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Chaucer's Source MSS. For the Clerkes Tale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. Burke Severs
J. Burke Severs*
Affiliation:
Lehigh University
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Extract

There are few of Chaucer's works for which the principal source has been so definitely pointed out as for the Clerkes Tale. Chaucer borrowed it from a Latin prose tale by Petrarch, who in turn had it from the tenth story of the tenth day out of Boccaccio's Decameron. Petrarch's Latin, which is Chaucer's source then, has been made easily accessible to everyone by the Chaucer Society, who published it in Originals and Analogues. Unfortunately, however, the Chaucer Society took their text from the Basle edition, which is notorious for its inaccuracy and inexcusable corruptness in reading after reading. For a long time, therefore, Chaucer scholars have felt the need for a reliable text of Petrarch's Latin tale. Professor G. L. Hendrickson, to whom credit is due for correctly inferring a number of necessary emendations in the text, has this to say after one such emendation:

Of course, nothing can be done in problems of this sort until we have a thorough collation of the Petrarch MSS. containing the story, and I have touched upon this one point, somewhat rashly I know, merely for the sake of indicating by a concrete illustration a most imperative prerequisite to any intelligent study of Chaucer's relation to Petrarch—a critical text of Petrarch's tale.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 1932 , pp. 431 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1932

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References

1 Furnivall, F. J., Brock, E., Clouston, W. A. (eds.), Originals and Analogues of Some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 151–172.

2 Hendrickson, G. L., “Chaucer and Petrarch: Two Notes on the ‘Clerkes Tale,‘” MP, iv (1906–7), 192.

3 MSS. B. N. lat. 11291, 16232, and 17165. A description of them will be found in Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, xxiv (1862–63) (under old notation, iv of series 5), 227–28; and xxxi (1870), 49, 491–492. For access to these MSS., and indeed for the very existence of this article, I am indebted to Professor Karl Young, of Yale, who generously and kindly put at my disposal his own photostatic copies. I owe to him also access to MS. B. N. fr. 1165, mentioned later on in this article.

4 The chief of these was “honestatis” for “honestatus,” and “stylo alto” for “stylo alio.” See Hendrickson, op. cit., 190–191; see also footnote 11 below.

5 References to the Basle text are to pages in Originals and Analogues of Some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The notation MSS. indicates a unanimous reading of the three MSS. which I have examined. I indicate in footnotes all variants, except differences in word order. The Chaucer text followed is that of J. M. Manly's Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

6 MS. 17165: quidem.

7 MS. 11291: an.

8 MSS. 11291, 17165: laudabilis.

9 MSS. 11291, 17165: doctiores.

10 MS. 17165: inducent.

11 French, R. D., A Chaucer Handbook (New York, 1929), note 77 on page 299.—Besides the emendation here mentioned, French, under Hendrickson's guidance, has suggested a number of others at corrupt points. I shall briefly indicate the MS. evidence on his suggestions. My numbers correspond to the numbers of French's footnotes, on pages 294–310 in his Handbook. I first give the suggested emendation, then the evidence of the MSS.

75. For “susceperunt” read “expectaverunt.” The MSS. all retain the former, either as “suscepere” or “suscipere.”

76. For “honestatis” read “honestatus.” All the MSS. confirm the emendation.

79. For “ab urbe” read “ab ubere.” All the MSS. confirm the emendation.

80. For “altero” read “Gualtero.” All the MSS. confirm the emendation.

81. For “sed cum suorum omnium valde nullus erat amantior quam viri” read “sed cum suorum omnium valde erat amans, tum nullius erat amantior quam viri.” MS. 17165 alone confirms the emendation from “nullus” to “nullius.” All the MSS. omit everything between “sed” and “nullius,” thus reading “sed nullius [or nullus, or nullia] erat amantior quam viri.”

82. For “suspecta” read “suscepta.” All MSS. confirm the emendation.

83. For “executurus” read “executus.” All MSS. retain the former reading.

84. For “origine” read “originem.” All MSS. confirm the emendation.

85. For “dum spiritus huius reliquiae uelle supererunt” read “dum spiritus huius reliquiae viles supererunt.” This emendation is interesting because of the obviously corrupt condition of the Basle, and because of erasures and rewritings in the MSS. Clearly “uelle” of the Basle text can have no significance. French's emendation to “viles” gives the meaning: “As long as the poor remnants of this spirit shall last.” MS. 16232, however, clearly reads “ulle reliquie,” that is, “ullae reliquiae,” since e is written for ae in the MSS.; and the other two MSS., although apparently they originally had a corrupt reading here, contain erasures and the correction of the word to “ullae.” The correct meaning, of course, is: “As long as any remnants of this spirit shall last.”

86. For “cogitata” read “cognita.” All MSS. confirm the emendation.

87. All MSS. read “stylo alio.”

12 MS. 17165: nullius prorsus esse compationem.

13 Legrand d'Aussy, Fabliaux et Contes, 3d ed., ii, 297.

14 Pichon, J. (ed.), Le Menagier de Paris (Paris, 1846), i, 99–125.

15 Cook, A. S., “Chaucer's Clerk's Tale and a French Version of His Original,” The Romanic Review, viii (April-June, 1917), 210–222.—I refer to this article throughout as Cook, and my references are not to page, but to the number of the parallel.

16 MS. B. N. fr. 1165 contains the following materials: (1) Moralities of the game of chess, written by Jacques de Cessoles, and translated into Old French by Frere Jehan de Vignay; (2) a French version of Albertano of Brescia's story of Melibeus and Prudence; (3) the Old French translation of the Griselda-story, “laquelle translata de lombart en latin un tres vaillant homme appeliez Francois Petrach”; and (4) a French translation of those famous moral maxims of the medieval period which went under the name of Cato. See Catalogue des Manuscrits Français (Anciens Fonds), Bibliothèque Impériale, Département des Manuscrits, i.

17 Menagier references are to pages in volume i. Petrarch references are to pages in Originals and Analogues of Some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Since the Basle text is the only one accessible for reference, I have followed it, except for an occasional emendation to which I draw attention in the footnotes. In printing the passages from MS. 1165, I have accented tonic e (é) wherever it might be mistaken for e muet.

18 “Prorsus” is adopted from the MSS. See textual emendation 5 above.

19 Manly, J. M. (ed.), Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, p. 594.

20 Cook did not note this important correspondence between Chaucer and the Menagier. I incidentally print fifteen other parallels between Chaucer and the Menagier, all in diction, which Cook missed. These parallels are in items 11, 65, 67, 72–81, 85, and 87. Whenever I cite a parallel which has been previously pointed out by Cook, I give the reference to his article. The absence of such a reference will indicate that Cook is silent on the correspondence in hand.

21 For “Panicius” of the Basle, I read “Panici” from the MSS.

22 Manly, op. cit., p. 594.

23 The reading of the Old French text is obviously corrupt at this point. I am indebted to Professor R. T. Hill, of Yale, for valuable help in wrestling with this and two or three other corrupt passages in the Old French MS.

24 See textual emendation 4 above.

25 The tale was exceedingly popular, and MSS. of it were quickly multiplied. I have already remarked (page 436 above) that Legrand d'Aussy declared he had seen more than twenty French prose versions which dated from before 1400. Gröber, in his Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie (Band ii, Abteilung i, Seite 1192) lists thirteen MSS. which he declares contain French versions of Petrarch's Latin; and Pichon, the editor of the Menagier (i, 99) lists four additional MSS. not mentioned by Gröber. I hope soon to examine these MSS., and also the additional Latin MSS., to see what further light they throw upon the problem of Chaucer's handling of his sources in the Clerkes Tale.