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Notes
Barry Windeatt, ed., Troilus and Criseyde: A new edition of "The Book of Troilus" (1984). Unless otherwise indicated, textual citations for the Troilus are from this edition.
Root's hypothesis, which is developed throughout his study The Textual Tradition of Chaucer's Troilus (Chaucer Society, First Series 99, 1916; rpt. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1967), is expressed most fully on pp. 180-181.
Since the publication of Root's edition, only one beta text has appeared, that edited by Daniel Cook for Anchor Books (1966; rpt. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1974). The editions of Robinson, Baugh, Donaldson, and Fisher all give gamma texts.
See in Windeatt's edition the section of the Introduction on "The text of the 'Troilus,'" especially pp. 37-43.
Ralph Hanna III, Chapter 10 of Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition, ed. Paul G. Ruggiers (Pilgrim Books, 1984); for Hanna's acceptance of Windeatt's conclusions, see p. 286 n. 8.
McCormick's only published accounts of his view of the text are a report of a paper delivered to the Philological Society, printed in Academy 48 (1895), p. 552, and the short introduction to his edition of the Troilus for the Globe Chaucer, ed. A. W. Pollard et al. (1898), pp. xli-xlii.
Charles A. Owen, Jr., "Troilus and Criseyde: The Question of Chaucer's Revisions," Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 9 (1987), pp. 155-172. Owen's article, which appeared after the main part of this study had been completed, considers five of the six major revisions analyzed in the first half of this study, and comes to similar conclusions regarding Chaucer's responsibility for the revisions. However, Owen is concerned to defend the whole of Root's theory, including his hypothesis regarding the incrementally revised scribal copy culminating in the beta version. As will be argued here, recognizing authorial revision in the manuscripts does not oblige one to accept all aspects of Root's theory.
The Riverside Chaucer, general editor Larry Benson (1987), p. 1161. Stephen Barney, who edited the text of the Troilus for this volume and provided the textual and explanatory notes for the poem, is skeptical about Root's theories but does accept some of the evidence for revision.
The attestation of the alpha text is as follows: 1.1-1.546, PhH2H4W; 1.547-2.65, PhH2H4; 2.66-2.1210, PhH2GgH5; 2.1211-3.398, PhH2; 3.399-4.196, PhH2GgH5; 4.197-4.299, PhGgH5; 4.300-4.430, PhH3GgH5; 4.431-4.686, PhJH3GgH5; 4.687-End, PhJH3Gg (H5 out). Sigils follow those in Windeatt's edition.
Textual Tradition, pp. 155-157. For the common errors of PhH2, see pp. 55-58, 94-98, 142-147, and 211-212. It should be noted that on paleographic evidence the scribe of Ph has been identified with one of the scribal hands of H2; he wrote 1.71-497, 1.568-3.1078, and 3.1639-4.196, which includes the Hymn to Love.
The Filostrato is quoted from the edition by Vittore Branca in Volume II of Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, general editor Vittore Branca (Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964).
For a partial list of common errors in GgH5, see Textual Tradition, pp. 73-75, 98-99, 147, and 212.
See St. John's College, Cambridge, Manuscript L.i.: A Facsimile, Volume 3 of The Facsimile Series of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, general editor Paul G. Ruggiers (Norman, Oklahoma: Pilgrim Books, 1983).
Textual Tradition, p. 219. Owen, "The Question of Chaucer's Revisions," agrees with Root: "the evidence would seem to show that the transition stanza was composed earlier than the soliloquy" (p. 161 n. 4).
Windeatt, p. 43. Root was aware of this discrepancy, but he suggested that the J scribe moved the note to its present position (Textual Tradition, p. 217).
It is possible that the J scribe was himself responsible for restoring the soliloquy, but if the scribal note is in his hand, as generally assumed, its position would seem to rule out the possibility; after copying the passage from another source, he would have been aware that there was no more matter "nat yt made."
The note may even postdate the copying of J; although generally assumed to be in the hand of the J scribe, the note is too short for the matter to be resolved conclusively. See Textual Tradition, p. 217; Richard Beadle and Jeremy Griffiths, in the Introduction to the facsimile of J, p. xxiv, reconfirm the usual view.
See the Middle English Dictionary, s.v. above (n adv. 6(a) and adv. as adj. Owen, "The Question of Chaucer's Revisions," p. 162 n. 5, cites examples of Chaucer's use of "above" in this sense, the most significant of which occurs in a line of the Manciple's Tale, H 217: "But that the gentile, in estaat above." In a generally enthusiastic review of Windeatt's edition, C.
Windeatt, p. 39. Owen objects strongly to Windeatt's characterization of Root's argument, and it is fair to say that Windeatt understates the tentative quality of Root's conclusions.
A much later hand has added the stanza in the margin in J; according to Beadle and Griffiths, this person "worked on the manuscript in or soon after 1602, the year in which Speght's second edition was published" (St. John's College L.i: A Facsimile, p. xxiv).
Hanna, in Editing Chaucer, p. 286 n. 8. Owen objects that "Such an epidemic of eyeskipping at a specific passage, if confirmed, would set some kind of record" ("The Question of Chaucer's Revisions," p. 169 n. 9), but it must be remembered that the manuscripts omitting the stanza fall into genetic groups (six of them in Book 1, according to Root's chart on p. 81 of Textual Tradition), so that only a few instances of eye-skip could result in the omission of a passage from a large number of manuscripts. Furthermore, it is an accepted principle that the easier the scribal error the more likely it is to have occurred independently on more than one occasion.
H4, which has the stanzas in both positions, gives alpha/gamma readings in the first instance and beta readings in the second.
Root notes all instances of omission and transposition in his description of the manuscripts, Textual Tradition, pp. 3-31. There are only three cases of a shift of stanzas to a later position, apart from the one in question here: 2.29-42, 2 stanzas, occur after 2.49 in PhH2; 3.1779-1785, 1 stanza, after 3.1813 in Cx; and 2.953-980, four stanzas, after 2.1008 in H4. This last example is not noted in Windeatt's apparatus.
On the activity of the Troilus scribes, see the section of Windeatt's Introduction on "The Scribal Medium," pp. 25-35.
In an essay on "Mimetic form in the Central Love Scene of Troilus and Criseyde," Modern Philology, 67 (1969), pp. 125-132, Charles A. Owen, Jr., discusses the aesthetics of the shift, which he takes to be Chaucer's; see especially pp. 131-132.
Root based his opinion concerning the ultimacy of beta on examples of this sort. It remains to be considered why gamma, which most scholars other than Root take to represent Chaucer's final intentions, does not share in the suspected revision.
The copy text for alpha is Ph; there are some minor variations in both traditions of the text, none of which affects the question of revision.
A possible exception is the prose Equatorie of the Planets, about which there is still scholarly disagreement; see D. J. Price, ed., The Equatorie of the Planetis, with a Linguistic Analysis by R. M. Wilson (1955).
The latter objection would apply even if the scribes could make use of the French prose translation of Beauvau. It should also be noted in this connection that, as far as we know, it was Thomas Tyrwhitt who in 1775 first observed that the Troilus was based on the Filostrato.
That Chaucer would not have revised his text to more closely approximate the Italian is only an assumption, but an entirely reasonable one supported by the principle of economy. Only Hanna seems to question this premise; in Editing Chaucer, p. 199, he objects that "poets may work this way, but it remains to be demonstrated that Chaucer worked so."
In the new Riverside Chaucer, Stephen Barney adopts a number of Italianate readings from alpha, in preference to the accepted reading of most other editions; see the discussions of 1.85, 3.1482, 3.1617, 4.37, 4.590, 4.596, 4.820, 4.882, and 4.1218 below.
See William McCormick and Robert Root, eds., Specimen Extracts (Chaucer Society, First Series 89, 1914; rpt. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1967), Appendix pp. 63-72.
In the subsequent analysis, unless otherwise noted the comments of Windeatt are
The reading Gret rumour gan is adopted in Barney's edition of the Troilus in the new Riverside Chaucer.
Barney, Windeatt, and Robinson emend to thus, as does Root, although presumably because this is the reading of beta. Fisher retains hym, the reading of his copy text.
Barney emends to preciously. Note the R variant preciently, which must be a corruption of preciously and may therefore reflect contamination in the manuscript tradition. It should also be said that the earliest recorded use of preciously with the sense fastidiously comes nearly five centuries after the Troilus, although Chaucer did use the adjective with this sense.
PhGg's iape is an easy scribal error, due to the similarity of i and r in some hands. Barney again adopts the alpha reading.
See the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. Rehete v2., 1; the present instance is the earliest recorded and the only occurrence in the works of Chaucer, unless one includes Romaunt 6509, whose rehete, "comfort," is etymologically unrelated.
See Windeatt, p. 52 n. 10. Some of the examples cited in this note are so obviously scribal that they have not been treated here, e.g., the corruptions of the name Monesteo at 4.51. Among the more unconvincing instances considered above, Windeatt singles out 1.272, 1.483, and 4.1134.
Hanna, p. 202. Root did not seem to be aware of this inconsistency, though he readily admitted that his hypothesis could not be proven: "One cannot establish certainly the truth of the hypothesis just given; but one can assert with a high degree of probability that, if not precisely the processes assumed, something equivalent to them must have taken place" (Textual Tradition, p. 258), an argument that comes close to being an appeal to ignorance.
See 5.1856-1862, where Chaucer appeals to moral Gower and philosophical Strode for their correction. There is no real evidence that Chaucer circulated the poem before some sort of official "publication," but the practice did exist and may have been a factor in the textual tradition of some medieval poems.
In fact, Root used all three designations, α, β, and γ, to represent both the manuscript groups and the authorial original that he took to be behind each of them; see the List of Abbreviations, Textual Tradition, p. xii: "α: the earliest, unrevised text, and collectively the MSS. which in any given passage present this text. β: the final, revised text, and collectively the MSS. which in any given passage present this text. γ: a lost MS. derived from the archetype before the revision was yet complete, and collectively the MSS. derived from this original . . . ." Root's failure to distinguish between the manuscript groups and their hypothetical archetypes led him into a number of questionable positions, including his willingness to regard as authorial any plausible variation characteristic of a particular group.
With regard to the Legend of Good Women, however, it should be noted that in a recent article George Kane has cast doubt on the authority of the G version; see "The Text of The Legend of Good Women in CUL MS Gg.4.27" in Middle English Studies Presented to Norman Davis in Honour of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Douglas Gray and E. G. Stanley (1983), pp. 39-58.
In a limited sense, the same is true even in the case of texts surviving in holograph manuscripts; here the author acts as scribe, and the manuscript, while authoritative and presumably more carefully executed than mere scribal transcripts, is susceptible to the same sorts of copying errors.
Benson makes this point in his review of Windeatt's edition:
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