to us, in living
pictures or sagacious studies of events and their causes, some of
the chief treasures of the past. History at first, as composed for
readers who knew no Latin, was comprised in those _chansons de geste_
which happened to deal with matter that was not wholly--or almost
wholly--the creation of fancy. Narrative poems treating of
contemporary events came into existence with the Crusades, but of
these the earliest have not survived, and we possess only rehandlings
of their matter in the style of romance. What happened in France might
be supposed to be known to persons of intelligence; what happened
in the East was new and strange. But England, like the East, was
foreign soil, and the Anglo-Norman trouveres of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries busied themselves with copious narratives in rhyme,
such as Gaimar's _Estorie des Engles_ (1151), Wace's _Brut_ (1155)
and his _Roman de Rou_, which, if of small literary importance, remain
as monuments in the history of the language. The murder of Becket
called forth the admirable life of the saint by Garnier de
Pont-Sainte-Maxence, founded upon original investigations; Henry
II.'s conquest of Ireland was related by an anonymous writer; his
victories over the Scotch (1173-1174) were strikingly described by
Jordan Fantosme. But by far the most remarkable piece of versified
history of this period, remarkable alike for its historical interest
and its literary merit, is the _Vie de Guillaume le Marechal_--William,
Earl of Pembroke, guardian of Henry III.--a poem of nearly twenty
thousand octosyllabic lines by an unknown writer, discovered by M.
Paul Meyer in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps. "The masterpiece
of Anglo-Norman historiography," writes M. Langlois, "is assuredly
this anonymous poem, so long forgotten, and henceforth classic."

Prose, however, in due time proved itself to be the fitting medium
for historical narrative, and verse was given over to the
extravagances of fantasy. Compilations from the Latin, translations
from the pseudo-Turpin, from Geoffrey of Monmouth, from Sallust,
Suetonius, and Caesar were succeeded by original record and testimony.
GEOFFROY DE VILLEHARDOUIN, born between 1150 and 1164, Marshal of
Champagne in 1191, was appointed eight years later to negotiate with
the Venetians for the transport of the Crusaders to the East. He was
probably a chief agent in the intrigue which diverted the fourth
Crusade from its original destination--the