ABSTRACT
To list all the patrons of letters in the Middle Ages, besides being a tedious and unprofitable task, would also be an impossible one, if one went about it with the intention of doing justice to each name. Suffice it to say that patrons were numerous, and that whenever we hear of a glorious and brilliant court, it is almost safe to put it down as one at which arts and letters flourished, for patronage was a thing of fashion. At a court one should not live, Save to get or else to give; And niggard hearts if courtly fashions cloak, ’Tis not a court, but crowds of worthless folk, 1
