Chapter III
a few sentences from my study of 'Medieval English Nunneries'. I have also to thank my friends Miss M.G. Jones and Miss H.M.R. Murray of Girton College, Cambridge, for various suggestions and criticisms, and my sister Miss Rhoda Power for making the index.
_May 1924_ EILEEN POWER _London School of Economics and Political Science University of London_
_Preface to the Tenth Edition_
For years after the first edition of _Medieval People_ had come out, Eileen Power collected notes and made plans for several essays to be included in an enlarged edition of the book. Of these essays only one, "The Precursors", had been written out in full before she died; and it has now been added to the present edition. In its published form it is not in every respect identical with the author's original text.
The essay was taking shape as Munich came and went and as the war itself was drawing near. No historian writing at that time about Rome menaced by the barbarians--and least of all an historian as sensitive to the extra-mural world as Eileen Power was--could have helped noting the similarities between the Roman Empire in the fifth or sixth centuries and Europe in the nineteen-thirties. In the end, having finished the essay, she decided to withold it from publication for the time being and to present it instead to a friendly audience as a tract for the times. This she did at a meeting of the Cambridge History Club in the winter of 1938: and for that occasion she replaced the opening and concluding pages of the original essay with passages, or rather notes for passages, more suited to the purpose.
I am sure that she never intended these passages to be perpetuated in her _Medieval People_ and I have therefore done what I could to replace them with a reconstructed version of her first draft. The reconstruction had to be done from somewhat disjointed notes and cannot therefore be word-faithful. The readers must therefore bear in mind that the first two and the last page of the essay are mere approximations to what Eileen Power in fact wrote.
_April_, 1963 M.M. POSTAN _Peterhouse, Cambridge_.
_Contents_
I THE PRECURSORS
II BODO, A FRANKISH PEASANT IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE
III MARCO POLO, A VENETIAN TRAVELLER OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
IV MADAME EGLENTYNE, CHAUCER'S PRIORESS IN REAL LIFE
V THE MÉNAGIER'S WIFE, A PARIS HOUSEWIFE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
VI THOMAS BETSON, A MERCHANT OF THE STAPLE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
VII THOMAS PAYCOCKE OF COGGESHALL, AN ESSEX CLOTHIER IN THE DAYS OF HENRY VII
NOTES AND SOURCES
NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS
INDEX
_List of Illustrations_
I BODO AT HIS WORK 20 From _MS. Tit. B.V., Pt. I_. British Museum
II EMBARKATION OF THE POLOS AT VENICE 21 From _Bodleian MS. 264_. Oxford
III PART OF A LANDSCAPE BY CHAO MÊNG-FU 52 From the original in the British Museum
IV MADAME EGLENTYNE AT HOME 53 From _MS. Add. 39843_. British Museum
V THE MÉNAGIER'S WIFE HAS A GARDEN PARTY 116 From _Harl. MS. 4425_. British Museum
VI THE MÉNAGIER'S WIFE COOKS HIS SUPPER WITH 117 THE AID OF HIS BOOK From _MS. Royal, 15 D. i_. British Museum
VII CALAIS ABOUT THE TIME OF THOMAS BETSON 148 From _Cott. MS. Aug. i, Vol. II_. British Museum
VIII THOMAS PAYCOCKE'S HOUSE AT COGGESHALL 149 From _The Paycockes of Coggeshall_ by Eileen Power (Methuen & Co. Ltd.)
A MAP OF THE JOURNEYS OF THE POLOS 68-9
Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us....
There be of them that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported.
And some there be which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them.
But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten.
With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance, and their children are within the covenant.
Their seed standeth fast, and their children for their sakes.
Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out.
Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.
ECCLESIASTICUS xliv.
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