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.

The

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. 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.

e

His invasion is ignored; we are told simply that John died and Henry succeeded him and was crowned by the legate Gualo. There is therefore no evidence at all for this view.

It is erroneous, in reply to the third objection against the chronicle, to suggest that the abbey of Margam was too obscure to be well informed. Just as Coggeshall was in a land of royal forest and manors, near London, just as St. Albans was on one of the great roads, so Margam had special advantages for hearing strange information. Gerald of Wales speaks of its importance, its hospitality, its connection, when scarcity of corn made connection useful, with Bristol. When we turn to the Margam records we find no ignorant and secluded community, but a powerful house, favoured and harassed alternately by great neighbours who were some of the greatest barons in England and the Marches,2 an abbey which lay on the road from England to Ireland, and was twice visited by King John himself 3 at one time under the king's special protection, favoured almost as much as his peculiar foundation, the Cistercian house of Beaulieu. The delightful studies of M. Bédier have shown us that the information and influence of a monastery depended not so much upon its general position as upon the road on which it lay, or upon what friends the abbot had. He has demonstrated that the isolated and obscure house of Saint-Guilhem-du-Désert could mould the history of a great epic cycle, because it was visited by pilgrims on their way to Compostella.5 Conversely special information could make a chronicle of

1. Opera (Rolls Series), vi, 67, 68.

2. G. T. Clark, Cartae et alia Munimenta quae ad Dominium de Glamorgan pertinent, especially vol. iii, passim (Cardiff, 1891).

3. Rot. de Liberate, 172, 229; Annales Monastici, i, 10. In his History of Margam (London, 1877) Mr. W. de Gray Birch suggested that there was some connection between John's presence at and favours to the abbey, and its chronicler's knowledge of Arthur's death (pp. 176-180).

4. Ann. Mon., i, 30.

5. Les Légendes Epiques, vol. i (Paris, 1908).

the most meagre and unpretentious range a very valuable authority. The monks of Coggeshall knew a great deal more about Richard's captivity than did many great abbeys, because Anselm, the king's chaplain, told us all these things as he saw and heard them.' Now is it possible to suggest the chief channel of communication open to the monks of Margam?

In reading the chronicle one or two suggestions occur to mind which must be put aside. It might be observed that the compiler seems to have been interested in Bec. He knows that Sainte-Marie-de-Pré is a priory of Bec; he notes that Hugh of Nonant, bishop of Coventry, died at Bec in 1198. Again, it is worthy of mention that in November 1203 Margam had an agent at Rome, who was engaged in securing lengthy privileges and confirmations from Pope Innocent III.1 On his journey to and from Rome the person entrusted with the business of the abbey, whether a monk or not, could acquire information which might interest his employers. But it is not very likely that this would be of unique importance. Let us approach the problem from the other direction and ask who was likely to know what happened before and after the murder of Arthur. Ralph of Coggeshall says that Arthur was entrusted to the care of Robert of Vieuxpont at Rouen; but Robert was a north-country magnate, nor does he appear in the story of the murder. He was a busy official who probably did not live constantly at Rouen.2 Two of John's companions and counsellors however were very conspicuous in Glamorgan, and both of them probably knew a good deal more than they cared to say. William the Marshal, earl of Pembroke, and William of Briouze (de Braosa) 1. Clark, op. cit., iii, 225-234.

2. Coggeshall, p. 143. He was bailiff of Caen and the Roumois in 1203, and is identified by Stapleton with the Robert of Vieuxpont who was lord of Westmoreland, and clung to John in 1216, while his brother joined the rebels (Stapleton, II, cclxiv-cclxvii; cf. Farrer, Lancashire Pipe Rolls, p. 258). After the loss of Normandy, Robert got some of Ralph Tesson's lands in Kent (Rot. Norm., p. 140). Below, p. 519.

granted privileges to or attested the charters of Margam more than once. The Marshal kept absolute silence. It is difficult to say to what extent he knew how Arthur died. He was certainly acquainted with the course of the negotiations which followed the murder during 1204-1205, since he was one of the embassy. I think that his biographer knew a good deal, and hints at Arthur's fate, but there is not a word of explicit reference to the matter in the poem which tells us so many new things. 1 Nor were the Marshal's lands in South Wales near the abbey of Margam. But William of Briouze was in a very different position. The story of his life would, if it were thoroughly known, be the most important record we could have of the personal history of John and his baronage during the first part of the reign. He was the king's constant companion during the Norman campaigns. It is well known that the official records reveal the presence of John near Rouen just about the time when, according to the Margam annals, the murder was committed.2 William of Briouze was with him at the time. About 1207 he lost the king's favour, and in 1210 John tried to exterminate him and his family. His wife, Matilda, is said to have refused to hand over her children as hostages to the murderer of Arthur, and John pursued her thereafter with a ferocity unusual even in him. The grisly story of her and her son's death by starvation in Windsor is the most awful of many awful tales. It is impossible to believe that the debts of William of Briouze were, as John said in the official account, the cause of this

1. There are possible hints in ii, 81, 145. For the Marshal's embassies, see vol. iii, pp. 176-178, with Meyer's notes.

2. See the itinerary appended to Sir T. D. Hardy's introduction to Rot. Litt. Patent. (1835); cf. Miss Norgate, ii, 430. That William of Briouze was present is clear from the attestations; e.g., Rot. Norm., p. 86.

3. See Meyer's long note in Hist. de Guillaume le Maréchal, iii, 156; Dict. of Nat. Biogr. s.v. 'Braose,' for authorities; e.g., Rog. Wendover, ii, 49 (Rolls Series).