Gualteri Mapes. De nugis curialium distinctiones quinque

PREFACE.
Mapes appears to have had a special employment in the court
of the young king Henry, after he had been crowned by his father,
until his untimely death in 1182, and he shows great alFection for
the memory of that prince, and speaks leniently of his errors.* It
appears by the anecdotes related by himself and by Giraldus
Cambrensis that he accompanied king Henry II. in nearly all his
progresses. He was with him in Anjou soon after the election of
Geoffrey to the archbishopric of York, in 1183.t In 1196 Mapes
was appointed archdeacon of Oxford ;J from which date we lose
sight of him entirely.
Walter Mapes was evidently a man not only of much learning
and extensive reading, but of great taste for lighter literature. His
mind appears to have been stored with legends and anecdotes,
and he was universally admired for his ready wit and humour.
He speaks of himself as enjoying the reputation of a poet,§ but
he gives us no clue to the character of the compositions by which
he had entitled himself to this name. His Latin is very unequal
but we are perhaps not entirely competent to pronounce judgment
in this respect, as the text in the unique manuscript of his prose
Latin work which has come down to us is extremely corrupt.
His style is in general not pure ; he often becomes wearisome by
his attempts at embellishment, and his writings are too much in-
terspersed with puns and jests. His knowledge of the world was
evidently extensive, and his observations on men and pohtics are
judicious and acute. He sometimes rises above the prejudices of
his age, as in his account of Arnold of Brescia,|| whilst at other
* De Nug. Cur. Distinc. iv. c. 1. f Ibid. v. c. 6.
X De cantore Lincolniensi Waltero Map in Oxeuefordensem archidiaconum trans-
latione facta. Rad. de Dicet. col. 695, Conf. Joh. Bromton, Chron. col. 1271.
§ Conf. De Nug. Cuiial. Distinc, i. c. 10, Distinc. iv. c. 2, and Distinc. v. c. 1
Nug. Curial. Distinc. i. c. 24.
II De
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