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Notes

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Notes

 
[1]

One should note similarities to McIntosh et al., LP 4218, 3:435-436, from the Kinlet area, which shares with the roll the very infrequent spelling "chal" SHALL (in the roll sh is usually spelled ch). The scribe also routinely writes the (archaic?) spelling -st- for /xt/, e.g. myst MIGHT, in this word a majority form in only three widely dispersed LPs; see McIntosh et al., 4:94-96. Of these, the most provocatively placed is LP 7650, from northwest Worcs. (and cf. the minority myst spellings of LP 7370, from Herefs.).

[2]

Yorkshire forms from the Luke portions of "The Four Evangelists" include: leres 3sg. 1, ane 5 etc., yhederly 11, yhede 11, furth 14 etc., es 15 etc., scho 17 etc., sall 23 etc. (cf. suld 31), gud 25, hegh- 26, answerd 31 (cf. harbard 48), haly 34, gast 34, ony 36, na 40, noght 41, seruand 44, als 45, has 45 and demes 46 2sg.

[3]

In line 4, A hayled might be prior to R hasted (its line 3); in 16, A iboren is marginally more attractive than R pat bene.

[4]

The early citations at MED minne adj. are all northern (although note Piers Plowman C 3.399); however, by the mid-fifteenth century, the phrase had certainly entered the repertoire of more southerly dialects (e.g. Norfolk uses in Capgrave and The Castle of Perseverance). One should note that the original dialect of "Luke" was not identical with that of the R scribe: for example, in line 17, he writes "scho" for the rhyming "s(c)he" (A reads "heo"). For distribution of these features, see McIntosh et al., 1:308, dot map 13 ("sho" as common northern form); ibid., dot map 14 ("she" as fundamentally central and especially southeast Midland, yet sporadic in the north); 1:309, dot map 17 ("heo" as Severn estuary-Worcs. form).

[5]

I can do no better than Smith (39 n2, where Carleton Brown is cited in error for E. K. Chambers) in finding parallels; see lines 19-27 of the famous "Of on þat is so fayr and brit" (Brown-Robbins number 2645).

[6]

Cf. McIntosh et al., 1:466, dot map 645: in the west, this feature occurs no further south than Cheshire and central Staffs. But the root lib(b)- recorded in 68 libbes LIVES, is non-northern (most frequent in Gloucs. and Herefs.).

[7]

This set of rhymes is distinguished from the alternate ones of the stanza, in spite of scribal spelling. For the ms. spellings totore:bore:bifore:swore, the further rhymes corne: morne imply reading totorne:borne:biforne:sworne. Participles with full -en termination appear generally through the northern half of England (McIntosh et al., 1:469, dot map 663 —and note "Luke" 22 in A with found, not founden). bifor- is certainly a Yorkshire form (v. more northerly afor-, more southerly tofor-); see 1:394, dot map 360. But the -n termination has been borrowed from another dialect, perhaps Lincoln or East Anglia; see 1:396, dot map 365.

[8]

For a convincing theory of the transition from rhymed stanzaic forms to long-lines, see Turville-Petre 16-17.

[9]

For example, Brook 61 suggests that Harley 2253's rhymed alliterative complaint, "The Song of the Husbandman" (Brown-Robbins 696, Robbins-Cutler 1320.5) was composed in the southeast, not traditionally considered "an alliterative area."