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Chaucer's Prioresses Tale and Its Analogues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Carleton F. Brown
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Extract

It is now thirty years ago that three stories, more or less closely related to the Prioresses Tale, were printed in the Chaucer Society's Originals and Analogues. Since that time but little new light has been thrown on the source used by Chaucer for this Tale. The general opinion has been that Chaucer followed some version of the legend not now known, though Professor Skeat in his most recent discussion of the subject takes the view that the Prioresses Tale is the result of a combination, probably by Chaucer himself, of two miracles of Our Lady related by Gautier de Coincy: that of the boy killed by the Jew, and that of the wicked cleric in whose mouth after death a miraculous flower was found.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , 1906 , pp. 486 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1906

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References

page 486 note 1 Academy, London, Sept. 1, 1894, p. 153, and Sept. 15, p. 195; cf. Oxford Chaucer, Vol. V, p. 491.

page 488 note 1 Attention was first called to the fact that this Libri viii Miraculorum contained an analogue to the Prioresses Tale by Professor Max Förster (Herrig's Archiv. Vol. 110, 1903, p. 427).

page 488 note 2 This transcript has been made for me through the courtesy of M. Mario Roques.

Paris ms. lat. 18, 134 is of the thirteenth century (cf. as to date and contents of this ms. Bibl. de l'ecole des chartes, Vol. xxxi, 1870, p. 543). This story is summarized by Mussafia, ‘’ Studien zu den mittelalt. Marienlegenden,” Sitzungsberichte der phil. hist. Classe der kaiserl. Akad. der Wissensch., Wien, 1886, p. 984, who, however, erroneously registers it as No. 28 in the collection. As to the contents of this collection, Mussafia remarks in his third paper (Akad. der Wissensch., 1889, p. 62): “Ebenfalls für sich steht Par. lat. 18,134, das sich nur im Beginne an sv. (i. e., Paris ms. lat. 14, 463, of the twelfth century), anschliesst, bald aber eine grosse Reihe von Wundern vorführt, von denen manche, trotzdem sie in lateinischen Handschriften—wenigstens in den mir bisher bekannten—selten oder gar nicht vorkommen, in die Vulgärdichtung eindrangen.”

page 489 note 1 This line, Erubescat Iudaeus infelix, identifies the response sung by the young scholar with the Gaude Maria mentioned in other versions. The full text of this response is given by Mr. G. F. Warner in his edition of Mielot, and I avail myself of his note: “The complete response, which is said to have been composed by Robert II, King of France (997–1031), is as follows:—

Gaude Maria virgo cunctas hereses sola interemisti
Quae Gabrielis Archangeli dictis credidisti
Dum Virgo Deum et hominem genuisti
Et post partum Virgo inviolata permanisti.

Versus: Gabrielem archangelum scimus divinitus te esse affatum;
Uterum tuum de Spiritu sancto credimus impregnatum;
Erubescat Judaeus infelix, qui dicit Christum Joseph semine esse natum.”

page 490 note 1 Thomas Cantimpré compiled his Bonum universale de Apibus between 1256 and 1263 (cf. Elie Berger, Thorn. Cant. Bonum univ. de Apibus quid illustrandis saeculi XIII. moribus conferat, Paris, 1895, pp. 15–6).

page 490 note 2 I am under obligations to Dr. H. de W. Fuller of Harvard University for copying this text.

This is a ms. of the fourteenth century. It is printed by Warner in his edition of Mielot, p. xvi.

page 490 note ∗ ms. insididias.

page 491 note 1 One suspects that v. 35 originally followed v. 30.

page 491 note 2 This transcript was made for me under the direction of M. Mario Roques, who took much pains in deciphering this difficult ms.

ms. 14,857 is of the end of the fourteenth century (Cf. as to date and contents of this ms. Bibl. de l'ecole des chartes, Series vi, Vol. v, p. 53). Mussafia (Akad. der Wissensch., Wien, 1889, p. 13) remarks as to the character of this miracle collection: “Auf die vielfachen Berührungspunkte mit Cæsarius möge noch einmal hingewiesen werden; es Hesse sich vielleicht daraus irgend ein Anhaltspunkt für die Ermittlung der Heimat der kleinen Sammlung gewinnen.” This metrical version is found also in Metz ms. No. 612 (fourteenth to fifteenth century) and in Vatican ms. No. 4318, fifteenth century).

page 492 note 1 As given in somewhat condensed form by Dr. W. A. van der Vet, Het Biënboec van Thomas van Cantimpre en zijn Exempelen, ‘s-Gravenhage, 1902, pp. 223–4. This ms. is of the fifteenth century.

page 492 note 2 I am under obligations to Dr. Robert A. Law of Harvard University for transcribing this exemplum and also for cheerfully looking up other references.

This story is noted by Mussafia, III, p. 50.

In regard to Herolt and his works, cf. the extract from Warton reprinted in Originals and Analogues, p. 104. Herolt is there said to have flourished about 1418. He was a Dominican friar of Basel.

page 493 note 1 Alphonsus a Spina, a member of the Franciscan order, was bishop of Orense, Spain. Of the printed editions of the Fortalicium Fidei the earliest bearing date appeared at Nuremberg in 1485. According to the British Museum Catalogue, earlier editions were printed at Strasburg (1471?) and at Basel (1475?).

page 494 note 1 Transcribed for me through the courtesy of Dr. H. deW. Fuller.

Mielot's Collection is found in Douce ms. 374, of which the date of writing was probably not earlier than 1467, a matter which is more or less satisfactorily decided by the frontispiece in the ms. The figure represents, most likely, Charles the Bold, and the arms which he bears indicate that he was then duke—which he became at the date mentioned above. Mielot was secretary to Philip the Good (1396–1467).

page 496 note 1 I have been unable to identify the Historia Annunciationis B. V. here referred to as the source of this version. I suspect that it was a fifteenth century compilation similar in character to Franciscus de Retza's Historia Conceptionis B. M. V., otherwise known as the Defensio immaculatae conceptionis B. M. V., printed in 1470.

page 497 note 1 Pelbartus was a Hungarian friar of the Franciscan order. The full title of his book runs: Pomerium Sermonum de beata virgine dei genetrice, vel Stellarium Corone beate virginis pro singularum festiuitatum eiusdem predicationibus coaptatum. The earliest edition, according to Hain, was printed at Hagenaw, 1498.

page 498 note 1 The full text has been copied for me through the kindness of Dr. Fuller.

page 498 note 2 Horstman is doubtless right in thinking that this poem by Lydgate, written in the same metre as the Prioresses Tale, was an imitation of Chaucer's poem. Hoccleve likewise paid the Prioresses Tale the tribute of an imitation. Curiously enough in one manuscript of the Canterbury Tales (Christ Church ms. clii) Hoccleve's legend of the Virgin and her sleeveless garment has been fitted out with a prologue and introduced into the fellowship of the Canterbury company as the Ploughman's Tale (A New Ploughman's Tale, Ed. A. Beatty, Chaucer Soc'y, 1902).

page 498 note 3 Originals and Analogues, pp. 286–8.

page 499 note 1 Cf. Lib. I, No. 16, Ed. Meister, p. 25.

page 499 note 2 For discussion of the date of the Lib. VIII Miracul. see further Meister, pp. xxxvi-vii.

page 500 note 1 “Die meisten jedoch sind ihm eigen; sie tragen mehr den Charakter localer Sagen und fanden in die vulgären Literaturen keinen Eingang” (II, p. 57). Mussafia is here referring, it is true, to the Marian legends in. the Dialogus, another work by Cæsarius. But his remark is of equal importance in considering the sources of the Libri VIII Miraculorum.

page 501 note 1 Note particularly Paris B. B., vv. 128, 132, and 141. Cf. also Alfons. of Linc.: “Nec vnquam cessabat a cantu illo dulcissimo, licet mortuus foret.” Again, in the boy's account of the miracle: “Vtnon cessaret mortuus ab eius laude.”

page 503 note 1 Not necessarily, of course, upon this particular ms. It will be remembered that several mss. of this version are still in existence.

page 503 note 2 It occurs also in the Paris Beggar-Boy, but I defer the consideration of this until I come to speak of Group B.

page 503 note 3 It is not necessary, according to this hypothesis, to suppose that Gautier used this identical manuscript. ms. 18, 134, though of the 13th century, is probably not old enough for that. The date of the ms., however, is no obstacle to the supposition that it preserves essentially the version which Gautier used as his source.

page 503 note 4 G. Paris, La Litt. Française au Moyen Age, 1890, p. 206; cf. G. Servois, Bibl. de l'ecole des chartes, series iv, vol. iii, p. 41.

page 507 note 1 One can't help suspecting that the martyrdom of little Hugh is after all only a second edition of the similar story of William of Norwich which sprang up in 1144 (Cf. A. Jessopp, “St. William of Norwich,” Nineteenth Century, xxxiii, 1893, pp. 749 ff., and the Nova Legenda Anglie, Ed. C. Horstman, Oxford, 1901, ii, p. 452). How the story arose is not, however, a matter which concerns us here. For our purpose the essential point is that the story of Hugh of Lincoln was well known in the 13th and 14th centuries; it is related in the Annales de Waverleia (Rolls Series, pp. 346–8), in the Annales de Burton (Rolls Series, pp. 340–5), by Matthew Paris (Chronica Majora, Rolls Series, v, pp. 516–9), and by John of Tynemouth in his Sanctilogium Anglice, Scotiæ et Hiberniæ, written shortly before 1350 (Tynemouth's collection was afterwards incorporated in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglie, recently edited by Horstman. The story of Hugh will be found in Vol. ii, p. 39). It was also the subject of an Anglo-French poem, Hugues de Lincoln, (Ed. F. Michel, Paris, 1834).

For further bibliography in regard to Hugh of Lincoln and similar stories the reader is referred to Professor Child's introduction to the Ballad of the Jew's Daughter (English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 155, vol. iii, pp. 235 ff.). Professor Child recognizes in the mention of “Our Lady's draw-well,” in one version of the ballad, “a mixing, to this extent, of the story of Hugh with that of the young devotee of the Virgin who is celebrated in Chaucer's Prioresses Tale.” But he does not enter into the question of the relationship of the Prioresses Tale to the story of Hugh of Lincoln.

page 509 note 1 Academy, Sept. 1, 1894, p. 153.

page 509 note 2 In a later note (p. 512, note 1) I call attention to the extreme improbability that Alphonsus a Spina took his story from a version in English. What is there said against his dependence on Chaucer would apply, perhaps with greater force, to the possibility that he borrowed from the Vernon ms.

page 510 note 1 In a recent article (“Chaucer's Litel Clergeon,” Mod. Philol., vol. iii, 1906, p. 468) I endeavored to make it clear that the hero of the Prioresses. Tale was not a chorister but an ordinary school-boy. This is confirmed by comparing Chaucer's account on this point with the older versions of the legend.

page 510 note 2 This account, it may be remarked, strikingly resembles the persecution which, according to the monastic chroniclers, followed the martyrdom of Hugh of Lincoln. This has some significance, it seems to me, as a further indication that in X (the source of Alfonsus) there was a fusion of elements from the two legends.

page 511 note 1 Alfonsus of Lincoln, as printed in Originals and Analogues, does not include this. But in the Fortalicium Fidei the account of the punishment of the Jews immediately follows the extract printed.

page 512 note 1 I may say at this point that I am unable to accept the view of Professor Skeat that the author of Alfonsus of Lincoln was depending on Chaucer's tale. The agreements between the two versions, to be sure, are in many points striking, but they can be explained equally well on the hypothesis of a common source. Furthermore, as I shall proceed to show, the form of the story in the Fortalicium Fidei seems more primitive than that in Chaucer. But, above all, is it likely that a Spanish ecclesiastic of the fifteenth century knew the Canterbury Tales, or could have read the language in which they were written?

page 513 note 1 Professor Skeat makes a slip here. Referring to the account in the Vernon ms., he says: “In this version, it is not the grain that is found in the child's mouth, but the original rose; or rather, the original rose multiplied by five. For one fresh red rose was found in his mouth, two in his eyes, and two in his ears! We now know whence these roses sprang.” (Academy, Sept. 1, 1894, p. 153; cf. also Oxford Chaucer, Vol. v, p. 491). But this is not the story of the Vernon ms., which gives us neither one rose nor five, but a lily. Professor Skeat has accidentally turned the page of his copy of Originals and Analogues to Lydgate's miracle, “The Monk who Honoured the Virgin. “Accordingly his attempt to derive this incident in the Vernon ms. from the rose legend of Gautier de Coincy comes to nothing.

page 514 note 1 Libri VIII Miraculorum, p. 195.

page 514 note 2 Cap. li.

page 514 note 3 Cf. Originals and Analogues, p. 279, No. 16.

page 514 note 4 Academy, ut supra.

page 514 note 5 Cf. Legends of the Holy Rood, E. E. T. S., p. 70; Early South Engl. Legendary, E. E. T. S., p. 7; Cursor Mundi, E. E. T. S., vv. 1369–76.

page 515 note 1 If anyone should be disposed to argue that Chaucer had the Vernon ms. before him, I should not dispute auch a possibility. On this, however, I insist: that the Paris Beggar-Boy alone will not account for the form of the story told by the Prioress. In that case, how does it happen that Chaucer agrees with the other versions in making his hero a school-boy?

page 516 note 1 Thus in Part I. of the 15th century treatise known as Jacob's Well (E. E. T. S., 1904) I count no less than nineteen miracles expressly quoted from Gesarius. And in the Alphabet of Tales (E. E. T. S., 1904–05) out of 801 stories, 133 are taken from Cæsarius—a far larger number than from any other single author. Compare also the stories from Cæsarius in English treatises which have been ascribed to Richard Rolle (R. Rolle of Hampole, Ed. Horstman, vol. i, pp. 157, 192, 193).