Books written to teach any branch of human knowledge are, in most cases, written by persons who have long known and used the knowledge which they impart, and, perhaps for that reason, have more or less forgotten the steps of the ladder up which they have climbed; but in this case the process has been so recent that the difficulties and dangers of each step have been remembered, and the reader accordingly warned against them.
The meaning of the various kinds of documents which are likely to be found among the title-deeds of an estate, or among the archives of a parish or a corporation, are described without needless technicalities, in a practical way, which will appeal to those who begin to work among such material without previous knowledge.
The first step, of course, is to learn to read.This wants perseverance and a quick eye, but regular practice will soon enable the student to read any ordinary documents, which at first seemed utterly unintelligible, and gradually the power of understanding really difficult and obscure MSS. will be acquired. But this first step must be thoroughly mastered, for to attempt to get information from old writings without thoroughly knowing the forms of the letters, and the different systems of abbreviations and contractions, would be like trying to keep accounts without knowing how to add up a column of figures.
And indeed paleography is the foundation of all history. There may be historians, like the late Mr. Freeman, who have but little knowledge of the science (he, I believe, boasted of his inability to read a manuscript), but then such writers rely on the paleographic knowledge of others, who have edited the manuscripts which they desire to use, and they have, or ought to have, sufficient scholarship to judge which are the best editions, and even occasionally to detect editors’ mistakes.
But an acquaintance with this branch of knowledge is often of the greatest use to biographers and historians. It is much better, for instance, to be able to judge whether a certain document is of the age which it professes, or in whose handa draft of a treaty is, than to have to accept the opinion of someone else.
The mistakes made through want of this knowledge are common, and sometimes very amusing. Familiar enough is the old story of the parish priest in the time of King Henry VIII., who in the canon of the Mass, in the prayer after taking the wine, read the word ‘sumpsimus’ asmumpsimus, because he had a thirteenth-century missal in whichsandmare much alike, and refused to alter his mistake when it was pointed out to him. It was referred to by King Henry VIII. in his speech to the Parliament in 1545, and, in fact, this ignorant priest has ‘made himself an everlasting name’ for conservative stupidity.
In more recent times, the historian of one of our beautiful north-country abbeys talks of a gift of a silver chest by the founder in the eleventh century. The reader wonders what this chest could have been—was it a native work or imported? was it some ecclesiastical ornament or merely a strong box? But on turning to the document on which the account is based, the meaning is clear. It was not a chest of silver, but an ordinary coin known as a mark of silver. The MS. readsunāmarcāargenti. The writer of the book had not noticed the contraction over the firsta, divided the words wrongly, and read itunam arcam, instead ofunam marcam.
In another similar book the story is narrated of the ill-treatment by a forester of an abbot whose house was near a royal forest. The abbot was no doubt like the monk who made the celebrated pilgrimage to Canterbury—
‘An outrydere that lovede venerye.*****He yaf nat of that text a pulled henThat seith that hunters been nat holy men.’
‘An outrydere that lovede venerye.*****He yaf nat of that text a pulled henThat seith that hunters been nat holy men.’
‘An outrydere that lovede venerye.
‘An outrydere that lovede venerye.
*****
*****
He yaf nat of that text a pulled henThat seith that hunters been nat holy men.’
He yaf nat of that text a pulled hen
That seith that hunters been nat holy men.’
And perhaps the forester had good reason to complain of him. But in the account of the quarrel, the forester is said to have gone into the abbot’s kitchen and taken away his cabbages—not very likely things for a forester to take, as he probably would have found something far better worth carrying off. However, on looking at the MS. it appears almost certain that what was read aschousis reallychens, that is,chiens. In fact, they were the
‘Grehoundes he hadde as swifte as fowel in flight,For priking and for hunting for the hare,’
‘Grehoundes he hadde as swifte as fowel in flight,For priking and for hunting for the hare,’
‘Grehoundes he hadde as swifte as fowel in flight,For priking and for hunting for the hare,’
‘Grehoundes he hadde as swifte as fowel in flight,
For priking and for hunting for the hare,’
who were perhaps lying before the fire asleep after a long afternoon’s coursing.
In the same case it is said that the forester’s treatment of the tenants on one of the abbey farms is so bad that no one dare die there; it is suggested, because the forester would not allow anyone to come to administer the last consolations of religion. But the wordsde murir, on which theobservation is based, are merely a careless scribe’s writing ofdemeurer.
In another book farmers are represented as using stones for fuel, which are suggested to have been coal; but this results from mis-readingpetarum(peat), as if it werepetarum, a contracted form ofpetrarum(stones).
The spreading desire to know something of paleography is very remarkable, and is much to be commended. For all persons who interest themselves in the documents to which they may have access in the possession of private persons, or in repositories not generally known, are helping in the grand work of making clear the laws and customs and mode of living of our ancestors, and thus constantly come across information, not to be found in our more public collections of records, which often throws light on many dark passages of history.
C. T. MARTIN.