Speculum 19 (1944) PDF

SPECULUM
A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVALSTUDIES
VOLUME XIX
SPECULUM
A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
Volume XIX
PublishedQuarterlyby
THE MEDIAEVALACADEMY
OF AMERICA
CAMBRIDGE,MASSACHUSETTS
1944
SPECULUM
Editor
SAMUEL HAZZARD CROSS
Harvard University
Assistant Editors
CHARLESR. D. MILLER BARTLETT JERE WHITING
Cambridge, Massachusetts HarvardUniversity
Business Manager
CHARLESR. D. MIT,LLER
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Advisory Board
WALTERW. S. COOK SIDNEY PAINTER
New York University Johns Hopkins University
SARELL EVERETT GLEASON JOHN MILTON POTTER

Amherst College Hobart College
CHARLES GRANT LOOMIS B. WILKINSON

University of California University of Toronto
Vol. XIX, No. 4-Copyright, 1944, by the Mediaeval Academy of America-PRINTRD IN U. S. A. Entered as second-class
matter, May 8, 1926, at the Post Office at Boston, Massachusetts. Accorded additional entry at Menasha, Wisconsin,
October 30, 1930. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Act of February 28, 1925, authorized
May 8, 1931.
is regularly indexed in the International Index to Periodicals and the Art Index.
SPECULUM
CONTENTS
RECORDS OF THE ACADEMY
Memoir of J. B. Beck ................... 285
Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting ... .. 372
Announcement ..........133
ARTICLES
Robert W. Ackerman, The Knighting Ceremonies in the Middle Ages .. 285
L. E. Arnaud, The Sottes Chansonsin M.S. Douce 308 of the Bodleian Library . . 68
H. D. Austin, Mola in Dante's Usage ... 127
Josephine Waters Bennett, Andrew Holes: A Neglected Harbinger of the English
Renaissance. 314
Wolfgang Born, The Introduction of the Bulbous Dome into Gothic Architecture and
Its Subsequent Development . ......... . 208
F. J. Carmody, Florence: Project for a Map, 1250-1296 .. .. 39
Vincenzo Cioffari, A Dante Note - Smeraldo. 360
A. K. Coomaraswamy, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Indra and Namuci .104
G. P. Cuttino, The Process of Agen ....... 161
Arthur Layton Funk, Robert Le Coq and Etienne Marcel . . 470
William Hammer, The Concept of the New or Second Rome in the Middle Ages . . 50
William W. Heist, Welsh Prose Versions of the Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday . . 421
Lloyd Hibberd, Estampie and Stantipes ... . .. .222
W. L. Hildburgh, On Italian Copper Champleve Enamels of the Thirteenth Cen-
tury. 34
Neil R. Ker, E. A. Lowe, and A. P. McKinlay, A New Fragment of Arator in the
Bodleian. 351
G. Levi Della Vida, A Supplementary Note to Speculum, xvIII, 494-496.... 364
Robert V. Merrill, Eros and Anteros . . . . . 265
C. E. Odegaard, Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena ..... 63
C. E. Odegaard, Imperial Diplomas for Menaggio and Comacina ... 344
Hugh O'Neill, Botanical Observations on the Voynich MS .... 126
A. E. Prince, The Payment of Army Wages in Edward III's Reign ... 137
Edouard Sandoz, Tourneys in the Arthurian Tradition .. 389
John J. H. Savage, Some Possible Sources of Mediaeval Conceptions of Virgil . . 336
A. H. Schutz, The Provencal Expression Pretz E Valor ... 488
Kenneth M. Setton, Athens in the Later Twelfth Century ... 179
Robert S. Smith, Fourteenth-Century Population Records of Catalonia.. 494
Gardiner Stillwell, The Political Meaning of Chaucer's Tale of Melibee . 433
James Travis, Elegies Attributed to Dallan Forgaill .... 89
Helene Wieruszowski, Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante . . 14
B. Wilkinson, The Coronation Oath of Edward II and the Statute of York . . 445
Karl Young, Chaucer's Appeal to the Platonic Deity .... 1
REVIEWS
E. C. Armstrong and Alfred Foulet, edd., The Mediaeval French Roman d'Alexandre,
IV: Le Roman du Fuerrede Gadresd'Eustache and
F. B. Agard, ed., The Mediaeval French Roman d'Alexandre, V: Version of Alexandre
de Paris (U. T. Holmes, Jr.) ....... 50
A. C. L. Brown, The Origin of the Grail Legend (Margaret Schlauch) ..... 502
V
vi Contents
Gustave Cohen, La grandeclart du Moyen-Age (R. J. Clements) . . 3
H. R. Ellis, The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conceptionof the Dead in OldNorse Litera-
ture (H. M. Smyser) ..... . 55
Guido Errante, Sula Lirica Romaraa dele Origine (Isabel Pope) ... 505
C. W. Kennedy, The Earliest English Poetry (Howard Meroney) .. 508
Henry Lewis, Brut Dingestow (Kenneth Jackson) .... 510
Charles R. Morey, Mediaeval Art (K. J. Conant) 365
G. Turville-Petre and E. S. Olszewska, transs., The Life of Gudmundthe Good,Bishop
of Hokar(Halldor Hermannsson) . ....... 259
R. N. Walpole, Charlemagneand Roland (U. T. Holmes, Jr). 511
W. M. Whitehill, Spanish RomanesqueArchitecture(K. J. Conant). . . 66
Watkin Williams, The Life of GeneralSir CharlesWarren (K. J. Conant) .. 60
C. A. Wood and F. Marjorie Fife, transs. and eds., The Art of Falconry, being the
De Arte Venandi cum Avibus of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (A. H. Schutz) . . 512
Medieval Academy of America
Front Matter
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1944)
Published by: Medieval Academy of America
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SPECU
JANUARY, 1944
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY
THE MEDIAEVALACADEMYOF AMERICA

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
President Treasurer
JOHN STRONG PERRY TATLOCK JOHN NICHOLAS BROWN
University of California Providence, R. I.
First Vice-President Clerk

EDWARD COOKE ARMSTRONG GEORGE RALEIGH COFFMAN
Princeton University University of North Carolina
Second Vice-President Executive Secretary

AUSTIN PATTERSON EVANS CHARLES R. D. MI,T.ER
Columbia University Cambridge, Massachusetts
Third Vice-President Secretary of Publication

ERNEST HATCH WILKINS ROBERT JOHN CLEMENTS
Oberlin College Harvard University
Councillors
BLANCHE BEATRICE BOYER HAYWARD KENISTON
University of Chicago University of Michigan
HARRY CAPLAN SIDNEY PAINTER

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CHARLES WENDELL DAVID GERALD PHELAN

Bryn Mawr College The Mediaeval Institute, Toronto
FREDERIC DUNCALF EDWIN BRAY PLACE

University of Texas Northwestern University
WILT,IAM HUSE DUNHAM PHILIP WEBSTER SOUERS

Yale University Newcomb College, Tulane University
GORDON HALL GEROULD ARCHER TAYLOR

Princeton University University of California
Executive Committee of the Council

J. N. BROWN, Chairman
K. J. CONANT GEORGE LA PIANA TAYLOR STARCK
S. H. CROSS A. P. MCMAHON C. H. TAYLOR
J. D. M. FORD R. A. NEWHALL B. J. WHITING
N. S. B. GRAS F. K. RAND KARL YOUNG t
H. M. SMYSER
Since the Executive Committee is a Committee of the Council, members

of the Council sit and vote with the Executive Committee.
SPECULUM
Volume XIX, Number 1
January, 1944
Published Quarterlyby
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
SPECULUM
Editor
Harvard University
Assistant Editors
Cambridge,Massachusetts HarvardUniversity
Business Manager
CHARLES R. D. MILLER
Cambridge,Massachusetts
Advisory Board
WALTERW. S. COOK SARELL EVERETT GLEASON
New York University Amherst College
SIDNEY PAINTER CHARLESGRANT LOOMIS

Johns Hopkins University University of California
THEODORE SILVERSTEIN SAMUEL EDMUND THORNE

University of Kansas City Northwestern University
Vol. XIX, No. 1-Copyright, 1944, by the MediaevalAcademyof America-PRINTED IN U. S. A. Entered as second-class
October 30, 1930. Acceptancefor mailing at special rate of postage providedfor in Act of February28, 1925, authorized
May 8, 1931.
SPECULUMis regularly indexed in the International Index to Periodicals and the Art Index
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
Chaucer's Appeal to the Platonic Deity . . . tKARL YOUNG 1
Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante.

HELENE WIERUSZOWSKI 14
On Italian Copper Champleve Enamels of the Thirteenth Century.

.W. L. HILDBURGH 34
Florence: Project for a Map, 1250-1296 . . . F. J. CARMODY 39
The Concept of the New or Second Rome in the Middle Ages.

WILLIAMHAMMER 50
Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena . C. E. ODEGAARD 63
The Sottes Chansons in MS. Douce 308 of the Bodleian Library

L. E. ARNAUD 68
Elegies Attributed to Dallan Forgaill . . . . JAMESTRAVIS 89
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Indra and Namuci .

.. AK. COOMARASWAMY 104
Botanical Observations on the Voynich MS. . HUGH O'NEILL 126
Mola in Dante's Usage ... HD. AUSTIN 127
VARIA
Bibliographyof PeriodicalLiterature . 130
Books Received . .. 133
Announcement . .. 133
Notes for Contributors
The purpose of the MEDIAEVALACADEMYOF AMERICA is to conduct, encourage, promote,
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The Editors of SPECULUM should be addressed in care of the Mediaeval Academy of

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Chaucer's Appeal to the Platonic Deity

Author(s): Karl Young
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1944), pp. 1-13
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:39
Speculum.
SPECU
VOL.XIX JANUARY, 1944 No. 1
CHAUCER'S APPEAL TO THE PLATONIC DEITY

BY KARL YOUNGt
Non eruditione solum et doctrina sed magis etiam urbanitate sodales sibi obligavit.
CHAUCER begins his Legend of Philomela with a questioning of the purpose of
the Deity in bringing into the world a perverted creature such as Tereus:1
Thow yevere of theformes, that hast wrought
Thisfayre world, and bar it in thy thought
Eternaly, er thow thy werk began,
Why madest thow, unto the slaunderof man,
Or, al be that it was nat thy doing,
As for that fyn, to make swich a thyng,
Whi sufferestthow that Tereuswas bore,
That is in love so fals and so forswore,
That, fro this world up to the first hevene
Corrumpeth,whan that folk his name nevene?
In this passage the most arresting lines are the first three, in which is reflected
the Platonic conception of a deity who holds in his mind eternally the forms or
ideas which are to become manifest in created things. Since the other poems of
Chaucer contain only the slightest reflection of Platonic doctrine, the editors
have been appropriately curious concerning the source of the striking expression
of Platonism in the lines before us.2
In one manuscript (Bodley 638) the title of Chaucer's story is followed by the
words Deus datorformarum, - a gloss which is translated in the first line quoted
1 Legend of Good Women, 11.228-2237. I use the text of F. N. Robinson, The CompleteWorks of
GeoffreyChaucer,Boston, etc. (1933), p. 605. In quoting passages, here and elsewhere, I undertake to
aid the reader by using occasional italics.
2 I use the terms 'Platonism' and 'Platonic' merely as indicating a concept which Plato originated.
The validity of the present modest investigation does not depend upon distinctions between genuine
Platonism and modifications or 'colorings' of it such as Neo-Platonism and Christianized Platonism.
Concerning Plato's doctrine of 'forms' or 'ideas' in the Creation see, for example, F. Ueberweg, Grund-
riss der Geschichteder Philosophie, Part I, Die Philosophie des Altertums, 12th ed. by K. Praechter,
Berlin, 1926, pp. 328 ff.; J. A. Stuart, Plato's Doctrine of Ideas, Oxford, 1909, especially pp. 59-62,
102-104. Concerning mediaeval modifications or 'colorings' of this concept see, for example, J. M.
Parent, La Doctrine de la Creationdans l'Ecole de Chartres,Paris, etc., 1938, especially pp. 5-7, 44-58,
124-130; R. Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition during the Middle Ages, London,
1939, pp. 28, 36-37; P. Shorey, Platonism, Ancient and Modern, Berkeley, 1938, especially pp. 62-117;
C. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science, Cambridge, 1927, pp. 88-92. C. Baeumker
(Der Platonismus im Mittelalter, Munich, 1916) hardly contributes directly to the specific matter
under discussion here, but he provides (pp. 35-37) a general bibliography.
1
2 Chaucer'sAppeal to the Platonic Deity
above, and which, as Professor Robinson has observed, 'may come from some
unidentified source which Chaucer was translating in the opening lines.' The
origin of the gloss itself appears to be still unknown, but several sources have been
suggested for the Platonic conception expressed in the first three lines quoted
above.
Corson, recognizing in the English lines 'the Platonic doctrine of forms or
ideas,' inferred that Chaucer 'was probably indebted to the Italian poets, with
whom, especially Petrarch, Plato was a favourite.'2 Skeat directed the inquiry
into a far more promising channel by citing as Chaucer's source the following
lines, in the Platonic tradition, from the beautiful ninth metre of the Third Book
of Boethius's De ConsolationePhilosophiae:3
Tu cuncta superno
Ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse
Mundum mente gerens, similique in imagine formans.
Skeat makes the additional observation that the following lines of the Roman de
la Rose are 'also copied from Boethius, who follows Plato' :4
Cil Deus qui de beautez abonde,
Quant il tres beaus fist cet beau monde,
Don il portait en sa pensee
La bele fourme pourpensee
Toujourz en pardurablete
Ainz qu'ele eUst dehors este,
Car la prist il son essemplaire,
E quanque li fu necessaire.
Professor Robinson holds that Chaucer might have derived 'the general Platonic
1 Robinson,p. 967. In MS. Fairfax 16 the gloss after the title appearsin the corruptform Deus
datorformatorum. In view of facts presentedbelow, the presentwritersurmisesthat Deus datorfor-
marumwas a glossattachedto the openinglines of Ovid'sMetamorphoses in a mediaevaltext of that
poem.
2 HiramCorson,Chaucer's Legendeof GoodeWomen(Philadelphia,1864), p. 109.
3 See W. W. Skeat, The CompleteWorksof GeoffreyChaucer,in (Oxford, 1900), pp. 340-341. J. Koch
(Geoffrey ChaucerskleinereDichtungen,Heidelberg,1928,p. 192) also refersto this Boethianpassage

as Chaucer'ssource.
4 Skeat
quotes from Meon's edition, 11.16931-16938 (really 16930-16937);I quote the text of
E. Langlois,Le Romande la Rose,iv, Paris, 1922, 11.16729-16736.Langlois(iv, pp. 303-304) infers
that in composingthis passageJeande Meunhad 'sousles yeux' both the Boethianpassagebeforeus
and a sectionof the fourthprosein the De PlanctuNaturaeof Alanusde Insulis (See Migne, Patr.
Lat., ccx, 453, B-D). That the lines quoted above from Boethius were recognizedas Platonic by
mediaevalexpositorsof the De Consolatione Philosophiaeis shownby the followingcommentupon
Metre 9 of Book Three by an unidentifiedninth-centurywriterof the school of JohannesScottus
(E. T. Silk, ed., SaeculiNoni Auctorisin Boetii Consolationem PhilosophiaeCommentarius, Rome,
1935,p. 156): 'Et totius huiusmundiimagoin mente Dei erat, ad cuiusimaginisexemplummundus
iste sensilisfactus est. Sicut enim artifexarcamfacturusuel domumprius figuramillius in mente
praeuidet,ad cuiusfiguraesimilitudinemposteaopusfacit (uel arcamuel domum),ita Deus formam
mundi huius in ratione sua habuit antequamhunc sensilem mundumad eandem similitudinem
faceret.Hancimaginem,quaesic fuit in mentediuina,Plato uocatideam,id est formamuel imaginem
uel figuram.'
Chaucer'sAppeal to the Platonic Deity 3
doctrine of the passage' either from the Boethian lines or from a passage in the
Romnande la Rose.l
Since Chaucer is known to have been completely intimate with both the De
ConsolationePhilosophiae and the Roman de la Rose, one's natural impulse is to
accept willingly the suggestion that, in composing the opening lines of the Legend
of Philomela, the poet had in mind either or both of the passages just quoted.
To most readers, probably the English lines seem verbally nearer to the French
passage than to the Latin.
It may be, however, that the presence of Chaucer's Platonic lines in the Legend
of Philomela has a more precise and more likely explanation. The mere existence
of the Platonic conception in Boethius and Jean de Meun does not account for
Chaucer's using it in the Legend of GoodWomen. It may be that the explanation
of his using it in this particular poem lies in his immediate literary sources. In
composing the sombre tale of Philomela he is known to have been following both
the Latin text of Ovid's Metamorphosesand a French translation of it, the Ovide
Moralise.2 I venture to suggest the possibility that Chaucer's Platonic verses
themselves were inspired by the Latin text of the Metamorphosesor the French
text of the OvideMoralise which lay before his eyes as he composed.
Ovid's poem begins with an account of the Creation of the World. Whether
the Ovidian narrative itself embodies Platonic thought in any fashion appears to
be disputable; but there is no disputing the fact that mediaeval commentators
upon the Metamorphoses,and mediaeval editors of the poem, mentioned certain
parts of the Platonic cosmogony in their annotations.3 These reflections of
Platonic thought are to be found especially in the accessus, or prefaces, which are
prefixed to certain commentaries on the Metamorphosesas introductions to Ovid
and his writings, and which introduce and elucidate these opening lines of the
poem:
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
Corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)
Adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi
Ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen.
1Robinson(p. 967) refersto the passageof the Romande la Rosequotedabove,and also to the fol-
lowing lines (15995-15998):
C'est fenis la comune fourme
Que Nature es pieces refourme,
Qui dou tout perdue serait,
Qui l'autre vivre ne lairait.
2 For the
story of Philomela see Metamorphoses,vi, 424-674. The Ovide Moralise has been edited
by C. De Boer in Verhandelingender Koninklijke Akaderie van Wetenschappente Amsterdam, Af-
deeling Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, vol. xv (1915 - Books i-iii), xxx (1920 - Books iv-vi), xxx,
no. 3 (1931 - Books vii-ix), xxxvii (1936 - Books x-xiii), xumi (1938 - Books xiv-xv). The
French translation of the story of Philomela, - actually the work of Chretien de Troyes, - is in-
corporated in the Ovide Moralise, Book vi, 2183-3840. That Chaucer used both the Latin text of
Ovid and the French of the Ovide Moralise has been shown by J. L. Lowes, 'Chaucer and the Ovide
Moralis6,' Publications of the Modern Language Association, xxxiI (1918), 302-325.
3 The possibility that Ovid's account of the Creation embodies Platonic conceptions is discussed,
somewhat indecisively, by F. E. Robbins, 'The Creation Story in Ovid Met. i,' Classical Philology,
viii (1913), 401-414. Ovid's treatment of the Creation is not considered in G. Zinzow, De Timaei
Tauromenitani apud Ovidium Vestigiis, Greifswald, 1906.
4 Chaucer's Appeal to the Platonic Deity
I bring forward, therefore, several examples of accessus to the Metamorphoses

which, so far as I know, have not been printed hitherto, and which mention
explicitly the conception with which we are concerned here: that of a deity hold-
ing in mind, before the Creation, the primal 'forms,' or 'ideas.' Since it seems de-
sirable to exhibit the context of the Platonic comments, and since very few exam-
ples of mediaeval accessus to Ovid's poem appear to have found their way into
print, I offer the following five texts in full, without apology for their repetitions
and scribal disorder.1
(1) The earliest of these accessus is the following from a manuscript of the
eleventh century:2
Cum multa possint inquiri in capite uniuscuiusque libri, moderni, quadam gaudentes
breuitate, tria principaliter inquirenda statuere: id est materiam, intentionem, et cui parti
philosophie supponatur. Cum diximus parti, constat philosophiam aliquod totum esse,
unde partes possint procedere. Nunc primo agamus de ethimologia ipsius uocabuli. Olim
sophi, id est sapientes, dicebantur, sed Pithagoras hoc uidens nimis arrogans apposuit
quoddam remedium, id est sophos,3 quod est amor; inde philosophus, amator sapientie.
Huc usque egimus de ethimologia ipsius uocabuli. Nunc autem dicamus quod sit ipsa res.
Philosophia est ars uel naturalis uel artificialis. Naturalis est que omnibus inest, ut ambu-
lare, loqui; artificialis que a magistro docetur et a discipulo discitur. Et hec eadem artifi-
cialis diuiditur in duas partes: scilicet in inliteralem et literalem. Inliteralis est ut fuere,
arare. Literalis, que potest dici uera philosophia, diuiditur in tria: scilicet in phisicam,
logicam, ethicam. Phisin grece, latine natura; inde phisica naturalis, que diuiditur in .iiii.
partes: scilicet geometriam, arithmeticam, musicam, astronomiam. Ge enim grece, latine
terra; ometria dicitur mensura; inde geometria mensura terre. Ares grece, uel uirtus;
methica numerus; inde arithmetica uirtus numeri. Mosin grece, hebraice aqua; inde
musica aquatica dicitur, quia omnis uox ab humore et aeris repercussione conficitur.
Astronomia, id est astrorum scientia. Logica diuiditur in .iii.: scilicet gramaticam, rethori-
cam, dialecticam. Grama enim grece, latine litera; inde gramaticus, literatus. Rethor grece,
latine orator. Dia grece, latine duo, logos sermo; inde dialetica sermo duorum. Ethica
diuiditur in duo: scilicet in bonos mores et malos. Ethis enim grece, latine mores; inde
ethica moralis.
Omnis auctor uel pragmatice uel exegematice uel cinomitice. Pragmaticon, id est fabu-
losum, et est ubi introducte persone locuntur, ut Terentii. Exagematicon, id est enarra-
tiuum, ubi acutor loquitur, (ut) Priscianus. Tertium genus poematis est cinominticon, id
est commune, ut Ouidius iste scribit.
1 A fragmentof an accessusto the Metamorphoses is printedby G. Przychocki,AccessusOvidiani
(Cracow,1911), p. 33. A completeand highly informingexample,from MS. Vat. Lat. 1479 (saec.
xiii-xiv), is publishedby B. Nogara in MiscellaneaCeriani(Milan, 1910), pp. 423-431. Concerning
the contributionof Meisersee the next foot-note.The texts of Przychockiand Nogarado not contain
the platonicconceptionunderdiscussionhere. In offeringthe five examplesbelow I wish to express
my gratitudeto ProfessorSanfordB. Meech,whohas most generouslyprovidedme with photographs
fromthe manuscripts,and has aided me in countlessother ways. I am very gratefulalso to my col-
league, ProfessorEdmundT. Silk, who has helped me greatly in my transcriptions.In the texts I
italicizethe sentencescontainingthe relevantPlatonicdoctrine.
2 Munich,Staatsbibliothek, MS. lat. 4610,Miscellaneasaec.xi, fol. 61v-62r.See CatalogusCodicum
LatinorumBibliothecaeRegiaeMonacensis,vol. I, pt. ii, ed. C. Halm et al., Munich, 1894, p. 215.
Meiserhas sketchedthe content of this accessus,with extracts,in Sitzungsberichte derphilosophisch-
philologischenund historischenClasseder koniglichenbaierischenAkademieder Wissenschaftenzu
Miinchen,Jahrgang1885, pp. 49-52. ProfessorMeech gives the completetext of the accessusas one
of the appendicesin his unpublisheddissertation,ChaucerandMediaeoalOvidiana(YaleUniversity).
8 sophos]Presumablyphilos is intended.
Quidam philosophi fuerunt qui mundum de nichilo Deum fecisse crediderunt. Quidam
uero alii ex athomis et inanitate, que duo semper fuerunt, dicunt Deum mundum fecisse.
Alii autemphilosophi, sicut Ouidius et consimiles, tria esss semper dixerunt: scilicet Deum, et
.iiii. elementa insimul commixta, et formas omnium rerum in mente Dei existentes, id est
ideas, hoc est diffe (fol. 62r) rentias, sicut rationalitatem et caliditatem etfrigiditatem et cetera,
per quqDeus ipse resfuturas constituturus erat. Ista duo genera philosophorum dicentium
Deum ex athomis et inanitate mundum fecisse ex elementis similibus mixtis et ideis, id est
differentiis, dicebant Deum artificem, non creatorem. Qui uero dicebant de nichilo Deum
fecisse mundum, creatorem omnium rerum esse firmiter putabant. Hii autem omnes
philosophi tres personas esse dicebant: scilicet Patrem et Filium, id est Togaton et Noim,
et Spiritum Sanctum, id est animam mundi; sed Filium Patre minorem, et Spiritum
Sanctum minorem Patre et Filio; et in hoc errauerunt.
Intentio Ouidii est, omniumque fabulas scribentium, utpote Terentii, maxime delectare,
et delectando tamen mores instruere, quia omnes auctores fere ad ethicam tendunt.
Vtilitatem nobis confert Ouidius quia, cum fabulg in aliis libris tangebantur, ignoraban-
tur, donec iste Ouidius enodauit et enucleauit. Prodest nobis et ad ostendendam pulchram
dictionum compositionem. Quandam uero intentionem possimus dare poetis: scilicet ut
sint lating lingug correptores et imitatores.1
(2) The second accessus is one of three found in a manuscript of the twelfth
century :2
Liber Ouidij Nasonis Methamorphoseos3 cum Exposicione.

Philosophi tria dixerunt semper fuisse: Deum, formas, chaos. Ex chao autem mundum
factum non ex nihilo crediderunt; et hoc modo Deum artificem non creatorem mentie-
bantur. Quos iste Ouidius sequitur hic.
Intentio Ouidii est, et omnium scribentium de fabulis, utpote Terentii, maxime delec-
tare, et delectando tamen mores instruere, quia fere omnes auctores ad ethicam pertinent.
Utilitatem nobis offert Ouidius, quia fabule in aliis introducte ignorabantur, donec
Ouidius enodauit prodesse nobis ostendendo pulchram dictionum compositionem.
Quidam philosophi fuerunt qui Deum ex nichilo mundum fecisse crediderunt. In hoc cum
fidelibus Christiane religionis conuenerunt. Quidam uero alii ex athomis et inanitate, que
duo semper fuerunt, Deum mundum fecisse dixerunt. Alii autem philosophi, sicut hic
Ouidius et consimiles eius, tria semper esse dixerunt: 8cilicet Deum, et .iiii. elementainsimul
confusa, et formas omnium rerum in mente Dei existentes, id est ydeas, id est differentias,
sicut rationalitatem et caliditatem etfrigiditatem, per que ipse Deus resfuturas constituturus
erat. Ita duo general philosophorum dicentium Deum ex athomis et inanitate mundum
fecisse, et ex chao et ideis dicebant Deum artificem non creatorem intellexerunt. Hi autem
omnes philosophi tres personas dixerunt: Patrem et Filium et Noin, id est Spiritum Sanc-
tum minorem Patre et Filio crediderunt, nec autem uidentes, id est discretionem certissi-
mam habentes.4
(3) From the same manuscript comes the following accessus of somewhat more
varied content:5
1 correptoreset imitatores]Meiser (p. 51) emendsto correctoreset emendatores.The text in the
manuscriptproceedsas follows:Incipit liber OuidiiMetamorphoseos.
2
Munich,Staatsbibliothek,MS. lat. 14482, Miscellaneasaec. xii, fol. tr. See Catalogus... Bibli-
othecae... Monacensis,vol. In, pt. ii, ed. C. Halm et al., Munich,1876,p. 179. This manuscriptcon-
tains threeseparatecommentarieson the Metamorphoses, each commentaryhavingits own accessus.
The othertwo accessusare printedbelow.
3 Metamorphoseos] The spellingin the MS. maybe Metamorphosis. The headingis writtenin hand
muchlater than that seen in the text whichfollows.
4 Followedby the words:Natureuultusin orbe [Met. i. 6], id est natureilliusque os in toto orbe,-
with whichthe annotationof the text itself of the Metamorphoses begins.
6 Munich,Staatsbibliothek,MS. lat. 14482, Miscellaneasaec. xii, fol. l1r-l1".
Tria hic inquiruntur: vita poete, intentio, materia. Vita Ouidii est: Sulmonensis fuit de
Peligno oppido, et pater suus uoluit in equestri ordine eum remanere. Sed ipse ad studium1
se contulit, multimque profecit, et maximus mechus factus est, et concubuit cum quadam
Messalina, nobili matrona, qua de causa postea missus est in exilium.
Intentio sua agere de exteriori transformatione, non quod ipse quicquam in beluinam
transmutatum intelligeret2 formam, aut intelligere uelit, sed in tantum degeneret3 in
animo quod mutetur, sicut belluam dicit qui segnis est, asinum,4 qui rapax, lupum, et
cetera.
Materia sua sunt res transformate ab initio seculi usque ad sua tempora. Meta grece,
latine de, morphoseon formatio.
Quidam philosophi fuerant qui mundum de nihilo Deum fecisse crediderunt, et in hoc
cum fidelibus Christiane religionis consenserunt. Quidam vero alii (ex) athomis et inani-
tate, que semper fuerunt, Deum mundum fecisse dixerunt. Alii autem, sicut Ouidius et sui
consimiles, tria esse dixerunt semper: Deum scilicet, et quatuor elementa simul confusa, et
formas omnium rerum in mente Dei existentes, quas ideas uocabant,pretereadifferentias has:
caliditatem,frigiditatem, siccitatem, humiditatem, per que ipse Deus res constructuruserat.
Ista genera philosophorum dicentium Deum ex athomis et inanitate mundum fecisse, et
ex chao et ideis, dicebant Deum artificem et non creatorem. Qui vero dicebant Deum de
nihilo mundum fecisse creatorem intellexerunt. Hi autem omnes philosophi tres personas
esse dicebant: Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum, id est5 anima mundi; sed Filium
minorem Patre (fol. 1v), et Spiritum Sanctum minorem Patre et Filio crediderunt; et in
hoc errauerunt.
Intentio Ouidii est, et omnium fabulas scribentium delectare, (et) delectando mores
instruere, quia fere omnes auctores ad ethicam pertinent.
Vtilitatem nobis confert Ouidius, quia fabule in aliis libris introduct9 ignorabantur,
donec Ouidius enodauit; et prodest nobis ostendendo pulchram compositionem.
Finalis causa est hortari nos ad uirtutem, et deterrere a uiciis. Nam cum intendat dicere
de transformatione rerum, describit ut ostendat alias res pro conis meritis mutatas esse in
melius, alias autem pro malls in peius.
Materia alia uera, alia falsa. Vera alia historialis, ut Lucani et Salustii et aliorum qui
historias scribunt; alia moralis, ur Oratii et Iuuenalis et aliorum qui ueraciter malos mores
reprehendunt. Falsa alia id quod non fuit factum, et tamen fieri potuit, ut Terentii, Plauti,
et aliorum; alia que nec facta est nec fieri potuit per naturam, ut istius Ouidii, qui loquitur
de transformatione rerum in alios effectus contrarios nature.
Intentio sua est dissuadere nociuos affectus per quos possumus incurrere iram deorum,
et de proprio statu mutemur in contrarium.
Vtilitatem vero talem confert nobis ut, cum ipse de maxima felicitate in maximas mi-
serias deciderit, ostendat nobis nihil miri esse, sed a Deo alternatum esse.
In noua proponit. Dii, ceptis inuocat. Corpora:corpus dictum eo quod corruptum perit.
Narrat Ante mare. Quod Plato dicit ylen, poete chaos appellant.6
(4) A still more ambitious form of accessus is the following from the same
manuscript:7
Iste liber intitulatur: Liber Ouidii Nasonis Metamorphos(eos), id est de transformatione
rerum, meta grece, de latine, morphosios, transformatio. Et de hac siquidem in hoc libro
agit tripliciter: de magica, de spirituali, de naturali. De naturali, id est de mixtura elemen-
torum; de magica, sicut de illis qui mutabantur corpore et non spiritu, ut Licaon; de
1
studium]Precededin the MS. by the scribe'ssuperfluousstu.
2
intelligeret]intelligent (MS.). 3 degeneret]degenet (MS.).
4asinum]Followedby the scribe'sduplicationinum. 6 id est] in (MS.).
6 Followed the words:
by Digesta, id est inordinata,- with whichthe annotationof the text itself
of the Metamorphoses proceeds.The lemmatain italicsin the last paragraphare fromBook i, 1, 2, 5,
and 7. 7 Munich,Staatsbibliothek,MS. lat. 14482,Miscellaneasaec. xii, fol. 27r-27v.
spirituali, que tantum mutabantur spiritu, ut mater Penthei et sorores. Mutatio alia fit in
corpore, alia in qualitate, ut in Lycaone; uel in qualitate et non cQrpore,ut in Cornice;
uel in corpore et non qualitate, ut in saxum draco. Mutatio in qualitate et corpore, alia de
naturali materia, ut de elementis, alia de non naturali, sicut de hominibus uel de cgteris
corporibus. Mutatio in non naturali materia, alia de animata ad animatam, sicut de
Licaone, alia de inanimata ad inanimatam, ut hic: 'furcas subiere1 columpne,' de domo
scilicet Baucidis;2 alia de inanimata ad animatam, sicut de statua Pigmalionis mutata in
statuam iuuenis hominis, alia de animata ad inanimatam, sicut draco qui mutatus est in
saxum. Qug autem de animata ad animatam, uel fit ad animatam sensibilem, ut Lycaon,
qui mutatus est in lupum, uel ad animatam et non sensibilem, ut Daphne in laurum, unde
coronabantur homines. Que uero de animata ad animatam sensibilem, aut fit de magica
aut de spirituali; de magica ut in Acteone, qui quando lacerabatur a canibus erat dicturus:
'Acteon ego sum, dominum cognoscite uestrum,'3 si posset; de spirituali, ut in Agaue,
matre Penthei, que furens lacerauit filium suum quando sacrificabat Bacho.
Materia Ouidii sunt res mutate, de qua non sufficienter agit nisi ad delectationem et ad
institutionem morum. Materia Ouidii est mutatio, non quia in rei ueritate res essent mu-
tate, sed secundum hoc quod unusquisque erat malis moribus iudicabatur mutari in eam
rem cui erat consimilis in moribus. Materia dicitur quasi mater rei, que duobus modis
accipitur, ut in domo lapides, in rebus inuisibilibus, ut in Porphirio, genus et species.
Intentio sua est delectari et prodesse mores instruendo, quod fere omnes qui hoc modo
pertractant ad ethicam pertinere uidentur, uel de hortari a terrenis ad gloriam quam
consecutus est Hercules et ceteri tales, utpote ab illis que sunt temporalia et inutilia et
incerta, quod ostendit permutationes rerum earum que fuerunt a primordio usque ad suum
tempus. Intentio etenim est animi effectus circa materiam, uel oratio que maxime intendit
animum in libris legendo, ut in Lucano reprehendere ciuile bellum et dissuadere.
Vtilitas est talis: quod cum fabule in aliis libris tangentur que fortassis ignorarentur
notiores quoque erant in suo tempore minus notas recitando iocundas aperit describens.
Vtilitas est quod quisque ex eo negotio consequitur commodum cui intendit.
Quidam philosophi fuerunt qui mundum de nihilo Deum fecisse crediderunt. Quidam
uero alii ex athomis4 et inanitate, que duo semper fuerunt, Deum mundum fecisse dixerunt
Alii autem philosophi, sicut hic Ouidius et similes eius, semper tria esse dixerunt: scilicet
Deum et quatuorelementasimilia confusa, etformas omnium rerum in mente Dei existentes,
id est ideas differentias, - hanc rationalitatem et caliditatem et frigiditatem, per que5 ipse
Deus (res)futuras constituturus erat. Ista uero genera philosophorum dicentium Deum ex
athomis et inanitate mundum fecisse et ex chao (fol. 27v) et ideis dicebant Deum artificem,
creatorem. Qui6uero dicebant Deum de nihilo mundum fecisse, creatorem illum intellex-
erunt. Hi autem omnes philosophi personas tres (esse) dicebant: Patrem, Filium, (et
Spiritum Sanctum; sed Filium Patre minorem, et) trium Spiritum Sanctum minorem
Patre et Filio crediderunt; et in hoc errauerunt.
Hic intentio est Ouidii et omnium scribentium de fabulis, utpote Terentii, maxime de-
lectare, et delectando mores hominum corrigere. Ad ethicam spectat, quia omnes fere ad
ethicam spectant auctores.
Vtilitatem confert7 nobis Ouidius, quia fabule in aliis libris introducte ignorabantur,
donex iste Ouidius dilucidauit;8 et prodest9 nobis ostendendo pulchram dictionum10 com-
posicionem.
Alia intentio Ouidii est tractare de mutatione rerum. Materia est de quibus tractat.
Finalis causa hortari nos ad uirtutem et retrahere a uitiis. Nam cum intendat de re, de
transformatione rerum describit, ut ostendat alias res pro bonis mutatis mutatas esse in
1 hi furcassubiere]hi furessubire(MS.). See Met., vni, 700.. 2 Baucidis]Bacidi (MS.).
3 Met. II, 230. 4 ex athomis] athenis (MS.). 6 que] quam (MS.).
6 7 Vtilitatemconfert]Vtilitas est (MS.).
Qui]Quod (MS.).
8
dilucidauit]Insertedby a later hand (MS.).
9 prodest]prodesse(MS.). 10 dictionum]Insertedby a later hand (MS.).
melius, alias autem pro malis in peius. Materia alia falsa, alia uera. Vera alia historialis,
ut Lucani, Salustii, et aliorum qui de historiis scribunt; alia moralis, ut Horatii et
Iuuenalis, et aliorum qui ueraciter malos mores hominum reprehendunt; et falsa alia, si non
fuit factum, tamen fieri potuit, ut Terentii et Plauti et Nenii et aliorum multorum; alia
quod numquam factum est neque fieri potest per naturam. A istis Ouidius, qui loquitur de
transmutatione rerum in contrariam naturam, quod est eius materia.
Intentio est Ouidii dissuadere nocuos affectus, ne per eos incurramus iram deorum, ut de
proprio statu mutemur in contrarium: uidelicet uere confert nobis talem, ut cum ipse
quidem de maxima felicitate in maximas miserias, de pace in odium, in exilium, labores.
Materiam suam sumpsit, transformationem rerum, subaudiens, ostendens quasi nihil
esse a Deo alteratum, nos quoque debere materiam nobis sumere habitui nostro compe-
tentem: uerbi gratia, ut, si aliquando superbum mansuetum nobis reddere uolumus, talia
et tam humilia scribamus que iram eius sint frangentia, non ad manus prouocantia. Sic de
cgteris.
Scripsit autem in Pontica1 insula, ut in exilio erat expulsus ab Augusto. In fine quoque
operis sui laudat eum, sperans per hoc gratiam suam recuperare.2
(5) The most comprehensive of the accessus offered here is the following,
containing not only the usual topics of the type, but also a characteristic mediae-
val vita of the poet:3
Incipit Liber Ouidii Nasonis Metamorpheos.4
Publius Ouidius Naso summus doctor fabularum Sulmonensis poeta fuit de Peligno
opido, quod nonaginta miliariis distat ab urbe, cuius tercia pars est Sulmo, vbi Ouidius
natus fuit die quo Paulus et Terentius consules Romanorum commiserunt bellum cum
Hannibale apud Cannas,6 eodem quo die quo natus fuerat frater eius in precedenti anno.
Item eo die6 Palladis festum habebatur. Fuit autem de equestri ordine non factus miles
turbine milicie. Hec omnia ipse testatur:
Hoc ego composuiPelignisnatus aquosis.
MantuaUirgilio,gaudet UerronaCatullo.
Pelignegentis gloriadicorego.7
Item in quarto Tristium:
Sulmomihi patria (est, gelidisuberimusundis).8
Iste puer, cum esset bone indolis, multa didicit. Athenas iuit, ibique multum didicit et
docuit. Iuit Constantinopolim frater eius, et discebat rethoricam et iura fori, et erat
patronus. Naso vero in carminibus studuit:
Quicquidtemptabatdicereuersuserat.9
Unde postea commotus pater eius dixit:
Studiumquid inutile temptas?
Meonidesnullasipse reliquitopes.l0
His autem non acquieuit ei.
Iamquedecemuite fratergeminaueratannos
Cum periit.1
1 Pontica]ponteroo(MS.).
2 Followed
by the words:ProponensFert,id est cupit, animusmeus,- with whichthe annotation
of the text itself of the Metamorphoses
begins.
3Munich,Staatsbibliothek,MS. lat. 14809,Miscellaneasaec.xii-xiii, fol. 65r-66v.See Catalogus...
Bibliothecae... Monacensis,vol. ii, pt. ii, p. 236. The accessuspublishedby Nogara, mentioned
above, is of somewhatsimilarcontent;but it has no relevantpassageon cosmogony.
The headingis in a differenthand from that seen in the text that follows.
6 Cannas]carinas,or carmas(MS.).
s die]Followedby the wordsquonatusfueratcrossedout (MS.). 7 See Amores,III, xv, 3, 7-8.
8
Tristia, iv, x, 3. g See Ibid., iv, x, 26. 10 Ibid., iv, x, 21-22. 1 Ibid., Iv, x, 31-32.
Ouidius vero Rome receptus est in amicitiam domini Augusti, a quo tribunus effectus est.
Item cancellarius necnon unus de centum iudicibus coram quibus singula discernebantur.
Cui Octavianus domum mirabilem iuxta Capitolium, duosque equos albos optimos con-
cessit. Fuit etiam contemporaneous Uirgilio et Oratio, quos ualde coluit:
Utque ego maiores,sic me coluereminores.1
Multas etiam amicas habuit, inter quas Corinna precelluit. Duas uxores habuit; de ultima
genuit filiam, que habuit duos maritos.
Interea multos libros composuit: De Amore, De Remediis, De sine Titulo, De Fastis:
Sex ego Fastorumscripsitotidemquelibellos.
Et dedimus(tragicisscriptumregalecothurnis).2
Item librum Metamorphoseos,librum Epistolarum. In libro De Amore mulieres meretricari
docuit, quem matrone legentes apud Octauianum, secundum quosdam iniuste, accusaue-
runt dicentes eum contra legem fecisse, quia matronas meretricari docuisset. Imperator
autem eis credens, quia Nasonem exosum habuerat, quoniam cum quadam concumbere
uoluit, uel quia quoddam secretum Octauianum fecientemnidit, in Pontum insulam omni-
bus malis plenam misit in exilium, vbi multo tempore manens librum Tristium, De Ponto,
De Triumpho Cesaris, Ybin composuit.
Due sectephilosophorumerant, quorumalii dixerunt unum esse principium, Deum scilicet,
creatoremomnium rerum. Alii dixerunt tria esse principia( hyle, ydeas, (fol. 65v) Deum. Hyle
est ipsam materiam; ydeas formas que imponuntur materiei; Deum ipsum artificem qui in-
formaret ipsam materiam, nam omnis artifex antequamincipiat aliquod accipit sibi materiam
quam describat,sicut iste Ouidius.
Intentio istius est hortari nos ad contemptum secularium et ad appetitum celestium,
quod ipse tamen minime uidetur facere. Sed hoc inde potest percipi, quia ostendit nobis
ista secularia esse transitoria, quia commutantur de sattu in sattum.
Iste liber intitulatur: Ouidii Nasonis Metamorphoseos, id est de transmutatione: meta
grece, de latine, morphoseos transformatio. De hac siquidem agit in hoc tripliciter: de
magica, de spirituali, de naturali. De naturali sicut de materia elementorum; de magica
sicut de illis qui mutabantur corpore et non spiritu, ut Licaon; de spirituali ut mater3
Pentei et sorores eius. Mutacio alia, alia fit in corpore, alia in qualitate, ut in Licaone; uel
in qualitate et non corpore, sicut in Cornice; uel in corpore et non qualitate, ut in saxum
draco. Mutatio in qualitate et corpore, alia de naturali materia, sicut de elementis, alia de
non naturali sicut de hominibus uel ceteris corporibus. Mutatio in non naturali materia;
alia de animata ad animatam, sicut de Licaone, alia de inanimata ad inanimatam, ut hic:
'furcas subiere columne,'4 scilicet de domo Baucidis; alia de inanimata ad animatam, sicut
de statua Pigmalionis mutata in statuam uiuentis hominis; alia de animata ad inanimatam,
sicut draco qui mutatus est in saxum. Que autem de animata ad inanimatam uel fit ad
animatam sensibilem, ut Licaon, qui mutatus est in lupum, uel ad animatam et non sen-
sibilem, ut Daphne, quam in laurum mutata est, unde coronabantur homines. Que vero de
animata ad animatam sensibilem aut fit de magica aut de spirituali: de magica ut de
Acteone, qui, quando lacerabatur a canibus dicturus erat, "Acteon ego,"5 et cetera si
posset; de spirituali vero ut in Agaue, matre Penthei, que furcns lacerabat filium suum,
quem sacrificauit Bacho.
Vita huius talis erat. Sulmonensis fuit de Peligno opido, sicut ipse in quodam loco testa-
tur dicens:
Sulmomihi patriaest;6
et in quarto Fastorum:
Sulmonisgelide,patrie, Germanice,nostre,
Me miserum,Scitico quamproculilla solo est.7
Militauit hic sub Bruto et Cassio. Unde in Ovidii Sine Titulo: 'Mantua Uirgilio,'8 et
cetera; 'Peligne dicar,'9 et cetera,
1 Tristia, iv, x, 55. 2 Ibid., ii, 549, 553.
3 mater]Writtenby anotherhand over sororexpunged. 4 Met., viII, 700. Ibid.,in, 230.
Tristia, iv, x, 3. 7 Fasti, iv, 81-82. 8 Amores, III, xv, 7. 9 Ibid., III, xv, 8.
Quamsua libertasad honestacoegeratarma,
Cum timuit sociasanxiaRoma manus,1
propter bellum quod gereba(n)t Brutus et Cassius contra Augustum.
Materia Ouidii sunt omnes res mutate, de qua non agit sufficienter nisi ad delectationem
et instructionem (fol. 66r) morum. Aliter materia Ouidii sunt res mutate, non quod in rei
ueritate res essent mutate, sed secundum hoc quod unusquisque erat malis moribus
iudicabatur mutari in earn rem cui erat consimilis in moribus. Aliter materia dicitur quasi
mater rei, due duobus modis accipitur, ut in domo lapides, in rebus inuisibilibus, ut in
Porfirio, genus et species.
Intentio eius est delectare et prodesse instruendo mores, quod fere omnes faciunt qui
huiusmodi pertractant, sicut dicitur,
Aut prodesseuolunt,aut delectarepoete;2
uel dehortari a terrenis ad gloriam, quam Hercules consecutus est et ceteri tales, utpote ab
illis que sunt temporalia et inutilia et incerta, quod ostenendum per mutationes rerum
earum que fuerunt a primordio usque ad suum tempus. Ad eticam pertinere uidetur.
Vtilitas est quod quisque ex eo negotio consequitur commode cui intendit.
Quidam philosophi fuerunt qui mundum de nichilo3 Deum fecisse crediderunt, et in hoc
cum fidelibus Christiane religionis consenserunt. Quidam uero allii ex athomis et inanitate,
que duo semper fuerunt, Deum mundum fecisse dixerunt. Alii autem, sicut hie Ouidius et
consimiles eius, tria semperesse dixerunt: scilicet Deum, et quatuorelementasimul confusa, et
formas omnium rerum in mente Dei existentes, id est ideas, differentias et rationalitatem et
caliditatem et humiditatem et siccitatem et frigiditatem, per que ipse Deus futuras res con-
stitueret. Ista vero genera philosophorum dicentium Deum ex athomas et inanitate mun-
dum fecisse et chao et ydeis, dicebant Deum artificem et non creatorum. Qui vero Deum
mundum de nichilo dicebant fecisse, creatorum illum intellexerunt. Hii autem omnes
philosophi tres personas dicebant: Patrem, id est Tagaton, et Filium, id est Noyn, et
Spiritum Sanctum, id est animam mundi. Sed Filium minorem Patre, et Spiritum Sanctum
Filio minorem crediderunt; et in hoc errauerunt.
Intentio Ouidii est et omnium scribentium de fabulis maxime delectare, et delectando
mores hominum instruere.
Vtilitatem nobis confert, quia fabule in aliis libris introducte ignorabantur, donec iste
dilucidauit. Prodest etiam nobis ostendendo pulchram dictionum4 positionem.
Aliter intentio eius est tractare de transformatione rerum.
Materia est transformatio de qua tractat.
Finalis causa est hortari nos ad uirtutes, et terrere a uiciis. Nam cum intendit dicere de
transformatione rerum, describit eam ideo ut ostendat alias res pro bonis meritis mutatas
esse in melius, alias promalis in peius. Subdiuisio: Materia est alia uera, alia falsa, alia
historialis; historialis ut Lucani, alia moralis ut Oratii et Iuuenalis et aliorum qui ueraciter
malos mores hominum reprehendunt. Falsa alia si non fuit factum, tamen fieri potuit, ut
Terentii et Plauti; alia quod neque factum est nec fieri po(fol. 66v)tuit, ut istius Ouidii,
qui loquitur de transformatione rerum que facta est in contrariam naturam. Que est eius
materia.
Intentio eius est dissuadere nociuos effectus,6 ne per eos incurramus iram deorum, ut de
proprio statu mutemur in contrarium.
Vtilitatem confert ostendendo nobis ut, si aliquem superbum mansuetum nobis reddere
uolumus, talia et tam humilia scribamus que iram eius sint frangentia, ne paciamur aliqua
aduersa sicut ipse passus est ab Augusto, qui misit eum in exilium. In fine quoque operis
sui laudat eum sperans se per hoc gratiam suam recuperare.6
1 Ibid., II, xv, 9-10. 2 Horace, Ars Poetica, 333.
3 qui mundum de nichilo] repeated (MS.). 4 dictionum] Corrected by the scribe from dictione.
6 effectus] The scribe corrects from affectus.
6 Followed by the words: Fert animus meus dicere formas mutatas in noua corpora, - with which
the annotation of the text itself of the Metamorphosesbegins.
Chaucer's Appeal to the Platonic Deity 11
These five confused texts present, of course, numerous teasing problems, such
as their textual interrelations, their mingling of diverse cosmological theories,
and their embodiment of Christian doctrine.1 They invite inquiry also concerning
the sources used by the commentators.2 These problems, however, need not be
investigated here. My present obligation is merely to point out that the italicized
passages in the texts before us clearly incorporate the Platonic concept of the
formae, id est ideae, omnium rerum in mente Dei existentes,- the 'forms,' or
'ideas,' pre-existing in the mind of the Creator. Here, then, is evidence that a
mediaeval reader of Ovid's Metamorphosesmight have found the Platonic con-
ception confronting him in the very volume that he was using. Chaucer's own
manuscript of the Metamorphosescould have contained an accompanying collec-
tive commentary of the sort from which I have quoted, or it could have presented
the explanatory comment in the form of separate annotations distributed as
marginalia and interlinear glosses throughout the pages of the Latin poem itself.3
Whatever the physical nature of Chaucer's text may have been, the evidence
now before us permits one to surmise that, in the background of Chaucer's lines
on the 'formes' borne in the 'thought' of the 'yevere of the formes' lies a mediaeval
commentator's annotation upon the Latin text of the Metamorphoses.
It may be, however, that the Platonic doctrine as expressed by the Latin
commentators came to Chaucer's attention only through an intermediary. As
has been said above, in composing the Legend of Philomela the English poet drew
not only upon Ovid's Latin text, but also upon the anonymous French translation
and embellishment of the Metamorphoses known as Ovide Moralise. That the
author of this French translation used a text of Ovid which was furnished with
a commentary or annotations there can be no doubt, for he himself says so;4
and that the commentator conveyed to the French author the Platonic concept
seems to be shown by the following lines from the opening part of the translation :5
Or vueil comencierma matire.
Ovidesdist: 'Mes cuersvieult dire
Les formesqui mueesfurent
En nouviauxcors.' Aucun qui durent
L'autourespondreet declairier 75
S'entremistrentde 1'empirier,
De l'auteurreprendreet desdire,
1 Concerningthe Christianizingof the Platonic concept under considerationsee, for example,
Parent,pp. 7-8, 48-49.
2 It might be urged that one suitable source is the anonymousninth-centurycommentaryon
BoethiusfromwhichI have quotedabove fromthe editionof Silk.
3 My
acquaintancewith mediaevaltexts of the Metamorphoses which containthe openinglines of
the poem,and whichcontainalso marginaland interlinearglosses,is limitedto those in the following
manuscripts:Oxford,BodleianLibrary,MS. Canon.Lat. 1 (18582),saec.xiii; ibid.,MS. CanonLat.7
(18588),saec. xiv; ibid., Auct.F. 4.22. (8854), saec. xii; London,British Museum,MS. Burney223,
saec. xiii; ibid., MS. Harley2742, saec. xiii. I can reportmerelythat in none of these manuscriptsis
the relevantPlatonicdoctrineexpressedin a formlegibleto me. Some of the glossesare lost at the
margins,or have been faded into generalillegibility.
4 See, for example,OvideMoralis, , 30; iv, 5938,6605;and De Boerin Verhandelingen, xv (1915),
22--3. 5 OvideMoralise, , 71-97.
Chaucer'sAppeal to the Platonic Deity
Disant que li autours dut dire:
'Les cors qui en formes noveles
Furent muez,' mes teulz faveles 80
Ne doivent audience avoir:
Horns raisonables puet savoir
Que bien dist, ce croi, li autours,
Quar, ancois que li Creatours
Creast le monde, il n'iert encors 85
Ne ne pooit estre nul cors
Qui nove forme receUst.
Quel cors iert il dont Dieus deiist
Forme traire au comencement?
II n'iert riensfors lui seulement, 90
Qui en sa devine pensee
Avoit touteforme pensee
Tele come il la donneroit
Au cors, que de noientferoit,
Sans aide de nulle rien, 95
Sans point de present mairien.
Einsi croi je qu'il soit sans faille.
It seems clear that the God
Qui en sa devine pensee
Avoit toute forme pensee
Tele come il la donneroit
Au cors
is the Platonic divinity mentioned in the Latin accessus, and appealed to by
Chaucer.
It hardly needs to be said that some reflection of the cosmogonical concept
which we are considering could have been found by Chaucer in a number of
writers other than those cited above.1 Platonic concepts were not a rarity. But,
until specific evidence of Chaucer's dependence upon other writers is brought for-
ward, probably most critics will grant that the most likely sources of his Platonic
verses are those which I have presented. With the passages now before him, the
reader may draw his own inferences concerning Chaucer's verbal indebtedness.
His expressions, 'fayre world' and 'bar in thy thought/ Eternally,' for example,
may seem to reflect the words, 'cet beau/ monde' and 'Don il portait en sa pensee
La Bele fourme pour-pensee/ Tojourz en pardurablete' of the Roman de la
Rose; or the English expression, 'yevere of the fourmes,' and the gloss Deus dator
formarum, may be thought to have some affinity to the sentence, "Avoit toute
forme pensee/ Tele come il la donneroit/ Au cors,' of the Ovide Moralis.2 What
1 In additionto JohannesScottus, one thinks of such writersas Bernardof Chartres,Williamof

Conches,Gilbertof Porree,BernardusSilvestris,and Alanusde Insulis. See Haskins,p. 98; Parent,
pp. 11-94; Baeumker,pp. 7-11; E. C. Knowlton,'The GoddessNature in Early Periods,'in Journal
of Englishand GermanicPhilology,xix (1920), 224-253; Shorey,pp. 88-117.
2 The gloss Deus dator
formarum(formatorum) soundslike a marginalor interlinearentry which
mighthave beenattachedto one of the openinglinesof the Metamorphoses in a late mediaevalmanu-
script.It is not present,however,in any of the manuscriptsmentionedabove, - not present,that
is to say, in a formlegibleto me.
writings, and what precise words were echoing in Chaucer's mind when he com-
posed the opening lines of the Legend of Philomela I do not undertake to deter-
mine. I urge merely the probability that in writing these verses he was not
fetching his Platonic concept from afar, but was appropriating it from what lay
before him in a Latin accessus (or gloss or commentary)1 attached to a text of the
Metamorphoses,or in the opening part of the OvideMoralise.
YALE UNIVERSITY.
1 The Platonic concept under consideration is sometimes found, at least in part, not in the prefatory
accessus to Ovid's poem, but as an annotation upon one of the subsequent lines in his account of the
Creation. Thus in the commentary in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Canonici Lat. Class 72 (18653),
fol. 90-48V (saec. xiii), we find the following annotation (fol. 21v) upon Met., I, 79 (Ille opifex rerum,
mundi melioris origo): Imago uel origo: duplex est littera, existens causa efficiens mundi melius dis-
tincti quam tunc esset; uel melioris dicit ad differentiam mundi presentis; uel melioris, id est meliorati
per diuisionem elementorum, in mente enim diuina erat imago mondi [sic], et secundum quod erat in
mente fecit deus.
Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante

Author(s): Helene Wieruszowski
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:39
Speculum.
ART AND THE COMMUNE IN THE TIME OF DANTE
BY HELENE WIERUSZOWSKI
THE Italian communes appear as unified cultural groups from the moment of
their first appearance in history as independent political powers. Certain of
them, especially those enjoying such favorable positions on the sea routes as did
Venice, Genoa and Pisa, and such inland cities as Milan, had attained a kind of
culmination point by the twelfth century. The communes of central Italy, and
particularly of Tuscany, reached a similar stage toward the middle of the next
century, when their struggle with the Empire had been resolved to their advan-
tage, their territories secured against one another, and their battle against the
feudal aristocracy, secular as well as ecclesiastical, successfully undertaken. The
rapid rise of the municipalities at this time was in great part the result of the long
conflict between Empire and Papacy which ended in the political decay of these
two universal powers. After the death of Frederick II, except for brief interludes,
there was no longer an imperial power capable of restraining the aspiration of the
communes toward political independence, or of interfering with the democratic
tendencies of their internal administration. And on the other hand the Church,
apparent victor over the Swabian dynasty and now strengthened by the rising
power of the Angevin house which it sought to establish as its representative in the
communes, was also forced to yield before municipal attacks upon its hitherto
unquestioned position. The lands of nobles and Church were gradually absorbed,
and the privileges of these groups destroyed. In the consequent development of
democratic government, shaped by the growing political importance of an indus-
trial and mercantile middle class, the communes, great and small, developed a
political character and cultural life of their own. Since they enjoyed independence
within and relative security without, they were able to extend their constructive
power beyond the political and economic fields to the education of their citizens,
for instance, and to the erection and decoration of public buildings. In this they
could rely upon the merchants and bankers, whose wealth was increasing through
extended commercial activities and important financial operations abroad. There
grew up a fruitful competition and collaboration of all classes of the rapidly swell-
ing urban populations, of guilds and corporations, artisans and merchants, to
turn to use the cultural materials of the age. Not only such great communes as
Milan, Bologna and Florence, Siena and Lucca, Pisa and Genoa, but the smallest
as well opened their gates to influences from Sicily, Provence, and France and to
the traditional wealth of the past. But they were able to combine and transfuse
this transplanted wealth with the sap of their own growth and to develop it in
accord with native tendencies and activities. A new field of development was
opened especially in the domains of science, instruction, and art which had here-
tofore been generally reserved to the Church and its purposes. The communes
devoted all their means to stimulating individual endeavor in free competition,
and released vigorous forces which until then had been bound by ecclesiastical
tradition and religious forms. But they nevertheless imposed new bonds and at-
14
Art and the Communein the Time of Dante 15
tached the cultural activity of the citizen to municipal political needs as they had
already attached the more material fields of economic life.
This is true above all of architecture. To an unusual degree the communes had
embodied this art in their plans for municipal utility and embellishment. The
necessities of communal life produced an almost entirely new secular architecture,
which reached its culmination in the splendid gothic town halls of central and
northern Italy.1 The two dominant political ideas of the Italian communes are
embodied in the two principal types of town hall represented throughout the
peninsula: independence and aggressive strength in the castle-like structure of
closed walls and lofty tower (Florence, Volterra, Siena, San Miniato, San Gimi-
gnano, Pistoia, etc.); and the democratic idea of participation by the people in
public affairs expressed in huge halls with large windows on the upper floor for
the Councils and open loggias on the lower floor for the assemblies of the popula-
tion - space for which the former buildings had provided in their inner court-
yards.2 The second type is best known by its earliest great example at Piacenza,
but also by those at Padua, Perugia, Orvieto and Pistoia.3 The whole conception
of public welfare, life, and utility was expressed in this secular architecture which,
in the mass, set so decisive a stamp upon the Italian cities that neither the mighty
impulses of Renaissance and Baroque nor the forces of modern times have suc-
ceeded in changing the native character of many of them. The assemblage of
impressive walls and towers in these towns, their gates, fountains, and water
reservoirs, their enormous town halls, splendid piazzas for public festivals, loggias
for ceremonies, hospitals and churches, reveal even today as the base of their
existence that spirit of municipal community which subordinated the strength
and the means of the individual to the purposes of the whole. Moreover, this
architecture, which frequently assumed individual forms in the individual cities
(note the architectural unity within themselves of such towns as Viterbo, Orvieto,
Siena, Bologna, etc.) was indicative of that desire for splendid self-representation
1 On secular architecture in Italy see P. Toesca, Storia dell'arte italiana (Turin: Unione tipogr.,
1927), I, ii, 704 ff., A. Michel, Histoire de l'art (Paris: Colin, 1905-1929), II, 99 ff.; A. Venturi, Storia
dell'arte italiana (Milano: Hoepli, 1901-1940), II, 54 ff.
2 For the architectural history of the two Florentine townhalls, the.Palazzo del Podesta (Bargello),
erected after 1250, and the Palazzo dei Priori (Palazzo Vecchio), founded in 1299, see R. Davidsohn,
Forschungen zur Geschichtevon Florenz (Berlin: Mittler, 1896-1908), iv, 497-505. While the Palazzo
dei Priori was under construction, the levelling and paving of the Piazza della Signoria was begun.
Although the Piazza assumed its definitive form only in the middle of the fourteenth century it had
already become by 1306 the scene of the public swearing in of the Priori. See K. Frey, Die Loggia dei
Lanzi (Berlin, 1885), 77 ff. The planning of huge Piazzas for public ceremonies or the development of
those already existing was a special concern of the town fathers. Particular care was given to the
general perspective of the Piazzas and to their embellishment in detail. One of the most splendid
examples is the Campo of Siena upon which worked generations of masters and craftsmen until it had
assumed the fanshaped form it has to-day. See below, pp. 31 f.
3 Some of these townhalls are landmarks in the development of municipal independence. The
Palazzo della Ragione in Padua, with its huge sala on its upper floor, was begun in 1172 when the city
was fighting for freedom from the rule of the Emperor. The Palazzo del Podesta in Florence was erected
from 1255 on as a monument of victory over the Ghibelline aristocracy and Swabian rule. See David-
sohn, Forschungen,loc. cit.
16 Art and the Communein the Time of Dante
powerful in a political unit which is young and aspiring, fiercely fighting and
proud of successes already attained. It may be remarked by the way that this
was the first time since the days of the ancient city states that the democratic
spirit of free communities found adequate forms for the accomplishment of this
desire.
While emphasizing the importance of this new secular architecture as an ex-
pression of democratic spirit in the Italian communes, it is easy to overlook the
part played by the municipalities in the construction and maintenance of the
churches within their walls. The direct influence of the civil government in this
field is not, of course, so obvious as is its share in the construction of buildings of
public utility. Yet a glance at the interminable list of churches and cathedrals
erected or reconstructed in the brief period between 1220 and 1300, among them
some of the finest of the Middle Ages, makes it clear that without the help and
sacrifice of the municipalities these enormous tasks would not have been achieved.'
It is sufficient to recall the numerous churches of the mendicant orders which, in
their open naves and vast proportions, adapted themselves to growing popula-
tions and the increased importance of preaching; and the four great cathedrals
of Siena, Florence, Orvieto and Arezzo, without mentioning an endless series of
smaller structures.2 Documents attest that many of these churches were erected
with the aid of subventions from the public treasury, the fruit of taxes imposed
to this end.3 Churches which had been erected on public funds in the eleventh
century were later placed under the supervision of municipal corporations, in
order that the citizens might control the wealth they had bestowed. This su-
pervision also embraced the workshop controlled by the master-builder who
maintained the fabric of the church, and the commune was thus in a position to
impose its ideas upon the artists occupied in the work. This right of supervision
by the commune was in general gained and maintained at the cost of frequent
struggles with the Church. But it often happened that the ecclesiastical authori-
ties furthered, willingly or not, lay influence, for they frequently were compelled
1 A. Michel, Histoire de
l'art, II, i, 80 ff., P. Toesca, Storia dell'arteitaliana, I, ii, 478 ff.; W. Paatz,
Werden und Wesen der Trecento-Architekturin Toskana (Burg, 1938). A historical survey of the men-
dicant churches is found in H. Thode, Franz von Assisi und die Anfdnge der Kunst der Renaissance in
Italien (2nd ed., Berlin, 1904).
2 See the documentary history of the great Florentine churches: the Cathedral S. Maria del Fiore,
S. Maria Novella, S. Croce, in R. Davidsohn, Forschungen, loc. cit. The documents quoted give full
evidence of the fact that cost of the work was defrayed only in part by the money granted by the
Church from revenues obtained from indulgences, and was largely supplied by the citizens through
voluntary contributions and taxes. If work on one of the churches was stopped for lack of funds, the
commune obliged the citizens to provide in their wills for the furtherance of such work. The funds
which supplied the construction of the Pisan Battistero were likewise taken from those sources.
3 Care of the Battistero and San Miniato al Monte in Florence was from the middle of the twelfth
century entrusted to the consules mercatorumof the Arte di Calimala who also came to superintend the
respective opera. The commune engaged in considerable struggle to maintain these rights against the
opposition of the ecclesiastical authorities succeeded finally in maintaining them even against the in-
terference of the Pope. See R. Davidsohn, Geschichteder Stadt Florenz (Berlin: Mittler, 1896-1927),
I, 671 f.; Forschungen,i, 34, f. and Iv, 461 ff. For the struggle on the supervision of the Battistero see
especially Forschungen,iv, 126.
to have recourse to the civil government in meeting the enormous costs of their
buildings.'
It now appears almost certain that the communes, endeavoring to realize an
ideal of representative style in their secular public buildings, came also to exercise
marked influence upon the development of ecclesiastical architecture. The ques-
tion arising from these observations is, then, how far the distinctive characteristics
of Italian gothic (secular and ecclesiastical) were an expression of the new political
life of the cities.
While the solution of this question must be left to the historian of architecture,
the related arts of painting and sculpture may properly be discussed here. These
arts were chiefly associated with the Church not only in the period with which we
are interested but up to the end of the fifteenth century. But the communes were
concerned not only with the construction of their buildings but their decora-
tion as well, and extended this concern to all structures, including the churches,
which had come under the supervision of the municipality or the merchants' or
artisans' guilds. The town fathers and the heads of the guilds summoned the best
painters and sculptors to undertake the decoration of halls, cathedrals and
churches, with the result that the commune took its place beside Church, kings
and princes as patron and client of the artist. We find that those artists of the late
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries who worked for Pope Boniface, Kings
Charles and Robert of Naples, certain cardinals, the Duke of Athens, etc., were
also commissioned by the communes. Here then we may ask what this new pro-
tection of the artist meant to the development of the arts, whether civic commis-
sions in dictating the subject succeeded in extending the general scope of art and
giving the artist fresh impulses to the development of its forms. On the answer to
these questions will be centered the discussion of 'political art in the Italian com-
munes' in this paper.
The artistic activity of the city was naturally centered in the cult of the patron
saint. As in the temples of the Greek city state, so in the mediaeval community
the church of the patron, in the old quarter of the city, was the depository of the
state's treasures and symbols. There were preserved the sacred pictures and relics
of the saint together with the profane palladiums - the carroccio, banners, and
trophies taken in victory. Such churches were the scene of festivals and cere-
monies and, before the erection of administrative buildings, served as the meeting
place of the citizenry and the site of municipal deliberations. The cult of the
patron saints, the care of their churches (the first to come under municipal super-
vision), their chapels, tombs, and pictures were, therefore, political concerns. The
1 In
regard to the relations between the commune and the ecclesiastical authorities, see G. Milanesi,
Documentiper la storia deU'arteSenese (Siena: Porri, 1854), I, nos 1P, 17, 19 etc. Among these is a letter
in which the Franciscans of Siena address the Signoria of that city demanding its aid in the construc-
tion of the church of St Francis: 'In case the cardinals and bishops and other priests and ambassadors
from other cities of Tuscany came and saw this unfinished facade this would by no means add to the
honor of the City' (Milanesi, Documenti, i, 160 f., no. 17, Nov. 16, 1286). The civil authorities of the
City of Siena had been concerned in work on the Cathedral since 1259. See Milanesi, Documenti,
nos 2-6. It was at the decision of the City not of the ecclesiastical authorities that in 1322 a new
building was begun to replace and include the existing cathedral. See below, p. 31.
fortunes of the city depended upon the saints' aid in times of emergency and
stress. We find even that the veneration of the Virgin who, since the middle of the
twelfth century, had everywhere become the center of devotion, had taken on a
local, even a political character in those communes which like Siena, Massa
Marittima, and later Florence had chosen her as their patron.' Decisive events of
civic history were landmarks also in the development of the relations between the
saints and their cities as indicated by the dedication of churches, sacred symbols,
and pictures, and a considerable number of the artistic representations of saints
by the great contemporary artists owed their origin to such historical events and
the resultant municipal commissions.
One of the first paintings which we know to have been commissioned by a
commune is Duccio di Buoninsegna's famous Maesta in the Opera del Duomo
of Siena.2 This painting, although commonly considered as expressing a tendency
to innovation, still holds to the harsh and sublime features of the traditional
Byzantine school. Yet its history makes it clear that the painter must have known
and considered the taste of his fellow-citizens. The altarpiece is associated with a
major event in Sienese history, the victory of Montaperti over the Florentine
Guelphs (1260), a victory which the Ghibelline city attributed to the intervention
of the Queen of Heaven.3 About 50 years after this great event the commune
commissioned the Sienese Duccio to paint a great altarpiece of the Madonna to
replace the old picture which had helped to win the victory4 and to establish an
eternal monument to the gratitude of the commune. Duccio was bound by agree-
ment with the master builder of the Cathedral to work continuously and without
accepting further commissions until his painting for the main altar was finished.
The master builder on the other hand was to provide not only the salary paid
through him by the commune but all else that the painter required, so that
Duccio was to contribute only his own person and labor ('nihil nisi suam per-
sonam et suum laborem').6 These words are highly significant of the contem
porary personal conception of art and artist. Duccio devoted three years to his
1 The new cathedral in Florence which came to
replace the old church of S. Reparata was dedicated
to the Virgin Mary. Its new name, S. Maria del Fiore, which appears for the first time in 1302, con-
nects the name of the Virgin with that of the city of Florence. See Davidsohn, Forschungen, iv, 458.
The supervision of the construction was entrusted to the Arte della Lana which together with the
mentioned Arte di Calimala dominated the political and economic life of Florence.
2 Duccio's other
great altarpiece, the Madonna Rucellai in S. Maria Novella in Florence (earlier
attributed to Cimabue) was commissioned by the Confraterniti di S. Maria belonging to the Church
of S. Maria Novella in Florence. The story of the solemn transportation of the Sienese picture (see
below) was afterwards, by Vasari and others told in reference to the Rucellai Madonna. See R. v.
Marle, The Developmentof the Italian Schools of Painting (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1923-1938), II, 1 ff.
3 The chronicles tell how the day before the battle the bishop and the civil authorities of Siena with
the entire popolo committed the City of Siena into the possession of the Virgin Mary vowing her
allegiance and attendance in case of victory. See Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, II, i, 500 f.
4 This old picture of the Madonna was perhaps by Guido of Siena. See v. Marle, The Italian Schools
of Painting, I, 368.
5 See the agreement between Giliberto Mariscotti, operaio di Duomo, and Duccio di Buoninsegna,
Milanesi, Documenti,I, 166 ff., no. 22 (Oct. 9, 1308).

task in the exclusive service of the city. When the great work was finished, its
transportation from the master's workshop to the Cathedral was made a festival
which plainly indicates its political function. The chronicle tells us that the whole
population joined in procession with the secular and ecclesiastical authorities,
praying the Virgin that she might further protect the city of Siena from evil and
guard it against enemies and traitors to the state.'
After the battle of Montaperti, Siena had indeed proclaimed the Virgin not only
its special protectress but as actual queen of the city. In 1315 Simone Martini, as
official painter, was commissioned to paint in the council chamber of the new Pa-
lazzo Comunale a Madonna on a gothic throne under a baldachin, surrounded
by her royal court of saints and angels. There, as queen of the city, she might per-
sonally assist at the council meetings and inspire the authorities to wise decision.
By means of inscriptions on the steps leading to her throne the Virgin admonished
her subjects in such poetic maxims as 'The roses and lilies which spangle the
fields of heaven delight me not more than wise decision'; or 'The prayers of
the saints will bring no profit to those who spread discord in my city,' and
others of a similar strain.2 She might well have been called the Madonna di Buon
Consiglio, and it is understandable that small neighboring communes should also
have endeavored to secure such a patron and so wise an advisor of their councils.
Massa Marittima, for instance, pawned the sacred candles in order to have its
painting of the Virgin finished;3 and two years later than Siena, San Gimignano
obtained for the council room of its new town hall a Madonna by Filippuccio and
Lippo Memmi, father-in-law and brother-in-law respectively of Simone Martini.4
Although this work is an imitation of the Sienese painting, it does not lack local
particularities which stamp it as belonging to San Gimignano. Such are the arms
bordering the baldachin, the figures of the two patrons Gimignano and Nicolaus,
and especially the portrait from life of Nello dei Tolomei, podesta of the city in
the year 1317 when the work was commissioned (Plate i). His figure and atti-
tude - the cap held in hands lifted imploringly, his eyes raised to the Madonna,
the whole man humble and proud at once - have the typical features of contem-
porary portraits of laymen in religious pictures, of the portrait of Enrico Scro-
1 The description of the
procession taken from A. Tura's Chronicon Senense is published by
Milanesi, Documenti, , 169. At the bottom of the Maesta are found these words: 'Mater SanctaDei-
Sis Caussa Senis requiei. - Sis Ducio vita - Te quia depinxit ita,' Milanesi, loc. cit., p. 168.
2 See v. Marle, The Italian Schools of Painting, II, 176 ff. Milanesi (Documenti, I, 219) publishes the
verses part of which we have translated in an abbreviated form. The medallions in the frame represent
the two sides of the Sienese coin and the right side of the Sienese seal with the inscriptions: 'Salvet
Virgo Senam-- Veterem quam signat amenam; Sena vetus civitas Virginis - Alfa et omega-- Prin-
cipium et finis.'
3 The decision of the Council of Massa Marittima is published by Milanesi, Documenti, I, 149 f.,
no. 29 (Jan. 8, 1315).
4 See v. Marle, The Italian Schools
of Painting, ii, 163-165 and A. Michel, Histoire de l'art, II, ii, 836.
See the notice of payment made to Lippo Memmi in the Regestaof S. Gimignano published by David-
sohn, Forschungen, II, 312 (no. 2366 ad a. 1316). The inscription on the picture reads according to
Davidsohn: Al tempo di Messer Nello de Tolomei di Siena, onorevole potesta e chapitano del Chomune
di S. Gimignano MCCCXVII.'
vegni, for instance, in one of Giotto's frescos in Padua, or that of King Robert
of Naples in Simone Martini's Saint Louis of Toulouse.l
Nevertheless the portrait of Nello dei Tolomei is not a 'donor' portrait in the
ordinary sense of the word. As is the case with other contemporary representa-
tions of high communal officials such as those of the market fountain in Perugia
and Giovanni Pisano's pulpit in the cathedral of Pisa,2 he appears as the repre-
sentative of the community of San Gimignano which had commissioned the work
and thus through the figure of its podesta perpetuated itself as donor. Something
of the self-consciousness and pride of independence, so powerful in even the small-
est communes, is expressed in the splendor of the podesta's gown and in his atti-
tude which for all its devotion is a proud and dignified one.
This subordination of the individual does not mean that the communes failed
to honor their notable citizens. Giotto may, for instance, have painted his own
portrait and that of Dante in a work intended for the altar of S. Maddalena in the
Palazzo del PodestA (Bargello) in Florence, so perpetuating in an official place
himself and - perhaps as a gesture of expiation - the poet who had suffered so
much at the hands of his townsmen.8
There is another work in which both conceptions of the individual figure are
closely bound. This is the famous picture of the Condottiere Guidoriccio da Fo-
gliani in the council chamber of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena which Simone Mar-
1 On the development of the art of portraiture see Harald Keller, 'Der Bildhauer Arolfo di Cambio
und sein Werk,' Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, Berlin (1934-1935), xxxv, 25 ff. and
'Die Entstehung des Bildnisses,' RPmisches Jahrbuch der Kunstgeschichte (1939), in, 287 ff. The
early donor portraits in the frescos inPadua, inAssisi, etc., are not portraits in the modern senseof the
word. But there is doubtless an attempt to reach a sharper physiognomical individualization. Keller
calls the portrait of King Robert of Naples on the above mentioned altarpiece of Simone Martini
naturalistic because of certain features taken from the living object (hooked nose). In this regard it
is important to refer to the little portrait heads done by Giotto in the medallions of the stripes sepa-
rating the upper fresco from the lower in the Capella Peruzzi in S. Croce, Florence. They represent
probably six members of the Peruzzi family and show distinct portrait features. See H. Rintelen,
Giottound die Giotto-Apokryphen(Munich, 1912), 154.
2 On the market fountain in Perugia are found the figures of Matteo da Coreggio and Hermanno
di Sassoferrato, PodestA and Capitano di Popolo respectively of Perugia in 1278 the year in which
the work was executed. On Giovanni Pisano's pulpit in Pisa is to be seen the small figure of Federico
di Montefeltro, PodestA of Pisa in the time when Pisano worked on the pulpit (1301-1310), together
with that of Nello Falcone, operaio di Duomo. See Venturi, Storia dell'arteitaliana, Iv, 928.
3 This notice is taken from the original Latin text of Filippo Villani's Life of Giotto in his Liber
de civitatis Florentie famosis civibus: 'Pinxit [Giotto] . . speculorum suffragio semetipsum, sibique
contemporaneum Dantem in tabula altaris capelle Palatii Potestatis.' The nel muro in the later Italian
translation of Villani's work refers to Dante's portrait in the fresco of the Paradise in the Maddalena
Chapel. But this is probably copied from Dante's portrait on Giotto's altarpiece. See R. Davidsohn,
Geschichtevon Florenz, iv, iii, 220 and Anmerkungenzum Dritten Teil (Berlin: Mittler, 1927), p. 57;
H. Rintelen, Giotto etc., p. 282. Giotto is also said to have painted in a chamber of the Palazzo dei
Priori Duke Charles of Calabria, son of King Robert of Naples, who ruled the City of Florence 1326-
1328. He represented him kneeling at the feet of the Madonna. See v. Marle, The Italian Schools
etc., II, 6 and Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, II, 783. In his life of Giotto Vasari says that Giotto
had portrayed in the Castello dell'Uovo in Naples a series of illustrious men of his time, among them
Dante's famous Farinata degli Uberti. See G. Vasari, Le Opera,ed. G. Milanesi (Florence, 1878), I,
391.
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PLATEI. S. Gimignano, Palazzo Communale. Maesta by Lippo Memmi (detail).

PLATE II. Padua, Capella degli Scrovegni all'Arena. The Vices: Injustice (Giotto).
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PLATE IV. Arezzo, Cathedral, Tomb of Bishop Guido Tarlati. "Comm

(Agostino di Giovanni and Angelo di Ventura).
tini painted on the wall opposite his Maesta. It is a celebration of the victory won
in 1328 by Sienese and Florentine troops over Castruccio Castracani, the con-
dottiere of Lucca whose life was written by Machiavelli. The particular sub-
ject is the reconquest from Castraccani of two strongholds in the territory of
Siena. The painter has seized the moment in which Guidoriccio turns his back
upon the first vanquished place and rides to the attack of the second.1 As he
rides toward a palisaded camp, in full armor with the marshal's baton in his
hand, he is alone: nothing is apparent of the army he has led to victory. Yet the
painter has conveyed a sense of the armed strength of the commune behind him,
for within the palisades of a military encampment extending on either side of the
hill in the background rises a long row of lances. Thus the painting which at first
glance appears exclusively an exaltation of gallant knighthood and individual
strength, becomes a symbol of municipal power as well. This sense is stressed
by the place of honor which the work received opposite the Queen of the City.
As the portrait of a layman independent of religious significance, the fresco of
Guidoriccio long remained a solitary example. As the representation of a historical
event, however, it is but one of many created for the political purposes of the
commune. By the end of the thirteenth century, frescos commemorating inci-
dents of municipal history had become numerous. Among the first of which we
hear were frescos in the Bargello of Florence representing the battle of Cam-
paldino (1289), one of the triumphs of the Florentine Guelphs, which like much
similar work have been destroyed.2 But in a wing of the same building there is
preserved a painting which, although of a later date, suggests the importance of
allegory in the art of the entire age. The work attributed to Giotto's School,
represents the expulsion of the Duke of Athens by the Florentines in 1343.3
The tyrant, to whom the city had freely submitted but who had then crushed
its liberties and inflicted upon it a savage rule, was driven out on Saint Anne's
day, and to this saint was attributed the success of the revolt. The artist has
concentrated the whole action in her person. From her right hand the armed
companies of the city receive their banners: with her left she shields the Palazzo
Vecchio, symbolic seat of the liberties of the state. Toward the edge of the picture
the Duke is seen in flight before the citizens' onslaught, the angel of vengeance
above him and the despised swqrd of justice beneath his feet.
In addition to its celebration of the revolt and of Saint Anne whose feast was
thereafter celebrated as a communal holiday,4 the work had a further meaning.
This picture of the fleeing and abandoned tyrant warns all betrayers of liberty of
a like fate and perpetuates the infamy of the Duke himself. Here, as apparently
in other historical paintings of the age, there prevails a politico-didactic tendency
1 See the description by v. Marle, The Italian Schools etc., II, 226-230. For the events
underlying
this picture see Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, II, 827.
2 See Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, II, ii, 351.
3 See R. v. Marle, Iconographie de l'art profane au moyen dge et a la renaissance (La Haye: Nijhoff,
1932), ii, 344 f. and The Italian Schools etc., II, 419, 420; H. Keller, 'Die Enstehung des Bildnisses,'
loc. cit., p. 293. The wall on which the fresco is painted forms part of the stairway belonging to the
building of the Societa Filarmonica of Florence, Via Ghibellina 38.
4 Giovanni Villani' Croniche
Fiorentine, xii, 17.
which was powerful enough to create a wholly new form of communal painting,
that generally known as 'pittura infamante.'l Officials used it as an instrument
of municipal justice, to brand criminal and crime to deter imitators. After the
evil-doer's execution, the authorities ordered his deed and its punishment to be
painted clearly and in harsh colors on the outer wall of some public building. Re-
bellion and treason were so branded as well as crimes against the property and
security of citizens. There were walls particularly destined to this purpose, but
the harsh daubings would seem also to have covered many of the walls of market
loggias, guildhouses, gates, and brothels. To stress the lesson of inevitable and
swift punishment which was taught in these paintings, inscriptions and symbols
were added while a Florentine statute provided that the name and profession of
the guilty be joined to their 'portraits.'2
From an instrument of municipal justice, the 'pittura infamante' developed
into a useful weapon of party struggle and, employed in fights between the
democratic government and its enemies, became political painting of the purest
kind. Thus in three of the public squares of Orvieto, for instance, the followers of
Castruccio Castracani, the Ghibelline Captain of Lucca, were stigmatized as
traitors to the state.3 In Florence, the ill-starred rising of the White Guelphs
against the Florentine castle Pulciano in 1303 formed the subject of a large pj,int-
ing to decorate the council chamber of the new Palazzo dei Priori (1303).4 Since
paintings of the kind were also used to impair and injure the people and its
government, the Florentine Council, in 1329, after the death of Charles of
Calabria and the restoration of civil liberties, forbade communal officials to have
painted at their seats of office or at the town gates arms or pictures representing
families or persons other than Christ, the Virgin, the Roman Church, the King of
France and Charles of Anjou.6
An art so debased to the service of political motives was doubtless of no very
lofty merit, and it is not surprising to hear that painters were on occasion literally
1 H. Keller, 'Die Entstehung des Bildnisses im Hochmittelalter,' loc. cit., p. 293 f. asserts that it is
difficult to separate the historical painting from the so called 'pittura infamante' because of the di-
dactic and political meaning contained in both. On the 'pittura infamante' in general cf. Davidsohn,
Geschichtevon Florenz, iv, iii, Q21f. and v. Marle, Iconographie etc., ii, 346.
2 See H. Keller, 'Die Entstehung des Bildnisses,' loc. cit.; v. Marle, Iconographie, 1, 346 f.; R.
Davidsohn, loc. cit.; G. Masi, La pittura infamante (Florence, 1931). On the occasion, for instance,
of the murder of a citizen of S. Gimignano by his brother, the commune ordered the crime to be painted
at public expense on the outer wall of the parochial church of the city. See R. Davidsohn, Forschungen,
ii, 184 (Regestaof S. Gimignano no. 1290a, Feb. 9, 1274): 'quod dipingatur expensis comunis in muro
plebis ex parte exteriori versus plateam ... aperte ita quod ab omnibus integre videri possit prodi-
toria mors et excessus et maleficium ... commissum. ... '
3 See
Keller, 'Die Entstehung des Bildnisses,' loc. cit.
4 One of the
painters was master Grifo di Tancredi, whose payment was entered under the date
Sept. 30, 1303, in the Camerlingi (the Treasurer's account book): 'Grifo pittori pro parte laborerii pit-
turarum quas fecit et facit in palatio comunis Florentie de facto Pulliciani.' See Davidsohn, Geschichte
von Florenz,iv, iii, 221 and Anmerkungenzum Dritten Teil, p. 58.
6 On this decision of the Florentine Council of June 20,1329, see Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz,
I, 877.
compelled to accept such commissions.1 It would nevertheless be instructive to

know what means were adopted to further the efficacy of this kind of propaganda
and public instruction which, in a population largely illiterate, had to a great
extent to replace the written word. But nothing of the 'pittura infamante' has
been preserved, and we can only conclude from works of analogous subject what
its general character may have been.2
For subjects of a more moral and didactic nature apt to support the commune
in its task of educating good citizens and counsellors, the artists could rely on a
symbolic language long since developed in the decorative art of the Church. Per-
sonification of abstract ideas, virtues and vices, Church and Synagogue, arts and
sciences, etc., as female figures with their appropriate symbols had by no means
lost the popularity they had enjoyed for centuries, but they were now susceptible
to changes in accordance with the new tendencies of the age. The vices and vir-
tues especially could assume new forms when correlated with the idea of public
welfare. Giotto, excellent interpreter of his time, brought life and movement into
the old figures and gave them a meaning far surpassing their traditional one.3
In the Arena chapel in Padua he gave special interpretations to Justice and In-
justice because of their political significance4 by introducing new features and
placing a series of small illustrative scenes beneath them. Justice is represented
as a queen bearing scales on which an angel crowns the righteous and an execu-
tioner beheads the criminal. At her feet one sees the happy consequences of
her rule; men and women enjoying dancing and hunting. In the figure of In-
justice the political sense of the allegory is still more unmistakable (Plate ii).
The image is that of a judge in contemporary costume seated before the ruins of a
town wall. One arm terminating in a bird's claw and a crooked staff in the other
hand symbolize the avarice and corruption which distinguish his rule. Its conse-
quences are seen at his feet, among trees representing a forest, where a number of
little scenes vividly depict violence, robbery, and murder.
Painted symbols and figures of Justice were seen above the seats of the judges
in the Florentine courts. In the hall of the Mercato Vecchio, Taddeo Gaddi, one
of Giotto's pupils, drew judges in the act of tearing out the tongues of liars.6The
commune itself was represented as a judge, a fitting characterization of its power
of life and death over the citizen. It was Giotto again who first introduced this
allegory of the commune and the nature, good or bad, of its government into the
painting of his age. Vasari provides the following story: 'nella sala grande del
1 See the terms used in a document of August 8, 1291 concerning the payment for master Fino di
Tedalo 'qui ut asserit coactus a domino capitaneo et domino Bolneaxio, eius iudice,pinxit et pingi fecit
picturas, ymagines et figuras factas et pictas in muro pallatii Comunis supra porta Camere dicti
Comunis et super locum quo morabatur dictus idem dom. Bolneaxius.' See Milanesi, Nuovi documenti
per la storia dell'artetoscana (Rome, 1893), p. 10, no. 6.
2 See below,
p. Q9. 3 See especially Rintelen, Giottound die Giotto-Apokryphen,p. 103.
4 The conception of justice as the highest among the political virtues was derived from the Aris-
totelian Ethics in which civil justice (iustitia legalis) is apprehended as organizing, ruling and embrac-
ing the other laws, sciences and virtues. See the use Dante makes of the conception of justice in Con-
vivio, ii, 14. 6 See v. Marle, The Italian Schools of Painting, III, 301
Podesta di Firenze dipinse [Giotto] il comune rubato da molti: dove in forma di

giudice con lo scettro in mano lo figur6 a sedere e sopra la testa gli pose le bilance
pari per le giuste ragioni ministrate da esso, aiutato da quattro virtu.'l A like
personification of the commune is found in two small bas-reliefs on the tomb of
Guido Tarlati, bishop and signore of Arezzo. These reliefs form part of a series of
panels completed after 1323.2 They teach the lesson that after the troubles pro-
duced by an incessant change of government and constitution, it is only in the
domination of a powerful lord that the citizen can find peace and justice. The les-
son is driven home with clarity and unsurpassed realism by the two artists who
executed the reliefs, Agostino di Giovanni and Angelo di Ventura, both of Siena.
The commune is again conceived as a judge. In the first panel he is shown with
a sorrowful face, surrounded by men who pluck out his hair and beard and rend
his gown (Plate III). This is the Plucked Commune, 'I1 Commune Pelato' accord-
ing to the inscription, and is the image of weak government in which each seeks
his own advantage to the ruin of the commonwealth. On the second panel the
judge appears reassured through the support of the Bishop Signore who is seated
beneath him with three counsellors to his left ordering the execution of certain
criminals who had offended the judge.3 The sense is that order in the commune
of Arezzo had been reestablished by the severe and just rule of the Bishop
Signore4 (Plate iv).
The culminating point of political painting in this period was attained in the
large frescos of Good and Bad Government which, upon commission of the com-
mune of Siena, Ambrogio Lorenzetti executed in 1327 in the Sala dei Nove (today
Sala della Pace). Here the conception of the State itself as it had been developed
in the new municipal democracies was symbolized for the first time.6 The more
1 See Vasari,'Vita di Giotto' in Le Opere (ed. G. Milanesi), I, 400. In this description Vasari seems
to have confused two different pictures, a Good Government ('in forma di giudice' etc.) and a Wicked
Government ('il comune rubato da molti'), similar perhaps to the two reliefs of the Tarlati monu-
ment with which we shall deal below. See v. Marle, Iconographie de l'art profane, ii, 343. The frescos
Giotto is reported to have painted in the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua seem to have had a similar
content. See Davidsohn, Geschichte,III, 662.
2 According to Vasari, 'Vita di Giotto,' loc. cit., p. 395, the master himself furnished the design for
the panels, but there is not very much reason to trust him. For the interpretation of the reliefs, cf.
Venturi, Storia dell'arteitaliana, iv, 374 and Davidsohn, Geschichte,III, 661 f.
3 The inscription in its actual condition reads COMME IN SIGNORIA, but it is clearly to be seen that
it has been restored as letters from the earlier inscription are still recognizable underneath. It is very
probable that whoever rewrote the characters had in mind Comein Signoria the double m in such words
like comebeing often used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But this reading makes no sense
at all while the reading Commune in Signoria would fit perfectly what is shown in the panel. This
is taken for granted by both Venturi and Davidsohn (loc. cit.).
4 For the events of Tarlati's life and the
history of Arezzo under his rule see Davidsohn, Geschiclte,
III, 363 ff. and passim.
6 See the interpretation of the whole series of frescos representing Good and Bad Government and
their Consequences given by v. Marle, The Italian Schools of Painting, ii, 398 ff. At the beginning of
his discussion he puts the general characterization: 'Here is the fact that these representations are
not religious being illustrative of civic institutions.' See also A. Michel, Histoire de l'art, II, ii, 866 ff.
The monograph of 0. H. Giglioli, L'allegoriapolitica negli affreschi di Ambrogio Lorenzetti(Emporium,
1904) is unimportant as it only touches the surface of the allegories.
important as well as the better preserved of the paintings is the allegorical repre-
sentation of Good Government. Two figures dominate the work: Justice with
all her attributes on the left,' and on the right the mighty figure of a king rep-
resenting Good Government or the Commune itself.2 The king, distinguished
by his superhuman size, is exalted above the surrounding virtues, especially nota-
ble among which is the reclining figure of Peace as the basis of the state. The man-
ner by which the king is related to the figure of Justice which dominates the left
side of the painting, again underlines the very real political background of the
allegory. From the balances of the scale held by Justice two cords run to the hands
of Concord seated below, and then on through the hands of twenty-four men who
move slowly and solemnly toward the king's throne. These twenty-four are not
only recognizable as high officials by their costume, but their number as well
identifies them as the ruling body of Siena in the most glorious epoch of its his-
tory. Their procession from Justice to Good Government means that these
twenty-four councillors receive from Justice their rule of action to serve the wel-
fare of the state.8 In the somewhat bloodless frame of symbolic figures these men
are the living substance of the painting. Through them the political ideal takes
on a local character peculiar to the commune of Siena which, moreover, is rep-
resented in its historical identity by its arms, the she-wolf with Romulus and
Remus, and the warriors of the city; while in the second fresco, that of 'Good gov-
ernment in the city,' this identity is established by distinctive Sienese buildings
and details of local architectural style.4
The meaning of Bad Government is to show unmistakably and in the most
deterring form the possible aberrations of a democratic system and the evils of
party dominance. A terrible monster, perhaps signifying tyranny, is surrounded
by a crowd of all possible vices: Avarice, Pride, Vainglory (the three beasts of the
Divine Comedy) and many others. Discord, divisio, wears a divided gown upon
the black half of which is written 'no,' and on the white half 'si,' thus symbolizing
the incessant party quarrels which divide the citizens. At the feet of Tyranny,
Justice lies with her garments torn and her symbols broken. Fragments of them
are triumphantly borne to the high seat of the monster.
Beyond its ethical and political purpose and the immediate education of the
citizenry, the commune aimed to erect monuments to its glory and power. The
1 For the importance of justice as the essence of civil virtue see L. Zdekauer, 'Giustizia, immagine
e idea,' BoUetino Senese di storia patria (1913), xx, fasc. 3.
2
Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted this same figure of a king representing Good Government in almost
the same attitude and with the same attributes on one of the wooden covers of the municipal account
books the so called tavolettedi Biccherna. See v. Marle, The Italian Schools of Painting, ii, 423 f.
3 The
meaning of the allegories is explained in the frescos by names given to the single figures and,
as in the Maesta, by verses in and around the frescos. They sing the praise of Good Government and
condemn tyranny. The author of the verses is supposed to be the painter himself. See v. Marle, loc. cit.,
pp. 412 f. The chief conception underlying the allegories was, according to v. Marle, the glorification
of noble and upright principles but also the love of comfort and welfare and the dislike of military
exploits.
4 'We have no idea whatever how much of such decorative work is the
painter's own invention,'
v. Marle says (loc. cit) and adds that it is likely that the subjects of such important work in so im-
portant a place were decided by those who commissioned the frescos.
figurative decoration of the fountain which the commune of Perugia built in its
market place was intended to show in symbol and image how the spiritual and
secular history of the city had foreshadowed its present greatness and how it
strove daily for the welfare of its citizens. Niccol6 and Giovanni Pisano and Ar-
nolfo di Cambio, the finest artists of the time, were summoned to the task.'
Among the figures of the upper basin the fabulous Heulixtes recalls the legendary
founding of the city; the Bishop Herculanus together with the wicked priest who
betrayed him mark one of the great events of its history, its heroic defense against
the Visigoth hordes. Symbols of Christian Perugia are Saint Lawrence as patron
of the city and the Ecclesia Perusina represented as a veiled matron. The Com-
monwealth of Perugia appears as Augusta Perusia herself seated as a goddess of
Abundance with her cornucopia in her hands. Next to her is the maidenly form
of Domina Clusii (commune of Chiusi, south of lake Trasimeno) holding a sheaf
of grain; and Domina Laci, the lake itself. The commercial importance of these
last two to Perugia is indicated by the inscription running around the basin:
'ferens granum Perusie' for the first, 'ferens pisces Perusie' for the second.2
Historical importance was given to the date of the fountain's completion (1278)
through the figures of Rudolph 'Rex Magna' who ruled Germany at that time and
of the two highest officials of the commune in that year.3
The deepest conception of what the commune meant to its citizens as a source
of strength and nourishment and as protectress of their ethical values finds sym-
bolic expression in a figure of Giovanni Pisano's pulpit in the Cathedral of Pisa.
It represents a woman nourishing two children at her breast. She is exalted high
above the four Virtues at her feet, among whom an eagle, symbol of imperial
Pisa, significantly raises its head and wings toward the Mother and Queen.4
The glorification of the past in works of art commissioned by the commune
imposed upon the artist the treatment of many new themes. As the cities had al-
ways endeavored to link their more or less legendary traditions to the glory of the
Roman past, in a sense one may consider the memory of Latin antiquity to have
continued without interruption through the middle ages.5 In the period of dawn-
1 An extensive explanation of the statues and reliefs decorating, the fountain is given by Venturi,
Storia dell'arteitaliana, iv, 31 ff. and by W. Schmarsow, Italienische Kunst im ZeitalterDantes (Berlin,
1908), I, 26-28.
2 There was a keen theoretical interest, astonishing at this time, in the economic needs of each
individual community as well as in economic facts in general. Chroniclers like Dino Compagni and
Giovanni Villani observe with a special understanding the conditions of climate, location and soil on
the sensible use of which depended the existence of each community. In the field of art we have an
extraordinary example in a parchment codex in which a grain merchant, Domenico Lenzi, noted the
prices of grain and the events of the years of famine, 1328-1330. This book was decorated with pic-
tures illustrating the upheavals and repercussions resulting from the famine in Florence and Siena!
See Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, II, 868 and v. Marle, loc. cit., II, 650 ff.
3 See above, p. 20, n. 2.
4 The
interpretation of this statue is based on an inscription found at the bottom of a similar figure,
partly destroyed, which to-day is in the Camposanto of Pisa. This inscription reads: 'Virginis ancil-
la sum Pisa quiete sub illa.' A. Michel, Histoire de l'art, II, ii, 591 f.
6 On the growing interest in ancient history, science, mythology, etc., cf. Davidsohn, Geschichtevon
Florenz, iv, i, 31-38.
Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante 27
ing political self-consciousness with which we are concerned allusions to ancient

Rome became increasingly frequent in inscriptions, chronicles, institutions, etc.'
The commune began to show an ever growing preference for symbols and images
drawn from pagan legend and mythology without, however, laying aside the tra-
ditional Christian imagery. Thus Florence introduced in its municipal seal as
symbol of pride and power Hercules bearing a club and associated this pagan mo-
tif with Giovanni Battista in its gold florin (1278).2 Siena gave concrete expres-
sion to the legend whereby its origin was ascribed to Remus' sons by taking the
she-wolf and suckling boys as the city's symbol and later introducing the same
figure on the municipal seal.3 The artists of the market fountain of Perugia who
certainly chose their subjects in agreement with the town fathers - we have seen
that a part of the decoration was dedicated to the glorification of Perugia and its
past- placed on the upper basin figures symbolizing Rome and the Roman
Church and reproduced on part of the panels of the lower basin several scenes
from the legendary beginnings of Rome: Romulus and Remus, each with a vul-
ture from which he seeks signs to interpret the future, the she-wolf with the boys
and the Goddess Rhea Silvia as a vestal seated near a flaming altar. Finally two
of these reliefs depict incidents from Aesop's fables.4
A close association of mediaeval Christian and ancient pagan motifs is charac-
teristic of many works of art in this time whether or not they were commissioned
by the Commune. But one could say that in works which some of the artists
created in their capacity as official employees of the commune secular motives
including ancient ones were especially frequently used. In the designs which
Giotto, as the master-builder of the Florentine cathedral, executed for the reliefs
to be placed on the base of the Campanile he showed the victory of human intelli-
gence over the elements not only by biblical scenes but also by the mythological
figures of Hercules with Cacus and of Dedalus with his wings. Prophets and
Sybils, Daniel and Plato, Moses and Aristotle were placed peacefully side by side
on the fagade of the Cathedral of Siena by Giovanni Pisano when he worked as
officially appointed capomaestroof the opera del Duomo of that city.5 In the frame
of his Despotic Government in the Sienese Palazzo Pubblico, Ambrogio Loren-
1A striking example is given by the inscription on the Palazzo di Podesta (Bargello) in Florence
which the so called Primo Popolo erected after 1250 as a monument of its victory over the Ghibellines
and the Empire. The Commune boasts that like Rome it has triumphed over its enemies and is ruling
the world through law and justice! See Davidsohn, Forschungen, Iv, 497 f.: 'Tamquam Roma sedet
semper ductura triumphos, Omnia discernit certo sub iure cohercens.'
2 Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, ii, ii, 125. The city lay under the ban of the Church at this
time. This seal might have been considered as a means of underlining the city's unlimited feeling of
power and self-confidence despite the threats of the Church. As christian and pagan imagery was used
side by side to represent abstract ideas the challenge to the church - if any - was in this new symbol
of strength not in the pagan motif. Together with St Michel Hercules symbolizes the idea of strength
on Pisano's pulpit in the Pisane Cathedral. See Venturi, Storia dell'arteitaliana, iv, 215.
3 The she-wolf as a symbol of Siena is seen also at the feet of the king representing the Good Gov-
ernment or the commune of Sienna in A. Lorenzetti's fresco and in one of the tavolettedi Biccherna.
4 See
Venturi, Storia dell'arteitaliana, Iv, iv, 31.
6 Venturi, loc. cit., iv, 180 f. But associations of this type also occur in other works done by Pisano,
see above n. 2.
zetti illustrates his subject by the portraits of Roman tyrants, Nero, Domitian,
Caracalla and others. The same master received the commission for decorating an
outer wall of the Palazzo with scenes from Roman history.1 We hear also that
Simone Martini painted in the office of the 'Nine' (Concistorodei Nove) a figure of
'Marco Regoli,' perhaps as a model of self-sacrifice and love of the native coun-
try.2
This concern with ancient history and mythology developed at a time in which
ancient art was coming to exercise a marked influence upon the form of contempo-
rary art, especially sculpture. All the artists of the age underwent this influence
to a greater or lesser degree. In certain of the works we are discussing there are
figures clearly attesting a careful study of ancient statues and reliefs: the reclining
Pax, for instance, of the fresco of Good Government3 and the slender Art of
Weaving in one of the panels of the Florentine Campanile (Giotto-Andrea
Pisano).4 Either of these with the fine figure beneath loose robes might have been
the work of Attic hands. It seems clear that the communes with their predilection
for ancient subject matter favored and encouraged the new artistic style as well.
General features of the age of Dante are a growing sense of reality, a yearning
for knowledge and a wide curiosity before the problems of nature and life.5 In the
art of Giotto and the Sienese school there is a clearly recognizable tendency to-
ward imitation of the surrounding world and toward humanization of subject
matter in order to bring it nearer the observer. This tendency has been termed a
kind of Verbiirgerlichungof religious subjects in spite of the fact that the new
trend was, at the same time, toward the development of new means of spiritual
expression.6 In Giotto and his followers the adherence to nature became increas-
ingly exact. Stories of the life of Saint Francis for instance are often placed in the
living frame of a contemporary city, while the buildings shown represent actual
buildings or bear the stamp of contemporary style. The same approach to life is
1 According to A. Tura's Chronicon Senense. See v. Marle, The Italian Schools etc., II, 378.
2 See G. Milanesi, Documenti per la storia dell'arte Senese, i, 218. The notice taken from the Me-
moriale di Camerlingo is of Feb. 20, 1830. The name of Marco Regoli refers to the Roman General
M. Atilius Regulus.
3 E. v. Meyenburg, Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Zirich, 1903), p. 26 has shown how carefully the painter
had studied ancient architectural decoration for the frescos in St Francis in Siena. For Pax see v.
Marle, The Italian Schools, etc., ii, 404 f.
4See J. v. Schlosser, 'Giusto's Fresken in Padua,' Jahrbuch der Kunstgeschichte des Allerhichsten
Kaiserhauses (1896), xvII, 59: 'In its subtle feeling for line, in the nobility of its clear composition the
figure (Art of Weaving) is not inferior to the best of Attic reliefs the stylistic conception of which it
imitates in a striking way.'
6 See for this problem in general the article of W. Goetz, 'Dir Entwicklung des Wirklichkeitssinnes
vom 12. zum 14. Jahrhundert,' Archivfiir Kulturgeschichte(1937), xvII, 1 ff.
6 This is not the place to treat in detail the problem touched upon in the text. It has been widely
discussed since the publication of M. Dvofak, 'Idealismus und Naturalismus in der Gotik,' Kunstge-
schichte als Geistesgeschichte,Munich, 1924, pp. 41-112). Dvoiak has in mind in the first line the
formal artistic development considering the new attention given to reality as secondary to the per-
sonal and spiritual element manifested in religious art of the gothic period.
shown in the treatment of human figures in Giotto's religious frescos in which

appear men of flesh and blood, recognizably fellow-citizens of the painter, town
officials and friars or nuns of the orders of Saint Francis. In his portraits he at-
tempted definite facial individuality.l
Now it was just these impulses in the new art which were stimulated by the
communes. Didactic and political subjects required an especially clear and dis-
tinct language in order that the lessons taught should be fully understood by the
citizens. The task demanded qualities of observation and imitation: allegory was
to be placed in the natural environment of the observer, and hence the depicting
of the city with its characteristic architectural features and representative build-
ings (Siena in the 'Good Government,' the Palazzo Vecchio in the 'Expulsion of
the Duke of Athens'). Scenes of the citizens' life inside and outside the walls were
introduced for instance into Lorenzetti's painting to show the Results of Good
Government,2 or, on the Campanile of Florence, to illustrate the domains of hu-
man endeavor.3 Captains and officials, alone or in groups, presented as models of
public virtues, had to be recognizable in their likeness or at least in their arms
and gowns (Guidoriccio, the podesta Nello dei Tolomei, and the twenty-four
councillors of the 'Good Government'). In political art the representation of bat-
tles and military enterprises became of extraordinary importance. The artist was
compelled to take from nature landscapes containing towns and castles, scenes of
battle and especially the movement of men and horses. In the belief that fidelity
to nature might thus be more easily attained, battle scenes were painted of enor-
mous dimensions which permitted the representation of great numbers of soldiers
and horsemen.4
More than mere clearness, even crass naturalism was asked for the 'pittura in-
famante.' In some of these truth to nature appears to have attained the extreme
degree in describing the horrors of crime and its punishment. A fragment of Buf-
falmacco's fresco in the Badia of Florence representing Judas hanged, his body
marked by horrible signs of suffering, suggests the realism of this kind of paint-
ing.5
Certain of the communes, even some of the smaller ones, maintained official
1 See the above (n. 3, page 20) quoted story from F. Villani's Life of Giotto that Giotto had used a
mirror when painting his own portrait together with that of Dante on the altarpiece of the Magdalene
Chapel in the Bargello in Florence.
2 A. Michel speaks of the two frescos of the Results of Good Government as 'les plus vivantes
chroniques d'Italie, les plus belles visions d'histoire' (Histoire de l'art, II, ii, 278). The second of them
with its scenes of country life shows as far as recognizable-it has suffered greatly-a lovely landscape
with mountains and woods. Pietro Lorenzetti, Ambrogio's brother, was the first to paint real landscapes
not merely as accessories but as the chief subject of the work. See v. Marle, The Italian Schools of
Painting, ii, 360. 3 See below, p. 31.
4 See Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, II, ii, 351 and iv, iii, 921. One can get an idea of what these
pictures once looked like from the battle pictures in the Sala di Consiglio of the Sienese Palazzo
Pubblico or the frescos of the Battle in Val di Chiana (1372) by Lippo Vanni although these paintings
are of a later date. See v. Marle, The Italian Schools of Painting, III, 464.
6 See Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, iv, iii, 235 and 222.
Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante
painters charged with the execution of whatever decoration was required in the
service of the public. Hence those artists had occasion to exercise their brush on
a variety of tasks and subjects: the paintings of arms and symbols on carroccios,
banners, and shields; the decoration of inner walls and facades, siege machines,
chests, bookcovers, etc.1 Simone Martini in addition to his two great works in the
Council Chamber of the Palazzo Pubblico and other paintings, now destroyed,
in the offices of the Sienese authorities, painted and decorated a great number of
other objects in the service of his city.2 In 1326 he was sent to visit castles in the
territory of Siena which he afterwards had to paint in an office of the Palazzo
Pubblico.3 Upon one of the missions which he had to accomplish at the order of
the officials of his commune he probably visited also the two strongholds Monte-
massi and Sassoforte which were gained by Guidoriccio's victory in 1398, for the
images of these two little towns on the great fresco are sharply individualized.4
In the travels made on commission of the commune the artist had good oppor-
tunity of studying his subjects from life.5 What careful attention for instance he
must have paid to the movement of men and animals, so that he could reproduce
them in such a masterful way in the often cited picture of the horseman with the
ambling horse!
This training in the study of nature doubtless furthered a new conception of
1 All the artists
belonging to the school of Guido of Siena including the painters of the famous
tavolettedi Biccherna, as far as they belong to this age, served the Commune of Siena and its neigh-
bouring cities. See v. Marle, loc. cit., i, 368-370. Since 1271 S. Gimignano maintained an official
painter, Magister Ventura de Senis dipintor. See the document of Sept. 13, 1271 in Davidsohn, For-
schungen, In, 310 (Regestaof S. Gimignano, no. 2351). In 1288 several pictores comunis were occupied
dipingendo dictum palatium (the Palazzo Comunale). See Davidsohn loc. cit., no. 2353. A painter
named Azzo, presumably from the same Sienese School, painted the frescos in the Sala di Consiglio
(hunting scenes) and was occupied also in the decoration of shields, siege machines etc. See Davidsohn,
loc. cit. (no. 2355-2358,1291, Feb.-August).
2 G. Milanesi, Documenti per la storia dell'arteSenese, I, 217 f. publishes from the municipal account-
books etc. among others the following notices of payment to Simone Martini: June 20, 1322: 'Item
xx lib. in sol. magistro Simoni pictori, pro pictura quam fecit in Biccherna de quodam sancto Christo-
fero et unius chudi (schudi) ad arma domini Potestatis.-1327, Anco al maestro Simone dipentore,
per settecento vinti gilli a oro doppi a ragione di diecedenari el gillio doppio, lire xxx.-Anco al sopra-
decto maestro Simone per xvi leoni doppi a l'arme del popolo, a ragione di sedici soldi, Lire iii sol.
IIii.-Anco al sopradecto maestro Simone per li fregi de l'ariento (argento) intorno a guazzaroni (coats)
a ragione di otto soldi l'uno: fuoro sedici fregi Lire 6, soldi 8.-Feb. 20, 1329/30. Anco a maestro
Simone Martini, dipegnitore, [a] le quali lire III, soldi v demo per una figura che dipense nel Concistoro
de'Nove, di Marco Regoli (see above),' etc.
3 See the two notices published by Milanesi, loc. cit.: Sept. 6, 1326. 'Maestro Simone dipegnitore
die avere a di 6 di Settembre L. 8, sol. 15 per sette di che stette in servigio del Comune chon uno cavallo
et uno fante a pie ne le terre d'Arcidosso e di Castello del Piano e di Schanzano.-1331. Maestro
Simone di Martino ha Lire 22, sol. 8 per suo salario che tolse a dipingnere a[f] rischio nel Palazzo del
Comune, Arcidosso e Castel del Piano.'
4He was paid for this work according to a notice published by Milanesi, loc. cit., in 1328, Aug. 2:
'Anco a maestro Simone dipentore fiorini 16 per la dipegnitura che fecie di Montemassi e Sassoforte
nel Palazzo de'Nove (Palazzo Pubblico).' As the sum paid is unusually high, 16 gold florins, it must
be supposed to have covered the expenses for the whole Guidoriccio fresco.
s In May, 1344, Simone was sent on a mission to the Papal Court, see Milanesi, loc. cit.
reality, gradually freed it from theological and moral ideas, strengthened the
sense of individual features and of the identity of the historical event. This sense
of particular values is shown in the scenes of the life and deeds of the bishop Tar-
lati which decorate his tomb in Arezzo. The scenes of the warrior-bishop's con-
quest of the castles of the Casentino are especially remarkable because of the
artists' effort to seize the individuality not only of each town or fortress but of
each scene of surrender and victory.1 Traditional symbols are replaced by scenes
from life in those reliefs representing human arts and labor which, on the base of
the Campanile in Florence summarize the microcosm of the commune. The innate
inclination toward reality present in Giotto and Andrea Pisano appears still more
developed in those reliefs (The Art of Weaving, the Horseman and the Plough-
man) which are inspired by ancient works.2
The communes did not neglect the aesthetic side of their commissions. A num-
ber of documents prove how consciously the municipal authorities set about to
embellish the city honorably. In this respect the communes held a fixed idea of
what standard of beauty and splendor became their power, grandeur and posi-
tion, in their terms their 'honor.' This standard was, of course, conceived in the
light of a constant rivalry with other cities: 'It is a matter of great honor to the
various communes' - so reads a proposal made before the Council of the Nine in
Siena -'that the officials (rectoreset presides) occupy beautiful, and honorable
dwellings, both for the sake of the commune and because foreigners often go to
their houses upon affairs. This is of great importance for the commune (of Siena)
according to its quality' (secundum qualitatem ipsius).8 In 1392 the same com-
mune decided to replace the existent cathedral by another 'magnificent building'
(una ecclesia pulcra, magnia [!] et magnifica), well proportioned ... with the
measurements befitting a fine church, with resplendent decoration (fulgida orna-
menta), proper to such a magnificent, honorable and beautiful church.4The town
fathers also consciously tried to train the citizens to recognize and cultivate the
beautiful and splendid. The architectural decoration of the buildings of Siena the
unity of which still strikes the visitor, was due to an order of the town fathers is-
sued in 1997, that the houses on and near the Campo, the Piazza of the city,
should be provided with column-divided, pointed-arched windows of the style
1 See Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana, iv, 372 ff. On the historical events underlying the reliefs see
Davidsohn, Geschichtevon FlorenzIII, 363 ff., 809 f. and passim.
2 See A.
Michel, Histoire de l'art, ii, ii, 613: 'Une renaissance est accomplie non plus la resurrection
des formes antiques, retrouv6es nagu&respar NiccolA Pisano, mais l'eveil de la pens6e libre et de l'art
vivant.' On the authorship and content of the reliefs cf. besides the mentioned basic article of Schlosser
also Venturi, loc. cit. iv, 438 ff.
3 See Milanesi, Documenti i, 180 f. no. 30, Oct. 28, 1316.
4 Milanesi, Documenti,I, 188 f. no. 35, Feb. 17, 1321/22. This splendor displayed in those churches
which enjoyed the particular care of the communes was not always welcome to the clergy, especially
not to those members of the mendicant orders who favored the ascetic ideal of life St Francis had
realized. Comparing the humble little churches which had witnessed the devotion of their great Saint
they condemned entirely the curiositas picturarum of the great new buildings erected for the orders
with the help of the wealthy citizens of the municipalities. For S. Croce and S. Maria Novella in
Florence see Davidsohn, Forschungeniv, 476 and 482 ff.
Art and the Communein the Time of Dante
adopted for the Palazzo Pubblico.1 The communes were in continuous contest
with each other to obtain the services of the greatest artists of the time through
privileges, high salaries and offices. The Signoria of Florence granted complete
release of taxes to Arnolfo di Cambio in 1300 when he was appointed master-
builder of the Cathedral and expressed the hope that he would give the commune
a more beautiful and honorable temple than any other existing in Tuscany.2-
Because of Giotto's constant absence from Florence the commune tried to bind
him by a large commission appointing him in 1334 master-builder of the Cathedral
and municipal architect and - so says the chronicler - 'gli fu dato salario dal
comune per remunerazione della sua virtu e bonta.'3 It is characteristic, however,
of contrasting trends in the taste of the time and of the struggle between old and
new, that the town fathers did not always give preference to the masters of the
new schools. The Council of Florence providing for the decoration of the Baptist-
ery and San Miniato al Monte in the last decades of the thirteenth century chose
mosaic and the style of the Venetian masters who represented the Byzantine, one
might say the archaic tradition, although the masters of the new trend were al-
ready at work.4
As to the leading idea of the commune regarding aesthetic values in art, it was
recognized and asserted that art is a source of pleasure to mankind. Upon the
restoration of certain paintings the Podesta's chamber in the Palazzo Pubblico in
Siena was termed 'oculo delectabilis, cordi letabilis, singulis sensibus humanis
amabilis.'5 A painter was praised because his work 'enlightened and delighted
the hearts and eyes of the citizens and all who saw it so that they did not perceive
anything confused or sinister' ('ut non recipiant aliquod varium et sinistrum').6
Clarity of composition, purity of form, brilliance of color and so we may conclude
1 See S. Borghesiand L. Banchi,Nuovidocumentiperla storiadell'artesenese(Siena,1898), no. 1,
1297,May. The town fathersalso orderedthe tombs in the Piazza del Duomo to be incrustedwith
marble.See Milanesi,Documenti,I, 165 f. no. 21, Aug.19, 1306:'quodplatea (beforethe Dome) ex-
planeturet debeat explanari.... Et quod sepultureque sunt in dicta platea debeantlastricaride
marmoreexpensisillorumquorumsunt dicte sepulture.'GiovanniVillani,CronicheFior., viii, 3 tells
the story of a similarcarewhich,in 1293,had been given to the PiazzaS. Giovanniin Florence.See
Davidsohn,Forschungen, iv, 463.
2 See the documentpublishedby Davidsohn,Forschungen, iv, 458 f.
3 Villani, Cron. Fior. xi, 12. See Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz, Iv, iii, 230. Cf. Dante's famous
wordsabout Giotto's fame as having surpassedthat of Cimabue:'E ora ha Giotto il grido,' Div.
Comm.,Purg.,xi, 95.
4 Davidsohn,GeschichtevonFlorenz,iv, iii, 225. In 1271taxes werecollectedfromthe citizensfor
the mosaicsof S. Giovanni (ad opus quodfit in dictaecclesia'ad Moisem').Instead of the Tuscan
master who apparentlyhad committed fraud, masters from Venice were called. See Davidsohn,
Forschungen,IV, 463.
I, 180,no. 30,
6 Milanesi,Documenti, Oct. 28,1316 (seeabove, p. 31).
6 The painteris Lippo di Benivieniwho was elected in 1313 by the FlorentineArte di Calimala
pittorecapomaestro of the Tabernacleof S. Giovanni.In the documentit is said that he executed
'figuraset picturastabernaculis. Johannisque multumilluminantet dilectantcordaet oculoscivium
et singularumpersonarumaspicientiumeas ad hoc ut non recipiantetc.' (see the text). G. Milanesi,
Nuovidocumentiper la storiadell'artetoscana(Roma, 1893), p. 19. See Davidsohn, Geschichte von
Florenz,iv, iii, 225.
Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante 33
from the constantly repeated pulcrum et honorificum- grandeur of size and mag-
nificence of setting responded to the artistic ideal of the commune. We think not
only of the churches and townhalls but of Giotto whose mighty art was rooted in
the soil of his origins. In its correspondence with the ideal of the society in which
he lived, his work together with Dante's is the sublimest expression of this first
crowning period of the Italian commune.
On Italian Copper Champleve Enamels of the Thirteenth Century

Author(s): W. L. Hildburgh
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:39
Speculum.
ON ITALIAN COPPER CHAMPLEVE ENAMELS
OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
BY W. L. HILDBURGH
THE claims for a French origin of the copper champleve enamels of what may be
termed broadly 'Southern' (as distinguishable from Germanic or Mosan, which
we may call 'Northern') types, long widely accepted as substantially correct
have of recent years been challenged by criticism based in part on material not
taken into account when those claims were formulated. The case for the manu-
facture in Spain, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of many (including some
of the finest) of the enamels long commonly attributed to 'Limoges,' and for an
inception in Spain of the mediaeval Limousin enamelling industry, has already
been set out in some detail.1 Now, in the second2 of the volumes of the fine cata-
logue of the Museo Sacro of the Vatican Library, Stohlman adumbrates a case
for an Italian origin for a number of 'Limousin' objects, and supplies us, through
the excellent photographic reproductions accompanying the descriptive text, with
a considerable body of material for the investigation of the important matter of
enamelling in Italy of the thirteenth century.
The Introduction to the detailed list of the Museo Sacro's enamels includes a
section wherein Stohlman discusses the question of copper champleve enamelling
in mediaeval Italy; a question of peculiar consequence, as concerned with the
Museo's enamels, because of the probability that many of them came to the
Vatican from Italian dioceses. Italian copper champleve enamels of the fourteenth
century are distinctive, and their nationality has long been acknowledged. For
the twelfth century, Stohlman claims the plaque of St. Nicholas of Bari crowning
King Roger II of Sicily, in pure champleve, and the Palazzo Venezia's image of
Christ, in a mixture of cloisonne and a sort of champleve, which he (following
von Falke) believes to have been made in Italy. And he remarks that if copper
champleve enamels were made in Italy in the twelfth century and in the four-
teenth, it is very probable that they were made there also in the thirteenth. My
own view is that, quite apart from any question as to whether copper champleve
enamels were or were not made in twelfth-century Italy - and in that connexion
we should not fail to recall that their vitreous, as dissociable from their structural,
technique had long before the twelfth century been applied in Italy by makers
of cloisonne enamels in precious metal - there appears no good reason why
Italian metalworkers of the thirteenth century should not have made such
enamels. By that time the Limousin workshops certainly, and those of Spain very
probably, were exporting enamels of the sort in quantities; and one may well pre-
sume that Italian craftsmen of the period would have had few scruples against
turning a more or less honest penny by copying, for local use, the products of
those workshops. While I do not always agree with Stohlman in his attributions
1 Cf. W. L. Hildburgh, Medieval Spanish Enamels (Oxford University Press, 1936).
2
W.F. Stohlman, Gli Smalti del Museo Sacro Vaticano (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
1939).
34
Italian Copper Champleve'Enamels 35
- which are merely tentative and by no means dogmatic - of specific objects,

I think that he is right in believing in the production, in thirteenth-century Italy,
of copper champleve enamels of the so-called 'Limousin' types.
I have discussed elsewhere1 the possibility - I spoke of it rather as a proba-
bility - of a Spanish origin for, or at least a very strong Spanish influence in,
some copper champleve enamels, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, situated
in Italy. Concerning the plaque at Bari, I there pointed out its technical resem-
blances to certain Spanish enamels of about the middle third of the twelfth
century; and, further, that there were near dynastic connexions between Roger's
kingdom and Navarre, where the technique of the Bari plaque may be seen closely
paralleled on the retable at San Miguel in Excelsis.2 Also, that there are chasses
of an unusual - i.e., a cruciform - shape at Agrigento (two) and Pisa (one)
which in shape are like a chasse at Leon, in Spain, and are ornamented with
details so similar to details of that (Leon) chasse, or on one or the other of two
chasses of the Monastery at Silos, as to make it 'difficult to believe that they were
not made in the same environment as the three Spanish chasses.'
I observed, furthermore, in connexion with those and with a number of other
enamels of the kind in Italy, that their seemingly (according to judgments based
on photographic reproductions) comparatively poor qualities might perhaps be
accounted for if we knew that they had been made in Spain virtually for export.
I grounded my view that the objects in Italy were probably of Spanish make
rather than of Italian on that fact that, while their elements of form and of
ornamentation were the same as those of things I had reason to believe had been
made in Spain, those elements were combined in complexes different from the
complexes in comparable, presumably Spanish, objects, thus suggesting (although
by no means proving) that the pieces in Italy had been made by craftsmen (whom
I took to be Spaniards) working in an art of their own, rather than by plagiarists.
But so many of the Vatican's enamels seem to display the same sort of charac-
teristics as led me to the conclusions just set forth, that I have come to wonder
whether there was not perhaps really in southern Italy a considerable enamelling
industry so associated with the (presumable) Spanish industry that the Italians
were able to use the (presumably) Spanish elements as if they were their own.
One is able to conceive of an Italian industry founded by craftsmen from those
parts of Spain where the copper champleve enamels appear to have been made,
because the sea-journey to southern Italy (where there seem to be a goodly num-
ber of the pieces which have remained in the churches whereto they were long
since brought) was easy from either the eastern coast of Spain or from Galicia
or Asturias. Or one can imagine some relation between the Monastery of Monte
1 Op. cit., pp. 109-111.

2 It is perhaps worth adding, to the connexions I there cited, the veneration accorded to St Nicholas
in Silos Monastery (which seems to have been closely associated with copper champleve enamelling
in twelfth-century Spain, and whose famous enamelled frontal, now in the Burgos Museum, was a
precursor of the San Miguel retable) in the period with which we are here concerned. In 1088 an altar
was dedicated to St Nicholas at Silos; and in 1092, one in Burgos Cathedral (cf. L. Serrano, El
Obispadode Burgos [Madrid, 1935],, 339, 345).
36 Italian Copper ChampleveEnamels
Cassino and that Spanish group of Benedictine monasteries which appears to
have been very closely associated (although just how, I do not know) with the
beginnings of the copper champleve enamelling industry,1 which might have
brought about the seemingly Spanish characteristics of the enamels in Italy.
While it would not be difficult to formulate other hypotheses, it would seem that
for the moment all theorizing in the matter must remain mere speculation. A
simple hypothesis to the effect that we have to do only with exportations from
the Limousin region - to Spain on the one hand and to Italy on the other -
would seem to be ruled out by a number of facts in the matter.
Stohlman cites, as examples of what he regards as possibly Italian imitations of
'Limousin' work, two crosses made of thick sheet-copper, in part enamelled and
in part engraved; one of them at Anagni, the other (no. 36) in the Museo Sacro.
In these crosses I am inclined to see, mainly because of their shapes and the de-
signs upon them, Spanish, rather than Italian, workmanship. There were, in
Italy and in Spain respectively, somewhat parallel developments of crosses
formed, as are these two, of thick sheet-copper; in Italy, in a series seemingly
beginning in the late twelfth century and continuing until well into the fifteenth;
and in Spain beginning apparently in the second half (if not indeed earlier) of the
thirteenth century and similarly continuing until well into the fifteenth.2 But the
front of the Anagni cross is in its ornamentation like the fronts of many engraved,
or engraved and enamelled, copper crosses from the northern regions of Spain,
while its crucifix is of a type common (and in a form practically precisely duplica-
ble) there. And its back is ornamented with bold scrollwork so like that, executed
in niello, on the frame of a considerably earlier (1090-1118) portable- (or super-)
altar, from Celanova,3 preserved at Orense, as to suggest the probability of a
relationship of some kind between the two objects.
The cross in the Museo Sacro I should be inclined to assign, on grounds of
details in both technique and design, to the large group of Spanish enamels
which I take to be degenerate descendants (perhaps direct, perhaps collateral)
of the fine Spanish enamels of the late twelfth century.4 A certain small detail of
both the Anagni cross and the Vatican's - i.e., the titulus according to St John
and with its words separated from each other by vertical rows of three dots, a
combination which I believe to have been almost exclusively Spanish5-appears to
me to give further testimony favoring a Spanish attribution for the two crosses.
On the other hand, I am much more inclined to accept Stohlman's suggestion
that a certain pair of Gospel-covers (nos. 17, 18) in the Museo Sacro may be
Italian in origin. The 'Crucifixion' plaque of this pair shows the titulus in the
IH2
form XPC - a form extremely rare in enamels of the so-called 'Limousin' types
(Stohlman cites, as his only other example of it on a 'Limousin' type Gospel-cover,
1 Cf. Medieval 2 Ibid., p. 125.
Spanish Enamels, p. 122.
Reproduced by M. G6mez-Moreno, in El arte romdnico espafol (Madrid, 1934), pl.
3 XL; cf. ibid.,
p. 31 f.
4 Cf. MedievalSpanishEnamels,pp. 125, 128. 5 Ibid., p. 91.
Italian Copper ChampleveEnamels 37
one in the Pavia Museo Civico1). This form is obviously related to the form
IC XC, which is quite commonly to be found on the Italian engraved copper
crosses I have mentioned above, and consequently suggests an Italian origin for
things whereon it appears; its suggestion seems, in the case of the Museo Sacro's
Gospel-covers, to be supported by a 'feeling' rather more in accordance with
Italian technique than with either presumably Spanish or presumably Limousin.
A similar divergence of 'feeling' seems (if one may judge from the photograph
reproduced) to be observable also in a 'Majesty' plaque (no. 19) of the Museo
Sacro's collection. This plaque looks to have the heads of its Four Symbols, in
relief and applied, based on the same moulds as those of the plaque no. 17, al-
though it differs from no. 17 in a number of its details. From its photograph it, like
no. 17, gives me an impression of Italian, rather than of Spanish, 'feeling,' but on
a foundation of Spanish elements. It should be noted, however, that Stohlman
- who had nos. 17 and 19 together before him, and therefore was in a better
position to judge than am I - catalogued no. 17 as 'perhaps Italian' and no. 19
as 'French.' The matter seems to be further complicated by what appear to be
marks of relations of some kind between the 'Majesty' of no. 17 and the 'Majesty,'
in niello on silver, on the exterior of the diptych made for Bishop Gonzalo of
Oviedo and datable between 1162 and 1175;2relations seemingly testified to by a
number of minor (and consequently unlikely to be transmitted unless through
direct contact of some sort) resemblances in details. On that diptych Christ is
shown with the same drapery as on the plaque, with the heavy hair with tiny
ears wrongly set (to which, in the case of the plaque, Stohlman calls attention),
with almost the same form of clasp to His Book as that of the two clasps in the
enamel, and with an oddly-shaped footstool which seems to be fairly clearly re-
flected in the footstool of the plaque, while the only essential difference between
the forms and postures of the Evangelists' Symbols on the diptych and those on
the plaque are a reversed position of the Eagle's body and a corresponding change
in the position of its scroll. I do not wish to convey an idea that the maker of the
enamel himself saw the diptych; my intention is merely to point out that the
enamel, whether made in Italy or in Spain, seems to have derived its design from
a Spanish, rather than from a French, source.
A third contribution of Stohlman's to the Introduction is of interest in this
matter. It is concerned with seven figures (nos. 20-25 and 59) in the Museo Sacro,
and some minor fragments, in copper repousse ornamented with champleve
enamel, which he, supported by reasoning apparently soundly based, suggests
were quite probably parts of a certain altar-frontal, whereof other parts survive,
in the Vatican. Now, on the garments of two of those figures are bands of vermi-
cule executed in the low-relief form which I believe to have been mainly (although
not exclusively) executed in Spain;3 several of the figures have their recipient
1 I think that the only cross, among the many crosses illustrated by Rupin in his L'Oeuvrede Limoges
(Paris, 1890-92) bearing this form of titulus, is one (shown in his fig. 328) in the Bordeaux Museum of
Antiquities.
2 Cf. Medieval 3 Ibid., p. 82 f.
Spanish Enamels, fig. 19b and p. 56.
38 Italian Copper ChampleveEnamels
hollows imperfectly filled with the vitreous pastes, just are those of many enamels
found in Spain and presumably Spanish of the thirteenth century; and the frontal
had (as Stohlman, on the evidence of its existing portions, points out) the same
general form as the Burgos Museum's frontal from Silos and something very
close to that of the frontall whose numerous fragments are preserved at Orense.
Stohlman attributes the seven figures to 'France' of the thirteenth century;
but I think that there is at least as good a case for Spain of that century, and that
they again raise the problem set by the finding in Italy of copper champleve
enamels of poorish quality, displaying a miscellaneous lot (and not a specific
group) of the elements observable in objects which I take to be of Spanish origin
rather than of Limousin.
In respect to the other, less important, thirteenth-century enamels which
Stohlman has attributed to Italy, he has in almost all instances taken a com-
mendably cautious attitude, cataloguing them either as 'perhaps Italian' or giving
a choice between Italy and, in some cases France, in some cases Spain. I have
expressed elsewhere my opinion that Spain and the Limousin - kept in close
touch with each other through pilgrimages to and from Spain - were for a time
simultaneously producing wares between which at present we are unable to
distinguish clearly.2 Similarly, I perceive no reason why Italy should not have
imitated such of those wares as came to her, if it paid her to do so. It is unfortu-
nate that the general question of the origins of champleve enamels of the so-called
'Limousin' types has been thrown into confusion by the practice - a result of
the wide French claims of the second half of the nineteenth century - of at-
tributing to 'Limoges' all enamels of those types, and the consequent (because
thought needless) infrequent preservation of records of where they had been kept
before passing into commerce or into collections. We may reasonably hope that
Prof. Stohlman's book will help us to elicit fresh material which may enable us
to isolate some clearly Italian work from the mass of thirteenth-century so-called
'Limousin.'
SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON.
1 I am not sure that this was, as is commonly assumed, a frontal; but Stohlman's argument, which
depends on the way in which the fragments were arranged, is not affected thereby.
2 Cf. Medieval
Spanish Enamels, p. 128.
Florence: Project for a Map, 1250-1296

Author(s): F. J. Carmody
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:39
Speculum.
FLORENCE: PROJECT FOR A MAP, 1250-1296
BY F. J. CARMODY
DANTE'S Florence has for centuries been a topic of particular interest, both as the
home of the great poet and as one of the greatest of mediaeval cities. The com-
munal government was always meticulous in its public records, and these are rich
in references to its citizens and to their affairs. The public monuments, churches,
and surviving mediaeval dwellings, and especially the palaces of the renaissance,
have been the object of considerable research.' But Dante's Florence, as a whole,
is known systematically only from its intangible side, for its spirit and cultural
history. The Riordinamentoof the nineteenth century saw a new interest in Floren-
tine topography, and works appeared devoted to the Bargello, Santa Trinita, the
Palazzo Vecchio, and the Mercato Vecchio, saving what could be saved of the city
of the thirteenth century. One work especially proved that the mediaeval city
was not lost: Frey, in his Loggia dei Lanzi, used notarial documents from Floren-
tine archives, and reconstructed, house by house, the area in and around the
Palazzo Vecchio, giving enough detail on other sections of the city to show that
they too could be rebuilt on the same lines. Such a project is completely feasible
only with the manuscript documents at hand; but from printed matter, a prelimi-
nary compilation may be drawn up as a guide, an exposition of method, and a
promise of fuller results.
Quite aside from any importance in the history of the arts, the changing aspects
of Florence before 1300 form a fascinating picture of material progress. Extensive
private building was made possible by the endless flow of money into the purses
of the great merchants and bankers; the commune was pressed to keep apace
with its new glory, to extend its boundaries, widen its streets, and add new thoro-
fares; political upheaval and civil war had far reaching results, as first Guelph,
then Ghibelline towers and palaces, were wrecked or destroyed. Several churches
were remodelled or enlarged, and a new cathedral begun; and two public buildings
were erected, still standing as the finest examples of mediaeval architecture.
Devastating floods and fires materially changed the city during the fourteenth
century; the renaissance saw wholesale alteration; and the nineteenth century
witnessed the much lamented clearing of huge areas. Through it all, the general
plan of the streets survived in large part, and history had translated into words
many facts long since obliterated from the extant geometrical remains.
The existing maps themselves cannot give an adequate picture of Florence for
the thirteenth century. The bird's-eye views are of small value, except for an
occasional elevation. The oldest record true throughout to the surface proportions
is the remarkable map by Bonsignori, 1584; the more it is studied, the more con-
fidence it inspires in its smallest detail. Next in date is Papini's map (18th c.),
useful for street names, but inaccurately drawn. The Ruggieri map of 1731 is
reliable in small part only. Next to the map of 1584, that by Zocchi in 1783 is
the fullest and best. During the nineteenth century more accurate surveys ap-
1 Forall
bibliographysee below,pp. 41-42.
39
40 Florence: Projectfor a Map, 1250-1296
peared, but the sweeping innovations of the Riordinamento render modem maps
of small value for a study of the mediaeval city.
There are two complete reconstructions of the map of Florence for the thir-
teenth century. Davidsohn's plan is obviously too summary to be of any real
value. On the other hand, Hartwig's map seems to have behind it a quantity of
facts, whose sources, unfortunately, were not indicated. Frey reproduced Hart-
wig's map, emending it in various places, notably around the Piazza del Duomo
and the Palazzo Vecchio, and confirming, to a certain extent, the innovations
of Hartwig. Both maps are too summary, and reproduce that of Fantozzi (1843),
with all its peculiarities. The map accompanying the present article represents
an attempt to improve on the maps mentioned thus far, and to emend the result
with all available historical material. Many of these emendations, being transla-
tions from words to lines, are problematic and must be reexamined, none at least
are gratuitous or fantastic. To justify these emendations would involve a
bibliographical procedure of very complex form; it seemed best, therefore, to
trust to the indulgence of the reader, to give a bibliography of all the works used
for these emendations, and to set up, using key numbers, a summary reference
list of the properties and the parishes as I have defined them.
The laying out of the present map started from a detailed comparison of the
plans of 1584 and 1783, controlled by later maps, with all variants kept in hand
for study and confirmation. This material was then emended from Latin docu-
ments, of which the best I have is the list of damages to Guelph properties from
1260 to 1265, as set forth in volume viI of the Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani. Many
more similar documents are still extant, as Frey ably proved, and can be readily
utilized. These documents follow the formula whereby a house is described by
naming its owners and stating what houses and streets lay next to it. In the Delizie
the whole city is divided into parishes in what appears to be an accurate manner.
Each house described constitutes a piece of a jig-saw puzzle, to be fitted to other
pieces as possible. That there should be enough such pieces would be remarkable;
yet the extensive destruction and rebuilding of the period, and the habit of noting
for such buildings the contiguous properties, have yielded a great mass of material
which can and will be put together. Using the Delizie alone, several full blocks can
be closely reconstructed; other quarters are here set forth with great misgivings,
the whole Piazza del Duomo, the area of the Ghetto, the area south of Santa
Maria degli Ughi. The first two at least could certainly be fully reconstituted,
since they were rebuilt by the city itself, and documents on purchases of lands
and properties abound.
The actual drawing of the map, the width of every street, the conformation of
the walls, illustrate the difficulty of translating words into lines. In some cases,
as for Vacchereccia and Calimala, the exact extent of the widening is known; for
the walls I have followed such clues as I have found, especially toward the north.
For the period 1250-1296 the most interesting part of the city is that near the
Mercato Vecchio. Carocci, well informed on the history of this area, made no
attempt to prepare a map for it, and I have been perhaps presumptuous to at-
Florence: Projectfor a Map, 1250-1296 41
tempt it; yet all together my solution satisfies the material used and offers a point
of departure for discussion.
The division of the city into parishes has never been fully studied. The Delizie
in two places give the material I have used: in vol. vII the parishes are set forth
presumably in full; in vol. vmIIseveral further parishes are mentioned, and a new
area treated as a part of the city proper, the regions of San Paolo and of Santa
Maria Novella. It may be assumed that the second walls marked the boundary
of the city proper at least until 1270, probably until the end of the century, and
that the third walls were too incomplete to be considered as definite limits or as
sufficient material protection.
Several problems were not undertaken here. The parts of the city south of the
Arno were excluded as being extensive and new, and the rich material on the
regions lying close to the second walls, in comitatu, were set aside in order to
centralize all effort on the oldest quarters. Another aspect of any census of houses
is a census of the inhabitants: having listed some 3,000 individuals alive during
this period, it was evident that over 10,000 could readily be identified, and most
of them put into houses. To identify any one of the rich property owners would be
of small interest in itself; but the total would give a complete topographical pic-
ture of the wealth of a very great city, wealth which made possible the progress
of the arts, and produced that truly great setting for Dante's youth.
BERKELEY,CALIF.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Archivio Storico Italiano, ser. 4, vol. xx (1887), 33 seq. (on towers).
Barbi, M., and R. Piattoli, 'La Casa di Dante,' Studi Danteschi xxii, Florence 1938 (re-
gion no. 259 only).
Boffito, G., and A. Mori, Firenze nelle vedute e piante, Flor. 1926 (fine set of maps and
views).
Carocci, G., Firenze Scomparsa, Flor. 1890.
Carocci, G., II Mercato Vecchio, Flor. 1884 (and south toward Porta Rossa).
Castelazzi, G., La Basilica di S. Trinita, Flor. 1887 (treating adjacent properties).
Cocchi, A., Le Chiese di Firenze dal sec. 4 al sec. 20, vol. I: Quartieredi San Giovanni, Flor.
1903 (excellent for whole city).
Crivellari, G., Schizzo Storico-Topograficodi Firenze e Dintorni, Flor. 1904 (small value
except for second walls).
Dami, L., and B. Barbadoro, Firenze di Dante, Flor. 1921 (good views only).
Davidsohn, R., Firenze ai tempi di Dante, trans. Theseider, Flor. 1929 (a section on houses).
Davidsohn, R., Forschungen, 4 vols, Berlin 1896-1908 (odd details).
Davidsohn, R., Geschichtevon Florenz, 4 vols, Berlin 1896-1927 (his map as appendix to
vol. I).
Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani, vol. vnI, Flor. 1776, 203-286, 'Estimo ... de' danni cagionati
da' Ghibellini'1260-1265;vol. vIII, Flor. 1777, 221-281, 'Librodel Chiodo,' 1275.
Frey, C., Die Loggia dei Lanzi zu Florenz, Berlin 1885 (best material and map).
Guccerelli, D., Stradario Biografico della citta di Firenze, Flor. 1929 (various of variable
value).
Hartwig, 0., Aelteste Geschichteder Stadt Florenz, Marburg 1875-1880 (his map in vol. II,
p. iv).
Lami, G., Lezioni de Antichita Toscane, 2 vols, Flor. 1766 (odd details).
Limburger, W., Die Gebdudevon Florenz, Leipzig 1910 (valuable for street names and
history of famous buildings).
Marinelli, O., 'La carta topografica e lo sviluppo di Firenze,' Riv. Geogr.Ital. xxvWII(1921),
fasc. 1-4.
Richa, G., Notizie Istoriche delle chiesefiorentine, 10 vols, Flor. 1754-1762 (many historical
details).
Uccelli, G. B., II Palazzo del Podestd, Flor. 1865 (fine for Bargello).
.
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LIST OF PROPERTIES BY SESTI, PARISHES,
BLOCK NUMBERS1
SESTO DI PORTA DI DUOMO
SAN TOMMASO (1-8). - 1 in FORO3 h. Geri Sizi+church, Arrighi between; SE ANGOLO

DELLACERVIA. - 3 SW Geri Sizi+Medici on N and E; SE Medici +Tosa; Tosa nr.
Ugo Medici +3 sts., Medici; here (or 7) Bern. Adimari+Medici. -4 Mazzucconi. -6
SW in FOROGeri Sizi +Agolanti; here (or 7 NE) log. Agolanti. - 5 (?) W Vic. AGOLANTI.
- 7 SE Medici; N (and 8 S) stables Tosa, Medici. - 8a N of MALACUCINA(a hostelry)
and E side of GHETTO Tosa, Medici, Pecori, Casa, Brunelleschi; SW CANTOAGOLANTI.
-Others: Berovandi +Alb. del Galluzzo, Guidineri, Bencivenni Fabri, Donodeo Ardi-
manni, Fornari, st.; Sizi; Jac. Rusticucci; Dadaioli; Cappellai; Renovandi; Ginazzi;
Caponsacchi; Pal. Scolario Ughi Medici +3 sts.
SAN CRISTOFORO, -ANO (9-14).- 9 NE or 211 SW T. NEGHITTOSA+log. Adimari (cf.
206). - 10 or 12 Jac. Rapetta Mugnari in PA. S. CRIST.+Alb. Dandoli, Visdomini.-
11 S. CRIST.rest. 16th c. - 12 N BIGALLO <Comp. della Misericordia founded 1245 <h.
of Baldinaccio Adimari, <h. opp. Baptistry 1321, <2 h. 1339, log. 1352; nr. CORSOin
PA. T. GUARDAMORTO 120 braccia high, felled 1248. - Others:Lapo Rinuccini+2 sts.,
Genazzi 2 sides; Guittone Solomei+Cambio Chiariti, Cione Fabri; Bern. Adimari+
Bruno Giudici; Alberto Galluzzo; Rustichello and Guido Bern. and Bonamico da Som-
maia; Giovaldino da Morello.
SANTA MARIA IN CAMPIDOGLIO (15-19).- 15 SW log. Tosa; in FORO 3 h. Bordello
Arrigucci and Nap. Tosa +Arrigucci. - 16 S Manfredi Pal. della Luna; in FOROTosa +
2 sts.; in FORODavanzati; Tosa+Arrigucci; SW Pal. and log. Vecchietti; SE in FORO
Tornaquinci, Maso Alfieri; Torn.+Odarrighi (or 132a); E T. CAPITORIA.- 17 S.
MARIA (Edigitria, Hodeg-) rest. 1362.- 18 Tosa+2 sts., Alfieri-Strinati, Tosa.- 19
Rinaldi; N (and/or 135a) Alfieri-Strinati, Nemi, Tosa.- Others:Ubaldini; Dinacci.
SANLEO (20-25). - 20 Ricci; Altoviti; S Arrigucci. - 20 or 24 Arrigucci +church. - 21
S. LEO de' Rigattieri or Brunelleschi.- 22 (?) Arrigucci 2 h. +st., Tosa 2 h.- 25 N
(and E?) Boni; Agli; Guidalotti.- 23 NW or 26 W Brunelleschi. - Others:Ambrosino
Boni Ambrosi; Rinaldi; Baldo Ridolfi Arrigucci; Caffaggini; Chiarissimi.
SAN SALVATOR (26-33). - 26 NW Boni t.; nr. Fighineldi, Filitieri da Castiglione, Brunel-
leschi.- 26 or 27 Odoaldo Tosa +2 sts., Ardimanni; Odoaldo +Lagnini, Guidirossi, st.;
Marzoppino Azzi Tosa+2 sts., Arrigucci, Aldobr. Guidirossi.- 27 Ardimanni; NE
Pecori; NW da Castiglione, Ferrantini, Fighineldi; here or 14a Rosso Tosa and Bern.
del Sasso +3 sts., PA. - 28 S. SALV.enlarged 1737.- 29 N PAL.ARCIVESCOVILE burned
1533, cleared 1895.- 29 S or 30 EPISCOPIO di S. Giov. built 1285 (also claimed for parish
S. Reparata). -32 S. RUFFILLO,parish till 1441, rest. 1620; nr. (33?) Lottieri; Boni;
Guidalotti; Bonizi. -33 Del Bambo; Chiarucci; Tempi; Falchi; S Lottini. - Others:
Baschiera Tosa +2 sts., Della Pressa on 2 sides (26, 27?); Rosso Tosa+st., Odoaldo,
Migliorello Lagnini, Guidorosso.
1 For economyand claritypleasenote: givennamesin -o, -e, -a, rarelyin -i (a half dozenwomenare
mentioned,usually recognizable);the particledi (patronymic)is omitted and the followingname
pluralizedin -i as for mostfamilynames;forthe latterthe commonparticlesde'anddegliareomitted;
family names in -a are retainedwithout particle (Tosa), but their pluralsin -e avoided (Bertelda,
Scala,but note the commonerMalaspini).To set out the namesof propertyowners,they alone are
in Romanletters,all namesof streetsand monumentsin smallcapitalsRoman,all blocknumbersin
bold facedcharacters,all othermaterialin italics.The abbreviationsusedare: T. or t. for tower,h. for
house,Pal. for palace,PA. for Piazza, < to indicateoriginalownerwithin our period,hencetransfer
by the directionof the arrow,finally+ to showcontiguityof propertiesas enumeratedeachtouching
the first one named.For the MAP, pleasenote bridgesalla Carraia(west) and Rubaconte(east).
43
44 Florence: Project for a Map, 1250-1296
SANTA REPARATA, as parish here see Del. 7.271: Ser Alb. Ristori Martini +st., Bonani,
Tramontani.
SAN MICHELEBERTELDA,as parish here see Del. 8.268.
SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE (34-48).- 34 S Orlandini; here (and/or 25) Guidalotti, Del
Migliaccio, Dell'Orco, Bombaroni; Donato Bonaparte+Jac. Beccuti, Gianni Tannari,
Manelli, st. -35 Bonagio Siminetti Bellindotti +church, sts., Uguccio Ruggerotti;
Pezzolo di Forte Pezzoli in 1271 <Cappelli Truffoli, by 1300 <Bambo, Bonizi.- 36 S.
MARIA enlarged 13th c., new cloisters 1568, new campanile 1630.- 37 (and/or 138b)
Amieri; Barucci.- 39 Manovelli; Martini. -41 Bischieri; Doni. -44 Mondragone;
Tornaquinci. -45 Armati; Canesecchi; Rondinelli. -47 S Cerretani. -48 N Aldo-
brandini. - Others: Gherardo Baldanza +Forestani, Falconi, Jac. da Cirignano, Rossi,
st.
SAN LORENZO (49-55). -49 SW Rondinelli.- 50 Taddei.- 51 SPED. S. Lor. on walls
1295. - 52 S. LOR.with campanile, rebuilt 1418. - 53 NE Ser Forese nr. PORTASPADAI.
--55 Fastello Tosa nr. PORTAS. LOR.+walls 2 sides and sts. 2 sides; nr. Malvicino da
Spugnole; Ugo da Coldina; Ubaldino Albizi da Ascianello and bros.; Guinizzingo and
Ugolino Cavalcanti da Ascianello; Marchesello Orlandini; Pal. of capitani.- Others:
Ciantello Bongianelli +Tancredi, Ruffoli, Rondinelli, Giuda Rustichi; Ricovero Benci da
Morello+Ser Dando; Adimaro and Boso Guicciardini; Forese Adimari and bros.; Giov.
and Bern. da Villanova; Adimari +Ranieri da Fiesole, Adamo, 2 sts.
SESTO DI SAN PANCRAZIO
SANT' ANDREA (101-112).- 101 or 103 in CORONCINAPesci, Bonacc. Pinadori.- 102
Macci; Bostichi. - 104 at arch nr. CALIMALA and 103 N Elisei (and 101?); 104 W
Romaldelli t.; here or 102-3 Tebaldi Vitella, da Filicaia. - 105 N Pal. Amieri in FORO
1280; Caponsacchi t.; NE TABERNACLE+Bern. Dugolino Bonsi, Giov. Luca da Cignano;
Luca +church, Caponsacchi. - 105a S and 108 N Toschi, Malagonnella, Ubaldini.-
106 S. ANDREAdestr. 1889. - 108 SE Pal. Catellini da Castiglione 13th c. - 109 Toschi
t.; Lamberti; Pilli. - 111 Cavalcanti +Lamberti; here or 401a-b in FORONovo Gian-
donati, Vitellini, Arca; 5 t. of Siminetti, Sannella, Bostichi, Giandonati, Cavalcanti; in
FORO T. CAPITOROand T. PIENA. - 112 Bostichi; Giandonati.
SAN MINIATO FRA LE TORRI (113-122). - 113 S and 114 N in CORTEDELL'ABBACO(but
cf. 115 W 120 E) Abbachi, Pilli.- 113 or 116 Abbachi, Cosi, Palla. - 116 PA. LOG.
PILLI-ERRI; SW Pilli, Girolamo Testa, Scarlatti; Sassetti; Anselmi.-- 117 S. M1N.
rebuilt 15th c., t. belongedto Pilastri, Palermini, Strozzi, Pilli, Erri, Sassetti, Minerbetti,
Elisei, Lamberti.- 116 or 118 W Scarlatti+PA. SCARLATTI,PELLICCERIA,VIC. ERRI,
log. Ricchi. - 117 nr. churchVIALAMBERTI que vadit versusdomumde Tosinghiis. - 118
Sassetti betw. GUANTO and church; Serzelli; Girolamo Testa; Minerbetti; Pilli; Anselmi;
in FORO(105?) Boldroni Odarringhi, Davanzati; WNW Da Sommaia.- 118 or 118a
Serzelli t. in PA. S. MIN.- 118a Lamberti; Cipriani; Toschi; Pilli; Catellini.- 119
Strozzi (or 120a); Palermini; Erri; Davanzati. - 120 NE T. ROCCAand Erri; in PORTA
ROSSADavanzati, othersin Vic. ERRI.- 120 or 121 Foresi 2 t. >Palla. - 120a or 125 in
PA. MARMORA Foresi.-- 121 or 122 Giramonti; Foresi-Monaldi. - Others: Aldobr.
Abrusce di Man. Giamboni +Lambertini, Jacopini, Becchi; Rinucci.
SANTA MARIA DEGLI UGHI (123-128). - 123 or 122 Monaldi. - 123 or 124 Soldanieri
Mula+Monaldi.- 123 or 125 Trinciavelli. - 124 mid. EW Soldanieri, Del Saggiro,
Cambi. - 125 S Davanzati.- 126 S. MARIAprimerana; nr. Guido di Ricovero.-
125a Trinciavelli, Gondi. - 127 E Sassetti; Albizo Trinciavelli+Gondi, Corte Trinc.;
Trinc. +Cambi, Orlando Albizi, Lottieri Peramezza. - 128 shops of minor guilds; Mula
de' Soldanieri; Conti Guidi. - Others: Mazzinghi +Ridolfini, Guido Liuto; Mazz. +
Calderascia, 3 sts.; Adimari; Mangiacagni; Ponzetti.
SAN PIERO BUONCONSIGLIO(118?, 129-131).--129 W Trinciavelli, Strozzi; NE Pal.
Sassetti 14th c.- 129 or 130 Bencivenni Grifi+Anselmi, Sassetti.- 130 in PELLIC-
CERIA (or to S?) Sassetti, Cipriani, Toschi, Serzelli, Pilli. - 131 S. PIERO in palchetto,
rest. 1736; nr. cloisters S. DONATO;CANONICA in chiasso (130 N?); in FoRo Boldrone
Odarrighi, Davanzati.- Others: Jac. Tornaquinci <Ubaldino Marabottini; Villanuzzi
3 h.+Girolami, Bilenchi, Attaviano Burnetti; Villanuzzi+Mocco Conciata, Sighieri,
Panciolla; Jac. Torn.+Davanzati, Bonella Odoaldo; Giudice Torn.+Betti, Cipriani,
Lappuccio Ubaldini, Strinati; Giud. Torn.+Davanzati, Canolli, Bonella Odarrighi;
Ghiselli; Castellani.
SAN DONATODE' VECCHIETTI (132-136). - 132 SW Pescioni; W Teri, Volta. - 132a SW
CANTOAL DIAVOLO. - 133 W Pescioni. - 134 S. DON. rebuilt 1584. - 135 N Vecchi;
here or 137 S Teri, Agli. - 135a NW Rinaldi. -136 Giachinotti-Tornaquinci. -
Others: Aldobr. Caccia+Lott. Morelli; Vecchi+2 sts., Stef. Uguccioni, Guido Cini;
Marsilio Vecchi +Azzo Saffetti, Fil. Vecchi; T. BIGONCIA +Vecchi; Rinaldo Guidi
Cappia+3 sts., Bonfigl. Boninsegna; Caccia and Da Campi++2 sts., Carlo Ulivieri,
Caccia; Manetto Albizi +Filigni da Campi, Manuccio, Baverini; Aldobr. Abrusce <
Manetti +Albertini, Jacopini, Bacchi; Zuffanelli.
SAN MICHELEBERTELDA (136-145).- 136 Tornaquinci, Marabottini; NE Pal. Sertini
14th c.; Eschini, Attavanti, Giachinotti. - 137a or 20 Arrigucci. - 138 S and 145 N
PA. later larger for Teatini<Agli. - 139 Aldobr. Lippi.- 142 Antinori <Boni delle
Catene. - 144 S. MICH. new church 1604 larger to N and NE <Medici, Martelli, Del
Rosso, Tornaquinci, Franceschi, Mazzei, Ardinghelli. - 146 NW Aldobr. Lippi.-
Others:Tornaquinci (Jac. +2 sts.; Giulli da Peretola, Uguccione Morelli; Jac. +Davan-
zati, Canolli, Bonella Odoaldi; Giudice+Strinati, Davanzati). In PA. S. MICH. Am-
manati Bonaffedi or Compagno Corsi +Boninsegna Compagni, Ricco Tignosi, Borghesi,
Amman. Compagni; Gianni Torn. +Giandoni, Caccia, puteus; Ran. Caccia+Manieri;
Ran. +Incontri Giannoli; Bertelda; Teri; Serpi; Saccioli.
SAN PANCRAZIO(146-158).--149 or 158 on WALLS Manetto Scala +sts., Corrado da
Montemagno, Cambio, Cello Bonaguida; perhaps on WALLSDonatuccio Riguardi, Che-
reveleria; Chittadino Zannini, Condani Vinci, SPED.ALTIPASSI. - 152 mid. N Gherardi,
Uguccioni, Del Riccio. - 152 or 154 Villanuzzi+Villan., Girolami, Bilenchi, Attav.
Burnetti.- 155 S. PANCR.later reducedto 2/3 area; SPED.to W or NW or outside walls. -
156 E Rucellai. - 158 N Pal. Sommaia +Borboni del Monte. - Others:Ranieri Caccia
+Bonacosa, Ulivieri, Davizzino Giovanni, Carboni Ulivieri; Mocca Conciatore +Sighi-
eri, Panciolla, Villanuzzi; Soldanieri; Mangione; Serpi; Angioli; Federighi; Rucellai;
Migliorelli; Gualcelli; Acerbi.
SAN PAOLOand SANTAMARIA NOVELLA as parishes here by 1268 see Del. 8.221.
SESTO DI PORTA SAN PIERO

OR SAN MICHELE as parish here see Del. 8.278-9: Macci, Galigai, Cavalcanti, Ardimanni,
Elisei, Tedaldini, da Rabbiacanina, etc.
SAN BARTOLOMMEO (201-204).- 201 Macci.- 202 S. BARTOLO tra' Pittori (sic 1264)
- 203 or 204 Adimaro
suppressed 1768; nr. Ulivieri Visdomini +Torello dello Scarlatto.
Scarlattini +Bonacc. and Bindo Adimari, sts. 4 sides; Bonacc. Ad. +sts. all sides. - In
CORTEDELL'ABATE Lapi, Adimari, osteria de' Lapi.
SANTA MARIA NIPOTECOSA(205-207).- 205 S. MARIA al canto del giglio 1275.- 206
Bellinc. Adimari +church, st., Gianni and Brunicandi; Adimari N in CoRso and CORTE-
MOZZA;Adimari 4 h. +Sizi 2 h.; Ad. +Borsellini, Caviccioli, Saverigi, Pintavalle. -206
or 209 in CORTEMOZZA Adimari +Rogg. Rossi, Ser Cipriano; Aldobr. and Filigni +Bern.
and Ranieri Adimari; Bern. Adi. +Aldobr. and Bonacc. - 207 E Alamanno Caviccioli +
Gianni Borsellini; S in CoRso Fil. Bern. Adimari +G. Bors., Aldobr. Cavicc. - 208 in
CORTEMOZZA Gianni Mazzocchi, Adimari. - Others: Bern. Adimari+Sizi, Bindi, Lapi;
Guido Adimari; Corso Bonaffedi+ Carro Burnetti, Vermiglio Alfani, Donati, Galigai, Ricci.
SAN MICHELE IN PALCHETTO (208-210, 207?). - 208 in CORTEMOZZA Rogg. Rossi Adimari
+Folco Bosi, Aldobr. Uberti, Ser Cipriano. - 209 T. PAGLIAZZA prison in 1268 in PA.
S. MICH.; S Tegliaro Aldobrandi +st., Adimari, Jac. Rusticucci (+2 sts.), Bonizi; Adi-
mari in CORTEMOZZA +st., Bern. Giudice, Maso Brunicandi, PA.; Corso Bonaffede Carri
Adimari+Guido Riccio, church, 2 sts.-210 S. MICH. destr. 1785. - Others: Uberto
Carliani Bellincioni; Bottaccio.
SANPIEROCELORO (211-220). - 211 or 212 Misericordia 1575 <Arte dei Corazzai.- 213
SPED.S. Giov. salt store 1288, destr. 1296. - 214 or toward215 CANONICA destr. 1339.-
216 to 218 Pal. Visdomini 14th c. - Others (some in S. BENED.?):Bonelli+Giano da
Cannetto, Ranieri Ricci, 2 sts.; Fil. Bartoli Bruni+Azzo coreggiaio, Fioretti, Alberto
Rocchi.
SAN BENEDETTO (221-224) see Del. 8.277-8. - 222 S. BENED.de' Tedaldini or delle Pal-
lottole, rebuilt smaller 1418.- 223 Pal. Cambi versus piscinale+4 sts.; nr. Cambi+
Bencivenni, Lotto Carretti.- 224 (?) Clone Coltellino Bonizi+Jac. Bonizi, Cianga
Solomei, Maffeo Arrighi; Bonizi betw. Giov. Tedaldini and Bart. Cortegiani in 1418.-
In VIA MACCH.Maccheroni. - Others:Rustici, Abati, Galigai, Pazzi.
SAN MICHELE VISDOMINI (225-237). - 225 as in Hartwig. - 226 S. REPARATA, faqade 15
feet W of Duomo; nr. Ristoro Martini, Bonani, Tramontani. - 227 campanile or at NE
corner.- 228 NW SPED. S. Giov. 1296 <Franc. Ardingo Medici; along W to cut VIA
NUOVA 1283 <Cenno Chiari, Puccio Bencivenni, Puccio Galizi, Ser Guido Spada,
Bartolino and Bern. Lamberti, Gianni and Giardino Cornacchini, Mazza Lottario,
Giardino Giovanni; S Bonacc. Bellie Adimari; N at gate Maso Risaliti +2 sts., caffagium
episcopatus. - 229 SE mid. Capelli <Bonaccorsi; NE Medici; in VIA BALLAPazzo
Cavalcanti, G. Medici, Bonfiglioli, Baglioni.- 229 or 230 BALLAin angulo Fioretti +
Baronci, Aliotto Visdomini, Gherardo Maestri, Compagni, Jac. Saracini, Falconieri,
Giunta Coreggiaio Manse (+mercatantes), Trivigiana stufa, 5 stores, dyeing shop; Bru-
nellini; Bertini. - 231 new S. MICH.1364 <Nero Lippi Palagio. - 232 Tedaldi, Silviani,
Ghinetti.- 233 Tedaldi. - 234 S. MICH. destr. 1366, on WALLS 1275.- 235 outside
WALLS1290.- 236 E or 275 W SPED.S. Matteo 1288.- 237 SW Bischieri. - Others:
Gherardo Tedaldini Guidalotti Fioretti. VIA MARTELLO namedfor Martello Ghetti.
SANTAMARIAIN CAMPO(238-246). - 239 or 241 Bischieri.- 240 S. MARIAenlarged 1275
rebuilt 14th c. - 246 Salviati, Ricciardi, Portinari.
SANTAMARIAALBERIGHI (247-253).- 249 Tedaldini. - 250 S. MARIAalleys each side
closed1508.- 251 N in PA. piscina; SW Ricci t. - 252 (?) Jac. Gucci and Carnino Ghiberti
+3 sts., Schembagni. - 253 (?) Chiarissimo Alluoda +2 sts., PA. DONATI.- 248 Simone
Donati, Bosi, Taddeo, Foresi, +Dietiaiuti Donati, church, 2 sts.; perhaps Jac. Gucci +
chiasso, st., Manganolla, Fil. Bruni.
SAN MARTINOEPISCOPO (254-263). -255 Folco Ricoveri Portinari; S Pal. Giuochi.-
256 S. MARGARITAde' Giuochi rebuilt 13th c. -257 Borromei >Pazzi. - 259 S side E to
W Bonaccorsi, Donna Lippa (14th c.), Cione Brunetti, Mardoli, Bellincioni, Geri Belli
Alaghieri; W Donati, Cocchi; E Lippa (14th c.), Giuochi. - 262 or 264 prison till 1290.
- 263 S. MART.del vescovo.- Others: Arrigo Spediti+Lazzari, Girardino Rudighieri;
Migliore Bella+Abati, T. BOCCADI FERRO,classus communis; Rinuccini; Giugni;
Razzanti; Maleffetti.
SAN STEFANODELPOPOLO(264-267). - 264 NW T. CASTAGNA;nr. capitani h. destr. 1250
rebuilt 1285. - 265 BADIA rebuilt 1285 to enter on W; campanile wrecked 1307; + N
S. STEFANOad abbatiam.- 266 SPED. S. Niccolo on WALLS 1276.
SAN PROCOLO (268-274).- 268 W casa Giunta rebuilt 16th c. - 269 Cerchi Bianchi. -
270 S. PROC.enlarged 1279; nr. Pandolfini Rinuccini. - 271 NE Pal. Pazzi 14th c.,
parts <Scolari.- 272 and 279 Pal. Borghese <Salviati, Gherardo Silviani. - 273 W
Giraldo di Dante; NW casa Giraldi 16th c.- 274 W Pal. Altoviti 14th c. <Albizi.-
Others: Guccio Ghiberti +Migliorato, Bonaguida Orlandini, Peruzzi; Benincasa cor-
razaio+Formichi, PA.
SAN PIERO MAGGIORE.- 276 E Pal. Albizi 14th c. - 278 W log. Albizi; N Pal. Ales-
sandri 14th c. <Albizi; SE Pal. Rittaf^-Bastari.- 280 W Niccolini or Bastari-Rittaf6;
E taverns.- 282 SW Pal. Salviati 14th c.; NE chapel and SPED. Certosa 13th c.-
283 E mid. Donati t.; Frate Jac. Sigoli and Le Fratelle 1279; NE Donne Convertite
rinchiuse a Pinti 1279; Pal. Corbizi 13th c. - 283 or 284 Masi Vinciguerra Uccellini
on PA. - 284 SE new gate 1294; W Albizi; E nunnery. - Unidentified sts. in this sesto:
VIA DAL CEREGIO1291, VIA DAL GIARDINO1294, VIA PIETRASANTA chi va agli Scharpen-
tieri, VIA FIESOLANA1297.
SESTO DI SAN PIERO SCHERAGGIO
SANMICHELEI ORTO(301-307). - 301 Compiobbesi t. - 301-2 W 2 h. Guadagnoli h.

and t., betw. them T. FORNACE of Cavalcanti; here or 111 Cavalcanti +CALIMALA, 2 sts.,
Guadagnoli, Jac. Bellincioni. - 301 or 302 in SETTEBOTTEGHE Ricci bank. - 301 or
303 or 305 Abati+Galigai, 3 sts.; Spligliato Mozzi, Corbizi. -303 Alberti; Lapo and
Gherardino Cerchi, Abati, Cione Bello; N capitani of Or S. M.; S Cavalcanti. - 304 S.
MICH.log. 1290 42 X32 braccia; nr. Chiarmontesi, Romaldelli, Compiobbesi, Abati.-
305 mid. W TIRATOIO DELLAPEGOLAby 16th c.; NE Galigai t. <Greci.- 306 Pal.
Cerchi <Alepri. - 307 E Pal. Cerchi, SIGNORIA 1293-98, t. and log.; W Pal. Bonaguisi;
SW log. in faccia ai Tiebalducci.- Others: Cavalcanti (Cante, Ranieri, Schiatta)+
Tegliare Giamberti; Banderai; Farcettai; Frescari; Mozzi; Migliori; Macci; in PA. OR
S. M. CURIAdel sesto del Borgo+Manno Albonetti; CURIAd'Oltrarno+Chiarmontesi.
SANTA MARIA SOPRA PORTA as parish here see Del. 8.242.
SANTA CECIUA(308-316). - 310 S. CEC.destr. 1304. - 311 W Giandonato Infangati; E
Ghetto Malaspini; S Cambino Porrucci. - 312 NW Bern. Rossi +2 sts., Cione Schicchi,
Rossi, >to widen VACCHERECCIA
1307.- 309 or 312 nr. POR S. M. and VACCH.Fifanti,
Cappiardi, Guidi, Tinozzi, Galli, Girolami, Amidei, Scolari. In VACCH.Pal. Malaspini +
Villanuzzi, Manieri; Malaspini+Manetto Bonci, Panchesi, Riccialbani; Uguccioni+
Rodolfo, Rustico Alberti, Lapo Gianni, Malaspini; Gianni Malaspini. - 315 Salterelli t.
SAN STEFANO AL PONTE (317-328). - 318 NE Pal. Bartolommei <Girolami, Niccolini;
W Girolami and Gherardini; NW CANTO GIROLAMI.- 318 or 319 in PA. Amidei 2 t. -
319 (?) Fil. Bene, Cappella. - 319 or 409 T. TREPPIEDE at PONTE VEC.- 320 Pal.
Girolami mid. N to S.- 322 S. STEF. rebuilt 1233 and 16th c. - 324 Cignamocchi,
Beltramo Bisvigliani, Baroncelli, Silvestro Manetti, Giov. Cenni; mid. E LA ZECCA
1350; SW Pal. Pulci. - 325 W side N to S Beltramo Bisvigliani, Giov. Cenni, Giov.
Donati Cennini.- 328 on LUNGARNO Lippi (LUNGARNO here 14 braccia broad,i.e. 8.17
m.). - Others; Fil. Gherardini+Franc. Bonaprese and Cinelli; Pegalotti and Lippo
Gherardini+Guardavilla, Salterelli, plovitorium; Aldobr. Acquerelli+Manetto Chiaris-
simi, Bald. Tagliaolo, Bonsostegni; Gher. Chiarissimi+Ghib. Ghiberti Classo, Acque-
relli, Ghib. Manetti; Armagnati; Sapiti; Vinatteri.
SAN PIERO SCHERAGGIO (329-341). - 329 Altafronti castle till 1304.- 328 Lippo Stremo
Gherardini on LUNGARNO;Lippo St. +Altafronti, Ugolino Feci. - 327 or 330 or 333 (?)
Calcagni +Bonfigliolo Speziali, Salio Bigonci; Giov. da Remolo +Alamanni, Rimber-
tini; Benintendi Anziani+Gano Cardati, Priori; Ranieri Baldacchesi+Salvo Donati,
Ricovero Bongiani. - 331 S Pal. Castellani. - 335 N Gianni Barba +church. - 337 N
Duccio and Jac. Mancini+Dantino Pietro Manieri+Magalotti; S mid. Piero Benin-
casa; E Duccio Magalotti. - 338 NW Guido Ugolini Rossi; SW Gianni Cambi Barba; S
side W to E Uguccione Tizzoni, Roggieri Doni, Lottieri Bonaguida Balsami; SE Tedaldo
Montacolli; mid. N Foraboschi; NE Betto Bonaccorsi, Rustichi, Ridolfo Dietaiuti, Ser
Cialo, Flonte Rinieri. - 341 N Cenni Benci, Antella, Ubaldino Ricci Bene; N mid. E to
W Dedi Bonincontri; SW Borgognino Viviani +Dedi Bonincontri; SE and E. exc. NE
Dedi Bonicontri; S mid. Foraboschi. - 340 W Manieri, Bello Alberti; E (or 340a W)
prison destr. 1290 >Lapo Corsi Bonaccolti. - 340a W and S Fil. Magalotti. - 342 NE
corner N to S Lapo Giov. Forasassi, Isabetta Manucci, Marzi Rinuccini; SE Gianni
Barba, at cornerForaboschi; SW Rustichi, Attaviani. - Others:Galli; Villanuzzi.
SAN ROMOLO (342-350).- 344 or nr. Malaspini, Infangati, Gugialferri, Tebalducci; N
shop of Piero Dini +Ser Grazioli. - 345 S. ROM.degli Uberti destr. 1349. - 346 CANO-
NICA+Giov. Antellesi. - 347 new S. ROM.1356 +Pal. Rinuccini 14th c. - 348 S MER-
CANZIA14th c.; Nero Bonizi +2 sts., Pal. VECCHIO,Lotto Jacopi.- 349 Cerchi. - 350
NW log. Cerchi 13th c.; S Pal. Rinuccini 14th c. - Others:Uberti; Rustichelli.
48 Florence: Project for a Map, 1250-1296
SANT' APOLLINARE(351-359). 351 SE on PA. Trincia Bertalotti, Riccio Biribelli; on
BADIA walls Bonagiunta (Vinta) Guidi Rosa; on W of walls S to N Albizino Boscoli, Jac.
Riccomanni, Galgani, Vinta Rosa, Benusci, Torrighelli, Bonaffede Guerzoni; others:
Migliore Sezza; Sacchetti+Cocchi, Giordani, Boninsegna. -352 BARGELLO(log. 1287)
1255 <Ser Bonaventura Ricci Siribelli; SW Boninsegna and Trincia Bertalotti +2 h. of
same; Rustichello +Guido Galgani; Guinizingo Cante Guidi Rosa 2 h.; Beliotto Torrin-
ghelli+Bonav. Benusci; Jac. Riccomanni (NW?); Boscoli and Ciuccio Albizi; Guido
Guerzoni; same with Bart. Bonaffede Guerzoni SE (or352a SW); SW Bonaiuti Toldrago,
1279 <Fil. Petrasini, 1289 <Neri; to enlarge BARGELLO1307 <Bonaguida Fabri Tosini;
Davanzati Asini; NW Boscoli t. - 357 W Magalotti and Mancini t. - 359 N to S Cione
Gallia, Dardoccio Sacchetti, Tegliari Donzelli, Raffacano and Doni da Lastra, Rusti-
chello Raffacani. - Others:Bucelli +Guadagni, Spigliati, Paganelli, Stefanelli; Bucelli +
Ridolfini, Dati, Nuti Guarnescia; Bucelli+Schelmi, Marchi, Guidalotti, Al. Cavolini,
Guadagnuzzi; Bald. Mula +Pizzichelli, Migliorato Dominici, Bonaguida Orlandini,
Peruzzi; Ottoboni Bonacci-+Azzi, Martalori, Ranieri, Puglanese; Spinello Schembi+h.
capitani; Salvo Consigli; Fabri Tosini.
SANFIRENZE(360-368). - 360 N to S Vinta Raffacani (+Rustichello Raf. above),Vinta
Giandoni, Lamberto Cenci, Spinello Bald. Mula (on VIA FONDELLO). - 361 Manieri.-
363 S. FIR. chorus enlarged 1276, destr. 1772.- 364 (?) Guido Mancini+Magalotti;
h. <Ug. Palazzolo.- 365-366 Baccelli, Pieri (15th c.).-- In VIA FONDELLO 1310 the
SIGNORIA+Jac. Asino+Ghino Frescobaldi.- Others: Guerniero Ristori Dominici.
SAN REMIGIO(369-383). - 369 N Fagni. -369, 373 or 374 Malaspini +Manetto Bonci
Panchesi, Riccialbani, Villanuzzi, Ridolfo Uguccioni, Rust. Alberti. - 371 TIRATOIO DE
GRANE1584. - 373 (and/or 374) Bagnesi +Bono Jacopi, Forese Caccia, Cambio Agnani.
- 374-375-376 Gherardo Aldighieri on PA. 1303. 375 or nr. on PA. Pera, Guidalotti,
Migliacci, Da Quona.- 378 S. ROMEOenlarged 14th c.- 380 N log. Peruzzi; S Pal.
Rustici 14th c. - 381 E Pal. Alberti by 1345. -382 NE posterula TEUZI FABRI. - Oth-
ers: Taldo Rinuccini +Zampetti, Signoretti; Abati +Signoretti, Buenecchio.
SAN JACOPOTRA' Fossi (384-389).- 384 Pal. Bardi 14th c.- 386 S. JAC.; nr. in PA.
Rustici, Berto Rinieri.--389 mid. N to S Pal. Borboni 14th c. <Peruzzi; SE angle
Peruzzi.- Others: Paganelli +Insaliti, Compagni (-Bagnesi?); Dosso Gherardi, Abati,
Arcetri Nomi, Taldo Rinuccini, Piero Benincasa, Donato Valenti; Benintendi +Frea-
singhi, Bencivenisti, Gianni Zampuli; a burella of Bandino Altapace.
SAN SIMONEE GIUDA (390-397). -391 Peruzzi. -393 S Ugolini.- 393 and 354 Salvo
Consigli N to S section+Foresi, Cecco Abboranti.- 394 SE Cintoia and Parenti. -
395 S STINCHE1299 <Uberti.- 396 Borso Uberti, Maghinardi, Federigo di Farinata,
Grifo Uberti; N Resalito Rossi +walls and church.- 397 S. SIMONErebuilt 1243 and
17th c. - On walls Donato Compagni (-Bagnesi?) +Falconieri, Benintendi, Ranieri
Bagnesi, Lotto Abati. - Others:Guidineri; da Fighine; da Rada; Riccasoli.
SESTO DI BORGOSANTA TRINITA
SANTAMARIASOPRAPORTA(401-407). - 401 or 403 in canto FORIGianozzo Giandonati,
Guerrieriand Zozzo Arrighi +st., Rodolfo Giandonati, Pesci. - 401-403 in FOROGian-
donati + Guerrieri, Cappiardi, Casciaioli. - 401b (and/or 406a) in PORTAROSSABos-
tici, Ranieri Piazza, Gualfreducci, Zozzo; in angulo FORIBostici. -401a SE T. SPE-
DALE+Siminetti. - 401a, 308 or 401 Cavalcanti+Siminetti, Montacolli. -404 S.
MARIA later S. BIAGIO rebuilt 13th c., burned 1304, rebuilt smaller <Giandonati for Arte
della Seta; Pal. capitani di parte guelfa 1267. -405 CANONICA -Arte Seta; Pal. Lam-
berti enlarged to SW 14th c., rebuilt 15th c. -406 S Nobili. -407 E Pal. Giandonati
14th c. - Others:Ruffaldi; Scolari; Schicchi; Avvocati; Spavaldi; Squarciasacchi.
SAN STEFANOAL PONTE (408-410). -408 S Pal. Baldovinetti 14th c.; NW Guidi t.; SE
Girolami t.; perhaps Gualduccio Rinucci +Spada, Spinelli da Mosciano, Jac. Ghiselli,
Lamberti. -409 S T. LEONE+Pacini Lottori, 2 sts., Arno; Pacini L. +Uberto Gianni
Amidei, PONTE VEC., LUNGARNO,POR S. M.; mid. E T. BIGONCIOLAof Amidei (Giov.
Amidei 1254). -410 N Pal. Buondelmonte 13th c..- In POR S. M. Barone Baroni4-
Marchi, Malefoli, Venedichi, Giuntarelli.- Others: Pacini, Morelli, Rustico Cambi,
Dietigueri; Pacini, T. FORTECATENE;Scilinguari, Carlo Belloni; Benucci.
SANTI APOSTOLI (411-424). -411 E Pal. Acciaioli and Isimbardi 14th c.; E Angelotti; W
Pace Angelotti <Bene, da Barberino.- 412 N Pal. Buondelmonte (and Acciaioli?). 413
S Pal. Acciaioli 14th c. - 414 S Pal. Acciaioli. -415 S Altoviti; N giardino Borgherini by
1534. - 415 or 416 Nobili. - 416 S Altoviti. - 416-421 in PA. Oddo Altoviti+Gualte-
rotti, Ramalanti (cf. Gualt. -Ramalanti nr. domus hostium); Oddo +T. CACCIALUPI,
Dolcebeni, Sartori. -417 Acciaioli; perhaps Ardingo Jacopi Pegalotti +church, sts.,
Lucherini. -418 or 420 on Arno Gentil. Bonacc. Massaio -Rinieri Bonavoglia. - 419
SS APOST.+-cemetery1217, rest. with CANONICA added 14th c. - 424 mid. N Pal. Davan-
zati 14th c. <Davizzi, Barbolini.- 422 N Milanese, Altoviti. - Others:Leone Acciaioli
+Giotto Pace, Ugol. Bonaccolti; Leone Ac.+Pollino; Leone Ac.+Pace Angelotti,
Caccia Longobardi, 3 sts.; Coppo Ciampani +Manetto Signeri Gherardi, Rugg. Abrus-
cati, Ser Graziano Jacopi Scala; Nero Attiliati; Bombeni; Gualterotti.
SANTA TRINITA (424-438).--424 Monaldi, Mazzinghi, Bene.--425 W Pal. Buondel-
monte 14th c. <Acciaioli, Scala, Bene.- 426 NW Pal. Spini destr. 1288, t. removed1823.
- 426 or 427 oratoryS. MICHELEby 1318. - 427 SPED.S. Trinita till 1256 SE at bridge;
E mid. Pal. Gianfigliazzi <Scala, built by Ruggerini, Fastelli, Petriboni; SE Rugg. Adi-
mari, Spinello Rugg. Ad. Rossi+PA., Lungarno. -428 S. TRIN., 75 X33 braccia, tran-
septs 54 br., nave then longer to W, rebuilt 1250 and 1383, campanile removed1388, new
cloisters to SW 1584; Oddo Zoccholi +church, Carini, Greci. -429 SPED. S. Trin. en-
larged 1277 in VIA PARIONE by Manetto Spini. -430 N in PARIONE Pal. Ardinghelli;
Marchese di Marignano; Bartolo Corsini; cleared 15th c. for Palla-Strozzi chapel; PA.
namedfor Pietro Gaetani da Pisa; on PA. Gaetani, Gianfigliazzi (at cappella maggiore),
Spini, factories, largely razedfor monastery 1277; SW casa dei Vallombrosani15th c.; NE
Giunta Pilleretti+SPEDALE, Capodischiatta, chiasso; nr. Diagonetto Bonelli -sts.,
Gualducci, Villanuzzi+Falco Bocchetti, Schiatta Ubertini. -431 E Pal. Minerbetti
14th c. <Dino Compagni, parts <Bombarda.- 432 (?) SPED.S. Bartolommeoa Mugnone
by 1295. -434 N mid. Compagni, Altoviti, Ardinghelli. - Others:Scali opposite Bon-
talenti; Ugo and Manetto Spini on PA. S. Trin.; Jac. Scala on PA. 2 sides; Pilleretti on
PA.; Soldanieri.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
The Concept of the New or Second Rome in the Middle Ages

Author(s): William Hammer
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:40
Speculum.
THE CONCEPT OF THE NEW OR SECOND ROME
IN THE MIDDLE AGES
BY WILLIAM HAMMER
IN spite of the decline of the Roman Empire and the numerous reverses which
had befallen Rome and its widespread territories, the hope for a restoration of
the old glory and might continued to occupy the mind of the mediaeval man. For
both the admirer of the past pagan culture and the Christian, the prediction of
the future greatness of Rome which Anchises had made to Aeneas (Vergil, Aen.
vi, 851-853) retained its practical and ideal significance:
Tu regereimperiopopulos,Romane,memento,
Haec tibi erunt artes: pacisqueimponeremorem,
Parceresubiectiset debellaresuperbos.
To be sure, the interpretation of the renovatioRomae or of the imperium ro-
manum varied according to the intellectual and spiritual attitude of the individ-
ual. To the one, Rome was the city of the old emperors, to the other, the city of the
Apostles and the scene where the coronations of kings and emperors of the Holy
Roman Empire took place. All, however, irrespective of profession or nationality,
agreed that Rome was or, at least, had been the leading metropolis of the world
and they continued to cherish this notion as long as the knowledge of ancient
culture and learning was being fostered in the various parts of the world. No
wonder, then, that poets and historians from the oldest times beyond the Middle
Ages never ceased to glorify the aurea Roma, the caput or domina orbis, the regina
and mater, the urbs aeternaand sacra, as well as the virtus romana and many other
qualities which soon became stereotype formulae in the mouths of men, in books
and on stones, coins and seals.'
During the Middle Ages the concept of a New Rome had been of a twosided
nature. It was primarily political whenever statesmen and patriotic historians
directed their eyes and aims towards a better future; on the other hand, this
attitude attained cultural importance as soon as retrospection prevailed which
produced either an approximately real or an imaginary picture of the Roman
past. The political developments, connected with the regeneration, and - to a
limited extent - the cultural aspirations for a revival of antiquity, have been
discussed at length by Arturo Graf,2 Ferdinand Gregorovius,3Fedor Schneider,4
and, above all, in the scholarly work by Percy E. Schramm.5
1 For details see G. Gernentz, Laudes Romae
(Diss.; Rostock, 1918) and F. G. Moore, 'Urbs aeterna
and urbs sacra,' Trans. Amer. Phil. Assoc., xxv (1894), 34-60; for the fourth to the tenth centuries a
selected list is given in P. E. Schramm's Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio, I (Leipzig-Berlin, 1929), 37 f.
2 Roma nella memoria e nelle
immaginazioni del medio evo, 2 vols (Turin, 1882, 1883); unchanged
reprint in Graf, Opere critiche, i (Turin, 1923).
3 Geschichteder Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, 8 vols (4th ed.; Stuttgart-Berlin, 1886-1896); vol. i (5th
ed.; 1903).
4 Romund Romgedanke der Renaissance(Munich,1926).
im Mittelalter.Die geistigenGrundlagen
K
Raiser, RomundRenovatio('Studiender BibliothekWarburg,' xvII), i ('Studien';Leipzig-Berlin
1929), I ('Exkurseund Texte,' 1929).
50
The New or Second Rome in the Middle Ages 51
In the following I am concerned primarily with the concept of Roma nova and
Roma secunda as applied to cities other than Rome. During my investigations in
the field of city encomia I noticed the eagerness and pride with which various
authors spoke of their respective cities as a new or second Rome which fact led
me to a special study of this type of eulogy.
It is evident that the rise of Christianity gradually created a concept not merely
of comparison between the older periods of Roman history and the more modern
of a new religious enterprise, but an attitude which contrasted the old, i.e., pagan,
Rome to the new, Christian, city. Mediaeval literature abounded with numerous
examples of this kind and whenever the epithets 'old' or 'new' were not used,
the type olim and nunc demonstrated this contrast adequately. At the same time,
the expression Roma aeterna, which, contrary to popular opinion, was coined for
the city of Romulus and Remus,1 had no place in the new religious manner of
thinking but was reinstated in later centuries with its more modern Christian
interpretation. There are also instances which reveal a combination of both at-
titudes as e.g., in Hildebert of Lavardin's (1054-1133) famous poems De Roma
(on the old Rome) and Item de Roma (on the new city)2 and in the distich 'Roma
vetusta fui, sed nunc noua Roma vocabor./ Eruta ruderibus, culmen ad astra
fero,' as expressed in the Mirabilia urbis Romae (ca 1140).3 A purely secular spirit
speaks from the inscription 'Rome veterem renovare decorem' which one of the
Roman aristocrats had placed on his villa constructed of fragments of ancient
buildings.4 Closely related to all these restorative tendencies is the newly arising
cult of the ruins of antiquity and the idealistic and imaginary transformation of
the old Rome into the new, an attitude which reached its climax during the
Renaissance.5
The appellative Roma nova or Roma secunda was generally applied to cities
that were rivals of Rome. This designation, except when referring to Rome itself,
is rare and restricted to Constantinople, Aix-la-Chapelle, Treves, Milan, Rheims,
Tournai, and Pavia.
With the partition of the Roman Empire in 395 A.D., Rome ceased to be the
1 Tibullus was the first to refer to Rome as the 'eternal city' (ii. 5.23): 'Romulus aeternae nondum
firmaverat urbis/ Moenia ... ' (written ca 19 B.C.). Cicero, likewise, voiced his opinion on the same
subject: 'si immortalem hanc civitatem esse vultis, si aeternum hoc imperium, si gloriam sempiternam
manere...' (pro C. Rabirio, 12.33), and Livy (iv. 4.4) soon afterwards expressed this concept
with greater emphasis: 'Quis dubitat, quin in aeternum urbe condita, in immensum crescente, nova
imperia, sacerdotia, iura gentium hominumque instituantur?'
2 See the new edition by Schramm,
op. cit., I, 300-305; on Hildebert and pertinent literature, ibid.,
pp. 296-300.
3 Cf. P. Fabre and L. Duchesne, Le Liber censuum de l'eglise Romaine ('BibliothUque des Ecoles
frangaises d'Athenes et de Rome,' 2e serie, vi; Paris, 1910), 269; E. Monaci, 'Le miracole di Roma,'
Archivio della R. Societd Romana di storia patria, xxxviii (1915), 565 (translation), and the new
critical edition by Schramm, op. cit., ii, 83.
4 See Fr. von
Bezold, Das Fortleben der antiken Gotter im mittelalterlichen Humanismus (Bonn-
Leipzig, 1922), 48 f. and note 139, on p. 98; cf. also Schramm, 11, 50 f.
6 See my review on W. S. Heckscher, Die Romruinen: Die geistigen Voraussetzungenihrer Wertung
im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance, in Classical Philology, xxxIIi (1938), 433-435, where I briefly
alluded to the concept of the 'new' or 'second Rome.'
52 The New or Second Rome in the Middle Ages
political caput mundi and rerum domina, but the aurea Roma continued to live
in the minds of men. The Byzantine emperor considered himself the fpaaLXeis
Tr& 'PwMuaLwv and Constantinople claimed all the rights and privileges formerly
held by Rome. With the rapid decline of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth
century, the proud knowledge convinced the citizen of the Byzantine Empire
that he was the legitimate successor to the Roman and that his capital was the
'urbs regia,' the 'New Rome,' NMa,or simply 'Rome.' Even the Eastern Church
and the patriarchs of Constantinople applied the term 'New Rome' to their see,
although in the beginning they carefully avoided a public assertion of the pre-
cedence of Constantinople.1 Nor did Emperor Justinian I (527-565) with all his
sweeping activities in behalf of his eastern empire succeed in forcing the papacy
to acknowledge the pre-eminence of the New Rome in ecclesiastical matters.2
Cassiodorus (d. 575 or after 559) reported in his Historia ecclesiastica tripartita
(Book 11,chap. 18) that Emperor Constantine had made the name secunda Roma
official by a decree and that the emperor had this statement chiselled on a marble
column near his equestrian statue.3
The first literary reference to Constantinople as the 'New Rome' I have found
in the epic poem In laudem Justini by Corippus, although the anonymous Versus
Romae (ninth century) had hitherto been considered the earliest source of the epi-
thet nova Roma attributed to a city other than Rome. Corippus (fl. 2nd half of
sixth century), a Latin poet, born in Africa, lived at Constantinople as a govern-
ment official and became the panegyrist of the Justinian dynasty. In his early
work, the epic poem Johannis, sive de bellis libycis, he had celebrated the deeds
of Johannes, Byzantine Viceroy of Africa and victor in the Moorish Wars of 549-
550. Yet repeated praise of Constantinople Corippus reserved for his epic eulogy
on Emperor Justin ii (565-578), nephew of, and successor to, Emperor Justinian
I. In this poem we hear of the New Rome (Book I, vss 340-344) as follows:
Sed factor solis postquamsub sole videri
se voluit formamquedeus de virginesumpsit
humanigeneris,tunc muneresolis adempto
principibusdelatushonormunusqueLatinis
et iucundanovae circensiagaudiaRomae.4
In another instance the author lets Nature join in the praise of Constantinople:
'gaudebant elementa simul mollique calebant/ temperie votisque suis nova Roma
fremebat,'5 while in the city encomium proper, the sun, among other things, re-
veals all the qualities of the capital of the Byzantine Empire (iv, 101 f.):
1 Cf. CambridgeMedieval History, ii, chap. viii B (New York, 1913; 2nd ed., 1926), 246.
2 Cf. J. W. Thompson and E. N. Johnson, An Introduction to Medieval Europe (New York, 1937),
132.
3 'Quae cum primitus Byzantium vocaretur, auxit, et maximo eam muro circumdedit, et diversis
ornatam fabricis aequam Imperiali Romae constituit; et denominatam Constantinopolim appellari
secundam Romam lege firmavit, sicut lex ipsa in marmorea platona noscitur esse conscripta, et in
Strategio juxta equestrem statuam ejus est constituta.' See Opera omnia, ii (Venice, 1729), 215.
4 Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica, Auctores antiquissimi, II, pt. ii (Berlin, 1879), 126.
6 Book in, vss 155 f.; MGH cit., p. 141; for an additional allusion to nova Roma, see Bk. in, vs. 247,
ibid., p. 143.
. . . nova Roma nitebat,

certabantque ipsi iucunda palatia caelo.1
No less conspicuous is the concept of restoration, here transferred to Constanti-
nople. In his praise of Emperor Justin II, Corippus eulogizes Justin's achieve-
ments in the renovation of the old Roman dominion:
Augusti primum renovasti Caesaris aevum.

clarius et meliusque tuum, tua gaudia tecum
hinc vester primus feliciter excipit annus,
votaque plura tuis celebret nova Roma triumphis.?
More than half a century later we find several references to the New Rome
in the anonymous Chronicon Paschale, written at Constantinople in 630. In one
passage the first settlement on the Golden Horn, the Greek colony of Byzantium,
is compared with the new capital of the empire: '... r 7rp6rEpov KaXovrU'fv7v
evrepav xptLarPTeLv a'vayopebaas .. . 2 This chronicle also
Bva'vLtov, 'Pwl,urv avriv Ev
deserves our attention because in it Constantinople is simply called 'Rome'3
and because this work seems to have been the basis for later additions, such as the
Continuatio Isidoriana Byzantia arabica of 741. In paragraph 11, the chronicler
gives an account of the activities of Emperor Heraclius I (610-641) and reports
on his return from the battlefield and his victorious entrance into his New Rome:
'Persarum dicione sublata regnoque destructo cum magna gloria novam Romam
feliciter repedavit.'4 The parallel version, the Continuatio Isidoriana hispana
(754), mentions the same events without, however, using the epithet 'new.'6
We now come to the famous Versus Romae which, because of their great sig-
nificance for the history of Rome in the Middle Ages, have been reprinted several
times6 and may again be inserted here in order to elucidate the developments
which we are pursuing in this study.
1 MGH cit., p. 150. la Bk. iv, vss 138-141; ibid., p. 151.

2 Chronicon
Paschale, 330, 1, in MGH, Auct. ant., ix (Berlin, 1899), p. 234, lines 5 f.; cf. also § 335, 1:
tv KEvoTrav,rvovr6\eI 'PX,uL , ibid., p. 235. 3 Cf. § 337, 2, MGH cit., p. 236,7.
4 See MHG, Auct. ant., xi (Berlin, 1894), 336,20-22.
5 Cf. § 5: '... et ille ... Romam pervenit repedando,' MGH cit., p. 336,20.
6 I shall give a list of the more important references. The Versus Romae were first printed in the
appendix to the Opera Bedae, i (Basel, 1563), p. 558; then by L. Muratori, Antiquitates italicae medii
aevi, ii (Milan, 1739), col. 148, as 'Epigramma in urbem Romam' (16 vss only); J. P. Migne, Patro-
logia Latina, 122 (Paris, 1865), col. 1194 B-C; Ph. Jaffe, Monumenta Bambergensia (Bibliotheca
rerum germanicarum, v; Berlin, 1869), 457 f. (as 'Versus de Romana civitate'); A. Graf, Roma nella
memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medio evo, i (Turin, 1882), 47 (16 vss); F. Gregorovius, Geschichte
der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, ii (4th ed.; Stuttgart, 1889), 153 (16 vss, Latin text and German
translation); Ludwig Traube, in MGH, Poetae lat., in (Berlin, 1896), 555 f. (standard edition);
O. Roissler,Grundrisseiner GeschichteRoms im Mittelalter, i (Berlin, 1909), 108 (16 vss), and P. Fedele,
'Ricerche per la storia di Roma e del papato nel secolo x,' Archivio della R. Societd Romana di storia
patria, xxxII (1910), 241 f.
The date of these verses has been a matter of controversy. Muratori's assertion that they belong to
the seventh or eighth centuries was substantiated by Gregorovius and Rossler. Francesco Novati, in
his Carmina medii aevi (Florence, 1883), 10, n. 1 (on p. 13), stated: 'I versi ... Nobilibus quondam ...
che rimontano certo al X sec.' Traube assigned them to the second half of the ninth century (878-882
or 896-897) which date was accepted by G. Salvioli, L'istruzionepubblicanei secoli VIII,IX e X
Nobilibus quondam fueras constructa patronis,
Subdita nunc servis, heu male, Roma, ruis.
Deseruere tui tanto te tempore reges,
Cessit et ad Graecos nomen honosque tuus.
5 In te nobilium rectorum nemo remansit
Ingenuique tui rura Pelasga colunt.
Vulgus ab extremis distractum partibus orbis,
Servorum servi nunc tibi sunt domini.
Constantinopolis florens nova Roma vocatur:
10 Moribus et muris, Roma vetusta, cadis.
Hoc cantans prisco praedixit carmine vates:
'Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.'
Non si te Petri meritum Paulique foveret,
Tempore iam longo Roma misella fores.
15 Manziribus subiecta iacens macularis iniquis,
Inclita quae fueras nobilitate nitens.
Transiit imperium mansitque superbia tecum,
Cultus avaritiae te nimium superat.
Nonne Deo perhibente patet: 'pro crimine magno
20 Servus avaritiae idola corde colit?'
Truncasti vivos crudeli vulnere sanctos;
Vendere nunc horum mortua membra soles.
Sed dum terra vorax animantum roserit ossa,
Tu poteris falsas vendere reliquias.
Is this merely an expression of resigned melancholy or, as Gregorovius thought
(op. cit., II, 153), a 'sch6ne Klagestimme'? It is far more than that. The unknown
poet speaks like one who has been sent to involuntary exile. His is not simply a
complaint about the decline of the former greatness of the eternal city but a bitter
accusation against Rome and the Romans that relinquished both empire and
honor and drove the nobles to a foreign country, the land of the Pelasgians. Bitter
contempt and biting sarcasm emanate from the words of the poet reminding the
inhabitants of Rome of the unruly vagabonds and the 'Servants of servants' (a
title introduced by Pope Gregory the Great) who govern the city. But when the
author of these verses cannot help admitting that Constantinople styles itself a
nova Roma, then this appellative is by no means meant to be laudatory, since
both the morals of the citizens and the time-honored monuments of ancient Rome
have increasingly deteriorated. And yet, in spite of the harsh denunciations the
poet manifests his love for the former capital of the world and does, at least, not
give up the hope which he cherishes for the city of the Apostles. The empire,
however, vanished; instead there remained pride and arrogance among the
Romans,1 the living saints are despised and the members of their dead bodies sold
for money.
(Bibliotecacriticadella letteraturaitaliana,25; Florence,1889), 116; W. Wattenbach,Deutschlands

Geschichtsquellen bis zurMittedes 13. Jahrhunderts,I (7th ed.; Stuttgart-Berlin,1904), 323, n. 2 and
342, n. 2, C. Pascal,Poesialatinamedievale.Saggie notecritiche(Catania,1907), 85 f., and M. Mani-
tius, GeschichtederlateinischenLiteraturdesMittelalters,
I (Munich,1911),332and 339,whileP. Fedele
believesthe poemto have been writtenin the tenth century.
1 Complaintsabout this attitude, one of the many expressionsof the survivingreminiscencesof
past glory, werenumerousin the MiddleAges;for selectedexamplessee Schramm,op. cit., i, 32 f.
The next allusion to Constantinople as a new Rome is made in the anonymous

Libellus de imperatoria potestate in urbe Roma (middle of the tenth century).
According to its author, whose historical power of discernment is rather confused
at the beginning of his account, the Roman Empire 'betook itself' after Christ's
advent to Byzantium, called Constantinople, "quae quia Romano gloriabatur
imperio, dicta est Nova Roma, sic tamen ut antiqua Roma gloriosa praeponeretur
caeteris.' The establishment of a New Rome the author explains by stating that
through this fact the old Rome and former caput gentium could now develop into
the caput et domina ... omnium christianorum (ed. Zucchetti, p. 191, 22-24).
We have three more references which were voiced during the latter part of the
tenth century in behalf of the New Rome of the East. Liutprand, Bishop of Cre-
mona, emphasized in his Antapodosis (beg. 958, finished ca 962/64) that at his
time Constantinople was still called the New Rome: 'Constantinopolitana urbs,
quae prius Bizantium, nova nunc dicitur Roma, inter ferocissimas gentes est
constituta.'2 Widukind of Corvey (2nd half of tenth century) gave a report (s.a.
969) in his Res gestae saxonicae on an attack by the Greeks and continued
'... quos superant [i.e. in the battle]. .. . novam Romam remeare permiserunt.'3
The third allusion is found in a letter (s.a. 871) quoted in the ChroniconSalerni-
tanum (978), a collection of historical events by an anonymous Benedictine monk
of Salerno: '... Lodoguicus [Emperor Louis II (850-75), son of Lothair I]
divina ordinante providentia imperator augustus Romanorum, dilectissimo spiri-
tualique fratri nostro Basilio [Basil I] gloriosissimo et piissimo atque imperatori
novae Romae.'4
With the decline of the Byzantine Empire, partly caused by frequent battles
with the invading enemies, the honorary title of "New Rome" gradually lost
most of its original significance and attraction. If the epithet was still used in
later centuries, it had the character of a historical reminiscence rather than of
meaningful content. Thus we read in the Disceptatio synodalis of 1069 by Petrus
Damiani (988-1072): 'Ipse [the emperor] vero Constantinopolim velut in
secunda Roma perpetuo regnaturus abscessit.'5
An epithet, of which only one example has come to my knowledge, is Roma
utraque, mentioned at the end of the eleventh century in the Vita metrica S.
Anselmi Lucensis episcopi by Rangerius of Lucca (died 1112):
1See the new criticaleditionby G. Zucchetti,II 'Chronicon'
di Benedettomonachedi S. Andreadel
Sorattee i 'Libellusde imperatoriapotestatein urbeRoma'(Fonti per la storiad'Italia;Rome, 1920),
191, lo-11;in the edition by G. H. Pertz, MGH, Scriptores, III (Hanover, 1839), 719, 38-39.
2 Book I, chap. 11; see MGH, SS, III, 277, 15-17.
I Book III,
chap. 72; MGH, SS, III, 465, 21-22.
4
Paragraph 107; MGH, SS, III, 521,22-24; also in Ludovici II. Imperatoris Epistola ad Basilium I.
ImperatoremConstantinopolitanummissa, in MGH, Epistolae, vII (Berlin, 1928), 386, 6-8.
6 MGH, LibeUi de lite, I (Hanover, 1891), 80, 20-21. In the Chronica monasterii Casinensis (end of
eleventh, beg. of twelfth centuries) by Leon Marsicanus and Petrus Damiani, there is only this brief
record: ' ... Alexius [Alexius Comnenus] imperator novae Romae ... ;' see Book iv, chap. 64
(s.a. 1118), MGH, SS, vii (Hanover, 1846), 792, 8. About the middle of the fifteenth century Aeneas
Sylvius reported on Emperor Constantine's endeavors in behalf of Constantinople ' . . ut altera
Roma non immerito dici posset.... Nomen urbi novam Romam imperator indidit.' See his De Europa,
chap. 3, in Opera omnia (Basel, 1551), 394 D [Copy in the University of Cincinnati Library].
Faelix perpetua, felix, dux indite [i.e. Guiscardus], fama
Et maiorforti Caesare,qui geminos
Reges exuperaset Romam vincis utramque,
Ad cuius nomen barbarapugnafugit.1
When Charlemagne began to unite the Occident and made the German city
of Aachen [Aix-la-Chapelle] his residence, it was almost natural for the poets of
his court to consider the emperor's city the successor to Old Rome. Thus, at the
end of the eighth or at the beginning of the ninth century, Naso [Muadwinus],
court-poet of Charlemagne, characterized the important position of the new
capital, the New Rome, in a dialogue between puer and senex. Youth, the poet
himself, gives old age, the ancient Rome, to understand that he, the contemporary
of the ruler of the Franks, is entitled to sing the praise of the emperor and his
city:
Prospicitalta noue Rome meus arce Palemon,
Cuncta suo imperioconsistereregnatriumpho,
Rursusin antiquosmutataquesecula mores.
AureaRoma iterumrenouatarenasciturorbi.2
To this old age answers (vss 30 f.): 'Huc tibi, stulte puer, que causa palatia
tanta,/ Que fuit alta noug cernendi moenia Rome?' The verse 'Aurea Roma
iterum renovata renascitur orbi,' echoing Calpurnius Siculus' (first century
A.D.) words: 'Aurea secura cum pace renascitur aetas' (Ecl. i, 42), makes clear
how strong the concept of a restoration of old Rome must have been among the
Carolingians, be it from a political, educational or religious point of view. An-
gilbertus Homerus (d. 814) voices similar opinions in his Carmen de Karolo
Magno (Book III, vss 94-100), when he says in almost Vergilian language:
.......................... Roma secunda
Flore novo, ingenti, magnaconsurgitad alta
Mole, tholis muropraecelsissideratangens.
Stat pius arce procul Carolusloca singulasignans,
AltaquedisponensventuraemoeniaRomae.
Hic iubet esse forum,sanctumquoqueiure senatum,
Ius populi et leges ubi sacraqueiussa capessant.3
The epithets Roma nova and Roma secunda attributed to Aix-la-Chapelle were
of as brief a duration as Charlemagne's unified empire. Several generations later,
Otto i (936-973), since 969 the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the
German Nation, referred to Charlemagne's city merely as 'hoc palatium Aquis-
grani precipuam cis Alpes regiam sedem. ... '4
1 Verses
6285-88, MGH, SS, xxx, pt. ii (Leipzig, 1934), 1287; 'geminos reges' refers to Alexius I,
Emperor at Constantinople and Henry iv, King of Germany.
2 See E.
Dummler, 'Gedichte des Naso,' Zeitschriftfilr deutschesAltertum, xvII [=N.F., vi (1875)],
60, and id., MOH, Poetae lat., i (Berlin, 1881), 390, vss 24-27. Cf. Fr. von Bezold, Das Fortlebender
antiken Gotterim mittelalterlichenHumanismus (Bonn-Leipzig, 1922), 33 f.
I See MGH, SS, ii (Hanover,
1829), 395; reprinted by Diimmler in MGH, Poetae, i, 368. The editor
lists this poem among 'Angilberti carmina dubia.'
4 See
'Kaiserurkunden, Otto I,' no. 316, in MGH, Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae, I
(Hanover, 1879-1884), 430, 30-31.
Never again did the city of Aix-la-Chapelle find a poet to sing its praise. This
is perhaps not astonishing when we consider that the few years of unexpected
glory could not result in a survival of unforgettable historical reminiscences as in
the case of Treves, the first Roman settlement in Germany and the northern
capital of the late Roman Empire.
Treves [German: Trier] outnumbers all other cities with respect to the titles
of New or Second Rome. The first allusion to this city as Roma secunda dates back
to the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century. The anonymous
Vita S. Deicolil contains a passage relating the Christianization of the Treves
district and the change of the great old city into a new one:
CongruoterrarumtenoreTrevericamaspiciocelsitudinem,quaesicutfortissimamdecuit
matronem,ad diruendamerrorissui magnitudinemtres viros aeque fortissimos meruit
sanaedoctrinaemagistros;quiasicut lirycuscanit: Parvumparvadecent[overthis is writ-
ten in the MS: 'Oraciuspoeta est'], ita in hoc conibenta,sicut late iam patet, magnam
Treverim,utpote secundamRomam, magnos necesse fuit habere doctores, Eucharium
scilicet,Valeriumatque Maternum,qui a Romanadominationeab ipso apostolorumprin-
cipe Treverimdirecti,contionabulumdiabolifeceruntaecclesiamChristi.
Mediaeval chronicles as well as biographies of ecclesiastical and secular men
and of saints, in some way connected with Treves, are filled with commendations
of that city. We shall, however, confine ourselves to those documents which com-
pare or identify it with Rome. Many of the statements made by patriotic chron-
iclers are purely fabulous and draw heavily upon the glorious reminiscences of the
past. Thus the anonymous author of the Vita S. Agritii (middle of eleventh cen-
tury) voiced his admiration for the city on the Moselle in the following words:
Revolutis enim sanctus pontifex Silvesterannalibus,eiusdemcivitatis gesta antiquis-
sima continentibus,eius excellentiaenobilitatemet antiquissimamdignitatemsagaciter
indagavit,eamquetam propteraedificiorumfirmissimampraeeminentiam,quampropter
civium nobiliorumomnibusGalliae ac Germaniaecivitatibus adeo praestaredidicit, ut
meritonomensecundaeRomae, ipsorumiudicioRomanorumsusceperit,2
and (referring to Agritius): 'et urbem Trevericam, secundam videlicet Romam,
sicut Petrus primam, Domino lucraturus intravit,'3 and 'Igitur sicut Treveris
secunda Roma idcirco vocatur, quia materialis structura mirabili operositate il-
lam quondam aemulabatur.'4 The anonymous Historia martyrum Treverensium
(ca 1072) records: 'Non enim propter solam aedificiorum aequalitatem, sed etiam
propter dignitatum aemulationem haec urbs secunda Roma est vocata.'5 It is not
surprising that the anonymous writer of the Gesta Treverorum(1101), who in-
corporated into his chronicle everything that contributed to the glory of the
1 MGH,SS, xv, pt. ii (Hanover,1888),676. Deicoluswas a Scottishmonkwho, in the seventhcen-
tury, accompaniedthe missionaryColumbanusto France.
2
Chap. 1= § 2; see Acta Sanctorum(nov. ed.), Januariusii (Paris,n.d.), 55.
3 Chap. 3= § 16, ibid., p. 58.
4
Chap. 6= § 28, ibid., p. 60.
6 See J. N. Hontheim,Prodromus historiaeTrevirensisdiplomaticaeet pragmaticae,I (Augsburg,
1757), 114. Cf. also Vita S. ConradiarchiepiscopiTreverensis(end of eleventhcentury):' . .. a Deo
fueritinsignita,ut non immeritosecundadicereturRoma,'in MGH,SS, vIII (Hanover,1848),215, 21
and Migne,PL, 154 (Paris,1881),col. 1256C.
Treveri,should make this fabulous statement: 'Deinde etiam cum Romani totum
orbem armis et prudentia domuissent, amicitias cum Treberibus et foedus firmis-
simum iniere, et hanc urbem, propter antiquam nobilitatem et civium sibi
quodammodo parem dignitatem, secundam Romam appellavere.'l
In this connection the Gesta Treverorumare also important insofar as they con-
tain the first allusion to Treves as Belgica Roma, a reminiscence of the capital of
the provincia Belgica of the early period of its Roman colonization. It is likely
that the author of the Gesta Treverorumeither invented the story which mentions
the new epithet (here arx Belgica in connection with Rome) or that he wrote down
what circulated orally in and around Treves. This story briefly treats of Ari-
maspes, a Roman senator, who left his city in order to familiarize himself with
the outstanding virtues of the Treveri, and who preferred the Augusta Treverorum
to Rome to such an extent that he, assassinated by a certain Eptes, requested
before his death that the following epitaph be put on his tombstone:
Exul Arimaspeshac Martis in arce quiesco
Belgica;Roma mei non mea digna fuit.
Iure bono, meritorumnobilitate,triumphis
Dii tueantur;ei par nisi Roma nichil.
Vulneror,Epte reo, consulprimusquesenatus,
Hic gaudetemei, sic meruissemori.2
Both epithets, 'Belgica Roma' and 'Roma secunda,' are found in an inscription
for a certain Albericus, as reported by Balderic, who was born at Florennes,
district of Liege, and lived at Treves as a teacher and provost. He inserted the
lengthy epitaph in his Gesta Alberonis episcopi (1154); the verses (40 and 54 f.,
respectively), which interest us here, are: 'Belgica Roma, tuum decus et tua gloria
perspes,' and 'Hucque caput mundi veniens, hic esse cor orbis/ Non negat, et
nomen Roma secunda tuum.'3 Pertinent traditional allusions are frequently found
in Godfrey of Viterbo's works. Like most chroniclers of that time, he was quite
familiar with the Gesta Treverorumand quoted them extensively, whenever the
opportunity arose. The following encomiastic verses were, however, not taken
from the Gesta: 'Fulget apud Francos prenobilis urbs Treverorum/ Belgica
Roma prius fuerat cognomen eorum,'4 and: 'Fundit [i.e., Trebeta, the mythical
founder of Treves] ibi Treberim, fluvio presente Mosella;/ Post eadem Treveris
Belgica Roma fuit.'6
1 MGH, SS, vIII (Hanover, 1848), 135, 13-16.
2 MGH,SS, VII, 136.Theseversesarealsoextant in a manuscript,neatly writtenon the blankfolio
8rby a scribeof the eleventhor twelfthcentury:Berlin,Cod.lat. 127 [formerlyCod.Phillippicus1829];
see V. Rose (ed.), VerzeichnisderlateinischenHandschriften derkgl.Bibliothekzu Berlin,I (Die Meer-
man-Handschriften des Sir ThomasPhillipps,'Berlin, 1893), p. 227. They are also quoted by Ph.
Jaffe,MonumentaBambergensia (Berlin,1869), 495, no. 272.
3 MGH,SS, vIII, 259, also in Migne, PL, 154 (Paris,1881), cols 1387 B and 1388 A, respectively.
4 Pantheon (ca 1185-1189); see MGH, SS, xxI (Hanover, 1872), 156, 31-32.
6 Ibid., p. 138, 11-12. The same verses were later copied by Theodoric of Engelhausen in his
ChroniconEngelhusii(ca 1426); see G. W. Leibniz, Scriptoresrerumbrunsvicensium, II (Hanover,
1710), 982. A parallelto BelgicaRomais CelticaRoma,attributedto the city of Autun [Augusto-
dunum];seeSigebertof Gembloux,VitaDeodericiepiscopiMettensis(writtenbetween1050and 1060),
MGH, SS, iv (Hanover, 1841), 477, 82.
I might insert here an example for Treves as altera Roma which occurs in Thio-
frid's De S. Willibrordi vita metrica. In the long passage which represents an en-
thusiastic commendation of Treves and its early foundation he proclaimed:
Treverisest ingens urbs, Gallicaregnacohercens,
Victrixmilicia,dominatrix,altera Roma:
Plebis scita, patres habet ac fora iuraque,leges;
Est caput Europe,caput est qu9 cosmographye;
Urbibusantiquisantiquiorest monimentis.1
In our discussion of the second Rome, mention must be made of Berengosus,
abbot of St Maximinus at Treves since 1112 (d. ca 1125), who, in his full-fledged
praise of the northern metropolis, interpreted the concept of the second Rome in
an entirely Christian spirit:'. . . Trevericam urbem famosissimam ... quae tunc
temporis eo divitiis et rebus erat opulentior, quo armis et militibus videbatur esse
potentior. Licet enim fortis esset ex provinciis et civitatibus undique adiacentibus,
divina tamen gratia fortior erat a credentibus; maxime cum per beatum Eu-
charium ac socios eius ita sterilis esset idololatria et fide fecunda quod non im-
merito Roma voca(ba)tur secunda.'2
Although the Gesta Treverorumembodied a huge amount of factual and con-
siderably more legendary material, many stories were added by writers of the
following generations. In the 'Continuatio secunda' (middle of the twelfth cen-
tury) of the Gesta, there is a reference3 to an epitaph in St Peter's Church at
Treves for a certain Yvo whom Adelbero, the apostolic delegate, had made a
special representative (subdelegate):
Rome legatumlegatus AdelberoRome
Presbyterumpresulhoc condidithospitiome.
Yvo mihi nomen;genuit Brytania,natum
Francianutrivit, promovitRoma vocatum;
Tandemnon parcensrapuit mors de medio me.
Cordaprecesdomino,fratres,effunditepro me!
Sole duodenasIulii vergenteKalendas
vs. 58: Roma secundamihi dedit exequiasvenerandas.
Finally, there remain two later allusions to Treves as a second Rome. A partly
ecclesiastical and partly secular interpretation is found at the end of the thir-
teenth century in the Gesta Boemundi archiepiscopi Treverensis: 'Quare sancta
Treverensis ecclesia primatum obtineat super Gallos et Germanos, et quare in
gestis antiquitatum Trebir secunda Roma appellatur.... 4 The Chronicum
et
imperatorum pontificum Bavaricum (end of thirteenth, beg. of fourteenth
centuries) discusses in the pertinent passage events of the year 707 a.u.c. and
1 Book ii, vss 521-525; see Acta Sanctorum (nov. ed.), Novembris, in (Brussels, 1910), 492. Willi-
brordus, the apostle of the Frisians, lived during the eighth century. Thiofrid (d. 1110) described his
life in a prose biography (1102-1106) and in metric form. For Thiofrid's life and works see L. Weiland,
MGH, SS, xxIII (Hanover, 1874), 12 ff.
2 De laude et inventione Sanctae Crucis, Book II, chap. 1; see Migne, PL, 160 (Paris, 1880), col.
965 C. 8 MGH, SS, xxiv (Hanover, 1879), 376.
4 MGH, SS, xxiv, 466, 39-41 (quoted s.a. 1289); the passage following this (ibid., p. 467, ss-ss) is a
copy of Gesta Treverorum(MGH, SS, vIII, 135, la-16),quoted above (see note 1, page 58).
concludes: 'Tune Treveris, Torcilingorum metropolis, secunda Roma dicta fuit.'
The fourth city to claim the dignity of 'Roma secunda' was Milan. Though this
city in its opposition to Rome showed a marked local patriotism in chronicles and
eulogies,2 it is not until the turn of the tenth century that we find Milan claimed
as a second Rome in the prose work De magnalibus urbis Mediolani which con-
tains the following verses:
Dic, homo qui transis, dum porte limina tangis:
Roma secunda, valle, regni decus imperialle;
Urbs veneranda nimis, plenissima rebus opimis,
Te metuunt gentes, tibi flectunt colla potentes
In bello Thebas, in sensu vincis Athenas.3
Although Milan, contrary to one's expectations, falls surprisingly short in these

laudatory epithets, its position as a second Rome seems to have survived among
learned Italians as late as the early eighteenth century.4
In this context one should not fail to allude at least briefly to the Pisa victory
song of 1087, sung in praise of the African campaign. Although the epithet 'Roma
secunda' is not expressly mentioned, this song of 73 stanzas clearly demonstrates
the notion of a renovatioRomae, and thus belongs to our discussion, as can be seen
from the first stanza:
Inclytorum Pisanorum scripturus historiam,
antiquorum Romanorum renovo memoriam:
nam extendit modo Pisa laudem admirabilem,
quam olim recepit Roma vincendo Carthaginem.5
For the remaining three cities - Rheims, Tournai, and Pavia- examples are
scanty. The notion of the second Rome gradually lost its significance. According
to various legends, the city of Rheims [Latin: Remis] was believed to have been
founded by Remus himself who, rivalling his brother Romulus, had built a city
1 MGH, SS, xxiv, 222, 27.

2 So in
e.g. anon.,LaudesMediolanensiscivitatis(middleof eighthcentury),in L. Muratori,Rerum
italicarumscriptores,ii, pt. 2 (Milan,1726), 689, and MGH,Poetae,I (Berlin,1881), 24-26, or in the
Opusculumde situ civitatisMediolani(tenth century), in Muratori,op. cit., I, pt. 2 (Milan, 1725),
203-227.
3 See F. Novati, 'De magnalibusurbis Mediolani,'Bullettinodell' Istitutostoricoitaliano,No. 20
(1898),153f.; cf. also ibid.,pp. 157 ('Romasecunda')and 171 (no othercity can rivalMilan,no other
can claim the title of 'Roma secunda').The authorof this work is a certainBonvicinusde Rip[p]a;
criticaleditionof the text by Novati, op. cit., pp. 61-171.
4 I have foundtwo
examplesmentionedby FilippoArgelati,Bibliothecascriptorum Mediolanensium,
ii (Milan,1745) [Copyin the Libraryof Congress].They are: JoannesPaulusMazuchellus,Mediola-
numSecundaRoma.Dissertatioapologetica Justi Vicecomitis[pseud.for Mazuchelli]eruditissimoviro
AntonioGatto, Bergomi,1711 [8°] (see Argelati,ii, col. 903); Mazuchelli'swork was reprintedby
Angelo Calogiera,Raccoltad'opuscoliscientificie filologici,vIII (Venice,1728), 309 ff. [Copyin the
Universityof Illinois], and Joannesde Sitonis [de Scotia], TheatrumequestrisnobilitatisSecundae
Romae,seu Chroniconinsignis collegiiJudicumEquitumet ComitumCivitatisMediolani,Mediolani,
1706 (fol.) [Copyin the BritishMuseum];cf. Argelati,II, col. 827 (s.v. 'Maddius,Michael').
5 Printedby F. Schneider,Fiinfundzwanzig lateinischeweltlicheRhythmenaus derFrihzeit (VI.bis
XI. Jahrhundert) ('Textezur Kulturgeschichtedes Mittelalters,'I; Rome, 1925), p. 35; for pertinent
literature,see ibid., p. xi.
surpassing Rome in splendor and wealth.' There is, however, another version,
according to which Rheims was founded by a soldier of Remus. These events
were versified by Balderic [Baudri] of Bourgueil (1046-1130). In his poetic epistle
of 111 distichs 'Ad Godefredum Remensem,' the city is honored2 by three epi-
thets, viz. altera Roma, Romae soror,3 and Roma secunda:
Nobilis urbs Remis, Remis, velut altera Roma,
Quammiles Remi constituit profugus,
ViresRomuleasverituspost funeraRemi,
Si famae volumuscrederefama refert.
Nobilis urbs, Romae soror,inquam,et Roma secunda,
Te genuit, peperit,promeruitquesibi.
The northernmost city to claim the title of altera Roma and Roma secunda
was the city of Tournai (the Flemish Doornik), in the province of Iainaut, Bel-
gium. The annalist who wrote the Historiae Tornacenses (after 1160) showed an
attitude somewhat similar to that of the author of the Gesta Treverorum.With
regard to the foundation of Tournai, the chronicler recorded: 'Anno igitur 143.
a constitutione urbis Rome .... Tornacus civitas regia a Romanis edificata est
alteraque vel minor Roma vocata.'4 Whether 'minor Roma' is meant to be
slightly modest in character, is not certain. However, it occurs three times in
an appendix to the Historiae Tornacenses,the fantastic Liber de antiquitate urbis
Tornacensis ex revelatione Heinrici, whose writer copied extensively from the
Historiae.5At the end of the fourteenth century, Jacques de Guise criticized these
legendary stories in his Annales Hanoniae: 'Repperi siquidem nuper quendam
novellum fictum historiographum ricmatizatum [rithmatisatum] in volgari, qui
de secunda Roma, Hostilione, Nervia seu Tornaco mirabilia refert, cuius nomen
Bucalio sive Buscalus inesse videtur.'6
The last city pretending to be a second Rome is Pavia. Apparently most eulo-
1 For this, with indication of sources and printed passages, see A. Graf, Roma nella memoria ...,
I (Turin, 1882), 101-105. For other eulogies on Rheims celebrating the fabulous origin of the city,
see the short poem of the tenth century in L. V. Delisle's Rouleaux des morts du IXe au XVe siecle
(Publications de la societe de l'histoire de France; Paris, 1866), 17 f.; see also the vision of Asellus
Scholasticus (llth cent.), in E. Du Meril, Poesies populaires latines anterieures au douzieme siecle
(Paris, 1843), 202.
2 Poem CLXI,vss. 87-92, see Phyllis Abrahams (ed.), Les aeuvrespoetiques de Baudri de Bourgueil
(1046-1130) (Paris, 1926), p. 154. This passage was first edited by L. Delisle, 'Notes sur les poesies de
Baudri, Abbe de Bourgueil,' Romania, I (1872), 37; a shorter version was printed by U. Ronca,
Cultura medievalee poesia latina in Italia nei secoli XI e XII (Rome, 1891), 114. On Baudri see De-
lisle's article, pp. 23-49 and Histoire litterairede la France, xi (Paris, 1869), 96-103, on his works ibid.,
pp. 103-113 (the latter is very unsatisfactory).
3 For another example of soror, see A. Graf, op. cit., I, 19, n. 36 (copy from a manuscript note).
Here it refers to Milan: 'Crevit autem hec inclitissima urbs Mediolani in tanto honore in tantaque
potentia quod Roma voluit eam in suam habere sororem....'
4 Book II, chap. 1; see MGH, SS, xiv (Hanover, 1883), 329, 33-36; 'altera Roma' occurs again,
ibid., 330, 28.
5 For 'altera Roma' in the Liber de antiquitate .. ., see MGH SS, xiv, 353, 6 and 15; for 'minor
Roma,' ibid., p. 353, lines 21, 23, 30.
6 Book ii, chap. 65; see MGH, SS, xxx, pt. 1 (Hanover, 1896), 100, 1-3; 'in volgari,' despite this
term, refers to the Liber de antiquitate, MGH, SS, xiv, 352-357.
gists of this city refrained from comparing Pavia with Rome. Even the anony-
mous author of the Commentariusde laudibus Papiae (written ca 1329/30)1 did
not emphasize this fact very much since he contented himself with only one
reference.
The foregoing analysis of the concept of the new or second Rome shows to
what extent the idea of the renovatioRomae prevailed among citizens and chroni-
clers of other cities.2 It also gives evidence of the eminent position which Treves
occupied among the important cities of the Middle Ages. Consciously or uncon-
sciously these people seem to have been under the influence of the Roma aeterna,
so adequately voiced in the verses well known to mediaeval men:
Quandiustat Colisaeus,stat et Roma,
Quandocadet Colisaeus,cadet et Roma,
Quandocadet Roma, cadet et mundus.3
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN.
1 L. Muratori, Rerum italicarum

scriptorcs,xi (Milan, 1727), col. 22 D; in the new Muratori edition
as De laudibus civitatis Ticinensis (ed. by R. Maiocchi and F. Quintavalle), xi, pt. 1 (Citta di Castello,
1903), 25. For Pavia in encomiastic literature, see my article 'Balthazar Rasinus and His Praise of
Studies at the University of Pavia,' Studies in Philology, xxxvII (1940), 133-148, esp. 136.
2 Even in modern times the name of Rome has not ceased to be applied to foreign cities. Note the
following examples which might easily be multiplied. Bamberg: 'die deutsche Sieben Hiigelstadt'; see
A. Chroust (ed.), Chronikender Stadt Bamberg, I (Leipzig, 1907), xlviii. Cologne: 'das deutsche Rom,'
J. Kemp, 'Ein neues Lob Kolns im ausgehenden Mittelalter,' Alt Koln, I (1907), 1, 4. Geneva: 'das
protestantische Rom,' because of Calvin's activities, cf. E. Choisy, Die Religion in Geschichteund
Gegenwart,II (Tilbingen, 1910), col. 1291 (s.v. 'Genf'), not repeated in the second edition, JI (1928).
Neisse (Upper Silesia): 'das schlesische Rom' (current at the beginning of the 18th cent.), cf. Alfred
Dove, Das Zeitalter Friedrichs des Grossen und Josephs II. (Geschichte der europaischen Staaten, I;
Gotha, 1883), 71. Mainz: 'das deutsche Rom,' W. H. Riehl, Wanderbuch('Die Naturgeschichte des
Volkes,' iv; Stuttgart, 1869), 220. Moscow: 'Rom der Tartaren,' see Kurd von Schlozer, Petersburger
Briefe (Stuttgart-Berlin, 1922), p. 48. The autocratic conception of 'Moscow - the Third Rome' is
of course a commonplace for all historians of the Muscovite period. Prague: 'das neue Rom,' cf.
A. von Gleichen-Russwurm, Die gothischeWelt (Stuttgart, 1919), 246. Cf. also the statement 'Praga,
caput regni, Latiae soror altera Romae!' in the encomium Praga, caput regni, faustissimis suorum
auspiciis inclita by Alois Mickl (1711-1769); see Rudolf Schmidtmayer (ed.), Ein lateinisches Preisge-
dicht (Ekloge) auf die Hauptstadt Prag (Budweis, n.d. [190-]), verse 271). Tribur in Hesse (famous for
the Imperial Diet of 887 which dethroned Charles the Fat): 'das zweite Rom,' see W. H. Riehl, op. cit.,
p. 318.
3 Probably of the seventh or eighth century. See [Pseudo-] Beda, Excerptionespatrum, collectanea,
flores ex diversis, guaestiones et paraholae. in Migne, PL, xciv (Paris, 1862), col. 543.
Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena

Author(s): Charles Edwin Odegaard
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:40
Speculum.
TWO ERRANT PAPAL BRIEFS FOR SIENA
BY CHARLES EDWIN ODEGAARD
THE Cavagna Collection in the University of Illinois Library contains two papal
briefs of the fifteenth century which somehow wandered from the archives of the
Signoria of Siena into private hands.1 Both briefs happen to fall in periods where
the relations between Siena and the popes have been extensively explored and
they can both be fitted into an interesting sequence of events.
The earlier of these two briefs, addressed by Calixtus iii to the authorities of
Siena, is the following:
[verso]
Dilectis filiis prioribus gubernatoribus et capitaneo populi civitatis Senarum.
[recto]
Calistus papa tertius. Dilecti filii, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Retulit nobis
hodie dilectus filius Eneas tituli sancte Sabine presbyter Cardinalis Senensis pecunias
oportunas debitas per vos iuxta regia pronuntiata dilecto filio comiti Jacobo Picinino et
eas etiam quas nobis debebatis per vos fuisse missas et eas iam esse hic Rome. Fuit nobis
vehementissime gratum ita ut quantumcumque gratius facere nobis imparentiarum non
potuissetis. Nam ex tarditate solutionis scit deus quot pericula vobis quibus valde afficimur
imminere videbamusque etiam nos cogebant acrius quam voluissemus vobis scribere
quoniam vos in visceribus gerimus caritatis. Itaque vos maiorem in modum hortamur
rogamusque ut de cetero ita in solutionibus prefato comiti faciendis provideatis ut pro-
nuntiata regia et nostra omnino serventur et idem comes nullam causam seu occasionem
contra vos querelandi suscipere possit. In quo non parum quieti vestre consuletis. Ceterum
super castro Montisacuti satisfacto de expensis pro custodia illius per nos seu a nobis
deputato legittime facto. In quo volumus computari si aliquid fuerit perceptum per depu-
tatos a nobis ex prediis dicti castri, illico vobis restitui faciemus. Preterea supplicavit nobis
maxima cum instantia prefatus cardinalis detracta frumenti pro vobis qui ut eidem re-
spondimus dolemus vobis non posse in ea re complacere tanta est enim penuria gravis non
solum modo in nostra curia et hac urbe Roma, verum etiam in plerisque terris nostris en
erctis ut vix subventiones necessarias possimus adhibere. Super his omnibus latius mentem
et voluntatem nostram aperuimus prefato cardinali qui nobis ea ut eidem commisimus
scribet. Datum Rome apud Sanctum Petrum sub anulo piscatoris die xii Februarii,
M CCCCLVII, pontificati nostri anno secundo.
M. Ferrarii
(publicus die 24 Februarii)2
This brief has to do with the aftermath of the trials and tribulations which the
Sienese suffered in 1455 and 1456 at the hands of the ambitious and unscrupulous
condottiere, Jacopo Piccinino.3 The latter, released from the service of Venice,
kept intact an army of a thousand horsemen and three thousand foot soldiers
with which he arrived in the territory of Siena to try his fortune at the republic's
1
They are now cataloguedin that collectionunderone entry as Cav.124.71and Cav.124.72.
2 Addedin anotherhand.
8 L. Pastor, Geschichteder Papste, I (2nd ed., Freiburg i. B., 1891), 566-571; The History of the
Popes (Englishtranslationof the sameby F. I. Antrobus,London,1906), ii, 360-364. These affairs
are describedat length by LucianoBanchi in 'I1 Piccininonello Stato di Siena e la Lege italica,'
Archiio storico italiano, quarta serie, iv (1879), 44-58, 225-45, and in 'Ultime relazione dei Senesi
con Papa Calisto III,' Archivio storico italiano, quarta serie, v (1880), 427-446.
63
64 Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena
expense. He seized the castles of Cetona, Monte Merano, Manciano, and Mon-
tagutolo.1 Calixtus III, who was about to carry war to the Turks, found his cru-
sading enterprise threatened by this new outbreak in Italy and quickly sent his
troops to aid the Sienese against Piccinino, who was pursued also by the men of
Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. Venice and Florence also joined the league
against Piccinino. The army of Piccinino, repulsed by the forces of Milan and the
pope near Lake Trasimenus, retired gradually to Castiglione della Pescaja, a
stronghold belonging to King Alfonso of Naples which lay upon a narrow strip
of land between a marshy lake and the sea. This fortress, safe from attack by
land, was provisioned from the sea by Alfonso who, eager to place every difficulty
at his disposal in the way of the pope's Turkish crusade, took this opportunity to
promote turmoil in Italy.
Safe in the refuge of Castiglione della Pescaja as long as Alfonso supported
him, Piccinino plagued the Sienese like the lowest brigand. In October, 1455, he
descended upon their port of Orbetello, taking everything of value, even the
sacred treasure of the church, and selling it to maintain his force.2 Meantime the
destruction of war and the seizures of grain seriously reduced the Sienese grain
supply while the harvest was poor. In August, 1455, the Sienese appealed to the
pope for help, and he offered them five thousand bushels of grain.3The liberality
of Calixtus II toward the Sienese at this time of trouble led the Sienese artist
Sano di Pietro to paint a scene in which the Virgin Mary entrusts to Calixtus the
care of Siena; beneath these two figures one sees mules carrying grain to the city.
This supply of grain was insufficient, however, to allay the hunger of the Sienese
and in late October all were crying out for bread.4
The embassies which Siena sent to Alfonso to urge him to withdraw his support
of Piccinino were to no avail until May 31, 1456, when he pronounced terms of
peace which were accepted by the Sienese.6 Piccinino was to retire with his army
into the territory of Alfonso, surrendering to Siena the places he had seized. In
return he was to receive for the maintenance of his army fifty thousand florins,
of which Alfonso would contribute ten thousand. The remaining forty thousand
were to be paid by the allies in accordance with arrangements to be made by
Calixtus III. The latter completed the treaty by ordering twenty thousand florins
to be paid out of the papal treasury, the remaining twenty thousand to be paid
by Siena within forty days. As security Calixtus was to hold the Sienese fortress
of Montagutolo which Piccinino had seized at the beginning of the war.
It was not until September, 1456, after plundering the territory of Siena for
fifteen months, that Piccinino finally left Orbetello to retire to the south of Italy.6
The shortage of grain had continued at Siena through 1456 and on February 28,
1457, Giacomo Guidini, emissary of Siena, arrived in Florence to negotiate with
the Florentine Republic for, among other things, the passage of grain from
1 Banchi, Arch. stor. ital., iv, 49-50. 2 Ibid., iv, 235.

s Ibid., iv, 56-57. 4 Ibid., iv, 237, n. 2.
6 Ibid., iv, 244. 6 Ibid., iv, 245.
Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena 65
Bologna.1 Meanwhile, as the papal brief for Siena in the Cavagna Collection
shows, Calixtus iii on February 12, 1457, had turned down a most earnest request
of the Sienese for subsidies of grain which he could not grant because there was
so much penury prevailing in the curia, in the city of Rome, and in his other
lands that he could hardly provide the bare necessities. The appeal of Siena had
been presented by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, bishop of Siena and cardinal priest
of St Sabina, who was destined to be the successor of Calixtus iii in the papacy
as Pius ii.
The treasury of Siena, exhausted by the war, was unequal to the burden of
paying the twenty thousand florins due Piccinino; it was agreed accordingly that
Siena should pay its share in monthly installments but even this proved to be too
difficult a burden for the Sienese, and they failed to make their payments at the
appointed time. Calixtus wrote three briefs reproving them on October 18,
November 17 and 23, 1456.2The Cavagna brief of February 12, 1457, shows that
the money due Piccinino finally reached Rome to the evident relief of Calixtus
who feared from this delay in payment a renewal of the dangers through which
the peace of Italy had just passed. Calixtus admitted that he had written to the
Sienese in sharper language than he would have liked because of his great affec-
tion for them, and urged them henceforth to see to it that Piccinino was paid in
accordance with the agreement so that he would have no excuse or reason for
raising a complaint against them. In so doing they would be contributing to their
own tranquility. Calixtus also recognized their payment of the money due him
for the expenses incurredby him for the custo(ly of Montagutolo; and he expressed
his willingness to restore anything which might be taken by his agents from the
goods of that castle. This episode was closed when the Sienese completed their
payments to the pope on behalf of Piccinino, the final payment being acknowl-
edged by Calixtus in a brief to the Signoria of Siena dated September 17, 1457.3
* * *
The second of the briefs in the Cavagna Collection is the one which Paul II
addressed to the Sienese on September 2, 1464, announcing in the accepted hum-
ble fashion his own election to the pontificate, expressing his hope that Siena
would continue to show that devotion to the Holy See which she had shown in
the past, and declaring his own good will toward Siena:
[verso]
Dilectis filiisprioribusgubernatoribuscommuniset capitaneopopulicivitatis Senarum.
[recto]
Paulus papa II. Dilecti filii, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Cum placuerit
omnipotentideo, postquam ad se vocavit felicis recordationisPium II predecessorem
nostrum,ut nos licet immeriticommunivenerabiliumfratrumnostrorumSacreRomane
ecclesiecardinaliumconsensuet unanimivoto ad ApostolatusApicemassumeremus,nos
Banchi, Arch. stor. ital., v, 431.
2
Ibid., iv, 245, especially n. 1.
3 Ibid.,v, 437.
66 Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena
etsi conscii imbecillitatis nostre hoc onus impar humeris nostris iudicaverimus, tamen,
quia occulto dei iudicio ita factum est, submisimus colla iugo, freti divina pietate ac
firmiter sperantes quod deus, qui nos ad noc tantum fastigium evexit, infirmitati nostre
subveniet, et gressus nostros diriget in viam salutis. Et quoniam semper etiam in minoribus
existentes cognovimus devotionem vestram huic Sancte Sedi et statui Sancte Romane
ecclesie affectissimam speramusque in posterum eandem devotionem non aliter se habi-
turam quam hactenus se habuerit. Has ad illam imprimis scribendas duximus nuncias
optime intentionis erga vos nostre, hortantes ut bono sitis animo et constanter in vestro
bono proposito perseveretis erga Sedem predictam. Invenietis enim nos, qui vestre rei-
publice paterna caritate afficimur, paratos esse ad omnia que cum deo grata vobis et ac-
cepta efficere poterimus. Rati devotionem vestram vicissim opera bonorum et devotorum
filiorum nobis et Apostolice Sedi impensuram. Datum Rome apud Sanctum Petrum, die
ii Septembris, quarto autem assumptionis nostre, Mcccc Lxiiii.
G. de Piccolominibus
(Pauolo o2 eletto al Pontificato dopo Pio 2 si congratula con la ... di Siena, e coscrive
G. Piccolomini.)'
The Sienese had followed very closely the events which brought Pietro Barbo,
the Cardinal of Venice, to the papal throne as Paul II.2 The predecessor of the
latter, Pius ii, had been the bishop of Siena before his elevation; and the Sienese,
whose political fortunes were closely tied to those of the papal states and the
papacy, were eager to have the good will of the new pope. The very day the news
of his election arrived, August 30, 1464, the Signoria of Siena sent him an enthusi-
astic letter expressing joy at his election.3 On September 3, the Signoria again
expressed its joy over the election, its confident expectation of friendly relations,
and its determination to show the same fidelity to Paul ii which it had shown to
Pius ii of happy memory;4 all this was in a letter addressed to Gregorio Lollio dei
Piccolomini, a Sienese who served as the representative of his city at Rome. He
was a cousin of Pius II; his mother had been Bartolomea, the aunt of Pius, and
his father had been Niccolo Loli. Pius had employed the services of Gregorio
both as secretary and as papal nuncio to different princes, and had given him the
surname and arms of the Piccolomini family.5 It is the name of this Gregorio
which is subscribed on the letter of Paul ii printed above.
On September 2, Paul ii had written the letter, now in the Cavagna Collection,6
in which he announced to Siena his election and his good will toward the city.
On September 7 Gregorio replied to the letter sent by the Signoria to himself on
September 3, assuring the Sienese governors that they had no need to fear any-
thing from the new pope who had an affectionate regard for their city and who
was of a kindly and peaceable nature. Then Gregorio added by way of postscript
1The sentencewithin parentheseswas addedin a later scrawl.

2 N.
Mengozzicombedthe archivesof Sienato write his extensivestudy 'I1ponteficePaolo ii ed i
Senesi,'Bullettinosenesedi storiapatria,xxi (1914),141-174,197-288,455-530;xxII (1915),253-302;
xxiv (1917),37-68, 85-130, 205-260;xxv (1918),3-75. He describesthe events relativeto the elec-
tion in op. cit., xxI, 152-164.Concerningthe electionsee also M. Creighton,A Historyof thePapacy,
II (Boston,1887),3-5; L. Pastor,Geschichte derPapste,ii (3rdand 4th edition,Freiburgi. B., 1904),
293-306. 3 Mengozzi, Bul. senese, xxI, 158-159.
4 Ibid., xxI, 160-162. 5 Ibid., xxI, 160, n. 2.
6 Mengozziof coursedid not find this letter whichhad wanderedfromthe Sienesearchives.
Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena 67
that Paul had been pleased with the letter sent him by the Signoria but was not
bothering to send an answer since he had already sent a letter.1 The letter to
which Gregorio referred was, of course, the one printed above. It is mentioned
again in the reply from the Signoria to Gregorio where we learn that the pope's
gracious and kindly letter produced great consolation and joy at Siena, and that
an answer was being prepared.2This answer, dated September 10, reiterated the
joy of Siena over the election of Paul and professed the city's continued devotion
to the Holy See.8It remained for the future to show if this love feast could be con-
tinued.
THE UNIVERSITYOF ILLINOIS.
1 Mengozzi, Bul. senese, xxi, 163: 'La lettera de la S. V. li fd

grata, ma avendo prima scripto uno
Breve, non si curo di rispondere.'
2
Ibid., xxi, 164: 'Grande consolatione e letitia ha preso el nostro reggimento del gratioso Breve et
benigne lettere scripte de la Santith del Papa a questa Republica, de le quali lettere mandiamo la
riposta.'
3 Ibid., xxI, 164.
The Sottes Chansons in MS. Douce 308 of the Bodleian Library at Oxford
Author(s): Leonard E. Arnaud
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:41
Speculum.
THE SOTTES CHANSONS IN MS. DOUCE 308 OF THE
BODLEIAN LIBRARY AT OXFORD
Bx LEONARD E. ARNAUD
THE manuscript Douce 308 in Oxford's Bodleian Library is the work of several
scribes writing in the first quarter of the fourteenth century.1 It contains a pre-
cious collection of lyric poems, all anonymous, divided into seven groups: 1. Grands
chants; 9. Estampies; 3. Jeux-Partis; 4. Pastourelles; 5. Ballettes; 6. Sottes Chan-
sons contreamour. A seventh group of Motets,2not listed in the index to the manu-
script, follows the Sottes Chansons, from which it is separated only by a break of
two lines. The Sottes Chansons, edited here for the first time,3 consists of sixteen
complete selections and fragments of two others.4 They form our largest known
collection of this genre.
The kind of humor found in these compositions we may assume to be universal,
and it would be folly to try to trace its origin. Certain passages of the bawdy
twelfth-century tale Audengier, for instance, are true examples of sotte chanson
wit:
Molt fu dame Rainbergesaige et voiseuse ...
Turgibusla regarde,qui la goulouse,
Qu'iln'avoit el pais si belle touse,
Por ce qu'el ert un poi borgneet tigneuse.... 6
The same spirit presumably existed before the twelfth century. It is to be found
even today when the sottes chansons can be considered only a dead form. The ori-
gin of the lyric genre is, however, easily traced in the literary associations called
puys that were so popular during the middle ages.6 Although the history of these
1 For a description of the Ms. see: Gaston Raynaud, Bibliographie des chansonniersfrangais des 13I
et 146 siecles, I, 40; also Archives des missions scientifiques et litteraires, s6rie I, v, 99; serie II, v, 154,
216.
2 See: G. Raynaud, Recueil de motetsfrangais des 128 et 13S siecles (Paris, 1881) II, 1-38 and passim.
3 A diplomatic edition of the Sottes Chansons was published by Steffens in Archivfur das Studium
der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, civ, 331-354, in 1900. Professor Langfors, in a letter written to
me in 1936, signified his intention of editing these poems in Romania, but he has not yet done so.
4 Of the
original twenty-two selections in this group we lack: about half of the ninth; the tenth,
eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth in full; and all but the last seven lines of the fourteenth, a lacuna
representing the removal of two pages from the manuscript. This mutilation occurred at some time
between 1884 and 1900. Gaston Raynaud, consulting Douce 308 about the year 1884, listed in his
Bibliographie the first lines of all twenty-two Sottes Chansons. But in 1900, when Steffens made his
diplomatic edition of these selections, he reported the omission as it stands today. Strangely enough,
the pagination of the ms. shows no break. Raynaud indicates only his starting point: 'fol. 251.' Stef-
fens' edition also begins at fol. 251, the break occurring between fol. 253 and fol. 254. The foliation
has been changed since Steffens' writing. The photostatic copies that were made for me in 1933 show
the folios numbered 239b, 2390, 240, 241, 242, 243. The missing section belongs between fol. 240 and
fol. 241. 6 Fabliaux et contes des poetesfrancais ... ed. Barbazan et Meon, Iv, 219.
6 See: Hecart, Serventois et sottes chansons couronn6es a Valenciennes (Paris, 1834), pp. 7-15; Bi-
bliothequede l'Ecole des Chartes,serie iv, v (1859), 491; Petit de Julleville, Les Mysteres (Paris: Hachette,
1880), i, 115-120; Petit de Julleville, Les comediens en France au m-d (Paris: Cerf, 1885) pp. 42-46;
Edmond Faral, Les jongleurs en France au m-d (Paris: Champion, 1910), pp. 133-142.
68
The Sottes Chansons in MS. Douce 308 69
societies fades into legend, it is important to this subject to trace it. Let me then
review what we know concerning the oldest and best known of the puys, that of
Arras.
The puy of Arras is believed to date back as far as the year 1120, when a society
is said to have been founded, out of gratitude to the Virgin Mary, by two poor
minstrels, Pierre le Norman and Itier de Brabant, who, through her miraculous
intervention, were able to cure all those stricken by a pestilence that had been
ravaging the city. This legend is beautifully told by Professor Faral in his master-
ful book on the Jongleurs.1The function of this society or charite, as it was called,
was twofold. Dedicated primarily to the service and adoration of the Virgin
Mother, it was also to be a protective and benevolent organization directed by
humble minstrels and providing sick and funeral benefits for its members. At the
regularly-held meetings, it was customary to recite poems, especially composed
for each occasion, in honor of Mary. By the end of the twelfth century there ex-
isted many societies patterned after the charite of Arras in towns of Picardy and
Flanders.
The prosperity that smiled on France during the twelfth and thirteenth centu-
ries was materially to affect the constitution of these societies. In rapidly increas-
ing numbers, the burghers, prosperous now and with leisure on their hands, turn-
ing their thoughts to the more graceful things of life, sought admission to the
meetings. But with the acceptance of these wealthy dilettantes to membership the
interest of the assemblage shifted, imperceptibly at first, then noticeably. The
religious character that had been uppermost in the original society lost much of
its prominence in this new environment, for amusement was now being sought
where reverence had formerly been the main concern. The society, a charite now
only incidentally - the sick and funeral benefits were still retained -, came to
be known by the name: puy.2 Villain d'Arras, the thirteenth-century poet, writes:
Beau m'est del pui que je vois restore.
Por sosteniramour,joie et jovent
Fu establis .... 3
Toward the end of the thirteenth century, a poetic genre called serventoisand
destined to be closely identified with these societies had been appropriated by the
puys for their traditional poems in praise of the Virgin.4 This form, consisting of
five stanzas and an envoi, was the model on which the other compositions recited
before the puy were formed as well. These, in fact, were nothing but parodies, dis-
tinctly non-religious in nature, of the serventois. At the meetings, the serventois
were recited first. Then came the chansons amoureuses, composed on exactly the
same pattern but inspired solely by a worldly love.5 The amoureuses were fol-
1 Op.cit., pp. 133 ff.
2 Fromthe Latin withreference
to the standorplatformfromwhichthe poems
probably
podium,
wererecited.
3 Quoted from: Petit de Julleville, Les Mysteres, I, 118.
4 A. Jeanroy, La pogsie lyrique des troubadours(Paris, 1934), II, 179.
6 In the fifteenth century, these two genres were connected more intimately still by the invention
of the amoureuse servant devant et derriere, in which the rhymes exactly match those of a preceding
70 The Sottes Chansons in MS. Douce 308
lowed in turn by sottes amoureuses or sottes chansons, also composed in the identi-
cal form.1 The sotte chanson being directly a parody of the chanson amoureuse,its
essential characteristic was that the poet represented himself as being in love with
his 'lady.' As he was a fool, he chose to love someone who could appeal to no sane
man; he described her adoringly; burned in her honor all the refined incense of
courtly love, but with ever recurring mentions of baser instincts that could
have no place in the delicate chanson amoureuse. It is easy to imagine that a
genre such as this would not long remain exclusive with the puys. It soon became
common property. Then, when taken from its accompanying serventois and
amoureuse,we find the sotte chanson spreading to other forms, to the jeu parti,2 to
the rondeau,8to the ballade.4Then appear also the sotte chanson that is pure non-
sense, the one that is wholly obscene and especially the satirical sotte chanson in
which the poet ridicules not himself but his 'lady.'
SOTTES CHANSONS IN MS. DOUCE 8085

I
(fol. 239b, ro.) Chans de singe ne poire mal pellee
Ne me font pas a chanteir revenir.
Mais ma dame, qui est trop mal buee,
Me fait chanteir d'Adangier lou martir.
Sor piez ne me puis tenir,
Cant elle vers moi coloie,
Dont ait mes cuers si grant joie
C'a poc tient je ne m'oci
Por l'amour de li.
Moult est plaixans, bien samble forcenee.

Sovant me fait presant d'un teil sopir
Ke bien varroit une reupe et demee
Ki au chainges la vandroit per loixir.
Et Deus li voille merir
Toz les biens k'elle m'anvoie,
serventoiswith, besides,the initial and finallines of each stanza identicalforboth poems.(Forexam-

ples, see: E. Langlois,Recueild'artsde seconderhetorique [Paris:ImprimerieNationale,1902],pp. 168,
170.)
1 Only five of the sixteen complete sottes chansons in the Douce ms. are regular (nos Iv, vI, xv, xvi
and xxI). Eight have five stanzas but no envoi (nos I, , II, III, II, x and xx), one (no.v)
vii, xvii,
has four stanzas and an envoi of seven lines where the normal envoi has no more than five, and, lastly,
two have three stanzas with no envoi (nos xvII and xxII). The large number of irregular selections
lead me to conclude that our sottes chansons were not written to be entered in formal competition,
and that the author, therefore, dealt freely with the rules. All the sotteschansons that we are definitely
told were recited before a puy scrupulously follow the serventoispattern (See HEcart, op. cit., passim;
Langois, op. cit., pp. 101, 175).
2 L&ngforset Brandin, Recueil gengral des jeux-partis ... (Paris, 1926), II, Q75.
3 M. Schwob, Parnasse satyrique du XVemesiecle (Paris, 1905), p. 176.
4 Eustache Deschamps, (Euvres
completes (Paris, Didot, 1878-1903), viII, 146.
6I am indebtedto ProfessorOliverTowlesfor his kindnessin collatingthe first draft of my tran-
scriptionwith the photostaticproofsof the MS.
Car se je mualz estoie
Ce diroii ju ensi:
'Dame, grant merci.'
Dame d'onor, blanche con poix chafee,
A vos loeir ne doi je pas mantir.
La faice aveis brune, noire et ridee.
C'a main vos voit, lou soir devroit morir.
Ceu me fait resovenir:
De vos forment m'efferoie
Se a vos servir failloie,
Car vos m'aveis enrichi
D'estre bien chaiti.
Vint ans .v. mois avant que fuxies nee,

Vostre biauteit se vint an moi flaitir
Si aprement, j'an ai la pance anflee.
Nes an sonjant ne me puet sovenir
De vous. Si fort vos desir
Ke se les fievres avoie,
Dame, je les vos donroie
Volantiers, de cuer joli.
N'est ce dons d'ami?
Encor vos don, dame hallegoitree,

De mes jualz, nes voil plus retenir,
Boutons mal keus et prunelle xadee.
Tot ceu emboins a vostre eus por tucir.
Can vos voi ver moi venir,
A poc ke Deu ne renoie,
Car plus volantiers vairoie
Venir .i. louf dever mi.
Amors en graci.
II
Amors graci de son joli presant,
C'amer me fait, mal grei ke ju en aie,
Une dame ke n'ait en goule dant.
C'est bien raisons ke por s'amor m'essaie
De faire un chant ke soit mal gracious.
Nuns ne la voit ne soit de li jallous.
Moult est plaixans; toz jors la goule bee.
Con buer fut neis c'an puet avoir danree!
Lais! c'an puis je s'a li servir me rant?

Car sa biauteit me fait sovant wanaie;
Et c'elle rit, bien samble fuer dou sant.
Je proi a Deu ke ja nuns s'amor n'aie
Se il n'est dont ou borgnes ou tignous
Ou ke il soit plus poulus ke .i. lous.
Ne doit pas estre teil dame garsonee:
Ke plus l'ainmet, plus ait malle jornee.
De li amer nuns jor ne m'an repant.
(fol. 239b, vo.) Tant la desir, jai Deus ne doint je l'aie!
Moult ait bel non: c'est ma dame Hersant.
Mon cuer li don dou tot an sa manaie.
Can je la proi, durement suis pitous;1
Et elle dit: 'J'ain moult millor de vous
Nostre bergier c'ait la teste plumee,
Ke l'autre soir m'estordit ma buee.'
C'est sans mantir, de rire n'ai talant

Can je la voi ke elle ensi m'abaie,
Trop mi deplait can voi son maltalant:
Tel duel en ai, j'an dexire ma braie.
De li ameir suis formant perisous;
J'ai droit, por ceu ke je n'an soii cous.
Je croi plus ait de .c. ans ne fut nee.
C'a droit la voit, bien samble forcenee.
Dame, mercit! Je vos aim si forment.

Por vos ne sant poinne, dolor ne plaie.
Vostre amor m'ait si bruleit ardanment
Xadeit an ai lou poil de ma flasaie.
D'amer si hat suis je trop outrajous.
C'a main vos voit lou soir an ait la tous,
Car trop aveis la faice ridolee:
Mestier auries c'ades fuxies ferdee.
III
Bien doit chanter qui est si fort chargies
De bone Amor, con je suis sans raisons.
J'ain la feme Soleis Vies, Houziaus Vies,
Et elle moi; s'an suix an teil frixon
C'a poc n'an pert lou cuer de mon talon.
Can je la voi, je ne puix estre lies:
Borgne est des eus, et blanche con charbon.
Cant je la voi, d'amors suix herecies.
Et c'an puix je? Il n'est si saiges hons,
C'il l'esgardoit des lou chief jus c'aus pies,2
C'a poinnes puist avoir confession.
Tant est plaixans au regardeir cest mon,
Nuns ne la voit ki n'an soit correcies:
Douce est an chair poc point plus ke chardon.
A li me suis doneis liges en fies.
Je l'ain forment et de bone faixon.
Je vorroie estre outremeir enfergies,
Et de s'amor ne me fust .i. bouton.
Dame, mercit! Vostre gente fason
Me destrent si, se j'estoie noieis
Ne deroie de vos ce tous biens non.
1 Ms. cain ie la 2 Ms. ius cau
proi pies
Ce j'estoie d'ausi pouxant renon
Con jadis fut li cortois Adangies
Ke par armes ocist .i. pawillon,
Ne seroie dignes, bien lou saichies,
D'ameir dame dont nuns n'ait jai raixon.
Cant elle rit, onkes lous enraigies
Ne fut si lais a vioir, ce dist on.
Dame, can je suis de vous rechaigniez,

II m'est avis se me soiint poison.
Chascuns me dist ke je suis bien logiez.
Ce je euxe tot lou cens Sallemon,
Ce m'eUst bien Amors doneit biau don.
De vos ameir suix ci decoraigies
(fol. 239o, ro.) Ke je ne sai raleir an ma maxon.
IV
Chanteir m'estuet jus c'a jor du juise
En toz les leus ke je porrai troveir,
Car ma dame lou me mist en devise
Premierement, cant el me fist amer1
De joli cuer sans fauseir,
Ma douce dame esmeree
En cui biauteit est doublee
En tant de plois, ke nuns hons
Deviseir ne lou saroit
Tant seust pres deviser.
Bien ait esteit .xxxij. ans juive,

Mais pour m'amour ce fist crestiineir
Si en mersi Amors, cant covoitise
Li vient de li, de sa loi bestorner.
Car on ne porroit parleir
El mont de si belle nee;
Ne nuns, a une alenee,
N'aroit pooir, tant seiist barbeteir
De sa biauteit dire sans mesconter.
Je croi k'il n'ait dame duskes en Frisse

Ke saiche mues amant doreloter
K'elle seit moi, car cant m'art et atisse
Li jolis malz qui me fait regiber,
Lors li comance a conter
Ma chaitive destinee;
Dont jete jus sa fuzee
Cil la me fait par amors releveir.
Ne doit on ceu don de joie apeller?
Se ma pansee ai et m'entente mise

En ma dame saverouse loer,
On ne lou doit pas tenir a faintise2
1 Ms. cant elle 2 Ms. on ne la doit

Ne m'i laissier por ceu acoroner.
Car s'on me devoit tueir,
S'an dirai je ma testee
De sa bouchete fresee
Baixier asseis, sentir et langueter.
Se devroit on de joie deskirer.
Dame vaillans, vermeille con serisse,

Saige en dormant sans mavais vent geter,
Noire ens ou vis, brune sus la chemise,
Vos ne daignies les tralson porter.
Cant eiirs me vuelt doner
La desirouse jornee
Qu'estes de moi regardee,
Vos grans biauteis me vient si esclistrer
Ke per force m'estuet esternuer.
Ceste chanson presanter

Voil, me halet l'escardee,
Qui mon cuer de m'escoree
Fist departir par force et desevrer
Lues ke premiers l'alai abeveter.1
V
Quant j'oi crier rabardie
Novelette en yver tens,
Dont velt Amors por m'amie
Ke je faice noviaus chans.
Or en ai fais ne sai cans,
Dont se tient a mal paie.
Si proi bone Amor k'aie
Me faice a teil chant furnir
K'elle en puist dou sens issir;
S'iert bien ma poinne enploiee.
Tant est ma dame envoisiee

C'ades vuelt crupir as chans.
Por ceu loje j'ai dreciee
Coverte de draipiaus blans,
Et doneit li ai nues wans
Et bele cote partie.
(fol. 239, vo.) Si l'ai faite si jolie2
K'il n'est nuns hons, sans mantir,
Qui puist son gent cors veir
Qui n'an voille avoir demie.
Moult li fist grant vilonie,
N'ait mie encore .ij. ans,
Li Haicarde, par envie,
Car devant .iiij. paissans3
Li dist k'elle estoit puans
Et avoc ansorilliee.
1 Ms. abeuter 2 Ms. si si l'ai faite 3 Ms. devant .iij. paissans
Or soit qu'il n'an mantist mie,

Pardit elle .i. boin taisir.
Car, por voir dire, a soffrir
Ait on; s'avient a la fie.
Ainmi, laisete pourie!

De vos vangier fuixe angrans.
Mais vos en fustes vengiee
Dont se fut damaiges grans.
Car la dame fut vaillans
Cant ot la borce veudieel
K'elle n'en est pas fuie,
Ains laissait celui venir
Qui au battre et au ferir
Li randit sa cortoisie.
He, dame de sans farcie,

Saige et tres bien avenans,
A bource, cant est emplie,
De veudier estes saichans.
Dame, s'an suix moult joians
Car ma goule en est emplie,
Si en merci ribaudie.
VI
Quant voi vendre char de porc soursamee
Aus bais estaus au debout des maissiaus,
De bone amour ai si la pance enflee
C'ausi jolis suis com arbelestiaus.
Dont voil trover chansons, motes, fabliaus;
Mais dou faire ne me sai tant pener
Ke de chanson puisse .i. soul mot trover.
Bien ait amor par cui suis ci isniaus.
J'ain et desir de cuer et de coree

Une dame qui ait non Ysabiaus,
Ke tant par est saige et bien espansee
Ke cant regart son cors, qui moult est biaus,
Si grant joie ai, ke mi chiet li serviaus.
Et dou delit ke j'ai dou regarder
Me fourdout ci qu'il ne covient pasmer
Et toelier ausi com uns porciaus.
Et cant ju ai celle joie passee,

Acheter vois moi et li .ij. chapiaus.
Lues ke reving, come dame senee
Me fait veir .i. de ces blans trumiaus.
Dont me comance a hiricier li pias
Dou grant desir c'ai de sor li monter,
Ci qu'il m'estuet per force ausi trambler
Con fait .i. fours cant il est fais noviaus.
I Ms. veudie
Trante .ij. ans I'ai bien de cuer amee,
N'en puis mentir, vigne li quaremiaus;1
Et de nos .ij. fut faite l'asamblee
En .i. merchiet ke siet an coste miaus.
N'onkes ne sou tant faire de cembiaus
Ne moi pener de liement chanter
Que me vosist, sans plus, laisser taster
Con fait il fait par desoz ces draipiaus.
Dame saichans, plus coii ke poupee,
(fol. 240, ro.) Si voirement que ver vous suis loiaulz,2
Et con mes cuers vuelt vilainne pansee
Ver vos gent cors, voillies vos vosa chaviaus
En mon despit coper de malz coutiaus;
Car cant me doi leis vos cors reposeir,
I1 me font ci mon visaige graiteir
C'acunes gens dient ke suis musiaus.
Dame saichans, plus douce c'uns aigniaus,
Si chier aveis nuit et jor et filer
Ke se voleis ma chanson escouter
Je vos donrai .i. parti de fusiaus.
VII
Quant j'oi la quaile chausiee
Entre .ij. fosseis chanter,
Et ciex qui tient par maistree
La fait devant lui tumer,3
A dont voil un chant trover
D'Amors et de sa poissance,
Dont j'ai si plainne la pance
Ke jai mes vantres n'an serait alaissiez
S'ansois ne suix des .ij. fesces sainnies.
Por ceu vos proi, douce amie,
Ke vos me voilliez prester
Vos douce boiste une fie4
Por mes fesces vantouser,
Et je vos vanrai fiever
De mi belle douce franche;
Ke se je mur, m'escheance
Vos eskerrai, car de vos suix aidies
Si largement, ke mal greis en aies.
De vos vient, dame prisie,
Ceu ke je puix recovrer
De bien, si tres grant partie
Comme devroit consiner.
Cant onkes osai ameir
Dame de si grant vaillance?
Ke de veoir vos samblance
Est cuer d'amant d'amer toz desvoiez,
Por la biauteit dont vos cors est torchies.
1 Ms. nen ruis mentier 2 M8. sus. 3 Ms. lou 4 Ms. foie
Se j'ai misse m'estudie

Toute, en ma dame loer,
On ne lou doit a sotie
Tenir, c'amans barbeteir
Ne poroit, ne deviser
De sa dame l'onorance.
Et ju qui ai remanbrance
De la belle dont je suix covoities,
Fait ke li biens que j'en di est pechies.
Dame ki j'ai amoitie,

Mon cuer donnei sans roster.
Flors estes de cortoisie,
Et de cens adroit border.
Cant me fait abeveter1
Bone amors, vos contenance,
Vos dous regars tant m'avance
Ke cant il m'est dou cuers de vos lancies
En tout lou jor ne puis estre haitiez.
VIII
Quant en yver voi ces ribaus lancier
Contre lou vant qui lour bat as couteis,2
Adont me voil en chantant envoisier
Por la belle suer, qui suis asouteis,
Qui j'ain et serf ansois ke fuisse neis.
S'ai, malgrei mi, en li servant aquis
Tant de tous biens, que j'an sui fins chaitis.
Moult me doi bien en tous poins travillier

(fol. 240 vo.) D'Amors servir, car j'an suis recovreis
Ci de tous biens, c'a pau pres porchaicier
M'estuet mon pain, tant suis enamoreis.
E, dame, a droit et car me secourreis3
D'un soul regart des eus de vos bel vis,
Ke n'est de moi ne d'autrui conjois!
Oi aveis dire d'un savignier

K'en tout lou mont n'est hons entanlenteis,
Ke il lou voit, de femes atouchier,
Dame; et vos cors est a cou compareis,
Car il n'est hons tant sor feme eschaufeis
Ke c'il vos voit, k'il ne soit refroidis,4
Et c'a feme ne port faide tousdis.
Je me doi bien por baler rebraicier,

Cant mes cuers est de teil dame enboureis
Ke valt et seit et fait tant a prixier,
Con de ribaut .xj. poins en .iij. deis.
1 Ms. abeuter 2 Ms. contre lou uant qui lou uant qui lour bat
8 The scribe,writinga capital "E," divided the stanza in two. There shouldbe no break, how-
ever, as the stanza is quite regular. The same erroris committedin the last stanza of numberxxx
in this group. 4 Ms. refroidies
Lais! ke ferai cant je n'en suis ameis?
Certes, ne sai. An grant dolorm'ait mis
LoiausAmours.Ke ces cors soit honis!
Dame qui j'ain si bien c'a souhaidier,
Je vos requier.i. don se vos voleis:
C'est ke voillies lou mien cors chalengier,
Car je sai bien, par bataille l'aureis.1
Car de moi est li jors si desireis
Ke de vous soie, dame, en grei recoillis,
Ke de paourj'erabiepres vis.
IX
Amoursme fait chantera poc d'argent,
Se poise moi coment ke on me croie.
Et en teil point me prant elle sovant,
K'esterlinn'ai ne nule autre menoie.
Et nekedentse lou credotrovoie,
Je fineroieades cortoisement.
Et cant meschiesen taverneme prant
K'il me covient sor mon gage finer,
On m'en devroit bien croiresans jurer,
Se saicheamorske teile fin m'anvoie.
J'ain et desir, certes ne sai coment,
DemixeleEolent de l'Avesnoie,
Et elle mi, si angoissement
Ke je pri Deu ke ja mais ne me voie.
Se pri amors,queilzke chaitis que soie,
Ke lai me laist servirsi justement
C'ai savorerpuisse prochiennement
Dou dous joel dont la belle arouser
Set la terre, mais ke soit par ruseir,
Car riens del mien noient n'i meteroie.
Et si m'ait dit la tousete encouant2
Ke s'uns soulersde vaiche li donoie,
Ke de son cors feroiemon talent.
Mais bone amorspor li me maistroie,
Ke s'a genouspar devant li estoie
Pour mon desdut prandresecreement,. ..
X
lou
[Quantje regart bel visaige. ...
XI
[J'ai ausi belle oquisonde faire ... ]
XII
[Ameireamorspar lai grandepoi[ssance]]4
1 Ms. laireis 2 Ms. malt bien la tousete
3Cf.above,p.68,note4. Theincipitofthemissingselections
areto befoundin:Steffens,
Archiv..
xcvn (1896)288;andRaynaud,Bibliographie,
I, 54. 4 [ssance]in Raynaudonly.
XIII
[Quant voi negier par vergiers . . .]
XIV
[Onkes mais jour de ma vie ... ]
(fol. 241 ro.) ... toisie
Car me voilleis abourer
De vos vent por mues chanter.
Engreban au tort talon

Envoi ma chanson jolie.
L'autre jambe ait il brisiee:
Il vuelt ma dame estuper,
Si ke j'ai oi conteir.
XV
Quant voi ploreir lou fromaige ou chazier,
Et la laitue ou vinaigre espanir,
De bone amor servir ai desirier,
Si ke je n'ai en yver que vestir.
Si proi celi ke si me fait vestir
K'elle me doint mes dolor alegier,
Si ke je n'aie avockes ke chausier.
Car je ne puis mon tans pis emploier

C'an mi chausier por ma dame servir;
Car moult me dout ke point ne m'eiist chier
Se mon piet voit de cordowan nercir.
Mais plus me crien c'amors, per son plaixir,
Ne me destraigne ankenuit au couchier
Ci ke je n'aie au matin ke maingier.
Et s'ensi est ke ne me voille aidier

Loiaulz Amors, cui je serf per loisir,
Je broierai .i. chief d'al ou mortier
S'en maingerai, car j'en ai grant desir.
Si ke can cel por cui je vos tusir1
Me sentirait si doucement flairier,
Me puist tenir a large vivendier.
Moult se devroit ma dame esleaixier,

C'ele pooit avocke mi gesir.
Mais bone amor m'en fait si esloignier
C'au moustier n'os ni aleir ne venir.
S'en ai teil duel, cant n'i puis avenir,
C'an la taverne an cor por asaier
S'on puet la soif par bien boivre estainchier.
Car ma dame, cui j'ain a remier,

Ait bien jureit se Dex la puist garir
De la dolor qui me fait ranvoisier,
Se je ne boi si fort ke sostenir
t Ms. celle por cui
Ne me puisse, ke me ferait morir.
Dont me doi bien pener et travillier:
De tant l'aper ke chiece en .i. selier.
Chansons, vai t'an leis ma dame crupir.1
Di li c'aim miex taverne ke mostier
Si puisse jou avocke li couchier.
XVI
Quant voi paroir la parselle ou vert bleif,
Ke li messiers porte a son col s'abaiche,
De bone Amor servir ai vollentei
Si durement, ke toz les dens m'an ache.
Dont voil servir
Tot mon vivant celi qui departir
Fait les mavais de li; si con la glaice
(fol. 241, vo.) Fait lou seloil, cant lou font et afaice.
Ma dame voil servir en loiaultei

Por ceu k'elle ait blanche et tanre la naige.
N'est nule riens qui tant me vigne en grei,
Car les chavous ait plus blans ke fowaice.
Cant la remir,
De joie fait mon cuer si esbaudir,2
C'ains n'an ot tant Guillaume Fierebraice
Cant il conquist Walegraipe a la chaice.
Plus ait lou vis vermeil et colorei

Ke n'est li dos d'une quite crevaice.
Sovente fois l'ai awan remirei
En .i. solier, parmei une crevaice.
Adont sospir
Cant je ne puis ataindre ne venir
A son gent cors qui me destraint et laice
Si fort, c'ai poc tous mes chavous n'esraice.3
Tant est plainne de cens et de bontei

Celle cui j'ain, qu'il n'est nuns ki la haice;
Si m'ait el cuer parfondement navrei:
Ja mais n'iert jors ke n'i peire la traice.
Se consentir
Ne velt amors ke la me laist sentir
Celi que si m'ait pris a la revaice,
Je me ferrai el costei d'une haiche.
Belle plainne de cens et de biautei,4

Cant je remir vos saverouce faice,
Ne puis tenir
Mes mains coies, cant j'en ai sovenir.
Si me degrait dexdont c'Amors lou saiche
Ke lou vantre ai pintelei come agaice.
1 Ms. uait tan 2 Ms. fait mon fait mon cuer

3 Ms. nesraie. 4 Ms. Velleplainnede cens
Tout sans mantir
Sachent amant ke nuns ne puet joir
De bone amor, c'il n'estraint et enbraice
Tot nut a nut ceu k'il ainme en ces braice.
XVII
El tans ke Hernus repaire
Devant la maxon,
Ke pellerins saint Akaire
Sont plus en saison,
Adonkes chanson
A mon pooir vanrai faire
En l'onor la debonaire
Qui j'ain sans raison.
Celle qui lou cuer m'esclaire
Est de teil faison:
Nel poroient contrefaire
Poignour ne masson.
Et ier me dist on,
Ou je fis ma barbe faire,
Ke li belle, blonde, vaire,
Ait tanre mousson.
Dont serait ceu bone paire

De nous, sans parson,
Car je sai les vaiche traire
Cant boillis sont li matons.
Dame de renon,
De ci joli essamplaire
Con de vos velu viaire
Ai furni cest novel son.
XVIII
Ens ou novel ke chascuns se baloce,
Con vait vandant les jus antor lou fu,
Estrainge amor dedens son cuer s'acoche;l
Se poise moi, car onkes mais n'i fut.
Or m'ait moult bien mostree sa vertu.
Amer me fait noble dame cortoise,
(fol. 242, ro.) Saige, vaillans, dont li miens cuers s'anvoise.
Or proi amors ke si la serve en grei
K'elle m'an puist hair tot son aiei.
Certes, j'ai bien grailiet contre boce

Cant j'ai mon cuer a teil dame randu,
Qui me souhaide a chaudeir la chaboce
Et c'on m'eiist traineit ou pandut.
Et si m'ait jai trois fies deffandut
C'an sa maison je ne vigne ne voise.
Lais! c'est por ceu ke j'awan d'une boise2
1 Ms. de dens son cuersa soche 2 Ms. boisse

Li bati tant son senestre coustei
C'ains puis ne volt maingier fors pain tostei.
Ancor ai pis: c'est de ceu ke je cloche,
Dont ma dame m'ait sovent irascu;
Car tot ades elle lou me reproche
Cant nos gisons ensamble nut et nut.
Mais je li di: 'Belle, vesci ton dru.'
Lors m'acole, dont durement me poise:
Ensi li uns envers l'autre s'acoise.
Si coiement demenons nos secreis
Ke nos voisin en sont tuit esbarei.
A relever, moult pres de mi s'aproiche;
Et cant je sant son vaillant cors velu,
Blanc et soeif, escaillant, come roze,
Dont m'est samblant, per lou dous roi Jesu,1
C'on m'ait lou dos d'un grant chardon batu.
Ensus de li me trais plus d'une toise.2
Elle saut sus. Adont comance noise.
La sont chavous esraigiez et tirei,
Tant k'il n'est nuns qui n'an preist pitei.
Dame, gentilz si nuns de vos s'acointe,
Je m'ocirai a .ij. mains d'un festu.
Teneis vos bien, car cant dame bescoce
Elle ait tantost son boin amin perdut.
Sovigne vos ke d'un tortel wacru
Maingies au for, et g'iere sor la mosse.
La vos donai plains sauceron d'enpoise
Dont vos avez vos bel vis colorei,
Ke plus est vers ke porelz en estei.
XIX
Ce fut tot droit lou jor de lai Chandoile,
Ke menestrei sonnent lor estrumens.
Mainte chaitive a teil jor s'apairelle
D'aleir baler en ces acesmemens.
Une en choisi en .v.c.
Que moult estoit delitouse.
Mais elope estoit et boistouse,
Et ceu me fist son gent cors covoitier:
K'elle ne seit fors ploreir et tensier.
Je 1'ain et serf, dont aucun s'emervoille.
Mais on cude ke soie hors dou sens,
Car ma dame n'ait ke la destre oreille:
L'autre perdit ens ou merchiet a Lens.
Et si recordent les gens,
De la tres douce amerouse,
K'el monde n'ait si visouce
De tot embler et de bources soier.
Et por ceu l'ain je bee a gaaingnier.
1 Ms. dont me samblant 2 Ms. toisse
(fol. 242, vo.) Car uns hons suis qui par ces boules veille.
Si per sovent trestous mes wernemens,
Si n'ai mestier de dame qui soumeille.
Et ceste seit embler et serchier rens.
Tost gaaingne mon despens.
Ainmi, douce, si en tousse!
Se sont li gent enviouse
Qui me vuellent de vous descompaignier.
Mais se n'iert jai tant c'aiez .i. denier.
Se vos veeis con tres bien s'aparaille
Cant aleir doit embler dame Hersens!
Son molekin sor son chief entorteille
K'il n'est nuns hons, ne Picars ne Flamens,
Ke l'esrajaist mie as dens.
Car ma dame dolerouse
Est partout soupesenouse.
Por ceu l'estraint, c'on nel puist arajeir,
C'on vairoit ceu k'il faut desous l'uilier.
Par la Dame c'on requiert a la trelle,
Je la vorrai espouser an valens.
S'anfant an ai, en une vies corbeille
Serait porteis a saint Jehans leans.
E Dex! con c'iert biaus presans'
De la tres douce c'arouse!
C'elle ne fust ci roignouse
II n'est dedus fors de li ambraisier,
Et ne fait bien teil dame acovoitier.
XX
Amors et sa signorie
Me font amer Marion.
Jai l'ai amee, ma vie,
Miez l'ain d'un pie de mouton.
Ne ke fie, ne ke deule,
Cant l'esgairt vidier en treule
Je l'ain si desloialement
Ke ne puis tenir mon vent.
Je doie bien avoir amie:2
Je l'ai quise de saison.
Maint lotel de fromegie
Ait mis en mon abandon
Por amplir ma gloute goule,
Non pas de waing de kenoille.
Ains s'emerveille on forment
Ou elle an ait pris l'argent.
On dit: 'Ce ne fai je mie,
Car donei li ai biaus don.'
Li rois de lai ribaudie
The scribe,writinga capital'P,' dividedthe stanzain two. Cf. above,p. 77, n. 3.

2 Me. Le doie
Robers Douces ait a non.
An son meis est sovent soule.
Lai est si cointe et si vole
C'a luix se met en present
Por muex atraire la gent.
Par lai passai l'autre fie
Atot harens en mon gron,
Et je la vi si jolie,
Baissier me fist lou menton.
Chapel avoit de fenoille.
Miex amaisse estre en .i. roille,
Por li regarder sovant,
Ke ceu c'on m'otaist .i. dent.
Pletist Deu, lou fil Marie,
Ke fist chaus et savelon,
Ke j'esposaixe m'amie
Samedi sor Monlason,
Car s'amor ou cors me coule
Plus grosse d'un fais d'estoule.
Plus desir teil paiement
Qu'estre rois de Bonivent.
XXI
Se je chant con gentil home,
(fol. 243, ro.) II fut bien raison de coi,
Car il fut bien en la some
Plus de .ij. mil ou tornoi,
Qui fut jious de mes linaige.
Por cel je chant de coraige
Et vairai la mer,
Se je ving de l'outremer,
Un porcel a grant mamel.
Di je bien, sire Danel?
Lai .i. bel porcel de moinne,
Bien l'ame tres ans parfois.
N'ai de li ke vaille .i. poume:
Cant s'amor li pri, dist: 'Oi.
Bouf, bel freire, il fut l'outraige.
Se je don me pucelaige,
Se vous voil jueir
Et mes con faire baeir
Come goule de porcel,
Si me bouse de la mel.'
Mais par saint Pierre de Rome,
Vos deves pas boussier moy.
J'ai .i. freire, c'ait non Tome,
Ke fut escuer au roi,
Qui porteir l'oisel plumaige
Por prandre mailart rivaige.
Vos ne despenser
En si gentil leu monteir.
Vos, Boin Dan, a vuil travel:

Male meschance vos musel.
Amor, ains qui me asoume,
Va noier. Don je l'otroi
De servir mon Dam qui tome
De pais, ou .ij. fois ou .iij.,
Chascun jor par vaselaige,
Car sans boussei servirai ge
De qui sans fausser
Voil m'a vostre amor doner:
Toi, Boin Dam, car je fu bel
Et sai boin cheval morvel.
Se je Boin Dam te nome
J'ai boin droit, par saint Aloi;
Car vous fus, par saint Gerome
Toi c'an tien, mais c'ai a toi. (?)
Porcel qui de vous fiz saige
Vos trave tout mequilage. (?)
Cant vos me garder,
Por vous me quel sopirer;
Car nul singe crouperel
Ne fut ains si bel porcel.
A roi Inglis, qui fut saige,
Qui Francis mander
Fait, por son sele traver
Por bouter bourilunel,
Envoi mon chant par revel.
XXII
Devant aost, c'on doit ces bleif soier,
Ke ces faukeurs voi venir per tropiaus,
De mesxonner voi pluxors estillier
Et aquater et xaloignes et aus,
Et pain porter a lor colz an sachas,
Dont voil amer ma dame sans boisier,
Et si ne sai auqueil leu comancier.
Mais j'ai trovei dedens mon callendier
C'amer la doi par devers les trumiaus.
Raison i ai, bien lou poeis cudier,
Car cele part jouke le dous joiaus
Cant m'an sovient, plus suis fiers c'un cochias
Qui ces poules voit grater ou fumier.
Tant de joie ai, je puis en poignier.
Dame, loialz tant faites aprisier

Ke on vos doit amer dusk' es blaus.
(fol. 243, vo.) C'il est ensi ke pour vous envoisier
Me faice Amors, c'est por vos noirs chavias.
Se vostre amor puis avoir por noiant
Tant en ferai a notrive crokier,
Bien demi an an areis ke meschier.
GLOSSARY
abaiche plate consiner to sign, to seal

abeveter to watch, to look at coree entrails
abourer to stuff, to fill (?) (xiv, 1. 3) cost6 location
acesmemen ornament cous cuckold
s'acochier to lie down crevaice shrimp; crack, fissure
s'acointer to approach
s'acoisier to become calm debout end
acoroner to finish degraitier to regret
acovoitier to desire demie half, a little
afaicier to make disappear descompaignier to separate
agaice magpie desdut amusement
aiei destraindre to pursue, to force,
tot son a. comfortably to torment
al garlic deviseir to describe, to examine
alaissier to tire dexdont from then on
angoissement violently draipiaus rags, scraps of cloth
angrans desirous dru lover
ankenuit last night
ansorillie exposed to the sun emboins (?) (Ms. e boins), I, 5, n. 4
s'anvoisier to rejoice encouant today, now
aprement violently enfergie laden with chains
aprisier to value, to judge enpoise pitch
arajeir to enrage envoisier to amuse, to enliven
arouser to sprinkle, to drink the health erabier
of e. vis to become furious
aser (ache) to gnash esbarei astounded, amazed
asouteir to dupe, to treat as a fool escarde dry (see haler)
avenir to arrive s'esleaixier to rush away
awan this year, lately escoree entrails
espanse conceived, formed
se balochier to swing, to sway esraicier to pluck
barbeteir to mumble estillier to equip with tools
bee gaping, open estoule straw
bescocer to deceive, to disobey estraingier to repulse
boce mouth estuper to enjoy
boisier to dupe, to betray eus benefit
boise splinter
border combatant faide feud
boule trick, ruse fais bundle, bunch
bouser to prick, to sting farci stuffed, full
buee washing fason face
buer (vb) to wash fie time
buer (adv) well, happily a la f. generally
filer to caress
cembel joust flaitir to collide with
chaboce hump flasaie covering, blanket
chafer to heat fourdouter to fear
chazier draining rack (for cheese) fowaice a hard cake (fouace)
cochias cockerel fromegie assortment of cheeses
coloier to crane, to move the head
conjoir to treat, courteously garson6 surrounded with boys
grailier to blow the trumpet pardire to finish reciting
called graille pawillon butterfly
g. contre boce: to break wind(?) (xvII, 2, 1. 1) pias skin
gron folds of a garment plumer to pluck
la teste p. bald
haicarde poignour fist fighter(?), (xvII, Q, 1. 4)
beggar, tramp
haitiez in good health porchaicier to beg
haler to parch porel leek
me halet l'escardee: I am thirsty pourie poor
hallegoitr6 begemmed
hat high quaile quail
q. chaussiee prostitute ? (Cf. mod. Fr.
caille coiffe) (vII, 1, 1. 1)
jiou game
quit past part. of cuire
jouke until, up to
julse judgement
rabardie country dance
ranvoisier to be gay again
keu cooked rebraicier to roll up the sleeves
mal k. purulent (?) (I, 5, 1. 3) to insult
rechaignier
recovreir to draw
laicier to tire reupe belch
laisete unhappy girl revaice reverie
lotel bit, small portion rien (rens) thing
lues ke as soon as roille ditch
main morning sachas bag

am. early in the morning samblant idea, opinion
maisel butcher shop sauceron gravy dish
maistroier to dominate savignier savin (bush)
manaie power, protection soier to mow, to cut; to steal
maton soft cheese souler shoe (Cf. LAngforset Bran-
mel erotic (See: Godefroy, din, Rec. gen. des Jeux
Dict. de l'anc. langue Fr., Partis, H, 275)
V. 223, s.v. Mele, 2, lance?, soursame ulcerous
javelin?) (xxI, 2, 1. 10)
mequilage (?) (xxi, 5, 1. 6) taisir silence
mesel (musiaus) leprous tensier scold
messier game warden toelier to wallow
molekin shawl tortel pastry
mon world, lady tousete young girl
Monlason (?) (xx, 5, 1. 4) trave (?) (xxi, 5, 1. 6)
morvel glandered travelier to torment
mousson (erotic) se travillier to endeavour
mualz mute, dumb trumiaus leg, thigh
tucir, tusir to cough
naige buttock tumer to caper
nekedent however, nevertheless
nes even, not even uilier eye-slit in the helmet
notrive (?) (xxi, 3, 1. 6)
vers shiny, glossy
outrajous reckless, daring visouce sly
vivendier
largev. bonvivant wanaie advantage,profit
vole flighty,vain wans gloves
wernemen ornament,garment,defense
wacru almostraw
Walegraipe (?) (Possibly wale graipe, xade faded, wilted
'Welsh filth' Cf. Godefroy, xadeit warm
sv. crape.)(xvI, 9, 1. 7)
BROOKLYNCOLLEGE.
Elegies Attributed to Dallan Forgaill

Author(s): James Travis
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:49
Speculum.
ELEGIES ATTRIBUTED TO DATLAN FORGATT,T
BY JAMES TRAVIS
THE scholarly zeal of Whitley Stokes is to be credited with the best available
edition of Amra CholuimbChille,1and the only one of Amra Sendin.2 Though these
elegies, attributed to Dallan Forgaill, a contemporary of Colum Cille, are among
the earliest of surviving Old-Irish poems, a thorough study of their prosody has
not so far appeared.
Zimmer argues that Amra Choluimb Chille was completed soon after Saint
Colum Cille's death in 597.3 Macalister has recently (in passing) approved Zim-
mer's dating.4 Kuno Meyer also concurs, in his valuable Miscellanea Hibernica,
'pending a thorough linguistic analysis.'5 As for Amra Sendin, no competent au-
thority seems to have pronounced upon its dating. Stylistically, as well as lin-
guistically, Amra Sendin and Amra Choluimb Chille are very similar: they are
the creations of the same school if not the same hand. But neither text, in its
present form, dates from the turn of the sixth century. The burden of the lin-
guistic evidence, so far as it has been examined, suggests that all the copies of
Amra CholuimbChille depend on an eighth-century re-editing of a text that could
have dated from the close of the sixth century.
The language of both poems is deliberately artificial and obscure, though
basically Old-Irish. Because of their artificially treated language, they cannot
easily be dated very precisely by a linguistic approach. One thing is clear: both
poems are ambitious literary efforts, judging alike from their language and their
style. Both poems exhibit, throughout their body, a curious system of prosody-
a combination of the alliterative technique of the oldest Irish verse and a free-
verse parallelism suggested in part, at least, by the Psalms in Latin. In addition,
the prefatory prayer of Amra CholuimbChille employs the technique of Old-Irish
bardic poetry, as distinguished from the alliterative technique of the filid.
Kuno Meyer has discussed briefly the technical peculiarities of this prefatory
prayer.6 Macalister has recently pointed out and provided an explanation for the
Psalmodic parallelism of Amra CholuimbChille.7Whitley Stokes long ago called
the whole poem 'a complete piece of artificial, alliterative prose.'8 An analysis of
this 'alliterative prose,' however, together with its emotional fervor and its attri-
bution to a 'chief-poet of Ireland,'9 is sufficient to indicate that Amra Choluimb
1 Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., 'The Bodleian Amra Choluimb Chille,' Revue Celtique,xx (1899),
80-55, 132-183, 248-289, 400-437.
2
Whitley Stokes, ed., 'Amra Sendin,' Zeitschrift fiir Celtische Philologie, inI (1901), 220-25.
3 Heinrich Zimmer, 'tJber direkte Handelsverbindungen Westgalliens mit Irland,' Sitzungsberichte
der Koniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1910) pp. 1032-44.
R. A. S. Macalister, The Secret Languages of Ireland (Cambridge: The University Press, 1937),
p. 76.
6 Kuno Meyer, 'Miscellanea Hibernica,' University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature,
ii (1916), 26-27.
6 Ibid.,
pp. 25-27. 7 R. A. S. Macalister, op. cit., pp. 68-69, 72, 76-77.
8
Whitley Stokes, 'The Bodleian Amra Choluimb Chille,' Revue Celtique, xx (1899), p. 32.
9 Ibid., p. 133.
89
90 Elegies Attributed to Dallan Forgaill
Chille was intended for poetry. And the same must be said for Amra Sendin.
The alliterative technique of both poems has apparently not been examined
closely. If this technique is correlated with that of the earliest surviving Old-
Irish verse, an identical relationship is disclosed. The fact is remarkable, since
it indicates the willingness of early Irish Christian poets to draw upon, for the
praise of Saints, the arsenal of the verse in which druidical spells, incantations,
and prophecies have survived. And this, in the face of the poets' indubitable fa-
miliarity with Latin!
The sound-harmony of the pagan Irish involved not merely alliteration but
also - a fact not generally recognized - assonance, consonance, and rime. This
is provable, directly, from the sources and, indirectly, from the character of the
rime in much Christian-Irish verse. A preponderant reliance on alliteration as the
prime staple of sound-harmony is indeed characteristic of one style of Old-Irish
verse; but, even in this style, various forms of assonance, consonance, and rime are
not negligible as devices, though also not compulsory. It remains to discover the
alliterative technique of the two elegies ascribed to Dallan Forgaill, and to show
the indigenous source of this technique.
Amra CholuimbChille, in its present form, is composed of two prefatory quat-
rains followed by ten sections that consist of a varying number of verse lines or
phrases. These phrases are invariably set off from one another by glosses of occa-
sionally enormous length. There are about 140 distinct phrases in the body of the
poem. Amra Sendin is a much slighter performance, consisting of fifteen long-
verse lines, all separated by glosses. In Amra CholuimbChille, at least, the phrases
as set off by the glosses do not always represent sections of equal structural im-
portance; that is, what was apparently intended for a normal verse line is some-
times broken up into two or three sections. In studying the prosody of both
elegies, it is essential to follow not only the division into verse lines, but into the
sections of which these lines are built. The more copious glossing of Amra Choluimb
Chille makes it easier to distinguish divisions within the verse line in this poem
than in Amra Sendin, in which the meaning, the punctuation, and the prosodic
system alone serve as guides.
The following quotation from Amra Sendin illustrates the main features of its
alliterative technique, and the basic principles of the more involved technique of
Amra Choluimb Chille:
5. Ruide im rochorp carcrastar cen chais modeat

mugsaineis macc Geirrgindgart.
6. Glainidirgol go noam som sii dian sossad
sidlothasine i Cathaigcaur.
7. Cain n-ardn-orddonn-adamraassa ordon
archaingelhi findmaigeibfil.
8. Fiadh fochraicefollnatharamrucach 6r oebligad
ina ma ni mo.
9. Mor ua Dubtaig drongo(blaig)dom ro[f]oir
dom rusc reil-cobairar a molta miad.
Elegies Attributedto Dallan Forgaill 91
10. Moai mo rose rigfothamo da n hed

n-ardn-imchaissenuassnaibnim-combebablAi.
11. Bleasc amroscilardaco mbrosnaigibuath
uas mo luirgniblanglassaibis forrumada fail.1
It is evident that the prosodic ideal - not invariably achieved - is a linkage
of each word with its neighbors, chiefly by means of alliteration, but also by
means of assonance, consonance, and rime. Alliteration is practically compulsory
between the last word of one long line and the first word of the next. Thus, gart-
glainidir (lines 5-6), caur-cdin (lines 6-7), fil-fiadh (lines 7-8), etc. Alliteration
is also extremely common within the verse line, within the sense units of this line,
and between the last word of one sense unit and the first word of the next.
A brief summary of Old-Irish poetic technique is necessary at this point in
order to bring out the variety and nicety of the technique of Amra Sendin and
Amra CholuimbChille. Some of the rules of Old-Irish alliteration are:
(1) Only unstressedwordsstand betweenalliteratingwords.
(2) Any vowel alliterateswith any other.
(3) A consonantalliteratesonly with itself repeated,or, exceptf, s, p, with its lenited
form.
(4) n- beforevowels (in eclipse) and h do not count for alliteration.
(5) c and g, t and d, and p and b alliterate.2
Further, prefixes do not prevent alliteration of the initial sound of the root word.
Though alliteration occurs typically between consecutive stressed initial sounds,
it is not essential that consecutive initial sounds be stressed in order to be recog-
nized as alliterating.
Old-Irish rime as well as alliteration is based on similarity not identity of sounds.
In words that rime perfectly, the rime begins on the stressed vowel, the cor-
responding stressed vowels are identical, all the consonants subsequent to the
first stressed vowel are of the same phonetic class and quality, and all long vowels
in syllables after the first riming syllable are identical. Unstressed short vowels
following a riming syllable rime if of the same quality - a, o, u or e, i. In Old-
Irish verse, the consonants are grouped for riming purposes as follows:
(1) The stops c(gg,g), p(bb),t(dd)rimewith each othereitherby themselvesor, in com-
bination,with either liquids or spirants.
(2) The liquids (1, r), the nasals (n, ng, m), and the spirants (d dh, g gh, b bh, m mh, ch,
th,f) rimeeitherby theselvesor, in combination,with each other, but so that aspi-
rated consonantsrimewith aspirated,and unaspiratedwith unaspirated.
(3) s rimes only with itself.3
In the Middle-Irish period, stricter rules prevail, according to which consonants

are classed as follows:
1 'AmraSendin,'ZeitschriftfiirCeltischePhilologie,In (1901),993-224.
2 Kuno
Meyer, A Primerof Irish Metrics(Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, & Co., Ltd., 1909), pp. 3-4.
This Primer,thoughuseful, is inaccurate.It shouldbe read and used only in the light of Bergin's
extensivecriticismsin Eriu.
a SummarizedfromKuno Meyer,A Primerof Irish Metrics,page 7.
92 Elegies Attributedto Dallan Forgaill
(1) Voicelessstops: p, c, t.
(2) Voicedstops: b, g, d.
(3) Voicelessspirants:f, ch, th.
(4) Voicedspirants:bh, dh, gh, mh, and 1, n, r.
(5) Double consonants:UI,m(O. Ir. mm, mb), nn, ng, rr.
(6) a.1
By the Middle-Irish period, a less restricted type of rime, termed imperfect, had
been recognized. Imperfect rime consisted in identity of stressed vowels, as in
perfect rime, and in agreement of consonants in quality but not in class. Actually,
Old-Irish specimens also exhibit imperfect rime.
Another type of rime, recognized in the Old-Irish period, is termed consonance.
Consonance exists when all the corresponding vowels are of the same quantity,
the corresponding consonants or consonant groups of the same class, and the final
consonants of the same class and quality. Imperfect consonance does not require
that the consonants be of the same class. Consonance occurs independently of
accent, though corresponding syllables that consonate are, naturally, often paral-
lel in accent.
Still another form of rime recognized in the Old-Irish period is termed debide.
Debide rime is end rime between two paired verse-lines in which the rime word at
the end of the first verse-line is one syllable shorter than the rime word at the
end of the second verse-line. In the shorter rime word, rime begins on the accented
vowel; in the longer rime word, the rime is typically non-accentual, since it oc-
curs on a syllable or syllables following the first. The following quatrain illustrates
debide rime:
Atchiu fer find firfeschless
co lin chret ina chaemcnes,
lond lAithi n-airthiura chind,
oenachbuadaina thilchind.2
Assonance, in Old-Irish poetry, is a correspondence of vowel sounds. The con-

sonants in the syllables affected need not agree, and the assonating words need
not be of the same syllabic length. Assonance occurs independently of accent.
End assonance is often non-accentual. Imperfect assonance occurs between a
monophthong and a diphthong containing, as one of its constituent elements,
this monophthong.
Other devices of Old-Irish verse include conachlonn, entrance rime, internal
rime, interlaced rime, and inlaid or heaped rime. Conachlonnis a linking of verse
units by the repetition of the last word of one unit as the first word of the next.
Entrance rime consists in beginning successive or corresponding verse units with
the same syllable or word, or with riming syllables or words. Internal rime occurs
between the end word of one short verse-line and a word in the interior of the
next (or, rarely, between a word in the interior of one short verse-line and the end
word of the next). Interlaced rime occurs between words in the interior of con-
1Ibid.,p. 7. It is not possibleto drawa fixedlinebetweenperiodsof Irishverseon the basisof

technicaldistinctions.
2 TdinB6 Ctalgne, ed.ErnstWindisch(Leipzig: S. Hirzel,1905),p. 831.
secutive or corresponding verse units. Inlaid rime occurs between words within
the short verse-line.
Finally, there occurs in Old-Irish verse a sort of consonance very similar to one
or two types of what in Welsh poetry is termed cynghanedd.This ornament has
not hitherto been noticed in Old-Irish poetry, presumably because no one looked
for it. The ornament consists in a parallelism, either simple or inverse, between
the consecutive consonant sounds of the opening and closing portions of the verse
unit, or between the consecutive consonant sounds of adjoining words. This
parallelism occurs independently of the number, value, and arrangement of inter-
vening vowel sounds. In Old-Irish cynghanedd, the same phonetic groupings of
consonants are recognized as in Old-Irish rime. The following are some instances
of this cynghanedd:
lam n6ib di Laignib
ar cuirp hi cilice
lethcholbe flatho
ror6ina reunn
in gren tind toidlech
breo 6rde 6iblechl
Nida dir dermait dala each rig r6mdai,
reimse rig Temro tuatha for slicht slogdai.2
Because of the number of devices already listed, and because of their nicety,
it must not be supposed that the above brief summary exhausts the variety of
Old-Irish sound harmony. Its complete rules, based on its practice, have yet to
be written. For example, no rule has been formulated to represent the fact that
a shorter word rimes, in some poems, with the opening syllables or syllable of a
longer word rather than, as in debide, with the closing syllables or syllable.
To return to Amra Sendin. The following is an array of the sound-harmony
that characterizes the consecutive words of various of its lines:
line 6 glainidir gol alliteration, consonance
gol go alliteration, assonance
go noam imperfect assonance
noam som consonance
som sfi alliteration
s6i dian imperfect assonance (?)3
dian sossad consonance
sossad sidlotha alliteration, assonance
sidlotha sine alliteration, assonance
sine i assonance
i Cathaig imperfect assonance (?)3
Cathaig caur alliteration
1 'Brigitbebithmaith,'
ThesaurusPalaeohibernicus,2 Volumes,ed.WhitleyStokesand JohnStrachan
(Cambridge:The UniversityPress, 1903), II, 325-326.
2 Quoted in Kuno Meyer, tber die alteste irische Dichtung,' part II, in Abhandlungender Kiniglich
Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1913, philosophisch-historischeclasse (Berlin: 1914), p. 15.
3 In the first two instances,the questionmark is a recognitionthat the sound-harmonyis more
tenuousthan usual.In the thirdinstance,the auralcorrespondence was probablycloserthan the writ-
ten wordsmight lead one to believe. The intentionof linkingconsecutivewordssupportsa positive
interpretationof these less conventionalharmonies,and even leads one to see another'rule.'
line 7 Cdin n-ard consonance
n-ard n-orddon alliteration, consonance
n-ordon n-adamra alliteration
n-adamra assa alliteration, assonance
assa ordon alliteration
ordon archaingel alliteration
archaingel hi alliteration
hi findmaigeib assonance
findmaigeib fil alliteration, consonance
line 9 Mor ua imperfect assonance (?)3
ua Dubtaig assonance
Dubtaig drongo(blaig) alliteration, rime
drongo(blaig) dom alliteration, rime
dom ro[o]oir assonance
dom ro [f] oir dom ruse rime, alliteration
ruse reil-cobair alliteration
reil-cobair ar consonance
ar a alliteration
a molta assonance
molta miad alliteration
All fifteen long lines of Amra Sendin disclose an identical prosodic ideal in regard
to the linkage of consecutive words. Although a certain proportion of the oral
correspondences in the poem would have occurred even if they had not been con-
sciously sought, there can be no doubt, statistically, that correspondence between
successive words was, for the most part, purposively attained.
It is noticeable that rime is not conspicuously employed as a linking device.
In fact, its frequent use between successive words would limit the poet too greatly.
Then, too, the style of sound-harmony employed calls for alliteration at salient
points: where rime is employed in Amra Sendin, it is apt to be imperfect, and to
exist between words that alliterate.
Before turning to Amra CholuimbChille, one further observation: when allitera-
tion is employed in the sense unit, some device other than alliteration is likely tc
link the end of the unit with the beginning of the next. Thus, the unit fiadh
fochraice follnathar, in line 8, is followed by amru, which assonates with foll-
nathar.
Amra CholuimbChille displays less rigidity and more variety of technique than
Amra Sendin, more virtuosity in its parallelism, and some linking devices not
exploited in Amra Sendin. The opening lines of Amra Choluimb Chille provide
some suggestions of the technical differences between the two poems:
Ni disceoil due Neill
Ni huctot oenmaige, mor ma[i]rg, mor deilm
Difulaing riss re aisneid, Colum cen beith, cen chill

Co india dui do? sceo Neral
Notice first the linking of successive lines and phrases by an elementary sort of
entrance rime, a repetition of the identical word at the opening, reflecting a
1 'The BodleianAmraCholuimbChille,'RevueCeltique,xx (1899), pp. 156-160.
rhetorical parallelism: ni-ni, mor-mor. The presence of this entrance rime obviates
the requirement of a link between the last word of one line or phrase and the first
word of the next. Proper names are not subject to the rules; hence, Colum, above,
doesn't respond to any word immediately preceding it. Notice also the corre-
spondence between the first and last words of some phrases - Ni disceoil due
Neill, Co india dui d6. Indeed, there is an inverse echo in these phrases - n, d,
d, n; o, d, d, o. Then, observe the expansion of the sound of Colum Cille's name in
another phrase - Colum cen beith, cen chill.
A freer use of assonance and rime distinguishes Amra Choluimb Chille from
Amra Sendin. Not only does assonance substitute frequently as a linking device,
instead of alliteration, between the end word of one line and the first word of the
next, but it also appears as a link between the end words of successive phrases.
And rime itself is also used in this manner. Here is an example of assonance re-
placing the conventional alliterative link between lines:
Atruic roardtrath De do Cholumcuitechta
Finnfethalfrestall
The following is an example of assonance between the end words of consecutive
phrases:
difulaingriss re aisneid, Columcen beith2
The following is an example of end-rime linking corresponding lines and phrases:
Gresro fer fechtnachu
Fri arthuarchathru
Co domundringthiar
Ar deo doenachta
Ar assaibrigthiar3
The first and fourth lines are linked by end rime, as are the third and fifth; and
the second line contains an internal chime. Assonance links the second with the
first and fourth lines.
Another technical feature of Amra CholuimbChille is its use of two linking de-
vices in the same passage. In the following extract, entrance rime joins a series of
phrases that are also connected by alliteration and rime between the last word of
one phrase and the second word of the succeeding phrase:
Boe saegulsneid
Boe seim sdth
Boe sab suithe cech dind
Boe dind oc libur leigdocht4
Alliteration is also used as a link between the opening of phrases; and, as such,
it may be combined with a second linking device:
Lassaistir tuaith
Leiss tuathoccidens5
1 Ibid., p. 166 2 Ibid., pp. 158-160.
3 Ibid.,pp. 260-262. The wordrigthiar,above, is spelledrigthierin the source.The changeof e to a
is authorizedby the other Mss, and by analogywith the other formsin -ia.
4 Ibid.,p. 168. 5 Ibid., pp. 168-170.
Alliterative inversion such as appears within the opening line of the body of the
poem is also used as a device linking consecutive lines:
CotrolassOriens
0 chleirchibcridochtaib1
Assonance appears as an entrance link:
CotrolassOriens
0 chleirchibcridochtaib
F6 dibath2
Both the opening and close of consecutive lines may be linked, and the end link
may exist between a final in one line and a penultimate word in the next:
Ranic iath nad adaig aiccesdar
Ranic tir do Moise muinemmar
Ranic maige mos nad genatarciuil3
The tendency to link as richly as possible may result in a parallelism so com-
plete as to include every sound of two consecutive phrases:
Ba din do nochtaib
Ba did do bochtaib4
In these lines, and in the first two of the three quoted immediately above, we see
the echoes of a style of verse in which the concept of a word-measure is the domi-
nant regulative principle - a style exemplified in some pre-classical Latin in-
scriptions as well as in druidical pieces from Irish manuscripts. It will be noticed,
in the lines mentioned, that the parallel words are invariably equal in syllabic
length; and this equality illustrates the operation of the word-measure concept.
As in Amra Sendin, the presence of alliteration throughout a phrase or line
usually involves the use of a different device for linking these units:
Raith rith rethes
Dar cais caindenam
Faig feirb fithir
Gais gluassagle5
Finally, as in Amra Sendin, all the devices that link verse serve to link not only
sense units, but words within these units. Alliteration throughout the phrase:
the first, third, and fourth lines just quoted. Inverse alliteration within the phrase
has already been indicated in the opening line of the body of the poem: it occurs
elsewhere also; for example, ba did do bochtaib, above. Assonance occurs through-
out the phrase - miad mar munimar manna.6 Consonance sometimes appears
within the phrase - ni foet na fuacht,7 ni oened ni na bu,8 beo a ainm beo a
anuaim.9 Alliteration, rime, and assonance- Roanic axalu la airbriu arch-
angliu.l0
Though no one has yet suggested the hypothesis that the rimed prose of the
1 Ibid., p. 170. 2 Ibid., p. 170. 8 Ibid., pp. 172-174. 4 Ibid., p. 268.
Ibid., pp. 248-252. 8 Ibid., p. 268. 7 Ibid.,
p. 272.
8 Ibid., p. 272. 9 Ibid., p. 274. 1oIbid., p. 172.
late classical and patristic rhetoricians is the source of the linking technique dis-
played in Dallan's elegies, this rimed prose has been invoked as the explanation in
general of early Irish alliteration, assonance, internal rime, and end-rime.1
Superficially, it might seem reasonable to suppose that a Latin influence accounts
for the appearance of these devices in Old-Irish verse, while maintaining the in-
digenous origin of the linking technique on the ground that no known style of
Latin verse or prose exhibits as a characteristic the linking of the end word of
one line or unit with the first word of the next. So far as the dates of manuscripts
are concerned, no Irish manuscript is sufficiently old to make impossible the argu-
ment that Old-Irish verse derived its initial conception of rime, assonance, and
alliteration from the Late Classical rhetoric of the Church fathers. Nor are the
Church fathers the only proffered source. Kuno Meyer, in his Learning in Ireland
in the Fifth Century (a slight pamphlet), argues that Gaulish scholars, fleeing to
Ireland from barbarianism, brought Classical rhetoric into contact with the na-
tive literary tradition of Ireland before the coming of Patrick. Meyer, following
the previous example of Windisch, tries to torture some fragments of Old-Irish
literature into evidence for the practice of Late Classical rhetoric in the Irish
language. The use of the term rhetoricin Irish sources to label various poetic com-
positions has been taken as further evidence. And Hisperic Latin has been viewed
by both Kuno Meyer and Wilhelm Meyer as Classical rhetoric gone to insular
seed.2
One great difficulty with the theory of Late Classical influence is that no docu-
ments and no poems are available to illustrate how Late Classical alliteration,
rime, and assonance became so vastly changed in Old-Irish from their presumed
sources. The Irish rules for'these devices have literally almost nothing in common
with Classical practice; and the Irish had devices, such as consonance, apparently
unknown to Latin literature.
A second great difficulty with the theory of Late Classical influence is that no
proof exists for a reading knowledge of Latin among the pagan Irish. Without
such knowledge, it is doubtful that they could have received much literary bene-
fit from the sum total of Gaulish scholars.
A third difficulty is with the Irish use of the term rhetoric.The term as used is
merely evidence that monkish copyists or summarizers preferred it as a tag for
certain types of Irish verse over Irish terms for these types. Irish terms existed.3
The preference or ignorance of monkish copyists is a poor prop for theory.
A fourth difficulty is that Hisperic Latin has scarcely anything in common with
Late Classical rhetoric. Hisperic Latin and Hisperic are artificial languages of
1 Wilhelm Meyer aus Speyer has been the foremost

protagonist of a Latin source for Irish sound-
harmony.
2 Kuno
Meyer, op. cit.; Wilhelm Meyer, 'Die Verskunst der Iren in rythmischen lateinischen
Gedichten,' in Nachrichtenvonder Koniglichen Gesellschaftder Wissenschaftenzu Gottingen,Philologisch-
historischeKlasse (1916) pp. 605-644 and especially p. 623.
3 See the texts in R.
Thurneysen, Mittelirische Verslehren,in Irische Texte, ed. Whitley Stokes and
Ernst Windisch (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1891), pp. 5-106.
Irish provenance concocted in vain emulation of the learned tongue of the Irish
druids, as Macalister cogently reasons.1 Hisperic makes no contribution to the
sound-harmony of Old-Irish.
A fifth difficulty is that Hiberno-Latin poems exhibit an orderly development,
over a period longer than two centuries, from Ambrosian assonance to the full
panoply of Old-Irish sound-harmony. On the other hand, Old-Irish verse,
throughout its available specimens, employs a sound-harmony substantially
identical in ingredients, though variously applied stylistically.
A sixth difficulty: the theory of Late Classical sources for Old-Irish verse im-
plies that the druids and the filid, whose disciples sometimes, even in Caesar's
day, spent as long as twenty years in the formal study of some sort of literature,
still had not arrived, in Ireland, five centuries later, at a conscious acquaintance
with alliteration or assonance.
But Macalister has recently shown that the alphabet of the druidical ogham,
originally a finger language, is based on a regrouping, according to phonetic
principles, of the Formello-Cervetri Greek alphabet, and that this regrouping
must have begun during the fifth century B.C., probably in Southern Gaul.2
Completed before Caesar's time, the regrouping follows precisely the same classi-
fication of vowels and consonants that governs the practice of rime, assonance,
consonance, and alliteration in the earliest available Old-Irish verse. In the light
of this circumstance, the hypothesis of a Latin source for Christian-Irish poetic
devices seems unduly fanciful, especially since these devices and their uses are
distinguished, in all Irish verse, from their hypothetical sources by unique pe-
culiarities explicable only in terms of Celtic and Teutonic antecedents and ana-
logues. Unduly fanciful, even if no poetry of the Irish pagans had survived; but
it has, and its character is decisive: it is identical in linking technique with the
verse attributed to Dallan Forgaill.
Two poems attributed to Amorgen, the poet of the Milesian invaders of Ireland,
incorporate most of the devices exhibited above. Amorgen's Incantation, suppos-
edly a spell wrought to ensure the Milesian conquest, is notable as an example of
conachlonn- the linking of consecutive lines by the use of the last word of one
line as the first word of the next:
Ailim iath n-erend
Ermachmuir motach
Motach sliab sreatach
Sreatachcoill ciotach
Ciotachab eascach
Eascachloc lindmar
Lindmartor tiopra
Tiopratuath aenach
Aenachrigh teamra
Teamairtor tuatach
Tuata mac milead
Mile long libearn
Libearnard Ere
1R. A. S. Macalister,TheSecretLanguagesof Ireland,pp. 62-88.
2 R. A. S. Macalister,TheSecretLanguagesof Ireland,pp. 1-28.
Ere ard diclass

Eber dond digbas
Diceadal ro gaet
Ro gaet ban breissi
Breissi ban buaich
Be nadbail heriu
Herimon ortus hir
Hir Eber ailseas
Ailim iath n-erend1
It will be observed that alliteration may be used in this poem as a substitute
linking device for word repetition; for example, n-erend ermac (lines 1-2), digbas
diceadal (lines 15-16), buaich be (lines 18-19). Further, consonance and assonance
are also admissible as linking devices. Lines 14 and 15 are not joined in the usual
manner, but by a complete parallelism of sound-harmony: the first, second, and
third words of both lines correspond closely with each other in assonance and
consonance, with diclass and digbas actually riming. Notice also that the last line
repeats the first. It was customary for the last word or line of an Irish poem to
repeat or else echo the first.
Amorgen's Hymn is distinguished for a continuous entrance-rime that reflects
the strict repetition of a grammatical structure:
Amgaeth immuir amtonn trethain

Amfuam immuir amdam setham
Amseig foraill amder grene
Amcain lubai am he illind
Amloch imaig ambri dane
Amgae lafodb feras fechtu
Amde delbas dochind cotnu
Coiche nodgleid clochor slebe
Cian cotgair aesa aisci
Ciadu illaig fuiniud grene . . . 2
The tendency is striking of the last word in the short verses to assonate with the
last word of the short verse written below it, as is the tendency toward allitera-
tive correspondence and end-assonance in the long verse.
The language of the poems attributed to Amorgen is corrupt, in the manu-
scripts, though recognizably Old-Irish. The original language of the poems may
not have been Old-Irish, however, but the Proto-Goidelic of the ogham inscrip-
tions. It is tempting to find, because of the substance of the poems, that their
1 R. Thurneysen,MittelirischeVerslehren,
in IrischeTexte,editedby Stokesand Windisch,Volume
II, 1891,pp. 35-36. This sourceputs sideby side the threemanuscriptversionsof the poem.All three
versionsare defective, and so are the edited versionsof Connellanand Sigerson.My quotationis
basicallythe editedversionfromGeorgeSigerson'sTheEasterSongof Sedulius(Dublin:The Talbot
PressLtd., 1922),Introduction,pp. 31-32. However,I have completedthe thirdline fromthe close
by addinghir, in conformitywith all threesourcesquotedin IrischeTexte,Vol. II; and I have altered
the fourthline fromthe closealso, in conformitywith two of these sourcesand with the prosodicsys-
tem of the poem.
2 Quotedin R. in IrischeTexte,in (Leipzig:S. Hirzel, 1891),
Thurneysen,MittelirischeVerslehren,
61. All Mss of the poemare defective.I have not attemptedto edit the portionof the poem quoted
above.
antiquity is responsible for their corrupt manuscript tradition and their imper-
fection, in one or two places, according to possibly later rules, in some of the graces
of rime and assonance. Naturally, two short poems could hardly be expected to
furnish a full exemplification of early indigenous devices; yet, the above poems
attributed to Amorgen do illustrate the chief devices of the poems attributed to
Dallan Forgaill, Amorgen's Incantation exhibiting, in a pronounced form, the
linking of consecutive lines through a correspondence between the end of one and
the beginning of the other, and Amorgen's Hymn exhibiting, extensively, the
linking of consecutive verse units through a parallelism of sound-harmony.
A poem from the ancient epic Tdin B6 Cuzalgnecombines systematically the
devices of entrance rime and conachlonn:
M6ra maitne
maitne mide
m6ra ossud
ossud Cellend
m6racundscliu
cundscliuChlathra
m6raechrad
echradAssail
m6ratedmand
tedmandtuath Bressi
m6rain chl6e
cl6e Ulad im Chonchobar1
As is evident, some of the lines are also knit by end assonance or end consonance,
and almost all the lines contain within themselves an alliteration or an assonance.
Another short poem from the Tdin serves to confirm clearly that end rime or
end assonance compensated as a linking device for alliteration between the last
word of one line and the first word of the next:
Crenaidbrain
braigdefer
bruindenfuil
feochaircath
coinmuidluind
mesctuichtuind
taib imthuill
im nithgalaib
iar lumnich
luud fianna
fetal ferda
fir Cruachan
cotas-crith
immardbith2
The fifth and sixth lines are linked by perfect end-rime, luind tuind, in lieu of an
alliterative link between the end word of the fifth and the first word of the sixth.
The last two lines are linked by rime (crith, bith) and assonance (on a) and for
the same reason. The echoes within the lines of this poem and between consecu-
1 Tdin B6 2
Clalgne, ed. Ernst Windisch (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1905), p. 707. Ibid., p. 831.
tive lines are especially rich: either rime, assonance, or consonance ties almost
every word to its neighbors. For example, in lines 1-3, crenaid rimes with brain,
and brain with braigde. Braigde assonates with fer, and fer rimes with bruinden.
Braigde fer consonates with bruindenfull, and bruinden rimes with fuil. Then, in
lines 7-8 and 8-9, the four words of each pair assonate and partly rime inversely,
the first and fourth words corresponding with each other (taib nithgalaib, iar
fianna), and the second and third words, also with each other (imthuill im,
lumnich luud). Inverse correspondences of this character are employed, as we
have seen, in Amra Choluimb Chille.
It need scarcely be stressed that the four poems just quoted are products of
pagan Ireland. Verses attributed to Amorgen, the poet of the Milesian invaders
of Ireland, are not likely to have been composed under Christian auspices or
even under Latin influences, especially since Amorgen's hymn, at least, could well
have been part of a druidic liturgy. Nor is there anything in either the style or
the substance of the two poems from the Tain that would support an hypothesis
of Latin influence.
Internal evidence in Amra Choluimb Chille, apart from its prosody, supports
the thesis of the indigenous origin of its style and devices. The next-to-last line
of the composition, praising the poem, is revelatory: 'Vast the variation, vast, as
of a poem in praise of heaven's holy lights.'l The glosses on this line interpret it
as follows: 'great is the exceeding variation (from ordinary language) which I
have put upon these words above,' and 'great is the poem which the poets at first
used to make to the sun and to the moon, and not greater was the darkening they
used to put upon them than I have put here.'2 Whatever the poem to the sun
and moon was really like, it must have been a pagan composition, and perhaps
a phase of druidic worship. Further, this poem was composed in a language
'vastly' at variance with the colloquial; and Amra Choluimb Chille is written in
a language supposedly inspired by, though not necessarily copied from, the lan-
guage of the pagan poem. In fact, the language of both Amra Choluimb Chille
and Amra Sendin relates the poems to pagan Irish sources. The poet that wrought
this language sought to outdo the druids.
The extended gloss on the second line of the prefatory prayer of Amra Choluimb
Chille discusses 'the obscuration and disguising of words by making in them
diminution and augmentation and mutation.'3 There are four kinds of this obscu-
ration, 'namely dichned and dechned and formolad filed and cennachros.'4These
terms identify the device of adding, subtracting, or altering letters and syllables
at the end or the beginning of words. Whitley Stokes points out, in the introduc-
tion to his edition of Amra CholuimbChille, that six means of producing abscurity
other than the artificial disguising just mentioned are employed in the poem: (1)
the use of words in a figurative sense - ladders to mean saints, because the saints
are scalers of heaven; (2) the use of obsolete native words; (3) the use of rare
Latin loan words; (4) the use of hybrids - sud-iath, south country; (5) the use of
1 'The Bodleian Amra Choluimb

Chille,' Revue Celtique, xx (1899), p. 419.
2 Ibid., p. 419. 3 Ibid., p. 151. 4 Ibid., p. 151.
rare grammatical forms; (6) the use of archaic syntax. It also seems likely that
the poet coined some of his terms, probably by analogy.
All this linguistic mystification, equally common to Amra Sendin, recalls the
artificial jargon termed Hisperic Latin, preserved in the group of documents
titled Hisperica Famina.l Words from the vocabulary of Hisperic Latin appear
in the poem Altus Prosator, generally regarded as an authentic composition of
Colum Cille. A sixth-century date, at latest, is hence indicated for the develop-
ment of Hisperic Latin. Some time before the end of the seventh century, a satire
on Hisperic Latin appeared - so we regard, following Macalister, The Epitomes
of Publius Virgilius Maro.2 The literature containing words from Hisperic Latin
seems to be chiefly if not entirely of Irish provenance or inspiration.3 Butwhat
was the purpose of Hisperic Latin and Hisperic Irish? Was it mystification for its
own sake?
Undoubtedly, these jargons were intended to augment the prestige of their
devisers and practitioners, and to exalt by specious mannerism the perhaps insig-
nificant substance of certain compositions. Further, in Ireland, this prestige
would be multiplied by a circumstance of major importance: the druids employed
a secret language!
In the sixth century, when Hisperic was apparently born, druidism was still
alive in Ireland. Druids were maintained by at least one monarch who also pa-
tronized Christian monasteries. The druidical secret language was essentially a
language of learning - an archaic form of Irish, as far removed from the Old-
Irish vernacular as classical Latin is from French.4 This was the language, no
doubt, of the poem 'to the sun and to the moon.' Now the exclusiveness of the
druids did not invite Christians to the use of a language that would be taboo,
regardless, because of its heathenish associations. But Christian-Irish men of
letters could ape druidical learning with a secret language of their own; and so
Hisperic.
To summarize, the linking technique of the two elegies attributed to Dallan
Forgaill is of indigenous origin because (1) no similar style enjoyed an anterior
existence beyond Celtic territory; (2) pagan Irish poems, undoubtedly very old,
exhibit identical technique; (3) the adoption of a pseudo-druidical linguistic
manner tends to support the thesis that both poems aspired to the prosodic style
of the pagan filid, the professional literary representatives of druidism. In short,
the two elegies attributed to Dallan effected a union of heathen technique and
Christian substance. They not only testify that Christian-Irish poets adopted the
poetic devices of the filid, but they create a presumption, by this very testimony,
that Christian-Irish poets also borrowed the prosody of the bards, the framers of
1 The chief documentsof HispericLatin have been edited by F. J. H. Jenkinson,underthe title

HispericaFamina.
2 See the chapteron Hispericin Macalister'sTheSecretLanguagesof Irelandfor the best discussion
of HispericLatin, HispericIrish, and PubliusVirgiliusMaro.
3 See, for example,variouspoemsand hymns of Irish and Hiberno-Saxon provenance.
4 See Macalister's
chapteron Oghamin TheSecretLanguagesof Ireland.
songs, and that the bardic measures may not be inspired by Latin hymns but
indigenous, and a source for the prosody of Latin hymns.'
Regarding the parallelism in Dallan's elegies, it was very likely inspired, at
least in part, by the Psalms; but it was not without precedent in the poetry of the
Irish pagans. Indeed, a druidical prayer, preserved in Old-Irish in an Irish prosody
text doubtless by virtue of its Christian tag, establishes adequately, even without
the support provided by Amorgen's Hymn, the practice in pagan Ireland of a free
parallelism somewhat like that of the Psalms:
Admuiniurm' argetnianad ba nad bebe:
amserdom doridnastarfindrunifebe.
Rohortharmo richt,
rosoertharmo recht,
romortharmo lecht,
nimthi bas for fecht,
rofirtharmo thecht!
Nimragbanathir dichonn
na dorb darglass
na doel dichuinn!
Nimmilletharteol
na cuireban na cuire buiden!
domthi aurchurn-amsire6 Rig inna n-uile!2
Perhaps Dallan, if it was he that wrote the elegies, had his eye on the poetry
of more than one religion.
TULSA, OKLAHOMA.
1My demonstrationof the indigenousorigin of Irish sound-harmonyand stanzaic structureis

complete,thoughstill in manuscript.
2 Edited
by Kuno Meyer in MiscellaneaHibernica,pp. 19-20.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Indra and Namuci

Author(s): Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:49
Speculum.
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT:
INDRA AND NAMUCI
BY ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY
Td Oav&aeL'Vob yap &XX\rtpxj qiLXouotasL aiSrT (Plato, Theatetus 155 D):

ALt6Ka 6 tLX6yvQosfi6X&To46s 7r&Cs (TLrw'6 yap yVwos
0 aiyKeLTaL kK Gavulaowpv
(Aristotle, Metaphysics 982 B).
xat etre got 6 &yyeXos,Atar
aT abacraas; ycb p&cao rb yvwffripLo (Revelation, xvII. 6)
Sirfanvate svdhdl Atirfakdya svdhdl (Taittiriya Samhitd, vin. 5. 12.1).1
THE late Professor Kittredge, in his Gawain and the Green Knight (1916) was more
interested in the literary history of the motives than in their mythological sig-
nificance. His vast learning enabled him to bring together a great body of paral-
lels, from which he makes it evident that the fundamental motive of the Chal-
lenge derives from a remote antiquity beyond the reach of literary history: still,
he has overlooked a source older than any of those that he cites, and one that,
furthermore, throws a strong light upon the meaning of the story.
Of the two parts of the myth it is mainly with the 'Challenge' that we are con-
cerned. What happens is that an uncouth stranger (the Green Knight) appears at
Arthur's court on New Years Day, when all are seated at table; but it is the
'custom' not to eat until some marvel has been seen or heard. The stranger rides
into Arthur's hall; and challenges any knight to cut off his head upon condition
that he shall submit to the same forfeit a year later. Gawain takes up the Chal-
lenge and beheads the stranger, who walks off, with the head in his hand; it
speaks, calling upon Gawain to keep his word. So Gawain does; the Green Knight
spares his life and becomes his friend. The myth in its European setting is of
Celtic essence. There are many parallels. The Early English version is a master-
piece of English literature.
By way of introduction let us consider the Green Knight's severed head that
speaks, and the parallels in which a severed head is described as moving of it-
self, or rather 'rolling,' as well as speaking (K. 147-194),2 and also the Sioux myth
in which the 'severed head of the Monster rebounded and continues to rebound to
this day in the form of the sun' (K. 161): and observe that in the Vedic tradition
1 'Hail unto him that hath his head! Hail unto him whosehead is off!'
2 To avoid repetitions I cite Professor
Kittredge'sbook as K.; my 'Angel and Titan' (JAOS.
55.373-410)as AT., my 'Sunkiss'(ibid.,60.46-67)as S., 'Atmayajfia,self-sacrifice'(HJAS. 6.358-398)
as A., and Spiritual Authority and TemporalPower in the Indian Theoryof Government(1942), as SpA.;
and J. L. Weston,FromRitualto Romance(1920),as RR. The followingabbreviationsare of Indian
texts: RV. is Rgveda Saihitd; TS., Taittiriya Sahihita; AV., Atharva Veda Saihitd; VS., Vajasaneyi
Samhita; AB., Aitareya Brdhmana; KB., Kau§taki Brahmana; TB., Taittiriya Brahmana; SB.,
Satapatha Brahmana; PB., Paficavima Brahmana; JB., Jaiminzya Brahmana; JUB., JaiminZya
Upani?ad Brahmana; AA., Aitareya Ara.nyaka; SA., Sahkhayana Aranyaka; TA., Taittiriya Aran-
yaka; BU., Brhadaranyaka Upani?ad; CU., Chdndogya Upani?ad; MU., Maitri Upani?ad; Bh.P.,
Bhdgavata Purdna; J., Jataka.
'Custom'in these contexts impliesconformityto what is taken to be the law of nature;what is
'customary'is 'in order,''regular,'Skr. dharmatas.
104
Sir Gawain and the GreenKnight 105
also, Indra severs the Titan Namuci's head, which 'rolls' after him,' bitterly re-
proaching him, and that this head, too, becomes the Sun (AT. 375), as does
Ahi-Vrtra's (AT.393), Prajapati's in PB. vI. 5.1, and Makha-Visnu's in gB. xiv.
1.1.9. Again, K. (189) remarks of the pursuing heads, in various parallel versions,
that they 'roll or bound along the ground,' often with cannibalistic intent,2
that it is not always easy to see any essential difference between these heads or
skulls 'and the "rolling rock" so familiar in North American Indian folklore';
while the severed head is described in the Indian texts as a 'bright revolving rock'
(RV. v. 30.8), the Sun, 'an iridescent rock set up amindst the sky' (TS. iv. 6.3.4.;
gB. ix. 2.3.14), and hence the prayer to Indra, 'Set thou the Rock of the Sky
arolling, prepare thy Soma-sharpened (weapon), smite thou the demons with thy
stony (bolt)' (RV. vII. 104.9; AT. 375),- in other words, 'Behead Namuci,
let there be light.' Again, in a Cheyenne myth a magician hero decapitates him-
self with a bowstring (K.161); while in one Indian form of the story, the decapi-
tation of Makha-Visnu, hero and magician, is brought about by a bow of which
the string is cut (AT.377, 378). These correspondences are already sufficient to
suggest that we have to do with significant equivalents.
Now this Namuci ('Holdfast'), a Pharaoh who will not let his people go, nor
release the Waters (cf. Ezekiel, 29, 3), is known by many other names as Ahi
('Serpent,' Dragon), Vrtra ('Enveloper,' or 'Roller'),3 Susna (Sirocco, Drought),
Makha (Fury), Visvarupa (Omniform, Protean) and is explicitly or implicitly
identified4 with Soma, Vi§nu, Varuna, Brahma, Atman, Agni and Prajapati in
their sacrificial aspects as the source from which all things come forth.'These
are the forms of the arch-Titan (asura) whom the heroic God (deva) Indra5 fights
1 The implications of Skr. vrt (turn, roll, move, -vert), with its various prefixes, are that the rolling
forth is an extroversion (pravrtti), and that the restoration of the head is an introversion (nivrtti);
cf. AT. 374. What we should call a 'creation myth' is in Sanskrit bhdva-vrtta,a 'turning, or revolution,
of nature' by which the 'wheel of becoming' (bhava-cakra=6 rpoxEs rTjs yev&oewsin James 3.6) is set
agoing (pra-vrt) by the Cakra-vartin from within its hub.
2 The Sun is often identified with Death, who devours his children as well as generates them (PB.
xxi. 2.1, cf. parallels in S. 47), and could easily be described, from the Indian point of view, as a
'cannibal.' The word rendered above by 'rock' is aSman, for which the St Petersburg Dictionary gives
also the meaning 'Esser,' implying a derivation from aS, to eat.
8 The Monster created by Tvastr was 'Vrtra' either because he 'enveloped these worlds' (V/vrt)
or because he 'whirled' (V,vr), and was Ahi in that he came into being footless, i.e., a snake (SB.
I. 6.3.9, TS. ii. 4.12.2).
4For example, 'Now Soma was Vrtra ... his head rolled off' (SB. iv. 4.3.4), 'Prajapati, the Sacri-
fice, is King Soma' (SB. xII. 6.1.1); 'Him being Soma, he sacrifices as Visnu... here, what by this
name is Visnu is to be eaten (drunk) in that name of Soma' (KB. viII. i), - which is as if one said,
'Here what by this name is Bacchus is to be devoured in that name of Dionysius,' or 'Here what by
this name is "wine" is to be drunk by that name of "Christ",' for Soma is the life sap that flowed
when Vrtra was decapitated (SB. xiv, 1, 2, 19, etc.).
6 Hardly to be distinguished from the Hydra-slaying Herakles (AT. 392, note 24). See further
E. Siecke, Indra's Drachenkampf (Berlin, 1905); L. von Schroeder, 'Herakles und Indra,' K. Akad.
Wiss. in Wien, Phil-Hist Kl., 58 Bd., 3 and 4 Abh. (Vienna, 1914); andG. Rachel Levy, 'The Oriental
Origin of Herakles,' JHS. 54, 1934. Levy refers to the 'Akkadian ... God of Vegetation ... in his
snake form' (p. 41). It is true that Soma is usually thought of as ruddy, tawny or golden rather than
green, but that refers to the extract rather than the plant, and has to do with the assimilation of
106 Sir Gawain and the GreenKnight
on behalf of his followers, alone or with their aid; but who is also often represented
as willingly surrendering himself to the Gods, to be dismembered in order that
they may live (PB. vnI.2.1, gB. xi. 1.8.2., MU. i. 6 etc.) The temporally everlast-
ing opposition of the Gods and Titans, in which the human sacrificer participates,
is the basic theme of the Vedic tradition; but it must not be overlooked that the
opponents are really brothers, or that Namuci was Indra's bosom friend and
boon companion before the battle, or that in the Early English story, conversely,
Gawain becomes the Green Knight's friend and honored guest when all is
over.1
In the creation myth of RV. x. 90, the primordial Person (purusa) is divided
up so that (verse 14) 'Sky from his head evolved (lit. 'rolled together'), and from
his feet the Earth.' This subdivision of the primordial Man has been often and
justly compared to that of the giant Ymir, 'from whose flesh the Earth was
shapen, and Heaven from his skull' (Grimnismal, 40). So, too, in the Babylonian
myth, Marduk bisects Tiamat, and makes Heaven of her upper part. Otherwise
stated, this is Prajapati's assumption of his 'world form,' in which the Sky is
his head and the Earth his feet (Maitri Upanisad, vi. 6),2 a conception of the body
of God that is reflected in the universal (e.g. Indian and American Indian) archi-
tectural symbolism, in which the house is a representation of the macrocosm and
at the same time of the human microcosm, its domed roof being on the one hand
the vault above us, and on the other to our own skull-cap, and the luffer or oculus
of the dome to the Sun (-door) on the one hand and on the other to the bregmatic
fontanel, Skr. brahmarandhra.3
K. (165) remarks that 'it is very common for denizens of the other World to
be regarded as ophidian' and (195) concludes that 'the general class of monsters
who play fast and loose with their heads were, in the original conception, though
Soma to the Sun and to the conception of the juice as a liquid fire (cf. 'eau-de-vie' as 'fire-water'),
and as a plant or tree Soma must have been green. In SA. xi Brahma is as it were 'a great green
tree' (the Tree of Life). K. might also have mentioned Khwaja Khizr in his list of green beings; the
Khwaja is green himself, and the earth grows green under his feet at every step; cf. Ars Islamica,
(1934), 174, 175.
1 In the total form of the original story it may be assumed that the two opponents were friends,
- often called
fought, and were reconciled. That is, indeed, precisely the relationship of God to Satan
the 'Serpent' - as completely stated only in those traditions, notably the Islamic, in which an ulti-
mate apokatastasis of the fallen Angel is foreseen. We have elsewhere pointed out the parallel recog-
nizable in any performance of the mystery of St George and the Dragon: the opponents, having been
friends, and perhaps even brothers, in the green room (the other world), appear on the stage (of this
world) as mortal enemies, but are friends again when they return to the obscurity from which they
first emerged. So, in Egyptian mythology, Horus and Seth are both friends and enemies,
2 It is from this point of view that we have to understand the gigantic stature of the Titan victim.
Thus, for example, in an Irish version (K. 11) the 'hideous carl's' enormous size is proper to him just
because he is the Cosmic Man or'World Giant, that one who, in an often repeated Indian formula,
divides himself, or is divided up, to fill these worlds, which worlds in this case are represented by the
'Ulstermen's house,' in which it seems that he will set fire to the roof, so tall is he.
3 See, for example, my 'Symbolism of the Dome,' IHQ. xiv, 1938, pp. 1-56, 'Eckstein,' SPECULUM,
xiv (1939, 'Svayamatrnn.a, Janua Coeli,' in Zalmoxis, ii (1938), and discussion of the Kingpost in
'The Sunkiss,' JAOS. 60, 1940, note 30: Dr. F. G. Speck on the Delaware Indian Big-house, Pub.
Pennsylvania Hist. Comm., ii (1931).
not in the actual tale that we are investigating, Snakes or Serpent-men.'l It is
very interesting to find that K. could reach this important and very significant
conclusion from the materials available to him, for, to say nothing of Zeus who,
like Asklepios, was once a snake2- and that must be understood not only his-
torically but also ontologically - or of the Aztec Winged Serpent, or Chinese
Dragon - the primordial being out of whom, whether as Vrtra or Mahabhiita
or Brahmayoni or Atman, all things are brought forth in the beginning, is typi-
cally ophidian (A. 390, 391), a proposition that applies as well to the feminine as
to the masculine aspects of the divine biunity. As we have elsewhere remarked,
'the bisection of the Serpent may be equated with the diremption of Heaven and
Earth' (AT. 378); and if in SB. I. 6.3.17 Indra bisected Vrtra (tari dvedhdn
anvabhinat), it is only to say the same thing in other words and from the point
of view of the Person himself, that 'he bisected himself' (atmdnam dvedhd'-
pdtayat, BU. I. 4.3, cf. Many, I. 32), thus dividing the male and female princi-
ples that had been one in his androgynous unity.3 That division of the man from
the woman (for in this way patig ca patni ca dbhavatdm,ibid.) - and observe
that the man is the 'head' of the woman, as is Christ of the Church (Eph. I. 22,
5.23) - is at the same time the schism of the Sacerdotium (brahma) from the
Regnum (ksatra), Sky from Earth, Knower from Known, and in general of all
the pairs of opposite tensions or values that make a mortal world; and a separa-
tion of the 'two selves4 that dwell together in us,' respectively immortal and
mortal; and that it is only by the performance of the 'sacred marriage' (daivam
mithunam) ritually and within you that the broken image of the immanent deity
can be made whole again.6
We shall not attempt to demonstrate here the ophidian nature of the First
Principle,6 but only remark that it is an established pattern that 'The Serpents,
1 That is the simple explanation of what L. A. Magnus called an 'unintelligible feature' in the story
of Ilya, who for thirty years 'had neither hands nor feet' (The Heroic Ballads of Russia, London,
1921, p. 45), - like Vrtra and Brahma, described as 'footless and handless,' i.e., as 'serpents,' in
RV. x. 30.8 and Mundaka Upani4ad I. 2.6.
2 Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to GreekReligion (1908), pp. 17-21, and Themis (1927), p. 300.
3 'Indra bisected him': 'He bisected himself' does not involve a contradiction. It should be clearly
understood, and from a Christian point of view will be perfectly intelligible, that the Sacrifice is always
a willing victim and the passion self-imposed, at the same time that he is the innocent victim of a
passion unjustly imposed upon him; these are only two different ways of regarding one and the same
'event.' So in our various mythical stories we meet with heroes who may either 'play fast and loose'
with their own heads, or allow or request others to do this to them.
4 Cf. Sayana on PB.v.1.4: 'The "other self," without the head, is the body' (itarah zirovyatirikta
dtmd deha). As also in Plato, the immortal self has its seat in the head, and the mortal self in the
trunk (Timaeus, 44 f., etc.). 6 For all this material see SpA.
6 See AT., passim; A., p. 390; and 'The Darker Side of Dawn,' Smithsonian Miscellaneous Publica-
tions, Washington, 1935. Cf. F. M. Th. Boehl, 'aus der Tiefe der Unterwelt kommen das Leben und
die Weisheit; und fUrbeide ist die Schlange das Symbol' (Skizze der KulturentwicklungMesopotamiens,
Leiden, 1936), - we must make, however, the reservation that in principio (both 'in the beginning'
and 'in the last analysis,' cf. AT., note 48) there is no division of an over- from an under-world, God
from Titan, Mitra from Varuna, Zeus from Hades (cf. Euripides, fr. 912), and that on this level of
reference 'chthonic' (Skr. budhnya) refers to 'the ground of the Godhead.' So Jeremias, 'Das grossar-
tige Symbol der Schlange, die sich in den eigenen Schwanz beisst, stellt den .eon dar' (Der Antichrist
in Geschichteund Gegenwart,1930, p. 4).
abandoning their inveterated skins, move on, put off death, and become the
Suns' (PB. xxv. 15.4).1 Soma is a case in point, for we are often reminded that
'Soma was Vrtra,' or as elsewhere implied, Makha; and so he is said to come forth
prancing, 'even as Ahi from his inveterated skin' (RV. ix. 86.44), i.e., 'the black
skin that Indra hates' (RV. ix. 73.5), which is represented in an Irish version in
which the hideous carl2wears 'an old hide next his skin, and a black tawny cloth
about him' (K. 11), 'skins' and 'garments' being interchangeable symbols.
Throughout the early Indian literature, indeed, this simile of the sloughing of the
snake-skin corresponds exactly to what is called in Christianity 'putting off the
old man and assuming the new,' in other words, to a disenchantment and a lib-
eration from what St Paul calls the 'body of death.'3 We can therefore say that,
from an Indian point of view, all procession (in the theological sense of the word),
is from an ophidian to a footed form. In European folk-lore the formula survives
in the well-known type of the 'mermaid' who, when she marries a human being,
acquires a soul, and loses her scaly tail, which is replaced by feet.4 More than one
Indian dynasty claims descent from the union of a Man with a ndgini.
The beheading of Vrtra, like that of the Green Knight, and that of Dubthach
or Uath mac Imomain in the Fled Bricrend (K. 10, 17) is a 'champion feat,'
1 Hence 'Serpent-lore (sarpa-vidya) is the Veda,' SB. xIII. 4.3.9.
2 That the 'hideous carl' is here, at least potentially, the Sun, is indicated by his great head of hair
(i.e., rays) which touches the roof, as if he meant 'to claim the position of light-bearer for the house.'
As a representation of the universe, this 'house' is the equivalent of Arthur's hall in the Gawain story,
and of the Volsung hall in the Edda, while the 'feast' is the 'feast of life.' Prajapati, beheaded (PB.
vi. 5.1) gave himself up to the Gods to be the Sacrifice, their food (PB. vii. 2.1, SB. xi. 1.6.2): Arthur
and his knights are the Gods, and their meal is really eucharistic; it cannot be partaken of as such until
the Sacrifice has been consummated. It is the beginning of a new 'Year'; the Gods of that Year do not
exist, unless in potentia, until they have eaten; it is a creation myth. It need hardly be said, in the
same connection, that the 'round table (any discussion of which must be based on A. C. L. Brown's
Round Table before Wace, Boston, 1900), to which, as Malory said, 'all the world, Christian and
Heathen, repairs' and at which, as Layamon says 'all are equal, the high and the low,' is also a cosmic
symbol, and as much so as the magic cauldron of the same traditions. We see also quite clearly why it
is the 'custom' that those who are seated at this table may not eat until a marvel has been seen or
heard. Our 'grace before meal' still recognizes its source, for those who do not live by 'bread alone.'
8 K. 214 observes that decapitation and skinning are interchangeable ways of releasing the en-
chanted being from the form in which he or she is concealed; the real person emerging from the skin
in which it had been hidden. So in the Indian Sacrifice, the purpose is to bring forth out of the old a
new person, that of the sacrificer's real Self, and that is compared to the drawing of an arrow from
its sheath or a snake from its skin. In the story of Apala ('The Unprotected,' the Psyche) who becomes
Indra's wife, she is thrice skinned, appearing at last in a 'sunskin,' i.e., a golden body of glory (refer-
ences in my Darker Side of Dawn, Washington, 1935, pp. 8, 9). Plato compares the skinning of
Marsyas to the destruction of a man in his evil and setting him up again good (Euthydemus, 285);
Dante, Paradiso, I. 19-21 appears to allude to this. Cf. also C. G. Jung, 'Einige Bemerkungen zu den
Visionen des Zosimos,' Eranos Jahrbuch for 1937 (ZUrich, 1938), p. 30 (Abhautungsmotive). Macro-
bius, Saturnalia, 1. 20.2 connects the daily renewal of the sun with the sloughing of the snake-skin.
4 In the same way the 'seal-women' of Gaelic tradition (e.g., Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, Iv,
14-17) put off their hairy skins and appear as beautiful human maidens, and marriage with a human
being makes this temporary disenchantment permanent. That is what happens to all those who, in
the Pauline sense, are 'born again.' The motive can be recognized also in the Indian vastra-harana
('theft of garments') in which Krishna steals the clothes of the gopis who, like the seal-women and
swan maidens, are bathing nude. Cf. the etymology of the word 'es-cape.'
whereby Indra who had been just 'Indra' becomes Mahendra, 'Indra the Great,'
Mahavira, 'The Great Hero,' and Maghavat, 'Bountiful' (SB, I. 6.4.21, xiv. 1.1,
13, etc.), for Indra is now what Vrtra was (SB. I. 6.3.17).
We have realised already that the decapitation is a disenchantment of the vic-
tim, a liberation of the Sun from the darkness by which he had been obscured and
eclipsed. But the Sacrificial death is also a making many from one, in which sense
the dismemberment is a consummation desired by the victim himself; and that is
the release of all the imprisoned principles, 'All this' (universe) that was contained
in 'That One' by whom all beings and all things are breathed out or poured forth
at his 'death' and whom, as Makha, 'they could not overcome so long as he was
one' (TA. v. 1.3). For the separation of Sky and Earth, who were originally one,
and that of Day and Night, provide the 'space' and 'time' in which all beings can
be born and realise their originally inhibited potentialities, which are now 'released
from Varuna's bonds,' just as even to this day the late king's prisoners are re-
leased from jail at the accession of his successor, who is also in theory (as he was
once in practice) the late king's slayer, in what was much rather a sacrifice than
a murder. So what Indra gets from Vrtra is 'that by which he, Vrtra, is these
worlds.' At the same time it is repeatedly emphasized that when Vrtra is
smitten the Waters are set free to run in their appointed courses (RV. and
Brahmanas, passim). That is to say expressly, although in other words, that
the Sacrifice of That One at the same time irrigates and repopulates the Waste
Land, or Waste City.' That irrigation and repopulation are an essential motive,
not indeed in the Gawain, but in parallel versions (K. 52 f., 245 f.),2 as well
as in the Grail versions of the Quest of Life3 in which emphasis is laid upon a
talismanic Source of Plenty that in the Cuchulain version is a magic cauldron,
and can be identified with the 'Great Hero' vessel of the Pravargya rite (to be
discussed below) and in the last analysis with the Sun (PB. vi. 5.1). It is, indeed,
significant that Arthur and his knights - Gods and men - may not eat until the
champion feat has been performed.
1 I.e., enlivensthe universeas a whole,and at the same time its severalparts, ourselvesincluded:
'waste' implying in potentia, and 'life' in actu.
2 K. remarksthat 'the
repeoplingof the WasteCity is apparentlyaccomplished,not by the surcease
of spells[but it seemsto the presentwriterthat this is necessarilyimplied],but merelyby the return
of the inhabitantsfrom the surroundingforest in which they had been hiding [fromwhat?].' The
situationwouldhave been clearif, insteadof askingthis question,he had said 'wherethey had been
hidden.'The dark 'forest'is the equivalentof the 'cave,' in reality Vrtra's'belly' and the 'Brahma-
womb'fromwhichall thingsare producedin 'the,' i.e., at any 'beginning.'The contrastof forestand
field, of wild and tame animalsis frequentin the Vedic sourceswhere,to be brief, the formerare
Titanic,the latter divineor human.Cf. the evocationof a worldof peoplefromthe 'forest'and their
ultimate return to the forest in Merlin (EETS. [1899], II, 309-311, summarised also in Isis, xIx
[1933],79). 'Desert'and 'forest'are interchangeablesymbols:the GreenKnight'snameis Bernlakde
Hautdesert.
a Many typical Grailmotives,combinedwith that of a severedhead whichis restoredto the body
to whichit belongsand, per contra,the enemy'shead is severed,will be foundin ShaikhChilli,Folk-
Talesof Hindustan,Allahabad,1913 (see pp. 149-15Q),summarisedalso in Ars Islamica,I (1934),
174, 175. For otherIndianGrailmaterial,in particularthe Bowl of Plenty, cf. my Yakaas,II (Wash-
ington, 1931),37-47.
It cannot be too clearly realised that we are dealing with a recurring cycle1
of events; in this connection it is not at all insignificant that in so many cases the
story begins and ends with the 'Year'; for whatever may be the order of time,
human or aeviternal, in which the 'Year' is reckoned, the period implies a be-
ginning and an end, to be immediately followed by another beginning (cf. AT.
415). At the beginning of any one cycle all things are in possession of the Titans.
'Everything is in Vrtra' (SB. I. 6.3.15, v. 5.5.1), who had appropriated all things
before his passion by which they are released (SB. I. 6.3.8, xII. 7.3.1, etc.), just
as the gold is in Fafnir's keeping before Sigurd takes it from him. On the one hand
Vrtra is drained of his contents and is compared to an empty leather bottle
(SB. I. 6.3.16), and on the other Prajapati, who is repeatedly identified with the
Sacrifice (victim), 'when he had emanated (or released) all beings, felt himself
emptied out, as it were, and was afraid of death: he bethought himself, "How
can I get these beings back into myself? How can I put them back into myself?
How can I come to be again the Self of all these beings?"' (SB. x. 4.2.3). On the
one hand, 'Everything was in Vrtra, namely the Three Vedas' (SB. v. 5.5.1), on
the other Prajapati saw that in these Vedas, themselves immortal, are contained
all things, both mortal and immortal, and so resolves 'to build up for himself a
Self of such sort as to contain the whole of this Threefold Science' (SB. x. 4.2.22).
It is, in fact, well known that the express purpose of the Sacrifice, as a rite en-
acted and to be comprehended, is to build up again, at one and the same time the
sacrificer's and the deity's Self, whole and complete; and as it was by the per-
formance of the Sacrifice that Prajapati reintegrated himself, so may the sacri-
ficer reintegrate himself, even today.2
The Green Knight, although beheaded, is by no means slain. So, too, when
Prajapati is beheaded, 'he survives this woe,' and because of that the Soma
vessel (drota-kala§a) is called the 'surviving vessel,' for 'it is Prajapati's head
that was struck off' (PB. vi. 5.1-6),3 and Prajapati, the Sacrifice, is King Soma
1 'Cycle' must not be interpreted 'systematically,' for as Dr Murray Fowler has justly remarked,
'It is not strictly possible to speak of a "cycle," for the act of creation is never complete and never re-
turns upon itself. It may with more accuracy be thought of as a spiral, although that, too, is a vague,
half-image. Myth spins out into a tale that is simultaneous and eternal' (JAOS. 62.39). It could,
indeed, as well be said that the act of creation is always complete and never departs from itself; from
this point of view, that of the via remotionis, and as in the 'Last Analysis' (mahd-pralaya, &v&Xvavs,
Gotterdiimmerung), is reduced to its immutable source, and it can be said of Indra that 'not for a
single day has he fought, nor has he any foe, his so-called "battles" are but his "magic"' (SV. x. 54.2,
SB. xi. 1.6.9, 10; cf. Bhagavad Gitd, vii. 25).
2 Examples of the labors of a Year undertaken by the Hero may be noted in Gawain, in the per-
formance of the tasks of Herakles, in the story of Puriravas and Urvasi (SB. xi. 5.1 f., etc.), in Rimi,
Mathnawi, I. 3056-3065, and in the yearlong sacrificial 'sessions' of the Vedic tradition.
3 The words 'was struck off' render udahanyata, for which Caland has 'was slain off'; the awkward-
ness of Caland's words very well illustrates the important point that Skr. han (with or without prefix)
does not necessarily mean 'to slay,' but much rather 'to strike' or 'wound.' So also in TS. Ii. 1.4.5
where, in Keith's version, it is after Indra has 'slain' Vrtra that Vrtra ties him up in sixteen coils,
and we must understand rather that it is after Indra has 'struck' Vrtra that this happens. Thus Indra
is rather 60&o1A&xos than 6bLoKr6vos. That in TS. vi. 4.2.3 Vrtra 'dies' is exceptional. Cf. SB. xI. 1.5.7
where Vrtra is Evil (pdpman), but that Vrtra is burnt up means that his evil is burnt away.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 11
(SB. xII. 6.1.1), who 'was Vrtra' (SB. Iv. 4.3.4). Again, when Soma is sacrificed,
'it is not himself, but his evil (his Vrtra, §B. xi. 1.5.7) that is slain' (SB. II.
9.4.17, 18); in other words, he is only apparently 'quieted' by his slaughterers
(Samitdrd, 'pacifiers') but really liberated or disenchanted, like so many other
enchanted princes who must be beheaded before they can put off the animal
forms in which they are concealed. Vrtra survives as the Sun or Moon and as the
appetite within us': that bisection does not necessarily involve extinction is
very clear from SB. I. 6.3.17 where Vrtra enjoins upon Indra, 'Do not cast thy
bolt at me: only cut me in twain (vy eva md kuru),2 but let me not come to be
there'3i.e., 'let me not die' ('here' and 'there' referring, as in Greek, to 'this' and
"yonder' world). Vrtra is an 'Undying Worm,' and while one part of him survives
as Sun (or Moon), the other remains very much alive within us, as the appetite
(TS. ii. 4.12.6, §B. I. 6.3.17), or 'sensitive (aesthetic) soul,' so often and rightly
termed by Rimi 'the Dragon,' with which every brave man must fight his own
battle if he would be, in the theological sense, a 'Victor.'
But if the decapitation of the outlandish and uncanny stranger is not his
death, we have so far only hinted at the inevitable denouement,4 in which the
head is replaced and the Victor in the first encounter must submit himself to the
immortal Victim. In order to understand the context in which this replacement is
effected we must know that the Sacrifice, by which the One is made many, al-
though on the one hand a willing self-sacrifice in that Prajapati desires to be mul-
tiplied and divides himself, insofar as it is performed by the Gods and submitted
to by the Victim, willy-nilly, is an original sin, from which the sacrificers them-
selves shrink, and for which an expiation must be made, sooner or later; and
that, as remarked by Dr Murray Fowler, the creation myth 'is equally one of
redemption' (JAOS. 62.39, c.2).5 The final purpose of the Sacrifice is therefore
not merely to continue the creative process that was 'one upon a time' begun by
That in AB. IV.4.3.4 it is Vrtra's head that becomes the drona-kalagais one of the many proofs that
Prajapati, as the Sacrifice, is to be identified with Vrtra, in the same sense that 'Soma was Vrtra';
that Soma of whom it is said that not himself, but only his 'evil' is slain (SB. III. 9.4.17), that is to
say he is not 'slain' (as it might appear) but really 'disenchanted.'
1 Like Typhon (Seth) for Philo (I. 39, 85, 86, etc.) and Plutarch (Moralia, 371 B, C).
2 The words could mean
'Only transform (vi-kr) me,' but it is clear from what follows that the
literal sense of 'Only do me apart' (and thus 'transform me') is primarily to be understood.
3 'Here' and 'there' are used in Skr. as in Greek to denote this world and the other. To be alive is
to 'be here,' to die is to 'go there.'
4 We say 'denoument' advisedly, because there can be no final introversion until 'that knot of
Susna's that Indra resolves' (RV. x. 61.13) has been untied. In the Livre d,e Caradoc (K. 26 f., U25f.,
cf. E. K. Heller in SPECULUM, xv [1940], 338 f.) the magician Elyafres creates a serpent to be Caradoc's
enemy, as the magician Tvastr creates a serpent to be Indra's enemy. Caradoc is himself the hero of
a beheading challenge parallel in respects to the challenge of which Cuchullain and Gawain are the
heroes. The serpent winds itself about Caradoc's arm, and cannot be undone; it is finally cut to
pieces by his brother-in-law. So Vrtra, created by Tvasfr, 'ties up Indra in sixteen coils' (TS. ii. 4.1.6,
v.4.5.4) and is burnt off by Agni (TS. ii. 4.1.6, v. 4.5.4, cf. AB. xi. 1.5.8), who is, of course, Indra's
brother. Regarding these knots see further my Spiritual Authority and TemporalPower in the Indian
Theory of Government(1942), p. 31, and 'Sarpabandha' in JAOS. 62, 1942, 341-342.
6 Just as in Christianity the plan of creation and plan of redemption are inseparably connected.
a decapitation, but also to reverse it, by building up again the divided deity,
whole and complete, and therewith the sacrificer himself, identified with the deity
and with the Sacrifice itself. We have already seen that is by means of the
Sacrifice that Prajapati restores himself; but, again, that is not a one-sided task,
and the deity must also be cured by those who divided him.1 If the Sacrifice did
not involve both an act of disintegration and one of reintegration it could not
have served, as it does, 'for the winning of bothworlds' (TS. vI. 6.4.1, etc.) or for
the sacrificer's benefit here and hereafter. In order to pay his debt, as he has
sworn to do, the sacrificer must now sacrifice himself and we find it explicit that
'One who is a Comprehensor of the "head of the Sacrifical Horse" (Varuna, RV.
I. 163.4; Prajapati, passim) himself becomes "one whose head is fit for sacrifice' ",
(Sirsanvdn-medhya,TS. vI. 5.25.1).2
The mythical history of the doctrine of the restoration of the head is compli-
cated by a second decapitation. We can easily see, however, why it is that Indra,
who performed the original Sacrifice, both threatens to and actually does cut off
the head of the deity, Dadhyafic Atharvana, who reveals to the Asvins 'how this
head of the Sacrifice is put on again' (yathaitad yajiasya Siras pratidhiyate,
SB. xiv. 1.1.18): it is because that restoration is an undoing of all his work and a
putting together again of what he had divided, and in this sense his own defeat
by the restoration of things as they were3:whoever comes to be once more 'within
Varuna' (a consummation devoutly to be desired, RV. vII. 86.2), is absolutely
and finally released, not merely from Varuna's 'wrath,' but also from Indra's
1 'The Gods said, "It will not suffice us that the Sacrifice has been taken to pieces; come, let us
gather it together again." They gathered it together, and said to the Asvins, "Do ye two heal it" '
(AB. I. 18). It is from the same point of view that the Mongoose, doubtless a type of Indra and the
sacrificer, as is the Egyptian Ichneumon of Atum-Ra (see A., p. 393 f.), not only 'cuts Ahi to pieces,
but puts him together again' (AV. vi. 139.6).
2 For cases of actual sacrificial decapitation see J. Ph. Vogel, 'The Head-offering to the Goddess
in Pallava Sculpture,' BSOS. vi, 1931; those in which the devoted sacrificer is prevented by the deity
from consummating the sacrifice, and receives a boon instead, are most nearly related to that of Sir
Gawain, who is unquestionably air.anvan-medhya, and actually offers up his head, but is spared and
well treated. Where the sacrifice is actually consummated, but the victim is afterwards brought to
life again, it amounts to the same thing: since in both cases the sacrificer has submitted himself. Just
as the God Prajapati (= Green Knight) surrenders himself, so in turn the sacrificer (= Gawain) sur-
renders himself and is redeemed (SB. xi. 1.8). Cf. also H. A. Rose, 'Sacrifices of the Head to the Hindu
Goddess,' Folklore, xxvii (1926).
The story of Raja Jagdeo (in Sir Richard Temple's Legendsof the Panjdb, II, No. xxix) is that of a
hero who overcomes and beheads a demon, and so wins the King's daughter to be his bride; and later
cuts off his own head, by way of alms (given to the Goddess of Truth disguised as a mendicant),
'in the name of God,' but is restored to life. It may be noted that while the head and body are sepa-
rated, care is taken that 'no fly touches his body.' Others who are asked to cut off their heads refuse,
saying 'We came into the world to enjoy ourselves, not to cut off our heads.'
In all of the cases studied by Vogel the sacrifice of one's own head is to the Goddess. But I possess
a Rajput drawing of the late Kangra school depicting the sacrificial suicide of the (13th century) king
Hamir, who is cutting off his own head upon the Lingam in a giva temple; cf. the Journal of Indian
Art, XVII,1916, pp. 37, 39 and pl. 10, fig. 20.
a Cf. PB. xIv. 6.8 where a king Kutsa cuts off the head of his Praepositus Upagu, who offers Soma
sacrifices against his orders. Upagu's father restores him to life. It comes to the same thing whenever
the King attempts to silence the Priest, whose business it is to see to it that he does no wrong (as is
explicit in JB. III. 94): some contemporary applications will be obvious.
dominion under the Sun. Dadhyafic, then, only consents to reveal the 'honey
doctrine' (madhu-vidyd'the science of mead,' i.e., Soma), to the Asvins, and to ac-
cept them as his disciples, if they will protect him from Indra; this they do by
cutting off his head, and replacing it with that of a horse, so that when Indra
beheads him, they may restore his own.1
This same Dadhyanc was of such fiery-energy and sacerdotal lustre that when-
ever any of the Titans saw him from afar they were laid low and lost their heads
(viSirsda.a Serate, to be understood quite literally). When he dies and goes to
heaven, Indra cannot overcome the Titans by himself and asks 'Is there no part
of Dadhyafic remaining here?' (cf. RV. I. 84.14).2 He is told that there is 'that
horse-head (aSvaSirsa)with which Dadhyafic had taught the honey doctrine to
the Asvins.' Then with the bones of this head Indra smites the Titans3: it is
of such terrible power that at the mere sight of it the Titans, as if it were Dadh-
hyafc in person, still 'lose their heads'4 (RV. I. 84.13, Sayana on ibid. 13-15;
JB. II. 64, PB. xII. 8.5).5 Cf. 'Brahma's head' as cosmic weapon, Mbh, I.
123.74 (Pfina ed.).
1 'He then received them (as his pupils); and when he had received them, they cut off his head, and
put it aside elsewhere; and having fetched the head of a horse, they put it on him: therewith he taught
them; and when he had taught them, Indra cut off that head of his; and having fetched his own head,
they put it on him again' (SB. xiv. 1.1.24). That is in true 'fairy-tale' style; but what are 'fairy-tales'
and whence?
2 There is an indication here of the nature of the philosophy of the cult of relics; like an icon, the
relic 'participates' in the nature of the Deus Absconditus (here Dadhyafic), and can be used 'as if' it
were the deity in person. It is thus that the Buddha's relics (amongst others, the uq.nma,or scapular
prominence) are used as representations of him in his absence and as supports of contemplation.
'The contemplation of an image, the "assimilation" of the iconographically expressed symbols has
for a result, an "imitatio dei": it is a mystical technic through which like in a yoga practice, the
human condition is exceeded' (Mircea Eliade, JISOA. v [1937], 196).
Of such relics, as is well known, the head or skull is the most important, and this has been so from
Stone Age times to those of 'poor Yorick.' But it is sometimes overlooked that the decapitation of
an enemy or criminal is, strictly speaking, a sacrifice, and the setting up of the head on a spear or
post at a city gate is not a further disgrace but an honor paid to the deceased who is 'despatched to
the Gods' and 'deified.' It is not only an enemy that may be so treated, but the hero; so we find in the
Mahdkapi Jdtaka (J. III. 375) that the Bodhisattva's skull is inlaid with gold and set up on a spear-
point at the city gate and treated as a relic (dhdtu, 'deposit') and provided with a chapel and a cult.
The placing of a head or skull on a spear or post is, in fact, only another way of restoring the head
to the body or trunk, and involves at the same time an assimilation to the Sun, regarded as a 'sky-
supporting post' (JUB. i. 10.10) as a pillar together with its capital supports a roof.
3 This is closely paralleled in Samson's slaughter of the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, from
which also healing waters flow for him (Judges, 15.15, 19). Samson is a solar hero, and the ass, it
would appear, no common donkey. Cf. my note in the Art Bulletin, xxIv, 383-384.
4 We still use this
phrase to mean to 'be out of one's wits.' Cf. TB. ii. 3.3.1, 'Whoever lives as a fool
(avidvdnnavartayate)has 'lost his head' (viSirad)and fares ill in yonder world, but one who lives as a
Comprehensor (vidvdn) 'has a head on his shoulders' (saSZira)and comes to be in yonder world free
from ill. Similarly, §A. 14: 'One who studies not the Veda, him they all call an ignoramus. Cutting off
his head, he makes himself a mere trunk'.
6 The apotropaic power of the terrible head recalls that of the Greek Fratzenmaske and the equiv-
alent Indian Kala-makara and Chinese Tao Tieh. The Greek Fratzenmaske is originally a solar repre-
sentation and remains a masculine (bearded) type even when the Gorgon becomes Medusa (f.); the
change of sex presenting no great difficulty, for the Dragon is always in some sense feminine to the
solar hero, and may be 'killed' in more than one sense (cf. A. p. 361 and \/Snath, in RV 'to pierce,'
114 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
It can now be asked, Who is this Dadhyafic? From what precedes it is clear
that he is a Brahman, and in fact the Sacerdotium (brahma)without whom Indra
as Regnum (ksatra) cannot successfully perform his heroic functions (cf. RV. vIII.
100.1 andgB. iv. 1.4.3, 4, 6). That will account at the same time for his friendship
with Indra, with whom he cooperates against the Titans, and for his opposition
to Indra with respect to the revelation of the secret of salvation. Something more
can be deduced from Dadhyafic's patronymics, Atharvana and AAigirasa.
'Atharvana' (RV. jvi. 16.14; and passim) makes him both priest and physician,
for the Sons of Atharvan (Agni as Fire-priest; Rudra as super-physician, bhisak-
tama, RV. ii. 33.4) are both priests and healers, and it would hardly be far-fetched
to identify Dadhyafic with that one of the Atharvanas who is called 'the Physi-
cian' (bhisaj, Kdthaka Samhitd xvI. 3), for he is indeed a surgeon who knows
'how the head of the Sacrifice can be put on again' (yathaitad yajnasya Siras
pratidhiyate,gB. xiv. 1.1.18) and it is clear that the Asvins who acquired that
knowledge from him and are called the 'physicians of the Gods' (devanam
bhisajd) are the pupils of a very great 'medicine man.'l They in their turn become
the sacrificer's instructors; when they find the Gods ineffectually 'worshipping
with a headless (viSZrsa)sacrifice,' they served as priests and 'restored the head
of the Sacrifice' (SB. iv. 1.5.15).2
Dadhyafic is also Aigiras (RV. I. 139.9) or Aigirasa and Praepositus (Puro-
hita) of the Gods (PB. xII. 8.6). That is hardly, as Macdonell thought (Vedic
Index, s.v.), a mistake; if we accept the distinction between Atharvana and An-
generally Vrtra orSusna, but in x. 95.4, 5 Urvasi, sexually). Medusa herself sometimes appears in the
form of a centaur, and in the same way the Earth Goddess in India is often thought of as a mare or
mare-headed. No full discussion of all this can be attempted here. On the Gorgoneion see Roscher,
Lexikon der Griech.und Rom. Mythologie; Hampe, Friihe Griech.Sagenbilderin Bbotien, Athens, 1936,
p. 58 f.; and Kaiser Wilhelm II, Studien zur Gorgo,Berlin, 1936. The latter (p. 36) remarks: 'In Ver-
bindung mit dem Perseus-Mythos... konnte man vielleicht den Sinn unterlegen: Perseus, der
Sonnenheld, enthauptet an jedem Morgen die durch die Gorgo symbolisierte Nachtsonne, so dass
aus dem kopflose Rumpf die Symbole des Lichts entspringen und als Stihne Poseidon's aus dem Ozean
aufsteigen? Der Perseus-Mythos hatte dann die Bedeutung: Stirb und werde!' That is undoubtedly
the innermost meaning of the Sacrifice. Mors janua vitae.
1 On the great significance of the 'Doctor' in Grail ritual see J. L. Weston, From Ritual to Romance
[1920], ch. viii. Gawain's knowledge of herbs is notorious, and 'the character of Healer belongs to him
in his r6le of Grail winner' (ibid., p. 102). Whoever, in fact, heals the Maimed King (i.e., the immanent
and divided deity, who cannot reintegrate himself, TS. v. 5.2.1, the Progenitor, disparted in his off-
spring, MU. ii. 6, etc.) 'plays the r6le assigned to the Doctor, that of restoring to life and health the
dead, or wounded, representatives of the Spirit of Vegetation' (ibid., p. 104). We have already seen
that in the Indian Grail story of Prince Mahbub the Maimed King is headless; the Hero, his son,
effects his cure and also beheads the usurper, and thus restores the kingdom (i.e., the Kingdom of
Heaven, within you). The Hero, moreover, is (like Perceval, cf. RR. 194) the son of a widow, and
reared in ignorance of his birth and destiny.
2 The Asvins, 'horsemen,' are iconographically 'horse-faced' like their spiritual father Dadhyanic,
and associated with the divine physician Dhanvantari (Rao, Elements of Hindu Iconography,ii. 544),
whom we must identify with Dadhyafic and Bhi,aj Atharvana. They can be equated with Sky and
Earth, etc., and are called priests (RV. n. 39.1, SB. iv. 1.5.15, 16); cf. also SpA., note 24. They are not
present at the Sacrifice of Makha-Vi.nu for the sufficient reason that it is only by this Sacrifice that
Sky and Earth and all other pairs are brought into separate existence; so they are not originally either
Gods or Titans, but as it were 'Men,' who must be taught.
girasa made by Bloomfield JAOS. xvIIm. 180, 181), he can be regarded as the
former in that he heals his friends, and as the latter in that he slays his own and
Indra's foes. We must not devote too much space to the identity of Dadhyaic
here, and shall only say that in his relation to Indra and as High Priest and Prae-
positus of the Gods Dadhyafc must be equated with or regarded as an aspect of
Brhaspati. That, too, will account for his magical powers and sinister as well as
auspicious character; for Brhaspati was a Titan whom Tvastr begat (RV. II.
23.2 and 17), no doubt Visvaripa, Tvastr's son who was also the Praepositus
of the Gods (TS. ii. 5.2.1) and must have come over to their side as did the Titan
Usanas, High Priest and Praepositus, who 'knew what Brhaspati knew' and ac-
cepting a bribe deserted the Titans and came over to the Gods (JB. I. 125,
PB. vi. 5.20). That Dadhyafic was of Titanic origin is further suggested by the
fact that a later form of the solar horse-headed deity, known as Hayasirsa
('Horse-headed'), who 'recovers the paths of the Vedas' is 'of Makha's nature'
(makha-mayak, PhP. II. 7.11); and further, by the fact in §B. xiII. 2.8.4, the
sacrificial horse' is addressed as the 'host-lord of hosts' (ga.ndnd.mganapati),
originally an epithet of Brhaspati or Indra (RV. II. 23.1, x. 112.9) but later of
Ganesa, God of Wisdom, who was also beheaded and now wears an elephant's
head, with which he dictated the Epic to Valmiki.
If now, as we infer, and just as 'Soma was Vrtra,' Dadhyafic had been the Titan
whom Indra first beheaded before time began (since the Sun is only brought into
actual being by that act), the later decapitation by Indra, after the world has
come into being and because the secret of salvation has been disclosed, must be
regarded as a reflection in time of Indra's original sin of Brahman-slaying, for
which, as we have already observed, an expiation is due. In the Arthurian story
Gawain, who sacrifices (as we venture to say) the Green Knight, makes expiation
after a year by submitting to a like passion. Let us now see 'how the head of
Sacrifice is put on again, how this Sacrifice becomes whole again' (SB. xiv.
1.1.18); always bearing in mind that the sacrifice as a human rite is an imitation
of what was done by the Gods in the beginning, and that the Sacrificeras such is
identified with Indra as Vrtra-slayer (SB. v. 3.2.27 and passim), and that it is
for every man to slay his own Dragon and to put it together again.
That is, of course, a 'secret doctrine,' and just as Indra cut off Dadhyafic's
head, so is he even now ready to cut off anyone's head2 who reveals it 'to any or
everyone' (SB. xiv. 1.1.26).3 Such secrets, however, are not revealed by a mere
1 In one account of the horse-sacrifice the head of a horse put on the fire altar with apotropaic
effect (Mahdbhdrata,vII. 143.71).
2 As in the
Ramdyana Rama cuts off the iSdra's head whom he finds practising Yoga; but that
condign punishment is again a Sacrifice, by which the Sudra is liberated like any other sacrificial
victim. It is often said of those who officiate without the necessary qualifications that 'their head will
fall off' or that 'Indra will cut off their head' (e.g., SB. xiv. 2.2.44; CU. I. 10.10).
3 Just as 'to the romance writers the Grail was [still] something secret, mysterious, and awful, the
exact knowledge of which was reserved to a select few, and which was only to be spoken of with bated
breath, and a careful regard to strict accuracy' (RR. 131). But it would have been clear to any
Comprehensor (ya evamividvdn), as I think it must be to the reader of the present article, that
there was 'no incongruity in identifying the mysterious Food-providing Vessel of the Bleheris-Gawain
description of the acts that presuppose them; they can only be communicated to,
or rather known by, those who in every sense of the word participate in the Sacri-
fice, and it is for that that a qualification is required; every sacrificer must have
been initiated, and beyond that, the 'honey-doctrine' may be taught to one who
is intellectually prepared, and has been the master's pupil for a year, only by a
master who is himself leading a life of austerity (SB. xiv. 1.1.26-31) just as the
secret of the Grail may be revealed 'Ne par nul home qui soit nes Si prouvoires
n'est ordenes U home qui mainte sainte vie' (Potvin, cited RR. 131).
The restoration of the Head of the Sacrifice is enacted in the Pravargya, a
sacrifice so called because in the original act the smitten victim was 'cast away'
(pravrjyate).l Being a Sacrifice, the Pravargya is identified with the Sun and
the Year, Brahmanaspati (Brhaspati), Brahma and Makha, the Sacrifice and the
sacrificer.2As an object, the Pravargya, also called Gharma, 'Heat,' and Maha-
vira,3 'Great Hero,' and drona-kalaSa is a cauldron of boiling milk and melted
butter; it is of clay, and while it is being made it is repeatedly addressed with the
words 'For Makha thee! For Makha's head!,' and when completed with the
words 'Makha's head art thou!'.
Now the Adhvaryu, addressing the Brahma, says 'Be seated unperturbed, we
are about to put back (pratidhdsydma)4the Head of the Sacrifice.' An Emper-
or's throne is set up shoulder high, 'for on the shoulders the head is set.' When the
Gharma is aglow, they say 'the God (Gharma) hath united with the God Savitr
(Sun), Agni with Agni'; for both the cauldron and the Sun and Fire are aglow,
and so identified per analogiam. The vessel is addressed with the words, 'O Lord
version with the Chalice of the Eucharist, and in ascribing the power of bestowing Spiritual Life to
that which certain modern scholars have [rightly] identified as a Wunsch-Ding, a Folk-tale Vessel of
Plenty' (RR. 132). So far from that, the fact that the identification was made is proof that those who
made it knew what they were speaking of. The sooner we realize that the popular mysteries are not
essentially, but only accidentally to be distinguished from the Greater Mysteries, the nearer we shall
come to an understanding of the nature of both. It is a great mistake to suppose that the folk motives
are ever 'pressed into the service' of the higher thought; they can be used in its service, because they
spring from the same source and are of the same essence.
1 All that follows is taken from 9B. xiv. 1.1 f. (which can easily be consulted in SBE. Liv), viz.,
'The Chapter of the Divakirtyas,' in which it is explained 'how they did restore the Head of the
Sacrifice,' as stated in SB. Iv. 1.5.15. See also AB. i. 18-22 and KB. vIII. 3-7.
Cf. also PB. vi. 7.9 f., where when the continuity of the ritual Himmelfahrt is broken, this is called
a decapitation of the Sacrifice, and an expiation is needed, in order that the head may be restored
(pratidhd).
2 The Sacrifice is a reintegration at one and the same time of the dismembered deity and of the
sacrificer; hence, as is explicit in SB. xi. 2.6.1 the 'head of the Sacrifice' is also the sacrificer's head,
which, indeed, he redeems by the Sacrifice, just as Sir Gawain redeems his head at the end of the
'Year.'
3 Mahavira ('Great Hero') is the epithet primarily of Makha and secondarily of Indra who over-
came him and acquired his character. Later, it is also an epithet of the Buddha, and of the Jaina
'Finder of the Ford.'
4 Skr. dhdna is
etymologically 'thesis'; the prati-dhdna, accordingly, the 'anti-thesis' of the de-
capitation, and completes the cycle, of which 'the last end is the same as the first beginning.'
The Adhvaryu uses the plural, because there are really two (cf. SB. Iv. 9.5.3), just as there are two
Asvins.
of all worlds, O Lord of all thought, O Lord of all speech, O God Gharma, guard
thou the Gods, thou art our Father.'" The sacrificer and his wife together say
'Thee shall we serve, bestow thou offspring upon us': for indeed 'the Pravargya
is male, and she is female.'
The milk and melted butter are now poured into the Gharma; it is lifted and
shaken upwards with the words 'Place thou this Sacrifice in the Sky': for 'it is
yonder Sun, and he is indeed set in the Skies.' The Brahma, who has hitherto
taken no active part in the rite, now pronounces the consecration, 'for the Brahma
is the best physician among the officiating priests,2 and thus the sacrificer heals
the Sacrifice by means of him who is the best physician among the priests':3
and Prajapati it is that thus he heals.' The Asvins are invited to drink: the sacri-
ficer murmurs, 'The Agvins drank the Gharma' and 'being himself (identified
with) the Sacrifice, he thus heals the Sacrifice by the Sacrifice.' Seven oblations
are made 'corresponding in number to "these breaths (prdadh) in the head";
it is these (powers) that he thus bestows upon him.' The sacrificer partakes of the
remains of the fluid, saying 'Let us eat of thee, God Gharma.'4
1 It is the universal tradition that the Sun is our real Father, the human father being only the means
by which Life is transmitted, and not its source. 'Light is the progenitive power' (TS. vii. 1.1.1, etc.):
0 lume pregno di gran virtu, . . . quegli ch'* padre d'ogni mortal vita,' Dante, Paradiso, xxii, 11 f.);
'Generatio non potest fieri in materia generabili et corruptibili secondum rationes seminales nisi
beneficio luminis corporum supercaelestium, quae elongantur a generatione et corruptione, scilicet a
sole, luna et stellis' (St Bonaventura, De reductioneartium ad theologiam,21). Other parallels, Indian,
Egyptian, Greek, Christian, Islamic (notably Rfmi, Mathnawi, i. 3775) and American Indian could
be cited at length. Aristotle's 'Man and the sun generate man' (Phys. Q.2) is well known. Cf. my
'Primitive Mentality' in Q. J. Mythic Soc., xxxi.
What applies to natural generation applies a fortiori to regeneration, where 'Spiritus est qui vivi-
ficat, caro non prodest quicquam' (John, 6.63). It is well known that the sacrificer is born again of
the Fire (Altar), which is also Agni's birthplace, into which he inseminates himself by symbolic
acts; but whatever he does, it is really 'Agni who thus emits him as seed into the womb, where he
lords it over that death' (JUB. III. 10.6, cf. JB. I. 17). Similarly now (AB. i. Q2), the Gharma, when it
has been reintegrated and healed, and as representing the Sun, plays the Father's part: the Gharma
is the male organ, and the overflowing milk the seed; and so the sacrificer, being a Comprehensor and
sacrificing as such is born again of the Fire as one composed of the Rg, Yajus and Sama Vedas (i.e.,
of 'everything'), reborn of the Sacerdotium (brahma), and as an immortal attains to the Gods ('im-
mortal', meaning of course, that he will not die prematurely here, and that he will be immortal
absolutely when he is for the third and last time born again of the funeral Fire, in which he is finally
sacrificed, when the time comes, cf. Sp. A. note 35).
2 In SB. iv. 2.5.3 the Pratihartr acts as the 'physician.'
3 The Brahma, in other words, is the 'Doctor' and corresponds to Dadhyafic, as the Adhvaryu (or
two Adhvaryus) represent the Agvins, and the sacrificer Indra. In Gawain and the Green Knight
there is, indeed, no 'Doctor,' and Gawain himself is both the Hero and a healer (of the Maimed King
and others), this only means that as solar hero he is both Knight and Healer, as Christ is "King and
Priest." Miss Weston (loc. cit., p. 102) clearly saw that Gawain is not a physician in his knightly
capacity, but 'in his r6le of Grail Winner,' i.e., in his spiritual capacity.
4 In AB. i. 2,
'May we eat of thee, God Gharma, full of sweetness, full of nourishment, full of
strength,'- as from the Grail. "Take, eat; this is my body ... Drink ye all of it: for this is my blood"
(Math. 26. 26-28). It is difficult to see why scholars should have been puzzled by the fact that the
Grail is both a 'Feeding Vessel' and the 'Chalice of the Sacred Blood' (RR. 195). Prajapati is both the
Sacrifice and the food of the Gods, i.e., immanent 'powers of the soul.' KalaSa, KbiXt,and 'chalice'
are etymologically the same word.
The Head of the Sacrifice is still apart from its trunk. On the last day of the
rite they set out the Pravargya on the Northern (= Ahavaniya) Fire-Altar, 'for
the Northern Altar is the Sacrifice, and the Pravargya is its Head; and so he
restores to the Sacrifice its Head.'" He disposes the sacrificial implements there in
such a way as to provide the body with flesh, arms, sexual organs and all else
down to the feet; and pours milk into the Gharma to represent its food.2 They
sing the Varsahara Saman (Chant of the Golden Stallion, cf. RV. ix. 2.6). The
priests now purify themselves: the sacrificer steps out of the sacrificial precinct,
saying 'From out of the darkness we have arisen, beholding the Higher Light,'3
and walks away 'without looking back': 'in the world of Heaven he thus estab-
lishes himself.'4
The Pravargya is virtually performed in all other sacrifices in which the Com-
prehensor participates; it is all things whatsoever. 'It, indeed, is Soma, for Soma
is everything, and the Pravargya is everything ... The Gods and all beings
avail themselves thereof. And, verily, Soma overflows for whoever is a Com-
prehensor thereof; and, verily, no sacrifice whatsoever is offered that does not
include the Pravargya, for one who is a Comprehensor thereof. And verily, who-
soever teaches, or partakes of (bhaksayati) this Pravargya enters into That
1 So also in the regular Agni-cayana, 'The Pravargya is the Head of the Sacrifice, and this built-up
Fire-Altar is its body; hence, were he to set it out in any other place than the Fire-Altar, he would be
setting it apart from that body, but in that he sets it out on the Fire-Altar he, having put together
that body of Agni's, restores the head to it' (SB. rx. 2.1.22, 2.3. 49, 3.1.3-6).
2 Not all of the milk is poured in, 'lest food turn away from the sacrificer'; 'half or more of it' is
reserved for him. This explains TS. i. 7.1.4, 5, 'Half they eat, and half they transfer' (\/ mrj, as in
'milk') and justifies Sayana's gloss, smy ... Sirasi siicanti, 'half they pour into the head.'
Either to be ;dentified with this Head, or analogous to it, is the 'full dish' (purna patra) kept
within the Altar precinct to be a source prosperity for the sacrificer (ibid. i. 7.5.3). Such 'full vessels'
(purtia patr^, kala§a, ghata) are ubiquitous in Indian art, and are still in ceremonial use, and to be
regarded as Grail vessels' (cf. my Yakfas, ii [Washington, 1931], Ch. 3 and Pls. 27-33. The Buddha's
begging bowl is a Grail: 'fed from that inexhaustible bowl, the whole world will revive.' It comes into
the hands of the saintly virgin Manimekhalai, who uses it to feed the hungry, and it is 'as if pouring
rain had fallen on a desert parched by the heat of the sun' (see S. K. Aiyangar, Manimekhalai in its
Historical Setting [Madras, 1928], pp. 137 f.). See further von Schroeder, 'Die Wurzeln der Sage vom
Heiligen Gral,' Sitz. k. Akad. Wiss., Wien, Bd. 166, 1910 (2nd ed. 1911) and Arische Religion, nx
(1923), 390, 465, 662, 664.
It has been usual to identify the Grail vessel with the Moon (Soma); but actually the Moon is a
food that the Sun receives and assimilates, and this food corresponds to what is put into the Buddha's
begging bowl which, like the Sun is the Grail qua receptacle. In almost all stories of inexhaustible
vessels we are told that whatever is put into the vessel becomes inexhaustible, however little it was
originally; not that the empty bowl produces it. Cf. the miracle of the loaves and fishes given to
Christ, by whom they are, not created, but multiplied.
We also realize from the above considerations why it is that an almsbowl is so often called a
'skull-cup' (kapala), a term also applied to the shards on which offerings are made, and why in fact
the almsbowl may be actually made from a skull.
3 'From what is not, lead me to that which IS; from darkness to Light; from death to Immortality'
BU. i. 3.28).
4 'Those who are heavenward-bound look not back' (TS. v. 4.7.1,
SB. ix. 2.3.7, xiv. 1.3.28): 'Re-
member Lot's wife' (Luke, 17.32).
Life and That Light. The actual operation is the same as it was at the First
Outpouring.'
We saw above that the Soma myth is called a 'secret doctrine.'2 That is to
say that while it could be told as a story, its inner meaning could only be realized
by those who are qualified to understand it. This inner meaning and the nature
of this qualification can be best elucidated from Siifi sources in which the symbol
of the 'rolling head' is called a 'mystery.' In the Diwdni Shams-i-Tabriz (ii. 3)3
we are told:
When thou seest in the pathway a severedhead,
Whichis rollingtowardsour field,
Ask of it, ask of it, the secrets of the heart:
For of it thou wilt learn of our hidden mystery.
Our head is our self, and to cut off one's head is self-abandonment, self-denial,
self-naughting; conversely, to 'make' (increase, exalt, value) one's head is to
assert one's self. So, then:
In headless love (dar bi-sari 'ishq)4 why make your head?5 (chi sar
mikuni), - make not! (xxvII. 16)
For one head's sake, why should any wash his hands of Thee? (xvIII. 2)
For if we offer up our own, He will give us others:
I stretchedout my neck and said to Him,
'Severthe "agent's"head with Dhu'lfiqar':
The morehe plied his sword,the moremy head became,
Till from my neck there sprang a thousand heads! (T. 206.6; p. 320)
Dhi'lfiqar is the sword that was given to 'All by Muhammad, and stands here
for death, the 'death,' that is to say, of those who 'die before they die'; it cor-
responds to the sword of the Word of God that sunders soul from spirit (Heb.
iv. 12). The 'agent' is the Ego, subject to the delusion of selfhood (manam, 'I
am'; md va man, 'We and I'; ahamikdra, karto'ham iti, the notion that 'I am the
doer'; Philo's ol7Las; Descartes' cogito ergo sum), which must be overcome if we
are to know the only 'Real Agent' (asli kdr, xxvI. 9) to whom alone belongs the
right to say 'I am.' The argument is not Cogito ergo sum but Cogito ergo EST.6
1 Srnti, 'outpouring,''emanation'('creation'),when 'All This' that had been in 'That One' was
pouredout or breathedforth.
2 Cf. R. S. Loomis,Celtic
Mythand ArthurianRomance,1927, Ch. xxvI, 'On the Mysteriesof the
Grail.'
8 Referencesto the $ufi texts immediatelyfollowingare to R. A. Nicholson'sSelected Poemsfrom
the Diwdni Shams-i-Tabriz,Cambridge,1898 (Romanfiguresreferringto the Odes, and T. to the
Tabrizeditioncited in his notes). Someof my versionsaremoreliteralthanNicholson's,whorenders,
for example,'makeyourhead'by 'intrudethyself,'whichis correctin significancebut does not bring
out the wordingthat is so pertinentin the presentcontext.
4Nicholson's paraphraseis 'in love's bewilderment.''Love,' in these ufifcontexts is, of course
that of which Rumi speaks (Mathnawm, II, preamble)in the question 'What is love?' and answer,
'Thou shalt know when thou becomestMe.'
5 Cf. Hafiz, 'My head I makenot' (Ode430.6,H. WilberforceClarke,DZwdniHdfiz,1891,p. 719).
For the symbolof decapitationsee also Odes164.3and 355.6, - 'the strokeof Thy swordis everlast-
ing life.' Similarlyin the Rdmdyana,whereRama decapitatesthe fidra,who was practisingyoga.
6 'Ego, daz wort ich, ist nieman eigen denne gote alleine in siner einekeit' (Meister Eckhart,
This is the vera sentenzia of 'losing one's head.' It is called a 'secret' and a
'mystery' not because it cannot be stated in words, however enigmatically, but
because it must remain incomprehensible to whoever has not taken even the first
steps on the way of self-naughting, and never having sacrificed is still 'unborn.'l
Whoever, like Gawain, searches for the Master Surgeon, to pay his debt, and
submits to this Headman's axe, will find himself, not without a head, but with
another head on his shoulders; just as Gawain, having lain down to die, assuredly
stood up again a new man. That is what is enacted in the ritual, in which the
sacrificer himself is always identified with the victim, - 'and verily, no sacrifice
whatever is offered that is not the Pravargya for the Comprehensorthereof. And,
verily, whosoever teaches, or participates in (bhaksayati) this Pravargya enters
into that Life and that Light. The observance of the rule thereof is the same as it
was at the first outpouring' (SB. xiv. 3.2.30, 31).
We have now seen that in Indian mythology and ritual are to be found, and in
endless variety, the characteristic motives of the Western romances and fairy-
tales of the Green Knight and Grail quest types. Stories and motives of other
types could be paralleled in unending detail, and the same applies to the doc-
trines.2 But we have no intention whatever of suggesting that India was therefore
the source of the Western matiere. The Rgveda itself is a 'late' document; and
much that is commonly called Aryan was already Sumerian. Even if we could
prove that the Celtic stories were of Indian origin, we should still have to ask,
What about the American Indian parallels?3We have, in fact, to account for the
Pfeiffer, p. 261)- 'Whoever, other than God, saith "I" is a Shaitan' (Darvesh dictum, cited by
H. Wilberforce Clarke, Diwdan Hafiz, 1891, p. 7). 'He IS, by that alone is He to be understood'
(Katha Up. vx.12), cf. Damascene, Defid. orth. I, 'HE WHO IS.'
1 See my Hinduism and Buddhism, 1943, p. 19 and note 98.
2 For
example, the Indian 'rope trick,' described in Jataka No. 489 is attributed in 'O'Donnell's
Kern' (Standish Hayes O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, 1892, II, pp. 321, 322) to Manannan Mac Lir
(Varuna?), who wanders about the world in outlandish disguises performing 'tricks' (he is also an
expert at cutting off heads and putting them on again). In both the Indian and the Irish versions the
climber is dismembered and put together again. Those who attack Manannan find that the blow falls
upon their own heads, cf. RfimI, Mathnawi II. 759, 'Blows struck at God fall on one's self.'
In Jataka No. 407 the Bodhisatta makes of himself a bridge by which his followers can cross over
from the hither to the farther shore' and so does Bendigeid Vran in the Mabinogion (in Lady Guest's
version, ed. 1902, p. 36). Rope and Bridge alike imply the 'thread spirit' doctrine, which appears in
Plato as the 'one golden cord' to which the human puppet should hold fast (Laws, 645 A), in Homer
in the golden cord or chain by which Zeus could draw all things to himself (Iliad, vIII. 18 f.) and which
Plato rightly connected with the Sun (Theatetus, 153), in the words 'I will draw all men unto me'
(John, 12.32, cf. vi. 44 and Hermes. Lib. xvi. 5 and 7), and in Dante in the words 'Questi la terra in se
stringe ed aduna' (Paradiso I. 117). Indian and Platonic equivalents are innumerable, the most notable
being that of the mortal and immortal souls that dwell together in us, and that of the chariot symbol-
ism, with all its implications. We do not believe that any literary history can be deduced from such
correspondences, but much rather that 'Die Menschheitsbildung ist ein einheitliches Ganzes, und in
den verschiedenen Kulturen findet man die Dialekte der einen Geistes-sprache' (Jeremias, in
AltorientalischeGeisteskultur,Vorwort).
3 American Indian and Indian parallels are closer and more numerous than is
generally realized.
Cf. my 'Sunkiss,' JAOS. 60, and with what is said about the kingposts of the sacrificial hall, F. G.
Speck's account of the Delaware Indian Big-House, cited by W. Schmidt, High Gods in North America
(1933), pp. 75-77. The Symplegades motive is Indian, Greek, Irish, and North and South American.
world-wide distribution of folk-lore motives: and if we are to do that we must,

I think, go behind the 'literature' and ask what the folk-lore motives mean, and
why it is that it has seemed so important that they should be faithfully trans-
mitted,' - for millennia, for as Euripides said, 'The myth is not my own, I had
it from my mother' (fr. 488). It is not as their source, but with respect to the
meaning of the formulae that India can assist us, with its great body of early
exegetical literature of the most consistent and convincing sort. There the myth
remains the proper language of metaphysics. Moreover in India we are dealing
with an unbroken tradition; and proverbially, one has only to ask the right ques-
tion (in itself already a 'qualification') to receive the right answer. How much
may depend on the 'right question' we know from the Grail literature.
We hold with J. L. Weston that 'The Grail story is not du fond en comblethe
product of imagination, literary or popular. At its root lies the record, more or
less distorted, of an ancient Ritual, having for its ultimate object the initiation
into the secret of the sources of Life, physical and spiritual.' In this, of course, the
application is equally to the story of the Green Knight; and for 'an ancient Ritual'
should be read 'an ancient Myth and Ritual'- for it is inconceivable that the
Ritual, in which the Myth is enacted, should have been the source of the Myth
itself, as has sometimes been argued.
The material adduced above, moreover, affords additional proof of the truth
of Lord Raglan's dictum, that 'the literature of the folk is not their own produc-
tion, but comes down to them from above'2 (The Hero, 1936, p. 144). He continues
(p. 145): 'The position we have now reached is that the folk-tale is never of popu-
lar origin, but is merely one form of the traditional narrative3;that the traditional
1 These are, of course, two ways of
putting the same question.
2 So Andrae, in similar words but with a deeper meaning. 'Ergrilndet man die Urform, die letzte
Herkunft der Formen, so sieht man sie verankert im Hochsten, nicht im Niedrigsten' (Die ionische
Sdule, Bauform oder Symbol, 1933, p. 65).
3 Similarly Rene Guenon, 'The very conception of "folklore" as commonly understood, rests on a
fundamentally false hypothesis, the supposition, viz., that there really are such things as "popular.
creations" or spontaneous inventions of the masses.'
'Of the 3000 (Indian folk-) tales so far reported, at least half can be shown to be derived from
literary sources' (W. N. Brown, JAOS. 39.4). It is in this last sense only, of course, that Lord Raglan
speaks of the folk literature as coming down to them 'from above.'
But what was the 'literature' on which the folk drew? Not what we mean when we speak of 'the
Bible as 'literature,' but what we mean when we call the Bible 'the word of God,' or speak of
Scripture as Sruti, 'That which was heard,' i.e., Revelation. In the 'myth-making period' that lies
behind our problem, 'literature' was, in the first place primarily sacerdotal,and in the second just as
much oral as the folktales themselves (in India even today, oral transmission is considered of much
higher value than book-learning). Thus 'derived from literary sources' is only to say again in other
words, 'derived from the myth.'
The Jatakas are often called 'folktales,' taken up by the Buddhists and used by them for edifying
ends. When, however, we examine them, we find that their content is preponderatingly mythical,
metaphysical and dogmatic; and their formulation often so precise as to make it inconceivable that
it should have been hit upon by any profane mentality. To take a single example, pertinent in the
present connection because it has to do with a sacrificial decapitation, Jataka No. 465 describes the
Bodhisatta's incarnation as the Devaraja Yakkha of a mighty Sal tree, that has grown for 60,000
years: the King desires to construct a palace supported by a single column, and no other tree will do;
narrative has no basis either in history or in philosophical speculation, but is

derived from the myth'; and that 'the myth is a narrative connected with a rite.
He maintains that all traditional narratives are myths, and that 'No popular
story teller has ever been known to invent anything,' pointing out that the
'incidents in folk-tales are the same all over the world' (p. 134).1 But intimate as
the connection of the myth with ritual may be, we cannot possibly agree with
Lord Raglan (and many other scholars whom he cites), or even understand him,
when he derives the myth from the rite2; it would be quite as logical or rather
illogical, to derive the myth from the iconography, to argue that Brahma has
four heads only because a statue of Brahma has four; quite as illogical to say that
meanings originate in the words that express them.3 We agree, however, very
heartily with Lord Raglan in his dismissal of all historical and naturalistic ex-
planations of the genesis of the myth. The 'primitive science' explanation is, of
course, only another form of the 'naturalistic' theory. With respect to the
naturalistic explanation, however, we should like to say that the view that 'all
myths are sun myths' is only ridiculous from a materialistic point of view, that is
to say, if we fail to distinguish Helios from Apollo (Plutarch, Moralia, 393 D,
400 C, D; Plato, Laws, 898 D), the sun that all men see from the Sun whom not
all know intellectually (Atharva Veda x. 8.14).
the Bodhisattais readyto submitto his fate, but asksthat his crownmay be lopped(aggeca chindvd)
first, lest it should crush the smallertrees, his offspringaroundhim. That is much more than a
pretty story; for there can be no doubt that Brahmais the Yaksa in the Tree of Life, and that the
story goes back to SB. xi. 1.8 where 'That Sacrificeof Prajapati's(decapitated,PB. vi. 5.1, and
beingdivided,or dividinghimselffor his children'ssake,passim)is like a tree with its top brokenoff'
(agraprasgiro vrksalh)and also to the question 'What was the wood and what the tree of which
they fashionedSky and Earth?' (RV. x. 31.7) and answer 'Brahmathe wood, Brahmathe Tree'
(TB. I. 8.9.6), cf. Gk. iX,7as 'primarymatter.'By the sametoken, Christ,'throughwhomall things
were made,' is inevitablya carpenterand the son of a carpenter.Cf. the Indian Tvastr, probably
to be identifiedwith the Titan Maya, makerof self-moving'automata';and the ChineseLou Pan,
patrondeity of carpenters,and makerof woodenautomata(for the latter see P. Pelliot in BEFEO
II. 143).
1 Thingsthat are the sameall overthe worldmust be of high antiquity.It is perfectlypossiblethat
Cromagnonman already'had them fromhis mother.'
2 Lord Raglan discussesthe (ritual)originsof drama,but ignoresthe 'primitivearts.' But in all
these discussionsit is importantto bearin mindthat in the traditionalenvironmentthat we are con-
sidering(still a living realityfor Indiansand AmericanIndians)not only are dramaticperformances
and dances,but all other kinds of artistic operation(e.g., building,agriculture,and games) quite
strictlyspeaking,'rites';and that, as was justly remarkedby Hocart (LesCastes,1938,p. 27) 'chaque
occupationest un sacerdoce.'Far too much anthropologicalthinking is vitiated by the pathetic
fallacy, viz., the assumptionthat 'primitiveman' had our 'aesthetic'preoccupationsand made our
kind of distinctionbetweensacredand profane,significantand useful.It is only the most 'civilized'
kind of man that tries to live by 'breadalone.'
3 If we cannotderivethe myth fromthe rite, it is not thereforenecessary,althoughto be preferred
if we must choosebetweenthese alternatives,to derive the rite from the myth. 'Rite' and 'myth'
may be two ways of describingthe same thing' in the same way that a symbol is, for the 'mystic
participant,'that whichit represents.Undoubtedlythe rite is a mimesis;but as Aristotleclearlysaw,
imitationis a participation(Metaphysics, I. 6.3). When 'Indradanceshis heroicdeeds' (RV. v. 33.6)
we cannotseparatethe (mythical)battle fromits (dramatic)mimesis;and in the sameway the sacri-
ficerswhoalsodanceor enact(KB. xvii. 6, JB. n. 69-70) the myth arelivingit. Cf. also C. Kluckhohn,
'Myths and Rituals,a GeneralTheory,'HarvardTheological Review,xxxv (1942).
Sir Gawainand the GreenKnight 123
There is another view, that of the old 'allegorical theory' which forms the basis,
for example, of Philo's Biblical exegesis. This was also Creuzer's view, which he
put forward in a bulky work, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Volker, besonders
der Griechen (3rd. ed., 4 vols., 1831-42), maintaining that the ancient people
'possessed, not indeed a complete philosophy, but a dim and at the same time
grandiose conception of certain fundamental religious truths, and in particular
of monotheism.' These truths their priests set forth in a series of symbols, which
remained much the same for all peoples, but were hopelessly misunderstood in
later times. To recover the oldest ideas, according to him, we shall do well to take
those myths which seem absurdest,2 and try to interpret them.'
The foregoing is Professor H. J. Rose's summary (in Handbook of GreekMytho-
logy, 1933, p. 3). Creuzer was, no doubt, 'uncritical'; but that may only mean that
he tried to support a sound theory by false arguments. But Professor Rose has
another objection: 'we have no right (he says) to suppose either that the early
Cretans had an elaborate solar philosophy or that, if they had one, they would
have expressed it in allegories,' or let us say, 'in symbols.' As to this I shall only
say that unless one learns to think in symbols one might as well not try to under-
stand the so-called primitive mentality, call it 'prelogical,' and let it go at that.
In fact, if we excluded from our theological and metaphysical thinking all those
images, symbols and theories that have come down to us from the Stone Age,
our means of communication would be almost wholly limited to the field of
empirical observation and the statistical predictions (laws of science) that are
based on these observations; the world would have lost its meaning.
We are, then, necessarily in agreement with Professor Eliade (in Zalmoxis, in,
78) that 'la m6moire collective conserve quelquefois certains details precis d'une
"theorie" devenue depuis longtemps inintelligible.... des symboles archaiques
d'essence purement metaphysique... La memoire populaire conserve surtout
les symboles qui se rapportent a des "theories," meme si ces theories ne sont plus
comprises.' And speaking of folk art, he points out very truly that its origins are
metaphysical, and in fact that 'les symboles primordiaux - qui par degradation,
sont devenus de simples motifs decoratifs - ont toujours des sens metaphysi-
ques.' But the popular story-teller does not take liberties with his material, even
when he no longer understands it; on the contrary he preserves the forms of the
old stories and patterns far better than the literary artist, who is much less scrupu-
lous (K. 242, etc),3 and hence the descent from myth and ritual to epic, epic to
1 Cf. W. Schmidt, Origin and Growthof Religion, 2nd ed. (London, 1935).
2 The 'miracles' are, of course, by no means accidents of, but essential to and the most significant
part of the traditional narrative. We certainly cannot arrive at its 'original form' by eliminating the
'wonders.' For example, the story of the Buddha's conflicts with Mara (Mrtyu), and with the 'Ahi-
Naga' in the Fire-Temple are recensions of Indra's conflict with Ahi-Vrtra and essential to the Hero's
'career,' in both cases.
8 For 'der Machtkunst sich die Dinge iberlegt ansieht und sie im Sinne der Macht oder den eigenen
Geschmackentsprechend andert, wihrend der Volkeskunstler vollig unbefangen bei dem bleibt, was
liberliefert ist' (Strzygowski, Spiiren indogermanischenGlaubensin der bildenden Kunst, 1936, p. 344):
'Peasant art, however, though younger by millennia as far as actual examples go, preserves, and this
is the most noteworthy fact, the true and original meaning and its motives far more faithfully than
does the art of the court, or any body representative of the educated class. The single artist there is
romance, and from romance to the realistic novel. The last degradation of the
mythical material we owe to those litterateurs who nowadays, without respect
for or any real understanding of their subject, compose 'fairy-tales for children,'
knowing only how to be humorous, or sentimental, or moralistic. And if it can
be said of the folk that they no longer understand the material they have pre-
served, what shall we say of the folklorist and his 'science of fairy-tales'? Only
this, I think, that it amounts to little more than a Ph.D. thesis of the sort in
which literary attributions are based on statistical computations.
To an acceptance of the view that the traditional narrative and the forms of
traditional art in general are precise expressions of metaphysical doctrines
(which often could not have been stated or be stated in any other or better way,
because the first principles can never be observed empirically) there exists only
one fatal objection, to wit, our pride and faith in progress. Once we have overcome
the illusion that wisdom was born with us, however, there remains no difficulty
whatever in supposing that primitive man was far more than we are a meta-
physician; by which we do not mean that he possessed what we now understand
by a systematic 'philosophy.' Thus in 1855 an observer who knew the Navahos
concluded that they possessed no religion, no traditions and no rites, but were
'steeped in the deepest degradation,' while a much later observer could say that
that their 'ceremonialsmight vie in allegory, symbolism and intricacy of ritual with
the ceremonies of any people, ancient or modern,' that they possess 'a pantheon
as well stocked with gods and heroes as that of the ancient Greeks' and that
'their rites are very numerous, many of them of nine days' duration, and with
each is associated a number of appropriate songs,' and that they 'have building
songs, which celebrate every act in the structure of the hut, from "thinking about
it" to moving into it and lighting the first fire. They have songs for every impor-
tant occasion in life, from birth to death .... And these songs are composed
according to established (often rigid) rules, and abound in poetic figures of
speech.'l That might have been written, word for word, as a description of the
spiritual life of the Vedic Indians. Dr Speck remarks 'That the Delawares pro-
duced a religion in the real, almost classical sense, will not, I believe, be strenu-
ously denied even by the propounders of other creeds ... it might, indeed, have
become a great one of the mediaeval type had it been linked with the destinies of
a militant aggressive race.'2 I have myself remarked that the Amerindian sand-
scarcelyawareof any longer,nor does he venerateas the man of the peopledoes, the meaning,cos-
mical in the main, which traditionhas put into his cradlefrom time immemorial'(Strzygowski,in
JISOA, v. 1937,p. 56). Hence'Solongas the materialof folkloreis transmitted,so long is the ground
availableon whichthe superstructure of full initiatoryunderstandingcan be built' (Coomaraswamy,
Q. J. MythicSoc.,xxxI, 1940,p. 76).
1 These are extracts from citations in G. W. James, Indian Blankets, 1934, pp. 184, 185. See further
W. Schmidt, High Godsof North America, 1933. These volumes demonstrate how not only our estima-
tion but even our knowledge of alien cultures reflects our own mentality rather than theirs. In order
to understand such cultures we must learn to think in their terms, not in our own, which are already
pre-judicial.
2 F. G.
Speck, A Study of the Delaware Indian Big-House Ceremony,Publications of the Pennsyl-
vania Historical Commission, n (1931), p. 21.
paintings, considered intellectually, are superior in kind to any painting that has
been done in Europe or white America within the last several centuries. Strzygow-
ski observes that 'Von den Eskimos hat man gesagt, sie hatten ein viel abstrak-
teres Bild von der menschlichen Seele als die Cristen: die Ideen mancher sog. primi-
tiven Volker seien wesentlich durchgeistiger as die mancher sog. Kulturvolke.
Wir miissten wohl iiberhaupt in der Religion die Unterscheidung zwischen Natur-
und Kulturvolken fallen lassen' (Spiiren indogermanischenGlaubensin derbildenden
Kunst, 1936, p. 344). Bearing in mind, accordingly, that we are speaking not of
learning but of an 'ancient wisdom,' one that the modern world has not originated
but scornfully rejects ('such knowledge as is not empirical is meaningless to us,'
Keith, Aitareya Aranyaka, 1909, p. 42),' can there be any real objection made
to the supposition that, let us say, neolithic man already knew what St. Augus-
tine called the 'Wisdom uncreate, the same now that it ever was and ever will
be'? We have only to ask ourselves whether or not this theory correlates and
explains more of the known facts than any other. On what other supposition can
we account for the fact that the Philosophia Perennis has left its traces every-
where, as well in popular or savage as in more sophisticated environments? It is
a wisdom stemming from a cultural level in which 'the needs of the soul and body
were satisfied together';2 it has been inherited by all humanity; and without it we
should still be only 'reasoning and mortal animals.'
In the present article we have endeavored to show, not how a meaning can
be read into, but how the meaning can be read of the myths of heroes who can
'play fast and loose with their heads.' The result is to support the conclusions
reached by that great scholar, J. L. Weston, that 'The Grail [and related]
romances repose eventually, not upon a poet's imagination, but upon the ruins
of an august and ancient ritual, a ritual which once claimed to be the accredited
guardian of the deepest secrets of Life' (RR. 176).
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS,
BOSTON.
1A
point of view that excludes values. As remarked by E. M. Manasse 'science is incompatible with
any direct perception of value.... The realm of values is absolutely different in kind from the realm
of rational experience' (Journal of Philosophy, XLI,58).
2 R. R. Schmidt, Dawn of the Human Mind (1936), p. 167.
POSTSCRIPT: The present article is not exhaustive. In particular, I have not dealt with the material
collected by Karl Preisendanz in Akephalos, der kopflose Gott (Alten Orient, Beiheft 8, Leipzig 1926,
pp. 80). Among the most interesting points are (1) the conclusion that 'die kopflose Schlange am
griechischen Sternhimmel findet ihre Erklarung im Mythos vom Kampfe des Herakles mit dem
Drachen, dem der Heros den Kopf abhaut' and (2) the discussion of Osiris as the headless deity, and
identification of his head with the Sun.
Botanical Observations on the Voynich MS.

Author(s): Hugh O'Neill
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1944), p. 126
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:49
Speculum.
BOTANICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE VOYNICH MS.
BY HUGH O'NEILL
PROFESSOR John M. Manley' has discussed this Ms. as the 'most mysterious
in
manuscript the world' and has reviewed the work of Professor Newbold whose
work dealt with the astrological and biological parts of the Ms. Through the kind-
ness of Mrs Voynich, the owner of the Ms., Dr Petersen of this institution pos-
sesses a photostat copy of it. Recently Dr Petersen asked the author to attempt
to establish the identity of the numerous plants figured in this Ms. in the faint
hope that a possible clue to the cipher might somehow result.
While some of the drawings appear to be conventionalized or otherwise altered
(perhaps designedly) beyond recognition, other drawings can easily be assigned
to one of several species and sometimes to only one species; e.g., fol. 25 is a species
of nettle (Urtica) as shown by the opposite, ovate, serrate leaves with the axillary
catkins; fol. 100Ohas a plainly drawn figure of Botrychium Lunaria L.
The most startling identification, however, was fol. 93, which is quite plainly
the common sunflower, Helianthus annuus L. Six botanists have agreed with me
on this determination. This immediately recalls the date 1493, when the seeds
of this plant were brought to Europe for the first time (by Columbus on his return
from his second voyage).
Again fol. 101v shows a drawing which does not resemble any native European
fruit, but suggests plainly Capsicum, a genus strictly American in origin, known
in Europe only after the above date.
Inasmuch as the pages of the Ms. on which these drawings appear have the
drawings and accompanying text in a handwriting not obviously different than
the other pages, it seems necessary to consider this Ms. as having been written
after 1493.
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA.
I Speculum, vi, 345-391 and Harper's Magazine No. 854, pp. 186-197 (July, 1921).
126
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Mola in Dante's Usage

Author(s): H. D. Austin
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:49
Speculum.
MOLA IN DANTE'S USAGE
BY H. D. AUSTIN
IN Par., xnI, 3, a circle of twelve lights surrounding Dante and Beatrice begins
to rotate: 'a rotar cominci6 la santa mola'; here the motion is evidently hori-
zontal, like that of the ordinary millstone. In Par., xxI, 80 f., a single light rotates
upon itself:' ... del suo mezzo fece il lume centro, Girando se come veloce mola';
here the spin would more naturally be thought of as vertical, though it might be
horizontal. The only other times Dante uses the word mola are two cases in
Convivio,II, v (the Latin mola is not found in his works). The first of these pas-
sages describes how the motion of the sun appears to the hypothetical North
Polar city Maria at the time of the spring equinox, and is to the following effect:
'Therefore at the first point of Aries, when the sun is under the celestial equator,
Maria must see the sun circling the globe, down round the land or the sea, like
a mola of which only half its body is visible; and must see this (mola) come
spiraling up around like a screw, until it completes ninety-one wheels and a
fraction.'" The comparison here of the revolution round the earth of the half-
hidden sun to that of a mola seen in half of its 'body' leads one almost inevitably
to visualize it at first as the semicircular half of a vertical 'mola'; for mola means,
and has meant, not only the (usually horizontal) 'millstone,' but also 'grind-
stone';2 and in certain types of grinding or crushing mills the rotating stones were
in vertical position.3 A vertically rotating millstone which at the same time was
revolving horizontally round a fixed central pivot would make the comparison
perfect.
But the conditions of the evidence are complicated; and among the factors of
confusion is the notoriously wretched state of the text of the Convivio.4First of
all: it seems certain that, as so often for his astronomical and geographical ideas,
Dante was using Gherardo di Cremona's translation of Alfraganus (Al-Fargani),
1 Conv., II, v, 14: 'Per6 conviene che Maria
veggia nel principio de l'Ariete, quando lo sole va sotto
lo mezzo cerchio de li primi poli, esso sole girar lo mondo intorno gii a la terra, o vero al mare, come
una mola de la quale non paia pif che mezzo lo corpo suo; e questa veggia venire montando a guisa
d'una vite d'intorno (earlier reading: 'd'un torchio'), tanto che compia novanta e una rota e poco
pii.'
2 I find Cennino d'Andrea
Cennini, in the Quattrocento, so using this word: Libro dell'Arte, 49:
'Poi va alla mola, e arruotala. ...'
3 The 'Chilian' oil-mill, which is of great antiquity, is of this type: in it the millstone (there were
often two, balancing each other) rotated about a horizontal shaft which itself revolved about a vertical
pivot. Under this type of mill in which the mola stands vertically the Tommaseo-Bellini Dizionario
quotes [15641'Lauro, Agr. Col. 246. Rompi l'oliva con mola sospesa,' 'Spet. nat. II, 175. Quelle (ulive),
che si destinano a far dell'olio, s'infrangono sotto la mola,' and 'ii, 182. Quei poveri schiavi...
s'attaccano alla stanga della mola; e 1l a forza di braccia si fan maciullare le canne per ispremerne il
sugo.' In Roman antiquity one class of molae oleariae was the trapetum (or trapetus or trapetes), in
which the crushing stones rotated vertically: Varro, De Agri Cultura, I, lv, 5:' . . . ad trapetas, quae
res molae oleariae ex duro et aspero laipide'; id., De Lingua Latina, v, 138: 'Trapetes molae oleariae.'
(Cato, De Agri Cultura, cxxxv, 6, calls the stones of the trapetum 'orbis.') V. Pauly, 8. v. Trapetum.
4 All the two-score extant
manuscripts of the Convivio go back to a single corrupt text, now lost,
and significantly designated x,
127
128 Mola in Dante's Usage
entitled Liber aggregationisscientiae stellarum et de principiis coelestium motuum

- or similarly.' Alfragan, in this text, also compares the equatorial revolution,
as viewed from the North Pole, to that of a mola, in the following terms: 'In the
one place in which the Pole is elevated by 90 degrees, and is directly overhead, the
circle of the equator always coincides with the horizon, and the rotation of the
orbis is like the rotation, equidistant from the horizon, of a mola .....'2 But
Alfragan's 'orbis'is by ellipsis for 'orbis signorum,' as is shown abundantly by the
preceding context. That is, apparently: the whole belt of the Zodiac seems from
the Pole to rotate horizontally like a great millstone of which half would be above
the horizon and half hidden beneath it. Dante may have understood this cor-
rectly, but it seems strange that he should have then spoken of the 'millstone' as
spiraling around upwards after the spring equinox - instead of saying that the
sun did so - as he did if 'questa' in our accepted Testo critico represents ac-
curately what he wrote. There seem to be two possibilities of error here: (1) that
Dante took Alfragan's 'orbis' to mean the sun itself; (2) that the 'questa' in our
Italian text is by mistake for quello, or esso.3It is, of course, possible that Dante
thought of the sun, in its horizontal circlings round the earth from the time of
the spring equinox, as describing a millstone-like horizontal disk whose thick-
ness would be the vertical diameter of the sun; and then of this disk itself,
carrying the sun with it, as spiraling up round the northern hemisphere till it
reached its highest point; but it is so evidently the motion of the sun itself in
which Dante is interested that it seems almost incredible that he would have
expressed himself thus.4
Dante's second use of mola, in this same chapter of the Convivio,is involved in
a passage of veritable textual chaos. It runs as follows in the Testo critico: 'The
circle where the Garamanti are' (i.e., the equator) 'upon this globe, as has been
said, must see the sun revolve exactly overhead, not in the manner of a mola,
but of [a wheel]; which it cannot anywhere see except half, when it is under
Aries.'5 The manuscripts of the Conviviodo not have 'di rota' ('of a wheel'), but
'd(i)ricta'; and the latest editors defend the emendation thus: 'I codici leggono
dricta, mala lettura, evidentemente, di di rota, donde poi dritta e diricta.'6 This
emendation seems to me indefensible for four reasons.7
1 See Romeo Campani's edition of this Latin translation (Citta di Castello, Lapi, 1910), p. 10.
2
vii, ad fin. (p. 84 f., in Campani ed.): 'In loco autem uno in quo elevatur polus 90 partibus et
est super summitatem capitum, circulus aequatoris diei cooperit circulum orizontis semper et est
revolutio orbis sicut revolutio molae aequidistans / orizonti....'
3 In fairly close context, once before and once after our 'questa,'esso is used referring definitely to the
8un.
4 The millstone simile is used also in this connection
by Albategnius (Opus. astron., chap. VI), by
Ristoro d'Arezzo (I, xxiii; ed. G. Amalfi, Napoli 1888, p. 61: 'En quello loco li seuolgiara lo cielo da
torno cum tutte le sue stelle en modo de macina, et nulla parte del cielo li seleuara et colcara'), and by
other authors (see Bull. xvIII, pp. 97, 36).
6 Conv., III, v, 18: 'Conviene anche che lo cerchio dove sono li Garamanti, come detto e, in su questa
palla, veggia lo sole a punto sopra se girare, non a modo di mola, ma di [rota]; la quale non pu6 in
alcuna parte vedere se non mezza, quando va sotto l'Ariete.'
6 Convivio,ed. Busnelli & Vandelli, Firenze 1934; vol. i, p. 315.
7 The struggles which have been made by various editors to get sense out of the last two phrases are
Mola in Dante's Usage 129
In the first place: if the copyist of x had 'di rota' before him in the manuscript
he was striving to reproduce, it is scarcely conceivable that he should have
changed it to 'dricta.' 'Di rota' furnishes an eminently satisfactory reading; as
whoever first used it to 'amend' the passage and all the subsequent scholars who
have so willingly adopted it demonstrate. Even the sorry amanuensis of x could
hardly have been so dense as to have missed its appropriateness.
Secondly: Dante uses the word rota four times, between the two mola-similes,
to designate the (nearly) horizontal movement of the sun as it mounts in its
spirals toward the summer solstice.
Thirdly: while several authors1 along with Dante use Alfragan's simile of the
mola for the horizontal motion of the sun, none of them uses the wheel-simile
for the vertical motion - which of itself proves nothing; but the wheel-simile
does not occur in Alfragan -- which may mean something.
And finally: Alfragan does use the adjective erecta to characterize the vertical
revolution as seen from the equator: ... the revolution of the Zodiac is there
erect .... '2
I am convinced that Dante wrote 'dritta.'3 So convinced that I might even
agree that he wrote 'di rota dritta,' and that the writing of x is a quasi-haplogra-
phy. But it may be worth while to speculate what the original wording was if it
did not contain 'di rota.'
In the first of the Conviviopassages, describing the horizontal motion, Dante
may have written 'come una mola comune,' and then in the second passage sim-
ply 'a modo di mola dritta.' The 'comune' of the first passage having been lost
through some scribal vagary, the second passage was 'corrected' to 'non a
modo ... .' Or perhaps the second passage may have originally had 'non a modo
di mola comune, ma come una mola dritta' - which would have given plenty of
scope for haplographies by pedestrian clericasters. A better explanation may be
found; but I insist on keeping 'dritta.'
If somewhere, sometime, a manuscript of the Convivioshould turn up that did
not go back to x we should probably be due for a number of surprises. Mean-
while, we just have to do the best we can; and I hope that the present study has
been of some use in that direction.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
evident. According to Scartazzini, Leipzig ed. of the Divina Commedia (vol. III, 1882; in note to Par.
xu, 3), the 'Vulgate' edition had 'a modo di mola e non di rota,' and Giuliani read 'non a modo di vite
ma di mola'-which last reading, astoundingly, Vandelli repeated in his revisions of Scartazzini's
Divina Commedia,up to and including his last edition, the tenth.
1 See p. 128 f. n. 4.
2
vi, ad. med. (Campani ed., p. 77 f.): 'Dicamus ergo quod revolutio aequatoris diei super omnes
qui habitant in illo circulo (aequalitatis) est super summitatem capitum necessario et sunt ambo poli
aequatoris diei insepa/rabiles a circulis orizontibus illic et propter illud est revolutioorbis (signorum)
erectaillic super orizontas et nondum declinans ab eis et est declinatio solis a summitate capitum in
utrisque partibus septemtrionis et meridiei unius quantitatis.'
3 In close preceding context (§§ 15 and 17) 'dritto' occurs twice: 'se uno uomo fosse dritto in Maria,'
'se uno uomo fosse in Lucia dritto.'
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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE
CHAUCER
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Gardiner Stillwell and H. J. Webb, 'Chaucer's Knight and the Hundred Years' War,'
MODERN LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 1 (January, 1944), 45-47.
C. E. Wien, 'The source of the subtitle to Chaucer's Tale of Philomela,' MODERNLAN-
GUAGE NOTES,LVIII,8 (December, 1943), 605-607.
FINE ARTS
William Emerson and R. L. Van Nice, 'Haghia Sophia, Istanbul: preliminary report of a
recent examination of the structure,' AMERICANJOURNALOF ARCHEOLOGY, XLVII, 4
(October-December, 1943), 403-436.
Florence L. May, 'The Hispano-Moresque brocades from Villasirga,' NOTESHISPANIC,
nI (1943), 119-134.
Armenag Sakisian, 'Notes on the sculpture of the church of Akhthamar,' ARTBULLETIN,
xxv, 4 (December, 1943), 346-357.
Frances Spalding, 'Spanish illumination: a fragment from a choir book and three related
antiphonaries,' NOTESHISPANIC,In (1943), 59-95.
HISTORY
G. Bosano, 'La questione Poliana,' ITALICA,XX, 3 (September, 1943), 105-190.
R. N. Frye and A. M. Sayili, 'Turks in the Middle East before the Saljuqs,' JOURNAL
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G. B. Hatfield, 'The Bible in mediaeval civilization: the Saxon code of law in illustration,'
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Guido Kisch, 'The "Jewish execution" in mediaeval Germany,' HISTORIA JUDAICA, V, 2
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G. Levi Della Vida, 'The "Bronze Era" in Moslem Spain,' JOURNAL OF THEAMERICAN
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R. S. Lopez, 'European merchants in the medieval Indies,' JOURNAL OF ECONOMICHIS-
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Eva M. Sanford, 'The study of ancient history in the Middle Ages,' JOURNALOF THE
HISTORYOF IDEAS, v, 1 (January, 1944), 21-43.
LINGUISTICS
Myles Dillon, 'Germanic and Celtic,' JOURNALOF ENGLISH AND GERMANICPHILOLOGY,
XLII, 4 (October, 1943), 492-498.
Henry and R. Kahane, 'Romanic baia, "bay",' HISPANIC REVIEW, XII, 1 (January, 1944),
11-28.
Kurt Lewent, 'Old French veaus, seveaus, siveaus; Old Provencal seval, sivals, STUDIES
IN PHILOLOGY, XLI, 1 (January, 1944), 16-44.
C. H. Livingston,
'English sheer (off),' MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, LIX, 1 (January, 1944),
49-45.
C. H. Livingston, 'Latin restis "rope, cord" in English,' STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY, XLI, 1
(January, 1944), 45-49.
Yakov Malkiel, 'Spanish deleznar "to slide, 'lezne "smooth, slippery",' HISPANIC REVIEW,
XIi, 1 (January, 1944), 57-65.
M. A. Pei, 'Intervocalic occlusives in "East" and "West" Romance,' ROMANICREVIEW,
XXXIV,3 (October, 1943), 235-247.
Thomas Pyles, 'The pronunciation of Latin learned loan words and foreign words in Old
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Leo Spitzer, 'A. Fr. esmarve,' MODERNLANGUAGE NOTES,LVIII,7 (November, 1943),
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Leo Spitzer, 'Anc. Sienese aciare, "respirare"; acio, "fiato," ITALICA, XX, 4 (December,
1943), 196-197.
A. M. Sturtevant, 'Old Norse phonological notes,' JOURNAL OFENGLISHANDGERMANIC
PHILOLOGY,XLII,4 (October, 1943), 539-550.
Helene Wieruszowski, 'The rise of the Catalan language in the 13th century,' MODERN
LANGUAGENOTES, LIX,1 (January, 1944), 9-20.
LITERATURE
C. F. Bihler, 'Notes on the Plimpton manuscript of the Court of Sapience,' MODERN
LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 1 (January, 1944), 5-9.
M. G. Frampton, 'Towneley XX: the Conspiracio (et Capcio),' PMLA, LVIII.4 (December,
1943), 990-937.
Grace Frank, 'Pierre bise,' ROMANICREVIEW, XXXIV, 3 (October, 1943), 193-195.
Grace Frank, 'Proverbs in medieval literature,' MODERNLANGUAGE NOTES,LVIII,7
(November, 1943), 508-515.
H. J. Green, 'The Pepin-Bertha saga and Philip I of France,' PMLA, LVIII,4 (December,
1943), 911-919.
S. J. Herben, 'The Ruin again,' MODERNLANGUAGE NOTES,LIX,1 (January, 1944), 72-74.
B. F. Huppe, 'The Wanderer:theme and structure,' JOURNAL OFENGLISH ANDGERMANIC
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A. H. Krappe, 'A Persian theme in the Roman de Renard,' MODERNLANGUAGE NOTES,
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George Nordmeyer, 'Zur Auffassung des Kiirenbergfalken,' GERMANIC REVIEW,XVIII, 3
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PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

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Annual Meeting 29 April 1944

Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1944), p. 133
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:50
Speculum.
BOOKS RECEIVED
Boaz Cohen ed. -S. W. Baron, Boaz Cohen, Solomon Gandz, H. F. Wolfson, Ismar El-
bogen, Michael Higger, A. S. Haldin, Aron Freimann collaborators, Saadia. Texts
and Studies Vol. II (Anniversary Volume). New York: American Academy for Jewish
Research, 1943. Cloth. Pp. 346.
Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research- Vol. xiII. 1943. Paper. Pp.
xxvi, 346.
C. Plumpe, Mater Ecclesia. An inquiry into the Concept of the Church as Mother in Early
Christianity. (The Catholic University of America Studies in Christian Antiquity.
No. 5.) Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1943. Paper.
Pp. xxi, 149. $3.00.
ANNUAL MEETING 29 APRIL 1944

PURSUANT to the Government's wish that no meetings be held which entail travel
by large numbers of persons, the Annual Meeting of the Mediaeval Academy of
America this year will consist of brief pro forma sessions of the Council and of the
Corporation at the Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
on Saturday, 29 April 1944. The session of the Council will begin at 4:30 P.M.
and will be followed at 5 P.M. by the meeting of the Corporation of the Academy.
133

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Back Matter
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Front Matter
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1944)
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:56
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APRIL, 1944

Prsident Treasurer
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Yale University Newcomb College, Tulane University
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Princeton University University of California
Executive Committee of the Council

K. J. CONANT GEORGELA PIANA TAYLORSTARCK
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SPECULUM
April, 1944
SPECULUM
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Vol. XIX, No. 2-Copyright, 1944, by the MediaevalAcademyof America-PRINTED IN U. S. A. Entered as second-class
October30, 1930. for
Acceptance mailing at-special rate of postage providedfor in Act of February28, 1925, authorized
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is regularly indexed in the International Index to Periodicals and the Art Index.
SPECULUM
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
The Payment of Army Wages in Edward III's Reign.A. E. PRINCE 137
The Process of Agen ... GP. CUTTINO 161
Athens in the Later Twelfth Century . . KENNETHM. SETTON 179
The Introduction of the Bulbous Dome into Gothic Architecture and

Its Subsequent Development .... WOLFGANG BORN 208
Estampie and Stantipes .....LLOYD HIBBERD 222
REVIEWS
E. C. Armstrongand Alfred Foulet, edd., The MediaevalFrenchRoman
d'Alexandre, IV: Le Roman du Fuerre de Gadres d'Eustache; F. B.
Agard, ed., The Mediaeval French Roman d'Alexandre, V: Version
of Alexandre de Paris (U. T. Holmes, Jr.). 250
Gustave Cohen, La grande clarte du Moyen-Age (R. J. Clements) .. . 253
H. R. Ellis, The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conceptionof the Dead in Old
Norse Literature (H. M. Smyser) .... .. 255
G. Turville-Petre and E. S. Olszewska, transs., The Life of Gudmund the

Good, Bishop of H6lar (Halld6r Hermannsson) .. . . 259
Watkin Williams, The Life of General Sir Charles Warren (K. J. Conant) 260
VARIA
Bibliographyof PeriodicalLiterature ...... 262
Books Received ........ 263
The purpose of the MEDIAEVALACADEMYOF AMERICAis to conduct, encourage, promote,
SPECULUM,A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES, is published quarterly by the Academy.

The service of SPECULUM is included in all classes of membership. SPECULUMis also avail-

The Payment of Army Wages in Edward III's Reign

Author(s): A. E. Prince
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1944), pp. 137-160
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:56
Speculum.
SPECU
VOL.XIX APRIL, 1944 No. 2
THE PAYMENT OF ARMY WAGES IN

EDWARD III'S REIGN
BY A. E. PRINCE
How, when and where were the fighting forces of Edward in paid? What persons,
organization, or organizations were responsible for the disbursements to the
soldiery? On the inauguration of the new regime at the beginning of the reign,
there was a pronounced change of policy, by way of reaction against the curial
household system of the Despensers under Edward ii, which Dr Tout in his classic
work has illustrated in various aspects of the administration.' Was there a similar
orientation in the direction of military affairs? These questions invite discussion,
even if no simple, definite answers can be given.
One reason is that there are serious gaps in household administrative records for
the early years of Edward II, notably for the Scottish campaign of 1397 when,
as Froissart has vividly portrayed, the big lumbering English army (mobilized
by Mortimer) chased will-o-the-wisp Scots.2 'There is some evidence,' Dr Tout
nonetheless maintains, 'that in the beginning of the reign an attempt was made
to restrict the wardrobe to its constitutional position, as defined by the reformers
of 1393. Thus, in the conduct of the Scots war and defence of the border, the main
function of the wardrobe was to certify by bill that soldiers and officials had duly
performed their task, each with an adequate following. Payments for military
wages, however, came from the exchequer, or by assignment of local issues, which
normally would have gone to the exchequer, and for which the exchequer made
allowance on production of the claimant of the bill of the wardrobe which was
his warranty.'3 Mr J. H. Johnson also adopted this idea of payment by the
exchequer; 'the wardrobe merely issued bills authorizing payment.'4 Yet Tout
adds that 'the wardrobe had not lost its traditional control over extraordinary
war expenditure,' citing as 'the best proof' the fact that more than half of the
£55,000 due to John of Hainault and his 'foreign mercenary' contingent was paid
by the wardrobe and a mere trifle by the exchequer.5In modification of the main
argument of Tout and Johnson, it may be pointed out that most of the extant
1 Chaptersin Administrative History, especially in, 10 ff.
2 For this
campaign see A. E. Prince, 'The Army and Navy,' The English Governmentat Work
(Cambridge, Mass.: Med. Academy, 1940), I, 332-333 and Prince, 'Importance of the campaign of
1327,' E.H.R., L (1935), 301.- a Tout, op. cit., iv, 83.
4 'The King's Wardrobe and Household,' English Governmentat Work, I, 224, cf. pp. 222, 231.
6 Tout, op. cit., IV, 84.
137
138 The Payment of Army Wages in Edward III's Reign
evidence relating to the payment of the native military levies testifies to a much
more extensive activity of the wardrobe than these authorities believed. Thus the
account of John bishop of Ely for his retinue shows that he received £500 on
14 November, 1327, from Robert Wodehouse, keeper of the wardrobe, leaving
£364:19:0 still to be paid by the exchequer.1 It was the wardrobe also which
paid out large sums of money as imprests on the wages of the contingents of many
leaders and on their purchases of provisions and horses.2 Altogether Wodehouse
was charged with the wages of men-at-arms, hobelars and footmen in the Scots
war amounting to £39,655 and another £28,,076 for the compensation for lost
horses.3
In respect to the Halidon Hill campaign of 1333, unfortunately there are avail-
able no detailed, particularized pay-rolls. But the meagre wardrobe accounts of
Robert Tawton for his second period of office as keeper from September 1332
to July 1334 contain a few references to payments for military service charged
upon the exchequer by bills of the wardrobe.4The wardrobe seems to have been
responsible for sundry payments to soldiers, e.g. to Richard Emeldon, citizen of
Newcastle, who 'at the king's verbal command' led a contingent at the siege
of Berwick, escorted a French envoy from Newcastle to Berwick and then com-
manded a force at the battle of Halidon Hill.5 Yet the total expenditure under the
heading 'Wages of the men-at-arms, hobelars, footmen and sailors in the war of
the King of Scotland' only amounted to £629.6 The wardrobe does not seem to
have been responsible for financing this 1333 campaign on an extensive scale.
Tout has asserted that at this time 'assignments became insignificant; only
money down could meet expenses in the field. Accordingly large sums of money
were sent north under careful escort ... and in May (1333) the whole exchequer
moved thither (to York), that the money might be more on the spot for the para-
mount needs of the campaign.'7
1 Pipe Rolls175/46. Dr Tout has referredto the 'delayand irregularityof the authorizedexchequer
grants.'Assuredlythe balanceof the bishop'saccountwas still unpaidfouryearslater. So also John
Herlepetitionedthe parliamentof 1333for arrearsof pay on bills of the wardrobedue fromthe ex-
chequer (Rot. Parl., II, 72). Cf. Tout, op. cit., iv, 90 ff.
2 Exch.Accts.,383/8 (AccountBook of John Brunham,deputy of the controllerof the wardrobe):
EnrolledAccts.(Wardrobe and Household),2/27; Pipe Rolls177/3. Thus Edmundearl of Kent drew
£1,000 fromWodehouseat York on 8 June, 1327.Tout does not mentionthese disbursements.
3 Enr. Accts.,W. and H., 2/27.
4 Thus MauriceBerkeleydrew50 markson 16 Nov., 1334fromthe exchequer'for moneysdue by
bill of wardrobefor the wagesand expensesof ten men-at-armswhichhe had had in his companyat
the siegeof Berwickin additionto a certainnumberof his retinueas a gift of the kingby writof privy
seal and the aforesaidwrit' (BritishMuseumAdd.Mss, 35,181; Exch.Accts,W. andH., 387/9). He
explainsthat this moneyhad beengrantedhim 'by king and council'for the ten extratroopersin ad-
dition to the 20 retainedin the king'sservice;Exch.Accts.,507/16; cf. howeverC. Pat. R, 1327-30,
p. 530 wherein 1330he had covenantedto stay with 14 men-at-armsin time of war.
5 C. Close Rolls, 1333-37, p. 200; Bain, Cal. Does. Scot., II, 201. The
king ordered this account to
be dealt with by the wardrobe.The sum of £83:0:6 is includedin the 'Debts' of the Wardrobein
the accountsof RichardFerriby,controller,in Exch.Accts.,387/5; also for other military service
obligationssee Exch.Accts.,387/9.
6 Althoughthere was another£854 appliedto worksat Berwickwhilst there were also imprests
advancedto the keeperof victuals (Enr.Accts.,W. andH., 2/34d). Johnson,Eng. Govmt.I, 224,n. 3
says that the amountwas £5,629:5:7. 7 Chapters.in, 65-66.
The Payment of Army Wages in Edward III's Reign 139
In the almost continuous military activity of the Scottish wars from 1334
onwards, the exchequer continued to be responsible for considerable disburse-
ments to the soldiery,' frequently specified as being on the direct authorization
of a bill of the keeper of the wardrobe.2An exchequer receipt official, an 'usher'
(hostiario), John Bray senior, was prominent, being specially deputed to draw
and issue moneys for the strictly household expenses, and at least from July 1335
for war expenditures.3 Yet the persistent efforts for the subjugation of Scotland
led to a significant revival of wardrobe activities and an increase of wardrobe re-
sponsibilities. Professor Tout and Mr Johnson have indicated the broad lines of
this revival.4 Large sums of money were drawn and distributed by that organiza-
tion for military purposes.5 Most of this money came from the exchequer,6but
the wardrobe also had other sources of revenue, in loans from the Bardi Society
of Florence, and from private individuals such as the de la Poles.7 John Denton,
a wealthy Newcastle merchant (formerly mayor of that town),8 and the arch-
bishop of York who lent a thousand marks.9 Moreover the system of delegating
household officials as paymasters of the forces seems to have developed during
this period. Thus John Houton, a wardrobe clerk,0 was in 1335 'assigned to
pay the wages and expenses of divers persons serving in the wars';1 he served
in a similar capacity as paymaster 'assigned by king and council' to the foot and
mounted archers retained by the magnates or sent by certain counties in the
company of Henry earl of Lancaster in the summer of 1336 in Scotland.l2 Other
1 Thus Henry Percy banneret drew £133:6:8 on 21 Oct., 1334 (Nero C VIII, fol. 181).
2 'Item in denariis solutis Walteri de
Manny pro denariis sibi debitis super vadiis guerre per billam
custodis; £10' on 8 Mar., 1335 (loc. cit.). For the earl of Warwick's wardrobe bill for 92 men-at-arms
from 23 June, 1335 to 15 Oct., see E404/492. These moneys were issued under chancery writs of lib-
erate, e.g. of £10,000. For this procedure see Johnson, op. cit., p. 231.
3 He often
conveyed sums of money from the exchequer receipt at York to the base at Newcastle
1335-8, e.g., £200 and £1,533:6:8 (Issue Rolls 282/21 and 289/19; £200 was handed over to Beche,
controller of the wardrobe (289/22). For sums e.g., £1,266:13:4 and £4,500 in July 1335, £2,000 in
August and £2,000 in Sept. charged upon the wardrobe see Nero C VIII, fols. 182, 183.
4 Chapters,II, 56 ff. and Iv, 96 ff. Eng. Govmt,pp. 207, 223, 224. 6 Nero C VIII, e.g., fols. 233 ff.
6 The total indebtedness of the wardrobe to the exchequer amounted to some £126,800 for the
3 years July 1334-Aug. 1337. In the expenses over £80,000 was due for the wages of war of men-
at-arms, archers etc. and £8,000 for gifts and compensation for lost horses (Enr. Accts. W. and H.,
2/36). Tout does not give the latter totals. 7 Tout, op. cit., iv, 88 ff.: Johnson, op. cit., p. 232.
8 Denton drew in Jan. 1336 from the
exchequer £102:12:5 'by him lent to the wardrobe' and other
'moneys sent to Newcastle to the keeper' (Nero C VIII, fol. 181). He also acted as an intermediary
between the exchequer and leaders like Walter Manny and William Kilsby. 9 Loc. cit.
10He had been a controller's clerk in 9-10 Edward II (Johnson, op. cit., p. 229, n. 6). He was sent to
take £200 to John of Hainault on his arrival at Dover in May 1327 (Issue Rolls 228/2). He was cof-
ferer of the wardrobe in 1335 (Nero C VIII, fol. 27 ff.), but in 1337 he appeared as an exchequer
chamberlain (ibid., p. 189); he carried £600 from York to Newcastle and Berwick to be paid to mag-
nates, drawing 10s a day (Issue Rolls 289 under date 10 Dec.). In 1338 he was a paymaster of the
troops assembling at Norwich etc. for the Flanders expedition (Exch. Accts., 20/21); he carried 400
marks from York to Ipswich in May (Issue Rolls 292/3).
11In this capacity he drew £600 and other sums during the last ten days of April 1335 (Nero C VIII,
fol. 185).
12 Ibid., fol. 243 from 9 April 'on which day he left the court for the aforesaid parts to receive and
review (videndum) the men-at-arms and others' up to 28 Sept. on which day he returned to England,
drawing 2s a day. The wages of his retinue amounted to £106:10:10 (E 404/492).
wardrobe and household clerks such as Walter Wetwang and William Retford
(destined ten years later to play an important administrative r61e in the Cregy
army) were charged with like functions.' Another illustration of wardrobe ac-
tivity in this direction is afforded by the appointment of Thomas Crosse of the
wardrobe staff as paymaster of the considerable contingent of troops sent from
Ireland in 1335 to take part in the Scottish war.2 Household chaplains and clerks
of the offices (for example, the sub-clerk of the pantry) also acted as paymasters.3
It is here necessary to discuss the topic of 'Treasurers of war' because their ac-
tivities illustrate the responsibilities of the household, and in particular serve to
illuminate certain passages in the important Walton ordinances of July, 1338.4
As Tout has declared, 'Already sometimes it had been found necessary to control
the financial administration of a campaign by setting up a special treasurer for
this purpose. In view of the application of some such method to the war with
France, the opportunity was taken to lay down, in the eighth section of the
ordinances, precise rules for the financing of future wars. These rules postulated
both a special war treasurer and a single general in supreme command.' Dr Tout
does not discuss the topic of special war treasurers prior to July 1338.5Whether
the framers of the ordinances had in mind the household clerks like Houton and
Wetwang who made disbursements in 1335-36 is uncertain, but almost indubi-
tably they were thinking of the special paymasters in the campaigns of 1337-38,
viz., Thomas Ousefleet, Mr John of Saint Albans and particularly Walter Weston.
Each of these paymasters had qualified himself for this important function by his
previous administrative services, mainly in connection with the household. Ouse-
fleet had been keeper of the great wardrobe from 1323 to 1329, and had been
associated with the chamber, e.g., as controller.6 Walter Weston probably be-
longed to the family of Weston distinguished for its official activities, notably in
connection with the administration of Gascony. Walter performed varied duties
such as receiver of victuals, clerk of public works, deputy warden in the Channel
Isles and later in 1342 treasurer for the army in Aquitaine.7 Mr John of Saint
1 Nero C VIII, fols. 205, 214.
2 Rot. Scot., i, 384, dated 7 June; the day previously he had been appointed chief baron of the ex-
chequer at Dublin (C. Pat. R. 1334-1338), p. 122. Walter Birmingham drew £145:1:4 from Crosse
for himself, 40 esquires and 100 foot from 23 Aug., 1335-15 Oct. (Pipe Rolls 191/19d).
3 Johnson, op. cit., 224-225. He has given a detailed account of the varied military activities of
the household at this period.
4
Chapters, in, 69 ff.: 'In intention, if not in effect, the Walton ordinances were perhaps the most
important administrative act of the reign of Edward III.'
6 Apart from a footnote query as to whether John Charnels was 'the treasurer for the Scots war re-
ferred to in the ordinances of Walton' for Arundel's expedition of April 1338. 'John Charnels, deputy
treasurer (of the realm) at York, is called on July 8 simply 'the king's receiver there' (Chapters, III,
84, n. 1). For Charnels see below pp. 147, 154. In point of fact it was Weston rather than Charnels
who was the special paymaster (see below p. 142 ff.).
6 See various references in Tout, op. cit., iI, 345-346, iv, 374-377, 379, 398-399: C. Pat. R. 1321-
1324, pp. 217, 337.
7 Receiver of victuals for the force sent to Aquitaine (C. Pat. R. 1327-1330, pp. 502, 508, 511; in
Sept. 1328 he was given letters of protection to go in the company of John Weston, constable of
Bordeaux (ibid., 320). He became clerk of the works in the Palace of Westminster and at the Tower
(C. Pat. R. 1330-1334; Issue Rolls 289/20). He acted as the deputy of the wardens of the Channel
Albans had had a less distinguished career and family connections; he had served
as a household purveyor under Edward II and a controller of victuals to be sent
to Ireland in 1332.1
The normal title given to the office of paymaster was that of 'receiver of
moneys,' but Ousefleet and Weston at least were also definitively designated as
'treasurer.'2Thomas Ousefleet was appointed by formal writ on 27 March, 1337
to function as receiver of moneys to be paid to Thomas Beauchamp earl of War-
wick, chief leader of the army to be sent to Scotland and also to the garrisons of
Berwick, Perth and the castles of Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Stirling etc. in Scotland.3
His roll of accounts covering the period 7 May to 27 July does not seem to be now
extant, but there still exists a file of documents which he submitted to the ex-
chequer in connection with his account.4 He received disbursements from the
keeper of the wardrobe, and directly or indirectly from the exchequer.5
Mr John of Saint Albans succeeded Ousefleet, his writ of appointment as re-
ceiver of the king's moneys and paymaster of the army of Thomas earl of War-
wick and the Scottish garrisons being dated 28 July, 13376 his controller was
William Kellesey,7 frequently mentioned in connection with these army financing
arrangements; like Ousefleet he drew 40d a day wages for this duty, his escort
of six men-at-arms and twelve horse archers receiving the customary wages of
Isles (Rot. Scot., i, 455, 30 Sept., 1336: C. Pat. R. 1334-1338, pp. 323-324; C. Close R. 1337-1339, p.
921) where he returned after his duties as paymaster in the Scots war (ibid., p. 544; TreatyRolls 13/7).
He was treasurer of the army in Gascony and regent of the controller of Bordeaux (Rymer, Foedera,
ii, ii, 1204; Tout, op. cit., vi, 69). In Nov. 1346 a Walter Weston chose 80 carpenters in London and
the home counties to be sent to Calais (Treaty Rolls 23/6). See below, p. 142.
1 C. Pat. R. 1317-1321, pp. 69, 379, 448, 607; C. Pat. R. 1330-1334, p. 319; Issue Rolls 262 under date
8 Aug., 1332. He had been engaged in certain 'secret business' for the king in 1334 (Exch. Accts.,
387/5). There was probably another of that name who was a royal falconer, and as "king's yeoman"
was put in charge of the king's mews at Charing Cross (Exch. Accts. 388/5, m. 10 and Issue Rolls
289/151). Tout does not mention St Albans in any connection.
2 Ousefleet thus described himself in a certificate of service of
Henry Percy: - 'En testemoigne de
queu chose que Thomas de Useflet Tresorier assigne du part nostre dit seigneur le Roi... ad mys
son seal' (Exch. Accts., 20/17, m. 1.), Weston was referred to as 'thesaurius eiusdem guerre' (Exch.
Accts., 20/33).
3 Rot. Scot., i, 488-489, 486. Disbursements were to be made under the supervision of Thomas de
Burgh, chancellor of Berwick, whilst he was allowed 40d a day for himself and an escort of 6 men-
at-arms and 12 mounted archers drawing the usual wages of war. The appointment of Ousefleet is
known to have been decided upon by a council; see the memorandum of proceedings in Chanc.
Miscell. 2/29, m. 5. Apparently Warwick did not go on service till August, i.e., after Ousefleet's term.
4 Exch. Accts., 20/17. After Ousefleet's term of office had expired, Ferriby the keeper of the ward-
robe, was ordered to audit his account, in view of the instructions to the exchequer (as regards wages
etc.): 10 Aug., 1337 (C.C.R. 1337-1339, 189). Ferriby did so, making the stipulated allowances for
wages and for the escort of 6 men-at-arms, but not apparently for the 12 archers (Nero C VIII,
fol. 246).
6 E.g., £100 on 26 April from the wardrobe 'ad opus Regis,' and another £200 for the troops in
Perth. On 30 May he drew no less than £600 from John Houton, chamberlain of the exchequer
(above p. 139, n. 11), and also received other amounts directly from the exchequer, drawn on his behalf
by William Kellesey. On a few'occasions he received moneys from Robert Tong, receiver of victuals
at Berwick (Exch. Accts., 20/17: Nero C VIII).
6 Rot. Scot., I, 497; cf. Nero C VIII, fol. 246. Warwick served from 31 Aug. to 19 Nov. (Exch.
Accts., 388/5, m. 11). 7 Below p. 142.
war. His account has survived, covering the period from the date of his appoint-
ment to 11 December, 1337, which was audited by two barons of the exchequer
and handed over for engrossment two years later on 10 December. He was
charged with receipts from the exchequer amounting to £6,220:13:4, either per-
sonally (e.g. £2,366:13:4 on 29 July) or through military leaders; he did not
specify the service of the individual leaders.'
There was an expeditionary force in the winter of 1337-38 distinct from that of
Warwick's, the existence and significance of which has virtually been overlooked
by Dr Tout;2 it was this army which prosecuted, from January to June, 1338, the
hard-fought siege of the earl of March's castle of Dunbar, heroically defended
by the countess 'Black Agnes.'3 It was this expedition which was indubitably
uppermost in the mind of the framers of the Walton ordinances. Assuredly these
instructions postulated normally a single commander-in-chief for the future. For
this 1337 expedition there was a joint command under the earls of Arundel and
Salisbury, the formal writs of appointment being dated as early as 6 October,
1337,4 although the actual service did not commence till December 1st; in view
of the impending departure of Salisbury and others from Scotland for the con-
tinental overseas expedition, Arundel was on 25 April, 1338, designated sole
general with extensive powers in Scotland and the north of England.5 This Dun-
bar expedition had a formally constituted 'treasurer of war' of its own in the per-
son of the clerk Walter Weston, who on 1 November, 1337, was designated
Receiver of the king's moneys and paymaster of wages for the army of Arundel
and Salisbury;6William Kellesey was again to act as controller. Tout was unaware
1 Exch. Accts., 20/19; Pipe Rolls 184/51. Edward Balliol, 'king of Scotland,' drew sums of, e.g.,
£300 on 99 July and £100 on 7 Nov.; later he accounted for these sums on the Pipe Roll for 1341 for
Yorkshire. The earl of Warwick received an advance of 1,000 marks in July and on 7 Nov. the sum
of £100. The wardens of Scot garrisons in Stirling, Perth Edinburgh, etc., also received sums.
The account of at least one leader is extant, that of Sir Richard Talbot, who drew £200 from St
Albans and served from 15 Aug. to the last day of Nov. with 6 knights, 37 men-at-arms and 40 archers
(Exch. Accts., 20/18).
2 Using merely the household accounts of keeper Beche, Tout made a rough calculation of the num-
ber of troops engaged in Scottish operations from 31 Aug., 1337 to 11 July, 1338, mentioning Warwick's
forces and referring simply to 'field forces engaged in the siege of Dunbar' (Chapters,iv, 100-1) and
to the wide powers of the earl of Arundel (Below n. 5). See Prince, 'Strength of English Armies,'
E.H.R., XLVI,358-360.
3 Scottish chroniclers delighted in her stubborn defiance, how she coolly wiped off the dust from
the crumbling battlements when the earl of Salisbury hurled 'love tokens' at the lovely countess
(cf. Ramsay, Genesis of Lancaster, I, 294).
4 Rot. Scot., I, 503; Exch. Accts., 20/25.
6 Rot. Scot., I, 524 ff.; Rymer, Foedera, II, ii, 1099 ff. cf. Chanc. Miscellanea 2/37, m. 7. The October
appointments were not recorded by Rymer, and Tout therefore seems to have overlooked them. Citing
the April authorizations he concludes 'Arundel then was clearly the supreme commander contemplated
in the ordinances of Walton' (op. cit., II, 84 and n. 1). For the letter to the constable of Edinburgh
castle announcing these powers and requiring his help see Anc. Correspondence,LvI/71.
6 Rot. Scot., I, 513; the commission was not to interfere with that authority formerly bestowed upon
Robert Tong receiver of victuals in Berwick and Newcastle. On 4 Jan. Weston was made chamberlain
of Berwick (ibid., I, 517). Possibly Salisbury had Weston appointed to this office as Weston had
rendered good service as deputy for Salisbury and Henry Ferrars, wardens of the Channel Islands
from October 1336 (Rot. Scot., I, 455 and C. Pat. R., 1334-1338, pp. 323-324).
of this significant appointment and of the valuable 'particulars' of his account

covering the period from 1 December, 1337, to 18 June following.' Weston drew
wages of four shillings a day.2 In his account Weston was charged with the re-
ceipt from the exchequer of just under £8,000. Of this sum he, or controller Kel-
lesey, drew almost a half; £410 was paid on 6 December; £1,533:6:8 was carried
by John Bray, senior, usher of the exchequer, to Newcastle after a three days
journey (i.e., presumably from London) and handed over on 'a writ of libertate
of the Receiver,'3 £400 of this being 'carried with the army to Wooler, Tyming-
ham and Haddington' towards Dunbar; on 24 February, £2,000 brought from
London was handed over to Kellesey at Newcastle and then carried to Berwick
and thence to the siege of Dunbar along with £200 received from the wardrobe
through John Denton of Newcastle.4 This £200 was part of the £1,700 drawn by
Weston as 'imprests' from the wardrobe, the remainder being received from the
energetic William Kilsby (to whose activities as receiver of the chamber at this
period Tout often refers); Kilsby handed over to Weston £466:13:4 at Berwick
on 27 January 'by an indenture between them deposited in the wardrobe' and
also £1,033:6:8 to Kellesey 'controller of war'; £1,000, apparently part of this
sum handed over to Weston was borrowed from the Bardi.6
The moneys received by Weston and Kellesey from the exchequer directly, or
indirectly though the wardrobe, were to be applied to the payment of the troops
arrayed from the counties etc. Other disbursements from the exchequer charged
upon Weston were received by the leaders of contingents, usually specified defi-
nitely on the authorization of 'billam' or 'brevem de liberate' of the paymaster.
Thus William earl of Salisbury drew £50 from the exchequer on 27 November,6
and another £6:13:4 on 10 December; the earl of Gloucester received £100;
Master John of Brabant and his fellow miners brought over from Hainault drew
two sums.7 But these charges on the exchequer were comparatively small and
infrequent while Weston was actually serving as Receiver. Thus it was not till
1 Exch. Accts., 20/25; Pipe Rolls 188/33d. Details of exchequer payments are given in Issue Rolls,
e.g., no. 289 for Michaelmas term, 12 Edw. II, i.e., from Sept. 1337. As Weston, after his Scottish
paymaster service, was ordered by the 'council' to return to the Channel Islands with troops for its
safe-custody, he was allowed deputies to attend to the settlement of his accounts and his duties as
clerk of the works in Westminster Palace by a writ dated 7 Nov. 1338 (Treaty Rolls, 13/7d). The
accounts were recorded in the Pipe Roll for 1343.
2 Exch. Accts., 20/25, m. 7; he had an escort of 12 men-at-arms and 24 mounted archers. Kellesey
drew 3s 4d a day and had with him 6 men-at-arms and 8 archers receiving the normal wages.
3 Exch. Accts., 20/25, m. 1; Issue Rolls, 289/19; Bray had an escort of 7 men-at-arms for the 6 days
going and returning, drawing 1Bd a day, he himself receiving 18d a day.
4 Exch.
Accts., 20/25 m. 1 and m. 19 (details of the expenses of canveying moneys from the ex-
chequer to Berwick and Dunbar). Denton drew the moneys from Geoffrey Nash, usher of the
exchequer.
5 Exch. Accts., 20/25 m. 2; Pipe Rolls, 188/33 d. Weston recognized these 'prests' from Beche
keeper of the wardrobe in the exchequer 21 and 23 June, 1341 as recorded in the book of particulars of
Beche. For details of these prests see the account book of William Norwell, controller of Beche (Exch.
Accts., W. and H. 388-9, m. f7).
6 For the entry of this payment on the exchequer rolls see Issue Rolls, 289 m. 13. His chamberlain
Thomas (of Chorley) received it for him.
7 Drawing 4s for himself and 12d a day for his companions 'by writ of privy seal.'
7 October, 1338, that the earl of Salisbury drew £2,854 (owed by Weston as
vouched by a bill) in the form of 'assignment,' nine tallies of the three years fif-
teenth and tenth subsidy in Lincolnshire and Wiltshire; the earl of Arundel
received £103:3:4 from a tally in Shropshire.' Weston did however make im-
prests or advances amounting to £1,266:13:4, including £109 to Arundel,
£173:6:8 to Edward Balliol, King of Scotland, and sums to wardens of castles
in Scotland.
But Weston encountered difficulties and doubts as to whom he should pay.
He did indeed receive a mandate from the king under a writ of privy seal dated
22 April, 1338, to account with the earl of Salisbury for his fees, wages, etc. But
the commanders-in-chief in letters dated 4 June registered numerous complaints
that had been made that Weston had not deigned to compute with the magnates
and others and ordered him to do so either by cash payments or by his bill or
warrant;2he seems to have adopted the latter method. The difficulties arose prin-
cipally because the payment of the household troops was in the main taken
out of the hands of Weston and assigned to other paymasters.3 But unlike his
predecessors Ousefleet and St Albans, Weston did include in his accounts valuable
detailed records of the service of various leaders and their contingents, whether
magnates, forces raised under commissions of array or army technical troops.4
Thus the earl of Salisbury for his service from 7 December, 1337, to 13 June5was
owed £933:6:8 for his 'fees,' i.e., the 'regard' (at the rate of 500 marks for 100
men-at-arms for service of a quarter of a year), £9,003:17: 7z for the wages of
himself, one banneret, some 23 knights, 106 men-at-arms, 30 mounted archers,
50 Welsh footmen and 63 sailors in a ship 'La Katerine of London,'6 £155 com-
pensation for 8 horses, priced by Sir Richard Talbot, marshal of the army, lost
on campaign,7 £37:14:2 for sundry gifts and £38:9:2 for the costs of the con-
struction of hurdles, engines and other works in the ditch around Dunbar castle.8
Weston gives details of the service from December 1st of the 2,000 mounted
1 Amongst others
receiving issues from the exchequer in 1339 and as late as June 1340 was the
former privateer John Crabbe for his services and expenses in making 'engines and hurdles' for the
siege of Dunbar. 2 Pipe Rolls, 188/33d.
3 With the exception of a few, like Robert Middleton, 'scutiferi hospicii Regis' and John Padbury
who drew moneys from the exchequer. He paid £10 to Thomas Badby for the wages of the king's
archers staying with Sir Thomas Ponynges.
4Exch. Accts., 20/25, mm. 3-17. See Prince, 'Strength of English Armies,' pp. 358-360. J. E. Morris,
unlike Tout, has used these accounts in his Bannockburn, p. 100, and in 'Mounted Infantry' Trans.
Roy. Hist. Soc., 3rd Series, vIII, 93-94, although he has made one or two mistakes in transcription.
1 13 June 'on which day the aforesaid earl departed with all his retinue from the siege of the afore-
said castle of Dunbar and was received at Newcastle.'
6 The earl drew 8s a
day, banneret 4s, knight 2s, 'armiger homo ad arma' 12d; these archers took
6d a day 'per ordinationem consilii quia electi'; the Welshmen 2d; the master and bursar of La
Katerine (which left London for Dunbar on 17 Dec. and served till 13 June) received 6d, the 58 sailors
3d and the 3 'pagetti' lid.
7
Including one grisel for the use of the earl himself, appraised at no less than £66:13:4.
8 Nigel Loring, esquire, served for 200
days from 1 Dec. to 18 June at 12d a day, i.e., £20. He re-
ceived from Weston £10:3:4, and was owed £9:16:8 'which he afterwards received from the ex-
chequer'. Was this the £10:0:8 drawn by Loring on 21 July 1338?
archers arrayed in a score of counties. As already indicated, Weston and Kel-

lesey seem to have paid most of these levies, but in some cases financial obligations
still remained outstanding at the expiry of Weston's term as paymaster for which
he furnished warrants. Thus John Noreys was leader and John Blakebourne
centenar of the 100 mounted archers arrayed in Nottinghamshire; John Noreys
(who left the army with half the contingent on 13 January, 1338) was paid
£150:15:4 by Weston and Blakebourne 53s by the exchequer and was owed
£18:19:10; it was not till 1349 that he received satisfaction;1 Weston also ac-
counted for the wages of the 400 footmen from Wales, including those from Gower
and Glamorgan, and for the engineers, carpenters, masons, porters, etc. as well as
the 200 laborers working for six days from 25 May to fill up the moat around the
Dunbar castle with stones, oats, etc.; the expenses of siege operations, despatch
of letters and moneys were also charged to his account. The sum total of the wages
and expenses amounted to £9,745: 14: 0.2 Weston acknowledged debts totalling
£1,400:8:0.3
Weston in his account computed with Hugh earl of Gloucester, but this was
crossed through and disallowed, 'as he computed with Beche,' keeper of the ward-
robe. This was the case with a few others.4 Weston was not the paymaster for
the household officials and troops. One of the paymasters was Thomas Badby,
described as a 'clerk of the pantry' who was sent 'by the king to Dunbar to pay
wages to various magnates, men-at-arms and others of the household (familia)
of the lord the king staying in the company of Thomas Ponynges and Reginald
Cobham on the safe custody of the March of Scotland as well as in the company
of the earls of Arundel and Salisbury at the siege of the castle of Dunbar.' Badby
received 12d a day whilst engaged on the March from 5 January, 1338, to 16
March, and two shillings daily wages 'by command of the king' during the siege
of Dunbar;5 he received various sums charged upon the wardrobe.6William Nor-
well was also assigned by the king to pay wages to magnates and others on the
March from 6 January to 17 May. Norwell was controller for Beche, keeper of the
wardrobe, whose roll of daily 'foreign' expenses affords these and other illuminat-
ing details on the Scots war. They record the services and payments of the earl
1 For details of the service of this Notts levy see Exch. Accts., 20/25, m. 7; for the Noreys debt see
m. 22 and also the List of debts owed by Weston in Exch. Accts., 20/33; for Blakebourne's payment
by the exchequer see Exch. Accts., 20/25, m. 1. A contingent from Lancashire of 65 archers (omitted
by Morris) was paid by its leader John Helperby for the service from 14 Dec. to 10 June £132:5:6
towards which Weston paid £99:5:10. 2 Exch. Accts., 20/25, mm. 7-18.
3 Exch. Accts., 20/33 (the account of Weston's debts enrolled on 1343 Pipe Roll under Kent issues).
Exch. Accts., 20/25, e.g., m. 22. The earl of Gloucester was owed £69:1:8; Thomas Berkeley £184:4: 6,
cancelled as paid in 1350 by Walter Chiriton and his fellow collectors of customs in county Lincoln
(? London).
4 Exch. Accts., 20/25, mm. 3, 4. Weston did advance Gloucester £100 on 5 Dec., 1337, on his wages of
war (ibid., m. 1); these amounted to £1,240, maybe too large a sum for him to pay. Yet he did pay
Gloucester £153:5:0 towards the compensation for 17 lost horses, still owing £69 on that item
(ibid., m. 3; Exch. Accts., 20/33). 6 Exch. Accts., 388/5, mm. 8, 9.
6 E.g., from William Kilsby, receiver of the chamber, a sum of £133:6:8 (Exch. Accts., 388/9,
m. 17). He also drew £10 from Walter Weston for the wages of sundry king's archers serving under
Ponynges and Cobham (Exch. Accts., 20/25, m. 3).
of Arundel. Henry Percy, John Mowbray, Ralph Nevill; Henry Ferrar as well as
Thomas Ponynges and Reginald Cobham and other household bannerets with
retinues of some size and also those of king's knights like Thomas Holland, John
Beauchamp and William Stury;1 twelve of the king's sergeants-at-arms and 26
esquires of the household accompanied the king when he made a flying visit to
the Scottish front between 11 January, 1338, and the 26th and remained behind
till 13 June either on the March or at the siege of Dunbar; 67 of the yeoman of
the household (valetti officiorum hospicii) also escorted the king, 26 remaining
behind with Ponynges; 60 king's archers served from January to June 'by order
of the king'; 21 'garciones' of the household were in pay for a fortnight. Payments
were also made to some 400 Welsh footmen and to the garrisons of Scottish cita-
dels, Perth, Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Stirling and also Berwick.2 Altogether the sum
of wages amounted to £5,483:11:6.
As already indicated, Edward in issued the Walton ordinances on 12 July, 1338,
four days before he sailed for Flanders. To what extent are its provisions related
to military service?3 Section eight envisaged both a special war treasurer and a
single general. These treasurers were to be sufficiently wealthy in lay fees to be
made accountable to the king; they were only to issue payments by warrant from
the commander-in-chief, who was to keep a roll of these warrants indentured be-
tween himself and the treasurer; after the expiry of the term of command, this
roll was to be submitted to the council, and then dispatched to the exchequer,
1 Exch. Accts., 388/5, m. 13 ff. Tout made use of this information but Morris did not. Cf. Prince'
'Strength' loc. cit. Thus Arundel commanded 1 banneret, 14 knights, 58 esquires and 60 horse archers;
Sir Henry Percy accompanying Arundel and Salisbury had a retinue of 1 banneret, 16 knights, 66
men-at-arms, 20 mounted archers and for a time 20 hobelars, from 10 May being reinforced by 1 ban-
neret, 4 knights and 9 esquires; Henry Ferrars had 2 knights and 10 esquires; Cobham had 2 knights,
10 esquires and 16 horse archers; Sir Thomas Holand was accompanied by 2 men-at-arms.
2 Thomas Ughtred banneret, warden of Perth led a knight and 52 esquires, and on Feb. 22 was rein-
forced by 20 men-at-arms, 420 hobelars and mounted archers and 140 foot archers from English shires.
John Stirling, keeper of Edinburgh castle led 4 knights, 56 esquires and 60 hobelars or horse archers
till 17 March. Thomas Rokeby, warden of Stirling had 2 knights, 70 esquires and 91 hobelars or arch-
ers. Antony Lucy, warden of Berwick with 9 knights, 40 men-at-arms and 60 horse archers was re-
placed on Feb. 2 by Richard Talbot with 4 knights, 46 esquires and 50 horse archers. Cf. Exch. Accts.,
20/24 and Pipe Rolls, 186/51d.
A special paymaster seems to have been employed for the garrison of Perth, viz., John Askeby, a
chamber clerk who drew 2s a day from 29 March to 6 July on this service (Exch. Accts., 388/5, m. 8):
later in July he was sent from Ipswich to Berwick to compute with Weston as chamberlain of Berwick;
Askeby drew from Weston an imprest of £200 (Exch. Accts., 20/25).
a The first section of the ordinances concerned with warrants for issue provided that the chancery
was not to authorize or the exchequer to make payments without sufficient warrant from the privy
seal in a certain fashion. If it referred to war expenditures it would mean that the exchequer should
not pay war wages merely on the verbal command of the king or on a bill of the wardrobe but that
they required the authorization of the privy seal. Truly under Tauton's keepership most of the war
issues were described as warranted not only by a bill of the wardrobe but also by a writ of privy seal.
It is not explicitly mentioned with regard to the expenditures on wages of war by the household
clerks, etc., between 1334 and 1338. But Walter Weston received a general authorization for his issues
to the earl of Salisbury and other leaders by a writ of privy seal dated 22 April, 1338; Weston was to
render 'solucionem seu billam sub sigillo dicti Walteri' by the supervision of controller Kellesey (Pipe
Rolls, 188/33d).
where due allowance was to be made. There does not seem to be extant such a
roll with regard to Weston's activities in 1338 but the order to the exchequer in
December 1342 to audit his accounts cited as authorization his writ of appoint-
ment, certain royal instructions and also 'the mandates of the captains,' the com-
manders-in-chief.1
To what extent were the Walton ordinances executed in the years that fol-
lowed? For the first Low Country expedition from July 1338 to February 1340
there was no special commander-in-chief, the king himself filling that function.
Moreover there was no special 'treasurer of war.' It is true that the exchequer
official John Charnels was designated 'receiver of the king's moneys in parts
oversea,'2 a fact not fully appreciated by Tout in his comments on Charnels'
position as a deputy for the two successive treasurers of the realm during this
time, viz., Robert Wodehouse and William de la Zouche;3he was the chief pay-
master in connection with exchequer disbursements overseas,4 but did not com-
pile any special separate roll of particulars. For indeed it was the wardrobe, as
Tout has pointed out,5 which played the leading role in the conduct and adminis-
tration of the war, including the payment of wages, etc. Keeper of the wardrobe
Norwell's accounts give valuable details on the nature of the service performed by
the leaders, the financial obligations owed them, and the disbursements made to
them on behalf of the wardrobe.6 Altogether this expedition cost no less than
£386,546, apart from the normal household expenses of £23,748,7 a total exceed-
ing that of any other in mediaeval times. The system of payment resembled that
of the earlier Scottish wars. The 'king and council,' however, authorized an ab-
normally high rate of 'wages of war,' double the customary amounts, from 22
July, 1338, to 16 November, 1339, 'the exchequer's power of revision (being)
limited by categorical directions under the privy seal,' by a writ dated 4 June,
1340.8 A general writ of liberate to the amount of £40,000 dated 7 July, 1338,
1 'Quod visis tam literis et mandatis Regis predictis quam mandatis dictorum capitaneorum ac
rotulis dicti controrotulatoris,' the treasurer and barons of the exchequer were to make the due al-
lowances, receiving these letters etc. (Pipe Rolls, loc. cit.).
2 Issue Rolls, 300/5; also as 'keeper of the treasury overseas' (C. CloseR. 1339-41, 26). For Charnels,
see above p. 140.
3 Chapters, III, 45; in a footnote Tout mentions that Charnels was described as 'late receiver' in
Jan. 1340. Norwell's detailed wardrobe accounts affords the explanation that Charnels went back to
England escorting the stormy petrel Robert Artois 'by order of the king and council,' drawing ex-
penses for the journey at Antwerp on 17 Nov. 1339 (Misc. Bks. Exch., 203/181). Charnels had been
on active service from July 1338 with 20 men-at-arms and 35 horse archers, losing 15 horses (ibid.,
203/268); he received 4s a day wages.
4 Thus on 16 Oct., 1339, he
paid £153:6:8 to John Darcy, senior (the Steward of the Household)
(Issue Rolls, loc. cit.). 5 Op. cit., III, 90 ff.; iv, 103 ff.
6 Covering also the three months after the king's return to England, viz. from 12 July, 1338, to 27
May, 1340 (Misc. Bks. Exch., T.R. 203; Enr. Accts., W. and H., 2/15, 16).
7 As various
expense items were disallowed, the Enrolled Accounts total was some £49,000 less.
8 Tout, op. cit., iv, 103, n. 3. Authorization of this writ was cited in connection with Norwell's ref-
erences to the service of and amounts due to the various leaders (Misc. Bks. Exch., 203/61). For the
period from 16 Nov., 1339, to 20 Feb., 1340, a lump sum was allowed, e.g., 5 marks to each earl,
40s to each banneret. Cf. Prince, E.H.R., XLVI,362.
was issued by the keeper of the wardrobe to the exchequer1- a fact not noted by
Tout. Out of this sum the treasurer and chamberlains of the exchequer made dis-
bursements of diverse sums to the wardrobe or the creditors of the wardrobe on
the warrants for issue of either individual writs of privy seal or on the debentures
or bills of the keeper of the wardrobe; 'when the exchequer paid one of these ward-
robe obligations, it debited the wardrobe with the sum paid, and recorded the
payment as "by the hand" of the recipient.' It was much more after this fashion
than by sending cash beyond sea that the exchequer played its full part in meeting
war expenditures'2 Tout has remarked that the 'exchequer got to work slowly,
and then with little practical result .. .' Wodehouse (the treasurer) did what he
could, and between July and December, when he left office, receipts from the
exchequer, amounting to nearly £28,000, were booked by the exchequer in Bra-
bant. This was not considered satisfactory, and it was probably in consequence
of the scanty total that Wodehouse was replaced by Zouche in December. Under
the new treasurer the stream of supply flowed still more fitfully, and Zouch's
contribution for the whole time he was in office (i.e., till May 1340) hardly ex-
ceeded that of Wodehouse for the first six months of the campaign.'3 Let us ex-
amine the procedure of payment of Henry of Lancaster, earl of Derby, by way
of example. He was owed by the wardrobe, for wages of war from 12 July 1338
to February 1340, the sum of £5,165 for the service of himself, 2 bannerets, 16
knights and 52 men-at-arms and another £603 for 50 mounted archers; compensa-
tion for 28 lost horses came to £785.4 He received bills of the keeper of the
wardrobe, one of £1,624:19:8, which was liquidated in two instalments, the
£624:19:8 being paid on 19 February, 1339, and the rest on 3 August,6 another
bill of £1,289:1:4 after various disbursements6was still outstanding at least till
June 1342; a debenture for £1,471:4:0 is extant, issued in the accounting with
him at Antwerp 16 November, 1339, and apparently this was not finally met till
17 January, 1348.7 William earl of Northampton was owed £6,656 and received
£1,433 on 6 November, 1338, but nothing else till the following 19 April, when he
drew from the exchequer £6:2: 0(!) towards a bill of £1,127, driblets of this being
doled out till as late as July 1341; not till February 1342 were substantial pay-
ments made, one of £625 derived from two tallies on the county of Northamp-
ton.8 These concrete illustrations of the failure of the exchequer to meet the ward-
1 Misc. Bks. Exch., 203/7, 8.

2 Tout, op. cit., II, 96, n. 5; cf. ibid., iv, 117. Tout cites the writs extant in Exch. of Receipt, Warrants
for issue, if. 22-28. There are numerous debentures of the wardrobe for this period in P.R.O. E 404/
297.
3 Chapters,II, 91; iv, 104-106 (for fuller details). Was not the exact sum £26,670:17:21? Of this
over £16,000 went to Wm de la Pole for loans.
4 Misc. Bks. Exch., 203/261 and 283. This includes the 'expenses' for the period 17 Nov., 1339, to
19 Feb., 1340. 5 Ibid., 203/11 and 14.
6 Ibid., 203/14-18; £700 on 3 Aug., 1339, £30:18:7 on 23 Oct., £80 on 26 Oct., 40s on 29 Oct.,
£93:6:8 on 25 Jan., 1340, £10 on 5 June, 1342. 7 WardrobedebenturesE 404/497.
8 Misc. Bks. Exch., 203/8 ff. On 27 April, 1339, £40; 5 May £400; on five dates of Oct. £508, £14,
£39, £13, £12; on 13 Dec. £100; on 16 Feb., 1340, £2; 28 Apr. £6; 29 Nov. £250; 6 July, 1341, £370,
£127 and £14 (on three bills of £451, £457 and £1,127); 28 Feb., 1342, £750. Northampton and his
robe bills help to explain the exasperation of the court and household and the
constitutional crisis of 1340-41. Just before the king left England for his second
expedition to the Netherlands in June 1340 he insisted on the appropriation of
over £6,000 of the potential receipts of the ninth for the payment of war arrears.1
These payments were charged to the exchequer on the authorization of 'bills
under the seal of Norwell, late keeper of the wardrobe and by a counter-roll
under the privy seal sent into the chancery.' Tout sees in this double certification
an illustration of the observance of certain provisions of the Walton ordinances,2
despite the 'abolition of some part of the (Walton) policy.' It should, however,
be remarked that this counter-roll was not one indentured between general and
treasurer of war as envisaged in the ordinances, but undoubtedly the counter-roll
of the wardrobe controller.
A fact in connection with the increased prestige of the higher household officials
has hitherto escaped notice, viz., their elevation to the status of bannerets during
the first Netherlands campaign. In his analysis of Cusance's wardrobe accounts
for the second Netherlands expedition, Dr Tout has noted that not only was the
energetic William Kilsby (keeper of the privy seal) 'fighting as a banneret for
the whole of the period of operations,' but 'Hatfield, clerk of the chamber, and
even Philip Weston, almoner and confessor of the king, had wages for themselves
and their retinue tanquam baneretti. Cusance, though not so described, had an
equal retinue and the same rate of wages as a banneret.'3 In the first decade of the
reign, only the keeper of the wardrobe was classed with the bannerets; with the
king's knights were classed the other clerks of the highest grade (clerici de statu)
'such as the controller of the wardrobe, the keeper of the privy seal, the clerk of
the great wardrobe, the cofferer, almoner, chief chaplain, physician and surgeon.'4
But keeper Norwell's accounts for the period 1338-40 prove that not only did he
rank as a king's banneret but also that Kilsby, keeper of the privy seal, Weston,
almoner and confessor, and Thomas Hatfield, receiver of the chamber, were
promoted to the status of bannerets, as well as John Charnels, deputy overseas
of the treasurer of the realm. Indeed, the exact dates are given for the elevation in
status of Hatfield who, on 5 October, 1339, was invested with a banner ('fuit ad
vexillum') and of Weston who raised his banner ('levavit vexillum') on 23 Octo-
ber, drawing henceforward 6 shillings a day;6 the other higher clerks were still
classed with the king's knights.
retinue had commenced to take pay from 24 May, 1338, and crossed overseas in advance of the king
on 28 June; for details see wardrobe keeper Beche's account (Exch. Accts., 388/5, 9).
1 C. Close R., 1339-1341, pp. 523-526; Tout, op. cit., II, 110.
2 Chapters,II, 101 and n. 5. 3 Ibid., iv, 107; cf. II, 120.
4 J. H. Johnson, 'The King's Wardrobe,' Eng. Govmt.at work, 1327-1336, i, p. 238.
6 Misc. Bks. Exch., 203/268. Kilsby had a retinue of 1 banneret, 2 knights, 28 men-at-arms and
24 horse archers; Norwell led 20 men-at-arms, 40 mounted and 40 foot archers, he himself and 2 es-
quires dined in hall; two esquires were made knights in Oct. 1339. Weston had 2 men-at-arms and 6
horse archers and Hatfield 3 esquires till Oct. 1339 on the occasion of his promotion when another
10 came. Charnels had 20 men-at-arms (5 of them being knighted 13 Oct., 1339) and 35 mounted
archers. Naceby wardrobe controller and William Dalton cofferer had 3 and 2 men-at-arms respec-
tively.
Dr Tout has pointed out that Norwell's accounts from July 1338 to May 1340
show that the normal household expenses amounted to some £23,700 and the
'foreign,' that is, the extraordinary war expenses totalled no less than £269,568
according to the book of particulars, or £196,360 according to the later enrolment,
many expenses items being cancelled.' It may be added that these Enrolled Ac-
counts give a total for the wages of the men-at-arms of the retinues of the mag-
nates of £93,916:17:4, for the archers £17,414:17:0, for the compensation for
lost horses £6,656 and for the repassage of horses to England £1,540:6:8.2
These expenditures were apart from the huge sums paid or promised to the counts
and other magnates of the Low Countries and the Empire.3 There are however
some evidences of them in Norwell's list of 'Prests' which amounted to £116,948.
Thus William count of Hainault drew an advance of £3,150, the price of 21,000
Florentine florins at Brussels on 23 May, 1339.4
There is an interesting estimate for the king's projected second Netherlands ex-
pedition, probably submitted to the council. The cost of 2,590 men-at-arms, 1,012
hommes armez, 7,952 archers (including 2,000 Welsh), 2,000 Welsh spearmen and
12,000 sailors was estimated for a period of 40 days at £25,236, for which 4,206
sacks of wool were required.6Actually the accounts of William Cusance give the
sum of £23,368: 0:10 for the wages of men-at-arms and archers mounted and foot
serving oversea; gifts and compensation for lost horses amounted to £3,377.6
Dr Tout has reaped a rich harvest in his stores of material on administrative
activities in relation to military operations as in other fields. But a few gleanings
may be made. The wardrobe continued to be responsible for the paying of the
troops in the Scottish and Breton expeditions of 1341-42. It is true that in both
cases a commander-in-chief was originally appointed, Henry earl of Derby
being designated on 1 October, 1341, captain and leader against the Scots7 and
William earl of Northampton king's lieutenant in Brittany on 20 July, 1342.8
But the king eventually assumed the command himself. There was no separate
treasurer of war as envisaged by the Walton ordinances; the paymaster was the
keeper of the wardrobe who paid not merely the household staff but also the mag-
nates. The wardrobe accounts of William Edington from 25 November, 1341, to
11 April, 1344, illustrate this fact, the sum of wages of war in Scotland amounting
to £10,821;9 thus Derby's 7 bannerets, 44 knights, 144 esquires and 25 hobelars
were to be paid for their service under the king from 25 November, 1341, to 2
February, 1342;10 Thomas Scoland, carrying the standard of St Cuthbert of
1 Chapters,iv, 104-105. £73,175 was owed by the wardrobe to creditors for which the keeper wa8
not personally responsible (p. 105, n. 1).
2 Enr. Accts., W. and H., 2/38d. In the roll of particulars the figures differ, e.g., the cost of the
archers is put at £27,414:1:1 (Misc. Bks. Exch., 203/287).

3 See the definitive treatment by H. S. Lucas, The Low Countries and the Hundred Years' War,
1326-1347, chaps. ix, x. 4 Misc. Bks. Exch., 203/328. 6 Chanc. Miscellanea, 2/33.
6 Enr. Acets., W. and H., 2/40. For more details culled from Exch. Aects., 389/8 see Tout, op. cit.,
iv. 106-109. 7 Rot. Scot., I, 617. 8 Foedera, ii, ii, 1204-05.
9 Misc. Bks. Exch., 204/209; Tout, Chapters,Iv, 110-112.
10 Ibid., fol. 203. Household knights like Robert Mildenhall drew 4½d 'beyond the 7½d allowed in
the great roll of the household.'
Durham and John Langton that of St Mary's York, were paid at the rate of a
shilling a day. The king faced the Scots at Melrose from December 16 to 31st.
The Scots had recovered Edinburgh in 1341, and Roxburgh and Stirling fell in
the spring of 1342 whilst they raided Northumberland and Durham, so a fairly
formidable force, including the earls of Arundel, Huntingdon and Angus drew
wages from the middle of July 1342 to the end of October, for their custody of the
'March of Scotland.'l
In August 1341 the king had projected overseas operations, promising the pro-
ceeds of the sale of wool to the captains.2 But Scottish embarrassments interfered
with them till 1342, when the claims of John of Montfort to the duchy of Brit-
tany were prosecuted. The brilliant household banneret Sir Walter Manny was
dispatched with an advance force 'by the king and council to Brittany for the
rescue of the town of Brest' (Froissart and other chroniclers tell of his dramatic
arrival in the nick of time for the relief of the heroic Margaret countess of Brit-
tany of Hennebont.)3 Manny commanded a retinue of 18 knights and 84 men-at-
arms from 15 March to 8 July when he made a truce and returned home. The cost
of his expedition was £1,697:12:0.4 Two wardrobe clerks Walter Wetwang and
Alan Killum accompanied him to pay the wages of the sailors and others, facing
mutinous sailors on account of arrears of pay.6 The earl of Northampton was in
pay from 21 July, and the king after considerable delays followed from 25
October, the forces being paid off their wages of war about 15 February, 1343,
after the truce of Malestroit of 19 January. Thus on this expedition they were dis-
banded in Brittany, some returning overland 'through France.' King and
household had a stormy voyage home, arriving 1 March at Melcombe.6
Dr Tout has attributed to William Edington a major share in the drastic
change whereby 'the function of the wardrobe in later wars was much more that
of a treasury with the army in the field, firmly controlled by the home treasury
of the exchequer, than that of an independent and self-contained office of finance,
the rival, if not the master, of the financial office at home.' It was during Eding-
ton's treasureship which covered the twelve-year period from April 1344 to No-
vember 1356 that 'there was secured for the exchequer a strongly marked su-
periority over the wardrobe' and 'that the chamber definitely ceased to be a rival
1 Arundel had a retinue of 3 bannerets, 18 knights, 82 esquires and 86 hobelars and archers.
2 Thus
Reginald de Cobham who had undertaken to go with the king with 24 knights, 86 men-
at-arms, 48 armed men and 200 archers for 9 weeks was to receive £666:13:4 from the 100 sacks of
wool granted in Sussex (C. Pat. R., 1340-1343, pp. 259 ff.).
3 J. H. Ramsay, Genesis of Lancaster, I, 298-299.
4 Misc. Bks. Exch., 204/210. Another 5 knights and 24 men-at-arms joined him on 6
May.
6 Wetwang and Killum both received 2s a day and led 4 men-at-arms and 200(?20) mounted
archers. Wetwang became wardrobe controller on 26 July; for the mutiny see Tout, op. cit., Iv.
110-111.
6 Misc. Bks. Exch., 204/37 ff. Ramsay says the king landed at Weymouth on 2 March. He asserts
that in one week alone, that ending 19 Oct., 1342, no less than £61,000 were drawn from the ex-
chequer 'for the military chest, the money being found by William de la Pole and company' (op. cit.,
I, 299, n. 3. The actual wardrobe receipts in Edington's accounts totalled £60,800 for the whole 2J
years, while the sum of wages of war in Brittany amounted to £30,472; also £5,540 for wages of sailors
and £3,400 compensation for lost horses (ibid., 204/220; Tout, op. cit., Iv, 111).
of the exchequer.' Tout adds further that 'even abroad the wardrobe represented
only the king's personal contribution to the expenses of a campaign. His mag-
nates, who had become his partners in the enterprise, each had their own house-
hold accounts and their own budgets . . the barons were expected to do their
share of the fighting on their own responsibility.' Yet the keeper of the wardrobe
continued to be the paymaster of the major expeditionary forces in which the
king personally was the commander-in-chief down to the Treaty of Bretigny-
Calais of 1360; this was notably the case for the expedition to Sluys in 1345, the
Cregy-Calais campaign of 1346-47 and the formidable invasion of northern
France in 1359-60. Nevertheless the wardrobe 'had little to do with financing war
in the last few years of the reign,'2Indeed from 1360 down to the end of the reign
the only expedition in which the wardrobe incurred heavy expenditures for
military purposes was John of Gaunt's for his Picardy campaign of 1369 when
keeper Wakefield paid £73,934 for wages of war and imprests amounting to
£18,850.3 Dr Tout did not appreciate the fact that this radical change in adminis-
trative policy was intimately associated with a radical change in military
policy, the strikling development of the method of indentures as the dominant
mode of recruiting the magnates for active service.4 The problems attendant on
the prosecution of the Hundred Years' War mainly overseas dealt the coup de
grAce to the feudal method of enlistment. The king required the services of the
best fighting man, irrespective of the amount or type of tenure of land he might
possess. With this first-class soldier the king would conclude an indentured con-
tract specifying the conditions of service. The king's half of the indenture would
usually be kept with the exchequer records, and it was normally with the ex-
chequer that the contractor-soldier finally accounted, frequently supplementing
advance or current exchequer disbursements out of his own private budget. This
indenture system received a marked impulse from the middle of the 'forties,
fostered by the necessity of dispatching a number of expeditionary forces to an
increasing variety of war-fronts, Gascony, Brittany, Picardy, Scotland, Spain,
etc.
The year 1345 is illuminating on these developments. Henry earl of Derby
was appointed king's representative in Gascony on 10 May,6 concluded with the
king an indenture (highly detailed in type) and accounted separately with the ex-
chequer.6Altogether he drew £20,845:14 in nine instalments from the exchequer
receipt7 (the first an advance of £5,000 issued on 6 April, 1345, before the formal
appointment) and a disbursement of 3,867 florins de scuto worth £644:10:0
from Mr John Wawayn, constable at Bordeaux, owed on his wages, by an inden-
ture made between the earl and the constable on 20 November, 1345. The total
1 Tout, op. cit., iv, 113. 2 Ibid., iv, 167 from p. 151. 3 Ibid., iv, 166.
4 See my 'Indenture System under Edward III,' Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait (Man-
chester, 1933), pp. 283-297. 6 Foedera, Im, i. 34. 6 Pipe Rolls, 191/54d; Exch. Accts., 25/9.
7 £1825:14:0 for
wages and regard on 21 May 1345; £1,000 on 21 July; £4492:7:4 on 4 Nov.;
£2400 on the regard 20 Dec.; £149:16:10 for the clothing, equipping and transport of 300 South Wales
Welshmen on 10 April, 1346; £1,333:6:8 for wages on 29 May, £2,000 on 25 Oct. and £2,000 on 18
Nov.
of his expenses amounted to £38,574:3 leaving a deficit of £17,728:8:10k. His

personal retinue of 7 bannerets, 92 knights, 150 esquires and 250 mounted archers
was paid the usual wages of war and double what came to be the normal 'regard'
as well as the compensation for 43 horses valued (as the indenture envisaged) in
Gascony;1 payments were also incurred for a convoy of no less than 252 ships
sailing from Falmouth on 24 July to Bordeaux for 17 days and for the transport
back to England.2 One item in the accounts reveals the name of the receiver or
treasurer of the earl of Derby (or Lancaster as he was after the death of his father
in September 1345), viz., Henry Walton, who with William Farley and Ingelram
FitzHenry esquire was sent to Westminster to draw £1,000 and take it to Plym-
outh and thence to Bordeaux. Walton and Farley did such efficient work in this
capacity that the king eventually, in December 1358, promoted Walton suddenly
to be keeper of the wardrobe and Farley controller.3At least two other magnates
accounted separately with the exchequer for this expedition, namely Laurence
earl of Pembroke4 and Sir James Audley.5
Walter Wetwang's accounts for this period from April 1344 to November 1347
have been analyzed in much detail by Dr Tout to illustrate the share of the ward-
robe in financing the war especially the Crecy-Calais campaign.6 The 'wages of
war' item for the three and a half years amounted to just under £150,000, to
which £1,027 was added for the garrisoning of Calais. While the king was com-
mander-in-chief on the Crecy operations, the wardrobe was held responsible for
the payments of retinues, bills of the wardrobe being normally employed in
the authorization to the exchequer. This procedure too was followed during the
formidable invasion of France by the king in 1359-60 which culminated in the
Treaty of Bretigny-Calais. William Parley's accounts nominally cover the period
from 3 November 1359 (the day after the king marched from Calais) to 7 Novem-
ber 1360.7 Actually they start earlier, recording the prests on the wages of war,
advanced from 25 July, 1359 to the magnates by the exchequer, the sum of
£30,031 in the Easter term alone.8 Further disbursements on the authority of
'bills' were not made as a rule till some time after the cessation of hostilities,
namely in February and March 1361. The Prince of Wales was owed no less than
1 Paymentswerealsomadeto the 300 Welsharchersfor clothingat 5s eachand transportin 2 ships
fromCaermarthen to Bordeaux.Horsevaluationby ThomasCook,marshalof the armyin Aquitaine,
by constableWawaynand Mr BernardBrocascontroller.
2 e,484 sailorsand 306 'boys' in the 252 ships.Wawaynwas owed £10,845 for the returningtrans-
ports and otherexpenses.Lancasterreturnedin January1347.
3 Tout, op. cit., iv, 136 ff. Tout did not notice this functionof Waltonand Farley,remarkingupon
the formerbeing 'a favouriteof Henry of Lancaster,to whomhe acted as receiverat least between
1348and 1350.'
4Pipe Rolls,191/54 for his; indentureof 10 AprilExch.Accts.,68/3, m. 60.
6 Pipe Rolls,202/35. He drew £443:12:6 on 16 April,advancefor the wages of his deputyJohn
Crumwaynwith 40 men-at-armsand 40 horsearchersfrom 18 May when'receivedinto the company
of the earl' to 30 Nov. 'as containedin a certaincertificateof the earl testifyingto the stay.' The
namesappearedin a 'rollof particularshandedin to the treasurer,'to be foundin Exch.Accts.,24/20.
6
Chapters,iv, 114-119. 7 For Tout's analysissee ibid.,iv, 136-147.
8 Exch.Accts.,393/11 fol. 1 ff. Thus £1,288:18:0 was 'receivedby the wardrobeby the handsof the
earlof Warwick'on July 26 (notby the earlof Arundelon 25 July as Tout says, op. cit.,iv, 144, n. 1).
£24,400 for the wages of war for three quarters of a year of his retinue of 7 ban-
nerets, 136 knights, 443 men-at-arms and 900 mounted archers, for their 'regard,'
the compensation for 395 lost horses, and the passage to and from Calais of some
2,000 horses.1On this expedition only two of the high clerical officials seem to have
had the status of bannerets, viz. William Farley who was elevated to this rank
on 25 October, 1359, three days before the king sailed, and John Winwick, the
keeper of the privy seal and the acting custodian of the great seal abroad, who
held the iank from the date on which he began to take wages of war, 11 Sep-
tember.2 Tout says that Thomas Brantingham the cofferer was 'paymaster and
treasurer of the army' which 'gave him virtually the position of a treasurer be-
yond seas, and directly prepared him for his later responsibilities as treasurer of
the wardrobe and of the exchequer.'3
In 1345 there was a second expeditionary force sent to Brittany under William
earl of Northampton, appointed in April of that year. The paymaster for this
campaign was John Charnels, the exchequer official prominent in the payment of
wages in 1339 on the first Flemish expedition,4 who subsequently functioned as
keeper of the great wardrobe.5On 15 November 1345 he was created receiver of
the revenues of the duke of Brittany John of Montfort (who was serving in the
expedition) and ordered to make disbursements to the English soldiers in that
region,6which he did.7 The captains accounted separately.8 Sir Thomas Dagworth
drew up an indenture on 28 January, 1346, to serve in Brittany under Northamp-
ton, and another a year later when he replaced the latter as the king's lieutenant
1 He drew from the exchequer on 26Aug., 1359, £5,980: 11: 2k and another £67: 14: 5, not mentioned
by Tout; on 1 March, 1361, £5,333:6:8; on 29 April £567. In Farley's list of 'Debts with bills' he
acknowledged an indebtedness to the Prince of £6,749:1:6 (ibid., fol. 27). The expenses of the Prince
comprised £16,557:8:0 for wages, £3,913:1:7j for the regard, £3,355:6:8 for lost horses, £228:3:4
for the passage of 1,369 horses and £352:6:8 for the repassage of 2,114 horses from Calais, in spite
of the losses.
2 Ibid., fol. 86v. Tout in his detailed account of their careers does not mention these facts. Farley
was in pay from 25 Aug., 1359, to 2 June, 1360, accompanied by 14 men-at-arms and 37 mounted
archers bringing back 73 horses. Winwick had 14 esquires and 15 archers to 30 May, 1360, three weeks
after the signing of the treaty of Bretigny for whose drafting he was mainly responsible. Mr Jordan
de Cantuar king's physician antdthe king's confessor ranked as knight.
3 Chapters,III, 225. He ranked as a king's knight with 4 men-at-arms and 9 horse archers, receiving
16"d from 16 Aug. till 29 Sept. and then 2s a day. With William Clee and 2 esquires Brantingham was
sent from Chartres to Bruges in Flanders to make payments to various troops (ibid., fol. 62).
4 6 Tout, op. cit., iv, 374, 382-383, vI, 36; from 1 Aug., 1344, to 20 Dec., 1345.
Above, p. 147.
6
Treaty Rolls, 21/5; ten days later he concluded an indenture with the king for this service (Exch.
Accts., 68/3, m. 61). For his personal account see Exch. Accts., 25/5 and Pipe Rolls, 198/41. In Sep-
tember, 1350, Charnels was appointed constable of Bordeaux, entering on his duties in December;
however he was captured by the enemy in November, 1351, but on his release reentered the office
functioning till April, 1354 (Tout, op. cit., vi, 69).
7 The
king ordered Charnels to make various issues, e.g., 3,400 florins to the earl of Northampton,
1333 to the earl of Oxford, 500 to the energetic William Kilsby etc., as a 'regard' to these soldiers for
their service of a second quarter of a year (Treaty Rolls, 21/3). For sums paid by the exchequer and
charged to the account of the wardrobe keeper Walter Wetwang see Exch. Accts., 392/12, ff.; e.g.,
Northampton drew £2,813:18:8 on 15 April for wages of his retinue, and later sundry sums were sent
out to Brittany to him, on 14 Oct., 1 April, 1346, etc. 8 E.g., Pipe Rolls 196/42.
in the duchy. Particulars of the service of his retinues were registered in his ac-
counting direct with the exchequer.'
With respect to the expeditions in the dozen years intervening between the
king's principal campaigns, it would appear that the independent commanders-
in-chief accounted separately with the exchequer. Thus Ralph earl of Stafford
took out an expeditionary force to Gascony in 1352; the clerk Richard Stafford
was responsible for the payments, issued 'by the authorization of the earl, John
Charnels constable at Bordeaux and his own oath.' He drew £5,465:9:0 from the
exchequer, and made disbursements to the sailors of the 41 transports for the
fortnight's journey, to the earl's contingent of 25 bannerets, 119 knights, 1,117
men-at-arms, 1,328 mounted servientes,30 horse archers and 1096 foot servientes,
and also to Giles of Valois and 76 men-at-arms remaining behind for the defence;
a surplus of £188:1:0 existed.2 Payments were being made three years later for
this service.3
Unfortunately no comprehensive formal accounts seem to be extant for the
colorful campaigns of the Black Prince in Aquitaine in 1355-56 climaxed by
the battle of Poitiers.4 Yet there are sundry documents which are illuminating
notably his Register5 and the Day-book of John Henxteworth, his controller in
Gascony.6 The Issue Rolls also attest that at least as early as 26 April, 1355, the
Black Prince was receiving advances from the exchequer on the authority of the
privy seal for the wages of war of men-at-arms and archers about to set out for
Gascony; these moneys were drawn either by Henry Blackburn, the receiver of
his chamber, or Peter Lacy, his receiver-general.7 On 1 September, 1355, a week
before he set sail, he promoted Blackburn to be 'tresorier de nostre hostiel et
gardein de nostre garderobe,' i.e., Blackburn was paymaster of the expeditionary
force.8 Receiver-general Lacy paid out £7,242 to knights and other men-at-arms
before the departure of the expedition, 'whilst Blackburn was elsewhere engaged,
and for which Blackburn was made responsible.' The exchequer also issued ad-
vances to the chief magnates accompanying the Prince, e.g., the earls of Warwick,
1 Exch. Accts., 25/17, 18, 19 and Pipe Rolls, 196/42 (account of the countess of Ormonde, Dag-
worth's widow); 'Strength of English Armies,' p. 364-365.
2
Pipe Rolls, 197/32, for service between 24 June and 12 Nov.; for the roll of particulars see Exch.
Accts., 26/25.
3A
payment of £300 was made on 10 May, 1355, on the £2,538:10:4 due for his service between
10 April, 1352, and 6 Dec. (Issue Rolls, 369/10).
4 For the valuable
description of the 'Household of the Black Prince,' see Mrs M. Sharp's study in
Tout, Chapters, v, Section ii. 6 Misc. Bks. Exch., No. 278, printed by the P.R.O.
6 Preserved in the Duchy of Cornwall Office.
7 To the Prince £1000 on 26 April, £1,000 on 2 May, £2,000 on 16 May (Issue Rolls, 369/4 ff.).
8 Misc. Bks. Exch., 278, fol. 92. Blackburn was entrusted with 'all kinds of expenses made within
and without the household such as gifts, alms, necessaries, messageries, wages and fees of war and
other things whatsoever'; a controller, Alexander de Ongar, was appointed. Mrs Sharp does not men-
tion this appointment, but says that some 'fees of war were paid in England before the departure of
the expedition but it consequently rested with the treasurer of the household to square up accounts
with him. "For the prince wills that all expenses of the said voyage be entirely accounted for in our
household" ' (Tout, op. cit., v, 346, citing Misc. Bks. Exch., 278, fol. 95). In point of fact it was not
merely 'fees of war' but 'feods et gages come pur vitailles et autrement pur nostre dit voiage.'
Suffolk, Salisbury and Oxford, and to bannerets and knights, some of the king's
household such as Sir Reginald Cobham and Sir John de Lisle.l As the latter died
early on service, a separate account was drawn up which is still extant.2 Another
exists for Sir Thomas Hoggeshawe, who went to Gascony ahead, serving from 10
June, 1355, only till 27 October following.3The Day-book of John Henxteworth is
constantly referring to a 'Book of Memoranda' and a 'Roll of Particulars,' which
were probably the documents of the accounts of Blackburn unhappily not now
extant. The Henxteworth Day-book starts at Bordeaux on 20 September, 1355,
with the fact that on the seventh of that month, the last day in England, Black-
burn had £2,597:7: 6. The disbursements are of a very varied character, from
moneys lost by the prince at dice to advances to his captains like Sir John
Chandos and Sir James Audley, to leaders of archers from Chester, for example,
for bows or rewards for their repairs to their damaged ship en route, to king's
sergeants-at-arms attached to the prince, the costs of damages to property done
by rowdy Welshmen, church offerings etc. The prince must have sailed from
Plymouth to Bordeaux in the war-ship 'La Cristofe de la Tour,' for the master
was presented with a gift of £10 and each of the sailors 13s 4d.4 Mrs Sharp as-
serts that 'the prince was not entirely responsible for the financing of these south-
ern campaigns, and the treasury of Bordeaux certainly took its share.'5
Other expeditions were projected for 1355 to Normandy, Brittany and to
Picardy, but the former did not materialize. The exchequer advanced to English
magnates sums on wages and regards.6With such disbursements, it is no wonder
that the exchequer issues in the financial year from Michaelmas 1354 totalled
1 Issue Rolls, 369/4 ff.; e.g., the earl of Warwick drew £333:6:8 on his
wages of war on 28 April
and a similar sum on 9 May. For the sums issued for the regards or fees see my 'Strength of English
Armies,' E.H.R., XLVI,366-367 - conclusions deduced therefrom on the size of the various con-
tingents. 2 Pipe Rolls, 200/43.
3 Exch. Accts., 26/34. He drew £286:7:10 from the
exchequer, including £50 on 8 May, 1355,
£129:14:6 on 11 June and 100 marks on 20 Oct.; his expenses for himself, 30 men-at-arms and 30
foot archers (at 3d a day) and the regard of 100 marks for the service of 30 men-at-arms amounted
to £3433::4.
4 Duchy of Cornwall Office MS. I am indebted to Mr R. L. Clowes for access.
6 Tout, op. cit., v, 346. She cites Exch. Accts., 26/35, 'an indenture between the
prince's treasurer of
the wardrobe and a chamberlain of the exchequer, in which the treasurer acknowledged the receipt
of various large sums to be taken to the prince's treasury at Bordeaux to deliver to the constable
there for payment for victuals during the war.' The amount was £6,666:13:4. It may be added that
this was probably the 10,000 marks drawn by Blackburn on 24 July from the exchequer to be handed
over to John Streatley, constable of Bordeaux, as recognized in the indenture mentioned by Mrs
Sharp (Issue Rolls 369/30). Blackburn, described as 'treasurer of the exchequer of the prince,' was
also to pay £600 in nobles to Seneschal Cheverston for the retaining of 20 men-at-arms over the num-
ber retained in his identure respecting the seneschalship, for the regard for the second quarter of his
half year service. The transaction was witnessed and attested by Sir John Chandos, Sir James Audley,
Sir John Wingfield, Sir Nigel Loring and other members of the prince's household and staff (Exch.
Accts., 26/35).
6 Issue Rolls, 369/17; to the duke of Lancaster and the earls of
Northampton and March. Also to
Martin de la Scale, knight of the King of Navarre, who drew £1,200 on 7 Sept. and £200 on 21 Sept.
the huge sum of £220,000.1 When Lionel, earl of Ulster,the king's second surviving
son, was sent over as royal lieutenant in Ireland in 1361, Walter Dalby, a king's
clerk, was appointed receiver of moneys for the troops serving in that country.2
His accounts covering the period till 23 April, 1364, and submitted to the exchequer
in England,3 show him functioning as paymaster not only for the transporting
fleet but also for the earl of Ulster (created duke of Clarence on 12 November,
1362),4 Ralph earl of Stafford and other English captains, and in addition Irish-
men such as James Butler earl of Ormonde, 'O'Kenedy' and Donald Gall;5Dalby
frequently made indentures with the recipients acknowledging the issues.6 Sir
William Windsor, who had served with the earl of Ulster, returned in February
1374 for one year's service in Ireland with a considerably augmented retinue;
he then accounted separately with the exchequer;7Dalby was ordered to facilitate
the provision of shipping and to have the war-horses of Windsor valued.8
Unhappily full particulars of the financing of the Black Prince's operations in
Gascony and Spain from 1363 onwards do not seem to be extant.9 With the re-
newal of the main war against France in 1369, the wardrobe did assume responsi-
bility for war-financing for a brief space of time, viz., from June 1369 to June
1371, as Professor Tout has pointed out.10This included the payment by keeper
Wakefield to John duke of Lancaster for the 1369 expedition of £73,934 for wages
of war and prests amounting to £18,850.11 Subsequently the exchequer bore the
main brunt of the prosecution of the war, making issues to the commanders who
accounted separately with the exchequer, for instance John of Gaunt for his
I Ramsay, Genesis of Lancaster,I, 389.
2
By writ dated 3, July 1361, (C. Pat. R. 1361-1364, p. 61); he was to make these issues on the advice
of the council 'so far as the king's treasure there should suffice' under the supervision of Ralph Ferrers,
Thomas Dale and the authorization of the earl. The accounts reveal that he drew 13s 4d a day.
3 Exch. Accts., 28/21 and Pipe Rolls, 211/49. On 22 Sept., 1364 the archbishop of Dublin, the treas-
urer of Ireland, Dale, and two others were ordered to examine Dalby's account rendered to the ex-
chequer, a copy of which was sent them, and to certify the entries (C. Pat. R. 1364-1367, p. 68).
4 Writ dated 24
April, 1364 (C. Close R. 1364-1368, p. 10).
6 Lionel was in pay from 14 Aug., 1361, to 23 April, 1363; for the chief retinues see my 'Strength
of English Armies,' E.H.R., XLVI,369.
6 Exch. Accts., 28/27; indenture with Sir Thomas Hoggeshawe of Dalby on 13 May, 1362, that he
drew from Dalby wages and fees of war for the first two quarters of a year from 24 June, 1362. Also
cf. authorization to pay archers or a knight retained over the number prescribed in an indenture, e.g.,
with Robert Ashton (C. Close R. 1360-1364, p. 495).
7 Exch. Accts.,
29/11; with 120 men-at-arms and 200 horse archers.
8 C. Close R. 1360-1364, p. 507.
9 Some light is furnished by Mrs Sharp in Tout, op. it., v, Section II, as already indicated. Pedro
king of Castille promised to pay the wages of war, stipendia, regards and other expenses of the Black
Prince, by writ dated 23 Sept., 1366, at Libourne (Rymer, Foedera, in, ii, 805-806).
10Chapters,iv, 165-166.
11Enrolled Accts., W. and H., 4/21d. Thus William earl of Suffolk drew £770:4:6 as an advance
for his contingent with John of Gaunt for which he accounted three years later in the county of Suf-
folk. Thomas Murreux received £10 from Wakefield on 8 Sept., 1369, at Sandwich. For instructions to
account with certain leaders, e.g., Sir John Foxle and his 3 men-at-arms and 9 archers in May 1370,
see Exch. Acots., 396/13, not mentioned by Tout in his enumeration of relevant wardrobe records
(op. cit., p. 164, n. 2).
expedition to Aquitaine in the summer of 1370,1 Thomas Ampcotes being his

'tresorier de guerre.'2 Sir Robert Knolles for his brilliant raid from Calais to
Brittany drew up a statement of his receipts and expenses for the exchequer.3
Immense sums were spent in connection with campaigns projected for 1372.4
Numerous indentures were concluded in February and April with magnates,5
and following the Pembroke naval disaster off La Rochelle at the end of June the
king himself engaged in a futile naval expedition in the autumn from 27 August.
Several leaders are known to have accounted personally with the exchequer, such
as the earl of Salisbury.6
This period of the reign saw the emergence of a special war paymaster, in one
document being specifically described as 'treasurer of war.'7 Adam Hartington
was not a wardrobe official but a chamberlain of the exchequer8- an interesting
illustration of the fact that, as compared with earlier times, the wardrobe was
relinquishing its control over war financing. On 1 December, 1372, he was formally
appointed by king and council to receive from the treasurer and chamberlains of
the exchequer all the sums of money requisite for the wars in England, France
and on the seas, and to make all necessary payments under the controllership of
William Airemyn.9 He rendered to the exchequer accounts covering the period
from December 1372 to 31 January, 1374, and from that date to 1 December fol-
lowing.10Hertington, who received 3s. 4d. a day and had an escort of 30 men, was
responsible for the sums of £40,830:19:7| and £15,137:1: 4 for the two periods.
He drew moneys directly or indirectly from the exchequer by the hands of
various leaders. Thus John of Gaunt, 'King of Castile,' in connection with his long
but futile march from Calais across France to Bordeaux, drew from the exchequer
1 L. T. R. Foreign Accts., 5 (45 Edw. III) m. 29; in accordance with an indenture dated 1 June, 1370.
He drew £6,133:6:8 on 15 Feb. and 3 April, and £8,387 at various dates in May and June, and
£4,000 in 1372. Cf. Devon, Issue Roll 44 Edw. III, pp. 99, 212, 275.
2 Delpit, Documents en Angleterre,p. 239.
3 Exch. Accts., 30/25. Cf. Devon, op. cit., p. 269.
4
Walsingham, Hist. Anglicana, I, 315 estimates them at the excessive amount of £900,000. Ramsay
(Genesis, II, 26 n. 4) notes that the exchequer issues from Easter 1372 to the next Easter totalled some
£204,000.
6 Exch. Accts., 68/4, no. 92 (earl of Hereford), 93 (earl of Warwick): 68/5, nos. 95 ff.
6 Exch. Accts., 32/40 for his retinue of 1 banneret, 13 knights, 83 esquires and 87 archers serving
9 Aug. to 6 Oct.; the auditor 'disallowed' the wages of 3s 4d a day claimed for the banneret 'as not
in the indenture'; for the latter see also ibid., 68/5, no. 102, envisaging the service of no less than 20
knights, 100 esquires and 200 archers. (For William le Zouche of Haryngworth's indenture and accounts
see Exch. Accs., 30/39.) 7 Anc. Correspondence,Vol. 50, no. 177.
8 Appointed 23 Nov., 1369, and functioning in that capacity till Oct., 1376 (cf. Tout, op. cit., III, 273).
He was clerk of the works at Windsor (Devon, Issues of the Exchequer,p. 217) and was sent to pay the
wages of the sailors for the passage of Sir Robert Knolles' expedition (ibid., 207) and with J. Thorp,
'receiver of the king's money in the Tower of London' on behalf of William Latimer, Steward, received
at Rye armed men and archers from the counties of Essex and Hertford.
9 Treaty Rolls, 55/5.
10 Enrolment in Foreign Accts., 364, No. 8. The controller's roll of particulars has strayed from the
usual repository in the P.R.O. to the British Museum (Add. MSS 37, 494) covering the first period.
Airmeym sent from London to Southampton and other ports to pay wages to the troops was paid 5s
a day from 1 May, 1373, to 19 July.
on 7 March, 1373, £5,333:6:8 and subsequently 3,000 marks and other sums
charged to Hartington's account. The duke of Lancaster and other captains ac-
companying him accounted separately.1 It should be noted in connection with
this expedition that a distinctive paymaster was appointed for overseas receipts
and issues, viz., John Humbleton, a king's clerk created on 21 March, 1373,
'attorney and receiver-general'; a knight Sir Gilbert Giffard was appointed con-
troller, by whose 'advice and ordinance' and that of John of Gaunt Humbleton
was to be directed.2 No separate roll of particulars of Humbleton's account seems
to be extant, but from the individual accounts of the magnates we learn of sundry
disbursements to them from Humbleton, e.g., 800 franks worth £126:13:4 to
Thomas earl of Warwick.3 Hartington was responsible for payments to the earl
of Salisbury serving colorfully in Brittany in 1373,4 and to Philip Courtenay,
admiral of the fleet5 for his sailors, soldiers and that unusual type of soldiery, 50
crossbowmen from Genoa under Gregory Usse de Meer and Obert Gay their
captains, serving from February 1373 to the following 26 January. Also he was
charged with issues on the regard and wages of leaders under the earls of Cam-
bridge and March, for the projected campaign to Aquitaine in 1375.6Hartington's
non-exchequer 'foreign' receipts were derived in part from wine and other com-
modities captured at sea etc., from the enemy. In parenthesis it may be remarked
that this fact taken in conjunction with the comparatively unimpeded transport
of large expeditionary forces to Calais, Brittany, and Gascony (notably that of
John of Gaunt) would suggest that the defeat of Pembroke's fleet off La Rochelle
was not so disastrous with regard to our command of the sea as often described.7
1 John of Gaunt had an order under the privy seal dated 12 July, 1374, to have his accounts consid-
ered and in them acknowledged the above sums charged to Hertington and his expenses for 6 ban-
nerets, 119 knights, 654 esquires and 800 archers from 17 June, 1373, on which day he and his retinue
first came to the sea, to 25 April 1374 when he landed at Dartmouth, the names 'contained in 2 rotulis
de retinencia'; the wages totalled £17,932; a double regard was paid and repassage at the rate of 7s
per man for 6 bannerets, 115 knights, 628 esquires and 795 archers. The indenture by which he con-
tracted to serve with 779 men-at-arms (including 8 bannerets, 150 knights and 621 esquires) and 800
archers is mentioned (Foreign Accts. No. 10, 50 Edw. III). For the earl of Stafford's account in Lan-
caster's company as also Henry Percy, Hugh Calverley see Foreign Accts., No. 9. For the numerous
indentures for this expedition see Exch. Accts., 68/6.
2 For the very detailed statement of the powers of Humbleton and Giffard, see Treaty Rolls, 56/28.
3 Exch. Accts., 32/39. He also drew £1622:4:5 from the receipt of the exchequer and charged to
Hertington on 14 March; £355:11:2 on 21 March; £827 on 11 May; £1,654:4:8 on 16 July;
£686:12:8 on 16 Aug. on the Pipe Roll for 49 anno; £200 on 22 June, 1374. The total sum was
£5,272:6:2. He had 27 knights, 172 esquires and 200 archers in his retinue.
4 With 20
knights, 279 men-at-arms and 300 archers from 23 March to 6 Oct. On 8 Feb. he had
indented to serve for 6 months with 300 men-at-arms and as many archers (Rymer, Foedera, inI, 968,
971). He sailed to St Malo and destroyed 8 large Spanish vessels, but had to meet the formidable
Bertrand du Guesclin and became involved in the Derval-Brest imbroglio (Ramsay, Genesis, Ix,
2-32).
5 Courtenay paid 4s a day led 4 knights, 115 esquires and 120 archers from 23 March to 21 Sept.
6 Account of the earl of March with 24 knights, 365 esquires and 400 archers (Exch. Accts., 34/6
and Foreign Accts., No. 10); so also Edward Despenser (loc. cit.).
7 Ramsay described it as 'the
greatest (defeat) probably ever sustained by the English navy'
(Genesis, 11, 22).
Although Dr Tout does not mention these activities of Hartington and Humble-
ton, which resemble in certain respects those envisaged in the Walton Ordinances
of 1338,1he is justified in his analysis of the eclipse of the'wardrobe in the declin-
ing years of Edward III's reign and the paramountcy of the exchequer. The pro-
cedure of individual accounting with the exchequer by the various leaders was
followed, which received a notable impulse not appreciated by Dr Tout from the
dominant practice of the king concluding indentures of military service with
distinguished soldiers, whether richly landed magnates or no. Perhaps the thesis
may be advanced that the process of war financing by the wardrobe of the house-
hold bridged the gulf from feudal unpaid military service based on homage and
tenure to contractuallmilitary service based on the talent of the soldier and its
appropriate remuneration. A member of the lesser gentry like Sir John Chandos,
Sir Robert Knolles or Sir Hugh Calverley could attract a retinue exceeding those
of many earls and greater feudatories; he would contract an indenture with the
king specifying the character of his retinue and the conditions of service. It was
a natural development that he should compute separately with the main source
of revenue, the exchequer. The Indenture System was a potent factor in the pass-
ing of the feudal system and wardrobe war-financing.
QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY,
KINGSTON, ONTARIO.
1 Note however that this treasurer of war did not hold himself responsible for all the expenses of
wages of war, regards, etc., of the participants in the expedition; he did not draw up an indentured
roll with, say, John of Gaunt, the special commander-in-chief, although he did make such disburse-
ments as he did in the shape of prests, etc., on the authorization of the head of the expedition.
The Process of Agen

Author(s): G. P. Cuttino
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:56
Speculum.
THE PROCESS OF AGEN
BYG. P. CUTTINO
AT the accession of Philip of Valois to the throne of France and of Edward in
to the throne of England, diplomatic relations between the two countries hinged
on two questions: homage and the restitution of lands in Gascony. Neither ques-
tion was new, and each was bound up with the other. The treaty of Paris of 1259,
which was calculated to settle once and for all the conflicting rights and claims of
the king of France and his English vassal, had stipulated that English kings
should perform liege homage for their French holdings at the accession of each
new king of France. But the treaty was scarcely eleven years old when Henry
III, using illness as an excuse, neglected to swear fealty to the successor of Louis
ix. Again, in 1272, although Edward I did liege homage to Philip II for the
duchy of Guyenne, he made reservations in respect to the lands of Agenais and
Saintonge. The procrastination of Edward II in the matter of homage was one of
the principal reasons for his difficulties with Philip iv and Charles Iv.
When Philip of Valois ascended the throne he summoned Edward in to render
homage at Amiens.1 But the ambassadors whom he sent to England were never
allowed to approach the young king, and they returned to report that Queen
Isabella had told them at length, 'en maniere de femme ... que son fils qui estoit
ne de roy ne feroit pas hommage a fils de conte.'2 The ceremony finally took place
on 6 June, 1329, however, but the terms in which homage should be done were for
a long time debated. Philip demanded liege homage, while Edward wished to do
only simple homage, homagium per paragium. The distinction was important to
both parties: the former bound a vassal personally to his lord and implied military
service, while the latter merely showed recognition of a holding. The homage of
1329 was neither liege nor unconditional. Charles iv had seized Agenais and cer-
tain other lands in Guyenne, and these had not been restored as the treaty of
Paris of 1327 had provided. Accordingly, reservations were made concerning those
lands.
Now the whole matter of homage struck more deeply and touched more funda-
mental issues than mere bickering over terms might suggest. Ever since the days
of Philip Augustus, the French monarchy had been pursuing an expansionist
policy, seeking to bring about in France what William of Normandy had achieved
in England almost at a single blow. Two weapons the French used to further such
a policy: actual military aggression and jurisdictional disputes. How the former
could influence the attitude of English kings towards homage is obvious. Edward
I, for example, as liegeman of Philip the Fair, was bound to furnish him military
aid should he attempt the conquest of Castile and Aragon. In other words, Ed-
ward had perforce to become a party to that very expansion which it was to his
interest to prevent; and this fact goes far to explain English mediatorial efforts
1 Thomas Rymer, Foedera (Record Commission edition, London, 1821), ii, 765.
2 M. Paulin Paris, ed., Les
grandes chroniquesde France (Paris, 1837), v, 323-324.
161
162 The Process of Agen
in the southern kingdoms.1 The second weapon, jurisdictional disputes, was a
more subtle and, in the long run, a more telling one. It irivolved the use of what we
today would term 'fifth-column tactics.' The king of France, usually through his
seneschal, would either foment or take advantage of such disputes as occurred
between the English king as duke of Aquitaine and his French vassals. The cases
that then arose would be carried by appeal to the Parlement de Paris and the
duke of Aquitaine would be summoned to appear as defendant. The kings of
England perceived in such a procedure the certain undermining of their authority;
and, as sovereigns with their own courts of law, they contemplated with extreme
distaste the prospect of submitting in the r6le of an accused party to the pro-
nouncement of a foreign court that was probably prejudiced against them. Yet
the English were forced to assume just that position. If in the first instance they
did not acknowledge liege homage to France, they faced the probability of con-
fiscation and actual military occupation of their French possessions. To prevent
conquest meant to make outlays for repeated expeditions to the Continent, which
always seemed to occur at times when the domestic situation was awkward; and
even if-the French were momentarily defeated, there was always the arduous
task of subduing fickle vassals and often that of winning back rebellious towns.
Further, refusal to heed a summons to the Parlement de Paris brought with it
the same dangers, and just such a jurisdictional dispute had led to the confisca-
tion of Guyenne by Charles Iv.
On the other hand, it was undoubtedly more to the advantage of French kings
to secure recognition of liege homage from their English vassal than to resort to
war: jurisdictional dispute was a much less obvious and a much less expensive
way to gain their ends. Consequently, they were often willing to bargain, to re-
store English territory that had been seized and that could be held only with diffi-
culty, in return for the performance of liege homage, which would provide a cover
for judicial inroads on English authority. And that was exactly the situation
after the homage of 1329: Philip vi was willing to make concessions if Edward in
would recognize that he held his French possessions in liege homage as a peer of
France. That he did on 30 March 1331. In April, Edward, disguised as a mer-
chant, made a hurried and secret visit to France, and the two kings met at Pont-
Sainte-Maxence.2 The outcome of the interview and the negotiations that grew
out of it was the establishment of a joint commission for restitution of lands in
Agenais. Such was the genesis of the process of Agen.
It seems likely that Edward in was persuaded to urge the establishment of a
process by certain of his clerical advisers. There exist copies of three petitions to
the king of France that are obviously the work of such persons.3 The first urges
1 The situation of English vassals was similar. Bracton admits that a man who holds land in
Eng-
land and France may be bound to aid both kings when they make war on each other. Sir T. Twiss,
ed., Henrid de Bracton De legibus Angliae (Rolls Series, London, 1883), vi, 374-376.
2 E. M. Thompson, ed., Adae Murimuth, Continuatio chronicarum (Rolls Series, London, 1889),
p. 63; E. D6prez, Les preliminaires de la guerre de cent ans (Paris, 1902), pp. 73, 76.
3 Diplomatic Documents, Chancery,
28/2/10, tentatively dated December, 1331, but undoubtedly
belonging to the period before March, 1331. Cited hereafter as D.D.C.; all manuscripts cited are in
the Public Record Office in London.
The Process of Agen 163
the king of France to resume amicable negotiations for mutual restitution of

lands in Gascony.1The second bears the caption, 'Peticio ad differendum tempus
recompensacionis faciende et resumpcionem omnium processuum preiudicialem
[sic] domino nostro regi,' and the third the title, 'Peticio ad similem graciam ha-
bendam a tempore date littere gracie supradicte.' The numerous clerks who al-
ways surrounded the king and served as his technical experts had long memories
where diplomacy and legal forms were concerned. All of them appear to have
inherited that respect for form and that tendency towards conciliation and ar-
bitration which were so characteristic of Edward I. Accordingly, they might well
recall the establishment in 1274 of a commission in connection with Anglo-Flemish
relations.2 They might think back, too, to the process of Montreuil in 1306 and
to the process of Perigueux in 1311.3The former was a series of legal cases involv-
ing maritime losses brought for hearing and settlement before what amounted to
an international commission; the latter was a conference between plenipotenti-
aries to revise the treaty of Paris of 1259 and all subsequent treaties in order to
find some basis of entente between England and France. Further, many clerks
had experience as English proctors at the Parlement de Paris, which employed
commissions as a normal part of its procedure.4 Every one of them, of course,
would be familiar with canon law, and one of its principles which was laid down
in the ninth century and extended by Gregory vii to civil processes was Spoliatus
ante omnia restituendus.
At any rate, on 5 July, 1331 John Travers and John Hildesle received letters
'de quibusdam prisis, occupacionibus, et detencionibus post treugam inter nuper
reges Francie et Anglie captam examinandis, et in statum pristinum reducendis.'5
1 'Peticio ad inducendum Francie regem ad consenciendum amicabili tractatu super articulis pacem
tangentibus.
'Item, come le roi Dengleterre soit en volunte de faire en forme damiste et dacort auxi plenere
satisfaction as ministres et subgitz du dit roi de Fraunce qui se dient estre damagez par ses seneschauz
et autres officials, ministres, et subgitz, et de ses ancestres hors du jugement, en aimable tretez en la
dite duche deuant les acompleours et gardeyns des pees, couenantz, et acordz faitz en ces heures,
comme il purroient auoir en la curt de Fraunce ou ailleurs en jugement par rigour et duresce de lei;
et comme la verite du fait peusse pluys tost et amendre trauals et despens dune part de dautre [a
word erased here] estre [re]quise en la dite duche qe ailleurs; et greignur amiste, vnite, et acort pout
estre norriz entre les dites parties par cele forme de proces que par neule maniere de proces de rigour
et de duresce; et come par les lettres des ditz rois de Fraunce et Dengleterre et de leur ancestres et
leur procureors et conseillers, qe les ditz couenantz des pees et acordz firent appiere clerement, qe
leur entencion est et feust qe par la garde et lacomplissement des ditz couenauntz les subgitz des ditz
rois serroient gouernez en pees et en tranquillite a esparnir saung crestien au succour de la terre seynte:
soint mande au chanceller qe, veuues les commissions et autres lettres iadis et nadgaires faites en eel
entencion et a cele fyn par les ditz rois de Fraunce et Dengleterre, semblables soient ore faites od touz
les amendementz queux il verra necessaires ou profitables a les fyns susdites.'
2 J. de
Sturler, Les relations politiques et les echangescommerciauxentrele duchede Brabant et l'Angle-
terre au moyen dge (Paris, 1936), pp. 194-125.
3 G. P. Cuttino, English Diplomatic Administration, 1259-1339 (Oxford, 1940), ch. iii; M. Gavrilo-
vitch, Etude sur le traite de Paris de 1259 (Paris, 1899), pieces justificatives vii and viii; I. Lubimenko,
Jean de Bretagne comtede Richmond (Lille, 1908), pp. 83-85.
4 Du
Breuil, Stilus curie parlamenti, ed. Aubert (Paris, 1909), caps. xxvii-xxvii quater.
6 Gascon Rolls, 43, m. 12. On 6 July the treasurer, barons, and chamberlains of the exchequer were
Both men were particularly well qualified to serve as commissioners, for both were
trained in law, and Hildesle, as we shall see, was especially conversant with diplo-
matic affairs and with the question of homage. Sir John Travers was of a Lan-
cashire family and had been returned as member for this county to the parlia-
ment that met at Carlisle in 1307. Under Edward ii he had frequently served as
commissioner of array, assessor of aids, and custodian of the lands forfeited by
Thomas of Lancaster and his adherents.' As king's clerk he had held the office of
treasurer's remembrancer at the exchequer in 1323-24 and followed this by a
term as constable of Bordeaux, the chief financial minister of Gascony.2 On 2
March, 1329 he became a justice of Common Pleas and later acted as justice in
eyre for the Channel Islands, but on 10 June, 1331 surrenderedthis post because of
'not having leisure to act.'3 On 29 June of the same year he again received appoint-
ment as constable of Bordeaux,4 the position he was holding at the time of his
activities as commissioner in the process of Agen. He died before 3 July, 1339,
for at this time certain houses in the parish of St Andrew, Holborn, which be-
longed to him and which came into the king's hands for debts due at the time of
his death, were granted to two chancery clerks at two marks a year, until they
should be redeemed by payment of the full account.5 Master John Hildesle, par-
son of the church of Thynden and canon of Chichester, from 1316 onwards was
continually employed on diplomatic missions.6 His knowledge of Gascon affairs
was profound, for it was under his guidance that the great Gascon register was
compiled in 1318-19.7 In 1323 he was one of the twelve 'clerks of the first bench'
in chancery.8 Seven years later he served as proctor for the king at the Parlement
de Paris and took under his surveillance those points which arose concerning
homage.9 He was raised to the bench of the exchequer on 18 December 1332 and
remained in this office until he became chancellor of the exchequer some two years
later. In the latter post he is several times found in attendance at the king's
council and at parliament, where he tried petitions.10
Two better men, then, could hardly have been found for the legal and diplo-
matic business involved in the process of Agen. The French representatives on
ordered to pay the expenses of the two to Gascony, and to ordain for the wages of Hildesle, which
were to be paid by Travers as constable according to the treasurer's certificate (Calendar of Close
Rolls (1330-33), pp. 251-252).
1 Edward Foss, The
Judges of England (London, 1851), III, 532.
2 T. F.
Tout, Place of the Reign of Edward II in English History (2nd edition, Manchester, 1936),
pp. 311, 351.
3 Foss, loc. cit.; Calendar
of Patent Rolls (1330-34), p. 146.
4 T. F. Tout,
Chaptersin the Administrative History of Mediaeval England (Manchester, 1928-37),
vi, 68.
5 C.P.R. (1338-40), p. 308; cf. C.C.R. (1343-46), p. 136. Tout has wrongly listed him as
again
holding the office of constable from 17 July to 22 September 1343 (Chapters,vi, 69).
6 Foss, op. cit.. iii, 443.
7 V. H. Galbraith, 'The Tower as an Exchequer Record Office in the Reign of Edward II,'
Essays
presentedto T. F. Tout (Manchester, 1925), p. 235.
8 J. C. Davies, The Baronial
Opposition to Edward II (Cambridge, 1918), app. no. 74.
9 C.P.R. (1330-34), pp. 22, 38.
10 Foss, loc. eit.; C.C.R.
(1333-37), p. 468.
the commission were equally well qualified for the task. One was Master Ber-
trand Boniface, canon of Paris and professor of civil and canon law; the other was
Sir Pierre Raymond de Rabastens, seneschal of Poitou.1 The duties of the four
commissioners are succinctly stated in a renewal of the original letters of ap-
pointment to Travers and Hildesle in February 1332:
Nous, voillantzque droit soit fait en quant que a nous atteint, vous, & chescunde vous,
pronoms,elisoms,&deputoms,par cestespresentesnoz lettres, d'oier,ovesqueles deputez
le dit Roi de France,ou par vous meismes,si avant come a nous appartient,les pleintes
de touz ceux qi pleindrese voudrentde surprises,purprises,& occupacions,faites contre
les dites acordes,&a fairerestitucion&complissementde droituresurmeismeles choses.2
Most of their work seems to have been done before 1333; and this date may be
taken as a convenient dividing line in the history of the process. After 1333 the
personnel of the English commissioners was constantly changing and few, if any,
sessions were held.3
Manuscripts preserved in the Public Record Office that relate to the process of
Agen number alout thirty. Of those, about half have to do with letters and rec-
ords of commission, that is, with appointments to serve on the commission; and
they are the least interesting of the lot. The remaining documents are about
equally divided between actual rolls of proceedings and a closely related group of
proposals and memoranda, petitions and complaints, that point out the course of
the process. Unfortunately, almost a third of the total number are now almost
completely illegible from damage and stain.
The most illuminating, of course, and those which we now have to consider,
are two portions of a roll of proceedings of the commissioners.4Together the two
make up almost five membranes of a roll, and there is good reason to believe that
we lack only three membranes of having the same record that the English govern-
ment itself possessed in 1336. In that year Roger Staunford, a clerk whose busi-
ness it was to keep such documents, had in his possession 'vnum rotulum viij
peciarum de nouo processu Agenni.'5 The two fragments in question cover a pe-
1 D.D.C. 32/8, m. 1; Deprez, op. cit., p. 78, n. 6.
2 Rymer, Foedera, II, 832.
3 Bertrand Ferrand replaced Hildesle in March, 1333 and John of Oxford and Arnold Payne were
added to the panel, while Travers was retained (Gascon Rolls, 45, m. 8). On 26 March, 1334 com-
missions to resume the process were issued to William Airmyn, bishop of Norwich, Henry Gower,
bishop of St Davids, William Trussel, John Shordich, Thomas Astley, John Ufford, John Travers,
John of Oxford, William Clinton, and Bartholomew Burghersh (Rymer, Foedera, ii, 880; D.D.C.
28/3/46); and on 5 November, 1334 Simon Stanes and Austence Jourdain were appointed in place of
Travers and Payne (D.D.C. 30/3/15). The nuncii accounts show that Hildesle was abroad from
5 July, 1331 to 7 June, 1332, Airmyn from 30 September, 1333 to 8 January, 1334, Shordich from
7 April to 6 July, 1334, Clinton in October and November 1334, and Stanes from 24 December, 1334
to 1 May, 1336 (L. Mirot & E. Deprez, 'Les ambassades anglaises pendant la guerre de cent ans,'
Bibliothequede lEcole des Chartes, tome lix (1898), nos. 24, 41, 51, 53, as corrected by A. Larson,
'English Embassies during the Hundred Years' War,' English Historical Review, vol. LV (1940),
423-431).
4 D.D.C. 32/8, 30/2/11, priiited below.
5 D.D.C. 28/10/5. There is also a document whose caption is, 'Articuli extracti de processu nuper
Agennum [inchoato],' which is now for the most part illegible (Ibid., 30/2/29).
riod from 3 January to 11 April, 1332. During that time the commission sat in
the house of the Friars Preachers at Agen (dep. Lot-et-Garonne), except for a
period from 21 January to 3 February, when they moved to nearby Villeneuve
and Penne, and another period from 11 to 28 February, when they were at La-
roque-Timbaut. During that time a great many individual cases were apparently
disposed of. Unfortunately, the surviving manuscripts do not bear any record of
them or of what the particular questions at issue were or of the way in which de-
cisions were reached. Presumably the commissioners recorded such cases on
separate leaves, for our roll speaks of cause singulares and sicut in earum proces-
sibus clarius continetur,but these have been lost. As a matter of fact, only a few
scattered remarks momentarily lift the veil and allow us to watch the commission
at work.
We see English and French proctors presenting their credentials, and we see
the commission swearing in a substitute named by the English proctor. When the
commission goes to Villeneuve, letters are issued to the bailiffs of Villeneuve,
Monflanquin, Villereal, Monclar, and Tournon. They must publish the news in
order that plaintiffs may come and present their claims. The commissioners
travel about for the convenience of those who have complaints to make, and
they go to Laroque-Timbaut because the inhabitants of Puymirol 'ad locum pre-
dictum Agenn' tunc venire nequiuerunt vel non audeant.' They can summon wit-
nesses, take evidence, and hear special pleas. But all these things we should expect
of any court of law. What we want to know is how the commission proceeded in
the matter of restoring lands.
At the outset it seems clear that the commission divided the cases that came
before it into two categories, which may be called 'individual' and 'communal.'
Into the former fell pleas by individuals within a community against individuals
in another community. For example, A, a citizen of Villeneuve, asserts that he is
a subject of the king of France and that certain of his possessions were seized by
B, who is a subject of the king of England and resides in Penne. Such cases the
commissioners apparently heard and determined, although the records of their
decisions have disappeared. Into the second category fell cases involving whole
communities, and of these there are several mentioned specifically in the two
fragments of the roll that have survived. The French towns of St Aignant, Vil-
leneuve, Poujols, and Tournon, separately in three suits, plead for restitution of
certain lands seized by the English town of Penne, and Penne sues each of these
in turn.
Those in charge of the process early laid down the principles upon which such
cases were to be heard: 'ordinauimus ad obuiandum maliciis et diffugiis parcium
coram nobis litigancium.' The plaintiff had first to prove the legality of his peti-
tion. That he could do by having it sworn to by four reputable witnesses. When
the judges were satisfied on that point, they assigned a day to the defendant 'ad
proponendum et probandum factum contrarium.' If the defendant neglected to
appear at the appointed time, either in person or by proctor, the commissioners
took the profits and emoluments of the possessions at issue into the hands of the
court. Such action, however, did not preclude the defendant's pleading his cause
at a later date. Accordingly, the commissioners proceeded to sequestrate all

property in each of the communal cases that came before them. Such action did
not imply a decision, however, for after an objection on the part of the English
proctor, the court clarified its policy in this matter. By ordering sequestrations
the commission did not intend, it stated, to determine at the time whether
proofs and claims that had been advanced were sufficient to allow or deny resti-
tution or even to establish whether the property at issue had actually been seized.
Nor did it intend to prejudice the right of either king by any decisions it had made
or might make. Actually, decisions in communal cases were suspended until
general commissions should arrive from England and France to enable the court
to act in cases of lands seized since the year 1324. Meanwhile, the judges restored
sequestrated property to those from whom it had been taken, with the under-
standing that this should not prejudice any claim outstanding against it.
And here our record comes to an abrupt and tantalizing end. The commission
apparently adjourned, but not before making a joint recommendation to the
kings of England and France on the subject of the process.1 The joint report is an
illuminating document, for it gives us for the first time a detailed statement of
the basis on which the four commissioners wished to proceed. Of even greater
interest is the fact that they have taken pains to analyse in great detail the ad-
vantages and disadvantages inherent in the cedula they proposed.
The memorandum begins by expressing a pious hope for an amicable adjust-
ment of the points at issue:
It wouldbe both agreeableand gratifyingto God and all the worldshouldit pleasetheir
lordsthe kings of Franceand Englandthat their subjects,or the successorsof their sub-
jects, who in time of war or disturbanceshave lost revenuesand immovablegoods in the
duchyof Aquitaineor elsewhere,with the exceptionof the elevenexiles2and suchlands as
were confiscatedand acquiredby those kings by special sentencesin individualcrimes
committed at other times than duringwar, be restoredto the rights and status they
had at the time Charlescount of Valois left Paris to seize the duchy for the lord king
Charlesin 1324;and that such subjectsmakerecognitions,do homage,or swearoaths for
those things they recover,accordingto the requirementsof the circumstances,to which-
ever king at presentholds as purpresturesthose things to be restored;and that such sub-
jects be compelledthenceforthto observethe settlement.
The memorandum, then, called for a general restitution of seizures since the year
1324, and laid down that homage was to be done to whichever king held the
1 'Transcriptumindenturefacte inter commissariosAnglieet Francieregumin ipsorumrecessua
partibusVasconiesuper forma commissionumfaciendarumin negociiseis commissis,quequidem
indenturasignatursigilliscommissariorum predictorumet liberatafuit magistroRobertode Stratford
exhibendaclericisassignandisad examinandumprocessumpredictum.'D.D.C. 30/3/17; cf. ibid.,
30/1/3 and 30/3/16, copiesof the same.
2 During the reign of CharlesIV the lord of Montpezatconstructeda bastide on land that he
claimedto hold of the king of England.Frenchofficialscontestedthe claimand broughtsuit before

the Parlementde Paris,whichadjudgedthe bastideto the king of France.Irritatedby the decision,
the lord of Montpezatappealedfor aid to the English seneschal,who attackedand destroyedthe
bastide,massacringthe Frenchwho werefoundthere.Parlementsummonedthe Englishofficialsto
answerfor theiractionbeforeit at Toulouse.Whenthey failedto appear,an arretof banishmentwas
pronouncedagainstthem. Gavrilovitch,op. cit., pp. 109-110.
lands or possessions to be returned. The two exceptions were the eleven exiles
and those lands that had been confiscated by special sentences.
The detailed commentary on these suggested letters of commission is obviously
the work of the English representatives, for the distinction is often made between
subditi regis Francie and subditi nostri. Nevertheless, it reveals the give-and-take
that must have characterized the sessions of the commission; and of more im-
portance still, it illustrates admirably what fundamental questions even the
mere wording of the letters of commission involved. Videtur cedula onerosa, so
the document runs, for seven reasons. (1) In the first place, the eleven exiles are
excepted from the scheme of restoration; consequently, all French subjects will
retain their lands, but not all English subjects. (2) The clause excepting lands
confiscated by special sentences is objectionable, for it is not clear to the com-
missioners what lands are meant. (3) English subjects will actually do the hom-
age and swear the oaths of Frenchmen, (4) It is not clear whether or not after
restoration has been made the French will wish to ask arrears, (5) and whether
at some future time they will wish to punish those who supported the king of
England. (6) The words res occupata[purprestures]are ill-chosen, for the French
claim that the things they took before the truces were lawfully possessed by
them. (7) Finally, the English are worried lest this last point prejudice the peti-
tion their king intends to make to the French king regarding such lands. Ex parte
alia videturilla cedula bona for an equal number of reasons. (1) By it the English
have technical grounds for a dilacio, (2) and in the interim they can ascertain
more fully the will of their lord king and duke. (3) Further, English subjects will,
after all, recover what they have lost by war or in times preceding and following
truces, and they certainly cannot hope to do so unless the French are likewise
permitted to recover their losses. (4) An obvious advantage lies in the provision
that all who possess anything in English towns will hold from the king of Eng-
land, for the French understanding is that their subjects should recover every-
thing seized by the English and hold it of the king of France - quod est valde
durum. That, of course, meant that there would be some people in Bordeaux
and other English towns who would hold immediately of the king of France. (5)
The king of England will be relieved on many scores, for the cedula overcomes
objections inherent in a previous accord reached between the two kings. That
agreement provided that, whereas French subjects might recover losses sustained
at any time, the English could recover only losses sustained since the time of
truce. Accordingly, some English subjects would go begging and the king would
have to provide compensation for them out of his own pocket. (6) Naturally if
the natives [nostrates]recover their lands they will make better subjects of the
king of England. (7) It is clear, finally, that unless the king consents to these sug-
gestions as a basis for settlement, English subjects must attempt to recover their
lands through their own action, and the outcome of such an attempt is doubtful.
After casting the merits and demerits of their scheme, the commissioners drew
their general conclusions, and these constituted a favourable recommendation of
their proposals. The question of the eleven exiles, it would seem, was not a great
drawback, for the French had assured them that it was the intention of their
king to treat all persons equally. Likewise, they did not see much force in the
exception concerning lands confiscated by special sentences, because their col-
leagues had agreed to restore all lands, regardless of the time or nature of the
confiscations. The provision relating to the doing of homage was not very desira-
ble, but it would be even less desirable for the king of France to have homage for
the lands he had seized and continued to hold. The question of arrears, on the
other hand, applied to both sides equally; and while there might be considerable
difficulty in determining such matters, the commissioners were of the opinion
that arrears should be allowed. On two points, however, they urged special action.
Some guarantee was necessary to insure that those who had supported the king
of England should not be punished in the future for events that had already tran-
spired. The words res captas might, too, be put in place of res occupatasto satisfy
the French objection on the verbal technicality. Such a change would not preju-
dice the king of England's proposed petition, for there were other grounds on
which the petition might be founded.
Apparently, then, the judges adjourned their task because of technical defects
in their letters of commission. If those could be remedied, there was a possibility
that some amicable settlement of Anglo-French claims might be reached. And,
as a matter of fact, the suggestions of the representatives were acted upon. In
1333 a draft memorial was presented to the English council asking for the ap-
pointment of new commissioners. It took care, however, to urge that letters
should be drawn up in such a way that they would contain no defects that the
French might exploit in order to bring cognizance of cases to the Parlement de
Paris. Our acute petitioner was aware of French tactics: he demanded that Eng-
lish commissioners bring their appeals to their own king instead of to the French
court.' Somewhat later an anonymous person made a suggestion intended to
prod the French king into action, threatening to secure the intervention of the
pope unless Philip kept his promise to appoint new commissioners.2 Actually,
both Edward and Philip made new appointments in 1334, and the letters they
issued were based upon the recommendations that had been made by the original
commission.3
The new appointees met only to violate the famous admonition of Fulbert of
Chartres against 'gnawing the bone of contention with the tooth of temerarious
cavilling.' It was the beginning of the end. On 29 September 1334 they met in the
house of the Carmelites at Langon. The French quibbled again over the terms of
the letters of commission. There was disagreement over whether restitutions
should be made only in Agenais or throughout the duchy. The English flatly re-
fused to surrender the castles of Blanquefort and Veyrines.4 In October the
seneschal of Gascony told Edward that a French representative had gone to
Paris to obtain letters from the king of France that would authorize the French
commissioners to seize the county of Ponthieu until the English restored the two
castles. He wrote also of the French proposal to submit doubtful cases under seal
1 D.D.C. 28/2/21. 2 Ibid., 28/3/18. 3 Ibid. 30/3/15.

4 Ibid., 30/3/8; ibid., 30/3/7 is a fragmentary copy. Cf. Gascon Rolls, 46, m. 2.
to Paris for determination by Parlement.1 A screed addressed to the English

chancellor added further accusations. French officials were threatening Gascon
nobles with disinheritance, exile, and death in order to induce them to transfer
their allegiance to the king of France. The French seneschal in Agenais had ap-
pealed to Parlement to confirm the original condemnation made by Charles Iv.
To such weighty warnings was attached a plea that clerks with sufficient fee s
and wages be appointed to examine the situation, so that we may wonder whether
the writer of this document exaggerated the dangers with a view to his own better-
ment.2 Other allegations, however, come from the commissioners themselves. The
English complain that their French colleagues were attempting to extort oaths of
fealty to the king of France.3 And on that note the process comes to an end. The
opportunity for peaceful settlement of the difficulties between the two kings had
passed. Other attempts were to be made, it is true, but these were half-hearted
proffers made with one hand at the very moment when with the other hand
Edward in set about erecting in the north a vast coalition against Philip vI.
The process of Agen represents the last of three attempts by the kings of
England and France to settle their differences through the establishment of a
bipartite commission. It failed, just as the processes of Montreuil and Perigueux
had failed, because feudal and national claims were incompatible. Yet its signifi-
cance is enhanced by its failure, for it was nothing less than an attempt to recon-
cile claims under a feudal contract by methods that closely approximate those of
modern international law. Here was a body of men, the representatives of two
great states, to whom was entrusted the power of carrying out the terms of a
diplomatic understanding reached by the sovereigns of these states. They took,
as their predecessors in the other great processes had taken, their mode of pro-
cedure from Roman law in the form it had assumed in the Parlement de Paris.
They seem to have sought - and this is the impossible aspect of the entire
process - to force feudal claims and customs into a framework of procedure that
was ill-suited to such a content. In harmony with the legalistic character of the
age in which they lived, they strove to justify feudal principles through verbalism
of legal procedure. The process of Agen, then, was a curious mixture of elements
that were national, international, and feudal.
It has been said of the English constitution that it is the product of the mar-
riage of feudalism to the common law. That marriage was possible because in
England the circumfusion of sovereignty and suzerainty was so complete that
the periphery of the one merged indistinguishably with the periphery of the other.
Such a development was impossible, however, when it came to relations between
France and England. There sovereignty and suzerainty could not join hands, for
Edward in was only a suzerain in his French possessions. In attempting to add
sovereignty to lordship he ran afoul of Philip vi, who was continuing the policy
of his predecessors, which aimed to convert their theoretical position of sovereign
1 D.D.C. 30/3/10-12; cf. ibid., 30/3/9, 28/3/23. Philip actually was transferring cases to Parlement
(Archives historiques du departementde la Gironde, viI, 166).
2 Ibid.
28/3/24; cf. ibid., 30/4/7. 8 Ibid., 32/13, 28/8/38.
and suzerain into a practical reality. In that conflict of forces lies the key to
Anglo-French relations during the whole of the Middle Ages.
THE UNIVERSITYOF IOWA.
I
PORTION OF A ROLL OF PROCEEDINGS OF COMMISSIONERS FOR MUTUAL RESTITUTION OF LAND
IN GUYENNE. P.R.O. Diplomatic Documents, Chancery, 32/8.
[m. 1]1.[5]. dictis die et loco, venerabilibus viris, dominis, et magistris Bernardo de Cas-
sanea et [Bertrando Ferandi, canonico Niuernensi,] et pluribus aliis testibus ad premissa.
ITEM, diebus Veneris et Sabbati in .[6]. sequenti; videlicet, in crastino festi Epiphine
domini, ac diebus Mercurii, Iouis .[5]. fratrum predicatorum nos, Bertrandus Bonifacij et
Iohannes de Hildesle predicti, conuenimus et plures testes audiuimus et informaciones
fecimus, prout in processibus dictarum singularium personarum continetur. Deinde die
Sabbati sequenti, post examinacionem plurium testium et exaudicionem plurium causarum
singula[rium, et habita] deliberacione per nos cum dictis dominis Bernardo de Cassanea et
Bertrando Ferandi ac aliis prudentibus viris consiliariis dictorum dominorum nostrorum
regum, assensu vnanimi ordinauimus ad obuiandum maliciis et diffugiis parcium coram
nobis litigancium. Et vt cicius in nobis iniunctis negociis procedere valeamus quod quando-
cumque et quocienscumque de cetero intencionem alicuius partis supplicantis in sua suppli-
cacione declaratam per quatuor testes fidedignos vel alias legitime inuenerimus fore
probatas, assignabimus parti aduerse certum et competentem diem peremptorium ad pro-
ponendum et probandum factum contrarium, si quod proponere et probare voluerit. Et si
in ipsa die sic assignata eidem factum contrarium seu excepcionem legitimam probare et
prosequi neglexerit, extunc exitus et emolumenta bonorum petitorum ad manum nostram
tanquam communem iuxta tenorem acordi in nostris commissionibus declarati ponemus;
set propter hoc non intendimus quin ad impediendum restitucionem bonorum, dicta pars
possit, postmodum si velit, factum contrarium vel excepcionem legitimam debite proponere
et probare loco et tempore oportunis, si voluerit, et sua crediderit interesse. Acta fuerunt
premissa presentibus venerabilibus et discretis viris Bernardo de Cassanea et Bertrando
Ferandi predictis et pluribus aliis testibus ad premissa. ITEM, die Lune sequenti, xiija die
dicti mensis lanuarij, post maturam deliberacionem per nos cum consiliariis dictorum dom-
inorum nostrorum regum infrasciptis habitam in loco predicto, vnanimiter ordinauimus
que sequntur. Primo, videlicet, quod nos duo insimul vocabimus dum dicti college nostri
absentes fuerunt ad faciendum informacionem et ponendum ad manum nostram bona
subditorum hinc inde et ad faciendum restituciones de claris et liquidis illis quibus fuerunt
faciende. ITEM, quod die Martis ante instans festum beati Vincencij accedamus personali-
ter apud Villam Nouam in Agennen', et quod inibi stemus et sumus per quindecim dies
ad vacandum et procedendum in causis bonorum occupat[orum] in eadem villa et villa
Penne ac villis et locis circumuicinis, districtibusque territoriis, ac honoribus eorundem.
Et hec volumus et manda[mus] per balliuos dictorum locorum publice proclamari. Et
eadem die in causis singularibus processimus, prout status eorumdem desiderabat et sicut
in earum processibus clarius continetur. Presentibus et premissa consulantibus venera-
bilibus et discretis viris, dominis, et magistris Bernardo de Cassanea et Bernardo Calueti,
legum professoribus, domini regis Francie consiliariis; Geraldo de Podio, Bertrando
Ferandi, canonico Niuernensi, et Guillielmo Bruny, iurisperito, domini regis Anglie ducis
Aquitanie consiliariis; testibus ad premissa. ITEM, die Martis sequenti in domo predicta
circa examinaciones testium et processus singulares vacauimus. Necnon et die Mercurii
eciam sequenti, prout per processus singulares potest et poterit clarius apparere. Qua die
1Points indicateillegiblewords,the approximatenumberof which is given in brackets.The first
membraneis a fragment,and the first line is illegible.
Mercurij discretus vir, magister Aymericus Panonis, clericus iurisperitus procurator dicti
domini regis Anglie et ducis, ad faciendum fidem de potestate sibi quo ad hoc attributa
exhibuit in iudicio coram nobis quasdam litteras sigillo curie Vasconie [sicut] apparebat
prima facie sigillatas, quarum tenor sequntur in hunc modum:
Vniuersis presentes litteras inspecturis, Oluicius de Tngham, miles, ducatus Aquitanie
senescallus pro domino nostro rege Anglie duce Aquitanie, salutem. Quia nos ex
relatu plurium fidedignorum de discrecione, probitate, et [speciali] conuersacione dis-
creti viri, magistri Aymerici Panonis, clerici iurisperiti, sumus plene informati, de
voluntate et auisamento consilij [dicti domini nostril regis et ducis in Vasconia super
hoc interuenti facimus, constituimus, et eciam ordinamus dictum magistrum Aymeri-
cum procuratorem ac defensorem iurium dicti domini nostri regis et ducis, tam agendo
quam defendendo coram quibuscumque iudicibus, ecclesiasticis, secularibus, ordi-
nariis, extraordina[riis], delegatis, subdelegatis, commissariis, et aliis quibuscumque.
Dantes eidem magistro Aymerico plenam potestatem, generale et speciale mandatum
agendi, defendendi, excipiendi, forum seu fora declinandi, ob exssenciam1 petendi,
libellum seu libellos, articulos seu [r]aciones quascumque dandi et recipiendi ab ipso
nomine dicti domini ducis contra quascumque personas, et quibuscumque personis
contra ipsum seu eiusdem dicti domini ducis officiales coniunctim vel diuisim litem
seu lites contestandi, iusiurandum delatum suscipiendi, iurandi eciam de calumpnia
seu de veritate dicendi in animam nostram seu dicti domini ducis, et subeundi cuius-
libet alterius generis iuramentum interlocutorium seu diffinitiuam sentenciam audi-
endi, appellandi appellatos seu litteras testimoniales petendi et recipiendi, eam vel eas
prosequendi et intimandi, vnum vel plures loco sui ad causas speciales substituendi
quociens ipsum abesse contigerit et eum vel eos reuocandi quando sibi visum expedire.
Et omnia alia et singula faciendi et excercendi que verus et legitimus procurator facere
potest et debet, eciam si mandatum exigant speciale. Ratum et gratum habentes et
perpetuo habituri quicquid cum dicto Aymerico vel substituto aut substitutis eiusdem
in causis specialibus agitatum, petitum, defensum, seu alias quomodolibet expeditum
fuerit, vel eciam procuratum. Promittentes omnibus quorum interest et interessent
pro dicto magistro Aymerico et substituto seu substitutis suis in causis specialibus,
[et] premittitur rem ratam haberi et iudicatum solui sub rerum et bonorum omnium
dicti ducatus ypotheca. Releuantes. [1]. magistrum Aymericum et substitutum2 ab
eodem vt premittitur ab omni onere satisdandi sub eadem ypotheca; et hec omnibus
quorum interest aut intererit vel interesse poterit infuturum significamus per has
presentes litteras sigill[o cu]rie Vasconie in premissorum testimonium sigillatas.
Datum Burdegalam x die mensis Ianuarii, anno domini millesimo cccmotricesimo
primo.
Quibus exhibitis, copiam concessimus procuratori regis Francie petenti de eisdem. Pre-
sentibus dicta die Mercurij discretis viris, magistris Petro de Ruffeto, Raymundo de Paris,
et Guillielmo de [ ]erssaco, testibus ad premissa. ITEM, diebus Iovis et Veneris ac
Sabbati sequentibus in loco predicto et presentibus procuratoribus regiis antedictis in
processibus et examinacionibus causarum singularum personarum processimus provt in
eisdem processibus plenius et liquidius continetur. Deinde die Martis sequenti, videlicet,
in vigilia beati Vincencij nos, Bertrandus Benifacij et Iohannes de Hildesle, electi et depu-
tati prefati, in notarii et testium infrascriptorum presencia3 conuenimus apud Villam
Nouam in Agennesio et in domo communi consulum dicte ville sedimus pro procedendo
in negocio nobis iniuncto iuxta assignacionem a nobis alias super hoc factam. Et receptis
per nos quibusdam a nobis Bertrando predicto alias concessis et per ipsarum executorum
sigillatis, quarum tenor sequitur in hunc modum:
1 A variantof aisancia,whichDuCangedefinesas 'Voxforensis,facultas,
quamquis habet utendi
in alienopraedio,rebusnon suis, vel ex jure municipali,vel proprietariorumconcessione.'
2 MS. substitum. 8 MS. presencia repeated.
Bertrandus Bonifacij, vtriusque iuris professor, canonicus Parisiensis, domini regis

Francie consiliarius ipsiusque auctoritate in hac parte deputatus vna cum nobili et
sapienti viro, domino Petro Raymundi de Rapistagno, milite, senescallo Pictauensi,
ad presens notorie absenti et legitime impedito, bauilis Ville Noue, Montis Flanquini,
Ville Regalis, Montis [m. 2] Clari, et de Turnone, ceterisque iusticiariis dicti domini
nostri regis ad quos presentes littere peruenerint, salutem in domino. Cum vir
venerabilis et discretus, magister Iohannes de Hildesle, canonicus Cicestrensis,
domini regis Anglie ducis Aquitanie consilarius collega noster in hac parte, et nos,
volentes subditorum dictorum dominorum regum parcere laboribus et expensis,
intendamus apud Villam Nouam predictam accedere, et ibidem die Martis proximo
venienti personaliter interesse pro supplicacionibus dictorum subditorum traditis et
tradendis super bonis immobilibus in vestris districtionibus con et vt asseritur occu-
patis quantum vtilius poterimus expediendis. Vobis et vestrum cuilibet ex parte dicti
domini nostri regis Francie precipimus et mandamus quatinus in locis vobis commissis
hec publice preconizari faciatis. Intimantes omnibus subditis dicti domini regis
huiusmodi bonorum restituciones petentibus, necnon et illis qui detinent eadem,
quatinus dicta die Martis et aliis certis diebus ibidem continuandis coram nobis et
dicto collega nostro per se vel procuratores sufficienter instructos in dicta Villa Noua
compareant processuri visurique si sua crediderint interesse per nos procedi in
premissis prout fuerit procedendum. Datum sub sigillo nostro anno domini millesimo
cccTm tricesimo primo, die Lune post festum Epiphine domini. Reddatis litteras
presentes sigillatas in signum execucionis earumdem. Datum vt supra.
Et per nos, Iohannem de Hildesle predictum, quibusdam aliis sub forma consimili confectis
et a nobis alias concessis, nos ambo quampluries personas dictorum dominorum regum
subditas ibidem comparentes et coram nobis presentes audiuimus et in earum causis tam
super informacionibus faciendis quam alias processimus prout in processibus singularibus
super hoc factis plenius continetur. Presentibus venerabilibus et discretis viris, dominis et
magistris Bernardo de Cassanea, legum professore, et Bertrando Ferandi, canonico
Niuernensi iurisperito, et pluribus aliis testibus ad premissa. ITEM, eiusdem mense et
loco die Iouis in crastino dicti festi beati Vincencij et die Veneris sequenti, post aliquas
ordinaciones per nos vna cum domino Iohanne Trauers, collega nostro, presente factas in
[quadam cedula] contentas plenius ac die Lune sequenti in dictis causis singularibus proces-
simus prout per processus [singulares] potest clarius et liquidius [apparere]. Qua quidem
die Lune dictus procurator regis Anglie et ducis plures protestaciones in scriptis coram
nobis exhibuit prout in quadam cedula continetur, cuius tenor talis est:
Saluo et protestato per Aymericum Panonis, consiliarium et procuratorem domini
nostri regis Anglie ducis Aquitanie, quod per ea que dicit dicturusve est non intendit
recedere a protestacionibus per ipsum et per alium procuratorem regis et ducis supra
factis set pocius insistere in eisdem, et quod habeantur in singulis casibus pro singu-
laribus [repetitis]. Protestato eciam quod per ea que dixit, dicit, dicturusve est patri-
monium, ius, seu moniumoniumdicti domini nostri regis et ducis in iudicio seu
cognicione dictorum dominorum commissariorum quatenus ledi ex hoc posset vel
diminui deducere non intendit; dicit et protestatur quod processui seu processibus
facto seu factis per dictos dominos commissarios super generalibus vel specialibus
informacionibus faciendis per eos tam de tempore occupacionum et supprissarum
quam de tempore vel temporibus obediencie seu obedienciarum facte seu factarum
per habitatores et consules singulorum locorum domino nostro regi Francie non
consentit, de modo quo supra contradicit pro eo presertim, quia factum obedienciarum
tangit prefatos dominos nostros reges. Et ad procedendum super factis [tangentibus]
ipsos dominos reges est certa dies per dominos commissarios assignata, ante cuius
aduentum non debet processus fieri super illis, sicut per processum superius1habitum
1MS. supius.
dare patet. Protestatur eciam quod si aliqui priuati subditeque dicti domini nostri
regis et ducis premissis, ordinacionibus, vel aliis seu eorum alteri consenciant, quod
talis consensus non possit nec debeat iuri domini nostri regis et ducis in aliquo dero-
gare.
Hec dicit procurator predictus. Saluis et repetitis et pro repetitis habitis suis aliis racioni-
bus et protestacionibus propositis et aliis suis loco et tempore proponendis; procuratore
domini regis Francie supradicto presente et de contrario protestante. ITEM, die Martis
sequenti post festum Conuersionis Sancti Pauli conuenientes in loco predicto. Presentibus
discretis viris, magistris Raymundo Pelegrini, procuratore substituto, vt dicebat, regis
Francie a magistro Bernardo Chambonis, procuratore regio senescallie Agennensis, ex
vna parte, et magistro Aymerico Panonis, procuratore regis et ducis predicti, ex alia; post
examinacionem plurium testium habita plena deliberacione et consilio cum peritis visisque
processibus per nos factis in dicta Villa Noua et alibi ad instanciam et requestam plurium
personarum habitatorum ville Sancti Aniani et honoris eiusdem subditorumque et obe-
diencium domini regis Francie petencium quod sibi restituti plures terras, redditus, et
bona inmobilia existencia in villa Penne ac teritorio et honore eiusdem designata lacius
prout in ipsorum habitatorum supplicacionibus et processibus plenius continetur. Necnon
et consimiliter, visis processibus factis ad instanciam et requestam plurium personarum
habitancium Penne et eius honoris subditorum et obediencium domino regi Anglie et duci
Aquitanie petencium quod sibi restitui plures terras, redditus, et bona inmobilia existencia
in villa Sancti Aniani et teritorio et honore eiusdem designata lacius prout in ipsorum habi-
tatorum processibus plenius continetur. Tandem, quia nobis tam per deposiciones plurium
testium quam per instrumenta puplica legitime constitit atque constat petita per dictos
habitatores dicte ville Sancti Aniani et honoris eiusdem post obedienciam per ipsos presti-
tam domino regi Francie et ante pacem inter dominos Karolum Francie, et Edwardum
Anglie, reges iam defunctos, subsecutam per gentes dicti regis Anglie et ducis occupata
fuisse. Necnon et bona petita per dictos habitatores Penne et eius honoris post treugas
inibi apud Reulam inter dominum Karolum, comitem Velesij, et dominum Edmundum,
comitem Kancie, et ante pacem subsecutam predictam per gentes domini regis Francie
occupata fuisse. Idcirco fructus, exitus, et emolumenta bonorum omnium predictorum per
dictos habitatores villarum et earum honorum predictarum ad manum nostram tanquam
communem publice posuimus. Et per Guillielmum Bruny de Sancto Aniano et magistrum
Bernardum Fabri de Penna collegi et leuari nostro nomine mandauimus de consensu hibi-
tancium [sic] et supplicancium predictorum. Et insuper in aliis singularibus causis processi-
mus prout per processus earum potest liquide apparere. Presentibus loco et die Martis
preteritis venerabilibus viris, dominis Bernardo de Cassanea et Bertrando Ferandi predic-
tis et pluribus aliis testibus ad premissa. ITEM, die Mercurij sequenti, videlicet, post
dictum festum Conuersionis Sancti Pauli, in loco predicto conuenimus et in presencia
dictorum procuratorum dominorum regum predictorum post examinacionem plurium
testium habita plena deliberacione et consilio cum peritis visisque processibus per nos
super hoc factis ad instanciam et requestam plurium personarum habitatarum Ville Noue
et Poiolij et honoris eorumdem subditorumque et obediencium domino regi Francie
petencium sibi restitui plures terras, redditus, et bona inmobilia existencia in villa et
teritorio ac honore Penne designata lacius prout in processibus et supplicaionibus eorum-
dem habitancium plenius continetur. Necnon et consimiliter, visis processibus plurium
personarum habitancium Penne et eius honoris, subditorum, et obediencium domini regis
Anglie et ducis Aquitanie petencium sibi restitui plures terras, redditus, et bona inmobilia
existencia in Villa Noua et Poioliis ac teritoriis et honoribus earumdem, desingnata [sic]
clarius in processibus singularibus habitancium predictorum. Tandem, quibus nobis tam
per deposiciones plurium testium quam per instrumenta publica legitime constitit atque
constat petita per dictos habitatores villarum Noue et Poiolij et honorum earumdem post
obedienciam per ipsos prestitam domino regi Francie et ante pacem inter dominos Karolum
Francie, et Edwardum Anglie, reges iam defunctos, subsecutam per gentes domini regis
Anglie et ducis occupata fuisse. Necnon et bona petita per dictos habitatores Penne et eius
honoris post treugas initas apud Reulam inter dictos Karolum, comitem Valesij, et comi-
tem Kancie, et ante pacem subsecutam predictam per gentes domini regis Francie occupata
fuisse. Idcirco fructus, exitus, et emolumenta bonorum omnium predictorum per dictos
habitatores villarum et earum honorum predictarum ad manum nostram tanquam [m. 3]
communem publice posuimus, et per magistrum Iohannem Bessa, notarium Ville Noue
predicte, et Stephanum Cajdonis, semorem de Penna, collegi et leuari nostro nomine
mandauimus de consensu habitancium et supplicancium predictorum. ITEM, diebus
louis, Veneris, et Sabbati sequentibus circa informaciones et dilaciones causarum processi-
mus prout in earum processibus plenius continetur; presentibus diebus et loco predictis
dominis Bernardo de Cassanea et Bertrando Ferandi predictis et plurlbus aliis [testibus]
ad premissa. Deinde nos, dicti Bertrandus Bonifacij et Iohannes de Hildesle, conuenimus
apud Agenn' in domo fratrum predicatorum eiusdem loci die Martis post festum Purifica-
cionis beate Marie, videlicet, die quarta Februarij in notarii et testium subscriptorum
presencia et causas coram nobis assignatas ad diem eandem ex officio nostro et ex causa
continuauimus ad diem Mercurii in crastinum in statu in quo erant. Et consequenter
eadem die Martis hora vesparum dictus magister Aymericus Panonis, procurator ex parte
dicti domini regis et ducis, coram nobis et in notarii et testium subscriptorum presencia
potestate sibi attributa et virtute litterarum procuracionis superius in hoc processu con-
tentarum substituit loco sui procuratores nomine et pro parte dicti domini regis et ducis
apud acta et agenda et quociens ipsum abesse contingerit discretos viros, magistrum
Arnaldum de Plassano et Iohannem Clauigno, et eorum quemlibet insolidum. Ita quod
non sit melior condicio occupantis ad omnia et singula ad que ipse magister Aymericus
pro parte dicti domini regis et ducis procurator et est constitutus. Et que habet in mandatis
pro parte regis et ducis predicti virtute litterarum procuratoriarum predictarum. Presenti-
bus discretis viris Bertrando Ferandi et Iohanne de Cauigno et pluribus aliis testibus ad
premissa. ITEM, die Mercurii post dictum festum Purificaionis beate Marie conuenimus
in loco predicto, presentibus discretis viris, dominis Bernardo de Cassanea, Arnaldo [de
Gual]haco, Bertrando Ferandi, et Iohanne Clauigno, consiliario, ac magistro Bernardo
de Chambo, pro parte [domini reg]is Francie, ac magistro Arnaldo de Plassano, iurisperito,
pro parte dicti domini regis Anglie ducis Aquitanie, pro[curatoribus coram nob]is. Et in
causis personarum singularum processimus prout in earum processibus continetur. Ac
deinde matura de[liberacione] prehabita de consilio consiliariorum predictorum dictorum
dominorum regum ibidem presencium diximus quod per aliqu[am s]equestracionem
bonorum per nos factam vel faciendam non intendimus determinare seu declarare ad
presens vtrum [ ]niaciones probate generales facte et verbaliter ad occupandum bona
petita hinc inde debeant sufficere ad restitucionem dictorum bonorum in posterim facien-
dam vel denegandam ac si realiter essent bona huiusmodi occupata. Nec intendimus eciam
quod per aliqua que singularibus causis fecimus vel faciemus in futurum aliquod preiudi-
cium generetur causis et iuribus regum principalibus nec assignacionibus factis in eisdem.
Et ibidem dictus magister Arnaldus de Plansano, procurator substitutus in hac parte pro
parte dicti domini regis Anglie ducis Aquitanie, iurauit coram nobis actis sacrosanctis
euangeliis quod bene et fideliter ius dicti domini regis et ducis coram nobis per eum
agitandum defendet, absque cauillacione, malicia, odio, vel fauore. ITEM, die louis
sequenti, videlicet, post festum Purificaionis beate Marie virginis. Nos, Bertrandus et
Iohannes predicti, conuenimus in domo predicatorum predicta et in presencia dictorum
procuratorum dominorum regum predictorum post examinacionem plurium testium
habita deliberacione et consilio cum peritis visisque processibus per nos super hoc factis
ad instanciam et requestam plurium habitancium Turnonis et honoris eiusdem subdi-
torumque et obediencium domino regi Francie petencium sibi restitui plures terras, red-
ditus, et bona inmobilia existencia in villa et teritorio ac honore Penne designata lacius
prout in processibus et supplicacionibus eorumdem habitancium plenius continetur. Nec-
non et consimiliter, visis processibus plurium aliorum habitatorum Penne et eius honoris
subditorum et [o]bediencium domino regi Anglie duci Aquitanie in processibus singularibus
nominatorum petencium sibi restitui plures terras, [re]dditus, et bona inmobilia existencian
in villa, teritorio, et honore Turnonis designata clarius in processibus singularibus habi-
tatorum predictorum. Tandem, quia nobis tam per deposiciones plurium [t]estium quam
per instrumenta publica legitime constitit atque constat petita per dictos habitatores
ville Turnonis et honoris eiusdem post obedienciam per ipsos prestitam domino regi
Francie et ante pacem inter dominos Karolum Francie, et Edwardum Anglie, reges iam
defunctos, subsequtam per gentes domini regis Anglie et ducis occupata fuisse. Necnon
et bona petita per dictos habitatores Penne et eius honoris post treugas inhitas [sic] apud
Reulam inter dominos Karolum, comitem Valesij, et Edmundum, comitem Kancie, et
ante pacem subsecutam predictam per g[entes domini] regis Anglie Francie [sic] occupata
fuisse. Idcirco fructus, exitus, et emolumenta bonorum omnium predictorum per dictos
habitatores villarum et earum honorum predictarum ad manum nostram tanquam com-
munem publice posuimus. Et per Arnaldum Isarni de Turnone et Guillielmum Regis de
Penna collegi et leuari nostro nomine mandauimus de consensu habitancium et suppli-
cancium predictorum; presentibus dominis Bernardo de Cassanea, Bertrando Ferandi,
Guillielmo de Charseuilhas et pluribus aliis testibus ad premissa. ITEM, die Veneris
sequenti, videlicet, post festum Purificacionis beate Marie virginis, fuit per nos et coram
nobis inter partes processum in singularibus causis prout in earum processibus continetur.
Die vero Sabbati sequenti, videlicet, viii die mensis Februarii, nos, dicti Bertrandus
Bonifacij et Iohannes de Hildesle, commissarii predicti, in loco predicto fratrum predica-
torum conuenimus, presentibus dominis Bernardo de Cassanea, Guillielmo de Casis,
Arnaldo de Gualhaco, Bertrando Ferandi, et Iohanne de Clauigno, consiliariis dominorum
regum predictorum ac procuratoribus regiis supradictis. Et ibidem causis singularibus
processimus iuxta processuum earum continenciam et tenorem. Ac deinde de communi
consensu ac de consilio dominorum consiliariorum predictorum [m. 4] ordinauimus quod
die Martis instanti accedamus apud Rupsenturam pro audiendis causis habitancium apud
Grande Castrum et aliis causis per nos ibidem assignatis. Consequenter, die Lune ante
festum beati Valentini, videlicet, post octabas Purificacionis beate Marie virginis, conu-
enimus nos, dicti Bertrandus et Iohannes de Hildesle, in domo fratrum predicatorum
predictorum, presentibus consiliariis et procuratoribus proxime dictis, in singularibus
causis processimus tam super sequestracionibus quorumdam bonorum et testium recep-
cione quam alias prout in ipsarum processibus plenius designatur. Ac deinde de consilio
et auisamento dominorum consiliorum predictorum deliberacione prehabita ordinauimus
quod omnes quecumque sint pendentes cause in ciuitate Agenn' coram nobis inter quas-
cumque personas maneant in eodem statu in quo nunc sunt vsque ad primam diem mensis
Marcij proximo venturam. Deinde die Martis sequenti ad locum predictum de Rampsen-
tura accessimus et ibidem in notarii et testium subscriptorum presencia nos dicti commis-
sarii in causis singularibus processimus vt in earum processibus continetur. Et ibidem
omnes causas gencium Podij Mirolli ac habitancium dicti loci et eius honoris et omnes
alias causas ibidem assignatas continuauimus, et continuando assignauimus apud Agenn'
in statu in quo nunc sunt vsque ad quartam diem instantem mensis Marcij. Et n chilomi-
nus ordinauimus quod si aliqui de Podio Mirolli fuerunt qui ad locum predictum Agenn'
tune venire nequiuerunt vel non audeant, mittent procuratores ad se excusandos legitime
coram nobis, et tune suis auditis excusacionibus, nos eis significabimus vbi eos audire et
procedere in premissis poterimus apud Podium Mirolli predictum vel Rupsentura[m] aut
alibi in loco eis tuto atque grato. Presentibus dictis die Martis et loco dominis Bertrando
Ferandi, Iohanne Clauigno, iurisperito, Iohanne Varani, Guillielmo de Charseuilhas,
notario publico, et Poncio de Clusello ac pluribus aliis testibus ad premissa. Adueniente
vero primo die Marcij, videlicet, die Dominica ante Sacros Cineres, in qua omnes cause
tam dominorum nostrorum regum quam subditorum quorumcumque eorumdem erant
assignate coram nobis prout per processum superius habitum dare patet. Nos, Bertrandus
Bonifacij et Iohannes de Hildesle prefati, in notarii et testium infrascriptorum presencia
in dicta domo fratIum predicatorum Agenn' conuenimus, set quia dies erat seriatim pro-
cedere obiuisimus in negociis nobis iniunctis. Die vero Lune sequenti in loco predicto
iterum conuenientes post exaudicionem aliquarum causarum singularum personarum per

nos factam ex causa continuauimus omnes et singulas causas tam dictorum dominorum
regum quam subditorum suorum quorumcumque coram nobis pendentes motas uel
mouendas in statu in quo nunc sunt vsque ad diem Lune post instantem Dominicam qua
cantatur Reminiscere. Actumque ipsa die Dominica conuenimus in loco presenti cum
consiliariis tractaturi super modo procedendi in causis et negociis nobis commissis per
dominos nostros reges predictos. Presentibus et premisses consulantibus Bernardo de
Cassanea, Bernardo Calueti, Raymundo Calueti, thesaurario Agenni, consiliario regis
Francie, Arnaldo Pagani, officiario Burdegalensi, et Bertrando Ferandi, domini regis
Anglie ducis Aquitanie consiliariis predictis, et pluribus aliis testibus ad premissa. Deinde
die Lune post Reminiscere, xvja die dicti mensis Marcij. Nos, Bertrandus et Iohannes de
Hildesle, in dicta domo fratrum predicatorum conuenimus. Et quia dominum Petrum
Raymundi de Rapistagno, militem, collegam nostrum, infra duos vel tres dies venturum de
Francia intellexeramus vt maturius possemus procedere ipsum digneum vsque ad diem
sequentem Mercurij exspectandum quo ad causas tangentes dominos nostros reges. Et
ibidem discretus vir, magister Arnaldus Ingrani, clericus procurator domini regis Francie
in Agennesio, nomine procuratoris dicti domini regis Francie de nouo compareus ad
faciendum fidem de potestate sibi super hec attributa exhibuit in iudicio coram nobis
quasdam litteras regias quarum tenores sequntur in hunc modum:
Philippus dei gracia Francie rex, vniuersis presentes litteras inspecturis salutem.
Notum facimus quod nos, de fidelitate et industria dilecti nostri magistri Arnaldi
Ingrani plenarie confidentes, eidem per presentes officium procuracionis senescallie
nostre Agenn' citra Garonam vacans ad presens per mortem magistri Petri de Gardia
eidem conferimus per presentes tenendum et excercendum more solito et ad vadia
consueta quamdiu nostre placuerit voluntati. Mandantes senescallo Agenn' vel eius
locum tenenti vt dicto magistro Arnaldo in hiis que ad dictum spectant officium
.[1]. pareri faciat efficaciter et intendi. Recepto a dicto magistro Arnaldo. [5]. senescallo
Agenn' vel eius locum tenenti vt eidem magistro Arnaldo .[7]. camere compotorum
Parisius volumus in suis compotis .[7]. [Oc]tobris anno domini millesimo cccmotri-
cesimo p[rimo] .[7]. dei gracia Francie rex, senescallo Agenn' .[8]. constitut[o] salutem.
Cum .[9]. senescallie Agenn'....
II
PORTION OF A ROLL OF PROCEEDINGS OF A JOINT COMMISSION FOR RESTITUTION OF LANDS
IN GUYENNE. P.R.O. Diplomatic Documents, Chancery, 30/2/11.
rerum nunc petitarum nec alicuius ex ipsis, et magis videretur nunc petere animo
impediendi intencionem dicti procuratoris regij super restitucione rerum que sunt
dicto domino nostro regi et eius subditis et adherentibus restituendarum quam animo
dictas res petitas habendi, tum quia ius non1 facit pro predicto domino rege, cum sit
princeps et omnia principis intelligantur, tum quia attenta forma commissionis.
predicte habetis potestatem procedendi in predictis summarie et de piano et agnos-
cendo bonam fidem et maliciis obuiandum et ponendi ad manum vestram, et illa que
clara sunt restituendi, illa vero que sunt dubia instructa ad curiam Francie referrendi,
ad que eciam astringimini vinculo iuramentorum per vos prestitorum;
quibus omnibus et singulis procurator dicti domini regis Anglie ducis Aquitanie prout et
in quantum protestacionibus suis per eum factis et intencioni sue aduersantur fuit verbo
contrario protestatus.
In die Iouis post Iudica me in domo dictorum fratrum predicatorum domini quatuor
deputati insimul conuenerunt, assistentibus et presentibus dominis et magistris Raymundo
de Arbenacio, Bernardo de Cassanea, Arnaldo de Gualliaco, Geraldo de Albertone,
Guillielmo d Costa, Bernardo Calueti, thesaurario Agennensi, et Iohanne probi hominis,
1 MS. non markedfor deletion.
consiliariis regis Francie, necnon Arnaldo Pagani, officiario Burdegalensi, Geraldo de
Podio, Austencio Iordani, et Bertrando Ferrandi, consiliarijs regis et ducis &c., compa-
rentibus procuratoribus hincinde qui comparuerunt die externa. Et ost plures delibera-
ciones et tractatus hincinde habitos continuauerunt omnes et singulas causas omnium'
subditorum hinc et inde vsque ad diem Lune post festum Trinitatis domini apud Agenn'
in statu in quo sunt, vt interim habeantur de Anglia et Francia commissiones generales
ad faciendum restituciones omnibus subditis hincinde de omnibus et occupatis bonis a
tempore quo dominus de Valesio venit de Parisius anno xxiiijto in ducatu Aquitannie,
exceptis bannitis et bonis pro singularibus criminibus confiscatis. Et hodie sunt omnes
peticiones de nouo facte per procuratores regis et ducis coram dominis electis predictis.
Repetitis protestacionibus alias factis per ipsos et habitis pro repetitis suspense vsque ad
dictam diem Lune post dictum festum Trinitatis, sed interim procedetur ad complendum
peticiones et processus alias factos et inceptos hinc et inde coram archiepiscopo Senoni,
episcopo Boluacensi, Guidone Bandeti, et aliis commissariis per dominum Francie regem
ad dictum ducatum destinatis, et ad faciendum eciam incipiendos per dictos procuratores,
si incipere voluerint uel alia de nouo petere. Attamen vsque ad dictam diem Lune post
Trinitatem non fiet aliqua restitucio de petitis hinc uel inde; et est dies cratina assignata
procuratoribus hinc et inde ad comparendum coram dominis electis in loco presenti ad
tractandum plenius et procedendum super agendis. Et ad respondendum in scriptis ex
parte procuratorum regis Anglie super oblacione castrorum de Salis et de Sarrafronte &c.
Item, anno quo supra die Veneris post Iudica me hora completorij in domo predica-
torum domini Bertrandus Bonifacij, P. Remendi, Iohannes Trauers, et Iohannes de
Hildesle ordinauerunt de consilio consiliariorum regum quod super boni iam sequestratis
quod factis, iustis, misijs, et necessariis operibus circa dicta bona per deputatos adherentes.
Ressiduum redditum ipsorum bonorum tradatur et liberetur per dictos deputatos illis
qui possidebant dicta bona seu tenebant ante sequestraciones ipsorum bonorum, receptis
primitus caucionibus ab illis quibus tradicio huiusmodi fiet de restituendo in casu in quo
dicta bona verterentur seu deberent remanere alijs quam ipsis possessione dictarum rerum
sequestrarum penes illum qui nunc sequestrum tenet, remanente ipsa sequestracione
durante, et hoc voluerunt fieri si necesse fuerit in qualiter sequestracione, quousque aliud
fuerit super hoc plenius ordinatum. Presentibus dominis Geraldo de Podio, Guillielmo de
Villaribus, Bertrando Ferrandi, Geraldo de Albentone, Petro de Solerio, et pluribus alijs
&c.
Item, anno quo supra die Sabbati continuata a die Veneris precedenti ante Ramos
palmarum per dominum Bertrandum Bonifacij, P. Raymundi, militem, et per Iohannem
Trauers, constabularium Burdegale, in domo quam inhabitabat dominus Bertrandus fuit
acceptata dies Lune post quindenam festi Pasche, in qua die ipsi domini debent Agenn'
in domo predicatorum conuenire ad procedendum super peticionibus et informacionibus
alias factis coram domino Boluacensi et alijs certis suis collegis ad terrain Vasconie per
curiam Francie missis, secundum ordinacionem inter dictos dominos die Iouis preterita,
factam et super de nouo faciendo. Presentibus dominis et magistris Geraldo de Podio
Arnaldo Pagani, officiario Burdegalensi, Bertrando Ferrandi, et domino Bernardo de
Cassanea ac pluribus alijs.
1 MS. omni.
Athens in the Later Twelfth Century

Author(s): Kenneth M. Setton
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:56
Speculum.
ATHENS IN THE LATER TWELFTH CENTURY
BY KENNETH M. SETTON
FOR almost a thousand years the city of Athens remained, as her greatest critic
has described her, 'brilliant, ivy-crowned, and enviable Athens.' The goddess
Athena protected her city and maintained its prestige, despite a few severe
reversals, from the time of Aeschylus to that of the Empress Athenais. Although
partially sacked by Sulla in 86 B. c., Athens suffered no real distress until pillaged
by the Heruli in A. D. 267, when she was rescued from the barbarians by a certain
Kleodamos and the philosopher Herennius Dexippus.2 A vision of Athena Pro-
machos ranging the walls of the Acropolis, armed to do battle for her city, with
the hero Achilles nearby, 'just as Homer showed him to the Trojans,' according
to Zosimus, frightened the Visigoth Alaric into sparing Athens although he
ravaged the rest of Greece.3 Under both the early and the late empire, Athens
was the foremost university city in the Graeco-Roman world, and many famous
names are woven into the fabric of her history during this period. Athens was be-
loved of Hadrian beyond any spot on earth; it was here that Marcus Aurelius
and Lucius Verus received their education under Herodes Atticus. It was of
Athens that Pausanias wrote the most readable sections of the Descriptio Graeciae;
it was here, too, that Dion Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides, Maximus of Tyre, and
Lucian of Samosata lectured to their appreciative audiences.
After the Antonines and after the sack by the Heruli in the following century,
Athens experienced some decline. She came to feel more keenly with each genera-
tion that passed the increased competition that the schools of Asia Minor and
Egypt gave her, not to mention her distant rivals in Italy and Gaul, but in the
fourth century Athens was still the school of Hellas. Himerius of Prusa, Libanius
of Antioch, and Julian the Apostate, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and
Synesius of Cyrene studied in Athens, and paid, with one prominent exception,
fitting tributes' to her greatness. The Emperor Constantine had taken pride in
his title Strategos of the Athenians, and when they erected a statue in his honor,
he bestowed upon Athens an annual gift of many tens of thousands of medimnoi
of wheat.4
The present article is based chiefly upon the works of Michael Acominatus, Archbishop of Athens
(1175?-1205), edited, very largely for the first time, by Spyridon P. Lambros, MtxaX\ 'AKoiL&Trov
rov Xovtirov ra Z2co6I/va, 2 vols., Athens, 1879-80. Of secondary literature Lambros, Al 'AOjvat 7repi7T
TXl trov 5ACoK&TOVAl&vos,Athens, 1878, and Ferdinand Gregorovius, Geschichteder Stadt Athen im
Mittelalter, 3 ed., 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1889 (the first volume only), have been most helpful in interpret-
ing the works of Acominatus, and, in the case of Lambros' book, in placing them chronologically.
Other sources, both primary and secondary works, need not be mentioned until their occurrence in the
text and notes. 1 Aristophanes [after Pindar], Knights, 1329.
2 Trebellius Pollio, Gallieni duo, 13, 8 (Hohl, ii, 92); Zosimus, Historia nova, I, 39 (Mendelssohn, pp.
27-28); Syncellus, Chronogr. (Bonn, p. 717); Zonaras, Ann., xii, 26 (Bonn, IT, 604-605). Cf. John
Day, An Economic History of Athens under Roman Domination (New York, 1942), pp. 258-261.
3 Zosimus, v, 6 (Mendelssohn, pp. 222-223); Philostorgius, Hist. eccl., xII, 2 (Bidez, Griechische
ChristlicheSchriftsteller,21, 140-141), adds that Alaric 'took Athens' (Kalras 'AOtvase Xe).
4 Julian, Orat I, 8CD(Hertlein, I, 9-10).
179
180 Athens in the Later Twelfth Century
Athens made a profound impression upon those who were fortunate enough to
visit her, Christians and pagans alike. Himerius was a teacher at Athens for
almost forty years, and Libanius, after refusing at Antioch rich heiresses in mar-
riage, 'would have declined, like Odysseus, marriage even with a goddess for just
the smoke of Athens.'l When Julian was summoned by the Emperor Constantius
from Athens to Milan, he shed floods of tears and uttered awful lamentations:
'Stretching out my hands to the Acropolis ... and beseeching Athena to spare
her suppliant and not to abandon him . . . I even asked for death at her hands,
there in Athens, rather than to meet it on the journey I was then to make!'
Athena did not abandon him.2 IHe prayed that Athens might always have em-
perors that would appreciate her and love her beyond the rest of the world.3
In Julian's own day SS Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus were fellow-
students in Athens, and Gregory has left abundant testimony of his love for the
city of learning: 'Athens was truly golden for me, if for anyone,' he sighed in
after years, 'and the patroness of lovely things !'4Athens was the glory of Greece.5
But the world of the future, the Middle Ages, was Christian, while the greatness
of Athens was unalterably pagan. When Constantinople became the chief city
of the eastern half of the empire, Athens began gradually to fall into obscurity.
Mysticism and the Christian capacity for the irrational could thrive in Constanti-
nople, which became a peculiarly Christian capital, but the traditions of Athens
were very different and not to be discarded by her teachers. There were few,
indeed, who like Prohaeresius could reconcile the career of the sophist with the
life of a Christian. In Athens small attention was paid to religious dogma and
revealed truth; the supernatural was distrusted; and worship was tempered with
indolent good nature. Literature and learning, art and philosophy, music and the
city festivals were more at home in Athens than was Christianity.6
Early in the fifth century Synesius of Cyrene spent some time in Athens, but
he could curse the hapless skipper whose ship had brought him there. 'Present
day Athens has nothing grand but its famous place names' (ov6ev 'exov-tv at viv
'AOijatLce,Eov, aXX' 77 ra KXeLVCrTv x)opLtcWv
oo6u6ara). The city was like a burnt
sacrificial offering, he thought, and only charred skin was left as a reminder of
a creature that once had lived. Now that Philosophy had departed from Athens,
he said, the tourist could admire only the Academy, the Lyceum, and, by Zeus,
the Stoa Poikile (Painted Porch), which had given its name to the philosophy of
Chrysippus. But the Stoa was poikile no longer: a proconsul had just removed the
famous paintings upon which Polygnotus of Thasos had spent his skill. Athens
had once been the city of the wise, but now only the bee-keepers upheld her fame.7
Synesius' letter is unsympathetic; it does him small credit. His picture of decline
1 Libanius, Orat.I, 12 (Foerster, I, 87).
2 Julian, Ep. ad S. P. Q. Atheniensium, 275AB (Hertlein, I, 354).
Ibid., 287D (Hertlein, I, 370).
4
Greg. Naz., Orat. XLIII (In laudem Basilii Magni), 14 (Patrologia Graeca, xxxvI, 513A). The
story of Basil and Gregory's residence as students in Athens is told at great length by Gregory, ibid.,
14-18 (513A-520c); 24 (528c-529AB). Cf. De vita sua, vv. 112 sqq. (PG, xxxvII, 1037A sqq.).
5 Greg. Naz., Ad Nemesium, v. 44 (PG, xxxvii, 1554A).
6 Lambros 7 Synesius, Ep. 135 (136): PG, LXVI, 1524BC.
(1878), p. 11.
Athens in the Later Twelfth Century 181
in Athens, too, appears to be no little exaggerated. One would rather picture the
kindly Synesius wandering through the Agora, up the west ascent of the Acropolis
to the parapet of the Nike temple, whence to gaze in silent wonder down to
the harbor at Piraeus, dwelling fondly in his mind on the things that used to
be, but were no more. This is what Michael Acominatus, Archbishop of Athens
in the later twelfth century, was to do when very much less of Athens was left
to gaze at in silent wonder.
Although Justinian helped much to preserve the antiquities of Athens by hav-
ing her walls repaired,' he despoiled the city of some columns that were used in
building Santa Sophia2 (and which are thus apparently still preserved, but no
longer identifiable); and his famous edict, by which in the third year of his reign he
prohibited the teaching of philosophy and of law in Athens (KEXEbCas Er7i3eva
qLXocroLtayy,ry
LCi8aoKeWv e pvo,6ia r^yeloOaL), was a blow to the city from which
any sort of recovery was impossible.3

Notices of Athens in the early Middle Ages are infrequent; the city had become
a provincial town, and in no way, except in her glorious history, was she to be
compared with Constantinople and Thessalonica. The state of our knowledge of
early mediaeval Athens, despite the labors of Lambros, Gregorovius, Kampouro-
glos, and many others, is most unsatisfactory. Some facts are known. Athens,
for example, could scarcely have escaped involvement early in 727 in the revolt
of the Greeks north of the Gulf of Corinth (the Helladikoi) and the inhabitants
of the Cyclades against the iconoclastic measures of Leo the Isaurian, a revolt
which the imperial navy, with the aid of Greek fire, quickly overcame in April of
the same year (727).4 The Empress Irene in 797 exiled the Caesars, her brothers-
in-law, to Athens, and almost a century later the Emperor Leo vi exiled the
abbot Theodore Santabarenus, a follower of Photius, to Athens.5
There can be little question that Athens was much harassed by the Arabs in the
late ninth and early tenth centuries. We learn from the anonymous, but contem-
porary, life of St Lucas Junior Thaumaturgus that the Arabs raided the nearby
island of Aegina so frequently that the inhabitants were forced to seek homes else-
where in Greece and the Peloponnesus.6 There is some evidence, indeed, for the
intermittent occupation of Athens by the Arabs between ca 900 and ca 1100.7
1
Procopius, De aedifieiis DN. lustiniani, iv, 2 (Bonn, in, 272).
2
George Codinus, De structuratempli S. Sophiae (Bonn, p. 132).
3 John Malalas, Chronogr.,xvii (Bonn, p. 451).
4
Theophanes, Chronogr.(Bonn, I, 623-624); George Cedrenus, Comp. hist. (Bonn, I, 796); Nice-
phorus Constantinopolitanus, De rebus post Mauricium gestis (Bonn, pp. 64-65).
6 CambridgeMedievalHistory, iv (1923), 24; 56, 254.
6 Anonymi vita S. Lucae lunioris, 2 (PG, cxi, 441A-444A);Acta sanctorum,7 February (Paris, 1864,
II, 84B).
7 The Greek archaeologist G. A. Soterios, "Arabic Remains in Athens during Byzantine Times" (in
Greek), IIpaKTLKa r7s 'A=a7t7das 'Ar7viv, iv (1929), 266-273, sees an Arab occupation of the city
in the middle of the tenth century from the following bits of evidence: three Cufic inscriptions found
in the Asklepieion and the Roman Agora, Cufic decorations on the Church of St Theodore, and
Cufic ornamentation on a marble slab on the Acropolis - all of which remains are to be dated not
earlier than ca 900 nor later than ca 1100, and since the marble has in each case an Attic origin,
these Arabic touches must have been applied in Athens, where Soterios believes there was a Moslem
George Cedrenus says of the Emperor Basil ii Bulgaroctonus in 1018-1019,

after his successful Bulgarian campaign, 'when he had come to Athens and had
given thanks to the Mother of God for his victory, he decked out the church [the
Parthenon] with many beautiful and very costly offerings, and then he returned
to Constantinople.'l
The runic inscription on the Piraeus lion, now at the entrance to the arsenal in
Venice, whither it was brought by Francesco Morosini in 1688, has been thought
to indicate the occupation of Athens about 1041 by the Varangians under Harald
Sigurdsson I-aardraade in the service of the Emperor Michael iv. Indeed, accord-
ing to the reading of the Danish scholar Carl C. Rafn, Harald Haardraade and
the Norwegians 'imposed heavy financial penalties because of the insurrection of
the Greek people.'2There have been scholars unkind enough to suggest that Rafn's
translation is pure fantasy and that the inscription is too worn and defaced to
read,3while Gregorovius has suggested that the runes were carved by Varangians
in the retinue of Basil ii in 1018-1019.4 Otto of Freising states that Athens, along
with Thebes and Corinth, was occupied by King Roger of Sicily in 1146 or 1147;
although it is not improbable, Hopf regards the Norman occupation of Athens as
extremely unlikely, however, 'da die Byzantiner davon Nichts erwahnen.'5
There are a number of references to Athens in mediaeval chronicles from the
ninth to the eleventh century; they reveal little or nothing more than their au-
thors' profound respect for - and complete ignorance of - both ancient Athens
and the city of their own times.6
Some curious references to twelfth-century Athens have also been preserved
in western chronicles and eastern legends. The King of Georgia, David II the
'Renovator' (1089-1125), whose wife was a Byzantine princess, was supposed to
have founded a monastery near Athens, whither every year he sent twenty young
scholars to learn the Greek language and to bring back to his kingdom the precious
wares of Greek philosophy and theology. The Armenian historian Wardan, how-
ever, who lived in the thirteenth century, although he mentions David's subsidy
sanctuary (on the site of the Asklepieion) and an Arabic settlement. Cf., for a shred of MS evidence
to the same effect, Dem. Gr. Kampouroglos, "The Saracens in Athens" (in Greek), ibid., Iv (1929),
341-344.
1 George Cedrenus, Hist. compend. (Bonn, II, 475); Michael Glykas, Ann. IV (Bonn, pp. 578-579);
John Zonaras, Epit. hist., xvII, 9, 23-24 (Bonn, III, ed. Biittner-Wobst, p. 566).
2 C. C. Rafn,
Runeeinskrift i Piraeus, Copenhagen, 1856; Karl Hopf, 'Geschichte Griechenlands
vom Beginn des Mittelalters bis auf unsere Zeit,' Ersch u. Gruber's Allgemeine Encyklopadie der Wis-
senschaftenund Kiinste, 85 (1867), 147; K. Paparregopoulos, History of the GreekPeople (in Greek), iv
(5 ed. Athens, 1925), 224-228.
3 Vilhelm Thomsen, Ancient Russia and Scandinavia (Oxford and London, 1877), pp. 108-109, who
cites S. Bugge, Kongl. Vitterhets Historic och AntiqvitetsAkademiens Mdnadsblad, XLIII (Stockholm,
1875), pp. 97 sqq. 4 Gregorovius, Stadt Athen, I (1889), 170-171.
6 Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici Imperatoris, I, 33 (Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores,
xx, 370). The text is cited in a later note. Otto of Freising's statement, although rejected by most
modern scholars (Finlay, Hopf, Hertzberg, Paparregopoulos) is accepted by Lambros (1878), p. 14.
Cf. Hopf (1867), p. 157.
6 For a collation and discussion of these
references, see Gregorovius, I (1889), 235-239.
of forty young Georgian scholars in 'Greece' - which in his text certainly means
Thessalonica, the monasteries on Mt Athos, and Constantinople - knows noth-
ing of Georgians in Athens at this time. Another story, and a very good one, was
to the effect that the Georgian epic poet Chota Roustaveli came to Athens with
some of his compatriots about 1192, studied the Greek philosophers and historians
as well as music, and after a residence of several years in Athens returned to
Georgia to become poet laureate and librarian of Queen Thamar, 'who ruled
Georgia like a second Semiramis from 1184 to 1911.'"Michael Acominatus, who
was Archbishop of Athens during the last quarter of the twelfth century, knows
nothing of the poet's sojourn in his city to seek the wisdom of ancient Greece,
while he was himself becoming a veritable barbarian, as we shall hear him com-
plain, for the lack of such wisdom in Athens.2
No less interesting, and rather more trustworthy, is the tradition of certain
western scholars studying in Athens in the twelfth century. A Paris physician
named John Aegidius is alleged to have studied in Athens towards the end of
the century.3 It may be that he is being confused with an earlier Aegidius, or
Gislenus, who founded the Benedictine monastery at Hainault in Belgium about
640, and who was believed to have been born in Attica and to have studied
philosophy in Athens.4 In any event, it is difficult to understand what a physician
could learn about medicine, if that was his purpose, in twelfth century Athens.
Matthew Paris has preserved a tale of study in Athens by John of Basingstoke,
Archdeacon of Leicester, who died in 1252. Basingstoke is reported to have told
Robert Grosseteste, the famous Bishop of Lincoln, 'quod quando studuit Athenis
viderat et audierat ab peritis Graecorum doctoribus quaedam Latinis incognita.'
In Athens Basingstoke found, and brought back to England with him, a copy of
the Testamentsof the TwelvePatriarchs, which has been recognized as the tenth-
century manuscript now in the Cambridge University Library,5 and which
Nicholas of St Albans translated from Greek into Latin in 1249 at the behest of
Robert Grosseteste. Basingstoke introduced Greek numerals into England, and
translated a Greek grammar; he also brought other manuscripts with him from
Athens. So much of the account of Basingstoke and his association with Athens
appears to be true, but Matthew Paris did not commonly allow truth and proba-
bility unduly to restrain his zest for story-telling. He asserts that Basingstoke
had often told him that the source of his learning had been a young girl in
Athens: 'quaedam puella, filia archiepiscopi Atheniensis, nomine Constantina,
nondum vicesimum agens annum, virtutibus praedita, omnem trivii et quadrivii
noverat difficultatem... et quicquid boni scivit in scientia, ut saepe asseruit,
licet Parisius diu studuisset et legisset, ab ea mendicaverat. Haec puella pesti-
1 Gregorovius, I (1889), 227-231; Lambros

(1878), p. 46; William Miller, The Latins in the Levant
(London, 1908), pp. 20-21.
2 Mich.
Acom., Ep. 28 (Lambros, II, 44).
3 Polycarp Leyser, Historia poetarum et
poematummedii aevi (1721), p. 499.
4 Acta sanctorum,9 October'(Paris, 1866, iv, 1031
sqq.). Miller (1908), p. 20.
5 J. E.
Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, I (3 ed. Cambridge, 1921), 576.
lentias, tonitrua, eclipsim, et quod mirabilius fuit, terrae motum praedicens,

omnes suos auditores infallibiliter praemunivit.' This extraordinary girl of
twenty, daughter of the Archbishop of Athens, would have apparently to be the
daughter of Michael Acominatus, the last Greek Archbishop whose daughter
Basingstoke could have known, for the latter died in 1925. But the amazing
Constantina was not the daughter of Acominatus, who expressly declares he had
no children (el 'yp Kat -rar)p OVK eY(YEVO.rv
a&XX'ot3a ra&r'T rois 7ratLoLrwvnrarepWv
o-rXayXva).2 Acominatus, further, does not mention Basingstoke, and the latter
apparently did not speak of Acominatus to Matthew Paris.
Matthew Paris also informs us that in the third or fourth year of the reign of
King John (ca 1202) 'quidam philosophi Graeci, vultu et gestu severi et venera-
biles ... in Angliam ab Athenis venientes, curiam regis adierunt.' These philoso-
phers, apparently Greek monks, whether from Athens or not, were not allowed
to remain in England, because King John feared that by their deceptions they
might shake the faith of his people ('et sic imposito eis silentio vacui recesserunt
et confusi').3 In after years, when John was dead, Matthew, much impressed by
his expulsion from England of the Athenian 'philosophers,' thought that this
would secure him everlasting praise through the centuries to come.4 On the der-
ivation of the name Athens Matthew learnedly informs us, 'hoc nomen Athenae
dicitur ab a, quod est sine, et thanatos, quod est mors, quasi immortalis.'5
Although there were few scholars in the west in the twelfth century who could
read Pericles' funeral oration in the second book of Thucydides, in which the
great Strategos makes his much quoted description of Athens as 'the school of
Hellas,' mediaeval readers in western Europe were well aware of Athens' cultural
preeminence, as Gregorovius has observed, through their reading of Cicero,
Cornelius Nepos, Horace, and other Latin authors, as well as the Latin Fathers.6
Certainly no classical author, moreover, was more alive to Athens' contributions
to ancient and mediaeval culture than Godfrey of Viterbo (ca 1120-ca 1198).
Godfrey declares in his Speculum regum, a genealogical history in verse of kings
and emperors from the sons of Noah to Charlemagne, that the Romani et Theuto-
nici reges et imperatoresstemmed from the kings of Troy, who were themselves
descended from Jupiter, primus rex Atheniensium. Jupiter had been born in
Athens, whence came the knowledge of the trivium and quadrivium (indeque
quadrivii triviique scientia venit). Athens was founded under the protection of
Minerva's name (sub nominefacta Minervae), that wisdom might thrive through
the goddess' support. Jupiter's first wife was Niobe, who gave mankind its oldest
law code. His second wife was Juno; she became the mother of Danaus, the
ancestor of the Greeks:
1 Matthew Paris, Chronicamaiora, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Series, 57), v (1880), 285-287.
2 Mich. Acor., Ep. 119, 2 (Lambros, ii, 244). Cf. Lambros (1878), pp. 47-50. Hopf (1867), p. 177,
believes in Constantina, but his opinion, expressed before the publication of Michael Acominatus'
works (1879-80), is without value on this point.
3 Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum (minor), ed. Frederic Madden (Rolls Series, 44), in (1869),
64. 4 Ibid., ii (1866), 194.
6 Chron.maiora, v (1880), 286. 6 Gregorovius, Stadt Athen, I (1889), 237.
Sic Iovis in terra gloriamaiorerat!
Thus Athens was the source of written law, whence Rome came to possess it;
in short, all the arts and sciences could be traced back to Jupiter and to Athens.'
Godfrey of Viterbo would seem to have been an authority for our debt to Greece,
who unfortunately, like many another in our own day, represents the triumph of
naivete over common sense.
The history of Athens in the earlier Middle Ages must be put together from oc-
casional references in the Greek chroniclers, from some inscriptions of disputed
value, and, later, from lead seals and the like, but continuous and extensive liter-
ary sources are entirely lacking. With the accession to the archiepiscopal throne,
however, of Michael Acominatus at the beginning of the last quarter of the twelfth
century, the social, economic, and cultural history of Athens becomes much better
known to us until the occupation of the city by the Franks early in the year 1205
(and, although with some serious gaps in our knowledge, to an even greater ex-
tent thereafter). Of the immediate predecessors of Acominatus we know little
beyond their names - Nicholas Hagiotheodorites, George Bourtzes, and George
Xeros - which were carved on the columns at the west end of the Parthenon.2
If they had fulfilled the multiple duties of their office as sincerely and as com-
petently as Acominatus, Athens would probably not have been so poorly off.
Michael Acominatus was born about the year 1140 in Asia Minor in the
Phrygian city of Chonae, the Colossae of St Paul, whence Michael and his perhaps
more famous brother Nicetas are known as the Choniatae. Destined from birth
for the Church, Michael was about seventeen years of age when he was sent to
Constantinople, where he studied under Eustathius, later the Archbishop of
Thessalonica, who took him into his home and taught him to love the ancient
classics, and especially Homer and Pindar.
Acominatus remained in Constantinople for more than twenty years. He
proved to be a very able student, and attracted some attention as a scholar.
Michael's father was, we may assume, pleased with his son's progress, for he sent
the younger Nicetas to study under his brother. Nicetas was a credit to Michael.
He rose high in the imperial civil service and became a distinguished man of
letters. Our knowledge of Byzantine history from the death of Manuel Comnenus
through the establishment of the Latin Emperor in Constantinople (1180 to
1206) we owe largely to the works of Nicetas Choniates.
As for Michael, his career was well launched, and his future assured, when he
became the secretary of the Patriarch Theodosius Boradioktes (1177-1184), with
whom he shared, as Lambros has put it, both the hazards and the emoluments of
the patriarchal power in those troublous times. His friendship with Boradioktes
1 Godfrey of Viterbo, Speculum regum: Ep. ad Henricum VI (MGH, Scriptores, xxii, 21-22); De
love primo regeAtheniensi, vv. 160-216 (ibid., 38-39).
2 Lambros
(1878), 20-24 (notes); on Bourtzes there is a notice by P. N. Papageorgiu, Byzantinische
Zeitschrift, n (1893), 589. Of his predecessors Acominatus mentions only Xeros (Ep. 21, 2: Lambros,
Ia, 30).
seems to have borne fruit when in 1175 or in 1182 Michael Acominatus became
the Archbishop of Athens.'
It is not easy to understand Michael's reasons for abandoning his life of ap-
parent ease and opportunities for study to accept the archbishopric of a city which
he must have known to be in his day a helpless and a hopeless shambles. To the
statesmen and scholars of Byzantium, as his brother Nicetas indicates, Greece
was a 'far corner of the empire' (xcWpov . .tvXaLirarov).2
. Michael's life in Athens
became 'a constant struggle of right against wrong, of virtue against vice.'3
Acominatus' many petitions, sermons, and letters to those in high places, seek-
ing relief from present evils and redress for past injustices (works which were for
the most part unpublished until 1879-80), stand as a lasting memorial of his
burning love for Athens and his courageous devotion to the Athenians both during
his term of office and after his expulsion from the city by the Franks in 1205. He
appealed in behalf of Athens in formal petitions to the Emperors Isaac Angelus
and Alexius II. He delivered passionate addresses to the provincial governors
Nicephorus Prosouchos, Demetrius Drimys, and Michael Stryphnos; he wrote
to such high personages as George Xiphilinus and Euthymius Tornikes, to the
Logothetes Basil Kamateros and John Belissariotes, to the Despot Theodore
Angelus of Epirus and the Emperor Theodore Lascaris of Nicaea - to all these,
in the letters written before his exile, he generally complained, it must be acknowl-
edged, of what a God-forsaken hole he had got into when he went to Athens,
'like another vault in hell !'4But, more often than not, his letters carried appeals,
whenever he thought it might do any good, for aid against rapacious tax-collectors
and corrupt governors; and, after the fall of Constantinople and his own banish-
ment from Athens, he prayed for a Greek victory that might drive the Latin
barbarians from his adopted city, the shrine of ancient culture.
1 The date of Acominatus' becoming archbishop, not of great importance to this study, presents
difficulties to the ecclesiastical historian. In the Monody on His Brother Nicetas Choniates, 36 (Lam-
bros, I, 357-358), Acominatus appears to state that he had been Archbishop of Athens for more than
thirty years (whence Ellissen, Hopf, Hertzberg, and T. I. Uspensky date his archiepiscopacy from
1175, and Parregopoulos from about 1178). Lambros acutely observes Acominatus does not say that
when the Franks occupied Athens he had been metropolitan of the city for more than thirty years, but
merely that more than thirty years before the time when he was writing the Monody he had gone to
Athens as metropolitan.
One of the Parthenon inscriptions records the death of Acominatus' predecessor as archbishop,
George Xeros, on 18 January, 1182 ('Eqbi/AepLs 'ApxaCoXoyLK,, UvXX\aiov43 (1856), p. 1437, no.
2950 =Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum, iv (1877), no. 9371). Thus Lambros contends with some
reason that Acominatus became archbishop in 1182, and so actually occupied the see of Athens for
twenty-three years; 'more than thirty years' after 1182 Nicetas died and the Monody was written (and
so Nicetas died some time between 1212 and 1215). See Lambros (1878), pp. 20-24; I, Eisag., D'-0B';
II, 545-546.
But the passage in the Monody is ambiguous, and the Parthenon inscription may have been carved
some time after the death of Xeros and be inaccurate. (Indeed, the death of Xeros' own prececessor,
Bourtzes, is given as February 1190, which cannot be fitted into the chronology at all: 'Eq tAEpls'Apx.,
>vXX.43 (1856), p. 1437, no. 2949= CIG iv, 9372). Until more evidence is forthcoming, if ever, the
date when Michael Acominatus became Archbishop of Athens must remain unsettled.
2 Nicetas Choniates, De Manuele Comneno,I, 3
(Bonn, p. 78).
3 Lambros, I, Eisag., p. K3'. 4 Mich. Acom., Ep. 13, 6 (Lambros, II, 19).
From before the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus the eparchy of Athens

had lain within the province or theme of Hellas, which extended as far as Aetolia
in the west and Euboea in the east, and included the island of Aegina. This theme,
like others in the empire, had been governed by military officers (7rpaiTrpes,
Trpcrpaircopes, urpaTrtyoi), sent from Constantinople and equipped with extensive
political power, although imperial justices (KpLTrat, bLKaaTal) had served as in-
terpreters of law and dispensers of justice in the theme.1 These praetors (gover-
nors), in the western themes, received no salaries:2 they had to make their offices
bear fruit (Trxvapxjy Kap7rovaOaLis the classic term).
Troubles with Normans, Italians, various Crusading groups, Bulgars, Serbs,
and the like, had finally led in Greece during the twelfth century to the frequent
combination of both military and judicial functions in the hands of a single
governor, as elsewhere, at different times, similar exigencies had similarly modi-
fied provincial administration in the empire.3
It would appear that the theme of Hellas had been combined, somewhat earlier
than Michael Acominatus' day, with the theme of the Peloponnesus into a single
province to be ruled by a single praetor.4 The office of praetor, Acominatus told
Drimys, reminded him of the story of Medea: just as she had scattered her
poisons over the plain of Thessaly, so did the praetor scatter every possible in-
justice throughout the theme of Hellas and the Peloponnesus.6 Of the dozen
metropolitan sees in Greece, all under the Patriarch of Constantinople, Athens
and Corinth were the two most important. Athens clearly possessed more ec-
clesiastical dignity than political and economic importance. Subject to the
Metropolitan of Athens were ten or a dozen episcopal cities in northern Greece
and the Archipelago.6
We are fortunate enough to possess the first sermon which Michael Acominatus
preached to his flock in the Parthenon shortly after his arrival in Athens. The new
Archbishop was assured that the Athenians were going to reciprocate his love
'from their gladsome faces, the earnestness of the procession that had met him,
the joyous reception, and the dances, inspired and even, as it were, enraptured'
(9K TE TrwV
yEyavpeLvCw 7rpoo-&7rwv
VCO T
vICy Kac rs vbTravTraE(wsKactfaLtpo-
7ro/grLKwr&epas
7arr1s vTroOX
js KaOl7-o ocov Yv0eaa1-LKovKaCxapioobvvov KIc
pr7'IuaTos).7
Michael glorified their city as the mother of eloquence and of wisdom. He spoke
of an ancient festival, the torch race () arav?ryvpts Xac7raral5p6oplos), which the
Athenians in days of yore had run on horseback. The racers were stationed at
measured intervals; they passed the torch from one to another, the first to the
second, the second to the third, and so on. They carried on until speed and fine
1 In Constantine Porphyrogenitus' time the theme of Hellas supplied ten ships (dromones), a fair
number, as well as 2300 seamen and 700 soldiers to the imperial navy: De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae,
II, c. 44 (Bonn, i, 653; note also p. 657).
2 J. B. Bury, The Imperial Administrative System in the Ninth Century (London, 1911), p. 40.
3 Lambros (1878), pp. 25-26.

4 Mich. Acom., Address to the Praetor Demetrius Drimys, 1 (Lambros, i, 157); 7 (p. 160); et alibi.
6 Ibid., 47 (Lambros, i, 177). 6 Lambros (1878), p. 26.

7 Mich. Acom., Inaugural Address (Eisbaterios), 1 (Lambros, i, 93).
horsemanship had scored a victory for the winning grQup. The torch race per-
sisted in a sense in the Church, he observed; Christ was the judge (athlothetes),
and every Christian was called upon to carry the torch for his share of the race.l
Michael would not call himself fortunate in having become Archbishop of
far-famed and golden Athens, not yet, not until he too had carried the torch
and won the athlete's crown of victory. But Athens was truly the queen of
cities, the nurse of letters and of men of character, and it was small wonder that
he was being congratulated on having received God's gift of so distinguished a
charge. Michael, however, was not so impressed by the apparent glory of high
office, not so unaware of human weakness, not so indifferent in his quest for
truth, as not to seek and to find out just what it really meant and how much it
was truly worth to be Archbishop of Athens. Not on mere possession of office
could he account himself fortunate, but still he hoped that no one would take
offense at his words. For, after all, he did not know whether he had become
protector (prostates)of Athenians who were worthy of the high tradition of their
lineage. It remained to be seen whether the bright fame of Athens had been
brightly kept. He did not know whether Athens was still the city of olden times
or whether only her glorious name was left. But someone might conduct him
around the city to show him the clear proofs that this was Athens: 'This is the
Peripatos, this is the Stoa, over here is the Akropolis, down there is the Peiraeus,
and right here is the Lantern of Demosthenes.' In that event, he would merely
possess additional evidence of the sort of men the Athenians of the past had been.
He took a figure from the Lantern of Demosthenes: mayhap the Athenians were
but sniffing the lantern wicks of the past! It was not to monuments that the
ancient city and its citizens had owed their fame. It was to their character
(arete) and to their wisdom (sophia). Thus it was that the Athenians had been
as superior to all the other Greeks as the other Greeks had been superior to the
barbarians.2
The congregation drew small comfort from his affirmation that they were the
descendants of the ancient Athenians. Time had not so far prevailed against them
he said, that the fine racial coinage of their great forebears (r6 evyeves r&wvarovaalwv
6vciv
7rpoyovwv Kb/c/ua)had been, so to speak, re-cut in error and destroyed in them.
The metal still rang true, and it was not short of weight. Surely the Athenians
preserved the characteristics of their type as well as the barbarians, and who
could not see that the Syrians, Kelts, Scythians, Egyptians, Cilicians, and even
the Cretans with the legend of their lying, were all reproducing their kind in types
that ran true to form? It was scarcely necessary to speak of birds and beasts and
even plants, in all of which the same phenomenon was to be observed.3What pride
could Athenians take in the mere fact that they were descended from Athenians?
Michael had not wished to be offensive in all this. He hoped that they would not
harden their hearts against him.4
1 Ibid., 4-7 (I, 94-95). 2 Ibid., 8-14 (I, 95-98). 3 Ibid., 19-20 (I, 99-100).
4 Ibid., 18 (i, 99).
Acominatus warned the Athenians in solemn tones to preserve the noble cus-
toms of their ancestors, who had been the most humane of all the Greeks and the
most honored. He dwelt upon the ancient Athenians' devotion to eloquence
(logos). They might be said to have obeyed and served eloquence alone: by words
they were easily led 'like a docile horse that needs no curb.' It was by his powers
as an orator that Pericles had calmed the restive people when the plague was in
their city. But the success would not have attended Pericles' skill in speaking if
the Athenians had not grown up to an obedience of eloquence and to following
whithersoever it might lead them, 'being led not by the nose, as the saying is, but
by their ears.' The fact that Alexander could be soothed when Timotheus played
the flute was rather an indication of Alexander's nature (physis) than of Timoth-
eus' talent.'
If those whom Acominatus was addressing were of that golden seed of the
ancient Athenians, if they were not unworthy branches of the stalk that came
of that seed, if they were true citizens of that best of cities, as they claimed to be
and as they were called, time would soon tell. He would learn of their Attic blood
and their Athenian inheritance very quickly, but not because they did their hair
into a krobylosand pinned it with the tettix. Long before, these things had marked
the Athenian, to be sure, just as the spear had marked the Spartan, and the
descendant of Pelops was known by the ivory white mark on his shoulder. Acomi-
natus, however, would recognize that his congregation were true Athenians by
their noble thoughts and their high character and by the spirit of their ancestors.2
In one respect, however, and that the most important of all, the Athenians of
Michael Acominatus' day were superior to their ancestors in the time of Athens'
greatness. They were Christians. They worshipped no false virgins like Athena,
the mother of Erichthonius, and Artemis, who loved Endymion. The Athenians
of Michael's day knew the one true God, and they were known by Him. As
Christians they must needs surpass all the virtues of Aristides, Aeacus, Diogenes,
Pericles, Themistocles, and the warriors of Marathon, 'just as truth surpasses
falsehood, light surpasses darkness, and reverence for God and the Almighty
Himself surpasses mere dread of demons.' Born of the stock of the Athenians of
old, however, the Athenians of Michael's day were 'like wild olive shoots grafted
upon cultivated trees, and watered in the house of the Lord, as it were, with the
dew of the apostles and the prophets.' That the result of this spiritual viticulture
might not prove a failure Michael offered his prayers to Christ the 'planter of all
good' (ravrbs a'yaooov-vrovp'y).3
Michael referred to how, in the distant past, there had burned on the Acropolis
before the venerable wooden statue of Athena Polias in the eastern cella of the
Erechtheum a golden lamp, a symbol of godless paganism, but like the light of the
glowworm the falsehood of paganism had paled when the dawn of Christian truth
had arisen with the eternally Virgin Kore. The citadel of Athens had been freed
from the tyranny of the false Virgin (Pseudoparthenos).Now there was in the
Parthenon a really eternal lamp that gleamed forth from the height of the Acropo-
1 Ibid., 21-24 (I, 100-101). 2

Ibid., 25 (I, 101-102). 3 Ibid., 26, 28-29, 31 (i, 102-103).
lis as though from Heaven itself to enlighten not Athens alone and Attica, but
the most distant confines of the earth as far as the sun makes its way. Who could
be more superstitious than the Athenians whom Paul had seen, who worshipped
a God they did not know and could not name? Now God was known and great
was his name.l
In a spirit of exaltation and in the ecstasy of that moment Michael 'was in
danger of imagining himself to be Moses.' For a moment he stood not upon the
citadel of Athens, but upon Mount Horeb, upon the very peak of Heaven.2
Michael's descent from Mount Horeb was rapid and unhappy. The chief re-
action of the congregation to his learning and eloquence was perplexity; the chief
emotion that he called forth was disquietude. What could ignorant Greek peas-
ants and Slavs and Vlachs know of the krobylosand the tettix or even of Aristides
and Pericles? The fine racial coinage of the ancient Athenians, to adopt Michael's
own figure, had been debased by a high measure of alloy. He could not move the
Athenians of the twelfth century, sunk in poverty and in ignorance, by holding
up to them as models for imitation the noble customs of their ancestors (progonoi),
a rhetorical device that may possibly have been suggested to him by his reading
of the Attic orators, who employed it very often. But it was not until almost seven
centuries after Acominatus' time, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century,
that the Athenians were really moved to emulate the great deeds of their ances-
tors when they responded to the superb eloquence of Adamantios Koraes, who
called upon them in repeated editions of his Salpisma Polemisterion to match 'the
heroes of Marathon, Salamis, Plataea, and Thermopylae, your unconquerable
ancestors' (progonoi).3
In the days that followed his inaugural address Michael completely lost the few
illusions he had cherished concerning the Athenians. In another discourse to them,
which he delivered not long after the first, he lamented, 'O city of Athens, to
what depths of ignorance thou hast sunk, thou the mother of wisdom!' He had
exercised his mind, he had sharpened his speech, so to speak, and he had exerted
himself to the full before an audience of the descendants of the great Athenians
of old. It had been their ancestors, who hard pressed once by a grievous famine
had thought it unworthy of them to borrow from a certain rich man, because he
was untutored, and, as far as the rules of grammar were concerned, a veritable
barbarian in his speech. 'I lend you, O men of Athens,' he had offered, but they
had preferred to die of famine rather than to borrow from such a barbarous
speaker. How could an Athenian accept even sustenance from those who bar-
barized his language? Michael had looked forward to an audience of the descend-
ants of such lovers of language. Truly he had done his best. He had striven to
produce something that was direct and not affected. He had not wished to seem
1 Ibid., 32-34 (I, 104). The
pilgrim Saewulf, who visited Athens at the beginning of the century
(ca 1103), seems to recall only the miracle of the ever-burning lamp in the Parthenon, the 'ecclesia
beatae Virginis Mariae in qua est oleum in lampade semper ardens, sed numquam deficiens' (Pere-
grinatio Saewulfi in Recueil de voyages et de m6moires, iv, Paris, 1838, p. 834).
2 Ibid., 35-36 (I,
105).
8 Adamantios Koraes, ZAXTrtauanIoXetatri?ptov (2 ed. 'Peloponnesus'=Paris, 1821), p. 14.
the unworthy foster-parent of the city of eloquence. He was deceived in his

hopes, disappointed in his expectations. A short while before, he had delivered his
first sermon to the Athenians, a simple address and quite straightforward, with
absolutely no attempt to impress them. But he had seemed to be speaking of
things unintelligible (,ui) vv,era), and even in some foreign tongue, in Persian or in
Scythian !
The Athenians had become a barbarian horde; they no longer had any desire to
search for wisdom. 'Once their speech was Attic; now it is barbaric' (ot' raXaL
arrTTLKtTaL vvv , apaapto-ra). Only with great difficulty had Michael achieved an
understanding of the language they spoke; in fact, it had taken him three years
to learn the 'Attic dialect' of the twelfth century. There had been, of course, some
words that were not new to him, some words that time could never obliterate,
words like Piraeus, Hymettus, Areopagus, Kallirhoe, Eleusis, Marathon. There
were, too, popular diminutives that he understood, such as 5evSpvba, irpo3ariXXta,
7rat6vXXta,etc., as well as the forms, still heard in Athens, 6orEros and aroDmos.2
The speech of Athenians was repulsive to him. 'I have become a barbarian
myself since I have been resident in Athens,' he writes, 'and, what is harder to
bear, I have been forgotten as though I were dead, and forgotten I remain.'3
There is a wise saying in Ecclesiastes (1:4): 'One generation passeth away, and
another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.' Athens was still
Athens, Michael reflected, though she had become a city of ruins. Michael must
often have thought, even as the tourist of yesterday and of today, when his
hand touched a column of the Parthenon or when he walked between the Ionic
columns of the central passage of the Propylaea, that the hand of Pericles may
have rested there too, that Demosthenes had many times passed between those
lovely columns. In this vein he writes one of the most interesting and moving
passages in all his letters. He writes to Michael Autoreianos, who later became the
Patriarch of Nicaea:
We maystill enjoy[herein Attica]the samelovelinessof the countryside,the temperate
cra pov), Hymettus rich in honey, the
climate, the fruit-raising, the fertile land (r irap
calm Piraeus, Eleusis of the mysteries,the horse-riddenplain of the Marathonianwar-
riors,the same Acropolis,too, whereI sit now, as I write, and seem to bestridethe very
peak of heaven,but that studiousraceof uncommonwisdomhas gone,and therehas come
uponus a boorishpeople,beggarlyin mindand in body, quickto wanderoff and seektheir
food now in one place,now in another,and thenceto fly away againlike migratorybirds.4
But this praise of Attica is only poesy; Michael, in fact, is seldom consistent in
his attitude towards Athens and the Athenians. He generally laments the decline
of the land as well as that of the people. In a letter to Euthymius, Archbishop of
Patras, he writes that the see of Athens, 'once the home of letters, has become a
vale of tears and lamentations.' During a drought he writes that 'the rivers have
left the olive groves, the streams have left the gardens, Kallirhoe flows no longer,
the bees have left Hymettus, and the meadow grass has left the flocks.'5Marathon
1 Mich. Acom., First CatecheticalDiscourse, 50-51 (Lambros, I, 124).
2 Mich.
Acorn., Ep. 28, 3 (Lambros, n, 44).
3 Ibid., 1 (n, 44). 4 Ep. 8, 3 (II, 12). i Ep. 20, 2-3 (I, 26).
has lost, besides its trophies of long ago, even the capacity to bear grain, and
pirates induct the Eleusinians into the adyta of Hades and initiate them into the
mysteries of death (,uvoGvresOav&rov lvaTr'pta).1
It was not alone in the things of the mind and the spirit that the Athenians
were depressed, however, for a swarm of lesser officials, 'as numerous as the
leaves and flowers in their season, more so than the frogs God once sent into
Egypt,'2 had for generations been oppressing Pindar's city of the violet crown.
There were no philosophers in Athens. There were no ordinary workmen. There
were women and children. They were ill-fed and ill-clothed.3Death was preferable
to life, and the dying pitied those whom they left behind.4
One of the most constant and characteristic features of the social and military
life of twelfth century Attica was piracy, which the imperial government was not
able to suppress. Off the coast of Attica the islands of Salamis, Aegina, and
Makronesi were pirate strongholds; Michael's writings abound in references to
pirates.5 Personally and officially Michael was harassed by pirates, who seriously
wounded one of his nephews,6 and who pillaged the already inadequate resources
of the archdiocese of Athens, not only to the detriment of his people, but also,
Michael insisted, to the detriment of the imperial treasury. How could he thus
render unto God what was God's or unto Caesar what was Caesar's?7In the pos-
session of money for its own sake Michael claimed to have no interest at all;
whatever revenue in gold and silver the church possessed was expended on the
dire needs of his people as soon as it was collected, 'and even before it was col-
lected.'8
Isaac Angelus and Alexius in were unable, or too preoccupied with other mat-
ters, to deal effectively with the pirates. The Genoese pirates Vetrano and Caf-
faro, and many other adventurers known and unknown, ravaged the coastal cities
of the empire and the islands of the Adriatic and the Aegean. The imperial gov-
ernment sought to meet fire with fire. Against Caffaro, in 1197-98, John Steiriones
was sent with thirty ships; himself a pirate, a Calabrian by birth, Steiriones
had acquired a grim notoriety in the profession of arms at sea (7reparcov 6
xetpLTroS).But he distinguished himself in the emperor's service, after one serious
failure, by finally ridding the seas of Caffaro. Piracy was not likely to be stamped
out, however, when it not infrequently helped to swell the incomes of Byzantine
grandees. While Acominatus appealed to Byzantium for aid against pirates,
Michael Stryphnos, Grand Admiral of the Fleet (6 pEyas6ov rot0 o-roXov),whose
wife was the sister of the Empress Euphrosyne, grew ever richer by sharing in
pirate plunder and by engaging in private pillage of the ships and dockyards of
the Aegean area which it was his sworn duty to defend.9
1 Ibid., 4 (i, 27). 2 Ep. 64, 4 (II, 105). Ep. 8, 1 (I, 11).
4 To Demetrius
Drimys, 43-44 (Lambros, I, 176).
6 Acominatus mentions Aegina as 'a nest of pirates' in Ep. 27, 8 (Lambros, 11, 43). Cf. Lambros
(1878), especially pp. 55-57 and 87-89.
6 7 Ep. 44, 5 (ii, 71).
Ep. 42, 5 (Lambros, ii, 68). 8 Ep. 156, 5 (ii, 312).
9 Nicetas Choniates, De Alexio Comneno,Isaacii Angelifratre, II (Bonn, pp. 636-637); III (p. 716).
Cf. Mich. Acom., Address to the Grand Duke Stryphnos, 19 (Lambros, I, 331); see also II, 512-513
(note).
The twin plagues of the maritime themes were pirates and praetors. Conditions
in Attica were fearful. In an effort to save his city from further decline the Arch-
bishop sent an appeal to the Emperor Alexius II Angelus in which 'the unworthy
and humble servants of his puissant and holy Majesty presumed to petition their
holy Sovereign.'l
Attica, once a populous district, is being emptied of its inhabitants. The
Athenians are weighed down with a load of taxation two or three times, and more,
heavier than falls upon the neighboring districts. The fiscality of the tax-collec-
tors leads them to survey Attica's barren soil 'with measures small enough to
check the prints of fleas' ('ixve^tylv\XXc2v);
the Athenians have the very hairs on
their heads counted, the leaves on every vine and plant.
Other districts in Greece receive fairer treatment. Only last year the Atheni-
ans, and they alone, were mulcted of a large sum of money to build a fleet
(Karepya). The fleet was never built. When Pansias Steiriones was ranging the
coastal waters, the Athenians were pressed for more money for ships. After this
they were again forced against their will to give Sgouros and the governor of
Hellas still more money for ships. The district of Thebes and Euripus (Euboea)
paid no such large assessment although, according to the ancient custom sanc-
tioned by the Emperor himself, Athens should have paid less than Thebes and
Euripus.2
But suppose Athens does put up with the tribute (Ki^o-os),as well as with the
incursions of the pirates, should she still bear without tears the high-handed
abuse of the governor? The present governor (apparently resident in Thebes)
has no right to collect taxes or to exercise jurisdiction in Athens, for an imperial
decree (7rpooKvv7-r6v xpvo-63ovXXov), prohibits even his entry into the city with
armed men.3 But he comes all the same - he comes to worship in the cathedral!
(But his plunder of the Parthenon has been more barbarous than that of Xerxes;
and everyone of influence in the city behaves worse than the thirty tyrants.4) He
treats the country as though he had undertaken a raid upon some barbarian out-
post. Before him stalks Ruin, so to speak, in the guise of his commissariat
who demand daily as support for his retinue and horses five hun-
(OTro6oxa-ropes),
dred medimnoi of grain, whole herds of cattle, whole flocks of hens, a sea full of
fish, and more wine than the vineyards can produce. They take unpleasant action
against such Athenians as are inclined to be recalcitrant in surrendering their pos-
sessions. On top of all this they demand remuneration (Iuao-6s),as though they
were rendering the people a service (c&sevepye'ra rtve), and no small sum either,
but gold enough to requite even their well nigh insatiable desire.6
The governor himself finally comes and oftentimes, even before he has made
obeisance to the Mother of God, he has accused one man of not having met him,
1 Mich. Acom.,Memorial(Hypomnestikon) to theEmperorAlexiusComnenus,1 (Lambros,I, 807).

With this appealto the emperorin behalfof an Athensriddenby famine,poverty,and piracyshould
be comparedespeciallyAcominatus'addressTo DemetriusDrimys,3 (I, 158-159) and 5 (pp. 159-
160); also Epp. 8 (II, 11-13); 27, 3-8 (II, 41-43); and 63 (II, 102-104).
2 Hypomnestikon, 1-8 (Lambros, i, 307-308). 3 Cf. Lambros (1878), pp. 64-65.
4 Mich. Acom., 5 Hypomnestikon, 4-5 (Lambros, i, 808-309).
Ep. 63, 3 (Lambros, ii, 103).
and another he imprisons and punishes on some other charge. Then, having en-
joyed himself at the expense of the poor Athenians for as many days as he wishes,
he seeks some sort of recompense for the time he has had to give to prayers
(TrpOaKvvTriKLOV). But, of course, in such a religious group it is not only the gov-
ernor who has to pray, but there is a comptroller (Xoyaptao-r's), who has some
praying to do, and after him a grand chamberlain (rpcoro3eo-rt&ptos), and an
army commander (7rporoKevTapxos). Then every one in the governor's retinue
takes his turn at praying, one at a time, and they prolong their devotions to make
certain they don't leave Attica before they have got everything. At long last
after many entreaties, and the assurance there is absolutely no more to be got,
the governor is with difficulty persuaded to leave. He begins preparations for his
departure. He requisitions the best pack-animal he can find, whereupon he is very
likely to sell the animal back, not once, but often twice, to its rightful owner.
When the governor finally does leave, the emperor may be assured that a multi-
plicity of things of every description leaves with him.1
To what purpose this ruin of Attica? asks Michael: the state treasury receives
no benefit; rather it suffers loss. More people abandon Attica, and the land is
deserted. Michael is telling the emperor of but a few of the ills the Athenians are
suffering. Through him they beseech his most clement and holy Majesty to take
pity on them and to check the flood of evils that threatens to overwhelm them.
-In the interests of the state treasury itself the emperor is urged to free the Atheni-
ans from such plundering forays by their own governor, and, with the aid of the
exalted imperial Mystikos, who had been appointed the Athenians' protector
(E4EaEvptos), to bring about the restoration of property that had been pillaged
under the pretext of taxation. Another imperial rescript is asked reiterating the
prohibition of entry into Athens of the governor and his staff and carrying a
threat for its disregard. The Athenians may then meet the naval assessments and
contribute ships, as many as may be duly required by the Lord John Ducas,
Logothete of the Dromos, and no more, so that a host of officials cannot be laying
claim to taxes with no imperial authorization, as is often done, under the pretext
of levying a tribute in ships.2
The Athenians have borne a heavy and continuous load of taxation, which they
pray may not continue to the point of overwhelming them. It is suggested that
probably there are other districts in the peninsula that could be taxed, and that
the remission of various imposts already granted by his Sacred Majesty should be
confirmed. Michael protests also against the billeting of troops in Attica with its
concomitant hardships and disturbances. The soldiery, in fact, will be the ruin of
Attica if the emperor does not intervene.
1 Ibid., 6 (I, 809-310). For the officials known as

logariastes, protovestiarios,and protokentarchos,see
Lambros, II, 515-516 (note); a very little can be found about the background of the protovestiariosand
protokentarchosin J. B. Bury (1911).
2 Hypomnestikon, 7-8 (Lambros, I, 810). The mystikos was a high
imperial official who possessed
the power of recovering for the church property that had been improperly alienated. On the functions
of the mystikos in the present case a little can be learned from A. Ellissen, Michael Akominatos von
Chonae (Gottingen, 1846), p. 124, n. 89, and Lambros, II, 516 (note).
If the emperor would only do as Michael begs him, the Athenians would be
saved, and the taxes they are paying would find their way into the imperial treas-
ury. In return for their salvation the Athenians would never cease to pray for his
holy Majesty, to whom they have presumed, these unworthy servants, thus to
present their petition.'
The emperor's answer to the Hypomnestikonwas apparently to send to Athens
the Grand Logothete Basil Kamateros, of whom it may be said that, if he did
Athens no good, at least he did her no harm. After him, strange to say, the notori-
ous Michael Stryphnos arrived; Stryphnos, who had but a few years before stripped
the fleet by selling the naval supplies for his own profit, gave his time in Athens,
as one might expect, to his private enrichment.2He caused Acominatus no end of
anxiety.
Despite her pirates and governors (praetors)- and despite Acominatus'
statements to the contrary - Athens was still a city of some importance in the
later twelfth century. The fact that she was not entirely without commerce, and
therefore presumably not without something to sell, would seem to follow from
the apparent inclusion of the city in Byzantine commercial agreements made with
the Venetians in 1148, 1187, and 1199.3 When Stryphnos visited Athens, he saw
ships in the Piraeus; Michael also mentions at least one vessel from the port of
Monemvasia in the Peloponnesus, and he awaited another.4 But in mediaeval
Athens there were, alas, no ergasterialike those that figure in the Attic orators of
the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C.Athens, in fact, seems scarcely to have en-
gaged in the most profitable industry in Greece in the central period of the
Middle Ages, the weaving of silk cloth. The leading cities of the theme of Hellas
and the Peloponnesus were Thebes, Corinth, and Patras, all three of which owed
their prosperity to their silk manufacturies. We have Michael Acominatus' own
assertion that the garments of lords and ladies in Constantinople were woven by
'Theban and Corinthian fingers.'5While silk cloth seems to have been woven in
Athens in the very late Empire, there is no evidence that Athenians of the later
twelfth century were engaged in this highly lucrative occupation. It is barely
possible that there were silk weavers in Athens as late as 1146-1147, when the
Norman King Roger I of Sicily is said to have taken the city, for Roger is said (in
a disputed text) to have removed to Sicily some silk workers whom he chanced to
find in Athens, together with those he took from Thebes and Corinth.6 A few
1 Hypomnestikon,9 (Lambros, I, 311). In a letter to the Belissariotae in Constantinople Acominatus

indicates that the tax burden upon Athens has been very greatly lessened (Ep. 65, 10: Lambros, I,
107); it would thus appear that for the time being at least the Hypomnestikonproduced good results
(cf. Lambros, II, 588). 2 Lambros (1878), p. 97.
3 G. L. Tafel and G. M. Thomas, Urkunden zur dlteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichteder Republik
Venedig mit besondererBeziehung auf Byzanz und die Levante, I (Vienna, 1856), pp. 118 (Manuel
Comnenus); 184 (Isaac Angelus); and 265, 279 (Alexius In Angelus). Cf. Lambros (1878), pp. 29-30.
4 Mich. Acom., Ep. 84, 3 (Lambros, II, 137). 5 Ep. 50, 10 (ii, 83).
6 Otto of Freising, Fridericus Iirperator, I, 83 (MGH, Scriptores, xx, 370): 'Inde ad interiora Grae-
ciae progressi, Corinthum, Thebas, Athenas, antiqua nobilitate celebres expugnant . . . opifices
etiam, qui sericos pannos texere solent, ob ignominiam imperatoris illius suique principis gloriam cap-
tivos deducunt.' Roger established these weavers in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, and had them
years after the Norman occupation, Benjamin of Tudela found Thebes a 'large
city ... with about two thousand Jewish inhabitants ... the most eminent man-
ufacturers of silk and purple cloth in all Greece.' In this connection Lambros
brought forward as an indication of Athens' poor economic condition the fact that
there were very few Jews in the city.2 The only opportunity the Athenians had to
share in the considerable profits being realized by their near neighbors to the
north and south of them lay in fishing for the muscles (Koy~XbXta),whence, as in
antiquity, the purple dyes were made, and Michael mentions that the Athenians
were engaged in this pursuit off the barren island of Gyaros with other groups
from Chalcis and Carystus.3 But it is not known that the Athenians even did any
purple-dyeing of cloth made elsewhere.
There was, nevertheless, some manufacturing in Athens, but it was probably
of a domestic character. Michael refers to the preparation of soap and apparently
to the weaving of cassocks.4 But the knowledge of certain essential skills appears
to have declined sadly in Athens. Michael writes, for example, to the Bishop of
Peristera and Gardikion (in Thessaly), which latter town Benjamin of Tudela a
generation earlier had found to be 'a ruined place, containing but few Jewish or
Grecian inhabitants,'5 and so itself no home of industry: 'Everything in Athens
is poor and mean, and especially the agricultural implements; so send us wain-
wrights' (&Aato-rotol).6Indeed, in the very first letter that he wrote from Athens,
Michael complained that 'the city is just a ruin,' for 'the bellows has failed us,
there is no worker in iron among us, no worker in brass, no maker of swords,
things that were still preserved to us but yesterday and the day before.'7
The soil of Attica in the twelfth century was probably not so fertile as it was in
antiquity or as it is at the present time: Michael regarded it as 'sandy and poor.'8
But the olive and the vine, the twin staples of the economy of ancient Athens,
still flourished in the twelfth century. Although we do not know whether olive oil
was exported as an article of commerce, Michael could send his friend Isaiah of
Antioch 'a full skin of oil, containing twelve [large] Attic pints' (XwpWv 866&Ka
teoras arTTKOtS).He sent Isaiah at the same time a considerable quantity of soap
and promised to send him some (woolen ?) cassocks on the next ship from Antioch
that stopped at Athens.9 The wine, however, was not good. It was sharp and
bitter. 'You know how the wine of Athens,' he wrote his friend Euthymius of
Neopatras, 'seems to be pressed from resinous pines rather than from clusters of
grapes.'°0Honey was still produced in Attica, and the monks of the monastery of
Kaisariane tended the bees on the slopes of Mt Hymettus.11
teach his own weavers the art of silk manufacture, 'et ex hinc praedicta ars illa, prius a Graecis tan-
tum inter christianos habita, Romanis patere coepit ingeniis.' Cf., however, A. A. Vasiliev, History of
the Byzantine Empire, II (1929), 72.
1 A. Asher, The
Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela (London and Berlin, 1840), p. 47.
2 Lambros 3 Mich. Acom., Ep. 135, 2 (Lambros, ii, 275).
(1878), pp. 30-31.
4 3
Ep. 84, (Tn,137).
6 A. Asher, Benjamin of Tudela (1840), p. 49. 6 Mich. Acom., Ep. 43, 2 (Lambros, II, 69).
7 Ep. 8, 4 (II, 12). 8 Hypomnestikon, 2 (Lambros, I, 307).
9 Ep. 84, 3 (Lambros, ii, 10 Ep. 19, 3 (II, 25). 11Ep. 156, 2 (In,311).
137).
The production of wheat was generally inadequate, and sometimes there was
famine in Athens. A lack of good wheat was doubtless a pretty constant feature
of Athenian economy, and Michael complains that the bread was wretched
(r6 Kat aprov ao-etLE&vtov).1 But there seem to have been times, too, when Attica
grew more wheat than she really needed herself. The district of Athens was able,
Lambros believes, to contribute its share of the one hundred thousand medimnoi
of grain purchased by the imperial government from the themes of Hellas and the
Peloponnesus in 1037 to relieve a famine in Constantinople caused by a six
months' drought.2 Athens, furthermore, was apparently not without wheat in the
following year (1038) when the themes of Thrace, Macedonia, the Strymon, and
Thessalonica suffered from a famine which took its toll in northern Greece as far
south as Thessaly.8 A hundred and fifty years later, however, Athens' luck in this
respect had run out, and in the time of Michael Acominatus the city suffered a
grievous famine.4
By a law of Theodosius ii and Valentinian in, dated 14 November, 435, all
pagan shrines and temples (si qua etiam nune restant integra) were ordered closed
although they might be consecrated as Christian churches. It was probably not
very long after this, and certainly before Justinian's time, that the Parthenon and
Erechtheum were converted into churches.6The Parthenon, because of its pecul-
iar architecture, made an admirable church, cathedral of the Athenian Arch-
bishop, home of the Virgin Mother of God in Athens (TheotokosAtheniotissa).6
Although the Christian Greeks, unlike the Latins and the Turks after them, do
not appear to have erected any new structures on the Acropolis, they did, never-
theless, institute the first very considerable changes on the Acropolis since the
close of the Peloponnesian War.
Many visitors and pilgrims came to Athens in the Middle Ages to worship in
the Parthenon, but the city had other fine churches, some of which are preserved
to this day. The most notable, after the Parthenon and Erechtheum, was the
Hephaesteum (or 'Theseum'), which Acominatus knew as the Church of 'St
George in the Cerameicus.'7 There were also in the twelfth century the little
1 Ep. 19, 3 (ii, 25).

2
George Cedrenus, Hist. compend. (Bonn, ii, 516). Cf. Lambros (1878), p. 28.
8 Cedrenus, Hist. compend. (Bonn, ii, 518). 4 Lambros (1878), pp. 28 and 51-52.
6 Codex Theodosianus,xvI, 10, 25 (Mommsen, i, 905). See J. Strzygowski, 'Die Akropolis in alt-
byzantinischer Zeit,' Mittheilungen der k. d. archaeol.Instit., Athen. Abt., xIv (1889), 272-273.
6 The Panagia Atheniotissa (IIavayla r 'AOv&7Tro-oraa) is a type familiar from the extant lead seals
of the Athenian Archbishops George (Xeros?) and Michael (Acominatus?) as well as of a few other
Byzantine dignitaries. The Virgin is portrayed with a pearl wreath on her head, her right hand on her
breast, and with the infant Jesus held in her left arm.
This type is to be distinguished from the older Panagia Blacherniotissa (Hlavayla rc'v,3XaXepvwv),
which is most commonly seen on Byzantine coins, and shows the Virgin of Blachernae with the
medallion of Christ on her breast. See Lambros (1878), pp. 34-38 (and seals reproduced in the ap-
pendix), and G. Schlumberger, Sigillographie byzantine (Paris, 1884), pp. 174 sqq.; also Revue des
etudes grecques,ii (1889), 245-259; v (1892), 73-93; vii (1894), 319-336.
7 Mich. Acom., Ep. 116, 4 (Lambros, ii. 238).
Kapnikarea, so called from its alleged foundation by a certain Kapnikares; the

Panagia Gorgopico with its curious reliefs; and the Church of St Theodore, which
had been built a century and a quarter before Michael Acominatus' arrival in
Athens. A little way from the city was the shrine of the Athenian Martyr
Leonidas, who had died upon the cross.' When the city fell to the Franks,
Innocent inI confirmed the right of Berard, the Latin successor to Acominatus,
to mills (molendina), gardens and baths (horti et balnea), markets (macella), and
to a score of abbeys and monasteries in Attica.2 Chief among these were the
abbey of Kaisariane, at the foot of storied Hymettus, whose monks kept bees;
the monastery of St John the Hunter, restored apparently in Acominatus' own
day; and the monastery of Daphni between Athens and Eleusis. All these es-
tablishments were fitted into attractive settings, where the Greek monks could
indulge their superior capacity for living.
In converting the Parthenon into a Christian church certain changes were
necessitated by the basic structural difference between the church and the Greek
temple. The church is entered from the west; the temple was entered from the east.
It must be assumed in this article that the reader is familiar with the ground plans
of the typical Greek temple, and the Parthenon and Erechtheum in particular,
as well as of the Christian basilica. The accompanying plan of the Parthenon as
a Byzantine church, together with its analysis, should help keep the present de-
scription of this edifice straight.
While there was ordinarily no connecting doorway in the Greek temple be-
tween the opisthodomos(the rear chamber on the west) and the naos (the sanc-
tuary proper), it so happened that in the Parthenon there was such a passage,
and in this respect the Parthenon was admirably adapted to the needs of the
Christian architects. By piercing the only blank wall in the interior of the Par-
thenon, that between the western and eastern chambers of the large naos (the
parthenon proper and the hekatompedonrespectively of the Greek temple), a
continuous passage was secured from the steps of the opisthodomos or west
portico, through both chambers of the naos, into the pronaos, or vestibule (of
the Greek temple). The original entrance at the east end of the Parthenon was
enlarged and worked into an arch, behind which a shallow semi-circular apse
was constructed, the curving walls of which fitted into the two central columns
of the old pronaos, or vestibule. Thus the west end of the Parthenon, which had
been the rear of the Greek temple, became the front of the Byzantine cathedral.
The ancient opisthodomosand west chamber of the naos became together the
narthex or vestibule of the cathedral; the east chamber of the naos became the
nave, to the east of which was added the apse, thus closing up what had been the
entrance to the Greek temple and rounding out the Christian church.
The original marble roof of the Parthenon was removed, possibly when it came
to require extensive repair, but for the most part the exterior of the temple was
1 Augustus Mommsen, Athenae Christianae

(Leipzig, 1868), pp. 132-133; Lambros (1878), p. 40.
2 Innocent in, Ep. 256 (Patrologia Latina, ccxv, 1560).
not much changed. The interior was brought into conformity with the familiar
requirements of the Greek Orthodox Church. To the east of the nave was con-
structed the sacred bema, the platform to which was fastened the screen shielding
THE PARTHENON AS THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ATHENS
. . J? . J L
o tt i
lII4NK i
C Ap 1 -
f3i P
From A. Michaelis, Der Parthenon (1871), p. 46.
This plan was drawn from the accounts of early modern travelers, especially the Vienna Anonymous
(1458-60), Fr. Jacques P. Babin (1672), Jacob Spon (1676), and George Wheler (1676). Their per-
tinent texts, together with those of other travelers, can be studied in A. Michaelis (1871), Anhang
III, pp. 384 sqq.
A: the nave (r6 KaOoXtK6v) J: the archbishop's throne (6 Op6os, r6

6eao7orTKv)
BB: the side aisles (ra rapeKKXcaita) K: the vestibule (6 v4&po0G)
BBC: women's gallery ( 'yvvatKovflrls) LL: side doors, apparently with steps to the
women's gallery
DD: the sacred bema (r6a&ytovIga) M: a pillar (Turkish)
E: the apse ( Kh7Xl», &Ats) N: the outer vestibule ( 7rp6vaos)
F: the sacred table, the "altar" ( a&tia 0: the baptistry (r6i arrn7yrrptov)
7par-e-a)
G: the "beautiful door" () &cpata7rbXA)in the PP: eight entrances into QQ, the porticoes
sanctuary wall upon which icons were (2)aX)
painted (dKovoorr&corv)
H: the reading stand or lectern ( ayiPwv) RR: rain-gutters
the holy of holies. The screen was pierced with three doors and adorned with
paintings of the saints. Behind the screen was the high altar, over which was set
a canopy on four porphyry columns. Over the altar, in Acominatus' day, was sus-
pended a golden dove (reXetAsxpuraO), material symbol of the Holy Spirit, which
'moved unceasingly in'its circular flight.' The clergy occupied marble seats in the
1 Mich. Acorn., To the Grand Duke Stryphnos, 4 (Lambros, i, 325).
apse. The vaulted ceiling of the apse was decorated, it would appear, with a large
mosaic, most likely of the Virgin Atheniotissa, which was described as a work of
exceptional beauty by the Vienna Anonymous shortly after the Turks occupied
the city (1458-1460?).1 This mosaic was later whitewashed. The sixteenth cen-
tury references to the Parthenon are quite insignificant, and seventeenth-century
travelers like Spon and Wheler were able to leave no description of the mosaic.
A few cubes of tinsel and gilt were rescued from the debris of the apse when it was
cleared away by Ludwig Ross in 1835. They are now in the British Museum.
Lambros recalled that, when he was a boy, youngsters used to find such little gold
cubes as a Sunday holiday sport, although naturally all these pieces did not be-
long to the mosaic picture of the Virgin, but had fallen from other pictures adorn-
ing the walls of the Parthenon.2 In the nave of the cathedral, on the left, stood the
lectern or ambon; across from it, on the right, but nearer the altar, was the arch-
bishop's throne. The throne was an ancient marble seat, apparently one of the
sixty-odd such seats in the Theater of Dionysus. It was also found in 1835, and is
now in the Acropolis Museum.3
The eastern naos of the Parthenon had been divided, to begin with, into a nave
and side aisles by two rows of columns while a short row on the west end com-
pleted the enclosure. Christian architects at an unknown date replaced these col-
umns by smaller ones, twenty-two in number, ten of which stood on each side;
the remaining two stood at the west end of the nave, one on each side of the en-
trance. This column arrangement supported galleries for women along both sides
of the nave and over the entrance. In the galleries were twenty-three columns
which supported the ceiling of the church; these columns were immediately above
those which rose from the floor of the nave to support the galleries; the twenty-
third column was in the short west gallery above the entrance. The galleries seem
to have been ingeniously installed, and their effect may not have been displeasing.
The spaces between the columns of the opisthodomoswere walled up, only the
entrance in the center and the southernmost intercolumniation being left open.
The latter doorway led into a small chapel of some sort over which the Turks
later erected their minaret which is so conspicuous in drawings made of the
Acropolis before the Greek Revolution. The appearance of the Parthenon was
most unhappily altered when the intercolumniations of the peristyle were filled in
with a heavy wall which was broken only by eight small doorways, two at
the front and three on each side. It is hard to say when this wall was built, but it
must have been before the time of Michael Acominatus.
The walls of the vestibule and the nave, as well as the apse, were covered with
paintings, very slight traces of which still survive. Lambros relates that he made
a very careful study of these paintings, and he was able to distinguish two styles.
1Anonymus Viennensis, TA OkarpaKat &Sacxa)'Xe?a iWv 'AOrVWv, 11 (text in Adolf Michaelis, Der
Parthenon, Leipzig, 1871, Anh. in, 2, p. 335).
2 Lambros
(1878), pp. 89-40.
3 Ida C. Thallon in Vassar Medieval Studies, ed. Christabel F. Fiske (New Haven, 1923), pp. 297-
298 and n. 112.
Although those on the wall to the right as one enters the temple from the opistho-
domos are older and less well preserved, those on the left wall as one enters, and
on the north, are very skilfully executed; Lambros, in fact, does not hesitate to
compare them 'with the most beautiful works of the high period of Italian art'
(Trp6s ra KcaXXutra ~p'ya Trs &KMzalasirap' 'IraXots ryxvrs).1 It was a beautiful
church. Acominatus was very proud of it, and he 'further beautified it, provided
new vessels and furniture, increased its property in land and in flocks and herds,
and augmented the number of the clergy.'2
Like the Parthenon, when the Erechtheum was converted into a church, possi-
bly dedicated to the Saviour,3 its orientation was reversed. The small door on the
west of the temple, just north of the Porch of the Maidens, was enlarged and
made into the main entrance to the church. There had been three chambers in the
original Erechtheum: the western naos, which now became the narthex or vesti-
bule of the church; the middle naos, the floor of which had the same level as the
preceding chamber; and the eastern naos, the floor level of which was one step
higher than that of the other two chambers. Since the middle and eastern
chambers were combined to form the nave, the wall dividing them had to be torn
down (its points of juncture are still discernible on the north and south walls of
the temple); and the floor of the eastern chamber had to be torn up to reduce it
to the level of the rest of the nave and of the narthex. Most of the ancient founda-
tion of the eastern naos was removed in the process of reconstruction.
Parallel to the north and south walls of the Erechtheum two new walls were
built at right angles to the western wall of the newly constructed nave; they seem
to have held the pillars which separated the nave from its side aisles. These pil-
lars also doubtless helped hold up the roof, which must have been of wood. Half
a dozen very small windows were cut into the outer walls to light the church. On
1 Lambros (1878), p. 40.

2 S. P.
Lambros, History of the City of Athens during the Middle Ages (in Greek), ii, 729 (trans. of
Gregorovius), quoted by Wm. Miller (1908), p. 17.
On the Parthenon as a Christian church see K. Hopf (1867), p. 139; A. Mommsen, Athenae Christi-
anae (Leipzig, 1868), pp. 33-40; A. Michaelis (1871), pp. 45-51; M. L. D'Ooge, The Acropolis of
Athens (New York, 1909), pp. 307-310; and G. A. Soterios, EbperipLorv wviuteavPrKwov YrPvlAedowv
r7s
'EXX&dso, I (1927), 34 ff. There is very little about Christian Athens in Leon de Laborde, Athenes
aux XVy, XVIP, et XVII8 si8cles, 2 vols. (Paris, 1854), a brilliant work: and nothing about the twelfth
century in imile Burnouf, La ille et rAcropole d'Athenesaux diverses epoques (Paris, 1877).
In this connection should be cited a valuable article by N. H. J. Westlake, 'On some Ancient Paint-
ings in churches of Athens,' Archaeologia, u, pt. 1 (1888), 173-188; plates v and vi in Westlake's
article reproduce two Christian paintings in the Parthenon, the relative positions of which are shown
in an accompanying diagram (p. 176). Lambros' enthusiastic estimate of the Parthenon paintings, of
which very little remains (and that with coarse green and purple additions!) is hard to understand;
they are much less skillfully executed than the (no longer extant) paintings from the Church of the
so-called Megale Panagia (in the Stoa of Hadrian), which are also reproduced in Westlake's article
as plates vIIi and ix from copies of the originals which the Marquis of Bute had made during a stay
in Athens in 1885, shortly after which the originals were unfortunately destroyed by fire. The Marquis
of Bute wrote his own account for the Scottish Review, vi (July 1885).
3 A. Mommsen (1868), pp. 40-41.
the inner walls sacred pictures were displayed, and especially on the cross wall
that shut off the holy of holies at the east end of the nave. Perhaps the most strik-
ing, and certainly the least happy, alteration was the addition of the apse to the
east front of the temple. To do this it was necessary to do considerable damage to
the eastern portico.
It is assumed that the little temple of Athena Nike was a chapel in the Middle
Ages; nothing is known of it. The Propylaea had served probably from the time
of Justinian as the fortress of the Acropolis and apparently as a residence. It
seems to have been the archbishop's house in the earlier Middle Ages; Acominatus
probably lived there, but if the front and back porticoes were left open to admit
people to the summit of the Acropolis, the archbishop must have lived in very
restricted quarters. It is hard to tell how much of the Propylaea was walled up to
form rooms, for in 1395 the Italian notary Niccolo da Martoni saw thirteen free
columns in the Propylaea, which he calls the Sala Magna.' The whole western end
of the Acropolis was enclosed by massive walls and bastions, and the only break in
these fortifications seems to have been the passage-way just below the Nike
bastion, which thus flanked the sole approach to the Acropolis in such fashion
that the invader's less protected right side would be exposed to projectiles hurled
down from the bastion above him. This was, of course, the approved type of
mediaeval defense tower construction; in Greece the principle was as old as the
Mycenaean palace at Tiryns. In the twelfth century, although some of the an-
cient monuments were gone, the Acropolis was still a thing of surpassing beauty.
Indeed, two centuries after Michael Acominatus, da Martoni gazed upon the
Acropolis, and like many a pilgrim to Athens before and after him declared, 'Im-
possibile videtur menti hominis quomodo ipsa tam magna hedificia construi
potuerunt.'2
About the condition of famous buildings in the lower city - as well as about
the condition of the lower city itself - in the twelfth century there must remain
much question. Shortly after the arrival of Acominatus in Athens, Nicephorus
Prosouchos was appointed governor of Hellas and the Peloponnesus. Athens had
long been oppressed, we are given to understand, and the Athenians expected
much of Prosouchos. Acominatus addressed a fervent appeal to him, a hope that
then at long last the Athenians were to be freed of the hardships that weighed
upon them, for Prosouchos's reputation was excellent. In his discourse Acominatus
represented Athens, which had once shown forth among the world's cities like
the moon in the midst of the stars, but had now become poor and wretched, as
herself addressing Prosouchos in plaintive tones: 'How opportunely you have
come, most just and gentlest of men, how opportunely you have come to free and
to redeem me from my misfortunes!' Prosouchos could see the terrible toll that
1 Niccolo da
Martoni, Liber peregrinationis ad loca sanda in Revue de rorient latin, II (1895), 650-
651: 'Deinde accessimus ad castrum ipsius civitatis [the Propylaea], quod est supra quoddam saxo
marmoreo hedificatum, in quo castro est quedam sala magna in qua sunt columpne magne xiii.
Supra quas columpnas sunt trabes longi pedibus triginta, et supra ipsas trabes sunt tabule marmoree:
magnum et mirabile opus videtur.'
2 Ibid.,
p. 651.
time had taken of the sometime queen of cities, now reduced to a ruin, small and
unpeopled, the glory of yesteryear recognizable only in her name and in her ruins.
Once the mother of wisdom and the preceptress of valor, the conqueror of Persia
on land and sea, Athens was now at the mercy of pirates, 'wild beasts that devour
whole cities, men and all, and strip to nothing both the land and the sea!' Athens
had drunk deep of the cup of hunger, thirst, and poverty. 'But come now, give
me your hand as I lie upon the ground, help me in my peril, restore my life as I
perish, that I may inscribe the name of Prosouchos beside those of Themistocles,
Miltiades, and the just Aristides.... 'x The appeal to Prosouchos was not en-
tirely without effect, as Acominatus later acknowledged in a letter to Demetrius
Tornikes, for by action of the Emperor Alexius ii Comnenus, at the behest of
Prosouchos, not Athens alone, but Euripus (Euboea) and Corinth also secured
some relief from the hard fiscality of Byzantine procurators.2
In his address to Demetrius Drimys, who was governor of Hellas and the
Peloponnesus some time after Prosouchos, being appointed by Andronicus I
Comnenus probably in 1183, Michael painted the same dismal picture of Athens
and of the ruin of her monuments.
'I see,' he told Drimys, 'that you cannot look upon Athens without tears.'
Michael did not complain that the city had lost her ancient glory: it had been a
long time indeed since that was taken from her. Now she had lost the very form,
appearance, and character of a city. Her walls had been stripped and demolished;
the homes of her people had been razed to the ground, and their very sites were
under cultivation. He recalled the destruction of Thebes by the Macedonian.
Time and its dread ally, envy, had dealt more barbarously with the Athenians
than the Persians had done. 'Try your utmost,' he invited Drimys, 'but you could
not find a trace of the Heliaea, the Peripatos or the Lyceum!' All Drimys could
see would be the rocky hill of the Areopagus. In the meager remains of the Stoa
Poikile, Acominatus declares, sheep were grazing (rX6I0orov) !3
The Agora had become in Acominatus' day, like the Roman Forum in the days
of Dante and Rienzi, a campo vaccino.One thinks of Vergil's verses to which Time
gave a dreadful irony. As Evander and Aeneas, some centuries before the found-
ing of Rome, looked over the few acres that were to be the center of the world
passimquearmentavidebant
Romanoqueforo et lautis mugireCarinis.
The reader would do well to think of cows lowing in the Boston Common and the
Harvard Yard.
In after years Michael was to chide Drimys for his unwillingness to return to
Athens a second time as governor of the theme of Hellas. The grandees of Con-
stantinople were unwilling, he claimed, even to peep outside the walls and gates of
the capital. The provinces were drained of their resources to keep the city of
Constantinople in luxury. They were repaid in pillage and injustice. What did the
1 Mich. Acor., Address to the Praetor Nicephorus Prosouchos, 3, 15-18 (Lambros, I, 143,147-148).
2 Mich. Acor., Ep. 38, 9 (Lambros, n, 54).
3 Mich. Acor., To Demetrius Drimys, 5 (Lambros, I, 159-160).
Constantinopolitans lack? Were not the wheat fields of Macedonia, Thrace, and
Thessaly tilled for them ? Was not the wine of Euboea and Pteleum (in Phthiotis),
of Chios and Rhodes pressed for them? Did not Theban and Corinthian fingers
weave costly garments for them? The empire was literally drained of its posses-
sions, and they found their way into the imperial city, just as though whole rivers
were flowing into one great sea.1 But for Athens Acominatus could make no claim
to the gratitude of Constantinople.
Acominatus seems to have known very little about the famous buildings in the
Agora except for the Stoa Poikile (if he is identifying it properly), which is un-
known to us today, since it lies to the north beneath the Athens-Piraeus Railway.
It would be very interesting to know the state of preservation at the end of the
twelfth century of some of the Agora buildings which were excavated by the
American School of Classical Studies in Athens from 1931 to 1939 and have been
reported in the fascinating volumes of Hesperia. Very likely Acominatus could
not have identified with much accuracy whatever ruins, if any, were above
ground in his day. (Where were the Stoa of Attalus, the Long and South Stoas, the
Agora Odeion, the Eleusinion, the Tholos, the Bouleuterion, the Metroon, the
Temple of Apollo Patroos, and the Stoa Basilike? Michael never refers to them or
to buildings which we may associate with them.) In Acominatus' day there must
have been more considerable remains of some of these buildings than the flat
foundation masonry laid bare by the American excavators a few yeats ago.
We search in vain in the extant works of Acominatus for mention of some of
the most famous and impressive remains in Athens. He never mentions the fa-
mous gates, such as the Dipylon, Acharnian, and the rest, although they figure
prominently in much of the literature he seems to have read; but perhaps his
omission is not so unusual if the city walls were as dilapidated as he claims. He
never refers to the Stoa of Hadrian (unless this is what he takes to be the Stoa
Poikile), the Tower of the Winds, the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, the Theater of
Dionysus, the Arch of Hadrian, the Olympieum, the Philopappus monument, or
the huge Stadium. He does not refer to the aqueduct of Hadrian and Antoninus
Pius. We learn nothing from him of the remains of the Academy, although he re-
calls Plato's description of the Academy as the most unhealthful district in At-
tica.2 The choregic monument of Lysicrates he refers to as 'the lantern of Demos-
thenes,' which is the first known mention of the monument by this name.3 The
story that lies behind the name, like so much of mediaeval Athens, is lost to us
today.
Although Michael Acominatus stood out for about a quarter of a century as
the brave protector of the Athenians, he had finally to succumb to the vastly
superior forces of the Fourth Crusaders under Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat,
who had received the Kingdom of Thessalonica as his share of the toppling Byzan-
tine empire. Early in 1204 Michael's energy saved Athens from capture by the
archon Leon Sgouros of Nauplia, who had already 'seduced Argos and stolen
1 Mich. Acorn., 2 Ep. 132, 8 (II, 269).
Ep. 50, 1, 8-10 (Lambros, ii, 81, 83).
3 Mich. Acor., Inaugural Address (Eisbaterios), 14 (Lambros, i, 98; see also Lambros' note on
p.
451.) Gregorovius, Stadt Athen, I (1889), 240-242.
Athens in the Later Twelfth Century O05
Corinth,' according to Michael's brother Nicetas Choniates, who glories in his re-
lationship to the valiant shepherd of the flock at Athens.1 Having failed to take
Athens, Sgouros managed to occupy Thebes; he then passed on through Ther-
mopylae to Larissa, where he found the fugitive Emperor Alexius II Angelus,
whose daughter Eudoxia he received in marriage. Although Sgouros decided upon
a stand at Thermopylae against the invading Franks, he dared not emulate Leoni-
das and fled back to the Peloponnesus, where he shut himself up in his stronghold
at Acrocorinth.2 Boniface overran Phthiotis, Phocis, Locris, and Boeotia; he pres-
ently appeared before the walls of Athens; the Provengal troubadour Rambaut de
Vaqueiras has testified to the brilliance of the campaign.3Acominatus surrendered
the city to Boniface. Resistance was futile. Although his brother Nicetas thought
the city might have been defended against the Crusaders, Michael was not one to
enjoy the prospect of Athenae contra mundum. He withdrew from the city. Boni-
face granted Attica as a fief to one of his nobles, Othon de la Roche, a Burgundian,
who had already been made Lord of Thebes and Boeotia. In this connection the
several versions of the Chronicleof the Morea give a thrilling account, which does
not, however, belong to the history of Athens in the twelfth century. In Acomina-
tus' place a Latin, B6rard, was appointed Archbishop of Athens. In 1208 Innocent
in wrote to B6rard that the citadel of far-famed Pallas had fallen, and those who
had raised an altar to a God they did not know might now come to know Him.4
With the Latin occupation of Athens the beautiful Church of the Panagia, the
ancient Parthenon, was plundered;6Michael's library, collected with painstaking
care in Constantinople and in Athens, was carelessly scattered by its new posses-
sors.6With a heavy heart and a light purse Michael wandered through northeast-
ern Greece for almost a year. He finally settled on the island of Ceos, where like
Adam cast out of Eden, as he puts it, he looked with longing across the waters of
the Saronic Gulf to the shores of Attica.7 He spent the last sixteen years of his life
at Ceos, returning to Athens in 1215 for only one brief and perilous visit; he left in
haste, for he feared himself to become a feast for Latin teeth (rols lTraXLKoT ...
68oirY .... . KarTpw).8 He died about 1220 and was buried at the monastery of
St John the Baptist in Ceos. The exact site of his grave is no longer known, but
the monastery church has long served as a public school.9
From the years of his residence at Ceos has come about half of his extant cor-
respondence. During these years he refused the repeated invitations of Theodore
Lascaris and Michael Autoreianos to reside with them at Nicaea or to become
Archbishop of Naxos; he also refused the invitations of the Despot Theodore Du-
1 Nicetas Choniates, Urbs
capta, 8 (Bonn, pp. 800-803).
2 Ibid., 9 (Bonn, pp. 803-807). 9ambros(1878), pp. 99-104.
8 Rambaldodi Vaqueirasal marcheseBonifazioI di
OscarSchultz-Gora,Le epitole del trovatore
Monferrato,trans. G. del Noce (Florence, 1898), Ep. 8, vv. 26-$0 (p. 66; see also notes on pp. 184-
186). 4 Innocent III, Ep. 256 (PL 215, 1559-1560),
6 Mich. Acor., Monody on His Brother Nicetas Choniates, 36 (Lambros, I, 857).
6 S. P. Lambros, 'On the
Library of the Metropolitan of Athens, Michael Acominatus' (in Greek),
Athenaion, vi (1878), 854 sqq. Cf. Lambros, I, Eisag., p. K,'.
7 Mich. Acor., 8 Ep. 165, 8 (II, 826-827).
Epp. 98, 1 (Lambros, II, 148); 129, 7 (II, 259).
9 A. Meliarakes, Andros and Ceos (in Greek), Athens, 1880, p. 225. Lambros, I, Eisag., p. KE'.
cas Angelus to go Epirus. He was old and his health was poor, and he much pre-
ferred his island refuge. He came, too, to love the island of Ceos and wrote a long
poem Theano (457 hexameter verses), in which he celebrated the greatness of
Ceos, her cities and her heroes.'
In the Comnenian Renaissance of learning and literature Athens played no
part although her name was revered by classicist scholars of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. Cosmas of Aegina, who became Patriarch of Constantinople
in 1146, and Bardanes, later Archbishop of Corcyra, both bore the surname Atti-
cus, an appellative of distinction, it would appear, even in the twelfth century; in
Michael's own day, too, an Athenian, John, became Archbishop of Thessalonica.
There are, moreover, a few fine manuscripts that bear witness to having been
copied in twelfth century Athens, notably a Venetian manuscript containing the
works of St Basil, to which Gregorovius has called attention in this connection.2
The local clergy, however, were attracted neither to a good life nor an intellectual
one. The guardian of the sacred vessels (OrKCvovXaW), until Michael transferred his
duties to another, had been blind and illiterate. When Michael removed him,
since he was obviously unable to keep a check on what he could not see, he
threatened to carry his protest to the Patriarch in Constantinople.3Another priest
at Athens had cheated his brother, also a priest, out of their father's property and
left him in dire want.4 They were an evil lot, those priests (ol pLOXOrpborepoO
KXPLtKOL).5The ignorance of the Athenians staggered their archbishop. They
were very infrequent church-goers; they were loath to attend divine services
either in the cathedral or in the other churches in the city.6 When they attended
his sermons, Michael complained, it was chiefly to chatter among themselves. His
remonstrances that they should not waste their time of prayer in trifling talk and
gossip the Athenians answered with scuffling feet and wandering minds.7
But Michael Acominatus' chief love remained Athens. In fact, love of Athens
moved him to write verse, scarcely poetry, in her honor, as he 'played with shad-
ows of the past,' and sought to find traces in his day of Athens' former greatness.
Time, he lamented, had sunk her beauties 'in the depths of oblivion.' Acominatus
loved Athens as Ixion had loved Hera; he dwelt in Athens, he lamented, but he
saw no Athens anywhere. The courts and jurors, the speakers' platforms, the
voting and law-making, the leadership and persuasive speech of the orators, the
councils, the festivals, the high commands of soldiery on land and sea, and the
1 The text is to be found in Lambros, ii, 375-890.
2 V.
Gardthausen, GriechischePalaographie (Leipzig, 1879), p. 412, cited by Gregorovius, Stadt
Athen, i (1889), 227.
a Mich. Acor.,
Ep. 21 (Lambros, ii, 80-34).
4
Ep. to Mich. Acor. from GeorgeTornikes, 10 (Lambros, ii, 417).
5 Mich. Acom.,Ep. 116, 18 (In,240).
6 Mich. Acom., First CatecheticalDiscourse, 26
(Lambros, I, 116): Oire Pyap ets rTv TreptKaXX&orarov
Kal otpavov TOVTroV OIKOVKKKX7arOtaere T OaVuter e . . .
izT vels7roS brepovs
oire
7Mich. Acor., (Fourth) Homily, 21 (Lambros, I, 195): roLvvv Kal 7rp0rn,7vraibr,v &roX,v ),v
lCo,ut&,.z) KaTarpapLv Trv bvKap&dv rrjs etX7s7ets &Kapovs 6/uXlas Kcat reptrr&s Kai robs /Eyv wrbas
iarovvras
r XELtv rs kKKAiCXT7cas
T5 lbaq5os, ri)v e iLavotav
eLts O
epl/pas/.a7ro7rXTavav &VOVirovS r
iLWLK&S.
Muse of Athens, the very soul of eloquence - where were all these? 'The glory of
Athens has wholly perished !"
Acominatus has painted a dismal picture of twelfth century Athens. Lambros
has suggested caution in accepting it. He calls attention to the fact that the Arab
geographer Idrisi (1153) described Athens as 'a well populated city surrounded by
gardens and cultivated fields.'2 A little more than a decade later the Patriarch
Lucas Chrysoberges (1166) describedAttica as 'a prosperous country' (7ravev8aizoov
Xc&pa).3Although Acominatus' Jeremiads are doubtless not unexaggerated, and
although he is sometimes inconsistent in his appraisal of conditions in Athens,
such casual references as those in Idrisi and Chrysoberges, which show no real
knowledge of Athens at all, cannot in any sense constitute refutation of the
abundant testimony of Acominatus that in his day life in Athens was hard and
bare and unhappy. Probably Acominatus was not far from the truth when he
wrote to Basil Kamateros- we must always make allowance for Byzantine
rhetoric - that Athens had been a glorious city, but it was no longer alive. The
very name of Athens would have perished from the memory of men, had not its
continued existence been secured by the valiant deeds of the past and by famous
landmarks, the Acropolis, the Areopagus, Hymettus, and Piraeus, which like
some unalterable work of nature were beyond the envy and destruction of time.4
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA.
1 The
poem (thirty iambic verses) is to be found in Lambros, ii, 397-398.
2 See P, A. Jaubert, Geographied' Edrisi (Recueil de voyages et de memoires publiMpar la socidtede
geographie,Paris, vol. vi), II (1840), p. 295.
a Lambros (1878), pp. 54-55.
4 Mich. Acor., Address to the LogotheteBasil Kamateros, 13 (Lambros, I, 816).
The Introduction of the Bulbous Dome into Gothic Architecture and Its Subsequent
Development
Author(s): Wolfgang Born
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:56
Speculum.
'THE INTRODUCTION OF TIHE BULBOUS DOME
INTO GOTHIC ARCIHITECTUIE AND ITS
SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT
BY WOLFGANGBORN
UP to the Gothic period the bulbous dome was unknown in western and southern
Europe.1 For the first time cupolas of an approximately onion-shaped form were
used in Venice to decorate the lanterns of the domes of St Mark's Cathedral
(Plate la). The domes are wooden shells of a stilted semicircular form and tower
above the shallow stone domes which are part of the original Byzantine building
and which cover the interior of the church. They support lanterns with fluted and
bulbous cupolas. The date of the wooden domes and the lanterns is controversial;
probably they were added in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Seen from the piazza di San Marco, the outlines of the cupolas which cover the
lanterns correspond to the ogee-arches of the fagade. The ogee-arches were built
during the late Gothic period when the semicircular form of the original arches
failed to satisfy the taste of the people. Obviously the bulbous cupolas were de-
signed to harmonize with the reversed curves of the new arches. Bulbous domes
had been developed in the near East and in Eastern Europe gradually, first in
wooden architecture, and later on in monumental stone architecture.2In Syria il-
lustrations of the early stage of the development of the bulbous dome are found
in mosaics of the Omayyad period; the slightly bulbous dome of the Dome of
the Rock in Jerusalem probably dates from the eleventh century. After that time
bulbous domes were used to cover large buildings in Syria. Not later than the
year 1400, bulbous domes appeared in Persia and gradually became favorite
elements of Moslem architecture. Venice was susceptible to oriental influences.
The fluted and bulbous cupolas which cover the open lanterns of St Mark's recall
similar cupolas which were used in Persia to cover small wooden pavilions, as il-
lustrated by a miniature painted in Samarqand at the beginning of the fifteenth
century and preserved in the Goloubew collection. Structures of this kind served
as models for the lanterns of St Mark's.3
1 M. Viollet-Le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonni de l'Architecture
Frangaise du X au XVI. Siecle (Paris,
1854),I, 217-218, Fig. 47, describesand illustratesa relief of a domedchurchwhich adornsa Ro-
manesquecapitalfromSt Sauveur,Nevers (Burgundy).Accordingto the author,the westernsculptor
of the reliefmust have been familiarwith Byzantinearchitecture.The domeof the churchis fluted
and, in the drawingillustratedby Viollet-Le-Duc,showsa slightlybulbousoutlineand a point. There
is a photographof the same capital in A. KingsleyPorter'sRomanesque Sculptureof thePilgrimage
Roads(Boston, 1928), xx,Fig. 128 with the legend 'St Peter and St John healingthe cripplebefore
the temple beautiful.'The capital is in the Mus6e de la Porte du Crouxin Nevers. Accordingto
Porter,loc. it., i, 122-128,the capitalprobablydates from1185.In the photographthe domeappears
slightly stilted and pointed,but not bulbous.It recallsRomanesquedomedreliquaries.
2 W. Born, "The Originand the Distributionof the Bulbous Dome," Journal
of The American
Society of ArchitecturalHistorians, in (1943), No. 4, 81-48.
3 K. A. C. Creswell,'The
History and Evolutionof the Dome in Persia,' The Indian Antiquary,
xMv (1915), 151, and G. Lorenzetti, Venice, the piazza and the basilica of St Mark, Milan, Rome,
(n.d.), p. 50, dates the outerdomesin the thirteenthcentury.A. Gossert,Coupolesd'orientet d'occi-
208
PLATEIa. St. Mark's Cathedral, Venice. Cross Section, after Creswell.
,
·
[
t _
PLATEIb. Tower of the Chapel of the

Precious Blood, Bruges. After a Photo-
?
i
graph in the Ryerson Library, Chicago. UI
PLATEIC. Minaret of the Bride. Great Mosque of

Walid, Damascus. After a Photograph in the Oriental In-
stitute, Chicago.
PLATE IIa. Detail from PLATElib. Church of the Ascension, Kolomenskoye,
Thuison Retable, Art In- near Moscow. Photo W. Born.
stitute, Chicago.
PLATE IIC. Church of the Beheading of St. John the PLATEIId. Zwinger, Dresden. Neue photo-
near Moscow. Photo W. Born. Gesellschaft,
The Bulbous Dome in GothicArchitecture 209
The flamboyant style which prevailed in northern Europe during the late
fifteenth and the early sixteenth centuries, produced canopies, window traceries
and other decorative elements which show reversed curves and almost anticipate
the form of the bulbous cupola.' When the decoration had reached a climax, it
became apparent that the architectural fervor of the Gothic period had already
spent itself. The coming of the Renaissance was foreshadowed by an architectural
fatigue. Unfinished towers were hastily covered with shallow copper roofs in the
form of pyramids. This form, however, lacked the aesthetic energy necessary to
counterbalance the upward thrust of the Gothic tower. Thus the soil was pre-
pared for the reception of a foreign form which offered an easy solution of the
architectural problem and proved stimulating enough to revive the imagination
of the architects.
Bulbous cupolas were used in the decoration of minarets in Egypt beginning
about 1330. Spindle-shaped miniature drums supported bulbous finials, a new
type of pinnacle, which spread to Syria during the fifteenth century. The minaret
soars like a Gothic church tower, and the bulbous pinnacle both emphasizes the
vertical trend and forms a satisfactory top.
The Low Countries are nations of navigators and traders. Bruges and other
ports in the Low Countries flourished in the fifteenth century and conducted
intensive trade relations with the near East. Pilgrimages were made to the holy
places of Palestine, and the sight of oriental cities impressed itself upon the
memory of the northern guests.
As early as in the paintings of the brothers van Eyck and their followers, in-
cluding Roger van der Weyden, bulbous domes were illustrated. They served
to produce an oriental atmosphere in the representation of subjects taken from
the scriptures. Flemish miniature and panel painters mixed oriental and western
elements in their architectural compositions. A miniature painted in Bruges about
1450 which illustrates the siege of Jaffa in Palestine, and other paintings of the
period show egg-shaped domes of a type widely spread in Syria, combined with
familiar Gothic spires. Painting anticipated the development of architecture.
From miniatures, engravers copied the new architectural motif. Bulbous cupolas
appear in the background of two engravings of the Master E. S., a St Sebastian
and a St Catherine. The Master E. S. worked in southwest Germany between
1450 and 1468. His style was influenced by the art of the Low Countries.2 In the
dent (Paris 1889), thinks that the outer domes date from the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. C. En-
lart in: A. Michel, Histoire de l'art (Paris 1907), II, first part, 68, dates them in the middle of the fif-
teenth century. A woodcut by Reuwich which appeared as early as 1486 shows the laterns. It is
illustrated in: C. Boito, Documenti per la storia del Augusta Basilica di San Marco (Venice, 1886), viI,
fig. 108. The Persian miniature is illustrated in: A. K. Coomaraswamy, 'Les miniatures orientales de la
collection Goloubew au Museum of Fine Arts de Boston,' Ars Asiatica, xmII(Paris, 1929), Plate iv, 8.
1 E. H. Ter Kuile, De houten torenbekroningenin de noordelijkeNederlanden (Leiden, 1929), pp. 30-
42, fig. p. 40. An example of the bulbous dome in the decoration of a goldsmith work is to be seen in
the painting 'St Eligius ' by.Petrus Christus, 1449; F. Dillberg, Niederlindische Malerei in der Spdt-
gotik und Renaissance (Wildpark, Potsdam, n.d.), fig. 24.
2 M. J. Friedlander, Die altniederlandischeMalerei
(Berlin, 1924), I, 167 and pl. 31; M. Conway,
The van Eycks and their Followers (London, 1921), p. 61; F. Rosen, Die Natur in der Kunst (Leipzig,
210 The Bulbous Dome in GothicArchitecture
end of the fifteenth century Carpaccio used bulging and bulbous cupolas together
with Renaissance forms in Venice.l
In ca 1495 or after 1433, Jan van Eyck in Ghent painted a fanciful illustration
of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem in his 'Three Marys at the Sepulchre' and
decorated it with a strongly bulbous dome. At the same time in nearby Bruges
the Church of the Holy Cross, called Jerusalem, was being built. The church was
designed to symbolize the Holy Sepulchre. It contains a chapel built in the same
scale as the sepulchral chamber in Jerusalem. The tower of the church which was
consecrated in 1428, is Gothic, but ends in a stepped pyramid of an exotic char-
acter. The upper story of the pyramid is formed by a hexagonal shaft which sup-
ports a bulbous cupola.2 A bulbous cupola recalled the Dome of the Rock to the
mediaeval mind, and thus the Holy City generally.3
In 1149, after the second Crusade, a relic of the Precious Blood was brought to
Bruges from Jerusalem by Thierry d'Alsace, count of Flanders. The Chapel of
the Precious Blood was built in Bruges to harbor the relic. This otherwise Gothic
building was decorated with a tower in the form of a minaret during the last third
of the fifteenth century (Plate ib). On a square shaft is a balcony; above it soars
a circular turret. The turret is covered with a bulbous cupola supported by a low,
spindle-shaped base. The cupola is copied from the bulbous pinnacles of Egyptian
minarets and their Syrian imitations. The square balcony is typical of Syrian
minarets. Pilgrims must have seen such minarets in the Holy Land (Plate c) .4
There is an octagonal staircase tower adjoining the church of St Martin
d'Ackerghem in Ghent. The tower was built in the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury.6 It supports a bulbous cupola and also recalls the form of a minaret. The
cupolas in Bruges and Ghent were of wood and covered with copper. At the end
1903), figs. 41, 42; Friedlander, loc. cit., II, pi. 10, R. van der Weyden. Le Comte P. Durrieu, 'Une
vue de l'eglise du Saint-S6pulchre vers 1436, provenant du Bon Roi Ren6,' Florilegium ou Receuil
des travaux d'druditiondidies a monsieur le Marquis Melchior de Vogii (Paris, 1909), pp. 206, 207,
pl. 200: 'Enfin, la coupole affecte une forme bulbeuse qui ne correspond pas a la realite ... il paralt
que des yeux orientaux croyaient la voir ainsi faite .. .' K. Pfister, Hieronymus Bosch (Potsdam,
1922), fig. 6,'The Passion,'shows a bulbous dome in a fanciful architectural background. M. Geisberg,
Die Anfdnge des deutschenKupferstiches und der Meister E. S., Leipzig (n.d.), pl. 37 (L 157), pl. 51
(L 163).
1 P. Molmenti and G. Ludwig, The Life and Works of Vittorio Carpaccio (London, 1907), pp. 38-40,
105, 134, figs. 125, 126, 127, 129.
2 Enlart, loc. cit., note 2, 32, fig. 19.
3 A cupola in the form of a slightly oblate sphere decorates the roof of an octagonal baptistry which
adjoins a Gothic church in Hal, Belgium, and dates from the first half of the fifteenth century.
A. Louis, 'L'eglise Notre Dame de Hal (St Martin),' Ars Belgica (Brussels, 1936), vi, 15, pl. 8.
4 H. Hymans, Bruges et
Ypres (Paris, 1907), pp. 22, 23. A turret which supports a bulbous dome
was used in a small scale on a Holy Sepulchre in S. Pancrazio, in Florence, at least as early as 1450 by
the Renaissance architect Leone Battista Alberti. The Renaissance at that time had not yet sup-
planted the Gothic style in the Low Countries, but when the same task was set before Alberti as before
his Flemish contemporaries, he independently chose the same eastern motif to decorate his work.
Twisted flutings distinguish Alberti's bulbous finial from that of Flemish towers. Cf. A. Venturi.
L. Battista Alberti (Rome, 1923), pl. 15.
5 Le Baron Verhaegen, 'Les eglises de Gand,' Ars Belgica (Brussels, 1938), viii, 2, pi. 23.
of the fifteenth century bulbous cupolas began to appear on the tops of turrets
and towers in Holland. They were constructed like the Flemish examples.'
The earliest Dutch bulbous cupolas have disappeared as well as several later
ones including the cupola of St Ursula's Church in Delft (1495). Only written
records or pictorial representations of them remain. One of them is on the "Last
Supper" which forms a part of the Thuison Retable, now in the Art Institute,
Chicago. It was painted ca 1480 by an anonymous master of the school of Amiens
and shows the influence of Dierck Bouts. The retable was originally in Abbeville
near the border of the Low Countries (Plate IIa).2
On the town-hall of Middelburg is the earliest bulbous cupola in Holland which
is preserved and dated. It was built in 1511. In the same year a turret on the roof
of the church of Oosthuizen was built which shows a bulbous crown consisting of
converging ribs and is supported by a bell-loft in the form of an open gallery.
(Fig. 1). Non-bulbous stone crowns of flamboyant origin were developed first in
Scotland. The tower of St Giles, Edinburgh, has a crown which probably dates
from 1500; that of King's College, Aberdeen, has a crown built in 1505, to men-
tion only the earliest examples. 'Scottish Crowns' spread to other parts of Great
Britain and to Flanders (town-halls of Oudenaarde, 1527-1530, and Arras, ca
1550). The transformation of the bulbous dome into a bulbous crown, which
took place in Holland, seems to have been inspired by the Scottish Crown.3
In 1516 an octagonal, stepped tower was built on the crossing of St Bavo in Haar-
lem, and decorated with a bulbous crown of monumental size. The silhouette of
the tower recalls that of the Jerusalem church in Ghent. In 1519 a bulbous cupola
was built on the tower of St Pancras in Enkhuizen. It is supported by a truncated,
hexagonal pyramid.4 In 1529 the tower of the Groote Kerk in Hoorn was dec-
orated with a crown in the form of a bulbous cupola; it was supported by a
straight, hexagonal Gothic shaft.6 A half open bulbous cupola was built in about
the middle of the sixteenth century on the tower of the town-hall of Kampen
(Fig. 2).6 It was supported by a truncated hexagonal die with concave sides. A
bulbous crown is on the tower of St Martin in Groningen. It dates from 1554.
The summit is supported by an octagonal stepped shaft.7 The tower of St
1 Ter Kuile, loc. cit., p. 8.
2
Catalogue of a Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, The Art Institute of
Chicago, second edition (1933), p. 1, 3c, pl. 5.
3 F. A. J. Vermeulen, Handboektot de geschiedenisder Nederlandschebouwkunst(The Hague), 1928-
1931, I, Fig. 325, II, 28. Ter Kuile, loc. cit., Fig.p. 41.Vermeulen, loc. cit., II, 27, considered the bulbous
crown as being developed spontaneously in Holland during the late Gothic period - an assumption
which can not be upheld in face of the fact that its models were to be found in the near East and in
Scotland. Cf. D. Macgibon and Th. Ross, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland (Edinburgh,
1896), II, pp. 445, 446; W. H. Wood,'A Description of the Tower and Spire of St Nicholas' Cathedral,
Newcastle-on-Tyne,' Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects(1905), pp. 618-640; C. Enlart,
in: A. Michel, Histoire de l'art (Paris, 1907), III, first part, 32, Fig. 19.
4 H.
Brugmans and C' H. Peters, Oud-NederlandscheSteden (Leiden, n.d.), II, fig. 211, after an
engraving by P. Saenredam; ibid., fig. 247. Ter Kuile, loc. cit., pp. 51-55, 59, 160.
5 Ter Kuile, loc. cit., fig. p. 55.
6 A. W. Weissman, Geschiedenisder NederlandscheBouwkunst (Amsterdam, 1912), fig. 76,
7
Brugmans and Peters, loc. cit., II, fig. 243.
Fig. 1. Turret of the Church of Oosthuizen. After

Ter Kuile. Drawingby Joan Waddell. 1i
(3r
r
rJ r r
'
I I
Fig. 2. Tower of the Town Hall, Kampen. After
Ewerbeck. Drawing by Joan Waddell.
Fig. 3. Tower of the Weigh-House in Alkmar. Fig. 4. Tower of the Town Hall, Danzig. After
After Sutter. Drawing by Joan Waddell. Sutter. Drawing by Joan Waddell.
Nicholas' or Oude Kerk in Amsterdam (1505) shows a combination of two

bulbous, truncated cupolas and a bulbous crown. On the hexagonal upper story
of a square tower is an open gallery with a carillon. The gallery in turn supports
a shallow truncated pyramid with a truncated bulbous cupola. On the latter is a
smaller gallery which supports a hexagonal die with concave sides crowned by a
miniature bulbous cupola. In opposition to the Gothic church the tower is of
Renaissance design.l
In the following decades spires with several stories which in part consist of
truncated bulbous domes and support smaller bulbous cupolas or bulbous crowns
became popular. From a large number of examples a few important ones are
selected here, and listed according to the time of their origin.
In 1591 a very elegant tower was erected on the town-hall of Franeker which
supports a bulbous crown.2In 1595-1599 a richly decorated tower with a bulbous
crown was built on the Weigh-House in Alkmar3 (Fig. 3). In 1599 the town-hall
in Leiden was decorated with a Renaissance turret the lantern of which supported
an octagonal base which in turn supported a bulbous crown. An open gallery
surrounds the shaft and supports obelisks which end in small metal crescents.
They bear an inscription: "Liever Turksch dann Paapsch' which refers to the
religious strife of the period.4
During the late Renaissance and the early Baroque the bulbous crown re-
mained in favor with the Dutch architects more than the bulbous cupola, and
sometimes showed a fanciful design. The Montalbanstoren at Amsterdam
(1606), the tower of St Anna or Nieuwe Kerk at Haarlem (1613) and the towers
of the Westerkirk at Amsterdam (ca 1630) are typical examples.6 Incidentally,
at this period the 'tulipomania' reached its climax in Holland (1634) and tulip
bulbs were almost symbolic of Dutch taste.
Already the earliest examples of bulbous cupolas in Holland showed truncated,
polygonal dies with concave sides supporting the cupolas. Later examples were
decorated with elaborate profiles but retained their basic form. The concave
bases can be traced back to the spindle shaped bases of the Egyptian minarets
and their Syrian copies through the medium of the above mentioned Flemish
examples.
From the beginning, open lantern galleries appeared in connection with bulbous
cupolas in the architecture of the Netherlands. A mechanical arrangement of sets
of small bells in connection with the clock, which announced the sound of the
hour, had become an essential part of the town hall towers of the Low Countries
during the sixteenth century.6 Corresponding to the growth of the carillons, the
open galleries became more spacious.
The northern provinces of the Low Countries won their independence from
Spain in a war which began in 1568 and lasted eighty years. The southern prov-
1 Ibid., II, fig. 209. 2 Weissman, loc. cit., 1912, fig. 110.
3
Brugmans and Peters, loc. cit., I, fig. 108, after an engraving made in 1675.
4 F. Ewerbeck, Die Renaissance in
Belgien und Holland (Leipzig, 1886), II, issue 9, no. 2 (with illus-
tration). 6 Weissman, loc. cit., figs. 114, 128, 118.
6 G. Rice, Carillons of Belgium and Holland, New York, 1915, pp. 75-87.
inces were more closely linked with Italy in art through the Catholic Church and
thus preferred classic forms to the more romantic character of the northern late
Renaissance and Baroque. There are, however, bulbous cupolas in the southern
provinces which date from the sixteenth century. On the crossing of the Cathedral
of Notre Dame in Antwerp is a lantern in the form of a hexagonal stepped pyra-
mid which supports a bulbous cupola.1 It seems to have been developed from the
pinnacle of the church of the Holy Cross in Bruges (Jerusalem) under the influ-
ence of contemporary Dutch models in the first part of the sixteenth century.
Herman and Dominikus de Waghemakere built it.
From Holland the bulbous cupola spread to Germany where, at the beginning
of the sixteenth century, a cupola made of wood and copper was developed from
the lantern of Italian domes. Italian architects were instrumental in bringing this
architectural element to Germany, where it was called welsche Haube (welsch,
obs.,=French or Italian; Haube=hood, arch. term for cupola).2 The welsche
Haube gradually approximated the bulbous cupola. We can trace the path of the
Dutch influence. In 1574-1576 the architect Laurens van Steenwinkel, of Ant-
werp, built a town hall in Emden and decorated the tower of the building with a
bulbous dome of a strikingly Dutch character. It is said to have been designed
by the master carpenter Martin Arens from Delft.3
The town-halls of Brieg, Silesia (1570-1576), Rothenburg ob der Tauber
(1572-1578) and Lemgo near Lippe in the former Duchy of Lippe-Detmold (ca
1589) show important examples of bulbous domes.4 The bulbous dome became
very popular at this period. Outside Germany the castle of Kronborg (Denmark),
1574-1585, shows an elegant spire with a bulbous cupola, said to have been built
by the Dutch architect Anthonis van Obbergen,5to mention only one example.
1 T. F. Bumpus, The Cathedralsand Churchesof Belgium, New York, p. 212, fig. p. 210.
2 W. H.
Damman, 'Der Ursprung des Haubenturmes,' Zeitschrift fur Geschichteder Architektur,In
(1909), pp. 179-192. W. Tunk, Der deutsche Haubenturm (Thesis), Breslau, 1935, considers the
bulbous dome to be a result of a fusion between the pyramid roof and the 'welsche Haube' in Germany
(pp. 6, 7). The Bavarian type of the bulbous dome is said to have originated from a fusion between a
pointed spire and a dome (p. 18). An autonomous Gothic origin of the bulbous dome in Holland is
taken for granted; the author passes lightly over the fact that the bulbous dome appeared earlier in
the Netherlands than in Germany (pp. 24-28). Only on p. 11 some Flemish paintings are listed among
earlier pictorial representations of bulbous domes. Tunk admits, that 'the orientalized, decorative
fancy of Venetian architecture exerted a stronger influence on the Germanic nations during the early
Renaissance than the rest of the art provinces of the South' (p. 10). However, he does not seem to see
an oriental influence in the bulbous domes of Germany but one of the Renaissance. H. Htibler, 'Die
welscheHaube und die Zwiebel' (Thesis), Karlsruhe i.B., 1935, distinguishes the welsche Haube from
the bulbous dome as being a 'Werkform,' namely a structure developed by a sound traditional crafts-
manship; the bulbous dome is considered by Htibler an 'overdeveloped,' decorative form, which owes
its origin to 'fancy' (pp. 9-15). A foreign origin is not taken into consideration. Nationalist reasoning,
accounts for the limitations of Tunk and Htibler. For the construction of bulbous domes, cf. C. Walter,
Zimmerkunstoder Anweisung wie allerley Arten von deutschenund welschen Thurnhauben,auch Kugel-
helme . . . nicht nur zu entwerfen,sondern auch mit Holz zu verbinden. . . (Augsburg, 1769).
3 A. Haupt, Die Renaissance in Frankreich und Deutschland (Berlin-Neubabelsberg, 1923), p. 187,
pl. 9. 4 Haupt, loc. cit., figs. 340, 359.
6 G. Glick, Die Kunst der Renaissance in Deutschland (Berlin, 1928), pp. 523, 640,
There are towers in Danzig which by their bulbous spires reveal a Dutch influ-
ence, but at the same time have been compared with Russian churches not with-
out reason. The tower of the town-hall which was completed in 1561 (Fig. 4)
and that of St Catherine which was completed in 1634 were decorated with central
bulbous spires and four smaller bulbous cupolas in the four corners. This arrange-
ment corresponds to that of Russian churches decorated with five domes.'
A Dutch influence was brought to Danzig by trade relations; the situation of
the city on the mouth of the Vistula accounts for the Slavic element which re-
mains isolated there. Although Russia was aloof from the West, and it is disre-
garded generally as a contributing element in the development of Western art,
its culture was, of course, not unknown to the Germans. Novgorod belonged to
the Hanseatic League, and both commercial relations and military conflicts
brought Germany in contact with Russia. Russian architecture may have had a
-certain, if only very limited, influence on the architecture of Germany. This can
be shown in the development of a decorative element: the curved saddle roof the
section of which forms a ridged horseshoe arch and is called bochka.It was orig-
inally an element of wooden architecture. Stone imitations of curved and ridged,
wooden saddle roofs have been preserved in Lycian rock tombs which date from
the middle of the first millenium A.D., and in Indian chaitya halls which were
hewn in the rocks from the second century B.C. to the seventeenth century A.D.
The sun windows which decorate the facades of the latter show the form of horse-
shoes. Their roofing supports a pointed crest. The horseshoe arch and the pointed
crest of its roofing were condensed into the decorative unit of the bochkain Russia,
for obviously the bochka was developed from a type of wooden architectural
elements which is known to us in the sun windows of the chaitya halls. The fact
that their form is preserved in Indian rock fagades does not indicate a restriction
of their use to India. The first important Russian cities date from the ninth
century A.D.They were built of wood. Presumably at this period the bochkawas
developed in Russia.
The stone church of St Savva in Zvenigorod, which was built in 1405, shows
that at this time bochkibegan to be imitated in stone, and in the following dec-
ades they were adopted and gradually transformed by Russian churchbuilders,
as illustrated by the cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow (1489-1490) and
by the church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye near Moscow (1529). In the
latter the bochki were transformed into flat, decorative gables called kokoshniki
which gained a great favor among Russian architects later on2 (Plate iib).
i Haupt, loc. cit., p. 189, pi. 9; p. 171, fig. 213, p. 196; p. 197, fig. 247.
2 N. Brunov in: M. Alpatov, N. Brunov, Geschichteder altrussischen Kunst (Augsburg, 1932), I,
84-88, 183, fig. 53, illustrates the Church of St Savva in Svenigorod (1405) as an early example of
the use of bochki in stone buildings, but denies that they have their origin in wooden architecture.
D. R. Buxton, Russian Mediaeval Architecture (Cambridge, 1934), pp. 38, 40, 63, claims curved
wooden saddle roofs as their prototypes. He is right: the Russo-Byzantine architecture owes its re-
gional characteristics to the wooden architecture which preceded it. Church in Kolomenskoye, cf.
Buxton, loc. cit., pl. 22 (in: Alpatov-Brunov, loc. cit., ii, fig. 60, probably erroneously dated 1532). The
Cathedral of Basil the Blest (Vassili BlaZenny) (1555-1560 and seventeenth century), the churches
Putinkovskaya (1699-1652) and v Nikitnikach (Holy Trinity, middle of the seventeenth century) in
Rows of triangular gables were used in the decoration of Romanesque and
Gothic towers in Germany.1 On the copper pinnacle, which was put on the
Gothic tower of St Elizabeth's in Breslau, Silesia, in 1534, two circles of semi-
circular arches decorate an octagonal qupola2 (Fig. 5). The same motif is to be
found on a staircase of the Rothenburg town hall.3 It can be traced back to
Russia, for a similar motif is the encorbelled arch which was used in the decora-
tion of the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo (1529), a
building in the immediate neighborhood of Kolomenskoye. This motif also
gained much ground in Russian architecture (Plate IIc).4
On the octagonal upper story which was added in 1565 to the tower of the
Gothic town-hall of Breslau, eight decorative gables in the form of ogee-arches
surround a cupola which supports the higher one of two lanterns (Fig. 6).5 The
same motif is on a staircase tower at the castle Brieg (Silesia) which was built in
1570, as well as on the tower of the town-hall (ca 1568) and those of the Markt-
kirche (1551) in Halle, Saxony.6 The German ogee-gables are patterned after the
kokoshniki.
In Galicia there are many wooden churches of a peculiar archaic Ruthenian
type which often are covered with bulbous domes and include as ancient a build-
ing as the Church of St George in Drohibycz (1592).7 Possibly the remaining
buildings were preceded by similar ones which have disappeared.
Poles and Czechs, although they do not belong to the Russian Orthodox
Church, built wooden churches in a style strongly influenced by that of the
Moscow illustrate the further development of the kokoshniki; Alpatov-Brunov, loc. cit., ii, figs. 66,
97, 104.
1 Church in Wetzlar, near Koblenz, St Paul's Church in Worms, and Protestant Church fn Dittels-
heim, comp. C. Sutter, Thurmbuch (Berlin, 1888), I, pl. 71, 65. G. Dehio, Handbuch der deutschen
Kunstdenkmaler(Berlin, 1935), Iv a, 326, 380, 57, points out, that this Romanesque group of Rhenish
cupolas might have been derived from near Eastern models. The Krahnentorturm, Andernach (ca
1450) which is illustrated by Sutter, loc. cit., pl. 50, and other Gothic towers show a similar decoration,
Cf. H. Wachhausen, Die mittelalterlichen Kirchturmbedachungenauf der rechten Seite des oberen
Rheintales... (Thesis), Darmstadt, 1930, p. 13 (Umstadt, with illustration, and Niedernberg).
2 Damman, loc. cit., pp. 184, 185. Tunk, loc. cit., p. 21. s Glick, loc. cit., fig. p. 501.
4 Buxton, loc. cit.,
pl. 22 (in: Alpatov-Brunov, loc. cit., II, fig. 57, probably erroneously dated 1547).
Semicircular, splayed and stepped arches were used by the Italian architect Aloisio Novi, who built
the cathedral of the Archangel Michael in 1505-1509 on the Kremlin. The decorative part the arches
played in the fagade is similar to that of the bochki and possibly they were Renaissance substitutes
for the mediaeval bochki. They might have stimulated the development of the encorbelled arches in
Dyakovo. Later on the motif was used in the decoration of the cathedral of Basil the Blest in Moscow
(1555-1560, and seventeenth century) and of the Pokrov Church 'v Rubcove' (1626) in the same city,
to quote two typical examples only; Alpatov-Brunov, loc. cit., II, Figs. 49, 66, 96. E. L. Gatto, Gli
artisti italiani in Russia, ii, 12 E. F., p. 58.
6 Damman, loc. cit., pp. 184, 185. Tunk, loc. cit., pp. 23, 24.
6 C. Horst, Die Architektur der deutschen Renaissance (Berlin, 1928), fig. 82, reconstructed by
Kempf, ibid., fig. 109. Tunk, loc. cit., pp. 21, 22. DeutscheBaukunst des Mittelaltersund der Renaissance,
KSnigstein im Taunus und Leipzig (n.d.), fig. p. 199.
7 M. Ortowicz, Guide illustre de la Pologne (Varsovie, 1928), p. 227. M. Tsapenko, 'Architecture en
bois de ' Ukraine Occidentale,' ArchitectureS.S.S.R., I (1941), fig. p. 68, dated here in the eighteenth
century (probably too late).
Fig. 5. Towerof St. ElizabethChurch,Breslau. Fig. 6. Towerof Town Hall, Breslau.After

After Gurlitt.Drawingby JoanWaddell. Gurlitt.Drawingby Joan Waddell.
Fig. 7. Detail froma Crucifixion,by WolfHuber.

After Grisebach,Drawingby Joan Waddell.
Russian wooden architecture. Thus there are many wooden churches decorated
with bulbous domes in Bohemia and Silesia, where their style merged with that
of the German rural architecture.
The oldest wooden church in Silesia which shows a bulbous cupola on its tower
is in Pniow, near Gleiwitz (1506). Other important examples are the wooden
churches, Moschenitz near Rybnik, and the pilgrimage church of St Anna in
Czarnowancz near Oppeln, which is decorated with a stairway and covered plat-
form like a Russian church. It was rebuilt in 1684.1
Silesia was a connecting link between Russian and German architecture.
In 1519 the Augsburg born architect Hans Hieber made a clay model for the
pilgrimage church Zur schtnen Maria in Regensburg, Bavaria. The model has
been preserved, but the church was built in a different form.2The model shows a
hexagonal choir, which in its plan approximates a central building. The chapels
which adjoin it, are covered with bulbous half domes, the sides of which form a
reversed curve as in Russian domes.
Hieber's model inspired the Regensburg painter Albrecht Altdorfer to an imag-
inary representation of the interior of a choir in his Birth of the Virgin (1520-
1525).3 A few years later, the master in his Susanna and the Elders4 painted a
fantastic castle in Lombard style with bulbous cupolas and a finial which supports
a Muhammedan crescent with a star. In 1529 Altdorfer in his Battle on the Issus
River5painted a central building, the side towers of which show slightly bulbous
domes. The building is considered to have been imitated from Hieber's model
also.6
In an allegorical painting of the Crucifixion (ca 1540) by the Austrian master
Wolf Huber who lived in Passau, Bavaria, there is a central church decorated with
bulbous domes, the sides of which form reversed curves (Fig. 7).7 The illustrated
building recalls the Church of the Beheading of St John Baptist in Dyakovo near
Moscow, which was built in 1529. Hieber, Altdorfer and Huber worked in Ba-
varia in the first half of the sixteenth century. In Austria and Bavaria the School
of the Danube flourished, which included Altdorfer and Huber and was dis-
tinguished by its romantic trend. About 1530, the towers of the Frauenkirche in
Munich, were decorated with polygonal, egg-shaped cupolas, and Elias Holl
decorated the town-hall of Augsburg with squat, hexagonal bulbous domes in
1 R. Konwiarz, Alt Schlesien, Stuttgart (n.d.), figs. p. 149, 150. It can not be proved whether a
cupola of a wooden church is the original one or at least has the form of the original cupola, if it has
not been investigated in its original setting. However, there is no reason to doubt that bulbous domes
belong to the original decorative elements of the wooden architecture in the western Slav areas and
their German sphere of influence. Ibid., pp. 149, 150, 147.
2 Gltick, loc. cit.,
fig. p. 489.
3 0. Benesch, Der Maler AlbrechtAltdorfer (Vienna, 1939), p. 231, fig. 52.
4 Ibid., loc. cit., p. 75, figs. 75, 78. Ibid., figs. 82, 83.
6 H. Hildebrandt, Die Architekturbei A.
Altdorfer (Strassburg, 1908), p. 34.
7 G. Dehio, Geschichteder deut8chenKunst
(Berlin, Leipzig, 1926), II, fig. 112. Grisebach, loc. cit.,
note 4, 254.
1615.1 Munich, Augsburg, Regensburg and Passau are Bavarian cities. The type
of dome which was developed in Bavaria is decidedly more similar to Russian
domes than to the bulbous spires of the Dutch. It is squat, plain, and strongly
curved. South German and Austrian bulbous domes and cupolas have retained
the characteristics of their Bavarian prototypes in the subsequent period.
Incidentally, among Bavarian artists not only architects and painters were in-
terested in eastern motifs, as illustrated by the frequent appearance of the bulbous
dome, but in Augsburg also goldsmiths were frequently stimulated in their de-
signs by oriental motifs.2
In central and southern Germany and in Austria, bulbous domes gained in-
creasing favor in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Baroque has
developed curvilinear forms in architecture and decoration, including Bernini's
baldachino in St Peter's in Rome which is crowned with converging volutes.
The bell-towers which Bernini designed for St Peter's were to support a roof in
the form of converging volutes. The roof has never been carried out, but its de-
sign has survived and shows a bulbous silhouette.3 Baroque architects who de-
lighted in complicated spheroids and wave-like contours were apt to adopt the
bulbous dome. However, in Italy, although it was the birthplace of the baroque
style, the bulbous dome remained a stranger. The spread of the bulbous dome in
Europe did not fully coincide with the geographical distribution of the Baroque:
it was restricted more or less to central Europe and to some areas which bordered
on it, in which the bulbous dome had been introduced prior to the Baroque period.
In the following a few examples are selected from a body of material which is
somewhat scant in the first half of the seventeenth century and increases rapidly
at the turn of the eighteenth.
In 1630 the Salinenkapelle (Chapel of the Salt-Works) in Traunstein (Austria)
was built by the local architect Wolf K(5nigand its central tower decorated with
a bulbous dome.4 In 1052 the Gothic St Nicholas Church in Greifswald (Pomer-
ania) was decorated with an enormous Baroque pinnacle which consisted of two
superimposed bulbous cupolas and galleries. The character of the structure is
strikingly Dutch.5 In Prague the architect Leutner designed bulbous domes in
a book of architectural projects published in 1677.6 In 1670-1691 Antonio Petrini
built the convent church of Haug in Wurzburg, Bavaria, and decorated each of its
two towers with three superimposed bulbous cupolas and two lanterns.7 In Melk
1 K.-H. Clasen,Die gotischeBaukunst(Wildpark-Potsdam,
1930), fig. 177. Haupt, loc. cit., pl. 11.
2 W. Born, 'EarlyEuropeanAutomatons,'TheConnoisseur, 1937,c, pp. 123-129,246-258.
3 J. Strzygowski, Asiens bildende Kunst (Augsburg, 1930), p. 700, fig. 113; idem, Die altslawische
Kunst (Augsburg, 1929), p. 283. M. v. Boehn, LorenzoBernini (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1912), Fig. 14
(after Fontana, TemploVaticana). Borromini has used the Dutch motif of a bulbous crown as a summit
to the spiral turrent which is on the lantern of St Ivo in Rome (1642-1660); W. Weisbach, Die Kunst
des Barock (Berlin, 1924), fig. p. 133.
4 M. Wackernagel, Die Baukunst des siebzehntenund achtzehntenJahrhunderts in den germanischen
Ldndern (Berlin Neubabelsberg, 1915), pl. 94, fig. 71.
6 Damman, loc. cit., 9; Delio, loc. cit., ii, p. 169. 6 Wackernagel, loc. cit., p. 50, fig. 35.
7 H. Popp, Die Architekturder Barock- und Rokokozeit(Stuttgart), 1913, fig. p. 3.
at the Danube (Lower Austria), Jacob Prandauer in 1720 began to build a con-
vent with two towers ending in fanciful bulbous cupolas.' In Dresden (Saxony)
Daniel PiJppelmannmade the most striking use of the bulbous dome in his main
gate of the Zwinger, built from 1711-1722 (Plate lid, Dresden).2 Bulbous domes
became outstanding features of Dresden architecture during the Baroque period.
At this time Georg Bahr crowned his Frauenkirche (1726-1739) with a giant
bulbous dome which supports a lantern,3 and Gaetano Chiaveri, in 1751, dec-
orated the tower of his Roman Catholic Hofkirche with an elongated bulbous
cupola.4 Ih 1743 Balthasar Neumann built the Franconian pilgrimage church of
Vierzehnheiligen and crowned its towers with bulbous cupolas.6
Among the comparatively rare bulbous domes in southern Europe are to be
mentioned those of the lantern of the central dome and of the two side towers of
the Superga in Ttrin, Italy. They are of a very fanciful design. The Superga was
built by Filippo Juvara in 1717-1731.6
Many bulbous cupolas are found in Poland and other East European coun-
tries between Germany and Russia proper during the Baroque period, where
German and Austrian influence was strong.
In the big cities, bulbous domes and cupolas gradually disappeared during the
second half of the eighteenth century. French and Italian Baroque designs had
been adopted and assimilated as early as in the seventeenth century; arrange-
ments of volutes combined with hemispherical or stilted cupolas were favored,
as illustrated in the Theatine Church in Munich. The pinnacles on the towers of
this church have an outline vaguely similar to that of a bulbous cupola.7
However, in the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, bulbous cupolas became a fa-
vorite decoration of rural church towers and are still dominant features in the
mountain landscape of those areas.8 Thus in central Europe the bulbous dome
finally regressed into a stratum of anonymous rural architecture. In the mid-
nineteenth century 'battle of styles' the bulbous dome was revived synthetically,
but it disappeared when functional design supplanted arbitrary fancy in archi-
tecture.
Conclusion
Bulbous finials of Egyptian and Syrian minarets were the models of bulbous
cupolas, which began to appear in the second half of the fifteenth century on
Gothic spires in the Low Countries. Bulbous cupolas were developed in the six-
1 W. Pinder, DeutscherBarock, Ksnigstein i. Taunus (n.d.), p. 26.

2 W. Weisbach, loc. cit., pl. 36.
3 Pinder, loc. cit., pl. 47. The lantern was designed by Fehre in 1743.
4 Pinder, loc. cit., pl. 78. 6 Weisbach, loc. cit., fig. p. 849.
6 A. E. Brinckmann, Die Baukunst des siebzehnten und achtzehnten Jahrhunderts in den romani-
schen Lindern, Berlin Neubabelsberg (n.d.), pp. 59-61, figs. 47, 49.
7 Wackernagel, loc. cit., fig. 63;
design by Enrico Zuccalli, 1667-1570.
8 Popp, loc. cit., figs. 27, 28, 31, 82. A geographical survey of various types of bulbous domes and
similar structures in Germany during the seventeenth century is to be found in Tunk, loc. cit., pp.
28-45.
teenth century to harbor carillons in Holland. They remained in favor with the
Dutch in the seventeenth century. From Holland bulbous cupolas spread to
Germany in the sixteenth century and since this time were a popular element in
the architecture of central Europe. They flourished during the Baroque period
and finally receded into the rural architecture of the Alps. From Russia bulbous
domes spread to Germany, partly through the medium of the wooden architecture
of the western Slavs, partly through commercial and military contact. A Russian
influence contributed slightly to the formation of the bulbous dome in Germany.
MARYVILLE COLLEGE,
ST Louis, MISSOURI.
Estampie and Stantipes

Author(s): Lloyd Hibberd
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:57
Speculum.
ESTAMPIE AND STANTIPES
BY LLOYD HIBBERD
AMONG many problems still obscure in the music of the late Middle Ages, one of
the most fascinating is that of the music performed by instruments alone. There is
ample pictorial and literary evidence of a wide variety of instruments - many of
them brought back from the Orient by the crusaders - known in Europe from
about the twelfth and still in use through the sixteenth century. Yet although it
is indisputable that these were freely employed for purposes of duplication, sub-
stitution and accompaniment (often probably improvised) in the primarily vocal
repertoire, very few documents of purely instrumental music (i.e., music without
text1) are preserved from the period anterior to the fifteenth century - largely,
no doubt, because the art of musical notation was possessed only by the clergy,
and the church had as yet no acknowledged place for performance by instruments
alone.2
In the earliest extant documents of purely instrumental music, an important
place is held by the estampie, a form variously mentioned in connection with
voices, instruments, and dancing, in the sources of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. Unfortunately some confusion reigns in the accounts of modern musicol-
ogists not only as to the etymology of the name but as to the character of the
music itself. The principal points of uncertainty are: (1) to what extent the
estampie represented a vocal, and to what extent an instrumental form of music;
(2) to what extent it served as a dance, and to what extent an instrumental solo
piece; and (3) to what extent it is to be identified with a type of music called
stantipes, which is described by the musical theorist Johannes de Grocheo.
The present article attempts a reexamination of what appears to be all the
known data in the hope of clarifying (as far as is now possible) the nature and
evolution of the estampie during the two centuries of its traceable existence from
the late twelfth to the late fourteenth century. Apart from etymological implica-
tions, the data comprise:
(1) The composition Kalenda maya (ca 1200), by the troubadour Raimbaut de
Vaqueiras, which is the oldest example and the only one for which both text and
music are preserved.3
1 How far early textless music

may represent music intended for vocalization rather than for instru-
mental performance, it is impossible to say. However, assumptions in favor of the latter medium seem
preferable except in the case of part music in which some of the parts have texts and others do not
(e.g., the early organa and conductus), and in the case of later (sixteenth century) textless pieces
designated 'per cantare e suonare,' etc. Specification for particular instruments is very rare before the
seventeenth century.
2 The appearance of instruments in the church appears to have occurred (and been protested) on
and off from early times. The recognition of the organ as the sole instrument proper to church use (for
accompanying the chant) appears to date from the thirteenth century (Thomas Aquinas, Council of
Milan) although the earliest liturgical pieces for that instrument alone are not found until the fifteenth
century. See. W. Apel, 'Early German Keyboard Music,' The Musical Quarterly,xxii (April, 1937),
210-237.
3 Both text and music are found in Paris,BibliothequeNationale, fondfrangais 22543, fol. 62. The com-
Estampie and Stantipes 223
(2) Nineteen estampie texts without music, preserved in the Douce Ms 308 of
the Bodleian library at Oxford University; these seem to have been written by a
single author in Lorraine about 1320.
(3) Eight estampies royales without text, preserved in Ms fonds frangais 844 of
the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale; the Ms belongs to the early fourteenth century
but the repertoire is probably from the thirteenth.
(4) Eight istampite without text in the late fourteenth century Add. Ms 29987
of the British Museum.
(5) Discussions of the estampida in two fourteenth-century treatises on poetry,
the Leys d'amors and the Doctrina de compondredictatz.
(6) Passing references to the estampie elsewhere in the contemporary literature.
(7) Descriptions of the stantipes in the treatise of Johannes de Grocheo (ca
1300).
Of the two most recent general histories of music covering the period in ques-
tion, that of Gustave Reese makes some distinction between the estampie and the
stantipes,l while that of Paul Lang identifies the two.2 In consequence of this di-
vergence of learned opinion, it seems wise to defer the discussion of the stantipes
until all the material on the earlier estampiehas been considered. From the etymo-
logical point of view there seems to be no doubt as to the equivalence between the
Provengal estampida, the French estampie (hereafter generally employed as the
most familiar form) and the Italian istampita, which Diez3 also identifies with the
Middle High German stampenie and which Meyer-LUibketraces to the Germanic
stampjan.4The forms estampie and estampida represent the respective past parti-
ciples of the jointly French and Provengal verb estampir, to resound, a verb which
probably appeared in the latter tongue first.5
plete text (five stanzas in all) is given in C. Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie(6th ed., Leipzig:
O. Reisland, 1930), pp. 89-90, as well as in E. Lommatzsch, Provenalisches Liederbuch (Berlin:
Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1917), 173-175. The melody is transcribed in G. Adler, Handbuch der
Musikgeschichte(2d ed., Vienna, 1929), 190.
1 Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages (New York: Norton, 1940), Q26.
2 Paul LAng, Music in Western Civilization (New York: Norton, 1941), 107.
3 F. C. Diez, Etymologisches Worterbuchder romanischen Sprachen (5th ed., A. Scheler, Bonn: A.
Marcus, 1887), p. 576.
4 W. Meyer-Liibke, RomanischesetymologischesWirterbuch(3d ed., Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1935, p.
679. Diez (loc. cit.), points out that if this word is connected with the mediaeval Latin stampare or the
Old High German stamphon (to press or crush), then the resultant Provengal form should be estampada.
The Provengal estampar (to emboss) is given by Diez but with no connection to music, poetry, or
dancing.
5 Paul Meyer, Les derniers troubadoursde la Provence (Paris: Librairie A. Franck, 1871), p. 81. Ac-
cording to G. Paris, Les origines de la podsie lyrique en France au moyen-dge (Paris: Imprimerie Na-
tionale, 1892), p. 43, 'Le pr. estampida, d'ou l'it. stampita, l'anc. fr. estampie, est aussi [like espringuier
from springan] d'origine allemande; mais l'allemand n'emploie pas les mots de cette famille comme
termes de danse (l'anc. all. stample ou stampenie vient du frangais).' According to Paul Meyer (op.
cit., p. 81) 'le terme m8me estampiene paralt pas plus ancien en frangais que la seconde moitie du xIIIx
siecle.' Usages in the sense of "noise, idle chatter,' etc., - as in 'estampidas e rumor sai qu'en faran
entre lor menassan en la taverna,' quoted in F. Raynouard, Lexique roman (Paris; Silvestre, 1838) I,
435 - shed no light on the estampida as a poetic or musical form and may be disregarded in the pres-
ent study.
224 Estampie and Stantipes
Generalizations concerning the poetic form of the estampieare difficult to make,
not only because of the variety of structure shown in the few extant examples,
but also because of the vagueness and brevity with which this form is treated in
the contemporary discussions of poetic technique.l Thus the Leys d'amors, a col-
lection of rules for the composition of troubadour poetry compiled under the di-
rection of Guillaume Molinier between 1324 and 1356, remarks merely that: 'Es-
tampida sometimes refers to music for instruments, in which case we are not
concerned with it. But sometimes it refers not only to the music but also to the
text, which is based on love and homage like that of the vers and the chanson.
And then it may occupy a place in this study. Such minor forms may have an
envoy (tornada) or not, or one may, in the place of an envoy, repeat the opening
or closing stanza.'2
The other poetic source, the anonymous Doctrina de compondredictatz from the
late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, is more dogmatic in asserting that the
estampidashould have four stanzas (coblas), a refrain (responedor),and one or two
envoys, as well as a new melody,3 and adds that the estampida is so named be-
cause it takes on more 'vigor' in reciting or singing than does any other song.4
Turning to the examples themselves (i.e., the texts of Kalenda maya and of
Douce 308), we find that the subject matter is usually unrequited love, that the
number of stanzas varies from three to five (ten of the nineteen in Douce 308 hav-
ing four stanzas), and that these are most often bipartite, with the second section
either of the same length or slightly longer than the first. The stanzas - which
may be from about four to some thirty lines and are often constructed on a single
rhyme - are rarely of identical structure even in the same estampie. The number
of syllables in the line varies from two to about twelve, although it would appear
that the four- or five-syllable line was generally chosen as a basic type.5 The most
striking feature, however, is the apparent absence in the preserved specimens of
either the refrain or the envoy specified by the Doctrina.6
1 It is not even listed in the Regles d'en Ramon Vidal, as

given in P. Meyer, 'Traites catalans de
grammaire et de po6tique,' Romania, vi (1877), 341 ff.
2
'Estampida ... ha respieg alcunas vetz quant al so desturmens et adonx daquesta no curam. Et
alqunas vetz ha respieg no tant solamen al so ans o ha al dictat, quom fa damors o de lauzors a la
maniera de vers o de chanso. Et adonx segon nostra sciensa pot haver loc. Aytals dictatz no principals
podon haver tornada o no e pot hor en loc de tornada repetir la una cobla del comensamen o de la fi.'
(Leys d'amors, in A. F. Gatien-Arnoult, Monumens de la litteratureromane [Toulouse, 1841], I, 350.
a 'Si vols far estampida, potz parlar de qualque fayt vulles, blasman o lauzan o merceyan, quit vul-
lus; e deu haver quatre cobles e responedor, e una o dues tornades, e so novell' (P. Meyer, Romania,
vi, 357).
4
'Stampida [sic] es dita per co stampida cor pren vigoria en contan o en xantan pus que null autre
cantar.' Ibid., p. 358.
6 The
complete texts of the Douce 308 estampies are printed in W. O. Streng-Renkonen, Les estam-
pies frangaises (Paris: H. Champion, in the series Les classiques frangais du moyen dge, 1930). For
further discussion of the texts see ibid., pp. iii-xiii, 46 ff.
6 Prof. L. F. Solano of Harvard
University - to whose kindness the writer is much indebted for
reading the present article and for a number of helpful suggestions - points out, however, that some-
thing of the peroratory function of an envoy is occasionally to be found in the concluding lines of the
final stanza itself, as, for example, in that of Kalenda maya:
As to the musical structure, we find in Kalenda maya, as well as in all the purely
instrumental estampies and istampite, a consistent use of what Friedrich Genn-
rich1calls the lai-sequenceform, which comprises a series of double versicles such
that the first musical phrase (punctus, or punctum), employed for the opening
portion of the text, is repeated for the second portion, the second punctum for the
third and fourth portions, and so on, producing the musical scheme a a, b b, c c,
.... In the case of Kalenda maya, the fourteen lines of each stanza are distributed
as follows: the first punctum extends through lines 1 to 3 and is repeated exactly
for lines 4 to 6; the second punctum is employed for the long line 7 and again, but
with a different termination, for line 8; and a like modification occurs with the
third punctum, which is set first to lines 9 to 11 and then to lines 12 to 14. Unfor-
tunately Kalenda maya, as has been already pointed out, is the only composition
designated as an estampida for which both text and music have survived, and
there is no way of ascertaining from the other estampie texts how many puncta
would have been required or how the text would have been distributed. None of
these texts exhibits a stanza form which would appear, by regular pairing of lines
or repetition of ideas, to be particularly suited to double versicle setting.
Of the instrumental estampies without text, those of Paris B.N. 8442 comprise
four to seven puncta each, and strictly observe the first (ouvert)and second (clos)
endings in all puncta, with the added formal device of employing the same ouvert
and the same clos for all puncta of a particular estampie, while the istampite
of B.M. Add. 299873 are each constructed of four or five puncta (here called
'prima'... 'quinta pars') which are more extensive and of a more elaborate
melodic style than those of the Paris estampies but which show the same charac-
teristic of a common ouvert and a common clos for all puncta.4
Dona grazida,
Quecx lauz' e crida
Vostra valor qu'es abelhida;
E qui us oblida,
Pauc li val vida,
Per qu'ie us azor, don' eyssernida;
Quar per gensor vos ai chauzida,
E per melhor, de pretz complida,
Blandida,
Servida
Genses qu'Erecx Enida
Bastida
Fenida
N'Englas, ai l'estampida
(E. Lommatzsch, op. cit., p. 175).
1 Gennrich's somewhat arbitrary classification is set forth in his Grundriss einer Formenlehredes
mittelalterlichenLiedes (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1938) and is summarized in Gustave Reese, op. cit., 219-
230.
2 All transcribed in Pierre Aubry, Estampies et danses royales (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1907).
8 Transcribed, several of them completely, in Johannes Wolf, 'Die Tanze des Mittelalters,' Archiv
fur Musikwissenschaft (hereinafter AfMw), I (1918-19), 24-42.
4 A word needs to be said about the
rhythm of the estampies. We are without contemporary state-
The fact that no preserved examples of either music or texts for estampiesshow
evidence of the refrain or the envoy leads one to suppose that these specifications
as found in the Doctrina,may have represented a special and relatively late muta-
tion in the form. From the point of view of the text, at least, such a mutation is
neither impossible nor unlikely, for, quite apart from the simple invention of them
by the poet himself, the insertion of a refrain borrowed from some other poem
could be made, and such borrowings appear to have been fairly frequent among
the troubadours.' And from the point of view of the music it should be observed
that the borrowing of musical refrains was characteristic of the contemporary
chanson avec des refrains,2and the motetente.3When it used a refrain, the estampie
must have approached a rondel type of structure,4possibly one of the more com-
plicated types such as the virelai, or, as it came to be known to the Italians, the
ballata, which is described by Antonio da Tempo (ca 1332) as possessing a refrain
(represa, or repilogatio) that opens and closes each stanza (stantia), the stanza it-
self comprising two verses (pedes or mutationes) which rhyme and are sung to the
same melody, and a voltawhich is in the same meter (and, preferably, rhyme) and
which is sung to the same melody as the refrain.5
ments as to the meter of this form, and although (owing to a certain ambiguity characteristic of musi-
cal notation in the thirteenth century) Kalenda maya has been transcribed variously in both duple
and triple meter, the latter seems preferable. The Paris 844 estampies are clearly in triple, while in
those of London 29987 there is some variation. The istampite Cominciamentodi gioia (AfMw, i, 26-27)
and Palamento (ibid., 35-87) are transcribed by Wolf as being in 6-8 throughout all five puncta. In the
other examples, however, there are various changes from 6-8 (divisio senaria imperfecta) to 4-8
(divisio quaternaria) and vice versa, not only between puncta but even within a punctum. There is no
reason to question Wolf's transcriptions, and the metric variety is perhaps best explicable as a sign
that the istampite here are concert pieces and no longer actual dances. See below.
1 See, A. Jeanroy, Les origines de la poesie lyrique en France au moyen dge (Paris: E. Champion,
1925), 102-106.
2 See G. Reese, op. cit., 221
3 Ibid., 317-318.
4 On the rondel types (rondeau, virelai or ballata, ballade) see Gennrich,
op. cit., 61-95, also Reese,
op. cit., 221-225.
5 'Ballata
quaelibet dividitur in quatuor partes, scilicet quia prima pars est repilogatio quae vulgari
ter appellatur represa, quod idem est dicere quam repilogatio sive repetitio. Secunda pars appellatur
prima mutatio, tertia pars appellatur secunda mutatio. Et appellantur mutationes eo quod sonus
incipit mutari in prima mutatione, et secunda mutatio est eiusdem tonus et cantus, cuius est prima.
Vulgariter tamen appellantur pedes. Quarta et ultima pars appellatur volta, quae habet eandem so-
noritatem in cantu, quam habet repilogatio sive represa. Vocatur autem prima pars ideo repilogatio,
quia de consuetudine approbata a tanto tempore, citra cuius non extat memoria, est quod statim
finito cantu alterius voltae vel omnium verborum alicuius ballatae cantores reasumunt et repilogant
ac repetunt primam partem in cantu et ipsam iterate cantant. Et istae ballatae et omnes aliae possunt
fieri cum pluribus partibus eiusdem qualitatis et quantitatis, quae vulgariter appellantur stantiae et
possunt diversificarerithimos [sic] in pedibus sive mutationibus, non tamen in voltis.... Mihi magis
placet . . . quod omnes ballatae habeant similem consonantiam in repilogatione et volta simul, et
similem in mutatione sive pedibus mediis simul' (A. da Tempo, Delle rime volgari, ed., G. Grion, Bo-
logna, 1869, pp. 117-119). Da Tempo makes no mention of the estampie.An example of a (polyphonic)
ballata by the chief composer of fourteenth-century Italy, the Questa fanciulla of F. Landini (ca
1325-97) is to be found in Reese, op. cit., p. 368. The scheme is:
If we modify the musical scheme of the double versicle form previously given
for the estampie by the addition of the letters x and y to indicate the ouvertand
cos endings, we have the following scheme for the instrumental estampies of
Paris 844 and London 29987: ax, ay, bx, by, cx, cy .... This scheme would, of
course, have to be abandoned, in favor of a regular rondel type of melody, or at
least modified, in order to accommodate a refrain as required by the definition in
the Doctrina. How the modification would be achieved is, in the absence of docu-
mentary evidence, a matter of speculation. On the one hand, a newly created
melody or a borrowed one could be inserted for the refrain; or else the first punc-
tur of the original melody could be used for the refrain - and probably also for
such parts of the stanza as had the same meter as the refrain (as with the volta of
the ballata) - while the second punctum could be employed for the couplets (like
the pedes of the ballata). As far as the envoy is concerned, since this occurs only
at the end of the poem and is usually about half the length of the stanza, it could
adopt a corresponding portion of the stanza melody, or possibly have its own
punctumn.In any case not more than two or three puncta would seem to be neces-
sary for the form as described by the Doctrina unless subsequent stanzas were
sung to new puncta between recurrences of the refrain. Whether this was the case
does not appear,2 and this whole hypothetical reconstruction of the estampie from
a lai-sequenceto a rondel type would be idle fancy did not some such attempt seem
to be required in order to explain the discrepancy between the refrainless extant
examples and the description given in the Doctrina. Moreover, it is also useful in
connection with Grocheo's account of the stantipes, as we shall see. But before
proceeding to that account, we must consider a few additional facts about the
estampie as revealed by passing mention in the contemporary literature.
Text: 1 2 8 4 5(1) 6 7 8 9(1)

Rime: A b b a A c c a A
Music: a b b a a b b a a
represa pedes volta represa pedes volta represa
stantia I stantia II
This particular example does not have the vertoand chiuso endings for the pedes (here called 'secunda
pars,' b b above) shown in other ballateof Landini. See L. Ellinwood, The Works of Francesco Landini
(Cambridge: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1939), e.g., p. 40. It may be added that although
the common ouvertsand cos for all puncta of an instrumental estampie, as in Paris 844 and London
29987, involve musical recurrence, they hardly constitute a true refrain of the rondel type.
1 The tornada or envoy being an appendage rather than an integral part of the poetic structure of a
poem, it may be dismissed from further consideration. According to the Leys d'amors (338), one or two
tornadascould be added to any poem ('quen tot dictat pot hom far una o doas ... tornadas').
2 Regarding the general problem of the relationship between poetic and musical structures, H. J.
Chaytor points out that it is impossible, in the case of troubadour poetry, to draw 'any conclusions
as to the construction of the stanza from the tune attached to the poem. In a few cases, a long and
symmetrical stanza is conjoined with a tune of corresponding symmetrical development; but we
constantly find stanzas which may be divided according to rule attached to tunes which present no
melodic repetition whatever; and, on the other hand, we have tunes divisible into pedes and coda upon
stanzas which have no relation whatever to this form' (The troubadoursof Dante, London: Oxford
Press, 1902, xxxi-ii).
From various passages in the writings of the times, we find the estampie men-
tioned as a song, as in the quotation from the Doctrina already given,' reference
by the Minnesinger Boppe ('ze doenen singen alle stampenien'),2 and a passage in
the Decameroneof Boccaccio (ca 1350).3 We also, however, find it treated as ap-
parently purely instrumental music, especially with reference to performance on
one4 or more viellas,6as in the following excerpt from the Messe des oiseaux by
Jean de Conde (fl. 1300-1350):
iiii menestreilde viile
Ont une estampienouviele
Devant la dame vi1lee.6
It even appears in connection with the keyboard repertoire of the time.7 And,
finally, it seems clearly to have been a dance, as the following passage from Frois-
sart (1337-ca 1410) shows:
1 Whetherthe estampiewas ever cultivatedpurelyas a formof poetrywithoutmusicis uncertain.
Musicis clearlyspecifiedin the Doctrinapassageand in the Leysd'amors;and Streng-Renkonen (op.
cit., p. vii) pointsout that the Douce308 texts are accompaniedin the manuscriptby a miniaturede-
picting'quatrejeunesfillesbattant desmains, probablementpourmarquerla cadencede la musique.'
Unfortunatelyhe does not mentionwhetherthey appearto be singing.
2 Quoted in H. J. Moser, 'Stantipesund Ductia,' Zeitschrift fur Musikwissenschaft (hereinafter
ZsfMw), II (1919-20), 197.
3 'L'ora del mangiare... venuta, essendo ogni cosa dal discretissimosiniscalcoapparecchiata,
poiche alcuna stampitaed una ballatetta o due furon cantate, lietamente,secondoche alla Reina
piacque,si miseroa mangiare.E quelloordinatamentee conletiziafatto, non dimenticatoil presoor-
dine del danzare,e gli stormenti[stromenti]e con le canzonialquante danzette fecero'(Decamerone
Giornatav, Proemio, ed., Magheri, Florence, 1827, III, 16).
4 In anotherpassagefromthe Decamerone: 'conuna suavivuoladolcementesono alcunastampitae
cant6 appressoalcunacanzone'(Giornatadecima,novellavii, ed. Magheri,v, 62).
6 The viella(viuola,vivuola,vielle)was an early bowedinstrumentof whose strings(normallyfive
in number)one was generallyemployedas a drone(bordunus),althoughon occasionit too couldbe
fingeredand an extensionof the rangeto two and a half octaves (Gto d") produced.See the descrip-
tion by the late thirteenthcenturytheorist,Jeromeof Moraviain E. de Coussemaker,Scriptorum de
musicamediiaevi.. . (Paris:A. Durand,1864)i, 158.
6 A. Scheler,Les dits et contesde Baudoinde Cond6et de sonfils Jean de Conde(Brussels,1866-67),
III,20. See also the referenceto the 'duijoglardi Fransa'in connectionwith the accountof Raimbaut
de Vaqueirasand Kalendamayabelow.
7 In a letter (1388)to the Vicomtede Roda,King JohnI of Aragonrequeststhat a musician,John
the organ-player,bringwith him the bookcontainingthe estampidasand otherpieceswhichhe plays
on the exaquier, a keyboardinstrumentwithstringswhoseexact natureis unknown,andon the organ
los orguens';quoted
('lollibreon te notadesles estampides[sicle les altresobresque sab sobrelexaquiere
in F. Pedrell'JeanI. d'Aragon,compositeurde musique,'RiemannFestschrift,Leipzig: Max Hesse,
1909, p. 232). In this connectionreferenceshouldbe made also to the three freely-inventedpieces
whichare found,alongwith motet transcriptions,in the Robertsbridge Codex(BritishMuseum,Add.
Ms 28550),datingfromabout 1335(facsimilesin H. E. Wooldridge,EarlyEnglishHarmony,London:
B. Quaritsch,1897,I, plates42-43; transcriptions,not whollyreliable,ibid.,II, 89-108). Thesepieces
each containfouror five punctaof whichonly the firstpunctumhas the ouvertand dos endings,so that
Wolf, in his commentaryon Grocheo'sdiscussionof the stantipes(see below), remarksof them 'so
kann es sich, will man derenFormennach der DefinitionunseresTraktatesidentifizieren,nur um
ductia oder nota handeln' (Sammelbinde der internationalen Musikgesellschaft, I, 1899-1900, p. 98).
Cf., also, however,J. Handschin'srondelamplificationof this formin 'tber Estampieund Sequenz'
ZsfMwxn (1929),8-9.
La estoient li menestrel,
Qui s'aquittoient bien et bel
A piper, et tout de nouvel,
Bones danses, teles qu'il sceurent.
Et si trestost que cesse eurent
Les estampies qu'il batoient,
Chil et chelles qui s'esbatoient
Au danser sans gaires atendre,
Commenchierent leurs mains a tendre
Pour caroler.1
Apart from the etymological suggestion that it may have been (or at least
originated as) a stamping dance, there appears to be no evidence preserved as to
the steps of the estampie. We do not even, indeed, know to which of the two main
categories, according to Curt Sachs,2 of mediaeval dance -the chain or ring
dance (chorea, carole, carola, corola, Reigen) or the couple dance (ballatio, danse,
danza, dansa, Tanz) it belonged. From the distinctions in nomenclature and in
structure between the estampies and the danses royales of Paris 844,3 it would seem
that the estampie was not a danse. Yet it is to be observed that, in addition to its
generic use for couple dance, the name 'danse' (dansa) was also used for a specific
type of troubadour song.4 Consequently, if we accept the possibility of some such
special meaning for 'danse' in this Ms, then we need not rely on an ancient crutch
of scholarship - i.e., the hypothesis that contemporaries did not know how to use
their own terms correctly or consistently - in our attempt to relate the estampie
more closely to the couple dance than to the ring dance or carole,6 an attempt
which receives support from the antithesis implied between the estampie (as a
danse) and the carole in the Froissart quotation given above, from the fact that
1 JeanFroissartPoesies(ed., A. Scheler,Brussels:V. Devaux, 1870-73)I, 221. So also in the passage

fromthe earlyfourteenthcenturypastourelle (anonymous):
Et Marotpar cortoisieje te prie
mon meffaitpardonemoi.
je feraiune estampiesi jolie:
balle un petit, je t'an proi.
(K. Bartsch,Altfranzosische Romanzenund
Pastourellen,Leipzig:F. C. W. Vogel, 1870,p. 153.)
2 Curt Sachs,World
Historyof theDance(New York:Norton, 1937),pp. 269 ff.
3 The two dansesin this Ms have only three puncta insteadof the four to seven found in the es-
tampiesthere. Moreover,the seconddanseis lackingin the doubleouvertand closendings,although
the single endingis alike for all three puncta. 4 See post,p. 245, note 6.
5 A better crutchis the 'poetic licence'assumptionthat literaryenumerationsdo not necessarily
imply that the items are mutuallyexclusive,an assumptionrequisitein the presentcase in orderto
explainthe separatelistingsof estampieand dansesuchas is shownin the followingpassagefromthe
Romandu Comted'Anjouby JehanMaillart(ca1316):
Li auquantchantentpastourelles
Li autredient en vielles
Chanconsroyauxet estampies
Dansses,notes, et baleries.
(Quoted in AfMw I, 17.)
the verb 'baller' is associated with it in the fourteenth century Pastourelle (see
ante p. 229, note 1) as well as from two other circumstances, one having to do with
the text, and the other with the music.l
In the first place, the refrain seems to have played an important part in the
carole,2and although (as we have seen) it is specified for the estampie in the
Doctrina, it is absent (as we have also seen) in all the actual examples of estampie
texts and music - a circumstance which would suggest that the estampie at least
originated as a couple rather than a ring dance. In the second place, it is the cou-
ple dance to which instrumental accompaniment was most proper, perhaps in
part because this type seems to have been more generally pantomimic than the
carole3and frequently to have required so much of the dancers' attention for
step and gesture that, even if vocal accompaniment was used, only the spectators
could sing.4 In the carole, on the other hand, singing was characteristic, even
though instruments were not excluded.5
Despite the above emphasis on a distinction between danse and carole, the
types are hard to differentiate exactly and were not free from mutual influence.6
In fact 'it is certain that the fourteenth century no longer distinguished sharply
among them,'7 and the whole speculation as to whether the estampie should be
considered a danse or a carole would be futile if it were not for the convenient
explanation it offers for the fact that the earliest preserved dance pieces without
texts (Paris 844) are estampies. For if the estampie was a couple dance, then the
textless estampies in Paris 844 and London 29987 appear to represent that inter-
esting stage where the singing has not merely passed from the dancers to the
spectators but has probably been dropped altogether and the purely instrumental
accompaniment has become indispensable.8
One more item of information about the estampie seems to be implied in the
1Pierre Aubry ('La musique de danse au
moyen Age,' Revue musicale No. 12, June 15, 1904, p.
311) discusses the estampieas a carole,but since he apparently recognizes no distinction between chain
and couple)dance, and cites no specific evidence, we may suppose that he is using carolefor any type of
dance song.
2 'Ce
qui caract6risait surtout les caroles, c'etait le chant qui les accompagnait. I1 y avait un des
danseurs, le plus souvent, meme dans les caroles mixtes, une des danseuses, qui "chantait avant," et le
autres "r6pondaient," c'est-A-direreprenaient le refrain' (G. Paris, Les origines de la poesie lyrique en
France au moyen dge, p. 45).
3
Sachs, op. cit., pp. 274-275, 279-280.
4 Ibid.,
pp. 285-286.
6 Loc. cit. So also G. Paris, who points out (op. cit., p. 44) that, 'la carole frangaise est independante
de la flfite et generalement de tout instrument: c'est essentiellement une danse aux chansons oi on
se tient par la main.'
6 'The dance leader conducts the
Reigen [i.e., carole]; he also conducts the Tanz [i.e., danse]. The
Tanz is glided, and the Reigen too; jumping, stepping, moving to and fro - all these movements are
to be found in both Reigen and Tanz' (Sachs, op. cit., p. 270).
7 Ibid., p. 271.
8 The examples of the carole,on the other hand, would be
preserved as vocal music under the names
of their texts, and would not be immediately recognizable as dance music save in rare cases of pre-
scription such as the thirteenth century 'Cantilena de chorea super illam quae incipit Qui grieve ma
comtise .. . ' given in A. W. Ambros, Geschichteder Musik (2d ed., Leipzig: F. E. C. Leuckart, 1880)
ii, 241-242.
statement of the theorist Robert de Handlo (1326)1 that, along with other
secular forms, the estampie makes use of all sorts of brevesand semibreves(i.e.,
short notes).2 To what extent these were the product of improvised ornamentation
it is of course impossible to say exactly, but there is ample evidence that melodic
embellishment, as well as contrapuntal, was practiced in both vocal and instru-
mental music.3 In this connection it is of interest to notice that, except for the
fact that a few instruments (bells, organ pipes, stringed instruments) could ob-
tain certain very high tones (presumably as harmonics) beyond the range of the
human voice,4 the only respect in which the theorists of the Middle Ages ad-
mitted that instruments could surpass voices is found in a passage in Anonymous
rv (ca 1280) which says that more than three currentes (rapid notes, i.e., what
were later to be systematized as semibrevesand minimae) were not to be employed
by the human voice but could be performed by stringed instruments.5Anonymous
is probably referring to the viella, whose bowed technique apparently gave it
greater agility in execution than the voice possessed.
Having established the characteristics of the estampie in so far as they appear
from contemporary evidence, we may now consider the stantipes - known to
us only through the account of Johannes de Grocheo - in order to determine
how closely it corresponds to the estampie. In addition to the provocative simi-
larity of the names estampie and stantipes, there are several reasons for believing
that these names denoted essentially the same thing. The first of these is chronol-
ogy, for Grocheo's treatise (ca 1300) falls about midway between the earliest
(Kalenda maya) and the latest (London29987) examples of the estampie and may
be not much earlier than the theoretical explanations given in the Doctrina and in
the Leys d'amors. More cogent reasons lie in the following facts: (1) both the
estampie and the stantipes clearly belong to the field of secular monophonic music;
(2) each is referred to as appearing in both the vocal and instrumental repertoire;
and (3) as fourteenth-century vocal forms both are described as having a refrain
and thereby partaking of the rondel type of structure (like the ballata), while as
instrumental forms they lack the refrain and possess instead a double versicle
(sequence type) structure with puncta having ouvertand clos endings. Moreover,
as instrumental forms both are most frequently associated with the viella.
1 With the exception of Grocheo's discussion of the stantipes (see below), the only other reference
in the theoretical treatises is a vague mention of the 'stampania sive stampetum' in the early fifteenth
century anonymous Breslau University Library Cart IV, Qu. 16 (see J. Wolf in AfMw, I, 336).
2 'Ab hoc siquidem modo proveniunt Hoketi omnes, Rondelli, Ballade, Coree, Cantifractus, Es-
tampete, Floriture, et universe note brevium et semibrevium que sub coelo sunt, que semibreves,
breves atque longe, in hoc modo quinto comprehenduntur' (Coussemaker, op. cit., i, 402).
3 On the subject of improvised ornamentation in this period, see E. Ferand, Die Improvisation in
der Musik (Zurich:Rhein Verlag, 1938), pp. 250-257 and passim.
4 'Ulterio processu [i.e., the extreme extension of intervals by octave duplication] quidem raro,
procedunt usque ad triplex diapason, quamvis in communi usu se habeat in instrumento organorum,
et ulterius aliorum instrumentorum et hoc numero cordarum vel fistularum; vel prout in cimbalis
bene sonantibus.' (Coussemaker, op. cit., i, 362).
6 'Si quatuor currentes pro uno brevi ordinentur, sed hoc raro solebat contingere; ultimi vero non in
voce humana, sed in instrumentis cordarum possunt ordinari' Ibid., p. 341.
The superficial objections to identifying the stantipes with the estampie are
based in the first place on strict etymological grounds, and in the second place
on the questions of rhythm and of the 'difficulty' attributed by Grocheo to the
stantipes, as well as on the possibility that the stantipes may have served as a
concert piece rather than as a dance. For, despite what has just been referred
to as the 'provocative similarity' between the names 'estampie' and 'stantipes,'
nevertheless the latter, as it stands, is not satisfactorily to be related etymologic-
ally to the estampie-estampida-istampitagroup. There is, of course, the possibility
that metathesis of p and t has taken place producing stantipes as a corruption
of *stampites,the m becoming n before t. This etymology, doubtful at best, would
be slightly more convincing if Grocheo had used the form *stantipa rather than
stantipes. In any case, the fact that, according to Paul Meyer,l 'il n'y a pas trace
d'une forme de poesie latine appelee stampita,' suggests that stantipes, if indeed
etymologically connected with estampie, represents a Latinization from an origi-
nal in one of the vulgar tongues.2 On the other hand, Curt Sachs, basing his ety-
mology on da Tempo's description of the ballata given earlier here, contends that
'Stantipes is... a pleonastic formation: a pes which, because it was irregular,
bore the name stantia.'3In what way the pes was 'irregular' is not made clear by
Sachs, and there is no evidence given either by Sachs or by da Tempo that
stantia (actually the usual term for stanza or strophe) was especially applied to
an 'irregular' pes. Sachs's solution would not be satisfactory to account for the
origin of any word-form of widespread usage, but since (as has been pointed out)
Grocheo seems to be the only person to have used this term, it probably repre-
sents his own peculiar rendition of 'estampie' in what Lang calls his 'learned
makeshift Latin!'4 and in forming it he may indeed have been influenced by its
structural kinship to the ballata, a kinship already suggested by the Doctrina's
description of the estampieand reencountered in Grocheo's discussion of the vocal
stantipes as we shall see. As for the remaining problems, while it is true that
Grocheo nowhere refers to dancing explicitly in connection with the stantipes,
it is quite possible, as will appear, that dancing is implied in the classification
Cantilenae under which Grocheo groups the stantipes. This question, together
with that of the difficulty of the stantipes and that of its possible function as a
concert piece rather than as a dance, are best treated subsequently in conjunc-
tion with a close examination of Grocheo's treatise to which we now turn.
1 Les dernierstroubadoursde la Provence,p. 81.
2 H. J. Moser's contrary opinion that 'Estampie (fr.), istampita (ital.), stampenie (mhd) durften
also Ableitungen von der mlat. Urform stantipes sein, nicht stantipes umgekehrt die gelehrte Latini-
sierung eines Volksbegriffes' (ZsfMw, II, 196) is influenced by his private etymology (from 'stans' and
'pedibus,' or 'stante' and 'pede') and his special theory, which, ignoring the Froissart quotation given
above and relying on the quotations from the Decameroneand from the Messe des oiseaux as well as the
'difficulty referred to by Grocheo, claims that, unlike the ductia, the estampie-stantipes'kein Tanz-
sttick gewesen ist,' but rather an instrumental solo piece for 'konzertmassige Vortrag' performed
'stehendes Fusses vor der sitzenden Zuhorerschardes Hofes' (ibid., pp. 195-196). This etymology has
not been accepted and Moser's interpretation is much too narrow to account for all the data on the
estampie and stantipes. 3 World History of the Dance, p. 290.
' Music in Western Civilization, p. 107.
The musical treatise of Johannes de Grocheo (ca 1300) presents the earliest
extant discussion of popular music and therefore deserves special attention.' The
author, after explaining that the classification of music differs in various coun-
tries, goes on to state that he is describing the practice among the citizens in the
Paris of his day.2 In contrast to most of his contemporaries, he discards the
Boethian concepts of musica mundana (the Pythagorean 'music of the spheres')
and musica humana (the harmonious functioning of the soul and body3)-
neither of which is concerned with what has later been understood as music
- and simply divides all music (in the modern sense of the term) into three
great fields: (1) Popular Music ('simplex music'='musica civilis'='musica
vulgaris'); (2) Art Music ('musica composita'='musica regularis'='musica
canonica'='musica mensurata'); and (3) Liturgical Music ('musica ecclesi-
astica').4 Of these the second and third are of no direct concern to the present
study and we shall confine ourselves to what Grocheo has to say about Popular
Music, in which he first distinguishes between vocal ('in voce humana') and
instrumental music (in instrumentis artificialibus').6
The vocal forms of Popular Music, according to Grocheo, are of two general
types: Cantus (comprising the cantus gestualis or chanson de geste, the cantus
coronatus,6and the cantus versicularis or vers) and Cantilenae (comprising the
cantilena rotunda or rotundellus- i.e., rondeau- the stantipes and the ductia).
Apart from the possession of a refrain by the Cantilenae and apparently not by
the Cantus, what distinguishes the two classes from each other is made clear
neither by Grocheo nor, to the present writer's knowledge, anyone else. According
to Curt Sachs, the Cantilenaewere 'short, catchy, dance songs repeated over and
over again,'7 and it is quite possible that in this treatise, at least, by Cantilenae
are meant dance songs and that by Cantus are meant songs with which there was
no dancing.8 And although Grocheo lists (without describing) another form
1 The treatise is printed, with parallel German translation, in Johannes Wolf, 'Die Musiklehre des
Johannes de Grocheo,' Sammelbinde der internationalen Musikgesellschaft (hereinafter SbIMG), I
(1899-1900), 65-130, to which the subsequent page citations refer. In the present article the quota-
tions have been emended in accordance with the textual exegesis to be found in Hermann MUller,
'Zum Texte der Musiklehre des Johannes de Grocheo,' SbIMG, iv, 361-368.
2 SbIMG, I, 84. 3 Ibid., 82 4 Ibid., 84-85.
6 Ibid., 90. The following characteristics are summarized from pp. 90-96, ibid.
6 'Cantus coronatus ab
aliquibus simpliciter conductus dictus est' (SblMG, i, 91). Like conductus
(see L. Ellinwood in The Musical Quarterly,xxvii, April 1941, 165 ff.), cantus coronatusseems to have
been a fairly general term. Indeed Jean Beck, in specific reference to this passage in Grocheo, says
'dans ce genre du Cantus coronatus il faut comprendre les Chansons courtoises, le Sirventois, Debats,
et Jeux partis et les Chansons de croisade . . et les Chansons pieuses.' (J. Beck, Corpus cantilenarum
medii aevi, le ChansonnierCange, Philadelphia. 1927, II, [69]).
7 WorldHistory of the Dance, 288.
8 There is, of course, the possibility that Cantus, in Grocheo's treatise, stands for courtly airs and
Cantilenae for folksongs. However - since he cites (p. 91) the cantus gestualis as suitable for workers
and the middle classes ('civibus laborantibus et mediocribus') but the cantus coronatusas being culti-
vated by kings and princes ('regibus et principibus terrae') and, on the other hand, the instrumental
stantipes (a cantilena in its vocal form) as keeping the minds of the rich people from impure thoughts
(see post p. 238, note 1.) - it would be difficult to maintain a theory of social distinctions between
Cantus and Cantilena.
called cantus insertum vel cantilena excitatal- in which particular case, at least,
any putative distinction between a cantus and a cantilena is obscured by the ap-
plication of both names to the same form- nevertheless the hypothesis just
suggested receives support from the fact that it is only in conjunction with
Cantilenae that Grocheo mentions dancing. Moreover, when we consider that
the three kinds of Cantilenae are the rondeau (which da Tempo speaks of as a
dance2), the ductia (which Grocheo himself refers to in connection with danc-
ing3), and the stantipes, it is difficult not to think that dancing of the last men-
tioned as well was implied in its classification with the first two.4
For the purpose of ascertaining how closely the texts of the vocal stantipes
may have resembled those of the vocal estampie as set forth in the Doctrina,
brief attention must be given to Grocheo's references to poetic structure. The
prosodic terms used by Grocheo are: versiculus,versus, responsorium (refractorium,
refractus) and additamenta (partes). Of these, versiculus obviously denotes the
single line, while versus denotes the grouping of lines into a stanza.5 In the Can-
tilena forms, all of which begin with a responsorium or refrain,6 the versus com-
prises both the refrain and the couplets (additamenta).7 Grocheo's responsorium
therefore apparently corresponds to the represa (repilogatio) of da Tempo and
to the responedor of the Doctrina, and his additamenta to da Tempo's stantiae
and the Doctrina's coblas. Unfortunately, Grocheo does not indicate the presence
of an envoy, nor does he make any distinction corresponding to the pedes (muta-
tiones) and volta, although something of the sort may be implied when he differ-
entiates the rondeau--which has the same meter (concordant) and rhyme
(consonant) for both additamenta and refrain8- from the stantipes and ductia
1 P. 94.
2
'Possunt etiam appellari rotundelli, quia plerumque cantantur in rotunditate corrheae sive balli et
maxime per ultramontanos [i.e., the French], op. cit., p. 135.
3 'Ductia vero est cantilena ...
quae in choris a iuvenibus et puellis decantatur,' p. 93.
4 Despite the definition of Sachs and the
implications of Grocheo's treatise, it must be remarked
that if there is any distinction between Cantus and Cantilena as Grocheo employs them, it does not
appear to represent a universal distinction. The use of the term cantilena is apparently infrequent;
Margarete Appel gives the following listings and comment: "'c. liet daz men singet et componitur a
cantis et lenis"; "c. in genere est omnis modulatio cuiusque mesurae ac modi existat ... (et) hoc
vocabulo cantilenae omnium cantationum mensuralium vocabuntur diversitas"; "c. est cantus parvus
cui verba cujuslibet materiae sed frequentius amatoriae supponuntur." Allen diesen Beispielen ist
gemeinsam die Betonung der Verwandtschaft bzw. Identitat dieses Begriffes mit cantus and der Hin-
weis darauf dass cantilena in die Hauptsache nicht fiir eine bestimmte Kompositionsgattung ge-
braucht wurde, sondern wie cantus einen Sammelbegriff darstellt fur alle mUglichen musikalischen
Formen' (including monophonic and polyphonic music, sacred and secular), M. Appel, Terminologie
in den mittelalterlichenMusiktraktaten,Berlin diss., 1925, p. 67.
5 'Versus ... ex pluribus versiculis efficitur,' p. 94.
6 'Responsoriumvero est,
quo omnis cantilena incipit et terminatur,' p. 95.
'In ductia etiam et stantipede responsoriumcum additamentis versus appellatur,' loc. cit.
8 'In rotundello
[additamenta] vero consonant et concordant in dictamine cum responsorio'
(p. 95). The meaning of this passage is not quite clear, owing to the use of the words consonant and
concordant and the doubt as to whether the former as well as the latter is to be associated with the
text (dictamen) as referring to the words only, rather than to the music. In a purely musical sense,
Grocheo elsewhere (p. 73) defines concordantia as melody and consonantia as harmony ('Principia
in both of which 'some of the additamenta have the same rhyme and meter as
the refrain and others do not.' From this statement it seems possible that in the
vocal stantipes and ductia, those additamenta which did have the same meter
and rhyme as the refrain corresponded to the volta of da Tempo's ballata, while
those that did not corresponded to its pedes. In any case, as in the description
of the vocal estampida given in the Doctrina, it appears that there is some re-
semblance between the structure of the vocal stantipes and that of the ballata;
and although in the absence of preserved examples or of more minute specifica-
tions we cannot say definitely that the vocal estampie and vocal stantipes were
identical with the ballata, nevertheless there is, at least, no real objection on
textual grounds, to identifying Grocheo's stantipes with the Doctrina's estampida,
although the former is more generous in allowing an indeterminate number of
stanzas2 as contrasted with the four coblas demanded by the latter.
Grocheo gives, as definition of the vocal stantipes: 'that form of Cantilena in
which there is a difference between the couplets (partes, i.e., additamenta)and the
refrain, both with respect to the rhyme of the text and with respect to the mel-
ody, like the French ones Alentrant damors or Certes mie ne cuidoie. Moreover
this kind of Cantilena holds the attention of youths and maidens on account of
its difficulty and keeps them from impure thoughts.'3
The reference here to the 'difference' in rhyme (and melody) between the cou-
plets and the refrain, if taken to mean a complete independence between the two,
contradicts Grocheo's other statement, already quoted, that in the stantipes
(and ductia) some of the couplets do rhyme, though others do not. If, however,
the present passage is taken to mean merely a partial difference (i.e., in those
addimentawhich do not rhyme) then Grocheo's two statements are reconcilable
both with each other and with the similarity to the ballata and estampie struc-
tures already pointed out. In this respect no further clarity is obtainable since
Grocheo makes no more mention of prosodic structure or of subject matter-
autem musicae solent consonantiae et concordantiae appellari. Dico autem concordantiam, quando
unus sonus cum alio harmonice [i.e., suitably] continuatur, sicut una pars temporis vel motus cum
alia contracta est. Consonantiamautem dico, quando duo soni vel plures simul uniti et in uno tempore
unam perfectam harmoniam reddunt'); and although his exact meaning when applying these terms
to the text alone is not certain, analogy would suggest that, as a purely poetic term, concordantia
(i.e., melody) denotes correspondence as to accents and number of syllables (i.e., meter) while
consonantia denotes rhyme. According to the schemes for the rondeau given by Reese (op. cit., pp.
222-223) its additamenta usually employ the same music as does the refrain. But Grocheo specifies
elsewhere that he calls a rondeau only one which has a different melody for the partes (additamenta):
'Nos autem solum illam rotundam vel rotundellum dicimus, cuius partes unum habent diversum can-
tum a cantu responsorii vel refractus' (p. 92). From this statement, and the use therein of the word
cantus it seems likely that in the previous passage concordantiarefers to meter rather than melody.
1 'In ductia vero et stantipede different quaedam [additamenta] et alia consonant et concordant'
(p. 95). Cf. also Note 4 below.
2 'In ductia etiam et stantipede ... numerus [versuum] non est determinatus sed secundum volunta-
tem compositoris et copiam sententiae augmentatur' (p. 95).
3 'Illa [cantilena]in quaest diversitasin partibuset refractutam in consonantiadictaminisquamin
cantu, sicut gallice Alentrant damors vel Certesmie ne cuidoie. Haec autem facit animos iuvenum et
puellarumproptersui difficultatemcircahanc stareet eos a pravacognitionedevertit'(p. 93).
even to establish any textual difference between the stantipes and the ductia.
As to the nature of the 'difficulty' here ascribed to the vocal stantipes, no hint
is given by Grocheo as to whether it is an attribute of the text, or of the music.
As we shall see, when this author describes the instrumental stantipes he specifies
that the latter's difficulty has to do with the melody, and one is tempted to as-
sume that this is likewise the difficult feature of the vocal stantipes. It may also,
however, - if we assume that Grocheo's classification of the stantipes as a Can-
tilena implies that it is a dance song - have been true of the steps of the dance.
Certainly it seems likely that involved, and perhaps vigorous dance steps (see
above the 'vigoria' ascribed to the estampidaby the Doctrina) would exert a more
compelling hold on the attention of youth than would reconditeness of text,
or melodic and rhythmic elaboration in themselves. One has only to watch the
'jitterbugs' of today to conclude that complication in the steps of a dance can
become so absorbing as hardly to leave room for vagrant or 'impure' thoughts.
If this supposition that the steps were difficult be correct, then it offers some rea-
son for supposing that the stantipes was a couple rather than a chain dance; and
further support is given in its implied distinction from the ductia - which was
certainly a chain dance (see definition below). In this respect the stantipes seems
allied to, if not actually indentifiable with, the estampie.
Grocheo follows his definition of the vocal stantipes with that of its fellow,
the vocal ductia, which he describes as 'a Cantilena which is light and rapid in
[melodic ?] ascent and descent and which is sung in ring dances by youths and
maidens, like the French one Chi encor querez amoretes.This kind of Cantilena
governs the hearts of maidens and youths and keeps them from vanity and is
said to prevail against the passion called love.'"
In the immediate context no further distinction is made between stantipes
and ductia; and after the interesting remark that with both Cantus and Cantilenae
the text is usually created first and then fitted to an appropriate melody (new
or old he does not say),2 Grocheo makes the important announcement that 'these
things may be said concerning the musical forms which are performed by the
human voice. Now we may proceed to the instrumental forms.'3
From this statement - as well as from the reference to a text (dictamen) in
connection with them - it is perfectly clear that what has been said so far by
Grocheo concerning the stantipes and ductia has to do with them as vocal forms.
1 'Ductia vero est cantilena levis et velox in ascensu et descensu,
quae in choris a iuvenibus et puellis
decantatur, sicut gallice Chi endor querezamoretes.Haec enim ducit corda puellarum et iuvenum et a
vanitate removet et contra passionem quae dicitur amor (haec reos) valere dicitur' (pp. 93-94). A foot-
note by Wolf (p. 94) to 'haec reos' gives: 'He reos. In der Lucke-zwischenbeiden W6rtern ist eine Rasur
zu erkennen.' With respect to the same passage, Miller (SblMG iv, 366) says: 'Die Stelle ist im Manu-
skript unverstandlich; ich vermute, dass der des Griechischen vielleicht unkundige Abschreiber mit
dem Worte "eroticus" (oder erotis?) der Vorlage nicht fertig zu werden wusste.'
2 De modo
igitur componendi cantum et cantilenam nunc dicamus. Modus autem componendi
generaliter est unus, quemadmodum in natura. Primo enim dictamina loco materiae praeparatur,
postea vero cantus unicuique dictamini proportionalis loco formae introducitur' (p. 95).
'De formis igitur musicalibus, quae in voce humana exercentur, haec dicta sint. De instrumen-
talibus [formis]vero nunc prosequamur' (p. 96).
In Grocheo's subsequent discussion of instrumental forms we find these names

again, but with somewhat different characteristics.
Grocheo precedes his discussion of the forms of instrumental music with the
observation that, because of their superiority in obtaining accurate pitch, the
stringed instruments are the best, especially the viella, upon which all types
of music were played,' and lists as the favorite forms of instrumental music the
cantus coronatus, the ductia, and the stantipes. Dismissing the cantus coronatus
from further consideration, Grocheo now redefines the ductia as follows:
The ductia is a textless piece with a proper [i.e., regular?] beat. I say 'textless' because al-
though it may be performed by the human voice and represented by notes, it cannot be set
down by title [per litteras] since it does not have words or text. But I say with a true beat
because the stresses measure it and the movement of the performer, and they inspire the
human soul to move gracefully according to that art which is called dancing, and they
measure its movement in ductias and choreas.2
The statement that the ductia, though textless, 'may be performed by the
human voice and represented in notes' is somewhat obscure; but it seems to
mean that, although lacking words, the instrumental ductia had a singable mel-
ody,3 with a simple dance rhythm which could be set down in the two usual
and unequivocal note-values of the period, the longa and brevis, and perhaps was
not subjected to ornamentation with smaller note-values such as the semibrevis
and minima whose value had not yet been established with exactitude.4 There
is here perhaps an implied contrast to the 'difficult' melody which we shall find
ascribed to the instrumental stantipes. Grocheo further points out that the
parts of the ductia (like those of the instrumental stantipes) are termed puncta
and that the number of puncta in a ductia is usually three although some 'imper-
fect' ductiae and stantipedes, as well as the ductia Pierron, have four (see post 242,
note 1).
As a piece of purely instrumental music, the stantipes is defined by Grocheo
1'Inter quae [instrumenta]

instrumentacum chordisprincipatumobtinent.... In eis enim subti-
lioret meliorsonidescriptiopropterabbreviationem et elongationemchordarum.Et adhuc inter om-
nia instrumentachordosavisa a nobisviella videturprevalere.... Bonusautemartifexin viella om-
nem cantum et cantilenam et omnem formam musicalem generaliter introducit' (pp. 96-97).
2 'Est autem ductiasonusilliteratuscum decenti percussionemensuratus.Dico autem illiteratus,
quialicet in voce humanafieripossitet per figurasrepresentari,non tamen per litteras scribipotest,
quia littera et dictaminecaret. Sed cum recta percussione,eo quod ictus ear mensurantet motum
facientiset excitantanimumhominisad ornatemovendumsecundumartem,quam ballarevocant,
et eiusmotummensurantin ductiiset choreis'(p. 97).
3 It is, of course,possiblethat Grocheomeansthat the textless ductiaactually was vocalized,al-
thoughthis methodof performancecan hardlyhave been the principalone sincethis passageoccurs

in the sectionon instrumentalmusicin Grocheo'swell-ordered treatise. That, in this passage,Grocheo
seems to differentiate,by mentioningthem separately,between the ductiaand the chorea(carole,
chain dance) does not necessarilyimply that the instrumentalductiawas no longeritself a chain
dance- possiblya special'typethereof- as was the vocal ductia (see antep. 234, note 3). At all
events, as has been pointedout, by the fourteenthcenturyand perhapsalreadyin Grocheo'stime,
the chain danceand the coupledancewerenot longerentirelyseparatetypes.
4 Grocheodoes mentionthe semibrevis, but merelyas an unspecifiedportionof the brevis(p. 105).
He doesnot list the minimaat all.
as 'a textless piece having a difficult melody and differentiated by the puncta.
I say "having a difficult" etc., because on account of its difficulty it holds the at-
tention of the performer and even of the spectator, and often diverts the minds
of the rich from improper thoughts. I say "differentiated by the puncta" because
it is lacking in the beat (percussio) which is in the ductia, and is comprehended
only by distinguishing its puncta.'l
The number of puncta in the stantipes Grocheo sets at six or seven, specifying
among the latter the 'difficult pieces of Tassynus,'2 and with the remark that
'to compose ductia and stantipes is to set out the music in puncta with beats proper
to the ductia and stantipes'3he brings his whole discussion of Popular Music to
a close in order to turn his attention to the forms of Art Music (motet, organum,
and hocket),4 and then Liturgical Music, both of which, of course, lie outside
the scope of the present study. Nevertheless, owing to Grocheo's curious method
of frequently explaining the other forms by reference to the stantipes, ductia
and cantus coronatus,the remaining portions of his treatise contain certain slight
additions to our knowledge of the stantipes and ductia. The most significant
statements there encountered are to the effect that the concept of ecclesiastical
modality, proper to Gregorian chant, does not apply to part music or to secular
music (including, of course, the stantipes and ductia).6 Again, the stantipes and
1 'Stantipes vero est sonus illiteratus habens difficilem concordantiarum discretionem per puncta
determinatus. Dico autem habens difficilem etc., propter enim eius difficultatem facit animum facien-
tis circa ear stare et etiam animum advertentis, et multotiens animos divitum a prava cogitatione
devertit. Dico etiam per puncta determinatus, eo quod percussione, quae est in ductia, caret et solum
punctorum distinctione cognoscitur' (pp. 97-98).
2 P. 99. The sentence (loc. cit.) 'Huius modi autem stantipedes res cum 7 chordis vel difficiles res
Tassyni' - rendered as 'Solcher Art Stantipeden aber sind StUickemit 7 Saiten oder die schwierigen
Stticke des Tassynus' by Wolf and uncorrected by Miller - is obscure. Whether there was a 7-stringed
viella or other instrument of large range (the 15-stringed cithara mentioned by Grocheo p. 85?) for
which particularly difficult stantipedeswere written, we do not know. As has been said, the usual num-
ber of viella strings was five, according to Jerome of Moravia (see ante p. 228, note 5) and to another
close contemporary Elias Salomo (in M. Gerbert, Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica, St Blasien, 1784,
in, 20). That the reference here is to some pieces by one Tassin, known to have been a ministerallus at
the French court chapel in 1288 (G. Adler, Handbuch der Musikgeschichte,Vienna, 2d ed., 1929, p.
256), seems certain; but the only preserved pieces attributed to Tassin - the short melodies compris-
ing only one or two puncta and transcribed in AfMw I, 22) - could hardly have been considered
'difficult' unless embelished with improvised ornamentation.
8 'Componere ductiam et stantipedemest sonum per puncta et rectas percussiones in ductia et stanti-
pede determinare' (p. 99).

4 'Quid igitur sit ductia et stantipes et quae earum partes et quae earum compositio, sic sit dictum. In
quo propositum de simplici seu vulgari musica terminatur. De musica igitur composita et regulari ser-
monem perquiramus' (loc. cit.).
6 'Describunt autem tonum quidam dicentes eum esse regulam, quae de omni cantu in fine iudicat.
Sed isti videntur multipliciter peccare. Cum enim dicunt de omni cantu, videntur cantum civilem et
mensuratum includere. Cantus autem iste per toni regilas non forte vadit nec per eas mensuratur. Et
adhuc si per eas mensuratur, non dicunt modum per quem nec de eo faciunt mentionem' (p. 114).
'Non enim per tonum cognoscimus cantum vulgarem, puta cantilenam, ductiam, stantipedem ...'
(p. 115). 'Dico etiam cantum ecclesiasticum ut excludantur cantus publicus et praecise mensuratus,
qui tonis non subiciuntur' (p. 116).
ductia are mentioned as making use of chromatic alteration (musica falsa).' The
remaining citations are less clear, and none of them specify whether it is the vocal
or the instrumental stantipes or ductia that is referred to. In addition to analogies
between the sections of certain liturgical forms and the puncta of the stantipes
and ductia,2there is a description of the Antiphon which informs us that it often
concluded with a melismatic neupma or cauda like the modum with which the
viella players brought the stantipes and the cantus coronatus to an end.3 This
statement, along with the remark that the relatively elaborate chants such as
the Respond and the Alleluia were sung in the manner of the stantipes and cantus
coronatus,leads one to suppose that the two last possessed a rather florid type of
melody, apparently in contrast to a simple type found in the ductia, to whose
performance that of the (syllabic) Sequences and the Credo are here likened.4
1 The following passage in Grocheo discusses musica falsa with respect both to harmonic intervals
and to the stantipes and ductia, but does not imply that the harmonic intervals occur in these two
forms. Nowhere does Grocheo suggest that the stantipes or the ductia was anything but monophonic
(i.e., a single line of melody): '[To the diatonic tones of the hexachordal system]' the moderns, indeed,
have added, for the setting down of harmonic intervals and of stantipedesand ductiae, something else,
which they have called "musica falsa," since those two signs b and t, which used to designate the inter-
vals of the semitone or tone in the case of b [flat as]fa [i.e., the perfect fourth in the hexachord begin-
ning onf; and b natural or] ~ [as] mi [i.e., the major third in the hexachord beginning on g), they now
make to designate the same on all other degrees so that where there was a semitone they amplify
it to a tone by the use of t in order that a good melodic or harmonic interval may be created. And like-
wise where a whole tone was encountered they reduce it to a semitone by the use of a b.' ('Moderni
vero propter descriptionem consonantiarum et stantipedum et ductiarum aliud addiderunt, quod fal-
sam musicam vocaverunt. Quia illa duo signa scilicet E et t, quae in b fa t mi tonum et semitonum
designabant, in omnibus aliis faciunt hoc designare, ita quod ubi erat semitonus, per ~ illud ad tonum
ampliant, ut bona concordantia vel consonantia fiat. Et similiter, ubi tonus inveniebatur, illud per h
ad semitonum restringunt' (pp. 88-89). This passage does not mean that chromatic alteration was pri-
marily a phenomenon of instrumental music, as has occasionally been argued (especially by Arnold
Schering, e.g., Studien zur Musikgeschichteder Friihrenaissance, Leipzig: C. F. Kahnt Nachf., 1914, p.
47 and passim) but rather one which is characteristic of secular music (including stantipes and ductia)
and all part music, as distinct from Gregorian chant. See the present writer's article 'Musica Ficta
and Instrumental Music' in The Musical Quarterly,xxvIn (April, 1942), 216-226.
2 'Pater noster est cantus habens duas
partes ad modum puncti ductiae vel stantipedis (p. 128).
'Communio ... cantatur .. . quasi ad modum puncti clausi ductiae vel stantipedis' (p. 129).
3 'Cantus autem iste [i.e.,
antiphona] post psalmos decantatur et aliquotiens neupma additur puta
post psalmos evangelistas. Est autem neupma quasi cauda vel exitus sequens ad antiphonam, que-
madmodum in viella post cantum coronatumvel stantipedemexitus, quem modum viellatores appellant'
(p. 122).
4
'Responsorium autem et alleluia decantantur ad modum stantipedis vel cantus coronati et devo-
tionem et humilitatem in cordibus auditorum imponant. Sed sequentia cantatur ad modum ductiae,
ut ea ducat et laetificat ...' (p. 126). 'Credo in deum est cantus leviter ascendens et descendens ad
modum ductiae [cf. ante p. 9S6, note 1] parum differens in partibus. Dico autem parum differens, etc.,
eo quod habet plures partes in cantu consimiles' (p. 127). Unfortunately for our clear comprehension
of these analogies, we find the ductia, as well as the stantipes, associated with the cantus coronatus
('Offertorium ... cantatur ad modum ductiae vel cantus coronati,' p. 127), while the very nature of
the cantus coronatus [cf. ante p. 233, note 6] is obscured by being referred to in one place as melodically
ornate ('Hymnus est cantus omatus plures habens versus. Dico autem ornatus ad modum cantus
coronati, qui habet concordantias pulchras et ornate ordinatas,' pp. 119-120) and again, as making
use of long notes ('cantus coronatus ... ex omnis longis et [brevibus?]perfectis efficitur,' p. 91. 'Kyrie
eleison ... cantatur tractim et ex longis et perfectis ad modum cantus coronati,' p. 125).
With these somewhat unsatisfactory references, the limits of our knowledge
of the stantipes and ductia are reached. Of the data on the instrumental stantipes
perhaps the most interesting item (and the most cogent reason for identifying
the stantipes with the estampie) lies in the fact that here, as in the textless
estampies, the form of the lai-sequence type based on puncta with ouvert and
clos endings,l is contrasted with the rondel type for the vocal stantipes (and
properly also for the estampie text, according to the Doctrina). A certain stum-
bling block to identifying stantipes and estampie, however, seems to be presented
by the question of the 'difficulty' attributed to the melody of the instrumental
stantipes by Grocheo. Whether this was a matter of awkward intervals, unusual
chromaticism, florid writing, or rhythmic complexity is not explained; and the
fact that none of the extant estampies (not even the much later istampite in
London 29987) is more difficult in any of these respects than other contemporary
music, has led to some hesitancy in identifying stantipes and estampie, and has
caused some modern writers to suppose that the stantipes, at least as a sonus
illiteratus, was not a dance2 but an instrumental concert piece.3 If one accepts
1 'Punctus [sic] autem est ordinata agregatio concordantiarum harmoniam facientium ascendendo
et descendendo duas habens partes in principio similes, in fine differentes, qui clausum et apertum
communiter appellantur. Dico autem duas habens partes, etc., ad similitudinem duarum linearum
quarum una sit maior alia. Maior enim minorem claudit et est fine differens a minori,' p. 98).
2 Curt Sachs's assertion - based, from all one can tell, on no evidence but Grocheo - that 'Stan-
tipes and ductia were considered difficult ... which seems to explain why apparently none of these
songs [i.e., stantipes and ductial was danced any longer' (World History of the Dance, p. 290) is un-
founded as far as the ductia is concerned, since nowhere does Grocheo imply that the ductia was diffi-
cult. Again, according to Sachs (ibid., p. 291) Grocheo 'seems to dismiss the stantipes as a dance ...
when he denies to it the rectapercussio which the ductia possesses. This passage is not clear. Grocheo's
sentence in which he states that the stantipes 'is determined by the periods, because it lacks the
rhythm which we find in the ductia and can be recognized only by the difference in the periods [i.e.,
- to
puncta]" does not seem to make sense. It cannot possibly mean that the stantipes has no rhythm
be without rhythm, according to Grocheo, does not mean percussione carere (without time), but non
ita praecise mensuratumesse (not in exact measure). All that he says is that it lacks the rhythm which
we find in the ductia. The rhythm of the ductia, however, is percussio recta, and the passage immedi-
ately becomes clear if we translate this expression not as 'correct rhythm' but as 'even rhythm' in the
sense of the later mensural theory, as expounded by Grocheo himself, according to the concept
minima [Sachs must mean brevis]recta=two semibreves. And indeed, those sustained melodies, which
according to Grocheo's definition must be and have been called stantipedes [cf., discussion below con-
cerning the Harley 978 pieces, to which Sachs apparently is referring] make it obvious that we are
dealing with dance pieces, which are, moreover, in percussio non recta, in triple time.' Quite apart from
the hypothecation of percussio recta and non recta as terms for duple and triple meter, Sachs's inter-
pretation, though ingenious, is not convincing. Nor is Sachs's suggestion (op. cit., p. 291) for convert-
ing into 12-8 meter Wolf's renderings of the London 29987 istampite (cf. ante p. 225, note 4). On the
other hand, if one accepts 'beat' rather than 'rhythm' (or 'meter') as the meaning of percussio, and
therewith recta percussio as denoting a relatively regular and marked accent, such as is usually found
in dance music, then Grocheo's entire discussion, does make sense namely that the instrumental
- and, if it was a dance, possibly even more specifically, you can know at
stantipes can be followed
what point in the steps you ought to be - only by keeping track of the phraseology, since the beat
was not so clear and marked as it was in the ductia. The estampie Sachs treats as a somewhat different
dance which 'perhaps ... developed from a fusion of the ductia, nota, and stantipes of the preceding
century' (p. 293), remarking that 'rhythmically the estampie [i.e., those preserved in Paris 844 and
London 29987] corresponds exactly to the stantipes of the preceding century' (loc. eit.). Some confusion
the interpretation already given that the textless ductia was a piece which re-
taimed a simple melody capable of being set down in the usual note values, then
one is entitled to suppose that the difficulty of the stantipes may well have lain,
in part at least, in its use of smaller time values than were as yet susceptible of
exact notation, time values which may have been the result of improvised orna-
mentation. Ornamentation of this sort has already been referred to in connection
with Handlo's statement, and could have been applied to any of the preserved
estampies, creating, for example, genuinely 'difficiles res Tassyni' out of the unim-
pressive Choses Tassin of the Montpellier Codex. How far such elaboration would
render the estampie or stantipes incompatible with dancing is uncertain. Embel-
lishment of the melody - especially in conjunction with intricacies in the dance
steps - would undoubtedly necessitate the passing of the musical performance to
other persons than the dancers themselves, and might lead to the giving up of sing-
ing entirely, in favor of a purely instrumental accompaniment. But to assume that,
even with the loss of a strongly marked beat as well, this would necessarily lead
to the abandonment of dancing altogether, seems unwarranted. Elaborate mel-
ody may be accompanied by quite simple as well as quite complicated dance
steps as the patrons of the modern dance hall daily illustrate. And even if the
difficult instrumental stantipes described by Grocheo did serve often, if not
necessarily always, as an instrumental solo rather than as a dance, there is good
reason, on grounds already set forth (chronology, name, and rondel form for
vocal piece versus sequence form for instrumental piece) for assuming that
Grocheo's instrumental stantipes represents a development from the older
estampierather than an independent form.
As has been said earlier, there are no pieces preserved which bear the name
stantipes. However, Johannes Wolf has attempted to identify certain composi-
tions as stantipes, ductia and nota on the basis of the number of puncta prescribed
by Grocheo. Among these are three textless compositions from the mid-thirteenth
century British Museum Harley Ms 978?. All are in two parts, and although
Grocheo does not treat of any of the forms of Popular Music as part music, there
is reason to suppose that the stantipes and its companions were subjected, oc-
casionally or often, to the addition of parts, just as were the other originally
monophonic forms of the time, such as the rondeau and ballata.
The first of these Harley pieces Wolf has denominated stantipes on the basis
of its possession of six puncta. However, these here actually represent a melody
of only three puncta which is placed in the lower part and then repeated (puncta
4-6)2 against new note-against-note counterpoint in the cantus superior. The
ouvertand clos endings appear for each punctum in the lower voice (only) although
the puncta are written out in full to accommodate the continuous counterpoint
of the upper part. The uniform and explicit trochaic rhythm (first rhythmic
of chronologyseemsto be presenthere, for (as Sachsobserved,p. 29), the estampiewas alreadyin
existence(Kalendamaya,ca 1200) possiblya centurybeforeGrocheo'sstantipes,ductia,and nota.
3 H. J. Moserin ZfMw, 1i, 194-06.
1 Allaretranscribedin AfMw, , 19-0
2 The dos of the sixth
punctumdiffersfromthat of the third.
mode, transcribed in 3-4 meter IJ JI, etc.) suggests that this example has
not progressed very far toward losing its dance rhythm. And in no sense could
either upper or lower melody, as it stands, be considered difficult, even from a
thirteenth-century point of view.
The second piece is identified by Wolf with Grocheo's nota. What this type
of composition was is somewhat obscure, for Grocheo nowhere classifies it, and
indeed his only mention thereof is in the passage on the proper number of puncta
(namely three) for the instrumental ductia, where he says that 'pieces with four
puncta are sometimes called notae but can be considered as an imperfect ductia
or (imperfect) stantipes.' As in the preceding piece, extension of the form occurs
through repetitions of the original melody; but this time it is achieved by trans-
posing the cantus inferior of purcta 1 and 2 and employing it, against new counter-
point, as cantus superior for puncta 3 and 4. Again the puncta are written out in
full. In the first punctum the ouvertand clos are identical with each other; and so
also in the third, in which it is the beginnings and not the endings which are
different. The second-and fourth puncta are regular.
Although it has only five puncta, instead of the six or seven proper to Grocheo's
stantipes, Wolf applies this designation to the third of the Harley pieces, quali-
fying it as a stantipes imperfecta.2Here it is the cantus inferior of the first punctum
alone, which provides the basic material for the other four, since it is repeated
in the lower voice against new counterpoint for punctum 2, then transposed and
used as cantus superior for puncta 3 and 4, and finally, with slight rhythmic
variants, for the last punctum as well. The recurrence of the clos endings; and the
similarity of the ouverts- features absent elsewhere in these Harley pieces-
are exhibited between puncta 3 and 5 of this last composition.
The foregoing analysis has been deemed necessary because of the fairly wide-
spread assumption that these pieces represent the stantipes and nota as described
by Grocheo. As a matter of fact, and quite apart from the irrelevant circumstance
of possessing an added discant part, they do not very closely correspond to Gro-
cheo's description. However, the specification of exactly six or seven puncta3
probably represents an arbitrary preference of Grocheo's4and is hardly a point
of fundamental importance; and since the Harley pieces are quite like the Choses
Tassin, etc., the Paris 844 estampies and Kalenda maya in their simple melody,
1 'Sunttamenaliquandonotaevocatae4 punctorum, ad ductiamvel
quae stantipedemimperfectam
reducipossunt' (p. 98). ObviouslyGrocheodoes not considerit an importantform of music.Else-
wherein the literatureof the periodthe nota(note,notula)is mentioneda numberof times in connec-
tion with both vocaland instrumentalperformance, and even as a dance(see passagein F. Gennrich,
Grundriss. . ., p. 167). In the examplesgiven by Gennrich(ibid., pp. 167-174), the use of the se
quencetype of structurewith ouvertand closendingsshowsa certainconsanguinitywith the stantipes,
althoughas Gennrichpoints out 'die von GrocheoangegebeneAnzahl der Abschnitte [i.e., four]
stimmtmit der derDenkmSlernicht iiberein'(ibid.,p. 174).
2 AfMw, i, 12,
8 The only exampleswith so manypunctaarethe firstin Harley978 and the third estampiein Paris
844, both of whichhave six, and the fourthestampiein Paris 844, whichhas seven.
4 In any case Grocheo
apparentlyregardsthe numbers6 and 7 as speciallysignificant(cf.pp. 78, 86
in SblMG,i).
clear rhythm, and ouvert-and clos structure, there seems to be no sound objec-
tion to considering them all as possible estampies or stantipedes, as fragments
thereof, or at least as musically indistinguishable from them.
In attempting to trace, as a concluding section to this study, the course of

development of the estampie-stantipes(hereafter simply estampie) we are immedi-
ately faced with the problem of determining whether it was primarily a vocal or
primarily an instrumental form. The latter view has received preference at the
hands of most scholars, partly from a slighting of the data on the vocal aspect,1
and partly from what appears to be the weight of evidence. Yet it seems advisable
to consider this evidence again, and, above all, to bear in mind that although a
particular type of composition may, at a given period, belong predominantly
to one medium, it may have originated in quite another. A relatively modern
case in point is the concerto, which originated apparently as a composition for
voices with instruments (Viadana, G. Gabrieli) but which in more recent times
has come to be used for purely instrumental pieces.
Now according to passages already quoted from the Leys d'amors, the Messe
des oiseaux, from Froissart and Jehan Maillart - all of the middle or late four-
teenth century - as well as on the basis of the following passage in the Glosse
to the Documenti d'amore of Francesco Barberino (1264-1348) contrasting the
'inventio verborum' in general with the 'precompositi soni' of the stampita, it
seems fairly certain that by this time the estampiewas principally an instrumental
form:2 'In former times, every verbal creation which was set to the previously-
composed melody of a caribus, nota, stampita or the like, was called a consonium.
Nowadays such texts adopt the name of the melody or its composer.3
And, at the opposite chronological terminus, there is the account of the crea-
tion of Kalenda maya, whose text was composed by the troubadour Raimbaut
de Vaqueiras (fl. 1180-1207), upon request, to the tune of an estampida which
1 Thus Pierre Aubry, for example, in his preface to Estampies et danses royales (p. 9) dismisses
Grocheo's entire discussion of vocal music (including, of course, the vocal stantipes and the problem
of accounting for its rondel type of structure) with the remark 'nous n'en dirons rien ici.' And Fried-
rich Ludwig in Adler's Handbuchder Musikgeschichte.(p.260) simply mentions the estampie-stantipesas
a 'sonus illiteratus.'
2 To the above one might add the evidence afforded by the presence of the textless istampite of Lon-
don 29987, dating from about 1377 or after, i.e., a generation later than the discussions of estampie
texts.
8 'Consonium antiquitus dicebatur omnis inventio verborum que super aliquo caribo, nota, stam-
pita, vel similibus componebantur, precompositis sonis. Hodie verba talia nomen soni vel sonum fabri-
cantis secuntur' (quoted in 0. Antognoni, 'Le glosse ai doc. d'amore,' Giornaledefilologia romanza, iv,
1881, p. 96). Unfortunately this is the extent to which Barberino mentions the stampita. As to the
mysterious caribus, little seems to be known apart from the statement in the Leys d'amors (p. 350)
that is was a form (the earliest known, apparently) of purely instrumental music, and a vague refer-
ence in Dante's Purgatorio; see discussions in L. Biadene, Varieta letterarie e linguistiche (Padua:
Fratelli Gallina, 1896), pp. 47-59, and also in G. A. Scartazzini, Enciclopedia dantesca(Milan: U. Hoe-
pli, 1896), i, 320. The adoption of the name of the composer seems to have taken place in the Choses
Tassin discussed above,
had just been played by 'dui joglar di Fransa' on the viella.1 From this account
it has been supposed2 that the estampie originated as a purely instrumental
composition and only later came to be a vocal piece. Such an inference on so
slight a basis is open to question for the following reasons. In the first place,
Raimbaut's adoption, for his Kalenda maya poem, of a pre-existent melody -
performed on this occasion (though not necessarily on others) by instruments
alone - no more denies, in itself, the existence of an earlier text to that estampida
that would the creation by a modern versifier of a new text to the latest Cole
Porter tune just rendered (without vocal refrain) by the dance band of a Broad-
way night club. As a matter of fact, a melody so similar to that of Kalenda maya
as to suggest that the two are variants of the same occurs in three thirteenth-
century Mss with the French text Souvent souspire.3 Which of the versions is
the older is not known, but it is not impossible that Souvent souspire (or even
some other) was the original text - omitted upon that particular occasion -
of the tune to which Raimbaut wrote Kalenda maya.4 All that the description of
the composition of Kalenda maya really tells us is that this estampida text was
written to a preexistent estampida tune which at the moment had just been per-
formed by two French viella players - whether in unison or with an added
discant part we know not - a tune which may perfectly well have already pos-
sessed a text, i.e., have been a song.
Indeed, the creation of a vocal dance form through the addition of a text to
a dance which was originally purely instrumental, if assumed to be customary
in the case of the estampie, would reverse what seems to be the usual evolution
as revealed by anthropological research. For, according to Curt Sachs, 'time
beating and melody are not the first sound accompaniments of the dance. Imita-
tion of animal movements and the involuntary expression of emotion by repro-
ducing the appropriate animal sounds preceded all conscious sound formation';5
and from its origins as 'a pleasurable motor reaction, a game forcing excess energy
into a rhythmic pattern,'6 either with or without a special objective (e.g., as a
hunting charm), 'the dance joins up with the highly systematized organism of
life and takes from it a law of form.'7 To the animal cries - or, in the case of the
1 The account is given in C. Chabaneau, Les biographiesdes troubadoursen langue provenQale(Tou-
louse 1885), pp. 87-88, and concludes with the opening of Kalenda maya followed by the comment
'Aquesta stampida fo facha a las notas de la stampida quel joglar fasion en las violas.' On the connec-
tion of Kalenda maya with the popular May fetes, see A. Jeanroy, Les origines de la poesie lyrique ....
p. 88.
2 E.g., by Pierre Aubry, Estampies et danses royales, pp. 5-7.
3 The five verses of this anonymous song (Rayn. 1506) are given in H. Spanke, AltfranzosischeLie-
dersammlung(der anonyme Teil der HandschriftenK N P X), Halle: Niemeyer Verlag, 1925, No. xxix,
pp. 58-60, along with the music, ibid., 417-418. The music is transcribed in Adler, Handbuch der
Musikgeschichte,p. 191.
4 Professor Solano believes, however, that the
language of Souventsouspire would date this particu-
lar version of the text as late rather than early thirteenth century.
5 Curt Sachs, op. cit., 175. The animal dance is cultivated by the Andamanese, for example, one of
the most primitive races in the world today (see ibid., pp. 12, 15) and 'many of the tribes believe that
they first learned to dance from animals,' ibid., p. 79.
6 Ibid.,
p. 55. 7 Loc. cit.
equally primitive imageless dances, the 'dull aspirated and humming sounds
of dark coloring and with few overtones which, with mystic power, seem to lead
away from everyday life1 - percussive reenforcement of the rhythm is added,
first with the stamping of the foot, clapping of the hand, and gradually other
noisemakers (rattles, etc.).2 However, 'a melodic instrumental music in the full
sense appears as a dance accompaniment surprisingly late.... Instrumental
dance melody is not a development from instrumental rhythmic music but
rather . . . the instrumentalizing of dance songs. In all probability, the first songs
to be instrumentalized are those for which the words have been forgotten.'3
Indeed the melodic accompaniment to dancing was at first always sung.4 Among
the Andamanese, for example, 'the ordinary dance is always accompanied by
song, and all the songs are composed for the dance. Indeed there are no songs
except dance songs,' and 'although the statement that every song is composed
for the dance is no longer strictly true of the later cultures, dance and song never-
theless remain very close.'5
In view of this evidence on the evolution of dance music in general, it seems
wisest to assume concerning the estampie that at some obscure period in the
Middle Ages, it originated, either in Provence or possibly in northern France
('dui joglar di Fransa'), as a dance song, the structure and subject matter of
whose original texts is unknown to us. From the scarcity and brevity of reference
to it in the troubadour literature, from the stamping implication in its name and
the vigoria mentioned by the Doctrina, it would seem to have been of popular
rather than courtly origin. By about 1200, when we find the first information
and the oldest example (Kalenda maya), we discover it to be performed, on oc-
casion at least, by instruments alone. Whether the estampies so performed never-
theless normally possessed a text (Rayn. 1506 ?) or whether the primitive bond
between song and dance had in this case become sufficiently loosened so that
estampie melodies were already primarily instrumental pieces to which only
occasional texts such as Kalenda maya were set, is uncertain. Nor can it now be
determined to what extent Kalenda maya and Douce 308 resemble in subject
matter and structure the original type of estampie text, or to what extent the
estampie was ever cultivated as a form of poetry without music.
Although the Douce 308 texts comprise stanzas of irregular structure which
bear no obvious mark of either sequence type of setting (actually found in Ka-
lenda maya and the textless estampies) or of rondel structure with refrain, yet
according to Grocheo and the Doctrina, the vocal estampie by the late thirteenth
or early fourteenth century appears to have adopted a refrain and thereby to have
become allied in structure to the Italian ballata (Fr. virelai).6
1 Ibid., p. 175. 2 Ibid., pp. 177-178. 3 Ibid., p. 181.
4 Ibid., p. 182. 5 Ibid., pp. 182-183.
6 Accordingto da Tempo,at least some of the ballataswere still dance songs ('talesballatae can-
tanturet coreizantur,op. cit., p. 117). In this connection,too, there is an interestingpassagein the
Leysd'amorsconcerningthe dansa,a merrydancesong,whichtreatedof love andwas sungto a more
rapidtempothan the versor chanson('deutractardamorse deuhaverso joyoset alegreperdansarno
perota lone coma vers ni chansosmas un petit plusviacierperdansar,'p. 342). Properlythe dansais
As a dance, we have no real information on the estamp.ie,but its name implies
that it was once a stamping dance, and the attribution, a century or more later,
of difficulty (including the steps?) by Grocheo and of vigoria by the Doctrina
suggest that as a dance it long preserved its lively character. From this evidence
- as well as from the circumstances that it is contrasted with the chain dance
by Grocheo and Froissart, and that with the exception of Kalenda maya its music
is all textless - one is inclined to classify it as a couple rather than a chain dance,
although the adoption of a refrain, which is a characteristic of the chain dance,
in the late thirteenth century may imply the adoption also of some other features
of the chain dance, exemplifying, perhaps, that amalgamation of elements from
both types which had taken place by that time. To the end of its known history
(late fourteenth century) the estampie appears to have continued, occasionally
at least, in use as a dance, as the oft-cited passage from Froissart shows.l
a graceful piece with a single refrain and three couplets ending in the same meter and rhyme as the
refrain, as well as a tornada, which is like the refrain ('Dansa es us dictatz gracios que conte un refranh
so es un respos e solamen, e tres coblas semblans en la fi al respos en compas et en acordansa e la tor-
nada deu esser semblans al respos,' p. 340). Like the ballata, the opening of the couplets, however,
should not rhyme with the refrain ('el comensamens de cascuna cobla ... devon esser del tot divers
dacordansa del respos,' p. 342). Nevertheless, our author complains that singers of his time could not
give the dansa the [type of ?] melody appropriate to it, but changed it into a rondeau [!] by adding
semibrevesand minimae as in motets ('Enpero huey ne usa hom mal en nostre temps daquest so quar li
chantre que huey son no sabon apenas endevir en un propri so di dansa. E quar noy podon endevenir
han mudat lo so de dansa en so de redondel am lors minimas et am lors semibreus de lors motetz,'
p. 842). It should be added that some confusion arises between the evidence of this source and Sachs's
differentiation of the couple danse (dansa, danse, ballatio) from the chain or ring dance (chorea,carole)
since in the Leys d'amor8the distinction is made between the dansa and the bal, terms of the chorea-
carolestem being absent. Discussion of the bal in the Leys d'amor8is confined to the following passage:
'Some make bal8in the manner of the dansa, with a refrain and several stanzas; but the bal is different
from the dansa, for the dansa has no more than three stanzas besides the refrain and tornada, and the
bal has ten stanzas or more. Again, there may be another difference since the bal has a more precise
and lively melody and is more suitable for singing with instruments than the dansa. In addition, there
is still another difference, since one commonly composes the words of the dansa and then puts them to
music; with the bal it is the opposite, for one first composes an instrumental piece and then makes
the poem, which treats of love or praise or other worthy matters as the author wishes ('Item alqu fan
bals a la maniera de dansa amb un respos et am motas coblas. Pero bals es divers de dansa, quar dansa
no ha mays tres coblas estiers lo respos e la tornada. E bals ha x coblas o mays. Encaras pot haver
autra diversitat quar bals ha so mays minimat e viacier e mays apte per cantar amb esturmens que
dansa. Encaras ha autra diversitat quar hom comunalmen fa et ordena lo dictat de dansa e pueysh li
enpauza so. El contrari fay hom leumen en bal quar hom primieramen trobal so amb esturmens, e
pueys aquel trobat. Hom fa lo dictat de bal tractan damors o de lauzors o dautra materia honesta
segon la volontat del dictayre' p. 348 f.). From this it appears that the dansa, far from being allied to
the bal, as it would seem to have originally been according to Sachs's classification, is here perhaps
closer to the carole, by reason of its association with singing. The passage just cited is followed im-
mediately by the definitions of the garips and estampida given earlier, and, although it is not made
clear in the text, the fact that these last two forms are likewise especially associated with instru-
ments, leads one to suppose that they may be types of, or at least allied to, the bal.
1 The subsequent history of the estampie is completely obscure. The word occurs occasionally in
later times (e.g., 'Der andern Art Balli oder Ballette seynd, welche keinen Text haben: Und wenn
dieselbigen mit Schallmeyen oder Pfeiffen zum tantze gespielet werden, so heist es stampita' in M.
Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum, Teil in, Wolfenbiittel, 1619; reprint, E, Bernoulli ed., Leipzig: C. F
From the purely musical point of view, the estampie on its first appearance is
associated with instruments, usually the viella.l And from the Leys d'amors,
Barberino and other sources, as well as from the relatively large proportion of
textless estampies among the few extant instrumental compositions of the period,
it would appear that the estampie became, toward the end of the thirteenth
century primarily an instrumental piece, with the creation of texts for it (or vice
versa) of secondary importance. According to the examples preserved, the in-
strumental estampie retained the original sequence (double versicle) form, com-
prising three to seven (but usually four or five) puncta, each of which made use
of an ouvertand clos formula common to all puncta of the estampie. Even though
the latest examples (London 29987) possess more extended puncta than the
earlier ones, it may be said that the instrumental estampie remains conservative
in form. That it apparently did not undergo the mutation to rondel type of struc-
ture as did its vocal homonym may perhaps be explained by the fact that the
refrain is basically a choral (i.e., vocal) manifestation. Moreover, the trouba-
dours were interested in producing a variety of poetic rather than of musical
structures; and consequently it would be the vocal rather than the instrumental
estampie to which they would apply their innovations.
How soon and how often the estampie enjoyed the privilege of an added part
we cannot tell, although the evidence of Harley 978 from about the middle of
the thirteenth century renders it not unlikely that one of the 'dui joglar di
Fransa' who performed the estampidafor Kalenda maya was engaged in providing
(improvised?) discant to the other's melody.2 In any case, the musical interest
of the estampieseems to lie less in the contrapuntal than in the melodic embellish-
ments, for it is in the latter that the 'difficulty' stressed by Grocheo no doubt
consisted. Unfortunately for modern research, these melodic embellishments
appear to have been the result of improvised ornamentation, and the data
on such procedure, though incontrovertible, are, in so early a period, too vague
for us to evaluate them.3 But though its exact nature eludes us, its general signifi-
Kahnt, 1916, 31). But whether it stands for anything like the form we have been discussing must be
regarded as doubtful.
1 But also: Guis dou tabor au flahutel
Leur fait ceste estampie
(Jehan Erars, Pastourelle, in K. Bartsch, AltfranzosischeRomanzen und Pastourellen, p. 258).
2 It is even possible that the two players performed the puncta antiphonally, in the fashion of a se-
quence (see Handschin, ZsfMw, xII, 1).

8 The fact that improved ornamentation was
practiced in this period has already been pointed out.
But since our knowledge of its precise nature is dependent upon pedagogic discussions of the subject
or upon our possession of both plain and ornamented versions of the same piece, and since both of
these desiderata are extremely rare before the sixteenth century, our efforts to conceive what the
'difficult' melody of the estampie was like are seriously hampered. Some idea, however, may perhaps
be obtained from the motet transcriptions in keyboard tablature found in the RobertsbridgeCodex (see
ante p. 228, note 7) as well as from the illustrations (vocal) in the early fourteenth century De diminu-
tione contra puncti (Coussemaker, op. cit., II, 62) and in the treatise (1336) of Petrus dicta palma
ociosa (SblMG, xv, 1914, 504 ff). As for the assumption by Wolf (AfMw, I, 12 ff) and others that, as
notated, the London 229987 istampite represent already embellished versions, and the consequent at-
tempts to derive a simplified 'original' from each, one must say that the procedure is tempting but
unconvincing.
cance should not. For with this melodic elaboration there apparently comes a
certain obscuring of the rhythmic beat (percussio) which marks a transition
away from the original dance type toward the freely autonomous concert piece.1
Indeed, the most important point about the estampie is neither the possibility
of its having originated as an instrumental form, nor its indisputably prominent
role in the preserved repertoire of early instrumental music. Nor is it in the evi-
dence it offers of progress toward a so-called 'instrumental style of melody.2
Rather does its chief significance lie in the circumstances that: (1) it is the
earliest type of composition found in both vocal and instrumental literature which
shows a decided difference in structure for each medium; (2) as apparently a
favorite dance for improvised ornamentation, it seems to present the traceable
beginning of that embellishment of instrumental dance tunes which produced
the rich collections of instrumental variations of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries; (3) and finally, it is the earliest example of a dance from which - ap-
parently side by side with its continued use for dancing (Froissart) - there seems
to evolve, through a complication of the melody and obfuscation of the original
dance beat, something approaching an instrumental concert piece, perhaps the
first type of music consistently intended for this particular artistic purpose. This
last stage may well have been attained by the compositions in London 29987,
where the istampite - whether or not they were themselves still intended as
actual dance pieces - are indistinguishable from their companions, the 'descrip-
tive' pieces, La Manfredina and the Lamento di Tristano.3 In the estampie,
therefore, we have what appears to be the earliest instance of that process of
abstraction and stylization later exemplified in the case of the allemande- which
arose out of the late fifteenth-century Tanz4 and is mentioned as 'one of our
most ancient dances5 in the late sixteenth century but continues to be played,
1 Moser (ZsfMw, II, 186-198) sees evidence of concert performance in the phrase 'devant la dame'
from the Messe des oiseaux quotation given earlier, and in the distinction between performer ('faciens')
and auditor ('advertens') in Grocheo's definition of the instrumental stantipes (see ante p. 238, note 1).
2 Without going into exhaustive arguments against the notion that florid embellishments, chro-
matic alterations, frequent leaps and all other divagations from the melodic procedures of the simplest
type of Gregorian chant are ipso facto evidence of 'instrumental style,' one may point out the general
resemblance between the thirteenth-century estampiesand other (vocal) music of the time. Indeed, the
two melodic features which are, by and large, found far more often in instrumental tban in vocal
music, namely persistent activity without pause and the continuous reiteration of the same note-
values or motives and/or the same melodic intervals, are relatively infrequent in the thirteenth-
century estampies. It is certainly rash to regard Kalenda maya as representing a peculiarly instru-
mental type of melody when it is by no means certain that this melody (more or less as it stands) was
not originally that of a song (Rayn. 1506?). And the same is true of the Harley cantus inferiores or the
Paris estampies, any of which may one day turn up in an earlier Ms with a text. The Choses Tassin,
on the other hand, show certain reiterations of intervals and certain monotonous rhythms which are
more generally found in instrumental than in vocal music, and the persistence of the same figurations
over several measures is even more true of the London istampite.
3 Strictly speaking, the designation of the Lamento di Tristano and La Manfredina as 'descriptive'
pieces is gratuitous. They may, of course, be arrangements of songs bearing those names, but Curt
Sachs (op. cit., 294) thinks that as they stand, they are saltarelli (i.e., dances) with fanciful titles.
4 Sachs,
op. cit., pp. 331-332.
5 Thoinot Arbeau [Jehan Tabourot] Orchesography(1588) translated by C. W. Beaumont, London:
C. W. Beaumont, 1925, 109.
though not usually danced any longer in 1636,1 and eventually loses its dance
character entirely (through melodic and rhythmic complication) in J. S. Bach
and even more recently and conspicuously in the case of the courtly minuet of
seventeenth century,2 which becomes more rapid and difficult or impossible to
dance to in some of the later works of Haydn and Mozart (e.g., in the latter's
great E-flat major and G minor symphonies of 1788), and loses its identity
completely in the monumental scherzos of Beethoven.
1 'L'Allemande est une dance d'Allemagne, qui est mesuree comme la Pavanne; mais elle n'a pas
este si usitee en France que les precedentes [i.e. presumably the passamezzoand pavane just described]
. . .on se contente auiourd'huy de la iouer sur les instrumens sans la dancer, non plus que la Passe-
mezze, si ce n'est aux Balets.' (M. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle, Paris: Seb. Cramoisy, 1636,
Traits B de la voix, pp. 164-165; Harvard College Library copy).
2 Louis xiv and Lully appear to have been responsible for the late seventeenth-century transmuta-
tion of the primitive minuet into a courtly dance whose popularity lasted for about a century. Ac-
cording to Sachs 'in 1767 the minuet appears for the last time in the index of a dance manual ... and
was out of favor .... Nevertheless it was still taught in the nineteenth century' (op. cit., p. 398).
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Urban T. Holmes, Jr.
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:57
Speculum.
REVIEWS
and ALFREDFOULET, edd. The Mediaeval French Roman d'Alexandre, Vol. rv: Le
E. C. ARMSTRONG
Romandu Fuerrede Gadresd'Eustache(Elliott Monographs89), Princeton,N. J.: PrincetonUni-
versity Press, 1942. Pp. 110.
F. B. AGARD, ed. The Mediaeval French Roman d'Alexandre, Vol. v: Version of Alexandre de Paris,
Variantsand Notesto BranchII (Elliott Monographs40), Princeton,N. J.: PrincetonUniversity
Press, 1942.Pp. 250.
THESEtwo monographs are bound together and are distributed as a single vol-
ume. They represent a small portion of the large enterprise planned by the late
Professor Armstrong and his associates. The amount of meticulous labor and en-
thusiastic research which has gone into these studies can hardly be evaluated with
justice by a reviewer who approaches this Alexander project from the outside,
who has not participated in any of the decisions or plans of the editors of the se-
ries. It is next to impossible, for example, for us to estimate the reasonableness of
Professor Armstrong's predilection for Ms. G. We will limit ourselves to some
more general observations.
Professor Armstrong states the purpose of Volume iv very pointedly on p. 2:
'c'est de determiner le contenu et, autant que faire se peut, le texte du poeme
d'Eustache, ce Roman dufuerre de Gadresqu'Alexandre de Paris a incorpore, sous
une forme remaniee, dans sa version du Roman d'Alexandre . . . nous osons croire
que la texte du RFGa etabli par nous ne s'ecartera pas trop du poeme qu'Eus-
tache avait compose.' Again, on p. 37: 'Quels sont les criteres qui permettent de
reconnattre si tel vers ou si telle laisse du fuerre de Gadresremonte a Eustache?'
These criteria the editor has established by the process of weeding out 'themes
favoris, habitudes, manies' and sources of Alexandre de Paris and then by making
a comparison of two Old French and two Latin versions of the story which Pro-
fessor Armstrong is quite certain (and it is not improbable) are dependent upon
the lost poem of Eustache which he seeks to reconstruct. In this way 'I'on arrive
a restituer le poeme d'Eustache. Aucun doute quant au fond, et pas trop d'hesita-
tion pour ce qui est du texte.'
With all due respect to Professor Armstrong's acumen and to his years of study
devoted to this and related problems I must remain skeptical and say that, in my
opinion, it is impossible to reestablish scientifically in this way the actual text of
a lost poem. I should alter the last statement quoted so as to make it read: 'L'on
arrive a restituer le fond du poeme d'Eustache sans trop d'hesitations. Pour ce
qui est du texte, la certitude n'est pas A notre portee.'
The conditions under which a jongleur labored in the twelfth century should
never be forgotten. Exact texts did not concern any one too much. Presumably
many poems were composed at length in the poet's head and were not necessarily
written down until they had been carried about and sung for some time. Alexan-
dre de Paris may never have had a written text of Eustache, his source, before
him; he could have retained much of the poem in his memory from oral transmis-
sion. The ease with which wording and even rhymes were altered under mediaeval
conditions needs no commentary. Let us select at random the two lines which the
editor has selected from the interior of Alexandre's version and assumed to be the
250
Reviews 251
opening lines of the Eustache original: 'Tant chevauche Alixandres, qui d'aler ne
s'oublie, Qu'il vit les tours de Tyr et la terre a choisie.' What proof do we have
that these were not first conceived by Eustache as: 'Tant se hasta Alixandres, qui
d'aler ne fine, Si vit de Tyr les murs e vers la mer chemine?'
This paraphrase is my own and I do not profess that it is as good as Eustache
would have written, but I do insist that alterations of language could be an un-
conscious as well as a conscious practice in the twelfth century, and that the
reconstruction of an exact text by subjective criteria is hazardous. As examples of
this facility of paraphrase one has only to note the laisses similaires in the chan-
sons de geste where rhyme, word order and vocabulary were varied in what some-
times resembles an exercise.
When a scholar has reached the full maturity of judgment of Professor Arm-
strong we delight in getting his views of problems without always demanding argu-
ments. There are some statements, however, which are made in this Introduction,
on which some reasoning is hung. These should be supported by argument. The
editor says of the Florence version of the Fuerres story, on p. 16: 'Le FGaFlor fait
l'effet d'un exercice scolaire ... . parait probable egalement que cet exercice
scolaire a vu le jour en Italie, car les exercices scolaires n'etant guere matiere
d'exportation ... Boccace s'est avise de le transcrire de sa propre main dans son
recueil d'extraits.' Awkward Latin did not necessarily mean a schoolboy exercise;
nor is it true that a mediaeval man never carried his youthful exercises among his
literary baggage. Under such circumstances why did Boccaccio bother to copy
such a schoolboy hodgepodge with his own hand? Subjective reasoning of this sort
arouses in the reader a quizzical attitude which does not permit full appreciation
of the purpose of the book.
Professor Armstrong essays an opinion on the dialect of the lost poem of
Eustache from a few rhyme words occurring in his reconstruction. Among these
are lois<leges and the fact that -z is not confused with -s. He decides for 'nor-
mannique' (p. 36). Surely these language characteristics can hardly be called
Norman.
I can see no reason for the constant repetition of Texte d'Eustachesbefore each
reconstituted laisse. Professor Armstrong believes in a rather close use of the
trema, suggested, I believe, by the Societe des Anciens Textes, in principle. This
is a matter on which scholars can surely differ (although the editor has indicated
elsewhere that a definite rule should be followed). There is no reason for the
trema in such words as cetie (v. 97), avr'es (234), fient (728), agues (994). There
is no reasonable doubt of either meaning or pronunciation which could demand
such a mark.
In the second monograph a proper evaluation requires an acquaintance with
the Alexandre Mss. In Vol. II of the series (Elliott Monograph 37) Professor
Armstrong and L. F. H. Lowe offered the text of Alexandre de Paris' version of
the Fuerres de Gadresbut, for stanzas 20-132 they confined themselves to the a
group of Mss since the f, offered too great a variation. In the monograph now
before us there is an edition of the variant stanzas from the f group, by E. C.
Agard, who has taken L. F. H. Lowe's place, followed by the notes and variants
252 Reviews
to the text printed in Vol. 11 (no. 37) in which Agard has worked with material
furnished by Lowe and Armstrong.
There is no fixed criterion as to how many and what kind of notes are necessary
for an edition. For some readers nearly everything would need to be interpreted;
for others almost all notes will be commonplace. I am inclined to believe that the
editors here have frequently expanded their notes more than is necessary and
have achieved banalite. On p. 12 there is a rather lengthy note equating arguel
with argol. Inasmuch as argol or argal is found in the smallest English dictionaries
with the meaning 'tartaric acid,' and as the ue beside q is to be expected, perhaps
even Antoine Thomas (who is quoted) was dealing with the obvious. On p. 36 is
a note of some length on the term 'Cil nouviaus rois de Grece' which the enemy
duke applies somewhat scornfully to Alexander. This arouses the commentator to
say that the use of such a term is hardly 'valid per se' and that Alexandre de
Paris may have had in mind the expression 'heir apparent,' etc. Need we take this
so seriously? Page 41 has a note on the following lines: 'A cheval le ront mis, qui
qu'en doie anuier, Court en ont deservie, s'on droit lor vieut jugier, Car pour
paour de mort ne le vaurent laissier.' In my opinion the court is to be read 'little'
and the sense is 'They deserved little for putting him on his horse because they
were afraid to leave him.' The commentators read: 'Ils ont bien merite d'etre
accueillis a la cour de leur duc.' On p. 49, line 81, Mr. Agard translates 'tant vous
a fait senestrier' by 'desargonner.' For me it means 'has made you uncomfort-
able.' The text on p. 57 should have had in lines 10-12 (from the better Mss):
'Dites le maine roy, qui les grans os caele, Se tost ne nous sequeurt en l'oscure
vaucele, Ja mais ne savra jour que ris ne joie espele.' This, the editors say, is
'syntactically unclear'; the third line is then altered to read: 'Ja mais jour ne
savrons que ris ne joie espele.' But for me the original reading of the M and C
groups gives no difficulty: 'Never will he know for a single day what joy or laugh-
ter means.'
I must skip over many pages and come to the set of notes for Vol. II. On page
180 adosser is discussed and translated by 'hang against one's back' instead of
'jeter.' After all, as Mario Roques once said to me 'Une bgtise est une betise,
n'importe quel grand nom le signe.' Surely 'jeter' must have been a momentary
slip on the part of Godefroy. The meaning is self-evident. Why perpetuate an
error? On p. 145 the commentator hesitates to translate pene de l'escu. Many
years ago I suggested for pene the meaning 'hide covering' and even 'heraldic
device.' The earliest shields were covered with hide, cf. the heraldic terms 'sable,
ermine' which were used for the background of a device on a shield. This pene is
equivalent to panne. Page 165, the editors say: 'This is the only known example of
a word blancherale.'They give citations from G. Tilander and J. du Fouilloux to
explain that the word must indicate some part of the horse's leg. Cotgrave gives
'rale de cheval The Pasterne of a horse.' Surely blanche rale 'white pastern' does
not require much commentary.
In these paragraphs I have sought with a few examples to make my point that
even in a work of this magnitude, matured over many years, there are matters
of policy which remain debatable. Much as I admire the solid scholarship of
Reviews 253
Professor Armstrong and his associates, I feel that they are making a rather com-
plicated business out of editing this text. It is hoped that this will not set a prece-
dent that will discourage younger workers from editing with less project funds at
their disposal. Scholarship must always be flexible as befits the circumstances,
and should not fall into any stylized pattern.
URBAN T. HOLMES, JR,
The Universityof North Carolina.
GUSTAVE COHEN, La grande clartMdu Moyen-Age. New York: Editions de la Maison frangaise, 1943.
Pp. 925.
La grande clarte du moyen-dgeis no study of syntactic lucidity such as one finds
in Mornet's history of French clarity. It is a reaffirmation that the matutinal
refulgence of the Middle Ages should now be viewed as brighter than ever. The
title is chosen as a challenge to any unreconstructed minority still clinging to the
notion of a Dark Age, or, for that matter, of any individual dark century between
800 and 1500. The great light of the Middle Ages, which M. Cohen would like
to call the First Age when treating of France, was the brilliant creative genius
which was to account for France's pre-eminent destiny during the succeeding
centuries. 'C'est la ce qu'on appelle encore parfois les t6enbres du Moyen-Age, ou
je ne vois qu'6blouissantes clartes d'aube et d'aurore' (p. 68). In his epilogue the
author sums up his entire text: 'Les tenebres du Moyen-Age ne sont que celles de
notre ignorance.' In elaborating this thesis, by now a somewhat familiar one as
M. Cohen readily acknowledges, the author adds a fund of erudition and imagina-
tion to the scholarship of his precursors.
While it is with the thought and civilization of France that M. Cohen is chiefly
concerned, the contributions of many areas come under his scrutiny. The Celtic,
Germanic, Arabic, and Byzantine influences are scrupulously recorded. No aspect
of the Middle Ages is too lofty or too humble to escape the author's speculation,
whether he is elucidating Dutch and Rhenish mysticism or proving Gothic script
a trademark of mediaevalism. His widely diversified subject matter is grouped
into seven chronological periods constituting chapters. Each period (they do not
always correspond to centuries) is appropriately labeled with its chief character-
istics or contributions. The chapters are summarized as: 1. La Naissance du
frangais et de la litterature frangaise; des origines au milieu du xIe siecle. 2. Le
siecle des geneses, 1050-1150. 3. La Seconde Renaissance; avenement de la femme
et de l'amour, environ 1150-1900. 4. Le Grand Siecle: le XIIe; la rose, la prose, la
cath6drale. 5. Triomphe de l'encyclopedisme et apparition du naturisme; la
seconde moitie du xIIIe siecle. 6. Le siecle des traducteurs, des glossateurs, et des
techniciens: le xIVe. 7. Developpement de l'individualisme et preparation de la
Renaissance: le xve siecle.
Four unannounced but contingent theses seem to be advanced in this volume.
Outstanding among the four is the author's defense of the Middle Ages or First
Age as a period of luster and progress. Having cultivated this terrain for many
years, M. Cohen is as able an advocate as one could wish. He treats in detail the
vast contributions of the Middle Ages in both the major and minor arts and
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Robert J. Clements
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:57
Speculum.
Reviews 253
Professor Armstrong and his associates, I feel that they are making a rather com-
plicated business out of editing this text. It is hoped that this will not set a prece-
dent that will discourage younger workers from editing with less project funds at
their disposal. Scholarship must always be flexible as befits the circumstances,
and should not fall into any stylized pattern.
URBAN T. HOLMES, JR,
The Universityof North Carolina.
GUSTAVE COHEN, La grande clartMdu Moyen-Age. New York: Editions de la Maison frangaise, 1943.
Pp. 925.
La grande clarte du moyen-dgeis no study of syntactic lucidity such as one finds
in Mornet's history of French clarity. It is a reaffirmation that the matutinal
refulgence of the Middle Ages should now be viewed as brighter than ever. The
title is chosen as a challenge to any unreconstructed minority still clinging to the
notion of a Dark Age, or, for that matter, of any individual dark century between
800 and 1500. The great light of the Middle Ages, which M. Cohen would like
to call the First Age when treating of France, was the brilliant creative genius
which was to account for France's pre-eminent destiny during the succeeding
centuries. 'C'est la ce qu'on appelle encore parfois les t6enbres du Moyen-Age, ou
je ne vois qu'6blouissantes clartes d'aube et d'aurore' (p. 68). In his epilogue the
author sums up his entire text: 'Les tenebres du Moyen-Age ne sont que celles de
notre ignorance.' In elaborating this thesis, by now a somewhat familiar one as
M. Cohen readily acknowledges, the author adds a fund of erudition and imagina-
tion to the scholarship of his precursors.
While it is with the thought and civilization of France that M. Cohen is chiefly
concerned, the contributions of many areas come under his scrutiny. The Celtic,
Germanic, Arabic, and Byzantine influences are scrupulously recorded. No aspect
of the Middle Ages is too lofty or too humble to escape the author's speculation,
whether he is elucidating Dutch and Rhenish mysticism or proving Gothic script
a trademark of mediaevalism. His widely diversified subject matter is grouped
into seven chronological periods constituting chapters. Each period (they do not
always correspond to centuries) is appropriately labeled with its chief character-
istics or contributions. The chapters are summarized as: 1. La Naissance du
frangais et de la litterature frangaise; des origines au milieu du xIe siecle. 2. Le
siecle des geneses, 1050-1150. 3. La Seconde Renaissance; avenement de la femme
et de l'amour, environ 1150-1900. 4. Le Grand Siecle: le XIIe; la rose, la prose, la
cath6drale. 5. Triomphe de l'encyclopedisme et apparition du naturisme; la
seconde moitie du xIIIe siecle. 6. Le siecle des traducteurs, des glossateurs, et des
techniciens: le xIVe. 7. Developpement de l'individualisme et preparation de la
Renaissance: le xve siecle.
Four unannounced but contingent theses seem to be advanced in this volume.
Outstanding among the four is the author's defense of the Middle Ages or First
Age as a period of luster and progress. Having cultivated this terrain for many
years, M. Cohen is as able an advocate as one could wish. He treats in detail the
vast contributions of the Middle Ages in both the major and minor arts and
254 Reviews
sciences. If some of the materials are inevitably familiar,.many of the observations

and illustrations are new. M. Cohen has a talent for drawing new and personal
conclusions out of even the familiar materials.
Not only does the author claim that the Middle Ages may rival the Modern
Age in letters, arts, science, and philosophy; he posits the proposition more diffi-
cult of proof that the centuries nine through fifteen wrought great social better-
ment: abolition of serfdom, initial land distribution, collective security through
the guilds, development of international trade through the Hanseatic League and
Italian shipping, popular representation in the English Parliament and the
Estates-General, incipient constitutionalism in the Great Charter. The one social
weakness of the Middle Ages, concedes M. Cohen, was absence of religious tol-
erance. But mediaeval feudalism and intolerance, he adds, were amateurish when
compared to present-day totalitarian barbarity and persecution.
The second incidental thesis is that the somewhat misunderstood fifteenth
century made significant contributions which we must reconsider. The view repre-
sented by Huizinga that this century was one of decline is vigorously assailed:
Ce conceptde d6cadence,de corruption,de decompositionest bien malaisea maintenir'
Sans doute certainscourantsmedi6vauxne sont plus que des filets d'eau, par exemplela
courtoisie, certaines formes, telles l'arc augif, jadis robustes, s'amenuisentdans une
6elganceexcessive,trop gracileet trop alambiquee;mais d'autresformes,d'autresidees,
d'autrestendancesapparaissent,qui porteront,dans le siecle suivant,le XVIe,celui de la
Renaissance,des fruits et des moissonsadmirables(p. 170).
Can one call that century decadent, asks the author, which saw the invention of
printing, of oil painting, the vocal polyphony of an Okeghem, which set to study-
ing Greek, and gave birth to an Erasmus? The fifteenth century is viewed as a
busy preparation for the Renaissance. Its mysticism is a source of the Renais-
sance enthusiasm. Its translators and scholars blazed the trail for the generation
of Bude. Okeghem foreruns Palestrina as Memling antedates Raphael. Pathelin
is the father of Panurge. In architecture, the theater, and typography, the fif-
teenth century and the first decades of the sixteenth constitute a continuous tra-
dition. The fifteenth finds a worthy apologist in these pages.
The third contingent thesis is an outgrowth of the first two. It is a defense of
the Burdach (continuous evolution) theory of the Renaissance against the
Burckhardt theory (saltation and break with the past). 'Ceci revient a dire qu'il
n'y a pas entre le Moyen-Age et la Renaissance cette rupture que des hommes
comme Erasme et Rabelais, du Bellay et Ronsard, qui usaient de sa prosodie, ont
violemment exprimee et qu'a cette notion il vaut mieux substituer celle de la
continuite et du renouvellement par apports ext6rieurs et evolution int6rieure
(p. 172).' If only the man of the fifteenth were as aware that he was ushering in a
New Age as the man of the sixteenth knew he lived in that New Age, the Burdach
theory could become the more credible. Unfortunately, such was not the case,
even in Italy.
A fourth and final thesis may be discerned in these pages: France assumed the
leading r6le in the formation of the humanities and sciences during the Middle
Ages. 'Et c'est bien cela, le Moyen-Age, l'6poque des geneses, le temps de la
creation ofutoutes les formes d'art sortent d'une matrice inepuisable, qui a nom
Reviews 255
France, avec la fratche et charmante jeunesse du printemps (p. 208).' It is in-

disputable that France, busy crossroads of the Middle Ages, left as great a heri-
tage to the Renaissance as any other country. However, for sake of argument, one
might propose Italy as an inexhaustible matrix of equal importance from the
ninth through the fifteenth. In the arts, music, literature, and sciences this holds
true. The Commediaeasily rivals the Roman de la rose. San Miniato takes no odds
from the Sainte Chapelle. The universities of Salerno and Bologna challenged
Paris and Montpellier. And let us not forget the mediaeval pedagogue who 'went
from Paris to Bologna where he unlearned what he had taught and then came
back and untaught it.'" To weigh the comparative contributions of France and
Italy would better suit a Schoolman's dictamen than this review. At any rate, by
insisting upon the greatness of his country in the past, M. Cohen then envisions
the inevitable continuity of this greatness once France is delivered from her pres-
ent bonds.
Reading a volume of this sort, embodying so much original speculation, one is
naturally tempted to quibble over certain definitions and conclusions. Can one
justifiably label Dante a humanist (p. 199)? Can one assert that Saint Patrick
and Saint Brendan inspired the Divina Commedia(p. 44)? Dante never mentions
either in any of his works. Other hypotheses are as original and more plausible.
(E.g., the exit in Shakespearean and modern English stage directions derives from
the Mss of mediaeval farces.)
In sum, here is a volume written by a veteran scholar who has devoted thirteen
competent tomes and countless articles to the Middle Ages alone. M. Cohen's
researches in many of the component domains now prompt and enable him to
pause and view the total picture. Accordingly, his study is long on imagination
and independent judgment and short on footnotes and bibliography. Occasion-
ally allowing himself the licenses of an essayist, he compares the Crusades with
recent Anglo-American military operations in Tunisia; he longs for a latter-day
Chanson de Geste to rally French resistance; he can believe better the extraordi-
nary adventures of mediaeval knights by reading of exploits of British and Ameri-
can fighter pilots. Such obiter dicta coupled with M. Cohen's proved scholarship
make the volume readable to the amateur as well as the specialist. The young firm
of French and European Publications has chosen an excellent study to mark its
first venture into the mediaeval field.
ROBERT J. CLEMENTS,
Harvard University.
H. R. ELLIS,The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conceptionof the Dead in Old Norse Literature,Cambridge:
University Press, 1943. Pp. viii, 908. 12s. 6d.
To summarize this volume would not be easy; even the author's own 'Conclusion'
(pp. 198-201) falls far short of doing justice to a work so full of discovery and
provocative speculation. It is proposed here to touch upon a few outstanding
aspects of Norse eschatdlogy and funeral customs, rather than attempt to describe
the whole contents of this compact study.
1 C. H. Haskins, Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1933), p. 396.
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): H. M. Smyser
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:57
Speculum.
Reviews 255
France, avec la fratche et charmante jeunesse du printemps (p. 208).' It is in-

disputable that France, busy crossroads of the Middle Ages, left as great a heri-
tage to the Renaissance as any other country. However, for sake of argument, one
might propose Italy as an inexhaustible matrix of equal importance from the
ninth through the fifteenth. In the arts, music, literature, and sciences this holds
true. The Commediaeasily rivals the Roman de la rose. San Miniato takes no odds
from the Sainte Chapelle. The universities of Salerno and Bologna challenged
Paris and Montpellier. And let us not forget the mediaeval pedagogue who 'went
from Paris to Bologna where he unlearned what he had taught and then came
back and untaught it.'" To weigh the comparative contributions of France and
Italy would better suit a Schoolman's dictamen than this review. At any rate, by
insisting upon the greatness of his country in the past, M. Cohen then envisions
the inevitable continuity of this greatness once France is delivered from her pres-
ent bonds.
Reading a volume of this sort, embodying so much original speculation, one is
naturally tempted to quibble over certain definitions and conclusions. Can one
justifiably label Dante a humanist (p. 199)? Can one assert that Saint Patrick
and Saint Brendan inspired the Divina Commedia(p. 44)? Dante never mentions
either in any of his works. Other hypotheses are as original and more plausible.
(E.g., the exit in Shakespearean and modern English stage directions derives from
the Mss of mediaeval farces.)
In sum, here is a volume written by a veteran scholar who has devoted thirteen
competent tomes and countless articles to the Middle Ages alone. M. Cohen's
researches in many of the component domains now prompt and enable him to
pause and view the total picture. Accordingly, his study is long on imagination
and independent judgment and short on footnotes and bibliography. Occasion-
ally allowing himself the licenses of an essayist, he compares the Crusades with
recent Anglo-American military operations in Tunisia; he longs for a latter-day
Chanson de Geste to rally French resistance; he can believe better the extraordi-
nary adventures of mediaeval knights by reading of exploits of British and Ameri-
can fighter pilots. Such obiter dicta coupled with M. Cohen's proved scholarship
make the volume readable to the amateur as well as the specialist. The young firm
of French and European Publications has chosen an excellent study to mark its
first venture into the mediaeval field.
ROBERT J. CLEMENTS,
Harvard University.
H. R. ELLIS,The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conceptionof the Dead in Old Norse Literature,Cambridge:
University Press, 1943. Pp. viii, 908. 12s. 6d.
To summarize this volume would not be easy; even the author's own 'Conclusion'
(pp. 198-201) falls far short of doing justice to a work so full of discovery and
provocative speculation. It is proposed here to touch upon a few outstanding
aspects of Norse eschatdlogy and funeral customs, rather than attempt to describe
the whole contents of this compact study.
1 C. H. Haskins, Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1933), p. 396.
256 Reviews
The author begins with a resume of archaeological evidences, brief but com-
plete even to a full description of the epochal Sutton Hoo (Suffolk) ship-burials
excavated in 1938-39. She charts as definitely as possible the devious histories
of cremation and inhumation from the Bronze Age down to the introduction of
Christianity. The distinction between cremation and inhumation is naturally
of central importance to the whole subject; Miss Ellis rightly makes it one of her
primary concerns to search out and examine the respective ideas which motivated
or were associated with each of these two methods of disposal of the dead.
In Old Norse literature, the author finds, cremation and the ideas peculiar to
cremation have left an imprint which is surprisingly light, especially in view of
the fact that the practice was widespread for so many centuries. 'Except for the
Ynglinga Saga the prose sagas as a whole assume that inhumation is the only
method of disposing of the dead and that burial in a howe is the normal practice
in pre-Christian times' (p. 34). To be sure, cremation is not infrequently men-
tioned as a means of destroying an inhumed corpse that will not remain inhumed.
In the Eyrbyggja Saga, for example, p6r61fr Bsegif6tr wanders from his grave
mound by night to prey on men and animals, until p6roddr puts an end to his
troublesome visits by burning him and casting his ashes into the sea. In such
cases, cremation is a mere adjunct of inhumation and has of itself no positive
significance. But ceremonial cremation, of the sort described by Snorri in the
Ynglinga Saga, appears elsewhere for the most part only in scattered allusions in
poetry and in that isolated and priceless passage in Ahmad ibn Fadlan's travel-
diary: Ahmad's eyewitness account of a Swedish funeral on the banks of the
Volga in the year 921. The chief idea behind cremation is clear enough: the body
is to be annihilated in order that the soul may join Odin in Valhalla. 'We burn
them with fire in a twinkling, and they enter Paradise in that very same hour,'
says a Swede to Ahmad, and when a gale fans the flames, he adds, with the hearty
laugh of simple faith, 'Out of love of him his Lord has sent the wind to take him
away.'
Since cremation is the mode of entry into Valhalla, it might be thought that
wherever Valhalla is encountered we have a reflection of the practice of crema-
tion. But no; the picture which we get of Valhalla, sketchy though it is, shows
unmistakable affinities with the ideas which surround inhumation. The perpetual
battles of Valhalla, for example, are shown to be a transference of the per-
petual battles of draugar (i.e., animated dead) in the burial mounds. In short,
'The impression given by literature is that this belief in cremation of the dead
was never very widespread in Scandinavia, but that it was a vigorous, perhaps
fanatical, belief within a restricted circle' (p. 63), a circle presumably of aristo-
cratic worshippers of Odin (p. 198). On the basis of archaeologicalevidence, and
because cremation is associated with the Ynglings and with Swedish settlers in
Russia, Miss Ellis thinks that it was from Sweden that the cremation cult spread
to other parts of Scandinavia.
All this treatment of cremation is an aspect of the opening chapters of the book,
rather than a separate thesis, but it is an important aspect and the reader should
perhaps be given a caveatin regard to it. Old Norse literature may in this particu-
Reviews 257
lar be markedly unrepresentative of predominant Scandinavian thought, for the

reason that cremation, having apparently died out early in western Norway, was
never known in Iceland. Miss Ellis notes this fact and acknowledges rather
casually that it 'may well account for the emphasis on howe-laying in the prose
literature which we possess' (p. 38). But it may account for much more than that;
it may account to a very considerable extent for the over-all lack of emphasis on
cremation in the whole of Old Norse literature, both prose and poetry, since
Icelanders were to such a great extent the literary masters of Scandinavia. Cre-
mation would certainly seem more remote and strange to an Icelander of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries than would be the case if it had been practiced
by his heathen forbears in Iceland. It is notable that Snorri, in that very Ynglinga
Saga in which he gives us the aforementioned instances of cremation, apparently
misinterprets his source in three places in such a fashion as to substitute 'burning-
in' of the living for cremation of the dead, the former being a far more familiar
institution to Icelanders. Perhaps the Scandinavian belief in cremation of the
dead was more widespread than Norse literature would lead us to think.
The motives that centered about the underworld of the grave mound are many
and complex, and the author handles them with acumen and disciplined imagina-
tion. The material is elusive in the extreme, however, and questions brought forth
(e.g., on p. 65) are not always very explicitly answered. The book as a whole is
stronger in suggestiveness than in definition. Among exceptions to this rule are
the conclusive treatment of the term 'Hel' and the idea of the Otherworld within
a holy mountain; the number of such exceptions might have been greater if the
author had found the implications of skaldic poetry more accessible (see p. 200).
The author's admirable suggestiveness is everywhere noteworthy; her handling
of the two disparate problems of Ship-funeral (pp. 39 ff.) and of the idea of Re-
birth from the grave mound (pp. 138 ff.) might be especially cited, or perhaps
even better, her handling of the most difficult and important subject of the Valky-
ries. Of these supernatural women, she takes into account their 'wide and complex
nature,' noting 'how often they exceed the characteristics which skaldic poets
and Snorri give to them as handmaidens of Othin' (p. 70) - for example, whereas
in the Hdkonarmdl they are 'noble and dignified women,' in the DarraYarlj6d
'they are very different figures, much fiercer and cruder, who are shown weaving
the web of battle and exulting in blood and carnage.' The relationship between
these two kinds of Valkyries; the conception of the Valkyrie as guardian of a
particular warrior who, after his death, becomes her 'husband'; and the possi-
bility that there was once a definite cult of supernatural women, which, though
generally replaced by worship of the gods, has left a trace in historical times in
the accounts of Jarl Hakon and his porgertr Hoilgabruir - all these subjects
are handled with a characteristic skill and sensitivity.
The chapter on the 'Journey to the Land of the Dead,' among the most read-
able in the book, offers a folklore parallel of unusual interest. In the journey of
Hadingus to the Otherworld, described by Saxo, Hadingus and his guide, an old
woman, arrive at last at a high wall, a usual final barrier encountered by those
who journey to the land of the dead. This wall is too high for the old woman to
258 Reviews
leap over, but 'she strangles a cock which she carries, and flings it over the bar-
rier; and the bird comes to life immediately, for they can hear it crowing' (p. 172).
This episode is paralleled in Ahmad ibn Fadlan's account of the Viking funeral
on the Volga. A young woman is to be burned with her master on the pyre;
shortly before she is slain, she is brought to a high structure erected beside the
pyre and shaped like the frame of a door. Three times she is lifted to look over
this frame, and each time she makes a formulary statement to the effect that she
is now looking into Paradise. Then she is given a hen; she cuts off its head and
throws it on to the pyre.
Apart from offering valuable implications regarding the Norse Otherworld
(and physical resurrection therein), this parallel serves another purpose: it shows
that Ahmad, in an episode at the very center of his elaborate account, has evi-
dently reported what he saw with an accuracy that is at least passable and satis-
factory. His story dovetails nicely with Saxo's, and is thereby corroborated. This
is important, because, as Miss Ellis observes, there are reasons for questioning the
reliability of Ahmad- 'his account has a strangely sensual and fantastic ring
... so that one rather wonders how far the teller has read his own interpretation
into what he saw' (p. 45). Incidentally, Miss Ellis and her predecessors in this
field have been handicapped in judging of Ahmad's reliability, for he has been
known to them only partially, through passages quoted by the Arab Yakfit in
his Geographical Dictionary - Ahmad's travel-diary as a whole has been com-
monly supposed to be lost. It is not lost, however, and a better basis for judging
Ahmad is in sight. The text of a manuscript found as long ago as 1923 has been
published at Leipzig, with commentary and a translation into German, by
A. Z. V. Togan, for the Deutsche morgenlandischeGesellschaft;this edition ap-
peared in 1939, unfortunately too late in that fateful year to be generally dis-
tributed. A Russian translation of the same text, with numerous pages of fac-
simile of the manuscript, was published, also in 1939, at Moscow, by I. Iu.
Krachkovski, for the Russian Academy of Sciences (Institute of History).
Two final generalizations regarding the Norse outlook on life - and death -
remain to be mentioned. First: the Norse had a passion for turning the abstract
and symbolic into the actual and concrete. An example of this is the ravens of
Odin. 'As described by Snorri they seem solid enough, but when we remember
their names, Huginn and Muninn, or "Thought" and "Memory," given in the
Edda poem [Grimnismdl],it seems evident that here we have a symbolic descrip-
tion of the sending out of the spirit through the universe, corresponding to the
account of Othin given in the Ynglinga Saga' (p. 127). In Norse hands, sym-
bolism ceases to be symbolism. This passion for the concrete is also seen in the
Norse reluctance to disassociate the personality from the body. The revenant, for
example, is never a disembodied spirit - never a ghost properly so called; it is
an animated, substantial corpse. Sometimes the revenant is introduced as a figure
in a dream, but the dream-frame may be a concession to Christianity - in fact,
Miss Ellis thinks that it invariably is - and on several occasions the dreamer
awakes in time to see the revenant departing! (pp. 147-150). The second general-
ization is suggested in the title of the book: 'The Norse mind was not particularly
Reviews 259
interested in the clear-cut conception of another world beyond the grave' or in
'the permanent joy or anguish that comes with the attainment of the realm of
death,' but always in 'the journey thither: the dangers or the glory of the road
by which the spirit may travel.' The whole drift of the author's evidence is such
as to support this conclusion. It is not the least valuable contribution in a most
valuable book.
H. M. SMYSER,
ConnecticutCollege.
G. TURVILLE-PETRE and E. S. OLSZEWSKA, transs., The Life of Gudmundthe Good, Bishop of Hdlar.
Coventry: The Viking Society for Northern Research, 1942. 8°. xvii, 112, (2) pages, frontispiece,
map. 6 shillings.
GUDMUND ARASON, popularly known as the Good, was for thirty-five years
(1202-37) bishop of Holar, the see of northern Iceland. He was descended from
a prominent family but, being illegitimate, he was debarred from inheriting his
father's property. He was a wilful and obstinate boy, and the family destined him
for the church; he was 'beaten to book' (bargrtil b6kar), as the phrase ran. At an
early age he was ordained as deacon, and soon afterwards started on a voyage to
Norway but was shipwrecked and gravely injured. He recovered from his injuries,
but hereafter he was a changed man. He was ordained as priest, and became
austere and benevolent. From childhood he had really had no permanent home,
and as a priest he continued moving about the country, sometimes having charge
of churches here and there, at other times wandering about, working miracles,
healing the sick, and hallowing water, wells, and the like. Many people had
faith in him, and he undoubtedly promoted the belief in supernatural workings.
He was instrumental in having two former bishops declared saints by the General
Assembly. Doubters and scoffers, however, were not lacking who intimated that
the priest's sacred relics might as well be bones of animals as those of saints, and
derided his doings. When the Holar see became vacant, one of the chieftains
whose chaplain Gudmund had been, had him elected bishop, planning thereby
himself to get control of the affairs of the diocese in addition to his secular
authority, because he supposed he could dominate Gudmund. The latter was
very reluctant to accept the election, declaring himself unfit for so high an office,
but it was forced upon him. No sooner had he been consecrated than the chieftain
in question realized his mistake. His former chaplain turned out to be stubborn
and uncompromising, and brooked no interference in his official duties. Unfor-
tunately, however, Gudmund possessed neither administrative ability nor any
conception of financial matters. This led to ceaseless quarrels, and often to
battles, between the bishop and the secular chieftains. They seldom permitted
him to remain unmolested at his see, and therefore he took to roaming the
country again, usually with a numerous following, among whom were to be found
undesirable elements. Thus he became a burden to the farmers who often refused
to entertain him and his crowd. The principal quarrel between him and the
chieftains was about the jurisdiction of the secular courts over the clergy which
the bishop doggedly refused to recognize. There is no doubt that in this matter
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Kenneth J. Conant
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Speculum.
260 Reviews
he was inspired by the example of Thomas a Becket. The struggle proved in the
long run fateful for the independence of the country, because it gave the arch-
bishop of Nidaros and, ultimately, the king of Norway, opportunity to interfere
in the internal affairs of Iceland, although in the end the erratic bishop was dis-
avowed by the archbishop. Infirm and blind, he was permitted to spend his last
years at the see. After his death people forgot his transgressions and venerated
him as a saint. For centuries he occupied a prominent place in the popular
imagination.
His saga, which appears here for the first time in English, is one of a group of
sagas dealing with Icelandic history of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries.
'It belongs,' as W. P. Ker, that discriminating critic, has said, 'to a small class of
fine literature, which has nothing quite equal to it anywhere else; a kind of
history, not fictitious, which yet begins in imagination and dramatic sense, and
has been trained to use its imagination sincerely. It is not "mediaeval" except in
some accidental ways; it is neither "classical" nor "romantic," though it is often
both. It is simply right.' The first part of the saga, describing Gudmund's life as
priest, is the most original. It seems to have been written shortly after the
bishop's death, probably by Lambkar Thorgilsson, his pupil and faithful follower.
There are chapters in it fully on a level with the Family Sagas, for instance, the
interesting account of the shipwreck. The rest of the saga about the episcopate
is a mere compilation from various written sources, especially from Sturla
Thordarson's great history, and abounds in quarrels and fights. The translation
is good and reads well. It is slightly abridged, as passages and annalistic entries
not directly concerning Gudmund have been left out, but some of his miraculous
cures have also been omitted (see Chapp. 30, 32, 35), for what reason is not
obvious. I do not like, the constant recurrence of such phrases as 'Gudmund, the
son of Ari,' 'Kolbein, the son of Tumi,' and so on. I think it is preferable to
follow the Icelandic custom and write: Gudmund Arason, Kolbein Tumason, or,
if one wishes to retain the nominative form of the fathers' names: Ari's son,
Tumi's son. In several places the word vollr is rendered by pasture, where the
context shows that the home-meadow is meant. The nickname laerdjzpr can not
mean 'deeply-learned'; it probably refers to some physical peculiarities of the
man, or to an incident in his life. These, however, are trifles hardly worth men-
tioning.
HALLD6R HERMANNSSON,
CornellUniversity.
WATKIN WILLIAMS, The Life of GeneralSir Charles Warren, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., F.R.S., Colonel Com-
mandantRoyalEngineers.Witha forewordby the Earlof Clarendon,K. G. Oxford:Basil Blackwell,
1941. Cloth,pp. 450, 6 illustrations,2 maps. 25s.
SIR CHARLESWARREN (1840-1927) was one of those nineteenth-century British
empire-builders whose careers were drawn with brushes of comet's hair. He was
commissioned in the Royal Engineers at eighteen after brilliant studies, and as a
resourceful youngster of twenty-six was one of the first emissaries of the Palestine
Exploration Fund. The account of his difficulties with obstructive, venal, and
Reviews 261
timid officials will interest mediaevalists as showing how far the cause of archaeol-
ogy has come in the course of two generations. Warren did considerable explora-
tory work in and about Jerusalem, and even managed by tunneling to investigate
substructures ascribed to the Temple, though remittances to him were constantly
in arrears (once by nearly £1000), and his definitive firman of permission, when
it eventually came, specifically forbade all the work which the Palestine Explora-
tion Fund desired him to do. He participated in the rescue of the Moabite Stone.
The energy which made Warren's work in Jerusalem a partial success instead
of a total failure carried him far in later life. He commanded and reorganized the
defenses of Singapore; he occupied Bechuanaland, having Allenby as a young
subaltern; he served effectively in the relief of Ladysmith, having Winston
Churchill on one occasion as a messenger. He was in charge of Scotland Yard
during the Socialist troubles in which William Morris was concerned, during the
career of the original Jack the Ripper, and at the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee
(1887).
KENNETH J. CONANT,
Harvard University.

Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1944), p. 262
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:58
Speculum.
HISTORY
Nellie Neilson, 'The early pattern of the common law,' AMERICANHISTORICALREVIEW,
XLIX,2 (January, 1944), 199-212.
W. S. Reid, 'The origins of anti-papal legislation in fifteenth-century Scotland,' CATHOLIC
HISTORICALRwviEw, xxix, 4 (January, 1944), 445-469.
Hans Rosenberg, 'The rise of the Junkers in Brandenburg-Prussia, 1410-1563, part II,'
AMERICAN HISTORICAL Riviiw, XLX, 2 (January, 1944), 228-242.
C. E. Smith 'Clerical violence in the pontificate of Innocent III,' JOURNALOF RELIGION,
xxIV, 1 (January, 1944), 37-41.
LINGUISTICS
E. B. Davis, 'Latin -ct- >Old French it,' MODERN LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 2 (February,
1944), 75-83.
G. T. Flom, 'On some habitation names in Aurland Parish, Sogn, Norway,' JOURNALOF
ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY, XLIII, 1 (January, 1944), 57-70.
Grace Frank, 'Biaus nies,' MODERN LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 2 (February, 1944), 92-93.
W. P. Lehmann, 'The Germanic weak preterit endings,' LANGUAGE, XIX, 4 (October-
December, 1943), 313-319.
Yakov Malkiel, 'Three Old French sources of the English arriv-al, withdraw-al type,'
JOURNALOF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY, XLIII, 1 (January, 1944), 80-87.
R. J. Menner, 'Two Old English words: Old Anglian (ge)strynd; OE gullisc,' MODERN
LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 2 (February, 1944), 106-112.
LITERATURE
Fritz Mezger, 'On faderfeorme, Beowulf, 1.21,' MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, LIX, 2 (Febru-
ary, 1944), 113-114.
C. S. Singleton and L. Spitzer, 'Decameron viii, 9: carapignare,' MODERN LANGUAGE
NOTES, LIX, 2 (February, 1944), 88-92.
Leo Spitzer, 'The farcical elements in Inferno, cantos xxi-xxiii,' MODERN LANGUAGE
NOTES, LIX, 2 (February, 1944), 83-88.
Arpad Steiner, 'The vernacular proverb in mediaeval Latin prose,' AMERICANJOURNALOF
PHILOLOGY,LXV, 1 (January, 1944), 37-68.
Lynn Thorndike, 'Robertus Anglicus,' ISIS, xxxiv, 6 (Autumn, 1943), 467-469.
PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY
Anton-Hermann Chroust, 'The philosophy of law of St Augustine,' PHILOSOPHICAL
RE-
VIEW, LIII, 2 (March, 1944), 195-202.
Kato Kiszely-Payzs, XVIII, 1 (January,
'St Augustine on Peace,' NEW SCHOLASTICISM,
t'j 1944), 19-41.
J. D. McKian, 'The raison d'etre of the human composite, according to St Thomas
Aquinas,' XVIII, 1 (January, 1944), 42-75.
NEW SCHOLASTICISM,
VARIA
H. J. Epstein, 'The origin and early history of falconry,' ISIS, xxxiv, 6 (Autumn, 1943),
497-509.
H. E. Sigerist, 'A Salernitan student's surgical notebook,' BULLETIN OF THE HISTORYOF
MEDICINE, xiv, 4 (November, 1943), 505-516.
262
Books Received
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1944), p. 263
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:58
Speculum.
BOOKS RECEIVED
Sister Mary Immaculate Bodenstedt, S.N.D., The Vita Christi of Ludolphusthe Carthusian.
(The Catholic University of America: Studies in Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin
Language and Literature, Vol. XVI.) Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1944. Paper. Pp. viii, 160.
CopticEgypt. Papers read at a symposium held under thejoint auspices of New York Univer-
sity and the Brooklyn Museum, February 15, 1941. Brooklyn, N. Y.: Brooklyn Insti-
tute of Arts and Sciences. The Brooklyn Museum, 1944. Board. Pp. 58. $.75.
G. H. Doble, D.D., Saint Iltut. Cardiff, Wales: University of Wales Press Board, 1944.
Paper. Pp. 52. 5/-.
Harry Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine. Essays, Vols. I and II. (Publications of the
Institute of the History of Medicine. The Johns Hopkins University. First Series. Mono-
graphs I and II.) Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1944. Vols. I and II. Cloth.
Pp. xxiv, 817. $7.50.
R. S. Loomis and H. W. Wells, transs. and eds., RepresentativeMediaeval and TudorPlays.
New York: Sheed and Wells, 1942. Cloth. Pp. 301. $3.50.
P. W. Moore and Marthe Dulong, Sententiae Petri Pictaviensis. 1. Publications in Mediae-
val Studies, VII.) Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1943. Paper.
Pp. Ixii, 326.
Stanley Morison, English Prayer Books. An Introductionto the Literatureof Christian Pub-
lic Worship. The Macmillan Company, 1943. Cloth. Pp. viii, 143. $2.00.
W. A. Oldfather, ed. and others, Studies in the Text Tradition of St Jerome's Vitae Patrum.
Urbana, Illinois: The University of Illinois Press, 1943. Cloth. Pp. ix, 556. $14.50.
263

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An annotatededition of Bede's four works On Times, with an introduc-
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CHARLES W. JONES
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For five centuriesfollowing their publication, Bede's De Temporum

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Front Matter
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1944)
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:59
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SPECULUM
A JOURNALY OF MEDJAEVAJL STUDIES
JULY, 1944
THFEMEDIAEVALACADEMYOF AMERICA
President Treasurer

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBINE GEORGE RALEIGH COFFMAN
Yale University University of North Carolina

AUSTIN PATTERSON EVANS CHARLES R. D. MILLER
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Councillors
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University of Southern California The Johns Hopkins University
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Cornell University The Mediaeval Institute, Toronto
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Wellesley College Northwestern University
FREDERIC DUNCALF PHILIP WEBSTER SOUERS

University of Texas Newcomb College, Tulane University
WILLIAM HUSE DUNHAM ARCHER TAYLOR

Yale University University of California
RUDOLF WILLARD
University of Texas
Executive Committeeof the Council

K. J. CONANT GEORGE LA PIANA H. M. SMYSER

S. H. CROSS A. P. MCMAHON TAYLORSTARCK
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SPECULUM
July, 1944
SPECULUM
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Vol. XIX, No 3-Copyright, 1944, by the Mediaeval Academy of America-PRINTED IN U. S. A. Entered as second-class
May 8, 1931.
SPECULUMis regularly indexed in the International Index to Periodicals and the Art Index.
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
Eros and Anteros. ROBERTV. M]ERRILL 265
The Knighting Ceremonies in the Middle English Romances

. ROBERT W. ACKERMAN 285
Andrew Holes: A Neglected Harbinger of the English Renaissance
. JOSEPIINE WATERS BENNETT 314
Some Possible Sources of Mediaeval Conceptions of Virgil .

... .~.~.....
. .. JOHN J. H. SAVAGE 336
Imperial Diplomas for Menaggio and Comacina .

CHARLES EDWIN ODEGAARD 344
A New Fragment of Arator in the Bodleian

NEIL R. KER, E. A. LOWE, AND A. P. MCKINLAY 351
A Dante Note-Smeraldo .. VINCENZO CIOFFARRI 360
A Supplementary Note to Speculum, xvIII, 494-496.

G. LEVI DELLA VIDA 364
REVIEWS
CharlesR. Morey, MediaevalArt (K. J. Conant) ... . 365
W. M. Whitehill, Spanish RomanesqueArchitecture(K. J. Conant) . . . 366
VARTA
Proceedings . . . . . . . . . . 37
Memoir . . . . . . . . .384
Bibliographyof PeriodicalLiterature ...... 386
Books Received ...... .. 388
The purpose of the MEDIAEVALACADEMY OF AMERICAis to conduct, encourage, promote,
Middle Ages. Anyone deSiring to become a member is requested to communicate with the
SPECULUM, A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES, is published quarterly by the Academy.

The service of SPECULUMis included in all classes of membership. SPECULUMis also avail-

Eros and Anteros

Author(s): Robert V. Merrill
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1944), pp. 265-284
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:59
Speculum.
SPECU
VOL. XIX JULY, 1944 No. 3
EROS AND ANTEROS

BY ROBERT V. MERRILL
OF the poems by Antoine Heroet which are contained in the slender volume pub-
lished by Etienne Dolet in 1542, La Parfaicte Amye was unquestionably the first
in importance. It replied to La Borderie's Amye de court in the terms of Renais-
sance Platonism without involving its author too deeply in the philosophic laby-
rinths affected by the followers of Ficino, and it gave to the idealists in the
'querelle des amies' a prestige and support which in turn redounded to the glory
of the good cleric. In that volume, besides his version of the myth of the Andro-
gyne from Plato's Symposium, Heroet included a poem of eighty-eight verses
to which he gave the title 'AULTRE INVENTION EXTRAICTE DE PLATON de n'aymer
point sans estre ayme.' The kernel of the poem is a myth which Ieroet recounts
as follows:1
Venus pensant son filz doulx et plaisant,
Tant tendrelet,le preuxcontrefaisant
Entre dangiers,ou se vouloit offrir,
Entre les maulx qu'on le voyoit souffrir,
Avoir besoingde grandeuret puissance,
De plus robusteet velue apparence,
Craignantque luy, noisif et ennemy,
Semblanttousjoursenfant d'an et demy,
Apresavoir tant d'hommescombatu,
Ne fust d'aulcunplus fort que luy battu,
S'esbaissantque si long temps passoit
Et que jamais sa taille ne croissoit,
Voulantd'ung Dieu, qui pour lors respondoit
La verite de ce qu'on demandoit,
Scavoirau vray pour quelleforfaicture
Punye estoit si belle creature,
Quelleraisonla Nature mouvoit,
Et quel secourset remedey avoit:
Dame Venus, responditla Prophete,
Ainsi que Dieu nous dict et interprete,
Blasmern'en fault nature ny fortune,
Ton filz, ny toy, ny creatureaulcune.
Dieu, sachant bien que tu n'as congnoissance
De ton enfant ny de sa longue enfance,
M'a commandede dire a toy sa mere
Qu'ilseroit grand,si se voyoit ung frere.
1 AntoineHeroet,Oeuvres
poetiques.EditioncritiquepublieeparFerdinandGohin.(Paris:Cornely,
1909), p. 96.
265
266 Eros and Anteros
Sa responseest difficillea comprendre;
Mais mon officeest de te faire entendre
Que ce garsonne se veult augmenter,
Pour ce qu'il a de quoy se contenter,
En petit corpstrouvant si grandegloire
D'avoir sur touts invinciblevictoire,
Que sa basseuril estime honorable.
Mais si tu veulx qu'ungCupidosemblable
Te fasse Mars ou aultre myeulx ayme,
Incontinentque tu l'aurasarme,
Ce qu'il pourraseulementtascherestre,
Le filz aisne s'efforcerade croistre:
Car luy, qui a victorieuxvescu,
Ne peult de Dieu ny d'hommeestre vaincu.
Venus, apresavoir tout entendu
Et sacrificeet grace au Dieu rendu
Le bon conseilde la Propheteesprouve,
Et grandplaisiret verite y trouve.
IHeroetnow offers his interpretation of the fable: love in a man begins as a tenta-
tive and uncertain emotion, which will grow duly only if it is encouraged by re-
sponse from the lady. The specific lesson is discreetly addressed by the cleric to
'sa dame,' and urges her to show him favor if she expects a permanent devotion.
IIeroet's modern editor, F. Gohin, justly observes that although, according to
the Phaedrus 254-255, true love always has the power of evoking love in return,
yet Plato nowhere tells such a story of the brother Loves as Heroet here sets
forth. However, continues Gohin, the figure of Anteros appears vaguely in classi-
cal mythology, and IIeroet may have picked up the tale from some commentator
of Plato. The editor then offers a parallel passage or two, and lets the matter of
sources drop.
As a matter of fact, this emulative little brother of Eros receives an appreciable
degree of attention in the Italian and French literature of I-eroet's own day,
besides having a history which carries the student well back into Greek antiquity.
His name is Anteros, and he appears in conjunction with the elder Love in a
number of monuments to which tradition came to attach varying interpretations.
The travelled Pausanias in his guide-book to Greecel reports in Athens an
altar erected to the honor of Anteros as the avenger of slighted love. The occasion
had been the suicide of a youth named Meles at the pettish command of his be-
loved Timagoras, who in remorse followed him. Furthermore, the gymnasium
at Elis2 possessed an altar to Eros and Anteros, while on a bas-relief representing
a prize head-ribbon in the palaestra was carved a figure of Eros holding a palm-
shoot which Anteros was trying to wrest from him. Incidentally, a similar relief
has been reported in the possession of the Duc d'Albret in the early nineteenth
century.3 A fair number of representations of the two figures have survived to be
1 Graeciaedescriptio (ed. Hitzig, Leipzig: Reisland, 1896), I, 30, 1 (vol. i, p. 74).
2
Op. cit., vi, 23, 3, 5 (vol. II2, p. 518-519).
3 K. A. Bittiger, 'Eros und Anteros,' Kleine Schriften archdologischenund antiquarischen Inhalt
(Dresden: Arnold'sche Buchhandlung, 1837-8), I, 159. Cf. cursorily, for references to bas-reliefs and
engraved gems: F. G. Welcker, GriechischeGitterlehre(Gottingen: Dieterich, 1857-63, rI, 727; W. H.
Roscher, Ausfihrliches Lexikon der griechischenund romischen Mythologie (Leipzig: Teubner, 1884-),
Eros and Anteros 267
at least recorded in catalogues of sculptures, seals, and so forth - although it

would be unwise to assume that every pair of amoretti which an artist has com-
mitted to marble or agate is to be explained as showing Eros and Anteros, and
although the mythological significance of the latter personage is by no means
clear from the iconography. By Pausanias' account, the Athenians viewed An-
teros as the avenger of slighted love; such a meaning can hardly be ascribed to
the Elean figures, who seem merely to be competing for a prize, while a further
recorded pair of figures - if indeed they are to be named Eros and Anteros
suggests rather emulation than vindictiveness as the typical characteristic of the
latter.
A certain witness to the popularity of the brethren seems to be borne by the
frequency with which Greco-Roman engraved gems present two youthful figures
in postures such as recall strongly the carvings mentioned by Pausanias - Cupids
struggling for a palm, carrying or matching fighting-cocks, running a foot-race,
or otherwise competing one with the other. Here again, the significance of the
representations is not obvious, and the zeal of some cataloguers in applying the
label 'Eros and Anteros' needs discounting. It would seem at all events likely
that many such stones were worn as remembrancers by sentimental youth, one
of the Cupids standing for that love-in-return which most ancient authorities
place under the patronage of Anteros.
There is a greater wealth of information at hand (though with it comes a
greater diversity of judgments) when one looks for the personage of Anteros in
ancient literature. The problem is not clarified by the fact that the word may be
used either as a proper or as a common noun, so that the reader may well be in
doubt whether he has before him the person or the passion.
The earliest use which I have found in literature does to be sure seem to justify
Heroet in alleging the authority of Plato for his 'Aultre invention'; but the jus-
tification is only slight. In Phaedrus 255D Socrates is engaged in explaining to
his companion how a reciprocating love arises in the heart of a person beloved:
'When he is with the lover both cease from their pain, but when he is away then
he longs as he is longed for, and has love's image, love for love (Anteros),
lodging in his breast.' The English is Jowett's; the generally accepted MSS read
rO "Epcoros ELcXov aTvrepoora,'counter-love the image of love,' although one version
carries the disturbing reading ro 'EpoorosECwXov aVrT EpwTro 'an image of love
instead of (or "in response to") love.'
At all events, Plato may or may not have intended to deify the passion aroused
in the beloved; and Socrates' constant knack of personification is only a slight
warrant for virtually beginning the word with a capital letter and thereby giving
I, 1368; Verzeichniss der geschnittenen Steine in dem koniglichen Museum der Alterthiimerzu Berlin
(Berlin: Liideritz, 1827), Nos. 675-684, 689-702; E. H. Toelken, Erklirendes Verzeichniss der antiken
vertieftgeschnittenenSteine des koniglichen preussischen Gemmensammlung(Berlin: Druckerei d. kon.
Akademie d. Wiss., 1835), s.v. Venus, Nos. 670-679. Daremberg and Saglio (Dictionnaire des antiquites
grecqueset romaines ... Paris: Hachette, 1873) offer s.v. Anteros an illustration from a bas-relief at
Naples which represents the figures reported by Pausanias as adorning the gymnasium at Elis. The
best starting-point for the study of Eros and Anteros in antiquity is still Pauly's Real-Encyclopddie
der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. . . herausgegebenvon Georg Wissowa, Stuttgart: Metzler, 1894,
s.vv.cit.
Eros a brother in the spirit of whatever other myths may then have been current.
The important thing is that the word avTepcoTa cannot here imply an 'avenger'
as it did for the Athenians when they thought of Meles and Timagoras. It can
mean only love-in-return.
The nearest approach to the use of the word elsewhere in the Dialogues ap-
pears at the end of Alcibiades I; here Alcibiades is said to love Socrates in return
- avTEpg is the verb. Olympiodorus, who in his note points out that the noun
avTepos means 'reciprocal love,' thereby again contributes (to be sure some
eight hundred years or more after Plato) to the tradition of this meaning for it.'
He uses the word and its cognates freely but in a non-personalizing sense. Plutarch
in his Life of Alcibiades refers accurately to the passage in Alc. I when he writes,
XxPOaveavv eloXov 6
EpUTros,&Us rjqo'tvHoXarTv, lY
avepUra 'sensim
KTrrJ&EVOS simulacrum
amoris, vel (ut ait Plato) mutuum imbibit amorem.'2
Among ancient lexicographers the word turns up with connotations and refer-
ences which are by now somewhat familiar. Suidas s.v. 'AvrPTcoidentifies it as the
name of a grammarian in the days of the emperor Claudius, but explains further
that it has been preserved among men of lofty spirit in its reference to mutual
love.3 Suidas cites the story of Chariton and Melanippus, of whom the former was
able to evoke in the latter the proof that love is a spur of equal value for both
lovers - the result being that together they slew Phalaris the tyrant. Here the
word avrepws does not appear, but its implication of reciprocative passion is
clearly the one in Suidas' mind. Further on the lexicographer, borrowing from
Aelian s.v. MEXi-ros,tells the Athenian story of Meletus and Timagoras already
reported by Pausanias. He uses the verb avPTpao-eis in the sense of requiting
another's love, and since he does not refer to a cult of Anteros, he is evidently
unconcerned with the question if Anteros is to be thought of as the deity of mu-
tual love or as the avenger of slighted passion.
The word avrTepcoappears in a list of words which Julius Pollux (a rhetorician
under Commodus) compiled in his Onomasticon as expressions roughly synony-
mous with 'love.'4 He offers avrepUs and avTrpaTarOs among the nouns, with the
verb-forms avrepav and avrepCOujevos - but he gives no definitions, nor any indi-
cation as to whether in his mind the word avr epcs represents a deity or not.
Eros and his little brother appear much more picturesquely in a charming anec-
dote told by Eunapius.6 The philosopher Jamblichus came once with his disciples
to the warm springs of Gadara in Syria, and while bathing there was informed
by the natives that two of the springs were known as Eros and Anteros. Here-
upon, apparently to show certain magic powers which he had previously refused
to exercise, he uttered a charm and drew out from one spring a light-haired Eros
1 Procli Diadochi et
Olympiodori in Platonis Alcibiadem commentarii (ed. Creuzer, Frankfort:
Bronner, 1820-22), IT,12, 215, 220, 227.
2 Vita Alcibiadis (ed. Reiske,
Leipzig: Georgius, 1774-82), II, 9.
3 Suidae Lexicon (ed. Adler, Leipzig: Teubner, 1928-38), Pars I, 233, s.v. 2634 'Avrepws; Pars II,
353, s.v. 497 MiX-tros.
4 Pollucis Onomasticon(ed. Bethe,
Leipzig: Teubner, 1900-37), III, 72 (vol. I, 177).
6 Eunapii Sardiani vitas sophistarum ... recensuit ... Io. Fr. Boissonade. Accedit annotatio Dan.
Wyttenbachii (Amsterdam: den Hengst, 1822), p. 15 (in Vita Iamblichi, p. 26 of the Stephanus ed.).
and from the other a dark. The two lads clung to him as to a father until he re-
turned them each to his own abode. Eunapius offers no explanations, though
the local names for the two springs seem likely to represent that immense part
of the mythology of watercourses which concerns the evocation or the calming
of love. But the Renaissance translator of Eunapius into Latin, Hadrianus Junius,
adds on his own account after the biographer's naming of the second spring
Anteros, 'deo amantium iniuriae vindici.' Junius evidently accepts the explana-
tion of the name as denoting the avenger; but it is far from clear whether to his
mind Anteros has under his care slights committed or slights endured by lovers.
When the inquirer passes from the actual appearance of the word or name
Anteros in early literature or monument to the search for verifiable allusion to
the thing or the deity, he finds himself at once in certain difficulties. Anteros as a
godling never acquired so standardized a body of attributes that the appearance
of one of them in a text can be taken to point to him and not to Eros himself in
one or another of his aspects. Thus it is with caution that one must approach in
the Greek Anthology a couple of poems which suggest, but do not designate,
Anteros.1 An epigram of Marianus Scholasticus is addressed to the Garlanded
Eros, who bears, instead of bow, arrows, wings and torch, merely four wreaths
which he explains as the four virtues. He has nothing to do, the poet explains,
with the earthly Aphrodite, but draws men's souls toward the heavens. Now the
contrast between the heavenly and the earthly Aphrodites, and between their
offspring, forms too large a field even to be touched on here; but as will later ap-
pear the Renaissance occasionally introduced into this field the theme of Eros
and Anteros with a moralizing purpose which is quite foreign to its origin. A
second epigram in the Anthology, one of the Anonyma, is similar to the first in
commenting verbally on a carved or painted group which the epigrammatist
was deemed to have before his eyes. The verses describe Nemesis as having
created one armed and winged Love to contend with another whom he attacks,
conquers, burns and humiliates by means of the very weapons which the victim
has been wont to direct against his prey. Here the key to the allegory is uncertain,
but the reference to Nemesis seems to argue that the conquered Love who is
burned by Love's fire represents the theme of a scornful beloved suddenly at-
tacked as if in reprisal by the pangs of a presumably unrequited love.2 If the
function of the assaulting Love is to make the victim unhappy, then it is the
avenging Eros who seems to be signified; if the stress is to be laid on the burning
of Love with his own fire, there is at least an appreciable suggestion of Anteros
as the evoker of a responsive flame.
Cicero shows himself to be aware of the tradition when in the De Natura de-
orum3he twice designates the god by name among the three aspects or incarna-
tions of Cupid: 'Cupido primus Mercurio et Diana prima natus dicitur, secundus
Mercurio et Venere secunda, tertius, qui idem est Anteros, Marte et Venere
1 Anthologia Graeca .. . (ed. Jacobs, Leipzig: Dyckius, 1813-17), II, 511, I, 'HoDaotLr64ov'(vol. III,
211); Irr, 205, CCLXVII, 'Hlravc 7rravtov"Epwra'(vol. IV, 173).
2 Cf. in Toelken
(p. 280, n. 3 supra) No. 642, a carved gem showing a bound Eros associated with the
gryphon of Nemesis. 3 De natura deorum, III, 23, 59-60.
tertia.' '[Venus] tertia Iove nata et Diona, quae nupsit Volcano, sed ex ea et
Marte natus Anteros dicitur.' However, he is not concerned with the functions
of Anteros - unless indeed by his silence on the matter he implies that all the
Cupids have the same characteristics. What interests the inquirer particularly is
that Cicero identifies Anteros with the son of Mars and Venus; for now the
ambiguous godling appears established in the theogony as he has not been
heretofore.
Several passages from Virgil and Ovid, with early comments thereon, seem to
allude to the persistence of a cult of Love the Avenger. Dido in her grief appeals
(Aen. iv, 520) to such a deity: 'si quod non aequo foedere amantis Curae numen
habet.' Here the commentary of Servius (though the text shows a number of
variants) explains that Dido is calling on Anteros, either as the deity who ex-
tinguishes love or as the one who is concerned with a one-sided love and can
bring the non-lover into his toils:1 ' . ..tune numen precatur, si quod curae
habet amantis non aequo foedere ... sensus autem hic est: AvrepoTrainvocat,
contrarium Cupidini, qui amores resolvit, aut certe cui curae est iniquus amor,
scilicet ut inplicet non amantem.' The scholiasts have quite a field-day with the
passage in Servius; from their additions one may conclude that some scholars in-
terpreted Dido's words as alluding not to Anteros at all but to Nemesis, that some
knew of the Athenian worship of Anteros the Avenger, and that others conceived
of an amatory trinity which comprised Eros, Anteros and Lyseros (the dissolver
of love). The editor of Servius, Thilo, admits in his Praefatio that he wishes he
had accepted as authentic the reading which introduces Lyseros with the other
two, for Thilo inclines to believe that this reading preserves a statement by some
pre-Servian commentator on Virgil; but he finds in literature no mention by
name of a Lyseros.2
In the Virgilian passage then the reference to a god to whom the unloved pray
(and even Dido is uncertain of his existence) is at best ambiguous; the deity in
point may be Nemesis - since Dido is praying for vengeance - and we merely
learn that students of Virgil and of Servius were acquainted with the tradition of
an Anteros who either quenched an unrequited love or evoked its return by the
beloved. It is possible, by the way, that Virgil intended Dido's appeal to be heard
by a deity whose powers were directly opposed to Cupid's, inasmuch as Cupid
himself had contributed, under the disguise of Aeneas' young son Iulus, to the
plight wherein the Carthaginian queen now found herself.3 Thus as Eros had
ensnared her, it may have been specifically Lyseros to whom she appealed.
Ovid in Metamorphosesxiv, 750 tells the story of Iphis' suicide at the door of
the contemptuous Anaxarete, and of her punishment at the hand of the 'deus
ultor' - the Avenger. Who this divinity is Ovid does not explain; but unless we
are to assume a priori that all vengeance belongs to Nemesis unless some other
deity is clearly indicated as exercising it, we may be justified in seeing here again
the god who punished Timagoras. Plutarch, quoting a similar tale in his 'EpTtoK6O
1 Servii Grammatici
qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii (ed. Thilo and Hagen, Leipzig:
Teubner, 1881-84), I, 559. 2 Op. cit., p. xII. 3 Aen. I, 658 sqq.
attributes the vengeance to Eros as a v7rEp7r&vWcvKoXao-Trsor punisher of the

proud.' Here evidently the avenger is thought of as the offended god himself, and
not as a personification of his wrath under the form of another deity.
A passage in Ovid's Remedia amoris alludes to a figure of Amor Lethaeus repre-
sented in the Roman shrine of Venus Erycina:
Est prope Collinamtemplumvenerabileportam;
Imposuittemplo nominacelsus Eryx.
Est illic LethaeusAmor,qui pectorasanat;
Inque suas gelidamlampadasaddit aquam.
Illic et juvenes votis obliviaposcunt,
Et si qua est duro capta puella viro. (549-54)
This Amor would seem to have the functions of the Lyseros, for he heals the heart
and pours chill water of forgetfulness upon his own flame. At all events, he is
neither the Avenger nor the exciter of love-in-return. Indeed the whole poem of
the Remedia may be said to be implicitly dedicated to whatever deity presides
over the eradication of love from the human breast.
The fact that Lucian gives the title "EpcoKaL'Avrepc to his blandly scabrous
dialogue on the relative merits of the love of women and of boys may do no
more than bear out the Greek satirist's reputation for disrespect to established
cults - even supposing that he did recognize the claim of Anteros to godhead.
In any case he uses the word avrEpwsin no personifying sense. It may be relevant,
too, that while Plutarch's 'EpwrLKoS deals with the same subject as Lucian's
dialogue, and although the person of Eros is here amply described, Plutarch
seems not to associate with this deity the name or person of Anteros. Even in his
story of Gorgus the Cretan it is Eros himself, like Ovid's 'deus ultor,' who
takes vengeance on the maid for the suicide of her rejected lover; nowhere in the
text is there even an astral shape of Anteros.
That the term in question was quite normally used (at least in the Byzantine
period) for a love in return, with no apparent idea of personification, appears
from a phrase in Achilles Tatius' fourth-century romance of the loves of Leucippe
and Clitophon.2 Here it is observed that consciousness of being loved often pro-
duces a reciprocation of that love - ro avveLtos 7Tov LXeLaOaL rLKTELT-oXXaKLS
a7T-
EpwTra.
So far, then, the word 'Avr cpwshas appeared sometimes to represent a deity
charged with the function of avenging offenses against the god of love, sometimes
to carry the ordinary meaning of love-in-return. Even where he is not actually
named, allusions suggest now one and now the other of these characteristics.
Apparently the cult of an Anteros never acquired such general prestige as to
fix in tradition the traits ascribed to him as differing from those of Eros.
Toward the middle of the fourth century he takes a new lease on life when the
rhetorician Themistius, in his HIporpETrrLKs, has occasion to invent a myth in
1 Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia .. (ed. Wyttenbach, Oxford: University Press, 1797), Iv, 48
(766 c-D).
2 Achillis Tatii Alexandrini de
Leucippes et Clitophontis amoribus libri octo . . . (Ed. Jacobs; Leip-
zig, Dyckius, 1821) p. 15, line 18 (r, 9).
Eros and Anteros
order to persuade his Nicomedian hearers that Philosophy and Rhetoric are
strengthened each by the presence of the other.' The orator humorously attributes
great age and influence to the tale he is about to tell, inasmuch, says he, as 'we
are a race eternally fond of myths, and given to garrulousness when among the
stories of old time.'
When Aphrodite bore Eros, the lad was fair and like his mother in every way, save that
he did not grow to a stature befitting his beauty, nor did he put on flesh; but he long re-
mained at the size which he had had at birth. This matter perplexed his mother and the
Muses who nursed him, and presenting themselves before Themis (for Apollo did not yet
possess Delphi) they begged for a cure to this strange and wondrous mischance. So Themis
spoke: 'Why,' said she, 'I will solve your difficulty, for you have not yet learned the
nature of the child. Your true Eros, Aphrodite, might indeed be born by himself, but could
not possibly grow by himself; if you wish Eros to grow you need Anteros. These two
brothers will be of the same nature, and each will be cause of the other's growth; for as
they see each other they will alike grow, but if either is left alone they will both waste
away.' So Aphrodite gave birth to Anteros, and Eros shot up at once; his wings sprouted
and he grew tall. The circumstances of his establishment being so remarkable, he often
passes through incredible vicissitudes, now waxing, now waning, and again increasing. But
he needs his brother always beside him; seeing him large, he strives to prove himself
greater, or finding him small and slight he often wastes unwillingly away.
Although this graceful myth is almost certainly of Themistius' own cru, yet
it confirms that side of the tradition which makes Anteros the partner and not
merely the avenger of Eros. What is particularly interesting is the fortune en-
joyed by the apologue in the amoristic literature of the Italian and French
Renaissance. The Orations of Themistius were transmitted in a considerable num-
ber of manuscripts, of which six still extant at the end of the nineteenth century
contained the lporpETT7LKO6; furthermore one of these, which the investigator
Schenkl notes as ascribed to the fifteenth or sixteenth century and which consists
of a 'separate' under the title IIEpl ris roV "Epworosavira'ews (the reading seems to
be dubious at this point), 'On the growth of Love,' recounts merely the little story
of Anteros' birth.2 The first printed edition of the Orations contains only eight,
among which, however, is the IlporpETtLKO6; the volume came from the Aldine
press in 1534.3
It was thus in a manuscript that the omnivorous reader and critic Mario
Equicola found Themistius' story of how Anteros was born. Although the first
edition of his Libro di natura d'amore came out only in 1525, it had lain in manu-
script since 1509, when the author's nephew had translated it into Italian from
the original Latin of probably 1495-1496. The Latin version has disappeared, al-
though its style is still painfully evident even in the rejuvenation given the Italian
form by Lodovico Dolce when he brought out the 1554 edition for the Giolito
1 Themistii Orationes .. . (ed. Dindorf;
Leipzig: Cnobloch, 1832), p. 367 (Or. xxiv).
2 Dindorf's text is based on the Milan codex, and offers variant readings drawn from only an in-
significant number of other Mss. More thorough study of the materials appears in H. Schenkl, 'Die
handschriftliche Ueberlieferungen der Reden des Themistius,' Wiener Studien, xx (1898), 205; xxI
(1899), 80; xxIIi (1901), 14.
3 Omnia Themistii Opera ... Alexandri Aphrodisiensis libri duo de anima, et de fato unus (Venice:
Aldus, 1534).
brothers.' Equicola made some changes in his nephew's manuscript before it went
to press, but none thereafter.2 There is at present no means of determining what
manuscript Equicola is using when, in his Libro secondo under the title Di Cu-
pidine, he deals at some length with the appearances in mythology of Anteros,
gives an accurate translation from Themistius, and concurs with the majority of
scholars in holding that Anteros was the patron of mutual love:3 'Appo alcuni
scrittori trovo narrato che li antiqui antherote nominavano Dio diverso da
amore: l'opinione de quali riputo totalmente falsa, & lo suo significato essere
mutuo equale, & reciproco amore, dicemo che ben che anti contra denoti, denota
ancor equale, come Antideo, dice Homero Poliphemo, & Antichiere usano re-
salutando i greci, & anthierotes, cioe rivali.' Equicola cites the Nat. deor., Suidas,
and Pausanias, and comments on Seneca's 'geminus cupido' by adding '& in
vero due sono le cupidini un detto Heros, l'altro Antheros.' A few pages later he
refers to Ovid and the Amor Lethaeus in connection with the fact that the Latin
poet attributes to Cupid both golden arrows for the provoking of love and leaden
ones to secure its extinction:4 'In qualche modo questa fittione si puo applicare
allo amor letheo, delqual si fa mentione nelli suoi rimedii: quelli mi par che
agognino li quali dicono che le saette dinotano che contrarii si curano per con-
trarii, & con quelli non consento li quali ad heros, & antheros le referiscono. A me
tal figmento par duro, che amor ferisca, & generi odio ... .'
Furthermore, in his Libro primo, where he summarizes and criticizes current
works on love, Equicola mentions (with admitted but readily explainable dis-
taste) the Anterici of Pier Hedo di Fortuna.5 These three books are dedicated to
an attack on any love except that directed toward God; and the convinced Re-
naissance amorist Mario sums up acridly, 'Fine dell' amor humano conclude
miseria: del divino beatitudine.' In citing Pier Hedo's interpretation of the
appanages regularly ascribed to Cupid, Equicola says of the Earthly Venus, 'Di
questa & Marte si dice esser nato Antheros, per esser Marte quel Dio del qual
parla il salmista, chiamandolo forte signore & potente. Questo fa continua guerra
con la volupta. Vuole questo Antheros sia Hippolito & Joseph.'
If the obscure Pier Hedo attributes to Anteros a hostility to human love, and
thereby aligns himself with that family of heretics which, at least as early as
Servius, confuses Anteros with Amor Lethaeus, he has a powerful ally in the
person of Battista da Campo Fregoso (latine usually Fulgosus). Fregoso's An-
teros of 1493 is an eloquent attack on the claims made by enthusiastic idealists
1 Citations here are given from this edition: Libro di natura d'amoredi Mario Equicola, di nuovo con
somma diligenza ristampato e correttoda M. LodovicoDolce (Venice: Giolito, 1554).
2 R.
Renier, 'Per la cronologia e la composizione del Libro de natura de Amore di Mario Equicola,'
Giornalestoricodella letteraturaitaliana, xiv (1889), 212. And cf. P. Rajna, 'Per chi studia l'Equicola,'
ibid., LXVII (1916), 360. 3 P. 123 (v.n. 1 supra).
4 P. 128. Seneca calls Venus the mother of a
'geminus cupido,' Phaedra, v. 280 (Teubner text), but
does not expand his reference.
6 P. 58. A synopsis of the Anterici, with brief comment, appears in P. Zabughin, 'Petri Haedi
Portusnaensis "Anterotica," G. St., LXXIII (1919), 313. Anteros is said to be described as an unkempt
youth (to show his 'contemptum voluptatis'), fond of hunting and horsemanship - but the descrip-
tion is avowedly Pier Hedo's own, and seems to represent no ancient tradition.
(and particularly disciples of Petrarch) in favor of human love.' Anteros as a per-

son does not appear in the text; but the massive dialogue, full of patristic and
scientific argument, makes it clear that for Fregoso, as for the other mediaevalist
Pier Hedo, the term 'Anteros' implies hostility to love and not alliance with it.
The most complete and interesting treatment of our theme which the Renais-
sance provides appears ten years after the publication of the earliest printed text
of Themistius' HporpTrrTLKS. It belongs to Celio Calcagnini's little essay Anteros
sive de mutuo amore, printed in 1544.2 Allowance being made for trifling slips in
the transcription of the Greek text, it seems fairly sure that Calcagnini used some
manuscript which is not listed by Schenkl but which showed almost invariably
the readings of Schenkl's A.
As his title shows, Calcagnini interprets Anteros as the symbol of love-in-return;
the essay as a whole expounds the motto 'Diligentes me diligo' (presumably from
Proverbsvii, 17), which a friend of the author's had newly inscribed in his house.
The scholar intends to prove that Anteros is properly the deity who presides over
mutual love, and not (as some unnamed adversaries have maintained) a god in
eternal conflict with Eros. Calcagnini first offers from classical antiquity numer-
ous examples of reciprocal affection between animals and vegetables of different
species, between the magnet and iron, and in general among all those parts of the
creation which the Greeks held to be endowed with 'av/tTraOlav,id est concentum
et coniugationem eorum quae natura procuravit.' Anteros, he explains, was
deemed to preside over these sympathies, and also to avenge men or women who
failed to be accepted as lovers. Calcagnini's first substantiating example is Virgil's
account of the suffering Dido; he adds that Servius is correct in supposing that
the deity involved is Anteros, but wrong in suggesting that Anteros is a 'numen
Cupidini contrarium.' By this error, he continues, Servius has misled linguists,
who have supposed that the prefix aLvrLrepresented opposition instead of equality
- whereas authority for the latter meaning appears in the Homeric 'avrlOEOV
IIoXvuiLov''aequalem paremque deis Polyphemum.' Furthermore, Calcagnini in-
sists, Anteros is the god who, more than any of the others, defends and avenges
Love, and is on that account properly invoked by Dido to punish the faithless
lover Aeneas. Servius, then, is confusing his deities, for the god whose function it
is to destroy love is not Anteros but Amor Lethaeus, whose shrine was in the
temple of Venus Erycina - and Calcagnini quotes the passage from the Remedia
Amoris.
The Italian presses his point by citing from Suidas the allusion to Chariton
and Melanippus and the story of Melitus and Timagoras, to which he subjoins
the similar passage from Pausanias' guidebook. He insists that in all these cases
the characteristic of Anteros is that he is an ally, not a foe, of Eros; albeit Cal-
cagnini makes no distinction between the duty of avenging a love scorned and
1 Baptistae C. Fulgosi Anteros (Milan: Pachel,
1493); v. Brunet's Manuel n2 (1861), 1421. I have
studied the work in Sebillet's translation: Contramours,l'anteros de messire Baptiste Fulgose, jadis duc
de Gennes (Paris: Martin le Jeune, 1581).
2 Caelii Calcagnini Ferrariensis ...
opera aliquot . . . (Basel: Froben, 1544). The Anteros begins
on p. 436.
that merely of strengthening love in its beginnings. With the story from Themis-
tius, which he both transcribes and translates, he is very pleased, but for some
reason he ascribes it to Porphyry; it may be - since he used a manuscript which
has not been identified - that his source named the philosopher instead of the
rhetor.
Now although this essay of Calcagnini's gives his fullest treatment of Anteros,
in his De imitatione he presents a version of Themistius' fable which somewhat
complicates the problem of sources and attitudes.1 He is here concerned with the
thesis that by competition with others a writer may learn his own worth: Nec
sane hoc loco mihi absurdum videtur eius fabulae meminisse, cuius autorem
habeo Alexandrum ex Aphrodisiade, philosophum et in Academia et in Lycaeo
praestantissimum.' There follows an abridgement of Themistius, which states
Mars to have been the father of Anteros (Themistius leaves the father unnamed),
and whose intent is to point the moral that literary competence grows through the
aspirant's rivalry with authors of his own day and of antiquity. Since Calcagnini
is not here dealing with an amoristic subject, he makes no point, as Themistius
does, of the need which a new love has for due response. The most surprising
thing about this appearance of the myth is that whereas in his Anteros sive de
mutuo amoreCalcagnini clearly ascribes authorship to Porphyry, and although his
Greek text is very accurately from Themistius, he here names Alexander of
Aphrodisias, in whose extant work there does in fact appear no account of
Anteros' birth. It is barely possible that this ascription is due to the circumstance
that in the first printed form (the Aldine of 1534) Themistius' HporpTrrTLKOS
was followed in its volume by Alexander's Libri duo de anima et defato unus (the
title is given in Latin, the text in Greek). If he had originally used this volume when
reading the myth, Calcagnini may have confused the two authors in his memory
when he later composed the De imitatione. However, it must be kept in mind that
the text of Themistius which Calcagnini translated in his Anteros is not the text
of the Aldine edition, but seems to belong to a somewhat different manuscript
family. Of course it is quite possible that he first read the myth in one manuscript,
transcribed from another for his Anteros, and found still elsewhere attributions to
Alexander and to Porphyry- although none to Themistius.
As to the theological significance of Anteros, Calcagnini is orthodox enough:
this divinity has as his function the avenging of slighted love, and not hostility
to love, whether in defence of a higher love or otherwise. A passage in the De
concordiamakes this point clear, while at the same time it suggests in its opening
sentence a reason why Calcagnini elsewhere ascribes to Alexander of Aphrodisias
the story of Anteros' birth :2
Alioquiin Alexandride AphrodisiadeNaturalibusquaestionibuslegimus,Cupidinemex
Furiisunamamasse:credoea causa,quodeorumacerbissimumest odium,qui se aliquando
1 Op. cit., p. 276.

2
Op. cit., p. 42. The allusion to Eros and the Fury is to be found in the spurious Problemata of
Alexander, A, 7r-. V. Aristotelis, Alexandri, et Cassii Problemata, cum Theophrasteorumquorundam
collectaneis ... (Frankfurt: Wechel, 1585), p. 275, line 22.
amarunt. Unde vulgo iactatum est, fraternas simultates longe esse acerrimas: et ex summo
amore summas contentiones & capitale odium nasci solere . . . Quare Anterota veteres
vindicem non violatorem amoris colebant: ut quicunque amoris foedus pervertisset, sciret
sibi poenas tanti sceleris esse subeundas.
Calcagnini now refers to the cult of the Lethean Cupid, and continues:
Sed ei cum Anterote nullum fuit, ut falso quidam opinati sunt, commercium. Ulcis-
cebatur ille' hic provocabat. Mutuas operas ille dandas in amore censebat: hic omnem
amorem summovendum tollendumque suadebat. Quare quantum inter se distent, facile
quivis ex utriusque potestati potest colligere. Sunt tamen qui utrumque simul colendum
dixerint, utpote qui contraria natura una esse putaverint: ita ut alterum sine altero min-
ime posse constare affirmaverint.
Calcagnini thus distinguishes carefully between Amor Lethaeus, the dissolver

of love, and Anteros, the avenger of love slighted; but the latter he does not dis-
- indeed the distinction could be
tinguish from the patron of mutual love only
very tenuous, since the presider over mutual love must almost perforce be also
the punisher of infraction.
That the Italian scholar had a whimsical affection for the ambiguous personage
Anteros is suggested by a passage in his Apologi Caeliani, a collection of apo-
phthegms or anecdotes of didactic tone :1 'Post Leandri et Herus infortunium Ses-
tiacos lucernam illam nocturnae natationis testem Anteroti consecrasse, addito
titulo: Anteroti sacrum. Qui se felicem in amore probaverit, hanc succendito. At
qui eam succenderit, ad hanc diem inventus est nemo.' Here it would seem that
Calcagnini takes Anteros to be merely the patron of faithfulness in love, for no
question of vengeance is in point.
Some of the same ambiguities that have been observed in Calcagnini's accounts
of Anteros appear also in allusions made by his humanist friend Lilio Gregorio
Giraldi. The latter's twelfth Syntagma of his De deis gentium accords under the
general heading 'Cupido' some attention to the younger brother:2 'Anteros nomen
Cupidinis, amorem reciprocantis. Et licet alias [e.g., in the Symbola Pythagorae
and Poetarum Dialogi] de Anterota scripserim, et de hoc Caelii nostri libellus ex-
tet, nolui tamen non hic meminisse.' Giraldi now presents the familiar story of
Meles and Timagoras, while pointing out how in his spelling of names Pausanias
differs from Suidas: he takes up Suidas' allusion to Melanippus and Chariton,
insisting on the connection between Anteros and their 'mutuus amor,' and he
passes on a further note from Pausanias, about the carving in the gymnasium at
Elis, where Anteros was shown trying to wrest a palm-branch from Cupid. At
1
Op. cit., p. 638.
2 Lili GregoriiGyraldi Ferrariensis opera omnia . . .(Leyden: Hackius, 1696), I, 410E. Collation of
this text with two earlier ones - Historiae poetarum . . . dialogi decem .. . L. Greg. Gyraldo auctore
(Basel: Palma Isingrin, 1545), and De deis gentium .. . Lilio GregorioGyraldoFerrariense auctore . . .
(Basel: Oporinus [1560], - shows practical identity in readings for the passages cited, save for the
persistent spelling 'Caecilius' for 'Caelius' (i.e., Caelius Calcagninus). To col. 410E of the 1696 ed.
corresponds p. 395 of the Oporinus. Giraldi refers to the Athenian shrine of Anteros in the Pythag.
Symbol. Interpretatio, ii, 659E (ed. 1696). It is noteworthy that while Boccaccio in his Genealogiae
deorum draws readily on Cicero's De natura deorum (v. p. 2, n. 3), yet he does not transcribe Cicero's
allusions to Anteros.
this point Giraldi shows his consciousness that more than one interpretation of the
name and divinity were extant: 'quae res ansam praestitit aliquibus ut non re-
ciprocantis Dei, sed avertentis magis crediderint: quos Servius in quarto com-
ment. Aeneid. Vergilianae sequi visus, super ea poetae verba, "Tum si
quid ...."'
Giraldi is clearly averse to the doctrine which made Anteros one with Amor
Lethaeus as the destroyer of love; here as elsewhere his concurrence with Cal-
cagnini - or his direct debt - is quite clear. The reference to Servius calls up
another point to his mind, although it leads him to a faulty ascription: after
citing the commentator's words relating to Dido's fury, 'avrepwora invocat con-
trarium Cupidini, qui amores resolvit, aut certe cui curae est iniquus amor,' he
pursues: 'Apud Platonem Socrates probrosum Amorem criminatur, quem Dei,
inquit, rvtyu6v, hoc est suffocationem veri amoris nuncupant.' Unfortunately no
Platonic lexicon confirms this statement about the language of the gods; Giraldi
adds a scholarly allusion: 'quem [i.e., presumably "Amorem," though possibly
7rvLyu6ovJProclus est aliter interpretatus, quam a me exponitur, divinum scilicet
amorem, animas a corporibus abstrahentem. Anterotis porro meminit et Cicero
de Natura deorum.' Now Giraldi comes to the myth of Anteros' birth: 'Por-
phyrius quoque philosophus de Anterote apologum sic propemodum recitat' -
and the Italian continues with a paraphrase of the Themistian story. There is
nothing here to prove where he found it, but in his De Poetarum historia, Dia-
logus vnI he virtually acknowledges the debt.' Under the name Melitus he gives
the familiar account from Pausanias and Suidas, continuing, 'Porro Anteroten
Deum, quem Caelius noster Anticupidinem Latine vertit, amorem reciprocum
facere gentes existimabant, cujus Cicero de natura Deorum meminit....' All
this is already in Calcagnini almost word for word, and to him Giraldi again
refers: 'Caelius vero ex Alexandro, ut inquit, ex Aphrodisiade, ita scribit': - and
in the ensuing very brief version of the birth-story Giraldi follows even the turns
of phrase used in the De imitatione. But now it becomes clear that Giraldi has
read not merely his friend's short account in the De imitatione, but probably also
the fuller treatment in the Anteros. Giraldi has noticed the variants in Calcag-
nini's citation of sources, and admits: 'Porro apologum istum non Alexandro, sed
Porphyrio ascriptum, in Graecis legi.' This may mean that both Calcagnini and
he had actually found a Themistian text with an ascription to Porphyry; it may
mean that he had read the transcription in Calcagnini's Anteros, where he had
found Porphyry named, but that he did not care to point out discrepancies in a
colleague's work. Another Italian scholar whom Giraldi names as familiar with
the figure of Anteros is Andrea Alciati, the celebrated legist whose Emblemata
had such frequent amplifications and wide reputation during the sixteenth
century. Giraldi's allusion to him appears shortly after the point in Syntagma xnI
at which he gives his abridgment of Themistius' story; he continues: 'Aliqui, inter
quos Alciatus, Anterota amorem virtutis esse existimarunt, ipsumque superare
1 op. cit., col. 386E of the 1696 ed.; p. 824 of the Isingrin. The Oporinus contains among the 'Addi-
tiones' (p. 25, referring to p. 396 of the text) an allusion to the tale of Chariton and Melanippus as
references appear in Aelian's Varia historia, II, 4 and in Athenaeus' Dipnosophistae, xmII,602, a, b.
Cupidinem: unde est carmen illud': - and Giraldi appends a few Latin verses.
Giraldi is referring to Emblema cx in Alciat's collection.1 Its title is "AvrEpS,
amor virtutis alium Cupidinem superans'; the illustration shows an armed and
winged Love binding another wingless and unarmed to a tree, while a nearby fire
consumes the victim's bow, arrows, and quiver. The accompanying Latin verses
translate the poem mentioned above as appearing among the Anonyma in the
Anthology - and these are the verses which Giraldi quotes in his turn. The
preceding Emblema presents a similar moral; its title is "AvrEpoS,id est amor vir-
tutis.' The illustration shows a child's figure without wings or weapons, plaiting
a, garland, and the subscribed verses translate into Latin the Fourth Epigram of
Marianus Scholasticus in the Anthology. It is clear that Alciati held to the me-
diaevalist school which viewed Anteros as charged rather with turning men's
souls from earthly to lofty desires than with avenging affronts made to his brother
Eros. This is not quite the same sense in which Fregoso and Pier Hedo interpreted
the word -- i.e., as designating a deity merely generally hostile to Cupid; but it
represents at least a similarly moralistic attitude toward this equivocal figure.
A momentarily attractive byway for the investigator is opened up by Giraldi in
a passage from the De deis gentium:2 'epws igitur per o I eya, ipsum Cupidinem et
flagitiosum amorem significat, hoc est Amores, ut dicimus, et notant grammatici.
epos vero per o LULKpOV,pudicum et bonum amorem significat: quod discrimen an
recte statuatur, non disquiro, cum inter legendum apud idoneos auctores non
ita ratum offenderim, ut illi praecipiunt.' Giraldi gives no aid toward identifying
these misleading 'grammatici'; but among them was a contemporary of his-
Agostino Nifo (Augustinus Niphus), who completed his De Amore in 1529.3 He
gives an elaborate account of the distinction to be observed between Eros when
his name is spelt with the long vowel and when with the short: the former is the
patron of carnal passion and the latter of 'amor honestus'- although also the
Greek word which stands for 'amor' as 'desiderium cuiusvis boni' is by some spelt
with the omicron. Nifo, a convinced Aristotelian, seems to be adumbrating that
distinction among the forms of friendship which the Greek philosopher sets
forth in the Ethics.
Nifo is acquainted with the person of Anteros in tradition, for he cites Seneca
and Pausanias in their passages already familiar, and attributes to Themistius
the invention of the myth concerning Anteros' birth. This tale he gives in brief
form; he is probably using the version already extant in his friend Equicola's
Libro di natura d'amore, for he and Equicola alone among the abridgers whom I
have found represent the infant Eros as having been even fairer than his mother
1 Omnia Andr. Alciati emblemata, cum commentariis per Claudium Minoem divionensem (Paris:
Marnef, 1583). The first ed. with Mignaut's notes dates from 1574; the first dated ed. of the Emble-
mata is of 1536 (Wechel), but may have been preceded by the French translation Les Emblemes de
Maistre Andre Alciat, mis en rymefrancoyse (par Jehan Le Fevre, n.d., n. 1.) V. H Green, Andreae
Alciati Emblematum Fontes Quatuor ... (Manchester: Brothers, and London: Triibner, 1870); and
the same author's and publishers' Andreae Alciati Emblematumflumen abundans ... (1871).
2 Op. cit. p. 290, n. 2
supra.
3
Augustini Niphi medici libri duo, de Pulchro primus, de Amore secundus ... (Lyon: Beringi, 1549),
De Amore xIx (p. 111).
Eros and Anteros
Aphrodite - the rest more accurately reflecting Themistius' own version, which
avoids invidious comparison.
There are passing references elsewhere in this volume of Nifo's to Anteros
mainly in the non-personifying sense of reciprocal affection;' but in his De re
aulica he returns to mythology and indulges in a disquieting exhibition of imagi-
native scholarship.2 In Chapter xnI of the second book, he fathers upon the de-
fenceless Themistius an account of Cupid's birth which combines the Greek
rhetor's version with the story told by the learned Diotima to Socrates and by him
repeated to the convives in Plato's dialogue of the Symposium. Now Cupid is
the son not of Aphrodite but of Penia, and the son of Porus (so far the Platonic
tradition dominates); he fails to grow, and the goddess Themis advises his anx-
ious mother to secure him a little brother through the cooperation of Porus. The
device was successful; interpreted it signifies that a boy's love, if it is to grow,
must meet a love in return from the girl. Nifo now elaborates the distinction be-
tween Eros as spelt with the long and with the short o: the former represents mere
carnal desire and the latter a virtuous love. Moreover each of these loves has a
counterpart - Anteros with the appropriate spelling in the last syllable.
In one thing Nifo is consistent throughout: his interpretation of the name or
term Anteros is that of a reciprocal love - not of an avenger nor of a destroyer.
His best definition appears in the De Amore:3'Sunt igitur Eros, & Anteros, ama-
tio & redamatio cupidinea: ex his enim perfectus amor constat, qui semper crescit
in dies: qui enim amari sperat, longo tempore amabit . . .' He does to be sure
side with the moralists in admitting that there is an evil as well as a virtuous love,
but instead of giving the name Eros to the former and Anteros to the latter, he
cheerfully ascribes two deities to each.
It is worth noting that as he continues the passage just cited, Nifo brings to-
gether the erudite doctrine of the Anteros and the traditional wisdom of mankind
expressed in proverb; for he rounds off his observations with the words 'Unde
in proverbio dicitur "sine Amore Amor tandem peribit." '
It appears, then, that the person and biography of Eros' little brother were
fairly well known to Italian mythologists and philosophers of love in the early six-
teenth century, and that the interpretations which they offered varied from mak-
ing him the patron of mutual love and collaborator with Eros - the prevailing
idea in antiquity - to setting him up as the champion of virtuous affection (allied
with the love of God) against the love whose foundation is the flesh. It may be
worth while to recall that in antiquity Eros and Anteros alike are predominantly
the gods who preside over the loves of persons of the same sex - love of man for
woman not being admitted to the dignity of this divine patronage. Amorists of
the Renaissance, however, as they ennoble in the Dantesque and Petrarchian
tradition the love of man for woman by placing it under the protection of Cupid,
retain Anteros as his partner. The fact that the distinction of carnal from virtu-
1 Op. cit., De Amore, xxI fin. (p. 120); xIx (p. 115); LX (p. 168); LXXIV(p. 212); LXXXV-VI (p. 231-
232).
2 De re aulica ad Phausinam libri duo
per Augustinum Niphum medicum (Colophon: Naples:
Caneto, 1534). 3 Op. cit., xix (p. 113).
ous love even between man and woman now assumes greater importance in
literature may help to account for the new current of thought which makes Eros
the god of passion and Anteros that of purity.
Heroet, to whom we now return, may have derived his subject in the Invention
from almost any one of the accounts hitherto cited, and indeed the question of
immediate sources used by the Renaissance authors of these accounts is a con-
fused one. Calcagnini, Giraldi, Equicola, Alciati and Nifo were contemporaries
linked with one another by ties both of scholarly interest and of personal friend-
ship, so that no trustworthy conclusions can be drawn from the dates at which
their studies were published as to the order in which they themselves became ac-
quainted with the Anteros myth. Furthermore, the artistic inclinations of each
of them led him both to select from the material at hand what most struck his
fancy, and also to make such additions of his own as he might think appropriate.
Heroet in his turn amplifies and modifies the story of Anteros' birth. His com-
petence in Latin and Italian makes it perfectly possible that he used one of the
scholarly works mentioned, although on the whole in such of his poems as are not
translations he is not given to a show of erudition. Heroet may to be sure have
found his original in the Philologue d'honneurof Claude de Cuzzi, which offers an
abridgment of Themistius' story, and names the author. This source is the more
likely in that Claude, like Heroet, is not merely being scholarly, but is using the
myth in order to press his own claims to a lady's responsive love.1 HIeroet'sinter-
pretation of the story, as has been seen, allies him with the more numerous group
of mythologists for whom Anteros signified a love-in-return - not indeed an
avenger of slights offered to a lover by an obdurate beloved as Anteros was repre-
sented to be in Athens, but an encourager of timid and undeveloped passion.
Moreover, he used the myth with a direct intention: to persuade his cool lady to
show him such favor as would strengthen his own love into a full-grown and trust-
worthy devotion. Herein, it must be emphasized, he differs from the mere record-
ing scholars by whom so far the myth had been transmitted. He anticipates the
use which for example the Renaissance imitators of Ausonius make of the Latin
poet's 'De rosis nascentibus,' when they point out discreetly to the recalcitrant
fair that since her charms are as fleeting as the charms of the rose she would do
well to profit by her time of bloom and be gracious to the suppliant poet. Thus
Heroet and Ronsard alike combine with the classical authority of their conceits
a highly personal lesson profitable to themselves.
Why did Heroet allege Plato as the source of the myth which he set forth in
the Invention? The growing prestige of the Greek philosopher may of course have
urged the poet to a pious fraud - the more so that his version of the Androgyne
story from the Symposium had already been well received in manuscript form by
Francis I, and that he was drawing on the Platonic doctrine of ideal love in his
Parfaicte amye. On the other hand, he may have found the attribution in his
immediate source: Nifo's De amoretouches momentarily on the Themistian story,
1 Paris: Langelier, privilege 1537. V. Festugiere, 'La Philosophie de l'amour de Marsile Ficin et son
influence sur la litterature frangaise au xvIe siMcle,'Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, vIIm (1922),
p. 559. Festugiere is to be sure not scrupulously exact in his citations generally.
followed by the words 'Plato amatam redamare hortatur, quia redamando ani-
mam amanti restituit.'" But Nifo's reference to the story is here too brief to jus-
tify the supposition that Heroet used it as a source and took Plato bonafide to
be the author of the myth; while Nifo's two full-length citations of the myth
elsewhere attribute it to Themistius and cannot have misled Heroet. Just why,
then, Heroet names Plato as author of the story is at present an uncertain as
why Calcagnini fathers it now upon Porphyry and now upon Alexander of Aphro-
disias.
In his far more important poem, La Parfaicte Amye, Heroet gives a fleeting
glance to the deity whom in the Invention he celebrates so fully. The 'amye' is
concerned with expounding the nature of her love, and appropriately begins by
refusing to consider the various characteristics and appanages regularly ascribed
to Cupid by the myriad disciples of his art. So she states plumply 'I1ne me chault
si Venus fut sa mere, S'il fut seul filz, ou s'il avoit ung frere.'2
The fortunes of Anteros among the French poets of the mid-century appear to
have been slight. His name in the modified form 'Antire' is given to that one of
the shepherds in Maurice Sceve's bucolic Saulsaye of 1547 who is immune to love
and who cites various curative methods available to sufferers from that malady.3
For Sceve, then, the name of Anteros seems to mean, as it did for Alciati and for
others even as early as the scholiasts of Servius, the dissolver of love - Lyseros
- and not the deity of reciprocating passion.
At a date unknown Marguerite d'Angouleme, Queen of Navarre, composed
among what the editor of the MS has called her Dernieres poesies a brief group
of strophes under the title 'La Distinction du vray amour par dixains.'4 That title
suggests a single theme, but the first three dixains present in fact a self-contained
idea not connected with the thought of the remaining stanzas. Marguerite is
suggesting the process by which an infirm human love can be transformed into a
divine; and she seems to be drawing for her symbolism on the figure in Alciati's
Emblematawhich represents one Love destroying the accoutrements of another.5
But to suit her own purposes she describes this violent action as beneficent, since
it purifies the second love of the cruelty and blindness (the bow and the eye-band)
which characterize earthly passion:
Amour,remplyde pitie et de zelle,
D'amourmouranttoucha la legiereaille,
Et l'arrachadu corpstendre et beau:
La trousseprint, et ses traicts avec elle,
L'arcimpiteuxet la corde cruelle,
Aussi 1'espaiset ignorantbandeau.
Le tout il mit en un feu si nouveau
Que leur chaleuril convertit en glace;
Sans oublierde Venus le flambeau,
Dont ce sainct feu toute navrureefface.
Cap. Lx (p. 168). 2 I, vs. 17-18 (v. p. 279, n. 1 supra).
3 Oeuvres
completesde Maurice Sceve (ed. Guegan; Paris: Garnier, 1927), p. 167.
4 Les dernieres
poesies de Marguerited'Angouleme, reine de Navarre (ed. Lefranc; Paris: Colin, 1896),
p. 301. 6 Op. cit. p. 292, n. 1 supra.
Eros and Anteros
Thus, although it seems unlikely that Marguerite knew the antecedents of her
little allegory, her two Loves appear recognizable as Eros and Anteros, of whom
the latter is the ennobling love for God and the former represents the affection
of the flesh. Pier Hedo, Fregoso and Alciati would have seen a figure familiar to
them, and close to that of the Lyseros or destroyer of love dimly shadowed by
the scholiasts on Servius.
It was natural enough that with their enthusiasm for the adoption of ancient
myth into contemporary poetry the members of the Pleiade should have found
and re-echoed the story of Anteros' birth. However, it is by allusion rather than
by actual repetition that on the whole they show their acquaintance with it
and indeed Heroet's presentation may have stolen their thunder somewhat.
Ronsard's poem 'Magie, ou delivrance d'amour' is a reworking of the theme
familiar from the Remedia amoris; but he goes further than Ovid when he names
the deity whose function is the suppression of love :
Je veux a la fagon antique
Bastir un temple de cypres,
Ould'amour je rompray les traicts
Dessus l'autel Anterotique.
Ronsard here remembers the shrine in the temple of Venus Erycina, and gives
the appropriate name to that Cupid who pours water of Lethe on his own torch.
Here is the Lyseros, and not the patron of mutual love.
Elsewhere Ronsard alludes (whether he is consciously reminiscing can hardly
be determined) to Eros' little brother with the same personal intention which
had earlier moved Heroet: he closes an amatory sonnet of the Amours with the
cursory reminder :2
Mais si faut il que vostre bonte pense

Que l'amitie d'amitie se compense,
Et qu'un Amour sans frere ne croyst point.
The scholarly and allusive Pontus de Tyard knows the name of Anteros, but
draws on various traditions when referring to his functions. The title 'Ode de
Contr'amour ou Anteros qui est amour reciproque' sets Pontus in the orthodox
path, although the poem itself is merely a quaint play on amorous unity and
duality, probably derived from a passage in Ficino's Convito.3Elsewhere, having
described the passage of his love from the physical to the moral charms of his
lady, Pontus continues4
Et puis Antere alluma mille feux
En mon ardeur, d'ardeur favorisee.
1 Oeuvres
completesde P. de Ronsard. Nouvelle edition revisee, augmentee et annotee par Paul Lau-
monier (Paris: Lemerre, 1914-19), II, 459. 'Magie' is one of the late additions to the Cinquiemelivre
des Odes.
2 'Sans soupirer' ..(v.ll.'Vivre un moment . . . ' Franc de travail ... '), in Le premier livre des
Amours, op. cit. I, 55.
3 Les Oeuvres poetiques de Pontus de Tyard (ed.
Marty-Laveaux; Paris, Lemerre, 1875), p. 177
(Nouvell'Oeuvres).Cf. Marsilio Ficino, Sopra lo amore o ver' Convito di Platone (Florence: Neri
Dortelata, 1544), ii, 8, p. 46. 4 Op. cit., p. 102 (Erreurs amoureuses III, sonnet IIJ).
Vostre beaute fut le fusil, Madame,

Vostre vertu l'estincelle, & la flame
Fut contr'amour, mon coeur, la meche esprise.
So far then the poet is within the tradition of Anteros as the favorer of mutual
love; but he gives a name to Ovid's 'deus ultor' in the lines to his lady :
Mais si nouvel amour t'embrase une autre ardeur,
Je supply' (Contr'amour) Contr'amour dieu vengeur!
Que ... tu puisses, d'un suject indigne consumee,
Aimer languissamment, et n'estre pas aimee.
Here then Anteros is specifically the god who punishes the unloving beloved, and
thus recalls (though in less homicidal tone) the Athenian shrine mentioned by
Pausanias.
Of the three hundred sonnets under the title of Les Contr'amours with which the
choleric Etienne Jodelle planned to overwhelm a faithless fair, only seven were
actually published.2 They are mere tirades, and might better have remained in
Limbo. The use of the title shows what the term 'Contr'amour' meant to Jodelle
- a hostility to love or at least to a lady. However, in another group of short
poems Jodelle (if indeed he is the author) refers by name to Anteros :3
Donc, Anteros, en vain dans ton onde noire
Plonge le sainct flambeau qui m'allume le cueur,
Et me presente en vain de l'oubliance a boire:
Tu ne sgaurois noyer, n'estaindre mon ardeur.
Anteros is here as in the next passages Cupid the Lyseros whose Roman shrine
Ovid has reported :4
Le contr'amour qui sur un autre autel
Veut admortir son flambeau immortel,
Presente l'eau du fleuve d'oubliance.
Le contr'amour s'efforce done en vain
A presenter son oubli d'une main,
Et admortir ceste amoureuse flame.
Jodelle, then, although he misapplies the name of Anteros, is consistent in the

general connotation which he gives it: it is no reciprocative passion nor love of the
celestial, but an out-and-out animus against love.
In 1559 the scholarly Louis Le Roy published an annotated translation of
Plato's Symposium. When he touches in his comment on the thorny problem
whether the lover is more divine than the beloved, he takes cognizance of the
story from Themistius, about Anteros' birth and growth, in order to prove that
the perfect love exists when lover and beloved are equally affected:5 'Toutefois
1 Op. cit., p. 193 ('Elegie d'une dame,' in Nouvell'Oeuvres).
2 Les Oeuvres et
meslanges poetiques d'Estienne Jodelle... (ed. Marty-Laveaux; Paris: Lemerre,
1868), II, 91.
3 Les Amours et autres poesies d'Estienne Jodelle .. . (ed. A. Van Bever; Paris: Sansot, 1907), p.
248. As to attribution, v. p. 939. 4 Op. cit., pp. 249, 950.
5 Le Sympose de Platon, ou de l'amour et beaute ... par Loys le Roy, dit Regius (Paris: Sertenas, 1559),
fol. 16r.
il convient estimer le vray amour estre, quand tous deux sont en mesme degre
de divinite, s'entr'aymans mutuellement avec pareille affection et ardeur.' Le
Roy, then, knows Contr'amour, as he calls the deity, merely as the patron of
love-in-return; he is apparently using for his transcription a text of Nifo's De
Amore, which he cites as attributing to Themistius the story of the birth; and
he notes that Calcagnini in his little essay on the subject ascribes it to Porphyry.
The translator-commentator next offers an extract from Heroet's Aultre Inven-
tion, and passes on without throwing further light on the person of Anteros.
With the mid-century French scholar it seems appropriate to close the con-
sideration of the Anteros. In earliest times he has appeared in monuments as an
avenger of slights offered to Eros - and thus as an ally of that deity. By about
the beginning of the Christian era Ovid seems to suggest vaguely a doubling of
Cupid into one deity of love and another (in the temple of Venus Erycina) who
dispels it. This latter theme appears among the scholiasts of Servius, and with it
the conception that Anteros is merely the counterpart of Eros and the patron
of a responsive beloved as Eros is that of the lover. This interpretation reflects
the early use of the word or name by Plato in the Phaedrus, where it can mean
nothing but love-in-return.
With the delightful stories of Themistius and Eunapius, Eros and Anteros
pass into more imaginative literature; but with the Revival of Learning the
younger brother is pressed into the service of an austere morality and made to
stand in opposition to the elder, as heavenly or merely virtuous love is opposed to
earthly or carnal. Here too there is early authority, if need arise, in the epigram
of Marianus Scholasticus cited from the Anthology, concerning the unarmed gar-
land-plaiting Love. The poets of the Renaissance in France view Anteros mainly
as the favorer of mutual passion; and it is noteworthy that now the person and
antecedents of Anteros are used as by Heroet and Pontus de Tyard to point the
moral and adorn the tale of a sighing lover. Others like Jodelle identify in effect
Anteros with Lyseros the dissolver of love, and make him their patron in their
attempts to free their hearts from an unworthy yoke.
Thus in the middle of the century the person of Anteros appears variously with
all the traits given him from Plato's day onward. His outline is an uncertain one,
since poets like Du Bellay or Ronsard may refer to him vaguely without naming
him, and certainly without consciously placing him in one or another of the his-
toric traditions. The process of incorporating antique concepts in modern lan-
guage, proclaimed by Du Bellay in the Deffence et Illustration, has as its inevitable
result the imprecise and casual use of terms whose meanings and exact connota-
tions or history the modern users either have forgotten or have never known.
When this happens, the true and vivid Renaissance is nearing its close; the fig-
ures of Eros and Anteros alike become part of a worn literary coinage, whose
image and superscription has lost its crispness, and which has now no longer an
aesthetic but only a formal value. The half-gods are gone; but no gods arrive to
ennoble their places.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
The Knighting Ceremonies in the Middle English Romances

Author(s): Robert W. Ackerman
Accessed: 12/06/2010 12:53
Speculum.
THE KNIGHTING CEREMONIES IN THE
MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCES
BY ROBERT W. ACKERMAN
I
THE ceremony of knighting was a highly important event in the life of the feudal
noble of the later Middle Ages because it signalized not only his fitness to wield
the knightly weapons, but also his legal majority.' One is scarcely surprised, then,
to find that the Middle English romances, since their heroes belong invariably to
the aristocratic or knightly class,2 contain many interesting allusions to, and de-
scriptions of, the knighting ritual. The knighting, in fact, is one of the spectacular
features of the times which romance composers often represent in their poems.
Along with the portrayal of other mediaeval customs and manners in the ro-
mances, however, these accounts of the knighting ceremonial are open to the
charge of being 'fanciful.'3 Some writers hold that the old romances 'outrage the
truth in their extravagant pictures of chivalry'; others that the romances present
a reliable picture of their times.4 Neither opinion, it would seem, rests upon a
systematic investigation of the facts. Thus, in the present paper, the purpose is
to determine the completeness and accuracy with which the English romance
composers represent one important aspect of their times - the knighting cere-
mony. Such a study involves, of course, a comparison of the adoubementsof the
heroes of romance with what is known about the historical ceremony of knighting.
1 'En effet, aux xie et xIIe siecles, c'etait seulement a la suite de cette ceremonie [knighting cere-
mony] qu'il devenait majeur; jusque-la sa capacite juridique restait en suspens,' Paul Guilhiermoz,
Essai sur l'origine de la noblesse en France au moyen dge (Paris, 1902), p. 395.
2 The heroes of romance are always feudal nobles and generally men of great estate and importance.
Noble or 'free' birth as a requisite for knighthood, then, is an aspect of mediaeval society of which
romance writers were fully conscious. Men of low birth are not represented in the romances as being
honored by knighthood save when humor is intended, as in the knighting of such ignoble louts as
Rauf Coil3ear and the Carl of Carlyle. In such poems as Sir Perceval of Gales, Libeaus Desconus, and
Octovian,the principle of elegibility for knighthood receives exaggerated expression, for noble birth
is depicted as carrying with it certain of the conventional knightly virtues. Not only do several high-
born youths, unaware through tricks of fate of their true station in life, display a natural impulse to
become knights, but they seem to possess as their birthright great dexterity with the weapons of the
knight. Octovian is even described as exhibiting the natural aversion of the aristocrat to trade and
money.
3 Bishop Hurd, Letters on Chivalry and Romance, 1762, ed. Edith Morley (London, 1911), p. 146.
In Bishop Hurd's opinion, many contemporary scholars concur: Ernest Albert Baker in The IHistory
of the English Novel: The Age of Romance ... (London, 1924), pp. 11-49; Rowland Edmund Prothero,
Lord Ernle, in The Light Reading of Our Ancestors (London, 1927), pp. 72-85; George Wyndham in
Essays in Romantic Literature by GeorgeWyndham, ed. Charles Whibley (London, 1919), pp. 5-41;
and Reinald Hoops in Der Begriff 'Romance' in der mittelenglischenund friihneuenglischen Literatur,
Anglistische Forschungen, Heft 68 (Heidelberg, 1929), p. 54.
4 Charles Victor Langlois, La Societe frangaise au xIIP siecle d'apres dix romans d'aventure (2nd
ed., Paris, 1904), especially p. iii; Jean Baptiste de la Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Memoires sur l'ancienne
chevalerieconsidereecommeun etablissementpolitique et militaire (Paris, 1759), ii, 107-137; and Charles
Mills, The Story of Chivalry or Knighthood and Its Times (London, 1825), i, 97.
286 Knighting Ceremoniesin Middle English Romances
Such other phases of knighthood as the chivalric education are considered to form
separate subjects and will not be treated here.
There are approximately one hundred pieces of narrative literature, not count-
ing variant forms, which are classified as romances.' Of the ninety-three2 exam-
ined for this study, forty-nine were found to include no account3 of a knighting.
As might be expected of romances based on Celtic fairy stories having little to
do with chivalry, the so-called Breton lais - Lai le Frein, Sir Orfeo,Emare, and
Sir Launfal - contain no dubbings. On the other hand, some of the romances
setting forth ancient narrative material, such as the fall of Troy, or the legendary
career of Alexander, depict rather fully the knighting ritual of the late Middle
Ages. In general, it may be said that the stories in which knightings are most
likely to be found are those which dwell in some detail on the enfances or youthful
years of their heroes.
Forty-four Middle English romances contain accounts of one to ten separate
knightings which vary considerably in fullness and explicitness. Many of the
allusions to knightings, however, are no more than terse statements to the effect
that the ceremony takes place. In some of these allusions, the knighting is indi-
cated by the word dub:
Mi-self shal dubbehim to knith,
For-li Pat he is so with.4
Bote to armurebry3t wol y me ta.
ffor]y, sire kyng, now pray y Pe,
Dobbe me kny3t, par charite.5
Here, dub seems to refer to the entire ceremony, but in other passages, to be dis-
cussed later, the term denotes a specific act of the knighting. As used in connection
with the knightly investiture, dub, both in its Middle English and Old French
forms, has a complex history, which is set forth in a recent paper by the present
writer.6
Besides dub, two other expressions are often used to tell us that a knighting
takes place:
1 The list of romances followed here is that given in John Edwin Wells, A Manual of the Writings in
Middle English 1050-1400 (New Haven [Conn.], 1916), pp. 1-163.
2 The
following pieces listed by Wells were omitted because of their inaccessibility or their frag-
mentary state: the Fillingham Otuel, the Cambridge Alexander-Cassamus Fragment, the Rawlinson
Siege of Thebes,and Titus and Vespasian or the Destruction of Jerusalem.
3
Although no dubbings take place in these forty-nine stories, casual allusions to knighting and
knighthood are frequent. Thus, in Athelstone,the king pretends to offer knighthood to the two sons of
the Earl of Stane, and in The Romance of Parthenay, there is an interesting discussion of the relative
merits of knighthood and holy orders.
4 The Lay of Havelok, ed. W. W. Skeat, EETSES, iv (1868), vv. 2042-2043.
5 The Seege or Batayle of Troye, ed. Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, EETS, CLXXII(1927), Lincoln's Inn
MS, vv. 1303-1305.
6 'Dub in the Middle English Romances,' The Research Studies of the State College of Washington,
ix (1941). In this paper, it is pointed out that Middle English dub, when used in connection with
knightly investiture, has four distinct meanings. In addition to the conventionally accepted meanings
of (1) to create a knight, and (2) to give the accolade with the sword, dub may further signify (3) to
give the accolade with hand or fist, and (4) to invest with the sword, although about this last meaning
there is less certainty.
Knighting Ceremoniesin Middle English Romances 287
Horn adoun con lyhte
& made hem alle to knyhte.1
And Ordreof knyht took this Galas

Of Nasciens that Stille Abod In that plas.2
Sometimes, two of these expressions are combined:

. . . hys sone is now of late dowbed & made knight.3
The passages just cited may scarcely be said to convey a picture, such as the
romance composers must have had in mind, of the process of creating a knight.
In all probability, the romance writers, whenever they used the expressions 'to
dub a knight,' 'to make a knight,' or 'to take the order of knight,' expected their
audiences to read the missing details into their narratives.
In passages occurring in no fewer than forty romances, however, these unen-
lightening phrases are accompanied by hints as to the sort of ceremony the ro-
mance writers must have visualized, and even, in a few instances, by admirable
descriptions of virtually the entire ritual. The present study is, naturally, based
on this group of forty romances.
In Die Formalitdten des Ritterschlags in der altfranzosischen Epik, Karl Treis4 has
studied the rituals in Old French romance. Although the data which he draws
from eighty-four Old French poems are systematically arranged and carefully
presented, Treis, in estimating the amount of distortion represented in the ro-
mances, often relies upon broad, uncritical assumptions as to the mediaeval
ceremonies actually used. In order to determine more soundly the extent to which
the adoubements of the knights of romance are fanciful inventions of the poets, one
must compare them with detailed and fully substantiated accounts of historical
usage.
Unfortunately, existing treatments of the historical ceremony are not entirely
adequate for the purpose of comparison. Either they are insufficiently detailed,
or their writers have turned to the romances for assistance in developing their
1 King Horn, ed. Joseph Hall (Oxford, 1901), Harleian MS. vv. 521-522. See also Libeaus Desconus,
in The Percy Folio Manuscript, ed. John W. Hales and Frederick J. Furnivall (London, 1867-68), ii,
404-499, v. 51; The History of the Holy Grail, ed. Frederick J. Furnivall and Dorothy Kempe,
EETSES, xx, xxiv, xxvIII, xxx, xcv (1877, 1878, 1905), Chap. xII, v. 170; Thomas Malory, Morte
Darthur, ed. H. Oskar Sommer (London, 1889-91), I, 41, 69, 280, 339-340, 451, 613; The Siege of Me-
layne, ed. Sidney J. H. Herrtage, EETSES, xxxv (1880), v. 1414; Octovian, in Metrical Romances,
ed. Henry Weber (Edinburgh, 1810), III, 155-239, vv. 1867-1868; Le Bone Florence of Rome, in An-
cient English Metrical Romances, ed. Joseph Ritson (Edinburgh, 1884-85), III, 46 ff., vv. 413-415;
and Generydes, ed. W. Aldis Wright, EETS, Lv, Lxx (1878), vv. 1842-1843.
2 The
History of the Holy Grail, ed. cit., Chap. LIII, vv. 57-58. See also Morte Darthur, ed. cit., I, 218;
Lydgate's Troy Book, ed. Henry Bergen, EETSES, xcvii, cmII,cvI (1906, 1908, 1910), Book V, v.
1488; The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, ed. H. Oskar Sommer (London, 1904), I, 316; Sir Degre-
vant, in The ThorntonRomances, ed. James Orchard Halliwell, The Camden Society (London, 1844),
pp. 177-256, vv. 873-876; and Sir Torrent of Portyngale, ed. E. Adam, EETSES, LI (1887), vv. 1107-
1112. 3 Melusine, ed. A. K. Donald, EETSES, LXVIII(1895), p. 72.
4
Dissertation, Friedrich-Wilhelms Universitat, Berlin, 1887.
picture of knighting.' It has been found necessary, then, to supplement the work
of historians with accounts of adoubementswhich the present writer has been
able to collect from a number of chronicles.
Before the various phases of the romance knightings may be properly discussed
in connection with historical parallels, however, a brief sketch of the background
of the ritual is necessary.
Historians are of the opinion that the knighting ritual of the later Middle Ages
is a development of the maturity rite used by ancient Germanic tribes.2 According
to an often quoted passage in the Germania of Tacitus, youths who were old
enough to take part in war were ceremoniously presented with arms by a chief.3
That the use of the maturity rite continued into the ninth century is indicated by
scattered chronicle entries, but the only act of the ceremony that is distinctly
mentioned is belting on the sword.4 The development of the feudal order in,
roughly speaking, the tenth century transformed the primitive maturity rite
into the knighting ceremony. At first, the maturity ritual was regarded by the
early barons of the feudal period as marking the attainment of legal age.5 As
time passed, however, a distinction grew up between feudal lords who, at least in
youth, led the life of a warrior and those who did not. The former alone were
called knights,6 and they seem quite regularly to have symbolized their choice of
1 The most complete discussion of the ceremony of knighting is to be found in Leon Gautier's La
ehevalerie,3rd ed. (Paris, 1895), Chapters vii-vIII. This writer, however, not only depends to some
extent on the evidence of romance, but his work has been condemned by Langlois (op. cit., introduc-
tion) as 'une foule d'opinions religieuses et morales, personnelles a l'auteur.' The same general ob-
jections apply to the use here of the work of other historians of chivalry: Sir Walter Scott, G. P. R.
James, Henry Stebbing, Francis Warre-Cornish, Walter Meller, and Kenelm Henry Digby. Still
another rather notable work in the same class is Alwin Schultz's Das hkfische Leben zur Zeit der
Minnesinger, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1889.
2 The ancient Teutonic origins of the knighting are discussed by such historians as Edward Augus-
tus Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, Its Causes and Its Results (Oxford,
1876), v, 482-486; George G. Coulton, The MediaevalScene (New York, 1931), pp. 57 ff.; H. O. Taylor,
The Mediaeval Mind, 4th ed. (New York, 1925), i, 538 ff.; Gautier, op. cit., Chapter vII; and E. F.
Jacobs, 'The Beginnings of Medieval Chivalry,' Chivalry, ed. E. Prestage (London, 1998), pp. 37-55.
3'Nihil autem neque publicae neque privatae rei nisi armati agunt. Sed arma sumere non ante
cuiquam moris, quam civitas suffecturum probaverit. Tum in ipso concilio vel principum aliquis vel
pater vel propinqui scuto frameaque iuvenem ornant: haec apud illos toga, hic primus iuventae honos;
ante hoc domos pars videntur, mox rei publicae.' In Taciti de Vita lulii Agricolae and de Germania,
ed. Alfred Gudeman, revised ed. (New York, 1928), p. 35, par. 13.
4 In the commentary of the
Delphine edition of Tacitus (Paris, 1686), iv, 45-46, several occurrences
of the maturity rite are quoted from early chronicles. Paul the Deacon speaks of the custom as pre-
vailing among the Lonbards in about 800, and two passages in the Vita Ludovici Pii under date of
791 and 838 refer to belting on the sword ('accinctus est,' and 'ense cinxit').
6 Guilhiermoz,
op. cit., pp. 393-395.
6 The term
'knight' (OE cniht), after the Norman Conquest, came to refer specifically to fighting
men of the landlord class who could afford a war-horse and the equipment of a mounted soldier.
F. J. C. Hearnshaw, 'Chivalry and Its Place in History,' Chivalry, ed. Prestage, pp. 3 if. During the
Middle Ages, the mounted soldier protected by body armor enjoyed an immense advantage over the
humble foot-soldier. This advantage seems to have lasted until the development of the Welsh long-
bow and of gunpowder in the fourteenth century. See Sir Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War
profession by submitting to the investment with arms which now came to be

associated specifically with the military aristocracy.'
Of the exact nature of the knighting ceremony in use during the early years of
the feudal period not much is known. One panel of the Bayeux Tapestry, it is
true, portrays the knighting of King Harold by William of Normandy, but one
cannot be sure what ritualistic act might be here represented. It may be that
Duke William is engaged in fastening the young king's helm.2 Again, the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle under the date 1085 reports, but with no details, the dubbing
of Henry by William I.3 In the Latin chronicles in which royal knightings
are frequently mentioned, such phrases as these are used: 'militaribus armis ac-
cinxit,' and 'cingulo militiae accinctus est.'4 One judges, then, that the suzerain,
as the principal act of the early ritual, belted a sword about the candidate's
waist. Other records which will be quoted presently reveal that the later cere-
mony was more elaborate, including such additional acts as investment with
spurs, the accolade, and a concluding formula uttered by the lord conferring the
honor. A feast and celebration often followed the actual knighting.
The ceremony could take place either in the hall of the suzerain or, as Sainte-
Palaye, an early historian of chivalry, points out, on the battlefield.5 The battle-
field ceremony, in fact, is rather often mentioned in the chronicles.
Moreover, after the development of the Christian concept of chivalry, the
ritual was frequently held in a church. In the opinion of historians, Christian
knighthood came into being in the twelfth century.6 Always interested in restrain-
ing the warlike nobles of feudal Europe, the Church sponsored several measures in
the tenth and eleventh centuries designed to secure some degree of peace and
order.7 But the beginning of the Crusades in 1095 offered an especially effective
(New York and London, 1898), pp. 193-195 and 583-634, and Gustav Kohler, Die Entwickelung des
Kriegswesensund der Kriegfiihrung in der Ritterzeitvon Mitte des 11. Jahrhunderts bis zu den Hussiten-
kriegen (Breslau, 1886), III, 1. Teil, 215-262.
1 In Oman's opinion, it was not until after the Norman Conquest that all knights were nobly born
and had gone through the ceremony of admission to knighthood. Op. cit., p. 195.
2 Plate XXV. This panel is captioned 'Hic Willelm: dedit Haroldo arma.' Frank Rede Fowkes,
The Bayeux Tapestry Reproducedin Autotype with Historical Notes, London, 1875.
'Her se cyng ... dubbade his sunu Henric to ridere Paer,' Ed. Earle and Plummer (Oxford,
1889), i, 216-217.
4 In the Latin chronicles, the usual forms for recording a knighting are 'cingulum accepit,' 'arma
dedit,' or 'militiae cingulo accinxit.' See William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, ed. Rich-
ard Howlett, Rolls Series (London, 1884), p. 70, for a record of the knighting of Prince Henry by
King David at Carlisle in 1149, and Gesta Stephani, ed. Howlett, Rolls Series (London, 1884-89), iII,
132, for the dubbing of Eustace by King John in 1147.
5 Sainte-Palaye, op. cit., ii, 107-137, observes that knightings which occur both before and after
battle are to be found in French romances and in history.
6 See Jacobs, op. cit., pp. 40 ff., Taylor, op. cit., I, 544-551, and Sidney Painter, 'The Ideas of
Chivalry,' The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine, xxIII (1935), 218-232. More systematic accounts of
the development of Christian chivalry are to be found in Kohler, op. cit., III, 66 ff., and Achille Lu-
chaire, Les Premiers Capetiens (987-1137) (Paris, 1911), in Histoire de France, ed. Ernest Lavisse
(Paris, 1900-1911), pp. 139-140.
7 The two most famous of these measures were the Pax Dei of the tenth century, and the Truga
means of subduing the military barons, or at least of diverting their energies into
channels sanctioned by the Church.1 As the necessity of continuing the warfare
against the infidel became apparent, a Christian theory of knighthood was formu-
lated and preached by such Churchmen as Ramon Lull. In the terms of this
theory, the knightly order served as the arm of the Church, and the ordination
ritual became, as Leon Gautier has said, the 'eighth sacrament.'2 That is, not
only were knightings occasionally held in a church, but to the secular ritual al-
ready discussed were added several acts symbolic of the dedication of the new
knight to Christian purposes. Moreover, clergy sometimes assisted in conferring
the honor.3
The sources par excellenceof our knowledge of the Christian concept of knight-
hood and of the sacerdotal knighting ceremony are the so-called manuals of
chivalry - a group of treatises written during the thirteenth century and later,
in which knighthood is systematically dealt with as a Christian institution.
Among the treatises that have come down to us, the two most important for
present purposes are the work of a thirteenth and fourteenth century Majorcan,
Ramon Lull, translated by Caxton as The Book of the Ordreof Chyualry,4and an
anonymous French poem of the early thirteenth century, L'Ordenede chevalerie.6
Similar works are L'Enseignement des Princes of Robert de Blois,6 and Livre des
manieres of ]Itiennes de Fougeres,7 but the ordination ritual is not described in
these last-named treatises.
In Lull's work, an ordination ritual consisting of the following steps is carefully
outlined: (1) an all-night vigil before the altar; (2) attendance at mass the next
morning, after which the candidate is to swear the oath of chivalry to the priest
(the 'knyght espyrytuel'), and listen to a sermon on the articles of faith, the
commandments, and the sacraments; (3) the girding on of the sword by the
'kni3t terryen'; (4) the ceremonial kiss by the 'kni3t terryen'; and (5) the public
announcement including a feast and tournament.8
Nevertheless, it would be as rash to assume that this ideal procedure was
regularly followed in actual adoubementsas to conclude that the Christian concept
Dei, 1027. For a discussion of the latter, see James Westfall Thompson, An Economic and Social
History of the Middle Ages, 300-1500 (New York, 1928), pp. 666-669.
1 'Au lieu de legiferer contre les infracteurs de la paix, ne valait-il pas mieux prevenir le mal en
agissant de bonne heure surl'imagination et sur le coeur du jeune noble, de maniere A ce qu'il ffit
penetre de son devoir de chretien? L'Eglise essaya de se faire l'educatrice du soldat, d'entrevenir dans
une des circonstances decisives de la vie du guerriere feodale au moment of, devenu homme fait, il
acquiert le droit de porter l'epee et de s'en servir comme chevalier. En donnant a cette solemnite la
valeur d'une ceremonie religieuse et meme d'un haut enseignement moral, le pretre espera discipliner
d'avance la turbulente aristocratie que la crainte des chatiments celestes ne suffisait pas A contenir:
elle ne l'a pas cree,' Luchaire, op. cit., pp. 139-140. 2 Op. cit., p. 18.
3 A collection of historical instances of the creation of
knights by churchmen is to be found in
Walter Meller, A Knight's Life in the Days of Chivalry (London, 1924), pp. 47-48.
4 Ed. Alfred T. P.
Byles, EETS, cLxvIII (1926).
5 Ed. Roy Temple House, Dissertation, University of
Chicago, 1918.
6 In Robertvon Blois, Sammtliche Werke, ed. Jacob Ulrich (Berlin, 1889-95), III, 1-78.
7 Ed. Ferdinand Talbot, Universite libre d'Angers, Paris, 1877.
8 Ed.
cit., pp. 66-125.
of chivalry effected a complete reform of the mediaeval feudatory.1 On the other

hand, there are indications that religious acts were used in some fairly early
knighting ceremonies. Gautier, for example, speaks of the existence of certain
eleventh century religious formulas for the benedictionovi militis.2 John of Salis-
bury, interested mainly in defining the religious obligations of chivalry, speaks of
placing the sword on the altar, presumably as one act in the adoubement,3and a
very similar statement occurs in a letter of Peter de Blois: 'Sed et hodie tirones
enses suos recipiunt de altari, ut profiteantur se filios Ecclesiae ....'4 On the
basis of these statements, it would seem that one of the steps in the religious cere-
mony actually used was laying the sword on the altar. In other accounts, to be
cited later, the candidates are described as holding vigil the night before their
ordination.
The foregoing brief survey of the knighting ceremony of the Middle Ages
provides an outline for the presentation of the adoubementsdescribed in the Mid-
dle English romances. That is, the following order will be maintained in the
ensuing discussion:
1. Scene of the knighting
i. The court ceremony
ii. The battlefieldceremony
iii. The churchceremony
2. Ceremonialacts of the secularknighting
i. Investment with the sword
ii. Investment with the spurs
iii. The accolade
iv. The formula
v. The concludingfeast and celebration
vi. Otherphases of the secularknighting
3. Specialreligiousacts
i. The vigil
ii. Dedication of the sword
iii. Otherphasesof the religiousceremony
The romance treatment of each of the above features of the knighting will be
compared with accounts of that feature in the chronicles and the historians of
chivalry. Also, consideration will be given those aspects of the ceremony appear-
ing in historical accounts but not in the romances, and to those romance descrip-
tions for which no historical parallels are known.
1 Luchairehas asked' . . . Mais commentpourrait-onprouverque le code chevaleresquea jamais

ete observedans la practique?'Op. cit., p. 143. Since knighthoodwas never, strictly speaking,an
'order,'like the Templars,with a definitelyformulatedand closely observedregula,it is probable
that a greatdiversityof practicesprevailedin churchknightings.
2 Op. cit., pp. 296-303. Gautierdeclaresthat the benedictio novi militis or the religiousknighting
ceremonywas probablynot introducedinto Francebeforethe twelfth century,and that it probably
did not come into use until the thirteenthcentury, the time of Louis IX. Ibid., p. 300. Professor
Painterhas been unableto find additionalevidence.'The Ideas of Chivalry,'p. 219.
3 Polycraticus, Lib. vI, cap. 6, in PatriologiaeLatinae,ed. Migne, cxcix, col. 602.
4
Epistola xciv to Archdeacon John, in PL, CCVII,coll. 293-294.
II
1. SCENE OF THE KNIGHTING
i. The court ceremony
Romance data: In the Middle English romances, a great many adoubements,
as is indicated sometimes by direct statement, take place in the suzerain's hall:
The gentyls that come hym tylle,
Then they werefulle fayne to do hys wylle.
He gave them ordurssone;
Yn the halle that he there hadd,
V. and thretty knyghtys he madd.1
Befoir mony worthiehe dubbit him Knicht,
Dukis and digne Lordisin that deir hall.2
More often, however, the hall as the scene of the ceremony is indicated by the
fact that the young candidate appears in his lord's court to request knighthood
and then receives it on the spot:
And he saide: 'lordynges,by my faye,
I ame ouer symple to 3ow to saye,
Where euer 3e will me sende.
I aske ordir of knyghte Jer till;
Bot giffe 3our giftis where 3e will,
Elles 3e be my frende.'
Thay made hym knyghte with full gud chere,
He tuke leue at Pe tuelue du3epere
this curtayse knyghte & hende.3
One suspects, from the absence of any allusions to religious acts or to an ecclesias-
tical setting, that the scene of many other ceremonies is also the hall.
Historical data: References to court knightings are numerous in the chronicles.
The dubbings of Harold and of Henry I, already mentioned, were probably held
in the ducal hall and the king's palace respectively. A clearer historical example of
a hall knighting is to be found in the Great French chronicle which recounts the
career of the distinguished regent, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. Young
William is described as standing before the Chamberlain of Tancarville in 1167
amid a goodly number of lords as he receives knighthood.4 In 1264, Gilbert de
Clare, Earl of Gloucester, seems also to have received his spurs in a court cere-
mony. The lord who conferred the honor was Simon de Montfort.5 As in the
romances, there are many other notices of dubbings which, in the absence of
specific details to the contrary, may be assumed to indicate rituals that were held
in the great hall of a king or noble.
1 Sir
Eglamour of Artois, in The ThorntonRomances, pp. 121-176, vv. 1000-1004.
2 The Taill of Rauf Coil3ear, ed. Herrtage, EETSES, xxxix (1882), vv. 755-756.
3 The Siege of Melayne, ed. cit., vv. 1408-1416.
4 L'Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, ed. Paul Meyer, Societe de l'histoire de France (Paris, 1891-
1901), vv. 819 ff.
5 Gervase of Canterbury, Opera Omnia, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series (1879-80), ii, 237.
It is plain, then, that the hall or court rituals in the romances are paralleled
by historical usage. In fact, the hall was undoubtedly the normal scene for at
least the earlier ceremonies.
ii. The battlefield ceremony

Romancedata: The battlefield dubbing is especially well represented in Le Bone
Florence of Rome. Sultan Garcy, while on the field, creates sixty knights, who
thereupon try to prove themselves worthy of their spurs:
Then syr Garcy,with mekyll pryde,
Made knyghtys on hys owne syde,
Syxty yonge and feyre,
The warste of ther faderswere barons,
That oghte bothe towresand townes,
And all were they ryght heyre.
When Emereand hys men with them mett
At the furste wynnyngof ther schone,
So tyte of lyvys were they done,
That all deryd not a pere.1
Two battlefield knightings are also alluded to in passing in the alliterative Morte
Arthure.2Again, one notes that, in Malory's Morte Darthur, Lancelot confers
knighthood on Beaumains in an impromptu out-door ceremony attended by none
of the honorable perquisites of the court dubbing.3The absence in these passages
of any details as to the ceremonial usages suggests that the romance writers
visualized a hasty and simplified form of the court ritual. It should also be ob-
served that only unimportant figures in romance stories are dubbed on the field of
eattle; the heroes, with very few exceptions, receive knighthood in a magnificent
pre-arranged ceremony.
Historical data: It is reasonable to believe that, from earliest feudal times, a
simplified form of the court dubbing was used for the creation of knights on the
field of war. The feverish atmosphere of a battle, either impending or actually in
progress, and the desire of leaders to inspire their men to deeds of valor would
make these moments especially propitious for conferring knighthood. Although
no accounts of very early historical knightings of this type have been found, a
particularly good example occurs in Le Prince Noir, a chronicle by Chandos:
Et trestout est li host venue.
Alarmey oist-homcrier.
Li Prince fist ses gentz rengier
Et ses bataillesordeignier.
La se pooit-homregarder
Ce que rien ne covient de dire;
Car home y pooit voir reluire
Or fyn et asureet argent
Ed. cit., vv. 644-653.

2 Ed. George G. Perry, EETS, vmI (1871), vv. 621-624, and 1738-1740.
3 Ed. cit., I, 128.
Et goules et sable ensement,
Synnoble et purpre et hermyne.
La eut mainte baniere fyne
De sole et de sendal auxi;
Car puis le temps que je vous dy,
Si tres-noble chose a veoir
Ne fut, a recorder le voir.
La fut l'avant-garde ordeignee
Tres-noblement a cel journee.
La veist-hom chivalers faire
De esquiers de noble affaire.
Le roy daun Petre chivaler
Fist le Prince trestut primer.
Et Thomas de Holand apres,
Qui de faire armes estoit pres,
Et puis Huon de Courtenay,
Philippe et Peron que bien say,
Johan Trivet, Nicolas Bonde;
Et li ducs, oiu toutz bien abonde,
Fist chivaler Raoul Cammois,
Qui fut beux en faitz et curtois
Et Gautier Ursewik auxi.1
According to Chandos' report, the Black Prince, after drawing up his host in
battle-array before Vitoria in Spain, created a number of knights among whom
was Pedro the Cruel. The Duke of Lancaster also knighted twelve important
men on this occasion. The ceremony was rendered colorful by the brilliant ar-
morial standards and took place, apparently, in full view of the army. More details
of this mid-fourteenth century battlefield knighting are not given, but one judges
that, under the circumstances, the ceremony was brief.
Other instances of the creation of knights just prior to battle occur in Le Prince
Noir,2 and still more are to be found in Froissart's Chroniques. The latter chroni-
cler describes the Earl of Buckingham as knighting a group of squires just before
besieging the strong castle of Folant. The new knights began a spirited attack and
ultimately captured the garrison.3 Again, Froissart recounts how the King of
Portugal, having dubbed sixty men at Aljubarota, sent them to the front of their
battalion so that their spurs might become them.4
The passages just cited indicate that the custom of creating knights on the
battlefield was rather often used during the fourteenth century at least. Neither
the romances nor the chronicles specify the exact procedure that was followed on
these occasions, but one may be justified in assuming that it consisted mainly of
the basic acts of the court dubbing - investment with the sword, and the neck-
blow. Froissart's accounts of the desperate valor of newly created knights agree
well with the description in Le Bone Florence of Rome of sixty knights who, having
1 Ed. Francisque Michel (London and Paris, 1883), vv. e584-2613.

2 Ibid., vv. 145-153, 498-501, 3221-3232, 3247-3248, and 3954-3955.
3 Ed. Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove
(Bruxelles, 1867-77), ix, 245-247.
4 Ibid., xi, 167-189.
been dubbed by Sultan Garcy, rush headlong on the enemy; but, in other respects,
the romance composers do not follow what seems to have been actual usage.
That is, battlefield knightings, according to Chandos and Froissart, were of much
more frequent occurrence than one would gather from the relatively few refer-
ences in the romances. Again, in actual life men of noble rank, like King Pedro,
not infrequently received knighthood on the battlefield,l whereas the heroes of
romance are almost invariably dubbed in the more elaborate court or religious
ceremony. Perhaps the desire of romance composers to inflate the importance and
fame of their heroes and to heighten the coloring of their narratives led them to
choose the more spectacular rituals.
iii. The church knighting
Romancedata: A number of romance ceremonies clearly take place in a church

or chapel. Thus, in Lovelich's Merlin:
Thike Same day comandidArthewr]>ekyng
To Gaweynand to his Felawes so 3yng
To the hed chircheof the cyte to gon.2
There follows a rather elaborate account of the various steps of the ritual. A
church as the place of a dubbing is more frequently indicated, however, by refer-
ences to a religious functionary or a specifically religious act. Thus, in Malory's
Morte Darthur, the knighting of Arthur is described as follows: 'And therwith
they knelyd at ones, both ryche and poure / and cryed Arthur mercy by cause
they had delayed hym so longe / and Arthur foryaf hem / and took the swerd
bitwene both his handes / and offred it upon the aulter where the Archebisshop
was / and so was he made knyghte of the best man that was there.'3 In Lovelich's
Merlin, Arthur's investiture, just as in Malory, takes place in the presence of an
archbishop.4Again in Malory, the dubbing of Alixaunder and twenty companions
is performed 'at the offering of the mass.'5 Similarly, the knighting of Uryan and
others, in the prose romance Melusine, occurring directly after 'the messe & the
seruyse deuyne,' seems to take place in a chapel.6 Finally, the knighting of young
Guy of Wallingford, in the Cambridge MS. of Guy of Warwick, is held before an
altar:
The knyghtys, P]atwere hende,
Knelyd to the awtersende.7
1 Thereis an incidentin Froissartwhichsuggeststhat squiresof the fourteenthcenturysometimes
preferredto receiveknighthoodin an elaborateceremonyratherthan on the battlefield:Jehan de
Helennes,a squireof Picardy,caredtenderlyfor his woundedprisonerof war, Lordde Berkeley,to
insurecollectingthe six thousandnobles of ransomthat would enable him to be knighted in an
honorablefashion.Ibid., v, 430-432.
2 Ed. Ernest Kock, EETSES, XCIII, cxII, and o.s. CLXXXV (1904, 1913, 1932), vv. 25741-25743.
8 Ed. cit., I, 43. 4 Ed. cit., vv. 7695-7698.
Ed. cit., I, 468. 8 Ed. cit., p. 152.
7 Ed. Julius Zupitza, EETSES, xxv, xxvI (1875, 1876), vv. 409-410.
Undoubtedly, this adoubementin Guy of Warwick is accorded the most satisfac-
tory treatment of any of the ceremonies in the Middle English romances. For
this reason, the description is quoted in full in Appendix A. The special religious
observances which characterize the church knighting are to be discussed pres-
ently.
Historical data: That historical ceremonies were held in chapels and churches is
attested by a large amount of evidence some of which has already been cited. For
example, the references of John of Salisbury and Peter de Blois to placing the
sword on the altar as one of the ceremonial acts clearly identify the scene of
the dubbing. Later evidence to the same effect is to be found in Froissart. Among
the best of this chronicler's descriptions is that of the dubbing of forty-six squires
on the day before the coronation of Henry Iv: 'Et a l'endemain le duc du Lancastre
les fist chevaliers a sa messe.' One gathers that this knighting of 1399 occurred
in connection with the mass. Among later accounts, of which the most complete
is the description of the royal ceremony of 1661, certain preliminary steps are de-
scribed as having taken place in a chapel, but the final act of conferring knight-
hood was held in the court.2
Beyond all question, then, the writers of romance were merely following re-
ceived custom in sometimes - as in Lovelich's Merlin, Morte Darthur, Melusine,
and Guy of Warwick- describing church dubbings.
In addition to the scene of the adoubementsin the Middle English romances
which, as has been shown, corresponds with the scene of historical knightings,
certain other preliminary aspects of the ceremony discussed by Treis in the work
already mentioned might have been investigated here, particularly the customary
age of the candidate for knighthood, the number of candidates usually presented
in one ceremony, and the favored seasons, days, and hours for the dubbing. A
detailed consideration of such matters has been omitted, not only because they
seem to be of less significance than the ceremonial acts themselves, but also
because the Middle English romances are much less explicit in these details than
the Old French. Such evidence as may be found in the English romances, how-
ever, agrees fairly well with Treis's findings. Thus, the age of the candidates most
frequently given in both the Old French and Middle English romances is fifteen.3
With respect to the number of knights created in a single ceremony, the Old
French romances are the more extravagant, specifying as many as four or five
hundred.4In the Middle English poems, the number of squires included in plural
1 Op. cit., xvI, 204-205.
2 This account is entitled The Manner of creating the Knights of the antient and honourableOrderof
the Bath. In Harleian Miscellany, ed. Oldys-Park (London, 1808), I, 542-546. The 'antient and honour-
able Order of the Bath' is not to be confused with the special order, The Knights of the Bath, founded
considerably later. It came to be customary for the term 'Knights of the Bath' to be applied to
knights created at coronations and other occasions of state. No doubt, the use of the bath in the
ceremony of ordination is responsible for the term. George G. Coulton, 'Knighthood,' Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 14th ed.
3 Treis, op. cit., pp. 18-6. See Amys and Amylion, ed. MacEdward Leach, EETS, ccIII (1937),
v. 163.
4 Treis,
op. cit., pp. 32-36.
knightings is not, with few exceptions, above 'fulle foure schore,' a number
not much out of keeping with actual usage, since Froissart reports that forty-
six men were knighted by the Duke of Lancaster in a court ceremony, and
considerably larger groups received their spurs in the wholesale battlefield
dubbings. The time of the romance ceremonies, according to Treis, is most often
early in the morning of a Sunday in the spring, many times Whitsunday.2
2. CEREMONIAL ACTS OF THE SECULAR KNIGHTING
i. Investment with the sword
Romance data: The act most frequently mentioned in the Middle English ro-
mances is investment with the sword. Ordinarily, the poets speak of the sword
as being girded on the candidate:' "Ser," said Ponthus, "make ye me knyght and
yeve me armore, and I shal goo and doo my devir." The kyng maked kym knyght,
and girde hym with a sworde.'3
be day by gan to springe
Horn cam bi forn ]e kinge
Wit swerdehorn he girde
Rit honderhys herte.4
Occasionally, the sword is hung about the candidate's neck, presumably by a
baldrick or shoulder-belt:
The morweAfftirthei made him kny3t,
Richely was he dubbed& dy3t.
AyaxThelamaneus
Offhem was most glorious,
He gyrd his swordaboute his swire.5
The hero of Partenope of Blois appears for his adoubementwith his sword sus-
pended from his neck, as was proper for a squire.6 When knighting this hero,
Melior, the fairy mistress, takes the sword from about his neck and 'A-boute his
medle P]oit gyrde.'7 'To dub a knight with the sword' is a rather common expres-
sion:
1 William of Palerne, ed. W. W. Skeat, EETSES, I (1867), vv. 1100-1102. In The
Life of Alisaunder,
however, 100 men are dubbed at once (in Metrical Romances, ed. Weber, I, 1-326, v. 818), and in The
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye Jupiter creates 400 knights (Ed. cit., i, 175-176).
2 Treis, op. cit., pp. 46-54. See Lovelich's Merlin, ed. cit., w. 7695 ff.
3 King Ponthus and Fair Sidone, ed. F. J. Mather, Jr., PMLA, xTI (1897), 1-150, Chapter vII, p. 20.
4King Horn, ed. cit., Oxford MS., vv. 515-518. See also Lovelich'sMerlin, ed. cit., v. 12211; The Foure
Sonnes of Aymon, ed. Octavia Richardson, EETSES, XLIV,XLV (1885), p. 31; The Lyfe of Alisaunder,
ed. cit., v. 814; GestHistoriale of the Destruction of Troy, ed. George A. Panton and David Donaldson,
EETS, xxxix, LVI(1874), v. 10939; and Huon of Burdeux, ed. S. L. Lee, EETSES, XL, XLI, XLIII, L
(1882, 1883, 1884, 1887), p. 635.
5 Laud Troy Book, ed. J. Ernest
Wiilfing, EETS, cxxI, cxxII (1902), vv. 16581-16585. See also
Lydgate's Troy Book, ed. cit., Book iv, vv. 3990-3994.
6 Treis (op. cit., pp. 85-86) discusses the differences in the manner in which squires and knights
presumably wore their swords.

7 Ed. A. Trampe Bbdtker, EETSES, cix
(1912), v. 9046. Melior seems to be the only woman in the
English romances who confers knighthood. In Huon of Burdeux, however, a woman disguised as a
man is dubbed.
Ubbe dubbede him to knith
With a swerd ful swi]e brith.1
Very similar statements occur in Beues of Hamtoun,2 Libeaus Desconus,3 King

Horn,4 and Duke Rowlande and Sir Ottuell.5Exactly what the lord who confers
knighthood does with the sword is not made clear in these passages. He might
be visualized as fastening it about the squire's waist, in which event dub would
have its original meaning of 'to arm,' 6 or the expression might be meant to refer
to the accolade, which will be discussed presently.
Historical data: Historical sources throughout the Middle Ages mention in-
vestment with the sword as a normal step of the knighting. The earliest chronicle
records of the ceremony include references to this act ('militaribus armis accinxit,'
and 'cingulo militiae accinctus est'). In a passage from a French chronicle al-
ready referred to, young William Marshal is described as standing before the
Chamberlain of Tancarville where he is belted with the sword of knighthood:
'Li chamberlens li ceinst l'espee.'7 Later allusions to this act are to be found
in profusion. As Schultz has stated, 'Die Hauptsache war, dass der junge Mann
mit dem Schwerte umgtirtet wurde.'8 The romances give few details of the
process of girding on the sword, but some notion may be gained from a highly
interesting miniature appearing in MS Cotton Nero D 1.9 Here, a candidate
clad in a long robe stands while a person, whose importance is indicated by
the fact that he wears a crown or coronet, buckles on him a belt to which a sword
is attached in such a manner that the scabbard hangs diagonally across the
front of the body.
Although full details as to the manner of presenting the sword of knighthood
are lacking in the historical sources here examined, it is clear that the romances
and chronicles agree in the strong emphasis they place on this act of the ceremony.
ii. Investment with the spurs

Romancedata: Less often than investment with the sword, affixing the spurs is
represented as part of the ritual in the romances. The most elaborate account of
the spurring of the candidate, in this instance a dwarf, occurs in the Prose
Merlin:
... and whan the kynge hadd eten, and the clothes weren vp, the dameselldroughoute
of an awmenerea peireof sporesof golde that weerewoundenin a cloth of silke, and seide
to the kynge, 'Sir, delyuerme, for I haue ben here longe.' With that lepte forth kay the
1 Havelok, ed. cit., vv. 2314-2315.
2 Ed.
Eugen Kolbing, EETSES, XLVI, XLVIII, LXV (1885, 1886, 1894), vv. 969-975.
3 Ed. cit., vv. 87-90.
4 Ed. cit.,
Cambridge MS., vv. 499-500.
5 Ed. Herrtage, EETSES, xxxv (1880), vv. 140-141.
6 Ackerman, 'Dub in the Middle English Romances,' cited above.
7 L'Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, ed. cit., v. 821. See the discussion of this knighting by Sidney
Painter, William Marshal, Knight Errant, Baron, and Regent of England (Baltimore [Md.], 1933),
p. 20. 8 Schultz, op. cit., p. 182.
9 This miniature is reproduced in Schultz, op. cit., opposite p. 185.
stiwarde, and wolde haue sette on his right spore; and the damesell hym sesed by the
hande, and seide, 'What is that,' quod she, 'sir knight, that ye purpose to do.' Quod kay,
'I will sette on his right spore, and also make hym knyght with myn owne hande.' 'Of
youre hande,' seide the maiden, 'shall it neuer be-falle, yef god will, for noon ther-to shall
sette hande saf only the kynge Arthur, ffor he hath me graunted in couenaunt, and I
truste that he will me not faile, yef it be his plesier, ffor so myght he me bringe to the deth
and me be-traye. Ne noon ne ought to touche so high a persone as is my lief, but he be
kynge or worthy prince.' 'So helpe me god,' seide the kynge, 'ye haue right, and I shall do
all youre volonte.' Than the kynge toke his right spore of the damesell, and sette it on the
right hele, and the damesell sette on the lifte.1
The tone of this description makes it apparent that affixing the right spur, at
least, was an important act to be reserved for a noble of consequence.
In the Cambridge MS. of Guy of Warwick, each of the several candidates kneel-
ing before the altar has a pair of gilt spurs hung over his sword-hilts (See Appendix
A). In beginning the ceremony, the Earl of Warwick removes the spurs from the
sword-hilts and sets them on the candidates' feet. In all likelihood, the candi-
dates stand to be spurred:
At the furste to Gye he come,
Of the swyrde ]e spurres he nome.
He set the spurres on hys fote.2
In the dubbings just cited, the spurring of the candidate precedes investment
with the sword, and the same sequence is observed in a ceremony in The Foure
Sons of Aymon,3 and, as Treis shows, in almost all the Old French romances.4
In King Horn (Cambridge MS.), however, this act follows the bestowal of the
sword:
Horn he dubbede to kni3te
Wit swerd & spures bri3te.5
The same is true of the dubbing of Telamon in the Troy romances:

Telemon full tyte, tristy of dedis,
Gird hym full graidly with a gay sworde,
Bad hym nait hit nemly, and noy of his fos,
And dere for the dethe of his dere fader.
Two spurres full spedely spent on his helis,
]at were gaily ouer-gilt .. . 6
Alexander, when knighted by his father, is not spurred until after the accolade,
ordinarily the concluding act,7 and in the Oxford text of King Horn, the hero is
set upon his horse before being adorned with the spurs:
1 Ed. Henry B. Wheatley, EETS, x, xxI, xxxvI (1899), p. 637.
2 Ed.
cit., vv. 413-415.
3 Ed. cit., p. 31.
4
Op. cit., pp. 77-78.
6 Ed. cit., CambridgeMS, vv. 499-500.
of Troy,ed. cit., vv. 10938-10943.See also the Laud TroyBook,
6 GestHistorialeof theDestruction
ed. cit., vv. 16591-16593; and Lydgate's Troy Book, ed. cit., Book Iv, vv. 4003-4006.
7 Lyfeof Alisaunder,ed. cit., vv. 816-817.
He sette him on stede
Red so any glede
And sette on his fotes
Boie sporesand botes.1
Historical data: The chroniclers do not emphasize the presentation of the
ceremonial gilt spurs as they do investment with the sword. Nevertheless, there
are reasons for believing that this act was sometimes a part of historical knight-
ings. Not only do spurs, usually described as golden or gilt, become the symbol
of knighthood, but the manuals of chivalry place great stress on the allegorical
value of this piece of equipment and on the act of bestowing it on the candi-
date.2 More satisfactory evidence, however, is to be found in the manuscript
illustration to which reference has already been made. While the candidate is
being girded with the sword, another man kneeling at his feet is plainly pictured
as buckling on a pair of spurs. Moreover, in a document recounting the adoube-
ment that accompanied the coronation of Charles ii in 1661, the spurring of the
candidate is fully outlined. Here, the spurs are described as being hung 'at the
Handle of the Sword,'3just as in Guy of Warwick.
The evidence here presented suggests that affixing the spurs was probably not
an essential element of the knighting. It must often have been omitted in the
hasty battlefield dubbings and possibly from all but the more ceremonious court
rituals as well.
iii. The accolade
Romance data: The act which is sometimes represented in the romances as the
culmination of the ceremony is the neck-blow or colee delivered by the officiating
lord either, as Sir Gilbert Hay observes in The Buke of Knychthede, 'with his
hand, or with a drawin suerd, in the nek.'4 In Middle English, as suggested in
the paper already referred to,5 this act is often denoted by the word dub.
The passages describing a blow with the hand are not so clear or so numerous
as those describing the sword-tap, yet such expressions as the following are oc-
casionally to be found:
Kyng Arthourin Maydene-lande
Dubbid hym knyghte with his hande.6
To armesPe king lete crie
Pe folk of al his land
To help tristrem:for ]i
He made kni3t wil his hand.7
1Ed.cit.,OxfordMS, vv. 519-522.Inasmuchas this is the only romancein whichthe squiremounts
his horse to be spurred,one suspectsthat an errorhas crept into the text, probablythroughthe
transposition of vv. 521-522.
2 TheBookof theOrdreof Chyualry,ed. cit., p. 79.
The Manner of Creating Knights of the Bath, ed. cit., pp. 544-545.
4Ed. J. H. Stevenson, Scottish Text Society, LXII(1914), p. 43.
6 Ackerman,op. cit.
6 Sir Perceval Galles, in The ThorntonRomances,
of pp. 1-87, vv. 1645-1646.
7Sir Tristrem, ed. George P. McNeil, STC, vmI (1886), vv. 782-785.
The interpretation of the above passages just suggested could possibly be ob-
jected to on the grounds that the phrase 'to be dubbed with the hand' might only
be a way of saying 'to be made a knight at the hands of' or 'under the auspices
of.' Yet there are other romance accounts in which the hand-blow is more plainly
described. Lovelich's Merlin, for example, contains an admirable picture of the
knighting, by Arthur and Merlin, of Gawain, his three brothers, and a number
of other youths. The actions of the king and his assistants in this ordination are
given in some detail, and they are duplicated in the dubbing of each of the
squires. First, the sword is belted about the candidate's waist; second, the spurs
are fastened on his heels, the king himself buckling on the right spur; and third,
the king smites the candidate on the neck. The last act is indicated thus in the
knighting of Gawain:
Ryht jn the Nekke thanne dubbedhym he,
And bad hym a worthy knyht to be.l
Sagramore's accolade, occurring a few lines later, is similarly described: 'Sethen

jn the Nekke kyng Arthour him smot.'2 In this plural adoubementthere is no
suggestion that Arthur has a sword in his hand when he delivers the neck-blows.
The only swords referred to are those belted about the candidates' waists. The
supposition is, then, that the accolade is delivered with the hand. Besides Love-
lich's Merlin, other romances, like The Foure Sonnes of Aymon,3offer examples of
knightings in which the accolade seems to consist of a hand or fist-blow, since the
sword has already been disposed of.
The sword-tap appears to be described in passages such as this:
Nyne monetheses gone arighte
Sen I with Cursuwas dobbideknyghte,
My golde braydenbrande.4
To be sure, dub might conceivably refer here, not to the accolade with the sword-
blade, but to belting the sword Cursu about the candidate's waist. In other
romances, however, the sword-tap is more distinctly portrayed:
Thennehad the kynge gret joye, and dressynghym to sytte vp, and toke the swerdeby
the pomelthat Uryan toke hym, and therwithdowbedhym knyght.5
... the damoysellgyrte aboutehym his sworde/then the kyngedreweit out of the shethe
and therwithmade hym knyght.6
Although the accolade is not specifically mentioned in either of these accounts,
it is likely that, since the lord conferring the honor is holding a sword by the
pommel, the act indicated by 'dowbed' and 'made hym knyght' is the sword-
tap.
There is no accolade in the Middle English romances consisting of both the
hand-blow and the sword-tap - the sort of double accolade which Don Quixote
1 Ed. cit., vv. 25761-95762. 2 Ibid., v. 25789. 3 Ed. cit., p. 31.
4 Duke Rowlande and Sir Ottuell of Spayne, ed. cit., vv. 139-141.
5 Melusine, ed. cit., p. 153. 6 Huon of Burdeux, ed. cit., p. 635.
received from the learned inn-keeper.1In fact, it seems impossible in most of the
romance references to determine whether a fist-blow or sword-tap is meant. In
Huon of Burdeux, Ide, who is disguised as a man, receives 'the necke stroke of
knyghthood' from the emperor.2 King Philip, when knighting Alexander, gives
him 'the tole aryght,'3 and Prince Horn is another hero who, having been girt
with the sword and supplied with spurs, is 'smot a litel wi3t' by his suzerain.4
There is no suggestion in the Middle English romances that the blow was an
especially severe one.
Historical data: According to the historians of chivalry, the accolade, an act
of almost hopelessly obscure origin, became a part of the knighting ceremony as
early as the eleventh century.5 But in its early form, the neck-blow was delivered
with the hand or fist, not with the sword. Moreover, in Treis's opinion, 'der
Schlag war ein ziemlich starker.'6
Later - sometime in the twelfth century, according to Leon Gautier - the
sword-tap came to be substituted for the blow with the hand.7 And, in the brief
ceremony of modern times, the act of girding on the sword, once 'die Hauptsache,'
has vanished entirely, leaving the sword-tap as the principal step. That both the
fist-blow and sword-tap were known, and that they were used more or less inter-
changeably in mediaeval Britain seems to be proved by Sir Gilbert Hay's addi-
tion already mentioned to the translation of Lull's Orderof Chivalry:
And than suld the squierhald up his handis to heuyn, and his eyne to the hicht, and his
hert to God,syttand on his kneis,and tharesuld the princehave the suerdredy of honour,
gylt with gold, and belt it about his sydis, in takenyng of chastitee,justice,and cheritee,
and tharethe knycht suld outhirgeve him a strakewith his hand, or with a drawinsuerd,
in the nek, to think on the poyntis and defendhis dewiteis.8
1 See Don Quixote, Chapter III. In his translation of this work Henry Watts comments at length on
the romances and 'chivalry books' used by Cervantes. No particular information is given on the curi-
ous accolade, however. The Ingenious GentlemanDon Quixote of La Mancha (London, 1888), vol. I,
Appendix D, pp. Q91-308.
2 Huon of Burdeux, ed. cit., p. 712.
3 Lyfe of Alisaunder, ed. cit., v. 815.
4
King Horn, ed. cit., Cambridge MS., v. 503., Harleian MS., v. 507, Oxford MS., v. 523. Horn is
seated on his horse while his spurs are fastened on, then the fist-blow is delivered.
6 It would seem that the neck-blow was not originally a part of the Germanic maturity rite. (See
Kohler, op. cit., III, 66). It is described as part of the ritual of knighting in twelfth century chansons de
geste, however, and later developed into the culminating act of the ceremony. (Taylor, op. cit., I,
543). According to one theory, the neck-blow developed from an ancient Roman custom of striking
a slave upon freeing him. This blow was called the alapa, and Du Cange reports the use of both the
blow and the word alapa by mediaeval writers dealing with military affairs: 'Alapa militaris, dicitur
Scriptoribus Latinis medii aevii, Ictus, qui tyronis ad militarem dignitatem promovendi collo aut
humeris, ense vel gladio, quo miles fiebat, infligebatur. Mos, ni fallor, derivatus a manumissionibus
quos manumittebant, eos alapa circumagebent.' Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis, ed. G. A. L.
Henschel (Paris, 1840-50), s. v. alapa. It is probably best to emphasize Du Cange's 'ni fallor' and
admit that the origin of the accolade is conjectural.
6 'Es wird bald
angegeben, dass der Schlag mit der Hand, und zwar der rechten, geftihrt wird, bald
unterbleibt dies. Vom Schwerte hierbei garnicht die Rede.' Op. cit., p. 97.
7 Gautier,
op. cit., pp. 282-283.
8 Ed. cit.,
p. 43.
An historical example of what may well have been a fist-blow is to be found in

the knighting of William Marshal in 1167, already referred to:
Li chamberlensli ceinst 1'espee
Dune puis dona meint colee.1
That the colee was at least an optional part of a full adoubementseems indis-
putable. To attempt to assign a date to the earliest use of this ceremonial act,
or to determine when the sword-tap supplanted the fist-blow lies beyond the
scope of this study. It suffices here to have established that both types of accolade
were known and used in Britain during the period of the romances.
iv. The formula

Romance data: In the romances, the lord who confers knighthood is often
described as uttering a rather formalized statement at the conclusion of the
ceremony. Thus, King Houlac, when giving Prince Horn the neck-blow: 'bed
him beon a god kni3t.'2 The same formula is used by King Philip in the knighting
of Alexander,3 and by the Earl of Warwick in the adoubementof Guy and his
companions.4 When dubbing the sons of Aymon, Charlemagne says, 'God en-
crease in the goodnes, honoure, and worthynes,'5 and similar pious sentiments are
to be found in the Prose Merlin6 and Lovelich's Merlin.7 Sometimes much more
elaborate pronouncements are voiced, as in Huon of Burdeux: 'yde, remembre
this order, the whiche ye haue receyued this daye/ and I praye to god it maybe
to the encreas of your honour, and euer beware that your thoughtes be not lyght
or vauerynge, but be sage and dyscrete, and atemperate, and be hardy in baytell.'8
Historical data: Neither the chief manuals of chivalry nor the chronicles refer
directly to a concluding speech on the part of the lord conferring knighthood.9
Nevertheless, there seems to be sufficient reason for believing that the formula
was used in historical adoubements. In the first place, it is natural that the
officiating lord should declare the candidate to be a knight at the end of the
ritual. In the greatly simplified ceremony of the present day, in fact, a brief
formula is employed.10 Second, a formula is stated to have been used in the
elaborate ordination that accompanied the coronation of Charles I: 'And the
1 Guillaume le Marechal, ed. cit., vv. 821-822.
2
King Horn, ed. cit., Cambridge MS., v. 504. See also the other texts of King Horn.
3 Lyfe of Alisaunder, ed. cit., v. 816.
4
Cambridge MS., ed. cit., v. 420.
6 Foure Sons of Aymon, ed. cit., p. 31.
6 Ed. cit.,
p. 638.
7 Ed. cit., vv. 25761-25764.
8 Ed. cit., p. 712.
9 In The Book the Ordre
of of Chyualry, the squire is presented with a palm at the close of the cere-
mony. No formal speech is indicated. Ed. cit., p. 74.
10'In our days when a knight is
personally made he kneels before the sovereign, who lays a sword
drawn, ordinarily the sword of State, on either of his shoulders and says "Rise," calling him by his
Christian name with the addition of "Sir" before it,' George G. Coulton, 'Knighthood,' Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 14th ed., xIII, 432.
King, putting his own Arms about the Esquire's Neck, shall say, Be thou a good
Knight.' In all probability, the formulas in actual use varied as widely in length
and wording as those in the romances discussed above.
v. The concluding feast and celebration
Romance data: The celebration often mentioned as following the knighting
seems usually to consist of a banquet and music, and sometimes of a tournament
as well. A good description of the merry making is to be found in the Laud
Troy Book:
Then my3t men here a mechel dyn
Off Trompes, pipes, & other glues
Among the Gregais & the Grues.
Gret was the murthe & the melody
That ther was of Menstralcy;
The Grues held gret feste & strong
Many dayes afftir and long,
And made gret Ioye and solace
In worschipe of him that newe kny3t was.2
Jousts are included in the celebration that follows a knighting in The Lyfe of
Ipomydon:
The Kyng his sonne knyght gan make
And many another for his sake.
Justes were cryed; ladyes for to see
Thedyr come lordys grete plente
Turnementis atyred in the felde,
A M. armed with spere and shelde
Knyghtis bygan to-gedir to ryde;
Somme were vnhorsyd on euery syde.3
In Lovelich's Merlin, the military games are omitted following the knighting of
Gawain and his companions because of impending warfare.4 Sometimes, as in
Octovian,a 'dubbyng feste' is combined with a wedding celebration and lasts as
long as seven days.5
Historical data: Schultz, Treis, Gautier, and other writers speak of a banquet
and military games, such as the behourd, the quintain, and various kinds of
tournaments, as the normal conclusion of the more elaborate adoubements.6 The
manuals of chivalry likewise specify an honorable feast at which largesse is to
1 Ed. cit., p. 545.

2 Ed. cit., vv. 16594-16602. See also Gest Historiale of the Destruction of Troy, ed. cit., vv. 10946-
10949; and Lyfe of Alisaunder, ed. cit., vv. 820-823.
3 In Metrical Romances, ed. Weber, II, 279-365, vv. 531-538. See also Ipomydon, ed. cit., vv. 973-978;
Horn Childe in King Horn, ed. cit., pp. 179-192, vv. 427-429; Four Sonnes of Aymon, ed. cit., p. 31; The
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, ed. cit., pp. 313-314; and Helyas, The Knight of the Swan, in Early
English Prose Romances, ed. William J. Thoms (London, 1889), pp. 782-783.
4 Ed. cit., vv. 25811 if.
6 Ed. cit., vv. 1273-1274. See also Melusine, ed. cit., pp. 18-19.
6 Schultz,
op. cit., p. 190, and Treis, op. cit., pp. 100-113.
be distributed.l In addition, references to a dubbing feast appear in Froissart's

description of the dubbing of forty-six squires by the Duke of Lancaster in 1399,2
and also in the account of the knightings which took place in conjunction with
the coronation of Charles I.3 Only the knighting of a nobleman of very great
consideration, in all likelihood, called for a tournament. In these tournaments,
the new knights were, of course, expected to display their skill and strength.
A full discussion of this final phase of the dubbing celebration should be reserved,
however, for a special treatment of the tournament.
In depicting the dubbing feast and the tournament in which new made knights
perform spectacularly, the romance writers were undoubtedly following the prac-
tice of the greatest nobles of their day.
vi. Other phases of the secular knighting
Other aspects of the secular ritual which are not discussed here in detail are
the arming of the candidate in hauberk, helm, and other military equipment, and
the distribution of dubbing gifts. In his study of the Old French romances, Treis
finds ample illustrations of the arming of the squires with leg-protectors, hauberk,
helm, shield, and lance, as part of the ceremony,4 and, in the manuals of chivalry,
these pieces of equipment, although not said to be ceremoniously presented to
the candidate, are carefully discussed from the standpoint of their religious sym-
bolism.5In the Prose Merlin Arthur dresses the dwarf in a hauberk before girding
on the sword,6 but, in general, the Middle English romances do not include any
account of the equipping of the candidate in various pieces of armor. Ordinarily,
when the heroes of the Middle English romances appear in their lords' hall to
receive knighthood, they are clad either in 'riche atyr,'7 or, less often, in full
armor.8
Not strictly a part of the knighting ritual, dubbing gifts in both the Middle
English and Old French romances often take the form of armor, a sword, or a
1 The Book of the Ordreof Chyualry, ed. cit., pp. 75-76.
2 Ed.
cit., xvI, 204-205.
3 'After this, the Knights must conduct him again into the Hall, where he shall sit the first at the
Knights Table, and the Knights about him, himself to be served as the other Knights are; but he
must neither eat nor drink at the Table, nor spit, nor look about him, upwards or downwards, more
than a Bride.' The Manner of Creating Knights of the Bath, ed. cit., p. 545.
4
Op. cit., pp. 73-80.
5 In L'Ordenede chevalerie,Hue de Tabarie dresses Saladin in a white (chain-mail?) coif, which,
he says, signifies that the soul is to be kept free from sin. Ed. cit., vv. 220-234. An entire section of
The Book of the Ordreof Chyualryconsists of an account of the 'sygnefyaunce of the armes of a knyght.'
Here, the sword is said to signify war on the enemies of the Cross, the edges of the sword chivalry and
justice, the spear truth, the helm dread of shame, the hauberk defence against vice, and so on, even
to the various pieces of harness and armor on the knight's destrier. One wonders whether this tendency
to discuss the symbolism of the knight's armor and weapons could have any connection with the
famous passage in Ephesians, 6: 13-17.
6 Ed. cit., p. 637.
7 The
Seege of Troye, ed. cit., v. 1311.
8
Partenope of Blois, ed. cit., vv. 8954-8957.
horse,1 but sometimes the suzerain supplies the new knight with everything he
requires, as in Amys and Amylion:
He dubbedbo]e ]o bernesbold
To kni3tesin ]at tide,
& fond hem al ]at hem was nede,
Hors & wepen & wor]ly wede
As princesprout in pride.2
A fief is another type of dubbing gift. King Arthur makes the Carl lord of Carlyle
upon knighting him,3 Sir Eglamoure gives lands to the poorest among thirty-five
new knights,4 and the earl who dubs Degare wishes to seize into his hand 'rents,
treasure, & half of his land.'5 The gift of high office is represented in William of
Palerne. Here, the hero is made warden by the Emperor of Rome.6 In Horn
Childe, certain newly dubbed knights are made bailiffs.7 The extravagant gifts
showered upon romance heroes are, very probably, exaggerations in keeping with
the romance composers' and minstrels' professional interest in largesse, although
more modest dubbing presents may well have been the custom.
The foregoing discussion of the secular adoubementreveals that the principal
ritualistic acts, according to the romance writers, are girding on the sword, in-
vestment with spurs, the accolade either with hand or sword, the formula, and
the concluding celebration. The historical parallels, although more satisfactory
for certain of these steps than for others, indicate that the poets were, in general,
following actual practice in portraying the adoubementsof their heroes.
3. SPECIAL RELIGIOUS ACTS
i. The vigil
Romance data: That the development of the Christian concept of chivalry en-
tailed a change in the ceremony of knighting has already been explained. For
example, the religious dubbing was normally held in a church or chapel, as is
indicated in the discussion of the scene of the knighting. Other changes were in
the form of additions to the secular ritual of which the vigil before the altar is
probably the most important. An excellent account of the vigil occurs in the
Cambridge MS. of Guy of Warwick:
Forthe then yede hym Gye
And chase to hym squyerstwenty.
Into a chambur]e be goon,
There]ey schuldebe dubbedychone.
1 ReinbrunGij soneof Warwike,in Guyof Warwick,AuchinleckMS, ed. JuliusZupitza,EETSES,
XLII, XLIX, LIX (1883, 1887, 1891), pp. 631-674, stanza 64, v. 8; William of Palerne, ed. cit., v. 1103;
Beues of Hamtoun, ed. cit., vv. 971-974; Libeaus Desconus, ed. cit., vv. 90-93; and The Seege of Troye,
ed. cit., vv. 1308-1309. 2 Ed. cit., vv. 164-168.
3 Syre Gaweneand the Carle of Carelyle in Syr Gawayne, ed. Sir Frederick Madden (London, 1839),
pp. 256-274, vv. 629-630.
4 Sir
Eglamour of Artois, ed. cit., vv. 1006-1008.
6 Sir Degare in The Percy Folio Manuscript, in, 16-48, v. 329.
6 Ed. cit., v. 1104. 7 Ed. cit., vv. 101-105.
Kyrtyls they had oon of sylke

Also whyte, as any mylke.
Of gode sylke and of purpull palle
Mantels above they caste alle.
Hosys Pey had vppon, but no schone;
Barefote they were euerychone.
But garlondys Pey had of precyous stones
And perlys ryche for the noones.
When ]ey were ]us ycledde,
To a chambur the Erle hym yede.
A squyer broght newe brondys:
They toke Pe poyntys in per hondys.
They hangyd on euery swyrde hylte
A peyre of sporys newe gylte.
Before Pe awter Pey knelyd ychone,
Vnto mydnyght were all goone.1
The only other clear indication of a vigil in the Middle English romances seems
to be in the description, already quoted in another connection, of the dubbing
of Gawain and his followers in Lovelich's Merlin:
Thike Same day comandid Arthewr ]e kyng
To Gaweyn and to his Felawes so 3ing
To the hed chirche of the cyte to gon,
they ther that nyht to waken echon
Tyl vppon the Morwen to-forn the Masse;
there woken they alle, bope more & lasse.
and, as Reherseth this Storye,
atte qwyn3yme of pentecost hit wes, trewelye.
But Nethyr kyng Boors ne kyng Ban
Neper Pe xlj knyhtes of Pe Rownde table than
Ne leften neuere felischepe of Pese bacheleris 3yng,
Tyl vppon Pe morwen the day gan spryng.2
In the first of the above passages, the vigil is held, apparently, in a chapel in
the Earl of Warwick's castle; in the second, the scene is 'the hed chirche of the
-
cyte' probably the cathedral. Guy and his companions appear to have spent
the entire night kneeling before the altar. We are not told so much about the
other group of squires, although it is plain that King Bors and King Ban watched
with the candidates. The vigil is terminated in Lovelich's Merlin by the celebra-
tion of 'hy Masse'; in Guy of Warwick there is no mention of the mass.
Historical data: The historians of chivalry speak of the vigil as a well-estab-
lished part of religious ceremonies and suggest that it may be a development of
an early catechumenal custom.3 The vigil was used in the dubbing of Geoffrey
Plantagenet in 1129 by Henry I of England,4 and Froissart speaks of it in con-
nection with a dubbing of 1399: 'Le samedi devant le jour de son couronnement,
1 Ed. cit., vv. 385-404.

2 Ed. cit., vv. 25741-25752.
3 Taylor, op. cit., I, 544.
4 Quoted in Meller, op. cit., p. 62.
le due de Lancastre se departy de Wesmoustier et s'en ala au chastel de Londres
atout grans gens, et celle nuit veillierent tous les escuiers qui devoient estre fais
chevalliers a l'endemain.' Here, the celebration of the mass is said to have
followed the vigil as in Lovelich's Merlin. In the late Manner of creating the
Knights of the ... Bath, already mentioned, is to be found a description of the
night watch of a number of candidates whose adoubementsrendered the corona-
tion of Charles ii more festive.2
One gathers from the historical references that the vigil was more often em-
ployed in actual knightings than the rare allusions in the Middle English ro-
mances would lead him to suppose. In the Old French romances, die Nachtwache
was of frequent occurrence, according to Treis.3 Also, The Book of the Ordre of
Chyualry emphasizes the significance of this act,4 although it is not so much as
mentioned in L'Ordenede chevalerie.Possibly, then, the vigil should be regarded
as an important, but not indispensable, step in the religious ceremony.
ii. Dedication of the sword

Romance data: A second religious act, the significance of which is self-evident'
is the placing of the sword on the altar for the blessing of the priest. In the Middle
English romances there are only two clear accounts of this act. In Malory's Morte
Darthur, the dubbing of Arthur is described as follows: '.. . and Arthur foryaf
him/ and took the swerd bitwene both his handes/ and offred it upon the aulter
where the Archebisshop was/ and so he was made knyghte of the best man that
was there.'5 Again, in Sir Tristrem, this passage occurs:
His swerdhe offred]an
and to ]e auter it bare.6
In both romances, this act occurs before the actual dubbing. Although the bless-
ing itself is not specified, placing the sword on the altar could scarcely have any
other purpose.
Historical data: There can be no doubt that the dedication of the sword or
other weapons on the altar was commonly a part of actual knightings. Not only
do historians of chivalry regard the act as genuine,7 but two mediaeval writers
1
Op. cit., xvi, 204-205.
2 'Then shall the Esquire's Governors shut the Door of the Chapel, none
staying therein except
themselves, the Priest, the Chandler, and the Watch. And in this Manner shall the Esquire stay in
the Chapel all Night, till it be Day, bestowing himself in Orisons and Prayers, beseeching Almighty
God, and his blessed Mother, that of their Good Grace they will give him Ability to receive this high
temporal Dignity, to the Honour, Praise, and Service of them; as also of the holy Church, and the
Order of Knighthood. And at Daybreak, one shall call the Priest to confess him of all his Sins, and,
having heard Mattins and Mass, shall afterwards be commended, if he please,' Ed. cit., p. 543.
3 Op, cit., pp. 58-65.
4 'Thesquyer ou3t to faste the vygylle of the same feste in thonour of the saint/ of whom the fest
is made that day/ & he ou3t to go to the chirche for to pray god. & ou3t to wake the ny3t & be in
his prayers/,' Ed. cit., pp. 66-67.
5 Ed. cit., I, 43.
6 Ed. cit., vv. 1101-1102.
7 Treis, op. cit., p. 64,
already referred to mention it with unmistakable clearness. Peter de Blois' com-

ment to the effect that new knights receive their swords from the altar by way
of signifying that they are sons of the Church has already been quoted. John of
Salisbury's statement is more satisfactory since he specifically calls the dedica-
tion of the sword a received custom: 'Unde jam inolevit consuetudo solemnis, ut
ea ipsa die qua quisque militari cingulo decoratur, ecclesiam solemniter adeat,
gladioque super altare posito et oblato... .1 Another and later allusion to this
act appears in The Manner of creating the Knights of the . .. Bath: 'And then he
shall ungird himself of his Sword, and, with great Devotion to God and holy
Church, offer it there [on the altar]; praying unto God and all his Saints, that he
may keep that Order which he hath so taken, even to the End.'2 It would seem
from this description that the consecration of the sword followed the knighting
proper.
Obviously, then, the two allusions in the Middle English romances to placing
the sword on the altar are paralleled in actual usage.
iii. Other phases of the religious ceremony

Two phases of the religious knighting that are not well represented in the
Middle English romances are the ceremonial costume of the candidate, and the
ritualistic bath. The clothing of the heroes in the Middle English poems is not
carefully described, although in Guy of Warwick they don white silk kirtles,
mantles of purple, and jewelled garlands.3 Costumes of this elaborate sort are
rather often portrayed in the French romances in connection with religious
rituals. Nowhere in the romances, however, is the squire's clothing said to have
symbolic significance, as in the manuals of chivalry. Here, particularly in L'Or-
dene de chevalerie,the religious symbolism of each article of apparel is discussed
as the candidate is being clothed by his mentor.4
It is odd that the ritualistic bath should have been overlooked in the Middle
English romances that survive, for this act assumes some importance in the Old
French romances.5Moreover, that the bath was part of actual adoubementsheld
in England is fully substantiated.6 It was employed in the knighting of Geoffrey
Plantagenet in 1129,7 and Froissart more than once mentions this step in con-
nection with ceremonies that took place in London in the middle fourteenth
century. Also, the manuals of chivalry assign to the bath, which, like the vigil,
is thought to be a survival of a catechumenal custom, considerable symbolic
value.8
1 Polycraticus, ed. cit., lib. vi, cap. 6, col. 602.

2 Ed.
cit., p. 545.
3 Cambridge MS., ed. cit., vv. 389-396.
4 Ed. cit., vv. 137-186.
5 Treis, op. cit., pp. 54-58.
6 The best discussion of the ritualistic bath is to be found in the
preface to Roy Temple House's
edition of L'Ordenede chevalerie,pp. 15-16. See also Taylor, op. cit., I, 544-545.
7 Quoted in
Meller, op. cit., p. 62.
8 The
purificatory function of the bath is emphasized:
One other ceremonial act, appearing in a single English romance, King Ponthus
and the Fair Sidone, is a kiss which here seems to take the place of the accolade.'
The kiss was probably actual usage since it is mentioned both in The Book of the
Ordreof Chyualry2and The Manner of creating Knights of the ... Bath,3although
it must have been of infrequent occurrence.
One is tempted to extend a discussion of the creation of a knight to a consider-
ation of how he carried into practice the ideals symbolized in his ordination
ritual. Such a discussion involves factors only remotely connected with the
ceremonial, however, and thus goes far beyond the scope of the present paper.
III
It is now possible to suggest the relationship that exists between the Middle
English romances and one important phase of the times they represent.
Historical knightings, as has been shown, were of two general types: secular
and religious. The secular ceremony took place either in the hall, or on the battle-
field; the religious in a church or chapel. Up to the thirteenth century, perhaps,
the secular ceremony was predominant, but thereafter the religious ritual seems
to have come into frequent use. Three of the dubbings alluded to in the Middle
English romances take place on the battlefield; five, so far as can be determined,
in a church or chapel; and it must be assumed that the large remainder, in the
absence in most cases of specific indications as to the setting, are meant to be
court knightings. Thus, the secular, both in the court and on the battlefield, and
the religious ceremonies are to be found in the romances. On the other hand,
battlefield knightings are of far less frequent occurrence in the romances than
the chronicles would lead one to expect. Further, virtually all the romance heroes
are dubbed, not in the mass battlefield knightings, as were a number of important
historical personages, but in the more elaborate and stately court ceremonies.
Possibly, as has been suggested, the romance writers departed somewhat from
actual usage in this respect in their effort to stress the importance of their heroes.
Puis le fait en un baing entrer,

Lors li commenche a demander
Li rois que cis bains senefie.
Hues respont de Tabarie
'Sire, cis baing u vous baignes
Si est a chou senefijes.
Tout droit ensi com l'enfechons
Nes de pechies ist fors del fons
Quant de baptesme est aportes,
Sire, tout ensement deves
Issir sans nule vilonnie
De cest baing, car chevalerie
Se doit baignier en honeste,
En cortoisie et en bonte,
Et faire amer a toutes gens.'
L'Ordenede chevalerie,ed. cit., vv. 111-125. After the bath, the candidate is dried in a bed.
1 The kyng maked hym
knyght, and girde hym with a sworde, and kyssed hym & he weped sore
that he myght not speke oon worde ..., Ed. cit., p. 20.
2 Ed. cit., p. 74.
3 Ed. cit., p. 545. Here the kiss immediately follows the formula: 'Be thou a good Knight.'
Church ceremonies too seem to be disproportionately few in the romances, but

it is entirely possible that some of the unspecified ceremonies were meant by the
poets to be of that type.
All the important steps of the secular knighting are paralleled, it would appear,
in actual usage. Investment with the sword, both in the romances and chronicles,
is described as the basic act, although details as to the exact method of presenting
the sword are lacking. No doubt, practice varied widely. Affixing the spurs, often
described in the romances, is less frequently specified in the historical sources.
Perhaps this act was not, in less pretentious adoubements,an invariable accom-
paniment of investment with the sword. The fist-blow and sword-tap - the two
types of accolade - seem to be described in both the romances and the historical
material, although most references to the colee are ambiguous with respect to the
type that is meant. The formula - 'Be thou a good knight,' and the concluding
feast and celebration are also paralleled by actual usage. In the English romances,
little attention is given the ceremonial arming of the candidate in hauberk,
greaves, helm, and the like, but incredibly extravagant dubbing gifts are common.
In practice, religious knightings probably varied from a long, highly symbolic
procedure, similar to those outlined in the manuals of chivalry, to simple cere-
monies taking place in a church, but involving a minimum addition to the basic
acts of the secular ritual - investment with the sword, and the accolade. The
bath and the drying of the candidate in a bed were refinements that were, no
doubt, reserved for the elaborate rites that marked the initiation of princes and
the highest born nobles in the thirteenth century and later. The vigil and the
dedication of the sword were much more commonly the chief religious additions
to the secular ceremony. Thus, the romance writers, since they portray distinctly,
though infrequently, the vigil and the consecration of the sword, may be said
to have depicted the more common practice. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to
understand why the English romance writers seem completely to have over-
looked the opportunities for descriptive color presented by the ritualistic bath,
especially in view of the fact that it is fully represented in the Old French ro-
mances. The use of a kiss in place of the accolade, probably a late modification of
the religious knighting, appears in only one romance.
It is of some significance that, of the two types, the secular court ritual is more
frequently depicted in the romances. That is, it would seem that most of the
English romances were composed before the period when the religious dubbing
was in regular use. Nevertheless, as one of the older historians of chivalry has ob-
served, the attempt to date the romances closely on the basis of the customs they
portray is unsound, 'for they were varied and improved by successive repetitions
and transcriptions, and when they were rendered into prose still further changes
were made in order to please the taste of the age.'1
The departure from actual usage here found in the Middle English romances
consists mainly in (1) a tendency to ignore the battlefield ceremony in favor of
the more spectacular and honorable court ceremony; (2) a considerable over-
t Charles Mills, op. cit., I, 97.

emphasis on dubbing gifts; and (3) the omission of any clear allusions to the
ritualistic bath.
Although the descriptions in the romances and chronicles brought together
here may scarcely be said to agree closely in the amount of detail which they ac-
cord to the process of knighting, it is plain that the above deviations are not of
great importance. So far as the ceremony of knighting is concerned, then, the
Middle English romances are, as Sainte-Palaye has said of the Old French
poems, 'images de nos coutumes anciennes.' The long sought essence of romance,
whatever else it may be, does not consist of gross distortion or fanciful treatment
of the facts of the knighting ritual.
ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
APPENDIX A
THE KNIGHTING OF GUY OF WALLINGFORD
385 Forthe then yede hym Gye
And chase to hym squyers twenty.
Into a chambur ]ey be goon,
There ]ey schulde be dubbed ychone.
Kyrtyls they had oon of sylke
390 Also whyte, as any mylke.
Of gode sylke and of purpull palle
Mantels above they caste all.
Hosys ],ey had vppon, but no schone;
Barefot they were euerychone.
395 But garlondys ]ey had of precyous stones
And perlys ryche for the noones.
When ],ey were J>usycledde,
To a chaumbur the Erle hym yede.
A squyer broght newe brondys:
400 They toke ]e poyntys in ]er hondys.
They hangyd on euery swyrde hylte
A peyre of sporys newe gylte.
Before ]e awter ],ey knelyd ychone,
Vnto mydnyght were all goone.
405 The Erle come anon ryghtys
And wyth hym two odur knyghtys.
The Erle seyde: 'lordyngys dere,
At thys nede helpe vs here.'
The knyghtys, Jat were hende,
410 Knelyd to the awters ende.
The Erle, that was the thrydde,
Began all in the mydde.
At the furste to Gye he come,
Of the swyrde ]ie spurres he nome.
415 He set ]e spurres on hys fote
And knelyd before hym, y wote,
1 See
Sainte-Palaye's discussion entitled 'Memoire concernant la lecture des anciens Romans de
chevalerie,' op. cit., II, 107-137.
And wyth the swyrde he hym gyrte
Ryght abowte at hys herte
And smote hym on ]e neck a lytull wey3t
420 And bad hym become a good kny3t.
There were hys felowes euerychon
Dubbed knyghtys be oon and oon.
The Erle at morne a feste made:
There were feele lordyngys glade.
425 When ]e knyghtys had etyn
And at ]e borde longe setyn,
Vp they rose euerychone:
To ]e chaumbur be ]ey goone.1
Julius Zupitza long ago observed that this remarkable descriptive passage has no ante-
cedent either in the French original or the earlier English versions.2 It may further be
pointed out that no source or parallel seems to exist in the so-called manuals of chivalry
or the chief chronicles of the period. Perhaps we should consider this passage an original
interpolation based upon first-hand observation by the scribe or poet responsible for the
Cambridge MS. of Guy of Warwick.
1 Ed. cit., vv. 385-428.

2
See Zupitza'snote in his editionof the Cambridgetext, p. 352. The editorof the OldFrenchGui
de Warewic,ProfessorAlfredEwert of OxfordUniversity,confirmsZupitza'sstatementin a recent
etter to the presentwriter.
Andrew Holes: A Neglected Harbinger of the English Renaissance

Author(s): Josephine Waters Bennett
Accessed: 11/06/2010 09:59
Speculum.
ANDREW HOLES: A NEGLECTED HARBINGER OF
'THIEENGLISH RENAISSANCE
BY JOSEPHINE WATERS BENNETT
IN estimating the culture of fifteenth-century England the fact has been too often
overlooked that the educational heritage of the Tudor period was prepared in the
fifteenth century through the foundation of schools and colleges, the collection
of libraries and, above all, through the respect and desire for learning which edu-
cated men fostered so successfully that it did not perish in the wholesale destruc-
tion of libraries and the sweeping away of educational endowments in the religious
upheaval of the next century. Of the several factors which contributed to the
creation of the unusual prestige of education in the fifteenth century in England,
one of the most important was the political situation. The struggle between Lan-
castrians and Yorkists very much reduced and restricted the number of noblemen
available for positions in the government. At the same time, the insecurity of
public life and of worldly fortunes made the learned professions appear more
attractive by comparison. These two factors produced, especially in the long
minority and weak reign of Henry vi, a series of able churchmen, such as John
Kemp, Henry Chichele, and William Patten, or Waynflete, who filled the chief
offices of both church and state. These ecclesiastics were educated men, who felt
strongly that if education was to be encouraged in England it must be rewarded;
and they were in positions which enabled them to distribute the rewards. Their
activities in the spread of education through the establishment of endowed schools
and colleges is well known, but their recognition of learned men through appoint-
ment to lucrative positions, ecclesiastical and political, is equally important.
Neglect of this aspect of educational advance has led to considerable error in the
general estimate of the cultural progress of the century.
The extent to which this policy was responsible for the blossoming of a renais-
sance in England in the early Tudor period has yet to be adequately studied, but
a very illuminating example of its workings is provided by the life of Andrew
Holes, about whom perhaps the least is known of any of the chief harbingers of
the English renaissance. He is briefly and somewhat slightingly noticed by
Walter F. Schirmer in his Der englischeFriihhumanismus (Leipzig, 1931, pp. 105-
106), and Count Roberto Weiss, in his study of Humanism in England during the
Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1941, pp. 77-80) has added very little to our informa-
tion about him. He is mistaken about several facts, including the date of Holes'
death, and he follows Schirmer in minimizing Holes' importance as a humanist.
It seems worthwhile, therefore, to assemble the available facts and to present a
life of Holes which attempts to place him in his age and explain his activities,
rather than to take his measure by the yardstick of a humanism which was only
gradually developing and spreading even in Italy in his day.
Andrew Holes was the younger son of a younger son of an important family
with extensive holdings in the Welsh marches. His father, Sir Hugh de Hulse,1
1Also spelled Huls and Hales; Robert Glover, The Visitation of Cheshire,ed. J. P. Rylands (London
1882), p. 56; and Harley MS. 4204, fol. 136.
314
Andrew Holes 315
of Cheshire, Knight, Chief Justice of Cheshire and Judge of the King's Bench
(1389-1415),1 was buried at Watford, Hertfordshire, in 1415.2 His wife, Margery,
died the next year.3
According to the Visitation records, their sons were Sir John, who died before
his father and without issue, Thomas, the heir, Andrew, William, and a second
John.4But Sir Hugh's will mentions as his sons, Thomas, Edmund, Andrew, John,
and Hugh.6 The names of the daughters are variously given as Ellen, or Eleanor,
Elizabeth (or Isabel?), Marie, and Philippa.6
Andrew Holes' name heads the list of scholars at Winchester Grammar School
in 1407.7 According to the statutes, scholars who were not founder's kin must
know their Donat, or elementary Latin grammar, and be between their eighth
and twelfth year when they entered. A little later, when the ages began to be
recorded, it appears that the boys were seldom under nine or ten when they were
admitted. Therefore, Andrew was probably born about 1397-1398.
Winchester, the great new grammar school founded in Chaucer's time by
Bishop Wykeham, was the best school in England, if we can judge it by its fruits.
Holes must have gone on to New College, Oxford, by 1412, since he was granted
a fellowship in 1414, and, according to the statutes, two years of probation were
1 G. Ormerod, TheHistory of the County Palatine and City of Chester,ed. T. Helsby (London, 1882),
III, 464, and I, 491: Chronica Series annexed to W. Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, 2d. ed. (London,
1671), pp. 54, 56; E. Foss, Biographia Juridica (London, 1870).
2 A. Collins, Historical Collections
of the Noble Familieslof Cavendishe, Holles, Vere, etc. (London,
1752), pp. 52 ff.
3 The inscriptions on the tombs are quoted in J. E. Cussans, History of Hertfordshire(London, 1879-
1881), III, 191.

4 It was not unusual for two children in the same
family to bear the same given name, but in this
case the second John may have been born after the death of the first. Thomas was 24 in 1415 and was
the heir also of his maternal grandfather who left him a manor in Cheshire and charged him to bear
his arms; see Collins, ut sup.
6 Will abstracted in The Herts Genealogistand Antiquary, ed. W. Brigg (Harpenden, 1895), I, 232-
233. His wife's will (Ibid., p. 64) names Edmund, Thomas, Edward, and Andrew. Edmund is men-
tioned in another document (Ormerod, II, 491). William is not mentioned in either will and is prob-
ably a mistake. Sir Hugh had an elder brother, William (Ormerod, III, 464), and a William Hulse was
Prior of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in 1413 (Patent Rolls, 1 Henry v). A John Hals was
Chancellor of Queen Margaret on Dec. 7, 1457, and was recommended for the Deanery of Exeter
(Historical Mss. Commission Report, Various Collections, iv, 85). Hugh Huls of Watford, Herts.,
entered Winchester in 1422 and was Fellow of New College 1428-30; see T. F. Kirby, Winchester
Scholars. In 1438, he was acting as commissioner in North Wales (Patent Rolls, iII, 149).
6 In his Holes pedigree, Ormerod names Elen, Isabel, and (Matild) (III, 464), but elsewhere (I, 491)
the older girls are named Elinour and Elizabeth. Ellen and Eleanor were the same person, as we learn
from a dispensation of Aug. 7, 1408, which permitted Richard de Vernon to marry Eleanor although
he had previously been contracted to Elizabeth (III, 249). A daughter Isabel is also mentioned in this
document, but it appears that she was Ythesame as Elizabeth. Sir Hugh names his daughters Isabelle,
Marie, and Philippa. His wife names Alienora, Isabel, and Marie. We hear of Philippa, daughter of
Sir Hugh Hulse and sister of Sir Thomas Hulse, as the wife of Sir William de Brereton, Kt. (Ormerod,
III, 88-89). She was probably the youngest daughter, since her husband was born in 1414. Her son
William is described as esquire of the body of King Henry vII; Visitation of Cheshire, 1580, ed. J. P.
Rylands (Harleian Soc'y Publications, xvIII, p. 41).
7
Kirby, p. 35. He is described as of Bromston, Cheshire, where the family had a manor.
316 Andrew Holes
necessary before a fellowship could be granted.' He held the fellowship until 1420,
when it was replaced by a benefice secured for him by his relatives.
The record of Holes' ecclesiastical preferments is an enlightening illustration
of the extent to which the Church offered a lucrative career to scholars and states-
men alike. Whatever may have been the effect of absenteeism and pluralism on
the congregation, the fact remains that in fifteenth-century England the Church
was a source of endowment for education more munificent than any agency or
institution has proved to be since the Reformation.
Holes was careful to secure Papal sanction for every step in his advancement,
and so his full record can be traced. A Papal absolution recites the story of his
first benefice, as follows:
Now in his old age he recalls to mind ... that certainof his relatives [tui attinentes]
promisedwithout his knowledgea sum of money to a certainnoble lady, the patronof a
certainparishchurch,in aid of the marriageof a daughterof hers,in orderthat she should
presenthim thereto,althoughhe doubtswhetherit was paid [and]althoughas soon as he
knewof it he gave up the said churchto the ordinary,after, however,havingheld posses-
sion for about a year and taking the fruits, whichchurchwas, after he had been absolved
by the ordinary,collatedto himtherebyanew.2
This living, provided by a method of bargaining which long survived the English
reformation, was the rectory of Davenham in the diocese of Lichfield. It was
worth 20 pounds a year, a substantial sum for a 'poor scholar at a University.'3
With that aid Holes continued his studies at Oxford for seven years (1420-1427),
completing a total of twenty years of schooling, a period of about the same length
as is required today for legal training, but very differently distributed between
school, college, and graduate school. He seems to have spent no more than five
years in grammar school. In his day the B.A. was usually attained in two or three
years, the M.A. in five or six. Holes went on to take the degree of Bachelor of
Canon and Civil Law and then 'for three years and more on lecture days publicly
lectured in the schools in the University of Oxford in the said canon and civil
law, in order to take the Licenciateship in canon law, which he has done.'4
This was the usual route to a career in public office. It was the one taken by
Holes' life-long friend, Thomas Bekynton (New College 1406-1420), who left
the University to become secretary to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in 1420.
Another distinguished contemporary of Holes at New College was Richard
1 Hastings Rashdall, The Universities

of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. F. M. Powicke and A. B.
Emden (Oxford, 1936), III, 215.
2
J. A. Twemlow, Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland
(London, 1921), xi, 390.
3
Papal Registers, vii, 499. The noble lady was probably Elizabeth, widow of Sir Richard Vernon,
beheaded at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. Sir Hugh Huls had the wardship of her son and married
him to his daughter Eleanor in 1408 (Ormerod, III, 248-249). The farm of the church of Davenham
was part of the estate of Sir Ralph de Vernon which was divided between his brother, Sir Richard,
who got 3, and his widow, who got the rest. Davenham may have gone to Ralph's widow, instead of
Richard's.
4
Papal Registers, viii, 459.
Andrew Holes 317
Andrew, afterwards first Warden of All Souls College in Oxford, founded by

Archbishop Henry Chichele in 1437.1
In November, 1427, Holes was granted papal dispensation to hold a second
benefice with cure, or otherwise incompatible with his first, for three years.2
This paved the way for his acceptance of the Archdeaconry of Anglesea in the
diocese of Bangor, worth about forty pounds a year, which he discharged by
deputy.3 He later confessed that 'in his absence his proctors gave benefices to
farm to laymen, and without papal license visited his subjects and benefices.'4
With this augmentation of his income, he left the University for the court.
Meanwhile he had put off ordination as long as possible. He confessed that 'he
was on one and the same day promoted to the order[s] of acolyte and subdeacon;
. . that he was not ordained priest within a year from the day of obtaining pos-
session of the said parish church, but a short time after.' The 'short time' was over
seven years, for he explains further: 'after obtaining license from the ordinary, on
account of the study in which he was engaged, not to be bound to be promoted to
holy orders within seven years, on their expiration he was not so promoted ...
although he was afterwards duly promoted to holy orders. . . . He is furthermore
doubtful whether the three minor orders of doorkeeper [ostiarius], lector and ex-
orcist were conferred upon him, wherefore he doubts whether, not having received
them, he could be ordained acolyte, although he duly received the first clerical
tonsure [which was mandatory at Winchester].' Finally, 'contrary to [the] Con-
stitution, he had himself promoted to the diaconate and priesthood.'
His delay in passing through the seven degrees to the priesthood may have
been caused by the possibility that he might inherit the family estates. His elder
brother, Thomas, died in 1420/1, leaving an only son, aged two, who died before
1439.6 Andrew Holes was still a subdeacon in 1427.6 The seven years' leave of
absence from a cure for purposes of study was frequently granted, as the Papal
Registers show, but the delayed entry into orders was a different matter.
In November, 1428, Holes was described as a 'gentleman to the king.'7 In that
year the king, Henry vi, was only seven, and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester was
1 Richard Andrew entered Winchester in 1413, was fellow of New
College 1421-1433 and L1. D.
Warden of All Souls 1437-1442. He was Archdeacon of Salisbury, 1442-1444, Dean of York, 1452-1477.
New College still has several law books which he gave it, and the cathedral library at Salisbury has a
commentary on Luke and John given by him.
2 3 Papal Registers, vIII, 92.
Papal Registers, vnI, 499.
4 Papal Registers, xi, 391. The confession is long, a little confused, and on one point clearly mis-
taken. He confesses that he was less than 22 when he was collated to his second benefice by papal
dispensation. This dispensation was granted 30 Nov., 1427. If he was less than 22 on that date he must
have been less than a year old when he entered Winchester. Apparently, in his old age he confused the
date of his first benefice with that of his second. He probably became rector of Davenham in 1420
when he resigned his fellowship, since the fellowship could not be retained after a man accepted a
benefice. If he was under 22 on that date, he was born about 1398 and was of normal age when he
entered Winchester.
6 Victoria History of Hertfordshire (London, 1908), ii, 456. 6 Papal Registers, vii, 556.
7 Calendar of the Close Rolls, Henry vi, i (1933), 448. He was probably not yet in orders, since he
was still only I.U.B. and not yet Licenciate in Canon Law according to the Papal Registers, vIII, 92.
318 Andrew Holes
Lord Protector. Hole's friend, Thomas Bekynton, had been the Duke's secretary
since 1420, and so was in a position to help fellow Wykehamists into the Court
service. But Holes' new sphere of activity brought him nearer to the fountain
heads of ecclesiastical preferment, for, by Christmas of 1428, he had a papal
dispensation to hold his two cures for five years beyond the original three, or
until 1435,1and before that date he had secured further dispensation to hold them
for life.
In July, 1429, he was named one of the delegates to meet the ambassadors of
the King of Aragon.2 He had just been paid 40 marks (ca £26) for some previous
service to the crown.3 He is described as 'King's clerk' November 16, 1431, when
the council ruling for the boy king bestowed on him a living which was in the
king's gift.4 It is instructive to notice how this form of reward for public service
took the place of considerable public revenue in a century when most of the
statesmen and public servants were ecclesiastics.
When this royal provision was made for him, Holes had gone on an embassy
to Rome led by Robert Fitz Hugh, a man of considerable distinction, who had
been known for his elegant Latinity when he was Chancellor of Cambridge in
1424, and who favored the reservation of the richer benefices of the English
church for university graduates, a measure which was adopted by the Convoca-
tion of 1438. Fitz Hugh spent three years at Rome (1429-1432),5 and when he
returned to England, Holes remained behind to serve as the king's proctor at the
Papal Court for the next twelve years.
The church bore the entire expense of Holes' office while he was abroad. He was
not appointed English 'procutoure in the court of Rome' until 27 February,
14376 but he had served in that capacity for five years without appointment,
during which time he was put to special expenses and dangers because of the
'rebellione of the Romaynes' and the secret flight of the Pope to Pisa and other
places in Italy. During the whole twelve years (1432-1444), so the king's order
reads, 'the saide Andreau hathe hadde no peny of rewarde of us for the occupa-
cione of the saide office, as he saith ... And we, considering the premisses, and
the good and notable services that he dide in the saide courte for us, oure landes,
lordshippes and subgittes; and also how that during the abovesaid tyme by cause
of his absence out of this oure reaume in oure saide service he was febly answered
of the frutes of his benefices in this oure reaume, and also lost moche of that that
he shoulde have receved of theim yif he haad be present and resident upone theim,
1 Papal Registers, vIII, 92.
2 Sir Harris Nicolas, Proceedings and Ordinances
of the Privy Council of England, III (1834), 348. The
letters patent are printed in T. Rymer's Foedera (London, 1727), x, 433.
3 Calendar of Close Rolls, II (1933), 378.
4 Patent Rolls,
Henry vi, II, 178. This was the 'mediety of the parish church of Malpas in the
diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, which was in the king's gift by reason of the minority of William
Brerton, his ward.' It was sine cura and therefore could be held in addition to a cure without papal
permission. William Brerton later married Holes' sister Philippa, and Andrew Holes probably stood
godfather to their son, Sir Andrew Brerton, kt.
6 His letters of protection were granted 15 July, 1429 (Proceedings of the Privy Council, III, 347).
6 J. Stevenson, Letters and Papers . . . Henry the Sixth, Rolls Series, I (London, 1861), 471-473.
Andrew Holes 319
and also how that aftre the promocione of maistre Robert Fitzhughe, sumtyme
oure procutoure in the said courte, ....the saide Andreau served us in the same
courte as oure procutoure by v. yere and more continually before the date of oure
saide lettres patentes, to his grete costes, and also to the grete laboure, and perille
of his personne, without any rewarde taking of us . ... ,' therefore, in 1447, the
treasurer was ordered to pay him 100 pounds a year for the time of his appoint-
ment (1437-1444).
But if he had to wait fifteen years for his pay from the king, the church con-
tinued to promote him. In the autumn of 1431 he was given two prebends (sine
cura) to hold in addition to his two cures and the sine cura presented by the king.'
By September, 1433, he had a third prebend2 which brought his income up to
about a hundred pounds a year. In 1434 he received a fourth prebend, apparently
in the king's gift,3 and in May, 1435, he exchanged the rectory of Davenham for
the much richer one of St Dunstan's in the East, London.4 This church was in the
gift of Archbishop Chichele who was a member of the king's council, and so it also
was probably intended as a reward of Holes' services in Italy. On October 23,
1435, he received papal permission to add a third to his incompatible benefices
for five years only.5 This paved the way for his appointment, June 3, 1438, to the
Chancellorship and a prebend in the Cathedral of Salisbury, which was in the
king's gift at the time.6 The parish church of Odiham was regularly attached to
the Chancellorship, so that this was the most remunerative appointment he had
received.7 In 1440, in consideration of his having become a sub-deacon of the
Pope, and having 'taken at Padua the degree of Doctor of Canon Law with ex-
amination,' he had a further dispensation to hold his three cures for life.8 In 1442
he added to his income that of the prebend of Hunderton in Hereford, and about
this time he seems to have resigned his rectory in London for the Archdeaconry
of West Riding in York.9 Meanwhile he had exchanged his first prebend in York
1 These were the prebends of Grindale in York, 7 Aug., 1431, worth 9/17/1 according to Browne
Willis's Survey of the Cathedralsof York, etc. (London, 1730), pp. 138-139. Nov. 28, 1431 he received
a canonry and prima pars of the prebend of Oxton and Cropwell in St Mary's, Southwell; see J. Le
Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, ed. T. D. Hardy (Oxford, 1854), III, 191, 448.
2 A
canonry and prebend in St Asaph's; see Papal Registers, vIII, 459-460. According to a papal
dispensation, the three prebends were worth about 50 pounds a year, and the Archdeaconry about
27 pounds after a deputy had been paid. Davenham was originally worth about £20, and he had also
an interest in Malpas.
3 The prebend of Flixton in Lichfield; Patent Rolls, Henry vi, ii, 444; Le Neve, I, 603, says he was
admitted May 17, 1435.
4 R. Newcourt, Reportorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense (London, 1708, I, 333; G. Hen-
nessy, Novum Reportorium ... (London, 1898), 135; and for the resignation of Davenham, Papal
Registers, vmII,596-527.
6 Papal Registers, vmII,526-527. 6 Patent Rolls, Henry vI, iii (1907), 167, 170, 224.
7 W. Page, Victoria County History of Hampshire (London, 1911), iv, 97.
8 Papal Registers, ix, 81-82, dated Feb. 2, 1440.
9 Le Neve, I, 509, and III, 133. The dates are 4 September, and 19 December, respectively. He re-
signed the Rectory of St Dunstan's in the East between 1440 and 1443; Papal Registers, ix, 81-82;
Newcourt, I, 333. Thomas Kent, named by Newcourt and Hennessy as Holes' successor, was evi-
dently his vicar or deputy.
320 Andrew Holes
for a better one, about 1436-1437, and in November, 1443, he exchanged that in
turn for a still better one which he held, along with the Archdeaconry, until his
death.' As this record makes clear, Holes was amply supported by the Church
during his stay in Italy. His subsequent reimbursement by the king was not
particularly handsome as pay, but it was really in the nature of a bonus, since he
had already been paid out of church revenues.
Before judging this example of pluralism, we must take into consideration that
in a time when the church had a more regular and adequate system of taxation
than the state, church revenues were being used as rewards for services to the
state. They were also being used as encouragement of, and reward for, education.
The prebends of cathedrals on collegiate foundation, like Southwell and York,
served as educational endowments, and the succession of learned and distin-
guished men who held some of them in the fifteenth century bears striking witness
to the vigor and intelligence of the English church in the period. If the duties of
the office were discharged by deputy, those who enjoyed the income were never-
theless often educated men who were serving the public in a wider field than the
prebendal stall afforded. Monasticism was on the decline, but the secular clergy
were very largely responsible for the great educational advances made in Eng-
land during the century,
The embassy to Rome, led by Robert Fitz Hugh in 1429, stayed after the death
of Martin v (d. 20 February, 1431) and saw the elevation of Eugenius iv. On
April 29, 1431, the new Pope 'provided' Fitz Hugh to the Bishopric of London,
and he was consecrated at Rome by special licence on August 12. He stayed until
September, 1432, and when he departed with his official family of thirty persons,2
Holes was left behind.
On February 20, 1432, Holes had been appointed Proctor of John Stafford,
Bishop of Bath and Wells and Lord Chancellor of England (1432-1450), for the
Council of Basle.3 Eugenius at first consented to attend this Council, but he never
went. It seems probable that Holes' appointment was made with Eugenius'
attendance in view, and that he never went to Basle.
By September he had been made a papal chamberlain and had been granted a
dispensation to hold his two cures for life.4 On December 29, 1433 he delivered a
sermon to the English College at Rome. Count Roberto Weiss reports that the
manuscript of it is in the National-Bibliothek in Vienna (No. 4139, f. 61r-69).
He quotes the heading: 'Sermo dictum per andream holes anglicum cubicularium
s.n.d. anno a nativitate domini Mccccxxxiij in hospitali anglicorum Rome, in
festo sancti Thome martitis Cantuariensis quondam archiepiscopi in presencia
VI reuerendissimorum dominorum Cardinalium et multorum honorabilium pre-
latorum in cuius sermonis exordio metrice plangit mortem magistri Guillermi
1 Le Neve, II, 191, 207, 213. He held in succession, Grindale, worth under 10 pounds a year, Os-
baldwick, and Stillington; Brown Willis, Survey of Cathedrals,pp. 93, 137, 156, 165.
2 Papal Registers, vIII, 358, 338, 280.
3 Registerof John Stafford, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1425-1443, ed. T. S. Holmes (Somerset Record
Society) London, 1915-1916, II, 183, noted by Weiss, p. 77.
4
Papal Registers, vIII, 459-460.
Andrew Holes 321
Certeyn in artibus Floridique poete.' Weiss says that this sermon shows 'no traces
of neo-classical taste,' and that it cites nothing beyond the Scriptures and the
Fathers except Seneca and Alain de Lille. The form as well as the style is that of
'a writer nurtured in the formal mediaeval education.' It is not Ciceronian.
However, the lament for William Certeyn is in elegiacs, a feature which is
surely not common in mediaeval sermons. We need to know more about the
sermon, and about the other contents of the Vienna manuscript, before we can
judge it. But it should be kept in mind that the sermon belongs to Holes' early
years in Italy. It reflects his English education, not the results of his contact with
humanism.
There is no evidence, however, that Holes ever undertook to write Ciceronian
Latin, or to edit classical texts, or even to search for lost manuscripts. But there
is much evidence that he acted consistently and intelligently as a friend of learn-
ing and a patron of education; and, as a book collector, he seems to have shown
considerable discrimination in the choice of good texts. These things, it seems to
me, rather than Ciceronian Latin, were the more solid and enduring gains of the
period which we call the Renaissance.
Holes was in Rome when the 'rebellione of the Romaynes' forced the Pope, on
June 5, 1434, to flee from the city disguised as a monk. The special expenses and
dangers incurred at this time are mentioned in the letters patent issued for Holes'
pay many years later.' Eugenius fled to Leghorn and then to Florence. Some of
his retinue escaped by sea and others by land. Some encountered pirates. The
famous papal secretary, Poggio, was captured and held for ransom.2 For the next
nine years the papal Curia remained in northern Italy, at Bologna, Ferrara, and
Florence, in the very cradle of the Italian Renaissance.
Holes made a warm personal friend of Pope Eugenius, who described him in
1434 as 'delecto filio Andreae Holes, in decretis licenciato, et de militari sanguine
procreato, cubiculario nostro, quem propter ejus virtutes et merita ac fidelia
obsequia, quae cotidie nobis impendit, paterna caritate diligimus ... '3He urged
Holes' promotion upon the English Bishops and promoted him from chamberlain
to acolyte and then to sub-deacon in the Papal Court.4
In November, 1435, Holes secured permission to have a portable altar and to
celebrate mass 'in places under interdict.'5 But I have not been able to discover
where he went. By July, 1438, he was at Ferrara, where he and Robert Sutton
and Zano, Bishop of Bayeux (the two latter friends and retainers of Duke
Humphrey) were entertained by the Marquis of Este.6
The famous conclave which temporarily united the Greek and Roman churches
met at Ferrara early in 1438. The Greek delegation, headed by the Emperor,
1 Stevenson, I, 471-473.
2 W.
Shepherd, Life of Poggio Braccolini (Liverpool, 2d ed., 1837), pp. 213-215.
3 George Williams (ed.), Official Correspondenceof Thomas Bekynton (Rolls Series, 1872), ii, 251.
4
Papal Registers, ix, 81-82; Memoirs of Vespasiano da Bisticci, quoted below; Bekynton Corr., ii,
251. 6 Papal Registers, vmII,570, 571.
6 Henry vi thanked the Marquis, on that date, for his kindness to the Englishmen at Ferrara, and
mentioned having heard of it from Holes and Zano; see Correspondence,I, 58-59.
322 Andrew Holes
John Palaeologus, arrived March 4, and the conclave was at work examining
doctrinal differences throughout the year. On January 10, 1439, it moved to
Florence where, during the following summer, a temporary union was effected.
From a religious point of view this conclave accomplished little of lasting impor-
tance, but from a cultural point of view it was perhaps the greatest single event
in the history of humanism. It brought together such great figures as Ambrogio
Traversari (d. 20 Nov., 1439), Poggio, Chrysoloras, Guarino, Leonardo Aretino
(d. 1444), Niccolo, and Bessarion, besides many men of lesser fame.
Happily, we are able to place Holes in this brilliant milieu. He made the ac-
quantance of an important Florentine bookseller, Vespasiano da Bisticci, who
gives us an intimate and invaluable picture of Holes in his Memoirs:
Messer Andrea Ols was an Englishman, and for a long time King's proctor. He was a
man of the highest repute, both on account of his great learning and of his holy life; indeed,
I have known few foreigners who were like him in their habits and way of living. He was
acolyte to the Pope and was well liked by all on account of his goodness. He spent the time
in worthy fashion; in saying the office, after which he would remain in his chamber with
locked doors, on his knees in prayer for two or three hours. The rest of his time he would
spend in reading holy books, and he kept by him a vast number of scribes who copied for
him many books which he intended to take back to his church in England. After Pope
Eugenius quitted Florence, Messer Andrea remained there entirely for the sake of the
books on which his heart was set. Moreover, he was fain to have done with the court of
Rome and to devote himself to the saving of his soul. Messer Andrea went counter to the
ordinary ways of men in flying from fame and honours and in looking after his own affairs:
for with his worth and goodness and with his widespread reputation, he might not only
have been made a bishop but might have become cardinal. But he always avoided pomp
and dignities, especially the bishop's office with its care of souls.'
Amongst his other qualities was pity towards those in want, and he gave alms freely
in public and privately. His house was so well ordered that all who stayed there had to
look carefully to their carriage, for its ordering was a very religion of life, and in manners,
an example of modesty and temperance, Messer Andrea having given up the English
custom of sitting four hours at table. He lived in the Italian fashion, taking only one dish,
and he and his household fared very soberly. He greatly favoured men of learning, es-
pecially those of good lives.
One morning during his stay in Florence he made a feast and he invited thereto Messer
Giannozzo Manetti, Messer Carlo d'Arezzo, Matteo Palmieri and other learned men, as
well as certain merchants his friends, amongst whom was Roberto Martelli. They de-
bated many questions, and Messer Giannozzo was bent on maintaining the following
proposition, 'that all things which stand in the canon of the scriptures are the same as the
truth, just as a triangle is a triangle; that is to say, two straight lines and one drawn across.'
He met with much opposition, backed by the most subtle reasoning, but he always held
firm to his conclusion, and after long argument his opponents found they could not resist
his contention. The English envoy and all those who were present were amazed at what
1 The King nominatedHoles for the Bishopricof Coutancesin Normandyin 1439, whenFilibertus
died June 20. Filibertus' death was noted on the Vatican register 7 Idus October, 1439, and his suc-
cessor, Egidius ii, was consecrated 28 July, 1440, and died 29 July, 1444; see Gallia Christiana (Paris,
1873-1874, ed. D. D. Sammarthani, xi, pp. 891-892. Nevertheless, for some reason Henry vi did
not consider the bishopric filled, for in 1440, and again at the end of 1441, he wrote to the Pope urging
the appointment of Holes to Coutances; see Bekynton Correspondence,i, 26-27, 14, 71, 73. There may
have been some question of the King's right to nominate a Bishop for this Norman see, since the
Statute of Provisors hardly extended so far.
Andrew Holes 323
they heard, and when the disputation was finished he thanked Messer Giannozzo most
courteously and bade him join his party at supper. From what I gathered from him later he
regarded Messer Giannozzo as an extraordinary man with a wonderful knowledge of the
scriptures and of all other matters besides a great skill in debate...
Messer Andrea lived in Florence more than a year and a half, during which time he
bought, and caused to be written for him, a vast number of books in order to carry out his
worthy aims. His books being too numerous to be sent by land, he waited the sailing of a
ship, and by this means he dispatched them to England and then, his task being finished,
he went also. On his return he withdrew at once from all secular affairs and betook himself
with his books to a benefice which he possessed, putting aside all temporal cares as one
who wishes to be dead to the world for the love of God.....1
Vespasiano's unbounded enthusiasm for Holes is by no means his usual attitude

towards his customers. Moreover, there were only three Englishmen whose book-
buying he thought worth mentioning, and very few men whose character he
praised. His last sentence reflects Holes' modest account of his intentions, rather
than the actual course of events after he left Italy.
Apparently, while the Papal court was moving from Ferrara to Florence in
January, 1439, Holes turned aside to Padua, where he took the degree of Doctor
of Canon Law on 4 and 5 February.2 He probably went to Florence immediately
thereafter.
The Council broke up, and the Greek delegation departed from Florence at the
end of August, 1439, but the Pope stayed on until March, 1443. The Greek,
Bessarion, stayed also, and was made a Cardinal in the Roman Church. Like
Poggio and Holes, he was a member of the Pope's household, and Holes could
hardly have failed to know them both very well.
1 Vespasianoda Bisticci, Vitedi uominiillustridelsecoloXV, translatedby W. Georgeand E. Wa-

ters as TheVespasianoMemoirs(London,1926), pp. 206-208. There is anotheraccountof the ban-
quet, by Naldo Naldi, in his Vita Iannotii Manetti(printedin L. A. Muratori,RerumItalicarum
Scriptores,Milan, 1731,xx, 546-547) of whichJacobBurckhardt(TheCivilizationof theRenaissance
in Italy, Fifteentheditiontranslatedby S. G. C. Middlemore,New York (Albertand CharlesBoni),
1935, p. 255 note 2) says that Vespasianois Naldi's authority,but the two accountsdifferin some
respects.Naldi describesHoles: 'In quo multa quidemegregialaudequedignissimaesse discerentur;
multae doctrinaevir, et qui ante illa temporadiu in GymnasioBritanniaeversatusfuisset. Is quum
in hanc incideret cupiditatem,ut doctis omnibus convivium pararet, qui sedes suas Florentiae
posuere,praetercerterosIannotiuminvitavit una cum multis aliis apud se coenaturum.Post ubi
modus epulis factus est, mensaequesunt remotae, de gravissimisrebus coeptum est disputari.
Iannotius autem, ut Christo deditissimus,ad ea se differensconvertit, quae ad immortalisDei
naturam pertinerent.Quo autem in rem suam probandamargumentouteretur, hoc potissimum
existitisse tradunt: ea omnia, quae scriptis hominum probatissimorumsancirentur,sic vera con-
stare, ut triangulusvere ex suis constat partibus... Postquamest disputatum,CarolusAret[i]-
nus, vir Graecis& Latinis literis eruditissimus,ad Legatum Regium [i.e., Holes], qui & convivii
magister,auctorquedisputationisexstitisset, conversus,ita inquit: Minus eum mirarioportere,si
MatthaeusPalmerius,qui &ipse unus e convivisfuisset,in eo consessunullumverbumfecit, quumid
ex inscitia,quiaesset doctusille, minim?e proveniret;sed quodtanta illorum,qui adstitere,Legatique
reverentiahominemfregisset,ut id loqui non posset, ad quod diligentermeditatus fuisset. Hinc
sequutumest, ut in majore,quamantea, existimationecumapudconvivasomnes,tur maximaapud
LegatumRegium Ionnotiushaberetur.'
2 CasperZontaand IohanneBrotto GymnasiiPatavini (Padua,
(eds.),ActaGradvvm Academicorom
1922),p. 283.
324 Andrew Holes
It is Vespasiano's account of these later days in Florence which constitutes our

best evidence that Andrew Holes was not merely a benighted mediaeval lawyer
and ecclesiastic, walking through the maytime of the Italian Renaissance without
being aware of the changing season. His learning commanded Vespasiano's
tribute at a time when Italians thought of Englishmen as barbarians. Holes' as-
sociation with Manetti reflects favorably both on his learning and his character,
for Manetti was a very learned and a very upright and honest man.'
Of the 'vast number of books' which Holes bought or caused to be written for
him during his stay in Florence, no more than three have been traced. The same
fate overtook them which destroyed almost every one of the great English col-
lections made in this century.2 The destruction of the monasteries, and the sub-
sequent 'visitations' of the universities, under both Edward and Mary, were not
only disastrous in themselves, but they set a public example of pillage and de-
struction which was too readily followed by private individuals for their own
ends.
Holes' collection cannot be traced because he did not write his name in his
books. A few were inscribed by his executors. Many volumes went, if Vespasiano is
right, to the Cathedral library at Salisbury which had just been built, and to
which he gave a memorial window, but there are none there now.3 Some probably
went to his two old schools, St Mary's Winchester and New College, Oxford,
since John Baker, headmaster at Winchester, was one of the executors of his
will. New College still preserves his fine copy of Cicero's Orations.4 It is in-
scribed: 'Liber collegii assignatus collegio per magistrum Johannem Baker, sacre
theologie professorem, executorem testamenti venerabilis viri magistri Andree
Holes, qui Andreas possessor et dominus libri fuit. Oretis . . .' This may have
been one of the books bought from Vespasiano. It is written in a neat humanistic
script, with small charming initials in gold on a green, red, blue, and white back-
ground, with here and there a bird or a butterfly. There are some annotations, but
the hand has not been identified.
One other valuable manuscript given by Holes to New College has not been
located. In a thirteenth-century Bible presented to that college by Thomas
Bekynton (Coxe, nos. 3, 4) is the note, 'Cave quia plurimus error est in litera.
Vide igitur bibliam donatam per Magistrum Andream Holes.'5 Was Holes' prized
text in any way connected with the Florentine banquet and Manetti's argument
for the infallibility of the Scriptures?
1 Burckhardt, p. 225.
2 The chief
exceptions are Grey's books at Balliol, Fleming's at Lincoln College, Oxford, and appar-
ently the king's library at Richmond, now in the King's Library at the British Museum. For the loca-
tion of one of Holes' books I am indebted to Miss R. J. Mitchell.
3 See A Catalogueof the Library of the Cathedral Churchof Salisbury (London, 1880).
4 H.
O. Coxe, Catalogus Codicum MSS. qui in Collegiis Aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur
(Oxford, 1852), New College, no. 249. Schirmer, p. 74, note 81, says that there are 36 orations in the
volume, but the table of contents has 37 entries.
5 This Bible was undoubtedly the 'melior bibliotheca' described in Holes' will as beginning 'et
Reguum destribit isreal' on the second folio of the Prologue. It was left to Master John Middleton for
life, and then to New College for the use of fellows who were Doctors in theology and canon law. The
book was evidently a very choice one.
Andrew Holes 325
Magdalen College has one of Holes' books which reached it in the seventeenth
century after surviving the maelstrom of the dissolution. It is Bartholomaei de
S Concordio, Pisani, Summa de casibus conscientiae compiled in 1338 and ar-
ranged in alphabetical order. Holes' copy was made in 1440 by John Baert, ac-
cording to the colophon. An inscription in the front, in a clear Gothic hand, reads:
'Magister Johannes Mydelton, unus executorum testamenti magistri Andree
Holes, Wellensis archidiaconi, donavit istum librum priori et conventui domus de
Witham ex bonis dicti magistri Andree, m.cccc.lxxvij.'l
One other volume which once belonged to Holes is now Bodley MS. 247. It is
a copy of the Glosses on the Clementine Constitutions as confirmed by Pope John
XXII, and includes some other documents of canon law. It was written in Eng-
land late in the fourteenth century, and is inscribed 'Andreas Holes archdiaconus
Anglesie.' Since it is an English book, we can safely date its purchase between
1427 and 1429, before Holes went to Italy.
When we remember that of Duke Humphrey's almost 300 volumes only three
remained in their original repository after the destructive forces of the mid-
sixteenth century had spent themselves, we can understand how Holes' 'vast
number of books' have left so little trace. The list is too meagre to be representa-
tive, but we can note that of the four books the Cicero and the careful text of the
Bible both indicate humanistic interests. According to the testimony of Ves-
pasiano, Holes must be ranked with John Tiptoft and William Grey, if not with
Duke Humphrey, in the first rank of early English collectors of humanistic books.
We can learn much about Holes' official duties at the papal Curia from the
letterbooks of Thomas Bekynton, the king's secretary, and those of William Swan
a Doctor of Civil Law, of an old Kentish family, who was a papal secretary and
member of the Pope's household as early as 1406.2 When Holes arrived in Rome
in 1429, he carried letters to Swan from John Kemp, Archbishop of York and
Chancellor of England.3 Kemp corresponded frequently with Swan,4 and con-
sidered himself a patron of Holes, if we can judge from Holes' rapid preferment,
especially in York diocese. Swan returned to England in 1435, but during the
first six years of Holes' residence in the papal Curia he must have found the
Kentish lawyer an invaluable source of practical information and advice.5
The king's representative at the papal court was responsible for securing papal
confirmation of royal appointees to the major offices in the English church; repre-
1 Coxe, Catalogus, no. 191. Holes directed in his will that a gift from his goods be presented to
Witham.
2 Hook-Place in Southfleet was the seat of the family from the time of Richard ii to that of James I.
See F. Hasted's History of Kent (Canterbury, 1778), I, 270. A wife, Joan, children, William, Joan, and
Elizabeth, and other members of the family are mentioned in the Papal Registers, viIl, 479, 571, 389,
390, 408, 434, 477; IX, 243, 310-312, 302, 308.
3 MS Cotton Cleopatra C IV, fol. 158".
4Both were Kentishmen. Kemp founded a grammar school at his native town of Wye.
6 E. F. Jacob, 'The Fifteenth Century Some Recent Interpretations,' Bulletin of the John Rylands
Library, xvI (1930), 23, reports that Miss D. Wolff is making a study of Swan's letter-books, Bodley
MS Arch. Seld., B. 23, and CottonCleopatraC IV. The association of Holes with Swan is illustrated in
these manuscripts. For the date of Swan's return to England see Papal Registers, viii, 286.
326 Andrew Holes
senting the king in all cases of canon law which were appealed from England to
Rome; and acting as royal representative in matters of general church policy. One
of the most constant problems was the warding off of papal 'provisions' for vacan-
cies in the English church until royal nominations had been made. It was the
policy of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury 1414-1443, to insist on the
freedom of the English church from papal intervention in the matter of appoint-
ments.1
Probably Holes was active in securing a cardinal's hat for John Kemp. He was
able to send news of the elevation two months before the official notice arrived
in England.2 Angelo Gattola, a gentleman of the Pope's household, was the actual
bearer of the hat. Bekynton made a friend of him and through him came to know
Biondo of Forli.3 Holes acted with Gattola on several occasions, probably includ-
ing the negotiations for Kemp.4
Holes was also active in securing the necessary Papal Bulls for the foundation
of Eton College. Vincent Clement and Richard Caunton were sent to Florence as
special envoys in this matter which Bekynton was arranging in behalf of the king.
The negotiations were carried on, not without some difficulties, in 1440, and by
May 14, 1441, Bekynton had received the two necessary Bulls, both written in
the hand of Poggio as papal secretary.5
Something of the relation of Bekynton to Holes, as well as of their mutual
interest in education, can be gathered from a letter written at this time. The
king's secretary addresses Holes as Optimevir et pater amantissime. After thanking
him effusively for favors received, and for his last letters, he recommends the
bearer, Master John Burgh, in the following terms: 'I beg that you will have
special favorable regard for the said master John, as well on account of the college
where you were educated, as through observation of his natural virtues. I re-
member the college in sadness, alas! it has fallen into poverty in these years.
1 See for example the letter sent 26 October, 1434, to 'our trusty etc. mastre Andrewe huls and to al
ye Curtezenis Englysh in ye courte of Rome' saying that the king had heard of the death of the
Bishop of Rochester. The Archbishop of Canterbury has the patronage and has someone in mind, and
all English representatives at Rome are charged to prevent papal intervention, either in this case or
in any other, from this time forth, until someone has been recommended from England for the place.
Cotton Cleopatra E 3, fol. 68, printed in Nicolas, Proceedings, iv, 281. John Langdon, Bishop of
Rochester, died at the council of Basle, 30 Sept., 1434. See also p. 322, n. 1 above for indications that
the English king tried to push his English prerogatives far enough to cover bishoprics in Normandy
where his political authority was fast disappearing.
2 Henry vi addressed a letter of thanks to the Pope on Jan. 24, 1440, saying that he had heard the
news from Holes. The official notice came through Piero del Monte, and the king replied March 22;
see Bekynton Correspondence,i, 39, 50.
3 Bekynton Corr., I, xxx, and index.
4 Ashmole MS.
789, fol. 268v records a letter to the Pope requesting the hat for Kemp. It is dated
only two days before news of its bestowal is acknowledged. This letter mentions A. Gattola.
6 Bekynton Corr., IT, 270-297. They are dated Jan. 28, 1440/41. Vincent Clement had been Duke
Humphrey's proctor at Rome and there is some indication that he may have been considered as a
successor to Holes in 1441; see Ibid., I, 223. Richard Caunton was a Canon lawyer who had been to
Rome in 1433. In 1446 he became Archdeacon of Salisbury, where Holes was Chancellor.
Andrew Holes 327
Greater charity dear father, you can never find to do, than now to put forth a
succoring hand and rescue it. I do not desist because I suggest work to be done by
others. Our aforesaid John, as I imagine, will give you the news more fully. Give
him credit.'l
Bekynton's efforts in behalf of his college were successful for New College con-
tinued to lead in educational matters throughout the century. Such begging
letters as this one have been interpreted as evidence of the decline of the uni-
versities in the fifteenth century. But the record of building and endowment at
both Oxford and Cambridge during the same period tells a very different story.
The prosperity of endowed institutions must be gaged, not by the urgency of their
appeals, but by their successes in securing aid.
Another school in which Bekynton and Holes were interested was the free
school established in St Anthony's Hospital, London, by John Carpenter in 1441.
On June 21 of that year, Bekynton named Holes and Caunton in a commission
to solicit aid from the Pope in behalf of the hospital.2 This is the school which
John Colet and Sir Thomas More attended.
In 1442 the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury wrote to their absentee Chancellor
requesting his help in the process for the canonization of St Osmund, the first
Bishop of Salisbury. The process was begun about 1400, but was not completed
until 1457. Holes, in his reply, tells an amusing anecdote which throws some light
on the character of Adam Moleyns, Archdeacon, and later Dean of Salisbury,
and a prominent statesman. The Chapter had provided 1000 ducats for expenses.
Holes says that Moleyns told Simon Houchyns, the Chapter clerk and their
emissary, that he had seen the Pope alone, and that upon mention of the canoniza-
tion His Holiness had asked whether he wished for his death, as it was well known
that the death of the Pope usually followed closely the enrollment of a new saint
on the Calendar. Holes and Houchyns afterwards had an audience with the Pope
and learned that Moleyns had not mentioned the matter at all. It was Holes'
opinion that Moleyns wanted the 1000 ducats for nothing, and he asked that he
be sent a new commission from which Moleyns was excluded.3
Meanwhile another troublesome matter had come up. Archbishop Chichele,
now eighty years old, wished to resign and nominated John Stafford, Bishop of
Bath and Wells as his successor. But the King was looking for a good see for
Bekynton, and Wells was a poor bishopric. Therefore he tried to arrange a trans-
fer of the Bishop of Salisbury to Wells, so that Bekynton could have Salisbury.4
The whole scheme was delayed until Chichele's death in April, 1443. Then Henry
vi wrote to the Pope again about the transfers, and Bekynton enlisted the
1 John Burgh's name
appears on the New College Register under 1425; see Bekynton Corr., i, xxix,
225-226. The translation is mine. Burgh became Holes' secretary (Hutchins Act Book, p. 125) and
served as clerk at Salisbury when Holes was there (Register Burgh). He succeeded Richard Caunton
as prebend of Grindale in York in 1455, a living which Holes had once held (Le Neve, ini, 191).
2 Bekynton Corr., I, 234-235.
3 The letter is dated from Florence, Aug. 31, 1442; see A. R. Malden, The Canonization of St Osmund
(Salisbury, 1901), Wilts Record Society, IT, p. xvii.
4 Ashmole MS
789, pp. 278-279; and Bekynton Corr., I, 145, 148; II, 75-77.
328 Andrew Holes
efforts of all his friends at the Papal Court and sent Holes a considerable sum of
money to smooth the way. On May 23 Gattola wrote him that Salisbury had been
'provided' to him and all his friends were rejoicing. But the celebration was pre-
mature. Bishop Ascough of Salisbury refused to make the exchange, and Bekyn-
ton had to be content with the much poorer see of Wells. Meanwhile Holes had
used the money entrusted to him, and on June 24 the king wrote to him that un-
less the money could be converted into a payment of the first-fruits of Bath and
Wells, the loss would be very serious to Bekynton.1 The suggestion that the bribe
be converted in this way indicates clearly where the money had gone. The first
fruits, or first year's income, of a bishopric was due to the Pope.
Probably Holes was able to make the adjustment. At any rate it did not affect
his life-long friendship with Bekynton, for soon after his return to England he
exchanged his Archdeaconry of Anglesea in Bangor diocese for that of Taunton
in Wells.2 An immediate reward came in the exchange, November 2, 1443, of the
prebend of Osbaldwick in York for the richer one of Stillington, which Bekynton's
promotion forced him to resign. Apparently he had some voice in the disposal
of his prebends, because we find him explaining to Vincent Clement about a preb-
end in Wells which he was resigning, and which Clement seems to have asked
for.3 Clement and Biondo of Forli, as well as Holes and Gattola, had been active
in Bekynton's behalf, at the Papal Curia.
Vespasiano says that when the Pope left Florence, in the early spring of 1443,
Holes remained behind to attend to his books. Holes must have been in close
touch with the Papal court during April, May, and June, however, when the
Pope was at Siena and the matter of the English bishoprics was being settled.4
But the 'more than a year and a half' which Holes lived in Florence, according to
Vespasiano, must refer to the time when he was collecting his books after the de-
parture of the Pope, for he had been with the papal Curia in that city in 1434 and
again in 1439-1443. On 15 February, 1444, a safe conduct was granted to him by
the Pope for himself and ten companions to return to England.5 But he may not
have gone until fall for he did not resign his Proctorship until the end of Decem-
ber.
As a book collector only Duke Humphrey had preceded him. The Duke made
his first large gift of books to Oxford in 1443, and of the Duke's agents Holes was
well acquainted with Vincent Clement and with Piero del Monte.6 Vespasiano
1 Bekynton Corr., I, 161-162, 329-243.
2 Le Neve, I, 167. He
resigned his proctorship Dec. 29, 1444, and was collated to the new Arch-
deaconry Jan. 19, 1445. Nicholas Upton acted as his proxy at the investiture, 13 Feb. following;
see The Register of Thomas Bekynton, ed. Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte and M. C. B. Dawes for Somerset
Record Society, XLIX (1934), I, 55. In 1450 he was forced to exchange Taunton for Wells, see Ibid.,
pp. 128, 130, 144-145. The editors are mistaken in their assertion that he settled at Wells, although
he had a house there. See H. E. Reynolds, Wells Cathedral(Leeds, 1881) p. liii.
3 Bekynton Corr., I, 160-161.
4 Bekynton, writing 27 April to Biondo of Forli, names Holes, Clement, and Caunton as his agents;
Correspondence,I, 172. But Gattola, writing from Siena to congratulate Bekynton, mentions only the
labors of 'master Richard' Caunton; ibid., i, 161-162. Perhaps Holes directed the negotiations from
Florence through Caunton. 6 Papal Registers, viii, 296.
6 Letters exchanged with del Monte are in MS (V.L.) Vat. Lat., no. 2694, fols 222V-223r 241r-242r
according to Weiss, p. 79, n. 8.
Andrew Holes 329
says that he secured a 'vast number of books' and as a bookseller Vespasiano was
not easily impressed. His collection arrived in England while Duke Humphrey
was still collecting and well ahead of those of Bishop Grey, Robert Fleming, and
John Tiptoft. But he brought back with him also a familiarity with the personali-
ties and modes of thought of many of the Italian humanists whom he had come
to know during his fifteen years at the papal Court.
Holes' return to England was by no means a return to the retirement about
which he had spoken to Vespasiano. He was needed in the government. In 1445
the young and weak king had married Margaret of Anjou and put himself under
the control of the very unpopular party led by his uncle, Cardinal Beaufort,
who advocated peace at any price with France. Early in 1447, both Beaufort and
Duke Humphrey, the leader of the war party, died. Thereafter the troubles of the
government increased steadily until 1460 when Henry VI was forced to abdicate
in favor of Edward IV.
By 1447 Holes was again serving as king's clerk. In November he secured pay-
ment for his long service in Italy.' In the same month he was appointed to a com-
mission with the king's closest advisers, John Stafford, now Archbishop of Can-
terbury, William Waynflete, newly appointed Bishop of Winchester, Adam
Moleyns, now Bishop of Chichester, Edmund, Marquis of Dorset, William de la
Pole, Marquis of Suffolk and now leader of the peace party, Richard Andrew,
king's clerk and secretary, an old schoolfellow of Holes, and John Chadworth,
clerk, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln.2 Most of these men can be identified as
members of the peace party which was blamed by the populace with the loss of
the English holdings in France.
By 1450 popular violence had broken out. In January, Adam Moleyns was
murdered by a mob of soldiers. He had succeeded Bekynton as keeper of the
King's privy seal, and at his death the office passed to Andrew Holes.3 Holes was
keeper of the seal in March when the Duke of Suffolk was murdered at sea as he
was fleeing the country. At the end of June, Holes' ecclesiastical superior, Bishop
Ascough of Salisbury, was beheaded by a mob. On July 1 the Lord Treasurer of
England was beheaded by Jack Cade, and on the second the Lord Mayor of
London suffered the same fate. During the early days of July, Cade led his march
on London, and Holes took part in the negotiations with him.
As Cade advanced on London, the King withdrew, leaving some of his council
including Archbishop Kemp and Bishop Waynflete, to meet him. Hall says that
these two spoke with Cade at St Margaret's, Southwark. But earlier chroniclers
1 Stevenson, I, 471-473. The document is dated Nov. 3, and recorded as paid Nov. 11. He received
£783/6/8.
2 The commission took over the
mismanaged revenues of Ivy Church priory in the diocese of
Salisbury; see Patent Rolls, Henry VI, v, 137. Chadworth was a canon of Sarum, Archdeacon of
Wilts., and provost of King's College, Cambridge; see Malden, p. xxv.
3 Bekynton resigned in 1443/4, and Moleyns had the office up to the end of 1449; see Bekynton
Corr.,I, 174. According to Newcourt, I, 44, Laurence Bothe was keeper in December, 1450. But Holes
is described as 'keper of oure Prive Seel' in a letter dated March 8, 1450; see Stevenson, I, 514-515.
Nicolas, Proceedings, vI, 92-93, prints a letter addressed to Holes as keeper of the privy seal, dated
May 17, 1450. The office paid a pound a day and keep, according to Wylie, Henry IV, II, 344.
330 Andrew Holes
say that pardons under the great seal were sent to Cade and his followers. William
of Worcester says that Waynflete (whom he knew personally), and others of the
king's council, spoke with Cade. One chronicle says that Kemp went to Cade.'
These negotiations took place between the battle of London bridge on July 5, and
Cade's departure from Southwark on the 8th or early on the 9th. Nothing is said
of earlier negotiations, yet on June 30 Holes was paid ten pounds for going to
negotiate with 'The Captain of Kent,' and on July 29 he was given six of Cade's
horses as further reward and preparation for another journey in the king's
service.2
After what had happened to Ioles' friends and superiors, his participation in
the negotiations with Cade shows considerable courage. He probably assisted his
old friends, Archbishop Kemp, and Bishop Waynflete. The latter was a nephew
of Holes' sister Philippa.3
Holes was still keeper of the Privy Seal as late as February, 1452.4 The king
suffered a mental collapse early in 1453, and a council was formed to take over
the government. Holes probably resigned at that time. He was still employed
about public business as late as March, 1458,5 but in 1459 the rise of the Yorkists
to power sent the supporters of Henry vi into retirement. It was at this time
that Holes applied to his old friend, Pope Paul II, for absolution for the irregulari-
ties involved in his entry into orders.6 By establishing the legality of his first
appointment he made sure that the Yorkists should not find an excuse to deprive
him of his livings.
1 Stevenson,II, 768; J Gairdner,ThePastonLetters(Westminster,1901),p. lxxxv.

2 F. Devon
(Ed.), Issues of the Exchequer ... Henry III to Henry VI (London, 1837), p. 466;
Nicolas, Proceedings, vi, 97-99. His name occurs in 1450 on the rolls of the English Hospice in Rome;
see V. J. Flynn, 'Englishmen in Rome During the Renaissance,' Modern Philology, xxxvI (1938), 123.
On Dec. 3, 1450, Holes was appointed to represent the English Hospital at Rome in a struggle for
an English bequest. He is described as a friend and member of the fraternity. If he was absent from
England, the appearance of Laurence Boothe as keeper of the privy seal in December, 1450 is ex-
plained. See note 3 above. On the other hand, he need not have been in Rome when he was appointed
to represent the Hospice in England.
3 William Patten, alias Barbour, alias Waynflete, was the son of Richard Patten and Margery
Brereton. Holes' sister Philippa married Margery Brereton's brother, William; see Ormerod, III,
88-89, and Richard Chandler, The Life of William Waynflete (London, 1811), p. 4. Waynflete's early
life is obscure. He was probably educated at Winchester and New College, since he was appointed
Informer at Winchester in 1429 and the post was reserved to fellows of New College. He was an early
friend of Bekynton's, and probably a schoolfellow of Holes'. His name occurs as a bachelor of laws,
along with Holes', on the list of those going to Rome with Robert Fitz Hugh in 1429 (Proceedings,
II, 347), but it is doubted that he went because he was made Informer at Winchester in that year;
see Kirby, pp. 52-61.
4 Calendar Patent
of Rolls, Henry VI, v, 537; and see p. 434 for his tenure of the post Dec. 12, 1451.
6 He is mentioned as previously having been appointed on a commission of oyer and terminer to
settle a dispute at Caen; see Patent Rolls, Henry VI, vi, 439.
6 The letter is dated Aug. 31, 1459; Papal Registers, xi, 390-391. Paul II was Petrus Barbus,
created Cardinal in July, 1440. He acted with Holes and Caunton in 1441; Bekynton Corr., I, 229. He
was made Archdeacon of Salisbury in 1444 and perhaps held a prebend in York, see W. H. Jones,
Fasti Ecclesiae Sarisberiensis (Salisbury, 1879), p. 161.
Andrew Holes 331
He was hardly in complete retirement, for in 1463 and 1464 he was involved in
settling the estate of Robert, late Lord Hungerford and Moleyns, who had lost
his life and forfeited his estates in support of the now deposed Henry vi.1 As late
as 1469 Holes appears as the initiator of a law suit in which he is described as 'late
keeper of the privy seal of the late king.' 2
During the twenty-five years that he lived after his return from Italy, Andrew
Holes made his home in the cathedral close at Salisbury. He became chancellor
of that cathedral in 1438, and was formally installed October 14, 1445, about a
year after his return to England. His residence was in a 'mansione in the cathedral
close "vocata vulgariter Ledenhalle",' which had formerly been occupied by his
predecessor, Adam Moleyns.3 His name appears frequently on the records as an
active member of the chapter for the next two years.4
Salisbury was an important intellectual center in Holes' day. It was so regarded
at the beginning of the century,5 and at the time Holes went into residence there
Gilbert Kymer, then treasurer of the chapter and later Dean, was building the
cathedral library over the East Cloister, where it still stands. He was Duke
Humphrey's personal physician, the author of a medical work, and one of the
leading educators of the day. He was Chancellor of Oxford 1431-1433 and again
1446-1453, and probably was influential in securing Duke Humphrey's books for
his University.
Another literary member of the chapter was Nicholas Upton, the author of
De Studio Militari6 which he dedicated to Duke Humphrey. Upton had been a
schoolfellow of Holes. Nicholas Bildeston, friend and correspondent of Poggio,
had been Dean of Salisbury when Holes was made Chancellor but died before
Holes' return from Italy.7 There was an active scriptorium at the cathedral during
the years of Holes' residence, however.8
It is perhaps evidence of Holes' piety that, the year after he took up his resi-
dence at Salisbury, the chapter renewed its efforts for the canonization of St
Osmond. Upton was sent to Rome to revive the negotiations. Holes' letter of
recommendation of him is still extant.9 At Rome, Upton was assisted by William
1 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1461-1467 (London, 1897), pp. 283, 284,365. Lord Hungerford died May
18, 1458 and was buried at Salisbury; John Leland, Itinerary, III, 78.
2 Calendar
of Patent Rolls, 1467-1477, p. 146.
3 Maiden, Canonization of St. Osmond, p. 98 note; Huchins Chapter Act Book, pp. 127. This
Chapter Act Book is in manuscript at Salisbury, and I owe the very great privilege of examining it
to the courtesy of Canon and Reverend Christopher Wordsworth, the librarian.
4 Huchins,
pp. 94, 100, 107, 109, etc.
6 See E. F. Jacob, 'Some English Documents of the Conciliar Movement,' Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library, xv (1931).
6 Printed by Sir Edward Bysshe in 1654. Malden, pp. xix ff. gives an account of Upton.
7 He became Dean in 1435 and died May 31, 1441; Malden, p. 19.
8 Two medical works, Bodl. MSS 362 and 361, were written by Herman Zurke for Kymer, the first
at Oxford and Sarum, 1448-1455, the second at Sarum, 1453-1459. A theological work, Merton MS
268, was written at Sarum, 1458-1459. Lansdowne Misc. MS 555 was written by Herman at Sarum
in 1460, and perhaps Lansdowne Misc. 558 was written there in 1459-1460.
9 It is printed in Maiden, p. 105.
Andrew Holes
Grey, the patron of Balliol College Library, who was a confrater of Salisbury, as
were also Duke Humphrey, and Cardinal Beaufort. The chapter's efforts for
Bishop Osmund were at least partly a product of the antiquarianism which was
so important an element in the development of the Renaissance in both Italy and
England. St Osmund's record for miracles was weak, but he had been the first
Bishop of Salisbury. The chapter's attitude toward him can be gaged by the fact
that King Alfred was at first coupled with Osmund in their effort, but the King
had to be abandoned for total lack of miracles. Besides Holes, Upton, and Kymer,
Duke Humphrey's book agents, Vincent Clement and Piero de Monte helped
forward the canonization, and so did Bekynton. Two humanistically inspired
servants of Cardinal Beaufort were also active. These were Nicholas Bildeston
(Dean, 1435-1441) and Richard Petworth, the friends and correspondents of
Poggio and enthusiastic 'new Latinists.'1
Holes was probably resident in London during his years of public service (1447-
1452), but he seems to have returned to Salisbury very shortly after he resigned
the privy seal.2 He was made 'presidentem capitulo' in 1456.3 As Chancellor he
was responsible for the educational activities of the chapter and perhaps for the
fact that John Lane, M.A., schoolmaster of Winchester, was appointed in 1448
to teach the altarists and choristers.4 His old school loyalty is attested in many
ways, including the fact that his vicar at Odiham was John Shyrwode, fellow of
New College 1444-1456. William Lily, the grammarian, was born at Odiham, in
1468, two years before Holes' died. William Grocyn must have had some sort of
connection with Odiham, also, for he stood godfather to Lily. He was a fellow of
New College at the time and had already practised writing his name in Greek
characters.
Holes resigned some of his livings before his death. He ceased to be Archdeacon
of Wells in 1465 when Bekynton died and was replaced by an ardent Yorkist.5
1 Malden, pp. xxxiii, 19.
2 His letter of recommendation for Upton is dated 23 Aug., 1452; Maiden, p. 105.
3 Maiden, p. 165.
4
Jones, Fasti, p. 291. Lane may have refused the post. Three weeks after his appointment, John
Russell became headmaster and remained until 1455; Dora H. Robertson, Sarum Close (London,
1938), p. 67. Was this the John Russell, servant of Duke Humphrey, who wrote the Book of Nurture?
I believe the following schedule of his livings is complete: Cures: (1) Rectory of Davenham, 1420,
exchanged for St Dunstans in the East, London, 1435, exchanged for an Archdeaconry in York, 1443
and held till death, 1470. (2) Archdeaconry of Anglesea, 1427, exchanged for Taunton, 1445, and for
Wells, 1450, resigned 1465. (3) Chancellorship of Salisbury, including a prebend and the rectory of
Odiham, 1438 till death. He presented to Bricklesworth in Northants, in 1465, that church, like
Odiham, being attached to the chancellorship of Sarum; Jones, p. 338.
Sinecures: (1) Prebend of Grindale in York, 1431, exchanged for Osbaldwick, 1437, and for Stilling-
ton, 1443 to death. (2) Mediety of Malpas, 1431 till death (?). (3) Prebend of Oxton and Cropwell in
St. Mary's Southwell, 1431, exchanged for Fontenell in Shaftesbury with his old friend Richard An-
drew, 1461. (4) Prebend and Canonry of St Asaphs, ca 1433, till death (?). (5) Prebend of Flixton in
Lichfield, 1434, resigned 1442/3, probably for the Prebend of Hunderton in Hereford, 1442, resigned
1446.
He is described in the pedigrees as Dean of Pauls, Archdeacon of Richmond, Canon of Lincoln, etc.,
but I cannot find that he ever held any of these livings; see Harley MS 4204, f. 136; Glover, as on
Andrew Holes 333
But he left a substantial fortune when he died, April 1, 1470.1 He was buried the
same day in the chapel of St Mary Magdalen, in the cathedral. There was once
an effigy in brass on the tomb, with the inscription at the foot:
Quamvisputrescamdando me vermibusescam
Rursuscarnemeum credovidere deum.2
He made his will April 22, 1467 and it was proved June 25, 1470.3 He left a gift
of money to each of the officers of his cathedral, including the janitor, to the
other churches of the city, the poor, the charitable institutions of Salisbury, and
to the boys of his old school, St Mary's Winchester. He directed that his large
antiphonal be chained in the choir at St Mary's, and we are reminded that he lived
in a great age of church music. A missale went to his church at Odiham. Vest-
ments to be embroidered with the legends, 'Orate pro magistro Andrea holes
Archdiacono Ebor.,' or 'Wellen.,' or 'Sarum,' as the case might be, were left to
his three chief cures. Pieces of 'jocalia' both gilt and silver were bequeathed to
several churches in his diocese. His wearing apparel included 'unum longum
mantellum factum in Curia Romana de panno fco in fflorenca ex lana Anglicana.'
He remembers his sister, Mistress Alianora Vernon, and other relatives.4 His
books on civil and canon law were to be distributed to the libraries of the colleges
and university of Oxford, at the discretion of his executors, except that New
College was to have his 'melior bibliotheca,' which has already been described.
Like most men of his day who could afford it, he left directions for the founda-
tion of a perpetual chantry in the chapel where he was buried. But he also set
aside 100 marks (ca 66 pounds) for the exhibition of scholars at Oxford. His
executors were John Baker, 'custos' of the college at Winchester, William Crow-
ton, a member of the Salisbury chapter, and John Midelton. After nine years'
delay, and in consideration of 200 marks paid to the king and his inclusion in the
prayers, land was acquired for the endowment of the chantry and we are pleased
to see that the executors, who had discretionary powers over any residue of the
p. 314, n. 1; Wiltshire Notes and Queries,Iv, 524. The exchange with Andrew is recorded in Testamenta
EboracensiaPublications of the Surtees Society, XLV(1864), iI, 233. Hennessey gives a partial survey
of his livings opposite p. 78.
1 Henry J. F. Swayne (Ed.), Churchwarden'saccounts of S Edmund and S Thomas, Sarum, 1443-
1702 (Salisbury, 1896), p. 12.
2 The chapel is in the north bay of the south east transept. The inscription further records the im-
portant events and honors of his life; see Wiltshire Notes and Queries, iv (1902-1904), 525.
3 It is P. C. C. Godyn 30, printed in Wiltshire N. and Q., iv, 566-569. The transcript in the public
records gives the date of probate as 1467 but is undoubtedly a mistake arising from the fact that the
will was made in that year. Weiss reports the will as printed in Somerset Medieval Wills, 1385-1500,
p. 213.
4 Eleanor married second Richard Whelok. She had no sons, but a
daughter by Sir Richard Vernon
who married Sir Robert Fouleshurst of Crue, kt. They had several children, including a John, and
Holes leaves a cloak of English murray to 'Domine Johanne Fowlishirst.' He also leaves one to
'Domine Brereton' probably one of the eight sons of Sir William Brereton and his sister Philippa.
334 Andrew Holes
estate, were able to include a substantial endowment for Winchester in the

chantry fund.'
Most of the memorials of Holes are gone from Salisbury, but a fragment of his
seal, showing the right half, is still preserved.2 There were once two memorial
windows, one in the library, and the other in the divinity school, which showed
his arms, argent a lion rampant azure.3 But the fanaticism of the mid-sixteenth
and mid-seventeenth centuries destroyed them.
Holes' life is interesting both because of his contact with the early Italian
renaissance and his book collecting, and because it is primarily the career of a
Wykhamist. The college ties show strongly both in his friendships and in his cul-
tural and philanthropic activities. The great educational achievements of the
first century of Wykhamists was commemorated by Thomas Chaundler, de-
voted friend of Bekynton and long the Master of New College and Chancellor of
Oxford.4He dedicated to Bekynton a Life of Wykham which he decorated with a
picture of twelve great Wykhamists.5 The picture shows Bishop Wykham seated
and holding models of Winchester and New Colleges in his hands. On his left
stands Archbishop Chichele holding a model of All Souls, Oxford, and on his right
stands Bishop Waynflete holding a book. His great foundation, St Mary Mag-
dalen, Oxford, was not yet built. These three great founders are flanked by
Thomas Crandley, first Warden of Winchester and benefactor of New College
library (d. 1417),6 and Thomas Bekynton who symbolically extends one hand to
hold up New College. He was chiefly instrumental in the foundation of Eton.
Thomas Chaundler places himself in the group of seven men who stand at the
1 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1476-1485, p. 174. The value of the land is given in the patent as 40
marks a year, and since the pay of a chantry priest was often about a fourth of that amount, the
residue must have been substantial. At the dissolution, the chantry was worth only 7/6/8 a year, plus
40 shillings which Winchester set aside for an obiit for Holes as one of its benefactors; Wiltshire
ArchaeologicalMagazine, xII (1870), 371. In response to Bekynton's appeals, Holes probably gave aid
to Winchester during his lifetime.
2 Canon Wordsworth
very generously permitted me to examine it. It shows the left half of a bearded
human figure in a long robe. There is a cross on the left, opposite the head. The right half shows
a trident, upon which is placed a shield bearing a lion rampant. Enough of the margin remains to read
'Andree holes archidi-.' The seal is kept in the muniment room of the cathedral, press iii, box marked
'vicars choral.'
3 According to the notes on Salisbury Cathedral transcribed by A. R. Malden, and now (April,
1935) in the possession of Canon Wordsworth. This note is taken from a quarto volume in the muni-
ment room at Longford Castle, which was written ca 20 Jan. 1732/3, and was given to the Earl of
Radnor by Gustavus Brander, 4 Oct., 1781, who had it from Mr Astle (Thomas Astle, 1735-1803,
F.R.S., F.S.A., former owner of the Stowe MSS?).
4 He entered Winchester in 1430, was Fellow of New 1437-1450, Warden of Winchester 1450, and
of New 1452/3 to 1475. He was Chancellor of Oxford 1457-1461, Vice-Chancellor for George Neville
1463-1467, and Chancellor again 1472-1479. He was Chancellor of Wells, 1454-1457, and of York,
1466/7 until his death in 1490.
6 New CollegeMS 288; see M. R. James, The ChaundlerMSS. Introduction on the Life and Writings
of Thomas Chaundler (Roxburghe Club, 1916); and T. F. Kirby, in Archaeologia, LIII, Pt. I, pp.
229 if.
6 He was Warden of Winchester 1382, and of New 1389-1396, and Chancellor of Oxford 1390. He
was made Bishop of Dublin and Chancellor of Ireland under Henry iv.
Andrew Holes 335
bottom of the picture, looking up. He describes himself as Chancellor of Wells,

but it was his greater distinction to have been Chancellor of Oxford when Greek
first began to be studied effectively there. Others in the picture are Richard
Andrew, first Warden of Chichele's foundation, William Say, Dean of St Paul's,
Hugh Sugar, Treasurer of Wells and one of Bekynton's executors, John Selot,
John Norton, and Andrew Holes, all three Archdeacons. All were products of
Wykham's foundations. Their offices in Wells diocese demonstrate Bekynton's
devotion to his old school and to the promotion of educated men. Many of these
men were useful public servants who attest the success of Wykham's design which
was to provide educated men for the service of both church and state.
The history of Holes' life, as of Bekynton's, is one of fellowship and mutual
assistance among this group of well-educated churchmen, - a fellowship which
bears witness of the intellectual activity and faith in education which flourished
in the strife-torn England of the mid-fifteenth century. It was to this little band
of men, and to the many others like them, that England owed the flourishing state
of education at Oxford which so surprised and pleased Erasmus when he came to
England at the end of the century. Their contribution to English culture was
made through the example they set as useful public servants and patrons of
learning, through the collection of books and the establishment of colleges and
libraries, and through their encouragement of grammar schools, which helped
to increase the supply of adequately trained grammar scholars, and so to raise
the level of university training. In all these directions Andrew Holes contributed,
according to his opportunities.
IUNTERCOLLEGE
Some Possible Sources of Mediaeval Conceptions of Virgil

Author(s): John J. H. Savage
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:01
Speculum.
SOME POSSIBLE SOURCES OF MEDIAEVAL
CONCEPTIONS OF VIRGIL*
BY JOHN J. H. SAVAGE
To a novice the subject of Virgilian legend in the Middle Ages, as chronicled by

Comparetti' and more recently by Spargo,2 is a bewildering one. How are we to
account for these interesting vagaries of the human mind, this veritable collection
of Neapolitan Nights which persisted in oral and in literary tradition from the
time of John of Salisbury to the period of the Renaissance? These 'romantic
perversions of northern barbarians' - to use a phrase of Professor Rand3 - still
are of perennial interest for us.
Some of these legends are incorporated in the extant vita Vergilii, which may be
substantially the life of the poet compiled by the fourth-century rhetor, Aelius
Donatus, as a preface to his great commentary on Virgil.4 The briefer life by
Servius,5 whose floruit is about a quarter of a century later than that of Donatus,
has none of the magical element in it which we find in the extant Donatan vita,
whether in its briefer or in its fuller form.6As a matter of fact, these two versions
seem to have been the ultimate sources of much of the material - whether legend-
ary or not - found in several of the later lives of the poet.
In this paper I propose to discuss in some detail what seem to me to be some
likely sources of one group of the many mediaeval legends of Virgil - that con-
nected with the marvelous archer, and starting from this fourth-century point of
origin, to indicate the main lines of the fortleben of this group of stories up to the
sixteenth century.
The point of departure for the legends which introduce the bowman or archer
is, in my opinion, the incident related by most of the biographers of the poet from
the time of Donatus. This is the account of Virgil's literary effort in the form of a
distich on a robber and former ludi m,agisternamed Ballista. He was slain and a
mound of stones placed over his body. Here is the version of Donatus:7 'Poeticam
puer adhuc auspicatus in Ballistam ludi magistrum ob infamiam latrociniorum
coopertum lapidibus distichon fecit:
Monte sub hoc lapidumtegitur Ballista sepultus;
nocte die tutum carpeviator iter.'
* This paper was read at the Centennial Celebration of Fordham University held in New York on
September 15, 1941.
1 Virgilio nel medio evo (2nd ed., Florence, 1896); English translation of this edition (from proof
sheets) by E. F. M. Benecke, Virgil in the Middle Ages (London, 1895). We now have a new and re-
vised edition by G. Pasquali of the second edition of Comparetti (1937).
2 Virgil the Necromancer(Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, x, Cambridge, Mass., 1934).
3 'The Mediaeval Virgil,' Studi Medievali, v (1932), 420.
4 E. Diehl, Die Vitae
Vergilianae und ihre antiken Quellen (Bonn, 1911).
5 Pp. 68-72 Br. (= VitaeVergilianae,ed. I. Brummer,Leipzig,1912).
6 Pp. 1-19 and apparatusplenus,pp. 20-38 Br. 7 P. 4, lines 51-55 Br.
Possible Sources of Mediaeval Conceptionsof Virgil 337
Servius has the same distich. He introduces the verses with the phrase: 'primum
ab hoc distichon factum est in Ballistam latronem.'"
In the metrical life by Focas 'grammaticus urbis Romae' surviving in one
manuscript of the ninth century,2 there is a further enlargement on the simple
anecdote of Donatus and Servius. After devoting about a dozen verses to the
marvelous childhood of the poet - with many reminiscences of the fourth Ec-
logue - he proceeds to relate the incident of the robber Ballista. The simple
ludi magister of Donatus is metamorphosed into Virgil's teacher.3 There is quiet
humor in the author's remark - himself a grammaticus- that the thief was un-
suspected because of his doctrina:
Tum Ballista rudemlingua titubante receptum
instituit primus;quemnox armabatin umbris
grassarisolitum. Crimendoctrinategebat.
Mox patefacta viri pressaest audaciasaxis.
Incidit titulum iuvenis, quo pigneravatis
edidit, auspiciissuffecitpoena magistri.
Nos tamen hos brevius,si fas simulareMaronem:
'Ballistamsua poena tegit, via tuta per oras.'4
Here follows five versions of this incident - apparently by an interpolator - on
the model of Virgil's youthful effort. The second and fourth of these arouse our
interest, for they seem to point towards the next step in the evolution of this
legend. The simple mountain of rock (monte sub hoc lapidum) of the original dis-
tich becomes in the first interpolation a mountainous prison-house:
CarceremontosoclaususBallista tenetur;
securifraudispergitenocte, viri.
In the second interpolation the shade of the erstwhile robber trembles at the
sight of the overhanging rocks (pendula saxa): 'Ballistae vitam rapuit lapis:
ipse sepulcrum intulit. umbra nocens pendula saxa tremit.'5
So far nothing has been brought forward from the vitae that would indicate the
locale of the Ballista story. The first Philargyrian life6 follows for the most part
the facts reported in the life by Donatus, adding however little touches of its own.
The compiler of this life located the story of the ludi magister in Calabria.7 The
third vita Gudiana would place Naples (Partenope) in Calabria and Brundisium
in Campania.8 This confusion seems to have arisen from a misunderstanding of
the Virgilian epitaph which is found in most of the lives:
1 P. 69, lines 10-12 Br. 2 Pp. 51-52, verses 65-83 Br.

3 Cf. vita Noricensis, p. 55, line 54 Br.
4 The usual distich follows in the manuscript after
magistri. The elegiac metre does not suit the
context, so that not only the distich but the next ten verses were excluded by Reifferscheid.
5 Verses 76-87 and 80-81 Br. Have we not here
examples of school exercises on this seemingly fa-
vorite theme?
6 For the dependence of this life on that
by Donatus, see E. Diehl, Die Vitae Vergilianae und ihre
antiken Quellen (Bonn, 1911), p. 8 f.
7 P. 41, lines 47-48 Br.:
'qui erat in Calabria.'
8
Pp. 64-66 Br.; F. Vollmer (Sitz. Bay. Akad., 1908, p. 23) calls these vitae 'insular.'
338 Possible Sources of Mediaeval Conceptionsof Virgil
Mantua me genuit, Calabri raplere, tenet nunc
Parthenope: cecini pascua rura duces.
The mediaeval student would not be likely to associate the later province of
Calabria in the toe of the boot of Italy with the ancient Calabria, where the poet
died, either at Brundisium, according to the version of Donatus,' or at Tarentum
according to Servius.2
The rhetor Donatus and the grammatici Servius and Focas were teachers in
Rome.3 Philargyrius (=Flagrius), however, seems to have been associated in
some way with Milan.4 The writer of the first of the two lives ascribed to this
grammaticus places, as we have seen, the ludi magister in Calabria. The mistake
may have been made by a compiler, seemingly from the British Isles,5 who was
unacquainted with the geography of Italy.
Donatus overlooks Naples as one of the places where Virgil studied. Servius,
however, definitely states that Naples was one of the cities where he was edu-
cated.6 The so-called 'Italian' interpolators correct the former in a way that leaves
no doubt about their meaning. Donatus wrote: 'sed Vergilius a Cremona Medio-
lanum et inde post transiit in urbem.'7 The interpolators here substituted for the
last three words (transiit in urbem)the words Neapolim transiit.8He then proceeds
to relate how the poet studied at Naples Greek and Latin literature and moreover
devoted himself to the study of medicine and mathematics. After which we are
told: 'quibus rebus quom ante alios eruditior peritiorque esset se in urbem con-
tulit.'
We are further led to believe, according to the vita Monacensis,9 that Virgil
composed his Eclogues and Georgicsat Naples. The third vita Gudiana seems to
suggest that he wrote all his works there.10 We have, however, evidence from
Virgil's own works that he was at Naples when he composed some of his minor
poems and some, at least, of the Eclogues and Georgics.1lIf we accept the year
45 B.c.12as the terminus post quemfor Virgil's arrival at Naples, the poet was then
twenty-five years of age. He was no longer a 'student' in the strict modern sense
1 P. 8, lines 126-133. According to Donatus the poet suffered a stroke while visiting Megara in
Greece. This illness was aggravated by the voyage home. He was compelled to make a landing at
Brundisium and died there.
2 P. 72 Br. Servius makes Metapontum the scene of his illness and Tarentum of his death.
3 Teuffel, Gesch. d. roem. Lit. (6th ed.), sections 409; 431.1; 472.4.
4
Ibid., section 472.9. Cf. G. Funaioli, Esegesi Virgiliana antica (Milan, 1930), pp. 37-38.
6 Cf. F. Vollmer, loc. cit.
6 P. 68, line 6 Br.: 'nam et Cremonae et Mediolani et Neapoli studuit.'
7 P.
2, lines 23-24 Br. Donatus adds that the poet was rarely seen at Rome and that he lived in
retreat in Campania and Sicily. This was an Epicurean secessus according to N. W. De Witt, 'Virgil
at Naples' (Classical Philology, xvII, 1922), 104-110.
8 Cf. apparatus plenus, p. 21 Br. 9 P. 58, lines 69-72 Br.
10P. 64, line 8 Br.: 'in qua civitate
Partenope miro ordine carmina sua composuit.'
11Cf. Catalepton5(7), 8 ff.; 8(10); Geor. iv, 563 f. For a lucid treatment of this subject, see N.W.
De Witt, loc. cit. 12 See De Witt, ibid.
of the term. He must have already written some of his iuvenilia by that time.l
The real reason, it would seem, for his retirement to Naples was to accompany
a group, such as Quintilius Varus, Varius, and Tucca who wished to live there in
true Epicurean fashion among their friends.2 It was left for the later romancers
to think of his retirement in terms of medicine, mathematics, and astrology.
The legendary career of the school-master, or rather physical instructor,3
turned thief has heretofore, as far as I have observed, escaped notice.
The name Ballista must have exercised a certain magic over the earliest maker
of Virgilian legend. If he wished to consult his Isidore or his glossary, he would
have found there some definitions of the word. He could have read in Isidore that
'ballista' is connected with the Greek word 3a\XXELv and that it is a 'genus tormenti
ab emittendo iacula dicta.'4 Elsewhere the encyclopedist identifies 'ballista' as
missa et fundabulum.5The great glossary called Liber Glossarumbrings us nearer
to the mediaeval cross-bow: 'genus machinae unde excutiuntur sagittae.'6 The
early use of the cross-bow (balestra) in Italy is attested in a treaty of alliance be-
tween Genoa and Alexandria, February 21, 1181.7
We have seen that many of the writers of Virgilian vitae assume that the poet
spent some of his student days in Naples. The most authoritative lives - those
of Donatus and Servius - quote the distich on the robber as an early effort.
Donatus states definitely that the poet wrote it while still a boy ('puer adhuc').8
Once the connection was assumed between any physical-instructor turned thief
and Virgil's own teacher, then it would have been easy for a Neapolitan enthusiast
to place Ballista and his burial-place ('monte sub hoc') precisely near Mount
Vesuvius. The transitional phase of the legend is first noted in the metrical life
of Virgil by Focas, a grammaticuswho lived in Rome about the fifth century. The
later vita Noricensis - a mediaeval compilation of very slight value - has a faint
echo of Focas here.9 However neither in Focas nor in the vita Noricensis is there
anything which would lead us to assume that the writers of these lives thought of
Ballista as other than an early teacher of the poet in the period before he came
to Rome and Naples.
The next step in the tradition is found, - not in any Virgilian life as such, but
1 Scholars since Scaliger have attempted to emend the

reading of most of the manuscripts of the
life of Donatus at the place where is given the age of the poet when he wrote some of his minor poems.
Brummer's manuscripts vary between cum esset annorum xvI (xvII, xv). Diehl follows the first of
these readings. Brummer accepts Scaliger's emendation.
2 Cf. De Witt, ibid. 3 Cf. Diehl, op. cit., p. 13.
4 Isidore, Orig., xvIIT, 10.2. 6 Ibid., xiv, 6.44.
6 Glossaria Latina, vol. I, 'Glossarium Ansileubi sive Liber Glossarum,' ed. W. M.
Lindsay et al.
(Paris, 1926): BA 94.
7
Enciclopedia Italiana, vol. v (1930), 961. The Italian balestra, French arbalete and Spanish
ballesta are derived from the Latin balista. Cf. Lynn White, Jr. SPECULUM, xv (1940), 147.
8 P. 4, line 51 Br.
9 P. 55, line 54 Br.: 'eum erudivit Balista cives'
(sic); Focas, verse 65 f. Br. Cf. K. Wieser, Der
Zusammenhangder Vergilviten (1926), p. 46.
in the life of Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, written by her chaplain, Donizione.I

There is reference in this work to a mons Ballista near Mantua.2 This should not
occasion any surprise, for it would be natural to interpret the phrase 'monte sub
hoc' - which Donizione cites - to mean the mountain to which the buried rob-
ber gave his name. There is nothing fantastic in Donizione's interpretation of the
Virgilian distich. He merely assumed - without warrant, to be sure - that there
was a mount Ballista near the poet's birth-place. The good chaplain is logical
enough in thinking of Ballista as a resident of Mantua - and not, as later makers
of legend seemed to fancy, a Neapolitan.
The world of scholarship owes a great debt to students of mediaeval legends of
Virgil like Domenico Comparetti3 and more recently to Professor Spargo,4whose
chronological summary of the various legends has enabled me to follow up the
later ramifications of this particular Ballista story.
The first writer to give vogue to this legend in its Neapolitan dress, if I am right,
is Conrad of Querfurt, Bishop of Hildesheim, in a letter to the prior of a monastery
in that city.5 This letter was addressed to the prior from Sicily in the year 1194.
Amongst other opera mirifica attributed to Virgil at Naples was a figure of bronze
holding a stretched bow ('balistam tensam') and pointed arrow, by which he held
Mount Vesuvius in check. This is an important fact, it seems to me. The first
writer to mention this Neapolitan legend makes use of the word balista in refer-
ence to the bow of this legendary aereus homo. The rest of the story concerns a
rustic who, wondering at the fact that this arrow never left its place, shot the
arrow and hit the mountain opposite - which happened to be Mount Vesuvius.6
This mount, according to the story, belched forth, as a result of this mishap, fire
and ashes at irregular intervals. Formerly, we are told, the eruption took place
within a period of ten years.
The next step in our attempt to show a connection between Virgil's putative
instructor turned robber and the legend of the archer is furnished by a con-
temporary of Bishop Conrad, Gervasius of Tilbury, a town in Essex, England.
Gervasius lived at one time at Nola near Naples, where incidentally Virgil once
had a residence.
In that part of his Otia Imperialia (dated ca 1211) which deals with Virgilian
legends7 Gervasius transmutes Bishop Conrad's bronze archer into the image of a
trumpeter which, facing Mount Vesuvius, controls the winds in the neighborhood
1 Cf. F. Ermini, 'La memoria di Vergilio e l'altercatio tra Canossa e Mantova nel poema di Donizi-
one,' Studi Medievali, v, 189.
2 There was a mountain named Ballista in ancient
Liguria; see Diehl, op. cit., p. 13, where there is
a note on this distich. Cf. Livy, xxxix, 2.6; XLI, 41.2.
3 See note 1, p. 336. 4 See note 2, p. 336.
5 Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica (Scriptores xxI, 1869), 192-196.
6 The mons Veseus of Conrad (op. cit., p. 196) is of course Mt Vesuvius. There was a mons Vesaevus
in Liguria. Servius on Geor. II, 224 (vicina Vesaevo ora iugo) tells us that it was sub Alpibus.
r Edited by F. Liebrecht, Der Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Imperialia in einer Auswahl neu heraus-
gegeben(Hannover, 1858), pp. 16-17,
by its marvelous bronze trumpet.' That this is but a variation of the original
Ballista legend is substantiated by the name which Gervasius gives to the region
around Vesuvius. He calls it terra Laboris.2Aside from the fact that this region in
recent times has been called terradi lavoro, there exists real documentary evidence
which seems to indicate that the legend of the bronze archer-trumpeter stems di-
rectly from the Virgilian distich on Ballista.
In Brummer's edition of the vitae Vergilianae the readings of two manuscripts
now at Munich are reported for the life by Servius.3 The second verse of the
distich,
nocte die tutum carpeviator iter,
has the following gloss above iter in both codices: laboris. Now the provenience of
these two documents is known. One of these (Monacensis 6394, saec. xi) was
formerly in the library of St Corbinianus in the diocese of Freising in Bavaria.
The other (Monacensis 18059, dated about 1030) once belonged to the monastery
of Tegernsee in the same diocese.4 These important manuscripts of the com-
mentary of Servius on Virgil belong to a family of codices which is associated in
part with monastic centres in Northern Italy.5 These facts about the provenience
of the Munich manuscripts are given here for any possible connection they may
have had with either Conrad or with Gervasius or both. The former was bishop
of Wtirzburg in Bavaria before he became bishop of Hildesheim in the northern
part of Germany. The Virgilian part of Gervasius' Otia Imperialia is dated not
earlier than 1211.6 In the last decade of the twelfth century when Conrad wrote
the letter recording the wonders of Naples, Gervasius was apparently traveling
in southern Italy and Sicily.7 It is not impossible that two men of such prominence
may have met at this time and exchanged notes on Virgilian legend.
Opportunely enough in support of the hypothesis presented in this paper there
is extant another little Virgilian legend related too by Gervasius. It is entitles:
'De rupe incisa quae nullas admittit insidias.'8
1 It wouldbe idle to attemptto accountfor Gervasius'variationfromthe versionof Conrad.How-

ever a bronze representation of an archer might have been mistaken for a trumpeter (with a curved
trumpet). See fig., p. 75, of a Babylonian Centaur (sign of Sagittarius) in J. de Vreese, S.J., Petron 39
und die Astrologie (Amsterdam, 1927), p. 64. Sagittarius is the sign associated with robbers, ibid.,
p. 80 f. There is astrological lore in the Virgilian legends; cf. Spargo, p. 33, for the Centaur Chiron,
who was identified with Sagittarius: 'His [Virgil's]magic art was acquired from a book which he found
beneath Chiron's head.'
2 Spargo, op. cit., p. 17, says of the volcano overlooking terra Laboris: 'Vesuvius, no doubt.' He
gives no references at this point. 3 P. 69, line 12.
4 See my descriptions in Harrard Studies in Classical Philology, xLv (1934), 195 and 198.
5 Ibid., 190 f.
6 Cf, Spargo, p. 16; Petit Radel, Histoire litteraire de la France, xvII, 104.
7 Cf. Spargo, ibid.; Comparetti (Engl. tr., p. 259, n. 2) points out that 'several of Gervasius'
reminiscences belong to an earlier period.'

8 Liebrecht,
op. cit., p. 17; cf. Spargo, pp. 17-18. Comparetti, p. 262, refers this incident to a cave
at Puteoli near the traditional site of Virgil's tomb.
In the same vicinity (i.e., as that of the hortus Virgilianus) there is a mountain
we are told by Gervasius, of marvelous virtue, hollow like a subterranean grotto.
By his mathematical art Virgil had contrived to build an opening through the
rock so that no one could by fraud or guile do injury to another in the dark pas-
sages of the mountain. This is strangely reminiscent of the pentameter verse in
the distich on Ballista. The mountain - presumably not Vesuvius, but the so-
called Monte Vergine or Vergiliano1- has been made safe from robbers. Nothing
of the archer here or even, it would seem, of Vesuvius, but the story is under-
standable, if we recall the youthful effort of the poet:
Beneath a mount of piled stones
Here lies the thief Ballista'sbones:
Now either by night or else by day
Go, traveler,safe upon thy way.
Horace had his plagosus Orbilius. To Virgil tradition seems to have given a
Ballista mirificus who, among his other accomplishments, was somewhat of a
highwayman. The inscription composed by the poet while still a boy itself pos-
sessed a certain magical quality. By its power Ballista, the erstwhile instructor
turned robber, seems to have survived -'quantum mutatus ab illo' - in the
wonder-working bronze archer of mediaeval legend.2
In regard to the subject of the survival of the legends first set down in writing
by Gervasius and Conrad, it is worthy of note that only one work, - written
about 1326 - duplicates in part the story as recorded by Gervasius. This is the
Cronica di Partenope. In one of the legends related in this anonymous work a
copper statue with trumpet prevents winds from spoiling fruit (Spargo, p. 63).
The little episode in Gervasius of the road through the rocks recurs in three later
works. The names of the authors of these (Benvenuto da Imola, Petrarch, and
Felix Hemmerlin) suggest that Gervasius may himself have been responsible for
the dissemination of this story with its literary antecedents in Virgil's lines on
Ballista, for it seems to have survived in learned circles only.
Conrad's archer has had a more interesting history in later collections. At
least six works (English and French) deal with this theme, with, however, signifi-
cant modifications (Spargo, pp. 60-68). Instead of Mount Vesuvius we find either
an ever-burning lamp or fire as the object of the archer's threat. This wide-spread
interpretation from Conrad's tale of the archer and Mount Vesuvius might lead
one to suspect that the twelfth-century writer substituted the volcanic mountain
for the ever-burning lamp or fire of a possibly more popular original based on as-
trological lore (cf. above, p. 340, n. 7). Scorpio, the largest (embracing two signs)
and brightest constellation in the Zodiac (cf. de Vreese, op. cit., p. 143) was, ac-
cording to Focas (vita Vergilii, verse 45) the birth sign of Virgil. The sign of Sagit-
tarius which follows immediately is represented as directing an arrow at Scorpio
1 Cf. Spargo, pp. 287-288; Comparetti, p. 262.
2 Comparetti's over-emphasis on the influence of
popular tradition on Virgilian legend has under-
gone modification in the hands of recent critics. G. Pasquali, for instance, in his introduction to a new
and revised edition of Comparetti's well-known work (p. xxiii) maintains that many of the legends are
the inventions of English and German clerics of the twelfth century.
Possible Sources of Mediaeval Conceptions of Virgil 343
(cf. de Vreese, fig. opp. p. 149). Gervasius and Conrad seem then to have given
currency to a literary tradition of an archer and Vesuvius based directly perhaps
on the Virgilian distich on Ballista. The use of the word ballista for the bow of the
archer may have had its basis on these two verses. The occurrence of the phrase
monte sub hoc may have helped towards locating in the mind of the author or
compiler the scene of the legend at Mt Vesuvius. Side by side with that version
- or possibly antecedent to it - there appears to have been a similar legend,
based, however, not on any literary source, but on astrological fantasy. This
subject is liable to many pitfalls, but we should recall nevertheless that the so-
called 'Italian' interpolators in the life of Virgil by Donatus connect Virgil's
coming to Naples with his interest in mathematics. We are on safer grounds,
however, when we suggest the hypothesis that the gloss laboris on the word iter
in two manuscripts of the eleventh century which contain the distich on Ballista
helps very well in explaining the location - and hence the source - of the legend
of the archer-trumpeter as it is related by Conrad and Gervasius.
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY.
Imperial Diplomas for Menaggio and Comacina

Author(s): Charles Edwin Odegaard
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:01
Speculum.
IMPERIAL DIPLOMAS FOR MENAGGIO
AND COMACINA
BY CHARLESEDWIN ODEGAARD
IN 1921 the University of Illinois purchased the large library which Count An-
tonio Cavagna Sangiuliana di Gualdana (1843-1913) of Pavia, Italy, had built up
as a consequence of his interest in local Italian history and related subjects.'
Among the papers in this collection there is an original diploma issued by the
emperor Henry v in the year 1116 for the benefit of the inhabitants of Menaggio,
which lies on the western shore of Lake Como, and of Comacina, the island
which lies in Lake Como not far from Menaggio.2 The text of this diploma3 indi-
cates that it is merely a confirmation by Henry v of the privileges granted these
same communities by his predecessors, kings and emperors. These privileges are
as follows: they shall not be called to the army, they shall not be called upon for
hospitality, they shall not pay tolls, land or port taxes, nor a tithe on any lands
of the empire; no tithe shall be demanded of these men by the city of Chur.4They
shall not be required to attend a placitum except for the general placitum held at
Milan three times a year. Furthermore, no bishop, duke, marquis, count, or vis-
count and no one, great or small, of the realm is to disturb or molest these free
islanders and inhabitants of Menaggio or to deprive them of their possessions
or to lay hands upon their persons without legal judgment. Anyone who does so
will have to pay a thousand pounds of gold, half to the royal treasury and half to
the islanders and men of Menaggio.
This same series of privileges for Comacina and Menaggio appears in a diploma
ostensibly issued by Otto I at Como on August 28, 962. This diploma as well as
that of 1116 have been known hitherto only through their publication in the late
1 This important collection has been
briefly described by Miss Meta Maria Sexton, 'The Cavagna
Library at the University of Illinois,' The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, xIx (1925),
66-72. 2 This diploma is catalogued in the Cavagna Collection as Cav.53.7.
3 The text is printed below.
4 Was this a mistake made by the scribe? He wrote Curiensembut he might have meant Cominen-
sem, Como the neighboring city whose power the inhabitants of Menaggio and the island had reason
to fear. In 1169 the town on the island was attacked by the men of Como; of nine churches on the
island all but one were destroyed and the inhabitants of the island abandoned it for a refuge in the
territory of Milan; W. F. Butler, The LombardCommunes(London, 1906), p. 140. In the ten years' war
which began in 1118 between Milan and Como, Menaggio and Comacina as well as other towns near
Como cast their lot with Milan to escape the domination of their too powerful neighbor; Butler, op.
cit., pp. 84-91. Giuseppe Rovelli, Storia di Como, i (Milan, 1794), 119, lists the privileges granted in
this diploma, pointing out the immunity from the various taxes 'e decima, nominatamente da quella,
che i sopraccennati terrieri ed isolani pagavano in Coira.' Though he has translated the Curiensemas
Coira or Chur without comment, he adds, op. cit., ii, 120, that the people of Menaggio and Comacina
probably desired this confirmation of 1116 in order to obtain 'un titolo, con cui scansare il pagamento
di simili tributi alla repubblica Comasca.' The same reason for this renewal is given by Cesare Cantiu,
Storia della citta e della diocesi di Como, i (rev. ed., Firenze, 1856), 200. It is difficult to understand
why these men should be freed from payment to distant Chur, whereas exemption from Coma's
exactions might be a highly desired privilege. The fact that the scribe who wrote this diploma made
another probable error makes it all the easier to believe that Curiensem was an error for Cominensem;
see note 3, p. 349.
344
Imperial Diplomas for Menaggio and Comacina 345
eighteenth century by Rovellil who declared that he had seen the originals then
in the possession of his fellow citizen, Carlo Ciceri of Como.2 In the Monumenta
GermaniaeHistorica edition of the diplomas of Otto i, Ottenthal gives the text of
the diploma of 962 (to which I shall refer henceforth as DO. 246) on the basis of
Rovelli's edition, remarking that the actual diplomas of 962 and 1116 are both
lost.3 Although that of 1116 now proves to be in the Cavagna Collection at the
University of Illinois Library, there is no trace in this collection of its older col-
league with which it was once associated in the possession of Carlo Ciceri.
It is a pity that this partnership has been broken for while there has been no
disposition to question the authenticity of Henry v's diploma of 1116,4 DO. 246
has of late been regarded with suspicion.5 That the various reasons which have
been presented to justify this suspicion are insufficient, I shall endeavor to show.
DO. 246 was first held suspect in all probability because it grants generous
privileges in the year 962 not only to the inhabitants of Menaggio but also to the
islanders of Comacina. It happens that at this very time Otto was encountering
considerable resistance in the lake district of northern Italy where Berengar, his
indomitable wife, Willa, and their sons had established a number of strongholds.
One of these was placed on the island of Comacina.6 It was only in 964 that the
force defending the latter under the leadership of a certain Atto was forced to
yield to the attack led by Waldo, bishop of Como, who destroyed the fortifica-
tions.7 How then, ask KSpke-Dimmler, could Otto have issued a generous charter
to the inhabitants of the island in 962 when the island had not yet been sur-
rendered to him? It is incredible that he could have done so; therefore, the pres-
ence of the insula Cumana in the charter must betoken forgery.8This kind of argu-
1 2
Rovelli, op. cit., ii, 343, No. 2; 345, No. 5. Ibid., I, p. 70, n. 3; p. 119, n. 3.
3 Diplomatum Regum et Imperatorum Germaniae, I (Hannover, 1879-1884; Monumenta Germaniae
Historica series), 353.
4 No
questions raised concerning its authenticity in Dipl. Reg. et Imp. Germ., T, 353; Rudolf Kopke
and Ernst Diimmler, Kaiser Ottoder Grosse (Leipzig, 1876), p. 342, n. 1; Gerold Meyer von Knonau,
Jahrbiicherdes deutschenReiches unter Heinrich IV. und Heinrich V., vni (Leipzig, 1909), 15, n. 13;
Rovelli, op. cit., Ti, 119-120; Cantfi, op. cit., I, 200; K. F. Stumpf-Brentano, Die Reichskanzlervornehm-
lich des X., XI., und XII. Jahrhunderts, ii, Die Kaiserurkunden des X., XI., und XII. Jahrhunderts
(Innsbruck, 1865-1883), 266 where this diploma is his No. 3149.
6 Its authenticity was not questioned by Rovelli who says that he saw the original, op. cit., In,
70-71; or by Cantuf,op. cit., I, 122, 132-133, who cites Rovelli's edition. It was held to be suspect by
Giulio Porro-Lambertenghi in Codex Diplomaticus Langobardiae (Augustae Taurinorum, 1873; vol.
xiII of Historiae Patriae Monumenta Edita lussu Regis Caroli Alberti), col. 1140, n. 1; by Kopke-
Diimmler, Otto, p. 342, n. 1; by Karl Foltz, 'Die Siegel der deutschen Konige und Kaiser aus dem
saichsischen Hause 911-1024,' Neues Archiv der Gesellschaftfiir iiltere deutsche Geschichtskunde,II
(1878), 24, n. 2; by Ottenthal in Dipl. Reg. et Imp. Germ., I, 353, and by Meyer von Knonau, Jahr-
bucher... unter Heinrich IV. und Heinrich V., vn, 15, n. 13.K. F. Stumpf-Brentano, who thought this
diploma an original in Die WirzburgerImmunitdt-Urkunden des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts (Innsbruck,
1874-1876), I, 25, n. 32, raises a question as to its authenticity in the corrections appended to his
Die Reichskanzler,ii, 505, No. 315.
6 Kopke-Diimmler, op. cit., p. 340, and Ludo Moritz Hartmann, GeschichteItaliens im Mittelalter,
iv, pt. i (Gotha, 1915), 4-5. 7 Kopke-Diimmler, op. cit., p. 368; Hartmann, op. cit., Iv, pt. T, 5.
8 Kopke-Diimmler, Otto,p. 342, n. 1. The same reason for suspecting this diploma had already been
advanced three years earlier by Porro-Lambertenghi in CodexDiplomaticus Langobardiae,col. 1140, n. 1.

346 Imperial Diplomas for Menaggio and Comacina
ment by itself is not conclusive. It might equally well be argued that Otto, still
confronted by considerable resistance in August, 962, endeavored by a generous
grant to produce allies among the inhabitants of an island which happened to
possess fortifications held by men hostile to him. After the cessation of hostilities
in 964 and the surrender of the fortification to the king's men there was perhaps
less reason for generosity on Otto's part; it would no longer be so necessary to
procure the support of the islanders. Since either of these interpretations seems
equally possible, the authenticity of the Ottonian diploma cannot be denied on
these grounds.1 More positive evidence must be adduced.
Such evidence might appear to have been found by Foltz who in his essay on
the use of seals by the Saxon kings quotes Rovelli as saying concerning the di-
ploma which Ciceri had shown him, 'Extant foramina sigilli plumbei deperditi.'2
Since the lead seal had dropped out of use for a century and was not revived
again until 998 or perhaps 982,3 the marks of having had a lead seal might well
raise some question as to the authenticity of DO. 246. However, Rovelli has been
misquoted, for he says nothing about a lead seal. He says only that there is a hole
for a seal which is now lacking.4There is no basis, then, for insisting that the docu-
ment seen by Rovelli bore the traces of a lead seal. The fact that Rovelli speaks of
a hole for a seal suggests rather that a wax seal was used, a quite appropriate
sealing for this period. Foltz's reason for suspecting the authenticity of DO. 246
is thus without foundation.5
Rovelli's accuracy as regards the diploma of 1116 has been borne out by com-
parison with the extant original. It does not seem unreasonable to put faith in
him when he speaks of the diploma of 962 as an original.6Even Ottenthal, who is
disposed to look with suspicion on DO. 246, is sufficiently impressed by it to sug-
gest that it is not cut out of whole cloth. Accordingly he does not place it among
the complete forgeries. It is rather, he says, a falsification of a diploma granted
by Otto I, not surely to Comacina (for Ottenthal follows Kbpke-Dimmler in
thinking that Otto could not have granted such generous privileges to the island
in 962), but rather to Menaggio alone. Ottenthal admits that the protocol and
eschatocol of DO. 246 appear genuine, drawn, he suggests, from a presumed
original for Menaggio. The phrase dei nutu, however, is regarded as suspect.7 This
suspicion seems somewhat captious in view of the fact that the diplomas of 0 tto i
1 Rovelli, op. cit., ii, 70-71,

suggests that the islanders had already submitted to Otto by Aug. 25,
962, the date of DO. 246, not those actually defending the fortress which surrendered in 964, but the
other inhabitants of the district. The same idea is repeated in Cantfi, op. cit., I, 122.
2 Foltz, Neues 3 Ibid., II, 24-25.
Archiv, iii, 24, n. Q.
4
Rovelli, Storia di Como, II, 344: 'Vi e il forame del sigillo che manca.' His statement concerning
the sealing of the diploma of 1116 proves to be accurate when compared with the original now in the
Cavagna Collection on which a wax seal must have been placed; ibid., II, 346: 'Vi e il segno dell'
Imperatore, ed il forame del sigillo appostovi, ed ora mancante.'
6 Foltz was followed in his error by Ottenthal in Dipl. Reg. et Imp. Germ., I, 353.
6 Ottenthal in
Dipl. Reg. et Imp. Germ., I, 353, speaks of Rovelli as using an alleged original (ange-
blichemOriginal) in the possession of Ciceri.
7 Marked by Ottenthal as being within the falsified section; ibid., I, 353; Kopke-Diimmler, op. cit.,
p. 342, n. 1.
reveal considerable variation in the phrases used to designate God's favoring

grace toward the king-emperor,' and that the phrases summe divinitatis nutu
disponente, divino nutu, divini nutus providentia, and dei nutu appear in the
genuine diplomas.2
Furthermore, Ottenthal thinks that the legal content of DO. 246 does not seem
consonant with tenth-century relationships. Whence comes this content? Since
the 'falsified' diploma of 962 (DO. 246) shows in its list of privileges marked
similarity with the diploma of 1116, this list of privileges must come from the
latter. Thus, according to Ottenthal, DO. 246 becomes a falsification based upon
two genuine diplomas; from the assumed diploma for Menaggio issued in 962 it
supposedly derived the protocol and eschatocol, the intervention passage,3 and
the lighter fine put upon anyone who violated the privileges given by Otto.4 From
the diploma of 1116 it derived the 'suspicious' list of privileges. Ottenthal's
rather elaborate dissection of DO. 246 coupled with his theory as to the origin of
the several parts is hardly necessary in view of what has already been said, if the
legal content of Rovelli's dipoma can be shown to be not so incompatible after
all with tenth-century conditions. Even Ottenthal is not too firm in denying this
compatibility.5 Most of the specific privileges can be found granted in other
diplomas issued by Otto;6 one diploma repeats almost verbatim a similar list of
privileges:7 exemption from the host, from hospitality for the army, from tolls
(curatura),8from land and port taxes, from the tithe, and from the obligation of
1 For example, the following diplomas of Otto I picked at random, Dipl. Reg. et Imp. Germ., I, No
40: 'divina oppitulante clementia'; No. 35: 'divina gracia'; No. 33: 'dei gratia'; No. 32: 'divina
favente clementia'; No. 344: 'superno intuitu'; No. 390: 'dei miseratione'; No. 428, which does away
entirely with any such phrase. 2 Ibid., i, numbers 6,355, 417, and 424.
3 Adelaide, the
empress, requests Otto to take the men of Menaggio and Comacina into his pro-
tection and to confirm to them certain privileges; Otto proceeds to do so. See the text of the diploma
given below.
4
Anyone who violates the privilege will have to pay one hundred pounds of gold; in the confirmation
of the year 1116, this amount has been increased to a thousand pounds of gold.
6 He says, Dipl. Reg. et Imp. Germ., i, 353, 'Nur die zwei Schlussformeln weisen bestimmt auf
Benutzung einer echten Vorlage hin; allenfalls auch noch einige Worte des Contextes, die sich aber im
Abdrucke nicht fiiglich hervorheben lassen.'
6 Numerous examples of teloneum, ripaticum, decimatio cited under these words in word index;
Dipl. Reg. et Imp. Germ.,I, 721-736. A composition of one hundred pounds of gold was a very common
penalty in Otto's diplomas; see ibid., under componere.Exemption from the host under various con-
ditions occurs in ibid., I, 62, 1. 13; 425, 1. 13. Terraticumdoes not appear in any other diploma pub-
lished in ibid. nor does arbergatinon sint.
7 This diploma has not been noted in the registers or collections of Otto I's diplomas; it was seen
by Gespare Rebuschini who described it as follows in his Storia del lago di Como (2nd ed., Bergamo,
1855), p. 62: 'Dopo tale fazione, deputatasi da'Pievesi solenne ambasceria ad Ottone, supplicandolo
perche confermasse loro la liberta, ne ottennero un ampio privilegio dato nella citta di Como nell'oc-
casione che per la vie del Lario e della Rezia recavasi in Germania, col quale, per la singolare loro
fedelta verso l'imperatore, erano fatti esenti in perpetuo dalla milizia, dall'albergar soldati, da ogni
gabella di curatura, terratico, ripatico e decima, e dall'obbligo d'intervenire col mezzo de'loro deputati
ai placiti, ossia assemblee solite tenersi da'regj ministri, eccettuato il placito generale che congregavasi
in determinati tempi nella citta di Milano.'
8 This diploma reads like that of 1116, curaturamwhere DO. 246 of 962 reads teloneum; curaturam
appears in other diplomas of Otto i, see under index, Dipl. Reg. et Imp. Germ.,I, 725
348 Imperial Diplomas for Menaggio and Comacmna
attending placita except for the generale placitum held at fixed times at Milan.
These privileges were granted on December 29, 9641 to the so-called Tre-Pievi,
the three districts around Dongo, Gravedona, and Sorico,2 near neighbors of
Menaggio and Comacina. This independent evidence of the granting at almost
the same time of a very similar list of privileges to neighboring communities re-
moves any ground for suspecting DO. 246 because of its legal content.
In view of the considerations presented here there seems little basis for doubt-
ing the authenticity of DO. 246. That there must have been an original diploma
which provided at least the protocol and eschatocol is admitted. The reasons
given for suspecting Rovelli's version rest upon misstatement as in the case of
the seal, upon assertions of anachronism with regard to particular phrases such as
dei nutu which do not appear well founded, or upon an assumption with regard to
the inclusion of Comacina which offers no positive proof whatever of falsification.
The discovery of another diploma granting the same privileges to neighboring
communities at almost the same time confirms the impression of authenticity of
Rovelli's version as does the fact that the diploma of 1116 which resembles DO.
246 so closely declares itself to be a confirmation of privileges granted by earlier
kings and emperors. It is a reasonable presumption then that Henry v's chancery
clerk prepared the confirmation of 1116 by copying either DO. 246, an authentic
diploma of Otto I, or a later confirmation of the same.3
1 Rebuschini, op. cit., p. 62, n. 3, gives the dating as follows: 'dat. Cumis, anno Dominicae in-
carnationis 965, imperii vero piissimi Ottonis I, quarto Kal. Januar.' With the new year beginning at
Christmas, this would compare with our December 29, 964. The anno imperii although given as I
should read III; this dating, which we shall assume to be a correct reading by Rebuschini and not a
mistake made by him, need not occasion surprise. Otto's notaries were making some curious mis-
takes in both regnal and imperial years at this very time; see Th. Sickel, 'Beitrage zur Diplomatik
vIII, Die Datirung der Diplome Otto I,' Sitzungsberichteder philosophisch-historischenClasse der
kaiserlichenAkademie der Wissenschaften(Wien), ci (1882), 161-162. The dating fits Otto's itinerary;
Kopke-Diimmler, Otto der Grosse, pp. 368-369. He spent Christmas at Pavia. On December 29 he
could be at Como fifty miles from Pavia where the diploma cited by Rebuschini was issued. Since Otto
reached Chur on January 13, one might wonder why he doubled 29 miles back from Como to Milan
where he issued a diploma on January 3. Whatever the reason might be for this roundabout route,
it is not impossible for Otto to have covered it. There seems accordingly no good reason to doubt the
authenticity of this diploma, the 'original' of which Rebuschini claimed was in the possession of the
Ciceri family in Como. The fact that it grants privileges to the Tre-Pievi at about the same time that
neighboring Menaggio and Comacina allegedly received similar privileges strengthens the case for the
authenticity of both diplomas; that two diplomas for different but neighboring beneficiaries should
reveal similar legal content is not surprising.
2 Note that the three communities are linked
together in this diploma as they were indeed for
much of their history so that they came to be called 'le Tre-Pievi.' Porro-Lambertenghi in Codex
Diplomaticus Langobardiae,col. 1140, n. 1, was disturbed by the fact that DO. 246 granted privileges
to two communities widely separated; but Menaggio is not over five miles from Comacina as the
crow flies whereas Dongo is farther yet from Sorico. Furthermore, Menaggio and Comacina are linked
together in the authentic diploma of 1116. This reason for suspecting DO. 246 is accordingly of little
weight. For the geographical relationship of these places see the map of the Lake Como district in
Karl Baedeker's handbook for NorthernItaly.
3 Rovelli, Storia di Como, ii, 119-120, thinks, indeed, that the diploma of 1116, whose genuineness
is not open to question, is somewhat out of joint with the times, the reason being that Henry v's
clerk merely recopied the provisions of an earlier diploma, a very common procedure which leads to
The full text of Henry v's diploma of 1116 is printed below on the basis of a
rereading of the original. For purposes of comparison it is preceded by DO. 246,
the text of which is derived, of course, from Rovelli.1
I
(DO. 246)
In nomine sancte et individue trinitatis. Otto dei nutu imperator augustus. Si ceterorum
nostrorum fidelium petitionibus adsensum prebemus, multo equius dilecte coniugis nostre
precibus aures inclinare debemus. Noverint itaque omnes sancte dei ecclesie nostrique
fideles presentes scilicet atque futuri, Adelegidem imperatricem augustam coniugem nos-
tram nostram exorasse clemenciam, quatenus eius pro amore homines habitantes in insula
Cumana et in loco qui dicitur Menasie reciperemus sub nostre defensionis mundburdo et
nostra preceptali auctoritate confirmaremus et corroboraremus quemadmodum a deces-
soribus nostris regibus et a nobis ipsis ante imperii unctionem abuerunt, scilicet ut hostem
non facerent, arbergati non essent, curaturam terraticum aut ripaticum aut decimacionem
in nostro regno [non] darent nec ad placitum irent nisi tribus vicibus in anno ad Medi-
olanum ad generale placitum. Considerantes itaque iuxtam prefate coniugis nostre Ade-
legide petitionem prefatos insulanos et habitatores Menasie sub nostram defensionem
recipimus et per hanc presentem paginam concedimus eis, ut in hostem non pergant,
arbergati non sint, teloneum ripaticum terraticum decimacionem in regno Italico non
dent, ad placitum non eant nisi tribus vicibus in anno ad Mediolanum. Precipientes itaque
iubemus ut hanc nostram iussionem nemo violare presumat, quod si fecerit, sciat se com-
positurum auri optimi libras centum, medietatem camere nostre et medietatem prefatis
hominibus. Hoc autem ut verius credatur diligenciusque ab omnibus observetur, presen-
tem paginam scribere et sigillo imperii nostri inferius eam sigillare precepimus.
Signum serenissimi imperatoris Ottonis.
Liutgerius cancellarius advicem Widonis episcopi et archicancellarii recognovi.
Data viii. kal. septembris anno dominice incarnationis DCCCCLXII, imperii vero piis-
simi Ottonis I, indictione v; actum Cumis; feliciter.
II
In nomine sancte et individue tr(ini)tatis.2 Heinricus divina favente clementia quartus
Romanorum imperator augustus. Omnium dei nostrique fidelium presentium scilicet et
futurorum noverit universitas, qualiter nos pro omnipotentis dei amore homines habitantes
in insula Cumana et in loco qui dicitur Menaxi sub nostre defensionis mundiburdio re-
cipimus et nostra preceptali pagina confirmavimus quem admodum a predecessoribus
nostris regibus vel imperatoribus eis concessum et preceptali auctoritate largitum atque
corroboratum est, scilicet ut hostem non faciant, aribergati non fiant, curaturam, terrati-
cum, rivadigum aut decimationem in qualibet parte nj3 terrarum nostri imperii non dent
nec apud Curiensem civitatem predicta decimatio a predictis hominibus deinceps exiga-
tur; ad placitum non eant nisi tribus vicibus in anno ad generale placitum Mediolani. Pre-
the resultthat the laterconfirmations
of diplomasdo not alwaysreflectthe realstatusof thingsin their
ownday.
1 Rovelli, Storia di Como, II, 343; Codex
Diplomaticus Langobardiae, col. 1140; DO. 246 of Dipl.
Reg. et Imp. Germ.,I, 353.
2Severalpartsof the
original,Cav. 53.7 of the Universityof IllinoisLibraryhave becomedefaced
since Rovelli'stime; they are surroundedwith parentheses.They have been filledin by referenceto
Rovelli, op. cit., I, 345.
3The originalreads clearly at this point 'nj' with no indicationsof abbreviation.Rovelli tran-
scribed this as 'nostrarum': in qualibetparte nostrarumterrarumnostri imperii. This redundancy seems
strange.Cav. 29.1, first page, is a copy (probablyof the last century)of this diploma;it readsthe
nj' correctlyand suggests:'Nj che e la la partedi nri lasciatoin sospeso.'The scribeprobablystarted
to write nri stopped,wrote terrarum,and then nri in its properplace.
350 Imperial Diplomas for Menaggio and Comacina
cipientes itaque iubemus ut nullus episcopus, dux, marchio, comes, vicecomes, nullaque
regni nostri magna parvaque persona predictos homines insulanos (et) habitatores de
Menasi francos videlicet dicimus inquietare, molestare, de suis prediis disvestire, aut in
eorum personas manus mittere sine legali iudicio presumat. Quod qui f(e)cerit sciat se
compositurum auri optimi libras mille, medietatem camere nostre et medietatem predictis
insulanis et habitatoribus Menaxi. Quod ut verius credatur, hanc paginam manu propria
corroborantes sigillari precepimus.
Signum domini Heinrici quarti (Romanorum) imperatoris invictissimi.
Burcardus cancellarius et episcopus Monasteriensis recognovit.
Hoc preceptum factum est rogatu et petitione Jordanis fidelis nostri et Widonis vice-
comitis et Lanfranci filii Oddonis iudicis de insula et Nigriboni.
Data indictione VIII anno dominice incarnationis millesimo cxvI, regnante Heinrico
quinto rege Romanorum, anno xi, imperante vi; actum est Horenzull in Xristo feliciter,
amen.
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

1 Horenzul must be a corruption for the name of a place near Lake Como; Stumpf-Brentano, Die
Reichskanzler,ii, 266, No. 3149; Meyer von Knonau, op. cit., vii, 15, n. 13.

Author(s): Neil R. Ker, E. A. Lowe, A. P. McKinlay
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:01
Speculum.
A NEW FRAGMENT OF ARATOR
IN THE BODLEIAN
BY NEIL R. KER, E. A. LOWE, AND A. P. McKINLAY
1. NOTE ON THE FIND
THE inner sides of the wooden boards of Bodleian MS. e Mus. 66 (SC 3655)1 show
offset writing from four pages of a manuscript of Arator De Actibus Apostolorum.
Parts of bk. I, lines 32-63, 85-122, 647-681, 684-724 are legible, when looked at
through a mirror. The pieces of manuscript which have left traces on the boards
consisted of two sheets laid sideways. That at the beginning had its upper margin
and that at the end its lower margin towards the spine. I call the upper half of
the offset on the front board p. 1 and the lower half p. i, and the upper half of
the offset on the back board p. 3 and the lower half p. 4, and use inverted commas
when referring to the pages of the manuscript from which the offsets are derived.
P. 1 contains lines 85-122, p. 2 lines 647-681, p. 3 lines 684-724 and p. 4 lines 32-
63. This sequence shows that the two sheets were adjacent, the one on the back
board lying outside the one on the front board, and that 'p. 1' followed immedi-
ately on 'p. 4,' and 'p. 3' immediately on 'p. 2,' i.e., 'p. 4' was a verso, 'p. 1' a
recto, 'p. 2' a verso and 'p. 3' a recto. In other words, the offsets are of two double
openings: the first consisting of 'pp. 4+1' and the second of 'pp. 2+3.' 29 lines
appear on pp. 1, 2, 30 lines on p. 3 and 95 lines on p. 4 where the writing is more
widely spaced. From the number of lines missing between p. 1 and p. 2 it is prob-
able that the quire to which the two sheets belonged was of at least 5 sheets (10
leaves) and that the three inner sheets (6 leaves) are missing.2
The offsets are of the central portion of each sheet, so that line-ends are pre-
served on pp. 2, 4, and line-beginnings on pp. 1, 3. About three-quarters of the
full width remains on p. 4, about two-thirds on pp. 1, 3, and rather less than half
on p. 2. Some lines at the foot of pp. 1, 2 and some lines at the head of pp. 3, 4
are covered by the overfold of the skin binding, which was raised for the purposes
of transcription and photography. The offset writing covered by the skin is
clearer than elsewhere. Extreme measurements are 176X100 mm. on p. 1, 180
X85 mm. on p. 2, 160X100 mm. on p. 3 and 160X120 mm. on p. 4. The space
separating p. 1 from p. 2 and p. 3 from p. 4 is about 40 mm. wide.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY.
2. NOTE ON THE SCRIPT

It is difficult to be precise and definite about the script of the Arator fragment'
discovered by Mr Neil Ker in the Bodleian. A photograph taken of an offset
1 The manuscript contains Beda In Cantica Canticorum,well written in an English hand of the first
half of s.xII, followed by Franco De Gratia Dei in a rougher and rather later hand. It was given to
the Bodleian by Alexander Fetherston, vicar of Wolverton, Bucks, in 1680. The binding is of white
leather over boards, s.xv.
2 The text on pp. 2, 3 is nearly continuous, but the text on p. 4 is separated from that on p. 1 by
2Q lines of verse. I am unable to explain the discrepancy.
351
352 A New Fragment of Arator in the Bodleian
which must be reversed in order to be read may distort the script to some extent.
Yet, even so, this much may be said without hesitation. The script is paleo-
graphically very interesting because it is a borderline type. It may be described
as half-uncial becoming minuscule, or as minuscule emerging from half-uncial.
It makes calligraphic use of the same material as we find in the marginalia of
some of our oldest Latin manuscripts, e.g. the Codex Bembinus of Terence in
capitalis rustica,l and the Fulda-Weingarten Fragments of the Prophets in uncial
of the fifth century2 with marginalia in tiny half-uncial which may be regarded
as the very precursors of the script of the Bodleian Arator. But if we ask what
texts, as opposed to marginalia, are written in similar script we find the closest
resemblance in the script of the palimpsest leaves of the Bobbio Missal.3 These
leaves may go back to the fifth century; they are certainly not more recent than
the sixth. The type we are discussing, therefore, has its roots in antiquity; it
goes back to the fifth century and even further. The Bodleian fragment is
definitely not so old as the Bobbio leaves; it can, however, safely be ascribed to
the seventh century. It has the characteristic ancient ligatures of li, ri, and the
numerous ligatures with e. Letter n has mostly the minuscule form, which is
also true of the script in the Bobbio Missal and the Terence marginalia; a and o
are frequently smaller than the neighboring letters; the tall stems are club-shaped.
The abbreviations are confined to the Nomina Sacra, and the veteran suspensions
b. and q. for bus and que. In spelling there is confusion of e and i, o and u, b and
u; but these are faults common to manuscripts of this period.
Where exactly our fragment originated it is impossible to say. I am inclined to
regard North Italy as most probable, but France is not to be excluded. It is
greatly to be hoped that a few actual leaves of this manuscript will some day be
recovered. They would help to fill a distinct gap in our paleographical material.
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY.
3. NOTE ON THE TEXT

The student of Arator, in looking over the text of our fragment - henceforth
designated as Bodl.3-will be thinking of the mooted readings.4 But first we
may mention the manuscripts involved in our discussion. They are:
1 Ms. Vatic. Lat. 3226. Facsimiles in
Zangemeister-Wattenbach, Exempla Codicum Latinorum
Litteris Majusculis Scriptorum (1876), pl. 8; Ehrle-Liebaert, Specimina Codicum Latinorum Vati-
canorum (1912), pl. 2 c; E. A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores, I (1934), pl. 12.
2 The membra
disjecta are in four different libraries: Darmstadt, Fulda, St Paul and Stuttgart.
Cf. L. Traube, Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen, i (1909), p. 240. Facsimile in Zangemeister-Watten-
bach, op. cit., pl. xxI.
8 Ms. Paris, Lat. 13246, fols. 296-300. Complete facsimile edition in Henry Bradshaw Society, vol.
LIII (1917).
4 The most convenient edition of Arator's text is that of H. Arntzen in Migne, Patrologiae Cursus
Completus, Series Latina, LXVIII, 45-252,
As Arntzen's work is of the year 1769 and is based upon a few mostly unimportant manuscripts,
a new edition would seem needful. L. Perugi, Aratore: De Actibus Apostolorum (Venice, 1909), mostly
used trivial manuscripts and was very careless. A. Huebner's Aratoris De Actibus ApostolorumCarmen
(Nissae, 1853), is not easily available.
PLATE I. Bodleianus E. Mus. 66 (S C 3655), front board, inside. Mirror vie
De Act. Ap., Lib. i, 85-122 (Ker's p. 1, upper half); 647-681 (Ker's p.
I cs
¢
-
*d
cz J
f,
; -o
^B
*_ B_1§
^ *
Go ^,
.; W
o;`
vlM
._*^,i
c§ -"
,
6: ^
COcn^
Q ^
~ ·
Eq F
A New Fragment of Arator in the Bodleian 353
1. X Group*
P.12Parisinus 12284, Scl Victoris, saec. ix (before 820 in the opinion of Professor F. M.
Carey).
P.9 Parisinus 9347, ScZRemigii, saec. Ix.
P.18Parisinus18554,Notre Dame, possiblyshowingthe influenceof Tours (in the opin-
ion of Professor E. K. Rand), saec. ix. med.
Amb.1 Ambrosianus C. 74 sup. Liber Scti Columbani de Bobio, saec. Ix-x (in the opinion
of Cuzzi).t
Carn. Carnotensis 70(45), Ex Bibliotheca Carnotensi, saec. Ix.
Voss.4VossianusQ. 86, from Fleury (in the opinionof ProfessorE. K. Rand), saec.Ix.
T. Cantabrigiensis (Trinitatis Collegii) B. 14, 3 (289 James), saec. Ix.
Brit.' Londinensis (British Museum), 11034, Additions, saec. IX.
There are many other manuscripts of Arator that may be considered as members
of the X group. But as Bodl.3 does not throw immediate light on their text, there
is no need of citing them here.
Besides our so-called X group, there may be another tradition represented by
manuscripts that generally agree in their differences from the X group. We shall
call these manuscripts the Y group.
2. Y Group
Aur.2 Aurelianensis 295 (248 bis), from Fleury, completed: by Vossianus F. 12, saec.
ix second half (saec. x, Catalogue).
P.4 Parisinus 8095, possibly from Fleury (Rand), saec. IX med. (Rand); saec. x (Cata-
logue).
Our fragment naturally throws no light on a number of significant readings,
since by far the larger part of the text cannot be made out. Among these are:
i, 45 nunc iam) nunc tam§ P.9 (first hand) Amb.1; i, 50 magos) P.12 Cam. Voss.4
(first hand) P.9 P.18 (first hand) T. Brit.' (first hand), magis Aur.2 P.4; i, 54
praelecta) P.12Cam. Voss.,4 praelata p.,9 prolata Amb.1; i, 61 fatiget) fatigat T.
(glossed fatiget); i, 90 terrae) terra P.12(first hand); i, 93 ore) orbe P.9 T., orbem
Aur.2 (first hand); i, 118 remeare) p.,12 recreare Aur.2; i, 681 lampadis) p.18
(gloss), oris cor Amb.1 P.18cor oris p.12 Cam. Voss.4 Aur.2P.4; i, 704 potior) potius
MSS.; i, 708 committere) p.12 Cam. Voss.,4 inmittere P.4, immittere Aur.2.
Fortunately, however, Mr. Ker's discovery has more than a negative signifi-
cance. There are several moot readings within the compass of his fragment that
find corroboration one way or another. They are: i, 50 praegressa) progressa
Voss.4 Cam. (progeressa?) p.12 (] gressall) T. P.18 Aur.2 Brit.1 P.4 Bodl.3 (progr
* Such
sigla as P.12come from Mr McKinlay'sclassificationof the manuscriptsto be used in his
proposededitionof Arator.
t E. Cuzzi,'I Tre CodiciAmbrosianidi Aratore,'RendicontidelRealeIstitutoLombardodi Scienzee
Lettere,series 2, LXIX(1930), vi-x, 1-17.
t Cf. A. P. McKinlay, 'Membra Disiecta of Manuscripts of Arator,' SPECULUM
XV (1940), 98.
§ This error,Dr Lowe suggests,may come froman archetypein CapitalisRustica.
1|For a discussionof this readingsee infra,p. 354.
[essa]); i, 61 excitet) P."2Cam. Voss.4 P.9 P.4 Bodl.3 (ex[cit]et), excitat Aur.2; i,
100 ferunt) ref p.12, serunt Carn. Voss.4 p.9 T. Amb.1 Aur.2 P.4 Bodl.3; i, 111
iaculatur) iaculantur P.12 Cam. Voss.4 T. Brit.' Aur.2 P.4 Bodl.3 ([iacu]lantur),
ioculantur Amb.1 P.9 (o>a, n dotted); i, 114 lavatur) P.12 Cam. Voss.4 p.9 T.
Brit.1 P.4 Bodl.3 (lava[tur]), lavantur Aur.2 P.18;i, 673 celebrare) P.12Cam. Voss.4
Bodl.3 ([c]e[l]ebr[are]), celerare Aur.2 (second hand) many late MSS.; i, 684
sonant) P.4, sonent Cam. Voss.4Amb.1 Aur.2Bodl.3 (sone[nt]), sonaent P.12;i, 690
meditatus) P.12Amb.1 T. Brit.' Bodl.3 ([me]ditat[u]s), metitus Aur.2 P.4, meditus
Carn. Voss.4 (1st hand).
Besides being useful for testing individual readings, our fragment may play a
part in helping to set up a critical apparatus.
There are particular agreements in error that suggest some relationship be-
tween our fragment and the oldest representative of the X group, P.'2 (Parisinus
12284). Among these we note i, 96 pretio) praetio P.'2 Bodl.3; i, 111 iaculantur
P.12Bodl.3 (see supra 11.3-4: here the manuscripts - first hand - read the plural,
although there is a shift to iaculatur in the second hand); i, 120 irradiat) inradiat
P.12 Bodl.3 (in [radiat]); i, 652 ales amica) alis amica Bodl.3, aliena mica P.'2.
There is an erasure between ena and mica showing that the scribe was not sure
of his text, but ena in P.12 is not certain. Other agreements are: i, 656 rostri)
rostris* P.12Bodl.3; i, 684 sonent P.12Bodl.3 (see supra e. 7); i, 692 comprobat)
conprobat P."2Bodl.3 (conp[r]obat); i, 709 amabitur) anabitur P.12 (ana not sure,
possibly am), amb[i]tor Bodl.3; i, 713 agnoscitur) agnuscitur P.'2 Bodl.3 (agnus-
cit[ur]).
There is one significant reading in which Bodl.3 and P.'2 seem to disagree: the
variant praegressa (i, 50). The Oxford fragment reads progr[essa], but P.12 has
p gressa which would normally be expanded to pergressa - a word which does
not exist. t The fact is the scribe of P.12 was not sure of his per symbol. In i, 79
he has p' latices for per latices; in i, 158 p sonis for personis; in i, 293 p' milia for
per milia; in i, 342 imp'iumfor imperium. Other errors due to misunderstanding
oer per and pro symbols are: p dit in i, 375 (unless he intended to write perdit);
and in i, 611 p martyre
But P.12does not stand alone; apparently other members of the X group pre-
serve traces of the tradition represented by the Bodleian fragment: i, 54 citato)
cetato Bodl.3, cecato p.18; i, 96 pretio) praetio Bodl.3 Cam. Voss.4; i, 97 com-
ponens Bodl.3 P.9; i, 111 iaculantur see supra 11.3-4; i, 115 computat) conpotat
(with second o corrected to u) Bodl.3 P.9; i, 120 irradiat) inradiat P.9 Bodl.3 (in [ra-
diat]); i, 122 ora) hora Cam. Voss.4 p.9 Bodl.3 (ho[ra]); imbuit) P.9, inbuit Cam.
Voss.4Bodl.3 (inb[ui]t); i, 652 ales) alis Bodl.3 T.; i, 684 sonent see supra 1. 7; i, 687
coepit) cepit Bodl.3 (cep[it]) Brit.' T. (caepit); i, 692 comprobat) conprobat Amb.1
* Note that P.12 and Bodl.3 read modesti, not modestis.
t It must be admitted, however, that there is some evidence of correction here.
t These four errors, according to Dr Lowe, are best accounted for by some Insular ancestor in
which the per symbol is made by p with an inverted comma rising horn-like from the bow, a form
peculiar to Irish and Anglo-Saxon scribes.
Bodl.3 (conp[r]obat); i, 709 amabitur) T. (a::bitur, erasure of ma), ambitor

Bodl.3 (amb[i]tor), ambitur Cam. Voss.4 Amb.1 Brit.l (abitur, a in ras).
There is another circumstance that suggests a close relation between our frag-
ment and P.12, namely, the arrangement of the text not in verse lines, but as
prose. The first one hundred and eighty-eight lines of P.12are written as prose
except that the line initials regularly appear as capitals. This covers the first half
of Mr Ker's lines. Later the scribe of P.12tended to put his copy in verse form so
that Lib. i, 684-704 runs as verse. Then the rest of the passage reverts to the
prose form except that the scribe rigorously has two lines of Arator to one line
of copy reading across the page not in sequence down the column. Lib. ii, 384-
696 is in prose form. Incidentally, it may be noted that Sangallensis 336, saec. x,
runs on like prose up through Lib. i, 69; then it lines as verse through i, 76 and
then reverts to the former method until i, 98. Hereafter it is in regular verse
form; it should be noted that Sangallensis is much less corrupt than P.12and its
satellites. The bit of Arator in Montepesulanus 135, saec. Ix, Lib. i, 586-615,
varies between prose and verse form. As this excerpt was to form part of a collec-
tion on the lives of the saints, it may have been designedly arranged by the col-
lector to run as prose.
We are now in a position to appraise Mr Ker's find. First, he recognized it to
be the oldest of Arator's manuscripts. This judgment has been corroborated by
Dr Lowe, who puts it in the seventh century, possibly two hundred years earlier
than P.12, the oldest of the manuscripts previously known. Thus its text gets back
to within a hundred years, more or less, of the death of Arator himself. This
eliminates a couple of hundred years for comments and glosses to be taken over
by scribes. Now if it has been shown that one of our manuscipts derives from the
same tradition as our fragment, we are in a position to have considerable con-
fidence in its authority. That this is true of P.12 seems indicated by the facts. In
comparison with other manuscripts of Arator, P.12 and its associates resemble
Bodl.3 in being full of errors. P.12and its group agree with Bodl.3 in significant
errors and readings. p.12 in the corresponding passages like Bodl.3 generally ap-
pears as prose even when keeping to definite lines.
If, then, we have a family that traces its text as closely to the time of the author
as the facts seem to warrant, we may hold that the X group in the main gives us
many a clue to the original reading. It is true that there are many evidences of
carelessness; still most of these leave some indication of the real reading. It is
also true that there were, no doubt, other* manuscripts of Arator in existence at
the time that our fragment was written and that variants had arisen by this time
and that they may have come down through other archetypes. Still if the portions
of the text that cannot be checked up with Bodl.3, because of its fragmentary
nature, run as true to form as the part we have, we may think of P.12 and the X
group as giving us a starting point from which we can begin to work out a text
with some hope of determining whether variants on its readings are errors, glosses,
* At least Fortunatus, Corippus, Aldhelm, and Bede had access to the writings of Arator. See
M. Manitius, Geschichteder Lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Miinchen, Beck, 1911), I, 168.
comments or readings from better archetypes than Mr Ker's Bodleianus. Further-

more Mr Ker's discovery may have a far wider import than if we could prove
P.12 to be a copy of Bodl.3 In fact it seems clear that P.12 and its related texts were
not copied directly from the manuscript of which Mr Ker's fragment is a part;
the intervening centuries gave a plentiful opportunity for intervening codices
with chances for correction and for further error. Besides it is possible that P.12
traces back to companion manuscripts of our fragment; its agreement with
Bodl.3 in error falls short* of an agreement verbatimet literatim. Thus, though
P.12 agrees with Bodl.3 in running like prose in the earlier part yet in the later
lines it is like Bodl.3 only in following one line with another across the page, still
keeping distinct lines. These facts tend to show that within a hundred years or
so of the death of Arator there were other manuscripts with characteristics more
or less like those we have in Bodl.3 and P.12. That means, of course, that the orig-
inals of these other texts were very close to the time of Arator. Consequently we
can have a good deal of confidence in Bodl.3 and in our oldest complete text,
represented by P.12. In closing we may note how much more Mr Ker's find con-
tributes to the study of Arator's text than, for instance, the comparable body of
textt quoted from Arator by Bede.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Los ANGELES.
APPENDIX
TRANSCRIPTION
The portions of the text in parentheses are restored from Arntzen's edition
(Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, LXVIII).
Front Inside Cover
Upper Half (Ker's p. 1)
Arator, De Act. Ap., Lib. i, 85-122.1
85 ruit ip$(e sure, stringens in gutture vocem, Exemplo cessante,)
ream qui parte nec(ari Promeruit, qua culpa fuit, crimenque)
retractans. iudicio tali per(misit membra furori, Aeris in me)
90 dio conmuni ponerit hosti. deb(ita poen)a loc(um; coelo terrseque)
perosus. inter utrumq- peri(t; nullis) cond(enda sepulcris Visce)
ra rupta cadunt tenuisq- elapsus in aur(as Fugit ab ore cinis:)
non haec uacat ultio iudae. quae suprema neg(at, vindictaque mer)
95 cis iniquae sic plac(i)tura uenit nam cum mQ(do rura parasset)
funeris ex praetio cum nomine sanguinis em(ptus Cespes, in ex)
* See supra, pp. 353-354.

t Indexed by M. L. W. Laistner, Ed., Bedae Venerabilis Expositio Actuum Apostolorum et Re-
tractio (Mediaeval Academy of America, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1939), p. 165.
t The numbers of the lines refer to the text in Migne.
ternas conponens bust(a) fauillas. de tumul(is fecundet humum,

c)aret impius agri. fertilitate sui solusq- (excluditur arvis,
100 qu)ae monumenta serunt cuius tuba sae(va cruentum Est ex)
ors(a) nefas qui signif(er,) oscula fingens p(acis, ab indicio bellum
l)upus int(u)lit agnum. nunc opu(s) est uQ(tis quod verba prophe)
tica clam(ant, Que)m licet supplere uicee. (Tunc, summa precan)
105 tes constituer(e duos) ioseph. cognomin(e Justum, Matthiamque,)
di paruo quod no(men, ut) aiunt, haebraeo (sermone sonat, humilem)
q' uocando quem probat. o'quantum di(stant humana supernis)
110 iudiciis pr(a)ui merito transcenditur ill(e, Laude hominum qui)
iustus erat, duodena refulge(n)t. signa ch(ori, terrisque iubar iacu)
lantur ol(y)mp(i. Ha)ec quae lux ope(r)is quid (praeferat,edere)
pergam. qua(tuor) est laterum discretis (partibus orbis; Trina)
115 fedis uocat hunc quo nomine fonte lauatur. (Quatuor ergo)
simul repetens ter conpotat omnem. (Quam duodenarius)
circVmtulit ordo figuram. discipulisq' pii(s, quibus hoc bap)
tisma iubetur myr(ti)ca causa dedit numeros (remeare priorem.
120 Spiritus setherea descendens) scs ab au(la.) in(radiat fulgore)
(l)ocum q(uo) s(t)emma beatum. eclesiae nascen(tis erat, quibus
igne magistro,) inbuit ho(ra) col(or,) dictisq' fluen(tibus exit)
Front Inside Cover

Lower Half (Ker's p. 2)
Arator De Act. Ap., Lib. i, 647-681.
(instar, Cum vaga lethales pateretur turba) p(r)ocellas.
(Ad vitam convertit aquas: simul ipsa columba)m. diluit et c(or
650 vum, sed non concordia mentis F)ecit (utros)q' pares
(hunc guttura plena rapinaeSub)duxer(e vi)ae cupiensque
(in funere pasci Nil potuit) uitale sequi redit alis amica
(Frugibus, et nullis succumbit nau)fraga lymphi§, N(u)triri de
655 (morte timens, studioque laboris D)at documenta pii quanto
(teneatur amore Plus operi dev)Qta fedis rostrisq- modesti
(Pignus oliva fuit: dilectio sempe)r in ore' fructum pacis
(habet: volitant in fluctibus a)mbo ex uno scoq' sinu ser
660 (vantis in alvo Purgati vallant)e freto tamen exsulat
(unus, Et, reditu cessante, perit:) non ergo saluti. suffecit
(unda lavans, nisi sit sine felle c)olumba. qvi g(enera)t(ur
aquis. Simon hic baptismatis un)dam. contige(ra)t, (se)d cor(vus
665 erat, sua lucra requirens,) quae numqua meruer(e

Deum, qui limine templi Venden)tes arc(e)re solet m(eliora se
quamur! Petrus ad ista voc)at qui filius esse colV(m)bae
(Dicitur ore dei, meritoque hac) matre cra.tus- ecl(e)siae svb
670 (limat opus: de munere pro)lis. ng(me)n habet ge(n)¢t(r)ix
(quod Spiritus eligit almus, Ali)tis (inn)Qcua(e) dignatVs imagi
(ne cerni. Angelus alloquitur plenum vir
tute Philippum, Australem) celebrarn uiam (q)ua s(pa
do jugatis Aethiopu)m pergebat equis qui fid(u), in aula
675 (Reginse servabat opes: vo)lat axe cetato gaudia fia
(petens, curruque merebituri)pso. errorum iactare
(rotas. O quanta bonorum S)emina percipie,!) qu(it)am
(pretiosa lavacri Sumere do)na ucnis s(t)eril(ique in corpore)
680 (condis, Quod fructu meliore metas. Impone Phi)lyp
(pum, Lampadis os quod Hebraeus ait, qui) ment(is honorem,)
Back Inside Cover

Upper Half (Ker's p. 3)
Arator, De Act. Ap., Lib. i, 684-724.
685 sonen(t,) cumq' omnia fecerit o(l)ym. (Qua fuerit nunc parte satus:
si) credulus audis. et tibi n(a)scitv(r, tuque inde renasceris illi. Conspec
ti), prQpgranteraquis ardisce(r)e cep(it Eunuchi fecunda fides,
qui) g(ur)g(it)¢ mersu, d&posVi(t)serpenti, (onus, plaustroque cucur
690 rit Helike) m(e)ditatVs iter cum parua f(igurae Causa sub obscu
rae r)egion(is) imagin(e) l(uc)e(t) conprobat 9(mnipotens taedarum foede)
re m(ose)m aethiQ(pam sociasse si)bi quem d(ogmata produnt Postea)
695 c(um Domino vicinius ore locutum.) quit (mirum, si legis amor tune
crescere c)ep(it,) eclae c(um juncta) fuit quo(d sponsa perennis
Hac veniat de g)¢n(te magis, nec cantic)a celant. q(uae fuscam pulchram
que vocant;) haec p.rgit (a)b a(ustro, 2Ethiop)Vm (qui torret humum, Solo)
700 monij (in o)re pac(if)icum l(audare suum. quo nomine dudum Signa)
turn e,t(, qu)Qd xps h(a)bet iam debet(a mundo custodem praemittit)
opum qu(o) pi(g)nQre gazas. incip(iet proferre suas; thesaurus in illa
705 Q)uis poti(or, q)Vam fontis honor quo(d ditius aurum, Quam locuples)
sub corde fedis quam dcniq- recte' pr(aevius huic spado est? quo)
procidente liuido pe¢litur et capjunt co(elestia regna pudici.
saulus, acerba fremens, committere bella Damasci)
710 iudaica f¢rit(a)te p(arat,) sed ambitor a(gnus, Quo properat saevi)
re lupus. (So)rs laeta ruinae. in qu(a culpa cadit; didicit qui corpore)
lap(so In me)ntis iam star grad(u;) c(um lu)m(ina claudit, Pectora

tu)nc (aperit) ca(e)liq' agnuscity(r auctor, Discedente die:)
715 quantum (meruere t)eneb(rae! Post oculos majora videt; mirabi)
1k (aec)li,. exemplum dedit (alma fides. Anania furorem Excu
tit, o no)ua palma lupum dom(at ille rapacem, Hebraeus quem dixit
ou)em clamabitur orbi. hQ(c praecone, Deus, legisque exutus ab umbra,
720 Sub)qua caecus erat terr(as lucebit in omnes Perpetuo de so
le cale)ni (N)e de*(ine, Saule, Hunc celebrare diem; multorum lumi)
ne plena. nox da(tur ista tibi, tuque hic tua nubila portas, Ut mundi
purgare queas. Nun)c plena fig(uri)* Interius documenta sequar,)
Back Inside Cover

Lower Half (Ker's p. 4)
Arator, De Act. Ap. Lib. i, 32-63.
(de nomine chris)ma. tol(li)tur astrigerum (r)edi(tu)rus
(victor in axem) et secum quod *umsit habet noua pompa
35 (triumphi! Arva) ds petiit homo sidera q(uis) datur illi aethe
(rea de parte fr)a gor quantumq' result(ant) caelestis in lau
(de chori, cum rec)tor (O)lympi euehit excelsis quicquid susce
(pit ab imis? In)gr(ediensque) polum carnes c(omi)tante tropaQ9,
40 Exuvias atri rap)ta. de f(auce profundi) Lycis in arce
(locat, terreno)sqV(e erig)it art(us; Qua pietate ca)pit propter
(quam venerat,) ibit. d(iscipulos stupor a)ltu. agit qui(bus ore
corusco Pe)rspi(cui dixere viri; qu)ae co(g)nita nobis.
45 (Et miranda sonant, nunc jam specu)lemu(r ova)ntes imperiiq'
(modum per sub)dita (jura probemu)s. uirg(ine m)atre (sa)tus cal
(cata morte) resurg(en)* (Coeli) *c.ptra petens (his nuntiat
50 acta minis)tris. nec(cessant el)ementa su9g,rvire tonan
(ti; Stella, co)mis progr(essa Magos, venie)nti* honori. militat
(obsequio, n)vbes fam(ulatur euntis. Angelicis igitur postquam
est affatibu)s (u)sa (Liquit oliviferi vereranda) cacumina
55 (montis, Ad m)es(sem praele)ct(a manus, qui, calle) cetato.moe
(nia nota petunt, quo per sua sabbata mi)ll1 (Pa)ssibus ire
(licet, qua tune statione) *debat po(rta) maria di genetrix in
(tacta creantis), a nato formata suQ; mala criminis euae
60 (Virgo secunda fugat;) nilla est (iniuria) *(ex)us (Re)sti(tuit quod
prima tulit. Non voce) quae(rel)a..x(cit)et (aut gemitu moe)rentia
(corda fatiget A)ntiqua pro lege d(o)l(or) *celera ipsa nefasq(ue)
(Hac potius merce)de pla(cent, mundoque re)demp)tQ (Sors m)elior
A Dante Note--Smeraldo
Author(s): Vincenzo Cioffarri
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:01
Speculum.
A DANTE NOTE - SMERALDO
BY VINCENZOCIOFFARRI
THE smeraldi before which Dante is placed in the terrestrial paradise (Purg.,
xxxi.116) are the eyes of Beatrice, as most commentators agree.' But many
modern commentators have taken smeraldi as synonymous with precious gems
rather than the particular gem smaragdus or smeraldo, whose properties are de-
scribed in the mediaeval lapidaries.2 Of the fourteenth-century commentators,
only the Ottimomentions the properties of the smeraldo, and even here the editor
Alessandro Torri adds in a note: 'Questa chiosa pare giunta di men abile Comenta-
tore.'3 Yet the properties of the emerald as described in the lapidaries have a
direct bearing on the passage in question. Lombardi4 refers us to the treatment
of the gem in Pliny's Natural History, where the passage reads as follows: 'nullius
coloris aspectus incundior (read iucundior) est. nam herbas quoque silentes fron-
desque avide spectamus, smaragdos vero tanto libentius, quoniam nihil omnino
viridius conparatum illis viret. praeterea soli gemmarum contuitu inplent oculos
nec satiant. quin et ab intentione alia aspectu smaragdi recreatur acies, scalpenti-
busque gemmas non alia gratior oculorum refectio est: ita viridi lenitate lassi-
tudinem mulcent.'5 The treatment is repeated more briefly in the epitome of
Pliny written by Solinus,6 and even less completely for this purpose in the
Origines of Isidor of Seville,7 the dictionary of Papias,8 the Magnae derivationes
of Uguccione da Pisa,9 or the Catholiconof Giovanni da Genova.10The difficulty
which arises in tracing the source to Pliny is that Dante nowhere betrays any
direct knowledge of this author." Likewise, we cannot trace Dante's knowledge of
precious stones to the dictionaries of Papias, Uguccione da Pisa, or Giovanni da
Genova, as Paget Toynbee tends to indicate,12at least in so far as smaradgus is
concerned.
1 Cf. Jacopo della Lana, L'Ottimo, Benvenuto da Imola, Buti, L'Anonimo, Landino, Vellutello,
etc. 2 Cf. Scartizzini-Vandelli, Casini-Barbi, Torraca, Grabher, etc.
3 L'Ottimo Commentodella Divina Commedia (Pisa: Capurro, 1827-29), JT, Purg., p. 555.
4 La Divina Commedia di Dante
Alighieri, corretta, spiegata, e difesa dal P. Baldassare Lombardi
(Rome: De Romanis, 1816), JI, 480.
6 C. Plini secundi naturalis historiae libri XXXVII, ed. Carolus Mayhoff (Leipzig, Teubner, 1847),
lib. 37, cap. 5.
6 C. Iulii Solini CollectaneaRerum Memorabilium, ed. Th. Mommsen (Berlin: Weidmann, 1895),
p.87.
7 Isidori IIispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. Lindsay (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1911), xvII. vii. 1.
8 Papias, Grammaticus, Vocabularium,impressum Venetiis per Andream de Bonetis de Papia, anno
domini MCCCCLXXXV. (For edition see Hain, Catalogue of books printed in the XVth century in the
British Museum, Part v [1924] p. 361.)
9 Magnae derivationes of Uguccione da Pisa; a reproduction of Oxford, Bodleian MS. Laud. 626
(missing leaves supplied from MS. Bodl. 376), fol. 167, recto (Library of Congress, Modern Language
Association Deposit, No. 30).
10Balbi Johannis de Janua ord. praed. Summa quae vocatur Catholicon,Mainz, 1460 (see smarag-
dus). 11Cf. E. Moore, Studies in Dante, First Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), p. 7.
12Cf. Paget Toynbee, Dantis Alagherii Epistolae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920), p. 47 n.; and his
Dante Studies and Researches(London: Methuen and Co., 1902), pp. 268-269.
360
A Note on Dante 361
There is, however, one widely divulgated source that appropriately explains
this use of the gem smeraldo. It is the book of Sidrach, as Torraca points out.'
To show the appropriateness of the explanation we quote the passage in full:
Ismeraldo sormonta tutti i verdori. Li fini ismeraldi vengono di Soria, del flume di
paradiso. Ismeraldo migliora gli occhi, e lo vedere guarda di peggiorare. Lo smeraldo crescie
le ricchezze, e fa l'uomo in parole atemperare. E si guariscie un malattia del cuore; e si
vale molto contra le gotte, e incontro a tenpesta, e incontro a guerra. Sapiate que quelli che
lo smeraldo porta sopra se, piu ama di portare suo corpo nettamente, e piu si guarda
d'udire villanie, e piu si mantiene godente e bello e netto, e pensa nella sua anima; e piu
ama netti diporti a buone opere; che Idio dono a questa pietra questa virtu. Ismeraldo ?e
sopra terra pietra nomata di Dio. Una maniera di bestie sono che anno lo corpo dinanzi a
modo d'aquila, e dietro a modo di lione. E una maniera di gente che anno nome Atrupes,
che non anno se non uno occhio nel mezzo della fronte; quelli vanno tutti armati al flume,
e pigliano di questi ismeraldi; e queste bestie gli difendono tanto come possono; ma quelli
sono armati, e torre no' gli possono loro. Esmeraldo netto e gentile e molto verdissimo.2
We know that Dante's eyesight was failing; hence the value of the property:
"Ismeraldo migliora gli occhi, e lo vedere guarda di peggiorare.' Dante has just
come out of the river Lethe, where he has been immerged in order to be washed
of any memory of the secular sciences that had made him turn away from the pure
love of Theology as exemplified in Beatrice. This canto has frequently been in-
terpreted as a reproach that Beatrice makes to Dante because of his sensual aber-
rations.3 And yet no one, to my knowledge, has pointed out the connection
between the properties of the emerald and this reproach of Beatrice. In the lapi-
daries in general and in the book of Sidrach in particular it is precisely the emerald
that has the virtue of making one want to keep his body clean in every respect
and think rather of his soul, as expressed in the words: 'quelli che lo smeraldo
porta sopra se, piu ama di portare suo corpo nettamente ... e piu si mantiene
godente e bello e netto, e pensa nella sua anima; e piu ama netti diporti e buone
opere.' Albertus Magnus says of it: 'Et ideo probabile est quod dicunt, hic lapis
gestantem se ad castitem inclinat.'4 Since the emerald has the virtue of inspiring
chastity, it is the most appropriate gem to which the eyes of Beatrice can be com-
pared.
The griffins as the guardians of the emeralds are mentioned repeatedly in this
connection, as, for example, in the poem of Marbodus,5 its many versions,6 and
1 La Divina Commediadi Dante Alighieri, nuovamente commentata da Francesco Torraca, settima

ed. S. E. Dante Alighieri, 1930-vIIi, pp. 605, 368.
2
II libro di Sidrach; testo inedito del secolo XIV, pubblicato da Adolfo Bartoli (Bologna; G. Roma-
gnoli, 1868), cap. CCCCLVI. (Collezionedi opere inedite o rare dei primi tre secoli della lingua).
3 Cf. Rocco Murari, Dante e Boezio (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1905), p. 266 ff.; Alessandro D'Ancona,
'Della "Pargoletta" . .. e di altre donne nel poema e nelle rime di Dante,' Nuova Antologia, April 1,
1912. Cf. also the comments of Casini-Barbi, Scarano, L'Ottimo, Benvenuto da Imola, Landino,
Daniello,etc.
4 Beati Alberti
Magni Opera Omnia, cura ac labore Augusti Borgnet (Paris: Vives, 1890-1898).
See De Mineralibus, Lib. ni, Tr. 11,Cap. xvii.
6 LiberLapidumAuctoreMarbodoEpiscopo Redonensi,in Migne, Patr. Lat.,CLXXI, p. 1774.
6 Cf. LeopoldPannier,Les Lapidairesfrangaisdu moyenage (Paris:F. Wieweg,1882); Paul and
Lapidaries(Paris:Champion),1924.
JoanEvans,Anglo-Norman
362 A Note on Dante
the De Mineralibus of Albertus Magnus. No mention, however, is made of them
by Pliny, the Polyhistor of Solinus, Isidor of Seville, or the dictionaries of Papias,
Uguccione da Pisa, or Giovanni da Genova.
It seems clear, then, that Dante used the word smeraldi of the passage in ques-
tion not in a general sense, but with reference to the properties of the particular
gem, as described in the lapidaries, basing himself, most likely, on the treatment
of the gem in the book of Sidrach.
The reference to the emerald in Purg. vII.75 presents more difficulty. Dante
says:
frescosmeraldoin I'orache si fiacca.
I have not been able to find a single lapidary which directly mentions a freshly
cut emerald. All such references, like the explanation given by Vellutello,' are
posterior to Dante's memorable verse and, very likely, a paraphrase of it.
The lapidaries agree that the flat surface of the emerald is the best.2 Albertus
Magnus, however, mentions the conditions under which this gem breaks into
pieces:
Expertumautem est temporibusnostris, quod hic lapis si vere bonus et verus est, non
sustinet coitum:propterquod rex Ungariae,qui nostris temporibusregnat, in coitu cum
uxore sua lapidem hunc in digito habuit, et propter coitum in tres partesfractus est"
(loc. cit.). (The italics are mine.)
He mentions the breaking up of the emerald not only in his treatment of the
gem, but also in his treatise on De Vegetalibuset Plantis, where he relates the fol-
lowing fantastic story:
Smaragdusenim nuper apud nos visus est parvus quidem quantitate et mirabiliter
pulcher,cuius cum virtus probarideberet,adstitit qui diceret,quod si circabufonemcir-
culussmaragdofieretet postealapisoculisbufonisexhiberetur,alterumduorum,quodaut
lapisfrangereturad visum bufonissi debilemhaberetlapis virtutem,aut bufo rumperetur
si lapis esset in naturalisuo vigore:nec morafactum est ut dixit et ad modicumtemporis
intervallum,dum bufo adspiceretlapidemnec visum averteretab ipso, crepitarecoepit
lapis sicut avellanarumpereturet exilivit ex annulo una pars eiusdem,et tunc bufo qui
ante stetit immobilis,coepit recedereac si absolutusesset a lapidis virtute (op. cit., vi,
ii.1). (The italics are mine.)
1 'Lo smeraldoe verde, e quandosi fiacca,o rompe,si dimostrain tal rotturadi molto pil vivo e
accesocolore,che non fa in superficie,per aver in quella gia perdutoalquantodella sua vivacitA,'
Dante,conl'espositione di Christoforo
Landino,etdi AlessandroVellutello,soprala sua Comediadell'In-
ferno, del Purgatorio,e del Paradiso,ed. FrancescoSansovinoFiorentino,in Venetia,appressoGio-
vambattista,MarchioSessa,e fratelli,1564,p. 189recto.
2 Solinusstates: 'optimostamen sortiuntursitus quibusplanitiesresupinaest et extenta' (op. cit.,
p. 87). In the poemof Marboduswe find:'Optimushis situs est quorumsunt corporaplana' (op. cit.,
p. 1745). The Lapidaire en verstells us:
Moult est bone esmeraude plainne,
Nette et pure et sans pucerons (Cf. Leopold Pannier, op. cit., p. 244)
And the book of Sidrach expresses this thought in the words: 'Esmeraldo netto e gentile e molto
verdissimo' (loc. cit.). The De Mineralibus of Albertus Magnus says: 'Figura sua melior est planities
superficiei: quia tune una pars non obumbrat aliam' (loc. cit.).
A Note on Dante 363
Here we see that, according to superstition, the emerald will break if placed
before a frog, providing the virtue of the gem is not as strong as that of the frog.
There is, of course, no conclusive evidence to prove that these stories were the
source of Dante's verse. But since the emerald is the only one of the precious
stones mentioned by Dante which was believed to break under certain conditions,
it is not unlikely that the Poet had these two fanciful stories in mind when speak-
ing of 'fresco smeraldo in l'ora che si fiacca.' It is, moreover, quite evident that
sifiacca is a translation of frangitur orfractus est, and refers to the breaking up of
the emerald from within.
STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.
A Supplementary Note to Speculum, XVIII, 494-496

Author(s): G. Levi della Vida
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1944), p. 364
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:02
Speculum.
NOTE
A SUPPLEMENTARY XVIII, 494-496
NOTE TO SPECULUM,
BY G. LEVI DELLA VIDA
IN editing the 'Letter of the Vulture' from an eighth/ninth century manuscript of the
Paris Bibliotheque Nationale, Professor L. C. MacKinney assumed that this text had
never been published before. As a matter of fact, as early as 1926, in an elaborate article
which deals in an extensive manner with the whole subject of the magico-medical proper-
ties attributed to the vulture in antiquity ('Le sage Bothros ou le phylarque Aretas?,'
Revue de Philologie, de litterature et d'histoire anciennes, L [1926], 13-33), Franz Cumont
had already published it from three manuscripts, one being the same Ms. in Montpellier
(Ecole de Medecine 277: Cumont gives 27 as call number) which MacKinney mentions in
his article. As Cumont has proved, the Latin 'Letter of the Vulture' is a translation from
the Greek, although none of the Greek versions published so far presents a text as complete
as the Latin, and the original work, a letter which 'Aretas the phylarch of the nomad
Arabs' is supposed to have addressed to the emperor Claudius, is probably as old as the
first century A.D.
Had Cumont's article been known to Professor MacKinney, it certainly would have
been of invaluable help to him in understanding correctly the meaning and the literary
position of the 'Letter of the Vulture,' and also in supplementing and improving his two
excellent articles, 'The Vulture in Ancient Medical Lore' and 'Vulture Medicine in the
Medieval World,' Ciba Symposia, iv (1949), 1957-71 and 1272-86. Strangely enough,
MacKinney quotes (p. 1261 and 1280-1) a short additional note which I addressed to Cu-
mont immediately after the appearance of his article, and which was published in the
same volume of the Revue de Philologie (pp. 244-246), while he ignores Cumont's major
contribution.
Since mediaeval medical literature of the West and Latin palaeography are two fields in
which I cannot claim the slightest competence, I will refrain from discussing the character
of the new version of the 'Letter of the Vulture.' I would only call attention to the fact
that Professor MacKinney's text, since it is contained in such an old manuscript, definitely
discards the hypothesis that the Latin may be a translation from the Arabic (see Cumont,
p. 15). The text published in Speculum is much closer to Cumont's B version (i.e., the
twelfth-century Ms. of the British Museum) than to A (i.e., the fifteenth-century Ms of
Montpellier) and regularly omits some items (§§4, 8, 9, 18-99, 26-32 Cumont) which are
found only in the latter. However, at the end, it has two items (Nos. 16 and 17) which B
omits but A has (§16 Cumont). Finally, in Nos. 5 and 6 it presents consecutively both
texts of B and A (§10 Cumont). This proves that its source, as one would expect, is older
than the model followed by the more recent Mss. However, its present text is in a very bad
shape, and I doubt whether MacKinney was always right in his interpretation of it. In
No. 9, e.g., urte and malagrunatehardly are 'nettles' and 'bark of malaguetta.'" The former
should be corrected into uite, as the parallel texts have, and the latter is undoubtedly mali
granati. In the same item, amen te curis (translated 'verily it will cure you') seems to be a
corruption of (febres) habentibus (§14 Cumont, and cf. the footnote for the desperate text
of No. 10).
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
1 The malaguetta,
as far as I know, is a seed of Africanoriginwhich was unknownin Europe in
the MiddleAges.
364
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Kenneth John Conant
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:02
Speculum.
REVIEWS
CHARLES RUFUSMORtEY,Mediaeval Art. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1942. Pp. 412
with 127 line drawings in the text; 181 half-tone illustrations; decorative map and papers. $6.50.
IT is not untoward for a Harvard man and an architect to write this review of
Mr Morey's book, for he belongs to us all, being indubitably the dean of those
American mediaevalists who are concerned with the fine arts, and the founder
of a great tradition of study, criticism, and appreciation. The reading of this book
gives us the experience of exploring his personal achievement as a lover and critic
of all the arts. No such statement of doctrine, coming from him, could fail to re-
ceive deep and considered attention from mediaevalists everywhere.
Mr Morey's own specialty has been the manuscripts and ivories of the earlier
centuries of Christian history, but he has thought and felt beyond them, so that
his lecturing and his writing escape the dull factuality which too often goes with
encyclopaedic knowledge like his. Through warm and personal understanding he
knows the force of the piety which called mediaeval art into being. It gives a par-
ticular beauty to his passages on Byzantine art; but throughout the book one
feels the deep insight and sympathetic interpretation of a really wise man. It is
worth noting as a fact that many of our present-day critics lack the spiritual for-
mation indispensable for giving a just account of Christian art, in which the basic
stream is experience.
The philosopher in Mr Morey prevents his being carried away by sentiment,
like the nineteenth-century critics. Since he expresses with rare skill the manner
of thought in these older centuries, the works of art which he considers become in
effect a cast of characters able to communicate to us something of the group in-
tellect which gave them their energy. Thus the book (though encyclopaedic) is a
narrative of life and thought. It reads easily, and it has, with its occasional
courtly touches of humor, a genuine literary charm.
The space devoted to the mistress art of architecture is not large, and the num-
ber of buildings cited is far less, relatively, than the number of sculptures or pic-
tures. The reason lies surely in the difficult technology which must be considered
in any extended discussion of building. There are, besides, many real gaps in our
knowledge of mediaeval work. Justifiably therefore Mr Morey, like a modernist
designer, considers his buildings in terms of space. His analyses are penetrating,
and as reasoned summaries of the various episodes of mediaeval architecture they
take high rank. One slip may be noted - the dating of St Sophia in Kiev, which
was begun (not finished) in 1037, and carried forward during two generations.
The 'incipient Christianity' of the region goes back a century before the date just
mentioned.
This reviewer was much pleased to find the structural and decorative unity of
the apse of the third church of Cluny accepted as a matter of course, and further,
was much interested in Mr Morey's reasons. The French school of mediaevalists
has debated this point because of the beautiful sculptured capitals involved.
Lefevre-Pontalis, who was very cautious in his dating, asserted in a strong article
against M. Marignan [Bulletin Monumental, Lxxv (1911) 15] that this apse was
365
366 Reviews
entirely vaulted by 1095. Unaware that the sculptures could be proved integral,
Lefevre-Pontalis assigned them to the twelfth century. His followers fought for
this date, forgetting that he said in the same article (p. 26) 'Je ferai tout d'abord
remarquer que l'ornementation des chapiteaux peut souvent induire en erreur
sur la date des eglises, surtout au xIIe sicle.'
The twelfth-century date would make them the fruition of a French develop-
ment dependent on the South of France. The other and correct date, proposed
nearly twenty-five years ago by Arthur Kingsley Porter and corroborated by the
Mediaeval Academy's expedition in Cluny, requires a very different explanation,
which is convincingly presented. Mr Morey cites the Bible of St Stephen Hard-
ing, third abbot of Citeaux, an Englishman. This great four-volume illuminated
work was finished in 1109. With telling reference to the 'master monastic art of
drawing,' Mr Morey makes the point that Burgundy at the time was strongly
influenced by English drawing, which had back of it a long and consecutive de-
velopment marked by several episodes of singular power. The force of this
tradition in the revival of sculpture, especially in the Cluniac ambiente, shows in
carving treated 'with pictorial shadows, and its mass ignored in the careful relief
of ridges that merely counterfeit the detail of a pen design .... The English style
thus coming into Burgundy was doubtless of indirect derivation, coming rather
from the ateliers of the Low Countries and northern France, and analogies for the
style of the Cluny capitals have been noticed in miniatures and ivories of Liege,
Stavelot, and Saint Omer. ... '
The foregoing is but one episode in the long story which the author tells with
extraordinary clarity and charm, and a wealth of revealing comment.
The book is well printed and pleasantly convenient in format, but the half-tone
illustrations are unhappily remote from the relevant text. Some have criticized
the inclusion of so many illustrations of conventional subjects, available else-
where: the encyclopaedic character of the book probably justifies the choice.
Some have been disturbed by a series of 127 pen drawings - apparently made
over photographs - inset in the text without numbers, and in one case (p. 250)
with a mistaken title (compare fig. 74). The drawings are nevertheless done with
considerable sympathy, and they enliven the pages, serving as ready reminders;
but the effect would have been far better in most cases if the reproductions had
been smaller in scale. The peccadillos just mentioned are easy to forgive because
of the notable character of Mr Morey's text.
KENNETH JOHN CONANT,
Harvard University
WALTER MUIR WHITEHILL, Spanish Romanesque Architecture of the Eleventh Century. Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1941. Pp. xxiv+307+124 pages of half-tone plates+4 folding plates; 113 figures in
the text pages. $17.50.
"MY deepest obligation is to the late Professor Arthur Kingsley Porter.... As
I cannot place this book in his hands, I do myself the honour of dedicating it to
his memory.' These words in Mr Whitehill's preface will strike a responsive chord
in the hearts of a whole generation of our mediaevalists, who gained inspiration
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Kenneth John Conant
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:02
Speculum.
366 Reviews
entirely vaulted by 1095. Unaware that the sculptures could be proved integral,
Lefevre-Pontalis assigned them to the twelfth century. His followers fought for
this date, forgetting that he said in the same article (p. 26) 'Je ferai tout d'abord
remarquer que l'ornementation des chapiteaux peut souvent induire en erreur
sur la date des eglises, surtout au xIIe sicle.'
The twelfth-century date would make them the fruition of a French develop-
ment dependent on the South of France. The other and correct date, proposed
nearly twenty-five years ago by Arthur Kingsley Porter and corroborated by the
Mediaeval Academy's expedition in Cluny, requires a very different explanation,
which is convincingly presented. Mr Morey cites the Bible of St Stephen Hard-
ing, third abbot of Citeaux, an Englishman. This great four-volume illuminated
work was finished in 1109. With telling reference to the 'master monastic art of
drawing,' Mr Morey makes the point that Burgundy at the time was strongly
influenced by English drawing, which had back of it a long and consecutive de-
velopment marked by several episodes of singular power. The force of this
tradition in the revival of sculpture, especially in the Cluniac ambiente, shows in
carving treated 'with pictorial shadows, and its mass ignored in the careful relief
of ridges that merely counterfeit the detail of a pen design .... The English style
thus coming into Burgundy was doubtless of indirect derivation, coming rather
from the ateliers of the Low Countries and northern France, and analogies for the
style of the Cluny capitals have been noticed in miniatures and ivories of Liege,
Stavelot, and Saint Omer. ... '
The foregoing is but one episode in the long story which the author tells with
extraordinary clarity and charm, and a wealth of revealing comment.
The book is well printed and pleasantly convenient in format, but the half-tone
illustrations are unhappily remote from the relevant text. Some have criticized
the inclusion of so many illustrations of conventional subjects, available else-
where: the encyclopaedic character of the book probably justifies the choice.
Some have been disturbed by a series of 127 pen drawings - apparently made
over photographs - inset in the text without numbers, and in one case (p. 250)
with a mistaken title (compare fig. 74). The drawings are nevertheless done with
considerable sympathy, and they enliven the pages, serving as ready reminders;
but the effect would have been far better in most cases if the reproductions had
been smaller in scale. The peccadillos just mentioned are easy to forgive because
of the notable character of Mr Morey's text.
Harvard University
WALTER MUIR WHITEHILL, Spanish Romanesque Architecture of the Eleventh Century. Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1941. Pp. xxiv+307+124 pages of half-tone plates+4 folding plates; 113 figures in
the text pages. $17.50.
"MY deepest obligation is to the late Professor Arthur Kingsley Porter.... As
I cannot place this book in his hands, I do myself the honour of dedicating it to
his memory.' These words in Mr Whitehill's preface will strike a responsive chord
in the hearts of a whole generation of our mediaevalists, who gained inspiration
1-.
*.4
FIG. 1. Restoredoriginalschemeof the West Front of the Cathedralof Santiagode Comp

by Kenneth John Conant (cf. CuadermosAmericanosiI (1948) fl,
A
I.1
. ,I,
FIG. 2. Restored original scheme of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Study, in part
conjectural; by Kenneth John Conant (cf. Cuadermos Americanos n (1943) #1, p. 149ff.).
Reviews 369
and insight through contact with Mr Porter's fine intelligence, and gained skill
through exploring the problems presented by his genius. It is characteristic also
that these students have offered their results to him with a genuine filial affec-
tion, even when the investigation disclosed that some one of Mr Porter's theses
could not be sustained.
Mr Porter was a very modern archaeologist, for he worked like an exploring
mathematician or natural scientist, whose theories are imparted with some
promptness, and presented as working hypotheses because the number of un-
known or uncertain factors is so large. Mr Porter was criticized for publishing
too rapidly, but every publication of his laid open a great problem, and we have
gained vastly by the resulting scholarly activity. In the case before us, Mr Porter
correctly sensed that the conventional French account of Romanesque architec-
ture and sculpture was untenable, and he cast about for other explanations.
Strzygowski's Armenian hypothesis fascinated him for some years, and at an-
other time he thought that the solution lay in Spain. He was aware of the baffling
undertone of orientalism in Romanesque art and he sought to identify the chan-
nel by which it became a part of our tradition.
Mr Whitehill's study of the Spanish material is scholarly and careful, well
ordered, complete, and at the same time genial and readable. It shows that
Spain's contribution in the eleventh century was much less than Mr Porter
thought. Yet, as Miss King once wittily observed, Mr Porter was likely to be
right, though sometimes for the wrong reason. We are beginning to see the out-
lines of a Hispano-Gallican or Hispano-Meridional primitive Romanesque archi-
tecture which received Byzantine and oriental motives, developed them, and
transmitted them to second or great Romanesque style. Some of these motives,
further developed, were important in the beginnings of Gothic architecture, and
they unquestionably had their importance in conditioning the artistic conscious-
ness of the Middle Ages.
Through Mr Porter's own work and that of Sefor Puig i Cadafalch, we realize
that the Lombard first-Romanesque style was constituted by the middle of the
ninth century, and by 1050 extended over a trefoil-shaped area with its points
in Catalonia, Dalmatia, and the Rhine country. We know that the Lombard
masons, working in a region where ancient Roman remains were numerous.
were destined to keep alive an ideal which was conservative and Roman.
Now we see equally (due to the labors of Effmann, Reinhard, Fels, Hubert,
and Crosby) that the Carolingian Romanesque school was constituted in the
former Frankish realm by the middle of the ninth century as a dynamic and
experimentative school, with many promising novelties in church plan and sil-
houette to its credit. By 1050 it had produced many noble works which are now
lost.
By the year 850 we also find a pre-Romanesque style constituted in the Astu-
rias. It has obvious connections with Moorish architecture to the south, and con-
nections can occasionally be traced between these areas, the remainder of north
Spain, and the southern half of France. A ghost of the unity which these regions
possessed under the Visigoths seems to have survived the Saracen conquest, and
370 Reviews
the pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela, from the ninth century onward, aided
in maintaining it. This situation explains why we find an oriental nine-compart-
mented plan built by a Visigoth at Germigny-les-Pres (ca 804), horseshoe apses
at Cluny II (ca 955), the alfiz panel at St Pierre, Jumieges (ca 950), a horseshoe
triumphal arch at Bernay (ca 1013 ff.), and ribbed vaulting of Moslem type at
St Martin, Tours (ca 1050). M. Elie Lambert, a gifted French student of Moslem
art in Spain, has worked on the fascinating problem of giving us a true picture of
the northward expansion of Moslem art motives into the Christian lands.
It did not escape Mr Porter that several characteristic Romanesque features
appear at a very early date in this Hispano-Meridional area: the vault on inter-
secting ribs (C6rdoba, ca 850), the pointed arch, the ribbed barrel vault, and the
spur buttress (Naranco, by 848), the clearstory in a vaulted basilica (Val de Dios,
893), the grouped pier systematically related to a ribbed barrel vault (at the same
place and at Lebefia, a little later). We need to remember that vast destruction
by Almanzor in the last decades of the tenth century, as well as later rebuilding,
contributed to make the evidence in buildings so unhappily sparse and frag-
mentary. Further study of collateral evidence may be rewarded. Some say, for
instance, that the Gallican liturgy was based in part on early Spanish liturgical
developments. We know from the Consuetudinaries that groups of candlesticks
were ceremonially placed at festival time about the high altar of Cluny ii, as
in Mozarabic churches. Investigation may bring out other similarities.
The genesis of the Romanesque style is easier to understand if we may recog-
nize a certain unity in an early Hispano-Meridional style. We should then have,
from the middle of the ninth century onward, three characteristic and independ-
ent schools. The Lombard carried on late Roman imperial tradition, with some
Byzantine differentiation; the Carolingian brought creative developments in
plan, silhouette, and articulation - Roman ideas strongly differentiated by
northern and barbarian imagination - and the Hispano-meridional employed
Roman motives with an unmistakably oriental differentiation. All of these early
Romanesque styles developed; by 1000 they began to coalesce. The various
regional manifestations of the second or great Romanesque style resulted from
this process, and continued it to produce as masterpieces the late eleventh- and
twelfth-century monastic and pilgrimage churches. These wonderful buildings
are solidly constructed, boldly articulated, dramatically composed, and deco-
rated with subtle skill: altogether they show a remarkable synthesis of Roman,
Carolingian and oriental motives.
To bring mediaeval architecture to its culmination in the etherial Gothic
cathedrals, it was necessary to invent a new structural system, which gave
Gothic a universality which R6manesque architecture never possessed. But we
may consider Romanesque as a rehearsal, or as a series of rehearsals for Gothic,
since the latter style was the work of architects and engineers with northern taste
and traditions working on an old Roman idea, which they transformed by apply-
ing methods of oriental origin.
The persistent strain of orientalism in Romanesque architecture makes it
at home in Spain, whether we consider the first Romanesque of Catalonia, or
Reviews 371
the second Romanesque which flowered on the Pilgrimage Route farther west.
It is clear that the conditions in Spain might have generated a mature Ro-
manesque style, but the creative process actually took place in France - in
contact with superbly imaginative Carolingian works. Mr Whitehill is right
in saying of the Cathedral of Santiago that 'whatever the source of the style,
one thing is clear - the building has no ancestry in Galicia.' But the great
building does not seem a stranger. We now know that its original design was
not one of those which brought the developed Romanesque into being, as Mr
Porter thought. Rather it was one of the finest, most representative, and most
beautiful examples of the mature style, offering everything that a fireproof
Romanesque church could offer in the way of spaciousness and majesty without
risking solidity or losing occidental character. It thus forms a fitting climax for
Mr. Whitehill's book, and he handles it very well. But he has written charming
passages on many other buildings - Santo Domingo de Silos particularly -
which will warm the heart of every lover of Spain.
Spanish Romanesque Architecture of the Eleventh Century begins with a con-
venient historical statement, then takes up Catalonia, which was in contact
with the Lombard region and only incidentally with the Moslem and Moslem-
influenced areas. The story of the builder prelates is used effectively in presenting
the most famous sites (St Martin du Canigou, Ripoll, and Cuixa), while a group-
ing by plan-forms brings out the variety and interest of many lesser churches.
The third division of the book takes up Castile, Le6n, Navarre, Arag6n, and Ga-
licia, with little to remark before the days of Sancho el Mayor (t1035), who
turned this part of Spain to the northward and introduced the Cluniac order into
his dominions. These moves, while they resulted in a partial Gallicization of the
country, brought about a great stirring of authentic Spanish energy which is well
represented in notable buildings like Sta. Cruz de la Ser6s and the castle church
at Loarre. Nor is it to be forgotten that the debt to France and Burgundy was re-
paid by royal subsidies-including those of Alfonso VI, who built the eastern parts
of Cluny II, the grandest Romanesque church of them all. Finally, mention
should be made of the attractive and abundant illustrations in Mr Whitehill's
book. They are technically very satisfying. They make the book expensive to
buy, but valuable to possess.
Harvard University
Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Corporation 29 April 1944

Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:03
Speculum.
Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting
of the Corporation29 April 1944
THE nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Corporation of the Mediaeval Academy
of America was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the Harvard Faculty
Club, 29 April 1944. The President of the Academy, Professor J. S. P. Tatlock,
presided.
The minutes of the eighteenth Annual Meeting were heard and approved.
The reports of the Clerk, the Treasurer, the Auditing Committee, the Editor
of SPECULUM,and the Delegates of the Academy to the American Council of
Learned Societies were then heard and accepted. These reports are printed below.
The report of the Nominating Committee was then heard and the following
officers were elected, each for a term of three years:
As First Vice-President, GEORGEEDWARDWOODBINE,of Yale University
As Clerk, GEORGERALEIGHCOFFMAN,of the University of North Carolina
As Councillors,
HERBERT DOUGLAS AUSTIN, of the University of Southern California
MYRTILLAAVERY, of Wellesley College
JOSEPH REESE STRAYER, of Princeton University
RUDOLPH WILLARD, of the University of Texas
REPORT OF THE CLERK

THEpast year has, inevitably,been a difficultone for the Academybecauseof conditions
arisingfrom the war. A large number of our membersare either in one of the armed
servicesor engagedin war workof one sort or another.Othersare overburdenedwith the
additionalwork of colleaguesin war service. In the circumstances,the researchprojects
of the Academyare, for the most part, at a standstill and little changein this situation
can be expecteduntil after the war.
There has been a decreasein the numberof Active and Contributingmembersas a
result of conditionscreatedby the war. Resignationshave been off-setby election of new
members;but quite a few old membersfell behind in payment of their dues. On the first
of Januaryof this year the numberof Active and Contributingmembersin good standing
was 784 but by the end of March 83 others, in default for 1943, had paid their dues for
that year. There is reasonto hope that othersstill in default will be able to satisfy their
financialobligationsto the Academy.The numberof Life Membersremainsunchanged.
The MediaevalAcademyhas lost three of its most distinguishedFellows in the past
year. Edward Cooke Armstrongof Princeton (First Vice-Presidentof the Academy),
Jean-BaptisteBeck of Pennsylvania,and Karl Young of Yale have all passed away since
the Annual Meeting in 1943. Memoirs of these scholars will be published in SPECULUM.
In the past year the Academypublishedbut one volume, BedaeOperade Temporibus,
edited by ProfessorCharlesW. Jones of CornellUniversity.The edition of the Excidium
Troiae,by E. A. Moody and V. K. Whitaker,is in pressand will appearthis summer.The
first edition of Dr Willi Apel's work, The Notationof PolyphonicMusic, 900-1600, has
been out of print for some months but a second edition, with numerousrevisions,will
appearin August of this year. To the Weyman Fund of the Department of Music at
372
The Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Academy 373
Harvard the Academy is indebted for a grant of $120 toward the expense of preparing
the revised edition of Apel's book. Professor Gustave Cohen's edition of fifteenth-century
French farces is now in the hands of the printer but, because of M. Cohen's absence
abroad, on behalf of the French Committee of National Liberation, publication will
necessarily be delayed.
The Mediaeval Academy has arranged to publish two volumes jointly with two other
institutions. In conjunction with The University of Chicago Press the Academy will pub-
lish an edition of The Herbal of Rufinus by Professor Lynn Thorndike of Columbia Uni-
versity. An edition of the Stella Maris of John of Garland by Professor E. Faye Wilson
will appear under the joint imprint of the Mediaeval Academy and Wellesley College.
From the American Council of Learned Societies the Mediaeval Academy has received
grants of $1500 and $750 toward expense of publication of these two books.
The Mediaeval Academy received, in the fall of 1943, an announcement from the
Managing Committee of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome that it had
been decided to extend the scope of the School to include mediaeval studies and to invite
the Mediaeval Academy to cooperate through a delegate representing the Academy.
Professor Charles R. Morey of Princeton was named to represent the Academy and tenta-
tive plans have been made for cooperation between the two institutions.
At the inauguration of the new Rector of the Catholic University of America in Wash-
ington, on 9 November 1943, the Mediaeval Academy was represented by the Executive
Secretary, Dr Charles R. D. Miller.
The Clerk now has the pleasure of announcing the following appointments voted by
the Council and by the Fellows:
As members of the Executive Committee of the Council, for one year,
J. N. BROWN,Chairman
K. J. CONANT R. A. NEWHALL
S. H. CROSS SIDNEY PACKARD
J. D. M. FORD E. K. RAND
N. S. B. GRAS H. M. SMYSER
GEORGE LA PIANA TAYLOR STARCK
A. P. MCMAHON C. H. TAYLOR
B. J. WHITING
As members of the Advisory Committee on Research, for the terms indicated after
their names,
G. R. COFFMAN (1943-46)
GAINES POST (1943-46)
C. H. BEESON (1944-47)
A. M. FRIEND (1944-47)
As members of the Advisory Board of SPECULUM,for three years,
J. M. POTTER, Hobart College
B. WILKINSON, University of Toronto
As delegate of the Mediaeval Academy to the Managing Committee of the American
School of Classical Studies in Rome, for three years,
C. R. MOREY,Princeton University
As Research Assistant in Archaeology for one year,
HELEN KLEINSCHMIDT
Respectfully submitted,
GEORGE R. COFFMAN, Clerk
374 The Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Academy
REPORT OF THE TREASURER

The Treasurer submits herewith to the Corporation an account of the finances of the
Academy for the year ending 31 December 1943. The Cash Statements, Balance Sheet,
and Exhibits are in accordance with the corresponding items in the Report of the Auditing
Committee, and are marked Schedules A, B, and C, and Exhibits 1 and 2, as they are there
referred to.
SCHEDULEA
CASH STATEMENT OF UNRESTRICTED FUNDS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 1943
Receipts Disbursements
CASH UNEXPENDED JANUARY 1, 1943:
Harvard Trust Company $321.92, on hand $15,
in respect of unexpended income $ 336.92
RECEIPTS:
Dues 1942 $ 67.34
Dues 1943 3,670.00
Subscriptions 1943 1,374.95
Sales of SPECULUM 367.52
Advertising in SPECULUM 15.00
Endowment Fund income 2,782.15
Haskins Fund income 517.40
Interest and exchange 91.93
TOTALRECEIPTS 8,886.29
DISBURSEMENTS:
Salaries $3,115.49
Clerical expenses 1,371.70
Postage and supplies 263.24
Rent and light 667.85
Telephone and telegraph 92.58
Expenses of meetings 11.88
Auditing 150.00
Miscellaneous 21.55
American Council of Learned Societies-dues 25.00
TOTAL ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES $5,719.29
Printing and Mailing SPECULUM 3,045.30
CASH UNEXPENDED 31 DECEMBER 1943:

Harvard Trust Company $443.62, on hand $15,
in respect of unexpended income 458.62
TOTALS $9,223.21 $9,223.21

SCHEDULE B
CASH STATEMENT OF RESTRICTED FUNDS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 1943
CASH BALANCE 1 JANUARY 1943:
Providence Institution for Savings $19,563.03
Harvard Trust Company 1,789.36
Rhode Island Hospital National Bank 422.94
$21,775.33
RECEIPTS:
Future dues and subscriptions:
Dues 1944 $ 95.00
Subscriptions 1944 572.50
Subscriptions 1945 5.00
$ 672.50
Concordanceof Boethius-in-
come from sales 8.00
Concordanceof Bede-income
from sales 15.60
Gross, Sources and Literature:
Income 60.27
Publication Fund - income
from sales 310.74
Carnegie Publication Fund:
Grants for publications $2,745.00
Income from sales 2,498.96
Interest and dividends re-
ceived 272.39
5,516.35
Endowment Fund:
ceived (see contra) $2,782.15
Securities called 582.50
3,364.65
Haskins Fund:
Cash received from Trustees $ 489.04
ceived (see contra) 517.40
Securities called 2,010.00
3,016.44
Cram Fund:
Bequest from Estate of
Ralph Adams Cram 1,000.00
TOTAL RECEIPTS 13,964.55
TOTAL-FORWARD $35,739.88
SCHEDULE B (Continued)
TOTAL-FORWARDED $35,739.88
DISBURSEMENTS:
Research at Cluny - expenses $ .85
Editions of Commentaries of Averroes - expenses of research 41.75
Concordanceof Boethius - royalty and expenses 8.62
Concordanceof Bede - royalty and expenses 9.03
Publication Fund - publishing expenses 74.41
Carnegie Publication Fund - publishing expenses 4,112.40
Endowment Fund - Securities purchased 23.26
TOTAL $ 4,270.82
Dues and subscriptions (transferred to Unrestricted Funds) 665.50
Endowment Fund - interest and dividends (transferred to
Schedule A) 2,782.15
Haskins Fund - interest and dividends (transferred to Sched-
ule A) 517.40
TOTAL DISBURSEMENTS $ 8,235.37

CASH BALANCE 31 DECEMBER 1943:
Providence Institution for Savings $19,106.83
Harvard Trust Company 4,916.46
Rhode Island Hospital National Bank 3,481.22 27,504.51
TOTALS $35,739.88 $35,739.88
SCHEDULE C
BALANCE SHEET
31 DECEMBER 1943
ASSETS
Unrestricted Funds:
Cash in bank ($443.62), on hand ($15) $ 458.62
Restricted Funds:
Special Funds (Cash in bank):
Future dues and subscriptions $ 692.50
Research at Cluny 335.75
English Government at Work, 1327-1336 5.10
Glossary of Business Terms 1,084.88
Papal Relations with England 282.03
Editions of Commentaries of Averroes 2,527.38
Concordanceof Boethius (45.29)
Concordanceof Bede 16.52
Gross, Sources and Literature 3,061.50
Survey of Materials to be Edited 100.00
Cram Fund 1,000.00
9,060.37
TOTA--FORWARD $9,518.99
SCHEDULEC (Continued)
TOTAL-FORWARDED $ 9,518.99
Endowment Fund:
Cash in bank $ 982.18
Investments at cost - Exhibit 1 (Market Value $46,606.25) 51,125.16
52,107.34
Publication Fhnd:
Cash in bank $ 2,040.04
Publications (at cost) 9,934.81
11,974.85
Cash in bank $12,922.88
Publications (at cost) 18,139.85
Investments at cost - Exhibit 2 (Market Value $712) 751.00
31,813.73
Haskins Fund:
Cash in bank $ 2,499.04
Investments - Exhibit 2 (Market Value $50,313.50) 51,057.03
53,556.07
TOTAL $158,970.98
LIABILITIES
Income (Unexpended balance) $ 458.62
Restricted Funds:
Special Funds:
Future dues and subscriptions $ 692.50
Research at Cluny 335.75
English Government at Work, 1327-1336 5.10
Glossary of Business Terms 1,084.88
Papal Relations with England 282.03
Editions of Commentaries of Averroes 2,527.38
Concordanceof Boethius (45 .29)
Concordanceof Bede 16.52
Gross, Sources and Literature 3,061.50
Survey of Materials to be Edited 100.00
Cram Fund 1,000.00
$ 9,060.37
Endowment Fund - capital
Principal $60,417.18
(Loss) on investments sold (8,309.84)
52,107.34
Publication Fund - capital 11,974.85
Capital $25,000.00
Income (unexpended balance) 6,813.73
31,813.73
TOTAL-FORWARD $105,414.91
C (Continued)
SCHEDULE
TOTAL-FORWARDED $105,414.91
Haskins-Fund - capital
Principal (based upon market value of investments at July
9, 1943) $53,606.07
(Loss) on investments sold (50.00)
53,556.07
TOTAL $158,970.98
( ) Indicates contra item or loss.
EXHIBIT1
ENDOWMENT FUND INVESTMENTS
31 DECEMBER1943
BONDS:
Par
$4,000.00 Continental Gas & Electric Co. 5s 1958 $3,820.00
1,000.00 Lower Broadway Properties 3-6s 1946 995.00
3,000.00 New York Central R.R. 'A' 4½s 2013 2,612.50
2,000.00 New York Chicago St. Louis R.R. 'C' 4½s 1978 1,165.00
1,000.00 do 'A' 5½s 1974 751.25
5,000.00 N.Y.N.H. & Hartford R.R. 41s 1967 4,556.25
1,000.00 do 6s 1940 947.00
3,000.00 Southern Pacific Co. 4½s 1981 2,617.50
1,000.00 Telephone Bond & Share Co. 5s 1958 880.00
2,000.00 Texas Electric Service Co. 5s 1960 1,960.00
1,000.00 Utah Light & Traction Co. 5s 1944 954.50
2,000.00 Western Maryland R.R. 1st Ref. 'A' 5½s 1977 1,805.00
TOTALBONDS (Market Value $19,898.25) $23,064.00
STOCKS:
No. of
Shares
30 American Cyanimid Co. 'B' common $ 276.75
14 do 5% preferred 150.89
34 American Telephone & Telegraph Co. 5,441.53
20 units Capital Building Co. certificate of beneficial interest 1,950.00
91 Chesapeak & Ohio Ry. Co. common 3,859.50
2 Consolidated Natural Gas Co. 53.14
8 Electric Bond & Share Co. $5.00 preferred 751.00
6 Equity Corp. $3.00 cum. preferred 132.00
20 General Motors Corp. 1,256.90
20 International Nickel Co. of Canada Ltd. common 292.10
10 Lone Star Cement Co. 465.15
10 Montgomery Ward Co. 221.57
50 New York State Electric & Gas Co. $5.10 cum. pfd. 5,175.00
40 North American Co. 5 ^% preferred 2,080.00
21 Standard Oil Co. of N. J. 925.24
27 United Fruit Co. 3,340.00
10 United States Steel Corp. common 490.15
10 Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. 1,200.24
TOTAL STOCKS (Market Value $26,708.00) 28,061.16
TOTAL INVESTMENTS- ENDOWMENTFUND

(Market Value $46,606.25) $51,125.16
EXHIBIT2
FUND INVESTMENTS
31 DECEMBER 1943
CARNEGIE PUBLICATION FUND INVESTMENTS

8 shares Electric Bond & Share Co. $5 Preferred
(Market Value $712) $ 751.00
HASKINS FUND INVESTMENTS

BONDS:
Par
$2,000.00 Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y. 3-s 1946 $2,060.00
5,000.00 U. S. Treasury Defense Savings G 22s 1954 5,000.00
2,500.00 U. S. Treasury Defense Savings 24s 1956/54 2,677.50
TOTALBONDS(Market Value $10,068.75) $ 9,737.50

STOCKS:
No. of
Shares
35 American Brake Shoe & Foundry Co. $1,373.75
30 American Telephone & Telegraph Co. 4,646.25
55 Century Shares Trust - Part. shares 1,605.18
80 First National Bank of Boston 3,750.00
100 General Electric Co. 3,975.00
50 General Motors Corp. 2,775.00
60 International Nickel Co. of Canada 1,965.00
50 Phoenix Insurance Co. 4,625.00
50 Standard Oil Co. of Indiana 1,787.50
50 State Street Investment Corp. 4,084.50
50 Union Carbide & Carbon Co. 4,218.75
20 United Fruit Co. 1,513.60
TOTAL STOCKS (Market Value $35,244.75) 36,319.53

$5,000.00 Professor Paul J. Sacks - pledge 5%
(Market Value $5,000.00) 5,000.00
TOTALINVESTMENTS- HASKINS FUND

(Market Value $50,313.50) $51,057.03
J. N. BROWN, Treasurer
REPORT OF THE AUDITING COMMITTEE

THE Auditing Committee submits herewith as its report a letter from Messrs. Patterson,
Teele and Dennis, Accountants and Auditors, reporting on their examination of the books
and records of the Treasurer of the Academy for the year ending 31 December 1943. The
cash statements, balance sheet, and exhibits referred to in this letter are incorporated
without change in the Report of the Treasurer.
1 Federal Street, Boston
April 20, 1944
The Auditing Committee,
of The Mediaeval Academy of America,
1430 Massachusetts Avenue,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
SIRS:
In accordance with your instructions, we have examined the books and accounts of the
Treasurer of the Mediaeval Academy of America for the year ended December 31, 1943,
and in relation thereto have prepared and submit the following financial statements,
subject to the terms of this report:
Page
Schedule A. Cash Statement of Unrestricted Funds- for the year ended
December 31, 1943 [374]
Schedule B. Cash Statement of Restricted Funds - for the year ended De-
cember 31, 1943 [375]
Schedule C. Balance Sheet - December 31, 1943 [376]
Exhibit 1. Endowment Fund Investments- December 31, 1943 [378]
Exhibit 2. Carnegie Publication Fund Investments - December 31, 1943 [379]
Exhibit 2. Haskins Fund Investments - December 31, 1943 [379]
The cash statements which we present in Schedules A and B, appended, show the
receipts and disbursements as disclosed by the books of the Academy for the year under
review. In accordance with the practice established by the Academy, interest accrued on
investments at December 31, 1943, has not been taken into account in the books of the
Academy, nor in the statements presented herewith.
During the course of our examination, we ascertained that all gifts as reported in the
minutes of the Council, and of the Executive Committee, all income receivable from
investments and all dues and subscriptions as shown by the card records, had been duly
accounted for, but we did not verify independently miscellaneous other receipts. We
ascertained, however, that all receipts as recorded in the books of the Treasurer had been
duly deposited in bank.
We vouched all disbursements for the year under review with approved invoices (except
for petty items) and paid cheques. We verified the bank balances at December 31, 1943, in
respect of Unrestricted Funds and Restricted Funds, amounting to $443.62 and $27,504.51,
respectively, with certificates obtained from the depositaries, and we verified by actual
count the Petty Cash Fund amounting to $15.
As of July 9, 1943, in accordance with the terms of a certain Deed of Trust dated June
20, 1927, Arthur L. Endicott and Richard C. Curtis, as Trustees, paid over, absolutely
and in fee, to the Mediaeval Academy of America the principal of such trust fund, known
as the Haskins Fund, aggregating $53,606.07, comprising securities with a market value
July 9, 1943, in the amount of $53,117.03, and cash in the amount of $489.04.
The securities at December 31, 1943, as listed in Exhibits 1 and 2, appended, were
verified by correspondence with the Providence National Bank, Providence, R. I., duly
appointed agents of the funds.
In our opinion, the accompanying cash statements and Balance Sheet correctly exhibit,
respectively, the cash transactions of the Academy for the year under review, and its
financial condition as at December 31, 1943, upon the basis indicated herein.
(Signed) PATTERSON,TEELE AND DENNIS
F. N. ROBINSON
A. P. MCMAHON
Auditing Committee
REPORT OF THE EDITOR OF SPECULUM

WHILE the budgetary allotment for SPECULUM for 1943 was $4700, restrictions on the
use of paper made it inadvisable to enlarge the size of our quarterly in a degree propor-
tionate to this increase. As a result, the total production cost for the year amounted to
$3577.16, as against $4163.18 for 1942 and $3603.05 for 1941. Chiefly by reason of a de-
crease in the number of reviews, the number of pages in the 1943 volume was also reduced
to 500, as against 642 in 1942 and 568 in 1941. The function of inflation in publishing costs
can be readily discerned from an inspection of our production costs per page over the last
six years:- 1938: $5.75; 1939: $5.70: 1940: $5.50; 1941: $6.35; 1942: $6.50; 1943: $7.00.
This current advance is of course due solely to rising labor, paper, and mailing costs. The
efficiency of our preparation of copy for the press is, however, shown by the fact that our
outlay for corrections and alterations, once copy has been set, runs to slightly under nine
percent of our current production cost.
During 1943 SPECULUM contained 32 articles and 10 reviews, the total reviews amount-
ing to only one-third of our normal expectation. With so many of our younger men in the
various services and in view of the additional burdens laid on our older members by war-
time conditions, it is hard to see how the situation could be otherwise. Of the 32 articles,
10 covered historical topics, 7 dealt with subjects in the field of mediaeval Latin literature,
4 with the vernacular literatures, 2 each with science, fine arts, and folk-lore, and 1 with
paleography. A significant innovation was the appearance of 4 articles relating to legal
history, including Mr G. E. Woodbine's essay on 'The Language of English Law,' one of
the most significant contributions ever carried by our journal. All articles published were
written by scholars resident in North America, among them 3 from Canadian contributors.
Labor shortage and heavy current commitments in all commercial presses have con-
siderably modified the time element in publishing a quarterly like SPECULUM. Under nor-
mal conditions, it was possible to figure on a production time of 8-10 weeks from the
moment of sending in copy to the date of mailing the finished issue. This time has now
risen to 12-15 weeks. We are at last adjusted to this change, however, and the current
April (1944) issue should be mailed out within a fortnight, while the July number, now
largely in page-proof, will probably appear somewhat ahead of schedule. The Editor of
SPECULUMtakes this occasion to express his appreciation of the exemplary patience
hitherto shown alike by contributors and by subscribers in a period of forced readjustment.
Except for the current decline in reviews, there is as yet no dearth of material for
SPECULUM,and we now have on hand accepted contributions for substantially one year
ahead. The vitality of mediaeval studies in the United States would thus seem even to
have gained under the pressure of the war period.
The Editor invites the grateful attention of the Academy to the care applied by Pro-
fessor B. J. Whiting to the preparation of our usual Bibliography of Periodical Literature
and to the efficient cooperation of the Executive Secretary, despite his war-time obligations
elsewhere.
S. H. CROSS, Editor
REPORT OF THE DELEGATES TO THE AMERICAN COUNCIL

OF LEARNED SOCIETIES
THE twenty-sixth meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies was held in the
Westchester Country Club, Rye, New York, on January 27 and 28, 1944. The day-and-a-
half conference was devoted largely to the reorganization of the committees of the Council
and to the discussion of the implications of some of the war activities of the Council, such
as the intensive language program and the plans of the Committee on Protection of
Cultural Treasures in War Areas.
The volume of business transacted by the Council continued at the high level of ex-
penditures noted in last year's report of the Academy's delegates (SPECULUM, XVIII [1943],
pp. 386-387). During the year between July 1, 1942, and June 30, 1943, the Council re-
ceived subventions for its own activities of $228,821. New funds available to the Council
from all sources, including Government contracts, totalled $756,105. The financial report
for the last half of the calendar year July 1, 1943, to December 31, 1943, indicated that
this tempo of financial transaction had continued, since new funds available for Council
activities during that period totalled $175,417, while the total funds available from all
sources and for all purposes totalled $472,586. The extension of the powers of the Execu-
tive Committee, effected last year by the suspension of the section of the Council's By-
Laws (3, par. 2) limiting the financial powers of the Executive Committee was, therefore,
continued for another year, and the expansion of the Executive Committee by the addi-
tion of two new members was likewise continued.
The war activities of the Council have consisted chiefly in carrying out the intensive
language program and War Department contracts for providing linguistic materials; in
the administration of cultural relations programs with Latin America; in the plans and
performances of the Committee on the Protection of Cultural Treasurers in War Areas;
and in the services offered by the Ethnogeographic Board, a joint committee of the
Research Councils and the Smithsonian Institution, dispensing information on strategic
areas. The Ethnogeographic Board has published a large number of personnel lists, has
replied to requests for information both orally and through mimeographed bulletins or
published booklets (such as the handbook for soldiers and sailors, Survival on Land and
Sea, of which a half million copies have been circulated), and has conducted a survey of
available personnel in foreign language and area courses. The problems connected with
language and area courses on which the activity of the Council has focussed through the
Ethnogeographic Board and the intensive language program were the subject of lengthy
discussion, in which allusion was made, among other problems considered, to their prob-
able effect on post-war education, to new techniques of teaching alleged and denied
(frequently in a single breath), to the putative advantage of teaching spoken foreign
languages through the use of native speakers under the control of 'trained linguists,' and
the axiom that 'primary concern with the spoken language is the best road to a reading
knowledge.' Some of the delegates to the Council, reporting results of inquiries or com-
menting from their own experience, argued that language and area studies should affect
different parts of programs of collegiate and graduate studies differently: skepticism was
expressed concerning the advisability of introducing language and area studies in any
dominant position in advanced work toward the Doctor's degree, and there was a tendency
to deprecate the introduction of language and area studies early in a student's program
because of the effect such studies would have on the discipline and training proper to the
early stages of general education; it was felt that the effect of language and area studies
would probably be felt most in the middle region of education, at about the level of the
Master's degree. Doubts were expressed concerning the soundness of this tendency to
look for the solution of the problems of the humanities in reassembling bits of information
according to areas: the problems of the humanities during the twenty-five years between
the wars have centered in questions of techniques and disciplines for teaching and for
research. The Council has devoted meetings to discuss and has appointed committees to
investigate the place of the Classics in education, the purpose and methods of the study of
modern language and literature; it took note of the recent controversy concerning objec-
tives and the success of the teaching of history; and, most recently, at the present meeting
it heard an interim report concerning the inquiry of the American Philosophical Associa-
tion into the place of philosophy in collegiate education.
Several new devices were approved for extending the effectiveness of the Council. A
Conference Board of Associated Research Councils was established in conjunction with
the National Research Council and the Social Science Research Council to consider
matters of concern to more than one council and to make recommendations to individual
councils. A Pacific Committee of the Council was appointed to extend the Council's work
more effectively to scholars of the humanities in the Far West, and the activities of the
regional Committee on the Humanities at Denver were described. The reorganization of
the committee system of the Council was carried forth under the guidance of a Statement
of Purposes and Objectivesprepared by the Executive Committee and the Advisory Board.
The objectives envisaged included (1) the discovery and development of superior research
and teaching personnel, (2) the improvement of methods and implements of research,
(3) the improvement of education and teaching, (4) the extension of American scholarly
interests to subjects, periods, and areas as yet insufficiently studied, and particularly to
those areas and cultures of the globe, the knowledge and understanding of which are
especially important for the United States, (5) the encouragement of the study of Ameri-
can culture, (6) the promotion, organization, and conduct of intellectual relations be-
between American scholars, and (7) cooperation with agencies of the Government and
other agencies. The reorganization involved the reduction of the four committees now
administering aid to individual scholars to two which will administer, respectively, fellow-
ships and grants-in-aid of research, and assistance to publication. The numerous planning
and development committees of the Council - or the activities with which they were
charged - are for the most part to be transferred to the appropriate constituent societies.
Thus, the Committee on Mediaeval Latin will be transferred to the Mediaeval Academy of
America, and the Academy will assume full powers, if it accepts the Committee, of direc-
tion of the project. In some cases committees are to be retained by the Council either for
the time being or indefinitely. This improvement of the methods of administering funds
and this drastic reduction of subject matter committees which were useful at one stage of
the Council's activities leaves unallocated those recurrent problems of the nature and
function of the humanities which have constituted, more than underworked fields, the
persistent and unresolved concern of the Council. When a question was asked concerning
the agency to deal with them, it was decided that the Advisory Board of the Council,
since it is now relieved of the task of serving as a jury for publications, will undertake to
treat of those broad educational and cultural problems.
The following officers were elected: Mr Fred N. Robinson as Chairman (re-elected),
Mr Wallace Notestein as Vice-Chairman, Mr S. Whittemore Boggs as Secretary-Treasurer
(re-elected), and, as members of the Executive Committee, Messrs. Richard H. Shryock,
Frederick Austin Ogg, William B. Dinsmoor, and Sturgis E. Leavitt.
S. H. CROSS,
R. P. McKEON,
Delegates
Memoir: Jean-Baptiste Beck

Author(s): J. D. M. Ford, Kenneth McKenzie, George Sarton
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:03
Speculum.
MEMOIR
JEAN-BAPTISTE BECK
JEAN-BAPTISTE BECK was born at Guebwiller, Alsace, on 14 August, 1881, and died at
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on 23 June, 1943. His parents, Jean-Baptiste and Barbara
(La Wurlin) Beck, hoped that he might enter Holy Orders as a Catholic priest, but through
the efforts of his music teacher, one Brumpt, a disciple of Haydn, he was permitted to
devote himself rather to musical studies. In music, he was an infant prodigy; it is reported
that Brumpt had him playing the organ at five years of age and gave him lessons on the
violoncello at an equally early period. But for an accident that impaired the use of one of
his fingers, his career might have been entirely a musical one; in any event, even after he
began his definite preparation for that of a teacher of the Romance languages and litera-
tures, he found his skill in instrumental music of much avail in earning the funds so neces-
sary to a student who had to make his own way. So it is that, for a while, he led an
orchestra, in a cafe-concert at Paris. Later, he directed a different venture, an ill-fated
Tourneeclassique, with a troupe which played classical drama in the environs of Paris and
throughout the provinces. He was organist in the church of St Leger in 1899 and in that
of St Gervais from 1900 to 1902. It is clear that much of his early experience fitted him
to be the competent musicologist that he proved himself to be in the area of Romance
culture.
Beck won a baccalaureate at Guebwiller. Enrolled in the Ecole Alsacienne at Paris,
in 1902 he obtained another bachelor's degree, and then for two years he taught Latin
as a member of the school's faculty. His advanced studies in Romance philology were
pursued at the University of Strasbourg and at the University of Paris. At Strasbourg,
where he became Doctor of Philosophy in 1907, he was a favorite pupil of Gustav Grober,
and that eminent scholar bequeathed to him his literary reliques; at Paris he enjoyed the
close friendship of Joseph Bedier. The year 1909-1910 he spent at Vienna as an exchange-
professor at an institute affiliated with the University of Vienna. At this point there came
to him a call from the University of Illinois and he accepted it, largely at the urging of
Bedier. The years 1911 to 1914 were passed at Urbana. There, in 1912, he married Louise
Goebel, the daughter of a professor of Germanic philology, possessed of musical talent
akin to his own; their union was blessed with two children. He labored effectively at the
University of Illinois in spite of certain personal difficulties caused by academic regulations
which have since been abrogated. At the invitation of President Thomas he proceeded in
1914 to Bryn Mawr College as Professor of Romanic Languages. He relinquished this
post in 1920, to assume a similar one at the University of Pennsylvania where he remained
for the rest of his life.
As a musical expert, Beck was in demand outside the walls of Bryn Mawr and the
University of Pennsylvania. In 1917 the Canadian Government asked him to train some
of its field workers in musical transcription, and he worked with Barbeau, Sapri, and
Boas on Indian and Franco-Canadian music. At this same time he was rehearsing Yvette
Guilbert in the interpretation of Troubadour songs, which became part of her repertory.
He was one of the founders of the Curtis Institute of Music, was connected with it from
1924 to 1938, and in 1927 represented it at the Beethoven Celebration in Vienna. The
American Musicological Society and the American Council of Learned Societies enlisted
his invaluable services in connection with important musical projects. He was elected
Fellow of the Mediaeval Academy on 28 April, 1928.
384
Memoir 385
The enduring contribution of Beck is in the domain of mediaeval music, especially the
music of the Troubadours, of which he discovered the key enabling him to transcribe and
reproduce melodies from the manuscripts. In 1908 he published Die Melodien der Trouba-
dours; in 1909, La Musique des Troubadours; in 1927, the Corpus Cantilenarum Medii
Aevi: le Manuscrit Cange; and in 1938, Le Manuscrit du Roi (with the collaboration of
Louise Beck.) He delighted in lecturing on vital features of the researches represented by
these documents, and those who heard him will remember the spontaneity of his singing
of Troubadour songs with melodies as authentic as his skill could make them. At the time
of his death he was working on an additional volume of his Corpus, and he had begun the
preparation of an article on a manuscript which he had discovered years before, in the
monastery of Lainz (Austria), an hymnarium whose existence was known only to him.
The personal qualities of Beck endeared him to those who really knew him; his learning
was great; his manner was simple and well-nigh humble; his soul was that of a sincere
Christian, unflinching yet unobtrusive in the profession of his Catholic faith. In his stu-
dent days he had known Monsignor Ratti, Librarian at Milan; in 1938 that prelate, as
Pope Pius XI, received him at his summer home in Castel Gandolfo.
J. D. M. FORD, Chairman
KENNETH MCKENZIE
GEORGESARTON

Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:04
Speculum.
CHAUCER
R. A. Caldwell, 'The scribe of the Chaucer MS, Cambridge University Library Gg 4.27,'
MODERN LANGUAGEQUARTERLY,v, 1 (March, 1944), 33-44.
G. R. Coffman, 'Another analogue for the violation of the maiden in the Wife of Bath's
Tale,' MODERN LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 4 (April, 1944), 271-274.
G. R. Coffman, 'Canon's Yoeman's Prologue, G., 11. 563-566: horse or man? MODERN
LANGUAGENOTES, LIV, 4 (April, 1944), 269-271.
V. L. Dedeck-Hery, 'Le Boece de Chaucer et les manuscrits frangais de la Consolatio
de J. de Meun,' PMLA, LIX, 1 (March, 1944), 18-25.
R. S. Loomis, 'Chaucer's eight years' sickness,' MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, LIX, 3 (March,
1944), 178-180.
F. P. Magoun, Jr., 'Hymselven lik a pilgrym to desgise: Troilus, v, 1577,' MODERN LAN-
GUAGE t,TES, LIX, 3 (March, 1944), 176-178.
Karl Young. ' lhaucerand Geoffrey of Vinsauf,' MODERN PHILOLOGY, XLI, 3 (February,
1944), 172-182.
FINE ARTS
G. B. Tatum, 'The Paliotto of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan,' ART BULLETIN, XXVI, 1 (March,
1944), 25-47.
HISTORY
William Bark, 'Theodoric vs. Boethius: Vindication and Apology,' AMERICAN
HISTORICAL
REVIEW, XLIX, 3 (April, 1944), 410-426.
Guido Kisch, 'The Jew's function in the mediaeval evolution of economic life,' HISTORIA
JUDAICA,VI, 1 (April, 1944), 1-12.
Fritz Mezger, 'Promised but not engaged,' JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL SO-
CIETY, LXIV, 1 (January-March, 1944), 28-31.
Ruth Mohl, 'Theories of monarchy in Mum and the Sothsegger,'PMLA, LIX, 1 (March,
1944), 26-44.
J. J. Rabinowitz, 'Some remarks on the evasion of the usury laws in the Middle Ages,'
HARVARDTHEOLOGICAL REVIEW, XXXVII, 1 (January, 1944), 49-59.
Alexander, Wyse, 'The enqueteurs of Louis IX,' FRANCISCANSTUDIES, XXV, 1 (March,
1944), 34-62.
LINGUISTICS
Leo Spitzer, 'Anglo-French etymologies,' MODERNLANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 4 (April, 1944),
223-250.
A. M. Sturtevant, 'Regarding the prefix 9- in Old Norse y-miss, "vicissim",' MODERN
LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 3 (March, 1944), 175-176.
LITERATURE
H. D. Austin, 'Dante and mirrors,' ITALICA, XXI, 1 (March, 1944), 13-17.
Cecilia Cutts, 'The Croxton Play: an anti-Lollard piece,' MODERN LANGUAGE QUARTERLY,
v, 1 (March, 1944), 45-60.
Grace Frank, 'The genesis and staging of the Jeu d'Adans,' PMLA, LIX, 1 (March, 1944),
7-17.
Mary Jeremy, 'The English prose translation of Legenda Aurea,' MODERNLANGUAGE
NOTES, LIX, 3 (March, 1944), 181-183.
Rudolph Kayser, 'Minne und Mystik im Werke Mechthilds von Magdeburg,' GERMANIC
REVIEW, XIX, 1 (February, 1944), 3-15.
A. H. Krappe, 'The historical background of Philippe de Thaiin's Bestiaire,' MODERN
LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 5 (May, 1944), 325-327.
386
Bibliography of Periodical Literature 387
Mary R. Learned, 'Saints' lives attributed to Nicholas Bozon,' FRANCISCAN

STUDIES,
xxv, 1 (March, 1944), 79-86.
Howard Meroney, 'The Nine Herbs,' MODERN LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 3 (March, 1944),
157-160.
T. M. Parrott, 'Mak and Archie Armstrong,' MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, LIX, 5 (May,
1944), 297-304.
M. W. Stearns, 'A note on Robert Henryson's allusions to religion and law,' MODERN
LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 4 (March, 1944), 257-264.
M. W. Stearns, 'Robert Henryson and the leper Cresseid,' MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES,
LIX,4 (April, 1944), 265-269.
James Travis, 'Parallels in poetic device between the Old French epic and the Old Welsh
elegy,' PMLA, LIX, 1 (March, 1944), 1-6.
MEDICINE AND SCIENCE
C. F. Biihler, 'Notes on a manuscript of the Virtutes agnus dei,' BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY
OF MEDICINE, XV, 2 (February, 1944), 220-224.
Mary Emily Keenan, 'St. Gregory of Nyssa and the medical profession,' BULLETINOFTHE
HISTORYOF MEDICINE, XV, 2 (February, 1944), 150-161.
Suessman Munter, 'Maimonides' Book for Al-Fadil,' IsIS, xxxV, 1 (Winter, 1944), 3-5.
J. H. Nunemaker, 'Obstetrical and genito-urinary remedies of thirteenth-century Spain,'
BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE, XV, 2 (February, 1944), 162-188.
H. E. Sigerist, 'A fifteenth-century treatise on wine,' BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDI-
CINE, xv, 2 (February, 1944), 189-200.
Lynn Thorndike, 'Manuscripts of the writings of Peter of Abana,' BULLETINOF THE HIS-
TORYOF MEDICINE, XV, 2 (February, 1944), 201-219.
MUSIC
Georgia Stevens, 'Gregorian Chant, the greatest unison music,' MUSICAL QUARTERLY
XXX,2 (April, 1944), 205-225.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Cuthbert Gumbinger, 'St Bernardine's unedited Prediche Volgari,' FRANCISCAN STUDIES,
xxv, 1 (March, 1944), 7-33.
Abraham Heschel, 'Reason and revelation in Saadia's philosophy,' JEWISHQUARTERLY
REVIEW, XXXIV, 4 (April, 1944), 391-408.
M. Monica Wagner, 'Plan in the Confessions of St Augustine,' PHILOLOGICAL QUARTERLY,
XXIII, 1 (January, 1944), 1-23.
Books Received
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1944), p. 388
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:04
Speculum.
BOOKS RECEIVED
Rudolphus Arbesmann, O.S.A., and Winifridus Humpfer, O.S.A., edd., Jordani de Saxonia.
Ordinis Eremitarum S. Augustini Liber Vitasfratrum. New York: Cosmopolitan Sci-
ence & Art Service Co., Inc., 1943. Cloth. Pp. xcii, 548. $7.50.
J. W. H. Atkins, English Literary Criticism: The Medieval Phase. England, Cambridge at
the University Press; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1943. Cloth. Pp. ix, 211.
$3.00.
Philotheus Boehner, O.F.M., ed., The Tractatus de Successivis. Attributedto William Ock-
ham. (Franciscan Institute Publications, I). St Bonaventure, New York: The
Franciscan Institute, St Bonaventure College, 1944. Paper. Pp. xi, 122.
Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools; E. H. Zeydel, trans. & commentator. With reproduc-
tions of the original woodcuts. (Records of Civilization Sources and Studies, xxxvI.)
New York: Columbia University Press, 1944. Cloth. Pp. 399. $5.75.
Ismar Elbogen, A Century of Jewish Life; Moses Hadas, trans. Philadelphia: The Jewish
Publication Society of America, 1944. Cloth. Pp. xliii, 814. $3.00.
Louis Finkelstein, ed., Rab Saadia Gaon: Studies in His Honor. New York: Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary of America, 1944. Cloth. Pp. xi, 191.
V. E. Hamm, trans., Pico della Mirandola of Being and Unity. (De ente et uno). Trans-
lated from the Latin with an introduction. (Medieval Philosophical Texts in Transla-
tion, 3.) Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 1943. Paper. Pp. 33.
C. A. Hart, ed., Philosophy in Post-War Reconstruction. (Proceedings of the American
Catholic Philosophical Association, xix). Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University
of America, 1943. Paper. Pp. 200. $2.00.
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, LIV. Committee of the Classical Instructors of
Harvard University, edd. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943. Cloth. Pp.
119. $2.00.
B. M. Metzger, The Saturday and Sunday Lessonsfrom Luke in the GreekGospelLectionary.
(Studies in the Lectionary Text of the Greek New Testament, ii, 3). Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1944. Paper. Pp. v, 101. $1.50.
C. M. Sage, Paul Albar of Cordoba:Studies on Iis Life and Writings. A Dissertation. (The
Catholic University of America Studies in Mediaeval History. New Series, v). Wash-
ington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1943. Paper. Pp. xii, 239.
R. A. L. Smith, CanterburyCathedralPriory. A Study in Monastic Administration. (Cam-
bridge Studies in Economic History). Cambridge, England: The University Press,
1943. Cloth. Pp. xi, 237. $3.75.
Alexander, Turyn, ed., Pindari Epinicia. New York: Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences
in America, 1944. Cloth. Pp. xiv, 224. $5.00.
Edna Rees Williams, The Conflict of Homonyms in English. New Haven, Connecticut:
Yale University Press, 1944. Cloth. Pp. 130. $3.00.
388

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Back Matter
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:04
Speculum.
An annotated edition of Bede's four works On Times, with an intro-

duction, description of manuscripts, appendix, and indices by
CHARLES W. JONES
Cornell University
For five centuries following their publication, Bede's De Tem-

porum Ratione and De Temporibus were the basic textbooks on the
calendar, used for the fundamental study of computus in the cur-
riculum of cathedral and monastic schools. From them, mediaeval
students and scholars derived their notions not only of chronology
and history but of the ancillary sciences of astronomy, mathematics,
geography, physics, and the like.
From an examination of nearly two hundred manuscripts and a

collation of the earliest, the editor has created the first essentially
new text of these works since the sixteenth century, as well as new
texts of two of Bede's letters on chronology and astronomy.
In addition to the texts, the volume contains an extensive history

of the development of the ecclesiastical calendar during the first
eight centuries of our era, based in good part upon hitherto unpub-
lished documents, as well as a discussion of Bede's work, a descrip-
tion of manuscripts, Bede's sources, and textual annotations relating
each topic to other manuscript material of the period. An appendix
contains illustrative selections from an unpublished Irish computus.
There are full indices to manuscripts, sources, and proper names.

MEDIAEVALACADEMYOF AMERICA
CURRENTPUBLICATIONS
THE NOTATION OF POLYPHONIC MUSIC (900-1600). By Willi Apel.
Second corrected edition to appear in August. Printed by letter-press. Publi-
cation No. 38 of the Academy. Pp. xxv, 471. Cloth-bound. ($4.50).
IOHANNES BURIDANUS: QUAESTIONES SUPER LIBRIS QUATTUOR

years John Buridan was the leading philosopher of the University of Paris,
influencing such eminent pupils as Albert of Saxony and Marsilius of Inghen.
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rived from his lectures given at the University. The four books of Buridan's
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BEDAE OPERA DE TEMPORIBUS. Edited by C. W. Jones. Contains a sur-
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the computistical works of Bede, edition of four texts, critical apparatus and
notes, appendices, and indices. Printed by letter-press. Publication No. 41 of
the Academy. Pp. 448. Cloth-bound. ($8.00).
ARATOR: THE CODICES. Edited by Arthur Patch McKinlay. A complete

description of pertinent codices of Arator, including dates, measurements, listing
of contents, provenience, sources, etc. Professor McKinlay devotes one chapter
to the place of Arator in mediaeval culture as indicated by the setting of the
codices. An appendix (37 full-page plates) reproduces many of the more inter-
Academy. Pp. vii, 166. Cloth-bound. ($3.00).
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MASSACHUSETTS
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THE WORKS OF FRANCESCO LANDINI. Edited by Leonard Ellinwood. A
study of the life and works of the great blind composer of fourteenth-century Flor-
ence. Professor Ellinwood has made Francesco's works available in a collated tran-
scription of the manuscript sources. Transcriptions of 154 compositions are included.
Printed by photo-offset. Publication No. 36 of the Academy. Pp. xliii, 316. ($3.00).
'Musical Italy-and for that matter musicologists in the world at large-will
simply have to accept this gift with gratitude . this edition is musically and
textually perfectly reliable.'
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FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN CACCE. Edited by W. Thomas Marrocco.

A complete anthology of the genre, as only twenty cacce have come down to us
from the latter half of the fourteenth century. Contains transcriptions of the compo-
sitions of Jacopo da Bologna, Giovanni da Firenze, Magister Piero, Francesco
Landini, Niccolo da Perugia, and others. Printed by photo-offset. Publication No.
39 of the Academy. Pp. xx, 84. ($2.50).
'Marrocco's collection is of great value, enabling modern scholars to study this
form from all the extant examples rather than from a small number of isolated cacce
from which deductions are hazardous. Such publications of actual documents,
together with prefatory materials, are contributions of primary importance to study
of early music.'
-LLOYD HIBBERD
HARMONICE MUSICES ODHECATON: A. Edited by Helen M. Hewitt (with

literary texts edited by Isabel Pope). A thorough study of the first large collection
of part-music to assume printed form. Includes transcriptions of the 96 composi-
tions collected in Petrucci's edition of 1501, with notes, variants, concordance,
analyses, etc. Printed by photo-offset. Publication No. 42 of the Academy. Pp. vii,
421. ($4.00).
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practical. Not many modern editions of old music can be praised in equal terms.'
-HUGO LEICHTENTRITT
THE NOTATION OF POLYPHONIC MUSIC. By Willi Apel. Professor Apel has

provided the first scholarly history in English covering the evolution of mensural
notation. This definitive study, abundantly illustrated with facsimiles and examples,
'We have long needed an authoritative and documented guide to the mysteries
of the mediaeval musical notations. Dr. Willi Apel's book generously fills our need.'
'The splendidly printed volume with its wealth of facsimile reproductions and
transcriptions is bound to be indispensable to all serious students of mediaeval
music, as it opens to them the direct access to the primary sources, the mediaeval
manuscripts and early prints of the sixteenth century.'
-HUGO LEICHTENTRITT
'May I express my profound admiration for Dr. Apel's book on the notation
of polyphonic music? . . . The need for such a work in English has long been
recognized, and Dr. Apel has met this need in a practical and scholarly way.'

MASSACHUSETTS
CAMBRIDGE,
i
I _ ,
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THREE MEDIAEVALACADEMY
putistical works of Bede, the Mediaeval Academy offers three monu-
ments of scholarship by eminent students of Bede.
A CONCORDANCETO THE HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICAOF BEDE, compiled

by Putnam Fennell Jones. Published for the Concordance Society by
the Mediaeval Academy of America. Paper. Pp. ix, 585. $6.50.
"Cette Concordanceest appelee a rendre aux travailleursles plus grands

services," Revue historique (1931). "La Mediaeval Academy of Amer-
ica ve de donar-nos un altre precios instrument de treball. No sabriem
estarnos de remarcar les hores de treball i el tresor de paciencia que
representa una obra com la del prof. Jones, en la qual prop de 50.000
citacions han estat registrades," Estudis universitaris Catalans (1930).
"Professor P. F. Jones has placed all students of the works of the Vener-
able Bede under a heavy obligation by providing them at the cost of
enormous labour with A Concordanceto the Historia Ecclesiastica . ..
accurate and full in its references and practical in its method," Modern
Language Review (1931).
BEDAE VENERABILIS EXPOSITIO ACTUUM APOSTOLORUMET RETRACTATIO,

"Students of Bede and connoisseurs of good editing alike should wel-

come this volume," American Journal of Philology (1942). "Professor
Laistner has earned the gratitude of scholars by producing a thoroughly
sound text of the two treatises from a great number of manuscripts,"
Classical Review (1940). "Piui che mai opportuna giunge l'edizione
critica che per la prima volta ce ne da il Dott. Laistner, poiche tutte le
precedenti edizioni lasciavano assai a desiderare," Biblica (1941).
BEDAE OPERA DE TEMPORIBUS, edited by C. W. Jones. Cloth. Pp. xiii,

416. $8.00.
See advertisementelsewhere in this issue.
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I
Front Matter
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Oct., 1944)
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:05
Speculum.
SPECU
OCTOBER,1944
QUARTERLY BY
PUBTJSHETnD

President Treasurer

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBINE GEORGE RALEIGH COFFMAN
Yale University University of North Carolina
SecondVice-President Executive Secretary

AUSTIN PATTERSON EVANS CHARLES R. D. MILLER
Third Vice-President Secretary of Publication

Councillors
HERBERT DOUGLAS AUSTIN SIDNEY PAINTER
University of Southern California The Johns Hopkins University
MYRTILLA AVERY GERALD PHELAN

Wellesley College The Mediaeval Institute, Toronto
HARRY CAPLAN EDWIN BRAY PLACE

Cornell University Northwestern University
FREDERIC DUNCALF PHILIP WEBSTER SOUERS

University of Texas Newcomb College, Tulane University
WILLIAM HUSE DUNHAM ARCHER TAYLOR

Yale University University of California
RUDOLPH WILLARD
University of Texas
Executive Committeeof the Council

K. J. CONANT GEORGE LA PIANA H. M. SMYSER

S. H. CROSS A. P. MCMAHON TAYLOR STARCK
J. D. M. FORD R. A. NEWHALL C. H. TAYLOR
N. S. B. GRAS SIDNEY PACKARD B. J. WHITING
E. K. RAND
Since the Executive Committeeis a Committeeof the Council, members

SPECULUM
October, 1944
SPECULUM
Editor
HarvardUniversity
Assistant Editors
Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University
Business Manager
CHARLESR. D. MILLER
Advisory Board


Vol. XIX, No 4-Copyright, 1944, by the Mediaeval Academy of America-PRINTED IN U. S. A. Entered as second-class
matter, May 8, 1926, at the Post Office at Boston, Massachusetts. Accorded additional entry at Menasha. Wisconsin,
May 8, 1931.
SPECULUM is regularly indexed in the International Index to Periodicals and the Art Index.
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
Tourneys in the Arthurian Tradition . . . EDOUARDSANDOZ 389
Welsh Prose Versions of the Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday

.... . . .~...... WILLIAMW. HEIST 421
The Political Meaning of Chaucer's Tale of Melibee

GARDINER STILLWELL 433
The Coronation Oath of Edward II and the Statute of York

B. WILKINSON 445
Robert le Coq and Etienne Marcel. . ARTHUR LAYTON FUNK 470
The ProvenQal Expression Pretz E Valor . . . A. H. SCHUTZ 488
Fourteenth-Century Population Records of Catalonia

ROBERT S. SMITH 494
REVIEWS
A. C. L. Brown, The Origin of the Grail Legend (Margaret Schlauch) . . 502
Guido Errante, Sulla Lirica Romanza delle Origine (Isabel Pope) . . .505
C. W. Kennedy, The Earliest English Poetry (Howard Meroney) . . . 508
Henry Lewis, Brut Dingestow (Kenneth Jackson) .. .. 510
R. N. Walpole, Charlemagneand Roland (U. T. Holmes, Jr) .... 511
C. A. Wood and F. Marjorie Fife, transs. and eds., The Art of Falconry,
being the De Arte Venandi cum Avibus of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen
(A. IH.Schutz) ..... .. 512
VARIA
Bibliography of Periodical Literature ...... 516
Books Received .... 517
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Tourneys in the Arthurian Tradition

Author(s): Edouard Sandoz
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Oct., 1944), pp. 389-420
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:06
Speculum.
SPECU
VOL.XIX OCTOBER, 1944 No. 4
TOURNEYS IN THE ARTHURIAN TRADITION

BY EDOUARD SANDOZ
INTRODUCTION
THE text which follows, Laforme quon tenoit des tournoys et assembleesau temps du
roy uterpendragonet du roy artus ..., deals with three connected aspects of the
Arthurian tradition. The first part treats of the form of the tournament as exer-
cised in the days of Uther Pendragon and of his renowned son. The second section
includes the oaths which the companions of the Round Table took on being ad-
mitted to this high order. The third part contains the names of the one hundred
and fifty knights of the companionship and representations of their coats of arms.
In the Hofer Collection at Harvard there is a fifteenth-century manuscript of
'La forme quon tenoit des tournoys . . . ' followed by the Livre des Tournois of
Rene d'Anjour; this has been used as a basis for the text here presented.
In a prefatory letter to La forme quon tenoit des tournoys . . . we find these
words: ' . . . sensuyt ... la forme des tournays que a iourduy ont cours faitz et
dictes par ... le roy regne roy de iherusalem et de cecille,' promising us that the
author will follow his own compilation with the Livre des Tournois by King Rene.
Clearly then the two works were meant to be joined. This reference to the Rene
(regne)text is common to all the sources we know, although this text itself is some-
times omitted. The subject of the Rene treatise is the same as that of the first
section of ours, with this difference, that the king describes the tournament,
specifically as it should be in his own day and certain of the rules and procedures
differ from those in our text.
We learn from the introductory letter that the author compiled his work from
various sources '. . . les quelles choses lay conculiez en plusieurs livre traictans
de ceste matiere et mis en gros et rude langaige etc. ... ' At the head of the sec-
tion on the names of the knights and their arms, he tells us more about these
sources:' . . . conculy . . . au livre que maistre helie et maistre roubert du bourion
maistre gaultier moab ou le bret et maistre rusticien de pise..... ' These are, of
course, the two de Borons, Helie and Robert, to whom 'Joseph,' the "Graal,'
etc., are attributed. Rusticien de Pise was also a popular Arthurian writer. Walter
Map is believed to be the author of at least a part of the prose series 'Merlin,'
'Lancelot,' 'Quest of the Grail,' etc. Furthermore, our author was certainly in-
spired and guided by the work of Rene d'Anjou, whose method and order he
follows rather closely.
In Le Vray Theatred'Honneur et de Chevalerieetc. by M. Vulson de la Colom-
biere (Paris: Augustin Courbe, 1648), there is a resume, with some direct quota-
389
390 Tourneys in the Arthurian Tradition
tions, of 'La forme quon tenoit des tournoys..... 'This is followed by a complete
printing of the larger Livre des Tournois of Rene d'Anjou. We can see by the quo-
tations that Vulson had a text fairly close to ours. He also knew of the introduc-
tory letter, as is evidenced by a direct extract from it (I, 39). Further on (I, 136),
after speaking of several other matters, Vulson gives us the names of the knights
of the Round Table, and descriptions of their arms.
A complete edition of our text was issued by Alphonse de Blangy, La Forme des
Tournois au Temps du Roy Uter et du Roy Artus .. . (Caen, 1897). For his edition
de Blangy used a manuscript which included also the Verger de France. This
very rare edition in many places does not agree with readings from other texts
and does not furnish these variants.
The fifteenth-century manuscript, already mentioned, of La forme quon tenoit
des tournoys . . . now in the Hofer collection at Harvard, appears to be a very
soun(I version. This is followed by one hundred and fifty paintings of shields.
Next come several blank leaves and then the Rene Livre des Tournois. This second
text lacks the last few paragraphs and does not have all the drawings usually in-
cluded.
Under a different title I have found two other manuscripts which include La
Forme quon tenoit des tournoys... as a sort of appendix. The first is in the
Morgan Library in New York, Noms, armes et blasons des chevaliers de la Table
Ronde, written about 1500 A.D. This gives, first, one hundred and seventy-five
paintings of the arms of the knights with a short biography of each under his
shield. At the end, and without title, but including the introductory letter, we
find our text.
The second manuscript, in the same form, is in the Walters Art Gallery in
Baltimore. This adds crests, supporters, and marks of dignity to the arms, and it
possesses a noteworthy characteristic; it omits the passages concerning Carlat
and Vienne, which we shall discuss shortly. The title of this manuscript, as given,
is 'Ce sont les noms armes et blasons des chevalliers et compaignons de la Table
Ronde au temps que ilz jurerent la Queste du Sainct Graal. . . This is the latest
manuscript of those mentioned and is early sixteenth century.
DATE OF WRITING
We have several indications as to the date of the writing of our text. A. de
Blangy, in the introduction to La Forme des Tournois . . . (see above), reports that
he used a manuscript containing the arms of France surrounded by the order of
St Michel. The O.rderwas instituted in 1469. In an armorial, Verger de France,
also included in this manuscript, are the arms of St Pol, who was executed for
treason in 1475. It is reasonable, as de Blangy points out, to think that they would
not have been included after this date. De Blangy considers this manuscript to
be a very early version of the text of La Forme des Tournois... In any case
Rene d'Anjou wrote the Livre des Tournois 1451-1459 and the other work in
question certainly is later. The Harvard manuscript of these writings seems to be
of about 1460-1475. We can, I think, safely take 1459 as the earliest possible
date and 1475 as the latest for the writing of La Forme des Tournois or La forme
quon tenoit des tournoys ... "
Tourneys in the Arthurian Tradition 391
AUTHORSHIP
We have only the following evidence for identifying the author and the recipient
of this work, La forme quon tenoit des tournoys.
I. The work was written between 1459-1475.
II. Indications in the prefatory letter. These are:
1. 'Carie congnoiztreshaultet puissantprincemon treschieret honnorefrereprincede
vienne que vous lentendes et cognoissesmult clerementcome celui qui voulontiersen
tieulx chosesvous delictesEt encorespourtousioursvous adioingdreen toutes vertueuses
chosesne cessesen ce temps de paix et transquillitefere ioustes tournayset autres choses
qui appartienneta toutes avoir darmeset a lentretenementdicellestellement que le har-
noys est si conioinget si amiableque a peinessembleil quetoutes noblesoeuuresmarcialles
soient nees avecquesvous que est espoira tous nous voz parenset amys de granschosesde
bien vous advenir.Et pour ce scaichantque toutes chosesque a armesappartiennentsoit
en guerreou en paix vous sont plaisanteset tres agreablesvous envoye ung petit livret . . .'
2. ' . . . les quelleschoseslay . . . mis en gros et rude langaigeselon la formedes mon-
taignes de carlat . . .
These passages tell us that the man to whom the booklet was sent was closely
connected with the author, ' . . . treschiere et honnore frere . . . ,' that he was
'prince de vienne,' and that he was quite a warrior and loved martial games.
About himself the author tells us only that he wrote in the language of the
mountains of Carlat.
Lastly, the book was written during a period of tranquility and peace.
Vulson de la Colombiere in his Theatred'Honneur, above mentioned, attributes
the authorship to Rene d'Anjou and concludes, from the appellation 'prince de
vienne,' that the work must have been dedicated to a Dauphin.
De Blangy, in his introduction to La Forme des Tournois, above cited, very
rightly rejects this attribution of authorship on the grounds that the text of the
letter and its reference to 'le roy regne . . . ' make such a supposition absurd.
He does, however, accept the idea that the book is dedicated to the Dauphin,
born in 1470, because he believes that only the Dauphin could possibly be called
Prince of Vienne. Since the Dauphin Charles would be at most five years old
when the book was written, he can not be the warrior so vividly described. There-
fore, although the text, as can be seen, does not at all warrant this, de Blangy
argues that the book was dedicated to Charles, but sent to some one else, the
martial hero, for the purpose of amusing the infant prince.
This man he takes to be the brother of the author and a close connection of the
Dauphin, also addressed 'frere.' De Blangy's final conclusion is that the man to
whom the letter was sent is Pierre de Bourbon, brother-in-law of the Dauphin.
The author is, then, Pierre's brother, Jean, who was the nephew-in-law of Rene
d'Anjou, which increases the strength of this conclusion. Further, in de Blangy's
manuscript (not in others) the arms of Savoy are flatteringly mentioned, and
Charlotte of Savoy was the mother of the Dauphin, mother-in-law of Pierre, and
sister-in-law of Jean. Also, the de Bourbons collected Arthurian manuscripts.
As for Carlat, de Bourbon once governed the Languedoc and had possessions
in that province.
A study of this theory has led me to its rejection, at least in large part. The
whole error hinges on the assumption that 'prince de vienne' must be the
Dauphin. Since the Dauphin was an infant, a third person must be intro-
duced to explain the warrior mentioned in the letter, even though this is com-
pletely contrary to the sense of the text.
In the first place Charles (Dauphin itself being a distinctive title) would prob-
ably not be called Prince de Vienne, and his age excludes him anyway unless we
completely twist the sense of the text as did de Blangy. There is on the other
hand, a person whom this title fits perfectly and without the slightest difficulty.
The city of Viane was in the diocese of Castres. During the fifteenth century
Viane was an important principality and the prince of Viane was habitually
called by this title. Furthermore, in almost all fifteenth-century documents
Viane is spelled Vienne or Vyenne. A few examples will suffice. In Histoire de
Gaston iv, Comte de Foix by Guillaume Leseur (published for La Societe de
l'Histoire de France, par H. Courteault, Paris, 1893-1896), and in Chroniques
Romanes des Comtesde Foix by Arnaud Esquerrier and Miegeville, published by
Felix Pasquier, Foix, 1895, we find innumerable references to both the 'Prince de
Vienne' and the principality of 'Vienne.' In Book vI, Chapter 12 of Commines'
memoires we find a statement about Madeleine de France, wife of Gaston de
Foix, ' . . . de present appellee la princesse de Vienne . . . ' There is no longer
any doubt that our 'prince de Vienne' is the Prince of Viane. Normally no one else
would be so called, and he invariably was. Everything else seems to bear out this
conclusion, as we shall see.
Gaston de Foix, son of Gaston iv de Foix, was prince de Vienne or Viane until
his death in 1470. He was succeeded by his infant son Frangois, who was not called
prince de Vienne, but Comte de Foix, and who, being only two years older than
the Dauphin, is thus excluded for the same reasons. Gaston's predecessor was
Don Carlos of Navarre, son of Jean II of Navarre. Several reasons discourage the
idea that he was the recipient of the book. First, during most of the time from
1452 until his death (probably by poison) in 1461, he was at war with someone,
mostly his father, and was twice disinherited. This does not tally with the state-
ment about a period of tranquility and peace. Next, he was hardly the hope of all
his relations and friends, even though he did lead a strong Navarrese faction.
Also he does not correspond with the character description in our text, while
Gaston, Prince of Viane fits our requirements perfectly.
Gaston de Viane died before his father, and thus never was count of Foix. He
was, however, the most promising of the young leaders of the southern nobility
and would naturally assume an outstanding position as heir of Foix and Navarre.
He could, indeed, be called the hope of his friends and relations, especially since
he was still young. He was 27 when he died. Secondly, Gaston fits the character
of our 'prince de vienne' to perfection. He was passionately devoted to the tourna-
ment, hunting, and all martial sports, and had also achieved some considerable
reputation as a soldier. In fact, he met his death in a tournament at Libourne.
The Southern Languedoc is the country of the house of Foix and Carlat is in this
district. Lastly, he married Madelene de France, niece of Rene d'Anjou, and this
would emphasize the pleasure he might get from that monarch's treatise. We can,
I think, safely decide upon Gaston prince de Vienne or Viane as the man to whom
the book was dedicated. Everything bears this out.
The problem now remains of identifying the author. He calls Gaston 'frere,' and
he writes the language of Carlat, this is all we know. If one considers the nine
brothers and sisters of the Prince of Viane, and his brothers- and sisters-in-law,
there is none who seems a likely choice for any reason other than that of the rela-
tionship. None appears to be definitely associated with the Carlat, and this is,
after all, our most important clue. Space does not permit more detail concerning
the negative result of the search among those who are, in fact, Gaston's brothers
and sisters.
There is no ambiguity about the reference to the mountains of Carlat, and we
must accept this at its face value. It is, however, possible that the word 'frere'
might, by an extension of the term, have been used by some close relation and
friend of Gaston's. This possibility is made slightly stronger by the use of the
phrase 'tous nous voz parens et amys . . . ' If one admits this hypothesis there is
a strong indication of who the author may be.
Carlat, a town between Murat and Cahors, somewhat nearer the first and to the
east of Aurillac, was the chief center of the Viscounty of Carlat and is in the heart
of a range of hills or mountains, the 'montaignes de Carlat.' These are contained
within the borders of the fifteenth-century viscounty of Carlat which was bounded
to the Northeast by the viscounty of Murat, to the South by the county of Rodez,
and extends in two sections on either side of Aurillac, which it did not include.
In the years which concern us, and until 1477, this viscounty belonged to Jacques
d'Armagnac, Duc de Nemours, comte de la Marche, de Pardiac et de Castres,
vicomte de Carlat et de Murat, seigneur de Leuze, etc. He was the son of Bernard
d'Armagnac and Eleonore de Bourbon. The families of Foix and Armagnac were
inextricably interrelated and their political careers coincided. Jacques' cousin,
the count of Armagnac, married the sister of the prince of Viane. Jacques and
Gaston married first cousins, and so on.
Furthermore, Madeleine, wife of Gaston, and Louise d'Anjou, wife of Jacques,
were both nieces of Rene d'Anjou-Sicile, author of the Livres des Tournois.
Most important of all, we know that Jacques d'Armagnac was lord of all the
land around Carlat, and of the 'mountains of Carlat,' and that Carlat was his
chief residence. It is here that he was arrested in 1477. Here his wife gave birth
to at least one of his children and here also she died. From here he issued a letter
to Nicolas Erlaut, 'Donne en son chatel de Carlet' April 1467 (Armorial General
de France, L. P. Hozier, Paris, 1738-1768). It would be very natural for the Duc
de Nemours to write in the language of Carlat, he and Gaston are both nephews
by marriage of Rene, they are closely related, and they were neighbors. Thus, 1
believe there is a strong possibility that Jacques d'Armagnac was the author of
our treatise.
In the preparation of the present publication the manuscript of La forme quon
tenoit des tournoys which is now in the Hofer collection at Harvard has been
exactly transcribed, and variant readings of any importance are then given in
foot notes. Those from the manuscript in the Morgan Library are marked (M),
those from de Blangy's edition of La Forme des Tournois are marked (B). I have
not expanded the contractions, as in some cases my interpretation of them varies
from that of de Blangy or of the Morgan Library copy, and I wish the reader to be
able to see the problem for himself. The original is on twenty-six pages (13 if.)
of vellum, about twenty-five lines to the page. Page endings have been indicated
in the text thus, (23), by a number in parenthesis. The drawings are line facsimiles
from the paintings of the shields of the one hundred and fifty knights of the Round
Table. In the original the shields, each accompanied by a name, are arranged
sixteen to the page. As will be seen, the heraldic artist was not skillful, and the
quality of the draughtsmanship is far higher in the Morgan copy, but little better
in de Blangy's manuscript if one can judge from his reproductions. I have given
the facsimiles from the Harvard manuscript rather than the Morgan copy, be-
cause they go with the full text given, and because there is no doubt that they
stand much as the author originally planned, while many arms have been added
and certain changes effected in the later manuscript in the Morgan collection.
Since many of the arms have obscure charges, I have appended descriptions
corrected by the comparison of the various representations, and by the descrip-
tions, not always accurate, in de Blangy edition and the Morgan manuscript. I
have indicated variations by the same marks as in the footnotes, (H) being the
Harvard Copy, (M) Morgan, and (B) de Blangy. This will enable anyone in-
terested in heraldry to form his own opinion. I have also described those arms
which do not appear in the Harvard copy, but are peculiar to the Morgan
manuscript.
In the original, there are no numbers over the shields, but each shield is ac-
companie(l by a name. I have given the three lists of names exactly as they appear
in the different manuscripts. As will be seen, the order and spelling differ consider-
ably.
As shown by the footnotes, the Harvard manuscript seems, on the whole, to be
more accurate than that of de Blangy or the Morgan Library. The Morgan ver-
sion is obviously the latest of the three. A comparison of the names and their
sequence shows that de Blangy's text and that of the Morgan Library bear a
clearer relation to the third text than to each other. If the Harvard manuscript
be taken as a basis, the Morgan Library copy follows its order except for less than
a dozen names which, together with some which have been added, are in most
cases placed at the beginning because they are kings. The de Blangy text also
follows the Harvard order almost consistently in the following manner: 1, 3, 2, 4,
5, 7, 6, 8, 9, 11, 10, etc. That is, a pair reversed will follow a pair in normal se-
quence. There are a few exceptions, but these do not correspond to the Morgan
copy's variations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE TEXT
1. Laformequontenoitdestournoyset assembleesau tempsdu royuterpendragon et du roy
artusentreles royset princesde la grantbretaigneet chevaliersde la tableronde.
Also in the same manuscript,the Livredes Tournoisof Rene d'Anjou.
A fifteenth-centurymanuscripton vellumnowin the HoferCollectionat HarvardCollege.
2. Noms armeset blasonsdes chevaliersde la TableRonde,Vel. (ca. 1500).
A manuscriptnow in the MorganLibraryin New York,and given as No. 16 in de Ricci.
3. TableRonde.Ce sont les noms, armeset blasonsdes chevalierset compaignonsde la
TableRondeau tempsque ilz jurerenla Questedu Sainct Graal... A manuscriptin the
WaltersGalleryin Baltimore,given as No. 515 by de Ricci.
4. A. de Blangy, ed. La Forme des Tournois au Temps du Roy Uter et du Roy Artus, suivie
de l'Armorial des Chevalierde la Table Ronde, Caen, 1897. There is a copy of this rare book
in the Newberry Library in Chicago.
5. M. de Vulson Chevr Sieur de la Colombiere, Le Vray Theatred'Honneur et de Cheva-
lerie ou le Miroir Heroique de la Noblesse, Paris*-1648.
TEXT
(1) Pour ce que toutes bonnes meurs1sont regies par vertus. Et2 que en vertu force est
trs neccessaire pour garder une chescune dicelles A fin que les entendemens labeu (2) rent
ung chnn3 selon sa vocacion. Les anciens pour entretenir ceste vertu de force toute leur4
entente mistrent en exercite darmes la ou ilz exposoient leurs honneurs vies et avoirs. Pour
quoy estoient les choses publiques maintenues et seigneuries gouvernees en iustice. Et les
choses divines nourries en paix a quoy tant de nobles homes directeurs de bonnes oeuvres
tant travaillerent que le nombre deulx ne des travaulx quilz firent sont apine ni cogneuz5
et innumerables Et pour ce que asses say que mieulx le savez que moy nest ia besoing den
nul particlariser ne alleguer Car ie congnoiz treshault et puissant prince mon treschier et
honore frere prince de vienne que vous lentendes et cognoisses mult clerement come celui
qui voulentiers en tieulx choses vous delictes Et encores pour tousiours vous adioingdre en
toutes vertueuses choses ne cesses6 en ce temps de paix et tranquillite fere ioustes tournays
et autres choses qui appartiennet a tout avoir darmes et a lentretenement dicelles telle-
ment que le harnoys est si conioing et si amiable que a peines semble il que toutes nobles
oeuvres marcialles soient nees avecques vous que est espoir (3) a tous nous voz parens et
amys de grans choses de bien vous7 advenir. Et pour ce scaichant8 que toutes choses que a
armes appartiennent soit en guerre ou en paix vous sont plaisantes et tres agreables vous
envoye ung petit livret ou est la forme que len tenoit aux tournays et assemblees q len
faisoit du temps du roy arthus au royaume de la grant bretaigne Et avec ce la forme des
sermens que tenoient les chlrs recevans la haultess de lourdre de la table ronde le nom des
chevaliers dicelle et9 leurs armes les quelles choses iay conculiez en plusieurs livres traictans
de ceste matiere et mis en gros et rude langaige selon la forme des montaignes de carlat ie
say q cc nest chose ou doyes mectre lueilh pour lire. Mais aucuns de voz serviteurs y pour-
ront passer le temps Et'1 a ce que sensuyt apres ceste petite oeuvre y ay fait mectre ung"
beau traictie de la forme des tournays que a iourduy ont cours faitz et dictez par treshault
trespuissant tres exellent prince le roy regne roy de iherusalem et de cecille. Au quel12suis
seur que13prandres plaisir. Car vous y verres choses bien ordonnees et tres'4honnestes qui
bien vous plairront. Si vous prie tant come ie (4) puis treschier15et honnore frere. que le
tout preignes en gre regardant au bon16vouloir de lenvoyeur17 qui est plus vostre que sien-
En priant dieu qui croissance de vertus et honneur18en tous lieux vous envoye. (5)
19Laforme quon tenoit des tournoys et assemblees au temps du roy uterprendragon et du
roy artus entre les roys et princes de la grant bretaigne et chevaliers de la table ronde.20
Premierement le roy ou prince qui avoit intencion de ferir21le tournoy advisoit aucune
bonne cite ou ville pres de boys et de riviere Et tellement22 que le boys ou riviere peussent
clorre dun23couste le champt Et estoit voulentiers de coustume que aux principalles festes
de lan que le roy artus tenoit court pleniere sentreprenoient les diz tournoiz et assamblees.
Apre il advisoit lesquilx princes et chlis de grant renomee il pourroit parquerir24et avoir
* Augustin Courbe. 1 oeuvres (B). 2 (B) Et force est....
3 (B) chemin (Should read chescun). 4 (B) contre. 6 (B.M.) a peine incongneuz.
6
(M) necessaires. 7 (M) en (not vous). 8 (M) ce que je scay. (B) ce que scaichant.
9 (M) et de leurs. 10 (M) Et a ce que apres ce qui a ceste petite oeuvre....
11(V) Paraphrases 'beau ... cecille.' 12 (B) duquel. 13 (B) que y....
14 (B) bien (not tres). 15
(B) tres chevalier. 16
(B.M.) bon omitted. 17 (B) lenvoyant.
18 (M) hounneur vous
envoye en tous lieux.
19(M) Comment les tournois ce faisoient pres des bois ou des rivieres. La forme....
20
(M) adds estoit telle qui sensuit. 21 (B) faire.
22 (M) tellement omitted. 23

(B) dufor dun. 24
(B) appeler.
en son aide Et iceulx par gracieuses prieres et requestes advertissoit de son intencion Et
quant il estoit de son fait bien asseure et de tous ceulx dont il pretendoit avoir aide estoit
mande le tournoy en la maniere qui sensuit.
II avoit ung herault portant ses armes et deux damoiselles messagieres pour lacompaig-
nier et lui bailloit ung escu des armes du roy ou prince avec qui il (6) vouloit entreprandre
le tournoy. Et ainsi lenvoyoit avecques une Ires en rime bien dictes a la forme de lors par
quoy estoit notiffie au dit prince le tournoy avec les paroles que lofficr darmes disoit ques-
toient' en la maniere qui sensuit.
Sire roy ou prince selon lestat quil estoit devers vous menvoie le roy mon seigneur. Pour
le2 hault bruit grande renomme et prodommie darmes quil scet en vous. Si vous envoie ces
lres par moy et cest escu vous priant sil est vostre plaisir de ferir ung tournoy en tiel lieu
de pouoir contre pouoir pour acroistre pris et loz darmes aus chlrs Et aux dames plaisir et
esbatement.
La responce que faisoit le3 prince qui recevoit le tournoy.
Ie mercie le roy ou prince4tiel & tiel de lonneur quil me fait car maintz5 plus preudoms et
vertueux de6 moy eust il peu trouver en ce royaulme pour acomplir sa voulente Et ia7
soit ce que ie ne soie pas de si haulte ren6mee toutesfoiz pour amour de lui et aussi que iay
tousiours desire et desire8lexercisse de mes chevaliers aux faix darmes ie accepte loffre9quil
lui plaist me fere (7).
Et en ce faisant il prenoit les lectres et touchoit a lescu Et le faisoit porter en sa grant
sale et pendre au lieu plus honnorable que leans peut estre afin que chnn le peut veoir.
Apres faisoit responce en lectre pareillement en rime la mieulx ditte quil'0 povoit Et don-
noit aucuns dons audit officier darmes et damoiselles Et est a noter q cestui la" qui recevoit
le tournoy estoit paravant des pieca adverty du dit tournoy. pour quoy iamais ne leust
refuse Et ainsi entreprenoit et nomoit le iour a troys moys12de la13car tielle estoit la cou-
stume du royaulme de logre qua plus court ne povoit estre. Et apres ces choses faictes et
la responce receue de la partie appellant que alors on appelloit mandant estoit crie au14
tournoy alla court des deux princes. et apres couroient damoiselles et messagiers cerchant
chevaliers qui vousissent acquerir loz et pris pour venir au tournoy Et aussi silz trouvoient
aucuns vales qui15voulzissent recevoir lordre de chevalier le leur notiffioient.
La forme comment le champ du tournoy estoit ordonne. (8) Lel6 lieu estoitl7 esleu pres
de ville et'8 chastel ou grant cite assiz'9 sur riviere et boys Et tellement que la ville estoit
voulentiers fermeure dun couste et le boys ou riviere de lautre apres fermoit len20les deux
boutz des lisces Et derrier les, lisces estoient les tentez et pavillons des deux princes qui
devoient frapper le tournoy et chfin avoit loy dentrer dans la21ville pour querir armes et
autres choses necessaires22a ce.
La forme de la venue des princes.
Apres sen venoit le prince appellat a qui estoit voulentiers la cite ou ville troys sepmaines
ou ung moys devant le iour du tournoy La23il recuilloit tous les chevaliers qui pour le
tornoy24venoyent et a chnin adressoyt selon ce que mestier lui estoit Car maintz bon che-
valiers povres25y venoyent qui navoit pas tout ce que besoing leur estoit a26leur arroy.27
Apres chfin portoit tielles armes que bon luy28sembloit. Et par espicial les chevaliers de
hault renon qui beet29a gaigner30le pris de la iournee Lautre commune31chevalerie pourtoit
voulentiers (9) coleurs ou autr enseigne questoit ordonnee par les princes du tournoy et
chnn pour sa partie.
1 (M) questoientomitted. 2 (B) le omitted. 3 (B) premierinserted.
4 6 (M) que.
(M) princeou le roy. 6 (B) mieulx. 7 (M) ia omitted.
8 (M) et desireomitted. 9 (B) loffice. 10(B) que Ion. 11(B) celuy qui....
12 (M) sepmains. 13 (B) apres. 14
(B) ung. 15(B) serviteurs quilz....
16
(B)Se. 17 (M)ordonne et esleu.. .. 18 (M)ou de
(B) ou
19 21 (B) la dicte
(M) assiz omitted. 20 (B) len omitted.
22
(B) armes chevaulx et autres choses ad ce necessaires.... 23
(M) ou inserted.
24 2 (M) Povres chevaliers.
(M) pour tournoyer. 2 (B) pour.
27(M) a-arroyomitted. 28(B) luy omitted. 29(B) attendoient (M) tachoient.
30 31 (B) comme (M) comment.
(B) avoir.
Nulles enseignes nestoient portees fors seulement banniere de ceulx qui menoyent les
ordres dedens le tournoy ou voulentiers estoient' troys formes de batailles2 selon le nombre
des gens que chnn avoit de sa partie. Et chnn mectoit en la derniere route de lassemblee
tous les meilleurs chevaliers affin que par la vertu deulx lassemblee fust soubstenue et
vaincue a la fin.
Le premier qui avoit acepte le tornoy ou3 assemblee voulentiers venoit troys ou quatre
iours devant que le tournoy deust estre feru Et se longoit4 a lopposite de la ville ou a lautre
bot de lisses ou il faisoit tendre ses tretz5 et fere logis pour les6 chevaliers Car en7 ville
nentroit il pour riens8 que le tournoy neust este feru.
Les loges ou les dames devoient estre estoient a lun des lez ioignat au long dun des bots
de chnne lisse-9 (10) Lautrel° estoit vuide que nestoit ferme fors de fourest ou de riviere
aux deux botz des lisses en chnn avoit. 111. portes grandes" et spacieuses par ou les chlrs
yssoient par ordre de.vl.en.vl. pour se rancher chnn soubz12sa baniere.
Cheiscun povoit de sa part aler veoir et visiter ses cognoissans sauf13les princes qui fere
ne le devoient si nestoit en habit dissimule aussi les officiers darmes et damoiseles et iou-
gleurs pouoient aler par tout fut de lune partie ou de lautre sans contredit nul. Et ce ius-
ques a la ville14de tournoyement que chnn se retiroit de sa part sans eulx oser aler sans15
neccessite ou commandement des prince de lune a lautre partie.16
Cel7 que devoit estre fait pour18la ville'1 du tournoyement.
Dune chnne part20estoient assembles ceulx qui vouloient estre chlrs nouveaulx lavant
veille du iour Et estoient vestus dune couleur et disnoient ensemble aupres de la table du
prince chnn selon son renc et dignite et estoient serviz honnourablement apres aloient oir
vespres tous ensemble avec les chevaliers qui les conduisoient. (11)
21Apres vespres le prince qui les devoit fere chevaliers leur remonstroit coment ilz
devoient tenir loyaulte et verite sur toutes choses honnorer lesglise soubstenir vesves et
orphelins enter les faitz darmes et sesposer iusques a outtrance ou a la mort par bonne
querelle honnorer noblesse cherir les preudomes estre doulx aus bons et fier aux mauvais
apres ce choses promises chnn saloit disposer pour veiller la nuit aux esglises chnn a sa
devocion iusques a lendemain que la messe du saint esprit estoit celebree bien matin.22
Apres la messe oye chnn23aloit reposer iusques a leure de la grant24messe que chnn se
rendoit a lostel du prince pour lacopaigner et aloient devant lui de deux en25deux tous par
rend26 ainsi que devoit estre entierement ainsi dans27 leglise ou28 chnn se mectoit29 en son
endroit aux sieges ordonnes.
La30grant messe estoit c6mencee Et entre lespitre et leuvangille les chevaliers estoient
faiz avecques les benedicion qui sur31ce sont ordonnees et les espees seingtes par le prince32
qui lordre leur bailloit Et les esperons chausses par les chlFs a ce (12) comis Et apres33se
remectoit chnn en son siege iusques apres34la messe35celebree Et36ce fait chnn sen sailloit
acompaignant le prince ainsi quilz37estoient entres.38
1 (B) estoient omitted. 2
(B) troys bataillesformees. 3 (M) ou. 4 (B) eslongoit.
6 (B) ses tentes (M) les trefz, 6 (B.M.) ses. 7 (B) en la. 8 (B) nentroitpointque....
9 (B) Les loges ou les dames estoient estoient a lun des les joignant a lung dung des boutz de
chascunelice. (M) Les loges ou devoientestre les dameset damoisellesestoienta lun des lez ioignat
a lun des boutz de chnne lisse-. 10(M) Lautrebout. 11(B) grandesportes.
12
(M) soubz omitted. 13 (B) sans. 14 (B) veille. 15(B) sons.
16
(B) lune partie a l'autre. 17 (M) ce omitted. 18 (M)
pour omitted. 19(M) veille.
20 chnne 21 Et
(B.M.) des parties. (M) apres. .... (M) bien matin omitted.
2 (M) sen aloit. 24 (B) messe omitted. 25 (B) deux a deux. 26 (B) par odre (M) en rend.
27
(M) ainsi et puis dedans leglise . . . (B) et dedans. 28
(B) ou omitted.
29 30 (M) Et quant la....
(M) chnn en son endroit se mectoit. 31 (M) pour.
32 33 (M) Et ce faict chnn se....
(B) les princes. (B) et apres chascun se remettoit en son siege.
34 (M) iusques a ce que 3 (M) fut inserted. 36 (M) Et puis sen....
37 (M) come estoient....
38 (M) estoient venu jusques en la salle ou tente du prince puis on demandoit leau et chnn seoit aux
tables par et come devant est dit ou ilz estoient tres honnorablement servis et apres graces dictes vin
et espices baillees les nouveaulx chlrs senalloient armer.
En ceste ordonnance en la grant sale ou tantel apres estoit leaue cornee et chnn se seyoit
aux tables par ordre2 c6me devant est dit ou ilz estoient tres honnorablement servis Et
lors venoient menestriers et iougleurs de toutes sortes Et se aucun bon lay avoit este
fait de nouveau le chantoient Apres manger estoient levees les tables et graces rendues
dictes3 et vin et espices pns4 les nouveaulx chevaliers saloient armer.
A leure de nonne le cor estoit sonne por commencer les4 vespres du tournoyement Si5
venoient les nouveaux chevaliers dambedeux pars bien assenies et noblement6 et nestoit
nul qui osast porter escu si nestoit7 dune seule couleur a sa devise ou8 tout blanc ou tout vert
ou tout rouge ou dautres couleurs ou metaulx Et ne portoient nulles espees fors glaives
courtoiz qui estoient de sapiz ou difz avecques courz fers sans estre trenchans ne esmoluz Ansi
bordoient9 et brisoient lan (13) -ces iusques a basses vespres que la retraicte estoit cornee.10
Alors chnn se retrayoit a son pavillion et se desarmoient et se mectoyent arroy" pour
venir au pavillion du prince la12 ou tous sassembloient quant leaue estoit cornee pourle'3
soupper le prince les recevoit14 selon ce que chnn avoit bien fait a ce bordiz Et cestuila qui
mieulx avoit fait estoit assis assa table et fort coioys et fastoie pour donner courage de
mieulx en mieulx pour la demain.
Le soupper acomply et graces dictes les princes aloient voulentiers la ou les dames estoi-
ent logieez15 avecqes maynye secrete Et voulentiers y estoit mene le chevalier qui mieulx
avoit fait le iour de la veille ainsi se deduisoient tout cellui soir iusques a leure du coucher.
Oul6 voulentiers si les princes avoient aucun chevalier de hault ps17 qui se tint secret pour
ne18 vouloir estre congneu laloient visiter et festoier a leur povoir selon leur valeur E prou-
domie darmes.
Chescun se retrayoit et metoit en arroy ce19 quil avoit a fere pour20 lendeman et estoient
ordonnes les princes ou chlFs qui (14) menoient les routez au champt et les portes par la ou
ilz sauldroient dune chnne part et chnn estoit au soleil levant a la messe Et aps devinoit21
qui fere le vouloit a prime tout le monde estoit arme et monte soubz lenseigne de cestui
la22 qui conduire les devoit.
Pour le iour du tournoy.23
Comme dit est chnn portoit tieulx armes qui24 vouloit. Sauf25 aucune enseigne de couleur
sur la housseure de la devise au prince de quel part il estoit excepte les chlrs qui survenoit au
tournoyement qui ne vouloient mie estre c6gneuz Chnn estoit arme de heaulme aubert escu
et de glaive esmolu ente en quelque boys quil vousist espees trenchans et tout autrement
comme mortel26 bataille regne que tout estoc estoit deffendu et27 de frapper homme descou-
vert ne desarme de trenchant ne autrement que du pomeau de lespee pour en avoir la foy
Ce28 estoit c6mande sur poine de perdre29 lonneur du tournoy. Chnn30 attendoit soubz son
enseigne iusques a ce que les dames estoient31 aux herberges.
1 (B) ou tout apres leaue estoit cornee. 2 (B) par ordre omitted.
3
(B) dictes omitted. 4 (B) prinses. 5 (B) Et (not si).
6 (B) deux a deux bien et noblement appareillez et ny avoit nul qui osast.... (M) deux a deux bien
acoustrez noblement.... 7 (M) non. 8 (M) a sa ... ou omitted. 9 (B) abordoient.
10(B) sonnee. 1 (M) et mectoyent chnn en arroy.... 12 (B) la omitted. 13 (M) le omitted.
14
(M) recevoit chnn selon ce quil avoit bien fait Et ... (B) Et celluy qui avoit le mieulz fait....
15(B M.) logieez omitted. 16
(B) or. 17
(M) pris. 18 (B.M.) non. (M) vouloir omitted.
19(M) tout ce....
20
(B) pour les lendeman puis estoient les chevaliers qui menoient les routes au champ ot les portes
par la ou ilz fauldroient d'une chascune part et chascun en son endroit le repos de la nuy et puis
chascun estoit au soleil levant a la messe.... (M) pour lendeman et le lendeman a sollel levant
alloient oyr la messe puis desjunoient ceulx qui vouloient desjunier et a leure de prime tout le mond
estoit arme chnn estoit....
21
(B) beuvoit. 22 (B) la omitted. 23 (M) tournoyement. 24 (B) qu'il
25 26 (B) mortel la bataille reserve.... 27 (M) et omitted.
(B) sans.
28 (M) Ce la estoit deffendu et comande.... 29 (B) perdre omitted. 30(M) Et chnn.
31 (M) dames fussent hebergees en leur
loges (B) aux omitted.
Apres prime les dames' chnne en gnt arroy montoit aux logez ou herber (15) ges2 que
maintenent3 len dit eschaffaux les unes y estoient avecques les princesses. Les autres y
estoient menees par leurs parens les autres par leurs amys4 si celeement e si boucheez que
apeines estoient congneuz. et nestoit5 nul ne nulle qui force leur en feist Ainsi chnn povoit
veoir le tournoyment6 fut prive ou estrange et7 a son aise Sans de nul estre congneu Aussi
les chevaliers estrange povoient aider a chescune partie sas estre pressez destre cogneuz
chnn a son vouloir.
Les choses dessus faictes les cors et buisines estoient sonnees Si entroient les pre-
miers routez des chlrs8 dans le champ ou estoient maintz beaux coups despee feruz9 et
maintz10homes abbatuz ou il en y avoit de tieulx atournez que iamais navoient pouoir
deulx relever. Si estoit entretenu le tournoy en tielle maniere que chescune des parties
faisoit. iii. ou. iiii. batailles selon les gens quilz avoient avecques bons conduiseurs. Si
mectoit voulentiers chnne des" parties la bataille de leurs plus nouveaux chlrs les premiers
et12telle que se trouvoit la plus foible lautre seconde de son party la venoit secourir tielle-
met (16) quil convenoit par la force des armes que lautre perdist aucunement place Et
estoit13 chose necessaire que lautre seconde de leur partie le14vint au secours et ainsi par
cest ordre15se mesloient tant quil y avoit de Baitailles iusques a ce que toutes16les conroiz
estoient assemblees Et lors eussiez peu17 veoir grans faiz darmes et grant chappleiz dun
couste et devant'8-Car chnn sefforcoit a son pouvoir de maintenir'9 lonneur de soy.20
Et lors que toutes21lesbatailles estoient ainsi assemblees22souvanteffoiz suruenoit23aucun
bon aventureux chlr ausdiz assamblees24qui pas ne vouloient estre congneuz par non mes
par pudomie darmes qui25venoit si roidement en son ferir que dun seul glayve abbatoit
souvent troys ou quatre chirs des premiers quil rencontroit. Puis mectoit la main au branc
et faisoit tant darmes que la partie dont il se mectoit en estoit relevee et lautre reboutee26
tielement que toute la cryee loz et priz tumboit sur luy le nomant et criant tout vive27le
chir a28lescu vermeil ou aut29toute tielle enseigne quil lui sembloit de30porter.
En ce point tant duroit31chappleiz et le fereiz32que lune ou lautre partie (17) estoit vain-
cue et mise en fuite iusques dedens les lices et les au33estoient si presses aux trenchans des
espees que la34grant haste les faisoit mectre parmy35les boys et fourestz sas retourner36de
retourner en champt et queurit37que les cors et buisines sonnassent retraicte Et ce fait
nestoit si hardi homme de frapper plus38 cop de lance ne despee. Ains se retrayoit chnn
soubz son ordre et banniere et sen aloient desarmer.
Et voulentiers quant tous tieulx chevaliers qui ainsi venoient seleement comme dit est
sen retournoient et se embloient du tournay tiellement quon ne scavoit quil estoit devenu
ne qui ce povoit estre fors par39devinailles Et a ceste occasion qnt les princes et chevaliers
estoient retraiz du tournay Et quil venoit40 donner le pris et le chevalier ne se trouvoit.
1 (M) dames et damoiselles. 2 (B) ou herberges omitted.
3(M) que len dit a pnt chaffaux les unes estoient venues avecques....
4 (M) les ... amys omitted. (B) amys moult richement adornees et si boucheez....
5 (M) ny avoit. 6 (B) tournoyment a son aise fut prive.
7 8 (B.M) dedans. 9 (B.M) coups de lance faictz et....
(M) et omitted.
10(B) maintz beaulx copz despees ferus et maintz hommes.... (M) maintz beaux homes....
x(3) des dites parties. (M) des ... parties.... 12
(B.M) en celle que. 13 (M) ceste chose.
1 (B) leur vint. 15 (B) cest maniere se mestoient tant. 16 (B) toutes omitted.
17
(B) eussiez veu grans. 18
(B.M) et dautre-. 19(M) soustenir.
20 lonneur . . . omitted. 21 (B) toutes omitted. 22 (B.M) assemblees ainsi.
(B) soy
23 24 (M) chlr 25 (M) qui omitted.
(M) survenoit omitted. quis pas ....
26
(B) doubtee. 27 (B) tout omitted. (M) tout vainc. 28 (B) de lescu.
29
(B) ou l'aultre. (M) toute omitted. 30
(M) lui plaisoit porter. 31 (M) le chappleiz.
32
(MI) et-fereiz omitted. 33 (B) aulcuns. (M) autres. (H) several letters illegible.
3 (13) la omitted. 3 (M) dedans. (B) fouyr parmy.
36 (B.M) recouvrer. 37 (M.B) convenoit. 38 (B) de plus frapper,
39 (B) que par, 40 (B) venoit a donner,
sentreprenoient les questes. Par le grant desir que les princes et chevaliers avoient de
savoir quil estoit pour quoy maintz chevaliers se mectoiet en voie pour le' querir et le
mener a la grant court du roy artus. ou quat len2povoit advenir3 estoit recuily a grant hon-
neur.
Vray est que aucune foiz quant le tournay estoit feru et que lune des (18) parties estoit
desconfite. Le vaincu pouvoit mande4 le tournay lendemain ou auttiers iour se bon lui
semble5 Car ainsi estoit la coustume du royaume de logres veu que les chevaliers estoient
encore sur le chapt et ce6 ne povoit refuser7 le vaincueu sur peine de reproche.
La forme de donner le pris.8
La forme du pris donner9 estoit que quant le'1 chevalier se povoit trouver et1 quil estoit
avecques le prince et autres chevaliers. le prince aincois oyoit le rapport de ceulx qui avoient
regarde le tournay et de ses officiers darmes & des chevaliers sages et anciens qui a ce se
cognoissoient et aussi de ceulx qui avoient feru au tournoyement Et12la oppinion des dessus
estoit fait13 le rapport aux dames Et en leur bon congie et assentement14 le chevalier
estoit envoye querir se trouver se povoit en nul m ere15du monde. Si16le prenoit par la main
le prince de la quelle partie il avoit este et lui disoit ces17paroles.
Missire tiel.18 Par le grant effort darmes que ung chnn a veu au (19) iourduy que vous
aves fait et que par vostre vaillance et haulte proesse principalement a este19vaincue ceste
assemblee. Pour lassentement de tous et octroy des dames le pris et loz vous a20este donne
et octroye comme21cellui qui tout a vaincu et qui bien la22descevy.
Le2 chevalier disoit mon tres redoupte et souverain seigneur quant il estoit son24souve-
rain le plus treshumblemet que en ce monde fere puis remercie25a vous aux dames et autres26
chevaliers cy preses du hault honneur quil vous plaist27me fere et presenter. Et ia soit ce
que assez ie28cognoisse. que tiel honneur ne me soit deu et que nullement ne laye deservi.
touteffoys pour obeir a vostre bon commandement et a cellui des dames puis que ainsi
vous plaist ie le prans et acepte. non pour devoir mes pour obeir c6me dit est
Le chevalier estoit assis ce soir et lendemain ou bout du hault doiz au pres du prince et
servi ne plus ne moins comme lui et moult richement vestu de pareilhe cothe et29mantel
comme le prince. Si estoit honnore de toutes ges (20) ledit prince et les autres seigneurs
qui avec lui estoient lui donnoient de moult beaux dons. Et ny avoit cellui que30plaisir et
h6neur ne lui feist.
Lendemain apres disner les princes sassembloient et sen partoient aucune foys en bonne
amour et aucune foiz y avoit ung petit daigreur. Pourquoy31 estoient emprins aucuns
tournays. Et ainsi nestoit guieres moys en lan que au royaulme de logres neust tournay32
aucun. Les bons chevaliers estoient33pns par les princes. de toutes pars. Par b6nes paroles.
et34gracieux plaisirs et autres debonnairetez Et de35tieulx chevaliers y avoit il de si haulte
prouesse quilz estoient plus prisiez que nul prince Et par ainsi chescun sefforcoit. de bien
faire. et destre preudons aux36armes
1 (B) les. 2 (M) le. 3 (M) trouver.

4 (M) demander.(B) demanderlendemainle tournayau tiers.
6 (B) sembloit. 6 (M) ce omitted. 7 (B) refuser omitted.
8 (M) Comment le chlr qui avoit eu le pris du tor noy est assiz ou hault doiz pour estre veu de tous.
9(M) de donner pris. 10 (M) aucun. 1 (M) et omitted.
12
(B) Et l'escu l'advis et opinion ... (M) Et sceu ladviz et oppinion.... (H) severalwords illegible.
13 (B) fait omitted. 14
(B) asseurement. 15(B) en maniere. (M) nul also omitted.
16(B.M) et for Si. 18 19(B) ceste.
17
(B) les. (B) Lessire tiel z comme par....
20 (B) vous ont este. 21 (M) a cellui. 22 (M) qui la bien. 2 (M) Et le chevalier.
24 (M) "son" omitted. 2 (B) puis je mercie. (M) mercie vous les dames.
26
(M) et les chev.... 27
(M) vous a pleu me fere.
28
(B) assez le cognoisse. (M) que ie cognoisse. 29 (B) ou.
31 (M) et a ceste cause estoient....
30 (M)
que ne lui feist plaisir et honeur.
32
(B) neust aucun tournay lors bons chevalier estoient prins par les princes.... (M) tournay lors
estoient aucuns bons chevaliers. 33 (M) estoient omitted.
34
(M) et omitted. 36(M) de omitted. 36 (B) enfor aux.
Ces' formes de tournay durarent iusques apres la mort du roy artus ainsi quavez oy la
maniere et assez courtoisement les maintindrent iusques a ce que le royaulme fut trans-
porte a ceulx de sessongne. et fut devise en pluseurs pars ces2 tournaiz nestoient pas tant3
seulement (21) faiz au royaulme de logres ne en la grant bretaigne. Mais aussi en toute
galle. A Aux alemaignes4 espaignes et autres lieux. Et atant monta la chose. que grans
haisnes5en sortirent et maintz homes en furent mors
Pour quoy le pape boniface deffendit tous tieulx tournays et ioustes sur peine6 denterdi-
cion. Et pour ce que la chevalerie et noblesse ne demourast en oisivete darmes en temps de
paix ont este faiz de puis en plus doulce facon. ainsi que plus a plain. est devise. au livre.
quon a fait7 treshault et puissant prince.8 le roy de cecille roy de iherusalem et dongrie
comme verrez cy apres.
La forme des seremens et ordonnances des chlrs de la table ronde
Sensuivent9 les loix et ordonnances10que les compaignons de la table ronde promectoient
par serment a tenir entre eulx ainsi" quest contenu par articles en recevant lonneur des sieges.
Le premier article estoit que quant aucun compaignon de la table ronde avoit vouhe ou
promis soy mectre en queste ou quil se disposoit de querir les merveilleuses12aventures du
royaulme13delogres14que (22) durant le temps du lun ne15delautre il ne sedevoit despoulher
de ses armes fors seulement pour le repos de la nuyt.
Le iie que en enfournissant16sa queste ou en querant aventures il ne devoit eschiver nul
perilleux passaige ne querir autre chemin ia feust quil le peut trouver. tat fust laventure
perilleuse fut pour combatre a chevaliers ou a17geyans dont le royaulme de logres estoit
bien garny. les quieulx faisoient de grans maulx et octraiges aux chevaliers errans. Ou pour
soy combatre a monstrez a esperitz ou autre bestes sauvages. desquelles par18lors avoit
audit roaulme grant quantite. ne19per quelx comques atres aventures que le corps dun seul20
chevalier peut mener a fin
Le tiers quilz devoient soubstenir le droit des foibles ayans bonne querelle et pareille-
ment femmes vesves orphelins et pucelles Et pour chescune desdictes choses. se doyvent
mectre au champt de bataille se le cas le requeroit En ces cas ne autres quelx comques. il
ne povoit refuser leur aide se requis en estoient si la request nestoit contre leur honner ou
contre le roy artus. (23)
Le iiiie quilz ne devoient fere violance a homme ne femme. ne prandre riens de lautruy
Aincois de toute leur puissance garder le droit21dun chescun.
Le Vmde porter foy et loyaulte a leurs compaignons et garder leur honneur et profit en
leur absen et presence Et combatre en tous lieux pour22soubstenir lonneur lun de lautre et
dommage eschiver Et ne devoient combatre lun contre lautre. si mescongnoissance ne la
faisoit fere.23
Le vimese devoient exposer24les corps et biens. pour soubstenir la querelle de leurs pais
et aussi de leurs amys.
Le viie non acquester aucune chose fors q par25honneur et honnestete
Le viiie honneur26tresdiligenment religion et une foiz le iour oir messe ou entrer en esglise
et27sagenoulher et fere oraison28devant le crucefix29ou sil ne trouvoiet esglise devant une
1 (B) Les. 2 (B) carfor ces. 3 (B) tant omitted. 4 (B) et espaignes.
5 (B) hommesen sortirent.(M) haisneset questionsen.
6
(B) tournayssur peine. (M) ioustes denterdicion. 7 (B) fait a.
8
(B) princele royde cecille(restof prg.omitted).(M)princeroyRene royde cecillede iherusalemet
dongrie.Commentles compaignonsde la table Rondejuroienta tenirles seremensqui sensuivent...
9 (M) et omitted.
10 (M)ordonnancesqui promectoienta tenir entre eulx recevantlonneurdes siegesainsi quest con-
tenuet articlessi apresdeclarer. 1 (B) quest omitted. 12 (B) merveilleusesomitted.
13(B) Roy Auline. 14 (B) Longres (throughout). 16(M) ou. 16(M.B) fournissant
17 (B) a omitted. 18 (M) pour. 19(M) ou par. 20 (M) seul omitted. 21 (B) droit.
22 23 (B) fere omitted. 24 (B) leurs. 25 (B) fors par. (M) fors pour.
(M) pour garder.
26
(B) honneurer.
27
(M) se. 28 (B) et fere oraisonomitted.
29 (B) crucefixet luy faire oraisonou....
croix desquelles pour celle cause il avoit si1 largement en la gnt bretaigne. Et2 devoient dire
ce iour oultre ce quilz vouloient dire de bon cueur
Le Ixe quilz devoient recevoir en leur hostel tous hommes et femmes honestes sans
prandre rien du leur. Et ne souffrir que par personne leur fut fait dommage ou3 desplaisir
et fussent ilz leurs mortelz ennemis Aincois si besoing fut de disposer4 a bataille pour les
tenir en seurte en5 eulx estans6 leur dicte maison.
Le x' que pour la mort ilz ne devoient faulcer leur serment. ou promesse en nulle maniere
Le xle que silz prenoient en conduit dame ou damoiselle. ils la devoient deffendre par
leurs corps vers tous et contre tous. Et sil advenoit que aucun la leur demandast par la
coustume du royaulme de logres. il failloit quilz la rendissent ou combatissent.
Le xiie que silz estoient requis par aucun chevalier de fere7 armes fut a pie ou a cheval.
ilz ne le pouoient refuser silz navoient de leurs. corps exoine raisonnable.
Le xiiie que cellui qui entreprenoit queste. la devoit8 maintenir ung an et ung iour sans
retourner a9 court. si pendent le terme sa queste nestoit acomplie- (25) Ou que le roy artus
eust a besoigner contre ses enemis.
Le xiiiie. que si plusieurs des compaignons. entreprenoient une mesme queste et lun
deulx la menoit a fin. to les autres estoient quictes du serment et estoit leur queste finnee.
Le xve. quant ilz estoient revenus a'1 court. fut de queste ou de querir aventures ilz es-
toient tenuz de dire la" verite sans rien celer de tout ce que advenu leur estoit. fut leur hon-
neur ou leur honte. et le raconter a ceulx a12qui estoit13convenu se lacusanson descripre les
aventures des compaignons de la table ronde tout au long
(The tollowing is found only in .M.)

Le seiziesme que quat ilz estoient prisonniers aux tournois ils perdoient
cheval et nosoient tourner au tournoy sans le congie de cellui qui lavoit prins
Le dixseptiesme ilz ne devoient combatre contre nul chlr si cen nestoit ung
contre ung. Ou autremet si plus de touchoit contre ung il estoit deshonnore
Le dixhuitiesme qu nul. ne devoit porter deux espees sil navoit courage et
voulente de en combatre deux ou plusieurs Et quant ils veoient que ung chlr
portoit deux espees deux chir le povoient assaillir sans deshonner Et peu de chlrs
porterent oncques deux espees si ne fut baalain et Palamides.
Le dixneufmeque en tournoy tous estocz estoient Deffenduz et nosoient frapper
que taille et la se mostroient les grans forces et les grans alaynes.
Le vingtiesme quilz ne devoient prandre ne toucher nulle Dame ne damoiselle
proposant quilz leusset coquise de force darmes si elle ny prenoit plaisir et que
elle y fut consentante.
(End of Extra in .M.)
Et pour ce quil me samble quil sert14a la mateire de savoir les noms et armes des cheva-
liers et compaignons de la table ronde a ceulx qui veulent en suivre la facon de leur tour-
noyer15en la maniere quilz en usitoient16 ou temps du roy artus ay cerche et conculy. les
noms et armes des dessusdiz chevaliers en la saison quilz iurarent17la queste du sang greal
tant au livre. que maistre helie et18maistre roubert du bourion19mais (26) tre gaultier moab
ou20le bret et21maistre rusticien de pise22en parlent en leurs livres.23La ou sont estps les
grans faiz de touls les chevaliers de la table ronde.
1 (M) si omitted.
2
(B) Et devoitdirece jourde bon cueuroultrece quilzavoientacoustumev foiz PaterNosteret
vll fois Ave Maria. 3 (B) ne. 4 (B) de soy exposer en. 6 (B) en omitted.
6
(B) en leur. 7 (B) fere omitted. 8 (M) devoit et. 9 (M) en. 10 (M) en.
1 (M) la omitted. 1 (B) a omitted. 13 (B) estoit comiz a escripre. (M) estoit comiz descripre.
14
(B) sera. 15(B) de tournoy et en la. 16 (B)
quilz en usoient et usitoient au temps....
17
(B) quilz menoient la. ... 18
(B) et omitted. 19(M) borron. 20
(M) ou omitted.
21(M) bret que de aistre .... 22 (M) pise qui en .... 2 (B) livres de cette matiere la ou....
(M. and H.):

Rubriche
Ce sont les noms armes & blasons des chevaliers et compaignons de la table
Ronde ou temps quilz iurarent la conqueste du sang greal a camelot le iour de
La pentecoste. Et la par la vertu divine estoient tous a ce jour assembles.
(B):
Ce sont les noms des Armes et Blasons des Chevaliers et Compaignons de la
Table Ronde au temps qui jurrerent la conqueste du sang greal a Camelot le iour
de La Penthecoustes. Et illec par la vertu divine estoient tous a ce iour assemblez.
Et fut le premier Galaad lequel porte d'argent a une crois de gueules et ce luy fut
donne par la vertu de sa haultesse Combien que vray blason on doit dire de
gueules a 1111 coings d'argent Toutesfoix il se doit blasonner comme dessus Et
par semblable tiltre le portent ceulx de la Maison de Savoye.
(H.): I (35) yvain ly avoltres

(1) Galaad (36) yvain dussenel
Perseval .de gales (37) Osenain cuz hardi
(2)
(3) Lancelot .du lac (38) Gallegatin le galloys
(4) Bort .de Gaunes (39) Guyvret de lambale
Le roy arthus (40) Mador de la porte
(5)
(6) Gauvain .dorcanie
(H.):: III
(7) Tristan .de loenois
(8) Lyonnel .de gaunes (41) Baviers le forcenne
(9) Helyas le blanc (42) Dinadein destrangorre
(10) le roy bendemagu de gorre (43) heret le filz lac
(11) le roy ydier (44) Arthur le petit
(12) Le roy rions (45) Ginglain de rochemont
(13) Le roy Karados (46) Arthus le bloy
(14) le roy de dare (47) Calogrenant .de vin de sores
(15) Le duc de clerance (48) Brandelix des vaulx sur
(16) hector des Marez (49) Merengis des pors les guetz
(17) Blioberis .de Gaunes (50) Cournain .le franc
(18) Gueheriet .dorcanie (51) Gadrus .ly fOrs horns
(19) Keux le seneschal (52) Pharan ly .noirs
(20) Yvain le filz au roy hurie (53) Pharan le roux
(54) kaeux destraulx
II (55) lambegues .le gauloys
(21) brunor le noir (56) Taulaz .de la m6taigne
(22) bedovyer le conestable (57) Abandain .le fortune
(23) Aglonal de gales (58) Damatha .de folmont
(24) Segurades .de montgrat (59) Amat le bel iosteur
(25) Patrides .le hardi (60) Gauemor le noir sent
(26) Herin de rivel IV
(27) Esclabor ly mesconueuz
(28) Saphar .li mesconneuz (61) Arpin .le dur
(29) Sagremor le desree (62) Acostant .li adures
(30) Agravain lorguiieux (63) Lanval du boys
(31) Gueherres dorcanie (64) Synades de sept fontaines
(32) Mordret... dorcanie (65) Le beau courant
(33) Griflet le filz doe (66) Le lays hardis
(34) Dodinel le savage (67) Melianderis le sanse
(68) Mandrin .le sage (118) Thoscant .le. Romain
(69) Andelis .li roux ferre (119) ferrandon le povre
(70) Bruyant des ylles (120) Kandon le ligier
(71) Ozenot de strangot.
(72) Le chlr des cor (H.): VII
(73) Le varlet .au sercle dor (121) Le fort trouve
(74) Kaedins .de louveserp (122) Le fortune de lisse
(75) Le varlet de gluyve (123) Le noir perdu
(76) Herroys .li ioyeux (124) Virant de la roche
(77) Fergus, du .blanc lieu (125) Le fee .des dammes
(78) Loth .li preux (126) Le fourestier .de danemarche
(79) Meliadus .de lespinoye (127) Le chasseur doultre les maches
(80) Meliadus .le noir oeil (128) Le hirlendoys de rufe
(129) Le brun sans ioye
(H.): V
(130) Gefray de .la tour
(81) Aiglius des vaux (131) Radouyn le persien
(82) Lambourc .du chastel (132) fryadus .le gay
(83) Lucan le bouteillier (133) Rostelm du hault mon
(84) Le roy gallegantins de norgales (134) courat de roche dure
(85) le roy aguisa .descosse (135) Armon .au. vert serpent
(86) brumor .de la fontaine (136) ferrant du tertre .au serpent
(87) Lenfant du lessis (137) Tor le filz ares
(88) Le Roy malaquin (138) lupin des croys
(89) persides .li gens (139) busterin le grant
(90) Kalahard le petit (140) hydeux le fort .tirant
(91) Sibilias aux dures mains
(92) Sinados le fel .dore VIII
(93) Arphazat le gros cueur (141) Solinem du boys .grant
(94) Sadach .du. vanton (142) le chlr des vii .voyes
(95) Ly blons amoureux (143) broadas .lespaignol
(96) Malies de lespine (144) Le chevalier descalot
(97) Argrioier le fel (145) Hoscalen ly preuxcien
(98) Patrides au sercle dor (146) Mirandon de la tamise
(99) Mandius ly envoysies (147) Scicaubrin Le troyen
(100) Gringalais le fort (148) Desier le fier
(149) Abilen du desert
VI
(150) felix le querant
(101) Malaquin le galoys
(102) Agricol ly beaux .iouat (150) chevalliers
(103) Gallindes .du tertre
(104) Margoudes le rouge (B):
(105) Kaherdins de la valee (1) Galaad
(106) Nabon li felzonet (2) Lancelot du lac (3)
(107) Calamor le boullant (3) Perceval De Galles (2)
(108) Alibel de logres (4) Boort De Gannes
(109) Dalides de la riviere (5) Le Roy Artus
(110) haran du pin (6) Tristan de Leonoys (7)
(111) Arganor le riche (7) Gauvain d'orcanie (6)
(112) Melios li beaux chatieres (8) Lyonnel de Gannes
(113) Meliadus le blanc (9) Helyas le blanc
(114) Malequin le gros (10) Le Roy Ydier (11)
(115) Argahast ly beaux (11) Le Roy Bendemagus de Gorree (10)
(116) Hormans le pelerin (12) Le Roy Rions
(117) Harnan le fel ourse (13) Le Roy Karados
(14) Le Duc de Clerance (15) (66) Melianderis le sense (67)

(15) Le Roy de Clare (14) (67) Le Lays Hardis (66)
(16) Hector Des Mares (68) Mendrin le Saige
(17) Bliobleris de Gannes (69) Le Beau Courant (65)
(18) Keux le Seneschal (19) (70) Ozenot d'Estrangot (71)
(19) Gucheriet d'Orchame (18) (71) Bruyant des Ysles (70)
(20) Hyvain fils au Roy Hurien (72) Le Chevalier Descor
(21) Brunor le Noir (73) Le Varlet au sercle d'or
(22) Patrides le Hardy (25) (74) Le Varlet de Gluyne (75)
(23) Bedomer le Connestable (22) (75) Kaedins de Loueserpt (74)
(24) Segurades de Montgrant (76) Herroys le Joyeux
(25) Aglonal de Galles (23) (77) Fergus du Blanclieu
(26) Esclabor le Mescongnu (27) (78) Meliadus de l'Espinoye (79)
(27) Hervi de Rivel (26) (79) Loth le preux (78)
(28) Caphar le Mescongneu (80) Meliadus le Noir oeil
(29) Sagramor le Derreez
(30) Gucheries d'Ortame (31) (B.):
(31) Agravain l'Orguilleux (30) (81) Ayglius des Vaulx
(32) Mordrec d'Orcanie (82) Lucan Le Bouteiler (83)
(33) Griflet le fils Doc (83) Lambourc du Chastel (82)
(34) Hyvain le Auoultres (35) (84) Le Roy Gallangantines de Norgal
(35) Sodinel le Sauvaige (34) (85) Le Roy Aguisan d'Escosse
(36) Yvain d'Ussenel (86) Lenfant du Plessis (87)
(37) Osevan cuer Hardy (87) Sinados le fel dore (92)
(38) Guyvert de Lambale (39) (88) Le Roy Malaquin
(39) Galentin le Galoys (38) (89) Percides le gens
(40) Mador de la Porte (90) Sibilias aux dures mains (91)
(91) Kalaard le Petit (90)
(B.):
(92) Brunor de la Fontaine (86)
(41) Ifaumeres le Forcene (93) Arphazac le gros cuer
(42) Heret le fils de Lac (43) (94) Le Blont amoureux (95)
(43) Dinadem d'Estrangorre (42) (95) Sadoch du Vaucon (94)
(44) Artus le Petit (96) Malies de l'Espine
(45) Ginglant de Rochemont (97) Agrioier le Fel
(46) Calogrenan le Vindesores (47) (98) Mandius le Curoysies (99)
(47) Artus le Bloy (46) (99) Patrides au sercle d'or (98)
(48) Brandelis de Vaulxsur (100) Gringalaix le Fort
(49) Merengis des Porslesques (101) Malaquin le Galois
(50) Gadrus le fors horns (51) (102) Galendes du Tertre (103)
(51) Gauvain Le Franc (50) (103) Agricol le beau jovant (102)
(52) Pharan le Noir (104) Margondes le Rouge
(53) Pharan le Roux (105) Kaedin de la Valee
(54) Lambegues le Gauloys (55) (106) Talamor le volant (107)
(55) Kaeux d'Estraux (54) (107) Nabon le Felzoant (106)
(56) Taulas de la Montaigne (108) Alibel de Logres
(57) Albadain le Fortune (109) Dalides de la Riviere
(58) Amant le bel Jousteur (59) (110) Arganor le Riche (111)
(59) Damatha de Felmont (58) (111) haran du Pin (110)
(60) Ganemor le Noirsent (112) Melias le beau Chevalier
(61) Arpin le Dur (113) Meliadus le Blanc
(62) L'Amial du Boys (63) (114) Argaad le Beau (115)
(63) Aconstant Lyadures (62) (115) Malaquin le Gros (114)
(64) Smades des sept fontaines (116) Normanus le Pelerin
(65) Andelys le doulx serre (69) (117) Hervin le Felource
(118) Ferrandon le Povre (119) (14) Leodgan (N)

(119) Thoscan le Romain (118) (15) Le roy rions (12, "2")
(120) Randon le Legier (16) Le roy ydier (11)
(17) Pelinor (N)
(B.): (18) le roy bandemagu de gorre (10)
(121) Le fort Trouve (19) Gallegantins de norgalles (84)
(122) Le Noir perdu (123) (20) le roy aguisant descosse (85)
(123) Le Fortune de l'Ysle (122) (21) le Roy malaquin (88)
(124) Virant de la Roche (22) lamorant de hyrland (N)
(125) Le Fee des Dames (23) pharamon de gaulle (N)
(126) Le Chasseur d'oultre les Marches (24) Lamorat de lystnois (N)
(127) (25) Danayn le roux seigner
(127) Le Fouestier de Dannemarche (126) de malohault (N)
(128) Le Hyrlandoys le Russe (26) Ariolan de Sessoigne (N)
(129) Le Brun sans Joye (27) Baallan (N)
(130) Le Douyn le Percien (131) (28) Baalin (N)
(131) Geoffroy de la Tourt (130) (29) Galeault filz a la bella
(132) Friadus le Gay Jayande Sr. des loingtaines iles (N)
(133) Rostelin du hault Mont (30) Blanor de gaunes (N)
(134) Armon au vert serpent (135) (31) Le bon chlr de norgalles (N)
(135) Conrat de Rochedure (134) (32) Henri de rivel (26)
(136) Ferrant du Tertre au serpent (33) lamorat de galles (N)
(137) Tor le filz Ares (34) Galaad (1)
(138) Busterin le Grant (139) (35) Perceval de galles (2)
(139) Lupin des Crois (138) (36) Lancelot du lac (3)
(140) Hydeux le Fort Tyrant (37) Boort de Gaunes (4)
(141) Solmen du Boys Grant (38) Gauvain dorcanie (6)
(142) Broadas l'Espaignol (143) (39) Tristan de lyennoiz (7)
(143) Le Chevalier des sept voyes (142) (40) Lyonnel de gaunes (8)
(144) Le Chevalier d'Escalot
(145) Hoscalen le Prucien
(146) Stipanbrin le Troyen (147) (41) Helyas le blanc (9)
(147) Mirandon de la Tamise (146) (42) Le roy ydier (11(2d))
(148) Defier le Fier (43) Le roy rions (12)
(149) Abilen du Desert (44) Le duc de clarance (15)
(150) Felix le Querant (45) hector des Maraiz (16)
(46) Blioberis de Gaunes (17)
(150) chevaliers (47) Gueheriet dorcanie (18)
(48) Kaeux le seneschal (19)
(49) Yvain le filz au roy hurie (20)
(1) Le roy arthus (5) (50) bedoyer le conestable (22)
(2) Guyron le courtois (N) (51) Agloval de gales (23)
(3) Seguran le Brun (N) (52) Segurades de montgrat (24)
(4) Gallment le blanc (N) (53) Patrides le hardi (25)
(5) le Roy Meliadus (N) (54) Esclabor ly mesconueuz (27)
(6) Roy Ban de Benoic (N) (55) Saphar li mesconneuz (28)
(7) robert de gaunes (N) (56) Sagremor le desree (29)
(8) Le Roy Karados (13) (57) Gueheriet dorcanie (31)
(9) roy lac (N) (58) gravain lorguiieux (30)
(10) Chlr sans paour-roy (59) Mordret dorcanie (32)
destrag6rre (21) (60) Griflet le filz doe (33)
(11) roy dares (14) (61) Dodinel le savage (34)
(12) roy urien (N) (62) yvain ly avoltres (35)
(13) Loth (N) (63) yvain dussenel (36)
(64) Ozenen cue hardi (37) (116) Sinados le fel dore (92)
(65) Galegantn le galloys (38) (117) Arphazat le gros cueur (93)
(66) Guivret de lambale (39) (118) Sadach du vanton (94)
(67) Mador de la porte (40) (119) Ly blons amoureux (95)
(68) Bainers le forcenne (41) (120) Malies de lespine (96)
(69) Dinadan destrangorre (42)
(70) heret le filz lac (43) (M.):
(71) Arthus le petit (44)
(121) Argrioier le fel (97)
(72) Ginglain de rochemont (45) Patrides au sercle dor (98)
Arthus le bloy (46) (122)
(73) Mandius ly envoysies (99)
(123)
(74) Calogrenant de vin de zores (47)
Brandeliz des vaulx sur (48) (124) Gringalais le fort (100)
(75)
(125) Malaquin le galoys (101)
(76) Merangiz des pors les guetz (49)
Gouvan Le franc (50) (126) Agricol ly beaux iouat de lombardie
(77)
Gadrus Ly fors homs (51) (102)
(78) Gallindes du tertre (103)
Pharan ly noirs (52) (127)
(79)
Pharan le roux (53) (128) Margoudes le rouge (104)
(80) Kaherdins de la valee (105)
(129)
(130) Palamides le bayen (N)
(131) Nabon li felzonet (106)
(81) Kaeux destraulx (54)
(132) Calamor le boullant (107)
(82) lambegues le gauloys (55) Alibel de logres (108)
Taulas de la m6taigne (56) (133)
(83) Dalides de la riviere (109)
(84) baundain le fortune (57) (134)
(135) haran du pin (110)
(85) amatha de folmont (58)
Amant le bel jousteur (59) (136) Arganor le riche (111)
(86) Melios li beaux chatieres (112)
Ganes le noir sent (60) (137)
(87) Meliadus le blanc (113)
(138)
(88) Arpin le dur (61)
Constant li adures (62) (139) Malequin le gros (114)
(89)
Lanval du boys (63) (140) Argahast ly beaux (115)
(90) Hormans le pelerin (116)
(141)
(91) Synados de sept fontaines (64) (142) Harnan le fel ourse (117)
(92) Le beau courant (65) Constant le Romain (118)
Le laiz hardiz (66) (143)
(93) ferrandon le povre (119)
Melianderiz le sanse (67) (144)
(94) Randon le ligier (120)
Mandrin le sage (68) (145)
(95) (146) Le fort trouve (121)
(96) Andeli li roux ferre (69) Le fortune de lisse (122)
(147)
(97) Bruyant des ylles (70) (148) Le noir perdu (123)
(98) Ozenot de strangot (71) Virant de la roche (124)
Le chlr des cor (72) (149)
(99) Le fee des dammes (125)
Le varlet au sercle dor (73) (150)
(100) Le fourestier de danemarche (126)
Kaedins de louveserp (74) (151)
(101) Le chasseur doultre les maches (127)
Le varlet de gluyne (75) (152)
(102) (153) Le hirlendoys de rufe (128)
(103) Herroys li ioyeux (76) (154) Le brun sans ioye (129)
(104) Fergus du blanc lieu (77) (155) Gefray de la tour (130)
(105) Loth li preux (78)
Meliadus de lespinoye (79) (156) Radouyn le persine (131)
(106)
Meliadus le noir oeil (80) (157) fryadus le gay (132)
(107) Rostelm du hault mon (133)
(158)
(108) Aiglius des vaux (81) (159) courat de roche dure (134)
(109) Lambonig du chastel (82) (160) Armon au vert serpent (135)
(110) Lucan le bouteillier (83)
(111) brumor de la fontaine (86)
(112) Lenfant du plexis (87) (M.):
(113) persides li gens (89) (161) ferrant du tertre au serpent (136)
(114) Kalahard le petit (90) (162) Tor le filz ares (137)
(115) Sibilias aux dures mains (91) (163) lupin des croys (138)
(164) busterin le grant (139) (170) Hoscalen ly preuxcien (145)
(165) hydeux le fort tirant (140) (171) Mirandon de la tamise (146)
(166) Solinem du boys grant (141) (172) Scicaubrin le troyen (147)
(167) le chlr des vii voyes (142) (173) Desier le fier (148)
(168) broadas lespaignol (143) (174) Abilen du desert (149)
(169) Le chevalier descalot (144) (175) felix le querant (150)
HERALDIC DESCRIPTIONS
(1) Galaad: 'd'argent a une crois de gueules ... Combien que vray blason on doit
dire de gueules a 1111 coings d'argent. Toutesfoix il se doit blasonner comme dessus.' (B)
(2) Perseval: Purpure seme of crosses or.
(3) Lancelot: Argent 3 bends or bendlets gules.
(4) Bort: Ermine, 3 bends or bendlets gules.
(5) Arthur: Azure, 13 crowns (4, 4, 4, 1.) or.
(6) Gauvain: Purpure, a double headed eagle displayed or, beaked and membered
azure (H). Eagle langued, not beaked in (B).
(7) Tristan: Vert, a lion or, armed and angued gules (H). Tail forked and passed in
saltire (B).
(8) Lyonnel: Argent, seme of six pointed mullets sable, 3 bends or bendlets gules.
(see 'robert,' No. 7. [M])
(9) Helyas: 'Lancelot (3)' a label of three points sable.
(10) Bendemagu: Gules, 3 sinister gloves or hawking gauntlets fingers high, argent (H).
Cuffs high in (M). Cuffs high and dexter and base glove for dexter hand in (B).
(11) Ydier: Gules, 3 lions' heads couped or, langued sable.
(12) Rions: Or, a lion passant-guardant purpure, armed and langued azure (H). Lion
rampant (not guardant) tail forked and passed in saltire (B). Lion azure (M).
(13) Karados: Azure a crown argent.
(14) Roy de Clare: Or a cross potent gules.
(15) Duc de Clerance: Azure a citadel or town or, masoned sable (drawn issuing from
the sinister flank only in (H)).' . . . ville dor massonee de sable-(M)' also (B).
(16) Hector: Argent, seme of crescent sable, 3 bends or bendlets gules, over all a sun
azure (ombre de soleil) (H). No crescents and sun very grey (B). No crescents (M).
(17) Blioberis: Argent, seme of crescents sable, 3 bends or bendlets gules.
(18) Gueheriet: Purpure a double-headed eagle displayed or, membered (beaked) and
the eyes gules (circle around eye). Over all a bendlet gules (H). No bendlet, eagle langued
(B). Beaked gules, bend drawn raguly but described 'baston' (M).
(19) Keux: Azure, 2 keys addorsed in pale, rings in base, argent.
(20) Yvain: Azure, a lion or, armed and langued gules (H). Tail forked and in saltire
(B)1.
(21) Brunor: Argent a lion checky sable and gules, armed and langued purpure.
(H). Langued vert (M). Lion single-tailed (B).
(22) Bedovyer: Or a four lobed or pointed gonfanon gules (H). Three points (M).
(23) Aglonal: 'Perseval (2)' over all a lion passant-guardant argent, armed and
langued gules.
(24) Seguardes: Or 'un rocher de sable' (M.B).
(25) Patrides: Argent fretty gules.
(26) Herin: Vert, a lion passant guardant argent, armed langued and 'eyed' gules (H).
Field gutte-d'or (B). 'De sinople a ung liopart dargent arme et langue de guelles goutes
dor' (M).
(27) Esclabor: Checky or and gules.
(28) Saphar: Party per pale vair and checky or and vert.
1 Eaglesarelanguedandlions double-tailedfor (B) exceptwherespecified.
00
6 7 8
10 11 12
14 . 1
18 19 20
PLATE I
(29) Sagremor: Gules 3 8-pointed mullets or, on a canton over all argent a 7-pointed
mullet sable (H). Each star 5-pointed (B). Field sable (M).
(30) Agravain: Purpure, a double-headed eagle displayed or, beaked membered and a
circle around the eye gules, the eagle charged with a bar vert (H). A fess, not a bar and ex-
tending normally (B.M).
(31) Gueherres: Purpure, a double-headed eagle displayed or, beaked and membered
argent, a bordure compony purpure and gules (H). Bordure engrailed, gules (B) ...
goutes de gueulles en bordeure (M).
(32) Mordret: Purpure, a double-headed eagle displayed or, a chief argent.
(33) Griflet: Or seme of thistle-heads sable.
(34) Dodinel: Argent an eagle displayed azure, beaked and membered or.
(35) Yvain: Azure a pale or.
(36) Yvain: Or, diapered in this form: 2 fesses composed of 2 circles each containing in
the upper fess an eagle and a lion, and vice versa in the lower, the circles between and
separated by links, all gules (H). 2 fess' gules (B). 'Dor diapre daiglectes et lyons de gueulles
mebrees et armes de sable' (M).
(37) Osenain: Quartered argent and gules.
(38) Gallegatin: Party per pale or and sable, over all a lion vert armed and langued
gules.
(39) Guyvret: Party per fess indented argent and gules (H). 'esmanche' (M).
(40) Mador: Sable 7 roundels argent, shaded gules on the sinister 3, 3, 1. (H) ... 7
pomectes dargent coulorees de gueulles (M).
(41) Baviers: Girony argent and gules.
(42) Dinadein: Argent a lion sable armed and langued vert (H). Lion 1-tailed (B).
(43) Heret: Or, 3 'tetes (testes) de serpent' (M.B). gules, langued and a circle around
the eye vert. (drawn very curiously in [H]).
(44) Arthur: Sable 'ung sicamor dor (sycomore)' (B.M) eradicated.
(45) Ginglain: Argent a bend raguly (H) ' ... baston plain de neuz' (M).
(46) Arthus: Sable an 'epervier (esparvier) (M.B)' argent, beaked and membered or
(H). Hawk is belled (B).
(47) Calogrenat: Gules a serpent or (H). Snake not langued and is crowned (B). I
guite dor (no baby) (M).
(48) Brandelix: Gules, 3 swords erect in pale argent, hilted and pommelled azure.
(49) Merengis: Argent a bordure gules.
(50) Cournain: Sable 3 escallops gules on a chief or.
(51) Gadrus: Or seme of tourteaus.
(52) Pharan: Azure 3 eagles displayed argent, beaked and membered sable.
(53) Pharan: Azure 3 eagles displayed argent, beaked and membered sable, a bordure
compony sable and or.
(54) Kaeux: Or a bar gemel sable.
(55) Lambegues: Argent 3 annulets gules.
(56) Taulaz: Or an orb sable, banded and surmounted by a cross gules.
(57) Abandain: Argent, an inescutcheon gules.
(58) Damatha: Vair.
(59) Amat: Sable, a woman's head couped carnation, crined or.
(60) Gauemor: Gules a wolf or armed and langued sable.
(61) Arpin: Sable a cross moline argent. 'neille dargent (M)'.
(62) Acostant: Or a fess azure.
(63) Lanval: Or a 'bande de gueulles endentellee de sable (M)' also (B).
(64) Synades: Azure, gutte deau- 'seme de larmes (M)'.
(65) Le Beau: Sable a horse passant argent, hoofed or.
(66) Le Lays: Losengy sable and argent.
(67) Melianderis: Gules a fox (described M & B) or, armed and langued azure.
(68) Mandrin: Party per pale vairy purpure and or, and gules.
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PLATE II
(69) Andelis: Argent, a pair of wings (inverted?) sable.
(70) Bruyant: Sable a dog (passant? (H) courant (B.M) or, armed and langued gules
(not langued in [B]).
(71) Ozenot: Azure a lion argent ('leopart lyonne [M]') armed and langued gules.
(72) Le Chlr des Cor: Gules a stag trippant or, unguled and langued sable.
(73) Le Varlet: Purpure "un cercle d'or lie de sable" (B).
(74) Kaedins: Gules 3 rustres or (H). ... trois macres (square holes)' (M), also
square in (B).
(75) Le Varlet: Sable a bordure indented-compony or and argent.
(76) Herroys: Argent 3 crosses fitched sable (H)(M). Crosses patte and fitched (B).
(77) Fergus: Argent 2 pales gules, all counterchanged per fess (H)(M). Per pale of
six cntchgnd (B).
(78) Loth: Argent a crow sable beaked and membered azure.
(79) Meliadus: Or 3 crosses botonny gules.
(80) Meliadus: Argent 3 chevronels sable.
(81) Aiglius: Gules a fess party per fess embattled or and sable.
(82) Lambourc: Purpure a lion guardant argent armed and langed azure (H). Not
Langed (B). Lion passant (M).
(83) Lucan: Or a cat rampant guardant gules armed sable (H) Described 'loup' but
drawn clearly as a lion. Single tailed (B). Loup serve (M).
(84) Gallegantins: Purpure a lion argent armed and langed vert.
(85) Aguisa: 'Dargent a ung lyon de guelles arme et langue de sable a une cordeliere
de guelles a lentour' (knotted rope) (M). Not armed and langed (B.H).
(86) Brumor: Quarterly or and sable, over all a fountain argent.
(87) Lenfant: Gules 3 ciquefoils argent pierced of or (H). No centers (M.B).
(88) Malaquin: Or a man's head in profile towards the dexter couped sable, langed
gules, crowned argent (H). Not langed (M). Blackamoor's head (cream with black hair)
with a torse (not crown) and not langed (B).
(89) Persides: Argent seme of hurts.
(90) Kalahard: Sable, 3 concentric orles or.
(91) Sibilias: Or a fire gules.
(92) Sinados: Gules an orle or.
(93) Arphazat: Sable a saltire argent.
(94) Sadach: Undy azure and argent. (clear in [M] 2 fess undy (B)).
(95) Ly Blons: Sable a comb argent filled with golden hair.
(96) Malies: Argent a bar or fess or.
(97) Argrioier: Or 3 bendlets sable.
(98) Patrides: Gules a chief or, over all a lion sable armed and langued vert.
(99) Mandius: Gules a mermaid combing he: hair argent.
(100) Gringalais: Sable a unicorn argent, armed hoofed and langued azure (H). Not
langued (B). Animal something like a hoofed bear and without a horn. Not described (M).
(101) Malaquin: Sable a covered chalice argent.
(102) Agricol: Ermine.
(103) Gallindes: Argent a martlet (beaked or?) sable (H). No beak (B). Described 'nil-
lette' in (M).
(104) Margoudes: Gules six bendlets or.
(105) Kaherdins: Gules, a scythe in bend, the blade or, the wood sable.
(106) Nabon: Argent 3 fusils in fess gules.
(107) Calamor: Vert a dove argent, beaked and membered gules.
(108) Alibel: Party per pale, losengy azure and argent, and ermine.
(109) Dalides: Argent 2 dolphins hauriant addorsed sable, langued and a circle around
the eye gules (H.M). Not langued (B).
(110) Haran: Vert 3 pine cones or.
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(111) Arganor: Sable knight fully armoured, a sword at his side, facing the dexter, allor.
In his dexter hand extended a halberd vert hafted gules (H). No sword (B). Axe tipped or
at bottom (M).
(112) Melios: Barry of six argent and vert, party per pale all counterchanged.
(113) Meliadus: A cross patte, not couped, or.
(114) Malequin: Purpure, a bend argent charged with 3 lions gules (H.B.), armed and
langued or (M).
(115) Argahast: Or a bull passant gules, unguled armed and langued azure.
(116) Hormans: Sable seme of escalops alternately or and argent.
(117) Harnan: Barruly azure and or (H.M), 6 bars azure (B).
(118) Thoscant: Or a hand sable, cuffed or, moving from the sinister holding a sword
erect gules hilted and pomelled-(H). No cuff (B.M).
(119) Ferrandon: Or 3 bars gemel (or 6 bars) vert (H.M), 5 bars (B).
(120) Kandon: Bendy of six azure and or, party per bend sinister all counterchanged
(H.M), 7 bends (B).
(121) Le Fort: Argent a boar passant sable, armed unguled and a circle around his eye
gules.
(12) Le Fortune: Gules an elephant statant or hoofed azure.
(123) Le Noir: Argent a tiger (her.) passant? sable, horned unguled langued and a circle
around the eye vert (H). No horns or tongue and saliant (B). Descr. tiger in (M)(B).
(124) Virant: Gules a dog passant or, armed and langued sable (H). 'Elan' salliant (B).
De guelles a ... d'Or etc." The animal not described looks catlike and is crouched (M).
(125) Le Fee: Sable 3 billets argent.
(126) Le Fourestier: Or a wood vert, charged with a horn-bugle argent.
(127) Le Chasseur: Or seme of ermine spots vert.
(128) Le Hirlendoys: Gules a bell argent, butaille sable. 'Ave Mar' on band of bell (B).
(129) Le Brun: Party per pale gules gutte d'eau, and vert gutte-d'or (H). Dexter side
not gutte (B). Tongues (M).
(130) Gefray: Gules a tower or, masoned and opened sable.
(131) Radouyn: Sable a chaple argent opened sable.
(132) Fryadus: Party per chevron or and gules.
(133) Rostelm: Or a wild man facing the dexter sable, holding upright in his dexter
hand extended a club gules (H). Club not erect (B). Wild man gules (M).
(134) Courant: Sable 3 coneys argent armed gules (H.M). Sable plein (B).
(135) Armon: Or a griffin passant vert, armed and beaked argent (H). Drawn rampant
(M) (B).
(136) Ferrant: Gules a bear statant or (H). Passant and muzzled (B). Armed sable (M).
(137) Tor: Or seme of crosses sable.
(138) Lupin: Azure seme of crescents or.
(139) Busterin: Or a ? passant or salliant sable, armed and langued argent. A border
compony argent and gules (H), 'agneau' passant (very crudely drawn) (B). Border checky
of 2 rows, animal armed and langued gules but not described (M).
(140) Hydeux: Argent a chimere of different colors (gules, sable or [H]). (blended colors
[M]) D'Azure plein (B). See drawing.
(141) Solinem: Argent a stag gules unguled attired and bearded sable (H). Cerf, un-
bearded (BM).
(142) Le Chlr: Gules a river argent and azure running under a bridge or masoned sable
(H). River argent (B)(M).
(143) Broadas: Sable a lobster in pale or.
(144) Le Chevalier: Gules a ship or, towered and rigged purpure. Described as
'habille' purpre in (M). Has anchor and is described 'voile' et frette de sable in (B).
(145) Hoscalen: Argent 3? marked vert (H). 3 rubies (M), 3 fruits stemmed vert (like
strawberries) (B).
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(146) Mirandon: Sable a wind mill or (H.B), 'de sable a ung vent dor' (?see drawing)
(M).
(147) Scicaubrin: Sable a centaur-like figure, half man half lion or, facing dexter, hold-
ing a bow azure stringed gules, an arrow encoched of the last (H). Jeune faune-fleche
lache (no arrow) (B), 'sable un sagictaire dor arc et flesches dasur semes dor et de guelles'
(drawn gold, bow and arrow azure feathered gules) (M).
(148) Desire: argent a 7-headed monster (hydra) gules armed and langued vert (H).
Chimere (winged) (B), 7-headed 'serpent' (M).
(149) Abilen: Sable an escarbuncle or (H). Escarboucle pommetee et fleurdelisee (B).
Perse florrone pumete (M).
(150) Felix: Vert a winged stag trippant or, unguled sable. Saillant (B).
ARMS PECULIAR TO (M)

(2) Guyron: 'Or plein.'
(3) Seguran: 'D'or a ung dragon de sable arme langue de sinople.'
(4) Gallment: 'D'or a ung dragon de guelles arme languge de sable' (armed and
langued not drawn).
(5) Meliadus: 'Sinople.'
(6) Ban: 'Dargent a trois bendes de belic' (gules).
(7) Robert: 'Dargent a trois bandes de belic seme destoilles de gueules.'
(9) Lac: 'Dor a trois testes de dragons de guelles languez de sinople.'
(12) Urien: 'Dazur a ung lyon dor arme et langue de guelles.'
(13) Loth: As Gawain.
(14) Leodegran: 'Sable a ung lyopart dor arme & langue de gueulles.'
(17) Pelinor: 'Purpre a ung lyon dargent arme et langue de sinople.'
(22) Lamorant: 'Dargent a une fesse de cincq pieces dazur et dessus le tout ung lyon de
gueulles arme de sinople.'
(23) Pharamon: 'De sable a trois crapons dor.'
(24) Lamorant: 'Pourpre et ung liopart dargent arme de gueulles.'
(25) Danayn: 'De sable a ung porc espy dor ongle dazur.'
(26) Ariolan: 'Dargent a ung serpent vollant de sable arme de gueull."
(27) Baallan: 'Dargent a ung sanglier de sable arme ongle de gueull'
(28) Baalin: 'dargent a ung sangler de sable arme ongle de queulles a trois estoilles
dazur.'
(29) Galeault: 'Dargent a ung lyon de gueulles arme de sinople seme destoilles dazur.'
(30) Blanor: As Blioberis.
(31) Le Bon: 'De gueulles a trois pates de lyon dor.'
(33) Lamorat: As Aglonal (H-23)
(130) Palamides: 'Eschequettes dargent et de sable.'
Welsh Prose Versions of the Fifteen Signs before Doomsday

Author(s): William W. Heist
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:07
Speculum.
WELSH PROSE VERSIONS OF THE FIFTEEN SIGNS
BEFORE DOOMSDAY
BY WILLIAM W. HEIST
THElate Welsh prose versions of the legend of the Fifteen Signs before Doomsday
all seem to belong to familiar European types of the legend: the Pseudo-Bede,
Comestor, and Voragine types. The version in Llanstephan MS 27 (ca. 1400),
pp. 161-162, is a close translation of Pseudo-Bede, except that on the first day the
sea is said to rise sixty cubits, instead of forty, and that the signs of the last two
days have been incorrectly divided.
[Page 161]Pymthec arwydoneukynn dyd brawt yssyd yny pymthec niwarnawt,y rei
hynny a gafasseint Jeromyn llyvyr yr oessoed.ydyd kyntaf yr pymthec.y kyfyt y mor
yndaw ehun uchter trugeint kupyt. yn uwch nor mynyd uchaf. ac y self megys yndaw
ehun1ydyd hwnnw. aphob dwfyr yn gyffelyb idaw ynteu. Yr eil dyd y gostyngant. yn
gyffelyby dyrchafant,a racdywetpwyt,yny vo a vreid eu gwelet.Y trydyd dyd ybydant
yneu hanyan e hunein. megys yvuant yny dechreu.y pedwyryd dyd yr holl bysgawt
aphryfety mor aymgynnullantar y dwfyr ac arodant lefein abreifyat.y rei hynny nys
gwyrneb dyeithirduw meint vydant. Y pymhet dyd y llosganty dyfredor dwyreinhyt y
gorllewin.Y chwechetdyd ybydant yr holl lysseu ar gwyd yn llawn gwlith a gwaet. y
seithvet dyd. yr holl adeiladeuadistriwir.Yr wythvet dyd yd ymladant y kerricwers-
tragwersac yd ymgynnullanterbynynerbyn.Y nawfetdyd y kyffryy daear.megysna vu
y ryw gyffrohwnnwyr dechreuvyt. y decvet dyd y gwasgeriry mynyded arpentydyn
glawrgwastat. aphob tir yn gyffelybudunt wynteu. yr unvet dyd ardec.yr holl dynyon
adeuant oe llechuaeumegys ynvydyon. ac ny dichawnneb o honunt atteb y gilyd. Y
deudecvetdyd ydygwydantysyr ac arwydoneuy nef. y trydyddyd ardecyr ymgynnull-
ant esgyrny meirwhyt ar y mylyeuy pylleu.y pedwyryddyd ardec. yr holl dynyon [162]
a vydant meirw2wrth eu kyuodigyt ar rei meirwereillyr varn ac ynfych3 y llysc y daear
hyt yn uffern.y dyd diwethafy byd y barn.
TRANSLATION
FifteensignsbeforeDoomsdayare on the fifteendays, whichSt Jeromefoundin a book
of the ages. The first day the sea will rise in itself a height of sixty cubits higherthan the
highestmountainand will stand as if in itself1that day, and every waterlikewise.The sec-
ond day they will descendjust as they will rise, as has beensaid before,4until it is difficult
to see them.The thirdday they willbe in theirpropernature,as they werein the beginning.
The fourthday all the fishesand beasts of the sea will gatherupon the waterand will give
forthcriesand bellowing,whichno-oneexceptGod understands,so greatthey will be. The
fifth day the waterswill burnfromeast to west. The sixth day all the plants and trees will
be full of dew and blood. The seventh day all the buildingswill be destroyed.The eighth
day the stones will fight mutually and will gather against each other. The ninth day the
earthwill quake,so that there has not been such a quakingas this since the beginningof
the world.The tenth day the mountainsand the valleyswill be scatteredinto a level plain,
and every land likewise.The eleventhday all men will come from their hidingplaces like
madmen,and none of them can answer the other. The twelfth day the stars and con-
stellationsof heavenwill fall. The thirteenthday the bones of the dead will gatherat the
edges of the graves. The fourteenthday all men will be dead in orderto arise with the
other dead to the Judgment;and . .the earth will burn unto hell. The last day the
Judgmentwill be.
1 Somewordfor 'wall' shouldappearin place of yndawehun,whichis repeatedby a scribalerror
from the preceding line. 2 MS., neirw. 3 The MS. has eitherfych or sych.
The text here seems to be corrupt, and the translation is based upon an emendation suggested to
me by Professor Kenneth Jackson, reading val y racdywetpwytfor a racdywetpwyt.
421
422 Welsh Prose Versions of the Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday
The texts in Llanstephan MS 34B (end of sixteenth century), pp. 16-18, and
Peniarth MS 214 (1609-1612), pp. 163-167, occur as part of a larger work on the
Judgment, which appears to be a shortened form of the Description of the Day of
Judgment published by Thomas Powell from the Cotton MS Titus D. XXII.1
These are also of the Pseudo-Bede type. The following text is from Llanstephan
MS 34B.*
Yna y byd yr hol fyd un bigail ac un gorlan; yn yr amsser hunnu y byd dirfaur lonyduch
a hir heduch a guir gariad kouir heb derfysc ar bob daioni a gueithredoed da; ar pynckiau
mauredic hynn uchod a barhaant truy lonyduch hyd ar bymtheg diurnaud kyn dyd farn y
rhai heruyd deal a synuyr Sain Jerom megis y kafas ynteU yn lyfreU yr hen brophuydi ynn
iaith Efrai a dengys y guir DiUuar kyfiaun frouduyr aruthredigion aruydion kyni discin
y varn nid amgen ynt y rhei hynny. Y dyd kynta yr ymchuydant y moroed yn afonyd ac
yr ymdyrchafant yf vuch deUgain kUipUdnor mynyd. Yr ail dyd y treulia y dufr oresgyn
uchod hyd ar issel drachefyn yni fo a braid yu ganfod y dyfnder. Y trydyd dyd yr ymdan-
gossan yr hol dyfroed ynn y messUr y bUant or dechreU pan phUrfaod DUu y byd. / y
pedueryd dyd yr ymdangossan y pysgod a hol greadiriaid y moroed ar afonyd ar uyneb
y dyfroed gan rodi garmeU ac aruthion leissiaii oni ofnhaeU baub dim ar ai leuai ac ystyr y
lefain hynny nis guybyd neb onid y guir DUu. Y pUmed dyd dyfred yr hol fyd kimint ac y
ssyd dan gurs yr haUl ynn ymgylchynu ac yn rhuygau y dayar a diflannant ac a sychant gan
adau y luybraU yn sychdur. Y chueched dyd ni byd na phrenn na lyssieUyn ar y dayar nad
ymrodo yn ulybur a gulith o honau ynn guneuthud lyu. Y Seithued dyd y dinUstrir adail
yr hol dayar nid amgen kestyl, egluyssaui, tai, gan i gadau ynn feiissyd guastad. Yr
uythued dyd y kyphroant y tarenni ar kerric gan ymurd p'aub un ai gilyd ynn arUthyr
friuedic yn i herbyn. Y naufed dyd y byd dayar grynn mor arithyr ac na bii erioed y
kyphelyb kyn no hynny. Y degfed dyd y syrthiant yr eldyd ar kreigieii ac a ymchuelant
yn laur guastad. Yr unfed dyd ar dec y deUiantguedilion y kreadUiriaidbydaul ac ai losca
i dan fryssiau o le i le megis ynfydion heb yr un o honUnt atteb yu gilyd. Y detidec ued dyd
yr ymdengys arUthredion aruydion ar y phUrfaven ar syr a syrthiant. Y trydyd ar dec yr
ymdyrchafant escyrn y rhai meiru ac a escynnant o dyfnder y prid hyd ar uyneb y bedaU.
Y pedueryd ar dec y guedilion a adauer ynn fyu o annian dynaul a fydant feiru. y pym-
thegued dyd y syrth tan o euylys Diiu ai fediant yr hunn a lysc yr hol dayar hyd ar dyfnder
uphern ac ar diued hynny y disgin DUu hol gyuaethoc yr farn.
Variant Readings from Peniarth MS 214
In Peniarth 214 the Fifteen Signs begins the piece, and instead of the first sentence there is:
llyma y 15 arwyddkyn dydd brawdag mal y daw yr arglwyddirfarn a phafodd y byddy barn.
1st day: kyvuddfor kiipiid; 4th day: Uowai for leuai; 6th day: llysiewyn for lyssieiiyn, llyw
for lyu; 9th day: ni for na; 13th day: ymddyrchaffantfor ymdyrchafant.
TRANSLATION
Then the whole world will be one shepherd and one fold; in that time there will be a very
great calm and long peace and true, sincere love without disturbance of every goodness
and good deeds; and these noble matters above will continue in peace until fifteen days be-
fore Doomsday, upon which, according to the understanding and sense of St Jerome, as he
found them in the books of the old prophets in the Hebrew tongue, the true God and just
Judge will reveal wonderful signs before he descends to judgment, namely these. The first
day the seas will surge in torrents and will rise forty cubits higher than the mountains.
The second day the water risen on high will be consumed to so low a point again that it
1
Cymmrodor,iv (1881), 106-188.
* In this selectionthe italicizedlettersindicateletters whichare underdottedin the manuscriptto
indicatedoubling.
Welsh Prose Versions of the Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday 423
will be hard to perceive the depth. The third day all the waters will appear in the measure
that they have been (in) from the beginning when God created the world. The fourth day
the fishes and all the creatures of the seas and streams will appear on the surface of the
waters uttering cries and astonishing sounds until everything is frightened by their cries,
and the meaning of this crying no-one will know except the true God. The fifth day the
waters of the whole world, so many as are under the course of the sun surrounding and
fretting the earth, will vanish and dry up, leaving their tracks in dryness. The sixth day
there will not be a tree nor plant on the earth that will not yield moisture and dew from it
making a ....1 The seventh day the buildings of all the earth will be destroyed, namely,
castles, churches, houses, leaving them level plains. The eighth day the cliffs and rocks will
move, each one contending with the other, terribly broken against them. The ninth day
there will be an earthquake so terrible that there has never been its like before this. The
tenth day the hills and rocks will fall and will turn to level ground. The eleventh day the
remnants of the creatures of the world will come and will burn while rushing from place
to place like madmen, without one of them answering another. The twelfth day wonderful
signs will appear on the firmament, and the stars will fall. The thirteenth the bones of the
dead will lift themselves up and will rise from the depth of the earth to the surface of the
graves. The fourteenth the remnants that are left alive of human kind will die. The
fifteenth day there will fall by the will and power of God fire that will burn the whole
earth as far as the depth of hell; and at the end of this, Almighty God will descend to the
Judgment.
Llanstephan MS 28B (1455-1456), p. 140, and Panton MS 68 (end of fifteenth

century), p. 26, have a version of the Comestor type. It differs from Comestor in
several minor details, chiefly in omitting to translate occasional clauses and in
adding a sixteenth numbered day. The following is the text from Llanstephan MS
28B. The other is almost identical.
I dyly vod y xv. arwydd kyn dydd brawd yny xv dydd diwaethaf i byddunt.2 y dydd
kyntaf or xv yr ymgyvyd ymor ar uchaf y ddtiar ar mynyddedd xl kuvudd. yr ail dydd
i gostwng val y vo anodd edrych.3 y iij d[yd]d yr ymddengys y pysgod ar ucha yr mor a
rroi diasbad a nant val i klower hyd y nef.y iiij d[ydd] yrymlyscy mor ar tir. y v d[ydd]
rrydd y gwydd ar llysie wlith gwaed. y vi d[ydd] y syrth yr holl adail. y vii d[ydd] yr
ymgurant yn ddryllie. yr viij d[ydd] y kryn y ddaiar oll. y ix d[ydd] y gwystata r ddaiar.
y x d[ydd] yr a y dynion ir gogovau megys ynvydion. yr xi d[ydd] y kyvyd esgyrn y rrai
meirw. y xij d[ydd] y syrth y ser. y xiij d[ydd] y bydd meirw a vo yna. y xiiij d[ydd] y
llysc y nef ar ddaiar i gyd. y pymthegved dydd y bydd nef adaiar newyddion. yr xvi
d[ydd] y bydd dydd brawd yr hwnn y kaffom drugaredd yn arglwydd yn dragywydd.
amenn.
TRANSLATION
There are to be fifteen signs before Doomsday in the last fifteen days that there will be.
The first day of the fifteen the sea will rise forty cubits above the earth and the mountains.
The second day it will sink so that it will be hard to perceive it. The third day the fishes
will appear on the surface of the sea and give an outcry so that they will be heard even in
heaven. The fourth day the sea and the land will burn. The fifth day the trees and plants
will give a dew of blood. The sixth day all the buildings will fall. The seventh day they will
knock each other into bits. The eighth day the whole earth will quake. The ninth day the
earth will level (itself). The tenth day the people will go into the caves like madmen. The
1 Llyw'train'or 'trail' and lliw 'color'both seem unlikelymeaningshere;perhapsllif 'stream'or
'flood'is the best interpretation.
2 PantonMS 68 has:
Llymay bymthec arwyddkyndyddbrawdyny xvdydddiwaethafi byddant.
3 PantonMS 68 addsynddo.
eleventh day the bones of the dead will arise. The twelfth day the stars will fall. The
thirteenth day those that then be will be dead. The fourteenth day heaven and earth will
burn together. The fifteenth day there will be a new heaven and earth. The sixteenth day
will be Doomsday, on which may we receive mercy of our Lord eternally.
Another version that appears to belong to the Comestor type, though it diverges
from this considerably, is that of Llanstephan MS 117D (1544-1552), p. 200;
Llanstephan MS 181A (ca 1556), pp. 133-135; Llanstephan MS 24A (late 16th
century), pp. 97b-98a; and Peniarth MS 214 (1609-1612), pp. 292-297. The
second and fourth of these texts are very closely related; the first and third stand
together against the second and fourth, but are not so close to each other as are
these. Llanstephan 24A has the fall of constellations as well as of stars on the
twelfth day, as in the Pseudo-Bede type of the legend (Comestor has only:
Duodecima cadent stellae), while the other three texts make dwellings fall on this
day, repeating the sense of the sign for the sixth day. Since this sign in Llan-
stephan MS 24A resembles Pseudo-Bede more closely than Comestor, though the
version is otherwise more like Comestor, it seems likely that the corruption of the
other three texts was of long standing and that Llanstephan 24A has been cor-
rected on this point from a version of the legend of the Pseudo-Bede type. The
following text is edited from all four manuscripts, following the oldest in spelling
and some other details. I have supplied punctuation.
Llyma, medd Sain Sierom Abad, y xv arwydd a ddaw kyn dydd varn, val y dyvod Krist
i hun wrth Elias Broffwyd, xv diwyrnod. Y dydd kynta y mor a gyvyd yn uwch no thir
yny byd. Yr ail dydd y gostwng y mor val na welir rrac i issed ef yny ddaiar. Y trydydd
dydd y kyvyd yr holl bysgod ar wyneb y dwr ac a grian val y kryno yr holl griaduriaid
rrac i hovyn hwynt. Y pedwerydd dydd y llysc pob rryw ddwr kroiw a hallt oni el yn lludw
poeth. Y pumed dydd y koed ar llysie oll a waedan trwyddynt i gyd. Y chweched dydd y
syrth pob ydeilad ar kestyll ar murie main. Y seithved dydd yr ymyladd y kreigie ar keric
oni elon hwy'n lludw man oll. Yr wythved dydd y kryn y ddaiar ar awyr val na wypo neb
pyle i bydd. Y nawved dydd y gostwng y brynie ar mynyddoedd ir pantydd oni elon kyn
wastaded ar valed a tyned1 ar nent.2 Y degved dydd y daw gwynt ffalwm i chwythu pob
amhuireddoddi ar y ddaiar; ac yna i ffy i bobyl i gisio kysgod ir ddaiar. Yr unved dydd ar
ddec y kyvyd yr holl esgyrn y bobyl i wyneb y ddaiar. Y deuddegved dydd y syrth yr
holl gyvanheddau ir llawr. Y trydydd dydd ar ddec y bydd marw pob dyn byw ar y ddaiar.
Y pedwerydd dydd ar ddec y daw tan ir ddaiar or awyr i losgi pob beth. Y pymthegved
dydd y daw pedwar angel o bedwar ban byd i ganu bedwar Klariwns i alw y tri llu, un
nevol ac un daiarol ac un uffernol, ir lle a elwir y val o Siosaffat. Yno y daw Krist ar holl
graiaduriaid i roi y varn ar bawb val ir haeddodd yn y byd hwn. Ac yna y gellir dywedud
yn wir gwyn i vyd a haeddodd vodd Duw; a Duw a ro ini ras i vedru heuddu nef in heneidie.
Amen.
Variant Readings
Llanstephan MS 117D =text A; Llanstephan MS 181A =text B; Llanstephan MS 24A =
text C; Peniarth MS 214 =text D. Introduction, xv diwyrnod in A only. First day, C: y
gyfyd Saigain kipyt yn ywch no thir yny byd ag y saif megis kair vawr; D: a gyfyd val mur o
uchderyn uwch nor mynydd uchaf yn y byd; B: nor tiroedd. 2nd day, B: val nawelo neb; C:
rhag y gyfned ef; D: fal y bo anodd i neb i weled rhac i issed ai belled. 3rd day, A: rac i
honvyn; B: hovyn yn hwynt; C: wyneb y mor; D: rhacdduntfor rrac i hovyn hwynt. 4th day,
1 MSS A and B have dynid, MS C dyned; I read tyned as plural of ton 'layland': cf. tyndir
'lay-
land,' 'green,' and tyno 'meadow.' 2 MSS, dent, tant.
A: dwr; B omits pob; C: ony del. 5th day, A: i gyd oil; B: koedydd;D: blaen y llysiau oil a
wastiant drwyddynt i gyd. 6th day, B and D: y syrth y tai ar kestyll affob yrryw adail; C:
adds y gid at end. 7th day, B: elon oll yn lludw; C: ony delon; D: elon yn lludw, omits oll.
8th day, B: pale bydd; C: ple y bo yn sefyll. 9th day, A: mynyddoeddir pan hyle; B: gostwng
y mynyddoeddir mentydd oni elon kyn wastaded ar lliain adynid ar dent; C: dyned ar lled;
D: gostwngy mynyddoeddar brynnau ir glynnoedd ar pantoedd oni vythoy byd kyn wastated
ar tant. 10th day, A: ichwyddu ythu; B: pob rryw amhuredd, ffy pobyl van, omits ir ddaiar;
D: pob rhyw amhuredd, bobl val ynvydion i geissio gwastad, omits ir ddaiar. 11th day, A:
esgyrn bobyl; B: esgyrn yr holl boblar yddaiar; D: esgyrn yr holl boblar wyneb y pridd. 12th
day, B and D: syrth y kyvanheddeuyn ddryllie; C: holl seer ar arwyiYion.13th day, A omits
ar y ddaiar; B: pob dim byw; C: byw y vo yny byd; D: pob rhyw ddynion byw ar yr holl ddayar.
14th day, B: tan gwyllt or awyr ir ddaiar; C: pedwar taan; D: tan gwyllt or awyr i losgi pob
rhyw ddim daiarol ar a dyfodd ac ar a vagoddyr holl vyd. 15th day, A: o iiij manbyd, iij llu
un lie vu nevol ac vu daiarol ac vu uffernol ir vu lie aelwir; B: Tri llu ynghyd, ac yno a daw
y kreaduriad a duw byw val i bu ar y groes, byd yma, omits yn wir; C: bedwarman byd, iii
ll yr vu lie vu nevol, ag vu dayarol, ag vu uffernol yr vu llu a elwir; D: tri llu creulon, Nefolion
Dayarolion ac Uffernolion, daw y brawdyrDuw byw val i bu ar y groes, byd yma, yn wir mae
gwynn, bodd Duw, omits fedru. A and C end at yn y byd hwn.
B reverses the order of the thirteenth and fourteenth days but numbers them as in
the other texts.
TRANSLATION
These, says the Abbot St Jerome, are the fifteen signs that will come before Doomsday,
when Christ himself will come along with the Prophet Elijah, (for) fifteen days. The first
day the sea will rise higher than any land in the world. The second day the sea will sink
so that it will not be seen on account of its lowness in the earth. The third day all the
fishes will rise on the surface of the water and will cry so that all the creatures will tremble
because of their fear. The fourth day every kind of water, fresh and salt, will burn until
it all goes into hot ashes. The fifth day the trees and plants will all bleed together through
them.' The sixth day every building and the castles and walls of stone will fall. The
seventh day the rocks and stones will fight until they all go into fine dust. The eighth day
the earth and air will tremble so that no-one may know where he will be. The ninth day the
hills and mountains will sink to the valleys until they go level with the vales2 and lay-lands
and glens. The tenth day a cruel (?)3 wind will come to blow every impurity from off the
earth; and then the people will flee to the earth to seek shelter. The eleventh day all the
bones of the people will arise to the surface of the earth. The twelfth day all the dwellings
will fall to the ground. The thirteenth day every living man on the earth will be dead. The
fourteenth day fire will come to the earth from heaven to burn everything. The fifteenth
day four angels will come from the four corners of the world to play four clarions to call the
three bands, one heavenly and one earthly and one infernal, to the place that is called the
Valley of Josaphat. Then Christ will come with all created beings to give his judgment to
each according as he has deserved in this world. And then may it truly be said, blessed is
is he who has deserved God's pleasure; and may God give us grace that our souls may merit
heaven. Amen.
Peniarth MS 216, pp. 24-27, has another version of the Comestor type. This
is a word-for-word translation from Comestor, except for the detail that on the
eleventh day the bodies, not the bones, of the dead arise.
1 Perhaps the sense is that the blood oozes through the bark.
2
Val, pl. valed 'vales,' 'valleys,' is not recorded in any dictionary or glossary that I have seen; but
the meaning fits, and cf. y val o Siosaffat, which is certainly the Valley of Josaphat, in the last sign.
SSpurrell's Welsh-English Dictionary, 12th ed., recordsffalwm 'felon,' 'whitlow'; perhaps the French
or English adjectivefelon occurs in Welsh in that same form.
[Page 24] Llyma yr arwyddion a ddaw pymtheg diwrnod kynn dydd brawd.
Llyma arwyddion y pymtheg diwrnod kyn dydd brawd a gavas saint Jerom yn llyfrau
anales gwyr Evrei pa ffyryf hagen y devant ai [page 25] i gyd ai ar wahan nis mynaig y
sant.
1. Y dydd kynta, yr ymddyrcha y mor ddeugain kyuyd yn uwch nor mynydd ucha, gan
ymgynnal yn i le i hun megis mur.
2. Yr ail dydd, y digwydd ir eigiawn val na aller i weled rrag i issed.
3. y trydydd dydd, yr ymddangossant holl aniveiliaid y weilgi ar warthaf y mor i rroi llef
chwynvan hyd y nef.
4. y pedwerydd dydd, y mor ar dwr kroyw a losgant oil.
5. y pumed dydd, y daw gwlith o waed or gwellt, ar llysieu ar gwydd. [Page 26.]
6. y chweched dydd, y digwyddant yr holl adeiliad ir llawr dros wyneb y ddayar.
7. y /7/ dydd, y dymvyrwant y kerrig pob un wrth i gilydd.
8. yr /8/ dydd, y cyffry y ddayar oil.
9. y /9/ dydd, y gwastadteir y ddayar.
10. y //10// dydd, ydd a y dynion o geu gogovau val ynvydion heb pwyll ganthunt, heb
allu o neb atteb yw gilydd.
11. yr //11// dydd, y kyvyd korfforoedd y meirw hyd ar wynebeu y beddeu.
12. y //12// dydd, y digwydd y ser.
13. y //13// dydd, y bydd marw y rrai byw wrth gyvodi gyda yr rrai [page 27] meirw eraill
i ddyfod ir varn.
14. y //14// dydd y llosgant y nef ar ddayar.
15. y //15// dydd y rroir ffyrf newydd yr nef ar ddayar ag yna y kyvodant pawb or rrai
meirw.
Hyd hynn yr aeth
sant Jerom.
TRANSLATION
These are the signs that will come fifteen days before Doomsday.
These are the signs of the fifteen days before Doomsday, which St Jerome found in books
of annals of the Hebrew men, but in what way they will come, whether together or sepa-
rately, the saint does not indicate.
1. The first day, the sea will raise itself forty cubits higher than the highest mountain,
supporting itself in its place like a wall.
2. The second day, it will fall into the Deep so that it cannot be seen on account of its
lowness.
3. The third day, all the animals of the ocean will appear on the top of the sea to give a
cry and lamentation to heaven.
4. The fourth day, the sea and the fresh water will all burn.
5. The fifth day, a dew of blood will come from the grass and the plants and the trees.
6. The sixth day, all the buildings will fall to the ground over the earth.
7. The seventh day, the rocks will strike each one against the other.
8. The eighth day, the whole earth will move.
9. The ninth day, the earth will be levelled.
10. The tenth day, the men will go from hollow caves like madmen without their sense,
without any of them being able to answer another.
11. The eleventh day, the bodies of the dead will arise to the surfaces of the graves.
12. The twelfth day, the stars will fall.
13. The thirteenth day, the living will die in order to arise with the other dead to come to
the Judgment.
14. The fourteenth day heaven and earth will burn.
15. The fifteenth day a new form will be given to heaven and earth and then everyone of
the dead will arise.
Thus far went St Jerome.
A prose version of the Voragine type, from a manuscript identified by the edi-
tor only as in the British Museum, was printed in Y Brython, II, 56. The following
somewhat different text of the same piece occurs in Wrexham MS 2 (16th cen-
tury), pp. 44-46. I have supplied punctuation.
XV arwyddaddawkyn dydd varn val y may saint markefengylwryn yscrifenyyn [y]
drydydd gabidwlar ddec. y kyntaf yw ef a gyfyd ymor y vynydd Ryngto ar awyr xv
kybyd yn ywch nor mynydd ycha yn y byd ac a say yn y le val macwyr.er hyny, yr ail
dydd ef esdwng y mor val or braiddiweledvo. y trydydd dydd ef a lef y pyscod yn ymor
ar morveirchmawrval y klowery lie hyd ar yr awyr. y pydwerydddydd vo alysc ymor ar
awyr. y pymed dydd vo a chwsa y koed ar llyse ddwfwra gwaed.y chwecheddydd ef a
gwympy kesdyllmawraffobadail i lawr.y seithfeddydd evo a gyr y gericmawrar kreige
yng hyd hyd pan el pob vn o honynt yn wyth darn affob vn onaddynt yn briwa i gilidd
hyd nawyrneb y trwst onid duw y hyn. yr wythfed dydd efo vydd twrw mawrtrwyrholl
vyd vegis na allo na dyn nac anifail sefyll ar y traed affob peth gwymp y lawr. [p. 45] y
nawfeddydd efo awstatairyr holl vyd ymynydd arglenyddyn ddwst. Y degfeddydd efo
addawy bobolvyw or gogofyddac a gerddan val ffyliaidac ny ddychon yr vn o honynt
ddywedydvn gair wrth y Ilall. yr vn ved ar ddec efo agyfyd escyrn y bobol veirwonor
bedday ar bedday aegyr val y gallon y meirwgodi o honynt allan. y deyddegfeddydd y
syrth y ser or wybyr y lawrac yna y daw anifeiliedy byd yr meysyddheb nafforiac yfed
dwr ac yna y brefanhwy yn irad. trydydd ar ddec i bydd meirwafo byw o bobol val y
gallonhwy gyfodi o feirwyn vyw gydarbobolafy veirwoy blaenhwy. Y pedwerydddydd
ar ddec y llysc yr wybyrar ddayaryr wynebycha yr ddayarar awyr.Y pymthegfeddydd
y bydd yr wybyr ar ddayaron newydd ac y kyfyd y meirwoll yn vyw, y sawl sydd avy
veirw yn iyfaingkac yn hen ac yn ganolic,yn yr oedranyr oedd vab duwyn diodd. y don
hwy yr varn y gael o bawbyn ol i weithoedd,[p. 46] na da na drwca oedd iweithredoedd,
megisi mae sain pawl yn dwedydwrth lywk yr arychangelar trwmpdyw yr varn. y mae
saint jeronyn dwedydam trwmphwnw,na na na bwyta nac yfed na gwnethyrpeth arall
y bai ef ym swn y trwmplyn graylonyn y glysday. yna y dwedir,'kyfodwchy mirw, y
vynydd adewch yr varn.' ac yr varn hono y daw mab duw a holl Radde nefoedd y le
aelwirjosiffath.ac yna wrth huny2y daw holl gythreiliadYfferna holl pobol y byd afernir
y dydd hwnw. yny y hacorirtri llyfr: llyfr y dioddefaint a llyfr y gydwybod allyfr y
vychedd.llyfr y dioddefaintyw mab duw ai groesai hoilionar ffonwayw ar goronddrain;
yng nawd krist y brathay ar arychollion,val y mae sain kryssmwsyn dwed: 'nyd traid
tyst pan welo pawb grist ac arwyddiony doddefaintyn y law.' yr ail llyfyr acorir yw
hwnw [p. 47] a elwir llyfr y gydwybod ac yn hwnw y mae meddwl pob dyn ay eiray ai
weithredoedd.medd selyf, 'vo addaw ymliw ar ddryc ddyn am ddyrwc veddwl.' medd
mathayebosdol,'ve ddaw bawby gyfri am y over eiriayac a ddyry ateb am y holl weith-
redoedd,na da na drwcoeddent.'ac y kosbirpawbam iweith redoedddrwcawaythontac
am gweithredoeddda lluwenyddtragwyddola gant.3y trydydd llyfr yw llyfr y vychedd,
nyd amgennorarglwyddjesu grist;kanystrwy hwnwy hamlygirdirgelwchkydwybodpob
dyn wrth y gyd grisdon.ar llyfr hwnw a ddowaidpawl ebostol, 'nafernwchkyn yr amser
hyd pan ddel duw y varny.' ar llyfr yna ym ae yn yscrifenedicyn apokalibsys,'y mairw
aferniryn ol i gweithredoeddyr hai sydd yn escrifenedicyn y llyfr.' yna yr amlygir y
geiray yr ysdys, nyd amgen noc 'ewch' a 'dewch': 'ewch, yr Rai drwc, yr tan yffernol;
dewch, yr Ran da, yr [p. 48] bywyd tragwyddol,'val y dywad mathay ebosdol yn y
pymed efegil ar higen: 'dyna yr amseryra yr rha drwc yr poenay ar rhai da yr nefoedd.'
yno y bydd ac y daw engylionnef a holl bobol y byd y gyd oll a holl gythreiliedyffern;ac
am hyny kyngorda yw y grisdonpan vo ef yn ymddiriedyr gyfraith.gwneyth heddwch
1Beforetrwmp, kyrn deleted.
2 In a different hand, written above wna, which is deleted.
3 The words lluwenydd tragwyddol a gant are inserted above ac yn gay gwneythyryn hardd, which
are deleted.
arystys, nid amgen noc yr arglwydd jesu grist, trwy ediferwch oy pechod aglan gyffes oy
enay a chwbwl o jawn i dduw ac y ddynion, a hyny kyn dyfod dydd brawd ar no. medd
selo, 'kyn dydd brawd gwnaed Y ffordd yn dda.' y varn bryderys hono a fydd anrigaroc;
am hyny y mae y proffwyd yn dwedyd, 'pwy addichon aros y gael y weled ef?' e vydd kray-
londer duw kimaint yr amser hwnw ac, yr arglwyddes vair vorwyn ar egylion ar holl saint
pen lino ar dal y glunay noethion a gweddio dros vn dyn afai varw mewn pechod marwol,
nywrandaw dduw arnynt hwy. y mae sele ap dd yn dwedyd dolyr a llid mab duw. [p. 49]
nyd erbyd ef neb dydd y varn ac nychymer1 ev gweddie ac nychymer ef Roddion er kam
varny neb. yr amser hwnw ar dydd hwnw dyry mab duw y engylion ef y holio y Rai
drwc obaith ar hai da ac addanfon yr rhai drwc yr tan yffer nol lle mae llefain ac escyngy
danedd; ac yno y bydd blinder mawr ar yr y rai drwc, kanys nybydd ffordd yn y vyd
yddyntwy ddiangk. medd saint awstin, 'pa gygyfynged vydd yr rhai drwc: yrystys ywch
pen hwy yn ddic, danynt yffern yn egored, or ty deay y pechoday yny blino hwy ac or ty
aswy yddynt y kythreiliaid yn tyny tyar poenay, ynddynt kydwybod yn llosci, or ty maes
yddynt y byd oll yn llosci.' gwae y pechadyr brwnt addalier yn golledic y dydd hwnw!
diagk nys dychon, aros nyd gallyfor yddo. ac yno y deysyf yrhai drwc angay ac-nys kan
byth, medd jeamj yfegylwr. ac yno y bydd tryeni mawr ar yr rhai drwc pan vo duw ay
egylion a holl saint o nef a holl kythreilied yffern yn y her byn; ac val y mae trigaredd
dduw yn barod y pawb yny byd yma ae kisio trwy edifeirwch, velly y mae dialedd dyw
yn parod yr rhai drwc [p. 50] y dydd hwnw. yno y mae pedwar achos vrai mell digedic o
dristwch. y kynta yw yrai drwc a gollodd holl2 dai a holl lywenydd y3 byd hwn, nyd amgen
noi kyn hedloedd ai tai ai kyfoeth bydol acharwriaeth duw ai saint i achristnogion y byd
oll. yrhail o achos yw yddynt hwy o dristwch, hwy a gollyson yr angenreidiay y dlysen4
hwy alw am drigaredd, val y dywad y poffwyd [sic] esaw: 'ef addarfy yr haf yddyn ar gaya
a addoeth arnynt ac fe vethoedd y amddiffin, ac pe [fe]ddynt hwy yrhai drwc yr holl vyd,
hwy ai Roen er vn mwment or byd hwn y alw am drygaredd ac ywnneythyr penyd.' y
trydydd achos yw tristay, hwy a gollyson dduw ai lywenydd ai holl poynay yffernol a
gawsont. poynay yffernol yw kolli wyneb duw, kanys nychan byth weled wyneb duw.
pedwrydd [sic] achos o dristwch yddynt yw kolli kyfoeth a llywenydd nef ac enill bydyrni
a thalodi Yffern. kans lle yw yffern tywyll brwnt tlawd, val ymae saint barnad yn dwedyn:
'ynys Yffernol o cheledic lle mae toyll dan yn llosci ac yn oer vel yn merwino ac yn anverth
bryf ny bydd marw byth [p. 51] athrwm sawr ny all neb y odde amyrth y le yn ky . . .
athywyllwch.' a ddalieri ddwylo ai dwyllo a chwilidd owaith pechoday a chlymy kadwynay
o achos wyneb kythreiliaid Yffern yn wastad, val y galli ddyn feddyliaid affrydery yr ynys
honno. Y trydydd achos yw tragwyddawl boenay. poenay yffernol abery yn dragwyddol,
val y dowad eseias broffwyd: 'pwy o honoch i addychon aros gydar tan llwythay trag-
wyddawl?' ac velly y mae mathay yn dwedyd yn yr efengil o duw y hynn: 'kans duw
addwad wrth yrhai drwc fo yn sefyll ar y llaw aswy, "ewch oddi wrth yfi, y rhai melldi-
gedic,6 yr poenay yffernol, nyd amgen noc yr tan tragwyddol." ' ac ymae sain grigor yn
dwedyd mae kyfiawnder duw yw na bo pechadyr byth heb poenay arnynt kanys ny vynai
efai ef vyw vn amser heb pechod. am hyny dylir prydery yn vawr y poenay sy vawr
athragwyddol. pai dwylai y kolledic peynydd ychydic o ddwr, vwylai vn dyn kolledic or7
diwedd vwy o ddwr nog y sydd o ddwr yn yr holl vyd. hawdd yw kowiro hyny; kans nyd
oes fesyr ar y8 dwr hwnw [p. 52] ac ymae mesyr ar ddwr y byd. Y pedwerydd yw amryw
poenay sydd yn yffern. y mae rai yn dwedyd y bydd poen o gorff dyn ai enaid. may
poenay yn ol dydd varn, kans y mae yr angel ystor yn dwedyd: 'nac ofonwch y neb
1 Nychymer is inserted above yn y flic, which is deleted.

2 Before holl, ydd deleted. 3 Before y byd, ne deleted.
4 Instead of e there may be two letters after the s, of which the second may or may not be e; per-
haps the word should be emended to elysen 'bounty' or 'grace.'
5 Two or three illegible letters after ky. 6 Before melldigedic, drwc deleted.
7 Before or, 8 Before y, hyny deleted.
vwy deleted.
addichon ladd y kyrff, ond ofonwch' y neb addichon wedy2 lladd i goryff ddanvon y korff
ar enaid ir tan tragwyddol. ni awelwn yr yrwan3 naddychon dyn ddioddef mewn tan heb
vlinder mawr arno.' a hyny y gyd vn awr wrth hyny: 'beth4 awna dyn pan vo y holl gorff
ef yn llosci mewn tan yffernol?' mae hyny yn arwydd bod blinder mawr. yno y dywad
duw yn yr efengil, 'yno y bydd wylo ac escyrnygy danedd mawr.' Y pymed yw bod poenay
yffernol heb elliant na Rwymedi yr neb a vo ynddynt er godde mewn ri o aml. boen y byd
y by yna nyffery ond enyd bychan, kans yscawn affrwyth lawn yw affoenay yffernol sydd
dragwyddol ablin ac heb ym dal. er hyny pai hwylai ddyn kollededic [sic] gimaint ac ysydd
o ddwr yn ymor, nyd oedd gwbwl hyny y gyd e vydd yrhai kolledic yn gwneythyr penyd
ac yn ymddwyn5 beynydd ac nychan am6 penyd ai thal ganddunt. ac velly terfyna yr
ystori hon.
TRANSLATION
Fifteen signs will come before Doomsday, as Saint Mark the Evangelist writes in his
thirteenth chapter. The first is, the sea will rise up to the sky fifteen cubits higher than the
highest mountain in the world and will stand in its place like a wall. Nevertheless, the sec-
ond day the sea will sink so that it will hardly be seen. The third day the fishes in the sea
and the great sea horses will cry so that their cry may be heard as far as the sky. The fourth
day the sea and sky will burn. The fifth day the trees and plants will sweat water and
blood. The sixth day the great castles and every building will fall down. The seventh day
the great stones and rocks will strike together until every one of them goes into eight
pieces, and every one of them crushing the other so that no-one comprehends the uproar
except God himself. The eighth day there will be a great turmoil throughout the whole
world, so that neither man nor animal can stand on his feet, and everything will fall down.
The ninth day the whole world, the mountains and the valleys, will be levelled into dust.
The tenth day the living people will come from the caves and will run like madmen, and
not one of them will be able to speak one word to the other. The eleventh, bones of the
dead people will arise from the graves, and the graves will open so that the dead can rise
out of them. The twelfth day the stars will fall down from the sky, and then the animals
of the world will come to the open fields without either grazing or drinking water, and
then they will bellow piteously. The thirteenth, all the people that may be alive will die,
so that they can arise from the dead with the people that have died before them. The four-
teenth day the sky and the earth will burn to the highest surface of the earth and the sky.
The fifteenth day there will be the sky and the earth anew, and all the dead will arise alive,
those that there are who died young and old and middle-aged, at the age at which the
Son of God suffered. They will come to the Judgment for each to receive according to his
works, whether his deeds were good or bad, as Saint Paul says to Luke the Archangel
[leg. 'Evangelist'], at the trumpet of God, to Judgment.7 Saint Jerome says of that trum-
pet, whether he were eating or drinking or doing anything else, he feels the trumpet ter-
ribly in his ears. Then will be said, 'Arise, ye dead, up, and come to the Judgment.' And
to that judgment will come the Son of God with all the ranks of heaven to the place that
is called Josaphat. And then thereat will come all the devils of hell and all the people of
the world who will be judged that day. Then three books will be opened: the book of the
1Ofonwch is badly written at the end of a line and repeated at the beginning of the next.
2
MS., wady.
3 This word, which is not very legible, stands at the beginning of a line. Perhaps the yr at the end
of the preceding line is the beginning of this word and should be deleted.
4 Written at the end of a line and repeated at the beginning of the next.
The words ac yn ymddwyn are repeated.
6 Something deleted before nychan, apparently the words nychan am not very legibly written.
7 This seems to be corrupt; cf. the variant reading from Y Brython, III, 56, which may be rendered:
'As Saint Paul says to Luke the Evangelist, at the trumpet of God the Lord Jesus Christ will come to
judge. ... ' Arychangel is perhaps an error for angelystor.
passion, and the book of the conscience, and the book of the life. The book of the passion is
the Son of God with his cross and his nails and the spear and the crown of thorns: in the
flesh of Christ the stabs and the wounds, as Saint Chrysostom (?) says: 'A witness is not
necessary when everyone shall see Christ with the signs of the passion in his hand.' The
second book that will be opened is that which is called the book of the conscience, and in
this there is the thought of every man, and his words and his deeds. Says Solomon, 'Re-
proach will come upon a wicked man for wicked thought.' Says the Apostle Matthew,
'Everyone will come to account for his idle words and will give answer for all his deeds,
whether they were good or bad.' And all will be punished for the wicked deeds that they
may perform, and for good deeds they will receive eternal joy. The third book is the book of
the life, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, for through that (? or 'through him'?) is revealed
the secret of the conscience of every man toward his fellow-Christian. Of that book the
Apostle Paul says, 'Do not judge before the time when God shall come to judge.' Of that
book it is written in the Apocalypse, 'The dead will be judged according to their deeds
which are written in the book.' Then will be revealed the words of the judge, namely 'Go'
and 'Come': 'Go, ye wicked, to the infernal fire; Come, ye good, to the life everlasting,' as
the Apostle Matthew says in the twenty-fifth gospel: 'That is the time when the wicked
will go to the torments and the good to heaven.' Then it will be that there will come the
angels of heaven and all the people of the world all together and all the devils of hell. And
on that account it is good counsel for a Christian, if he trust in the law, to make peace
with the judge, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, through repentance of sin and complete
confession from his mouth and entire atonement to God and to men, and that before
Doomsday comes upon him. Says Solomon, 'Before Doomsday let him make the way
good.' That fearsome judgment will be merciless. Concerning that the prophet says, 'Who
can endure seeing him?' The severity of God will be so great at that time that though the
lady Virgin Mary and the angels and all the saints kneel on their bare knees and pray over
a single man who has died in mortal sin, God will not hearken to them. Solomon the son of
David tells of the grief and anger of the Son of God. He will not spare anyone on Dooms-
day, and he will not accept prayers and he will not accept gifts to judge anyone falsely.
At that time and that day the Son of God will give his angels to summon those of ill hope
and the good and will send the wicked to the fire of hell, where there is weeping and gnash-
ing of teeth; and then there will be great affliction upon the wicked, for there will be no way
in the world for them to escape. Says Saint Augustine: 'How confined the wicked will be!
The judge above them angry, below them hell yawning, on the right side the sins harrying
them and on the left side of them the devils drawing [them] toward the torments, within
them conscience burning, outside them the whole world burning.' Woe to the foul sinner
who may be held damned that day! He cannot escape, enduring is not possible (?) to
him. And then the wicked will pray for death and will never receive it, says James (?) the
Evangelist. And then there will be great misery upon the wicked when God and his angels
and all the saints from heaven and all the devils of hell shall be against them; and as God's
mercy is ready for everyone in this world who seeks it through repentance, so is God's ven-
geance ready for the wicked on that day. Then there are four causes of sorrow for the
damned. The first is, the wicked have lost all the houses and all the joy of this world,
namely, their kindred and their houses and their worldly wealth and love of God and his
saints and Christians of all the world. The second cause of sorrow to them is, they have
lost the necessary things of their ... to call for mercy, as the Prophet Isaiah says: 'The
summer has ended for them, and the winter has come upon them, and their defense has
failed.' And if the wicked possessed the whole world, they would give it all for one moment
of this world to call for mercy and to do penance. The third cause for their sorrowing, they
have lost God and his joy and they have obtained all his torments of hell. The torments of
hell are losing the face of God, for they never get sight of God's face. The fourth cause of
sorrow to them is losing the kingdom and joy of heaven and gaining the rottenness and
wretchedness of hell. For hell is a dark, foul, wretched place, as Saint Bernard says: 'The
island of hell [is] to be shunned, where there is dark fire burning and numbing cold and
the ugly worm that never dies and a heavy smell that nobody can endure, the impurity (?)
of the place ... and darkness.' His hands may be restrained and he be defrauded, and dis-
grace because of sins; and binding of chains because of the face of devils of hell constantly;
so that a man may ponder and fear that island. The third cause is the everlasting torments.
The torments of hell will last forever, as the Prophet Isaiah says: 'Who of you can abide
the fire of everlasting burdens?' And thus says Matthew in the gospel of God himself: 'For
God will say to the wicked that are standing on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye ac-
cursed, to the torments of hell, namely, to the everlasting fire." ' And Saint Gregory
says that the justice of God is that sinners be never without torments upon them. For he
would not be willing that he be' alive any time without sin. For that, we should fear
greatly the torments which are great and everlasting: if the damned wept a little water
each day, one damned man would at last weep more water than there is of water in all the
world. It is easy to verify that, for there is no measure upon that water, and there is a
measure on the water of the world. The fourth is the sundry torments that are in hell. Some
say there will be torment of the body of a man and of his soul. There are torments after
Doomsday, for the evangelist says: 'Do not ye fear the one who can slay the bodies, but
fear the one who can, after the slaying of the body, send the body and the soul to the ever-
lasting fire. We shall see now that a man cannot suffer in fire without great affiction upon
him.' And this also at the same time with that: 'What shall a man do when his whole body
is burning in fire of hell?' That is as a sign that there will be great suffering. Then God says
in the gospel, 'Then there will be weeping and great gnashing of teeth.' The fifth is that
the pains of hell are without relief or remedy for the one who may be in them. In spite of
suffering in a number of frequent torments of the world when he was there, it lasts but a
little while, for it is light and profitable, and the torments of hell are everlasting and
grievous and without recompense (?).2 Therefore, even if a damned man should weep as
much as there is of water in the sea, that together would not be the total that the damned
will be doing of penance and bearing daily; and they will not get for penance that which
will recompense them for it. And thus ends this account.
Variant Readings from Y Brython, II, 56.

Introduction, Dydd y Farn; yn ei ddoedydac yn ysgrifenu yn y drydeddbennod ar ddeg.
1st day, omits y vynydd; ddeugain 'cypynt'; omits yn y byd; ac ef a saif; megys mur. 2nd
day, omits er hyny; ef a ostwng; megys o'r braidd y gwelir. 3rd day, omits dydd; lef y mor-
feirch a'r pysgod yn yr eigion; hyd pan glywer eu llef hyd yr wybr. 5th day, omits dydd;
chwysa y llysiau a'r coed. 6th day, omits i lawr. 7th day, omits yng hyd; hyd yni el pob careg
yn; phobdarn o'r wyth; briwo eu; eu trwst hwy. 8th day, hyd na allo; peth a gwymp. 9th day,
hollfynyddoedd. 10th day, gogofau; ac ni ddichon un ddoedydgair. 11th day, unfed dydd ar
ddeg; a agorir; gallo'r meirw; omits allan. 12th day, cwymp y ser; omits y lawr; ac y daw;
yr holl fyd. 13th day, Y trydydd dydd; o bobloedd;godi; gyda'r rhai. 14th day, y llysg yr
wybr a'r wyneb uchaf i'r ddaiar; omits ar awyr. 15th day, bydd yr awyr; y bydd y meirw;
y rhai afufeirw; yn ganolig, yn yr un oedran; Mab Duw yn dyoddefi ... hwy; ol eu gweith-
redoedd,na da na drwg a fai hyny. Ends, Megys y mae Saint Pawl yn doedyd wrth Luwc yr
Efengylwr, ar drwmp Duw y daw yr Arglwydd Iesu Grist i farnu .... A footnote adds,
'Brawddeg neu ddwy yng ngholl ar y diwedd.'
Another prose version of the Voragine type occurs in Llanstephan MS 135,

p. 34. This seems to be related to a version of the legend by the fifteenth-century
1 This translationseems hardly possiblefrom the text; it would requiresome suchreadingas ny

vynaief y bai ef, etc. But I can makenothingelse of it, and the generalsenseseemsto be this.
2
Perhapswe shouldread er goddemewnri o aml boeny byd;poeny bydyna nyffery,etc.: 'in spite
of sufferingin a numberof frequenttorment[s]of the world;the torment of this worldlasts but,
etc.'
poet Dafydd Nanmor;1 but neither of these versions can be descended from the
other, since the later piece is in some respects closer than the earlier to the ulti-
mate Latin source.
Llyma pymthec arwydd kyn dydd y farn. SSain Ierom a ddywait y kyfyd y mor un
ywch nor tir ychaf ar mynyddoedd o ddaygain kyfyd. Yr ail dydd ef a fydd y mor kynissed
ac y kair gweled y graynyn llaiaf ac a vo yny waylod ef. Y trydydd dydd pob rhyw o
byssgod ac a vo yny mor awnant rhyw gri achwynvan val na allo neb y draythy onyd Dyw y
hun. Y pedweryth dydd pob rhyw brenau a llysyoedd achwsant waed affob amryw adar
amgynyllant ynghyd ac ny wnant na bytta nac yfed rhac ofn y varn yssydd yn dyfod. Y
pymed dydd y llys[c] y mor ar holl ddyfroedd. Y vi dydd pob rhyw adailiad y kestyll ar
threv ar eglwyss ar klochdaie athai a syrthiant yr llawr ac y lysc yny gollo-hayl eilwaith. Y
saithfed dydd y kerric ar kreigay amffystant yng hyd hyd pan dorro pob un gan y gilydd
ac amrafael laissau gantynt hyd pan gldwir hyd y nef. Yr wythfed dydd y kryn y ddayar
hyd na allo neb ssefyll er ni Eythyr ssyrthio y lawr. Y Nawfed dydd y dda y bobl yr gogofau
megis pei heint yn amchwyllo dir heb ddwedyd o neb ddim wrth y gilidd. Y degved dydd y
bydd gwastad y ddayar. Yr unfed dydd arddec y agora beddau y rhai meirw ac y ssaif y
kyrff yny sevyll yny beddau. Y dayddegved dydd y ssyrth amrefael o dan a mellt ac amyl
wreichion val y bo gorthrwm y neb y gweled. Y trydydd dydd ar ddec y bydd marw pob
dyn ar y vo un dwy[n] enaid yr nifer hwnnw. Y pedwerydd dydd ar ddec y llysc y nef ar
ddayar. Y pymthegved dydd y gwnair y nef ar ddayar o newydd a ffob dy .. d gyvyd yn
oydran dengmlwydd ar higain. ac velly y tervyna.
TRANSLATION
Here are fifteen signs before Doomsday. Saint Jerome says that the sea will rise higher
than the highest land and the mountains by forty cubits. The second day the sea will be so
low that there will be obtained a sight of the smallest grain of sand that may be on its
bottom. The third day every kind of fish that may be in the sea will make a kind of cry
and lamentation, such as no-one can interpret except God himself. The fourth day all
manner of trees and plants will sweat blood, and every sort of birds will gather together
and will neither eat nor drink for fear of the judgment that is approaching. The fifth day
the sea and all the waters will burn. The sixth day every kind of building, the castles and
the villages and the churches and the steeples and houses, will fall to the ground and will
burn until the sun ... again. The seventh day the stones and the rocks will beat together
until each breaks against the other, and manifold cries from them until they are heard as
far as heaven. The eighth day the earth will quake until no-one can stand on it, but fall
down. The ninth day the people will go to the caves as if there were a pestilence, wandering
about the land without anyone saying anything to another. The tenth day the earth will
be level. The eleventh day the graves of the dead will open, and the corpses will stand up
in the graves. The twelfth day there will fall various kinds of fire and lightning and
numerous sparks, so that it will be grievous to anyone to see them. The thirteenth day
there will die every man who may bear a soul of that host. The fourteenth day the heaven
and the earth will burn. The fifteenth day the heaven and the earth will be made anew and
every person (?) will arise at the age of thirty years. And so it ends.
1 The Poetical Works of Dafydd Nanmor, ed. Thomas Roberts, rev. by Ifor Williams (Cardiff and
London, 1923), pp. 99-101.
The Political Meaning of Chaucer's Tale of Melibee

Author(s): Gardiner Stillwell
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:08
Speculum.
THE POLITICAL MEANING OF CHAUCER'S
TALE OF MELIBEE
BY GARDINER STILLWELL
PROFESSORW. W. Lawrence has recently made a plea for an understanding of

Chaucer's Tale of Melibee in terms of medieval life and thought.1 The purpose of
this paper is to make further contributions toward such an understanding.
Lawrence mentions the manner in which some critics have ridiculed the Meli-
bee; he also gives credit to others - Ker (in part),2 Tatlock,3 and Sundby4 for
treating the tale as moral allegory popular in its own time.5 He wisely rejects the
interpretation of Hotson, who held that 'the Melibeus is a political tract, designed
to dissuade John of Gaunt from launching on the invasion of Castile in 1386.'6
Says Lawrence, 'To conclude that John of Gaunt would have been moved by a
close translation of a popular and well-known work, written in the preceding
century, and containing nothing pointing directly to the invasion of Castile, is to
attribute to that robust hero a supernormal sensitiveness.'7 It is true that the
Melibee, being a translation of a foreign work, cannot be said to have an exclusive
bearing upon any one political situation of Chaucer's time. The tale must have
had many meanings for fourteenth-century England. Although it cannot be dated
precisely, it would have been very a propos of current events and ideas during the
whole of Chaucer's Canterbury period, to which it in all probability belongs.8
While one man might connect it with John of Gaunt, another would see a parallel
with Richard II, or with some other person or faction. Certainly all men would
hear in the tale echoes of problems which were buzzing in everybody's ears.
Lawrence singles out some features of the tale which would be of particular
interest to the Englishmen whom Chaucer knew:
But I think that another and more important feature of the tale has been strangely ne-
glected - its repeated and earnest pleading for peace rather than war, for mediation and
law rather than private revenge. Compared with this, its moral lessons, its psychologizing,
and its elegant extracts seem of secondary significance.... Precisely the conflict which
we trace in the Melibeus between private revenge and organized justice marks the de-
1 W. W. Lawrence, 'The Tale of Melibeus,' Essays and Studies in Honor of Carleton Brown (1940)'
pp. 100-110.
2
Ibid., 100-101. See English Prose Selections, ed. Henry Craik (London, 1893), I 42 ff.
3 Lawrence, op. cit., pp. 101, 103. See J. S. P. Tatlock, Development and Chronology of Chaucer's
Works (1907), Chauc. Soc. Pub., sec. 2, vol. xxI, 188-197.
4 Lawrence,
op. cit., pp. 106-107. See Thor Sundby (ed.), Albertani Brixiensis Liber Consolationis et
Consilii, Chauc. Soc. Pub., ser. 2, vol. vIII, 'Intro.'
5 In this connection, the opinion of Professors
Manly and Rickert is interesting: 'Most CT MSS
contain Mel... Undoubtedly the work was popular, not merely because of its proverbs but also
because the situation discussed was a not uncommon experience in the Middle Ages; it therefore had
a personal interest for readers' (John M. Manly & Edith Rickert, The Text of the CanterburyTales, In,
[1940], 371-372).
6 Lawrence,
op. cit., p. 100. See J. Leslie Hotson, 'The Tale of Melibeus and John of Gaunt,' Stud.
Phil., xviii, pp. 429-45. 7 Lawrence, op. cit., pp. 100-101.
8 F. N. Robinson, Chaucer's
CompleteWorks (1933), p. 847. This is the edition of Chaucer referred
to throughout the paper.
433
434 The Political Meaning of Chaucer's Tale of Melibee
velopment of law in the later Middle Ages.... It was no less timely in the age of Chaucer.
The exhaustion and depression in England in the reign of Richard II are too familiar to
need emphasis. How deeply the evils of war and the perversion of justice impressed Gower
and Langland we know; can they have been absent from Chaucer's mind when he trans-
lated the Melibeus? May they not, indeed, have been one of the chief reasons why he made
the translation? The allegory was popular for other reasons, of course, but we may well
doubt whether it would have attained such vogue had, it been merely, like thousands of
other works, a Christian manual or a didactic floralegium.1
I wish to enlarge in a much more particularized manner upon the pacifism of the
Melibee, and also to point out that it contains other themes which must have been
of particular interest to Chaucer and his times: the importance of choosing wise
counsellors, and the excellence of woman as counsellor.
Lest, however, I should be accused of making rigid Hotsonian identifications of
situations in the tale with situations in Chaucer's period, it would be well to
emphasize the multiplicity of applications which might be made of the Melibee.
Albertano of Brescia, original creator of Prudence and Melibeus, was in their
persons criticizing the lawlessness of feudal nobles in northern Italy, men who
were unwilling to submit the settlement of their feuds to legal institutions set up
by the bourgeoisie of the Lombard communes.2 Prudence counsels against the
building of unnecessary fortifications (11.1331-40); and hasty, angry and covetous
lords were in the habit of rearing privately owned and strongly armed towers on
the very streets of Italian towns.3 Albertano may well have known whereof he
wrote, for he was probably in the train of a 'podesta,' or general magistrate, ruler,
peacemaker and policeman, chosen to have control of Genoa for an appointed
period in the early 1240's.4 And the Liber Consolationis was written in 1246,5 close
to the time of Albertano's legal experience in Genoa.
Even in Italy, however, Albertano's treatise could have had a wide variety of
applications. The vagueness of Melibeus as an allegorical figure is probably what
permitted the work to have such great popularity. For Melibeus' position in
society is not clearly defined. He is a person of some consequence, one important
enough to choose between war and peace, and to need a body of skilled advisers.
He might be baron or monarch, or simply a powerful member of the bourgeoisie.
1 Lawrence, op. cit., pp. 103, 107, 109. George H. Cowling has also mentioned the Hundred Years'
War as a reason for the timeliness of the Melibee: 'Its [Melibee's] appearance among The Canterbury
Tales seems to indicate that the strain and loss in blood and treasure due to the Hundred Years' War
with France had caused the prudence and pacifism of this allegory to appeal to others beside Chaucer'
(Chaucer [1927], p. 162).
2
Sundby, op. cit., p. xvii, speaks of Albertano's purpose of 'inculcating sounder principles regarding
feuds and private vengeance,' and (p. xvii) of 'the goal he had proposed: condemnation of feuds
and wilful wars, and submission to law.'
3 W. F. Butler, The LombardCommunes [1906], pp. 191-193, points out that many nobles had forti-
fied towers right in the heart of the cities, and that 'Where the party of peace got the upper hand for a
moment a favourite policy was to reduce the height of the towers to a uniform level. In Genoa all were
cut down in 1196 to 80 feet.'
4
Sundby, op. cit., p. xiii: Albertano 'lived, at the end of 1243, at Genova, whither he had probably
accompanied his countryman Emanuele Maggi, who had been elected podesti of that city. According
to custom the foreign podestA, generally elected for three years, took with him his judges and notaries.'
6 Ibid., p. vi.
The Political Meaning of Chaucer's Tale of Melibee 435
He is 'a yong man called Melibeus, myghty and riche' (1. 967). So little is his in-
dividual personality insisted upon that he might even be taken to represent the
state, and so bring his prudent wife to advise cities involved with one another in
Guelf-Ghibelline warfare.
That he might mean many things is illustrated by his inclusion in the compila-
tion of the Menagier de Paris. The story of Melibeus is here intended to show the
young wife how to advise her husband in matters pertaining to public life: 'Et s'il
est ainsi qu'il [the husband] se vueille esmouvoir contre autre personne plus
estrange, si le refrenez sagement; et, a ce propos, est une histoire ou traictie qui
dit ainsi: Un jouvencel appelle Mellibee ... '. To take Prudence as a model for a
young bourgeoiseof Paris is surely to forget the Italian setting entirely.
If the Menagier so completely lost sight of the Italian background of the tale,
we should not be surprised to find Chaucer and his readers doing the same. And if
the Menagier's young wife was to learn from Prudence how to give help to a
husband, might not Queen Anne, or some other worthy wife, learn those lessons
also? Since the Melibee deals with political themes, what is more likely than that
men would see in it precepts for English statesmen? This would require no great
agility for the medieval mind. That which was not originally allegory could easily
be made into allegory, as in the case of Ovid medievalized in the OvideMoralise.2
That which was allegory to begin with, and political allegory at that, like the
Melibee, would be easy of application to particular political situations. At the
same time, it is most unlikely that Chaucer or his readers would expect a transla-
tion of a foreign work to apply with consistency throughout its length to any one
contemporary situation.
Let us turn first to the theme of peace versus war.
Valiant Edward iii, immediate predecessor of Richard ii, had based his claim
to the French throne upon a flimsy ground of inheritance through his wife's
connections. He had conducted a long war of arrogant conquest, successful at
first. But after the treaty of Bretigny in 1360, the Hundred Years' War became
one long woe for England. Most of the French possessions were lost to the enemy,
and for the rest of the century failure dogged almost every military expedition
to the continent. The glorious and unjustified ambitions of Edward iii were far
from being realized. Some passages of the Melibee, therefore, are startlingly ap-
propriate. One of the wise old counsellors, for instance, argues:
Lordynges. . . ther is ful many a man that crieth 'Werre!werre!'that woot ful litel what
werreamounteth./ Werreat his bigynnynghath so great an entryng and so large, that
every wight may entre whan hym liketh, and lightly fynde werre;/ but certes,whatende
that shal thereof bifalle, it is nat light to know./ (11.1038-40)
Clearly those who had enthusiastically begun the French wars had not foreseen
'Le Menagier de Paris, Traite de Morale et d'Economie Domestique, compose vers 1393, par un
bourgeois Parisien' (ed. Pichon), Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet, 1846, for the Societe des Bibliophiles
Francois, i, 186.
2 'Ovide MoralisE,' Poeme du commencementdu
quatorziemesiecle, 5 vols., ed. de Boer, Amsterdam,
1915-1938. This poem turns Ovid's Metamorphoses to the purpose of instruction regarding Bible
stories, the devil, sin, good and evil, and so on.
the present state of things. Clearly, too, an aggressive foreign policy would find
little justification if weighed by the pragmatic mind of Dame Prudence. She says
that Melibee, in examining his own counsel, is to ' .. considere what thyng shal
folwe of that conseillyng, as hate, pees, werre, grace, profit, or damage, and manye
othere thynges./And in all thise thynges thou shalt chese the beste, and weyve
alle othere thynges/' (11.1207-1208). For ' ... no wight sholde take upon hym
so hevy a charge that he myghte nat bere it' (1. 1214). And bad counsel should be
changed, for, commands Prudence, '. . . take this for a general reule, that every
conseil that is affermed so strongly that it may nat be chaunged for no condicioun
that may bityde, I seye that thilke conseil is wikked' (1. 1231). It is implied that
war should not be waged over dead issues: 'Soothly, a man may chaungen his
purpos and his conseil if the cause cesseth, or whan a newe caas bitydeth' (1. 1224).
The Hundred Years' War had become too heavy a burden for England to bear
easily, and there were certainly those who did not want to change the old counsel,
to judge by the repeated and sterile expeditions to France. On the other hand,
there were those in England, in Chaucer's Canterbury period, who considered the
counsel of the war party futile. English foreign policy in the 1380's and '90's re-
solved itself into disagreement between aggressionists and non-aggressionists.
It must have been obvious to many, in the 1380's, that the French war was a
severe drain on national finance. The poll tax of 1381 was the precipitating cause
of the Peasants' Revolt. And the huge yearly expenditure was bringing no results.
Again the Melibee is appropriate, for it recognizes the economic difficulties of
war:
I conseilleyow that ye bigynneno werrein trust of youre richesses,for they ne suffisen
noght werresto mayntene./ And therforeseith a philosophre,'That man that desirethand
wole algateshan werre,shal neverehave suffisaunce;/for the richerthat he is, the gretter
despensesmoste he make, if he wole have worshipeand victorie.' (11.1650-52)
Prudence's wisdom touches upon the commonplace that depression follows war:
'For Seint Jame seith in his Epistles that "by concord and pees the smale richesses
wexen grete, /.and by debaat and discord the grete richesses fallen doun" / ' (11.
1676-1677).
The voice of the Melibee is in accord with protests which the commons had
made all through the century. Time and again the middle classes, asked for subsi-
dies, balked at any further loosening of their purse-strings. In 1348, just two years
after Crecy, Edward iii found it difficult to get more funds from a reluctant
parliament. 'The prudent commons showed reluctance even to give advice, lest
a fresh recommendation of forward policy involved an obligation to pay for it.'
The Black Death made parliaments and fresh grants of funds impossible. Edward
agreed to a preliminary treaty of peace in 1354. The consent of the commons
was asked for. 'When the Chamberlain pressed them for a direct answer to his
question whether they would accept a perpetual peace, if it could be obtained, a
general shout of "Yes, yes" showed clearly that the war spirit had abated.'2
Much later, in 1376, when the commons were again being asked for money,
1 T. F. Tout, Chaptersin the Administrative History of Mediaeval England, in (1928), 172.
2 Ibid., p. 173.
. .. a knight of the south country ... delivered a furious attack on the govern-
ment. "The country is undone by grievous taxes," he declared, "and can pay no
more".'l The French historian Wallon notes the grumbling attitude of parliament
in the 1370's: 'La guerre n'ayant plus de succes, il [Parliament] avait calcule de
plus pres ce qu'elle cofitait a la nation, n'accordant plus les subsides qu'avec
reserve, et voulant savoir ce qu'on en faisait.'2 In the Parliament of Oct. 20, 1378,
'La grande question etait la guerre. La guerre, rendue nationale par les victoires
d'Edouard In, etait devenue moins populaire, depuis qu'au prix de tant d'argent
elle ne rapportait plus que des echecs. On aimait a se dire que si le roi revendiquait
la France comme heritage, c'etait 'alui de supporter les frais du debat.'3
Perhaps the attitude of the commons cannot be taken too seriously. They gave
eager support, in 1382 and 1383, to the Bishop of Norwich's crusade (1383). The
commons, if one can generalize, seem to have had their eyes upon moneybags
rather than upon peace or war. Much of the money for the crusade was raised by
private subscription and by the sale of indulgences, so that the commons had the
opportunity to support a national campaign without having to pay for it. And at
any time it was doubtless to their advantage to have the government involved
in expensive war. The more money the king needed, the more of his commons'
petitions he would be apt to grant. We must look elsewhere for the truest allies
of Dame Prudence in England at this time. These were Richard ii and Michael
De la Pole. It is true that they also favored the Bishop's expedition; but it was
De la Pole who was responsible for the real shaping of a peace policy in 1384, and
Richard after 1389, when he had recovered his power from the Gloucester faction.
De la Pole was a favorite counsellor of the young king, and accordingly became
chancellor of England in 1383. His foreign policy was one making for permanent
peace with the French. In 1384, speaking at the opening of parliament, he said:
Item sur la Tretee de la Paix q longementad durez& continuep entre Aredit S~ le Roi &
son Adversairede France,les Messagesd'ambespartz en dit Tretee se sont ore assentuz
surcerteineformede Paix finalprendrep entre les Roialmes,surl'advisdesRois &de lour
Conseilxd'ambespartz, dont y a certeinsarticlesfaitz prestzde vous monstreren temps &
lieu covenables. Et purtant 4q re Si le Roi vous ent voet monstrer naturesce & perfit
amour; & considerant voz grevouses Charges quelles vous avez longement sustenuz pmy
celle Guerre.... Item si la Paix se prendra, q Dieux grante, encores il est voirs q ycelle
Paix ne purra ja estre perfaite ne perfourniz sanz la presence des deux Rois avaunt ditz ...4
But during his chancellorship it was impossible to carry out this policy. Later in
1384 another parliament had to be called to take measures of protection against
threatened invasion on the part of the French, a threat which was still present in
1385. And when the Gloucester faction seized power in 1386, De la Pole's power
evaporated completely. During these years, however, Richard himself showed no
antiquated anti-French military idealism. There is talk in the chroniclers of his
desire in 1387 to return English possessions on the continent to France.5 Knighton
states that Richard hoped by this means to get help from France against the
1 Ibid., pp. 293-294. 2 H. Wallon, Richard I, I (1864), 2-3.
Ibid., p. 28. 4 Rot. Parl., II, 166, col. 2.
Chronicon Henrici Knighton, ii, 243 (Rolls Ser.); Thomas Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, In,
164, 170 (Rolls Ser.).
Gloucester faction. And the pacifistic temper of the royal party can be gathered
from their hostility toward Arundel for his naval exploits of 1387, if we may
believe the account of Walsingham. The warlike earl was well thought of by most
Englishmen when at one stroke he defeated a fleet of Flemings, French and
Spaniards, captured their vessels and goods, and destroyed the French fortifica-
tions at Brest.' But the effeminate royal favorites, vigilant in speaking but lazy in
performing acts of war, told the king that the earl had done nothing worthy.2
Whatever the chronicler's accuracy as to facts, he does let us see that the king and
his friends were not primarily attracted to rough and warlike pursuits, and that
they seem to have regarded Arundel more as a stupid bully than a brave warrior.
Certainly the Tale of Melibee is in tune with their attitude.
Gloucester himself seems to have perceived the advantages of peace at last,
for a three years' truce with France was arranged in 1389, And after 1389, with
the return of royal power, Richard remembered the lessons of De la Pole, his
former tutor. When the three years' truce expired, it was renewed for four years
more. Final and supposedly permanent peace was established at last in 1396, when
Richard went so far as to take in marriage the seven-year-old French princess,
Isabella. It was a bad match from one point of view: Richard's first queen had
borne him no child, and his second wife would not be mature until after many
years. The succession to the throne was therefore uncertain, and the throne itself
unsteady. But Richard was so interested in measures for peace that he was ap-
parently willing to set aside other considerations.
To connect the Melibee with Richard's peace policy is not at all fantastic, since
Chaucer himself was very likely connected with the royal faction in politics. He
lost his appointments in 1386, when John of Gaunt went to Spain and Richard
lost power. In 1389, when Gaunt returned and Richard overcame opposition,
Chaucer's star rose again. And so this political treatise, in its English application,
must in part have seemed to many of its readers like a masterful argument against
aggression in France.
Though the Melibee would seem to favor Richard's peace policy, it appears to
frown upon him in its discussion of good counsel. Melibee, the important man, the
lord or ruler, must carefully take counsel in himself (1. 1120). And the core of
Dame Prudence's advice is that he should avoid 'ire, coveitise, and hastifnesse'
(1.1122). Richard II may be fairly charged with anger and hastiness, at least in the
sense of temperamental instability. Chroniclers may have over-emphasized his
instability, but at any rate there does exist evidence for it, and certainly men were
conscious of it. Thus, even if the traditions regarding Richard's character are
unjust, the fact remains that his subjects might well have seen in the Melibee re-
flections of what they considered to be his character.
Some account of Richard's 'ire' and 'hastifnesse' should be given. There is no
particular reason to charge him with 'coveitise,' unless it be that his court was
considered extravagant.
While the parliament of May 5, 1384 was sitting, a Carmelite friar, one John
Latimer, told Richard that Lancaster was planning to seize the throne. Mystery
1 ii, 154-155. 2 Ibid.,
Walsingham, p. 156.
still surrounds this event, but at all events Walsingham and Lancaster both seem
to have thought that Richard was over-quick to believe the friar. He first of all
talked the matter over with two insufficient counsellors.' While the conference
was on, Lancaster happened to enter the room, 'omnino nesciens quid tractarent.
Quem cum Rex torvo vultu respexisset, nec, ut solebat, honorem impenderet,
Dux aestimans aliquid latere in mente Regis quod personam suam tangeret, se
subtraxit.'2 After this display of haste and anger, Richard decided to show Lan-
caster the Carmelite's charges, 'quam ut perlegerat, suspirans ait ad Regem:
"HIeu,"inquit, "Domine mi, cur fidem datis talibus delatoribus"?'3 Both chron-
icler and sighing duke apparently regarded Richard as lacking in prudence and
wisdom.
After the reconciliation between Richard and Gaunt brought about by Joan
of Kent, William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, charged that the royal
counsellors were guilty of leading the king to scheme against Lancaster's life.4
Later the archbishop repeated his charges, and again Richard was guilty of 'ire':
' . . . rex extracto ense archiepiscopum illico perfodisset nisi comes Buckyngham,
dominus Johannes Deuereye et dominus Thomas Tryvet eidem fortiter restitis-
sent.'5 Another chronicler agrees in thinking Richard unwise in anger against
Courtenay. Gaunt had been warned not to attend parliament, but Richard would
not excuse him from attendance. He appeared, then, but with a large host,
... and come to the kynge besechyngethe kynges hyenes not to be displeasedein that
he come with so moche peple, sayenge that he dreddeto dye. Wherethe kynge made a
protestacionby the confirmacionof an othe that he hade never knowledgeof that treason
afore that tyme. And after that in Lente maister William Courteney,archebischopof
Cawnterbery,rebukedethe kynge for his insolentlyfe and ylle governauncein the realme
longe contynuede,as hit longede to the seide metropolitanto do, sayenge withowte he
applyedehym to saddergovernayle,sommeinconvenienteswoldefolowewith ynneschorte
space,both to hym and to the realme.Thekyngehavyngegreteindignacion Yerof, woldehave
smytenthe archebischop, butthat ThomasWodestoke, uncleto the kynge,causedehym to re-
freynethatpassionof wrathe.Neverthelessethe kyngerehersedemonywordesof obprobry
to the archebischop,and conceyvedageynehym greteindignacion,and so the archebischop
departedand wente into ferrecostesfromthe kynge.6
Walsingham has De la Pole restraining Richard's anger against the same prelate:
'Eodem tempore, Rex, ob leves occasiones, in tantam exarsit iracundiam contra
Cantuariensem Archiepiscopum, Dominum Willelmum de Courtenay, ut ejus
bona temporalia juberet auferri, et in manus suas seysiri; factumque fuisset ut
jusserat, nisi Cancellarius regni, Dominus Michael de Poole, ejus conatibus
laudabilius restitisset.'7
Froissart, however great his inaccuracy, knew the characters of the leading
men of his time. In one episode in the Chronicles, Richard and Gaunt are cam-
paigning together in Scotland, and Richard is persuaded that Gaunt wishes to
1 Ibid., p. 113. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4R. Higden, Polychronicon, ix, 58 (Rolls Ser.).
6 Ibid., p. 59. C. Oman remarks: 'This shocking outburst of almost insane rage did Richard as much
harm as did his alleged plot against his uncle' (The History of England from the Accession of Richard 11.
to the Death of Richard in. [1906], p. 94).
6 Continuation of English translation of
Higden's Polychronicon, in Higd., viII, 468-469 (Rolls Ser.);
italics mine. 7 Walsingllham,II, 128.
take over the throne, and hence to accomplish the death of the king by having
him pursue the Scots: ' . . . than the duke of Lancastre came to the king his
nephue, nat knowyng of the trouble and chaunge of his purpose; and the kynge
beyng in his malencoly, assone as he sawe hym he sayd in great yre, certesse vncle
of Lacastre, ye shall nat attayne as yet to your entent; thynke you for all your
wordes, y we wyll lese ourselfe folisshely?'1
Richard carried anger to the point of schocking physical violence on the oc-
casion of Anne's funeral, when he struck the Earl of Arundel on the head so as
to cause blood to flow, with the result that the ceremony had to be delayed while
ecclesiastics performed the rites for the cleansing of a holy place stained by blood-
shed.2
After 1389 Richard ruled wisely for a number of years, but his old recklessness
asserted itself in the last years of his reign, when in a burst of tyranny he let his
arrogance go beyond all bounds. Creature of sudden moods as he was at times,
it is difficult to suppose that readers of the Melibee would not be reminded of the
character of their king.
Chaucer's royalist connections are not inconsistent with his careful criticism
of royalty. The Lak of Stedfastnesse shows us that he was not afraid to warn his
monarch. That he was at least conscious of Richard when writing the Melibee is
proved by the omission, in Chaucer's version alone among many versions, of a
reference to the 'sorry state of a nation burdened with a boy-sovereign.'3 This
reference would no doubt have been too bold and tactless for Chaucer to make.
The tale as it stands cautiously leaves the reader to make his own inferences.
Other inferences he might make have in large part to do with the selection of
counsellors. Dame Prudence has much to say about choosing advisers wisely:
'Now, sire,'quoddamePrudence,'andsyn ye vouchesauf to beengovernedby my conseil,
I wol enformeyow how ye shul governe yourself in chesynge of youre conseillours/ (1.
1115) . .. thou shalt considerethy freendesand thyne enemys./ And as touchynge thy
freendes,thou shalt considerewhichof hem been moost feithfuland moost wise and eldest
and most approvedin conseillyng;/ (11.1154-55).... And by this same resoun shul ye
clepen to youre conseil of youre freendesthat been of age, swiche as han seyn and been
expert in manye thynges and been approvedin conseillynges./ For the book seith that
"in olde men is the sapience,and in longe tyme the prudence"/ (11.1163-64).... Now,
sith that I have toold yow of which folk ye sholde been counseilled,now wol I teche yow
which conseil ye oghte to eschewe/ (1. 1172).... Thou shalt ... eschue the conseillyng
of alle flatereres,swiche as enforcenhem ratherto preiseyoure personeby flateryethan
for to telle yow the soothfastnesseof thynges/' (1.1175).
Gower regarded the question as an important one:
And upon this matierealso
A questionbetwen the tuo
Thus writen in a bok I fond;
1 Berners, 1812, ii, 29; italics mine.
2
Interpolation to Annales Ricardi, IT, p. 424 (Rolls Ser.): 'Oportebat sibi, ut, postposito Mortuorum
Officio, ad solemnia reconciliationis ecclesiae Pontifices festinarent. Ante cujus completionem, pro-
funda nox fuit. Sicque omnia turbata, universa confusa fuere.
3 J. Burke Severs, 'The Source of Chaucer's Melibeus,' PMLA, L, note 14, p. 99; and see also Tat-
lock, op. cit., p. 192.
Wher it be betre for the lond

A king himselve to be wys,
And so to bere his oghne pris,
And that his consail be noght good,
Or other wise if it so stod,
A king if he be vicious
And his conseil be vertuous.
It is ansuerd in such a wise,
That betre it is that thei be wise
Be whom that the conseil schal gon,
For thei be manye, and he is on . 1
And certainly the choosing of counsellors was of great importance during the reign
of Richard ii. During the king's minority, it was a matter of the greatest urgency
who surrounded him. And Richard, of all monarchs, has been accused of having
flatterers and self-seekers in his train. Knighton, in his account of events leading
up to 1388, refers to the 'quinque nefandi seductores regis,'2 whom he also calls
the 'proditores . . . qui seduxerant regem.'3 Walsingham is likewise hostile toward
them throughout. And Lancaster is said to have reproved the king for following
bad counsel, the reproof having occurred during the time in 1385 when Gaunt
suspected that there had been a plot against his life.4 Richard the Redeless (1399),
or 'Richard devoid of counsel'5 condemns the flatterers of another decade. Wisdom
has been unable to gain access to Richard's court;6 bad counsel and covetousness
have been the downfall of the king:
. . ffor 3oure daiez
Weren wikkid thoru 3oure cursid counceill. 3oure karis weren newed
And coueitise hath crasid . 3oure croune ffor euere!7
The court is accused of 'beringe vppon oilles,' i.e., of the use of flattery,8 and there
is a desire to do away with 'fflatereris and ffals men.'9
The choosing of counsellors was at no time a topic more in the air than in 1386
and after, when the Gloucester faction either exiled or executed all of Richard's
most important friends. According to Froissart, Gloucester railed at the royal
favorites, when the Londoners asked him to assume control of the city:' . . . the
kyng my nephue hath suche cousayle as nowe about hym, whome he beleueth
better than hymselfe, whiche coasayle ledeth hym as they lyste.'0 In 1388 the
Merciless Parliament accused the favorites above all of giving Richard bad
counsel. Itowever hollow and formal this charge may have been, it was neverthe-
less the central accusation about which all others were ranged, as may be seen
by the account in Knighton." And even if the charges were false, they do at least
1 The CompleteWorks
of John Gower,ed. G. C. Macaulay (Oxford, 1901), III, 351, 11.4147-4160.
2
Knighton, ii, 236. 3 Ibid., 243. 4 Polychronicon, ix, 57.
5 Piers the Plowman and Richard the Redeless, ed. Skeat
(Oxford, 1886), ii, lxxxii.
6 Ibid., i, Pas. II,
p. 622, 11.226-231. 7 Ibid., Pas. I, p. 606, 11.6-8.
8 Ibid., Pas. II, p. 620, 1. 186, and Skeat's note, I, 299.
9 Ibid., Pas. III, p. 621, 1. 198. 10Berners, op. cit., p. 275.
n Knighton (rI, 271-292) tells of the
meeting of parliament, and gives the form of the charges
brought against Richard's friends. All the king's disagreeable actions, all the ills of the realm are laid
to the blame of the royal favorites, who, so the charge runs, took advantage of the king's youth and
innocence to deceive him with their own advantage in view (see espec., p. 274).
show that the whole question of counsellors was being very much thought of.
Much of the Melibee, then, would have been very timely indeed from 1386 to
1388.
Dame Prudence makes much of older men as superior counsellors. Gower has
the same distrust of youth, and points out that Rehoboam was so foolish as to
neglect the counsel of old age for 'yong conseil.'1 Naturally one could find ex-
amples throughout Richard's reign of the presence of young men both in the
royal party and in the ranks of the opposition. There is evidence, however, that
Richard was thought to rely too much upon the advice of young men. One
chronicler speaks of him as 'despysynge the cownsaile and company of olde men,
drawynge to yonge men.'2 Gloucester made use of the same criticism when, ac-
cording to Froissart, he advised the Londoners to speak to the king, together
with representatives from all the kingdom, and say, '. . ye haue nat takenne
good regarde to the busynesse of this your realme, by reason of the poore and
yonge counsayle that ye haue aboute you.'3 The charge appears to have been
perennial, for in Richard the Redeless it crops up again, in these lines:
Whane3e weresette in 3ourese . as a sir aughte,
Ther carpingecomynliche.of conceill arisith,
The cheuyteynscheef . that 3e chesse euere
Werenall to yongeof 3eris . to yeme swyche a rewme.
(Pas. I, 11.86-89; italics mine)
and in these:
ffor it ffallith as well to ffodis . of four and twenty 3eris,
Or yonge men of yistirday . to 3eue good redis,
As be-cometha kow . to hoppe in a cage!
(Pas. III, 11. 210-62)
One who tended to identify Melibeus with Richard would, at the mention of
immature counsellors, be reminded above all of Robert de Vere. He was only
three years older than Richard, and was only thirty when he died in 1392. He was
very much in the limelight, for he was one of the king's foremost favorites. Es-
pecially did he come into prominence when in 1385 Richard made him Marquis of
Dublin, an extravagant honor practically amounting to the kingship of Ireland,
and one which aroused great indignation.4 In 1386 the Marquis of Dublin became
the Duke of Ireland. Froissart believed that Vere's influence over the king was
immense: '[Richard] was so blynded with this duke of Irelande, that if he had
sayd, sir, this is whyte, though it had ben blacke, y kyng wolde nat haue sayd the
contrarye.'5
It is perilous, however, to make rigid identifications of Prudence's type-counsel-
lors with actual figures of the late fourteenth century. Nor is it necessary to do so.
It is enough to have proved that anyone living amid the stirring events of Rich-
ard's reign could not fail to be stimulated by Prudence's discussion of good and
bad counsel.
1 Gower, op. cit., p. 351, 11.4130-4139.
2 Continuation of the
English translation of Higden's Polychronicon, vIII, 513.
3
Berners, op. cit., p. 351, italics mine. 4 Walsingham, 11, 140. 6 Berners, op. cit.
The discussion of counsel leads us to a final consideration: women as counsel-

lors. Prudence has a long and digressive speech disproving Melibee's disparaging
remarks about women. She has a goal in view, however, and that goal is reached in
an emphatic position at the end of the speech, where she winds up by concluding
that women can be as good counsellors as men:
And, sire, by manye of othre resonsmay ye seen that manye wommenbeen goode, and
hir conseilsgoodeand profitable./ And therfore,sire, if ye wol triste to my conseil,I shal
restooreyow youre doghterhool and sound/ And eek I wol do to yow so muche that ye
shul have honourin this cause./ (11.1109-11)
In other words, she is primarily interested in woman as a political agent.
If we agree that Richard ni was guilty of 'ire' and 'hastifnesse,' then we must
be interested in seeing how Queen Anne restrained those bad qualities, precisely
as Prudence would have a good wife do, and as the Menagier apparently wanted
his girl-bride to do for her future second husband. Anne is not to be identified
absolutely with Prudence, but one can see how Chaucer's audience might think
of Anne when listening to Prudence's discussion of women. And certainly Anne's
influence over Richard was on at least two important occasions similar to that of
Prudence over Melibee.
When Richard tried to overcome the Gloucester faction by force of arms in
1387, his troops were defeated at Radcot bridge near Oxford, and Vere, who was
leader of the troops, fled. The Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to make peace
between the king and his subjects, but Richard was so angry that for 'two nightes
and a day'"he refused to receive the prelate. Anne's persuasion did much to calm
the irate monarch. Froissart says: '... the beheedynge of his knyghtes and
counsaylours came sore into his courage; so he was in dyuers ymaginacions; but
finally he refrayned his displeasure, by the good meanes of the quene, y lady of
Boesme, and of some other wise knightes that were about hym ... '2
In 1392 Anne helped to make peace between Richard and the city of London.
The king had asked the citizens for a loan, but they refused it. An Italian mer-
chant offered to provide the money. Londoners murdered the Italian, and there
was rioting. Richard deprived the city of its rights, but subsequently restored
them. There is 'a letter from Richard, in the Foedera, wherein he declares, "he
was reconciled to the citizens through the mediation of his dear wife the queen".'3
Anne's part in the incident was made official in a magnificent procession and cere-
mony.4 The lord mayor, before the Southwark bridge-gate, made a speech in
which he 'proceeded to hint "that mercy and not rigor best become the queenly
station, and that gentle ladies had great influence with their loving lords".'5
Alice Perrers, mistress of Edward IIi, managed him for her own selfish ends
1 Ibid., 294. 2 Ibid.
3 Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, I (1893), p. 621, note 1.
4 Richard de Maidstone describes this event in The Reconciliation of Richard ii with the City of
London, to be found in Wright, Political Poems and Songs, I, pp. 282-300 (Rolls Ser.). From Walsing-
ham, ii, 208-210 and Knighton, ii, 319, it would appear that John of Gaunt did the mediating, not
Anne. But Anne at least received a large part of the credit for the reconciliation, whatever she may
actually have done. 5 Strickland, op. cit., p. 621.
during his last years. She could justly be charged with flattery and covetousness,
and was widely hated for her bad effect on the aging king. On the other hand,
Edward's queen, Philippa, was much admired. It is not unlikely that some in
Chaucer's audience should have identified her momentarily with Prudence to the
extent of remembering her intercession with Edward for the six condemned citi-
zens of Calais after the seige of that city (1347). And Joan of Kent, Princess of
Wales, distinguished herself as a peacemaker. In 1385, despite illness and corpu-
lence, she travelled back and forth between Richard ni and John of Guant in a
successful effort to heal a breach between the two, the duke having retired to his
fortified castle at Ponefract because he feared a royal conspiracy on his life.' Thus
was averted what might have amounted to civil war.
The attention of fourteenth century readers of the Melibee would not neces-
sarily be confined to ladies of or near the royal family. The fact remains, however,
that Philippa, Joan, and above all Anne did in contemporary eyes fulfil the ideal
requirements laid down by Dame Prudence.
Analogy-hunting in the Melibee could go on forever. And most of it would be
legitimate, for the tale is a good allegory, in that its generalities are capable of
wide application to particular cases. I have tried only to suggest some of the high-
lights of the contemporary setting of the treatise, to divine the most likely ap-
plications a fourteenth-century Englishman might make of Prudence's lessons.
At the same time, I have sought to remind the present-day reader of some of the
healthiest platitudes in our literature. The Tale of Melibee cannot be admired for
its beauty or originality. But it contains some of the roundest, soundest common-
places ever offered by an author to a succession of troubled centuries.
TIE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
1 Walsingham, n1,126.
The Coronation Oath of Edward II and the Statute of York

Author(s): B. Wilkinson
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:08
Speculum.
THE CORONATION OATH OF EDWARD II AND
THE STATUTE OF YORK
BY B. WILKINSON
I
A RE-OPENINGof the problem of the coronation promise of Edward n seems to be
justified, not only by its own intrinsic importance, but also by the possibility,
hitherto largely overlooked, of an intimate connection between that promise and
the whole baronial struggle against Edward II. To Stubbs this was a struggle be-
tween the old traditions of baronial co-operation with the monarch and the newer
monarchical practice, derived largely from the precedents of Henry III, of an irre-
sponsible monarchy supported only by the advice and actions of 'favorites.'
Writers like Tout and Davies and Lapsley have modified this conception in vari-
ous ways, some of which may be open to doubt;1 but all seem to be in substantial
agreement on one important point. The baronial opposition was largely a spon-
taneous and direct reaction to Edward's misgovernment, the expression of a
natural and inalienable right of opposition, which the barons could and did,
deduce from the principles underlying the medieval state.2 There is no need to
look for any particular theoretical basis for the acts of the opposition: the mag-
nates needed no justification outside their hostility to Gavaston and the methods
of the king.
It may be, however, that the constitutional implications of the baronial right
of resistance, in England at least, have been carried too far. The magnates had a
clear and established right of resistance to oppression; but they had no such right
to the imposition of positive acts of reform upon the king by threat of force.
Nor could they obtain this by reference to the reforms and principles of 1258-65.
We are now beginning to understand how thoroughly these had been discredited
by the failure of Simon de Montfort, and by the policy of Edward I. The opposi-
tion to Edward ii, if it was to be more than a protest, had to find a basis and
justification for itself.
It is probable that this is exactly what, in fact, happened in 1308. The new
basis can, on one interpertation, and with some reservations which are pointed
out below, be seen in the new clause inserted, by the demand of the magnates,
in the coronation oath of Edward ii, and in the baronial declaration of 1308
defining their duties to the monarch and to the crown. These were complementary
to each other, the one giving the magnates the right to impose reforms on the
monarch, the other giving them the right to coerce the king if he refused. Be-
tween them, they certainly provided a basis for baronial opposition; but they
also constituted a challenge to the sovereignty of the king which cut clean across
the political traditions of the nation. Hence, when the royalists obtained an
unquestioned ascendancy in 1322, their main task was to destroy this new princi-
1 See 'The Ordinances of 1311' in
my Studies in the Constitutional History of the XIIIth and XIVth
Centuries, pp. 227-247.
2 The Widerstandsrechtof Fritz
Kern; see Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages, translated by S. B.
Chrimes, 1939.
445
446 Coronation Oath of Edward II and the Statute of York
pie of opposition by the Statute of York. Thus, behind the conflict of personalities
and of selfishness and greed, which Stubbs saw so clearly in the reign of Edward
II,1 there may have been a deeper conflict, which he did not see, making the real
pattern of this confused and complicated reign. Instead of a spontaneous right
of resistance exercised by the barons, the reign of Edward II witnessed one of the
bitterest contests, over the principles of baronial opposition, of the whole
mediaeval period.
This interpretation of the reign is what is suggested below. It involves an
acceptance of the theory of the coronation oath of Edward II first put forward
in the Essays in Honour of James Tait;2 it involves a recognition of the declara-
tion of 1308 as a principle of baronial opposition, retained and extended until
1322;3and it involves an interpretation of the Statute of York as being ultimately
intended by its authors as a reply, not only to the Ordinances of 1311 and to the
events of 1321, but also to the whole baronial challenge of 1308-1321.4
II
There seems to be no more certain way of misinterpreting the reign of Edward
ii than to explain the significance of the event which began it, and which is
probably the key to much that followed, largely by the method of explaining
it away. However we eventually understand the wording of the coronation oath
of Edward II, we must begin, it seems certain, by regarding the additional clause
as deeply significant. It is hardly possible, in the nature of things, that clause
iv was, as has recently been suggested, substantially a repetition of clause I.
It is certain that men did not introduce a new clause into the coronation oath,
hallowed by centuries of use, a clause containing ambiguous or even revolutionary
words, merely to make the king promise, twice in the same ceremony, to grant
and keep the laws his ancestors had granted.5 However low our opinion of the
fourteenth century constitutionalist, it is hardly possible that it should be as
low as that. Even Maitland and Stubbs, though their whole outlook prompted
them to see in the clause merely a recognition of the development of parlia-
mentary government, conceded that it introduced a new and important element
1 C.H., ii, 319.
2 By the presentwriter,in 'The CoronationOathof Edwardii' in Essaysin Honourof James Tait.
This interpretationhas been questionedby H. G. Richardson,in 'The English CoronationOath' in
Trans.Royal Hist. Soc. (4th series) xxIII, 129-158, and by J. R. Strayer in 'Statute of York and
Communityof the Realm' in AmericanHist. Rev., XLVII,1-23. Otherreferencesare made by H. G.
Richardson and G. Sayles in B.I.H.R., xIII, 129-145; xv, 94-99; xvI, 1-11.
3 I have set forth the detailedevidencefor this in an article in E.H.R. delayedby the war. The
argumentbelow is that the scope of the coronationoath and of the declarationof 1308 was subse-
quently enlarged.
4 This has never been clearlyaccepted. Referencesto more recent work on the subjectare given
below.
6 This is pointed out emphaticallyby P. Schramm,in Historyof the EnglishCoronation,p. 206:
the last clause is 'almostwordfor wordwhat the firstquestionsays, exceptthat this questionspeaks
of just laws and customs while the other speaks of old ones.' Word for word, that is, except for
eligerit:ProfessorSchrammbelievesthat clause iv binds the monarch for the future, as suggested
above.
Coronation Oath of Edward II and the Statute of York 447
into the constitution. It governed the actions of the monarch in the future; it
did not merely refer back to events in the later years of Edward I.
The greatest objection to an explaining away of the significance of the fourth
clause is the wording of the clause itself. In it, Edward promised to accept the
rightful laws and customs which the community of the realm shall have deter-
mined. The more likely tense of eligerit is the future perfect.1 The more obvious
meaning is one that applies to the future. Edward, that is, bound himself to
accept and enforce laws which his subjects (the communitas) were to 'elect' for
him at a later date. Stubbs and Maitland, by implication at least, accepted this
meaning.2 Professor Schramm, a cautious writer, thinks that the term voluerit
of the first clause places it beyond doubt.3 The most that any modern writer has
urged against it, is that the meaning of eligerit is, and was, ambiguous.4 But else-
where the same writer has given the most convincing evidence yet produced for
translating it in the simple future, by pointing to the use of eslira to represent
eligerit in two independent versions of the coronation office,5 and by pointing
out that when the same words came to be translated into English in the fifteenth
century, they were rendered exactly in the same fashion,- 'such laws as to the
honour of God shall be chosen by your people.' It is in the face of his own evi-
dence that Mr Richardson represents eligerit by 'having demanded,' in his latest
work.6 When he was merely concerned with the coronation records,7 he adopted
1 It could be the perfect subjunctive, but this does not agree so well with the context or with the
French 'aura esleu.' It does not seem to have been adopted as the more likely by Mr Richardson.
2 It
may be, Stubbs suggested, (C.H., ii, 332) that the king's recognition of the right of the people
to choose their own laws was intended to supply the place of a coronation charter. Maitland thought
that after this promise 'Legislation, it is now considered, is the function of the communitas regni, uni-
versitas regni, the whole body of the realm concentrated in parliament' (Const. Hist., p. 100). Neither
Stubbs nor Maitland remarked on the revolutionary nature of this concession. But that is not the
point. Both of them, though they presumably knew all about the ancient controversy as to the mean-
ing of eligerit, projected Edward's concession in this fourth clause into the future.
3 A
History of the English Coronation, p. 206.
4 H. G.
Richardson, T.R.H.S., xxII, 147. B.I.H.R., xmII,141-143.
6 T.R.H.S., xxIIm, 151. It is true that he also points to the Anonimalle Chronicle which says that
Richard ii swore 'mayntener les estatutes et customes de la terre uses et avaunt faitz' (op. cit.,
p. 110). This, he says (B.I.H.R., xIII, 143) shows that the past tense is possible; without this, 'we
should conclude in favour of the interpretation of the coronation oath for which Prynne contended,
namely that the promise bound the king in respect of future legislation.' But it is almost certain that
this passage does not show that the past tense is possible, for the simple reason that it is not a transla-
tion of clause iv. On this point Professor Schramm's view seems to be almost certainly correct. The
king's party, he says (op. cit., p. 212) regarded the fourth promise very unfavourably: the official
record blunts it by inserting the words iuste et racionabiliter; the Anonimalle Chronicle omits this
sentence entirely. By no stretch of imagination, we may agree, can a promise of the king 'de mayntener
les estatutes et customes de la terre uses et avaunt faitz' be regarded as an interpretation of the fourth
clause, which the writer must have known very well, for he gives the other three promises and the
whole ceremony with great accuracy. Moreover, the chronicler quite plainly makes this promise
additional to and not part of the coronation oath. On Mr Richardson's own showing there seems to be
nothing, in this case, standing in the way of Prynne's interpretation of eligerit.
7 B.I.H.R., xIII, 142. As an additional note on the Coronation Oath in B.I.H.R., xiv, 9, Mr Richard-
son printed a version from the memoranda book of St Edmund's abbey, Bury (les queus le pople
choisira), 'yet a further piece of evidence that the king was popularly supposed to bind himself at his
coronation to observe and maintain future parliamentary legislation.'
the common-sense deduction from the wording of the French version of the oath
and from fourteenth century translations: the clerk, he thought, seemed to say
'that the king will be bound by future decisions of the common council of the
realm.'
If eligerit has reference to the future, there is no escape from the conclusion
that Edward II promised in 1308 to accept what the community of the realm
would 'elect' for him at some later time. This was a revolutionary concession,
irreconcilable with the whole political tradition of England and, very obviously,
with the practice and theory of the reign of Edward I. No gloss can obscure this
fact. It cannot, for instance, be obscured by regarding the community of the
realm as the common council of the realm.1 In the first place communautehad a
number of meanings at this period and it must be taken, as it stands, to indicate
primarily the barons who were demanding the concession from the king. In the
second place, even if it did mean the common council, it was not customary in
England for the common council (much less, for the magnates) to 'elect' the laws
for the king.
It is true that some of the antecedents of the new clause must be sought in the
reign of Edward I. It is possible, though on the whole unlikely, that Edward I
had made an additional promise in his coronation oath. It is unlikely because there
is no agreement as to what he had promised,2 and because the only references to
1 See p. 454 below. The barons probably, as Professor Schramm suggests, had the next meeting of
parliament in mind. But they knew too much about the constitution to make the king promise to
accept whatever 'parliament' should elect. Parliament contained both king and community, and its
tradition was that the king proposed and the community accepted or agreed to legislation; whereas
what the magnates had in mind for the next meeting of parliament was the putting forward of pro-
posals by the magnates (or, conceivably, magnates and commons) and their acceptance by the king.
Hence, as pointed out below, the term communitas is meticulously correct.
2 In 1275 it was 'to preserve the
rights of our kingdom ('Rights of the kingship' by Mr Richardson,
T.R.H.S., xxIIi, 131) unharmed and not to do anything which touches the crown of the realm without
seeking their i.e., the magnates') advice'; Parl. Writs, I, 381-382. This, to the Pope.
In 1290 it was to maintain the estate of the crown; C.C.R., 1288-1296, p. 134. This was to Pope
Nicholas Iv.
In 1296 it was 'to preserve the rights of the crown'; Prynne, Exact ChronologicalVindication, IIr,
631. This to the Cardinals
In 1301 it was to preserve the rights of the crown of our realm; Hemingburg, Chronicon,II, 208. This
is more relevant than Mr Richardson's deductions from the letter of the barons which he found in
Parl. Writs, i, 103, 104. The barons claimed that they were bound by oath to defend the liberties, cus-
toms and paternal laws. This was to Boniface vTII.
In 1302 it was the preservation of the crown; C.C.R., 1296-1302, p. 601. To Boniface vm. Again
the king pleads that, even if he grants the request of the cardinal of St Mary in Porticu for prebends,
the magnates would not agree.
In December 1305 it was to preserve the honour and rights of the crown; Foedera, I, pt. ii, 978;
Bemont, Chartesdes Libertes Anglaises, p. 111. Clement said that this was what had been maintained
on behalf of the king.
In 1307 it was the right of the crown; Foedera, I, pt. 11, 1011; Schraram, p. 271. This is the only
occasion when Edward himself used it against his own subjects, and this was to overcome the opposi-
tion of the clergy to his collation to an ecclesiastical benefice. The phrase iuramenti vinculo astricti is
again very general.
The sort of oath Edward possibly had in mind is shown by his assertion in 1299, to the Pope, that
the promise are by the king, in evading concessions to the Pope or demanding
concessions from the clergy, or by the Pope on behalf of the king. When Edward
first made use of the story about his promise, in 1275, in evading the payment of
tribute to Rome, the promise was to preserve the rights of the kingdom and to
seek the advice of the magnates.1 It was only towards the end of the reign that
this becomes an explicit reference to an oath to preserve the rights of the crown,
--'ratione juramenti quo ad conservationem jurium coronae regni nostri sumus
astricti.'2 The only clear and explicit reference to such an oath at the coronation
is in Edward's letter to the Pope in 1275 and in the letter of Clement v in 1305,
freeing Edward from his concessions concerning the Forests; and Clement added,
significantly, sicut ex parte tua asseritur.3
On the other hand, when Edward I was dealing with his own subjects, the
oath and the rights of the crown were kept clearly apart. In 1301 Edward con-
ceded the demands of his subjects, so long as he could do this 'saunz blemir son
serment e saunz la coroune desheriter.'4 In the reservation in his enactement of
1299 on the confirmation of the charters, he said 'salvis tamen juramento nostro,
jure corone nostre et racionibus nostris.'5 There would have been no need for the
second part of this formula if the rights of the crown were safeguarded by the
oath. Nor could the barons have very well objected to this reservation about the
rights of the crown, as they did,6 if Edward had actually sworn to preserve those
rights in his oath. Nor is it likely that Edward would have failed to use the argu-
ment of his oath provided by Clement, when he came to annul his Forest con-
cessions, in 1306.7
The fact that both Pope and king made reference to some such promise is no
proof at all that the promise was made8 as an addition to the existing oath.
Gregory ix believed, or asserted, that Henry iii had made a similar promise;
but we have the evidence both of Matthew Paris9 and of Bractonl° that he did
not. Edward ii made an exactly similar reference,1 again in a letter to the clergy;
the magnates and proceres of the realm are bound by their homage and fealty to defend his dignity
and the crown; C.C.R., 1296-1302, p. 309. It was not an explicit oath, but something to be inferred
from their oath of allegiance.
1 Parl. Writs, i, 381-382: 'we are bound by an oath taken at our coronation to preserve the rights of
our kingdom - iura regni -unharmed and not to do anything which touches the crown of the
realm without seeking their advice.' This seems to be preferable to Mr Richardson's translation in
T.R.I.S., xxIII, 131, 'rights of the kingship - iura regni.'
2
Hemingburg, Chronicon,II, 208, in 1301. This was apparently overlooked by Mr Richardson. His
references to the 'reciprocal oath' of the barons are not convincing.
3 Foedera, I, 11, 978; Bemont, Chartes des Libertes Anglaises, p. 111. 'When you received the
solemnizing of coronation, you took an oath, sicut ex parte tua asseritur, de honore et juribus coronae
praefatae servandis.' 4 Parl. Writs, I, 104.
6 Statutes of the Realm, I, 126. 6 Rishanger, p. 190.
7 Statutes of the Realm, I, 147-149. He revoked them 'quamquam de nostra bona voluntate minime
processisset.'
8 This is also Professor P. Schramm's view in History of the English Coronation, p. 199.
9 Matthew Paris, Chron. 10 De Legibus (R.S.), II, 170.
Maj., III, 1-2.
11Foedera, II, 107. 'Circa jura coronae nostrae manutenda, ad quae vinculo juramenti astricti
sumus.'
but there cannot be any question of his having given such a coronation promise.
As late as the Liber Regalis which contains the coronation office of 1308, the scribe
wrote that the king ought to swear - iurare debet- to preserve the rights of the
crown, in addition to what he promised, - extra de iuriurando intellecto.l There
may have been - indeed there certainly were - coronation promises made by
various rulers apart from their coronation oath. There is perhaps no conclusive
proof, in spite of Mr. Richardson's "overwhelming case,"la that any one of them
was included in the oath itself.
But even if Edward I did make an additional promise at his coronation, there
is no way of making this explain the addition to the coronation oath of his son.
The additional promise, hypothetical or real, had been used, on the whole, to
defend the country against the claims of the Papacy or the clergy. It had never
been used by the king against all his subjects,2 for the Forest concessions had
been revoked by Edward on the ground that they had been issued against his
will. There is clear proof that public opinion was, on the whole, in favour of
adding some new promise.3 But the new promise which seems to have been
favoured was that the king should preserve the rights of the crown, not that he
should renounce very important rights as he actually did in the new clause
adopted in 1308.
Nor can the new clause of 1308 be explained by the policy of Edward i. The
idea of those who would explain it in this way is, apparently, that it was intended
to undo the effects of the Bull of Clement v in 1305, releasing Edward i from the
concessions he had made to his subjects since 1297. But in the first place there
is no reason to modify Stubbs' conclusion4 that Edward I was satisfied with the
withdrawal of his concessions on the Forests: he had no intention of attacking
Magna Carta or even the Confirmatioof 1297. In the second place, Edward II
promised, in the traditional oath, to keep the laws and customs given by his
predecessors, which included Magna Carta and the Confirmatio,neither of which
had been formally withdrawn by Edward I. No conceivable purpose could be
served by adding still another promise to procure the same thing. If Edward ii
was going to break the first clause of his oath, he was going to be willing to
break also the fourth. In the third place, the new clause could have no bear-
ing on Edward I's policy and Clement v's bull of 1305, because in it the new
king committed himself to accept laws and customs to be elected in the future,
not which had been conceded in the past; and the laws he promised to accept
were those 'elected' by the community, not granted, as Magna Carta and the
1 That is how I interpret extra de iuriurando,

though Mr Richardson has drawn exactly the op-
posite conclusions from the Liber Regalis; B.I.H.R., xvI, 11; T.R.H.S., xxiii, 131.
la T.R.H.S., xxiII, 134, n. 2.
2 It
was, as pointed out above, used against the clergy in 1307, but in a cause which may well have
been supported by the greater part of the nation. It was an easy transference of its use, from being
an instrument against the Pope to being an instrument against the clergy.
3 In the 'de iure et appendiciis corone' discussed
bySchramm. op. cit., p. 197 and in the LiberRegalis
referred to above. 4 C.H., II, 162.
Confirmatio had been, by the king.' The effort to interpret the fourth clause
of Edward II's oath as bearing only on the past breaks down completely under
the combined weight of the difficulties created by its language and by considera-
tions such as these.
III
The problem before us now, therefore, is to explain the addition of a revolu-
tionary clause to Edward II's coronation oath, a concession by which Edward
bound himself to accept virtually whatever the 'community' chose to regard as
expressing the just laws of the land. Professor Schramm cautiously suggests that
the barons did not look beyond the meeting of the next parliament.2 This may
well have been the case. But in any event the concession was, as he clearly recog-
nises, a major constitutional event. That it could be the outcome of concord
between the new king and his magnates is, if this interpretation of its meaning is
even approximately correct, quite out of the question. The problem of the at-
mosphere at Edward's coronation is, therefore, a crucial one. It has been dis-
cussed at length elsewhere,3 but the conclusions then adopted have not proved
generally acceptable. The evidence must, accordingly, be reviewed at some
length.
It was stated, fairly enough as it still seems, in my 'Coronation Oath' :4
'There is scarcely a chronicleof the period which does not make some referenceto this
quarrelbetweenthe king and the magnates.The canon of Bridlington,for instance,tells
us that, at the coronation5'orta est discordiainter proceresAngliaeet dominumPetrum
de Gavastone,'and otherwritersgive us similarinformation.The very importantAnnales
Paulini, however,give one or two essentialdetailsin addition,whichwe have no reasonto
disbelieve.Great antagonismtowards Gaveston,they say, had already risen before the
king's coronation6- 'Unde indignatus est populus universus, duos reges in uno regno,
istumverbaliter,istum realiterconregnare.'
Among the other writers, the Chroniconde Lanercost,7a very well informed source
for some aspects of the reign of Edward II, says that 'in cujus coronatione populus
terrae et magnates murmuraverunt vehementer contra praedictum Petrum.'
The same thing is said in the Flores Historiarum,8 equally well-informed.
1 Perhaps Mr Richardson's difficulties on this point are apparent when he suggests the clause to
mean that those agreed corrections and amplifications of the law shall be observed 'which the com-
monalty have demanded or willingly accepted' (T.R.H.S., XXIII, 151: The italics are mine). Both the
words underlined reflect the correct traditional procedure whereby the commonalty asked for or
even 'demanded' laws and the king granted or conceded them. The king is still the source of the law,
even though the commonalty asks for particular amendments. They do not, however, represent the
sense and spirit of clause iv of the oath, where the commonalty 'elects' or chooses the laws which the
king will accept. Here, the commonalty becomes the source of the law. This is a transposition, almost
complete, of the traditional r6les of king and community in making the law. 2 Op. cit., p. 207.
3'The Coronation Oath of Edward II' in Essays in Honour of James Tait.
4
Op.cit., pp. 407-408.
6 The canon says that the coronation occurred on 24 February, and that Ibidem orta est discordia
(Chroniclesof Edward I and II [R.S.], II, 3t).
6 This is an assumption, from the fact that the account of the indignation precedes the account of
the coronation in the chronicle (Chronicles of Edward I and II, I, 259).
7 Ed. Maitland Club, p. 211. 8 Flores Historiarum (R.S.), III, 331.
Now this is clear and unambiguous testimony from various quarters. It agrees
with everything else the chroniclers have to record on the period, and with the
known facts that Peter de Gaveston was the main object of baronial hostility
in the period 1308-1312, and that he was already deep in the king's friendship
before 1308. There is very little from the records to put against it. There is the
testimony of prayers for peace and plenty offered throughout the realm at Ed-
ward's accession, and the testimony of official correspondence, conducted in the
king's name, and making Edward appear as full of pity and zeal for justice,
together with the dubious conclusion that 'there is no reason to suppose that the
recall of Gaveston was opposed.'l The point at issue is, of course, the atmosphere
at the time of the coronation, not in the months from July 1307 to February 1308.
Mr Richardson admits that 'trouble was doubtless in the making'2 in these
months, but believes that it required an ascending series of imprudences to bring
the troubles to a head. These were, the creation of Gaveston to be Earl of Corn-
wall, his appointment to be keeper of the realm during the king's absence in
France, and his selection to bear the crown and redeem the sword at the corona-
tion. They all, it will be noticed, did actually occur before the day of the corona-
tion. By Mr Richardson's own argument, they were likely to have brought the
trouble to a head by that time.
If, on the basis of this evidence from the records, Mr Richardson can conclude
'it is more than likely that the coronation passed off without any open expression
of resentment,'3 he must have brushed aside the evidence of the writers of the
period, quoted above, as barely worth consideration. He has, indeed, a reason.
'It appears certain,' he argues, that the chroniclers are wrong because they are
'reading their history backwards.'4 What they have done is 'to view the events of
the early months of Edward ii's reign in the light of the subsequent tragedies.'5
Now this is a charge which is difficult either to prove or deny. It is, however, a
charge which can be made against any writer, of any period, writing some time
after the event. It is much more likely to be true of statements of opinion than of
statements of fact. Mr Richardson says that the chroniclers were viewing events
in the light of later happenings; but what he really suggests, relevant to the prob-
lem of Edward nI's coronation is, not that they viewed events in a wrong light,
but that they invented them altogether. They invented a discord at the corona-
tion, a time of official rejoicing, which, so far as I am aware, was unprecedented
in English history. It is straining credulity too far to be asked to believe that three
1 T.R.H.S., xxIII, 138. The canon of
Bridlington, a good author, though probably prejudiced against
Gaveston, did not think so (II, 35). Peter, the canon said, returned to England'non vocatus.' He re-
ceived his former possessions with the consent of the barons; but 'hoc factum alii proceres regni qui
praesentes tunc temporis non fuerunt, valde moleste sustulerunt, et ab illo die contra praedictum
Petrum totis viribus exarserunt.' The Annales Londonienses (I, 157) said that the reconciliation took
place 'assensu quorumdam comitum et baronum.' The fact seems to be established from two widely
separated and independent sources, that there was some opposition to Peter's reinstation. However
much we deduct from these accounts, there is some reason to think that the recall of Gaveston was
opposed. 2 T.R.H.S., xxIII, 139.
3 Ibid., p. 139. Italics mine.
4 Ibid., p. 140. 6 Ibid., p. 136.
independent writers, one from London, one from Yorkshire and the third, prob-
ably, from Cumberland, invented this opposition of the magnates as a result of
their knowledge of subsequent events. However reasonable it may be to make
allowance for the reading backwards of history by medieval writers, in this in-
stance it seems to conceal a treatment of them for which the term arbitrary may
not be too strong.
The essential details of the Annales Paulini, to which reference was made in
my 'Coronation Oath of Edward I' should perhaps be dealt with at greater
length. The Annals not only describe a quarrel between Edward and his barons,
they also tell of a promise, forced from the king, 'that he would do whatever they
(the barons) demanded in the next parliament, so long as the coronation was not
put off,' a promise very close to that which is recorded in clause iv of the corona-
tion oath. The writer of the Annals clearly knows a lot about the events of the
coronation. He writes as if he were on the spot, as he may well have been, with a
lively interest in the proceedings. Stubbs believed' that he was an eye-witness.
He says he was, himself.2 Yet Mr Richardson rejects his testimony as that of
an 'inaccurate annalist'" because he has found what may be errors in detail in the
account.4 On the basis of these possible errors, apparently, Mr Richardson is not
only prepared to say that the writer of the Annals constructed his story of the
coronation, at least in large part, on documents he did not understand,6 he is
also prepared to reject this and other unsupported statements of this chronicle.8
The errors, if errors they be, were such as might have been made by any writer
of the period, though they would, of course, disqualify the Annals from claiming
more than a third or fourth hand knowledge of the diplomatic events preceding
1 Chronicles Edward I and Edward II, Introduction,
of p. lxxvi.
2 Quod vidimus hoc testamur. Ibid., I, 261. 3 T.R.H.S, xxIIJ, 141.
4 The apparent errors are, firstly the assertion that the Pope commissioned a cardinal to crown Ed-
ward, but instead, Edward asked for and received a commission for the Archbishop of York and the
Bishops of London and Durham: secondly, the assertion that Winchelsey gave a commission to the
Bishops of Winchester, Salisbury and Chichester (B.I.H.R., xvi, 3-4). Now, both these assertions
may have been wrong. We do not know enough about the obscure negotiations preceding the corona-
tion to be sure, one way or the other. The Pope did, apparently, at one point, commission the Arch-
bishop of York (T.R.H.S., xxIII, 142); and Winchelsey, apparently, left Edward free to choose between
the three bishops. Perhaps the chronicler meant nothing more than this, when he said 'tradidit com-
missionem suam tribus aliis episcopis super hac re.' But even if they were wrong, this would not
justify the condemnation which Mr Richardson bestowed on the general testimony of the writer.
6 T.R.H.S., xxII, 141.
6 B.I.H.R., xvi, 3, n. 3. The italics are mine. Mr Richardson is
prepared to go even farther. 'For-
tunately,' he says, 'we are not dependent upon chroniclers, for it so happens that our information
regarding Edward n's coronation is fuller than for any other king' (T.R.H.S., xxIII, 141). But this
seems to be misleading if it is intended to suggest that the records will tell us why the fourth clause
of the coronation oath was worded as it is. Even the 'convincing evidence' that the oath was no hasty
innovation turns out to be no more than the fact that the 'Liber Regalis' is all written in the same
leisurely hand, which does not seem to prove very much (T.R.H.S., xxIII, 144). No other manuscript of
the coronation office, Mr Richardson adds, affords the slightest suggestion that the oath was an after-
thought. Of course it would only show this if it was written before the coronation and subse-
quently brought up to date. The truth is that the records will not, so far as is known at present, tell
us anything about the reasons behind the change in the coronation oath in 1308.
the coronation. But, even if this be conceded, it would still remain true that his
knowledge was not all of the same kind. For the events of the coronation he
claims to have been an eye-witness, and sounds like one. There seems to be no
good reason why his testimony on such an outstanding episode as the quarrel
between Edward and his magnates should not be believed.
The two promises recorded by the Annals and in the fourth clause of coronation
oath are nearly identical; they are so close that there are no reasonable grounds
for refusing to regard them as being one and the same. The only real difference
is that the term 'parliament' of the promise became the term 'community' of the
oath. And the reasons for such a change are perfectly clear, as pointed out above.
The barons asked the king, in the Annals' story, to promise that he would do
whatever they demanded in the next parliament; this is exactly represented by
the king's actual promise that he would do whatever the 'community' should
'elect,' presumably in parliament. It is hardly to be doubted that the barons
contemplated action within the framework of the parliamentary assembly; but
there was no need, by stating this explicitly, to make the language of clause iv
incongruous with that of the first three clauses of the oath. In any case, however
they were presented, the demands would come from the barons. It can be hardly
doubted that the spirit of the royal concession is identical in each case.1 To explain
this by the theory of coincidence is to strain credulity too far. To search through
the annals of Edward I for dubious explanations, when a perfectly clear, intelligi-
ble, and satisfactory explanation has already been provided by a reputable eye-
witness, seems to be carrying the necessary scepticism of an historian far beyond
its proper limits.
The lack of clear contemporary references to the new promise is no proof that
it was not given. Negative evidence of this kind, open to many interpretations,
should not be allowed to outweigh the positive evidence of the Annals. The prob-
lem of the delay in the coronation from 18 February to 25 February, is barely
relevant at all. I did suggest, tentatively, in my earlier essay, that perhaps there
was more connection between this delay and the story of the Annals than had
been previously thought. But whether there was or was not, made little difference
to the story, which did not itself suggest that the barons delayed the coronation.2
As a matter of fact, however, there was perhaps more plausibility in the sug-
1 The 'community' which was to elect the laws in the coronation oath was almost certainly a wider
body than the 'baronage' of the Annals. No doubt the barons felt that they could, as they did, carry
at least the higher clergy with them, in their reforming program. Still, the fact remains, that it was
probably the barons who were forcing the concession from the king. Any concession was, therefore, in
the first place, to them.
2 But it can still be
argued that to establish even the possibility of discord at court contributing
to the postponement of the coronation lends some support, however slight, to the story of baronial
opposition given by the Annals. It is directly in line with the theory of discord at the coronation which
Mr Richardson rejects. The writer of the Annals, whether deliberately or not, ignores the postpone-
ment. He has, therefore, to make the baronial opposition on the day of the coronation occur on the
25th rather than on the 18th of February. It is quite possible that on this he was wrong. But even
this would not dispose of his story, much less make it "irrelevant.' (as H. G. Richardson in B.I.H.R.,
xvi, 5, n. 3).
gestion, for what it is worth, than Mr Richardson has been prepared to admit.1
It is certain, and nobody has attempted to deny, that Winchelsey was ill and in
France at the time of the coronation, and this may well have caused the post-
ponement. But we cannot be sure, for the following reasons. Firstly, the Arch-
bishop had already appointed Henry, Bishop of Winchester to be his deputy, as
early as January 28.2 This was twelve days before Edward wrote bidding Win-
chelsey appoint a deputy.3 There was time, therefore, for Edward to have heard
news of Winchelsey's deputy after his own return to England.4 If news from
Winchelsey could not reach Edward in twelve days, it is obvious that Edward
cannot have expected his letter of the 9th, bidding Winchelsey come to the
coronation on the 18th or appoint a deputy, to have had any effect whatever.
Mr Richardson avoids this difficulty by assuming that 'the Archbishop's mes-
senger must in some way have failed to deliver his letters'; but there are no
grounds for this, except another assumption that Edward was ignorant of the
Archbishop's commission when he wrote of February 9.
It is just this assumption, however, at the bottom of all Mr Richardson's argu-
ment, which is difficult to sustain. The argument is, that 'it was now only nine
days from the day fixed for the coronation, and the Archbishop must be sought
at Poitiers. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to postpone the coronation.'5
But all this is exactly what Edward must have known when he wrote on the 9th
- yet he still fixed the date of the ceremonyfor the 18th. The only obvious explana-
tion of such an apparently inconsequential act is that he already knew that
Winchelsey had appointed a deputy, when he wrote.6 All that the dates do, there-
fore, is to leave the possibility open that some other cause besides the Arch-
1 T.R.H.S., xxIII, p. 143. He believes that his dates 'clear away completely all idea that the post-
ponement of the coronation had anything sinister about it,' and that his chronology leaves 'no room
for the hypothesis that the coronation was postponed because the discontented earls were engaged in
imposing a new form of oath on the king.' It is hard to recognize my tentative suggestion in the form of
this hypothesis. It is not possible, Mr Richardson says (B.I.H.R., xvi, 4, n. 6) to establish when the
decision was taken, to postpone the coronation, but 'obviously' before 18 February, upon which day
proclamation was made in the City of London forbidding the carrying of arms on the day of the
coronation (Parl. Writs, ii, Pt. 2, p. 10). There is, as a matter of fact, no direct evidence, in this
proclamation, that the date had been changed when the proclamation was made. Perhaps, in spite of
Mr Richardson's assurance, it had not. I ventured to suggest as much in my 'Coronation Oath.'
2 Lit. Cant. (R.S.), edited by J. B. Sheppard, II, 386. The ambiguity in this letter, and perhaps the
true explanation of the terms of Edward's communication of February 9, is that the Archbishop, al-
though he appointeda deputy, still said that he proposedto be presentat the coronationhimself.
3 Edwardwrote on February9th. The dating on royal letters does not always indicatewhen they
werecommandedor whenthey werewritten,but thereseemsto be no goodreasonto think that this
letter was not commandedand writtenon, or very near,the 9th. The letter is printedin Parl. Writs,
II, Pt. 2, p. 20.
4 He apparently returnedfromFranceon the 7th; H. G. Richardsonin T.R.H.S.,xxIII, 142.
5 Ibid., p. 143.
6 This wouldmakeEdward'sletter largelyformal.But that is intelligible.It put on recordthe fact
that the Archbishophad appointeda deputy by the king's order,and in this way it did not make
Winchelsey'snecessaryinitiative of January28 a precedentwherebyfuture Archbishopsmight ar-
rogateto themselvesthe right to appointa deputy at the king's coronation,if they wereunable,or
unwilling,to attend.
bishop's illness contributed to the postponement of the coronation. And that

cause may, conceivably, have been the discontent of the barons. Nobody before
Mr Richardson has, so far as I am aware, assessed the importance of the post-
ponement of the coronation higher than this.
IV
The case for regarding the new clause as a concession forced from Edward ii
by his barons seems to be reasonably complete. We can only reject it by rejecting
perfectly satisfactory evidence for the meaning of its language or by rejecting
equally satisfactory testimony from an eye-witness' account as to what took
place at the coronation. And we have nothing except very unsubstantial specula-
tion to put in its place. Such a promise by Edward ii is not even startling, except
at first sight. The idea that some addition should be made to the archaic formulae
of the oath had existed as early as the reign of Henry III. Alexander iii had tried
to extort a concession from Henry i as the price of the coronation of his son in
1170.1John gave an extra promise before his coronation,2 and in 1913.3 Henry iii
took an extra oath to the Pope alongside his coronation oath.4 The oath of 1308
was a sharp departure from anything that had gone before; but the circumstances
were unprecedented. The barons were urged to some such step both by the events
of Edward's later years and by the known incapacity, and partiality for Gaveston,
of Edward ii. There is nothing in the circumstances of 1308 to make us reject the
notion of this addition to the oath at the behest of the magnates: there is some-
thing very positive to suggest some such concession on the part of the king, to be
found in the events of the next few years.
The first event was the action of the new king, immediately after the corona-
tion. He directed the magnates to meet at Westminster, 'to discuss and ordain'
concerning three things, the state of the church, the state of the crown and the
peace of the land. This is the story of Walter of Hemingburg5 who had exceptional
access to, and knowledge of, official proceedings. The direction to ordain--
ordinaturi - is very significant; it accorded to the magnates an unprecedented
power, under normal conditions, to make regulations for the state. Lest it should
seem that too much is being read into one word in a chronicle, it should be pointed
out that the ensuing scene, minutely recorded by Walter, is equally significant.
No less a person than the Earl of Lincoln 'qui esse solebat capitalis consiliarius
regis mortui,' demanded from the king's messengers (Thomas of Lancaster and
Hugh Despenser) that Edward would promise in writing to confirm and ratify
whatever the barons should be led, by the inspiration of God, to ordain. It seems
absolutely impossible to interpret this extraordinary demand by one of the leading
councillors of Edward I, schooled in the constitutional ideas of the great Ed-
wardian era, without reference to the new promise of Edward ii in his coronation
1 Schramm, op. cit., p. 194. 2 Ibid., p. 195. 3 Ibid., p. 200. Stubbs, C.H., i, 564.
Schramm, p. 202 -'the oath of feudal dependence'; Stubbs, C.H., ii, 18.
6Chronicon, ii, 270. The episode was described and its significance commented on, in 'The Corona-
tion Oath of Edward ii,' p. 409. It cannot be overlooked, as it apparently has been, in any attempt to
interpret the coronation oath of Edward ii.
oath. It bears out completely the interpretation of the oath suggested above,
and shows how the coronation promise dominated the politics of the beginning
of the reign.
The next event was the compelling of Edward to fulfil his coronation promise,
at least in part, by the exile of Gaveston. His attempts to evade1 the issue and his
reluctant agreement to meet parliament on 28 April show that he was unwilling
to keep his promise, but that he had no constitutional basis for his refusal. The
attitude of the barons, point by point, bears out the theory that they believed
the king to have conceded to them a right to declare the law, at least in this
particular case. They did not petition Edward to remove the favourite: they
'pronounced and declared' Gaveston's misdeeds; they 'pronounced' his con-
demnation, and they 'besought' the king to accept the 'consideration' of the
people and 'fulfil' the judgment. Their justification, that Edward had sworn in his
coronation oath to observe the laws and rule the people,2 was no justification at
all. They had adopted a revolutionary procedure. Its only possible basis, in the
coronation oath, was the additional clause.
The language of the official accounts is very guarded. Though the sentence of
excommunication on Peter, if he returned, said that the magnates had attended
the parliament, as they had the first after the coronation, to 'ordain' as well as to
'treat,' the exile was represented as having been agreed and ordained in a formula
which expressed roughly the ancient tradition of government - de voluntatedicti
domini regis et de assensu praelatorum et procerum.3In the writ of banishment
dated 18 May,4 Edward also maintained formally that the magnates had 'coun-
selled' Gaveston's exile and he had agreed. Thus the writer of the Annales Lon-
donienses, with this writ in front of him, talks of the king accepting the 'petition'
of the magnates. But this official language cannot conceal the truth. The barons
decreed the banishment of Peter. They did this quite independently of the king:
'rex autem in palatio per se, comites vero in monasterio, de regni negotiis tracta-
verunt.'5 They did it without any constitutional justification except the corona-
tion promise of the king. The truth was bluntly stated by Adam Murimuth, him-
self an experienced official, when it was no longer so important to keep up a
1 Hemingburg, Chronicon, II, 271. The
king had told them to go home as he did not wish to tire
them too much.
2 All this is taken from the Gesta of the canon of
Bridlington (II, 34). The canon gives the most
detailed account, though the Annales Paulini make it clear (I, 263) that the exile of Peter was 'de-
manded' from the king, and the Annales Londoniensis (I, 154-155) give some invaluable documents.
See also references in Hemingburg, II, 274; Cont Chron.of Murimuth, p. 12. It is a great pity that Pro-
fessor T. F. Tout's preoccupation with the administrative problem prevented him (Place of Edward II,
p. 84; Chapters,II, 194) from giving the problem the attention it deserves. The curious reference of the
canon to the coronation oath is worth repeating: 'domino nostro regi supplicando, desicut ipse leges
observare, populum regere, per sacramentum coronationis suae astringitur quod considerationem
populi acceptet, et judicium quod inde competit dignetur similiter adimplere.'
3 I have called this an 'official' account, though it did not, of course come from the king and council.
But it represented the view of clerical officials who would probably be anxious to minimise the
revolutionary element in the proceedings against Gaveston. The sentence does not say clearly who
'ordained' the exile of Gaveston: it said merely: "concordatum extitit ac etiam ordinatum"; Annales
London; I, 155. 4 Annales Lond., I, 154. 6 Annales Paulini, I, 263.
pretence: 'per praelatos, comites, et nobiles fuit . . ordinatum quod idem Petrus
de Gavestone ... exularet.'l The importance of this precedent in the fourteenth
century attacks on the king's ministers has not been adequately appreciated.2
The action of the magnates has almost the air of a mediaeval Bill of Attainder,
passed by the House of Lords. It might have been of the greatest importance as a
precedent but for the fact that it was a direct product of the coronation promise
of 1308, limited by the intention and scope of that promise, and, in the end,
destroyed as a precedent by the royalist Statute of York.
The third event was the Declaration of 1308 on the nature of the baronial
obligations to the crown and to the king. This, too, was a product of the same
memorable parliament of April-May 1308; and it was similarly 'ordained' by the
magnates and presented to the king.3 The canon of Bridlington tells us that the
king's council helped the magnates to draw up the declaration.4 The annals of
London call it an 'article'; it was 'ordained' or propounded. It was not, so far as
we know, formally presented to the king for his acceptance, and it did not become
a statute. But since the parliament of March 4 had dissolved precisely because
Edward would not promise beforehand to accept the conclusions of the magnates,
and since he had given a hope that he would do this when they met again;5 since
to do this was exactly what he had also promised at his coronation, and since
Edward's council had actually taken a share in framing the declaration: in view
of all this, we may well assume that many of the barons would regard the declara-
tion as equivalent to the law of the land.
The most probable explanation of it is that the magnates put it forward as an
agreed basis for future violent opposition to Edward, in the event of the recall
of Gaveston from exile. But any intelligent observer must have understood that
such a declaration had wider implications. Its distinction between the king and
the crown, its assertion of the duty of the magnates to oppose the one (by force
if need be) in the interests of the other, and its definition of the sworn obligation
of the lords to protect the people according to the law with the help of the king-
these features made it a major, and a revolutionary, contribution to the political
tradition. It obviously bore some reference to the opposition which had faced
Edward before he was crowned, and the statement that 'before the crown is as-
sumed no allegiance is owed to or belongs to the person of the king,' is a fairly
clear reference to the position of the magnates immediately before the coronation.
Hence the whole of the declaration becomes an indirect confirmation of the story
in the Annals of St Pauls.
1 Cont. Chron., p. 12.
2
Stubbs, C.H., Ir, 336, believed simply that the barons counselled the exile and the king granted it,
which seems to be an over-simplification of the situation. On the other hand, it is not certain, in spite
of Adam Murimuth, that the prelates joined in this condemnation.
3 Annales Lond., i, 153: 'et magnates regni consilium inierunt etiam et istum sequentem articulum
ordinaverunt.' 4 Gesta, II, 33.
6 Walter of Hemingburg, 11, 271: he directed them to disperse since he did not wish to over-tire
them, and to come again a fortnight after Easter 'et tune Londoniis ad parliamentum suum venirent
de praemissis tractaturi.' This was by no means a clear-cut promise; but there is every reason to sup-
pose that the barons would claim the same rights in April that they had in March.
The declaration is to be connected with the coronation oath also in another

way. It is impossible, in view of the known facts of the additional promise in this
oath, and the demand of the Earl of Lincoln, not to conclude that the reason why
Edward allowed his council to subscribe to the most revolutionary baronial pro-
nouncement since clause 61 of Magna Carta, was precisely the existence of this
promise. This is made almost certain when we remember that the declaration
accompanied Gaveston's exile, itself an outcome of the coronation promise. The
whole basis of the baronial position in the parliament of April-May 1308 thus
becomes the royal promise to accept whatever the magnates demanded that was
rightful and just, made in the coronation oath.
The fourth event was the beginning of the 'ordaining' activities of the magnates
in 1310. Whether or not this was a direct consequence of the return of Gaveston
from exile, in 1309, is not clear. It probably was; for though Edward obtained
the agreement of most of the magnates to this return, nevertheless he destroyed
the settlement of 1308 and so released the forces represented by the declaration of
the magnates and council. Destroying the settlement of 1308 also uncovered the
coronation promise. Thus the magnates now had, as a basis for their opposition,
the general right to impose reforms on the monarch, including a new exile of
Peter, and to attack the monarch if he refused. Hence the whole framework of the
reforming movement was provided by the idea of enactments to be 'elected' by
the magnates, or a committee of them, and accepted, beforehand, by the king1
exactly as in the parliament of April-May 1308.
Thus the origin of the whole movement of 1310, is to be sought in the corona-
tion oath. When Edward refused, at first, to appoint the Ordainers, the magnates
threatened to reject him altogether as king, 'especially as he would not fulfil
the oath taken at his coronation.'2 Even Stubbs, who was not aware of the im-
portance of the problem, saw this quite clearly:3 'The action of the Ordainers
was thus made to connect itself directly with the constitutional obligation enunci-
ated in the new form of the coronation oath.' The first appointment of the
ordainers was as clear an application of clause iv of the coronation promise as
had been the earlier exile of Gaveston and the declaration of 1308.
So were the terms on which the Ordainers were appointed. The ordainers were
to enact and ordain whatever was in agreement with right and in conformity
with reason, to the honour and profit of the church, the honour and advantage of
the king and the profit of the people, and according to the oath which the king
made at his coronation.4 Since Edward was here actually accepting beforehand
whatever, subject to these very slight limitations, his barons chose to 'elect,'
1 It is true that there was a good precedent for this, in the acceptance of similar reforms by Henry
iii in 1258. But there was this difference: the barons, in 1259 could claim that this gave them the
government of England; in 1310 there was no question about its meaning. This had been expressed
as early as the coronation; it was that the laws and customs 'elected' by the barons would be accepted
by the king. The difference between 1258 and 1311 or 1318 is pointed out in my Studies, p. 130, n. 1.
2 Malmesbury, IT, 163.
3 The importance of this, and of the references to the oath under Edward II has already been set
forth in my 'Coronation Oath of Edward II,' p. 413. Cf. Stubbs, C.H., IA,342.
4 Foedera, II, 105;
Bridlington, ii, 36.
this is to be regarded as a direct, and unmistakable, reference to clause iv of the

oath in which he had first given his pledge. This reference alone is almost suf-
ficient to establish the meaning of the coronation promise and its immediate and
causal connection with succeeding events. It does not stand alone. When Gaves-
ton was executed in 1312, for disobeying them, the barons at first refused to admit
that they needed a pardon, as this would make it seem 'qe nous averoms chase
nostre seigneour le roi a faire contre le serement qil fist a seon coronement,'
whereas everything they had done was in exact accordance with the coronation
promise and the agreement of 1308. Thus Edward II hated the Ordinances of
1311, and swept them away in 1322, precisely because they stood for and ex-
pressed the whole claim of the king's subjects to impose enactments on him. And
it is difficult indeed to doubt that at the basis of all the baronial claim there lay
the coronation promise which Mr Richardson thought was directed at the
policy of Edward I and the bull of Clement v.
The final event was the movement against the Despensers in 1321. I have
suggested elsewhere2that the barons, in this movement, did not renounce the dec-
laration of 1308; on the contrary they made it the principle on which they took
their stand. Moreover, as in 1311, they enacted their 'provision,' this time in the
shape of an 'award' against the Despensers, which the king was expected to
'accept.'3 Edward later complained that it was presented for his assent, to become
a statute, in its final and unchangeable form. In the version given by the canon
of Bridlington, the peers of the realm, 'consider' that sentence of exile be imposed
on the Despensers. They 'proposed' to the king, articles of accusation and judg-
ment, all complete, which Edward was bound to accept. No wonder the canon of
Bridlington, himself most sympathetic to Thomas of Lancaster, could exclaim:
'Mira res! ecce qualiter membra a capite se disjungunt quando fit consideratio per
magnates in parliamento, regis assensu minime requisito.'4 And no wonder that
the Despensers, in proclaiming their nine articles of error in the judgment de-
clared, ninthly, that the king had never consented to it because it was against
Magna Carta, which said that a man ought to be tried by his peers and (vel) the
law of the land.5
Far too little importance has been attached to this episode, even by Stubbs
though he dealt with it at considerable length.6 He thought7 that the proceed-
ings were taken with much more circumspection than had been used against
Gaveston; but there is little to support this view, except the fact that the
magnates attached greater importance, perhaps, to the formal agreement
1 Annales London. I, 227.
Nearly every one of the above references to the Coronation Oath have
already appeared, and were available for Mr Richardson's information, in 'The Coronation Oath of
Edward ii." 2 In the forthcoming article in the E.H.R., referred to above.
3 It was probably in the tradition of 1308 and 1311 that John Beck's articles at Sherburn invited
complaints from the assembly 'so that by unanimous agreement and common counsel .. . suitable
remedy can be provided' (presumably, by the magnates). The prelates merely recommended the old-
fashioned method of tractatuspacifici, between the king and his subjects; Bridlington, II, 63-65. They
completely turned down the Earl's suggestions, as I have indicated elsewhere.
4 Op. cit., p. 70. 5 Ibid., p. 71.
6 Chronicles Edward I and Edward II, 7 C.H., II, 364.
of Introduction, II, LXXXVI-XC.
of lords and commons in parliament, since what they wanted was a permanent
statute expressing their 'award.' The monk of Malmesbury could talk of the
'petitions' of the barons; but he made it clear that these were presented with the
threat of deposition openly declared.1The significance of the episode, for us, lies in
the fact that it shows a clear revival, in 1391, of all the principles, claims, and
methods of the barons, put forward in 1308 and 1311. It shows that a section of
the magnates refused to regard the concessions of 1308 as ad hoc concessions, los-
ing their effect with the reforms of 1310, 1311 and 1318; they were now regarded
as permanent concessions, to be invoked at any time of crisis, a permanent chal-
lenge to the sovereignty of the king.
This is the final development which illustrates the true significance of the royal
concessions of 1308 and, in particular, of the king's coronation oath. It is, ac-
cordingly, natural to find that the Earl of Pembroke referred to the oath when
urging Edward to submit to the demands of the barons: 'quia publice utile est ut
malis hominibus evacuetur patria, et ad hoc, domine rex praestitisti juramentum
in coronatione tua.'2 This reference, incidentally, is the clearest and most con-
clusive evidence since 1308, that the barons generally understood Edward to have
promised, in the addition to his cornation oath, to abide by their decisions re-
garding Gaveston, after the coronation. It amounts almost to direct proof, if
proof were needed at this stage, that clause iv of the coronation oath was under-
stood, at the time, to refer to the future and not to the past.
The sum total of evidence, after the coronation, leaves no reasonable ground for
doubt as to what was intended and understood by Edward II's new promise. We
can go further and conclude that all the major political developments between
1308 and 1391 were connected with, or ultimately derived from, this promise. If
we make the promise relate only to the past, we miss entirely the real key to these
major events. The whole method of the opposition in these years, the making of
'awards' or provisions, or 'articles' of reform or exile, which the king was bound to
accept on threat of rebellion, derived what constitutional basis and justification
it had, not from a general Widerstandsrechtof the barons, but from a particular
and 'voluntary' abrogation of his sovereignty by the monarch in 1308. The coro-
nation promise did, actually, become more rather than less important, in the
later years of this period, because it assumed the nature of a general principle of
opposition, in a way which may not have been intended in 1308. This is perhaps
the true explanation of the fact that in 1322 the large part of the nation rallied to
the support of the monarchy, now exposed to an attack which challenged its
traditional and accepted sovereignty in the state.
V
The case for this interpretation of Edward II's coronation oath seems therefore,
to be complete at every point. It can be carried one step further however, by re-
lating it to the Statute of York in 1322.3 This was the product of the first great
1 Vita, II, 258. 2
Malmesbury, II, 259.
3 This statute has recently been discussed by G. L. Haskins in The Statute of York and the Interest
of the Commons (1935, Camb., Mass.), by G. Lapsley in an important article, 'The Interpretation of
royalist victory since Edward ii ascended the throne. As might be expected, it

proves, on examination, to be directed not ultimately and most urgently against
the Ordinances of 1311, but against the deeper principles of baronial opposition
first defined, and accepted unwillingly by the monarch, in the coronation promise
and the declaration of 1308. The principle to be destroyed which had been built
up gradually, over the period 1308-21, was that the king could alienate an impor-
tant part of his sovereignty, willingly or unwillingly, to the barons. Failing to
find a secure basis for imposing their demands on the ruler in the accepted consti-
tutional tradition of the nation, as their ancestors had failed in 1258-65, the
barons of Edward II had tried to find it in a 'voluntary' abrogation of power by
the king at his coronation. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, the royalists
would find an effective answer to this new claim of the magnates, for they had the
precedents behind them.' The answer, as illuminating in its way as the baronial
declarations, was the Statute of York.
This interpretation is borne out by the whole, meticulous, wording of the
Statute, the logical climax to the whole series of events since 1308. The clauses
which removed all fetters placed by subjects on the royal power were a direct
rejoinder to the baronial claim that they had, by virtue of the king's coronation
promise, a constitutional basis for imposing ordinances or 'laws' on the monarch
which he had pledged himself to accept. The denial of the validity of any such
ordinance or 'purveyance' made by subjects by whateverpower or commission,
almost explicitly destroyed the validity of the concession of 1308; it was a com-
plete rejection of the idea that the king could, even voluntarily, empower his
subjects to make enactments he was bound to accept. In the same way, the pro-
hibition of enactments both against the estate of the monarch and against the
estate of the crown,2 almost as obviously used the distinction made in the declara-
tion of 1308, between the person of the king and his office, in order to render it
impossible, in future, to attack the one in the alleged interests of the other.
Whether or not the declaration was the special object of these clauses, the fact
remains that, as a result of the prohibition contained in them, the usefulness of
the great innovation of 1308 in English political theory, and in particular in the
theory of opposition, was at an end. The declaration was also attacked from
another angle. The barons had, in this declaration, arrogated to themselves the
voice of the communitas, and begun to 'legislate' for the kingdom; in 1322 the
royalists laid down the traditional and only way in which enactments concerning
the king, the realm and the people could take place; and this was in the parliamen-
tary assembly, excluding forever the possibility of further 'legislation' in baronial
councils or by commissions 'freely' appointed by the king.
the Statute of York,' in E.H.R., LVI, 92-51, 411-446, and by J. R. Strayer in 'Statute of York and
Community of the Realm,' in A.H.R., XLVII, 1-23. I discussed the position of the commons in my
Studies, p. 53.
1 It is assumed here that there was a general agreement to the effect that a monarch, in England,
could not abrogate his sovereignty, even voluntarily; but I confess that the subject is a large and im-
portant one, still under discussion by experts like C. H. McIlwain and G. Lapsley; see the latter, in
E.H.R., LVI,424 et seq.
2 For the
repeated use of the phrase 'estat de la coronne' also in the Doncaster Petition, see E.H.R.,
L II, 483-485.
In all this, the royalists were expressing the ancient, Edwardian, tradition that
legislation, or the making of important decisions affecting the nation, should be
the conjoint work of the monarch and the communitas regni. However narrowly
the term communitas might on occasions be defined, the tradition bore some rela-
tionship to Edward I's dictum that what touches all shall be approved by all. It
followed naturally that the Statute of York was one of the great acts of definition
in the history of the parliamentary assembly. It was a definition that accepted
and expressed the claims of the monarch by making legislation find its origin in
the king and only its assent in the people;' it expressed also the claim of the
nation by a new and epoch-making definition of the nature of parliamentary busi-
ness and of the communitas regni which had to give its assent.
It was impossible in 1322 to reply to the earlier aggression of the barons merely
by re-stating the ancient tradition in its customary form; for it was, in fact, tradi-
tional in the thirteenth century for the magnates, and on occasion perhaps, only
the lay magnates, to represent the commonalty in negotiations, in the magnum
concilium and parliamentum, with the king. Accordingly the authors of the
Statute of York had to depart, and did depart, on this point, from the ancient
formulae of the parliamentary assembly, auxint come ad este acustume cea enarere.
They re-defined both the nature of future enactments of parliament and the
nature of future assent to those enactments. The traditional business of parlia-
ment, as expressed in parliamentary writs, was the negotia regis et regni. To this
business was now added the business of the people. Parliamentary matters were
to be those on behalf of (pur) the estate of the king, the realm and the people. The
assent which had traditionally been accorded by the communitas regni was now
carefully re-defined as that of the prelates, earls, barons and the commonalty of
the realm.2
1 The formula of enactment of future legislation was carefully defined to give the community only
its traditional right of assent, as exemplified, for instance, in the Statute of Carlisle (Statutes, I, 152).
Cf. the process of 'legislation' in Bracton, cited by Lapsley, op. cit., p. 46, and the formula employed in
the Statute of York itself, in which the community has apparently, by way of exception, an equal
voice and share with the king.
I have so far failed to find any evidence for Mr Lapsley's view that, in the Statute 'a very consider-
able degree of voluntary self-limitation on the part of the king ... did ... actually take place'
(E.H.R., LVI, 419). The king conceded, Mr Lapsley argues, that in future the disputes between him
and his barons should be settled in parliament, which would include the commons; and for that pur-
pose, parliament 'should be authorized to deal with a certain part of the prerogative' (Ibid., p. 421).
If there was any practical difference between the 'estate of the king' to be discussed according to clause
v of the Statute, and the negotia regis discussed in earlier parliaments, this would support Mr Lapsley's
theory; but we cannot be sure that there was any real difference. There is no evidence on the point.
Nor is there any evidence that parliaments, before 1322, could not deal with a certain part of the
prerogative - at least as much as they could after 1322.
2 It will be seen that this
interpretation of the statute accounts for all the important phrases em-
ployed: the royal power; the estate of the monarch; the estate of the crown; the estate of the king and
of the people; the estate of the realm. There is no repetition of the same meaning in different words as
suggested by Mr Lapsley (the 'estate of the realm and of the people' and 'the estate of the crown,'
op. cit., pp. 43-44); the suggestion that there is, must be regarded as a weakness in Mr Lapsley's
valuable analysis. Nor is there any fine distinction based on a difference (questionable) between dif-
ferent aspects of the administration (op. cit., p. 42). This, again, is a part of Mr Lapsley's analysis
which is hard to believe. The phrases were all commonplace in the political and constitutional practice
and theory of the age.
It is difficult to believe that this was not a conscious and careful and deliberate
act of definition, restating, in conformity with the new conditions of the four-
teenth century, the Edwardian tradition of national government which had been
so sharply challenged in 1308 and 1321.a There has been much debate as to whether
the Statute of York was intended to secure for the 'people' in parliament a right
to take part in general legislation1 (the exact meaning of 'commonalty' is discussed
further below); but there seems to be little doubt, in view of the probable objec-
tives of the royalist restoration of 1322, and the deliberate insertion of the com-
plementary references to the realm and to the people into the traditional formula
of parliamentary legislation, that it was. This was the obvious way to prevent the
barons from claiming, in future, to act alone on behalf of the community; it re-
flected the general increase which had taken place, since 1275, in the importance
of the commons in parliament; and it represents a deliberate change in the de-
scription of parliamentary procedure which is very difficult to explain in any
other way.
It has, indeed, been objected that, if such was the intention of the Statute it
remained, inexplicably, a dead letter;2 but there seems to be no clear evidence to
support such a contention. The commons partook in the few enactments between
1322 and 1326; they were prominent (though not only the parliamentary com-
mons) in the deposition of Edward ii; and they played a very conspicuous part
in the legislation of early Edward IIi. There are some grounds for believing that
their presence was necessary, after 1322, for any assembly which was to be recog-
nised, by chancery officials at least, as a parliament in the full and modern (i.e.,
contemporary) sense of the term.3 It is, indeed, beyond question, that some sort
of a revolution took place in the actual as distinct from the theoretical, position
of the commons in parliament, in the thirty years between 1297 and the accession
of Edward iII. It seems as good a place as any for the turning point in this process,
at a point where the procedure of parliament was re-defined in accordance with
the ancient traditions, with the sole exception that the commons were given, in
the carefully chosen language of a definitive statute, a function and importance
such as they had never before achieved.4
VI
Much of the above argument depends on the assumption that 'la commonalte
du realme,' in the Statute of York, referred to the commons, that is, in this in-
la This does not overlook the phrase auxint come ad este acustume cea enarere. The Statute merely
expressed Edward I's principle that what touches all (including the commons) shall be discussed by
all. There is a good deal of evidence that this was, in 1329, an accepted tradition - auxint come ad
este acustume cea enarere.
1 See the discussion by G. Lapsley in E.H.R., LVI, 417-421.
2 G.
Lapsley, ibid., p. 418. 3 See my Studles, pp. 51-53.
4 It should be noticed that there are no
longer, according to the Statute, any negotia regni from which
the commons might be excluded. All business except the king's business is now that of the realm and
of the people. In other words, the commons have a claim to discuss all general matters introduced into
parliament, at least as far as the Statute can be taken as giving a comprehensive definition of the future
business of the assembly. In any case the absence of any specific reference to parliamentary business
which might concern the lords but not the commons is a very significant thing,
stance, to the knights and burgesses,' or to some part of them, an assumption

made by most modern writers, but rejected by Messrs Richardson and Sayles,
and, more emphatically, by Professor J. R. Strayer.2
The main arguments in its favour have already been admirably stated by
Gaillard Lapsley3 and, more recently and in great detail, by Professor Morris.4
Of the arguments against, those based on an assumption of official verbiage or re-
dundancy in the case of such a masterpiece of compression as the Statute of York,
are the least convincing. The authors of the Statute, as pointed out above, went
out of their way to be explicit. They said that the Ordinances of 1311, for ex-
ample, were rehearsed 'par Prelatz, Countes et Barons, entre queux furent touz
le plus des ditz ordenours qi adoncs furent en vie, et par le Commun du Roialme
iloeques par son maundement assemblez.'5
Other arguments against, put forward by Mr. Strayer, involve questions of
economics and law which are of great importance and deserve careful attention.
It was in the matter of finance that the right of the commons to give their consent
to the decisions of parliament which directly affected them, whether as knights,
burgesses or merchants, was first and most explicitly recognized, in the proceed-
ings of the parliament of 1275 and in the ConfirmatioCartarumof 1297. A principle
was laid down and accepted in 1297, with whatever ambiguities and reservations,
which almost amounted to that of no taxation without representation and con-
sent. It is highly probable that after the crisis of that year, the main terms of the
Confirmatiowere recognised by all parties as the law of the land, however much
they might differ about the detailed interpretation. Aids, mises and prises had to
obtain the 'commun assent de tout le roiaume'; the new customs had to obtain
the consent of the 'more part of the communaute; and it is highly probable that
the communautein this latter case were additional to, or included more, than the
magnates.6
Thus when, after 1297, the government in ordering the collection of a subsidy
falling under these categories, specified that some such consent - the consent of
the 'communitates comitatuum regni nostri' or some similar phrase - had been
obtained, it is not unreasonable to deduce that it was complying with the ac-
1 It will be seen below that where the phrase la commonalteis tacked on to an enumeration of prel-
ates, earls, barons and knights in a parliamentary assembly, it probably refers to the burgesses; where
the enumeration does not specify the knights or the burgesses, the addition of la commonalte was
probably intended to cover both. This is, of course, not a strict rule: every use of the term commonalte
has to be understood in the light of its context.
2 'Statute of York and Community of the Realm,' American Hist. Rev., XLVII,1-23.
3 In the article in E.H.R., LVI,cited above.
4 Since the above was written, in
'Magnates and the Community of the Realm in Parliament,' in
Medievalia et Humanistica, I, 58-94. The essay of Professor Morris is very comprehensive. It is, how-
ever, on lines somewhat different from those followed above. 5 Statutes, I, 189.
6 The summary of the situation so worded, hardly seems open to debate. The evidence on the sub-
ject was fully set forth in my Studies, Chapter II, though the argument there developed does not seem
to have been acceptable to Mr Strayer. However, there is no need to enter here into a controversy
about the exact meaning of the Confirmatio in relation to the De Tallagio non concedendo.Since this
was in the press, new light has been thrown on the relations between these two documents by J. G.
Edwards, in 'Confirmatio Cartarum and Baronial Grievances in 1297,' E.H.R., LVIII, 147-172 and
273-300. What is said above can be fairly deduced from the language of the Confirmatioalone.
cepted principles which now governed taxation. The meaning of the above phrases
might be vague, fluctuating, and subject to doubt. One thing it was not, however,
was 'superfluous' or 'redundant.'
No one meaning can, in fact be attributed to such a phrase as tota communitas
regni, used in connection with taxation.1 Yet in view of the constitutional situa-
tion after 1297, if one generalization were to be ventured, it would be, perhaps,
that the phrase referred to the whole community affected by a particular tax;
and, normally, under the conditions of fourteenth century taxation, either in-
cluded more than, or referred to somebody additional to, the magnates alone.
Thus in a writ appointing collectors for a twenty-fifth in 1309, addressed to the
knights, freemen and all the community of the shire,2 the chancery scribe enu-
merated the consent of all the different 'estates' to the tax, down to and including
the freeman, and wound up with the words ac tota communitas regni. It is unlikely
that this was superfluous. In point of fact it possibly referred to the burgesses,
who were not enumerated, and who were also paying the tax.3 The burgesses were
not specifically mentioned because their inclusion was not relevant to the purpose
of the writ, which was not addressed to them. In 1306, again, the magnates and
the knights granted a thirtieth 'pro se et communitateregni.'4The meaning of this
offer on behalf of the community is obscure: the citizens, burgesses and others did,
in fact, vote a twentieth at the same time. It is a not unreasonable guess that the
wording was adopted to comply with the principle laid down in the Confirmatio.
In any case, by whatever right the magnates and knights claimed to grant a tax
for themselves and for the community, the unusual wording in which their con-
cession was recorded suggests very strongly that the communitas regni included
somebody besides themselves.
Starting with the ConfirmatioCartarum,and even from the parliament of 1275,
with its concession of the parva et antiqua custuma by the Archiepiscopi, Episcopi
et alii prelati regni Angli ac Comites Barones et nos et Communitateseiusdem regni
ad instanciam et rogatum mercatorum,fthere is the strongest tradition that taxes
1 For a fuller discussion of taxation, see the article by Professor Morris, referred to above. He hardly
seems to bring out the extent to which the principle established in 1297 affected subsequent procedure
and formulae, in taxation. 2 Rot. Parl., I, 445. 3 Ibid.
4
Pasquet, Essay, p. 235, from L.T.R. Mem. Roll 76, rot. 43. This was the record of an aid for
knighting the king's son. The wording of the relevant passages in L.T.R. Mem. Roll is as follows:
'iidem prelati Comites Barones et alii magnates, necnon milites comitatuum tractatum super hoc cum
deliberacione habentes ... tandem unanimiter domino Regi concesserunt pro se et tota communitate
regni tricesemam partem omnium bonorum suorum temporalium mobilium.' The citizens and
burgesses and others of the king's demesne met separately and unanimously conceded a twentieth.
They did this for themselves: the community was not specified.
In a later entry the 'prelati et ceteri magnates regni pro se et tota communitate eiusdem regni con-
cesserunt domino Regi tricesemam bonorum suorum omnium temporalium extra Civitates Burgos et
dominica domini Regis' and the burgesses, etc., a twentieth (ibid., p. 236).
6 Parl. Writs, I, Pt. I,
p. 2, no. 7. Mr Strayer is perhaps wrong in finding support for his argument
in the records of this parliament. The customs were, he says, granted by the magnates at the request
of the merchants, yet one official document says that they were conceded by the 'communitas regni.'
The letter from the Earl of Pembroke does not say that the communitas regni granted the custom:
other than the feudal levies should be levied with the consent of more than the
magnates alone. When the phrase ac tota communitas regni, therefore, is tacked on
to an enumeration of prelates, lords and others who have consented to, or were
involved in, a tax of this kind, it seems safest to regard the phrase as meaning
some other members of the community of the realm. What particular members it
included is a question to be determined by the circumstance of every individual
case: the only safe generalisation is that communitas would not, normally, be
used in this fashion, include the lords.
It may, indeed, be argued, that the part played by the knights and burgesses
(especially merchants) in consenting to taxation was one of the great contributory
factors to their importance in 1322. The extension of the rl6e of the commons in
the sphere of taxation prepared them, above all, for their inclusion as an indis-
pensable element in the full parliamentary assembly. It was largely because they
had figured so often in one way or another, in the background of the communitas
regni, in writs recording and commanding taxation, that it was natural to refer
to them in the et la commonaltedu roialme of the Statute of York.
The communitas was, similarly, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
generally regarded as having a share in the making of new laws. The evidence in
favour of such a conclusion has often been set forth.1 The trouble lies, of course, in
the meaning of communitas or communitatesat any given time. Yet when, as early
as 1306 Edward I claimed to be bound to provide remedy and reform 'by the
counsel of his earls, barons, great men and other nobles and of the communitates
of his kingdom,'2 the meaning he intended to give to the term communitatesseems
to be, up to a point, reasonably clear. It meant others than the magnates; it
probably referred to the commons in parliament, either knights or burgesses, or
both.3
Nor is this an incidental statement. It was part of that most formal and sig-
nificant constitutional pronouncement, the Statute of Carlisle. There is no reason
why it should not be regarded as setting forth an accepted constitutional principle
governing legislation at the end of the great Edwardian era. It is exactly in line
with the Edwardian view of parliament and the more general relations of the
monarch and the nation. We should conclude therefore that, when after 1306,
the term communaute is used to describe those called upon to give consent to
general legislation, it normally included the communitatesof 1306, or part of them:
it is never, without the strongest of reasons, to be translated (as Mr Strayer trans-
lated it in the Statute of York) as meaning only the prelates and the lords.
When we come to the reign of Edward ii there is, before 1322, no declaration
this was conceded, the Earl says, by the prelates, earls, barons, us (i.e., presumably the Earl himself)
and the communitates (not the communitas) of the realm, at the request of the merchants. In this case,
as in other cases, the communitateswere additional to the magnates. The official wording of the grant
(Parl. Writs i. p. 1, from the Fine Rolls) was: "ab Archiepiscopis Episcopis Abbatibus Prioribus
Comitibus Baronibus Majoribus et tota communitate regni nostri," and also (Ibid., again from the
Fine Rolls) "par tous les granz del Realme e par la priere des communes de Marchanz."
1 Some of it is referred to in my Studies, p. 248 and elsewhere. Mr Lapsley has some helpful remarks
on 'legislation' according to Bracton, op. cit., p. 46. 2 Statutes, i, 150-151.
3 This is admitted by Mr Strayer, op. cit., p. 16, n. 61.
on the subject of legislation, that can be put alongside the Statute of Carlisle.
But there is a clear and consistent distinction between the magnates and the
commonalte, in legislation, which militates very strongly against the suggestion
that magnates and commonaltewere one and the same body in 1322. In enact-
ments like the Ordinances of 1311,1 the 'award' against the Despensers,2 or the
indemnity for the attackers of the Despensers,3 and in Edward ii's protest against
the indemnity,4 there was no mention of the commonalteor the commun. In these,
we know, only the magnates were involved. On the other hand, perhaps as a matter
of form, both magnates and the commonalty showed Edward complaints against
the Despensers ;5 whilst the repeal of the indemnity granted to the attackers of the
Despensers was agreed to by prelates, earls, barons, knights of the shire, and the
commonalty of the realm.6 Similarly, the commun du roialme agreed to the acts
declaring that no one be molested for the death of Gaveston, and repealing the
Ordinances of 1311.7 In all these cases it is possible to imagine reasons why
the commons in parliament should be represented as taking part. At any rate, the
use of the term commonaltewas not arbitrary or irrational, even though its exact
meaning might vary greatly.
It does not seem, therefore, that there is any convincing evidence, either in
finance of legislation, to support Mr Strayer's contention that le communautein
the Statute was a simple redundancy, indicating no more than the enumeration
which it followed, of the prelates and the lords, who were to agree to enactments
in parliament for the king and the realm and the people. This suggestion is not
supported either, as already indicated in an earlier section, by a detailed analysis
of the wording of the Statute itself. It is not supported, finally, by the specific
instances which have so far been discovered, about this period, in which the
meaning of le commun or le communauteis reasonably clear.
In 1321 the Lancastrians were said, in an official record, to have arrived at
parliament fifteen days after the king had 'caused to come before him prelates
and other earls and barons, knights of the shires and others who came for the
commune of the realm.'8 In 1326, a deputation which visited Edward ii before
his deposition, included 'quatre chivalers pur la communalte de la terre.'9 In both
cases the communaltemight be only the knights of the shire, excluding burgesses;
though even this, it must be emphasised, would not support Mr Strayer's argu-
ment, which makes communalteinclude neither the burgesses nor the knights. On
the whole, however, the probabilities are the other way. The commonalty of 1321
at least, probably included both. That was its normal meaning, for instance,
during and after the first years of Edward III.10It was its meaning in the Modus
Tenendi Parliamentum, an uncertain guide, it is true, to the English parliament
under Edward ii, but one which may well at least preserve the traditions of the
1 Statutes, I, 2 4 Ibid., p. 188.

p. 157. Ibid., p. 184. 3 Ibid., p. 185.
Ibid., p. 181. 6 Ibid., p. 185. 7 Ibid., 169,

6 p. 189.
8 C.C.R., 1318-1323, p. 545; cited by G. Lapsley in E.H.R., LVI,416, n. 2.
9 Pipewell Chronicle; cited by M. V. Clarke in Medieval Representation, p. 194.
10Cf. Statutes, I, 269: 'les chivalers des Countez, Citeins des Citeez et Burgeis des Burghs, queux y
vindrunt pur les communaltez des ditz Countez Citez et Burghs.'
usage of parliamentary terms.l Whatever its origin, la communeof parliamentary

records normally included, if it did not designate, the knights and burgesses, by
the early years of Edward III, by the time of the Modus Tenendi Parliamentum,
and probably also in 1322, in the Statute of York.
THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
1 The above remarks are based on the fact that the theories ascribing the Modus to the early
fourteenth century have not yet been disproved. If we could rely at all on the detailed accuracy of
the Modus, the problem of the normal meaning of communitas in parliamentary records under Edward
11,would be solved. The communitas consisted, the writer says categorically, of three grades, - proc-
tors of the clergy, knights of the shire, citizens and burgesses 'qui repraesentant totam communitatem
Angliae' (Stubbs, Charters [ixth edition], p. 505). Some additional facts relevant to this problem
have now been gathered together by Professor Morris, in the article referred to above.
Robert Le Coq and Etienne Marcel

Author(s): Arthur Layton Funk
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:08
Speculum.
ROBERT LE COQ AND ETIENNE MARCEL
BY ARTHUR LAYTON FUNK
BETWEEN1355 and 1360 a series of revolts provoked by the maladministration
of the Valois monarchs and aggravated by the capture of John II after the defeat
at Poitiers threatened the structure of the French government. The individual
most frequently regarded as the instigator of these revolts is Etienne Marcel, a
Parisian dealer in cloth who, as provost of the merchants, headed the rebellious
citizenry of Paris until his death in 1358, There is no denying that Marcel was an
outstanding leader in the Parisian uprising; but the question may be raised
whether the entire revolt, including as it did a significant reform movement in
the central assemblies of the Estates and civil war on the part of certain feudal
factions, was not broader in extent than the local uprising headed by the Parisian
provost. The reforms that were advocated, the tangled political intrigues, the
complicated relationships with England and the Empire and the Papacy, the
theory of governmental administration put forward - all these point toward
the leadership of a man with other qualifications than those possessed by Etienne
Marcel.
It is generally recognized that Marcel, during his short public life (1355-1358),
became closely associated with Robert le Coq, bishop of Laon, who admittedly
was one of the leading spirits in the central assemblies of 1356 and 1357. Le Coq's
career has been too frequently passed over by the historians dealing with this
period, and his part in the reform movement appears never to have received an
assessment at all commensurate with its importance. Because Marcel's activity
is so well documented by the Parisian chroniclers, there has been a tendency to
stress his participation and to lose sight of the fact that the movement was not
restricted to the city of Paris.
Etienne Marcel was purely Parisian in his outlook. The descendant of a well-
established family of Parisian merchants, he married into a Parisian family.'
Although he imported cloth from Brussels and Flanders, and frequently sold to
the royal court,2 yet his business was centered in the city of Paris. His career was
more commercial than political. True, he was a member of several politically-
minded confraternities,3 but he did not hold public office until 1355, when he was
elected provost of the merchants.4 Robert le Coq, on the other hand, possessed
1 Vie de St.-Louis, ed. Natalie de Wailly (Paris, 1888), p. 129. See A. Longnon, Introduction to
Obituairesde la provincede Sens, ed. A. Molinier (Paris, 1902), I, xxxiv-xxxv. See also Henri Fremaux,
'La famille d'Etienne Marcel,' Memoires de la Societe de l'histoire de Paris, xxx (1903), 178-179. The
monograph by Fremaux is a most detailed and careful collection of practically all available informa-
tion on the Marcel family; it corrects the extremely faulty genealogical discussion in F. T. Perrens,
Etienne Marcel, prevotdes marchands, 1354-1358 (2d ed.; Paris, 1874), pp. 36-37.
2 One of the few extant records of court purchases is the 'Compte de l'argenterie' of Etienne de la
Fontaine for the term Feb. 4, 1352 to July 1, 1352 (ed. Douet d'Arcq, Comptesde l'argenterie [Paris,
1851], pp. 80-157). There are some thirteen references to cloth provided by Marcel.
3 Le Roux de Lincy, 'Recherches sur la grand confrerie N6tre-Dame aux pretres et bourgeois de la
ville de Paris,' Memoires de la Societe royale des antiquaires de France, xvII (1844), 200-313.
Grandes Chroniquesde France: chroniquedes regnes de Jean II et de Charles V, ed. R. Delachenal
(Paris, 1910), I, 56.
470
Robertle Coq and Etienne Marcel 471
abilities and ambitions which fit much more readily the character of the revolu-
tionary. Le Coq was a lawyer who had participated actively in government ad-
ministration for fifteen years before the revolt; Marcel had had no connection
with the royal administration. Le Coq was ambitious, aggressive, witty, a bril-
liant orator;1 Marcel preferred to let others do his haranguing for him2 and, while
he may have been an aggressive merchant, he seems to have had no political
ambitions. Le Coq, who had frequently come out second-best in political conflicts
with more powerful courtiers, had everything to gain by the successful culmina-
tion of the movement; Marcel, already one of the wealthiest merchants of Paris,
had nothing to win and everything to lose.
A brief resume of Le Coq's career may clarify his position in the confused events
of the middle 1350's. He was born, so our only source of information states, at
Montdidier.3 His parents were bourgeois: Oudart le Coq and Jeanne de Ressons,
originally of Orleans.4 His father, who had been in the royal service, was able to
give his son a good education;5 as a matter of fact, Robert le Coq probably re-
ceived as fine a training in civil and canon law as the times afforded. Certainly
he was well read - if we may assume that he had familiarized himself with the
books in his library; for, when this library was confiscated at Le Coq's death,
the inventory showed it to contain a great many volumes for a fourteenth-
century private collection: some seventy-six titles, mostly works on law.6 Though
he became a cleric, we do not know when he took orders. Probably sometime in
the 1330's he entered the Parlement at Paris and obtained the good will of Philip
vI, who not only bestowed several prebends on him but also, on October 17, 1347,
appointed him King's Advocate.7
1 'Acte d'accusation contre Robert le Coq, eveque de Laon,' ed, Douet d'Arcq, Bibliothequede l'Ecole
des chartes, ii (1840-1841), 365:' .. . le dit Robert est legiers et perillieux en paroles, et a tres peril-
leuse et tres malvaise langue, et de ce est il communement et publicquement renommez et diffamez.
Et est tout notoire a touz ceulz avec qui il a repaire et converse, et a touz ceulz qui ont cognoissance
de lui.'
2 For
example, at a great mass meeting held on Jan. 12, 1358, at which the activities of the provost
of the merchants were justified, Marcel did not speak at all. An echevin, Charles Toussac, was one
of the orators, as was also a lawyer, Jean de Sainte-Haude. Marcel simply affirmed that their justifica-
tions were correct (Grandes Chroniques,I, 137-139).
3 Gallia Christiana in provincias ecclesiasticus distribata (Paris, 1751), ix, 548.
4 R.
Delachenal, 'La bibliotheque d'un avocat du XIVe siecle: Inventaire estimatif des livres de
Robert le Coq,' Nouvelle revuehistoriquede droitfrangais et etranger,xI (1887), 527, n. 8.
6 'Acte d'accusation contre Robert le Coq,' loc. cit., p. 365: 'Son pere a touz jours este ou service de
roys de France, et de ce a eu toute sa chevance et son estat, et soustenit le dit Robert aus ecoles.'
6 Delachenal, 'La bibliotheque d'un avocat du XIVesiecle,' loc. cit., pp. 524-537.
7 'Acte d accusation,' loc. cit.: 'Et si tost comme il vint d'Orliens, il vint ou parlement du roy, ou
quel il a gaaignie toute sa chevance et son estat, qui par avant estoit assez tenue et petite. Et y a long
temps este advocat du roy; et li donna le roy Philippe, que Dieux absoille, la provende de Paris, et li
fist pluseurs autres biens.' Robert le Coq's name appears on a list of members of the Parlement for
1340-1341 (published by H. Lot, in Bibliothequede l'Ecole des chartes, xxiv [1863], 120, n. 1; cited by
Delachenal, Histoire des avocats du Parlement de Paris [Paris, 18851, p. 346). Delachenal has pub-
lished (ibid., pp. 419-420) the 'Lettres patentes par lesquelles Philippe de Valois prend pour avocat en
Parlement Robert le Coq,' Oct. 17, 1347. The king did this because he was 'confians du grant sens,
loyaute et souffisance de nostre bien ame, maistre Robert le Coc, advocat en nostre parlement.... '
472 Robert le Coq and Etienne Marcel
For the next few years, Robert le Coq's energy and ability were rewarded by
the continued favor of the king; even after the death of Philip vi in 1350, he con-
tinued in office under Philip's successor, John ii. But while Le Coq courted the
royal favor in hope of securing lucrative sinecures, he incurred the enmity of an
influential group of royal councillors. This enmity apparently sprang from rivalry
for the king's good will and favors; certainly it was aggravated by Robert le
Coq's brutal wit and malicious tongue.
The group with whom Le Coq came into conflict included Pierre de la Foret,
chancellor,' Simon de Bucy, first president of the Parlement,2 and Regnaut Chau-
veau, president of the Chambre des Comptes.3 Among several contemporary
documents yielding evidence of the animosity between Robert le Coq and these
men, the most important is the extremely prejudiced Acte d'accusation contre
Robert le Coq, drawn up by Le Coq's enemies (or possibly by Simon de Bucy
alone) after they had been forced from office by his efforts.4While this document
consists of nothing more than a series of invectives against Le Coq, it supplies,
although one-sidedly, the most complete information we have concerning the
disagreement among the parties.
Included in the Acte is a reference to an event of 1348: the murder of a clerk
at Simon de Bucy's door by one of Le Coq's brothers. Bucy had made complaint
to the king, but Le Coq's influence was such that he obtained letters of remission
for his brother and thus incurred Bucy's enmity.5 We have more convincing evi-
dence in respect to Le Coq's antagonism to La Foret and Chauveau, who being
churchmen were his rivals for ecclesiastical benefices. Possibly the fact that Le
Coq had replaced La Foret as King's Advocate was cause for enmity, but it is
also likely that La For6t's investiture as a bishop in 1350 provoked Robert le
Coq's resentment. Perhaps, too, Le Coq yearned for the chancellorship,6 as his
enemies alleged. The rivalry for a bishopric was equally acute between Le Coq
and Chauveau, for although the latter had obtained the bishopric of Chalon (sur
Saone) in 1351, he had apparently sought a transference to the bishopric of Laon.7
1 See G. Daniel, Histoire de France (Paris, 1755), v, 554-556. Cf. Gallia Christiana, VII, 133.
2 See Noel Valois, Le Conseil du roi aux XIV0, XV%, et XVIe siecles (Paris, 1888), pp. 5-9.
a See Gallia Christiana, ix, 892.
4 Cited 471, n. 1.
p.
6 'Acte d'accusation,' loc. cit., pp 381-382. These letters of remission, if they exist, have apparently
never been published.
6 Ibid., p. 366: ' ... par especial, il a touz jours tendu a estre chancellier de France. Et pour cause
a touz jours detrait et mesdit du chancellier; et de lone temps a eu envie sur lui, et touz jours a voulu
contendre de pareul en parlement. Mesmes quant ledit chancellier estoit advocat du roy, s'efforca il
de li supplanter son estat.' Robert le Coq had succeeded Pierre de la Foret as avocat in 1347 (Dela-
chenal, Histoire des avocats,p. 419).
7 'Acte d'accusation,' loc. cit., p. 366:' ... l'eveschie de Laon vacqua par la translation de messire
Hugue Darcy faite a l'archeveschie de Reins; A la quelle avoir le dit R. tendi de tout son povoir.
Et pour ce que le roy pria moult affectueusement pour maistre Regnaut Chauviau, lors evesque de
Chalon, et pour ceste cause y envoia messire Symon de Bucy a Avignon, le dit Robert tint et cuida que
sa promocion et son estat fussent retardez et empeschiez par le royet par la messagerie du dit messire
Symon.'
Robert le Coq and Etienne Marcel 473
Robert le Coq, however, was finally made bishop of Laon on October 22, 1351.1
In spite of the rivalry with this clique of John's councillors, Le Coq was able
to keep on good terms with the king. He was a member of John II's council, ac-
companied him on his visit to Avignon in 1350, was appointed maitre des requetes
de l'hotel du roi, and participated in certain diplomatic missions.2 For the years
1350-1355 we have few trustworthy sources on Le Coq's career, but since his
name reoccurs as a member of the king's council in 1353, 1354, and 1355,3we may
assume that he was almost continuously active at court. Yet, his enemies' ac-
cusatory act involves the bishop of Laon in two major conspiracies of those years.
The first led to the murder of Charles of Spain, long one of King John's favorites.
This young man had come to be intensely hated by Charles, king of Navarre,
known to history as 'the Bad.' The king of Navarre, who believed that Charles
of Spain had robbed him of considerable properties, supervised the assassination
of the favorite in January, 1354.4 The Acte d'accusation asserts that Robert le
Coq had attached himself to Charles the Bad, poisoned his mind against the
favorite and influenced him to commit the murder.5 It should be pointed out,
however, that no other contemporary document links the bishop with Charles
the Bad in this affair; furthermore, Le Coq was one of King John's emissaries to
Charles when the differences between the two kings were resolved at Mantes,
February 8, 1354.6
The second conspiracy concerned the dauphin Charles, and in this instance
not only is Robert le Coq's implication doubtful, but the nature of the conspiracy
itself is somewhat vague. What appears to have happened is this: in August, 1355,
the Emperor Charles iv sent ambassadors to France to negotiate a treaty which
was to contain a clause stating that the king's son should do homage to the em-
peror for the Dauphine.7 Although John ii refused to sign such a treaty, the
1 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi (Miinster, 1898), i, 308.
2 'Acte d'accusation,' loc. cit., p. 365.
3 Robert le Coq is found on the council in Mar., 1351 (Ordonnancesdes roys de France, ed. F. D.
Secousse [Paris, 1732], ii, 397); Mar. 10, 1353 (T. Rymer [ed.], Foedera, conventiones, litterae, et
cujuscunquegeneris acta publica tnter reges Angliae et alios [2d ed.; London, 1830], III, 254); Aug., 1353
(Ordonnances, IT, 529); Feb., 1354, as negotiator of treaty of Mantes (Grandes Chroniques, i, 39);
Aug. 26, 1354 (Bibliothequede l'Ecole des chartes,XLIX [1888], 213); Dec. 31, 1354 (ibid., LXxII [1912],
463-464); Apr., 1355 (Ordonnances,III, 682); Jan. 13, 1356 (ibid., III, 47).
4
'Deposition de Friquet, gouverneur de Caen,' in F. D. Secousse (ed.), Recueil de pieces servantde
preuves aux memoires sur les troubles excites en France par Charles II, roi de Navarre (Paris, 1755),
p. 52; Chroniquesde Froissart, ed. S. Luce (Paris, 1873), iv, 130; Grandes Chroniques,i, 37-38.
'Acte d'accusation,' loc. cit., pp. 366-367: ... il, qui savoit que le roy de navarre estoit grant et
puissant, s'acointa de lui, et sema la descorde de lui et du connestable.'
6 GrandesChroniques,i, 39-40.
7 The
diplomatic aims behind these negotiations have been admirably discussed by B. Mendl and
F. Quicke, 'Les relations politiques entre l'empereur et le roi de France de 1355 a 1356,' Revue belge,
vIII (1929), 469-512. Quicke pointed out that the letter of Aug. 26 (which is published, ibid., pp. 503-
509) was an initial proposal on the part of the emperor (p. 494; this corrects R. Delachenal, Histoire
de Charles V [Paris, 1909], i, 271). He then draws an excellent picture of the relations between France
and the Empire which led to the negotiations (pp. 478-496). The purpose of Charles' policy was to
hinder the French push into imperial territory. Whether the French government was following a set
seventeen-year-old dauphin was apparently so intrigued by the idea of the

elaborate feudal ceremony that, unknown to his father, he began to plan for the
trip, inviting Charles the Bad (with whom he had recently become congenial)
and numerous of his followers to accompany him.1 John discovered the dauphin's
plans in December, circumvented them by making his son duke of Normandy,
and allowed him to go off to Rouen to take possession.2 Yet there may have been
some vague plan of revolt behind the proposed journey to the emperor's court:
untrustworthy sources imply a conspiracy to overthrow the king,3 and the Acte
d'accusationaffirms that Robert le Coq was behind the whole affair.4On the other
hand, Le Coq, who remained on the king's council all the while,6 was not so much
as mentioned in the amnesty given those who had planned to accompany the
dauphin.6
Obviously the purpose of these accusations was to discredit Le Coq by showing
(1) that he had been an adviser and abetter of Charles the Bad, and (2) that he
had allied with the dauphin against King John. Put forward by the enemies of Le
Coq because they realized he had been the leading spirit in the movement which
deposed them, these charges are curiously irrelevant in view of their authors'
main grievance; for it had been Le Coq's influence with the central assembly
of 1357, not his influence with Charles the Bad or the dauphin, that had swept his
opponents from office. In 1357 Charles the Bad was in prison (as was John In)
and the dauphin was Le Coq's enemy, not his friend. Thus Le Coq's possible in-
volvement in the conspiracies is a matter of little moment when viewed in the
light of subsequent events; for at the time of his greatest influence, the political
setting was quite different from what it had been when the conspiracies were
planned.
By 1355 the incapacity of the government to cope with the threat of English
invasion had combined with the dangerous state of the finances to make the
political situation in France more turbulent than ever. John ii was finally reduced
to calling upon the three estates and for the first time since 1351 he convoked,
for November, 1355, a central assembly.7 This concession echoed the govern-
policy or not, it is true that encroachments had been made in the Dauphine, in Savoie, in Provence,
Franche-Comte, Lorraine, Verdun, and Cambrai. Charles iv was unable to oppose these threats with
war, so he turned to diplomacy. In Aug., 1355, the emperor arbitrarily annulled certain French treaties
in the Dauphine and Franche-Comte; then, a few days later, he drew up the proposals of Aug. 26,
1355, which required withdrawal of the French from Verdun and Cambrai, and homage for the Dau-
phine and the Franche-Comte. It is interesting to note that, while this pressure was placed on France
because of the English menace, the French government did not concede until May, 1356, and then
made no promises for Verdun or Cambrai.
'Deposition de Friquet,' loc. cit., pp. 55-56. 2 GrandesChroniques,I, 56-57.
3
'Deposition de Friquet,' loc. cit., p. 60.
4 '... par le moyen du roy de Navarre, s'acointa du due, et commenca a li mesdire du
roy, et li
blasmer son gouvernement et ses officiers; et comment il perdoit et gastoit tout le royaume. Si li
conseilla qu'il alast pardevers son oncle l'empereur, et feist prendre touz les conseillers du roy' (Bi-
bliothequede l'Ecole des chartes,11[1840-1841], 368).
6 Apr., 1355 (Ordonnances,II, 682); Jan. 13, 1356 (ibid., p. 47).
6 Two letters of remission were issued, one on Jan. 6, 1356 (Secousse, Preuves,
pp. 45-46) and the
other on Jan. 23, 1356 (ibid., pp. 47-49). The latter contains the names of those involved.
7 Ordonnances,II,
21; GrandesChroniques,i, 55.
ment's desperation, for John and his councillors well knew that the delegates,
exasperated with the fumbling administration, would not hesitate to make strong,
and possibly revolutionary, demands. Nevertheless, there is little of importance
to record concerning this assembly, which held its sessions from November 30
to December 28, 1355. Although Etienne Marcel was present as representative of
the bourgeoisie, the assembly was dominated by the chancellor, Pierre de la
Foret.1 Another meeting of the Estates occurred in March, 1356, but there is no
record of either Etienne Marcel's or Robert le Coq's participation.2
Earlier that year the dauphin, newly made duke of Normandy, had departed
from Paris for Rouen,3 where he was well received by Charles the Bad and other
Norman nobles. The Acte d'accusation charges Robert le Coq with so terrifying
the young prince that he fled from Paris for fear of his life,4 but according to better
evidence John and his son were on perfectly good terms at the time.5 A few months
later, when the king was near Beauvais, word came that Charles the Bad and the
dauphin were at Mainneville in Normandy, apparently planning to attack the
king.6 We are assured by the Acte that Robert le Coq, who was with King John,
hurried to Mainneville with the warning that John knew all.7 Then followed a
dramatic chase: the king hastened to Rouen, surprised a conference of Norman
barons, beheaded four of them and took the king of Navarre a prisoner.8 Was the
dauphin a conspirator against his father or was he a decoy?9 Either is a possibility
1 Ibid., p. 56. 2 Ibid., p. 58. 3 Cf. supra, p. 474, n. 2.
4 ( .. . [Robert le
Coq] bouta tant ces paroles et autres semblables en la teste du due, et tant l'es-
poventa, que le duc en eut telle paour, que au plus tost que il peut, il prist congie du roy soubz umbre
de aler prendre ses hommages en Normendie' (loc. cit., p. 369).
6 He had received permission to go to Normandy some two weeks before he
actually left (Delachenal,
Histoire de Charles V, i, 135, n. 4).
6 The
only credible suggestion as to what this plot may have been comes from the deposition of
Friquet (Secousse, Preuves, p. 60): 'Oultre ces choses, fu consceu et empense par ledit Roy de Navarre,
que en un voiage que le Roy Jehan devoit faire en une abbaye que l'en dit Beaupre ou Grampre, en
Normandie, pour lever de fons l'enffant au Conte d'Eu, il prendroit ou mettroit a mort le Roy Jehan;
mais le Roy en fu avise: si s'en garda.' It is true that this part of the deposition is an addition affixed
to the statement by the secretary in 1385, and it may be an ex post facto justification for the king's
action. On the other hand, the existence of such a plot fits in so well with the other known facts, and
so satisfactorily explains the subsequent events, that I am inclined to give the document credence.
7 'Acte d'accusation,' loc. cit.,
p. 369: '.. . le duc et le roy de Navarre estanz a Mainneville, il
[Robert le Coq] manda a monselgneur le duc, que le roy avoit mettre et embuschier es boys certaines
gens d'arms pour faire murtrir li, et le roy de Navarre; dont il avint qu'il furent si espoventez, qu'il
s'en fouyrent de nuis pour la paour qu'il avoient, et s'en alerent a Chastiau Gaillart.' Does this imply
that John ii had already heard of their plan to approach him at Beaupre, and had therefore set an
ambush in self-defense?
8 Delachenal has described these events in as
great detail as possible (Histoire de Charles V, I,
144-156).
9 That he was a decoy was the traditional Norman view, as registered in later Norman chronicles,
e.g., Chronique normande de Pierre Cochon, ed. Charles de Beaurepaire (Rouen, 1870), pp. 82-83:
'Le roy Jehan avoit son filz ainsne, lequel estoit duc de Normandie, et lui dit: "Beau filz, voies des
Normanz comme il mettent paine que le roy de Navarre soit duc pour les tenir en leur libertes. Si
sachiez qu'il faut remedier en l'encontre, ou aultrement nous serions destruiz et em peril de perdre
terre. Vous feres vos aprestez, et vous en yres a Rouen, et feres savoir au roy de Navarre, au conte de
Harecourt, au sire de Graville, au sire de Clere et a grant quantite d'autres seigneurs de Normandie
qu'il soient A vous a Rouen, a certaine journee; et quant il seront venus a vous, vous leur feres tr6s
but the dauphin seems, nevertheless, to have retained his father's confidence.1
What of Robert le Coq? Was he conspiring against the king, or had he been sent
to warn the dauphin alone? He too seems to have retained the king's confidence;
he was still a member of the council, and the Acte d'accusation is the only con-
temporary document in which he is charged with conspiracy.
By the summer of 1356 another assembly had met. Normandy was now in open
revolt and the English in Guyenne, on hearing of the Norman uprising, gathered
their forces for an invasion of French soil. The crisis came in September when
King John's hosts were destroyed near Poitiers. The king found himself a prisoner
of the English, who had killed or captured many of the foremost nobles of the
land. Among the dead, incidentally, was Robert le Coq's enemy Regnaut Chauveau,
president of the Chambre des Comptes.
The capture of John ii left open the question of regency in France, for the
dauphin was still a minor - eighteen years of age. It was clear that another as-
sembly of the Estates would be necessary: the problem of an empty treasury
remained unsolved and an early solution was rendered all the more difficult by
the king's captivity. The obvious prerequisite for any effective rule of France
was to secure control of both the dauphin and the central assembly; consequently
both Le Coq and his enemies, headed by Chancellor Pierre de la Foret, made
rival efforts to attain this immediate goal. Le Coq, however, was denied control
of the dauphin, for the youth had by this time come firmly under the influence of
La Foret, Bucy, and their faction.2
Control of the Estates was a different matter. At a great assembly meeting at
Paris within a month after the battle of Poitiers, Pierre de la Foret attempted
to influence the delegates' deliberations in an address delivered at the opening
session, on October 17.3 The assembly, however, proved to be more adamant
than the young dauphin; its eight hundred delegates were loath to accept any
grant chiere et grant signe d'amour, et puis les semondres a diner avec vous en vostre chastel de
Rouen.... Et quant il seront tous assis et servis, si les tenes de parolles a table pour attendra ma
venue."' It is true that Cochon wrote a long while after these events and is often in error, but we may
believe that he records an interpretation of the events that was current among Normans.
1 Delachenal has
published (Histoire de Charles V, i, 160, n. 1) a letter of John to the dauphin, who
was at Pacy-sur-Eure in Normandy, dated May 5, 1356, in which the king assured him that the execu-
tions were not to be interpreted by the Normans as indicating lack of faith on the part of the king
in respect to letters of remission, safe-conducts, and the like. The letter implies full confidence in the
dauphin and his administration.
2 The dauphin wrote the pope in Oct., 1356, recommending that Pierre de la Foret be made a car-
dinal (document cited by Delachenal in Grandes Chroniques,I, 94, n. 3). The 'Acte d'accusation' also
proves that the dauphin supported Foret and Bucy against Le Coq; furthermore, they both accom-
panied him on his flight to Metz, in Dec. (Delachenal, Histoire de Charles V, i, 277, n. 1). Another letter
of the dauphin to the pope was answered by Innocent Nov. 9, 1356 (cited by N. Denifle, La desolation
des eglises, monasteres, et h6pitaux en France pendant la Guerrede cent ans [Paris, 1899], TI, 137, n. 3);
the pope sympathized with the dauphin, who had apparently written him of the accusations against
his father's councillors, especially against Pierre de la Foret, 'ex fomite odii et rancore quorumdam.'
3 'Journal des 6tats g6neraux reunis a Paris au mois d'octobre, 1356,' ed. Delachenal, in Nouvelle
revue historique de dpoitfrangais et ttranger, xxIV (1900), 429-430. This journal is apparently either
the official record or a summary of that record drawn up shortly after the meeting of the Estates was
held. It is therefore a source of first importance.
dictation from the court. They requested and obtained permission to hold private
deliberations; they elected a committee of about one-tenth their membership to
facilitate discussion; they barred royal councillors from their meetings; and, in
addition to presenting the traditional demands of earlier assemblies, they advo-
cated that Charles the Bad be liberated, that certain councillors be dismissed
(among them Pierre de la Foret and Simon de Bucy), and that a council, advisory
to the dauphin, be chosen from the Estates.1
Robert le Coq, convinced of his inability to influence the dauphin, had con-
centrated his efforts on the assembly. According to his enemies it was he who had
organized the committee meetings and had influenced them to propose the plan
of a reformed council.2 Exactly what part Le Coq played in the committee de-
liberations cannot be definitely ascertained, but in view of his subsequent role
in the assembly, it appears that he must have been extremely active in the meet-
ings - too active indeed for La Foret and Bucy, who bitterly opposed the sug-
gested reforms.3 It was undoubtedly their counsels which prevailed when the
dauphin precipitately dismissed the assembly on November 2, 1356. This abrupt
dismissal was in a sense an answer to the demands of the Estates, for the dauphin
had promised them a reply on November 3; instead of keeping his promise, he
told the delegates to go home and left Paris himself.4
On November 3, the three Estates met in spite of the fact that the meeting
was technically illegal. They may have been convoked merely on the authority
of Robert le Coq,5 who at this assembly delivered a speech which even today de-
spite the inaccurate reports we have of it impresses us with its vigor and emo-
tional appeal. The speech must have made a tremendous impression on the as-
sembled delegates for it became the key-note for subsequent reform activity, it
inspired the Grand Ordinance of 1357, and it placed Robert le Coq in the position
of recognized leader of the reforming group. In the harangue he suggested that
1 Ibid., pp. 430-436; Grandes
Chroniques,I, 76-81.
2 'Acte d'accusation,' loc.
cit., pp. 370-371: 'Que malicieusement il pourchaca comment les bonnes
gens des villes, et des chapitres, et du clergie et des nobles, esleussent certaines personnes, a qui il
donnassent leur povoir.... Que pis est, il pourchassa tant, que il jurerent ensemble que il seroient
tout un et alliez ensemble en ce qu'il accorderoient et ordeneroient ensemble. .... ' We know at least
thirty-four of the members of this committee of elus, for those Navarrese sympathizers are listed in
the 'Acte d'accusation' (pp. 382-383). The list includes, among others, the following: (clergy) Jean de
Craon and Robert le Coq, the archbishop of Lyons, the bishops of Langres, Evreux, and six other
clergymen; (nobles) Jean de Conflans, marshal of Champagne, Jean de Piquigny and four others;
(bourgeois) Etienne Marcel and sixteen other representatives from various bonnes villes of Languedoil.
There can be no confusion of this list of elus with the membership of the proposed council elected from
the Estates since the appearance of Noel Valois' 'Le grand conseil pendant la captivite de Jean le
Bon,' in Le Conseil du roi, pp. 36-46.
3 'Acte d'accusation,' loc. cit.,
p. 373: 'Et par ce appert clerement que le gouvernement, l'auctorite
et la puissance de gouverner le royaume il [Robert le Coq] vouloit oster au roy et Amonseigneur le duc,
ou au moins leur en vouloit si petit laissier comme nient, car toute l'auctorite de fait deust aus xxviii
esleuz, et n'en eust le roy, ne le duc, fors nom tant seulement.' 4 GrandesChroniques,I, 88.
6 'Acte d'accusation,' loc. cit., p. 378: 'Le dit Coq, de son auctorite et A son pourchas, landemain,
qui fu li jeudi apres la Toussains [Nov. 3], fist assembler aus Cordelliers les personnes des trois estas.'
Probably not all the delegates met on Nov. 3: 'Pluseurs des diz III estaz qui encores estoient a Paris
[italics mine] ... assemblerent ou chapitre des diz freres Meneurs' (Grandes Chroniques, i, 88-89).
each of the delegates should take copies of the decisions of the committee and
report them at home. It is likely that the documents published under the title
Journal des etats is one of these records; in it, the summary of Le Coq's speech
runs to almost twenty octavo pages.'
Robert le Coq apparently summed up the events leading to the Estates' con-
vocation, analyzed the reforms which had been suggested by the committee, and
delivered a glowing but bitter denunciation of the management of the govern-
ment by John's councillors. The reforms which the bishop of Laon suggested must
be summarized briefly in order to show how closely he anticipated the Grand
Ordinance, on which he was to deliver another oration just four months later.
He referred to the newly proposed impost; he spoke on the necessity of freeing
the king of Navarre; and he pointed out the need for a sound coinage. He justi-
fied at length not only the plan for a new Grand Council, which would virtually
control the state, but also proposed the formation of another council to manage
exclusively military affairs. Turning to reforms, he advocated limiting the
chancellor strictly to the duties of his office (a blow at his enemy Pierre de la
Foret), reforming all the administrative chambers, reducing household expendi-
tures, and prohibiting the right of prisage. He also suggested the appointment of
reformers-general who should investigate administrative corruption.
Equally important, however, was that part of his address, purely rhetorical,
wherein he accused his enemies in the king's council. It was here that Robert
le Coq presented his own case and it was here that he rose to the highest flights
of eloquence. He denied the reports that the Estates wished to harm the dauphin
or that they had any objective other than to help him. He elaborated on the
desperate plight of the kingdom, its weakness, its faulty government, its helpless-
ness before its enemies. The blame he laid squarely on the shoulders of the king's
negligent councillors, lazy rascals who came late to work and spent more of their
time at dinner than at the council table. He fulminated against the delays, the
procrastination, the inefficiency of the financial administration, the gross negli-
gence and stupidity in formulating monetary policies. Then he deftly turned to
praise the members of the Estates; they were the most capable and honorable men
in France and what they did was done for the good of the kingdom.2
To what extent the ideas in this harangue were Robert le Coq's, and how far
they were simply a summary of the delegates' previous deliberations, is difficult
to determine. Was Le Coq truly in sympathy with the spirit of the Estates, or
did he dissemble so perfectly for his own ends as to convince his hearers that he
1 'Journal des etats,' loc. cit.,

pp. 440-459. Cf. also Grandes Chroniques,I, 89; 'Acte d'accusation,'
loc. cit., pp. 378-380.
2 'Journal des 6tats,' loc.
cit., pp. 446-453. One should compare the account in the 'Acte d'accusa-
tion' (loc. cit., pp. 378-380), wherein Robert le Coq is accused of using his eloquence to stir up the
people against the king to the extent of suggesting deposition and threatening the Estates that,
having gone thus far, they were doomed unless they could obtain the upper hand. This note was
probably sounded in Le Coq's speech, but the more conservative account is more likely to be ac-
curate.
was sincere? In any case he must have aroused a tremendous enthusiasm, for
within four months the Estates had forced the dauphin to grant the reforms.
True, the general scarcity of money, the English invasions, the Black Death, the
extraordinary imposts, the defeat at Poitiers - all these played their part in
setting the stage, but no vigorous reaction could have occurred unless a leader,
with a definite program, had come to the fore. In my judgment, Robert le Coq,
not Etienne Marcel, became that leader when he sounded the rallying cry in his
great speech of November 3, 1356. Marcel was later thrust into the leadership of
the Parisian mob; but he was not the type of man to inspire popular enthusiasm
and at no time did he supersede Robert le Coq as director of the reforming move-
ment.1
It must also be remembered that the accused councillors considered Le Coq's
denunciations important enough to be answered with a long rebuttal: the often-
cited Acte d'accusation contre Robert le Coq.2In the 'response' at the end of the
ninety-one accusatory articles an attempt is made to reply to Le Coq's speech.3
The councillors argue that the war was managed as well as possible and that the
defeat at Poitiers, deplorable though it may have been, was not due to lack of
valor; they explained the abuses in the administration of justice by the emer-
gency created by the war; in respect to the household expenses, the royal gifts,
and the abuses in fines and pardons, they asserted that they had done their best
to stop corruption but had been unable to overcome the importunity of certain
individuals who abused the king's good nature. In other words, they admitted
the justice of Le Coq's accusations and their own inability to cope with the prob-
lems.
Nevertheless, after the Estates had been dismissed, Le Coq, who had no mili-
tary support whatsoever, could only stand by and trust that the ferment would
begin to work. The dauphin, believing that his action had disposed of the
Estates' embarrassing demands, turned his attention to what he seems to have
regarded as a more pressing matter: his long-postponed investment with the
Dauphine by his uncle, Emperor Charles iv, who was to meet the German Diet
1 The term 'reforming,' rather than
'revolutionary,' is used advisedly. Modern scholars have tended
to minimize the revolutionary ambitions of the Estates. L. Balas (Une tentativede gouvernementrepre-
sentatif; les Etats de 1356-1358 [Paris, 1928], p. 67) suggested that the project of Le Coq probably
seemed only a simple reform necessitated by the bad administration and the inexperience of the
dauphin. Genevieve d'Harcourt ('Une tentative de reforme de 1'etat au xive siecle,' Annales du droit
et des sciences sociales, II-III [1934], 15-44) in an excellent summary of the work of the Estates of
October, 1356, has enlarged on the non-revolutionary aspects of this movement. She points out that
the Estates presumably anticipated no difficulties (p. 42): 'I1 s'agissait de gagner le duc. C'etait le
point capital, mais, chose curieuse, les Etats, au debut, ne paraissent pas avoir doute du succes. La
verite, la justesse de leurs arguments leur paraissent si frappantes qu'elles devaient s'imposer a tout
esprit non prevenu et non perverti. Un simple discours, et la cause etait gagnee.'
2 The editor of the 'Acte d'accusation,' Douet-d'Arcq, erroneously assumed that it had been re-
dacted at the Estates of Compiegne, in May, 1358 (loc. cit., pp. 363-364). Noel Valois (Le Conseil du
roi, p. 44, n. 4) first suggested an earlier date, with which Delachenal (Histoire de Charles V, I, 263.
n. 3) agrees. Balas also believes it to have been written immediately after Nov. 3, 1356 (loc. cit.,
pp. 79-81). 8 Loc.cit.,pp. 380-382.
at Metz on Christmas Day.1 The dauphin, with La Foret, Bucy, and a large re-
tinue, departed for Metz in December,2 but not before an edict changing the
mint ratio of silver coins had been drawn up.3 This harmless-appearing edict was
put into effect on December 10,4 six days after the dauphin had left the city.
Publication of the edict was an immediate cause of rioting throughout Paris.
The ferment had begun to work. In these riots Le Coq had no part; it was Etienne
Marcel, as provost of the merchants, who presented the people's demands to the
government and threatened violence unless the edict was withdrawn. But no
action could be taken until January 14, 1357, when the dauphin returned to Paris.
He found the city preparing to arm in an effort to secure redress of its grievances.6
To the prince Marcel repeated his demands: the edict must be repealed and the
Estates recalled or the gilds would go on strike and the citizens take up arms.6
The dauphin had nowhere to turn; he had no money to defray his expenses, he
had no royal troops (they had been broken and scattered after Poitiers), and his
followers, sensing the changing wind, drifted away: Pierre de la Foret and Simon
de Bucy went to Bordeaux;7 others who had been accused by Le Coq disappeared;
some who remained in Paris were imprisoned.8 In this situation, there was nothing
for the dauphin but to consent to the Parisians' demands and he permitted a
central assembly to be convoked for February 5.9
Once again the Estates met, but this time they did not dissolve until they had
drawn up an imposing document, the Grand Ordinance of 1357. Robert le Coq
was once more in the ascendant, for with his enemies dispersed he was undis-
puted leader of the First Estate. Etienne Marcel, it is true, figured as head of the
Parisian delegation; but in such matters as the formulation of ideas and the use
of argument and expostulation he could in no wise compare with the churchman-
courtier Le Coq, who possessed the qualifications of a legist and was a brilliant
orator. Le Coq, however, had no force at his disposal except such pressure as the
1 Some notice has already been given to the proposed agreement between Charles iv and John ii
in the autumn of 1355, as influencing the dauphin's projected flight with certain members of the
Norman party. On Jan. 6, 1356, John II had written to Charles iv, refusing the emperor's offer of a
treaty of amity in return for the cession of Verdun, Cambrai, etc., homage on the part of the duke of
Normandy for the Dauphine, and homage on the part of Philippe de Rouvres for the Franche-Comte.
Several months later, in May, 1356, a treaty was concluded between France and the Empire in which
the claims to Cambrai were disregarded but which stated that the dauphin should do homage for the
Dauphine in person. The details of the negotiations have been analyzed convincingly by Quicke,
'Les relations politiques entre l'empereur et le roi de France,' loc. cit., pp. 497-500. The text of the
treaty of May, 1356, has been published, ibid., pp. 510-512.
2
Delachenal, Histoire de Charles V, I, 268.
3 Ordonnances,III, 87-88. 4 GrandesChroniques,I, 92. 5 Ibid., pp. 92-94.
6 On Jan. 19, 1357, the provost of the merchants, after demanding that the dauphin stop the cir-
culation of the new money, made two threats: (1) the gilds would cease operation, and (2) the citizens
of Paris would arm (ibid., p. 96): 'Furent si esmeuz par toute la dicte ville que ilz furent cesser tous
menestereux d'ouvrer; et fist commander le dit prevost par toute la dicte ville que chascun s'armast.'
7
Rymer, Foedera, III, Pt. I, 348. Pierre de la Foret accompanied John when the king went to
England in June (GrandesChroniques,I, 110-111).
8 See Valois, Le Conseil du roi, p. 27. 9 GrandesChroniques,I, 99.
Estates could exert; after the Estates had been dismissed the previous November
he was powerless. But Etienne Marcel, provost of the merchants, placed in a posi-
tion of authority over a bustling city of two hundred thousand, could bring
enough pressure to bear on the dauphin to force the revocation of an ordinance
and the convocation of the Estates. It is not likely, however, that Marcel either
dominated the Estates or suggested the reforms which they considered.
For almost a month the Estates deliberated at Paris. By March 3, 1357, they
had drawn up the sixty-one articles of the Grand Ordinance;1and at the closing
session, Robert le Coq delivered an oration in the Grand' Chambre of the Parle-
ment. He discussed fully the reforms - financial, administrative, judicial, and
military - which were contemplated.2
While many of these reforms appeared idealistic and hopelessly impractical, a
few went into effect immediately. Twenty-two government officials were deposed
from office at once.3 Among these we find Pierre de la Foret and Simon de Bucy;
the others were mostly lawyers of the Parlement and financiers of the Chambre
des Comptes. Because of the predominantly bourgeois origin of these men, the
old view that the dismissals marked a bourgeois revolt against the nobility would
appear groundless;4nor is it true that the persons who were dismissed composed
all of the dauphin's council.5 The idea of a council chosen from among the dele-
gates to the assembly, proposed by Le Coq in November, disappeared; several
men elected from the Estates participated in the dauphin's council,6 but they
probably comprised a minority in the council in spite of the predominant influ-
ence of Robert le Coq. Other attempts to carry out the measures of the Ordinance
included the formation of an aide-collecting administration,7 and the establish-
ment of a reforming commission.8
For six months - from March to August, 1357 - the bishop of Laon remained
supreme in the dauphin's council. King John, it is true, having concluded a truce
with the English, sent word to Paris that neither the new subsidy voted by the
Estates should be raised nor should the Estates meet again. But such an outcry
arose among the citizenry of Paris that the dauphin, threatened once more by
Robert le Coq and Etienne Marcel, was forced to disregard his father's communi-
cation and to announce that the Estates should meet again as planned.9 The
prince acceded, according to the extremely reliable and pro-royal Grandes Chro-
niques, because of 'the counsel or constraint of the aforesaid three Estates, that is
to say of the said bishop of Laon, who was the principal leader of the said three
1 Ordonnances,III, 124-146. See G. Picot, Histoire des Etats gbn&raux(Paris, 1872), I, 62-183.
2 Grandes 3 Article 41 (Ordonnances,II, 140).
Chroniques,I, 101-105.
4 Twelve of the were of extraction; six were clergymen whose family back-
twenty-two bourgeois
ground is unknown. None was a member of the higher nobility.
' Only four were regular members of the Grand Council. Seven or eight at most were councillors at
one time or another.
6 GrandesChroniques,I, 106. 7 Ordonnances,iv, 183-185.
' Order establishing the powers of the reformateurs-gen&raux,Mar. 8, 1857 (Delachenal [ed.],
GrandesChroniques,II, 76-81). 9 GrandesChroniques,I, 108-109.
Estates, of the provost of the merchants, and of several others.'1 Robert le Coq
had been able to retain control. In April he was granted an annuity by the dau-
phin.2
But the administration of the impost was a miserable failure,3 and when the
central assembly of July, 1357, admitted its inability to cope with the financial
situation,4 the dauphin and his party lost no time in asserting themselves. About
the middle of August the dauphin let it be known to Etienne Marcel and the other
leaders of the Parisians that henceforth they were to cease interfering in the
government. Robert le Coq retired to his bishopric in disgrace. Toward the end
of August it appeared as if the efforts of the Estates had collapsed.5 The old
officials returned to office and the commissions of the reformers appear to have
terminated sometime in the autumn of 1357.6 The great plans of Robert le Coq,
Etienne Marcel, and their supporters had gone up in smoke; the royalist govern-
ment seemed to be completely asserted.
Still, loyalist predominance was short lived, for the dauphin like the Estates
was unable to raise money.7 The two factions had arrived at a stalemate, each
being powerless through lack of funds to force a decision. The dauphin, soon
realizing that the government could not function under the old machinery, re-
called Robert le Coq in October and granted permission for a new assembly to be
convoked.8
The meeting of this assembly, in November, 1357, coincided with a spectacular
and significant event, the escape of Charles the Bad from his prison in Arleux.
Etienne Marcel and Robert le Coq have been accused of instigating the con-
spiracy which led to the king of Navarre's flight,9 but while unquestionably they
hailed the accomplished fact, it is difficult to establish positively that they knew
1 Ibid.
2 Document dated Apr., 1357, ed. Luce, Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des chartes, xxI (1860), 85-86.
3 See E.-G. Ledos, 'L'imposition d'Auvergne en janvier, 1357,' Melanges Julien Havet (Paris, 1895 )
pp. 429-450; cf. G. Guigue, Les Tard-venusen Lyonnais, Forez, et Beaujolais, 1356-1369 (Lyon, 1886),
pp. 246-253; cf. also E. Perroy, 'La fiscalite royale en Beaujolais aux XIVe et xve siecles,' Moyen age,
xxix (1928), 9-10. A later ordinance of Feb., 1358 (published by P. Viollet, Memoires de I'Academie
des inscriptions et belles-lettres,xxxiv [1895], 284, Article 15), refers to this condition: ' . . . du sub-
side. . . octroie ... oudit mois de mars l'an mil trois cens cinquante six [1357, n. st.], aucuns ont
paie pour quatre mois, c'est assavoir pour les moiz de mars, avril, may et juing et les autres n'ont riens
ou petit pai .... ' 4 Grandes Chroniques,I, 111. 5 Ibid.,
pp. 111-113.
6 Letters of the dauphin of Aug. 28, 1357 (in Valois, Conseil du roi, p. 60, nn. 2-5) refer to the duties
of the reformers as discharged: 'commissione seu potestate dictorum reformatorum functa . . . ' and
'officio dictorum reformatorum functo .. .' However, the ordinance giving powers to the reformers
was copied as late as Sept., 1357 (see the document as published by Delachenal, Grandes Chroniques,
III, 76-81).
7 The GrandesChroniquessuggest this (I, 115): 'Et pendant la dicte journee [before the Estates met
on Nov. 7, 1357] fu monseigneur le duc si mene, que il n'avoit denier de chevance, pour quoy il con-
venoit que il feist tout ce que les dessus diz de Paris vouloient.' 8 Ibid., p. 114, n. 4.
9 Chronographiaregum Francorum, ed. H. Moranville (Paris, 1893), II, 266: 'Tunc temporis pre-
positus merchatorum et illi de tribus statibus fecerunt liberari regem Navarre.... ' Chronique de
Jean le Bel, ed. J. Viard and E. Deprez (Paris, 1905), II, 252: 'Avint que ung chevalier nomme mes-
sire Jehan de Pinquegny et aultres vinrent soubs le confort du prevost des marchans et du conseil des
bonnes villes au chastel, ou le roy de Navarre estoit; si le prirent en prison et menerent a Paris..... '
of the plans for the king's escape.1 Le Coq, however, did prevail upon the dauphin
to allow Charles to come to Paris under safe-conduct.2
Robert le Coq had once again obtained a position of ascendancy, precarious
though it was. For the next four months he remained the dominant figure in the
dauphin's council, virtually ruler of France, while about him swirled a number of
unpredictable currents which were eventually to undermine his predominance.
The prosaic Grandes Chroniquesleave no doubt of Le Coq's influence: 'And then
in the council of monseigneur the duke, the principal master and sovereign was
the bishop of Laon, who had entirely procured and accomplished the things
written above [the issuance of Charles the Bad's safe-conduct], by the power and
aid of the provost of the merchants and of ten or twelve of the town of Paris.'3
Not only did the bishop enable Charles the Bad to come to Paris, but he obtained
for him a temporary treaty recognizing his claims to confiscated territories.4 In
the words of the GrandesChroniques:'This the said bishop [of Laon] had ordered,
so that all that the said king [of Navarre] required was granted to him by the
said monseigneur the duke, who, by constraint, was unable to refuse anything
that that bishop wished.'5 Charles the Bad now retired from Paris and resided
quietly in Normandy, to the relief of the dauphin and to the disgust of the bel-
ligerent Parisians. Robert le Coq remained in contact with both factions:
Continuallythe said bishopof Laon, by whom those of Paris were principallycounselled
and governed,and who was devoted to the king of Navarre, was principalcouncillorto
the said duke; and everythingwas done by him and his orders, at which many people
were amazed,and it was said that he was the double-bittedax (besaigii6)which cuts at
both ends. And truly it was said that the bishopmadeknownto the king all that was done
in the councilof monseigneurthe duke.6
In February Le Coq forced the dauphin to recommend him for a cardinal's
hat.7
But Paris was in ferment. The vague fears which were entertained led eventu-
ally to panic, and the collapse of royal authority emboldened the mob. There
was cause enough for concern. Countless troops of the 'companies' were roaming
the countryside; the roads to the south were cut off; merchant caravans had been
seized and sacked. Money was scarce and becoming scarcer, food was hard to
obtain, and the city was poorly protected.8 As all these troubles appeared to the
Parisians to be due to the mismanagement of the government, their indignation
centered on the dauphin and his royal advisers. On February 22, 1358, their
wrath reached a point beyond control: an inflamed mob stormed the royal palace
and murdered two of the dauphin's noble advisers, Robert de Clermont, marshal
1 The Grandes Chroniques do not suggest their participation, and a letter of justification by Pic-
quigny, who engineered the escape, does not involve them (ed. Guesnon, Bulletin historique et philo-
logiquedu comite des travaux historiqueet scientifique, xvI [1897], 248-249).
2 GrandesChroniques,I, 117-118. 3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.,
pp. 124-126. Terms of the treaty, drawn up Dec. 13, 1357, in Secousse, Preuves, pp. 65-67.
5 I, 123. 6 Ibid., p. 129
7 Around Feb.
2, 1358, Jean d'Aubevillier, dit Toussaint, was sent to Avignon to negotiate for a
Cardinal's hat for the bishop of Laon (Secousse, Preuves, p. 130).
8 Denifle,
op. cit., II, 136-145, 179-211, 224-229.
of Normandy, and Jean de Conflans, marshal of Champagne.1

These murders mark the beginning of a new phase in the revolt, just as they
mark a turning point in the careers of Robert le Coq and Etienne Marcel. That
either of the two men had planned or advised the murders remains doubtful; the
likelihood is that the murders were unpremeditated acts of mob violence. Be
that as it may, the leaders were confronted with the problem of repudiating or
condoning assassination, knowing full well that they might precipitate a reaction
on the part of the nobility, whose potential strength could hardly be estimated.
Both Le Coq and Marcel, however, accepted the responsibility for the murders,
obtained a half-hearted ratification from the Estates, and together with Charles
the Bad, who returned to the capital at once, pushed their advantage to the ut-
most.2 The king of Navarre was granted an indemnity and land,3 and in the course
of the negotiations an agreement was reached whereby the nobles of Upper
Normandy, Vermandois, and the Beauvaisis were to be convoked for an assembly
at Senlis on March 25, 1358.4 Knowing as we do that a reaction among the nobles
against Marcel and Le Coq set in soon after the assembly at Senlis, we may well
wonder why the bishop of Laon and the king of Navarre advocated an assembly
at all. Presumably it was because they realized that an impost could not be raised
with the consent only of the clergy and bourgeoisie; and probably they over-
estimated the influence they had with the nobility. One of the first indications of
reaction against Le Coq and Marcel was the defection of Le Begue de Villiers,
Parisian captain of the guard. Under pressure of Robert le Coq the dauphin had
ordered Le Begue to take over the fortresses around Paris;5 but in March Le
Begue repudiated the Parisians in favor of the dauphin and seized Corbeil,6
which, located strategically on the Seine south of Paris, partially controlled the
transit of foodstuffs down the river to the capital.
Later in the month, the dauphin left Paris to attend several local assemblies7
and he was agreeably surprised to find the nobles generally favorable to his
cause.8 Paris he left to Etienne Marcel, who busied himself with the defense of
the city and impractical schemes of alliance with other towns.9 But now that he
1 Grandes Chroniques, I, 148; Chroniques de Jean le Bel, 11, 251-252; Chronique de Froissart (ed.
Luce), v, 96-97. The best modern narrative account of these dramatic events is Delachenal, Histoire
de CharlesV, I, 354-355.
2 GrandesChroniques,I, 154-162. 3 Ibid., p. 156; Secousse, Preuves, pp. 73-76.
4 Order of the
dauphin, Mar. 12, 1358, published by A. Coville, Les Etats de Normandie (Paris,
1894), pp. 365-366.
6 Order published by Luce, Histoire de Bertrand du Guesclin (Paris, 1896), p. 533. The bishop of
Laon is mentioned as a member of the council.
6 Grandes Chronique,I, 163; Chronographiaregum Francorum, IJ, 266.
7 The suggestion in the Chroniquenormande (p. 125) that the dauphin escaped from Paris by night
in a boat is undoubtedly erroneous. The fact that he left Paris to attend the assembly of the nobles
was well known, and if the Parisians regretted his departure, they nevertheless expected him to be
under the close surveillance of Robert le Coq and the king of Navarre.
s GrandesChroniques,I, 163-167.
9 See the Chroniquede Jean de Venette, ed. H. Gu6raud (Continuation of the Chronique latine de
Guillaume de Nangis [Paris, 1843], II, 256-258). Cf. 'Documents nouveaux sur Etienne Marcel,' ed.
S. Luce, Memoires de la Socite de l'histoire de Paris, vi (1879), 305-324. On Marcel's alliance schemes,
see his letter of July 11, 1358, to the town of Ypres (ed. Delachenal, Histoire de Charles V, II, 417).
Robertle Coqand EtienneMarcel 485
had rid himself of Marcel's close surveillance and was once more free to act, the
dauphin bent every effort to reduce the city of Paris from the outside; and with
this end in view he began to blockade the city.L He also wished to come to an
understanding with the king of Navarre; and third, he aimed to secure domina-
tion of the Estates. As to Robert le Coq's activity during this significant month of
April, 1358, we have no information; while he may have retained some power be-
cause of his continuing influence with the king of Navarre, it is patent that with-
out the support of Marcel and the Parisian mob his position was precarious. On
May 3, 1358, the dauphin and Charles the Bad held a meeting which resulted in
the complete breakdown of their amicable relations.2 Charles had been unable
to receive back his confiscated lands because the chatelains had refused to turn
them over; the dauphin, on the other hand, either would not or could not bring
about their restoration. Accordingly, the king of Navarre decided to take the
properties by force and proceeded to ally with the English and with the revolting
Parisians.3
Robert le Coq now found himself gravely compromised, in that he was the
professed leader of factions openly at war with the dauphin. He tried, neverthe-
less, to maintain his position in the council, but during the assembly at Com-
pi6gne, early in May, 1358, he was threatened by several noblemen and forced
to flee to Saint Denis, where he joined the king of Navarre.4 Probably influenced
by these developments, some writers speak of the reactionary aspects of the
Compiegne Estates and their loyalty to the dauphin.5 It should be noted, how-
ever, that there is no mention of the Estates repudiating the bishop; the account
says simply that his life was threatened by certain nobles. It is clear that once
the fear of Charles the Bad's vengenace had been removed, the dauphin's sup-
porters lost no time in removing Le Coq from his influential position in the coun-
cil; but this event need not be associated with the Estates at all.
Thereafter Robert le Cog openly espoused the cause of Charles the Bad against
the dauphin. But with the loss of his greatest weapon, the support of the assembly
of the Estates, he had ceased to be an influential figure on the political scene. He
now becomes a petty intriguer and only occasionally is mentioned in the chroni-
cles of the period. As this study is intended to be primarily a political biography
1 GrandesChroniques,I, 168-170. 2
Ibid., pp. 174-175. a Ibid.
4Ibid., pp. 174-175: 'En celui temps, l'evesque de Laon, qui estoit alez A l'assemblee de Com-
piegne, fu en peril d'estre vilenez par pluseurs nobles hommes qui 1Aestoient avecques le dit regent.
Et convint que il s'en partist celeement; et ala a Saint-Denys en France.'
6 See, for instance, Perrens, Etienne Marcel, pp. 215-217. The unwarranted significance given by
Perrens and others to Le Coq's flight has largely derived from the belief that the Acte d'accusation
contre Robertle Coq was drawn up at the Estates of Compiegne, as the original editor, Douit-d'Arcq,
suggested (loc. cit., II [1840-41], 364). As it is now generally conceded that the document was written
much earlier, its significance as evidence concerning the 'reaction' at Compiegne must be discounted.
A statement in the Chroniquede Jean de Venette (II, 254) has often been cited to support the view that
representatives of the Estates rallied behind the duke and advised him to attack Paris. But this
passage, which speaks only of the nobles, more likely refers to an earlier local assembly and not to the
Compiegne Estates at all. At best it is vague compared with the precise information in the ordinance
of May 14 (Ordonnances,III, 221-222). From the ordinance itself we gather that the delegates did not
heartily support the dauphin, but actually revived the reforming ideas of the earlier assemblies. Cf.
Balas, Une tentativede gouvernementrepresentatif, pp. 169-174.
of Le Coq, it is unnecessary to discuss in detail the events that took place after
his downfall. The king of Navarre attempted to work out an alliance with the
Parisians during June and July, 1358, and Robert le Coq is known to have partici-
pated in the secret discussions between Etienne Marcel and the king of Navarre.1
But Marcel, now involved in a war of his own, was no longer under the influence
of Le Coq as he had been at the time the Grand Ordinance was promulgated.
Charles the Bad's negotiations with the Parisians were impeded by mutual
suspicion and internal dissension in Paris. In the end, the Parisians turned against
him, and, suspecting Marcel's treachery, they turned against the provost of the
merchants as well. On July 31, 1358, Marcel was murdered. Shortly afterward
the dauphin returned to Paris and took control of the government.2 Charles the
Bad left the city along with Robert le Coq and continued the war in open alliance
with the English.3
Robert le Coq's fortunes never improved. A royal order of August 11, 1358,
reads: 'As Robert le Coq, bishop of Laon, has been and is rebellious and disobedi-
ent to the king, to us, and to the kingdom, and [as he] has given and gives counsel,
comfort and aid to its enemies and to its rebels ... all the temporality which he
holds ... and all properties ... are confiscated.'4 Le Coq was never able to
reclaim his possessions, and it is doubtful if he ever returned to Laon at all. Some
writers have thought that he tried to turn Laon over to the Navarrese after tke
fall of Paris, but it is more likely that Froissart, who relates the story, has mis-
read his sources.5Probably a reaction in Laon, similar to the one in Paris, resulted
1 I have seen only one reference to Robert le Coq in the chronicled events between the Compiegne
Estates (May, 1358) and the death of Marcel (July, 1358). This reference is in the Chroniquede Jean
le Bel (ii, 265-266) and concerns the period after negotiations with the dauphin on July 20, 1358:
'Et estoient souvent ensemble en secret conseil ledit roy [de Navarre] et l'evesque de Laon, et le
prevost des marchans, et ne scavoit on qu'ilz conseilloient si couvertement. .... ' See also the letters
of remission to Jean de Saint-Leu, Oct., 1358 (Secousse, Preuves, pp. 101-102) which state that Robert
le Coq, Jean de Picquigny, Robert de Corbie, and Etienne Marcel used to meet together at the con-
vent of St Genevieve in Paris. 2 GrandesChroniques,I, 206-210.
3 A treaty between Charles the Bad's representatives and those of Edward III was signed on
August 1, 1358 (published by E. Deprez, 'Une conference Anglo-Navarraise en 1358,' Revue historique,
xcix [1908], 36-38; Delachenal, Histoire de Charles V, II, 421-423; also in Rymer, Foedera, III, Pt. I,
228) but the place at which the treaty was signed is not given. Although the locality has generally
been identified as Saint-Denis (see Luce, 'Negotiations des Anglais avec le roi de Navarre pendant la
revolution parisienne de 1358, 'Memoires de la Societe de l'histoire de Paris, I [1874], 117-119), the
arguments of Delachenal (Histoire de Charles V, II, 5-7) that the treaty was signed somewhere in
Normandy are convincing.
4'Comme Robert le Cocq, evesque de Laon, ait este et soit rebelle et desobeissant a Monsieur, a
nous, et au Royaume, et aus ennemis et rebelles d'icelui ait preste et preste conseil, confort et aide de
tout son povoir ... tout la temporalite qu'il tient . . .et touz les biens ... sont confisquez' (Se-
cousse, Preuves, pp. 85-86). Cf. Delachenal, 'La bibliotheque d'un avocat du xIve siecle,' Nouvelle
revuehistoriquede droitfrangais et etranger,xI [1887], 531.
5 Ed. Luce, v, 130: 'Ossi asses tost apres, par cas sannable, en furent trahinet et justiciet en la
bonne cite de Laon six des plus grans bourgeois de la ville. Et, se li evesques dou lieu euist este tenus,
mal pour lui, car il en fu accuses, et depuis ne s'en peut il escuser; mes il se parti adonc secretement,
car il eut amis en voie qui li noncierent ceste avenue: si se trest tantost par devers le roy de Navarre
AMelun sus Sainne, qui le recut liement.'
in the apprehension of those ringleaders who had supported the bishop and the
king of Navarre.1
The revolt was now virtually at an end. The dauphin was at Paris, and the
former government re-established. The old councillors who were still living re-
turned, among them Simon de Bucy and Pierre de la Foret. Bucy resumed office
in April, 1359, and continued as an active councillor until his death in 1369.2
Pierre de la Foret died of the plague, near Avignon, in July, 1361.3 But the king
of Navarre continued to wage war until the autumn of 1359 when both parties,
worn out with the struggle, agreed to negotiate. The treaty of peace, signed at
Pontoise on August 21, 1359, was ratified at Paris on September 1 of the same
year. The dauphin made it known that Robert le Coq and certain others were not
to be allowed to return to Paris; otherwise the Navarrese faction was completely
reconciled with the dauphin and the Parisians.4
Arrangements were now made for the banishment of Robert le Coq. His trans-
lation was approved by the pope in 1359,5 and the conditions of his exile were set
forth at large in the separate peace made by Charles the Bad with King John at
Saint Denis on December 12, 1360: 'in respect to the bishop of Laon, he will [con-
tinue to] enjoy the spiritualities, and will be translated outside the kingdom of
France.'6 Robert le Coq was transferred to the bishopric of Calahorra on the
Navarrese frontier of Castile, where he lived in retirement until his death in
1372.7 Such was the insignificant end of a man who had stood on the threshold of
greatness.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
1 We know that six men were executed at Laon either in Sept. or Oct., 1358, for participation in
this movement. Luce has supplied from MS documents of Oct., 1358, the names of some of the ring-
leaders (ibid., p. xl, n. 4). A letter of remission for Jean Boulengier, who participated (cited by Dela-
chenal, Histoire de Charles V, II, 20, n. 7), states that 'il avoit enduit le commun a prendre les cha-
perons de ceulx de Paris,' and that he had wished to turn over Laon to the troops of Robert le Coq
and the king of Navarre. The reference to the revolt at Paris would seem to indicate that the Laon
uprising was prior to August, 1358. Froissart's chief source for this period, Jean le Bel, while mention-
ing the event, does not involve Le Coq (Chronique,ii, 271-272); nor does Jean de Noyal, a resident of
Laon, in his contemporary 'Miroir historial' (published by A. Molinier in Annuaire-bulletin de la
Societe de l'histoire de Paris, xx [1883], 257-258). He states that the men were executed through sus-
picion of being 'de la partie a l'evesque Robert Lecoq et au roy de Navarre.'
2 E. Maugis, Histoire du Parlement de Paris (Paris, 1916), III, 1, 17.
3 Gallia Christiana, xi, 80.
4 GrandesChroniques,I, 244-245.
6 Letter of Innocent vi to Charles the Bad, Oct. 21, 1359, in Delachenal, Histoire de Charles V, II,
258, n. 4.
6 Secousse, Preuves, p. 173: 'Et quant est de l'Evesque de Laon, il joira de l'espiritualitez, et sera
translatez hors du Royaume de France.'
7 Eubel, Hierarchia, I, 161. Cf. Gallia Christiana, ix, 549, which
gives the date of his death as
1368.
The Provençal Expression Pretz e Valor

Author(s): A. H. Schutz
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:08
Speculum.
THE PROVENCAL EXPRESSION PRETZ E VALOR
BY A. H. SCHUTZ
THE style of the troubadour 'biographies' and the razos has a certain loquacious
charm, without much resourcefulness, and characterized principally by a love for
practically standardized strings of words. A hero, his love unrequited, is not
merely sad. He quits the premises 'tristz e cossiros e dolentz e marritz.' Thus, in-
stead of a single term, one finds two such apparently similar ones as pretz and
valor frequently joined in a close partnership.
Under the circumstances, the combination, while not limited to prose, is more
conspicuous there than in verse. The emphasis, in the following discussion, will
be on the prose.
Examples follow, taken from the forthcoming Boutiere-Schutz ed.:
(1) Et el entendet en pretze en valor;e mes se a servir als valenz baronset als valenz
homes,et a brigarcum lor et a dar et a servir (Folquetde Marseille).
(2) . . . e fazia sas chansosd'ela e l'enansavason pretze sa valore sa cortesia ... (Mira-
val, iii).
(3) e fes de leis maintasbonas chansos,lauzanson pretze sa valore sa cortesia (Miraval,
rv).
(4) Et plac li dons e domneis e guerra e messios e cortz e mazans e bruda e chantz e
solatz e tuich aquel faich per qu'om bons a pretz e valor (Blacatz).
(5) ... a la dukessa q'era adonc domna dels Normans et era jovens e gaia e de gran
valor e de prez e de gran poder, et entendia en honor et en prez (Bernart de Ventadorn.
Version of N2).
(6) enansar son pretz e sa honor e sa valor e sa beutat e son joven (Miraval, iv).
(7) mol (sic) l'enanset son pretz e sa valor (R. de Vaqueiras, ii).
(8) Miraval, s'ieu anc jorn aigui pretz ni valorni honor ni amiguas ni amicx, ni fui auzida
ni prezada luenh ni pres ... (Miraval, III).
(9) ... ma dona Ermengarda, qu'era adoncs de gran valor e de gran pretz... (P. Ro-
gier).
(10) D'En Folquet de Marseilla vos ai ben dich qui el fo ni don, ni con montet en pretz
e en valor e con reinet al mon, ni con s'en parti ... (Folquet de Marseilla, in).
There are several reasons for calling this expression a formula. Firstly, it is fre-
quent, not alone in Provengal, but in Italian and Spanish, although in those cases
where it occurs outside of Provengal territory, it may have been borrowed from
the courtly literature. In the case of Petrarch, there is hardly any doubt:
Raccolto ha'n questa donna il suo pianeta
Anzi'l Re de le stelle; e'l vero honore,
Le degne lode e'l gran pregio e'l valore
(Sonnet 215, vv. 5-7, Ed. Scherillo)
Nor can the possibility of borrowing be ruled out in the Cid:
De natura sodes de los de Vanig6mez,
onde salien comdes de prez e de valor
(vv. 3099-4000, Ed. Menendez-Pidal).
Ganaredes gran prez e grand valor (3197).
In the vidas and razos alone there are ten cases, not counting the use of pretz
with lauzor, honor, aver, larguessa, recurrently. Secondly, with frequent use, the
488
The Provengal Expression Pretz E Valor 489
idea is often garbled, as in Exxs. 5 and 10. This is especially true in manuscripts
of late date, such as N2, which may indicate that the originally meaningful
combination has, so to speak, gone to seed.
The modern lexicographers have had no easy time with the constituent ele-
ments. Here are some definitions:
Pretz:'prix,valeur,recompense,merite, qualite, vertu' (Raynouard);'Wertschatzung,
Ansehen,Ruhm'(Levy, Suppl.); 'prix,valeur,merite,distinction,paiement,estime,gloire'
(Levy,PetitDiet.).
Valor: 'Kraft, Gewalt, Macht, Hilfe, GesellschaftlicheStellung, Rang, Wert (per-
sonlicher Wert), Ttichtigkeit, Trefflichkeit,Gewicht, Einfluss, Ruf der Trefflichkeit'
(Levy, Suppl.); 'valeur,merite,prix,secours,aide' (PetitDict.); 'prix,merite,aide, valeur,
secours,assistance'(Raynouard).
Wecchslerl goes much farther towards the achievement of a distinction between
the two terms:
Pretz,oft pretzverais,bedeutetnicht, wie noch neuereHerausgeberibersetzen, soviel wie
Tiichtigkeit,sondernRuhm, guter Name, lobende Nachrede in der Gesellsehaft.Valor,
dagegen, bezeichnet die Vortrefflichkeit,Tlichtigkeit, die griechischeapETr im alteren
Sinne:die Summederliusserenund innerenDinge. Pretzist die subjektive Wertschaitzung,
die jemandgeniesst;valorder objektive Wert, den jemand besitzt.... Die entsprechen-
den nhd. AusdrUicke warenprtsundetugend.
His definition is far from perfect. For the first two sentences, the evolution of
pretz from literal to figurative meaning, which is, after all, no small part of the
chief interest contained in this problem, is not touched upon; the distinction be-
tween pretz and valor leaves something to be desired from the viewpoint of what
the mathematicians call 'uniqueness.' There is, in other words, too much unex-
plained coincidence. For the last two sentences, the objections are more serious.
If the Wertschatzungis subjective, what is the sense of verais? In the last sentence,
is it possible to detach 'objektive Wert' from the personal 'jemand' so that it can
have an independent existence? It is perfectly evident, of course, that, this being
a formula, as has been said, and, moreover, a formula perhaps 'gone to seed,' the
members thereof will to some extent color each other. Nevertheless the history,
even partial, of the terms can contribute further clarification of our problem by
adding to the lexical content of pretz and valor and ultimately establishing a
clearer distinction between them. That is the purpose of this article.
Let us consider pretzfirst:
(11) E la Loba,per lo granpretzen qu'il l'avia meza... (Miraval,III).
(12) E missersBonifacisde Monferratmeslo en aver et en tan granpretz,lui e sas can-
sos (Faidit).
(13) Ez en las autras coblas blasmet los rics baros qe, ses donar,per paor volian prez
aver, e qu'onnon ausesretrairelos mals qe ill fazian (B. de Born, III).
Thus pretz seems to mean something that can be won or lost, a factor which
Wecchsler did not emphasize and which, we shall see, is the kernel of the defini-
tion that one will give ultimately for that word. In other words, it represents a
1 Das Kulturproblemdes Minnesangs, pp. 123-4. The aforesaid 'Herausgeber' offer little help. The
French editors, who render the expression by 'prix et valeur' leave us where we started.
490 The ProvenQal Expression Pretz E Valor
kind of status. One might be 'put' into that status (Exxs. 11-12); one might be
'advanced' in pretz (Folquet, II), 'rise' in it (ibid.) or 'fall' in it (Perdigon). It can
be local (Miraval, II) or limited to a social set (id. II: la bona gen). OF has the
same situation; e.g. envy can decrease it:
Mais quant il a en un pais
hume ne femme de grant pris,
cil ki de sun bien unt envie
sovent en dient vilenie.
Sun pris li vuelentabaissier:
(Mariede France, Guigemar,vv. 7-11, Ed. Warnke)
Italian likewise offers numerous examples:
. . . come in lauro foglia
conservaverde il pregiod'onestade
(Petrarch,Canzone29, vv. 46-47, Ed. Scherillo)
For Dante we note that pregio can be given or taken away: dando pregio (Purg.,
xxvI, 125), di pregio priva (Purg., xiv, 63), the latter rendered by Scarttazzini
'rende si stesso infame.'
The fluctuations of pretz are comparable to those of the nouns with which it is
frequently coupled, such as honor or lauzor (Uc de S. Circ, Razo ii et passim).
Parallels are found in Dante: il pregio e l'onore (Inf., xiv, 88-90), il cui nome e il
cui pregio (Par. xvI, 128). In some cases, even non-Provengal, these couplings
approach our formula: Et estoit de grant non et de grant valour (Joinville Ed.
Natalis de Wailly, v. 116 D); two barownesof great price and hardynesse (Berners
Froissart; cf. s.v. Price, NED), where the hardynesse is equal to valor, as we shall
see. In some cases, the pairings are those of opposites: der pris was sin, und min
diu schame (Hartmann v. Aue, Yvain, ed. Benecke-Lachmann, v. 756); or be it
pris or be it blame (Gower, Conf., cited by NED, loc. cit.).
Of valor, the following examples speak for themselves:
(14) . . . plus crec de larguessae de cortesia e de valord'armas(Blacatz).
(15) Joglarsfo de pauca valor(Uc de la Bacalaria).
There is one point with reference to Ex. 14 that parallels the discussion of pretz,
i.e. that the nouns associated with pretz throw light upon its nature. We find, for
instance, larguessa and cortesia, also ben (Folquet II), jovens, beutatz, cortesia all
together (R. Jordan, II), beutatz alone (Blacasset). So, too, in Dante, cortesia e
valor (Inf., xvI, 67), degli vizii umani e del valore (ibid., xxvI, 99), the last passage
being clearer in that there is an opposition of basic qualities or defects, things
fundamental, inherent. NED, in fact, defines valor as 'Intrinsic worth or merit.'
With Dante's spirituality, so far in advance of the troubadours,' the term valor
stands out in bold definition as early as the Provengal passage of the Purgatorio:
Ara vos prec per aquellavalor
Que vos guida al som de l'escalina (xxvI, 145-146)
and is applied, at a culminating point, to God himself, referred to as the Valor
infinito (Par., xxxIIm, 81), just as the Divine had been called Lo primo e ineffabile
Valore (Par., x, 3).
The Provencal Expression Pretz E Valor 491
We may add that, when a verb is used with valor, it is likely to express some-
thing already in the individual, though accidentally perceived by another:
(16) . . . et ella molt alegrade la bontat e de la valore del sen e del sabere de la cortesia
qu'elatrobeten lui (R. Jordan,II).
Thus Wecchsler's definition may be tentatively made more precise by saying
that pretz has reference to a status, which admits of sharp and sudden fluctua-
tions, while valor deals with the basic, the fundamental, the immutable, in that
God himself is involved.
The problem, however, is not that simple, as we shall see. Take, for instance,
Ex. 2. There enansar refers to both pretz and valor, so that the idea of per-
manence seems false in connection with the latter. In Ex. 4, a man already
qualified as bons has (or acquires ?) pretz e valor! In Ex. 9, adoncs gives valor a
transitory character which appears to run counter to the preceding discussion.
In Ex. 18, as we shall see, montet appears to be an equally disturbing factor.
With reference to Ex. 9, examination of the manuscripts reveals that two of
the five, A and R, both of different 'families,' omit adoncs, hence its presence in
a definitive text of the vida is questionable. In Ex. 4, no such doubt can arise,
on the other hand, the MSS being IK, the two most complete repertories, and
probably the most trustworthy, of Provencal biographies. It might be thought
that the idea is somewhat like that of Goethe:
Ein guter Mensch, in seinem dunklenDrange,
Ist sich des rechten Weges wohl bewusst.
(Faust,Prologim Himmel,vv. 328-329)
but the looseness of style, the verbosity of the particular setting from which Ex.
4 is taken, might well put us on our guard against too philosophical an interpreta-
tion. Here for instance, is a specimen, from another part of the same vida, of that
typically complete inability to control the flow of words. It happens to contain
another case of valor.
(17) Et on plus venc de temps, plus crec de larguessa,de cortesiae de valor,'d'armase
de terrae de rendae d'onor... e crecsos sens e sos saberse sos trobarse sa gaillardiae sa
drudaria(Blacatz).
In connection with Ex. 2, the following may be in order:
(18) E (i.e. Peire Pelisiers)montet en si gran valorper proesa e per sen qe'l vescomslo
fetz bailede tota la soa terra (Dalfi,iv).
In one instance (Ex. 2) enansar appears disturbing in view of the tentative defini-
tion previously offered; in the present illustration it is montet. Both verbs seem
to imply fluctuation. First, it is clear that the manner of this fluctuation is differ-
ent because here we have a question rather of growth of an inherent quality.
Second, we can show that the medieval conception of valor was of a kind that
provided for such an idea of growth. Du Cange (s.v.) lists 'facultas'. This is the
facultas potentiarum of medieval philosophy, perhaps translatable as 'capacity,
potentiality.' We have support for this definition from two widely divergent
1 It is hardto know whethera commais in order.It might be just as well toread valord'armas.
492 The Provengal Expression Pretz E Valor
sources. One is the philosophical concept of value itself: 'Wert hat etwas, insofern
es wegen seiner Brauchbarkeit fur einen zwecksetsetzenden Willen in irgend-
einem Grade als begehrbar erscheint.'l The other is in Dante:
... avvegnacche 'valore' intenderese possa per piu modi, qui si prende 'valore' quasi
potenzadi natura(italics mine), ovvero bontade da quelladata (Convivio,Tratt. iv, Cap.
2, Ed. Busnelli-Vandelli-Barbi,
p. 20).
the passage being a commentary on his Canzone Terza, vv. 12-13, entitled: Del
valoreper lo qual veramenteomo e gentile. In the same way, our key word in Para-
diso, x, v. 3 was rendered by one commentator2 as 'Primal Might' and by an-
other3 'cioe la potenza (italics again mine) del divin padre.'
We believe that a word so rich in content has had a long history and the same
is true of pretz,which we take first to determine what that history, in Latin, might
have been: (1) ' . . . pretium recte facti triumphum haberet Paullus (Livy, 45,
37); 'quotiens ostentando quis factum recipit famae pretium' (Boethius, Cons.
Phil., I, Pt. 4, p. 120). St Thomas Aquinas, though dealing with economics, has
apprehended the relationship between simply 'price' and 'estimation' or 'repute':
Pretiumrerumnon est punctualiterdeterminatum,sed magisin quadamaestimationecon-
sistit (SummaTheol.2-2, Qu.77, Art. I).
Pretium rerum venalium consideratursecundum usum hominis, non autemsecundum
gradum naturae rerum (ibid., Art. ii, 3).
NED supports this view by its definition: 'Sense or estimate of worth' (s.v. price).
In the second instance from St Thomas, estimate (tantamount to repute) is op-
posed to the inherent worth.4
Valor is rarer. It is virtually non-existent in classical Latin. Its development is
therefore in the medieval church. The verb valerehad already undergone changes,
often acquiring the meaning of posse,5 a step in the direction of the meaning
facultas potentiarum for the noun. Following are some examples of the use of
valor, fewer and harder to date than its counterpart:
Du Cange has but two, one defined 'Strenuitas, virtus bellica,' from an undated
source (Hist. Palaestr. Fulcherii Carnot), the other 'Quinquid emolumenti ex re
aliqua percipitur' from the Consuet.Dombensis, of 1325, too late to be of any value
for this discussion. To these we may add one significant example from the Summa
Theol.: Valor orationis triplex: scilicet ad impetrandum. Quolib. 8, 8, which is set
up against the effectus orationis: scilicet meritum, wherein valor has the sense of
1 R. Eisler, Worterbuch
d. philos.Begriffe,4th ed., Berlin, 1930.
2 W. W. Vernon, Readings on the Paradiso
of Dante, II, 519; I, p. 331. For the former reference he
also has 'PowerInfinite.'
8 F. B. Lombardi,La divinacommediade DanteAlighieri,novamentecorretta,spiegatae difesa da
F.B.L.M.C.He also refersto Hebrews,xi, 3: 'Patri attribuituret appropiaturpotentia.'
4For the relation between economicsand theology in the Middle Ages, with the possibility of
sucha rapprochement as this, cf. E. Troelltsch(tr. Olive Wyon), TheSocial Teachingof the Christian
Churches, New York, 1931. I owe this referenceto ProfessorArthurSalz, OhioState University.
A. H. Birch,A comparisonof thestylesof Gaudentiusof Brescia,the De Sacramentisand Didiscalia
Apostolorum. Risca, Mon., 1924, p. 141.
The Provengal Expression Pretz E Valor 493
'efficacy,' understanding by that word the power to produce an intended effect.

One authority1 would even define the term as 'Giiltigkeit' and as 'Geltung,' mak-
ing the transition from 'potentiality' to 'effectiveness,' but he gives no sources nor
dates. Ernout-Meillet2 likewise cite valorwith a Greek gloss rtL,, which may mean
anything paid in token of value; the definition is vague and the document un-
dated. Dates are offered, 1102 and 1564, by the Medieval Latin Word List of
J. H. Baxter and C. Johnson,3 but no examples are offered. It will be noted that
these documents are from 'British and Irish sources,' which fact, however, should
not make a difference in what value they may have for a continental situation.
To summarize: pretz and valor, used in frequent association, are a formula, one
in which the constituents are not always clearly separable because the authors
who employed it were not philosophers, in fact, often quite unaware of the origi-
nal content of the terms. On the other hand, it is possible to make certain im-
portant distinctions: pretz carries over from its economic use the idea of an esti-
mation of personal worth by common consent within a given milieu and under
given circumstances, hence the pretium famae, mutable and extrinsic. Valor is
the basic worth of a person, the sum of inherent qualities, hence intrinsic and not
subject to common estimation. It may include the facultas potentiarum, the sum
of powers or potentialities, therefore, as Dante implied, subject to development
in the highest degree.
The order of the words seems fixed, (at least for the great majority of the cases),
not by the nature of these words, but most likely by the mere fact that valor is
longer, the rhythm of the formula being the chief consideration.
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
1 J. Schmid, Handw6rterbuchdes Kirchenlateins, Lemberg-Lohn, 1934.

2
Diet. 6tym. de la langue latine, Paris, 1932.
8 London-Oxford, 1934.
Fourteenth-Century Population Records of Catalonia

Author(s): Robert S. Smith
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:08
Speculum.
FOURTEENTH-CENTURY POPULATION RECORDS
OF CATALONIA
BY ROBERT S. SMITH
IN a survey of Spanish pre-census population records, P. Granville Edge ob-

served that the data 'from the Middle Ages down to the time when census-taking
was definitely established are comparatively numerous.' The principal evidence
is found in contemporaneous documents, beginning with the census of Baeza in
1407, which Tomas Gonzalez unearthed in the Archives of Simancas and pub-
lished in 1829.2 Edge lists Catalan hearth-tax returns among the sixteenth-
century records and notes in passing that such data are not available for England
until 1685; but he appears to be unaware that several enumerations of hearths in
Catalonia were carried out in the fourteenth century. In particular, the hearth-tax
rolls of 1359and 1378 deserve consideration in the study of mediaeval demographic
phenomena.
I
The Estates General (Corts) of Catalonia instituted the enumeration of
hearths, or householders (fochs), for the use of collectors of the hearth tax
(fogatge). The first reference to hearth rolls occurs in the proceedings of the Corts
of 1357; thereafter, the fogatge was frequently used as an extraordinary revenue
measure. The enumeration of fochs took place less often than the imposition of
the tax, since the lists for a given year served as the basis of assessments in suc-
ceeding years; but when tax-payers or tax-collectors complained of the inac-
curacy of the old records, a new census was undertaken.
In 1357 war broke out between Aragon and Castile, and for more than a decade
the Catalan Corts was called upon to ratify large appropriations and heavy taxes
for the military needs of the Aragonese crown. The Estates General which met
in Barcelona in 1358 appears to have levied the first Catalan hearth tax of record.
It was collected in May, 1359, but the tax rolls are incomplete and scarcely
serviceable for the study of population.3
Late in 1359 the king convoked the Corts in Cervera, 'in consideration of the
urgent situation and the requirements of the war which we are waging with the
king of Castile.'4 During the sessions, which lasted from October to December,
a hearth tax was approved;5 but the census known as the 'Enumeration of
Hearths in Catalonia according to the Corts of Cervera' was probably made in
1 'Pre-census Population Records of Spain,' Journal of the American Statistical Association, xxvi
(1931), 42-49. Somewhat expanded, the article was republished: 'Early Population Records in Spain,'
Metron, ix (Rome, 1932), 229-249.
2 Censo de poblaci6n de las provincias y partidos de la Corona de Castilla en el siglo xvi. Madrid, 1829.
3 Cortes de los antiguos reinos de Arag6n y de Valencia y principado de Cataluia, i, pt. 2 (Madrid,
1896), 702-730. 4Ibid., i (1899), 1.
6 I find no mention of the tax in this year's parliamentary papers (Ibid., II, 1-54), but Catalan
writers quote the Cr6nica of Pedro iv to the effect that the crown received a subvention 'per via de
fogaje' (J. Coroleu and J. Pella, Las Cortes Catalanas [Barcelona, 1876], p. 192).
494
Fourteenth-Century Population Records of Catalonia 495
1360.1Although this is the first complete record of the distribution of fochs in the
judicial districts (veguerias) of Catalonia, the existing records furnish no in-
formation concerning the procedure of enumeration.
The Castilian war necessitated the re-imposition of the fogatge in 1363-1365
and in 1369-1370, but only meager statistics of hearths have been preserved.2 In
connection with the 1365 grant the Corts voted to conduct a new enumeration,
at least in the cities and towns;3 but the data of this census have not been found.
In 1375 the Corts voted the crown a subsidy of 90,000 gold florins in hearth
money 'for the defense of Catalonia.' In letters addressed to the municipalities,
which were members of the third Estate in the Catalan Corts, the number of
fochs and the amount of the tax for each locality are given; but no information is
furnished concerning families on the lands of the church and the nobility.
Furthermore, it appears that the 12,109 fochs entered for 66 political divisions
represent an estimate based upon previous enumerations and are not the result
of a census conducted in 1375.4
For the year 1378 the available records combine information concerning the
procedure in counting the hearths and the statistical results of the census. In
order to facilitate the assessment and collection of £30,000 in hearth money,
early in 1378 the Corts ordered that, 'all the fochs resident in the principality of
Catalonia be counted anew.' In April the deputies of the Catalan Generality
(the standing committee of the Corts) wrote to lay and ecclesiastical authorities
in the eight dioceses of Catalonia, instructing them to arrange for the listing of
householders not later than May 20. General supervision of the enumeration in
each diocese rested with nine commissioners: three commissioners (one from
each Estate) were responsible for the count in each of the three districts of the
diocese. In the diocese of Elne the commissioner's pay was fixed at ten shillings a
day for work in Perpignan, but the stipend rose to fifteen shillings when they
went 'with their cavalcade to enumerate the other places of the diocese.' Assert-
ing that the census touched upon 'the advantage and convenience of the General-
ity and the public weal of the principality of Catalonia.' the king advised local
officials that 'the undertaking demands careful attention' and full public co-oper-
ation with the commissioners. In 1365, if not in 1378, penalties were provided
for fraudulent or incomplete returns.5
In their published form the census returns for 1359 and 1378 are lists of the
fochs in each district, classified according to the estate of the overlord or individ-
ual householder and itemized by town, parish, manor, abbey, or castle. Most
entries state the locality, the name of the overlord, and the number of fochs.
The fochs de esgleya were principally the families living on lands owned or held
under feudal rights by prelates, monasteries, hospitals, and other religious
1 Cortesde Cataluna, II, 55-134. The lists are also reproduced in the Colecci6nde documentosineditos
del Archivo Generalde la Corona de Arag6n, xuI (Barcelona, 1856), 5-135.
2 Partial data on the
fochs in the city of Barcelona are found in the Archivo Municipal, Barcelona,
Diverses escrivanies, 1363, and Clavaria, 1365 and 1370.
3 Cortesde Cataluna, II, 148-150, 262, 287-290.
4 5 Ibid., III, 289, and Iv, 40-49,
Ibid,, III (1900), 362-368,
496 Fourteenth-Century Population Records of Catalonia
establishments. Most of these fochs were peasants or tenant farmers, but the
majority of the people in the city of Tarragona were fochs de esgleya because
their immediate overlord was the Archbishop of Tarragona. The fochs de cavaliers
were chiefly the families whose lord or seignior was a baron, count, knight, or
other member of the second estate, or brag de richs homens e cavaliers. The fochs
reyals, the basis for the third estate in the Corts,were householders in the numer-
ous hamlets, towns, and cities of Catalonia which owed allegiance solely and
directly to the crown, including members of the royal family. These were the
"free" citizens of mediaeval Catalonia.
TABLE I. ENUMERATIONOF CATALANHEARTHS, 1378a
Dioce Church Fochs of Crown Fochs ofb To

Fochs Nobility Fochs Ciutadans
Barcelona 3790 21991 9093 1289 16,371
Elne 2146 1883 6036 425 10,490
Urgel 19901 4446 2433 133 9,0021
Gerona 3781 1897 18324 680i 8,1901
Vich 2056 2673 2163 300 7,192
Tarragona 4593 1211 1281 97 7,182
L6rida 770 1230 1586 558 4,144
Tortosa 1308 37 1386 186 2,917
Not given 12,607 12,607
Total 20,4344 28,1831 25,810- 3,6681 78,0961
Compiled from data in Cortesde Catalufia, iv, 86-183, and from manuscripts in the Archivo de la
Bailia General de Catalufia, Barcelona, registro 2591.
b Includes 443 aloers and
franquers - apparently a special class of freeholders - in Barcelona,
Gerona, and Vich.
The tenants or villeins of non-noble, non-clerical landholders were known as

fochs de ciutadans. In one instance (in 1378) they numbered more than ten per cent
of the fochs in a diocese. Although the prerogatives of titles in land remained
largely in the hands of the clergy and the nobility, burgers who became wealthy
in trade and finance were not debarred from purchasing the 'honors' of property
in land.
Thefogatge of 1378 was levied at the rate of six shillings per hearth for fochs de
esgleya and fochs de cavaliers, and these two groups were to raise one-half of the
£30,000 grant. The rate for the fochs reyals was nine shillings. Apparently,
then, a population of over 83,000 fochs was expected to contribute. Actually, the
returns show a total of 78,096½hearths, distributed by class and diocese as shown
in Table i.
The 12,607 hearths whose location is not given represent 'assessed baronial
dwellings inhabited within Catalonia' (cases dels barons tatxades poblats dins
Cathalunya). Each of six counts and viscounts accounted for 1400 or more fochs
in this classification, the Count of Empurias having reported 4600. All except one
of the entries are given in round hundreds, and in four cases the figures are the
Fourteenth-CenturyPopulation Records of Catalonia 497
same as in the enumeration of 1359. Presumably, the privileges of certain

nobles prevented an actual count and required only the lord's affidavit of the
number of fochs under his authority.
Judging by the 1378 records, the Counts of Prades, Empurias, and Pallars,
and the Viscounts of Rocaberti, Cabrera, and Castellb6 possessed the largest
demesnes of the Catalan nobility. The Count of Cardona listed 1036 fochs, but
no other noble returned as many as 1000fochs. While a few viscounts enumerated
less than 100 fochs and several seigniors had as many as 300 fochs, in general the
majority of the knights, squires, and cavaliers of lesser rank were relatively poor
in 'honors' or titles to revenue-producing real property. Not all the holdings of
the nobility are ascertainable from this census, since the name of the overlord is
often omitted; but the data adequately establish the fact of wide disparity of
wealth within this class and suggest an economic basis for the unfruitful struggles
in the fourteenth century to split the second estate into an upper and lower
nobility, with separate representation in the Corts.l In temporal powers, these
records show, great differences also existed between the 'upper' and the 'lower'
ecclesiastical lords.
The probable failure of the privileged barons to have their fochs enumerated
in the regular way raises the question of other possible omissions from the
hearth-tax rolls. The discovery of several identical returns (e.g., 991 fochs for the
city of Tortosa) in the censuses of 1359 and 1378 suggests that the census of the
latter year was not a wholly new count, in spite of the specific instructions of the
Corts. There was an official ruling that Jews, who enjoyed a system of tribute
sui generis, and mendicants should not be listed; but it is certain that the poor
were counted in Barcelona. Moors were excluded from the 1378 enumeration in
Tortosa, although in the instructions for the census of 1365 it is stated that
Moors 'pay and contribute by hearths just as Christians.'2 A few slaves were
listed in Barcelona, apparently not elsewhere; and the slave population of Cata-
lonia was relatively large.
Considering these and other possible lacunae, it seems certain that the extant
figures understate the number of Catalan hearths, perhaps to the extent of
several thousand fochs. The 1359 records yield a total of 80,833k fochs as com-
pared with the 1378 total of 78,096½fochs.3 If this relatively small difference is
not the result of a decline in population,4 it may reasonably be attributed to
better enumeration in one census or to slight variations in the geographical
limits. The returns for 1378 include 10,490 fochs in the diocese of Elne, which
comprised the town of Perpignan and a considerable area in Roussillon and Cer-
dagne later to become a part of France. The four provinces of modern Catalonia
1 Coroleu and Pella, op. cit., pp. 58-59; R. B. Merriman, The Rise of the Spanish Empire, I (New
York, 1918), 481-482. 2 Cortes de Cataluila, II, 160.
3 There are numerous errors of addition or of transcription in the published documents. My total
for 1378, representing a summation of every individual entry, is 751 fochs less than the total given
at the end of the lists.
The latter is suggested, but not proved, by the decline of Barcelona's population from 7651 to
7295fochs. The census for this compact city is probably more accurate than the general enumeration.
498 Fourteenth-Century Population Records of Catalonia
are mostly within the borders of the other seven dioceses covered by the census
of 1378. This area had as a minimum a population of 67,606½fochs, or 67,606½
multiplied by whatever figure is accepted as the average number of persons per
foch.
II
In Barcelona the enumerators listed the householder by name and in the
majority of cases stated his occupation. The extant records are incomplete,
furnishing data for only two of the four quarters of the city: for the 100 blocks of
the Quarter de la Mar 2165 names are recorded, and for 34 blocks in the Quarter
del Pi, 1124 names.1 The distribution by district and status is shown in Table in.
TABLE II. HOUSEHOLDERS IN Two QUARTERS OF BARCELONA, 1378a
Status Quarter Total

Mar Pi
Male 1755 850 9605
Female
Widows 293 122 415
Others 117 152 269
Total 2165 1124 3289

a
Compiled from lists of fochs in Cortes de Cataluna, iv, 415-510, and checked with manuscripts in
the ArchivoHist6ricoMunicipal,Barcelona,Diversesescrivanies,nos. 7-8 (1378).
Since poverty was a basis for exemption from the hearth tax, the Barcelona
enumerators inquired into and reported on cases of indigence. The returns
classify 418 persons as poor, mendicant, or vagrant. Some were labelled poor,
sick, and old; others, poor and crippled, poor and demented, 'poor with children,'
or simply 'very poor.' One individual earned the comment, 'a public mendicant,
though it is said he receives his keep from the Cathedral.' The indigent were
scattered throughout the ranks of those credited with occupations or skills,
some of whom, of course, may have been unemployed at the time. Among the
males was one needy parliamentary deputy (procurador de Cort) and a poor
merchant who 'possesses nothing, except that friends give him assistance.' But
the great majority of the enumerated poor were females, and of this group the
widowed poor account for over 100 persons.
The occupational census, which was also one of the requirements for the
enumeration of 1365, shows over 2000 men and women employed in more than
100 crafts, trades, and professions. Twenty-five or more workers were engaged in
each of twenty-six occupations (Table III). The maritime employments account
for a relatively large number: in all, 478 sailors and seamen (the difference be-
tween the mariner and the hor de mar is not clear), fishermen, longshoremen, and
bargemen. There were also twenty or more leather winebottle makers (boter),
1 According to a survey made in 1464, the four quarters of the city comprised 337 blocks (J.
Coroleu, Los Dietarios de la Generalidad de Cataluna [Barcelona, 1889], p. 108).
cuirass-makers, kneaders, stone-cutters, shipwrights, draymen, furriers, blade-

smiths, and eighteen masters or skippers (patro de nau).
III
Any estimate of Catalan population based upon the hearth rolls presupposes a
knowledge of the meaning of foch as employed in the enumerations. Generally
speaking, a normal family group presided over by a husband or father constituted
one foch. Judging by the Barcelona returns, in which the repetition of surnames
TABLE III. DISTRIBUTION OF BARCELONA HOUSEHOLDERS IN EMPLOYMENTS WITH 25 OR

MORE WORKERS: 1378
Quarter
arr
Occupation Total
Sailor (mariner) 221 6 227

Merchant (mercader)- 123 28 151
Shoemaker (sabater) 63 45 108
Digger (cauador) 39 61 100
Tailor (sartre) 59 37 96
Fisherman (pescador)b 92 2 94
Seaman (hom de mar) 71 2 73
Wool dresser (parayre) 70 0 70
Weaver (texidor)b 52 11 63
Tanner (blanquer) 61 0 61
Longshoreman (masip de ribera) 54 5 59
Farm hand (laurador) 12 43 55
Inn-keeper (hostaler)b 20 29 49
Broker (corredordoreya) 36 9 45
Carpenter (fuster) 40 3 43
Baker (flequer)b 20 20 40
Janitor (porter) 9 30 39
Huckster (revenedor)b 15 21 36
Butcher (carnicer) 14 20 34
Scrivener (scriva) 8 24 32
Silversmith (argenter) 27 2 29
Currier (asaunador) 28 1 29
Notary (notari) 10 18 28
Tavern-keeper (taverner) 22 5 27
Spicer (specier) 11 15 26
Bargeman (barquer) 25 0 25
a Includesone Venetian,one Florentine,and two Genoese.

b Includesone or more females.
within a given block is infrequent, adult sons living at home were not enumer-
ated. A ward, according to instructions issued in 1365, counted as one foch if he
lived on an inheritance; but the ward was not counted if a guardian furnished his
living.
The large number of widows in Barcelona implies the listing of every widowed
homemaker in lieu of a pater familias. The regulations for the census of 1365
500 Fourteenth-CenturyPopulation Records of Catalonia
state that a widow living with children who have no means of their own should be
counted as one foch while a household consisting of a widow with independent
means and a married son or daughter should be rated as two fochs.1 No explana-
tion is offered for the listing of over 200 females not classified as widows; they
were, perhaps, spinsters making their own homes instead of living with relatives
or in institutions. The occupation data disclose that some were peddlers - prob-
ably hawking candles in front of the Cathedral; a few were captives or slaves.
Fractional fochs occur in a small percentage of entries in both 1359 and 1378.
In San Feliu de Llobregat 33 fochs de esgleya were entered as 16½fochs 'because
they belong to the charity':2 but the basis and extent of this form of tax con-
cession are not defined. Another reason for dividing the foch was the mixed
status of the overlordship. Thus, P. Vedaguer, 'who is two thirds allodial and one
third clerical,' accounted for two thirds of a foch in one list and one third in
another.
Obviously, the concept of the foch was somewhat broader and more inclusive
than the modern notion of a household unit; but this merely confirms an a priori
expectation, in view of the fiscal objective of securing as wide a tax base as pos-
sible. Broadening the tax base, however, is equivalent to contracting the average
size of the foch considered as a unit for measuring total population. Various
estimates place the representative Spanish hearth at four to five persons.3 No
figure is subject to conclusive proof; and, in view of changes in time and place,
the average hearth can hardly be a statistical constant. In another place I have
used mortality statistics for scattered years of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
for estimating Barcelona's population.4 The results are far from satisfactory;
but the calculations tend to show that a population equivalent to five times the
number of reported fochs yields a death rate which is remarkably low. Possibly a
compromise at four and one half persons perfoch is not unreasonable.
A further check is suggested by the Barcelona returns. Suppose the average
hearth were five persons: this would mean that the 3289fochs in the two quarters
of Barcelona represented 16,445 men, women, and children. Of this hypothetical
population 415, or 2.5 per cent, were widows. In modern times the 'widowhood
rates' in Catalonia have ranged from 3.5 to 5.4 per cent of the total population;5
and the fact that Barcelona was a city of seafaring men makes it unlikely that
the rate was as low as 2.5 per cent in 1378. Mathematically, a higher rate would
result from adjusting the data for either of the following assumptions: (1) that
Cortesde Cataluna, ii, 287-288.
2
Ibid., iv, 157-158.
3 Although Edge (Metron, p. 234) reports five persons as the
figure employed in 'the majority of
early population estimates,' R. B. Merriman (op. cit., IJ, 93) and A. Girard ('Le chiffre de la population
de l'Espagne,' Revue d'histoire moderne, In [Paris, 1928], 435-436) have insisted that four persons
is not too low.
4'Barcelona Bills of Mortality and Population, 1457-1590,' The Journal of Political Economy,
XLIV(1936), 88-90.
6 The rate was 3.7 in Barcelona in 1787, 3.5 in Catalonia in 1797, and 5.4 per cent in Barcelona in
1900 (Archivo Municipal, Barcelona, Diverses escrivanies, 1787;Anuario estadistico de Espana [Madrid,
1859], pp. 237, 240, 250; Anuario estadistico de la ciudad de Barcelona, Afio I [Barcelona, 1903], 112).
not all widows are accounted for in the 1378 enumeration, (2) that the 3289
fochs represented less than 16,445 individuals. A strong predilection for the sec-
ond hypothesis leads me to accept 4.5 as the average size of the Catalan hearth
and to conclude that the population of Catalonia in 1378 was slightly over
300,000 souls.'
It may be objected that this represents a density of less than ten persons
per square kilometer, which is unusually low in comparison with the reputed
density of 38-41 persons in fourteenth-century France.2 But one of the highest
(and most improbable) estimates of Spanish population at the end of the fif-
teenth century indicates a density of less than twenty persons per square kilo-
meter. Much of Spain, including Catalonia, is arid or mountainous; and any
significant increase in average density necessarily depended upon industrializa-
tion and the concentration of population in urban areas. Catalonia witnessed
just such a development during a large part of the eighteenth century, and the
reliable census of 1797 gave the four provinces of modern Catalonia a population
density of twenty six persons per square kilometer.
DUKE UNIVERSITY
1 The distinguished historian, Antonio de Capmany, maintained that 'in the year 1368 Catalonia,
including Roussillon and Cerdagne, contained only 365,000 inhabitants.' The unidentified 'old, orig-
inal tax lists' from which he derived his estimate are probably the hearth-tax rolls of 1378. See,
Qiiestiones criticas sobrevarios puntos de historia ec6nomica, politica y militar (Madrid, 1807), p. 64.
2 J. J.
Spengler, France Faces Depopulation (Durham, N.C., 1938), p. 15.
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Margaret Schlaugh
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:08
Speculum.
REVIEWS
ARTHUR C. L. BROWN, The Origin of the Grail Legend. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1943. Cloth. Pp. viii, 476. $5.00.
DRAWING upon an impressive knowledge of mediaeval Irish, Welsh and neighbor-
ing fictional lore, Professor Brown has undertaken to construct a fundamental
Celtic 'scenario' of adventures underlying the Grail legend and its closest
analogues. His point of departure is the Serglige Conculainn, which he breaks
down into twenty motifs lettered for reference from a through t. Twenty addi-
tional stories in Irish and Welsh are then examined and found to be made up of
groups containing from three to twelve of these lettered motifs. Similarly,
plots and subplots in Chretien's early romances and in his Perceval are found to
contain elements of the basic scenario in sequences of from seven to fifteen items.
Characters and motifs are then subjected to individual analysis in order to as-
semble parallels between Celtic stories and extant Grail romances in various
languages.
The basic scenario, as constructed by Brown, concerns a hero summoned into
fairyland who visits a Dolorous Tower, is feasted by a Hospitable Host in a Castle
of Maidens, rescues his host and a lady from a dread tyrant, restores the former to
health by his victory, and marries the heroine, thus obtaining sovereignty over
the land. Clearly, patterns of adventure such as this are to be encountered, not
only in Perceval's story, but in Gawain's and in many others as well, both within
the Arthurian cycle and outside it. But to many readers, Professor Brown's
numerous claims of closely similar structures will appear unconvincing. Too many
of the motifs in his formulas represent commonplaces of mediaeval and general
folkloristic narrative. If a hero 'meets a serpent or other beast' (motif c), 'is pro-
tected by a woman' (d), 'comes to a great plain' (e), 'is feasted by a Hospitable
Host' (g), meets a lady of whom it may be said that her 'beauty ... is astonish-
ing' (j), engages in battle against a tyrant (o), and 'conquers and slays the ty-
rant' (p), after which he 'marries the heroine' (r), these ubiquitous incidents offer
but little aid in determining genetic relations, even when they occur in the order
required by Brown's scenario. Still other motifs, though less commonplace, are
of very doubtful value. Sound methodology would require, it seems to me, that
attention should be concentrated on essentially characteristic elements of a story,
which mark it off from all others in a vaguely generic type such as the Dangerous
Quest or Rescue by Unspelling. Of these unmistakable motifs there are com-
paratively few in Brown's list: those giving certain specific details of the feast
in the Castle of Maidens, with attendant talismans (h and i - but not common-
place details, such as pillars and illumination by precious stones), and particu-
larly motif q: 'the Hospitable Host, after the tyrant's death, becomes vigorous.
The tyrant's blood heals him of a wound.' But h is included in only eight of the
Celtic plots, although it is an essential of all the seven French ones analyzed. More
strangely still, q, which one would expect to see treated as the very heart of the
situation, occurs in only one Irish tale, and not even in one of the French ones.
Thus the very incidents which should offer the most persuasive evidence are most
502
Reviews 503
poorly represented. As for i, the cogency of the parallels will depend on the
reader's willingness to equate various types of talisman - swords, cups, caul-
drons, baskets and so on - regardless of their function.
The whole matter of equations and parallels as evidence calls for very dis-
criminating treatment, it seems to me. Investigators are apt to go awry if they
attribute decisive importance to similarities which are generic, arising from a
matrix of like social customs. For instance, the existence of a hospitable host in a
story of feudal or pre-feudal times means little. Etiquette seems to have required
that all hosts be hospitable unless clan feuds intervened or the host himself were
a monstrous character such as a fairy-tale giant, upon whom social rules were not
binding. Thus a non-hospitable host would be a safer guide to the establishment
of genetic relations, because he would stand out as an uncommon character.
Again, Professor Brown tends to explain episodes of amorous dalliance in the
romances by the example of Mag Mell, an Irish love paradise (cf. p. 195, item
4: 'Parzival's love affair with Liaze, the daughter of his host, Gurnemanz, is part
of the love-making of Mag Mell ... '), without reference to the mores of chivalry;
and to see a supernatural fairy kingdom in any group where women dominate,
without thought of Irish and pre-Irish family relationships among ordinary folk.
When he says of the heroine in his scenario that 'she brings him [the hero] the
sovereignty of the land,' he implies by the use of 'sovereignty' a specific relation-
ship with a limited group of Irish stories where a loathly hag, unspelled, an-
nounces that she is the Sovereignty of Erin. But a hero's accession to an alien
throne by marriage to the heroine is a commonplace of miirchen and romance.
The Irish stories referred to are a very special group in which sophisticated, alle-
gorical use is made of the act of unspelling, as nowhere else: 'Blancheflor [Perce-
val's lady], who must in origin have been the same as the Grail damsel [?],
brought Perceval the sovereignty of her land somewhat as the hag did Lughaid
Laighe' (p. 213). But there is no trace of the self-conscious allegory of the Irish
Loathly Hag stories in the ones which Brown assembles in order to lead up to the
conclusion that 'Arthur's queen brought him the Round Table and was probably
originally the sovereignty' (p. 325). Instead he has gathered together examples in-
dicative, once more, of like customs only.
There are many instances of unconvincing identifications and- at least to
me - false or doubtful parallels and deductions. The following propositions,
though not without some meaning, seem to be carelessly formulated, at the least:
'This glen of the giant corresponds to a Dolorous Tower' (p. 58 n.); 'In the first
part of Perceval, Y, a Dolorous Tower has become a red and green tent' (p. 98);
'Chretien has no notion that King Arthur's castle ... is in fairyland' (p. 118);
'Perceval journeys on horseback and the islands have become castles' (p. 117);
'The eating of fish [in a quite unrelated anecdote of Cormac's Glossary] may re-
mind us of the Fisher King, Bron' (p. 295); 'The palace with the three doors may
hint that Bran was a three-faced god like the Gaulish Cernunnos; and the three
fairy birds may be one of his manifestations' (p. 303): 'Arthur's rectangular
palace corresponds to a Castle of Maidens. With its many rooms, its precious
jewels, and its countless ladies, it is doubtless the cosmic palace of the dead'
504 Reviews
(p. 348). In attempting to prove a connection between the story of Lug in Cath
Maige Tured and Chretien's Perceval, the author places the following items side
by side as valid parallels: 'Lug took the place of the wounded Naudu for thirteen
days' and 'Perceval fought the Red Knight, thus in a sense taking Arthur's
place, while Arthur seems helpless' (p. 235). On the next page the following argu-
ment appears: All Fomorians were red giants; Fomorian tax-collectors would
therefore likewise be red giants, thought not specifically so described; 'if Lug
killed a red giant (the Ith of LG) upon arriving at Naudu's fort, this would be an
exact parallel to Perceval's slaying of the Red Knight (Ither in Parzival) upon
arriving at Arthur's court.' Further: 'In Perceval the Red Knight demands that
Arthur hold his lands in fief, which is nearly the same thing as asking tribute'
(p. 237) by a Fomorian giant tax-collector. But identifications such as these can
be employed to almost any end.
Not only are many identifications and parallels unconvincing, but also the
interpretations put upon them. An important example is the claim that the
color red, wherever used, points to a land of the dead. Red knights, red tents, red
armor, red towers, red-headed Fomorians all indicate an abode in the country
beyond the grave. But it is noteworthy that other scholars learned in this material
reach quite different conclusions about the same plots on the basis of the same
color (among other things). Ruddy and auburn coloring and red armor are, on
the other hand, signs of sun-gods' characteristics to R. S. Loomis when he treats
of some of the very same personages: the hospitable host of Owain-Yvain, Es-
clados the Red (except that his black steed suggests a storm-god); the red-clad
adversary in Erec (Joie de la Cort episode) whose strength fails after noontide
(see Celtic Myth, p. 70 if.). Arthurian studies are indeed conspicuous for disagree-
ment among specialists in their treatment of precisely the same phenomena. The
greenness of the Green Knight in the English romance and in Fled Bricrenn had
suggested vegetation divinities and fertility cults to E. K. Chambers and Kitt-
redge long since, and more recently to W. A. Nitze as well (Modern Philology,
xxxIII [1936], 351 ff.); to A. H. Krappe (SPECULUMXIII [1938], 206 ff.) it con-
notes a god of the dead, and now to Brown likewise - but for such different reasons
that his argument and Krappe's can not both be valid, if indeed either of them
is.
In the end Brown emerges with the following series of identities: Arthur
= Nodons = Nuadu = Brion-Bran = Gornemant = Cernunnos = the Fisher King
= the King of the Dead. On the last pair Krappe is also agreed, as appears from
his recent study (Modern Philology, xxxix [1944], 10 ff.), but again for quite dif-
ferent reasons. For the Grail itself a new origin is proposed by Brown: it is the
criol, the basket or trinket-box of Queen Maeve in an obscure and unrevealing
dinnsenchas about Loch Erne. The maiden Erne is the keeper of this criol; once
when a certain Olc Ai shook his beard and gnashed his teeth, Erne became
frightened, ran away to a lake and was drowned. Hence the name Loch Erne.
And that is all, really all, that we learn about the criol and its keeper. Recalling
other objects of Celtic story with which the Grail has been compared or identi-
fied-van Hamel's proposal (to me quite unconvincing; see Revue Celtique,
Reviews 505
XLVII [1930], 340 ff.) that it is to be found in older lost analogues of the modern
Altrom Tighi dd Medar, where a girl fostered by Aengus Og will drink milk only
out of a special goblet; Loomis's that it is to be compared with the vessel in
which a fiery spear stands immersed, in the modern Irish Fate of the Children of
Turenn (SPECULUM, VIII[1933], 415 ff.); Nutt's, Loomis's and also Brown's that
it is likewise the cauldron of the Dagda, one of the four treasures of the Tautha
De Danann - one is left confused by an embarrassment of explanations. Pro-
liferating theories tend to neutralize one another.
Professor Brown has covered a vast amount of material in the way of texts
and scholarly discussion. His underlying assumption, namely that Irish material
reached western Europe and England and was incorporated into Arthurian ro-
mances, had already been made increasingly plausible by the special studies
(not all equally convincing to me, I must confess) of Schoepperle, Kittredge,
Nitze, Cross, Loomis and Newstead. But the applications of the general thesis
in Brown's book appear to me to multiply confusions in a field admittedly con-
fused to begin with, because of the very elements of Old Irish narrative and its
style. Perhaps we shall never have a solution of the Grail mystery which will
satisfy the logical requirements of all students. In any event, Brown's con-
catenated equations give little help, as I see it, towards such a solution.
MARGARET SCHLAUCH,
New York University.
Sulla LiricaRomanzadelleOrigine.New York:S. F. Vanni, 1943. Paper.Pp. 440.

GUIDOERRANTE.
A considerable portion of the book is devoted to a detailed examination of all the
important theories advanced regarding the sources of the Medieval Romance
lyric beginning with the impetus given modern criticism by Wolf's famous work
on the Homeric poems. The result is a critical summary of the entire history of
modern criticism and method in the attempt to solve the problem of the char-
acter, development and sources of medieval poetry. An analysis of the romantic
theories of the nineteenth century German philosophers regarding a spontaneous,
collective and anonymous 'Volkspoesie' whence developed a 'Kunstpoesie' al-
ready decadent, artificial and 'insincere' in the productions of the Troubadour
School is followed by a critique of the theories developed primarily by French
scholars as a reaction against the exclusively Teutonic character of this 'Volks-
poesie' adduced by the brothers Grimm. A detailed study of the theories ad-
vanced by Paris, Nigra, d'Ancona, above all, Jeanroy, confronted by an analysis
of texts, leads the author to the conclusion that these critics, despite their care-
ful scholarship and their reserve in the presentation of theories were nevertheless
led astray by their fundamental error in regard to 'popular' sources. Dr Errante
makes a detailed study of the theory developed by Jeanroy regarding a 'lost'
popular French lyric, fragments of which he believed are preserved in the 're-
frains' of later poems and in the more primitive lyric productions in Galician,
Italian and German which were essentially imitations of French popular poetry
at the period when it had already been supplanted by the art poetry of the
Northern French and Provencal Schools. Yet Dr Errante believes an analysis of
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Isabel Pope
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:09
Speculum.
Reviews 505
XLVII [1930], 340 ff.) that it is to be found in older lost analogues of the modern
Altrom Tighi dd Medar, where a girl fostered by Aengus Og will drink milk only
out of a special goblet; Loomis's that it is to be compared with the vessel in
which a fiery spear stands immersed, in the modern Irish Fate of the Children of
Turenn (SPECULUM, VIII[1933], 415 ff.); Nutt's, Loomis's and also Brown's that
it is likewise the cauldron of the Dagda, one of the four treasures of the Tautha
De Danann - one is left confused by an embarrassment of explanations. Pro-
liferating theories tend to neutralize one another.
Professor Brown has covered a vast amount of material in the way of texts
and scholarly discussion. His underlying assumption, namely that Irish material
reached western Europe and England and was incorporated into Arthurian ro-
mances, had already been made increasingly plausible by the special studies
(not all equally convincing to me, I must confess) of Schoepperle, Kittredge,
Nitze, Cross, Loomis and Newstead. But the applications of the general thesis
in Brown's book appear to me to multiply confusions in a field admittedly con-
fused to begin with, because of the very elements of Old Irish narrative and its
style. Perhaps we shall never have a solution of the Grail mystery which will
satisfy the logical requirements of all students. In any event, Brown's con-
catenated equations give little help, as I see it, towards such a solution.
MARGARET SCHLAUCH,
New York University.
Sulla LiricaRomanzadelleOrigine.New York:S. F. Vanni, 1943. Paper.Pp. 440.

GUIDOERRANTE.
A considerable portion of the book is devoted to a detailed examination of all the
important theories advanced regarding the sources of the Medieval Romance
lyric beginning with the impetus given modern criticism by Wolf's famous work
on the Homeric poems. The result is a critical summary of the entire history of
modern criticism and method in the attempt to solve the problem of the char-
acter, development and sources of medieval poetry. An analysis of the romantic
theories of the nineteenth century German philosophers regarding a spontaneous,
collective and anonymous 'Volkspoesie' whence developed a 'Kunstpoesie' al-
ready decadent, artificial and 'insincere' in the productions of the Troubadour
School is followed by a critique of the theories developed primarily by French
scholars as a reaction against the exclusively Teutonic character of this 'Volks-
poesie' adduced by the brothers Grimm. A detailed study of the theories ad-
vanced by Paris, Nigra, d'Ancona, above all, Jeanroy, confronted by an analysis
of texts, leads the author to the conclusion that these critics, despite their care-
ful scholarship and their reserve in the presentation of theories were nevertheless
led astray by their fundamental error in regard to 'popular' sources. Dr Errante
makes a detailed study of the theory developed by Jeanroy regarding a 'lost'
popular French lyric, fragments of which he believed are preserved in the 're-
frains' of later poems and in the more primitive lyric productions in Galician,
Italian and German which were essentially imitations of French popular poetry
at the period when it had already been supplanted by the art poetry of the
Northern French and Provencal Schools. Yet Dr Errante believes an analysis of
506 Reviews
the texts makes this theory untenable. He likewise points out the futility of the
study and classification of thematic material as a means of establishing the popu-
lar provenance of Romance lyric production. Following his historical analysis of
modern criticism in its attempts to solve the enigma of the medieval lyric, Dr
Errante devotes considerable space to the studies made, particularly by Sche-
ludko, in an effort to trace the influence of classical Latin poets (above all, Ovid)
in the poetry of the Troubadours. A comparison of the two, in addition to his-
torical considerations, leads the author to discount the influence of Ovid while
he accepts the well-established theory of the influence of Virgil's pastoral poetry
on the pastourelle.
Finding it impossible, then, to accept the point of departure or the conclusions
reached by past criticism, Dr Errante reaches at last a consideration of the most
recent investigations of philologists in medieval Latin and Romance verse and of
musicologists in medieval music to find in their firmly documented evidence of an
unbroken relationship between the Medieval Latin and ecclesiastical poetic and
musical tradition and the earliest vernacular and secular poetic and musical
production a solid basis for the study of sources. He stresses the importance of
the method used by Bedier in his study of the French epic as illustrating a sound
approach to the problem. 'It is because Bedier has vindicated the essential im-
portance in art of the inner element and because he has centered his investiga-
tions and constructed his conclusions in this and not in external or accessory
characteristics that his Legendes Epiques is still today the greatest contribution
made by criticism to an understanding of the French epic and to the appreciation
of its extraordinary beauty.' He proceeds, then, to the conclusion: 'Only recently
has criticism been directed in the two useful channels, which are: those of the
"tonality" as the criterion of the whole, and of the poetic personality as the cri-
terion of the particular and the concrete.'
The sources of the Romance lyric in the Medieval Latin and ecclesiastical tra-
dition are traced in its two aspects: the problem of spiritual content and style of
expression, and the problem of form. From the point of view of the first problem,
the author makes a very interesting study of the continuity of thought of which
the first 'symptoms' are to be found in the poems of the Latin Anthology, not-
ably those attributed to Petronius. This stream becomes well defined in the work
of the first Troubadour poet, as Dr Errante calls him, Venantius Fortunatus,
whose prestige was great throughout the Middle Ages. In him appears for the
first time the idea of the distance - spiritual and physical - which separates
man from the object of his love, be it sacred or profane. This theme, the infinite
distance between merit and desire, as Bedier termed it, is fundamental in the
Troubadour concept of love. This concept can be followed in the writings of
churchmen of the so-called school of Angers, which, in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, formed a center of learning and culture with an influence which spread
throughout France and was felt in both ecclesiastical and courtly centres. Follow-
ing Brinkmann's study of Angers, Dr Errante emphasizes the importance of the
famous School of Chartres, particularly notable for its long continued relations
with the Court of the Dukes of Aquitaine and as one of the chief centers for the
cultural and spiritual education of the Troubadours. There, also, the cult of the
Reviews 507
Virgin developed. The 'magistri' of Chartres enthusiastically cultivated the art

of poetry, by preference in rhythmical Latin verse. The mystical character of
their philosophical and religious writing is reflected in the mystical attitude to-
ward love of the earliest Troubadours.
As regards verse structure and strophic forms which developed in Romance
poetry, Dr Errante follows the fundamental studies of Wilhelm Meyer, in tracing
the evolution of rhythmical Latin verse from metrical verse, and the recent stud-
ies of Hans Spanke which demonstrate the way in which vernacular verse was
patterned on the rhythmical Latin types. Meyer emphasized the influence of
rhyme and melody as of prime importance in the formation of new verse types
and strophic forms. Following the criteria established by these philologists, Dr
Errante proposes new and interesting relationships between certain liturgical
forms and certain characteristic formal and stylistic elements in Troubadour
verse. In an analysis of antiphons and responsorial chants he shows the impor-
tance of the use of repetition both for purposes of formal design and the creation
of emotional effect. Such repetition includes repetition of phrases or words sung
by the officient and repeated by the choir, responses by the choir which have the
effect of a refrain, repetitions in the alleluia of melodic phrases. The author then
shows by an analysis of texts and of the rules of the 'Leys d'Amors' that these
types of repetition are carried over into formal and stylistic devices in the poetry
of the Troubadours.
It may be added that this type of antiphonal and responsorial repetition finds
one of its most characteristic counterparts in Romance poetry in the primitive
Galician parallelistic song. Furthermore, a line of further investigation between
liturgical forms and vernacular verse has been opened in a recent article by Adolfo
Salazar ('Poesia y Musica en las primeras formas de versificaci6n rimada en
lenguaje vulgar y sus antecedentes en lenguaje latino en la Edad Media' Revista
de Filosofia y Letras, Mexico, no. 8, Diciembre, 1942), where it is suggested that
the repeated responsorial phrase or interjection by choir or congregation may
be the source of the 'verso de vuelta' in the Castillian 'villancico,' which is none
other than the 'rim estramp' which Dr Errante finds so important a rhythmical
feature in Provencal poetry. The relationship between ecclesiastical forms, both
musical and literary, and vernacular and secular forms still remains to be more
fully studied, yet the most recent investigations tend to emphasize this relation-
ship and enlarge its scope. They similarly tend to challenge still further the much
discussed problem of Arabic influence on Romance verse from the formal point
of view, just as Dr Errante challenges it from the point of view of the wide abyss
between the Arabic concept of love as well as poetic expression, as they have been
revealed in the important translations by Nykl of the Cancioneroof Aben Cuzman
and the 'Dove's Neck-Ring,' and that of the Troubadour School.
The final chapter of the book is devoted to a detailed analysis of Marcabru's
poems. This poetry, which is primarily moral and satiric, centers around a single
theme: the antithesis between Amor mundi and Amor Dei. Careful analysis of
the texts in the light of the close relationship between the religious and spiritual
concepts of the time as expressed in clerical writings provides the author with the
key to the many obscurities of thought and expression. He traces in Marcabru's
508 Reviews
thought and style the preeminent influence of the Bible and the 'Sermones in
Cantica' of St Bernard. In the reviewer's opinion this concrete application of the
writer's approach to the problem of sources results in the most satisfying inter-
pretation of the works of the poet that has appeared. There is no doubt but that
a close familiarity with the religious writings of the period and a detailed study of
liturgical forms provides an indispensable background for a comprehension of the
spiritual, emotional and intellectual environment in which this poetry was cre-
ated. The author insists, correctly, on the prejudicial results arising from a strong
tendency in modern criticism to judge the work of the Troubadour School en bloc,
forgetting that this production extended over two centuries and included artists
of many types. This analysis of the works of Marcabru suggests the method to be
pursued in similar studies of the works of this School.
The avowed purpose of the book is the refutation of the theory of the 'popular'
sources of the medieval Romance lyric. The method adopted is in large measure a
negative critique of past theories and a synthesis of the investigations which have
illuminated the true sources of the earliest lyric production in the Romance ver-
nacular. A specialist in the field may regret that so large a portion of the book is
devoted to a negative study and to a re-presentation of already well-known mat-
ter and opinion. The reader feels to some extent that he is made to travel the
entire road of the author's process of thought and study and thus feels deprived
of the possibility of benefitting to the fullest extent from the original and creative
results of this preliminary work. One wishes that the more constructive part of
the book could have been given even greater development.
ISABEL POPE,
Mexico City, Mexico.
C. W. KENNEDY, The Earliest English Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1943. Pp.viii,
375. $3.00.
WHILEgaining much of value from this survey, the general reader and his under-
graduate kinsman may come to share its author's winning devotion to Old English
letters. But the advanced student will be warned by many specialists that as a
tool of scholarship, though reliable in an ordinary way, it is inadequate and hard
to use.
Unsteadily observed are those tedious niceties which should make a learned
volume trim without destroying its liveliness. There is no index, the footnotes
obey no manual of style (e.g., Migne's Patrologia Latina is cited four different
ways), and certain little things go wrong in the bibliography,' which is marred in
a larger sense by outdated works like Thorpe's CodexEx oniensis and the omission
of important recent studies such as Sisam's lecture on Cynewulf and Philippson's
GermanischesHeidentum bei den Angelsachsen.
Throughout the book are points of an average magnitude on which the re-
viewer feels obliged to offer a dissenting opinion. P. 4: the 'hard' primitivism of
Old English life is played up too much, and Tacitus' Germania should be dis-
1 P. 369: read Orton, H.; Dobbie, E. V. K., and The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems. The 2nd edition
of Wyatt and Chambers, Beowulf, appeared in 1920 rather than 1986. P. 873, top line: consistency
calls for Rune Poem instead of Runic Poem. P. 875: read English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times.
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Howard Meroney
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:09
Speculum.
508 Reviews
thought and style the preeminent influence of the Bible and the 'Sermones in
Cantica' of St Bernard. In the reviewer's opinion this concrete application of the
writer's approach to the problem of sources results in the most satisfying inter-
pretation of the works of the poet that has appeared. There is no doubt but that
a close familiarity with the religious writings of the period and a detailed study of
liturgical forms provides an indispensable background for a comprehension of the
spiritual, emotional and intellectual environment in which this poetry was cre-
ated. The author insists, correctly, on the prejudicial results arising from a strong
tendency in modern criticism to judge the work of the Troubadour School en bloc,
forgetting that this production extended over two centuries and included artists
of many types. This analysis of the works of Marcabru suggests the method to be
pursued in similar studies of the works of this School.
The avowed purpose of the book is the refutation of the theory of the 'popular'
sources of the medieval Romance lyric. The method adopted is in large measure a
negative critique of past theories and a synthesis of the investigations which have
illuminated the true sources of the earliest lyric production in the Romance ver-
nacular. A specialist in the field may regret that so large a portion of the book is
devoted to a negative study and to a re-presentation of already well-known mat-
ter and opinion. The reader feels to some extent that he is made to travel the
entire road of the author's process of thought and study and thus feels deprived
of the possibility of benefitting to the fullest extent from the original and creative
results of this preliminary work. One wishes that the more constructive part of
the book could have been given even greater development.
ISABEL POPE,
Mexico City, Mexico.
C. W. KENNEDY, The Earliest English Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1943. Pp.viii,
375. $3.00.
WHILEgaining much of value from this survey, the general reader and his under-
graduate kinsman may come to share its author's winning devotion to Old English
letters. But the advanced student will be warned by many specialists that as a
tool of scholarship, though reliable in an ordinary way, it is inadequate and hard
to use.
Unsteadily observed are those tedious niceties which should make a learned
volume trim without destroying its liveliness. There is no index, the footnotes
obey no manual of style (e.g., Migne's Patrologia Latina is cited four different
ways), and certain little things go wrong in the bibliography,' which is marred in
a larger sense by outdated works like Thorpe's CodexEx oniensis and the omission
of important recent studies such as Sisam's lecture on Cynewulf and Philippson's
GermanischesHeidentum bei den Angelsachsen.
Throughout the book are points of an average magnitude on which the re-
viewer feels obliged to offer a dissenting opinion. P. 4: the 'hard' primitivism of
Old English life is played up too much, and Tacitus' Germania should be dis-
1 P. 369: read Orton, H.; Dobbie, E. V. K., and The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems. The 2nd edition
of Wyatt and Chambers, Beowulf, appeared in 1920 rather than 1986. P. 873, top line: consistency
calls for Rune Poem instead of Runic Poem. P. 875: read English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times.
Reviews 509
counted as a pep-talk for the Romans. P. 7: I doubt that 'The Settlement brought
to England an extensive corpus of leechdoms and charms'; at any rate, 'corpus'
is hardly the right term, and Cockayne's collection, though extensive, is late and
comes from international sources. P. 13: reshuffling the sections of the Rune
Poem suggests misleadingly that Cynewulf can be associated with it. P. 38: the
ordering of the Waldere-fragments, and the assignment of speakers, are problems
too lightly passed over. P. 115: the identification of The Ruin with Bath ought not
to be accepted so readily, cf. MLN, LXIX (1944), 72-74. P. 136: to blame the
'indecent double entente'of the Riddles upon the 'crude rusticity' of the folk does
injustice to their urbanity; at the bottom of the page the 'Fifteenth' Riddle is
wrongly numbered. P. 191: my article in JEGP, XLI (1942), 201 ff., showed that
the threats in Genesis 368-371 and Christ and Satan 107-110 are closely akin.
P. 204: it is annoying to find Priscian's Institutiones Grammaticaecited as a trea-
tise on rhetoric; moreover, Bede's metrical studies are 'grammar' in the mediaeval
sense. Elsewhere (pp. 202, 227, 332) Kennedy is insecure in comments on the
seven arts; poetic, for instance, would not be a special subject in Cynewulf's
time. P. 236: as 'germinal phrasings' for Christ the Advent antiphons are better
characterized than as 'source material' (p. 237), and one should dismiss more
emphatically the notion that the poem was a dramatic representation. P. 268: on
the Latin source of Andreas, see Holthausen, Anglia, LXII (1938), 190-192. P.
300: footnote 18 is most antiquated; the MS number is 326, and the poem had
been printed three times before Dobbie included it as Aldhelm in the Anglo-
Saxon Minor Poems, pp. 97-98. P. 330: though dull hackwork, The Graveis surely
a Christian poem in the Soul and Body genre. P. 353 ff.: The four chief poetic MSS
are treated with enough fulness, save that Forster's facsimile of Vercelli is over-
looked; but the section on the 'Other Manscripts' is sketchy: Where are the
Charms?And why not mention here, at least, the Paris Psalter and Cotton Otho
A vi? P. 362: to say that the Rune Poem is 'based on Old Norse' seems to me
over-confident.
These objections do not keep us from commending several points of excellence.
The author has found, and on pages 93-95 discusses ably, a new Virgilian parallel
for Beowulf 1357-1376; his interpretation of The Fates of the Apostles (pp. 231-
233) should remove all doubt that the 122 lines are a unified whole; and Appendix
C does well in two respects, showing why the 'Storm' Riddles 2 and 3 belong to-
gether as a single composition, and bringing to bear the 'classical tradition of
meteorology' which the poet might have known from Bede, Isidore of Seville,
Pliny, and Lucretius. Everything considered, however, the best part of the book,
as should be, deals with Beowulf, a chapter of clarity and good teaching. And all
the spirited translations deserve praise;1 one hopes that from them the newcomer
will be guided to Professor Kennedy's full-scale renderings of Old English verse.
HOWARD MERONEY,
State Teachers College,
Fredonia, N. Y.
1 Two
readings seem doubtful: waepenwiga,Rid. 14.1 (see p. 137), is hardly a dvanda-compound;
and hate on re3re, Sat. 97 (see p. 193), need not be emended - re're is for hreSre.
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Kenneth Jackson
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510 Reviews
IHENRY LEWIS, Brut Dingestow. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Pp. lvii, 327. 21 shillings.
BRUT Y BRENHINEDDis the name given in Welsh to the various translations of the
Historia Regum Brittaniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth. One of the most important
of these is that contained in the Dingestow Court MS., which the present editor,
following the opinions of Idris Bell and Robin Flower, dates as written about
1300. This version is here edited for the first time, with notes, a short glossary, a
general introduction on the text, and some valuable grammatical notes on the
language, by Professor Henry Lewis, whose profound Welsh scholarship and long
study of the Bruts are combined to produce the most authoritative edition of one
which has yet appeared.
The book begins with the necessary introductory notes on the life and work of
Geoffrey and the sources and purpose of the Historia; Lewis treats these briefly
and conservatively, as the nature of his task requires. He then describes the
various Welsh texts, the Dingestow MS., the text which it offers, the evidence
that it is a copy, and the orthography used; and in these sections he makes
some significant new contributions to the study of the subject. He differs
several times from the conclusions of Acton Griscom, usually over matters
which involve ultimately a knowledge of the Welsh language, where naturally
Lewis has the advantage. Thus he shows, in disagreement with Griscom,
that the Dingestow version can and does derive directly as a translation
(though a free one) from Geoffrey of Monmouth; and holds that this is true like-
wise of the Havod 2 and Peniarth 44 - Llanstephan 1 groups. He refutes Gris-
com's belief that Geoffrey 'retranslated his own elaborated and popular Latin
text back into Welsh.' He argues that Griscom is wrong to separate the Dingestow
and Havod 1 texts; Lewis is so sure that both belong to the same group that he
uses Havod 1 for filling lacunae in Dingestow.
In the sections on traces of copying and on the orthography, he makes it clear
that while the Dingestow version derives directly from Geoffrey, the actual text
is not the original translation but is a copy of an older manuscript (here agreeing
with Griscom against J. J. Parry), which was evidently written in the early
thirteenth century and was itself the original translation from the Latin of Geof-
frey, apparently from the 'edition' dedicated to Robert of Gloucester alone and
in a text older than 1170 (p. xxviii).
To the Celticist one of the most valuable parts of this book is the section on the
language. Among other points, Lewis describes some unusual usages of preposi-
tions; notes the curious form ac for the relative a 'who'; and analyses the endings
of the verbs which are found. It is interesting to observe one occurrence of the
old present-future ending -hawd and one of the old subjunctive ending -hoent;
these are generally regarded as archaic and poetical even in ate twelfth century
poetry, and yet appear here in ordinary thirteenth century translation prose. All
this section is of especial importance in view of the great need for minute lan-
guage studies of mediaeval Welsh texts to determine some reliable dating criteria;
Welsh scholarship lags far behind Irish in this respect.
Likewise to the Celticist the Notes on the text are particularly interesting, and
Reviews 511
are (for Professor Lewis) unusually full; the value of such complete annotation
of Welsh texts cannot be overemphasized, and one is grateful to the editor for
giving so generously of his store of Welsh learning.
It is to be hoped that non-Welsh speaking students of Geoffrey can somehow
circumvent the difficulty gratuitously put in their way by the fact that the whole
book is in Welsh. KENNETHJACKSON,
Harvard University.
RONALD N. WALPOLE, Charlemagneand Roland. Berkeley: University of California Publications in

Modern Philology, xxI, 385-402 (1944). Issued separately.
IN discussing the sources of the Middle English Roland and Vernagu and Otuel
and Roland (both dating from the first half of the fourteenth century) Gaston
Paris assumed the existence of a cyclic 'Charlemagne and Roland' metrical ro-
mance in English, which has disappeared.' Mr Walpole, who has been working for
years on the French translation of the Pseudo-Turpin made by Maistre Jehans
(ca 1200), is now in a position to confirm the assumption made by Gaston Paris,
and in the present monograph he has given a very able account of the circum-
stances surrounding the metrical 'Charlemagne and Roland.'2
He reminds his readers that the Johannis adaptation into French of the Pseudo-
Turpin, and the French version of the Descriptio (Charlemagne's voyage to the
East) made by Pierre de Beauvais were in existence by the very beginning of the
thirteenth century (p. 399). Some man of letters, perhaps Pierre himself, saw the
appropriateness of placing these two French prose translations together, thus
forming a history of Charlemagne. In 1206 Count Renaud de Boulogne went fur-
ther and had the two narratives more closely attached while reducing the size
and independence of the Descriptio, making it a mere interpolation. In 1207
Michel de Ilarnes, perhaps for the use of Philip Augustus, had this Renaud
Estoire de Charlemagnecopied; this copy then passed about with an ascription to
Michel and not to Renaud. During the course of the thirteenth century the
Renaud Estoire was adapted into Middle English and the result is the cycle
which Gaston Paris called the 'Charlemagne and Roland' (p. 395). One of the
principal contributions of Mr Walpole is his insistence that the English compila-
tion had no important source other than the version produced for Renaud, per-
haps the extant MS known as Br. Mus. Add. 40142 (p. 409). A hundred years
later (1330-1340) in a professional scribe's shop in London (and here Mr Walpole
accepts a suggestion proposed by Mrs Laura Hibbard Loomis)3 the proprietor
laid out the plans for a long composite MS (now known as the Auchinleck MS).
Here a part of the 'Charlemagne and Roland' was detached from the rest and the
episodes of Otuel were inserted before the second part. These two sections found
1 Histoire poetique de Charlemagne (Paris, 1865) and 'The English
Charlemagne Romances,'
Romania, xi (1882).
2 On page 421 Mr Walpole gives the sequence of what he considers to have been the episodes in this
'Charlemagne and Roland.'
3 PMLA, LVII(1942), 595-627.
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): A. H. Schutz
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512 Reviews
in the Auchinleck MS (and for the OR also in the Fillingham MS) are the Roland
and Vernagu (RV) and Otuel and Roland (OR) as we have them today.
This problem is not a complicated one, but Mr Walpole has executed it with
skill and brilliance. His material is thoroughly mastered, and at times his presen-
tation achieves literary excellence, as on pp. 430-431 and elsewhere. There are,
of course, a few minor matters with which a reader might quarrel. There are oc-
casional repetitions; the presentation could have been reduced somewhat in its
length. The author says of the Latin Pseudo-Turpin (ca 1135) that it was 'com-
posed at a time when the chansons de geste were approaching the decadence that
brought them into disrepute and engendered parody.' To this I feel like rising
up in dismay and crying 'Nego.' We can not compare the value of lost eleventh-
century Old French epics with those of the middle of the twelfth century that are
extant (the Roland, after all, is hardly typical), but there is no reason for calling
the epic decadent in 1130-1140. Because of humor and parody in the Pelerinage de
Charlemagne,Fierabras, Otinel and Huon de Bordeaux (seventy-five years later
than the Pelerinage?) we need not talk of decadence. Popular singers make fun
of themes when they are most popular, not when they are on the way out. Aris-
tophanes wrote his Clouds when Socrates was at his height, not after his death.
On this very same page (p. 396), Mr Walpole says that 'The legend of Charle-
magne's journey to the East may just possibly' have been a popular legend cre-
ated on the slightly historical story of Charlemagne's friendship with Harun-ar-
Rashid. This is an interesting but hazardous assumption. Further criticisms that
I may have are very minor indeed.1
Mr Walpole began his advanced studies with the late Louis Brandin at the Uni-
versity of London and doubtless he was guided by him toward his interest in the
Turpin material. We shall look forward with pleasure to the appearance of the
prose adaptation of Maistre Jehan, which Mr Walpole has been editing from
Bibl. Nat. MS 2464., J,
URBANT. HOLMES,
Jr,
The University of North Carolina.
The Art of Falconry, being the De Arte Venandi cum Avibus of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. Translated
and edited by C. A. Wood and F. Marjorie Fife. Stanford University, California: Stanford Uni-
versity Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1943. Cloth. Pp. 637.
THIS new version performs a considerable service to mediaeval scholarship. It is
not merely because the work is now available in English for the first time. The
difficulty has been that the Latin original, even in its imperfect form, is rare, as
anyone who has wanted to use it will attest. Like the German translation of the
Schoppfers, the available editions are based on the two-book rather than the six-
book MSS. In the absence of a critical edition, we have now, from the viewpoint
of the content alone, a worthwhile instrument of research, based as it is on two
1 Some of the textual comparisons made between RV and the Johannis, as against the Pseudo-
Turpin, do not seem convincing to me; cp. B2 and B4 on pp. 404-405. The Anna Cooper edition
(p. 440, n. 2) is, if I remember rightly, only a reprint of the Koschwitz text. It is unfortunate that Mr
Walpole does not give the pagination of journal articles in his Bibliography.
Reviews 513
very good MSS, the two-book Vatican, containing Mandred's annotations, and
the six-book Bologna.
The publishers have seen fit to put out this document in a form befitting its
scientific importance and imperial authorship. The binding, paper, print and
numerous as well as beautiful illustrations make of the book something the
luxury-loving Hohenstaufen would not have looked upon with disfavor. It is un-
fortunate that Dr Wood did not live to hold the completed volume in his hands.
The elaborateness characteristic of the externals is carried over into the plan
of the contents. There are several chapters by various authors on subjects related
to the central one; e.g., 'The Castles and Hunting Lodges of the Emperor Fred-
erick II' (by Cresswell Shearer, known for other works on Italian architecture),
'The Mews, its Furniture and Accessories' (Dr Wood), 'Diseases of and Accidents
to Hawks and their Treatment' (Dr Wood), 'Methods for the Capture of Fal-
cons' (by Capt. R.-Luff Meredith), 'Falconry in Modern Times' (by W. Schluter,
with comments by the translators), 'Notes on the St Gorgon Statue from Varenge-
ville near Nancy' (by Gordon Wasburn, Director of the Buffalo Fine Arts Acad-
emy), 'The Hohenstaufen and Norman Ancestors of Frederick II and of his
descendants,' 'Portraits of Frederick II and of his son Manfred,' 'Favorite Birds
of the Chase Probably Well-Known to the Emperor,' 'Annotated Roster of
Birds Mentioned by ... Emperor Frederick II,' these by Dr Wood.
The central portion of the work has an important chapter on the MSS and
editions. One is at first tempted to dismiss it as leaning too heavily on Haskins,
but such is not the case. The detail and the originality of the descriptions reveal
an acquaintance with the subject which is none too common and which is worthy
of appreciation.
The physician who was the senior collaborator was at the same time an ardent
bibliophile. That is evident from the way he collected and studied his MS photo-
stats. It is even more evident in his Annotated Bibliography of Ancient,
Mediaeval and Modern Falconry, which has clearly the air of a bibliophile's bibli-
ography. A number of titles are to be found in McGill University alone. Many
were Dr Wood's personal copies and form the Wood Library of Ornithology at
that university. Hence many volumes are collector's items and comments on
them, copious as they often are, deserve our gratitude. Such a list, however, is
apt to be spotty and to dwell on rarities. I look in vain, consequently, for Bieder-
mann's extension of Werth's study of falconry source material (Altfranzos.
Jagdlehrbucher).It is striking that Spanish and Portuguese are much less well
represented, undeservedly, than Italian, French or German. We shall see later
that the translator's missed out on at least one good title in Portuguese.
It is too much to expect that a person who has already done a heroic job in
straying so far from the field of medicine should also be a philologist. The re-
viewer's duty is, nevertheless, to point out two curious errors. One of them may
be merely an ambiguity. In the bibliography, under Biechlin (meant as author?)
occurs the title D'ses biechlin sagt. Obviously biechlin is dialectal German for
Biichlein. The second error is more serious. Also in the bibliography author and
514 Reviews
title are given as follows: Deudes de Prades. Dels Auzels Cassadors (Les Oiseaux
chasseurs, poeme en Provengal de la fin du xIIe ou commencement du XIIIe
siecle), with this comment: 'We copy this title from Harting (p, 109), not that
the versification itself is of any practical value to the student but because it was
contemporary with the De Arte Venandi and may have been known to the author
of that treatise. Those who wish to go further into this subject are referred to
Galvani, Osservazionesulla poesia de trovate(sic!), Modena, 1829.' The authors of
that statement have here ventured beyond their depth. Galvani, it will be recog-
nized, is not the classic reference. But that is not a mortal sin, any more than the
statement that the translators had not seen anything more of the poem than
Harting's indication. Under the circumstances, to be sure, it would have been
safer not to make a judgment concerning the 'practical value to the student'
(whatever that may mean). That MSS of the Auzels Cassadorswere copied widely
(one MS by a Provencal, another by a northern Frenchman, a third by a Catalan
and a fragment by an Italian, it seems) is a fact with which nobody but one work-
ing in this narrow field could be familiar. The same holds for the contemporary
respect for Daude's knowledge of 'auzels prendedors,' as his biographer makes
clear. On the other hand, Dr Wood and Miss Fyfe could have easily become ac-
quainted with Monaci's text of the Auzels, published as it is in the Studj difiologia
romanza, V.
From the few soundings I have been able to make, it would seem that the trans-
lation itself has been quite well, though not superlatively done. It is a difficult
task to follow Frederick's often complicated style and still escape awkwardness.
It is reasonable, therefore, that a certain freedom be allowed. However, there are
some spots where the text might have been followed more closely and with greater
accuracy, without harming the idea. For instance, in Chap. I,: 'Cum autem ars
venandi cum avibus pars sit artis venandi simpliciter' is rendered: 'Since falconry
is undoubtedly a variety of the chase.' Ibid.: 'ars venandi simpliciter plures alias
partes habeat' transl. 'the art of hunting has numerous branches,' simpliciter and
alias not appearing in the English. Ibid.; 'de sola arte venandi,' transl. 'mainly on
falconry.' Chap. XXXI: 'elevatum ad modum virgae' is translated 'raised like a
brush' and 'humiditatem virulentum,' 'fluid oil,' while in the phrase 'et in ipso
congregatum avis, cum opus fuerit,' the italicized words simply do not appear
in the translation. Further: 'integrius et lubricabilius' does not seem to correspond
to 'completely and swiftly,' the Latin being more expressive. It will be noted that
these observations were taken from a relatively short passage.
A number of detailed queries and inconsistencies present themselves:
p. xlviii, col. 2: 'Haskinshas made a doubtfullist of the authors.'Meanswhat?
p. lxi, aproposof Valencia402, it is stated that the copy in hand is a photographicrepro-
duction,and yet it is describedas having 'elaboratelydecoratedinitials in gold, blue and
red interlacedcords.'What is the sourceof those details?
p. lxx, col. 1: 'WhilesharingMrs Slaughter'senthusiasmfor these wonderfulillustra-
tions, it should be pointed out that Frederickhimselfcould not have been their creator.'
Loosesentencestructure.
Reviews 515
p. 481, col. 2: 'Frederick I ... married Beatrice, daughter of the Count of Burgundy
(Franche-Comte).' An ambiguity. Are these two geographic names meant to be synony-
mous?
p. 515, col. 2: The uncaptured, free-flying, adult hawk was known as a 'haggard';...
the same bird tamed became 'intermewed.' In the glossary, s.v. Intermewed, we have:
'Said of the bird in the period between the falcon's first change of coloration and the white
phase; dating usually from the time she begins to fend for herself until after her first moult,
when she is in full feather.' The two definitions do not seem to match.
p. 578: The work of Fernandes Ferreira is called '(perhaps) [the] only Portuguese work
on falconry.' That is not the case. The publications of Rodrigues Lapa were evidently not
known to the translators.
p. 580: The copy of the 1596 edition consulted by the present reviewer at Columbia Uni-
versity does not have exactly the same title as that listed in the bibliography. Instead of
'Ex membranis vetustis' which appears here, the Columbia copy reads 'Ex membranaceo
codice.'
p. 586: Surely there is no intention of conveying the impression that the old edition of
Isidore of Seville is the only one available. There is a very modern one.
p. 588: The Chabaille edition has been superseded by that of Professor Carmody of
California. Whether the war has allowed copies to become available is another question.
Misprints, rare in the text, are fairly numerous in the bibliography:

p. 569: Bouchet. Recueeil . . . qui serve(?)
p. 575: D'Aubusson . . . 'Les temps moderns'
p. 576: Deudes. The title of Galvani is garbled and should read: Osservazionisulla poesia
de' trovatori
Ibid.: Dunoyer. Should read reculis not recules.
p. 588: Latini. Should tratta be singular?
p. 606: Hierascosophion or Hieracosophion?
p. 608: top. quibus que should be one word. Any reason for separating?
Ibid.: Uhrsperg. Leben Kaiser Fredericks?
Certain technical details have been pointed out to me by an expert falconer,
Professor R. M. Stabler, of the University of Pennsylvania, with permission to
quote: On pp. 210 and 316, plates have been reproduced 'after Brodrick.' Those
on pp. 211 and 314 are 'after Brodrick and Salvin.' 'Salvin and Brodrick' would
be more correct, in conformity with the notation in the bibliography, col. 1, p.
599. This is a minor point compared to the following: The Barbary falcon repre-
sented on p. 314 as flying upward could not be doing so in that position. An exam-
ination of the original shows that the picture has, in fact, been turned upside
down. On p. 359, a peregrine is shown resting on a bow perch, a type not used for
long winged falcons, to which category the peregrine belongs. Plate 137a is an
apparent mystery - the leash to the right, having no possible connection with
the foot to the left - until one consults the original and discovers that the afore-
said leash belongs to a neighboring bird completely liquidated in the reproduction.
The plates (is 114 to be excepted?) are the work of E. Pfadtisch and not of Wood
or Miss Fyfe, but it is too bad that inadequate control was exercised in this im-
portant respect.
A. H. SCHUTZ,
OhioState University.

Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Oct., 1944), p. 516
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:09
Speculum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PERIODICAL LITERATIURE
LINGUISTICS
StefAn Einarsson, 'Terms of direction in Old Icelandic,' JOURNALOFENGLISHANDGER-
MANIC PHILOLOGY, XLm, 3 (July, 1944), 265-285.
A. F. Gegenheimer, 'A note on the formation of preterit-present verbs,' MODERNLAN-
GUAGENOTES, LX, 6 (June, 1944), 415-417.
Henry and Renee Kahane, 'Two Romance etymologies: Ital. pozz=nghera'mud-puddle';
Portug. moinante 'pleasure-hunting,' LANGUAGE, xx, 2 (April-June, 1944), 77-84.
Kemp Malone, 'On the etymology of runt,' LANGUAGE, XX, 2 (April-June, 1944), 87-88.
K. H. Menges, 'Altaic loanwords in Slavonic,' LANGUAGE, XX, 2 (April-June, 1944), 66-72.
Herbert Penzl, 'A phonemic change in early Old English,' LANGUAGE, xx, 2 (April-June,
1944), 84-87.
LITERATURE
Pauline Aiken, 'Vincent of Beauvais and Chaucer's knowledge of alchemy,' STUDIESIN
PHILOLOGY,XLI, 3 (July, 1944), 371-389.
Nehemya Alumy, 'Four poems,' JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, XXXv, 1 (July, 1944), 79-83.
Dorothy C. Clarke, 'The early seguidilla,' HISPANIC REVIEW, XII, 3 (July, 1944), 211-222.
Ruth J. Dean, 'Elizabeth, Abbess of Schonau, and Roger of Ford,' MODERNPHILOLOGY,
XLI, 4 (May, 1944), 209-220.
Sister Mary V. Hillmann, 'Pearl: lere leke, 210,' MODERN LANGUAGENOTES, LIX, 6 (July,
1944), 417-418.
A. H. Krappe, 'Oriental themes in The Voyage of Maeldune, PHILOLOGICALQUARTERLY,
xxm, 2 (April, 1944), 97-107.
Mary R. Learned, 'Saints' lives attributed to Nicholas Bozon, Part II,' FRANCISCAN
STUD-
IES, xxv, 2 (June, 1944), 171-178.
A. L. Mezzacappa, 'Why God resides in Heaven (Purgatorio xi, 2-3),' ITALICA,XXi, 2
(June, 1944), 49-60.
W. G. Moulton, 'Scribe y of the Old High German Tatian translation,' PMLA,LIX, 2 (June,
1944), 307-334.
C. S. Northup and J. J. Parry, 'The Arthurian legends: modern retellings of the old stories.
An annotated bibliography,' JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANPHILOLOGY,XLIII,
2 (April, 1944), 173-221.
Carl Selmer, 'An unnoticed version of Pseudo-Aristotelian proverbs,' PMLA, IX, 2 (June,
1944), 585-586.
Carl Selmer, 'An unpublished late MHG poem of the Chicago Newberry Library and MS
H of the Liederbuch der Klara Hatzlerin,' JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANC
PHILOLOGY,XLIII, 2 (April, 1944), 170-172.
Leo Spitzer, 'Des guillemets qui changent le climat poetique,' PMLA,LIX, 2 (June, 1944),
335-348.
E. H. Zeydel, 'Knowledge of Hrotsvitha's works prior to 1500,' MODERN LANGUAGE
NOTES, LIX, 6 (June, 1944), 382-385.
PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

Philotheus Boehner, 'The medieval crisis of logic and the author of the Centiloquium at-
tributed to Ockham,' FRANCISCANSTUDIES, XXv, 2 (June, 1944), 151-170.
Victor Mills, 'St Bernardine of Siena, pillar of the Observance,' FRANCISCANSTUDIES, XXV,
2 (June, 1944), 121-133.
A. C. Pegis, 'In defense of St Augustine,' NEW SCHOLASTICISM, XVIII, 2 (April, 1944), 97-
122.
G. B. Phelan, 'A note on the formal object of metaphysics,' NEW SCHOLASTICISM, XVIII, 2
(April, 1944), 197-201.
VARIA
William Bark, 'Theodoric rs. Boethius, vindication and apology,' AMERICANHISTORICAL
REVIEW, XLIX, 3 (April, 1944), 410-426.
Leonardo Olschki, 'Asiatic exoticism in Italian art of the early Renaissance,' ART BULLE-
TIN, XXvi, 2 (June, 1944), 95-106.
516
Books Received
Source: Speculum, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Oct., 1944), p. 517
Accessed: 11/06/2010 10:10
Speculum.
BOOKS RECEIVED
Pierre d'Abernum, Le Secre de Secrez. Edited and translated, from the Unique MS B.N.f.fr.
25407, by O. A. Beckerlegge. (Anglo-Norman Texts-V.) Oxford: Basil Blackwell, for
Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1944. Cloth. Pp. lviii, 93. 30/-.
Sister Mary Ellen Goenner, Mary-Verse of the Teutonic Knights. (The Catholic University
of America Studies in German, Vol. xix) Washington: The Catholic University of
America, 1943. Paper. Pp. xvii, 246.
Gottfried of Strassburg, Tristan und Isolt. Edited and translated by August Closs. (Ger-
man Mediaeval Series, Sec. A, III.) Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1944. Paper. Pp. liv, 185.
8s/6d.
Cora E. Lutz, ed., Dunchad Glossae in Martianum. (Philological Monographs, xnI) Lan-
caster, Pa.: The American Philological Association, 1944. (Also, Oxford: B. H.Black-
well.) Cloth. Pp. xxx, 68. $1.50 (members $1).
Alexander Marx, Studies in Jewish History and Booklore. New York: The Jewish Theologi-
cal Seminary of America, 1944. Cloth. Pp. xiii, 458.
Raphael Mitjana, ed., Cancionero de Upsala. Transcripci6n musical en notaci6n moderna
de Jesus Bal y Gay. Con un estudio sobre 'El Villancico Polifonico' de Isabel Pope.
Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, 1944. Paper. Pp. 157.
Johannes Quasten and Stephen Kuttner, edd., Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval
History, Thought, and Religion. Vol. I. New York: Cosmopolitan Science and Art
Service Co., Inc., 1943. Paper. Pp. vii, 418. $7.50.
A. Hamilton Thompson, ed., Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln 1517-1531. ii. (The Pub-
lications of the Lincoln Record Society, 35). Hereford, England: The Hereford Times,
for The Lincoln Record Society, 1944. Pp. x, 263.
William, Archbishop of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea. Translated and
edited by E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey. (Records of Civilization, Sources and Stud-
ies, xxxv.) New York: Columbia University Press, 1943. Cloth. Vol. I, pp. xii, 566;
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Francis Wolle, Fitz-James O'Brien. A Literary Bohemian of the Eighteen-fifties. (University
of Colorado Studies, Series B, Studies in the Humanities, Vol. 2, 2.) Boulder: Univer-
sity of Colorado Press, 1944. Cloth. Pp. xi, 309. $2.
517

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The Notation of Polyphonic Music
(900-1600)
By WILLI APEL
"In conclusion we should like to express gratitude to the Mediaeval Academy of
America and the various institutions whose grants made the writing and publica-
tion of the book possible. They are to be congratulated on their courage and under-
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all, it will be a milestone in advancing the proper recognition of music before
1600."
MANFRED F. BUKOFZER in The Musical Quarterly
Printed by letter-press. Publication No. 38 of the Academy. Pp. xxv, 471.
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CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS
Back Matter
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Contents of the October 1944 Issue

To Arnold Schoenbergon His SeventiethBirthday:
Personal Recollections DARIUS MILHAUD
On the Spontaneity of Schoenberg's Music HEINRICHJALOWETZ
Music Therapy DORONK. ANTRIM
The War Years SERGEIPROKOFIEFF
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Gabriel Dupont, Musician of Normandy (1878-1914) MAURICEDUMESNIL
America'sGain from a BayreuthRomance:
The Mystery of Anton Seidl ARTHUR FARWELL
English Traits in the Early I3th-Century Motet HANS TISCHLER

Drums and Drummers in Afro-Brazilian Cult Life MELVILLEJ. HERSKOVITS
Reviews of Books
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The anonymous Exicidum Troiae, hitherto unpublished, is a post-classical Latin

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The present edition presents a composite text based upon all three of the
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CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS
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An annotated edition of Bede's four works On Times, with an intro-
duction, description of manuscripts, appendix, and indices by
CHARLES W. JONES
Cornell University
For five centuries following their publication, Bede's De Tem-

porum Ratione and De Temporibus were the basic textbooks on the
calendar, used for the fundamental study of computus in the cur-
riculum of cathedral and monastic schools. From them, mediaeval
students and scholars derived their notions not only of chronology
and history but of the ancillary sciences of astronomy, mathematics,
geography, physics, and the like.
From an examination of nearly two hundred manuscripts and a

collation of the earliest, the editor has created the first essentially
new text of these works since the sixteenth century, as well as new
texts of two of Bede's letters on chronology and astronomy.
In addition to the texts, the volume contains an extensive history

of the development of the ecclesiastical calendar during the first
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each topic to other manuscript material of the period. An appendix
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There are full indices to manuscripts, sources, and proper names.
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMYOF AMERICA

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSEIITS
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SPECULUM

SARELL EVERETT GLEASON JOHN MILTON POTTER

CHARLES GRANT LOOMIS B. WILKINSON

THE MEDIAEVALACADEMYOF AMERICA

First Vice-President Clerk

Second Vice-President Executive Secretary

Third Vice-President Secretary of Publication

HARRY CAPLAN SIDNEY PAINTER

CHARLES WENDELL DAVID GERALD PHELAN

FREDERIC DUNCALF EDWIN BRAY PLACE

WILT,IAM HUSE DUNHAM PHILIP WEBSTER SOUERS

GORDON HALL GEROULD ARCHER TAYLOR

Executive Committee of the Council

Since the Executive Committee is a Committee of the Council, members

Volume XIX, Number 1

SIDNEY PAINTER CHARLESGRANT LOOMIS

THEODORE SILVERSTEIN SAMUEL EDMUND THORNE

Chaucer's Appeal to the Platonic Deity . . . tKARL YOUNG 1

Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante.

On Italian Copper Champleve Enamels of the Thirteenth Century.

Florence: Project for a Map, 1250-1296 . . . F. J. CARMODY 39

The Concept of the New or Second Rome in the Middle Ages.

Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena . C. E. ODEGAARD 63

The Sottes Chansons in MS. Douce 308 of the Bodleian Library

Elegies Attributed to Dallan Forgaill . . . . JAMESTRAVIS 89

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Indra and Namuci .

Botanical Observations on the Voynich MS. . HUGH O'NEILL 126

Mola in Dante's Usage ... HD. AUSTIN 127

SPECULUM, A JOURNALOF MEDIAEVALSTUDIES, is published quarterly by the Academy.

The Editors of SPECULUM should be addressed in care of the Mediaeval Academy of

Chaucer's Appeal to the Platonic Deity

CHAUCER'S APPEAL TO THE PLATONIC DEITY

(Geoffrey ChaucerskleinereDichtungen,Heidelberg,1928,p. 192) also refersto this Boethianpassage

I bring forward, therefore, several examples of accessus to the Metamorphoses

Liber Ouidij Nasonis Methamorphoseos3 cum Exposicione.

1 In additionto JohannesScottus, one thinks of such writersas Bernardof Chartres,Williamof

Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante

Milanesi, Documenti,I, 166 ff., no. 22 (Oct. 9, 1308).

PLATEI. S. Gimignano, Palazzo Communale. Maesta by Lippo Memmi (detail).

PLATE IV. Arezzo, Cathedral, Tomb of Bishop Guido Tarlati. "Comm

compelled to accept such commissions.1 It would nevertheless be instructive to

Podesta di Firenze dipinse [Giotto] il comune rubato da molti: dove in forma di

ing political self-consciousness with which we are concerned allusions to ancient

shown in the treatment of human figures in Giotto's religious frescos in which

On Italian Copper Champleve Enamels of the Thirteenth Century

- which are merely tentative and by no means dogmatic - of specific objects,

1 Op. cit., pp. 109-111.

Florence: Project for a Map, 1250-1296

-*< s - i'- s' Al-A > t(.?t

SAN TOMMASO (1-8). - 1 in FORO3 h. Geri Sizi+church, Arrighi between; SE ANGOLO

SESTO DI PORTA SAN PIERO

SANMICHELEI ORTO(301-307). - 301 Compiobbesi t. - 301-2 W 2 h. Guadagnoli h.

The Concept of the New or Second Rome in the Middle Ages

. . . nova Roma nitebat,

Augusti primum renovasti Caesaris aevum.

1 MGH cit., p. 150. la Bk. iv, vss 138-141; ibid., p. 151.

(Bibliotecacriticadella letteraturaitaliana,25; Florence,1889), 116; W. Wattenbach,Deutschlands

The next allusion to Constantinople as a new Rome is made in the anonymous

Although Milan, contrary to one's expectations, falls surprisingly short in these

1 MGH, SS, xxiv, 222, 27.

1 L. Muratori, Rerum italicarum

Two Errant Papal Briefs for Siena

1 Banchi, Arch. stor. ital., iv, 49-50. 2 Ibid., iv, 235.