CHAPTER VI.

ORIGIN OF HISTORY, AND STATE OF HISTORICAL LITERATURE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.

I HAVE now laid before the reader an examination of those conspicuous circumstances to which the progress of civilization is commonly ascribed; and I have proved that such circumstances, so far from being the cause of civilization, are at best only its effects; and that although religion, literature, and legislation do, undoubtedly, modify the condition of mankind, they are still more modified by it. Indeed, as we have clearly seen, they, even in their most favourable position, can be but secondary agents; because, however beneficial their apparent influence may be, they are themselves the product of preceding changes, and their results will vary according to the variations of the society on which they work.

It is thus that, by each successive analysis, the field of the present inquiry has been narrowed, until we have found reason to believe that the growth of European civilization is solely due to the progress of knowledge, and that the progress of knowledge depends on the number of truths which the human intellect discovers, and on the extent to which they are diffused. In support of this proposition, I have, as yet, only brought forward such general arguments as establish a very strong probability; which, to raise to a certainty, will require an appeal to history in the widest sense of the term. Thus to verify speculative conclusions by an exhaustive enumeration of the most important particular facts, is the task which I purpose to execute so far as my powers will allow; and in the preceding chapter I have briefly stated the method according to which the investigation will be conducted. Besides this, it has appeared to me that the principles which I have laid down may also be tested by a mode of proceeding which I have not yet mentioned, but which is intimately connected with the subject now before us. This is, to incorporate with an inquiry into the progress of the history of Man, another inquiry into the progress of History itself. By this means great light will be thrown on the movements of so

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ciety; since there must always be a connexion between the way in which men contemplate the past, and the way in which they contemplate the present; both views being in fact different forms of the same habits of thought, and therefore presenting, in each age, a certain sympathy and correspondence with each other. It will, moreover, be found, that such an inquiry into what I call the history of history, will establish two leading facts of considerable value. The first fact is, that during the last three centuries, historians, taken as a class, have shown a constantly increasing respect for the human intellect, and an aversion for those innumerable contrivances by which it was formerly shackled. The second fact is, that during the same period, they have displayed a growing tendency to neglect matters once deemed of paramount importance, and have been more willing to attend to subjects connected with the condition of the people and the diffusion of knowledge. These two facts will be decisively established in the present Introduction; and it must be admitted, that their existence corroborates the principles which I have propounded. If it can be ascertained, that as society has improved, historical literature has constantly tended in one given direction, there arises a very strong probability in favour of the truth of those views towards which it is manifestly approaching. Indeed, it is a probability of this sort which makes it so important for the student of any particular science to be acquainted with its history; because there is always a fair presumption that when general knowledge is advancing, any single department of it, if studied by competent men, is also advancing, even when the results may have been so small as to seem unworthy of attention. Hence it becomes highly important to observe the way in which, during successive ages, historians have shifted their ground; since we shall find that such changes have in the longrun always pointed to the same quarter, and are, in reality, only part of that vast movement by which the human intellect, with infinite difficulty, has vindicated its own rights, and slowly emancipated itself from those inveterate prejudices which long impeded its action.

With a view to these considerations, it seems advisable that, when examining the different civilizations into which the great countries of Europe have diverged, I should also give an account of the way in which history has been commonly written in each country. In the employment of this resource, I shall be mainly guided by a desire to illustrate the intimate connection between the actual condition of a people and their opinions respecting the past; and, in order to keep this connexion in sight, I shall treat the state of historical literature, not as a separate subject, but

as forming part of the intellectual history of each nation. The present volume will contain a view of the principal characteristics of French civilization until the great Revolution; and with that there will be incorporated an account of the French historians, and of the remarkable improvements they introduced into their own departments of knowledge. The relation which these improvements bore to the state of society from which they proceeded, is very striking, and will be examined at some length; while, in the next volume, the civilization and the historical literature of the other leading countries will be treated in a similar manner. Before, however, entering into these different subjects, it has occurred to me, that a preliminary inquiry into the origin of European history would be interesting, as supplying information respecting matters which are little known, and also as enabling the reader to understand the extreme difficulty with which history has reached its present advanced, but still very imperfect, state. The materials for studying the earliest condition of Europe have long since perished; but the extensive information we now possess concerning barbarous nations will supply us with a useful resource, because they have all much in common; the opinions of extreme ignorance being, indeed, everywhere the same, except when modified by the differences which nature presents in various countries. I have, therefore, no hesitation in employing the evidence which has been collected by competent travellers, and drawing inferences from it respecting that period of the European mind, of which we have no direct knowledge. Such conclusions will, of course, be speculative; but, during the last thousand years, we are quite independent of them, inasmuch as every great country has had chroniclers of its own since the ninth century, while the French have an uninterrupted series since the sixth century. In the present chapter, I intend to give specimens of the way in which, until the sixteenth century, history was habitually written by the highest European authorities. Its subsequent improvement during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, will be related under the separate heads of the countries where the progress was made; and as history, previous to the improvement, was little else than a tissue of the grossest errors, I will, in the first place, examine the leading causes of its universal corruption, and indicate the steps by which it was so disfigured that, during several centuries, Europe did not possess a single man who had critically studied the past, or who was even able to record with tolerable accuracy the events of his own time.

At a very early period in the progress of a people, and long before they are acquainted with the use of letters, they feel the

want of some resource, which in peace may amuse their leisure, and in war may stimulate their courage. This is supplied to them by the invention of ballads; which form the groundwork of all historical knowledge, and which, in one shape or another, are found among some of the rudest tribes of the earth. They are, for the most part, sung by a class of men, whose particular business it is thus to preserve the stock of traditions. Indeed, so natural is this curiosity as to past events, that there are few nations to whom these bards or minstrels are unknown. Thus, to select a few instances, it is they who have preserved the popular traditions, not only of Europe,' but also of China, Tibet, and Tartary; likewise of India, of Scinde, of Belochistan, of Western Asia, of the islands of the Black Sea," of Egypt, of Western Africa, of North America, of South America, and of the islands in the Pacific.12

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For an account of the ancient bards of Gaul, see the Benedictine Hist. Lit. de la France, vol. i. part i. pp. 25-28. Those of Scotland are noticed in Barry's Hist. of the Orkney Islands, p. 89; and for a modern instance in the island of Col, near Mull, see Otter's Life of Clarke, vol. i. p. 307. As to the Irish bards in the seventh century, see Sharon Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iii. p. 571. Spenser's account of them in the sixteenth century (Somers Tracts, vol. i. pp. 590, 591) shows that the order was then falling into contempt; and in the seventeenth century this is confirmed by Sir William Temple; Essay on Poetry, in Temple's Works, vol. iii. pp. 431, 432. But it was not till the eighteenth century that they became extinct; for Mr. Prior (Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 36, 37) says, that Carolan, "the last of the ancient Irish bards," died in 1738. Without them the memory of many events would have been entirely lost; since, even at the end of the seventeenth century, there being no registers in Ireland, the ordinary means of recording facts were so little known, that parents often took the precaution of having the names and ages of children marked on their arms with gunpowder. See Kirkman's Memoirs of Charles Macklin, 8vo, 1799, vol. i. pp. 144, 145, a curious book. Compare, respecting Carolan, Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. vii. pp. 688

694.

2 On these Toolholos, as they are called, see Huc's Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China, vol. i. pp. 65-67. Huc says, p. 67, "These poet-singers, who remind us of the minstrels and rhapsodists of Greece, are also very numerous in China; but they are, probably, no where so numerous or so popular as in Thibet."

On the bards of the Deccan, see Wilks's History of the South of India, 4to, 1810, vol. i. pp. 20, 21, and Transac. of the Bombay Soc. vol. i. p. 162. For those of other parts of India, see Heber's Journey, vol. ii. pp. 452-455; Burnes on the North-west Frontier of India, in Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. iv. pp. 110, 111; Prinsep, in Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. viii. p. 395; Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 376, 377, 543; and Asiatic Researches, vol. ix. p. 78. They are mentioned in the oldest Veda, which is also the oldest of all the Indian books. See Rig Veda Sanhita, vol. i. p. 158.

See Burton's Sindh, p. 56, 8vo, 1851.

5 Burton's Sindh, p. 59.

Burnes's Travels into Bokhara, 8vo, 1834, vol. ii. pp. 107, 115, 116.

7 Clarke's Travels, 8vo, 1816, vol. ii. p. 101.

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Compare Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 304, with Bunsen's Egypt,

vol. i. p. 96, vol. ii. p. 92.

I have mislaid my note on the bards of Western Africa, and can only refer to

a hasty notice in Mungo Park's Travels, vol. i. p. 70, 8vo, 1817.

10 Buchanan's Sketches of the North-American Indians, p. 337.

11 Prescott's History of Peru, vol. i. pp. 31, 32, 117.

12 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i. pp. 85, 199, 411; Ellis, Tour through

In all these countries, letters were long unknown; and, as a people in that state have no means of perpetuating their history except by oral tradition, they select the form best calculated to assist their memory; and it will, I believe, be found that the first rudiments of knowledge consist always of poetry, and often of rhyme. The jingle pleases the ear of the barbarian, and affords a security that he will hand it down to his children in the unimpaired state in which he received it. This guarantee against error increases still further the value of these ballads; and instead of being considered as a mere amusement, they rise to the dignity of judicial authorities.15 The allusions contained in them, are satisfactory proofs to decide the merits of rival families, or even to fix the limits of those rude estates which such a society can possess. We therefore find, that the professed reHawaii, p. 91. Compare Cook's Voyages, vol. v. p. 237, with Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific, vol. ii. p. 106. Some of these ballads have been collected, but, I believe, not published. See Cheever's Sandwich Islands, 8vo, 1851, p. 181.

It is a singular proof of the carelessness with which the history of barbarous nations has been studied, that authors constantly assert rhyme to be a comparatively recent contrivance; and even Pinkerton, writing to Laing in 1799, says, "Rhyme was not known in Europe till about the ninth century." Pinkerton's Literary Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 92. The truth is, that rhyme was not only known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but was used, long before the date Pinkerton mentions, by the Anglo-Saxons, by the Irish, by the Welsh, and, I believe, by the Brétons. See Mure's Hist. of the Literature of Greece, vol. ii. p. 113; Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. i. p. 31; Villemarqué, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, vol. i. pp. lviii. lix. compared with Souvestre, les Derniers Bretons, p. 143; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iii. pp. 383, 643, vol. vii. pp. 324, 328, 330. Rhyme is also used by the Fantees (Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, p. 358); by the Persians (Transac. of Bombay Soc. vol. ii. p. 82); by the Chinese (Transac. of Asiatic Soc. vol. ii. pp. 407, 409, and Davis's Chinese, vol. ii. p. 269); by the Malays (Asiatic Researches, vol. x. pp. 176, 196); by the Javanese (Crawfurd's Hist. of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20); and by the Siamese (Transac. of Asiatic Soc. vol. iii. p. 299).

14 The habit thus acquired, long survives the circumstances which made it necessary. During many centuries, the love of versification was so widely diffused, that works in rhyme were composed on nearly all subjects, even in Europe; and this practice, which marks the ascendency of the imagination, is, as I have shown, a characteristic of the great Indian civilization, where the understanding was always in abeyance. On early French historians who wrote in rhyme, see Monteil, Hist. des divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 147. Montucla (Hist. des Mathémat. vol. i. p. 506) mentions a mathematical treatise, written in the thirteenth century, "en vers techniques.” Compare the remarks of Matter (Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. pp. 179-183) on the scientific poetry of Aratus; and on that of Hygin, p. 250. Thus, too, we find an Anglo-Norman writing "the Institutes of Justinian in verse;" Turner's Hist. of England, vol. vii. p. 307: and a Polish historian composing numerous works on genealogy and heraldry mostly in rhyme." Talvi's Language and Literature of the Slavic Nations, 8vo, 1850, p. 246. Compare Origines du Droit Français, in Œuvres de Michelet, vol. ii. p. 310.

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Mr. Ellis, a missionary in the South Sea Islands, says of the inhabitants, "Their traditionary ballads were a kind of standard, or classical authority, to which they referred for the purpose of determining any disputed fact in their history." And when doubts arose, as they had no records to which they could at such times refer, they could only oppose one oral tradition to another; which unavoidably involved the parties in protracted, and often obstinate debates." Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i. pp. 202, 203. Compare Elphinstone's Hist. of India, p. 66; Laing's Heimskringla, 8vo, 1844, vol. i. pp. 50, 51; Twell's Life of Pocock, edit. 1816, p. 143.