is doubtful whether the number of churches destroyed was twenty-two or fifty-two, an amount of difference so large that we might also reasonably suspect his narrative, whilst he also commits the mistake of attributing the formation of the Forest to Rufus.
Now, the first thing which strikes us is that as the writers are more distant in point of time, and therefore less capable of knowing, they singularly enough become more precise and specific. What Florence of Worcester speaks of in merely general terms, Vitalis, and Walter Mapes, and Knyghton, give in minute details down to the very number of the parishes and churches.[1]
As far as mere written testimony goes, we have nothing to set against their evidence, except Domesday, and the negative proof of The Chronicle. Not one word does The Chronicler, who, be it remembered, personally knew the Conqueror[2]—who
- ↑ For the sake of brevity, let me add that William of Malmesbury (Gesta Rerum Anglorum, vol. ii. p. 455, published by the English Historical Society, 1840), Henry of Huntingdon (Historiarum, lib. vi., in Savile's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, p. 371), Simon of Durham (De Gestis Regum Anglorum, in the Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, p. 225), copying word for word from Florence, Roger Hoveden (Annalium Pars Prior, Willielmus Junior, in the Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, p. 468), Roger of Wendover (Flores Historiarum, vol. ii. pp. 25, 26, published by the English Historical Society), Walter Hemingburgh (De Gestis Regum Angliæ, vol. i. p. 33, published by the English Historical Society), and John Ross (Historia Regum Angliæ, pp. 112, 113. Ed. Hearne. Oxford, 1716), repeat, according to their different degrees of accuracy, the general story of the Conqueror destroying villages and exterminating the inhabitants.
- ↑ The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, as before quoted. Nor does the writer, when another opportunity presents itself at Rufus's death, mention the matter, but passes it over in significant silence. The same volume, p. 364.
