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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
iice more particularly , eminently curious as they are , as evincing the high antiquity of the separation in discipline and doctrine from the Papal Church , . maintained by jthesfi religious professors . The principal piece , " La Nobla Leyczon , " contains an abridged history of the New Testament ; and there is , it appears , in existence , at Grenoble * a MS . translation of the whole New Testament in this dialect .
The language of Provence was not merely connected with disaffection to the Church of Rome by its adaptation to the purposes of heretical poetry , but the gayer effusions of its rhymers were equally prone to offend by irreverent freedoms and Iteen satires . The animosity occasioned by these
earnest attempts , on the part of vernacular literature , to direct popular opinion freely and openly against priestly usurpation , no doubt animated . the zeal with which the crafty policy of the church was combined with the interests of the temporal authorities , to subjugate or destroy the unfortunate population of those countries in the South of France , where the opinions of the Albigenses were said to have become most prevalent .
In the Norman French , the remains of religious works , and their influence in fixing and forming the language to literary purposes , are numerous and unquestionable . Before William the Conqueror , Thibaud de Vernon had formed many metrical histories or chronicles of the Saints , and in King Stephen's reign we may particularly notice a version of the Proverbs of Solomon , made at the instance of a lady . From the earliest period of the language , French versions of tlie rituals from the Latin , and of the historical parts of the Bible , were universal . The latter were selected with the usual
motive of attracting the multitude , and often assumed a garb like that of the tales of chivalry ; such , for instance , as a collection in MS . now in the British Museum , called " Plusieurs Battailes des Roys d' Israel encontre leg Philistiennes , " in which the compiler seems to have rum into a predicament specially avoided , it is said , by another translator for warlike hearers , who left out this part of the scriptural history , lest it should inflame the already too strong propensity of his readers or auditors to combativeness . It would be endless to enumerate the sermons , versified portions of scrip * , lure * of the ritual , of devotional hymns , and more especially of the lives and
principal actions of the Saints , written in the earliest periods of the Northern French language .. These are obviously intended ( and often expressly so mentioned ) to form ; the , Sunday reading or instruction of the people , in opposition to lighter subjects for week days . But their authors are frequent in their complaints , that the old tales had still a charm superior for the po * pulace ; owing , perhaps these worthy ecclesiastics might have been told , in
some measure to their own over-exertion to please . As » for instance , ihe author of the metrical life of St . Josaphat , after labouring through 290 Q . verses of laudatory matter , expresses himself mortified ana surprised at the reflection , thajt after all , perhaps , his audience would have liked better their own tale of Roland ; nay , that perhaps the battles of the twelve peers would sound more pleasantly thaw his laborious exposition , of the Passion of Christ . of
In 1210 , Pater Comestpr ' s Historia Schplastica , 3 l ^ fviary the Old and New Testament , with expositions from Josephus an 4 Pag&l * writers , comT piled abouj 1175 , was translated into French ; the same bgok being also translated soon after into German * , Manuscripts of this work are sq nu * tnerous , ^ to afford the most ample proof of its popular diffusion , and to a late period ; there being a mpst , splendid MS . ia ex $ te » ce , written fo * the use . of our Edward IV .
Untitled Article
Review *—Cony term ' s * Angio-Snxon Poetry . 403
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1828, page 403, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2561/page/43/
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