Chapter III: Introduction (2)

“Prince excellent de haute renommee,
De qui grand vois par le mond est semee,
Tres noble en fais, sage, duit et apris
De touz les biens qui en bon sont compris,
Roy noble et haut chiualer conquerour,
Digne destre par vaillaunce Emperour,
A vous puissant, tres redoute seignour,
Qui dessur vous ne cognoise greignour,
Soit tres humble recommendacioun
Deuant mise de vray entencioun
De par moy que en sagesse non digne
Femme ignorant suy nommee Cristine,
Fille iadis philosophe et docteur,
Qui conseiller fu, humble seruiteur
Au Roy Charles quint, qui dieu face grace.”

* * * * *

The king who is thus addressed can be no other than the unfortunate Charles VI., although any hopes that he once excited had by this time been dispelled by his strange intermittent fits of insanity, which dated from 1392. Very similar terms were employed in the dedication to him by name of the “Chemin de long estude” in 1402:

“A vous, bon roy de France redoubtable,
Le VI^e Charles du nom notable,
Que Dieux maintienge en joie et en sante,
Mon petit dit soit premier presente,
Tout ne soit il digne qu’en telz mains aille,
Mais bon vouloir comme bon fait me vaille.”

In this instance, however, Christine associated with him his uncles Berry and Burgundy and his brother Orleans, who during his incapacity divided the real power between them:

“Et puis a vous, haulz ducs magnifiez,
Dicelle fleur fais et ediffiez,
Dont l’esplendeur s’espant par toute terre,
Par quel honneur fait los a France a querre.”

In her presentation copies she was not wont to measure her language, and probably Scrope’s extravagant eulogy of the Duke of Berry was based upon what he found in his MS., although, instead of translating the dedication as it stood, he chose to embody it in his preface. On the other hand, Christine of course was in no way responsible for the statement that the duke lived for a hundred years (p. 3). How it originated is a mystery, for there is no doubt whatever that he died on 15th June, 1416, at the age of seventy-six.[84] Jean Bouchet indeed in his _Annales d’Aquitaine_,[85] although he records the date of his death correctly, states that he was ninety or thereabouts, but he gives no authority, and it is enough to say that Berry’s father King John II. was born in 1319, and his eldest brother Charles V. in 1337. It will be seen that Scrope represents him as a perfect paragon of chivalrous qualities, unrivalled in his time both in war and in council, as well as for deeds of piety. In more sober history, however, he by no means appears to such advantage. His cultured and sumptuous tastes, his splendid buildings and his library and other rich collections, have shed a certain lustre on his name; but, as he showed especially in his government of Languedoc, he was cruel, rapacious, and unprincipled, and in critical times his life was that of a selfish and prodigal voluptuary. For war he had neither talent nor zest; his real element appears to have been diplomacy, and, apart from his patronage of art and letters and his benefactions to the church, his chief claim to credit rests on his repeated attempts to mediate between the Burgundian and Orleanist factions. Scrope’s estimate of him is in striking contrast with that of modern historians, such as Raynal[86] and Martin, the latter of whom in recording his death writes, “Ce prince laissa une mémoire souillée entre toutes dans cette êpoque de souillures. Il joignait à bien d’autres vices le vice que la France pardonne le moins à ses chefs, le péché irremissible, la lâcheté.”[87]

To pass from the preface to the “Epistle of Othea” itself, there is no reason to suppose that the translator had received the training of a scholar; on the contrary, the probability is that, owing to a sickly youth and other drawbacks, his education had been more or less neglected. It is not even certain that he had been regularly taught French. From a curious passage interpolated by Trevisa in his translation of Higden’s “Polychronicon,” which was finished in 1387, it seems that the fashion was then already dying out among the class to which by birth he belonged,[88] and possibly therefore he learnt all he knew of the language while he was with his stepfather in France. Be that as it may, his rendering of Christine de Pisan’s French may claim on the whole to be fairly well done. The verse of his “textes” is too much of the doggrel type and his meaning is sometimes obscure, but as a rule he follows the original closely, while the orthography of the MS., though atrociously bad, is no worse than what we are accustomed to in the _Paston Letters_ and elsewhere at the same period. Occasionally, as is only natural, he goes astray, though it is of course possible that the fault lay with the MS. from which he translated. In most cases the source of his errors is obvious. Thus he translates “ton bon cuer” (p. 5) by “all good hertys,” having evidently mistaken “ton” for “tou[t]”; and again “en quant fraisle vaissel est sa vie contenue” (p. 28) by “in how frele (_sc._ frail) a vessel his lyff is all naked” (toute nue)! Similarly “conscience pour soy” (p. 16) appears as “conscience for feyth” (foy); “ala querre les autres dieux” (p. 62) as “thanne went he forth [to seek] the tothir ii^o” (deux); “mais a nostre propos [la fable] veult dire” (_ibid._) as “Mars to owre purpose seith”; and “gard toy de lagait (l’agait) de tes ennemis” (p. 73) as “kepe the (_sc._ thee) from the peple (la gent) of thyn ennemyes.” It is not so easy to understand the process by which the simple sentence “Vanite fist lange devenir deable” (p. 15) was transformed into “Vanite made avoyde degre to becum a fende,” whatever that may mean; or why in the story of Acis and Galatea (p. 65) “un iouuencel qui Acis estoit nommez” became “and he was dede” (_sc._ dead), though possibly in this case there was some confusion between “acis” and “occis.” But the strangest mistranslation is in the words “Averyse and covetise be ii^o sausmakers the which sesseth neuer to seye, ‘Bryng, Bryng’” (p. 105), where the French text has “sont ii. sancsues,” sanguisugæ, or leeches. The reference of course is to Proverbs xxx. 15, “The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, ‘Give, give’”; and, as stated in the note, “horseleeches” is in fact the rendering given in another translation of Christine’s work. Scrope’s “sausmakers” can hardly be anything but “sauce-makers,”[89] but it is not impossible that he coined the mongrel word “sanc-suckers,” which the scribe miscopied.

The second English translation of the “Épître d’Othéa” referred to above can be so little known that a brief account of it will not be superfluous. It exists only in the form of a small printed octavo in black-letter with the title _Here foloweth the C. Hystoryes of Troye_, and there is no doubt that it was taken from Pigouchet’s French edition of 1490,[90] or one of the reprints; in fact it copies the second title in French, merely omitting the imprint “à Paris.” Many of its rough woodcuts, one of which accompanies each “texte,” also come from the same source, being generally reversed, but others are independent and their subjects often have no connexion whatever with the text. In place of the dedication to the Duke of Orleans the translator gives a prologue of his own in ten seven-line stanzas, the first two of which are as follows:

“Boke, of thy rudenesse by consyderacion
Plunged in the walowes of abasshement,
For thy translatoure make excusacion
To all to whom thou shalt thy selfe present,
Besechynge them vpon the sentement
In the composed to set theyr regarde
And not on the speche cancred and frowarde.

“Shewe them that thy translatour hath the wryten,
Not to obtain thankes or remuneracions,
But to the entent to do the to be wryten
As well in Englande as in other nacyons.
And where mysordre in thy translation is,
Vnto the perceyuer with humble obeysaunce
Excuse thy reducer, blamyng his ygnoraunce.”

All the information which he gives about himself in this prologue is that, when he made his translation, he was “flowring in youth,” but after the “Finis” he has added, “Thus endeth the .C. Hystories of Troye, translated out of Frenche in to Englysshe by me. R.W.” This again is followed by the colophon, “Imprynted by me Robert Wyer, dwellyng in S. Martyns parysshe at Charyng Crosse at the sygne of S. John̄ Euangelist besyde the Duke of Suffolkes place”; and it is therefore highly probable that R. W. and Robert Wyer were identical, though the latter is not otherwise known except as a printer. A list of nearly a hundred books issued by him has been made up,[91] ranging in date from 1530 to 1556, and all those which, as in this instance, have the Duke of Suffolk’s name in the imprint must have been published after 1536, when the property referred to, which previously belonged to the Bishop of Norwich, passed into his possession. The date of the book therefore is about 1540–1550, though the translation may have been made some years before. For the sake of comparison with the earlier version of Stephen Scrope, one of the texts with its commentary is here given:

THE .XXVIII. TEXTE.

Loue and prayse Cadmus so excellente,
And his dyscyples holde thou in chyerte.
He gaygned the fountayne of the Serpente
With ryght great payne afore that it wolde be.

THE .XXVIII. GLOSE.

Cadmus was a moche noble man and founded Thebes, whiche cytie was
greatly renomed. He set there a study & he hym selfe was moche
profoundly lettered and of great science. And therfore sayth the
fable that he daunted the serpent at the fountayne, that is to
vnderstande the science and sages that alwayes springeth; the
Serpent is noted for the payne and trauayle which it behoueth the
student to daunte afore that he maye purchase scyence. And the fable
sayth that he hym self became a serpent, which is to vnderstande he
was a corrector and mayster of other. So wol Othea say that the good
knight ought to loue and honour the clerkes lettered, which ben
grounded in science. To this purpose sayeth Arystotle to Alexandre,
“Honour thou scyence and fortyfie it by good maysters.”

THE .XXVIII. ALLEGORIE.

Cadmus whiche daunted the Serpent at the fountayne, whiche the good
knyght ought to loue, we may vnderstande the blyssed humanite of
Jesu christ, which dompted the serpent and gaigned the fountayne,
that is to say the lyfe of this world, from the which he passed
afore with great payne and with great trauayle. Wherof he had
perfyte victory whan he rose agayne the thyrd day, as sayth S.
Thomas, “Tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.”

In conclusion it only remains to say a few words on the possible connexion of Stephen Scrope with two other works already mentioned, which, like his “Epistle of Othea” or “Boke of Knyghthode” and his “Sayings of the Philosophers,” were written for Sir John Fastolf or under his influence. One of them, the “Boke of Noblesse,” is preserved in a unique copy in the British Museum, Royal MS. 18 B. xxii., and was edited for the Roxburghe Club in 1860 by Mr. J. Gough Nichols. In the form in which it has come down to us, it was addressed to Edward IV. at the time of his invasion of France in 1475, professing to be “write and entitled to courage and comfort noble men in armes to be in perpetuite of remembraunce for here noble dedis, as right conuenient is soo to bee,” or, more precisely, for the purpose of inciting the English to recover by force of arms their lost foreign conquests. The contents were admirably summarized in the editor’s introduction, and all that need be said of them here is that, in addition to a highly interesting retrospect of English relations with France, they include a large amount of matter derived from a French treatise on the art of war, which is spoken of as the “Arbre de Batailles” and attributed to “Dame Cristyn.” Although the editor failed to identify the author, he pointed out that he must have been intimately associated with Fastolf and had access to his papers. Strictly speaking, Fastolf’s name is not specially prominent except in the marginal insertions and notes, where the writer refers to him as “myne autor” and gives several curious anecdotes as heard from his lips. The body of the MS. is clearly not autograph; but these additions, together with the title and colophon,[92] are in a different handwriting, and, although the editor seems to have been unaware of the fact, it is beyond question that of William Worcester, or Botoner, who was not only Fastolf’s servant and secretary, but is also known as an annalist and a diligent collector of matter on historical, topographical and other subjects.[93] The editor therefore dismissed his claims to the authorship of the work rather too hastily, for, as the final touches were certainly his, the only question is whether he was also responsible for the whole of it from its inception. From the limit of date of the events mentioned there is some reason to believe that it was originally composed within Fastolf’s lifetime and was only revised and enlarged in 1475 for a special occasion; and its date may perhaps be fixed still more exactly, since there is an allusion (p. 42) to “another gret armee and voiage fordone for defaut and lak of spedy payment _this yere_ of Crist M^lccccli.” Apart from the final additions there is evidence to connect Worcester with it in a passage of the prologue to a series of documents relating to the wars in France which were collected by him,[94] mainly no doubt from materials that belonged to Fastolf, and which may be regarded as _pièces justificatives_ to the “Boke of Noblesse.” This collection also appears to have been designed for Edward IV., but the original prologue was awkwardly recast, as we now have it, after Worcester’s death by his son for dedication to Richard III. The passage in it referred to, for which he is responsible, is as follows:

“And I, as moost symple of reasone, youre righte humble legemane,
cannot atteyne to understond the reasons and bokes that many wise
philosophurs of gret auctorite have writtene upone this vertue of
Force, but that my pore fadyr, William Worcestre ... toke upone hym
to write in this mater and compiled this boke to the most highe and
gretly redoubted kyng, your most nobille brodyr and predecessoure,
shewyng after his symple connyng, after the seyng of the masters of
philosophie, as Renatus Vegesius in his Boke of Batayles, also
Julius Frontinus in his Boke of Knyghtly Laboures, callid in Greke
Stratagematon, a new auctoure callid The Tree of Batayles.”

Obviously this cannot apply to the purely historical documents of which the collection itself consists. It is, however, strongly suggestive of the “Boke of Noblesse,” to which they are, as it were, an appendix, and coupled with the evidence of the handwriting of the additions, it leaves little room for doubt that William Worcester was its author. At the same time, it is by no means unlikely that Stephen Scrope also had a hand in it. If indeed it was wholly compiled in 1475, this is impossible, since he died in 1472.[95] Assuming, however, for the reason given above, that it dates from 1451, or thereabouts, he was residing at the time with Fastolf and was no doubt on familiar terms with Worcester. As already remarked, a prominent feature of the work is the number of extracts translated from the so-called “Arbre de Batailles” of “Dame Cristyn.” This, however, was not, as the editor supposed, Honoré Bonet’s treatise of that name[96] assigned to a wrong author, but Christine de Pisan’s “Faits d’armes et de chevalerie” under a wrong title.[97] Whether Worcester was capable of making translations from it as early as 1451 is somewhat doubtful; for he seems to have only begun to learn French about August, 1458,[98] little more than a year before Fastolf’s death. Scrope on the contrary had before this translated two French works for the latter, one of them being by the same Christine, and it is therefore in this part of the “Boke of Noblesse,” if at all, that he may possibly have collaborated.

Unlike the last-named work, the anonymous English version of Cicero’s “De Senectute” which Caxton printed in 1481 has already been attributed to William Worcester,[99] the ground of this assumption being an entry made in his “Itinerarium,”[100] that on 10th August, 1473, he presented to Bishop Waynflete at Esher a translation which he had made of this treatise, but got nothing in return. Apart from this statement there is no more reason for attributing Caxton’s text to Worcester than to Scrope. The language is better than might have been expected from either of them, but as no MS. copy exists, we cannot tell to what extent it was edited by Caxton. In the preface, as may be seen above (p. xxx.), it is said that the translation was made from the French of Laurence de Premierfait by Sir John Fastolf’s “ordenaunce and desyre.” As there is no reason to doubt this, its date cannot be later than 1459, so that, if Worcester was the translator, he kept it at least thirteen years before he offered it to Waynflete. This does not seem very likely, and his translation was therefore possibly a different one altogether, completed shortly before the occasion when the bishop so disappointed him by his cold acceptance of it. The earlier version in that case was almost certainly by Scrope; but, where so much is left to conjecture, the most that can be said is that the evidence upon which it has hitherto been assigned to Worcester is not wholly conclusive.

G. F. W.

ERRATA.

P. 2, l. 6, _for_ yowr emost _read_ yowre most.

P. 11, l. 1, _for_ streygth _read_ strey[n]gth.

P. 19, l. 17, _for_ yif is _read_ yif it.

P. 56, Text lii., l. 3, _transfer semicolon to end of line_.

P. 72, note 3, _for_ metu Dei _read_ nutu Dei.

P. 104, Text xci., l. 3, _for_ thyre _read_ thyne.

THE EPISTLE OF OTHEA TO HECTOR;
OR
THE BOKE OF KNYGHTHODE.

Noble[101] and worshipfull among the ordre of cheualrie, renommeed ffor in as much as ye and suche othir noble knyghtes and men of worchip haue exerciced and occupied by long continuaunce of tyme the grete part of yowre dayes in dedys of cheualrie and actis of armis, to the whic[h]e entent ye resseyved the ordre of cheualrie, that is to sey, principaly to be occupied in kepyng and defendyng the cristyn feythe, þe rigth of the chirch, the lond, the contre and the comin welefare of it—And now, seth it is soo that the naturel course off kynde, by revolucion and successyon of .lx. yeeres growyn vpon yowe at this tyme of age and feblenesse, ys comen, abatyng youre bodly laboures, takyng away yowre naturall streyngtht and power from all such labouris as concernyth the exercysing off dedis of cheuallrie, be it yowre noble courage and affeccion of such noble and worchipfull actis and desirys departyth not from yow, yet rygth necessarie [it] now were to occupie the tyme of yowre agys and feblenes of bodie in gostly cheuallrie off dedes of armes spirituall, as in contemplacion of morall wysdome and exercisyng gostly werkys which that may enforce and cavse yow to be callid to the ordire of knyghthode that schal perpetuelly endure and encrese in ioye and worship endelese.

And therefor I, yowre most humble sone Stevyn, whiche that haue wele poundered and consideryd the many and grete entreprises of labouris and aventuris that ye haue embaundoned and yovyn youre selph to by many yeeris contynued, as wele in Fraunce [and] Normandie as in othir straunge regions, londes and contrees—and God, which is souuerayne cheueten and knyght off all cheualrie, hath euer preseruyd and defendid yow in all yowre seyde laboures off cheualrye into this day, ffor the which ye be most specyaly obliged and bownden to becom hys knyght in yovre auncient age, namely for to make ffyghtyng ayen youre goostly ennemyes, that allwey be redy to werre wyth youre sovle, the [Sidenote: f. 3.] which, and ye ouerecom hym, shall cawse yow to be in renomme and worchyp in Paradis euerlastyng—I, consideryng thees premisses wyth othir, have (be the suffraunce off yowre noble and good ffadyrhode and by yowre commaundement) take vpon me at this tyme to translate ovte off Frenche tong, ffor more encrese of vertu, and to reduce into owre modyr tong a Book off Knyghthode, as wele off gostly and spirituell actis off armys for the sowle hele as of wordly[102] dedys and policie gouernaunce, and which is auctorised and grounded fryst vpon the .iiii. Cardinal Vertous, as Justice, Prudence, Fors and Temperaunce, also exempled vpon the grete conceytys and doctrine off fulle wyse pooetys and philosophurs, the whiche teche and covnesell how a man schuld be a knyght for the world prynspally, as in yeftis off grace vsyng, as the Cardinalle Vertuus make mencion, ffryst in iustice kepyng, prvdently hym self gouuernyng, hys streynght bodely and gostly vsyng, and magnanimite conseruyng, and allso gouuernyng hymself as a knyght in the seyde Cardinall Vertuouse kepyng. Which materis, conseytys and resons be auctorised and approued vpon the textys and dictes off the holde[103] poetys and wyse men called Philosophurs. And allso ye schal fynde here in this seyde Boke off Cheuallry how and in whatte maner ye, and all othir off whatte astate, condicion or degre he be off, may welle be called a knyght that ouercomyth and conqveryth hys gostly ennemyes by the safegard repuignand defence off hys sovle, wich among all othir victories [and] dedys off worchip is most expedient and necessarie, where as dayly in grettest aventures a man puttyth hym inne and most wery he is to be renommed in worchip and callid a knyght that dothe exercise hys armes and dedys off knyghthode in gostly dedys, in conqveryng his gostly ennemees and ouyrcomyng þe peple and aventure off the world.

And this seyde boke, at the instavnce and praer off a fulle wyse gentylwoman of Frawnce called Dame Cristine, was compiled and grounded by the famous doctours of the most excellent in clerge the nobyl Vniuersyte off Paris, made to the ful noble famous prynce and knyght off renovnne in his dayes, beyng called Jon, Duke of Barry, thryd son to Kyng Jon of Frawnce, that he throwe hys knyghtly labourys, as welle in dedys of armes temporell as spirituell exercisyng by the space and tyme of .c. yeerys[104] lyvyng, flowrid and rengnyd in grete worchip and renownne of cheualry. And in thre thyngges generaly he exercisyd his knyghtly labowris. Thereof oon was in victories, dedis of cheualrie and of armys, in defendyng the seyde royalme of Frawnce from his ennemyes. [The second was] in grete police vsyng, as of grete cowneseylles and wysdomys, yevyng and executing the same for the conseruacyon of iustice and transquillite and alsoo pease kepyng for all the comon welleffare of that noble royaulme. The thredde was in spirytuell and gostly dedys yovyn ontoo for the helthe and wellfare of hys sovle. And in euery of these thre thynggys the seyde prynce was holden ful cheualrouse and suremounted in his dayes above all othir. Wych schewyth welle opynly to euery vnder-stander [Sidenote: f. 4.] in the seyde booke redyng that it was made acordyng to hys seyde victorious dedis and actis of worchip exercysyng.

And the seyde booke ys diuidyd in thre partys gederid in a summe of an .c. textys, drawen vpon the dictis and conceytys of the seyd most famous poetys off olde tyme beyng, as Vyrgyl, Ouyde, Omer and othir; and also with an .c. commentys therevpon, callid exposicyons or glosis vpon the seyde textys, of exemplys temporell of policie gouernaunce and worldlye wysdoms and dedys, grovndyed and also exempled by experiens and by auctorite of the auncient philosophurs and clerkes, as Hermes,[105] Plato, Salomon, Aristotiles, Socrates, Ptholome and suche othir. And vpon thies exemplis and glosis is made and wretyn also an othyr .c. allegories and moralizacions, applied and moralized to actis and dedys of werkyng spirituell, for to doctrine enforme and to lerne euery man nov lyvyng in this world how he schuld be a knyht exercisyng and doyng the dedys of armys gostly, for euerlastyng victorie and helthe of the sovle. Which allegories and moralizacions ben grovnded and auctorised vpon the .iiii. holy doctoris of the chirche, as Austyn, Jerom, Gregorie, Ambrose, alsoo vpon the Bible, the Holy Ewaungelistes and Epistollys and othyr holy doctorus, as here textis more opynly schalle appere hereafftyr. Fiat. Fiat. Amen.