Caudatus Anglicus

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Excerpt from Caudatus Anglicus: A Medieval SlanderThe renowned Coke upon Littleton quotes approvingly the brocard that antiquity did nothing without sound reason. It is a proposition no truer than a great many other utterances of proverbial wisdom. Our forefathers did and thought a great many very unreasonable things. The popular creed has always been well stocked with such inheritances of ignorance and myth. Sometimes it is possible to trace the origin of superstitions and misconceptions, oftener, hid in the depths of a far off time, they set at naught the most determined efforts of research. But although the quest after a positive solution may fail, there is always a gain to knowledge in the collection and grouping of a mass of facts of which the inner significance is but partially understood. In this spirit I approach the strange mediæval reproach which so often gratified Frenchmen and Scots desirous of poking ill-natured fun at their common hereditary foe. There can be no doubt whatever that for centuries Englishmen felt it as a very real and aggravating reproach, a sore thorn in the flesh. Its utter and obvious untruth by no means robbed it of its smart. Malice never galls more deeply than when its shafts are barbed with ridicule. The very absurdity of the thing makes it impossible to argue it away, but the irritation it excites is not a whit less keen on that account.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.