her justified by the fact, generally accepted by all modern
writers, that Gilbert was himself a pupil of Salernum.

Singularly enough, both Dr. Payne and Mr. Kingsford profess to find
in the Compendium some evidence that Gilbert sojourned in Syria for
a certain period, though the circumstances of this sojourn are
viewed differently by the two biographers. Dr. Payne thinks that the
physician, after completing his education in England, proceeded to the
Continent and extended his travels as far as Syrian Tripoli, where he
met Archbishop Walter and became attached to his staff. As the prelate
returned to England in 1192, this sojourn of Gilbert in Syria must
have been about 1190-91, when, according to Dr. Payne's chronology,
Gilbert could have been not more than about twenty years of age.
Dr. Payne bases his story upon a certain passage in the Compendium,
in which Gilbert says that he met in Syrian Tripoli "a _canonicus_
suffering from rheumatic symptoms." I have been entirely unable to
find the passage referred to in this story, in spite of a careful
search of the text of the edition of 1510. But, admitting the
existence of the passage in question, it proves nothing as to the
_date_ of this alleged Syrian sojourn. Tripoli was captured by
the Crusaders in 1109, and continued under their control until its
recapture by the Saracens in 1289, a period of nearly two hundred
years. Gilbert's travels in Syria may then have occurred at almost
any time during this long period, and his fortuitous meeting with
Archbishop Walter has very much the appearance of a story evolved
entirely from the consciousness of the biographer.

On the other hand, Mr. Kingsford bases his theory of Gilbert's sojourn
in Syria upon a story adopted, I think, from Littre and found in the
Histoire literaire de la France. The Compendium of Gilbert contains
(f. 137a) a chapter giving the composition of a complex collyrium
with which he professes to have cured the almost total blindness of
Bertram, son of Hugo de Jubilet, after the disease had baffled the
skill of the Saracen and Christian-Syrian physicians of his day.
Now Littre avers that a certain Hugo de Jubilet was involved in an
ambuscade in Syria in the year 1227, and that he had a son named
Bertram. It is very natural, of course, to conclude that this Bertram
was the patient recorded in the book of Gilbert. Kingsford says that
Gilbert "met" Bertram in Syria, but the text of the Compendium says
nothing o