planet is made in its own circle that is called Eccentric, and it is
called so for the earth is not the middle thereof, as it is the middle
of the circle that is called Zodiac. Epicycle is a little circle that
a planet describeth, and goeth about therein by the moving of its
body, and the body of the planet goeth about the roundness thereof.
And therefore it sheweth, that the sun and other planets move in their
own circles; and first alike swift, though they move diversely in
divers circles. Also in these circles the manner moving of planets is
full wisely found of astronomers, that are called Direct, Stationary,
and Retrograde Motion. Forthright moving is in the over part of the
circle that is called Epicycle, backward is in the nether part, and
stinting and abiding or hoving is in the middle.




II

MEDIAEVAL MANNERS


The sixth book of our author deals with the conditions of man, passing
in review youth and age, male and female, serf and lord. Our extracts
from it fall into three groups. The first deals in great measure with
the relations of family life. We have an account of the boy and the
girl (as they appeared to a friar "of orders grey"), the infant and
its nurse. However we may suspect Bartholomew of wishing to provide a
text in his account of the bad boy, it is consoling to find that the
"enfant terrible" had his counterpart in the thirteenth century, as
well as the maiden known to us all, who is "demure and soft of speech,