As no account of William of Worcester is to be found in the common
Biographical Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, it has been thought
proper to prefix a short notice of his life and character to the
following extract from his Itinerary:
William was the son of William of Worcester, and of Elizabeth, the
daughter of Thomas Bottoner. His surname he took indifferently from
either; and he is consequently sometimes denominated William
Worcester, and William Bottoner. Bishop Tanner describes him as
descended of a knightly family, but upon what evidence is not known;
yet from certain passages in the Itinerary his father would seem to
have been a substantial householder.
He was born in the parish of St. James at Bristol in the year 1415;
and as he speaks of a stone vault in that city as having been built in
1428, at his own expense, it is probable that he lost his father, and
came to his inheritance at a very early age. Of his childhood nothing
is known; but there is some reason to suppose that he was taught the
rudiments of learning by Robert Lane, whom he has commemorated as a
very eminent schoolmaster at Bristol when he was a youth. In 1432 he
first went to Oxford, where he was admitted of Hart Hall, now Baliol
College.
It is said, that he was supported at the University by the celebrated
Sir John Fastolf; the same who, in his own day, had great renown for
his valour and munificence, and who was afterwards exposed to
dishonour by Shakspere, with a trifling variation of his name, and a
considerable distortion of his character. But it may be presumed that
Worcester was indebted not so much to his bounty as to his protection;
for if we may judge of Worcester’s patrimony from the few notices he
has given us of his father’s property in Bristol, it is not likely
that his own means would have been inadequate to the small expense of
a collegiate course in those simple times; and we may therefore
believe, that the connection which subsisted between Worcester and
Fastolf, was merely a compliance with the general custom of the age,
when youths of gentlemanly birth and competent fortune sought the
patronage and entered the household of wealthy and powerful men. But,
however this might have been, it is certain that he afterwards lived
with Sir John at Caister, in Norfolk, where he acted as the knight’s
secretary and confidential friend, and subsequently as one of his
executors.
At Oxford Worcester prosecuted his studies with great diligence and
success; and we are informed that he became eminent for his knowledge
of history, medicine, and astronomy. On these subjects he is said to
have written many books: yet it is likely that they were rather
extracts and memorandums, than original and formal compositions.
Besides these, he executed some translations from the classics; and we
learn from his Itinerary, that on the tenth of August 1473, he
presented the Bishop of Winchester with a translation of Cicero on Old
Age. He tells us, however, that this gift was not sufficient to
conciliate the good prelate’s regard; but he seems to insinuate, that
the failure was owing less to the faults of the performance, than to
the intervention of an enemy. Yet, whatever he might have suffered
from the malice of his neighbours, it is possible, that the offering
itself was considered of small value; and it might have been the less
esteemed, if it be true, that the same treatise had been already
rendered into English by John Tiptoft, the accomplished and
unfortunate Earl of Worcester.
But it is on very slender evidence that this nobleman is said to have
translated Cicero on Old Age. He had left in manuscript a translation
of Cicero on Friendship; and when Caxton printed it, many years after
his death, with an anonymous version of the essay on Old Age, in the
same volume, he was at once supposed to have been the author of both;
but the translation, thus published without a name, was professedly
executed in honour of Sir John Fastolf, the friend and patron of
William of Worcester; and as it is well known that many of his
dependant’s literary performances were undertaken expressly for his
sake, and, as at the same time William of Worcester might have been
easily confounded with the Earl of Worcester, there is considerable
probability that William, and not the Earl, was the author of the
translation in question, and consequently William could not have
suffered on a comparison with him in the manner suggested. Nor is it
sufficient objection to this inference, that the productions of a
writer, whose style has been chosen as an example of the barbarous
taste of the age in which he lived, were not likely to be imputed to
one whose extraordinary attainments had won the admiration of the
polished and fastidious scholars of Italy; for whatever might have
been the Earl’s superiority in classical knowledge, it does not appear
that he had cultivated his native tongue with greater care than his
contemporaries; and William of Worcester might not have fallen below
him in the rude and unsettled English of that time.
Of William’s writings, of whatever kind, very little is now extant;
and though for a few things the credit which he deserved has been
given to others, it has been reasonably conjectured, that he has
enjoyed in return the merit of some performances of which he was not
the author; but however he might have laboured in the promotion of
learning, he loved the acquisition of it so well, that he was
accustomed to say, he found more pleasure in his books than some men
derived from their estates; and to the attainments which he had made
at the University, he added, by the help of one Giles, a Lombard, some
acquaintance with French and Poetry.
Yet study was insufficient to satisfy him without observation: τὸ
εἰδέναι δίττον ἔλεγεν εἶναι· τὸ μὲν ἐπιστήμῃ, τὸ δὲ τῇ πείρᾳ. He
consequently sought to enlarge his knowledge by travelling; and he has
been considered worthy of respect as the earliest topographer of
England, “Primum Angliæ perlustratorem ne flocci facias;” but however
this may be, he is certainly the first traveller who has left us any
memorials of a journey into Cornwall; and the interest and value which
his observations derive from this circumstance, have made them worthy
of a place in the present Appendix.
The book, in which these notices are found, is entitled _Itinerarium,
sive Liber Rerum Memorabilium Willelmi Botoner dict. de Worcester_. It
had existed in manuscript only, till the year 1778, when it was
published at Cambridge, from the original autograph in the Library of
Corpus Christi College, by James Nasmith, formerly a Fellow of that
Society. Besides this, indeed, there is another manuscript of the
journal in the same library, but it is only a copy of the former, made
by the procurement of Archbishop Parker; and as it is very incorrect,
it is of no value in itself, and could have been of little use to the
editor.
This Itinerary seems to have been a memorandum book, which the author
kept with him on his journeys, not only into this county, but to other
parts of this kingdom; and accordingly we find it stored with
desultory notices of separate facts, and distant places, and abounding
with trifling and unconnected observations, which seem to have been
associated on the same page, only as the book was accidentally opened,
and recorded rather from some present impulse, than with any settled
and ultimate design. Nothing can be more rude than the style, or more
worthless than many of the statements; and whatever might have been
the writer’s real intention, it is very certain that his remarks, in
the condition which they have actually come down to us, could not have
been meant for publication. It might have been his purpose, when
leisure and opportunity should serve, to arrange and expand the hasty
and unconnected notes thus made by the way; but the brevity of the
greater number would have insufficiently secured him against
perplexities and mistakes; and as he might have erred occasionally
through the acknowledged failure of his memory, or the unconscious
influence of his imagination, it is possible that a careful and
regular composition subsequently made, might have been less useful,
than even the confused and scanty memorandums we possess.
Worcester came into Cornwall in the year 1478. Mr. Whitaker says, that
it was in 1440. How he could have committed such a mistake, it is
difficult to conceive, as the date is expressly recorded in the
Itinerary itself. Mr. Polwhele, indeed, appears to have erred
likewise; for, according to him, William’s journey was performed in
1473; but this is evidently nothing more than a misprint. In one of
our county histories, the journey is stated to have occurred in 1460:
it is probable, however, that the writer had never seen the Itinerary.
He set out from Norwich, on Monday the 17th of August, and reached
London on the Thursday following. On the first of September he came to
Bristol, and took his departure for Cornwall on the next day. He
arrived at Launceston on Sunday the 13th, and on Monday pursued his
journey towards the west. Near Bodmin his horse fell with him, but it
does not appear that he received any injury. On Tuesday night he slept
at Polwhele; and having visited the preaching friars at Truro on
Wednesday, he came in the evening to Marazion. The next morning,
Thursday 17th of September 1478, he attended mass in the chapel on the
Mount. In the afternoon of the same day, he departed for Penryn; and
going thence to Bodmin, he returned eastward, through the towns on the
south coast. The towns and villages on the north coast of Cornwall he
did not visit; and the statements which he makes respecting them, were
merely the result of his inquiries. He seems, indeed, to have been as
diligent in seeking information from others, as in making observations
of his own; and no persons, whether smiths, ropers, or ferrymen, were
considered unfit to furnish him with the knowledge which he wanted for
his journal. Amongst those in Cornwall, from whom he learned most, was
his cousin, Robert Bracey, at Fowey; but it is likely that he depended
mainly upon the secular and regular clergy, who entertained him on the
road, and gave him access to their chronicles and registers.
With regard to the nature and purpose of this journey, from the manner
of the record itself, it would not be easy to conjecture, whether it
was undertaken with feelings of devotion or of curiosity. The coldness
of the whole narrative, and the careless brevity with which the
accomplishment of the acknowledged object is related, were scarcely
consistent with a fervid and lively devotion; and the insertion of so
many facts and observations, which must have been useless when they
were written, and now owe their value to their subsequent antiquity,
while the documents of early times, and the traditions of the people,
were almost wholly neglected, could not have happened under the
influence of an active and judicious curiosity. And besides this, when
William of Worcester was in Cornwall, it was impossible for an
intelligent visitor to overlook the state of our ecclesiastical
architecture. Many of our present churches had been recently built,
and others were then building; and some account of their style and
condition, of their founders and builders, and of the circumstances
attending their erection, would have been far more amusing to his
contemporaries than what he wrote, and of unspeakable interest in
after times. And any other man, we may suppose, would have found
something to say of the manners and habits of the people, and of their
mines and fisheries; but from William of Worcester we know only by
implication or accident, that he travelled in an inhabited country.
Yet without devotion he would not have visited the Mount, and without
curiosity he would have made no observations by the way. The shrine of
St. Michael, which had been the resort of superstitious people in
remote times, had lately recovered its ancient reputation, after an
interval of some accidental obscurity; and pilgrims were again
attracted by the privileges conferred on it in the eleventh century,
and were coming even from distant places in considerable numbers.
William of Worcester was one of these; and as his penitence had
brought him so far, it might be thought that his admiration would have
delayed his return.
But the hospitalities of a place so ‘kind to strangers,’ the natural
beauties of the Mount, and the venerable antiquity and romantic
traditions of the castle and monastery, were not enough to detain him
for a day; and with scarcely any regard to such things, he stayed but
a few hours. In that short space he could not occupy himself with many
inquiries; and we have received from him only a few bare facts, which
he appears to have recorded rather as the justification of his
pilgrimage, than with any precise knowledge of their value.
His subsequent pursuits, and the time of his death, are not known, nor
have we any account of the number and the fortunes of his children. It
is certain, however, that he was married; and he is reported to have
taken a wife in opposition to the wishes of his patron. For Sir John
Fastolf had designed for him some ecclesiastical preferment, and had
consequently advised him to obtain orders in the church. _Tanneri
Biblioth._――_Paston Letters._――_Lelandus de Script. Brit._――_Henry’s Hist.
of Engl._
_Incipiunt notabilia per W. Worcestre scripta in viagio de Bristolia
ad Montem Sancti Michaelis in anno Christi 1478._
* * * * *
Castellum Tregtheney-Pomerey de Devonia edificatum stat juxta
Mousehold, per 7 miliaria ultra Montem Sancti Michaelis.
Castellum Trethyn dirutum in fine occidentalissima Cornubiæ.
Turris castelli Karnbree, Sir John Bassett, chevalier, stat.