Pauli Iovii Novocomensis opera quotquot extant omnia

original: "acceptum retulerim" which is to say, [I attribute it to] the serious embassies and the learned talents of men, always supplied even from the furthest ends of the earth with joyous and renewed fertility, from which these things, unknown to many and obscured by the lies of those who vary the truth, might be most clearly understood. Therefore, following the order of the ancients, we shall first describe Europe, beginning with Britain, although by the best right we ought to have begun with Italy, once the conqueror of all nations, and from the City herself, august from eternal and fated empire, so that, with vows religiously addressed in the seat of sacred things and the home of true piety, the deity of good success might shine upon the conceived work, just as we would wish it auspicious and happy for your virtue and the glory of the best Pope.

Decorative initial letter I.THE BEGINNING of the work for me shall therefore be BRITAIN, following the authority and order of Ptolemy, since it was the first of the lands to meet those going to the west, the further Ocean not yet (by Hercules) revealed to our fleets, which finally, through marvelous navigation, opened to us nations and wealthy kingdoms unknown before. Moreover, I would consider it a work of ambition to disclose the site and measure of that island, the nature of the sky and soil, and the promontories and bays of the surrounding and pulsing Ocean, since it is described diligently by the most grave authors C. Caesar, Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus, and Ptolemy; hence it also happens that I shall less curiously touch upon the origins of the nation, famous in war, which are extinguished by profound antiquity and wrapped in fables, the reliability of which we shall leave to Polydore Vergil. For he, having stayed a long time in Britain, published the histories of all the kings in a laborious volume. Our task, however, will be to have touched upon the most famous kings and to have placed before the eyes of the present century the appearance of those who are silent, with the whole Island divided into broader and nobler provinces, and having represented in passing the fame of the king, who, when he had previously been raised to the highest pinnacle of true glory by illustrious piety and virtue of spirit, finally fell, moved by an unusual perturbation of mind. Therefore, I would believe the Britons were indigenous, or if they migrated from elsewhere by ships, they are an entirely most ancient nation, as they gave the name to the island, which was previously called Albion, because it shows from afar the margins of white sand to those looking from the Belgian shore. From the beginning, the Britons obeyed different kings at the same time, and struggling bravely for their liberty for a long time, they sustained Roman arms; having been conquered by them, rather than tamed, they yielded in such a way that they seemed to honor them by a certain honest name of friendship as the conquerors of nations. Moreover, Lucius, son of Coillus, being king about one hundred years after the birth of the Virgin, the Britons received Christian rites, but religion, rightly conceived in their minds, wavered for some time due to the fear of the Caesars, especially Diocletian, when those who had ceased to honor the ancient deities were punished with cruel tortures and torments. Thus, the religion begun under Pope Eleutherius was finally strengthened and established by the piety and authority of the divine Gregory. Britain flourished by the indulgence and zeal of the great Emperor Constantine, because he, born in Britain of a British mother, and having been greeted as Emperor there under an illustrious omen, had undertaken to enrich and raise his native soil with benefit and dignity. But not long after, when the resources of the Roman Empire were afflicted and distracted, when the Persians were penetrating into Syria, the Goths were ravaging Thrace, and the Hun Attila was shaking all of Europe with immense terror, the Picts first invaded the extreme part of Britain with arms from Norway, then the Scots crossed over from Ireland, whose ferocity and onslaught the Briton could not bear for long, and having been driven away, he left that tract of land which ends in the northern Ocean up to the Caledonian forest to the enemies. That, by the river Tweed,