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Current of Irish Civilization in England
From that time on the English nation was represented
by a slave population of terror-stricken boors and hinds,
looking up to their foreign masters with the awe with
which the savage regards his idol. Little wonder that
from that time on all that was French was regarded as
sacrosanct and anointed, and all that was Anglo-Saxon was
regarded as mean and base. To be English was to be a
churl and a villein, a natural-born clod and criminal, tax-
able and floggable at will, so that "it was considered a
disgrace to be called an Englishman." 1 Time deepened
rather than mitigated the national degradation till an
abasement under the Tudors was reached lower than that
ever touched by any other European people.
Culture in England thenceforth was simply French
culture and even in a more modern age when the Englishman
had gained a little freedom his chief method of im-
proving himself was to play the sedulous ape to the
Frenchman as he had before played the sedulous ape to
the Irishman. The university of Oxford was simply a
branch, established by Frenchmen, of the university of
Paris, which gave it its organization and its professors. 2
The English legal system and national organization were
in reality a transplanted French system and transplanted
itJt Anglum vocarl foret opprobrio (Matthew of Paris, Bk. I, c. 12). The
native English of both sexes for quit trivial offenses had their noses and
ears cut off or were stript naked and brutally whipt through the public
streets or at the cart's tail, without regard to tender or advanced age. This
continued for centuries. In 1597, a new law, passed in 22 Henry VIII, was
slightly mitigated, the victims being stript only "from the middle upwards,
and whipt till the body should be bloody." Lists of persons whipt,
some of them aged women and young children, were kept in parish books
and church registers (See Burn's Justice, Vol. V, 501; Notes and Queries, Vol.
XVII, 327, 425, 568; Book of Days, I, 598-601). Brutalities of this degrading
character were totally unknown in Irish law.
2 It is remarkable that students from the four provinces of Ireland were
at Oxford at a date almost as early as that of the admission of the English,
forming one of the most important "Southern Nations." From out of their
ranks appeared the most powerful mind ever known at Oxford, Duns Scotus,
who dying at thirty-four, left behind a record of work, only once or twice
exceeded in human history. (See Rashdall, University II, 362; Macleane, Pembroke
College, 45; Mrs. Green, Making of Ireland and Its Undoing, 266-7, 289;
Milman, History of Latin Christianity, VI, 466-7.)
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