University of Virginia Library

The poem consists (in the Trinity manuscript) of 23 rhyme royal stanzas. After its appearance in the editions of Stowe and Speght the poem was reprinted in the later editions of Chaucer by Urry (1721), Bell (1782), Anderson (1795) and Chalmers (1810). For full details see E. P. Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual (1908), pp. 119-136. Miss Hammond notes that Stowe's edition is 'probably from the Cambridge MS' (p. 420), but provides no further discussion or evidence.

Cf. C. Brown and R. H. Robbins, The Index of Middle English Verse (1943), no. 3761.

For discussion of these three manuscripts and their relationships in general terms see E. P. Hammond, "Two British Museum Manuscripts", Anglia, 28 (1908), 1-28, and A. I. Doyle, "An Unrecognized Piece of Piers the Ploughman's Creed and Other Work by its Scribe", Speculum, 34 (1959), 429-436.

See C. L. Kingsford's edition of Stowe's Survey of London (1908), I, xcii-xciii and W. W. Greg, "Chaucer Attributions in MS. R. 3.19 in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge", M. L. R., 8 (1913), 538-539.

Stowe's conception of the editorial function warrants a separate study. For preliminary discussion illustrating his differing approaches to two texts by the same author see W. Ringler, "Lydgate's Serpent of Division, 1559, Edited by John Stow", SB, 14 (1961), 201-203 (where Stowe was content to use an earlier printed edition as copy); and A. S. G. Edwards and J. I. Miller, "John Stowe and Lydgate's St. Edmund", N&Q, 218 (1973), 365-369 (where it seems that Stowe made at least preliminary attempts at collation of a number of manuscripts).

This line in C reads: "What auayleth syr proclamacion"; in AH it reads: "What availeth sir suche demonstracioun".

Cf. the assessment of Speght as editor in G. Pace, "Speght's Chaucer and MS. Gg.4.27", SB, 21 (1968), 230-233.

For permission to publish readings from the Trinity manuscript we are indebted to the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge.