, Bracton, &c. History--Composition of chronicles in monasteries--Impartiality of chroniclers--Their idea of historical art--Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, Matthew Paris--Observation of manners, preservation of characteristic anecdotes, attempt to paint with colours--Higden, Walsingham and others 193 CHAPTER IV. LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I. Pious Literature.--A period of silence--First works (pious ones) copied, translated or composed in English after the Conquest--Sermons--Lives of saints--Treatises of various sort--"Ancren Riwle"--Translation of French treatises--Life and works of Rolle of Hampole 204 II. Worldly Literature.--Adaptation and imitation of French writings--The "Brut" of Layamon--Translation of romances of chivalry--Romances dedicated to heroes of English origin--Satirical fabliaux--Renard in English--Lays and tales--Songs--Comparison with French chansons 219 BOOK III. _ENGLAND TO THE ENGLISH._ CHAPTER I. THE NEW NATION. I. Fusion of Races and Languages.--Abolition of the presentment of Englishery, 1340--Survival of the French language in the fourteenth century--The decline--Part played by "lowe men" in the formation of the English language--The new vocabulary--The new prosody--The new grammar--The definitive language of England an outcome of a transaction between the Anglo-Saxon and the French language 235