The great majority of these Middle English works contain within themselves no clear statement as to which of the many possible methods have been employed in their production. As in the case of the Anglo-Saxon _Andreas_, a retelling in English of a story already existing in another language often presents itself as if it were an original composition. The author who puts into the vernacular of his country a French romance may call it "my tale." At the end of _Launfal_, a version of one of the lays of Marie de France, appears the declaration, "Thomas Chestre made this tale."[19] The terms used to characterize literary productions and literary processes often have not their modern connotation. "Translate" and "translation" are applied very loosely even as late as the sixteenth century. _The Legend of Good Women_ names _Troilus and Criseyde_ beside _The Romance of the Rose_ as "translated" work.[20] Osbern Bokenam, writing in the next century, explains that he obtained the material for his legend of St. Margaret "the last time I was in Italy, both by scripture and eke by mouth," but he still calls the work a "translation."[21] Henry Bradshaw, purposing in 1513 to "translate" into English the life of St. Werburge of Chester, declares, Unto this rude werke myne auctours these shalbe: Fyrst the true legende and the venerable Bede, Mayster Alfrydus and Wyllyam Malusburye, Gyrarde, Polychronicon, and other mo in deed.[22] Lydgate is requested to translate the legend of St. Giles "after the tenor only"; he presents his work as a kind of "brief compilation," but he takes no exception to the word "translate."[23] That he should designate his _St. Margaret_, a fairly close following of one source, a "compilation,"[24] merely strengthens the belief that the terms "translate" and "translation" were used synonymously with various other words. Osbern Bokenam speaks of the "translator" who "compiled" the legend of St. Christiana in English;[25] Chaucer, one remembers, "translated" Boethius and "made" the life of St. Cecilia.[26] To select from this large body of literature, "made," "compiled," "translated," only such works as can claim to be called, in the modern sense of the word, "translations" would be a difficult and unprofitable task. Rather one must accept the situation as it stands and consider the whole mass of such writings as appear, either from the claims of their authors or on the authority of modern scholarship, to be of secondary origin. "Translations" of this sort are numerous. Chaucer in his own time was reckoned "grant translateur."[27] Of the books which Caxton a century later issued from his printing press a large proportion were English versions of Latin or French works. Our concern, indeed, is with the larger and by no means the least valuable part of the literature produced during the Middle English period.