The divergent views held by historians and sociologists as to what does and does not constitute nationalism will, I hope, provide me with some excuse for not attempting here a general definition of this phenomenon. Nor will I presume to adjudicate between the opinions of scholars like Hans Kohn who, confining their attention to Western Europe, will not hear of nationalism before the rise of modern states between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century, and of historians like G. G. Coulton who, after surveying the policy of the Papacy, the life of the Universities, the internal frictions in the monasteries and the history of medieval warfare, concluded that nationalism, which had been developing in Western Europe since the eleventh century, became a basic factor in European politics by the fourteenth. My paper is concerned with the medieval history of Eastern Europe: an area which I propose to define, by combining a geographical with a cultural criterion, as the group of countries which lay within the political or cultural orbit of Byzantium. The subject is vast and complex, and I can do no more than select a few topics for discussion. These I would like to present as arguments in support of three theses.

The term ‘Augustan’, which students of English literature have found convenient to describe writers and their works in a period stretching roughly from Dryden to Dr Johnson, can also be useful to historians for defining the century between the Restoration of Charles II and the accession of George III. These were the dates I had in mind when I chose the title of this paper, but although I have kept 1660 as a starting point the terminal date is nearer 1740 than 1760, and the argument is largely confined to the period between the Popish Plot and the collapse of the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole.

Thomas Fuller summarized our subject with brisk and depres-sing confidence:

’This is he so famous in history for cutting off the life of King Edward the Second…he made much bustling in the land, passing through the bishoprics of (Hereford), Worcester and Winchester, and died at last, not much lamented, July 18th, 1345.’

Thus the Venetian envoy wrote in his ‘Relation’ a few years after Henry Tudor's accession. The history of Tudor policy in Wales has often been interpreted by way of commentary on this assumption, that Henry Tudor, born at Pembroke Castle and descended from the family of Penmynydd, Anglesey, was considered a Welshman and was himself conscious of this heritage. The Welsh origins of the dynasty have been invoked by historians in the past to explain the relative success of its rule in Wales. Both the so-called ‘union’ with England and the reception of the Reformation were achievements in state and church which have been attributed to the general popularity of the dynasty in Wales and to the favour in which the Tudors (particularly the two Henrys and Elizabeth) regarded their Welsh subjects.

Only twice in the early seventeenth century, in 1624 and 1640, was the ‘political nation’ in England united. On both occasions, the determination of policy was surrendered by an unwilling king and the assistance of Parliamentary leaders sought. Both led to war and a sharpening of domestic political conflict. But such similarities were no more than superficial. The war which was envisaged in 1624 was foreign and external; the one which ensued in 1642 was civil and internal. In 1624, the co-operation of the Parliamentary leaders was freely solicited; in 1640, there was no alternative. The initiative which lay with Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham at the earlier date was in the hands of the Earl of Bedford, Pym and St John in November 1640. One was a prelude to the period of ‘Personal Government’, the other, ultimately, to that of the Commonwealth and Protectorate.

My lecture will start with a kind of prelude. I am going to show you a work of art which, though unconnected with Gregory VII and the movement of church reform that bears his name, will help to set the stage for our discussion proper. The scene of my prelude will not be eleventh-century Italy at all, but rather the court of the Norman kings of Sicily in the twelfth century. I hope you will not lose patience during what may seem a rather irritating detour and agree with me in the end that this is a case of the longest way round being the shortest way home.

It was not until the twenty-fifth and last session of the Council of Trent, in 1563, that the assembled Fathers made reference to the arts, and that only in very general terms: ‘The Council forbids placing in churches any image which illustrates false doctrine and can mis-lead the simple … it forbids placing in any church even if it is not subject to diocesan visitation, any unusual image, unless it has been approved by the bishop’. The Council recommended the retention of images in churches, but otherwise its decree was purely negative. It did not contemplate using religious art as one of the weapons of controversy in its war against Protestantism. That was to come later.

The primary source material for the art historian is of course the work of art, and this in itself places him in a fortunate position because the permanent relevance of the work of art is, I take it, self-evident. For the art historian, the work of art is an historical fact, pre-selected for generally accepted aesthetic reasons. But the work of art has no absolute meaning: it does not exist in a vacuum. It has both what we might call a history and a geography—the history being that record of interpretation and evaluation which accrues to the work of art from the moment of its creation down to the present day; and the geography being the particular artistic and social context of its original creation. The history can at times be very misleading: it is obvious that each generation is going to interpret the past as it wishes, and no judgment can be objective. So it is the geography that is more important, and this is extremely difficult to define. But if we are to understand the work of art, we need to enquire into the circumstances of its creation: we must ask, what did this painting or sculpture or building signify when it first appeared? Only from such specific investigations can one proceed to general propositions about the state of art at any particular moment, and perhaps also about the state of society which produced the art.

Few years in British and French history have received such an intensive scrutiny as the year 1940. It was the year when the war came alive in the West and when each of the two countries was to live particularly vital moments. It was a year too which saw dramatic changes in the relations between Britain and France. It is natural therefore that many historians should have sought to elucidate and to describe exactly what happened in 1940 and that many (if not most) of those who played some part in these events should have written their own accounts of them. And whilst the French archives remain difficult of access and incomplete, the recent opening of the British records for the year 1940 has provided us with a great mass of material. Whilst recognizing that one is not yet in a position to make an exhaustive and complete scrutiny, I nevertheless thought it could be useful to base oneself on the historical work that already exists and on the British evidence that is now available, in order to consider the nature of the Anglo-French alliance as it existed and as it developed in the course of 1940.

A Year ago I took as my theme the origin of that comprehensive but limited view of human progress which dominated European historical thought from the twelfth century to the eighteenth. This idea of historical development had the great merit of embracing every aspect of human life from the first moments of history to the last days. It brought together in a single pattern of development the improvement in man's material condition, the discovery and perfecting of the sciences, the movement of empires, and the enlargement of man's spiritual life. Taken as a whole it was one of the grandest expressions of the beneficent unity of nature, reason, and revelation, which has stamped the chief products of European culture during the greater part of its history. From the time of Hugh of St Victor to Voltaire, it continued despite many setbacks and aberrations to be refined and enlarged by scholarship–and never more confidently than in the last moments before its collapse. In the end the system collapsed as a result of a totally unexpected failure in the foundations on which it was based.