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HUGO SOTOVAGINA.

(Circa 1180.)

Hugo Sotovagina, chanter and archdeacon of York in the reign of Henry II., is the author of a Latin poem on the Battle of the Standard, mentioned by Richard of Hexham; of Latin elegiacs against the degeneracy of the age; and of several short poems, in the same language, against the corruption of the monks.

WALTER MAPES.

(Circa 1197.)

Walter Mapes, or rather Map, rector of Westbury and archdeacon of Oxford (1197), was a great favourite with Henry II., to whom he was chaplain, and who esteemed him alike for his learning, his wit, and his courtly manners. He was born in Gloucestershire or Herefordshire, of a family that had rendered, he tells us, good service to Henry II.; and he studied in the University of Paris under Gerard la Pucelle (circa 1160). On his return to England he became a favourite at court, and familiar in the household of Thomas Becket, some of his conversations with whom, previous to his attainment of the archiepiscopal see (1162), he himself relates. In 1173 we find Walter Map one of the judges ambulant at the assize at Gloucester; and with the court at Limoges, in attendance, by royal command, upon Peter, archbishop of Limoges. He accompanied the king in his war against his sons, and was sent by him on missions to Louis le Jeune, king of France, and to Pope Alexander III. at Rome; on which occasion he took part in the controversy between his friend Giraldus Cambrensis and Hubert archbishop of Canterbury, respecting the rights of the church of St. David's. On the same occasion, the Lateran Council of 1179, Map (in his De Nugis Curialium Distinctionibus) informs us he was selected to address and argue with the Waldensian deputies, who had been sent to Rome to seek papal authorisation to preach and expound the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue. In 1196, Map, who was already rector of Westbury, canon of St. Paul's, and precentor of Lincoln, was made archdeacon of Oxford. He is supposed to have died about the year 1210. Walter Mapes is known to the lovers of middle-age romance as the composer of various popular legends of that important portion of the cycle of King Arthur and his Knights, comprising the Roman de Lancelot du Lac, the

Quête du Saint Graal, and the Roman de la Mort Arthur. Another of his works, the earliest that has been traced, is a jocose treatise against matrimony, in Latin prose, which, after obtaining considerable popularity, was inserted by the author in his De Nugis Curialium Distinctionibus, a singular olio of satire and stories on all sorts of subjects. There are many Latin poems which go under the name of Mapes, but his editor, Mr. Wright, seems to consider that the only production in this class which can positively be identified with him is the Apocalypsis Golia Episcopi, an attack upon the corruptions of the court of Rome, upon monks in general, and upon the Cistercians in particular; his public indignation against whose vices was materially aggravated—as is not unfrequently the case in such matters-by his private wrath at various encroachments of theirs upon his rectory of Westbury. These attacks are alike remarkable for their polished style, their pungent satire, and their telling humour. The Confessio Golia,-a poem in which the hero is introduced making a mock confession of his three vices, the love of women, the love of dice, and the love of wine, and in which occur the lines, by the re-arrangement of which, at a much later period, was formed the capital bacchanalian song:

"Mihi est propositum, in tabernâ mori," &c.

"I propose to end my days in a tavern drinking," &c.

Mr. Wright does not seem disposed to attribute to our author, observing, that "there is no known circumstance connected with him which could authorise us to look upon him in any other light than as a learned and elegant scholar, a man of good sense, high character, and strict morality."* The term golias, it may be observed, was applied, in Mapes' time, to indicate a person of gulosity, and reckless cynicism of manners and language.

HUGH OF RUTLAND.

(Circa 1190.)

Hugh, a native of Rutland, but settled in Cornwall, at a place which M. De la Rue calls Credinhill, is the author of the romance of Ipomedon, a composition in Anglo-Norman, extending to more than 10,000 lines, and exhibiting ancient fable in a very strange me

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diæval garb. Upon the completion of this romance, the author, "thinking it shameful to remain idle," set about the other romance with which his name is connected, the History of Prolesilaus, Son Ipomedon, a work extending to 11,000 lines.

PHILIP DE RAMES.

(Circa 1190.)

Philip de Rames, a trouvère in the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I., was a member of a wealthy Anglo-Norman family, having its seat in Suffolk or Norfolk. He is known to us as the author of two metrical romances: the first, entitled La Manekine, sets forth the persecutions of a daughter of a king of Hungary at the hands of a cruel mother-in-law in Scotland; the other, the romance of Blanche of Oxford and Jehan of Dammartin, is interesting as a highly graphic representation of the baronial manners of the period. La Manekinė has been published by M. Michel (1840); the other romance by Le Roux de Lincy.

MAURICE DE CRAON.

(Died 1216.)

Maurice de Craon, an Anglo-Norman, high in favour at the court of Henry II., and having large landed property in Surrey, is known to us as an Anglo-Norman poet. After filling various diplomatic appointments, Maurice de Craon died in 1216. His son Peter succeeded alike to his estates and to his song-writing. The productions of both father and son have been published by M. Trebutien (Caen, 1843).

RENAUD OF HOLLAND.

(Circa 1190.)

Renaud of Holland, in Lincolnshire, is noticeable here as the author of an Anglo-Norman love-song, which Mr. Wright has published in his Anecdota Literaria.

SIMON DU FRESNE.

(Circa 1190.)

Simon du Fresne, a friend of Giraldus Cambrensis, and himself a canon of Hereford Cathedral, is the author of a French metrical abridgment of the De Consolatione of Boethius. He is also known to us as the writer of numerous Latin epigrams and short poems, chiefly in defence of Giraldus Cambrensis from the attacks of Adam Dore and other poetical antagonists.

NIGELLUS WIREKER.

(Circa 1190.)

Nigellus Wireker, a precentor of Canterbury Cathedral, was the intimate friend of William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, and aided his efforts to reform the monkery of the period, by various writings in Latin verse and prose, which enjoyed large popularity both at the time and in subsequent ages. His chief poetical work is the Speculum Stultorum, a satire in Latin elegiacs on the follies and corruptions of the time, and more especially upon the monastic orders. The hero, Brunellus, an ass-designed as a personification of the monks-being discontented with his evil condition and his short tail, goes forth in search of the better state and the longer appendage. After experiencing various misfortunes, he resolves to become a monk; for the purpose of selection, he reviews the several orders, but finds occasion to condemn them all, whereupon he proceeds to form the design of an entirely new order. He has made some way in his speculations on the subject, when he is seized upon by his old master, and compelled to return to servitude, his tail shorter than before, a portion of it having been lost in one of his misadventures.

GEOFFREY DE VINESAUF.

(Circa 1198.)

Geoffrey de Vinesauf (Galfridus Anglicus), an Englishman, who seems to have been engaged in the service of Henry II. and Richard I., is known to us as the author of a treatise, in Latin hexameters, on

the art of poetry. This Nova Poetria, as it is generally designated, a dull, wearisome poem,-" only interesting," observes Mr. Wright, "as being the key to the general style of the Latin poetical writers of the 13th century, which was formed on the rules given in this work,— long enjoyed very considerable popularity." The poem is dedicated to Pope Innocent III., in whose court the author was for some time resident as envoy from Richard I., who, we are informed by John, sub-prior of Bamborough (writing in 1483), desired to obtain the papal pardon for some fault he had committed. The work itself must, however, have been written after Richard's death, that event being commemorated in it with a grief which in its vehemence assails even the day (Friday) on which the king deceased. It is to this exaggerated affliction of the poet that Chaucer thus humorously alludes:

"O Ganfride, dere maister soverain,

That, whan thy worthy King Richard was slain

With shot, complainedest his deth so sore,

Why ne had I now thy science and thy lore,

The Friday for to chiden, as did ye?

(For on a Friday sothly slain was he);

Than wold I show you how that I coud plaine

For Chaunticlere's drede and for his paine."

Several other works have been variously attributed to Geoffrey de Vinesauf; but the Nova Poetria would seem to be the only poem with which his name can be satisfactorily identified.

JOSEPH OF EXETER.

(Circa 1198.)

Joseph, surnamed Iscanus, from the place of his birth, Exeter, lived in the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I. He accompanied the latter monarch to Syria, probably in the capacity of minstrel, of which class of persons there were many in his army, whom he treated with profuse liberality. The great work by which Joseph is known (his De Bello Trojano) was finished when Henry II. was preparing for the Crusade, and may fairly be conceived to have recommended him to the favourable notice of the Lion-heart, who, a poet himself, and, moreover, above professional competition, was well disposed to encourage metrical merit, so long at least as it abstained from making himself the topic of any thing in the nature of satire or censure. De Bello Trojano is by far the finest of the medieval Anglo-Latin pocms, and approaches, indeed, so nearly to the excellences of the classic

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