Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Simon du Fresne
SIMON du FRESNE, Fraxinetus, or Ash (fl. 1200), poet, was a canon of Hereford. A friend of Giraldus Cambrensis [q. v.], he addressed two epigrams to him, defending him against poetical detractors such as Adam of Dore; both are printed from a manuscript at Lambeth in Giraldus's ‘Works;’ one is extant in Cotton. MS. Vitellius E. v. He wrote also a romance, ‘De la Fortune,’ an adaptation of Boethius's ‘Consolatio Philosophiæ,’ in seventeen hundred French verses (extant in Brit. Mus. MS. Reg. 20 B. xiv. ff. 67 sqq.; another version is in Douce MS. ccx. 51, in the Bodleian). The opening verses are written in acrostic form to read ‘Simund de Freine me fist.’ Part of it has been printed by M. Paul Meyer in ‘Bulletin de la Société des Anciens Textes,’ 1880, No. 3, p. 80. He wrote also, using a similar device, a ‘Life of St. George,’ in French verses of seven syllables, which is not known to be extant.
[Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. Brewer and Dimock (Rolls Ser.), i. 382; Wright's Biogr. Brit. Lit. ii. 349–50.]