Anachronisms. expressions like miles meus, my knight; manserium, manor; feudum, fief; and many others which were not used at the alleged date. At first it was believed that the charters alone were spurious while the history could be regarded as authentic, but this view has long been abandoned, for the chronicle itself is full of anachronisms. It appears to be based on a part of the work of Ordericus Vitalis, one of the historians of the Norman Conquest, who visited Croyland in the early part of the twelfth century. His meagre outline was filled out with supposititious details, and wherever he suggests a possible occurrence the writers of Ingulphus supplied it. Whenever they strayed away from Ordericus they invented most marvelous tales, but at the same time they committed most egregious blunders in chronology. For example, to bridge over the period covering the abbey's foundation, the Danish invasion, and the election of the famous abbot Turketel, 948, the writers supplied a series of superannuated monks, called Sempects, who live in the house to the improbable ages of one hundred and sixty-eight, one hundred and forty-two, one hundred and fifteen, and one hundred and twenty years respectively. Turketel himself is spoken of as the king's chancellor and made responsible for the appointment of seven bishops on a certain day, when, in fact, the synod at which this occurred was held two years before Turketel was born. Another passage states that the "King's Justiciars" held court at Stamford in 1075. Such an official act is not otherwise heard of for at least a hundred years after that date. A "vicarius" or vicar of a church is mentioned equally in advance of the age when the term was customary. Many other citations might be made to multiply Object of the these misstatements and anachronisms which show Forgery. that the writers built upon and borrowed much of their narrative from late chroniclers like Henry of Huntingdon, Florence of Worcester, or Simeon of Durham. The motive of the forgery is clear. The monks desired to enforce their claims to property rights in dispute, and for that purpose prepared these alleged ancient charters, which they said were copied from originals no longer in existence. In order to reinforce the case they prepared also this history in which the claims are mentioned and incorporated, but they could not put themselves back into the spirit of the earlier ages. Words and expressions which were as second nature to themselves were transplanted into Anglo-Saxon times, while dates were confused and impossibilities asserted. From the character of the document the forgery has been placed either in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. How far it succeeded in deceiving the immediate contemporaries we may not say, but for several hundred years afterward the work was accepted as a genuine product of the eleventh century. Forgeries of extensive annals and diaries have appeared from time to time throughout mediaval and modern history. The motives are chiefly two, literary notoriety or desire of gain. To be the finder and editor of a manuscript hitherto unknown and casting light on hitherto obscure portions of history is a coveted position. This led to frequent imitations during the epoch of the humanists, notwithstanding the fact that the same period discovered many earlier frauds of venerable growth. The money value of ancient manuscripts has led to several notorious forgeries in the nineteenth century. The clever work of one Simonides, who pretended to have discovered in an eastern monastery most extraordinary manuscripts on Egyptian history, was accepted for a time by the highest experts. So long as human frailty exists, perhaps, we may look for such attacks on public credulity. The experiments will take new forms with each generation. Quite recently a printed book appeared under the title "An Englishman in Paris." The volume purported to be the memoirs of Sir William Wallace, at one time English ambassador in France. The work was so well done that considerable time elapsed before it could be proved that Sir William Wallace had left no such papers and that the memoirs were fabricated by a Dutch newspaper man. The public reads with Success of For- avidity the genuine memoirs of statesmen and prominent persons like Talleyrand, Metternich, or Grant. Personal history, intimate conversations, hitherto secret details are sought for about every public man, and, doubtless, so long as these are expected the forger will supply them after death. In modern times, however, the supply of documentary evidence is so voluminous that detection is certain to follow soon, and the public is obliged to get this kind of amusement from books which are avowedly historical fiction. Briefer documents, like letters, charters, decrees, the acts of courts, councils or Reasons for gery. synods, and business contracts in general were fabricated in great numbers during the middle ages. The question of genuineness will arise before the student in many of these yet. The reasons for the astonishing productivity of those centuries in base material will be discussed more appropriately later on, yet the kinds of fraud to be guarded against in documentary sources and some of the reasons for suspicion may be briefly suggested through studies of familiar cases. Among the most famous examples of forgery was Donation of the so-called Donation of Constantine. This docu- Constantine. ment alleged that the Emperor Constantine had granted to the bishops of Rome supreme authority over all churches in the world and temporal authority over Italy, or the rest of the western world. In token of this the emperor had removed his own capital to Constantinople. Various other privileges symbolical of this supremacy were granted to the papal chair at the same time, and additions appeared at intervals in later ages. Although this document must have been written in the eighth century the contents were never seriously contested until the fifteenth century, when three scholars fell upon it at once. Other centuries passed, however, before the belief was finally abandoned. Another classic forgery of this period has received Pseudo-Isidothe name of the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals. This is rean Decretals. a collection of ecclesiastical regulations many of which are genuine. The first portion contains fifty canons or citations from the apostles on the government of the church, but these are followed by fifty-nine spurious letters or decisions of the popes from Clement to Malchiades. Here also appears the Donation of Constantine, but this was probably quoted in the belief that it was genuine. All together there are ninety-four spurious documents in the collection, and the date of its composition lies somewhere between 829 and 857. In both cases the first suspicious circumstance is the late appearance of the documents. The Donation cannot be traced back of the time of Pepin, a point more than four hundred years after Constantine. The Isidorean Collection is first mentioned in a synod of 857, many centuries after the suspicious papal letters were alleged to have been written. Furthermore, the ninth century was a time when the ecclesiastical tendencies there contained began to be put into effect and were furthered by the appearance of these ancient citations. Both documents contributed to the power of the papacy. The Donation, however, is betrayed by the anachronisms in words. Officials and usages are quoted which are otherwise known to have originated much later than Constantine. Similar discrepancies appear in the Decretals, but these were overlooked in the uncritical middle ages. Since the Renaissance modern scholarship has given them up. The church itself no longer maintains the validity of these documents, but bases its claims for supremacy on other grounds.1 1 The Donation of Constantine. See Döllinger, Papstfabeln des Mittelalters, 1863. Fables respecting the Popes. Trans. by A. Plummer, edited by H. Smith. New York, 1872. The Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals. Text in Migne, Patrologia, |