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correct and we have seen reason to believe that it is based on truth-he had long been urged to condemn John for the murder. If and when he condemned him is, so far as this body of evidence goes, uncertain. If he did, the natural date would be early in 1204, before the last campaign and the fall of Rouen. Those writers who state or imply that the condemnation took place in 1203 are either late, like the chronicle of Lanercost, or are joining several events together in the usual medieval way. Nothing is more common in the historical writing of all ages than to anticipate events for the sake of clearness or through the natural association of ideas, and in the medieval chronicles, with their short annalistic entries, events are often transThere is an ferred to a wrong date for the same reason. excellent illustration of this in an important reference to Arthur in a chronicle of Rouen. The chief of three small chronicles of Rouen, which were first thrown into one in 1546, was the chronicle of St. Catherine. Part of this was, according to M. Chéruel, written in the first half of the thirteenth century. Its local character lends it value. Under the year 1201-an entirely wrong date-after referring to the death of Arthur, the chronicler says of John super quo a baronibus apud regem Franciae, cuius vassallus erat, quum comparere nollet, post multas citationes per iudicium parium exhaeredatus est.1

The authorities with which I have dealt hitherto may be regarded as contemporary, or as going back to a conThe Coggeshall chronicle was written temporary source. up from time to time. The portion comprising the years 1202-1205 was composed before the death of Abbot Ralph in 1207, and forms a separate part. Rigord of St. Denis

1. Normanniae nova Chronica e tribus chronicis MSS. Sancti Laudi, Sanctae Catharinae, et Maioris Ecclesiae Rothomagensium collecta, nunc primum edidit e ms. codice Bibliothecae publicae Rothomagensis A. Chéruel (Mém de la Société des Antiq. de Normandie (1850), xviii, 156, separately paged, published under the final editorship of MM. Charma and Delisle).

died about the same time. Neither of them knew of Arthur's real fate. The former gives valuable details showing that Philip's suspicions had become certainties by Easter 1204; the latter says nothing at all. The Breton tradition is largely borne out by Coggeshall and shows when suspicion was first aroused. The charters are of course contemporary. On the strength of this evidence I think we might assume that Philip had sufficient cause for calling his court together to condemn John, but we could not be certain whether he did so or not. And there we should have to leave the matter.

II.

Twelve years later the English barons urged Louis of France to come over and help them. King Philip had twice before been baulked in an attempt to invade England, and he was not prepared to let this third chance slip. Both in France and at Rome the French case was justified -in France before the legate Gualo, in Rome before the pope himself. himself. One argument upon which great stress was laid was thus expounded by Louis' proctor a fortnight after Easter at Laon, before king and legate and all the assembled barons and clergy: 'My lord king, it is well known (res notissima) to all that John, styled king of England, was condemned to death in your court by the judgment of his peers for his treachery to his nephew Arthur, whom he slew with his own hands, and that afterwards, because of his many crimes, he was repudiated by his barons in England,' &c. It is round this text that a famous literary controversy has been fought. M. Bémont, arguing from the silence of most authorities, from the late date of others, and from the charters of Philip Augustus, declared that Philip and Louis told a bold lie in 1216, and that it was on the strength of this assertion, and not upon other evidence, that later chroniclers believed in the con

1. The documents of 1216 are preserved by the St. Albans chronicle of Roger of Wendover, and are best seen in Matthew Paris, Chron. Mai., ii, 647.

demnation of John. Unless the proof be very positive this view is hard to maintain. It seems such a stupid lie, so easily refuted. Unless we put aside as fabrications all the documents preserved by Roger of Wendover which deal with the negotiations, it is clear that the pope and everybody else believed the story. Innocent's view was that the condemnation was not justified. The argument that these documents, somehow preserved at St. Albans, are the source of the other evidence upon the subject can only be considered when we have examined this evidence. The evidence is twofold—a marginal commentary in Matthew Paris (who follows Wendover for these years) and a rather long bit of narrative in the annals of Margam, a Cistercian abbey in Glamorganshire. Let us consider the latter first.

Like the Coggeshall chronicle, the chronicle of Margam is a brief record amplified by narrative passages. It exists in a manuscript of Trinity College, Cambridge (0. 2. 4. no. 1108). The chronicle ends abruptly and imperfectly in 1232; the manuscript belongs to about 1240. It does not seem to be the original, and there is little evidence as to the dates of the original composition, but the part with which we are concerned was put together after 1210.2 This is noteworthy, since it reminds us that the narrative of what happened in 1203 could be connected with later events. The monks of Margam had heard, circumstantially, how John had killed Arthur in a drunken fury, on a certain day, in a certain place, at a certain time (in turre tandem Rothomagensi, feria quinta ante Pascha, post prandium, ebrius et daemonio plenus, propria manu interfecit). had tied a stone to the body and thrown it into the Seine. It was discovered by a fisherman, recognised, and, for fear

He

1. There is a similar MS. with the same diagram of parhelia, ending at the same date, in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. For the Cambridge MS., see M. R. James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, iii, 83, 84.

2. Under the year 1199 reference is made to the exile and death of William of Briouze in 1211; Ann. Monastici, ed. Luard, i, 24.

of John, buried secretly in Sainte-Marie-de-Pré, one of the priories of Bec. When Philip was convinced that Arthur was dead he summoned him to the French court to answer the charge of murder, for Arthur was a very important man. He never came, and was condemned per iudicium curie regis et principum Francorum to lose all the lands held of the French crown. And it was a righteous judgment. There may be faults of chronology in the story, though it should be noted that the interval between murder and trial is not stated. There is the erroneous implication that the king of France had not already got possession of John's territories-not so very erroneous, however, for Rouen held out till June 1204, and Chinon till the following year, and there was local fighting after that. It is all the same significant that, as a story, the narrative hangs together. It is just the kind of story that a man who knew the facts but had no particular interest in giving every detail correctly would tell to a curious listener. The chronicler is by no means interested only in the horror of the murder; that was dreadful, but after all murders are common. Arthur was a great man, the rightful heir of England, count of Brittany, brother-in-law of the French king. We should remember that we are on Celtic ground, though in an Anglo-Norman honour. A few years before, the bones of King Arthur had been found at Glastonbury: the monks of Margam knew all about that.2 Modern scholars believe that Henry II was responsible for the semi-official reception of the Arthurian legend; it marked the fusion of Norman and Celtic. At one time Henry's grandson, the new Arthur had been accepted by King Richard as his heir, and after Richard's return John had been disinherited by solemn decision of the royal council for his treachery. The Margam chronicler insisted on this also. And now the new Arthur was gone; and it was indeed a righteous

1. Ann. Mon., i, 27, 28

2. Ann. Mon., i, 21, a. 1191

3. Ibid, i, 24; Rog. Howden, iii, 241, 242; Miss Norgate, ii, 329.

judgment—fixum et iustum iudicium hoc-which the court of the French king had uttered.

This seems to be valuable testimony. But, in his essay, M. Bémont put it aside as valueless for three reasons. In the first place the chronicle was written after the expedition of 1216; secondly, the dates are wrong; thirdly, Margam was an obscure monastery in South Wales, and cannot have acquired information which was unknown to the other annalists of England and France. The second of these reasons is of little or no value unless the others are made good. The first contention is that the chronicle was composed too late to have much authority, especially since Louis' invasion had presumably given currency to the story of John's second condemnation. In reply to this it may be urged that, unless we know how the annals were compiled, it is impossible to decide one way or the other. The chronicle was written up after 1210, and possibly after 1221; 2 but notes were always followed, and some parts were often written before others. It is true that the difference between this narrative and most of the chronicle is marked. M. Bémont is obliged to suppose that the compiler used two different sources; but with the example of Coggeshall before us we need only see the usual dry record of a scriptorium with the addition of a few vivid stories, like the story told by the chaplain Anselm to the abbot of Coggeshall. Now, if this story in the Margam annals came from a definite source it has great value. It is just a story of this kind upon which we rely when we accept the Coggeshall account of John's first condemnation. But might it not have come by way of Louis in 1216? In making this suggestion M. Bémont has failed to observe that there is not a single reference to Louis in the chronicle. 1. Revue Historique, xxxii, 59.

2. M. Bémont lays stress on the fact that, under the year 1200, Hugh of Lincoln is described as St. Hugh, although he was not canonised till 1221. But any copyist writing after 1221 would insert the word 'sanctus' before the words 'Hugo Lincolniae episcopus' as a matter of course.

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