Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis - Together With the English Translations of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century #271392

The remainder of Higden's First Book, or Map of the World, is taken up with an account of England, and this is given in much more detail than any other, occupying in fact nearly a third of the whole book (capp. xxxix.-lx.).<br><br>In the thirty-ninth chapter he announces the ten divisions under which he proposes to treat of England, viz., its name, site, productions, marvels, principal divisions, adjacent islands, roads, rivers, cities, and counties. He then enlarges on the first of these, and notes that the island was originally called Albion, a name which he connects with the whiteness of its marine rocks, and afterwards Britannia, so called, according to Higden, from Brutus, the grandson of Æneas, in accordance with the Trojanising notions which held our medieval historians spell-bound.