Speght's Chaucer Aand MS. GG.4.27
by
George B. Pace
Although the primary reason for textual criticism is determining texts,
there may be other reasons. One may simply want to set the record straight
so that erroneous views need no longer be expressed. Or one may hope to
discover the actual copy used for an early printed book. Or one may wish
to answer a question of provenance or even of human biography. Something
of all these "other" reasons underlies the present paper, which employs
textual criticism not to establish a text but to throw light upon the books in
which the text is contained.
The books are: Cambridge University Library MS. Gg.4.27 (a
Canterbury Tales manuscript; "of the highest importance"
—
Manly and Rickert)[1] and Thomas
Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer's works, the last, except for reprintings,
of the Blackletter Chaucers. The point of impingement is Chaucer's poem
An A B C, which occurs on the opening folios of the
manuscript and appears for the first time in print in Speght's volume.
When Speght published, in 1598, the first edition of his Chaucer, he
obviously knew nothing of the A B C, since otherwise he
would
have printed it. So between 1598 and 1602 Speght came upon a manuscript
having the poem. Can this manuscript be identified? I believe it can be: that
it is Gg.4.27, which is now known to have been in the possession of Joseph
Holland, antiquarian and lover of Chaucer, in 1600.[2] That Holland and Speght were
acquainted
is a virtual certainty.[3] What more
likely place, then, for Speght to obtain the poem than Holland's manuscript
where, as the poem begins the volume, it could hardly be missed?
A close relationship between the Gg. 4. 27 and Speght texts has
generally been recognized, but they have been looked upon, because of
certain differences, as sister texts deriving from a lost common
parent.[4] I believe I
can show that the Speght text exhibits a sufficient number of the marked
eccentricities of the version in Gg.4.27 to leave no doubt that Holland's
volume is Speght's source.
Assuming I am correct, we have a rarity — the actual copy
underlying an Elizabethan printed book — [5] and I shall be interested in
examining the
changes Speght made, the amount and kind of editing to which he subjected
his copy. Finally, I shall also wish to consider the significance of the
derivation for the provenance of Gg.4.27 and for the question of the
authenticity of Speght's well-known assertion that Chaucer wrote the
A B C for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster and wife to John
of
Gaunt. But first I must establish the derivation.
I
I shall make the following assumptions:
- I. That shared errors indicate close relationship;
- II. That unique readings are probably spurious;
- III. That the simplest derivation (tree) which will account for the
variants is to be preferred.
These are usual
initial assumptions.
[6] They are not laws; evidence may
controvert them.
The A B C survives in sixteen manuscripts.[7] The following readings occur only
in Gg
and Speght:
- 9. myn (for thin)
- 11. omission of him
- 19. for to (for for)
- 38. ben (for be)
- 46. close in with þyn owene grace (for
clothe
with thi grace)
- 49. Gracyouse (for Glorious)
- 75. with þe (for to yow)
- 83. peyne (for peynes)
- 85. with (for of)
- 87. omission of oure
- 89. of (for with)
- 103. as litil (for litel)
- 105. þo (for that)
- 124. schal (for may)
- 132. fulle (for rightful)
- 133. ioye (for merci)
- 158. on (for unto)
- 179. out (for ought)
The number of shared variants is large; some are patently errors (e.g., lines
46 and 132). Therefore, according to Assumption I Gg and Speght are
closely related.
Chronology prevents the derivation of the fifteenth-century manuscript
from the late Elizabethan printed book. Even so, it is useful to be able to
show that the derivation of Gg from Speght is implausible on purely textual
grounds (otherwise one might justifiably wonder if Speght were not simply
a printed facsimile of some lost manuscript, a virtual duplicate like, say, the
Chaucer Society transcriptions). Speght has the following unique readings:
- 53. nor (for not)
- 56. sinke (for stynk)
- 77. ye
(for that; Gg
þt
)
- 84. bostaunce (for bobaunce)
- 90. then (for ther)
- 92. can (for gan)
- 121. right (for yit)
- 136. that of pitie will (for that wole of
pitee)
- 137. he (for that he)
- 144. royall (for rial)
- 172. a (for as a)
- 174. sured me (for mesured)
- 175. or (for and)
- 179. will (for wel)
Again the number of variants is large; some of the variants are patently
spurious (e.g., lines 84 and 174); all of the variants are opposed in Gg by
the generally supported readings.
[8]
Therefore, according to Assumption II Gg is not derived from
Speght.
Gg also has unique readings: 156. han (for
have); 173. besech (for preye).
Moreover, in line 90 Gg has a variant which, although not unique (it is in
Gg's sister manuscript, Coventry; see fn. 7 above), is a patent error:
þere brende (for
brende). All of these
variants
are opposed in Speght by the generally supported readings. Here the
number of variants is indeed small, but this fact does not seem to have
disturbed previous editors. According to Assumption II, then, Speght is not
derived from Gg. Since Gg has been shown not to be derived from Speght,
the (apparent) final conclusion is that the two derive from a lost common
parent.
This conclusion, however, ignores a large body of sublexical evidence
which has never before been presented.
"In spelling," Manly and Rickert remark (I, 177), "Gg [the entire
volume] has long been recognized as unique among Chaucer MSS." The
peculiarities of the Gg volume have been extensively studied by Caldwell,
and both he and Manly conclude that the scribe was probably not English
but a Dutchman or a Fleming. Among the forms they especially cite in
evidence, quoting Canterbury Tales A 1527 and A 1579, is
bosch for bush (MDu bosch).[9] This form appears twice in the Gg
copy
of the A B C (lines 89 and 92):
Moyses þt saw þe bosch of
flambis rede
þow art þe bosch on wich þere gan
dessendyn
The corresponding lines in Speght are:
Moyses that saw the bosh of flambis rede
Thow art the bosh, on which there can descend
All other manuscripts read
bush or something closely
resembling
bush. It is hard not to believe that Speght got its
strange
bosh from Gg's
bosch.
Manly and Rickert (I, 177) comment upon another peculiarity of the
Gg scribe: "He divides and joins words wrongly and makes nonsense"; they
give myn che kys as an example. In line 174 Gg reads:
Sithe he his merci me seured so large
The corresponding line in Speght is:
Sith he his mercy sured me so large
The other manuscripts all read mesured. It is hard not
to
believe that Speght's unique variant resulted from a misinterpretation of the
Gg reading with its unnatural space.
A striking peculiarity of the Gg scribe is described by Manly and
Rickert (I, 177) thus: "The n of possessive adjectives [is]
regularly retained before consonants: myn self, myn lyf myn lust." This
feature, foreign to Chaucer's English as well as to Speght's,[10] appears over and over in the Gg
copy of the
A B C and is often paralleled in Speght's; the
Speght reading is given second:
- 7. myne perlious : mine
perillous
- 16. myn schip : mine ship
- 18. myn synne, myn confusioun : mine sinne,
mine confusioun
- 19. þyn presense : thin
presence
- 23. myn dampnacioun : mine
damnatioun
- 40. myn werk : mine werke
- 41. þyn tente : thine tent
- 48. myn deth : mine death
- 52. myn fadir : mine fader
- 55. myn socour : mine
soccour
- 56. myn gost : mine ghost
- 68. þyn pete : thine pitie
- 74. þyn name : thine
name
- 79. myn fo : mine fo
- 81. þyn sorwe : thine
sorow
- 88. þyne petous eyne : thine pitous
eyen
- 111. þyn goodnesse : thine
goodnes
- 123. myn soule : mine soule
- 125. þyn sone, myn mene :
thine
sonne, mine meane
- 126. þyn self : thine selfe
One could continue extending this listing (further examples may be found
in lines 134, 143, 147, 159, 161, 167, 180). Such spellings occur in no
other manuscript of the
A B C.
A few additional spellings could be cited but enough evidence seems
to have been given.
Assumption III asserts that the simplest derivation (tree) which will
account for the variants is to be preferred. The bifid tree, with Gg and
Speght deriving from a lost common parent, explains the lexical variants
but leaves the strange spellings unaccounted for. The derivation of Speght
directly from Gg accounts for the spellings (and for most of the lexical
evidence) but leaves the variants in lines 90, 156, and 173 unexplained.
Thus either of the possible trees leaves something unresolved. In this
circumstance Assumption III applies. The simpler derivation is, of course,
the second. Therefore the true conclusion is that Speght is
derived from Gg.
How are we then to explain the three lines where Gg is wrong and
Speght right? I take the Speght readings to be conscious emendations.
Speght was, after all, an editor, though an early one. Three emendations to
the right reading in a poem of 184 lines is not beyond the bounds of
a
priori probability.
Line 90 is rendered thus in Gg: Brennynge of which þere
neuere a stikke þere brende. The repetition is so obviously in
error that almost anyone would be inclined to strike the second
þere out.
The trivial variation in line 156, haue in Speght for
Gg's
han, is viewable as a mere modernization, han
having become archaic by Speght's day.[11]
The third variation, besech for preye in
line
173, becomes much less striking when viewed in context:
Ysaac was figeur of his deþ certeyn
þat so fer forþ his fadyr wolde obeye
þat hym ne rouȝt no þyng to be slayn
Ryȝt so þyn sone list as a lomb to deye
Now ladi ful of mercy I ȝow besech [173]
Sithe he his merci me seured so large
Be ye not skant for alle we synge & seyȝe
þat ȝe ben fro vengaunse ay oure targe
Obviously, as the rhyme scheme of the poem is ababbcbc, line 173 should
rhyme. Apparently
preye is the only possible rhyme.
[12] Anyone who tried to improve the
defective rhyme scheme would produce the right reading.
[13]
To summarize: Between 1598 and 1602 Speght came upon a copy of
the A B C. In 1600 Gg, with the poem on its opening folios,
was in the possession of Joseph Holland. The manuscript was thus in
London at the right time for Speght to use it, and in the hands of a man
whom he almost certainly knew. Comparison of the Speght text with the
text in Gg shows the two versions to be decidedly similar, the similarity
including eighteen readings found in no other manuscript and more than
thirty unusual spellings, likewise in no other manuscript, of a kind
peculiarly characteristic of the Gg scribe and explainable in Speght's copy
only on the assumption that it derives from Gg. Textual theory also requires
this derivation. Surely one may write Q. E. D. Gg.4.27 was Speght's actual
source.
II
Since we have no other instance in which the manuscript used for one
of the Blackletter Chaucers has been identified, I shall examine in some
detail Speght's handling of Gg, even when the results may seem
predictable. I believe it may be of interest to have definite knowledge as to
what one early editor of Chaucer did when he was faced with an actual
manuscript.[14]
The A B C has 184 lines or approximately 1400 words.
Speght differs from Gg in 22 lines or 23 words. Not all of the differences
are misreadings. As has been observed, Speght corrected Gg in five
instances, the most notable being the besech-preye variant.
These readings, successful emendations, must be subtracted if a meaningful
assessment of Speght's accuracy is to be made. Moreover, the three
readings in which both Gg and Speght are unique (fn. 13) must also be
subtracted, the Speght variants being attempts,
although unsuccessful, to correct a defective text. Finally, one of the Speght
variants is regardable as simply a modernization (
royall for
rial, line 144); it too should perhaps be subtracted. If nine of
the differences, then, are disregarded, Speght averaged one error every 13
lines, or 14 errors out of 1400 words.
How is this revised figure to be assessed? We have nothing exactly
comparable, for none of the other manuscripts of the A B C
appears to be a copy of an extant text. However, by collating Robinson's
basic manuscript (Cambridge University Library Ff.5.30) with his
reconstructed text one may arrive at some notion of a reasonable
expectation. The manuscript exhibits ten differences. To be sure, this figure
is imperfect. Even so, it bears out one's intuitive feeling, that Speght's copy
is no better than what one might expect of a competent medieval
scribe.
The preceding paragraph deals with lexical differences only. The
medieval scribe was notoriously unconcerned about spelling; Speght's
attitude seems to have been similar (conceivably some of the spellings were
due to the printer). The spelling of 630 words, or 45 per cent of the total,
is preserved. These are mostly words like of,
to,
he, good, and name, where Gg
and the
usual Elizabethan spelling are in agreement. For the remaining words the
spelling is sometimes modified only slightly (e.g., þe
becomes the, occasionally ye;
ȝow,
you; Virgyne, Virgine), but often
the
change is considerable: herte becomes heart;
reles, release; myn,
mine;
refeut, refute; pete,
pitie;
Bounte, Bountie; faderis,
faders; iuge, iudge;
sorwe,
sorow; sauacioun, salvatioun,
etc.
The underlying principle may appear to be modernization but is more
likely, perhaps, simply conformity with Speht's own usage; nor, of course,
is the apparent modernization carried out consistently (e.g.,
modir now remains modir, now becomes
moder). The attitude resembles the medieval scribe's: fidelity
to the spelling of the exemplar counts for little.
Gg is without punctuation. Speght, like most modern editors, supplies
punctuation. He uses only comma, period, and colon, and he often employs
a comma where modern usage would prefer a semicolon. If we disregard
these differences, Speght's punctuation is good and agrees with Robinson's
in 121 out of 184 lines, or 65 per cent of the time. The figure is not an
absolute indication; in some 32 lines more than one punctuation is possible
(e.g., line 28, in Speght thus: For certis, Christis blisfull modir
dere; Robinson puts a comma after For also). Speght
and
Robinson punctuate one stanza identically (with the allowance
mentioned).
So much for general observations. A few of Speght's misreadings are
interesting in themselves (and further proof, if such is needed, that Gg was
Speght's exemplar). In line 56 Gg reads: To stynk eterne he wele
myn
gost exile; Speght changes stynk to
sinke, one
guesses from a wish to ameliorate the diction (cf. the probable amelioration
in St. John's College G.21: To lastande Paine). In line 77
Speght reads ye
where the correct reading
is
that; one would suspect origin from þt
— and
þt is the Gg variant. In line
84 Gg reads
bobaunce ("boast"); apparently Speght did not
know the word and so, taking his cue from the context, coined the
pseudo-archaism
bostaunce. In line 144 Gg reads
in so
rial
wise; Speght removed this archaism, substituting
royall
for
rial. In line 150 Speght reads
sore for the
correct
yore; one would suspect origin from
ȝore,
and
such is the Gg reading. Speght's striking misreading of Gg's
me
seured as
sured me has already been discussed.
For one change, the title, Speght may have gone to another source.
Today the first four folios of Gg are missing; the text of the A B
C begins the fifth folio. The opening four folios may have been
missing in Speght's day (Holland wrote his name on what is actually the
fifth folio; one would assume that he would inscribe the first page of the
manuscript). Someone, not the Gg scribe but probably Holland, wrote a
title, in blue ink, at the top of the fifth folio: CHAUCERS A. B.
C.
[15] Otherwise the poem is
untitled in the manuscript. Speght has the following title: Chaucers
A.
B. C., called La Priere de Nostre Dame: made, as some say, at the Request
of Blanch, Duchesse of Lancaster, as a praier for her priuat use, being a
woman in her religion very deuout. This is really two titles and a
statement. The first title, Chaucers A. B. C., appears in this
form in Fairfax 16 as well as in Gg, but there is no need to suppose that
Speght went beyond Gg for it.[16] The
second title, La Priere de Nostre Dame, occurs only in Pepys
2006. If Speght consulted this manuscript, he did so purely for the title; no
influence is to be seen in his text. The statement about Blanche appears
nowhere else. It is possible that Speght obtained it from some lost source.
It is also possible that he found all of his heading in Gg: the English title
on folio 5, where it still is; the remainder on the missing fourth folio,
which may have been merely so badly deteriorated in 1600 that Holland
preferred to write his name on the next page.
What, then, did Speght do with Gg? He copied the poem relatively
faithfully, emending occasionally (not always rightly) and making an
average of one real error every hundred words. He made the spelling
largely conform with his own although he did retain such peculiarities as
the n on possessive pronouns before consonants. He
punctuated
the poem. He provided an elaborate heading, possibly simply combining
elements in Gg, possibly going elsewhere for part of it. Finally, a
circumstance not remarked upon above, he featured his discovery on his
title page, ending his list of the changes from the first edition with the
statement, "Chaucers A. B. C. called La Priere de nostre Dame, at this
Impression added."
There are suggestions here of the modern editor, but even more of the
medieval scribe. If it is in the latter tradition that Speght is to be viewed,
he comes off fairly well.
III
That Speght made use of Gg has now, I feel, been conclusively
demonstrated and is in consequence regardable as a fact in the manuscript's
provenance.[17] The significance of the
fact may be seen in the following quotation from Manly and Rickert (I,
178) concerning additions to Gg thought to have been done, or
commissioned, by Holland:
At the end of the MS are added 35 leaves containing transcriptions
. . . supplying the text of the lost leaves . . . taken mainly from the 1598
edition . . . also a glossary, basically Speght's but expanded; and the
portrait of Chaucer with the coats-of-arms, cut from the 1598 edition, and
pasted in.
[18]
Thus a curiously reciprocal relationship obtains: Not only was Gg used to
augment Speght; Speght was earlier used to supplement Gg!
IV
I shall conclude by returning to the possibility that Speght found all
of his heading in Gg. This possibility is of great interest because of the
statement that Chaucer wrote the poem for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster,
which constitutes, if true, an item in the poet's biography. Nothing, of
course, is inherently improbable in Chaucer's having written the A
B
C for the wife of his long-time associate (and patron) John of Gaunt.
Blanche died in 1369; the A B C is agreed to be an early
poem.
That Chaucer wrote the Book of the Duchess to lament
Blanche's death is, although not a certainty, the common belief.
Nevertheless Chaucerians have either given very qualified acceptance to
Speght's statement or have rejected it — principally, it would seem,
because of its late date.[19] If Speght's
heading could be shown to have been in so venerable a manuscript as Gg
the argument for authenticity would obviously be stronger. And not only
because of the earlier date of Gg (1420-40). In the opinion of Manly and
Rickert Gg was prepared for "a wealthy patron of literature . . . who knew
owners of special texts" (I, 180). Presumably "special texts" may be
interpreted to include special traditions.
The fact that the statement about Blanche, and the accompanying
French title, must be presumed to have been written at the end of folio 4
(rather than on folio 5 immediately above the text, as would now seem
normal) presents only an apparent difficulty. Headings in manuscripts do
occasionally appear just so. For example, the Leyden manuscript of
Chaucer's Truth (Vossius Germ. Gall.Q.9) has the heading
for
the poem at the bottom of folio 95b while the poem itself
is on
96a. The corresponding folio in Gg is missing. Are there
compelling
reasons for believing that it had on it the statement about Blanche?
There are, at any rate, reasons.
To begin with, the simplest explanation of Speght's heading is to
assume that all of it was in Gg, and if a fact of biography were not
involved this reason would doubtless seem sufficient in itself.
Next, the French title is characteristic of Gg. Three of the four short
poems which follow the A B C have foreign titles, and one
of
these is French (Balade de bone conseyl
[Truth]).
Also, Speght's French title is found in Pepys 2006 (and only found there).
Heath's tree (fn. 4 above) shows Gg and Pepys as deriving from a common
source, now lost. Making the adjustment made necessary by this paper,
showing Speght as derived from Gg, we have the following as the relevant
portion of the tree:
A strong textual reason thus exists for believing that Gg once had the
French title at least.[20]
Two other arguments apply strictly to the statement about Blanche.
The phrasing — "made, as some say" — seems
to point to
an earlier day. The A B C must have been virtually unknown
in the sixteenth century, as Speght
was the first to print it. Finally, a special reason exists for believing that
Gg, more than any other manuscript, might well have preserved a tradition
about Blanche. Manly and Rickert's study of the early provenance of Gg
leads them to conclude (I, 180) that the original owner was probably
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. As they observe, Humphrey was Chaucer's
great-nephew (half blood). Even more pertinent to our discussion,
Humphrey's grandmother was Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster.
[21]
This paper has shown that the version of Chaucer's A B
C
in the 1602 Speght, the first printed edition of the poem, is essentially a
copy of an extant text.[22] The paper
has also considered the editorial treatment which Speght gave to his source,
and the relevance of the identification of the source for the provenance of
the Canterbury Tales manuscript Gg.4.27 and for the
authenticity of Speght's assertion that Chaucer wrote the A B
C
for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, which it rather strongly supports.
Notes