substance of his sermons. The result was the "Liber de moribus Hominum
et officiis Nobilium ac Popularium super ludo scachorum," which
immediately attained great popularity. This is shown by the bibliography
of Dr. A. Van der Linde in a striking manner, for he has described two
hundred codices to be found in the various public libraries of
Europe.[16]

The difficulties in the way of forming any clear conception as to the
life and personality of Cessoles, Ferron, and De Vignay are well shown
in an article by M.C. Leber.[17] Dr. Ernst Köpke, who has reexamined the
evidences as to Cessoles, holds that he was a Lombard.[18]

The chief source from which Cessoles took his material was the treatise
"De Regimine Principum" of Egidius Romanus.

He was of the great Neapolitan family of the Colonna, and his Christian
name appears to have been Guido, but his designations have undergone
some curious transformations. Born at Rome, 22nd Sept., 1216, Guido
Colonna went at an early age to Paris, where, from the name of his
birthplace, he became known as Ægidius Romanus, with the French form of
Gilles de Rome. He was an ardent and enthusiastic disciple of St. Thomas
Aquinas, and his familiarity with that great doctor of the Church led
him to desire admission to the Dominican order, but a difficulty
intervened from the circumstance that he had already contracted ties
which bound him to the order of St. Augustine. To this untoward accident
may probably be attributed no little of the extension of the
philosophical doctrine of Aquinas; for Colonna, unable or unwilling to
be relieved of the vows that bound him to the Augustinians, preached
eagerly amongst them the Thomist speculations of his friend and master.
In the controversy with the Franciscans, those whom he had indoctrinated