languages, are more or less faithful translations-whether made at first or second hand-and that none of these can be regarded as having been made by the author of the original.

The work seems, at an early date, to have met with quite peculiar favour in England, the traveller's supposed native land. The original text was there repeatedly translated into Latin and also into English, probably during the ninth decade of the fourteenth century. Thus multiplied by numerous transcripts, the English version then experienced. various alterations, not very important, as a rule, but at times changes of an incisive kind were made. As early as 1390— if not earlier—an abridged copy of it was made, which, on its part, again formed the basis of a new Italian version.

Is Maundeville-as a traveller and even as a writer-to be regarded as an historical personage, or as a mere legendary type? Much seems to speak in favour of the latter assumption, viz. the connection between these "Travels" and the earlier Itineraries, the questionable nature of much of the information given, which is met with in various other sources as well, and further the meagreness and untrustworthiness of the communications on important contemporary events. Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe that the tradition of "Maundeville's Travels" does not contain some nucleus of historical truth. Still, any attempt to break through the doubt that enshrouds it cannot well prove successful until the appearance of the critical edition of the French text-of which there is some prospect in the immediate future; a variety of other questions await their solution from a similar edition of the English text, which it is hoped may likewise soon be forthcoming.

In Maundeville we seem to have a peculiar, as well as an attractive example of that type of Palestine-traveller who kept an account of the incidents and experiences of his journey for the benefit of future pilgrims. We have an English knight of the fourteenth century, full of the love of adventure, seized with the desire to wander abroad; we find him crossing the sea, roaming throughout long years in foreign lands, and visiting nations afar off; we find him among the followers of the Sultan of Egypt in his struggles with the Bedouins, and in the retinue of the great Khan of Cathay,

SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE.

15

in Tartary, at war with the King of Mancy. And even an element of actual romance is not wanting. The Sultan of Egypt wished him to marry the daughter of a great potentate, but the knight would not forswear his belief.

These and other similar details are described in a frank and simple fashion. By exercising a certain amount of discretion the author contrives to increase the impression of the trustworthiness of his communications, as, for instance, when speaking of certain localities and their marvels, he adds, "Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there." How immensely exciting must have been the effect of this narrative upon the older knights or freemen who were unable to leave their native land! As stirring, and probably even more powerful in their influence, must have been the legends of "The Three Kings" or "The Squire's Tale" from Chaucer, both of which deal with the distant Orient, and became accessible to English readers about the same date as "Maundeville's Travels." The translator of these "Travels" rendered no small service to his countrymen, even though he has at times misunderstood the original text. To us the earliest English Handbook on Travel is specially important in a linguistic respect. The great multiplicity of subjects that had to be spoken of, forced the translator to make a more extensive use of his native vocabulary than mediocre scribes were wont to do in those days.

It was in keeping with the increasing fondness for travel -which was not a little encouraged by reading "Maundeville"-that literature should endeavour to meet the requirement of travellers in a more practical manner. A collection of concise "Informacōn for pylgrimages to the Holy Londe" deals with the routes to be taken, with the time of year to be chosen, the most convenient means of transport, the most important stages; gives the names of the towns and other places worthy of a visit; discusses the question of taking food supplies, of medicinal safeguards against unfavourable climatic influences; explains the manner in which the traveller has to conduct himself towards Mahomedans or the Doge of Venice, and various other useful matters.

The efforts of Trevisa, also, which were directed towards

weightier subjects, and have been discussed above,* had supplementary matter added to them during the fifteenth century. Trevisa himself was, in all probability, still active as a writer at the commencement of the Lancastrian era. A translation of Vegetius, undertaken in the year 1408 at the request of his patron, Lord Berkeley, is probably from his hand; and a translation of Ægidius Romanus, preserved in the same codex, is probably by him or one of his school, and may be contemporaneous with Occleve's version of the Mirror for Princes. It will be remembered that Henry V., to whom-as Prince of Wales-Occleve dedicated his poem, was an eager reader of " Vegetius." Many other works were turned into English through Trevisa's industry, or as a result of the stimulus given by him. It was, however, somewhat superfluous that the chief work of his life was re-done, during the second quarter of the century, by another writer who probably knew nothing about Trevisa's translation. Ranulph Higden's comprehensive Polychronicon was again translated, but with considerable omissions, by an unknown writer, and carried down somewhere to the year 1401. In addition to these, Osbern Bokenham, Doctor of Divinity and Canon of the Augustinian monastery of Stockclare, in Suffolk, translated, in 1440, a large connected portion of the same work, viz. those chapters devoted to the account of England which form the conclusion to the first Book of the "Polychronicon." Bokenham wrote his Mappula Anglia-as he calls his translation-for the benefit of the readers of a legendary work, which he had compiled some time previously from Jacobus à Voragine and other sources, and which contained the lives of a number of the English saints, and a good deal of information about places in England. Bokenham, too, was evidently not acquainted with Trevisa's more important work-a proof that the national literature of that era still bore more or less local character.

X.

About this date an Original Chronicle-so far as mediæval Chronicles can lay claim to originality-was already being

* See vol. ii. pp. 81, 82.

prepared. In the year 1438, John Capgrave dedicated a Latin Commentary on Genesis to his great patron, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and in his dedication quoted his Annualia, by which, to judge from the context, he could only have meant his Chronicle of England. Probably,

however, these historical notes were originally written in English, because, in the first instance, intended merely for his own personal use. His theological treatises, and what he otherwise produced for learned readers and dedicated to some Mecænas, he wrote in the language of scholars.

Capgrave was born in 1394,* at Lynn in Norfolk. At an early age he entered the House of the Austin Friars there, and remained in close connection with it even after he had been appointed Provincial of his Order in England. At all events, he seems in his later years to have held this high position, together with that of Prior of the Friary at Lynn. Brother John-as he generally calls himself—was a doctor of divinity, a learned gentleman, a good monk, a good prior, a very orthodox and zealous Catholic; also a warm patriot and a good man, bitter and unjust only when the subject touched Wyclif or Sir John Oldcastle. Capgrave possessed no such critical a brain as Reginald Pecock, and as little had he felt any breath of the awakening spirit of humanism, although it occurred to him at one time to change his honest English name into the wondrous Latin form of De monumento pileato. The world in which he lived and worked was thoroughly medieval. He drew his chief mental nourishment from the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, and the Schoolmen, from Martyrologies, Lives of the Saints, and Chronicles. He occupied himself diligently not only with the moral application of words and matters, but also with their allegorical significance, and with the mystic value of numbers.† Where he quotes a verse from Vergil, or even merely from Geoffroy di Viterbo, he frequently makes bad blunders; his own Latin is not

* According to his own statement (Chronicle of England, ed. Hingeston, p. 259), on the 21st of April, in the seventeenth year of the reign of King Richard II.

Allegory certainly stirred the blood of the men of the Renaissance as deeply as it had affected those belonging to the declining Middle Ages; what distinguishes Capgrave from the latter are qualities more negative than positive, in addition to which we have to take into consideration his preponderating theological bent and his belief in the miraculous.

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altogether exemplary, although in its way tolerable enough. If the Life of Duke Humphrey-which he is said to have written-had been preserved, our praise would probably have referred more to his good intentions than to his intellectual ability. Otherwise, Capgrave was a very shrewd man in his own sphere, of sound understanding, and a skilful compiler, who sometimes, it is true, makes arrant confusion of historical matter beyond his grasp, and also allows himself to be carried away by loyal zealousness; upon the whole, however, he leaves the impression of a clear-headed, sober-minded man, honest and, in many respects, a trustworthy and well-informed authority.

With such advantages and such limitations in his character, he was the very man to make use of the variety of materials at his command for reproducing an exact picture of the vanishing era, and for collecting its characteristic features. for future generations.

Capgrave was one of the most prolific writers of his century. His Genesis was followed by Commentaries on the other books of the Pentateuch and most of the other parts of the Old and New Testaments. These were succeeded by a variety of treatises, somewhat dogmatic in character, on theological and philosophical subjects. In many cases the object he had in view was to combat the encroachment of heresy. Capgrave also wrote a Life of St. Augustine, and narrated the deeds of some illustrious men belonging to his Order. He produced in English verse an adaptation of the Legend of St. Catherine, and, likewise in English-though probably in prose-the Life of St. Gilbert of Sempringham, a work that has been lost. According to tradition, Capgrave was also the author, or rather the compiler, of that great Latin catalogue of English saints which, at a later day, received the name of Nova Legenda Angliæ. The lives of the saints contained in this collection were, with few exceptions, transcribed from the "Sanctilogium" of John of Tynemouth, which is said to have been produced about 1366; except that the earlier arrangement adopted in the Nova Legenda, which followed the Calendar, was altered so as to give the names in alphabetical order.

A curious plan is adopted as the basis of the historical