Walter Map

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Walter Map (~1137-1209) was a medieval writer, probably either of Welsh origin or from Herefordshire (which at the time was almost the same thing). He was of noble birth, and acted as a clerk to King Henry II of England, later becoming chancellor of Lincoln, canon of St Paul's and archdeacon of Oxford. His only surviving work, De Nugis Curialium (Trifles of the Court) is a collection of anecdotes and trivia, containing court gossip and a little real history, and written in a satirical vein. The Prose Lancelot cycle claims him as an author, though this is contradicted by internal evidence; some scholars have suggested he wrote an original, lost Lancelot romance that was the source for the later cycle. Map was alleged to have written a quantity of Goliardic poetry, and along with William of Newburgh, he recorded the earliest stories of English vampires.

His descriptions of the activities of heretics contributed to the development of the idea of witchcraft (Ruickbie, 2004:68).

References

• Leo Ruickbie, Witchcraft Out of the Shadows: A Complete History. Robert Hale, 2004.

External links

• Latin Chroniclers from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries: Walter Map from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume I, 1907–21.
• Biography from the Catholic Encyclopedia.de:Walter Map