The book which we offer to the pubic today was one of the, most widely read books of medieval times. Written by an English Franciscan, Bartholomew, in the middle of the thirteenth century probably before 1260, it speedily travelled over Europe. It was translated into French by order of Charles V. (1364-81) in 1372, into Spanish, into Dutch, and into English in 1397. Its popularity, almost unexampled, is explained by the scope of the work, as stated in the translators prologue. It was written to explain the allusions to natural objects met with in the Scriptures or in the Gloss. It was, in fact, an account of the properties of things in general; an encyclopedia of similes for the benefit of the village preaching friar, written for men without deep-almost without any--learning. Assuming no previous information, and giving a fairly clear statement of the state of the knowledge of the time, the book was readily welcomed by the class for which it was designed, and by the small nucleus of an educated class which was slowly forming. Its popularity remained in full after the invention of printing, no less than ten editions being published in the fifteenth century of the Latin copy alone, with four French translations, a Dutch, a Spanish, and an English one.
The first years of the modern commercial system gave its deathblow to the popularity of this characteristically medieval and though an effort was made in 1582 to revive it, the attempt was unsuccessful-quite naturally so, since the book was written for men desirous to hear of the wonders of strange lands, and did not give an accurate account of anything. The man who bought cinnamon at Stourbridge Fair in 1380 would have felt poorer if anyone had told him that it was not shot from the phoenix' nest with leaden arrows, while the merchant of 1580 wished to know where it was grown, and how much he would pay a pound for it if he bought it at first hand. Any attempt to reconcile these frames of mind was fore-doomed to failure.
The interest of Bartholomew's work to modern readers is two fold: it has its value as literature pure and simple, and it is one of the most important of the documents by the help of which we rebuild for ourselves the fabric of medieval life. The charm of its style lies in its simple forcible language, and its simplicity suits its matter well. On the one hand we cannot forget it is a translation, but the translation, on the other hand, is from the medieval Latin of an Englishman into English.
One of the greatest difficulties in the way of a student is to place himself in the mental attitude of a man of the Middle Ages towards nature; yet only by so doing can he appreciate the solutions that the philosophers of the time offered of the problems of nature. Our author affords perhaps the simplest way of learning what Chaucer and Shakespeare knew and believed of their surroundings--earth, air, and sea. The plan on which his work was constructed led Bartholomew in order over the universe from God and the angels-through fire, water, air to earth, and all that therein is. We thus obtain a succinct account of the the popular medieval theories in Astronomy, Physiology, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, and Natural History, all but unattainable otherwise. The aim of our chapter on Science has been to give sufficient extracts to mark the theories on which medieval Science was based, the methods of its reasoning, and the results at which it arrived. The chapter on Medicine gives some account of the popular cures and notions of the day, and that on Geography, resumes the traditions current on foreign lands, when Ireland was at a greater distance than Rome, and less known than Syria.
In the chapter on Medieval Society we have, not perhaps the daily life of the Middle Ages, but at least the ideal set before them by their pastors and masters-an ideal in direct relationship with the everyday facts of their life. The lord, the servant, the husband, the wife, and the child, here find their picture. Some information, too, can be obtained about the daily life of the time from the chapter on the Natural History of Plants, which gives incidentally food stuffs.
It is in the History of Animals that the student of literature will find the richest mine of allusions. The list of similes in Shakespeare explained by our author would fill a volume like this itself. Other writers, again, simply 'lift' the book wholesale. Chester and Du Bartas write page after page of rhyme, all but versified direct from Bartholomew. Jonson and Spenser, Marlowe and Massinger, make ample use of him. Lyly and Drayton owe him a heavy debt. Considerations of space forbid their insertion, but for every extract made here, the Editor has collected several passages from first-class authors with a view to illustrating the immense importance of this book to Elizabethan literature. It was not without reason that Ireland chose Bartholomew Anglicus as the book to produce with Shakespeare's name on the title-page. The conceits which give our Elizabethan literature its flavour,
The edition from which this work is compiled is that of Berthelet, 1535. There are two others, English, that of Wynkin de Worde in 1491, and that known as 'Batman on Barlholomew,' 1582, the latter being unsuitable for the purpose owning to the numerous alterations and omissions, the former being, for all practical purposes, inaccessible, a complete copy being worth hundreds of pounds. Some details of these editions have been added to the bibliography. Berthelet's edition is perhaps his best book, and is a magnificent piece of printing.
The editor has been unable to trace any MS. of Trevisa's translation which could have served as original for either of the editions of De Worde or Berthelet. Indeed the conclusion is forced on one, that in a work like this, meant for popular use, ever,' copyist and every editor assumed the privilege of fitting it for his own circle of readers, altering or omitting any part not in harmony with his tastes or requirements. Thus in the original, and in Trevisa, the first book contains over twenty chapters, and a long prologue. Wynkin de Worde omits more than half of these, and Berthelet further omits two-thirds of the remainder.
While far from claiming the privilege of his predecessors, the editor believes himself justified, when making a selection passages from the work for modern readers, in altering his text to this extent-and this only . he has modernized the spelling, and in the case of entirely obsolete grammatical forms he has substituted modern ones (e.g., 'its 'for ' his'). In the case of an utterly dead word he has followed the course of substituting a word from the same root, when one exists; and when none could be found, he has left it unchanged in the text. Accordingly a short glossary has been added, which includes, too, many words which we may hope are not dead, but sleeping. In very few cases has a word been inserted, and in those it is marked by italics.
Perhaps we may be allowed to say a word in defense of the principle of modernizing our earliest literature. Early English poetry is, in general incapable of being written in the spelling of our days without losing all of that which makes it verse ; but there can be no reason when dealing with the masterpiece of our Early English prose, for maintaining the obsolete forms of spelling and grammar which hamper the passage of thought from mind to mind across the centuries. Editors of Shakespeare for general use have long assumed the privilege of altering the spelling, and except on the principle that earlier works are more important, or are only to be read by people who have had the leisure and inclination to familiarize their eyes with the peculiarities of Middle English, there can be no reason for stopping there, or a century earlier. Of course, at some point the number of obsolete words becomes so great that the text cannot be read without a dictionary: then the limit has been reached. But Caxton, Trevisa, and many others are well within it, and it is good to remove all obstacles which prevent the ordinary reader from feeling the continuity if his mother tongue.
The facts known of our author's lift have been summarized by Miss Toulmin
Smith in her article in the 'Dictionary of National Biography.' In the
sixteenth century he was generally believed to date from about 1360, and
to have belonged to the Glanvilles an honorable Suffolk family in the Middle
Ages; but there seems to be no authority whatever for the statement.
We first hear of him in a letter from the provincial of the Franciscans
of Saxony to the provincial of France, asking that Bartholomew Anglicus
and another friar should be sent to assist him in his newly created province.
Next year (1231) a MS. chronicle reports that two were sent, and that Bartholomew
Anglicus was appointed teacher of holy theology to the brethren in the
province. learn We learn from Salinibene, who wrote the Chronicles of Parma
(1283), that he had been a professor of theology in the University of Paris,
where he had lectured on the whole Bible. The subject in treating
which he is referred to was an elephant which belonged to the Emperor;
and Salinibene quotes a passage on the elephant from his 'De Proprietatibus
Berum.' The Editor has since met with quotations from the 'De Proprietatibus'
in Boger Bacon's 'Opus Tertium' (1267).
The date of the works seems fairly easy to fix. It cannot, as we have above seen, be later than 1267, and Amable Jourdain fixes it before 1260 by the fact that the particular translations of Aristotle from which Bartholomew quotes (Latin through the Arabic), went almost universally out of use by 1260. On the hand, quotations are made from Albertus Magnus, who was in Paris 1248. And that it was written near this year is evident from the fact that no quotations are made from Vincent de Beauvais, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, or Egidius Colonna, all of whom were in Paris during the second half of the thirteenth century. The earliest known MS. is in the Ashmole Collection, and was written 1296. Two French MSS. are dated 1297 and 1329 respectively.
What a world of speculation this opens to us! Was it Bartholomew's teaching that Boger Bacon had in mind returning from Paris to join the Franciscans, and lead a lift of study? on the other hand, is he the writer who, Bacon says, has perverted the study of philosophy more than any other, and who was still alive then? Did the Dominican and the Franciscan ever meet in friendly intercourse while they fought side by side in the battle of regulars v. seculars which cost Thomas Aquinas ten years delay of his doctor’s hood? Did Bartholomew follow Albert the Great, or precede him in his lectures on the properties of things? The surroundings in which they lived, the crowd of students from all the world, the 'iniperium in imperia' of the University of Paris, all stir up our minds and send us back to a dead and gone world, whose thoughts and interests are not ours, and which is yet the parent of our own time.
As we said in the beginning of this chapter, the work had an immediate and lasting success. Bartholomew Anglicus became known as 'Magister de Proprietatibus Rerum,' and his book was on the list of those which students could borrow from the University chest. It is probable that much of this popularity was due to the fact that he was a teacher for many years of the Greys Friars, and that these, the most popular and the most human; preachers of the day, carried his book and his stories with them wherever they went.
The chief sources of our author's inspiration are notable. He relies on St. Dionysius the Areopagite for heaven and the angels, Aristotle for Physics and Natural History, Pliny's Natural History, Isidore of Seville's Etymology, Albumazar, Al Faragus, and other Arab writers for Astronomy, Constantinus Afer’s Pantegiza for Medical Science, and Physialogus, the Bestiarium and the Lapidarium for the properties of gems, animals, etc. Besides these he quotes many other writers (a list of whom is given in an appendix) little known to modern readers.
The translation from which we quote was made for Sir Thomas lord of Berkeley in 1397 by John Trevisa his chaplain. We owe this good Englishman something for the works in English prose he called into existence-some not yet printed; may we not see in him another proof of what we owe to Chaucer-a language stamped with the seal of a great poet, henceforth sufficient for the people who speak it, ample for the expression of their thoughts or needs?
In selecting from such a book, the principles which have guided the editor are these: To the general reader he desires to offer fair representation of the work of Bartholomew Anglicus, preserving the language and style. To be fair, the work must be sometimes dull-in the whole book there are many very dull passages. He has desired to select passages of interest for their quaint, and their views of things, often for their very misrepresentations of matters of common knowledge to-day, and for their bearing upon the literature of the country. The student of literature and of science will find in it the materials in which the history of their growth is read. In conclusion, the editor ventures to hope that the work will not be unwelcome to the numerous and growing class who love English for its own sake as the noblest tongue on earth, and who desire not to forget the rock from which it was hewn, and the pit from which it was digged.
Our first selection will naturally be the translator's prologue in shortened form of Berthelet.