Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/335

Rh INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT.] ENGLAND 317 they became scholars also, and they had a large share in the increased intellectual activity of the universities. Oxford and Cambridge were now established seats of learn ing, thronged by crowds of masters and scholars. Up to this time masters and scholars had lived where they could and how they could. In the course of the thirteenth century colleges began to be founded. That is, by the bounty of some founder, societies of masters and scholars were brought together as corporate bodies, holding a house for their dwelling-place, and lands or other revenues for their maintenance. The first beginnings of this system were seen in Merton College in Oxford and Peterhouse in Cambridge. The growth of these colleges, which in the end came in a manner to swallow up the universities, is the most distinguishing feature of the English universities, as distinguished from those of other lands. But, though the foundation of the colleges and the influence of the friars in the universities were both fruits of the same movement, it must be remembered that they were wholly distinct fruits. The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge were not monastic foundations, except in a few cases where a great monastery established a college in one of the universities for the education of its own younger members. Otherwise the colleges were strictly secular, and religious vows carried with them a forfeiture of membership. The colleges lived on ; the intellectual as well as the religious life of the friars was short. They presently fell away from their first love, and became yet more corrupt than the older orders which held a higher temporal position. But, while the first life of the friars lasted, it was brilliant indeed. They were en couraged by Robert Grosseteste ; the friar Adam Marsh was the chosen adviser of Earl Simon. The friar Roger Bacon was the wonder of his own day, a master of knowledge beyond his day, and one who paid the penalty of thus outstripping his fellows. The thirteenth century saw the growth of a new kind of monastic order in the form of the friars. The early part of the fourteenth century saw the fall of one of the great military orders which had arisen in the enthusiasm of the crusades. The Templars, the victims of Philip the Fair and his puppet Pope Clement V., were suppressed in England as elsewhere ; but it is something that, even in so bad a time as the reign of Edward II., England had no share in the torturings and murderings which marked the suppres sion of the order in France. The property of the Templars was for the most part granted to the rival military order of St John, which kept it till the general dissolution of monasteries. The literature of the thirteenth century was abundant in all the three languages which were then in use in England. The statesmen and historians of Henry II. s day now give way to the monastic annalists. Pre-eminent over other houses is the school of annalists of St Albans, and pre eminent among them is the patriotic historian Matthew Paris. He writes of earlier times with little criticism; he cannot be classed on this score either with William of Malmesbury or with &quot;William of Newburgh. But he stands at the head of all our annalists as a vigorous, outspoken, narrator of contemporary history, not only in England but in the world in general. He is a bold champion of the popular side, a representative of the English Church and nation against pope and king alike. But it should be noted that all the monastic annalists take the popular side, with the single exception of Thomas Wykes of Oseney, the one royal ist chronicler cf his day. The civil wars called forth a mass of literature in all three languages. The praises of Earl Simon are sung in French and in Latin ; and the English tongue now comes forth with a new mission, as the vehicle, sometimes of satire, sometimes of panegyric upon the great cues of the earth. The Englishman s right of grumbling is immemorial, and from the thirteenth century onwards his grumbling has very commonly taken the shape of out spoken rhymes in his own tongue. But, in an historical and political point of view, the most important work of the time of the civil war is the great political poem in Latin rhyme which sets forth the platform of Earl Simon and the patriots. A clearer and more vigorous assertion of popular principles has never been put forth in any age. English had hardly yet reached the dignity of being employed in such a document as this ; but the native literature was ad vancing during the whole of the thirteenth century. Besides devotional works in prose and verse, it was used English in long continued poems on various subjects early in the writiD S s - century. The Ormulum of Ormin is religious; the Brut of Lajamon is legendary. It shows how the tales of Arthur had, even in the minds of Englishmen writing in the English tongue, supplanted the history of their own people. Towards the end of the century our language was put to a better use, in the form of rhyming chronicles, such as those of Robert of Gloucester and the English version of Peter of Langtoft. For a successor to the Peterborough Chronicler, for an English history in English prose, we have still a long time to wait. In the department of art, the pointed arch, with the Architec- details appropriate to that form, was now thoroughly ture of established. In the time of Edward I. the long narrow the ^ ir &quot; window of the earlier part of the century began to be ex- am if our. changed for the large window with tracery, different forms teenth of which lasted as long as mediaeval architecture lasted at centuries, all. But alongside of development in this way, the sculp ture of the early part of the century gradually gave way, even early in the fourteenth century, to flatter and less bold forms. In ecclesiastical architecture a new type of church, long, narrow, and simple, quite unlike the picturesque outlines of the older minsters, came in with the friars. Houses began to be larger and more elaborate in plan ; but the great change was in military architecture. The massive donjons and shell-keeps of the Norman type grew under the Edwards into castles of vast size and com- Castles, plicated arrangement, planned with great skill according to the military needs of the time. The castle of Caernarvon, begun by the first and continued by the second Edward, shows what is called the Edwardian type of castle in its highest perfection. By this time the art of warfare in England had seem- Warfare, ingly changed altogether from what it had been before the Normans came. And yet the change was after all more seeming than real. In the Scottish wars the English array of cavalry and archers, matched against the Scottish spear men, seemed to show that the English had altogether adopted the tactics of their Norman conquerors. And so, as regards the weapons in use, they had. But an English army still kept its ancient character of having a national infantry as its main strength. It was the preservation of England as a military power that this was the case. We are now coming to the days of chivalry, the days of brutal contempt Chivalry, for all classes of mankind outside the favoured pale, the clays which, in warfare, went far to put mad personal enterprise instead of rational military calculation. England was not wholly untouched by these follies; but she was far less deeply touched by them than their native land of France. The difference showed itself when the two nations were matched English together in a long and deadly struggle. The French were and in the end successful in war, because England had under- * taken a task beyond her powers or the powers of any other nation, the task of subduing and holding a country greater than herself. But the English were invariably successful, even with much smaller numbers, in all the great battles. The cause lay in the different constitution of their armies ; and the difference in the constitution of their armies lay