The Renaissance and the Reformation, those two national outbreaks, are still far off; and the literature of the period retains to the end, like the highest ranks of English society, almost the perfect stamp of its French origin and its foreign models. [Footnote 97: See, amidst other delineations of their manners, the first accounts of the first Crusade. Godfrey clove a Saracen down to his waist. In Palestine, a widow was compelled, up to the age of sixty, to marry again, because no fief could remain without a defender. A Spanish leader said to his exhausted soldiers after a battle, "You are too weary and too much wounded, but come and fight with me against this other band; the fresh wounds which we shall receive will make us forget those which we have." At this time, says the General Chronicle of Spain, kings, counts, and nobles, and all the knights, that they might be ever ready, kept their horses in the chamber where they slept with their wives.] [Footnote 98: For difference in numbers of the fleet and men see Freeman, "History of the Norman Conquest," 3 vols., 1867, III. 381, 387.--Tr.] [Footnote 99: For all the details see "Anglo-Norman Chronicles," III. 4, as quoted by Aug. Thierry. I have myself seen the locality and the country.] [Footnote 100: Of three columns of attack at Hastings, two were composed of auxiliaries. Moreover, the chroniclers are not at fault upon this critical point; they agree in stating that England was conquered by Frenchmen.] [Footnote 101: It was a Rouen fisherman, a soldier of Rollo, who killed the Duke of France at the mouth of the Eure. Hastings, the famous' sea-king, was a laborer's son from the neighborhood of Troyes.] [Footnote 102: "In the tenth century," says Stendhal, "a man wished for two things: First, not to be slain; second, to have a good leather coat." See Fontenelle's "Chronicle."] [Footnote 103: William of Malmesbury.] [Footnote 104: Churches in London, Sarum, Norwich, Durham, Chichester Peterborough, Rochester, Hereford, Gloucester, Oxford, etc.--William of Malmesbury.] [Footnote 105: Ordericus Vitalis.] [Footnote 106: Robert Wace, "Roman du Rou."] [Footnote 107: Ibid. Et li Normanz et li Franfceiz Tote nuit firent oreisons, Et furent en aflicions. De lor péchiés confèz se firent As proveires les regehirent, Et qui n'en out proveires prèz, A son veizin se fist confèz, Pour ço ke samedi esteit Ke la bataille estre debveit. Unt Normanz a pramis e voé, Si com li cler l'orent loé, Ke à ce jor mez s'il veskeient, Char ni saunc ne mangereient Giffrei, éveske de Coustances. A plusors joint lor pénitances. Cli reçut li confessions Et dona l' béneiçons.]