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CHAPTER IX

DETERMINATION OF AUTHORSHIP

THE process of finding the time and place of origin will prepare the way to find the authorship of an anonymous source. The more narrowly are determined the limits of time and territory within which the document must have been written, the smaller becomes the choice of authors. The responsible person may perhaps then be found, either by direct evidence of personal characteristics and interests, or by the elimination of all other possible authors.

The same inquiries used in the former cases must be made regarding language, style, and treatment, but the authorities agree that it is difficult if not impossible to establish general rules by which the personality of the author may always be identified in his writings.1 Men vary at different periods of life, and style may change with the subject treated. Their idiosyncrasies are so personal that no one is competent to decide a question of authorship who is not thoroughly saturated with the other productions of the supposed author and his contemporaries. Frequently the writer drops incidental hints as Incidental to his own origin or occupation without intending to do so. An expression of opinion may reveal the

1 Bernheim, p. 400, (Ed. 1908). Bresslau, Urkundenlehre, I, 583, etc.

Hints.

Quotation.

class to which he belongs, or the standpoint from which he views the events described. If these indicate that the author must have been a soldier, a monk, or a government official, the field of inquiry is narrowed to the list of those of that rank who could have reported on those events. Whether or not the name of the author is actually determined, any details of his position, class, or views may be important because they indicate his value as a witness.

Quotation by other writers may give a clue to the time or authorship of a document. Since a record or letter must have been written before it could be cited we may approach in this way the terminus ante quem of its appearance. If the quotation gives the name of the author cited we may suppose that the original writer was once known. Possibly only fragments without name remain. In accepting any ascriptions of authorship, however, one must remember the possibility of error on the part of the man who quotes. The memory does not always fit the quotation to the right author. Carelessness and mistakes in citation are to be found even in the most critical ages.

Isaac Taylor points out various forms in which quotation may help to prove authorship. 1. Literal quotations, whether the author's name is given or not. 2. Incidental allusions. 3. Explicit mention of an author with criticism or description of his work. 4. Treatises on particular subjects in which all writers who have handled the same topic are mentioned in the order of time. 5. Controversies,

polemics backed up by citations. 6. Translations, especially when made near the supposed time of the author.1

An instructive example of the problems to be met Matthew of in determining authorship is found in the chron- Westminster. icle known as "Flores Historiarum," long ascribed to "Matthew of Westminster." This furnishes a case of error in which the labor of the critics has been chiefly negative, but none the less important. Modern investigation shows clearly that the name was given to this chronicle about one hundred and fifty years later than the date of the earliest known manuscript, and that the work itself was the product of several compilers in succession. The earlier part was taken chiefly from the chronicles of Matthew Paris and was written at St. Albans. A continuation was carried on by several hands at Westminster, and in the course of time this combination of facts grew into the belief that a "Matthew, monk of Westminster," had written the whole work. Early modern critics were led astray by a title affixed to a manuscript of the fifteenth century. Matthew of Westminster was a creature of the imagination and his chronicle is a composite of nine parts.

The first part, covering the period from Creation to 1066, is not only a transcription of Matthew Paris, containing citations from other authors, but every little while there are incidental paragraphs to the glory of St. Albans. The same thing occurs in the second part (1067-1250), as when the compiler mentions the intention of Louis VII to visit St.

1 Isaac Taylor, Transmission of Ancient Books, p. 28.

Itinerary of
Richard I.

Albans and says that Richard went there, although Paris says he did not. Errors and contradictions in statement together with blunders of the copyist show that this was not an abridgment by Matthew Paris himself, and the writing of the earliest manuscripts is pronounced to be the distinctive St. Albans hand. Various compilers have been suggested, but the editor eliminates all of these by showing that one of them could have been but nine years old at the time this part closed; another was simply the indexer of one manuscript; two others were copyists identified with the manuscripts of other monasteries; and another, a Robert of Reading, actually had a hand in the work, but only for the period 1307-1325, not the whole chronicle. The later divisions were compiled at Westminster, and, with the exception of Robert's, were anonymous, so that the question of authorship is as yet unsolved. Since the first part is so much like Matthew Paris it is not of much consequence who the compiler was, but the method of proof, although reaching no constructive results, is extremely suggestive.1

The Itinerary of Richard I (1187-99) was formerly supposed to have been written by Geoffrey Vinsauf. Comparison with other literature of the period shows that the work is a prose translation into Latin of a French poem. This was "L'histoire de la guerre sainte," by one Ambrose, who appears to have been a jongleur of Evreux and who took part in the third crusade, where Richard I was so

1 See Preface to the Flores Historiarum, edited by H. R. Luard (Rolls Series).

conspicuous. The translation is not bound hard and fast to the original, consequently it is of interest and importance to know the writer. Here the investigator meets with the accumulated errors of past generations. Geoffrey was in fact a contemporary writer who composed a poem on Richard I, but the references of later writers, the productions of the same period and other indications show that the work comes from Richard, canon and prior of Holy Trinity, London.

The date of publication is shown by internal evidence. In the first place, the time was evidently after the death of Richard, for all the manuscripts mention John as "tunc comite." The writer, referring to an episode in which King John was concerned, speaks of it in time past, that monarch "then being count." John began to reign in 1199, the terminus post quem. The other limit is established by the fact that Giraldus Cambrensis, in his De Instructione Principum, made large extracts from the Itinerary. From other sources it is known that Giraldus could not well have lived beyond the year 1220. Therefore we have the terminus ante quem, and the result that the book must have appeared between the years 1199 and 1220.1

The "Eikon Basilike" was the famous document The Eikon which was alleged to have been written by Charles Basilike. I of England and at his death left to his subjects as a moral and political testament. The opinions

1 Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of Richard I., Vol. I. Introduction by Wm. Stubbs, pp. 69–70. Also in Historical Introductions to the Rolls Series by W. Stubbs, pp. 310-365.

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