Gualterus Anglicus (Medieval Latin for Walter the EnglishmanGalterus, Gualtherus Anglicus, Waltarius; Walter the Englishman, Walter of England, Walther; Gauthier or Gautier l'Anglais; Anonyme de Nevelet.) was an Anglo-Norman poet and scribe who produced a seminal version of Aesop's Fables (in distichs) 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,In Les fabulistes latins depuis le siècle d'Auguste jusqu'à la fin du Moyen-Age, 1893-4. on the basis of manuscript evidence, and he went on to identify the author as Walter of the Mill, archbishop of Palermo from 1168 onwards. Scholars have disputed this second step of identification;L. J. A. Loewenthal, For the Biography of Walter Ophamil, Archhishop of Palermo, The English Historical Review, Vol. 87, No. 342 (Jan., 1972), pp. 75-82. it may no longer be supported. The entire attribution is attacked.Cataldo Roccaro, Sull'autore dell'Aesopus comunemente attribuito a Gualtiero Anglico, Pan: studi dell'Istituto di Filologia Latina, Università degli Studi, Palermo 17 (1999).
The collection and its influence
This collection of 62 fables is more accurately called the verse Romulus, or elegiac Romulus (from its elegiac couplets). Given the uncertainty over the authorship, these terms are used in scholarly works.
There is an earlier prose version of Romulus, also;A. G. Rigg, History of Anglo-Latin Literature, 1066-1422 (1992) states that 58 of the 62 tales were from Phaedrus, via the prose Latin of 'Romulus'. it has been dated as early as the tenth century,John MacQueen, Complete and Full with Numbers: The Narrative Poetry of Robert Henryson (2006), p. 15. 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 to jasper.Fabulae (Aesopus) - 1. De gallo et iaspide
The verse Romulus formed the mainstream versions of medieval 'Aesop'.R. Howard Bloch, The Anonymous Marie de France (2006), p. 122. It is thought to be the version used by Dante.Ronald L. Durling, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno (1997), notes to Canto 23.4-6, p. 354. It with Ovid influenced the Doligamus of .
When John Lydgate produced Isopes Fabules, the first fable collection written in English, the verse Romulus was a major source.Edward Wheatley, Mastering Aesop: Medieval Education, Chaucer, and His Followers, p. 125. Particularly sophisticated use of this fable tradition is made later in the 15th century in Robert Henryson's Morall Fabillis, written in Scots.Annabel M. Patterson, Fables of Power: Aesopian Writing and Political History (1991), p. 31.
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 [u.a.] : De Gruyter, 2015,
Notes
External links mythfolklore.net online texts Alim online texts Arlima page