CHAPTER III.

LATIN.

I. The Ties with Rome.--William I., Henry II., John--Church lands--The "exempt" abbeys--Coming of the friars--The clergy in Parliament--Part played by prelates in the State--Warrior prelates, administrators, scavants, saints 157

II. Spreading of Knowledge.--Latin education--Schools and libraries--Book collectors: Richard of Bury--Paris, chief town for Latin studies--The Paris University; its origins, teaching, and organisation--English students at Paris--Oxford and Cambridge--Studies, battles, feasts--Colleges, chests, libraries 166

III. Latin Poets.--Joseph of Exeter and the Trojan war--Epigrammatists, satirists, fabulists, &c.--Nigel Wireker and the ass whose tail was too short--Theories: Geoffrey of Vinesauf and his New Art of Poetry 176

IV. Latin Prosators--Tales and Exempla.--Geoffrey of Monmouth--Moralised tales--"Gesta Romanorum"--John of Bromyard--"Risque" tales, fables in prose, miracles of the Virgin, romantic tales--A Latin sketch of the "Merchant of Venice"--John of Salisbury; Walter Map--Their pictures of contemporary manners 181

V. Theologians, Jurists, Scientists, Historians.--The "Doctors"; Scot, Bacon, Ockham, Bradwardine, &c.--Gaddesden the physician--Bartholomew the encyclopaedist--Roman law and English law--Vacarius, Glanville, Bracton, &c. History--Composition of chronicles in monasteries--Impartiality of chroniclers--Their idea of historical art--Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, Matthew Paris--Observation of manners, preservation of characteristic anecdotes, attempt to paint with colours--Higden, Walsingham and others 193