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Two Renaissance Epitaphs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
Epitaphs of somewhat greater literary and historic interest than those usually met with are to be found in two volumes in the Pierpont Morgan Library. Though one was written down in a mediaeval manuscript and the other relates to an English nobleman who died early in the fifteenth century, they may nevertheless be identified with the era to which the Renaissance Society dedicates itself, since both the epitaphs were probably composed in the sixteenth century and they were set down in the Morgan volumes by two writers of the same century.
On the verso of the first fly-leaf of Morgan Ms 771, there is written, in a hand of the early sixteenth century, the following stanza:
- La terre monde et ciel/ont deuise ma dame
- Anne qui fut des Roys/diaries et loys femme
- La terre a pris le corps/qui gist soubz ceste Lame
- Le monde ansy Retient/Sa Renommee et fame
- Pardurable a Jaymes/Sans estre blasmee de ame
- Et Le ciel pour sa part a voulu prendre L'ame
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1955
References
1 It is not noted by Seymour de Ricci, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New York, 1935-40,11:1500).
2 Compare, for instance, Paul Lacroix, Louis XII et Anne de Bretagne, 1882; Adrien Le Roux de Lincy, Vie de la reine Anne de Bretagne, 1860-1; Hiram W. Orr, Anne of Brittany, 1944 (revised edition, 1949); Marie Anne Pichard, Anne de Bretagne, 1934; Helen J. Sanborn, Anne of Brittany, 1917; and Georges G. Toudouze, Anne de Bretagne, 1938. For contemporary accounts of her death, etc., see the ‘Narration … [de] la treshonorable et magnifique sepulture du corps de … ma dame Anne Royne de France’ in Robert Gaguin, Les grandes croniques, Paris, 1514, ff. 252-253, and Pierre Choque (called Bretagne), Recit desfunerailles d'Anne de Bretagne … par Bretaigne, son heraultd'armeSt'Paik, 1858.
3 The first line in the Morgan catalogue reads: ‘Us [Who's?] Honere lies heere.’ It is possible that the first two words, by scribal error, read ‘Hs Hs’ for ‘Ho Ho', though I can see no justification for the catalogue's emendation.
4 The handwriting is very similar to that which may be seen in Plate ix (Wit and Science, about 1550) in Samuel A. Tannenbaum, The Handwriting of the Renaissance, New York, 1930.
5 The Chorographical Description or Survey of the County of Devon, London, 18 II , pp. 72-73.
6 A version with minor orthographical variants is given by John Britton and Edward Brayley, The Beauties of England and Wales, London, 1801-15, IV: 290.
8 Professor Josephine W. Bennett has most kindly pointed out to me two very similar (unfortunately undated) epitaphs cited by John Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, London, 1631 (STC 25223; PML 8019):
'As I was, so be ye, as I am, you shall be;
What I gaue, that I haue, what I spent, that I had:
Thus I count all my cost, what I left, that I lost’ (p. 423)
'Lo al that ere I spent, somtym had I.
Al that I gav to good intent, that now hav I.
That which I nether gav nor lent, that now aby I.
That I kept, til I went, that lost I.
An old translation from these Latine couplets following:
Quod expendi, habui.
Quod donaui, habeo.
Quod negaui, punior.
Quod servaui, perdidi.’ (p. 581)
A variant of the first of these is attributed by Camden, William (Remaines concerning Britaine, London, 1614 Google Scholar [STC 4522; PML 37722], p. 375) to ‘W. Lambe, a man which deserued well of the citie of London by diuerse charitable deeds, [who] framed this for himselfe.’ For William Lambe (1495-1580), see DNB, XXXII, 5-6.
8 Professor Josephine W. Bennett has most kindly pointed out to me two very similar (unfortunately undated) epitaphs cited by Weever, John, Ancient Funerall Monuments, London, 1631 Google Scholar (STC 25223; PML 8019):
'As I was, so be ye, as I am, you shall be;
What I gaue, that I haue, what I spent, that I had:
Thus I count all my cost, what I left, that I lost’ (p. 423)
'Lo al that ere I spent, somtym had I.
Al that I gav to good intent, that now hav I.
That which I nether gav nor lent, that now aby I.
That I kept, til I went, that lost I.
An old translation from these Latine couplets following:
Quod expendi, habui.
Quod donaui, habeo.
Quod negaui, punior.
Quod servaui, perdidi.’ (p. 581)
A variant of the first of these is attributed by William Camden (Remaines concerning Britaine, London, 1614 [STC 4522; PML 37722], p. 375) to ‘W. Lambe, a man which deserued well of the citie of London by diuerse charitable deeds, [who] framed this for himselfe.’ For William Lambe (1495-1580), see DNB, XXXII, 5-6.