184
and
af Caricature
Grotefque
great jufiice; he fuifered
openly, to do any wrong."
none,
either
{mall
great,
Of
fecretly
Of
Et dz Clffhrt {y Eon Roger
Se mntint cum noble bar,
Sifu dc grant jufiice;
Nefufri pas petit ne gram,
Ne arire ne par devant,
Fere nu] m{fpri_[Z.
On the other hand, one of Montfort's opponents, the bifhop of Hereford,
is treated rather contemptuoufly. We are told that he "learnt well that
the earl was fcrong when he took the matter in hand; before that he
(the bifhop) was very fierce, and thought to eat up all the Englilh; but
now he is reduced to itraits."
Ly smjke de Hm-gfbrt
Sour bien que {y guensfu fbrt,
Kan: i1 prili l'a_fEre;
De-uant re weir mulrfkr,
Les Englais guida muz mangzr,
ME: ore nefet quefere.
This bifhop was Peter de Aigueblanche, one of the foreign favourites, who
had been intruded into the lee of Hereford, to the exclufion of a better
man, and had been an opprelfor of thofe who were under his rule. The
barons feized him, threw him into prifon, and plundered his poifefiions,
and at the time this fong was written, he was fuffering under the imprifon-
ment which appears to have fhortened his life.
The univeriities and the clerical body in general were deeply involved
in thefe political movements of the thirteenth century; and our earlieit
political fongs now known are compofed in Latin, and in that form and
{tyle of verfe which feems to have been peculiar to the goliards, and
which I venture to call goliardic. Such is a fong againit the three bifhops
who fupported king John in his quarrel with the pope about the prefen-
tation to the fee of Canterbury, printed in my Political Songs. Such, too,
is the fong of the Welfh, and one or two others, in the fame volume.
And fuch, above all, is that remarkable Latin poem in which a partifan
of
J