' to be assured how meagre and superficial
even Hallam's knowledge was of everything before the Norman invasion. It
was no fault of his; he made good use of all such materials as were then
accessible to the student--that is, all such as had been printed; for
that incomparably larger _apparatus_ which since Hallam's days has been
published to the world, it was for all practical purposes as if it had
never existed at all. Even men of culture and learning were persuaded
that all that was ever likely to be known about the religious houses had
been collected in the new edition of Dugdale's 'Monasticon.' It is
hardly too much to say that of the history of English monasticism Hallam
knew nothing. Dr. Lingard himself had very little more to say of the
great Abbeys than his predecessors, and had a very inadequate conception
of the part they played in the development of our institutions; and when
Dr. Maitland wrote his brilliant 'Essays on the Dark Ages,' he hardly
names St. Edmundsbury or St. Alban's, and though one of his most
fascinating chapters is concerned with the early days of Croyland, his
only authority for the beautiful story, which he has handled so
skilfully, is a romantic narrative attributed to Ingulphus, which has
been demonstrated to be a somewhat clumsy though a clever forgery. Of
the Mendicant Orders--of the work they did, of the influence they
exercised, and of the attitude adopted towards them in the 13th century
by the parochial clergy on the one hand, and by the monks on the
other--even less was known, if less were possible, than of their
wealthier rivals.

Two years had scarcely elapsed since the issue of the Treasury Minute of
February, 1857, before it began to be said that the history of England
would have to be written anew. In the single year 1858 _eleven_ works of
the highest importance were printed, and it was evident that neither
original materials nor scholarly editors would be wanting to make the
'Rolls Series' all that it was desired it should become. The 'Chronicles
of the Monasteries of Abingdon and of St. Augustine at Canterbury,' the
contemporary 'Life of Edward the Confessor,' and the priceless
'Monumenta Franciscana,' telling the wonderful story of the settlement
of the Minorites among us, were printed from unique MSS. Next year the
'Chronicle of John of Oxnedes' was brought out by Sir Henry Ellis, and
the 'Historia Anglicana' of Bartholomew Cotton, by Dr. Luard, neither
work having ever be