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LEARNING AND EDUCATION 5*9
ofthe nation at large, the notable literary productivity of monastic
cloisters during the century following the Conquest was
more self/centred. The histories invaluable for subsequent his/
torians and the lives of saints were composed primarily for the
benefit of individual houses. The schools of Anglo-Saxon
monasteries had been open to external scholars, but those ofthe
Anglo-Norman generally were not. Within the greater houses,
notwithstanding the importation
of a number of monks from
Normandy, Old English traditions survived. Their hagiography
was largely concerned with Old English saints, and
their best histories reflected the influence of Bede. The most
notable Anglo-Norman historians, Osbern (/. 1090) and
Eadmer c.
(d. 1124) of Christ Church, Canterbury, William
ofMalmesbury (d. c. 1 143), Simeon ofDurham (f. 1130), and
Orderic Vitalis of Saint-Evroul c.
(d. 1143) were English or
half-English by birth. Notwithstanding their separation from
society the black monks acted as the chief medium through
which England made contact with the intellectual renaissance
that was stirring clerical life on the Continent during the
twelfth century. The reputation of Lanfranc and Anselm as
theologians was won before they came to England and belongs
rather to Norman history; but in the professional field England
is specially indebted to Lanfranc for his introduction of the
standard western text ofthe Vulgate and for the foundation that
he furnished for the new study ofcanon law. The cultural dis
tinction ofthe monasteries during the first century after the Conquest
lay in other directions, in the growth oftheir libraries, in
the literary activity of their scriptoria,
in the knowledge of
classical authors, and in the polished latinity of their ablest
monks.
The addition ofa considerable number of French-speaking
foreigners to the landed and trading classes in England and the
rapid growth ofthe towns after the Conquest greatly increased
the need ofschool education, and effected a revolution in the
curriculum, as Norman-French replaced English as the every
day speech of the upper orders of society. Evidence for ascer
taining the number ofschools and their location at any period