Walter Map and the Matter of Britain
THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES
Ruth Mazo Karras, Series Editor
Edward Peters, Founding Editor
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
Walter Map and the Matter of Britain
Joshua Byron Smith
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Smith, Joshua Byron, author.
Title: Walter Map and the matter of Britain / Joshua Byron Smith.
Other titles: Middle Ages series.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017] | Series: The Middle Ages series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016056690 | ISBN 9780812249323 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Map, Walter, active 1200. | Map, Walter, active 1200. De nugis curialium. | Latin literature, Medieval and modern—England—History and criticism. | English literature—Middle English, 1100–1500—History and criticism. | English literature—Middle English, 1100–1500—Celtic influences.
Classification: LCC PA8380.Z5 S65 2017 | DDC 878/.0307—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016056690
For Lora
Contents
Chapter 1. Walter Map, Wales, and Romance
Chapter 2. Works Frozen in Revision
Chapter 3. Glosses and a Contrived Book
Chapter 4. From Herlething to Herla
Chapter 5. The Welsh-Latin Sources of the De nugis curialium
Chapter 6. Walter Map in the Archives and the Transmission of the Matter of Britain
Appendix. A Preliminary List of Suspected Interpolated Glosses in the De nugis curialium
Abbreviations
| CPGC | Contes pour les gens de cour, trans. Alan Keith Bate (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993). |
| DMLBS | Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, ed. R. E. Latham et al. (London: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1975–2013). |
| DNC | Walter Map, De nugis curialium: Courtiers’ Trifles, ed. and trans. M. R. James, rev. C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). |
| GCO | Giraldi Cambrensis opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, James F. Dimock, and George F. Warner, 8 vols. (London: Longman, 1861–91). |
| GPC | Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, ed. R. J. Thomas (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1950–2002). |
| HRB | Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: An Edition and Translation of “De gestis Britonum,” ed. Michael D. Reeve, trans. Neil Wright (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007). |
| LSM | Peter Stotz, Handbuch zur lateinische Sprache des Mittelalters, 5 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1996–2004). [References are to book, page, and section number.] |
| OLD | Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. G. W. Glare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). |
A Note on Translations
With the exception of the History of the Kings of Britain, the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, and the Vulgate, all translations, including those from the De nugis curialium, are mine unless otherwise noted. Translations from the Vulgate are the Douay-Rheims.
Introduction
In either 1209 or 1210, Walter Map, a British churchman, courtier, and writer, died. While the year of his death remains in doubt, the month and day are clearly recorded: April 1.1 Of course, the association of this date with practical jokes had not yet arisen when Walter passed away, but enough of his mischievous personality comes through in his work to suggest that he would surely appreciate the serendipitous alignment of his obituary with a day devoted to hoaxes. He had a wry sense of humor, and, fittingly, much of his literary career can be summed up as a series of hoaxes—some intentional, some not. Walter has been mistaken for St. Jerome, an ancient Roman, a Welshman, a precocious Greek translator, a vicious satirical poet, and the son of a Welsh princess and Norman lord. Indeed, a significant portion of scholarship on Walter Map has been devoted to sifting the real Walter out of this preponderance of fake Walters. This book seeks to understand another of Walter’s mistaken identities: his role as author of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, a sprawling thirteenth-century French prose narrative and one of the highlights of medieval Arthurian literature. Why did Walter Map, who apparently did not write in French and who had seemingly