Note 463 — Chapter IV · THE SOURCES FOR THE PERIOD 1100–1250 A. D.

Bartholomew Anglicus, author of the De proprietatibus rerum, “belonged probably to the circle of insular [British] clerics who were ardently interested in experimental researches and in natural history; of whom the encyclopedist Alexander Neckam was in a measure the precursor, and of whom the Franciscan Roger Bacon was the most illustrious representative” (C. V. Langlois, La connaissance, 1911, p. 117). It has so far been impossible accurately to determine the date of the De proprietatibus rerum, though it falls probably before the middle of the thirteenth century (ibid., p. 118, note 2). This work was a compilation from many different sources and was intended for less educated readers. Book XI is devoted to the phenomena of the air, XIII to the waters, 408XIV to the earth, and XV to a mappamundi, or description of the various “provinces” of the earth in alphabetical order. There is no modern edition. A summary of the contents will be found in C. V. Langlois, op. cit., pp. 128–179, and a discussion of Bartholomew’s geography is given by Thorndike, Magic, 1923, vol. ii, p. 424–429. Extracts from an English translation of Berthelet, 1535, are given in Steele, Mediaeval Lore, 1907 (under Bartholomew Anglicus in the Bibliography). The future influence of the work was very far-reaching, especially upon English literature of the Elizabethan period (see Steele, op. cit., pp. 2–4; C. V. Langlois, op. cit., pp. 126–127).