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Notes
"A New Chaucer Manuscript," PMLA, 83 (1968), 29 (fn. 37), 32 (fn. 58); the MS. is the Coventry MS.
The copy of Gentilesse in the Cambridge University Library Gg. 4. 27, 1 b, printed by Nichols (pp. 49-50), is such. This 17th-century addition is copied from the 1598 Speght printed edition, which in turn is from Stowe's edition (1561); see Davis, pp. 44-46.
"Almost certainly Chaucer"—F. N. Robinson, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 2nd ed. (1957), p. 524.
We owe our thanks to the Library Council of Victoria, to the Mellish Trustees (and to Nottingham University as custodian), and to the Curators of the Bodleian Library, for permission to print the texts from their manuscripts. We also owe thanks to the American Council of Learned Societies and the University of Missouri-Columbia, as much of the research was done while the second author was being supported by grants from them.
Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Western Manuscripts in Australia (1969), no. 217, pp. 364-368.
Six manuscripts of the first survive and ten of the second, with another two containing extracts, a fragment and an edition of the Soul by Caxton, 1483; Miss A. Henry of Exeter University is engaged on editing the Manhood; Mrs. E. M. Ingram of East Michigan and Mr. H. V. Zehner of Ford-ham are collaborating on the Soul, which has previously been edited twice in unpublished theses by Professor M. D. Clubb and Sister M. D. Barry, from a single copy in each case. A digest of the first translation and selections from the second were published by Katherine I. Cust as sequels to (and usually bound with) Nathaniel Hill, The Ancient Poem of G. De Guileville entitled Le Pelerinage de l'Homme compared with The Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan (1858).
T. Phillipps, Catalogus Manuscriptorum Magnae Britanniae I (1850), 32, no. 459: Gras Dieu: a book so called: or a Spiritual Pilgrimage to the City of Jerusalem. This corresponds with the content and customary title of the Soul alone, but it would also cover the coupling of the two. Several of the Kingston manuscripts in fact seem to survive.
St. John's College, Oxford, MS. 94 and Bodleian Library, MS. Rawl. C. 258: see H. O. Coxe, Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum qui in Collegiis Aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur (1852) II, 26-27; Catalogus Codicum MSS. Bibliothecae Bodleianae, v, ii (1878), col. 113. Neither description is quite complete.
At least four of the extant manuscripts of the Soul are so called; Sir Thomas Cumberworth in 1450 left copies both of "gracedew" and "gracedew of the sowde" to his chantry priests at Somerby (Lincs.), but the latter, which survives as New York Public Library, Spencer MS. 19, bears the title Grace Dieu unqualified. See V. H. Paltsits, "The Petworth Manuscript of 'Grace Dieu' or 'The Pilgrimage of the Soul,'" Bulletin of New York Public Library, 32 (1928), 715-720. There are other bequests by this name, as well as Gracia Dei, which could also refer to an ascetical or a medical compilation.
R. H. Robbins & J. L. Cutler, Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse (1965), no. 2271.4.
See Sinclair, Descriptive Catalogue, and unpublished Liverpool University M. A. thesis, 1954, by Janet Smalley.
In Miss Smalley's collations Melbourne stands most often with the New York manuscript and Egerton 615 which have the fullest, though variant, translator's colophon.
See Hoccleve's Works: the Minor Poems, ed. F. J. Furnivall & I. Gollancz, revised by J. Mitchell & A. I. Doyle (E.E. T.S. Extra Series 61 & 73, repr. 1970), p. lxxiii. In the New York manuscript the translation is said to have been commissioned by a lady, and the poem in HM 111 was commissioned by the Countess of Hereford (d. 1419).
By Professor Angus McIntosh, on the evidence of his and Professor M. L. Samuels' comprehensive dialect survey.
For this terminology cf. N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, I (1969), xi-xii; M. B. Parkes, English Cursive Book Hands 1250-1500 (1969), esp. pp. xix-xx.
The relation of f. 96 to the rest of its quire and that preceding, and the reason for the change of hand, cannot be settled without an examination of the original, of which I have not had an opportunity, being dependent on a film very kindly supplied by the State Library.
"xl dayes of pardon"; Bradshaw noted one prayer on behalf of a woman, perhaps for Eleanor, John Harpur's wife. The Originalia are not mentioned by Bradshaw, Report of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society (1878), xvi-iii, nor one leaf of a large notated and illuminated leaf of an antiphonal of English manufacture of the later 15th century, part of the Easter offices, which is stuck in at the end of the book.
Margaret Rickert's chapter in J. M. Manly and Edith Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), I, 561-583, is the only systematic survey of border illumination in fifteenth-century England, but its range is restricted by the Chaucerian preoccupation. The occurrence of David and Chad in the original hand of the kalendar puts it after 1415, and Bradshaw notes an anthem ascribed to Master Richard de Caister, 1413 (d. 1420), for whom see The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. S. B. Meech & H. E. Allen, 1, E.E.T.S. o. s., 212 (1940), 276, 320.
E. g., Edburga, Penburga, Wulburga [sic], Boniface, Kylian, Alphege, Robert, John of Beverley, John of Bridlington.
See Stebbing Shaw, History & Antiquities of Staffordshire (1807), II, 65-68, for the descent of the estate, the relationship of the church, the people and the book, with the text of the historical narrative. The circumstances are misinterpreted by C. Brown and R. H. Robbins, Index of Middle English Verse (1943), no. 3637; somewhat differently in R. H. Robbins & J. L. Cutler, Supplement to the Index (1965); the verses ed. Robbins, Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (1952), no. 94, pp. 86-87.
Book III, lines 372-378, 533-539, 554-560: unattributed. Mentioned but not identified by Bradshaw and overlooked by later scholars; not in Index of M. E. Verse or Supplement, nor A. S. G. Edwards, "Selections from Lydgate's Fall of Princes: a Checklist," The Library, 5th ser., 26 (1971), 337-342.
In the penultimate line of Truth "lust" is written with a text-hand s, with the foot on the line, not the form with a descender customary in bastard anglicana.
See R. H. Robbins, Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (New York, 1959), no. 1, pp. 3-6, 247, where the Nottingham manuscript is mistakenly noted as "olim Lyell".
E. P. Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual (New York, 1908, repr. 1933), pp. 333-5, 338-9; A. A. Brusendorff, The Chaucer Tradition (Oxford & Copenhagen, 1925), pp. 182-7, 190-3. There is also a description and list of contents in A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian, II, ii (Oxford, 1937), 778-80, no. 3896.
Fairfax contains five or six; Auchinleck twelve; its contemporary Harley 2253 six (cf. N. R. Ker, Facsimile, E. E. T. S. 255, Oxford, 1964, p. xvi); Trinity College, Cambridge, R. 3. 19 and R. 3. 21 each have thirteen or more. See Brusendorff, pp. 178-179, 182.
Facsimile of picture and border in Brusendorff, pl. III, opp. p. 264; color transparency of the whole page with the armorial on Bodleian roll 175C, no. 5, and with the facing first page of text and its border (which is not identical in treatment) on 185B, no. 17. This work is attributed to W. Abell (c.1440-70) by O. Pächt and J. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. III (Oxford, 1973), p. 84, no. 974; Jonathan Alexander, "William Abell 'lymnour' and 15th century English illumination," Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pächt zu seinem 70. Geburtstag [Vienna, 1972], p. 168: "the style of the miniature suggests a date nearer 1460."
See f. 88v at actual size in W. W. Skeat, Twelve Facsimiles of Old English Manuscripts (Oxford, 1892), pl. X.
The simple unlooped secretary w, found regularly here, becomes common in London from the 1430's onwards; Sir Richard Roos, to whom the translation of Alan Chartier's La Belle Dame sans Merci is elsewhere ascribed, was then in his twenties—see Ethel Seaton, Sir Richard Roos (London, 1961), pp. 80-85.
The shield of Stanley quartered with Hooton (?—the bend in the latter should be vert, not azure, according to Papworth), all within a border, with a crest of a tree perhaps for Storeton, cannot be Thomas Lord Stanley's (1405-59), pace Brusendorff, Seaton, Pächt and Alexander, but more likely of William Stanley esquire, son of Sir William and Margery heiress of Sir William de Hooton; the father died about 1428 and the son in 1466; G. Ormerod, History of the County Palatine & City of Chester, 2nd ed. rev. & enl. T. Halsby (London, 1882), II, 410, 415-6, 448.
Robinson mentions only 13 texts (two copies in Pepys); the others, in addition to Melbourne, are Coventry and Cosin V. I. 9 (two stanzas only; printed by A. I. Doyle, Durham Philobiblon, I (1953), 54-55).
Especially when final, n is often tailed in a fashion which might be read nn or un (e.g., lesson, line 179) except that the identical letter appears in founde, line 38, and agayn, line 68. Final r often has a curl which could be read as e, as in our (several times with the curl; also spelt out oure, line 58). Despite the example just mentioned, it seems uncertain that the curl was more than a mere flourish for the scribe: euer, always with the curled r when spelt out, appears with the er abbreviation as euer not euere (lines 51, 135); while spellings like scriptur (prose) may look odd, er (are), wer (were), and wherfor (wherefore), etc. occur unambiguously without the curl (lines 23, 103, 176, 180). Finally, final d sometimes has a sign suggesting suspension (temptingly in hadd, line 94, but also in Venquysed, line 8, enlumyned, line 73, and a number of others).
The word bokaunce (which apparently makes no sense) seems clearly a misreading of bobaunce (supported by all the other texts).
Other γ MSS. (unclassified by Robinson): Additional 36983, British Museum; Cotton Otho A. XVIII (Thomas transcript), British Museum; Leyden University Library Vossius 9; Nottingham MS.; Pepys 2006, Magdalene College, Cambridge; also the printed editions of de Worde (c. 1515), Pynson (1526), Thynne (1532), Tottel (1557), and Stowe (1561), although these latter vary in their value as "genuine witnesses."
Nottingham shares with Fairfax 31 variants out of a possible 36—as determined by computer (figure from Professor James Peavler, Northern Illinois University, from data supplied; note that the variants are undifferentiated, include "right" readings as well as errors).
Other connections of Nottingham as suggested by the computer (similar undifferentiated variants): Pepys 2006 (30); Fairfax 16, 1st copy (30); Stowe (29); Caxton (28).
Neither Skeat nor the Globe records, for example, the striking substantive variation in lines 1-2 and in the refrain (lines 7, 14); substantive variation also in lines 8 and 12, and lesser variation in other lines. One may note that Fairfax is the only copy with the virgules (not recorded by Skeat, Globe); on the possible metrical significance of these markings in some Chaucer MSS. see Ian Robinson, Chaucer's Prosody (1971), ch. 7.
Cf. John Koch, explaining his choice of basic text: "nur erstere [Cotton] vollständig von Furnivall abgedruckt, daher als Grundlage benutzt" (Geoffrey Chaucers Kleinere Dichtungen, Heidelberg, 1928, p. 25).
The writer has in his possession either photographs or transcriptions of all the copies mentioned.
One might add to these: line 24, dispende Bodley; line 26, mercy and Bodley; line 30, omit but Bodley; lines 39, 48 Hit Fairfax, Bodley (Harley It); line 62, lawhe Harley, lawgh Fairfax, Bodley; line 75 shulde Harley, shul Fairfax, shall Bodley; line 90, wolde Harley, wol Fairfax, wull Bodley.
The Additional copy has been gone over by Urry, the editor of the 1721 edition of Chaucer's Works, who supplies the second-from-last stanza (omitted by Ainsworth); the poem does not appear in Urry's edition—perhaps because Urry died before the work was in final shape.
Furnivall's statement (Chau. Soc., No. 58, p. 407) is probably responsible for all of the subsequent references to this uncertain MS: "Besides the above, there are late paper copies in the Bedford Library MS., and the Phillipps (Cheltenham) 11409." The first part of Furnivall's statement is true (see MLN, 63, 458-459, for Bedford copy), but this is hardly guarantee that the second is. According to Philip Robinson (Dr. Doyle writes), the only record of the Phillipps MSS. which are still in the hands of the Robinson Trust does not contain a 11409 (the record however may be incomplete; "large quantities" remain unexamined); Dr. A. N. L. Munby has no record of the sale of a Phillipps 11409. "Ghost" MSS. are particularly troublesome. If anyone has information about Phillipps 11409 we would be grateful for a communication.
In addition to the similarities mentioned the MS. has at the end the colophon: Empryntede at london in fletestret at the sygne of the sonne by Wynkyn Worde (this has been remarked upon before; cf. Hammond, p. 341). On the lack of contemporary differentiation between 15th-century MSS. and early printed editions see Curt F. Bühler, The Fifteenth Century Book (1960), pp. 16-17.
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