In one Middle English version of the Secretum secretorum, the translator begins his work by layering and concealing the languages, translations, and individuals who have transmitted book and text: he acknowledges part of the textual tradition of this ‘booke of good and vertuous condicions to the gouernaunce of his royal persoon. whiche was made by the prince of philisophers [sic] Aristotle’. He incorporates not only Aristotle's opening letters to Alexander, but also the prologue of Philip of Tripoli, who translated the original Arabic Sirr al-asrār into Latin. Philip's own narrating voice intrudes to explain that he encountered a hermit who gave him the treatise and that ‘I translated this booke out of Greeke in to latynne’ for an unnamed ‘moost noble kinge’, in the same way that Aristotle compiled the text for his king Alexander. This story of the Secretum's translation elides both Philip's use of the Arabic original – instead claiming an imaginary Greek source – and the further passage of the Secretum into French and finally into Middle English, the language in which the reader receives this textual history. Indeed, the translation of Philip's prologue in the later translator's work almost seems to claim that ‘this booke’ is in Latin, not English. In this way, the English of the English translation is rendered less visible. The opening of the Secretum creates an edited narrative about its own languages, sources, and movements. In its particular manuscript context, this Secretum translation only further complicates the relationships among language, translation, and individuals. A motto and insignia at the start of the Secretum indicate that it was destined for a family in Calais. However, the manuscript's illuminations and borders indicate that it was made in London, not on the Continent, despite its Continental-looking bastard secretary script (see Fig. 7.1). Moving between languages, decorative styles, individuals, and physical locations, this Secretum reflects larger trends of translation and exchange across Europe in the later Middle Ages. Beyond this single manuscript, books and book owners in Calais were similarly embedded in such movement across borders, what we might call transnational exchange.

England and Middle English participated in a European literary culture: like this Secretum, many Middle English texts were translations from French, Latin, and other languages, while English book owners had a taste for works from abroad. English authors, too, entered into literary exchanges with Continental writers.