acular too. The lonely monastery of Ely, among the swamps, had
its historian. Malmesbury boasted her learned William; and Worcester,
which St. Wulstan had raised from the dust, as it were, only the other
day, had already her Florence. In the great houses of the Northern
Province there had been no lack of writers to whom the past was an open
book. Even Westminster had long ago had her _chronographer_, and far
away in furthest Wales, Geoffrey, the Monmouth man, was making men open
their eyes very wide indeed with tales--idle tales they might be, but
they were well worth the reading--and there was talk too of another
young Welshman, Giraldus, who was on the way towards outdoing the other
by-and-bye. What are we coming to? Holy St. Alban, shalt thou and thy
house be put to shame?--that be far from us!

Thus it came to pass that about a century after the foundation of the
scriptorium, and when the library had grown to an imposing size, Abbot
Simon bestirred himself, and a new office was created in the Abbey, to
wit, that of Historiographer. In our time we should have given this
functionary a grander title, and called him Professor of History; but in
the 12th century, they called him what he was, a writer of history, and
from this time, in fact, the writing of history, after a certain
authorized method, began, and what had been called, and deserves to be
called, the St. Alban's School of History took its rise.

It is evident that before the 13th century had well begun, an historical
compendium of great value had already been drawn up, which must have
been compiled by careful students with a command of books such as during
this age was rare.

'The compilation,' says Dr. Luard, 'whenever and by
whomsoever it was written must be regarded as a very curious
and remarkable one. The very large number of sources
consulted, the miscellaneous character of many of the
extracts, the mixture of history and legend, the giving
fixed years to stories which even writers like Geoffrey of
Monmouth had left undated, the care at one time and the
carelessness at another, the slavishness with which one
authority is followed, and the recklessness with which
another is altered, the frequent confusion of dates, their
ignorance and want of care, the blunders displayed in many
instances from the compiler not understanding the author
whom he is copying, as is especially the case in the