Chaucer (Vol. vii., p. 356).—No foreign original has ever been found for Chaucer's "House of Fame." Warton fancied that it had been translated or paraphrased from the Provençal, but could adduce no proof that it had. Old Geoffrey may have found the groundwork somewhere, in the course of his multifarious reading; but the main portion of the structure is evidently the work of his own hands, as the number of personal details and circumstances would tend to indicate. The forty lines comprising the "Lai of Marie," which Chaucer has worked up into the "Nonnes Preestes Tale" of some seven hundred lines, are printed in Tyrwhitt's Introductory Discourse to the Canterbury Tales, and will be sufficient to show what use he made of the raw material at his disposal. We may fairly presume that Emerson never took the trouble to investigate the matter, but contented himself with snatching up his materials from the nearest quarry, and then tumbling them out to the public.
J. M. B.
Tunbridge Wells.
Campvere, Privileges of (Vol. vii., p. 262.).—J. D. S. asks, "What were these privileges, and whence was the term Campvere derived?"
In Scotland there exists an ancient institution called "The Convention of Royal Burghs," which still meets annually in Edinburgh, under the fixed presidency of the Lord Provost of that city. It is a representative body, consisting of delegates elected by the town councils of the royal burghs (not boroughs) of Scotland; and their business is to attend to such public measures as may affect the general interests of their constituents. In former times, however their powers and duties were of far more importance than they are now. The Convention seems to have exercised a general superintendence of the foreign trade of the kingdom. With a view to the promotion of that trade, they used to enter into commercial treaties, or staple contracts as they were called, with the commercial cities of the Continent; and I have now before me one of these staple contracts, made with the city of Antwerp in 1540; and another with the city of Middleburg, in Zeeland, in 1541; but latterly they seem to have confined themselves to the town of Campvere, in Zeeland (island of Walcheren). In all these contracts it was stipulated
that the Scottish traders should enjoy certain privileges, which were considered of such importance that the crown appointed a conservator of them. The last of these staple contracts was made with Campvere in the year 1747; but soon afterwards the increasing prosperity of Scotland, and the participation of its burgesses in the foreign trade of England, rendered such partial arrangements useless, and the contracts and the privileges have long since been reckoned among the things that were. The office of conservator degenerated into a sinecure. It was held for some time by the Rev. John Home, author of the tragedy of Douglas, who died in 1808; and afterwards by a Sir Alex. Lenier, whose name is found in the Edinburgh Almanack as "Conservator at Campvere" till 1847, when the office and the officer seem to have expired together.
J. L.
Sir Gilbert Gerard (Vol. v., pp. 511. 571.).—In addition to the information I formerly sent you in answer to Mr. Spedding's inquiry, I am now enabled to state two facts, which greatly reduce the period within which the date of Sir Gilbert Gerard's death may be fixed. Among the records in Carlton Ride, is an enrolment of his account as Custos Domûs Conversorum from January 29, 34 Eliz. (1592) to January 29, 35 Eliz. (1593). And a search in Doctors' Commons has resulted in the discovery, that Sir Gilbert's will was proved, not, as Dugdale states, in April, 1592, but on April 6, 1593. He died therefore between January 29 and April 6, 1593.
Dugdale mentions that there is no epitaph on his monument.
Edward Foss.