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BERTRAM, CHARLES (1723–1765)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 814 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BERTRAM, See also:CHARLES (1723–1765) , See also:English See also:literary impostor, was See also:born in See also:London, the son of a See also:silk See also:dyer. In 1747, being then teacher of English at the school for Danish See also:naval cadets at See also:Copenhagen, he wrote to Dr See also:William See also:Stukeley, the English antiquarian, that he had discovered a See also:manuscript written by a See also:monk named See also:Richard of See also:Westminster, which corrected and supplemented the Itinerary of See also:Antoninus in See also:Britain. He subsequently sent to Stukeley a copy of various parts of the See also:work and a facsimile of a few lines of the manuscript. These were so cleverly executed that they quite deceived the English palaeographers of the See also:period. Stukeley, finding that a chronicler of the fourteenth See also:century, Richard of See also:Cirencester, had also been an inmate of Westminster See also:Abbey, identified him with Bertram's Richard of Westminster, and, in 1756, read an See also:analysis of the " See also:discovery " before the Society of Antiquaries, which was published with a copy of Richard's See also:map. In 1757 Bertram published at Copenhagen a See also:volume entitled Britannicarum Gentium Historiae Antiquae Scriptores Tres. This contained the See also:works of See also:Gildas and See also:Nennius and the full See also:text of Bertram's See also:forgery, and though Bertram's map did not correspond with that of Richard, Stukeley discarded the latter and adopted Bertram's concoction in his See also:Itinerarium Curiosunt published in 1776. Although See also:Thomas See also:Reynolds in his Iter Britanniarum (1799), an edition of the See also:British portion of Antoninus' Itinerary, was distinctly sceptical as to the value of Bertram's manuscript, its authenticity was generally accepted until the See also:middle of the 19th century. No See also:original of the manuscript could then be found at Copenhagen, and B. B. See also:Woodward, librarian of See also:Windsor See also:Castle, proved conclusively, by a See also:series of articles in the See also:Gentleman's See also:Magazine in 1866 and 1867, that the supposed facsimile of calligraphy produced by Bertram was a blend of the See also:style of various periods, while the greater portion of the idiomatic Latin in the See also:book was a See also:mere See also:translation of 18th century English phraseology. Nevertheless, as See also:late as 1872, a translation of Bertram's forgery was included in See also:Bohn's Antiquarian Library as one of the Six English See also:Chronicles, and there is no doubt that the work had a wide and misleading See also:influence upon many antiquarian writers.

Bertram died in 1765.

End of Article: BERTRAM, CHARLES (1723–1765)

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