ABSTRACT
John de Trevisa (1326–1402) was born in Cornwall, presumably of Cornish-speaking parents. He was a fellow of Exeter College and later of Queen’s College, Oxford, and was appointed vicar of Berkeley in Gloucestershire. Under the patronage of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, he completed his two major works, a translation in 1387 of Higden’s Latin Polychronicon (1327), and a translation in 1398 of the widely used encyclopedia De Proprietatibus Rerum (ca. 1250), excerpted here.
