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An East Midland Recension of The Pricke of Conscience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Charlotte D'Evelyn
Charlotte D'Evelyn*
Affiliation:
Mt. Holyoke College
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Extract

It is now more than forty years ago that the first serious attempt was made to classify the several versions of the Pricke of Conscience according to the MSS which were then known. On the basis of three test-passages selected from approximately the beginning, the middle and the end of the poem (vv. 1836-1927, 5126-5204, 9335-9394, according to the line-numbers in Morris's edition) the MSS were divided into four main families, designated respectively by the symbols, Y, X ii, C, and Z, of which the fourth (Z) represents the Northern version which was printed by Morris.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 45 , Issue 1: American Bibliography for 1929 , March 1930 , pp. 180 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930

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References

1 The Pricke of Conscience, ed. Richard Morris, Publications of the [London] Philological Soc., Berlin, 1863.

2 Die Handschriften des Pricke of Conscience von Richard Rolle de Hampole im Britischen Museum, Berlin diss., 1888.

3 Karl D. Bülbring, “On Twenty-Five MSS of Richard Rolle's Pricke of Conscience,” etc., Transactions of the [London] Philological Soc. 1888-90, pp. 261-83. (Referred to hereafter as Bülbring I.)

4 “Zu den Handschriften von Richard Rolle's Pricke of Conscience,” Engl. Studien, XXIII (1897), 1-30. (Referred to hereafter as Bülbring II.)

5 Carleton Brown, Part I, 1916, Part II, 1920, Oxford, printed for the Bibliographical Society. For lists of MSS of the Pricke of Con. see Part II, Nos. 314, 723, 2206, and 2207. See also further notes on the MSS by Hope Emily Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, etc., Monograph Series of the Mod. Lang. Assn., N. Y., 1927, pp. 373 ff.

6 Garrett and Lich. 6, alone among the X ii MSS, give the opening couplet in its original form. Lich. 6 in the beginning of the poem shows many divergences from Lich. 18. Bülbring, in a letter to Dr. Furnivall, now kept in the covers of Lich. 6, suggests that the altered couplet may not have been introduced in the original B text. But one might equally well suppose that the scribe of Lich. 6 for the first part of the poem followed a copy not of the B type. Lich. 6 in this part is in general closer to the Z text than Lich. 18. Lich. 6 has lost fairly long passages of text in two places: between f. 123 and 124 covering material in Bk. V of Morris's text, and between f. 163 and 164, covering material in vv. 7122-7856 of Morris. The relation between the Lichfield MSS well illustrates the fact that close similarity of any two MSS in the test-passages does not necessarily imply similarity in all parts of the text.

7 The variations cited in the present paper have been checked up for all the MSS of this group except D 4, which I have not personally examined.

8 It may be objected that the second line of the altered text is as commonplace as its original. It is. But the first line shows a livelier reading. A medieval scribe would hardly omit all references to his sainted authorities.

9 See Morris's text, vv. 5938-41. The addition cited above is apparently missing in Lich. 18.

10 See Bülbring I, p. 278 and pp. 274-5 for readings according to the φ division.

11 Bülbring II, p. 20.

12 The first readings are those of B 1491; the second, of Harl. 1731.

13 Neither MS appears to be the source of the other. B 2322—and this is the most extensive difference between the texts—condenses the conclusion of the poem to about twenty lines, whereas J 29 gives it almost entire as it stands in the Z text. On the other hand a disarrangement of lines in J 29, namely, v. 9118 followed by vv. 9103-8 and these by 9115-7, does not occur in B 2322, though both alike omit vv. 9109-14.

14 The first readings are from Harl. 1731 which are the same as those of B 1491.

15 Harl. 2281 clearly belongs in the φ i division of the φ group, since it has none of the characteristic readings of the φ ii division, and since, in spite of the differences noted, it has many readings in common with Harl. 1731 and the Lichfield group. See Bülbring II, 20.

16 For instance in the following lines which distinguish Harl. 2281 from other φ MSS Garrett has quite different readings:

v. 1901 A fylosofre tellet vs wiseliche in his lore] Garrett: [a ph.] discreueþ as he haþe lered in lore.

v. 1921 . . . . but hit last not so longe] Garrett: . . . . & hit es nouzt long.

17 The following readings distinguish Strong from other β MSS.

v. 1836 A man is dred of deþ in hert.

1839 Whan þe saule forth schal wende.

1847 whan þey schal make departynge.

1860 The ferth ys whan þey sembil so.

1867 In euery lande he haþ powere.

18 The first readings are those of Beau., the second, of D 4 cited from Bülbring I, p. 274. For readings common to φ ii see Bülbring II, p. 9.

19 The following readings are peculiar to Beaumont:

v. 1923 þe peyne of deþ he bygan to discryue] D 4 wolde; C 35 dude.

1925 May sore drede þe hard deþes breyd] D 4, C 35 gretly.

20 The reading of Lich. 6. Other MSS of the β group show slight variants, e.g Addit. 11305: ffor almighty god thorugh his grace & wyt.

21 See Bülbring I, p. 262 for a description of the MS; p. 265 for variant readings and p. 271 for classification of it as aii in the first test passage together with MS Addit. 11304.

22 The first reading is that of J 29; the second, of D 11, taken from Bülbring I, p. 265 f.

23 The relationship between J 29 and B 2322 and D 11 still remains to be settled. I have not personally examined D 11 and therefore cannot say how far beyond the test-passage the similarity between the 3 extends. It is clear from the readings cited by Bülbring that the relationship between J 29 and D 11 is not at all as close as that between J 29 and B 2322.

24 See Andreae, p. 17; Bülbring I, p. 272 f.

25 Bülbring II, p. 21 points out many lines showing agreements between the Garrett MS and the Lichfield group, and also between Harl. 2281 and Lichfield. He decides to allow greater weight to the latter relationship because in the first test-passage Harl. 2281 and Lichfield had a common source $pS, while Garrett went back to φ indirectly. But it has been shown (see above, p. 187) that Harl. 2281 should not be derived from $pS in the first test-passage. The same statement applies to the second text-passage. Consequently there is no reason for giving the preference to agreements between Harl. 2281 and Lichfield as against Garrett and Lichfield. The really decisive factor for the placing of Garrett is the addition of B 1491, a MS unknown to Bülbring, to this group, since it is with B 1491 and not with the Lich. MSS or Harl. 2281 that Garrett agrees most closely.

26 See Bülbring II, p. 10.

27 Ibid., p. 11.

28 Some of its peculiar lines are these: 5130 withouten leth he schal come doun; 5135 he schal deme þe world per fey; 5166 To deme þe folkes euerychon; 5188 Bot litel fro Jerusalem; 5196 þat me bare of hire body.

29 The first readings are from Beaumont, the second, from Bülbring II, p. 11 f. and the MSS as indicated.

30 These last two MSS, it will be remembered, break away from the subgroups to which they belong in the first and in the last test passages, and go back in the middle passage to sources nearer the original.

31 See Bülbring II, pp. 10, 11, 21 for modifications made in his first diagram. The new source B* was added to mark off C 35 from all other β MSS. It serves the same purpose for J 29 and B 2322. I have compared the readings of C 35 and β iv, to see if they might be joined in a single group, going back directly to β. With minor agreements, the three are yet not sufficiently alike to be set in any closer relationship than that indicated in the diagram.

32 Vv. 9335-9402, the third test-passage used by Andreae and Bülbring, occur in the midst of material shifted by the β group out of its regular sequence. Hence the difficulty of locating these lines, and of designating them by the numbering of the Z text. This fact led Bülbring to say (I, p. 283) that the test lines did not appear in the Lich. MSS. They do, but much scattered.

33 The order of lines is as follows: 8840; lines of transition; 9396-9410 pain of sight; 9252-75 pleasure of hearing; 9411-16 pain of hearing; 9276-93 pain of smell; 9298-9316 pleasure of singing and speaking; 9429-36 pain suffered by the damned in their throats; 9317-31 crowning of the saved; 9363-74 their praising of God; 9439-74 torment within & without of the damned. After this Addit. 11305 returns to v. 8853 where the description of the city of heaven begins. In the shifted passages there are many omissions between the beginning and ending verses of each section.

34 Either shift is an improvement. Where the description stands in Z as part of the “bliss of sight” it unduly expands the amount of space given to that sense.

35 Of the order of D 4. I cannot speak definitely, further than to say that the lines printed by Bülbring show that D 4 alternated the pleasures and pains. Bülbring II, p. 23 groups D 4 with C 35 on the evidence of readings in the test lines. I have left it in that position. Harl. 2281 breaks off in Book V, at v. 5765 of Morris's text.

36 For example, vv. 7675-84 and 8039-52.

37 The MSS in group Ai have been examined throughout Book VII for readings as well as for arrangement of lines, and grouped together as indicated in the diagram on the evidence of both these tests. Bülbring II, p. 23 classified the Garrett MS with Royal 18 in the third test-passage, but very few of those lines are retained in Garrett. It shows no particular closeness in readings to the other MSS in group Ai but its rearrangement of lines puts it in that group. In group Aii, Bülbring's grouping of D 4 and C 35, on the basis of reading, has been retained in the absence of further evidence of D 4's order of lines. See footnote 35. Beau, and Royal 18, as already noted, both make the first break at v. 7770 which is the reason for bracketing them together.