62
LITERATURE
1250. A close roll of Henry III. commands brother R. de Sanford, master of the knights of the Temple in England, to allow Henry of the wardrobe, the bearer, to have for the queen's use, a certain great book which was in their house in London, written in the French dialect, containing the Exploits of Antiocha, and of </(« Kings, and others. This work was probably a French trans- lation of a Latin heroic poem, entitled the War ofAntioch ; or the third Crusade of Richard I. written by Joseph of Exeter, otherwise called Josephuslsctenus ; and was prehaps wanted fot the queen to elucidate the paintings in the Antioch chamber. It is observable, that all the books mentioned in these Close Rolls, are either in the Latin or French language^ Indeed no English literature of that time, existed, if we except metrical chronicles and romances, chiefly translations of a very marveUous character, a few of which have of late years, been printed from manuscripts still extant.
1253. Henry III. orders Edward, the son of Otho of Westminster, to cause to be purchased certain church-service books, and to give them to the constable of Windsor castle, that he might deliver them by his own hand, to the officiating chaplains in the new chapel at Windsor, to be used by them ; and they were then to be held responsible to the constable for this " librauy," consisting of eight books.
1253, Oct. 4. Died Robert Grosseteste, or Grosthead, bishop of Lincoln, to which he was called in 1235. He seems to have been a person of obscure parentage, and born about the year 1175, at Stradbrook, in Suffolk. He received his education at Oxford, and afterwards went to Paris, where he acquired those stores of learning, which subjected him, like his friend Roger Bacon, to the calumny of some of his cotemporaries, who accused him of necromancy, or magic. After his election, to the see of Lincoln, he religiously de- voted himself to the duties of his high office, and adopted vigorous measures for the reformation of abuses, and for the instruction of tlie clergy and people of his diocese, who were lamentably deficient in the first rudiments of Christian know- ledge ; and, it is said, that he was a decided friend to vernacular translations of the scriptures. He was an universal scholar, and no less conversant in polite letters, than in the most abstruse sciences. He abolished the Feast of Asset, which used to be annually celebrated in Lincoln cathedral on the feast of the circumcision ; also miracle plays, and other games and pastimes on holidays.
Bishop Grosseteste, and Roger Bacon, in par- ticular, merited the gratitude of the age in which they lived, by their decided opposition to every encroachment in church or state, and their ardent desire to promote biblical and scientific ac- quirements among all classes.
A list of the bishop's works is given in Cave's Hislmia Litteria, Lond. 1688.
1259, Oct. 13. The parliament assembles, in which a project oireform was proposed, approved, and ordered to be enforced by the judges in their circuits. Its principal objects were to secure the
inferior tenants from the oppression ofthnr lords, and to purify the administration of justice. — Henry III. reigned from Oct 19, 1216, to Nov. 16, 1272, and was buried at Westminster.
1260. Elizabeth, the wife of Cbaries Robert King of Hungary, mentions t^co Brereriaes in her will, one of which she bequeathed to her daughter in law, and the other to Clara von Puker, but with this stipulation, that after her death, it should belong to a monastery at Buda.
1263. The revenues of Baliol college, Oxford, founded at this period, were so small, as to yield only eight-pence per week to each scholar, but were afterwards so increased, by the benefaction of Sir P. Somervyle, as to raise the weekly allow- ance of the fellows and scholars to eleven-pence, and in case of deamess, to fifteen-pence.
1264. According to the statutes of Merton college, Oxford, founded in this year, the allow- ance to the scholars, was only fifty shillings per annum, for all necessaries.
1270, March 22. Died Louis IX. King of France. He displayed the magnanimity of the hero, the integrity of the patriot, and the huma- nity of the philosopher. His biographer, who had been eignteen years confessor to queen Mar- garet, wife of Louis, tells us, that his library consisted of the bible, accompanied with a gloss,* the originals of the works of St Augustine, and a few other works concerning the scriptures. These he either himself read, or caused others to read to him, every day after dinner. By his order a translation was made of the whole bible, into French. — Le Long.
1272, Nov. 16. Edward I. commenced his reign, and immediately expelled the Jews from the kingdom, their libraries were dispersed, their goods seized, and many of them barbarouslv murdered. At Huntingdon and Stamford, all their furniture came under the hammer for sale, together with their treasures of books. These Hebrew manuscripts were immediately purchased
- By gloss is meant a commentary or exposition, fx-
nerally taken out of the Latin Fathers, St. Hieronyme, St. Augustine, &c. It is ori^ally a Greek work, and at first meant a single word put to explain another, as appears fhsm the ancient Greek and Latin glosMarin. but after- wards it came to signify any exposition or larger com- mentary. From hence are derived our English expres- sions, to put a glou upon a thing, that is, a faroural}le interpretation or construction : gloss, a fair shining out- side i and to glose, to flatter.
There are few who are Ignorant of the sense and meaning of the word tert. but how it grew to signify thi WORD op OoD, many, perhaps, would be glad to 1aM9. We have from the Romans, who from the simiUtade sab. ststing between spinning and weaving, and the ait flf comiiosing, both in verse and prose, applied to tiie latter several expressions proper to the former ; hence Horace,
" That fine spun thread with which oar poem'* wrought."— Er. 21. I. t2S.
and Cicero, terere orattonem, and contejrere carmen. Among the later Roman writers, Textus occurs often in the sense of a piece or composition, and by excellence came to denote the Word of God, just as the general word also Scripturn did. Before the art of printing was invented, the Text, or the Word of God, was written in the centre of the parchment, in a larger hand ; the gloss in a smaller hand and written at each side of the Text j and because the text was usually written in a very large and masterly hand, a large and strong hand of that sort, came to be called TejetJuad." See Townley's Biblicat LUeralnre, ooL I. pageSQl
VjOOQ IC
