Polydore Vergil - Reputation and Legacy

Reputation and Legacy

In continental Europe, Vergil is principally remembered for the De Inventoribus Rerum and the Adagia: these are the works which secured his reputation before he ever came to England, and which he himself regarded as his masterpieces, writing "I, Polydore, was the first of the Romans to treat of these two matters". The De Inventoribus receives a mention, for example, in Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605-15).

In England, however, Vergil is more often remembered as author of the Anglica Historia. The work is an important primary source in its own right for the period 1460-1537, and as a secondary source continued to exert an influence on English historiography into the 19th century. It provided the chronicler Edward Hall with much of his sense of 15th-century English history, and so fed into the history plays of William Shakespeare.

A particularly controversial element of Vergil's work in England was the scepticism he expressed – first in his edition of Gildas, and then in the Anglica Historia – towards the traditional account of the early history of Britain derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth, and in particular towards the question of the historicity of King Arthur. This criticism touched a patriotic nerve with the antiquary John Leland, who responded forcefully, first in an unpublished tract, written perhaps in 1536, the Codrus sive Laus et Defensio Gallofridi Arturii contra Polydorum Vergilium ("Codrus", a reference to Vergil, was a type-name drawn from Juvenal for an offensive hack-poet); and afterwards in a longer published treatment, the Assertio inclytissimi Arturii regis Britannia (1544). Although Leland was critical of Vergil's views in the Assertio, he treated his opponent with respect, acknowledging his intelligence and his mastery of Latin style.

On another contentious issue, Vergil came down in favour of the claims of the University of Cambridge to be a more ancient foundation than the University of Oxford. When this was mentioned in a debate in the House of Commons in 1628, the Oxonian Edward Littleton sneered, "What have we to do with Polydore Vergil? One Vergil was a poet, the other a liar."

Other English readers also reacted vehemently to what seemed to be criticisms of their national history. John Bale in 1544 accused Vergil of "polutynge our Englyshe chronycles most shamefullye with his Romishe lyes and other Italyshe beggerye". An anonymous contemporary described him as "that most rascall dogge knave in the worlde", claiming that "he had the randsackings of all the Englishe lybraryes, and when he had extracted what he pleased he burnt those famouse velome manuscripts, and made himself father to other mens workes". This charge of burning manuscripts was widely reported. John Caius in 1574, for example, asserted that Vergil had "committed as many of our ancient and manuscript historians to the flames as would have filled a waggon, that the faults of his own work might pass undiscovered". Henry Peacham in 1622 similarly accused him of having "burned and embezeled the best and most ancient Records and Monuments of our Abbeies, Priories, and Cathedrall Churches, under colour … of making search for all such monuments, manusc. records, Legier bookes, &c. as might make for his purpose".

However, one of Peacham's contemporaries, the Leicestershire antiquary William Burton, cast Vergil in a more positive light, describing him as "a man of singular invention, good judgement, and good reading, and a true lover of antiquities". In the 19th century, Vergil's importance to English historiography finally began to be acknowledged, as "historians of Tudor England realized the scope of his achievement in the Anglica Historia".