lished in octavo at Strasburg in 1567.[1] The editor,
G. Gratarolo, a Basle physician, who discovered the book
in Italy, apparently at Padua, took it (as appears from the
title-page) to be a composition of the fourteenth century :
the internal evidence, however, is decisive on this head.
The dialogue is held between the author and a certain
dux Normannorum et comes Andegavensium, a style by which
only two persons could possibly be designated. One is
Geoffrey the Fair, the husband of the empress Matilda,
from the year 1143 or 1144, until his resignation of the
duchy in 1150[2]; the other is his son, our king Henry
the Second, from the latter date until his accession to the
English throne. Henry, however, is excluded[3] by the
i mention of the education of the duke s sons, since he
only married in 1152. It may be observed that the belief
that Henry was intended, combined with the mistaken
inference from k John of Salisbury that William was about
the year 1138 a teacher at Paris, plainly originated the
fable which we read in i Oudin, that Henry the Second
olim in curia regis Franciac enutritus et litteris in Parisiensi
academia initiatus sub Guillelmo fuerat. The same passage
which shows that Henry was not the interlocutor in the
dialogue helps to fix the composition of the work within
narrower limits. In te tamen, says William, et in filiis
tuis aliquid spei consistit ; quos non, ut alii, ludo alearum
sed studio literarum, tenera aetate imbuisti : cuius odorem
diu servabunt. The dialogue was written therefore some
time, probably some years, before Henry was of an age
to be knighted, in 1149; and we shall not be far wrong
if we place it about the year 1145.
- ↑ This at least is the date that appears in the two copies of this very rare work that I have used, one in the Stadtbibliothek at Zurich and the other in the Bodleian library. It has been repeatedly given as 1566; see the Histoire litteraire de la France 12. 464, and Haureau, Singularites historiques et litter- aires 246.
- ↑ [See C. H. Haskins, Norman institutions 130; 1918.]
- ↑ This, I see, is observed by M. Haureau, Singularites, 232 sq., who also notices the source of the statement that Henry was Wil- liam s pupil at Paris; although I do not find that he disputes the story that John of Salisbury heard the latter there. Compare, how- ever, above, p. 181 n. 6.
