Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus | Page 3

where it was grown, and how much
he would pay a pound for it if he bought it at first hand. Any attempt to
reconcile these frames of mind was foredoomed to failure.
THE INTEREST OF BARTHOLOMEW'S WORK.--The interest of
Bartholomew's work to modern readers is twofold: it has its value as
literature pure and simple, and it is one of the most important of the
documents by the help of which we rebuild for ourselves the fabric of
mediaeval life. The charm of its style lies in its simple forcible
language, and its simplicity suits its matter well. On the one hand, we
cannot forget it is a translation, but the translation, on the other hand, is
from the mediaeval Latin of an Englishman into English.
One of the greatest difficulties in the way of a student is to place
himself in the mental attitude of a man of the Middle Ages towards
nature; yet only by so doing can he appreciate the solutions that the
philosophers of the time offered of the problems of nature. Our author
affords perhaps the simplest way of learning what Chaucer and perhaps
Shakespeare knew and believed of their surroundings--earth, air, and
sea. The plan on which his work was constructed led Bartholomew in
order over the universe from God and the angels--through fire, water,
air, to earth and all that therein is. We thus obtain a succinct account of
the popular mediaeval theories in Astronomy, Physiology, Physics,
Chemistry, Geography, and Natural History, all but unattainable
otherwise. The aim of our chapter on Science has been to give
sufficient extracts to mark the theories on which mediaeval Science
was based, the methods of its reasoning, and the results at which it
arrived. The chapter on Medicine gives some account of the popular
cures and notions of the day, and that on Geography resumes the
traditions current on foreign lands, at a time when Ireland was at a
greater distance than Rome, and less known than Syria.
In the chapter on Mediaeval Society we have not perhaps the daily life
of the Middle Ages, but at least the ideal set before them by their
pastors and masters--an ideal in direct relationship with the everyday
facts of their life. The lord, the servant, the husband, the wife, and the
child, here find their picture. Some information, too, can be obtained
about the daily life of the time from the chapter on the Natural History
of Plants, which gives incidentally their food-stuffs.
It is in the History of Animals that the student of literature will find the

richest mine of allusions. The list of similes in Shakespeare explained
by our author would fill a volume like this itself. Other writers, again,
simply "lift" the book wholesale. Chester and Du Bartas write page
after page of rhyme, all but versified direct from Bartholomew. Jonson
and Spenser, Marlowe and Massinger, make ample use of him. Lyly
and Drayton owe him a heavy debt. Considerations of space forbid
their insertion, but for every extract made here, the Editor has collected
several passages from first-class authors with a view to illustrating the
immense importance of this book to Elizabethan literature. It was not
without reason that Ireland chose justified, when making a selection of
passages from the work for modern readers, in altering his text to this
extent--and this only: he has modernised the spelling, and in the case of
entirely obsolete grammatical forms he has substituted modern ones
(_e.g._ "its" for "his"). In the case of an utterly dead word he has
followed the course of substituting a word from the same root, when
one exists; and when none could be found, he has left it unchanged in
the text. Accordingly a short glossary has been added, which includes,
too, many words which we may hope are not dead, but sleeping. In
very few cases has a word been inserted, and in those it is marked by
italics.
Perhaps we may be allowed to say a word in defence of the principle of
modernising our earliest literature. Early English poetry is, in general
(with some striking exceptions), incapable of being written in the
spelling of our days without losing all of that which makes it verse; but
there can be no reason, when dealing with the masterpieces of our Early
English prose, for maintaining obsolete forms of spelling and grammar
which hamper the passage of thought from mind to mind across the
centuries. Editors of Shakespeare and the Bible for general use have
long assumed the privilege of altering the spelling, and except on the
principle that earlier works are more important, or are only to be read
by people who have had the leisure and inclination to familiarise their
eyes with the peculiarities of Middle English, there can be