SOURCE: "The First English Essayist: Walter Map," Poet-Lore, Vol. V, No. 11, November, 1893, pp. 537-50.

[In the following essay, Colton examines several of Map's writings and remarks on the uncertain or "shadowy" connection that can be drawn between Map and the essays he may or may not have written. He concludes that this uncertainty is appropriate since Map considered his own life as a courtier a vain and shadowy one.]

Since the publications of the Camden Society in 1850 and 1851, the name of Walter Map has been tolerably familiar to students of literature, and the De Nugis Curialium has taken a certain rank among historical documents. The Reports of the German Imperial Academy for 1853 contained a paper by Phillips in which Map's life and relations to Henry, Becket, Gilbert Foliot, the Cistercians, and other men and affairs of his time were thoroughly worked out: his birth between 1133 and 1138; the services of his family to Henry in the recent civil wars, and Henry's gratitude; his studies in Paris, where he saw a town-and-gown riot; his ecclesiastical advancement and presence at the Lateran Council of 1179; with other intermediate items,—altogether a passably satisfactory biography as biographies of that period go. In 1210 Gerald Cambrensis wrote "May God be gracious to his soul!" and Phillips estimates that he died near the beginning of the century.

It is a strange comment on fortunes and shifting opinions that while three hundred years later English writers still trembled to intrust their immortality to a language which they felt was destined to decay or death, and some, like Moore and Bacon, put capital into Latin securities as a safer investment, the brightest man in England in the twelfth century found in this immortal Latin language, if not a tomb for his name and fame, at least a narrow room, a "quiet limit of the world," that gave him but a Tithonian shadow of immortality. Even that shadow is partly a mistake; but whether he wrote any of the Latin satires that have come down to us, or merely the strength of his name gathered them around it, he wrote himself in the book which he called De Nugis Curialium,—Court Gossip, or more literally, Trifles of the Court. My present endeavor is to represent briefly what sort of a book this clever man wrote, and through the book what sort of a man he was who wrote it.

In the first prace, he was an essayist; the De Nugis Curialium is not primarily an historical document, but a collection of the essays and miscellaneous papers of Walter Map, which collection he made and arranged himself, and divided into books, or Distinctiones, as he called them, with an Introduction to each book. The papers often consist of a mere paragraph containing an anecdote or squib, not what we should be justified in calling an essay; but it is the air of immediate contact with the reader which distinguishes the essayist, though it may take other matters to furnish forth the essay, and on the other hand many of Map's subjects are all that a Lamb or Leigh Hunt would require. The essay in Map's time had no precedents, and consequently no recognized literary form; but all the essential qualities of it are found in the De Nugis Curialium, and Map will be better understood under this name and view of him than any other.

The Introduction to the first book begins as follows:—

'I am in time and I speak concerning time,' said Augustine, but adds, 'I do not know what time is.' In a similar astonishment I may say, that I am in the court, and I speak concerning the court, but I do not know, God knows, what the court is. Only I know the court is not time. It is temporal certainly, mutable and various, local and erratic and never stays in the same place. When I go away from it, I see it as a whole, but when I come back I find nothing or little that I left. The court is the same but the parts have changed.

It seems that some friend by the name of Galfrid was distressed that Map's literary talents should rust so long in idleness, and entreated him to write a didactic poem on the court; this, on account of the distracting nature of his life, Map found himself unable to do, and started to write an apology for his inability. He proceeded to show why the court was like Infernus, and discovered such startling parallels that the wonder is, not that he did write poetry there, but that he did anything there except to get out of it immediately. His objection to this was probably that he did not like any other place as well. He concludes:—

Of the court we testify what we have seen. Moreover, the envelopment of flame, the density of the darkness, stench of rivers and great grinding of demons' teeth, wandering exiles and miserable with anxious hearts, the dreadful creeping of all vipers, snakes and every reptile, impious roaring, evil smells, lamentation and horrors, if I wished to make an allegory of each of these, there would be no lack of symbols but it would take more time than I care to spend.… Nevertheless I do not say that the court is Infernus, which does not follow, but it is as like it as a horse's shoe is like a mare's.… This is not the king's fault [he adds, fearful that it may reflect something on his friend and sovereign], since there is no man wise enough to so dispose his house that there be no trouble in it. For I am ruler of a small household and yet am unable to hold the reins of that little family of mine. It is my study that, as far as I am able, all shall be provided for and none lack food or drink or raiment, and yet they try in every way to cut off my substance and increase their own. If I reprove any one justly, he denies the fault and his fellows back him up. If any one of my household speaks well of me, they call him a flatterer. 'You stand well with the master. You lie to please him and get paid for it but we will be honest if we are turned off inside of an hour.' … I have asked advice of them, to whom I should entrust the care and ministration of the priory, not that I might choose the one they wanted but the one they did not; for I knew what counsel the dogs would give me. There is an old and well-known story of a man who quarrelled with his wife about which part of the pig they should put in the pot. The wife said the side and the husband the back and the dog said 'Put the back in, man, because then the best part will be left for me.' And I knew their advice would be for their benefit, not mine.… So I dare not find fault with the king that in so great a court there are many mistakes and much tumult.… You ask me, my dear Galfrid, to write a poem about the court. I am a child at such things; besides I tell you I am tied to this court that I have so veraciously described, banished to it, and you command me to philosophize about it, who protest that I am the Tantalus of this Infernus. How can I pledge your health if I cannot get anything to drink? Poetry comes of a quiet mind and devoted to one thing. Poets want a residence entire and safe. Good health and property are of no avail unless there is a mind tranquil with inward peace. So you might as well tell the young men in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace to sing as ask this miracle of me, a foolish man, in writing inexperienced.

Follows shortly a story of the King of Portugal,—how he was wickedly persuaded to kill his friend and his queen, his repentance therefor, and how such things are liable to happen in courts.

And you would have me in this court,—the mother of affliction and the nurse of wrath,—write poetry! and urge me with words as Balaam urged his ass with spurs. But I am afraid that I in my folly, unlike the ass, shall yield, and you unlike Balaam, who caused his ass to speak instead of bray, will cause me to bray instead of speak and make an ass of a man instead of a poet. However I will be an ass if you like.

The only manner of satisfying his friend Galfrid which his distractions allowed, was to write these little papers or essays whenever he found time, "raptim," he says,—by snatches. Phillips estimates that they were written between 1180 and 1193; and, naturally enough, they were not arranged in the order of composition, but with a general view to the subject, although this purpose is not strictly maintained. The first two books are largely about monks and military orders, ghosts and various supernatural matters, "fantastic apparitions," he calls them, and "prodigies."

Concerning the Origin of the Carthusians.

The bishop of Grenoble saw in sleep seven suns come together from different directions to the mountain which is called Cartusia in the valley of Grisevold, and stop there. The next day, when he had considered much with himself but found no explanation, lo, six clerics, men magnificent and with them a seventh, their master Bruno, who straightway asked for a location that they might build an oratory there. Glad then was the bishop that his vision had so happy an outcome and built them cells and a church, according to their plans, and bestowed them therein with his benediction. It is, moreover, a lofty mountain, in the midst of its summit a deep valley, barren and uncultivated, although abounding in springs. They have thirteen cells; the prior lives in one and each brother in one. The prior on the Sabbath distributes bread for the whole week and pulse and oil, but three days in the week they content themselves with bread and water. They eat no flesh except they are sick, purchase no fish or eat it, unless it is given them and may be divided among them all. They are always clad in goathair cloth, always girded and always praying or reading. No one besides the prior is allowed to put more than one foot outside his cell; the prior may for the purpose of visiting the brethren. On feast days they assemble in the church. They hear mass not daily, but on certain days.

Hermits are very unusual people, but this is the only case on record of a sect that was able to "assemble in the church," and each leave a foot behind in his cell, without exciting remark.

Map gives a pathetic little anecdote of a certain monk of Cluny who was forced to leave his monastery and take up arms, and being mortally wounded, said to the boy who was with him:—

'Conjure me by the mercy of God, dear son, that in the name of Jesus Christ my soul be penitent on the day of Judgment, that the Lord may pity me and I see not with the impious the face of fury and wrath.' Then said the boy, with tears: 'Sir, I conjure thee that thou divide thy lips with penitence in the presence of the Lord,' and he, nodding his head devoutly, promised to do so and died.

The poor old monk thought if he made a solemn promise on the brink of death, he might perhaps remember it when he had become a reckless, irresponsible spirit.

'Concerning a Certain Hermit' and an extraordinary lizard.—This animal entered his cell and humbly manifested a desire for something to eat. The hermit was a charitable man, "having," in Map's favorite phrase, "the zeal of the Lord, though not according to wisdom," by which, I take it, he means to reflect here on the evils of indiscriminate charity. He fed the lizard so well that it grew too large for the cell and eventually swallowed him, at least he disappeared. It is an allegory of gratitude, a not uncommon one, and the lizard's is a besetting sin.

The archdeacon had a private grudge against the Cistercian monks, and his account of them is evidently bitter and prejudiced; but the corruption of the church in all places was a sore point with him as a conscientious churchman, and the essay that follows the account of the Cistercians, on monks in general, is a piece of fiery invective that must have made some of the cowled brethren's blood run hot. In the paper on the Sect of the Assassins, his position toward the papacy is clearly brought out.

Jocelin, bishop of Salsbury, once said to his son who had been elected by violence to the bishopric of Bath, and was bewailing that Canterbury refused to consecrate him, 'You idiot, run to the pope, hesitate not, hit him a good slap with a large purse and he will stagger any way you like.' So he went, gave the blow, the pope staggered and fell, the pontifex rose and forthwith wrote a lie at the beginning of all his letters, for when he should have said 'by the grace of the purse' he said 'by the grace of God,' and did in fact whatever the bishop desired. Nevertheless be our mistress and mother Rome as a staff broken in the water and let us not believe what we see.

I find Map's "fantastic apparitions" more interesting than his monks and hermits, and suspect he was secretly of the same opinion. He is quite sarcastic on occasion with regard to some of the reputed saints and their spectacular miracles, but to his "apparitions" he is uniformly respectful. "I do not know the reason," he remarks of one,—which he calls a "prodigy," however,—"but I know it is true." Among them appears our old friend, the Undine, in a water-maiden who comes out of the lake called Lenem and marries a dweller in dry places. And although she warns her husband against thrashing her with his bridle-rein, he incautiously insists upon it. Consequently his wife goes back to the water again, and leaves him only one of their children, whose name is Triunnes Nagelauc; whereafter Triunnes Nagelauc has certain adventures. Another version of the same myth, apparently, tells of a company of beautiful women,—ghosts, to be sure,—in a house in the woods, one especially, 'forma facieque prcestantem," whom a hunter carries off, not without being liberally scratched. But her son turned out to be eminently pious, gave all his money to the Church in gratitude for restored health, and went on a pilgrimage,—"a thing which," Map remarks very seriously, "is quite unparalleled in the ancient histories of the children of nightmares."

A passing apparition is called a phantom from phantasia. These are the visible forms that demons take upon themselves from time to time, licensed by God, and in their passage harmful or not according to his desire or permission. But what must be said of those phantoms that remain and perpetuate themselves in their children, like this Alnodus or the Briton, spoken of before, who had actually buried his dead wife and recovered her and afterward had sons and grandsons from her, who remain to this day, who trace their origin thither, multitudes of them, and are all called 'children of the dead woman'!

A certain William Laudun, a reckless kind of a man, came to Gilbert Foliot, then Archbishop of Hertford, in a quandary. He said a Welshman had died near him recently. This Welshman was an infidel, and took to walking about in the night and calling people by name; and these people all died. It was very unpleasant, because there were not many left in the neighborhood. The bishop thought likely an evil spirit had got into the corpse, and the best plan was to pour holy water on the grave, which William did, without any perceptible effect. Finally, one night, after there were very few left indeed, the ghost called William himself; and the reckless man rushed out with his sword, chased him into a ditch, and cut off his head. After that there was no more trouble, and the best of it was William did not die.

'Concerning King Herla' of the ancient Britons, who made a compact with the king of the pygmies that each should attend the wedding of the other,—how the king of the pygmies came to Herla's wedding with a great retinue and rich presents; how a year thereafter Herla was taken through a dark cave to a place where was no sun or moon, but lit by many lamps, and witnessed the wedding of the king; how on his return he found that his few days with the pygmies had been many years on earth, and the Saxons ruled the land; how ever since he has wandered, seen by many, unquietly and without resting-place, until in the first year of the coronation of King Henry he disappeared in the river Wye and wanders no more.

But whatever delight the archdeacon took in his prodigies and apparitions, popular superstition had to run the gauntlet of his sarcasm along with its betters, as in the following instance, that deathbed advice is better than any other kind of advice.

A certain soldier, hereditary seneschal of France, said to his son before he died, 'My son, you are very popular and the favor of the Lord is manifest in you. Now keep these my precepts for your own safety and prosperity. Do not set free any man justly condemned, do not drink stale water, not fresh from the brook, do not advance a servant, do not marry the daughter of an adulteress, do not trust a low born man who has red hair.' After his father was buried the son came into his hereditary office, was very acceptable to the king and all France, very gentle and wise and good-mannered. He quite neglected his father's precepts, married a woman of questionable parentage, had a redhaired servant, who looked like a hungry jackdaw and turned out to be very active and useful.… He prospered in family, wealth and all other respects.

Map was a Welshman, born on the border, but he speaks as disrespectfully of his countrymen almost as Heine does of Alma Mater of Göttingen, chiefly complaining that they were such conscienceless cutthroats and given to interminable feuds. He recollects a conversation with Thomas a Becket in connection with this, when the latter was chancellor. Becket asked him if the Welsh could be trusted; and Map told him a story about a soldier who found King Louis, the son of Charlemagne, in the forest of Behere, sitting on a stone, and did not know him. Louis was much interested in the soldier's sword, and while he was examining it forgot his incognito and said in a royal kind of way, "Bring me a stone to sit on!" The soldier was afraid of the sword, and brought the stone; but when he got the sword back, he told the king to put the stone in its place again, and the king did. "That is the way with Welsh good faith," said Map to Becket,—"when you hold the sword they beg, but when they hold it, they begin to give orders."

One paper is headed, 'Concerning the Undiscriminating Piety of Welshmen.'

In every tribe, it is said, the fear of God is acceptable to him, but among our Welsh people the fear of the Lord is seldom according to wisdom. My lord, William of Braose, who was a practiced warrior, told me himself that he had a Welshman with him once, of noble family and very strict in his honesty, who every night, at first cock crow, would rise from his bed and kneel naked on the bare floor, praying till dawn and fasting, as was proper. He kept such stringent guard over himself that you would have thought him little short of an angel, but if you saw how stupid he was in society, how quick at blood, how negligent of his own safety and eager for another man's death, how he delighted in the perpetration of any crime or homicide, you would not have doubted that he was inwardly given over to iniquity.

The assumption that the fact that the man was a bore, "infrunitus in congressibus," was an associate evidence of his inward iniquity, is characteristic of Map, for in spite of his disrespectful comments on the Welsh, he was a thorough Celt. His bright, lively manner and epigrammatic turn are the ear-marks of the race; and I suspect this was a secret reason for his discontent at court, possibly somewhat exaggerated, however. "This unhappy and curious court," as he calls it, where "I languish and renounce my tastes to please other people." "In the court," he observes, "the man that laughs is laughed at, and he who sits in sadness is considered wise. So our judges punish gladness and reward melancholy, although the good may properly rejoice in a good conscience and the bad from a bad conscience be deservedly melancholy." His student life at Paris had left him in spite of himself with an un-English love for the bright and pleasant people of France.

It happened that when I sojourned awhile with king (Louis) at Paris, he talked with me about the wealth of kings, and among other things he said, 'The wealth of kings is diverse and of great variety. In precious stones, lions, leopards and elephants are the riches of the kings of Ind, the emperor of Byzantium and the king of Sicily glory in gold and silken garments.… The emperor of Rome, whom they call Alemannorus, had men-at-arms and war horses, but no gold or silk or any opulence.… Your lord, the king of England, lacks nothing and possesses all things, men, horses, gold and silk, gems and fruits and wild game. We in France have nothing except bread and wine and happiness.' I noted these words, because they were both polite and true.

In another paper, after referring again to the legend of Herla and his ghostly army, a kind of Cambrian Wild Huntsman, he repeats that he disappeared about the beginning of Henry's reign, and bequeathed his general foolishness to the land; and then follows a curious passage which recalls the saying that "The English take their pleasures sadly."

We generally seek among other nations the causes of grief, because with us people seldom grieve, the causes of happiness because we seldom rejoice. We have indeed comfort for grief, but we know nothing of happiness. We are supported by our consolations but we are not happy in our joys.

Whatever else may be said of this, it is not only a keen but a French or Celtic analysis of the English character. It is the same as saying that Teutonic happiness is equivalent to Celtic consolation.

Next to the Cistercians, Map's particular detestation was the king's illegitimate son Geoffrey. The feeling was cordially returned. Geoffrey was elected Bishop of Lincoln, but was not ordained. The Pope insisted that he should either be ordained or retire. "He retired," Map remarks, "to Marlborough. There is a fountain there, of which if any one drinks, they say he spoils his French, and consequently, when any one speaks that language very badly, he is said to speak the French of Marlborough." When Geoffrey announced his resignation to the Archbishop of Canterbury in Map's hearing, the archbishop asked, "Quid loqueris?" (What were you saying?), wishing him to repeat what he had said, that all might hear; when he was silent, the archbishop asked again, "Quid loqueris?" and Map answered for him, "Gallicum Merleburgœ" (The French of Marlborough), "thereupon the rest laughed, but he was angry and went out." Map had too sharp a tongue to be a comfortable enemy.

The literary opinions of so thorough a man of letters would naturally be interesting. In the 'Prologus' to the Fifth Book he writes:—

The result of the industry of the ancients is in our hands. The deeds of their times, now past, they make present to ours, but we are silent, and so, while their memories live in us, we are forgetful of our own. 0 miraculum illustre! the dead live, and the living are buried before them. And yet we have in our times something of Sophocles, are not lacking in dramatic talent.… The Cæsar of Lucanus, the Æneas of Maro, live in great honor, much through their own merits, but not less through the vigilance of the poets. But with us the divine nobility of Charlemagne and Pepin are celebrated only in vulgar rhythms.

Which one of the miracle playwrights possessed this "something of Sophocles" and was "not lacking in dramatic talent," if that is what "non indigens cothurno" means, is not mentioned. The mantle of Sophocles has never been recognized among them since with any startling certainty. At the end of the 'Prologus' he instances a fish of the Danube called the "usula," which in its last gasp listens eagerly to strains of music, and calls it a symbol of the scholar and man of letters, whom no disease or difficulty can keep from his labors. It is either an unconscious or remorseful stab at himself, because he had already offered much the same excuse for his lack of literary activity,—that a poet at court was like a fish out of water.

He is rather hypocritically modest about his own literary talents, though touchy on the score of his honesty.

I see that I have been compared by the monks in an uncomplimentary way to the Cluvian poet (of Juvenal) accustomed to 'the chalk and coal, (as Horace says,) an insipid idiot of a scribbler.' Without doubt I am, but while my satires may be worthy of 'the chalk and coal' and admitting that I am an idiot, I do not lie, I do not flatter.… An unskilful poet I confess myself, but not a writer of falsities.

We may say for his prose, however, that it is frequently bad Latin, but always good sense. His meaning is clear out on the finger-points of his language; and his style passes from easy narrative to the clean-cut antithesis and epigram, like the snap of a whip, with uncommon grace and effect. Without searching for a more exact illustration, I translate from a paper called 'Conclusio Prædictae Epistolæ,' for the sake of the antitheses:—

Hard is the hand of the surgeon, but healthful; hard is this sermon but healthful, and I would it might be as useful as devoted to you. Narrow, you say, is the rule of living I inflict upon you. Be it so. Narrow is the way which leads to life and the path is not plain that goes to the plenitude of joys.

There is a pun in the last lines between "plana" and "plena," which the translation barely hints at; but the archdeacon's puns, I suspect, were his particular pride, and the attempt to chase them into the English language is quite hopeless. To pepper a page with puns in a guileless, unconscious way, as if it were nothing but high spirits, is a prerogative that belongs strictly to mediaeval Latin. The 'Prædictæ Epistolæ' is that writ-ten "ad philosophum Rufinum" whose real name was John, in which Valerius, or Walter, attempts to dissuade him from getting married. It is to be hoped he utterly failed, because his logic is quite exasperating. A classic example was always a powerful argument to the mediaval mind, and is still looked on as rather a majestic affair; but after all, if Rufinus had an opportunity to get married, it was not charity to throw Hercules and Deijanira in his face, or construe the paternal wrath of Apollo, which resulted in his becoming the shepherd of Admetus, as a concretely terrible warning. Just how seriously Map meant it to be taken is a question, but certainly not altogether.

This Epistle to Rufinus seems to have been written and widely circulated before it was included in the collection. After a solemn appeal,—"Friend, the omnipotent God grant that you be not deceived by the wiles of the omnipotent female, and illuminate your heart that you go not with deluded eyes whither I fear,"—in the section entitled 'Finis Epistolæ Præmissæ,' he declares that "this letter has pleased many people, been widely seized upon, copied carefully and read with great delight. Nevertheless, some people say it is not mine, but written by some ordinary person. For they are envious of the epistle and would violently take away its glory and its author,"—which seems to imply that its "glory" and its "author" were synonymous in its author's mind.

The essays of the Fifth Book are more strictly historical in subject, on Earl Godwin, Cnut, William Rufus, Henry I., and Louis of France. But in these, too, Map is the discursive essayist rather than the historian. An anecdote satisfies his mind better than a sober statement, and he delights to wander off in personal reminiscence and reflection. The men of the past were real men to him, not historical characters, or political agencies, or the nucleuses of a certain number of facts. He talks of Cnut as he talks of Becket, and the sense of actuality never drifts away from him. Lowell has said that the best motto for Chaucer are the words he dreamed were written over a gate:—

"Through me men go into that blissful place
Of heartès heal and deadly woundès cure."

Map writes his own motto, too, and prescribes the way in which his writing should be read. "When from the palace," he says to Galfrid, "descend the officials, wearied with the immensity of royal business, they are pleased to incline to more humble occupations, and to lighten the weight of their gravity with jokes. Perhaps when you have breathed in solemn senate with the pages of philosophy and divinity, you may be pleased to read the ignoble and weak of this volume for your recreation and pastime." But as a motto this is not altogether successful. Map was no sunny, tranquil spirit like Chaucer. His wit is stinging, not infrequently spiteful, and often bitterly in earnest. However it was with his friend Galfrid, there must have been many in the court who read him with emotions scarcely consistent with "recreation and pastime." "This little book on the court of king Henry, … written by snatches and on stray leaves" did not always seem to him such a trivial affair. "I have drawn it with violence from my heart, compelled to follow my lord's command, for I trembled at what I did, I struggled to accomplish what I could not."

He closes the book—this man who once went under the strange misnomer of "the jovial archdeacon"—with a return to the gloomy picture that he drew in the beginning:—

Augustine said, 'I am in time, and I speak concerning time, but I do not know what time is.' In a similar astonishment I may say, that I am in the court and speak concerning the court, but I do not know what it is. Only I know it is not time. It is temporal certainly, mutable and various, local and erratic.… We leave it frequently and return as the exigencies of the affairs of each dictate. When we are away from it we recognize it as a whole; if we remain outside a year, it meets us with a new face on our return and we ourselves are new.… It is like Infernus, having its fiery rivers, the Styx which is hatred, Phlegethon, passion, and Lethe, forgetfulness, Cocytus, remorse, and Acheron, melancholy. Charon is there, the court usher, who admits none without his stipend,—in his mouth and not in his hand, because an usher is obsequious enough in view of a promised bribe, but the bribe once given does not influence him at all. Tantalus is there with his desire ever at the ends of his fingers, Ixion bound to the wheel of Fortune, and Sisyphus rolling his slippery stone up the mountain of wealth till his own heart becomes the stone he rolls. There is the dissolute Tityus and the children of Belus, who strive to fill the vase that has no bottom.

Very much a place of shadows it seemed to Map, unreal and vain, as to another humorist of the nineteenth century [William Makepeace Thackeray] seemed the social world he lived in, who wrote at the end of his book, "Vanity of vanities! which of us has his desire in the world, or having it is satisfied?"

A keen and versatile man was Map, sensitive to many influences, of varied culture and marked Celtic character, a conscientious churchman, a polished courtier, an acknowledged wit, and a man who, it is at least highly probable, originated a great school of satire. In the De Nugis Curialium, under its cowled and curious garb of mediaval Latin, lies a real element of literature, for in it "the dead live" and "the deeds of their time, now past," it makes "present to ours."