SOURCE: "Walter Map and Gerald of Wales," Medium Aevum, Vol. XLVII, No. 1, 1978, pp. 6-21.

[In the following essay, Thorpe examines the connections between Map and Gerald of Wales (also known as Giraldus Cambrensis) and speculates on the extent to which the prolific Gerald might have been influenced by the apparently unprolific Map.]

When one considers how often his name has appeared in manuscripts and in print, and what remarkable attributions have been made to him, it is strange how little we really know about Walter Map as a writer. All that we seem to have from his pen is the so-called De Nugis Curialium, an interesting work, but incomplete, uneven, without shape or order, and existing in one copy only, MS. Bodleian Library, Oxford, 851, which was carelessly transcribed and which dates from as late as the second half of the fourteenth century.¹ Of this unfinished book Walter Map himself wrote, 'Hunc in curia regis Henrici libellum raptim annotavi schedulis et a corde meo violenter extorsi, domini mei praeceptis obsequi conatus.'² The reason he gave for his emotion about the book's composition was that he had come to hate the court life with which it was supposed to deal: 'Horrebam enim quod agebam.'³ In a painstaking analysis,⁴ James Hinton showed the real force of the adverbs 'raptim' and 'violenter'. As we have it, the De Nugis Curialium is a collection of twenty more or less disparate and unconnected fragments, four of them undatable, but the remainder composed in rare moments of leisure at various odd times between 1180 and 1193, before Map became Archdeacon of Oxford. Dr Hinton did his best to establish the chronological order in which the fragments were written;⁵ but even if Map had ever found time to complete his book, it does not follow at all that he would have set these fragments out in their order of composition. He might well have decided to reject some of them, and he almost certainly would have added others.

Never arranged or properly integrated by Map himself, the fragments of the De Nugis Curialium which he left were copied out by someone in a quite arbitrary order. From this shapeless compilation descends the unique MS. 851, made a century and a half after his death. No doubt we are lucky to have it at all. The rubrics which have become chapter-headings in the two printed editions are not by Map and cannot be relied upon. In their subject-matter the twenty fragments which have been brought together in this eccentric way are varied in the extreme: they include brief historical studies, exempla, personal reminiscences, sections of fictional narrative and animadversions upon the various religious orders, especially the Cistercians. One almost comes to doubt whether Map ever saw them as the rough material which might one day form a single properly coordinated book. If he really wrote the last fragment in 1193,⁶ it is remarkable that he who had never finished a book, but who all the same was so admired by certain of his contemporaries for his wit and literary talent, should not have used what remained of his life to some greater profit. Dr Hinton suggested, 'Some of the Fragments were circulated among Map's friends before, and doubtless after, he ceased writing on De Nugis.⁷ Probably some of them were lost in that way.'⁸ Given Map's apparently careless way of conducting his literary affairs this seems plausible enough. Those who have interested themselves in Map seem to be agreed that even men who knew him well had no knowledge of the existence of the De Nugis Curialium, if only as a book in first draft. 'There is no affirmative evidence that De Nugis Curialium was known to mediaeval men of letters, that is, none except the evidence of our unique manuscript,' wrote Hinton. 'De Nugis is not mentioned by men who might have been expected to show knowledge of it.'⁹ No English mediaeval library catalogue contains an entry identifiable with the De Nugis,' wrote M. R. James. 'Neither Leland nor Bale had ever seen it. In short, its appearance in 1601 in the Bodleian Library seems to have been practically the first introduction to anything that could be called a public.¹⁰

The five mentions of Map in the Pipe Rolls, his one charter issued from Westbury in Gloucestershire, where he held the living from an unspecified date but certainly before 1197,¹² [sic] and a single mention in the Close Rolls¹³ cannot be expected to help us. He is referred to indirectly in the Cartulary of St. Peter's, Gloucester, sub anno 1186.¹⁴ Adam of Eynsham has two stories about his activities in Normandy and Anjou in 1199.¹⁵ In a passage written before November 1202, Ralph de Diceto establishes that it was in 1197 that Map left Lincoln and became Archdeacon of Oxford, but he is more interested in William of Blois, Map's replacement as precentor, and he mentions no literary work.¹⁶ Thomas Tanner quotes another reference to Map by Ralph de Diceto, written before 1197.¹⁷

Meanwhile one of the fragments of the De Nugis Curialium, IV. 3-4, the Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum philosophum ne uxorem ducat,¹⁸ had been copied separately and was being passed round as an anonymous work. The oldest MS extant seems to have been made in Map's lifetime.¹⁹ More than a century later, at some time before 1328, Nicholas Trivet wrote a commentary on it, In [librum] Valerii Rufini de non ducenda uxore, without recognizing it for what it was.²⁰ Its subsequent fate was even more curious: it was printed by Migne as one of the letters of Saint Jerome.²¹ With his Dissuasio Map clearly had something 'that could be called a public' long before 1601, but not perhaps in the way that he had expected.

At much the same time came the curious Invective of Master W. Bothewalt, canon and sub-Prior of the Augustinian house of Saint Frideswide in Oxford. This has been published twice,²² but no-one has stressed its importance. As transcribed by W. H. Black, the rubric of the poem reads:

Invectio magistri W. Bothewald canonici et supprioris ecclesiae sanctae Frideswidae,²³ contra Walterum Mat.(?) archidiaconum Oxoniae; qui tam in juventute quam in senectute, quaedam derisoria dicere²⁴ consuevit et metrice et prosaice, de Monachis Albis, ad eorundem diffa[ma]tionem.

This makes it clear that the Invective could not have been written before 1197; equally clearly it must have been composed while Map was still alive, that is before 1210 at the latest. It attacks Map for having been in the habit, both as a young man and in his old age, of reciting satirical and libellous poems²⁵ and prose passages which were highly critical of the Cistercians. It does not say in so many words that he composed them himself, but that is surely implied.²⁶ It does not say that he wrote them down, but that, too, is implied, if less surely: one might recount satirical anecdotes impromptu, but the recitation of defamatory poems would presumably require preparation. It shows no knowledge of the fact that Map was collecting, or had been collecting, his occasional papers with the intention of making a book. It could support Hinton's contention that he was passing such papers round.²⁷ As printed by W. H. Black and Thomas Wright, the Invective itself consists of 86 lines.²⁸ Like the rubric, the poem moves us on a long way. Bothewald addresses Map by name:

Parce, Waltere! Video me posse videre
Quod mors jocunda [vita] rapit atque secunda.
(78-9)

The first line is quoted from one of Map's own poems:

Lancea Longini, grex albus, ordo nefandus.29

Twice in the poem Bothewald uses the word 'nugae':

Jam nugas dedisse tuas vel fine dierum,
(Quod decuit juvenem) non decet esse senem.
(74-75)

Ludicra nugarum nisi sint deleta tuarum
Fletibus hac vita, delusus es, Archilevita!³⁰
(80-81)

This evidence is striking in the extreme, but I must not over-run it. Bothewald makes it clear that after his appointment as Archdeacon of Oxford Map was still producing witticisms, both in verse and in prose, and that these were levelled often enough at the Cistercians. From the passion with which Bothewald wrote and the fact that both men held posts in Oxford at the time when he was composing the Invective, it is more than likely that he had heard Map in action. It is a long jump from this to the assumption that Bothewald knew that before coming to Oxford Map had assembled on parchment the twenty fragments of the De Nugis Curialium, most of which, of course, had nothing to do with the Cistercians.

In the Chronicon ascribed to John Bromton, but probably written in the mid-fourteenth century, Map's appointment as Archdeacon of Oxford is again recorded, with a statement that his witticisms were still being quoted: 'Hiis diebus Walterus Maap, de quo multa jocunda referuntur, ex praccentore Lincolniensi archidiaconus Oxoniensis efficitur.'³¹ It is just possible that the anonymous author knew of the Goliard poems ascribed to Map, or even of the De Nugis Curialium, and that these are his 'jocunda'. At about the same time Ralph Higden listed 'Walterus Oxoniensis archidiaconus' as one of the authors consulted for the Polychronicon.³² Finally, writing c. 1419, Thomas of Walsingham repeated almost verbatim under the year 1197 the sentence ascribed to John Bromton: 'Walterus Mape, (de quo multa referuntur jocunda), ex praecentore Lincolniensi, Oxoniensis archidiaconus est effectus.³³

So far this is a strange story, not perhaps extraordinary, but certainly singular, as Mr Jingle would have said. From Adam of Eynsham to Thomas of Walsingham the chroniclers persisted in mentioning Walter Map, two of the later ones adding that his reputation as a wit still lived on. All this time the De Nugis Curialium, his only accredited work, survived underground, breaking surface at intervals, first in the apparently anonymous Dissuasio, and then as an alleged source of the Polychronicon. The title is not Map's, and he never used the word, yet in his lifetime Bothewald twice referred to his 'nugae'. At least one manuscript was handed on, for part of the time through private hands in Ramsey, but nowhere was it or its predecessors listed. The unique copy which Cuthbert Ridley gave to the Bodleian Library in 1601 was nothing like the work which Map must have planned. Meanwhile the fiction was being spun that he had written some of the Goliard poems and that he was responsible for a considerable part of the Arthurian Prose Vulgate.

I have recently had occasion to read with some attention the voluminous writings of Gerald of Wales, Map's friend and contemporary. Thomas Wright, James Hinton and M. R. James all refer constantly to Gerald, as they could hardly fail to do, and it might well seem that nothing more could be gleaned from a comparison between the works of these two authors, the one so blocked and unproductive, the other so immensely creative. This is not so. Those who have gone before have looked from Walter Map to Gerald. In the pages which follow I propose to do the opposite and look from Gerald of Wales to Map. As I do so I shall accept Hinton's dating of the twenty fragments which go to make up the De Nugis Curialium; and I shall constantly bear in mind the date of composition of Gerald's own seventeen books and occasional writings.³⁴

Gerald's interests and those of Map were not dissimilar and they frequently wrote about the same things. Three general topics to which they often returned were the frugality of the Welsh, the behaviour of the Cistercians and such phenomena as poltergeists, incubuses, vampires and evil spirits. The sparse clothing of the Welsh, their abstemiousness when times were hard and their hospitality are described by Map in two different passages.³⁵ Writing only a few years later, Gerald has a passing mention of the bare legs and feet of Cynwrig ap Rhys,³⁶ and two chapters on the Welsh which make one think very strongly of Map.³⁷ There are even modest textual similarities.³⁸ We are left in no doubt as to Map's poor opinion of the Cistercians, whom he calls the 'Hebraei'. He has many anecdotes to tell of their misdoings; how they moved forward a whole tree which marked their boundary; how they sowed one neighbour's field with salt and covered another neighbour's land with manure; their use of false charters; and how they squeezed the fat out of flitches of bacon which they had already sold.³⁹ Gerald tells much the same stories in the Speculum Ecclesiae of c. 1216, and more or less in the same order.⁴⁰ Again there are textual similarities.⁴¹ The De Nugis Curialium has many macabre stories of vampires,⁴² wandering ghosts,⁴³ the Old Man of the Sea,⁴⁴ men who married fairies⁴⁵ or slept with dead wives who crept back into their beds from the grave.⁴⁶ In Gerald's Itinerarium Cambriae there are the poltergeists,⁴⁷ Simon the red-haired devil,⁴⁸ the priest Elidyr who had been to fairyland as a boy,⁴⁹ the pretty girl who turned into a hairy demon as Meilyr held her in his arms.⁵⁰ These tales are all of a type, the ghost stories of two antiquaries. Perhaps the closest correlation here between the two authors is the dilemma of Pope Sylvester II, who could not take communion because as a young man he had lived with the sorceress Meridiana.⁵¹ I could continue with these general topics, and add a number of smaller correlations,⁵² but surely enough has been said to make the beginnings of an argument that Gerald had often talked with Map about the anecdotes which his friend was writing down, and that maybe he had even read some of the fragments of the De Nugis Curialium in manuscript.⁵³

In all the references given in the previous paragraph, and they range over no fewer than five of Gerald's books, whatever his debt may have been to Walter Map as a wit, or maybe as a writer, he nowhere mentions him by name. On the other hand, there are twelve passages from his pen which have a direct and acknowledged connection with Map.…

Gerald was born in 1145 or 1146, and he died in 1223. No-one knows when Walter Map was born, but one can presume c. 1140;⁶⁴ he was still alive in March 1208, but Gerald makes it clear that he was dead by 1210.⁶⁵ The two men were close friends and they corresponded in affectionate terms: Map wrote 'amicus amico';⁶⁶ Gerald addressed Map as 'frater carissime'⁶⁷ and 'mi charissime'.⁶⁸ Despite the slightly difficult circumstances of January 1202,⁶⁹ Gerald's regard for Map held firm, both until and after the latter's death, over a period of forty years or more, if my dates mean anything. That is remarkable, for he was a Geraldine, the blood of Rhys ap Tewdwr ran in his veins, and he suffered neither fools nor wise men gladly. When they first met we shall never know. Map was an Englishman, or at least he was born in England.⁷⁰ He called England 'matrem nostram'.⁷¹ He came from the Welsh marches⁷² and for him the Welsh were 'compatriotae nostri Walenses'.⁷³ It has been suggested that he was born in Herefordshire. Gerald received his first education in the Augustinian Abbey of St. Peter in Gloucester. Is it remotely possible that they first met there as boys? Map studied in Paris,⁷⁴ where he frequented the school of Gérard la Pucelle at some time after 1160, but certainly before 1177;;⁷⁵ Gerald was in Paris off and on as a student from 1165 to 1174, and he was back there again from 1176 to 1179, lecturing on Gratian's Decretals. Surely they must have met as fellow-students in the French capital! From 1184 until 1185, when he set off for Ireland with John, Gerald was court chaplain to Henry II; at this same time Map was 'sequela curiae' and 'regis He[nrici] secundi [cleri] cus familiaris'.⁷⁶ Is it possible that they whiled away the time without ever mentioning their literary aspirations? In 1188 or thereabouts Gerald gave his famous three-day recitation of the second edition of the Topographia Hibernica in Oxford. In four different passages he tells us that 'circiter id ipsum temporis' Map spoke highly of his work, but Gerald never says explicitly that his friend was present at the reading.⁷⁷ There is some evidence that Gerald was in Oxford from 1194 to 1196, but Map was then in Lincoln. From 1196 to 1198 Gerald was working in Lincoln with his old acquaintance William de Monte, but in 1197 Map gave up his precentorship and became Archdeacon of Oxford. Map was often abroad,⁷⁸ and in particular he was sent by Henry II to the Lateran Council of 1179;⁷⁹ but there were clearly many occasions when the two men must have been together for some protracted period. Given their close friendship, their astonishing garrulity, their common interests, their verbal correlations and their many opportunities for discussion, it seems almost inconceivable that Gerald should not have known that from 1181 to 1193 Map was composing the fragments of the De Nugis Curialium.

When Gerald mentions Map, he usually adds some admiring half-sentence. He calls him 'magister Oxoniensis, archidiaconus, vir literatus et eruditus';⁸⁰ and 'archidiaconum Oxoniensem, virum liberalitate conspicuum, copiosa litteratura et urbana eloquentia praeditum, morumque gentis utriusque terrae (= England and Wales) tam ex vicinitate locorum quam frequentia non ignarum', distinguishing him, however, from John of Brancaster, who was 'linguae nostrae (= Welsh) inscium'.⁸¹ For Gerald, Map 'eloquio clarus … Oxoniensis archidiaconus … solita verborum facetia et urbanitate praecipua dicere pluries … solebat';⁸² and he is 'archidiaconus Oxoniensis magister … vir linguae dicacis et eloquentiae grandis'.⁸³ Roger of Rolveston and he are qualified as 'viros bonos et honestos … qui de Anglia essent oriundi et Walliae tamen magis intimi, morum gentis utriusque non ignari'.⁸⁴ He and Robert de Beaufey are 'duo virl literati plurimum et in scripturis affatim eruditi';⁸⁵ when in their company one was with 'duobus viris litteratissimis'.⁸⁶ Map was learned, he was eloquent, he was witty, he was devoted to the study of literature. Could Gerald really have written all this if he was under the impression that Map had never put pen to parchment? It is true that the emphasis is often on the spoken word.

I have left the best to the end. As the innkeeper says in Le jeu de Saint Nicolas, 'Boi bien, li mieudres est au fons'. When, some years after his friend's death, Gerald told the story of the two Cistercians, one in Garendon Abbey, Leicestershire, and the other in an unnamed house, who lost their faith and became Jews, he recorded Map's outraged disapproval of what had happened, opening his paragraph with the words:

Audiens autem vir ille celebri fama consipicuus et tam literarum copia, quam curialium quoque verborum facetia praeditus, Oxoniensis archidiaconus, nomine Walterus et cognomine Mapus, de dictis duobus…⁸⁷

A little later in the Speculum Ecclesiae Gerald devoted a whole chapter⁸⁸ to four anecdotes about Map and his hatred of the Cistercians, providing us with much valuable biographical information as he went along. The first anecdote refers to the time 'cum sequela curiae fuerit, et regis He[nrici] secundi [cleri] cus familiaris, pluriesque justiciariis errantibus ad jura regni tuenda justitiamque regiam exercendam associatus esset';⁸⁹ and it tells how the Cistercians of a certain monastery,⁹⁰ 'in limbo forestae de Dene, non procul a Newenam⁹¹ fundatum olim', 'partem ecclesiae de Westburi⁹² grandem, cujus personatum archidiaconus tanquam persona gerebat, in detrimentum ejusdem ecclesiae non modicum occupaverunt'.⁹³ The second anecdote records an acidulous exchange between Map and Adam I, Abbot of Abbey Dore.⁹⁴ In the third anecdote Henry II is hunting in the Forest of Dean, with Map again in attendance, and the King puts up for the night 'in villa de Newenham'. Three Cistercian abbots come to plead the cause of one of their number, part of whose land has been sequestered by the 'forestarii partium illarum', and Map supports the King in his refusal to listen.⁹⁵ The fourth anecdote is amusing enough. The abbot the aforesaid 'domum pauperem', which was near to Map's parsonage and a source of great nuisance to him, 'abbatem dictae domus archidiacono vicinae nimis, sibique et ecclesiae suat de vicinitate nimia valde nocivae', lay seriously ill and maybe dying. Map improved the shining hour by hastening over to suggest that the Abbot should confess his sins before it was too late, leave the Cistercian order and throw away his hateful habit. The Abbot recovered. A little later Map fell grievously ill in his turn. The Abbot returned the visit and offered words of Christian consolation: as he spoke he quietly spread out on the bed-covers a new Cistercian habit and cowl, suggesting that, as he was probably dying, Map could do worse than put it on. He rebuked Map for his pluralities, 'item et cum ecclesias et praebendas in diversis episcopatibus possideret plurimas, quibus digne deserviendis, tantisque animarum curis, praesertim in tot parochiis et ab invicem tam remotis, sufficere nullatenus posset'; and he strongly urged that he should ask forgiveness 'de verbis suis curialibus atque facetis, et urbanae eloquentiae sale respersis'. The chapter is headed 'De verbis W. Mapi curialibus et facetis in ordinis hujus suggillationem emissis'; and the titulus is identical.⁹⁶ Four times these words appear in Gerald's works, twice in the body of the text, once as a rubric, once as a titulus. Are they nothing more than acknowledgements of the brilliance of Walter Map's table-talk? Supported as they are by the other arguments in this article, can they not be accepted as direct and conscious references to the occasional papers which were later to be assembled to form the book De Nugis Curialium? Dare one push the case further? On whose authority is the haphazard collection of twenty fragments known to the world as De Nugis Curialium? The only authority is that of the late xiv c. compiler of MS. Bodl. Libr. 851. The Polycraticus of John of Salisbury has the sub-title: sive de nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum. Is it really likely that Map would have planned to use the same words as the title of his own book? The word nugae is commonplace enough; but there is no evidence, apart possibly from that of W. Bothewald, that Map ever used it. On the contrary, in the address to his mysterious friend Geoffrey, when he was still writing fluently and currently, when the proposed volume had not yet fallen away into a hotchpotch of disparate fragments, he named the book for us: 'Et vis, karissime mi Galfride, curialem non dico facetum'.⁹⁷ Dare one add capital letters in modern printing to all these five passages and propose that the book which Walter Map planned was to be called De Facetis Curialibus? In that case there is abundant proof that Gerald of Wales knew all about it.

There remain the two curious attributions. In 1841 Thomas Wright published his anthology entitled The Latin poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes.⁹⁸ The book begins with 22 poems which bear the name of Golias in the title, or which were clearly written by the Goliards, among them the 'Confessio Goliae' by the Archpoet of the 1160s, with the four ringing lines which were to become the opening stanza of the well-known drinking song:

Meum est propositum in taberna mori:
 vinum sit appositum morientis ori,
 ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori,
 'Deus sit propitius huic potatori!'

Then come 21 poems which are not specifically Goliard, but which have been attributed to Map down the centuries, including the ingenious 'Cambriae Epitome'.⁹⁹ Finally there are 8 more poems not Goliard and not attributed to Map, but of the same type. In his introduction Thomas Wright made it clear that he did not think that Map wrote any of these 51 poems.¹⁰⁰ Gerald of Wales knew all about Golias and the Goliards, as he knew about so many things. In the Speculum Ecclesiae he quoted lines 41-48 of the 'Confessio Goliae', including the passage which I have printed above, and a long sequence from 'Golias in Romanam Curiam'.¹⁰¹ The Carmina Burana would not have been to his taste. He wrote with great scom of 'parasitus quidam, Golias nomine, nostris diebus gulositate pariter et lecacitate famosissimus',¹⁰² whom he clearly takes to be an individual person. He would have been outraged in the extreme had he dreamed that these poems would ever be attributed to his dead friend. It seems unlikely that Walter Map wrote any of them.

An assiduous if highly critical reader of the Historia Regum Britanniae, Gerald of Wales took a great interest in the historical Arthur and the fictional King Arthur, whom he ran together.¹⁰³ The opposite is true of Map: there is no evidence in the De Nugis Curialium that he took any interest whatsoever in either Arthur or Geoffrey of Monmouth. In his description of the young King Henry he quoted one of Merlin's prophecies from memory, but that was no doubt on every man's lips.¹⁰⁴ As against this there is the extraordinary fact that in the Arthurian Prose Vulgate he is mentioned no fewer than nine times as the man who was responsible for the last four books of this lengthy compilation in French prose.¹⁰⁵ This repeated and categorical attribution is usually brushed aside by scholars in that, if they are French, they prefer to postulate a nameless continental Frenchman as the redacteur en chef, and that, whatever their nationality, the dates present difficulties, for without question Map died between 15 March 1308 and 1310. The question has been re-opened recently by the late J. Neale Carman in his posthumous book A study of the Pseudo-Map Cycle of Arthurian Romance.¹⁰⁶ I propose to examine all the evidence anew in a later article.¹⁰⁷

Notes

¹ I am grateful to Professor J. A. W. Bennett and Dr Richard W. Hunt, F.B.A., for help with this article. The DNC has been edited by Thomas Wright, Gualteri Mapes De Nugis Curialium distinctiones quinque (Camden Society, 1850); and by M. R. James, Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Medieval and Modern Series XIV, 1914). For general information about Map, see A. B. Emden A biographical register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (Oxford 1957-58) II 1219.

²DNC IV 2 = Fragment XIII, July 1191.

³Ibid.

⁴ James Hinton 'Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium: its plan and composition' P.M.L.A. XXXII. 1 (1917) 81-132. Hinton also wrote 'Notes on Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium' Studies in Philology XX (1923) 448-68. There is a discussion about the muddled state of the book in J.-Th. Welter, L 'exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et didactique du moyen âge (Toulouse 1927) pp. 49-50 and n. 35.

⁵ For example, DNC V 7 = Fragment XX, August 1180+, which now comes last, is a rough draft of the introduction. DNC I 1-12 = Fragment I, August 1180-September 1181, which is now the beginning, should come second. DNC IV 2b-16 = Fragment XIV, after September 1181, should probably come third.

⁶DNC V 6 = Fragment XIX, c. 1193.

⁷ In support of this he quotes Map's statement at the beginning of Book II: 'Duo praemisi Dei misericordiam et judicium continentia, quae non solum non delectant, sed tediosa sunt, ut expectantur sicut ex-petuntur fabulae poetarum, vel earum similes' (DNC II I = Fragment V, 1182). It was certainly true of DNC IV 3-4.

⁸Op. cit. pp. 124-5.

⁹Ibid p. 125.

¹⁰Ed. cit. p. xiv. The unique manuscript was presented to the Bodleian Library by Cuthbert Ridley in 1601. It had once belonged to John Welles, a monk of Ramsey Abbey, and it bears the inscription: 'Iste liber constat fratri Johanni de Wellis, monacho Ramseye'. F. Madan and H. H. E. Craster date it as 'last quarter of the 14th cent.', Summary catalogue of the Western mss in the Bodleian Library II. 1 (1922) 574-6; and Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander agree, Illuminated manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford 1966-73) III item 650, p. 59, and plate LXVI.

¹¹ See 24 Henry 11 (1177-1178) Hampshire, where he is paid for his subsequent visit to Rome; and 19 Henry 11 (1172-1173) Gloucestershire, 31 Henry II (1184-1185) Shropshire, Gloucestershire and Staffordshire, in all four of which he is listed as an itinerant justice. See also R. W. Eyton Court, household and itinerary of Henry II (1878) pp. 176, 223, 265.

¹² Printed in Thomas Wright, The Latin poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes (Camden Society XVI, 1841) p. xxix.

¹³Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londinensi ed. T. D. Hardy (1833) 1 106, col. 1. This entry authorizes a payment to Map, made annually, from the funds of Eynsham Abbey, and it is obviously important in that it establishes that he was still alive on 15 March 1208.

¹⁴Historia et Cartularium monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucestriae ed. W. H. Hart (Rolls Series 1863-67) II 156, item DCLXXXV, where the holding of Walter Giffard near Ullingswick, Gloucestershire, is said to run 'usque ad quercum Walteri Map cancellarii Lincolniensis'.

¹⁵Vita Sancti Hugonis, Lincolniensis episcopi ed. J. F. Dimock (Rolls Series 1864) pp. 280-1; and Magna vita Sancti Hugonis ed. and trans. by Decima L. Douie and Dom Hugh Farmer O.S.B. (1961-62) I 130-32. The first is Hugh's refusal to ordain as deacon one of Map's young protégés, who was soon afterwards found to be infected with leprosy. The second, more important, is Richard I's refusal to accept the Hereford chapter's proposal of Map as Bishop, the reason given being the King's antipathy to anyone connected with Lincoln.

¹⁶Ymagines Historiarum ed. William Stubbs, The historical works of Master Ralph de Diceto (Rolls Series, 1876) II 150: 'MCXCVII. De cantore Lincolniensi, Waltero Map, in Oxenefordensem archidiaconum translatione facta, Willelmus Blesensis subdecanus Lincolniae de liberalitate mera pontificis, subrogatus est in praecentorem, etc.'

¹⁷ Thomas Tanner Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (1963 reprint) p. 507, note b: 'Radulphus de Diceto, ecclesiae St. Pauli Lond. decanus, et ejusd. ecclesiae capitulum, omnibus, etc. Noverit universitas vestra, quod nos donationem quam Gualt. Map, Lincolniensis ecclesiae praecentor, et noster con-canonicus, fecit.' In 1176 Map had replaced Henry II's illegitimate son Geoffrey as canon of Mapesbury, a prebend of St. Paul's, DNC V 6.

¹⁸ Fragment XIV, with other items after September 1181.

¹⁹ MS. Bodl. Libr. 728, said to be of the late xii c. There are many later copies, e.g. Brit. Lib., Arundel 14 and Bumey 360; Bodl. Libr., Douce 147 and Add.A. 366.

²⁰ MS. Bodl. Libr. Add.A.44. See Ruth J. Dean 'Unnoticed commentaries on the Dissuasio Valerii of Walter Map' Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies II (1950) 128-50.

²¹P.L. XXX (1846) Sancti Hieronymi opera omnia XI 254-61, Epistola XXXVI, Valerius Rufino ne ducat uxorem. Migne had serious doubts about the authorship and printed a 'monitum' at the head of the letter.

²² See W. H. Black Catalogue of the manuscripts bequeathed unto the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole (1845) p. 1042, MS. 1281, item 18, where the poem is printed in full. Thomas Wright copied this transcription in The Latin poems pp. xxxv-vii.

²³I can find no other reference to Bothewald: cf. Emden 1 227. He never became Prior of Saint Frideswide, for Simon, the fourth Prior, was appointed before 27 November 1195 and he remained in office until 1228, when on his retirement he was replaced by Elyas.

²⁴ In his excellent article on Map in DNB, C. L. Kingsford argued that 'dicere' meant to speak in French or Anglo-Norman, and 'scribere' to write in Latin.

²⁵ In the De Nugis Curialium Map constantly refers to himself as a poet. Dom David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge 1940) p. 315 and p. 361, discusses the attacks on the Cistercians made by Map and Gerald of Wales.

²⁶ As we have seen, James Hinton proved that the last fragment of the De Nugis Curialium was composed in 1193. Bothewald makes it clear that Map continued to recite 'nugas' after his appointment as Archdeacon of Oxford and when he was an old man.

²⁷ Cf p. 7 and n. 7.

²⁸ There are three gaps.

²⁹ With the poeme d'occasion quoted by Gerald of Wales in the Symbolum Electorum cf. p. 11, this means that we have thirteen lines of verse which are undoubtedly by Map. I do not accept the Goliard poems. Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Munich 1931) III 269, using P. Lehmann Dictinctiones monasticae et morales vom Anfang des 13. Jahrhunderts (Munich 1922), proposes two more fragments. See however F. J. E. Raby A history of secular Latin poetry in the Middle Ages (2nd edn, Cambridge 1957) I 91, n. 1.

³⁰ He went to great lengths to achieve these internal rhymes. They are not always there.

³¹ Sir John Twysden Historiae Anglicanae scriptores X (1652) I 695-6.

³²Polychronicon I 2, ed. C. Babington and J. R. Lumby (Rolls Series, 1865-86) I 24, under 'Nomina auctorum in hoc opusculo allegatorum'.

³³Ypodigma Neustriae ed. H. T. Riley (Rolls Series, 1876) p. 121.

³⁴ My references are to the text of the Giraldi Cambrensis opera ed. J. S. Brewer, J. Dimock and G. F. Warner (Rolls Series, 1861-91).

³⁵DNC I 25 = Fragment IV, 1182? 'De vestibus eorum … domibus eburneis delectantur', where, by comparing them with the Welsh, Map plays down the frugality of the Cistercians; and DNC II 20-21 = Fragment IX, before 1187, two complete chapters with the rubrics 'De moribus Walensium' and 'De hospitalitate Walensium'.

³⁶Itinerarium Cambriae II 4.

³⁷Descriptio Cambriae I 9-10, two complete chapters with the headings 'De sobria ejusdem (= the Welsh people) coena, et parcimonia' and 'De hospitalitate et dapsilitate'.

³⁸ Cf. Itin. II 4, of Cynwrig, 'tibiis et pedibus nudis', and DNC I 25, of the Welsh in general, 'illi nudis pedibus et tibiis incedunt'. Cf. Desc. I 10, 'Nemo in hac gente mendicus. Omnium enim hospitia omnibus sunt communia', and DNC I 25, 'cum sint apud eos cibi communes, nemo inter eos cibum petit'.

³⁹DNC I 25 = Fragment IV, 1182?

⁴⁰Spec. III 15-16.

⁴¹ Cf Spec. III 15, 'Spinam quoque, quae magis evidens meta fuit agrorum suorum radicitus abstractam … nocte quadam noctumoque silentio', and DNC I 25, 'arbore quae terminus erat agrorum suorum longe ablata de nocte'. Cf Spec. III 16, 'Accidit… civem quendam … bacones plurimos de porcis impingnatis grandes et grossos comparasse … Bacones enim quos pinguissimos emerat … adeo tenues jam reperit et exiles, quod praeter cutem aridae carni vix adhaerentem nihil in se substantiae prorsus haberent' and DNC I 25, 'multos fecerant ex magnis porcis bacones … sed quos pinguissimos deposerant macros mirati sunt (mercatores) et pellem habentem ossibus'.

⁴²DNC II 27.

⁴³Ibid. II 28, II 30.

⁴⁴Ibid. IV 13.

⁴⁵Ibid. II 12, IV 9, IV 10.

⁴⁶Ibid. 11 13, IV 8.

⁴⁷Itin. I 12.

⁴⁸Ibid. I 12.

⁴⁹Ibid. I 8.

⁵⁰Ibid. I 5.

⁵¹ Cf DNC IV 11: '… et toto sacerdotii sui tempore confecto sacramento corporis et sanguinis dominici non gustabat, ob timorem vel ob reverentiam, et cautissimo furto quod non agebatur simulabat … Statuit etiam ut deinceps contra clerum et populum in facie omnium fieret consecratio. Unde multi altari celebrant interposito, dominus autem papa percipit facie ad faciem omnium sedens … Sepultus est autem in ecclesia beati Johannis Laterani, in mausolaeo marmoreo, quod jugiter sudat, sed non adunantur in rivum guttae, nisi mortem alicujus divitis Romani prophetantes'; and Gemma Ecclesiastica I 9, 'Item exemplum de Gereberto, qui papa creatus quotiens celebrando corpus Christi sumere debuerat, illud in perula qua-dam a collo dependente clam deponebat. Quo tandem per confessionem ejusdem comperto, statu-tum est in ecclesia Romana ut summi pontifices se hora communionis versus populum vertant … Dicitur etiam quod tumba ipsius marmorea contra imminentem papae interitum guttas aquae grandes desudat'.

⁵² For example, William de Braose, DNC II 8 and Itin. I 2; Llangorse Lake, DNC II 11 and Itin. 1 2; the story of Rollo and his wife, DNC III 5 and those of Reginald of Pumpuna and Richard of Clare, Gemma II 12; Louis VII of France, DNC V 5 and De Principis instructione I 20 and III 30; Theobald of Champagne DNC V 5 and De Princ. I 20.

⁵³ It is significant for my argument that in DNC I 25, on which much of this paragraph is based, Map calls his stories about the Cistercians 'doli faceti', but not 'nugae'; and then says that the Cistercians have already read his book, 'hunc libellum', and that as a result they have labelled him as a 'religionis persecutorem'.

⁵⁴ Gerald uses ecclesiastical titles with great precision. Map became Archdeacon of Oxford in 1197. In every one of my references III to XII he is called Archdeacon of Oxford in the body of the text: it follows that they were written in 1197 or after, although some of the events referred to may have occurred earlier. In II he is called Archdeacon of Oxford in the rubric and in the titulus but not in the text. In I alone he has no title. In the rubric to Gerald's poem he is simply 'Mapo'; the rubric of the answering poem is the one word 'Responsio'. In the two tituli no names are mentioned (p. 340). The second line of Gerald's poem runs:

Et de tot gemmis elige, Mape, duos.

Taking rubrics, tituli and text all into account, I have presumed that these poems are youthful works which may well pre-date 1176.

⁵⁵ Gerald says that he compiled the Symbolum Electorum 'anno quasi quinquagesimo' (De iure VII, Rolls III 373) = c. 1195-1196, but he is writing of decades. It is of the same period as De rebus a se gestis, which J. S. Brewer (Rolls I xc, following Henry Wharton, Anglia Sacra, ascribes to 1204-1205, corrected to 1200-1201.

⁵⁶ So the rubric. In the Tituli in epistulas it is addressed 'W. Mapo Oxoniensi archidiacono'. If the rubric and the titulus can be trusted, and one cannot be sure, it was obviously written in 1197 or after.

⁵⁷De iure VII (Rolls III 373). For the De Invectionibus, see W. S. Davies 'The Book of Invectives of Giraldus Cambrensis' Y Cymmrodor XXX (1920).

⁵⁸ In the tituli it is 'Iterum archiepiscopo'.

⁵⁹ Cf. VII, where Roger of Rolveston, Dean of Lincoln, is coupled with Map, and not John of Brancaster. I have made the discrepancy slightly more striking than it really is. In IV Gerald writes simply 'vel archidiaconum scilicet Wigorniensem', but in VII 'decanum scilicet Lincolniae Rogerum'. In IV there is a gloss in another hand against 'archidiaconum Oxoniensem' - 'Walter Map rectorem in Wesbery'.

⁶⁰ Gerald states explicitly that Robert de Beaufey was present at the reading: 'in ejus praesentia … solemniter recitata' (p. 335).

⁶¹ Rolls I 415. The book took three years to write: 'librum … continuoque triennali studio laboriosius editum' (ibid).

⁶² Cf. Geraldi Cambrensis catalogus brevior librorum suorum (Rolls I 423): 'Item, Liber de Principis instructione, totiens promissus; fere inter primos inchoatus, inter ultimos autem propalatus'. In the De iure et statu Menevensis ecclesiae VII, Gerald is even more specific, stating that he finished that work and the De Principis instructione 'tanquam anno aetatis nostrae septuagesimo' (Rolls III 373) = 1215 or 1216.

⁶³ He was present at the recitation, cf. n. 60; then he acquired a copy and read it.

⁶⁴ He met and was consulted by Thomas Becket when Becket was still Chancellor = before June 1162 (DNC II 23 = Fragment IX, before 1187).

⁶⁵ Item V: Rolls V 410.

⁶⁶ Item I: Rolls I 363.

⁶⁷ Item II: Rolls I 285.

⁶⁸ Item II: Rolls I 286.

⁶⁹ Item VI: Rolls III 200-201.

⁷⁰ Item IV: Rolls I 306; and Item VII: Rolls III 321.

⁷¹DNC IV I = Fragment XII, June 1183.

⁷²DNC II 23 = Fragment IX, before 1187.

⁷³DNC II 20 = Fragment IX, before 1187.

⁷⁴DNC V 5 = Fragment XVIII, before July 1189.

⁷⁵DNC II 7 = Fragment V, 1182. Gerard was an Englishman (J. C. Robertson Memorials for the history of Thomas Becket (Rolls Series, 1875-1885), of which see Vita S. Thomae by Herbert of Bosham, III 525, 'natione Anglus'). He taught in Paris from 1160 to 1177. He was consecrated Bishop of Lichfield in 1183, but died the following year (Ralph de Diceto Ymagines Historiarum ed. William Stubbs, The historical works of Master Ralph de Diceto (Rolls Series) II 20-21). See 'Anglo-Norman canonists of the twelfth century' by S. Kuttner and Eleanor Rathbone, Traditio VII (1949-50).

⁷⁶Speculum Ecclesiae III 14 (Rolls IV 219).

⁷⁷ Item III: Rolls III 92; item V: Rolls V 410-11; item VIII: Rolls III 336; item XII: Rolls I 412-3.

⁷⁸ He was with the English court at Limoges in February 1173 (DNC II 3 = Fragment V, 1182); on his way to Rome in 1179 he stayed at the court of Louis VII in Paris (DNC V 5 = Fragment XVIII, before July 1189).

⁷⁹ Gerald's three long visits to Innocent III, when he pleaded his case to replace Peter de Leia as Bishop of St. David's, were between 1199 and 1203. In his muddled way Thomas Tanner brings the two men together in Rome, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (1963 reprint) pp. 507-8.

⁸⁰ Item III: Rolls III 92.

⁸¹ Item IV: Rolls I 306-7.

⁸² Item V: Rolls V 410.

⁸³ Item IX: Rolls III 145.

⁸⁴ Item VII: Rolls III 321.

⁸⁵ Item VIII: Rolls III 335.

⁸⁶ Item XII: Rolls I 412.

⁸⁷ Item X: Rolls IV 140.

⁸⁸Speculum Ecclesiae III 14. Item XI: Rolls IV 219-25.

⁸⁹ Item XI: Rolls IV 219.

⁹⁰ Flaxley, Gloucestershire. At a guess, the Abbot must have been Waleran, deposed 1188.

⁹¹ Newnham, Gloucestershire.

⁹² Westbury, Gloucestershire, where Map held the living.

⁹³ Item XI: Rolls IV 219.

⁹⁴ Rather oddly Gerald puts Abbey Dore, Hereford, in 'borealibus Angliae finibus'. He makes it clear that he means Adam I, 'duorum sic dictorum primus', which proves that he must be writing after the appointment of Adam II, if we did not know already. The first mention elsewhere of Adam II is 2 October 1214.

⁹⁵ Item XI: Rolls IV 221-2.

⁹⁶ Rolls IV xlviii.

⁹⁷DNC I10 = Fragment I, August 1180-September 1181.

⁹⁸ Camden Society XVI.

⁹⁹ Wright pp. 131-46. This is an adaptation into rhyming Latin verse of parts of Gerald's Descriptio Cambriae and Itinerarium Cambriae. It was included in Ralph Higden's Polychronicon, ed. C. Bibington (Rolls Series, 1865) I 394-430, where it is called 'De Cambria sive Wallia', and it was translated into English verse by John Trevisa.

¹⁰⁰ 'On the whole, it appears that we have little reason for attributing to Walter Mapes the greater portion of the poetry published in the present volume; in fact there are only two pieces in the whole collection which afford any grounds for admitting his claim to be their author, and even those are only allowed to go under his name, because traditions of comparatively old standing give them to him, and we have no positive evidence to the contrary' (pp. xx-xxi). The two pieces are the 'Apocalypsis Goliae episcopi' and the 'Confessio Goliae'.

¹⁰¹ IV 15: Rolls IV 291-3.

¹⁰²Ibid. For all these Goliard poems and Gerald's comments on them see Raby II 339-41.

¹⁰³ See my article 'Giraldus Cambrensis et le roi Arthur' in the Wathelet-Willem Festschrift.

¹⁰⁴ 'Lynx penetrans omnia exitio propriae gentis imminebit', DNC IV I = Fragment XII, June 1183, Cf. HRB. VII 3: 'Egredietur ex eo linx penetrans omnia que ruine proprie gentis imminebit'.

¹⁰⁵Le livre de Lancelot del Lac, Les aventures del Saint Gra71, La mort le roi Artu, Le livre d'Artus.

¹⁰⁶ Kansas 1973, see pp. 108-10.

¹⁰⁷ We regret to announce that no trace of the promised article has yet been found among the late Professor Thorpe's papers.