Chapter 20

Sir Thomas wrote his own life to the year 1609, which, with the first draft of the statutes drawn up for the library, and his letters to the librarian, Thomas James, was published by Thomas Hearne, under the title ofReliquiae Bodleianae, or Authentic Remains of Sir Thomas Bodley(London, 1703, 8vo).

BODMER, JOHANN JAKOB(1698-1783), Swiss-German author, was born at Greifensee, near Zürich, on the 19th of July 1698. After first studying theology and then trying a commercial career, he finally found his vocation in letters. In 1725 he was appointed professor of Helvetian history in Zürich, a chair which he held for half a century, and in 1735 became a member of the “Grosser Rat.” He published (1721-1723), in conjunction with J.J. Breitinger (1701-1774) and several others,Die Discourse der Mahlern, a weekly journal after the model of the Spectator. Through his prose translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1732) and his successful endeavours to make a knowledge of English literature accessible to Germany, he aroused the hostile criticism of Gottsched (q.v.) and his school, a struggle which ended in the complete discomfiture of the latter. His most important writings are the treatisesVon dem Wunderbaren in der Poesie(1740) andKritische Betrachtungen über die poetischen Gemälde der Dichter(1741), in which he pleaded for the freedom of the imagination from the restriction imposed upon it by French pseudo-classicism. Bodmer’s epicsDie Sündfluth(1751) andNoah(1751) are weak imitations of Klopstock’sMessias, and his plays are entirely deficient in dramatic qualities. He did valuable service to German literature by his editions of the Minnesingers and part of theNibelungenlied. He died at Zürich on the 2nd of January 1783.

See T.W. Danzel,Gottsched und seine Zeit(Leipzig, 1848); J. Crüger,J.C. Gottsched, Bodmer und Breitinger(Stuttgart, 1884); F. Braitmaier,Geschichte der poetischen Theorie und Kritik von den Diskursen der Maler bis auf Lessing(Leipzig, 1888);Denkschrift zu Bodmers 200. Geburtstag(Zürich, 1900).

BODMIN,a market town and municipal borough in the Bodmin parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, the county town, 30½ m. W.N.W. of Plymouth, on branches of the Great Western and London & South-Western railways. Pop. (1901) 5353. It lies between two hills in a short valley opening westward upon that of the Camel, at the southern extremity of the high open Bodmin Moor. The large church of St Petrock, mainly Perpendicular, has earlier portions, and a late Norman font. East of it there is a ruined Decorated chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury, with a crypt. A tower of Tudor date, in the cemetery, marks the site of a chapel of the gild of the Holy Rood. Part of the buildings of a Franciscan friary, foundedc.1240, are incorporated in the market-house, and the gateway remains in an altered form. At Bodmin are a prison, with civil and naval departments, the county gaol and asylum, the headquarters of the constabulary, and those of the duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. Cattle, sheep and horse fairs are held, and there is a considerable agricultural trade. The borough is under a mayor, four aldermen and twelve councillors. Area, 2797 acres.

Traces of Roman occupation have been found in the western part of the parish, belonging to the first centuryA.D.Possibly tin-mining was carried on here at that period. The grant of a charter by King Edred to the prior and canons of Bodmin (Bomine, Bodman, Bodmyn) in respect of lands in Devonshire appears in aninspeximusof 1252. To its ecclesiastical associations it owed its importance at the time of the Domesday survey, when St Petrock held the manor of Bodmin, wherein were sixty-eight houses and one market. To successive priors, as mesne lords, it also owed its earliest municipal privileges. King John’s charter to the prior and convent, dated the 17th of July 1199, contained a clause (subsequently cancelled by Richard II.) by which burgesses were exempt from being impleaded, touching any tenements in their demesne, except before the king and his chief justice. Richard of Cornwall, king of the Romans, confirmed to the burgesses their gild merchant, Edward I. the pesage of tin, and Edward II. a market for tin and wool. Queen Elizabeth in 1563 constituted the town a free borough and the burgesses a body corporate, granting at the same time two fairs and a Saturday market. There are still held also three other fairs whose origin is uncertain. An amended charter granted in 1594 remained in force until 1789, when the corporation became extinct owing to the diminution of the burgesses. By virtue of a new charter of incorporation granted in 1798 and remodelled by the act of 1835, the corporation now consists of a mayor, four aldermen and twelve councillors. The first members for Bodmin were summoned in 1295. Retaining both its members in 1832, losing one in 1868 and the other in 1885, it has now become merged in the south-eastern division of the county. From 1715 to 1837 the assizes were generally held alternately at Launceston and Bodmin; since 1837 they have been held at Bodmin only. A court of probate has also been held at Bodmin since 1773. A festival known as “Bodmin Riding” was formerly celebrated here on the Sunday and Monday following St Thomas’s day (July 7). It is thought by some to have been instituted in 1177 to celebrate the recovery of the bones of St Petrock.

SeeVictoria County History, Cornwall; John Maclean,Parochial and Family History of the Deanery of Trigg Minor, Cornwall(3 vols., 1873-1879).

BODÖ,a seaport on the north-western coast of Norway, in Nordlandamt(county), lat. 67° 17′ N. Pop. (1900) 4827. The rock-bound harbour admits large vessels, and there is a brisk trade in fish and eider-down. The neighbouring country has many scenic attractions. Sixty miles inland (E.) rises the great massif of Sulitelma on the Swedish frontier, with its copper mines, broad snow-fields and glaciers. The fjords of the district include the imposing Beierenfjord, the Saltenfjord, and the Skjerstadfjord, at the narrow mouths of which, between islands, a remarkable cataract (Saltström) is formed at the turn of the tide. On this fjord is Skjerstad, a large scattered village.

BODONI, GIAMBATTISTA(1740-1813), Italian printer, was born in 1740 at Saluzzo in Piedmont, where his father owned a printing establishment. While yet a boy he began to engrave on wood. He at length went to Rome, and there became a compositor for the press of the Propaganda. He made himself acquainted with the Oriental languages, and thus was enabled to render essential service to the Propaganda press, by restoring and accurately distributing the types of several Oriental alphabets which had fallen into disorder. The infante Don Ferdinand, afterwards duke of Parma, having established, about 1760, a printing-house on the model of those in Paris, Madrid and Turin, Bodoni was placed at the head of this establishment, which he soon rendered the first of the kind in Europe. The beauty of his typography, &c., leaves nothing further to be desired; but the intrinsic value of his editions is seldom equal to their outward splendour. His Homer, however, is a truly magnificent work; and, indeed, his Greek letters are faultless imitations of the bestGreek manuscript. His editions of the Greek, Latin, Italian and French classics are all highly prized for their typographical elegance, and some of them are not less remarkable for their accuracy. Bodoni died at Padua in 1813. In 1818 a magnificent work appeared in two volumes quarto, entitledManuale Tipografico, containing specimens of the vast collection of types which had belonged to him.

See De Lama,Vita del Cavaliere Giambattista Bodoni(1816).

BODY-SNATCHING,the secret disinterring of dead bodies in churchyards in order to sell them for the purpose of dissection. Those who practised body-snatching were frequently called resurrectionists or resurrection-men. Previous to the passing of the Anatomy Act 1832 (seeAnatomy:History), no licence was required in Great Britain for opening an anatomical school, and there was no provision for supplying subjects to students for anatomical purposes. Therefore, though body-snatching was a misdemeanour at common law, punishable with fine and imprisonment, it was a sufficiently lucrative business to run the risk of detection. Body-snatching became so prevalent that it was not unusual for the relatives and friends of a deceased person to watch the grave for some time after burial, lest it should be violated. Iron coffins, too, were frequently used for burial, or the graves were protected by a framework of iron bars calledmortsafes, well-preserved examples of which may still be seen in Greyfriars’ churchyard, Edinburgh.

For a detailed history of body-snatching, seeThe Diary of a Resurrectionist, edited by J.B. Bailey (London, 1896), which also contains a full bibliography and the regulations in force in foreign countries for the supply of bodies for anatomical purposes.

BOECE(orBoyce),HECTOR(c. 1465-c. 1536), Scottish historian, was born at Dundee about the year 1465, being descended of a family which for several generations had possessed the barony of Panbride in Forfarshire. He received his early education at Dundee, and completed his course of study in the university of Paris, where he took the degree of B.D. He was appointed regent, or professor, of philosophy in the college of Montaigu; and there he was a contemporary of Erasmus, who in two epistles has spoken of him in the highest terms. When William Elphinstone, bishop of Aberdeen, was laying his plans for the foundation of the university of Aberdeen (King’s College) he made Boece his chief adviser; and the latter was persuaded, after receipt of the papal bull erecting the university (1494), to be the first principal. He was in Aberdeen about 1500 when lectures began in the new buildings, and he appears to have been well received by the canons of the cathedral, several of whom he has commemorated as men of learning. It was a part of his duty as principal to read lectures on divinity.

The emoluments of his office were poor, but he also enjoyed the income of a canonry at Aberdeen and of the vicarage of Tullynessle. Under the date of 14th July 1527, we find a “grant to Maister Hector” of an annual pension of £50, to be paid by the sheriff of Aberdeen out of the king’s casualties; and on the 26th of July 1529 was issued a “precept for a lettre to Mr Hector Boys, professor of theology, of a pension of £50 Scots yearly, until the king promote him to a benefice of 100 marks Scots of yearly value; the said pension to be paid him by the custumars of Aberdeen.” In 1533 and 1534, one-half of his pension was, however, paid by the king’s treasurer, and the other half by the comptroller; and as no payment subsequent to that of Whitsuntide 1534 has been traced in the treasurer’s accounts, he is supposed to have obtained the benefice soon after that period. This benefice was the rectorship of Tyrie.

In 1528, soon after the publication of his history, Boece received the degree of D.D. at Aberdeen; and on this occasion the magistrates voted him a present of a tun of wine when the new wines should arrive, or, according to his option, the sum of £20 to purchase bonnets. He appears to have survived till the year 1536; for on the 22nd of November in that year, the king presented John Garden to the rectory of Tyrie, vacant by the death of “Mr Hector Boiss.” He died at Aberdeen, and was buried before the high altar at King’s College, beside the tomb of his patron Bishop Elphinstone.

His earliest publication,Episcoporum Murthlacensium et Aberdonensium per Hectorem Boetium Vitae, was printed at the press of Jodocus Badius (Paris, 1522). The notices of the early prelates are of little value, but the portion of the book in which he speaks of Bishop Elphinstone is of enduring merit. Here we likewise find an account of the foundation and constitution of the college, together with some notices of its earliest members. His fame rests chiefly on hisHistory of Scotland, published in 1527 under the titleScotorum Historiae a prima gentis origine cum aliarum et rerum et gentium illustratione non vulgari. This edition contains seventeen books. Another edition, containing the eighteenth book and a fragment of the nineteenth, was published by Ferrerius, who has added an appendix of thirty-five pages (Paris, 1574).

The composition of the history displays much ability; but Boece’s imagination was, however, stronger than his judgment: of the extent of the historian’s credulity, his narrative exhibits many unequivocal proofs; and of deliberate invention or distortion of facts not a few, though the latter are less flagrant and intentional than early 19th-century criticism has assumed. He professed to have obtained from the monastery of Icolmkill, through the good offices of the earl of Argyll, and his brother, John Campbell of Lundy, the treasurer, certain original historians of Scotland, and among the rest Veremundus, of whose writings not a single vestige is now to be found. In his dedication to the king he is pleased to state that Veremundus, a Spaniard by birth, was archdeacon of St Andrews, and that he wrote in Latin a history of Scotland from the origin of the nation to the reign of Malcolm III., to whom he inscribed his work. His propensity to the marvellous was at an early period exposed in the following verses by Leland:—

“Hectoris historici tot quot mendacia scripsitSi vis ut numerem, lector amice, tibi,Me jubeas etiam fluctus numerare marinosEt liquidi Stellas connumerare poli.”Boece’sHistory of Scotlandwas translated into Scottish prose by John Bellenden, and into verse by William Stewart.The Lives of the Bishopswas reprinted for the Bannatyne Club, Edin., 1825, in a limited edition of sixty copies. A commonplace verse-rendering of theLife of Bishop Elphinstone, which was written by Alexander Gardyne in 1619, remains in MS. There is no modern edition of the history, though the versions of Bellenden and Stewart have been edited.

“Hectoris historici tot quot mendacia scripsitSi vis ut numerem, lector amice, tibi,Me jubeas etiam fluctus numerare marinosEt liquidi Stellas connumerare poli.”

“Hectoris historici tot quot mendacia scripsit

Si vis ut numerem, lector amice, tibi,

Me jubeas etiam fluctus numerare marinos

Et liquidi Stellas connumerare poli.”

Boece’sHistory of Scotlandwas translated into Scottish prose by John Bellenden, and into verse by William Stewart.The Lives of the Bishopswas reprinted for the Bannatyne Club, Edin., 1825, in a limited edition of sixty copies. A commonplace verse-rendering of theLife of Bishop Elphinstone, which was written by Alexander Gardyne in 1619, remains in MS. There is no modern edition of the history, though the versions of Bellenden and Stewart have been edited.

BOEHM, SIR JOSEPH EDGAR,Bart. (1834-1890), British sculptor, was born of Hungarian parentage on the 4th of July 1834 at Vienna, where his father was director of the imperial mint. After studying the plastic art in Italy and at Paris, he worked for a few years as a medallist in his native city. After a further period of study in England, he was so successful as an exhibitor at the Exhibition of 1862 that he determined to abandon the execution of coins and medals, and to give his mind to portrait busts and statuettes, chiefly equestrian. The colossal statue of Queen Victoria, executed in marble (1869) for Windsor Castle, and the monument of the duke of Kent in St George’s chapel, were his earliest great works, and so entirely to the taste of his royal patrons that he rose rapidly in favour with the court. He was made A.R.A. in 1878, and produced soon afterwards the statue of Carlyle on the Thames embankment at Chelsea. In 1881 he was appointed sculptor in ordinary to the queen, and in the ensuing year became full Academician. On the death of Dean Stanley, Boehm was commissioned to execute his sarcophagus in Westminster Abbey, and his achievement, a recumbent statue, has been pronounced to be one of the best portraits in modern sculpture. Less successful was his monument to General Gordon in St Paul’s cathedral. He executed the equestrian statue of the duke of Wellington at Hyde Park Corner, and designed the coinage for the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. Among his ideal subjects should be noted the “Herdsman and Bull.” He died suddenly in his studio at South Kensington on the 12th of December 1890.

BOEHM VON BAWERK, EUGEN(1851- ), Austrian economist and statesman, was born at Brünn on the 12th of February 1851. Entering the Austrian department of finance in 1872, he held various posts until 1880, when he becamequalified as a teacher of political economy in the university of Vienna. The following year, however, he transferred his services to the university of Innsbruck, where he became professor in 1884. In 1889 he became councillor in the ministry of finance, and represented the government in the Lower House on all questions of taxation. In 1895 and again in 1897-1898 he was minister of finance. In 1899 he was made a member of the Upper House, and in 1900 again became minister of finance. One of the leaders of the Austrian school of economists, he has made notable criticisms on the theory of value in relation to cost as laid down by the “classical school.” His more important works areKapital und Kapitalzins(Innsbruck, 1884-1889), in two parts, translated by W. Smart, viz.Capital and Interest(part i., 1890), andThe Positive Theory of Capital(part ii., 1891);Karl Marx and the Close of his System(trans. A.M. Macdonald, 1898);Recent Literature on Interest(trans. W.A. Scott and S. Feilbogen, 1903).

BOEHME(orBehmen),JAKOB(1575-1624), German mystical writer, whose surname (of which Fechner gives eight German varieties) appears in English literature as Beem, Behmont, &c., and notably Behmen, was born at Altseidenberg, in Upper Lusatia, a straggling hamlet among the hills, some 10 m. S.E. of Görlitz. His father was a well-to-do peasant, and his first employment was that of herd boy on the Landskrone, a hill in the neighbourhood of Görlitz; the only education he received was at the town-school of Seidenberg, a mile from his home. Seidenberg, to this day, is filled with shoemakers, and to a shoemaker Jakob was apprenticed in his fourteenth year (1589), being judged not robust enough for husbandry. Ten years later (1599) we find him settled at Görlitz as master-shoemaker, and married to Katharina, daughter of Hans Kuntzschmann, a thriving butcher in the town. After industriously pursuing his vocation for ten years, he bought (1610) the substantial house, which still preserves his name, close by the bridge, in the Neiss-Vorstadt. Two or three years later he gave up business, and did not resume it as a shoemaker; but for some years before his death he made and sold woollen gloves, regularly visiting Prague fair for this purpose.

Boehme’s authorship began in his 37th year (1612) with a treatise,Aurora, oder die Morgenröte im Aufgang, which though unfinished was surreptitiously copied, and eagerly circulated in MS. by Karl von Ender. This raised him at once out of his homely sphere, and made him the centre of a local circle of liberal thinkers, considerably above him in station and culture. The charge of heresy was, however, soon directed against him by Gregorius Richter, then pastor primarius of Görlitz. Feeling ran so high after Richter’s pulpit denunciations, that, in July 1613, the municipal council, fearing a disturbance of the peace, made a show of examining Boehme, took possession of his fragmentary quarto, and dismissed the writer with an admonition to meddle no more with such matters. For five years he obeyed this injunction. But in 1618 began a second period of authorship; he poured forth, but did not publish, treatise after treatise, expository and polemical, in the next and the two following years. In 1622 he composed nothing but a few short pieces on true repentance, resignation, &c., which, however, devotionally speaking, are the most precious of all his writings. They were the only pieces offered to the public in his lifetime and with his permission, a fact which is evidence of the essentially religious and practical character of his mind. Their publication at Görlitz, on New Year’s day 1624, under the title ofDer Weg zu Christo, was the signal for renewed clerical hostility. Boehme had by this time entered on the third and most prolific though the shortest period (1623-1624) of his speculation. His labours at the desk were interrupted in May 1624 by a summons to Dresden, where his famous “colloquy” with the Upper Consistorial court was made the occasion of a flattering but transient ovation on the part of a new circle of admirers. Richter died in August 1624, and Boehme did not long survive his pertinacious foe. Seized with a fever when away from home, he was with difficulty conveyed to Görlitz. His wife was at Dresden on business; and during the first week of his malady he was nursed by a literary friend. He died, after receiving the rites of the church, grudgingly administered by the authorities, on Sunday, the 17th of November.

Boehme always professed that a direct inward opening or illumination was the only source of his speculative power. He pretended to no other revelation. Ecstatic raptures we should not expect, for he was essentially a Protestant mystic. No “thus saith the Lord” was claimed as his warrant, after the manner of Antoinette Bourignon, or Ludowick Muggleton; no spirits or angels held converse with him as with Swedenborg. It is needless to dwell, in the way either of acceptance or rejection, on the very few occasions in which his outward life seemed to him to come into contact with the invisible world. The apparition of the pail of gold to the herd boy on the Landskrone, the visit of the mysterious stranger to the young apprentice, the fascination of the luminous sheen, reflected from a common pewter dish, which first, in 1600, gave an intuitive turn to his meditations, the heavenly music which filled his ears as he lay dying—none of these matters is connected organically with the secret of his special power. The mysteries of which he discoursed were not reported to him: he “beheld” them. He saw the root of all mysteries, theUngrundorUrgrund, whence issue all contrasts and discordant principles, hardness and softness, severity and mildness, sweet and bitter, love and sorrow, heaven and hell. These he “saw” in their origin; these he attempted to describe in their issue, and to reconcile in their eternal result. He saw into the being of God; whence the birth or going forth of the divine manifestation. Nature lay unveiled to him, he was at home in the heart of things. “His own book, which he himself was,” the microcosm of man, with his threefold life, was patent to his vision. Such was his own account of his qualification. If he failed it was in expression; he confessed himself a poor mouthpiece, though he saw with a sure spiritual eye.

It must not be supposed that the form in which Boehme’s pneumatic realism worked itself out in detail was shaped entirely from within. In his writings we trace the influence of Theophr. Bombast von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus (1493-1541), of Kaspar Schwenkfeld (1490-1561), the first Protestant mystic, and of Valentin Weigel (1533-1588). From the school of Paracelsus came much of his puzzling phraseology,—hisTurbaandTincturand so forth,—a phraseology embarrassing to himself as well as to his readers. His friends plied him with foreign terms, which he was delighted to receive, interpreting them by an instinct, and using them often in a corrupted form and always in a sense of his own. Thus the wordIdeacalled up before him the image of “a very fair, heavenly, and chaste virgin.” The titleAurora, by which his earliest treatise is best known, was furnished by Dr Balthasar Walther. These, however, were false helps, which only serve to obscure a difficult study, like theFlagratandLubet, with which his English translator veiled Boehme’s own honestSchreckandLust. There is danger lest his crude science and his crude philosophical vocabulary conceal the fertility of Boehme’s ideas and the transcendent greatness of his religious insight. Few will take the pains to follow him through the interminable account of his sevenQuellgeister, which remind us of Gnosticism; or even of his three first properties of eternal nature, in which his disciples find Newton’s formulae anticipated, and which certainly bear a marvellous resemblance to the threeἀρχαίof Schelling’sTheogonische Natur. Boehme is always greatest when he breaks away from his fancies and his trammels, and allows speech to the voice of his heart. Then he is artless, clear and strong; and no man can help listening to him, whether he dive deep down with the conviction “ohne Gift und Grimm kein Leben,” or rise with the belief that “the being of all beings is a wrestling power,” or soar with the persuasion that Love “in its height is as high as God.” The mystical poet of Silesia, Angelus Silesius, discerned where Boehme’s truest power lay when he sang—

“Im Wasser lebt der Fisch, die Pflanze in der Erden,Der Vogel in der Luft, die Sonn’ am Firmament,Der Salamander muss im Feu’r erhalten werden,Und Gottes Herz ist Jakob Böhme’s Element.”

“Im Wasser lebt der Fisch, die Pflanze in der Erden,

Der Vogel in der Luft, die Sonn’ am Firmament,

Der Salamander muss im Feu’r erhalten werden,

Und Gottes Herz ist Jakob Böhme’s Element.”

The three periods of Boehme’s authorship constitute three distinct stages in the development of his philosophy. He himself marks a threefold division of his subject-matter:—1.Philosophia,i.e.the pursuit of the divineSophia, a study of God in himself; this was attempted in theAurora. 2.Astrologia,i.e., in the largest sense, cosmology, the manifestation of the divine in the structure of the world and of man; hereto belong, with others,Die drei Principien göttlichen Wesens; Vom dreifachen Leben der Menschen; Von der Menschwerdung Christi;, Von der Geburt und Bezeichnung alter Wesen(known asSignatura Rerum). 3.Theologia,i.e., in Scougall’s phrase, “the life of God in the soul of man.” Of the speculative writings under this head the most important areVon der Gnadenwahl; Mysterium Magnum(a spiritual commentary on Genesis);Von Christi Testamenten(the Sacraments).

Although Boehme’s philosophy is essentially theological, and his theology essentially philosophical, one would hardly describe him as a philosophical theologian; and, indeed, his position is not one in which either the philosopher or the theologian finds it easy to make himself completely at home. The philosopher finds no trace in Boehme of a conception of God which rests its own validity on an accord with the highest canons of reason or of morals; it is in the actual not in the ideal that Boehme seeks God, whom he discovers as the spring of natural powers and forces, rather than as the goal of advancing thought. The theologian is staggered by a language which breaks the fixed association of theological phrases, and strangely reversing the usual point of view, characteristically pictures God as underneath rather than above. Nature rises out of Him; we sink into Him. TheUngrundof the unmanifested Godhead is boldly represented in the English translations of Boehme by the wordAbyss, in a sense altogether unexplained by its Biblical use. In theTheologia Germanicathis tendency to regard God as thesubstantia, the underlying ground of all things, is accepted as a foundation for piety; the same view, when offered in the colder logic of Spinoza, is sometimes set aside as atheistical. The procession of spiritual forces and natural phenomena out of theUngrundis described by Boehme in terms of a threefold manifestation, commended no doubt by the constitution of the Christian Trinity, but exhibited in a form derived from the school of Paracelsus. From Weigel he learned a purely idealistic explanation of the universe, according to which it is not the resultant of material forces, but the expression of spiritual principles. These two explanations were fused in his mind till they issued forth as equivalent forms of one and the same thought. Further, Schwenkfeld supplied him with the germs of a transcendental exegesis, whereby the Christian Scriptures and the dogmata of Lutheran orthodoxy were opened up in harmony with his new-found views. Thus equipped, Boehme’s own genius did the rest. A primary effort of Boehme’s philosophy is to show how material powers are substantially one with moral forces. This is the object with which he draws out the dogmatic scheme which dictates the arrangement of his sevenQuellgeister. Translating Boehme’s thought out of the uncouth dialect of material symbols (as to which one doubts sometimes whether he means them as concrete instances, or as pictorial illustrations, or as a merememoria technica), we find that Boehme conceives of the correlation of two triads of forces. Each triad consists of a thesis, an antithesis and a synthesis; and the two are connected by an important link. In the hidden life of the Godhead, which is at onceNichtsandAlles, exists the original triad, viz. Attraction, Diffusion, and their resultant, the Agony of the unmanifested Godhead. The transition is made; by an act of will the divine Spirit comes to Light; and immediately the manifested life appears in the triad of Love, Expression, and their resultant, Visible Variety. As the action of contraries and their resultant are explained the relations of soul, body and spirit; of good, evil and free will; of the spheres of the angels, of Lucifer, and of this world. It is a more difficult problem to account on this philosophy for the introduction of evil. Boehme does not resort to dualism, nor has he the smallest sympathy with a pantheistic repudiation of the fact of sin. That the difficulty presses him is clear from the progressive changes in his attempted solution of the problem. In theAuroranothing save good proceeds from theUngrund, though there is good that abides and good that fall;—Christ and Lucifer. In the second stage of his writing the antithesis is directly generated as such; good and its contrary are coincidently given from the one creative source, as factors of life and movement; while in the third period evil is a direct outcome of the primary principle of divine manifestation—it is the wrath side of God. Corresponding to this change we trace a significant variation in the moral end contemplated by Boehme as the object of this world’s life and history. In the first stage the world is created in remedy of a decline; in the second, for the adjustment of a balance of forces; in the third, to exhibit the eternal victory of good over evil, of love over wrath.

Editions of Boehme’s works were published by H. Betke (Amsterdam, 1675); by J.G. Gichtel (Amsterdam, 1682-1683, 10 vols.); by K.W. Schiebler (Leipzig, 1831-1847, 7 vols.). Translations of sundry treatises have been made into Latin (by J.A. Werdenhagen, 1632), Dutch (complete, by W. v. Bayerland, 1634-1641), and French (by Jean Macle,c. 1640, and L.C. de Saint-Martin, 1800-1809). Between 1644 and 1662 all Boehme’s works were translated by John Ellistone (d. 1652) and John Sparrow, assisted by Durand Hotham and Humphrey Blunden, who paid for the undertaking. At that time regular societies ofBehmenists, embracing not only the cultivated but the vulgar, existed in England and in Holland. They merged into the Quaker movement, holding already in common with Friends that salvation is nothing short of the very presence and life of Christ in the believer, and only kept apart by an objective doctrine of the sacraments which exposed them to the polemic of Quakers (e.g.J. Anderdon). Muggleton led an anthropomorphic reaction against them, and between the two currents they were swept away. The Philadelphian Society at the beginning of the 18th century consisted of cultured mystics, Jane Lead, Pordage, Francis Lee, Bromley, &c., who fed upon Boehme. William Law (1686-1761) somewhat later recurred to the same spring, with the result, however, in those dry times of bringing his own good sense into question rather than of reviving the credit of his author. After Law’s death the old English translation was in great part re-edited (4 vols., 1762-1784) as a tribute to his memory, by George Ward and Thomas Langcake, with plates from the designs of D.A. Freher (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 5767-5794). This forms what is commonly called Law’s translation; to complete it a 5th vol. (12mo, Dublin, 1820) is needed.See also J. Hambetger,Die Lehre des deutschen Philosophen J. Boehmes(1844); Alb. Peip,J. Boehme der deutsche Philosoph(1860); von Harless,J. Boehme und die Alchimisten(1870, 2nd ed. 1882). For Boehme’s life see theMemoirsby Abraham von Frankenberg (d. 1652) and others, trans, by F. Okely (1870); La Motte Fouqué,J. Boehm, ein biographischer Denkstein(1831); H.A. Fechner,J. Boehme, sein Leben und seine Schriften(1857); H.L. Martensen,J. Boehme, Theosophiske Studier(Copenhagen, 1881; English trans. 1885); J. Claassen,J. Boehme, sein Leben und seine theosophische Werke(Güterslöh, 1885); P. Deussen,J. Boehme, über sein Leben und seine Philosophie(Kiel, 1897).

See also J. Hambetger,Die Lehre des deutschen Philosophen J. Boehmes(1844); Alb. Peip,J. Boehme der deutsche Philosoph(1860); von Harless,J. Boehme und die Alchimisten(1870, 2nd ed. 1882). For Boehme’s life see theMemoirsby Abraham von Frankenberg (d. 1652) and others, trans, by F. Okely (1870); La Motte Fouqué,J. Boehm, ein biographischer Denkstein(1831); H.A. Fechner,J. Boehme, sein Leben und seine Schriften(1857); H.L. Martensen,J. Boehme, Theosophiske Studier(Copenhagen, 1881; English trans. 1885); J. Claassen,J. Boehme, sein Leben und seine theosophische Werke(Güterslöh, 1885); P. Deussen,J. Boehme, über sein Leben und seine Philosophie(Kiel, 1897).

BOEOTIA,a district of central Greece, stretching from Phocis and Locris in the W. and N. to Attica and Megaris in the S. between the strait of Euboea and the Corinthian Gulf. This area, amounting in all to 1100 sq. m., naturally falls into two main divisions. In the north the basin of the Cephissus and Lake Copaïs lies between parallel mountain-walls continuing eastward the line of Parnassus in the extensive ridge of Helicon, the “Mountain of the Muses” (5470 ft.) and the east Locrian range in Mts. Ptoüm, Messapium and other smaller peaks. These ranges, which mostly lie close to the seaboard, form by their projecting spurs a narrow defile on the Phocian frontier, near the famous battlefield of Chaeroneia, and shut in Copaïs closely on the south between Coronea and Haliartus. The north-east barrier was pierced by underground passages (katavothra) which carried off the overflow from Copaïs. The southern portion of the land forms a plateau which slopes to Mt. Cithaeron, the frontier range between Boeotia and Attica. Within this territory the low ridge of Teumessus separates the plain of Ismenus and Dirce, commanded by the citadel of Thebes, from the upland plain of the Asopus, the only Boeotian river that finds the eastern sea. Though the Boeotian climate suffered from the exhalations of Copaïs, which produced a heavy atmosphere with foggy winters and sultry summers, its rich soil was suited alike for crops, plantations and pasture; the Copaïs plain, though able to turn into marsh when the choking of thekatavothracaused the lake to encroach, being among the most fertile in Greece. The central position of Boeotia between two seas, the strategic strength of its frontiers and the ease of communication within its extensive area were calculated to enhance its political importance. On the other hand the lack of good harbours hindered its maritime development; and the Boeotian nation, although it produced great men like Pindar, Epaminondas, Pelopidas and Plutarch, was proverbially as dull as its native air. But credit should be given to the people for their splendid military qualities: both their cavalry and heavy infantry achieved a glorious record.

In the mythical days Boeotia played a prominent part. Of the two great centres of legends, Thebes with its Cadmean population figures as a military stronghold, and Orchomenus, the home of the Minyae, as an enterprising commercial city. The latter’s prosperity is still attested by its archaeological remains (notably the “Treasury of Minyas”) and the traces of artificial conduits by which its engineers supplemented the natural outlets. The “Boeotian” population seems to have entered the land from the north at a date probably anterior to the Dorian invasion. With the exception of the Minyae, the original peoples were soon absorbed by these immigrants, and the Boeotians henceforth appear as a homogeneous nation. In historical times the leading city of Boeotia was Thebes, whose central position and military strength made it a suitable capital. It was the constant ambition of the Thebans to absorb the other townships into a single state, just as Athens had annexed the Attic communities. But the outlying cities successfully resisted this policy, and only allowed the formation of a loose federation which in early times seems to have possessed a merely religious character. While the Boeotians, unlike the Arcadians, generally acted as a united whole against foreign enemies, the constant struggle between the forces of centralization and disruption perhaps went further than any other cause to check their development into a really powerful nation. Boeotia hardly figures in history before the late 6th century. Previous to this its people is chiefly known as the producer of a type of geometric pottery similar to the Dipylon ware of Athens. About 519 the resistance of Plataea to the federating policy of Thebes led to the interference of Athens on behalf of the former; on this occasion, and again in 507, the Athenians defeated the Boeotian levy. During the Persian invasion of 480, while some of the cities fought whole-heartedly in the ranks of the patriots, Thebes assisted the invaders. For a time the presidency of the Boeotian League was taken away from Thebes, but in 457 the Spartans reinstated that city as a bulwark against Athenian aggression. Athens retaliated by a sudden advance upon Boeotia, and after the victory of Oenophyta brought under its power the whole country excepting the capital. For ten years the land remained under Athenian control, which was exercised through the newly installed democracies; but in 447 the oligarchic majority raised an insurrection, and after a victory at Coronea regained their freedom and restored the old constitutions. In the Peloponnesian War the Boeotians, embittered by the early conflicts round Plataea, fought zealously against Athens. Though slightly estranged from Sparta after the peace of Nicias, they never abated their enmity against their neighbours. They rendered good service at Syracuse and Arginusae; but their greatest achievement was the decisive victory at Delium over the flower of the Athenian army (424), in which both their heavy infantry and their cavalry displayed unusual efficiency.

About this time the Boeotian League comprised eleven groups of sovereign cities and associated townships, each of which elected one Boeotarch or minister of war and foreign affairs, contributed sixty delegates to the federal council at Thebes, and supplied a contingent of about a thousand foot and a hundred horse to the federal army. A safeguard against undue encroachment on the part of the central government was provided in the councils of the individual cities, to which all important questions of policy had to be submitted for ratification. These local councils, to which the propertied classes alone were eligible, were subdivided into four sections, resembling theprytaneisof the Athenian council, which took it in turns to take previous cognizance of all new measures.1

Boeotia took a prominent part in the war of the Corinthian League against Sparta, especially at Haliartus and Coronea (395-394). This change of policy seems due mainly to the national resentment against foreign interference. Yet disaffection against Thebes was now growing rife, and Sparta fostered this feeling by stipulating for the complete independence of all the cities in the peace of Antalcidas (387). In 374 Pelopidas restored the Theban dominion. Boeotian contingents fought in all the campaigns of Epaminondas, and in the later wars against Phocis (356-346); while in the dealings with Philip of Macedon the federal cities appear merely as the tools of Thebes. The federal constitution was also brought into accord with the democratic governments now prevalent throughout the land. The sovereign power was vested in the popular assembly, which elected the Boeotarchs (between seven and twelve in number), and sanctioned all laws. After the battle of Chaeroneia, in which the Boeotian heavy infantry once again distinguished itself, the land never rose again to prosperity. The destruction of Thebes by Alexander (335) seems to have paralysed the political energy of the Boeotians, though it led to an improvement in the federal constitution, by which each city received an equal vote. Henceforth they never pursued an independent policy, but followed the lead of protecting powers. Though the old military training and organization continued, the people proved unable to defend the frontiers, and the land became more than ever the “dancing-ground of Ares.” Though enrolled for a short time in the Aetolian League (about 245B.C.) Boeotia was generally loyal to Macedonia, and supported its later kings against Rome. In return for the excesses of the democracies Rome dissolved the league, which, however, was allowed to revive under Augustus, and merged with the other central Greek federations in the Achaean synod. The death-blow to the country’s prosperity was given by the devastations during the first Mithradatic War.

Save for a short period of prosperity under the Frankish rulers of Athens (1205-1310), who repaired thekatavothraand fostered agriculture, Boeotia long continued in a state of decay, aggravated by occasional barbarian incursions. The first step towards the country’s recovery was not until 1895, when the outlets of Copaïs were again put into working order. Since then the northern plain has been largely reclaimed for agriculture, and the natural riches of the whole land are likely to develop under the influence of the railway to Athens. Boeotia is at present a Nomos with Livadia (the old Turkish capital) for its centre; the other surviving townships are quite unimportant. The population (65,816 in 1907) is largely Albanian.

Authorities.—Thuc. iv. 76-101; Xenophon,Hellenica, iii.-vii.; Strabo, pp. 400-412; Pausanias ix.; Theopompus (or Cratippus) in theOxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. v. (London, 1908), No. 842, col. 12; W.M. Leake,Travels in Northern Greece, chs. xi.-xix. (London, 1835); H.F. Tozer,Geography of Greece(London, 1873), pp. 233-238; W. Rhys Roberts,The Ancient Boeotians(Cambridge, 1895); E.A. Freeman.Federal Government(ed. 1893, London), ch. iv. § 2; B.V. Head,Historia Numorum, pp. 291 sqq. (Oxford, 1887); W. Larfeld,Sylloge Inscriptionum Boeoticarum(Berlin, 1883). (See alsoThebes.)

1Thucydides (v. 38), in speaking of the “four councils of the Boeotians,” is referring to the plenary bodies in the various states.

BOER,the Dutch form of the Eng. “boor,” in its original signification of husbandman (Ger.Bauer), a name given to the Dutch farmers of South Africa, and especially to the Dutch population of the Transvaal and Orange River States. (SeeSouth AfricaandTransvaal.)

BOERHAAVE, HERMANN(1668-1738), Dutch physician and man of science, was born at Voorhout near Leiden on the 31st of December 1668. Entering the university of Leiden he took his degree in philosophy in 1689, with a dissertationDe distinctione mentis a corpore, in which he attacked the doctrines of Epicurus, Hobbes and Spinoza. He then turned to the study of medicine, in which he graduated in 1693 at Harderwyck in Guelderland. In 1701 he was appointed lecturer on the institutesof medicine at Leiden; in his inaugural discourse,De commendando Hippocratis studio, he recommended to his pupils that great physician as their model. In 1709 he became professor of botany and medicine, and in that capacity he did good service, not only to his own university, but also to botanical science, by his improvements and additions to the botanic garden of Leiden, and by the publication of numerous works descriptive of new species of plants. In 1714, when he was appointed rector of the university, he succeeded Govert Bidloo (1649-1713) in the chair of practical medicine, and in this capacity he had the merit of introducing the modern system of clinical instruction. Four years later he was appointed also to the chair of chemistry. In 1728 he was elected into the French Academy of Sciences, and two years later into the Royal Society of London. In 1729 declining health obliged him to resign the chairs of chemistry and botany; and he died, after a lingering and painful illness, on the 23rd of September 1738 at Leiden. His genius so raised the fame of the university of Leiden, especially as a school of medicine, that it became a resort of strangers from every part of Europe. All the princes of Europe sent him disciples, who found in this skilful professor not only an indefatigable teacher, but an affectionate guardian. When Peter the Great went to Holland in 1715, to instruct himself in maritime affairs, he also took lessons from Boerhaave. His reputation was not confined to Europe; a Chinese mandarin wrote him a letter directed “To the illustrious Boerhaave, physician in Europe,” and it reached him in due course.

His principal works are—Institutiones medicae(Leiden, 1708);Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis(Leiden, 1709), on which his pupil and assistant, Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772) published a commentary in 5 vols.; andElementa chemiae(Paris, 1724).

BOETHUS,a sculptor of the Hellenistic age, a native of Carthage (or possibly Chalcedon). His date cannot be accurately fixed, but was probably the 2nd centuryB.C.He was noted for his representations of children, in dealing with whom earlier Greek art had not been very successful; and especially for a group representing a boy struggling with a goose, of which several copies survive in museums.

BOETIUS(orBoethius),ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS(c.A.D.480-524), Roman philosopher and statesman, described by Gibbon as “the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman.” The historians of the day give us but imperfect records or make unsatisfactory allusions. Later chroniclers indulged in the fictitious and the marvellous, and it is almost exclusively from his own books that trustworthy information can be obtained. There is considerable diversity among authorities as to his name. One editor of hisDe Consolatione, Bertius, thinks that he bore the praenomen of Flavius, but there is no authority for this supposition. His father was Flavius Manlius Boetius, and it is probable that the Flavius Boetius, the praetorian prefect who was put to death inA.D.455 by order of Valentinian III., was his grandfather, but these facts do not prove that he also had the praenomen of Flavius. Many of the earlier editions inserted the name of Torquatus, but it is not found in any of the best manuscripts. The last name is commonly written Boethius, from the idea that it is connected with the Greekβοηθος; but the best manuscripts agree in reading Boetius.

His boyhood was spent in Rome during the reign of Odoacer. We know nothing of his early years. A passage in a treatise falsely ascribed to him (De Disciplina Scholarium) and a misinterpretation of a passage in Cassiodorus led early scholars to suppose that he spent some eighteen years in Athens pursuing his studies, but there is no foundation for this opinion. His father, consul in 487, seems to have died soon after; for Boetius states that, when he was bereaved of his parent, men of the highest rank took him under their charge (De Con. lib. ii. c. 3), especially the senator Q. Aur. Memmius Symmachus, whose daughter Rusticiana he married. By her he had two sons, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius and Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus. He became a favourite with Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, who ruled in Rome from 500, and was one of his intimate friends. Boetius was consul in 510, and his sons, while still young, held the same honour together (522). Boetius regarded it as the height of his good fortune when he witnessed his two sons, consuls at the same time, convoyed from their home to the senate-house amid the enthusiasm of the masses. On that day, he tells us, while his sons occupied the curule chairs in the senate-house, he himself had the honour of pronouncing a panegyric on the monarch. But his good fortune did not last, and he attributes the calamities that came upon him to the ill-will which his bold maintenance of justice had caused, and to his opposition to every oppressive measure. Of this he mentions particular cases. A famine had begun to rage. The prefect of the praetorium was determined to satisfy the soldiers, regardless altogether of the feelings of the provincials. He accordingly issued an edict for acoemptio, that is, an order compelling the provincials to sell their corn to the government, whether they would or not. This edict would have utterly ruined Campania. Boetius interfered. The case was brought before the king, and Boetius succeeded in averting thecoemptiofrom the Campanians. And he gives as a crowning instance that he exposed himself to the hatred of the informer Cyprianus by preventing the punishment of Albinus, a man of consular rank. He mentions in another place that when at Verona the king was anxious to transfer the accusation of treason brought against Albinus to the whole senate, he defended the senate at great risk. In consequence of the ill-will that Boetius had thus roused, he was accused of treason towards the end of the reign of Theodoric. The charges were that he had conspired against the king, that he was anxious to maintain the integrity of the senate, and to restore Rome to liberty, and that for this purpose he had written to the emperor Justin. Justin had, no doubt, special reasons for wishing to see an end to the reign of Theodoric. Justin was orthodox, Theodoric was an Arian. The orthodox subjects of Theodoric were suspicious of their ruler; and many would gladly have joined in a plot to displace him. The knowledge of this fact may have rendered Theodoric suspicious. But Boetius denied the accusation in unequivocal terms. He did indeed wish the integrity of the senate. He would fain have desired liberty, but all hope of it was gone. The letters addressed by him to Justin were forgeries, and he had not been guilty of any conspiracy. Notwithstanding his innocence he was condemned and sent to Ticinum (Pavia) where he was thrown into prison. It was during his confinement in this prison that he wrote his famous workDe Consolatione Philosophiae. His goods were confiscated, and after an imprisonment of considerable duration he was put to death in 524. Procopius relates that Theodoric soon repented of his cruel deed, and that his death, which took place soon after, was hastened by remorse for the crime he had committed against his great counsellor.

Two or three centuries after the death of Boetius writers began to view his death as a martyrdom. Several Christian books were ascribed to him, and there was one especially on the Trinity (see below) which was regarded as proof that he had taken an active part against the heresy of Theodoric. It was therefore for his orthodoxy that Boetius was put to death. And these writers delight to paint with minuteness the horrible tortures to which he was exposed and the marvellous actions which the saint performed at his death. He was locally regarded as a saint, but he was not canonized. The brick tower in Pavia in which he was confined was, and still is, an object of reverence to the country people. Finally, in the year 996, Otho III. ordered the bones of Boetius to be taken out of the place in which they had lain hid, and to be placed in the church of S. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro within a splendid tomb, for which Gerbert, afterwards Pope Silvester II., wrote an inscription. Thence they were subsequently removed to a tomb beneath the high altar of the cathedral. It should be mentioned also that some have given him a decidedly Christian wife, of the name of Elpis, who wrote hymns, two of which are still extant (Daniel,Thes. Hymn.i. p. 156). This is a pure supposition inconsistent with chronology, and based only on a misinterpretation of a passage in theDe Consolatione.

The contemporaries of Boetius regarded him as a man of profound learning. Priscian the grammarian speaks of him as having attained the summit of honesty and of all sciences. Cassiodorus,magister officiorumunder Theodoric and the intimate acquaintance of the philosopher, employs language equally strong, and Ennodius, the bishop of Pavia, knows no bounds for his admiration. Theodoric had a profound respect for his scientific abilities. He employed him in setting right the coinage. When he visited Rome with Gunibald, king of the Burgundians, he took him to Boetius, who showed them, amongst other mechanical contrivances, a sun-dial and a water-clock. The foreign monarch was astonished, and, at the request of Theodoric, Boetius had to prepare others of a similar nature, which were sent as presents to Gunibald.

The fame of Boetius increased after his death, and his influence during the middle ages was exceedingly powerful. His circumstances peculiarly favoured this influence. He appeared at a time when contempt for intellectual pursuits had begun to pervade society. In his early years he was seized with a passionate enthusiasm for Greek literature, and this continued through life. Even amidst the cares of the consulship he found time for commenting on theCategoriesof Aristotle. The idea laid hold of him of reviving the spirit of his countrymen by imbuing them with the thoughts of the great Greek writers. He formed the resolution to translate all the works of Aristotle and all the dialogues of Plato, and to reconcile the philosophy of Plato with that of Aristotle. He did not succeed in all that he designed; but he did a great part of his work. He translated into Latin Aristotle’sAnalytica Priora et Posteriora, theTopica, andElenchi Sophistici; and he wrote commentaries on Aristotle’sCategories, on his bookπερὶ ἑρμηνείας, also a commentary on theIsagogeof Porphyrius. These works formed to a large extent the source from which the middle ages derived their knowledge of Aristotle. (See Stahr,Aristoteles bei den Römern, pp. 196-234.) Boetius wrote also a commentary on theTopicaof Cicero; and he was also the author of independent works on logic:—Introductio ad Categoricos Syllogismos, in one book;De Syllogismis Categoricis, in two books;De Syllogismis Hypotheticis, in two books;De Divisione, in one book;De Definitione, in one book;De Differentiis Topicis, in four books.

We see from a statement of Cassiodorus that he furnished manuals for the quadrivium of the schools of the middle ages (the “quattuor matheseos disciplinae,” as Boetius calls them) on arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. The statement of Cassiodorus that he translated Nicomachus is rhetorical. Boetius himself tells us in his preface addressed to his father-in-law Symmachus that he had taken liberties with the text of Nicomachus, that he had abridged the work when necessary, and that he had introduced formulae and diagrams of his own where he thought them useful for bringing out the meaning. His work on music also is not a translation from Pythagoras, who left no writing behind him. But Boetius belonged to the school of musical writers who based their science on the method of Pythagoras. They thought that it was not sufficient to trust to the ear alone, to determine the principles of music, as did practical musicians like Aristoxenus, but that along with the ear, physical experiments should be employed. The work of Boetius is in five books and is a very complete exposition of the subject. It long remained a text-book of music in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It is still very valuable as a help in ascertaining the principles of ancient music, and gives us the opinions of some of the best ancient writers on the art. The manuscripts of the geometry of Boetius differ widely from each other. One editor, Godofredus Friedlein, thinks that there are only two manuscripts which can at all lay claim to contain the work of Boetius. He published theArs Geometriae, in two books, as given in these manuscripts; but critics are generally inclined to doubt the genuineness even of these. Professor Rand, Georgius Ernst and A.P. McKinlay regard theArsas certainly inauthentic, while they accept theInterpretatio Euclidis(see works quoted in bibliography).

By far the most important and most famous of the works of Boetius is his bookDe Consolatione Philosophiae. Gibbon justly describes it as “a golden volume, not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author.” The high reputation it had in medieval times is attested by the numerous translations, commentaries and imitations of it which then appeared. Among others Asser, the instructor of Alfred the Great, and Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, commented on it. Alfred translated it into Anglo-Saxon. Versions of it appeared in German, French, Italian, Spanish and Greek before the end of the 15th century. Chaucer translated it into English prose before the year 1382; and this translation was published by Caxton at Westminster, 1480. Lydgate followed in the wake of Chaucer. It is said that, after the invention of printing, amongst others Queen Elizabeth translated it, and that the work was well known to Shakespeare. It was the basis of the earliest specimen of Provençal literature.

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