Note 612 — from the Origins To the Renaissance (continued 6)

"Primus liber, gallico sermone editus in decem dividitur partes et tractans de viciis et virtutibus necnon de variis hujus seculi gradibus viam, qua peccator transgressus, ad sui Creatoris agnicionem redire debet, recto tramite docere conatur. Titulusque libelli istius Speculum Meditantis nuncupatus est." This analysis is to be found in several MSS.; also in the edition of the "Confessio," printed by Caxton; Pauli gives it too: "Confessio," i. p. xxiii. The "Speculum Meditantis" was sure to resemble much those works of moralisation (hence Chaucer's "moral Gower"), numerous in French mediæval literature, which were called "bibles." See for example "La Bible Guiot de Provins":

"On this stinking and horrid world, I want to begin a bible;" and Guiot reviews all classes of society, all trades and professions, and blames everything and everybody; Gower did the same; everything for them is "puant." Rome is not spared: "Rome nos suce et nos englot," says Guiot. See text of Guiot's "Bible" in Barbazan and Méon, "Fabliaux," 1808, vol. ii. p. 307.