'What
you shall find under the letter C,' says Messingham, 'is borrowed
from Mathew Paris, an English Benedictine Monk, who had from his
youth consecrated himself to a Monastic life, and polish'd most
excellent talents of nature with exquisite Arts and Sciences, and
adorn'd the same with all Christian virtues; being an Handicraft, a
Writer, a good Painter, a fine Poet, an acute Logician, a solid
Divine; and (which is much more valuable) pure in his Manners, bright
in the innocence of his life, simple and candid. Pitseus, upon the
year 1259, in which the said Mathew died, gives him a great many more
encomiums, which for brevity sake I hear omit.'
The remaining half of 'Mateo Rodulfo' turns out to be Ranulphus or
Ralph, Higden, the Monk of Chester, whose Polychronicon is quoted
both by Messingham and Montalvan. The 'Domiciano' of the next line,
which is 'Dominicano' in Montalvan, has so completely got rid of the
name to which it belongs, that without the aid of Calderon's
authorities, Messingham and Montalvan, it would be impossible to know
who was meant. In Messingham the reference is to 'Jacobus Januensis,
the Dominican, in the Life of St. Patrick,' and in Montalvan to
'Jacobo Januense, o Genuense, Dominicano.' The person thus disguised
is the famous Jacobus de Voragine, the Dominican, author of 'The
Golden Legend,' who was Bishop of Genoa in 1292, and died at a very
advanced age in 1298.
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