The names of some of the best of these chroniclers are
Eadmer, Orderic Vitalis, and William of Malmesbury.
By degrees these Norman and Anglo-Norman monks became filled with
the spirit of England. They wrote of England as of their home,
they were proud to call themselves English, and they began to
desire that England should stand high among the nations. It is,
you remember, from one of these chroniclers, Geoffrey of Monmout
(see chapter vi.), that we date the reawakening of story-telling
in England.
As a writer of history Geoffrey is bad. Another chronicler* says
of him, "Therefore as in all things we trust Bede, whose wisdom
and truth are not to be doubted: so that fabler with his fables
shall be forthwith spat out by us all."
*William of Newbury.
But if Geoffrey was a bad writer of history, he was good as "a
fabler," and, as we have seen in chapter vii., it was to his book
that we owe the first long poem written in English after the
Conquest.
The Norman came with sword in hand, bringing in his train the
Latin-writing chroniclers.
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