CHAPTER V.
the new english.
(1303-1873.)
None of the great European literatures, as Hallam has said, was of such slow growth as the English; the reason is not far to seek. The French, Spanish, Provençal, Italian, Norse, and German literatures were fostered by high-born patrons. Foremost stand the great Hohenstaufens, Emperors of the Romans, ever August; then come Kings of England, of Norway, of Sicily, of Castile; Dukes of Austria, Landgraves of Thuringia, Counts of Champagne; together with a host of knights from Suabia, Tuscany, Provence, and Aragon. A far other lot fell to the English Muse; for almost three hundred years after 1066, she basked not in the similes of King or Earl; her chosen home was far away from Court, in the cloister and the parsonage; her utterance was by the mouths of lowly priests, monks, and friars. Too long was she content to translate from the lordly French; in that language her own old legends, such as those of Havelok and Horn, had been enshrined for more than a hundred years. It was in French, not in English, that Stephen of Canterbury had preached
