The place-names which illustrate the character of Anglo-Saxon heathenism have a special claim on the attention of historians. To scholars such as Bede, who wrote when English paganism was still within the range of living memory, it was a detestable superstition, which could not be ignored, but should not be described. Eighth-century writers, and, in particular, Bede, have preserved the names of a number of heathen gods, and recorded the occasion of a number of heathen festivals; they refer to temples, to idols, to altars, and to sacrifices, and their language suggests the existence of different ranks within the heathen priesthood. But it is only a dim impression of the pagan foreworld which can be recovered from their writings, and the points at which it can be reinforced by quotation from later authorities are very few.

It would be commonly agreed that the history of the earliest minsters is obscure, or relatively obscure. There is no English Gregory of Tours: and we do not know as much about the life and foundations of archbishop Theodore of Canterbury as we do about those of his contemporary, bishop Ouen of Rouen. It is hoped, however, that it may be possible in this paper to throw some light on the nature of the early English minsters by considering them against the background of Gallic and Celtic practice at the date, while retaining firmly in the mind the contemporary meaning of certain ecclesiastical terms, as against their later, developed use. A point of main interest about these early minsters is the use of the term mynstru, monasteria, for the dwellings of clerks as well as of monks, and the approximation of the function of the two classes of foundation. Put in another way, it is of interest to know whether the minsters of monks and nuns ever had a parochia, like that of the mother churches of the Continent. Minster and parish: they are the two critical words. With reference to this subject, I wish to consider, first, the reason for the lack of original charter evidence about the earliest English minsters, secondly, the sixth- and seventh-century use of certain terms, thirdly, the position of the Kentish minsters, Thanet, Lyminge, and the rest; and lastly—something that seems to me the clue to the history of the minsters in the seventh century—the efforts of bishops to equate minsters of ascetics with minsters of clerks, and treat them, as bishop Maroveus of Poitiers said to St. Radegund's successor, “like their other parishes.”

The subject of the paper which I am about to read is one that can reasonably be regarded as of only secondary interest. During the later centuries of the Middle Ages, the relations between England and Flanders occupied a position of capital importance in the history of both countries. During the centuries that preceded the Norman Conquest, these relations were much less close than they were later to become, and correspondingly little is known about their character. But they are by no means devoid of interest, even if considered only as an introduction to the more important subject of the later relations between the two countries, and a study of their history is therefore not without justification. In the main, the period covered in this paper will be the two centuries before 1066. During almost the whole of this time, the counts of Flanders were masters of the region bounded by the Scheldt, the Canche, and the sea, and I shall use the word “ Flanders ” as the equivalent oi the county of Flanders at this date.

A nation may be defined as any considerable group of people who believe they are one; and their nationalism as the state of mind which sustains this belief. Broadly speaking, the sentiment of nationality is much the same in quality at all times and in all places. Its minimum content is love, or at least awareness, of one's country, and pride in its past achievements, real or fictitious; and it springs from attachment to the known and familiar, stimulated by the perception of difference–difference of habits and customs, often too of speech, from those of neighbouring peoples. The historical evidence for the existence of this positive sentiment in early times is largely inferential, a mere deduction from the struggles and mutual hatreds of tribes perpetually at war. But by the tenth or eleventh century there is evidence that medieval man was faintly stirred by the same sort of national impulses as we are, though he felt them in very different circumstances, in a different degree and, often, in relation to other objects. By the thirteenth century the fully developed medieval state had reached a momentary equilibrium, and if it was still “feudal”, it was also, in its way, a national state. Then as now, nationality was in general, though not necessarily, coterminous with a vernacular.

To the early history of the coronation oath it would be difficult to add, unless, which seems unlikely, some altogether fresh documents are discovered. In any case, the course of history is plain. The king bound himself by a threefold promise to preserve peace and protect the church, to maintain good laws and abolish bad, to dispense justice to all. This oath had been taken by English kings from the tenth century: it was taken by William the Conqueror and by his successors. But more than this, Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II all issued coronation charters. Neither Richard I nor John did so, but Henry III went back to the practice that had been followed by his grandfather, and the great charter as it was reissued in 1216 was, in effect, a coronation charter.

The origin of that court of equity which sat at Westminster as the court of duchy chamber has prompted more than one guess, but none of the guesses has reached the truth. Their authors, in applying the Lucretian principle ex nihilo nihil fit and by searching for a definite act of creation, have forgotten an equally profound truth so well emphasised in medieval English history, that few of our great institutions were created all at once, or sprang into life completely armed like Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus. Most of these writers have seen in Henry IV's accession to the throne a sharp dividing line in the history of the duchy of Lancaster, which in fact it was not. The charter by which Henry IV regulated the status of the duchy in 1399 expressly provided for a continuance of the existing administration.

Another factor in obscuring the origin of this court has been a confusion with the chancery court of Lancashire. This chancery was set up by a definite act in the middle of the fourteenth century and revived soon after; in the course of time it acquired an equity jurisdiction similar to that exercised by the royal chancery. But its jurisdiction was, and still is, limited to Lancashire, whereas the court of duchy chamber had a much wider range. This confusion is apparent in legal works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; Coke continued the misconception, with the result that even modern writers of repute have been led astray.