[Footnote 115: La Fontaine, "Contes, Richard Minutolo."] [Footnote 116: Parler lui veut d'une besogne Où crois que peu conquerrérois Si la besogne vous nommois.] [Footnote 117: At King Stephen's death there were 1,115 castles.] [Footnote 118: A. Thierry, "Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre," II.] [Footnote 119: William of Malmesbury. A. Thierry, II. 20, 122-203.] [Footnote 120: A. Thierry.] [Footnote 121: "In the year 652," says Warton, I. 3, "it was the common practice of the Anglo-Saxons to send their youth to the monasteries of France for education; and not only the language but the manners of the French were esteemed the most polite accomplishments."] [Footnote 122: Warton, I. 5.] [Footnote 123: Trevisa's translation of the Polycronycon.] [Footnote 124: Statutes of foundation of New College, Oxford. In the abbey of Glastonbury, in 1247: Liber de excidio Trojæ, gesta Ricardi regis, gesta Alexandri Magni, etc. In the abbey of Peterborough: Amys et Amelion, Sir Tristam, Guy de Bourgogne, gesta Otuclis les prophéties de Merlin, le Charlemagne de Turpin, la destruction de Troie, etc. Warton, ibid.] [Footnote 125: In 1154.] [Footnote 126: Warton, I. 72-78.] [Footnote 127: In 1400. Warton, II. 248. Gower died in 1408; his French ballads belong to the end of the fourteenth century.] [Footnote 128: He wrote in 1356, and died in 1372.] [Footnote 129: "And for als moche as it is longe time passed that ther was no generalle Passage ne Vyage over the See, and many Men desiren for to here speke of the holy Lond, and han thereof gret Solace and Comfort, I, John Maundevylle, Knyght, alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in Englond, in the town of Seynt-Albones, passed the See in the Zeer of our Lord Jesu-Crist 1322, in the Day of Seynt Michelle, and hidreto have been longe tyme over the See, and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse londes, and many Provynces, and Kingdomes, and Iles." "And zee shulle undirstonde that I have put this Boke out of Latyn into Frensche, and translated it azen out of Frensche, into Englyssche, that every Man of my Nacioun may undirstonde it."--Sir John Maundeville's "Voyage and Travaile," ed. Halliwell, 1866, prologue, p. 4.] [Footnote 130: Sir John Maundeville's "Voyage and Travaile," ed. Halliwell, 1866, XII., p. 139. It is confessed that the original on which Wace depended for his ancient "History of England" is the Latin compilation of Geoffrey of Monmouth.]