Clerely brought us out in to the lande of mylke and honye."
Elsewhere John is called a Lollard and accused of "heretycall langage," and he is finally poisoned by a monk of Swinestead. Allegorical characters are mixed with the real persons. Ynglonde vidua, represents the nation, and the jocular element is provided by Sedwyson (sedition), who would have been the Vice in a pure morality play. One actor was obviously intended to play many parts, for stage directions such as "Go out Ynglond, and dress for Clargy" are by no means uncommon. The MS. of Kynge Johan was discovered between 1831 and 1838 among the corporation papers at Ipswich, where it was probably performed, for there are references to charitable foundations by King John in the town and neighbourhood. It is described at the end of the MS. as two plays, but there is no obvious division, the end of the first act alone being noted. The first part is corrected by Bale and the latter half is in his handwriting, but his name nowhere occurs. In the list of his works, however, he gives a play De Joanne Anglorum Rege, written in idiomate materno.
But Bale's most important work is Illustrium majoris Britanniae scriptorum, hoc est, Angliae, Cambriae, ac Scotiae Summarium ... (Ipswich and Wesel, for John Overton, 1548, 1549). This contained five centuries, but another edition, almost entirely rewritten and containing fourteen centuries, was printed at Basel with the title Scriptorum illustrium majoris Britanniae ... Catalogus (1557-1559). The chronological catalogue of British authors and their works was partly founded on the Collectanea and Commentarii of John Leland, but Bale was an indefatigable collector and worker, and himself examined many of the valuable libraries of the Augustinian and Carmelite houses before their dissolution. In his notebook he records as an instance of the wholesale destruction in progress: "I have bene also at Norwyche, our second citye of name, and there all the library monuments are turned to the use of their grossers, candelmakers, sopesellers, and other worldly occupiers ... As much have I saved there and in certen other places in Northfolke and Southfolke concerning the authors names and titles of their workes, as I could, and as much wold I have done through out the whole realm, yf I had been able to have borne the charges, as I am not." His work is therefore invaluable, in spite of the inaccuracies and the abuse lavished on Catholic writers, for it contains much information that would otherwise have been hopelessly lost.
A list of Bale's works is to be found in Athenae Cantabrigienses (vol. i. pp. 227 et seq.). Beside the reprints already mentioned, The Examinations of Lord Cobham, William Thorpe and Anne Askewe, &c. were edited by the Rev. H. Christmas for the Parker Society in 1849. Bale's autograph note-book is preserved in the Selden Collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It contains the materials he collected for his two published catalogues arranged alphabetically, with no attempt at ornament of any kind, and without the personalities which deface his completed work. He also gives in most cases the sources from which his information was derived. This book was prepared for publication with notes by Dr R. Lane Poole, with the help of Miss Mary Bateson, as Index Britanniae Scriptorum quos ... collegit Ioannes Baleus (Clarendon Press, 1902), forming part ix. of Anecdota Oxoniensia.
John Pits or Pitseus (1560-1616), an English Catholic exile, founded on Bale's work his Relationum historicarum de rebus anglicis tomus primus (Paris, 1619), better known by its running title of
De illustribus Angliae scriptoribus. This is really the fourth book of a more extensive work. He omits the Wycliffite and Protestant divines mentioned by Bale, and the most valuable section is the lives of the Catholic exiles resident in Douai and other French towns. He does not scruple to assert (Nota de Joanne Bale) that Bale's Catalogus was a misrepresentation of Leland's matter, though there is every reason to believe that he was only acquainted with Leland's work at second-hand, through Bale.
BALE. (1) (A word common to Teutonic languages, in O. Eng. balu, cf. Icelandic böl), evil, suffering, a word obsolete except in poetry, and more common in the adjectival form "baleful." In early alliterative poetry it is especially used antithetically with "bliss." (2) (O. Eng. bael, a blazing fire, a funeral pyre), a bonfire, a northern English use more common in the tautological "bale-fire," with sometimes a confused reference from (1) to evil. (3) (A word of doubtful origin, possibly connected with "ball "), a bundle of merchandise, especially of cotton, wool or hay, packed with a cover, or fastened with bands of metal, &c. for transportation; the weight and capacity varies with the goods. (4) (Properly "bail," from Fr. baille, possibly connected with Lat. bacula, a tub), to empty water out of a boat by means of a bail or bucket.
BALEARIC ISLANDS (Baleáres), an archipelago of four large and eleven small islands in the Mediterranean Sea, off the east coast of Spain, of which country it forms a province. Pop. (1900) 311,649; area, 1935 sq. m. The archipelago, which lies between 38° 40′ and 40° 5′ N., and between 1° and 5° E., comprises two distinct groups. The eastern and larger group, corresponding with the ancient Insulae Baleares, comprises the two principal members of the archipelago, Majorca (Spanish, Mallorca) and Minorca (Spanish, Menorca), with seven islets:—Aire, Aucanada, Botafoch, Cabrera, Dragonera, Pinto and El Rey. The western group, corresponding with the ancient Pityusae or Pine Islands, also comprises two relatively large islands, Iviza (Spanish, Ibiza or, formerly, Ivica) and Formentera, with the islets of Ahorcados, Conejera, Pou and Espalmador. Majorca, Minorca and Iviza are described in separate articles. Formentera is described with Iviza. The total population of the eleven islets only amounted to 171 in 1900, but all were inhabited. None of them is of any importance except Cabrera, which is full of caverns, and was formerly used as a place of banishment. In 1808 a large body of Frenchmen were landed here by their Spanish captors, and allowed almost to perish of starvation.
The origin of the name Baleáres is a mere matter of conjecture; it is obvious, however, that the modern Majorca and Minorca are obtained from the Latin Major and Minor, through the Byzantine forms Μαιορικά and Μινορικά; while Iviza is plainly the older Ebusus, a name probably of Carthaginian origin. The Ophiusa of the Greeks (Colubraria of the Romans) is now known as Formentera.
Geology.—The strata which form the Balearic Isles fall naturally into two divisions. There is an older series, ranging from the Devonian to the Cretaceous, which is folded and faulted and forms all the higher hills, and there is a newer series of Tertiary age, which lies nearly horizontal and rests unconformably upon the older beds. The direction of the folds in the older series is in Iviza nearly west to east, in Majorca south-west to north-east, and in Minorca south to north, thus forming an arc convex towards the south-east. The Devonian is visible only in Minorca, the Trias being the oldest system represented in the other islands. The higher part of the Cretaceous is absent, and it appears to have been during this period that the principal folding of the older beds took place. The Eocene beds are nummulitic. There is a lacustrine group which has usually been placed in the Lower Eocene, but the discovery of Anthracotherium magnum in the interbedded lignites proves it to be Oligocene, in part at least. The Miocene included a limestone with Clypeaster. Pliocene beds also occur.