In the island before the Conquest, the round of studies had been the same as on the Continent; and that event brought no change. The studies might improve, but would have no novel source to draw upon. And in this period of racial turmoil and revolution, it was unlikely that the Anglo-Saxon temperament would present itself as clearly as aforetime in the Saxon poem of _Beowulf_ or the personality of the Saxon Alfred, or in the Saxon _Genesis_ and the writings of Cynewulf.[407] In a word, the eleventh century in England was specifically the period when the old traits were becoming obscure, and no distinct modifications had been evolved in correspondence with the new conditions. Consequently, for presentations of the intellectual genius of the English people, one has to wait until the next century, the time of John of Salisbury and other English minds. Even such will be found receiving their training and their knowledge in France and Italy. England was still intellectually as well as politically under foreign domination. * * * * * In every way it has been borne in upon us how radically the conditions and faculties of men differed in England, Germany, France, and Italy in the eleventh century. Very different were their intellectual qualities, and different also was the measure of their attainment to a palpable mediaeval character, which in Italy was not that of the ancient Latins, in France was not that of the Gallic provincials, and in England and Germany was not altogether that of the original Celtic and Teutonic stocks. Neither in the eleventh century nor afterwards was there an obliteration of race traits; yet the mediaeval modification tended constantly to evoke a general uniformity of intellectual interest and accepted view. There exists a certain ancient _Chronicon Venetum_ written by a Venetian diplomat and man of affairs called John the Deacon, who died apparently soon after 1008.[408] He was the chaplain of the Doge, Peter Urseolus, and the doge’s ambassador to the emperors Otto III. and Henry II. The earlier parts of his _Chronicon_ were taken from Paulus Diaconus and others; the later are his own, and form a facile narrative, which makes no pretence to philosophic insight and has nothing to say either of miracles or God’s Christian providence. Its interests are quite secular. John writes his Latin, glib, clear, and unclassical, just as he might talk his Venetian speech, his _vulgaris eloquentia_. There is no effort, no struggle with the medium of expression, but a pervasive quality of familiarity with his story and with the language he tells it in. These characteristics, it is safe to say, are not to be found, to a like degree, in the work of any contemporary writer north of the Alps.