Note 12 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES (continued 2)

I would suggest, then, that the whole hypothesis of this invasion in 1147 is based on nothing more than a confusion in the Gesta. Mr Howlett, indeed, claims that 'mediaeval history would simply disappear if the evidence of chroniclers were to be treated in this way,12 and detects 'among some modern writers a tendency to incautious rejection', etc.13 But he himself goes out of his way to denounce, in this connection, as a 'blundering interpolation' a passage in John of Hexham, which he assigns to notes being 'carelessly misplaced' and 'ignorantly miscopied'.14 The Gesta, to my knowledge, is by no means immaculate; its unbroken narrative and vagueness as to dates render its chronology a matter of difficulty; and the circumstance that the passage in dispute occurs towards its close renders it impossible to test it as we could wish by comparison with later portions. The weakness of Mr Howlett's case is shown by his desperate appeal to 'the exact precedent' set by Fulk Nerra, and no talk about the contrast presented by 'physical science' and that 'fragmentary tale of human inconsistencies which we term history' can justify the inclusion of this alleged invasion as a fact beyond dispute in so formal and authoritative a quarter as the preface to a Rolls volume.