SOURCE: "Walter Map" in A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066-1422, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 88-92.

[In the following excerpt, Rigg presents an overview of Map's work, focusing on the objects of his satire.]

… Walter Map was also born about 1135, and was part-English, part-Welsh. He describes England as his 'mater', but refers to the Welsh as his 'compatriote' and his surname is Welsh for 'son of. For most of his life he lived close to the Welsh border ('marchio sum Walensibus'). He was probably educated first at St Peter's Abbey in Gloucester, and then studied in Paris. He enjoyed the patronage of Henry II and travelled widely with the court, both in England and Europe. He was a king's justice in Wales and the West Midlands (what would until recently have been called a 'circuit judge'). Eventually he became chancellor of Lincoln, and finally, in 1196 or 1197, archdeacon of Oxford. He died in 1209 or 1210.⁷⁸

Even in his own lifetime he had the reputation of a wit. Gerald of Wales introduces an anti-Cistercian anecdote with the telling remark, 'Adjecit etiam archidiaconus, vel adjicere potuit…' (Speculum ecclesiae 3.14, p. 223) [The archdeacon added, or could have added …], that is, this is the kind of joke that Map would have made. Other contemporary sources, such as the Distinctiones monasticae, credit him with witty epigrams in the Primas style. By the fifteenth century his name was being attached to satirical poems, and the sixteenth-century antiquaries extended the corpus widely, ensuring his entry into literary history.⁷⁹ He was also credited with French prose Arthurian romances. The genuine canon has now been restricted to a few short Latin poems and the De Nugis Curialium, but the latter alone is quite sufficient to justify his reputation.

In its present form, the De Nugis is divided into five distinctions, each with a prologue (some have epilogues);⁸⁰ in outline, the contents are:

Dist. I: satire on the court and monastic orders; some heresies.

Dist. II: tales of the supernatural, especially concerning Wales.

Dist. III: four long stories (Sadius and Galo, Parius and Lausus, Raso, Rollo).

Dist. IV. Epistola Valerii (antimatrimonial); stories of Eudo, Ollo and Scaeva, and others (some revised in Dist. 11).

Dist. V.: synopsis of English history; court satire (revised in Dist. I).

The De Nugis is both satirical and anecdotal; the principal objects of the satire are the court, monks, and marriage,. which can be taken in order.

As noted above,⁸¹ the De Nugis begins with an adaptation of a quotation from Augustine:

'In tempore sum et de tempore loquor', ait Augustinus, et adiecit: 'nescio quid sit tempus'. Ego simili possum admiracione dicere quod in curia sum, et de curia loquor, et nescio, Deus scit, quid sit curia

'I am in time, and I speak about time', said Augustine, and he added, 'I do not know what time is.' With similar bewilderment I can say that I am in the court and speak about the court, and God knows (I don't) what the court is.

He continues to reflect on the nature of the court with a dazzling array of quotations, from Porphyry, Boethius, Virgil, and the Bible, and compares life at court to the torments of Hades.⁸² Then, seemingly irrelevantly, he tells the story of the visit of King Herla, an ancient British king, to a pygmy kingdom, their Rip-van-Winkle-like return hundreds of years later, and their doom to wander for ever like the Flying Dutchman. Eventually, like the punchline of a shaggy dog story, the point of the tale emerges: on the day of Henry II's coronation, the ghostly company disappeared into the river Wye near Hereford (Map's own country)" and was never seen again, 'tanquam nobis suos tradiderint errores, ad quietem sibi' [As if, to gain rest for themselves, they bequeathed their wanderings to us]. Map frequently laments the distractions of court life, which keep him from writing, and rejoices (4: 2) when he is freed from it.

Reflecting on the annus nubileus of 1187, when Jerusalem fell to Saladin, Map, seemingly irrelevantly, mentions that Lazarus was once raised from the dead by the prayers of two women: nowadays the prayers of many thousands of monks and nuns are achieving nothing. Thus he begins his antimonastic section. He was bothered by the proliferation of new orders ('hos religionis cultus nouitas adinuenit' [Newfangleness devised these religious observances, I: 26]), and shows how each in turn—Carthusians, Grandmontines, Templars, etc.—had good beginnings but a bad end. The Templars, for example, began with great holiness, but have degenerated into such war-lust that they actually thwarted the conversion of leading Saracens to Christianity, for fear the fighting would cease ('si pax uenerit, quo deueniet gladius?' 1: 20 [If peace comes, what will happen to the sword?]). His harshest words and stories are directed at the Cistercians, who, according to Gerald of Wales, had deprived Map of a benefice. He disputes the miraculous powers of Bernard of Clairvaux, and shows distinct sympathy to Abelard; he mocks their hypocritical austerity and their lack of breeches. He deplores their rapacity and describes their tricks for stealing land (creating solitudes for themselves by driving everyone else away). He seizes on their claim to be like the Hebrews spoiling the Egyptians, and in a sustained piece of sarcasm (a rare device in medieval satire) continually thereafter calls the Cistercians 'Hebrews' and the rest of the world 'Egyptians'. Pointedly, he follows his account of the monastic orders with a description of popular heresies, such as Catharism.

(His anti-Cistercian satire did not go entirely unanswered. He had apparently written a poem, now lost, beginning 'Lancea Longini'; a reply to this in eighty-six lines, mainly elegiacs ('Cum monachis albis'), was made by W. Bothewald, a canon of St Frideswide's in Oxford.⁸³ This begs Map, in his senility, to give up the nugae of his youth, and not to blame all Cistercians for the faults of a few. The Pope had exempted them from tithes; their life is austere, and they use their money to succour the needy.)

The third object of Map's satire is marriage. The Epistola Valerii was very popular and circulated separately: it was so popular, he complains, that people did not acknowledge his authorship, not wishing to ascribe it to a 'modernus' (and indeed it is often found with the spuria of Jerome); he will now keep it by his side, in the De Nugis. It is in the form of a letter to a cleric John. Map hesitates to interfere ('loqui prohibeor') but urgency compels him ('ideo tacere non possum').⁸⁴ The dissuasion consists of about twenty-five antimatrimonial exempla, taken from classical sources and Jerome, all elegantly and neatly told: they were used by vernacular writers such as Jean de Meun and Chaucer. The learned allusions provided a mine for the classicizing friars, and commentaries on the Epistola were written by Nicholas Trevet, John Ridevall, and others.⁸⁵ It is a highly polished literary essay, and should not be taken seriously as antifeminism.

We turn now to the stories. Distinctions 2, 3, and 4.6-16 are dominated by tales of the bizarre and supernatural, both holy and demonic—mermaids, revenants, fairy lovers, acts of daring, and strange knights who win tournaments and disappear. The macabre quality is often reminiscent of the horror stories of Poe, Stevenson, and (Map's editor) M. R. James.

1.32 and 2.2-7 deal mainly with miraculous sanctity. Most of 2.8-27 is devoted to Wales and the Welsh, their customs, legends, heroes and villains.

3.2 (Sadius and Galo) is a carefully structured narrative containing several romance elements: the queen's lustful advances on Galo, his feigned impotence, his 'disgrace', his combat (disguised in Sadius' armour) against a giant with a magic sword, and the final discomfiture of the queen. There is a lively dialogue between the queen and a serving girl on the verification of Galo's 'impotence'.

3.3 (Parius and Lausus) is a tale of envy and treachery, and hinges on an accusation of bad breath; it illustrates the workings of bitter malice. 3.4-5 concern lecherous wives.

The stories of Distinction 3 have just, if not happy, endings, but in many of those in Distinction 4 a black side of Map's humour emerges:

4.6: an impoverished Eudo is offered a pact with a demon; his instinct is to reject it, but he is assured that he will have three chances to repent. His third and genuine repentance, however, is rejected by a hard-hearted bishop, and Eudo dies in flames, unshriven.⁸⁶

4.13: Nicholas Pipe could live for long periods under the sea, helpfully warning sailors of bad weather. William of Sicily conducted an experiment to see how long Nicholas could survive away from the sea: he died.

4.14: a convert Salius cannot believe in a paradise of milk and honey, since digestion would require privies ('pereat paradisus qui tali eget tugurio!' [A curse on the Paradise that needs such an outbuil-ding!]).

4.16: Sceva, annoyed by a snub from his old friend Ollo, moves in on Ollo's household in his absence. Sceva, Ollo's wife, and the bribed servants determine to keep Ollo out; in a scene reminiscent of the Geta, the servants refuse to recognize him. Ollo almost loses his wits, is reduced to theft, and finally abandons all claims against Sceva, who continues to thrive. The unhappy end to what at first looks like a comedy resembles the Babio and Evelyn Waugh.

Map tells curiously garbled versions of the history of Byzantium (2.18), Britanny (4.15), and England and France (5.3-6). He says that he is presenting modern history to show both good and bad:

hanc tibi uitandam proponimus pro ueneficiis, illam eligendam pro beneficiis; neutri subducas oculum, nisi uise penitus et agnite (5: 1)

I set before you two ways of life, one to be avoided for its venom, the other to be adopted for its advantages. Do not take your eye off either of them, until you have seen and recognized it completely.

but the morals are not easy to find. Greed, murder, cruelty, bravery and generosity are found on all sides. He sees the good side of those he otherwise deplores (Llewelyn, 'Apollonides'), and describes good endings from bad beginnings (Henry I). Map's prejudices are very clear: he liked Louis VII and Henry II, but not the Young Henry;⁸⁷ he thoroughly disliked Queen Eleanor ('incestis oculis'), polluter of Henry's progeny, and Geoffrey, archbishop of York, who was revered by Gerald of Wales but not allowed even a bastard's descent from Henry II by Map.

In prologues, epilogues and digressions, Map tells us a great deal about himself—famous people he had met, his triumph in debate over heretics, comic scenes he had witnessed, and his own problems (no doubt exaggerated) in controlling a large household. Most important he tells us about his work, which he jotted down in spare moments at court ('raptim annotaui scedulis' 4:2), and his attitude to it. Gerald of Wales reports Map's words:⁸⁸

'Multa, magister Giralde, scripsistis, et multum adhuc scribitis; et nos multa diximus. Vos scripta dedistis, et nos verba. Et quamquam scripta vestra longe laudabiliora sint et longeviora quam dicta nostra, quia tamen hec aperta, communi quippe idiomate prolata, illa vero, quia latina, paucioribus evidencia, nos de dictis nostris fructum aliquem reportavimus, vos autem de scriptis egregiis, principibus litteratis nimirum et largis obsoletis olim et ab orbe sublatis, dignam minime retribucionem consequi potuistis.'

'You have written many things, master Gerald, and still do; I have spoken much. You produced writings, I produced words. Your writings are more praiseworthy and will last longer than my sayings, but because my sayings are more open, being stated in the common language, whereas your writings, being Latin, are accessible to fewer people, consequently I have won some profit from my sayings, but you have not been able to get an appropriate recompense for your fine writings—for literate and generous princes have become obsolete and have vanished from the world.'

Setting aside Gerald's vanity and the fact that the De Nugis is in Latin, the contrast between scripta and verba does reflect what Map himself says:

siluam uobis et materiam, non dico fabularum sed faminum appono … Venator uester sum: feras uobis affero, fercula faciatis (2.32)

I put before you the stuff, the raw material, not of stories but of sayings … I am your hunter: I supply the beasts, you are to make the banquets.

He describes himself as a bee, settling on both bitter and sweet:

Apis et dulcibus et amaris herbis insidet, et ex singulis aliquid cere uel mellis elicit; amator sapiencie quemlibet in aliquo poetam approbat, et ab omni pagina quam baiulauerit recedit doctior (3.3)⁸⁹

The bee settles on both sweet and bitter herbs, and from each one elicits some wax or honey; the lover of wisdom approves every poet in some respect, and from every page he turns he departs the wiser. (Cf. Rom. 15:4)

One of his main themes is that he is a 'modernus': nowadays, only the ancients are valued and the moderns are despised:

Hoc solum deliqui, quod uiuo. Verumptamen hoc morte mea corrigere consilium non habeo … Omnibus seculis sua displicuit modernitas, et queuis etas a prima preteritam sibi pretulit (4.5)

My only fault is this, that I am alive, but I have no intention of amending it by my death … All ages have been displeased with their own modernity, and every age since the first has preferred the past to itself.

Mortui uiuunt, uiui pro eis sepeliuntur … lacent tamen egregia modernorum nobilium, et attolluntur fimbrie uetustatis abiecte … (5.1)⁹⁰

The dead live, and the living are buried in their place … The excellent deeds of modern princes lie neglected, and the trampled fringes of antiquity are lifted up …

This attitude is in striking contrast to John of Salisbury. Both writers agreed with St Paul that everything is written for our doctrine (Rom. 15:4), but John took his examples from the classics, whereas Map (although the Epistola Valerii shows that he knew the classics very well) drew on oral, especially Welsh, sources and recent history. John begins by stressing the importance of the written record, but Map, while expressing amazement at the inventions and discoveries of the ancients, notes that more knowledge was passed on by word of mouth than by writing:

Multas nobis inuenciones reliquerunt in scripts; plurime deuolute sunt ad nos parentatim a primis (1.1)

In their writings they have left us many discoveries; the greatest number have come down to us from the beginnings from one generation to the next.

It would be too much to claim that the De Nugis is a parody of the Policraticus, but it is certainly a pleasant antidote.⁹¹

Map is primarily a raconteur and a humorist (whether his humour is simple or 'black'); one of his favourite words (once applied to God) is facetus.⁹² His style is lively, full of internal rhymes, word-play (e.g. a matre morphoseos), and alliteration (as quoted above, 'feras uobis affero, fercula faciatis'), but also often allusive, terse and dense. He quotes both English and French, and his Latin often contains vernacular proverbs ('Murder will out', 'The husband is always the last to know'). His seamless texture of classical, medieval and biblical allusion can be compared to P. G. Wodehouse's humorous fusion of Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Spinoza and the Bible. As modern analogues for Map I have proposed Wodehouse, Waugh, Poe, Stevenson, and the shaggy dog story. This improbable mixture suggests something of Map's spirit.…

Notes

…⁷⁸ Biographical details are summarized in the most recent edition of the De Nugis Curialium, ed. M. R. James, rev. by C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983).

⁷⁹ For a survey of the process of ascriptions of anonymous satire, see A. G. Rigg, 'Golias and other pseudonyms', Studi medievali, 3rd ser. 18 (1977), 65-109.

⁸⁰ The present arrangement reflects neither the original order of composition (for there are conflicting dates) nor Map's final intentions (for there are inconsistencies and some sections appear twice). He seems to have written it over several years, mainly in the 1180s (but with one passage of about 1192), and then re-shuffled the material according to a plan never completed. The Epistola Valerii was written earlier and later incorporated into the De Nugis.

⁸¹ See this volume, p. 69.

⁸² The topos is used by Eraclius and others, this volume, pp. 141-2, and by Peter of Blois, Epist. 14, who also refers to the courtiers as 'milites Herlewini' (= Herla, Harlequin).

⁸³ Ed. Wright, Mapes, pp. xxxv-xxxvii.

⁸⁴ The same formula is used by Peter of Blois (Epist. 95, 'Loqui vereor et tacere non expedit') and in the story of the Adulterous Monk (see this volume, p. 143).

⁸⁵ See this volume, p. 254.

⁸⁶ The problem of late repentance occurs also in 1.14 (reworked from 4.7), but here the issue is the obstinacy of the bishop.

⁸⁷ There is a curious analogue to the coronation of the Young Henry in a story told in 2.7: a Hungarian usurper manages to get himself crowned by an unauthorized archbishop ('Ille regem se fieri ab alio eiusdem regni archiepiscopo, ad quem nichil de coronacione regis pertinebat, obtinuit').

⁸⁸Expugnatio Hibernica (this volume, p. 94), pp. 264-5.

⁸⁹ Similarly 3.2.

⁹⁰ Similar lamentations for modernity are in 1.12 and 3.3.

⁹¹ There are, however, curious parallels. First, the title, which is one of the subtitles of the Policraticus. Lewis Thorpe (MAe 47 (1978), 6-21) has suggested that the title De Nugis Curialium is purely scribal, as Map does not call it this in the body of the text; Thorpe suggests De faceciis. On the other hand, the fact that de nugis is not derivable from the text is an argument in favour of its genuineness, and Bothewald (this volume, p. 89) refers to the nugae of Map's youth. Second, both have reviews of English history from Cnut to Henry II, and both omit William I; in the Policraticus the list is preceded by Brennus, in Map by the unknown Apollonides. Both writers mention the unruliness of the Welsh. Both authors have antimatrimonial passages. Map's antimonastic section parallels one in John, who mainly praises the orders, in a similar sequence (though John does point to examples of hypocrisy in each order). John denounces hunting at length; Map describes himself as 'uenator uester'.

⁹² Note that facecia is a virtue in John of Garland's Epithalamium. Compare also the topos of God's ludus in Lawrence of Durham, above p. 57, and in Alexander Neckam, below pp. 119-20.…