Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/22

xviii the crusades was entitled Gesta Dei per Francos, and a history of England would be called Gesta Anglorum. But the gesta told in the collection of Pierre Bercheure have no more relation to history than most of the emperors in whose reigns they are supposed to have occurred, among whom we find such names as Mereclus, Solemius, Bononius, Bertoldus, Ciclades, Lamartinus, and the like. To show the ignorance of Roman history, or of any history, displayed by the compiler, I need only state that in one tale we find living together at the same time in Rome the emperor Claudius, the philosopher Socrates, and king Alexander. Pompey, too, is introduced among the Roman emperors. In another tale we are told of a statue raised to the honour of Julius Cæsar, in the capitol, twenty-two years after the foundation of Rome.

It appears to be now the general opinion of scholars in the history of mediæval literature