[Memoir by the Rev. John Penrose from a manuscript by Sir C. V. Penrose; Gent. Mag. 1790, ii. 765; Letters of Anna Seward, 1811, iii. 31; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornubiensis.]
TREVERIS, PETER (fl. 1525), printer, is known only from having issued books from 1522 to 1532. His surname was supposed by Ames to show that he was a native of the city of Treves or Treveris. It has been maintained, however, that he was a member of the Cornish family of Treffry, a name sometimes spelt Treveris. A Sir John Treffry fought at Poictiers, and took as supporters to his arms a wild man and woman. These were retained by Peter Treveris in his trade device (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. xii. 374), but they were not uncommon in the devices of other printers of the period. A Peter Trevers was, on 4 Aug. 1461, appointed keeper of the chancery rolls in Ireland (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1461–7, p. 26).
Treveris's printing office was in Southwark at the sign of the ‘Wodows.’ His first dated book was an edition of the ‘Syntaxis’ of Robert Whitinton, issued in 1522. Several earlier works are quoted by bibliographers, but the dates ascribed to them are either supposititious, or else refer to the writing rather than the printing. Treveris issued in all between thirty and forty books, and more than half of these were small grammatical tracts. Perhaps the most important book which came from his press was the handsome edition of Trevisa's translation of Higden's ‘Polychronicon,’ issued in 1527, and printed at the expense of John Reynes. This, the ‘Great Herball,’ and the two works of Hieronymus Braunschweig, ‘The noble Experyence of the virtuous Handy-worke of Surgeri’ and ‘The vertuouse Book of the Dystillacion of the Waters,’ are the only important books which he printed.
It has been stated that Treveris printed for a while at Oxford, but there is no evidence that such was the case (cf. Madan, Early Oxford Press, pp. 10, 273). One book of his, however, an edition of the ‘Opus Insolubilium’ for use at Oxford, was printed for ‘I. T.,’ probably John Dorne or Thorne, the Oxford bookseller.
Some of the printing material which had belonged to Treveris found its way, on the cessation of his press, into Scotland, and was there used by Thomas Davidson, who, like Treveris, used as his device a shield, bearing his mark and initials, suspended from a tree, and supported by two savages or ‘wodows.’
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, iii. 1441–1446.]
TREVISA, JOHN de (1326–1412), author, was born in 1326 at Crocadon in St. Mellion, near Saltash, Cornwall, and was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, from 1362 to 1369. In the latter year he became fellow of Queen's College, but in 1379 Trevisa, together with Whitfield, the provost, and some others, were expelled from the college by the archbishop of York for their unworthiness. The excluded fellows carried away certain moneys, charters, and other property of the college, and on 20 Oct. 1379 the chancellor was ordered to inquire into the matter, and, after some delay, the property was restored (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Richard II, i. 420, 470; Wood, Hist. and Antiq. ed. Gutch, i. 496). However, Trevisa still appears as paying 13s. 4d. for a chamber at Queen's College in 1395–6 and 1398–9 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. pp. 140, 141). Previous to 1387 Trevisa had entered the service of Thomas, fourth baron Berkeley, as chaplain and vicar of Berkeley. He was also a canon of Westbury-on-Severn. He died at Berkeley in 1412. In his ‘Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk,’ Trevisa speaks of ‘where the Apocalips is wryten in the walles and roof of a chapel both in Latyn and Frensshe;’ this no doubt refers to some ancient writing in Berkeley church, which still survived in 1805, and which may possibly have owed its origin to Trevisa. Trevisa speaks in the ‘Polychronicon’ of having visited ‘Akon in Almayne and Egges in Savoye.’
Trevisa was not an original writer, but was a diligent translator of Latin works into English for the benefit of his master, Lord Berkeley. His scholarship is not unfrequently at fault; however, the value of his writings is not in their matter, but in their interest as early specimens of English prose. His most notable work was the translation of Higden's ‘Polychronicon,’ which he concluded on 18 April 1387 (Polychronicon, viii. 352; Caxton, in error, gave the date as 1357). He inserted at some places brief notes, and added a continuation down to 1360. Trevisa's translation was published in a revised form by Caxton in 1482, by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495 (?), and by Peter Treveris [q. v.] in 1527. A portion of the work, entitled ‘The Descrypcyon of Englonde,’ was printed in 1497, 1502, 1510, 1515, and 1528. The whole work has been reprinted from the manuscripts in the Rolls Series edition of Higden, 1865–85.
Trevisa also wrote:
- ‘A Dialogue on Translation between a Lord and a Clerk,’ which he composed as an introduction to the ‘Polychronicon,’ and which was printed
