The name is absent

Anglo-American Relations Before 1580 59

And what a great meritoryouse dede
It were to have the people instructed
To Iyve more vertuously,
And to Ierne to knowe of men the maner,
And also to knowe God theyr Maker.

For, as he continues,

... as yet [they] Iyve all bestly

For they nother knowe God nor the devell
Nor never harde tell of hevyn nor hell,
Wrytynge nor other scripture;

But yet in the stede of God Almyght,
The[y] honour the sone [sun] for his great lyggt,
For that doth them great pleasure.

Not only is their manner of Ufe bestial, their habitations are
also:

Buyldynge nor house they have none at all
But wodes cotes and cavys small:
No merveyle though it be so,
For they use no maner of yron
Nother in tole nor other wepon
That shulde helpe them therto;

Copper they have, whiche is founde
In dyvers places above the grounde,
Yet they dyg not therfore;

For as I sayd they have non yryn
Wherby they shuld in the yerth myne
To serche for any [m]ore.

These early and explicit comments upon the aborigines of
America were of great value to my study, but none more so
than those Unes in which Rastell reflects the problem that
exercised thinkers all over Europe for some time to come:

But howe the people furst began
In that contrey or whens they cam,
For clerkes it is a questyon.^β

The question had been raised, and “answered,” in an ecclesi-
astical council held at Salamanca in 1486; after grave de-
liberation, the council pronounced belief in the antipodes

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