Gualterus Anglicus (

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...

for Walter the Englishman) was an

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 * Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature * Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 10 ...

poet and scribe who produced a seminal version of ''

Aesop's Fables Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to ...

'' (in

distich A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...

s) around the year 1175.

Identification of the author

This author was earlier called the ''Anonymus Neveleti'', referring to attribution in the seventeenth-century ''Mythologia Aesopica'' of Isaac Nicholas Nevelet. The name Walter (Latin Gualterus) was produced by Léopold Hervieux, on the basis of manuscript evidence, and he went on to identify the author as

Walter of the Mill Walter Ophamil or Offamil ( fl. 1160–1191), italianised as Gualtiero Offamiglio or Offamilio from Latin ''Ophamilius'', was the archdeacon of Cefalù, dean of Agrigento, and archbishop of Palermo (1168–1191), called "''il primo minist ...

archbishop of Palermo The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Palermo ( la, Archidioecesis Panormitana) was founded as the Diocese of Palermo in the first century and raised to the status of archdiocese in the 11th century.elegiac couplet The elegiac couplet is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets, particularly Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, adopted the same form in Latin many years late ...

s). Given the uncertainty over the authorship, these terms are used in scholarly works. There is an earlier prose version of ''

Romulus Romulus () was the legendary foundation of Rome, founder and King of Rome, first king of Ancient Rome, Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus ...

'', also; it has been dated as early as the tenth century, or the sixth century. It is adapted from Phaedrus; the initial fable "The Cock and the Jewel", supposedly the reply of Phaedrus to his critics, marks out fable collections originating from this source. Walter changed the "jewel" from a

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...

. The verse ''Romulus'' formed the mainstream versions of medieval 'Aesop'. It is thought to be the version used by

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

. It with

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

influenced the ''Doligamus'' of . When

John Lydgate John Lydgate of Bury (c. 1370 – c. 1451) was an English monk and poet, born in Lidgate, near Haverhill, Suffolk, England. Lydgate's poetic output is prodigious, amounting, at a conservative count, to about 145,000 lines. He explored and est ...

produced ''Isopes Fabules'', the first fable collection written in English, the verse ''Romulus'' was a major source. Particularly sophisticated use of this fable tradition is made later in the 15th century in

Robert Henryson Robert Henryson (Middle Scots: Robert Henrysoun) was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots ''makars'', he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renai ...

's '' Morall Fabillis'', written in Scots. Early printed editions appeared under the title ''Aesopus moralisatus'', around 1500.

References

*Julia Bastin (editor) (1929–30), ''Recueil général des Isopets'' (two volumes) *Sandro Boldrini (1994), ''Uomini e bestie: le favole dell Aesopus latinus'' *Aaron E. Wright (editor) (1997), ''The Fables of "Walter of England", Edited from Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Codex Guelferbytanus 185 Helmstadiensis'' *Paola Busdraghi (editor) (2005), ''L'Esopus. attribuito a Gualtiero Anglico'' * Rebekka Nöcker: ''Volkssprachiges Proverbium in der Gelehrtenkultur : ein lateinischer Fabelkommentar des 15. Jahrhunderts mit deutschen Reimpaarepimythien; Untersuchung und Edition'', Berlin .a.: De Gruyter, 2015,

Notes

External links

mythfolklore.net online textsAlim online texts
*{{in lang, fr}

12th-century English people 12th-century English poets English male poets 12th-century English writers 12th-century Latin writers