I devise to end my days--in a tavern drinking; May some Christian hold for me--the glass when I am shrinking; That the Cherubim may cry--when they see me sinking, God be merciful to a soul--of this gentleman's way of thinking. The lines, in rhyming Latin, became a drinking catch, conceivably they were that before, and were merely put into the Bishop's mouth as a proof of his bad character. The word "Golias" as a nickname for a ribald "Philistine" priest was hundreds of years older than Map's time. A long romance in French, on Launcelot, the Holy Grail, and the death of Arthur, is attributed to Map in some manuscripts, and as a contemporary romancer says that Map "could lie as well as himself"--that is, like himself wrote romances of love and tournaments--he may possibly have been the author of "the great book in Latin which treats openly of the history of the Holy Grail". But no copy of that Latin book is known to exist, nor is it certain that it ever existed, while Map, as we know, said that he did not write much of any sort, especially not in Latin. Changes Since the Conquest. It is plain that, within a century from the battle of Hastings, new influences of many kinds were working in England, and changing the national character and intellect. There was the learning from Paris University, and from the Continent in general; there was the clearer intellect and energy of the Normans; the vivacity of such Welshmen or men from the Welsh marches as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerald, and Map. Anglo-Saxon literature had never been vivacious. There were the new topics, "the matter of Britain," the Celtic legends of Arthur, whether derived from Wales or from Brittany--matter most romantic, and suited to the coming poets who, unlike the Anglo-Saxons, were to glorify love. There was, too, the constant excitement and variety that came from travel, whether in the Crusades, in pilgrimages, or to France and Rome on public or private business, or in search of books and teachers. In various ways knowledge of Saracen science and learning, translations of Aristotle from the Arabic into the Latin, and romantic ideas derived from the fables and tales of far-off India, filtered into England. These things were for priests and book-loving lords and courtiers. Their wits were sharpened by knowledge of several tongues. All educated men knew Latin; "all men of this land," said Robert of Gloucester (about 1270) "who are of Norman blood, hold to French, and low men hold to English," but high men of English blood would talk in English to their farmers and servants. All who learned Latin learned it through French books, but country priests would preach in English.