and, even more so, the Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici by which it was preceded, and the less important collection of later state papers, which followed it, were the productions of an antiquary rather than of a historian; The Saxons in England offers a series of dissertations on materials, unwelded into an organic whole. The writer has little interest in the traditions of the conquest as handed down by the Chronicle and Bede; what concerns him is the gradual evolution of institutions, mainly of Teutonic origin, although these began to spread among us while Britain was still under Roman dominion, and the population was even more largely Celtic than its lower orders continued to remain. In Kemble's view, the social changes that accompanied the gradual establishment of these institutions were due to the conditions and new forms of landed proprietorship. Kemble, though he had no legal training, like that of certain other English historians of this age, by his study of the charters came to understand that the English system of land laws has an importance for English history not less than the Roman had for that of Rome; and this insight he owed, in the first instance, as he owed his perception of the Germanic origin of that system, to his Old English lore. Rarely has so great and direct a service been rendered to historical science by philological scholarship.1

The ruling principles of English historians of the Germanist group found their clearest and most vigorous exponent in Edward Augustus Freeman, the central figure of the Oxford historical school of the Victorian age-unless that title be disputed on behalf of Stubbs, to whom Freeman's loyal friendship would have gladly yielded precedence. In a sense, Freeman's method supplemented Kemble's rather than followed it; for, in technical phrase, it was the written monuments rather than the sources-the records rather than the remains-on which Freeman based the conclusions repeated with unwearying persistency in his numerous books great and small, and in countless essays and reviews. He would not hear of Palgrave's paradox as to the kinship between the Romanised Celts and the English invaders, and attributed to these a conquest which, with the exception of certain parts of the country, meant extirpation. On the other hand, the Norman conquest, of As to Benjamin Thorpe, see, ante, Vol. XII, p. 382.

which he became the historian, seemed to him to have brought about no fresh change of an analogous kind, and to have fundamentally affected neither the nature and character of the population, nor the course of the national history. In the consecutive doings of the nation in war and in peace, in its enterprises and exploits as well as in its legislation and system of government in both church and state, its Germanic nature and character manifest themselves. Obviously, however, the historian, whose own interest is restricted to these relations, and who makes no pretence of entering into the social life of the people in any of its aspects save, in a more or less restricted measure, those of language, literature and architecture, omits a strong link in his argument.

Injustice would be done to the force with which Freeman explains and illustrates his general position, were it not added that he calls in the powerful aid of the comparative method, for which he was exceptionally qualified by his acquaintance with much of the medieval history of non-Germanic lands, as well as by his familiarity, noted in an earlier volume of this work,' with the history, and the constitutional history in particular, of Greece and Rome. His training as a historical student may, in some respects, have been self-training only, and his advocacy of the principle of the unity of history may have suffered from his lack of intimacy (on which he was wont to insist) with periods which "were not his own" or to which "he had not come down." Yet, through him, comparative history first became a living thing to English students, and the unity which he proclaimed with missionary zeal was gradually accepted as a reality, in spite of the time-honoured nomenclature of the schools. 2

Freeman's literary activity seems extraordinary even to those who had some personal cognisance of part of it. His historical studies, at first, took a largely archaeological turn, and his early literary efforts consisted, in the main, of contributions to The Ecclesiastick and The Ecclesiologist, varied by Poems, legendary and historical, published in conjunction with

2

See, ante, Vol. XII, Chap. xiv.

* It was as he listened to Arnold's Oxford lectures, in 1841 and 1842, that the idea of the unity of history first dawned upon the future successor of the historian of Rome in his modern history chair.

G. W. Cox. He was, however, preparing for historical efforts in a wider field; by a fortunate chance, a university prize competition, on the effects of the Roman conquest (1845-6), led him to read the works of Thierry, Lingard and Palgrave; and he carried on the study of the subject after he had had "the good luck not to get the prize." He was, also, early intent upon the acquisition of a pure and simple style, of which, as a historian, he was certainly master. There was never much grace, and still less play of humour, about what he wrote; but his manner of writing, which he seems, in a measure, to have modelled on Macaulay, was almost always forcible and, in general, dignified; and, at times, he could rise to a certain grandeur free from dogmatic admixture.

Although long interested in the question of the study of history at Oxford, and author of a series of lectures published under the title History and Conquests of the Saracens and of an earlier History of Architecture, besides having become, from about the year 1860 onwards, one of the pillars of The Saturday Review, it was not till a little later that he reached the full height of his powers as a historian. His reviews and other articles in weeklies (The Saturday and The Guardian in particular), as well as in monthlies and quarterlies, are, to a large extent, and where their intent was not essentially controversial, chips from the block at which he was working-of the same material and texture, homogeneous with his chief books in life and thought, and little differentiated from them in style. His pen was, in fact, as much his own in his journalistic as in his other productions—in other words, his periodical articles, though, for the most part, unsigned, invariably presented his own opinions.' His literary activity, especially from 1859 onwards, was simply astounding."

In 1863, before he had completed the preparations for his Norman Conquest, he brought out the first and, as it proved, the only volume of a work which, had it been carried out on the

1 He broke off his long connection with The Saturday Review when he came to differ from the general views of that journal on near-Eastern politics. His Hellenic sympathies had confirmed him in opinions at which he had arrived after much reflection, and, from the time when he published (in The Edinburgh for April, 1857) his article entitled The Greek People and the Greek Kingdom, they never wavered through good or evil report.

2 See his son-in-law's, dean Stephens's, excellent Life and Letters for details.

lines he had laid down for himself, might have become, in his younger friend lord Bryce's words, "a very great book," and which, as it is, has been, by some, more highly prized than any other of his writings. The History of Federal Government, which Freeman had designed as a comparative history of federalism in ancient Greece, in the medieval foundation of the Swiss confederation, in the intermediate growth of the united provinces of the Netherlands and of the Hansa and in the modern creation of the United States of America, was, however, not carried beyond the earliest of these stages.' He soon came back to his first love, if, with his power of duplicating his tasks, he had ever swerved from it. The appearance, in 1865, of his Old English History for Children-children of twenty-four, it was, with some point, remarked-showed in what direction he was again concentrating his labours and the travels which accompanied them; and, in 1867, the first volume of The History of the Norman Conquest was actually published. The last volume (the fifth) did not appear till 1876.

2

Freeman's Norman Conquest accomplished what Palgrave had planned, but only partially carried out. Into the later work, mistakes may have found their way, even into salient passages of the narrative, and into the account of the tragic catastrophe of Senlac itself; and its general effect may suffer from a certain lengthiness of which few historians writing on such a scale have been able altogether to free themselves-least of all Freeman, who had accustomed himself to the privilege of having his say out. But any such objections are cast into the shade by the merits of the work. It is admirably arranged on a converging plan, which, in the second volume brings the reader to the reign of Edward the Confessor, so far as the banishment and death of earl Godwine, the real hero of the tale; while the affairs of Normandy are brought up to William's first visit to England, and thence, to Edward's death and the coronation of Harold, the second hero of the story. Volume III relates the conquest proper with epic breadth, and volume IV

1 Cf. ante, Vol. XII, pp. 350-351.

In 1869, Freeman began his Historical Geography; but it was not published till eleven years later. The idea of the work was excellent, and had not hitherto been elaborated in an English form. As to the execution, of parts of the work, at all events, opinions differ. Perhaps, his general historical knowledge was not of the minute sort required for working out the details of the plan.

the reign of William in England. Finally, in volume v, the history of the Norman kings is summarised to the death of Stephen and the coronation of Henry II, and chapters follow on the political results of the Norman conquest, and its effects on language, literature and architecture. The narrative, which closes with a summary of the Angevin reigns, is enriched by a series of excursuses on particular points and episodes, on geographical sites and local remains. Lucid in arrangement, the work nowhere fails to manifest the spirit in which it was composed that of a lofty patriotism inseparable from an ardent love of freedom. His Swiss studies reflected themselves in several passages of The Norman Conquest; and he became "more and more convinced of the absolute identity of all the old Teutonic constitutions." Thus, he was fortified in his contention that the Norman conquest left the free national life of England, in its essentials, unchanged.

66

In 1882, Freeman published The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry I, thus carrying out the design which he had in his mind when summarising these passages of English history in the last volume of his Norman Conquest. Here, again, the narrative involved a twofold task; its main interest, however, lay in ecclesiastical affairs, a field with which he took pleasure in occupying himself, but which had also engaged the attention of other eminent historians. These volumes ended his labours on the Norman conquest of England; but, although he never composed his contemplated life of Henry I, he did not abandon the subject of the Norman conquests in Europe. "Palermo follows naturally on Winchester and Rouen." But, of his sojourns in Sicily, and of his history of that island, which he was also to leave half-told, we have already spoken.' In 1884, Freeman at last found himself in the chair of modern history at Oxford; but this acknowledgment of his eminence as a historian came too late-at least too late for him to fit his teaching into the system of historical instruction then flourishing in his university. This was a mortification to him; for no man of letters or learning ever bestowed more attention on the academical, as well as on the political, ecclesiastical and county administrative, life around him. Still, his actual work as a historian remained, to the last, the de

Ante, Vol. XII, Chap. XIV, p. 351.