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Walter of Bibbesworth

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Bibbsworth Hall: the farmhouse (built after Walter's time)

Walter of Bibbesworth (flourished 1235-1270) was an English knight and Anglo-Norman poet. Documents confirm that he held land in the parish of Kimpton, Hertfordshire at the farm now called Bibbsworth Hall ("Bibbs Hall" on some maps). About 1250 he served in Gascony under the seneschal Nicholas de Molis in the army of the English king Henry III.[1] In 1270/1271 he is believed to have taken part in the Ninth Crusade on the evidence of the tençon or poetic argument between himself and Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln. In the poem Walter, about to depart for Palestine, teases Henry for staying at home for the love of a certain women. In fact the young Henry de Lacy, "recently married and with heavy responsibilities at home",[2] did not take part in the Ninth Crusade. Assuming that Walter went, he returned safely: he is said to have been buried early in Edward I's reign at Little Dunmow in Essex.[3]

Fields near Bibbsworth Hall, Hertfordshire

Apart from the tençon Water wrote two other short poems in medieval French, one in praise of beauty, a second on the Virgin Mary. He is best known for a longer poem which in early manuscripts is called Le Tretiz ("The Treatise"), written in medieval French verse and supplied with Middle English glosses between the lines.

Works

  • Le Tretiz ("The Treatise")
  • "De bone femme la bounté"
  • "Amours m'ount si enchaunté"
  • "La Pleinte"

References

  1. ^ Owen (1929) p. 24
  2. ^ Dalby (2012) p. 15
  3. ^ Hunt (2004)
  • "Parishes: Kimpton" in A History of the County of Hertfordshire, Victoria County History, pp. 29-33
  • Andrew Dalby, transl., The Treatise of Walter of Bibbesworth. Totnes: Prospect Books, 2012. ISBN 978-1-903018-86-6
  • Tony Hunt, "Bibbesworth, Walter of" (2004) on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  • Karen K. Jambeck, "The "Tretiz" of Walter of Bibbesworth: cultivating the vernacular" in Albrecht Classen, ed., Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Berolini: Walter De Gruyter, 2005) pp. 159-184 Preview at Google Books
  • Annie Owen, ed., Le Traité de Walter de Bibbesworth sur la langue française. Paris: PUF, 1929. Preview at Google Books
  • W. Rothwell, "A Mis-Judged Author and a Mis-Used Text: Walter de Bibbesworth and His "Tretiz"" in Modern Language Review vol. 77 (1982) pp. 282-293
  • W. Rothwell, "Anglo-French in Rural England in the Later Thirteenth Century: Walter of Bibbesworth's Tretiz and the Agricultural Treatises" in Vox Romanica vol. 67 (2008) pp. 100-132
  • William Rothwell, editor, "Walter de Bibbesworth: Le Tretiz together with two Anglo-French poems in praise of women" (2009)
  • Josiah C. Russell, "Some Thirteenth-Century Anglo-Norman Writers" in Modern Philology vol. 28 (1931) pp. 257-269
  • W. Aldis Wright, "Walter de Biblesworth" in Notes and Queries 4th ser. vol. 8 (1871) p. 64 Text at archive.org
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