Fourteenth Century VERSE & PROSE

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I

Two periods of our early history promise most for the future of English literature—the end of the seventh with the eighth century; the end of the twelfth century with the thirteenth.

In the first a flourishing vernacular poetry is secondary in importance to the intellectual accomplishment of men like Bede and Alcuin (to name only the greatest and the last of a line of scholars and teachers) who, drawing their inspiration from Ireland and still more from Italy direct, made all the knowledge of the time their own, and learned to move easily in the disciplined forms of Latin prose.

During the second the impulse again came from without. In twelfth-century France the creative imagination was set free. In England, which from the beginning of the tenth century had depended more and more on France for guidance, the nobles, clergy, and entertainers, in whose hands lay the fortunes of literature, had a community of interest with their French compeers that has never since been approached. So England shared early in the break with tradition; and during the thirteenth century the native stock is almost hidden by the brilliant growth of a new graft.

Every activity of the mind was quickened. A luxuriant invention of forms distinguished the Gothic style in architecture. All the decorative arts showed a parallel enrichment. Oxford (at least to insular eyes) was beginning to rival Paris in learning, and to contribute to the over-production of[x] clerks which at first extended the province of the Church, and finally, by breaking the bounds set between ecclesiastics and laymen, played an important part in the secularization of letters. The friars, whose foundation was the last great reform of the mediaeval Church, were at the height of their good fame; and one of them, the Franciscan Roger Bacon, by his work in philosophy, criticism, and physical science, raised the name of English thinkers to an eminence unattained since Bede. If among the older monastic orders feverish and sometimes extravagant reforms are symptoms of decline, the richness of Latin chronicles like those of Matthew Paris of St. Albans is evidence that in some of the great abbeys the monks were still learned and eloquent. Nor was Latin the only medium in which educated Englishmen were at home. They wrote French familiarly, and to some extent repaid their debt to France by transcribing and preserving Continental compositions that would else have perished.

Apart from all these activities, the manifestations of a new spirit in English vernacular works are so important, and the break with the past is so sharp, that the late twelfth century and the thirteenth would be chosen with more justice than Chaucer's time as the starting-point for a study of modern literature.

Then romance was established in English, whether we use the word to mean the imaginative searching of dark places, or in the more general sense of story-telling unhampered by a too strict regard for facts. Nothing is more remarkable in pre-Conquest works than the Anglo-Saxon's dislike of exaggeration and his devotion to plain matter of fact. Here is the account of the whales in the far North that King Alfred received from Ohthere (a Norseman, of course, but it is indifferent):—'they are eight and forty ells long, and the biggest fifty ells long'. Compare with this parsimony the full-blooded description of the griffins in Mandeville:—'But o griffoun hath[xi] the body more gret, and is more strong, þanne eight lyouns, of suche lyouns as ben o this half; and more gret and strongere þan an hundred egles suche as we han amonges vs, &c.', and you have a rough measure of the progress of fiction.

To take pleasure in stories is not a privilege reserved for favoured generations: but special conditions had transformed this pleasure into a passion. When Edward I became King in 1272, Western Europe had enjoyed a long period of internal peace, during which national hatreds burnt low. The breaking down of barriers between Bretons and French, Welsh and English, brought into the main stream of European literature the Celtic vein of idealism and delicate fancy. At the universities, in the Crusades, in the pilgrimages to Rome or Compostella, the nations mingled, each bringing from home some contribution to the common stock of stories; each gaining new experiences of the outside world, fusing them, and repeating them with embellishments. To those who stayed at home came the minstrels in the heyday of their craft—they were freemen of every Christian land who reported whatever was marvellous or amusing—and at second hand the colours of the rediscovered world seemed no less brave. It was an age greedy for entertainment that fed a rich sense of comedy on the jostling life around it; and to serve its ideals called up the great men of the past—Orpheus opening the way to fairyland, the heroes of the Trojan war, Alexander; Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and Merlin the enchanter; Charlemagne with his peers—or won back from the shadows not Eurydice alone, but Helen and Criseyde, Guinevere and Ysolde, Rymenhild and Blauncheflour.

While she still claimed to direct public taste, the Church could not be indifferent to the spread of romance. A policy of uniform repression was no longer possible. Her real[xii] power to suppress books was ineffective to bind busy tongues and minds; popular movements were assured of a measure of practical tolerance when order competed with order and church with church for the goodwill of the people; and even if the problem had been well defined, a disciplined attitude unvarying throughout all the divisions of the Church was not to be expected when her mantle covered clerks ranging in character from the strictest ascetic to that older Falstaff who passed under the name of Golias and found his own Muse in the tavern,—

So it came about that while some of the clergy denounced all minstrels as 'ministers of Satan', others made a truce with the more honest among them, and helped them to add to their repertories the lives of saints. Officially 'trifles and trotevales' were still censured: but it seemed good to mould the chansons de geste to pious uses,[1] and to purify the court of King Arthur, which popularity had led into dissolute ways, by introducing the quest of the Graal. And if Rolle preached sound doctrine when he ranked among the Sins of the Mouth 'to syng seculere sanges and lufe þam', their style and music were not despised as baits to catch the ears of the frivolous: when a singer began

the[xiii] lover of secular songs would be tempted to listen; but he would stay to hear a song of the Joys of the Virgin, to whose cult the period owes its best devotional poetry.

The power of the Church to mould the early growth of vernacular literature is so often manifested that there is a risk of underestimating the compromises and surrenders which are the signs of its wane. The figures of romance invaded the churches themselves, creeping into the carvings of the portals, along the choir-stalls, and into the historiated margins of the service books. Ecclesiastics collected and multiplied stories to adorn their sermons or illustrate their manuals of vices and virtues. In the lives of saints marvels accumulated until the word 'legend' became a synonym for an untrue tale. Though there are moments in the fourteenth century when the preponderance of the clerical over the secular element in literature seems as great as ever, by the end of the Middle Ages the trend of the conflict is plain. It is the Church that draws back to attend to her own defences, which the domestic growth of pious fictions has made everywhere vulnerable. But imaginative literature, growing always stronger and more confident, wins full secular liberty.

Emancipation from the bondage of fact, and to some extent from ecclesiastical censorship, coincided with the acquisition of a new freedom in the form of English poetry. Old English had a single metre—the long alliterative line without rime. It was best suited to narrative; it was unmusical in the sense that it could not be sung; it had marked proclivities towards rant and noise; and like blank verse it degenerated easily into mongrel prose.

Degeneration was far advanced in the eleventh century; and about the end of the twelfth some large-scale experiments show that writers were no longer content with the old medium. In Layamon, the last great poem in this metre before the fourteenth century, internal rime and assonance[xiv] are common. Orm adopted the unrimed septenarius from Latin, but counted his syllables so faithfully as to produce an intolerable monotony. Then French influence turned the scale swiftly and decisively in favour of rime, so that in the extant poetry of the thirteenth century alliteration is a secondary principle or a casual ornament, but never takes the place of rime.

The sudden and complete eclipse of a measure so firmly rooted in tradition is surprising enough; but the wealth and elaborateness of the new forms that replaced it are still more matter for wonder. It is natural to think of the poets before Chaucer as children learning their art slowly and painfully, and often stumbling on the way. Yet in this one point of metrical technique they seem to reach mastery at a bound.

That the development of verse forms took place outside of English is part of the explanation. Rimed verse had its origin in Church Latin. In the monastic schools the theory of classical and post-classical metres was a principal study; and the practical art of chant was indispensable for the proper conduct of the services. Under these favourable conditions technical development was rapid, so that in such an early example of the rimed stanza as the following, taken from a poem that Godescalc wrote in exile about the year 845,—

the arrangement of longer and shorter lines, the management of rime or assonance, and the studied grouping of consonant sounds, give rather the impression of too much than too little artifice.

From[xv] Church Latin rime passed into French, and with the twelfth century entered on a new course of development at the hands of the trouvères and the minstrels. The trouvères, or 'makers', studied versification and music as a profession, and competed in the weaving of ingenious patterns. Since their living depended on pleasing their audience, those minstrels who were not themselves composers spared no pains to sing or recite well the compositions of others; and good execution encouraged poets to try more difficult forms.

The varied results obtained in two such excellent schools of experience were offered to the English poets of the thirteenth century in exchange for the monotony of the long line; and their choice was unhesitating. In an age of lyrical poetry they learned to sing where before they could only declaim: and because the great age of craftsmanship had begun, the most intricate patterns pleased them best. Chaucer was perhaps not yet born when the over-elaboration of riming metres in English drew a protest from Robert Mannyng:[3] and when, after a period of hesitancy, rimed verse regained its prestige in Chaucer's prime, nameless writers again chose or invented complex stanza forms and sustained them throughout long poems. If The Pearl stood alone it might be accounted a literary tour de force: the York and Towneley plays compel the conclusion that a high standard of metrical workmanship was appreciated by the common people.

Thus far, by way of generalization and without the caveats proper to a literary history, I have indicated some aspects of the preceding period that are important for an understanding[xvi] of the fourteenth century. But it would be misleading to pass on without a word of reservation. There is reason to suppose that the extant texts from the thirteenth century give a truer reflection of the tastes of the upper classes, who were in closest contact with the French, than of the tastes of the people. But however this may be, they do not authorize us to speak for every part of the country. All the significant texts come from the East or the South—especially the western districts of the South, where an exceptional activity is perhaps to be connected with the old preference of the court for Winchester. In the North and the North-West a silence of five centuries is hardly broken.

II

Judged by what survives, the literary output of the first half of the fourteenth century was small in quantity; though it must be remembered that, unlike the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries which made a fresh start and depended almost entirely on their own production, the fourteenth inherited and enjoyed a good stock of verse, to which the new compositions are a supplement.

Our first impression of this new material is negative and disappointing. The production of rimed romances falls off: their plots become increasingly absurd and mechanical; the action, so swift in the early forms, moves sluggishly through a maze of decorative descriptions; and their style at its best has the pretty inanity of Sir Thopas. The succession of merry tales—such as Dame Siriz, or The Fox and the Wolf[4] where Reynard, Isengrim, and Chauntecleer make their first bow in English—is broken until the appearance of the Canterbury Tales themselves. To find secular lyrics we[xvii] must turn to the very beginning or the very end of the century, and Chaucer himself does not recover the fresh gaiety of the earlier time.

The decline of these characteristic thirteenth-century types becomes less surprising when we notice that literature has changed camps. The South, more especially the South-West, is now almost silent: the North and the North-West reach their literary period. Minot and Rolle are Northerners, Wiclif is a Yorkshireman by birth, the York and Towneley Miracle cycles are both from the North, and with Barbour the literature of the Scots dialect begins; Robert Mannyng belongs to the North-East Midlands; while Sir Gawayne, The Pearl, and The Destruction of Troy represent the North-West. This predominance in the present volume rests on no mere chance of selection, since the Northern (Egerton) version of Mandeville might have been preferred to the Cotton; and if the number of extracts were to be increased, the texts that first come to mind—Cursor Mundi (about 1300),[5] Prick of Conscience (about 1340), Morte Arthure (about 1360), the Chester Plays—are Northern and North-Western.

It is impossible to give more than a partial explanation of the change in the area of production. But as the kinds of poetry that declined early in the fourteenth century are those that owed most to French influence, it is reasonable to assume that in the South the impulse that produced them had spent its force. The same pause is observable at the same time in France, where it coincides with the transition from oral poetry to more reflective compositions written for the eye of a reader. It is the pause between the passing of the minstrels and the coming of men of letters.

Such[xviii] changes were felt first in the centres of government, learning, and commerce, whence ideas and fashions spread very slowly to the country districts. At this time the North, and above all the North-West, was the backward quarter of England, thinly populated and in great part uncultivated. An industrial age had not yet dotted it with inland cities; and while America was still unknown the western havens were neglected.[6] In these old-fashioned parts the age of minstrel poetry was prolonged, and the wave of inspiration from France, though it came late, stirred the North and North-West after the South had relapsed into mediocrity or silence.

So, about the middle of the century, imaginative poetry found a new home in the West-Midlands. As before, poets turned to French for their subjects, and often contented themselves with free adaptation of French romances. They accepted such literary conventions as the Vision, which was borrowed from the Roman de la Rose to be the frame of Wynnere and Wastoure (1352)[7] and The Parlement of the Thre Ages,[8] before it was used in Piers Plowman and The Pearl and by Chaucer. But time and distance had weakened the French influence, and the new school of poets did not catch, as the Southern poets did, the form and spirit of their models.

They preferred the unrimed alliterative verse, which from pre-Conquest days must have lived on in the remote Western counties without a written record; and for a generation rime is overshadowed. The suddenness and importance of this revival in a time otherwise barren of poetry will appear from a list of the principal alliterative poems that are commonly assigned to the third quarter of the century:—Wynnere and[xix] Wastoure, The Parlement of the Thre Ages, Joseph of Arimathie (the first English Graal romance), William of Palerne, Piers Plowman (A-text), Patience, Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, The Destruction of Troy, Morte Arthure.

At the time alliterative verse was fitted to become the medium of popular literature. Prose would not serve, because its literary life depends on books and readers. Up to the end of the century (if we exclude sermons and religious or technical treatises, where practical considerations reinforced a Latin tradition) the function of prose in English literature is to translate Latin or French prose;[9] and even this narrow province is sometimes invaded by verse. Yet it was not easy to write verse that depended on number of syllables, quantity, or rime. The fall of inflexions brought confusion on syllabic metres; there were great changes in the quantity and quality of vowels; and these disturbances affected the dialects unevenly.[10] It must have been hard enough for a poet to make rules for himself: but popularity involved the recital of his work by all kinds of men in all kinds of English, when the rimes would be broken and the rhythm lost. It is perhaps unfair to call Michael of Northgate's doggerel (p. 33) to witness the misfortunes of rimed metres. But the text of Sir Orfeo from the Auchinleck manuscript shows how often Englishmen who were nearly contemporary with the composer had lost the tune of his verses. The more fortunate makers of alliterative poems, whose work depended on the stable yet elastic frame of stress and initial consonants, possessed a master-key to the dialects.

Adaptability made easier the diffusion of alliterative verse: but its revival was not due to a deliberate choice on practical grounds. It was a phase of a larger movement, which may[xx] be described as a weakening of foreign and learned influences, and a recovery of the native stock. And the metrical form is only the most obvious of the old-fashioned elements that reappeared. In spirit, too, the authors of the alliterative school have many points of kinship with the Old English poets. They are more moderate than enthusiastic. Left to themselves, their imaginations move most easily among sombre shapes and in sombre tones. They have not the intellectual brilliance and the wit of the French poets; and when they laugh—which is not often—the lightness of the thirteenth century is rarer than the rough note of the comic scenes in the Towneley plays. It is hard to say how much the associations and aptitudes of the verse react on its content: but Sumer is icumen in, which is the essence of thirteenth-century poetry, is barely conceivable in Old English, where even the cuckoo's note sounded melancholy; and it would come oddly from the poets of the middle fourteenth century, who have learned from the French trouvères the convention of spring, with sunshine, flowers, and singing birds, but seem unable to put away completely the memory of winter and rough weather.

In the last quarter of the century the tide of foreign influence runs strong again; and the work of Gower and Chaucer discloses radical changes in the conditions of literature which are the more important because they are permanent. The literary centre swings back to the capital—London now instead of Winchester—which henceforth provides the models for authors of any pretensions throughout England and across the Scottish border. In Chaucer we have for the first time a layman, writing in English for secular purposes, who from the range and quality of his work may fairly claim to be ranked among men of letters. The strictly clerical writers had been content to follow the Scriptures, the Fathers and commentators, the service books and legendaries; and Chaucer[xxi] does not neglect their tradition.[11] The minstrels had exploited a popular taste for merry tales 'that sownen into synne'; and he borrowed so gladly from them that many have doubted his repentance.[12] But his models are men of letters:—the Latin poets headed by Ovid, who was Gower's favourite too; French writers, from the satirical Jean de Meung to makers of studied 'balades, roundels, virelayes' like Machaut and Deschamps; and the greater Italian group—Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante. Keeping such company, he was bound to reject the rusticity of the alliterative school, and the middle way followed by those who added a tag of rime at the end of a rimeless series (as in Sir Gawayne), or invented stanzas in which alliteration remains, but is subservient to rime (as in The Pearl and the York plays). After his day, even for Northerners who wish to write well, there will be no more 'rum-ram-ruf by lettre'.[13]

III

In outlining the main movements of the century, I have mentioned incidentally the fortunes of certain kinds of composition,—the restriction of the lyrical form to devotional uses; the long dearth in the records of humorous tales; the decadence of romances in rime, and the flourishing of alliterative romances. The popular taste for stories was still unsatisfied, and guided authors, from Robert Mannyng to Chaucer,[xxii] in their choice of subjects or method of treatment. Translators were busier than ever in making Latin and French works available to a growing public who understood no language but English; and of necessity the greater number of our specimens are translations, ranging from the crude literalness of Michael of Northgate to the artistic adaptation seen in Gower's tales. But the chief new contribution of the century is the vernacular Miracle Play, with which the history of the English drama begins.

Miracle plays grew out of the services for the church festivals of Easter and Christmas. Towards the end of the tenth century a representation of the Three Maries at the Sepulchre is provided for in the English Easter service. Later, the Shepherds seeking the Manger and the Adoration of the Magi are represented in the services for the Christmas season. In their early form these dramatic ceremonies consist of a few sentences of Latin which were sung by the clergy with a minimum of dignified action.

From the eleventh to the thirteenth century the primitive form underwent a parallel development in all parts of Europe. Records of Miracles in England are at this time scanty and casual:—Matthew Paris notes one at Dunstable because precious copes were borrowed for it from St. Albans, and were accidentally burnt; another, given in the churchyard at Beverley, is mentioned because a boy who had climbed to a post of vantage in the church, and thence higher to escape the sextons, fell and yet took no harm. But the scantiness of references before 1200 is in itself evidence of growth without active enemies, and the few indications agree with the general trend observable on the Continent. The range of subjects was extended to include the acts of saints, and the principal scenes of sacred history from the Fall of Lucifer to the Last Judgement. Single scenes were elaborated to something like the scale familiar in Middle English. By the end[xxiii] of the twelfth century French begins to appear beside or in place of Latin; the French verses were spoken, not sung; the plays were often acted outside the church; and it may be assumed that laymen were admitted as performers alongside the minor clergy, who seem to have been the staunchest supporters of the plays.

The Miracle had become popular, and there is soon evidence of its perversion by the grotesque imaginings of the people. In 1207 masking and buffoonery in the churches at Christmas came under the ban of Pope Innocent III, and his prohibition was made permanent in the Decretals. Henceforth we must look for new developments to the Miracles played outside the church. To these freedom from the restraints of the sacred building did not bring a better reputation. Before 1250 the most influential churchman of the time, Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln, who was far from being a kill-joy, urged his clergy to stamp out Miracles; and later William of Wadington, and Robert Mannyng his translator, while allowing plays on the Resurrection and the Nativity if decently presented in the church, condemn the Miracles played in open places, and blame those of the clergy who encouraged them by lending vestments to the performers.[14]

From the first three-quarters of the fourteenth century, which include the critical period for the English Miracles, hardly a record survives. The memoranda on which the history of the English plays is based begin toward the end of the century, and the texts are drawn from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century manuscripts. Hence it will be simplest to set out the changes that were complete by 1400 without attempting to establish their true sequence; and to disregard the existence, side by side with the fully developed types, of all the gradations between them and the primitive form that might result from stunted growth or degeneration.

The[xxiv] early references point to the representation of single plays or small groups of connected scenes; and such isolated pieces survive as long as there are Miracles: Hull, for instance, specialized on a play of Noah's Ship. But now we have to record the appearance of series or cycles of plays, covering in chronological order the whole span of sacred history. Complete cycles were framed on the Continent as early as the end of the thirteenth century. In England they are represented by the York, Towneley (Wakefield), and Chester plays, and the so-called Ludus Coventriae.[15] There are also records or fragments of cycles from Beverley, Coventry, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Norwich. The presentation of the cycle sometimes occupied a day (York), sometimes two or three successive days (Chester), and sometimes a part was carried over to the next year's festival (Ludus Coventriae).

The production of a long series of scenes in the open requires fine weather, and once the close connexion with the church services had been broken, there was a tendency to throw forward the presentation into May or June. The Chester plays were given in Whitsun-week—at least in later times. But normally the day chosen in fourteenth-century England was the Feast of Corpus Christi (the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday), which was made universal throughout the Church in 1311. So the Miracles get the generic name of 'Corpus Christi Plays'.

The feature of the Corpus Christi festival was its procession. As a result either of inclusion in this procession or of imitation, the cycles came to be played processionally: each play had its stage on wheels which halted at fixed[xxv] stations in the streets, and at each station the play was reenacted. This was the usage at York, Wakefield, Chester, Coventry, and Beverley. The older practice of presentation on fixed stages was followed in the Ludus Coventriae.

Our last records from the end of the thirteenth century indicated that the open-air Miracle had been disowned by the Church from which it sprang. Yet a century later processional performances appear on a scale that postulates strong and competent management. In the interim the control of the great cycles had passed from the clergy to the municipalities, who laid upon each guild of craftsmen within their jurisdiction the duty of presenting a play. Ecclesiastics still wrote Miracles, and occasionally performed them; but when Canterbury, London, Salisbury, Winchester, Oxford, which have no extant texts and few records of popular performances, are named against York, Wakefield, Chester, Coventry, Beverley, it is obvious that official Church influences were no longer the chief factor in the development of Miracles. For their growth and survival in England the cycles depended on the interest of powerful corporations, willing to undertake the financial responsibility of their production, and able to maintain them against the attacks of the Lollards, or change of policy in the orthodox Church, or the fickleness of fashion in entertainment.

The steps by which the English guilds assumed the guardianship of the plays cannot now be retraced. We must be content to note that the undertaking called for just that combination of religious duty, civic patriotism, and pride of craft that inspired the work of the guilds in their best days. And the clergy had every reason to welcome the disciplining by secular authority of a wayward offspring that had grown beyond their own control. The York texts, which bring us nearest to the time when the corporations and guilds first took charge of the Miracles, are very creditable to the taste of the[xxvi] city, and must represent a reform on the irresponsible productions that scandalized the thirteenth century. The vein of coarseness in some of the comic scenes of the Towneley group seems to be due to a later recrudescence of incongruous elements.

The last great change to be noted was inevitable when the plays became popular: they were spoken in English and in rimed verse, with only an occasional tag or stage direction or hymn in Latin to show their origin. The variety of the texts, and of the modes and purposes of their representation, make it impossible to assign a date to the transition that would be generally applicable; and its course was not always the same. There is an example of direct translation from Latin in the Shrewsbury fragments,[16] which contain one actor's cues and parts in three plays: first the Latin foundation is given in verse or prose, and then its expansion in English alternate rime. That translations were sometimes made from the French is proved by the oldest known manuscript of a Miracle in English—an early fourteenth-century fragment of a Nativity play, consisting of a speech in French followed by its rendering in the same stanza form.[17] But there is no reason to doubt that as English gained ground and secularization became more complete, original composition appeared side by side with translation.[18]

For[xxvii] one other kind of writing the fourteenth century is notable—its longer commentaries on contemporary life and the art of living. In the twelfth century England had an important group of satirical poets who wrote in Latin; and in the thirteenth there are many French and a few English satires. Their usual topic was the corruption of the religious orders, varied by an occasional attack on some detail of private folly, such as extravagance in dress or the pride of serving-men. These pieces are mostly in the early French manner, where so much wit tempers the indignation that one doubts whether the satirist would be really happy if he succeeded in destroying the butts of his ridicule.

This is not the spirit of the fourteenth century, when a darker side of life is turned up and reported by men whose eyes are not quick to catch brightness. The number of short occasional satires in English increases, but they are seldom gay. The greater writers—Rolle, Wiclif, Langland, Gower—were obsessed by the troubles of their time, and are less satirists than moralists. Certainly the events of the century gave little cause for optimism. The wane of enthusiasm throughout Europe and the revival of national jealousies are evident very early in the failure of all attempts to organize an effective Crusade after 1291, when the Turks conquered the last Christian outposts in Palestine. There was no peace, for the harassing wars with Scotland were followed by the long series of campaigns against France that sapped the strength of both countries for generations. The social and economic organization was shaken by the severest famines (1315-21) and the greatest pestilence (1349) in English history, and both famine and plague came back more than once before the century was done. The conflict of popes and anti-popes divided the Western Church, while England faced the domestic problem of Lollardry. There was civil revolt in 1381; and the century closed with the deposition of[xxviii] Richard II. A modern historian balances the account with the growth of parliamentary institutions, the improving status of the labouring classes, and the progress of trade: but in so far as these developments were observable at all by contemporary writers, they were probably interpreted as signs of general decay.

In such an atmosphere the serene temper with which Robert Mannyng handles the sins and follies of his generation did not last long. Rolle tried to associate with men in order to improve their way of life: but his intensely personal attitude towards every problem, and the low value he set on the quality of reasonableness, made success impossible; and after a few querulous outbursts against his surroundings, he found his genius by withdrawing into pure idealism.

Wiclif was the one writer who was also a practical reformer. Having made up his mind that social evils could be remedied only through the Church, and that the first step was a thorough reform of the government, doctrine, and ministers of the Church, he acted with characteristic logic. The vices and follies of the people he regarded as secondary, and refused to dissipate his controversial energies upon them. His strength was reserved for a grim, ordered battle against ecclesiastical abuses; and while he pulled down, he did not neglect to lay foundations that outlasted his own defeat.

Piers Plowman gives a full picture of the times and their bewildering effect on the mind of a sincere and moderate man. Its author belonged to the loosely organized secular clergy who, by reason of their middle position, served as a kind of cement in a ramshackle society. He has no new system and no practical schemes of reform to expound—only perplexing dreams of a simple Christian who, with Conscience and Reason as his guides, faces in turn the changing shapes of evil. He attacks them bravely enough, and still they seem to evade him; because he shrinks from[xxix] destroying their roots when he finds them too closely entwined with things to which his habits or affections cling. In the end he cannot find a sure temporal foothold: yet he has no vision of a Utopia to come in which society will be reorganized by men's efforts. That idea brought no comfort to his generation who, standing on the threshold of a new order, looked longingly backward.

Passing over Gower, whose direct studies of contemporary conditions were written in Latin and French, we come round again to Chaucer. He has not Rolle's idealism, or Wiclif's fighting spirit, or Langland's earnestness—in fact, he has no great share of moral enthusiasm. A man of the world with keen eyes and the breadth of outlook and sympathy that Gower lacked, he is at home in a topsy-turvy medley of things half-dead with things half-grown, and the thousand disguises of convention and propriety through which the new life peeped to mock at its puzzled and despairing repressors were to him a never-ending entertainment. Ubique iam abundat turpitudo terrena, says Rolle in an alliterative flight, vilissima voluptas in viris vacillat;... bellant ut bestiae; breviantur beati; nullus est nimirum qui nemini non nocet. That was one side, but it was not the side that interested Chaucer. He had the spirit of the thirteenth-century poets grown up, with more experience, more reflection, and a mellower humour, but not less good temper and capacity for enjoyment. He no longer laughs on the slightest occasion for sheer joy of living: but he would look elvishly at Richard Rolle—a hermit who made it a personal grievance that people left him solitary, a fugitive from his fellows who unconsciously satisfied a very human and pleasing love for companionship and admiration by becoming the centre of a coterie of women recluses. A world that afforded such infinite amusement to a quiet observer was after all not a bad place to live in.

[xxx]

IV

Chaucer, who suffers when read in extracts, is not represented in this book, although without him fourteenth-century literature is a body without a head. But in the choice of literary forms and subjects, I have aimed at illustrating the variety of interest that is to be found in the writings of lesser men.

It may be asked whether the choice of specimens gives a true idea of the taste and accomplishment of the age. This issue is raised by Professor Carleton Brown's Afterword in the second volume of his Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse, a book that will be to generations of investigators a model of unselfish research. There he emphasizes the popularity of long poems, and especially of long didactic poems, as evidenced by the relatively great number of manuscript copies that survive. The Prick of Conscience leads with ninety-nine manuscripts, against sixty-nine of The Canterbury Tales, and forty-seven of Piers Plowman. What is to be said of a book that, impoverished by the exclusion of Chaucer, passes by also the most popular poem of his century?

I would rest an apology on the conditions under which manuscript copies came into being and survived; and begin with Michael of Northgate as he brings his Ayenbyte to an end in the October of 1340, before the short days and the numbing cold should come to make writing a pain. The book has no elegance that would commend it to special care, for Dan Michael is a dry practical man, as indifferent to the graces of style as to the luxury of silky vellum and miniatures stiff with gold and colour. But from his cell it goes into the library of his monastery—a library well ordered and well catalogued, and (as if to guarantee security) boasting the continuous possession of books that Gregory the Great gave to the first[xxxi] missionaries. We know its place exactly—the fourth shelf of press XVI. And there it remained safe until the days of intelligent private collectors, passing finally with the Arundel library to the British Museum. The course was not often so smooth, for of two dozen manuscripts left by Michael to St. Augustine's, Dr. James, in the year 1903, could identify only four survivors in as many different libraries. But the example is enough to illustrate a proposition that will not easily be refuted:—the chances of an English mediaeval manuscript surviving greatly depend on its eligibility for a place in the library of a religious house, since these are the chief sources of the manuscripts that have come down to us.

The attitude of the Church towards the vernacular literature of the later Middle Ages did not differ materially from her attitude towards the classics in earlier times, though the classics had always the greater dignity. Literary composition as a pure art was not encouraged. Entertainment for its own sake was discountenanced. The religious houses were to be centres of piety and learning; and if English were admitted at all in the strongholds of Latin and French, a work of unadorned edification like The Prick of Conscience would make very suitable reading for those who craved relaxation from severer studies. There were, of course, individuals among the professed religious who indulged a taste for more worldly literature; but the surviving catalogues of libraries that were formed under the eye of authority show a marked discrimination in favour of didactic works.

In England the private libraries of fourteenth-century laymen were relatively insignificant. But Guy, Earl of Warwick, in 1315 left an exceptionally rich collection to the Abbey of Bordesley, which failed to conserve the legacy. The list was first printed in Todd's Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer (1810),[19] and (among devotional works and lives of saints that[xxxii] merge into religious romances like Joseph of Arimathea and the Graal, Titus and Vespasian, and Constantine) it includes most of the famous names of popular history:—Lancelot, Arthur and Modred; Charlemagne, Doon of Mayence, Aimery of Narbonne, Girard de Vienne, William of Orange, Thibaut of Arraby, Doon of Nanteuil, Guy of Nanteuil, William Longespée, Fierebras; with two Alexander romances, a Troy Book, a Brut; the love story of Amadas e Idoine; the romance de Guy e de la Reygne 'tut enterement'; a book of physic and surgery; and a miscellany—un petit rouge livere en lequel sount contenuz mous diverses choses. Yet even a patron so well disposed to secular poems did little to perpetuate the manuscripts of English verse. His education enabled him to draw from the fountain head, and most of his books were French.

Neither in the libraries of the monasteries, nor in the libraries of the great nobles, should we expect to find a true mirror of popular taste. The majority of the people knew no language but English; and the relative scarcity of books of every kind, which even among the educated classes made the hearers far outnumber the readers, was at once a cause and a symptom of illiteracy: the majority of the people could not read. This leads to a generalization that is cardinal for every branch of criticism:—up to Chaucer's day, the greater the popularity of an English poem, the less important becomes the manuscript as a means of early transmission. The text, which would have been comparatively safe in the keeping of scribe, book, and reader, passes to the uncertain guardianship of memorizer, reciter, and listener; so that sometimes it is wholly lost, and sometimes it suffers as much change in a generation as would a classical text in a thousand years. Already Robert Mannyng laments the mutilation of Sir Tristrem by the 'sayers' (who could hardly be expected to avoid faults of improvisation and omission in the recitation of[xxxiii] so long a poem from memory);[20] and his regret would have been keener if he could have looked ahead another hundred years to see how the texts of the verse romances paid the price of popularity by the loss of crisp phrases and fresh images, and the intrusion of every mode of triteness.

Of course manuscripts of the longer secular poems were made and used,—mean, stunted copies from which the travelling entertainer could refresh his memory or add to his stock of tales; fair closet copies that would enable well-to-do admirers to renew their pleasure when no skilled minstrel was by; and, occasionally, compact libraries of romance, like the Auchinleck manuscript, which must have been the treasure of some great household that enjoyed 'romanz-reding on þe bok'—the pastime that encouraged the rise of prose romances in the late Middle Ages. But as a means of circulation for popular verse, as distinct from learned verse and from prose, the book was of secondary importance in its own time, and was always subject to exceptional risks. The fates of three stories in different kinds, all demonstrably favourites in the fourteenth century, will be sufficient illustration: of Floris and Blauncheflour, one of the best of the early romances in the courtly style,[xxxiv] several manuscripts survive, but when all are assembled the beginning of the story is still wanting; of Havelok, typical of the homely style, one imperfect copy and a few charred fragments of another are extant; of the Tale of Wade, that was dear to 'olde wydwes',[21] and yet considered worthy to entertain the noble Criseyde,[22] no text has come down. Evidently, to determine the relative popularity of the longer tales in verse we need not so much a catalogue of extant manuscripts, as a census, that cannot now be taken, of the repertories of the entertainers.

If the manuscript life of the longer secular poems was precarious, the chances of the short pieces—songs, ballads, jests, comic dialogues, lampoons—were still worse. Since they were composed for the day without thought of the future, and were no great charge on the ordinary memory, the chief motives for writing them down were absent; and no doubt the professional minstrel found that to secure his proprietary rights against competitors, he must be chary of giving copies of his best things. Many would never be put into writing; some were jotted down on perishable wax; but parchment, always too expensive for ephemeral verse, was reserved for special occasions. In France, in the thirteenth century, Henri d'Andeli adds a touch of dignity to his poem celebrating the memory of a distinguished patron by inscribing it on parchment instead of the wax tablets he used for lighter verses.[23] In[xxxv] England in 1305, a West-Country swashbuckler, whom fear of the statute against Trailebastouns kept in the greenwood, relieves his offended dignity by composing a poem half apologetic, half minatory, and chooses as the safest way of publication to write it on parchment and throw it in the high road:—

These loose sheets or tiny rolls[25] rarely survive, and the preservation of their contents, as of pieces launched still more carelessly on the world, depends on the happy chance of inclusion in a miscellany; quotation in a larger work; or entry on a fly-leaf, margin, or similar space left blank in a book already written.

Most productive, though not very common in the fourteenth century, are the miscellanies of short pieces—volumes like Earl Guy's 'little red book containing many divers things'—in which early collectors noted down the scraps that interested[xxxvi] them. A codex of West-Country origin, MS. Harley 2253 in the British Museum, preserves among French poems such as the complaint of the Trailebastoun, a group of English songs that includes Lenten is Come and Alysoun. Most of its numbers are unique, and the loss of this one volume would have swept away the best part of our knowledge of the early Middle English secular lyrics.

Of survival by quotation there is an example in the history of the Letter of Theodric, which lies behind Mannyng's tale of the Dancers of Colbek; and the circumstances are worth lingering over both for the number of by-paths they open to speculation, and for the glimpse they give of Wilton in a century from which there are few records of the nunnery outside the grim, tax-gatherer's entries of Domesday.

In the year before the Conquest, Theodric the foreigner, still racked by the curse that was laid on Bovo's company, made his way from the court of Edward the Confessor to[xxxvii] the shrine of St. Edith. As he walked through the quiet valley to Wilton in the spring of the year, we may be sure the thought came to him that here at last was the spot where a man wearied with wandering from land to land, from shrine to shrine, might hope to be cured and to set up his rest. From the moment he reaches the abbey it is impossible not to admire his feeling for dramatic effect. By a paroxysm of quaking he terrifies the peasants; but to the weeping nuns he tells his story discreetly; and, lest a doubt should remain, produces from his scrip a letter in which St. Bruno, the great Pope Leo IX, vouches for all. It is notable that at this stage the convent appear to have taken no steps to record a story so marvellous and so well authenticated; and had Theodric continued his restless wandering we should know of him as little as is known of three others from the band of carollers, who had preceded him at Wilton with a similar story. But when he obtains leave to sleep beside the shrine of St. Edith, and in the morning of the great feast of Lady Day wakes up healed, exalting the fame of their patron saint who had lifted the curse where all the saints of Europe had failed, then, and then only, the convent order that an official record should be made, and the letter copied: Hec in presencia Brichtive ipsius loci abbatisse declarata et patriis litteris[26] sunt mandata. Henceforth it exists only as a chapter in the Acts of St. Edith, and as such it lay before Robert of Brunne. Of the other communities or private persons visited by Theodric (who, whether saint or faitour, certainly did not produce his letter for the first and last time at Wilton) none have preserved his memory. It would be hard to find a better example of the power of the clergy in early times to control the keys to posterity, or of the practical considerations which, quite apart from merit or curiosity, governed the preservation of legends.

But it is the verses casually jotted down in unrelated books that bring home most vividly the slenderness of the thread of transmission. A student has committed Now Springs the Spray to solitary imprisonment between the joyless leaves of an old law book. The song of the Irish Dancer and The Maid of the Moor were scribbled, with some others from a minstrel's stock, on the fly-leaf of a manuscript now in the Bodleian. On a blank page of another a prudent man (who used vile ink, long since faded) has written the verses that banish rats, much as a modern householder might treasure[xxxviii] up some annihilating prescription. To these waifs the chance of survival did not come twice, and to a number incalculable it never came.

It has been the purpose of this digression to bring the extant literature into perspective: not to raise useless regrets for what is lost, since we can learn only from what remains; nor to contest the value of statistics of surviving copies as a proof of circulation, provided the works compared are similar in length and kind, and are represented in enough manuscripts to make figures significant; nor yet to deny that didactic verse bulks large in the output of the fourteenth century: it could not be otherwise in an anxious age, when the scarcity of remains gives everything written in English a place in literary history, and when for almost everything verse was preferred to prose. It seemed better to redress the balance of chance by stealing from the end of the thirteenth century a few fragments that following generations would not forget, than to lend colour to the suggestion that ninety-nine of the men of Chaucer's century enjoyed The Prick of Conscience for every one that caught up the refrain of Now Springs the Spray, or danced through The Maid of the Moor, or sang the praises of Alison.

V

However much a maker of excerpts may stretch his commission to give variety, it is in vain if the reader will not do his part; for it lies with him to find interest. Really no effective attack can be made on a crust of such diversified hardness until the reader looks at his text as a means of winning back something of the life of the past, and feels a pleasure in the battle against vagueness.

The first step is to find out the verbal meaning. Strange words, that force themselves on the attention and are easily[xxxix] found in dictionaries and glossaries, try a careful reader less than groups of common words—such lines as

which, if literally transposed into modern English, are nonsense. Those who think it is beneath the dignity of an intelligent reader to weigh such gossamer should turn to Zupitza's commentary on the Fifteenth Century Version of Guy of Warwick,[27] and see how a master among editors of Middle English relishes every phrase, missing nothing, and yet avoiding the opposite fault of pressing anything too hard. For these tags, more or less emptied of meaning through common use, and ridiculous by modern standards, have their importance in the economy of spoken verse, where a good voice carried them off. They helped out the composer in need of a rime; the reciter on his feet, compelled to improvise; and the audience who, lacking the reader's privilege to linger over close-packed lines, welcomed familiar turns that by diluting the sense made it easier to receive.

Repeated reading will bring out clearly the formal elements of style—the management of rime and alliteration in verse, the grouping and linking of clauses in prose, the cadences in both verse and prose: and before the value of a word or phrase can be settled it is often necessary to inquire how far its use was dictated by technical conditions, compliance with which is sometimes ingenuous to the point of crudity. Where a prose writer would be content with Mathew sayth, an alliterative poet elaborates (VIII a 234) into:

and in such a context mouthed cannot be pressed. The frequent oaths in the speeches in Piers Plowman are no more than counters in the alliteration: being meaningless they[xl] are selected to prop up the verse, just as the barrenest phrases in the poem On the Death of Edward III owe their inclusion to the requirements of rime. Again, it will be easier to acquiesce in a forced sense of bende in

when it is observed that rime and alliteration so limit the poet's choice that no apter word could be used. Conversely, in the absence of disturbing technical conditions, a reader who finds nonsense should suspect his understanding of the text, or the soundness of the text, before blaming the author.

When the sense expressed and the methods of expression have been studied, it remains to examine the implications of the words—an endless task and perhaps the most entertaining of all. Take as a routine example the place where the Green Knight, preparing a third time to deliver his blow, says to Gawayne—

A recent translator renders very freely:

though the etiquette of decapitation, and the delicacy of the stroke that the Green Knight has in mind, require just the opposite interpretation:—Gawayne's hood has become disarranged since he bared his neck (V 188), and the Green Knight wants a clear view to make sure of his aim. An observation of Gaston Paris on the Latin story of the Dancers of Colbek will show how much an alert mind enriches the reading of a text with precise detail. From the incident of Ave's arm he concludes that the dancers did not form a closed ring, but a line with Bovo leading (I 55) and Ave, as the last comer (I 43-54), at its end, so that she had one arm free which her brother seized in his attempt to drag her away (I 111 ff.).

Intensive[xli] reading should be combined with discursive. Intensive reading cultivates the habit of noticing detail; and it is a sound rule of textual criticism to interpret a composition first in the light of the evidence contained within itself. For instance, the slight flicker in the verse

should recall as surely as a cross-reference the earlier line

and raise the question whether in both places in the original work the comparative had not the older form leng. Discursive reading is a safeguard against the dangers of a narrow experience, and especially against the assumption that details of phrase, style, or thought are peculiar to an author or composition, when in fact they are common to a period or a kind. A course of both will enable the reader to cope with a school of critics who rely on superficial resemblances to strip the mask from anonymous authors and attach their works to some favoured name. Whether Sir Gawayne and The Destruction of Troy are from the same hand is still seriously debated. Both are alliterative poems; but it is impossible to read ten lines from each aloud without realizing the wide gap that divides their rhythms. The differences of spirit are more radical still. The facility of the author of The Destruction is attained at the cost of surrender to the metre. Given pens, ink, vellum, and a good original, he could go on turning out respectable verses while human strength endured. And because his meaning is all on the surface, the work does not improve on better acquaintance. The author of Sir Gawayne is an artist who never ceases to struggle with a harsh medium. He has the rare gift of visualizing every scene in his story: image succeeds image, each so sharply drawn as to suggest that he had his training in one of the schools of miniature-painting for which early England was famous. It is this gift of the painter that, more than likeness of dialect or[xlii] juxtaposition in the manuscript, links Sir Gawayne with The Pearl.

It cannot be too strongly urged that the purpose of a worker in Middle English should be nothing less than to read sensitively, with the fullest possible understanding. Of such a purpose many curricula give no hint. Nor could it be deduced readily from the latest activities of research, where the tendency is more and more to leave the main road (which should be crowded if the study is to thrive) for side-tracks and by-paths of side-tracks in which the sense of direction and proportion is easily lost.

That much may be accomplished by specialists following a single line of approach has been demonstrated by the philologists, who have burrowed tirelessly to present new materials to a world which seldom rewards their happiest elucidations with so much as a 'Well said, old mole!' The student of literature (in the narrower modern sense of the word) brings a new range of interests. He will be disappointed if he expects to find a finished art, poised and sustained, in an age singularly afflicted with growing pains; but there are compensations for any one who is content to catch glimpses of promise, and—looking back and forward, and aside to France—to take pleasure in tracing the rise and development of literary forms and subjects. It is still not enough. The specialist in language as a science, or in literature as an art, may find the Sixth Passus of Piers Plowman (VIII a) or the Wiclifite sermon (XI b) of secondary interest. Yet both are primary documents, the one for the history of society, the other for the history of religion.

There is no escape from a counsel of perfection:—whoever enters on a course of mediaeval studies must reckon as a defect his lack of interest in any side of the life of the Middle Ages; and must be deaf to those who, like the fox in Aesop that had lost its tail, proclaim the benefits of truncation. The range of knowledge and experience was then more[xliii] than in later times within the compass of a single mind and life. And so much that is necessary to a full understanding has been lost that no possible source of information should be shut out willingly. It is an exercise in humility to call up in all its details some scene of early English life (better a domestic scene than one of pageantry) and note how much is blurred.

Every blur is a challenge. There are few familiar subjects in which a beginner can sooner reach the limits of recorded knowledge. The great scholars have found time to chart only a fraction of their discoveries; and the greatest could not hope or wish for a day when the number of quests worth the making would be appreciably less.

This book had its origin in a very different project. Professor Napier had asked me to join him in producing for the use of language students a volume of specimens from the Middle English dialects, with an apparatus strictly linguistic. The work had not advanced beyond the choice of texts when his death and my transfer to duties in which learning had no part brought it to an end. When later the call came for a book that would introduce newcomers to the fourteenth century, I was able to bring into the changed plan his favourite passage from Sir Gawayne, and to draw upon the notes of his lectures for its interpretation. It is a small part of my debt to the generous and modest scholar whose mastery of exact methods was an inspiration to his pupils.

I am obliged to the Early English Text Society and to the Clarendon Press for permission to use extracts from certain of their publications; to the librarians who have made their manuscripts available, or have helped me to obtain facsimiles; to Mr. J. R. R. Tolkien who has undertaken the preparation of the Glossary, the most exacting part of the apparatus; and to Mr. Nichol Smith who has watched over the book from its beginnings.

[xlv]

THE TEXTS

A single manuscript is chosen as the basis of each text, and neither its readings nor its spellings are altered if they can reasonably be defended. Where correction involves substitution, the substituted letters are printed in italics, and the actual reading of the manuscript will be found in the Footnotes (or occasionally in the Notes). Words or letters added to complete the manuscript are enclosed in caret brackets < >. Corrupt readings retained in the text are indicated by daggers ††. Paragraphing, punctuation, capitals, and the details of word division are modern, and contractions are expanded without notice, so that the reader shall not be distracted by difficulties that are purely palaeographical. A final e derived from OFr. é(e) or ie, OE. -ig, is printed é, to distinguish it from unaccented final e which is regularly lost in Modern English.

The extracts have been collated with the manuscripts, or with complete photographs, except Nos. IV (Thornton MS.), VII, VIII b, XI a, XVII, the manuscripts of which I have not been able to consult. The Footnotes as a rule take no account of conjectural emendations, variants from other manuscripts, or minutiae like erasures and corrections contemporary with the copy.

[xlvi]

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY[28]

DICTIONARIES.

*A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, ed. Sir J. A. H. Murray, H. Bradley, W. A. Craigie, C. T. Onions, Oxford 1888—[quoted as N.E.D.].

*Stratmann, F. A. A Middle English Dictionary, new edn. by H. Bradley, Oxford 1891.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL.

*Brown, Carleton. A Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse (Part I, List of MSS.; Part II, Indices), Oxford 1916-20 (Bibliographical Society).

*Hammond, Miss E. P. Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual, New York 1908.

*Wells, J. E. A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1500, New Haven, &c., 1916; Supplement, 1919.

LITERATURE AND LEARNING.

Chambers, E. K. The Mediaeval Stage, 2 vols., Oxford 1903.

Clark, J. W. The Care of Books, Cambridge (new edn.) 1909.

Ker, W. P. English Literature, Mediaeval, London 1912. [A good brief orientation.]

Legouis, E. Chaucer (transl. L. Lailavoix), London 1913.

Rashdall, H. The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 2 vols., Oxford 1895.

CHURCH HISTORY.

Capes, W. W. The English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, London 1909.

*Dugdale, Sir William. Monasticon Anglicanum, new edn. by Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, 6 vols., London 1846. [Gives detailed histories of the English religious houses.]

Gasquet, Cardinal F. A. English Monastic Life, London, 4th edn. 1910.

[xlvii]

GENERAL HISTORY.

Ashley, W. J. An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, 2 vols., London 1888-93.

Bateson, Mary. Mediaeval England (1066-1350), London 1903. [A brief and exact social history.]

Cutts, E. L. Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, London 1872; 3rd edn. 1911. [Useful for its illustrations from MSS.]

Gasquet, Cardinal F. A. The Black Death of 1348 and 1349, London, 2nd edn. 1908.

Jessopp, A. The Coming of the Friars and other Historical Essays, London, 4th edn. 1890.

Jusserand, J. J. English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (transl. L. Toulmin Smith), London 1889, &c.; revised 1921. [Invaluable.]

Lechler, G. V. John Wiclif and his English Precursors (transl. P. Lorimer), 2 vols., London 1878.

Oman, Sir Charles Wm. C. The Great Revolt of 1381, Oxford 1906.

Reville, A., et Petit-Dutaillis, Ch. Le Soulèvement des Travailleurs d'Angleterre en 1381, Paris 1898.

Riley, H. T. Memorials of London and London Life (1270-1419), London 1868.

*Rogers, J. E. T. A History of Agriculture and Prices in England (1259-1793). 7 vols., Oxford 1866-1902. [Rich in facts.]

Smith, S. Armitage. John of Gaunt, London 1904.

*Stubbs, Wm. The Constitutional History of England, 3 vols., Oxford (1st edn. 1874-78), 1903-6.

Tout, T. F. The History of England from the Accession of Henry III to the Death of Edward III (1216-1377), London 1905; new edn. 1920.

Trevelyan, G. M. England in the Age of Wycliffe, London 1899; new edn., 1909. [A brilliant study.]

WORKS RELATING CHIEFLY TO FRANCE.

Enlart, C. Le Costume (vol. iii of his Manuel d'Archéologie Française), Paris 1916.

Faral, E. Les Jongleurs en France au Moyen Âge, Paris 1910.

Paris, G. La Littérature Française au Moyen Âge, Paris, 5th edn. 1909. [A model handbook.]

I ROBERT MANNYNG OF BRUNNE'S HANDLYNG SYNNE A.D. 1303

What is known of Robert Mannyng of Brunne is derived from his own works. In the Prologue to Handlyng Synne he writes:

And in the Introduction to his Chronicle:

From these passages it appears that he was born in Brunne, the modern Bourn, in Lincolnshire; and that he belonged to the Gilbertine Order. Sempringham was the head-quarters of the Order, and the dependent priory of Sixhill was near by. It has been suggested, without much evidence, that he was a lay brother, and not a full canon.

His[002] Chronicle of England was completed in 1338. It falls into two parts, distinguished by a change of metre and source. The first, edited by Furnivall in the Rolls Series (2 vols. 1887), extends from the Flood to A.D. 689, and is based on Wace's Brut, the French source of Layamon's Brut. The second part, edited by Hearne, 2 vols., Oxford 1725, extends from A.D. 689 to the death of Edward I, and is based on the French Chronicle of a contemporary, who is sometimes called Pierre de Langtoft, sometimes Piers of Bridlington, because he was a native of Langtoft in Yorkshire, and a canon of the Austin priory at Bridlington in the same county. Mannyng's Chronicle has no great historical value, and its chief literary interest lies in the references to current traditions and popular stories.

Handlyng Synne is a much more valuable work. It was begun in 1303:

The source was again a French work written by a contemporary Northerner—William of Wadington's Manuel de Pechiez. The popularity of such treatises on the Sins may be judged from the number of works modelled upon them: e.g. the Ayenbyte of Inwyt, Gower's Confessio Amantis, and Chaucer's Parson's Tale. Their purpose was, as Robert explains, to enable a reader to examine his conscience systematically and constantly, and so to guard himself against vice.

Two complete MSS. of Handlyng Synne are known: British Museum MS. Harley 1701 (about 1350-75), and MS. Bodley 415, of a slightly later date. An important fragment is in the library of Dulwich College. The whole text, with the French source, has been edited by Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club, and later for the Early English Text Society. It treats, with the usual wealth of classification, of the Commandments, the Sins, the Sacraments, the Requisites and Graces of Shrift. But such[003] a bald summary gives no idea of the richness and variety of its content. For Mannyng, anticipating Gower, saw the opportunities that the illustrative stories offered to his special gifts, and spared no pains in their telling. A few examples are added from his own knowledge. More often he expands Wadington's outlines, as in the tale of the Dancers of Colbek. Here the French source is brief and colourless. But the English translator had found a fuller Latin version—clearly the same as that printed from Bodleian MS. Rawlinson C 938 in the preface to Furnivall's Roxburghe Club edition—and from it he produced the well-rounded and lively rendering given below.

Robert knew that a work designed to turn 'lewde men' from the ale-house to the contemplation of their sins must grip their attention; and in the art of linking good teaching with entertainment he is a master. He has the gift of conveying to his audience his own enjoyment of a good story. His loose-knit conversational style would stand the test of reading aloud to simple folk, and he allows no literary affectations, no forced metres or verbiage, to darken his meaning:

The simple form reflects the writer's frankness and directness. He points a moral fearlessly, but without harshness or self-righteousness. And the range of his sympathies and interests makes Handlyng Synne the best picture of English life before Langland and Chaucer.

[004]

THE DANCERS OF COLBEK MS. Harley 1701 (about A.D. 1375); ed. Furnivall, ll. 8987 ff.

II SIR ORFEO

Sir Orfeo is found in three MSS.: (1) the Auchinleck MS. (1325-1350), a famous Middle English miscellany now in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; (2) British Museum MS. Harley 3810 (fifteenth century); (3) Bodleian MS. Ashmole 61 (fifteenth century). Our text follows the Auchinleck MS., with ll. 1-24 and ll. 33-46 supplied from the Harleian MS. The critical text of O. Zielke, Breslau 1880, reproduces the MSS. inaccurately.

The story appears to have been translated from a French source into South-Western English at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It belongs to a group of 'lays' which claim to derive from Brittany, e.g. Lai le Freine, which has the same opening lines (1-22); Emaré; and Chaucer's Franklin's Tale.

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice was known to the Middle Ages chiefly from Ovid (Metamorphoses x) and from Virgil (Georgics iv). King Alfred's rendering of it in his Boethius is one of his best prose passages, despite the crude moralizing which makes Orpheus's backward glance at Eurydice before she is safe from Hades a symbol of the backslider's longing for his old sins. The Middle English poet has a lighter and daintier touch. The Greek myth is almost lost in a tale of fairyland, the earliest English romance of the kind; and to provide the appropriate happy ending, Sir Orfeo is made successful in his attempt to rescue Heurodis. The adaptation of the classical subject to a mediaeval setting is thorough. An amusing instance is the attempt in the Auchinleck MS. to give the poem an English interest by the unconvincing assurance that Traciens (which from 'Thracian' had come to mean 'Thrace') was the old name of Winchester (ll. 49-50).

[014]

III MICHAEL OF NORTHGATE'S AYENBYTE OF INWYT A.D. 1340.

Michael of Northgate was a monk of St. Augustine's, Canterbury. From a library catalogue of the monastery it appears that he was a lover of books, for he is named as the donor of twenty-five MSS., a considerable collection for those days. Their titles show a taste not merely for religious works, but for science—mathematics, chemistry, medicine, as they were known at the time. Four of these MSS. have been traced, and one of them, British Museum MS. Arundel 57, is Michael's autograph copy of the Ayenbyte. On folio 2 of the MS. are the words: Þis boc is Dan Michelis of Northgate, ywrite an Englis of his oȝene hand, þet hatte 'Ayenbyte of Inwyt'; and is of the boc-house of Saynt Austines of Canterberi, mid þe lettres. CC. 'CC.' is the press-mark given in the catalogue. A note at the end of the text shows that it was finished on October 27, 1340:

Ymende þet þis boc is uolueld ine þe eue of þe holy apostles Symon an Iudas [i.e. Oct. 27] of ane broþer of the cloystre of Sauynt Austin of Canterberi, in the yeare of oure Lhordes beringe 1340.

The Ayenbyte has been edited for the Early English Text Society by R. Morris. The title means literally 'Remorse of Conscience', but from the contents of the work it would appear that the writer meant rather 'Stimulus to the Conscience', or 'Prick of Conscience'. It is in fact a translation from the French Somme des Vices et des Vertues, compiled by Friar Lorens in 1279 for King Philip le Hardi, and long held to be the main source of Chaucer's Parson's Tale. Caxton rendered the Somme into English prose as The Royal Book. It treats of the Commandments, the Creed, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Petitions of the Paternoster, and the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Dan[033] Michael's purpose is stated in some doggerel lines at the end:

His translation is inaccurate, and sometimes unintelligible, and the treatment is so barren of interest that the work seems to have fallen flat even in its own day, when the popular appetite for edification was keen and unspoiled. But if its literary merit is slight, linguistically it is one of the most important works in Middle English. It provides a long prose text, exactly dated and exactly localized; we have the author's autograph copy to work from; and the dialect is well distinguished. These circumstances, unique in Middle English, make it possible to study the Kentish dialect of the mid-fourteenth century under ideal conditions.

HOW MERCY INCREASES TEMPORAL GOODS.

Hou Merci multiplieþ þe timliche guodes, hyerof we habbeþ uele uayre uorbisnen, huerof ich wille hier zome telle. Me ret of Saint Germain of Aucerre þet, þo he com uram Rome, ate outguoinge of Melane, he acsede at onen of his diaknen yef he hedde eny zeluer, and he ansuerede þet {05} he ne hedde bote þri pans, uor Say<n>t Germayn hit hedde al yeue to pouren. Þanne he him het þet he his ssolde yeue to þe poure, uor God hedde ynoȝ of guode, huerof he hise uedde uor þane day. Þe dyacne mid greate pine and mid greate grochinge yeaf þe tuaye pans, and ofhild þane þridde. Þe {10} sergont of ane riche kniȝte him broȝte ane his lhordes haf tuo hondred pans. Þo clepede he his dyacne, and him zede þet he hedde benome þe poure ane peny, and yef he hedde yeue þane þridde peny to þe poure, þe kniȝt him hedde yzent þri hondred pans. {15}

Efterward[034] me ret ine þe lyue of Ion þe Amoner, þet wes zuo ycleped uor þe greate elmesses þet he dede: A riche ientilman wes yrobbed of þieues, zuo þet him naȝt ne blefte. He him com to playni to þe uorzede manne, and he him zede his cas. He hedde greate reuþe þerof, and het his {20} desspendoure þet he him yeaue uyftene pond of gold. Þe spendere, be his couaytise, ne yeaf bote vyf. An haste a gentil wymman wodewe zente to þe uore-yzede Ion uif hondred pond of gold. Þo he clepede his spendere, and him acsede hou moche he hedde yyeue to þe kniȝte. He ansuerede {25} 'vyftene pond.' Þe holy man ansuerede þet 'nay, he ne hedde bote vyf'; and huanne he hit wiste þe ilke zelue þet his hedde onderuonge, zuo zayde to his spendere þet yef he hedde yyeue þe viftene pond þet he hedde yhote, oure Lhord him hede yzent be þe guode wyfman a þouzond and vyf {30} hondred pond. And huanne he acsede ate guode wyfman, þo he hedde hise ycleped, hou moche hi hedde him ylete, hi andzuerede þet uerst hi hedde ywrite ine hare testament þet hi him let a þousend and vyf hondred pond. Ac hi lokede efterward ine hare testament, and hi yzeȝ þe þousend pond {35} defaced of hire write, and zuo ylefde þe guode wyfman þet God wolde þet hi ne zente bote vif hondred.

Efterward Saint Gregori telþ þet Saint Boniface uram þet he wes child he wes zuo piteuous þet he yaf ofte his kertel and his sserte to þe poure uor God, þaȝ his moder him byete {40} ofte þeruore. Þanne bevil þet þet child yzeȝ manie poure þet hedden mezeyse. He aspide þet his moder nes naȝt þer. An haste he yarn to þe gerniere, and al þet his moder hedde ygadered uor to pasi þet yer he hit yaf þe poure. And þo his moder com, and wyste þe ilke dede, hy wes al out of hare {45} wytte. Þet child bed oure Lhorde, and þet gernier wes an haste al uol.

Efterward þer wes a poure man, ase me zayþ, þet hedde ane cou; and yhyerde zigge of his preste ine his prechinge þet[035] God zede ine his spelle þet God wolde yelde an hondreduald {50} al þet me yeaue uor him. Þe guode man, mid þe rede of his wyue, yeaf his cou to his preste, þet wes riche. Þe prest his nom bleþeliche, and hise zente to þe oþren þet he hedde. Þo hit com to euen, þe guode mannes cou com hom to his house ase hi wes ywoned, and ledde mid hare alle þe {55} prestes ken, al to an hondred. Þo þe guode man yzeȝ þet, he þoȝte þet þet wes þet word of þe Godspelle þet he hedde yyolde; and him hi weren yloked beuore his bissoppe aye þane prest. Þise uorbisne sseweþ wel þet merci is guod chapuare, uor hi deþ wexe þe timliche guodes. {60}

IV RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE D. 1349.

Richard Rolle was born at Thornton-le-Dale, near Pickering, in Yorkshire. He was sent to Oxford, already a formidable rival to the University of Paris; but the severer studies were evidently uncongenial to his impulsive temperament. He returned home without taking orders, improvised for himself a hermit's dress, and fled into solitude. His piety attracted the favour of Sir John and Lady Dalton, who gave him a cell on their estate. Here, in meditation, he developed his mystical religion. He did not immure himself, or cut himself off from human companionship. For a time he lived near Anderby, where was the cell of the recluse Margaret Kirkby, to whom he addressed his Form of Perfect Living. Another important work, Ego Dormio et Cor Meum Vigilat, was written for a nun of Yedingham (Yorks.). Towards the end of his life he lived in close friendship with the nuns of Hampole, and for one of them he wrote his Commandment of Love to God. At Hampole he died in 1349, the year of the Black Death. By the devout he was regarded as a saint, and had his commemoration day, his office, and his miracles; but he was never canonized.

He wrote both in Latin and in English, and it is not always easy to distinguish his work from that of his many followers and imitators. The writings attributed to him are edited by C. Horstmann, Yorkshire Writers, 2 vols., London 1895-6. Besides the prose works noted above, he wrote, at the request of Margaret Kirkby, a Commentary on the Psalms (ed. Bramley, Oxford 1884), based on the Latin of Peter Lombard. A long didactic poem in Northern English, the Prick of Conscience, has been attributed to[037] him from Lydgate's time onwards; but his authorship has recently been questioned, chiefly on the ground that the poem is without a spark of inspiration. It is not certain that he wrote Love is Life, which is included here because it expresses in characteristic language his central belief in the personal bond, the burning love, between God and man. The first prose selection shows that he did not disdain the examples from natural history that were so popular in the sermons of the time. The second is chapter xi of the Form of Perfect Living, which is found as a separate extract from an early date.

With Rolle began a movement of devotional piety, which, as might be expected from its strong appeal to the emotions, was taken up first among religious women; and signs of a striving for effect in his style suggest that the hermit was not indifferent to the admiration of his followers. He brings to his teaching more heart than mind. He escapes the problems of the world, which seemed so insistent to his contemporaries, by denying the world's claims. His ideas and temperament are diametrically opposed to those of the other great figure in the religious life of fourteenth-century England—Wiclif, the schoolman, politician, reformer, controversialist. Yet they have in common a sincerity and directness of belief that brushes aside conventions, and an enthusiasm that made them leaders in an age when the Church as a whole suffered from apathy.

A. LOVE IS LIFE. Cambridge University Library MS. DD. 5. 64, III (about 1400) f. 38 a.

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B. THE NATURE OF THE BEE. (The Thornton MS. (before 1450); ed. Horstmann, vol. i, p. 193.) Moralia Ricardi Heremite de Natura Apis.

The bee has thre kyndis. Ane es þat scho es neuer ydill, and scho es noghte with thaym þat will noghte wyrke, bot castys thaym owte, and puttes thaym awaye. Anothire es þat when scho flyes scho takes erthe in hyr fette, þat scho be noghte lyghtly ouerheghede in the ayere of wynde. The {05} thyrde es þat scho kepes clene and bryghte hire wyngeȝ.

Thus ryghtwyse men þat lufes God are neuer in ydyllnes. For owthyre þay ere in trauayle, prayand, or thynkande, or redande, or othere gude doande; or withtakand ydill mene, and schewand thaym worthy to be put fra þe ryste of heuene, {10} for þay will noghte trauayle here.

Þay take erthe, þat es, þay halde þamselfe vile and erthely, that thay be noghte blawene with þe wynde of vanyté and of pryde. Thay kepe thaire wynges clene, that es, þe twa commandementes of charyté þay fulfill in gud concyens, and {15} thay hafe othyre vertus, vnblendyde with þe fylthe of syne and vnclene luste.

Arestotill sais þat þe bees are feghtande agaynes hym þat will drawe þaire hony fra thayme. Swa sulde we do agayne deuells, þat afforces thame to reue fra vs þe hony of poure {20} lyfe and of grace. For many are, þat neuer kane halde þe ordyre of lufe ynence þaire frendys, sybbe or fremmede. Bot outhire þay lufe þaym ouer mekill, settand thaire thoghte vnryghtwysely on thaym, or þay luf thayme ouer lyttill, yf þay doo noghte all as þey wolde till þame. Swylke kane {25} noghte fyghte for thaire hony, forthy þe deuelle turnes it to wormes, and makes þeire saules oftesythes full bitter in[042] angwys, and tene, and besynes of vayne thoghtes, and oþer wrechidnes. For thay are so heuy in erthely frenchype þat þay may noghte flee intill þe lufe of Iesu Criste, in þe wylke {30} þay moghte wele forgaa þe lufe of all creaturs lyfande in erthe.

Wharefore, accordandly, Arystotill sais þat some fowheles are of gude flyghyng, þat passes fra a lande to anothire. Some are of ill flyghynge, for heuynes of body, and for<þi> {35} þaire neste es noghte ferre fra þe erthe. Thus es it of thayme þat turnes þame to Godes seruys. Some are of gude flyeghynge, for thay flye fra erthe to heuene, and rystes thayme thare in thoghte, and are fedde in delite of Goddes lufe, and has thoghte of na lufe of þe worlde. Some are þat {40} kan noghte flyghe fra þis lande, bot in þe waye late theyre herte ryste, and delyttes þaym in sere lufes of mene and womene, als þay come and gaa, nowe ane and nowe anothire. And in Iesu Criste þay kan fynde na swettnes; or if þay any tyme fele oghte, it es swa lyttill and swa schorte, for othire thoghtes {45} þat are in thayme, þat it brynges thaym till na stabylnes.

<F>or þay are lyke till a fowle þat es callede strucyo or storke, þat has wenges, and it may noghte flye for charge of body. Swa þay hafe vndirstandynge, and fastes, and wakes, and semes haly to mens syghte; bot thay may noghte flye to lufe {50} and contemplacyone of God, þay are so chargede wyth othyre affeccyons and othire vanytés.

C. THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST. (Chap. xi of The Form of Perfect Living; ed. Horstmann, vol. i, p. 196.)

Þe seuene gyftes of þe Haly Gaste, þat ere gyfene to men and wymmene þat er ordaynede to þe ioye of heuene, and ledys theire lyfe in this worlde reghtwysely. Thire are thay:—Wysdome, {55} Undyrstandynge, Counsayle, Strenghe, Connynge,[043] Peté, the Drede of God. Begynne we at Consaile, for þareof es myster at the begynnynge of oure werkes, þat vs myslyke noghte aftyrwarde. With thire seuene gyftes þe Haly Gaste teches sere mene serely. {60}

Consaile es doynge awaye of worldes reches, and of all delytes of all thyngeȝ þat mane may be tagyld with, in thoghte or dede, and þarwith drawynge intill contemplacyone of Gode.

Undyrstandynge es to knawe whate es to doo, and whate {65} es to lefe, and þat that sall be gyffene, to gyffe it to thaym þat has nede, noghte till oþer þat has na myster.

Wysedome es forgetynge of erthely thynges and thynkynge of heuen, with discrecyone of all mens dedys. In þis gyfte schynes contemplacyone, þat es, Saynt Austyne says, a gastely {70} dede of fleschely affeccyones, thurghe þe ioye of a raysede thoghte.

Strenghe es lastynge to fullfill gude purpose, þat it be noghte lefte, for wele ne for waa.

Peté es þat a man be mylde, and gaynesay noghte Haly {75} Writte whene it smyttes his synnys, whethire he vndyrstand it or noghte; bot in all his myghte purge he þe vilté of syne in hyme and oþer.

Connynge es þat makes a man of gude <hope>, noghte ruysand hyme of his reghtewysnes, bot sorowand of his {80} synnys, and þat man gedyrs erthely gude anely to the honour of God, and prow to oþer mene þane hymselfe.

The Drede of God es þat we turne noghte agayne till oure syne thurghe any ill eggyng. And þan es drede perfite in vs and gastely, when we drede to wrethe God in þe leste syne {85} þat we kane knawe, and flese it als venyme.

V SIR GAWAYNE AND THE GRENE KNIGHT ABOUT 1350-75.

Sir Gawayne has been admirably edited by Sir F. Madden for the Bannatyne Club, 1839, and later by R. Morris for the Early English Text Society. It is found in British Museum MS. Nero A X, together with three other alliterative poems, named from their first words Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness. Pearl supplies the next specimen; Patience exemplifies the virtue by the trials of Jonah; Cleanness teaches purity of life from Scriptural stories. All these poems are in the same handwriting; all are in a West-Midland dialect; all appear to be of the same age; and none is without literary merit. For these reasons, which are good but not conclusive, they are assumed to be by the same author. Attempts to identify this author have been unsuccessful.

The story runs as follows:

King Arthur is making his Christmas feast with his court at Camelot. On New Year's Day he declares that he will not eat until he has seen or heard some marvel. The first course of the feast is barely served when a tall knight, clad all in green, with green hair, and a green horse to match, rides into the hall. He carries a holly bough and a huge axe, and tauntingly invites any knight to strike him a blow with the axe, on condition that he will stand a return blow on the same day a year hence. Gawayne accepts the challenge and strikes off the Green Knight's head. The Green Knight gathers up his head, gives Gawayne an appointment for next New Year's Day at the Green Chapel, and rides off.

The year passes, and Gawayne, despite the fears of the court, sets out in quest of the Green Chapel. On Christmas Eve he[045] arrives at a splendid castle, and finding that the Green Chapel is close at hand, accepts an invitation to stay and rest until New Year's Day. On each of three days the knight of the castle goes hunting, and persuades Gawayne to rest at home. They make an agreement that each shall give the other whatever he gets. The lady of the castle makes love to Gawayne, and kisses him once on the first day, twice on the second day, thrice on the third day; and on the third day she gives him her girdle, which he accepts because it has the magic power of preserving the wearer from wounds. Each evening he duly gives the kisses to the knight, and receives in return the spoils of the hunting of deer and boar and fox. But he conceals the girdle.

The extract begins with Gawayne preparing on New Year's morning to stand the return blow at the Green Chapel.

The poem ends by the Green Knight revealing that he is himself the lord of the castle; that he went to Arthur's court at the suggestion of Morgan la Fay; that he had urged his wife to make love to Gawayne and try his virtue; and that he would not have harmed him at all, if he had not committed the slight fault of concealing the girdle. Gawayne returns to the court, bearing the girdle as a sign of his shame, and tells his story. The knights of the court agree in future to wear a bright green belt for Gawayne's sake.

Sir Gawayne is admittedly the best of the alliterative romances. It must have come down to us practically as it was written by the poet, for it is free from the flatness and conventional phrasing which is characteristic of romances that have passed through many popular recensions. The descriptions of nature, of armour and dresses, the hunting scenes, and the love making, are all excellently done; and the poet shows the same richness of imagination and skill in producing pictorial effects that are so noticeable in Pearl. He has too a quiet humour that recalls Chaucer in some of his moods.

[046]

THE TESTING OF SIR GAWAYNE. British Museum MS. Nero A X (about 1400); ed. R. Morris, ll. 2069 ff.

VI THE PEARL ABOUT 1375.

The facts leading to the presumption that Pearl and Sir Gawayne are by the same author have been mentioned in the prefatory note to Sir Gawayne. But the poems are markedly different in subject and tone. Pearl, like Chaucer's Death of Blanche the Duchess, is an elegy cast in the vision form made popular by the Roman de la Rose. The subject is a little girl, who died before she was two years old, and the treatment is deeply religious. Her death is symbolized as the loss of a pearl without spot, that slipped from its owner's hand through the grass into the earth.

On a festival day in August, the poet, while mourning his loss, falls asleep on his child's grave. His spirit passes to a land of flowers and rich fruits, where birds of flaming hues sing incomparably, where the cliffs are of crystal and beryl, and a river runs in a bed of gleaming jewels. On the other side of the river, which is lovelier still, sits a maiden dressed all in white, with coronet and ornaments of pearl. The poet recognizes his lost child, but cannot call to her for wonder and dread, until she rises and salutes him. He complains that since her loss he has been a joyless jeweller. She rebukes him gently; she is not lost, but made safe and beautiful for ever. Overjoyed, he says he will cross the river and live with her in this paradise; but she warns him against such presumption, for since Adam's fall the river may be crossed only by the way of death. He is in despair to think that now that his Pearl is found, he must still live joyless, apart from her; but he is bidden to resign himself to God's will and mercy, because rebellion will avail him nothing.

At[058] this point begins the argument on salvation by grace or salvation by works which is here reprinted.

The maiden then continues the discussion, explaining that 'the innocent are ay safe by right', and that only those who come as little children can win the bliss sought by the man who sold his all for a matchless pearl.

Next the poet asks whence her beauty comes, and what her office is. She replies that she is one of the brides of Christ, whom St. John in the Apocalypse saw arrayed for the bridal in the New Jerusalem. He asks to see their mansions, and by special grace is allowed to view the holy city from without. He sees it as St. John saw it, gleaming with gold, with its pillars of precious stone, its gates of pearl; its streets lighted by a divine radiance, so that there is no need of moon or sun. There is no church or chapel or temple there: God himself is the minister, and Christ is the sacrifice. Mortal eye could not bear the splendour, and he stood 'as stylle as dased quayle'. At evening came the procession of the virgin brides of Christ, each bearing on her breast the pearl of perfect happiness. The Lamb leads them, in pearl-white robes, his side bleeding, his face rapt; while elders make obeisance, and angels sing songs of joy as He nears the throne of God.

Suddenly the poet sees his Pearl among her companions. Overcome with longing and delight, he tries to cross the river, only to wake in the garden where he fell asleep. Henceforth he is resigned to the pleasure of the Prince of Heaven.

The reader will be able to judge the author's poetical gift from the selection, which has been chosen as one of the less ornate passages. Even here the form distracts attention from the matter by its elaborateness. A difficult rime scheme is superimposed on the alliterative line; stanza is interlinked with stanza; each group of five stanzas is distinguished by a similar refrain, and bound to the preceding and following groups by repetition in the first and last lines. So too the close of the poem echoes the beginning. With such intricacy of plan, it is not surprising that the rime is sometimes forced, and the sense strained or obscure. It is rather a matter for wonder that, in so long a work, the author was able to maintain his marvellous technique without completely sacrificing poetry to metrical gymnastics.

The[059] highly wrought, almost overwrought, effect is heightened when the poem is read as a whole. If Piers Plowman gives a realistic picture of the drabness of mediaeval life, Pearl, more especially in the early stanzas, shows a richness of imagery and a luxuriance in light and colour that seem scarcely English. Yet they have their parallels in the decorative art of the time—the elaborate carving in wood and stone; the rich colouring of tapestries, of illuminated books and painted glass; the designs of the jewellers, goldsmiths, and silversmiths, which even the notaries who made the old inventories cannot pass without a word of admiration. The Pearl reminds us of the tribute due to the artists and craftsmen of the fourteenth century.

The edition by C. G. Osgood, Boston 1906, is the handiest.

THE PEARL, ll. 361-612. (MS. Cotton Nero A X (about 1400).)

VII THE GEST HYSTORIALE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY ABOUT 1375.

The Fall of Troy was one of the most popular subjects of mediaeval story. Lydgate wrote a Troy Book about 1420; fragments of another are attributed to 'Barbour', whose identity with the author of The Bruce has been questioned; a third version, anonymous, is known as the Laud Troy Book; and Caxton chose as the first work to be printed in English the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye (about 1474). More famous than any of these full histories are two single stories detached from the cycle: Jason's Quest of the Golden Fleece, which is admirably told by Gower in the fifth book of his Confessio Amantis; and the Love of Troilus and Cressida, which gave a theme both to Chaucer and to Shakespeare.

The Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction of Troy, from which our extracts are taken, is a free rendering of the prose Historia Troiana finished in 1287 by Guido de Columna (most probably the modern Terranova in Sicily). The translation, which appears to have been made in the North or North-West Midlands in the second half of the fourteenth century, is preserved only in an imperfect fifteenth-century MS. at the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. In the Early English Text Society's print, edited by Panton and Donaldson, the text extends to over 14,000 lines.

The table of contents prefixed to the MS. promises 'the nome of the knight þat causet it [sc. the story] to be made, and the nome of hym that translatid it out of Latyn into Englysshe'; but the extant MS. does not fulfil the promise. The execution suggests a set[069] task and a journeyman poet. Phrases are repeated carelessly; there is a great deal of padding; the versification is monotonous; and the writer is too often at the mercy of the alliteration to maintain a serious level. Yet he is not a slavish or a dull translator. The more romantic elements of the story, such as the matter of the Odyssey, had already been whittled away in his original, and he shows little desire or capacity to restore them. But he knew as well as the Old English poets the forcefulness of alliterative verse in scenes of violence, and describes with unflagging zest and vigour the interminable battles of the siege, and storms such as that which wrecked the fleet of Ajax.

The Prologue is a curious example of the pseudo-critical attitude of the Middle Ages. Homer is despised as a teller of impossible tales, and a partisan of the Greeks,—for Hector is the popular hero of the mediaeval versions. The narratives of Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis, products of the taste for fictitious history that spread westward from Greek-speaking lands in the fourth and following centuries, are accepted as reliable documents; and Guido de Columna as their authoritative literary interpreter. No mention is made of Benoît de Sainte-Maure, whose Roman de Troie, written in French about 1184, served as source to Guido, and, directly or indirectly, as inspiration to the whole body of Western writers who dealt with the 'Matter of Troy'. For these lapses the English translator need not be held responsible. On the merits of Homer, Dares, Dictys, and Guido de Columna, he probably accepted without question the word of his master Guido.

PROLOGUE.

THE XXXI BOKE: OF THE PASSAGE OF THE GREKYS FRO TROY (ll. 12463-12547).

VIII PIERS PLOWMAN (1362-1400) BY WILLIAM LANGLAND

Recent criticism of Piers Plowman has done more to weaken the hold of opinions once generally accepted than to replace them by others better founded. It is still most probable that 'Long Will', who is more than once mentioned in the text as the poet, was William Langland. The earliest external evidence of his home and parentage is given in a fifteenth-century note in MS. Dublin D 4. 1, of which both the matter and the vile Latinity bear the stamp of genuineness: 'Memorandum quod Stacy de Rokayle, pater Willielmi de Langlond, qui Stacius fuit generosus, et morabatur in Schiptone under Whicwode, tenens domini le Spenser in comitatu Oxon., qui praedictus Willielmus fecit librum qui vocatur Perys Ploughman.' Shipton-under-Wychwood is near Burford in Oxfordshire. The poem shows familiarity with the Malvern Hills and the streets of London; but it is hard to say how much is fact and how much is fiction in the references to Long Will in the text itself, more especially the description of his London life added as the Sixth Passus in Version C, and reproduced here as the second extract.

Since Skeat's edition for the Early English Text Society, the many manuscripts have been grouped into three main types. The shortest, or A-text, appears from internal evidence to have been written about 1362. The B-text (about 1377) has the most compact manuscript tradition. It is distinguished by considerable additions throughout, and by the reconstruction and expansion of the visions of Dowel, Dobet, Dobest, which make up the second half of the poem. The C-text, the latest and fullest form, appears[077] to have been completed in the last decade of the fourteenth century.

Until recently it has been assumed that these three versions represent progressive revisions by the author. But Professor Manly has found considerable support for his view that more than one writer—perhaps as many as five—had a share in the work. For the present, judgement on this question, and on the intricate problem of the relations of the different versions, is suspended until the results of a complete re-examination of all the MSS. are available. It would not be surprising to find that even when this necessary work is done differences of opinion on the larger questions remain as acute as ever.

It is impossible in short space to give an outline of the whole work, which describes no less than eleven visions. The structure is loose, and allegory is developed or dropped with disconcerting abruptness, for the writer does not curb his vigorous imagination in the interests of formal correctness.

The first part is the best known. On a May morning the poet falls asleep on the Malvern Hills and sees a 'Field full of Folk', where all classes of men are busy about their occupations, more particularly the nefarious occupations that engage the attention of the moralist. Holy Church explains that a high tower in the Field is the home of Truth; and that a 'deep dale' is the Castle of Care, where Wrong dwells with the wicked. She points out Falseness, who is about to marry Lady Meed (i.e. Reward, whether deserved reward or bribe). Lady Meed and her company are haled before the King, who, with Reason and Conscience as his guides, decides her case, and upholds the plea of Peace against Wrong.

The second vision is prefaced (in the C-text only) by the passage printed as the second selection. The poet falls asleep again, and sees Conscience preaching to the people in the Field. Representatives of the Seven Deadly Sins are vividly described. They are brought to penitence, and all set out in search of Truth. But no one knows the way. A palmer who wears the trophies of many pilgrimages to distant saints is puzzled by their inquiries, for he has never heard of pilgrims seeking Truth. Then Peter the Plowman comes forward and explains the way in allegorical[078] terms. Here the first extract begins. The second vision closes with a general pardon given by Truth to Piers Plowman in this simple form:

The several visions of the second part make up the lives of Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest. Piers Plowman is there identified with Christ, and the poem ends with Conscience, almost overcome by sin, setting out resolutely in search of Piers.

First impressions of mediaeval life are usually coloured by the courtly romances of Malory and his later refiners. Chaucer brings us down to reality, but his people belong to a prosperous middle-class world, on holiday and in holiday mood. Piers Plowman stands alone as a revelation of the ignorance and misery of the lower classes, whose multiplied grievances came to a head in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. It must not be supposed that Langland idealized the labourers. Their indolence and improvidence are exposed as unsparingly as the vices of the rich; and Piers himself is not so much a representative of the English workman in the fourteenth century as a character drawn straight from the Gospels. Still, such an eager plea for humbleness, simplicity, and honest labour, could not fail to encourage the political hopes of the poor, and we see in John Ball's letter (p. 160) that 'Piers Plowman' had become a catchword among them. The poet himself rather deprecates political action. His satire is directed against the general slackening of the bonds of duty that marked the last years of an outworn system of society. For the remedy of abuses he appeals not to one class but to all: king, nobles, clergy, and workers must model their lives on the pattern of the Gospels.

A. FROM THE B-TEXT, PASSUS VI. Bodleian MS. Laud 581 (about 1400).

B. FROM THE C-TEXT, PASSUS VI, ll. 1-104. MS. Phillips 8231 (about 1400).

IX MANDEVILLE'S TRAVELS

Mandeville's Travels were originally written in French, perhaps in 1356 or 1357. Their popularity was immediate, and Latin and English translations soon appeared. The English texts published show three forms. The first, imperfect, is the text of the early prints. The second, from Cotton MS. Titus C xvi (about 1400-25), was first printed in 1725, and is followed in the editions by Halliwell, 1839 and 1866, and by Hamelius, 1919. The third, from Egerton MS. 1982 (about 1400-25), has been edited for the Roxburghe Club by G. F. Warner, with the French text, and an excellent apparatus. Our selections follow the Cotton MS.

The Travels fall into two parts: (i) a description of the routes to the Holy Land, and an account of the Holy Places; (ii) a narrative of travel in the more distant parts of Asia. Throughout the author poses as an eyewitness. But in fact the book is a compilation, made without much regard to time or place. For the first part William de Boldensele, who wrote in 1336 an account of a visit to the Holy Land, is the main source. The second part follows the description of an Eastern voyage written by Friar Odoric of Pordenone in 1330. Other materials from the mediaeval encyclopaedists are woven in, and there is so little trace of original observation that it is doubtful whether the author travelled far beyond his library.

In the preface he claims to be Sir John Mandeville, an Englishman born at St. Albans. The people of St. Albans were driven to desperate shifts to explain the absence of his tomb from their abbey; but until 1798 it was actually to be seen at the church of the Guillemins, Liège, with this inscription:

'Hic iacet vir nobilis Dom Ioannes de Mandeville, alias dictus[095] ad Barbam, Miles, Dominus de Campdi, natus de Anglia, medicinae professor, devotissimus orator, et bonorum suorum largissimus pauperibus erogator, qui, toto quasi orbe lustrato, Leodii diem vitae suae clausit extremum A.D. MCCCLXXII, mensis Nov. die xvii.'

A Liège chronicler, Jean d'Outremeuse (d. 1399), who claims the invidious position of his confidant and literary executor, gives further details: Mandeville was 'chevalier de Montfort en Angleterre'; he was obliged to leave England because he had slain a nobleman; he came to Liège in 1343; and was content to be known as 'Jean de Bourgogne dit à la Barbe'.

Now Jean de Bourgogne, with whom Sir John Mandeville is identified by d'Outremeuse, is known as the writer of a tract on the Plague, written at Liège in 1365. Further, the Latin text of the Travels mentions that the author met at Liège a certain 'Johannes ad Barbam', recognized him as a former physician at the court of the Sultan of Egypt, and took his advice and help in the writing of the Travels.

Again, in 1322, the year in which Sir John Mandeville claims to have left England, a Johan de Burgoyne was given good reason to flee the country, because a pardon, granted to him the previous year for his actions against the Despensers, was then withdrawn. Curiously enough, a John Mandeville was also of the party opposed to the Despensers.

Nothing has come of the attempts to attach the clues—St. Albans, Montfort, Campdi, the arms on the tomb at Liège—to the English family of Mandeville. It seems likely that 'Sir John Mandeville' was an alias adopted by Jean de Bourgogne, unless both names cover Jean d'Outremeuse. The Epilogue to the Cotton version shows how early the plausible fictions of the text had infected the history of its composition.

It is clear that the English versions do not come from the hand of the writer of the Travels, who could not have been guilty of such absurdities as the translation of montaignes by 'þe hille of Aygnes' in the Cotton MS. But whoever the author was, he shows a courtesy and modesty worthy of a knight, begging those with more recent experience to correct the lapses of his memory, and remembering always the interests of later travellers, who[096] might wish to glean some marvels still untold. He might well have pleaded in the fourteenth century that the time had not come when prose fiction could afford to throw off the disguise of truth.

[THE VOIAGE AND TRAVAILE OF SIR IOHN MAUNDEVILE, KT.] British Museum MS. Cotton Titus C xvi (about 1400-25).

From chap. xiv (xviii), f. 65 b.

Ethiope is departed in two princypall parties; and þat is in the Est partie, and in the Meridionall partie, the whiche partie meridionall is clept Moretane. And the folk of þat contree ben blake ynow, and more blake þan in the toþer partie; and þei ben clept Mowres. In þat partie is a well, {05} þat in the day it is so cold þat no man may drynke þereoffe; and in the nyght it is so hoot þat no man may suffre hys hond þerein. And beȝonde þat partie, toward the South, to passe by the See Occean, is a gret lond and a gret contrey. But men may not duell þere, for the feruent brennynge of the {10} sonne, so is it passynge hoot in þat contrey.

In Ethiope all the ryueres and all the watres ben trouble, and þei ben somdell salte, for the gret hete þat is þere. And the folk of þat contree ben lyghtly dronken, and han but litill appetyt to mete.... {15}

In Ethiope ben many dyuerse folk, and Ethiope is clept 'Cusis.' In þat contree ben folk þat han but o foot; and þei gon so blyue þat it is meruaylle; and the foot is so large þat it schadeweth all the body aȝen the sonne, whanne þei wole lye and reste hem. {20}

In Ethiope, whan the children ben ȝonge and lytill, þei ben all ȝalowe; and whan þat þei wexen of age, þat ȝalownesse turneth to ben all blak. In Ethiope is the cytee of Saba, [097] and the lond of the whiche on of the þre Kynges, þat presented oure Lord in Bethleem, was kyng offe. {25}

Fro Ethiope men gon into Ynde be manye dyuerse contreyes. And men clepen the high Ynde 'Emlak'. And Ynde is devyded in þre princypall parties; þat is: the more, þat is a full hoot contree; and Ynde the lesse, þat is a full atempree contrey, þat streccheth to the lond of Medé; and the þridde {30} part, toward the Septentrion, is full cold, so þat for pure cold and contynuell frost the water becometh cristall.

And vpon tho roches of cristall growen the gode dyamandes, þat ben of trouble colour. Ȝalow cristall draweth <to> colour lyke oylle. And þei ben so harde þat no man may pollysch {35} hem; and men clepen hem 'dyamandes' in þat contree, and 'hamese' in anoþer contree. Othere dyamandes men fynden in Arabye, þat ben not so gode; and þei ben more broun and more tendre. And oþer dyamandes also men fynden in the Ile of Cipre, þat ben ȝit more tendre; and hem men may wel {40} pollische. And in the lond of Macedoyne men fynden dyamaundes also. But the beste and the moste precyiouse ben in Ynde.

And men fynden many tyme harde dyamandes in a masse, þat cometh out of gold, whan men puren it and fynen it out {45} of the myne, whan men breken þat masse in smale peces. And sum tyme it happeneth þat men fynden summe as grete as a pese, and summe lasse; and þei ben als harde as þo of Ynde.

And all be it þat men fynden gode dyamandes in Ynde, {50} ȝit natheles men fynden hem more comounly vpon the roches in the see, and vpon hilles where the myne of gold is. And þei growen many togedre, on lytill, another gret. And þer ben summe of the gretnesse of a bene, and summe als grete as an hasell-note. And þei ben square and poynted of here owne {55} kynde, boþe abouen and benethen, withouten worchinge of mannes hond.

[098]And þei growen togedre, male and femele. And þei ben norysscht with the dew of heuene. And þei engendren comounly, and bryngen forth smale children, þat multiplyen {60} and growen all the ȝeer. I haue often tymes assayed þat ȝif a man kepe hem with a lityll of the roche, and wete hem with May dew oftesithes, þei schull growe eueryche ȝeer; and the smale wole wexen grete. For right as the fyn perl congeleth and wexeth gret of the dew of heuene, right so doth the verray {65} dyamand; and right as the perl, of his owne kynde, taketh roundnesse, right so the dyamand, be vertu of God, taketh squarenesse.

And men schall bere the dyamaund on his left syde; for it is of grettere vertue þanne, þan on the right syde. For the {70} strengthe of here growynge is toward the North, þat is the left syde of the world, and the left partie of man is, whan he turneth his face toward the Est.

And ȝif ȝou lyke to knowe the vertues of þe dyamand, as men may fynden in þe Lapidarye, þat many men knowen {75} noght, I schall telle ȝou, as þei beȝonde the see seyn and affermen, of whom all science and all philosophie cometh from.

He þat bereth the dyamand vpon him, it ȝeueth him hardynesse and manhode, and it kepeth the lemes of his body hole. {80} It ȝeueth him victorye of his enemyes, in plee and in werre, ȝif his cause be rightfull; and it kepeth him þat bereth it in gode wytt; and it kepeth him fro strif and ryot, fro euyll sweuenes, from sorwes, and from enchauntementes, and from fantasyes and illusiouns of wykked spirites. And ȝif ony cursed wycche {85} or enchauntour wolde bewycche him þat bereth the dyamand, all þat sorwe and myschance schall turne to himself, þorgh vertue of þat ston. And also no wylde best dar assaylle the man þat bereth it on him. Also the dyamand scholde ben ȝouen frely, withouten coueytynge, and withouten byggynge; {90} and þan it is of grettere vertue. And it maketh a man more [099] strong and more sad aȝenst his enemyes. And it heleth him þat is lunatyk, and hem þat the fend pursueth or trauayleth. And ȝif venym or poysoun be brought in presence of the dyamand, anon it begynneth to wexe moyst, and for to {95} swete.

Þere ben also dyamandes in Ynde þat ben clept 'violastres',—for here colour is liche vyolet, or more browne þan the violettes,—þat ben full harde and full precyous. But ȝit sum men loue not hem so wel as the oþere. But in soth to {100} me, I wolde louen hem als moche as þe oþere; for I haue seen hem assayed. Also þere is anoþer maner of dyamandes þat ben als white as cristall, but þei ben a lityll more trouble; and þei ben gode and of gret vertue, and all þei ben square and poynted of here owne kynde. And summe {105} ben six squared, summe four squared, and summe þre, as nature schapeth hem.

And þerfore whan grete lordes and knyghtes gon to seche worschipe in armes, þei beren gladly the dyamaund vpon hem. I schal speke a litill more of the dyamandes, allþough {110} I tarye my matere for a tyme, to þat ende þat þei þat knowen hem not be not disceyued be gabberes þat gon be the contree, þat sellen hem. For whoso wil bye the dyamand, it is nedefull to him þat he knowe hem, because þat men counterfeten hem often of cristall þat is ȝalow; and of saphires of cytryne {115} colour, þat is ȝalow also; and of the saphire loupe; and of many oþer stones. But, I tell ȝou, theise contrefetes ben not so harde; and also the poyntes wil breken lightly; and men may esily pollissche hem. But summe werkmen, for malice, wil not pollische hem, to þat entent to maken men beleue þat þei may {120} not ben pollisscht. But men may assaye hem in this manere: First schere with hem, or write with hem, in saphires, in cristall, or in oþer precious stones. After þat men taken the ademand, þat is the schipmannes ston, þat draweth the nedle to him, and men leyn the dyamand vpon the ademand, and leyn the nedle {125} before[100] the ademand; and ȝif the dyamand be gode and vertuous, the ademand draweth not the nedle to him, whils the dyamand is þere present. And this is the preef þat þei beȝonde the see maken. Natheles it befalleth often tyme þat the gode dyamand leseth his vertue, be synne and for incontynence of him þat {130} bereth it. And þanne is it nedfull to make it to recoueren his vertue aȝen, or ell it is of litill value.

Chap. xxvi (xxx), f. 112 a.

Now schall I seye ȝou sewyngly of contrees and yles þat ben beȝonde the contrees þat I haue spoken of. Wherfore {135} I seye ȝou, in passynge be the lond of Cathaye toward the high Ynde, and toward Bacharye, men passen be a kyngdom þat men clepen 'Caldilhe', þat is a full fair contré. And þere groweth a maner of fruyt, as þough it weren gowrdes; and whan þei ben rype, men kutten hem ato, and men fynden {140} withinne a lytyll best, in flesch, in bon, and blode as þough it were a lytill lomb, withouten wolle. And men eten bothe the frut and the best: and þat is a gret merueylle. Of þat frute I haue eten, allþough it were wondirfull: but þat I knowe wel, þat God is merueyllous in his werkes. And natheles I tolde {145} hem of als gret a merueyle to hem, þat is amonges vs: and þat was of the Bernakes. For I tolde hem þat in oure contree weren trees þat baren a fruyt þat becomen briddes fleeynge; and þo þat fellen in the water lyuen; and þei þat fallen on the erthe dyen anon; and þei ben right gode to mannes mete. And hereof {150} had þei als gret meruaylle þat summe of hem trowed it were an inpossible thing to be. In þat contré ben longe apples of gode sauour, whereof ben mo þan an hundred in a clustre, and als manye in another: and þei han grete longe leves and large, of two fote long or more. And in þat contree, and in {155} oþer contrees þere abouten, growen many trees, þat beren clowe gylofres, and notemuges, and grete notes of Ynde, and of canell, and of many oþer spices. And þere ben vynes þat beren so grete grapes þat a strong man scholde haue ynow to done for to bere o clustre with all the grapes.[101] In {160} þat same regioun ben the mountaynes of Caspye þat men clepen 'Vber' in the contree. Betwene þo mountaynes the Iewes of ten lynages ben enclosed, þat men clepen Goth and Magoth; and þei mowe not gon out on no syde. Þere weren enclosed twenty two kynges with hire peple, þat dwelleden {165} betwene the mountaynes of Sythye. Þere Kyng Alisandre chacede hem betwene þo mountaynes; and þere he thoughte for to enclose hem þorgh werk of his men. But whan he saugh þat he myghte not don it, ne bryng it to an ende, he preyed to God of Nature þat He wolde parforme þat þat he {170} had begonne. And all were it so þat he was a payneme, and not worthi to ben herd, ȝit God of His grace closed the mountaynes togydre; so þat þei dwellen þere, all faste ylokked and enclosed with high mountaynes alle aboute, saf only on o syde; and on þat syde is the See of Caspye. Now {175} may sum men asken: sith þat the see is on þat o syde, wherfore go þei not out on the see syde, for to go where þat hem lyketh? But to this questioun I schal answere: þat See of Caspye goth out be londe, vnder the mountaynes, and renneth be the desert at o syde of the contree; and after it streccheth vnto the endes {180} of Persie. And allþough it be clept a see, it is no see, ne it toucheth to non oþer see; but it is a lake, the grettest of the world. And þough þei wolden putten hem into þat see, þei ne wysten neuer where þat þei scholde arryuen. And also þei conen no langage but only hire owne, þat no man {185} knoweth but þei: and þerfore mowe þei not gon out. And also ȝee schull vnderstonde þat the Iewes han no propre lond of hire owne, for to dwellen inne, in all the world, but only þat lond betwene the mountaynes. And ȝit þei ȝelden tribute for þat lond to the queen of Amazoine, the whiche þat {190} maketh hem to ben kept in cloos full diligently, þat þei schull not gon out on no syde, but be the cost of hire lond. For hire lond marcheth to þo mountaynes. And often it hath [102] befallen þat summe of þe Iewes han gon vp the mountaynes, and avaled down to the valeyes: but gret nombre of folk ne {195} may not do so. For the mountaynes ben so hye, and so streght vp, þat þei moste abyde þere, maugree hire myght. For þei mowe not gon out, but be a litill issue þat was made be strengthe of men; and it lasteth wel a four grete myle. And after is þere ȝit a lond all desert, where men {200} may fynde no water, ne for dyggynge, ne for non other þing: wherfore men may not dwellen in þat place. So is it full of dragounes, of serpentes, and of oþer venymous bestes, þat no man dar not passe, but ȝif it be be strong wynter. And þat streyt passage men clepen in þat contree 'Clyron'. And þat {205} is the passage þat the Queen of Amazoine maketh to ben kept. And þogh it happene sum of hem, be fortune, to gon out, þei conen no maner of langage but Ebrew, so þat þei can not speke to the peple. And ȝit natheles, men seyn þei schull gon out in the tyme of Antecrist, and þat þei schull maken {210} gret slaughter of Cristene men. And þerfore all the Iewes þat dwellen in all londes lernen allweys to speken Ebrew, in hope þat whan the oþer Iewes schull gon out, þat þei may vnderstonden hire speche, and to leden hem into Cristendom, for to destroye the Cristene peple. For the Iewes seyn þat {215} þei knowen wel be hire prophecyes þat þei of Caspye schull gon out and spreden þorghout all the world; and þat the Cristene men schull ben vnder hire subieccioun als longe as þei han ben in subieccioun of hem. And ȝif þat ȝee wil wyte how þat þei schull fynden hire weye, after þat I haue herd {220} seye, I schall tell ȝou. In the tyme of Antecrist, a fox schall make þere his †trayne†, and mynen an hole, where Kyng Alisandre leet make the ȝates: and so longe he schall mynen and percen the erthe, til þat he schall passe þorgh towardes þat folk. And whan þei seen the fox, they schull {225} haue gret merueylle of him, because þat þei saugh neuer such a best. For of all oþere bestes þei han enclosed [103] amonges hem, saf only the fox. And þanne þei schulle chacen him and pursuen him so streyte, till þat he come to the same place þat he cam fro. And þanne þei schulle {230} dyggen and mynen so strongly, till þat þei fynden the ȝates þat King Alisandre leet make of grete stones and passynge huge, wel symented and made stronge for the maystrie. And þo ȝates þei schull breken, and so gon out, be fyndynge of þat issue. {235}

Fro þat lond gon men toward the lond of Bacharie, where ben full yuele folk and full cruell. In þat lond ben trees þat beren wolle, as þogh it were of scheep; whereof men maken clothes, and all þing þat may ben made of wolle. In þat contree ben many ipotaynes, þat dwellen som tyme in the {240} water, and somtyme on the lond: and þei ben half man and half hors, as I haue seyd before; and þei eten men, whan þei may take hem. And þere ben ryueres and watres þat ben fulle byttere, þree sithes more þan is the water of the see. In þat contré ben many griffounes, more plentee þan in ony {245} other contree. Sum men seyn þat þei han the body vpward as an egle, and benethe as a lyoun: and treuly þei seyn soth þat þei ben of þat schapp. But o griffoun hath the body more gret, and is more strong, þanne eight lyouns, of suche lyouns as ben o this half; and more gret and strongere þan an {250} hundred egles, suche as we han amonges vs. For o griffoun þere wil bere fleynge to his nest a gret hors, ȝif he may fynde him at the poynt, or two oxen ȝoked togidere, as þei gon at the plowgh. For he hath his talouns so longe and so large and grete vpon his feet, as þough þei weren hornes of grete oxen, or of {255} bugles, or of kyȝn; so þat men maken cuppes of hem, to drynken of. And of hire ribbes, and of the pennes of hire wenges, men maken bowes full stronge, to schote with arwes and quarell.

From þens gon men be many iourneyes þorgh the lond of Prestre Iohn, the grete emperour of Ynde. And men clepen {260} his roialme the Yle of Pentexoire.

[104]

EPILOGUE.

Þere ben manye oþer dyuerse contrees and many oþer merueyles beȝonde, þat I haue not seen: wherfore of hem I can not speke propurly, to tell ȝou the manere of hem. And also in the contrees where I haue ben, ben manye {265} mo dyuersitees of many wondirfull thinges þanne I make mencioun of, for it were to longe thing to deuyse ȝou the manere. And þerfore þat þat I haue deuysed ȝou of certeyn contrees, þat I haue spoken of before, I beseche ȝoure worthi and excellent noblesse þat it suffise to ȝou at this tyme. For {270} ȝif þat I deuysed ȝou all þat is beȝonde the see, another man peraunter, þat wolde peynen him and trauaylle his body for to go into þo marches for to encerche þo contrees, myghte ben blamed be my wordes, in rehercynge manye straunge thinges; for he myghte not seye no thing of newe, in the {275} whiche the hereres myghten hauen ouþer solace or desport or lust or lykyng in the herynge. For men seyn allweys þat newe thinges and newe tydynges ben plesant to here. Wherfore I wole holde me stille, withouten ony more rehercyng of dyuersiteeȝ or of meruaylles þat ben beȝonde, to þat entent {280} and ende þat whoso wil gon into þo contrees, he schall fynde ynowe to speke of, þat I haue not touched of in no wyse.

And ȝee schull vndirstonde, ȝif it lyke ȝou, þat at myn hom comynge I cam to Rome, and schewed my lif to oure {285} holy fadir the Pope, and was assoylled of all þat lay in my conscience, of many a dyuerse greuous poynt, as men mosten nedes þat ben in company, dwellyng amonges so many a dyuerse folk of dyuerse secte and of beleeve, as I haue ben. And amonges all, I schewed hym this tretys, þat I had made {290} after informacioun of men þat knewen of thinges þat I had not seen myself; and also of merueyles and customes þat I hadde seen myself, as fer as God wolde ȝeue me grace: [105] and besoughte his holy fadirhode þat my boke myghte ben examyned and corrected be avys of his wyse and discreet {295} conseill. And oure holy fader, of his special grace, remytted my boke to ben examyned and preued be the avys of his seyd conseill. Be the whiche my boke was preeued for trewe; in so moche þat þei schewed me a boke, þat my boke was examynde by, þat comprehended full moche more be an {300} hundred part; be the whiche the Mappa Mundi was made after. And so my boke (all be it þat many men ne list not to ȝeue credence to no þing, but to þat þat þei seen with hire eye, ne be the auctour ne the persone neuer so trewe) is affermed and preued be oure holy fader, in maner and forme {305} as I haue seyd.

And I Iohn Maundevyll knyght aboueseyd, (allþough I be vnworthi) þat departed from oure contrees and passed the see the ȝeer of grace 1322, þat haue passed many londes and manye yles and contrees, and cerched manye full {310} strange places, and haue ben in many a full gode honourable companye, and at many a faire dede of armes, all be it þat I dide none myself, for myn vnable insuffisance; and now I am comen hom, mawgree myself, to reste, for gowtes artetykes þat me distreynen, þat diffynen the ende of my labour, aȝenst {315} my will, God knoweth. And þus takynge solace in my wrechched reste, recordynge the tyme passed, I haue fulfilled þeise thinges and putte hem wryten in this boke, as it wolde come into my mynde, the ȝeer of grace 1356 in the 34th ȝeer þat I departede from oure contrees. Wherfore I preye to all {320} the rederes and hereres of this boke, ȝif it plese hem, þat þei wolde preyen to God for me, and I schall preye for hem. And alle þo þat seyn for me a Paternoster, with an Aue Maria, þat God forȝeue me my synnes, I make hem parteneres and graunte hem part of all the gode pilgrymages, {325} and of all the gode dedes þat I haue don, ȝif ony ben to his plesance; and noght only of þo, but of all þat euere I schall [106] do vnto my lyfes ende. And I beseche Almyghty God, fro whom all godenesse and grace cometh fro, þat He vouchesaf of His excellent mercy and habundant grace to {330} fullfylle hire soules with inspiracioun of the Holy Gost, in makynge defence of all hire gostly enemyes here in erthe, to hire saluacioun, bothe of body and soule; to worschipe and thankynge of Him þat is þree and on, withouten begynnynge and withouten endyng; þat is withouten qualitee good, {335} withouten quantytee gret; þat in alle places is present, and all thinges conteynynge; the whiche þat no goodnesse may amende, ne non euell empeyre; þat in perfyte Trynytee lyueth and regneth God, be alle worldes and be all tymes. Amen, Amen, Amen. {340}

X THE BRUCE WRITTEN IN 1375 BY JOHN BARBOUR.

John Barbour was archdeacon of Aberdeen, an auditor of the Scottish exchequer, and a royal pensioner. Consequently a number of isolated records of his activities have been preserved. In 1364 he was granted a safe-conduct to travel with four students to Oxford. In 1365 and 1368 he had permission to travel through England so that he might study in France. The notices of his journeys, his offices, and his rewards point to a busy and successful life. He died in 1395.

According to Wyntoun, Barbour's works were (1) The Bruce; (2) The Stewartis Oryginalle (or Pedigree of the Stewarts), now lost; (3) a Brut, which some have identified with extant fragments of a Troy Book (see the prefatory note to No. VII), and others with (2) The Stewartis Oryginalle.

The Bruce is found in two late MSS., both copied by John Ramsay; the first, St. John's College, Cambridge, MS. G 23, in the year 1487; the second, now at the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, in 1489. It has been edited by Skeat for the Early English Text Society, and for the Scottish Text Society. The poem is valuable for the history, more especially the traditional history, of the period 1304-33. Barbour speaks of it as a romance, and the freedom and vividness of the narrative, with its hero-worship of Robert Bruce and Douglas, place it well above the ordinary chronicle. But far from disclaiming historical accuracy, Barbour prides himself that truth well told should have a double claim to popularity:

He did not misjudge the taste of his country, and The Bruce, with which the Scottish contribution to English literature begins, long held its place as the national epic of Scotland.

The specimen describes an incident in the unsuccessful siege of Berwick, 1319.

THE BRUCE, Bk. xvii, ll. 593 ff. St. John's College (Cambridge) MS. G 23 (A.D. 1487).

XI JOHN WICLIF D. 1384.

Like Richard Rolle, Wiclif was a Yorkshireman by birth. Of his career at Oxford little is known until 1360, when he is described as 'master of Balliol'. From Balliol he was presented to the living of Fillingham, and, after a series of preferments, he accepted in 1374 the rectory of Lutterworth, which he held till his death in 1384.

Wiclif's life was stormy. His acknowledged pre-eminence as a theologian and doctor in the University did not satisfy his active and combative mind. 'False peace', he said, 'is grounded in rest with our enemies, when we assent to them without withstanding; and sword against such peace came Christ to send.' He lacked neither enemies nor the moral courage to withstand them.

At first, under the powerful patronage of John of Gaunt, he entered into controversies primarily political, opposing the right of the Pope to make levies on England, which was already overburdened with war-taxation, and to appoint foreigners to English benefices. On these questions popular opinion was on his side.

He proceeded to attack the whole system of Church government, urging disendowment; rejecting the papal authority, which had been weakened in 1378 by the fierce rivalry of Urban VI and Clement VII; attacking episcopal privileges, the established religious orders, and the abuse of indulgences, pardons, and sanctuary. Still his opinions found a good deal of popular and political support.

Then in 1380 he publicly announced his rejection of the doctrine of transubstantiation. From the results of such a heresy his friends could no longer protect him. Moderate opinion became alarmed and conservative after the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Richard II was no friend of heretics. John of Gaunt, himself unpopular by this time, commanded silence. And in 1382 [116] the secular party in Oxford were compelled, after a struggle, to condemn and expel their favourite preacher and his followers. Wiclif retired to Lutterworth, and continued, until struck down by paralysis in the last days of 1384, to inspire his 'poor preachers'—the founders of the Lollard sect which lived on to join forces with Lutheranism in the sixteenth century—and to develop in a series of Latin and English works the doctrines that later came to be associated with Puritanism.

His authorship is often doubtful. In the interests of orthodoxy the early MSS. of his writings were ruthlessly destroyed, as in the famous bonfire of his works at Carfax, Oxford, in 1411. And his followers included not only the simple folk from whom later the 'poor priests' were recruited, but able University men, trained in his new doctrines, bred in the same traditions, and eager to emulate their master in controversy. So his share in the famous Wiclif Bible (ed. Forshall and Madden, Oxford 1850) is still uncertain. Part of the translation seems to have been made by Nicholas of Hereford, and a later recension is claimed for another Oxford disciple, John Purvey. But Wiclif probably inspired the undertaking, for to him, as to the later Puritans, the word of the Bible was the test by which all matters of belief, ritual, and Church government must be tried; and he was particularly anxious, in opposition to the established clergy and the friars, that laymen should read it in their own language. Contemporaries, friend and foe, ascribe the actual translation to him. John Huss, the Bohemian reformer, who was martyred in 1416 for teaching Wiclif's doctrines, states that Wiclif 'translated all the Bible into English'. Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, is equally positive when he writes to the Pope in 1412 that 'the son of the Old Serpent filled up the cup of his malice against Holy Church by the device of a new translation of the Scriptures into his native tongue'.

The first selection, chapter xv of the De Officio Pastorali (ed. Matthew, pp. 429 f.), states the case for translation. In the second (ed. Matthew, pp. 188 ff.) some essential points of Wiclif's teaching are explained.

In abuse of his opponents he maintains the sturdy tradition of controversy that still survives in Milton's prose. The style [117] is rugged and vigorous; the thought logical and packed close. And it is easy to see the source of his strength. In an age whose evils were patent to all, many reproved this or that particular abuse, but the system as a whole passed unchallenged. Wiclif, almost alone in his generation, had the reasoning power to go to the root of the matter, and the moral courage not only to state fearlessly what, rightly or wrongly, he found to be the source of evil, but to insist on basic reform. It is difficult nowadays, when modern curiosity has made familiar the practice of mining among the foundations of beliefs, society, and government, to realize the force of authority that was ranged against unorthodox reformers in the fourteenth century. If the popular support he received indicates that this force was already weakening, Wiclif must still be reckoned among the greatest of those who broke the way for the modern world.

A. THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. De Officio Pastorali, chap. xv. MS. Ashburnham XXVII (15th century).

Ant heere þe freris wiþ þer fautours seyn þat it is heresye to write þus Goddis lawe in English, and make it knowun to lewid men. And fourty signes þat þey bringen for to shewe an heretik ben not worþy to reherse, for nouȝt groundiþ hem but nygromansye. {05}

It semyþ first þat þe wit of Goddis lawe shulde be tauȝt in þat tunge þat is more knowun, for þis wit is Goddis word. Whanne Crist seiþ in þe Gospel þat boþe heuene and erþe shulen passe, but His wordis shulen not passe, He vndirstondith bi His woordis His wit. And þus Goddis wit is Hooly Writ, {10} þat may on no maner be fals. Also þe Hooly Gost ȝaf to apostlis wit at Wit Sunday for to knowe al maner langagis, to teche þe puple Goddis lawe þerby; and so God wolde þat þe puple were tauȝt Goddis lawe in dyuerse tungis. But what man, on Goddis half, shulde reuerse Goddis ordenaunse and {15} His wille?

And[118] for þis cause Seynt Ierom trauelide and translatide þe Bible fro dyuerse tungis into Lateyn, þat it myȝte be aftir translatid to oþere tungis. And þus Crist and His apostlis tauȝten þe puple in þat tunge þat was moost knowun to þe {20} puple. Why shulden not men do nou so?

And herfore autours of þe newe law, þat weren apostlis of Iesu Crist, writen þer Gospels in dyuerse tungis þat weren more knowun to þe puple.

Also þe worþy reume of Fraunse, notwiþstondinge alle {25} lettingis, haþ translatid þe Bible and þe Gospels, wiþ oþere trewe sentensis of doctours, out of Lateyn into Freynsch. Why shulden not Engliȝschemen do so? As lordis of Englond han þe Bible in Freynsch, so it were not aȝenus resoun þat þey hadden þe same sentense in Engliȝsch; for {30} þus Goddis lawe wolde be betere knowun, and more trowid, for onehed of wit, and more acord be bitwixe reumes.

And herfore freris han tauȝt in Englond þe Paternoster in Engliȝsch tunge, as men seyen in þe pley of Ȝork, and in many oþere cuntreys. Siþen þe Paternoster is part of Matheus {35} Gospel, as clerkis knowen, why may not al be turnyd to Engliȝsch trewely, as is þis part? Specialy siþen alle Cristen men, lerid and lewid, þat shulen be sauyd, moten algatis sue Crist, and knowe His lore and His lif. But þe comyns of Engliȝschmen knowen it best in þer modir tunge; and þus it {40} were al oon to lette siche knowing of þe Gospel and to lette Engliȝsch men to sue Crist and come to heuene.

Wel y woot defaute may be in vntrewe translating, as myȝten haue be many defautis in turnyng fro Ebreu into Greu, and fro Greu into Lateyn, and from o langage into {45} anoþer. But lyue men good lif, and studie many persones Goddis lawe, and whanne chaungyng of wit is foundun, amende þey it as resoun wole.

Sum men seyn þat freris trauelen, and þer fautours, in þis cause for þre chesouns, þat y wole not aferme, but God woot {50} wher [119] þey ben soþe. First þey wolden be seun so nedeful to þe Engliȝschmen of oure reume þat singulerly in her wit layȝ þe wit of Goddis lawe, to telle þe puple Goddis lawe on what maner euere þey wolden. And þe secound cause herof is seyd to stonde in þis sentense: freris wolden lede þe puple in {55} techinge hem Goddis lawe, and þus þei wolden teche sum, and sum hide, and docke sum. For þanne defautis in þer lif shulden be lesse knowun to þe puple, and Goddis lawe shulde be vntreweliere knowun boþe bi clerkis and bi comyns. Þe þridde cause þat men aspien stondiþ in þis, as þey seyn: alle {60} þes newe ordris dreden hem þat þer synne shulde be knowun, and hou þei ben not groundid in God to come into þe chirche; and þus þey wolden not for drede þat Goddis lawe were knowun in Engliȝsch; but þey myȝten putte heresye on men ȝif Engliȝsch toolde not what þey seyden. {65}

God moue lordis and bischops to stonde for knowing of His lawe!

B. OF FEIGNED CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE. Corpus Christi College (Cambridge) MS. 296 (1375-1400), p. 165.

Of feyned contemplatif lif, of song, of þe Ordynal of Salisbury, and of bodely almes and worldly bysynesse of prestis; hou bi þes foure þe fend lettiþ hem fro prechynge of þe Gospel.—

First, whanne trewe men techen bi Goddis lawe wit and {05} reson, þat eche prest owiþ to do his myȝt, his wit, and his wille to preche Cristis Gospel, þe fend blyndiþ ypocritis to excuse hem by feyned contemplatif lif, and to seie þat, siþ it is þe beste, and þei may not do boþe togidre, þei ben nedid for charité of God to leue þe prechynge of þe Gospel, and {10} lyuen in contemplacion.

[120] See nowe þe ypocrisie of þis false seiynge. Crist tauȝt and dide þe beste lif for prestis, as oure feiþ techiþ, siþ He was God and myȝte not erre. But Crist preched þe Gospel, and charged alle His apostlis and disciplis to goo and preche þe {15} Gospel to alle men. Þan it is þe beste lif for prestis in þis world to preche þe Gospel.

Also God in þe olde lawe techiþ þat þe office of a prophete is to schewe to þe peple here foule synnys. But eche prest is a prophete bi his ordre, as Gregory seyþ vpon þe Gospellis. {20} Þanne it is þe office of eche prest to preche and telle þe synnys of þe peple; and in þis manere schal eche prest be an aungel of God, as Holy Writt seiþ.

Also Crist and Ion Baptist leften desert and precheden þe Gospel to here deþ þerfore; and þis was most charité; for ellis {25} þei weren out of charité, or peierid in charité, þat myȝte not be in hem boþe, siþ þe ton was God, and no man after Crist was holyere þan Baptist, and he synned not for þis prechynge.

Also þe holy prophete Ieromye, halwid in his moder wombe, myȝtte not be excused fro prechynge bi his contemplacion, {30} but chargid of God to preche þe synnes of þe peple, and suffre peyne þerfore, and so weren alle þe prophetis of God.

A Lord! siþ Crist and Ion Baptist and alle þe prophetis of God weren nedid bi charité to come out of desert to preche {35} to þe peple, and leue here sol<it>arie preiere, hou dore we fonnyd heretikys seie þat it is betre to be stille, and preie oure owen fonnyd ordynaunce, þan to preche Cristis Gospel?

Lord! what cursed spirit of lesyngis stiriþ prestis to close hem in stonys or wallis for al here lif, siþ Crist comaundiþ to {40} alle His apostlis and prestis to goo into alle þe world and preche þe Gospel. Certis þei ben opyn foolis, and don pleynly aȝenst Cristis Gospel; and, ȝif þei meyntenen þis errour, þei ben cursed of <God>, and ben perilous ypocritis and heretikis also. And siþ men ben holden heretikis þat done {45} aȝenst[121] þe popis lawe, <and þe beste part of þe popis lawe> seiþ pleynly þat eche þat comeþ to presthod takiþ þe office of a bedele, or criere, to goo bifore Domesday to crie to þe peple here synnes and vengaunce of God, whi ben not þo prestis heretikis þat leuen to preche Cristis Gospel, and {50} compelle oþere treue men to leue prechynge of þe Gospel? Siþ þis lawe is Seynt Gregoryes lawe, groundid opynly in Goddis lawe and reson and charité; and oþere lawes of þe peple ben contrarie to Holy Writt and reson and charité, for to meyntene pride and coueitise of Anticristis worldly clerkis. {55}

But ypocritis allegen þe Gospel,—þat Magdaleyne chees to hereself þe beste part whanne she saat bisiden Cristis feet and herde His word. Soþ it is þat þis meke sittynge and deuout herynge of Cristis wordis was best to Magdeleyne, for sche hadde not office of prechynge as prestis han, siþ sche was {60} a womman, þat hadde not auctorité of Goddis lawe to teche and preche opynly. But what is þis dede to prestis, þat han expresse þe comaundement of God and men to preche þe Gospel? Where þei wolen alle be wommen in ydelnesse, and suen not Iesu Crist in lif and prechynge þe Gospel, þat {65} He comandiþ Hymself boþe in þe olde lawe and newe?

Also þis pesible herynge of Cristis word and brennynge loue þat Magdeleyne hadde was þe beste part, for it schal be ende in heuene of good lif in þis world. But in þis world þe beste lif for prestis is holy lif in kepynge Goddis hestis, and {70} trewe prechynge of þe Gospel, as Crist dide, and chargid alle His prestis to do <þe same>. And þes ypocritis wenen þat here dremys and fantasies of hemself ben contemplacion, and þat prechynge of þe Gospel be actif lif; and so þei menen þat Crist tok þe worse lif for þis world, and nedid alle His prestis {75} to leue þe betre and take þe worse lif; and þus þes fonnyd ypocritis putten errour in Iesu Crist. But who ben more heretikis?

[122]Also þes blynde ypocritis alleggen þat Crist biddiþ vs preie euermore, and Poul biddiþ þat we preie wiþoute lettynge, and {80} þan we prestis may not preche, as þei feynen falsly. But here þes ypocritis schullen wite þat Crist and Poul vnderstonden of preiere of holy lif, þat eche man doþ as longe as he dwelliþ in charité; and not of babelynge of lippis, þat no man may euere do wiþouten cessynge; for ellis no man in þis {85} world myȝte fulfille þe comaundement of Crist; and þis techiþ Austyn and oþere seyntis.

And siþ men þat fulfillen not Goddis lawe, and ben out of charité, ben not acceptid in here preiynge of lippis,—for here preiere in lippis is abhomynable, as Holy Writt seiþ bi {90} Salomon,—þes prestis þat prechen not þe Gospel, as Crist biddiþ, ben not able to preie <God> for mercy, but disceyuen hemself and þe peple, and dispisen God, and stiren Hym to wraþþe and vengaunce, as Austyn and Gregory and oþere seyntis techen. {95}

And principaly þes ypocritis þat han rentes, and worldly lordischipes, and parische chirchis approprid to hem, aȝenst Holy Writt boþe old and newe, by symonye and lesyngis on Crist and His apostelis, for stynkynge gronyngys and abite of holynesse, and for distroiynge of Goddis ordynaunce, and for {100} singuler profession maade to foolis and, in cas, to fendis of helle,—þes foolis schullen lerne what is actif lif and contemplatif bi Goddis lawe, and þanne þei myȝtten wite þat þei han neiþer þe ton ne þe toiþer, siþ þei chargen more veyn statutis of synful men, and, in cas, <of> deuelys, þan þei {105} chargen þe heste of God, and werkis of mercy, and poyntis of charité. And þe fende blyndiþ hem so moche, þat þei seyn indede þat þei moten neuere preie to plesynge of God, siþ þei vnablen hemself to do þe office of prestis bi Goddis lawe, and purposen to ende in here feyned deuocion, þat is blasphemye {110} to God.

[123]Also bi song þe fend lettiþ men to studie and preche þe Gospel; for siþ mannys wittis ben of certeyn mesure and myȝt, þe more þat þei ben occupied aboute siche mannus song, þe lesse moten þei be sette aboute Goddis lawe. For {115} þis stiriþ men to pride, and iolité, and oþere synnys, and so vnableþ hem many gatis to vnderstonde and kepe Holy Writt, þat techeþ mekenesse, mornynge for oure synnys and oþere mennus, and stable lif, and charité. And ȝit God in all þe lawe of grace chargiþ not siche song, but deuocion in {120} herte, trewe techynge, and holy spekynge in tonge, and goode werkis, and holy lastynge in charité and mekenesse. But mannus foly and pride stieþ vp euere more and more in þis veyn nouelrie.

First men ordeyned songe of mornynge whanne þei weren {125} in prison, for techynge of þe Gospel, as Ambrose, as men seyn, to putte awey ydelnesse, and to be not vnoccupied in goode manere for þe tyme. And þat songe and our<e> acordiþ not, for oure stiriþ to iolité and pride, and here stiriþ to mornynge, and to dwelle lenger in wordis of Goddis lawe. {130} Þan were matynys, and masse, and euensong, placebo and dirige, and comendacion, and matynes of Oure Lady, ordeyned of synful men to be songen wiþ heiȝe criynge, to lette men fro þe sentence and vnderstondynge of þat þat was þus songen, and to maken men wery, and vndisposid to studie {135} Goddis lawe for akyng of hedis. And of schort tyme þanne <weren> more veyn iapis founden: deschaunt, countre note, and orgon, and smale brekynge, þat stiriþ veyn men to daunsynge more þan <to> mornynge; and herefore ben many proude lorelis founden and dowid wiþ temperal and worldly {140} lordischipis and gret cost. But þes foolis schulden drede þe scharpe wordis of Austyn, þat seiþ: 'As oft as þe song likiþ me more þan doþ þe sentence þat is songen, so oft I confesse þat I synne greuously.'

[124]And ȝif þes knackeris excusen hem bi song in þe olde lawe, {145} seie þat Crist, þat best kepte þe olde lawe as it schulde be aftirward, tauȝt not ne chargid vs wiþ sich bodely song, ne ony of His apostlis, but wiþ deuocion in herte, and holy lif, and trewe prechynge, and þat is ynowþȝ and þe beste. But who schulde þanne charge vs wiþ more, oure þe fredom and {150} liȝtnesse of Cristis lawe?

And ȝif þei seyn þat angelis heryen God bi song in heuene, seie þat we kunnen not þat song; but þei ben in ful victorie of here enemys, and we ben in perilous bataile, and in þe valeye of wepynge and mornynge; and oure song lettiþ vs {155} fro betre occupacion, and stiriþ vs to many grete synnes, and to forȝete vs self.

But oure flecshly peple haþ more lykynge in here bodely eris in sich knackynge and taterynge, þan in herynge of Goddis lawe, and spekynge of þe blisse of heuene; for þei {160} wolen hire proude prestis and oþere lorelis þus to knacke notis for many markis and poundis. But þei wolen not ȝeue here almes to prestis and children to lerne and teche Goddis lawe. And þus, bi þis nouelrie of song, is Goddis lawe vnstudied and not kepte, and pride and oþere grete {165} synnys meyntenyd.

And þes fonnyd lordis and peple gessen to haue more þank of God, and <to> worschipe Hym more, in haldynge vp of here owen nouelries wiþ grete cost, þan in lernynge, and techynge, and meyntenynge of his lawe, and his seruauntis, {170} and his ordynaunce. But where is more disceit in feiþ, hope and charité? For whanne þer ben fourty or fyfty in a queer, þre or foure proude lorellis schullen knacke þe most deuout seruyce þat no man schal here þe sentence, and alle oþere schullen be doumbe, and loken on hem as foolis. And þanne {175} strumpatis and þeuys preisen Sire Iacke, or Hobbe, and Williem þe proude clerk, hou smale þei knacken here notis; [125] and seyn þat þei seruen wel God and Holy Chirche, whanne þei dispisen God in his face, and letten oþere Cristene men of here deuocion and compunccion, and stiren hem to worldly {180} vanyté. And þus trewe seruyce of God is lettid, and þis veyn knackynge for oure iolité and pride is preised abouen þe mone.

Also þe Ordynalle of Salisbury lettiþ moche prechynge of þe Gospel; for folis chargen þat more þan þe maundementis of God, and to studie and teche Cristis Gospel. For ȝif {185} a man faile in his Ordynale, men holden þat grete synne, and reprouen hym þerof faste; but ȝif a preste breke þe hestis of God, men chargen þat litel or nouȝt. And so ȝif prestis seyn here matynes, masse, and euensong aftir Salisbury vsse, þei hemself and oþere men demen it is ynowȝ, þouþ þei neiþer {190} preche ne teche þe hestis of God and þe Gospel. And þus þei wenen þat it is ynowȝ to fulfille synful mennus ordynaunce, and to leue þe riȝtfulleste ordynaunce of God, þat He chargid prestis to performe.

But, Lord! what was prestis office ordeyned bi God bifore {195} þat Salisbury vss was maad of proude prestis, coueitous and dronkelewe? Where God, þat dampneþ alle ydelnesse, chargid hem not at þe ful wiþ þe beste occupacion for hemself and oþere men? Hou doren synful folis chargen Cristis prestis wiþ so moche nouelrie, and euermore cloute more to, {200} þat þei may not frely do Goddis ordynaunce? For þe Iewis in þe olde lawe haden not so manye serymonyes of sacrifices ordeyned bi God as prestis han now riȝttis and reulis maade of synful men. And ȝit þe olde lawe in þes charious customes mosten nedes cesse for fredom of Cristis Gospel. But þis {205} fredom is more don awei bi þis nouelrie þan bi customes of þe olde lawe. And þus many grete axen where a prest may, wiþouten dedly synne, seie his masse wiþouten matynys; and þei demen it dedly synne a prest to fulfille þe ordynaunce of God in his fredom, wiþoute nouelrie of synful men, þat lettiþ {210} prestis[126] fro þe betre occupacion; as ȝif þei demen it dedly synne to leue þe worse þing, and take þe betre, whanne þei may not do boþe togidre.

And þus, Lord! Þin owen ordynaunce þat Þou madist for Þi prestis is holden errour, and distroied for þe fonnyd nouelrie {215} of synful foolis, and, in cas, of fendis in helle.

But here men moste be war þat vnder colour of þis fredom þei ben betre occupied in þe lawe of God to studie it and teche it, and not slouȝ ne ydel in ouermoche sleep, and vanyté, and oþer synnes, for þat is þe fendis panter. {220}

See now þe blyndnesse of þes foolis. Þei seyn þat a prest may be excused fro seiynge of masse, þat God comaundid Himself to þe substance þerof, so þat he here on. But he schal not be excused but ȝif he seie matynes and euensong himself, þat synful men han ordeyned; and þus þei chargen {225} more here owene fyndynge þan Cristis comaundement.

A Lord! ȝif alle þe studie and traueile þat men han now abowte Salisbury vss, wiþ multitude of newe costy portos, antifeners, graielis, and alle oþere bokis, weren turned into makynge of biblis, and in studiynge and techynge þerof, hou {230} moche schulde Goddis lawe be forþered, and knowen, and kept, and now in so moche it is hyndrid, vnstudied, and vnkept. Lord! hou schulden riche men ben excused þat costen so moche in grete schapellis, and costy bokis of mannus ordynaunce, for fame and nobleie of þe world, and wolen not {235} spende so moche aboute bokis of Goddis lawe, and for to studie hem and teche hem: siþ þis were wiþoute comparison betre on alle siddis, and lyȝttere, and sykerere?

But ȝit men þat knowen þe fredom of Goddis ordynaunce for prestis to be þe beste, wiþ grete sorow of herte seyn here {240} matynes, masse, and euensong, whanne þei schulden ellis be betre occupied, last þei sclaundren þe sike conscience of here breþeren, þat ȝit knowen not Goddis lawe. God brynge þes [127] prestis to þe fredom to studie Holy Writt, and lyue þerafter, and teche it oþer men frely, and to preie as long and as {245} moche as God meueþ hem þerto, and ellis turne to oþere medeful werkis, as Crist and His apostlis diden; and þat þei ben not constreyned to blabre alle day wiþ tonge and grete criynge, as pies and iaies, þing þat þei knowen not, and to peiere here owen soule for defaute of wis deuocion and charité! {250}

Also bysynesse of worldly occupacion of prestis lettiþ prechynge of þe Gospel, for þei ben so besy <þer>aboute, and namely in herte, þat þei þenken litel on Goddis lawe, and han no sauour þerto. And seyn þat þei don þus for hospitalité, and to releue pore men wiþ dedis of charité. But, hou euere {255} men speken, it his for here owen couetise, and lustful lif in mete and drynk and precious cloþis, and for name of þe world in fedynge of riche men; and litel or nouȝt comeþ frely to pore men þat han most nede.

But þes prestis schulden sue Crist in manere of lif and {260} trewe techynge. But Crist lefte sich occupacion, and His apostlis also, and weren betre occupied in holy preiere and trewe techynge of þe Gospel. And þis determinacion and ful sentence was ȝouen of alle þe apostlis togidre, whanne þei hadden resceyued þe plenteuous ȝiftis of þe Holy Gost. Lord! {265} where þes worldly prestis <ben> wisere þan ben alle þe apostlis of Crist? It semeth þat þei ben, or ellis <þei ben> fooles.

Also Crist wolde not take þe kyngdom whan þe puple wolde haue maad Him kyng, as Iones Gospel telleþ. But if it haade be a prestis office to dele aboute þus bodi<ly> almes, {270} Crist, þat coude best haue do þis office, wolde haue take þes temperal goodis to dele hem among poeuere men. But He wolde not do þus, but fley, and took no man of þe aposteles wiþ him, so faste He hiede. Lord! where worldly prestis kunnen bettere don þis partinge of worldly goodis þan Iesu {275} Crist?

[128]And ȝif þei seyn þat Crist fedde þe puple in desert with bodily almes, manye þousand, as þe Gospel saiþ: þat dide Crist by miracle, to shewe His godhede, and to teche prestes {280} houȝ þei schulden fede gostly Cristene men by Goddis word. For so dide Cristis aposteles, and hadde not whereof to do bodily almes, whan þei miȝten haue had tresour and iuelis ynowe of kynggis and lordis.

Also Peter saiþ in Dedis of Apostlis to a pore man þat to {285} him neiþer was gold ne siluer; and ȝit he performede wel þe office of a trewe prest. But oure prestis ben so bysye aboute worldly occupacioun þat þei semen bettere bailyues or reues þan gostly prestis of Iesu Crist. For what man is so bysy aboute marchaundise, and oþere worldly doyngis, as ben {290} preostes, þat shulden ben lyȝt of heuenly lif to alle men abouten hem?

But certes þei shulde be as bysy aboute studyinge of Goddys lawe, and holy preyer, not of Famulorum, but of holy desires, and clene meditacioun of God, and trewe techinge of {295} þe Gospel, as ben laboreris aboute worldly labour for here sustenaunce. And muche more bysie, ȝif þei miȝten, for þey ben more holden for to lyue wel, and <ȝeue> ensaumple of holi lif to þe puple, and trewe techinge of Holy Writ, þanne þe people is holden to ȝyue hem dymes or offringis or ony {300} bodily almes. And þerfore prestis shulde not leue ensaumple of good lif, and studyinge of Holi Writ, and trewe techinge þerof, ne <for> bodily almes, ne for worldly goodis, ne for sauynge of here bodily lif.

And as Crist sauede þe world by writynge and techinge of {305} foure Euaungelistis, so þe fend casteþ to dampne þe world and prestis for lettynge to preche þe Gospel by þes foure: by feyned contemplacioun, by song, by Salisbury vse, and by worldly bysynes of prestis.

God for His mercy styre þes prestis to preche þe Gospel in {310} word, in lif; and be war of Sathanas disceitis. Amen.

XII JOHN GOWER D. 1408.

John Gower, a Londoner himself, came of a good Kentish family. Chaucer must have known him well, for he chose him as his attorney when leaving for the Continent in 1378, and, with the dedication of Troilus and Criseyde, labelled him for ever as 'moral Gower'. Gower's marriage with Agnes Groundolf, probably a second marriage, is recorded in 1398. Blindness came on him a few years later. His will, dated August 15, 1408, was proved on October 24, 1408, so that his death must fall between those two points. By his own wish he was buried in St. Saviour's, Southwark, the church of the canons of St. Mary Overy, to whom he was a liberal benefactor.

On his tomb in St. Saviour's Church, Gower is shown with his head resting on three great volumes, representing his principal works—the Speculum Meditantis, the Vox Clamantis, and the Confessio Amantis.

The Speculum Meditantis, or Mirour de l'Omme, is a handbook of sins and sinners, written in French.

The Vox Clamantis, written in Latin, covers similar ground. Opening with a vision of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the poet passes in review the faults of the different grades of society—clergy, nobles, labourers, traders, lawyers—and ends with an admonition to the young King Richard II.

In his English work, the Confessio Amantis, he expressly abandons the task of setting the world to rights, and promises to change his style henceforth. Now he will sing of Love. The machinery of the poem is suggested by the great source of mediaeval conventions, the Roman de la Rose. On a May morning the poet, a victim of love, wanders afield and meets the [130] Queen of Love (cp. the beginning of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women). She bids him confess to her priest Genius. Genius hears the confession, sustaining with some incongruity the triple rôle of high priest of Love, Christian moralist, and entertainer—for it is he who tells the stories which, woven about the frame work of the Seven Deadly Sins, make the real matter of the poem.

The first form of the Confessio was completed in 1390. It contains a Prologue in which the suggestion for the poem is ascribed to Richard II, and an Epilogue in his praise. In this version the Queen of Love at parting gives Gower a message for Chaucer:

In the final form, completed in 1392-3, Richard's name disappears from the Prologue; the dedication to his popular rival, Henry of Lancaster, is made prominent; the eulogy in the Epilogue is dropped; and with it the compliment to Chaucer. Whether this last omission is due to chance, or to some change in the relations between the two poets, is not clear.

In his own day Gower was ranked with Chaucer. His reputation was still high among the Elizabethans; and he has the distinction of appearing as Chorus in a Shakespearian play—Pericles—of which his story of Apollonius of Tyre, in Bk. viii of the Confessio, was the immediate source.

A selection gives a very favourable impression of his work. He has a perfect command of the octosyllabic couplet; an easy [131] style, well suited to narrative; and a classic simplicity of expression for which the work of his predecessors in Middle English leaves us unprepared. Throughout the whole of the Confessio Amantis, more than 30,000 lines, the level of workmanship is remarkable, and almost every page shows some graceful and poetical verses.

Yet the poem as a whole suffers from the fault that Gower tried to avoid:

One defect, obvious to a modern reader, would hardly be noticed by his contemporaries: he often incorporates in his poetry matter proper only to an encyclopaedia, such as the discourse on the religions of the world in Bk. v, or that on Philosophy in Bk. vii. Another is more radical: for all his wide reading, his leading ideas lack originality. It is hardly a travesty to say that the teaching of his works amounts to this: 'In the moral world, avoid the Seven Deadly Sins in the five sub-classifications of each; in the political world keep your degree without presuming'. Such a negative and conventional message cannot sustain the fabric of three long poems. Their polished and facile moralizing becomes almost exasperating if it be remembered that the poet wrote when a whole system of society was falling, and falling noisily, about him. Modern taste rejects Gower the moralist and political writer, and his claim to present as apart from historical value rests on the delightful single stories which served as embroidery to his serious themes.

The extracts are taken from the admirable edition by G. C. Macaulay: 'The Works of John Gower', 4 vols., Oxford 1899-1902.

A. CEIX AND ALCEONE. From Bk. iv, ll. 2927 ff.

B. ADRIAN AND BARDUS. From Bk. v, ll. 4937 ff.

XIII JOHN OF TREVISA'S TRANSLATION OF HIGDEN'S POLYCHRONICON 1387.

Ranulph Higden (d. 1364) was a monk of St. Werburgh's at Chester, and has been doubtfully identified with the 'Randal Higden' who is said to have travelled to Rome to get the Pope's consent to the acting of the Chester miracle plays in English.

His Polychronicon, so called because it is the chronicle of many ages, is a compilation covering the period from the Creation to 1352. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was the favourite universal history; and the First Book, which deals with general geography, has still a special interest for the light it throws on the state of knowledge in Chaucer's day.

Two English prose translations are known: Trevisa's, completed in 1387, and modernized and printed by Caxton in 1482; and an anonymous rendering made in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. Both are printed, with Higden's Latin, in the edition by Babington and Lumby, Rolls Series, 9 vols., 1865-86.

John of Trevisa was a Cornishman. He was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, from 1362 to 1365; and was one of those expelled from Queen's College for 'unworthiness' in 1379. He became vicar of Berkeley, and at the request of Sir Thomas Berkeley undertook the translation of the Polychronicon. In 1398 he brought to an end another long work, the translation of Bartholomaeus de Proprietatibus Rerum, the great encyclopaedia of natural science at this time. He died at Berkeley in 1402.

Trevisa was a diligent but not an accurate or graceful [146] translator. He rarely adds anything from his own knowledge, though we have an example in the account of the reform of teaching at Oxford while he was there. The interest of his work depends chiefly on the curiosity of some passages in his originals.

A. THE MARVELS OF BRITAIN. CHAP. xlii. MS. Tiberius D. vii (about 1400), f. 39 a.

In Brytayn buþ hoot welles wel arayed and yhyȝt to þe vse of mankunde. Mayster of þulke welles ys þe gret spyryt of Minerua. Yn hys hous fuyr duyreþ alwey, þat neuer chaungeþ into askes, bote þar þe fuyr slakeþ, hyt changeþ ynto stony clottes. {05}

Yn Brytayn buþ meny wondres. Noþeles foure buþ most wonderfol. Þe furste ys at Pectoun. Þar bloweþ so strong a wynd out of þe chenes of þe eorþe þat hyt casteþ vp aȝe cloþes þat me casteþ yn. Þe secunde ys at Stonhenge bysydes Salesbury. Þar gret stones and wondur huge buþ {10} arered an hyȝ, as hyt were ȝates, so þat þar semeþ ȝates yset apon oþer ȝates. Noþeles hyt ys noȝt clerlych yknowe noþer parceyuet houȝ and wharfore a buþ so arered and so wonderlych yhonged. Þe þridde ys at Cherdhol. Þer ys gret holwenes vndur eorþe. Ofte meny men habbeþ {15} ybe þerynne, and ywalked aboute wiþynne, and yseye ryuers and streemes, bote nowhar conneþ hy fynde non ende. Þe feurþe ys þat reyn ys yseye arered vp of þe hulles, and anon yspronge aboute yn þe feeldes. Also þer ys a gret pond þat conteyneþ þre score ylondes couenable for men to dwelle {20} ynne. Þat pound ys byclypped aboute wiþ six score rooches. Apon euerych rooch ys an egle hys nest; and þre score ryuers eorneþ into þat pound, and non of ham alle eorneþ into þe se, bot on. Þar ys a pound yclosed aboute wiþ a wal of tyyl and of ston. Yn þat pound men wascheþ and baþeþ {25} wel [147] ofte, and euerych man feeleþ þe water hoot oþer cold ryȝt as a wol hymsylf. Þar buþ also salt welles fer fram þe se, and buþ salt al þe woke long forto Saturday noon, and fersch fram Saturday noon forto Moneday. Þe water of þis welles, whanne hyt ys ysode, turneþ into smal salt, fayr and {30} whyyt. Also þar ys a pond þe water þerof haþ wondur worchyng, for þey al an ost stood by þe pond, and turnede þe face þyderward, þe water wolde drawe <hem> vyolentlych toward þe pond, and weete al here cloþes. So scholde hors be drawe yn þe same wyse. Bote ȝef þe face ys aweyward {35} fram þe water, þe water noyeþ noȝt. Þer ys a welle <þat> non streem eorneþ þarfram noþer þerto, and ȝet four maner fysch buþ ytake þarynne. Þat welle ys bote twenty foot long, and twenty foot brood, and noȝt deop bote to þe kneo, and ys yclosed wiþ hyȝ bankkes in euerych syde. {40}

Yn þe contray aboute Wynchestre ys a den. Out of þat den alwey bloweþ a strong wynd, so þat no man may endure for to stonde tofor þat den. Þar ys also a pond þat turneþ tre into yre and hyt be þerynne al a ȝer, and so tren buþ yschape into whestones. Also þer ys yn þe cop of an hul {45} a buryel. Euerych man þat comeþ and meteþ þat buriel a schal fynde hyt euene ryȝt of hys oune meete; and ȝef a pylgrym oþer eny wery man kneoleþ þerto, anon a schal be al fersch, and of werynes schal he feele non nuy.

Fast by pe Ministre of Wynburney, þat ys noȝt fer fram {50} Bathe, ys a wode þat bereþ moche fruyt. Ȝef pe tren of þat wode falle into a water oþer grounde <þat> þar ys nyȝ, and lygge þar al a ȝer, þe tren teorneþ ynto stoones.

Vndur þe cité of Chestre eorneþ þe ryuer Dee, þat now todeleþ Engelond and Wales. Þat ryuer euerych monthe {55} chaungeþ hys fordes, as men of þe contray telleþ, and leueþ ofte þe chanel. Bote wheþer þe water drawe more toward Engelond oþer toward Wales, to what syde þat hyt be, þat ȝer men of þat syde schal habbe þe wors ende and be ouerset, and þe men of þe oþer syde schal habbe þe betre ende and [148]be {60} at here aboue.

Whanne þe water chaungeþ so hys cours, hyt bodeþ such happes. Þis ryuer Dee eorneþ and comeþ out of a lake þat hatte Pimbilmere. Yn þe ryuer ys gret plenté of samon. Noþeles in þe lake ys neuer samon yfounde.

B. THE LANGUAGES OF BRITAIN. CHAP. lix.

As hyt ys yknowe houȝ meny maner people buþ in þis ylond, þer buþ also of so meny people longages and tonges. Noþeles Walschmen and Scottes, þat buþ noȝt ymelled wiþ oþer nacions, holdeþ wel nyȝ here furste longage and speche, bote ȝef Scottes, þat were som tyme confederat and wonede {05} wiþ þe Pictes, drawe somwhat after here speche. Bote þe Flemmynges þat woneþ in þe west syde of Wales habbeþ yleft here strange speche, and spekeþ Saxonlych ynow. Also Englysch men, þeyȝ hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre maner speche, Souþeron, Norþeron, and Myddel speche in þe {10} myddel of þe lond, as hy come of þre maner people of Germania, noþeles by commyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys apeyred, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbittyng. Þis apeyryng of þe {15} burþtonge ys bycause of twey þinges. On ys for chyldern in scole, aȝenes þe vsage and manere of al oþer nacions, buþ compelled for to leue here oune longage, and for to construe here lessons and here þinges a Freynsch, and habbeþ suþthe þe Normans come furst into Engelond. Also gentil men {20} children buþ ytauȝt for to speke Freynsch fram tyme þat a buþ yrokked in here cradel, and conneþ speke and playe wiþ a child hys brouch; and oplondysch men wol lykne [149]hamsylf to gentil men, and fondeþ wiþ gret bysynes for to speke Freynsch, for to be more ytold of. {25}

[Þys manere was moche y-vsed tofore þe furste moreyn, and ys seþthe somdel ychaunged. For Iohan Cornwal, a mayster of gramere, chayngede þe lore in gramerscole and construccion of Freynsch into Englysch; and Richard Pencrych lurnede þat manere techyng of hym, and oþer men of Pencrych, so þat {30} now, þe ȝer of oure Lord a þousond þre hondred foure score and fyue, of þe secunde kyng Richard after þe Conquest nyne, in al þe gramerscoles of Engelond childern leueþ Frensch, and construeþ and lurneþ an Englysch, and habbeþ þerby avauntage in on syde, and desavauntage yn anoþer. {35} Here avauntage ys þat a lurneþ here gramer yn lasse tyme þan childern wer ywoned to do. Disavauntage ys þat now childern of gramerscole conneþ no more Frensch þan can here lift heele, and þat ys harm for ham and a scholle passe þe se and trauayle in strange londes, and in meny caas also. {40} Also gentil men habbeþ now moche yleft for to teche here childern Frensch.] Hyt semeþ a gret wondur houȝ Englysch, þat ys þe burþ tonge of Englysch men, and here oune longage and tonge, ys so dyuers of soon in þis ylond; and þe longage of Normandy ys comlyng of anoþer lond, and haþ on maner {45} soon among al men þat spekeþ hyt aryȝt in Engelond. [Noþeles þer ys as meny dyuers maner Frensch yn þe rem of Fraunce as ys dyuers manere Englysch in þe rem of Engelond.]

Also of þe forseyde Saxon tonge, þat ys deled a þre, and ys abyde scarslych wiþ feaw vplondysch men, and ys gret {50} wondur, for men of þe est wiþ men of þe west, as hyt were vnder þe same party of heuene, acordeþ more in sounyng of speche þan men of þe norþ wiþ men of þe souþ. Þerfore hyt ys þat Mercii, þat buþ men of myddel Engelond, as hyt were parteners of þe endes, vndurstondeþ betre þe syde {55} longages, Norþeron and Souþeron, þan Norþeron and Souþeron vndurstondeþ eyþer oþer.

[150]Al þe longage of þe Norþhumbres, and specialych at Ȝork, ys so scharp, slyttyng, and frotyng, and vnschape, þat we Souþeron men may þat longage vnneþe vndurstonde. Y trowe {60} þat þat ys bycause þat a buþ nyȝ to strange men and aliens, þat spekeþ strangelych, and also bycause þat þe kynges of Engelond woneþ alwey fer fram þat contray; for a buþ more yturnd to þe souþ contray, and ȝef a goþ to þe norþ contray, a goþ wiþ gret help and strengthe. {65}

Þe cause why a buþ more in þe souþ contray þan in þe norþ may be betre cornlond, more people, more noble cytés, and more profytable hauenes.

XIV POLITICAL PIECES

In the thirteenth century political poems were written chiefly in Latin or French. In the fourteenth century a steadily growing tendency to use English witnesses the increased interest of the people in politics and social questions. The fullest collections are those edited by T. Wright, Political Songs of England (John to Edward II), Camden Society, 1839; and Political Poems and Songs (Edward III to Richard III), Rolls Series, 2 vols., 1859-61.

The selections A and B are from the poems of Laurence Minot, of which the best edition is the third by J. Hall, Oxford 1914. Minot was a better patriot than a poet, and his boisterous contempt for the Scots and French reflects the spirit of England in the early days of Edward III's greatness.

The empty phrases in which the anonymous piece C abounds do not disguise a note of despair. The long war with France was becoming more and more hopeless. The plague that added to its miseries had carried off Henry, first Duke of Lancaster, in 1361. The Black Prince, to whom the nation looked for guidance, had died in 1376. The inglorious old age of Edward III ended in the following year. But there remained the hope, soon to be falsified, that the boy king Richard II would steer the ship of state to safety.

D is the earliest text of the letter which John Ball addressed to the Essex members of the Great Society of Peasants on the eve of the revolt of 1381. It shows how deep an impression the characters and allegorical form of Piers Plowman had made on the oppressed serfs and labourers, and it gives some idea of the vague and incoherent thinking that brought ruin on their enterprise. Ball, who had defied established authority all his [152] life, was freed from prison by the rebels, became a ringleader, and preached to their assembly on Blackheath a famous sermon with the text:

A few weeks later he was executed by sentence of Lord Chief Justice Tressilian, who had been charged by the King to take vengeance on the rebels.

The distich E sums up briefly the history of a year which turned moderate men against Richard II. A fuller contemporary picture of the events that led to his deposition is found in the alliterative poem Richard the Redeles, attributed by Skeat to the author of Piers Plowman.

A. ON THE SCOTS (ABOUT 1333). BY LAURENCE MINOT. MS. Cotton Galba E. ix (about 1425), f. 52 a.

B. THE TAKING OF CALAIS (1347). BY LAURENCE MINOT. MS. Cotton Galba E. ix (about 1425), f. 55 b.

[157]

C. ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD III, A.D. 1377. Bodleian MS. Vernon (about 1400), f. 4106.

D. JOHN BALL'S LETTER TO THE PEASANTS OF ESSEX, 1381. St. Albans MS. British Museum Royal 13. E. ix (about 1400), f. 287 a.

Iohon Schep, som tyme Seynte Marie prest of Ȝork, and now of Colchestre, greteth wel Iohan Nameles, and Iohan þe Mullere, and Iohon Cartere, and biddeþ hem þat þei bee war of gyle in borugh, and stondeth togidre in Godes name, and biddeþ Peres Plouȝman go to his werk, and chastise {05} [161] wel Hobbe þe Robbere, and takeþ wiþ ȝow Iohan Trewman, and alle hiis felawes, and no mo, and loke schappe ȝou to on heued, and no mo.

and so biddeþ Iohan Trewman and alle his felawes.

E. ON THE YEAR 1390-1. St. John's College (Oxford) MS. 209, f. 57 a.

XV MISCELLANEOUS PIECES IN VERSE

Under this head are grouped a number of short poems, representing forms of composition that survive only by fortunate chance.

A is a curious little song, which has been printed from Hale MS. 135 by G. E. Woodbine in Modern Language Review, vol. iv, p. 236, and reconstructed by Skeat at vol. v, p. 105, of the same periodical.

B and C are the best-known lyrics of the important collection edited by Böddeker, Altenglische Dichtungen des MS. Harley 2253, Berlin 1878. They are literary and rather artificial in form.

D and E are minstrels' songs found, among other popular snatches, on a fly-leaf of Bodleian MS. Rawlinson D. 913, and edited by Heuser in Anglia, vol. xxx, p. 173. In E lines 14-16 and ll. 17-19 are to be expanded on the model of ll. 7-13.

All these songs are early, and have a lightness and gaiety that become rare as the fourteenth century advances.

F is one of several English scraps (ed. Furnivall in Political, Religious, and Love Poems, E.E.T.S., pp. 249 ff.) that are found scattered through the Latin text of MS. Harley 7322. Most of the English pieces are without poetical merit, but in this one poem the writer has attained a perfect simplicity.

G, printed in Wright and Halliwell's Reliquiae Antiquae, 1845, vol. i, p. 144, has been recognized as the first of the English ballads. It is the only example before 1400 of the swift and dramatic movement, the sudden transitions, and the restrained expression, characteristic of the ballad style.

H, first printed in Reliquiae Antiquae, vol. i, p. 240, is the latest of the short pieces. With onomatopoeic effects it gives a vivid if unfriendly picture of a blacksmith's forge on a busy night.

I is a charm edited by Furnivall at p. 43 of the E.E.T.S. volume in which F appears.

[163]

A. NOW SPRINGS THE SPRAY. Lincoln's Inn MS. Hale 135 (about 1300).

[164]

B. SPRING. MS. Harley 2253 (about 1325), f. 71 b.

[165]

C. ALYSOUN. MS. Harley 2253, f. 63 b.

[166]

D. THE IRISH DANCER. Bodleian MS. Rawlinson D. 913.

[167]

E. THE MAID OF THE MOOR. Bodleian MS. Rawlinson D. 913.

F. THE VIRGIN'S SONG. British Museum MS. Harley 7322 (about 1375), f. 135 b.

[168]

G. JUDAS. Trinity College (Cambridge) MS. B. 14. 39 (about 1300), f. 34 a.

[169]

H. THE BLACKSMITHS. British Museum MS. Arundel 292 (about 1425-50), f. 71 b.

[170]

I. RATS AWAY. Bodleian MS. Rawlinson C. 288, f. 113 (15th-century writing, blurred).

XVI THE YORK PLAY 'HARROWING OF HELL' British Museum MS. Addit. 35290 (about 1430-40), f. 193 b.

The miracle play Harrowing of Hell is assigned to the craft of Saddlers in the York cycle, edited by Miss L. Toulmin-Smith, Oxford 1885, pp. 372 ff. This is the text reproduced below. It is also found, though in a less perfect form, among the Towneley Plays, ed. England and Pollard, E.E.T.S., 1897, pp. 293 ff.

All the mediaeval stories of Christ's Descent into Hell are based on the gospel of Nicodemus, which seems to date from the fourth century, though the legend is referred to nearly two centuries earlier. This apocryphal narrative was popular throughout the Middle Ages. There is a prose translation in late Anglo-Saxon, and a Middle English verse rendering supplies some of the phrases in the play.

Two points deserve notice for their bearing on the development of miracles. A trace of their origin in the services of the Church is seen in the use made of the Scriptural passage 'Attollite portas, principes, vestras, et elevamini portae aeternales, et introibit rex gloriae', the dramatic possibilities of which were recognized in ritual from an early date. And the growing taste for comic scenes is met, without prejudice to the serious characters, by the rudimentary buffoonery of the Devil and his companions.