is some repetition, much confusion, and a distinct absence of architectonic art. These defects, however, do not diminish the prime merit of the work, which lies in its replacement of the jejune annals of the older type by a full and ample historical narrative, rich in detail, vivid in presentation, giving space to literary history and everyday life as well as to the affairs of church and state, and constituting as a whole the most faithful and living picture which has reached us of the European society of his age. Neither in the world nor of the world, this monk had a ripe knowledge of men and affairs, independence of judgment, a feeling for personality, and a sure touch in characterization. He had also a Latin style of his own, labored at times rather than affected, ready to show its skill in well-turned verse or in well- rounded speeches after the fashion of the classical historians, but direct and vigorous and not unworthy of the flexible and sonorous language which he had made his own.
Latin, however, was an exclusive possession of the clergy,—and not of all of them, if we can argue from the examinations held by Eudes Rigaud,—and by the middle of the twelfth century the Norman baronage began to demand from the clerks an account of the Anglo-Norman past in a language which they too could understand. History in the vernacular develops in France earlier than elsewhere, and in France earliest in Normandy and in the English lands which shared the
