When collected
these books were an incentive to the more cultivated of the
monks to begin the history of his country or his house,
or to write or re-write the lives of saints. The fruit is
preserved for us in a long line of monkish historians and
hagiographers. As a rule the histories they wrote were of
little value; but when they had brought the tale down to
their own times they continued it with the help of records
to their hand, narrated events within their own memory,
and maintained the narrative in the form of annals. The
method of annalising was simple. At the end of the incomplete
manuscript a loose or easily detachable sheet
was kept, whereon events of importance to the nation and
the monastery and locality of the annalist were written in
pencil from time to time during the year. At the end of
the year the historian welded these jottings into a narrative.
When this was done another leaf for notes was placed after
the manuscript. The value of the work so accomplished
is incalculable. Without these records it would now be
impossible for us to realise what the Middle Ages were like.
This service, added to the enormously greater service which
monachism did for us in preserving ancient literature, will
always breed kind thoughts of a system so repugnant to
our modern view of human endeavour.
Pages:
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359