A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the Renaissance. J. J. Jusserand
Stirred by sudden impulses, the natives vainly struggled to free themselves, incapable even in this pressing danger of combined and vigorous action; then they mournfully submitted to fate. The only contemporary interpreter of their feelings known to us, the Anglo-Saxon chronicler, bewails the Conquest, but is more struck by the ravages it occasions than by the change of domination it brings about. "And Bishop Odo and Earl William [Fitz-Osbern]," he says, "remained here and wrought castles widely throughout the nation, and oppressed the poor people, and ever after that it greatly grew in evil. May the end be good when God will." So much for the material disaster, now for the coming of the foreigner: "And then came to meet him Archbishop Ealdred [of York], and Eadgar child and Earl Eadwine, and Earl Morkere, and all the best men of London, and then, from necessity, submitted when the greatest harm had been done, and it was very imprudent that it was not done earlier, as God would not better it for our sins."[138]
People with a mind so full of elegiac sentiments fall an easy prey to men who know how to will. Before dying William had taken everything, even a part of Wales; he was king of England, and had so completely changed the fortunes of his new country that its inhabitants, so used to invasions, were never again to see rise, from that day to this, the smoke of an enemy's camp.
II.
From the outset William seems to have desired and foreseen it. Practical, clear-minded, of firm will, imbued with the notion of State, he possessed in the highest degree the qualities his new subjects most lacked. He knew neither doubts nor vain hesitations; he was an optimist, always sure of success: not with the certitude of the blind who walk confidently to the river, but with the assurance of clear-sighted people, who leave the goddess Fortune so little to do, it were a miracle if she did less for them. His lucid and persistent will is never at fault. In the most critical moment of the battle a fatal report is circulated that the duke has been killed; he instantly tears off his helmet and shows himself with uncovered face, crying: "I am alive! here I stand, and by God I shall conquer!"[139]
All his life, he conforms his actions to his theories; having come as the heir of the Anglo-Saxon princes, he behaves as such. He visits his estate, rectifies its boundaries, protects its approaches, and, in spite of the immensity of the work, takes a minute inventory of it.[140]
This inventory is the Domesday, a unique monument, such that no nation in Europe possesses the like. On the coins, he so exactly imitates the type adopted by his predecessors that it is hard to distinguish the pennies of William from those of Edward. Before the end of his reign, he was the master or conqueror of all, and had made his authority felt and accepted by all, even by his brother Bishop Odo, whom he arrested with his own hands, and caused to be imprisoned "as Earl of Kent," he said, with his usual readiness of word, to avoid a quarrel with the Church.
And so it was that, in spite of their terrible sufferings, the vanquished were unable to repress a certain sentiment which predisposed them to a fusion with the victor, namely admiration. Never had they seen energy, power, or knowledge like unto that. The judgment of the Anglo-Saxon chronicler on William may be considered as being the judgment of the nation itself concerning its new masters: "That King William about whom we speak was a very wise man, and very powerful, more dignified and strong than any of his predecessors were. He was mild to the good men who loved God, and over all measure severe to the men who gainsayed his will. … So also was he a very rigid and cruel man, so that no one durst do anything against his will. … He spared not his own brother named Odo. … Among other things is not to be forgotten the good peace that he made in this land, so that a man who had any confidence in himself might go over his realm with his bosom full of gold unhurt." The land of the Britons, "Brytland" or Wales, was in his power, Scotland likewise; he would have had Ireland besides had he reigned two years longer. It is true he greatly oppressed the people, built castles, and made terrible game-laws: "As greatly did he love the tall deer as if he were their father. He also ordained concerning the hares that they should go free."[141] Even in the manner of presenting grievances we detect that special kind of popularity which attaches itself to the tyranny of great men. The England of the Anglo-Saxons had been defeated, but brilliant destinies were in store for the country; the master was hated but not despised.
These great destinies were realised. The qualities of which William gave the example were rare in England, but common in France; they were those of his race and country, those of his lieutenants; they naturally reappear in many of his successors. These are, as a rule, energetic and headstrong men, who never hesitate, who believe in themselves, are always ready to run all hazards, and to attempt the impossible, with the firm conviction that they will succeed; they are never weary of fighting and taking; the moment never comes when they can enjoy their conquests in peace; in good as in evil they never stop half-way; those who incline to tyranny become, like Stephen, the most atrocious tyrants[142]; those who incline to the manners and customs of chivalry carry them, like Richard Cœur de Lion, as far as possible, and forget that they have a kingdom to rule. The most intelligent become, like Henry II., incomparable statesmen; those who have a taste for art give themselves up to it with such passion that they jeopardise, like Henry III., even their crown, and care for nothing but their masons and painters. They are equally ready for sword and word fights, and they offer both to all comers. They constantly risk their lives; out of twelve Norman or Angevin princes six die a violent death.
All their enterprises are conceived on a gigantic scale. They carry war into Scotland, into Ireland, into Wales, into France, into Gascony, later on into the Holy Land and into Spain. The Conqueror was on his way to Paris when he received, by accident, being at Mantes, fifteen leagues from the capital, a wound of which he died. These qualities are in the blood. A Frenchman, Henry of Burgundy, seizes on the county of "Porto" in 1095, out of which his successors make the kingdom of "Portugal"; a Norman, Robert Guiscard, conquers Sicily, takes Naples, forces his alliance upon the Pope, overawes Venice, and the same year beats the two emperors; his son Bohemond establishes himself as reigning prince in Antioch in 1099, and fighting with great composure and equanimity against Turk and Christian, establishes out of hand a little kingdom which lasted two centuries. They find in England miserable churches; they erect new ones, "of a style unknown till then," writes William of Malmesbury,[143] which count among the grandest ever built. The splendid naves of St. Albans, Westminster, Canterbury, Winchester, York, Salisbury, rise heavenwards; the towers of Ely reach to the skies; the west front of Lincoln, adorned with marvellous carvings, rears itself on the hill above the town; Peterborough opens its wide bays, deep as the portals of French churches; Durham, a heavy and massive pile built by knight-bishops, overlooks the valley of the Wear, and seems a divine fortress, a castle erected for God. The donjons of the conquerors, Rochester, London, Norwich, Lincoln, are enormous, square and thick, so high and so solid that the idea of taking these giant structures could never occur to the native dreamers, who wait "till the end shall be good when God pleases"!
The masters of the land are ever ready for everything, and find time for everything: if their religious edifices are considered, it seems as though they had cared for nothing else; if we read the accounts of their wars, it appears as if they were ever on their way to military expeditions, and never left the field of battle. Open the innumerable manuscripts which contain the monuments of their literature: these works can be meant, it seems, but for men of leisure, who have interminable days to spend in lengthy pastimes; they make their Benoits de Sainte-More give them an account of their origins in chronicles of 43,000 lines. This literature is ample, superabundant, with numberless branches and endless ramifications; they have not even one literature only; they have three: a French, a Latin, and later an English one.
Their matchless strength and their indomitable will further one particular cause: the infusion of French and Latin ideas in the Anglo-Saxon people, and the connection of England with the civilisations of the South. The task was arduous: Augustine, Alfred, Dunstan, kings and saints, had attempted