VI. BOOK probabilities of the question seem to be, that if Calixtus had not been concerned in giving this book of Turpin's to the world, his name would not have been so pertinaciously and universally attached to it. No other but the person mentioned by Allard has been, on any authority, assigned to it; and what he says, connects it also with the place of which Calixtus was the prelate. The monk of St. Andre may have been the real author, under Calixtus, and the pope the public father. LITERARY It is also to be remarked, that altho these ancient authorities attach it to Calixtus, there is no ancient authority that contradicts the ascription. I will only add one other circumstance that I have observed, which may have had some connexion in this pope's mind, with this subject. The real Tilpin was archbishop of Rheims; and it was to Rheims that the body of the only pope who bore the name of Calixtus, viz. Calixtus I. was transported. And it is apparently a coincidence worth remarking, that as the letter on Turpin, attributed to Calixtus, makes Turpin's dead body to be found in a place laid waste by war, and to be carried to Vienne, so the dead body of Calixtus I. was taken from another place which the Danes had devastated, and was brought into Rheims. Flod. The reader will now judge for himself how far it is right or wrong to consider Calixtus as the real or putative father of Turpin's book. APPENDIX II. CHAP. VI. That Jeffry's British History probably originated from the political JEFFRY'S views of Henry I. THE perception that the History of Turpin so visibly originated from the objects and feelings, and was principally pushed into celebrity by the authority of Calixtus II. leads the mind to inquire whether the British History, of Jeffry of Monmouth, was also connected with any worldly interests, or promoted by any worldly policy of the court of England, in the beginning of the twelfth century. It was written, and seems to have been made public, during the latter portion of the reign of Henry I. The first dated proof we have of the existence of Jeffry's book, is the year 1139. Our historian, Henry of Huntingdon, in his letter to Warinus of Bretagne, who had asked him why he had omitted in his history all the incidents between Brutus and Julius Cæsar, answers, that although he had very often inquired, he could not find any knowlege of those times, either from verbal tradition, or in writing, till the year 1139, when, going to Rome with the archbishop Theobald, he was astonished to find (stupens inveni) at Bec, of which Theobald had been abbot, the written account of those transactions. A monk here, Robert of Thorigney, a very zealous collector of books, brought him Jeffry's book to read. Harl. MSS. N° 1018. There is also a letter of this Robert de Thorigney, which mentions his putting this book into Henry's hands, and that Huntingdon had carried his history down to the death of Henry I. or 1135. MS. ib. Therefore, Huntingdon knew nothing of Jeffry's History in 1135, but saw it at Bec in 1139. Jeffry addresses the Prophecies of Merlin, which he stopped in the middle of his work to translate, to Alexander, bishop of Lincoln. L. 7. c. 1. & 2. But Alexander was raised to this see in 1123; M. Pac. 69.; therefore this Hstory could not have been either published or completed before 1123. Thus we have these two extreme terms, within which the book must have been made public-not earlier than 1123; not later than 1139. But Alured of Beverley has inserted an abridgment of it in his history. This history he ends just after Michaelmas in the 29 Henry I. or in October 1128. As he leaves off very abruptly at this period, it has been inferred that he died soon afterwards. Hearne's Pref. p. 28. Voss. Hist. Lat. 369. But the old biographers, Pitts and Bale, place his death in 1136. On these latter BRITISH VI. LITERARY HISTORY OF BOOK authorities Jeffry's History must have been published before 1136. But the expressions of Alured in the beginning of his book, already remarked upon, (see before, p. 250.) indicate that he had met with Jeffry's History in 1128; therefore the correct chronology of its ENGLAND. publication appears to stand thus:-It could not have appeared before 1123, and must have appeared before 1136 or 1139, and most probably was made public in 1128. This statement shews that it was composed or translated in the latter portion of the reign of Henry I. and decides the question as to the priority of Turpin or Jeffry. I once doubted if Turpin's work had not been an imitation of Jeffry's; but since I have satisfied myself that Turpin's work was sanctioned by Pope Calixtus, in 1122, it must have preceded Jeffry's, which could not have appeared till after 1123.* How far Jeffry's British History promoted the political interests and objects of Henry I. I. HENRY had taken the crown not only against the hereditary right of his brother Robert, but also in violation of the compact made between that prince and William Rufus and his barons, which appointed him to succeed the latter. Robert was in Palestine when Henry usurped it, and upon his return to claim it, almost all the barons deserted Henry and joined Robert. Alan. Proph. Merl. 1. 2. p. 74. The clergy and the English barons interfered, and influenced Robert to compromise his claim; but the public feeling was not in favor of Henry's rectitude; he was ridiculed and called queen goods-rich,' ib. p. 74, and was also in danger of revolts. It was therefore most important for him to have a book appear, in which an accredited and revered prophet should have foretold his reign, and described his actions. His severities to repress the violences and oppressions of his barons, and to reduce them to a subordination to law and the crown, and his pecuniary levies from his subjects, had made him many enemies and caused many insurrections. No policy could he more deep and effectual than to have also all these things predicted by an authority which that age venerated; hence, all these were made part of the prophecies ascribed to Merlin, and inserted by Jeffry in his book. The following * Some other dates connected with it may be noticed. It is addressed to Robert earl of Gloucester; he died in 1147. Jeffry was made bishop of St. Asaph in 1151; Matt. Paris, p. 84; and died 1154. 2 Wart. Angl. Sax. Alexander died 1147; M. Par. 82. H. Hunt. 394. were understood at that time to be spoken by Merlin of Henry, CHAP. and are so interpreted by Alanus de Insulis, his contemporary. 6 VI. The lion of justice shall succeed; at whose roar the Gallic JEFFRY'S towers and island dragons shall tremble. In his days gold shall BRITISH be extorted from the lily and the nettle, and silver shall flow from HISTORY. the hoofs of those which low. Those that curl their hair shall be clothed in various fleeces, and the exterior habit shall shew the interior things. The feet of those that bark shall be cut off. Wild beasts shall have peace. Humanity will be grieved at the punishment. Money shall be made round. The rapacity of the kites shall perish, and the teeth of the wolves be blunted.' . Alanus explains this of Henry. He raised money both from the good and bad, the clergy and the laity, or the lily and the nettle. A tax was laid by him on all sales of cattle. He forbad hunting. Many nobles were accused of conspiring against him, and punished. He ordered the oboli to be made round, and he put an end to the depredations and rapines of the great and gentry. Alan. p. 79. The prophecy is also made to foretell that he would buy his kingdom of Robert. Ib. 123. Thus his own reign, and the actions of his government that were most objected to, instead of being usurpation and tyranny, were represented to be fulfilments of the Divine ordinations. Nothing could be more artfully contrived to turn the prejudices of the people in his favor. II. Normandy, having been extorted from France, and the smaller power, was always in danger of being re-absorbed by the French government. But when its dukes became kings of England, the French crown became in its turn endangered; and thus the two sovereigns were thrown into a continual state of jealousy and discord with each other. But France had become a peculiar object of dread and dislike to Henry, from its crown claiming to have Normandy held as a fief from it, and therefore assuming to be its sovereign lord, and as such, exacting homage and feudal honors from the king of England, as the condition of his holding Normandy. This was not a mere personal mortification to kingly pride, but it was a state of the greatest political danger; for it made the Norman barons look up to the king of France as their paramount lord, and on Henry as a military tenant to him of the duchy, to whom they were in subinfeudation. The consequence was, that on any dispute or dissatisfaction with their sovereign in England, they flew off from BOOK their allegiance to him, and transferred it to the king of France, or applied to him for assistance against their English lord. VI. LITERARY HISTORY OF Thus Robert had joined Philip, the king of I`rance, against his own father, the Conqueror. Al. 65. So the same prince, to mainENGLAND. tain his war against Rufus, had sent to Philip, as to his chief lord, for aid, who flew to help him against his brother; and a long intestine war ensued in Normandy. Al. 67. The effect of this political condition was, that the Norman barons were, as they are described to be, men who could not be relied on, and who held faith and fealty to neither France nor England. Hence it became a great object with Henry to depreciate the crown of France, and to divest it of all its pretensions to the attachment and veneration of both Normandy and England. Many parts of Jeffry's book had visibly this tendency, and operated to produce this effect. In that day of ancestral pride, it was a peculiar personal object of every king and nobleman to have the highest and most celebrated descent. The Romans having derived themselves from Trojans, the Trojan blood became the noblest in the estimation of their Gothic conquerors. Hence the French kings early claimed the same superior honor; and Hunnibald had fixed it on the Frankish throne, by deriving their nation and royalty from Francio the imagined son of Priam. But as the king of France claimed homage from Bretagne, Normandy, and all the great dukes and counts in France, any superiority of ancestral descent became an auxiliary confirmation of his superior dignity. It was, therefore, important to the crown of England to paralyze any right that might flow from a Trojan descent, by asserting a similar ancestry. Henry could not immediately deduce the line of his Norman progenitor Rollo from it; but he could attach it to the English crown, and through that to himself, the existing sovereign, by setting up Brutus as the founder of the monarchy of England, and by making him a Trojan. Accordingly, the first chapters in Jeffry's book make Brutus the great-grandson of Æneas, and deduce both the sovereignty and population of England from this Trojan chief. Thus the crown of England became as noble in its ancestral origin as that of France, which by this representation could not pretend to any nobler blood. But the point of feudal lordship was a question far more vexatious and formidable. In Henry's seventeenth year, or in 1116, many of the Norman barons, who had sworn fealty to him, revolted, |