But there was loss as well as gain. The Hebrew historians were regarded as above criticism. A chronology deduced from texts deemed inspired and infallible was arbitrarily imposed on the histories of the heathen nations. A false persuasion of knowledge as to primeval times was engendered. A view of universal history was formed, specious enough to gain unquestioning acceptance until a recent period, but unable to satisfy the demands of strict criticism and inconsistent with the results which research has at length attained. The Chronology of Eusebius was soon translated into Latin and Armenian, and often both abridged and continued. It was the basis of all the chronological work undertaken in medieval Christendom.

Eusebius had several "continuators" in the Eastern Church -e.g., Theodoret, Socrates, and Sozomen in the fifth century, and Theodorus and Evagrius in the sixth. Those named all showed care and diligence in the collection of information and considerable general sobriety and vigour of intellect, but also a credulous faith in divine interpositions. After the sixth century the Greek Church ceased to be productive in historiography, or in any other department of knowledge.

Rufinus and Jerome made the historical works of Eusebius known to the Latin Church. Augustine, in his ' De Civitate Dei,' attempted, with all the energy and resources of his magnificent genius, to explain the facts and secrets of history by the principles of Christian theology, and expounded a theory of the destinies of the human race which served many generations as their only philosophy of history. What may be called in a lax and general way the Augustinian philosophy of history was substantially the only one known in medieval Europe; and it has reappeared in modern times with more or less important modifications under the hands of Bossuet, Schlegel, and many others. As it will be specially treated of in the last section of our Introduction, this mere reference to it must here suffice.

The Spanish presbyter, Paulus Orosius, wrote his 'Historiarum libri vii. adversus paganos,' at the suggestion of Augustine, and in reply to the same charges against Christianity and Christians which are combated in the De Civitate Dei.' The chief merit of the work is its endeavour after comprehensiveness. It gives

a history of the world from the creation to the year A.D. 410. Its central thought is that God has raised up and cast down kingdoms, distributed happiness and misery, and disposed all human affairs, with a view to the spread and triumph of Christianity. This gives it whatever elevation of tone and unity of plan it possesses. The polemical and practical purpose to

which it owed its origin is never lost sight of, and so it abounds in denunciations of ambition, conquest, and idolatry, and in moral advice and spiritual consolation. It adds nothing to the historical theory of Augustine. Ozanam finds in it " un véritable talent, quelquefois ce souffle inspiré du génie Espagnol," which I am unable to discover. Doergens ('Aristoteles,' p. 12) designates its author-" der erste Philosoph der Geschichte." This is altogether unwarranted. No one has a right to distribute blue ribbons in such a way. Great titles ought to be conferred only on great men and for great services. Orosius was no historical philosopher at all,-no philosopher of any kind.

Amidst the confusion and destruction caused by the barbarian invasions and the downfall of the Western empire, historiography like all other literature, nearly disappeared. Men had not the heart to describe events which filled them with despair. All culture decayed until only the bare rudiments of knowledge remained. The historical art of medieval Europe began, as that of Greece and Rome had begun, with the rude and simple chronicle. Yet there was a most important difference between the cases. When history began to be recorded in Greece and Rome, the Greeks and Romans had become unconscious of their connection with the past of the human race, with a history preceding and underlying their own. It was not so with medieval Europe. Its continuity with the past, and the sense thereof, were unsundered; both the classical and the Christian traditions were retained in its memory. The new cycle was thus, even at the commencement, unlike as well as like the old one; and hence, however analogous to it it might prove to be, it could never possibly be a repetition of it. Besides, the materials of history were in the medieval period immensely increased by the new peoples destined to become new nations, and by the new institutions and forms of life destined, after absorption or commingling

VOL. I.

E

with the old, to be evolved into a political and social system profoundly different from the Roman, inasmuch as it was far more extensive and complex, far more spiritually rich, highly developed, and manifoldly productive.

The fierce minds of the barbarians were softened and subdued by the persuasions and terrors of the Church. The Christian clergy became the teachers and rulers of the nations which arose on the ruins of the fallen empire. Art or culture had been the dominant fact in Greek life, and positive law or policy in Roman life; religion or piety as understood by the Church was made the dominant fact in medieval life. Literature in all its branches became predominantly religious, and religious in its specially medieval, that is, ecclesiastical form. Ecclesiastical histories outnumbered all other histories. Biographies of saints, bishops, and popes, histories of single convents and monastic orders, &c., abounded; and even general or political histories were, with few exceptions, written by ecclesiastics and on ecclesiastical principles. Indeed, no sharp or marked distinction was drawn between ecclesiastical and general or political history, for the Church in these times intervened directly and powerfully in all affairs. The distinction deemed fundamental in the medieval period was not that between Church and State, but that between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world-the civitas Dei and civitas diaboli of Augustine; and as men obeyed or disobeyed the Church, as affairs were favourable or adverse to the Church, they were regarded, at least by almost all Churchmen, as belonging to the one kingdom or the other.

The mass of historical writing in Latin left by the ecclesiastics of the middle age is enormous. The best portion of it is contained in the vast collections of Grævius, Muratori, Bouquet, Migne, Guizot, Pertz, and the Master of the Rolls. Much more of it has seen the light in the publications of local learned societies. Much of it is still unpublished. To those who would make a special study of it, Potthast1 and Chevallier may serve as general guides. Surveys have been made of special

Potthast (A)-Bibliotheca Historica Medii Aevi. Berlin, 1862.

2 Chevallier (U)-Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge. Paris, 1877-84.

sections of it, as by Wattenbach1 and Lorenz.2 There is still wanting, however, a comprehensive account of medieval historiography. My purpose requires me only to refer to a very few of the most representative writers and productions.

Gregory of Tours, who died in 594, may fitly come first. As his Historia Francorum' is the chief original source of information for the Merovingian period, he is often called the father of French history; but, of course, the title is ambiguous, and by the unlearned apt to be misunderstood. In a small and feeble body he bore a large and strong soul, and played his part bravely and skilfully in fearful and difficult times. His 'Historia Francorum' is in ten books. The first, beginning with the creation of Adam and Eve, and ending with the death of St Martin of Tours, is of no special worth. The second treats of the Frankish conquest, and is drawn to a considerable extent from works now lost. The third and fourth deal with events down to 574, two years after Gregory had become bishop, and are also comparatively meagre. The later books are much fuller; indeed, the last four are occupied with a period of only seven years. Gregory was not in the least a literary artist. He was quite conscious of a defective acquaintance with grammar. "Veniam precor," he says, “si aut in litteris, aut in syllabis grammaticam artem excessero, de qua adplene non sum imbutus" (Hist. Fr.' iv. 1). His style was rude, unformed, disjointed, without force, precision, or elegance, but at times not devoid of a certain realistic vividness. Of aptness in arrangement, skill in proportioning parts to one another and the whole, or judicious subordination of local to general, and insignificant to important details, his work shows no traces. He was far from unprejudiced in judgment, or critical in his appreciation of evidence. He was a credulous believer in miracles, and thought very leniently of monstrous crimes if committed by orthodox princes, very severely of heresy or hostility to the Church; but he was honest and earnest according to his light, and showed himself so by the ingenuousness, candour, and fulness of his statements of fact.

1 Wattenbach (W)-Deutschland's Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter bis zur Mitte des xiii. Jahrhunderts. 4° Aufl. Berlin, 1877-78.

2 Lorenz (0)-Deutschland's Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter seit der Mitte des xiii. Jahrhunderts. 3° Aufl. Berlin, 1886.

He made no attempt to analyse characters and actions, to trace the causes of events, to explain the course, tendencies, and issues of human affairs. His horizon was very limited, and all within it was drifting and confused, seething and storm-tossed. The historical world around him was not one in which he could truly see order, and therefore, the best thing he could do, probably, was to describe it in all the disorder in which he saw it, instead of vainly trying to find order in, or force order upon, it. He was devoid both of historical philosophy and of historical art, but he has preserved a rich store of materials for the historical philosophy and art of later times.

Bede (Baeda) was born about one hundred and thirty years after Gregory of Tours. Both his character and surroundings were very different from those of the first historian of the Franks. He spent a studious, pious, peaceful life in the monastries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. It closed with a beautiful death in 735. He acquired mastery over all the scholarship and science of his age, and composed treatises and tracts on a wonderful variety of subjects. Burke has aptly called him "the father of English learning." Much the most important of his works is the one which here concerns us, the 'Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum.' Its five books embrace the period from Caesar's invasion to 731. It begins to be of value with the arrival of Augustine in 597, and still more with that of Paulinus in 630. It gives a deeply interesting and most trustworthy account of the way in which the Saxons in England were Christianised, and also a large amount of precious information as to events which would now be called secular. For a considerable portion of the time to which it relates, it is contemporary history. It shows a diligence in the collection of materials, and a conscientiousness in the use of them, worthy of all praise. Bede was so judicious in the selection of his informants that much of what he tells us on the authority of others is not less to be credited than what he tells us on his own. His carefulness to let his readers know who the authorities for his statements are, makes his honesty obvious even when he is most manifestly in error. Thus, although he never seems to have thought of doubting the occurrence of a miracle vouched for by a man whose character he esteemed, as he seldom or never fails