It is not, therefore, surprising to learn that Jacques de Cessoles found texts for sundry sermons on the game that formed so favourite a diversion of clergy and laity. The favour with which these discourses were received no doubt gratified the worthy Dominican father. At the request of some of those who heard them he began to write down the substance of his sermons. The result was the "Liber de moribus Hominum et officiis Nobilium ac Popularium super ludo scachorum," which immediately attained great popularity. This is shown by the bibliography of Dr. A. Van der Linde in a striking manner, for he has described two hundred codices to be found in the various public libraries of Europe.
The difficulties in the way of forming any clear conception as to the life and personality of Cessoles, Ferron, and De Vignay are well shown in an article by M.C. Leber.[17] Dr. Ernst Köpke, who has reexamined the evidences as to Cessoles, holds that he was a Lombard.[18]
The chief source from which Cessoles took his material was the treatise "De Regimine Principum" of Egidius Romanus.
He was of the great Neapolitan family of the Colonna, and his Christian name appears to have been Guido, but his designations have undergone some curious transformations. Born at Rome, 22nd Sept., 1216, Guido Colonna went at an early age to Paris, where, from the name of his birthplace, he became known as Ægidius Romanus, with the French form of Gilles de Rome. He was an ardent and enthusiastic disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas, and his familiarity with that great doctor of the Church led him to desire admission to the Dominican order, but a difficulty intervened from the circumstance that he had already contracted ties which bound him to the order of St. Augustine. To this untoward accident may probably be attributed no little of the extension of the philosophical doctrine of Aquinas; for Colonna, unable or unwilling to be relieved of the vows that bound him to the Augustinians, preached eagerly amongst them the Thomist speculations of his friend and master. In the controversy with the Franciscans, those whom he had indoctrinated were valuable allies to the Thomists, for their aid, coming from an independent organization, appeared to carry the weight of impartiality, and to be unassailable on the plea of partisan interest. In the year 1287 there was a general convocation of the order of St. Augustine at Florence, and at this assembly it was decreed that the doctors of the order should teach in conformity with the decisions arrived at by Colonna. To him is largely due the success of the Thomist scheme, of which he was an able, persistent, and vigorous exponent. Many tracts by him remain in print and MS. on these subjects. The fame he had thus acquired gained him the name of doctor fundamentarius and doctor fundatissimus. His lectures at Paris attracted to him the attention of Philippe le Hardi, who thought him a fitting person to be entrusted with the education of his son, who was afterwards known to hiftory as Philippe le Bel. It was whilst occupied with this royal youth that the thought of composing or compiling--and the terms were in practice interchangeable in those days--occurred, and the result was the treatise "De regimine Principum libri iii." Philippe le Hardi, if not an educated man himself--and there are doubts as to whether he could write his own name--was laudably anxious that his heir should have the best instruction that could be obtained. It cannot well be claimed that the able, handsome, and unscrupulous Philippe was any great credit to his preceptor. The despotic and perfidious character of the king probably owed more to the influence of Nogaret and other defenders of the "right divine of kings to govern wrong," than to the soberer precepts of Colonna. That Philippe had some tincture of literary feeling may be inferred from his employment of Jehan de Meung to translate the military treatise of Vegetius Flavius Renatus, a compilation of the second century of the present era, which was so popular in the middle ages that it was translated by Caxton into English. Still better evidence is the translation made for the king by the same poet of Boethius, whose stoical philosophy must have had a special appropriateness for those times of political storm and stress, when the fickleness of fortune must have been a matter of only too common repute. Guido Colonna was elected by his admiring brethren the general of the order in 1292, and took up his residence at Bourges, its metropolitan seat.
In this honourable office he continued his literary labours, and to this period are assigned the greater part of his numerous works. He died at Avignon in 1316. His body was translated to Paris, where his effigy in black marble, with his epitaph, remained until the French revolution.[19] It would be superfluous to enumerate his philosophical writings, for they would have no interest in the present day. His commentary on Aristotle "De Anima," it may be observed, was dedicated to Edward I. His name is now chiefly remembered because his work on the rule of princes formed the basis of the treatise in which Jacques de Cessoles moralized the fashionable game of the chess.
One interesting instance of the popularity of Colonna's work is the translation of it made into English verse by Thomas Occleve.[20] He wrote it in 1411 or 1412, and its object was to obtain the payment of an annuity from the exchequer which had been granted to him, but the payment of which was very irregular. The book was dedicated to the Prince of Wales. After mentioning his purpose to translate from the (apocryphal) letter of Aristotle to Alexander and "Gyles of Regement of Prynces," he proceeds:--
"There is a booke, Jacob de Cessoles,
Of the ordre of Prechours, made, a worthy man,
That the Chesse moralisede clepede is,
In whiche I purpose eke to labour ywis
And here and there, as that my litelle witte
Afforthe may, I thynke translate it.
And al be it that in that place square
Of the lystes, I meane the eschekere,
A man may learn to be wise and ware;
I that have avanturede many a yere,
My witte therein is but litelle the nere,
Save that somewhat I know a Kynges draught,
Of other draughts lernede have I naught."--(p. 77.)