Gualterus Anglicus

Gualterus Anglicus (

Identification of the author

This author was earlier called the Anonymus Neveleti, referring to attribution in the seventeenth-century Mythologia Aesopica of

This collection of 62 fables is more accurately called the verse Romulus,[6] or elegiac Romulus (from its elegiac couplets). Given the uncertainty over the authorship, these terms are used in scholarly works.

There is an earlier prose version of Romulus, also;^[7][8] it has been dated as early as the tenth century,^[9] or the sixth century.^[10] It is adapted from Phaedrus; the initial fable "The Cock and the Jewel", supposedly the reply of Phaedrus to his critics,^[10] marks out fable collections originating from this source. Walter changed the "jewel" from a pearl to jasper.^[11][12]

The verse Romulus formed the mainstream versions of medieval 'Aesop'.

When John Lydgate produced Isopes Fabules, the first fable collection written in English, the verse Romulus was a major source.^[16] Particularly sophisticated use of this fable tradition is made later in the 15th century in Robert Henryson's Morall Fabillis, written in Scots.^{[17][18][19][20]}

Early printed editions appeared under the title Aesopus moralisatus, around 1500.

References

• Julia Bastin (editor) (1929–30), Recueil général des Isopets (two volumes)
• Sandro Boldrini (1994), Uomini e bestie: le favole dell Aesopus latinus
• Aaron E. Wright (editor) (1997), The Fables of "Walter of England", Edited from Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Codex Guelferbytanus 185 Helmstadiensis
• Paola Busdraghi (editor) (2005), L'Esopus. attribuito a Gualtiero Anglico
• Rebekka Nöcker: Volkssprachiges Proverbium in der Gelehrtenkultur : ein lateinischer Fabelkommentar des 15. Jahrhunderts mit deutschen Reimpaarepimythien; Untersuchung und Edition, Berlin [u.a.] : De Gruyter, 2015,
  ISBN 978-3-05-006442-0