The Latin Poems.

XLIX; 371 p. From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Very good and clean. - Sehr gut und sauber. - Introduction: The great popular movements in England during the end of the twelfth and the earlier half of the thirteenth centuries, gave rise to a numerous class of Latin poems of a very peculiar character, remarkable chiefly for pungency of satire, or sprightliness of composition. The remains of this poetry, which we have long been in the habit of attributing to Walter Mapes, appear to be of sufficient interest and importance to be collected into a volume ; and prefatory to the poems themselves, it will naturally be expected that we should give some account of the presumed author. §1. The greater portion of our information relating to Walter Mapes is contained in the Speciflum Ecclesise, an inedited work of Giraldus Cambrensis, who was his intimate friend. From that writer we learn that Mapes (or Map, which appears to be the proper orthography of the name), was a great favourite of King Henry IL, who esteemed him equally for his extensive learning and for his courtly manners, and that he was one of the ornaments of the court of that monarch. He obtained, by this high favour, various ecclesiastical dignities, being canon of the churches of Salisbury and of St. Paul’s in London, prsecentor of Lincoln, incumbent of Westbury in Gloucestershire, with many other benefices, and finally archdeacon of Oxford. We learn from Thomas of Walsingham that he obtained this latter dignity in 1197, * and he probably held it as well as the parsonage of Westbury to the end of his life. He visited Rome at the time of the great dispute between his friend Giraldus and Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury, relating to the rights of the Church of St. David’s.-)' Among the charters of the Cottonian Library which have been rescued from oblivion (and perhaps from destruction) by the zeal of Sir Frederick Madden, is an original deed made by Walter Mapes, before he was made archdeacon of Oxford, and dated at Westbury ; * and Tanner has quoted a charter of the historian Ralph de Diceto (as dean) and the chapter of St. Paul’s, confirming this or some other donation by our poet.-f' We have no certain indication of the date of his death, but it is supposed to have occured towards the year 1210. He was no longer alive when Giraldus Cambrensis wrote the preface to the second edition of his Hibernia Expugnata, which was dedicated to King John.|