frequent allusions to the feudal system, prove more and more that this English translation must have been posterior to the reign of Alfred. In short, before it can be established that either that king, or any of the learned men about his court, could have performed it, it must be shewn that Mary, who learned only the English of the 13th century, was capable, by that means, of understanding the Saxon of the 9th; and this impossibility, coupled with the reasons already given, induces me to give judgment as well against the pretended translators employed by Alfred, as against that prince himself.
In the last place, the Harleian MS. No 4333, ascribes the translation to king Henry. But to which of the three first princes of that name? For if a king Henry was really the translator, it is necessarily to one of them, since Mary lived under the reign of Henry III.
With respect to Henry I.—The Normans were acquainted with the fables of Æsop, or at least those which were attributed to him during the middle ages. Ravul de Vassy, son of Robert archbishop of Rouen, died in 1064, without leaving issue, and the duke of Normandy thought that, in this case, he could reunite the succession to his demesne. From the same archbishop issued the family of the earls of Evreux; the lords of Montfort, one of whom had married its heiress, represented it, and consequently there were collateral heirs who had a legal claim to the succession. But duke William, who was the grand-nephew of the same archbishop, imagined that he could seize upon the whole of the inheritance; and force having silenced right, the real heirs were deprived of their own during the life of the conqueror. After his death, however, they found means to establish their claim against Robert Courthose, and we find that in asserting it they reproach his father with having made the Lion's partition in seizing upon their inheritance[1].
- ↑ Orderic. Vitalis Hist. apud Duchesne, pp. 488, 681, and 1084.
