Walter Map

Walter Map (born 1140, died c. 1208–1210) was a medieval writer using Latin. Only one work is attributed to Map with any certainty: De Nugis Curialium.

Life

He claims Welsh origin and to be a man of the Welsh Marches (marchio sum Walensibus); details in his writings suggest that he came from Herefordshire. He studied at the University of Paris, apparently around 1160 when Gerard la Pucelle was teaching there. He had encountered Thomas Becket before 1162. As a courtier of King Henry II of England he was sent on missions to Louis VII of France and to Pope Alexander III, probably attending the Third Lateran Council in 1179 and encountering a delegation of Waldensians. On this journey he stayed with Henry I of Champagne, who was then about to undertake his last journey to the East.

Walter was holding a prebend in the diocese of Lincoln by 1183 and was chancellor of the diocese by 1186.^[1] Walter Map later became precentor of Lincoln, a canon of St Paul's, London and of Hereford^[2] and, in 1196, archdeacon of Oxford.^[3]

He was a candidate to succeed William de Vere as Bishop of Hereford in 1199, but was unsuccessful. He was once more a candidate for a bishopric in 1203, this time as Bishop of St David's, but was once more not consecrated. He was still alive on May 28, 1208 but had died by September of 1210. His death was commemorated on April 1 at Hereford Cathedral.^[3]

Writings

Walter Map's only surviving work, De Nugis Curialium (Trifles of Courtiers) is a collection of anecdotes and trivia, containing court gossip and a little real history, and written in a satirical vein. Along with William of Newburgh, he recorded the earliest stories of English vampires.

The Prose Lancelot cycle claims him as an author, though this is contradicted by internal evidence; some scholars have suggested he wrote an original, lost Lancelot romance that was the source for the later cycle. Map was alleged to have written a quantity of Goliardic poetry, including the satirical Apocalypse of Golias.

Notes

References

• British History Online Archdeacons of Oxford accessed on October 28, 2007
• British History Online Chancellors of Lincoln accessed on October 28, 2007
• British History Online Precentors of Lincoln accessed on October 28, 2007
• Gransden, Antonia Historical writing in England, c. 550 to c. 1307 (London: Routledge, 1974) pp. 242-244.
• Map , Walter, and M.R. James and C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors. De Nugis Curialium - Courtiers. 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

External links

• Latin Chroniclers from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries: Walter Map from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume I, 1907–21.
• Biography from the Catholic Encyclopedia.