Volume I Part 29 (1/2)

The former will be found in English at pp. 1, 2, of our Translation; but we give a part of the original below[14] for comparison with the preamble to the Romances of Meliadus, Tristan, and Lancelot, as taken from MS. 6961 (Fr. 340) of the Paris Library:--

”_Seigneurs Empereurs et Princes, Ducs et Contes et Barons et Chevaliers et Vava.s.seurs et Bourgeois, et tous les preudommes de cestui monde qui avez talent de vous deliter en rommans, si prenez cestui (livre) et le faites lire de chief en chief, si orrez toutes les grans aventure_ qui advindrent entre les Chevaliers errans du temps au Roy Uter Pendragon, jusques a le temps au Roy Artus son fils, et des compaignons de la Table Ronde. Et sachiez tout vraiment que cist livres fust translatez du livre Monseigneur Edouart le Roy d'Engleterre en cellui temps qu'il pa.s.sa oultre la mer au service nostre Seigneur Damedieu pour conquester le Sant Sepulcre, et Maistre Rusticiens de Pise, lequel est ymaginez yci dessus,[15] compila ce rommant, car il en translata toutes les merveilleuses nouvelles et aventures qu'il trouva en celle livre et traita tout certainement de toutes les aventures du monde, et si sachiez qu'il traitera plus de Monseigneur Lancelot du Lac, et Mons'r Tristan le fils au Roy Meliadus de Leonnoie que d'autres, porcequ'ilz furent sans faille les meilleurs chevaliers qui a ce temps furent en terre; et li Maistres en dira de ces deux pluseurs choses et pluseurs nouvelles que l'en treuvera escript en tous les autres livres; et porce que le Maistres les trouva escript au Livre d'Engleterre.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Palazzo di S Giorgio Genoa]

”Certainly,” Paulin Paris observes, ”there is a singular a.n.a.logy between these two prefaces. And it must be remarked that the formula is not an ordinary one with translators, compilers, or authors of the 13th and 14th centuries. Perhaps you would not find a single other example of it.”[16]

This seems to place beyond question the ident.i.ty of the Romance-compiler of Prince Edward's suite in 1270, and the Prisoner of Genoa in 1298.

[Sidenote: Further particulars concerning Rustician.]

42. In Dunlop's History of Fiction a pa.s.sage is quoted from the preamble of _Meliadus_, as set forth in the Paris printed edition of 1528, which gives us to understand that Rusticien de Pise had received as a reward for some of his compositions from King Henry III. the prodigal gift of two _chateaux_. I gather, however, from pa.s.sages in the work of Paulin Paris that this must certainly be one of those confusions of persons to which I have referred before, and that the recipient of the chateaux was in reality Helye de Borron, the author of some of the originals which Rustician manipulated.[17] This supposed incident in Rustician's scanty history must therefore be given up.

We call this worthy _Rustician_ or _Rusticiano_, as the nearest probable representation in Italian form of the _Rusticien_ of the Round-Table MSS.

and the _Rustacians_ of the old text of Polo. But it is highly probable that his real name was _Rustich.e.l.lo_, as is suggested by the form _Rustichelus_ in the early Latin version published by the _Societe de Geographie_. The change of one liquid for another never goes for much in Italy,[18] and Rustich.e.l.lo might easily Gallicize himself as Rusticien. In a very long list of Pisan officials during the Middle Ages I find several bearing the name of _Rustich.e.l.lo_ or _Rustich.e.l.li_, but no _Rusticiano_ or _Rustigiano_.[19]

Respecting him we have only to add that the peace between Genoa and Venice was speedily followed by a treaty between Genoa and Pisa. On the 31st July, 1299, a truce for twenty-five years was signed between those two Republics. It was a very different matter from that between Genoa and Venice, and contained much that was humiliating and detrimental to Pisa.

But it embraced the release of prisoners; and those of Meloria, reduced it is said to less than one t.i.the of their original number, had their liberty at last. Among the prisoners then released no doubt Rustician was one. But we hear of him no more.

[1] _B. Marangone, Croniche della C. di Pisa_, in _Rerum Ital. Script._ of _Tartini_, Florence, 1748, i. 563; _Dal Borgo, Dissert. sopra l'Istoria Pisana_, ii. 287.

[2] The list of the whole number is preserved in the Doria archives, and has been published by Sign. Jacopo D'Oria. Many of the Baptismal names are curious, and show how far sponsors wandered from the Church Calendar. _a.s.san, Alton, Turco, Soldan_ seem to come of the constant interest in the East. _Alaone_, a name which remained in the family for several generations, I had thought certainly borrowed from the fierce conqueror of the Khalif (infra, p. 63). But as one Alaone, present at this battle, had a son also there, he must surely have been christened before the fame of Hulaku could have reached Genoa. (See _La Chiesa di S. Matteo_, pp. 250, seqq.)

In doc.u.ments of the kingdom of Jerusalem there are names still more anomalous, e.g., _Gualterius Baffumeth, Joannes Mahomet_. (See _Cod.

Dipl. del Sac. Milit. Ord. Gerosol._ I. 2-3, 62.)

[3] _Memorial. Potestat. Regiens._ in _Muratori_, viii. 1162.

[4] See _Fragm. Hist. Pisan._ in _Muratori_, xxiv. 651, seqq.; and _Caffaro_, _id._ vi. 588, 594-595. The cut in the text represents a striking memorial of those Pisan Prisoners, which perhaps still survives, but which at any rate existed last century in a collection at Lucca. It is the seal of the prisoners as a body corporate: SIGILLUM UNIVERSITATIS CARCERATORUM PISANORUM JANUE DETENTORUM, and was doubtless used in their negotiations for peace with the Genoese Commissioners. It represents two of the prisoners imploring the Madonna, Patron of the Duomo at Pisa. It is from _Manni, Osserv. Stor.

sopra Sigilli Antichi_, etc., Firenze, 1739, tom. xii. The seal is also engraved in _Dal Borgo_, op. cit. ii. 316.

[5] The Abate Spotorno in his _Storia Letteraria della Liguria_, II. 219, fixes on a Genoese philosopher called Andalo del Negro, mentioned by Boccaccio.

[6] I quote from Galignani's ed. of Prose Works, v. 712. This has ”Rusticien de _Puise_.” In this view of the fict.i.tious character of the names of Rusticien and the rest, Sir Walter seems to have been following Ritson, as I gather from a quotation in Dunlop's H. of Fiction. (_Liebrecht's_ German Version, p. 63.)

[7] _Giron le Courtois_, and the conclusion of _Tristan_.

[8] The pa.s.sage runs thus as quoted (from the preamble of the _Meliadus_--I suspect in one of the old printed editions):--

”Aussi Luces du Gau (Gas) translata en langue Francoise une partie de l'Hystoire de Monseigneur Tristan, et moins a.s.sez qu'il ne deust.

Moult commenca bien son livre et si ny mist tout les faicts de Tristan, ains la greigneur partie. Apres s'en entremist Messire Ga.s.se le Blond, qui estoit parent au Roy Henry, et divisa l'Hystoire de Lancelot du Lac, et d'autre chose ne parla il mye grandement en son livre. Messire Robert de Borron s'en entremist et Helye de Borron, par la priere du dit Robert de Borron, _et pource que compaignons feusmes d'armes longuement_, je commencay mon livre,” etc. (_Liebrecht's Dunlop_, p. 80.) If this pa.s.sage be authentic it would set beyond doubt the age of the de Borrons and the other writers of Anglo-French Round Table Romances, who are placed by the _Hist. Litteraire de la France_, and apparently by Fr. Michel, under Henry II. I have no means of pursuing the matter, and have preferred to follow Paulin Paris, who places them under Henry III. I notice, moreover, that the _Hist.

Litt._ (xv. p. 498) puts not only the de Borrons but Rustician himself under Henry II.; and, as the last view is certainly an error, the first is probably so too.

[9] Transc. from MS. 6975 (now Fr. 355) of Paris Library.

[10] _MSS. Francois_, iii. 60-61.