"As your beloved society was wont to delight me when I was with you, so
does the report of your tribulation sadden me continually now that I am
absent from you. How have the heathen defiled the sanctuaries of God,
and shed the blood of the saints round about the altar. They have laid
waste the dwelling-place of our hope; they have trodden down the bodies
of the saints in the temple of God like mire in the street. What can I
say? I can only lament in my heart with you before the altar of Christ,
and say: Spare, Lord, spare Thy people, and give not Thy heritage to the
heathen, lest the pagans say, Where is the God of the Christians? What
confidence is there for the churches of Britain if Saint Cuthbert, with
so great a company of saints, defends not his own? Either this is the
beginning of a greater sorrow, or the sins of the people have brought
this upon them."[72]

Thus we have arrived at the verge of that catastrophe which closes for
ever the singular greatness of Anglia. Charles brought learning to
France by drawing from Anglia and from Italy the best plants for his new
field; he inherited the civilising labours of the Saxon missionaries in
his dominions beyond the Rhine; he founded a centre of power and a
centre of education together; and France remained the chief seat of
learning throughout the Middle Ages.[73] The glory of a European
position in literature can no longer be claimed for England. Through the
remainder of our narrative we must be content with a provincial sphere;
and our compensation must be found in the fact that the vernacular
element is all the more freely developed.


FOOTNOTES: