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Updated: May 21, 2025
But such objections as those of Boethius were usually explained away by allegory. When Isidore of Seville (
"We told your lordship in our secret epistle of this morning, written with our ain hand, in testimony we have neither pretermitted nor forgotten your faithful service, that we had that to communicate to you that would require both patience and fortitude to endure, and therefore exhorted you to peruse some of the most pithy passages of Seneca, and of Boethius de Consolatione, that the back may be, as we say, fitted for the burden This we commend to you from our ain experience.
But the best specimens of English prose of this period are Chaucer's translation of Boethius, his "Testament of Love," and two of his Canterbury Tales. In poetical literature, "The Vision of Piers Plowman," written by a priest named Robert Langland, is one of the highest works in point of genius and one of the most curious as illustrating manners and opinions.
He employed the short and sad remains of his life in turning the Consolation of Boethius into English. The translation was published after the translator's death. It is remarkable chiefly on account of some very unsuccessful attempts to enrich our versification with new metres, and on account of the allusions with which the preface is filled.
He took his books as he found them they were the popular manuals of his age the Consolation of Boethius, the Pastoral of Pope Gregory, the compilation of Orosius, then the one accessible handbook of universal history, and the history of his own people by Bede. He translated these works into English, but he was far more than a translator, he was an editor for the people.
Whether Albinus, Boethius, and Symmachus did plot to bring in Justin; whether the senate did send a letter to him, I cannot tell. Boethius, in his De Consolatione, denies it all; and Boethius was a good man. He says that the letters in which he hoped for the liberty of Rome were forged; how could he hope for the impossible? but he adds, 'would that any liberty could have been hoped for!
Wherefore it happens that often they cry aloud: "Long live Death!" and "Let Life die!" because some one begins the cry. And this is the most dangerous defect in their blindness. For this reason Boethius judges glory of the people vain, because he sees it to be without discernment.
And a certain holy hermit, name not given, nor date of the vision, saw the ghosts of Boethius and Symmachus lead the Amal's soul up the cone of Stromboli, and hurl him in, as the English sailors saw old Boots, the Wapping usurer, hurled into the same place, for offences far more capable of proof. So runs the story of Dietrich's death. It is perfectly natural, and very likely true.
He himself translated Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and other works from the Latin into English, and doubtless encouraged the composition of the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the first history written in a modern language.
Taking the writings of Caedmon, Baeda, Pope Gregory, and Boethius; translating, editing, commentating, and adding his own to the views of others upon a wide range of subjects. He was indeed the father not alone of a legal system in England, but of her culture and literature besides.
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