the period of the civil wars of Burgundy and Orleans, and whose influence was so mighty at the Councils of Pisa and Constance. In consequence of the persecution which he suffered from the party of Burgundy he retired to Bavaria, and there wrote his De Consolatione Theologicae , in imitation of Boethius. He died in 1429, at the age of sixty-six. The Imitatio has been attributed to him in consequence of some old copies bearing the name of John Gersen as the author. The first of these, printed at Köln in 1488, is headed thus:—“ Incipit liber primus Johannis Gersen de Imitatione Christi de contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi . ” A list of twenty-four such copies lies before me. And it has been hastily concluded that the “Gersen” here spoken of must be the Chancellor. Dean Milman rejects the opinion that he was the author on internal grounds ( Lat. Chr. VI 304, n. ) But external evidence is equally conclusive against him.
In a family diary kept by the Count Gustavus de Advocatis of Biella in the years