FOOTNOTES:

On Englisch I-chul mi resun schowenFfor him that con not i-knowenNouther Ffrench ne Latyn.[324]

The first works written in English, after the Conquest, were sermons and pious treatises, some imitated from Bede, Ælfric, and the ancient Saxon models, others translated from the French. No originality or invention; the time is one of depression and humiliation; the victor sings, the vanquished prays.

The twelfth century, so fertile in Latin and French works, only counts, as far as English works are concerned, devotional books in prose and verse. The verses are uncouth and ill-shaped; the ancient rules, half-forgotten, are blended with new ones only half understood. Many authors employ at the same time alliteration and rhyme, and sin against both. The sermons are usually familiar in their style and kind in their tone; they are meant for the poor and miserable to whom tenderness and sympathy must be shown. The listeners want to be consoled and soothed; they are also interested, as formerly, by stories of miracles, and scared into virtue by descriptions of hell; confidence again is given them by instances of Divine mercy.[325]

Like the ancient churches the collections of sermons bring before the eye the last judgment and the region of hell, with its monstrous torments, its wells of flames, its ocean with seven bitter waves: ice, fire, blood ... a rudimentary rendering of legends interpreted in their turn by Dante in his poem, and Giotto in his fresco.[326]The thought of Giotto especially, when reading those sermons, recurs to the memory, of Giotto with his awkward and audacious attempts, Giotto so remote and yet so modern, childish and noble at the same time, who represents devils roasting the damned on spits, and on the same wall tries to paintthe Unseen and disclose to view the Unknown, Giotto with his search after the impossible, an almost painful search, the opposite of antique wisdom, and the sublime folly of the then nascent modern age. Not far from Padua, beside Venice, in the great Byzantine mosaic of Torcello, can be seen a last reflection of antique equanimity. Here the main character of the judgment-scene is its grand solemnity; and from this comes the impression of awe left on the beholder; the idea of rule and law predominates, a fatal law against which nothing can prevail; fate seems to preside, as it did in the antique tragedies.

In the English sermons of the period it is not the art of Torcello that continues, but the art of Giotto that begins. From time to time among the ungainly phrases of an author whose language is yet unformed, amidst mild and kind counsels, bursts forth a resounding apostrophe which causes the whole soul to vibrate, and has something sublime in its force and brevity: "He who bestows alms with ill-gotten goods shall not obtain the grace of Christ any more than he who having slain thy child brings thee its head as a gift!"[327]

The Psalter,[328]portions of the Bible,[329]lives ofsaints,[330]were put into verse. Metrical lives of saints fill manuscripts of prodigious size. A complete cycle of them, the work of several authors, in which are mixed together old and novel, English and foreign, materials, was written in English verse in the thirteenth century: "The collection in its complete state is a 'Liber Festivalis,' containing sermons or materials for sermons, for the festivals of the year in the order of the calendar, and comprehends not only saints' lives for saints' days but also a 'Temporale' for the festivals of Christ," &c.[331]The earliest complete manuscript was written about 1300, an older but incomplete one belongs to the years 1280-90, or thereabout.[332]In these collections a large place, as might be expected, is allowed to English saints:

Wolle ye nouthe i-heore this englische tale · that is here i-write?

It is the story of St. Thomas Becket: "Of Londone is fader was." St. Edward was "in Engeland oure kyng"; St. Kenelm,

Kyng he was in Engelond · of the march of Walis;

St. Edmund the Confessor "that lith at Ponteneye,"

Ibore he was in Engelond · in the toun of Abyndone.

St. Swithin "was her of Engelonde;" St. Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester,

Was here of Engelonde ...The while he was a yong child · clene lif he ladde i-nough;Whenne other children ornen to pleye · toward churche he drough.Seint Edward was kyng tho · that nouthe in heovene is.

St. Cuthbert was born in England; St. Dunstan was an Englishman. Of the latter a number of humorous legends were current among the people, and were preserved by religious poets; he and the devil played on each other numberless tricks in which, as behoves, the devil had the worst; these adventures made the subject of amusing pictures in many manuscripts. A woman, of beautiful face and figure, calls upon the saint, who is clear-sighted enough to recognise under this alluring shape the arch-foe; he dissembles. Being, like St. Eloi, a blacksmith, as well as a saint and a State minister, he heats his tongs red-hot, and turning suddenly round, while the other was watching confidently the effect of his good looks, catches him by the nose. There was a smell of burnt flesh, and awful yells were heard many miles round, for the "tonge was al afure"; it will teach him to stay at home and blow his own nose:

As god the schrewe hadde ibeo · atom ysnyt his nose.[333]

With this we have graceful legends, like that of St. Brandan, adapted from a French original, being thestory of that Irish monk who, in a leather bark, sailed in search of Paradise,[334]and visited marvellous islands where ewes govern themselves, and where the birds are angels transformed. The optimistic ideal of the Celts reappears in this poem, the subject of which is borrowed from them. "All there is beautiful, pure, and innocent; never was so kind a glance bestowed on the world, not a cruel idea, not a trace of weakness or regret."[335]

The mirth of St. Dunstan's story, the serenity of the legend of St. Brandan, are examples rarely met with in this literature. Under the light ornamentation copied from the Celts and Normans, is usually seen at that date the sombre and dreamy background of the Anglo-Saxon mind. Hell and its torments, remorse for irreparable crimes, dread of the hereafter, terror of the judgments of God and the brevity of life, are, as they were before the Conquest, favourite subjects with the national poets. They recur to them again and again; French poems describing the same are those they imitate the more willingly; the tollings of the funeral bell are heard each day in their compositions. Why cling to this perishable world? it will pass as "the schadewe that glyt away;" man will fade as a leaf, "so lef on bouh." Where are Paris, and Helen,and Tristan, and Iseult, and Cæsar? They have fled out of this world as the shaft from the bowstring:

Heo beoth iglyden ut of the reyne,So the scheft is of the cleo.[336]

Treatises of various kinds, and pious poems, abound from the thirteenth century; all adapted to English life and taste, but imitated from the French. The "Ancren Riwle,"[337]or rule for Recluse women, written in prose in the thirteenth century is perhaps an exception: it would be in that case the first in date of the original treatises written in English after the Conquest. This Rule is a manual of piety for the use of women who wish to dedicate themselves to God, a sort of "Introduction à la Vie dévote," as mild in tone as that of St. Francis de Sales, but far more vigorous in its precepts. The author addresses himself specially to three young women of good family, who had resolved to live apart from the world without taking any vows. He teaches them to deprive themselves of all that makes life attractive; to take no pleasure either through the eye, or through the ear, or in any other way. Hegives rules for getting up, for going to bed, for eating and for dressing. His doctrine may be summed up in a word: he teaches self-renunciation. But he does it in so kindly and affectionate a tone that the life he wishes his penitents to submit to does not seem too bitter; his voice is so sweet that the existence he describes seems almost sweet. Yet all that could brighten it must be avoided; the least thing may have serious consequences: "of little waxeth mickle."

Not a glance must be bestowed on the world; the young recluses must even deny themselves the pleasure of looking out of the parlour windows. They must bear in mind the example of Eve: "When thou lookest upon a man thou art in Eve's case; thou lookest upon the apple. If any one had said to Eve when she cast her eye upon it: 'Ah! Eve, turn thee away; thou castest thine eyes upon thy death,' what would she have answered?—'My dear master, thou art in the wrong, why dost thou find fault with me? The apple which I look upon is forbidden me to eat, not to look at.'—Thus would Eve quickly enough have answered. O my dear sisters, truly Eve hath many daughters who imitate their mother, who answer in this manner. But 'thinkest thou,' saith one, 'that I shall leap upon him though I look at him?'—God knows, dear sisters, that a greater wonder has happened. Eve, thy mother leaped after her eyes to the apple; from the apple in Paradise down to the earth; from the earth to hell, where she lay in prison four thousand years and more, she and her lord both, and taught all her offspring to leap after her to death without end. The beginning and root of this woful calamity was a light look. Thus often, as is said, 'of little waxeth mickle.'"[338]

The temptation to look and talk out of the window was one of the greatest with the poor anchoresses; not a few found it impossible to resist it. Cut off from the changeable world, they could not help feeling an interest in it, so captivating precisely because, unlike the cellular life, it was ever changing. The authors of rules for recluses insisted therefore very much upon this danger, and denounced such abuses as Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx, reveals, as we have seen, so early as the twelfth century: old women, talkative ones and newsbringers, sitting before the window of the recluse, "and telling her tales, and feeding her with vain news and scandal, and telling her how this monk or that clerk or any other man looks and behaves."[339]

Most of the religious treatises in English that have come down to us are of a more recent epoch, and belong to the first half of the fourteenth century. In the thirteenth, as has been noticed, many Englishmen considered French to be, together with Latin, the literary language of the country; they endeavoured to handle it, but not always with great success. Robert Grosseteste, who, however, recommended his clergy to preach in English, had composed in French a "Château d'Amour," an allegorical poem, with keeps, castles, and turrets, "les quatre tureles en haut," which are the four cardinal virtues, a sort of pious Romaunt of the Rose. William of Wadington had likewise written in French his "Manuel des Pechiez," not without an inklingthat his grammar and prosody might give cause for laughter. He excused himself in advance: "For my French and my rhymes no one must blame me, for in England was I born, and there bred and brought up and educated."[340]

These attempts become rare as we approach the fourteenth century, and English translations and imitations, on the contrary, multiply. We find, for example, translations in English verse of the "Château"[341]and the "Manuel"[342]; a prose translation of that famous "Somme des Vices et des Vertus," composed by Brother Lorens in 1279, for Philip III. of France, a copy of which, chained to a pillar of the church of the Innocents, remained open for the convenience of the faithful[343]; (a bestiary in verse, thirteenthcentury), devotional writings on the Virgin, legends of the Cross, visions of heaven and hell[344]; a Courier of the world, "Cursor Mundi," in verse,[345]containing the history of the Old and New Testaments. A multitude of legends are found in the "Cursor," that of the Cross for instance, made out of three trees, a cypress, a cedar, and a pine, symbols of the Trinity. These trees had sprung from three pips given to Seth by the guardian angel of Paradise, and placed under Adam's tongue at his death; their miraculous existence is continued on the mountains, and they play a part in all the great epochs of Jewish history, in the time of Moses, Solomon, &c.

Similar legends adorn most of these books: what good could they accomplish if no one read them? And to be read it was necessary to please. This is why verse was used to charm the ear, and romantic stories were inserted to delight the mind, for, says Robert Mannyng in his translation of the "Manuel des Pechiez," "many people are so made that it pleases them to hear stories and verses, in their games, in their feasts, and over their ale."[346]

Somewhat above this group of translators and adaptators rises a more original writer, Richard Rolle of Hampole, noticeable for his English and Latin compositions, in prose and verse, and still more so by his character.[347]He is the first on the list of those lay preachers, of whom England has produced a number, whom an inward crisis brought back to God, and who roamed about the country as volunteer apostles, converting the simple, edifying the wise, and, alas! affording cause for laughter to the wicked. They are taken by good folks for saints, and for madmen by sceptics: such was the fate of Richard Rolle, of George Fox, of Bunyan, and of Wesley; the same man lives onthrough the ages, and the same humanity heaps on him at once blessings and ridicule.

Richard was of the world, and never took orders. He had studied at Oxford. One day he left his father's house, in order to give himself up to a contemplative life. From that time he mortifies himself, he fasts, he prays, he is tempted; the devil appears to him under the form of a beautiful young woman, who he tells us with less humility than we are accustomed to from him, "loved me not a little with good love."[348]But though the wicked one shows himself in this case even more wicked than with St. Dunstan, and Rolle has no red-hot tongs to frighten him away, still the devil is again worsted, and the adventure ends as it should.

Rolle has ecstasies, he sighs and groans; people come to visit him in his solitude; he is found writing much, "scribentem multum velociter." He is requested to stop writing, and speak to his visitors; he talks to them, but continues writing, "and what he wrote differed entirely from what he said." This duplication of the personality lasted two hours.

He leaves his retreat and goes all over the country, preaching abnegation and a return to Christ. He finally settled at Hampole, where he wrote his principal works, and died in 1349. Having no doubt that he would one day be canonised, the nuns of a neighbouring convent caused the office of his feast-day to be written; and this office, which was never sung as Rolle never received the hoped-for dignity, is the main source of our information concerning him.[349]

His style and ideas correspond well to such a life. His thoughts are sombre, Germanic anxieties and doubts reappear in his writings, the idea of death and the image of the grave cause him anguish that all his piety cannot allay. His style, like his life, is uneven and full of change; to calm passages, to beautiful and edifying tales succeed bursts of passion; his phrases then become short and breathless; interjections and apostrophes abound. "Ihesu es thy name. A! A! that wondyrfull name! A! that delittabyll name! This es the name that es abowve all names.... I yede (went) abowte be Covaytyse of riches and I fande noghte Ihesu. I rane be Wantonnes of flesche and I fand noghte Ihesu. I satt in companyes of Worldly myrthe and I fand noghte Ihesu.... Tharefore I turnede by anothire waye, and I rane a-bowte be Poverte, and I fande Ihesu pure, borne in the worlde, laid in a crybe and lappid in clathis."[350]Rolle of Hampole is, if we except the doubtful case of the "Ancren Riwle, "the first English prose writer after the Conquest who can pretend to the title of original author. To find him we have had to come far into the fourteenth century. When he died, in 1349, Chaucer was about ten years of age and Wyclif thirty.

II.

We are getting further and further away from the Conquest, the wounds inflicted by it begin to heal, and an audience is slowly forming among the English race, ready for something else besides sermons.

The greater part of the nobles had early accepted the new order of things, and had either retained or recovered their estates. Having rallied to the cause of the conquerors, they now endeavoured to imitate them, and had also their castles, their minstrels, and their romances. They had, it is true, learnt French, but English remained their natural language. A literature was composed that resembled them, English in language, as French as possible in dress and manners. About the end of the twelfth century or beginning of the thirteenth, the translation of the French romances began. First came war stories, then love tales.

Thus was written by Layamon, about 1205, the first metrical romance, after "Beowulf," that the English literature possesses.[351]The vocabulary of the "Brut" is Anglo-Saxon; there are not, it seems, above fifty words of French origin in the whole of this lengthy poem, and yet on each page it is easy to recognise the ideas and the chivalrous tastes introduced by the French. The strong will withwhich they blended the traditions of the country has borne its fruits. Layamon considers that the glories of the Britons are English glories, and he celebrates their triumphs with an exulting heart, as if British victories were not Saxon defeats. Bede, the Anglo-Saxon, and Wace, the Norman, "a Frenchis clerc" as he calls him, are, in his eyes, authorities of the same sort and same value, equally worthy of filial respect and belief. "It came to him in mind," says Layamon, speaking of himself, "and in his chief thought that he would of the English tell the noble deeds.... Layamon began to journey wide over this land and procured the noble books which he took for pattern. He took the English book that St. Bede made," and a Latin book by "St. Albin"; a third book he took "and laid in the midst, that a French clerk made, who was named Wace, who well could write.... These books he turned over the leaves, lovingly he beheld them ... pen he took with fingers and wrote on book skin."[352]He follows mainly Wace's poem, but paraphrases it; he introduces legends that were unknown to Wace, and adds speeches to the already numerous speeches of his model. These discourses consist mostly of warlike invectives; before slaying, the warriors hurl defiance at each other; after killing his foe, the victor allows himself the pleasure of jeering at the corpse, and his mirth resembles very much the mirth in Scandinavian sagas. "Then laughed Arthur, the noble king, and gan to speak with gameful words: 'Lie now there, Colgrim.... Thou climbed on this hill wondrously high, as if thou wouldst ascend to heaven, now thou shalt to hell. There thou mayest know much of your kindred; and greet thou there Hengest ... and Ossa, Octa and more of thy kin, and bid them there dwell winter and summer, and we shall inland live in bliss.'"[353]This is an example of a speech added to Wace, who simply concludes his account of the battle by:

Mors fu Balduf, mors fu ColgrinEt Cheldric s'en ala fuiant.[354]

In such taunts is recognised the ferocity of the primitive epics, those of the Greeks as well as those of the northern nations. Thus spoke Patroclus to Cebrion when he fell headlong from his chariot, "with the resolute air of a diver who seeks oysters under the sea."

After Layamon, translations and adaptations soon become very plentiful, metrical chronicles, like the one composed towards the end of the thirteenth century by Robert of Gloucester,[355]are compiled on the pattern of the French ones, for the use and delight of the English people; chivalrous romances are also written in English. The love of extraordinary adventures, and of the books that tell of them, had crept little by little into the hearts of these islanders, now reconciled to their masters, and led by them all over the world. The minstrels or wandering poets of English tongue are many in number; no feast is complete without their music and their songs; they are welcomed in the castle halls, they can now, with as bold a voice astheir French brethren, bespeak a cup of ale, sure not to be refused:

At the beginning of ure tale,Fil me a cuppe of ful god ale,And y wile drinken her y spelleThat Crist us shilde all fro helle![356]

They stop also on the public places, where the common people flock to hear of Charlemagne and Roland[357]; they even get into the cloister. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, nearly all the stories of the heroes of Troy, Rome, France, and Britain are put into verse:

For hem that knowe no Frensche · ne never underston.[358]

"Men like," writes shortly after 1300, the author of the "Cursor Mundi":

Men lykyn jestis for to hereAnd romans rede in divers manereOf Alexandre the conqueroure,Of Julius Cesar the emperoure,Of Grece and Troy the strong stryfThere many a man lost his lyf,Of Brute that baron bold of hond,The first conqueroure of Englond,Of Kyng Artour....How Kyng Charlis and Rowlond fawghtWith Sarzyns nold they be cawght,Of Trystrem and Isoude the swete,How they with love first gan mete ...Stories of diverce thynggis,Of pryncis, prelatis and of kynggis,Many songgis of divers ryme,As English Frensh and Latyne.[359]

Some very few Germanic or Saxon traditions, such as the story of Havelok, a Dane who ended by reigning in England, or that of Horn and Rymenhild,[360]his betrothed, had been adopted by the French poets. They were taken from them again by the English minstrels, who, however, left these old heroes their French dress: had they not followed the fashion, no one would have cared for their work. Goldborough or Argentille, the heroine of the romance of Havelok, was originally a Valkyria; now, under her French disguise, she is scarcely recognisable, but she is liked as she is.[361]

Some English heroes of a more recent period find alsoa place in this poetic pantheon, thanks again to French minstrels, who make them fashionable by versifying about them. In this manner were written, in French, then in English, the adventures of Waltheof, of Sir Guy of Warwick, who marries the beautiful Felice, goes to Palestine, kills the giant Colbrant on his return, and dies piously in a hermitage.[362]Thus are likewise told the deeds of famous outlaws, as Fulke Fitz-Warin, a prototype of Robin Hood, who lived in the woods with the fair Mahaud,[363]as Robin Hood will do later with Maid Marian.[364]Several of these heroes, Guy of Warwick in particular, enjoyed such lasting popularity that it has scarcely died out to this day. Their histories were reprinted at the Renaissance; they were read under Elizabeth, and plays were taken from them; and when, with Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, novels of another kind took their place in the drawing-room, their life continued still in the lowersphere to which they had been consigned. They supplied the matter for those popularchap books[365]that have been reprinted even in our time, the authors of which wrote, as did the rhymers of the Middle Ages "for the love of the English people, of the people of merry England."Englis lede of meri Ingeland.[366]

"Merry England" became acquainted with every form of French mirth; she imitated French chansons, and gave a place in her literature to French fabliaux. Nothing could be less congenial to the Anglo-Saxon race than the spirit of the fabliaux. This spirit, however, was acclimatised in England; and, like several other products of the French mind, was grafted on the original stock. The tree thus bore fruit which would never have ripened as it did, without the Conquest. Such are the works of Chaucer, of Swift perhaps, and of Sterne. The most comic andrisquéstories, those same stories meant to raise a laugh which we have seen old women tell at parlour windows, in order to cheer recluse anchoresses, were put into English verse, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Thus we find under an English form such stories as the tale of "La Chienne qui pleure,"[367]"Le lai duCor,"[368]"La Bourse pleine de sens,"[369]the praise of the land of "Coquaigne,"[370]&c.:

Thogh paradis be miri and brightCokaygn is of fairir sight.What is ther in paradisBot grasse and flure and grene ris (branches)?Thogh ther be joi and grete dute (pleasure)Ther nis mete bote frute....Bot watir manis thurste to quenche;Beth ther no man but two,Hely and Enok also

And it cannot be very pleasant to live without more company; one must feel "elinglich." But in "Cokaygne" there is no cause to be "elinglich"; all is meat and drink there; all is day, there is no night:

Al is dai, nis ther no nighte,Ther nis baret (quarrel) nother strif....Ther nis man no womman wroth,Ther nis serpent, wolf no fox;

no storm, no rain, no wind, no flea, no fly; there is no Enoch nor any Elias to be sure; but there are women with nothing pedantic about them, who are as loving as they are lovable.

Nothing less Saxon than such poems, with their semi-impiety, which would be absolute impiety if the author seriously meant what he said. It is the impiety of Aucassin, who refuses (before it is offered him) to enter Paradise: "In Paradise what have I to win? Therein I seek not to enter, but only to have Nicolete, my sweet lady that I love so well.... But into Hell would I fain go; for into Hell fare the goodly clerks, and goodly knights that fall in harness and great wars, and stout men-at-arms, and all men noble.... With those would I gladly go, let me but have with me Nicolete, my sweetest lady."[371]We must not take Aucassin at his word; there was ever froth on French wine.

Other English poems scoff at chivalrous manners, which are ridiculed in verse, in paintings, and sculptures[372]; or at the elegancies of the bad parson who puts in his bag acomb and "a shewer" (mirror).[373]Other poems are adaptations of the "Roman de Renart."[374]The new spirit has penetrated so well into English minds that the adaptation is sometimes worthy of the original.

A vox gon out of the wode go,Afingret (hungered) so that him wes wo;He nes (ne was) nevere in none wiseAfingret erour (before) half so swithe.He ne hoeld nouther wey ne strete,For him wes loth men to mete;Him were levere meten one hen,Than half an oundred wimmen.

But not a hen does he come across; they are suspicious, and roost out of reach. At last, half dead, he desires to drink, and sees a well with two pails on the chain; he descends in one of the pails, and finds it impossible to scramble out: he weeps for rage. The wolf, as a matter of course, comes that way, and they begin to talk. Though wanting very much to go, hungrier than ever, and determined to make the wolf take his place, Renard would not have been Renard had he played off this trick on his gossip plainly and without a word. He adds many words, all sparkling with the wit of France, the wit that is to beinherited by Scapin and by Figaro. The wolf, for his part, replies word for word by a verse of Orgon's. Renard will only allow him to descend into the Paradise whither he pretends to have retired, after he has confessed, forgiven all his enemies—Renard being one—and is ready to lead a holy life. Ysengrin agrees, confesses, and forgives; he feels his mind quite at rest, and exclaims in his own way:

Et je verrais mourir frère, enfants, mère et femme,Que je m'en soucierais autant que de cela.[375]Nou ich am in clene live,Ne recche ich of childe ne of wive.

Et je verrais mourir frère, enfants, mère et femme,Que je m'en soucierais autant que de cela.[375]

Nou ich am in clene live,Ne recche ich of childe ne of wive.

The wolf goes down, Renard goes up; as the pails meet, the rogue wickedly observes:

Ac ich am therof glad and blitheThat thou art nomen in clene live,Thi soul-cnul (knell) ich wile do ringe,And masse for thine soule singe.

But he considers it enough for his purpose to warn the monks that the devil is at the bottom of their well. With great difficulty the monks draw up the devil, which done they beat him, and set the dogs on him.

Some graceful love tales, popular in France, were translated and enjoyed no less popularity in England, where there was now a public for literature of this sort. Such was the case for Amis and Amile, Floire and Blanchefleur, and many others.[376]As forchansons, there were imitationsof May songs, "disputoisons,"[377]and carols; love, roses, and birds were sung in sweet words to soft music[378]; so was spring, the season of lilies, when the flowers give more perfume, and the moon more light, and women are more beautiful:

Wymmen waxeth wonder proude.[379]

Their beauties and merits are celebrated one by one, as in a litany; for, said one of those poets, an Englishman who wrote in French:

Beauté de femme passe rose.[380]

In honour of them were composed stanzas spangled with admiring epithets, glittering like a golden shower; innumerable songs were dedicated to their ideal model, the Queen of Angels; others to each one of their physical charms, their "vair eyes"[381]and their eyes "gray y-noh": those being the colours preferred; their skin white as milk, "soft ase sylk"; those scarlet lips that served them to read romances, for romances were read aloud, and not only with the eyes[382]; their voice more melodious than a bird's song. In short, from the time of Edward II. that mixture of mysticism and sensuality appears which was to become one of the characteristics of the fourteenth century.

The poets who made these songs, charming as they were, rarely succeeded however in perfectly imitating the light pace of the careless French muse. In reading a great number of the songs of both countries, one is struck by the difference. The English spring is mixed with winter, and the French with summer; England sings the verses of May, remembering April, France sings them looking forward to June.

Blow northerne wynd,Sent thou me my suetyng,Blow, northerne wynd, blou, blou, blou![383]

says the English poet. Contact with the new-comers had modified the gravity of the Anglo-Saxons, but without sweeping it away wholly and for ever: the possibility ofrecurring sadness is felt even in the midst of the joy of "Merry England."

But the hour draws near when for the first time, and in spite of all doleful notes, the joy of "Merry England" will bloom forth freely. Edward III. is on the throne, Chaucer is just born, and soon the future Black Prince will win his spurs at Crécy.

FOOTNOTES:[324]"Castel of Love," "made in the latter half of the XIIIth century," in Horstmann and Furnivall, "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," E.E.T.S., 1892, Part I. p. 356, see below, p. 213. Grosseteste had said:... Trestuz ne poent mieSaver le langage en finD'Ebreu de griu ne de latin.(Ibid.p. 355.)[325]Among the collections of English sermons from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, see "An Old English Miscellany," ed. Morris, Early English Text Society, 1872, 8vo; pp. 26 ff., a translation in English prose of the thirteenth century of some of the sermons of Maurice de Sully; p. 187, "a lutel soth sermon" in verse, with good advice to lovers overfond of "Malekyn" or "Janekyn."—"Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1867-73, 2 vols. 8vo; prose and verse (specimens of music in the second series); several of those pieces are mere transcripts of Anglo Saxon works anterior to the Conquest; p. 159, the famous "Moral Ode," twelfth century, on the transitoriness of this life: "Ich em nu alder thene ich wes," &c., in rhymed verse (cf."Old English Miscellany," p. 58, and "Anglia," i. p. 6).—"The Ormulum, with the notes and glossary of Dr. R. M. White," ed. R. Holt, Oxford, 1878, 2 vols. 8vo, an immense compilation in verse, of which a part only has been preserved, the work of Ormin, an Augustinian canon, thirteenth century; contains a paraphrase of the gospel of the day followed by an explanatory sermon;cf.Napier, "Notes on Ormulum" in "History of the Holy Rood Tree," E.E.T.S., 1894—"Hali Meidenhad ... an alliterative Homily of the XIIIth century," ed. Cockayne, E.E.T.S., 1866, in prose.—"English metrical Homilies," ed. J. Small, Edinburgh, 1862, 8vo, homilies interspersed withexempla, compiled ab. 1330.—"Religious pieces in prose and verse," ed. G. G. Perry, E.E.T.S., 1867; statement in a sermon by John Gaytrige, fourteenth century, that "oure ffadire the byschope" has prescribed to each member of his clergy "opynly, one ynglysche apone sonnondayes, preche and teche thaym that thay hase cure off" (p. 2).[326]Sermon IV. on Sunday (imitated from the French) in Morris's "Old English Homilies," 1867. St. Paul, led by St. Michael, at the sight of so many sufferings, weeps, and God consents that on Sundays the condemned souls shall cease to suffer. This legend was one of the most popular in the Middle Ages; it was told in verse or prose in Greek, Latin, French, English, &c. See Ward, "Catalogue of MS. Romances," vol. ii. 1893, pp. 397 ff.: "Two versions of this vision existed in Greek in the fourth century." An English metrical version has been ed. by Horstmann and Furnivall, "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," E.E.T.S., 1892, p. 251.[327]"Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and XIIIth Centuries," ed. with translation, by R. Morris, London, E.E.T.S., 1867, 8vo, vol. i. p. 39.[328]The Psalter was translated into English, in verse, in the second half of the thirteenth century: "Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter," Surtees Society, 1843-7, 8vo; then in prose with a full commentary by Richard Rolle, of Hampole (on whom see below, p. 216): "The Psalter or the Psalms of David," ed. Bramley, Oxford, 1884, 8vo; again in prose, towards 1327, by an anonym, who has been wrongly believed to be William de Shoreham, a monk of Leeds priory: "The earliest English prose Psalter, together with eleven Canticles," ed. Bülbring, E.E.T.S., 1891. The seven penitential psalms were translated in verse in the second half of the fourteenth century by Richard of Maidstone; one is in Horstmann and Furnivall: "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," p. 12.[329]"The Story of Genesis and Exodus, an early English Song," ab. 1250, ed. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1865; shortly before that date a translation in French prose of the whole of the Bible had been completed.[330]See,e.g., "The early South-English Legendary or lives of Saints; I., MS. Laud, 108, in the Bodleian Library," ed. C. Horstmann, Early English Text Society, 1887, 8vo.—Furnivall, "Early English Poems and Lives of Saints," Berlin, Philological Society, 1862, 8vo.—"Materials for the history of Thomas Becket," ed. Robertson, Rolls, 1875 ff., 7 vols. 8vo.—Several separate Lives of Saints have been published by the E.E.T.S.[331]Horstmann, "The early South-English Legendary," p. vii. The same intends to publish other texts, and to clear the main problems connected with them; "but it will," he says, "require more brains, the brains of several generations to come, before every question relative to this collection can be cleared."Ibid.[332]The latter is the MS. Laud 108 in the Bodleian, edited by Horstmann; the other is the Harleian MS. 2277 in the British Museum; specimens of its contents have been given by Furnivall in his "Early English poems" (ut supra).[333]From MS. Harl. 2277, in Furnivall's "Early English poems," 1862, p. 34.[334]In the faireste lond huy weren · that evere mighte beo.So cler and so light it was · that joye thare was i-nogh;Treon thare weren fulle of fruyt · wel thicke ever-ech bough ...Hit was evere-more day: heom thoughte, and never-more nyght.Life of St. Brendan who "was here of oure londe," in Horstmann's "South-English Legendary," p. 220. See also "St. Brandan, a mediæval Legend of the Sea," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society, 1844; Francisque Michel, "Les Voyages Merveilleux de St. Brandan à la recherche du Paradis terrestre, légende en vers du XII^e. Siècle," Paris, 1878;cf."Navigation de la barque de Mael Duin," in d'Arbois de Jubainville's "L'Epopée Celtique en Irlande," 1892, pp. 449 ff. (above p. 12).[335]Renan, "Essais de morale et de critique," Paris, 1867, 3rd edition, p. 446.[336]By Thomas de Hales, "Incipit quidam cantus quem composuit frater Thomas de Hales." Thomas was a friend of Adam de Marisco and lived in the thirteenth century. "Old English Miscellany," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1872, p. 94.[337]The "Ancren Riwle," edited and translated by J. Morton, London, Camden Society, 1853, 4to, thirteenth century. Five MSS. have been preserved, four in English and one in Latin, abbreviated from the English (cf.Bramlette's article in "Anglia," vol. xv. p. 478). A MS. in French: "La Reule des femmes religieuses et recluses," disappeared in the fire of the Cottonian Library. The ladies for whom this book was written lived at Tarrant Kaines, in Dorset, where a convent for monks had been founded by Ralph de Kaines, son of one of the companions of the Conqueror. It is not impossible that the original text was the French one; French fragments subsist in the English version. The anonymous author had taken much trouble about this work. "God knows," he says, "it would be more agreeable to me to start on a journey to Rome than begin to do it again." A journey to Rome was not then a pleasure trip.[338]P. 53, Morton's translation. The beginning of the quotation runs thus in the original: "Hwoso hevede iseid to Eve theo heo werp hire eien therone, A! wend te awei! thu worpest eien o thi death! Hwat heved heo ionswered? Me leove sire, ther havest wouh. Hwarof kalenges tu me? The eppel that ich loke on is forbode me to etene, and nout forto biholden."[339]"Vix aliquam inclusarum hujus temporis solam invenies, ante cujus fenestram non anus garrula vel nugigerula mulier sedeat quæ eam fabulis occupet, rumoribus aut detractionibus pascat, illius vel illius monachi vel clerici, vel alterius cujuslibet ordinis viri formam, vultum, moresque describat. Illecebrosa quoque interserat, puellarum lasciviam, viduarum, quibus libet quidquid libet, libertatem, conjugum in viris fallendis explendisque voluptatibus astutiam depingat. Os interea in risus cachinnosque dissolvitur, et venenum cum suavitate bibitum per viscera membraque diffunditur." "De vita eremetica Liber," cap. iii., Reclusarun cum externis mulieribus confabulationes; in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. xxxii. col. 1451. See above, p. 153. Aelred wrote this treatise at the request of a sister of his, a sister "carne et spiritu."[340]De le franceis, ne del rimerNe me dait nuls hom blamer,Kar en Engleterre fu néE norri ordiné et alevé.Furnivall, "Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne," &c., Roxburghe Club, 1862, 4to, p. 413.[341]French text of the "Château" in Cooke, "Carmina Anglo-Normannica," 1852, Caxton Society; English versions in Horstmann and Furnivall, "The minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," Early English Text Society, 1892, pp. 355, 407; Weymouth: "Castell off Love ... an early English translation of an old French poem by Robert Grosseteste," Philological Society, 1864, 4to; Halliwell, "Castle of Love," Brixton Hill, 1849, 4to. See above, p. 205.[342]The "Manuel des Pechiez," by William de Wadington, as well as the English metrical translation (a very free one) written in 1303 by Robert Mannyng, of Brunne, Lincolnshire (1260?-1340?), have been edited by Furnivall: "Handlyng Synne," London, Roxburghe Club, 1862, 4to, contains a number ofexemplaand curious stories. The same Mannyng wrote, after Peter de Langtoft, an Englishman who had written in French (see above, p.122), and after Wace, a metrical chronicle, from the time of Noah down to Edward I.: "The Story of England ...a.d.1338," ed. Furnivall, Rolls, 1887, 2 vols. 8vo. He is possibly the author of a metrical meditation on the Last Supper imitated from his contemporary St. Bonaventure: "Meditacyuns on the Soper of our Lorde," ed. Cowper, E.E.T.S., 1875, 8vo.[343]"The Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of Conscience, in the Kentish Dialect, 1340a.d., edited from the autograph MS.," by R. Morris, E.E.T.S. The "Ayenbite" is the work of Dan Michel, of Northgate, Kent, who belonged to "the bochouse of Saynt Austines of Canterberi." The work deals with the Ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins, informs us that "the sothe noblesse comth of the gentyl herte ... ase to the bodye: alle we byeth children of one moder, thet is of erthe" (p. 87). Some of the chapters of Lorens's "Somme" were adapted by Chaucer in his Parson's tale.[344]See in particular: "Legends of the Holy Rood, symbols of the Passion and Cross Poems, in old English of the XIth, XIVth, and XVth centuries," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1871.—"An Old English Miscellany containing a Bestiary, Kentish sermons, Proverbs of Alfred and religious poems of the XIIIth century," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1872.—"The religious poems of William de Shoreham," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society, 1849, on sacraments, commandments, deadly sins, &c., first half of the fourteenth century.—"The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," ed. Horstmann and Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 1892; contains a variety of poems in the honour of the Virgin, pious tales, "a dispitison bitweene a good man and the devel," p. 329, meditations, laments, vision of St. Paul, &c., of various authors and dates, mostly of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.—On visions of heaven and hell (vision of St. Paul of Tundal, of St. Patrick, of Thurkill), and on the Latin, French, and English texts of several of them, see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," 1893, vol. ii. pp. 397 ff.[345]"Cursor Mundi, the cursur of the world," ed. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1874-93, 7 parts, compiled ab. 1300 from the "Historia Ecclesiastica" of Peter Comestor, the "Fête de la Conception" of Wace, the "Château d'Amour" of Grosseteste, &c. (Haenisch "Inquiry into the sources of the Cursor Mundi,"ibid.part vii.). The work has been wrongly attributed to John of Lindbergh. See Morris's preface, p. xviii.Cf.Napier, "History of the Holy Rood Tree," E.E.T.S., 1894 (English, Latin, and French prose texts of the Cross legend).[346]For lewde men y undyrtoke,On Englyssh tunge to make thys boke:For many ben of swyche manereThat talys and rymys wyl blethly hereYn gamys and festys and at the ale."Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne, writtena.d.1303 with ... Le Manuel des Pechiez by William of Wadington," ed. Furnivall, London, Roxburghe Club, 1862, 4to, Prologue, p. 2.[347]There exist Latin and English texts of his works, the latter being generally considered as translations made by himself. His principal composition is his poem: "The Pricke of Conscience," ed. Morris, Philological Society, 1863, 8vo. He wrote also a prose translation of "The Psalter," with a commentary, ed. Bramley, Oxford, 1884, 8vo, and also "English Prose Treatises," ed. G. S., 1866, 8vo. Most of his works in Latin have been collected under the title: "D. Richardi Pampolitani Anglo-Saxonis eremitæ ... Psalterium Davidicum atque alia ... Monumenta," Cologne, 1536, fol.[348]"When I had takene my syngulere purpos and lefte the seculere habyte, and I be-ganne mare to serve God than mane, it fell one a nyghte als I lay in my reste, in the begynnynge of my conversyone, thare appered to me a full faire yonge womane, the whilke I had sene be-fore, and the whilke luffed me noght lyttil in gude lufe." "English Prose Treatises," p. 5.[349]"Officium de Sancto Ricardo eremita." The office contains hymns in the honour of the saint: "Rejoice, mother country of the English!..."Letetur felix Anglorum patria ...Pange lingua graciosi Ricardi preconium,Pii, puri, preciosi, fugientis vicium."English Prose Treatises," pp. xv and xvi.[350]"English Prose Treatises," pp. 1, 4, 5.Cf.Rolle's Latin text, "Nominis Iesu encomion": "O bonum nomen, o dulce nomen," &c., in "Richardi Pampolitani, ... Monumenta," Cologne, 1536, fol. cxliii. At the same page, the story of the young woman.[351]"Layamon's Brut or Chronicle of Britain, a poetical Semi-Saxon paraphrase of the Brut of Wace," ed. by Sir Fred. Madden, London, Society of Antiquaries, 1847, 3 vols. 8vo.—Cf.Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. i. 1883: "Many important additions are made to Wace, but they seem to be mostly derived from Welsh traditions," p. 269, Wace's "Geste des Bretons," or "Roman de Brut," written in 1155, was ed. by Leroux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836, 2 vols. 8vo.Cf.P. Meyer, "De quelques Chroniques Anglo-Normandes qui ont porté le nom de Brut," Bulletin de la Société des Anciens Textes français, 1878. Layamon, son of Leovenath, lived at Ernley, now Lower Arley, on the Severn; he uses sometimes alliteration and sometimes rhyme in his verse. The MS. Cott. Otho C. xiii contains a "somewhat modernised" version of Layamon's "Brut," late thirteenth or early fourteenth century (Ward,ibid.). On Layamon and his work, see "Anglia," i. p. 197, and ii. p. 153.[352]Madden,ut supra, vol. i. p. 1.[353]Madden,ut supra, vol. ii. p. 476. The original text (printed in short lines by Madden and here in long ones) runs thus:Tha loh Arthur · the althele king,And thus yeddien agon · mid gommenfulle worden:Lien nu there Colgrim · thu were iclumben hagheThu clumbe a thissen hulle · wunder ane hæghe,Swulc thu woldest to hævene · nu thu scalt to hælle;Ther thu miht kenne · muche of thine cunne,And gret thu ther Hengest · the cnihten wes fayerest,Ebissa and Ossa · Octa and of thine cunne ma,And bide heom ther wunie · wintres and sumeres,And we scullen on londe · libben in blisse.[354]"Roman de Brut," vol. ii. p. 57.[355]On Robert, see above, pp.117,122. On the sources of his chronicle, see Ellmer, "Anglia," vol. x. pp. 1 ff and 291 ff.[356]"Lay of Havelok," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868, end of thirteenth century, p. 1.[357]On wandering minstrels and jongleurs, see "English Wayfaring Life," ii., chap. i., and below, p. 345, above, p. 162.[358]"Romance of William of Palerne, translated from the French at the command of Sir Humphrey de Bohun, ab. 1350," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1867, 8vo. l. 5533.[359]"Cursor Mundi," ed. Morris, part v. p. 1651. A large number of English mediæval romances will be found among the publications of the Early English Text Society (including among others: Ferumbras, Otuel, Huon of Burdeux, Charles the Grete, Four Sons of Aymon, Sir Bevis of Hamton, King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Guy of Warwick, William of Palerne, Generides, Morte Arthure, Lonelich's History of the Holy Grail, Joseph of Arimathie, Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, &c.), the Camden and the Percy Societies, the Roxburghe and the Bannatyne Clubs. Some also have been published by Kölbing in his "Altenglische Bibliothek," Heilbronn; by H. W. Weber: "Metrical Romances of the XIIIth, XIVth and XVth centuries," Edinburgh, 1810, 3 vols. 8vo. &c. See also H. L. D. Ward, "Catalogue of MS. Romances in the British Museum," 1883 ff.[360]"King Horn, with Fragments of Floriz and Blauncheflur, and of the Assumption of Our Lady," ed. Rawson Lumby, E.E.T.S., 1886, 8vo. "Horn" is printed from a Cambridge MS. of the thirteenth century. A French metrical version of this story, written by "Thomas" about 1170, was edited by R. Brede and E. Stengel: "Das Anglonormannische Lied vom wackern Ritter Horn," Marbourg, 1883, 8vo: "Hic est de Horn bono milite." Concerning "Horn," see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," i. p. 447; "Anglia," iv. p. 342; "Romania," xv. p. 575 (an article by W. Soderhjelm, showing that the Thomas of "Tristan" and the Thomas of "Horn" are not the same man).[361]Another sign of a Scandinavian origin consists in the flame that comes out of the mouth of Havelok at night, and betrays his royal origin. The events take place at Lincoln, Grimsby, and in Denmark; the seal of Grimsby engraved in the thirteenth century represents, besides "Habloc" and "Goldeburgh," "Gryem," the founder of the town, and supposed father of the hero. Gaimar, the chronicler, wrote in French verse the story of Havelok, and we have it: "Le Lai d'Haveloc le Danois," in Hardy and Martin "Lestorie des Engles," Rolls, 1888, vol. i. p. 290. The English text, "Havelok the Dane," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868, was probably written between 1296 and 1300 (see the letter of J. W. Hales to theAthenæum, Feb. 23, 1889),cf.Ward's "Catalogue," i. p. 423.[362]"Guy of Warwick," ed. Zupitza, E.E.T.S., 1875-91 (cf.Ward's "Catalogue of Romances," i. p. 471). "All the Middle English versions of the Romances of Guy of Warwick are translations from the French.... The French romance was done into English several times. We possess the whole or considerable fragments of, at least, four different Middle English versions" (Zupitza's Preface).[363]Part of the adventures of Fulke belongs to history; his rebellion actually took place in 1201. His story was told in a French poem, written before 1314 and turned into prose before 1320 (the text, though in French, is remarkable for its strong English bias); an English poem on the same subject is lost. (Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," i. pp. 501 ff.) The version in French prose has been edited by J. Stephenson, with his Ralph de Coggeshall, Rolls, 1875, p. 277, and by Moland and d'Héricault in their "Nouvelles en prose du quatorzième Siècle," Paris, 1858. See also the life of the outlaw Hereward, in Latin, twelfth century: "De Gestis Herewardi Saxonis," in the "Chroniques Anglo-Normandes," of F. Michel, Rouen, 1836-40, vol. ii.[364]It is possible that Robin Hood existed, in which case it seems probable he lived under Edward II. "The stories that are told about him, however, had almost all been previously told, connected with the names of other outlaws such as Hereward and Fulke Fitz-Warin." Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," i. pp. 517 ff. He was the hero of many songs, from the fourteenth century; most of those we have belong, however, to the sixteenth.[365]On the transformations of Guy of Warwick and representations of him in chap books, see "English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare," pp 64, 350.[366]"Cursor Mundi," i. p. 21.Cf.Bartholomew the Englishman, in his "De Proprietatibus Rerum," book xv., chap. xiv., thus translated by Trevisa: "Englonde is fulle of myrthe and of game and men oft tymes able to myrth and game, free men of harte and with tongue, but the honde is more better and more free than the tongue."—"Cest acteur monstre bien en ce chapitre qu'il fut Anglois," observes with some spite Corbichon, the French translator of Bartholomew, writing, it is true, during the Hundred Years' War.[367]English text: "Dame Siriz" in Th. Wright, "Anecdota Literaria," London, 1844, 8vo, p. 1; and in Goldbeck and Matzner, "Altenglische Sprachproben," Berlin, 1867, p. 103. French text in the "Castoiement d'un père à son fils," Barbazan and Méon, "Fabliaux," vol. ii. The English text belongs to the end of the thirteenth century, and the story is localised in England; mention is made of "Botolfston," otherwise, St. Botolph or Boston. See above, p. 154; on a dramatisation of the story, see below, p. 447.[368]Story of a drinking horn from which husbands with faithless wives cannot drink without spilling the contents. Arthur invites his knights to try the experiment, and is not a little surprised to find that it turns against himself. French text: "Le lai du Cor, restitution critique," by F. Wulff, Lund, 1888, 8vo, written by Robert Biquet in the twelfth century; only one MS. (copied in England) has been preserved. English text: "The Cokwolds Daunce," from a MS. of the fifteenth century, in Hazlitt's "Remains of the early popular poetry of England," London, 1864, 4 vols, 8vo, vol. i. p. 35.Cf.Le "Mantel Mautaillé," in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil Général," vol. iii. and "La Coupe Enchantée," by La Fontaine.[369]French text: "De pleine Bourse de Sens," by Jean le Galois, in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil Général," vol. iii. p. 88. English text: "How a Merchande dyd his wyfe betray," in Hazlitt's "Remains" (ut supra), vol. i. p. 196. Of the same sort are "Sir Cleges" (Weber, "Metrical Romances," 1810, vol. i.), the "Tale of the Basyn" (in Hartshorne, "Ancient Metrical Tales," London, 1829, p. 202), a fabliau, probably derived from a French original, etc.[370]English text: "The Land of Cokaygne" (end of the fourteenth century, seems to have been originally composed in the thirteenth), in Goldbeck and Matzner, "Altengische Sprachproben," Berlin, 1867, part i., p. 147; also in Furnivall, "Early English Poems," Berlin, 1862, p. 156. French text in Barbazan and Méon, "Fabliaux," vol. iii. p. 175: "C'est li Fabliaus de Coquaigne."[371]"Aucassin and Nicolete," Andrew Lang's translation, London, 1887, p. 12. The French original in verse and prose, acante-fable, belongs to the twelfth century. Text in Moland and d'Héricault, "Nouvelles françoises en prose, du treizième siècle" (the editors wrongly referred "Aucassin" to that century), Paris, 1856, 16mo.[372]Knights are represented in many MSS. of English make, fighting against butterflies or snails, and undergoing the most ridiculous experiences; for example, in MS. 10 E iv. and 2 B vii. in the British Museum, early fourteenth century; the caricaturists derive their ideas from French tales written in derision of knighthood. Poems with the same object were composed in English; one of a later date has been preserved: "The Turnament of Totenham" (Hazlitt's "Remains," iii. p. 82); the champions of the tourney are English artisans:Ther hoppyd Hawkyn,Ther dawnsid Dawkyn,Ther trumpyd Tymkyn,And all were true drynkers.[373]He putteth in hys pawtenerA kerchyf and a comb,A shewer and a coyfTo bynd with his loks,And ratyl on the rowbybleAnd in non other boksNe mo;Mawgrey have the bysshopThat lat hyt so goo."A Poem on the times of Edward II.," ed. Hardwick, Percy Society, 1849, p. 8.[374]"The Vox and Wolf," time of Edward I., in Matzner, "Altenglische Sprachproben," Berlin, 1867, part i. p. 130; also in Th. Wright, "Latin Stories," 1842, p. xvi. This story of the adventure in the well forms Branch IV. of the French text. Martin's "Roman de Renart," Strasbourg, 1882, vol. i. p. 146.[375]Tartufe, i. 6.[376]"Amis and Amiloun," ed. Kölbing, Heilbronn, 1884, 8vo, French and English texts, in verse. French text in prose, in Moland and d'Héricault, "Nouvelles ... du XIII^e. Siècle," 1856, 16mo.—French text of "Floire" in Edelstand du Méril, "Poèmes du XIII^e. Siècle," Paris, 1856. English text: "Floris and Blauncheflur, mittelenglisches Gedicht aus dem 13 Jahrhundert," ed. Hausknecht, Berlin, 1885, 8vo; see also Lumby, "Horn ... with fragments of Floriz," E.E.T.S., 1886. The popularity of this tale is shown by the fact that four or five different versions of it in English have come down to us.—Lays by Marie de France were also translated into English: "Le Lay le Freine," in verse, of the beginning of the fourteenth century. English text in "Anglia," vol. iii. p. 415; "Sir Launfal," by Thomas Chestre, fifteenth century, in "Ritson's Metrical Romances," 1802.[377]Examples of "estrifs," debates or "disputoisons": "The Thrush and the Nightingale," on the merits of women, time of Edward I. (with a title in French: "Si comence le cuntent par entre le mauvis et la russinole"); "The Debate of the Carpenter's Tools" (both in Hazlitt's "Remains," vol. i. p. 50, and i. p. 79); "The Debate of the Body and the Soul" (Matzner's "Altenglische Sprachproben," part i. p. 90), same subject in French verse, thirteenth century, "Monumenta Franciscana," vol. i. p. 587; "The Owl and the Nightingale" (ed. Stevenson, Roxburghe Club, 1838, 4to). This last, one of the most characteristic of all, belongs to the thirteenth century, and consists in a debate between the two birds concerning their respective merits; they are very learned, and quote Alfred's proverbs, but they are not very well bred, and come almost to insults and blows.[378]Litanies of love:Love is wele, love is wo, love is geddede,Love is lif, love is deth, &c.Th. Wright, "Anecdota Literaria," London, 1844, 8vo, p. 96, time of Edward I., imitated from the "Chastoiement des Dames," in Barbazan and Méon, vol. ii.[379]Th. Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry, composed in England in the reign of Edward I.," Percy Society, 1842, 8vo, p. 43.[380]They wrote in French, Latin, and English, using sometimes the three languages in the same song, sometimes only two of them:Scripsi hæc carmina in tabulis!Mon ostel est en mi la vile de Paris:May y sugge namore, so wel me is;Yef hi deye for love of hire, duel hit ys.Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry," p. 64.[381]Femmes portent les oyls veyrsE regardent come faucoun.T. Wright, "Specimens," p. 4.[382]Heo hath a mury mouth to mele,With lefly rede lippes leleRomaunz forte rede.Ibid., p. 34.[383]Ibid., p. 51.

[324]"Castel of Love," "made in the latter half of the XIIIth century," in Horstmann and Furnivall, "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," E.E.T.S., 1892, Part I. p. 356, see below, p. 213. Grosseteste had said:... Trestuz ne poent mieSaver le langage en finD'Ebreu de griu ne de latin.(Ibid.p. 355.)

... Trestuz ne poent mieSaver le langage en finD'Ebreu de griu ne de latin.(Ibid.p. 355.)

... Trestuz ne poent mieSaver le langage en finD'Ebreu de griu ne de latin.

(Ibid.p. 355.)

[325]Among the collections of English sermons from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, see "An Old English Miscellany," ed. Morris, Early English Text Society, 1872, 8vo; pp. 26 ff., a translation in English prose of the thirteenth century of some of the sermons of Maurice de Sully; p. 187, "a lutel soth sermon" in verse, with good advice to lovers overfond of "Malekyn" or "Janekyn."—"Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1867-73, 2 vols. 8vo; prose and verse (specimens of music in the second series); several of those pieces are mere transcripts of Anglo Saxon works anterior to the Conquest; p. 159, the famous "Moral Ode," twelfth century, on the transitoriness of this life: "Ich em nu alder thene ich wes," &c., in rhymed verse (cf."Old English Miscellany," p. 58, and "Anglia," i. p. 6).—"The Ormulum, with the notes and glossary of Dr. R. M. White," ed. R. Holt, Oxford, 1878, 2 vols. 8vo, an immense compilation in verse, of which a part only has been preserved, the work of Ormin, an Augustinian canon, thirteenth century; contains a paraphrase of the gospel of the day followed by an explanatory sermon;cf.Napier, "Notes on Ormulum" in "History of the Holy Rood Tree," E.E.T.S., 1894—"Hali Meidenhad ... an alliterative Homily of the XIIIth century," ed. Cockayne, E.E.T.S., 1866, in prose.—"English metrical Homilies," ed. J. Small, Edinburgh, 1862, 8vo, homilies interspersed withexempla, compiled ab. 1330.—"Religious pieces in prose and verse," ed. G. G. Perry, E.E.T.S., 1867; statement in a sermon by John Gaytrige, fourteenth century, that "oure ffadire the byschope" has prescribed to each member of his clergy "opynly, one ynglysche apone sonnondayes, preche and teche thaym that thay hase cure off" (p. 2).

[326]Sermon IV. on Sunday (imitated from the French) in Morris's "Old English Homilies," 1867. St. Paul, led by St. Michael, at the sight of so many sufferings, weeps, and God consents that on Sundays the condemned souls shall cease to suffer. This legend was one of the most popular in the Middle Ages; it was told in verse or prose in Greek, Latin, French, English, &c. See Ward, "Catalogue of MS. Romances," vol. ii. 1893, pp. 397 ff.: "Two versions of this vision existed in Greek in the fourth century." An English metrical version has been ed. by Horstmann and Furnivall, "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," E.E.T.S., 1892, p. 251.

[327]"Old English homilies and homiletic treatises ... of the XIIth and XIIIth Centuries," ed. with translation, by R. Morris, London, E.E.T.S., 1867, 8vo, vol. i. p. 39.

[328]The Psalter was translated into English, in verse, in the second half of the thirteenth century: "Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter," Surtees Society, 1843-7, 8vo; then in prose with a full commentary by Richard Rolle, of Hampole (on whom see below, p. 216): "The Psalter or the Psalms of David," ed. Bramley, Oxford, 1884, 8vo; again in prose, towards 1327, by an anonym, who has been wrongly believed to be William de Shoreham, a monk of Leeds priory: "The earliest English prose Psalter, together with eleven Canticles," ed. Bülbring, E.E.T.S., 1891. The seven penitential psalms were translated in verse in the second half of the fourteenth century by Richard of Maidstone; one is in Horstmann and Furnivall: "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," p. 12.

[329]"The Story of Genesis and Exodus, an early English Song," ab. 1250, ed. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1865; shortly before that date a translation in French prose of the whole of the Bible had been completed.

[330]See,e.g., "The early South-English Legendary or lives of Saints; I., MS. Laud, 108, in the Bodleian Library," ed. C. Horstmann, Early English Text Society, 1887, 8vo.—Furnivall, "Early English Poems and Lives of Saints," Berlin, Philological Society, 1862, 8vo.—"Materials for the history of Thomas Becket," ed. Robertson, Rolls, 1875 ff., 7 vols. 8vo.—Several separate Lives of Saints have been published by the E.E.T.S.

[331]Horstmann, "The early South-English Legendary," p. vii. The same intends to publish other texts, and to clear the main problems connected with them; "but it will," he says, "require more brains, the brains of several generations to come, before every question relative to this collection can be cleared."Ibid.

[332]The latter is the MS. Laud 108 in the Bodleian, edited by Horstmann; the other is the Harleian MS. 2277 in the British Museum; specimens of its contents have been given by Furnivall in his "Early English poems" (ut supra).

[333]From MS. Harl. 2277, in Furnivall's "Early English poems," 1862, p. 34.

[334]In the faireste lond huy weren · that evere mighte beo.So cler and so light it was · that joye thare was i-nogh;Treon thare weren fulle of fruyt · wel thicke ever-ech bough ...Hit was evere-more day: heom thoughte, and never-more nyght.Life of St. Brendan who "was here of oure londe," in Horstmann's "South-English Legendary," p. 220. See also "St. Brandan, a mediæval Legend of the Sea," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society, 1844; Francisque Michel, "Les Voyages Merveilleux de St. Brandan à la recherche du Paradis terrestre, légende en vers du XII^e. Siècle," Paris, 1878;cf."Navigation de la barque de Mael Duin," in d'Arbois de Jubainville's "L'Epopée Celtique en Irlande," 1892, pp. 449 ff. (above p. 12).

[334]

In the faireste lond huy weren · that evere mighte beo.So cler and so light it was · that joye thare was i-nogh;Treon thare weren fulle of fruyt · wel thicke ever-ech bough ...Hit was evere-more day: heom thoughte, and never-more nyght.

Life of St. Brendan who "was here of oure londe," in Horstmann's "South-English Legendary," p. 220. See also "St. Brandan, a mediæval Legend of the Sea," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society, 1844; Francisque Michel, "Les Voyages Merveilleux de St. Brandan à la recherche du Paradis terrestre, légende en vers du XII^e. Siècle," Paris, 1878;cf."Navigation de la barque de Mael Duin," in d'Arbois de Jubainville's "L'Epopée Celtique en Irlande," 1892, pp. 449 ff. (above p. 12).

[335]Renan, "Essais de morale et de critique," Paris, 1867, 3rd edition, p. 446.

[336]By Thomas de Hales, "Incipit quidam cantus quem composuit frater Thomas de Hales." Thomas was a friend of Adam de Marisco and lived in the thirteenth century. "Old English Miscellany," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1872, p. 94.

[337]The "Ancren Riwle," edited and translated by J. Morton, London, Camden Society, 1853, 4to, thirteenth century. Five MSS. have been preserved, four in English and one in Latin, abbreviated from the English (cf.Bramlette's article in "Anglia," vol. xv. p. 478). A MS. in French: "La Reule des femmes religieuses et recluses," disappeared in the fire of the Cottonian Library. The ladies for whom this book was written lived at Tarrant Kaines, in Dorset, where a convent for monks had been founded by Ralph de Kaines, son of one of the companions of the Conqueror. It is not impossible that the original text was the French one; French fragments subsist in the English version. The anonymous author had taken much trouble about this work. "God knows," he says, "it would be more agreeable to me to start on a journey to Rome than begin to do it again." A journey to Rome was not then a pleasure trip.

[338]P. 53, Morton's translation. The beginning of the quotation runs thus in the original: "Hwoso hevede iseid to Eve theo heo werp hire eien therone, A! wend te awei! thu worpest eien o thi death! Hwat heved heo ionswered? Me leove sire, ther havest wouh. Hwarof kalenges tu me? The eppel that ich loke on is forbode me to etene, and nout forto biholden."

[339]"Vix aliquam inclusarum hujus temporis solam invenies, ante cujus fenestram non anus garrula vel nugigerula mulier sedeat quæ eam fabulis occupet, rumoribus aut detractionibus pascat, illius vel illius monachi vel clerici, vel alterius cujuslibet ordinis viri formam, vultum, moresque describat. Illecebrosa quoque interserat, puellarum lasciviam, viduarum, quibus libet quidquid libet, libertatem, conjugum in viris fallendis explendisque voluptatibus astutiam depingat. Os interea in risus cachinnosque dissolvitur, et venenum cum suavitate bibitum per viscera membraque diffunditur." "De vita eremetica Liber," cap. iii., Reclusarun cum externis mulieribus confabulationes; in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. xxxii. col. 1451. See above, p. 153. Aelred wrote this treatise at the request of a sister of his, a sister "carne et spiritu."

[340]De le franceis, ne del rimerNe me dait nuls hom blamer,Kar en Engleterre fu néE norri ordiné et alevé.Furnivall, "Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne," &c., Roxburghe Club, 1862, 4to, p. 413.

[340]

De le franceis, ne del rimerNe me dait nuls hom blamer,Kar en Engleterre fu néE norri ordiné et alevé.

Furnivall, "Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne," &c., Roxburghe Club, 1862, 4to, p. 413.

[341]French text of the "Château" in Cooke, "Carmina Anglo-Normannica," 1852, Caxton Society; English versions in Horstmann and Furnivall, "The minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," Early English Text Society, 1892, pp. 355, 407; Weymouth: "Castell off Love ... an early English translation of an old French poem by Robert Grosseteste," Philological Society, 1864, 4to; Halliwell, "Castle of Love," Brixton Hill, 1849, 4to. See above, p. 205.

[342]The "Manuel des Pechiez," by William de Wadington, as well as the English metrical translation (a very free one) written in 1303 by Robert Mannyng, of Brunne, Lincolnshire (1260?-1340?), have been edited by Furnivall: "Handlyng Synne," London, Roxburghe Club, 1862, 4to, contains a number ofexemplaand curious stories. The same Mannyng wrote, after Peter de Langtoft, an Englishman who had written in French (see above, p.122), and after Wace, a metrical chronicle, from the time of Noah down to Edward I.: "The Story of England ...a.d.1338," ed. Furnivall, Rolls, 1887, 2 vols. 8vo. He is possibly the author of a metrical meditation on the Last Supper imitated from his contemporary St. Bonaventure: "Meditacyuns on the Soper of our Lorde," ed. Cowper, E.E.T.S., 1875, 8vo.

[343]"The Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of Conscience, in the Kentish Dialect, 1340a.d., edited from the autograph MS.," by R. Morris, E.E.T.S. The "Ayenbite" is the work of Dan Michel, of Northgate, Kent, who belonged to "the bochouse of Saynt Austines of Canterberi." The work deals with the Ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins, informs us that "the sothe noblesse comth of the gentyl herte ... ase to the bodye: alle we byeth children of one moder, thet is of erthe" (p. 87). Some of the chapters of Lorens's "Somme" were adapted by Chaucer in his Parson's tale.

[344]See in particular: "Legends of the Holy Rood, symbols of the Passion and Cross Poems, in old English of the XIth, XIVth, and XVth centuries," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1871.—"An Old English Miscellany containing a Bestiary, Kentish sermons, Proverbs of Alfred and religious poems of the XIIIth century," ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1872.—"The religious poems of William de Shoreham," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society, 1849, on sacraments, commandments, deadly sins, &c., first half of the fourteenth century.—"The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," ed. Horstmann and Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 1892; contains a variety of poems in the honour of the Virgin, pious tales, "a dispitison bitweene a good man and the devel," p. 329, meditations, laments, vision of St. Paul, &c., of various authors and dates, mostly of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.—On visions of heaven and hell (vision of St. Paul of Tundal, of St. Patrick, of Thurkill), and on the Latin, French, and English texts of several of them, see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," 1893, vol. ii. pp. 397 ff.

[345]"Cursor Mundi, the cursur of the world," ed. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1874-93, 7 parts, compiled ab. 1300 from the "Historia Ecclesiastica" of Peter Comestor, the "Fête de la Conception" of Wace, the "Château d'Amour" of Grosseteste, &c. (Haenisch "Inquiry into the sources of the Cursor Mundi,"ibid.part vii.). The work has been wrongly attributed to John of Lindbergh. See Morris's preface, p. xviii.Cf.Napier, "History of the Holy Rood Tree," E.E.T.S., 1894 (English, Latin, and French prose texts of the Cross legend).

[346]For lewde men y undyrtoke,On Englyssh tunge to make thys boke:For many ben of swyche manereThat talys and rymys wyl blethly hereYn gamys and festys and at the ale."Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne, writtena.d.1303 with ... Le Manuel des Pechiez by William of Wadington," ed. Furnivall, London, Roxburghe Club, 1862, 4to, Prologue, p. 2.

[346]

For lewde men y undyrtoke,On Englyssh tunge to make thys boke:For many ben of swyche manereThat talys and rymys wyl blethly hereYn gamys and festys and at the ale.

"Roberd of Brunne's Handlyng Synne, writtena.d.1303 with ... Le Manuel des Pechiez by William of Wadington," ed. Furnivall, London, Roxburghe Club, 1862, 4to, Prologue, p. 2.

[347]There exist Latin and English texts of his works, the latter being generally considered as translations made by himself. His principal composition is his poem: "The Pricke of Conscience," ed. Morris, Philological Society, 1863, 8vo. He wrote also a prose translation of "The Psalter," with a commentary, ed. Bramley, Oxford, 1884, 8vo, and also "English Prose Treatises," ed. G. S., 1866, 8vo. Most of his works in Latin have been collected under the title: "D. Richardi Pampolitani Anglo-Saxonis eremitæ ... Psalterium Davidicum atque alia ... Monumenta," Cologne, 1536, fol.

[348]"When I had takene my syngulere purpos and lefte the seculere habyte, and I be-ganne mare to serve God than mane, it fell one a nyghte als I lay in my reste, in the begynnynge of my conversyone, thare appered to me a full faire yonge womane, the whilke I had sene be-fore, and the whilke luffed me noght lyttil in gude lufe." "English Prose Treatises," p. 5.

[349]"Officium de Sancto Ricardo eremita." The office contains hymns in the honour of the saint: "Rejoice, mother country of the English!..."Letetur felix Anglorum patria ...Pange lingua graciosi Ricardi preconium,Pii, puri, preciosi, fugientis vicium."English Prose Treatises," pp. xv and xvi.

[349]"Officium de Sancto Ricardo eremita." The office contains hymns in the honour of the saint: "Rejoice, mother country of the English!..."

Letetur felix Anglorum patria ...Pange lingua graciosi Ricardi preconium,Pii, puri, preciosi, fugientis vicium.

"English Prose Treatises," pp. xv and xvi.

[350]"English Prose Treatises," pp. 1, 4, 5.Cf.Rolle's Latin text, "Nominis Iesu encomion": "O bonum nomen, o dulce nomen," &c., in "Richardi Pampolitani, ... Monumenta," Cologne, 1536, fol. cxliii. At the same page, the story of the young woman.

[351]"Layamon's Brut or Chronicle of Britain, a poetical Semi-Saxon paraphrase of the Brut of Wace," ed. by Sir Fred. Madden, London, Society of Antiquaries, 1847, 3 vols. 8vo.—Cf.Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," vol. i. 1883: "Many important additions are made to Wace, but they seem to be mostly derived from Welsh traditions," p. 269, Wace's "Geste des Bretons," or "Roman de Brut," written in 1155, was ed. by Leroux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836, 2 vols. 8vo.Cf.P. Meyer, "De quelques Chroniques Anglo-Normandes qui ont porté le nom de Brut," Bulletin de la Société des Anciens Textes français, 1878. Layamon, son of Leovenath, lived at Ernley, now Lower Arley, on the Severn; he uses sometimes alliteration and sometimes rhyme in his verse. The MS. Cott. Otho C. xiii contains a "somewhat modernised" version of Layamon's "Brut," late thirteenth or early fourteenth century (Ward,ibid.). On Layamon and his work, see "Anglia," i. p. 197, and ii. p. 153.

[352]Madden,ut supra, vol. i. p. 1.

[353]Madden,ut supra, vol. ii. p. 476. The original text (printed in short lines by Madden and here in long ones) runs thus:Tha loh Arthur · the althele king,And thus yeddien agon · mid gommenfulle worden:Lien nu there Colgrim · thu were iclumben hagheThu clumbe a thissen hulle · wunder ane hæghe,Swulc thu woldest to hævene · nu thu scalt to hælle;Ther thu miht kenne · muche of thine cunne,And gret thu ther Hengest · the cnihten wes fayerest,Ebissa and Ossa · Octa and of thine cunne ma,And bide heom ther wunie · wintres and sumeres,And we scullen on londe · libben in blisse.

[353]Madden,ut supra, vol. ii. p. 476. The original text (printed in short lines by Madden and here in long ones) runs thus:

Tha loh Arthur · the althele king,And thus yeddien agon · mid gommenfulle worden:Lien nu there Colgrim · thu were iclumben hagheThu clumbe a thissen hulle · wunder ane hæghe,Swulc thu woldest to hævene · nu thu scalt to hælle;Ther thu miht kenne · muche of thine cunne,And gret thu ther Hengest · the cnihten wes fayerest,Ebissa and Ossa · Octa and of thine cunne ma,And bide heom ther wunie · wintres and sumeres,And we scullen on londe · libben in blisse.

[354]"Roman de Brut," vol. ii. p. 57.

[355]On Robert, see above, pp.117,122. On the sources of his chronicle, see Ellmer, "Anglia," vol. x. pp. 1 ff and 291 ff.

[356]"Lay of Havelok," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868, end of thirteenth century, p. 1.

[357]On wandering minstrels and jongleurs, see "English Wayfaring Life," ii., chap. i., and below, p. 345, above, p. 162.

[358]"Romance of William of Palerne, translated from the French at the command of Sir Humphrey de Bohun, ab. 1350," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1867, 8vo. l. 5533.

[359]"Cursor Mundi," ed. Morris, part v. p. 1651. A large number of English mediæval romances will be found among the publications of the Early English Text Society (including among others: Ferumbras, Otuel, Huon of Burdeux, Charles the Grete, Four Sons of Aymon, Sir Bevis of Hamton, King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Guy of Warwick, William of Palerne, Generides, Morte Arthure, Lonelich's History of the Holy Grail, Joseph of Arimathie, Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, &c.), the Camden and the Percy Societies, the Roxburghe and the Bannatyne Clubs. Some also have been published by Kölbing in his "Altenglische Bibliothek," Heilbronn; by H. W. Weber: "Metrical Romances of the XIIIth, XIVth and XVth centuries," Edinburgh, 1810, 3 vols. 8vo. &c. See also H. L. D. Ward, "Catalogue of MS. Romances in the British Museum," 1883 ff.

[360]"King Horn, with Fragments of Floriz and Blauncheflur, and of the Assumption of Our Lady," ed. Rawson Lumby, E.E.T.S., 1886, 8vo. "Horn" is printed from a Cambridge MS. of the thirteenth century. A French metrical version of this story, written by "Thomas" about 1170, was edited by R. Brede and E. Stengel: "Das Anglonormannische Lied vom wackern Ritter Horn," Marbourg, 1883, 8vo: "Hic est de Horn bono milite." Concerning "Horn," see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," i. p. 447; "Anglia," iv. p. 342; "Romania," xv. p. 575 (an article by W. Soderhjelm, showing that the Thomas of "Tristan" and the Thomas of "Horn" are not the same man).

[361]Another sign of a Scandinavian origin consists in the flame that comes out of the mouth of Havelok at night, and betrays his royal origin. The events take place at Lincoln, Grimsby, and in Denmark; the seal of Grimsby engraved in the thirteenth century represents, besides "Habloc" and "Goldeburgh," "Gryem," the founder of the town, and supposed father of the hero. Gaimar, the chronicler, wrote in French verse the story of Havelok, and we have it: "Le Lai d'Haveloc le Danois," in Hardy and Martin "Lestorie des Engles," Rolls, 1888, vol. i. p. 290. The English text, "Havelok the Dane," ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868, was probably written between 1296 and 1300 (see the letter of J. W. Hales to theAthenæum, Feb. 23, 1889),cf.Ward's "Catalogue," i. p. 423.

[362]"Guy of Warwick," ed. Zupitza, E.E.T.S., 1875-91 (cf.Ward's "Catalogue of Romances," i. p. 471). "All the Middle English versions of the Romances of Guy of Warwick are translations from the French.... The French romance was done into English several times. We possess the whole or considerable fragments of, at least, four different Middle English versions" (Zupitza's Preface).

[363]Part of the adventures of Fulke belongs to history; his rebellion actually took place in 1201. His story was told in a French poem, written before 1314 and turned into prose before 1320 (the text, though in French, is remarkable for its strong English bias); an English poem on the same subject is lost. (Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," i. pp. 501 ff.) The version in French prose has been edited by J. Stephenson, with his Ralph de Coggeshall, Rolls, 1875, p. 277, and by Moland and d'Héricault in their "Nouvelles en prose du quatorzième Siècle," Paris, 1858. See also the life of the outlaw Hereward, in Latin, twelfth century: "De Gestis Herewardi Saxonis," in the "Chroniques Anglo-Normandes," of F. Michel, Rouen, 1836-40, vol. ii.

[364]It is possible that Robin Hood existed, in which case it seems probable he lived under Edward II. "The stories that are told about him, however, had almost all been previously told, connected with the names of other outlaws such as Hereward and Fulke Fitz-Warin." Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," i. pp. 517 ff. He was the hero of many songs, from the fourteenth century; most of those we have belong, however, to the sixteenth.

[365]On the transformations of Guy of Warwick and representations of him in chap books, see "English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare," pp 64, 350.

[366]"Cursor Mundi," i. p. 21.Cf.Bartholomew the Englishman, in his "De Proprietatibus Rerum," book xv., chap. xiv., thus translated by Trevisa: "Englonde is fulle of myrthe and of game and men oft tymes able to myrth and game, free men of harte and with tongue, but the honde is more better and more free than the tongue."—"Cest acteur monstre bien en ce chapitre qu'il fut Anglois," observes with some spite Corbichon, the French translator of Bartholomew, writing, it is true, during the Hundred Years' War.

[367]English text: "Dame Siriz" in Th. Wright, "Anecdota Literaria," London, 1844, 8vo, p. 1; and in Goldbeck and Matzner, "Altenglische Sprachproben," Berlin, 1867, p. 103. French text in the "Castoiement d'un père à son fils," Barbazan and Méon, "Fabliaux," vol. ii. The English text belongs to the end of the thirteenth century, and the story is localised in England; mention is made of "Botolfston," otherwise, St. Botolph or Boston. See above, p. 154; on a dramatisation of the story, see below, p. 447.

[368]Story of a drinking horn from which husbands with faithless wives cannot drink without spilling the contents. Arthur invites his knights to try the experiment, and is not a little surprised to find that it turns against himself. French text: "Le lai du Cor, restitution critique," by F. Wulff, Lund, 1888, 8vo, written by Robert Biquet in the twelfth century; only one MS. (copied in England) has been preserved. English text: "The Cokwolds Daunce," from a MS. of the fifteenth century, in Hazlitt's "Remains of the early popular poetry of England," London, 1864, 4 vols, 8vo, vol. i. p. 35.Cf.Le "Mantel Mautaillé," in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil Général," vol. iii. and "La Coupe Enchantée," by La Fontaine.

[369]French text: "De pleine Bourse de Sens," by Jean le Galois, in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil Général," vol. iii. p. 88. English text: "How a Merchande dyd his wyfe betray," in Hazlitt's "Remains" (ut supra), vol. i. p. 196. Of the same sort are "Sir Cleges" (Weber, "Metrical Romances," 1810, vol. i.), the "Tale of the Basyn" (in Hartshorne, "Ancient Metrical Tales," London, 1829, p. 202), a fabliau, probably derived from a French original, etc.

[370]English text: "The Land of Cokaygne" (end of the fourteenth century, seems to have been originally composed in the thirteenth), in Goldbeck and Matzner, "Altengische Sprachproben," Berlin, 1867, part i., p. 147; also in Furnivall, "Early English Poems," Berlin, 1862, p. 156. French text in Barbazan and Méon, "Fabliaux," vol. iii. p. 175: "C'est li Fabliaus de Coquaigne."

[371]"Aucassin and Nicolete," Andrew Lang's translation, London, 1887, p. 12. The French original in verse and prose, acante-fable, belongs to the twelfth century. Text in Moland and d'Héricault, "Nouvelles françoises en prose, du treizième siècle" (the editors wrongly referred "Aucassin" to that century), Paris, 1856, 16mo.

[372]Knights are represented in many MSS. of English make, fighting against butterflies or snails, and undergoing the most ridiculous experiences; for example, in MS. 10 E iv. and 2 B vii. in the British Museum, early fourteenth century; the caricaturists derive their ideas from French tales written in derision of knighthood. Poems with the same object were composed in English; one of a later date has been preserved: "The Turnament of Totenham" (Hazlitt's "Remains," iii. p. 82); the champions of the tourney are English artisans:Ther hoppyd Hawkyn,Ther dawnsid Dawkyn,Ther trumpyd Tymkyn,And all were true drynkers.

Ther hoppyd Hawkyn,Ther dawnsid Dawkyn,Ther trumpyd Tymkyn,And all were true drynkers.

[373]He putteth in hys pawtenerA kerchyf and a comb,A shewer and a coyfTo bynd with his loks,And ratyl on the rowbybleAnd in non other boksNe mo;Mawgrey have the bysshopThat lat hyt so goo."A Poem on the times of Edward II.," ed. Hardwick, Percy Society, 1849, p. 8.

[373]

He putteth in hys pawtenerA kerchyf and a comb,A shewer and a coyfTo bynd with his loks,And ratyl on the rowbybleAnd in non other boksNe mo;Mawgrey have the bysshopThat lat hyt so goo.

"A Poem on the times of Edward II.," ed. Hardwick, Percy Society, 1849, p. 8.

[374]"The Vox and Wolf," time of Edward I., in Matzner, "Altenglische Sprachproben," Berlin, 1867, part i. p. 130; also in Th. Wright, "Latin Stories," 1842, p. xvi. This story of the adventure in the well forms Branch IV. of the French text. Martin's "Roman de Renart," Strasbourg, 1882, vol. i. p. 146.

[375]Tartufe, i. 6.

[376]"Amis and Amiloun," ed. Kölbing, Heilbronn, 1884, 8vo, French and English texts, in verse. French text in prose, in Moland and d'Héricault, "Nouvelles ... du XIII^e. Siècle," 1856, 16mo.—French text of "Floire" in Edelstand du Méril, "Poèmes du XIII^e. Siècle," Paris, 1856. English text: "Floris and Blauncheflur, mittelenglisches Gedicht aus dem 13 Jahrhundert," ed. Hausknecht, Berlin, 1885, 8vo; see also Lumby, "Horn ... with fragments of Floriz," E.E.T.S., 1886. The popularity of this tale is shown by the fact that four or five different versions of it in English have come down to us.—Lays by Marie de France were also translated into English: "Le Lay le Freine," in verse, of the beginning of the fourteenth century. English text in "Anglia," vol. iii. p. 415; "Sir Launfal," by Thomas Chestre, fifteenth century, in "Ritson's Metrical Romances," 1802.

[377]Examples of "estrifs," debates or "disputoisons": "The Thrush and the Nightingale," on the merits of women, time of Edward I. (with a title in French: "Si comence le cuntent par entre le mauvis et la russinole"); "The Debate of the Carpenter's Tools" (both in Hazlitt's "Remains," vol. i. p. 50, and i. p. 79); "The Debate of the Body and the Soul" (Matzner's "Altenglische Sprachproben," part i. p. 90), same subject in French verse, thirteenth century, "Monumenta Franciscana," vol. i. p. 587; "The Owl and the Nightingale" (ed. Stevenson, Roxburghe Club, 1838, 4to). This last, one of the most characteristic of all, belongs to the thirteenth century, and consists in a debate between the two birds concerning their respective merits; they are very learned, and quote Alfred's proverbs, but they are not very well bred, and come almost to insults and blows.

[378]Litanies of love:Love is wele, love is wo, love is geddede,Love is lif, love is deth, &c.Th. Wright, "Anecdota Literaria," London, 1844, 8vo, p. 96, time of Edward I., imitated from the "Chastoiement des Dames," in Barbazan and Méon, vol. ii.

[378]Litanies of love:

Love is wele, love is wo, love is geddede,Love is lif, love is deth, &c.

Th. Wright, "Anecdota Literaria," London, 1844, 8vo, p. 96, time of Edward I., imitated from the "Chastoiement des Dames," in Barbazan and Méon, vol. ii.

[379]Th. Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry, composed in England in the reign of Edward I.," Percy Society, 1842, 8vo, p. 43.

[380]They wrote in French, Latin, and English, using sometimes the three languages in the same song, sometimes only two of them:Scripsi hæc carmina in tabulis!Mon ostel est en mi la vile de Paris:May y sugge namore, so wel me is;Yef hi deye for love of hire, duel hit ys.Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry," p. 64.

[380]They wrote in French, Latin, and English, using sometimes the three languages in the same song, sometimes only two of them:

Scripsi hæc carmina in tabulis!Mon ostel est en mi la vile de Paris:May y sugge namore, so wel me is;Yef hi deye for love of hire, duel hit ys.

Wright, "Specimens of Lyric Poetry," p. 64.

[381]Femmes portent les oyls veyrsE regardent come faucoun.T. Wright, "Specimens," p. 4.

[381]

Femmes portent les oyls veyrsE regardent come faucoun.

T. Wright, "Specimens," p. 4.

[382]Heo hath a mury mouth to mele,With lefly rede lippes leleRomaunz forte rede.Ibid., p. 34.

[382]

Heo hath a mury mouth to mele,With lefly rede lippes leleRomaunz forte rede.

Ibid., p. 34.

[383]Ibid., p. 51.

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