Man lives in the present, for the future, but emphatically by the past. He cannot possibly understand what he sees (whether in politics, theology, literature or science), without realizing how it came to be. If he attempts to avoid this necessary study of the past, or affects to despise it, he is beaten in the race of life by those who are wiser than himself. Every characteristic of a living person or nation, the stock of ideas and ideals by which they live, their very habits and daily life, all have roots deep in the past. If this truth is grasped—and it is not less true because it can be clearly and shortly stated—libraries are seen at once to be a necessary adjunct to all education and all civilization. Carlyle saw this when he wrote with characteristic exaggeration that the Modern University is a Library of Books.
But, as is pointed out at p. 10 above, there are libraries and libraries. However valuable elementary and circulating and private libraries may be (and they are the necessary lower rungs of the ladder of progress), it is for the great Libraries of Deposit that the educated student reserves his time, his energies and his admiration. The certainty of finding all, or nearly all, the authorities on his subject, and of finding them at hand, is his delight. If he further discovers a large store of manuscripts from which new information may be drawn, or old texts improved, his pleasure amounts to enthusiasm.
The Bodleian, it is submitted, satisfies these conditions of contentment, and is, and always will be, both for British and foreign students of theology, history, literature or science, a potent element in post-graduate education at Oxford. That it is not fully used, is true; and that it needs much more help before it can exercise its proper functions, is also true. But it has been greatly aided and stimulated by three centuries of goodwill, energy and benefaction; and it does what it can, both in giving free access to all who are properly recommended to it, and in providing catalogues and indexes for their use; it is only the lack of adequate endowment which prevents it from greatly increasing its utility and influence.
There are several departments of study in which the Library is able to furnish ample manuscript materials for original research. Among them may be mentioned especially Theology, Classics, English history and English literature, the local history of the British Isles (especially of Oxford and its neighbourhood), and Oriental literature (especially Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic and Chinese). To these may be added Music, old Irish literature and Liturgies without exhausting the list of specialities. The printed collections are rich in English books of all dates (especially Bibles and Theology), in Classics, Historical books of reference, and old literature of various kinds.
Much has been written lately about the pitfalls which await the historical researcher, whether he attempts to interpret the documents of a past age or to enter into its ideas. This is not the place for an enumeration of these difficulties, but they are well summarized (with a short bibliography) in C. G. Crump’s Logic of History (Helps for Students of History, No. 6: 1919; price 8d.). Classical students are at no loss for guides,[28] and it is open to all others simply to take a book or edition of repute, and study its methods, the enumeration of MSS., the grouping of them, and the principles of text-construction and criticism. But at every step they need a large library, and the Bodleian combines the advantages usually only found in a great city with the amenity and surroundings of a country town.
Even in this short manual it may be of practical use to give two actual examples of historical method, applied in one case to prehistoric remains in and the other to elucidation of old and vague chronicles. They are given in the belief that an ounce of practice is worth a hundred-weight of precept.
1. Stonehenge
What is the date, approximately, when Stonehenge was erected? The data are that it lies in a part of Salisbury Plain which is dotted with a large number of barrows, early and late in date. How can the building, the stones and the ground be made to give up evidence as to date?
In 1889 Sir Arthur Evans investigated the question in a paper in the Archæological Review for January in that year.
1. Many of the barrows, two of which are in obvious connection with the great stones, are shown by their forms and contents to be of the largest type of Bronze Age barrows, known as Round Barrows (for instance, gold relics, glass beads, ivory and cremated remains are signs of lateness). This being so, it is significant that chippings of the stones brought from a distance to Stonehenge are found even in undisturbed barrows of this kind, where the action of earthworms and rabbits in introducing foreign elements is hardly possible. It is clear, therefore, that the building of Stonehenge was at least begun late in that period. There is the point also that with the exception of two, the circumjacent barrows are not in any relation with the great circle, and are therefore not later.
2. The contents of the barrows earlier than Stonehenge have some imported articles which must have come from the continent not before the fifth century B.C. One even is stated to have contained a socketed celt, pointing to the late fourth century. But late Celtic antiquities are wholly absent, which makes it hardly possible that the barrows should be as late as the second century B.C.
3. The skilful hewing and fitting of the huge blocks of Wiltshire Sarsen stone are of the same stage in technical development as the triliths of Syria and Tripoli, and the great Doric temple of Segesta in Sicily, which latter was constructed about 415 B.C.
From these and similar indications he concludes that the gradual building of the great monument was probably between 300 and 150 B.C. He is now inclined to place the date earlier.
In 1901 a small committee of the Society of Antiquaries and two other societies reported on the desirability of setting upright a very large leaning stone at Stonehenge, which showed signs of breaking up as well as of falling still further down. It was successfully raised in September of that year, and it is from the necessary excavations—which were very carefully and scientifically conducted—that various data were collected by Mr. William Gowland, and printed in Archæologia, vol. 58 (1902).
No object of metal was found, except one small trace of bronze or copper. From this circumstance he concludes that Stonehenge was constructed at the time when the Neolithic Age was passing into the Bronze Age, and that has been tentatively placed at about 1400 B.C., or not later. Sir Norman Lockyer, he mentions, had recently attempted to determine the date on the hypothesis that the monument was a solar temple, since, as is well known, the midsummer sun rises exactly in the line of the chief avenue from the temple, and exactly over a large detached stone placed no doubt for this very purpose. He deduced a date as early as 1700 B.C.
It is disappointing to observe the discrepancy between these results. But it is particularly instructive, and a salutary warning to all who attempt scientific enquiries into historical problems, to note that both results are based on sound method. Good method, in short, is not sufficient: the data must also be adequate, and where indeterminate they must, as in this case, be approached, tested and used with the greatest caution. For instance, the absence of bronze tools is not conclusive evidence that the Bronze Age had not begun, and therefore that Stonehenge was earlier than about B.C. 1500, for the stone implements found were sufficient for their work and much more easily obtained than bronze tools. Moreover, the stone implements are stated not to be of the characteristic late Stone Age types, and may therefore have been improvised.
2. The Loss of King John’s Treasures in the Wash, A.D. 1216
Everyone has read how King John in his last days lost all his baggage train in the waves of the Wash (the great bay or inlet which separates Lincolnshire from Norfolk), and is supposed hardly to have saved his own life. The ordinary histories go on to say that he died soon after of chagrin at the disaster, and that Henry III was crowned in a gold circlet because the Crown had been lost with the rest of John’s treasure. The old chroniclers are vague and avoid detail, and it is the kind of story which lends itself to exaggeration. It seems to have struck Sir William St. John Hope that it might be worth while to investigate closely the exact circumstances, and to consider what was lost, and where. Such a quest might indicate possibilities even of the recovery of the treasure, if the spot could be ascertained, and the brilliant results of his application of scientific method have more than justified his attempt, and afford a really interesting example for imitation.
1. First, the chroniclers’ accounts were noted and compared. Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris and the Coggeshall chronicler state in varying terms that the King and his army barely escaped, and that the baggage which followed was lost in whirlpools or quicksands in the “Well stream,” which disembogues into the sea through the Wash. These are original authorities, and Sir William observes that the first-named was at the time Prior of Belvoir in Leicestershire, about forty miles only from the scene, and that the priory was of the same (Cistercian) order as that of Swineshead, where the King lodged on the night after the catastrophe, and where he fell ill.
2. The route followed by the King himself can fortunately be absolutely ascertained from the fact that every day he made grants which are registered among the Patent and Close Rolls, and each is marked as made at a certain place. We at once learn, therefore, that the King, who had swept much of Norfolk clear of its gold and silver treasures in revenge for the revolt of the Barons, left King’s Lynn on October 11, 1216, for Wisbeach, went thus round the head of the great indentation of the Wash, and journeyed thence on the fateful 12th to Swineshead, in Lincolnshire, where he ordered his baggage to join him by a direct route northward from King’s Lynn across the Wash at low tide. All this is ascertained fact, and we learn already that the King himself was never in danger, but only his baggage train, and its guard and the attendant forces.
3. There is no question of the great changes in the coast line during the last seven hundred years. Whereas the sea used to cover what is now flat and fruitful meadow land, almost as far as Wisbeach, the water is now kept out by the silt it has deposited and by embankments. The accounts of later writers on the disaster, Camden, Brady and local antiquaries, mention the old lines of embankment and with this help they can still be traced. Thus emerges the important fact that there was a definite ford of no great width straight across the Wash and across the Well stream, now called the Welland; the route to the ford is marked by a road and a line of old churches and villages.
4. Next, military historians were asked to estimate the probable amount of baggage and the numbers and composition of the train and its guard. It was estimated that the whole cavalcade would be something like three miles long, not capable of moving more than 2½ miles an hour at best, the crossing being not less than 4½ miles, from Cross Keys northward to Long Sutton, and the channels, where the long and narrow ford encounters its chief difficulty, not far from Long Sutton.
5. On the great day, October 12, 1216, what were the tides? An official of the Nautical Almanac Office specially worked out the problem, with the result: Low water about noon, high water about 6 p.m., the sunset being at 5.15 p.m. It was a spring-tide, favourable for crossing, as so much of the route would be uncovered at low water, but it is clear that the available time for crossing the long ford and the mid-stream of the Welland would not be more than from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.—barely time enough, even if all went well.
The position is now clear. Probably the whole train crossed the Lynn stream (the Ouse) from King’s Lynn the day before, and camped as near their supplies at Lynn as possible, in fact just across the river. In the fogs and mists of October, the train would hardly start on the 12th till about 8, and would reach Cross Keys a little before noon. For so unwieldly a cavalcade that was too late. When the Welland was reached the tide would be in full flow, and when the long train of baggage wagons, men, soldiers, mules and horses, excitedly endeavoured to turn back all would be in confusion. They were like the Egyptians in the Red Sea. As none escaped, the whole train must have been on the sands; the ghastly scene of turmoil and death in the quicksands and swiftly rising waters must be left to the imagination; no circumstance of horror was absent. The King probably watched the scene from the northern bank, and saw the hideous tumult and disorder, and the struggles for life.
6. But the treasure fell into soft, shifting quicksands, silt and mud. To what depth? Sir William approached the Great Northern Railway Company, who built in 1887 a new swing-bridge over the river near the spot, and found that probably at 23 feet, certainly at 32 feet, the slowly sinking gold, silver and jewels would be stopped. The composition of every foot of depth, whether silt, clay or sand is known.
7. The fact that the Welland stream, now 240 feet across and 27 feet deep, had in old days no one definite channel, but roamed divided over the wide delta, with much less force and depth than now, completes the enquiry. No part of the treasure would be carried out to sea, but all would sink slowly down to its present place.
A trench cut in those meadows from East to West on the line of the old ford would encounter mules’ bones and human bones, which could be thence tracked with certainty both North and South. On that line will certainly be found, uninjured and secure, Edward the Confessor’s Crown, all the other contents of the King’s movable Chapel and his other portable treasures, with countless pieces of plate and relics and jewels from the rich abbeys and churches of Norfolk.
Such is an outline of a successful application of method to the vague accounts of a great disaster.
In conclusion, some specimens may be given of various kinds of material which await, so far as the writer knows, investigation. Some may turn out to be used or printed, some not to deserve printing, but they may at least lead on intending researchers to adopt the only satisfactory plan, which is to read through the Catalogues of the manuscript collections, and find what suits their tastes and capabilities. The field of Oxford history is so plentiful and so untilled that it can be found by any one without trouble, and it is therefore here passed over. Any one inspired to cultivate it will find a wealth of material, both antiquarian, topical and literary. The following jottings are divided under a few general headings, but are otherwise in no order and could be indefinitely extended. The Bodleian statute requires that the leave of the Librarian or Curators be obtained before any manuscript is copied with a view to publication. The purpose is, not to stifle research, but to eliminate incompetent or conflicting editors.
Historical
Register of Lands about Agen, in Gascony, Latin, 13th cent. (2933).
Chronicle of England to 1221, Latin, 14th cent. (2444).
Fountains Abbey records (1892, etc.).
Rich. II and London, a Latin poem, A.D. 1393 (3631).
Military expenses of Henry VIII (30300).
Pococke’s Tour in Ireland, 1758 (30722).
Letterbook of a Parliamentarian officer (Bradshaw) 1648-60 (25573).
Triple picture of the battle of Pinkie, 1547 (30492).
Civil War Scouts’ reports (33552).
Gulielmus Gemeticensis, Historia Normannorum, abt. A.D. 1100 (2580).
Latin Chronicle of the First Crusade and England, 1095-1118 (2402).
Letters to Bp. Burnet (30175).
Literary
Latin Dialogue between Magister and Discipulus on the Latin tongue, 11th cent. (2737).
“The Chaunce of the Dyse” (dice), etc., Middle English verse, 15th cent. (2078).
Middle English treatise of a son instructing his mother abt. 1400 (2315).
The history of Greek Studies in Europe (Hody), late 17th cent. (8887-90, 8901-3, etc.).
Middle English verse (3440, 29003, 30314, etc.).
Miscellaneous
Hearne’s autograph autobiography (15603).
Pointer on clog-almanacks, 18th cent. (13478).
Aubrey on English architecture, A.D. 1671 (28427).
Letters from China, A.D. 1701 (27874).
Laws, etc., of the Swanimote, A.D. 1587 (30273).
Malone correspondence, A.D. 1767-1811 (28578).