University of Virginia Library

THE DATE OF Cocke Lorelles Bote
by
Paul R. Baumgartner

The scholarly efforts of E. Gordon Duff, R. B. McKerrow, Frank Isaac and others notwithstanding, a number of the minor works printed by Wynkyn de Worde remain at best only tentatively dated. One of the most interesting of these uncertainly dated works is the anonymous early Tudor poem Cocke Lorelles Bote which survives in a single copy in the Garrick Collection at the British Museum. The surviving copy is not complete; the six A pages are missing, the poem beginning with B1. Except for the lost A pages, however, the book is in fair condition and the black-letter printing by Wynkyn de Worde is quite legible. As a literary type Cocke Lorelles Bote is related to medieval fool-satire literature, English popular literature (ballads, broadsides, jest-books), and sixteenth-century English rogue literature. Like the work of Sebastian Brant and his medieval predecessors, the poem makes use of the allegorical device of a ship and a religious order as well as an order of fools or knaves; it involves an allegorical voyage around England and is often satirical in tone. On the other hand, like the work of Harman, Awdeley, and Greene, Cocke Lorelles Bote is realistic, merry, and non-moral. Moreover, the poem gives the impression of dealing with local and contemporary events, cataloguing the crafts and trades of the time, crudely describing in great detail low-life characters, and naming specific persons and places. Thus the Bote marks a transitional stage in the development from medieval didacticism and allegory to the sociological realism of the rogue pamphleteers.

Cocke Lorelles Bote has been reprinted privately four times, the best reprint being that of E. F. Rimbault for the Publications of the Percy Society (Vol. VI) in 1843.[1] Each of the reprints, however, simply reproduces, more or less accurately and without critical apparatus, the original copy. No effort is made to date the poem accurately. Rimbault's introduction to the poem, for example, merely assumes that it was inspired by Barclay's Ship of Fools and was written not long after that work. Since both Cocke Lorelles Bote and the tradition to which it belongs have been the subject of a number of recent studies,[2] it might be well at this time to

attempt a more precise dating of the poem.

Scholars who have commented on the poem tend to date it around 1510 or later, seeing in it the influence of either Barclay's or Watson's version of the Ship of Fools (both printed in 1509), but John M. Berdan, with little evidence, argued for a date closer to 1500. The stanza form, the frequent "monorime," the irregular scansion and the repetition indicated to Berdan that the poem belonged to the Medieval Latin tradition and was written before the kind of verse found in the Ship of Fools became popular.[3] C. H. Herford, on the other hand, believed that Cocke Lorelles Bote represented a fusion of two separate chapters in Brant (48 "Gesellenschiff" and 108 "Schluraffenschiff") which had been put together by Barclay in his adjoining chapters 108 and 109, called "The unyuersall shyp and general Bark or barge" and "The Unyuersall shyp of crafty men or laborers." Herford argued that the first stanza of chapter 108 in Barclay had directly influenced the author of the Bote and he further stated that "all five woodcuts in Cock Lorell's Bote are free imitations of the Ship of Fools."[4] This last remark suggests that Herford did not study carefully the relation of Cocke Lorelles Bote to the various versions of the Ship of Fools, for Aurelius Pompen in his detailed study of the English versions later demonstrated that the woodcuts used for the Bote were the same as those used in Watson's prose version of the Ship of Fools. From this fact, however, Pompen incautiously concluded that Cocke Lorelles Bote derived from Watson's translation and dated after it.[5] The four woodcuts in Cocke Lorelles Bote are the same as those used for chapters 18, 19, 77, and 108 of Watson's text, and woodcut #108, a picture of a ship full of fools with the motto "Gaudeam' Oēs," is used twice in the Bote just as in Watson. "It is this picture," says Pompen, "and little else that has inspired that remarkable fragment known as Cocke Lorelles bote." From Pompen's facts, however, it is not necessary to hold that Cocke Lorelles Bote was written after 1509. Though Watson's version of the Ship of Fools was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1509, it is not known when it was written or when the woodcuts were produced. There is no sign of deterioration in the woodcuts used for Cocke Lorelles Bote. Moreover, as Pompen himself shows, the idea of an infinite number of fools and the allegorical device of a ship to carry them in were very popular around the turn of the century. The popularity of these ideas is sufficient to account for the writing of the Bote without supposing it to have been inspired by a single woodcut. Wynkyn de Worde may well have commissioned the writing of Cocke Lorelles Bote to test the popularity of the theme before coming out with a full-scale version of the

Ship of Fools. At any rate, there is little evidence for dating the poem after 1509, but there is some for dating it earlier, perhaps between 1506 and 1509.

Internal Evidence:

In Cocke Lorelles Bote are the following interesting lines:

Alexander Dyce, in the notes to his edition of the works of John Skelton, cites this passage in Cocke Lorelles Bote. "The winde from Winchester," writes Dyce, "alludes to the temporary suppression of the Southwarke stews at the intercession of the Bishop of Winchester."[6] Dyce gives neither the date of this suppression nor the source of his information. In John Stow's Survey of London, however, we find the following passage: "Also Robert Fabian writeth that in the yeare 1506 the 21. of Henry the seuenth, the saide stewe houses in Southwarke were for a season inhibited, and the dores close vp, but it was not long saith he, ere the houses there were set open againe."[7] Richard Fox was the Bishop of Winchester in 1506 and he was in a position to "inhibit" the stews, for he was the landlord. In a Harleian MS (293, ff.62-67) for 1506 there is a transcript of "Ordinances touching the governance of the stewhoulders in Southwarke under the direction of the bishope of Winchester, instituted in the tyme of Henry the Second." Thomas Fuller in his Church History (1648) also refers to the suppression of the stews by the Bishop of Winchester in 1506.[8] No doubt Dyce is right in his explanation of the allusion but there is another side to the matter. Fabian's original chronicle ended with the year 1485; the second edition, printed in 1532, included continuations to the year 1509 but most likely by another person. Now the reference to the temporary suppression of the stews for which Stow cites Fabian as his authority does not appear in this printed continuation of Fabian and I was unable to discover an actual source for Stow's remarks. In the printed continuation of Fabian, however, we do find the following interesting entry for the year 1506: "And vpon the euyn of seynt Maury, began an hidious wind, which endured vppon xi. dayes folowynge, more or lasse, in contynuall blowyng, by meane whereof the wedercok of Poules was blowen downe, & moche other harme done."[9] Also in Hall's Chronicle, in the entry for 1506, the 21st year of Henry VII's reign, we find mentioned a great tempest which was "wonderful straunge to many men, because the violencie of the wynde had blowen doune an Egle of brasse . . . fro a pynnacle or spire of Paules church."[10] The writer of Cocke Lorelles Bote is surely combining in his allusion two historical events. The big "wynde fro wynchester" refers both to the restraining order from the Bishop against the stews and to the real wind which blew from the south and toppled the weathercock of St. Paul's on the London side. The earliest date for the poem, then, is 1506.

What of the latest date for the poem? First, the events alluded to seem fresh in the mind of the poet. Secondly, the lines seem to imply that the "relygyous women" (prostitutes), having crossed the river in ferries ("In wherye"), settled chiefly at Colman hedge and that the stews on the bank side were by and large inoperative at the time of writing. Now we have seen Stow citing Fabian to the effect that "it was not long ere the houses there were set open againe." And Fuller, though he may be relying on Stow, assures us that the suppression was not long effective and that the stew houses were soon again in full operation (no dates are given).[11] Moreover in literature between 1506 and 1509 we find continued reference to the popularity of the stews. Though not conclusive, these facts argue that the poem was written not long after 1506 — two or three years at the most.

External Evidence:

In a study for the Bibliographical Society, Frank Isaac made a specific, though still preliminary, classification of Wynkyn de Worde's type for the purpose of dating that printer's undated books. Following E. G. Duff's

earlier and more general study,[12] Isaac finds that Wynkyn brought to his new premises at the Sign of the Sun in Flete Street "two textura, Duff 4 (95 mm.) and Duff 8 (95 mm.), and one rotunda, Duff 9 (53 mm.). Of these, 4 lasted only a short time and is not found in a dated book after 1502. The other two he used until his death."[13] Type 95 (Duff 8), according to Isaac, is the one most frequently used by Wynkyn in the sixteenth century. From time to time, however, some of the letters were recut and the small differences found can be used as an approximate guide for dating the undated books. Final s (s1), for example, is recut four times between 1501 and 1536 (s1, s2, s3, s4), beginning as a rather blunt letter and ending with a curling top serif. Isaac gives specimens of Wynkyn de Worde's dated work of different periods and identifies the types used as follows:[14] I have identified the type used in Cocke Lorelles Bote (not mentioned by Isaac) as follows: The type used for Cocke Lorelles Bote resembles most closely Isaac's examples for 1506. Moreover, the capital C and B, the & sign, and the hyphen used in this poem differ from those in works before 1505 and are identical with those in works of 1506, 1507, and 1508. I was unable to discover any use of type 95:w2 (large) in works dated after 1508.

Further evidence for a date of 1506-8 for Cocke Lorelles Bote is found in the colophon to the poem. E. G. Duff tells us that "towards the end of 1508 when Pynson was appointed printer to the King, De Worde seems to have received some sort of official appointment as printer to the Countess

of Richmond, which he notified in all his colophons up to her death in 1509: calling himself printer to the King's mother, and after the death of Henry VII, to the King's grandmother."[15] The colophon of the Nicodemus Gospel (1509) is an example: "Enprynted at London in Flete strete at the sygne of the sonne of Wynkyn de worde, printer vnto the moost excellent pryncess my lady the Kynges moder. In the yere of oure lorde god MCCCCC. ix. the xxiii daye of Marche."[16] Such notification is not in the colophon to Cocke Lorelles Bote. If Duff is correct and if, as I have argued, the poem was not written after 1509, then it must have been written and printed between 1506 and late 1508. But if these arguments for a terminal date of 1508 are not conclusive, there is additional evidence that the poem was not written after 1510 as some scholars have asserted.

In 1938 A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley discovered and edited a valuable document called The Great Chronicle of London. In that work in the entry for the year 1509 during the mayorality of Stephan Genyn, the chronicler inserts several contemporary ballads dealing mostly with the villainies of Empson, Dudley, and one John Baptist de Grimaldi. In the longest of these ballads is this reference to Cocke Lorelles Bote:

The date of either the Chronicle or the ballad may be used to establish a terminal date for Cocke Lorelles Bote. The Chronicle is carefully dated by its editors between the years 1509 and Feb., 1513. Woodcuts, capital letters, and handwriting were thoroughly studied, but the conclusive piece of evidence for the terminal date is the fact that the chronicler refers to Pope Julian, who died in February, 1513, as still living (intro. and p. 338). This makes it certain that Cocke Lorelles Bote was written before February, 1513. But there remains the possibility of an earlier date for the ballad itself. The ballad refers to John Baptist as a "common Brocour of chevysaunce & cursid usury" who put stones in ships to get more insurance and then caused the ships to sink at sea in order to collect the insurance (p. 359). Eventually, however, Baptist ran afoul of the law and was driven into hiding. To recover his freedom he joined a band of outlaws and deliberately had himself arrested for stealing a horse of "Rede colour." But since he was really innocent of this crime and could prove it, he was let off and could not be tried for earlier crimes as a usurer and broker (pp. 357-358). This affair seems to be the same as that recorded in C. P. R. Henry VII (ii 522, 564, 625) as follows: These lines seem to have been written while Grimaldi was still in prison; no mention is made of the warrant for his pardon in Feb., 1510. If these arrests in the ballad are the same as those referred to in the records of the reign of Henry VII, it is almost certain that the ballad was written before Feb., 1510. And since the ballad mentions "Cok lorellys boot," we can assign Feb., 1510 as the latest likely date for the composition of that poem.

Notes