A Social History of England 1500 1750

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A SOCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 1500–1750

The rise of social history has had a transforming influence on the

history of early modern England. It has broadened the historical
agenda to include many previously little-studied, or wholly
neglected, dimensions of the English past. It has also provided a
fuller context for understanding more established themes in the
political, religious, economic and intellectual histories of the period.
This volume serves two main purposes. Firstly it summarises, in an
accessible way, the principal findings of forty years of research on
English society in this period, providing a comprehensive overview of
social and cultural change in an era vital to the development of
English social identities. Secondly, the chapters, by leading experts,
also stimulate fresh thinking by not only taking stock of current
knowledge, but extending it, identifying problems, proposing fresh
interpretations and pointing to unexplored possibilities. It will be
essential reading for students, teachers and general readers.

KEITH WRIGHTSON is Randolph W. Townsend Jr Professor of History

at Yale University. He previously held positions at the Universities of
St Andrews and Cambridge, where he was Professor of Social
History. His publications include the ground-breaking English Society,
1580–1680 (1982), Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early
Modern Britain (2000) and Ralph Tailor’s Summer: A Scrivener, His
City and the Plague (2011), as well as many essays on the social
history of early modern England. He is a Fellow of the British
Academy, a former President of the North American Conference on
British Studies, and an Honorary Vice-President of the Social History
Society.
A SOCIAL H I S TORY OF
ENG LAND, 1 500 –1750
Edited by

Keith Wrightson
Yale University
 University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8B S , United Kingdom

One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA

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Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the

pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international
levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107041790

DOI: 10.1017/9781107300835

© Cambridge University Press 2017

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the

provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any
part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University
Press.

First published 2017

Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc

 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-107-04179-0 Hardback

ISBN 978-1-107-61459-8 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in
this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
 Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Framing Early Modern England

Keith Wrightson

Part I Discovering the English

1 Crafting the Nation

Cathy Shrank

2 Surveying the People

Paul Griffiths

3 Little Commonwealths I: The Household and Family

Relationships
Linda Pollock

4 Little Commonwealths II: Communities

Malcolm Gaskill
Part II Currents of Change

5 Reformations
Alec Ryrie

6 Words, Words, Words: Education, Literacy and Print

Adam Fox

7 Land and People

Jane Whittle

8 Urbanisation
Phil Withington

9 The People and the Law

Tim Stretton

10 Authority and Protest

John Walter

11 Consumption and Material Culture

Adrian Green

Part III Social Identities

12 ‘Gentlemen’: Remaking the English Ruling Class

Henry French
 13 The ‘Middling Sort’: An Emergent Cultural Identity
Craig Muldrew

14 The ‘Meaner Sort’: Labouring People and the Poor

Jeremy Boulton

15 Gender, the Body and Sexuality

Alexandra Shepard

16 The English and ‘Others’ in England and Beyond

Alison Games

Coda: History, Time and Social Memory

Andy Wood

Further Reading
Index
 Figures
8.1 Population in towns over 10,000 as a percentage of
entire population.

8.2 The ‘cultural provinces’ of pre-modern England and

Wales. From C. Phythian-Adams, Societies, Cultures and
Kinship, 1580–1850: Cultural Provinces and English Local
History (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1996), xvii. ©
C. Phythian-Adams 1996. Reproduced by permission of
Bloomsbury Publishing plc.

8.3 Rates of incorporation in England, Wales, Scotland and

Ulster, 1540–1640. From P. Withington, ‘Plantation and civil
society’, in É. Ó Ciardha and M. Ó Siochrú (eds.), The
Plantation of Ulster: Ideology and Practice (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2012), 70.
 Tables
7.1 The chronology of enclosure.

7.2 Land values, wheat prices and men’s wages compared.

7.3 Estimates of crop yields.

7.4 Population totals, age at marriage and proportion never

married, 1524–1751.

8.1 Urban percentage of total population, 1500–1800 (cities

over 10,000).

8.2 Cities in England and Wales by size of settlement, 1520–

1750.
 Contributors

Jeremy Boulton
University of Newcastle

Adam Fox
University of Edinburgh

Henry French
University of Exeter

Alison Games
Georgetown University

Malcolm Gaskill
University of East Anglia

Adrian Green
Durham University

Paul Griffiths
Iowa State University

Craig Muldrew
University of Cambridge

Linda Pollock
Tulane University

Alec Ryrie
Durham University

Alexandra Shepard
University of Glasgow

Cathy Shrank
University of Sheffield

Tim Stretton
Saint Mary’s University

John Walter
University of Essex

Jane Whittle
University of Exeter

Phil Withington
University of Sheffield

Andy Wood
Durham University

Keith Wrightson
Yale University
 Acknowledgements
As editor I wish to express my thanks to all the contributors to this
volume for their willingness to participate in the project. They were
asked to undertake the difficult and demanding task of handling
large themes within the constraints of relatively tight word limits,
and to do so in a manner that would not only survey the findings
and arguments of existing scholarship but also provoke fresh
thinking and suggest ways forward in research. Reading and
discussing the resulting draft chapters have been the most
stimulating and rewarding part of editing this book. I am grateful
also for their commitment in speedily writing final drafts, and their
efficiency in turning around queries and proofs in the final stages of
preparation and production. It has been a privilege to work with
them.
The map in Chapter 8 (Figure 8.2) is reproduced from C.
Phythian-Adams, Societies, Cultures and Kinship, 1580-1850:
Cultural Provinces and English Local History (Leicester: Leicester
University Press, 1996), xvii (© C. Phythian-Adams 1996). It is used
here by kind permission of Bloomsbury Publishing plc.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Christopher W. Brooks,
an outstanding historian of this period and a friend to many of us.
 Abbreviations

AHR
American Historical Review

BL
British Library

C&C
Continuity and Change

DUL
Durham University Library

EcHR
Economic History Review

EEBO
Early English Books Online

EHR
English Historical Review

HJ
The Historical Journal

HWJ
History Workshop Journal

IRSH
International Review of Social History

JBS
Journal of British Studies

JFH
Journal of Family History

JMH
Journal of Modern History

NRO
Norfolk Record Office

ODNB
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

P&P
Past & Present

RO
Record Office

SH
Social History

TNA
The National Archives, Kew

TRHS
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
 Introduction
Framing Early Modern England
◈

Keith Wrightson

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English, the verb ‘to frame’

meant to construct, join together, shape, form, or devise and invent.
‘Framing’ was ‘the action, method or process of constructing,
making or fashioning something’.1 All historical periods are
constructed or devised in this manner. Sometimes they are
bracketed by key events deemed to be of particular symbolic
importance: happenings ‘to which cultural significance has
successfully been assigned’.2 Sometimes they are defined in terms
of broader processes that are cumulatively transformative: the ‘rise’
of capitalism or individualism, for example, or the ‘decline’ of magic
or of the peasantry. But whatever the case, historical periods reflect
perceptions of the shape of the past that originate in particular
attempts to give it form and meaning, gradually become
conventional, and persist while they retain the power to persuade us
that they help make sense of it.
 The term ‘early modern’ has become the conventional English-
language way of describing the sixteenth, seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries: the period covered in this volume. It is
relatively novel in use. The orthodox view is that it emerged from
the 1940s, and became more widely adopted from the 1970s in both
history and adjacent disciplines (notably literary criticism of an
‘historicist’ cast). Despite this success, in recent years it has become
unusually contested. Those who dislike, or are at least
uncomfortable with, its widespread employment tend to emphasise a
number of objections. First, it is ‘a quite artificial term’, unknown in
the period to which it refers. It is a retrospective label, ‘a description
born of hindsight’, imposed upon the past. Moreover, it has been
uncritically adopted by those unaware of its deficiencies and
implications. It is vague and elusive in definition and inconsistently
applied. Its chronological boundaries vary not only with country but
also with topic. It may be meaningful when addressing some
themes, but is inappropriate to others. It is geographically restricted
in its applicability, making more sense when applied to those parts of
Europe in which these centuries witnessed significant change than to
those that retained more ‘traditional’ structures, and is largely
irrelevant outside the European context. While it has been widely
adopted in the historiographies of anglophone and German-speaking
countries, it is more rarely used elsewhere. Above all, the very
notion of an ‘early modern’ period allegedly embodies teleological
assumptions about the course of historical change. It is tainted with
‘Whiggish’ value judgements about ‘progress’ in human affairs.
Worse, that ethnocentric bias is compounded by its association with
the ‘modernization’ theories prevalent in the social sciences of the
1950s and 1960s. The very term ‘early modern’ ‘assumes that
European culture was travelling towards something called
“modernity”’; it contains ‘a teleological modernizing trajectory’, a
pre-ordained evolution towards ‘a uniform, homogenized world,
dominated by western-style economies, societies and participatory
politics’. Softer critics would warn against such linearity and redefine
the period so as to make its chronology even looser: back, where
appropriate, to the fourteenth century; forward, in other cases, to
the mid nineteenth century. Harder critics would abandon it
altogether – though generally remaining coy about what they would
put in its place.3
Such reservations are to be taken seriously insofar as they
promote reflection on the process of historical ‘framing’. Yet they are
not so telling as to demand the rejection of the very notion of a
distinctive and meaningful early modern period. To be sure, the
concept of such a period is artificial and retrospective. So is all
historical periodisation. It may be fair to say that it is sometimes
employed uncritically. So are many other historical coinages of
disputed meaning and generally forgotten ancestry that remain in
circulation because they are useful shorthands: ‘feudalism’;
‘Byzantium’; the ‘Renaissance’; the ‘Scientific’, ‘Agricultural’ and
‘Industrial’ revolutions; the ‘Counter- Reformation’; the
‘Enlightenment’; and so on. But it was not adopted simply as a
convenient label for a loosely defined period between
(approximately) the late fifteenth and late eighteenth centuries. Nor
did it arrive freighted with twentieth-century modernisation theory. It
emerged earlier, and for good reasons.

The sense that there was something distinctive about these

centuries of European history is hardly a new one. It existed long
before the term ‘early modern’ was coined, and it persists even in
those national historiographies that prefer to eschew that term. It
originated in the revival and dissemination of classical culture by the
humanist scholars of the Renaissance, and in an engagement with
that recovered legacy that enhanced their sense of difference from
what eventually became known as the ‘Middle Ages’ and convinced
them that they had entered a distinctive ‘modern’ age (meaning
simply the present or recent times). To this extent, our sense of the
early modern begins with an acceptance of ‘the terms of use laid
down by sixteenth-century scholars’.4 It culminates in the self-
perception of another justifiably self-conscious new age: that
ushered in by the American and French revolutions, the Latin
American wars of independence, and the technological and social
transformations of industrialisation. Historians looking back from the
vantage point of the nineteenth century came to divide ‘modern’
history into two phases. The earlier of these could be bracketed by
specific events: the opening of oceanic routes to the East, the
European discovery of the New World, the Reformation and the
shattering of western Christendom at one end, the Age of
Revolutions at the other. Alternatively, it could be defined in terms of
more diffuse processes: shifts in military technology; the formation
of (some) national states; the cumulative impact of print culture; the
expansion of commercial and industrial capitalism; the foundation of
extra-European colonial empires; philosophical innovation; radical
political thought; new ways of exploring the natural world. Whatever
the case, this period of European history seemed to have a
distinctive texture. It was not discontinuous with the past. All
developments have roots. It witnessed continuities as well as
changes. All historical periods do. But that did not preclude change
and growth of a kind that distinguished the period and laid tracks for
what came later. To recognise this does not imply teleology. It is
simply genealogy – a tracing of antecedents. Of course these
changes were not universal. Nothing ever is. But they proved to be
what most mattered.
The specific concept of the ‘early modern’ is also older than the
orthodoxy maintains. It was not, as is often alleged, coined in mid-
twentieth-century America in the context of economic history. So far
as is currently known, it originated in mid-Victorian England, in the
published Cambridge lectures of William Johnson, and in the context
of cultural history: specifically, as a means of expressing the way in
which the classical revival at the turn of the sixteenth century
enabled humanist scholars to engage critically with their own society
and to imagine a future. Johnson’s notion of the early modern has
been described as ‘an alternative and indigenous’ conception of the
Renaissance, one very much influenced by the self-perception of the
English humanist scholars of the sixteenth century. As a term it was
not immediately successful. But it re-emerged in the early years of
the twentieth century in another historical context: in the work of
scholars engaged in founding English economic history as a
distinctive approach to the past.
The notion that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a
period of significant transition in English economy and society was
also deeply embedded. It originated in the period itself, in the
writings of perceptive contemporaries who believed themselves to be
living in changing times, characterised by the erosion of an older
economic and social order and the animation of a new one. It was
elaborated in the work of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers who
traced the emergence of modern commercial society from the
sixteenth century; it informed Marx’s historical account of the
development of industrial capitalism in England; and it was central to
the writings of the English Historical Economists, James Thorold
Rogers, William Cunningham and W. J. Ashley. The Historical
Economists rejected the bleak dogmas of classical political economy
and turned to history in support of their contention that the validity
of economic theory is relative to the circumstances and values of a
particular time and place. They advocated the study of past
economic cultures in the round – an economic history that was also
social and cultural – and were acutely aware that economic change
involved a myriad of factors other than the purely economic. While
they might celebrate particular economic achievements, they were
also deeply concerned with what has been called ‘the distinctive
pathology of modern society’.5 They dismissed teleological
triumphalism, stressing instead the complexities and contingencies
of economic and social change, – the ironies and human costs of the
gradual, complex and uneven process of transition from an older set
of institutions, practices and values towards the world of laissez-faire
capitalism.
The British and American scholars who followed them with more
specialised studies of particular sectors of English economic life
between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries shared that general
perception of the period’s significance. Indeed, it is hard to see how
they could have done otherwise, since it was perfectly evident that
the England of the Industrial Revolution was a very different place
from that of Henry VII. They were the first rigorous analysts of what
Christopher Hill called ‘the colossal transformations which ushered
England into the modern world’.6 And it was in the emergent
literature of a broadly conceived economic history, among those that
pioneered deeper research into those transformations, that the term
‘early modern’ began to appear more frequently. J. U. Nef, who is
sometimes credited with having introduced the term in a paper
delivered to the American Historical Association in 1940, was of
course one of them. It was adopted because it was more
appropriate to their concern with long-term, gradual and diffuse
processes than the dynastic and biographical dates or discrete
centuries still most commonly applied to frame conventional political
history. A broader vision of the past needed a different kind of
‘chronological descriptor’.7
The notion of the early modern, then, was born of a more expansive
approach to the English past. That being the case, it is hardly
surprising that its more widespread diffusion occurred in the context
of the next major broadening of the range of historical concern: the
developments in social and cultural history that constituted the
major historiographical innovations of the later twentieth century.8
That movement was both international and interdisciplinary in
nature, and ironically it introduced the concept of the early modern,
through the interventions of anglophone historians, to the literatures
of countries whose own historians mostly preferred to do without it –
notably France and Italy.
In the English case, which is our concern, the rise of social
history from the 1960s and 1970s was in direct line of descent from
the more inclusive vision characteristic of early-twentieth-century
economic history.9 But it was also creating a new field, sometimes
almost from scratch. That involved first of all a massive expansion of
the historical agenda to include previously little-studied or wholly
neglected dimensions of the English past. It aspired to create a set
of histories that were surely there but had been largely excluded
from the purlieus of conventional historical study: ‘absent
presences’.10 In effect, it amounted to a call to discover a new
country: a more fully inhabited country. Secondly, the pursuit of new
questions meant identifying and exploring the potential of previously
unknown or little-used historical sources (and the institutions that
produced them), often at the local level in the county and diocesan
archives that were becoming increasingly organised and accessible
at the time. Thirdly, it required new methodologies, some of them
developed under the influence of adjacent disciplines (notably social
anthropology, historical geography and literary criticism) or
innovative foreign historiographies (initially the French Annales
school and later American ‘social-science history’ and Italian
‘microhistory’). These included quantitative analysis where
appropriate, or at least a more rigorous and systematic examination
of qualitative evidence, both frequently supplemented by forms of
record linkage. Finally, interpreting the findings of this research
necessitated a higher level of theoretical awareness in the fashioning
of historical arguments, both in approaches to particular problems
and in thinking about how societies work as interconnected systems.
Such interdisciplinarity might begin with an element of imitation: the
adoption of concepts and questions appropriate to the problem in
hand. But it usually gave way rapidly to critical engagement: the
generation of fresh conceptualisation and new interpretative insights
as historians in dialogue with the evidence provided by the past
sought to characterise unanticipated realities and to construct
credible accounts of change.
This movement transformed the sense of the early modern as a
distinctive period in several ways. First, it enhanced awareness of its
contours. Economic historians concerned with economic growth
before industrialisation had already established a more quantitatively
precise and chronologically exact account of change in sector after
sector of English economic life between the sixteenth and eighteenth
centuries: prices, real wages, land ownership, domestic and
overseas commerce, the diffusion of agricultural and industrial
innovation, and so on. This continued, creating in the process not
only a reconnaissance of national trends but also a greater
sensitivity to regional and social variations in their impact. But it was
now complemented and elaborated by comparable studies (at local,
regional and, where possible, national level) of population trends
and their constituent elements, urban growth, migration, popular
literacy, criminal prosecutions and civil litigation, living standards and
domestic consumption, poverty, and much more. People might joke
about the existence of an ‘early modern curve’ in which everything
seems to be increasing between the mid sixteenth and mid
seventeenth centuries, followed by a century of relative stabilisation
and consolidation before renewed growth in the later eighteenth
century. In fact, it was much more complex. In some respects, the
later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw a reversal of
previous trends – for example in the incidence of crisis mortality,
criminal prosecutions and litigation. In others they witnessed their
acceleration – in agricultural specialisation and industrial production,
urbanisation and metropolitan growth, commerce, consumption,
intensified communication networks, the expansion and
diversification of print culture, and the growth of waged
employment. And there were always forms of local and regional
variation that were in some respects enhanced over time – some
towns stabilised in size; others grew exponentially. The point is that
the contours of all this were being charted for the first time and that
this mapping seemed to confirm the distinctive identity of an ‘early
modern’ period: one that was not imposed upon the evidence but
grew from it.
Within that emergent sense of the broad shape of the early
modern period the studies of social institutions, social relations,
attitudes, values and patterns of behavior that were undertaken to
elucidate particular trends began to create not so much an ‘early
modern narrative’ as a series of related early modern narratives.
These were not conventional historical narratives, but analytical
narratives, concerned with demonstrating and explaining medium-to-
long-term processes of change. They were usually developed to
explore specific themes – population trends and their dynamics, for
example, or the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions, poverty and
developments in poor-relief, the growth of popular literacy, or
resistance to agrarian change. But each provided context for the
others, and cumulatively they contributed to a growing sense of a
process of ‘social and economic reconfiguration’ that took off from
the sixteenth century and ultimately produced what E. A. Wrigley
terms the ‘advanced organic’ economy and society that gave birth to
industrialisation in the later eighteenth century.11
These narratives contained many surprises. Whatever their
initial expectations, people found that the evidence presented
unanticipated realities, leading them to uncover and address new
problems and to make unexpected connections. They opened new
perspectives. That meant initially sociological and social
anthropological perspectives on continuity and change in social
structures, social relationships, attitudes and beliefs. But it soon
came to involve both the introduction of gender as a new category
of historical analysis, and greater appreciation of the independent
role of culture in the construction of historical reality. The narratives
of social history began to include, and to be enriched by, those of
cultural historians and historicist literary scholars concerned with
understanding contemporary concepts in their context; with
‘discursive trends’ and their relationship to social change –
reconstructing ‘the discursive spine of English early modernity’ –
with the creation of a novel ‘environment … congenial to literary
creativity’; and with the ‘emerging lexicons’ that marked change in
what could be said, thought, felt and ultimately done. They came to
involve attention to material culture and its meanings; to changes in
the landscape and in how spaces and places were used, defined,
perceived and represented; to changes in the perception of time and
in awareness of the historical past. They detected shifts in identity:
the interconnected construction of a national identity and regional
identities; the recasting of social identities; the shifts in individual
identity made possible by what have been called ‘the development
of technologies and languages for representing the self’ and ‘an
extraordinary burgeoning of the language of reflexivity’: new media
of self-expression; newly coined self-words.12
These early modern narratives were full of new stories: those
evocative episodes and accounts of past experience that people
scraped up against in the archives and that left indelible marks on
their historical skins. They contained new voices: for the most part
those of hitherto historically obscure people who nonetheless
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 Vertat vt in brutum de racione virum:
Ex oculis primum dabis, vt retinere secundum
Possis, dum causam lex regit ipsa tuam.
Causidici nubes sunt ethera qui tenebrescunt,508
Lucem quo solis nemo videre potest:
Obfuscant etenim legis clarissima iura,
Et sua nox tetra vendicat esse diem;
Istis inque viris perdit sua lumina splendor,
230 Verum mentitur, fraus negat esse fidem.
Lex furit et pietas dormit, sapiencia fallit,
Pax grauat, et lites commoda queque ferunt:
Et sic lex legis a ledo ledis in isto,
Et ius a iurgo, tempore iura legit.
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Causidici vanus tunc foret ille status.
Est bona lex in se fateor, tamen eius inique
Rectores video flectere iura modo.
Non licet, vt dicunt, quod conspiracio fiat,
240 Non tamen hoc faciunt quod sua iura docent:
Contra causidicum si quid michi lex det agendum,
Et peto consilium iuris habere meum,
Tunc dicunt alii, nolunt obstare sodali;
Sic ledunt, set eos ledere nemo potest.
Sic sibi causidicus mundi perquirit honores,
Subuertens lingue iura vigore sue:
Castiget reliquos lex quos vult, non tamen ipsos,
Quos deus aut mundus nescit habere probos.

Hic loquitur qualiter isti causidici et iuris

aduocati, in sua gradatim ascendentes
facultate, Iudicisque aspirantes officium,
iudicialis solii tandem cacumen attingunt; vbi
quasi in cathedra pestelencie509 sedentes,
maioris auaricie cecitate percussi, peioris quam
antea condicionis existunt.
Capm. iiii. Est Apprenticius, Sergantus post et Adultus,
250 Iudicis officium fine notabit eum.
Si cupit in primo, multo magis ipse secundo,
Tercius atque gradus est super omne reus;
Et sic lex grauibus auri moderatur habenis,
Quod modo per iustas non valet ire vias.
Libera qualis erat lex non est, immo ligatam
Carcere nummorum ceca cupido tenet:
Aurea ni clauis dissoluerit ostia clausa,
Eius ad introitum nullus habebit iter.
Nil manus in pulsu, nil vox clamore iuuabunt
260 Te cum lege loqui, qui sine claue venis:
Dux tibi si nummus non sit, conducat et ipse
Custodes legis, cassus abire potes.
Et sic causidicus causam, iudex neque iustum
Iudicium cernit, dux nisi nummus erit.
Sunt tria precipue, quibus est turbacio legis,
Vnde sui iuris perdit vbique locum;
Munus, amicicia, timor, hec tria iure negante
Pacta ferunt, quod eis obstat in orbe nichil.
Dicit enim Salomon oculos quod Iudicis aurum
270 Cecat, et est racio contaminata lucro;
Scimus et hoc omnes, qui iudicis extat amicus,
Perdere iudicio nil valet ipse suo.
Nouimus hoc eciam, tangat si causa potentem,
Cernere iusticiam dat timor inde fugam;
Horrendasque minas iudex non sustinet ipsas,
Sepius et precibus flectitur absque minis:
Litera magnatis dum pulsat iudicis aures,
Tollit vis calami debita iura sequi.
Set super omne modo sibi ve, qui pauper egendo
280 Quid petit in lege, dum nequit ipse dare!
Publica sunt ista nobis, quod lege moderna
Pauperis in causa ius negat acta sua.
Sic ego non video mea que sunt, set dubitando
Auribus attonitis quero cauenda malis.
Ecce dies in qua, fuerat que iuris amica,
 Nunc magis econtra lex gerit acta sua:
Larua tegit faciem, confundit glosaque textum,
Vertit et in logicam lex variata scolam;
Absque tamen numero sunt legis in orbe scolares,
290 Plurima sunt folia, fructus et inde minor.
Nomine sub iusto quam sepe nephanda parantur,
Subque dolus facie plurima iuris agit:
Qui magis in causis discernunt talibus orbem,
Crimina sunt cautis ista timenda viris.
Grandia per multos tenuantur flumina riuos,
Alueus et sterilis sic vacuatur aquis:
Pluribus expensis patitur thesaurus eclipsim,
Fit, nisi preuideat, sepeque diues inops:
Sic humus ista breui ditissima tempore pauper,
300 Excessus legum ni moderetur, erit.
Tollere nodosam nescit medicina podagram,
Sic nec auaricie lex medicamen habet.
Est mea bursa potens, lex inde subacta silebit,510
Preueniens auro singula iura fugo:
Aut si magnatis michi curia sit specialis,
Nil opus est legum viribus, ipse loquor.
Continuata diu sic vlcerat illa cicatrix,
Non habet vlterius iam noua plaga locum.

Hic loquitur quasi per epistolam Iudicibus

illis directam, qui in caduca suarum diuiciarum
multitudine sperantes, deum adiutorem suum
ponere nullatenus dignantur.

Capm. v. O qui iudicia vite mortis quoque rerum

310 Clauditis in manibus appreciata lucris,
De qua iusticia vosmet saluare putatis,
Cum sit lex aliis vendita vestra dolis?
O dilectores mundi falsique potentes,
Terre quique deos esse putatis opes,
O qui mundanos sic affectatis honores,
 Est quibus assidua sollicitudo comes,
Discite precipitem quia sepius ardua casum
Expectant que leui mobilitate cadunt.
Sepius alta cadit ventorum flatibus arbor,
320 Planta satis placido permanet atque gradu:
Aerias alpes niuibus candescere scimus,
Quas subito torquent frigus et omne gelu;
Est ibi ventorum rabies seuissima, dumque
Temperiem gratam proxima vallis habet.
Sic vobis numquam desunt aduersa, potentes,
Nec pax est vobis certa nec vlla quies.
Dic michi diuitibus si quando defuit hostis:
Quin magis hos quassat sepe ruina grauis.
Non dat securos nec ebur nec purpura sompnos,
330 Paupertas vili stramine tuta iacet:
Perdere quo possunt, torquet timor omnis auaros,
Vanaque sollicitis incutit vmbra metus.
Auri possessor formidat semper, et omnem
Ad strepitum fures estimat esse prope;
Arma, venena timet, furtum timet atque rapinas,
Fiduciam certam diues habere nequit.
Hunc, dum querit opes, cruciat miseranda cupido,
Cum iam quesitas cepit habere, timor.
Sic igitur miser est, dum pauper querit habere,
340 Et miser est diues, perdere dumque timet.
Dum iacet in plumis, vigilans mens aspera sentit,
Feruet enim variis exagitata dolis:
Dicit, ‘Habere volo vicini pauperis agrum,
Est etenim campus proximus ille meis.’511
Sic fugat a domibus pupillos iste paternis,
Insequitur viduas iudiciisque premit:
Deliciis fruitur de rebus pauperis iste,
Dampna set alterius computat esse nichil.
Si posset mundum lucrari, quis deus esset,
350 Vlterius scire nollet in orbe deum.
Iudex, nonne tui fulgor tibi sufficit auri,
Vt careat tenebris mens tua ceca tuis?
 Aproprias aurum tibi fertile, nec tamen vmquam512
Ad sterilem vitam respicis ipse tuam.
Iusticie montes Iudex vix ardua purus
Scandit, dum mundi rebus onustus erit.
Agrorum fines longos extendere queris,
Nec reputas vite tempora curta tue.
Quid petis argentum tibi? spem quid ponis in
aurum?
360 Sunt nam communes omnibus orbis opes.
Sepius ista dei data conspicis hostibus esse,
Ante deum nulla laus et habetur eis:
Ista paganus habet, Iudeus, latro cruentus;
Crede quod iratus sepe dat ista deus.
Parua puto, quecumque malos contingit habere,
Non est prauorum copia grande bonum.
O quociens vir iustus eget, scelerosus habundat,
Hic set non alibi, ius quia regnat ibi.
Dilectus domini moritur, dum viuit adulter,
370 Non tamen hii Cristi sunt in amore pares:
Egrotat iustus, dum sanus floret iniqus,
Fine tamen proprium quisque reportat onus.
Si tamen in mundo iudex sibi ferre salutem
Possit, non curat quid sibi finis erit.
O qui cuncta cupis, cur temet deseris? Omne
Est quod in orbe tenes, set neque temet habes.
O qui scis alios non te, tu notus ad omnes,
Non tibi quid prodest illa sciencia, nil.
Te noscas igitur primo, me nosce secundo,
380 Rectum iudicium sic sapienter age.
Omnia que mundi sunt diligis, omnia Cristi
Linquis, et ex nichilo credis habere satis:
Tu celum perdis, mundum lucraris, inane
Corpus supportas, spiritus vnde cadit.
Est tibi perfectum vanum, tibi mobile firmum,
Talis enim iudex non bene sentit opus:
Edificas turres, thalamos nouitate politos,
Quicquid et est orbis plus deitate colis:
 Edificas ampla, fossa clauderis in arta,
390 Quo medium frontis ostia clausa prement.
Quid vestes referam, lectos vel iudicis edes,
Quorum luxuries nescit habere pares?
Qui modo prospiceret habitacula queque fuerunt,
Alterius nouiter diceret illa Iouis.
Gloria nonne tuis erit aut tibi pompa perhennis,
Quas facis in domibus, dum tua lucra rapis?
En cecidit Babilon, cecidit quoque maxima Troia,
Romaque mundipotens vix tenet illa locum.
Omnis habet subitum mundana potencia finem,
400 Atque fuga celeri deserit ipsa suos:
Iudex, ergo time, magnos qui scandis honores,
Teque ruinoso stare memento loco.
Omne quod est mundi tibi carum transiet a te,
Inque tuis meritis iudicat ipse deus:
Equaque lex domini tunc que modo cernis
ineque513
Discernet, que tibi pondera iusta dabit.
Cum te terribilis exactor missus ab equo
Iudice sulphurei merget in yma laci,
Prodolor! infelix tunc, quamuis sero, dolebis,
410 Talibus in falsis spem posuisse bonis:
Gemma vel argentum nec ibi descendet et aurum,
Nec fragilis mundi gloria lapsa breui.
Iudicibus populi vanum tamen est quod in ista
Materia scripsi; perdita verba dedi:
Que nam iusticia, que vel sit Iudicis equa
Condicio, non est tempore visa modo:
Iusticiarius est; sub tali nomine fallit,
Qui sine iusticia nomen inane gerit.

Hic loquitur de errore Vicecomitum,

Balliuorum, necnon et in assisis iuratorum, qui
singuli auro conducti diuitum causas iniustas
 supportantes, pauperes absque iusticia
calumpniantur et opprimunt.

Capm. vi. Nunc eciam vicecomitibus quid dicere possum?

420 Numquid in assisis dant nocumenta viris?
Macra fit hec causa, de qua viget vnccio nulla
Distillans, vt eis vncta sit inde manus:
Legis in assisa si sint tua dona recisa,
Ius perit et causa scinditur inde tua;
Si tamen assessa sint pre manibus tua dona,
Tunc potes assisis sumere lucra tuis.
Vtque bouem, precio qui stat conductus aratro,
Sic tibi iuratos munere ferre vales:
Hii tibi proque tuis vendent periuria nummis,
430 Sic aurum iura vincit in vrbe mea:514
Diuitis iniustam causam sic cerno quietam,
Et iustam causam pauperis esse ream.
Non comes a vice, set vicio comes accipit ortum,
Iuris auaricie fert tamen ipse vices.
Sic dico vicecomitibus, quod munere victi
Communi populo dant nocumenta modo:
Nec sibi iurati sapiunt quid, sit nisi lucri,
De sale conditum quod dabis ante manum:
Causidici lanam rapiunt, isti quoque pellem
440 Tollunt, sic inopi nil remanebit oui.
Sic ego legiferis concludens vltima primis,
Dico quod ex bursa lex viget ecce noua;
Vt margaritas si porcus sumat in escas,
Sumunt legiferi sic modo iura sibi.
Vendere iusticiam quid id est nisi vendere
Cristum,515
Quem Iudas cupido vendidit ipse dolo?
Numquid adhuc Iude similis quis viuit in orbe?
Immo sibi plures viuere credo pares.
Namque semel Iudam talem committere culpam
450 Nouimus, hunc et eo penituisse lego;
 Nunc tamen vt merces vendunt communiter
omnes,
Gaudentes lucrum sic habuisse suum.
Rettulit hoc precium Iudas quod cepit iniqum,
Nec liquet hinc veniam promeruisse suam:
Nunc erit ergo quid hiis, vendunt qui iura sinistris,
Est quibus hora fori cotidiana quasi?516
Vt vorat et stricte tenet ipsa vorago gehenne,
Nec redit vllus homo liber ab ore suo,
Sic modo qui vendunt leges que premia carpunt,
460 Hec valet a manibus tollere nemo suis;
Et quia sic similes inferno suntque tenaces,
Credo quod infernus fine tenebit eos.
Quid seu Balliuis dicam, qui sunt Acherontis
Vt rapide furie? Tu magis inde caue.
Quo portas intrant, prenostica dampna figurant,
Cunctis namque viis ve comitatur eis.
Vt Crati bufo maledixit, sic maledico
Tot legum dominis et sine lege magis.

Hic loquitur quod sicut homines esse super

terram necessario expedit, ita leges ad eorum
regimen institui oportet, dummodo tamen legis
custodes verum a falso discernentes vnicuique
quod suum est equo pondere distribuant. De
erroribus tamen et iniuriis modo contingentibus
innocenciam Regis nostri, minoris etatis causa,
quantum ad presens excusat.517

Capm. vii.Pro transgressore fuerant leges situate,

470 Quilibet vt merita posset habere sua:
Nunc tamen iste bonus punitur, et alter iniqus,
Dum viget ex auro, iustificatur eo.
Omnia tempus habent et habet sua tempora
tempus,
Causaque sic causas debet habere suas.
 Quid mare conferret, altis dum fluctuat vndis,
Sit nisi nauis ei quam vehit vnda fluens?518
Set quid fert nauis nisi nauta regens sit in illa?
Quid valet aut nauta, si sibi remus abest?
Quid mare, quid nauis, quid nauta, vel est sibi
remus,
480 Sit nisi portus aquis ventus et aptus eis?
Gens sine lege quid est, aut lex sine iudice quid
nam,
Aut quid si iudex sit sine iusticia?
In patria nostra si quis circumspicit acta,
Hec tria cernet ibi sepe timenda michi.
Omnia dampna grauant, set nulla tamen grauiora,
Quam cum iusticiam iustus habere nequit.
Ex iniusticia discordia crescit, et inde
Cessat amor solitus, murmurat atque domus:
Murmur si veniat, venit et diuisio secum,
490 Terraque diuisa non bene stabit ea;
Et quodcumque sit hoc per se quod stare nequibit,
Ve sibi, nam subito corruet absque modo.
Testis enim deus est, dicens quod regna
peribunt519
In se diuisa, credoque dicta sua.
Ergo videre queunt quotquot qui regna gubernant,
Nostre pars sortis maxima spectat eis.
Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achiui,
Nam caput infirmum membra dolere facit:
Dux si perdat iter, errant de plebe sequentes,
500 Et via qua redient est dubitanda magis.
Propter peccatum regis populi perierunt,
Quicquid et econtra litera raro docet;
Regia set bonitas fert plebi gaudia pacis,
Nam deus ad sancti regis agenda fauet:
Si viciosus enim sit rex, quia lex nequit, ipsum
Vult punire deus, qui super omne potest.
Expediens populo foret vt bene viueret omnis
Rex, iacet in manibus sors quia bina suis:
 Vna salus populi rex qui bene viuit habetur,
510 Plebis et in pestem rex malus acta parit;
Eius enim scelera constat magis esse nociua,
Cuius habent populi condita iura sequi.
Cum sit maior homo, sunt plus sua crimina
tanto;
Dum cadit ex altis, leditur inde magis.
Plures cerno reos, magis attamen omnibus ipsos,
Legiferi qui sunt et sine lege manent.
Cum sine lege furit regni viciata potestas,
Esse nichil toto tristius orbe potest:
Sanccius esse pecus animoque capacius ipso
520 Estimo, qui iura dat neque seruat ea.
Imperium Regis non solum bella triumphis
Ornant, set leges seruet vbique bonas.520
Nonne domus poterit componere se sine lignis;
Set sibi quid ligna, si nec acuta foret?
Set quid acuta valet, nisi persistens operantis
Vnitis causis sit manus artificis?
Hec sibi si fuerint coniuncta, per omne iuuabunt,
Et si diuisa, pars sibi nulla iuuat.
Terra quid est sola, populus nisi sistat in illa?
530 Quid populus ve sibi, rex nisi regnet ibi?
Est quid rex, nisi consilium fuerit sibi sanum?
Sunt quid consilia, rex nisi credat ea?
Attamen in nostra sic stat diuisio terra,
Quod sibi quisque suam iam legit ire viam:
Conciues hodie discordia vexat in vrbe,
Extinguit quod ius quilibet alterius;521
Nec lex campestris est iam memorata magistris,
Set qui plus poterit, ipse magister erit.
Nunc clerus populum, populus culpat quoque
clerum,
540 Et tamen in culpa perstat vterque sua:
Invidus alterius nunc culpat quemlibet alter,
Parsque suum proprium nulla reformat iter.
Si videas vtrumque statum, dices quia certe
 In magnis lesi rebus vterque sumus.

Nunc magis i n s p e c i e v o x p l e b i s
clamat vbique
Pectore sub timido que metuenda
fero.
Curia que maior defendere iura
t e n e t u r,
Nunc magis iniustas ambulat ipsa
vias:
Infirmo capite priuantur membra
salute,
Non tamen est medicus qui modo
550 curat opus.
Est ita magnificus viciorum morbus
abortus,
Quod valet excessus tollere nulla
manus:
Sic oritur pestis, per quam iacet
obruta virtus,
Surgit et in vicium qui regit omne
forum.
Rex, puer indoctus, morales
n e g l i g i t a c t u s ,522
In quibus a puero crescere possit
homo:
Sic etenim puerum iuuenilis concio
ducit,
Quod nichil expediens, sit nisi
velle, sapit.
Que vult ille, volunt iuuenes sibi
consociati,
I l l e s u b i n t r a t i t e r, h i i q u e s e q u n t u r
560 eum:
Va n u s h o n o r v a n o s i u u e n e s f a c i t
esse sodales,
 Vnde magis vane regia tecta
colunt.
Hii puerum regem puerili more
subornant,
Pondera virtutum quo minus ipse
gerit.
Sunt eciam veteres cupidi, qui
lucra sequentes
Ad pueri placitum plura nephanda
s i n u n t :523
Cedunt morigeri, veniunt qui sunt
viciosi,
Quicquid et est vicii Curia Regis
habet.
Error ad omne latus pueri
consurgit, et ille,
Qui satis est docilis, concipit omne
570 malum:
Non dolus immo iocus, non fraus
set gloria ludi
Sunt pueris, set ei sors stat aborta
doli.
Sunt tamen occulte cause, quas
nullus in orbe
Scire potest, set eas scit magis
ipse deus:
Nescit enim mater nato que fata
p a r a n t u r,
Fine set occultum clarius omne
patet.
Ta l i a v o x p o p u l i c o n c l a m a t v b i q u e
moderni
In dubio positi pre grauitate mali:
Sic ego condoleo super hiis que
tedia cerno,
Quo Regi puero scripta sequenda
580 fero.
545-580 Text SCEHGDL As follows in TH₂

Nunc magis ecce refert verbi clamantis ad

aures524
Vox, et in hoc dicit tempore plura grauant.
Crimen et, vt clamat, fert maius curia maior,
Que foret instructor, legibus extat egens.
Ad commune bonum non est <modo> lingua
locuta,525
550* Immo petit proprii commoda quisque lucri.
Agmen adulantum media procedit in aula,
Quodque iubet fieri, curia cedit eis:526
Set qui vera loqui presumunt, curia tales
Pellit, et ad regis non sinit esse latus.
Stat puer immunis culpe, set qui puerile
Instruerent regimen, non sine labe manent:
Sic non rex set consilium sunt causa doloris,
Quo quasi communi murmure plangit humus.
Tempora matura si rex etatis haberet,
560* Equaret libram que modo iure caret:
Regis namque modus alios moderatur, et
omnis527
Iuris ad officium dicitur esse caput.
Si bonus esse velit rex, hii qui sunt bonitatis
Sunt magis edocti condicione bona:528
Si malus esse velit, simili rex sorte clientes,
Vt sibi complaciant, eligit, ornat, amat:529
Hoc set eum tangit discretum quem probat etas,
Non puerum, quia tunc fit sibi culpa minor
Non est nature lex nec racionis, vt illud
570* Quod mundum ledit sit puerile malum;
Non dolus, immo iocus, non fraus set gloria ludi,
Sunt pueris, nec ibi restat origo mali.
Dixit enim Daniel, quod de senioribus orta
 Exiit impietas, quam furor orbis habet:
Omne quod est mundi vicium plantant veterani,
Et quasi de peste spersa venena serunt.530
Horum namque scelus fertur maculare figuras
Tocius mundi, quo furit ira dei.
Iamque supercreuit dolus et defecit honestas,531
580* Sentit et opprobrium quod fuit ante decus.

Hic loquitur quod, exquo omnes quicumque mundi status

sub regie magestatis iusticia moderantur, intendit ad presens
r e g n a t u r o532 i a m Regi nostro quandam epistolam
d o c t r i n e c a u s a533 editam scribere consequenter, ex qua
ille rex noster, qui modo in sua puerili constituitur etate, cum
vberiores postea sumpserit annos, gracia mediante diuina, in
suis regalibus exercendis euidencius instruatur. Et primo dicit
quod, quamuis regalis potencia quodammodo supra leges
extollatur, regiam tamen decet clemenciam, quod ipse bonis
moribus inherendo, quasi liber sub iusticie legibus se et suos in
aspectu Regis altissimi assidue gubernet.

Capm. viii. Cumque sui Regis legi sit legius omnis

Subditus, et toto corpore seruit ei,
Est ita conueniens quod eum de corde fideli
Mentis in affectu legius omnis amet:
Regis et est proprium, commissam quod sibi
plebem
Dirigat, et iusta lege gubernet eam.
Hinc est, quod normam scriptis de pluribus ortam
Regis ego laudi scribere tendo mei.
O pie rex, audi que sit tua regula regni,
590 Concordans legi mixtaque iure dei.
Legum frena tenens freno te forcius arce;
Dum nullum metuis, sis metus ipse tibi:
 Namque timor, virtus humilis, fugit omne
superbum,
Et quasi virtutum clauiger esse solet.
Est tibi, rex, melius quod te de lege gubernes,
Subdere quam mundi singula regna tibi:
Est propter mundum tibi subdita sors aliorum,
Tu propter celum subditus esto deo.
Vt tibi deseruit populus de lege subactus,
600 Cristi seruiciis temet ad instar habe:
Vincere te studeas, alios qui vincis, et omnes
Excessus animi subdere disce tui:
Iustificans alios cupias te iustificare,
Iuraque dans plebi, des ita iura tibi.
Qui superas alios, temet superare labora;
Si rex esse velis, te rege, rex et eris.
Qua fore se regem poterit racione fateri,
Mentis qui proprie non regit acta sue?
Non valet hoc regimen aliis conferre salutem,
610 Dum sibi non fuerit rector, vt esse decet.
Dum tibi cuncta licent, ne queras cuncta licere,
Res etenim licite noxia sepe ferunt:
Tu super es iura, iustus set viue sub illis,534
Spesque tui nobis causa salutis erit.
Est mors ira tua, potes id quod non licet, et te
Prestita vota tamen ducere iuris habent:
Quod licet illesa mentis precordia seruat,
Omne tamen licitum non probat esse probum:
Quod licet est tutum, set que potes illa sub arto
620 Discute iudicio fultus honore tuo.
Micius acta regas, aliter nisi causa requirat;
Asperitas odium seuaque bella mouet.
Non te pretereat populi fortuna potentis
Publica, set sapiens talia fata caue.
Vita Pharaonis et gesta maligna Neronis,
Que iusto regi sunt fugienda docent.
O bone rex iuuenis, fac quod bonitate iuuentus
Sit tua morigeris dedita rite modis.
 Quid tibi forma iuuat vel nobile nomen Auorum,
630 Si viciis seruus factus es ipse tuis?
Doctor Alexandri Magni prauos sibi mores
Primitus edocuit, dum puer ipse fuit:
Rex puer hec didicit, que post dum dedidicisse
Temptauit, primus obstat abusus ei:
Vicit Alexander Darium simul et Babilonem,
Set nequit impressum vincere corde malum.
Nuper in exemplis scripserunt sic sapientes,
Quod prius imbuerit, testa tenere solet:
Rex, igitur cicius viciosos pelle remotos,
640 Nam vix turpe vetus nescit abire foras.
Plaude bonis, fuge prauorum consorcia, labem
De pice tractata contrahit egra manus.

Hic loquitur qualiter rex535 sibi male

consulentes caucius euitare, proditoresque
regni sui penitus extinguere, suorum eciam
conditiones ministrorum diligencius
inuestigare, et quos extra iusticiam errantes
inuenerit, debita pena corrigere debet et
districcius castigare.

Capm. ix. Sordibus implicitos falsosque cauebis amicos,

Qui tua deposcunt, te nec amare volunt:
Blanda dolosorum fugias per verba leuari,
Ne speciale tuum nomen ad yma ruant:
Verba nimis leuiter audire que credere dicta
Sepe supervacuos cogit inire metus.
Vir qui bella mouet, qui predas consulit, et qui
650 Conspirat taxas plebis habere tue,
O rex, oro tuas quod claudas talibus aures,
Ne tua nobilitas lesa fatiscat eis.536
Consilium regale tuum vir nullus auarus
Tangat, set tales mortis ad instar habe.
 Illud in orbe malum non est, q u o d c o r d i s
auari
Non latet in cella, dum sitit inde lucrum:
Ambulat in tenebris, opus exercet tenebrarum,
Odit et impugnat nil nisi pacis opus.537
Qui mel in ore gerens, set habens in corde
venenum,
660 Pacis habet verbum, mente notando malum,
Hic est versutus, inimicis regis amicus,
Semper venalis, dum vacat ipse lucris;
Vipereum genus et vanum plenumque veneno,538
Fraudibus, insidiis, artibus arma parat:
Semper in insidiis sedet incautisque nocere
Temptat, et occulto fabricat ipse dolos.
Hic rimans animos hominum secreta reuelat,
Et similis Iude fabricat acta sua.
Qui te sollicitat, rex, et subuertere temptat,
670 Qui te persuadet soluere iussa dei,
Quis sit et ipse vide, qualis vel condicionis,
Aut tibi si vera dicere verba velit.
Discute mente prius animum temptantis, et audi
Si vel constanter vel dubitanter agat,
Si tibi preponat dubium, mendacia fingens:
Semper deprendi verba dolosa timent.
Cum sit causa doli, pie rex, tu credere noli,
Si quis agat praue, tu sua facta caue.
Multus non credit, nisi cum res noxia ledit;539
680 Ante manum sapiens prouidet acta regens:
Decipiuntur aues per cantus sepe suaues;
Blande, rex, lingue mellea verba fuge.
Rex, bona digna bonis da premia, rex, et iniquis
Que sua promeruit premia culpa dabis:
Latro bonus veniam Cristo miserante meretur,
Penam promeruit in cruce latro malus.
Obsequium prauum trahit e manibus graue
donum,
Que sunt facta suo fine notabit homo.
 Si scelus vlcisci racio certissima poscit,
690 Iustus in hoc casu quod decet illud age.
Ficta tibi pietas non mulceat aspera iuris,
Vlcio iudicium compleat immo tuum:
Sepe pericla fera fert iudicis vlcio tarda,
Destruit ille bonos qui sinit esse malos.
Diuersas penas diuersis addito culpis,
Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.
Iudicii signum gladius monstrare videtur,
Proditor vt periat, rex tenet arma secus:540
Rex iubeat tales laqueo super alta leuari,
700 Ne periat Regis legis et ille status.541
Rex, age, ne plebis furiens discordia dicat,
‘Lex caruit rege iura paterna regens’:
Absit et hoc vulgo ne dicat, iure remoto,
Quod nichil auxilii principis vmbra facit.
Fraus cum fraude sua periat de morte remorsa,541
Vt stet iusticia regia laude tua:
Sic dicant populi, ‘Sit semper gloria regi,
Quo bona pax viguit, quo reus acta luit.’
Precipitur gladius vibratus semper haberi,
710 Prompcius vt crimen iudiciale ferat:
Ense quiescente, compescere non valet orbem;
Qui regnare cupit sanguine iura colat.
Arma ferunt pacem, compescunt arma rapacem,
Vt reus hec timeat, rex probus arma gerat;
Nomine subque tuo ledant ne forte quirites,
Plebem te tenero corde videre decet:
Si vis namque tuos non castigare ministros,
Crimen habet culpe regia culpa sue.
Euolat ancipiter ad predas, lucra suisque
720 Deseruit dominis in rapiendo cibos:
Sic sunt qui regi famulando suos et ad vsus
Tollunt pauperibus dampna ferendo nimis.
In prece pondus habet pauper qui clamat egenus
Ad dominum, memor est pauperis ipse sui.
Sicut enim presul, qui custos est animarum,
 Pondus in officio debet habere suo;
Compotus vtque suus, sic stabit et vltima merces,
Gloria vel pena perpetuatur ei;
Rex ita qui nostrum moderaris legibus orbem,
730 Dona tuis meritis conferet equa deus.
Posse tuum grande, rex, est, que potencior ille,
Omne tuum cuius dextera librat opus.

Hic dicit quod rex sano consilio adhereat,

ecclesie iura supportet et erigat,542 equs in
iudiciis et pietosus existat, suamque famam
cunctis mundi opibus preponat.

Capm. x. Sperne malos, cole prudentes, compesce

rebelles,
Da miseris, sontes respue, parce reis.
Quicquid agas, vicio numquam mergatur
honestum;
Fama lucro, rebus preficiatur opus.
Nil tibi, rex, fingas pro mundo, quo reputeris
Iustus apud proceres et reus ante deum:
Ecclesiam studeas multa pietate fouere,
740 Cuius enim precibus vult diadema geri.
Pauperis et vidue dum cernis adesse querelas,
Iudicium miseris cum pietate geras.
Expedit interdum sanccita remittere legum,543
Ne periat pietas de feritate tua:
Indulgere tuis tua sic dignetur honestas,
Nam puto sepe deum viuere velle reum.
Par quoque portet onus sic nobilis atque colonus,
Et nichil archanum polluat ante manum.
Ardua si causa tibi sit, videas, quia certe
750 Tarda solet magnis rebus inesse fides.
Rebus in ambiguis tu certum ponere noli,
Fallitur augurio spes bona sepe suo:
Est magis humani generis iactura dolori,
 Nescit principium quid sibi finis aget.
Dum tibi suadet opus tractare negocia regni,
Consilium regat hoc cum seniore senex.
Ibit in occasum quicquid dicemus ad ortum,
Lingua loquax habitum nesciat ergo tuum.
Consilium prauum regalem turbat honorem,
760 Prouocat inque scelus que bona pacis erant.
Iura dabit populo senior, discretaque iustis
Legibus est etas vnde petatur honor.
Est satis ille senex, cuius sapiencia sensum
Firmat in etate, sit licet ipse minor.
Non stabiles animos veteres fatuam ve
iuuentam544
Comprobo, non etas sic sua iura dedit:
In sene multociens stat condicio iuuenilis,
Dum iuuenis mores obtinet ipse senis.
Caucius ergo statum videas, pie rex, ad vtrumque;
770 Vnde legas homines, tu prius acta proba.
Qui tibi seruicium prebet nec invtilis aurum
Appetit, hic seruus debeat esse tuus:
Dulcius est mercede labor qui regis honorem
Spectat, et in tali spem tibi ferre potes.
Est qui pacificus, est vir qui iuris amicus,
Liber auaricie, largus ad omne bonum,
Vtere consilio tali, pie rex, vt habundet
Cronica perpetue laudis in orbe tue.
Fama volans gratis, nullo soluente cathenas,545
780 Proclamat meritis ista vel illa tuis:
Nomen, crede, bonum gasas precellit, honorem
Conseruat, remouet scandala, laude viget:
Tange bonum florem, dulcem prestabit odorem,
Sic virtusque viri fragrat vbique boni.
Consule doctores legis, discede malorum
A conventiculis, concomitare bonos:
Vt granum de messe tibi, de fonte salubri
Pocula, de docto dogmata mente legas.