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The Scribe's Tendencies to Error

We may first take up spelling elements that appear to have caused particular problems for the scribe. The problem of nasals (22 errors) should occasion no surprise, since the ambiguity of minim-graphemes and the availability of alternative means of representation (i.e., suspensions) must inevitably have caused confusion. Four of these corrections, however, may show some uncertainty about the distinction between the alveolar and velar nasals (nayknmacrgmacr] nakyn 2350, rynge] ryngne 3214, lenghne] lenghe 3265, reng] regne 4005).[31] Problems with liquids (24 errors, including omission, metathesis, and r/l exchange) were perhaps more closely related to speech patterns, in view of the importance of auditory memory in scribal habits.[32] Among other consonants, although only four corrections involve ch/sch spellings (bewch] bewschers 1047, basche] basschede 2121, ch] schotte 2467,

Iriche] Irische 4123), in the text as a whole the scribe frequently hesitated over such forms (cf. charpe 3600 vs. scharpe 3842, ravichse 3539); it is difficult to know whether the ch spellings were the scribe's or his exemplar's.[33] Other consonantal respellings appear to be related to adjacent vowels: in fact, Thornton seems to have had some difficulty spelling for vowel length, with five corrections of single consonants after short vowels, five corrections of doubled consonants after long vowels, and two corrected omissions of lengthening-vowels (kenly] kenely 1243, knes] kneys 4274).[34]

Turning to vowel problems, we find nine cases of hesitation in the spelling of the ai/ei diphthong, usually resolved in favor of the exemplar against the late ME tendency to level the diphthong in unstressed syllables (Jordan, §247) and perhaps the tendency in parts of Scotland and Yorkshire to level it in stressed syllables (§§132, 233 Rem. 2). The situation with o/u/ou hesitations is a little more complicated. Six corrections simply show the scribe's preference for w-spellings where u might be ambiguous; but six other ou/ow spellings correct initial errors in u or o (four in tonic syllables, two in atonic). The one or two a/au hesitations may also reflect leveling of a diphthong, of which there is some evidence elsewhere in the text, though au forms predominate (see Jordan, §§240, 287).

Most striking among the vowel-changes are the large number involving e and i/y. In the fourteen cases of e/y change in unstressed syllables, the scribe's preference for i/y spellings (in four verb inflections and four noun plurals, among other forms) is predictable for his own northern dialect (Jordan, §135); but in the text as a whole he by no means converted all such unstressed e's, inflectional or otherwise, to y's or i's.[35] Indeed, the twice-repeated correction of hes to hys (384, 3572) rejects a peculiarly northern form (see MED, s.v. "his" pron. [1]) that appears nowhere else in the poem.

Although the e/y changes in stressed syllables also show a consistent preference for i/y spellings, the dialectal evidence is harder to interpret. On the one hand, nine of the rejected forms (e.g., reuer, menystre, etc.) show the Northern lowering and lengthening of i to /e:/ in an open syllable (Jordan, §§36, 226), reversed by the scribe in his corrections; such spellings do occur elsewhere in the text, however. Four of the rejected forms, on the other hand, show e spellings in closed syllables (e.g., fefty, messe-do), corrected

by the scribe to y; if the rejected forms reflect a later ME lowering of i to e in closed syllables south of Humber (Jordan, §§36, 271), they presumably were found in the copy. I have found little evidence of such lowering in other Thornton texts, and in Morte Arthure there remain only scheftez, en (2456, 3627), and possibly one or two others.[36]

Treatment of other dialectal forms seems to be similarly inconsistent. Though the two corrections for the word "eyes" (eghne 2962, eyghen 3985) seem to reflect Thornton's own preference—the -gh- form predominates not only in this but in other Thornton texts[37] —several of the corrections for "high" reinstate the exemplar's form hye (e.g., 620, 1646). A good example of the scribe's dialectal indecisiveness is the corrected form childyren (3208, corrected from an initial childr-), a kind of compromise between the northern childir, -er and the more southerly children (the northern form dominates in this text three to one).

To sum up, although a number of spelling changes show a predictable preference for the spellings of the scribe's own dialect, not all of them do so, by any means. Indeed, the changes he makes are surprisingly limited; there is little evidence in the corrections, for example, of o > a change (in forms either from OE ā or OE a plus a lengthening group), yet both o and a forms are found uncorrected in the text.[38] The largest group of dialectal vowel-changes, in fact, is that involving e > i/y correction, and as we have seen the dialectal direction of these changes is mixed. It seems probable that the large number of e/i/y changes among these corrections reflects the scribe's own uncertainty in view of the phonological changes occurring in this and other dialects at this period; some spelling decisions elsewhere in the text, for example, appear to have been influenced by the raising of long tense e (e.g., bieldez 'dwell' 1242, chiftayne 2732) and the lowering and

diphthongizing of long tense i (e.g., weysse 'wise' 2514, theyn 'thine' 3403; see Jordan, §§277, 279). These and certain other phonological changes must have complicated the scribe's choices considerably. The evidence of other dialectal spelling changes is also inconsistent, however; yet Thornton's basically conservative approach is shown by such corrections as that of thys to thes rather than thir "these" (52), and that of swyche to syche (76), apparently reproducing his copy's own correction (see note 29 above).

One must also take some note of spelling changes that may be attributed to common scribal errors, often described elsewhere: dittography, contamination, transliteration, confusion of similar letter-forms, and particularly suspension-error. Thornton also shared with other scribes, amateur and professional, the tendency towards overleaping of phrases, words, and parts of words, and towards carelessness with familiar literary formulas. But there is little evidence in these self-corrections of deliberate changes in the directions Kane (Piers Plowman, pp. 125-128) pointed out of the more explicit, "correct," intelligible, emphatic, or elegant statement. It is possible, of course, that at least some of Thornton's word-alterations reflect his judgment of appropriateness rather than his review of the copy-text; for example, the substitution of hym for he in line 2227 may be an attempt to clarify a somewhat confusing encounter between the Emperor Lucius and sir Lionel in battle—but even with the substitution it is still not clear who struck whom in this line. On the other hand, the evidence of such corrections as jrrtayne (575), valewnce (2047), chare (1886), and filsnez (881), words which were obviously unfamiliar to the scribe, argues the priority of fidelity over intelligibility in his eyes.

Finally, we may identify certain patterns of error. Certainly in this work, probably in other alliterative texts from Thornton, perhaps in alliterative texts from other hands, one is more likely to find:

• 1. Omitted letters in staves than in unstressed words;
• 2. Omitted words (stressed and unstressed) in the first half-line than in the second;
• 3. Respellings in the first than in the second half-line, and in staves than in unstressed words;
• 4. Wrong staves in the second half-line than in the first, and especially in the D position.

And as a broad generalization, one may say that, at least in Thornton's hands, the weakest part of the alliterative long line—the part most subject to error—is the latter part of the first half-line, the B-stave and the unstressed word or words that precede it.