... so long been familiar with the record ...
The chronicle of Lanercost, 1272-1346. 1913
Students of English and Scottish history in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have so long been familiar with the record known as The Chronicle of Lanercost that an English translation may seem to be a superfluity. But, whereas the tendency of modern education is to exchange the study of the classics for a diversity of other subjects reputed to be of greater utility, it is certain that a far smaller proportion of educated persons can read Latin easily in the twentieth century than could do so before that flexible language had ceased to be the common medium of scientific and literary intercourse. Now the writer or writers of this chronicle indulged in so many digressions from formal narrative, thereby casting so many sidelights upon the social conditions of his time, that an English translation may prove convenient for such readers as lack time for arduous historical research.