Walter Map
born c. 1140, Hereford?, England
died c. 1209
English
churchman and writer whose work helps to
illuminate the society and religious issues of
his era.
Probably
of Welsh descent, Map studied at the University
of Paris from about 1154 to 1160. He took holy
orders and became a clerk in the household of
Henry II, and he served the king as an itinerant
judge and represented him at the third Lateran
Council (1179). After holding various church
positions, he became archdeacon of Oxford in
1197.
It was
as a writer rather than an ecclesiastic,
however, that Map came to be remembered. Between
1181 and 1192 he composed De nugis curialium
(Courtiers’ Trifles). A miscellany written in
Latin, it contains legends, folklore, and tales
as well as gossip, observations, and
reflections, and it reveals the author to have
been knowledgeable and shrewd and a man of
considerable wit. Perhaps the best-known item is
the letter from Valerius to Rufinus on the folly
of marrying that is referred to in the prologue
to “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales. The book also includes
valuable histories of Christian heretical sects
of the period and of the Anglo-Norman kings.
Other works once attributed to Map, including
Arthurian romances and goliardic satires against
the clergy, are no longer thought to be his
work.
