the spirit of England. They wrote of England as of their home,
they were proud to call themselves English, and they began to
desire that England should stand high among the nations. It is,
you remember, from one of these chroniclers, Geoffrey of Monmout
(see chapter vi.), that we date the reawakening of story-telling
in England.

As a writer of history Geoffrey is bad. Another chronicler* says
of him, "Therefore as in all things we trust Bede, whose wisdom
and truth are not to be doubted: so that fabler with his fables
shall be forthwith spat out by us all."

*William of Newbury.

But if Geoffrey was a bad writer of history, he was good as "a
fabler," and, as we have seen in chapter vii., it was to his book
that we owe the first long poem written in English after the
Conquest.

The Norman came with sword in hand, bringing in his train the
Latin-writing chroniclers. But he did not bring these alone. He
brought minstrels also. Besides the quiet monks who sat in their
little cells, or in the pleasant cloisters, writing the history
of the times, there were the light-hearted minstrels who roamed
the land with harp and song.

The man who struck the first blow at Hastings was a minstrel who,
as he rode against the English, sang. And the song he sang was
of Roland, the great champion of Charlemagne. The Roland story
is to France what the Arthur story is to us. And it shows,