A cardinal, that highte Seint Ierome,
That made a book agayn Iovinian'; &c.
In Tyrwhitt's Introductory discourse, he says of this Prologue—'The greatest part must have been of Chaucer's own invention, though one may plainly see he had been reading the popular invectives against marriage and women in general; such as, the Roman de la Rose; Valerius ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore; and particularly Hieronymus contra Iovinianum.' He adds, in a note—'The holy Father, by way of recommending celibacy, has exerted all his learning and eloquence (and he certainly was not deficient in either) to collect together and aggravate whatever he could find to the prejudice of the female sex. Among other things he has inserted his own translation (probably) of a long extract from what he calls "Liber aureolus Theophrasti de nuptiis."
'Next to him in order of time was the treatise entitled Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore (MS. Reg. 12 D. iii.). It has been printed, for the similarity of its contents, I suppose, among the works of St. Jerome, though it is evidently of a much later date.... To these two books Jean de Meun has been obliged for some of the severest strokes in his [part of the] Roman de la Rose; and Chaucer has transfused the quintessence of all the three works, upon the subject of Matrimony, into his Wife of Bathes Prologue and Merchant's Tale.'
Tyrwhitt further observes that the Epistola Valerii was written, according to Tanner, by Walter Map; of this there appears to be no doubt. Lounsbury (Studies, ii. 276) takes Valerie to mean Valerius Maximus, which is here improbable.
It is, at first, not very clear why the God of Love is here represented as appealing to books against women; but we are bidden to observe that, even there, good women are incidentally mentioned; see A. 284. Even Valerius praises Lucretia and Penelope.
—A. [288]. Cf. the long passage in the Franklein's Tale about chaste women; C. T. 11676-11766 (F 1364-1456). It is nearly all taken from Jerome.
—A. [305]. Epistels rather than epistelle in the singular. The reference is to Ovid's Heroides, which contains twenty-one love-letters. Cf. Chaucer's Introd. to Man of Law, B 55, where he alludes to Ovid's mention of lovers 'in his Epistelles.'
—A. [307]. Vincent is Vincent of Beauvais, who compiled an encyclopædia of universal knowledge in the 13th century. One portion of this great work, treating of universal history, is called Speculum Historiale, which Chaucer has here turned into Storial Mirour. See Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, ii. 375.
[338]. As Chaucer is pleased to call his poem by the name of 'seintes legende of Cupyde' in the Introd. to Man of Law, B 61, he here turns Venus into a saint, to keep up the analogy between his present undertaking and the Legenda Sanctorum. But John de Meun had previously said much the same thing. In Le Rom. de la Rose, 10863, Cupid is made to swear 'par sainte Venus ma mere.' See the Eng. version, l. 5953. (Perhaps read seynte in Text B.)