1. See below, p. xxiv.

2. Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 28,212, ff. 22b, 26.

3. J. Gairdner, The Paston Letters, ed. 1896, iii. p. 301.

4. Ibid., ii. p. 335 (cf. p. xxx. below, note 2). This copy was included in a “grete booke,” other articles of which now form Lansdowne MS. 285. Ebesham’s hand as they show it is not identical with that of the Longleat MS., though it bears a certain resemblance to it.

5. Of the authorities used the best and most recent are E. Robineau, Christine de Pisan, sa vie et ses œuvres, St. Omer, 1882; F. Koch, Leben und Werke der Christine de Pizan, Goslar, 1885; M. Roy, Œuvres poétiques de Christine de Pisan, Soc. des Anciens Textes Français, i.–iii. 1886–1896. The most interesting details are derived from her own writings, many of which are still unprinted.

6. See below, p. xxxvi.

7. Koch, p. 14.

8. This date may be inferred from two statements by herself, one in “Le Chemin de long estude,” written in 1402, that she had then been widowed thirteen years (ed. R. Püschel, Berlin, 1887, p. 6), and the other in “La Vision” (Koch, p. 12) that she was twenty-five when her husband died, sc. in 1389.

9. “Car comme renommée lors tesmoignast par toute crestienté la souffisance de mon pere naturel és sciences spéculatives comme supellatif astrologien, jusques en Ytalie en la cité de Boulongne la grace par ses messages l’envoya quérir” (“Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V.,” in Petitot’s Collection des Mémoires, v. p. 275).

10. Robineau, p. 10.

11. Thus in “La Vision” she writes “le me tolli en fleur de ieunece, comme en l’aage de xxxiiij. ans, et moy de xxv. demouray chargee de iii. enfans petiz et de grant maisnage” (cf. p. xi. note 4).

12. Œuvres poétiques, ed. Roy, i. p. 12, “Cent Balades,” No. xi., and p. 148, “Rondeaux,” No. iii.

13. John de Montacute or Montagu, who succeeded his father as second Baron Montacute in 1390, his mother as Baron Monthermer in 1395 (?), and his uncle as third Earl of Salisbury in 1397. One of the objects of his embassy in 1398 was to hinder the marriage of Henry of Lancaster with a daughter of the Duke of Berry. Christine speaks of him as “gracieux chevalier, aimant dictiez et luy mesme gracieux dicteur” (Boivin, “Vie de Chr. de Pisan,” in Kéralio’s Collection des meilleurs ouvrages François, 1787, ii. p. 118).

14. Koch, p. 36.

15. In a ballad praying the Duke of Orleans to take him into his service (Roy, i. p. 232) she speaks of his having been three years in England:

Elsewhere she says that Henry IV. “tres joyeusement prist mon enfant vers luy et tint chierement et en très bon estat” (Boivin, p. 119).

16. All printed by Roy, vol. ii. 1891.

17. An edition, “traduit de langue romanne en prose françoise par Jan Chaperon,” appeared at Paris in 1549. See also above, p. xi., note 4, Koch, p. 76, and Kéralio, ii. p. 297.

18. For an analysis see Koch, p. 63.

19. In this part of the work she plagiarizes largely from the so-called Travels of Sir John Mandeville (see article by P. Toynbee in Romania, xxi. 1892, p. 228).

20. Printed in Petitot’s Collection des Mémoires, 1824, vols. v. vi. and elsewhere.

21. Analysed by Koch, p. 73.

22. As in the dedication of the “Épître d’Othéa” partly printed below, p. xxxvi.

23. The original of The book of fayttes of armes and of Chyualrye, printed by Caxton in 1489. He tells us in a note that it was given to him by Henry VII. on 23rd January, 1489, to translate and print, “to thende that euery gentylman born to armes and all manere men of werre captayns souldiours vytayllers and all other shold haue knowlege how they ought to behaue theym in the fayttes of warre and of bataylles.” He adds that the translation was finished on the 8th July and printed on the 14th. A French edition appeared at Paris in 1488, and others in 1497, etc.

24. An English translation by Bryan Anslay, entitled The boke of the cyte of Ladyes, was printed at London, 1521.

25. For the dedication to the Dauphiness and the table of chapters see Thomassy, Essai sur les écrits politiques de Christine de Pisan, 1838, p. 185.

26. Printed by Thomassy, p. 133.

27. Ibid., p. 141.

28. For an analysis of its contents, with extracts, see ibid., p. 150. The Dauphin Louis was born in 1396 and died in 1415.

29. See Thomassy, p. xlii.; Martin, Histoire de France, 4th ed. 1878, vi. p. 192. It is dated 31st July, 1429, a fortnight after the coronation of Charles VII. at Reims.

30. “Je Christine, qui ay plouré xi. ans en l’abbaye close.” It was perhaps the abbey of Poissy, of which her daughter was already an inmate in 1400 (above, p. xiv.), and which may possibly be meant by “Passy” in the passage from the Boke of Noblesse quoted in a note on p. xxxiii.

31. See below, p. xxxv.

32. Koch, p. 81. Louis was born 13th March, 1372.

33. Robineau, p. 89, speaks as if it was addressed to Charles himself, but the words are “Dorliens duc Loys” (see below, p. xxxvi.).

34. See pp. xxxiv., xxxvii.

35. “Les enseignemens que je Cristine donne a Jehan de Castel mon filz” (Œuvres poétiques, ed. Roy, iii. p. 27).

36. See the comparative table in Roy, i. p. xxii.

37. This was first pointed out by the Abbé Sallier, Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions, xvii. 1751, p. 518.

38. See articles by B. Hauréau in Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, xxx. 1883, p. 45, and by G[aston] P[aris] in the Histoire Littéraire de la France, xxix. 1885, p. 502.

39. Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean, Duc de Berry, 1894, i. p. 237, “escript en françois rimé”; Delisle, Le Cabinet des MSS., iii. p. 192.

40. Guiffrey, i. pp. 226, 229, ii. p. 127.

41. Romania, xiv. 1885, p. 1.

42. De Jong and De Goeje, Catalogus codicum orientalium Bibl. Acad. Lugd. Bat., iii. p. 342; Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Literatur, i. p. 459.

43. Salv. de Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, iii. 1854, p. 69, “Incipit liber philosophorum moralium .... quem transtulit de Greco in Latinum Mag. Johannes de Procida.” The Latin text is quoted in the notes here from Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 16,906, the French text from Royal MS. 19 B iv., both of the 15th century.

44. P. Paris, Les MSS. françois de la Bibl. du Roi, v. p. 1.

45. “Enprynted by me William Caxton at Westmestre the yere of our lord m.cccc.lxxvii.” A second edition appeared in 1480 (?), and a third, by W. de Worde, in 1528.

46. Thus, the translator says in his preface, “And at the last [I] concluded in my self to translate it in to thenglyssh tong, wiche in my jugement was not before,” and Caxton adds in the colophon, “Certaynly I had seen none in englissh til that tyme.”

47. No doubt there is some rhetorical exaggeration in the expression “othir straunge regions, londes and contrees” (p. 2, cf. p. xxx below); at any rate, there is no evidence that Fastolf served anywhere but in France, both north and south, and in Ireland.

48. In the colophon to the other work he is styled son-in-law, but the meaning is the same.

49. There is a good account of him in the Dict. of National Biography, vol. xviii. See also G. Poulett Scrope, Hist. of Castle Combe, 1852, ch. vii. p. 169. Besides other authorities given in the first-named work, some further particulars and corrections are supplied in Wylie’s Hist. of England under Henry IV., 1884–1898, and in Sir J. H. Ramsay’s Lancaster and York, 1892.

50. Wylie, iii. p. 168.

51. Ibid.

52. Hist. of Castle Combe, p. 282.

53. Wylie, iv. p. 74.

54. Wylie, iv. p. 86.

55. The warrant for his pay, 18th June, is in Rymer’s Fœdera, ed. 1740, iv. pt. ii. p. 130.

56. According to the Boke of Noblesse (see below, p. xliii.), p. 15, “the seyd erle made Ser John Fastolfe, chevaler, his lieutenaunt with m^lv^c soudeours.”

57. Rymer, iv. pt. ii. p. 153. Dict. Nat. Biogr. has 1417–18.

58. The Boke of Noblesse, after praising him for his care in provisioning his garrisons, goes on to say (p. 68), “and that policie was one of the grete causes that the regent of Fraunce and the lordes of the kyngys grete councelle lefft hym to hafe so many castells to kepe that he ledd yerly iii^c sperys and the bowes.” The value of his foresight in this respect is then illustrated by an anecdote of what happened when the Bastille was threatened with a siege in 1420.

59. The Dict. Nat. Biogr. oddly calls the place Mons!

60. Act iii. sc. 2, ll. 104–109; Act iv. sc. 1, ll. 9–47.

61. Paston Letters, i. p. 37; Stevenson, Wars of the English in France, Rolls Series, ii. pt. ii. p. [549].

62. Stevenson, pp. [433], [575].

63. Ramsay, Lancaster and York, ii. p. 41.

64. Brit. Mus. Add. ch. 14,598, “pro notabili et laudabili seruicio ac bono consilio que predilectus consiliarius noster Ioh. Fastolff miles nobis impendit et impendet in futurum,” 12 May, 19 Hen. VI. The future service was no doubt to be rendered in the council-chamber rather than the field.

65. “Thus endeth the boke of Tulle of olde age translated ont of latyn in to frenshe by laurence de primo facto ... and enprynted by me symple persone William Caxton in to Englysshe ... the xii day of August the yere of our lord m.cccc.lxxxi.”

66. He was father of Sir John Paston, for whom a copy of “Othea” was written in 1469, as well as of John Paston the younger, who owned a copy somewhat later (see above, p. x).

67. See Gairdner’s introduction, ed. 1896, i. p. lxxxvii. Fastolf’s relations with his stepson are also illustrated by numerous documents in G. Poulett Scrope’s History of Castle Combe, where there are memoirs of both, as lords of that manor.

68. Hist. of Castle Combe, p. 279.

69. “Thorugh the wiche sale I tooke sekenesses that kept me a xiii. or xiiii. yere swyng, whereby I am disfigured in my persone and shall be whilest I lyve” (ibid.).

70. From some curious accounts dealing with meat and fish in 1427–8 (ibid. p. 266) he was perhaps in the commissariat service.

71. Hist. of Castle Combe, p. 169.

72. Chroniques, ed. W. Hardy, Rolls Series, vol. for 1422–31, p. 289. Elsewhere (p. 254) he describes him as “moult sage et prudent aux armes au quel se fyoit grandement le duc de Bethfort, regent.”

73. She was a second wife, but the name of the first, who bore him a daughter, is not known (Hist. of Castle Combe, p. 271).

74. Ibid., p. 276; Paston Letters, i. p. 356.

75. Ibid., p. 419.

76. William Paston to John Paston: “He wyll dwelle at Caster, and Skrop wyth hym” (Paston Letters, i. p. 296). “The chaumboure sumtyme for Stephen Scrope” is mentioned in the inventory of Fastolf’s effects at Caister made after his death (ibid., i. p. 482).

77. See below, p. xliii. The note (Roxburghe Club ed. p. 54) runs, “Notandum est quod Cristina [fuit] domina præclara natu et moribus et manebat in domo religiosarum dominarum apud Passye prope Parys; et ita virtuosa fuit quod ipsa exhibuit plures clericos studentes in vniuersitate Parisiensi, et compilare fecit plures libros virtuosos, utpote librum arborum bellorum, et doctores racione eorum exhibicionis attribuerunt nomen autoris Cristine, sed aliquando nomen autoris clerici studentis imponitur in diuersis libris; et vixit circa annum Christi 1430, sed floruit ab anno Christi 1400.”

78. Guiffrey, Inventaires, i. p. 249; cf. Delisle, Le Cabinet des MSS., iii. p. 193, no. 290.

79. In answer to an inquiry M. Omont, keeper of MSS., kindly states that only one of them, franç. 12,438, a poor copy on paper, contains a dedication to the Duke of Berry. It begins “Le Prologue. Louenge à Dieu soit .... et après ensuivant à très noble fleur .... et puis à vous excellant prince, saige, bon et vertueux, Jehan excellant, redoubté filz au roy de France .... duc de Berry,” etc.

80. The “Cent Balades d’Amant et de Dame” (Œuvres Poétiques, ed. Roy, iii. p. 209), besides ten others.

81. Printed by Roy, i. p. xiv. The MS. is there described and compared with another rather earlier collection (now Bibl. Nat. franç. 835, 606, 836, 605), which the Duke of Berry bought from Christine for 200 crowns. A reduced facsimile of the first page of the Harley MS., with a large miniature of Christine presenting the volume to the queen in her bedchamber, is prefixed to Roy’s vol. iii. (cf. a note by P. Meyer, p. xxii.). A coloured plate of the same miniature is given by Shaw, Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, 1843.

82. Delisle, Le Cabinet des MSS., i. p. 52.

83. This is the only edition in the British Museum. Its second title runs: Lepistre de Othea deesse de prudence enuoyee a lesperit cheualereux Hector de troye auec cent hystoires. Nouuellement imprimee a Paris. Other editions are said to have been issued at Lyons in 1497 and 1519, and at Paris in 1522.

84. Both date and age were given on his tomb at Bourges erected by Charles VII. in 1457 (Raynal, Histoire du Berry, 1844, ii. pp. 504, 513; Champeaux and Gauchery, Les Travaux d’art executés pour Jean de France, Duc de Berry, 1894, p. 43).

85. Ed. 1644, p. 238. Bouchet was born in 1476, and his work first appeared in 1524. I owe the reference to it to Mr. Wylie.

86. Histoire du Berry, ii. p. 375.

87. Histoire de France, 4th edition, 1878, vi. p. 25. The most favourable view of his character is given by Guiffrey, Inventaires, p. cxci.

88. “Now children of gramere scole conneþ no more Frensch þan can here lift heele ... also gentil men habbeþ now moche yleft for to teche here childern Freynsch” (R. Morris, Specimens of Early English, 1867, p. 339). See also the Rolls Series edition of Higden, ii. p. 161, where Trevisa’s text is taken from another MS.

89. See Chaucer’s Nonne Prestes tale, l. 14, “Of poynant saws hir needide never a deel.”

90. See above, p. xxxvi. There is an imperfect copy of the English text in the British Museum (C. 21. a. 34).

91. H. R. Plomer, Robert Wyer, printer and bookseller, 1897. For an account of the woodcuts, see p. 9.

92. “Here endyth thys Epistle, undre correccion, the xv. day of June, the yeere of Crist M^ciiii^clxxv.,” etc. (p. 85).

93. Examples of his writing are fairly abundant, e.g. in the Brit. Mus. MSS. Cotton Julius F. vii., Royal 13 C. i., Sloane 4 and Add. 27,443–4, 28,208, 34,888. In Sloane MS. 4, f. 38b, he gives a curious account of Fastolf’s last illness.

94. Stevenson, Wars of the English in France, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. [519]–[742], from Lambeth MS. 506, which is partly in Worcester’s own hand. His Annals, extending from 1324 to 1468, are printed in the same volume, p. [743], from the autograph MS. in the College of Arms.

95. Hist. of Castle Combe, p. 288.

96. Written about 1385 and dedicated to Charles VI. It was first printed at Lyons about 1480. See the modern edition by E. Nys, L’Arbre de Batailles, Brussels, 1883.

97. The colophon of Caxton’s English version (above, p. xvi.) points to the source of the misnomer: “Thus endeth this boke whiche Xpyne of Pyse made and drewe out of the boke named Vegecius de re militari and out of tharbre of bataylles.” Christine in fact made use of Bonet’s work.

98. “I may sey to you that William hath goon to scole to a Lumbard called Karoll Giles, to lern and to be red in poetre or els in Frensh; for he hath byn with the same Caroll every dey ii. tymes or iii. and hath bought divers boks of hym,” H. Wyndesore to J. Paston, 27th Aug. 1458 (Paston Letters, i. p. 431).

99. Paston Letters, i. p. cxiv.; Hist. of Castle Combe, p. 194.

100. Ed. J. Nasmith, 1778, p. 368, “1473, die 10 Aug. presentavi W. episcopo Wyntoniensi apud Asher librum Tullii de Senectute per me translatum in anglicis, sed nullum regardum recepi de episcopo.”

101. For this dedication, addressed by the translator, Stephen Scrope, to his stepfather, Sir John Fastolf, see the Introduction.

102. Sc. worldly.

103. Sc. old.

104. So the MS., but John, Duke of Berry, was born 30th November, 1340, and died 15th June, 1416.

105. The mythical Hermes Trismegistus. The citations from these and other less well known philosophers were taken by Christine de Pisan from Guillaume de Tignonville’s “Les dis moraulx des Philosophes,” which Scrope himself translated into English (see Introduction). “Salomon” here represents the “Salon” or “Zalon,” sc. Solon, of the original.

106. Sc. thee, which is spelt “the” throughout.

107. This parentage is explained further on, pp. 22, 24.

108. Sc. Heir; Feyre MS.; Hoir, H.

109. Affin que ton bon cuer sadrece, H. The translator no doubt read “tout bon cœur.”

110. Qui de tous vaillans est ame, H. Pegasus is explained below (p. 15) as meaning “a goode name, the which flyeth through the eyre.”

111. Sc. thee, whole and sum; me doit il de toy souuenir, H.

112. Et que tu me vueilles bien croire, H.

113. Sagesse de femme, H.

114. Thas, MS.

115. Greke, MS.; Troye la grant, H.

116. La belle ieunece, H.

117. Par les agais et assaulx, H.

118. Beatitude, H.

119. Sc. considering that.

120. Kynges, MS.; toutes choses terrestres, H.

121. Thesceyvable, MS., with “de” interlined.

122. De Singularitate Clericorum, attributed to Cyprian and Origen as well as to St. Augustine (Migne, Patrologia Latina, iv. col. 835). The passage runs (col. 866): “Ubicumque fuerit providentia, frustrantur universa contraria; ubi autem providentia negligitur, omnia contraria dominantur.”

123. Cesser et anientir, H.

124. Prov. ii. 10, 11. This and other quotations from the Vulgate are supplied from the French text, being omitted by the translator, possibly with the intention of filling them in from the Wycliffite English version.

125. De vaillance cheualereuse, H.

126. Seur germaine, H.

127. Sc. the leaf of a leek; Car selle nen faisoit le pois, Tout ne te vauldroit pas vn pois, H.

128. Serour, H.

129. Democritus, H.

130. De limiter les choses, H.

131. Ou liure des meurs de leglise, que loffice dattrempance est reffraindre et appaisier les meurs de concupiscence, H. The repetition of “meurs” caused the translator to omit some words. The reference is to the treatise “De moribus ecclesiæ catholicæ,” i. 19 (Migne, xxxii. 1326).

132. 1 Pet. ii. 11.

133. Sc. war, cf. next line; where, MS.

134. Sur la mer de Grece, H.

135. Maystyr, MS.; mestier, H.