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Muriel: The Earliest English Poetess

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. S. P. Tatlock
J. S. P. Tatlock*
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

None of her writings now exists; if any existed, it would be in Latin, and perhaps little better than the earliest poem in English, that of the earliest English poet.

In 1113 nine canons of Laon in northeast France traveled through southern England, raising money to restore their church through miracles wrought by their relics of Mary, and casually giving us the earliest information as to the vogue of the Arthur-tradition after the Norman conquest. At the great nunnery of Wilton in Wilts they were shown the grave of the Venerable Bede (containing a relic perhaps, hardly the body); “prope quern sepulta est inclyta versificatrix, quae proprio nomine vocata est Murier.” Defuncta adhuc loquitur. A feverish patient who had been hoping for a cure from Bede was warned in a dream by “Murier ilia versificatrix” to betake himself to the mother of the Lord, who was descending among them. From all this we can draw several inferences. She enjoyed for whatever reason high fame at Wilton; not only the canon's manner of speaking, but her grave near Bede's, seemingly with her name on it, shows this. They believed also that her repute as a poetess was great and wide. The surprising word versificatrix, probably on her tomb, may show unwillingness for some reason or other to call her poeta or votes; probably also that she excelled especially in the technique of verse, as her correspondents did. Her strange name was unfamiliar to the canons, but is little corrupted if at all: by proprio nomine they tell us that Murier is her proper name and not a distortion of mulier.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1933 , pp. 317 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1933

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References

1 Herman of Laon's De Miraculis, Patrol. Lat., clvi, 983. It contains the slightly altered report by the canons.

2 M. Farai, Légende Arthurienne, i, 233, and a careful reading, show that the Patrology text is none too good, as usual.

3 Œuvres Poétiques de Baudri de Bourgeuil, ed. P. Abrahams (Paris, 1926), pp. 256–257.

4 M. Manitius, Gesch. d. lat. Lit. d. M. A., iii, 883–884.

Dicta sonant hominem, vox muliebris erat.
Verborum positura decens, seriesque modesta,
Te jam praeclaris vatibus inseruit. (10-2)
Interea nobis nos mutua carmina mandent,
Duxque comesque suus sit taciturna fides.
Tu secretorum sis conscia prima meorum,
Sim quoque secreti conscius ipse tui. (25-8)

6 Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets, ed. Th. Wright, Rolls Ser. (1872), ii, 233–240; Manitius, iii, 869. Other references are in note 18 below, especially Neues Archiv, xxii, 707, 711, 720, 727–728, 736–737.

7 P. 234 bottom: cf. 240 middle.

8 Checking his homely account of the care of babies, he proceeds (p. 237):

Forsan ‘mendicas hoc pacto vivere’ dicas;
Tantum non illas quae tractant oppida, villas.

9

Cum patriae gentes neglexeris atque parentes,
Cura vel parva si dulcia respicis arva,
Natales terras ubi prorsus respuis erras, (etc., p. 240).

10 Rouleaux des Morts, ed. L. Delisle, Soc. de l'Hist. de Fr. (1866), pp. 182, 214, 268, 285.

These rolls contain lists of the dead in various religious houses, and were sent from one to another for exchange of prayers. They also contain pious verses, a few from the twelfth century by women (not bad, pp. 187, 243), and by children (pathetically misspelled, 303, 338).

11 Gaufredus Malaterra, Historia Sicula, in Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, xi, ed. L. Delisle (Paris, 1876), 138–139 (written about 1098); Pipe-Roll for 31 Henry I, ed. J. Hunter (1833), pp. 89, 96. De Muriell, Muriellis, etc., appear a few times (Book of Fees, London, 1920; Calendar of Anc. Deeds, London, 1890–) as a surname in the thirteenth and later centuries, but may be of a different origin.

12 Roman de Rou, ed. H. Andresen (Heilbronn, 1877–79), ii, 269, ll. 6025 ff.—He knows not if they had a child, but he never heard of any. The implication that she was married by 1066 is unreliable in so late a writer. But his statement of her name is probably reliable.

13 Dict. Nat. Biogr. and its references, s.vv. Odo of Bayeux, Robert of Mortain, William I; E. Dupont, Recherches … sur les compagnons de Guill. (Saint-Servan, n.d.), ii, 73.—Her mother and father were married by 1035 or earlier; her mother in 1065 would have been fifty at least and probably older; her two brothers of the whole blood were young men by 1050. Herlouin, probus miles though mediocrium opum (W. Jum., W. Malm.), encouraged by his stepson William, after 1050 founded the monastery of Grétain (Eure) at the mouth of the Seine; he seems to have become a monk there, and there he and his wife Herleva were buried (Robert of Torigny, in Recueil, xrv, 386, xiii, 322, note; Gallia Christiana, xi, 842–843). In the Rouleaux he apparently is prayed for in one of about 1113, and he and Herleva in one of about 1122 (pp. 207–208, 289). But this throws no light on when their daughter was born.

14 By Dom J. J. Brial, Notices et Extraits des MSS, xi (Paris, 1827), ii, 166, and Hist. litt. de la Fr., xv (1869), iii; T. D. Hardy, Descr. Catal., Rolls Ser. (1862-71), ii, 93–94; H. Böhmer, Neues Archiv f. deutsche Gesch.-kunde, xxii, 720.—She was confused with William's sister of the whole blood, Adelaide, or her daughter, by Brial and Hardy, and the Recueil des Hist. des Gaules, xii (1877), 587.

15 Dugdale, Monast. ii (London, 1819), 316.

16 Böhmer, loc. cit., pp. 726–727.

17 Misunderstanding a passage on p. 234, cited above, and one on pp. 233–234, even Manitius (p. 871) as well as earlier writers says she had taken the veil as a widow.

18 J. J. Brial, in Notices et Extraits des MSS., xi (Paris, 1827), ii, 165–177; the same in Hist. Lit., xv, i-xvi; Hardy, op. cit. ii, iii; Neues Archiv. f. deutsche Gesch-kunde, xxii (1897), 703–738; Dici. Nat. Biogr.; Gröber, Grundriss d. rom. Philol., ii (Strasbourg, 1902), 345, 353–354, etc.; Manitius, iii, 869 ff., etc.; Rouleaux des Morts (cited above) mentions a monk Serio (p. 217). Cf. Paul Meyer, Archives des Missions scientifiques (1868), ii Sér., v, 143 ff.