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The Auchinleck Manuscript and a Possible London Bookshop of 1330-1340

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

Laura Hibbard Loomis
Laura Hibbard Loomis*
Affiliation:
Wellesley College
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Extract

From 1477 when Caxton, in his little Westminster shop, published the first book printed in England, the history of English book production is richly documented. Even before the invention of printing, the story of monastic books, in England and elsewhere, can be fairly well traced. A good deal is now known about the output of medieval university books. But there is a notable gap, even in our theorizing, about the early production of vernacular works in England, especially about the very large amount of secular verse that was composed before 1350 by anonymous authors. We know practically nothing about either the authors or the transcribers of those works, or about the circumstances under which manuscripts of contemporary date were compiled.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , September 1942 , pp. 595 - 627
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1942

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References

Notes

1 For a compact, expert survey of the subject see A History of the Printed Book, ed. by L. C. Worth, The Dolphin, m (The Limited Editions Club, New York, 1938); in this work special sections are devoted to English book production in the different centuries. See also Marjorie Plant, The English Book Trade, An Economic History of the Making and Sale of Books (London, 1939). Cf. F. A. Mumby, Publishing and Bookselling, A History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (New York, 1931). For Caxton see, in particular, E. G. Duff, The Printers, Stationers and Book Binders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1555 (Cambridge, 1906), pp. 1-23.

2 For the most recent and comprehensive study of books produced or preserved in medieval monasteries see J. W. Thompson, The Medieval Library (Chicago, 1939) passim. Parts i-iii are devoted to Libraries from the Early Middle Ages to the Italian Renaissance; Part iv to the Making and Care of Books in the Middle Ages.

3 For University books see the notable work of Jean Destrez, La ‘Pecia’ dans les Manuscrits Universitaires du XIII et du XIV Siècle (Paris, 1935) and the review by G. G. Coulton, The Library, 4th Ser., xvi (1936), pp. 456-461.

4 Cf. J. E. Wells, A Manual of Writings in Middle English (New Haven, 1916-), p. 5, for a list of romances, passim for other texts produced before 1350.

5 Minstrels are mentioned most frequently in connection with romances. Cf. Wells, ibid., p. 1: “Most of the surviving pieces seem to have been composed by humble members of society; and some were made by minstrels or gleemen.“ Cambridge History of English Literature (Cambridge, 1908), i, 282: ”Romance writers worked for common minstrels and were not particular about their style.“ W. P. Ker, English Literature, Medieval (London, n. d.), pp. 130-133, speaks several times of minstrels' work. Cf., passim, Ruth Crosby, ”Oral Delivery in the Middle Ages,“ Speculum, xi (1936), 88-110. In a later article, Speculum, xiii, 430, she remarks: ”Popular poetry in the Middle Ages was written to be ‘published’ by the minstrels.“

Of special interest as contemporary confirmation of the fact that sometimes texts were composed for the use of minstrels, is Robert Mannyng's statement that his own Chronicle of England (ca. 1338) was not so made (Anglia, ix [1886], p. 44):

I mad noght for no disours,

Ne for no seggers, no harpours,

Bot for the luf of symple menne.

6 Does even the ascription of Harley 2253 rest on assured evidence? In 1841 Thomas Wright, Early English Poetry (Percy Society iv, vii) noted that certain local allusions and three local saint legends in this manuscript seemed to indicate an origin in Herefordshire. Because of one of these legends, Legenda de Sancto Etfrido presbitero de Leonministria, f. 132, he felt “inclined to conclude that the Harleian MS . . . was written by some secular clerk connected with the priory of Leominster. Perhaps he was himself a poet, and was the author of the song containing the allusion to the river Wye.” This speculative remark has gradually turned into positive assertion. Cf. Wells, op. cit., p. 488: “Harley 2253 . . . copied by a scribe of Leominster Abbey, Hertfordshire (sic).” The confusion in place as well as in the concept of author and scribe should be noted. Carleton Brown, English Lyrics of the Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1932), p. xxxv, thought Wright's suggestion very reasonable, but offered no further evidence on this point.

7 For the well known ateliers of Honoré, ca. 1292, of Jean Pucelle, ca. 1327, and others, see Henry Martin, La Miniature Française (Paris, 1923), pp 21 ff; 92. In 1323, in his Tractatus de Laudibus Parisius, Jean de Jandun spoke warmly of the eager scribes, illuminators, and binders who were then at work in Paris. Cf. Le Roux de Lincy, Paris et ses historiens (Paris, 1867), pp. 54 ff. For the lay production of many Arthurian manuscripts, French, Italian, German, English, see R. S. and L. H. Loomis, Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art (New York, London, 1938), pp. 89-139. For English lay ateliers, see below, notes 8-11.

8 Cf., passim, Eric Millar, English Illuminations in the XIVth and XVth Centuries (London, 1928, especially pp. ix, 11-27; Elfrida Saunders, English Illumination (Florence and Paris, 1928); F. Harrison, English Manuscripts of the XIVth Century (London and New York, 1937), etc. S. C. Cockerell and M. R. James, Two East Anglian Psalters (Oxford, 1926), pp. 31 ff., believed the Ormesby, the Gorleston, and Douai Psalters were probably decorated by secular artists “working for wealthy patrons outside the walls of a monastery, and filling up their time by preparing books which had no certain destination.” Noting that the Ormesby Psalter must have remained in quires for a quarter of a century, James remarked: “It is more than likely that books of this kind were sometimes set on foot as a commercial speculation.” Cf. D. D. Egbert, The Psalter of Queen Isabella (N. Y. Public Library, 1935) and the Art Bulletin, xviii (1936), pp. 527 ff., for an important group of early fourteenth century manuscripts which he assigns to a lay atelier of central England.

9 All known Chaucer manuscripts are of the fifteenth century or later. Of the eighty-two known manuscripts, only twenty-eight have any form of decoration, and the majority of these “are of mediocre quality.” Cf. Margaret Rickert's section on “Illumination” in J. M. Manly and Edith Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (Chicago, 1940), i, 561-603. The Ellesmere MS, the most splendidly executed Chaucerian manuscript, “may well have been made in London” (ibid., i, 151).

10 An outstanding example of the poor illustration given before 1400 to even the most distinguished English poetry is to be found in Cotton Nero A X, which contains the Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Cf. the facsimile reproduction, EETS, 163 (1932). On the wretched miniatures for SGGK see Loomis, op. cit., p. 138, figs. 389-391.

11 Vandals have cut out all but seven of the miniatures which once headed most of the poems in the Auchinleck MS. For reproductions see R. S. Loomis, PMLA, xxx (1915), 521, Fig. 7 (Richard Cœur de Lion); Frontispiece, Maitland Club edition of Beves of Hamtoun.

For comment on Queen Mary's Psalter (Royal 2B vii) and other notable English manuscripts now ascribed to lay ateliers see above, note 8, and especially, Millar, op. cit., pp. ix, 11-27.

It is unfortunate that the artistic inferiority of the Auchinleck MS has not been frankly admitted. Had Miss Morrill, Speculum Gy de Warewyke, EETSES, lxx (1898), pp. clxxxviii, cxci, known of the better types of illumination, she could not possibly have written of “the finely wrought illuminations” or “the exquisite workmanship” of the Auchinleck MS. Mr. Bennett's recent reference, “The Author and his Public in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” Essays and Studies By Members Of The Eng. Assoc., xxiii (1938), p. 17, to “the magnificent Auchinleck MS” must be taken as showing historical enthusiasm for its venerable contents, not its artistry. I regret not having seen this valuable article until the present one was complete. I agree with most of its conclusions, but believe that many of them would apply to the first half of the fourteenth century.

12 R. K. Root, “Publication before Printing,” PMLA, xxviii (1915), pp. 417 ff.

13 H. E. Bell, “The Price of Books in Medieval England,” The Library, xvii (1937), pp. 312-352; W. L. Schramm, “The Cost of Books in Chaucer's Time,” MLN, xlviii (1933), pp. 139-145; Thompson, op. cit., ch. xx, “Paper, The Book Trade, and Book Prices.”

14 Cf. C. C. Olson, “The Minstrels at the Court of Edward III,” PMLA, lvi (1941), 601-612.

15 The five handwritings were distinguished by Kölbing in his description, still the best in print, of the whole manuscript (Englische Studien, vii [1884] pp. 177-191. He designated these scribes by the Greek letters, α, β, γ, δ, ε). For photographic reproductions of the writing of a, by all odds the most important scribe, see the frontispieces of the Seven Sages of Rome and Amis and Amiloun in the EETS, vols. 191 (1933) and 203 (1937). For a reproduction of the writing of δ, see the Maitland Club edition of Beves of Hamtoun, xliv (1838), frontispiece.

The five scribes, with practical uniformity, followed one plan throughout the book. Each page was ruled, the initial letter of each line was separated by one em from the following letters, and each of the two columns of text on every page was designed, unless space had to be left for a miniature, to have forty-four lines.

16 Published conjectures about the origin and purpose of the book have been few and somewhat contradictory. In his English Literature . . . to Chaucer (New York, 1906), p. 14, W. H. Schofield wrote: “Sometimes, it seems, a single codex formed the whole library of a family, and was carefully cherished, slowly added to, and solemnly bequeathed from one generation to another. The so-called Auchinleck MS . . . serves admirably to illustrate what such a volume might have been.” After some remarks on the Thornton MS, he continued (p. 16): “These two manuscripts seem to have been carefully prepared volumes of selected poetry for the use of readers, and not simply the written repertoires of professional reciters.” For a recent comment see W. L. Renwick and H. Orton, The Beginnings of English Literature to Skelton (London, 1939), p. 83: “The owner of the Auchinleck MS had a wide taste both in French and English. He collected . . . a little library of mixed reading, testimony to the mixed interests of a moderately serious general reader.”

Early statements concerning the production of the manuscript in either “an Anglo-Norman convent” or in some “North of England monastery” were wholly conjectural. Cf. Sir Walter Scott, Sir Tristrem (Edinburgh, 1803), App., p. 107; W. B. Turnbull, Legendae Catholicae (Edinburgh, 1840), p. vi.

17 Cf. A. C. Baugh, History of the English Language (New York, 1935), pp. 148-151, 165-183. He quotes, p. 176, three of the numerous apologies from early fourteenth century writers for their use of English. See also note 43 below.

18 Miss Hope Allen, to whom I am indebted for several most helpful suggestions and references in connection with this paper, remarks that a copy of the Ancren Riwle was given by the Countess of Clare (ca. 1280) to an aristocratic nunnery. But wills and inventories before 1370 make almost no mention of secular books in English. See below, note 24. In her examination of over 7000 wills, Miss Deansley, “Vernacular Books in England in the XIVth and XVth Centuries,” MLR, xv (1920), 349-358, noted, among the 338 wills that bequeathed books, no secular English books before a Pers Plowman of 1396. She remarked, p. 349 ff., on the rarity of vernacular works as opposed to Latin, and on the long preponderance, among vernacular books, of works of piety over secular books, such as romances or chronicles. Cf. also R. W. Wilson, “More Lost Literature in Old and Middle English,” Leeds Studies in English, v-vi (1936-37). In monastic catalogues he found few English books and those wholly of a religious or didactic nature (v, 1-35); in private libraries the earliest instance noted by him (vi, 38) of a worldly work in English was in 1388, “j livre de Englys del Forster et del Sangler,” among the books of Sir Simon de Burley (cf. also L. Hibbard, MLN, xxx (1915), 171.

19 “Chaucer and the Auchinleck MS: Thopas and Guy of Warwick,” Essays and Studies in Honor of Carleton Brown (New York, 1940), pp. 111-128; “Chaucer and the Breton Lays of the Auchinleck MS,” SP, xxxviii, (1941), pp. 14-33. Cf. also for the manuscript and its history, W. H. Hulme, Harrowing of Hell, EETSES, 100 (1907), xi-xiv.

20 The most important scribe, since he copied thirty-five texts, was α. His London origin was indicated by Karl Brunner, The Seven Sages of Rome, EETS, 191 (1933), pp. xxv ff.; also by Bertram Vogel, “The Dialect of Sir Tristrem,” JEGP, xl (1941), 538-544, who believes that not only the scribe, but also the composer of this poem, were Londoners. For the Auchinleck texts copied by α, see Kölbing, passim, or Muriel Carr, “Notes on a Medieval Scribe,” University of Wisconsin, Studies in Language and Literature, ii (1918), p. 153, n. 2. Her complaint, p. 157, n. 10, that no one in editing these texts, referred to other texts copied by α for indications of his dialect or scribal habits, has, until very recently, remained true. The London origin of the γ scribe, who copied the couplet version of Guy of Warwick and the Chronicle, was indicated by Ewald Zettl, An Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle, EETS, 196 (1935), pp. cxxi ff.

21 Cf. Zettl, ibid., p. xvi; J. M. Booker, A Middle English Bibliography (Heidelberg, 1912), p. 54.

22 T. F. Tout, “The Beginnings of a Modern Capital, London and Westminster in the Fourteenth Century,” British Academy Lectures, 1923, pp. 488 ff. His earlier article, “The English Civil Service in the Fourteenth Century,” Bull. of the John Rylands Library (Manchester, 1916), pp. 12 ff., shows how large was the class of educated civil servants, all of whom, it may be noted, were at least possible readers of such a book as the Auchinleck MS. Such a civil servant as Chaucer may well have been one of its later buyers.

23 Manly and Rickert, op. cit., i, 24, 60, 72, 119, 203, 225, 423, etc. In regard to medieval bookshop production, cf. Thompson, op. cit., 371: “As the burgher class became increasingly literate and intellectual, more and more the making of books escaped from the cloister and found lodgment in book shops, long before the invention of printing.” For this statement, however, no English evidence before 1403 was given, except for the miniature referred to below in note 25.

24 Among the collections once privately owned and bequeathed as total, individual collections, we may note the following; 1303, Bishop Richard de Gravesend of London bequeathed to St. Paul's about 100 volumes valued at over £100; 1313, Bishop Ralph Baldock of London left to St. Paul's 15 books; 1331, Prior Henry Estry left 80 books to Christ Church, Canterbury; ca. 1345, Abbot Michael de Mentmore left to St. Alban's books valued at £100; before 1345 Bishop Richard Aungerville of Durham planned to leave his “innumerable” books to Durham College, Oxford; 1346, the Master, William Styband, gave 10 books to Pembroke College, Cambridge; 1350, the Founder, William Bateman, gave 70 books to Trinity Hall, Cambridge; 1358, William de Ravenstone, chaplain and schoolmaster, left 84 books to St. Paul's School; 1359, Guy de Beauchamp, son of the Earl of Warwick, left 42 books, including 19 French romances, to Bordesley Abbey, Worcestershire; 1358, Queen Isabella possessed 9 books of French romance in addition to the splendid Psalter mentioned above in note 8. In view of these dates and figures, I question the usual assumptions as to the general “booklessness” of fourteenth century England, even in the pre-Chaucerian period. On this supposed “booklessness” see Miss Deansley, op. cit., p. 349; Samuel Moore (see below, note 30). Many of the private libraries listed above are mentioned by Thompson, op. cit., pp. 373-413.

25 Thompson, ibid., p. 643, remarked: “What I believe to be the only known illustration of the interior of a medieval bookshop before the invention of printing is on folio 91 verso, of Tiberius A. VIII, Cottonian Collection, British Museum, of the fourteenth century manuscript The Pilgrim.” This miniature was reproduced by D. Hartley and M. Elliott. Life and Work of the People of England (London, 1931), vol. i (The Middle Ages), Pl. 31.

26 Paul Delalain, Étude sur le libraire parisien du XIIIe au XVe siècle (Paris, 1891), pp. 58 ff.

27 Henry Martin, La miniature française, p. 13.

28 Thompson, op. cit., p. 645: “The English book trade developed not around the Universities, as on the Continent, but in London, where the stationers formed a guild as early as 1403.” Putnam, op. cit., i, p. 311: “In London there is record of an active trade in manuscripts being in existence as early as the middle of the fourteenth century.” Mumby, op. cit., p. 40: “In London the scriveners, or writers of court hand and Text Letters . . . forerunners of the Stationers Company, have been traced in civic records to 1357, but they must have been in existence as recognized copiers and sellers of books long before then.”

Cf. A. C. Piper, “The Parchment-Making Industry in Winchester and Hampshire,” The Library, 3rd Ser. x (1919), 65-68; and “The Book Trade in Winchester, The Library, 3rd Ser., vii (1916), 191-197; H. Plomer, ”The Importation of Books into England in the XVth and XVIth Centuries, The Library, 4th Ser., iv (1924), 146-180; ix (1928), 164-168. Though concerned with the period after 1400, Plomer's articles indicate methods of book importation that may well have been in operation before that date.

29 Graham Pollard, “The Company of Stationers before 1557,” The Library, 4th Ser., xviii (1938), pp. 1-38. See also George Gray, The Earlier Cambridge Stationers and Bookbinders (Oxford Bibliographical Soc., 1904). For Oxford bookmen see E. Savage, Old English Libraries (London, 1912), pp. 199-205; H. Plomer, “Some Early Booksellers,” The Library, 3rd Ser., iii (1912), 412-418.

30 The individual crafts of the stationers named above show that most of them were actively connected with the production as well as the sale of books. In “Some Aspects of Literary Patronage in the Middle Ages,” The Library, 3rd Series, iv (1913), 373, Samuel Moore states that “the book-trade in medieval England appears to have been a mere scrivener's trade,” and that “the stationers correspond, not to the booksellers and publishers, but to the printers of our day.” These ideas, in the light of later knowledge, seem as questionable as does his belief (p. 369) in the booklessness of the fourteenth century.

31 This fragment is þe wenche þat loved a King (Kölbing, No. 27). Five items, as the original numbering shows, have been lost from the beginning of the book. For convenience of reference, I have followed the classifications and titles given by Wells in his Manual of Writings. When his titles differ from those given by Kölbing, I have added the latter's in parenthesis together with his numbering of the successive items.

32 See below, notes 44-50.

33 Short Metrical Chronicle (Kölbing, No. 40, Liber Regum Angliae). The list of barons is, of course, not listed by Wells.

34 How the Psalter of Our Lady was Made (Kölbing, No. 29, How Our Leuedi Saute was ferst founde); Clerk Who Would See The Virgin (Kölbing, No. 9, Miracle of the Virgin).

35 Saint legends: Gregory, Margaret, Katherine, Mary Magdalene, Anna. Other holy legends: Adam and Eve, Harrowing of Hell, Assumption of the Virgin.

36 Owayn Miles or The Purgatory of Saint Patrick.

37 Penniworþ of Witte.

38 Debate between the Body and the Soul; The Thrush and the Nightingale.

39 Speculum Gy de Warewyke (Kölbing, No. 10, Epistola Alcuini).

40 Sayings of Saint Bernard (Kölbing, No. 35, Les Diz de Seint Bernard); Enemies of Man (Kölbing, No. 39, A Moral Poem).

41 Seven Sins; Pater Noster; Psalm 50 (English Bible, 51, Kölbing, No. 36, Dauid þe King).

42 Evil Times of Edward II (Kölbing, No. 44, þe Simonie); Praise of Women (the classification of this poem as a satire is doubtful); On the King's Breaking of Magna Carta (Kölbing, No. 20, A Satirical Poem).

43 Cursor Mundi, ed. R. Morris, EETS 57 (1874), pp. 9-10. Notable, also, because of the early reference to even aristocratic interest in English tales, are the lines in the Auchinleck Arthour and Merlin (ed. Kölbing, Leipzig, 1890):

Mani noble ich haue yseiɜe 25

þat no Freynsch couþe seye:

Biginne ichil for her loue,

On Inglische tel mi tale.

Of great interest also are the lines in William of Palerne, ed. W. W. Skeat, EETS, ES i (1867), xi ff., which tell how one William, at the command of Humphrey de Bohun (6th) Earl of Hereford, turned the story from French into English (alliterative) verse. This version was made about 1350 and is about the only English romance which can be definitely identified as a version made on order from a noble family. The Earls of Hereford were genuine patrons of books. On the beautiful illuminated manuscripts made for their families, see M. R. James, The Bohun Manuscripts (Oxford, 1936).

44 Otuel; Roland and Vernagu.

45 Degaré; Orfeo; Lai le Freine; Sir Tristrem; Arthour and Merlin.

46 Guy of Warwick in two independent stories (one in couplets, one in stanzas); Reinbroun; Beves of Hamtoun; Horn Childe; Richard Cœur de Lion (Kölbing, No. 43, King Richard).

47 Alisaunder; Seven Sages; Floris and Blauncheflur; King of Tars.

48 Amis and Amiloun.

49 The various studies of Lillian Hornstein show that this romance involved the Tartar victory of 1299 at Damascus. The story could not have been known in England before 1300. Cf. Speculum, xvi (1941), 404-414; MLN, 55 (1940), 355; MLR, xxxvi (1941), 442.

50 A. M. Trounce, “The English Tail-Rhyme Romances,” Medium Ævum, v (1932), 94. The six romances are: The King of Tars; Amis and Amiloun; the stanzaic Guy of Warwick; Reinbroun; Roland and Vernagu; Horn Childe.

51 Wells, op. cit., p. 1. The italics are mine.

52 Cf. “Sir Thopas,” Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Chicago, 1941), pp. 486-559. For collections of conventional phrases, etc., in the romances, see ibid., p. 491, n. 5. As Trounce, p. 90, pointed out, Chaucer was not parodying late “decadent romance,” but just such examples as are found in the Auchinleck MS. As a matter of fact three of the seven poems derisively named by the poet, are found there, Beves of Hamtoun, Guy of Warwick, Horne Childe. On Chaucer's probable use of this very manuscript, see the articles referred to above, note 19.

53 So far as I know, Clark Slover, “Sir Degare, A Study of a Medieval Hack Writer's Methods,” University of Texas Bulletin, Studies in English, xi (1931), 5-23, was the first boldly to use this term with reference to one of these English romancers. One may agree with G. P. Faust, Sir Degare (Princeton, 1935), and with Miss Carr in her review of Faust's study, MLN, liii (1938), p. 154, that the author was less stupid than Slover made out, without in the least escaping from the fact that this English “author” was after all just what Slover termed him.

54 For the stanzaic version (299 twelve-line, tail-rime stanzas) Guy, A 2, see J. Zupitza, EETS, ES, 48 (1887) and 59 (1891), pp. 384-674, continuous pagination. For the couplet version, Guy, A 1, see Zupitza, EETS, ES, 42 and 49. In this last volume the couplet version ends on p. 384, line 7306. In the Auchinleck MS it fills fol. 107v-146v. By other writers these two versions have sometimes been termed a and A respectively.

To those who might believe that the change of verse form indicates a change of source, I would recall Kölbing's remarks, Beves of Hamtoun, EETS, ES, 46, 11885), xi, on the shifts in metre and rime in four Auchinleck romances, Beves, Guy, Roland and Vernagu, and Richard Cœur de Lion. In the last, the shift occurs after the first two 12-line, tail-rime stanzas. “The reason for these changes is altogether unknown. . . . There is nothing to correspond to these changes in the original French versions.”

55 Twelve French manuscripts, three of them fragments, are listed by A. Ewert, Gui de Warewic (Paris, 1933), pp. ix ff. In this edition, line 7409 corresponds to the beginning of the English stanzaic version. Eleven English manuscripts, four of them fragments, are listed by Max Weyrauch, Die mittelenglischen Fassungen der Sage von Guy of Warwick u. ihre altfranzösische Vorlage (Breslau, 1901). For the stanzaic Guy, A 2, see Weyrauch, pp. 11-12, 55-59, 91; also the important study by Wilhelm Möller, Untersuchungen über Dialekt u. Stil des me. Guy of Warwick in der Auch. Handschrift u. über das Verhältnis des strophischen Teiles des Guy zu der me. Romanze Amis and Amiloun (Königsberg i. Pr., 1917), pp. 4 ff.

56 Cf. Ewert, op. cit., pp. 69-80, 150-188, for the French version. Two English couplet versions appear in the two fifteenth century manuscripts of Cambridge University, Caius 107 and Univ. Libr., Ff. 2, 38. The Reinbroun-Heraud material appears in Caius 107 (ed. Zupitza, EETS, ES, 42, 48, 59, lines 8666-9029), a text which ends with the death of Guy at line 11095; and in Ff. 2, 38 (ed. Zupitza, EETS, ES, 25-26 [1875-76]), the same material fills lines 8409-8744 and lines 10786-11976. In Copland's edition of the old romance (ed. G. Schleich, Palaestra, 139 (1923)), it fills lines 6643-6747 and 7492-7976. Other texts of the English romance are too late or too fragmentary to offer significant evidence on this point.

In the Auchinleck MS the Reinbroun material fills fol. 167-175, and was copied by δ, Kölbing's fourth scribe. In the manuscript, as in Zupitza's edition (EETS, ES, 59, pp. 631-674), this romance follows the stanzaic version. Both Weyrauch, op. cit., p. 55, and Möller, op. cit., p. 37, commented on the unique unification in this one manuscript of the Reinbroun material into one romance, but they made no attempt to interpret the significance of the fact.

57 This manuscript, the oldest text of Gui de Warewic, was not known to scholars before J. A. Herbert wrote about it in Romania, xxxv (1906), pp. 68. It was not acquired by the British Museum until 1913, and figures in none of the earlier discussions of the relations of French and English manuscripts. For comment on the French manuscript itself see, in addition to Ewert's edition, Ewert, Arthuriana ii (1931); Schulz, Zts. f. frz. Sprache u. Lit., xl (1923), 291 ff.

58 “Tous ces manuscrits (i.e., of the French Gui de Warewic) présentent des lacunes et des fautes qui montrent qu'ils ne peuvent provenir l'un de l'autre.” (Ewert, Gui de Warewic, p. xv). On the four different versions represented by the English manuscripts see Möller, pp. 2 ff., or Zupitza, EETS, ES, 25, pp. v-vii.

59 Englische Studien, ix (1886), 477 ff.

60 Möller, op. cit., pp. 47-105. See above, note 55, for complete title.

61 Möller, p. 47. He accepted the conclusion of earlier studies as to the north-east Midland origin of Amis and Amiloun. In his opinion, p. 34, the stanzaic Guy came from the southeast Midland.

62 Ibid., p. 87.

63 Ewert, op. cit., i, viii.

64 Sloane MS 1044, ed. Zupitza, Sitzungsberichte der Kais. Wiener Akad. der Wissenschaft, Ph.-Hist. Klasse, lxxiv (1873), pp. 624 ff. This late fourteenth century fragment of 216 lines devotes 24 lines (174-198) to the wedding; Caius 107 gives eight lines, 7381 ff.; Ff. 2, 38, gives sixteen lines (7091 ff.). Cf. Zupitza's editions as cited above in note 54. Copland's edition (Palaestra, cxxxix) gives eight lines (6061 ff.) to the wedding.

65 Amis e Amilun, ed. by E. Kölbing in Amis and Amiloun (Heilbronn, 1884), pp. 111-187. All quotations from the French Amis are from this edition.

66 Amis and Amiloun, ed. by MacEdward Leach, EETS 203 (1937). Leach, pp. xciv-xcvii, found that MSS SD, both derived from a common ancestor, preserve a common reading in 179 instances; MSS AH in 140 instances. These last two manuscripts seem to have been independently derived from Z, the lost original of all four English texts. Leach's conclusions were essentially in accord with those of Kölbing in his edition of the poem, p. xii.

67 Leach reproduces MS S to line 98, and MS A from there on. Despite their fragmentary condition, lines 62-72 are here given from the A text with lost words supplied in parenthesis from S. With the exception of line 101, all the rest is the same as in Leach's edition. To his variants I have added, for the sake of emphatic comparison, brief references to Guy, A 2. In order to indicate the relationship of stanzas in the two romances, I have supplied stanza numbers for Amis.

68 Of particular interest for this toun: processioun couplet is Zielke's list in his edition of Orfeo (Breslau, 1890, p. 16) of similar instances in seven romances. But only the stanzaic Guy and Amis alike combine in one stanza this familiar couplet with three other lines of similar context and the same rime words, tide, side, pride, abide. We could hardly ask a more convincing illustration of textual borrowing, or one that more clearly emphasizes the difference between specific borrowing and the mere recurrence of a conventional couplet.

69 In Möller's complete list of parallels, seventy-two lines are either wholly identical or differ at most in one or two words.

70 The seventeen stanzas may be grouped as follows:

A. Stanzas having the same three rimes:

tour, anour, bour—Guy, A 2, st. 15; Amis, ll. 63 ff.

kiþe, bliþe, liþe—Guy, A 2, st. 17; Amis, ll. 99 ff.

honour, tour, flour—Guy, A 2, st. 19; Amis, ll. 463 ff.

pride, ride, hide—Guy, A 2, st. 20; Amis, ll. 495. Same order.

corn, biforn, born—Guy, A 2, st. 164; Amis, ll. 1431 ff. Same order.

born, -lorn, biforn—Guy, A 2, st. 22; Amis, ll. 2137 ff.

man-kinne, blinne, winne—Guy, A 2, st. 6; Amis, ll. 2250 ff.

B. Stanzas having the same four rimes:

oɜam, sain, fayn, tvain—Guy, A 2, st. 9; Amis, ll. 121 ff. Same order.

wiɜt, fourtenniɜt, kniɜt, briɜt—Guy, A 2, st. 16; Amis, ll. 433 ff.

fong, hong, wrong, strong—Guy, A 2, st. 111; Amis, ll. 879 ff.

alon, -gon, anon, mon—Guy, A 2, st. 23; Amis, ll. 1753 ff.

day, way, jurne, se—Guy, A 2, st. 32; Amis, ll. 962 ff.

mode, wode, ablode, stode—Guy, A 2, st. 97; Amis, ll. 1311 ff.

C. Stanzas having the same combinations of different rimes:

fare, ɜare, care, sare, mode—Guy, A 2, st. 34; Amis, ll. 253 ff.

stille, ille, wille, spille, don—Guy, A 2, st. 27; Amis, ll. 637 ff. Same order.

tide, toun, processioun, side—Guy, A 2, st. 270; Amis, ll. 1372 ff. Same order.

dring, wiþ-outen lesing, ful mende—Guy, A 2, st. 281; Amis, ll. 2191 ff. Same order.

71 Of the thirty-eight lines here quoted from Amis, A, only two lines are omitted in any other manuscript. S omits line 417; SD omit the whole stanza in which line 1515 appears.

72 Cf. Leach, p. xcvi: “A omits a stanza at line 2113 which is present in γ” (i.e., the source of H and SD).

73 The rimes in the lines quoted from Amis, A, are kept intact in all the manuscripts except in two cases of obvious scribal error: 64, AHD have sonde, S has wrongly honde; 105, AHS have kiþe, D has wrongly kepe. Against the other three manuscripts Amis, A, agrees with Guy, A 2, in the following instances: 97, þat A, þe SDH; 103, mirþe & melody A, gamen and blee S, game & HD; 104, menstracie A, mynstralcy SDH; 107, her A, om. SDH; 108, þonked A, þankyd SDH; 415, Miche A, Mony S, Moche DH; 409, So A, om. SH, And D.

74 In a few very minor instances in our thirty-eight lines other manuscripts of Amis agree, though in always different groupings, even more closely with Guy, A 2, than does Amis, A. Cf. Amis, 98, wiþ barouns A, wiþ om. DH, Guy, st. 16(4), wiþ om,; Amis, 416, Erls A, Of erls SH, Guy, st. 15(8), Of erls; Amis, 1374, For noþing þai nold abide A, No lenger wil (wold D) he abyde SD, Guy, st. 270 (11) No lenger he nold abide.

75 Cf. Zettl's edition of the Chronicle (see note 20, above), pp. xcv-xcvii. The highly independent author of the Auchinleck version added all told, according to Zettl, p. cxxxii, about 1500 lines to the original text of the Chronicle. One of these additions, concerned with a local London legend, is of particular interest. See below, note 92.

It has seemed inadvisable, within the necessary limits of one article, to attempt further illustration of the inter-relations of the Auchinleck texts. It is a subject that invites cooperative study.

76 See above, note 20.

77 R. W. Chambers and J. H. Grattan, “The Text of Piers Plowman,” MLR, xxvi (1931), 15, make the following illuminating remarks: “There were institutions where consistent accuracy in transcription was demanded. . . . But there were also, quite clearly, transcribers of English manuscripts in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries who relieved the monotony of their work by constantly allowing themselves to make small substitutions of words and phrases, without altering the meaning. . . . Scribes were addicted to the substitution of similars.”

78 For a good illustration of what a contemporary scribe could do in the way of twice copying the same passage from the same source (Manuel des Pechiez), see C. Laird, “A Fourteenth Century Scribe,” MLN, lv (1940), 601.

In his study of “Thomas Hoccleve, Scribe,” H. C. Schulz, Speculum, xii (1937), 71-91, shows that, as scribe, Hoccleve wrote both court and book hands, and that, in copying his own work some twenty years after its composition, he exposed his text “not only to the common errors of a copyist, but also to the legitimate substitution of words, and to other errors incidental to the suspension of scribal discipline.” This specific instance of what happened when author and scribe were identical has pertinence for the study of the Auchinleck text of Amis, at least for those who continue to accept the identification of its author and scribe. Of interest, too, are Dr. Schulz's brief comments (p. 72) on monastic and commercial scriptoria.

79 Cf. the references to English in the Chaucer Concordance.

80 A. Brandl, Mittelengl. Lit., 1100-1500, in Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie (Strassburg, 1893), ii, Abt. i, p. 636, suggested a south-west Midland origin for the couplet version of Guy, possibly South-Warwickshire. Möller, op. cit., pp. 10-21, believed the author came from south-eastern England in the neighborhood of Kent.

81 Oscar Wilda, Über die ortliche Verbreitung der zwölfzeiligen Schweifreimstrophe in England (Breslau, 1887), 46-55, suggested Essex for the home of the author of the stanzaic version. Möller, pp. 22-35, felt assured of the more southern origin of the couplet version.

82 Möller, pp. 36-47: “mochte ich den Reinbrun etwas südlicher (bezw. südwestlicher als (Guy, A 2) verlegen” (p. 46).

83 Kölbing, Amis and Amiloun, pp. xxiv-xxxiii; Leach in his edition (Preface) accepted Kölbing's results.

84 Trounce, Medium Aevum, ii, 45: “The vocabulary of Amis proves Norfolk beyond a doubt.” “The close relationship of Guy and Amis to each other gives irrefragable support to East Anglia as the locality for both of them.” “We may claim Suffolk for Guy, as Norfolk for Amis, or, at any rate, East Anglia for both of them” (p. 49). “Reinbroun is plainly connected with Guy in matter and style, but is rather more South-eastern (so also Möller),—Suffolk towards Essex.” But cf. Möller's own words as quoted in note 82 above.

85 George Taylor, “Notes on Athelston,” Leeds Studies in English, iv (1935), 47-57. He remarks: “The stanzaic Guy, Amis, and Horn Childe support one another in their non-East Anglian origin; one cannot agree that the ‘fountain head of the style’ does belong ‘beyond any doubt to East Anglia’.”

86 No question seems to have been raised as to the collection of English texts which the Compilers of the Auchinleck MS must have had before them. Though we may well suppose that a patron might buy or order such a book as the Auchinleck MS as a single book of English verse, the necessary antecedent collection of English originals can best be accounted for as having belonged to some bookseller who made a business of collecting such texts, perhaps for his minstrel clients, or of himself producing those English texts that were still so little valued by the erudite or the wealthy.

87 On the modernity, for their own times, of the medieval romances, cf. D. Everett, “The English Medieval Romances,” Essays and Studies, xv (1929), 103: “The romances were popular because, unlike so much of the Latin literature known to medieval readers, they were up-to-date in their ideas and properties.” Cf. Sir Walter Raleigh, Romance (London, 1916), 25: “The note of this romance literature is that it was actual, modern, realistic at a time when classical literature had become a remote convention of bookish culture.”

Only four extant manuscripts containing English romances antedate the Auchinleck MS. They are: Cambridge University Library, Gg. 4.27.2 (King Horn, Floris and Blauncheflur); Cotton Vitellius D. III (Floris and Blauncheflur); Harley 2253 (King Horn); Laud Miscellany 108 (King Horn, Havelok).

88 On the King's Breaking Magna Carta; On the Evil Times of Edward II; Short Metrical Chronicle. For the first two, see above, not 42; for the last, see notes 21, 22, 86.

89 The eight Auchinleck poems for which earlier English texts exist are the following: St. Margaret, St. Katherine, Body and Soul, Harrowing of Hell, Floris and Blauncheflur, Our Lady's Psalter, The Thrush and the Nightingale, The Sayings of St. Bernard. Cf. Carr, op. cit., ii, 152, n. 1.

90 See above, note 49. In Speculum, xvi (1941), p. 414, Dr. Hornstein remarks: “Within perhaps less than two decades after Ghazan's death (1304), a miracle story of this great khan. . . . had found its way into the Auchinleck MS.”

91 Beves of Hamtoun, ed. E. Kölbing, EETES 46, 48, 65 (1894), lines 4287-4538. Apropos of this passage Kölbing remarked (Introd., p. xxxvii); “The last of the English poet's additions deals with Beves's and his sons' heroic resistance against the inhabitants of London. . . . Here the English author shows that he has a pretty exact knowledge of the topography of London.” As this episode appears in all the Middle English manuscripts of Beves, it must have belonged to the original English version. The Auchinleck is the oldest of all surviving copies.

92 Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle, ed. Zettl. op. cit., pp. lxviii, 72-75. This is only one of the many unique and important additions to the original text which were made by the author of the Auchinleck version. As Zettl has pointed out in his fine edition of the Chronicle (p. xlvii, xlix, li, etc.), this redactor was a writer of special enterprise and independence. His use of the Auchinleck version of Richard Cœur de Lion (cf. note 75 above) would suggest that he wrote within the same milieu that produced the volume itself.