NOTES

THIS is a Pocket Edition. To explain everything in Ivanhoe would take years of study, and the necessary notes would so swell the volume that no ordinary pocket could hold it. Moreover, too frequent explanation breaks the romancer's spell, and turns pleasant reading into dry, unprofitable study. Such of Scott's notes as are of interest to young readers have been retained, and the editor has added a few of his own making. With these helps and the aid of a good dictionary, it is hoped that the romance will explain itself fairly well, much that is hazy in the earlier chapters becoming clearer further on.

The Ivanhoe Country. It is well to consult a map freely, tracing the route taken by each group of characters; for in Ivanhoe, as in many other romances, the characters move about like hostile armies, the action becoming intenser whenever paths cross. If this tracing is done with colored inks, so much the better.

The Times. Ivanhoe takes us back seven hundred years. The pictures that Scott gives are not absolutely true, yet they are moderately reliable, and at least create a desire for real historical study. It is a good plan to read in connection with Ivanhoe, Chapters V. and VI. of Montgomery's English History. A better account, though harder to understand, is found in Chapter II. of Green's Shorter History of the English People. Perhaps the following paragraphs will make clearer the historical background of the story.

The early history of England seems but a series of conquests.

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First came the Romans and subdued the half-civilized Britons. They remained about three hundred and fifty years; then when barbaric hordes came pouring into Italy the Isles were abandoned and the original inhabitants, who had been little better than slaves during Roman occupancy, dropped back into their old ways. Fifty years later began a long series of invasions. One after another the Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Danes, roving pirates from the mainland, came to England, drove the Britons back into Wales and Cornwall, and for many years fought with each other for supremacy. To these stormy centuries belong King Arthur of the Round table, Alfred the Great, King Canute, and Harold "Last of the Saxons," names familiar through history and literature. AngloSaxons is the name given these fighting ancestors of ours, who slowly merged into one people. Finally, in 1066, William the Conqueror came over from what is now called France and subdued the Saxons. But the Saxons were too hardy to be killed off by oppression or driven away like the Britons. In time they united with the Normans, as the Conqueror's followers are called, forming the English people. of to-day. But the change was very gradual, for the two races were quite different.

Ivanhoe is a story of 1194, over one hundred and twenty-five years after the Conquest. In it the conquered Saxons and the victorious Normans are contrasted. Sir Walter shows the hardships the Saxons and the lower classes generally were enduring at the hands of the Norman barons who held most of the land and ruled like petty kings. He pictures the last feeble rally made by the Saxons to regain independence. This occurs, Scott imagines, in the reign of King Richard, who came to the throne in 1189. The very next year he joined the Third Crusade, to procure means for which he sold crown lands and offices unscrupulously. The Crusade, the purpose of which was to recapture Jerusalem from the Turks, was but a partial success, ending not in victory but in a treaty. Richard's journey back to England was full of adventure.

He was shipwrecked. For a year the Emperor of Germany kept him prisoner. At the opening of Ivanhoe a rumor is gaining ground that Richard has escaped and is on his way home. The corrupt Norman barons, among whom the King's brother John is leader, have had things much their own way during their sovereign's absence, and are not pleased with the rumor.

Characters and Incidents. Is the story true? Here and there throughout the romance it is soberly implied that the story is based on an old Saxon document owned by Sir Arthur Wardour. But Sir Arthur is a fictitious character in Scott's Antiquary. We know, however, from history that there was a King Richard; and we have all heard of Robin Hood, whose exploits, real nd imagi nary, have furnished material for many ballads. An excellent collection of these ballads is found in Ritson's Adventures of Robin Hood. According to this authority Robin, a young man of noble birth, was outlawed for debt. He fled to the forest and, gathering other outlaws about him, became "prince of robbers, ," "gentlest of thieves," plundering the rich and aiding the poor. The rich clergy in

particular suffered at his hand, yet he was religious to a degree, and confessed regularly to Friar Tuck, one of his boon comrades. The scene in Friar Tuck's lodge, Scott tells us, is but a version of an old legend entitled The Kyng and the Hermite.

Ivanhoe, then, is more fiction than truth. The scenes are imaginary, either invented outright or borrowed from ol legends; the characters, for the most part, are types to represent different classes of society, or are conventionalized figures, such as are found in all romances. Perhaps it is true, in that it gives fairly correct pictures of twelfth century life, and is true to human nature. This question belongs to the historian quite as much as to the literary critic.

Religious Orders. Many of the characters in Ivanhoe belong to religious orders. Perhaps a very brief sketch is necessary to show how these orders arose.

Long ago, probably in the third century, there were in the East men who thought that to lead a holy life they must leave the wicked world and pray and meditate in solitude. One by one they wandered to the desert, where they built rude huts or even lived with no better shelter than the shadow of a rock. History calls such men hermits or anchorites. Their number increased, and the original idea was so changed that in time they began to band together into communities for protection or to profit by the leadership and preaching of some holy man. These hermit communities, first found in Egypt, grew in number and wealth and influence, s reading over Europe and even to the British Isles. Substantial monasteries sprang up. Thousands of the ablest and best men became monks.

Early in the sixth century a good monk named Benedict, seeing the need of reform, persuaded nearly all the monks in the world to adopt the rules of his own monastery, taking the vow of "poverty, chastity, and obedience." At one time there were forty thousand chapters of the Benedictine order, rich landowners of great influence. But corruption kept creeping in. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries other reformers arose and organized orders within the Benedictine — the Carthusian, the Cistercian, the Carmelite, and others, differing slightly in their manner of life. Still corruption continued. In the thirteenth century came the two orders of friars, the Franciscan and the Benedictine, monks who thought that instead of leaving the wicked world, they should go to it as missionaries, preaching, teaching, and caring for the sick. For a time they did noble work, but like the other orders soon became corrupt, their vows of poverty forgotten as they acquired wealthy establishments.

Two more orders are mentioned in Ivanhoe, the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers. They were "military monks,” "half friars, half crusaders,” organized about 1100. Their headquarters were in Jerusalem, but soon preceptories and hospitals, as

their establishments were called, were found throughout Europe. The Templars had six preceptories in England, the head one in London. In these, young men of noble birth were trained for service. The Templars had for their special service the escorting of pilgrims from the coast up to Jerusalem; but they were great fighters, and had strongholds throughout Palestine from which they carried on war against all infidels. The Hospitallers, less haughty and aristocratic, had the gentler mission of caring for sick and wounded crusaders. They suggest the Red Cross organizations of to-day. These two orders went the way of the others.

All monastic orders practically disappeared with the Middle Ages. Although at times corrupt, it should be remembered that they did a great deal of good. They brought the East and the West together, civilizing, educating, in a way Christianizing the world. The monasteries were great schools; they furnished the traveller hospitality. The monks were great builders, great farmers; in short, to them we owe whatever of learning and religion survived the dark Middle Ages.

P. 7, 1. 31. Ranger of the forest. The Forest Laws established by the Conqueror were a great grievance to the Saxons. Scott tells in a footnote that among other regulations was this: Every third year all dogs must be lawed by regularly appointed officers; that is, three claws were "cut off without the ball of the right foot." This disabled the dogs for hunting the deer, but did not lessen their value as herding dogs.

P. 47, 1. 19. Exchequer of the Jews. Probably Scott has not exaggerated the abuses to which the Jews were subject. The King himself was not above plundering them. They were taxed, not for any advantage received, but simply because they were Jews. They were obliged to wear a long garment called a gaberdine.

P. 78, 1. 29. A contemporary poet. Coleridge.

P. 120, 1. 10. Beauseant. Beauseant was the name of the Templar's banner, which was half black, half white, to intimate, it is