Kenneth Sisam

Dialect: North-East Midland of Lincolnshire.

Inflexions:—

VERB: pres. ind. 2 sg. hast 131.

3 sg. stondeÞ 8.

3 pl. calle 32, seye 254; beside dos 157 (see note).

imper. pl. comeÞ 80, doÞ 82.

pres. p. karoland (in rime) 117, 150, 222.

strong pp. wryte 37, fal 195, gone 161.

PRONOUN 3 PERS.: fem. nom. she 48; pl. nom. Þey 32; poss. here 37; obj. hem 39.

The inflexions are very much simplified as compared with those of the Kentish Ayenbyte (III), but the verse shows that final unaccented -e was better preserved in the original than in our late MS., e.g.

And specyaly at hygh<e> tymes 13.

For to see Þys hard<e> dome 173.

And at Þe Þre<e> day<e>s ende 198.

Þat none my?t<e> leye yn graue217.

Sounds: o is regular for OE. a: lothe 9, wroth 10, &c.; but the only decisive rime is also (OE. alswa): to (OE. to) 35-6, where o after (s)w has become close ?; see Appendix § 8. ii, note.

Syntax: the loose constructions, e.g. ll. 15 ff. (note), 134-5, 138-9, 216-19, are characteristic of the period.

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The history of this legend is traced by E. SchrÖder, Zeitschrift fÜr Kirchengeschichte, vol. xvii, 1896, pp. 94 ff., and, more summarily, by Gaston Paris, Les Danseurs maudits, Paris 1900. The circumstances from which it sprang appear to belong to the year 1021. KÖlbigk, in Anhalt, Saxony, was the scene of the dance. In 1074 it is referred to as 'famous' by a German chronicler, who records the healing of one of the dancers in 1038 through the miraculous powers of St. Wigbert.

Mendicants who suffered from or could simulate nervous diseases like St. Vitus's dance, were quick to realize their opportunity, and two letters telling the story were circulated as credentials by pretended survivors of the band. Both are influenced in form by a sermon of St. Augustine of Hippo which embodies a similar story (Migne, Patrologia, vol. xxxviii, col. 1443). The first (Letter of Otbert), which claims to be issued by Peregrinus bishop of Cologne, spread rapidly through Western Europe. This was the version that Mannyng found in William of Wadington. The second (Letter of Theodric) makes Bruno bishop of Toul, afterwards Pope Leo IX, vouch for the facts. It was incorporated in the account of the miraculous cure of Theodric at the shrine of St. Edith of Wilton, and is known only from English sources. This was the text that Mannyng used. A later English version, without merit, is found in the dreary fifteenth-century Life of St. Editha (ed. Horstmann, ll. 4063 ff.).

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1 ff. games: Dances and shows in the churchyard were constantly condemned by the Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In 1287 a synod at Exeter rules ne quisquam luctas, choreas, vel alios ludos inhonestos in coemeteriis exercere praesumat, praecipue in vigiliis et festis sanctorum. See Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, vol. i, pp. 90 ff.

6. or tabure bete: Note the use of bete infin. as a verbal noun = betyng; cp. XI b 184-5.

10-12. 'And he (sc. a good priest) will become angered sooner than one who has no learning, and who does not understand Holy Writ.'

15 ff. noght... none: An accumulation of negatives in ME. makes the negation more emphatic. Here the writer wavers between two forms of expression: (1) 'do not sing carols in holy places', and (2) 'to sing carols in holy places is sacrilege'.

25-8. yn Þys londe, &c. The cure of Theodric, not the dance, took place in England. Brightgiva is said to have been abbess of Wilton at the time (1065), and 'King Edward' is Edward the Confessor (1042-66).

34-5. The church of KÖlbigk is dedicated to St. Magnus, of whom nothing certain is known. The memory of St. Bukcestre, if ever there was such a saint, appears to be preserved only in this story.

36. Þat Þey come to: Construe with hyt in l. 35.

37 ff. Here names of alle: The twelve followers of Gerlew are named in the Latin text, but Mannyng gives only the principal actors. The inconsistency is still more marked in the Bodleian MS., which after l. 40 adds:—

Þe ouÞer twelue here names alle

Þus were Þey wrete, as y can kalle.

Otherwise the Bodleian MS. is very closely related to the Harleian, sharing most of its errors and peculiarities.44. Þe prestes doghtyr of Þe tounne, 'the priest of the town's daughter'. In early ME. the genitive inflexion is not, as in Modern English, added to the last of a group of words: cp. XIV d 10 Þe Kynges sone of heuene 'the King of Heaven's son'. The same construction occurs in VIII a 19 for Þe Lordes loue of heuene = 'for the love of the Lord of Heaven', and in VIII a 214; but in these passages the genitive is objective, and Modern English does not use the inflexion at all (note to I 83). The ME. and modern expressions have their point of agreement in the position of the genitive inflexion, which always precedes immediately the noun on which the genitive depends. Cp. notes to II 518,VI 23, and XIV d 1.

46. A?one: ? = z here. The name is Azo in the Latin.

55. Beu<u>ne: (derived from the accusative Beuonem) = Beuo of l. 59 and Beuolyne of l. 62. The form is properly Bovo not Bevo. Considerable liberties were taken with proper names to adapt them to metre or rime: e.g. l. 52 Merswynde; l. 63 Merswyne; cp. note to l. 246. This habit, and frequent miscopying, make it difficult to rely on names in mediaeval stories.

65. Grysly: An error for Gerlew, Latin Gerleuus, from Low German Gerlef = OE. Garlaf.

83. for Crystys awe: In Modern English a phrase like Christ's awe could mean only 'the awe felt by Christ'. But in OE. Cristes ege, or ege Cristes, meant also 'the awe of Christ (which men feel)', the genitive being objective. In ME. the word order eie Cristes is dropped, but Cristes eie (or awe, the Norse form) is still regular for '(men's) fear of Christ'. Hence formal ambiguities like Þe Lordes loue of heuene VIII a 19, which actually means '(men's) love of the Lord of Heaven', but grammatically might mean 'the Lord of Heaven's love (for men)'—see note to l. 44 above.

96-7. The Latin Letter of Theodric in fact has ab isto officio ex Dei nutu amodo non cessetis, but probably amodo is miswritten for anno.

127. a saue: lit. 'have safe', i.e. 'rescue'. Saue is here adj.

128-9. ys: flessh: The rime requires the alternative forms es (as in l. 7) and fles(s). Cp. note to VII 4.

132. ?ow Þar nat aske: 'There is no need for you to ask'; ?ow is dative after the impersonal Þar.

156-7. werynes: dos. The rime is false. Perhaps Mannyng wrote: As many body for goyng es [sc. wery], and a copyist misplaced es, writing: As many body es for goyng. If body es were read as bodyes, a new verb would then be added.

169. Note the irony of the refrain. The Letter of Otbert adds the picturesque detail that they gradually sank up to their waists in the ground through dancing on the same spot.

172. Þe Emperoure Henry: Probably Henry II of Germany, Emperor from 1014 to 1024. A certain vagueness in points of time and place would save the bearers of the letter from awkward questions.

188-9. banned: woned. The rime (OE. bannan and wunian) is false, and the use of woned 'remained' is suspicious. Mannyng perhaps wrote bende 'put in bonds': wende (= ?ede l. 191) 'went'; or (if the form band for banned(e) could be evidenced so early) band 'cursed': wand, pret. of winden, 'went'.

195. fal yn a swone: So MS., showing that by the second half of the fourteenth century the pp. adj. aswon had been wrongly analysed into the indef. article a and a noun swon. Mannyng may have written fallen aswone. See Glossary, s.v. aswone.

234. Wyth sundyr lepys: 'with separate leaps'; but Wyth was probably added by a scribe who found in his original sundyrlepys, adv., meaning 'separately',—

Kar suvent par les mains

Des malvais escrivains

Sunt livre corrumput.

240. Seynt Edyght. St. Edith (d. 984) was daughter of King Edgar, and abbess of Wilton. The rime is properly Edit: Teodric, for t and k are sufficiently like in sound to rime together in the best ME. verse; cp. note to XV g 27.

246. Brunyng... seynt Tolous: Latin Bruno Tullanus. Robert probably did not hesitate to provide a rime by turning Toul into Toulouse. Bruno afterwards became Pope Leo IX (1049-54).

254-5. trowed: God. Read trod, a shortened form, revealed by rimes in North Midland texts. The identical rime occurs three times in Mannyng's Chronicle (ed. Hearne, p. 339; ed. Furnivall, ll. 7357-8, 8111-12); and, again with substitution of troud for trod, in Havelok, ll. 2338-9. Cp. note to XVII 56.

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II

Dialect: South-Western, with some admixture of Northern forms due to a copyist.

Inflexions:—

VERB: pres. ind. 1 sg. ichaue, &c. (see note to l. 129).

2 sg. makest 169, worst 170.

3 sg. geÞ (in rime) 238; contracted fint 239, last 335, sitt 443, stont 556.

2 pl. ?e beÞ 582.

3 pl. strikeÞ 252 (proved by rime with 3 sg. likeÞ).

imper. pl. make 216, chese 217; beside doÞ 218.

pres. p. berking 286 (in rime with verbal sb.); daunceing (in rime) 298. The forms kneland 250, liggeand 388, are due to a Northern copyist.

strong pp. (various forms): go (: wo) 196, ygo (: mo) 349, ydone (: -none) 76, comen 29, come 181, ycomen 203, yborn 174, bore 210.

infin. Note aski (OE. acsian) 467 (App. § 13 vii).

PRONOUN 3 PERS.: fem. nom. he 408, 446, hye 337, beside sche 75, 77, &c.

pl. nom. he (in rime) 185, hye 91, beside Þai 32, 69, &c.;

poss. her 'their' 87, 413, 415; obj. hem 69, &c.

NOUN: Note the plurals honden 79, berien 258.

The original text preserved final -e better than the extant MSS., e.g.

And seyd<e> Þus Þe king<e> to119.

Þat noÞing help<e> Þe no schal172.

Al Þe vt<e>mast<e> wal357.

So, sir, as ?e seyd<e> nouÞe466.

Sounds: o for OE. a is proved in rime: biholde (OE. behÁldan): gold (OE. gÓld) 367-8 (cp. 467-8); and yhote (OE. gehaten): note (OFr. note) 601-2.

The rime frut: lite 257-8 points to original frut: lut (OE. l?t), with Western u, from OE. ?, riming with OFr. u.

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1-22. These lines, found also in Lai le Freine, would serve as preface to any of the Breton lays, with the couplet ll. 23-4 as the special connecting link. In the Auchinleck MS., Orfeo begins on a fresh leaf at l. 25, without heading or capitals to indicate that it is a new poem. The leaf preceding has been lost. There is good reason to suppose that it contained the lines supplied in the text from the Harleian MS.

4. frely, 'goodly': Lai le Freine has ferly 'wondrous'.

12. MS. moost to lowe: means 'most (worthy) to be praised', and there are two or three recorded examples of to lowe = to alowe in this sense. But MS. Ashmole and the corresponding lines in Lai le Freine point to most o loue 'mostly of love' as the common reading. The typical 'lay' is a poem of moderate length, telling a story of love, usually with some supernatural element, in a refined and courtly style.

13. Brytayn, 'Brittany': so Brytouns 16 = 'Bretons'. Cp. Chaucer, Franklin's Tale, Prologue, beginning

Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes

Of diverse aventures maden layes

Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge,

Whiche layes with hir instrumentz they songe, &c.

20. The curious use of it after the plural layes is perhaps not original. Lai le Freine has: And maked a lay and yaf it name.

26. In Inglond: an alteration of the original text to give local colour. Cp. ll. 49-50 and l. 478.

29-30. Pluto: the King of Hades came to be regarded as the King of Fairyland; cp. Chaucer, Merchant's Tale, l. 983 Pluto that is the kyng of fairye. The blunder by which Juno is made a king is apparently peculiar to the Auchinleck copy.

33-46. These lines are not in the Auchinleck MS., but are probably authentic. Otherwise little prominence would be given to Orfeo's skill as a harper.

41 ff. A confused construction: In Þe world was neuer man born should be followed by <Þat> he <ne> schulde Þinke; but the writer goes on as if he had begun with 'every man in the world'. And = 'if'.

46. ioy and overload the verse, and are probably an unskilful addition to the text.

49-50. These lines are peculiar to the Auchinleck MS., and are clearly interpolated; cp. l. 26 and l. 478. Winchester was the old capital of England, and therefore the conventional seat of an English king.

57. comessing: The metre points to a disyllabic form comsing here, and to comsi in l. 247.

80. it bled wete: In early English the clause which is logically subordinate is sometimes made formally co-ordinate. More normal would be Þat (it) bled wete 'until (or so that) it bled wet'; i.e. until it was wet with blood.

82. reuey<se>d or some such form of ravished is probably right. reneyd 'apostate' is a possible reading of the MS., but does not fit the sense. N. E. D. suggests remeued.

102. what is te?: 'What ails you?; cp. l. 115. Te for Þe after s of is. Such modifications are due either to dissimilation of like sounds, as Þ: s which are difficult in juxtaposition; or to assimilation of unlike sounds, as Þatow 165, for Þat Þow.

115. 'What ails you, and how it came about?'; cp. l. 102.

129. ichil = ich wille; and so ichaue 209, icham 382, ichot XV b 23. These forms, reduced to chill, cham, &c., were still characteristic of the Southern dialect in Shakespeare's time: cp. King Lear, IV. vi. 239 Chill not let go, Zir.

131. Þat nou?t nis: 'That cannot be'; cp. l. 457 Þat nou?t nere.

157-8. palays: ways. The original rime was perhaps palys: wys 'wise'.

170. 'Wherever you may be, you shall be fetched.'

201-2. barouns: renouns. Forms like renouns in rime are usually taken over from a French original.215. The overloaded metre points to a shorter word like wite for vnderstond.

216. Make ?ou Þan a parlement: ?ou is not nom., but dat. 'for yourselves'. Observe that Orfeo acts like a constitutional English king.

241. Þe fowe and griis: A half translation of OFr. vair et gris. Vair (Lat. varius) was fur made of alternate pieces of the grey back and white belly of the squirrel. Hence it is rendered by fowe, OE. fag 'varicolor'. Griis is the grey back alone, and the French word is retained for the rime with biis, which was probably in the OFr. original.

258. berien: The MS. may be read berren, but as this form is incorrect it is better to assume that the i has been carelessly shaped by the scribe.

289. him se, 'see (for himself), and similarly slep Þou Þe XV g 13. This reflexive use of the dative pronoun, which cannot be reproduced in a modern rendering, is common in OE. and ME., especially with verbs of motion; cp. note to XV g 24. But distinguish went him 475, 501, where him is accusative, not dative (OE. wente hine), because the original sense of went is 'turned', which naturally takes a reflexive object.

342. me no reche = I me no reche. The alternative would be the impersonal me no recheÞ.

343. also spac = also bliue 142 = also swiÞe 574: 'straightway', &c.

363. MS. auowed (or anowed) is meaningless here. Anow<rn>ed, or the doubtful by-form anow<r>ed 'adorned', is probably the true reading.

382. The line is too long—a fault not uncommon where direct speech is introduced, e.g. l. 419 and 178. Usually a correct line can be obtained by dropping words like quath he, which are not as necessary in spoken verse as they are where writing alone conveys the sense. But sometimes the flaw may lie in the forms of address: l. 382 would be normal without Parfay; l. 419 may once have been:

And seyd 'Lord, ?if Þi wille were'.

There is no task more slippery than the metrical reconstruction of ME. poems, particularly those of which the extant text derives from the original not simply through a line of copyists, but through a line of minstrels who passed on the verses from memory and by word of mouth.

388. The line seems to be corrupt, and, as usual, the Harleian and Ashmole MSS. give little help. Ful can hardly be a sb. meaning 'multitude' from the adj. full. Some form of fele (OE. fela) 'a great number' would give possible grammar and sense (cp. l. 401), but bad metre. Perhaps ful should be deleted as a scribe's anticipation of folk in the next line; for the construction sei?e... of folk cp. XVI 388; and Hous of Fame, Bk. iii, ll. 147 ff.

433. Þei we nou?t welcom no be: Almost contemporary with Sir Orfeo is the complaint of an English writer that the halls of the nobles stood open to a lawyer, but not to a poet:

Exclusus ad ianuam poteris sedere

Ipse licet venias, Musis comitatus, Homere!

'Though thou came thyself, Homer, with all the Muses, thou mightst sit at the door, shut out!', T. Wright, Political Songs (1839), p. 209.

446. hadde he, 'had she'. For he (OE. heo) = 'she' cp. l. 408.

450. 'Now ask of me whatsoever it may be'. The plots of mediaeval romances often depend on the unlimited promises of an unwary king, whose honour compels him to keep his word. So in the story of Tristram, an Irish noble disguised as a minstrel wins Ysolde from King Mark by this same device, but is himself cheated of his prize by Tristram's skill in music.

458. 'An ill-matched pair you two would be!'

479. The halting verse may be completed by adding sum tyme before his, with the Harley and Ashmole MSS.

483. ybilt of the MS. and editors cannot well be a pp. meaning 'housed'. I prefer to take bilt as sb. = bild, build 'a building'; and to suppose that y has been miswritten for ?, the contraction for yn.

495. gan hold, 'held'; a good example of the ME. use of gan + infinitive with the sense of the simple preterite.

515. An unhappy suggestion home for the second come has sometimes been accepted. But a careful Southern poet could not rime home (OE. ham) and some (OE. sum). See note to VI 224.

518. For mi lordes loue Sir Orfeo, 'for my lord Sir Orfeo's love'. Logically the genitive inflexion should be added to both of two substantives in apposition, as in OE. on Herodes dagum cyninges 'in the days of King Herod'. But in ME. the first substantive usually has the inflexion, and the second is uninflected; cp. V 207 kynge? hous Arthor 'the house of King Arthur'; and notes to I 44, VI 23.

544. Allas! wreche: wreche refers to the speaker, as in l. 333.

551. hou it geÞ—: The sense is hard to convey without some cumbrous paraphrase like 'the inexorable law of this world—'.

552. It nis no bot of manes deÞ: 'There is no remedy for man's death', i.e. violent grief will do no good. Note it nis 'there is (not)'. In ME. the anticipated subject is commonly it where we use there.565. in ynome: '<had> taken up my abode'; in 'dwelling' = NE. 'inn'.

599. herof overloads the line and is omitted in the Ashmole MS.

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III

Dialect: Pure Kentish of Canterbury.

Inflexions are well preserved, and are similar to those found in contemporary South-Western texts.

VERB: pres. ind. 3 sg. multiplieÞ 1; contracted ret 3, 16.

1 pl. habbeÞ 2.

strong pp. yyeue 25, yhote 29.

PRONOUN 3 PERS.: the new forms she, they, their, them are not used.

3 sg. fem. nom. hi 32, hy 45;

poss. hare 33, beside hire 36;

pl. nom. hi 58.

Note the objective form his(e) = 'her' 32, 53 (twice); and = 'them' 7, 8, 28.

NOUN: plurals in -en occur: uorbisnen 2, ken 56. In diaknen 5, -en represents the dat. pl. inflexion.

ADJECTIVE: onen dat. sg. 4, oÞren dat. pl. 53, Þane acc. sg. masc. 59, Þet (word) nom. sg. neut. 57, show survivals rare even in the South at this date.

Sounds: Characteristic of the South-East is e? for OE. (West-Saxon) ??: kertel (OE. cyrtel) 39, ken (OE. c?) 56.

Old diphthongs are preserved in greate (OE. great) 9, yeaf 22. In hyerof 1, yhyerde 49, hier 2, Þieues 18, ye, ie represent diphthongs developed in Kentish rather than simple close e.

Initial z = s in zome 'some' 2, zede 'said' 12, zuo 'so' 17; and initial u = f in uele 2, uayre 2, uram 4, bevil 41, evidence dialectical changes which occurred also in the South-West.

Syntax: The constructions are distorted by slavish following of the French original; see note to ll. 48-60.

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3. Saint Germain of Auxerre (MS. Aucerne) is famous for his missions to Britain in the first half of the fifth century. This particular story is found in the Acta Sanctorum for July 31, p. 229.

16. St. John the Almoner (d. 616) was bishop of Alexandria. For the story see Acta Sanctorum for January 23, p. 115.

27-8. and huanne he hit wiste Þe ilke zelue Þet his hedde onderuonge: an obscure sentence. Perhaps: 'and when he, the same who had received them (i.e. John, who had received the five hundred pounds), knew it' (sc. the truth).

38. This tale of Boniface, bishop of Ferentia in Etruria, is told in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Bk. i, chap. 9. Its first appearance in English is in the translation of the Dialogues made by Bishop WÆrferth for King Alfred (ed. Hans Hecht, Leipzig 1900, pp. 67 ff.).

48-60. The French original of the passage, taken from an elegant fourteenth-century MS., Cotton Cleopatra A.V., fol. 144 a, will show how slavishly Dan Michael followed his source:—

Apres il fu un poure home, sicom on dit, qui auoit une vache; e oi dire a son prestre en sarmon que Dieu disoit en leuangile que Dieu rendoit a cent doubles quanque on donast por lui. Le prodomme du conseil sa femme dona sa uache a son prestre, qui estoit riches. Le prestre la prist uolentiers, e lenuoia pestre auoec les autres quil auoit. Kant uint au soir, la uache au poure home sen uint a son hostel chies le poure homme, com ele auoit acoustume, e amena auoeques soi toutes les uaches au prestre, iukes a cent. Quant le bon home uit ce, si pensa que ce estoit le mot de leuangile que li auoit rendu; e li furent aiugiees deuant son euesque contre le prestre. Cest ensample moustre bien que misericorde est bone marchande, car ele multiplie les biens temporels.

58-9. 'And they were adjudged to him before his bishop against the priest', i.e. the bishop ruled that the poor man should have all the cows.

The French fabliau 'Brunain' takes up the comic rather than the moral aspect of the story. A peasant, hearing the priest say that gifts to God are doubly repaid, thought it was a favourable opportunity to give his cow BlÉrain—a poor milker—to the priest. The priest ties her with his own cow Brunain. To the peasant's great joy, the unprofitable BlÉrain returns home, leading with her the priest's good cow.

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IV

Dialect: Northern of Yorkshire.

Inflexions: are reduced almost as in Modern English.

VERB: pres. ind. 1 sg. settes a 30; beside uninflected sygh a 69, sob a 69.

3 sg. lastes a 1.

1 pl. flese b 86: beside we drede b 85.

3 pl. lyse a 61, lufes b 7, &c.; beside Þay take, Þay halde b 12, &c., which agree with the Midland forms.

pres. p. lastand a 25, byrnand a 26, riming with hand.

strong pp. wryten a 2.

Note the Northern and North Midland short forms mase 'makes' a 15, tane 'taken' a 53 (in rime).

PRONOUN 3 PERS.: sg. fem. scho b 1;

pl. nom. Þai a 60;

poss. Þar a 59 or Þair a 65;

obj. thaym b 2.

The demonstrative thire 'these' at b 55, b 59 is specifically Northern.

Sounds: OE. a is regularly represented by a, not by o of the South and most of the Midlands: wa a 2, euermare a 20, balde 'bold' a 51; bane (in rime) a 54.

? becomes u (u?) in gud(e) b 9, b 15; and its length is sometimes indicated by adding y, as in ruysand 'vaunting' b 80.

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a.This poem is largely a translation of sentences excerpted from Rolle's Incendium Amoris, cc. xl-xli (Miss Allen in Mod. Lang. Review for 1919, p. 320). Useful commentaries are his prose Form of Perfect Living (ed. Horstmann, vol. i, pp. 3 ff.), and Commandment of Love to God (ibid. pp. 61 ff.), which supply many parallels in thought and phrasing; see, for example, the note to l. 48 below.

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a 1. feste. Not the adj. 'fast', but pp. 'fastened', and so in l. 82.

a 5. louyng, 'beloved one', here and in l. 56. This exceptional use of the verbal noun occurs again in my ?hernyng 'what I yearn for', a 22; my couaytyng 'what I covet', a 23.

a 9-12. The meaning seems to be: 'The throne of love is raised high, for it (i.e. love) ascended into heaven. It seems to me that on earth love is hidden, which makes men pale and wan. It goes very near to the bed of bliss (i.e. the bridal bed of Christ and the soul) I assure you. Though the way may seem long to us, yet love unites God and man.'

a 24. louyng, 'praise' here and in XVI 405, from OE. lof 'praise'; quite distinct from louyng, lufyng, in ll. 5 and 56.

a 36. fle Þat na man it maye, 'which no man can escape'. See Appendix § 12, Relative.

a 42. styll, 'always' rather than 'motionless'.

a 43-4. Apparently 'the nature of love (Þat kyend) turns from care the man (Þe lyfe) who succeeds in finding love, or who ever knew it in his heart; and brings him to joy and delight.'

a 48. Cp. Form of Perfect Living, ed. Horstmann, vol. i, pp. 39-40: For luf es stalworth als Þe dede, Þat slaes al lyuand thyng in erth; and hard als hell, Þat spares noght till Þam Þat er dede. In The Commandment of Love Rolle explains: For als dede slas al lyuand thyng in Þis worlde, sa perfite lufe slas in a mans sawle all fleschly desyres and erthly couaytise. And als hell spares noght til dede men, bot tormentes al Þat commes bartill, alswa a man Þat es in Þis [sc. the third, called 'Singular'] degrÉ of lufe noght anly he forsakes Þe wretched solace of Þis lyf, bot alswa he couaytes to sofer pynes for Goddes lufe. (Ibid. p. 63.)b 4. scho takes erthe: From the Historia Animalium attributed to Aristotle, Bk. ix, c. 21. This is the authority referred to at l. 18, and at l. 33 (Bk. ix, c. 9); but the citations seem to be second hand, as they do not agree closely with the text of the Historia Animalium.

b 21-2. 'For there are many who never can keep the rule of love towards their friends, whether kinsmen or not.' MS. ynesche has been variously interpreted; but it must be corrected to ynence.

b 47. strucyo or storke: the ostrich, not the stork, is meant. Latin struthio has both meanings. On the whole, fourteenth-century translators show a fair knowledge of Latin, but the average of scholarship, even among the clergy, was never high in the Middle Ages. In the magnificent Eadwine Psalter, written at Canterbury Cathedral in the twelfth century, Ps. ci. 7 similis factus sum pellicano is rendered by 'I am become like to the skin of a dog' (= pelli canis), though an ecclesiastic would recite this psalm in Latin at least once every week. The records of some thirteenth-century examinations of English clergy may be found in G. G. Coulton, A Medieval Garner (London 1910), pp. 270 ff. They include the classic answer of Simon, the curate of Sonning, who, being examined on the Canon of the Mass, and pressed to say what governed Te in Te igitur, clementissime Pater,... supplices rogamus, replied 'Pater, for He governeth all things'. As for French, Michael of Northgate, a shaky translator, is fortunate in escaping gross blunders in the specimen chosen (III); but the English rendering of Mandeville's Travels is full of errors; see the notes to IX.

b 60. teches: better toches, according to the Footnote.

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V

Alliterative Verse. The long lines in Gawayne, with The Destruction of Troy, Piers Plowman, and The Blacksmiths (XV h), are specimens of alliterative verse unmixed with rime, a form strictly comparable with Old English verse, from which it must derive through an unbroken oral tradition. While the detailed analysis of the Middle English alliterative line is complex and controversial, its general framework is describable in simple terms. It will be convenient to take examples from Gawayne, which shows most of the developments characteristic of Middle English.

1. The long line is divided by a caesura into two half lines, of which the second is the more strictly built so that the rhythm may be well marked. Each half line normally contains two principal stresses, e.g.

And wÉnt on his wÁy "" with his wÝ?e Óne 6.

Þat schulde tÉche hym to tÓurne "" to Þat tÉne plÁce 7.

But three stresses are not uncommonly found in the first half line:

BrÓke? bÝled and brÉke "" bi bÓnkke? abÓute14;

and, even for the simpler forms in Old and Middle English, the two-stress analysis has its opponents.

2. The two half lines are bound together by alliteration. In alliteration ch, st, s(c)h, sk, and usually sp, are treated as single consonants (see lines 64, 31, 15, 99, 25); any vowel may alliterate with any other vowel, e.g.

Þis Óritore is vgly "" with Érbe? ouergrÓwen 122;

and, contrary to the practice of correct OE. verse, h may alliterate with vowels in Gawayne:

HÁlde Þe now Þe hÝ?e hÓde "" Þat ÁrÞur Þe rÁ?t 229.

The hÁÞel hÉldet hym frÓ "" and on his Áx rÉsted 263.

3. In correct OE. verse the alliteration falls on one or both of the two principal stresses of the first half line, and invariably on the first stress only of the second half line. This is the ordinary ME. type:

Þat schulde tÉche hym to tÓurne "" to Þat tÉne plÁce 7;

though verses with only one alliterating syllable in the first half line, e.g.

Bot Í wyl to Þe chÁpel "" for chÁunce Þat may fÁlle 64,

are less common in ME. than in OE. But in ME. the fourth stress sometimes takes the alliteration also:

Þay clÓmben bi clÝffe? "" Þer clÉnge? Þe cÓlde 10.

And when there is a third stress in the first half line, five syllables may alliterate:

MÍst mÚged on Þe mÓr "" mÁlt on Þe mÓunte?12.

In sum, Middle English verse is richer than Old English in alliteration.

4. In all these verses the alliteration of the first stress in the second half line, which is essential in Old English, is maintained; but it is sometimes neglected, especially when the alliteration is otherwise well marked:

With hÉ?e hÉlme on his hÉde "" his lÁunce in his hÓnde (129; cp. 75),

where the natural stress cannot fall on his.

5. So far attention has been confined to the stressed syllables, around which the unstressed syllables are grouped. Clearly the richer the alliteration, the more freedom will be possible in the treatment of the unstressed syllables without undue weakening of the verse form. In the first two lines of Beowulf—

HwÆt we GÁrdÉna "" in gÉardÁgum

ÞÉodcÝninga "" ÞrÝm gefrÚnon—

three of the half lines have the minimum number of syllables—four—and the other has only five. In Middle English, with more elaborate alliteration, the number of unstressed syllables is increased, so that the minimum half line of four syllables is rare, and often contains some word which may have had an additional flexional syllable in the poet's own manuscript, e.g.

"" Þe sÉlf<e> chÁpel 79.

"" Ár?e? in hÉrt<e> 209.

The less regular first half line is found with as many as eleven syllables; e.g.

And syÞen he kÉuere? bi a crÁgge "" 153.

6. The grouping of stressed and unstressed syllables determines the rhythm. In Old English the falling rhythm predominates, as in "" GÁwayn Þe nÓble 81; and historically it is no doubt correct to trace the development of the ME. line from a predominantly falling rhythm. But in fact, owing to the frequent use of unstressed syllables before the first stress (even in the second half line where they are avoided in the OE. falling rhythm) the commonest type is:

"" and Þe brÓde ?Áte? 1,

(× × - × - ×)

which from a strictly Middle English standpoint may be analysed as a falling rhythm with introductory syllables (× × " - × - ×), or as a rising rhythm with a weak ending (× × - × - " ×). A careful reader, accustomed to the usage of English verse, will have no difficulty in following the movement, without entering into nice technicalities of historical analysis.

7. The Destruction of Troy is more regular than Gawayne in its versification, and better preserves the Old English tradition. Piers Plowman is looser and nearer to prose, so that the alliteration sometimes fails altogether, e.g. Extract a 95, 138. Such differences in technique may depend on date, on locality, or on the taste, training, or skill of the author.

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Dialect: West Midland of Lancashire or Cheshire. (There is evidence of local knowledge in the account of Gawayne's ride in search of the Green Chapel, ll. 691 ff. of the complete text.)

Vocabulary. Sir Gawayne shows the characteristic vocabulary of alliterative verse.

It is rich in number and variety of words—Norse, French, and native. Besides common words like race 8, wylle 16, kyrk 128, a?- 267 (which displace native English forms res, wylde, chyrche, eie), Norse gives mug(g)ed 12, cayre? 52, scowtes 99, skayned 99, wro 154, broÞe 165, fyked 206, snyrt 244, &c. French are baret 47, oritore 122, fylor 157, giserne 197, kauelacion 207, frounses 238, &c. Myst-hakel 13, orpedly 164 are native words; while the rare stryÞe 237 and raÞeled 226 are of doubtful origin.

Unless the alliteration is to be monotonous, there must be many synonyms for common words like man, kni?t: e.g. burne 3, wy?e 6, lede 27, gome 50, freke 57, tulk 65, knape 68, renk 138, most of which survive only by reason of their usefulness in alliterative formulae. Similarly, a number of verbs are used to express the common idea 'to move (rapidly)': bo?en 9, schowued 15, wonnen 23, ferked 105, rome? 130, keuere? 153, whyrlande 154, &c. Here the group of synonyms arises from weakening of the ordinary prose meanings; and this tendency to use words in colourless or forced senses is a general defect of alliterative verse. For instance, it is hard to attach a precise meaning to note 24, gedere? 92, glodes 113, wruxled 123, kest 308.

The Gawayne poet is usually artist enough to avoid the worst fault of alliterative verse—the use of words for mere sound without regard to sense, but there are signs of the danger in the empty, clattering line:

Bremly broÞe on a bent Þat brode wat? aboute 165.

Inflexions: The rime waÞe: ta Þe 287-9 shows that organic final -e was sometimes pronounced in the poet's dialect.

VERB: pres. ind. 1 sg. haf 23; leue 60.

2 sg. spelle? 72.

3 sg. prayses 4; tas 237.

2 pl. ?e han 25.

3 pl. han 345.

imper. pl. got? (= gos) 51, cayre? 52.

pres. p. normally -ande, e.g. schaterande 15; but very rarely -yng: gruchyng 58.

strong pp. born 2, wonnen 23; tone (= taken) 91.

The weak pa. t. and pp. show occasional -(e)t for -(e)d: halt 11, fondet 57, &c.

Note that present forms in -ie(n) are preserved, and the i extended to the past tense: louy (OE. lufian) 27, louies 31; spuryed 25.

PRONOUN 3 PERS.: pl. nom. Þay 9; poss. hor 345, beside her 352; obj. hom, beside hem 353.

Sounds: o for older a is common, and is proved for the original by rimes like more: restore (OFr. restorer) 213-15, Þore: restore 286-8. But a is often written in the MS.: snaw 20, 166 (note rimes), halden 29, &c.

u for OE. y, characteristic of Western dialects, is found especially in the neighbourhood of labial consonants: spuryed (OE. spyrian) 25; muryly 268, 277; munt vb. 194 and sb. 282; beside myntes 284, lyfte 78, hille 13.

u for OE. eo (normal ME. e) is another Western feature: burne 3, 21, &c., rurde 151.

aw for OE. eow (normal ME. ew, ow) as in trawe 44, trawÞe 219, rawÞe 136, is still found in some Northern dialects.

Spelling: ? (= z) is commonly written for final s: brede? 3, &c.; even when the final s is certainly voiceless as in for?, 'force', 'torrent' 105, (a?-)le? 'fear-less' 267. t? is written for s in monosyllabic verbal forms, where it indicates the maintenance of voiceless final s under the stress (see rimes to hat? 'has', VI 81): wat? 'was' 1, got? 'goes' 51, &c. In early Norman French z had the sound ts, and so could be written tz, as in Fitz-Gerald 'son (Mod. Fr. fils) of Gerald'. But later, French (t)z fell together with s in pronunciation, so that the spelling tz was transferred to original s, both in fourteenth-century Anglo-French and in English.

qu- occurs for strongly aspirated hw- in quyte 'white' 20, quat 'what' 111; but the alliteration is with w, not with k(w), e.g.

And wyth quettyng awharf, er he wolde ly?t 152.

The spelling goud 5, 50, &c., for god 'good' may indicate a sound change.

Notable is the carefully distinguished use of ? in ?e, but y in yow, e.g. at ll. 23-6.

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3. blessed hym, 'crossed himself'; cp. XII b 86.

4-6. 'He gives a word of praise to the porter,—<who> kneeled before the prince (i.e. Gawayn) <and who> greeted him with "God and good day," and "May He save Gawayn!"—and went on his way, attended only by his man, who, &c.' Clumsiness in turning direct speech into reported speech is a constant source of difficulty in Middle English. For the suppressed relative cp. note to XIII a 36.

11. 'The clouds were high, but it was threatening below them.' Halt for halet pp. 'drawn up'.

16. 'The way by which they had to go through the wood was very wild.' Note the regular omission of a verb of motion after shall, will, &c. Cp. l. 64 I wyl to Þe chapel; l. 332 ?e schal... to my wone?, &c.

28. 'If you would act according to my wit (i.e. by my advice) you would fare the better.'

34. Hector, oÞer oÞer, 'Hector, or any other'. Hector is quoted as the great hero of the Troy story, from which, and from the legends of Arthur, the Middle Ages drew their models of valour.

35. 'He brings it about at the green chapel <that>', &c.

37. dynge?: for MS. dynne?; Napier's suggestion.

41. 'He would as soon (lit. it seems to him as pleasant to) kill him, as be alive himself.'

43. 'If you reach that place you will be killed, I may warn you, knight.' Possibly I, y, has fallen out of the text after y of may (cp. VI 3), though there are clear instances in Old and Middle English where the pronominal subject must be understood from the context, e.g. I 168, VIII a 237, 273. Note the transitions from plural ?e to singular Þe in ll. 42-3; and the evidence at l. 72 f. that Þou could still be used in addressing a superior.

44. Trawe ?e me Þat: trow has here a double construction with both me and Þat as direct objects.

56. 'That I shall loyally screen you, and never give out the tale that you fled for fear of any man that I knew.'

64. for chaunce Þat may falle, 'in spite of anything that may happen'.

68-9. 'Though he be a stern lord (lit. a stern man to rule), and armed with a stave'. The short lines are built more with a view to rime than to sense.

72-4. 'Marry!' said the other, 'now you say so decidedly that you will take your own harm upon yourself, and it pleases you to lose your life, I have no wish to hinder you.'

76. ryde me: an instance of the rare ethic dative, which expresses some interest in the action of the verb on the part of one who is neither the doer of the action nor its object. Distinguish the uses referred to in the notes to II 289, XV g 24.

86. Lepe? hym, 'gallops'. For hym, which refers to the rider, not the horse, cp. note to XV g 24.

92. Gryngolet: the name of Gawayn's horse. gedere? Þe rake seems to mean 'takes the path'. No similar transitive use of 'gather' is known.

95. he wayted hym aboute, 'he looked around him'. Cp. l. 221 wayte?, and note to l. 121.

99. 'The clouds seemed to him grazed by the crags'; i.e. the crags were so high that they seemed to him to scrape the clouds. I owe to Professor Craigie the suggestion that skayned is ON. skeina 'to graze', 'scratch'.

102-4. 'And soon, a little way off on an open space, a mound (as it appeared) seemed to him remarkable.'

107. kache? his caple, 'takes control of his horse', i.e. takes up the reins again to start the horse after the halt mentioned at l. 100.

109. his riche: possibly 'his good steed'. The substantival use of an adjective is common in alliterative verse, e.g. l. 188 Þat schyre (neck); 200 Þe schene (axe); 245 Þe scharp (axe); 343 Þat cortays (lady). But it has been suggested that brydel has fallen out of the text after riche.

114. 'And it was all hollow within, nothing but an old cave.'

115 f. he couÞe hit no?t deme with spelle, 'he could not say <which it was>'. For deme 'to speak', &c., cp. VI 1, XV b 29-30.

118. WheÞer commonly introduces a direct question and should not be separately translated. Cp. VI 205 and note to XI a 51.

121. wysty is here, 'it is desolate here'. Note Wowayn = Wauwayn, an alternative form of Gawayn used for the alliteration. The alternation is parallel to that in guardian: warden; regard: reward XIV c 105; guarantee: warranty; (bi)gyled 359: (bi)wyled 357; werre 'war' beside French guerre; wait 'watch' (as at l. 95) beside French guetter; and is due to dialectal differences in Old French. The Anglo-Norman dialect usually preserved w in words borrowed from Germanic or Celtic, while others replaced it by gw, gu, which later became simple g in pronunciation.

125. in my fyue wytte?: construe with fele.

127. Þat chekke hit bytyde, 'which destruction befall!' Þat... hit = 'which'. chekke refers to the checkmate at chess.

135. Had we not Chaucer's Miller and The Reeves Tale, the vividness and intimacy of the casual allusions would show the place of the flour-mill in mediaeval life. Havelok drives out his foes

So dogges ut of milne-hous;

and the Nightingale suggests as fit food for the Owl

one frogge

Þat sit at mulne vnder cogge.

These are records of hours spent by the village boys amid the noise of grinding and rush of water, in times when there was no rival mechanism to share the fascination of the water-driven mill.

137-43. 'This contrivance, as I believe, is prepared, sir knight, for the honour of meeting me by the way. Let God work His will, Lo! It helps me not a bit. Though I lose my life, no noise causes me to fear.' It has been suggested that wel o<r w>oo 'weal or woe' should be read instead of the interjection we loo! But Gawayn's despair (l. 141) is not in keeping with ll. 70 f., 90 f., or with the rest of his speech. The looseness of the short lines makes emendation dangerous. Otherwise we might read Hit helppe? Þe not a mote, i.e. whatever happens, mere noise will not help the Green Knight by making Gawayn afraid; or, alternatively, herme? 'harms' for helppe?.

151. 'Yet he went on with the noise with all speed for a while, and turned away <to proceed> with his grinding, before he would come down.' The nonchalance of the Green Knight is marked throughout the poem.

155. A Dene? ax: the ordinary long-bladed battle-axe was called a 'Danish' axe, in French hache danoise, because the Scandinavians in their raids on England and France first proved its efficiency in battle.

158. bi Þat lace, '<measured> by the lace'. In Gawayne (ll. 217 ff. of the full text) the axe used at the first encounter is described. It had:

A lace lapped aboute, Þat louked at Þe hede,

And so after Þe halme halched ful ofte,

Wyth tryed tassele? Þerto tacched innoghe, &c.

'A lace wrapped about <the handle>, which was fastened at the <axe's> head, and was wound about the handle again and again, with many choice tassels fastened to it', &c.

159. as fyrst, 'as at the first encounter', i.e. when he rode into Arthur's hall. His outfit of green is minutely described at ll. 151 ff. of the full text.

162. Sette Þe stele to Þe stone: i.e. he used the handle of the axe as a support when crossing rough ground. stele = 'handle', not 'steel'.

164. hypped... stryde?: note the frequent alternation of past tense and historic present. So ll. 3-4 passed... prayses; 107-8 kache?... com... li?te?; 280-1 halde?... gef, &c.

169 f. 'Now, sweet sir, one can trust you to keep an appointment.'

175. Þat Þe falled, 'what fell to your lot', i.e. the right to deal the first blow.

177. oure one, 'by ourselves'. To one 'alone' in early ME. the dative pronoun was added for emphasis, him one, us one, &c. Later and more rarely the possessive pronoun is found, as here. Al(l) was also used to strengthen one; so that there are six possible ME. types: (1) one, e.g. ll. 6, 50; (2) him one; (3) his one; (4) al one = alone l. 87; (5) al him one, or him al one; (6) al his one, or his al one.

181. at a wap one, 'at a single blow'.

183. 'I shall grudge you no good-will because of any harm that befalls me.'

189-90. 'And acted as if he feared nothing: he would not tremble (dare) with terror.'

196. 'He (Gawayn) who was ever valiant would have been dead from his blow there.'

200. It must not be supposed that the chief incidents of Sir Gawayne were invented by the English poet. The three strokes, for example, two of them mere feints and the third harmless, can be shown to derive from the lost French source, which has Irish analogues. See pp. 71-4 of A Study of Gawain and the Green Knight (London 1916), by Professor Kittredge, a safe guide in the difficult borderland of folklore and romance.

207. 'Nor did I raise any quibble in the house of King Arthur.' On kynge? hous Arthor see note to II 518.

222. ryue?: the likeness of n and u in MSS. of the time makes it impossible to say whether the verb is riue 'to cleave', which is supported by l. 278, or rine, OE. hrinan, 'to touch'.

230. 'And look out for your neck at this stroke, <to see> if it may survive.'233. I hope: here, and often in ME., hope means 'believe', 'expect'.

250. Gawayn appears to have carried his shield on his back. By a movement of his shoulders he lets it fall in front of him, so that he can use it in defence.

258. foo, 'fiercely', adv. parallel with ?ederly.

269. ry<n>kande, 'ringing'; Napier's suggestion for MS. rykande.

271-2. 'Nobody here has ill-treated you in an unmannerly way, nor shown you <discourtesy>': the object of kyd being understood from vnmanerly mysboden. habbe? for MS. habbe is Napier's reading.

278-9. 'And cleft you with no grievous wound, <which> I rightly <merely> proffered you, because of the compact we made fast', &c. It is better to assume a suppression of the relative, than to put a strong stop after rof and treat sore as sb. object of profered. This latter punctuation gives sore the chief stress in the line, and breaks the alliteration and rhythm, which is correct as long as sore is taken with rof, so that its stress is subordinated.

286-7. 'Let a true man truly repay—then one need dread no peril.'

291. weued: perhaps not a weak pa. t. of weave-woven, but rather means 'to give', from OE. w?fan, 'to move'; weue in this sense occurs in Gawayne l. 1976.

294-5. 'And truly you seem to me the most faultless man that ever walked on foot.' The ME. construction, on Þe fautlest, where on 'one' strengthens the superlative, is found in Chaucer, Clerk's Tale 212:

Thanne was she oon the faireste under sonne,

and still survives in Shakespeare's time, e.g. Henry VIII, II. iv. 48 f. one the wisest prince. It has been compared with Latin unus maximus, &c. In modern English the apposition has been replaced, with weakening of the sense: one of the (wisest), &c.

298. yow lakked... yow wonted: impersonal, since yow is dative, 'there was lacking in you'.

319. 'Let me win your good-will', 'Pardon me'.

331. I have transposed MS. of Þe grene chapel at cheualrous kny?te?, because such a use of at is hardly conceivable. A copyist might easily make the slip. Cp. l. 35.

344. BoÞe Þat on and Þat oÞer: Besides the Green Knight's young wife, there was a much older lady in the castle, 'yellow', with 'rugh, ronkled cheke?', and so wrapped up

Þat no?t wat? bare of Þat burde bot Þe blake bro?es,

Þe tweyne y?en, and Þe nase, Þe naked lyppe?,

And Þose were soure to se, and sellyly blered.

Gawayne ll. 961-3.

350-1. 'And David afterwards, who suffered much evil, was <morally> blinded by Bathsheba.'

352-6. 'Since these were injured with their wiles, it would be a great gain to love them well, and not believe them—for a man who could do it [cp. note to XI b 209]. For these (Adam, Solomon, &c.) were of old the noblest, whom all happiness followed, surpassingly, above all the others that lived beneath the heavens.' mused 'thought' is used for the rime, and means no more than 'lived'. ll. 354-6 amount to 'above all other men'.

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VI

Dialect: West Midland, like Gawayne.

The metre occasionally gives clear evidence that final flexional -e of the original has not always been preserved in the extant MS., e.g.

Þa? cortaysly ?e carp<e> con 21.

The most noteworthy verbal forms are:

pres. ind. 1 sg. byswyke? 208 (once only, in rime);

2 sg. Þou quyte? 235;

3 sg. leÞe? 17; tot? (= tos = tas = takes) 153 (note).

1 pl. we leuen 65; we calle 70;

3 pl. temen 100 (and cp. ll. 151-2); knawe 145; but Þay got? 150, pyke? 213 (both in rime).

imperative pl. dysplese? 62; gos, dot? 161.

pres. p. spornande 3.

pp. runne (in rime) 163, beside wroken 15, &c.

Characteristic Western forms are burne 37 (OE. beorn); vrÞe 82 (OE. eorÞe).

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5. 'Like bubbling water that flows from a spring', i.e. his wild words rise from a heart that can no longer contain its affliction.

11-12. 'You, who were once the source of all my joy, made sorrow my companion.'

15. 'From the time when you were removed from every peril'. The child died before she was two years old (l. 123).

22. 'I am but dust, and rough in manners.' The MS. has marere? mysse, which has been rendered 'botcher's waste'; but the poet is contrasting his own ill-mannered speech with the Pearl's courtesy.

23. 'But the mercy of Christ and of Mary and of John'. The genitive inflexion is confined to the noun immediately preceding mersy, while the two following nouns, which are logically genitives with exactly the same construction as Crystes, remain uninflected. For analogies see note to II 518.

36. and: MS. in. The sign for and is easily mistaken for i = in. Cp. note to XVII 42.

48. Þat, 'who'.

65. Þat... of, 'from whom'; the later relative form of quom occurs at l. 93.

70. Fenyx of Arraby: the symbol of peerless perfection. Cp. Chaucer, Death of Blanche the Duchess, ll. 980-3

Trewly she was to myn ye

The soleyn Fenix of Arabye,

For ther lyveth never but oon,

Ne swich as she ne knew I noon.

71. 'which was faultless in form'; fle?e 'flew' is used with weakened sense because a bird is normally thought of as on the wing.

74. folde vp hyr face, '<with> her face upturned'; folde is pp.

91-2. 'And each would wish that the crowns of the others were five times as precious, if it were possible to better them.'

97. Poule: the common OFr. and ME. form, as at VIII a 25, 270, XI b 80. But the rime with naule 'nail' (ON. nagl) points to the form Paule for the original. The reference is to 1 Corinthians vi. 15 and xii. 12 ff.

100. hys body, 'its body', 'the body'. tyste: for ty?te 'tight', like l. 102 myste for my?te 'might'. The rimes with Kryst, gryste, lyste show that st and ?t were very similar in pronunciation. See Appendix § 6 (end).

106. 'Because you wear a ring on arm or finger.'

109-11. 'I <well> believe that there is great courtesy and charity among you.' The construction of the next line (which conveys an apology, cp. l. 62) is not clear owing to the following gap in the MS.; nor is it easy to guess the missing rime word, as emong can rime with OE. -ung- (e.g. with ?onge, ll. 114, 175), or with OE. -ang-; see the note to XVII 400.

116. stronge may be adj. 'violent' with worlde, but is more likely adv. 'severely'.

124-5. Note the cumulation of negatives. cowÞe? has a double construction: 'You never knew how to please God nor pray to Him, nor <did you know even> the Paternoster and Creed.' The Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed were prescribed by the Church as the elements of faith to be taught first to a child.

137. Matthew xx. 1-16.

139. 'He represented it very aptly in a parable.'

141. My regne... on hy?t, 'My kingdom on high'.

145. Þys hyne: the labourers. This, these are sometimes used in early English to refer to persons or things that have not been previously mentioned, but are prominent in the writer's mind. Cp. XV b 4, 19; and the opening of Chaucer's Prologue to the Franklin's Tale quoted in the note to II 13.

150. penÉ: in ME. the final sound developed from OFr. -É (e) fell together with the sounds arising from OE. -ig, OFr. ie, &c. Hence penÉ or peny 186 (OE. penig); reprenÉ 184 for repreny; cortaysÉ 120, 121, beside cortaysye 72, 84, 96. The acute accent is editorial.

153. 'At midmorning the master goes to the market.' tot? (= tos) = tas, contracted form of takes 'betakes himself'; cp. tone = taken V 91. The spelling and rimes with o (which cannot develop normally from a lengthened in open syllables because this lengthening is everywhere later than the change a ? o) are usually explained as artificial. It is assumed that as Northern ban corresponded to Midland bon, so from Northern tÁ 'take' an unhistorical Midland to was deduced. But it is possible that the contraction of take(n), and consequent lengthening tÁ(n), is older than the ordinary lengthening take ? tÁke, and also older than the development of a to o in North Midland.

164. I yow pay: note the survival of the old use of the present to express future tense.

176. Þat at ?e moun, 'what you can'. At as a relative appears usually to be from Old Norse at, with the same sense, and it is not uncommon in Northern English. But Þat at here is more likely the normal development of Þat Þat ? Þat tat (note to II 102) ? Þat at.

179. sumoun is infin. not sb.: 'he had (them) summoned'; cp. note to VIII a 79.

192. 'It seems to us we ought to receive more.' Vus Þynk is a remnant of the old impersonal construction of ÞynceÞ 'it seems'. In this phrase, probably owing to confusion with we Þynk(en), the verb often has no flexional ending; cp. l. 192. vus o?e is formed by analogy, the verb being properly personal; cp. must vs XVII 292, 334.

200. And, 'If'.

205-8. More, which is necessary for the metrical form, is best taken as conj. 'moreover', 'further'; weÞer introduces a direct question (note to V 118). louyly is perhaps miswritten for lauly 'lawful', as the Pearl-Gawayne group often show the converse au, aw for normal ou, ow, e.g. bawe for bowe, trawÞe for trowÞe. 'Further, is my power to do what pleases me with my own lawful?' The meaning is fixed by Matthew xx. 15 'Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?'

212. myke?. In the few recorded examples mik, myk seems to mean 'an intimate friend'. Here it is used for the sake of rime in an extended sense 'chosen companion of the Lord'.

221 f. WheÞer, &c., 'Although I began <only> just now, coming into the vineyard in the eventide, <yet>', &c.224. Note the rime (OE. sum) with ON. blÓm(i), OE. dom, com. Such rimes occur occasionally in Northern texts of the fourteenth century—never in the South.

233. Psalm lxii. 12 'Also unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for Thou renderest to every man according to his work.'

237-40. Loosely constructed. 'Now, if you came to payment before him that stood firm through the long day, then he who did less work would be more entitled to receive pay, and the further <it is carried>, the less <work>, the more <claim to be paid>.'

249-51. On the meaning of these lines there is no agreement. Gollancz and Osgood interpret: 'That man's privilege is great who ever stood in awe of Him (God) who rescues sinners. From such men no happiness is withheld, for,' &c. Yet it is difficult to believe that even a poet hard pressed would use dard to Hym to mean 'feared Him'. One of several rival interpretations will suffice to show the ambiguities of the text: 'His (God's) generosity, which is always inscrutable (lit. lay hidden), is abundant to the man who recovers his soul from sin. From such men no happiness is withheld', &c. The sense and construction of dard (for which the emendation fard, pret. of fere 'to go', has been suggested, the rest of the interpretation following Gollancz), and the obscurity of the argument, are the chief obstacles to a satisfactory solution.

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VII

Dialect: Irregular, but predominantly North-West Midland; cp. V and VI.

Inflexions:—

VERB: pres. ind. 3 sg. warys 19, has 20.

3 pl. ben 11, sayn 182, haue 31.

pres. p. claterand 137, Þriuaund 158, leymonde 153; beside blowyng 106, doutyng 114.

strong pp. slydyn 6, stoken 11.

The weak pp. and pa. t. have -it, -(e)t for -(e)d: drepit 9, suet 24.

PRONOUN 3 PERS.: pl. nom. Þai 45; poss. hor 8, beside Þere 9, 10; obj. hom 24.

Sounds and Spelling: Northern and North Midland forms are qwiles (= whiles) 39, hondqwile 117; and wysshe 4 (note). West Midland indications are buernes 'men' 90, 91 = OE. beorn (but buerne 'sea' 159 = OE. burn- is probably miswritten owing to confusion with buern 'man'); and perhaps the spelling u in unaccented syllables: mecull 10, watur 119, wintur 124.

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4. wysshe = wisse 'guide'. In the North final sh was commonly pronounced ss; cp. note to I 128-9, and the rimes in XVII 1-4. Conversely etymological ss was sometimes spelt ssh.

7-8. strongest... and wisest... to wale, 'the strongest... and wisest... that could be chosen' (lit. 'to choose').

15. On lusti to loke, 'pleasant to look upon'.

21 ff. A typical example of the vague and rambling constructions in which this writer indulges: apparently 'but old stories of the valiant <men> who <once> held high rank may give pleasure to some who never saw their deeds, through the writings of men who knew them at first hand (?) (in dede), <which remained> to be searched by those who followed after, in order to make known (or to know?) all the manner in which the events happened, by looking upon letters (i.e. writings) that were left behind of old'.

45. BenoÎt de Sainte-Maure says the Athenians rejected Homer's story of gods fighting like mortals, but charitably explains that, as Homer lived a hundred years after the siege, it is no wonder if he made mistakes:

N'est merveille s'il i faillit,

Quar onc n'i fu ne rien n'en vit.

Prologue, ll. 55-6.

53-4. 'That was elegantly compiled by a wise clerk—one Guido, a man who had searched carefully, and knew all the actions from authors whom he had by him.' See Introductory note, pp. 68 f.

66-7. Cornelius Nepos was supposed to have found the Greek work of Dares at Athens when rummaging in an old cupboard (BenoÎt de Sainte-Maure, Prologue, ll. 77 ff.).

157. Note the slovenly repetition from l. 151. So l. 159 repeats l. 152.

168-9. I have transposed these lines, assuming that they were misplaced by a copyist. Guido's Latin favours the change, and the whole passage will illustrate the English translator's methods:

Oyleus uero Aiax qui cum 32 nauibus suis in predictam incidit tempestatem, omnibus nauibus suis exustis et submersis in mari, in suis uiribus brachiorum nando semiuiuus peruenit ad terram; et, inflatus pre nimio potu aque, uix se nudum recepit in littore, vbi usque ad superuenientis diei lucem quasi mortuus iacuit in arena, [et] de morte sua sperans potius quam de uita. Sed cum quidam ex suis nando similiter a maris ingluuie iam erepti nudi peruenissent ad littus, dominum eorum querunt in littore [et] si forsitan euasisset. Quem in arena iacentem inueniunt, dulcibus uerborum fouent affatibus, cum nec in uestibus ipsum nec in alio possunt subsidio refouere. (MS. Harley 4123, fol. 117 a—the bracketed words are superfluous.)178. Telamon was not at the siege, and his name appears here and in l. 150 as the result of a tangle which begins in the confusion of Oyleus Ajax with Ajax the son of Telamon. In classical writers after Homer it is Oyleus Ajax who, at the sack of Troy, drags Cassandra from the temple of Minerva. This is the story in Dictys. Dares, like Homer, is silent. In BenoÎt de Sainte-Maure's poem (ll. 26211-16), the best MSS. name Oyleus Ajax as Cassandra's captor, but others have 'Thelamon Aiax', i.e. Ajax, the son of Telamon. Guido read BenoÎt in a MS. of the latter class, and accordingly makes Telamonius Aiax do the sacrilege. With the English translator this becomes Telamon simply (Bk. xxix, ll. 11993-7). So when later, in Bk. xxxi, he comes to describe the shipwreck, he replaces Guido's Aiax by Telamon, and spoils the story of Minerva's vengeance on the actual violator of her sanctuary.

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VIII

Dialect: South Midland, with mixture of forms.

a. VERB: pres. ind. 2 sg. seist 226, wilnest 256.

3 sg. comaundeth 16.

1 pl. haue 118, preye 119.

2 pl. han 11, wasten 127.

3 pl. liggeth 15, &c.; beside ben 50, waste 155.

imper. pl. spynneth 13.

pres. p. (none in a); romynge b 11.

strong pp. bake 187, ybake 278, ybaken 175.

Infinitives in -ie (OE. -ian) are retained: erye 4, hatie 52, tilye 229 (OE. erian, hatian, tilian).

PRONOUN 3 PERS.: pl. nom. Þei 126, &c., beside hii 15; poss. her 54; obj. hem 2.

Sounds: OE. y often shows the Western development, as in huyre(d) 108, 133, &c.; abugge 75, 159; beside bigge 275. So Cornehulle b 1. But such forms were not uncommon in the London dialect of the time.

b. The second extract has a more Southern dialectal colouring. Note especially the gen. pl. forms lollarene 31, knauene 56, lordene 77, continuing or extending the OE. weak gen. pl. in -ena; and menne 29, 74, retaining the ending of the OE. gen. pl. manna.

The representation of unaccented vowels by u in hure (= 'their') 50, (= 'her') 53; (h)us 'his' 60, 101; clerkus 65, is commonest in Western districts. h(w) is no longer aspirated: wanne 1, werby 35, MS. eggen 19; and conversely hyf 'if' 43, his 'is' 105.

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a 9. for shedyng, 'to prevent spilling'; and so for colde 62 'as a protection against cold'; for bollyng 209 'to prevent swelling'; for chillyng 306, &c.

a 11. Þat ?e han silke and sendal to sowe: The construction changes as if Piers had begun: Ich praye ?ow, which is the reading in the C-text. The difficulty of excluding modern ideas from the interpretation of the Middle Ages is shown by the comment of a scholar so accomplished as M. Petit-Dutaillis: 'Il attaque les riches peu misÉricordieux, les dames charmantes aux doigts effilÉs, qui ne s'occupent pas des pauvres' (SoulÈvement, p. lxii). But there is no hint of satire or reproach in the text. The poet, always conventional, assigns to high-born ladies the work which at the time was considered most fitting for them. So it is reported in praise of the sainted Isabella of France, sister of St. Louis: Quand elle fust introduicte des lettres suffisamment, elle s'estudioit À apprendre À ouurer de soye, et faisoit estolles et autres paremens À saincte Eglise—'When she was sufficiently introduced to letters, she set herself to learn how to work in silk, and made stoles and other vestments for Holy Church.' (Joinville, Histoire d. S. Louys, Paris 1668, pt. i, p. 169.)

a 19. for Þe Lordes loue of heuene: cp. l. 214, and notes to I 44, I 83, II 518.

a 23. on Þe teme, 'on this subject'; teme 'theme' is a correct form, because Latin th was pronounced t. The modern pronunciation is due to the influence of classical spelling.

a 32. affaite Þe, 'tame for thyself'; cp. l. 64 (I shal) brynge me = 'bring (for myself)', and the note to II 289.

a 40-1. 'And though you should fine them, let Mercy be the assessor, and let Meekness rule over you, in spite of Gain.' This is a warning against abuse of the lord of the manor's power to impose fines in the manorial court with the object of raising revenue rather than of administering justice. Cp. Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History, vol. i (1894), pt. ii, p. 266. For maugrÉ Medes chekes cp. 151.

a 49. Luke xiv. 10.

a 50. yuel to knowe, 'hard to distinguish'.

a 72-5. These clumsy lines, which are found in all versions, exemplify the chief faults in Piers Plowman: structural weakness and superfluous allegory.

a 79. I wil... do wryte my biqueste, 'I will have my will written'; make(n), ger (gar), and lete(n) are commonly used like do(n) with an active infinitive, which is most conveniently rendered by the passive; so do wryte 'cause to be written'; dyd werche 'caused to be made' I 218; mad sumoun 'caused to be summoned' VI 179; gert dres vp 'caused to be set up' X 16; leet make 'caused to be made' IX 223, &c.

a 80. In Dei nomine, amen: A regular opening phrase for wills.

a 84. 'I trust to have a release from and remission of my debts which are recorded in that book.' Rental, a book in which the sums due from a tenant were noted, here means 'record of sins'.

a 86. he: the parson, as representing the Church.

a 91. dou?tres. In l. 73 only one daughter is named. In the B-text, Passus xviii. 426, she is called Kalote (see note to b 2 below).

a 94. bi Þe rode of Lukes: at Lucca (French Lucques) is a Crucifix and a famous representation of the face of Christ, reputed to be the work of the disciple Nicodemus. From Eadmer and William of Malmesbury we learn that William the Conqueror's favourite oath was 'By the Face of Lucca!', and it is worth noting that the frequent and varied adjurations in Middle English are copied from the French.

a 114. 'May the Devil take him who cares!'

a 115 ff. faitoures (cp. ll. 185 ff.), who feigned some injury or disease to avoid work and win the pity of the charitable, multiplied in the disturbed years following the Black Death. Statutes were passed against them, and even against those who gave them alms (Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life, pp. 261 ff.). But the type was long lived. In the extract from Handlyng Synne (No. I), we have already a monument of their activities.

a 141. 'And those that have cloisters and churches (i.e. monks and priests) shall have some of my goods to provide themselves with copes.'

a 142. Robert Renne-aboute. The type of a wandering preacher; posteles are clearly preachers with no fixed sphere of authority, like the mendicant friars and Wiclif's 'poor priests'. Against both the regular clergy constantly complained that they preached without the authority of the bishop.

a 186. Þat seten: the MS. by confusion has Þat seten to seten to begge, &c.

a 187. Þat was bake for Bayarde: i.e. 'horse-bread' (l. 208), which used to be made from beans and peas only. Bayard, properly a 'bay horse', was, according to romance, the name of the horse given by Charlemagne to Rinaldo. Hence it became the conventional name for a horse, just as Reynard was appropriated to the fox. Chaucer speaks of proude Bayard (Troilus, Bk. i. 218) and, referring to an unknown story, Bayard the blynde (Canon's Yeoman's Tale, 860).

a 221. Michi vindictam: Romans xii. 19.

a 224. Luke xvi. 9.a 229. Genesis iii. 19.

a 231. Sapience: the Book of Wisdom, but the quotation is actually from Proverbs xx. 4.

a 234. Mathew with mannes face. Each of the evangelists had his symbol: Matthew, a man; Mark, a lion; Luke, a bull; John, an eagle; and in early Gospel books their portraits are usually accompanied by the appropriate symbols.

a 235 ff. Matthew xxv. 14 ff.; Luke xix. 12 ff.

a 245. Contemplatyf lyf or actyf lyf. The merits of these two ways of life were endlessly disputed in the Middle Ages. In XI b Wiclif attacks the position of the monks and of Rolle's followers; and the author of Pearl (VI 61 ff.) takes up the related question of salvation by works or by grace.

a 246. Psalm cxxviii. 1.

a 264. Jusserand gives a brief account of the old-time physicians in English Wayfaring Life, pp. 177 ff. The best were somewhat haphazard in their methods, and the mountebanks brought discredit on the profession. Here are a few fourteenth-century prescriptions:

For hym that haves the squynansy ['quinsy']:—

Tak a fatte katte, and fla hit wele and clene, and draw oute the guttes; and tak the grees of an urcheon ['hedgehog'], and the fatte of a bare, and resynes, and feinygreke ['fenugreek'], and sauge ['sage'], and gumme of wodebynde, and virgyn wax: al this mye ['grate'] smal, and farse ['stuff'] the catte within als thu farses a gos: rost hit hale, and geder the grees, and enoynt hym tharwith. (Reliquiae Antiquae, ed. Wright and Halliwell (1841), vol. i, p. 51.)

Take tou<n>karsyn ['towncress'], and pulyole ['penny-royal'], and seÞ hit in water, and ?ef hym to drynke, and hit schal caste out Þe venym: and ?if Þou miste ['might'] haue of Þe hundys here, ley hit Þerto, and hit schal hele hit. (Medical Works of the Fourteenth Century, ed. G. Henslow, London 1899, p. 19.)

Take Þe grece of a bor, and Þe grece of a ratoun, and cattys grece, and voxis grece, and hors grece, and Þe grece of a brok ['badger']; and take feÞeruoye ['feverfew'] and eysyl ['vinegar'], and stampe hem togedre; and take a litel lynnesed, and stampe hit wel, and do hit Þerto; and meng al togedre, and het hit in a scherd, and Þerwith anoynte Þe goute by the fuyre. Do so ofte and hit schal be hol. (Ibid., p. 20.)

a 284. Lammasse tyme: August 1, when the new corn (l. 294) would be in. On this day a loaf was offered as firstfruits: whence the name, OE. hlaf-mÆsse.

a 307 ff. Owing to repeated famines, the wages of manual labour rose throughout the first half of the fourteenth century. A crisis was reached when the Black Death (1349) so reduced the number of workers that the survivors were able to demand wages on a scale which seemed unconscionable to their employers. By the Statute of Labourers (1350 and 1351) an attempt was made to force wages and prices back to the level of 1346. For a day's haymaking 1d. was to be the maximum wage; for reaping 2d. or 3d. Throughout the second half of the fourteenth century vain attempts were made to enforce these maxima, and the penalties did much to fan the unrest that broke out in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

a 309-10. From Bk. i of the Disticha of Dionysius Cato, a collection of proverbs famous throughout the Middle Ages.

a 321. Saturn was a malevolent planet, as we see from his speech in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, 1595 ff.

a 324. Deth: the Plague.

b 1. Cornehulle. Cornhill was one of the liveliest quarters of fourteenth-century London, and a haunt of idlers, beggars, and doubtful characters. Its pillory and stocks were famous. Its market where, if The London Lickpenny is to be credited, dealing in stolen clothes was a speciality, was privileged above all others in the city. See the documents in Riley's Memorials of London.

b 2. Kytte: In the B-text, Passus xviii. 425-6, Kytte is mentioned again:

b 4. lollares of London: The followers of Wiclif were called 'Lollards' by their opponents; but the word here seems to mean 'idlers' as in l. 31. lewede heremytes: 'lay hermits': hermits were not necessarily in holy orders, and so far from seeking complete solitude, they often lived in the cities or near the great highways, where many passers would have opportunity to recognize their merit by giving alms. See Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, pp. 93 ff.

b 5. 'For I judged those men as Reason taught me.' Skeat's interpretation—that made of means 'made verses about'—is forced. The sense is that the idlers and hermits thought little of the dreamer, and he was equally critical of them.

b 6. as ich cam by Conscience: 'as I passed by Conscience', referring to a vision described in the previous Passus, in which Conscience is the principal figure.

b 10 f. In hele and in vnitÉ, 'in health and in my full senses', and Romynge in remembraunce qualify me.

b 14. Mowe oÞer mowen, 'mow or stack'. For these unrelated words see the Glossary.

b 16. haywarde: by derivation 'hedge-ward'. He watched over enclosures and prevented animals from straying among the crops. Observe that ME. nouns denoting occupation usually survive in surnames:—Baxter 'baker', Bow(y)er, Chapman, Dyer, Falconer, Fletcher 'arrow-maker', Fo(re)ster, Franklin, Hayward, Lister (= litster, 'dyer'), Palmer, Reeve(s), Spicer, Sumner, Tyler 'maker or layer of tiles', Warner 'keeper of warrens', Webb, Webster, Wright, Yeoman, &c.

b 20-1. 'Or craft of any kind that is necessary to the community, to provide food for them that are bedridden.'

b 24. to long, 'too tall': cp. B-text, Passus xv. 148 my name is Longe Wille. Consistency in such details in a poem full of inconsistencies makes it probable that the poet is describing himself, not an imagined dreamer.

b 33. Psalm lxii. 12.

b 45. 1 Corinthians vii. 20.

b 46 ff. Cp. the note to XI b 131 f. The dreamer appears to have made his living by saying prayers for the souls of the dead, a service which, from small beginnings in the early Middle Ages, had by this time withdrawn much of the energy of the clergy from their regular duties. See note to XI b 140 f.

b 49. my Seuene Psalmes: the Penitential Psalms, normally vi, xxxii, xxxviii, li, cii, cxxx, cxliii, in the numbering of the Authorised Version. The Prymer, which contained the devotions supplementary to the regular Church service, included the Placebo, Dirige, and the Seven Psalms: see the edition by Littlehales for the Early English Text Society.

b 50. for hure soules of suche as me helpen: combines the constructions for Þe soules of suche as me helpen, and for hure soules Þat me helpen.

b 51. vochen saf: supply me as object, 'warrant me that I shall be welcome'.

b 61. 1 Thessalonians v. 15; Leviticus xix. 18.

b 63. churches: here and in l. 110 read the Norse form kirkes for the alliteration, as in a 28, 85. But the English form also belongs to the original, for it alliterates with ch at a 12, 50.

b 64. Dominus, &c.: Psalm xvi. 5.

b 83. Symondes sone: a son of Simon Magus—one guilty of simony, or one who receives preferment merely because of his wealth.

b 90. Matthew iv. 4.

b 103-4. Simile est, &c.: Matthew xiii. 44. Mulier que, &c.: Luke xv. 8 ff.

IX

Dialect: South-East Midland.

Vocabulary: A number of French words are taken over from the original, e.g. plee 81, ryot 83, violastres 97, saphire loupe 116, gowrdes 139, clowe gylofres 157, canell 158, avaled 195, trayne (for taynere?) 222, bugles 256, gowtes artetykes 314, distreynen 315.

Inflexions: Almost modern.

Sounds: OE. a becomes o: hoot 11, cold 31.

OE. y appears as y (= i): byggynge 90, ky?n 'kine' 256; except regular left (hand) 69, 71, 72, where Modern English has also adopted the South-Eastern form of OE. lyft.

21-3. The French original says that the children have white hair when they are young, which becomes black as they grow up.

24-5. The belief that one of the Three Kings came from Ethiopia is based on Ps. lxviii. 31: 'Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.' In mediaeval representations one of the three is usually a negro.

27. Emlak: miswritten for Euilak, a name for India taken from Havilah of Genesis ii. 11.

28. Þat is: Þe more: Ynde has probably fallen out of the text after is.

34-5. ?alow cristall draweth <to> colour lyke oylle: the insertion of to is necessary to give sense, and is supported by the French: cristal iaunastre trehant a colour doile. (MS. Harley 4383, f. 34 b.)

36-7. The translation is not accurate. The French has: et appelle homme les dyamantz en ceo pais 'Hamese'.

64 ff. It was supposed that the pearl-bearing shell-fish opened at low tide to receive the dew-drops from which the pearls grew.

74. ?if ?ou lyke, 'if it please you', impersonal = French si vous plest.

75. Þe Lapidarye, Latin Lapidarium, was a manual of precious stones, which contained a good deal of pseudo-scientific information about their natures and virtues, just as the Bestiary summed up popular knowledge of animals. A Latin poem by Marbod bishop of Rennes (d. 1123) is the chief source of the mediaeval lapidaries, and, curiously enough, there is a French prose text attributed by so intimate an authority as Jean d'Outremeuse to Mandeville himself. Several Old French texts have been edited by L. Pannier, Les Lapidaires FranÇais du Moyen Âge, Paris 1882. Their high repute may be judged from the inclusion of no less than seven copies in the library of Charles V of France (d. 1380); and it is surprising that no complete ME. version is known. But much of the matter was absorbed into encyclopaedic works like the De Proprietatibus Rerum of Bartholomaeus, which Trevisa translated.

97. Mistranslated. The French has: qi sont violastre, ou pluis broun qe violettes.

100-1. But in soth to me: French: Mes endroit de moy, 'but for my part'; the English translator has rendered en droit separately.

108. Þerfore: the context requires the sense 'because', but the translator would hardly have used Þerfore had he realized that ll. 108-9 correspond to a subordinate clause in the French, and do not form a complete independent sentence. He was misled by the bad punctuation of some French MSS., e.g. Royal 20 B. X and (with consequent corruption) Harley 4383.

136. Cathaye: China. See the classic work of Colonel Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, 2 vols., London 1866. The modernization of the Catalan map of 1375 in vol. i gives a good idea of Mandeville's geography.

142. withouten wolle: the story of the vegetable lamb is taken from the Voyage of Friar Odoric, which is accessible in Hakluyt's Voyages. Hakluyt's translation is reprinted, with the Eastern voyages of John de Plano Carpini (1246) and of William de Rubruquis (1253), in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, ed. A. W. Pollard, London 1900. The legend probably arose from vague descriptions of the cotton plant; and Mandeville makes it still more marvellous by describing as without wool the lamb which had been invented to explain the wool's existence.

143-4. Of Þat frute I haue eten: This assertion seems to be due to the English translator. The normal French text has simply: et cest bien grant meruaille de ceo fruit, et si est grant oure [= oeuvre] de nature (MS. Royal 20 B. X, f. 70 b).

147. the Bernakes: The barnacle goose—introduced here on a hint from Odoric—is a species of wild goose that visits the Northern coasts in winter. It was popularly supposed to grow from the shell-fish called 'barnacle', which attaches itself to floating timber by a stalk something like the neck and beak of a bird, and has feathery filaments not unlike plumage. As the breeding place of the barnacle goose was unknown, and logs with the shell-fish attached were often found on the coasts, it was supposed that the shell-fish was the fruit of a tree, which developed in the water into a bird. Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hibernica, I. xv, reproves certain casuistical members of the Church who ate the barnacle goose on fast-days on the plea that it was not flesh; but himself vouches for the marvel. The earliest reference in English is No. 11 of the Anglo-Saxon Riddles, of which the best solution is 'barnacle goose'. For a full account see Max MÜller's Lectures on the Science of Language, vol. ii, pp. 583-604.157. grete notes of Ynde, 'coco-nuts'.

163-4. Goth and Magoth: see Ezekiel xxxviii and xxxix. The forms of the names are French.

170. God of Nature: Near the end of the Travels it is explained that all the Eastern peoples are Deists, though they have not the light of Christianity: Þei beleeven in God Þat formede all thing and made the world, and clepen him 'God of Nature'.

191-2. Þat Þei schull not gon out on no syde, but be the cost of hire lond: the general sense requires the omission of but, which has no equivalent in the original French text: qils ne<nt> issent fors deuers la coste de sa terre (MS. Sloane 1464, f. 139 b). But some MSS. like Royal 20 B. X have fors qe deuers, a faulty reading that must have stood in the copy used by the Cotton translator. Cp. note to l. 108.

199-200. a four grete myle: renders the French iiii grantz lieus. There is no 'great mile' among English measures.

209 ff. In the Middle Ages references to the Jews are nearly always hostile. They were hated as enemies of the Church, and prejudice was hardened by stories, like that in the text, of their vengeance to come, or of ritual murder, like Chaucer's Prioress's Tale. England had its supposed boy martyrs, William of Norwich (d. 1144), and Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255) whom the Prioress invokes:

Religion was not the only cause of bitterness. The Jews, standing outside the Church and its laws against usury, at a time when financial needs had outgrown feudal revenues, became the money-lenders and bankers of Europe; and with a standard rate of interest fixed at over 40 per cent., debtors and creditors could hardly be friends. In England the Jews reached the height of their prosperity in the twelfth century, so that in 1188 nearly half the national contribution for a Crusade came from them. In the thirteenth century their privileges and operations were cut down, and they were finally expelled from the country in 1290 (see J. Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England, 1893). The Lombards, whose consciences were not nice, took their place as financiers in fourteenth-century England.

222. trayne: read taynere, OFr. taignere 'a burrow'.

237-8. The cotton plant has already given us the vegetable lamb (l. 142). This more prosaic account is taken from the EÞistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem: 'in Bactriacen... penitus ad abditos Seres, quod genus hominum foliis arborum decerpendo lanuginem ex silvestri vellere vestes detexunt' (Julius Valerius, ed. B. KÜbler, p. 194). From the same text come the hippopotami, the bitter waters (KÜbler, p. 195), and the griffins (KÜbler, p. 217). The Letter of Alexander was translated into Anglo-Saxon in the tenth century.

254 ff. talouns etc.: In the 1725 edition there is a reference to 'one 4 Foot long in the Cotton Library' with the inscription, Griphi Unguis Divo Cuthberto Dunelmensi sacer, 'griffin's talon, sacred to St. Cuthbert of Durham'. This specimen is now in the Mediaeval Department of the British Museum, and is really the slim, curved horn of an ibex. The inscription is late (sixteenth century), but the talon was catalogued among the treasures of Durham in the fourteenth century.

260. Prestre Iohn: Old French Prestre Jean, or 'John the Priest', was reputed to be the Christian ruler of a great kingdom in the East. A rather minatory letter professing to come from him reached most of the princes of Europe, and was replied to in all seriousness by Pope Alexander III. Its claims include the lordship over the tribes of Gog and Magog whom Alexander the Great walled within the mountains. Official missions were sent to establish relations with him; but neither in the Far East nor in Northern Africa, where the best opinion in later times located his empire, could the great king ever be found. The history of the legend is set out by Yule in the article Prester John in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

261. Yle of Pentexoire: to Mandeville most Eastern countries are 'isles'. Pentexoire in the French text of Odoric is a territory about the Yellow River (Yule, Cathay, vol. i, p. 146).

262 ff.: For comparison the French text of the Epilogue is given from MS. Royal 20 B. X, f. 83 a, the words in <> being supplied from MS. Sloane 1464:

'Il y a plusours autres diuers pais, et moutz dautres meruailles par de la, qe ieo nay mie tout veu, si nen saueroye proprement parler. Et meismement el pais en quel iay este, y a plusours diuersetes dont ieo ne fais point el mencioun, qar trop serroit long chose a tout deuiser. Et pur ceo qe ieo vous ay deuisez dascuns pais, vous doit suffire quant a present. Qar, si ieo deuisoie tout quantqez y est par de la, vn autre qi se peneroit et trauailleroit le corps pur aler en celles marches, et pur sercher la pais, serroit empeschez par mes ditz a recompter nuls choses estranges, qar il ne purroit rien dire de nouelle, en quoy ly oyantz y puissent prendre solaces. Et lem dit toutdis qe choses nouelles pleisent. Si men taceray a tant, saunz plus recompter nuls diuersetez qi soyent par de la, a la fin qe cis qi vourra aler en celles parties y troeue assez a dire.

'Et ieo, Iohan Maundeuille dessudit, qi men party de nos pais et passay le mer lan de grace mil cccxxiide; qi moint terre et moint passage et moint pays ay puis cerchez; et qy ay este en moint bone compaignie et en molt beal fait, come bien qe ieo <ne fuisse dignes, et> ne feisse vncqes ne beal fait ne beal emprise; et qi meintenant suy venuz a repos maugre mien, pur goutes artetikes qi moy destreignont; en preignan solacz en mon cheitif repos, en recordant le temps passe, ay cestes choses compilez et mises en escript, si come il me poet souuenir, lan de grace mil ccc.lvime, a xxxiiiite an qe ieo men party de noz pais.

'Si pri a toutz les lisauntz, si lour plest, qils voillent Dieu prier pur moy, et ieo priera pur eux. Et toutz cils qi pur moy dirrount vne Paternoster qe Dieu me face remissioun de mes pecches, ieo les face parteners et lour ottroie part dez toutz les bons pelrinages et dez toutz les bienfaitz qe ieo feisse vnqes, et qe ieo ferray, si Dieu plest, vncqore iusqes a ma fyn. Et pry a Dieu, de qy toute bien et toute grace descent, qil toutz les lisantz et oyantz Cristiens voille de sa grace reemplir, et lour corps et les almes sauuer, a la glorie et loenge de ly qi est trinz et vns, et saunz comencement et saunz fin, saunz qualite bons, saunz quantite grantz, en toutz lieus present et toutz choses contenant, et qy nul bien ne poet amender ne nul mal enpirer, qy en Trinite parfite vit et regne par toutz siecles et par toutz temps. Amen.'

274. blamed: The Old French verb empescher means both 'to hinder, prevent', and 'to accuse, impeach'. But here empeschez should have been translated by 'prevented', not 'blamed'.

284-306. This passage, which in one form or another appears in nearly all the MSS. in English, has no equivalent in the MSS. in French so far examined: and, as it conflicts with ll. 313 ff., which—apart from the peculiarities of the Cotton rendering—indicate that the Travels were written after Mandeville's return, it must be set down as an interpolation.

The art of forging credentials was well understood in the Middle Ages, and the purpose of this addition was to silence doubters by the imprimatur of the highest authority, just as the marvel of the Dancers of Colbek is confirmed by the sponsorship of Pope Leo IX (I 246-9). The different interpretation of the latest editor, Hamelius, who thinks it was intended as a sly hit at the Papacy (Quarterly Review for April 1917, pp. 349 f.) seems to rest on the erroneous assumption that the passage belonged to the French text as originally written.

The anachronism by which the author is made to seek the Pope in Rome gives a clue to the date of the interpolation. From the beginning of the fourteenth century until 1377 Avignon, and not Rome, was the seat of the Pope; and for another thirty years there was doubt as to the issue of the conflict between the popes, who had their head-quarters at Rome and were recognized by England, and the antipopes, who remained at Avignon and had the support of the French. The facts were notorious, so that the anachronism would hardly be possible to one who wrote much before the end of the century, even though he were a partisan of the Roman court.

From internal evidence it would seem that the interpolation first appeared in French. The style is the uniform style of translation, with the same tags—and ?ee schull vndirstonde = et sachiez; ?if it lyke ?ou = si vous plest; and the same trick of double rendering, e.g. of dyuerse secte and of beleeve; wyse and discreet; the auctour ne the persone. More decisive is an example of the syntactical compromise explained in the note to l. 329: be the whiche the Mappa Mundi was made after. With so many French MSS. of Mandeville in use in England, an interpolation in French would have more authority than one that could not be traced beyond English; and it can hardly be an insuperable objection that no such French text exists to-day, since our knowledge of the Cotton and Egerton versions themselves depends in each case on the chance survival of a single MS.

The point has a bearing on the vexed question of the relations of the English texts one to another. For brevity we may denote by D the defective text of the early prints and most MSS., which is specially distinguished by a long gap near the beginning; by C the Cotton text (ed. Halliwell, Pollard, Hamelius); by E the Egerton text (ed. Warner). Nicholson (in the Encyclopaedia Britannica) and Warner give priority to D, and consider that C and E are independent revisions and expansions of D by writers who had recourse to the French original. Their argument seems to be this: There is precise evidence just before the gap that D derives direct from a mutilated French text (see Enc. Brit.), and if it be granted that a single translation from the French is the base of C, D, and E, it follows that C and E are based on D.

A fuller study by Vogels (Handschriftliche Untersuchungen Über die Englische Version Mandeville's, Crefeld 1891) brings to light a new fact: the two Bodleian MSS., E Museo 116 and Rawlinson D 99, contain an English translation (say L) made from a Latin text of the Travels. Vogels also shows that E is based on D, because the characteristic lacuna of D is filled in E by a passage which is borrowed from L and is not homogeneous with the rest of E. So far there is no conflict with the view of Nicholson and Warner. But, after adducing evidence in favour of the contention that C, D, and E are at base one translation, Vogels concludes that D derives from C, arguing thus: There is good evidence that C is a direct translation from the French, and if it be granted that a single translation from the French is the base of C and D, it follows that D derives from C.

In short, the one party maintains that C is an expansion of D, the other that D is an abridgement of C; and this flat opposition results from the acceptance of common ground: that C and D represent in the main one translation and not two translations.

To return to our interpolation:

(1) Vogels's first piece of evidence that C, D, and E are at base one translation is the appearance in all of this interpolation, which is absent from the MSS. in French. But a passage so remarkable might spread from one to the other of two independent English texts; or if the interpolation originated in England in a MS. of the French text since lost, it might be twice translated.

(2) Vogels assumes that the interpolation first appeared in type C. But C is the form in which it would be least likely to originate, because here the contradiction of statement is sharpest owing to the rendering at ll. 313-14: and now I am comen hom, which is peculiar to C (see the French).

(3) If, in order to eliminate individual peculiarities, we take two MSS. of the D type—say Harley 2386 and Royal 17 C. XXXVIII—we find that their text of the interpolation is identical with that of E. This is consistent with Vogels's finding that the body of E derives from D; and it confirms the evidence of all the defective MSS. that the interpolation in this particular form was an integral part of the D type.

(4) But between the text of the interpolation in D and that in C there are differences in matter, in sentence order, and in phrasing, which, while they do not exclude the possibility of interdependence, do not suggest such a relation. In D the passage is a naked attempt at authentication; in C it is more artfully though more shamelessly introduced by the touch of piety conventional in epilogues. And as the signs of a French original that appear in C are absent from D, it is unlikely that the text of the interpolation in C derives from D.

(5) Again, in D and E the addition follows the matter of ll. 307-20. Unfortunately, though the balance of probability is in favour of the order in C, the order intended by the interpolator is not certain enough to be made the basis of arguments. But such a difference in position is naturally explained from the stage when the interpolation stood in the margin of a MS., or on an inserted slip, so that it might be taken into the consecutive text at different points. And an examination of the possibilities will show that if the interpolation originated in French, the different placing is more simply explained on the assumption that C and D are independent translations than on the assumption that one of them derives from the other.

To sum up: the central problem for the history of the English texts is the relation of C and D. Taken by itself the evidence afforded by the text of the interpolation is against the derivation of C from D; it neither favours nor excludes the derivation of D from C; it rather favours independent translation in C and D.For the relations of the rest of the text these deductions afford no more than a clue. Against independent translation of C and D stands the evidence adduced by Vogels for basic unity. Much of this could be accounted for by the coincidences that are inevitable in literal prose translations from a language so near to English in vocabulary and word order; and a few striking agreements might be due to the use of French MSS. having abnormal variants in common, or even to reference by a second translator to the first. The remainder must be weighed against a considerable body of evidence in the contrary sense, e.g. several places where the manuscripts of the French text have divergent readings, of which C translates one, and D another.

It is unlikely that any simple formula will be found to cover the whole web of relationships: but any way of reconciling the conclusions of the authorities should be explored; and the first step is an impartial sifting of all the evidence, with the object of discovering to what extent C and D are interdependent, and to what extent independent translations. The chief obstacle is the difficulty of bringing the necessary texts together; for an investigator who wished to clear the ground would have to face the labour of preparing a six-text Mandeville, in the order, French, C, D, E, L, Latin.

301. Mappa Mundi: OFr. and ME. Mappemounde, was the generic name for a chart of the world, and, by extension, for a descriptive geography of the world. It is not clear what particular Mappa Mundi is referred to here, or whether such a map was attached to the manuscript copy of the Travels in which this interpolation first appeared.

329. fro whom all godenesse and grace cometh fro: cp. 24-5 the lond of the whiche on of the Þre Kynges... was kyng offe; 76-8 Þei... of whom all science... cometh from; and 301-2 be the whiche the Mappa Mundi was made after. The pleonasm is explained by the divergence of French and ME. word order. In French, as in modern literary English, the preposition is placed at the beginning of the clause, before the relative (de qui, dont, &c.). ME. writers naturally use the relative that, and postpone the preposition to the end of the clause: e.g. Þat all godenesse cometh fro. The translator compromises between his French original and his native habit by placing the preposition both at the beginning and at the end.

X

Dialect: Northern (Scots): the MS. copy was made in 1487 more than a century after the poem was composed.

Vocabulary: Note till 'to' 4, 77 (in rime); syne 'afterwards' 35, 112; the forms sic 'such' 135, begouth 94, and the short verbal forms ma (in rime) 'make' 14, tane (in rime) 'taken' 19.

Inflexions:

Sounds: OE. a remains: brynstane (in rime) 20, sare 51.

OE. o (close ?) appears as u (u?): gude 36, fut 57, tume 143.

Unaccented -(e)d of weak pa. t. and pp. becomes -(i)t: passit 2, &c.

Spelling: i (y) following a vowel indicates length: weill 10, noyne 'noon' 67.

OE. hw- appears as quh- (indicating strong aspiration): quhelis 'wheels' 17, quhar 18.

v and w are interchanged: vithall 9, behevin 163, in swndir 106.

Book XVII of The Bruce begins with the capture of Berwick by the Scots in March 1318. Walter Stewart undertakes to hold the city, and is aided in preparing defences by a Flemish engineer, John Crab. Next year King Edward II determines to recapture the stronghold by an attack from both land and sea. He entrenches his forces and makes the first assault unsuccessfully early in September 1319. In this battle the Scotch garrison capture a clever engineer (see note to l. 71 below). King Robert Bruce meanwhile orders a raid into England as a diversion, and on 20 September 1319, an English army, led by the Archbishop of York, is disastrously defeated by the invaders at Mitton. Our extract gives the story of the second assault on Berwick, which was also fruitless. The fortress fell into English hands again as a result of the battle of Halidon Hill in 1333: see XIV a 35-6.

5-6. 'They made a sow of great joists, which had a stout covering over it.' The sow was essentially a roof on wheels. The occupants, under shelter of the roof, pushed up to the walls of the besieged place and tried to undermine them. For an illustration see Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, Pt. VI, chap. vi, where other military engines of the time are described.

15. Crabbis consale: John Crab was the engineer of the garrison. He is no doubt the same as the John Crab who in 1332 brought Flemish ships round from Berwick to attack the English vessels at Dundee. There was an important Flemish colony at Berwick from early times.36. Schir Valter, the gude Steward: Walter Steward, whose surname denotes his office as Steward of Scotland, was the father of Robert II, the first king of the Stuart line.

42. Rude-evyn: September 13, the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

49. thame... of the toune, 'the defenders of the town'.

51. or than, 'or else'.

71 ff. The engynour: an English engineer captured by the garrison in the previous assault and forced into their service.

80. scho, 'she', some engine of war not previously referred to: apparently a mechanical sling.

123 ff. The boats were filled with men and hoisted up the masts, so as to overtop the walls and allow the besiegers to shoot at the garrison from above. The same engine that proved fatal to the sow was used to break up the boats.

146. thar wardane with him had, 'their warden <who> had with him'; cp. note to XIII a 36.

158-61. A confused construction. The writer has in mind: (1) 'Of all the men he had there remained with him only one whom he had not left to relieve', &c.; and (2) 'There were no members of his company (except one) whom he had not left', &c.

XI

Dialect: South Midland.

Inflexions: u for inflexional e, as in knowun a 2, seun a 51, a?enus a 29, mannus b 114 is found chiefly in West Midland.

Sounds: OE. a appears regularly as o, oo: more a 7, Hooly a 10, toolde a 65.

OE. y appears as y, i: synne a 61, stiren b 93.

The form ÞouÞ (= Þou? b 190 probably indicates sound-substitution; and in ynowÞ? (= ynou?) b 149 there is wavering between the two forms.

a 12. Wit Sunday: the first element is OE. hwit 'white', not 'wit'.

a 25 ff. Translations of the Bible were common in France at this time. No less than six fine copies survive from the library of John, Duke of Berry (d. 1416). About the middle of the fourteenth century King John of France ordered a new translation and commentary to be made at the expense of the Jews, but it was never finished, although several scholars were still engaged on it at the end of the century. The early French verse renderings, which incorporate a good deal of mediaeval legend, are described by J. Bonnard, Les Traductions de la Bible en Vers FranÇais au Moyen Âge (Paris 1884); the prose by S. Berger, La Bible FranÇaise au Moyen Âge (Paris 1884). Of the surviving manuscripts mentioned in these excellent monographs several were written in England.

a 28 ff. In earlier times, when most of those who could read at all were schooled in Latin, the need for English translations of the Scriptures was not so pressing, and the partial translations that were made were intended rather for the use of the clergy and their noble patrons than for the people. Bede (d. 735) completed a rendering of St. John's Gospel on his death-bed. Old English versions of the Gospels and the Psalms still survive. Abbot Aelfric (about A.D. 1000) translated the first five books of the Old Testament; and more than one Middle English version of the Psalms is known. Wiclif was perhaps unaware of the Old English precedents because French renderings became fashionable in England from the twelfth century onwards, and he would probably think of the Psalter more as a separate service book than as an integral part of the Bible. But the prologue to the Wiclifite version attributed to John Purvey quotes the example of Bede and King Alfred; and the Dialogue on Translation which, in Caxton's print, serves as preface to Trevisa's translation of Higden, emphasizes the Old English precedents. Both may be read in Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. A. W. Pollard, London 1903, pp. 193 ff. The attitude of the mediaeval Church towards vernacular translations of the Bible has been studied very fully by Miss M. Deanesly, The Lollard Bible and other Medieval Biblical Versions, Cambridge 1920.

a 34. Þe pley of ?ork. The York Paternoster Play has not survived, but there are records from 1389 of a Guild of the Lord's Prayer at York, whose main object was the production of the play. It seems to have been an early example of the moral play, holding up 'the vices to scorn and the virtues to praise', and it probably consisted of several scenes, each exhibiting one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The last recorded representation was in 1572. See Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, vol. ii, p. 154. The association of the friars with the production of religious plays is confirmed by other writings of the time. They were quick to realize the value of dramatic representation as a means of gaining favour with the people, and their encouragement must be reckoned an important factor in the development of the Miracle Play.

a 51. wher, 'whether'; cp. b 207. In ll. 197, 266, 274, it introduces a direct question; see note to V 118.

b 20. Gregory, Gregory the Great. See his work In Primum Regum Expositiones, Bk. iii, c. 28: praedicatores autem Sanctae Ecclesiae... prophetae ministerio utuntur (Migne, Patrologia, vol. lxxix, col. 158).

b 44. <God>. Such omissions from the Corpus MS. are supplied throughout from the copy in Trinity College, Dublin, MS. C. III. 12.

b 79-80. Cp. Luke xxi. 36 and 1 Thessalonians v. 17.

b 89-91. Proverbs xxviii. 9.

b 126. as Ambrose: In 386 St. Ambrose, besieged in the Portian Church at Milan by Arian sectaries, kept his followers occupied and in good heart by introducing the Eastern practice of singing hymns and antiphons. See St. Augustine's Confessions Bk. ix, c. 7.

b 131-2. placebo. Vespers of the Dead, named from the first word of the antiphon, Placebo Domino in regione vivorum (Psalm cxiv. 9).

dirige. Matins of the Dead, named from the first word of the antiphon, Dirige, Domine, Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam (Psalm v. 9). Hence our word dirge.

comendacion: an office in which the souls of the dead are commended to God.

matynes of Oure Lady: one of the services in honour of the Virgin introduced in the Middle Ages.

The whole question of these accretions to the Church services is dealt with by our English master in liturgical study, the late Mr. Edmund Bishop, in his essay introductory to the Early English Text Society's edition of the Prymer, since reprinted with additional notes in his Liturgica Historica (Oxford 1918), pp. 211 ff.

b 137 f. deschaunt, countre note, and orgon, and smale brekynge. The elaboration of the Church services in mediaeval times was accompanied by a corresponding enrichment of the music. To the plain chant additional parts were joined, sung in harmony either above or below the plain chant. Descant usually means the addition of a part above, organ and countre-note (= counterpoint) the addition of parts either above or below. All these could be composed note for note with the plain chant. But smale brekyng represents a further complication, whereby the single note in the plain chant was represented by two or more notes in the accompanying parts.

b 140 f. The abuse is referred to in Piers Plowman:

and by Chaucer in his description of the Parson:

b 183. Ordynalle of Salisbury. An 'ordinal' is a book showing the order of church services and ceremonies. In mediaeval times there was considerable divergence in the usage of different churches. But after the Conquest, and more especially in the thirteenth century, there was developed at Salisbury Cathedral an elaborate order and form of service which spread to most of the English churches of any pretensions. This was called 'Sarum' or 'Salisbury' use.

b 209. Þei demen it dedly synne a prest to fulfille, &c. For this construction, cp. Chaucer, Prologue 502 No wonder is a lewed man to ruste; Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, V.. iv. 108 f. It is the lesser blot... Women to change their shapes, &c. The same construction, where we now insert for, is seen in Gawayne (v. 352-3) hit were a wynne huge... a leude, Þat couÞe, to luf hom wel, &c.

b 221-3. 'They say that a priest may be excused from saying mass, to be the substance of which God gave Himself, provided that he hears one.'

b 228 f. newe costy portos, antifeners, graielis, and alle oÞere bokis. Portos, French porte hors, represents Latin portiforium, a breviary convenient for 'carrying out of doors'. The antifener contained the antiphons, responses, &c., necessary for the musical service of the canonical hours. The graiel, or gradual, was so called from the gradual responses, sung at the steps of the altar, or while the deacon ascended the steps of the pulpit: but the book actually contained all the choral service of the Mass.

b 230. makynge of biblis. Wiclif in his Office of Curates (ed. Matthew, p. 145) complains of the scarcity of bibles. But fewe curatis han Þe Bible and exposiciouns of Þe Gospelis, and litel studien on hem, and lesse donne after hem. But wolde God Þat euery parische chirche in Þis lond hadde a good Bible! &c.

b 234. At this time books, especially illuminated books, were very dear. The Missal of Westminster Abbey, which is now shown in the Chapter-house, was written in 1382-4 at a cost of £34 14s. 7d.—a great sum in those days, for the scribe, Thomas Preston, who took two years to write it, received only £4 for his labour, 20s. for his livery, and board at the rate of 21s. 8d. the half year. The inscription in British Museum MS. Royal 19 D. II, a magnificently illustrated Bible with commentary, shows that it was captured at Poitiers with King John of France, and bought by the Earl of Salisbury for 100 marks (about £66). Edward III gave the same sum to a nun of Amesbury for a rich book of romance. In France John, Duke of Berry, paid as much as £200 for a breviary, and the appraisement of his library in 1416 shows a surprisingly high level of values (L. Delisle, Le Cabinet des Manuscrits, vol. iii, pp. 171 ff.). These were luxurious books. The books from the chapel of Archbishop Bowet of York (d. 1423) sold more reasonably: £8 for a great antiphonar and £6 13s. 4d. pro uno libro vocato 'Bibill', were the highest prices paid; and from his library there were some fascinating bargains: 4s. for a small copy of Gregory's Cura Pastoralis; 5s. pro uno libro vocato 'Johannes Andrewe', vetere et debili, which would probably turn out to be a dry work on the Decretals; and 3s. 4d. for a nameless codex, vetere et caduco, 'old and falling to pieces'. (Historians of the Church of York, ed. J. Raine, vol. iii, pp. 311, 315.)

But the failing activity of the monastic scriptoria, and the formation of libraries by the friars and by rich private collectors, made study difficult for students at the universities, where at this time a shilling per week—a third of the price of Bowet's most dilapidated volume—was reckoned enough to cover the expenses of a scholar living plainly. The college libraries were scantily supplied: books were lent only in exchange for a valuable pledge; or even pawned, in hard times, by the colleges themselves.

These conditions were not greatly improved until printing gave an easy means of duplication, and for a time caused the humble manuscripts in which most of the mediaeval vernacular literature was preserved to be treated as waste paper. As late as the eighteenth century MartÈne found the superb illuminated manuscripts left by John, Duke of Berry, to the Sainte Chapelle at Bourges serving as roosting places to their keeper's hens (Voyage LittÉraire, Paris 1717, pt. i, p. 29).

b 261-3. The reference is to Acts vi. 2, 'It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.'

b 266. wisere Þan. After these words the Corpus MS. (p. 170, col. i, l. 34 mid.), without any warning, goes on to the closing passage of an entirely unrelated 'Petition to the King and Parliament'. By way of compensation, the end of our sermon appears at the close of the Petition. Clearly the scribe (or some one of his predecessors) copied without any regard for the sense from a MS. of which the leaves had become disarranged.

b 285. Cp. Acts iii. 6.

XII

Dialect: London (SE. Midland) with Kentish features.

Inflexions:

VERB: pres. ind. 3 sg. loveth a 5; contracted stant a 74.

3 pl. schewen a 136, halsen a 148, be (in rime) a 92.

pres. p. growende a 80.

strong pp. schape (in rime) a 130, beside schapen a 169.