a far more serious change of name that the 'Old English' school have introduced; which, if it were indefinitely extended, would wantonly confuse historical literature. I mean the attempt to alter names which are the accepted landmarks of history. It is now thought scholarly to write of 'the Battle of _Senlac_' instead of 'the Battle of _Hastings_'. As every one knows, the fight took place on the site of Battle Abbey, seven miles from Hastings; as so many great battles, those of Tours, Blenheim, Cannæ, Chalons, and the like, have been named from places not the actual spot of the combat. But since for 800 years the historians of Europe have spoken of 'the Battle of Hastings', it does seem a little pedantic to rename it.... The sole authority for 'Battle of Senlac' is Orderic, a monk who lived and wrote in Normandy in the next century. Yet, on the strength of this secondary authority, the 'Old English' school choose to erase from English literature one of our most familiar names. Mr Freeman's rejoinder must be noticed, because singularly characteristic. Treating Mr Harrison 'de haut en bas', he expressed surprise that his friends should expect him to reply to an article which had merely amused him, and--unable, of course, to adduce any fresh authority for 'Senlac'--denounced his critic for a 'reckless raid into regions where he does not know the road'. For this charge there was no foundation in the matter of which we treat. Mr Freeman persisted that he had given the battle 'the only name that I found for it anywhere' (which we have seen was not the case), and sarcastically observed that 'so to do is certainly "pedantic", for it conduces to accuracy'. The truth is simply that the site of the battle had no name at all. As the professor himself wrote: The spot was then quite unoccupied and untilled; nothing in any of the narratives implies the existence of any village or settlement; our own Chronicle only describes the site as by 'the hoar apple-tree' ('He com him togenes æt þære haran apuldran'). Consequently, when men wished to speak of the great conflict, they were driven, as in similar cases, to term it the Battle of Hastings, or, if they wished to be more exact, they had to describe it, by periphrasis, as fought on 'the site which is now called Battle'.