The name of Gervase of Tilbury is familiar to those who have studied medieval folklore at all deeply, but the general public knows his writings only from quotations. The explanation of this regrettable fact is that the only editor who has aimed at printing a complete text of the Otia Imperialia is the philosopher G. W. Leibnitz, who included it in his Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium, I, Hanover, 1710. A considerable part was reprinted by Felix Liebrecht at Hanover in 1856. His edition was accompanied by some excellent notes but though he dedicated it to Sir George Cornwall Lewis, he did not reproduce all the passages concerning England. The extracts printed by R. Pauli in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, XXV II, Hanover, 1885, include few of the sections of interest to those whose concern is English folklore. The aim of the present study is to give a complete survey of the English folklore in Gervase's one surviving work, with an emphasis on the less familiar passages. - [Author]

Language: English