Sir Francis Palgrave (born 1788, died 1861), historian, was the son of a Jewish stockbroker named Cohen, and changed his name in 1823 on embracing the Christian faith. The failure, and consequent poverty, of his father compelled him to become a solicitor’s clerk in 1803, but in 1821 he was employed under the Record Commission in the publication of original documents. He was called to the bar in 1827, and practised his profession for some years, obtaining distinction in pedigree cases before the House of Lords. In 1832 knighthood was the reward bestowed for important contributions to historical and antiquarian literature. From 1833–5 he served on the Municipal Corporation Commission; and in 1838 was appointed deputy-keeper of her Majesty’s Records, a post he held until his death. Of his voluminous writings and editions the most important are his “Parliamentary Writs” (1827–34); “History of England” (1831); “Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth” (1832); “Rotuli Curiæ Regis” (1835); “Calendars and Inventories of the Exchequer” (1836); “The Merchant and the Friar” [Marco Polo and Friar Bacon] (1837); “History of Normandy and of England” (1851–64).

General

  The work of my learned and gifted friend, Sir Francis Palgrave, replete with omnifarious reading and fearless spirit, though not always commanding the assent of more skeptical tempers.

  The works of Palgrave and Alison gave earnest of that conscientious zeal and painstaking attention to detail which are characteristic of the best histories of the period. The most valuable labours of Sir Francis Palgrave were directed to the elucidation of early English history, and supply, in an agreeable style, fuller and more accurate information than was formerly possessed regarding the Saxons and the Normans.

  No account of the historians of early England could be regarded as complete, if honorable mention is not made of Sir Francis Palgrave, whose antiquarian lore is so great and withal so accurate, that we not only have obtained the same light from his labors on the past which we enjoy on the present, but feel equal confidence in threading our way through the one which we do in threading the other.

  Few living men have equalled him in the extent of his reading. Still fewer have surpassed him in sincere and independent inquiry. He has won the deep gratitude of every historical student by the new light which he has thrown upon the ancient institutions of our own land. He has at least deserved, if he has not always won, a gratitude deeper still for being the first to find the key to the great riddle of general mediæval history. The man who discovered that the Roman Empire did not terminate in A.D. 476, but that the still living and acting imperial power formed an historical centre for centuries later, merits a place in the very highest rank of historical inquirers.

  Some fanciful positions and generalisations have been adopted by Sir Francis Palgrave, but few have dug so deep in the dark mines of our early history, and the nation owes him gratitude for the light he has thrown on the origin of the British people and institutions.

  The first really critical inquiry into the earlier ages of English history, and even had he achieved less himself, would be worthy of high praise for his services as a pioneer in clearing the ground for those who came after. His “History of Normandy and England,” which was not completed at his death in 1861, is, however, a work of acknowledged merit.

  There can be no question as to his services both in popularising and in promoting the critical study of mediæval history in England.