of their own prowess, and the national pride was heightened by the knowledge of the great part the Saxon bowmen had played in the battles of Crecy and Poitiers. As a mirror of this feeling, some interest may still be found in the poetry of Laurence Minot (1333-1352), though it is otherwise devoid of merit, being in point of diction and metre no more than a variation of the class of romances satirised in Chaucer's "Sir Thopas." A generation earlier Minot would have told interminable tales of Guy of Warwick or Sir Gawain, but now he takes for his subject the adventures of "Sir Edward" in his wars with "Sir Philip" and "Sir John." He recites the great deeds done by the king at Crecy, Tournay, and Calais. He finds in his victories the fulfilment of Merlin's prophecies, and constantly speaks of Edward under the figure of “the boar." 1 "1 Had he recited in the reign of Edward II., it would have mattered little to him whether the legendary hero whom he might choose to celebrate were of English, French, or Danish birth; but now it is England against the world: the Scot has to be told that the defeat of Bannockburn is wiped out by the victory of Halidon Hill, or Neville's Cross; and the Frenchman is addressed in a tone of savage mockery Quite ertou, that well we knaw, Of catel, and of drewriss dere; Tharfore lies the hert ful law That are was blithe als bird on brere. Inglis men sall zit to zere Knok thi palet or thou pas, And mak the polled like a frere : And git es Ingland als it was.2 When we speak of the effects of the early Renaissance on English poetry, it must therefore be understood that 1 Merlin said thus with his mowth, Minot, Poems (Hall's edition), p. 21. 2 Thou art deprived, we well know, of chattels, and of dear delights; therefore thy heart, once blithe as bird on briar, lies full low. Englishmen shall still this year knock thy head ere thou go by, and make thee shaven as a friar; and yet England is as it was.-Ibid. p. 2. sense, the word is used in a special and limited. signifying the reappearance of the spirit of political liberty in a more distinct and definite form than had been witnessed since the days of the Greek and Roman republics. Rude and imperfect as is the vehicle of expression, the popular songs of England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries reveal a consciousness of united purpose and corporate pride in the nation, for which no contemporary parallel can be found in any other country of Europe, and which arises from political conditions of the kind that gave birth to the oratory of Pericles and Cicero. The time had not yet come for England when the masterpieces of ancient literature could exercise a refining influence on the efforts of her native genius. In this respect her early writers lag behind those of France and Italy. Here and there traces may be observed in the Latin songs of an appreciative study of the classics,1 and of a revolt of the practical English mind against the futilities of the later scholastic logic.2 But there is no sign of a reverence for the authority of the ancient philosophers; no attempt to utilise the resources of pagan mythology, like that which we encounter in almost every page of the Divine Comedy or the Romance of the Rose. These features do not appear in English poetry till the time of Chaucer, and in him they are the fruits rather of the imitation of Boccaccio and John de Meung, than of the direct influence of classical literature. What is really "classical," in this embryonic English art, is a certain direct manner of looking on Nature, Man, and Society, 1 1 A song on the Scottish wars is written in rhyming stanzas, the last verse of which is an hexameter, as often as not quoted from a standard Latin author. For example: Invido nil nequius nullus est qui nescit; Wright, Political Songs, p. 161. 2 A song against the scholastic studies depreciates Logic in comparison with Law and Medicine Naturæ cognoscere si velis arcana, Stude circa physicam quæ dat membra sana : Sat Galienis opes et sancti Justiniani. Ibid. p. 210. the result of political as opposed to scholastic education, a compounded view of the relations of Church and State, emerging from the conflict of opposite extremes. The foundations thus formed showed themselves capable in after ages, as Burke says, of admitting all the improvements of art and refinement, and gave scope for that admirable variety of poetical architecture exemplified in the work of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, which is the characteristic glory of English literature. CHAPTER VI LANGLAND IN certain aspects of his genius the author of The Vision concerning Piers Plowman may be regarded as the Nævius of English poetry. He bears an obvious resemblance to Nævius in his literary aims. As the Latin poet sought to maintain the use of the Saturnian measure against the invasion of Greek models, prophesying that after his death the Camena would bewail him as the last to speak the Latin tongue, so Langland strove deliberately to revive the alliterative verse of his Saxon ancestors, which most of his contemporaries had set aside in favour of French rhyme. He resembles Nævius also in his imaginative conservatism. Religious rites, family traditions, the customs of the soil, the institutions of the State, took no stronger hold on the mind of the Roman, than the schooling of the English Church, preserved through so many generations of monastic life, on the genius of the visionary of the Malvern Hills. In Langland's poem are combined Cædmon's reverence for the text of Scripture, Cynewulf's love of riddles, Richard of Hampole's spiritual theology, Robert of Brunne's practical common sense, all blended with that spirit of allegorical interpretation which had moulded the system of ecclesiastical training since the days of Gregory the Great. Here, however, the parallel ends. Nævius in Latin literature was the champion of a dwindling and decaying cause. No individual force-and the genius of Nævius was not inconsiderable forms of native Latin art an adequate instrument of expression for the greatness of the Roman spirit. But The Vision of Piers the Plowman, in spite of its archaic style, is a classic work in English literature. From the moment of its first appearance it made a deep impression on the national imagination, and one generation of English writers after another has testified to its undiminished influence. A tribute to its power, direct or indirect, is paid in the pages of Chaucer, of Gascoigne, of Spenser, of Shakespeare, of Drayton, of Milton, of Bunyan; nor is this long-sustained influence difficult to explain, for not only does the poem "show the very age and body of the time his form and pressure," but it furnishes an abstract of one side of our national history. While Chaucer by his art has left an imperishable image of social life in the fourteenth century, Langland's vigorous satire, vivid powers of description, strong sense of justice, so faithfully reflect the conscience of the English people, that his Vision often seems to be projecting its light upon the ethical problems of our own day. could have made the meagre In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the two great principles on which society in the Middle Ages rested, Catholicism and Chivalry, reached their grand climacteric, and sank into rapid decay. The steady exertion of spiritual authority by Innocent III. over temporal sovereigns was exchanged for the spasmodic violence of Boniface VIII.; and, by the removal of the Papal court from Rome to Avignon, the sovereignty of the Catholic Church was deprived of much of its historical prestige. Shorn of its moral influence, the germs of corruption inherent in the system spread with fearful swiftness, and the sin of simony, manifested by the sale of pardons, indulgences, and benefices, established itself in the very heart of the Church. Thence the poison was diffused through every country in Europe, and particularly in England, where the policy of the Conqueror, by removing the bishops from the Hundred Courts, had tended to make the clergy the subjects |