gives much special
information on northern matters. For the reign of William the Red the
chief source of information is Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, in his
"Historia Noverum" and "Life of Anselm." William of Malmesbury and Henry
of Huntingdon are both contemporary authorities during that of Henry the
First; the latter remains a brief but accurate annalist; the former is
the leader of a new historic school, who treat English events as part of
the history of the world, and emulate classic models by a more
philosophical arrangement of their materials. To these the opening of
Stephen's reign adds the "Gesta Stephani," a record in great detail by
one of the King's clerks, and the Hexham Chroniclers.

All this wealth of historical material however suddenly leaves us in the
chaos of civil war. Even the Chronicle dies out in the midst of Stephen's
reign, and the close at the same time of the works we have noted leaves a
blank in our historical literature which extends over the early years of
Henry the Second. But this dearth is followed by a vast outburst of
historical industry. For the Beket struggle we have the mass of the
Archbishop's own correspondence with that of Foliot and John of
Salisbury. From 1169 to 1192 our primary authority is the Chronicle known
as that of Benedict of Peterborough, whose authorship Professor Stubbs
has shown to be more probably due to the royal treasurer, Bishop Richard
Fitz-Neal. This is continued to 1201 by Roger of Howden in a record of
equally official value. William of Newburgh's history, which ends in
1198, is a work of the classical school, like William of Malmesbury's. It
is distinguished by its fairness and good sense. To these may be added
the Chronicle of Ralph Niger, with the additions of Ralph of Coggeshall,
that of Gervase of Canterbury, and the interesting life of St. Hugh of
Lincoln.

But the intellectual energy of Henry the Second's time is shown even more
remarkably in the mass of general literature which lies behind these
distinctively historical sources, in the treatises of John of Salisbury,
the voluminous works of Giraldus Cambrensis, the "Trifles" and satires of
Walter Map, Glanvill's treatise on Law, Richard Fitz-Neal's "Dialogue on
the Exchequer," to which we owe our knowledge of Henry's financial
system, the romances of Gaimar and of Wace, the poem of the San Graal.
But this intellectual fertility is far from ceasing with Henry the
Second. The thirteenth century has h