served," the legends of Java are remembered and cherished by the people.

48

It would be useless to adduce further evidence respecting the manner in which, among an imperfectly civilized people, the establishment of a new religion will always affect the accuracy of their early history. I need only observe, that in this way the Christian priests have obscured the annals of every European people they converted, and have destroyed or corrupted the traditions of the Gauls, of the Welsh, of the Irish,50 of the AngloSaxons, of the Sclavonic nations,52 of the Finns,53 and even of the Icelanders.54

Besides all this, there occurred other circumstances tending in the same direction. Owing to events which I shall hereafter explain, the literature of Europe, shortly before the final dissolution of the Roman Empire, fell entirely into the hands of the clergy, who were long venerated as the sole instructors of mankind. For several centuries, it was extremely rare to meet with a layman who could read or write; and of course it was still rarer to meet with one able to compose a work. Literature, being thus monopolized by a single class, assumed the peculiarities natural to its new masters.55 And as the clergy, taken as a body, have always looked on it as their business to enforce belief, rather than

47 Asiatic Researches, vol. x. p. 191, vol. xiii. p. 128. In the Appendix to Raffles' Hist. of Java, vol. ii. p. cxlii., it is said, that "in Bali not more than one in two hundred, if so many, are Mahomedans." See also p. 65, and vol. i. p. 530.

* Indeed, the Javanese appear to have no other means of acquiring the old Kawi traditions than by learning them from natives of Bali. See note to an Essay on the Island of Bali, in Asiatic Researches, vol. xiii. p. 162, Calcutta, 1820, 4to. Sir Stamford Raffles (Hist. of Java, vol. i. p. 400) says, "It is chiefly to Bali that we must look for illustrations of the ancient state of the Javans." See also p. 414.

49 Respecting the corruption of Druidical traditions in Gaul by Christian priests, see Villemarqué, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, Paris, 1846, vol. i. pp. xviii. xix. 50 The injury done to the traditions handed down by Welsh and Irish bards, is noticed in Dr. Prichard's valuable work, Physical Hist. of Mankind, vol. iii. p. 184, 8vo, 1841. See also Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. p. xxxvii. note.

51 See the remarks on Beowulf, in Wright's Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. i. p. 7, 8vo, 1842. See also pp. 13, 14: and compare Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 331.

52 Talvi's Language and Literature of the Slavic Nations, 8vo, 1850, p. 231. The Pagan songs of the Slovaks, in the north-west of Hungary, were for a time preserved; but even they are now lost. Talvi, p. 216.

53 The monkish chroniclers neglected the old Finnish traditions, and allowing them to perish, preferred the inventions of Saxo and Johannes Magnus. Prichard's Physical Hist. vol. iii. pp. 284, 285.

For an instance in which the monks have falsified the old Icelandic traditions, see Mr. Keightley's learned book on Fairy Mythology, 8vo, 1850, p. 159.

The Rev. Mr. Dowling, who looks back with great regret to this happy period, says, "Writers were almost universally ecclesiastics. Literature was scarcely any thing but a religious exercise; for every thing that was studied, was studied with a reference to religion. The men, therefore, who wrote history, wrote ecclesiastical history." Dowling's Introduction to the Critical Study of Ecclesiastical History, Svo, 1838, p. 56; a work of some talent, but chiefly interesting as a manifesto by an active party.

encourage inquiry, it is no wonder if they displayed in their writings the spirit incidental to the habits of their profession. Hence, as I have already observed, literature, during many ages, instead of benefiting society, injured it, by increasing credulity, and thus stopping the progress of knowledge. Indeed, the aptitude for falsehood became so great, that there was nothing men were unwilling to believe. Nothing came amiss to their greedy and credulous ears. Histories of omens, prodigies, apparitions, strange portents, monstrous appearances in the heavens, the wildest and most incoherent absurdities, were repeated from mouth to mouth, and copied from book to book, with as much care as if they were the choicest treasures of human wisdom.56 That Europe should have ever emerged from such a state, is the most decisive proof of the extraordinary energy of Man, since we cannot even conceive a condition of society more unfavourable to his progress. But it is evident, that until the emancipation was effected, the credulity and looseness of thought which were universal, unfitted men for habits of investigation, and made it impossible for them to engage in a successful study of past affairs, or even record with accuracy what was taking place around them.$7

57

If, therefore, we recur to the facts just cited, we may say that, omitting several circumstances altogether subordinate, there were three leading causes of the corruption of the history of Europe in the Middle Ages. The first cause was, the sudden introduction of the art of writing, and the consequent fusion of different local traditions, which, when separate, were accurate, but when united were false. The second cause was, the change of religion; which acted in two ways, producing not merely an interruption of the old traditions, but also an interpolation of them. And the third cause, probably the most powerful of all, was, that history became monopolized by a class of men whose professional habits made them quick to believe, and who, more

Thus, for instance, a celebrated historian, who wrote at the end of the twelfth century, says of the reign of William Rufus: "Ejusdem regis tempore, ut ex parte supradictum est, in sole, luna, et stellis, multa signa visa sunt, inare quoque littus persæpe egrediebatur, et homines et animalia submersit, villas, et domos quamplures subvertit. In pago qui Barukeshire nominatur, ante occisionem regis sanguis de fonte tribus septimanis emanavit. Multis etiam Normannis diabolus in horribili specie se frequenter in silvis ostendens, plura cum eis de rege et Ranulfo, et quibusdam aliis locutus est. Nec mirum, nam illorum tempore ferè omnis legum siluit justitia, causisque justitiæ subpositis, sola in principibus imperabat pecunia." Rog. de Hoveden Annal. in Scriptores post Bedam, p. 268. See also the same work, pp. 356-358; and compare Matthæi Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, part i. pp. 266, 289, part ii. p. 298.

57 Even the descriptions of natural objects which Middle Ages, were marked by the same carelessness. by Dr. Arnold, on Bede's account of the Solent Sea. History, pp. 102, 103.

historians attempted in the See some good observations Arnold's Lectures on Modern

over, had a direct interest in increasing the general credulity, since it was the basis upon which their own authority was built.

By the operation of these causes, the history of Europe became corrupted to an extent for which we can find no parallel in any other period. That there was, properly speaking, no history, was the smallest part of the inconvenience; but, unhappily, men, not satisfied with the absence of truth, supplied its place by the invention of falsehood. Among innumerable instances of this, there is one species of inventions worth noticing, because they evince that love of antiquity, which is a marked characteristic of those classes by whom history was then written. I allude to fictions regarding the origin of different nations, in all of which the spirit of the Middle Ages is very discernible. During many centuries, it was believed by every people that they were directly descended from ancestors who had been present at the siege of Troy. That was a proposition which no one thought of doubting. The only question was, as to the details of so illustrious a lineage. On this, however, there was a certain unanimity of opinion; since, not to mention inferior countries, it was admitted that the French were descended from Francus, whom every body knew to be the son of Hector; and it was also known that the Britons came from Brutus, whose father was no other than Eneas himself.59

58

Touching the origin of particular places, the great historians of the Middle Ages are equally communicative. In the accounts they give of them, as well as in the lives they write of eminent men, the history usually begins at a very remote period; and the events relating to their subject are often traced back, in an unbroken series, from the moment when Noah left the ark, or

58 In Le Long's Bibliothèque Historique de la France, vol. ii. p. 3, it is said, that the descent of the kings of France from the Trojans was universally believed before the sixteenth century: "Cette descendance a été crue véritable près de huit cent ans, et soutenue par tous les écrivains de notre histoire; la fausetté n'en a été reconnue qu'au commencement du seizième siècle." Polydore Vergil, who died in the middle of the sixteenth century, attacked this opinion in regard to England, and thereby made his history unpopular. See Ellis's Preface to Polydore Vergil, p. xx. 4to, 1844, published by the Camden Society. "He discarded Brute, as an unreal personage." In 1128, Henry I., king of England, inquired from a learned man respecting the early history of France. The answer is preserved by an historian of the thirteenth century: "Regum potentissime, inquiens, sicut pleræque gentes Europæ, ita Franci a Trojanis originem duxerunt." Matthæi Paris Hist. Major, p. 59. See also Rog. de Hov. in Scriptores post Bedam, p. 274. On the descent of the Britons from Priam and Æneas, see Matthæi Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, part i. p. 66. Indeed, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, their Trojan origin was stated as a notorious fact, in a letter written to Pope Boniface by Edward I., and signed by the English nobility. See Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. pp. 131, 132; and Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. i. p. 185.

69 The general opinion was, that Brutus, or Brute, was the son of Æneas; but some historians affirmed that he was the great-grandson. See Turner's Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 63, vol. vii. p. 220.

61

even when Adam passed the gates of Paradise. On other occasions, the antiquity they assign is somewhat less; but the range of their information is always extraordinary. They say, that the capital of France is called after Paris, the son of Priam, because he fled there when Troy was overthrown. They also mention that Tours owed its name to being the burial-place of Turonus, one of the Trojans; while the city of Troyes was actually built by the Trojans, as its etymology clearly proves.63 It was well ascertained that Nuremberg was called after the Emperor Nero and Jerusalem after King Jebus, a man of vast celebrity in the Middle Ages, but whose existence later historians have not been able to verify. The river Humber received its name because, in ancient times, a king of the Huns had been

65

60 In the Notes to a Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483, pp. 183-187, edit. 4to, 1827, there is a pedigree, in which the history of the bishops of London is traced back, not only to the migration of Brutus from Troy, but also to Noah and Adam. Thus, too, Goropius, in his history of Antwerp, written in the sixteenth century: "Vond zoowel de Nederlandsche taal als de Wysbegeerte van Orpheus in de ark van Noach." Van Kampen, Geschiedenis der. Letteren, 8vo, 1821, vol. i. p. 91; see also p. 86. In the thirteenth century, Mathew Paris (Historia Major, p. 352) says of Alfred, "Hujus genealogia in Anglorum historiis perducitur usque ad Adam primum parentem." See, to the same effect, Matthæi Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, part i. pp. 323, 324, 415. In William of Malmesbury's Chronicle (Scriptores post Bedam, p. 22 rev.) the genealogy of the Saxon kings is traced back to Adam. For other, and similar, instances, see a note in Lingard's History of England, vol. i. p. And Mr. Ticknor (History of Spanish Literature, vol. i. p. 509) mentions, that the Spanish chroniclers present "an uninterrupted succession of Spanish kings from Tubal, a grandson of Noah."

403.

Monteil, in his curious book, Histoire des divers Etats, vol. v. p. 70, mentions the old belief "que les Parisiens sont du sang des rois des anciens Troyens, par Paris, fils de Priam." Even in the seventeenth century this idea was not extinct; and Coryat, who travelled in France in 1608, gives another version of it. He says, "As for her name of Paris, she hath it (as some write) from Paris, the eighteenth king of Gallia Celtica, whom some write to have been lineally descended from Japhet, one of the three sons of Noah, and to have founded this city." Coryat's Crudities, 1611, reprinted 1776, vol. i. pp. 27, 28.

De nomine

"Erat ibi quidam Tros nomine Turonus Bruti nepos. ipsius prædicta civitas Turonis vocabulum nacta est; quia ibidem sepultus fuit." Galfredi Monumet. Hist. Briton. lib. i. cap. xv. p. 19. And Mathew of Westminster, who wrote in the fourteenth century, says (Flores Historiarum, part i. p. 17): "Tros nomine Turnus. De nomine verò ipsius Turonorum civitas vocabilum traxit, quia ibidem, ut testatur Homerus, sepultus fuit."

63 On convient bien que les Troyens de notre Troyes sont du sang des anciens Troyens." Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. v. p. 69.

Monconys, who was in Nuremberg in 1663, found this opinion still held there; and he seems himself half inclined to believe it; for, in visiting a castle, he observes, "Mais je ne sçai si c'est un ouvrage de Néron, comme l'on le dit, et que même le nom de Nuremberg en vient." Voyages de Monconys, vol. iv. p. 141, edit. Paris, 1695.

"Deinceps regnante in ea Jebusæo, dicta Jebus, et sic ex Jebus et Salem dicta est Jebussalem. Unde post dempta b littera et addita r, dicta est Hierusalem." Matthæi Paris Historia Major, p. 43. This reminds me of another great writer, who was one of the fathers, and was moreover a saint, and who, says M. Matter, "dérive les Samaritains du roi Samarius, fils de Canaan.” Matter, Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 41.

VOL. I.-15

67

drowned in it.66 The Gauls derived their origin, according tc some, from Galathia, a female descendant of Japhet; according to others, from Gomer, the son of Japhet. Prussia was called after Prussus, a brother of Augustus.68 This was remarkably modern; but Silesia had its name from the prophet Elisha,from whom, indeed, the Silesians descended; while as to the city of Zurich, its exact date was a matter of dispute, but it was unquestionably built in the time of Abraham.70 It was likewise from Abraham and Sarah that the gipsies immediately sprung." The blood of the Saracens was less pure, since they were only descended from Sarah,-in what way is not mentioned; but she probably had them by another marriage, or, may be, as the fruit of an Egyptian intrigue. At all events, the Scotch certainly came from Egypt; for they were originally the issue of Scota, who was a daughter of Pharaoh, and who bequeathed to them her name." 73 On sundry similar matters, the Middle Ages possessed information equally valuable. It was well known that the city of Naples was founded on eggs; and it was also known,

66 ipsum, et nomen suum flumini reliquit." part i. p. 19.

Humber rex Hunnorum

72

.74

ad flumen diffugiens, submersus est intra Matthæi Westmonast. Flores Historiarum,

These two opinions, which long divided the learned world, are stated in Le Long, Bibliothèque Historique de la France, vol. ii. pp. 5, 49.

és See a curious allusion to this in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. viii. p. 160; where, however, it is erroneously supposed to be a Russian invention.

69"The Silesians are not without voluminous writers upon their antiquities; and one of them gravely derives the name and descent of his country from the prophet Elisha." Adams's Letters on Silesia, p. 267, Lond. 8vo, 1804.

70 In 1608, Coryat, when in Zurich, was "told by the learned Hospinian that their city was founded in the time of Abraham." Coryat's Crudities, vol. i. Epistle to the Reader, sig. D. I always give the most recent instance I have met with, because, in the history of the European intellect, it is important to know how long the spirit of the Middle Ages survived in different countries.

"They were "seuls enfants légitimes" of Abraham and Sarah. Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. v. p. 19.

72 Mathew Paris, who is apprehensive lest the reputation of Sarah should suffer, says: "Saraceni perversè se putant ex Sara dici; sed veriùs Agareni dicuntur ab Agar; et Ismaelitæ, ab Ismaele filio Abrahæ." Hist. Major, p. 357. Compare a similar passage in Mezeray, Histoire de France, vol. i. p. 127: "Sarrasins, ou de la ville de Sarai, ou de Sara femme d'Abraham, duquel ils se disent faussement légitimes héritiers." After this, the idea, or the fear of the idea, soon died away; and Beausobre (Histoire Critique de Manichée, vol. i. p. 24) says: "On dérive vulgairement le nom de Sarasins du mot Arabe Sarah, ou Sarak, qui signifie effectivement voleur." A good example of a secular turn given to a theological etymology. For a similar case in northern history, see Whitelocke's Journal of the Swedish Embassy, vol. i. pp. 190, 191.

13 Early in the fourteenth century, this was stated, in a letter to the Pope, as a well-known historical fact. See Lingard's History of England, vol. ii. p. 187: "They are sprung from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland, and whose descendants wrested, by force of arms, the northern half of Britain from the progeny of Brute."

74

Mr. Wright (Narratives of Sorcery, 8vo, 1851, vol. i. p. 115) says, "The foundation of the city of Naples upon eggs, and the egg on which its fate depended, seem to have been legends generally current in the Middle Ages;" and he refers to