, as a counterpoise to that of Turpin, which never became
popular in England. It is doubtful, in my judgment, whether Geoffrey
borrowed so much from Armorican traditions as he pretended.]

[869] Prose e Rime di Dante, Venez. 1758, t. iv. p. 261. Dante's words,
biblia cum Trojanorum Romanorumque gestibus compilata, seem to bear no
other meaning than what I have given. But there may be a doubt whether
_biblia_ is ever used except for the Scriptures; and the Italian
translator renders it, cioe la bibbia, i fatti de i Trojani, e de i
Romani. In this case something is wrong in the original Latin, and Dante
will have alluded to the translations of parts of Scripture made into
French, as mentioned in the text.

[870] The Assises de Jerusalem have undergone two revisions; one, in
1250, by order of John d'Ibelin, count of Jaffa, and a second in 1369,
by sixteen commissioners chosen by the states of the kingdom of Cyprus.
Their language seems to be such as might be expected from the time of
the former revision.

[871] Several prose romances were written or translated from the Latin
about 1170, and afterwards. Mr. Ellis seems inclined to dispute their
antiquity. But, besides the authorities of La Ravaliere and Tressan, the
latter of which is not worth much, a late very extensively informed
writer seems to have put this matter out of doubt. Roquefort
Flamericourt, Etat de la Poesie Francaise dans les 12me et 13me
siecles, Paris, 1815 p. 147.

[872] Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xi. p. 121; De Sade, Vie de
Petrarque, t. iii. p. 548. Charles V. had more learning than most
princes of his time. Christine de Pisan, a lady who has written memoirs,
or rather an eulogy of him, says that his father le fist introdire en
lettres moult suffisamment, et tant que competemment entendoit son
Latin, et souffisamment scavoit les regles de grammaire; la quelle chose
pleust a dieu qu'ainsi fust accoutumee entre les princes. Collect. de
Mem. t. v. p. 103, 190, &c.

[873] The earliest Spanish that I remember to have seen is an instrument
in Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. i. p. 263; the date of which is
1095. Persons more conversant with the antiquities of that country may
possibly go further back. Another of 1101 is published in Marina's
Teoria de las Cortes, t. iii. p. 1. It is in a Vidimus by Peter the
Cruel, and cannot, I presume, have been a translation from the Latin.
Yet the editors of Nouveau Tr. de Diplom. mention a charter of 1243, as