Part 26

_i_ 11. _Sent Kasi._ I cannot trace this saint, or his acts against the rats. But parallels are not wanting. St. Ivor, an Irish saint, banished rats from his neighbourhood _per imprecationem_ because they gnawed his books; and the charm-harassed life of an Irish rat was still proverbial in Shakespeare's day: 'I was never so berhymed' says Rosalind (_As You Like It_, III. ii) 'since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat'. In the South of France the citizens of Autun trusted more to the processes of the law, and brought a suit against the rats which ended in a victory for the defendants because the plaintiffs were unable to guarantee them safe conduct to the court (see Chambers, _Book of Days_, under Jan. 17). Even in such little things the Normans showed their practical genius:—A friend chancing to meet St. Lanfranc by the way inquired the cause of the strange noises that came from a bag he was carrying: 'We are terribly plagued with mice and rats', explained the good man, 'and so, to put down their ravages, I am bringing along a cat' (_Mures et rati valde nobis sunt infesti, et idcirco nunc affero catum ad comprimendum furorem illorum_). _Acta Sanctorum_ for May 28, p. 824.

XVI

#Dialect#: Yorkshire.

#Inflexions#:

VERB: pres. ind. 2 sg. _þou royis_ 99, _þou is_ 360; beside _þou hast_ 69. 3 sg. _bidis_ 23, _comes_ 57. 1 pl. _we here_ 169. 2 pl. _ȝe haue_ 124. 3 pl. _þei make_ 103, _þei crie_ 107, _dwelle_ (rime) 102 ; beside _musteres_ 104, _sais_ 108. imper. pl. _harkens_ 37, _beholdes_ 195; but _vndo_ 182. pres. p. _walkand_ 53 (in rime); beside _shynyng_ 94. strong pp. _stoken_ 193, _brokynne_ 195, &c. Contracted verbal forms are _mase_ pres. 3 pl. (in rime) 116, _bus_ pres. 2 sg. 338, _tane_ pp. 172. PRONOUN 3 PERS.: pl. nom. _þei_ 21; poss. _thare_ 18, _þer_ 20; obj. _þame_ 9; but _hemselue_ 307. The demonstrative _þer_ 'these' 97, 399, is Northern.

#Sounds#: _ā_ remains in rimes: _are_: _care_ 345-7, _waa_: _gloria_ 406-8, _lawe_: _knawe_ 313-15, _moste_ (for _māste_): _taste_ 358-60; but _ō̮_ is also proved for the original in _restore_: _euermore_: _were_ (for _wǭre_): _before_ 13 ff.

#Spelling#: In _fois_ (= _fǭs_) 30, the spelling with _i_ indicates vowel length.

* * * * *

17. _were_: rime requires the alternative form _wǭre_.

39. _Foure thowsande and sex hundereth ȝere._ I do not know on what calculation the writer changes 5,500, which is the figure in the Greek and Latin texts of the Gospel of Nicodemus, in the French verse renderings, and the ME. poem _Harrowing of Hell_. Cp. l. 354.

40. _in þis stedde_: the rimes _hadde_: _gladde_: _sadde_ point to the Towneley MS. reading _in darknes stad_, 'set in darkness', as nearer the original, which possibly had _in þister(nes) stad_.

49. _we_: read _ȝe_ (?). For what follows cp. Isaiah ix. 1-2.

59. _puplisshid_: the rime with _Criste_ shows that the pronunciation was _puplist_. Similarly, _abasshed_: _traste_ 177-9. In French these words have _-ss-_, which normally becomes _-sh-_ in English. It is hard to say whether _-ss-_ remained throughout in Northern dialects, or whether the development was OFr. _-ss-_ > ME. _-sh-_ > Northern _-ss-_ (notes to I 128, VII 4).

62. _þis_: read _His (?) frendis_: here 'relatives', 'parents' (ON. _frǽndi_); see Luke ii. 27.

65-8. Luke ii. 29-32.

73-82. Matthew iii. 13-17, &c.

75. _hande_: the rime requires the Norse plural _hend_ as at l. 400; cp. XVII 255, IV _a_ 65 (foot-note).

86 ff. Cp. Matthew xvii. 3 ff., Mark ix. 2 ff.

113. _Astrotte_: cp. 2 Kings xxiii. 13 'Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Zidonians'. I cannot identify _Anaball_ among the false gods.

115. _Bele-Berit_: Judges viii. 33 'the children of Israel... made Baal-Berith their god'. For _Belial_ see 2 Cor. vi. 15.

122-4. A common misrendering for 'Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors', Psalm xxiv. 7.

125 ff. postulate a preceding _et introibit rex glorię_, which the writer has not been able to work into the frame of his verse.

128. _a kyng of vertues clere_ = _dominus virtutum_, rendered 'Lord of Hosts' in Psalm xxiv. 10.

154-6. _ware_: _ferre_: the rime indicates some corruption. _ware_ probably stands for _werre_ 'worse'. The Towneley MS. has _or it be war_.

162. John xi.

165. John xiii. 27.

171 ff. 'And know he won away Lazarus, who was given to us to take charge of, do you think that you can hinder him from showing the powers that he has purposed (to show)?' But it is doubtful whether _what_ is a true relative. Rather 'from showing his powers—those he has purposed (to show)'.

188. _I prophicied_: MS. _of prophicie_ breaks the rime scheme.

190. Psalm cvii. 16 'For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.'

205 ff. The rimes _saide_: _braide_: _ferde_: _grathed_ are bad. For the last two read _flaide_ = 'terrified', and _graid_, a shortened form of _graithed_.

208. _and we wer moo_, 'if we were more', 'even if there were more of us'.

220. _as my prisoune_ might be taken closely with _here_: 'in this place as my prison'. The Towneley MS. has _in_ for _as_. Better would be _prisoune _ 'prisoners'.

240. _wolle_: read _wille_ for the rime.

241. _God sonne_: MS. _God sonne_ might be defended as parallel to the instances in the note to XVII 88.

256. Apparently, 'you argue his men in the mire', i.e. if Jesus is God's Son, the souls should remain in hell because God put them there. But the text may be corrupt.

267 ff. Cp. Ezekiel xxxi. 16, &c.

281 ff. _Salamon saide_: Proverbs ii. 18-19 taken with vii. 27 and ix. 18. It was hotly disputed in the Middle Ages whether Solomon himself was still in hell. Dante, _Paradiso_, x. 110, informs a world eager for tidings that he is in Paradise: but Langland declares _Ich leyue he be in helle_ (C-text, iv. 330); and, more sweepingly, coupling him with Aristotle: _Al holy chirche holden hem in helle_ (A-text, xi. 263).

285-8. Perhaps a gloss on Job xxxvi. 18 'Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.'

301. _menys_, the reading of the Towneley MS. is better than _mouys_, which appears to be a copyist's error due to the similarity of _n_ and _u_, _e_ and _o_, in the handwriting of the time.

308. Judas hanged himself, according to Matthew xxvii. 3-5; Acts i. 18 gives a different account of his end. _Archedefell_: Ahithophel who hanged himself (2 Samuel xvii. 23) after the failure of his plot against David.

309. _Datan and Abiron_: see Numbers xvi.

313-16. 'And all who do not care to learn my law (which I have left in the land newly, and which is to make known my Coming), and to go to my Sacrament, and those who will not believe in my Death and my Resurrection read in order—they are not true.'

338. _þou bus_, 'you ought'; _bus_, a Northern contracted form of _behoves_, is here used as a personal verb, where _þe bus_, 'it behoves thee', is normal. See note to XVII 196.

360. _moste_: read _maste_ to rime with _taste_.

371. _Of þis comyng_: the Towneley MS. reading _of Thi commyng_ is possible.

378-80: Corrupt. The copy from which the extant MS. was made seems to have been indistinct here. The Towneley MS. has:

_Suffre thou neuer Thi sayntys to se The sorow of thaym that won in wo, Ay full of fylth, and may not fle_,

which is more intelligible and nearer Psalm xvi. 10:

_Nec dabis sanctum tuum videre corruptionem._

405. _louyng_: 'praise', cp. IV _a_ 24 (note).

XVII

#Dialect#: Late Yorkshire.

#Vocabulary#: Northern are _then_ 108 (note), and _at_ 'to' 235.

#Inflexions#:

VERB: pres. ind. 2 sg. _thou spekis_ 206. 3 sg. _ligis he_ 84; _he settis_ 92; _(God) knowes_ 202. 1 pl. _we swete or swynk_ 195. 2 pl. _ye carp_ (in rime) 360. 3 pl. _thay ryn_ (in rime) 277, 357; beside _has_ 345, _renys_ 351. pres. p. _liffand_ 73, _bowand_ 76, _wirkand_ 120 (all in rime); beside _lifyng_ 47, 48; _standyng_ 416; _taryyng_ 497. strong pp. _rysen_ 442; _fon_ 'found' 503 is a Northern short form. PRONOUN 3 PERS.: sg. fem. nom. _she_ 186; pl. _thay_ 27; _thare_ 75; _thaym_ 31. (MS. _hame_ 143 is miswritten for _thame_.)

#Sounds#: OE. _ā_ appears as _ǭ_ in rime: _old_: _cold_: _mold_ (OE. _móld_) 60-2, and probably _dold_: _old_ 266-70; _sore_: _store_: _therfor_: _more_ 91-4; but elsewhere remains _ā_, e.g. _draw_ (OE. _drăgan_): _knaw_ 245-6. The spelling with _o_ is the commoner.

See notes on _emong_ 400; _grufe_ 463.

#Spelling#: Note the Northern spellings with _i_, _y_ following a vowel to indicate length: _moyne_ 'moon' 6, _bayle_ 'bale' 26, _leyde_ = _lede_ 48; and conversely _farest_ 'fairest' 79, _fath_ 'faith' 330.

* * * * *

The maritime associations of the play of _Noah_ made it a special favourite with the Trinity House guild of master mariners and pilots at Hull; and some of their records of payments for acting and equipment are preserved, although the text of their play is lost (Chambers, _Mediaeval Stage_, vol. ii, pp. 370-1):

_anno_ To the minstrels, 6d. 1485. To Noah and his wife, 1s. 6d. To Robert Brown playing God, 6d. To the Ship-child, 1d. To a shipwright for clinking Noah's ship, one day, 7d. 22 kids for shoring Noah's ship, 2d. To a man clearing away the snow, 1d. Straw for Noah and his children, 2d. Mass, bellman, torches, minstrels, garland &c., 6s. For mending the ship, 2d. To Noah for playing, 1s. To straw and grease for wheels, ¼d. To the waits for going about with the ship, 6d. 1494. To Thomas Sawyr playing God, 10d. To Jenkin Smith playing Noah, 1s. To Noah's wife, 8d. The clerk and his children, 1s. 6d. To the players of Barton, 8d. For a gallon of wine, 8d. For three skins for Noah's coat, making it, and a rope to hang the ship in the kirk, 7s. To dighting and gilding St. John's head, painting two tabernacles, beautifying the boat and over the table, 7s. 2d. Making Noah's ship, £5. 8s. Two wrights a day and a half, 1s. 6d. A halser [i.e. hawser] 4 stone weight, 4s. 8d. Rigging Noah's ship, 8d.

* * * * *

10. _is_: read _es_ for the rime. Cp. note to I 128-9.

42. _and sythen_: MS. _in sythen_. Cp. note to VI 36.

49. _syn_: 3 pl. because _euery liffyng leyde_ is equivalent to a plural subject 'all men'.

52. _coueteis_: MS. _couetous_.

56. _alod_: a shortened form of _allowed_, apparently on the analogy of such words as _lead_ infin., _led_ pa. t. and pp. For a parallel see note to I 254-5.

57. _Sex hundreth yeris and od_: the _od_ thrown in to rime, as Noah was exactly 600 years old according to Genesis vii. 6.

66. _and my fry shal with me fall_: 'and the children I may have' (?).

88. _for syn sake_: 'because of sin'. Until modern times a genitive preceding _sake_ usually has no _s_, e.g. _for goodness sake_. The genitive of _sin_ historically had no _s_ (OE. _synne_), but the omission in a Northern text is due rather to euphony than to survival of an old genitive form. Cp. _for tempest sake_ I 177.

108. _then_: 'nor', a rare Northern usage, which is treated as an error here in England and Pollard's text, though it occurs again at l. 535. Conversely _nor_ is used dialectally for _than_.

109. _Hym to mekill wyn_: 'to his great happiness'.

137. _take_: 'make', and so in l. 272.

167-71. _knowe_: _awe_. The rime requires _knāwe_ or _ǭwe_.

191. 'The worse I see thee.'

196. _what thou thynk_: 'what seems to you best', 'what you like'; _thou thynk_ for _thee thynk_—the verb being properly impersonal; see notes to XVI 338 and VI 192.

200. _Stafford blew_: from the context this line might mean 'you are a scaremonger', for blue is the recognized colour of fear, and it might be supposed that 'Stafford blue' represents a material like 'Lincoln green'. But Mätzner is certainly right in interpreting the line 'you deserve a beating'. _Stafford blew_ would then be the livid colour produced by blows. The reference, unless there is a play on _staff_, is obscure.

202. _led_: 'treated'.

211. _sory_: the rime requires _sary_.

220. _Mary_: the later _marry!_ = 'by (the Virgin) Mary!' cp. l. 226. So _Peter!_ 367 = 'by St. Peter!'

246. _to knaw_: 'to confess'.

247-8. _daw to ken_: 'to be recognized as stupid', 'a manifest fool'.

272. _castell_: note the rime with _sayll_: _nayll_: _fayll_, which may be due to suffix substitution on the analogy of _catail_ beside _catel_ 'cattle'. For _take_ see note to 137.

281. _chambre_: the rime points to a by-form _chamb(o)ur_, but the uninflected form is awkward. Cp. _thre chese chambres_ 'three tiers of chambers' 129, where the construction is the same as the obsolete _three pair gloves_.

289-92. Read _lider_, _hider_, _togider_.

292. _must vs_: cp. l. 334 and note to VI 192.

298. 'There is other yarn on the reel', i.e. there is other business on hand.

320. _brether sam_: 'brothers both'. Some editors prefer to read _brother Sam_ 'brother Shem'.

336 ff. Chaucer refers to the quarrels of Noah and his wife in the _Miller's Tale_ (ll. 352 ff.):—

_'Hastou nat herd', quod Nicholas, 'also The sorwe of Noe with his felaweshipe Er that he myghte brynge his wyf to shipe? Hym hadde be levere, I dar wel undertake, At thilke tyme, than alle his wetheres blake, That she hadde had a shipe hirself allone.'_

The tradition is old. In the splendid tenth-century Bodleian MS. Junius 11, which contains the so-called Caedmon poems, a picture of the Ark shows Noah's wife standing at the foot of the gangway, and one of her sons trying to persuade her to come in.

370. _Yei_ is defensible; cp. l. 353. _Þe_ 'the' has been suggested.

383. _Wat Wynk_: an alliterative nick-name like _Nicholl Nedy_ in l. 405.

400. _emong_: OE. _gemang_, here rimes as in Modern English with _u_ (OE. _iung_: _tunge_: _lungen_), cp. note to VI 109 ff.; but in ll. 244-7 it rimes with _lang_: _fang_: _gang_—all with original _a_.

417. <_floodis_>. Some such word is missing in the MS. Cp. ll. 454 f. and 426.

461. _How_: MS. _Now_. The correction is due to Professor Child. Initial capitals are peculiarly liable to be miscopied.

463. _grufe_: a Northern and Scottish form of the verb _grow_. The sb. _ro_ 'rest' 237 sometimes has a parallel form _rufe_.

525. _stold_: for _stalled_ 'fixed'. Note the rime words, which all have alternative forms _behald_: _bald_: _wald_.

APPENDIX

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

§ 1. GENERAL. Gower's work shows that at the end of the century Latin and French still shared with English the place of a literary language. But their hold was precarious.

Latin was steadily losing ground. The Wiclifite translation of the Bible threatened its hitherto unchallenged position as the language of the Church; and the Renaissance had not yet come to give it a new life among secular scholars.

French was still spoken at the court; but in 1387 Trevisa remarks (p. 149) that it was no longer considered an essential part of a gentleman's education: and he records a significant reform—the replacement of French by English as the medium of teaching in schools. After the end of the century Anglo-French, the native development of Norman, was practically confined to legal use, and French of Paris was the accepted standard French.

English gained wherever Latin and French lost ground. But though the work of Chaucer, Gower, and Wiclif foreshadows the coming supremacy of the East Midland, or, more particularly, the London dialect, there was as yet no recognized standard of literary English. The spoken language showed a multiplicity of local varieties, and a writer adopted the particular variety that was most familiar to him. Hence it is almost true to say that every considerable text requires a special grammar.

Confusion is increased by the scribes. Nowadays a book is issued in hundreds or thousands of uniform copies, and within a few months of publication it may be read in any part of the world. In the fourteenth century a book was made known to readers only by the slow and costly multiplication of manuscripts. The copyist might work long after the date of composition, and he would then be likely to modernize the language, which in its written form was not stable as it is at present: so of Barbour's _Bruce_ the oldest extant copies were made nearly a century after Barbour's death. Again, if the dialect of the author were unfamiliar to the copyist, he might substitute familiar words and forms. Defective rimes often bear witness to these substitutions.

Nor have we to reckon only with copyists, who are as a rule careless rather than bold innovators. While books were scarce and many could not read them, professional minstrels and amateur reciters played a great part in the transmission of popular literature; and they, whether from defective memory or from belief in their own talents, treated the exact form and words of their author with scant respect. An extreme instance is given by the MSS. of _Sir Orfeo_ at ll. 267-8:

Auchinleck MS.: _His harp, whereon was al his gle, He hidde in an holwe tre;_

Harley MS.: _He takeþ his harpe and makeþ hym gle, And lyþe al nyȝt vnder a tre;_

Ashmole MS.: _In a tre þat was holow Þer was hys haule euyn and morow._

If the Ashmole MS. alone had survived we should have no hint of the degree of corruption.

And so, before the extant MSS. recorded the text, copyists and reciters may have added change to change, jumbling the speech of different men, generations, and places, and producing those 'mixed' texts which are the will-o'-the-wisps of language study.

Faced with these perplexities, beginners might well echo the words of Langland's pilgrims in search of Truth:

_This were a wikked way, but whoso hadde a gyde That wolde folwen vs eche a fote._

There is no such complete guide, for the first part of Morsbach's _Mittelenglische Grammatik_, Halle 1896, remains a splendid fragment, and Luick's _Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache_, Leipzig 1914-, which promises a full account of the early periods, is still far from completion. Happily two distinguished scholars—Dr. Henry Bradley in _The Making of English_ and his chapter in _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. i, Dr. O. Jespersen in _Growth and Structure of the English Language_—have given brief surveys of the whole early period which are at once elementary and authoritative. But for the details the student must rely on a mass of dissertations and articles of very unequal quality, supplemented by introductions to single texts, and, above all, by his own first-hand observations made on the texts themselves.

Some preliminary considerations will be helpful, though perhaps not altogether reassuring:

(i) A great part of the evidence necessary to a thorough knowledge of spoken Middle English has not come down to us, a considerable part remains unprinted, and the printed materials are so extensive and scattered that it is easy to overlook points of detail. For instance, it might be assumed from rimes in _Gawayne_, _Pearl_, and the Shropshire poet Myrc, that the falling together of OE. _-ang-_, _-ung-_, which is witnessed in NE. _among_ (OE. _gemang_), _-monger_ (OE. _mangere_), was specifically West Midland, if the occurrence of examples in Yorkshire (XVII 397-400) escaped notice. It follows that, unless a word or form is so common as to make the risk of error negligible, positive evidence—the certainty that it occurs in a given period or district—is immeasurably more important than negative evidence—the belief that it never did occur, or even the certainty that it is not recorded, in a period or district. For the same reason, the statement that a word or form is found 'in the early fourteenth century' or 'in Kent' should always be understood positively, and should not be taken to imply that it is unknown 'in the thirteenth century' or 'in Essex', as to which evidence may or may not exist.

(ii) It is necessary to clear the mind of the impression, derived from stereotyped written languages, that homogeneity and stability are natural states. Middle English texts represent a spoken language of many local varieties, all developing rapidly. So every linguistic fact should be thought of in terms of time, place, and circumstance, not because absolute precision in these points is attainable, but because the attempt to attain it helps to distinguish accurate knowledge from conclusions which are not free from doubt.

If the word or form under investigation can be proved to belong to the author's original composition, exactness is often possible. In the present book, we know nearly enough the date of composition of extracts I, III, VIII, X, XI _a_, XII, XIII, XIV; the place of composition of I, III, X, XI _a_, XII, XIII, XVI, XVII (see map).

But if, as commonly happens, a form cannot be proved to have stood in the original, endless difficulties arise. It will be necessary first to determine the date of the MS. copy. This is exactly known for _The Bruce_, and there are few Middle English MSS. which the palaeographer cannot date absolutely within a half-century, and probably within a generation. The place where the MS. copy was written is known nearly enough for IV _b_, _c_, XII, XIV _e_, XV _b_, _c_ (possibly Leominster), XVI, XVII; and ME. studies have still much to gain from a thorough inquiry into the provenance of MSS. Yet, when the extant copy is placed and dated, it remains to ask to what extent this MS. reproduces some lost intermediary of different date and provenance; how many such intermediaries there were between the author's original and our MS.; what each has contributed to the form of the surviving copy—questions usually unanswerable, the consideration of which will show the exceptional linguistic value of the _Ayenbyte_, where we have the author's own transcript exactly dated and localized, so that every word and form is good evidence.

Failing such ideal conditions, it becomes necessary to limit doubt by segregating for special investigation the elements that belong to the original composition. Hence the importance of rimes, alliteration, and rhythm, which a copyist or reciter is least likely to alter without leaving a trace of his activities.

§ 2. DIALECTS. At present any marked variation from the practice of educated English speakers might, if it were common to a considerable number of persons, be described as dialectal. But as there was no such recognized standard in the fourteenth century, it is most convenient to consider as dialectal any linguistic feature which had a currency in some English-speaking districts but not in all. For example, _þat_ as a relative is found everywhere in the fourteenth century and is not dialectal; _þire_ 'these' is recorded only in Northern districts, and so is dialectal. Again, _ǭ_ represents OE. _ā_ in the South and Midlands, while the North retains _ā_ (§ 7 b i): since neither _ǭ_ nor _ā_ is general, both may be called dialectal.