[9] This was an English rendering of the "De
Proprietatibus Rerum" of Bartholomaeus Anglicus (fl. ca. 1350), by
Stephan Batman, or Bateman (d. 1587), an English divine and poet, who
in the later years of his life was chaplain and librarian to the
famous Archbishop Parker, and thus had free access to the latter's
fine library. His rendering, published in 1582, bears the following
quaint title: "Batman uppon Bartholome his Book De Proprietatibus
Rerum"; it was published in 1582, and appears to have been widely read
in England among those still interested in the learning of the
scholastic period. A much earlier English version, made by John of
Trevisa in 1396, was published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495, and is
considered to be the finest production of his press.[10]
[Footnote 9: See H.R.D. Anders, "Shakespeare's Books", Berlin, 1904,
pp. 238-248, and the New Shakespeare Soc. Trans., 1877-79, pp. 436
sqq.]
[Footnote 10: In the author's library is a fourteenth century MS. of
the "De Proprietatibus Rerum", which belonged to the Carthusian
Monastery of the Holy Trinity, at Dijon.]
A rarely noted source for some of Shakespeare's knowledge regarding
curious customs has been sought in the rambling treatise on heraldry
written by Gerard Legh and issued, in 1564, under the title: "Accedens
of Armorie" (approximately, Introduction to Heraldry).
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