Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/161

 York, the traveller finds himself in the midst of legal controversies; there had heen good schools there once, but the head master was lost in a storm at sea in 1177 and since then the canons have taken to quarrelling. There have always been two parties there and some black sheep in the flock. The archbishop too, since Becket's death, has been under a cloud, so the chapter is at sixes and sevens. Peter of Blois looks in occasionally when in residence at Ripon, and Hubert Walter, the dean, tries to keep matters fairly well, but there are quarrels even within the precincts of the church, and in more than one case there are rival claimants for the same stall: on one solemn occasion the precentor stops the music to spite the treasurer, the treasurer puts out the lights to be even with the precentor. But, notwithstanding, there are quiet pens taking notes; and a good deal of York news filters into the general history. There is the biographer of the archbishops, one or more than one; not far off, at Newburgh, in the Augustinian priory, is William, the little inquisitive and intelligent canon, who is writing a history of England, not in the mere receptive spirit of the annalist like Hoveden, nor in the didactic style of William of Malmesbury, but like a thoughtful man who wishes to trace the origins and tendencies of the events that he records, who weighs his epithets and suspends his judgments, and, whilst he admits the marvellous, argues only when and where he has sufficient data. If William of Newburgh ever comes up to York, depend upon it he is well received by all the thoughtful men. The Prior of Hexham too is ex officio a canon of York, and he also is, as his predecessor was, a writer of history strikingly in advance of the mere annotator of annals.

If the visitor can be prevailed on to go so far north as Hexham, he may even reach Melrose, and there watch the process of annal making, and come home by Durham. There he will find a magnificent court under Bishop Hugh, the great prince prelate of the period, who lives in three-quarters independence between the kings of Scots and English; and in his train poets, preachers and writers of histories, who are one after another continuing the work which had been