University of Virginia Library

John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), I, 176.

The name IOSEPH HOLAND and the date 1600 appear on folio 5; see Robert A. Caldwell, "Joseph Holand, Collector and Antiquary," MP, XL (1943), 295-301, esp. 299.

They had mutual interests and at least two mutual friends: John Stowe and Francis Thynne (Stowe says he aided Speght with the 1598 edition; Thynne, after attacking certain features of the 1598 Chaucer, later assisted Speght). For these and other connections see Caldwell, ibid.; DNB, article on Speght; Joan Evans, A History of the Society of Antiquaries (1956), p. 12; Manly and Rickert, I, 182; John Stow[e], A Survey of London (1603), ed. C. L. Kingsford (1908), II, 111.

See the tree by Heath in A. W. Pollard et al., The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1908), p. xxxiv (Globe Edition). F. N. Robinson's arrangement (The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 2nd ed. (1957, p. 915) essentially agrees.

A rarity, at any rate, so far as the Blackletter Chaucers are concerned (W. W. Greg's articles on the early printed editions of the Canterbury Tales attempt only to identify the general type of manuscript).

They are, for example, the second, third, and fourth assumptions of my "Chaucerian Proverbs," SB, XVIII (1965), 41-48; see p. 44 and the reference there cited.

The thirteen authorities in Robinson's list (p. 915) plus three others, for which see A. I. Doyle and George B. Pace, "A New Chaucer Manuscript," forthcoming in the March 1968 PMLA (prints the recently discovered Coventry MS.—see below). Both Gg and Speght are available in the Chaucer Society's publications (Ser. 1, Nos. 57, 59); I have used my own transcriptions, which differ significantly once (see fn. 15 below). Since a comparison of my list of variants with the Chaucer Society's transcriptions will inevitably suggest that I have omitted readings, I feel I should observe that the readings are all in the unpublished Coventry MS., a true sister of Gg, and are thus properly excluded.

In two instances Speght is in error but is not unique: l. 150, sore (for yore); l. 171, for to be (for to be). Both readings are also in Harley 2251, presumably through accidental coincidence (there are no other resemblances). The readings in parentheses above, and also readings so handled in the text, represent majority usage and are taken for convenience from Robinson's edition of the poem.

Robert A. Caldwell, "The Scribe of the Chaucer MS, Cambridge University Library Gg.4.27," MLQ, V (1944), 37; Manly and Rickert, I, 178.

Which was similar to the modern practice; see OED, s. v. mine, thine.

In l. 3 Gg has han but is not unique (in l. 20 Gg omits the r in g[r]euous and line 112 in neue[r], but recovery of the full reading is virtually automatic).

Cf. Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963), p. 1182 (Vocabulary of Rhymes).

For completeness I list the following instances in which Gg and Speght each read uniquely: l. 10, þu wit : thou will (for thou wolt); l. 155, wiche : wish (for wisse); l. 178, þe whiche : That wisht (for To wasshe). Except for the title, see below, there are no other lexical variants.

Much of the time Speght, like some of his predecessors, simply took over an earlier printed text.

Not recorded by the Chaucer Society. The hand and ink are the same as those of the titles in Gg.4.27.1(b) which are believed by Caldwell to be by Holland.

The Fairfax title is added in the margin in a later hand (cf. Robinson's note, p. 855, which misleads) said to be Stowe's (in the manuscript, but in pencil in a 19th century hand; there is not much to go on). I think it probable that a connection exists between these added titles.

One of a limited number of actual facts; see Manly and Rickert, I, 179-182, and Caldwell's articles.

Now bound separately as Gg.4.27.1 (b).

Furnivall "suppos'd" the heading to be by John Stowe, "in imitation of Shirley" (Supplementary Parallel-Text Edition of Chaucer's Minor Poems, Chaucer Society, Ser. 1, No. 59, p. 28; cf. fn. 3 above). Skeat regarded it as possibly true but "probably a mere guess" (The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 1894, I, 59); Brusendorff viewed it as a fabrication either by Speght or Stowe ("anyhow . . . too late to be accepted, since there exists no corroborative evidence whatever"; The Chaucer Tradition, 1925, p. 241). Marchette Chute, in her attractive biography, sees nothing "inherently improbable" (Geoffrey Chaucer of England, 1946, p. 89). Robinson comments (p. 855): "no confirmation has been found."

Pepys (two copies, fragments of 60 lines each) is so placed partly because of the title but also because of general similarity, especially in lines 53 and 59. The unpublished Coventry MS. (fn. 7 above) has a (wholly) unique title; I believe it to be a sister of Gg, but even so a clear line for the transmission of the French title can still be drawn.

Working within Manly and Rickert's probabilities, one may discern other paths by which a tradition might have traveled, especially in the connection seen with Lewis de Robessart, the "familiar" of another grandson of Blanche's (Henry V) and "somehow related to the Chaucers" (I, 181). Then, of course, Humphrey was the patron of Chaucer's follower, John Lydgate.

And therefore cannot tell us anything about the text of the poem (not the heading) that Gg cannot tell better; Speght should no longer be cited in support of a reading in the text of the poem (cf. Robinson, p. 915, on. l. 181).