210 



% Contem^orarg |poem on % ttftelation of 

 % Catjrekai from (§Iir to jto j&avttm. 



Communicated by A. K. Malden. 



pj*ppHE following poem is quoted by Matthew Paris (Bolls Ed., 

 fiSSrl vo ^ PP* ^0 anc ^ 391.), but I was unaware of its 

 existence as a whole until my attention was drawn to it by a 

 reference in the article on Richard Poore in the Dictionary of 

 National Biography. 



The MS. is in the Cambridge University Library (Dd., 11, 89), 

 in a small volume containing also other things, and begins on 

 fol. 926. The writing is a very clear thirteenth century hand, and 

 the poem is here printed from a copy which Mr. F. J. H. Jenkinson, 

 the Librarian, kindly had made for me. The contractions in 

 the MS. have been expanded, in other respects the original spelling 

 has been retained, e.g., u where we should now put v, set for sed, 

 capud for caput. The reader must not be too critioal as to false 

 quantities. 



The writer was Henry D'Avranches, a court poet of the time of 

 Henry III., and there is internal evidence (see the last couplet but 

 two) that the building of the new Cathedral was unfinished at the 

 time of writing. 



It is to be wished that the poet had said more of the building 

 and the builders, but his lines confirm, generally, the reasons which 

 are given elsewhere for the translation of the Cathedral. More 

 than a hundred lines are taken up with an account of the incon- 

 veniences of the position of the old Cathedral, the partial destruction 

 of which seems (11. 137 and 138) to have been begun at once to 

 prevent the possibility of return, and, I presume, the consequent 

 discontinuance of the new building. The beauties and attractions 

 of the new site are then set out, the description culminating in the 

 expression of the writer's opinion that if Adam had come there 



