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632 ENGLAND (LANGUAGE AND LITEKATURE) of Aneurin (or in the opinion of some identi- cal with him), is attributed a Latin prose tract, De Excidio et Conquestu Britannia, which if genuine is the earliest historical work produced in Britain that has been preserved. The personages mentioned in these eldest British songs and annals, as Arthur, Merlin, Kay, and Gawain, played prominent parts in romantic literature a few centuries later, and still afford favorite themes for the poets. Du- ring the Anglo-Saxon period both a vernacular and a Latin literature were cultivated, their most flourishing era being the 8th century, the age of Alcuin, Aldhelm, Bede, and Ceolfrid. The monasteries of England and Ireland sent forth many scholars of European celebrity for learning, and Alcuin and Erigena served espe- cially to associate these countries with the continent in liberal studies. The alliterative, unrhyming versification of the Anglo-Saxons was employed in some of the early English poems. But the Norman conquest almost abol- ished the use of Anglo-Saxon in writing, and for more than a century the prevalent litera- ture of England was either in Latin or in Anglo-Norman. Lanfranc and Anselm, who were attracted from France by the conqueror, and became successively archbishops of Can- terbury, originated or revived the scholastic philosophy, the treatises on which were in Latin, and several of the most eminent later doctors of which, as Alexander of Plales, Duns Scotus, and William Occam, were of British birth. Eoger Bacon is especially remarkable for his acquaintance with Hebrew and Arabic literature, and quotes from ten of the most highly reputed Saracen authors. In connec- tion with him may be mentioned Michael Sco- tus, the wizard of the northern ballads, whose writings were celebrated throughout Europe. The scholastic writers of the 12th century prided themselves on their epistolary style, and many collections of their letters have been preserved, which are among the most valuable illustrations of the public and private history of the time. These letters begin with Lan- franc, were very numerous in the reign of Henry II., and among the most interesting of them are those of Peter of Blois, which contain graphic descriptions of the manners and char- acters of the time. Latin poems abounded throughout the 12th century, and those of Laurence of Durham, John of Salisbury, John de Hauteville, Nigellus Wirker, and Alexander Neckham contain passages of almost classic elegance. The most ambitious attempts were by Joseph of Exeter, who wrote two epics in heroic measure. A new style of versification, in which rhymes took the place of the ancient metres, was introduced, and soon attained an attractive energy and sprightliness. It was brought to perfection in the satirical poems at- tributed to Walter Mapes, which exhibit ex- cellent sense and humor amid bacchanalian jo- vialities. In his Confessio Golice is found the famous drinking song beginning Meum estpro- positum in tdberna mori. This kind of poetry became extremely popular, and flourished long after the style of the more serious Latin au- thors had become hopelessly debased. But the most important Latin works during the Nor- man period were the chronicles or histories, all of them by ecclesiastics. The chronicle of Ordericus Vitalis, which comes down to 1141, was the first in which history was made an ob- ject of laborious research; that of William of Malmesbury is the most elegant, and that of Geoffrey of Monmouth exerted the greatest in- fluence on subsequent literature, becoming one of the cornerstones of romantic fiction. It narrated Welsh and Armorican traditions of British history from Brutus, an imaginary son of JEneas, to Cadwalladyr in the 7th century. Ingulphus, Henry of Huntingdon, Giraldus Cambrensis, Eoger de Hoveden, Matthew Paris, and Jocelin de Brakelonde are perhaps the other most important names in the long catalogue of monkish chroniclers. The ear- liest Anglo-Norman compositions extant are supposed to belong to the first part of the 12th century. In the reigns of Stephen and Henry II. a school of poets was formed de- voted to versifying history in that language, the three great masters of which were Wace, Gaimar, and Benoit de Sainte-Maure. Wace translated Geoffrey's British history into An- glo-Norman verse, under the title of the Ro- man de Brut, which extends to over 15,000 lines; and also wrote the Roman de Ron, giving the legends concerning Rollo the Nor- man. Gaimar made a metrical continuation of the narrative of Geoffrey to the Norman pe- riod ; and Benoit composed a romance of the history of Troy, which upheld the claims of several of the western nations to a Trojan origin. The cycle of romances relating to Arthur and the round table were prevalent in England from the llth to the 14th century. They were in French, but several of them, as the Merlin, Lancelot, Queste du Saint Oraal, and Mort d'Arthure, were written by Eng- lishmen for the English court and nobles. Some writers have maintained also that the lays of Marie and the romances concerning Charlemagne and his paladins appeared in England earlier than in France. The original source of these fictions, and of romantic poetry in Europe, is attributed by Bishop Percy to the Scandinavians through the Normans, by Warton to the Arabians through the Moors of Spain, and by Ellis and Turner to the inhabi- tants of Armorica or Brittany. During this prevalence of Latin and Anglo-Norman litera- ture the Anglo-Saxon language had been con- fined to the conquered race, but the "Saxon Chronicle" had been carried on in obscure monasteries by various annalists to the year 1154. About 50 years later, when the two races began to unite in one nation, a work ap- peared written in Anglo-Saxon so much modi- fied by French that it is usually accounted the beginning of English literature. This was