The motives of the earl’s defiance were not altogether disinterested. He had suffered twice from the chicanery of Edward’s lawyers; in 1284 when a dispute between himself and the royal favourite, John Giffard, was decided in the latter’s favour; and again in 1292 when he was punished with temporary imprisonment and sequestration for a technical, and apparently unwitting, contempt of the king’s court. In company, therefore, with the earl of Norfolk he refused to render foreign service in Gascony, on the plea that they were only bound to serve with the king, who was himself bound for Flanders. Their attitude brought to a head the general discontent which Edward had excited by his arbitrary taxation; and Edward was obliged to make a surrender on all the subjects of complaint. At Falkirk (1298) Humphrey VII. redeemed his character for loyalty. His son, Humphrey VIII., who succeeded him in the same year, was allowed to marry one of the king’s daughters, Eleanor, the widowed countess of Holland (1302). This close connexion with the royal house did not prevent him, as it did not prevent Earl Thomas of Lancaster, from joining the opposition to the feeble Edward II. In 1310 Humphrey VIII. figured among the Lords Ordainers; though, with more patriotism than some of his fellow-commissioners, he afterwards followed the king to Bannockburn. He was taken captive in the battle, but exchanged for the wife of Robert Bruce. Subsequently he returned to the cause of his order, and fell on the side of Earl Thomas at the field of Boroughbridge (1322). With him, as with his father, the politics of the Marches had been the main consideration; his final change of side was due to jealousy of the younger Despenser, whose lordship of Glamorgan was too great for the comfort of the Bohuns in Brecon. With the death of Humphrey VIII. the fortunes of the family enter on a more peaceful stage. Earl John (d. 1335) was inconspicuous; Humphrey IX. (d. 1361) merely distinguished himself as a captain in the Breton campaigns of the Hundred Years’ War, winning the victories of Morlaix (1342) and La Roche Derrien (1347). His nephew and heir, Humphrey X., who inherited the earldom of Northampton from his father, was territorially the most important representative of the Bohuns. But the male line was extinguished by his death (1373). The three earldoms and the broad lands of the Bohuns were divided between two co-heiresses. Both married members of the royal house. The elder, Eleanor, was given in 1374 to Thomas of Woodstock, seventh son of Edward III.; the younger, Mary, to Henry, earl of Derby, son of John of Gaunt and afterwards Henry IV., in 1380 or 1381. From these two marriages sprang the houses of Lancaster and Stafford.
See J. E. Doyle’s Official Baronage of England (1886), the Complete Peerage of G. E. C(okayne), (1867–1898); T. F. Tout’s “Wales and the March during the Barons’ War,” in Owens College Historical Essays, pp. 87-136 (1902); J. E. Morris’ Welsh Wars of King Edward I., chs. vi., viii. (1901). (H. W. C. D.)
BOIARDO, MATTEO MARIA, Count (1434–1404), Italian poet, who came of a noble and illustrious house established at Ferrara, but originally from Reggio, was born at Scandiano, one of the seignorial estates of his family, near Reggio di Modena, about the year 1434, according to Tiraboschi, or 1420 according to Mazzuchelli. At an early age he entered the university of Ferrara, where he acquired a good knowledge of Greek and Latin, and even of the Oriental languages, and was in due time admitted doctor in philosophy and in law. At the court of Ferrara, where he enjoyed the favour of Duke Borso d’Este and his successor Hercules, he was entrusted with several honourable employments, and in particular was named governor of Reggio, an appointment which he held in the year 1478. Three years afterwards he was elected captain of Modena, and reappointed governor of the town and citadel of Reggio, where he died in the year 1494, though in what month is uncertain.
Almost all Boiardo’s works, and especially his great poem of the Orlando Inamorato, were composed for the amusement of Duke Hercules and his court, though not written within its precincts. His practice, it is said, was to retire to Scandiano or some other of his estates, and there to devote himself to composition; and Castelvetro, Vallisnieri, Mazzuchelli and Tiraboschi all unite in stating that he took care to insert in the descriptions of his poem those of the agreeable environs of his château, and that the greater part of the names of his heroes, as Mandricardo, Gradasse, Sacripant, Agramant and others, were merely the names of some of his peasants, which, from their uncouthness, appeared to him proper to be given to Saracen warriors. Be this as it may, the Orlando Inamorato deserves to be considered as one of the most important poems in Italian literature, since it forms the first example of the romantic epic worthy to serve as a model, and, as such, undoubtedly produced Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. Gravina and Mazzuchell have said, and succeeding writers have repeated on their authority, that Boiardo proposed to himself as his model the Iliad of Homer; that Paris is besieged like the city of Troy; that Angelica holds the place of Helen; and that, in short, the one poem is a sort of reflex image of the other. In point of fact, however, the subject-matter of the poem is derived from the Fabulous Chronicle of the pseudo-Turpin; though, with the exception of the names of Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver, and some other principal warriors, who necessarily figure as important characters in the various scenes, there is little resemblance between the detailed plot of the one and that of the other. The poem, which Boiardo did not live to finish, was printed at Scandiano the year after his death, under the superintendence of his son Count Camillo. The title of the book is without date; but a Latin letter from Antonia Caraffa di Reggio, prefixed to the poem, is dated the kalends of June 1495. A second edition, also without date, but which must have been printed before the year 1500, appeared at Venice; and the poem was twice reprinted there during the first twenty years of the 16th century. These editions are the more curious and valuable since they contain nothing but the text of the author, which is comprised in three books, divided into cantos, the third book being incomplete. But Niccolo degli Agostini, an indifferent poet, had the courage to continue the work commenced by Boiardo, adding to it three books, which were printed at Venice in 1526–1531, in 4to; and since that time no edition of the Orlando has been printed without the continuation of Agostini, wretched as it unquestionably is. Boiardo’s poem suffers from the incurable defect of a laboured and heavy style. His story is skilfully constructed, the characters are well drawn and sustained throughout; many of the incidents show a power and fertility of imagination not inferior to that of Ariosto, but the perfect workmanship indispensable for a great work of art is wanting. The poem in its original shape was not popular, and has been completely superseded by the Rifacimento of Francesco Berni (q.v.).
The other works of Boiardo are—(1) Il Timone, a comedy, Scandiano, 1500, 4to; (2) Sonnetti e Canzoni, Reggio, 1499, 4to; (3) Carmen Bucolicon, Reggio, 1500, 4to; (4) Cinque Capitoli in terza rima, Venice, 1523 or 1533; (5) Apulejo dell’ Asino d’Oro, Venice, 1516, 1518; (6) Asino d’Oro de Luciano tradolto in volgare, Venice, 1523, 8vo; (7) Erodoto Alicarnasseo istorico, tradotto di Greco in Lingua Italiana, Venice, 1533 and 1538, 8vo; (8) Rerum Italicarum Scriptores.
See Panizzi’s Boiardo (9 vols., 1830–1831).
BOIE, HEINRICH CHRISTIAN (1744–1806), German author, was born at Meldorf in the then Danish province of Schleswig-Holstein on the 19th of July 1744. After studying law at Jena, he went in 1769 to Göttingen, where he became one of the leading spirits in the Göttingen “Dichterbund” or “Hain.” Boie’s poetical talent was not great, but his thorough knowledge of literature, his excellent taste and sound judgment, made him an ideal person to awake the poetical genius of others. Together with F. W. Gotter (q.v.) he founded in 1770 the Göttingen Musenalmanach, which he directed and edited until 1775, when, in conjunction with C. W. von Dohm (1751–1820), he brought out Das deutsche Museum, which became one of the best literary periodicals of the day. In 1776 Boie became secretary to the commander-in-chief at Hanover, and in 1781 was appointed administrator of the province of Süderditmarschen in Holstein. He died at Meldorf on the 3rd of March 1806.
See K. Weinhold, Heinrich Christian Boie (Halle, 1868).
