340 THE MASTERS OF THE SCHOOLS AT July Pullus, or vice versa ; for both were famous theologians. But I incline to think that Robert Pullus is designated by Amiclas for the following reasons. Pullus may indeed be the adjective, ' brown ' ; but almost certainly it is the substantive, meaning the young of any animal, as a colt or a cockerel, because very early his surname appears as Pullanus, the French poulain. This form is given by John of Hexham, who wrote soon after 1153.^ It is not unlikely that pullanus had a depreciative implication and was used to mean a poor sort of person. If so, this is just what Amiclas had come to mean : it was the opposite of Croesus} But the fact has not been generally understood. Haureau, expert palaeographer as he was, actually proposed to emend Amictus, a translation of Pallain, of which Pullanus might be a corruption. This need not be considered. Amiclas has a definite meaning which can be illustrated from more than one writer of the twelfth century. Matthew of Vendome, who wrote not very many years later, wrote in the dedication of his Tobias : Vos, vos, vestra precor plantatio, vester Amiclas, portus intimidum confoveatis iter.' Caspar Barth, commenting on this passage, thought at first that amiclas was a mistake for amiclus, that is amiculus ; but then he remembered pauper Amyclas in Lucan's Pharsalia, v. 539, where Amyclas is the poor boatman whose craft Caesar made use of in a famous adventure ; and he noted that the manuscript
- Contin. of Symeon of Durham, 0pp. ii. 319, ed. T. Arnold, 1885.
- It was not, I think, until a later time that the word pullanus came to mean
a person of mixed breed. Ducange, indeed, quotes ' Pullani dicuntur qui de patre Syriano et matre Francigena generantur ' from the Vie de Louys le Oros, ch. 24 {ObservO' iions on Joinville's Vie du Roy Sainl Louys, p. 84, 1668) ; and this is reprinted in the later editions of his Olossarium, vii. 356, ed. 1850. But the passage in fact, as reproduced with a corrected reference in the Olossarium, s.v., is taken from the life not of Louis the Fat but of Louis VII ; and this work, usually cited as the Oesta Ludovici VII (Duchesne, Hist. Francorum Script, iv. 408, 1641), is merely a Latin version of part of the Orandes Chroniques of the thirteenth century. There seems to be no evidence to carry back this meaning of the word to the twelfth. If it could be proved, it might suit Robert ; for John of Hexham says that Rodbertus Pullanus was Britannia oriundus. But this interpretation of the name is highly improbable.
- The lines are printed corruptly by Ja Heringius, 1641 (Migne, ccv. 934 b), as
Vos, vos vestra precor plantatio, vester Amiclas poscit me timidum confoveatis iter. But poscit is found neither in the undated Rouen text of Robinet Macd nor in any of the four Bodleian manuscripts which I have consulted. They read, Portuus ut timidum confoveatis iter (MS. Auct. F. 5. 6, fo. 116 b, late thirteenth century). Partus in tumidum [Portus intimidum, MS. Laud. Misc. 242, fo. 109 a, early thirteenth century] confoveatis inops (MS. Laud. Misc. 515, fo. 39 6, early thirteenth century, and Auct. F. 1. 17, fourteenth century). Inops is evidently a gloss on Amiclas which has been taken into the following line and has extruded iter.
