MARY, an Anglo-Norman Poetefs. 45

. would not have engaged in it but for the folicitation of a man who was the Jlower of chivalry and court efy, and whom, at the conclu- fion of her work, me has called Earl William. Por amor le conte Guilliaume, Le plus vaillant de ceft royaume, Mentremis de ceft livre faire, Et de 1'Anglois en Romans traire, &c. [0] Monfieur le Grand, in his preface to fome of Mary's fables which he has publifhed in French profe, informs us that this perfon was ILarl William de Dampierre [/>] ; but he mould have given fome au- thority for this opinion, for want of which we muft treat it as a mere conjecture. If, on the one hand, there feems to be little that he could have urged in its defence, it is by no means difficult on the other to find reafons to confute it. William, lord of Dampierre in Champagne, had in himfelf no right whatever to the title of Earl. During the I3th century this dignity was by no means affumed indifcriminately and at pleafure by French gentlemen ; it was generally borne by whoever was the owner of a province, and fometimes of a great city, conftituting an earldom ; fuch were the earldoms of Flanders, of Artois, of An- jou, of Paris, &c. It was then that thefe great vaiTals of the crown had a claim to the title of Earl, and accordingly aflumed it [q]^ Now the territory of Dampierre was not in this predicament dur- ing the 1 3th century ; it was only a fimple lordfhip belonging to the lords of that name [r], It is true, indeed, that William de Dampierre married, after the year 1223, Margaret of Flanders ; but flie did not bring him the [0] Conclufion of Mary's Fables. [pi Fabliaux du xii. and xiii. fiecle, Vol. iv. p. 321. [<]] Didtionn. Raifonne de Diplomatique Verbo Comtc. [r] Martiniere Di6t. Geographique, V. Dampierre. earldom;