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Additional Light on the Temple of Glas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Henrt Noble MacCracken
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Extract

Some loose vellum leaves of a manuscript written between 1431 and 1450 (according to Dr. Kenyon of the British Museum) are bound in with a paper ms. of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes, in ms. British Museum Sloane 1212. These leaves, written in what may be a different hand from that of the Hoccleve scribe, contain some interesting material, most of which has up to now remained unidentified.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , 1908 , pp. 128 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1907

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References

page 128 note 1 The identification is mine. B. Fehr, Archiv, 107, 50–52, prints this and the next page as “zwei lyrische Gedichte,” and anonymous.

page 129 note 1 Thomas Lord Scales, a resident of Norfolk, was one of the most prominent nobles of his day. See his life in the Dictionary of National Biography.

page 129 note 2 Thomas Lord Morley, a resident of Suffolk, died in the fourteenth year of Henry VI. (MS. Harley 4031, genealogy, fol. 109 f.).

page 129 note 3 Sir Simon de Felbrigg, who I believe was head of his family in his day, was a famous knight of Norfolk. The monumental brass covering his tomb is one of the finest in England. See W. Eye, History of Norfolk, 1885, p. 196. Sir Simon at one time made Judge Wm. Paston his trustee (Paston Letters, i, xxxvii).

page 129 note 4 Henry Normanvyle was a lance with Lord Roos at Agincourt. He was probably from Yorkshire. See R. Belleval, Agincourt, 1865, p. 343.

page 129 note 5 This “lucas” I believe may be identical with John Lucas, a scribe or owner of mss., in the 15th century. Ritson, Bibl. Poetica, p. 65, calls Lucas a collector or composer of a book of ballades and quotes Sir John Hawkins, History of Music, ii, 91, ed. 1766, who states that Joseph Ames owned a folio ms. of these ballades. I can find no trace of this ms. in the sale catalogue of Ames's books, May, 1760, or in a later sale in 1852. Judging by the contents of Harley 1706, and Douce 229, Nos. 826, 829, 830 of the sale in 1760, may contain ballades copied by Lucas. Both ms. Harley 1706, and ms. Douce 229 contain two ballades of four stanzas each in rhyme royal, probably by Lydgate, “take owt of the boke of John Lucas,” and inserted as premonitory to the treatise of How to Learn to Die (the 5th chapter of Orologium Sapiencie, being a dialogue between a Disciple of Wisdom, and Death). These ballades are extracts from the Fall of Princes, i, 1. The first stanza alone is original. Another copy, without the above rubric, is in ms. Univ. Lib. Cam. Ff. 5. 45, fol. 13 b.

Davy's genealogy of the Lucas family in ms. b. m. Adds. 19140, folio 222, gives a John Fitz Lucas of Saxham, Suffolk, as son of a Lucas who flourished in Henry V's time. The Lucas of this ms. is probably of this district. It is very odd that he should name three lords of East Anglia and their mottoes if he were not himself a native of that district. In 1532 a John Lucas received acquittance from the Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds for an annuity due him in right of his church (ms. Bodl. Tanner cvi, art. 7). The phrase “ma souveraigne joie” scribbled by Lucas reminds us of the similar scribble by John Shirley the scribe (c. 1450), who in ms. Ashmole 59 writes “ma joye” about an initial letter, a “crowned A.”

The reason for connecting these names with Norfolk and Suffolk will appear.

page 130 note 1 Mss.

T. =

Tanner 346, Bodl.

F. =

Fairfax 16, Bodl.

B. =

Bodley 638, Bodl.

P. =

Pepys 2006, Magd. Coll., Camb.

G. =

Gg. 4. 27, Univ. Lib. Camb.

S. =

B. M. Adds. 16165.

L. =

Longleat 258 (Marquis of Bath).

Sl. =

Sloane 1212.

page 131 note 1. 741, word T.] vowed G. S. Sl. etc.; 749, saue T. P.] but G. 8. Sl. F. B.; 750, demenyng T. Sl. etc.] demyng S.; 751, benygne T. Sl. etc.] kunnyng S.; 752, And T. F. S. Sl. etc.] An B. G.; 108, þat one T. etc.] the ton G. Sl. þat othir T. etc.] the tothir G. Sl.; 110, Chaucer T. G. S. etc.] causer Sl.; 112, hov T. Sl. etc.] of G. S., anoro T.] an arow G. S. Sl.; 115, ∗Daphue etc.] Dane, G., Sl. Done S., Diane T. P. F. B. L.; 118, loue of þe T. S. etc.] the love of G. Sl.; 119, into a bole T. G. etc.] Triable S. yn table, Sl.; 120, of T. G. S. etc.] on Sl.; 123, hir G. S. Sl.] his T. F. B. L.; 130, Philologye G. Sl.] Phillogie F. B. P. L. Philloge T. Philosophie S.; 139, ledne G. S. T.] ledevs Sl.; 141, oft G. S. T. etc.] oftyn Sl.; 147, for T. etc.] thourgh G. by S. of P. thorow Sl. (the only reading that makes the line metrical); 149, iput T. G. S. etc.] put Sl.; 154, T. F. P. B. omit the line, G. S. Sl. give it; 161, Ne T. P. F. B.] in G. S. Sl.; G. S. and Sl. alone have the Lover's Complaint; 443, That G. Sl.] Yit S.; 446, now G. Sl.] om S.; 447, of G. Sl.] al of S.; 448, sighing S. Sl.] seyinge G.; 450, herte G. Sl.] lyve S. to-brest G. Sl.] brek and brest S.; 451, the G. S.] om Sl.; 453, Do G. Sl.] doþe S.; 457, this pitous G. S.] dispitous Sl. (a better reading.); 458, зoure G. Sl.] hir S.; 460, hauyth G. Sl.] om S.; 463, oth G. Sl.] oþer S.; 466, parte G.] to parte Sl. darte S.; 474, omitted by Sl.; 476, lyeth G. Sl.] is S.; 479, or S. Sl.] othyr G. disese G. Sl.] destresse S.; 481, Vn to G. S.] to Sl.; 484, more G. S.] may Sl.; 500, ek G. S.] om Sl.; 504, myn S.] and myn G. Sl.

page 133 note 1 It is impossible to agree with Professor Schick's theory that the lady's earlier dress (in the A group of texts) of green and white was changed to black, red, and white because the color green was that of inconstancy. It was surely changed for the same purpose that the motto was, that the hawthorne branches (white flowers and green leaves) (1. 505) were changed to roses, and 1. 510, which had contained no name at all, was altered to bring in the name Margaret. That purpose was to suit another lady. I am reminded of Hoccleve's scratching out one patron's name in a ballade of appeal and inserting John Carpenter's in an autograph ms.

But the color and the flower cannot help us in finding the lady, I am afraid. The Paston coat of a chief indented gold, the field silver flouret in azure goes back no earlier than 1466, at the death of John Paston, the son of William, and the proof then submitted as to the antiquity and gentility of the family is not extant and rests under grave suspicion, as Gairdner shows. See his introduction.

The earliest Paston coat extant is of the Berry arms, in gold and silver, made in 1448 by a servant of John Paston, son of William (“Paston Letters,” ed. 1904, ii, 91). The fact that the servant had been sent to a place at some distance, to copy the arms of Paston's mother, indicates how uncertain the knowledge of arms was among the Pastons. The change from green and white to blue and white may have occurred in John Paston's time, for it seems from the above letter that he was gathering materials to use in claiming armorial rights. The change from green to blue meant only the misreading of a b (= azure, see Companion to English History, plate 57, No. 9) for v, a common mistake. For example in the excellent Land ms. 683, (circa 1450) the word “avowe” is written “above,” fol. 41 b, in the last stanza of Lydgate's St. Giles. It is noteworthy that the Barry arms contained “flower is of sylver,” white flowers. See in the above reference, the cut to the “Paston Letters.”

page 134 note 1 See the catalogue in Gairdner, Paston Letters, repr. 1896, iii, 300–1.

page 135 note 1 The marriage settlement is of this date. See Paston Letters, i, p. 11.

page 136 note 1 Cf. the motto, “ une sanz plus pour le roy,” in Lucas's list of mottoes.

page 136 note 2 The ye rhyme is kept in this poem. Companye: ie, st. 7; folye: guye: remedye, st. 4.

The word trust (st. 5) = sad, sober, stedfast, is found in Lydgate's Fifteen Joys of Mary. Compare also:

Paston poem, st. 4: “O owght on absence ther foolys have no grace.” Tale of Two Merchants, st. 18:

“O oute on absence of hem that loven trewe,

O oute on partyng bi disseueraunce.“

The cold and hot, perplexity between two extremes, etc., found in the poem, are Lydgatian.

“ Now hot now cold as fallyth by aventure.”

Tale of Two Merchants, st. 32: “ My dool now hot now cold.”

Lydgate always represents love as a fever. But parallels need not be multiplied. For another view, cf. Mod. Lang. Qu., iii, 111 (1900).

550, “I saugh a man.”
849, “Toward þis man.”
936, “ þis woful man.”
964, “þis dredful man.”

1041, “ þe compleint of þis man.”
1113, “Accepte þis man.”
1280, “Hir humble servaunt.”
1285, “þis man,” and so
ll. 1347, 1354, 1360.

page 140 note 1 Compare Venus's words to the Lady and Man:—

T. G.

1229. Eternally be bonde of assuraunce
The cnott зe knet, which mai not be vnbovnd.

This surely refers to a real betrothal.