infusion of French. By the establishment of this composite speech the influence of the Norman Conquest on the language was made lasting, so that the effect of the French rule in England remains deeply stamped on the English we speak and write to-day. Castle, chivalry, royal, robe, coronation, debonair, courtesy, such stately words our homelier English owes to the French and Latin. Just as the English race was improved during the preparatory period by its mixture first with the Celt, and then with the partially Celtic followers of the Conqueror, so by its mixture with French the English language was made more rich and flexible.

Many elements had thus combined in this composite England, and the way was made clear for a great poet who could lay the foundations of a truly national literature and language. That poet was Geoffrey Chaucer.

STUDY LIST

FROM NORMAN CONQUEST TO CHAUCER

This period contains little literature suited for the study of any but advanced classes. A few references, however, are given for those who wish to gain something more than a second-hand knowledge of the time.

1. OLD FRENCH LITERATURE. Specimens of Old French (IX.-XV. Centuries) with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary by Paget Toynbee, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1892, is a useful handbook and contains full bibliographical references, valuable literary information, etc. Aubertin, Histoire de la Langue et de la Littérature Française au Moyen Age; Van Laun's French Literature, Saintsbury's Primer of French Literature, Fortier's Histoire de la Littérature Française.

2. ANGLO-LATIN POEMS, ETC. Apocalypse of Golias is given in translation in Cassell's Library of English Literature, Shorter English Poems, edited by H. Morley. The Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes, collected and edited by Thomas Wright. M. A., Camden Society, 1841, gives Latin text and translation with introduction. AngloLatin Satirical Poetry of the Twelfth Century, edited by Thomas Wright; H. Morley's Early English Prose Romances, Carisbrooke Library (contains seven specimens); Ellis' Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances. For Walter Map, v. Green's History of the English People, vol. i. p. 173–175.

3. LAYAMON. Layamon's Brut, or Chronicle of Britain; a poetical semi-Saxon paraphrase of the Brut of Wace, edited by Sir Frederic Madden, 3 vols., published by Society of Antiquarians, London, 1847. Text with translation, notes, and grammatical glossary. Morley's English Writers, iii. 203 et seq., includes extract from the Brut.

4. GESTA ROMANORUM. This has been edited by Thomas Wright; it has also appeared in Knickerbocker Nugget Series, translated by C. Swan, and in several other popular editions.

5. LAWRENCE MINOT. War poems are given in Cassell's Library of English Literature, Shorter English Poems, edited by Morley.

6. CELTIC. Stephen's Literature of the Kymrie (tenth and welfth century). See also study list, pp. 46, 47, supra, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, by John Rhys, M. A., Clarendon Press.

7. HISTORY AND LITERATURE. Norman Britain, in Early Britain Series; The Story of the Normans, by S. O. Jewett (Story of the Nations Series); Green's History of the English People, vol. i.; Morley's English Writers, vol. iii., covers period from Conquest to Chaucer. Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. v. ch. xxv. ("Effects of Norman Conquest on Language and Literature,"), H. Hall's Court Life under the Plantagenets, Church's Life of St. Anselm, H. W. Preston's Troubadour and Trouvère, J. O. Halliwell Phillipps' The Thornton Romances.

Chaucer's
England.

CHAPTER II

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340(?)-1400)

CHAUCER'S CENTURY

To enter into the poetry of Chaucer, and to understand how vast an influence it had on the development of our language and literature, we must try to imagine ourselves back in the England of his time. Instead of the rich and well-ordered beauty which in modern England bears witness to centuries of patient cultivation, we are in a land but partly reclaimed from its original wildness. Dense growths of woodland, the haunt of the deer, the gray wolf, the boar, and the wild bull, stretch uninterruptedly for miles and miles. There are some seventy of these great forests in Chaucer's England, survivals of the primeval growth which had once almost covered the island. In other places, as in the low-lying fenland in the shires of Lincoln, Cambridge, or Somerset, are sodden regions of marsh, darkened at certain seasons by huge flights of heron, "trailing it, with legs and wings." All through the land rises the solid masonry of the Norman castle, the noble beauty of cathedral or abbey; for the world is still feudal and monastic. In the open and fertile places stand the manor-houses of the great proprietors, in the midst

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